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self-proclaimed-chaotic-good · 5 years

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Black Water | Nasir “Naz” Khan x Reader (Oneshot)

Trope Prompt: Hurt/Comfort

Words: 2151

Fandom: The Night Of (HBO)

Warning: Minor swearing, mentions of drug abuse, murder, and attempted assault. Some spoilers of the end of the show.

Summary: Naz tries to seek help after his ordeal and meets someone that saw him more than a suspected murderer and would help prevent him from losing himself. Title inspired by Black Water by Of Monsters and Men

How can anyone ever recover from that ordeal? Just one night of defiance, of wanting to fit in, turned Nasir Khan’s life around for the worst. His curiosity, his indulgence, would have had a different result if he had been another ethnicity, if he hadn’t gone back to the house, if he had done this and that. It’s over. It’s done. And he can’t undo that night.

Here he was, trying to get into the good graces of his mother and his therapist and maybe even himself, sitting in a large room in a circle with other people. He couldn’t help but think back at his mother’s expression during the trial, during those visits, and the night he came back home.

He was grateful that his father, though disappointed in him, believed that he was no murderer. Was he completely innocent? No. But for what he was charged for, yes. But that look in his mother’s eyes made him feel that he might as well have killed that girl, that there was a part of her that believed that he could have. And no matter how much Naz tried to drown out the noise, the stares, the guilt, it continued to haunt him even as he closed his eyes.

The pillows were too soft, the mattress, too. The need for that high itch at him daily, but he was trying to ignore it. If not for himself, for his mother. That still doesn’t stop him for taking sleeping pills, maybe one or two more than necessary just to sleep.

After he was released from Rikers, his lawyer told him to ignore the stares. They’ll eventually move on to the next scandalous thing. But he also added that he should see a counselor or therapist. At the time, Naz didn’t take it too seriously until the shakes were too obvious and after one large outburst at his unsuspecting younger brother, he decided that he should at least try therapy.

The group therapist was late, but it gave Naz time to take in the other patients. It felt more like the Breakfast Club for drug addicts. An athletic boy with his football hoodie on and baggy jeans that had his legs spread and his arms crossed as he was leaning back, almost sliding to the floor, a former preppy girl in all pink with long sleeves that was continuously brushing her hair, a stand-offish man with a gray hoodie and black skinny jeans and black glasses that seemed to curl into himself, and you with a striped sweater and skinny jeans looking at the group with a grimace. Naz guessed that he was the criminal in the group.

The athlete took out his phone and started scrolling through social media, snorting at a post. The pink girl paused her brushing to look around, as if the noise snapped her out of her trance. Her eyes landed on Naz and widened, recognizing his face from the news.

“What?” Naz said indignantly, sticking his chin up at her.

She quickly looked away and continued to brush her hair. Naz looked at the group again, seeing them casting side glances at him. You, however, were the only that looked at him head on. Once your eyes met, instead of fear or amazement or sympathy, your eyes were sincere and kind. You gave him a soft smile that made his throat tighten. He was the first to look away as he harshly cleared his throat and sniffed.

You sighed, looking down at your watch and shook your head. You stood up, making your way towards the door. The therapist, Christofer with an ‘F’, was always late to the group sessions and you were close to being late for work. They had unfortunately rescheduled you to one of the most inconvenient shifts that you had outright told them that you were unable to work, but it was either you work it or get fired. Your boss was an asshole like that.

“Where do you think you’re going, stripes?” The athlete said with a smirk, knowing how much you hated that nickname.

“Unlike all of you, I have a job,” you replied, “and I’m not going to be sitting around in a circle while Chris finishes with the receptionist. It’s not like anyone’s stopping me from leaving in the first place.”

“Then you’ll have to keep coming to these sessions longer,” the gray hoodie man spoke up, looking up with unfocused eyes.

“Greg, you’ve never missed a session and you’ve been coming here a lot longer than I have. Recovery is relative.”

“It’s Gavin,” he muttered, lowering his head.

“No, it’s not. Tell Chris that I’ll have to figure out how to attend the next session,” you said over your shoulder before leaving.

