#I was legitimately sad at the prospect of it breaking down

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

North To The Future [Chapter 10: Scar Tissue]

The year is 1999. You are just beginning your veterinary practice in Juneau, Alaska. Aegon is a mysterious, troubled newcomer to town. You kind of hate him. You are also kind of obsessed with him. Falling for him might legitimately ruin your life…but can you help it? Oh, and there’s a serial killer on the loose known only as the Ice Fisher.

Chapter warnings: Language, alcoholism, addiction, murder, discussions of sex, and you don’t get any plot hints this time you just have to read and suffer and yes there will be ANGSTTTTT!!!!

Word count: 6.2k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

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You’ve counted the scars on his chest until you know them by heart. There are twelve exactly, which feels significant; it’s the last week of the twelfth month of 1999, it’s the end, it’s the beginning. You read them with your eyes and your fingertips and your lips, these knots of corporal memory that form a constellation, not the shape of a hero—Hercules, Orion, Perseus, Achilles—but the footprints of ghosts.

The Juneau magnet has joined the rest of his collection, places he blew into like a storm and then abandoned, wreckage in his wake, downed trees and snapped powerlines and shingles ripped from roofs, finally at peace in his absence and yet somehow less. There is a jar on top of the refrigerator that already has your half of the money for the San Diego trip squirreled away in it. Aegon puts in a little at a time—a quarter here, a five-dollar bill there—and yet there’s never any doubt that he’s committed to it. It’s the same way he is with you. There are no grand gestures, no expensive gifts or intoxicating declarations. There are only small, feather-light moments as faint as the lines in your palm. You could stack up a million of them and they would never feel heavy. They would never feel like a cage.

Aegon is an open door, and together you are a dream: whispers and guitar strings, tangled sheets and refracted light, snow falling soundlessly beyond frosted windows, fog so thick it erases the stars.

~~~~~~~~~~

“How dare you,” Heather says when you enter Caribou Crossings. It’s Wednesday, December 29th. She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor and surrounded by boxes, an island in a sea of Juneau-themed souvenirs. “You float in here on a cloud while I’m sad, single, all alone in the world except for these hideous snow globes.” She holds one aloft for emphasis. “Why would anyone want a snow globe with a salmon in it? A salmon?”

You smile. You smile a lot these days. “Tragic.”

“No pets in need of your medical expertise?”

“Not really. Ms. Larson’s box turtle had a shell fracture, but now I’m free until 2:30.”

“How’s the making Cobainbies going?”

“No babies,” you insist. “Not of any variety.” Aegon as a father, as a husband? The prospect is horrifying. When you’re reminded of this—of the impossibility of a future beyond the next three months—you try to bury it like…well, like a body in a lake; each time it surfaces, you tie another stone around its ankle and sink it back down into the darkness.

“Is that what cracked Trent’s already less-than-impressive brain? You and Aegon?”

“Trent doesn’t know about Aegon. He just thinks we’re taking things slow. Honestly, I tried to break up with him about a week ago and…he got scary.”

Heather puts down the salmon snow globe and looks at you. “What did he do?”

“The same thing he did at the bar the other night. He was like…aggressive. Intimidating. But also apologetic and oblivious. It’s really disorienting. It’s hard for me to figure out if he’s…” What’s the right word? Dangerous. But you’re not sure if you can say that to Heather. “Seriously angry. I don’t want him to go all Stone Cold Steve Austin on Aegon.” Or me.

“That moron,” Heather sighs. “I’m so sorry. I’ll talk to him.”

“Uh, don’t do that.”

“No, it’s fine, I know how to put it in a way he’ll understand.” She stands, hands on her hips. “It’s just…you know…when Trent played football, if he was bored or pissed off he could run around and tackle people and knock them unconscious, and that’s how he learned to deal with things. And now he doesn’t have that anymore. He’s got friends and hobbies and a job, but I don’t think he knows what comes next. That happens to everyone, right? We all wake up one day and realize we’re adults and we’re supposed to have life figured out but we just…don’t. Trent’s a dumbass, and he needs to leave you alone if that’s what you want, and I’ll make it happen. But I don’t think he would ever intentionally hurt somebody.”

“I hope not,” you say softly.

Heather smirks. “So, are you enjoying all the super kinky sex with that Greek boy? Has he bent you into a pretzel fifty different ways? Has he dislocated your hips yet?”

“It’s not really like that,” you tell her. “It’s intense, but it’s…I don’t know. Different.”

The truth dawns on her, sunlight sparkling on waves. “When he leaves, you want to go with him.”

“Yes, but I can’t.”

“Why not? They need vets everywhere.”

“There’s more to it than that.”

“Look, obviously I don’t want you to leave. I’d be freaking heartbroken. Those four years of vet school were bad enough, and I always knew you were coming back. But if you feel like there’s something else out there that you need to experience…” She gestures vaguely, meaning the world beyond Juneau. “I would want you to have that chance. And then maybe you could end up back here one day knowing that this is really what you need after all.”

You shake your head, watching flurries wheel through the frigid wind outside. “My parents would be devastated. I don’t have any siblings, there’s nobody else, there’s just me. And Aegon…” He’s been running for six years and he’ll never stop. “He’s not the type to settle down.”

“Maybe he’ll get the whole alcoholic homeless rockstar thing out of his system and be totally normal by the time he hits thirty,” Heather says hopefully.

You can see it in a flash too sudden to hide from yourself: a house by the beach, white-blond children chasing Sunfyre around the backyard, golden-sun days and hot chocolate at night, cooking in the kitchen together like your parents always do. Aegon wouldn’t even have to work. I could still be a vet and he could take care of the kids and perform in some local rock band once or twice a week...and we could all be happy. You can’t believe that—not for more than a few reckless seconds, anyway—but you need to kill this conversation before it kills you. “Sure, maybe.”

“We should do something fun,” Heather pivots cheerfully. “While Aegon’s still here. While you both are. It’s the start of a new millennium, bitch! If we were characters on Friends or Buffy or whatever, we would be doing something fun and glamorous. We wouldn’t be sitting here in grandma sweaters surrounded by boxes of salmon snow globes.”

You laugh, although you are admittedly partial to grandma sweaters. “What do you want, a New Year’s Eve party? Flutes of champagne, glitter and fireworks? People making out at midnight?”

She grins. “That’s exactly what I want.”

“I could probably make that happen, actually,” you realize. “My parents keep bringing up the idea of having people over. They love any excuse to ply guests with food and rock music. I said I just wanted to watch ABC 2000 Today with them and Aegon.”

“Great! You can still watch ABC 2000 Today, just with thirty of your closest friends.”

“You are well aware that I possess, at the absolute maximum, like four friends.”

“Everyone is friends with everyone on New Year’s Eve. And guess what?”

“What?”

Heather’s face is determined, insolent, fierce. “We’re not going to invite Trent.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“New Year’s Eve?” Aegon echoes doubtfully. You’re curled up on the couch together watching the X-Files, Sunfyre sprawled across your lap, your head on Aegon’s bare chest; he has one hand in your hair, the other holding a rum and Coke. He doses himself with it like morphine, but he is far from drunk. He’s seemed better since he almost drowned. You wonder if it reminded him that alive is something he enjoys being.

“Yeah. My parents are so excited about it. They’re trying to plan a menu, but my dad has literally fifteen different appetizers he wants to make.”

“Sounds like he’s handling retirement well.”

“He likes to stay busy.” You sit up to look at Aegon. The light of the television flickers on his face, but his eyes are glassy and far away. As far as Miami? As far as six years ago? “So? What do you think?”

“About what?”

“The New Year’s Eve party, obviously.”

He shrugs, sips his rum and Coke, licks his lips slowly. Then he comes back to you, a moon growing full again after starving away. “Totally, Appletini. Let’s do it.”

“Yay!” You are shocked by your own enthusiasm; it’s very unlike you. Sunfyre’s tail thumps against the couch in approval. You turn Aegon’s face and kiss him, feeling the strange barely-there smile of his lips on yours. “And Trent won’t even be there, so we don’t have to be subtle about anything. We can hang out together, dance, cuddle, feed each other Swedish meatballs on cute little toothpicks…”

“Sneak up to your bedroom while everyone else is busy watching the countdown in Times Square…”

You giggle, settling against Aegon’s chest again, nestling into him. He’s warm and pliable and fits with you like the interwoven opalescent threads of the Northern Lights. His free hand pulls you closer; the ice cubes in his glass clink. The jar on top of the refrigerator gets fuller each day. “Everything is falling into place. Everything is going to be perfect.”

“Perfect,” Aegon agrees; but you can hear that he’s far away again.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Bitch,” Heather gasps when she sees you, awed and incredulous. She’s carrying a massive tray of miniature quiches: smoked salmon, ham and cheddar, crab and tomato. “Bitchhhhh!”

You’re wearing a red dress you bought for a winter formal during vet school and haven’t touched since. You went with a sweet soulful boy from Iowa who you felt absolutely nothing for. He would have made a good husband, you realize now; he would have come home every night and helped the kids with their math homework and spent his weekends fixing fences and grilling steaks. You wonder if people like that are born without any darkness in them, or if they just learn to drain it from their veins like poisoned blood. You wonder if there is some reservoir of malignant self-destruction in everyone just waiting to breach the levees. “I look okay?”

“You look delicious. You look sinfully slutty. I wish I was into women, that’s how good you look.”

“Thanks, Heather.” You have lingerie on to match. You’re red all the way down: satin, lace, blood. You’re even wearing strappy crimson heels. It’s something you can’t stop thinking about: Aegon slipping every layer off of you later. You take the tray of quiches and beckon Heather inside.

The house is decorated—to a truly excessive degree—with balloons, banners, and confetti. Welcome, 2000! one banner reads. We hope the Y2K bug doesn’t destroy civilization! Your mom and dad are frenetically readying appetizers in the kitchen. When they finish each dish, you bring it out to the dining room table: deviled eggs, crab dip and toast points, ham salad sandwiches, stuffed jalapeno peppers, chicken liver mousse crostini, reindeer sausages, bacon-wrapped scallops, Swedish meatballs, homemade Rice Krispies Treats, Tongass Forest Cookies, a towering Baked Alaska. There are chilled bottles of wine, beer, and champagne, beads of condensation snaking down the glass. The ABC 2000 Today special is on tv, but guests are only half-watching. Your dad’s newest Red Hot Chili Peppers album is spinning on the record player; to you, their songs sound like California, or at least what you imagine California to be. The plucky guitar notes of Scar Tissue tiptoe through the house like footsteps in sand.

There are people in the dining room, people in the living room, people huddled in their parkas and smoking cigarettes around the crackling firepit in the backyard. They’re talking about 2000, of course, and the presidential election next year, and the Olympics, and the internet, and their own mundane tribulations: knee replacements, gallbladder removals, hyperactive grandchildren, marriages and divorces. But they’re talking about the Ice Fisher too.

“Who do you think it could be?” you hear Dale asking some of his bowling league buddies on the other side of the living room. They’re all broad, bearded men in flannel and jeans, guzzling beers and weather-beaten by their work as fishermen, loggers, oil riggers. “Ex-military? Some drifter? Someone just not right in the head? You know, I saw this 60 Minutes episode about a brain disease—what was it called, Earl? CTZ? CTE?—and athletes can get it from having concussions all the time. Boxers and football players and such. You think something like that could make someone violent…?”

Heather is working her way through a gargantuan portion of crab dip. Kimmie and Brad are practically mounting each other on your parents’ couch. Beside them, Joyce is grimacing as she tries to lose herself in a fantast novel with a mostly-naked cowboy on the front cover. She only smiles when Rob brings her a plate of appetizers. You’re on your third glass of bubbly, festive champagne. You keep glancing at the front door.

“They have to catch him soon, right?” Kimmie says in between sloppy kisses: loud smacking noises, lots of tongue. “I mean, he’s killed five people. Five! That’s so many!”

Joyce flips a page. “The police called in the FBI. That’s got to lead to a breakthrough soon.”

“I hope so.” Kimmie shudders. “It’s constant now…I worry when I go out to check the mail, when I put gas in my Land Cruiser, when I’m carrying groceries into the house…I feel like he could be anywhere. Like he’s lurking in every shadowy corner just waiting to grab me.”

“I think you’re safe,” Rob says with a smirk, amused but grim. “No one who goes to Ursa Minor gets killed. Have you guys noticed that? None of the victims had ever been to the bar as far as I know. The Ice Fisher must do his stalking in a different part of town.”

“Weird coincidence,” Joyce mutters.

“Guess I need to start going to Ursa Minor,” Brad says, grinning. “I could use some good luck.” Kimmie squeals with laughter as he paws at her, greedy and frivolous. You think: Please don’t leave body fluids on the couch, please don’t leave body fluids on the couch, please don’t leave body fluids on the couch…

“Why are the Bee Gees on tv?” Heather complains. “Who wanted that?”

Kimmie asks you: “Can Brad and I borrow your bedroom?”

“No, Kimmie.”

“Not the bed. Just the room. We’ll put a towel down on the floor.”

“Boundaries, Kimmie,” you plead.

“Fine,” she relents, sulking. Kimmie is wearing a glittery white dress and looks very, very young; her eyes are large and blameless, and her hair is secured in two voluminous pigtails. There’s a rhinestone crown on her head that reads Happy New Year! “Is Aegon on his way?”

“Oh yeah, he’ll be here any minute.” You steal another glimpse of the front door, but there are no consequent knocks. You check the clock on the wall. 10:30 p.m.

“He’s driving?” Heather says around a mouthful of crab dip, thin eyebrows raised. “He never drives.” Because he’s always drinking, she kindly leaves out.

“He told me he wanted to this morning. He’s been picking up extra shifts at work on whatever boats need another man. Holiday pay is double and we’re saving up for a trip to San Diego, you know.” There are polite—skeptical? pitying?—murmurs of agreement. “He didn’t know when he would get off, so he said I should focus on preparing for the party here and he would head over as soon as he had time to shower and walk Sunfyre. Anyway, he was on a boat all day and I was here helping to make deviled eggs until my hands felt like they were going to fall off.”

“Huh. I hope he’s not passed out in a ditch somewhere.”

“He’s not,” you say, a little more harshly than you mean to. He’s been getting better.

There is a knock at the door, and the closest person—Mark Morehouse from the pawn shop—opens it. It’s not Aegon. It’s Trent. He’s carrying a cheesecake the size of a Pekingese.

“Oh no,” Heather breathes. Kimmie, Joyce, and Rob frown down at their drinks.

“Hey, Trent!” Brad says, blithely unaware of the shift in mood.

Trent, wearing a very stately black button-up shirt, matching blazer, and khaki pants, looks around the room. He sees you, mouths wow, and then gives a tentative wave. He doesn’t come anywhere close to you. He puts his cheesecake on the dining room table and then goes to join Gary and Matt by the record player. Your mom and dad soon appear to greet him, resting their hands on his massive shoulders, asking about how his parents are doing and whether he’s had any luck with the Forest Service. Trent tells them that he finally got an interview that’s scheduled for next week. They reply with congratulations, casting you furtive, appraising glances. Did you invite him? Their eyes say. Do you want him here?

“Do you want me to get rid of him?” Heather asks you. “I didn’t tell him about the party, I swear. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Of course she wouldn’t; but Juneau is too small for secrets, that feels more true every day. Heather didn’t need to tell Trent, and neither did your parents. Maybe he heard about it through Matt or Gary, or he eavesdropped on a conversation in the Foodland, or someone mentioned it to his parents and they suggested he go without knowing he wasn’t supposed to be in attendance. However it happened doesn’t matter. The damage is done.

Heather’s question reverberates in your skull. Do you want me to get rid of him? “No,” you say. “Not yet, anyway. I don’t want to cause a scene in front of everyone.” Everyone but Aegon, you think, and you wouldn’t call yourself concerned yet but you are growing annoyed, little by little like how a clock ticks towards a new hour.

Joyce sniffs. “Hopefully he stays over there.”

And Trent does keep his distance. Now Dale is congratulating him about his interview. “That’s a great sign, Trent, a really great sign! Getting your foot in the door is the hardest part. I’ll call over and put in a good word for you. I still have a bunch of stuff from when I worked as a park ranger…boots, compasses, trekking poles, snowshoes…I’ll bring a box over for you.”

“Aw, Dale!” Trent appears to be genuinely touched. “Thanks, bro! You’re the best!”

“Sorry, what’s wrong with Trent?” Brad asks, brow crinkled, one arm slung around Kimmie. “Did I miss something?”

“He’s just a little obsessed with our gorgeous crimson hostess,” Heather explains, gesturing to you. “Obsessed in a pushy, idiotic, not-flattering way.”

Rob adds: “And he occasionally turns into the Hulk.”

“Maybe Trent’s the Ice Fisher,” Brad whispers conspiratorially, and then bursts out laughing. Everyone joins him except you. You can’t really blame them. Trent is a local hero: a football star, a reliable employee, the son of a normal and respected family, the wearer of his mane of lustrous hair, the object of countless women’s affection, the man who dragged Aegon out of the channel when he nearly drowned. A few mutilated Taco Bell tables aren’t going to change that. An occasional verbal outburst—and from a former athlete no less, fiery and forceful by necessity and thus swiftly forgiven, like a champion thoroughbred prone to biting—isn’t going to change that.

But they haven’t seen everything I have. They haven’t felt it.

You stand. “I’m going to go call Aegon.”

Upstairs in your bedroom, you assess your reflection in the mirror lined with photographs: the past and the future, friends and family and that magazine cutout of the Ford Mustang convertible barreling down the Pacific Coast Highway. You touch up your hair and makeup, then admire your dress. It occurs to you that almost everyone downstairs is wearing black or white or silver, cold wintery colors, New Year’s colors. You are the only one in red. When you got ready hours ago, you had felt powerful and sensual and elegant. You had imagined disappearing with Aegon into this room just after midnight, his hands skating up your thighs as cheers and toasts rumble through the floor. Now, when you imagine your exclamation-point red dress in a sea of cool, sleek shades of darkness and light, it strikes you as perhaps trying too hard. Desperate, even.

You pick up the phone on your nightstand and dial Aegon’s number. The line is busy.

Who would he be talking to? you wonder, perplexed. Everyone he knows is here.

You can’t drive over to pick him up; not until some of the champagne leaves your system, anyway. And you could never ask someone else to take you. You have no idea what you’ll find when you get there. You hang up the phone and stare down at it for a while.

So this is what it felt like. All those nights when Mom was waiting for Jesse to come home and he never did, all those times they had plans that he forgot. She’d be sitting on the couch or at the dining room table trying not to lose her mind as the hours crept by, and the whole time he’d be off getting wasted somewhere.

You physically shake your head to chase the vision away.

Aegon is going to be here. He has to be here. He’s been getting better.

“No luck?” Heather asks when you reappear downstairs, trying to sound neutral. You know she’s not actually neutral. You know exactly what she’s thinking.

“I’m sure he’ll be on his way soon.” You plop down on the couch next to Joyce and gaze at the television without really seeing it. You are vaguely aware of the entertainers flitting in and out of the little black box: Neil Diamond, Faith Hill, Enrique Iglesias, Billy Joel, Barry Manilow, NSYNC, Christina Aguilera, Aerosmith. Around you, the party rolls on. You chat less and less and consume only water. You’re losing your appetite, and you want to be able to drive by the time midnight strikes. It’s 11:00, and then 11:15, and then 11:30, and eventually 11:45. More Juneau residents filter in, but none of them are Aegon.

“You okay, ladybug?” your dad asks as he moseys by the couch, and you send him away with a peppy affirmation and a too-wide smile. Your mom tries next, with similar results. They know you aren’t okay, but they can’t say anything about it. Neither can Heather or Kimmie or Joyce. You become a blip on a hectic radar, an island in the South Pacific so small the rest of the world flies over it without even looking down. The house is hot and teeming with bodies: friends and lovers laughing together, touching each other, chatting, kissing lips and throats and cheeks. The living room suddenly feels like it’s on fire, like there’s searing smoke pouring into your lungs. You tell your friends you’re going to the bathroom so they’ll leave you alone, and then you squeeze through the crowd and flee out into the backyard, which is blessedly empty. Everyone else has crammed inside to watch the tv as the clock nears midnight. No one wants to miss the ball drop. You couldn’t care less.

You plod through the snow in your ridiculous red heels until you reach the firepit, and you stand there glaring into the blaze with your bare arms wrapped around you. There is light snow falling, but you don’t even feel cold. You feel like you’re burning from the inside out, like you’ve swallowed the same flames that are dancing across your face.

He’s not going to show up, you are certain now. He’s really not going to. And he knew that all along, which is why he didn’t want me to drive him.

You feel furious, you feel ruined, but most of all you just feel stupid. You’ve heard this story before. You were a part of it, you were built by it. And yet somehow you thought you could change the ending.

Wind howls through the evergreen trees, and now you are cold. You clutch yourself tighter, shivering viciously and covered in goosebumps. You’re stuck out here; there are tears spilling down your cheeks, black trails of mascara that will scream to anyone who sees you that you’ve been crying. Crying over Aegon. Crying over some fucking alcoholic loser who stood me up.

Of course, you don’t actually think he’s a loser. That’s the problem. Everyone seems to understand exactly who he is but you.

You hear the back door of the house swing open, and there are heavy footsteps crunching through the snow. You sniffle, trying to wipe the tears from your face with your fingers. You imagine that you’re only making it worse: stained foundation, smudged eyeliner, lip gloss worn away. You expect to see your dad when you turn around, but you don’t. You see Trent.

“Don’t freak out,” he says, and holds out your parka to you from several feet away. “I’m not trying to annoy you. I just saw you run outside and figured you might need this.”

“Did anyone else see me?”

“I don’t think so.”

You grab the parka from him, yank it on, and zip it shut. You sniffle some more, mopping tears from your face. The stars and moon are almost fully obscured by clouds; the only light in the world is fire. After a while, you ask Trent: “What did Heather tell you?”

“She said that you are a mature, responsible, logical person, and that if I want to have any shot with you at all then I have to be the same way. And she was totally right. Losing my temper is immature, being jealous is immature. So now I’m giving you the space that you asked for. I get it now. I’m not going to try to tell you what you want. You’re too smart for that. You have to decide what you want for yourself.”

I’ve already decided, and I chose wrong. I chose so, so, disastrously wrong. “I appreciate that, Trent,” you say in a hoarse whisper.

He turns around to go back inside, then hesitates. “Look, I’m glad that you and Aegon are friends now. He’s not a bad guy. But he’s…I mean, he’s a mess, you know? And he’s always going to be a mess. And you can’t expect him to not be a mess. I’m sorry if he ruined something for you tonight. I know your family has sort of temporarily adopted him, and I know you like to fix things. But sometimes there are no bolts to tighten or nails to hammer in. Sometimes people just are who they are.”

You consider Trent, a mirage of bitter cold and firelight. He shrugs, offers a sheepish half-smile, flips his hair, and then retreats inside the house. Minutes later, as you try to choke back sobs under blind stars, you hear cheers and applause when the new millennium arrives.

As car doors slam and guests rummage through piles of coats, you slip mostly unnoticed into the kitchen. You pour yourself a full glass of water, drink all of it, and then make for your purse where your Jeep keys are stashed. You are intercepted in the dining room by your parents and Heather. You try to hide your face, but there’s no point. You are as clear as glass under the yellowish artificial light.

“Oh, ladybug, are you okay?” Your mom engulfs you in a warm, comforting hug that is also constraining. I have to try to find Aegon. I have to confront him. Not who I want him to be, but who he really is.

“I’m fine, Mom. I’m fine. I’ll be back in like a half hour, and then I’ll help you clean up the house.”

“The house!” your dad bellows, barking out a laugh of disbelief. “We aren’t worried about the house! What can we do, ladybug? Is there anything we can do?”

“No, really, I can handle it.”

“You can’t go anywhere alone,” Heather says. “It’s dark, it’s super late.” The other fact hangs in the air like snowflakes. The Ice Fisher might be out there somewhere, just waiting to snatch you off the sidewalk and sink you into a lake.

“It’s just across town, it’s a ten-minute drive, it’s not a big deal.”

“You can’t go out alone,” your dad insists, looking gratefully at Heather. Your mom nods along. “I’m sorry, but if something happened to you, we’d never be able to forgive ourselves.”

“I’ll go,” Heather says. “I think I’ve had too much champaign to drive, but I can ride along and walk you inside.”

“That’s completely unnecessary. I have my bear mace.”

“Then I’ll wait in the Jeep!” Heather throws up her hands, exasperated. “Look, bitch, one way or another someone is going with you. I’ll make sure you get up to his apartment—that’s where you’re going, right? I think we all know that’s where you’re going—and then I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait five minutes, I’ll wait five hours, I really don’t care how long it takes but there is no fucking way you’re driving off into the night alone.”

You aren’t leaving this house without a chaperone. That’s pretty obvious. Aegon doesn’t care where I am or who I’m with. He didn’t even care enough to call and say he wouldn’t be here. “Fine. Okay. But we’re leaving right now.”

