#you ever take a bad ship and think huh. this could be cute and mound it into something unrecognizable within your mind

[oblisker]

i need to get rid of my fraphne attachment because it’s almost entirely made up of headcanons . they’re like my little play dough but i CANT get rid of them and it’s disgusting. they’re not even well written. it’s GROSS and my brain still loves them because i’ve deluded myself into having this idealized perception of them

[grownups-are-the-real-monsters]

Alone Again (Naturally)

Summary: Bill pursed his lips. “I think-...yes. Yes I did.” He didn’t sound too sure about it which she found odd but decided to let that pass until he brought that up for himself, if ever. “I ran with a group. I can’t give names but I can feel it sometimes. Those summer days and shit.” He chuckled. “Jesus, they must have been my best friends in this shitty world...-Pardon my French if you’re a religious man.” He laughed in an eerie way that time.

Word Count: 2,702

Ships: Bill/Audra, mentions of Reddie 

{October, 1964. Still-shot of large suburban home. A pile of dry orange leaves marks the lawn. There is a concave dent in the right side which caused an autumn invasion in the grass, suggesting the playfulness of children in the home-}

Bill Denbrough sniffled to choke back a nervous nose-bleed and set aside the movie script. 

His coffee table was glass plated so he could see the mound of crumpled papers that were burrowed into the maroon carpet. He tried hard not to think about the mix of faded words typed across those folds because they’d cost him a social life to write but they’d been seen & rejected. 

He was the leading man in this shit-show he called a life and he so desperately craved a cigarette. He’d never been that much of a smokin’ kind of guy but it was just that kind of night.   

The body of the lonesome drip he was being was thrown over the bar counter in the Hotel’s finest drink station. That’s where he was physically. Mentally? He was on the porch on that fake October 1964 autumn day. It was much better than admitting to himself that at least six or seven people had already walked past him with expressions of concern and pity. He’d much rather be inside his own story like being trapped an oil painting. 

Rather, just the beginning of his story. He’d not want to even touch the ending which had somehow become inexplicably horrifying in the process of writing. It was something he absolutely adored on paper but didn’t want to live for himself...though something about it spoke to him in a familiar voice.

“Howdy partner.” Came an irritably cute voice from over his shoulder. 

Sure enough, bathed in the flickering gold lights was the tallest drink of water. Audra Phillips was sporting a criminally cute smirk and bouncing on her toes. There was a lovely painting of a sunset behind her head that framed her well. It was the picture of whatever cowboy western movie Bill couldn’t think of where the lead woman sparks fire in the cowboy’s interest...or whatever. 

She strolled on over and leaned her crossed forearms atop his legs which laid across the bar. “I tease, sorry.” She gleamed. He knew she’d done the southern accent to simply bounce off his past jokes about the ghost of a British accent she had now yet didn’t come with at birth. 

“Hey, hey, hey Audra. You come for a drinking buddy?” He flicked his empty glass and she let her long honey hair fall a bit into his lap when she twisted to look up at him. 

“Not tonight, Bill.” She winked. “Just wanted to see how you were....” Her voice faded as she pinched some loose jean fabric that hovered above his knee. “I just that part in the screen-play where-...” The woman begins to mime stabbing her right eye “The man accidentally stabs himself with those kids craft scissors when he trips, you know...?” 

Bill nodded with an amused smirk. 

Audra begins to giggle. “Do we, in the film, have the artistic license to change the color of the scissors from blue to purple?” She could barely ask without starting to giggle again and Bill wondered if she’d started to drink before him. 

He raised a brow and crossed his arms in a funny way. “No. You see, the blue symbolizes the sorrow that character had been feeling, Audraaaaa.” He pinched her. “Why do you ask?”

She ceased her giggling. “I wanted to see if authors really do hide deep, meaningful symbols in...the simplest of places.” She shrugged and Bill found her presence incredibly endearing. 

“They do...but not with that. You could change that. I was lying.” He laughed and heaved his body around to hang his legs over the side of the bar while Audra leaned against it to his right. She giggled again. 

“Why do you write such...horrifying stories?” her voice went velvet soft. 