Naz bounced his knees, staring at the door as it slowly closes before shooting up and leaving as well.

“Hey, man, it’s your first day. You can’t just leave like that!” Greg called after him.

“Watch me,” Naz said.

Once he was out of the room, he whipped his head around, trying to find the direction you took. He saw a flash of your sweater turning the corner down the hall on the left, so he followed. He jogged down just in time to see you walk out the building towards the street.

“Wait!” he called out.

You walked for a while until you heard his voice again and you realized he was talking to you. You turned around and saw him jog over.

“Ditching, too?” you teased.

He nodded. “Where are you going?”

“Work, down at the Thai cuisine restaurant. Have you been there yet?”

“No… can I walk you there?” he asked, scratching the back of his head.

You nodded. You turned and waited until he fell into step with you. “So… first day and you’re already ditching, huh?”

“Yeah, I, uh, I went because of… reasons, but I don’t know if I can stay in that room any longer.” He stuffed his hands in his jacket pocket. “You not gonna ask about the… you know…”

You remained silent, stopping at the crosswalk. “Do you want me to?”

“Not really.”

“Then I won’t. It’s not my place, anyways,” you said with a shrug, moving along with the crowd as the sign changed. “I’m (Y/n), by the way. Why’d you run after me?”

“Naz. I don’t know. You seem more approachable than the others,” Naz said, “I guess I figured you weren’t gonna be all weirded out talking to someone like me.”

That made you chuckle. “Trust me, Naz, the others were weirded out when I first joined the group. Now, it either doesn’t matter to them anymore or it’s a joke.”

The two of you reached the restaurant and Naz followed you in without a word. The smell of spices surrounded him as he walked in and the heat inside made it too uncomfortable to wear a jacket. You told him to pick a seat as you disappeared into the kitchen, already taking your apron out of your backpack as you walked through the door.

Naz took off his jacket and took a small table near the back of the room next to the wall, another waitress setting utensils and a glass of water in front of him. You emerged from the back with your uniform and apron on, a pen and notepad in your hands. You switched with the other waitress and took over the other tables and taking their order, moving back and forth from the tables to the kitchen, before reaching Naz.

“I don’t… I won’t… I haven’t brought that much money with me,” he said, holding his hands out.

“It’s fine, I got it covered. Something simple to start with?”

He flipped through the menu and ordered. You took it and sent it to the kitchen before carrying out your duties. It wasn’t a crowded restaurant, but it was enough to keep busy. Naz was allowed to wait around even after he was done as long as he kept ordering drinks and snacks. He kept glancing at the time, ignoring the texts that his dad were sending him. You would check on him every now and again and he would try to distract you from your work.

When you were finally finished with your shift, you had changed out of your uniform and plopped down on the seat across from him. With his presence, you didn’t feel as tired as you usually would after a busy shift. Naz finished up his drink and stood up, telling you to follow him outside.

He led you away from the noises of the streets towards a bridge. He walked towards the edge of the water and leaned against the railing.

“I don’t know what happened that night,” Naz whispered, staring out at the water, “I just wanted to go to this party that the guys from basketball were holding. My friends was supposed to pick me up, but he backed out at the last minute. I really wanted to go, so I stole my dad’s cab. That’s when it all started going wrong, really. She was a passenger with her own story and maybe it would have been a more interesting love story if things hadn’t… ended the way it did. I never had a reason to kill her. She became a forbidden fruit in the papers, and if any other man had tried, they would have gotten away with it. Because I’m… me, I paid for it. She wasn’t supposed to be a fruit or a poor victim or anything. She was a girl with a rough past that was seeking a companion, someone to have a good time with.”

He didn’t know why he was telling you all of this. Maybe so he could get it all out, hoping to make sense of it all, to assure himself of how things had happened the night of Andrea’s death. There was no conclusion, no clarity or justice being served. He was proven neither innocent nor guilty, leaving everyone speculating whether he had really done it or not. That weight will be hanging above his head for a long time.

You stood next to Naz and crossed your arms on the railing. “Remember I told you the others were weirded out when I joined those sessions?” Naz nodded. “I had been in jail and was released a few months prior to my first session.”