You grab your purse and Heather follows you out to the Jeep, struggling to keep up. “I would not have guessed you could move so efficiently in heels,” she puffs, climbing into the passenger’s seat. You tear out of the driveway, tires chomping on salt and ice and snow. Heather tries to make conversation. You don’t quite ignore her; it’s more like you don’t hear her at all. You hear the wind and the snow and the blood rushing in your ears. You hear the shrieking hollowness left by what could have been.

You park under the streetlight outside Aegon’s apartment building, murky luminescence flooding the cabin of your Jeep. Heather sees the inky tears on your face…and she sees the rage too: raw, brutal, razor-sharp rage. “Well, Jesus Christ, don’t kill him or anything.”

You don’t reply. You venture out into the savage cold, your heels leaving deep punctures in the ice-coated snow like stab wounds.

Upstairs, Aegon’s apartment door is locked. You can’t hear anything on the other side. And as you rattle the key he gave you into the jagged slit of the knob, you feel a dark premonition sinking in: a pebble through waves, a body into the depths. There is an instinctual warning that hums from your skin all the way down to your bone marrow.

There is no coming back from this moment. It’s like balancing on a ledge. There is something terrible here that I will never be able to unsee, to undiscover.

What is it? What the hell is it? That Aegon’s drunk? Would that really be so out of character, so inconceivable?

Maybe he’s with another woman. Maybe he’s already left Juneau. Maybe he’s dead.

You open the door; and in the silent florescent light of the kitchen, the first thing you notice is that the jar on top of the refrigerator is gone. Then you spot it: it’s open and sideways on the countertop, and it’s empty. Sunfyre lies on the kitchen’s tile floor with his scarred muzzle resting on his paws. He whimpers, large dark eyes troubled.

“Aegon?” you say. You step inside, your red heels clicking on the scuffed wood. You close the door behind you. Your eyes scan the dimly-lit room—guitar, bed, lifeless television, phone he left off the hook, couch—until you find him. He is a pale, crumpled figure on the floor. “Aegon?!”

You rush to him, dropping to your knees so hard you bruise them. He groans when you roll him over onto his back, so he’s not dead. He’s half-dressed: red leather pants, combat boots, gold chain necklace, no shirt. When you lift your hand from him, blood stains your palm.

“What—?”

And then you see the stripe of maroon dripping down from the crook of his left elbow. There’s a bloodied needle on the floor beside him, a lighter, a spoon. There’s a small transparent baggie half-filled with white powder.

Aegon blinks at you through his tangled hair, pulling himself upright with great effort. Everything about him is heavy, hazy, like trying to run through water. He doesn’t seem aware of the blood. It’s in his hair, you realize; and there’s a smear on his neck, a splattering on his bare chest. “What are you so dressed up for?”

You can’t answer him. You’re so full of horror and rage that if you open your mouth you might start screaming and never stop.

“Oh,” Aegon remembers listlessly. “Party.”

“I watched the door all night like an idiot, like some desperate little kid”—waiting for their father to come home—“and the whole time you were here shooting up.”

He gazes at you, but from a distance, like he’s looking up from the bottom of the ocean and you’re the shadow of a ship. His voice is slow and muddled. “Yeah.”

“And I guess that’s where all the money went. The money for the San Diego trip.”

“Yeah.”

“How fucking dare you,” you hiss. You grab the baggie off the floor.

Aegon’s hand darts out and closes around your wrist. “No—!”

You rip your arm away from him. “This is heroin, right?” You catch a fistful of his hair and yank his head back so you can check his eyes. Aegon flinches and yelps, but he doesn’t struggle. His eyes are bloodshot, his pupils pinpricks in an ocean of deep blue. “How fucking dare you,” you say again. “How fucking dare you.”

You take the baggie to the kitchen sink, shove it down into the drain, turn on the garbage disposal. You run water down the drain until any trace of it is gone. When you return to Aegon, he’s watching you with those dazed, other-world eyes. He’s still slumped over on the floor; he doesn’t seem to be able to stand. He keeps trying to and flopping over.

“If you’re so mad then hit me,” he says. “Just hit me. Just fucking hit me.”

“Why did you have to come here?” you ask, wrenching the question out of you like extracting a molar or a bullet. Fresh tears brim in your eyes; embers kindle in your throat. You think of how hundreds of years ago doctors believed that you could bleed a patient to rid them of poison or disease, and you wonder how much of yourself you would have to spill into a bowl to forget Aegon. You wonder if your mom has ever forgotten a single thing about Jesse: his voice, his fingertips, the way his hair fell across his face. “If you were just going to make me want something that was never possible, if you were just going to show me what it felt like to be real and then take it away, what was the point? What was the goddamn point? Why did you have to come here and ruin my life?”

“You didn’t like your life before I showed up and you won’t like it when I’m gone.”

“I hate you,” you choke out.

Aegon’s jaw falls open. He can’t believe you said it. Neither can you.

“I want you to leave,” you tell him. “Tomorrow when you sober up I want you to pack your things and get on a plane and leave Juneau like you left everywhere else. I don’t want to know where you go next. I don’t want to know anything about you. I never want to see you again.”

“No.” You can’t tell if it’s defiance or denial or confusion. You don’t stay to argue with him.

You go to the apartment door, open it, and call to Sunfyre: “Come on, buddy.” He rockets off the tiles and trots over, tail wagging cautiously.

“Hey, hey, you can’t take my dog!” Aegon shouts, dragging himself towards you. His hands and knees thump against the wooden floor.

“Yes I can. You can’t be trusted with him. You don’t deserve him.”

“Please don’t,” Aegon whispers huskily. “Don’t take him away. Please.”

You twist his apartment key off your keyring and pitch it at him. It strikes his shoulder and ricochets off, clattering across the floor. He looks at it, not understanding. It’s a dead language, it’s an ancient rune he can’t read. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to. “Goodbye, Aegon.”

You slam the door, fly down the building staircase, break into the cold all-consuming darkness with Sunfyre on your heels like a shadow made of gold.

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon ii #aegon x you #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x y/n #aegon x reader #aegon targaryen x you #aegon targaryen ii #aegon targaryen ii x reader #aegon ii x you #aegon ii x reader

[gogoseijoh]

cigarettes - ukai keishin x reader

summary: you make sure keishin knows about your least favorite habit of his, and he thanks the universe every day for bringing you into his life

genre: angst, implied smut, fluff... just throwing everything out there lmao

word count: 1.8k

(a/n): i was not thoughts head empty trying to work on ‘losing’ so i took a break with this :) it’s kinda rushed but i like it and i hope you guys do too... i did not proofread sorry for any mistakes lol

You always waited up for him. It was one of Ukai’s favorite things about you. No matter what type of day he had, he could trust that when he scaled the stairs to the cramped studio apartment above the store, you would be there, in bed with either the TV on or a book in your hand, waiting for him to give you a kiss before you drifted off. You’d wait, even if he was just downstairs, taking care of some final things for the members of the volleyball club and cleaning the store. It didn’t matter how late it was or how many times he told you that you could go to sleep without him, you would always just hum and tell him to mind his own business, and that you would sleep whenever you wanted. Ukai would just chuckle and press a kiss to your forehead, savoring the fact that you cared enough about him to sacrifice your sleep schedule. There had been a lot of late, stressful nights for him lately, but you still kept up your promise. However, he did sometimes forget something extremely important to you. 

Ukai had made it a habit since you moved in together to keep a travel-sized bottle of mouthwash or a pack of gum in his pocket, along with a pack of cigarettes and his lighter. You made your disdain for kissing a smoker, and the fact that he smoked in general, clear when you started dating, and before you had started living together, he was largely able to abstain from smoking around you and just keep to vigorously brushing his teeth before any time he was seeing you. Moving in together, though, made it clear to him that he would have to take extra precautions to make sure his breath didn’t repulse you out of wanting to kiss him. He did his best, but sometimes it slipped his mind after he finished off his last cigarette while closing up the store. He’s make the mistake of giving you a deep kiss, just for you to grimace and insist on slipping out of bed to brush your teeth again. This was one of those nights.

You had smiled when you heard the jingling of his keys unlocking the door, and it only widened when the door creaked open and the blonde let out a raspy, “Hey, sweetheart.” Once he locked the door, he made his way over to you with a lazy grin on his face, a sign that his day had been a good one, and leaned down for a kiss, only for you to recoil before his lips could touch yours. Your pointer finger met his lips, and you grimaced, “Keishin.” He instantly backtracked, reaching the bathroom door and grabbing his toothbrush from it’s holder, squeezing a copious amount onto the bristles to make sure the taste of smoke would be gone.

“I’m sorry, honey,” he sighed, beginning to brush his teeth, “One uf deez days uh warnt s’ip upf.” His speech was garbled as he finished his proclamation that you had heard many times before in between strokes of the brush. He turned towards the sink, catching you shaking your head with a concerned look on your face behind him. You sat up in bed, pulling your knees up and wrapping your arms around them. He finished with a furrowed brow, spitting into the sink and washing off his toothbrush. Your face was hidden in your legs as he made his way back to your side, hand coming to the back of your head to stroke your hair, “What’s wrong?” He wasn’t expecting the tears in your eyes when you looked up at him. He instantly toed his shoes off, slipping behind you on the bed and pulling you back into his chest. This was always how he comforted you, knowing that you liked to lean back and listen to his heartbeat and feel the vibrations of his chest as he spoke to you. You nuzzled into his neck, and he could feel your tears wetting his skin. Ukai was completely lost in that moment. When he walked in, your smile had been so bright and contagious, so how had you gotten here within just a few minutes. He turned his head, planting gentle kisses on the crown of your head as you cried. He pushed your shirt up and before you knew it his arms were settled around your waist, knowing that when you were upset, nothing comforted you quite like skin to skin contact. It wasn’t much, but it must have been enough, because your sobbing turned into sniffling within minutes. 

You lifted your head from his neck and turned in his arms, straddling his lap and taking his face in your hands. He grinned, pulling you even further into him, “Hi, pretty.” You leaned in, pressing your forehead to his, just wanting to breathe in his air. Your silence was deeply concerning, because you were never one to hide from your feelings, and he spurred you on slowly, “(y/n), what’s going on? Did you have a bad day?” 

You bit your lip, shaking your head, “No, Keishin, I’m just worried about you.” The sadness in your eyes was legitimate, and it only grew as you continued, “I just, I don’t know, you’ve been smoking a lot more than usual. I know you’re stressed, but still, it’s not healthy. You know I hate that you smoke.” Ukai opened his mouth, but no words came out, but yours didn’t stop, “I don’t want to lose you, Kei. We’re getting married. We’re going to be starting a family, and I want you to be around to see all of it. I already hear you coughing sometimes, and it’s scary.” 

As he looked up at you, Ukai felt something within him stir. Again, he had known that you didn’t like his smoking as long as he’d known you, but he didn’t know that it was bothering you so deeply. You sometimes made sarcastic comments to him about it, but nothing this serious. You must’ve been holding this in for a long time, and Ukai’s heart fell into his stomach. He didn’t realize how much he was hurting you. One of his hands came up your back to cradle your head, hugging you so closely he thought you might lose the ability to breathe, but you only wrapped your arms around his neck, cheek to cheek with your fiance. Ukai murmured into your hair, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I never meant to hurt you like this.” You were so small in his arms, mostly from the emotional exertion of finally letting out your worries. Ukai continued, “I was focusing on the wrong part of the problem. I need to work on it.”

“I do appreciate you taking care of your breath, though,” you whispered, trying to break the tension with an attempt at a joke, “I’ll do anything to help you quit, Keishin. I love you so much.” You pulled back from his embrace, looking in to his gorgeous eyes in wonder.

His lips curled into a smile, “I love you more.” You suddenly leaned in, capturing his lips with yours. It was a slow, deliberate kiss, all of the passion you felt channeled into it. He couldn’t help but groan into it, feeling how soft your lips were against his. You were so sweet to him, so kind and so much more than he thought he deserved. You had assured him multiple times that you were with him because you loved him, and he was the absolute perfect man for you. He had won your affection a very long time ago, but he still found himself wondering at times why you had chosen him. When Ukai had first begun to like you, so had Shimada, and it became a sort of competition to see who could woo you first. It was futile for Shimada in the end, because anyone who came close to you and Ukai could see how much you liked each other. Ukai liked you because you were both strong and soft, keeping him on his toes with your witty comments and drawing him in with every giggle and grin you gave. You were just as whipped. You loved his hair, often helping him with touch ups, and you loved his voice, the tone always soothing you. Shimada had given up as soon as he saw it, that spark between you that lit the world around you on fire. When you were together, your smiles couldn’t be broken, and it was contagious.

Keishin knew he couldn’t let you go no matter what, so four years after you started dating, he proposed. It was simple, just a question he asked so casually that you could’ve missed it. You had been wrapped up in bed one morning, sheets tangled with your legs and your back pressed to his bare chest, soaking in the feeling of his warm skin. It was still dark, but you had woken up when he had tried to get out of bed, and you were quick to pull him back down. He told you that he had to open the store, but he couldn’t resist staying longer when your lips met his, not caring about any morning breath. That kiss quickly turned into his quick hands traveling down your body jokingly saying, “If you’re keeping me here, I gotta get something out of it.” That was just a front. There’s nowhere else in the world he wanted to be. The afterglow was spectacular, both of you breathing deeply and covered in the sheen of a light sweat. You were happy that you got him to stay a little longer, but you knew he had to go, so you turned in his arms and gave him one last kiss. You hummed, “Go get dressed, Kei. I don’t want your grandma to yell at you again, and more importantly, I don’t want to get yelled at.” You went to pull away, but Ukai didn’t release you, looking at you in a way you had never seen before. Before you could question it, he spoke quietly, “Marry me, (y/n).” You froze, eyes wide in disbelief. He continued, “I’m serious. I want to marry you. Will you marry me?” You said yes. 

Ukai couldn’t believe you said yes, but then again, here you were moved in to his tiny apartment a few months later with your wedding three weeks out. You did so much for him. How could he not notice how much his smoking bothered you? This is the least he could do, and he logically knew it wasn’t healthy. You were right about the prospect of a family, too. Ukai wanted to be there for you and your future children as long as possible, and if he kept smoking, that wouldn’t happen. He didn’t really care how difficult it would be, because it would be completely worth it to be in your life a long time. What could be more perfect than being able to grow old with the love of his life? The next day when he was researching the best ways to stop smoking, he couldn’t think of a single thing better.

#ukai x reader #keishin ukai x reader #haikyuu!! #ukai keishin x reader

[hoaryoldbitch]

bittersweet and strange 1/3

If they hadn't been interrupted, Sansa would have let Jon kiss her. Try as she might to deny it, she's quite certain about that. She'd also quite forgotten that he was still completely naked until he leapt out of the bed to snarl at the door.

It's a fortunate thing she doesn't have time to dwell on it right now. Visitors have come to Castle Black to see Jon, but she can't allow that. She's going out to meet them in the King's Tower. She dons her cloak and keeps her head covered for now, and Brienne stays.

Sansa finds Jon's guests in the Tower Hall, and she watches Satin offer them bread and salt. It's a small retinue and they look dirty and travel-weary. Their leaders are an older man and woman who both have the hardened and long-faced look of the North about them. The tall man looks lean under his heavy fur cloak, his lusterless brown hair is streaked with grey and his face is wind-burned and lined. The woman is short and stout, with grey hair. She's clad in ringmail and she has an axe on her hip. She studies Sansa and Brienne as they approach them, slapping her companion on the arm to get his attention.

"Where is the Lord Commander, lass?" the woman asks her directly. Sansa recognizes the bear on her jerkin now. "No one around here seems to know where he is."

"Lady Mormont," Sansa greets her. "There has been an attack," she explains to her and the man she's identified as Lord Glover by the mailed-fist pin holding his cloak together. "I'm afraid the Lord Commander has been incapacitated, and he's unable to meet with you at the moment."

"And who are you?" Lord Glover asks her. "His nursemaid?"

Brienne takes a step forward, her hand on the pommel of her sword, but Sansa holds up a hand and removes her hood. "I am Sansa Stark, Lord Glover, Lord Eddard's daughter and Lady Catelyn's." There is shock and disbelief on their faces. "This is Lady Brienne of Tarth, whom I've taken into my service and who has been exceptional and most loyal in fulfilling her duties."

"We-we believed you were dead, my lady," Lord Glover stammers.

Lady Mormont acknowledges her with a bow of her head, but then she grins at her. "It's good to see you alive and well, Lady Stark."

Lady Stark. Being called by that name doesn't feel quite right to Sansa. Mother was Lady Stark, she is just Sansa, but she won't correct Lady Mormont.

"What are the prospects for the Lord Commander's recovery?" Lord Glover asks her. "When do you think he'll be better? We have urgent business with him. Will he be fully capable again once he recovers?"

She should have thought about answers to this series of overwhelming questions before she agreed to meet with them. "I'm afraid I am not sure."

"The Lord Commander can wait, Gal," Lady Mormont waves away his questions. "Lady Stark being here changes things."

"King Robb was clear," he mutters.

"Aye, but a lot has happened since the Young Wolf sent us up the Neck to share his plans and deliver his will." She turns to look up at Lord Glover's face, who meets her eyes, and then she exhales slowly. "Be that as it may, Lady Stark has the right to read the contents of his will as much as Jon Snow does."

Lord Glover gives her a sharp nod, though he's slow and reluctant to reach into his cloak and produce a parcel of parchment, which he then hands to Sansa. It's small and the wax seal on it is a grey wolf's head. She breaks it and opens the letter, smoothing it out and gripping Brienne's arm as she recognizes the handwriting.

"My lady?" Brienne whispers, and Sansa squeezes her elbow.

She runs her fingers over the parchment, following the words without reading them, imagining how her brother's hand must have moved over the parchment as he wrote them. She tries to force back the tears that are threatening to well up in her eyes. She takes a deep breath, and then she starts reading.

I, Robb Stark, Lord of Winterfell and King in the North, hereby declare my half-brother, Eddard Stark's natural son, formerly known as Jon Snow, to be legitimate, and from this day on, give him the right to carry the name Jon Stark.

I also name him as my heir presumptive, until I have fathered an heir of my own. If I should die without issue, I want him to succeed me as King in the North, and in that case, I also appoint him and his sons after him to inherit my seat, Winterfell and the title of Lord of Winterfell, preceding the claims of all others.

Sansa can't tear her eyes away from Robb's last words. Preceding the claims of all others. She feels a sharp, icy pang in her stomach. Robb must have meant her claim.

Lord Glover's face has softened when she glances up again. "I am sorry, my lady, this must be hard for you to read, but your brother felt compelled to do this, because of your marriage to the Imp."

Of course he did. He had to protect the North from falling into Lannister hands, even if meant sacrificing her, his own sister.

"The Imp is dead now," Maege Mormont points out.

And so is Harry, who was supposed to give her the might of the Vale. Now all she can do is hope that Lord Royce's plan will work and that he will keep his word. Was it right what she did? Will the lords of the Vale flock to their side now, or are any of them still truly loyal to Lord Baelish? She may have created a war instead of providing a solution.

Does any of it even matter anymore, if the lords of the North want Jon instead of her? He might be whole again one day, and capable of ruling, but there is still a chance he will not. She shakes her head, she'll have time to think about all of that later.

She straightens her shoulders and thanks Glover and Mormont with a smile. "I know how you must have longed to return to your daughters, Lady Mormont. And you, Lord Glover, I can't imagine what it must have felt like to learn the Ironborn had taken Deepwood Motte. But instead of returning home, you chose to carry out this task my brother had given you, obeying him and proving your allegiance even after his death. Your loyalty will not be forgotten."

"Lyra and Jory are right here with me," Lady Mormont answers, pointing to two dark-haired young women, one short and stout like her mother, and the other lanky and awkward. "But I do miss my little Lyanna. She's only ten."

"I've heard Stannis Baratheon has driven the Ironborn from Deepwood Motte," Glover tells her. "And I'm grateful for it. Are Queen Selyse and the Princess still here?"

"No," Sansa answers. She was informed that they had left after it had come to a brawl between some of Selyse's men at arms and the Wildlings. "The Queen has travelled south to join her husband the King."

"There's something else," Lady Mormont whispers when Lord Glover has returned to his men, leaving them alone. "We stayed at Greywater Watch for a while, and Lord Reed bid me to deliver this letter from your father to your half-brother. I trust you will give it to him, my lady?"

"Of course, Lady Mormont," Sansa answers her, accepting the second letter.

After making sure Satin will be able to provide anything Glover and Mormont's party might need, Sansa bids them goodbye. and returns to the room behind the armoury with Brienne. When they're inside again, she hands her sworn sword Robb's will and tells her to read it.

Jon is in front of the fire, staring into the flames, and he hasn't bothered to put on any clothes. Sansa's face pulls into a frown as she looks at him. Satin and Tormund told her he was afraid of fire, but now he appeared to be fascinated by it. She walks over to the bed to retrieve a blanket and returns to him to cover him with it. Her hand lingers on his shoulder, and he covers it with his own warm one.

Would you steal my claim, Jon? It doesn't really matter to her, not truly, even more so since her claim to Winterfell has brought her nothing but misery. All she wants is to be safe and to go home, with him, the last of her family. But learning of this will of Robb's has made her a bit queasy. She's seen enough in the south to understand that this might mean trouble. Perhaps it doesn't matter what Jon wants, as long as he's in this vulnerable state, people might take advantage of him.

How could you betray me like this, Robb? She believed she'd buried any disappointment and anger she had felt toward her brother for not coming to her rescue with the guilt she'd felt over them when he had died, but now she can feel them bubbling up inside of her again, overwhelming her.

She turns away from Jon to find Brienne staring at Robb's will with a deep frown on her face. "Forgive me, my lady," she says when she sees Sansa looking at her, "I mean no disrespect, but I don't think your brother is fit to rule anything anymore."

Sansa purses her lips. "He won't be like this forever," she counters.

"How can you be certain?" Brienne asks, shaking her head.

She can't, but she must believe it. She will find a way to help him.

Brienne takes her leave soon after, and she's alone with Jon again. She should probably try to get him to put on some clothes, but she just sits down next to him, resisting the urge to cuddle up to him. She shouldn't have bothered. She's only sat there for a couple of moments, when he wraps his arm around her, draping the blanket over her shoulders as well.

"Sansa sad?" he asks her.

She shrugs and huffs in a very unladylike manner and he tugs her closer. She tilts her head to rest her cheek on his shoulder. She allows herself to stay like that for a while, but then she pulls away from, putting some distance between them.

She can see the confusion and disappointment in Jon's face when he turns to look at her, but he doesn't make any attempt to move closer again. She tears her eyes away from him and turns to look at the flames, closing her eyes as she lets the glow of the fire warm her and comfort her.

"They told me you were afraid of fire," she mutters as she opens her eyes again.

He is quiet as he pulls his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on them as he frowns. "Fire hurt. They put Jon in fire. Ghost hurt."

They tried to burn his body, but he woke up when the fire of his pyre had died out and there was nothing left around him but ashes. Gods, she had no idea he remembered that, or that he he had been aware of what was happening. She can't even imagine what it must have felt like to be subjected to such excruciating pain and be powerless against it.

She reaches out to brush his hair away from his temple and lets him lean into her touch, brushing his cheekbone with her thumb. She should probably say something, but she doesn't know how to put her feelings on what was done to him into words, so she returns to her earlier question.

"But you're not afraid anymore?"

He covers her hand with his own. "Sansa keep Jon safe."

She blinks back her tears and tries to swallow the lump in her throat. I will, she promises him in a silent vow. When she shifts, she feels the letter she's tucked into the bodice of her gown. She takes it out and shows it to Jon.

"I have something for you," she tells him, trying to hand it to him. "It's a letter from our lord father." He stares at it, but doesn't take it from her.

"Don't you wish to read it, Jon?"

His brow furrows before he shakes his head. "You read it."

#jonsa #jon x sansa #jonsa fic #jonsa ff #series: tale as old as time #my writing

[fallinnflower]

pink in the night

baron x reader (fluff, soulmate!au, non-idol!au) 

a/n: this was requested by @randomkpopfiction, thank you for your support and for being so patient with me!! i hope you like this~ also here’s the song i’m referencing with the title the lyrics felt right for this song

The first time you were taught what a soulmate mark was, you were eight years old. You barely had more than a passing interest in boys, but somehow the tales the teachers wove for you about finding your soulmate still made your heart flutter. 

The sensation quickly vanished upon your next encounter with your male best friend, who was more annoying than anything at that age. But that disgust couldn’t last long in the face of fate, and soon you were pre-adolescent and fantasizing about falling in love on your eighteenth birthday with the perfect boy and living happily ever after. 

You’ve known Baron longer than you’ve known about soulmates. 

The two of you had gone to daycare together, and become fast friends; your play dates only increased in frequency as you entered school, until eventually play dates were ‘uncool’ and you were simply studying together. Baron would walk to and from school with you every day, and the two of you would regale stories from your separate classes. Sometimes he would hold your hand, always seeking affection from you, and you really thought nothing of it. 