Bill considered her question and hummed. “I don’t know. Quite honestly, it does seem pointless, huh?” He took on a minor British accent for some odd reason. “Where do I get off scaring all these people.” He laughed. 

“I’m concerned about where it comes from...is all.” She glanced into his eyes and shrugged. 

“You think I’m...messed up, Audra?” He laughed though it was astoundingly not funny. His favorite gal just shrugged again. 

“There just stories. They scare ya for a minute or two before you forget em’. This is just my time to be...spitting blood into the wind...” He gestured out in the open. “It’s all pointless but...I love it.” His hand fell back into his lap. 

“More than a minute or two...those craft scissors might as well be stabbed through my eye right now with how often the image pops up in my mind.” She shook at the thought. 

“Pop it goes, huh?.” Bill mocked in her accent again. “Like a balloon...only the balloon is your swelled eye tied to no string but your spindly nerves.” He chuckled, wiping his chin. 

Audra gagged. “Disgusting. Keep going, Billy and I might revisit my dinner.” The gag choked into another round of giggles but Bill had danced off in side-tracked thoughts. 

“My brother called me Billy.” Was all he said and he figured he’d been silent far too long because his girl glanced up with minor shock and concern. 

“George?”

Bill nodded and swung his legs back and forth slowly. The two of them exchanged looks and fell silent again. Outside the hotel, snow was hurling towards the grounds of New York and burying itself between the cracks of the side-walk. There was a particularly nasty crack just outside and around the block. Many ‘walk-arounders’ would trip on it the next morning. Including a man that Bill Denbrough might have once recognized as Eddie Kaspbrak. It’d be a freezing night and an even brisker morning by the look of it. 

Audra could’ve asked about the screenplay many crew-members were intensely curious about but upon seeing her friend sitting there, perched on the bar, she decided it was far from a good time. There’d been something so...off about him lately. She batted her eyelashes and turned again to face the bar, slapping her hands in a playful tune to which Bill responded by ruffling her hair. 

“It seems to me...-” He started and hooked his gal instantly only to fade his voice out once again. But with the soft look of concern painted across Audra’s young and wonderful face, he decided to suck it up. “I cried for three days straight when my father died, you know that?” 

That stopped Audra’s heart for a solid minute or two and he couldn’t blame that wide-eyed deer expression because what a sentence twist. 

“That third day...I think a lot of those tears came from the fact that I knew it would soon be my turn to be that tired old man.” Bill shrugged. “I miss when the turn from Summer to Fall was dreaded because of ‘back-to-school’ and not because the threat of seasonal depression was very real for me, y’know Audra?” He thumped his palms against his jeans and was grinning kind of wickedly. 

The ‘back-to-school’ girl that had once been in Audra was also long gone because she was approaching thirty-two. So she nodded with understanding. 

“I didn’t want to admit that some of the tears might have also been genuine fear to return home for preparations.” 

Audra raised a gentle brow and rubbed his thigh for comfort. 

“I was scared to go home...to that town, Audra.” He met her eyes and something ignited a frightening flame. “I don’t know why...but I could have thrown up thinking about having to go home just for my fathers funeral...I didn’t want to go at all. Does that make me a bad person?” His speech was starting to frighten his company but it felt uniquely euphoric to get this shit out of him. “Didn’t end up mattering anyway. My parents had moved up to Castle Rock just some months before and didn’t bother telling me. They could be a little...neglectful with me sometimes. I don’t consciously hold it against them.” 

Audra reached for his folded hand and rubbed something circles against his skin with her thumb. 

“My mother...” Bill leaned back on the beam and sighed. “Bless her but she...” he raised his hand and let it fall back into his lap. “Has just been having such a difficult time accepting that the only man she loved is gone and when you pair that with the long-lost littlest son from years ago...she’s a wreck. I try to encourage...to get her to keep going but...” He spared the phone hanging on the wall nearby a quick glance and scratched under his chin. 

“A big brother without a little brother...well he’s lost the years of practice with encouraging talks that he could’ve had with him. So, this thing with my mother is...bigger than me, Audra.” Bill downcast his eyes and Audra could see that small-town living behind them.