His eyes widened. “For what?”

“Murder,” you stated, looking at him.

He opened his mouth a couple of times, then said, “Did you do it?”

“I did.”

The two of you remained silent for a moment, letting the distant sounds of the city and the water flow through the cracks of the bubble that you and Naz shared.

“You know why I go to those sessions?” you asked softly, “My dad and my brother were addicts and dealers. I ended up shooting up every now and then, especially when things get stressful. My mom was long gone by the time things escalated. They fell into debt and messed with the wrong people and offered me as payment.”

“Well, fuck.”

“Those people didn’t touch me. Not after I killed one of them,” you said, looking down at your hands as if you could still see the blood staining them, a hint of iron reaching your nose. Whether it was from the memory or the railings or both, you didn’t know. “They backed off after that. By the time I came to from the shock, the police were already busting in to arrest us. I was finally proven innocent on the grounds of self-defense, but by that time, it had been several months, maybe a few years, that I had been locked up. I didn’t keep track anymore.”

“Well, then…” Naz pulled out a beer bottle from his jacket.

“Where did you get that?”

“The fridge was open to customers, I just didn’t pay,” he said cheekily, shaking the bottle at you.

You shook your head, taking your keys out for the bottle opener and popped the cap off before taking the first swig. “I hope you do continue those sessions, though. It’ll take time for people to move on, but you should try, too,” you said.

“If you promise for more dates like this,” he said with a smirk.

“This is a date, is it?” He shrugged. “Maybe less alcohol, no drugs, no stealing cabs, and let’s see where this goes.”

“Okay.”

You raised the bottle to him. “Misery loves company.”

He took it back and tilted his head back to drink. “And such lovely company filled with misery.”

You smiled, scooting closer to Naz and rested your head on his shoulders while the both of you looked out at the quiet black water spattered with red and blue as a police car drove passed, carrying Andrea’s abusive ex-boyfriend in the back.

#The night of #Naz khan x reader #Nasir Naz Khan x Reader #Naz khan #Riz Ahmed #writersmonth2019 #oneshot #That ending of The Night Of was so bittersweet #riz ahmed imagine

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inappropriatefangirlneeds · 5 years

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Gotham s5ep9 “The Trial of Jim Gordon” Personal Review

“Well, I did not see that coming” Warning NO spoilers below, why am I so late with this ..