Not until you were sixteen. 

Baron was older than you by a handful of months, so rather he was on the edge of seventeen and you were still thoroughly sixteen, when you realized that maybe your feelings for Baron weren’t entirely friendly. The chubby-cheeked boy of your youth had grown into a slender teenager seemingly overnight, and you had to admit he looked particularly princely at one of your classmates’ birthday party. 

Your classmate came from a wealthy family, and had somehow fallen in love with the American show “My Super Sweet Sixteen,” and had begged her parents to allow her to throw one. She was an exceptional student and extremely kind, so they granted her wish — everyone attended in the most formal wear they could scrap together, and attended the birthday ball in style. 

You and Baron had gone with a group of friends, and when the first slow song of the night came on you felt yourself hanging back. Your friends all paired up, smiling bashfully, and you simply shrunk into yourself, sipping on punch from the refreshment table. 

You convinced yourself you were fine being alone on the balcony, but you were certainly thrilled when your MIA best friend appeared with a gentle,

“Boo!” 

“Don’t do that!” You snapped, though you couldn’t help but smile as you playfully punched him. “I could’ve spilled my drink!”

“Sorry, sorry,” he said, though he didn’t look sorry at all. You hardly had time to mind, however, since he was suddenly holding out his hand towards you with a more serious glint in his eye. 

“Dance with me?” 

To say you were shocked was an understatement. Baron was handsome, and he was popular — most people probably wanted to dance with him on a night like tonight. 

And yet he chose you. 

To your surprise, he didn’t lead you back into the main room; he simply pulled you closer to him and began to sway with the melody right out under the stars. With his gaze on you, intent and fond, you somehow felt as though this night was about you and not your classmate. 

Baron spun you, sending you into a short fit of giggles which lasted until he pulled you flush against him and fixed you with a serious look you’d never seen before. You felt your heart begin to hammer as Baron slowly leaned in toward you, before it skipped a beat entirely as his lips pressed against yours. 

Your first kiss was short-lived, gentle but a bit awkward, and yet it left you both with beaming grins and bright red cheeks. 

That night, however, when you lay in bed, you felt a little crack split through your heart. You and Baron… you both had soulmates out there, somewhere, waiting for you. And if you took this chance with Baron, you risked hurting the both of you and your future soulmates — and losing your best friend. 

You didn’t sleep well that night. 

Two days later, on Monday afternoon, Baron was sitting across from you on your bedroom floor doing homework. Your heart was racing while you were around him, but the guilt lingering in the back of your mind made you feel sick. 

“Hey, Y/N?” He asked. You pretended to be working very hard on your math homework as you replied. 

“Yes?”

“Would you… go on a date with me this weekend?” 

You nearly snapped the pencil you had in your hand. Baron was positively beaming, his eyes glittering, and you felt your heart split in two because you felt, truly and deeply, that any answer you gave him would hurt him badly. 

You promptly burst into tears, and Baron held you until you calmed down. It never came up again. 

Your eighteenth birthday is looming on the horizon, a mere two days away, and as you lay staring at your ceiling you’re shocked at how scared you feel. Excitement, of course, you expected — but you feel legitimately frightened by the prospect of receiving your soulmark. And you know why, but you aren’t exactly ready to admit it fully to yourself.

In the years after your first kiss, Baron had always let you know in small ways that he was available and willing should you change your mind. Even after getting his soulmark three months ago — an assortment of black lines which resembled almost a flower, but maybe almost a fish, on the inside of his right wrist — he had continued to flirt gently with you; to seek your affection as he always had. 

Your friends like to tease that the two of you were meant to be and would definitely turn out to be soulmates (you aren’t entirely convinced Ayno and Ziu don’t have a bet running on it) and it’s precisely that certainty which makes you so anxious. 

If Baron isn’t your soulmate, you know it will break his heart (and yours); despite pushing aside your feelings for years, you still love Baron dearly in every sense of the word, although you’ve never told anyone that. 

As if sensing that you were getting too in your own head, your phone pings with a message. Baron’s name pops up on screen and you can’t help but smile at his text, which offers you ice cream and a walk around the local park if you come downstairs within the next ten minutes. 

You’re down in less than five. 

“So,” he says, as the two of you venture down the street. “One or two scoops today?” You sigh. 

“Two, please.” Baron laughs and casually slings an arm around your shoulders as you walk. You allow yourself to lean into him, wondering if this might be one of the last instances where you can be this casually affectionate with him. 

“Whatever you want,” he says, and you bite into your lip. 

You wonder if it’s wrong to want to be with Baron, regardless of everything; if it’s wrong to wonder if fate had somehow cheated you out of something amazing. 

You push it out of your mind as the two of you enter the ice cream shop, and do your best not to think too hard about it — but your heart sinks every time you catch a glimpse of the little tattoo on his wrist, wondering just what your birthday would bring. 

Your birthday party was initially intended to be a surprise party, and you know this because Ziu is particularly bad at being quiet about anything, especially when he’s excited. Despite knowing, you do your best to act surprised because you know Baron and St. Van will be sad if they find out you know, and a sad Baron is hard enough for you to handle without poor, sweet Geumhyuk moping about too. So, you try not to dress up too much (but you know they’ll be taking pictures, and you want to look good), and try your best to ignore the sounds you can hear through your front door.

These boys. You love them, but subtlety just… isn’t their thing. You’re already smiling before you’ve even turned the doorknob, anticipating what lies beyond.

Shortly put, it’s a mess. When you open the door, multiple party poppers go off and the only distinct voice you hear is Ziu’s, yelling directly into your left ear. You laugh and teasingly admonish him as Lou sticks a very large, sparkling crown on your head. It’s pandemonium, all glittering and loud, but you can’t keep the smile off your face as your best friend appears to guide you through the festivities of the evening. For the first time that day, you aren’t counting down the minutes until your birthday officially happens, and your soulmark will appear.

Ayno convinces everyone to participate in a dance battle for your personal enjoyment — you, actually, are allowed to sit back on the comfiest seat in the house, eat as many snacks as you want (courtesy of Geumhyuk, bless his heart), and choose all the songs. The winner of the competition gets to give you their gift first, and Baron, unsurprisingly, is exceptionally eager at this prospect. In the end, it boils down to just him and Ayno, yourself and all the other guests watching with bated breath. Just as the song ends, a timer goes off on someone’s phone — you turn your attention to the sudden flash of movement that is Geumhyuk slipping into the kitchen, and catch a glimpse of the clock on the wall.

Your soulmark is going to appear in less than five minutes. You don’t really register who wins, too busy counting the seconds, until Baron places his hand on your shoulder. When you turn to look at him, you find a small box extended towards you, and realize he must have won the dance competition. It takes most of your willpower to smile and accept the gift, anxiety starting to gnaw at you once more.

Inside the box is a necklace with a delicate silver chain with a pendant made of a pale pink stone in a perfect disc shape. Baron doesn’t say a word as he plucks it out of the box, and you move your hair aside to allow him to clasp it on you; his fingers brush against the nape of your neck and you suppress a shiver, feeling that same guilt squeeze your chest as you gently brush your own fingers along the pendant resting above your heart.

What’s going to happen, if you and Baron aren’t soulmates? 

As if he senses your worries, he hands you a little card you hadn’t seen at the bottom of the box that appears to be from the jewelry store. Pink Calcite, it reads, enhances the heart’s way of knowing — the wordless awareness that we mean when we say, “I knew it in my heart.” You turn the card over to find that Baron has simply written “영원히” and drawn a little heart beside his name. With your heart in your throat, you turn to look at him, only to find his attention directed at the clock. Suddenly, someone dims the lights, and Geumhyuk shoulders his way out of the kitchen holding your birthday cake. This is it, you think. All other thoughts leave your mind, and you can’t pin down quite how you feel.

Unable to think of a single other way to cope, you look to Baron for reassurance. He smiles at you, just like he always does, and reaches out to take your hand; you only just notice that his soulmark is covered today. 

The candles flicker gently before your eyes, and you hear Baron’s gentle voice singing right beside you as you stare into the flames. The seconds tick down, and you close your eyes, wishing for just one thing as you blow out the candles.

Geumhyuk is serving the cake and your mark is very, very slowly making its appearance. Or, really, it’s not that slow — it took Ace’s mark almost four hours to develop fully, and yours is already starting to pick up pigment in some places, so it shouldn’t be so bad. It wouldn’t, if you could just stop thinking about how Baron has been tense ever since you blew out those candles and how quickly he let go of your hand to go help cut the cake. You fiddle nervously with the pendant he gave you, picking at your cake while everyone else gets theirs served, and hope this won’t take long.

You open gifts, and everything feels painfully slow. Just like at every birthday party you’ve ever had, Baron is the one who sits beside you on the floor and collects all the wrapping paper scraps so you don’t have to later — only this time he’s more quiet, and you can tell he’s just as nervous as you.

What you don’t realize is how intently he watches your wrist every time you peel back paper, or show off a gift, or pass him the trash. You don’t see how his eyes trace the shape of your tattoo every spare second he has, and how each passing moment seems to be enlivening him. 

It doesn’t occur to you at all until everyone has left except you and Baron, and you’re cleaning up. The boys had the wonderful forethought to get paper and plastic dishes and utensils, and Baron is washing the cake cutter while you pick up cups from around the living area.

You accidentally glimpse your wrist and drop the entire stack in your hands, juice and soda spilling across the hardwood at your feet as you stare in shock at your fully formed mark. Baron’s doesn’t even dry his hands before he’s rushing out of the kitchen to make sure you’re okay, taking you gently by the shoulders to maneuver you away from the spill. 

“What’s wrong?” He asks, understandably off-put, and you can’t even find it in yourself to speak — you simply hold your wrist out towards him, revealing your full mark. 

Baron’s breath seems to leave his body, and everything falls silent and still until he slowly reaches up to trace his fingers along the lines of your mark. Then, in a sudden flurry of movement, he shoves the sleeve of his sweater up his arm and turns to stand beside you so he can reveal his as well, holding them side by side as though he can’t believe it. 

They’re identical.

You turn to look at him, unable to think of a single word to say, and Baron’s eyes sparkle with unshed tears as he pulls you into his arms. 

“I knew,” he says, though you aren’t sure if he’s speaking to himself or to you. “I always knew.” Just like that, you begin to cry, winding your arms tightly around him.

“I’m sorry,” you sob, and Baron is quick to pull back and look at you in concern, his hands not leaving you for a moment.

“Why are you apologizing?” He asks, and although his tone is light, teasing you for crying, you can see the anxiety in his eyes. It feels like sixteen all over again and you can’t help but sob harder.

“You were a-always so sure and I— I kept it f-from happening,” you lament. “All this t-time I’ve made you m-miserable and—” 

Baron presses his lips to yours, effectively shutting you up, before kissing away the tear stains on your cheeks before pressing his forehead to yours.

“Don’t apologize for something like that, silly,” he says, nuzzling your nose with his when you gently sniffle. “We have the rest of our lives to look forward to.”

You look into the eyes you’ve known almost your whole life, curved into a smile broader and brighter than any you think you’ve ever seen, and you wonder why you ever worried in the first place. After all, if Baron is by your side, what could go wrong?

(You realize later, and you can’t help but smile: reality truly lived up to all your youthful fantasies.)

#vav fanfiction #vav imagines #vav scenarios #baron #vav baron #kpop fanfiction #kpop writing #kpop scenarios #kpop texts #kpop imagines #vav texts #my writing

[mcjickson]

THE CONSTANT

I think about Edith Fuller a lot. Edith Fuller, if you don’t remember—and there’s absolutely no reason you should, all things considered—was a wunderkind kindergartener who qualified to represent Tulsa in the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee. You know, the one for eighth graders. At 6, Edith was the youngest contestant in the history of the Bee, and as such was the darling of the media covering the event. And with good reason—as she had no idea of the relative enormity of her achievement, she carried herself with the infectious humility of a genuine 6-year-old, not a media darling. She was basically the Bad News Bears of the Spelling Bee: a scrappy little towheaded upstart that you couldn’t help but root for. She made the final round of competition but caught some brutal words early in the day, and spent the rest of the event doing insanely adorable color commentary and interviews. And then the tournament was over, and Edith went home with her family and back to being a 6-year-old. I could not wait to see her come back as a first-grader. I was so very excited to see how far she could get with another year of study under her belt, so when the next year’s finalists were announced, I immediately searched the list to find her speller number. And she wasn’t there. She hadn’t qualified. There was no joy in Mudville; first-grade Edith had struck out. I felt a slight measure of relief for whichever 8th-grader from the greater Tulsa region had pulled off the upset. Turns out it wasn’t an eighth-grader, though. It was a dapper little 3rd grader in a bow tie. Young Sal Lakmissetti had done the impossible and knocked out America’s sweetheart. I was happy for him—until I read about how it happened. One of the reasons that watching the Bee is so emotionally involving is that the tension between the spellers and their occasionally overbearing parents can be so heart-wrenchingly intense. Edith had been a respite from that—her parents seemed to have been surprised that she had developed those skills. Sal’s dad on the other hand, had gotten indignant when Sal lost to Edith in Tulsa the year before. So he hired the previous year’s tournament champion to give Sal private lessons for a year. You know, the way you do when you want your 3rd grader to trounce a 1st grader in a contest for 13-year-olds. Not for nothing, but that is basically the plot of the movie Bad Words. Sal’s dad had turned him into Chitanya Chopra. I wonder if Sal’s dad knows how to spell “autofellatio.” I wonder if Edith had been heartbroken when she lost the Tulsa bee. Turns out, the next year she wasn’t interested in participating at all. And her dad didn’t push her, because it wasn’t about him. Edith Fuller’s dad got it right, and he just let her be a second-grader and pursue whatever her enormous second-grader heart wanted. I was ecstatic she didn’t return, that she was out there getting to be a kid. The funny thing is, I’m not really obsessed with spelling per se. What I am obsessed with, however, is the raw human drama of watching painfully awkward home-schooled kids on ESPN. There’s no denying the hilarity of some of their more awkward moments. But the real reason to watch is to marvel at their bravery. I’ve heard it alleged that the #1 most commonly held phobia in American adults is a fear of public speaking. And yet year after year, some of the most sheltered kids in America gather in a hotel in DC called The Gaylord (because these kids aren’t bullied enough, I guess), and walk up to a microphone before millions and risk entire-hometown-disappointing embarrassment. Wanting to more fully understand what these kids go through, I let my family talk me into entering an adult spelling bee sponsored by the local library. After my initial disappointment that “adult spelling bee” didn’t mean it was a four-letter-words contest, I got fully enthused at the prospect of competing, and even had our friend Scott design a t-shirt for me to compete in, emblazoned with a bee illustration and the mantra that governed my participation: “Edith Fuller is my constant.” By “constant”, I was referencing what was maybe the best-ever episode of Lost, a self-contained narrative about a man searching for the love of his life across shifting time periods. The usual complications of time travel narratives were overcome by the idea that in order for him to find his true path, he had to serve as a “constant” to remind other people what their true purpose was. My true purpose in entering the bee was to try to have the kind of come-what-may attitude that made Edith shine. And that’s largely the way it went down. I breezed through the first few rounds with ease, the words got hard in a hurry, but I acquitted myself nicely. After a solid initial hour that whittled a field of about forty people down to six, I was relieved when I got thrown a softball for an umbrella-drink-loving goober like me: daiquiri. Which I promptly misspelled. I’ll never forgive myself for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but I’m always happy to throw that t-shirt on these days. Of course, now, a couple years removed my own bee experience, it’s more evident than ever to me that when I throw that t-shirt on, Edith Fuller is a codename. A transparent alias, at that. I’m sure you have a person in your life that serves as your constant: not necessarily your partner or best friend (though it could be), but the person you go to when you need to be reminded of who you really are. What you’re really about. Who believes in you with no agenda. I’ve been lucky to be that for a few people—I was my brother Patrick’s constant, for instance. And while Declan’s always been my wartime consigliere—there’s no one more clutch in a crisis—Delaney has always been my constant. They say having kids is like living with your heart outside your body, and that has always hit me at a cellular level. I don’t talk about it often—or ever really—as it’s not something that happened to me, or that I went through, it’s Delaney's story. But for context I need you to know that when she had a debilitating mystery affliction a couple years ago, she was put through a series of tests for terminal illnesses. Those tests came back negative, but for a little while I had to confront the possibility of losing my baby girl and it nearly fucking broke me. Thank jeebus, the folks at the Mayo Clinic were able to diagnose her malady, and it’s something she had to learn to live with, and cope with, and thrive with. And she’s done all of that, admirably, but it required her to delay college for a frustrating year. Given the ways we’ve all been sidelined lately, it’s done me good to remember the ways Delaney got through her involuntary gap year with grace. Multiple creative projects. Tending to the care of small things. Finding ways to breathe through the worst of it. And leaning on the people who love her most. And I’ve treasured her as my constant like never before, and spending time with her got me through being 2x4’ed by my avowed best friend. (There’s been some good-natured conjecture by well-meaning friends as to whether the most recent playlist was indeed a break-up mix. First of all, I don’t want to knock whatever any of you have do to get over somebody, but listening to a bunch of songs that rub your nose in the loss just isn’t my thing. There’s no denying that when I sequenced the songs, I was struck by the lyrical subtext that emerged, but they weren’t selected for that purpose. In fact, most of those songs were in the playlist before I found out what had happened. But it merits a thoughtful inquest, in any case. You poor bastards.) And I guess that’s the thing. There’s something legitimately sad about when your best-laid plans and most fervent desires don’t work out the way you envisioned, especially when it was completely out of your control. (And dear readers, as you well know, most things are out of our control.) But maybe, just maybe, if you can somehow keep your eyes open for the joy you find on the detour, and have a sense of where—or more specifically who—your true north is, you might wind up writing a better story than the one you had planned. And maybe this new story was the point of you all along. I love the thought that right now, in all likelihood, Edith is doing something that's simultaneously challenging and entirely age-appropriate. Which, in a very real way, will be her trophy for not participating. I don't think Edith's done with the Bee, but I'm also not sure I would be heartbroken if she was. And I absolutely believe that, much like Delaney, Edith has more in store for us than we could ever imagine. Even in the middle of missing my people—and especially my North Dakota hussy constant—I have to say that being reminded of who I really can be has me feeling like one of the Bad News Bears myself these days, with all the swagger of Ahmad stepping up to the plate in the Astrodome: “Back up, suckers. I feel good.”

#edith fuller #the constant #delaney #the point of me

[wiseabsol]

WA Reviews “Dominion” by Aurelia le, Chapter 11: The Chase

Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6383825/11/Dominion

Summary: For the Fire Nation royal siblings, love has always warred with hate. But neither the outward accomplishment of peace nor Azula’s defeat have brought the respite Zuko expected. Will his sister’s plans answer this, or only destroy them both?

Content Warnings: This story contains discussions and depictions of child abuse, emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and incest. This story also explores the idea that Zuko’s redemption arc (and his unlearning of abuse) is not as complete as the show suggested, and that Azula is not a sociopath (with the story having a lot of sympathy for her). If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, I would strongly recommend steering clear of this story and my reviews of it.  

Note: Because these were originally posted as chapter reviews/commentaries, I will often be talking to the author in them (though sometimes I will also snarkily address the characters). While I’ve also tried not to spoil later events in the story in these reviews, I would strongly recommend reading through chapter 28 before reading these, just to be safe.

Now on to chapter 11!

CHAPTER 11: THE CHASE

Alright, so on to chapter eleven, “The Chase.” I think I know why I stalled on this one, besides life getting in the way: there’s a game in this chapter, in which the readers are challenged to find all of the trope names that Aurelia has snuck into Sokka’s POV sections. And, despite being one of the betas for this story (which renders the reward for finding all of the tropes meaningless), I still want to win. So let’s put on ATLA’s soundtrack and get cracking!

 We start with the Gaang arriving at the Royal Palace. Toph still has a crush on Sokka, which both Sokka and Suki are aware of. He describes Katara and Aang as “Sickening Sweethearts” for the first trope. I like that Aang has a “gusty” laugh here—it’s a nice pun. Aang is in such a good mood and I’m like, “Oh buddy, you just wait, the angst is imminent.” Sokka thinks that it’s been two weeks since they last visited, which might be a hyperbole on his part, but if so, boy have things changed quickly.

 “Little lump of baby fat who was heir to the Burning Throne” is a great description, though I have my doubts that Lu Ten is going to sit on that throne, given that there’s a chance that he’s a non-bender (which, along with the sexism that has made it so that they’ve never had a woman ruler before, is something the Fire Nation will need to get over at some point, since it could be seen as a fantasy equivalent to ableism).

 “Having gotten to know Zuko a little better since then, he concluded it would probably actually suck to be royalty.” Yes and no, Sokka. Definitely don’t doubt how sweet—okay, to interject for a second, “Leaves on the Vine” just came on and it hurts my heart—but anyway, Sokka, don’t doubt how sweet being royal is. There is a reason that people fight for that title. Being a responsible ruler, on the other hand—one who works their butt off to serve the people—yeah, that can be rough, because you need to go to those meetings and listen to those complaints. Doing so is, hopefully, also rewarding to the soul, but in Zuko’s case…hard to say. I think he prefers to be directly involved in making things better, rather than being in a managerial position. I think I’ve mentioned before how he should have been sent on rebuilding and reparations missions, with someone like Iroh doing the governance side of things…though putting Iroh in charge might have been scandalous after the Siege of Ba Sing Se. There were no good choices there.

 “Missing Mom” for the second trope. “He found himself wondering if dysfunction was some kind of prerequisite for royal families.” No, though I can’t imagine that the pressures of living in the public eye, making decisions that affect an entire land and its people, and trying to build a legacy helps. Doing that for a few years is probably fine, but not for your entire life.

 Sokka makes an amusing fish pun in this section. “First Love,” “Manly Tears,” and “Vengeful Spirit” for the third, fourth, and fifth tropes.

 The Gaang arrives at the throne room, where Zuko and Iroh are arguing. Zuko mentions something about selling Azula to someone, which must be the Earth Kingdom, since he had a tense conversation with them last chapter. Zuko is in a foul mood, snapping at his friends as they walk in.

 “Visual Pun” and “Clean Cut” for a sixth and seventh trope. The Gaang and Zuko then start talking, with Katara quickly catching on to the fact that Zuko was in a fight with Azula. Zuko explains that Azula slashed his face with a pin, and almost mentions that he and Azula slept together, before cutting himself off and blushing. Sokka notices the blush and is confused by it.

 “Aang breezed up to him”—I see your pun, Aurelia.

 Toph asks where Mai is, and Zuko tells them that Mai and Lu Ten are staying with Mai’s family. You know what, totally fair, Mai. I’d want space too. Zuko goes over Azula’s escape and mentions that they fought, and Sokka points out that Zuko should have been able to track her afterwards, since he’s a “Scarily Competent Tracker” (for an eighth trope). Zuko lies and says that Azula knocked him out, which Toph notices.

 “I’m kinda starting to doubt her resolve,” Sokka says about Azula killing Zuko. This is both funny and sad, because, well, Azula and Zuko are siblings. No one should have to worry about one of them legitimately wanting to kill the other, even in the games of thrones. It doesn’t even occur to Sokka that Azula might care for Zuko. And why would it? As far as he knows, she tried to kill Zuko during their Agni Kai, and before that sounded excited about the prospect of becoming an only child.

 Sokka is annoyed that things aren’t adding up in this conversation, and Zuko bursts out that he doesn’t know why Azula does the things that she does, which is another lie. Toph catches on to that one, too, but isn’t sure what it means. What’s notable here, though, is that Zuko is so used to calling Azula crazy that he says this as an outburst, even though he knows better. It’s a kneejerk reaction for him.

 Zuko tells them that the Earth Kingdom is planning to execute Azula if they catch her, which offends Aang, since the tribunal agreed that life in prison would be Azula’s maximum sentence. Zuko explains that the politics around her case got dirty, shocker. Aang matured a lot during the show, but in some ways, he’s still rather naive.

 “‘I gave them everything they ever asked!’ Zuko raged helplessly, glaring at the black stone floor. ‘Why can’t they just give me my sister?’”—This is sweet, though I think that Azula would be offended by the idea of anyone giving her to someone else.

 “Mismatched Eyes” for a ninth trope. Toph tells Zuko that he’s just going to have to find a way around the Earth Kingdom’s sentence, which Iroh and Zuko agree with her on. Zuko mentions that they’re having their lawyers look into the court case, and then turns on Suki, asking how Azula got slapped with a torture charge.

 Sokka says that Zuko is out of line for accusing Suki here, but honestly? Getting slapped with a torture charge is huge, especially when there’s no evidence that the accused did it. It’s slanderous and I’m not surprised that Zuko is reacting poorly to it. The implication here is that Suki’s comrades lied about the torture out of spite, or, if they were tortured, that it wasn’t on Azula’s orders. The Fire Nation absolutely did torture people, namely the Southern Water Tribe’s benders…but so did the Earth Kingdom, since they psychologically tortured and brainwashed their own civilians in Ba Sing Se. One crime doesn’t negate the other—they both need to be held accountable for their actions—but there is definitely some hypocrisy here from the Earth Kingdom.

