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spencersawkward · 3 years

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switchblade faith // spencer reid - chapter 1

summary: one month after joining the BAU, Clea is still settling in. between solving murders and getting acclimated to DC, the only comfortable thing in her life is her friendship with Dr. Spencer Reid.

relationship: fem!OC/Spencer Reid

word count: 3.4k

hi all! welcome to my new story.

I've never written a baby Spence fic before, but I'm gonna try my best. I just wanted to get something out of the way before the book starts:

aside from the fact that it's young Spencer, this book isn't placed in a specific season. I might pull cases from different episodes, but the characters will remain the same. I've included Emily and Rossi as characters because I couldn't bear to have a story without either of them (wouldn't want to subject any of you to a Prentiss-less world).

that's pretty much it. I'm glad you're here. if you wanna read my other stories, my masterlist is here.

happy reading :)

"HA!" I slap my hand down on the pile of cards and slide it towards me, organizing them in a neat pile with a smug expression.

"this game is a sham." Spencer sighs, reaching for his book.

"you're just mad you lost." I raise an eyebrow and shuffle the cards again. "you don't wanna play another round?"

"why would I? the only skill this game requires is fast reflexes." he runs hazel eyes down the page with an alarming quickness. I scoff at his disinterest.

"maybe if you trained those reflexes as much as you trained that big genius brain of yours, you'd get a leg up." Morgan teases from his spot next to me. Spencer glances at him with a frown, his cheeks turning a light pink, before looking to me. I throw up my hands.

"he said it, not me." secretly, I smile at the fact that Derek is backing me up.

"I could beat any of you in poker." Reid defends.

"easily. it helps that I don't even know how to play." I slide the cards back into the holder and cross my arms over my chest with a sigh.

"you don't know how to play poker?" he's shocked.

"I told you, I hate card games like that!" I emphasize. things like poker, blackjack, anything that involves multiple players, I usually don't enjoy much. Emily glances up from her case file with a tiny smirk.

"why?"

"I'm a sore loser." I admit, averting my eyes. there's also the risk factor involved, which includes giving up coins or pretzels or peanuts if I lose. I tend to cling tightly to all three. Prentiss lets out a laugh and Spencer flips the page of his book.

"and winner, apparently."

"you're sassy today, aren't you?" I grin at him, pleasantly surprised.

in the month I've been working here, I haven't spoken to Spencer very much. he's been polite and I've gotten to know his intellect quite well, but he doesn't spend a lot of time with us outside of work. when we go out to get drinks, he either declines or heads home before we can even ask, a bag full of books pressed to his side.

I think he just takes a while to get comfortable around new people-- that's what JJ said when I asked why he seemed to be avoiding me. the fact that he played cards with me today felt like a victory in itself, so I'll take what I can get.

Spencer doesn't reply to my dig, only crosses his long, narrow legs and settles into his book.

"we should start briefing before we land." Hotch and Rossi walk over from their spots at the front of the plane to sit on the couch by our table. I nod eagerly and watch as Emily flips open her laptop to FaceTime Penelope about the case.

the first couple cases were more difficult than I expected because I had never worked in the field before joining the BAU, but I'm starting to get used to flying around constantly and examining actual dead bodies. working sex crimes meant I spent most of my time in front of a computer screen or just staying in the office. this is incredibly different-- which I'm starting to find might not to be a bad thing.

"--the virus killed her hard drive and left that on the screen." Penelope explains, referring to the picture of Heather Woodland's computer.

"'for heaven's sake, catch me before I kill more. I cannot control myself'." Morgan reads the message aloud from the case file. the words feel familiar in my mind and I try to remember where I've heard them before.

"that's exactly what William Heirens left behind." Spencer sparks the memory. I sit up straighter.

"the Lipstick Killer?" my fingertips trace over the case details. it's a weird aspect of the murder to emulate, especially because he didn't even leave the message in lipstick. I guess he's not really concerned with that; based on the unsub's previous victims, we have just under 36 hours to find her.

"his first victim was Melissa Kirsh, 26," Reid scratches his nose as he reads, frowning so hard that I start to think he'll form permanent wrinkles. he's got such a baby face, it's almost funny. "stab wounds, strangulation."

"so he stabbed her first, and then strangled her to finish the job?" Morgan repeats.

"what's with using a belt for the second murder?" Emily flips through the papers, confused. Spencer stiffens in his spot as he realizes this is the perfect time to share his freakishly expansive forensic knowledge.

"strangulation with your bare hands actually isn't as easy as you would believe. he probably tried it, found that it took too long, then stabbed her. and blood takes a long time to clean, so he decided a belt would be more efficient."

"he's perfecting his method." I can't tear my eyes away from the photos, despite the roiling sensation they put in my stomach. even with the things I've already seen, I don't think I'll ever get over photographs like this.

"we'll be landing soon and then we're meeting up with the Seattle field office. be ready to split up once we hit the ground." Hotch snaps shut his case file and stands up, breaking off to go sit alone. Rossi takes note of the old card deck that sits on the table.

"poker?" he looks between the four of us.

"nope." Emily chuckles.

"this one doesn't know how to play." Morgan gestures to me, causing Rossi to turn to me.

"were you raised in a barn?" he asks in his usual manner of speaking: blunt sarcasm with a hint of mockery. I frown sarcastically.

"something like that."

"at some point this week, we'll sit down and I'll teach you." he gets up, pats my shoulder, and walks over to join Hotch. I lower my voice once he's far enough away.

"is he actually gonna make me do that?"

"you don't know Rossi." Morgan shakes his head slowly, slides his headphones back on, and sinks into his seat.

"I'll join and bring JJ with me." Emily winks at me reassuringly, noting the tapping of my nail against the surface of the table. Rossi is a legend in the field and I've read all of his books, but didn't want to freak him out by telling him so. it was embarrassing enough when I met him and got tongue-tied while shaking his hand. he's got an elusive energy that intimidates me, and I'd prefer not to showcase that by humiliating myself with poker.

instead of dwelling on thoughts of how I'm going to fail in front of my idol, I open up one of my books and try to pass the time.

...

while I'm writing some notes on one of the many white boards scattered throughout the field office, I realize that I'm one of four other women in the room, including Emily. she's talking to Hotch and another agent at the opposite end of the room; Reid is unpacking his signature book bag and seems deep in thought. Rossi is reading a document. everyone around me seems to be in a hurry to do something, and I begin to feel dumb.

"you okay?" Morgan asks me. I realize that I've been standing with my marker hovering over the board. my fingertips press into my temple before I turn to him.

"yeah, definitely. just thinking." my mind travels to the map we've got pasted up and the red marker lines that Spencer has already created with the geographical profile.

"looks like we're getting the classic Seattle treatment." Derek points outside to the rain pelting the windows, streaming down the glass and distorting the glow of the city outside. it's gloomy today, with a slight chill running through the streets. I nod and turn back to my task, suddenly realizing something.

"he's willing to travel with the body." I mutter to myself. Morgan steps up next to me, crosses his arms across his chest.

"he must drive a vehicle that can conceal one, then." he glances over to Hotch to see what the unit chief has to say, but Spencer speaks up first.

"one in seven point four drivers in Seattle owns an SUV." it's like a flip switches at the mention of a statistic, diverting his attention from something nebulous in his mind to the tangible case. he's a little similar to a robot.

"an Explorer with tinted windows?" Morgan speaks again as he looks over the case photos.

"those rate higher among women." Spencer again.

"sure, but how do we know it's his car?" I wonder.

"what about a Jeep Cherokee?" Hotch chimes in, almost startling me with the deep register of his voice. I pull my bottom lip between my teeth as I think on it.

"Jeeps are more masculine." Reid comes close to me in order to examine the picture I'm holding. he smells like clean laundry and some nice soap scent that I can't place. maybe it's the gel he uses to slick back his hair. no cologne or aftershave. I don't think he'd need to shave, what with his smooth baby face.

Spencer has some special quirks that make him a little more interesting. he usually avoids physical contact with other people-- doesn't shake hands-- but at other times, he doesn't seem to have self-awareness. like right now, where the shoulder of his red sweater is just barely touching mine. I hand him the picture and step away.

"unsubs love to assert their masculinity."

Hotch nods along, encouraging me to share more of what I'm thinking. after swallowing down a lingering nervousness, I tap the push pin marking where the last body was dumped. "he dropped her out-of-state, so he probably has a previous knowledge of law enforcement. maybe he's got a criminal record?"

"good, Williams." Hotch praises me. my fist clenches triumphantly at my side as he turns to the agent who has been watching us intently. "when do we meet with your task force?"

"four." the man replies. I balk at this, my posture shifting. the shortest time constraint I've ever had here has been a full day. it's already one in the afternoon.

"you want an accurate profile by four today?" I glance between Morgan and Spencer, but the latter is rocking back and forth on his heels with his eyes glued to the white board. Morgan doesn't seem put off by it.

"we can do that." Hotch scowls, snapping shut the case file with a finality that tells me we're about to split up. "Dave and Morgan, head to the last dump site. Williams, Reid, I want you to talk to Heather's brother and try to find out what you can about her life. Prentiss and I will stay here in case of new developments."

I nod curtly, grab my jacket, and glance over at Spencer. he runs his hand over his hair, although I can't imagine what there is to smooth down, then walks over to me.

"you ready to go?" I ask, brandishing the file. he and I have only done two interviews together; I spent most of my beginning weeks working with Emily to get a feel for the job. both times with the boy genius have been fine, if not a little awkward.

he nods in answer to my question. "would you mind driving?"

"no license?" I tease to lighten the mood, but he doesn't get the joke. instead, he frowns at me with something of a distracted expression, adjusts his bag.

"no, I don't like driving in the rain."

"oh," I recover quickly and put a friendly smile on my face. "no problem."

"thanks." he walks ahead of me and I cringe at my own behavior. he acts so differently from earlier on the jet that I start to wonder if I did something wrong. maybe he's just in his head or something; I know I would be if I had an IQ that enormous.

when we get to the house of Heather Woodland's brother, a gorgeous golden lab greets us in the entryway. she puts her paws up on my legs and I reach down to scratch behind her ears with a smile on my face.

"Sandy, calm down." her owner grabs her collar gently to calm her. "sorry."

"no, it's fine, I love dogs." I wave it off and step inside. Spencer is eyeing Sandy warily, but she seems just as eager to say hi to him as she was to me. when she lets out a singular, enthusiastic bark, he startles.

"Mr. Woodland," I suppress my laugh by changing the subject. "I'm Special Agent Williams and this is Special Agent Dr. Reid."

we shake hands, my colleague giving his usual wave and polite smile. the interviewee takes in Spencer's appearance. I know what's coming.

"you look too young for medical school." Woodland says to Reid. this has happened a couple times since I joined the team, but Spencer never seems to mind. if anything, he lights up at the opportunity to share the reason for his official title.

"they're PhD's. three of them." he gives a little smile as we walk into the house, me shaking a few stray raindrops from my hair.

"so... are you a genius or something?" Heather's brother leads us past the hallway into the living room, which is unkempt and littered with pictures, catalogs, and toys. he must have kids in school right now. that would also explain the breed of dog.

"I don't believe that intelligence can be accurately quantified."

"he's being modest," I glance over at Spencer. "Dr. Reid can read 20,000 words a minute-- he's definitely a genius."

Woodland stares at Spencer for a second as he tries to fathom the speed at which someone's mind would have to turn in order to process all that information. I still can't imagine it. Spencer's eyes avoid Woodland's shyly. instead, he watches me as I pet Sandy.

soon after, we ask him about Heather's personality and tendencies. her brother is more than willing to give us all the information we need. I'm surprised, however, by my partner's ease at wandering around Woodland's house, flipping through the magazines on top of the TV and reading the spines of books on shelves. he's quite conspicuous about it.

about halfway through my mental list of questions, Sandy keeps jumping up and wagging her til.

"I'm gonna take her to the backyard quick," Woodland tells us. "one second."

he ducks out of the room and I wait until I know he's out of earshot before sidling up beside Reid.

"there's an immediate relationship established between a buyer and a seller," he tells me, holding up a Datsun Z catalog. we know that she was in the market for one. "if I want to coax a young woman into my car..."

"offer her a test drive." I finish his sentence. of course, within ten minutes of sifting through this woman's house, Spencer has figured out the ruse used to lure her. Woodland returns a moment later with a smile, but we tell him that we've gotten the information we need before leaving.

in the car, Spencer theorizes about the unsub's mental condition as I try to navigate traffic in the storm. thunder rumbles overhead, occasionally sending a vibration through the car. my knuckles tighten around the wheel a bit. I also hate driving in the rain. his rambles fills the silence, however, and somewhat soothe my nerves.

"he doesn't have the MO of a paranoid psychotic. dumping the bodies out in the open, with a weapon nearby... that doesn't align."

"he covers their eyes with duct tape multiple times over, though. he knows he's going to kill them, but he doesn't want them to see his face?" my fingertips drum over the wheel nervously.

"what's wrong?" Spencer asks suddenly, glancing at my hands and then at my face. I still my movements at the change in subject.

"huh? nothing. I just don't like driving in the rain, either."

"oh. I'm sorry." he straightens a bit in his seat. the apology surprises me a little, but he seems genuinely sympathetic. I guess I really don't know him that well.

"it's cool."

we fall into an awkward silence and I bite my lip. we should get back to talking about the case. heaven knows Spencer has more facts to spew, more theories to share about this unsub. anything is better than the gap in conversation. I open my mouth to say more about what we learned at the house, except Spencer speaks first.

"so... how are you liking working here?" he asks awkwardly. it takes a second for the question to register with me. he sounds uncomfortable whenever we're alone and that makes me uncomfortable in turn. where everyone else was quick to include me in their jokes and discussions, Reid always sounds like talking to me exhausts him. it's obvious that he's socially awkward. there's no judgement from me; I'm just surprised that he's pushing to talk about non work-related subjects.

"I like it," not really an accurate summation. I don't think a heart-to-heart is exactly the right move when talking to him. "a little stressful, though."

"you worked in sex crimes before, right?" he looks out the window. there isn't much to see except for the rain-blurred skyline. I nod.

"yep."

"that sounds... hard." he shifts in his seat as he tries to come up with more points of conversation. it's kind of endearing, honestly. I throw him a bone.

"so is profiling."

"why'd you switch?" his eyes flit over to mine as he quickly adds, "if you don't mind me asking."

I take a second to come up with an answer. of course, there's the classic response: I've always wanted to help people— which isn't wrong— it's also not the whole answer. all through college and the Academy, I had my head focused on one thing. I could interview killers and get inside their heads, but there's something entirely different that you don't get from pure research. and one person inspired that in me before I had finished high school.

"don't tell him I said this, but I really wanted to work with Rossi." I say in a hushed tone. there's a slight smile on my lips because I haven't told anyone on the team in fear of being teased. I don't think Spencer is likely to gossip with Rossi about me, though.

"really?" now he sounds surprised.

"I've read all his books and I've been to a couple lectures. he doesn't remember me, evidently." the thought is more funny than embarrassing. he spoke at my college a few years back and I recall being on the edge of my seat, trying to come up with the courage to ask the questions that filled my head. I was too shy.

"does he know you're a fan?" Spencer loosens up a bit.

"nope," we pull off the freeway as we near the field office. I stop at a red light and look over. "I didn't want to embarrass myself with the whole 'your work changed my life' spiel."

at this, Spencer lets out a short, nervous giggle. it's a nice sound, that laugh. it makes me smile when he seems to relax in his seat.

"that's exactly what I did." he says. I frown.

"you told him his books changed your life?" I blush as I realize I just inadvertently made fun of him.

"I, um... well, I got excited to talk about his research." he averts his gaze again and his cheeks turn a slight pink. there's a dimple in his cheek, I notice, that keeps tugging upward. this is my first time having a non-forced moment with Spencer alone; a wave of satisfaction washes over me as I realize the potential for another friend here.

"trust me, I get it." I laugh. we pull into the parking ramp for the field office and I find a spot by the door. Spencer hoists that bag into his lap and runs his hand through his hair. when I pull the key out of the ignition, he waits for me to get out of the car before we start walking toward the door.

it's small, but I appreciate that he doesn't run off without me. we don't talk as we walk, our footsteps echoing along the cement walls.

oh my god first chapter holy fuck! it's short, but I don't wanna overwhelm. I'm so excited for this book!

#spencer reid #matthew gray gubler #dr. reid #criminal minds #mgg #fanfic #fanfiction #wattpad #friends to lovers #BAU #slow burn

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yandere-wishes · 4 years

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Lolicassé Profiles

(I'm so sorry for this I know it's ugly af!😭 the quality completely died when I imported the images into my computer.) Welcome one, welcome all! To Lolicassé the dorm of misfit toy! Founded on the intellect of the toymaker (though it's technically "founded" on a Micky mouse episode just like the Ramchakle dorm). The students in this dorm all use a classification of magic known as "creator" which permits them to build marvelous inventions and toys from simple everyday objects. Students here, are also able to transform into some sort of toy, which sometimes makes it hard to tell the students apart from the actual toys littering every corner of the dorm. If you are thinking of paying this dormitory little visit, BEWARE the students can get rather clingy and obsessed, and are not above using rather unorthodox means to keep their new playmate with them forever!

Meet the Students of this patched up dormitory.

Xerxes Starness Year/Class: Year 3 Class A Seat 8 Birthday: 18/01 (Capricorn) Age: 18 Height: 183 cm Dominant hand: left Origin: City of misfit toys Club: Robotics Best subject: physics Hobby: Inventing new devices and fixing up old inventions Bad with: Sleeping Favorite food: Chocolat Disliked food: any seafood Special skill: Fixing broken tech He is Lolicassé's dorm leader who can transform into a tiny remote control robot. He's a direct descendant of the original "founders" of the City of misfit toys. His childhood was rather isolated, having two very strict parents that we're obsessed with the idea of creating the "perfect child". Even in Night Raven he still continues to distance himself from other people, which has resulted in several rumors about him to rapidly spread.

Special ability Optical database When he looks directly at an object or person he is able to pull up numerous information about them. His brain is the equivalent of the world wide web. It is rumored that this isn't his original special ability and that his mother stole his birth ability instead of replacing it with a man-made ability

Edgar Ross Year/Class: Year 3 Class B Seat 26 Birthday: 04/04 (Aries) Age: 19 Height: 189 cm Dominant hand: left Origin: City of misfit toys Club: Magical Shift Club Best subject: Protective magic Hobby: Exercising Bad with: Not invading peoples personal space Favorite food: Anything with gravy on it. Disliked food: corn Special skill: Sharpshooting

He is Lolicassé's deputy dorm leader who was raised in a military household and in such pride himself on being the "perfect" soldier. He's rather old fashioned and keeps a formal attitude with whoever he meets. He devotes himself to "protecting" his dorm members which have caused him to get in multiple fights with students from other dorms. It is said that he idolizes Xerxes father. He can turn himself into a toy soldier like the rest of his family members.

Special Ability Icy bullet He is able to emit glacier bullets from his body that freeze what every they touch. Due to his polished target skills he hardly ever misses his target.

Ray Sanada Year/Class: Year 3 Class C Seat 19 Birthday: 24/06 (Cancer). ‎ Age: 18 Height: 177 cm Dominant hand: Right Origin: City of misfit toys Club: Studying movies club Best subject: Alchemy Hobby: Sewing dolls Bad with: Focusing on one task for long periods of time Favorite food: Strawberry cake Disliked food: anything grape flavored Special skill: Memorizing books quickly

An emotionless boy with a doll-like beauty that can transform into a porcelain victorian era doll. His beauty is rumored to rival that of the Pomefiore perfect. He is said to be deprived of emotions. He rarely speaks and doesn't have any friends. Some students say that they see him roaming the Ramshackle graveyard in the unholy hours of the night.

Special ability Dollhouse his special ability permits him to bring inanimate objects to life. However they have to be objects that he himself makes. As of right now his ability can only keep something alive for exactly 3 minutes and 52 seconds.

Ezequiel Autumn Year/Class: Year 2 Class B Seat 18 Birthday: 18/10 (Scorpio) Age: 17 Height: 182 cm Dominant hand: Right Origin: City of misfit toys Club: Board game club Best subject: Summoning Hobby: Video games Bad with: Talking to girls Favorite food: Soft drinks Disliked food: spicy foods Special skill: Hacking

A shut-in with absolutely no social skills. No one knows what exactly happened to his mother or any of his aunts but he was raised by his father and uncles. Due to this he rarely ever spoke to any girls and freezes whenever he has to talk to them. With the acceptance of his godmother who happens to be Xerxes' mother. He considers Xerxes his only real friend. He is able to transform into an anime figurine. It is rumored that he has a pair of wings though no one has ever seen them.

Special Ability White Raven, Black raven It is unclear if he was born with this ability or if it was implanted in him when he was a young child. But his voice is able to manipulate the will of others. After an unfortunate incident some students have speculated that he also has the ability to control the life span of those under the influence of his voice.