“Gotham has a chance to be born anew. To return to what it was before people ripped down the trees and paved over the earth. He's trying to reunify with the mainland to save all these people. A return to filth. Pollution. He's fighting for death, while I promise life in its purest form.” “The plants will adapt; they always do.” So IVY PEPPER is the big bad in this episode she wants to get rid of Gotham people and one of the first steps is getting rid of Jim Gordon. But in the end she´s gone and forgotten about, you´d think there would at least be some tiny reference. Honestly I think I could really dig misanthropic Ivy (is there some plant based black metal .. hmmm ) but I don´t think they built this up well enough, that they just give her these ridiculous powers and send her out to try to kill a lot of people and now all people, and then just have that fade into nothing basically doesn´t help the case. Ugh. Also Ivy leaves Selina with that gang guy she already fought against and they repeatedly mention their history despite the guy being also under the influence of Ivy. Which is odd because .. first of all, if the history with Selina is important he should be there without being drugged. Also if his history with Selina is not important she could have just picked anyone else and probably would have had a better chance because as we all know SELINA KYLE already had a field trip with him. So why would he be a threat now? (I mean unless you count some the presence of my dame made me win the jousting effect, which is a thing but not in gotham) Well the whole plot is Ivy gets Jim shot by Zsasz. Okay so this is stressing me out, I thought I came here for a crazy dream trip but Lee´s voice is haunting me. Can just everyone be alive n happy, pls. Hm I don´t quite know what to make of this trial, probably because there really isn´t anything about it .. and I think most meta in this fandom did a better job plenty times already. Nevertheless, he´s his own prosecution and nice, also is this his theatre stage voice? Before Ivy´s interruption the whole think started with JIM GORDON lamenting how the gangs get more aggressive and that they need at least a temporary CEASE FIRE to get their reunification and save lives. Oswald Cobblepot provided the venue for this and Barbara was present as well. But that does not matter too much. Big theme this week: RESPONSIBILITY And for fucks sake, the JIM GORDON trial just beats the same crap again that I´ve been annoyed with for forever. “I did my best. Your best never seems good enough.” “Therefore we pose one simple question: Are the people in Jim Gordon's life better off with him alive or dead?” I mean Jim did Lee dirty that’s a valid point but she´s not the only one and most of the trial bulk is about Jim just not being able to save people. People being mad they trusted him looking for safety. And I´m gonna try to just sum up the whole rant in short: If some pyromaniac sets a fire and the firefighters can´t extinguish it quickly enough it´s still not the firefighters to blame I´m so tired of this nonsense. Also we have a hint of the same nonsense with BRUCE WAYNE: He´s thinking that he is responsible for Ra´s and Galavan but again, see above. Or in other words: What Selina Kyle said. She hit the nail on the head with: “Jeremiah blew up your house”. There really isn´t anything to add. “And I know that a lot of people lost a lot more, but part of me wonders if it wasn't fate.” “It wasn't. It was Jeremiah blowing up your house.” Maybe it's time to move on. (…) And how many terrible things have happened to it because of me? Galavan. Ra's al Ghul. If this city really is my home, then maybe the best thing I can do for it is leave.” VICTOR ZSASZ oh Victor .. Victor in love is a delight, Victor in anything is a delight * So first of all he gets rough with ALFRED again, okay the other way round but, idc, it was too short * Also they just like repeating things .. I´m here for Gordon only Gordon we´ve had this but tbh I´ll take it again and again. “Okey-dokey. Time to boogie. Hey! I'm only here for Gordon. So all of you stay down. 'Cause I see anyone and, you know bang.” “Oi, oi! Now, I heard you were looking for Jim Gordon.” “Uh-huh.” * So technically, with Bruce doing “IvyLingo” the William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet quote could have been just Ivy´s influence but Zsasz reading Shakespeare is just right as roses as well, //gotham language// “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. You know, I'm really taking the time to stop and smell the roses these days.” * More is this IvyInfluence of is this something coming out of the drugged person. The name thing was such a childish take on being in love and I feel like there´s meta in this about IVY PEPPER and her age ups, or maybe not fully age ups (but I´d still like to believe it wasn´t just body age ups but brain chemistry n stuff too but still experience is another factor) but, buut instead of thinking about any implications of that I´m just gonna find Zsasz adorable “Uh, I'm technically not allowed to say it. Her name. Which is such a bummer, because it's the most beautiful name in the world.” “You watch him.” I could say it all day. Hey, I will say it all day. Ivy. Ivy Pepper. Mrs. Ivy Pepper Zsasz. Oh, that sounds good.” * “Don't worry, though. I'm just a distraction so she can finish off Jim once and for all. You know, that's how great couples work. Maybe I shouldn't have told you that. Oh, well.” Okay so Zsasz ~is~ a damn chatterbox and can´t keep his mouth shut. // On a side note. I think I went into this a bit in a fanfic and this is