 Suki seems to think that her comrades were tortured, or at least she didn’t want them to “lie on [Azula’s] behalf.” But Suki, do you know for a fact that it happened? Obviously, I think that you should believe your comrades, since it’s better to believe the victims than not. But if it happened, who tortured them? Has the person who gave those orders been brought to justice? Because letting Azula be scapegoated for someone else’s crimes isn’t justice, it’s vindictiveness, and it means that somewhere out there, an actual torturer went free.

 “Ridiculous accusations”—no, Sokka, this is a fair accusation, and it’s something that should have been brought to Zuko’s attention during the court case, or at least to the attention of Azula’s lawyers. They have the right to know what their client is being accused of and the evidence against them. That is, in fact, how the law is supposed to work. Mind you, I’m speaking of modern law practices, but it seems like their law practices are analogous.

 Sokka says that Azula getting beheaded would be a favor for everyone, and Zuko snaps. He lunges at him—Sokka gets his boomerang out—and Iroh steps between them. Iroh scolds Zuko for being so aggressive with his friends, which is fair. He’s lashing out a lot during this conversation. Zuko then breaks down, with Suki and Katara hugging him in response. Toph sighs in a “Surrounded by Idiots” way for a tenth trope.

 Sokka feels guilty over making Zuko cry. “He guessed that even if she was a crazy bitch, she was his sister, too. Of course that was what Zuko would think of, when it looked like she was going to die. Zuko had got this way when she starved herself too, Sokka recalled, and thought that he should have remember that sooner.”—Yeah, no kidding, Sokka. A little empathy and tact would have served you much better in this conversation.

 Sokka apologizes shortly after this and Zuko apologizes in return. Katara promises that they’ll always help Zuko, and I wonder if that would still be true if they knew that he’d raped Azula (which he definitely did, even if he didn’t realize it at the time, since Azula wasn’t able to consent).

 Sokka “wondered idly why [Katara] couldn’t forgive him that quickly when he said something tactless.” While Sokka assumes that it’s because Zuko is crying, I’m pretty sure that it’s because Katara has an unacknowledged crush on Zuko, so she’s more inclined to cut him some slack.

 “It would be like Toph shoe-shopping. No one would buy it.”—This is very funny.

 “Sokka reflected again on the idiocy of investing this much time, emotion, and debate into someone as damaged and dangerous as Zuko’s psycho little sister.”—I see what you’re doing here, Aurelia.

 Sokka asks what they should do if Azula tries to kill them, and Zuko says, “She’s crazy. And scared, and alone.” And on the one hand, that’s true, but on the other hand, he shouldn’t be infantilizing her.

 “‘Please just—remember that, if she does anything too desperate, or,’ he practically choked on his words, ‘says anything too desperate.’” This is a bad look for Zuko, since he is, essentially, trying to give himself a cushion against any accusations that Azula levels at him. He is trying to plant a seed of doubt so they’re less inclined to believe her about the rape. But I think that this will backfire on him, because he’s priming them to pay attention to what she says instead. The cold truth is, if he hadn’t done this, I don’t think they would have believed her. They’d think she was trying to slander him, because A.) They like and respect him and want to believe that he’s fully redeemed and would never do such a thing, B.) They believe that she’s a lying villain who wants to take him down, and C.) Many people don’t believe sexual assault victims anyway, regardless of the evidence they have to support their claims. But now he’s drawing arrows to her accusations, and a few of them will probably remember that, and how weird he was acting during this conversation. They’ll wonder why he said that they should dismiss what she says, which would have normally been a given for them.

 The conversation wraps up as the Gaang goes to their rooms, and Zuko and Iroh continue to talk offscreen. We shift over to Azula’s POV. She’s riding an ostrich horse past an abandoned mill. She’s being rather nasty to her mount, using her fire whip to make it do what she wants. It seems like she hasn’t grown out of being cruel to animals yet (though I just re-watched the introduction to June in ATLA, and she liberally uses her whip on her mount, so I’m not sure that this is an uncommon treatment of animals in this world, just distasteful).

 Azula didn’t stop to grab provisions, which is a surprising mistake, coming from her. Granted, she had to escape quickly in the last chapter, and was probably scattered from a fresh dose of trauma. She fantasizes about eating Rai’s potato and leek stew, rather than some of her favorite foods from the palace. To be fair, if that was my most recent, tasty meal, I’d probably be doing the same. But also, I think the kindness of that meal has probably gotten under Azula’s skin.

 “She had been discovered. She knew how that would end. So why did she stay? She had asked herself that a dozen times since the cook betrayed her, and now thought she knew. Not for Rai’s company, certainly. Azula ought to have her traitor’s tongue out just for the presumption she showed.”—Okay, Hot Stuff, have you ever actually ordered for someone to have their tongue taken out, or are you just repeating something nasty Ozai that threatened to do? Because I’m betting it’s the latter. Also, I bet you stayed because you liked being shown some basic human kindness.

 “No, worse still, it was to eat food that didn’t taste the same every day, and lay her head on a pillow at night, and take a bath—an actual bath—without unwelcome supervision…”—You mean the things that every human being should have? Especially the unsupervised baths part? I understand why Azula was watched, since she might have tried to hurt herself if she was left alone in the asylum, but still, that’s terrible.

 “If she let such base considerations drive her, she would be no better than her hedonist uncle. Far better she had been betrayed now and so incompetently, then continue that way. It was that kind of complacency that would get her captured, or killed.”—Oh good, you’re going to deny yourself basic human comforts to get the job done, that’s healthy for you, Azula. You want to know who I bet never did something remotely similar to that? Ozai. I bet he’s always slept with a pillow and always had a cook on hand and was always able to bath in private. Good lord, child.

 “Her father was counting on her. Her country was counting on her. She could not make these kind of mistakes.”—That’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself, my dear. Sadly, I think that the Fire Nation might have forgotten about her, since no one tried to break her out.

 Azula unloads her mount of supplies and sends it running in another direction—with more fire whips, shame on her (though is she hurting it or just scaring it? That isn’t clear)—to leave a false trail for anyone who might be pursuing her. She then thinks, “It was too bad about losing the ostrich horse though, especially after Mother gave her so much grief—" So she’s still seeing Ursa. To be specific, Ursa was chiding her about stealing the ostrich horse. There are a couple of things of note about this. One is that Azula is committing the same crime that Zuko did in the show, and will probably get more flack for it. The other is that the voice of her mother, in this moment, seems to be her conscience—meaning that Azula feels guilty about stealing.

 “They never did anything for me either . . . So what do you imagine I owe them?”—Azula shuts down her guilt by saying something that sounds suspiciously like something Ozai would say. That because someone wasn’t kind to her, that gives her the right to be cruel to them. Which…really isn’t how you should treat people.

 “She didn’t talk to it. Wasn’t that her rule?”—Does that help you, Azula?

 “How could she expect to rule anyone when she couldn’t even rule herself….”—Another thing that I’m certain Ozai said to her at some point.

 “She had a mission. Everything else was immaterial. This was her one chance. No room for mistakes. No room for distractions. She had to focus. She had to get better. She would not be as effective as she could be, until she was whole again.”—Again, that’s a lot of pressure to put on yourself, Azula. Sadly, you might be right, though. The Earth Kingdom isn’t going to give you a second chance to find your mother. They don’t even want to give you this one.

 Azula then burns down the mill and escapes by boat, hopefully widening the distance between herself and those searching for her.

 Back to the Gaang! Toph and Aang are practicing earthbending, while Sokka preps the war balloon and inwardly gripes about them not helping. Aang and Katara are searching for Azula on Team Appa, while Suki, Sokka, and Toph are on Team War Balloon (which has been dyed black for the occasion).

 Sokka makes a basket case pun about the balloon as he and Suki argue over how he treated Zuko the previous day. Suki points out that he missed the fact that Mai left Zuko, which Katara is peeved about. Katara, you don’t know and don’t want to know the full story there, trust me. Suki agrees with me. Katara reveals that she tried to talk to Mai, which Suki is horrified about, because good lord is it none of Katara’s business. Tact does not run in this family.

 Zuko comes charging in, upset by this. Zuko and Katara argue, and Suki, hilariously, “looked to Sokka in clear disbelief that this much tactlessness could be contained in one family.” I knew that Suki and I were on the same page.

 “Since when does she need to cool off? She shows all the emotion of an ice cube.”—Hey, Katara? This is super rude. Just because you don’t like Mai and are lowkey jealous of her relationship with Zuko does not give you the right to insult her.

 “‘She had every reason!’ Zuko hotly defended, and implicated himself by saying so.”—Whoops, Zuko. Good job. “I brought you here to find my sister, not play marriage councilor! So why don’t you just stay out of problems that don’t concern you?”—Ho boy, so he shouldn’t have said this as hotly as he did, but he’s also not wrong? Focus on the problem that he’s asked for help with, Katara. His marital problems are none of your concern.

 Katara responds equally hotly to this, but she’s in the wrong here, even if it will probably take her some time to realize that. What she’s most upset about is Zuko acting like he summoned them to his side, rather than them coming because they’re friends, and like…I can see why that would be insulting, but you also just tried to interfere with his marriage, Katara. I think you messed up worse in this fight.

 Katara and Aang head out, or in Katara’s case, storms out. Team War Balloon leaves soon afterwards, with Sokka thinking that he’d rather deal with Flaky Aang over Angry Jerk any day, which is fair. Zuko and Katara were both poorly behaved here.

 “He guessed they’d all be happier once Azula was back in her straightjacket. But first he had to make it happen. Right. No problem.”—I doubt that you’re going to make it happen, Sokka, and I think that you doubt it too.

 And that’s the end of chapter eleven! Next up is chapter twelve, “The Seal,” which is my favorite chapter in this fic so far. I’m excited! As always, thank you for the read, Aurelia.

 Sincerely,

WiseAbsol    

#WiseAbsol #Dominion by Aurelia le #Fanfiction #Review #Azula #avatar: the last airbender

[takaraphoenix]

Thor/Tony. What if Thor is courting Tony Asgardian style, but Tony being well Tony doesn't totally understand but is all kinds of confused/smitten. Bruce is just watching amused before stepping in to tell Thor that Tony is not good with subtle and needs a more direct approach? Smut is welcome but fluff is fine as well :)

The Avengers had defeated Loki and his army of aliens. They had secured the Tesseract. They had been ready to celebrate victory – and then everything had gone awry.

Tony had a heart-attack, probably an aftermath of going through the portal and temporarily dying there. Thor revived him using his lightning, but Loki used the distraction and turmoil to escape – stealing the Tesseract in the process. Steve, all the while, was busy battling Loki who had shapeshifted into Steve to mess with his head.

That, of course, changed their plans. What was only supposed to be one mission, one fight, turned into an actual... team. A project. They had to track down Loki and they had to find the Tesseract.

For convenience purposes, the team moved into Stark Tower, to have a headquarters. Tony easily designed floors for each of the Avengers, which was honestly all he got to do being tied to the bed. Figuratively, sadly, because literally would at least be fun. But oh no, you nearly die twice in one day and everyone suddenly fusses over you. How annoying.

It wasn't that annoying though, if Tony was honest. Nat had bought shawarma for them all and they ate around Tony's hospital bed, with Clint in the next bed over to get checked over after the mind-control. It had been the very first moment of team-bonding, actual bonding.

/break\

"Blueberries?"

"Thank you, Tony", smiled Jane in amusement as she accepted the treat.

She popped the blueberry into her mouth before returning her attention to the blackboard. Old-fashioned. It was more fun that way, or so Jane claimed. Tony and Bruce rolled with it and honestly, it really was more fun than a white-board. This was how the science trio had been sciencing for the past three months now. Ever since the battle of New York.

They had brought Jane Foster in, as the Earthly expert on Asgard and Loki. Honestly, Tony didn't understand why they hadn't called her during the battle of New York already, she would have been an asset to Tony and Bruce. Well, better late than never, Tony supposed.

Now Tony had two live-in scientists to science with. Even though Jane had started out as being Thor's ex-girlfriend (disappearing to Asgard for months without calling was a sure way to end a relationship), there was no ill-will between them. Jane and Thor still shared a deep connection, a deep friendship, and Thor respected her scientific knowledge and was grateful to have her help them try to track down Loki. Tony loved it. Loved having Bruce and Jane with him here.

Well, he loved having the Avengers here in general. Tony Stark had never been a pack-person. His parents had lived isolated, the closest he had ever come to having a pack had been his parents and the Jarvises. Then his parents had died in a car accident and Ana and Edwin... Tony was alone.

He had met Rhodey at MIT and he had Obie, but then Rhodey left for the army and further down the road, Obie betrayed Tony, betrayed him so deeply. And Tony, he found it hard to trust anyone. Only those he knew he could trust, even more so than he had thought to trust Obie. Rhodey, Pepper, Happy. Those were his people, but it was hardly a pack.

They said omegas needed a pack. Tony had always scoffed at that, because he never knew pack.

Now? Now that he had a pack? He finally understood. He understood what it meant to have a pack and he understood how much it meant. The safety, the comfort, the warmth.

It was the first time, since Edwin and Ana Jarvis had died, that Tony felt like he had a family. Yes, sure, he had Rhodey, Pepper and Happy, but – Rhodey was mostly gone, the job required it, and Tony had never actually lived with a pack before; Pepper and Happy lived together somewhere else, a happy couple. Now however, Tony had a pack, had a pack living with him.

"I don't think we'll ever find Loki", sighed Bruce exhausted.

He collapsed backward in his chair some, tilting his head back. Tony nudged him and pushed the bowl of blueberries toward him as a pick-me-up. It earned him a wry smile from the exhausted scientist and Bruce grabbed a handful of blueberries to eat.

"I mean, sure, we've been hunting him for over three months yet and sure, he keeps slipping away and sure, he is constantly making fun of us and—I think I lost my train of thought..."

"Your point, Tony", sighed Jane fondly. "Was that we can't just give up."

"Right. That. Thank you, star lady", nodded Tony pleased.

Jane smiled and shook her head as she exchanged a look with Bruce.

/break\

"What's with the pacing?", asked Clint.

The omega had his feet in his alpha's lap, with Nat having the fingers of one hand circled around one of Clint's ankles, while Clint was sharpening an arrow. It was a nice, calm afternoon where most of the Avengers were gathered in the common room. Natasha was holding a controller with her other hand, single-handedly beating Steve at Mario Kart.

"Thor's due to return today", replied Bruce without looking up. "And Nat, I really think you should let Steve win every now and again. This isn't good for the captain's morale."

"My morale is fine, Banner!", countered Steve. "I'll win the next round."

Bruce chuckled softly and exchanged a knowing look with Natasha. Jane and Darcy were sitting at the table with Bruce, sorting through newspapers, printed articles and magazines – most recent mentions and sightings of Loki. Darcy was mostly looking on the internet usually, though she often admitted defeat because sorting between legitimate sightings and thirst posts was hard.

"Wait. You people are talking about me", stated Tony as he abruptly stopped pacing.

"Truly, your genius is astonishing", quipped Darcy with a grin.

Tony scowled. He liked the girl. Darcy was a beta with snark and personality. She had come as a package deal with Jane and by now, he was happy about that. She was an excellent addition to the pack – and to the team. Not as an active Avenger, but as the PR manager of the Avengers, specifically their social media presence. After all, this new team made up of spies and a god and a science experiment gone wrong and a sober alcoholic playboy philanthropist, it didn't necessarily invoke confidence or trust. They had been a ragtag team thrown together by circumstances, so aside from internal team-bonding they also needed press and a good image for the public. Thanks to Darcy's posts online, they had gained a lot of favor (and fans).

"I'm not pacing about Thor returning. It's just, we're pack. I'm not particularly fond of a pack-mate being on another planet", grunted Tony defensively and annoyed.

"I dunno. No one else is that antsy about his return", quipped Darcy teasingly.

"It's an omega-thing", tried Tony irritated.

"Yeah, I'll debunk that for you", countered Clint. "I'm not antsy either."

Tony scowled at them, but at least Jane had mercy on him. "Thor's been bringing back books and technology for Tony. I think that's... more so what Tony's antsy about."

"Thank you. You're my new favorite Avenger", huffed Tony.

"That hurts. That hurts deeply, Tony", stated Steve with that sad puppy-pout. "I didn't even-"

"You didn't defend me either", argued Tony.

"I mean, they're right, so...", drawled Steve. "You always pace in particular when Thor's about to return. Not so much when Clint and Natasha return from a mission with the agents, or-"

"You're a traitor, Steve Rogers", accused Tony. "I think we need a divorce. I'm taking Bruce and Jane. You can keep the archer and the smirking widow."

Darcy snorted amused, though before anyone else could tease Tony about it, Thor landed not so lightly in the backyard – they had a special landing area closed off for this very occasion. Darcy's expression morphed into a teasing grin as she saw how much Tony perked up. She liked to consider herself the local Thor Odinson Expert and she knew what someone smitten with Thor looked like; had lived with Jane for long enough during her relationship with Thor. Tony Stark was smitten with Thor, maybe even more than just smitten. And considering all the gifts Thor brought back from Asgard – gifts very specifically for Tony – Darcy would bet it was not so one-sided.

The Avengers put what they did aside to get up and walk outside to greet Thor. Despite teasing Tony about it, they all had been looking forward to Thor's return, in some way or another. They were a team, they were a pack. The battle of New York and thrown them together, but the months that followed of searching for Loki had actually forged them into a team.

"Welcome home", greeted Jane with a smile.

"My friends!", exclaimed Thor with the usual joyous laughter bubbling in his chest. "It is truly good to be home again! I have missed you dearly! You have to tell me all about the glorious battles you have fought while I was gone. And do you have news on my brother?"

"Well, news yes, but...", drawled Darcy.

"He keeps getting away", supplied Natasha. "But let's not worry about that yet. Come on in. Let's order some food and catch each other up. I'm sure you're hungry."

That was a safe bet with Thor, always. At the prospect of eating Earth food, Thor perked up even more. He loved Asgard, he truly did, but every time he was there, he found himself missing Earth. Missing humans – especially his humans. And speaking of his humans, his eyes found Tony. The small, brilliant omega looked up at him with excitement sparkling in his honey-eyes.

"I brought more books for you, Tony", stated Thor, putting down a bag.

If possible, Tony's eyes sparkled even more at that and he eagerly went to look at them. "You don't have to, Thor. I wouldn't want you to get into trouble with your father-"

"Nonsense. These are merely school books for our youngest, he would not even notice."

"Who'd have thought Tony Stark would be excited about elementary school books?", teased Clint.

"Elementary school on a whole other planet", countered Tony pointedly, waving the book in Clint's face. "This contains mathematical equations that have never been seen like it on Earth!"

"The biology. Evolution on Asgard. Plant life", mused Bruce eagerly.

Of course did Tony share the shiny new wisdom that Thor was giving him. Half the time the science trio spent together was spent on the texts Thor brought him. Even though Thor always made rather sure to let Tony know it was for him. Which was flattering and nice. It was rare for Tony to get stuff. Most people didn't bother, because he was a billionaire – what was it that he couldn't just buy himself? Pepper, Happy and Rhodey were the only exceptions. Or used to be the only exceptions.

Darcy would make awful collages of pictures she had taken of the science trio, even with a hand-made frame. Steve sometimes gave him drawings he made – mostly those he made in the lab, of Tony with his bots. Tony had them pinned up all over the lab by now.

It was nice, having a pack. A pack that really cared for him, accepted him as part of them.

"And I bring food, for everyone", stated Thor after a long moment. "With greetings from mother."

Because while Thor was excited about human food? His human pack was very excited about Asgardian food. His mother liked to pack him a feast to go, a thanks for the people who took such good care of her son and accepted him among them, aided him, gave him a home.

"I love your mom", stated Darcy seriously. "That lady is amazing and knows exactly how to bribe."

The Avengers made their way back inside and set the table for them all, before they sat down together, as a family, to eat and catch each other up on their progress, or lack thereof.

/break\

Thor heaved a forlorn sigh as he grabbed his mead and took a long gulp from it. He was sitting together with Steve, Clint and Natasha. They held a party at the tower – not a rare thing, especially not when Thor would return from a stay on Asgard. Tony was standing off over with Jane, Bruce and Darcy, laughing and talking. They had many visitors, fans mostly.

"You know, relationships among the team aren't a problem", noted Natasha casually.

Thor hummed and turned his attention over to the Black Widow. She and Clint were in a relationship, Thor knew that. Every Avenger knew that. They weren't overly affectionate in public, they didn't make a big show of their relationship, but fighting alongside them made the deep bond they shared very obvious. They shared so much, a long history of suffering, missions and only being able to rely on each other. Thor felt humbled being among the limited number of people they both trusted, the people they now called pack and family.

"Of course it's not", stated Thor a little confused.

Clint sighed and rolled his eyes where he was leaning closely against Natasha. "Then what is it? Because if it's Jane, boy I got some news for you. She is so not hung up on you anymore."

Thor furrowed his brows at that and returned his attention back to the scientists and Darcy. Jane and Bruce stood close, very close, with Jane resting a hand on Bruce's arm as she leaned forward in laughter at something Tony had just said. Of course was Jane not hung up on him anymore. It had been over half a year ago that they had broken off and even before that, for a long while their relationship had barely counted as such, with him disappearing for months on end to Asgard, not calling or giving notice. It was for the best for the both of them to be friends.

"Jane is not a vengeful woman, she would never hold it against me to move on, no more than I would hold it against her to move on. She is very deserving of happiness", stated Thor.

"Thor, buddy", started Steve with a sigh and clapped Thor on the back. "Why haven't you asked Tony out on a date yet? That's what the spies are asking."

"Ah", nodded Thor in understanding. "I have yet to complete the first courting stage before I could move on to something so daring."

The other three didn't quite know what to make of that and just exchanged a confused look.

/break\

"I had a lot of fun tonight, Bruce."

"So did I", replied Bruce with a gentle smile.

Jane was holding onto his arm, returning his smile. The two had gone out for dinner, were now walking through the park. It was nice, having someone gentle, soft and yet fiercely brilliant to share everything with. They had slowly orbited closer over the past months until they reached this point.

"I'm sorry, but I have to ask", sighed Bruce as they returned to the tower. "I know you're not... interested in Thor anymore in that way, but I do wonder... is it awkward for you, to see your ex every day and now to see him clearly interested in one of your friends?"

Jane laughed a little at that and shook her head. "I mean, I suppose it was odd when I first realized it. But Thor is... He's a good guy. I care deeply about him. I want to see him happy. And, I suppose, he has a type, mh? The brilliant, brunette scientists from Earth."

Bruce hummed softly, fingers linked with Jane's as they reached the floor Jane and Darcy were sharing. He smiled when he leaned in to kiss her briefly before biding his goodbye. There was someone else he wanted to ask the same question. He had heard from Natasha that they already had asked Thor this very question, but it had apparently left the two spies and the super soldier confused. So Bruce had done a bit more digging, digging through the textbooks about Asgardian culture and then talking to Jane and Darcy a bit more.

"Thor. Are you... busy?", asked Bruce when he reached Thor's floor.

Clint and Natasha shared a floor, so did Jane and Darcy, Bruce had a private lab in his floor and thus no floor-mate, while Thor and Steve also shared one. Tony was far too generous to be real, most of the time. It would have already been a grand gesture of him to give them rooms, but the specifically designed floors? Tony, he had so much to give – not just money and material stuff, he had so much love to give and the Avengers were lucky. Not to be spoiled but because they were being loved this way. Tony did his everything to protect them, to make them happy.

"Ah, no, my friend. I was just considering if I should join the captain in the training facilities", replied Thor with a smile. "Or would the Hulk like to come out and train with me?"

"No. No, he wouldn't", chuckled Bruce and shook his head.

"Then what can I do for you?", inquired Thor, motioning for Bruce to walk with him.

"I... I didn't ask you this before because I didn't want it to look to Jane like I'm asking your permission to date her, but as your friend and pack-mate, I still wanted to know how you feel about me and Jane", replied Bruce honestly, a faint blush on his cheeks.

"I think that you are a wonderful match", laughed Thor joyfully, slapping Bruce's back.

Bruce stumbled a little under the force, though he smiled to himself. Thor was a good guy, a kind man. Bruce thought he too deserved to find happiness. But judging by everything he had been witnessing over the past three months, Thor would need a bit help there.

"I think you and Tony are a good match", offered Bruce after a moment.

And it was true. Thor and Tony had been particularly close ever since New York – after Tony had nearly died the second time in one day when he had the heart-attack and Thor restarted his heart with lightning. The two sparred together, Tony had developed technology capable of channeling and using Thor's lightning, enabling them to perform some spectacular attacks together.

"Why, thank you", smiled Thor, though it was a bit of a sad smile. "I wish Tony would see it that way too. Alas, I think... my courting is futile."