London Lore Year/Class: Year 2 Class C Seat 5 Birthday: 31/10 (Scorpio) Age: 17 Height: 179 cm Dominant hand: Right Origin: Villiage of Harvest Club: Basketball club Best subject: Summoning Hobby: Collecting buttons Bad with: Keeping track of time Favorite food: Pumpkin spice drinks Disliked food: watermelons/ gravy Special skill: Sewing customers

A lazy second-year student with an unsettling creepy aura around him. He can transform into a rag doll, although even in "toy form" he is still very unnerving to be around. He was created in the city of misfit toys, but raised in the Village of Harvest were his family owned a small farm where they mostly grew pumpkins and corn. The chain around his neck tethers his body and mind to the soul of a famous killer, although this is all just a rumor it's still more than enough to get other students to avoid him at all costs.

Special Ability Plague's kiss He can emit a deadly toxin from his body which causes people to transform into hideous monsters and submit to his will. Although even after years of practice he is only able to create a max of five monsters.

Valentino Kartinez Year/Class: Year 2 Class A Seat 3 Birthday: 09/09 (Virgo) Age: 17 Height: 173 cm Dominant hand: Right Origin: City of misfit toys Club: Science club Best subject: Arts Hobby: Hosting tea parties Bad with: Ripping open his stitches Favorite food: Cookies and milk Disliked food: Vegetables Special skill: Cooking and baking

A trickster, who's elaborate tea parties are talked about all over the school and usually gather a large crowd. He grew up in a crowded family consisting of 13 siblings in which he was the "middle" child. His family owned a famous chain of restaurants that were known for their "childlike glow". Due to the restaurants taking up much of his parent's time, Valentino became accustomed to staying at home and only having his siblings as companions. Although he did enjoy the company of his younger siblings he detested his older, bossier siblings. His toy form is that of an old mangled teddy bear.

Special ability Childhood tea party Valentino is able to create a lifelike simulation of someone's memory, however, the illusion only lasts up to four minutes.

Jess Box Year/Class: Year 1 Class A Seat 23 Birthday: 14/12 (Sagittarius) Age: 16 Height: 171 cm Dominant hand: Left Origin: City of misfit toys Club: Basketball club Best subject: Magical Pharmaceuticals Hobby: Designing tattoos Bad with: Keeping his voice down Favorite food: Pudding Disliked food: Raisins Special skill: Memorizing nursery rhymes

A loud, hyperactive claustrophobic first year who's voice seems to constantly be echoing around the halls. Despite being a Jack in the box, he hates small, dark, confinements. He's rather happy go lucky and usually doesn't care much about what goes on around him.

Special Ability Pop goes the Weasel His body becomes as flexible like a spring, permitting him to jump around and attach to walls. According to a certain hunter, Jess's special ability would make him an amazing huntsman. Although the first year seems to prefer using his power set to prank his classmates and teachers.

🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️ 🐻❤️

Alright so this is how I'm going to do things. Interactions are open for these characters, meaning you guys can send them asks (yandere or normal. How they would react to something/Someone up to you), just talk to them or whatever else you can come up with. I'll do my best to answer everything, whoever if I think an ask better deserves a drawing as an explanation I'll put it on hold and make a quick sketch for it later. This whole dorm was really a giant drawing practice and since I really want to start digital I might re-draw them later (not likely but we'll see). I'm thinking if these characters get popular (Idk 55 likes and maybe 10 interactions) I'll release sprites of the characters doing poses similar to the TW boys (basically how I imagine them if they where in the game) and maybe later even do some chibis of the boys. Although I seriously doubt anyone is going to like or read this 😂 🤣 😂🤣. Also a huge thank you to everyone that encouraged me to continue working on this it means so much to me! And a special thank you to Rinna ( @minoux-deactivated20200516 ) the creator of Terrorwood who inspired me to take the first step in making this dorm. If anyone wants to make an oc for this dorm feel free to do so (let's be honest no one would want that) just please tag me.

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland oc #oc dorm #lolicassé #jess box #Valentino Kartinez #London Lore #Ezequiel Autumn #Edgar Ross #Ray Sanada #Xerxes Starness

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monchikyun · 3 years

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III. coffee and cigarettes

Nothing good lasts forever and so even Connor’s short vacation comes to an early end, making him wish he had an excuse to take some more. He has plenty left too, never really having the need to spend more than what’s mandatory. The prospect of keeping himself a sole company for very long doesn’t much appeal to him. Too afraid of the brain rot that would make a space for his internalised guilt to fully manifest.

There is never anything to do but to waste his free day away talking to his four-legged friend who doesn’t seem to even enjoy their one-sided conversations. He could busy himself with countless tasks but what’s the point when no one’s here to witness it.

Sometimes he gets to hang out with his friends, rarely he’s ever lucky enough to pass the time with the one person who can make him smile, who can make him realise that there is more to him than the hurt corroding his insides. It happened only once, actually.

Somehow he persuaded Gavin to join him for their walk to a dog park, though it wasn’t all that impressive of a feat. He likes to replay that day sometimes, a great way to fill the void in his mind that comes to visit whenever he has problems initiate sleep-mode. It was back in October, the sky was an ethereal shade of blue and the trees turned into a display of a non-lethal fire-show. All the reds and oranges towering over them and shedding pieces of their transcendent beauty on the ground for them to to do with as they please. He stole one. An oddly-shaped maple leaf hidden between pages of the book he won’t ever read. Of course, he gave one, too. And that was when he first fell something shift inside of his heart. The first time he ever wanted to kiss someone.

---

“Hey, tin can.”

“Good morning to you too, detective.”

The titles they call each other have lost their initial meaning and morphed into something that provides familiar comfort. Nicknames, perhaps.

Connor smiles with his eyes, not daring to show something more lest it gets misinterpreted by the wrong people. Because he has no right to be happy, least here of all places.

He scans the empty desk that used to be Hank’s work-space. Still empty. Several personal items belonging to a stranger, hair that isn’t Sumo’s but came out of some other dog. There is nothing left of his old friend anymore. Devoid of anything that matters to him.

Gavin watches his line of sight, he’s painfully aware of that. Their desks are stuck to each other now since they share all of their cases and therefore it’s convenient to be this close. It’s convenient to psyche. He’s glad he doesn’t have to face his failures on daily basis like that, now that detective Reed keeps him almost constant company. Maybe he should tell him how grateful he is,… someday.

❄️ ❄️ ❄️

There is a fresh coffee on his desk, one that Gavin hasn’t made for himself. A ritual that keeps repeating every work-day. He only asked the one time, back when he still couldn’t stand Connor and all the other plastics, yet he got nothing but some preprogrammed phrase then. Thinking about it now, maybe he shouldn’t have punched the android. His fist ached like a bitch and knowing Connor, he probably received zero damage from that feeble attack. God, he hated him at that time. Hated that there was no life hiding behind that pretty face and that he was powerless to do anything about it. He didn’t believe that androids had the potential to become something more than glorified computers, let alone human. It was Connor who showed him that being alive isn’t defined by the components or material one is made out of. It’s what one does that counts. The behaviours reserved only for those possessing free will.

It took him a month to be fully convinced that Connor just might be more of a full-fledged person than Gavin could ever be. Three more and he fell flat in the dark pit of no return.

It isn’t that loving Connor is an inconvenience or something he could live without, but he’d rather had his teeth pulled out one by one than to go another day knowing that his feelings will never be returned. That it will always be his fault for being such an unlovable bastard.

Drinking the pleasantly scalding coffee helps a little. It reminds him that Connor cares, to some extent. The fact that he takes the time of his day just so Gavin can have his daily dose of caffeine without having to lift a finger warms him through and through. It plants a tiny seed of hope to his heart.

He never asks but he always thanks him. Words of gratitude whispered underneath his breath, comprehensible only to the person who deserves to hear them.

Usually, he’d take the cup outside to compliment his morning smoke, but Connor is sitting in his chair a little too stiffly, his eyes wandering off somewhere distant. Not even his gratitude got acknowledged today. He gets like that more often that Gavin would like. Reversing back to his old self, to a time when human-like expressions were still foreign to him. It breaks his heart a little every time he gets reminded that nothing will be able to undo the damage done, that Connor will bear his trauma forever, …possibly. Gavin would always stay quiet, not finding the right things to say or do. Not today.

“I’m gonna go outside… to take a… breath.”

He isn’t sure Connor even registers his words.

“You… wanna go with?”

Still nothing.

“Connor.”

He stands up and gets as close as possible without trespassing the unspoken borders between them.

“Come with me, please.”

Their eyes meet for a split second and before he can catch up to the present moment they are already halfway out of the door.

Maybe he should use the magic word more often.

---

A blissful smoke fills his lungs, clouding over the pain and uncertainty that put him here in the first place. He relies on this wonderfully horrible sensation too much, but it’s better than the alternative.

“Liar.”

Yeah, he isn’t going to win any honesty awards in the near future, that’s for sure. But at least Connor is back to his old irreplaceable self, or he acts like he is.

There is a day old snow piled on the grassy patch beside the wall, reminding him of the photo Connor sent him yesterday. Of the tears and the desperation. How he wanted nothing but to be held by his friend. And now, when they’re so just inches apart, he’s too afraid to even look at him. He couldn’t just casually hug him without it meaning anything, because to Gavin, it would be worth everything. And if he lost that again,… no amount of nicotine would ever be enough to put him back together.

“Must suck not having an unhealthy coping habit to solve all your problems.”

He can’t even begin to imagine what Connor must be going through.

“I wish you wouldn’t...” His cigarette gets forcibly removed from his mouth, the implications of which don’t translate to his ape brain right away, so his jaw is stuck to the ground while he watches Connor study the stolen smoke like it’s something he’s never seen before. “… have one.”

“Give it back.” He tries to get it back with his grabby fingers but Connor stops him by doing something even more unexpected.

He puts the whole cigarette in his mouth and makes some weird movements with his jaw. And just like that, the tube disappears.

The freaky bitch must have swallowed it whole.

He blinks rapidly to clear the brain fog suddenly threatening to limit his intelligence.

“What.”

Connor is towering in front of him without Gavin having any say about this scary development. His soft hands are holding Gavin by the shoulders like he wants to shake the soul of him, and maybe he does, because he looks him dead in the eye and quietly says:

“I don’t ever want to lose my unhealthy coping mechanism.”

Connor’s fingers are boring into his jacket, probably damaging the leather, but all he cares about is the hurtful expression splitting him in half with an intent intensity.

Gavin has a million words lodged inside his throat, his own hands itching to return the contact. But there is never enough time to get his act together and put aside his inner coward.

“Sorry.”

The touch is but a memory now as Connor is leaving him in alone in the cold place. The android even felt the need to apologise, like he did something wrong. That won’t do.

“Wait.” Gavin grabs him by the wrist, stops him in his tracks. His hands slide down on its own, a behaviour he doesn’t approve of but is unable to oppress. He can feel his own fingers trembling as they wrap around Connor’s ever so tentatively.

“You won’t get rid of me that easily.”

He wishes he didn’t face the android’s back so he knew whether to take that promise back.

He wishes his voice didn’t crack so he could spare himself an ounce of embarrassment.

But most of all, he wishes Connor didn’t clutch his hand this hard so he could let go and pretend nothing that out of the ordinary has happened between them.

@a-convin-new-year sorry it’s late ;D

#aconvinnewyear #convin #low-temperature burn #i live for cheese and romance

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glorious-blackout · 3 years

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Self-Indulgent Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino/Simulation Theory Crossover Part Six

@rock-n-roll-fantasy I should probably warn you that I am definitely back on my angst-junkie bullshit with this one, but I promise there’s more to come after this! 😅 Not sure when I’ll be able to post the next parts but hopefully you enjoy these two in the meantime 😊

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five

********************************

There’s something wrong with the Earth.

This isn’t necessarily a surprise. In the week since the quake that never was, the entire world has felt off; tilted on its axis to such a degree that Alex can’t even begin to fix it. The details of the hotel feel muted, the life slowly draining from his surroundings as empty husks are left in the wake of an unseen angel of death. Once pristine white walls look faded and beige beneath flickering lights. The usual buzz of activity emanating throughout scattered hotel rooms has quietened, as though a volume dial has been turned all the way down. Portraits which once hung proudly along the reception walls have tilted, and if Alex studies them closely enough, he can see the colours smudging as the paint melts, removing all nuance in the process. At this point it wouldn’t surprise him to find cracks creeping along the marble columns or dying lilies curling over themselves in neglected pots, although he supposes it’ll only be a matter of time before that sight greets him as well.

It’s not just the hotel itself which has fallen prey to this lack of vitality. The guests have never been particularly fascinating company, but now they appear virtually soulless. Their numbers dwindle with each passing day despite no clear evidence of rockets carrying them towards home, and when scattered patrons do reveal themselves, Alex ends up eavesdropping on the same mundane conversations over and over again. Staff members offer the same monotonous greetings to him regardless of any attempts to lure them into conversation. Even Andrew, who can be quite amenable to a casual conversation over a pint, has little more to offer besides, “How are you enjoying your drink, sir?” when Alex forcibly drags himself to the bar.

On the one occasion where he agrees to play a show, he finds himself gazing at a placid, unmoving crowd who deign to make as little noise as possible. There are no cheers, no attempts to sing along, no murmurs of approval. Alex doesn’t even have the energy to be startled when he notes that several faces in the crowd have been replaced with expressionless masks, as though an artist has erased their features entirely, leaving only a discoloured smudge in their wake.

The world appears to be winding down, crumbling at the seams with no end in sight. And to top it all off, he’s the only person alive who seems to have noticed.

Even his weekly meetings with Murphy have halted without explanation. He’ll sit by the computer for hours on end, waiting for the dreaded ringing to invade his eardrums, but it never does. For the first time in his life, Alex would give anything to face that man and give him a piece of his mind, but God doesn’t appear to be answering his calls right now.

And then there’s Jamie.

“Are you coming down to rehearsals then?”

Alex doesn’t pay him any heed, choosing instead to keep his gaze fixed on the alluring form of Earth above him. He cannot bear to look at Jamie right now; not when doing so will only unveil a lifeless expression marring his friend’s once kind face. He only wishes the man would say something – anything – else. It appears to be lost on Jamie that he’s uttered the same sentence three times in the last fifteen minutes, having said little else since drawing up beside Alex on the balcony. The fact that he never receives an answer doesn’t register with him either. He simply keeps asking, like a children’s toy with only one voice-clip, not realising that every time he asks, he only succeeds in adding a further crack to Alex’s thoroughly abused heart.

Nick and Matt have fared little better. Playing a show with them the other night had been akin to playing with three ghosts who have yet to leave their bodies. All traces of humour and nuance and love have been stripped from them, leaving empty shells where his best friends once stood.

Or rather, where convincing replicas of his friends once stood. Alex can’t pretend to understand how this version of reality works, and he’s still struggling to separate the splintered fragments of Mark’s false memories from his own recollections. The Jamie, Matt and Nick he has been living with are certainly modelled after the people he’s known and loved all his life, but there are enough subtle differences to make him question if they were ever real in the first place. The most glaring marker of all being the fact that when he’d insisted they call him Alex, the only response had been a lack of recognition which had almost broken him.

The only person who has ever referred to him as Alex in all the time he’s been here is Matthew, but even as his mad theories have become more and more plausible, the man himself has remained infuriatingly elusive.

At least Alex knows why he seemed so familiar now. They’d only crossed paths occasionally in the past, exchanging pleasantries and compliments at various awards shows and festivals, but given their similar positions it would be impossible for him not to be familiar with a certain Matthew Bellamy. The man has always been more of a friend-of-a-friend to Alex than a proper acquaintance, but he likes him well enough to believe that Matt’s apparent fondness for him was also genuine. Granted, he doubts he’d ever have pictured the man as a planet-hopping outlaw, but then again, he imagines Matt must have been equally surprised to find him acting as the owner of a four-star establishment on the moon.

A disbelieving giggle erupts from him before he can stop it. He’s been doing that a lot lately. No doubt it’s an unconscious coping mechanism his brain has concocted while processing the impossible situation he’s stumbled into; he supposes his only options at this point are to laugh or sob like a child.

Pointedly ignoring Jamie’s lingering presence, Alex lets the Earth consume his attention once more. She’s as beautiful now as she always has been – her deep shades of greens and blues vibrant against a dense black sky – but that only adds to the sense of wrongness tugging at his heart. He shouldn’t even be capable of standing here, gazing towards home from this angle. Surely without proper protection and oxygen tanks, the air should have been sucked from his lungs and he should be gliding across the ground rather than standing still. Is there a force-field surrounding them, providing them with breathable air and simulated Earth-like gravity? If he concentrates hard enough, will he be able to spot the tell-tale shimmer of a shield embracing his tiny civilisation?

How odd that he’s never questioned such technicalities before.

As for the Earth itself, the more he studies it, the more it looks like someone has merely devised a painting of her against an endless black canvas, basing their work on ancient photographs from age-old Apollo missions. The image is too perfect. Too still and unaffected; a close approximation of how Earth must have appeared millions of years ago, before her surface was warped by humanity’s influence. The more he remembers of his final days on Earth, the less the image before him aligns with the truth. The clouds hovering beneath the atmosphere shouldn’t be a perfect white, they should be blackened by thick smoke. Those vibrant greens should have been burnt away to smouldering brown, as ash falls thick and heavy over once beautiful landscapes. No doubt even the oceans must have turned a grim, murky grey by now, rather than the striking blues he gazes upon now.

Alex gasps as a memory emerges unbidden, hands desperately grasping the balcony railing. These episodes have been coming thick and fast of late, and it takes all of his willpower not to collapse as faint echoes of screams pierce his ears and the foul taste of ash smothers his tastebuds.

He lets the memory carry him away, however, for he knows that stewing in his own ignorance is no longer an option he can indulge in.

The air is thick with acrid smoke as ash gathers on his tongue with every breath. His eyes draw upwards towards a tangerine sky; the sun obscured by thick smog which he can feel clogging his lungs, leaving him lightheaded and weak. Only hours ago the advice had been to stay inside, but the sirens now piercing his eardrums signal a change, and he knows with unexplainable certainty that if he’d stayed behind, he would have been consumed by the flames which lick their way across the landscape without mercy.

He doesn’t recall the events leading up to this moment, try as he might. Can’t recall if he’d been at home, or in the studio, or trapped within the confines of a hotel halfway around the world. The only instinctual memory he retains is that the catastrophe had crept up on them without warning, announcing itself with all the subtlety of an air-raid siren shooting panic into the veins of every human being on Earth. Only it hadn’t been sudden, had it? Not really. Humanity at large had known for years that the world was destined to burn unless something was done to stop it, but the warnings had been largely ignored, right up until the moment the fire was breathing down everyone’s necks.

The crowd surrounding him is desperate and he whimpers as countless bodies shove against him. No doubt he could remain perfectly rigid and yet still find himself pushed forwards by the sheer force of the human wave. The claustrophobia is suffocating, and breathing provides little relief when the air is as poisoned as it is. He can feel his chest heaving and the constant shouts and screams are momentarily drowned out by his pulse pounding a steady rhythm in his ears, and he clings tightly to the hand wrapped securely around his own as he’s guided along the wide street by a steady anchor. He doesn’t need to look to know instinctively whose hand it belongs to. The calming influence as his guide squeezes back and pulls him in closer is unmistakable. He presses himself against the other man’s body as the cacophony is quickly drowned out by gentle reassurances of, “We’re okay Al, just stay close yeah? We’re nearly there, just a little bit further, you’re doing great...”

He must look a state to warrant such a commentary, but he cannot bring himself to care. As he allows himself to narrow his focus entirely onto that soft voice, he can feel his heartrate slowing and his rapid breathing starting to ease. He feels - rather than sees - a worried face turning in his direction, ensuring that he’s still locked in the present rather than lost in the grasp of his panicked mind, and he gives a shaky nod to indicate that he’s okay. The world is burning and there’s no guarantee that safety is as close as his friend insists it is, but he’s not alone and the flames are still far behind him, so for now he’s okay. His hand is caught in another gentle squeeze - it occurs to him that the action might be for the other’s benefit as much as it is his - and they push onwards as best they can through the hulking mass of bodies surrounding them.

There’s a scuffle behind him as someone utters a sharp cry. Perhaps the constant shoving of bodies has finally erupted into a full-blown fight; either that or someone has merely lost their balance and fallen to the ground. Either way it spells the end for him. A desperate hand clings to Alex’s forearm for support and he feels himself being jerked backwards, struggling to maintain his grip on the precious fingers clutching his hand as faceless bodies try to pull him away. Panic seizes his throat, tightening his airway to the point where he cannot so much as scream. As the force of the disorganised crowd pulls him backwards, the people in front keep advancing, still trying to escape the flames and the thick, cloying smog. Concerned brown eyes turn to look at him, having sensed his distress in the crushing grip of his hand, and Alex can only watch those eyes widen with naked fear as their owner is pulled in the opposite direction.

Those pivotal seconds seem endless when replayed in Alex’s mind. The image repeats itself like a broken VHS tape - an unending loop of terror - but it must have taken no time at all for their connection to be severed with surgical precision. He remembers panicked, animalistic screams escaping his throat as he fought and clawed at the terrified masses surrounding him, his hand suddenly grasping nothing but air. He remembers the crowd in front pushing onwards, with one man among their ranks fighting tirelessly to stay behind, screaming Alex’s name over and over to the point where it must surely have torn his throat.

