#this school is too prestigious for me i gotta get outta here

[the-pea-and-the-sun]

WHY R PEOPLE SO MEAN

[red-sector-rivendell]

media reccs? 👀 since apparently you are a man of good taste?

Wow thank you 😏 I have a masterlist of movies that have changed me I often recommend to people, I'll just copy and paste here with quick synopses lol, it's kinda long. I'm not super great at writing synopses tho so bear with me

Dead Poets Society (1989)

One of my favorite movies of all time and a total classic. It's about a group of boys at a strict boarding school who are inspired by their new English teacher (played by Robin Williams) to think for themselves and chase their dreams. This movie literally changed my life lol

Quadrophenia (1979)

This movie is based off of the story behind the concept album by The Who of the same name. It follow the life of a young man named Jimmy who is in a gang called the Mods. Theres this huge gang war between them and the Rockers (I think that's their name, it's been a while since i watched it) and Jimmy questions his beliefs about coming-of-age and his values in life throughout the film

Cabaret (1972)

Based off of the Broadway musical of the same name, this movie is about a British man who moves to Germany during the beginning of the rise of Nazis. He meets a woman who basically turns his world upside down, and it follows their love affair and sexuality and anti-semitism, and it's hilarious and heart wrenching and a beautiful movie

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

This is a super trippy romance film. Basically in the universe of this movie, theres a technology that is developed that can delete memories of an entire person from your mind while you are in a dream-like state, and the main character of this movie (played by Jim Carrey) decides to undergo the procedure after a bad breakup. Its soooo good I highly recommend this movie

It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)

This is an animated film about a man named Bill who is going through brain cancer. Its told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator essentially communicating everything Bill sees, hears, and experiences. This is the movie that got me into film and it is still a complete masterpiece and one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen

The Dirties (2013)

Loved this one a lot back in high school, it's been a while since I watched it. This is a film made in Canada about a high schooler named Matt Johnson and his friend Owen who decide to make a short film for their class about them killing the gang at their school that bullies them, and things take a dark turn. It's a hilarious movie and hits pretty close to home for me in a lot of ways haha

Logan's Run (1976)

Great movie, pretty cheesy though so be warned. This is based off a book with the same name, and it takes place in the future where most of humanity is wiped out except for a small society that lives under a domed structure. No one is allowed to leave the dome, and to control overpopulation, no one is allowed to live past the age of 30. It's really bizarre but I love this movie

Donnie Darko (2001)

Pretty sure this was Jake Gyllenhaal's first big hit when he was super young (I think he was like 19 in this movie but I'm not sure) basically about this kid, Donnie Darko, who is somewhat schizophrenic and has a habit of sleepwalking. After one particular incident he has a near-death experience and starts seeing a man in a bunny costume everywhere who makes him do weird stuff. Another pretty trippy movie with a crazy ending

American Psycho (2000)

Honestly I'm sure a few on this list you've probably seen (most likely this one included) but I didnt wanna leave any out because they're all so good. If you haven't seen this, it's about a Wall Street executive named Patrick Bateman who is a materialistic phony by day and a serial killer by night. I tried to read the book but the inner dialogue was really hard to get through lmao. Awesome movie though huge recommend.

Clockwork Orange (1971)

Yet another trippy one. And fuck it's been a long time since I've seen it so I might get some stuff wrong here. But it's basically about this serial rapist guy who hangs out with this group of goons and they all like to go beat up homeless people and shit, but the main character gets captured and has to go through reformation therapy to make him a better person. It's an extremely bizarre movie but soooo good and kind of hilarious lol

Creep (2014)

Of course this is on my list haha. If you haven't seen it yet, it's a horror movie about this freelance film guy who answers an ad on craigslist to help a man with cancer film a movie for his unborn son. And shit gets weird real fast. One of my favorite horror movies ever, I wouldnt say it's super scary but it's fun as fuck

Hereditary (2018)

If I'm being honest, I don't like a lot of big movies made in super recent years and especially not horror movies (mostly because they're all cheap cash grabs with no substance) but this one is an exception for me. Hereditary is fucking masterful in my opinion, legitimately creepy as hell and well-produced and well written. To put the plot as vaguely as possible without spoiling anything, it's about a family (mostly the mother) who go through some crazy fucked up shit. That's literally all I can say without giving anything away. Super good flick, big recommend

Gattaca (1997)

This list isn't in any particular order, and I love all these movies to death, but if I had to rank them this would probably be on the lower end. It's not a bad movie, it's still great but it's just not as life-changing as the other ones lmao. This takes place in the future where genetic modifications have progressed to a point where you can modify your unborn child's DNA to have the perfect baby. This has led to, essentially racial bias against those who never had that procedure when they were born. The main character was not one of these "special" children, but he wants an extremely prestigious job which requires that of the employee. Through the film, he is trying to fake his identity and fool the company into thinking he is one of these perfect people. Still a great film

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Johnny Depp, man, he is something else. I LOVE this movie. Based off a true story and a book written by the man who lived it, Hunter S. Thompson, this follows the adventure of the writer and his attorney as they go on a drugged-out, psychedelic romp through Las Vegas with the original intention being to cover a story on a motorcycle race, but things go off the rails as they both terrorize the entire city in a way. Just a fun ride the whole way, a great movie

The Truman Show (1998)

God I'm realizing this list is long as fuck. Don't watch all of these movies, it might take you a lifetime lmao. Anyway, this is a classic Jim Carrey movie and another one you've probably seen. But again, if you haven't, this movie is about a man whose entire life has been fabricated and shot for television without him knowing. Super great, super moving, fantastic film 10 outta 10 I gotta wrap this shit up

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

A lesser known Keanu Reeves movie, but fuck I wish more people have seen this. This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and it's based off a book which is just as amazing. This movie takes place in the near future, where facial recognition technology has progressed wayyy too far, and drugs have gotten to the point of no return. The plot follows a detective who is undercover in a junkie house trying to figure out who is the top of the drug dealing totem pole, but ends up wrapped in the junkie lifestyle a little too deeply. Seriously, I recommend this movie to everyone who asks, it's so damn good

Fight Club (1999)

Another popular one. If you havent seen it, it's based off a book by Chuck Palahniuk following the story of a man (the main character actually doesnt have a name lol) who meets a guy named Tyler Durden who changes his entire perspective on how the world works. They start an underground boxing club together to help themselves and other men blow off steam and get away from the capitalist consumer-centric lifestyle they are forced into. Big twist at the end, great movie five stars on yelp

Harold and Maude (1971)

This is a weird one. Gotta say. It's about a guy in his 20s who meets an old woman at a funeral and falls in love with her. Sounds pretty ok at face value but theres a lot of really strange subplots and a huuuuge twist at the end (one of the subplots being the guy compulsively fakes his suicide to get his mother's attention) big recommend

Polyester (1981)

This one I cant even explain u just have to watch it its fucking bizarre

Fargo (1996)

Ok lightning round on the synopses, this movie is about a man who wants to commit fraud by hiring guys to kidnap his wife so her father can pay them ransom and instead the husband gets the money but everything goes wrong it's really good

Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

Another modern movie I actually like, last time I watched this I was on shrooms and it was crazy but it's about this hotel right on the border of california and (Nevada I think?) And all these weird people are staying at it and there are twists at every turn and chris hemsworth is a cult leader in it its great

Memento (2000)

GREAT MOVIE GOD PLEASE WATCH THIS ONE it's about a man who develops short term memory loss after witnessing the rape and murder of his wife AND WHEN I SAY THERE ARE TWISTS LIKE EVERY TEN MINUTES I MEAN IT. The film is chronologically backwards, in that the first scene takes place at the end of the story and works back from there in increments of like 5 minutes. Basically each scene is a segment of time that this guy remembers before his memory loss kicks in and he forgets and FUCK it's so good please god watch it

Almost Famous (2000)

This is another one that would probably be low on my ranking but still a great and fun movie, it's about this kid that wants to write articles about rock stars for the rolling stone (based off a true story btw) and he ends up running away to go ride on a tour bus with some band and gets into all types of shenanigans and its great and sad

Parasite (2019)

Another modern movie I love, fuck this is getting too long lmao. Poor family wants to make money and they hatch a scheme to pretend to be bougie and work for this rich family but shit gets weird and everything goes wrong and it's so good (also literally the only film ever that made me speechless afterwards)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Pretty much lives up to the hype, I totally forgot the plot but it's pretty damn good I remember that lmao

The Warriors (1979)

Fun movie, theres a bunch of teen gangs in New York and the leader of all of em is like "hey we should rally all the gangs together and fuck up the cops so we can rule this city" but then he gets shot by someone in the crowd and the gang The Warriors gets blamed so the whole movie is them running from all the other gangs so they can get back to home base and it's just an all around fun time movie

12 Monkeys (1995)

THIS MOVJE IS CRAZY it takes place in the future where a virus has almost completely wiped humans off the face of the earth so these scientists send this guy back in time to figure out where it came from so they can stop it from ever happening but obviously everything goes wrong and yadda yadda yadda it's amazing

Waking Life (2001)

Gonna preface this by saying this film is definitely not for entertainment, it's kind of an arthouse-type flick. It's the type of movie you have to think really really hard about to watch. The basic plot is the main character is stuck inside his own lucid dream, and is walking around listening to all these characters in his dream talk to him about, idk like the meaning of life and consciousness and shit. It's really good if you're in the mood for that type of thing.

Okay I'm finally done, you probably didnt expect this but I've been meaning to put my movie recommendations on this blog anyway haha. I deleted some just cause it was getting wayyyy too long. If u want a shorter list I can just give u like a top 5 in DMs but there u go have at it, every movie on that list is a banger I swear

[petri808]

Paid By the Heart

Bakudeku, A!Bakugou/O!quirkless Midoriya.  Growing up Midoriya was picked on and bullied, harassed by the other sexes. In desperation he turns to the only Alpha he knows, begging for help. They reach a deal for the little Omega to use the Alpha's scent to keep the other's at bay... but was that really a good idea? Intermingling their scents for years had a consequence that left them only one option.

The life of a quirkless person in their world was a sad one, but couple that with being a small Omega; double whammy. Ever since that fateful doctors visit informing his mother, he’d never have a quirk, Midoriya Izuku was shunned at school, even bullied for being a small, gangly nerd. He was easy pickings and there was nothing he could do about it.

By the time he’d hit middle school, life was a lonely existence for the young man. His solace was in books or chronicling the exploits of his favorite hero All Might. For outside of that little bubble, pain and frustration was the norm. If only he’d been born an Alpha or at least a Beta, maybe then he’d gain a small measure of respect, quirkless or not. But no, the universe decided, he was to be an Omega, the lowest of the ranks. Could things get any worse?

The answer was yes. When he wasn’t being bullied, he was being harassed. Horny teen Alpha’s really were a bane of his existence. This lot didn’t care who or what he was, only interested in the scent he gave off. At least going into heat was still a few years away, because that could lead to bigger problems.

Sometimes things got so bad in school, Midoriya would hide in teachers classes or the nurses room until finally one called his mother about it and she promptly put him on scent inhibitors. He’d been too embarrassed to tell her what was going on. At least now he gained a small reprieve, but that didn’t stop the bullying. What could he do?

Midoriya racked his brain to come up with a solution, including quitting school altogether. Not ideal, no, considering learning was one of the few things he actually did enjoy. That’s when he realized, if only he had someone to protect him. Like a bodyguard. But who would be willing to help a small omega? He didn’t have any real friends that were Alpha’s or at least bigger Omega’s. Though he did know one Alpha…

Nah, Bakugou would never willingly help him. Despite growing up around each other, once he was deemed quirkless, the boy shunned him completely. They were complete opposites in personality; him being shy and Bakugou a bastion of anger.

No one dared to mess with Bakugou Katsuki, least get an explosion to the face.

But desperate times, called for desperate measures and Midoriya was tired of the split lips, black eyes, or torn clothing. He didn’t want to be shoved and messed with anymore and the one Alpha, despite their rocky relationship, who didn’t pick on him physically, was Bakugou. So, one day after school and a particularly egregious fight, Midoriya waited at the foot of the staircase of their apartment building. He lived on one floor and the blonde Alpha lived on another. As he waited, thoughts of what he should say worked their way through this analytical mind.

The man wasn’t going to do this willingly, that was a given. Bakugou’s main focus in life has always been power. To get to the top someday as a hero like their idol All Might. Maybe that’s a potential answer, play to the man’s desire to protect. Frankly, Midoriya wasn’t sure if it would work, but he had an alternative. He’ll pay the man to be his bodyguard. Not that he could afford much, but if it took getting a part time job or something, it beat getting assaulted.

He stands up from the step the moment he smells the Alpha coming. ‘Breathe, Izuku, stay calm…’

“Outta my way nerd!”

Midoriya swallows hard, fidgeting with his fingers nervously. “K-Kacchan, I need to talk to you— ask you a-about something.”

“The answer’s no.” The man starts to push past the smaller male. But Midoriya grabs his arm to stop him. He whips around, grabbing the hand on his arm and throwing it off. “Do you have a death wish?!”