"That's... what I wanted to talk to you about", replied Bruce. "I think what you're not accounting for is that Asgardian customs and Earthly customs are... very different. What I'm saying is that I don't think Tony even knows you're courting him. He thinks that you are being a good friend and team-mate by bringing him all those books and all the technology and by getting to know his family. He doesn't know what those actions mean in your culture."

"...Oh", grunted Thor and paused, blinking slowly. "I... had truly not... considered that."

"Tony is a bit oblivious when it comes to those things, so that's not helping either", continued Bruce with an encouraging smile. "Maybe you should go and talk to him, put your feelings to words."

Bruce huffed as he was suddenly pulled into a hug by a very enthusiastic Thor. "Thank you for the advise, my friend! Can you tell Steve that I won't be able to make our sparring session after all?"

"Of course. And, good luck, Thor", chuckled Bruce as he watched Thor run off.

/break\

Tony was in his labs, hunched over the piece of Asgardian technology that Thor had brought him this time. Tony loved dissecting them, figuring out how they worked, what made them tick, what their function was. It was so exciting. He was grinning like a maniac in joy.

"Sir, Thor asks for access to the lab."

Blinking curiously, Tony put the tech aside and looked up. "Uh. Let him in, Jay."

Thor was not exactly a frequent visitor of the lab – mainly, and he knew that, because Thor was not exactly big on the fine-motor skills and he didn't want to break anything. Steve very often sat with Tony and drew here, Jane and Bruce of course for their own projects. But Thor...?

"I wish to take you out to dinner!", exclaimed Thor as soon as he entered the lab.

Again, Tony blinked, tilting his head a little. "I think Darcy dropped sandwiches for me off like an hour ago. You don't need to drag me out to eat. Though it's... nice you all care so much."

"No", huffed Thor, looking troubled. "Bruce said I need to put it into words for you don't understand Asgardian courting rituals. Which makes sense, of course, now that I think of it. I just... didn't. I wish to take you out to dinner, as a date. That is... how humans court, yes?"

"Court...? I... what?", asked Tony slowly, staring up at the tall alpha.

"You are truly the most impressive omega I have ever met", stated Thor seriously. "You are kind, brave, strong and brilliant. I have... cared deeply for Jane, but nothing I ever felt was this intense. I have been courting you for weeks and thought you were not interested and politely declining by not acting on my courting attempts. On Asgard, we court – we share knowledge with the one we love, we bring them food, especially that they enjoy truly, we make them gifts, all of the little machines I kept bringing to you from Asgard and the fabrics and clothes, they were not just for you to study, they were also simply for you to... enjoy."

"...Oh", whispered Tony. "I, we don't... We don't really court. We just date and the only kind of courting gift given is an engagement ring. I didn't... huh. You. Uhm. Okay."

"Okay?", echoed Thor unsure.

"Date. Okay", clarified Tony with a deep flush. "You... uh... I mean, come on, look at you. You're really out of this world. And you're not just... really nice to look at, Thor. You're... like an over-sized puppy. You're soft and sweet and kind. You're... unlike any alpha I ever met."

The smile on Thor's face grew with every word and he looked ready to explode from joy at the end. Unable to hold back, he grabbed Tony around the waist and lifted him up to whirl him around.

"Wonderful! Tonight?", asked Thor with a smile, kissing Tony's cheek softly.

(due to tumblr not allowing the NSFW tag anymore, the NSFW part is below the line, so consider this your warning.)

/break\

Thor really was like an over-sized puppy. He loved following Tony around eagerly, happy for every time he got Tony's undivided attention. He loved cuddling with Tony, very often the two would simply be curled together on the couch. Thor was very comfortable for cuddling, he was so large and safe and yet so gentle. Now that Tony understood what Thor was doing, he had far more intense reactions to every time Thor brought him something from Asgard. By now, Tony had also been to Asgard before – because Queen Frigga had insisted on meeting the omega her son was courting. And Frigga was amazing, a wonderful lady, while Odin was slightly unsettling, but in the end there was nothing Odin could do to change Thor's mind (and Frigga had her husband enough under control to make him back off). So, Tony had accepted this bizarre new reality of him being courted by an alien prince. In the end, it was just... Thor. His Thor. Royalty and alien origins didn't matter.

"Ye—es!", exclaimed Thor excitedly as their attack landed.

Him and Tony were the perfect team. The updates on his suit that Tony had developed – with the help of the Asgardian technology that Thor had brought him – were perfect to channel Thor's lightning. They managed stronger attacks, better hits, when Thor summoned lightning in the clouds, he was no longer the only one able to wield it. The armor landed and opened up and Tony stumbled out of it, a grin matching Thor's on his face. Though when Thor turned toward Tony, his eyes darkened. The armor was impressive, but the skin-tight black under-suit that Tony wore beneath it?

"You truly are brilliant, Tony", stated Thor with a smile, grasping Tony by the hips.

Tony gasped breathlessly as his strong, tall alpha lifted him up with ease and pinned him against the nearest wall. Thor's hands cupped Tony's ass, Tony's legs wrapping around Thor's waist as the two kissed deeply. Clumsily, they tugged each other free of their clothes, at least enough to make this work. Thor slipped a thick finger into Tony's hole, already wet just from the display of strength from his to-be-mate. A second finger followed soon enough and Tony was writhing on them, moaning loudly. Thor pulled out of Tony, his hand soaked with the omega's slick. He wrapped that hand around his own cock, lubing it up with his lover's slick while kissing Tony deeply.

"You are truly the most astonishing omega I ever met", whispered Thor gently.

He grabbed Tony safely with both hands on his hips and slowly lowered the omega onto his hard cock, effectively distracting Tony from any thought. Tony's eyes rolled back into his head as he leaned back against the wall. Thor was gigantic, which figured considering everything else about the alien. It always stole the breath right out of Tony's lungs when the thick, large cock invaded him like that, filled him up like that. Once Tony was fully seated on Thor's length, they paused. Giving Tony the time to adjust. Tony wrapped his arms around Thor's neck and kissed him again.

"You know, we can't let every sparring session end in sex in the training room..."

"What? Why not?", asked Thor, looking genuinely put off by that as he started fucking into Tony. "Do you not enjoy our little tradition of blowing off the last left-over adrenaline."

"I enjoy it a lot", groaned Tony, gasping as Thor hit his prostate. "But Clint's been giving me shit about it reeking like sex and everybody else is snickering about it too."

"So let. Them. Snicker", huffed Thor, punctuating each word with a sharp thrust.

Tony gave a strangled little sound at that, arching into his alpha. Thor thrust in harder and deeper, until the alpha's knot was pushed into him, making Tony moan in a drawn-out way. He loved being knotted by Thor, because if his dick was big? Damn, his knot really was something else.

"Okay, yeah", gasped Tony. "You're right."

"Of course I am", hummed Thor, kissing Tony's neck gently.

He let go of Tony's waist with one hand to jerk him off while his knot swelled to its full size and the two of them came together, Tony spraying his cum all over Thor's chest and Thor filling his omega up. Gasping for breath, Tony leaned forward to rest his head on Thor's shoulder.

"I really love our sparring sessions", laughed Tony breathlessly.

"Aye. So do I", replied Thor with a pleased look on his face.

He slowly lowered them both onto a training mat so they could cuddle until Thor's knot would deflate. Tony tucked his head under Thor's chin, his cheek resting against Thor's chest. Smiling pleased, he closed his eyes while his alpha wrapped his arms around Tony's waist. Who'd have thought that Loki escaping would lead to Tony getting all of this? Fate truly was twisted.

#Fanfiction #Marvel #Tony Stark #Thor Odinson #IronThunder #Lemon #can't believe we're back on the citrus scale #Naughty List #fallenqueen2

[emospritelet]

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7] [Part 8] [Part 9][Part 10] [Part 11] [Part 12] [Part 13]

AO3 link

Last time, in the past, Lacey was waylaid by an old enemy, just as her life was going really well...

Four months earlier

Lacey scowled at Fiona Schwartz’s back as she was led down the street to a nearby diner.  Two tall men followed them, clad in dark suits and with identical flat, expressionless faces.  Lacey ignored them; she recognised hired muscle when she saw it, but they had no reason to cause her trouble unless she attacked Fiona.  And don’t think I’m not tempted, you arseholes.  The diner was cheerfully noisy, busy with the lunchtime rush, and they took a table by the window, the two goons standing outside with folded arms and lowered brows, dogs awaiting their mistress.

“I think I might have an iced tea,” said Fiona, as she took a seat.  “The weather is delightful, don’t you think? If a little humid.”

“I’m not here for tea and polite chit-chat,” said Lacey bluntly.  “State your business and piss off.”

Fiona rolled her eyes with a sigh, but beckoned to the waitress and ordered two iced teas.  She sat back in her chair, hands folded in her lap, and smiled faintly as Lacey scowled.

“To business, then,” she said, and raised an eyebrow.  “We need you to do something.”

“Not interested.”

“At least hear me out before you dismiss me completely.”

“Why should I?”

“Because we have so much to offer,” purred Fiona, leaning forward.  “You remember, I’m sure.”

“I remember wanting to get as far away from you as I could.”

“Lack of ambition always was your downfall.”

“If being safe and secure shows a lack of ambition, I guess you’re right.”

“Oh, is that what you are?” she asked.  “You tell me your marriage is failing, so you’re soon to be a single mother, in a two-bed that you rent and with no decent prospects.  Yes, very secure.”

She glanced away with a twist of her lips, and Lacey scowled.  Did your homework, huh?  Bitch.

“Still better than the life I had with you,” she said.  “And I’m not interested in anything you have to offer. As far as I’m concerned you can all go fuck yourselves and take your time doing it.”

Fiona’s nostrils flared, a sign of anger, but she continued to smile sweetly.

“Very well,” she said.  “You can’t say I didn’t try to be pleasant, but if that’s the way you want to play things, I’m more than happy to be the evil stepmother you like to portray me as.”

Lacey could feel her heart thump faster, fear rising in her, but she raised her chin, as though she would snarl and bite at the threat facing her.

“What do you want?” she snapped.  “I won’t ask again.”

The waitress brought the iced teas, tall glasses frosted with condensation, slices of lemon wedged in among the ice cubes and clear plastic straws sticking upwards.  Fiona tapped her fingers on the table, red-painted nails drumming in a staccato rhythm.

“You have something of ours,” she said.

“Bullshit!” said Lacey fiercely.  “I left over ten years ago, and all I took was the money I’d saved and the clothes I could carry!  I don’t have anything of yours! I don’t want anything of yours!”

“Oh, rein in your temper, girl, please!” snapped Fiona.  “I didn’t say you were aware of it, did I?”

Silence had fallen in the diner, the customers on other tables looking at them curiously, and Lacey sat back with a scowl, folding her arms.  Fiona rolled her eyes as the patrons turned away and the background noise started up again.

“Fine,” said Lacey bluntly.  “What do you think I have?”

"Well, among other things, an opportunity," she said.  "An opportunity for you to prove your loyalty to your family.  To ensure its continued prosperity in the face of those who would seek to destroy it."

Lacey burst out laughing, sitting back.

"Someone wants to take you down and you come to me?" she said, with derision.  "Please!  I'd be cheering them on!"

Fiona's mouth flattened, and she shook her head.

"I told Azurine it was pointless," she said, almost to herself.  "You always did respond more to the stick than the carrot.  Very well, consider it an opportunity to save whatever sad little life you've managed to scrape out for yourself."

Lacey sat back up slowly, nervous again.

"At least you've dropped the phoney concern," she remarked.  "We're back to threats.  Good, at least I know where I stand.  Who is it that's got you running scared?" 

Fiona took a sip of her tea, setting down the glass.

“Your father wants you back,” she said abruptly.

“I don’t know how many ways I can tell you to go fuck yourselves..."

"He's obsessed with succession planning at the moment," she went on, as though Lacey hadn't spoken.  "Must be his age making him worry so, and the fact that his only child turned her back on him like an ungrateful little brat."

Lacey stared at her stonily.

"You remember how he gets," added Fiona.  "Apt to fits of - violence.  Your betrayal hurt him deeply.  I'm sure having you back, along with something he wants as a peace offering, would ease his mind a little.  Make him a little less - impulsive."

"Peace offering?" asked Lacey suspiciously.  "Like what?"

Fiona smiled.

"There's something we need you to get."

"If it means you'll leave this town and never come back, I'm all ears," said Lacey.  "What do you want?"

Fiona took another sip of tea, licking a droplet from her lower lip as she sat back.

“It starts, as do so many things in life, alas, with a betrayal,” she said.  “The Blue Star had a client named Isaac Heller.  A little man of no consequence, but he did like to gamble.  Made his money defending low-level criminals.”

“Surprised you knew him, if that’s the case,” said Lacey.  Heller. Shit. The guy I saw murdered was called Heller, wasn’t he? Was that him? Shit. Shitshitshit.

“Well, he never would have come to my attention, had it not been for his troublesome wife,” said Fiona.  “Another non-entity, but by all accounts a kind woman. Taught music to local children and ran special classes for some of the poorest in town in connection with a local church.  Such a charitable notion. And she was such a good listener.  Became the confidante of her pupils, some of which were children of her husband’s clients.  I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how they might have earned their money.”

“She was hearing things she shouldn’t,” said Lacey flatly.  “So you had to shut her up, right? I’ve heard this story a hundred times or more, what the hell does it have to do with me?  Do I know this woman?”

“I very much doubt it, she’s been dead for years.”

“And I’m guessing you killed her,” said Lacey.  “Or at least had someone else do it, not like you get your own hands dirty.”

“I’m not responsible for what may or may not have happened to the poor woman.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” said Lacey disgustedly.  “Is there a point to this?”

Fiona rolled her eyes, and took a sip of her iced tea.

“It appears Mrs Heller persuaded some of her students to provide her with evidence.”

“Given that you’re here and not in jail where you belong, she can’t have gotten anything that incriminating.”

“Well, what she was given encouraged her to do her own investigation,” said Fiona.  “Started sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. Even managed to get one or two of the parents to talk to her.  Very persuasive, she must have been, given the penalties they faced for breaking their silence. A pity we never met, I’m sure she would have been an asset to any business.”

“Spare me the fake regret,” said Lacey, her tone flat.  “She didn’t die of old age.”

“Well, the circumstances of her tragic demise aren’t really relevant to the story,” said Fiona, looking at her fingernails.  “What is relevant is the information she obtained before that happened.  Information which is only ever of value to those who control it.”

Lacey pursed her lips, tapping her fingers on the table.

“You mean evidence that you were keeping to blackmail people,” she guessed, and Fiona shrugged slightly.

“Partly,” she admitted.  “You know how much we value discretion, and what with so many of those involved running for re-election - well, I do so hate to lose a return on an investment."

"If she died years ago I don't see what the problem is," said Lacey.  “Okay, maybe she could have reported what she had to the police, but why would that bother you?  It’s not like you don’t have the cops in your pocket.”

Fiona smiled, taking another sip of tea.

“Oh, not the police, dear,” she said.  “The children had already warned her off that.  No, she was in discussion with a journalist. One of these idealistic types. Uncovering corruption, taking down big business, fighting for the little guy, et cetera...”

“And?”

“And one of her informants got scared and remembered his loyalties.”

Lacey sat back, a twist to her mouth.

“I still don’t see where I come in,” she said bluntly.  “She was gonna spill the beans on your criminal network, you offed her before she could.  So far, so normal. For you.”

“Yes, well, unfortunately she died before she handed over the evidence.” Fiona sipped at her tea. “Even more unfortunately, it then went missing.”

“Ouch.”  Lacey couldn’t help smirking.  “Must have caused you some sleepless nights, huh?  Really putting a strain on that legitimate business face you try to keep going.  I thought you were looking haggard.”

“The evidence is on a hard drive,” said Fiona, as if she hadn’t spoken.  “It was allegedly taken from her home by a person or persons unknown in what was rumoured to be a break-in, shortly after her death.  The police report doesn’t identify the perpetrators, but I suspect one of the informants who got scared for their own safety, or Heller himself. What is known is that the hard drive made its way to Maine, and into the hands of your grandmother.”

Lacey’s mouth dropped open.

“Grandma?” she said blankly.  “But - but that’s impossible!”

“Is it?”  Fiona sipped at her tea, eyebrows quirking.

“She’s been bed-bound for years!”

“Well, yes and no,” said Fiona slowly.  “You’re aware that she’s been deteriorating, I’m sure, but it’s been a gradual process.  It so happens that this information was passed to her seven years ago, just after Mrs Heller met her tragic end.  You would have been - what? Nineteen?”

“I guess.”

Lacey frowned to herself, remembering that her grandmother had just started to be noticeably frail at that time, although she had tried to cover it as best she could.

“Still very much in her right mind, of course,” said Fiona, eyes gleaming viciously.  “Most of the time, anyway. Lucid enough to know exactly what she had been sent, and how dangerous it could be in the wrong hands.”

“Why the hell would she want to protect you?” asked Lacey bluntly.  “She couldn’t stand you. Any of you. After my mother died, she wanted nothing to do with you!”

“No, she didn’t want anything to do with us,” agreed Fiona.  “She pretended otherwise, of course, but she couldn’t entirely hide it. I was glad when she lost the ability to speak, but those eyes of hers...”

It was all Lacey could do not to launch herself across the table and strangle her.  She dug her thumbnails into the pads of her fingers, hard.

“Anyway, she wasn’t protecting us, silly girl, she was protecting you.”

“Me?”

“Such a well-bred lady, wasn’t she?” purred Fiona, resting her chin on her hand.  “Fine, upstanding, the epitome of good manners. You can imagine how upset she was to receive recordings containing evidence of criminal acts. Particularly those involving her young granddaughter.”

Lacey felt a cold vein of ice pulse down her spine, her heart thumping.  The ice spread through her, freezing her blood, making her hold her breath, as though to do so would stop time, would let silence wash over them. Fiona kept talking, seemingly oblivious to her distress.

“Of course, given the family history, not to mention the man her daughter Colette had married, she was adept at pretending unsavoury things weren’t happening.  Even when they were going on under her nose.”

The diner seemed to close in around her, the background noise fading until she could hear nothing but her racing heart and Fiona’s words, spoken in a light, unhurried tone, as though it were nothing of importance.  As though she hadn’t broken open the deepest vaults of shame and trauma in her brain and strewn the rotted and broken contents all over.

“Perhaps you don’t remember,” Fiona added sweetly, making Lacey start. “The mind sometimes forgets things on purpose, I find.”

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” said Lacey.  Her voice was hoarse, as though dust had dried her throat, choking her.

“Good,” said Fiona lightly.  “So you see, we all have an interest in dealing with this sordid affair.  I understand your grandmother paid a substantial sum to secure the evidence and to ensure that any copies were destroyed, but I really feel we have to deal with what remains, don’t you agree?”

Lacey licked her lips.

“Why should I care?” she said boldly.  “Whatever was on that hard drive, I was a minor.  Good luck trying to make me look like the bad guy in all this.”

“Well, that’s not really the point, is it?” she said sweetly.  “Willing participant or poor little victim, the effect is much the same.  What would your husband say?”

Lacey raised her chin.

“I guess he’d want to kill every one of you,” she said.

“And here I thought you two were estranged.”

Lacey shrugged, adopting a nonchalance she didn’t feel.

“Yeah, well, taking down scumbags is like his favourite thing,” she drawled.  “The fact that there’s a family connection wouldn’t make him any less enthusiastic about it.”

“Well, we’d like to avoid that.”  Fiona’s tone was light. “We need you to get the evidence for us.”

“Get it yourself,” said Lacey, slumping back in the chair and folding her arms. “How come you didn’t already tear the place apart? Grandma’s not exactly in a position to fight back, is she?”

“And now we come to the part where we need you,” said Fiona pleasantly, folding her hands on the table. “You can’t imagine the trouble we went to to find out this little piece of information, given her current state of health.  It's taken years of piecing together rumours and whispers from those around her, but we got there in the end.  Rather than destroy the thing like a sensible woman, she apparently placed it in a safe deposit box in your name.”

Lacey blinked.

“Why?” she asked, and Fiona shrugged.

“Perhaps she wanted to give you some control over that part of your life, who knows? Who cares? The point is, it’s in a place that only Isabelle Schwartz can access.”

“I’m Lacey Weaver.”

Fiona shrugged again.

“For now,” she said lazily.  “I daresay that’ll change, hmm?”

Lacey wanted to grind her teeth.

“What I meant was, I have no I.D.”

“I can provide you with I.D.,” said Fiona briskly, sitting back.

“How did you find out about all this, anyway?” asked Lacey suspiciously.

“The dear departed Mr Heller, of course,” said Fiona.  “Gambling debts are a powerful tool. Especially when paired with incriminating evidence of our own. Everyone has secrets they’d rather the world didn’t know.”

Including you, and don’t think I don’t know that.

“So you pretty much had his balls in a bolt cutter,” said Lacey, and Fiona smirked.

“Visual as ever, my dear.  You really do have a way with words.  Perhaps going back to school is the right path for you after all.”

Lacey winced at her sneering drawl.  A tide of insecurity rose up through her, the familiar whispering at the back of her mind that had never truly left, telling her she was worthless, stupid, brainless.  She slammed the door in her head, muting the voices, but it was ill-fitting and warped, letting them leak through. She squared her jaw, looking Fiona in the eyes.

“So you put the thumbscrews on Heller,” she said flatly.  “Did he know you offed his wife?”

“I’ve no idea.  If he did he was far too intelligent to let on.”  She drank the last of her iced tea, licking her lips. “Honouring her memory by offering up the information she’d worked so hard to collect, in order to save his miserable soul.  Sad, really.”

“Maybe he figured that since she was already dead, he should look out for himself,” said Lacey dryly.  “Not like you could hurt her anymore, right? Can’t say I blame the guy, I’m pretty confident you terrified him out of his wits.”

Fiona smiled sweetly.

“Such a soft heart,” she said.  “Don’t feel too bad for him, I’m fairly certain he was the one to blackmail your grandmother, though quite how he knew of her existence is another matter we haven’t been able to get to the bottom of.  One of the informants, I presume.”

Lacey glowered at her.  Okay, maybe I’m not that sorry he’s dead.

“Since he wanted to be so helpful,” went on Fiona, “we asked him to obtain the key to the safe deposit box from his contact in Maine, while we tried to trace your whereabouts.  He informed us that he was due to secure the key, but before he could do so, he was accidentally killed by my somewhat - overzealous - assistants.”

“Can’t get the staff,” said Lacey bluntly.  “Contracting-out’s a bitch, huh?”

Fiona ignored the barb.

"We searched his house after the unfortunate incident, but there was no trace of the key," she said.  "We assumed he'd been lying to us about his ability to obtain it, and given that you were nowhere to be found, that there was no harm in leaving the evidence where it was."

"Who was his contact in Maine?" asked Lacey curiously, and Fiona waved a bored hand.

"He died before we could get that information from him.  A client, perhaps? I've no idea what his background was, or how he ended up in Seattle, and it's a little hard for him to explain himself now, isn't it?"

She smirked, and Lacey bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from snarling. Fiona took another sip of tea.

“Of course, then your husband got involved,” she said, looking thoughtful.  “I wish I’d known years ago that you were in this town and that he had the key; it could have been a quick hit and i wouldn’t have had all this bother.  Still, what’s done is done.”

Lacey kept her face as expressionless as she could, trying to shove the image of a tiny silver key from her mind, the green sticky note with the code, the piece of paper with the single sentence on it.  The price is paid. What price? Who sent that thing?

“So you’re saying my husband has the key to this box?” she said flatly. “Taken from the murder scene?"

"Indeed."

"Then it’ll be in the evidence room.  You have cops on the payroll, you must be able to get it!"

"This isn't Vegas," said Fiona stiffly.  "And besides, discretion is paramount in this case.  We need someone with as much to lose as we have, so that we can be assured of absolute loyalty.  I'm sure you can understand that."

"Doesn't matter," said Lacey, her tone blunt.  "There’s no way I can get that! We’re getting divorced, I can’t just turn up at the precinct and ask him to let me in the bloody evidence room!”

“You’ll have to find a way, won’t you?” said Fiona coldly.  “It’s taken me years to track you down to your current hovel, and you know how I hate for my time to be wasted, dear.”

Lacey laughed hollowly.

“Whatever you’re planning on threatening me with, it couldn’t be any worse than what was already done.”

“Well, that’s a failure of imagination on your part,” said Fiona, her voice cool. She leaned on the table, eyes boring into Lacey’s. “You know full well that I’m more than capable of destroying everyone you ever loved. Your grandmother already has one foot in the next world, that would be easy. Not to mention that interfering shrew of a housekeeper and that ridiculous butler.”

Lacey swallowed hard, heart thudding in her chest.

“And then there’s your husband, of course.”

“Soon to be ex-husband!” she snapped.  “You may as well threaten a stranger! See if I care!”

Fiona smiled slowly, leaning forward a little further.