Neither of their efforts work. Their hands never meet again, and Alex can only watch as his salvation is carried off like a life-raft on the ocean, leaving him behind to drown on his sinking ship. And even above the distant sirens and the roar of nearby flames, the frantic, hopeless scream of “Alex!” continues to ring in his ears long after his would-be savior has vanished from sight.

“-ark?”

The crowded street blanketed in a thick, ashen haze vanishes from his mind’s eye and he blinks as Jamie’s voice pulls him back to the present. It takes a moment to fully reorientate himself, even as his eyes settle upon the pleasant mirage of Earth hanging above them. The air still feels unclean and the thick, cloying taste of ash still resides on his tongue. His throat still screams from the frantic cries that had been torn from it and his chest aches with the effort of breathing in filthy smog. His hand feels cold and empty, still grasping nothing but air in the place of warm flesh, and an overpowering sense of loss washes over him like a painful echo. If Jamie notices his distress, he makes no mention of it. His face is as blank and expressionless as it has been since his world became muted, and Alex thinks he would give his right hand in exchange for five minutes of his friend’s smothering concern.

“Where’s Miles?” he croaks out eventually, turning to face Jamie with a damning sense of dread. Part of him suspects that he already knows what the reaction will be and he longs to tear his eyes away in order to spare himself the pain, but he has to look. He needs this final grain of proof.

Jamie barely reacts to the words despite the fact that they’ve come out of nowhere. The only reason Alex even registers the minute furrow of his brow and downwards tug of his lips is because he knows that face better than he knows his own, and even then, the impassive blankness is back within mere seconds.

“Who’s Miles?”

Alex can’t look at him anymore. If he forces himself to look at that emotionless face then he knows his heart will crumble to dust and he’ll never be able to piece it back together. His eyes are drawn skyward and he keeps them there, unblinking, even when the growing sting becomes unbearable. His vision blurs with unshed tears and his chest shudders fitfully with the effort it takes not to break into animalistic sobs, but he forces himself to swallow down his grief before it can consume him. The pain is unbearable. It creeps over his mind like a specter, dragging its scythe wherever it goes without a care for the damage it leaves in its wake. The temptation to laugh as he realises that this has been the reason for his pervading sense of loneliness all along almost overwhelms him. Perhaps that would get a reaction out of the hollow shell that has taken Jamie’s place.

In the end, however, he doesn’t have the energy to make the slightest sound.

Because it’s not just Miles he’s grieving. The Jamie he knows and loves would never have let those two words leave his mouth. He would never stand idly by while Alex falls apart, visibly struggling to piece himself back together despite knowing that his efforts are completely worthless. The Jamie he knows would have pulled him in for a hug and let him sob his heart out without judgement, before gently telling him to tidy himself up so they can go out to thoroughly drown their sorrows. No doubt the Jamie standing beside him now has always been nothing more than a façade; expertly written code and little else. The same applies to Nick and Matt and every other human being he’s interacted with since stepping foot on this godforsaken rock, perhaps with the exception of Matthew. They’d been rather convincing replicas, he’s loath to admit, but that’s all they’ve ever been.

“Doesn’t matter,” he forces out in a choked whisper, in the full knowledge that that couldn’t be further from the truth.

He wonders if his real friends are still out there somewhere. Did they make it to safety while Alex was left behind and imprisoned within this lie? Have they been searching for him all this time, while he allowed his mind to be manipulated to the point where he forgot they existed? Are they mourning for him with the same all-consuming grief he finds himself overwhelmed by now?

Or are they simply ghosts, lost long ago to a world that has become uninhabitable? Perhaps they’re even trapped in the same boat he is; so wrapped up in the blissful ignorance of a beautiful lie that they cannot remember their own names.

“Is it better to exist within a terrible reality or a beautiful lie?”

He recalls Matthew’s burning question with a new sense of clarity. Because it hadn’t been hypothetical had it? Matthew had uncovered their circumstances long before Alex had. In his own infuriating way, Matt had been trying to prepare Alex for the conundrum he would be forced to contend with once the curtain rose. Their entire conversation had been a warning, planting seeds in his head that would eventually result in his world collapsing at the seams.

Had Matt also been crippled by an overwhelming sense of loss prior to stumbling into Alex’s makeshift life? Alex searches his mind for any random details he knows about Matthew Bellamy, but he cannot recall anything with great certainty. Miles had known him much better than Alex had; he vaguely remembers throw-away mentions of a wedding and a new baby, but nothing more concrete than that. For all he knows, Matthew is currently battling his way through an endless, synthetic maze to crawl back to the arms of the people he loves, or at the very least to be reunited with versions of his bandmates who haven’t been programmed to hunt him down and kill him.

“Are you coming down to rehearsals then?” Jamie asks once again, uncaring and toneless, as though trapped in an unending loop.

A huff of laughter escapes Alex’s mouth before he can stop it, and he bows his head as a tear finally slips from the corner of his eye. Rehearsals and playing live was once his only solace amongst the mundane goings-on of his daily life, but now the thought of facing the replicas of his friends and seeing them stripped of all personality is unbearable. Normality is nothing but a distant dream. There is no returning to the life that had been carefully carved out for him here regardless of what Jamie seems to think, and as the details of the hotel slowly fade around him, he doubts there’ll even be a crowd to play for by the time evening rolls around.

Jamie seems utterly unaffected when Alex finally turns to him, a thousand-yard-stare emanating from deep blue eyes as though Alex is a mere phantom standing in his way. A sense of finality takes hold as Alex stares at his friend, memorising the details of his face with a pang of grief, and he offers a small smile which he knows provides little benefit to either of them.

“You go,” he says, in a flat voice he no longer recognises as his own. “I’ll join you in a bit.”

The lie rolls surprisingly easily off his tongue, and despite giving no indication that he intends to follow-through on his promise, Jamie doesn’t question him for an instant. Instead, he simply shrugs before shoving himself away from the barrier and moving in the direction of the hotel. Alex watches his retreating back as he strolls along the cobbled balcony, and it takes all of his willpower not to yell at him to stop. To request a proper farewell, or a hug, or even to run up alongside him and enjoy one last hurrah with the band before everything fades to black.

However, as he watches Jamie vanish behind a set of automatic doors, he knows that running after him would be a mistake. There is no point in embracing the lie anymore. The avatars wearing his friends’ faces like intricate masks no longer have the power to replace the real thing in his heart, and having to reward them with false affection would surely destroy him.

Instead, he bids one final farewell to the Earth above him. For the first time he can remember, the clouds have cleared above the British Isles and he can see the tiny, shrunken form of England resting just above a narrow watery channel. Deep forest greens interspersed with tiny golden pinpricks amongst the well-lit cities are the only details he can make out, but yearning tugs at his heart regardless. He wonders what would happen if he took the initiative and made the trek to the space station now, requesting a ticket for the first flight back to Earth? Would the falsehood adapt around him and expand to include a detailed simulation of his home, from a time when everything was perfect and alive? Or would he simply hit a dead-end and be forever trapped within a tiny radius which encompasses the hotel and casino and little else? He has nothing left to lose by trying, but a nagging suspicion tugging at the back of his mind is enough to inform him what the outcome will be. Whoever designed his current reality didn’t deem Miles of all people to be a necessary addition - no doubt out of intentional cruelty - so the prospect of arriving home and throwing himself into the arms of his mum and dad is surely unthinkable.

It’s impossible to tell how long he spends gazing at the planet above, committing every single detail to memory with a bittersweet smile, but when he finally pulls his eyes away he’s momentarily overcome by a wave of contentment. The yearning for home vanishes and a renewed sense of finality tugs at his heart, only this time he lets himself bask in it. It’s over. The sky above is as much an illusion as everything else within reach, and while he knows he could lose himself staring longingly at the stars like a hopeful child, he finds that he no longer has any desire to do so.

After all, what’s the point in yearning for something that isn’t real?

******************************

Lilting piano notes resound through deserted, crumbling corridors; the echo bouncing off the ballroom walls, causing the delicate glass shards of the chandelier to tremble. All trace of life has vanished, with the exception of the lone musician on his humble stage, playing to a crowd of ghosts.

Alex doesn’t mind. He’d expected to find the hotel empty upon his return – no doubt his mental embrace of that finality had banished all remnants of humanity from its walls – and the uninterrupted stroll to the stage had been an oddly calming one. For the first time in years, a song had popped into his head with little fanfare. There’d been no need to agonise over chords or second-guess lyrics; instead the music had come to him fully formed as though obtained through a dream, and the need to perform it had become his sole objective.

A guitar would have been preferable. He has never felt entirely comfortable on the piano, but the choice seems to have been snatched away from him as all of his stringed instruments have vanished in his absence. Similarly, the lone drumkit and various brass instruments which once rested upon the stage are now missing. Only the piano remains. Each note sounds dissonant beneath his fingers, reverberating through the hall in all directions, and he gets the distinct impression that the instrument hasn’t been turned in years despite it sounding perfect only one week prior. His voice also sounds raw to his ears, but that doesn’t stop him from baring his heart anyway.

It’s a bittersweet song with an emphasis on the sweet, and he latches onto the topics of lost loves and friendships tied up with nostalgia for a golden age that no longer exists. No doubt he would have been proud of this one had he gotten the chance to write and record it on Earth, but at this rate he doubts anyone will hear it besides the ghosts haunting the fractured walls.

That’s okay though. This understated piece of music feels like the only genuine creation he’s produced in all the time he’s lived here, and for that reason alone he’d rather not be singing anything else.

While he refuses to give his surroundings much in the way of scrutiny, it isn’t lost on him that the ballroom is fading away with each passing second. Pristine white walls appear to be melting and cracks trail along the granite columns like lightning bolts stretching to the ceiling. The light from the chandelier is muted, emitting only the faintest golden glow through shards of glass which no longer shimmer, and the deserted dancefloor below has been swallowed whole by drab red carpet. The circular dining tables and bar are cloaked in shadow, their surfaces smothered by a thick layer of dust, and adorning the walls are empty frames where elegant portraits once gazed proudly upon the room.

Only one image remains. A small wooden frame sits on the wall directly within Alex’s eyeline, and though the photograph it displays sends an ache lancing through his heart, he finds it to be a pleasant ache. Captured for eternity is a shot of four young boys, barely out of primary school, with hair cropped short and arms wrapped lazily around each other. One curly-haired lad is looking away from the camera, eyes closed in a mistimed blink, while two others gape at the lens with deliberately widened eyes, baring all of their teeth in exaggerated grins. Only the smallest of the group is smiling in a fashion which can be considered normal, though the crinkling of his large brown eyes implies that he too is mere seconds away from bursting into uncontrollable giggles at his friends’ antics.

Alex can’t remember the photo being taken. The unremarkable brick wall behind them suggests it was taken at his childhood home, but it would not surprise him if the photo itself is yet another falsehood on top of the myriad of illusions he has spent years of his life sleepwalking through. And yet, he cannot bring himself to mind. The photograph may not be real, but the memories of a happy childhood surrounded by friends certainly are, and the sweet nostalgia that warms has heart can never be taken away from him. His real friends may have been lost to him long ago and even the replicas have deserted him now, but so long as he focuses on that image and dedicates this song to them, they can never truly be gone.

A shiver creeps up the back of his neck and he has the distinct impression that a pair of eyes have landed upon him, but he banishes that suspicion before it can take hold. This song is not intended for anyone’s ears but his own. The melody is quickly approaching its coda as he recites the final verse. The piano has grown so soft he barely registers the sound of it, but he carries on with a sense of obligation he doesn’t entirely understand. Perhaps it’s the sense of approaching finality which has made him so determined. His world is fragmenting piece by piece and he cannot comprehend what will happen to him once it fades completely, but he imagines there will be no coming back from it. He should be terrified and desperate, battling with every breath in his lungs to remain solid and whole, but he no longer has the energy to fight. Besides, he has always found contentment in music and performing, even in this godforsaken place. Why fight the inevitable when he can embrace it in peace instead?

The final note sounds abruptly as the last word escapes his lips, but before he can figure out a proper ending, the piano dissolves into atoms beneath his fingertips and the world explodes in a flash of brilliant white, carrying him along with it as his mind goes blank.

#Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino #Simulation Theory #Arctic Monkeys #Muse #my fic #writing

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broken-clover · 4 years

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AU-gust Day 6- Hospital

I’m here early! Mostly because I had a lot of this written earlier, so if that didn’t make it obvious enough I really liked this prompt. While it’s a hospital prompt is isn’t especially intense or gory, after yesterday I tried to make this one pretty lighthearted. Honestly I feel like the only really uncomfortable part of this is how much effort I put in trying to make a Pokemon expy. Hehe.

Sorry-not-sorry for more Sin and Bedman, it’s a bit more ‘romantic’ then last time but still pretty much platonic friendship. Enjoy!

Though it felt weird to say, Sin knew his least favorite thing about his father was his charity. Helping out people in need was a good thing, obviously, but a ridiculous amount of his childhood memories involved being dragged along to food banks, hospitals, and shelters so his dad could give corny, well-wishing speeches and lend a hand to those less fortunate, forcing him to help out alongside the other volunteers. Sin had used to wonder if it was because something about having a cute little kid around raised everyone’s morale, or whatever.

Well, considering he was now a grown-ass teenager at the age of sixteen, and Ky was still dragging him along, maybe he’d been off the mark.

At least he’d been allowed to take a break after an hour of schlepping donation boxes up to the children’s wing. Of all the places his dad went to for charity work, hospitals were by far his least favorite. The colorless, sterile atmosphere was just unnerving to be around. As soon as he could, he made a dash for the nearest sign pointing him toward the courtyard.

Sin swiped his guest ID through the maglock, which released with a cheery beep. The white walls and stench of antiseptic gave way to an array of soft colors and the smell of flowers. He took a deep whiff of the aroma and sighed with relief. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his handheld, fully charged for when he got a break and could take a minute to loaf off and relax.

Which game had he left in it this time? He popped out the cartridge and smiled. That was right. Pocket Beasts: Light version. His current favorite. He just needed a comfy place to hunker down and play.

A few stone benches were placed in between bushes and flowerbeds, all unoccupied. The place looked really empty, but it made sense. Everyone who wasn’t already busy was probably at Ky’s speech. At least it meant he’d be able to get some peace and quiet and privacy.

He spotted a pretty lavender flower poking out of the bushes and approached. The ‘flower’ moved, making him realize he’d seen wrong. Sin groaned inwardly at the sight of another person, perched on the short stone wall surrounding the flowerbeds. They didn’t glance up, if they’d even noticed him at all, appearing too absorbed in their own handheld device to care about much else.

“H-hey.” He raised a hand at them, and offered a twitchy half-smile. There were so many ways he knew this could go wrong. Sometimes people screamed at him until he fled, or immediately launched into the most boring small-talk possible. Sin just wanted to play his game, he really had no interest in causing any trouble. “Can I sit down?”

Sin braced himself for a response, but he didn’t get one. “Hey?” He tried again, waving harder. Maybe they were deaf? “Is it ok if I sit out here?”

Eyes glanced up at him, but only for a half-second before they returned to the screen. Well, it wasn’t a ‘no,’ so the best he could assume was they just didn’t care.

Hesitantly, he found a place to sit. If the hospital gown and IV hadn’t already given it away, it was pretty clear that he was a patient, not a visitor. He was scrawny and spindly to the point where it was almost disturbing, his skin was pale and sickly, and the messy bedhead was only slightly offset by the awkward purple hair dye. Why was he out here in the first place, instead of at Ky’s speech?

He knew staring was rude, but he just couldn’t stop himself. Every time he tried, there was another odd little detail that caught his attention. A peculiar little hairclip in the shape of a pink arrow. A purple charm bracelet half-hidden by his standard-issue hospital band. Glittery star stickers on the sides of his handheld, and- hey, he recognized that game!

His expression brightened. “Oh, you play Pocket Beasts too? That’s my favorite! Who’s your starter?”

The only response he got was a couple of button clicks. Sin found himself sinking back into an uncomfortable silence. Well, he supposed it was better than being yelled at. He switched his game on.

Dad said he wasn’t supposed to use the internet at the hospital because it would mess with all the fancy machines, so online matches were out of the question. Well, there was always the battle tower. Maybe he could item grind to kill time. He still needed to finish his Soup Encyclopedia and some of the rare cooking items could only be found there.

Any discomfort he had was wiped away with the familiar music and intro screen of the game. How could he worry when there were battles to be won? All he had to worry about was making the most of his free time.

His avatar flickered into existence, still in the last town he’d visited. As soon as he moved towards the nearest building, though, a little indicator popped up on the bottom of the screen. Puzzled, Sin took his stylus and tapped on the icon.

Trainer BEDMAN would like to battle!

>Accept Decline

‘Bedman?’ He looked up at the little avatar that had appeared, then glanced off to the boy at his side. The messy lavender dye-job was surprisingly close, as was the magenta arrow pinning his bangs out of his eyes. Was it just some weird coincidence? If he wanted to play, he could have just asked…

Despite his confusion, Sin clicked ‘Accept.’ PvP battles were more fun than doing the same grind he had done over and over again. Even if he did lose, it was in a totally unique way.

The usual introductory animations played out as their avatars posed and tossed their first beasts into battle. Sin had to snicker at the disparity between their choices. He always liked sending his biggest and toughest beasts out in the beginning, and pretty much anything looked tiny beside it.

But smaller meant faster, so he wasn’t all that surprised to see the other one attack first. He braced himself for a tough starting move...only to be confused at the sight of a sand cloud being thrown at him.

Enemy Used SAND TOSS!

Accuracy Lowered!

Sand toss? What a waste of a turn! Sin grinned as it switched to his turn. Karate chop, a pretty powerful start, it always hit, and he had the type advantage, what a great way to start a match- !

Attack Missed!

“What!? How did that miss!?”

“Karate chop has a standard accuracy of 100%.” A low, quiet voice spoke up next to him, making Sin practically jump back in shock. “But I lowered your accuracy with sand toss, so now there’s a 15% chance it won’t hit.”

“...Huh.” He looked back at his screen. “Never see people use sand toss out of, like, NPC fights.”

“Most players treat accuracy-modifiers as a waste of time, but if you have a Pocket Beast with a high enough defense, then the turns spent not attacking are made up for when the opponent can barely hit you later.” The strange boy had such a casual tone to his voice, as though they’d been conversing for hours already.

It was a bit jarring, but Sin tried to roll with it. “I guess that does make sense. Sorta like when a beast has the ‘Decoy’ ability and the first attack never hits?”

“Kind of. But a lot of players know which beasts can have Decoy, so they know ahead of time to focus on stat-altering moves or poisoning instead of wasting a turn when they know attacking won’t do anything. Take your turn.”

It took him a moment to process the last bit, but he noticed the battle menu had popped up again. He picked another attack. “Why’d you want to battle me? Did you just pick at random?”

“You were the only opponent available.” Another sand toss. “It’s hard to find people to play with on local, and I’m not allowed to use global matchmaking in my room because it needs an internet connection.”

Sin waited for his two-turn charge move to activate, but before it could be his turn, a swift attack managed to knock his beast out cold. “Damn it! I thought I had that…”

He spotted a triumphant little smirk out of the corner of his eye. “Pocket Beasts is all about tactics. You have to take everything into account. It’s easy to just care about how much damage a move can do, but you’re doomed from the start if you don’t have the right stats, or the best moveset to compliment them.”

He couldn’t help but grin along with him. “Wow, you’re really good at strategy!

‘Bedman’ managed a small, awkward smile. “Well, um, not like I have much else to do…”

“Really?” Sin tilted his head. “I guess it’s good you’ve got something fun to do while you’re here, all this hospital stuff skeeves me out. When do they let you go back home? I dunno how long you’ve been here, but I think I’d go nuts after a couple of days.”

“I’m not sure. I’ve been here a while, already.” A lucky hit from Sin’s beast managed to knock his first one out. “Since...last January, if I remember correctly.”

Last January? Jeez, forget a few days, he was sure he’d be past insanity after a whole year!

Sin donned a look of pity. “That sucks. What’s wrong with you?” The words came out before he could think or realize that it wasn’t an especially nice thing to say. “Uh, shit, sorry-”

“Mmm. It’s okay. At least you don’t mince your words. I have a neurological disorder that affects how my brain processes information. It’s a bit hard to describe. Let’s say a human brain is like a computer, it processes the inputs that are fed into it. Powerful, modern computers can process a lot of information all at once, but if a computer is old, or wasn’t built properly, trying to process too much information can make it overheat and crash.”

“Oh. So how do you keep it from ‘overheating?’”

“Sleep, mostly. I’m only awake for a few hours every day. When I’m awake, and I don’t have tests to do, I like to play games. My sister and I play multiplayer sometimes, but usually I have to play by myself. She has the same problem I do, so a lot of the time one of us is asleep during the times the other’s awake.”