“Please, Kacchan!” Midoriya grovels with tears streaming down his cheeks. “I can’t take all the bullying anymore.”

Bakugou narrows his eyes. “Nothing I can help you with nerd, now get out of my way before I do hurt you.”

Midoriya drops to his knees with his head hung down. “Kacchan…” He looks up now with sullen eyes, sad and forlorn. “I-I—will you please protect me?!”

“Argh!!!” Bakugou growls. This stupid Omegas scent was filled with such desperation it was rattling his senses! “Deku what the fuck makes you think I’d help you?!”

His shoulders slump further. “I know you have no incentive to help me. I’m just a worthless quirkless Omega. But I’m desperate Kacchan. I have no one else to turn to and I’m willing to pay with whatever I can afford.”

“I don’t want your money idiot.”

“Please! I’ll do anything!”

Fuck!! No matter how much the little freckle-faced mouse irritated him, he could never lash out except with words. Bakugou knew exactly why the man was so desperate, saw him picked on by the other sexes. The fresh cut above the man’s eye and torn shirt was evidence enough, but laying a hand on Midoriya, he just couldn’t do it. Plus, he believed his mother would kill him.

“Ugh!” He groans and snaps. “Fine! But you are gonna pay somehow. You’ll cover my lunches at school for starters and… I don’t fucking know, but I’ll think of something. So, what the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“Oh, thank you Kacchan!” In his elation, Midoriya jumps onto and hugs the larger male, snuggling his face into the man’s neck.

A flush of heat colors Bakugou’s cheeks. “Oi! Oi!” He peels the man off. “Get the fuck off me nerd!” Too close! Too close! Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Midoriya’s earthy scent pleased his inner Alpha and in his happiness that scent exploded.

“S-Sorry, Sorry!” He bows and takes a step back. “Thank you, you saved my life Kacchan.”

“I still don’t know what the fuck you want.” He crosses his arms. “I ain’t just gonna beat people up for you unless I really need to.”

Midoriya’s eyes widen and he waves his hands, “no, I wouldn’t ask you to! I hope that just being around you, or,” his face heats up, “like your presence and scent on me will deter them. And eventually they’ll just stay away out of fear.”

Unlike a lot of the Alphas their age, Bakugou had no desire to engage in primally driven acts. In fact, those types pissed him off too. Just mindless idiots as far as he was concerned. He wasn’t about to let stupid mating instincts distract him from his goals. “So basically, a fake relationship?” His lack of giving a damn about such trivial matters made it easy for him not to care. “As long as I don’t gotta be affectionate and shit.”

“R-Right!” Just the thought of intimacy made Midoriya bloom red. “Yes, nothing like that. Just the illusion of being your property.”

“Ha! I kinda like the sound of that!” Bakugou finally smiles, though more like an evil smirk. “You’ll be my bitch from now on!”

And so that’s how it was for the next few years. Each morning before school, the Omega would swipe a bit of sweat off the Alpha and rubbed it on himself. With the man’s scent on him, all the other Alphas and bullies stayed clear. They never eluded to any relationship, barely even hung out together, but everyone was too afraid to question it. Midoriya quietly went through the school days and for the first time in a very long time, he could finally relax. Even though his life was still lonely.

Once they finished middle school, Bakugou moved on to the prestigious UA Academy for pro heroes in training, while Deku managed to get into their Support program. Turns out his passion for learning and analytics was a skill he could trade on. Since they’d be at the same school, they could keep up the same rouse. Not that Bakugou seemed to care. Though the trade off for his part of the deal had perks with the Omega still footing any request he made.

Things continued unabated for the first two years of high school and Bakugou didn’t pay attention to the subtle changes taking place. Midoriya still dutifully came for his scent every morning before class. The Omega continued to pay for his services. But he failed to notice a change in the Omega’s scent. Where once the smaller male reeked of sadness, now there were hints of elation. The man smiled brighter and even had a bounce to his step. Midoriya was blossoming in the Support program. He had friends to call his own and Bakugou couldn’t be more thrilled the guy wasn’t trying to hang around him anymore.

It wasn’t until the third year was halfway through when the changes became glaringly noticeable. Midoriya continued to pay, but gathering his scent had grown from sporadic to nonexistent. Perhaps he wasn’t in need of Bakugou’s help anymore? No one was bullying him, on the contrary, the Omega was a top student in his program who’d gained the respect of his peers.

Bakugou corners the man outside one day between the dorm buildings. “Oi, Deku, what’s the deal? You don’t need me anymore?” He refused to admit it bothered him to not be needed.

“What do you mean?”

“You keep paying me, but never come for my scent.”

“Oh… well, you see, now that I’ve found my place here, it’s, um, hurting my reputation that I smell like an Alpha. I still pay because I do appreciate everything you did for me Kaachan.”

“What the fuck? You getting all horny now, looking for action but nobody giving you that kind of attention?”

“What?! N-No!” He waves his hands desperate to wipe the statement away. “That’s not it, I’m not looking for that! I’m even on Heat blockers. It’s just, the Alpha’s they treat me differently. They’ll talk to me like they respect me but always at an arms distance and it’s frustrating. Even after a few months without your scent on me, they still keep a distance.”

It was driving Midoriya crazy! So, he started to question, what will happen when he does want to be courted by an Alpha?! What helped in his youth now backfired and the plans were blowing up in his face. The reputation of Bakugou having staked his claim years ago on the Omega would make finding a partner almost impossible unless he could find a way to distance himself. Who in their right mind would dare touch the Lord of Explosions chosen mate?!

“I hope once we graduate and go our separate ways, people will finally realize we’re not together.” Midoriya was sure that once the blonde settled into pro hero life, he’d start dating as well, and that’ll take the heat of his back.

“Tch, well I’m not a charity case, so stop paying me if you ain’t getting a benefit out of it. Guess that’s it.” Bakugou’s turns his back to the man and starts walking away. He tips two fingers, “see ya around nerd!”

Huh? Well that went easier than he’d expected it to. All this time avoiding the conversation only for Bakugou to have no real reaction. Guess this really was just a business transaction for the Alpha. Midoriya shrugs, so be it, and continues on his way.

Unfortunately, things weren’t all that it appeared to be for the Alpha. After walking away from the Omega, a dull pain centered in his chest making it a little hard to breathe. But not wanting to show weakness, Bakugou ignored it and continued to strut back to his dorm room. Perhaps he’d overexerted himself again in the gym.

It’s a pain that started a couple of months ago that came and went, that he equated as simply working too hard. His muscles are still adjusting to the heavy schoolwork on top of the skirmishes the students got pulled into. That had to be the answer, for what else could it be? But after a week of the pain not letting up, Bakugou finally relented and consulted the nurse.

“Well,” the nurse, Recovery Girl sits back on her stool. “Don’t know what to tell ya, cause they ain’t nothin physically wrong with you that I can find. But if you think it’s muscle related, ease up on your workouts and take magnesium supplements.”

“The fuck you sayin old hag?! I can’t stop exercising. My quirk demands a topnotch body!”

She shrugs her shoulders, used to the hotheaded Alpha by now. “Then just learn to live with the pain. It’s not uncommon from pro heroes to suffer from pain, especially those with strong quirks like you have. You’re kinda young, but with how hard you push yourself, it’s inevitable.”

“Argh!” Bakugou storms out of the room. Fucking useless old bat! Two months away from graduation and being told he’s already developing, what, an old person’s problem?! “Fucking hell!” This is bullshit!

He flies it out of the room so quickly, that when he rounds a corner in the hallway, runs smack into a body. “Get the fuck outta my way!!”

“Kacchan?! Oh my god, sorry I didn’t see you coming!”

The world stops cold. “Deku…” suddenly the pain in his chest lessens as the calming scent of the concerned Omega wraps around his body. Bakugou’s eyes flash wide. “Oh, fuck no!” Quick like a bolt of lightning, the Alpha races away leaving the shocked and confused Omega standing there alone calling after him. Bakugou grits his teeth as he beelines it back to his dorm room. ‘It’s just a coincidence!’

“What was that all about?” Midoriya mumbles under his breath. It was the first time he’s seen the Alpha look, scared? No way, the Omega dismisses the notion. Bakugou wasn’t afraid of anything. He must have just been surprised to see him.

He continues on to the lab where he’s close to finishing a new project. The Alpha, Shouto Todoroki, requested a better cooling material for his suit. The pro needed something that insulated the cold from his quirk for a longer lasting effect. That way Hellfire would also be more sustainable.

It was a major nod to the Omega considering the man was up and up against Bakugou in terms of power. Currently, they were the top two pro students and Alpha’s of UA. Plus, Todoroki was not only cute but the complete opposite of Bakugou in personality. He was always kind to the Omega. Not that anything was going on between them! But the minor attention was exactly what triggered him to back away from his old friend.

From that moment in the hallway on, every time Midoriya came into contact with Bakugou, the Alpha turned heel and avoided any interactions. He couldn’t lie that it didn’t hurt just a little. They’d never been the closest friends, but it was as if the blonde was angry with him and that bothered him because he couldn’t understand why? But he also wasn’t gutsy enough to question the man either. Did turning down his scent hurt Bakugou’s pride or ego? Frankly, that would not be surprising.

The day of their graduation was a whirlwind of activity. The stadium packed just like the Sport event; even a similar turn out. Family and friends were there to celebrate, pro’s and companies were there to recruit. First the Support class, then the General studies, and lastly the Heroes courses all went up and received their diplomas. After the ceremony, the students were sent to designated spots to meet with their families and friends first. From there they could venture around to see other people.

“Thanks mom,” Midoriya hugs the crying woman for the umpteenth time that afternoon.

“I’m just so proud of you son!”

A tap on his shoulder cuts into the tender moment. “Forgive me for intruding Mrs. Midoriya. My father would like to meet your son.”

The pair’s eyes widen as the Number One hero stood in front of them. He was such an imposing figure!

“N-Nice to meet you Mr. Endeavor!” Midoriya bows.

“My son tells me you were able to create a better suit for him.”

Midoriya looks to his friend then back to the man. “Yes, sir I did.”

“Good. Perhaps you’ll be very useful in the future.” Endeavor nods his head and simply walks away without another word.

“D-Did he just?!”

“My father would like me to bring you by the agency next week for an interview.”

“Oh, wow really?!”

“Yes,” Todoroki chuckles.

“I’ll leave you two to discuss things,” Mrs. Midoriya cuts in. “It was nice to meet you Todoroki.”

After the goodbyes, the two men continue discussing the interview. Things like what he should bring, how he should dress, and what time to arrive. Midoriya had assumed Endeavor contracted out support work, but it turns out they have in-house staff.

“There is one last thing I would like to discuss.” The Alpha takes hold of the Omegas hand. “You see I’ve grown quite fond of you,” he leans down, sniffing at the scent gland of the smaller males neck. “Your scent…” his voice grows soft like a purr, “I wish to court you properly Midoriya Izuku.”

“W-What?”

“WHAT!?!!”

The feral growl behind him causes Midoriya to flinch. Before he can register just what the hell was going on, he was pushed back and a second Alpha stood between him and Todoroki.

“K-Kacchan?!” He grabs the man’s arm. “Kacchan what are you doing?!”

But the larger male simply grabs hold of him and pushes him back again, all while staring down the other Alpha.

“This mouse is taken,” Bakugou growls low and narrows his eyes, challenging Todoroki.

Todoroki glares back unflinching. “You don’t care about him, only took his money for protection. That doesn’t make him yours Katsuki.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!”

“You don’t,” the man grins. “Three years I watched from a distance. How he’d sneak into the dorms in the morning, pay for your lunch in the cafeteria, and for what? We could smell you on him yet not once did you two ever hang out with each other.”

“S-So what! That doesn’t mean I don’t care about him! I took the protector role to fucking protect him!”

Todoroki scoffs, “I bided my time and once the daily visits ended, I started making my move. Not once did you ever stop us because you ran away from him! Stupid fool, how dare you decide to claim him now!”

Bakugou lowers his head just slightly, fists clench, and tiny explosions going off in his palms. “Fucking icyhot bastard. You don’t know what I’m feeling. Think I don’t know I fucked up when I shoulda faced the music sooner.” He stares straight up. “But I do know now, Deku’s mine! Hear me?! Mine!! And I am not fucking giving up my mate to you or any other bastard!”

The blonde pulls Midoriya forward, hands gripped to his arms. “Tell him Deku! Tell him you’re mine!”

“But am I? You’ve never shown any interest in me before Kacchan. Todoroki has helped me so much and now because of him, I’ll be interviewing for Endeavors support staff. Yes, your scent protected me from bullies, but I thought it was always just a business transaction.”

“N-no!” Bakugou staggers back clutching to his chest as the pain swiftly doubles. This can’t be happening! “You can’t pick him over me Deku!” The sting of rejection was worse than a villain breaking every bone in his body. He cries out and drops to the ground in a fetal position as the pain rips through his chest and knocks the wind out of him. “Fuck it hurts!” It was too excruciating, so much so, his body was slipping out of consciousness in response.