imho such unused potential even with Ivy 2.0. Zsasz conditioned Butch to follow orders, Ivy just does it with a little whiff of a scent. I believe Zsasz would be SO intrigued by this, like not only for doing good work professional reasons but how fascinating would this be, he´d sure want know its limits, he´d certainly would want to know how far this perfume actually could push a person, skin themselves alive? // // On another side note: Zsasz was so close to spilling the name and he sure spilled the distraction plan which is so totally unbelievable dumb, which is why I´m wondering if 1.) Ivy would have needed to give better instructions 2.) Zsasz got some slight resistance gene to the perfume or 2.) if InLoveZsasz is just such a tremendous idiot .. // * “Alvarez makes a hell of a Mai Thai. I can barely feel my face.” Oh I want one of those, wait no make that two. Also someone make two or more fics involving Zsasz, Alvarez and cocktails. Please. * “I can tell you one thing. I am sick and tired of getting shot at in my own precinct.” It was about time someone said it, thanks Harvey Bullock. * “I'm sorry. Did you just say "People. Ugh"? “Lucius, what if I were to tell you I have in my possession the most intoxicating perfume you'll ever smell?” “I would tell you that's an abrupt change of topic. Can we go back to the part where you said "People. Ugh"? “ Okay that´s the only sensible and appropriate reaction anyone in this city ever had. LUCIUS FOX is the real freak on this show, cause he got his shit together. And his Ivy love grin is adorable. * “We're perfectly bonded, like carbon and oxygen or hydrogen and oxygen “ “We do not have time for this.” Lucius Fox and Selina Kyle being awesome. * SELINA KYLE and BRUCE WAYN being on the same “maybe” page was sweet. Also her being mindful of her claws and not touching his cheek during the kiss. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was a date.” “Maybe it is.” “That okay with you?” “Maybe.” * Another repeat thing and another piece on the BARBARA KEAN turning into OSWALD COBBLEPOT list is her poisoning the gang leaders with alcohol. Oswald did it with Cannoli and well he killed them for good but it counts. * Also if the show had just put them side to side earlier, it could have been so good, soo good. * Also HA! I knew it. I mean my first impulse was to be like, wtf, why is everyone and their aunt trying to get on such good graces with Jim suddenly, why is Jim Gordon the key to survival now? Oswald and Barbara sure both did their fare share of courting Jim. And I did use this word on purpose because as Oswald later calls it, Barbara´s motive was not just strategical and political it was also motivated by her love for Jim Gordon. Which clearly and totally also means: Gobblepot. It´s just a logical extension if you follow the parallels. Oswald´s actions too were about liking Jim. And if that doesn´t convince you enough he has had that quip about Barbara knowing all about keeping Gordon happy. He sure would do the same, if Jim let him. That was all jealousy talking. * “If we're really going to leave Gotham, we need to keep Gordon happy. You know all about that, don't you?” * “What exactly are you doing? I'm trying to keep this city from ripping itself apart.” “So this has nothing to do with your feelings for Jim?” “What if Ed fails, and we are stuck here? This will put us in Gordon's good graces. Consider it a backup plan.” * “Controlling the gangs was not a backup plan. You saw a chance to convince James Gordon that you had changed. But he will never see you as anything but a dangerous woman keeping his child from him.” * “Ms. Kean, this may come as a surprise, but building a submarine from scratch by yourself takes time.” Didn´t I say so .. this still stresses me out though, building a whole submarine from scratch, how even * “I don't know what's going on inside that man's head sometimes.” “I think you'll find that he needs you a lot more than he's letting on.” Well, I need to hear it from him.” Well and there she goes, hearing it right after Jim woke up. LESLIE THOMKINS stays at home while Jim goes out and hunts. She´s not happy at first but then comes to terms with it I guess, Jim has this line about what else should he do not being him anymore. Well idk. Leslie doesn´t seem to be quite herself either. She went out as well, ran a fight club n stuff .. * “I never thought that this was how my life was going to be. I have no interest in being a father myself. I always presumed that I was unfit to be one.” Well, honestly I don´t think ALFRES PENNYWORTH can be considered fit to raise a child. What was nice this week was that he talked to Lee and offered his own insight about parenting without being a blood relative. That was a kind and considerate touch. * I have to look up which episode it was where Jim Gordon woke up to Edward Nymga and Oswald Cobblepot singing because wow that must have left a lasting impression if this visual turns up again * Edit: I didn’t really notice until I made gifs but Barbara´s “See, those drinks I just gave you they're poisoned. And you had two shots before everyone got here. So that should be taking effect around PAUSE now the rest of you have 48 hours before you'll need the antidote” line was so well structured. Like the now doubles as a 1) you´ll die like now and as a 2) so ~now~ that we got that out of the way let´s get to the real business .. and I love it //Gotham language //

#gotham #gotham meta #gotham s5ep9 The Trial of Jim Gordon #Victor Zsasz #ivy pepper #mine Gotham full episode reviews #gotham language

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