Was it weird to get all this personal information from someone he’d just met? Sin wasn’t sure. But he did like talking to this guy. “Well, want to swap Friend Codes? If we’re registered as friends then local multiplayer should work, then you don’t have to use an internet connection!”

“Where do you live?”

“Central Illyria!” Sin beamed. “Like, half an hour at most. It should still work from there.”

The other boy gave him an odd look. “I’m sure there’s plenty of hospitals closer to you, then. Why did you come out all the way here?”

That got him to roll his eyes, making an exaggerated gagging noise. “My dad. He always drags me along on his charity stuff, carrying boxes and shit. He only let me take a break because he’s making some dumb speech up in the-”

And the regret came just as fast as he saw his companion’s expression shift. He hated the visits, obviously, but he knew it was important to a lot of people. And if someone had been stuck in a hospital for that long, maybe they’d be happy to have someone new come by. He must have come off as such a dick-

Before he could stew on it more, he heard a little laugh. “Yeah. I hate those, too.” Bedman was smiling at him. “You’re Kiske’s kid? That’s got to be awful.”

“Heh. Yeah, it really is.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Never gave you my name, did I? I’m Samson, but everyone just calls me ‘Sin.’”

“I was curious about your name, that does make a bit more logical sense.” His companion nodded. “It’s nice to meet you, Sin.”

“Same! What about you? Can’t imagine your name’s really ‘Bedman,’ is it?”

“More of a screen name, really. My name is-”

“Mattie! Dr. Baldy says you’ve gotta have your IV changed!”

They both jumped at the sudden noise, accompanied by the slam of a door. A girl with shaggy blonde hair and familiar features limped into the courtyard, setting her sights on them as soon as she was visible.

“There you are! I just knew you’d be out here.”

“Well, there’s not many other places I could be…” He said. “When did you wake up?”

“‘bout half an hour ago.” She replied. “Just in time for mom and dad to send me out to look for you.”

The girl’s expression changed when she noticed Sin. “Oh! Mattie, who’s this?”

“Sin, this is my twin sister, Delilah.” ‘Mattie’ pointed to her. “Delilah, this is my...new friend.”

“New friend?” Delilah reached out and shook Sin’s hard with a remarkable amount of strength. “Did my baby bro talk your ear off about his favorite game again?”

“You’re only older by nine minutes, Delilah!”

“He’s really good at Pocket Beasts.” Replied Sin. “It was fun playing with him!”

At that, he realized neither of them had selected anything in a while. He looked down at his screen

TIME UP

DRAW

“Aww, maaaaan…”

“Do we have enough time for another match?” Mattie asked.

“Dr. Baldy looked really serious. We probably can’t make him wait that long.” Delilah shook her head.

Sin tried to bring the mood back up. “Well, we were still gonna swap Friend Codes, right? Then we can play whenever! Either of you have something to write with?”

Delilah pulled a thick black sharpie from her sock. “I have a marker! But no paper…”

“Oh! Hold on a sec.” Sin rolled his jacket sleeve up and held out his arm. Just write it on the back!”

The two of them looked hesitant. “Is that safe?”

“It’s totally fine! It’s a little hard to wash off, but that means it won’t smear before I get home!”

Mattie took the marker and began scribbling on his forearm. “You’re really quite strange, Sin.”

“Thanks!” As soon as the wet feeling on his arm went away, he twisted around to see two series of digits.“What’s this other number?”

“Our phone number. If, um, you ever feel like calling.” Despite his attempts to hide it, Sin could see the faint blush to the other boy’s cheeks. “Do you think you could do one more thing very quickly?”

He couldn’t think of what it could have possibly been. “Yeah?”

“Can you draw something on me? I’ve never done it before. I want to see what it’s like.”

He grinned. “Hell yeah! I’ll try and draw something cool real quick!”

Delilah winced. “You know mom and dad are going to kill you, right?”

“Just say it was my idea!” Sin beamed. Mattie flinched the first time he pressed the marker to his skin, but he managed to still draw a straight line. He couldn’t think of anything in particular to draw, so he settled for a series of sharp, criss-crossing black lines circling his forearm. “How’s that?”

“...woah.” Simple as it was, Mattie looked utterly awestruck. “It’s…

“C’mon, Mattie, we’ve gotta go!” Tired of waiting, Delilah all but dragged him off the wall.

“See ya!” Sin waved as they departed. “You’d better bring your A-game next time we battle, I don’t lose easy!” He folded up his game and tucked it into his back pocket. That was probably his cue to leave, too.

As he hopped off the wall, he could make out a faint voice trailing away to the other side of the courtyard.

“Huh? What’s the deal with you, Mattie? You never look that happy!”

Sin smiled as he turned to leave. Ky was probably waiting for him.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been excited for the next visit.

#AU-gust #writing #guilty gear #Sin Kiske #Bedman

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theroseandcrown · 3 years

Text

The Rose & Crown: Chapter Five

Rating: M Chapters: 5/24

Summary: Clara and the Doctor find themselves on the trail of the mystery surrounding their memory loss. What will they find when they follow the clues?

Read this story on another platform: Archive of Our Own Fan Fiction WattPad

Clara had always been impressed by the selection of clothing available to her in the ship’s wardrobe. The items she found in there consisted of such created by the TARDIS herself or those that had been left behind by the Doctor’s previous companions. Either way, they excelled in their knowledge of well-fashioned taste when it came to providing her with disguises to accompany him on his travels. Whether it be the year nineteen hundred or forty thousand, the old gal certainly knew how to treat a girl. Although, this time she may have outdone herself a bit. Having searched for quite some time through the ever-changing, ever relocating closet, her heart jumped when she saw the dress. Champagne in colour, the floor-length fabric was entirely embroidered with tiny sparkling silver patterned jewels from the modestly draped straps over her shoulders to the tips of her clear heeled shoes. Gazing at her finished form in the mirror, the dress seemed to embrace her with an ethereal glow. A part of her shook the thought that a particular dress of this nature might be too fashionable for a girl such as her. She exited the wardrobe and headed for the control room where the Doctor told her to meet him. Hesitating for only a moment to regain her confidence, she lifted her skirt above her shoes and climbed the metal staircase towards the heart of the TARDIS.

“Finally!” the Doctor exclaimed after hearing her soft footsteps approaching from behind. “You’ve been down there nearly an hour!” He spun around to face her. “What on Earth took you so-?” And then he saw her, truly saw her. Her presence in the room suddenly cleared him of all thought and speech. He had travelled with her an uncountable amount of times. From the past to the future and beyond even that. And yet, she always remained the same Clara to him no matter what version of her he was with. Always his impossible girl. There was no one else he would rather have by his side. He cared for her more deeply than he would ever dare to admit. All the dangers he put her through, all the incidences in which he thought he’d lost her had been more unbearable each time. He fought to keep the feelings he had for her from himself and anyone they ever encountered together from the moment he first laid eyes upon her in his previous form. He felt that somewhere buried deep inside his stubbornness, she would never accept him in this body as she did with his last. This furrowed old man he had become could never compete with the love she still carried in her heart for his younger self. It was better this way. Emotions are dangerous. There were far too many enemies in the universe willing to take advantage of a weakness so great.

Something inside of him was freed from its forgotten place as she approached him, a feeling he thought he would never have for anyone else. He couldn’t tear himself away from her magnificent grace. She could light up every star in the sky or power an entire world with just the look in her eyes at that moment. He could feel the electricity emanating through the air in the palms of his hands. The deafening silence in the room could only be tamed by the delicate sound of her shoes tapping along the metal flooring. He watched her approach until she was but an arm’s length in front of him. “You look, uh…” were the only words he could manage.

“Is it too much?”

“No, um-”

“It’s too much, isn’t it,” she responded nervously, beginning to feel foolish.

“No, no! Well, I mean, it’s not bad. For a girl who can’t even tie a tie correctly. But I suppose the dress will have to do,” he humoured her in an attempt to maintain a hold over his emotions.

“Thanks.” She knew that was the closest to a compliment as she was going to get. She noticed he’d taken the time to groom himself in her absence. A characteristic he hadn’t seemed to have adopted very often in this body, if at all. And yet, something about the way he looked in his tuxedo warmed her from within as if she were standing beside an open flame during the dead of winter. All the anger she felt earlier in the day and the past several weeks had melted away leaving no trace of its former existence. The warm feeling inside of her began to grow more intense as she stepped closer, their shoes nearly touching. “I could say the same about you,” she pointed out, slowly reaching up to straighten his tie.

He watched her every move. His hearts raced at the sensation of her fingers grazing along the outside of his collared shirt. He gazed down at the top of her head as she perfected his slightly skewed necktie. The closer she was to him, the more he could feel the electricity making its way throughout his body. There was something different about her, something he hadn’t noticed before. Not strange, per se, a rather enjoyable feeling actually. A warmth about her. He felt the tiny hairs on his arms rise underneath the sleeves of his jacket. A very faint, almost entirely unnoticeable connection to his telepathic abilities could be detected. Is she somehow reading my mind?

“Well!” He nervously pulled away from her grasp and quickly moved to the console. He feared he may have endured her closeness for too long. If she had been reading his mind, there was no doubt he might have let some thoughts slip by he shouldn’t have. Trying to distract himself, he made a few adjustments to the computer. “Shall we?” he asked, extending a hand towards her. He could sense her reluctance, possibly having to do with the day’s previous conflict between them. The look of uncertainty in her eyes. He knew he had tampered with her trust in him. There was only one way to make it right. “Clara Oswald, I would be deeply honoured if you would accompany me as... my date,” he requested, offering a bent arm for her to accept if it pleased her. Clara smiled. The same smile that drove him into the deepest parts of his sanity. Accepting his offer, she interlocked her arm in his and prepared to be transported to the next adventure. Matching her smile with his own, he pulled down on the lever and sent the time machine to its instructed coordinates.

Prima Nova

The TARDIS materialized into the medium-sized vacant room. The door opened and the Doctor poked his head out from within to examine their new surroundings. Once it was decidedly safe, he exited the box as Clara followed closely behind.

“Well, this is exciting!” She took hold of his arm with her own. The anticipation of what was out there sent a sense of thrill throughout her body. Each time they encountered the unknown together, there was always a feeling of excitement mixed with a small amount of fear of what they might come across. But this time felt different. Being with him made her truly feel like a part of his life again. “It’s as if we’re solving our own mystery! Just the lot of us. Like Sherlock Holmes!”

“Yes, well, if only Sir Conan Doyle had known the true identity of whom he really based his main character on, I’d bet he would’ve looked a little more green, and had scales, and was actually a woman,” he replied, remembering his past adventures with Vastra, Jenny, and Strax. Back when he felt the universe didn’t need him to be the Doctor anymore. Back when he had given up all hope. “Besides, their mysteries were nothing but child’s play in comparison to what I’ve seen in my lifetime. Imagine the pair of them encountering an army of Cybermen back in their day. What a great story that would have been to tell the kiddies.”

They approached the extraordinarily large double doors to the room in which they were standing. They were over a storey in height and several arm lengths wide. A questioning look appeared on his face as he took out his sonic-screwdriver and attempted to scan the door. Other than being made of wood, in which the screwdriver lacked in its abilities, there was nothing he would usually be concerned about. Except that these doors appeared brand new as if they had just been installed, unlike the other walls in the room or the ancient relics hosted inside of it.

“Doctor? What is it?” Her grip on him tightened with concern.

“This door. It’s unusually large for a room this size, don’t you think?”

“Maybe they’re just really tall people?” She couldn’t help the smile that formed.

Frowning at her humour, he placed his ear to the wood and listened for any sounds. Glancing towards her, he opened the door. The light from the other side brightly filled the space all around them. In the next room, they could see hundreds of well-dressed normal-sized people chatting and mingling amongst each other while oblivious to their entrance. Shutting the door behind them, he led her into the crowd to blend in as if they had been there all along. “Now remember,” he warned, continuing to lead her through the mixed mass of aliens. “We’re here to find out what happened to us, not to dilly-dally. No distractions. Look for anything you might remember.”

Clara frowned. All these people enjoying themselves and she was stuck with the Time Lord, Slayer of Fun. Doing as he asked, her eyes scanned the room for anything that would jog her memory. She didn’t recognize any of the other guests nor the room they were in. Nothing out of the ordinary, besides being surrounded by aliens of course. However, she supposed that to them it was she who was the alien. She noticed a strange object hanging from the ceiling high above the guests’ heads. An orb-like structure encased in shaded glass. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing upwards.

“Brain scanner,” he responded, having already noticed it the second they entered the lobby. “It detects ill-intent.”

“What would they need a brain scanner for at a party?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

She could feel him pulling her towards the next room where they were greeted by a well-dressed man of a species she was not familiar with. He stood eagerly behind a host’s station. A badge clung just below his lapel were inscribed with the words Xarbanka, Maître D’.

“Ah! Mr and Mrs Smith!” he addressed them, extending a scaled hand towards the Doctor. “So good to see you again! Mrs Smith, you look absolutely stunning this evening!” He returned his attention to the Doctor. “Better keep a good eye on her tonight, sir!” he boasted with a friendly smile.

“Will do,” he replied, trying to keep the thought of having no memory of this man at rest.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” the man added, retrieving a lightweight box from inside the station. “This arrived earlier today with strict instructions to deliver to you personally upon your arrival.”

“For me?” The Doctor raised a questioning brow. “Who sent it?”

“They didn’t say. It was accompanied by this.” The man pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it to him.

Taking the note, he opened it to observe its message. For Mr Smith, from a friend. Glancing towards the Maître D’, he placed the note inside his pocket and released the clip holding the small box shut before hesitantly opening the lid. Inside were two identical pairs of what appeared to be ordinary reading glasses. Upon examination, he found nothing peculiar about them. Removing them from their case, he promptly placed them into his jacket pocket and nodded his gratitude towards the man. Turning to Clara, he noticed she was experiencing the same confusion as he. “Well, shall we head for the refreshments, dear?” A smile formed on his face as he played along with his new role. They parted ways with the man and headed towards the entrance of the next room where the sound of live music was heard playing.

“That was a bit strange,” she whispered. “Were you expecting a package here?”

“No, which means whoever sent it must have known we were going to be here at this exact moment.”

“So, Mr Smith, eh?” She tried to hold back her laughter. “They get a lot of caretakers to come to these things, do they?”

“And, apparently, their wives,” he teased.

“Hmm, Mrs Clara Smith. Doesn’t sound all that bad. Better than Mrs The Doctor. Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.” She let out a small laugh.

“My, aren’t we chipper this evening,” he noted, addressing her sudden adjustment in mood from earlier. The more they immersed themselves into their surroundings, the brighter she had become. He could feel the happiness resounding inside of her now seeping into him. “To what do I owe this new change? Surely you haven’t forgiven me for everything already,” he prodded, yet remained hopeful the answer would be, ‘Yes.’

“I dunno.” Clara thought about it. It was as if she didn’t even remember being so cross with him. As if it happened ages ago. Whatever feelings she felt before had been replaced by something else, something warmer. Something she wasn’t so sure she had control of. Whatever it was, she liked it. She liked the way she felt around him now more than ever. The thoughts and feelings she still clung to of his last form were slowly being replaced by his new one. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. You’re here now,” she added. As they entered the next room, her grip on him tightened. “Doctor!” she nearly gasped his name. “I’ve been here before. I remember this room from my dream.” She looked around the structure to observe the walls and flooring. It was the same as the nightmare she experienced right before the spectre attacked her. It sent shivers down her spine seeing this place again. Her eyes searched the room for the ghosts she had seen before only to find it was vacant of them. Even the people were different from those in her vision.

“Do you recognize anyone?” he asked, taking in all the details they might have been missing.

“No, you?”

“Nothing.” He strained to discover a clue, anything that might jog his memory of having been there before. He noticed a second scanner atop the ceiling and assumed there was one in each room.

As Clara examined the unfamiliar faces, she couldn’t help but wonder it if was possible they had been wrong. That there wasn’t anything there to find. Had they come all this way for nothing? She continued to observe the guests paired with their partners and dancing to the rhythm of the music. So carefree, so unaware of anything out of the ordinary. Just simply dancing and enjoying the company of one another. Feeling safer, for the moment, she turned to him. “Would you care to dance?”

“Good thinking! Blend in, gather details. Surely one of these people holds the key to our memory!”

Shaking her head, she smiled and determined that he would always be the same old Doctor to her no matter how hard she tried to tame him. A part of her loved that about him and wouldn’t change it for anything.

He took her hand and led her onto the dance floor. Facing her, he realized how long it had been since he had done this even if it were to simply gather data. Trying to recall exactly where he was supposed to put his hands and who was supposed to lead, he decided to go with his instincts instead. Under any other circumstances, he would have felt the flutter of his hearts beating. But this time, something about her was different. She placed the palm of her hand in his, the other wrapped around his back to which he mirrored. As he held her hand, he felt an overwhelming sense of emotion as he detected the vast amount of electricity emanating from her soft delicate fingers entwined in his own. He tried to hide his concern and concentrate on his objective, finding those responsible for all of this. Yet he couldn’t keep his mind focused on anything else. What was different about her? What was he missing? Stay focused, Doctor. Don’t lose yourself in her eyes. You are here for a reason. His mind teetered between studying the room and her gaze. He could feel her pulse in the palm of his hand, though it was strangely foreign. Far too fast to be her own. It’s nothing, she’s just excited. You mustn’t get distracted.

He could feel his muscles tense as her body drew close to his. Her head rested on his shoulder. The hand he claimed around her back found its way to her waist while the other held onto hers firmly. The same warmth he felt before in the TARDIS began to rise within him. The electricity from her hand deepened as if it were connecting to every fibre in his body. What is she doing to me, he wondered? Trying his hardest to stay on task, he began to distract his senses with observation. He counted the tiles on the floor, the number of beverages being passed around, anything even remotely relevant to their reason for being there. He noticed a few of the guests had their attention turned towards them. Did he know them? Did they know him? Could they be involved or was he just feeling paranoid? Before he lost himself in her arms, he attempted to de-escalate the intensity of their embrace. “I feel we are being watched,” he finally spoke, breaking the silence of the moment.

“By who?” she asked, slowly lifting her head off his shoulder.

“Usurians, behind you.”

“What’s a Usurian?” She started to look in their direction.

“Don’t turn around!” he ordered quietly, closely monitoring the other guests as he waited for just the right moment. Seizing the opportunity, he spun her around to the rhythm of the music. His dominant hand retained its grasp on hers as her back became flushed up against him. His other hand slid across her front and held her midsection firmly, pulling her even closer. He ignored the small gasp that escaped her lips. “There, just in front of you,” he whispered into her ear. “Do you recognize them?”

Clara, trying to swallow the surprise that overtook her from his sudden intimacy, glanced in the direction of which he was speaking. “No, I don’t think so.” She hardly even looked at the suspected guests, being too distracted by his closeness. Her free hand found its way to his and placed it gently atop his own. She could feel herself breathing more heavily as he applied pressure to her abdomen.

The Doctor, not ready to eliminate the Usurians as possible suspects, scanned the room again looking for more clues. Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, a powerful surge swept through him originating from the hand resting securely upon Clara’s body. A telepathic connection he hadn’t felt in a very long time. It was so unbelievably strong, it pulled him out of his reality entirely.

He opened his eyes to find himself in an undetermined space, relocated from where he last stood as if he had been teleported. Darkness had formed all around him. Am I dreaming? Far off in the distance, he saw a small light. Approaching slowly, he shielded his eyes from the intense glow emanating from it. As he drew closer, more finite details of its existence began to occupy the void surrounding him. Light particles circulated from its main source. The closer he stepped, the more he could hear it trying to speak to him. He heard the sound of its heart beating faintly, then louder until it beat like a drum deep in his soul. Yet there was something different about it. Something only he would be able to feel. There were two. Two distinct heartbeats originating from the same source. No, it can’t be! How is this possible?! He found himself being drawn to its life force, unable to stop himself from stepping closer until he could nearly reach it. The light burned his eyes yet he could not look away. His hand reached out, ready to succumb to its will, until his fingers made their first contact with it. Then there was a flash of light.

The Doctor opened his eyes once again, gasping and breathing heavily. He searched his surroundings thoroughly. He was back in the ballroom. His hand was still clenched around Clara’s as the other pressed her tightly against him from behind. Panic came over him. He quickly released himself from her and stepped away as the music came to an end. He saw her turn to face him, her eyes conveyed worry and concern for her friend. He couldn’t shake the vision in his head of what he saw, for what he feared was happening inside of her. He tried to even conceive of the possibility. His mind raced, his hearts beat rapidly in his chest. No, this isn’t possible! Yet everything he knew and felt was pointing to only one answer, that his Clara was with child.

“Doctor?” She stepped closer only to watch him step even farther away. His eyes were wide with fright. “Doctor, what is it? What’s wrong?”

His mind burst and flooded with a thousand thoughts as if it were a shattering dam. So many questions, so little answers. It all started to make sense and didn’t at the same time. The electricity and warmth he felt just being around her, a warmth he thought to be the deep feelings he carried for her, was, in reality, the tangible emotions of the life form growing inside of her. Emotions they now shared. If Clara was upset, the child would imitate her distress. When she became elated, so would the child. And if she were to experience pain or suffering...