“Kacchan?!” Midoriya falls to his knees too and grabs the man, shaking him. “Kacchan, what’s wrong with you?!” He felt helpless as the man’s eyes rolled back in his head.

“Wow Katsuki… you really do love Midoriya.”

The Omega looks up at Todoroki. “How do you know that?!”

Todoroki points at Bakugou. “If an Alpha covets an Omega but is rebuffed, they are stricken with illness. It only happens when we truly love someone.”

“S-So if I turn you down, you’ll get sick too?!” Why is this whole love stuff so cruel?! This was not what he’d expected to happen! Tears gather in his eyes. “That wasn’t part of the plan. I-I just wanted to know what he really thought about me.”

“Fret not,” Todoroki smiles at him. “You’re cute, but I’m not in love with you. But now that you have your answer, my role is done. I’ll see you at the interview next week,” he winks and walks away to find his girlfriend.

“O-Okay, thank you Todoroki!” Midoriya turns back to the comatose man by his side and continues shaking him. “Kacchan! Please wake up! I’m here! I’m not going anywhere! Just wake up!”

A small crowd gathered around them, but he didn’t care, too concerned with Bakugou’s condition. Had he known an Alpha could suffer like this, he never would have attempted this little rouse. Todoroki was the one who suggested it, but neither of them could have known the blonde had fallen so deeply in love.

With the help of Bakugou’s teacher, Shota Aizawa and another staff member who came on the scene, they take the unconscious Alpha to the infirmary. They place him on one of the beds where Recover Girl checks him over. The man was out cold, but his vitals were steady.

Midoriya takes a seat by the bedside, clutching to his friends hand. It’s been an hour since they’d arrived and according to the nurse, it was now a waiting game. “Please,” the Omega squeezes the Alpha’s hand, “come back to me Kacchan…” He closes his eyes to rest them, laying his head against the man’s arm. He was so emotionally exhausted from the ordeal of the day, but he’s not moving until the man wakes up. Six years and never once he allowed himself to hope, until now.

“Mmmm,” Midoriya stirs at the feeling of fingers treading softly through his hair. “That feels so nice,” he purrs to the familiar scent of burnt sugar he’d come to know so well. It wrapped around, calming, calling the Omega out of his dream.  

Wait! Burnt sugar?! He pops up immediately, “Kacchan?!” Scrambling onto the bed and swaddling the Alpha. “I was so worried,” Midoriya buries his face in the man’s neck. “Why didn’t you just tell me?!” He sniffles.

Bakugou wraps his arms around the man, leaning his head against his and relishing in the contented tones exuding from the Omega’s scent. “I’m up now, so stop crying Deku.” He sighs, “and I didn’t tell you cause I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

“Yes,” he lifts Midoriya’s face, fixing his eyes in a stare, “I am. All because I didn’t want to admit I was weak for you.”

“So, you really mean it? That you want me to be your mate even though I’m quirkless?”

“Did I fucking stutter? But guess what Deku?”

“What?”

The Alpha kisses him roughly, nipping his lip before pulling away, “I’m claiming my final payment.”

“Oh!” Midoriya giggles, “what’s the payment?”