She breathed in deeply and gave him the softest smile that she could manage. “Bill, my friend...” She squeezed his hand. “That’s a lot to take in so I can’t imagine how it felt to have that living in your chest. Thank you for sharing it with me. I think of us as...good friends...best friends even?” 

Bill nodded his head. It wasn’t quite like the friendships of his childhood which had long since slipped his mind of true clarity but his thing with Audra was it’s own special kind. 

“Good.” She nodded back, cheeks blushed. “So let’s take a step back, yeah? Instead of sitting at this bar like a couple of...” 

“Sad sacks?” 

Audra giggled and thumped his leg. “Yes, Sad sacks. Let’s take a walk in this Christmas snow. Forget the film...” She gestured back towards the halls of hotel room doors. “And let’s go buy those batteries I need from Walgreen's or something.” She shrugged and helped Bill hop off the bar. 

“You still haven’t bought those damn things? What has your remote been dead for two weeks now, Audra?” He chuckled, taking her arm in arm as they strolled out of the fancy building. 

“I haven’t watched television since! I keep forgetting.” 

They laughed into the night. Audra’s warm giggle was enough to blanket the freezing air for a little while. 

                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The convenience store was littered with glittering Christmas bulbs, string-lights and wonderfully home-made crafted wooden Santas. 

Audra waited patiently for Bill’s return and flirted with purchasing a particularly adorable blushing Santa Claus while the hot chocolate in her hands kept her warm. 

Elvis was singing of those classic Silver Bells that she ached to hear over the loudspeaker. It was enough to make the girl want to move on over to stand right under it which she did...only there was a minor bump on the way who ended up being a man. 

She chuckled nervously. “I’m so sorry...I should watch where I’m going, shouldn’t I? Oh my, I got this all over you!?” Audra barely made eye-contact and hovered her hand close to where her hot chocolate had become stains on the guys shirt. 

His hand came to block her view and she first noticed the little pinky ring he sported and then she finally picked her head up to find his face. “It’s fine-don’t worry about it. A little hot, is all. But no big deal.” The man sounded a little frustrated as he fanned his shirt away from his chest a little but Audra could tell he wasn’t about to have a fit over it. “If I wore that sweater like my girlfriend had begged me, the cable-knit might’ve soaked up all the chocolate before it even got to touch me, huh?” He was kind of mumbling that more to himself but Audra giggled anyway. 

“Maybe so. A free drink for those knitted Reindeer...” She chuckled awkwardly at the sad attempt for a joke but the man genuinely giggled. 

“Actually, no deer. Just some snow-flakes...she knitted it herself. Took a class every Tuesday & Thursday’s for a while before she got homesick.” He laughed again and his smile was handsome and kinda dopey but in the cutest way. Audra tilted her head and got a picture of that Norman Bates fellow from that ‘Psycho’ film. She hummed. 

“You sure-?” 

“Yeah-yes. You’re totally fine. It’s just a shirt.” The man pulled his jacket over the shirt and zipped it tightly as if to display this opinion. Audra nodded with a kind grin before turning back and finding Bill standing at the counter without the new prize of candy bars she’d collected. 

“I’ll be off then, thanks for the kindness.” She patted his arm and with his nod of understanding, she took off for Bill once again. 

                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“In that small-town of yours...?” Audra started, standing in scary waters as Bill took on a curious eye. “Do you remember having any friends? Or was it...that bad?” She blinked, not sure why she was asking but she didn’t like to think her good friend was just so lonely in a place that reduced him to tears just some time ago.

Bill pursed his lips. “I think-...yes. Yes I did.” He didn’t sound too sure about it which she found odd but decided to let that pass until he brought that up for himself, if ever. “I ran with a group. I can’t give names but I can feel it sometimes. Those summer days and shit.” He chuckled. “Jesus, they must have been my best friends in this shitty world...-Pardon my French if you’re a religious man.” He laughed in an eerie way that time. 

“Can you miss people you barely remember?” 

“I should think so.” Audra rubbed up and down his arm. “If they were as amazing as you make it sound...then of course. Life passes us by and takes some of our memories but not our feelings.” Audra didn’t want to glance up...in fear that small-town was back in Bill’s stare. 