“Well, perhaps we won’t kill him,” she said softly.  “We’ll just destroy his life. Have him put away for a very long time for something highly unsavoury. Police never fare well in prison.”

“You’ve got nothing on him!”

“You’ll find our influence reaches very far,” she said.  “I’m willing, able, and delighted to prove you wrong. And then, of course, poor little Matilda Rose will be in need of a new family, won’t she?  You remember how well we looked after you, I’m sure. We’d be happy to do the same for your daughter.”

Lacey shook her head vehemently, cold horror rendering her mute, and Fiona sat back with a smile.

“Of course, none of this will be necessary if you get me what I need,” she said lightly.  Lacey wanted to grind her teeth.

"What's to stop you coming after me again once you get what you want?" she demanded.  "Why the hell should I trust you?"

"Well, I suppose you shouldn't," said Fiona pleasantly.  "We were really hoping you'd see sense and come home.  Your father misses you, and you belong with your family."

Lacey suppressed a shudder.

"I have a family," she said.

"For now," said Fiona, her tone deceptively light.  "Things can change."

Lacey felt rage flare in her, and she glared at Fiona, jaw clenched.

"If you touch my child I'll kill every last one of you!" she hissed, and Fiona shrugged.

"Come home with the present for your father, and there'll be no need for any unpleasantness, will there?"

Lacey shook her head."You're asking me to go back to the life I left years ago! To - to leave my child!"

"I would never ask that!" protested Fiona, hand on heart.  "By all means bring her with you!  I'm sure your father would love to meet his granddaughter!  That really would ease some of his concerns about succession, don't you think? Although I doubt he'd approve of your choice of husband..."

"If you think I'd put Tilly in danger, you're insane!"

Fiona simply smiled at her.

"Then make the right choice," she said.  "For their sake.  Find the key to the safe deposit box, take out the hard drive, and return it to us. Then we can go back to running our business and your daughter will be safe from us.  We’ll even spare the valiant detective, since he means so little to you. I’m so sorry your marriage didn’t work out. No doubt some childhood trauma getting in the way of wedded bliss.”

Lacey sat back, heart humping in her chest, senses heightened, the threats to her family, to the life she had grown to love, looming ominously around her, pressing against her skin and stealing her breath.

“So that’s the deal you want to make?” she said flatly.  “I get you this evidence, and you leave them alone?”

Fiona smiled, showing white teeth.

“You have my word.”

There was a moment of silence, in which the noise of the diner sounded unnaturally loud.  Lacey tried to think of a way out, to protect her family and those she cared about, but every direction she looked in led to nothing but heartbreak, death and trauma.  Just as her life had always been before she made the decision to leave. Before she had become Lacey Weaver. The thought of turning her back on that was agony.

“It’s - it’s not gonna be easy,” she said.  “Like I said, we’re not getting along. It’s gonna take awhile before he trusts me enough to let me near.”

“We’ve waited this long, we can wait a little longer.”

Lacey nodded, and pushed back her chair, standing up.

“Then I guess I’ll be in touch,” she said.  “How do I find you, anyway?”

Fiona rummaged in her bag and dropped a twenty-dollar bill on the table before getting to her feet and putting her hands on Lacey’s shoulders.  Her smile widened.

“Oh, we’ll be keeping an eye on you, don’t you worry.”

Lacey tried to suppress a shiver, and Fiona pulled her into a hug, making her freeze in place.  Fiona’s nose brushed her ear, breath cool against her skin.

“One more thing,” she whispered.  “If you tell anyone about this, or if you’re lying to me in any way, I’ll have poor, dear Detective Weaver shot in the street, do you understand me?”

The ice around her heart froze solid, a hard lump in her chest. Lacey nodded wordlessly.

Fiona kissed her cheek, a cold, wet circle against her skin, and Lacey stood stiffly as she swept out, the diner door closing behind her with a soft thump.

x

Weaver checked his phone again, frowning.  Lacey had still not called, and they had been due to meet for lunch half an hour ago.  He had had to order something for Tilly to keep her occupied; they had spent an enjoyable morning at the aquarium, but she had been grumbling about being hungry even before they were done, so he had taken her to the restaurant by the side of the entrance, and texted Lacey to let her know.  He smiled at Tilly as she chewed on a chicken strip, ketchup on her mouth. A large plush octopus with wide eyes and a cheerful, anatomically-improbable grin sat with Dragon on the empty chair beside her.

His phone buzzed, and he picked it up, swiping at the screen.

“Hey,” he said.  “We’re in the restaurant at the aquarium, where are you?”

“Hey,” said Lacey, sounding a little subdued.  “Did you eat?”

“I got Tilly some chicken and fries, but I didn’t eat yet.”

“Okay.”  A moment of silence.  “Listen, would you mind if I met you back home?  I just have a few things I have to do.”

“Uh - sure.”  He frowned a little.  “What’s up?”

“Nothing, just - the college was kind of overwhelming and I think my brain hurts.”

He grinned at that.

“Well, I guess I can understand that,” he said.  “Don’t worry, I can take Tilly to a movie or something.  Why don’t you get home, run a bath, and we’ll order pizza when I get back.”

“God, that sounds great.”

“In that case I’ll see you later.”  He hesitated, the words he had wanted to say for so long hanging on the edge of his tongue, wanting to fall off into the air. He swallowed them down.  “We'll probably be back around five-thirty, six o'clock.  Okay?”

“Yeah.”  More silence.  “Thanks.”

The phone cut off, and he slipped it back into his pocket, shaking his head fondly.  She probably would have found it overwhelming, having not been in school since she was in her early teens.  He believed in her, though. She could do this.

He turned to Tilly, who had finished most of her chicken strips and was drinking her milk.

“Looks like it’s just you and me this afternoon,” he said.  “Shall we go and see a movie?”

“Yeah!” she said, bouncing excitedly in her seat, and he grinned, reaching out to ruffle her curls.

“Finish your milk, and let me wipe your face, then,” he said.  “We’ll get some popcorn, okay?”

She let him wipe ketchup from her face and turned back to her glass of milk, and he found himself grinning like an idiot as she sucked milk through a straw, kicking her legs.  Her conception had been unplanned, waiting for her arrival had been months of internal panic that he had tried his best to hide, but he couldn’t imagine life without her, or without Lacey.  The only thing that could make his life more perfect would be another child, and he wondered if it was time to raise the subject. Lacey had never suggested that they try, but there again he had never told her he wanted to.  Perhaps it was time.

x

They arrived back at the apartment at just after six, Tilly yawning as she sat in the crook of his arm.  Weaver struggled to open the door with her in one arm and two stuffed animals under the other, and Lacey eventually came to his rescue, taking Tilly from him and kissing her cheek.

“Bath time for you, I think,” she said.

Weaver let her take Tilly through to the bathroom, and set the plush animals on her bed before going through to the kitchen and pulling a beer from the fridge.  He spied a sheaf of documents on the counter: leaflets from the college and a glossy prospectus. Flicking through it took some time, and he smiled to himself, imagining Lacey getting her diploma, he and Tilly cheering her on.

Once Tilly was in bed, he flopped on the couch next to Lacey, who was slumped against the cushions, hands clasped in her lap as she stared into space.

“You want a glass of wine?” he asked.

“In a minute.”

There was a moment of silence.  It felt as though she had something to say, so he waited for her to speak.

“How was the aquarium?” she asked then, and he grinned.

“Good.  She seemed to enjoy herself.”

“Sorry I bailed on you guys,” she said.  “I - I needed to think about some stuff. There was a lot to take in.”

“Really, it’s fine,” he said.  “Tilly was too entranced by the octopus to care that there was only one of us.  I don’t think she’d have noticed if I’d stayed in the restaurant. Kept running off to ask the staff questions.”

“She’s independent, I guess.”

“Takes after her mother.”

“God, I hope not,” she said, letting her head roll back with a sigh, and it sounded heartfelt.  He leaned over and kissed her forehead, and she stayed very still at the touch of his lips.

“So, you guys had fun?” she said, not looking at him.  “You were okay without me?”

“She was great,” he said.  “She was perfect. Cute as a button.  We’ve done a good job with her, you know, for a couple of first-timers.”

She smiled briefly, and he licked his lips.  Perhaps now was the time.

“She’ll be three soon,” he added.  “I thought - I thought maybe - you know, if you wanted - maybe we could have another.”

“Another?” said Lacey, frowning, and he hesitated.

“Another baby.”

He wasn’t sure what reaction he had expected her to have, but staring at him as though he had just grown a second head wasn’t it.

“Are you kidding me?”

“Of course not,” he said.  “It’s gone pretty well, hasn’t it?  I mean - I mean we make a good team, right?  I thought it might be nice for Tilly to have a brother or sister.”

She was still staring at him, and he hesitated, unsure whether to add what had been lurking in his mind for some time.

“And - and honestly,” he said, “I’d like another child.  I’d love another child with you.”

“And you think now is the right time?” she demanded.  “Are you out of your mind?”

“I’m serious!” he protested.  “Why is that so surprising? I - I thought you might like the idea, too.”

“So, all that talk about me going back to school was a load of crap, then?”

“What?”  He shook his head.  “No! Of course we can wait until you’re ready, I didn’t mean—”

“And what if I’m never ready?” she asked, and he held up his hands, trying for a soothing, patient manner.

“I - I just thought we could talk about it, that’s all.”

She shook her head, pushing up from the couch.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” she muttered, stomping off.

“Lacey, wait!”

He almost jumped to his feet, following her into the kitchen, and she froze in place, shoulders stiff, an emotion he couldn’t identify radiating from her, coming off her in waves.  It was almost as though she was scared.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I - I guess that was kind of out of the blue.  We don’t have to talk about it now.”

“But you want to talk about it.”  Her voice was soft, but flat. Dead.  “You want - you want to make a family with me.”

“I already have a family with you,” he said, confused by her reaction.  “We’re a family, Lacey.  I think we’ve been a family since you bloody moved in with me, since before we were even together.  I just - I just thought maybe it could grow. Just a little.”

She was silent for a moment, and her shoulders rose and dropped, a heavy sigh escaping her.

“You’re a good man,” she whispered, her voice barely loud enough for him to hear.

“I’ll remind you of that the next time I forget to buy that wine you like,” he said, trying to make light of the very strange atmosphere that had descended.  Lacey’s head dipped a little, her shoulders hunching, but then she turned slowly on her toes to face him. Her eyes were a little too bright, her lower lip trembling.

“You’re right,” she said, with a wan smile.  “We don’t have to talk about it now. Sorry if I freaked out.”

“That’s okay,” he said.  “I guess it was a surprise.  I’ll give you some warning next time.”

She nodded, arms slowly crossing to cover her belly protectively, her fingers plucking restlessly at the fabric of her dress.

“Right,” he said.  “You still want pizza?”

“Extra jalapenos.”

“I’ll call it in.”

“Then I guess I’ll open the wine.”

She turned away from him, reaching for the cupboard where the glasses were kept, and he eyed her for a moment, a tingle of anxiety stealing through him.  Shaking his head, he went to order the pizza. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps she needed time.

#fic: things left unsaid #woven lace fic #woven lace #rumbelle fic #rumbelle #my fic #rumbelle angst war

[lateviews]

Lateview: Absolver

If you've heard the expression, “Biting off more than you can chew”, then you'll understand how I feel about Absolver. Fans of third-person fighter games like “Dark Souls”, “Devil May Cry” and “God of War” know that these types of games require high levels of love and polish to do well. Despite the starved market, there’s a lot of room for mediocrity. Surprisingly, Absolver doesn't pull any punches and goes toe to toe with the best... until it runs out of steam.

Absolver is a third-person fighter game trying to set itself apart from the crowd using two unique mechanics: stances and the combo builder. The “build your own combo” system has been done before, most notably in “Remember Me” and “God Hand” but the way they combine it with the stances really sets it apart. Each move has a speed and damage rating as well as some of the moves having unique properties like breaking guard and interrupting attacks. There are 4 combat stances, visually corresponding to the direction your torso is facing. Changing stances will result in you turning your torso to face to the left or the right of your opponent while others will leave you with your back facing towards the enemy! Each stance can be assigned an escalating number of light attacks and a heavier “alternate attack”. Most attacks transition you from one stance to another; then, since you’re in another stance, you can immediately use that stances attacks. If you build your combos correctly, you can create loops where one attack will lead into one stance before an attack in that stance returns you to the same stance you started in. The end-result is a custom-built train of attacks that you've personally engineered to confuse opponents as you flow from stance to stance. Since you’re changes stances so often, your alternate attack changes over time. Predicting what move your opponent is currently planning on doing is daunting since there is so much they can do. Oh, and did I tell you that you can pull out a sword or gloves and doing so swaps you over to a brand new page of attacks that you need to customise and memorize?

The game has RPG elements to it as well. Gear will drop from mobs as you down them and you'll also find stashes of gear hidden within piles of rocks. Most interestingly though is how you acquire new attacks. You start the game with a reasonable number of attacks but soon you’ll run into people using 'new' attacks against you and if you block that attack, you'll start learning the move. Use your right thumb-stick ability against it and you'll learn it even faster. Story wise, this is a cool concept. Get punched in a particular way a certain number of times and you should be able to know how your opponent punches like that. Unfortunately, in practice, this just results in you actively not killing your opponents. You end up standing around as they are wailing on you while try to block/dodge/parry all their moves; grinding out all the moves before you move along. There is a risk/reward system at play here wherein all the learning you've done during a fight won't be saved until you kill the opponent and exit combat, but there is a lot of moves to learn from random grunts in the world and these don’t really pose a threat once you’ve got a handle on the game. This system gets even worse when you're trying to discover sword specific moves because swords are rare, and by the time you find someone wielding one, they are normally a very strong opponent and you can't afford to grind out these moves because you won’t survive unless you actively damage them.

That's pretty much the entire game. Fight, learn moves, earn gear, equip said moves and gear, repeat. Thankfully that's not as bad as it sounds because hey, it's a fighting game. You came here to fight. So why am I so disappointed in it? Well before I get to the big one, let me just rattle off a few smaller impressions the game left on me: ●       Falling off ledges is far too easy. Admittedly this is a designed mechanic; forcing someone up to a ledge and just pushing them off with attacks is a legitimate way to win a fight but it still felt like it was far too easy to just slip off. Even with nobody attacking you as you’re navigating the environment, one foot off the path might mean falling and most of the time falling is death, because when it's not instant, the insane fall damage will ensure you lose the fight that you just dropped into.

●       The environment is not easy to find your way around. The “map” you're given is essentially 3 circles, and you don't know where you are unless you sit at a bonfire an energy shard thingy or kill a boss as these are the only 2 markers on the map. Many times, vital paths that you NEED to go down are not highlighted or made evident in any way and are sometimes, out-rightly obscured. As a result of this, I completely missed an entire area of the game for a long period of time simply because I couldn’t find the path AND I thought I had already entered that area of the map… There's a time and a place to do-away with the hand holding evident in modern game design but this is too far the other way.

●       Maybe why the environment is so convoluted is to try to hammer in this sense of mystery that the game is so stubbornly trying to instil. The game makes a point of telling you NOTHING about where you are, who you are, what you're doing or why. Thankfully it does tell you what to do (fight people and open a door). It just comes across as entitled. There IS an interesting world here but by the end of the game, nothing is explained at all. Who am I? Why did I teleport when I put on this mask? Why do I need to kill these people? Did I travel through time? Who is this chick with a sword? Who were the people who were here before? The game makes a point in referring to the tesseract-looking particle effect that happens as you kill others, get killed yourself or even unsheathing your sword as “folding” which seems really cool! To sum up my feelings on the aesthetics and lore of the game, I have two words. Obnoxiously Mysterious

Finally, the big one. The game ends. It just ends. No big finish, no special reveal, no closure. Nothing. If you remember before, I mentioned the map being 3 circles? That's it. That's the whole game. I have FOUR HOURS in Absolver, and it's finished. The entire story-mode. That's a third of the I spent in DMC and less than a 10th of the time I spent in Sekiro. Now sure, those are AAA titles with massive budgets behind them, but I cannot help but feel starved of content, especially since the story does not wrap itself up. The game starts with you and a bunch of other initiates standing in an arctic wind before you are chosen, you don a mask and teleport to another world. You then traverse through 12 named areas (3 of which contain nothing) fighting 11 different bosses. There are probably below 50 enemies to fight in the entire game. And then you're done. After fighting the somehow important Risryn, you're teleported back to the place you started with, you graduate from being a “prospect” to become an “Absolver”, you get a neat cape and you get told, “Idk, wait around and grind a bit I guess?” before it teleports you back to the “hub”. To put this in perspective, if the game had 3 times as much content as it currently does, I would still probably call the game short. I have no idea why (besides development problems) the game ended when it felt like Act 2 should have begun.

The game tries to justify this by placing a big emphasis on PVP. There is a system to look up other players and have a tussle and the game is always online so you might find people in the world and decide to start smacking one another but if the game is dead (like it was when I got to it) then all the PVP is non-existent. That's not even mentioning the players who don't WANT to fight other people. As far as I can tell the “latest” addition to the game included the “downfall” mode. This mode (only available after you have graduated to be an absolver) is randomly generated rooms of goons to fight endlessly. The lore explanation for this area only adds questions to the already tall pile of unanswered ones. The game allows you to fight bosses again at a harder difficulty, but this is locked behind PVP progress…meaning that if you weren’t able to find a game like myself, then you just can’t

I hate having to be so negative. Other indie games cater themselves to a casual market and can have all the depth of a puddle and still receive high ratings but because the devs took on such a loved genre, all the depth they have added only makes people want more. I mean really, if my biggest complaint about the game is that I wanted more, there's got to be something good about it. In shooting for the stars, the devs came up short, but the time, skill and effort they put into trying to get there far exceeds a lot of other developers. I can say that the game was bug free and (until it ended) felt close to a AAA title and the sad thing is that it starts to get judged by those harsh standards. For a AAA title, this would be an insult; But for a fighting game? This is a worthwhile experiment; for an indie game? This is one heck of an accomplishment and for your time? This is worth it.

Overall, I'd look to pay $15 to $25 for Absolver, despite its $42 default price tag. It depends on how much you love the third person fighter genre; how much you enjoy PVP (and if you're lucky enough to be in a locale with players online) and how much you want to support the studio. If you can make a trio of yourselves, maybe you can get some mileage out of the co-op enabled Downfall mode, but I wouldn't want to pay much more for that.

#Absolver #lateview #lateviews #fighting games #spectaclefighter

[fairycosmos]

i start year 12 tomorrow and i legitimately want to die. on the bright side i got A,A*,A* for chinese, eng and world lit but my parents only care abt math LOL why do i bother

hi lovely :(( first of all wow!! congratulations on the amazing results bro, that's fucking insane. 💘 you should be so proud of yourself, even if your low mood is overwhelming you right now - at least try to acknowledge on a logical level that you did a great job. it's a strong indicator that you will do well in future exams, and the fact that you care about your education to any extent is admirable. it's easy to feel stressed and fucked up inside when the prospect of a new school year looms. fear of 'failure', of change, of the unknown - it all adds up. so take a breath, and let it wash over you. cry if you need to, embrace the confusion, let yourself feel it all without judgment. you cant change your predicament and you're allowed to process negative emotions, as long as you attempt to cope with them in a healthy way. try to break the school year down into small chunks, and take it one day at a time. literally the only real tangible thing is the present moment, it's the only aspect you're fully responsible for. so focus on what you need - support, rest, a break - in the moment that will make you feel truly better. do a bit of self examination - what triggers you, what calms you, what brings you joy? can you strike a healthy balance, or at least attempt to? if it gets to be too much, and you need to talk to someone such as a counselor or a doctor about the anxiety, then you're totally entitled to that. there will always be a self destructive part of you that wants to isolate and be alone, but trust me, it gets you nowhere fast. it's alright to talk about what's going on in your head. there are so many resources and ways to make it feel manageable again. you don't have to believe me right now but trust in the fact that someday you will. look, you are going to live the solutions to all your worries, i promise. but you have to give yourself that chance. and hey, i'm really fuckin sorry your parents are assholes. you deserve better than that. math is notttttt the beginning and end of the world and nor is it the only indicator of intelligence. on top of that, overall your grades are never ever going to dictate your worth or future happiness as a human being. no matter how much that mindset is pushed onto you, you can always make the choice to see it for what it is - bullshit. you're not here on this earth to be of constant capitalistic and academic service, you know? whatever happens with school, you can carve a path out for yourself. there are always options, always ways to find chunks of peace and happiness and success. it's inevitable. ive said this before and i'll say it again, there comes a point when you're growing up where you just realize that your parent's ideology is total crap. and that doesn't mean it's not allowed to hurt. they're your parents, and they should be encouraging you regardless - it's their fault that they're not doing that, not yours. but you can acknowledge that pain and still get on with your own life. you're going to have to disappoint them in some way in order to be happy, we all do. they will have to get a grip and accept it at some point. i know it all feels so intense, and words can't begin to make it better. but this is honestly just a stepping stone, a very early one, in your life. and it is so fleeting. the most frustrating part about sadness is that it convinces you it's a permanent state of mind but that couldn't be further from the truth. whatever this year throws at you, you will be able to handle it one step at a time, through patience and self compassion. and not just thinking about those as concepts, but actually implementing it into your life and prioritising your well being. you've got this dude, i'll be rooting for you!! you didn't make it this far with three A*s for nothing!! let me know if you need a friend or someone to talk to, i'll be here. you're not alone.

#anon #long post

[diziar]

The end of a Legend: part 2

Guess who is back on her bullshit writing fucking sad shit for the modern AU! If you dont remember part one here it is, go read it first before this part

Once again this deals with very real and depressing situations and Im so sorry if you’ve had to deal with anything like this before. This is based loosely off of my own feelings.

“Legend? Oi, Legend?!”

He hadn't moved from that seat next to his uncle's bed. He still held tightly onto his hand, never wanting to let go as he knew it would be the last time. Soon he would have have to leave, discuss whatever was needing to be discussed and then go home to the empty house so full of memories.

Not yet.

He couldn't.

“Legend! What the fuck, dude?”

He held his phone in his other hand, rested on his lap, the muffled voice coming from there but still sounding so pissed off. Finally he managed to tear his watery and blurred gaze away from his uncles face, inhaling a shaky breath and sniffling his runny nose, and looked down to the device that was lit up.

“Legend, what the fuck is all that noise? I can-”

More quickly than any movement he could even register to make in his emotionally dulled and mentally exhausted brain, he brought the phone to his ear and cleared his throat from any signs of a wavering voice.

“Sorry, I must've accidentally rang you. I would never do something like that on purpose.” Even when feeling so down, the sound of his friends stupid voice still managed to pull a quip out of him. He was glad his voice hadn't broken or cracked though, last thing he needed right now was to break down again.

“Did you butt dial me? I am not your booty call!” Warriors scoffed dramatically over the phone, causing Legend to roll his achy eyes, wiping them with a tissue afterwards.

“Even if you were the last person on Earth, you would still never be my booty call, Warriors.” Legend retorted, squeezing his uncle's hand one last time before standing up and grabbing his bag to sling back onto his shoulder.

He still felt awful, absolutely dreadful, torn apart in every which way and it was only because of Warriors’ insistent need of constant attention - being the reason he probably hadn't hung up the phone after the first minute or so after hearing nothing but silence from the other side - that Legend was able to hold it together at this very moment.

Finally he stepped out from behind the curtain, giving one last look back to the man in the bed, the only part of him on show from under the blanket were his head and hand, both of which Legend could still feel in his grip. He swallowed thickly, his head drooping as he let the curtain fall close again

“Mr Goldsmith? Link?..” One of the nurses from before walked up to him calling out to him several times, obviously still giving him some space but with the intention to continue the conversation elsewhere.

“Yeah? Sorry.” He pulled the phone away from his ear, turning his attention to the nurse and then back to the phone call. “I gotta go, Warriors. I'll see you and that ugly scarf of yours at school on Monday.”

“Wait wait wait, hold up there. You called me and now you're hanging up on me? No way. Anyways, what's up? You sound and looked like shit today, and did I just hear someone refer to you as Mr. Goldsmith? Where are you right now?” Of course there was no way Warrior was going to let this go right now.

Legend felt his throat close up again and suddenly everything had just struck him again all his quickly. Everything that had just happened. The day and night before.

He was being dragged under the waves of despair again and he felt sick. The tears returned to his eyes, hot and big, already causing blurring in his vision.

As hard as he tried to hold on strong on the phone, he couldn't hold back the sniffle and the wavering in his voice.

“Yeah… yeah. I really need to go, I I have better things to be doing than talking to you on the phone right now.” It wasn't the first, nor would it be the last time, that Legend avoided answering on of Warriors questions.

Guilt washed over him in heavy waves, dragging him under the sea of anguish. He couldn't do this. No matter how much he tried to keep his head above the water, he was pulled back down by the ever lingering feeling

'I should've stayed at home.’

‘I left him alone to suffer.’