“You.”

~~~XX~~~

Just because they finally figured things out, didn’t mean either of them wanted to rush into a relationship. It was simply satisfying to know they wanted to be with each other. And for that reason, Midoriya continued to use heat blockers as a birth control, just like he’d done for the last several years.

The Omega respected the fact Bakugou focused on having a good career in the pro hero world. His ambitions to reach the top given a whole new incentive in order to provide for a family one day. But the Alpha was proud of his betrothed’s advances as well. After high school, the up and coming Support technician proved his worth for the Endeavor agency while he himself worked as a side kick to the head man himself.

Bakugou dreamed of one day owning his own agency, but until then, he pushed himself hard under the constant tutelage of the number one hero. They were both paid well at their jobs, and continued to maintain separate homes… for now. The blondes excuse being he would court Midoriya properly this time around.

Except when it came to sex. That part of their relationship was consummated two nights after graduation. In a protected knotting, they marked each other and staked their claims for all to see. Bakugou  had been pleasantly surprised to find the shy, docile man was quite rambunctious in bed. But contrary to popular belief, it was closer to a vanilla encounter.

Both of them had been too excited and also nervous being a first time for either of them. Having been Midoriya’s protector for so long, the Alpha was almost terrified of hurting the smaller Omega and it took gentle coaxing to allay those fears. But in the end they’d been left satisfied and fully affirmed in their decision to spend the rest of their lives together.

Once the workload kicked in, any free time they had were spent together at one or the others apartment. Bakugou would take Midoriya out on dates, to dinners, movies, or anywhere the man fancied though it was rarely a lavish affair. The Omega preferred the quieter moments such as lounging on the couch and cuddling during a movie.

This went on for two years as the Alpha slowly built up a savings. He knew it would be several years before he could buy a bigger house, but soon enough he was ready to afford a 2 bedroom apartment in a nice area of town. So, he made up an excuse to stay with Midoriya while he moved into the new place, furnished, and prepared it to accept a mate.

“Perfect!” The blonde stands with his hands on his hips admiring his handiwork. Everything his Omega will need was purchased and set up in what will be their new nest. He’d spared no expense on a top of the line, plush, memory foam bedding. Extra blankets, pillows, you name it, Bakugou bought it. And last but not least, he scented all the fabrics with his musk. All that remained was surprising Midoriya.

He timed the reveal for the last week of the month, explaining his apartment was ready again and he wanted Midoriya to see the changes.

“Where are we going? This isn’t the direction of your place.”

“It’s the direction to my new place.”

“Kacchan, you moved apartments without telling me?”

He kisses the back of the Omegas hand, “well a surprise isn’t a surprise if I told you about it.”

When the elevator opens, Bakugou leads him to one of the apartments. He opens the door and gestures for the man to enter. “Welcome to your new home Izuku.”

“Huh? My, but I have an apartment…” the Omega gasps when he turns and finds his Alpha on one knee. “K-Kacchan,” his hands fly up in shock and face lights up.

“It’s time to officially cash in my payment chip,” the blonde grins, holding up a ring. “Izuku Midoriya, will you be my life mate?”

Moisture instantly builds in the Omegas eyes, “yes! Yes!” His hands shaky as the Alpha slips the ring onto his finger.

Bakugou gets to his feet and kisses the man slow and steady. He takes Midoriya’s hand. “There’s one thing I really wanna show you, then we’ll go pack up your apartment.”

“Oh my goodness!” The omega squeals at the site of his beautiful new nest and throws himself onto his Alpha, hugging and kissing the man. “Kacchan, you spoil me!”

“You deserve to be spoiled,” he smiles back. “Test it out.”

Midoriya dives onto the bed and bundles the blankets to his nose. It smelled like Bakugou! He closes his eyes with a moan, taking it all in and burying his face into the fabric. The Alpha laughs at how childlike his mate was behaving, but that was Midoriya for you. Just a ray of sunshine who wore his emotions on his sleeve.

While the Omega relishes in his new surroundings, Bakugou just stands back in admiration. To the outside world the pro Alpha hero was a temperamental hothead who took shit from no one. But those in the know, knew Midoriya had him wrapped around his finger.

The Omega never took advantage or made it feel like an obligation. Bakugou just came to realize he could be himself with the man. No keeping secrets or holding back. Their long history delving back almost two decades meant Midoriya knew him well and he Midoriya. This little mouse could calm him down without his Omega pheromones. But boy does those scents drive him wild too!

Just picturing his freckle faced cherub cuddled in his arms with a child between them sent a delectable shiver racing straight to his groin. Bakugou chuckles in his head, probably why the man was smart enough to stay on the birth control, because he knew without it they’d have already started a family before they were ready.

“Join me— Kacchan!” Hands reach out, beckoning him to the bed.

The Alpha grins and plops down close, pulling the Omega to him. He kisses Midoriya’s forehead. “I take it you’re happy?”

“Of course!” The man nestles deeper into his Alphas arms, resting his head against his chest. “But I’d be happy anywhere as long as I have you with me.”

Bakugou relishes in the euphoric scent his mate was giving off. It made his inner Alpha preen with pride. “Never in my life have I wanted a family more than I do in this moment. And I don’t care if they have quirks, are quirkless, as long as they’re healthy, and they’re ours.”

“Mmm, our own family…” child Midoriya’s dreams could never have predicted the life he ended up with. “Sometimes I pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.”

“Did I ever tell you thank you for pulling that stunt at graduation?”

Midoriya sits up, hesitant, his scent immediately registering anxiety. “No.” Why is he bringing that up now?

But Bakugou counters with calming Alpha pheromones as he pulls his mate back into his arms. “I still can’t stand the smug bastard, but I’m glad icyhot helped you help me get outta my own head or I wouldn’t have this life.”

“You had me so panicked Kacchan! I thought I’d killed you or something.”

“Pfft, I’m tougher then that.” He kisses Midoriya’s forehead, sweeping his thumb lovingly over and caressing the Omega’s cheek with a grin, “but I think in the end I really got the better part of the deal.”

[fmdhaseo]

ヽ(〃＾▽＾〃)ﾉ  wOoOoOoOow i’m so excited to be here finally!! typically i’m a pretty ~ minimalistic ~ person when it comes to formatting ‘n stuff, but i’ma go a little ham on this introduction because i’m really excited!! ANYWHO, my name’s cheyenne ( but please call me chey ) and i represent the drastically under-appreciated mst. i use he/him pronouns, and for anyone who’s curious, i’m 21+!! i’ve been eying this group for awhile now, but hadn’t joined because of school and work reasons, but my town’s in lockdown, so i finally have a bunch of new time on my hands to write!! now that that’s outta the way though, please love me and my first ever muse here!! her name is jeon haseo and she’s lucid’s main vocalist and lead dancer. in my head, she sounds a bit like wjsn’s yeonjung, gfriend’s yuju, and dreamcatcher’s siyeon when she sings, and when she dances, she reminds lots of people of twice’s mina and her gorgeous face-claim, wjsn’s bona!! she’s a former prima ballerina at a dance company in korea that she was pushed out of due to accusations of favoritism, and even though the board at the school were adamant against said accusations, it was lowkey kinda true lol. her dad is a former dancer that’s received tons of acclaim in the dance world, and it’s said that his name is what landed her all her opportunities in ballet —- whoops!! she doesn’t really know that though, but before i carry on too much, you can read more of my ramblings about her below the cut!! [ youtuber vc ] don’t forget to smash that like button if you wanna plot with us!!

i.  —-  haseo was born in seoul, south korea to a dancer and plastic surgeon, so they had a lot of money to sit on while they raised their daughter. she was brought up in prestigious dance rehearsal spaces, as well as in top-of-the-line hospitals, but instead of wanting to follow in her mother’s footsteps, she decided it’d be more fun to dance like her dad!! she showed promise when she was little, so they nurtured her talents as best they could.

ii.  —-  her childhood really wasn’t all that bad, to be honest, like, she never struggled with making friends, she got everything she wanted, her parents were supportive... what more could she have really asked for, you know? she got along with everyone due to her many interests —- from ballet, to video games, to barbies, to monster trucks —- but that all sorta changed whenever she entered high school. being that she attended a school for the arts danced with a company in their junior program, and had a reputable father, a lot of people started to be really catty with her. she learned how ugly the world could be at a pretty small age, and it’s deffff affected how she sees the world and deals with her problems.

iii.  —-  fast forward to high school graduation, haseo gets offered a spot in a professional company to dance ballet almost immediately. a little sketchy? perhaps, but what’s even sketchier is that she was offered the leading role in her first ever show. vile words spread throughout the whole school and due to the accusations of favoritism, the company decided to terminate her contract rip. she became big sad and almost didn’t dance again until [ spoiler alert ] she was given a chance to audition for dimensions entertainment!!

iv.  —-  she didn’t really wanna become an idol, but she did it anyway because she wanted to dance for a career. she really didn’t even need to have a career with how much money her parents made, but it was important to her to be financially independent, so she decided to stick with it to see if it’d work. long story short, she discovered that she’s a FAB singer, and her long history of dance def helped her standout from the crowd. she trained for two years before her debut, and like, when she was announced to be main vocalist, she literally almost died i think lmao. like, the fact that she was granted main vocal but not main dancer really shook her ass up, but she accepted her fate and tried her best.

v.  —-  the concept changes were a whirlwind, but she likes the more soft vibes that the schoolgirl trilogy gave her. she also thinks it makes better use of her dance skills, but she isn’t really the one in control here now is she? ANYWAY —- her career is blossoming a lot and she’s really excited, but at the same time, she despises that she’s a person of public scrutiny now. she never wanted that to happen at the level that it has, but she puts up with it because she feels she already made her bed, so now she’s gotta lie in it. not to mention that she has some of her old peers from dance starting an online hate group to hate on her, so you know... this isn’t exactly what she had in mind for her life, but she just takes it in stride and hopes that, someday, it’ll make for good stories to tell her grandkids lol.

vi.  —-  i realize that i haven’t really given a description of her personality or her as a person yet, and well, that sucks, so i’ma do it right here, right now!! how would i describe haseo? let’s see —- she’s kinda, like, prissy but it’s definitely more outwardly adorable than it is obnoxious, if that makes sense? she HATES getting dirt on her clothes, she hates having crud under her nails, and she hates when other people lack personal hygiene skills, but she was taught well and doesn’t really voice her harsh judgments unless she’s provoked lol. it also appears to me that she has tons of patience naturally, but is also kind of a hot-head if you actually manage to piss her off, so good luck to your muses if that happens!! she also HATES being woken up from sleep, like, she’ll literally kill you if you do. she’s more than likely gotten into tons of fights with other lucid girls because of it —- whoops!! she’s also SUPER femme, to be honest? she takes way too long to get ready before leaving the house, and almost refuses to leave looking a mess. her hair is always immaculate, her makeup is BEAT, and her clothes are gorgeous, and all paid for with daddy’s card lmao. other than all that though, she doesn’t really fit the “rich girl” stereotype in that she doesn’t act like a snob to just anyone, yk? she’s really open to meeting new people, and she’s a fiercely loyal friend to people she loves, as well as a HOPELESS ROMANTIC [ she’s a taurus, after all ] with her bfs/gfs. she’s also MAD cuddly with anyone, like, she doesn’t give a fuck, she communicates v well with physicality and touch!! if you got any questions ab her, don’t hesitate to lmk!!

[dustinreidmusic]

DR. JOHN BIO

“All my sisters married doctors”, said Dorothy Cronin Rebennack, the mother of Mac Rebennack. “ But only I had a Dr. John”. Indeed, there can be only one Malcolm Rebennack, aka “ Doctor John Creaux, the Night Tripper”. There can only be one walking repository of the storied city of New Orleans’ thriving musical history. There can be only one author of such classic songs as “ Right Place, Wrong Time”, “ Such A Night”, “Litanie Des Saintes”, and “I Walk On Gilded Splinters”. There can be only one torchbearer for the Crescent City sound as it second-lines its way into its fourth century. So Mrs. Rebennack was right -- physicians are indeed a dime a dozen in this doctor-clogged country; but a musician of her son’s caliber comes along but once in a very blue moon. Malcolm John Rebennack Jr. was born in New Orleans a full month after term on Thanksgiving Day (November 20) 1942. Weighing a full ten pounds, Mac, as he came to be called, was born into a music-loving family in America’s most musical city. While still an infant, Rebennack starred as a model for various baby products, and showed remarkable musical ability in early childhood. By the age of three he was already hammering out melodies on the family piano, and soon exhausted the talents of the nun who was hired to give him lessons some years later. “If I play what his next lesson is going to be”, the sister complained, “he will play it right behind me, note for note”, His good-timing Aunt Andre, who it can be safe to assume had funkier taste than the nun, taught him the “Pinetop Boogie-Woogie”. My aunt was a groovy old broad”, Rebennack recalled in “Up from the Cradle of Jazz”. “I used to drive everybody mad playing it”. Malcolm Rebennack Sr. was an appliance store owner who, as is traditional in New Orleans, also stocked the latest hit records. Thus young Mac was privy from early childhood to almost any music he wanted. Some years later the Rebennack appliance store was forced to close, and Mac lost his pipeline to the goldmine. But soon his father found work in a line even better suited to those of musical bent: PA system repair. The two Rebennacks would often be seen trundling in tandem to various nightclubs around town, bloodbucket dives with names like the Pepper Pot and the Cadillac Club. Always forbidden to enter the clubs, Mac would wait for his father to repair the system, and then peer in and dissect the musicians. It was at the Pepper Pot, in fact, and in this manner that Mac first saw Professor Longhair’s magical keyboard frolics. At the age of seven Rebennack suffered through a bout of malaria. Even as a child, the over-modest Mac had decided that he could never cut it as a pianist in New Orleans. As he remembered wondering, “How was I going to complete with killer players like Tuts Washington? Salvador Doucette? Herbert Santina? Professor Longhair himself? And the list only began there”. He had, even before his illness, agitated to take up the guitar. His long convalescence enabled him to air his plea with such incessancy, such vehemence, that his beleaguered parents finally gave in. He was sent for instruction to Werlein’s Music Store on Canal Street, already at that time a New Orleans institution and still in business today. His teacher soon sussed that Mac was going to be a difficult, if talented student. The instructor delivered a verdict along the line of, “Good ear, will never learn to read music”. The fancy, store-bought lessons ceased forthwith; but Mac was still hard at it. He locked himself in his room for weeks on end, learning by ear the licks of his twin idols of the time: T-Bone Walker and Lightning Hopkins. “If I can’t make it as T-Bone, I’ll try Lightning, he told himself. His father, seeing that his son had a talent and drive, and being himself connected in the music scene, made a wonderful decision. He persuaded Walter “Papoose” Nelson to instruct his son. Papoose was Fats Domino’s lead guitarist (and the son of Louis Armstrong’s lead guitarist) and had long been a hero to Rebennack. As Mac recalled: “The first lesson, Papoose listened to my chops and said ‘Hey, man, you can’t play that shit and get a job. What are you, crazy? That outta-meter, foot-beater jive. You gotta play stuff like this’. Then he started playing legitimate blues, which I was on the trail of with T-Bone Walker. It was the Lightning shuffle that was off the wall as far as Papoose was concerned”. Papoose’s primary contributions to Mac’s musical education were twofold. First, it was Nelson who finally won Mac over to the benefits of learning to read music. Second, to impart musical discipline, Nelson would force Mac to play rhythm guitar for hours on end, never allowing him a solo. Mac’s next teacher, Roy Montrell, also imparted a valuable lesson. To his first lesson with this new teacher, Mac bounded in with his brand new guitar, “a cheap but flashy-looking green-and-black Harmony”. Roy took at the guitar and (said) ‘Why’d you bring this piece of shit over here?’ ‘It’s my guitar’, I said. ‘Give me that guitar’. He took it, walked outside into the backyard, laid it on the ground, picked up an axe, and split it right in half. Then he broke it in pieces and threw it in the neighbour’s yard”. That done, he called Malcolm Rebennack Sr. on the phone and arranged for Mac to come back next week with a second-hand Gibson, an axe that Mac found himself working overtime with his father to pay for. By the time Mac was on the cusp of his teens, he was a somewhat streetwise musician, hanging out in black clubs and scoring drugs in the projects for his older “junko partners”, or drug-buddies. Soon he was smoking pot himself, and in due course he progressed to pills, coke, and eventually junk. All the while, he was attending the south’s most prestigious Catholic high school, New Orleans Jesuit. In class, he daydreamed and wrote songs, which he would deliver to the offices at Specialty Records, and plotted gigs with several high school bands. Something had to give, and as one can imagine, it was school. He dropped out a year of graduation and later, while in prison, obtained a correspondence course diploma. Not that in his lines of work he needed any such qualification. Soon he was a fully-fledged constituent of the New Orleans underworld. In addition to his burgeoning songwriting work, his session playing, and road gigs both local and regional, Mac attempted half-hearted sidelines such as pimping, forgery, and as an auteur of pornographic movies. His running buddies included street characters with names like Opium Rose, Betty Boobs, Stalebread Charlie, Buckethead Billy, and Mr. Oaks and Herbs. Meanwhile, he entered into a star-crossed, drug-sodden marriage to Lydia Crow. Lydia, though no shrinking violet herself, did attempt to go straight from time to time. But Mac would hear nothing of it, and their marriage ended by 1961. His personal life a shambles, Mac’s professional life was faring better. He was kicking serious ass in the studio, and it is his guitar one still hears today on Professor Longhair’s, “Mardi Gras in New Orleans”. Mac-penned tunes like “Losing Battle” (a hit for Johnny Adams) and “Losing Battle” (recorded by Jerry Byrne) (the same song?) were just two of his fifty compositions recorded in New Orleans between 1955 and 1963. But (as is well-known today) the record companies of the 1950’s were not exactly ready coughers-up of royalties, so most of Mac’s compensation came from his sessions, gigs, and mostly ludicrous street tough sidelines. One such example of the corruption of the New Orleans music business of the ‘50s will suffice. Rebennack wrote a song entitled, “Try Not To Think About You” which languished unrecorded in the offices at Specialty Records for a while. Unrecorded, and more importantly, uncopyrighted. It eventually came to the attention of Lloyd Price, who changed the title to “Lady Luck”, switched record labels, and changed the composer’s name to - you guessed it - Lloyd Price. It would have been Rebennack’s biggest hit up to that date. After literally stalking Price, gun in hand (Mac planned on wasting him backstage after a show) for some time, he finally cooled off and chalked it up to bitter experience. An absurd coda ensured, when Rebennack’s parents unknowingly hired Price’s own attorney to sue Price for the royalties from “Lady Luck”. The lawyer, Mac related, “pocketed the change and did nothing. for a minute, I was afraid if I ever ran across that bastard, I’d kill him, too”. Such chicanery aside, New Orleans of the 1950s was a paradise for musicians. Always a wide-open town (by American standards), the Crescent City was never more raucous and hard-partying than it was then. Gigs abounded in the all-night bars, bordellos, tourist joints, society haunts, and neighborhood taverns. That Rebennack was far ahead of his time regarding race helped him find work, but also earned him some less-enlightened enemies on both sides of the color line. He began to run into flak from the two musician’s union (one black, one white) for having the temerity to play with opposite-hued musicians. Eventually these unions and the crusading, publicity-seeking New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison were to conspire to run Rebennack and most of the rest of the New Orleans music scene right out of town. The union began levying exorbitant fines on Rebennack (officially for playing scab sessions) and blacklisting record producers (like the legendary Cosimo Matassa) who dared to buy the latest equipment. Their short-sighted thinking was that new equipment would equal less studio time instead of more polished records and bigger hits. Garrison, for his part, launched a crusade on vice which closed down the thriving whorehouses and gambling dens, both important sources of income for both the music and tourist industries. Rebennack’s troubles were only beginning. A fracas with a Jacksonville, Florida hotelier resulted in Rebennack getting the ring finger shot nearly off his left hand. Doctors reconstructed the finger to a degree, but not to the point that would enable him to resume making a living with a guitar. He was forced into playing bass with the tourist-oriented French Quarter Dixieland bands, a gig that convulsed him with boredom. He sank deeper than ever into heroin, and it was then that his marriage ended. To top it all, he was busted by Garrison’s goons for heroin possession, a charge that was to send him eventually to a Federal prison hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. There he served as a guinea pig for the various and infamous rehabilitation experiments then -as now - rampant in the land. He was released embittered but not in the least rehabilitated. He returned briefly to New Orleans and was given some pointers on the organ from Crescent City keyboard maestro James Booker. However, he soon soured on Garrison’s Brave New Orleans and at the invitation of an old friend (saxophonist/arranger Harold Battiste) flew out to Los Angeles. A contingent of New Orleans musicians had already set up shop in the City of Angels, and Rebennack fell quickly to work doing studio odd jobs under the auspices of Battiste. Battiste was the brains (ahem) behind Sonny & Cher, and was a close associate of Phil Spector. Battiste mortared Rebennack in on some of Spector’s sessions, but Mac did not enjoy being just another brick in the ‘Wall of Sound’. He called it, “a monument to waste with echo all over the place! It was just padding the payroll, as far as I could see”. He held down a brief stint as Frank Zappa’s pianist, but found that stultifying as well. This gave him an entrée into the acid rock world, in his words, “all these little acid groups springing up like mutant fungus after a chemical spill”. He attempted to work with Iron Butterfly, whom he termed “Iron Butterfingers” and Buffalo Springfield to little if any effect. A frustrating term as in-house producer with Mercury Records followed, but Rebennack and his cohorts suspected that it was just a tax dodge. He was more musically frustrated than he had ever been in New Orleans, and his drug woes continued unabated. As a parolee, he was under the watchful eyes of a great many government agencies as well. But slowly, the concept was forming that was to take him to heights he wouldn’t have dared dreamt possible. Growing up in New Orleans, Rebennack had eagerly immersed himself in the City’s myriad native traditions and home-grown Afro-Latin religions. He himself was a half-hearted practitioner of gris-gris, New Orleans’ own unique branch of the voodoo tree. In his avid studies of the history and religion of the city, he had thrilled to the stories of John Montaigne aka Bayou John aka and most frequently, Dr.John. John was a Senegalese of self-proclaimed royal lineage who had been taken from Africa by slavers to Cuba. There he won his freedom, and shipped out as a sailor before eventually choosing to settle in New Orleans. He set up shop as a shaman, telling fortunes, healing, and selling a cornucopia of hexes. He was good at his job, and eventually prospered to the point where he even owned slaves himself. The kicker for Rebennack was coming across an account of a 19th Century vice bust in which John was arrested with one Pauline Rebennack for voodoo-related offences and suspicion of operating a whorehouse. For years, Mac had felt a spiritual kinship for Dr.John, and this account raised the quite possibility that one of his family had had the same feelings. Even so, the idea that Rebennack had been ruminating cast his friend Ronnie Barron in the roll of Dr. John. But when the project was finally greenlighted, Barron had other contractual duties and Rebennack reluctantly assumed the mantle himself. Between Sonny & Cher sessions, virtually on the sly, Rebennack recorded the “Gris Gris” album with a band of New Orleans natives. Atlantic executive Ahmet Ertegun was at first displeased with the move. “Why did you give me this shit”?, Rebennack remembers Ertegun bellowing. “How can we market this boogaloo crap”? Eventually the canny Ertegun sniffed something in the late-’60s zeitgeist that could enable an off-the-wall act like Dr.John to sell, and he (to Rebennack’s surprise) released the album. On “Gris Gris”, Rebennack played very little keyboard, contributing only organ parts on two tracks (“Mama Roux” and Danse Kalinda”). His aim was to introduce America to New Orleans’ mystical side, and also to “let us musicians get into a stretched-out New Orleans groove”. The album sold well enough to appease the suits, with very little backing, and meanwhile Rebennack’s fertile mind was cooking up a killer road show. Drawing on the venerable southern minstrel tradition and the pageantry of the Mardi Gras Indians, Dr.John and the Night Trippers’ road show boasted snake-festooned dancers, magic tricks, and costumes manufactured from the carcasses of virtually every living creature that ever crawled, slithered or flew in the bayou country. As Rebennack recalled, “When this stuff started coming apart in pieces, I had to start hanging around taxidermy shops big-time, scavenging new material.” He and his similarly attired band of New Orleans roughnecks unleashed this act the acid-drenched southern California of 1968 to no little astonishment. But by the time “Babylon”, the Night Tripper’s second album came out, the band began to dissolve. Rebennack (along with the most of the rest of America) felt the end time was at hand, as the title implies. The album reflects Rebennack’s chaotic personal life - his drug use and police persecution, his dissolving band -- and the state of American life in 1968, a year in which it seemed that violet revolution was at hand. It was a year in which both Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King fell to assassins, riots consumed black ghettos in flames from Miami to Watts, and the Vietcong launched the ferocious TET offensive. The album features odd time signatures (11/4, 5/4,10/4), doom-laden lyrics, and hybrid Afro-Caribbean/avant-garde jazz feeling. As Rebennack later said, “ It was as if Hieronymus Bosch had cut an album”. Who better to chronicle those disorderly times? Things were about to get extremely untidy for Rebennack again, as well. While touring in support of “Gris-Gris”, the Night Trippers had been busted in St. Louis, and Rebennack as frontman shouldered the load. A lawyer arranged a deal in which Charlie Green (the manager of Sonny & Cher and Buffalo Springfield) was to pay off the St. Louis bail bondsman. The bondsman, unbeknownst to Rebennack, never collected. Green and partner Brian Stone then confronted Rebennack with the proverbial “Offer you can’t refuse”. Since he had gotten Rebennack sprung, Green put it to Mac, we get to manage you from now on. Rebennack, frazzled, saw no alternative. Green proved to be the worst of all managerial archetypes, the would-be star. Mac recalled, “He thought of himself as the star and me as the roadie of the operation. Even though I wasn’t on no kind of star trip or nothing, I didn’t want my manager hanging around, running some kind of Jumpin’ Jack Flash number and trying to upstage me. Beyond that was the basic problem: a drugged out band hooked up with a starry-eyed manager results in a chemically unbalanced situation and, in general, a fearsome sight to behold.” While at work on “Remedies”, the third of five of Rebennack’s Atlantic releases, Green and Stone persuaded Rebennack to check himself into a loony-bin, with an eye toward having him declared incompetent. This move would allow them to help themselves to a slightly higher percentage of Rebennack’s earnings than their current 25%, something more along the lines of 100%. Rebennack quickly wised up, escaped from the asylum, and exiled himself to Miami. Meanwhile, the managers had released the unfinished “Remedies” album. One of Rebennack’s chief aims for the album was to spread the news about Louisiana’s notorious Angola Farm, then as now America’s most deplorable and inhumane prison. Rebennack, incommunicado in Miami, was thus unable to put wise the Rolling Stone reviewer who took his lament Angola Anthem to be a protest song about the nation of Angola. A disastrous European tour followed, one in which was Mac was hamstrung by a third string band (most of the Night Trippers were unable to get visas). The tour was augured in by Mac from backstage the electrocution death of the Stone the Crows guitarist Les Harvey at a festival. At Montreux, his bass player without warning dropped his bass and brandished a trombone which he had concealed in the wings, and proceeded to (Rebennack related) “start dancing around the stage, playing Pied Piper to the audience’s mountain villagers”. At the end of this arduous road, Mac headed for London to round up session players for the album “The Sun, Moon, and Herbs”. Graham Bond, Eric Clapton, Ray Draper, Walter Davis Jr., Mick Jagger, Doris Troy, and a battery of drummers from virtually every West African and Caribbean country were on hand for a days-long, Opium and hash-fuelled epic of a session. He delivered the finished article to Green for post-production work a happy man. Some weeks later, Rebennack returned to find his beloved album chopped, diced, and filleted by Green. Material was added and deleted, more was overdubbed. Most of what Rebennack felt was the best music was simply gone. In addition, it came to his attention (when he was alerted to a pair of bounty hunters at his doorstep) that Green had not, in fact, bailed him out of anything. Green was summarily dismissed, and Rebennack and some engineers endeavored to salvage what they could of the “Sun, Moon, and Herbs” album. He signed next with manager Albert Grossman, of Joplin, Dylan, and The Band fame. He was the manager who “electrified” Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, which touched off a brawl between himself and folklorist Alan Lomax in front of several thousand bemused folkies. Lomax, though, was not the only one in the music scene who wanted a piece of Grossman. Soon enough, Grossman and Rebennack came nearly to blows. Grossman’s style was to play it cool with his artist, while his “bad-cop” flunkie Bennett Glotzer delivered such news as, “Thanks for signing with us. We now control 1/3 of your publishing”. Glotzer and Rebennack had two punch-outs, and things got so bad that Rebennack turned to his native gris-gris. He would each day leave a dead bird on Glotzer’s doorstep, surrounding by black candles and sprinkled with “goofer dust”. Eventually, this hell-broth boiled over when, in a tête-à-tête with Grossman, an enraged Rebennack snatched Grossman’s beloved peyote button, a pet psychedelic Grossman had been nurturing for three years, and devoured it, skin, pulp, stem and all, in front of his very eyes. The relationship dissolved into a maelstrom of threat and counter-threats, and now Rebennack had not one, but two oddball ex-managers scheming for his destruction. Somehow, Mac found the time to sit in the Rolling Stones’ “Exile On Main Street” sessions, and also to record one of his best albums ever. (While in the studio with the Stones, he discussed with them his and New Orleans songwriter Earl King’s idea for an album of dirty blues tunes. Back in the fifties, when he played the after hours joints, he had often played for an audience of street characters x-rated versions of old blues tunes. The Stones demurred, but later released “Cocksucker Blues” on their own, which irked Rebennack. He felt that since he had given them the idea, he should be compensated) His own effort produced “Gumbo”, an album steeped in the New Orleans of his youth. Featuring covers of songs by King, Professor Longhair, and several other lesser lights of that time and place, the album was his most direct tribute to his home turf to that date. To back the album, Mac ditched the voodoo shtick he had employed on the road since 1967 in favour of a revue format. As Mac termed it, he had “enough of the mighty-coo-de-fiyo hoodoo show”. The Gumbo tour, backed heavily by Atlantic, reached Carnegie Hall and other such bastions of the high life, and a single, ”Iko Iko”, cracked the top 40. The dark cloud to this silver lining was that hard on the heels of his chart success, several of his past