“I-I’m not sure.” He kept his distance. The words he wanted to say were lost under miles of thought. She came closer, the look of fear on her face as she did when they were in real danger. He couldn’t move, not because of the couples dancing all around him and trapping him where he was, but because his legs would not allow him to. As she stood in front of him, her hand reached for his. “Don’t,” he stopped her firmly. He couldn’t bear their touch again. Not now. Not when his mind needed to repair itself of its malfunction. They stood in unbearable silence, the music having long since ended as the musicians adjusted their pages for the next set. “I think I’ve had quite enough dancing for one evening,” he told her, trying to keep the worry off his face.

Clara was confused and mildly hurt. Had she done something wrong? Why was he so flustered, she wondered? The music started to sound again yet neither one of them yielded their positions on the floor. She hardly even noticed the young man approaching her side.

“Excuse me, Miss?” the man addressed her.

She turned to him, nearly forgetting the Doctor’s strange behaviour. She was taken aback by his youthful features. Not young enough to be a boy but certainly not too old either. He appeared human, but so did many others who either were or simply used a type of cloaking device to possibly hide their true race from potential enemies.

“I was just wondering,” he continued shyly, “if you would do me the honour of sharing this dance with me. If it pleases you.” He looked towards the Doctor. “Of course, that is if you do not mind, sir?”

“Well, actually,” he started, trying not to show his infuriated demeanour over the sudden interruption between them. “We were just about to-”

“I’d love to.” She took the arm of the young man.

“Clara, we really should be going,” he insisted, attempting to lure her back to him.

“I’ll only be a minute! I’m sure you can ‘handle things in my stead,’” she replied, turning his own words against him.

Impossible woman! The Doctor attempted to remain unaltered by her unexpected leave of him. He removed himself from the crowd and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms in disapproval as he watched them from a distance. He could see the young man take her into his arms and pull her close to his chest. She appeared to be somewhat taken with him, laughing and smiling in his direction. He could feel himself becoming jealous but tried to ignore it. Of course she would feel an attraction, just look at him! He’s everything I’m not; young and handsome. While compared to him, I’m nothing but a frustrated emotionless old man.

He attempted to distract himself by continuing to observe the room around them. Maybe he had been wrong. Maybe they were too late. Or just maybe there was nothing there for them to find. But why the brain scanners? What could be so crucial there to require them? And even more importantly, who sent him the glasses? Who had known he was going to be there on this exact night? His eyes drew back to his companion. The young man’s hand had found its way to her waist, her head rested just slight of his lapel. “Will this song never end?!” he mumbled to himself.

As he continued to watch them, he couldn’t help but think of the child developing inside of her. Was she aware of its presence? Could she feel it within her or was it simply too early to detect? The dreaded thought of how it came to be was secondary to his greatest concern, that the child was of Gallifreyan decent. The list of possible fathers was too short to deny being responsible for any part of it. But how had this happened? There must be some sort of an explanation, he thought. The song finally ended and the young pair made their way towards the refreshments.

“May I offer you something? Some champagne perhaps?” asked the young man.

“That would be lovely, thank you.” She watched him head towards the bar to attract the attention of the bartender.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” she heard the voice of the Doctor say behind her. Rolling her eyes, she turned around to face him. “My my, what a lovely couple you two are!” he added.

“Doctor,” she replied, now slightly annoyed with him.

“How old is he? Twelve? Thirteen? Ages, not my area.”

Ignoring his jealous comments, she decided to change the subject. “Did you find anything?”

“Oh, I thought we were here to dance and party!” Behind her, he saw the young man returning with two filled glasses in his hands. “And drink!”

“Champagne, for the lady,” the young man offered, handing her a glass.

“Thank you.” Accepting the glass from him, she raised it to toast the gentlemen.

“That other one must be for me then?” the Doctor asked the boy, his temper getting the better of him.

“Doctor!” she hushed him, lightly smacking his arm. “Behave.”

He watched her bring the glass to her lips. A sudden unexplainable protectiveness came over him as he removed the drink from her hand before she could take a sip. “No, I don’t think so. We wouldn’t want you to get all sloshy.” He handed the drink back to the young man. “Don’t let her appearance fool you. She’s a terrible drunk. Absolutely the worst! Now, if you’ll excuse us.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her away from the confused man.

“That was incredibly rude,” she scolded.

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll forget all about you. Plenty of other sultry girls here to choose from.” He felt her rip her arm away from his grasp. Surprised, he turned around to see her face. He could only describe the look of shock and hurt in her eyes.

“Is that what you think of me then?” she asked as tears started to form at the brim of her eyes.

“No, of course not.” He realized he had let his jealousy take control of him. “Clara, I need to speak with you,” he implored, extending a hand towards her apologetically. After a moment, she wiped the tears from her eyes and took his hand. He took her to a less crowded area of the room and made sure there was no one listening in. He looked into her eyes, still damp from tears. He didn’t even know what to say or how to begin. He brushed the loosened hairs from her face and wiped the remaining tear still clinging to her cheek. “Clara, I-” he stopped himself and ran his fingers through his hair. Why is this so difficult? Just tell her! He sighed heavily and regained his thoughts. “Clara, I need to tell you something.” She did not reply, only gazed into his eyes awaiting his next words which only made it harder for him to speak. At last, he found the courage to tell her the truth. “This may be difficult for you to understand right now, but you… you’re-”

“Welcome guests to the Prima Nova Biannual Charity Auction Ball!” a woman suddenly shouted from the top of the stairs. The guests cheered and clapped at her entrance.

The Doctor was frozen in thought by the interruption. He knew that voice. It sent a cold chill of unavoidable fear down his spine. There was only one person he knew of who had power over him such as that. He glanced towards the sound of her voice hoping he was very wrong about the thoughts invading his mind.

“I’ll be your host this evening,” she continued, descending the stairs. “But you may call me... the Mistress.”

#12th doctor #doctor who #twelfth doctor #doctor who fanfiction #the doctor #twelve/clara #clara oswald #dr who #dr who fan fiction #dr who fanfiction #whouffaldi

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salamanderink · 4 years

Text

About Raising Stakes and Killing Relatability -or how to deescalate your emotional investment.

Have you ever read of the saying "three dead people are a tragedy; three thousands are a statistic"?

What do I mean by that?

Oftentimes, when you have a big franchise, or a long lasting series, the authors tend to think that the only way to bring more feelings into the tale is to keep escalating the stakes, to make the risks bigger, the consequences of failure higher.

"We're no longer destroying the house, but the city! No longer the city, but the continent. No! THE PLANET!!! THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE!!!!"

And the writers feel very proud of themselves, because what's a higher stake than just killing all the things and destroying the Universe?

Well, just about anything else, it turns out.

How many planets have been blown up on screen these days? There was a few in the Star Wars franchise, one in the Star Trek Reboot, some Doctor Who stories, a hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy, quite a few in the MCU alone, and tbh TVTropes listed more of them than I can possibly remember

The thing is, how many of you guys have you cried when the planet got kaboom?

Not many, am I right?

If we’re entirely honest, if Spock’s mom hadn’t died in the ST reboot, few of us would even consider the destroyed planet a tragedy at all.

And yet it is.

But it’s actually not.

How many of us are able to grasp what the planet even IS?

Entire ecosystems, the unexplored depths of the ocean, the tropical forests, that hummingbird that just laid eggs, those turtle babies seeing the sea for the first time. A new bee’s first flower, a corvid rolling in the snow, a wolf howling to the moon, a rabbit munching on a clover patch, big cats sunning themselves. Mother deers bathing their newborns and watching them learn to stand and take their first steps. Bears sleeping away the winter, owls waking at night and sweeping on silent wings to hunt.

People!

That small farm in Kansas, another small farm in India, that cardboard home in Jakarta and another in L.A, That old abandoned temple in the heart of Bolivia, and the sacred ruins in Cambodia. That family that only now got their new baby. That mother who tries so hard to make ends meet alone, and make sure her kids don’t go hungry. That marine biologist who’s so happy to have finally mapped the sound of a whale song. That vet who just rescued a litter of kits.

All those small lives, interconnected, happening at the same time all over the world. We’re all part of the same thing, we all are earthlings first of all, in a way it is impossible for us to understand because we’ve never not been earthlings.

What does it mean then, to destroy a planet?

It’s technically an escalation from destroying a city or robbing a bank.

Technically.

Because that escalation is purely intellectual.

And completely unrealistic.

How many of you guys have come across one of these posts speaking about what a billion is, how much can a billionaire buy, what it concretely amounts to? How many of you have been able to grasp the sheer obscene wealth that represents?

If you tell me you have, I won’t believe you. I’m pretty sure even billionaires don’t truly understands what it represents beyond “above the law” and “nothing is impossible anymore” and “god on earth”. (which, is not a positive judgement at all, btw)

At this point, they might simply remove the number and put an ∞ instead. It’s about the same thing.

It’s a value too ridiculous and abstract for our brain to comprehend. That’s why people aren’t banging at their doors with pitchfork. Well. Not all people are.

The same thing applies to planet destroying. We see the thing on a screen and we think “that’s bad.”

What does our heart do? What do our gut say? Does it evokes in us the same soul deep horror that footage of war torn countries and broken bodies?

Does it make a deep visceral fear wake in your belly and tell you to fucking run!!?

Some dangers have been hardwired in our brains. Just the other day, I came across a hornet’s nest, and while I’m usually pretty chill about those flying, potentially-stinging, window-crashing morons, let me tell you that my gut was not at all ambiguous about my need to get the fuck out.

And yet, I certainly didn’t feel the same thing when Earth blipped out in the Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy, even though, technically, Earth annihilation is fairly more lethal than some measly hornets.

Granted it was probably played for laughs that time, the entire movie is a satire. But did the death star really feel scary because of its ‘planet-destroying’ ability?

I can only assume it doesn’t.

Do you want to know why?

Because it doesn’t mean anything. Invalid Data, brain does not compute.

Just like seeing numbers on a screen will never be as powerful enough as personal witness accounts and stories. Just as you won’t be able to grasp what a billion is worth the same way you will the ten bucks in your wallet.

If you change the scale of something, you also change the emotional impact.

Having a map of Florida tacked to your wall will not bring you back memories of your family trip to Disney World the same way your photo album will. Because the scale is human. It’s personal. It calls back feeling through your gut, it makes you laugh as you see a picture of your kid sister with half her face glued by cotton candy, or smile at the way your big brother took your hand and helped you through your fear of roller coasters because you really wanted to try them anyway.

A world map isn’t meant to bring back feelings.

This is why world destruction falls flat. It’s destroying the map of Florida and not your photo album.

And of course it falls flat. What do we care, then about so called ‘heroes’ stopping the world from destruction? Battling for the sake of the Universe?

We don’t. We can’t. What even is the Universe? That black tapestry with tiny and pretty little white dots? An immensity beyond thought and reckoning? It doesn’t mean anything anymore.

This is not even suspension of disbelief anymore! It’s just going beyond the scope of our ability to understand or care.

Because, WHY would we want to save the universe?

I mean, it’s controversial, granted. But, let me tell you, they could have obtained the exact same emotional response in the ST reboot if the thing destroyed had simply been a scientific vessel with Spock’s mom in.

The thing that makes you feel isn’t the planet. What even is a planet???

It’s the mom. Most people have a mom. Some even are moms. Some have lost a mom.

It’s one of three people in the saying above.

It’s a tragedy.

There might be three million other people who died on that planet, but we can’t care about those.

They’re a statistic.

TL:DR: Canon story writers. Please stop feeling very clever about “raising the stakes”. All you’re doing is making it impossible to care about your story.

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xsteriism · 4 years

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Good luck on your exams!!!! And WELL DONE ON GETTING 30O FOLLOWERS YOU DESERVE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM!!!!! I have a prompt if you wanna do it? Peter likes to take a lotta photos but doesn't tell anyone and one day Tony finds his camera and it's full of all these amazing pictures of himself and the ironfam and ned and MJ and loads of other pretty things so he buys him a camera and one day Tony gets a picture of everyone asleep and hangs it up! Do it if you want!! Good luck with everything! 💕

hello!! im SO SO sorry i took so long to write this prompt, i havent been feeling myself lately, but i wanted to write something after two months, so here!

i would like to tag @technically-a-little-dragon because i hope this makes you smile :) and @officialtonystarkprotectionsquad because you always support me!

(click on the title to read on ao3)

——

Peter’s Camera

——

Tony is one of the best people to photograph, in Peter’s opinion. Once the genius gets into the mood, there isn’t much that can be done to stop or distract him, which makes him the perfect candidate to photograph. Peter has gotten snaps of him where sparks are surrounding him as if he’s some kind of angel descending from heaven or where he’s sleeping peacefully after days of intense creating, with Dum-e prodding him but to get no reaction in return.

Peter got the camera from Ben as a birthday present, a small second-hand Canon camera. It was old, a little broken, but with his genius brain and some stray parts he found in a dumpster, Peter managed to fix it within a night. However, it was at the expense of neglecting his homework, which he had to rush through the next morning. He didn’t care if the camera had buttons that weren’t working or if it glitched at the worst timings— the camera was Peter’s camera, gifted by his Uncle Ben, and that was all that mattered.

The camera rarely left Peter’s being since he got it, so it was usually always accessible. After he became Spiderman, Peter would bring it on patrol, taking scenic pictures of the city or himself in action. He takes pictures of anything and everything and has to transfer the pictures to his computer every month because of how quickly he fills the memory card.

Maybe it was because he didn’t talk about it, or maybe it was because he only took pictures of people when they weren’t looking, but nobody has found out about his hobby yet. He isn’t ashamed of it, just doesn’t see the need to talk about it when he already has so many things going on in his life. Peter wouldn’t deny it if someone found out about it someday, but for now, he likes that photography is his little secret.

——

Tony isn’t sure what he’s looking at.

Is that a camera from the 1970s? Do those still exist? What on earth is this doing in his lab?

Frowning unconsciously, he picks the camera up, feeling it in his hands, examining it like some specimen. Just as he’s about to put the camera down and leave it, his finger brushes over a button, showing the pictures in the memory card. Eyes widening with mild shock, Tony clicks through the pictures of his family.

He sees himself, surrounded by tools, the light illuminating his face, making him seem otherworldly. He smiles at the picture of Ned, in which he’s grinning at Lego, with his face stuffed full with food. He huffs out a laugh when a picture of Harley teaching Morgan how to use his potato guns pops up and snorts when a picture of MJ smiling softly at a bird shows up. The billionaire snickers at the pictures of Pepper, who looks like the CEO she is as she glares at Clint and Scott or when she’s reprimanding grown adults (see: The Avengers) about safety and rules.

Tony lets out a tiny gasp when he sees Natasha, the notorious Black Widow, smiling softly at a kitten. He chuckles lowly when the picture of Thor, on the verge of tears at the sight of a mouse, appears. And he smirks when he sees Bruce, who looked like he was in the middle of panicking, with a wildly out-of-control specimen in the background. He beams as he sees Bucky and Steve, roleplaying a scene in a book to Morgan, who has a wide grin on her chubby face.

All these pictures, yet not one of Peter. Could it be that… this camera was his?

Of course, it’s his. Whose else could it be?

Tony sets the camera back onto the table, dialling Happy as he exits the lab.

“Let’s go camera shopping.”

——

“Boss, where do you even find the time for photography?” Happy asks as he begrudgingly follows Tony into the camera shop. Why was he always dragged into stuff he didn’t want to do? Better yet, since when did Tony like photography?

Tony rolls his eyes, not that Happy could see. “You wouldn’t get it. Now, which camera do you think is best?”

Happy gapes at the billionaire, looking to and from between Tony and the cameras on display. “How would I— Why would you think—”

“Oh, look at this… Leica S… Typ 007?” Tony sounds unsure— unusual, but not unexpected since this was something he wasn’t familiar with. “What? What does this mean?”

Based on what he knows, this camera is for Peter. Tony cares about him so much that he’d willingly go out to buy him stuff and risk himself running into paparazzi. Sighing in resignation, Happy glances through the specs and the prices of the cameras because Tony obviously wouldn’t and if he accidentally buys a $27k camera, then Peter will definitely freak out.

“Boss, look at the price,” Happy sighs again, “do you really think Peter would accept this?”

Tony almost had whiplash from how fast he turned his head to face Happy at the sound of Peter’s name. “How did you know I was getting this for the kid?”

Happy rolls his eyes, walking past the nervous saleswoman who had been staring at them with a wobbly smile for the entire time they’ve been at the store. He picks up a relatively light camera, something he knows Peter would like and shows it to Tony. The clueless billionaire takes the camera, inspecting it as if he knows everything about it and nods approvingly.

——

Tony isn’t going to lie. He’s a little excited and a little nervous— something completely new from what he usually feels when gifting. He did snoop around in his camera, after all.

Jumping a little when the doors to his lab open suddenly, Tony tightly clutches the box in his hands, forcing himself to face the sweet, sweet teenager and hopes he won’t get mad.

“Hello, Mr Stark!” Peter greets with a chirp in his voice, beaming at the billionaire. “So, I was thinking about some updates I want to do for the—”

Tony interrupts him before the kid can immerse him into his ideas as well. “Pete, I have something for you.”

Innocent, brown eyes bore into his and Tony offers him a nervous smile. He beckons Peter over with a wave of his hand and forces the wrapped box into small arms. The teen cocks his head to one side, looking at him in mild confusion and all Tony’s thinking is, ‘why is he so cute?’

He motions for him to open his very impromptu gift, uncharacteristically wringing his hands in anticipation. Peter gently undoes the tape holding the wrapping paper in place, unwrapping it diligently, unlike how it was wrapped.

“Mr— Mr Stark!” Peter splutters as soon as he sees the camera. “This— isn’t this too much? You already give me an allowance on top of my salary as an intern. I can’t—”

Tony grins, secretly happy that Peter isn’t angry with him for snooping around and discovering his secret. He frowns playfully, sitting on his hands so that the teen wouldn’t be able to force his gift back. “Well, your camera is an ancient relic, and we can’t have that in my very futuristic house, now can we? Besides, why didn’t you get a new one if you had the money?”

Peter smiles, a little forlorn, a little reminiscent. “Uncle Ben gave me that camera and I just never really thought of upgrading it.”

“Hey,” the billionaire holds back a wince at the mention of Ben, knowing it was a sensitive topic. “You can display the camera in your room, no need to get rid of it. Heck, I’ll even make a glass display box for it if you want.”

The teenager smiles again, this time a little brighter, happier. He hugs the camera to his chest, before shyly thanking Tony, as if the billionaire checked the price before paying for it.

A few weeks later, after Family Friday Night, Tony finds a printed picture of the whole family— Avengers and Non-Avengers alike— sleeping in the makeshift blanket fort, on his table. And if he encases it with a handmade frame, hanging it up where everybody can see, then it’s nobody’s business but his.

——

please ❤️ if you liked it! comment if you want? follow me for more, i guess?

#marvel #irondad #spiderson #soft #Send prompts #fluff #Peter Parker fluff #tony stark fluff #celestial-irondad

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jinterlude · 5 years

Text

What A Cliché (Prologue)

↳ story aesthetic made by @today-we-will-survive for the BA’s Summer Content Creator Exchange!

» Pairing(s): Kim Seokjin x OC (female) [feat. the rest of the BTS & OC best friend)

» Genre(s): Parenthood!AU, Veterinary!AU, Business!AU, Enemies turned Lovers Trope, Romance, Friendship, Humor, Fluff, & Slight-Angst

» Keyword for Event: Carnival

» Warning(s) & Rating: Swearing / PG-13

» Words: 5.2K (5260)

» Summary: When people hear the phrase, “Well that’s a first...” it’s usually because something shocking or amazing has occurred. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for one Park Sumin. Going from working in an office to visiting the local carnival, she had some rather interesting first experiences. Ranging from trying out some carnival food to questioning her engagement to Lee Seonghwa (AOMG’s Gray), never in her life did she think that she would run into someone her brain had blocked out for years. Can you say a fun filled summer that not only would change her life but his as well.

◃ Previously | Next Time ▹

Prologue: Meet the New Neighbor

“You know…I have a feeling that you two would make the perfect couple someday…”

“By perfect, you mean that I’d want to kill him every waking moment I can get, right?”

“Nah, my precious little ray of sunshine. I mean that one day, you two will make gorgeous looking children to the point that I’m going to “borrow” one of them to pick up guys.”

A look of utter and complete disbelieve washed over her face as she felt her eye twitch just a smidge from her best friend’s remark.

And just as she opened her mouth to retort, an annoying voice rang in her ears. The one voice she took years of practice to block out him from her memories. Until that evening, she had long forgotten the prick that made her life a living Hell, but fate had an interesting idea of entertainment and unfortunately, she had become the main character of this stupid little sitcom.

God help her…

“You should learn to smile more often, princess! You might land more dates that way!”

“That’s it! Listen here you annoying fucking gnat!”