'He must have been so terrified. He died alone and scared, and I…’

“Legend, where are you right now?” Warriors tone was strong and true, and it was evidently clear that he wasn't going to let up. He was going to get his answer from his friend.

Legend couldn't tell whether he hated it or appreciated it.

'Why did I not stay with him?’

'He needed me by his side.’

'I shouldn't have listened to him…’

The nurse had given him some tissues once again as he took a seat further down the hall, giving him a few more moments alone in his phone before they had to discuss what came next. Silence permeated the air between him and Warriors through the phone, and he shook his head forgetting that the motion couldn't be seen.

“Legend-”

“I'm at the hospital…” Admitting the words out loud made him feel light headed. Made him feel weak. It was like another heavy rock stacked upon the others already on his chest, the pressure making it impossibly hard to breathe.

Soon enough he'd be completely crushed under all the weight.

All of what he was, had been, and ever would be, was stripped to the bare minimum, to the very core of everything.

All too suddenly had the strong feeling he hadn't felt in some time returned.

In some way it was nostalgic.

In another, haunting.

A bittersweet memory that made him feel sick to his stomach.

Loneliness.

But he was never alone when she was around… A part of him could even swear he could hear the faint sound of singing somewhere in the back of his mind.

A melancholic melody, and as he closed his fist he could almost feel the familiar feeling of ceramic brush against the tips of his fingers...

“Hey? Hey! Are you still there? Is everything okay? Why are you at the hospital? Are they back? Have you not been taking your-”

“I'm fine.” A lie. One that tore itself up from the ground and wrapped itself so thoroughly around him.

His uncle wasn't fine.

He wasn't fine either.

“Oh come on, I can smell your bullshit from here. I'm going to come over there and meet you.”

“NO!-” The outburst caught him by surprise, and judging from the silence from the other side of the phone, it surprised Warriors as well. “I mean, there's no point is there? You refuse to come inside and I don't know how long I'll be. You'll just be waiting outside”

He could just feel Warriors physically recoiling, the detest and disgust all over his face as he would have grimaced at the prospect of entering the hospital.

Legend heard Warriors sigh, and then his voice started to echo as he could only assume he had been put on loudspeaker, the rummaging and noises from the other side giving it away.

“Yeah yeah, you're so right, as fucking always. I won't go inside, but I can still wait outside for you to come out.” It wasn't often that Warriors legitimately sounded so pressed and fed up. Obviously what Legend had said has ruffled his feathers just a little bit.

Legend couldn't help but the the intrusive thoughts return to him as only the sound of Warriors sorting himself out registered in his brain. For what seemed like too long did the quiet and tense feeling settle between every crack and joint in his bones, and behind his eyes as once he felt the tears fill his vision once again and to fall down his face as he blinked. No matter how hard he tried to wipe them away, more would follow and his entire body started to shake as his breathing became more erratic.

Still, he stayed silent.

The realisation that even though he was on the phone to someone, he could hear them and they could hear them, he was alone. Just down the corridor did his carer, uncle, and father lay dead.

There was no one left.

Maybe…

If he…

He could still see-

“I'm going to leave now, which building are you in?”

Once again Warriors voice brought Legend out from his nightmarish thoughts. He wasn't a child anymore, he wasn't about to let a small thing make him freak out again, even if her soft voice echoed in his ears.

He was better now.

Legend cleared his throat, taking a deep breath and wiped his face again with the sleeve of his school blazer. He couldn't use anymore tissues, whilst they were soft, his eyes ached and nose stung. No more.

“Main building, east exit.” He couldn't see it, but he could just feel Warriors nodding in confirmation. More noise from Warriors side, and the brief pause allowed Legend to attempt to calm himself down again.

If he had been mentally, emotionally, and physically tired before, he was now exhausted. Every small movement ached and thinking of words for simple conversation was draining. Sleep was something he wanted, but he was well aware it wouldn't come for some time yet.

And even if his body was begging for sleep, his brain wouldn't allow it.

“Legend?”

All he could manage was a small hum in response, though after a few moments of Warriors not saying anything, he sighed and tried again.

It was an effort.

“What?”

“Will you tell me what's going on?”

“Piss off! ..I'm hanging up now.”

Before Warriors could get another word in, Legend had taken the phone away from his ear, hung up, and lowered it back to his lap next to the box of tissues.

Just a few minutes and he'd be okay.

He had to be okay.

There was still so much to do.

--

By some sort of foolish mistake, or by some lapse in concentration and planning, Legend had forgotten to check the time before he had started talking to the nurses about what was to happen with his uncle next.

In all honesty he couldn't remember much of the conversation, but he could recall then mentioning the morgue, and he'd briefly mentioned that there was no way he could afford a funeral - at least not currently.

Maybe by some sort of miracle, but he doubted it.

And what would happen if he couldn't hold a funeral for his uncle? That was the chance for the final goodbye…

When finally he left the hospital it was darker and cooler out that it had been when he had first entered after school. Still in his uniform and bag slung over his shoulder, Legend could feel every muscle screaming out in agony at him.

Whilst it had definitely hadn't been a very physical day; the constant switch of emotions, from being so hopeful that morning to bathing in despair just that evening, the lack of sleep before, and constant dreary thoughts inside of his head made him feel like he had aged.

All within one day.

24 hours.

1440 minutes.

86400 seconds.

His entire life had changed, and he had no one to ask for help.

No one to give him the answers he needed in the hard times.

The only man he could call family...

The only person who knew the true him, the real him behind the many walls he had erected over the years, who knew the young helpless and lonely boy and always tried his best and helped in any small way that was possible, was gone.

Gone forever.

“Hey Legend! Oh Hylia, you look like shit.”

The immediate reaction from Legend upon hearing Warriors voice was to groan, sigh, and roll his eyes. It hasn't even been a conscious thought or action in his brain, but he had done it.

At least after everything his brain was still awake enough for that.

He turned to face his friend, and tucked his hands into the pockets of his blazer. There stood Warriors in all his “glory” long blue scarf and all. Though Legend wasn't sure if it was because of how tired he was or because the evening was actually slightly chilly, but he was cold and envious of such a thing at that moment.

“Wow, good to see you too, you piece of shit,” he approached the other, kicking him in him back on the leg to emphasise his irritated response, “You look like shit too. But then again you always do, so nothing new there.”

Warriors wasn't blind, he could easily spot the puffiness of Legends eyes, and the redness of them and his nose. Everything about him looked messed up, from his hair to his face, uniform, and even his general demeanour.

For whatever reason that had Legend looking like death incarnate and visiting the hospital, Warriors couldn't even begin to guess.

He liked to think he knew Legend relatively well, all things considered. Both of them had their secrets, things which they found hard to share with anything excluding family, but they also knew some of each others deepest worries and fears too.

Warriors glanced from Legend and then to the hospital doors and back. Several times did he do this, the puzzle pieces in his head not fitting together no matter how hard he tried. There was too many things that it could, and couldn't have been, that there was no making any heads or tails.

He stopped upon hearing the heavy sigh escape from his friend, taking it as a hint to stop, get moving, but also as sign of the very evident fatigue Legend was feeling.

“Hey, you sure everything is okay?”

Legend's eyes rolled once again, his feet moving one in front of the other as he began to walk away and leave both Warriors and hopefully the awful memories and thoughts that the hospital had brought out of him.

Warriors huffed out in annoyance, but within a few quick and large strides, he had caught up to Legend and walked by his side as they headed back towards the centre of the city.

“If it's about… well you know who and what-”

“It's not.”

Legend's reply was curt and he had technically interrupted Warriors, but Legend was obviously not in the mood to be discussing such a thing right now.

The evening breeze was gentle, like that on a summer's day at the beach. Again, from someone, somewhere, he could hear and familiar tune.

One that told a story of a young boy and his friend.

And also told a story of loneliness.

With his uncle gone, that familiar loneliness tugged heavy at his heart, and it hurt.

It cut deeply into both pleasant and unpleasant memories.

Another sigh, one that held the weight of the world in it, and judging from Legend's wilted posture, he seemed to carry the weight of the whole world on his shoulder as well.

A somewhat comfortable uncomfortable feeling settles over the two of them as they continued walking on wards for several minutes with no more words between then.

It was Legend who spoke up first.

“It was my uncle.”

His voice carried no evident emotion, but it was the things that weren't said or obvious which made things click into place more.

Warriors was stunned silent for a few seconds, all previous assumptions flying out of his head and new ones nestling their way in immediately.

If it was Legend's uncle, and he was acting like this…

It couldn't have been good news.

“Oh shit shit shit! What happened? Is he okay?”

The silence spoke volumes.

He stopped walking, his foot under him refusing to take another step as the news settled in.

Laughter bubbled out from deep within him, and he was only too aware of how unfitting it was for moment like this but it was the only thing he managed to do.

Legend stopped walking just in front of him, his shoulder shaking slightly, his hands clenched tightly into fists either side of him and his head hung long.

“Fuck... FUCK! Legend, why didn't you say anything?!”

When he didn't reply, Warriors found it within himself to finally move again, making fully well sure that he stormed just ahead of Legend and stood before him.

It was a times like this when the height difference was obvious, but that was not what Warriors was focusing on.

Instead all he could focus on was how Legend refused to look up, how his shaking arms and hands hid his face, and his erratic breathing.

He opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it again when he realised he was speechless.

He could remember helping Wind and Aryll after their parents died, but he was their big brother - adopted or not - but how was he supposed to help Legend?

“When?”

Somehow that one simple word, that one simple question had both pushed Legend off over the edge, and also grounded him.

Still, he refused to lift his head up, but his hands dropped down to his side in defeat.

“An hour ago? It was just after before call…” The realisation hit Warriors like a tonne of bricks. He had been wondering why Legend had called him and then proceeded to blank him for a few minutes until he finally answered.

“Warriors, I don't know what to do. Gods! I can't believe I'm even talking to you about this, but I can't go home… I can't. Hi-his stuff is all still there on the side and-” Legend cut himself off, obviously not wanting to go into detail.

“I can't the fucking thought out of my head that whilst I was eating dinner at yours, playing happy families, that he was at home alone suffering.”

“Hey, hey. Stop that! You can come back to mine tonight, the Fisher's would be happy to have you in their humble abode. And it's the weekend so there's no rush about going back home-”

“I don't have my meds.”

“Do you think you won't be okay without them for a few days?”

He stayed quiet.

Once again the familiar tune and soft singing voice filled his head.

Legend shook his head again, and his leg began to twitch in a restless way, his hands once again clenching and unclenching like he was trying to hold onto something.

Warriors began walking again, stopping when Legend didn't follow him at first but then resumed once they were side by side again.

“It's going to be okay-”

“No, it's not. Gods, you're a fucking idiot aren't you?”

“I'm sorry? Who was it that scored higher on the last test?”

“You cheated!”

Warriors gritted his teeth as another swift kick was delivered to his shin, but just as quickly did he return it and then ran up ahead to avoid getting struck again.

Somewhere deep inside, Legend begged for the tune to both stop and to continue.

He liked the familiarity it gave him. How it made him remember her and what she taught him.

But it also made him remember him and once again did he feel himself getting lost at sea in a small boat during a storm.

And this time he wasn't going to be there to save him.

He had no idea how he was going to cope after all of this.

#linked universe #linkeduniverse #linked universe au #linkeduniverse au

[rax-writes]

Title: The End of Us

Fandom: Game of Thrones

Characters: Margaery Tyrell x Reader [featuring Loras Tyrell, Petyr Baelish, Olenna Tyrell, and Mace Tyrell]

Word Count: 2,065

Warnings: None

Notes: Request from anon for “Margaery x female reader with the prompts ‘have you lost your mind?’ And ‘please don’t go’ ?”

You could only describe the atmosphere within the tent where Renly Baratheon’s body laid as the calm before the storm. The prospective king you had all been fighting for was now dead. His men remained in limbo in the yard, presently between kings as they awaited Stannis’s arrival, knowing that the moment he arrived, they would flock to him. Meanwhile, your husband kneeled beside the corpse of his lover, and your lover – his sister – paced nervously about the tent.

You had wed Loras, to be closer to Margaery. Being that Loras was always nearby Renly, Margaery had wed Renly, to be closer to you. The setup was absolutely perfect for the four of you, although it would have seemed very peculiar to most – had you four not adamantly protected the joint secret. Renly and Loras did a piss poor job of concealing their affair, as everyone in the kingdom knew of it. But you and Margaery were much smarter about it. No one suspected a thing of the time you spent in one another’s tents, brushing it off as a close bond between sisters in law. If they only knew….

“We need to go home,” Margaery stated, finally stopping her pacing to face Loras, and sufficiently breaking you free from your misguided train of thought. When he didn’t respond, she called his name, but Petyr Baelish entered the tent before she could continue persuading her brother.

Lord Baelish warned you all of the fact that Stannis would be arriving at the camp in an hour – far too soon for anyone’s liking. He also pointed out that Renly’s bannermen would join Stannis upon his arrival, throwing the present Tyrells into further danger. You and Margaery were both momentarily dumbfounded when Loras drew his sword to Baelish, before telling the pair of you to return to Highgarden. Instinctively, Margaery attempted to calm Loras, but you knew it was no use. You could only imagine how distraught you’d be if, gods forbid, anything happened to Margaery.

Much to your surprise, it was Baelish who managed to talk sense into Loras, advising him to be smart about how he goes about seeking revenge on Stannis. Margaery further encouraged him to leave, pleading with him to bring the horses so you all could flee. Finally, Loras gave one last longing look to Renly, before stomping out of the tent.

“I should go assist my husband in preparing our departure,” you stated, standing from your seat in the corner and moving to leave, but not before resting your hand on Margaery’s shoulder and giving it a comforting, gentle squeeze. The two of you had always been remarkably skilled in communicating without the use of words, and she knew that your gesture was done with the intent of reassuring her that everything would be alright. Upon seeing her small smile in response, you took your leave.

It wasn’t long before you, Loras, and Margaery were heading to Highgarden, a handful of House Tyrell soldiers in tow. Travels with your husband and your lover were usually very upbeat, filled with lighthearted conversation and laughter, but this trip was far from buoyant. Loras stared straight ahead, his normally warm blue eyes appearing cold as they struggled to hold back the tears that threatened to spill at any given moment. You knew that he was heartbroken, but trying desperately to pour all of that heartbreak into his rage. When your horse neared his enough, you’d place your hand over his, thankfully seeing his grip on the reigns relax enough that his knuckles were no longer white. He’d give you a forlorn smile, attempting to show gratitude for the kind gesture, then return his attention to the road.

Margaery was a bit more difficult to read. You knew what she was feeling, simply by knowing her well. You knew that she was upset to have lost her potential to become Queen, and also upset for her brother’s sake. You also knew that she was sorrowful that Renly died, for a variety of reasons, none of them being because she loved her husband. Primarily because it put a significant dent in the setup the four of you had established, although there was much more to her expression than just that. To the naked eye, she simply looked like a grieving widow, who was still in shock from the newness of her husband’s death. However, you knew that her look was more of deep thought than grief or shock, and you brushed it off as simply wondering who she may be wed to next. In contrast, that was a thought you were actively trying to keep far, far away from your own mind.

When you all returned to Highgarden, finally safe within its walls, Margaery wasted no time in declaring, “I need to speak with my family in private.” She nodded at you to follow her, then guided Loras by the arm to the meeting room, where she knew the remainder of her family awaited you all.

“I propose that House Tyrell fight alongside King Joffrey in the next battle, allowing him to win against whatever odds he may face. To show his gratitude, he will offer House Tyrell a favor in recompense for our aid. At which point, we will request that I marry King Joffrey, securing House Tyrell to the crown and assuring our prosperity.”

You were certain that your heart skipped several beats upon hearing Margaery’s words. Before her grandmother, her father, or her brother had the chance to weigh in, you blurted out, “Have you lost your mind?”

Your voice came out far more broken and distraught than the incredulous tone you had been aiming for, and Margaery’s confident expression turned to one of sadness when she looked to you. She knew that her proposal would not be well received by you, and that the prospect of her marrying anyone else – especially someone as vile as King Joffrey – would wrench your heart. But she knew that this was her family’s best chance, and her best chance at becoming the Queen.

“It’s not a bad plan,” Lady Olenna declared, breaking the poignant silence between the two lovers with a shrug. “Margaery certainly has the looks to win that little prick over, and she’s not the child of that Stark traitor, so I’m sure it would be easy to convince Joffrey to marry her. Regardless of how legitimate or not his claim is on the throne, it’s best for us to side ourselves with whoever’s ass is currently seated upon that iron monstrosity.”

“This is true,” Mace agreed – although he was essentially mindless, and quick to agree with whatever his mother suggested.

You then looked to Loras, hoping that your husband would talk sense into Margaery, and tell her that there’s another way to provide House Tyrell security. But he just sat there, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. You suspected that he had barely heard a word of the conversation, and you were certain that he didn’t care what happened next. He was still too immersed in his grief.

Before you even realized it, you were standing and storming out of the room. You couldn’t bear to hear another word of their plan to marry your sweet Margaery to some blond buffoon, who would only bring her pain. The last thing you heard was Margaery calling after you, “Please, don’t go!” But you ignored her, slamming the large wooden door to the meeting room shut behind you.

The sun had long since set before you heard the familiar sound of a gentle knock on your door. You knew that it would be Margaery. You’d been expecting her since you left the meeting.

“Come in,” you called, but she was already opening the door. The two of you had never had much care for privacy when it came to one another. In fact, it was rare that either of you knocked when arriving at the other’s quarters. You guessed that she only did so because she knew that you were upset.

Margaery found you leaning against the large window in your room, which looked out over the vast, prosperous fields of Highgarden. She joined you, although her gaze fell upon you instead.

“Talk to me,” she pleaded softly, and you couldn’t help but sigh.

“You shouldn’t marry someone like Joffrey. Out of all of the whispers I’ve heard of him, not a single one has been good. Some of them are simply appalling. He’ll only cause you pain, likely mental and emotional in addition to physical. I do not doubt your strength, and your ability to handle even the most horrid of men, but you deserve more than to suffer for the rest of your life, Margaery.”

“I know that Joffrey is horrible, and I know that I deserve someone better. In a perfect world, I’d just marry you, and we’d live happily ever after,” Margaery said with a smile, although you did not return it. “But he is a man, and any man can be manipulated. From what I’ve been told, he isn’t invariably evil; he’s tolerable, so long as everyone is doing what he wants. So, I’ll just do everything in my power to make him happy, and he’ll be bearable.”

“You’re willing to bet your happiness for the rest of your life on that theory?” you snapped, shooting her a stern glance before exhaling slowly and returning your eyes to the field.

Margaery was silent for a few moments, before adding, “Highgarden isn’t far from King’s Landing. You’ll be able to come visit me often, and I’ll come whenever I can.”

“We won’t be able to be together, Margaery! Don’t you get it?” you cried out, pushing off from the windowsill to begin angrily pacing around your room. “I don’t care how often we’ll see each other, it won’t be the same! I won’t be able to see your face every day. I won’t be able to kiss you whenever I want. I’ll see you once – maybe twice a year, if I’m lucky. This… this is the end of us.”

Margaery stopped you with a pair of delicate hands on your arms, and she stared at you for a long time. Her eyes seemed to look right into your soul, and her hands slowly slid down your arms to intertwine her fingers with yours. After what seemed like a brief eternity, she finally spoke.

“I won’t deny that you’re right – this is the end of us. But we’ve both known it was coming since the day we first kissed…. Do you remember it? You’d been in Highgarden for less than a month, and you’d been stealing glances at me constantly. You had no idea that I had been doing the same. So, the moment we were alone in the gardens together, I took a chance, and I kissed you. I still remember how you smiled at me afterwards, and I knew right then that I was already falling for you,” Margaery recalled, a warm smile on her lips. This time, you returned the smile. You couldn’t help but grin every time you remembered that day. Margaery’s smile slowly faded, and she grew serious once again. “I love you more than anything else in this world, but the hard truth is that love isn’t enough to keep us together. All we can do is make the most of our time together – now, and whenever we see each other in the future.”

You could only nod, not trusting your voice to remain steady if you were to speak.

Margaery kissed you then, tenderly cupping your face in her hands as she did so. The kiss was brief, as she then pulled away to murmur, “Let’s start making the most of it right now, yes?” The smirk on her lips was enough to ease your mind instantly, and your hands fell to their familiar place on her hips, allowing you to pull her closer. You kissed her again, this time much deeper, before breaking the kiss just enough to respond to her previous question.

“Yes.”

Love may not be enough to keep the two of you together, but you knew that enjoying whatever time you had with her, whenever you were lucky enough to have it, was worth whatever distance may be forced between the two of you.

@whoabrekker @alexsunmners @pyppenia

#hi i'm really proud of this & it's been forever since i was proud of something i wrote #so i really hope y'all enjoy it too #margaery tyrell #got #game of thrones #margaery tyrell x reader #margaery tyrell fluff #margaery tyrell reader insert #margaery tyrell x fem!reader #margaery tyrell x female reader #margaery tyrell x female #margaery tyrell fanfiction #margaery tyrell fanfic #margaery tyrell fan fiction #margaery tyrell fan fic #margaery tyrell fic #my writing #got fandom #got fanfiction #got fan fiction #got fanfic #game of thrones fanfiction #game of thrones fic #game of thrones fan fiction

[rkchungha]

✧ ☆⋆MGA SEASON 4 - #4040⋆☆ ✧

(ROUND 3)

✧ trouble maker - trouble maker

✧ outfit

✧ hair & makeup

✧ featuring: TEAM C(hungha) @rkars @longguork @rkjeon @danielxrk

chungha didn’t know how to feel after hearing her team members. to be honest she was feeling kind of neutral about her members thus far. then again, she wasn’t quite sure where everyone stood in relation to one another. she just knew that of the bunch, daniel was amongst the lowest in ranks as he was almost sent home last episode. if anything, he was the one to focus on.

jeon jeongguk. he was the boy that sat to her left every episode from now on. his performances had impressed her. he was a dancer and he knew how to connect his dance to the music. he was one of those that made viewers feel. if they were being ranks on their strongest skill alone, chungha figures jeongguk is one of the stronger ones. when he danced, she was kind of left in awe. if jeongguk wasn’t anything but one of the top spot she’d be surprised.

when they first introduce themselves to one another in the nova building, she shares how she felt about his performances. “i think you put a lot of emotion into your dancing. it captures attention.” which would be a plus for their group considering all of them were singers, for the most part. “i’m glad we ended up on the team together.”

they needed a little diversity on their team. dancing was fine and all but they needed to be strong in every skill. youngjae and yongguk, from her memory, sang. she remember yongguk’s because he played a ukele and she remembered thinking how adorable it was. but she wasn’t so sure if either of them danced. when they finally got around to asking each other what to do, she’ll learn but a part of her was worried that the answer would be no.

daniel was the one she hasn’t paid attention to. not because he wasn’t talented or anything but because he seemed to have a trend with his performances: he sang and played guitar. that worried her immensely. daniel seemed to stick to his guitar like it was his protector. something told her that he didn’t have much else to bring to the table if someone snatched his instruments away.

sadly, she was right.

before they got started, chungha made sure to pull daniel aside. her intentions were to make sure he was okay and to make sure his head was in the game. it could be a blow to the ego to be on the bottom of the invisible ranks that they were unaware of yet. at least there wasn’t an actual numerical ranking system. if he was on the bottom by a lot, the blow might’ve been greater -- and if he barely made it through the skin of his teeth, it may have been even more discouraging. there was a certain funk that would hang over someone after someone like that. daniel wasn’t the strongest competitor in the mgas. the last thing she needed was an emotional handicap holding him back as well.

after the quick catch-up with daniel, it was time to know her other members a bit better. it included proper introductions and what people were good at. for the most part, she had at least a vague idea with what everyone’s strongest skill was (after the episodes have aired, of course) but secondary and tertiary skills (if any) were unknown for now. they needed to lay it out on the table to at least begin to brain storm where they stood in terms of possible songs they could do.

there was clear panic on her face hearing that no one else seemed to be decent enough in dancing. her face blanched at the prospect of having to deliver a mediocre performance because her group’s skill sets didn’t match. instead of immediately panicking, they settled down to figure this out. she was the first to say that they should do a routine that isn’t difficult with choreography but just as eye catching. “everything will be okay as long as we can capture the attention of not only the viewers and the audience but the panel as well. it doesn’t have to be a crazy and impressive number. as long as we show that we have competence and can manage that along with stage presence, i think we’ll do okay.”

o.k by b1a4

she’s never heard the song before but she figures she shouldn’t count it out. “can i see the video?” she asks, mildly interested in the option. she’s not sure where they’re going to go with this but as the video plays, her disgust is clear on her face. “i don’t like this song,” she says honestly. “i think it’s cute and very catchy but i don’t think this is mga performance material at all. i feel as though we could pick another, much stronger song and still accommodate to people who can’t dance as well.” of course she wasn’t going to veto it altogether. she even added, “but if you guys like it and feel comfortable with doing it, i’m down for it.”