“Eddie....” Bill mumbled, kicking a pebble down the street like it would be their map. Wherever it rolled, whichever street, the two of them would follow it. “I remember-...him. A bit. 

Audra nodded, letting him have his map. 

“We were gonna build a dam or....I dunno.” Bill sniffled, letting the memory go. “I remember a bike ride where I could barely see through a film of tears...-” He broke to laugh though it wasn’t very funny. “But that might’ve been Richie...? Seemed to me that he might’ve looked at Ed’s the way I look at you.” He shook his head with a grin and kicked his little Eddie memory pebble. They took the next street in which it had rolled.

                        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Audra and Bill were giggling messes as they took on the Hotel’s stairs and flung themselves through the revolving doors. It was the most euphoric sense of relief either of them had experienced in a long time. 

Her fingernails picked at the wrapper hanging over her fist which was curled around half a chocolate bar. They went back to silence as they strolled back to the bar and listened to the distant cries of Christmas tunes. 

“You gonna be alright to sleep? Or are you going to stay up writing?” Audra poked his arm and Bill shrugged. It didn’t seem to be the confident answer of ‘sleeping sounds good’ that she wanted so Bill poked her back gently. 

“I’ll be fine, Audra. Thank you...you know for...” He gestured and his gal nodded to her man. 

“No thanks needed.” She leaned against his arm briefly, kissed his cheek and started on her way back to her room. Both of them felt the gentle idea of asking the other to their room but neither had the courage to ask. Instead, Bill watched her walk off with a blushing wave and Audra stole quick glances of him as she left him in that lobby. 

[carrera-ffxiv]

Memories of Home.

When did I start having these dreams? I’m sick of it. It’s always the same. A hint of nostalgia that lingers in my mouth like a bad aftertaste. Always teasing at what’s long gone and lost…

The woman beamed a smile at him. It was as if she were the sun itself, warmth emanating from her, too bright and dazzling for him to keep his eye on her. “I already told you, say hello to your daughter properly at least.” she held the small girl in her hands.

It was always the same dream, again and again, countless times. Now the darkness would come and take him away from them. He sighed and closed his eye. “This is just in my head...” Hadriel lamented. But as he waited, nothing happened. He perked a brow. “Huh?”

His eye opened and the beautiful woman regarded him strangely as she put the girl down who went to hug him and sit in his lap, snacking on a cookie her mother had given her. “Darling, are you okay? Did you get hit on the head?” her sweet voice threatened to melt his heart but his emotions were steeled against these dreams now.

A hand slowly moved to rest on the girl’s back who happily munched away and gave a similar smile to him as her mother. Bright. Happy. Albeit a little… clumsy, if one could describe a smile as such. Cutely awkward. Was this what they called lucid dreaming? This had never happened before. He could feel the warmth of the girl on his lap and in his hand.

“No… this isn’t real.” he grieved.

“Does it matter?” the woman responded with kindness in her voice.

“Yes. It matters to me.” a barely audible utterance.

“Still, isn’t this okay?” she urged.

“No… it’s not. None of this is real,” he rasped as his teeth grit. “A hollow… empty recreation of the people I love from memories I refuse to let go. I can’t.... I can’t… accept these ghosts. It’ll just be…” his voice broke a moment as he looked down at a confused little girl, her little cookie grew soggy with tears that fell from above. “...It’s like… I betrayed them.”

“My darling… the same as ever, always overthinking things. How’d you get this scar?” she touched his chest. In the blink of an eye she was next to him.

“I-I…”

“Cat got your tongue?” she teased innocently.

 “No… she uh… actually cut my chest…” he responded, almost a murmur while giving out a light chuckle.

“I’ll always be here for you.” she spouted randomly with the gentlest of smiles, a face of full grace and serenity, his mouth went agape a moment.

His eye opened when the boat rocked too hard from the swell that broadsided it. He instinctively went to sit up and his head hit the top of his wooden coffin-rack. “Fuckin’ gods dammit.” was uttered as he rolled out of the little alcove and tried to gain his footing. The curses continued as he continued griping about the third-mate who probably couldn’t figure out how to steer the rudder properly and actually avoid rocking the ship more than necessary.  He climbed to the upper decks and was blinded by light for a moment. Hadriel saw the land for the first time in several days.