Eight Hours Earlier…

Letting out yet another long, exasperated sigh, a visibly tired young woman rubbed the sides of her forehead, trying her hardest to not only ignore the unbearable heat that lingered in her office but her rather extra chatty friend. The poor girl had honestly forgotten why she invaded her workplace in the first place. That was how long the rather one-sided conversation had become.

“Okay, Sowon, I love you, but please for the love of God get to the point.” Said the exhausted girl.

A tiny groan escaped Sowon’s lips as she narrowed her eyes onto her friend.

“I did get to my point, Sumin.” She flashed a bright smile further irking Sumin, “Now, I’m just rambling since I noticed you zoned out around the five-minute mark.” She stated, smiling sweetly.

Her bottom lip practically disappeared as Sumin suppressed the growl that brewed in the back of her throat. Did Sowon seriously ramble her ear off just because she tuned her out twenty-minutes ago?

If she had more friends, Sumin would’ve had honestly dropped Sowon years ago but alas, she didn’t. The career driven young woman had no time for herself, let alone go out and meet new people. She had always been like this ever since high school. She dedicated her time to her studies and a few extracurricular activities.

And that was exactly how she liked it.

She had seen her fellow classmates become a social mess. She had witnessed physical fights, loud, obnoxious arguments between love sick individuals, and that only scratched the surface of her high school experience and she gladly kept it that way.

She never dated. She never went to any of the sports games that were played at her school. Shit. She never attended any of her school dances, especially prom. Instead, she researched universities that had the best business program and weighed the pros and cons of attending them.

After days and nights of agonizing over which university to attend to, she finally settled on applying to USC because their business program was on par with those out of the country, and the rest was history.

Now, here she sat in her office chair while Sowon, who she met during her sophomore year of college in biology, stared her down. Her gaze intensified with each passing moment. That was Sowon’s superpower. Sumin didn’t know how Sowon does it, but with just one simple stare, Sumin submitted easily.

And quite frankly, she both despised it yet was thankful for it. It was because of her best friend that she slowly came out of her shell. She actually became more aware of her surroundings.

Go figure?

A few more minutes passed by and tiny whines left her lips as Sumin clutched important documents that contained hypothetical numbers of the projected money flow for the next six months.

“I can keep this up, sunshine.” Sumin heard Sowon taunt. She could practically hear the smugness radiate from her words.

Finally, the poor girl had enough. She slammed the paper down on her desk, unleashing the pent-up frustration that settled in the pit of her stomach.

“Fine! I’ll go to the stupid summer carnival with you! Now, will you please stop staring at me!?” Sumin practically roared, secretly thankful that her office was soundproof.

Sowon smiled proudly as she leaned back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Done.”

Meanwhile…in a different part of the city…

Brows knitted together. Tiny drops of sweat trickled down his forehead. The sound of heart rate monitors mixed with his heavy breathing filled the operating room. This bright, luminescence bulb emitted this heat that felt like the sun was directly above the man’s head. However, he didn’t let it deter him from the task at hand. He quickly asked the nurse for his water and took a few sips through the straw before resuming the surgery.

“Sir,” The man heard one of his assistants speak, “Have you thought about the possibility of reconstructive surgery instead of removing the shard fragment?”

The determined man sighed before a small smile appeared on his handsome face.

“I have thought about it, but that would be the effortless way out. This innocent creature doesn’t deserve something that would only complicate her life some more, “He paused, wiping away a bit of sweat from the side of his forehead, “Besides, I think of this a big “fuck you” to that evil, cruel person that could harm a defenseless puppy. I’m going to save her if this is the last thing I do.” He finished with this sense of purpose flowing throughout his veins as he resumed operating on the puppy, praying that he wasn’t too late.

But luckily…

He wasn’t…

It took him the rest of the day to the point that he had his receptionist unfortunately cancel the remaining appointments, but he saved the puppy’s life. The last shard fragment was wedged in an area where one false movement with his knife and tweezers, the puppy would've died right on the operating table. That specific situation had been every veterinarian’s nightmare, but just like with any nightmare, it sometimes fades away and soon replaced with a relaxing dream. A dream where resulted in this state of euphoria and great night’s sleep. That was why he took this job as a veterinarian. He wanted to ensure that the animals that came into his office left with a peaceful state of mind.

And so far, so good. His track record remained spotless. He could now go home with a bright smile knowing that he saved yet another brutally injured animal.

Currently sitting in his office, the tired yet happy veterinarian typed out something in the body of the email message. He muttered a few words as he read his paragraph repeatedly until it sounded right.

The sounds of clicking of the keyboard bounced of the four walls until this knock joined in.

“Come in.” He said quickly.

“Hey, Seokjin!” greeted the stranger cheerfully.

Seokjin’s eyebrows raised as he peeked around his computer monitor. He knew that voice, and that particular voice didn’t usually visit his office unless the person wanted something.

His eyes flickered back to the screen as his fingers resumed typing away, hoping that this email would be sent out before 7 o’clock in the evening.

“What do you want, Jungkook? Can’t you see that I’m busy?”

Jungkook chuckled, shaking his head as he flopped down on the chair in front of his friend’s desk.

“Yeah, I can see that. I’m not blind…well…not yet.”

Seokjin snorted, “I’m honestly surprised that you’re not actually. All those years of playing video games with the lights off,” He pushed up his glasses just a bit, “Guess I wasn’t blessed with a strong eyesight to begin with.” He said; the corners of his mouth turned slightly upwards.

Jungkook playfully clicked his tongue, “Yeah. I guess not,” A short chuckle left his lips, “But, I was wondering if you wanted to come with me and the rest of the fellas to the summer carnival that’s currently in town?” He asked, flashing Seokjin an overly sweetly smile combined with his signature innocent, charming gaze. One gaze like that and his older friends were practically putty in his hands. It came in handy during their high school years. Well…up until his sophomore year…his friends graduated one by one, so he had no one left to use it on.

Sad day in the life that was Jeon Jungkook.

“You do realize that this isn’t high school, and I’m not this 18-year-old teen that you can easily manipulate, Kook.” Seokjin stated bluntly, fully aware of his purely innocent “stare”. He didn’t even to peer over his computer screen to know. Jungkook’s tone of voice gave it away.

Though, that didn’t deter the young lad. It was rare for all seven of them to be in town for the summer, so he wanted to cherish it. As soon as Seokjin graduated high school, everyone just went their separate ways. Sure, they had their group chat that had constant activity whether it was from someone sending random memes or simply asking how their day was. But it just wasn’t the same.

Even though his friends didn’t know this, Jungkook needed them. He couldn’t quite establish a bond that matched the one he shared with Seokjin and the rest of his little motley crew.

They were definitely one of a kind…

“What’s with that smile, Kook? Last time you smiled like that it was because you found a lamb skewer stand with Yoongi.” Seokjin’s voice forcibly pulled Jungkook out of his peaceful thoughts.

“Oh, this smile?” He pointed at his lips, “It’s nothing…say…when is that little ray of sunshine coming by?” Jungkook asked vaguely, drawing out his sentence.

Seokjin hummed in response as his eyes scanned the last remaining sentences of his email. He could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

“Oh, according to her mother, she’s dropping off Areum this evening,” He quickly checks his phone, scrolling through his messages from his ex-wife, “Around 9 o’clock in the evening.” He announced, locking his phone once again.

Jungkook gasped; his eyes beamed from excitement. This was perfect. He and friends could spend a few hours at the carnival and then hang out with their “niece”.

“So, you’re telling me that you have time for the carnival?”

“I guess I am Kook…”

“Perfect! I’ll let the fellas know!”

“Don’t let me regret this…”

“When I have ever done something that you’d regret?”

“I can name a few things…”

At the Summer Carnival – 7 o’clock in the evening

Walking down the busy row of stands, Sumin’s eyes remained glued on her phone. Her brows furrowed as her thumb scrolled up while she read the contents of an email that she had received minutes before arriving to the carnival. Soft mutters left her lips as she homed in on an incredibly important section of the email. She reread the same two sentences twice before this unsettling, heavy sensation settled within the pit of her stomach.

The color practically drained from her face. Her breath hitched. She halted in her steps, ignoring the grumbles of the many bystanders that were forced to go around her.

A low groan escaped her as she immediately locked her phone and shoved it in her back pocket. Did she really want to be at this stupid carnival? She needed to be back in the office and working on soothing this rather extreme angry client, that was “miraculously” bestowed upon her thanks to her supervisor. Why was she even here again?

“Sumin! Check out this stand, they have those churros that you’re basically obsessed with!” She heard Sowon shout with glee, waving her arms sporadically.

Oh…

That was right…

She was here because of her dearest friend…

“I think I’m going to call it, Sowon. I have to get up pretty early tomorrow, and—”

“No ‘and’. I know that look on your face, my little sunshine, and I’m not completely oblivious. I saw you on your phone and your eyes widened with each passing second.” Sowon interrupted, leaving her spot in the line and walking up to her completely distressed friend, “Which means in the world of Sumin, you’re extremely stressed and about to leave this relaxing sister-date to head back to the office and work on something that can honestly wait until tomorrow morning.” Sowon finished, smiling brightly. “Did I hit it right on the nail, my soft princess?” She added; her smile grew wider.

Sumin made a face; her eyes narrowed on her smug friend.

“I hate it when you do that…”

“I know you do…”

Meanwhile, while one crisis was averted, on the other side of the carnival, two fellas bickered over the last game ticket while their mutual friends watched both sides make excellent arguments on why he deserved the last game ticket. The only thing they missed, to make this verbal battle amusing, was some carnival snacks.

Stuffing his hands in the pockets of his black jacket, a gentleman with black-rimmed glasses and faded silver hair – that was swooped to the right – leaned against the wall; an amused smile painted his lips.

“Are you going to stop them, Namjoon?” asked a young man with chestnut brown hair. His eyes sparkled with such innocence that many people forget that he was indeed in his mid-twenties.

“Nah. They’re fine Jimin. Besides, remember the last time we intervened on an infamous Seokjin-Jungkook argument?” Namjoon replied, shooting Jimin a knowing look. But just as Jimin opened his mouth to answer, someone else beat him to the punch.

“Oh, that was a fun evening!” shouted a cheery voice; a few chuckles escaped him. “They turned their wrath onto us, and even told Yoongi to shut up.” A sigh of content left his lips this time as he folded his hands and rested his head against the palms, “What a memorable evening.”

Namjoon nodded in agreement as he turned his attention towards a paler looking fella.

“I was honestly surprised that Jungkook told you to shut up, Yoongs.”

Yoongi pried one eye open, having checked out of Jungkook’s and Seokjin’s marital bickering thirty minutes prior.

With a lazy voice, he said, “That boy is lucky for not fearing me.”

“After being friends with you for so long, none of us fear you, my dude.” Chimed in the same cheery voice that spoke earlier.

“Hm. I guess I’m losing my charm, Hoseok.” Yoongi shrugged, shutting his eyes closed again. One of the many “joys” of being your own boss. He didn’t have a set work shift.

Hoseok beamed; his smile could light up any dark alleyway, before adverting his attention back to Seokjin and Jungkook, who still refused to back down.

Two hours had passed and not only did the bickering duo slowly ran out of the counterarguments, but their friends were extremely bored and wanted to enjoy what was left of the carnival.

Finally fed up, Namjoon pushed off from the wall and then walked up to Seokjin and Jungkook, pulling out his wallet as he closed the gap between their bodies.

“Tell you what,” He began fishing out a few bills, “Take my money and buy you guys some more damn tickets, so you guys can finally shut the fuck up.” Namjoon stated bluntly before slapping the bills in both Seokjin’s and Jungkook’s hands, knowingly hurting them in the process. He then walked away from them, gesturing for their buddies to follow him.

They were determined to enjoy the carnival before it closed for the night.

As their closest friends walked away, slowly disappearing from their line of sight, the squabbling duo turned to each other; this mischievous gleam sparkled in their eyes accompanied with this scheming smirk.

“That took longer than expected.” Jungkook laughed, flinging an arm around Seokjin’s broad shoulders.

Seokjin chuckled in response as he allowed Jungkook to direct him to the nearest game stand.

“I know, right? We must be losing our touch since before, Namjoon usually settled our “arguments” in less than an hour.” He stated as his eyes scanned the prizes at the booth. His lips pursed while his brows became knitted together as Seokjin contemplated which prize would Areum love the most.

This faint hum exited his lips as his eyes drifted between a huge stuffed alpaca and a huge stuffed panda bear. Then, after much deliberation, he finally settled on the alpaca since she loved to remind him that whenever he ate, he looked like a happy alpaca, especially whenever he munched on a salad. He could honestly hear her faint giggles in the back of his mind.

God, he would do anything for his daughter. She had him wrapped around her dainty pinky finger.

With a determined smile, he slammed down a few dollar bills and waited to be handed some darts.

“Alright, prepare to be amazed, Kook.”

Back with the ladies, who now held onto plates with delicious carnival food, they journeyed towards the exit, talking about everything and anything that came to mind. Ranging from the topic of their love lives – or lack thereof – to the ever so fun work politics that occurred during their daily lives. However, the most popular topic was their time in high school. While, yes, they went to two different schools, they loved hearing about the other’s experience. Hearing such stories made the other feel like she was there as well.

“So, whatever happened to the guy that stupidly stood you up at homecoming, Sowon?”

“Beats me. All I know is that he asked for me at my school’s little reunion event. From what an old friend told me, the way he asked was very creepy. Borderline stalkerish if you ask me.”

Sumin shuddered, “Things like that makes me glad that I didn’t have a social life in high school.”

Sowon chuckled softly as she quickly tossed her empty, Styrofoam plate and jogged back to Sumin.

“Yeah, but it is because of said social life that I know who my loyal friends are and know how to handle myself in certain situations.” She pointed out with a knowing gleam in her eyes.

Sumin rolled her eyes in response, signaling Sowon that she had won that argument.

“Let’s get you home, princess. I believe it is passed your bedtime.”

“What are you? My mom?”

“I might as well be, Min.”

Sowon then flung her arms around Sumin’s shoulders as the two ladies head for Sowon’s car and begin their journey to Sumin’s place.

Faint muffles filled the spacious car as flashes of light illuminated the darkness every other minute. Resting her chin on the palm of her hand, Sumin stared absentmindedly out the window; her eyes focused on the happy couples. Each face painted with the brightest and most loving smile ever to grace them.

Soon, a soft sigh escaped her as she pried her eyes away from the window. Though, while she no longer saw them, her mind was filled with thoughts of them. Thoughts of envy? Longing? That had been yet to be determined.

Which was strange to her as for the obvious fact that she too was in a relationship.

But…

“I just now realized that you are not wearing your luxurious engagement ring that Seonghwa gave you, Min.” Sowon’s voice broke into her cloudy thoughts.

Sumin’s eyes trailed down, landing on her empty left ring finger.

“I knew I forgot something.” She lied, faking a playful smile.

But Sowon knew better.

“Is everything alright?” She asked as she slowed the car to stop as the traffic light went from yellow to red.

Sounds of the turn signal cut through the awkward silence. Sumin hoped that the light would turn green so that she’d be closer to home but alas, it wasn’t the case. This was a timed light, and the timing of it was abnormally long for a traffic light.

She could stall, but that would only annoy Sowon, so why should Sumin even try? Her closest and dearest friend wasn’t stupid. If anything, she wouldn’t be surprised if Sowon knew that she was thinking of backing out of the wedding.

“Do I want to get married, Sowon?” asked Sumin, phrasing her question a bit oddly.

Sowon raised a brow as she shifted her foot from the brake pedal to the gas pedal, lightly pressing as she turned on to the street where Sumin’s house resided at. A house where she lived with her doting fiancé.

The poor girl looked unsure how to answer such a question. If it was a question that asked her if she wanted to get married, then the answer would be plain and simple. No. No she didn’t want to get married or at least, not right now. She so much desired to live her twenties to the fullest. Then, once it was time, she would gladly settle down with the right person.

And yet with Sumin? Sowon was quite surprised that she was having doubts. Out of the two them, Sumin would be happily married first with kiddos running amuck and then Aunty Sowon would help wrangle them and/or create more chaos for their parents.

But with this sudden 180, Sowon grew even more confused.

Did she have to kill Seonghwa? Because she totally would. No one was allowed to hurt Sumin under her watch.

No one.

Pursing her lips, Sowon hummed in response, as she pulled up to Sumin’s driveway, where both Sumin’s and her fiancé’s car were currently parked.

Before finally answering, Sowon killed the engine, and the two girls now sat in complete and utter silence.

“Alright, to answer your question, I know that you want to get married, however, is it to Seonghwa? Only you can answer that, love. But you did say yes to him for a reason, so that has to mean something, right?”

Sumin sighed heavily; her shoulders slumped just a bit.

“I did, I mean don’t get me wrong, I do love him with all my heart but—”

“But you don't know if it’s enough to meet him at the altar, correct?”

Instead of answering, Sumin gave Sowon a thumb’s up before exiting the vehicle and as she stepped out, a car pulled up to her neighbor’s driveway. A neighbor who she had never seen since their schedules always had them missing one another by a split second, so this was a first. Well, overall, this night was filled with firsts, so this wasn’t too much of a shock factor.

Seconds later, Sowon too exited the vehicle, shutting the door and alarming it. She then leaned against the door; curiosity slowly bested her as she noticed Sumin’s body language tense just a smidge.

“You alright there, sunshine?!” She hollered, cupping her mouth, though, she didn’t have to do that since they were not that far away from each other.

However, she received no response from Sumin for a good minute or two.

Until…

“YOU!!”

Two voices shouted simultaneously.

Alarmed, Sumin’s fiancé came running out of the house dawning his work clothes still.

“Are you okay, honey?” he asked, closing the gap between their bodies, as he gently rested his hand on her lower back.

“Yeah, I’m fine, Seonghwa. I just got startled by a familiar face is all.” She lied flawlessly, smiling sweetly.

Seonghwa hummed in response, not fully believing her, but he knew it was best to drop it.

“Okay. I’m gonna head back inside and finish up this project. Holler if you need me, okay, love?” He said, pressing a sweet kiss on her temple before disappearing inside the house.

The second she heard the door shut, Sumin’s sweet demeanor melted away and was soon replaced with the fiery rage that engulfed her body and soul moments prior.

“Wow. I’m amazed. You actually tricked someone into dating your strange self,” The intruder began applauding slowly with a sarcastic smile etched on his face, “I’m completely inspired by your story now.” He added, further taunting poor Sumin.

Sowon raised her brow, slowly going into defensive mode but held back as she wanted to see more of their reactions. In her life of knowing Sumin, Sowon only ever saw her little sunshine become this spitfire with her only. So, who the Hell was this handsome gentleman that easily riled her soft princess up?

She had to find out.

And maybe…just maybe…he might be the answer to Sumin’s tricky question.

A low – almost animalistic – growl escaped Sumin’s lips as she stomped over to her neighbor; their chests practically touched each other.

“Listen here, Seokjin—”

“I’m sorry. Can you repeat that? You might have to speak up, short stuff.” Seokjin cupped his ear as he leaned downwards; their noses merely inches away from bumping into each other.

Sumin’s jaw clenched and through gritted teeth, she said, well shouted,

“Can you hear me now, huh, you prick?!”

Seokjin groaned, jolting his body away, as he rubbed his poor ear while this ringing sensation echoed throughout his now muddled mind.

Damn that woman had a pair of lungs on her.

“I think you busted my eardrum…!”

“Well, that’s what you get for standing so incredibly close to me, dumbass!”

Tensions arose between the two as their blood slowly came to a boil. Seokjin and Sumin had history. A rather long history that remained in the archives until this evening.

Again, a night filled with firsts.

Just as Seokjin opened his mouth to retaliate, a laughter cut him off. He was secretly glad that someone else intervened. He honestly didn’t have to time to entertain the spitfire that stood courageously in front of him. His daughter was to arrive at any moment.

The last thing he wanted his six-year-old to see was him shouting at a woman.

“You know, we got to work on you playing nice with others, Sumin.” Chimed in Sowon as she walked up to the pair and rested an arm on Sumin’s shoulder.

“And may I ask who you are?” Seokjin questioned, looking a bit unimpressed.

Sowon held out her hand and quickly introduced herself, shaking Seokjin’s hand with her signature thousand-watt smile.

“Ah, and how do you know the pain in the ass?”

“I can ask you the same thing, Jinnie boy.”

“Jinnie boy?” He questioned, directing it more towards Sumin.

Sumin simply shrugged, “Just go with it.”

“Well, I’ve known her since middle school believe it or not.”

Sowon raised her brow; her eyes roamed all over his body as if she tried to decipher his hidden secrets.

“Interesting. Well, as much as I’d like to continue this conversation, I don’t,” She then turned Sumin around, “Time for bed, Min.” She stated firmly before guiding them both back to Sumin’s house, leaving behind a flabbergasted Seokjin.

“You know…I have a feeling that you two would make the perfect couple someday…” teased the taller woman as they crossed the threshold between Sumin’s house and Seokjin’s house.

Sumin grimaced, nearly wanting to gag, “By perfect, you mean that I’d want to kill him every waking moment I can get, right?”

“Nah, my precious little ray of sunshine. I mean that one day, you two will make gorgeous looking children to the point that I’m going to “borrow” one of them to pick up guys.” Sowon clarified, grinning from ear to ear.