thankfully no one else was really too attached to the song. she may have cried if they went along with it. her relief is clear (they dodged a bullet) but they couldn’t spend so much time just flipping through songs. someone suggests troublemaker. “we’d have to tweak the choreography.” youngjae and jeongguk both suggested ideas where jeongguk starts off the song and the other start as backup and then they rotate who dances centre with chungha. it sounded like a solid idea.

before diving into the performance, they needed a leader. in the midst of verbally rationalising who would make sense as leader (asking ages, what experience everyone had, etc.), chungha was quick to voice her opinion. “before we choose, i do not want to be the leader just because i’m the eldest.” surely she’d have the natural inclination to guide the others simply because she was older but she would prefer there being a legitimate reason as to why she was chosen (if she was chosen). and as yongguk so clearly shared with his nomination of chungha, she was the eldest and deserved the respect. she’d rather it be because they were impressed by her performances thus far or because she was the only one of the pack to have actually done this before.

a part of her was unsure with being leader. it’s not as if she didn’t know what to do. she knew exactly what she’d have to do as leader but it also meant she’d assume most of the responsibility if anyone falters. it becomes less of “oh so-and-so you messed up here” and more of “ah, kim chungha, why did you let your term fall into shambles?” it was selfish but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to assume that kind of responsibility in this kind of competition. it could potentially reflect negatively. she’s sure those opinionated netizens would have a ball if she failed.

to her surprise, she ends up elected leader despite her minor opposition. jeongguk looked awfully disappointed at the fact. daniel had raised a point that he felt weird listening to jeongguk as leader when they were the same age. chungha understood, considering jeongguk was a little younger than she was and it would be weird to listen to someone younger than you. chungha steals away to go to jeongguk’s side. “hey,” she nudges him softly. “i thought you had leader potential. that’s why i voted for you.” she wonders who the other vote was if the other three voted for her. “don’t take it as a personal loss. and besides,” she smiles at him, “i could use some help getting this group ready.”

getting ready takes a majority of the week. come the time for recording and performing, she’s only mildly nervous. it’s not even for the sake of her own singing and dancing -- that she’s long since grown used to after the years of training. it’s all worry with how her team would look as a unit. while she performs, she couldn’t let any expression pass on her face (not even a grimace) that would clue that someone fucked up or someone sounded off key.

chungha had also resented the initial performance of trouble maker and made a few tweaks of her own. mostly more dances on her end so while she’s off to the side, she does something similar to what the boys do: she sensually dances. save for the dance break the boys have without her; that she’s completely off stage for. she also tweaked the background dance for the rest of the boys at the end because it required partners. so she created her own simple steps for them to follow in the back while she and youngjae closed out the song.

the space they’re in until they wait for performances is nice. they sit together as a unit and chungha offers small commentary while they watch to the groups that impress her. out of the two teams proceeded them, chungha is more worried about team b. the boys was an excellent song to do. she would have kicked herself about the missed opportunity if it weren’t for the fact that her team weren’t dancers anyways and probably would have done much worse with that choreography. it was bad enough that the others struggled with troublemaker which was more of a charisma performance than an actual dance anyways.

something she kept in mind (and told the other boys) was to play it up. amp up the charisma and the sexiness. cop an extra feel, accentuate movements with a wink or a kiss. the song was all about charisma which was why there was a lack of harder dancing. chungha even took her own advice during her performance and played up her role as hot arm candy, swaying her hips or moving in a way that drew attention.

she made sure her voice was clear. stronger, in the very least, than the actual artist during her own stage performance in the song. it may have been the classics round but she sure as hell made sure not to sound like she was a classic. she projected her voice so she was clearly heard in the harmony of the chorus every time. it was a very male dominant song. it was sad how this was a duo but the man took up most of the attention the entire song. so with her parts where she was the focus of attention, she makes damn sure she does them well.

her voice isn’t as soft as the original troublemaker female. so her words are far less breathy when she raps and sings. she’s always had a strong vocal presence. it makes it that much easier for her to dance and sing without sounding pitchy. for herself, the song was in a range that was doable. it was almost easy because she sang in the same few notes the entire length of the song (save for the end).

towards the end of the song, just before the dance break, she mirrors the moves jeongguk does as she sings. it was much better than just standing there and singing when she was capable of dancing and holding her pitch. walking off to the side she was able to view the product of her teaching the team and how well they handled the break before she needed to come back in. she will say they were a charismatic group. it worked in their favour. and youngjae bodied those adlibs. she was actually proud.

while youngjae took the foreground to dance at the end of the sound, she danced as well in the back. it was her own freestyle. nothing crazy, just something similar to youngjae until he came up to her in the end. he grabbed her face. chungha picked up her left hand (the one opposite and hidden from the stage and cameras) to hold his face and place two fingers between their lips. they ended the song “kissing”, just like the performers did back then. breaking away she smiled, quickly hugging youngjae before bouncing off stage to the rest of the group.

“after this we should get dinner. to celebrate for a great performance no matter how we rank,” she tells them on the way back to the viewing room. “i’m really proud of all of you -- and daniel! you did so great!” just managing to pull it together was a huge relief. what they started with versus what they ended with was a feat; an accomplishment that deserved to be celebrated even if one of them ended up going home.

and, as a good leader should, she even promised to pay for them all.

#solo. #rkmga4 #rkmga4classics #rkars #rkjeon #longguork #danielxrk #word count: 2134 #(( i'm sorry bianca )) #(( i gave u a bunch of moments tho ur welcome ))

[creek-cryptid-deluxe]

So yesterday I got straight fed up. So around 6 pm, I was delivered to J's doorstep. He warned me that he'd had a shit week & wouldn't be social, but I reassured him that I just needed to gtf away from everyone here (including the dogs) & that I would happily bring stuff to entertain myself, tucked into a corner of the couch with the cats.

I showed up & went out to the balcony where he was to smoke. Apparently I looked... not good, because he glanced over, set down his phone, got up, and wrapped his arms around me. I guess it was worse than I thought because I immediately burst into tears & proceeded to just sob for like 20 mins.

Our night proceeded as usual. He drank, sent ill advised texts to the chick he's been 'talking to' for a few months (note: do NOT like her because she plays mind games & strings him along, fucking with his head & self esteem. Fuck that bitch) while we talk & watch random shit.

The random new stuff we did: worked on the coffee table I acquired for him that he's sanded & is staining; worked on attempting to unmat the hair on his bowling ball cat while the smaller thinner sister yelled about wanting more wet food; last but not least, he pondered what he'd look like with full eye makeup, so The Spawn brought us my supplies at 1130 pm.

Side note: he looked gorgeous (considering I was doing liquid liner while he swayed) & i convinced him to allow me to take photos after swearing to show nobody but The Spawn.

We were up til 5 am. But around 430, I had a full on overwhelmed by the bleak prospect of my future break down, so he held me in his lap being soothing & lovely while I uncontrollably cried.

During this whole night, The Spawn only contacted me for help with biz stuff, then when I asked for makeup. Then this morning she called asking if she needed to do Bailey's meds, then again to ask about painting supplies. When J brought me home at like 230, she told him that he needs to "keep mom longer in the future because I love her but she's here ALL THE TIME and that can't be healthy." He told her some shit about how antisocial he is as he was leaving, but when she was out of earshot told me that I know I'm welcome over any time.

Honestly, I think until last night, he had under estimated how badly i was doing... just like everyone else because #1 I'm so good at hiding it & #2 I deflect by taking care of him. But taking care of him makes me feel better. Any time he looks distressed or sad I just want to run my fingers through his hair, tell him nice things, make him laugh, & remind him he is loved. (Especially with this fucking chick making him feel like he is legitimately unlovable. I want her dead or at least maimed. How fucking dare she.)

Aaaaand now we are back to normal Spawn programming where she's frustrated about something regarding her biz, asks me & grandpa's advice, then gets bitchy when we give suggestions & tips based on our experiences. YAY! After calling her out on it, she snapped that she's the only one who has done research, and I said that she wasn't because I did research before sinking time into building her damned website. She told me that "there's no need for your attitude" & I told her that I'm out. If she wants business advice, go talk to grandpa or her uncle because I'm super done. I'll alter the site or whatever, but that's it. Tech support. The end.

I'm done getting my head ripped off & everything I saw shit on when she asks for help. Done. And shockingly this is part of why I'm so overwhelmed & depressed. Super surprising, right?

If you haven't had kids, fucking don't.

Also don't steal my life or stories from my life. Fuck off.

#my husband that isn't my husband #The Spawn

[authorsofparadiseroleplay]

Harry and Evelyn: For Every Season

Previously on...

Evelyn

This time, Evelyn did giggle. “True that. You are a little short-necked for a giraffe.” She glanced him over and saw that he was, indeed, quite skinny for his height, all wiry limbs and lanky build. The voluminous coat had hidden most of it. “Good thing you’re about to get some food in you,” she said. She was from the South. They were always feeding people there. It was her prerogative.

If only she could cook. One of these days she was going to buckle down and learn without accidentally setting fire to her kitchen. Until that day, she would have to rely on high-quality proxies to feed the people she met about town, such as this place.

She jumped a little, then rolled her eyes when he slapped the counter and demanded the chocolate croissant. He really was enthusiastic about breakfast, wasn’t he? Good Lord, and this was evidently before what was going to amount to an intravenous injection of sugar and caffeine for the guy. He was going to turn into Tigger.

She smirked up at him and shook her head, then ordered the cinnamon coffee cake and a simple cup of coffee with cream and two sugars. Her eyes slid around the room, and again she was struck with an overwhelming sensation of not-rightness.

The customers in line behind them crept steadily forward. The customers sitting at the tables began rising and gathering their things to leave. The baristas moved behind the countertop in their practiced synchronized patterns, and it all looked like it should be normal, but it wasn’t, because all of these movements seemed to be slowly drawing together into a single rolling wave that began to converge around them. It was subtle at first, but became more and more noticeable as she kept watching, until she couldn’t unsee it, much like one of those old magic eye pictures that her mother liked to collect. Their eyes were blank, their faces placid masks, as they all moved to surround Harry and Evelyn.

What… what was this? Was she really seeing this? Or was her mind finally breaking under all the pressure?

Harry’s question registered somewhere in the back of her mind, and she looked up at him.  “I–” she began, but her eye was drawn to the television set behind Harry, where the face had returned.

Only, it was now hovering in front of the television, in mid-air, leering down at them. After about half a second, it flickered with a shivering fuzz of static and vanished.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “You want weird activity? It looks like you’ve been granted your wish.” She cleared her throat and glared at the television set where the face had been. The screen just continued to roll with static, any semblance of a broadcast having vanished. “I’ll avoid stating the obvious about wishes.”

Harry

He felt it too.

‘Felt’ might be too strong a word to attach to the sensation to pass over him. He didn’t feel it so much as sense it. A buzzing in the ears, the tiny hairs at the back of the neck standing bolt upright with the kind of static electricity some blankets had clinging to them when pulled from the drier. It came at him like a hefty weight, not originating from any one direction he could pinpoint straight away. It squeezed him tight like he somehow inexplicably rolled himself in plastic tubing somewhere between the doorway and the front of the fricken line. Of course. Of course duty would call once they finally managed to sashay forward for their turn at bat. Harry was more grumpy at the prospect at having his breakfast interrupted than he was with the idea that danger ran afoot.

The sad part was, he knew danger. He and Danger were intimate compadres, frequently meeting in places where Danger should not be.

Walmart.

The grocery store.

The interior of his car.

And now a coffee shop.

A coffee shop!!! Was nothing sacred???

All he knew was that he was stricken with as wicked sense of foreboding as there could be. A pulse that carried with it a promise of trouble ahead. He felt it and he chose to ignore it like the responsible wizard he was.

Hey, no trauma or drama allowed until he got his goddamned croissant. Was it asking too much to add coffee on top of that? It might. He would be okay with a bite of the croissant. Or at least, having it in his hands.

He cursed, something between true latin and mangled english. Or maybe it was mangled latin and true english. More than likely it was just whatever his anger could inspire to spit out. An odd affliction settled over the innocents in the establishment, under some manner of enchantment or another. It didn’t have to be anything so severe. The minds of people were easily influenced if the aura was strong enough.

Imagine it! He could stuff the pastry down into the pocket of his duster for later. Didn’t matter if it got squished or anything. The remnants would still be good after battle. Harry thought, one hand lowering to rest against Eve’s shoulder, a quick jerk of his head to gesture toward the door they just entered. There were people shuffling to block it as they spoke, but that didn’t mean they shouldn’t try to finagle their way out. Getting trapped in a place so confined with innocent people was not his idea of a good time.

“Speaking of stating the obvious, you’re attune to the wacky world of skeevy shit.” Yeah, the obvious was sometimes annoying to hear spouted off like the person it was directed toward didn’t have their own set of eyeballs to make the determination on their own, but sometimes it was needed to really grind in the point. Or to make it more real honestly.

He noticed her odd little glances here and there, but he had been way too deep into ignoring inevitabilities to make verbal note of it. He was just going to allow her to do her own thing while he pined after his lost breakfast and coffee….

He knew better than to allow things to unravel in front of his eyes, burying his head in the sand.

But sometimes a guy just wanted…. to fuck all.

Alas, when he performed that ignorant act, people ended up getting hurt.

“Something more to you than meets the eye.” He tapped the end of his staff on the ground, the warded end lighting up orange. He hoped it was enough to break the people out of whatever trance had taken them. He hoped it would be enough to cause a falter in the ‘system’ for him and his companion to slip out into the great wilds of Chicago. He would much rather investigate what the hell was going on there away from that tiny establishment. He would cry legitimate tears if he destroyed his breakfast before he had a chance to taste it. Oh yeah, he was still clinging to the idea that he could return to that when the current business was all said and done.

There was something unspoken buried in his second obvious statement of the hour. Something that might have suggested a touch of suspicion. Did she have anything to do with the odd events, or was she just an innocent bystander herself?

((Thread transfer; my turn to reply.))

#primechicagowizard #ok i'm transferring these things over here and i am actually gonna reply to this stuff after about 2923483247324 years #fingers crossed my brain will cooperate! #i'm putting them on my thread tracker #and i'll post a link to evelyn's public thread tracker page after i get a few threads on it :) #thread transfer #long post

[palmettocapital]

The Emotionally Intelligent Investor (2012)

Develop skills like a chess master — they use gut intuition to pick a move and then check it against their rational risk framework to identify problems

We are hardwired to avoid shame and its cousin regret. Learn strategies to minimize or embrace these—like small lotto ticket positions, trimming when you are tempted to sell too early

Learn to really be happy proving yourself wrong, recognizing an error or disproving a theory, for instance be proud when you find a mistake before you lose money on it

Be careful with spreadsheets and projections - they become too real. Don’t get overly detailed

Keep a trading journal. Practice identifying your emotions as they come, which is a rare skill in itself. Track your emotions and thoughts to help you understand your risk appetite and make more balanced decisions. Track missed opportunities as well as disasters avoided. Interrogate what risk means to you over time.

You are most emotionally vulnerable on a name when you are near break even, because the emotional diff between +/- is so large.

Play is important for self-discovery — elites do it in all fields. Scrimmages, sketching, play acting

Treat “value” (contrarian, trend-reversing) and “growth” (fundamental/price trend-following) differently and use different frameworks. 

Uses stop losses on stocks where a growth investing framework should be used. Only willing to take large % losses on stocks where he’s making highly contrarian bets. Asks himself regularly (weekly) whether he’s using the right playbook for each stock in book.

For value investments, set a buy-it-now price and be willing to dollar-cost average there. Also be willing to take losses, but set a timeframe over which you expect momentum to reverse. Do not dollar cost average in growth/momentum investments (ie once the name gets working for a while and has been exceeding estimates) — sell or trim down to core at the first sign of trouble

If performing well/beating expectations/expectations are for beats / >150d MA / 150d MA rising —> growth playbook. If opposite —> value.

If you can’t figure out which playbook to use (stuck in the middle?) often best to spend your time elsewhere

Speculating on a growth stock regaining momentum is dangerous!

Visualize what can go wrong - see all the ways the boulder can roll down the hill. Practice believing outlandish future scenarios (EZ breakup, USD:JPY at 100, etc)

Optimize for 70% of information - like Colin Powell says, any more than that prob means you spent too long. Uncertainty drives opportunities, embrace it!

Druckenmiller would occasionally sell his entire book to flat to reset things for him & his analysts — clean sheet of paper is very freeing

Personality assessment test —marketpsych.com/personality_test.php

Use your own fear to know when the right time to buy is. Mark Cook reasoned when he was scared other market participants were likely at least as scared as he was and therefore it was probably a good time to buy

7 questions before putting on a trade

What does current shareholder base look like? Value/anti-momentum/LT or growth/momo/ST? High SI? Does mgmt own a lot? Value won’t care as much about bad news, growth less likely to buy a miss and may even sell

What are longer term shareholders thinking and feeling?

What are the recent shareholders thinking and feeling?

Who is the potential buyer of the stock (value or growth) and what are they thinking/feeling?

What is the potential short seller thinking and feeling?

(If stock has a high SI) what are those already short thinking and feeling? Likely to cover or press?

What is management thinking and feeling?

Can be analyzed through TA, surveys, questions on calls, talking to mgmt, studying investor base changes, investor convos

Consider creative issues like the fact that quarter end is coming up and investors may not want to show a loser on the books and have to defend it to investors

Investors often act to avoid shame rather than rationally to gain — this is classic prospect theory!!

Prior resistance become support because of the association bias (buying there worked before, people will tend to buy the dip). Basically you buy breakouts because the R/R range has just flipped

Key tenets of technical analysis:

resistance, breakouts above resistance, support, and breakdowns below support. They work because they tell you at a glance average/aggregate positioning and PNL of shareholders — incredibly valuable info

Higher highs & higher lows = investors sell to realize gains but positive enough to buy back higher than before

Worsening breadth = topping market; improving breadth = bottoming. Because win:loss ratio is key to investor emotions and happiness/sadness drive risk appetite/aversion

Bull markets end when the leading stocks underperform. Eg Internet in 2000. Most exposed investors begin underperforming and reduce risk appetite

Ends of bull/bear market periods often have one last extreme leg up/down, driven by hysteria. FOMO and career risk are the dominant emotions, respectively.

Prices decline faster than they rise. “Stocks take the stairs up, elevator down”. Associates it with prospect theory where people feel a loss of Y 2x as much as a gain of Y

Use short-term overbought/oversold indicators like RSI to help with timing

Equivocal: volume often very telling around inflection points

150 day MA = rough approximation of the market’s cost basis for the stock (PC speculation: because 150 trading days = ~6 months or average current hold period)

When interviewing management, be attuned to details. Even trying not to take notes can be useful to help you focus on non-verbal communication from execs. Watch facial reactions, stress responses, face touching, eye contact — all can indicate untruths or stress. Ask questions that challenge them to admit true motivations and weaknesses. Best execs have a short term focus when things are going poorly and long term when things going well (Jobs did this). Notice if they take blame for things not in their control, avoid blame for bad decisions, dismiss legitimate risks or speak too positively about the future when NT is bad. Saying “probably/virtually/basically/fundamentally” or being overly reliant on jargon/technical mumbo-jumbo is a classic tell as well. Buying time with “great question” or “I’m glad you asked that” also notable.

When considering an investment, talk to people long/short/uninvolved and try to empathize with what each is feeling and why they are saying what they’re saying

Analyst’s job in a meeting is to learn, not to impress. Be present!

Intuition comes from pattern recognition. Experience leads to certain mental maps and patterns being formed.

Research (on sports) shows novices do better when they think through things mechanically, and experts do better when they really on feeling and intuition rather than overthinking. This is a problem for professional investors who need to be taken seriously by bosses/clients/regulators. Can be an opportunity — investors like Peter Lynch started with gut (Eg liked donuts at DNKN) but fewer operate that way now, more reliant on screening or pure quant

Pay attention when you hear a pitch and it resonates with you immediately — often a sign of something meaningful.

Focus on ST track record when evaluating short-term traders and opposite for long term investors.

Ability of chess grandmasters can’t actually see much farther into the future than weaker players—at least, it’s not what drives elite play (Kasparov). Use their gut. Great moves may come to them intuitively, but most of their playing time is spent evaluating the risk of the move.

Steps for using intuition (safely!). This is basically a soup-nuts process in itself

Only valuable when you have ample experience (retail investor investing in biotech)

Be aware of biases. Tough thing about intuition is separating the good/bad feeling from a potential positive/negative emotional bias. Biases are different from intuition and not good. Practice intuition, especially making it more explicit so it can be analyzed rationally. “I hate that stock” is diff from “I hate that setup”

Try to determine if an investment reminds you of a specific previous situation. That determines IF you can rely on gut feelings. Use pattern recognition, note similarities and differences as best as you can.

Analyze the fundamentals and risk/reward characteristics of the security.

Expose your ideas to the criticism of others. “More doubt is the last thing you want when you are in trouble”. This is also where a partner comes in handy — they know your history/experience too and can help you avoid pitfalls.

Maintain openness to changing your mind, and set tripwires. Trip wire = event that should not occur if your thesis/intuition is right.

Use the process. Chessmaster’s process is to use gut and risk evaluation in a loop, following the process iteratively until he comes up with a move he feels good about and is logically acceptable. They make the game come to them in a way that their competencies are best utilized.

Kasparov in “How Life Imitates Chess” — secret to success in most endeavors is relentless review of prior decisions and focused practice on areas that require improvement.

Example of things he looks for at cyclical bottoms (this example specifically from semis): Retail indication that demand is stabilizing or even turning positive —> Significant inventory out of the supply chain —> merger activity where large companies buying smaller ones for cash —> insider buying —> cuts to capex (lead indicator on low supply growth) —> high pessimism from market participants —> stocks not reacting badly to bad news anymore (like a quarterly miss)

Problems with the intuitive approach: randomness plays a role in investing (so focus on reviewing process, not just outcomes), intuitions go obsolete (certain patterns get arbed away over time if they really work)

Suggest pre-mortems involving visualization. Eg he owns EQIX, imagines it falling 40%, thinks about how he would feel about it and what could have caused such a decline. In this case, he thinks it’s increasing competition/pricing pressure or risky management decisions like a big acquisition. Feels better prepared to sense danger and exit decisively when the time comes, or to buy a dip more confidently. Can also help you realize you’re taking too much risk — if you can imagine a number of ways you lose 50% and that loss would make you uncomfortable taking appropriate risks in the future, you are probably sizing the position too aggressively relative to R/R. Since he recognizes as a person he most values financial freedom, he also does this with his minimum net worth — constantly imagines scenarios that would cause him to fall below the MNW he’s decided on, and adjusted the risks he’s taking accordingly. Often limits potential upside, but that’s a trade-off he’s willing to make given his personal motivations. PTJ does this (allegedly for an hour a night), picturing huge moves in oil or USD, how it would impact his portfolio and what it would mean — wants to be more prepared when unexpected news hits.

Basically his thesis is trading success requires recognizing and taking advantage of the mistakes of others. This requires empathy. Emotional intelligence is the rare skill in that it can be grown with practice as an adult.

Firms should screen for personality traits more than they do when recruiting, focusing on whether the candidate has the right temperament for that fund’s style of investing (trend-following or contrarian?).

Structural problem in funds is reliance on junior team members for idea generation and initial work when they have the least-developed gut instincts.

Investing by committee doesn’t work. Hard to get a large group to agree on something contrarian, and it’s just not able to move fast enough. Key decisions ought to be made by 1-2 people. Meetings are more useful as sounding boards than as consensus-building exercises. Group discussions often cause people to line up behind the most out-spoke — one way to combat this is having people write down their opinions/thoughts before anyone speaks.

Be on the lookout for intuition obsolescence — stop doing what doesn’t work. Losses on situations that appear very similar to past successes are a red flag for possible obsolescence.

Most firms operate as if people have an unlimited capacity to process information (respond to emails/IMs/phones, watch tickers and the news all day). Quiet thinking time allows for for reviewing prior decisions and mental simulations. It is the key to turning experience into intuition, and that requires the right environment, including cultural focus on stress reduction.

Takeaways

This book was much better than I expected from a self-published investor book with a relatively lofty name. It’s basically a really great overview of process, complete with ideas for self-reflection that can help you build your own. It’s the sort of thing you’d want to give a junior analyst on their first day in a public markets seat. I have read a little on technical analysis in the past and used it for years but this was the best explanation I’ve ever read of why it works. 

It made me want to re-start keeping a journal—I kept one for years but stopped when it became too much of a time suck, and because it had gotten too much into tracking all of the day’s news rather than reasoning/feelings.

(From the intuition checklist) — May even be worth putting a step in your work/pitch process that asks — what previous situation does this most remind me of, if any? What playbook am I using here: value/growth, but also which situation am I mimicking here and is that a good thing (this is highly likely to play out similarly) or a bad thing (I’m anchoring too much)?

#investor profile #process #reread