employers saw fit to release albums of demos. Among them were Green, Huey Meaux (with whom Rebennack had worked as a session producer) and an unknown cast of characters. This very collection is one such unfinished product. Meanwhile, Rebennack had seen fit to employ yet another volatile, less than 10% straight forward manager. Phil Walden, who had hit the big-time managing Otis Redding was then cresting on the Allman Brothers doomed wave, and he also handled Rebennack’s New Orleans chums, The Meters. Clearly Rebennack thought, here at last was a manager with the Midas touch. In 1973, Rebennack and the Meters hit the studio together to record “In The Right Place”. At first, things with Walden and the album went swimmingly. Walden booked Mac and The Meters on some Allman tours, on which Rebennack enjoyed himself immensely, both professionally and personally. The album scored him both his biggest hit (the title track) and perhaps his most enduring composition. “Such a Night” is a stone-cold classic, a song that sounded as old and enduring as music itself from the very day it was waxed. This writer was astonished to learn that it was written by Rebennack in 1973, as I had always assumed it emanated from Cole Porter or some such. The relationship with Walden, which had been going so well, came to a screeching halt when Rebennack returned home road-weary to find his house bereft of furniture, furniture that had somehow found its way across town to Walden’s recording studio. It was this move that finally put an end to Rebennack’s reliance on anyone else to handle his business affairs. Since then he has managed himself. Later in 1973, a collaboration with white bluesman John Hammond Jr. and Mike Bloomfield brought forth the “Triumvirate” album. Meanwhile, Rebennack embarked on a tour of shows benefiting the Black Panthers, which, he recalled, “had the immediate effect of bringing serious federal heat down on our asses! I discovered that we’d jumped into a whole new level of criminality. We weren’t garden-variety dope fiends any more; now we’d become political activists, the most fouty-knuckled lames of them all”. The year ended with Rebennack attempting to aid a drink- and coke-addled John Lennon make the album “Rock ‘n’Roll” with Rebennack’s old boss Phil Spector. As active and fruitful as 1973 seemed (in addition to the above there were sessions with Harry Nilsson and Ringo Starr), Rebennack was still broke and very bitter. He seriously pondered retirement, and had developed a reputation as a pain in the ass. The rest of the early seventies passed by in a blur of drug abuse and fallen sidemen. James Booker, the classically trained, extremely eccentric genius of the New Orleans keys, came and went from Rebennack’s band several times, before dying of a cocaine overdose in 1983. Ray Draper was whacked by New Jersey loan-sharks. Percussionist Albert ”Didimus” Washington was killed by a Cabbage-juice diet designed to heal his ulcers. As the seventies wore on, though, things very slowly began to turn around for Rebennack. A collaboration with legendary New York songwriter Doc Pomus (“Save The Last Dance For Me”, “Lonely Avenue”, “Suspicion”), produced the song “There Must Be A Better World Somewhere”, which B.B. King later picked up and won a Grammy. Tommy LiPuma persuaded Rebennack and Pomus to sign with his A&M-affiliated Horizon label. “City Lights”, the label’s second release, quickly followed. The album is something of a semi-autobiographical rock opera, co-written by Rebennack, Pomus, and Henry Glover (“ I Love You, Yes I Do”; “Drown in My Own Tears”) concerning the exploits of some ex-pat New Orleanians in the Big Apple. “Tango Palace”, another Mac-Pomus offering, came hard on the heels of “City Lights”, but not soon enough. The label foundered almost immediately after “Tango’s” release. Rebennack recalls the interlude with Horizon, during which he also gigged with 50’s R& B legends Hank Crawford and Fathead Newman, as being rewarding musically, if not commercially. In 1980, Rebennack began an association with Jack Heyrman’s Clean Cuts label. Heyrman persuaded Rebennack to confront a personal bugaboo and record two albums of solo piano and vocals. Rebennack had always had nightmarish visions of this being his end, that “I’d end up a solo-piano lounge act, staring at Holiday Inns or bowling alleys for the rest of my natural life”. Nevertheless, two Clean Cuts releases, “Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack” and “The Brightest Smile In Town”, ensued. On them, Rebennack erased the last vestiges of the Gris Gris act and tackled some more sophisticated and older forms of music. He wanted to appeal to “a spiritual awareness, not just that low-down meat level”, but hastened to add that, “The hardest thing to do is let the spirituality flow and turn the meat on. Doing that is creating art, radiating the 88’s”. Rebennack expanded on this with 1989’s “In A Sentimental Mood”, a collection of classics this time presented in a combo format. A duet with Rickie Lee Jones on Gus Kahn and Walter Donaldson’s ”Makin’ Whoopee” took home the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Duet, and the album was one of the top-selling jazz albums of the year. Two more albums in a jazzy vein, “Bluesiana Triangle”, cut with Fathead Newman and the great Art Blakey; and “Bluesiana II”, cut again with Newman and others followed in the next two years. In 1989, Rebennack ended his 34-year relationship with heroin, and three years later released “Goin’ Back to New Orleans”, one of his most ambitious projects to date. Like “Gumbo”, “Goin’ Back” is solely a New Orleans affair, but it takes a much broader approach. Songs dating as far back as 1850 were recorded, with each of the ensuing cuts representing a stylistic breakthrough that has occurred since then. There’s a Mardi Gras Indian tune, homages to Jelly Roll Morton, Buddy Bolden, Louis Jordan, Professor Longhair, James Booker, and Fats Domino. The Neville Brothers, Wardell Quezergue, Al Hirt, and Pete Fountain, among a great many others turned out in support of the project. Any one volume CD that endeavors to cover 150 years of music from America’s most tuneful of cities is bound to fail, through as Rebennack says, “ the only thing that can beat a failure is a try”. Ultimately, the album ranks in the top 5% of all New Orleans releases, a too-brief primer lovingly and excitingly presented by the best musicians the city had to offer at that time. By turns wistful, violent, joyous and tragic, it never loses the twin hallmarks of the city that birthed it - a sense of humour at the absurdities of life (and death) and some of the world’s most pulsating rhythms. In 1994, Rebennack wrote with co-author Jack Rummel the excellent autobiography, “Under A Hoodoo Moon”. From it most of these notes were cribbed, and though this has proven to be by far my most verbose liner-note project, not one tenth of the story is yet told . Far from being a typical rock & roll, ghost-written autobiography, it is a hilarious, tragic, brutally honest, and inspirational tale of one erudite and talented man’s struggle to make some good music in a country in which this has become increasingly difficult. The chapter in which his reminiscences of Professor Longhair are recounted in side-splitting detail is alone worth the price of the book. The rest of the mid-nineties saw Rebennack’s voice become seemingly ubiquitous on American television, singing the praises of Wendy’s Hamburgers, among many another strange fruit from his American orchard. He has released several anthologies and two albums of new material - “Television” on GRP in 1994 and “Afterglow” on Blue Thumb in 1995. Any questions regarding this bizarre genius’ contemporary relevance were abolished in 1991 and 1993 when P.M. Dawn and Beck, respectively sampled his “I Walk On Gilded Splinters” for their own recordings, with utilising the Doctor’s tune in his breakthrough anthem, “Loser”. In 1997 he recorded a smoking duet with B.B. King on his collaboration with Doc Pomus, “There Must Be A Better World Somewhere”. He continues to tour and record, and still there is no bowling alley or Holiday Inn big enough to hold the audiences that pay to see him. Like the city he came from, Mac Rebennack is a survivor. So is the music that they share. That indefinable blend of French, African, Caribbean, Spanish, and American ingredients, that gumbo of a city and a sound, the certain je ne sais pocky way hollers out Crescent City, has no living acolyte truer or more faithful than Rebennack. Long may he ramble! ~John Nova Lomax, November 1998

[priyaele]

novel prep tag

tagged by @myscrivere thank u xx

im doing this for bury me in the city :)

1. Describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch)

Femi Leroux has the power to grant one wish, according to family legend, but after the death of her mother and the loss of her father to grief, she has little faith in it. The story follows her coming of age in New York City, a place she treasures, as she enrolls in Manhattan’s most prestigious prep school

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

standalone at prob around 80-90k

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

candles on top of birthday cakes, new york city in the morning, rich people and glamour, crying, eyes closed and head tilted when playing piano, mourning, torn pictures, hope

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

swamplandia by karen russell, everything i never told you by celeste ng, la la land really came outta nowhere and helped me refocus on my main plot, frances ha, lady bird haha no surprises there, amélie, call me by your name, and the haunting of hill house (just the family aspect no horror here bb)

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel

MAIN CHARACTER

6. Who is your protagonist?

femi leroux a total softie

7. Who is their closest ally?

at the start: her best friend lara and her grandmother midge, by the end nox is added on too :)

8. Who is their enemy?

her emotions honestly. and the “wish” she’s supposed to carry. and her relationship with her family. and the grief they share. 

9. What do they want more than anything?

femi wants to speak to her mother again. she wants everything to work out. she wants her dad to be happy again and she wants her family to be full, or a little less broken. also nox.

10. Why can’t they have it?

because of death and what comes out of it. 

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

 femi thinks she’s really weak.

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

short and thin, brown skin, long curly hair, cute outfits, light brown eyes.

PLOT POINTS

13. What is the internal conflict?

femi struggles with feeling strong enough to carry the weight of her family’s wish. she misses her mother and misses what her family once was more than anything else. she also feels the need to deal with other people’s problems and will do anything for people even if they won’t do the same back.

14. What is the external conflict?

her family sucks, she likes a boy, growing up is hard.

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?  

anyone else close to her dying. 

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?  

there is one! but it’s gotta stay a secret :)

17. Do you know how it ends?   

yes and it’s my favorite ending ive ever written/planned

BITS AND BOBS

18. What is the theme?  

family always finds their way back to each other. you need to free yourself from being a prisoner to the past. soft is strong. all love is love. no one can fix someone else. fame isn’t always fun. even when people are no longer together, the love doesn’t always end.

19. What is a recurring symbol?  

candles (birthday cake ones and candelabras), the color gray, piano keys, champagne

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

new york city!! lots in morningside heights

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?  

i have a cinematic visual for every planned scene in this book burned in my head and they’re so prettyyyyy (again, ending is my favorite)

22. What excited you about this story?  

new york! and nox and femi! and the themes man i just love the overall atmosphere of this it’s all of my heart.

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!  

usually i get idea, plan quickly, and then write quickly. but now ive really let this idea sit and wait and ive built off of it for months. i lived in new york over the summer and became close friends with a famous person, (helped me plan,) i had some boy drama recently (helped me plan,) and also some family drama (helped me plan,) so it’s been slowly growing over the months into the thing it is now and im so in love with it i can’t wait to finally have a set outline and draft it. 

tagging: whoever wants to do this because this is long as hell 

[owoforhorror]

[[ Hewwo! I bring another fic becuase the last one was well-loved and 💕💕💕!! Thank you for all your support, it means so much!!

[[ I'll continue this on if you all enjoy it!

That is what David wants. He wants to go and eat garbage food, drink bad alcohol, and fight whoever he wanted without being questioned. His parents got to a point that they just set down a few rules for him, which he could agree with. No sexual acts, be fair in fights, and come home alive by four a.m. He had agreed right away, but of course there was a catch. He had to participate in the meetings his parents had with other big businesses. He thought he could deal with that, he wasn't doing anything major or anything so it would be fine. That was until he actually went with his parents, dressed up in formal attire, having to wear a nice hat to cover his partially shaved head and long sleeved, and a high collared shirt to hide his tattoos.

Of course the meeting was with the Park family, another heavily wealthy family. It was something about putting the kids in public schools and whatnot, David didn't care, really. He was just there to show up, read his cards in a awfully fake formal voice, and then get out and free himself from the itchy confines of the suit. They got into the meeting room early, and so David just took the last chair, which happened to be closest to the door. He couldn't care, he was going to have to look at these people anyway so it might as well be faster. A cough from his father made him jump, which only then he noticed that he was slouching and had his head in his fist. "David, dear, be more formal. They're outside the door." "Then why don't they just fuckin' come in, then." His parents never specified that he had to have good attitude, and he was up for any loophole in the system he could get. His eyes gazed between the door and the chairs in front of him, what was taking them so long? He just wanted to get this over with and not see them for another two weeks. That was until the other family came in, all dressed up nicely and looking prestigious, except for the last boy that came in. His hair all disheveled, David could see a few twigs in his hair. His suit was loose, and he had the utmost annoyance and unwant on his face that it was almost funny.

Actually, it was funny. Very funny. So much so that David grinned with the quietest snicker. The boy shot him a glare across the other side of the table as he sat down, making a huff. They were sitting across from each other, which made this so much funnier. As soon as the meeting started, David reached his leg over to jab the other’s, which gained him a glare. His parents started on about how they would be better at communicating if they went to the same school; and would probably help them get to know each other and to not be so quiet or aggressive. When he saw Jake roll his eyes, he pulled his leg back. He didn't even know this kid's name, but he clearly didn't want to be here, so he decided he could be a distraction. "Mom-" He cut off them as they brought up how David should go to Jake's school, apparently that was his name. That suited him, if David was honest. He had to come up with something that would be serious, but not too much so that Jake wouldn't be the one that had to go with him. All eyes were on him, and if he was true, he felt oddly nervous. "There's a cut down my leg, I...” He felt Jake's eyes boring into his, he could tell what he was trying to do. At least everyone else was denser then him which worked out in their favour. "Jake, help him to the car." Jake's mom cared more than his own mom apparently, cause David's mom was gonna carry on the conversation. She slid his parent's card over to Jake, along with the car keychain. "Take him home, I've seen you patch up yourself before, you can handle it."

So that left David and Jake to rush outside, David being allowed to lean on Jake just to pretend that he couldn't walk well. Once they got outside, the Brit jerked himself away, he knew he was a bigger guy so it couldn't have been comfortable. "Jake, aye? Be a lad and drive?" All he got was a stare from Jake, and David spent several seconds trying to figure out why he didn't understand, he hadn't used several different words. Then it hit him, this Jake Park wanted him to be polite. He sighed, which only provoked Jake's eyebrow to turn up in question. "Please drive for me. The bitch hit me with glass." "Okay." David felt quiet anger welling up in him just due to the fact that he forced him to be polite, and then didn't even seem to care that he did correct himself. Also how Jake just looked absolutely uncaring constantly, it drove him crazy; in a weird-nice kind of way. He forced himself to brush it off even as much that he didn't want to and just get into the goddamn car. It felt like ages for them to finally get to the King's house, and finally David was actually slightly limping so there was several reluctant movements until they could walk. Jake steadied them and guided David on how to have one arm over his shoulders and use his own to hold David's waist, which was very unpleasant. First of all, they were two men, and it could ruin David's tough reputation. He was pretty much horrified when he stopped going out with girls because then it hit him that he didn't even love girls, and that being with a man would get him kicked out. But... Jake was cute, and very calm, it was... Relaxing. Something he hadn't felt for a long while.