A look of utter and complete disbelieve washed over her face as she felt her eye twitch just a smidge from her best friend’s remark.

God help her…

“You should learn to smile more often, princess! You might land more dates that way!”

“That’s it! Listen here you annoying fucking gnat!”

However, before Sumin could storm over to Seokjin again, Sowon blocked her path.

“Alright, young lady, someone’s getting cranky. You march to your room and tell Seonghwa that you want to cuddle.”

“But!”

“March!”

Sumin frowned before submitting to her friend, of course, muttering a few profanities as she stomped up the stairs that led to the front door.

Once Sumin was inside, Sowon waited a few seconds before walking up to Seokjin, who appeared to be texting someone.

“So, how do you truly feel about Sumin?”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

Seokjin’s face remained blank, “I tolerate her existence. Why?”

“I asked how you truly feel about her, not lie about it.” Sowon stated, shooting him a knowing look.

Seokjin, on the other hand, grew unsure. What did she mean, exactly?

“Sleep on it.” Sowon suggested before walking to her car and finally head home for herself.

Seokjin watched the strange woman drive out of his neighborhood. Her words repeated in his mind. He was almost certain that he just tolerated Sumin’s existence. Sure, there had been a time in his life that he harbored romantic feelings for her, but he had been long married since then. Well, now divorced, but that was beside the point.

It was through that marriage that he had Areum. The light of his life.

Yeah, he didn’t need any other leading lady in his life.

Right?

Before he could fully dive into those thoughts, a bright light nearly blinded him followed by this obnoxious honking.

“Dad!” shouted a voice. A voice Seokjin knew all too well. The same voice that easily brought a smile to his face.

“Areum!” He greeted back; his face practically beamed. He happily waved as the car came to a stop and this little girl came running out of the backseat and towards him.

Seokjin knelt down, ready for the biggest hug ever. And just as she slammed into him, he protectively wrapped his arms around her petite body as the two fell onto the grass.

“Remember to behave for your dad, Areum!” chuckled an older woman, shaking her head as she walked up to the loving duo with a tiny suitcase.

“I will mommy.” Areum smiled as she became smothered with Seokjin’s fatherly kisses.

“Yeah, don’t worry Eunji, our little girl is an angel.”

“Whatever you say, Seokjin. By the way, did you know that our old friend Sumin lived right next door to you?”

Seokjin instantly became alarmed. How did his ex-wife know that? So, naturally, he asked.

Eunji laughed softly, “Just because you had a falling out with her, doesn’t mean that I did, so I saw it on her social media account that she moved to that house.”

“And you didn’t tell me this while I was looking for a place to live because?”

“Because I love seeing you make a fool of yourself in front of her.”

But before Seokjin could say something, refuting his ex-wife’s claims, Eunji had entered her car and clicked on her seatbelt. Then, he saw the reverse lights turn on and watched her pull out of his driveway.

She was always an interesting woman…

“Why is your mom weird?”

“I don’t know, probably for the same reason as to why she called you coward on our way here, daddy?”

“She what, now?”

A/N: I am back! Cue the fanfare and confetti canon! I’m honestly both surprised and proud of myself for not only picking up writing again but starting another series (low key crying because Our Second Chance isn’t done yet, but I am working on it LOL)! At first, I wanted to take the word carnival and incorporate the movie Sandlot and A League of Their Own into it, but sadly, I hit a bad writers’ block, so I just scrapped that idea completely and with the help of @softjeon who helped me with some overall story ideas, this came to be! Plus, it helps that in BTS World, Seokjin’s another story line is so cute, especially with the little girl (who of course makes an appearance as his daughter in this short series <3) being kind of hard to please. Yes, make Jinnie work for it!

But anyway, as of right now, I don’t have a set schedule for this as I like to write whenever I have both the time and inspiration but knowing me, I’ll start releasing updates over the course of Autumn/Winter along with the last chapters of Our Second Chance!

Don’t forget to leave a like/reblog/comment/ask in my inbox! I love hearing your thoughts! :)

- Kim

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avoutput · 4 years

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Final Fantasy VII Legacy || Memories of a Great Storm

Legacies take shape before you, around you, through you, and beyond you. As incredible as it might be to be the subject of a legacy, the true strength of a legacy is how it builds you up. When you are young and finding yourself, the building process is a ride, a rumbling beneath your feet, wet clouds in the sky above your head. When a legacy is forming, there are signs that you are still too young to see, but you can feel it. It beckons to you, wanting you to be a part of it. You want to stand at the shore of its coming alongside all the others who want to feel the waves at their feet. Like all storms, everything has to be just right. And like a tree falling in the woods, someone has to be there to witness it, to tell its tale, and in doing so, this tale becomes woven into you. Because it isn’t just the storm, the waves, the quaking that makes the legacy, it’s the people who survive that keep it alive. Final Fantasy VII was for me, this great storm.

The first time I played Final Fantasy VII was on the floor of my cousin’s room on Christmas day. Every tsunami starts as a ripple. I didn’t have a Playstation. In fact, despite reading multiple gaming magazines, I must have glazed past it, because I had never even heard of it. I was too blinded by the Nintendo 64 and its legacy. I went from a Nintendo baby to a Sega kid between console generations, and I missed out on a lot of the SNES until the end of its life cycle. I didn’t want to miss out again, so I put on blinders and put in a parental request for the N64. You can imagine my surprise when FF7’s opening cinematic played out on a tiny tube tv. The ripples became waves and the ocean began to move. When I started playing, I wasn’t even sure what was happening, who anyone was, and how there could have been 6 other games I had never played. My cousin was trying to explain the concept to me, but I couldn’t hear him. I just wanted more. But, it was Christmas day, and in my family, that meant family time. Work. Maybe a slightly unique aspect of my family, but Christmas presents were opened at night around the entire extended family. The middle-kids were responsible for passing out all of the gifts to every other member of the family, and this was a long and painful process, especially for an 11 year old. Once everyone was finished, the middle kids opened their gifts in front of everyone. And even though I hadn’t asked for it, all I could think of was how much I wanted one of those boxes to be a Playstation. Not only did I not have any luck with that, I also didn’t get longer than 30 minutes with the game. Instead, every moment was punctuated by familial obligation. I went home unhappy, unsatisfied, my mind never left Midgar. I took a step further from the shore, deeper into the water.

The internet was still young and so was I. The best I could do, the best I could find, was fan pages and old magazines with little information. I absorbed as much as I could, but color pages and chibi gif animations of the FF7 crew just couldn’t cut it. But in all of the noise, there was some news. They were making a PC port of FF7. Alarm bells. Surely my 2 year-old desktop would be too far behind to play the game. My dreams felt again dashed. Through all of this, my obsession made my mother vaguely happy in a roundabout way. The desktop background of the living room PC was Tifa, and her big breasts helped my mother believe I wasn’t as gay as her earlier impressions, a conspiracy theory of her own making. To this day, she still makes jokes about Tifa. The only thing that would have only made her happier is if she was black. Anyway, the world had caught on to Final Fantasy, and I wanted to be a part of it. But when you’re 11, time is much more of a key to gaining something, it has to pass for anything to happen. As an adult, you can make things happen, but kids, they need an angle. A hard angle. That usually means you need the parents to come through, but they need to be unwitting participants in your obsession, pawns in your game.

Luckily, my dad was KING PAWN. My father, always the type to want to be on the cutting edge, bought us (himself) a laptop. This was out of nowhere, no prodding or manipulation, and while his claims for having bought the machine for work and school were dubious at best, I went with it. And with that came the specs I would need to play the PC version. But there was a catch. Christmas had passed and my birthday was in the fall, months from our current Spring. There wasn’t a free pass in sight. No amount of chores would fill my coffers and quell the storm in my heart. I need another rube. But with Spring came green. Money right out of the ground. My best friend had a lawn mower and I had a plan. Get this, what if we mowed lawns… for money? Bam! Winning ticket. There were one million old ladies and lads dying to give money to cute kids dragging a lawnmower from house to house. After mowing what felt like one thousand lawns, I was able to buy a copy. The storm was becoming a hurricane.

It was time to monopolize my dad’s new toy. Like most of his new toys, if it wasn’t a paperback book, he spent barely any time with it after a few weeks, so it worked in my favor. As fast as childhood actually passes, to children, the relative perception of time’s passing is slower than an adult’s. The more they want something, the longer it takes to manifest. Mix that with a negatively polarized Murphy’s Law, and you get your worst scenario; a computer that can run the first few hours, but crashes during certain enemy moves. This is where we meet the eye of the storm. My resolve is broken, my will shattered. How will I ever play this game? A million years passed (about a week), and that is when I realized my closest friend had gotten a new computer that last Christmas. A proper desktop model, in his own bedroom. It hadn’t occurred to me to bring the game to his house because PC games required an install and I couldn’t just bring the game home and continue my save file whenever I felt like it. Still, that next weekend, like every weekend, we had a sleepover, and for the third time, I started the game over. I took the game as slowly and methodically this time as I had before. The eye of the storm was slipping past. I was able to pass the Sector 5 Slum to Sector 6 tunnel I had gotten stuck in at home. By that time, I was the only one left awake. As I neared the top of the Shinra building, I could feel the storm in my heart reaching a fever pitch. I was so close. I saved Aeris, met Red XIII, beat Rufus, and sat in awe as Cloud rolled down the stairs on a thundering motorcycle. My heart was racing as I took out enemies to save my allies until there was no more road left. I was so excited, I was at the edge of Midgar. As I punished the highway monstrosity between me and my escape, the storm was beginning to calm, and then, turning red, he melted down and exploded in Final Fantasy fashion. And I had done it. My characters were free. The game was over. To be continued in Final Fantasy 8. RIght?

The hurricane died down, the characters begin to discuss their next steps. At this point, I have been playing around 9 hours straight. It was about 2 or 3 AM. I was just beginning to resign myself to take to a pillow and pad on the floor. But then the earth beneath the sea began to move and the waves began to take shape once again. And then, suddenly and with no provocation, the city of Midgar became a mere fraction of its size and Cloud became a giant. The world had shrunk and in the distance the curvature of the world could be seen. I began to move around and enemies appeared on my path. The waves miles of shore had become the size of skyscrapers. All at once I realized that it wasn’t the end. There was more. So much more. It wouldn’t be Final Fantasy 8 until I beat Sephiroth. There were 2 other discs. What was I thinking? Of course there was more. But why did it take so long to get here, to find more. I was bamboozled by the sights and sounds of Midgar, sung a sirens song by Avalanche and Shinra, and believed my mission would take shape and be completed inside the walls of some slums in some city that surely didn’t make up the entire world. Sephiroth and Shinra were a threat to the world, not just the people of this city. That was when the tidal wave met the shore. A tsunami of realization. A whole new identity was consuming me.

In the calm of the wave that had consumed me, weightless in my memories, my brain started making connections. My cousin introduced me to manga like Dragon Ball and Akira. I had grown up on a steady diet of Mario Bros, Sailor Moon, Sonic the Hedgehog, not to mention the growing phenom Pokemon. He told me all these animated dreamscapes came from Japan. A friend of mine showed me Final Fantasy III on his SNES, but it didn’t excite me like Link to the Past or Mario Kart. Cloud was not in Final Fantasy III as far as I could remember, but I had missed the other installments in between. And the world didn’t look at all similar. Who made this game? Squaresoft? I’ve never played a genuine Nintendo game on a computer before. But this came out on Playstation. What is happening? Oh, Sephiroth put a tree through a snake. Maybe all of these things are Japanese? My cousin told me Sega and Nintendo were from Japan. Wow, that is a big cannon and now I have to march and get on a boat? How much longer could this game be? I could feel myself getting tired. This is a nice beach town. What time is it? I have to get to the Golden Saucer next. A tap on my shoulder, sun in my eyes, my friend says, “Dude, you are still awake? Did you play all night?”

My eyes were open. The tidal wave had passed and I was baptised a whole new person. I was awake floating on a sea of my own consciousness. The next 10 years of my life would be shaped by RPG’s, Anime, Manga, Computers, D&D, and Cinema. Nerd Culture. I found a whole new person after playing Final Fantasy VII. It put together pieces that had been lying scattered, shaping a fan, a creative, and a more curious soul. I would challenge peers to try these new experiences, hoping it would awaken them the way it had me. I hadn’t realized that what awoke me was the perfect storm yet and that for most people, they wouldn’t be able to experience it the same way I had. I was able to find comradery in my closest friends and all of these cultural touchstones bound us even to this day. Final Fantasy VII’s legacy, maybe all legacies, aren’t just the collective experiences of having been a part of its success, but in the lives that were shaped around it; we are the base at which the monument stands. It’s legacy is strengthened by those who survived the storm and it continues to thrive because it was the perfect storm. A storm that still draws people in. A great storm that never died. A story we all still tell.

#Articles #Final Fantasy VII #Final Fantasy 7 #Final Fantasy #Final Fantasy 7 Remake #Final Fantasy VII Remake #Retrospective #Storm #Huricane #Earthquake #Tsunami #Anime #Manga #Japan #Japanese #JRPG #RPG #D&D

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lostinfic · 5 years

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Summary: She writes for magazines about luxurious resorts in exotic places and five-star hotels in glamorous cities. He’s photographed devastated war zones, refugee camps and child soldiers. For both of them travel is an escape, but he’s had enough of this grim reality, and she’s had enough of this disconnected fantasy. Perhaps together they can find something in between, something real, and stop running from themselves. Each season, a new destination and a chance to grow closer.

Pairing: Alec Hardy x Hannah Baxter Rating: Teen (for now) Word count: 2.3k

Ao3 | Gifset

Hardy woke up gasping for breath. The room spun above him. The pillow was damp under his cheek. He squeezed his eyes shut and held his breath until his heart rate slowed down.

The city shone through the curtain-less window. 3:16 blinked on his alarm clock.

He turned on every lamp in his tiny flat, filled the empty space with light. He scrubbed a hand down his face and prepared a cup of tea. As the computer whirred to life, a knot formed in his stomach.

Nightmares were nothing new for him, but they harassed him more frequently since he’d been tasked with selecting his favourite photos for a retrospective exhibition of his work. For twenty years he’d roamed the world with his camera, documenting the best and worst of humanity. Mostly the worst. From war zones to refugee camps, from barren deserts to overpopulated slums. Shining a light on those forgotten and left behind. Twenty years of anonymous faces. Twenty years of people he’d promised to help staring back at him on his computer screen.

Had his work really made a difference?

He clicked on a folder labelled “Syria 2014”. Thumbnail pictures popped up one by one. He’d never accustomed to this jarring feeling: looking at devastated places from the safety of his flat. His brain couldn’t reconcile the vivid memory of fear gripping his guts and chemicals burning his lungs with his quiet surroundings. Here, only the rattle of a too-close commuter train track and one nosey neighbour bothered him. But his brain sought hidden dangers, pushed warnings through his blood.

Tess would have helped him pick the photos, he thought. She’d once been his editor. She’d encouraged and admired his work until his commitment to it drove her into another man’s arms.

Just like this flat, the separation from Tess was meant to be a temporary situation. But three years had passed and now the divorce papers rested in their sealed envelope on the corner of his desk. He wasn’t sure which of the divorce papers or his old photos were the hardest to look at. The children and women he’d failed to help properly or the woman and child he’d failed to make happy.

He opened another folder of pictures, these ones from Tunisia in 2010, during the Arab Spring. An intense time, exhilarating. Still on his chair, he felt the protesters pushing against his body, carrying him like waves. He felt their thirst for freedom, the shift in the balance of power.

He selected a photo of a passionate young woman, shouting her heart out against the regime. Her eyes glistened with tears, her hands held high in peace signs. Red smoke surrounded her like a divine aura. In the next shot, a soldier punched her in the stomach. Hardy’s first instinct had been to take the photo. Thankfully, a young man came to her rescue. Hardy scrolled farther down the folder to another picture of the same young woman, a month later. In the crowd of protesters, she and the young man who helped her are exchanging wedding vows. He wondered what happened to them. He wondered what happened to their hopeful spirits.

Hardy slipped a hand under his grey t-shirt and touched the fresh scar on his chest.

Maybe this retrospective exhibition of his work was a second chance. An opportunity to atone for leaving these people behind.

The exhibition was still months away, in autumn, during a World Press Photo conference. Until then, he’d have to live with the nightmares.

His computer pinged with a new email notification. His eyebrows rose when he saw the sender: Ellie Miller.

I’m sorry to reach out to you like this, out of the blue. I know I haven’t been in touch, but we need your help.

Maybe you’ve heard, I’ve moved to Indonesia. There’s an island here, Pulau Kesuma, and there’s something really wrong going on. Foreign investors seized a huge part of the land to build a hotel, the Mahal Kita, and it’s been having a terrible effect on the local people and nature. I’m sure they must have done the same in other countries too.

I tried to reach out to my former colleagues at BBC World but it’s a small island and they’re all very busy. What we need is a photographer to show the destruction.

Give me a shout if you’re available and I’ll tell you more.

Hardy’s doctor had warned him against stressful work, but not helping people in need stressed him out more than throwing himself in the middle of a conflict. He replied to Ellie right away.

Hannah signed on the dotted line and returned the contract to her editor, Duncan. In exchange, he handed her a plane ticket to Pulau Kesuma and the necessary documents to complete her assignment for Elite Travelers magazine.

“The Mahal Kita Eco-resort & Spa,” Hannah read out loud. “Eco-resort? Didn’t you say ecotourism is a load of bullshit?”

“It is. That’s not the part I’m interested in: this island was closed to the tourism industry before now, at least not our kind of tourism. Smelly backpackers could go all they wanted and sleep in a goat pen.”

“How come it’s opened now?” she asked.

“There was no point in keeping it a nature reserve after the tsunami. So the Indonesian government lifted the restrictions. About two years ago. In exchange, the company helped restore the island.”

“That’s nice.”

“Anyway, just focus on the resort, the beaches, the night life… ”

“I’ve an angle to sell it, the ecotourism—” she spread her hands in a presenting gesture— “treat yourself to a guilt-free escapade.”

His reaction was something between a nod and a shrug. He didn’t believe it could interest their readers, but the comments on her blog told her otherwise.

“Stick to what you’re good at. Don’t fuck this up. If you get this right, you could become a senior writer.”

Hannah gasped and smiled. “Really?”

Senior writer meant less freelance work to make ends meet, business-class travel, press pass to fashion weeks, yachts and five-star restaurants. Not to mention she’d be the youngest and only female senior writer.

Duncan drummed his hands on his desk. “All right, fuck off, I’ve other writers to babysit.”

After the meeting, Hannah went straight to Stanford, an iconic travel bookshop in London. Even as a child she loved this place with its hundreds of globes and ceiling-high shelves of guidebooks. She’d pester her parents relentlessly until they agreed to take her here.

There was an enormous vinyl National Geographic map on the floor, and she trailed her feet from England to Indonesia. It elicited a lightness in her chest, and she nearly danced to the Asia section.

She would spend a week at the resort, then she intended to visit the rest of Indonesia for two weeks. She flipped through guidebooks, and compiled a mental list of ideas she could pitch to other magazines.

In the periodical section she checked out the trends and the competition. She scanned the racks and flipped through a few magazines. Three of them mentioned carbon-neutral travel, zero-emission hotels or sustainable tourism. She didn’t want to bore her readers with the science of climate change or to make them feel guilty about flying in a private jet, but being environmentally-conscious was trendy right now so she needed to get on that.

Hannah herself had become interested in the subject after a trip to St. Maarten in the Caribbeans. Not because of the trip itself but a documentary she saw after about a side of St. Maarten hidden to tourists: a vast and ever-growing landfill caused by the flow of cruise ships. Half the island’s population lived in that junkyard. Filled with good intentions, she had bought the filmmaker’s latest book. A year later, it was still on her nightstand, a bookmark halfway through chapter two. It had not been written for neophytes, that much was clear. She had returned to her usual travel ways, but a discomfort lingered.

Should she stick to what she was good at, as Duncan put it, or go all environmentally-friendly? She knew what her editor expected but, if done right, bypassing his instructions could work in her favour. Or ruin her chances at a promotion.

Back home, she dropped her magazines on the small kitchen table that doubled as a desk. For all intents and purposes, her two-room flat was a storage unit: a place to keep her things while she travelled the world. She had plans to make it cozy and pretty but had yet to do it. The few weeks a year she was here, she spent working, eating takeout and trying to catch up on whatever normal people did with their lives. Still, the flat held all her souvenirs and books. It was a place to rest her weary feet and head. A place to listen to the rain and traffic, and to dream of her next trip. When it came to travelling, having a home was just as important as having a passport, it was the difference between traveller and vagabond.

Ben was coming by later, meanwhile she fixed her make-up and curled her hair.

When he arrived, he entered without knocking first. He carried a plastic bag of thai takeout.

“Panang chicken for you,” he said as he placed the white oyster pails on the counter.

“Extra pineapple?”

“Extra pineapple.”

“Thanks, you’re the best,” Hannah kissed his cheek.

He blushed lightly and looked her up and down.