Had it really been five long years? He pulled out a broken pocket-watch as he stood still against the breeze along the side of the ship. The time on the watch had frozen for him since that moment, the glass cracked throughout. ‘For my papa. I love you.’ etched on the inside. Of course it was more from his wife than his daughter, parents had a weird way of gifting things to their partners but crediting it to their small children. He paused, thinking about something that threatened to escape his mind should he focus any less on it… he had a dream. It was different. It was with his family. He shook his head and tried to focus but the boat rocked roughly again, forcing him to regain his footing. And just like that, the thought was lost into the wind.

The wind flowed against him. A smirk came as he lightly grasped at his eye-patch a moment. Hadriel pocketed the patch and his watch, revealing a bright blue eye typically hidden from sight that strongly contrasted his darker brown one. “Home, sweet home.”

He enjoyed walking through the port-town of Kugane, the sakura gently shedding their petals along the wind to give the image of a beautiful snowfall with a pleasant scent in the air. His crooked smile twitched as he tried to maintain an amiable demeanor. After enjoying some street-vendor food, a small boat ride, and a carriage, he arrived at his destination. He ignored the inhabitants of the small town and simply walked to its far reaches, next to a series of mounds protruding from the earth. He brought out some incense from his pouch before lighting it and placing it in front of two of the mounds. He carefully bowed on his knees, prostrating himself before them one after the next once planting the incense. His hand ran along the burial mound. “I’m sorry it’s been so long since my last visit, Castien. Daddy didn’t think he should visit you because… Daddy hasn’t been very good. Daddy’s sorry he didn’t visit earlier, Cas. He just… he couldn’t find it in him. Sorry. Daddy’s a bad daddy… Still… Daddy loves you kiddo...”

He unwrapped the bandages on his hands to reveal disgusting burns that marred every ilm of his skin. His fingers ran through the fresh grass on the mound. 

It won’t wash off his hands. The blood.

Hollowed out, filled with hate. After that hate is gone, what’s left?

He had a wife and kid once. They’re long dead now. He lived for vengeance. For years all Hadriel yearned for was vengeance. He lived, breathed and dreamed of killing everyone who had anything to do with the raids.

He moved over to his wife’s grave now, tears reluctantly escaping his will as he confessed his sins to her after five long years.

“After I killed again and again, countless fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, cousins, mothers, daughters, nephews… you get the point…” his voice shook, talking about Imperials, “You know what was left? How I felt? It all tasted like ash in my mouth. There was no retribution to be had. Revenge would never slake my thirst. Violence never quenched it. It would simply give me a small piece of my tattered soul a moment of solace before it died. Now, soulless, loveless, I wander, wondering what is next? I had promises to keep to the dead and I’ve kept them. I always told you that I’d open up a bar and that we’d have a little stage for you to perform… I still kept your instruments. I left your cello in my office. I have this… attachment to things I should throw away but I still have Castien’s toys near my bed.” his voice cracked and gave way to pathetic simpering.

“Now, I walk about a wandering corpse because I know in what’s left of my heart that you could not accept me for who I am now. Who I’ve become. If I walked into the afterlife to meet you, I couldn’t hold the you, the ones I love... with these stained hands and corrupted heart. No, every act of vengeance brought me further away from you. Now… it’s too late. I can’t end up in the same place you and Castien are. All I can do is try to be a man. Even if I’m pretending to be, and I end up only emulating what the shell of the man I once was looks like… at least I’m trying. Maybe, just maybe, eventually, you’ll be able to forgive me. I’ll be able to wash my hands of this blood. Until then, I walk this thin fine line. And I’ll continue to live, for your sake. My love. My sweet love.” he rested his hand on her mound before wiping at his face.

A dead wife, and a dead daughter. A cliche fit for a hero. But alas, there’s no hero to be found. Just a worn cynic limping with a tattered soul. 

He apologizes to them for not being able to end up in the same place as they are after he dies. His soul is already too stained to be with them.