The night was spent as the parents took it upon themselves to just have a night for them, which was appreciated for the two. They'd gotten the wound cleaned out and wrapped up thankfully, and whilst they were sitting on the porch with a Polaroid camera it started dying off to just a sting. It was obvious for Jake's distaste to more fancy things, so David got them into the car and went to Wal-Mart to buy some poor ass quality wine, and then took them out to the forest. David had more self-control when he was drunk then most so he didn't worry, and after it was assured that they would be safe Jake agreed to drink.

Jake glanced over to David who was sipping down on the bottle he had. "Our parents suck." At least he could say that he tried to start a conversation between them. "Of course, but what bollocks? Ya didn't look pretty far from bein' cheesed off." His accent was merely just because he'd been raised with those words, bollocks a kinder way to mean bullshit and cheesed off a politer way to say pissed off. Jake didn't seem to care, really. "I heard you were forced to come. So was I." "Glad I got ya outta it. Bloody hell was what they were on about, yeah?" All David got back was a affirmation of a hum from the forest lover. They seemed so different and strange together, and it would be thought that their personalities wouldn't mesh okay, but it was alright. David offered confidence and pride to Jake, Jake offered calm and collected thoughts to David, it just strengthened their bond. Several minutes went by before the small talk started up again, but on an entirely new subject. "So, y'know, sexuality wise, what you into?" David didn't have much shame in asking such personal questions, and if they weren't on okay terms as kids and he wasn't a little out of his head, he would have declined to say.

"I think anything's fine." A small nod from David and that conversation switched to him just because Jake didn't feel up to the silence right now. "You?"

"Don't go 'round tellin' people this. My parents would utterly fuckin' screw me." David accidentally breathed in too much smoke from his e-cig, so it took a moment longer to answer, but Jake was patient. "I fancy boys." His answer got a thoughtful hum as Jake leaned on him, and the quiet forest around them filled the surrounding sounds. A creek flowing nearby, the tree leaves swaying in the cold wind, the small sound of a cricket chirping, it was nice. Jake had a loose hold on the bottle, and just knocked off the cap with his teeth and took a swig again. It tasted piss-poor, and he utterly despised it, but it was good in his book of cheap. He wondered aloud about if they could spend the night out in the forest like a camping trip, and David made a shrug. "If that's what yer wantin'."

So there David was, lugging a tent and two bottles of pringles in his arms. Jake promised that he knew how to set them up which was good, because David could not whatsoever. He finally found the track that they had took with the bottles and his e-cig, and there was a Jake already racking up a fire in the middle. "I'll keep it goin', you get this set up." He dropped the tent to the ground and the forester got to work, and after the fire had a steady pace David was just watching him. It was quite obvious that he was just leaning on the ground and watching as Jake's muscles moved to pummel the corks in the ground. Jake glanced back over to David to quirk his eyebrow up, and David merely shrugged with a dopey grin. Jake turned away to finish the task on hand, albeit a little redder than before. Thank god the Brit didn't have much shame or it would have been an embarrassing time for him. Never minding that though, the tent was up and Jake huddled in to test it first. It didn't come down when he pressed against the walls a bit, so it was absolutely fine, and he came out to sit next to David. "It's been a nice night, really." "'M glad, lad. We've gotta do this again." An arm around Jake, holding him to his own chest, and under the moonlight. Sure they were a little tipsy, but they were having fun regardless. Plus, they didn't get out-of-hand drunk, so there wouldn't be a horrible time when they got up in the morning. Their parents would be so fucking mad when they found this out in the morning, but whatever. They could chill out in each other’s rooms. It hadn't even been long, but they were out there talking about more personal matters already. It just felt safe with the other, very comfortable and all around just calm. Even though the birds cawed loudly to make their presence, and usually David would have gotten mad, but it was very intensely difficult with Jake on him.

David's hand sifted through Jake's hair as Jake rested his head onto his chest and the other hand on his opposite shoulder. Even with the lingering pain from David's wound, he couldn't be mad. It was so very hard to even think about being mad right now, as he was worried that it would rub off on Jake; at least that was his excuse. The real reason was the boy in general, he offered so much comfort. Even through David's time of just being reckless and trying to fight everyone, Jake made his anger simmer down. It was remarkable, really, and as if Jake knew what he did to him he could feel his hand trailing up from his shoulder. Collarbone, neck, chin, cheek, cheekbone- with Jake's thumb on David's chin he turned his head to face him. Jake could feel the heat on David's cheeks from being so close, their noses were practically touching and Jake was just staring questioningly into David's eyes. Their hearts throbbed, they were both so unsure of making any moves now. It was stupid, they didn't know each other quite that well but it was like an unnatural bond was tugging them together, closer, until they couldn't part. David's heart clenched as he felt Jake's breath on his chin and neck, and his worry of hurting Jake was obvious as his eyebrows moved together and his hold lightened. Jake could make out every perfect angle of David's eyes, every small freckles that were being shown off by the fire, and he counted them all like stars. David was getting inpatient clearly, as his eyes flickered from Jake's own and then down to his lips. His mouth curved in a small grin and that only made David want to retreat more, and it was shown by his bottom lip being sucked in his mouth.

Suddenly they were closer than ever, pressed against the ground and their lips meshing together in sloppy attempts to kiss each other, their eyes shut tight. Hands roaming each other until Jake had his jacket off and by then David kept his lips by tugging on them with his teeth just barely; and so Jake pressed harder down on him. Even though every inch of their bodies were covered by something of the other's, they only broke away to breathe heavily for three seconds before they were back on each other. Jake’s neck felt like it was going to burst in from how little oxygen he had, and so he pulled back away from his lips. David didn't have much of a horrible issue because he was used to getting the air beaten out of him, but he could understand why they’d stopped. Their chests were pressed close together as air was finally being replenished, and so David could feel Jake’s heartbeat that had sped up from kissing. He sucked in breaths before he basically went back full force to smother David’s face in kisses. David reluctantly just let him do what he pleased because each time he tried to lift his head up Jake pressed his chin down. Though, when Jake was content with that, their eyes locked with small smiles. Even with the backache from having someone laying on his chest for so long, David didn’t care. He just wanted Jake right here with him, and he was satisfied. Actually, much more than satisfied, he had Jake here and honestly everyone else could fuck right off.

[youweremeanttobehere]

“#OxfordHill” (Clever as a Fox - Part 2)

“Tree of Life and Ouroboros Dragon” art by Szector  Follow-up to “Clever as a Fox,” an “Elsewhere University” short story, created by @charminglyantiquated .  Written by M. E. Grimm  xXx  “There is a worm at the heart of the tower; that is why it will not stand.” - Neil Gaiman, “Instructions”

 "There’s something off about Hazel,” said Biggs, Hazel’s roommate.  Biggs and Hidi were eating together in the designated school cafeteria, enjoying their own omelettes for breakfast. It was their morning ritual. Biggs sat adjacent to Hidi, his omelette cut open to reveal just a little bit of spinach amidst the sludge of cheese and ham. The extra calories kept him awake, he’d always say. It was okay to eat like this in the morning. It was eating a ton in the afternoon that would mess you up.  Hidi, on the other hand, had a neatly cut omelette on her plate which she’d occasionally pluck at to bring to her luscious lips. Filled with spinach, bell peppers, tomatoes, and cheese, Hidi was more conscientious of what she consumed than her boyfriend.  “What do you mean something’s off about Hazel? He seems perfectly normal in law class,” said Hidi. Her chest pulsed a bit as she brought her fist to her lips, let out a burp, then chuckled softly in embarrassment. “Shit. Sorry. Eating kinda fast ‘cause I’ve gotta go in a little bit.”  “It’s fine, babe,” said Biggs, nudging Hidi’s arm with his elbow. “But you’re sure you haven’t noticed anything weird about Hazel at all?”  “Like what?”  “Ah...” Biggs ran both hands through his bangs, breathed a sigh through his teeth. “His, ah... His shadow? Have you looked at it recently at all?”  “His shadow?”  “Yeah. Yeah, I-I know it sounds, you know, mad, but...”  “But,” interjected Hidi, “we did accidentally enroll in a college filled with-”  Biggs’s eyes grew wide all of a sudden. He tapped on Hidi’s forearm as his eyes flicked at something abover her shoulder before falling back his omelette unflinching.  A chill ran through Hidi. The scent of an evergreen forest freshly touched by a summer dawn’s first light overwhelmed her without warning. Long, elegant footsteps of some towering thing only her boyfriend could see passed one harrowing second at a time. It passed so close to her, she could swear she heard the faint, mosquito-like buzzings of insect wings far larger than any insect wings should be. Biggs’s hand tightened on her forearm. She gripped him back and clenched her eyes shut, willing the apparition to slowly, gradually pass.  The scent of the forest fell away from Hidi, and she opened her eyes, turning towards where her boyfriend was looking.  An empty table surrounded by empty chairs stood a few feet from where Hidi and Biggs sat. It was covered with plates stacked high with fruits and cheeses and sweets. One of the chairs slid into place with a shrill scrape. An apple atop a pyramid of other red delicious apples floated into the air, a huge fraction of the fruit vanishing with the loud snapping of gnashing teeth.  Hidi whipped her eyes back to her omelette instantly. Biggs stroked Hidi’s forearm and their eyes met, allowing them a brief moment to smile and gently laugh. They didn’t need to communicate their desire to leave. They merely took their plates to the dishwashing area and took a banana each from the fruit salad bar. Imported bananas, of course. All plant-growing on campus was overseen by the Biology Department ever since the Fairy Hill arrival.  “I mean,” said Hidi, taking a bite of her banana, “sinsh when has Hashel effor not been weird? Fur a law shtudent he’f ferry ambishush.”  “Well, yeah, I know, but Hidi, the shadow thing has nothing to do with his work ethic.” Biggs took a bite of his own banana and took care to swallow before speaking again. “You know how aloof he gets when he throws himself into a project he’s passionate about?”  Hidi swallowed her food. “Yeah?”  “I dunno, it’s like... it’s like he’s almost... in two different places at once. But whenever I happen to look and take any notice, the feeling just, I dunno...” Biggs snapped his fingers. “... vanishes.”  Hidi listened to her boyfriend dutifully as ever, but since taking their relationship seriously as sweethearts, she found herself perfecting the art of dividing her attention with uncanny skill. In this case, Hidi noticed as she passed one of the campus’s many courtyards a student with a mandolin performing “The Battle of Evermore” seemingly all by himself. He declared to refrain from the dragon of darkness, then cried out how the sunlight blinds his eyes, sustaining his note and tenor in a way even surprising Hidi to hear. Midway through the performer’s long note, Hidi heard and saw the heavy golden clinking of priceless gold coins being flipped into a coffee cup sitting beside his feet. The performer smiled, winked at the air before him, then continued to sing to his apparently invisible crowd of admirers.  “Have you tried, you know, actually asking Hazel what’s on his mind?” asked Hidi. She turned back to Biggs to catch him staring at her, and had only a moment to see his cheeks grow red before whipping his attention back to the hallway ahead.  Hidi’s affection for Biggs’s adoration simmered beneath her breast at the sight. She pressed her shoulder against his, gripping his arm to pull him close. “You know I like it when I catch you staring...”  Biggs chuckled a low, gentle sigh, then wrapped a powerful arm about her hip to bring her close. “You look beautiful in that suit. Very professional.”  Hidi giggled and wrapped her own arm across her boyfriend’s hip. “Thanks, Biggs. You know I dress to impress.”  “Sycophant,” said Biggs.  “Paranoid,” said Hidi.  Biggs craned his neck down to kiss Hidi’s temple, his nose brushing against a stray lock of her sweet-scented chestnut-brown hair. “You’re gonna kill it in there today, babe.”  Hidi chuckled and leaned into his kiss. Biggs’s compliments and the clicking and clacking of her high-heels on the tile floor worked to make her feel a foot taller and six figures richer.  Before they both knew it, though, they’d reached the front of the building in which Elsewhere University’s School of Law was housed. Biggs swung Hidi out from his embrace, twirling her at the front door with a smile.  “Just try asking him, Biggie! I’m sure he’ll talk to you!”  “Good luck, babe!” said Biggs, blowing a kiss at her. She caught it, then pretended to slip it into her bra with a playful wink; spinning on her heels and walking through the building’s huge Ash-wood doors. Now alone, Biggs flapped his arms at his sides, unsure of what he should do next.  “Unsure of what you should do next?”  Biggs jumped half his height into the air, his heart smashing through his sternum in shock. He whipped around to see Hazel standing in a dapper business attire Biggs had come to expect from his roommate. Pressed black pants, black belt, double-breasted sleeveless black vest, long-sleeved white shirt underneath, and a crimson tie neatly aligned down into the middle of his vest.  Biggs pressed a hand atop his heaving chest. “You scared the Jesus outta me!”  Hazel chuckled, nodded. “I can see that.”  Calming down somewhat, Biggs stood himself to his natural height and glanced down at Hazel’s feet. Only one shadow and aimed in the same direction as his own. Feeling stupid, Biggs silently rolled his eyes at himself.  “What’s up, man?” asked Hazel.  Biggs sighed, shrugged. “You literally look like the devil, dude.”  Hazel ran a hand through his auburn-brown locks and lifted his chin like a Rolex model. “I try, I try.”  Biggs elbowed Hazel’s arm, Hazel shoving him back with a chuckle.  “Don’t thrash my girlfriend too hard in there, Hazel. America needs her to break the glass ceiling, don’t you know?” said Biggs. He saw Hazel’s ears twitch just before the school clock tower rang one bell for 1:00 p.m. Like a rabbit, thought Biggs, smirking.  “Don’t worry. I’m feeling pretty lucky today, so, who knows?” Hazel glanced at Biggs and winked. “Maybe something good’ll happen to the both of us.”  “Hazel Downs, if you seduce my girlfriend I swear on my Nana’s grave...”  Hazel laughed, nudging Biggs’s arm. “Heh heh... you had a Nana...”  “Fuck off, don’t seduce my girlfriend,” said Biggs.  “Alright alright, alright. I’ve gotta go now, man.” Hazel gave Biggs a hearty pat on his shoulder and made off to the building doors.  Biggs was about to leave when-  “Hey Biggs!”  Biggs looked back to Hazel. “What?”  “We can talk later, alright?” said Hazel.  Biggs was caught off-guard for a moment, then nodded his head in reply. “Yeah, man. Good luck!”  “Don’t need it!” repled Hazel, disappearing behind the heavy Ash doors afterwards.  xXx  “Did you mean to come here?”  “...”  “Eiko. I want you to answer my question. Did you mean to come here?”  “... Of course We meant to come here...”  “Why?”  “Did you think We wanted to come here?”  “I think I have no damn clue why your kind came here. Hence why I’m asking you for a third time; why did the Fairy Hill come here?”  “... Fairy ‘Hill?’”  “Yes, that’s what we call it. Does it have a different name?”  “Y-Yes, We have a different name for them, it’s just...”  “Just what?”  “You said Fairy ‘Hill.’ One hill.”  “... Yes...?”  “... Have the Others not arrived yet?”  “’Others?’”  “Yes. Others.”  “... Eiko, what is going on? I’m asking you, please. I need to know.”  “Then They are sure to come soon.”  “These ‘Others?’ More of your kind?”  “Yes. If They are not here already, then They will be arriving in other places across this world just like this place.”  “... How many?”  “...”  “Eiko. How many are coming?”  “... All of Them.”  xXx  “... and that is why here, at the prestigious Elsewhere University, you won’t find a more dedicated, hard-working, tenacious, and downright deadly group of law students going out to tackle the changing world and all its most fantastical issues and difficulties apt to come in the future. Thank you.”  The auditorium burst into applause, and Hidi’s professional demeanor eased as she blushed and bowed profusely to the audience. The crowd stood for a standing ovation as she walked back to her seat with a spring in her step. In the seat beside hers, Hazel was thumbing through his smartphone with a wry grin on his lips.  “Well, you’re certainly chipper,” said Hazel to Hidi without looking up from his phone.  “Well if you cared to pay attention, I did just kick major ass with that speech I just gave to our donors and alumni, so...” Hidi theatrically spun and sat down in her chair, letting out a proud sigh of victory. “Just drink in that standing ovation.”  “I paid attention,” said Hazel, giving Hidi a thumbs up still without looking up from his phone. “Good job. Really.”  “What’re you looking at?” asked Hidi, leaning over to take a peek at Hazel’s smartphone.  “Oh, just a thing.”  “Just a thing?”  “Mmhm. A news thing.”  Another voice was speaking through the microphone, belonging to the head of the EU Law Department as she praised Hidi for the rousing speech presented to the college benefactors and alumni.  “Ah. Found it,” said Hazel.  “Found what?” asked Hidi.  Hazel slipped his phone into his pocket, glancing at Hidi with a grin and a wink. “Look up #OxfordHill on Twitter.”  “What?” asked Hidi. But the Law Department head was already calling on the campus ace-debater and top-ranked Law student, Hazel F. Downs, and Hazel was already up and shaking the department head’s hand, thanking her for the glowing introduction.  Oxford Hill?  Hidi reached into her purse and pulled out her phone, clicking on Twitter to find her dashboard lighting up with new posts and tweets from friends and news outlets alike.  All of them had the same #1 trending hashtag: #OxfordHill.  Most of the posts were new, but all of them showed pictures of Oxford University being suddenly displaced by a... hill from underneath... the campus...  “Oh shit,” Hidi whispered.  Hazel stepped up to the podium, bumped the mic for assurance, lifted his hands for the auditorium to quiet, then cleared his throat to speak.  “For those of you in the audience who don’t already know about this,” said Hazel, pulling out his phone to read from a news article, “At 5:30 this morning, an unexplained rumbling preceded the sudden and alarming rise of a hill of unknown origins beneath Oxford University in England. Afterwards, strange phenomena began to be reported by those in and around the university area. Things such as rapid growths of roses and thorns around the vicinity of the campus and other inexplicable disturbances within the campus. The most unsettling reports include students and faculty suddenly disappearing, then reappearing hours later, some with cuts and bruises, some seeming relatively unharmed, but all of whom had no memory of where they went or what happened during their disappearance...”  After Hazel was finished reading, it wasn’t long before Hidi heard the stirring of the audience as they used their own phones to confirm Hazel’s story. There were gasps and murmurs dispersed amongst the attendants as one by one they saw on their own social media feeds the pictures of Oxford becoming displaced by a verdant hill rising up from underneath.  “The world as we know it,” said Hazel, his voice strong enough to reclaim the attention of his audience from their nervous stirrings, “is on the verge of an age unlike any other in human history.”  He paused for effect, then continued.  “Years ago, the alumni of this campus - those of you currently in the audience right now - you all thought you’d seen everything. You all graduated with the impression this school showed you the furthest extent of how strange our present world can be. You thought you’d be the only ones prepared for the strange things which bump in the night.”  Hazel lifted up his phone to the audience, the photo of the Oxford Hill taking up the whole screen.  “Clearly,” said Hazel, “this is not the case anymore. Ladies and gentlemen, we are no longer an isolated incident, no longer to be relegated to a mere urban legend or rumor easily denied by the outside world. This,” Hazel again gestured to his phone, “is the wake-up call that the world needs to finally understand that this university is the only one best equipped for this new age soon to be upon us. An age in which mankind is no longer the dominant force in the world anymore. An age in which forces far more intelligent, clever, and powerful than we now walk among us as real as anything else in our world.”  Hazel looked around at the captivated crowd, then took a long breath.  “None of us thought we’d live to see things like these. None of us thought we’d be the generation who came into contact with... well, with Fae from times of myth and legend.”  The crowd gasped and murmured fearfully at the word “Fae.” Not the “Fair Folk,” not the “Gentry,” that old and generalizing title which so easily drew Their ire. The audience appeared restless and it seemed some were ready to leave when-  “But there is a way,” said Hazel, his voice booming through the tentative crowd, “to communicate with Them. There is a way to understand Their wants and needs and desires, and we will not discover it by fearing Them from now until the end of time. I can already see some of you are scared. Some of you probably think nothing good can come from meddling with Them, and that we just need to bow our heads and allow Them to run amok. That we should see, hear, and say nothing about what and why we fear Them and simply go about our college years fearing for our lives, praying your friends and loved ones won’t be spirited away, and knowing some of the kids in your freshman class may not ever leave the halls of this school and that there isn’t a thing you can do to stop it...”  The auditorium was held in a heavy silence. Hazel saw the alumni in the crowd no longer fearful, but understanding and somber to his words. He allowed the silence to linger, then shook his phone once more before the assembly.  “No. More. They are here. And if They aren’t already here, then I can promise you right now as sure as the Sun rises and sets that more are already on Their way. And we must be ready for them. As the inheritors of this new world we are preparing to face, it is not only our task but our duty to the human race that we apply ourselves as quickly as conceivably possible to learning as much about the Gentry and all their myriad forms. Because They will be either the bane or the boon of mankind, and we must be prepared for the good, the bad, and the ugly which They will bring to Earth in the years to come. And no campus - not in this state, not in this nation, continent, nor planet - is so singularly at the forefront of this brave new world more worthy of your contributions and support, than this one you are currently standing in: Elsewhere University. Thank you.”  Cheers, whistles, and applause exploded from the crowd. The audience rose to give Hazel a standing ovation, and he humbly accepted their praise with bows of his own.  But there was one woman in the auditorium who was neither clapping, nor standing.  Hidi was too busy staring at Hazel’s twin shadows, both unnaturally immobile amidst the glitter of a hundred camera flashes.

[twelveunitsshy-blog]

Confession

R76 AU time?  Okay.  Again, I've gotta get this stuff outta my system before school starts, so I rushed this out.  And I'm totally neglecting my reblogging duties right now, which sucks!

Summary: After the fall of Overwatch, Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes were declared dead.  After spending time on the wrong side of the tracks Jack finally comes to the decision that he needs to turn his life around.

Warning: References to violence, drug use and it starts out kinda serious, but then gets a little stupid at the end.

Confession

Thanks to the Soldier Enhancement Program, it was easy for Jack Morrison to stalk his victims until they were in the shadows and rob them of whatever valuables they had.  If they put up too much of a fight, he'd have to kill them.  It was as simple as that.

At first he thought that an even simpler way to go about getting what he needed would be to go directly to the source and take everything they had.  As a matter of fact, he'd done it a few times before.  But killing your drug man was not only in poor taste, it wasn't very smart.  After a few times of doing that, Jack wasn't sure how he'd get his next fix.

So instead, he'd steal what he needed to get the money and then find a reliable dealer so he could have a constant supply.  It was a much smarter way to do business.

Now Jack sat in his little studio apartment, white lines of powder disappearing into the rolled up piece of paper he had jammed up his nose.  With what technology had become, there were easier ways to get the stuff into his body, but he preferred to keep it simple.

It only took a few moments to take effect and despite the fact that he lived alone, he murmured, "This is the best batch yet.  It's almost like it was made for enhanced soldiers."

Due to his enhanced condition, Jack was forced to do more of a drug before he felt the effects, but obviously today was a good day.  He quickly stood, not really sure of where he was going, and knocked over a box that was on his shelf.  Laughing at himself for his blunder, he dropped to his knees to put the contents of the box back where it belonged.

One of the first things he picked up was a picture that nearly blew his high.  It was of himself and Gabriel Reyes during their Overwatch days.  Boy, did they look happy.  Gabriel had been his best friend, after all.  Jack respected the man.  Hell, he'd even loved the man.  And it was in much more than a brotherly way.  As a matter of fact, Jack had been so desperately in love with Gabriel that he could never muster the courage to tell him how he really felt.

And even after all these years, those feelings seemed to come flooding back.

Jack sighed and looked at the remaining white lines on his coffee table.  He could easily override those feelings by snorting a few more of those, but why bother?  He'd been doing this same stuff, and variations thereof, for years and it hadn't erased any of it.  The memory remained and he was somehow still clinging to his feelings for Gabriel.

He'd never told a soul about those feelings either, barely even wanting to admit them to himself.  And regardless of the fact that Gabriel must have hated him to go to the extent of destroying Overwatch, he was still madly in love with the man.

Again, Jack laughed at himself, this time because of his current situation.  "I just turned a perfectly fine day into a pity party for one."

His short-lived high was long gone now, pushed aside by memories of days gone by and missed opportunities.  He'd had plenty of chances to tell Gabriel how he felt, even if it didn't amount to anything.  At least Gabriel would have known.  Maybe it would have even changed the course of events that lead to the fall of Overwatch.

But that wasn't going to change anything now.  Overwatch was gone, Reyes was dead and Jack was now a no good junkie.  It was something he'd thought about time and time again.  He just wanted to stop thinking about it.  So, he went back to his couch, grabbed his makeshift straw and made those white lines on his coffee table disappear.

Even though he'd practically snorted until he passed out, Jack couldn't shake thoughts of the old days.  And he couldn't shake thoughts of what he'd become.

He was suddenly walking down the street with no idea where he was going or what he'd planned to do.  All he knew was that he ended up standing in front of a church.

Jack found himself sitting inside the confessional, staring at his own hands.  What was he even doing?  He'd never confessed a day in his life.  He wasn't even religious.  Maybe he just wanted to talk to someone.  And talking to someone would be a good first step if he wanted to get out of the rut he'd been living in for the past decade.

The priest waited patiently for Jack to begin.  But where should he begin?  Should he begin at the beginning?  Should he begin at the end and work his way backward?  Should he begin at what was bothering him the most?

"Bless me Father, for I have sinned," Jack started.  That was how these things usually started, wasn't it?  He paused for a long time, unable to think of what else to say.

The priest waited for a moment before he spoke.  "How long has it been since your last confession, my son?"

"I...I've never confessed, Father...."

"I see.  Please continue," the priest urged.  He had a kind and soothing tone even though his voice was a bit on the rough side.

Jack sighed and tried to think of where to start.  "Well, I'm not proud of the man I've become, Father.  I was well-respected and I helped people a long time ago.  And now I do nothing but hurt people and participate in selfish activities."  Even though this was a confession, he wasn't comfortable giving specific details about what he'd been doing.  He was a criminal after all.

"And why do you think this change came about?"

That was a pretty good question.  Jack wasn't really sure how he should answer it.  Surely this priest knew who he was and the organization he'd worked for.  Just about everyone knew about him.  But maybe the priest was asking the question in order to get him to think about the answer himself.

"I had a very prestigious job many years ago, but the organization collapsed and I began working odd jobs," Jack explained.  "But then I started spending a lot of time thinking about the past."

"And that's what made you selfish and hurtful?" the priest asked.

Jack thought about that for a while.  Dealing with his thoughts of the past had turned him to drugs in order to block out the thoughts and numb the feelings he got from thinking about all that stuff.  But it all kept coming back and he resorted to doing more drugs more often to numb the pain of remembering.  But it wasn't the fall of Overwatch and the memories of his time in the organization that he wanted to forget.  It was Gabriel and his feelings for him that Jack wanted to get rid of.

"A former co-worker...," Jack began as he stared at his hands again.  "I was....  I was in love with him."  It suddenly felt as though a weight had been lifted off his soul when he said it.  He never knew how good it could feel to simply say the words.  He'd been in love with Gabriel back then and even though Gabriel had died years ago, he was still in love with him now.  "I loved him, but I never told him."

The priest was quiet for a long time and Jack wondered if he'd offended him in some way.

"Then you should tell him, my son," the priest finally said.

Jack frowned.  "I can't.  He died a long time ago."

"You shouldn't let that stop you from telling him.  Do it when you leave here.  Visit his grave and tell him how you feel," the priest suggested.

It seemed like a good idea.  If telling a complete stranger felt that good, maybe saying it out loud to Gabriel's spirit would help even more.

It wasn't a very long walk from the church to the cemetary where Gabriel's tombstone stood.  Jack had only been there once since the fall of Overwatch, but he remembered exactly where it was.

As he made his way toward the section where Gabriel's body would have been buried had it not been completely obliterated, he noticed a hooded figure standing near the tombstone.  He couldn't go confessing his love for the dead while someone else was around.  Then he would just seem like a nutjob.  So, Jack strolled over and stood patiently waiting for the interloper to leave.

"Oh, there you are.  I thought you'd changed your mind about showing up," the hooded gentleman said.

It was the voice of the priest!  This man must have been really dedicated to his 'flock' if he was out here to accompany Jack during his visit.

"Go ahead," the priest said.  "I believe you had something to say."

As the priest removed his hood, Jack stood there staring in astonishment.  This priest, this hooded stranger, was none other than Gabriel Reyes himself.

Jack wasn't sure if he should kill the man or kiss him.  "Reyes?"

"Yeah.  I was just as surprised when I saw you sitting in the confessional.  You're looking pretty good for a dead man," Gabriel said with a smile that nearly melted Jack to the bone.

Then Jack thought about the fact that Gabriel was the one he'd confessed everything to, including the fact that he was in love with him.  The blond wasn't really sure what to say at this point.  "The last time we saw each other, we were at each other's throats."

"Jack, I'm a different man now.  And from what you said in church, well, it sounded like you took a wrong turn.  I'd like to help you," Gabriel told him.

Jack noticed Gabriel moving closer to him.  "Gabe...."

"I want to help you, but you have to say what you came here to say."

There was no way this was happening.  They were in a cemetary and Gabriel was standing so close that Jack could feel Gabriel's breath on his lips.

"I love you," Jack whispered closing his eyes.  He immediately felt Gabriel's lips touch his, but it was only briefly.

"Good.  You, Jack my boy, are on the road to redemption," Gabriel said as he flipped his hood back on.  "Come on.  I'll give you a ride back."

Jack stood there stunned.  He half expected Gabriel to at least tell him that he loved him too.