“You look beautiful.”

“Thanks, but don’t get any ideas, it’s for my followers,” she replied with a humorous tone.

She handed him her camera and stood in front of the one nice wall in her flat. She posed in a calculated casual way with various travel accessories and her new book on Indonesia.

“How much are you getting paid to have that bottle of sunscreen lotion in the frame with you?” Ben asked.

“Don’t ask, it will only make you mad.”

“Do you even like that stuff?”

“It’s alright.”

She actually couldn’t afford a regular supply of it beside the one sponsored bottle, but the product was very on brand for her.

After Condé Nast named her in their top ten travel blogs, her follower count surged. Sponsored posts became a significant source of income which translated as two more trips a year. She liked thinking of herself as an entrepreneur. She sold herself and her lifestyle— well the brighter side of her lifestyle— and it allowed her followers to indulge in a little fantasy.

She looked over Ben’s shoulder as he swiped through photos on the camera screen.

“Are we done? I’m peckish,” he said.

“Just a couple more, I’m not sure about that shirt.”

After some consideration, she switched her top for one that wouldn’t make her look so pale.

“Thankfully I’ll have a nice tan soon,” she said.

The change in Ben’s mood was subtle, he blinked too fast and his shoulders stiffened. And she felt herself becoming defensive, her cheeks warmed up.

“Oh. You’re leaving again.”

“You realize that’s like me saying: ‘oh you’re going to the office again’?”

“Yeah, the office, a cubicle with annoying coworkers and a boss, not a five-star hotel in L.A.”

“Christ, Ben, you know I didn’t become a writer for Elite Travelers by lounging around the pool all day.”

“I don’t need your resume.”

“I wouldn’t need to give it to you if you stopped implying mine’s not a real job.”

Ben tried for levity: “I’m just saying, why go halfway around the globe when you’ve got the best right here? You said so yourself.”

Hannah went along with the joke even if she knew part of him was serious. She tried not to create false hopes in him. She’d said she wasn’t interested in a relationship, that he shouldn’t wait for her. But when she travelled alone and felt lonely, she called him and, in-between trips, he was her only friend left in London.

She offered him a beer from the fridge and neither of them mentioned the trip again.

As they ate, she chose the best picture out of thirty and posted it on her Instagram account. She was the first to use #pulaukesuma, but not the last if she did her job well.

Scrolling through her feed, she noticed a picture posted by her sister: her son’s birthday, with their whole family gathered for the occasion. It was today and they hadn’t invited her. “I didn’t think you were in the country,” Jackie replied when Hannah confronted her in a text message. She didn’t insist. What was the point? She was leaving soon anyway.

After the meal, she watched a movie with Ben, but her mind kept drifting off to her next assignment. She repeatedly stood up to get a glass of water or add something to her packing list. At the thought of Indonesia, her limbs buzzed with a sort of restlessness and her stomach swooped.

She often thought of visiting new countries as a fling. The way they occupy all your thoughts and that anticipation of seeing them. You want to know everything about them. There’s always more to discover and experience. You can’t get enough, but you know it can’t last. And in a way, that’s the best thing about it because you only have time to see the best of them. You must enjoy it while it lasts. When it ends, you’re sad and miss them, but, in all honesty, you wouldn’t settle there permanently.

She was only ever faithful to London. Or perhaps she had yet to find the one.

***

→Chapter 1: CGK

#Hardy x Hannah #teninch fic #travelers AU #see author's note on Ao3 #about Foxy kindly allowing me to write this #lostinfic writes stuff

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ununniliad · 5 years

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Bite-Size Tales of the LNH v20 #19: “Having Fun Isn’t Hard“

The Fearless Leader of the Classic Looniverse walked down the halls of the Infinite Library, following in the path of a young man; an Egyptian teenager in a natty suit who, he had been assured, was known as Library Lad. Felix vaguely remembered a member of the LNH with that name on the Loonivearth. Maybe.

"Usually," said the lad, "the paths of the Infinite Library stretch thru L-space to every possible world, or at least, every world that has some variation of the concept of 'books'. Of course, that makes it very difficult to navigate - nigh-impossible, in fact, unless you have the help of one of the Librarians of Space-Time." He gave a little smile, just slightly smug. "Which I am."

It was amazing, thought Fearless Leader; he spoke like a flawless impression of what a teenager thought an adult was.

"Unfortunately..." His confident expression shifted into a frown. "Your world is blocked off." He reached out, plucked a book off a passing shelf, and leafed thru it, continuing to walk. "It says that there's a general hold put on all accounts originating in universe SW920501. Access denied, with no information in the 'reason' field or any such metadata." He sighed and slipped the book into the next shelf they passed by - actually, Fearless Leader thought, it might be the same shelf, somehow. "Most annoying. I haven't seen a misuse of structural power like this since the days of Master Workload." He shook his head. "It's particularly bothersome for me, seeing as my brother is on the other side."

"Oh?" enquired Fearless Leader, half out of politeness and half out of automatic intel gathering.

"Ah... yes." Library Lad hesitated for a moment, then composed himself. "One of those complicated dimensional things, you know."

"Of course," said Fearless Leader, fully out of politeness. One of his little mental alarms was ringing at the back of his brain; something about the Infinite Library and not being able to get in... "So what's the upshot in terms of sending me home?"

"The upshot is, there's a difficult, complicated, but achievable way to get you out. And absolutely no way to get you back in after. Unless you come via another world, of course. And even then it'd be difficult; I believe the Library only let you in so easily this time because you and our Fearless Leader entered at the same time, and it assumed that only a single account was being accessed."

"I see..." And then the mental alarm stopped, and a memory popped up like toast out of a toaster. "Victoria..."

"Hm?" Library Lad stopped in front of a friendly computer terminal, cocking his head, looking up at Fearless Leader.

"Sorry, I was just reminded. She doesn't talk about it much, but... one of my people's been trying to get in here for a while." Fearless Leader shook his head, looking off at nothing. "She... on a mission I assigned, she lost everything. Her entire history. And only came back because of a fluke." He licked his lips just slightly, looking up at the endless aisles of books, hardbacks, paperbacks, enormous encyclopedias, tiny pamphlets, and... "Somewhere in here, they have the information about... who she used to be, and what she's become. What she brought back with her, from the void."

"Hmmmm..." Library Lad ran a hand thru his hair, deep in thought. "I can at least look her up in the system and see if there's something in her account that she hasn't been able to pick up..." He turned to the terminal and started typing, and a search came up. "Hmmm..." He clicked around. "Huh, that's weird, it's password-protected..." He typed, slowly and carefully... squinting at the screen... "Ah. I see."

"Hm?"

"Duck." Library Lad leapt and pushed Fearless Leader out of the way as the terminal began to spark and smoke. A moment later, it exploded, glass, metal and plastic bursting out with a pyrotechnic THOOM!

Fearless Leader coughed, and sat up, helping Library Lad up as well. It didn't look like shrapnel had hit either of them - just a shelf full of movie-edition Mortal Engines books. "That doesn't seem good."

"No. She's the one who, personally and specifically, has been targeted by this block." He flipped his hands thru his hair in irritation, and smoothed out his suit. "*Most* irritating." He stood up straight. "A simple bureaucratic blockage I can deal with, but the cavalier waste of public resources I cannot stand. Just a moment, please."

Library Lad stalked off down the aisles. Fearless Leader watched him go... then heard a voice from behind him. "*There* we are."

Fearless Leader jumped and spun, but it was Library Lad, looking composed again. Of course - it was easy to forget that a Librarian of Space-Time could take all the time they needed to look up a book, without having to deal with the messy business of waiting. "What did you find?"

"The book she's looking for is a reference copy, so I can't allow it to be taken out of the Library," said Library Lad. "And the Cosmic Photocopier's been down for millenia, so I can't just copy the relevant pages. But I did find this." He handed Fearless Leader a beat-up old trade paperback. "It's the comic book adaptation. It cuts out a lot, because it was produced as a quick, cheap licensed work in the mid-00s. But it should provide some guidance. And..." He gave Fearless Leader an index card, on which was written a long string of numbers. "If she manages to, somehow, make her way around the block, this is the Expanded Dewey Decimal address of the book in question." He sighed. "I'm going to try to address this problem personally, but it will, I'm afraid, take some time."

"That's quite all right," nodded Fearless Leader. "Thank you for your efforts."

"Absolutely." Library Lad pushed, with some effort, a beaming smile onto his face. Fearless Leader could sense the public service training. "Now, as to the matter of getting you home..."

They walked down a snaking path, down aisles and along unfamiliar corridors. Fearless Leader got the sense that Library Lad was putting some effort in that he hadn't before, to avoid some sort of notice. Eventually, they came to an enormous pair of doors, warm mahogany edged in curly gold, with a great bar across them made of ebon metal. "This is the main door to your universe; as you can see, currently locked. And this is how we'll be getting you home."

Fearless Leader turned, and saw, sitting in the middle of the children's section, a large cannon in bright, circus-y colors. It was pointed upwards at an angle; looking up along the line of fire, Fearless Leader could see a single window, open, with bright blue sky on the other side.

"...ah," he said.

Library Lad handed him a helmet. "We hope that you've had a good stay on Earth-20, please come again!"

#Original Fiction #Superheroes #Silliness #Adventure #Legion of Net.Heroes #LNH20 #Bite Size Tales of the LNH v20

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storyinmypocket · 6 years

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As someone who’s been Frankensteining PCs together from the leftovers from other people’s upgrades for over twenty years now, I want to let y’all know that building/repairing a desktop PC* is not hard. The hardest part for me is going through the specs for motherboards/CPUs/memory and making sure everything’s compatible, and if you’re doing a major upgrade, sites like Newegg often sell bundles of components guaranteed to work together.

Some PC manufacturers do try to make it harder because they want you to buy a whole new computer from them instead of replacing one component. I recommend building your own from scratch if you can, or, if that’s too intimidating, having a trusted friend build you one that you can then work on upgrading piece by piece to build your confidence. However, if you can’t afford that (gods know I couldn’t if I hadn’t originally built my computer when I was living with family), grit your teeth, go slowly, and remember to chant, “Die capitalist scum, die,” whenever you encounter an unexpected difficulty.

You will need:

A Phillips-head screwdriver. Just average sized, not huge or tiny. (So technical! So specific! But seriously, I’ve had no problems using whatever’s handy.)

A container in which to put your screws. You can use a Solo cup for this, or a plastic container for leftovers, or even flip over an empty paper drink cup and use the shallow container formed by the bottom part. I’m not judging. Just make sure the lil fuckers can’t roll away and hide under your desk for the rest of time.

A large flat surface (desk, countertop, kitchen table, etc).

If you’re doing anything with the CPU/motherboard (CPU used here to mean “the chip about the size of a large coin that functions as your computer’s brain”, not “the entire box”), have some rubbing alcohol, q-tips, and thermal paste handy. (I use Arctic Silver.)**

You will probably find it nice to have:

A flashlight. Headlamps/small flashlights you can hold in your mouth have worked best for me, since you don’t have to give up the use of a hand so you can see, but I did yesterday’s motherboard swap with just my phone’s LED, and that went fine.

A can of compressed air. You don’t need this if you’re building from scratch, but if you haven’t cracked the case in a while... well, dust happens. So does pet hair. A can of air will clear that shit away without the risk of getting tiny spit droplets on your sensitive electronic components. (I’ve blown dust away and it’s been fine, but still, compressed air is better if you have the time and spare cash to get some.)

A personal grounding strap to keep static from zapping your components. I have literally never used one -- I just frequently touch the exposed metal parts of my PC case, and that keeps the static from happening -- but if it gives you peace of mind, go for it, they’re like $5.

Speccy. It’s a free program that will show you all your components and specs, which is great for me because no fucking way do I remember anything about parts I installed five years ago. I always check Speccy before ordering new components, to make sure everything will play nicely together.

A phone or tablet you can use to google for additional help.

That’s it, that’s all you need to fiddle around with your computer’s guts.

If you want to know what should go in your computer’s guts, there’s a very simple explanation of the components you need at my bank’s website? For some reason?***

If you’re replacing a component, at this point, your job is to find the thing, unplug any cables that go into it, take it out of your computer, put the new one in, plug the cables back in, and you’re good to go. Your component will usually have instructions showing you what goes where. If it doesn’t, google is your friend.

Things to keep in mind:

Components should fit neatly into place, and you shouldn’t force them. However, things like memory sticks and video cards can take a bit of pressure to slot into place, so finding that sweet spot between “super gentle” and “forcing and possibly breaking your components” will be terrifying the first few times. Or at least, it will if you’re anything like my high-anxiety self. To make it less terrifying: use your light source to get in there and be sure it’s lined up properly with the slot. Double- and triple-checking is a good thing when you’re starting out. If there are clips to hold the component in place, make sure they’re disengaged. Also, don’t go from gentle push to slamming your whole body weight down on it: slowly increase the pressure as you push. Although it’s possible to break something if you just force it in without paying much attention, my generally careless and clumsy self has never had this happen, even once, so just make sure you’re putting the thing in the right place and you should be fine.

If you have to take the cooler off your CPU, note that it will probably take some messing around to get it off. You will not break it. Just go slow and keep breathing.

Once the cooler is off your CPU, you’ll want to take your q-tip and alcohol and carefully wipe away the old, dried-up thermal paste, because it’s not going to conduct heat so well anymore now that you’ve messed with it. Before you put the cooler back, draw an X on the CPU with your tube of fresh thermal paste. That’s all you need to do.

And those are all the basic things I wish someone had told me when I was starting out.

My biggest piece of advice, though? Find friends who also build their own computers, because then the magic of the upgrade chain takes place. My childhood computer was made out of hand-me-down parts, where my mom would get an upgrade, and her old part would go to my stepdad, and then his old part would go to me. Brand new components were special things, that would show up very rarely for my birthday and Yule, but otherwise, my computers were entirely dependent on the upgrade chain. If you’re poor, having an upgrade chain going with your friends can be a wonderful source of unexpected free upgrades, which can make the difference between an out of date computer that can still play most games, and a constantly-crashing piece of shit that makes you want to cry when you try to run anything.

* I’m sure there’s someone who’s like, “Who even uses desktops anymore?” and the answer is a) gamers, and b) people who are on their computers all day and want to not be in major pain, because laptops are a goddamn ergonomic nightmare and so as someone with chronic pain, I hate them. If your laptop is causing you pain, I can’t recommend an ergonomic desktop setup enough.

** Remember how I mentioned some PC manufacturers will make things harder on you? The one and only prebuilt PC I’ve ever owned -- a gift -- had an unnecessarily large CPU cooler that had to be removed completely in order to get to the power supply. After my power supply died, I had to deal with all the bullshit involved in replacing it, and vowed to never again use a pre-built PC because fuck that shit. And I always keep thermal paste handy, just in case.

*** Hey, so since my bank’s computer building page was one of the top google results, I’m going to pimp out my referral link now, because I’m poor and have huge medical bills and hey, free $20 for both of us. If you’re not interested, you can stop reading here.

Do you like bank accounts with no fees whatsoever, because they just do the sensible thing and deny the transaction if you don’t have the money instead of charging you $30 for going $0.02 over your limit? Do you like minimalistic debit card design in aesthetically-pleasing white and blue? Do you like being able to put money aside for specific goals, and then hide that money from your available balance so you don’t accidentally spend it? Do you like really fucking amazing customer service? Well, if you sign up with Simple, you can have that. And if you use the link in the previous sentence, you get $20 free the first time you use your debit card, and I get the same amount, which is 1/3 of a doctor visit! Help me go see a doctor, please.

#i swear this was not meant to be a shameless cash grab #i replaced my mobo yesterday #because it was dying #and now i have working usb ports again #and that's awesome

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kimberlycollins · 5 years

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NIPPON GA DAI SUKI (JAPAN WE LOVE YOU)

Traveling to an exotic country sounds, well, exotic. And it is. It’s a true adventure in life. It’s also exhausting. And enlightening.

I’ve traveled afar throughout my entire adulthood. All over Europe, The Middle East, Egypt, Central America, Mexico, Eastern Europe, Canada, the Caribbean, Australia… Florida. ;)

I give travel (and my parents, *ehem*) credit for keeping me grounded, humbled and modest, in the sense of “I AM BUT A SPECK ON THIS EARTH” or “MY BELIEF SYSTEM IS NOT EVERYTHING” or “I DON’T KNOW AS MUCH AS I THOUGHT I KNEW” or “I REALLY DON’T KNOW HOW I GOT BEST DRESSED IN HIGH SCHOOL” (read: France ;)).

Travel helps us all to get out of our comfort zone and to see what a tiny place we occupy on this planet. It’s a liberating realization, embracing one’s insignificance in this world. It’s not about being small, because none of us are. It’s more about the world being BIG.

Travel puts your life into perspective; your problems and celebrations do not hold as much weight as they seem. It also shows you how much you have or what you don’t have. It’s a healthy reality check.

That’s why travel is good for you.

I am reminded this after a crazy year. My husband and I have been on tour with our music (The Smoking Flowers) for a lot of 2018, in and out of the country. It’s been a healthy year of these reality checks for sure.

That’s why I am writing this post on my health blog, as this type of health is just as important as the physical.

And so I write.

I write to journal.

I write to inspire (myself, if no one else).

I write to remember.

I write because I am bored today, it’s cold outside and my matcha is steaming, infusing me with memories.

I’m also writing because I miss Japan.

Of all my travels, I think Japan smacked me across the head when I needed it most. It made me feel like I was five years old again. Everything, down to using the toilet, I had to relearn/rethink. Yep, it took 43 years off my life. Now that’s a natural youth serum I can live with.

It also made my brain function differently. Trying to learn a foreign language audibly and visually that has no history in the Latin world is truly a foreign language. I now know how to order water, draft beer, sake and vegetarian ramen in Japanese. Basics. (Although a friendly laugh is usually the response to the veggie ramen inquiry). I now know how to tell a Japanese punk band they did a great job after seeing them open up for us at our show. I learned to say just plain “awesome”, and used it a lot. Japanese is pretty “saikou”, after all.

Japan can feel very futuristic, and Tokyo is like being on a movie set at times. They are the future for most of the civilized world seemingly 10 years ahead of us all, yet still remaining ancient and historic at the same time. Eating sushi or having tea can be presented like it was 400 years ago or like something out of The Jetsons (ala conveyor belt computer sushi restaurants).

But beyond the exotic veil, it was the culture and etiquette that really impressed me and made my head spin.

Below are but a few observations of the plentiful Japanese culture I experienced over my month long visit. And of course, they are my own, so they are neither right nor wrong. Just observations from a somewhat worldly gal who grew up Southern in America:

1. The Japanese have manners like I’ve never seen.

They are unwavering in their politeness. Selfless hospitality is a cornerstone of Japanese culture, and you can feel it in everything down to their quiet nature to their cleanliness to the way they package your purchased goods like a present. And that bow! That Japanese bow. It makes you feel special.

2. They are startling quiet and calm.

Given that Tokyo houses more than 13 million people, the sense of order and calm as everyone goes about their responsibilities with concern for others is remarkable. The Tokyo city streets are shockingly silent. You can hear the air, the machinery hums that run a city and the cars passing, but they don’t honk like NYC. I think I heard two honks the entire time in Tokyo, and that’s not an exaggeration. We drove the interstates a ton on our tour, all over the country... aggressive driving doesn’t seem to exist. Could this be from their Zen culture?

Also, they don’t bump into you trying to get on the subway in a hurry. It’s an orderly line and gentle squeeze to fit everyone on the trains, like a can of sardines without the stink.

I want to throw in another aspect of “calm” here; safety.

Feeling safe, stable, and secure is central to our health and wellbeing. How safe we feel at home and in our neighborhood can influence our social habits and feeling of freedom. When we feel safe, we find it easier to relax, do all the things that comfort us, and focus on the work or study we need to do to help ensure our stability.

I’ve never felt safer anywhere in my life than when in Japan. I never worried about my purse or goods being stolen. Never worried about locking our apartment or car doors. Never got ogled at or hit upon. Wowza.

3. There’s no trash on the streets. And I mean zero. Not even cigarette butts. And it’s not like there are janitors sweeping the streets and alleys. To make this fact more amazing, it’s hard pressed to find trash bins anywhere. So where does a city of millions dispose of their goods while walking/biking about? Their pockets… until they reach home to throw in appropriate bins.

RETRACTION: One time we were walking under an over pass in Tokyo and we saw, gasp, trash. The remarkable thing was that this trash was piled neatly in a small pile, waiting anxiously to be picked up properly.

For an interesting article on Japan and the waste culture check out this article: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/07/why-japanese-dont-litter/

4. They seem to really care about the planet.

And don’t just post about it on social media.

You won’t find paper towels anywhere, sans a few nice restaurants. Water waste is thoughtfully considered in everything they do it seems. Yes, even the toilet fill water after a flush is used as a sink to wash your hands before entering the tank. They line dry their clothes (like most of the world except America). They ride bicycles like it’s Amsterdam on steroids. There are even parking lots just for bikes. This eliminates the need for excess taxis on the streets (i.e. “fossil fuels”). I know this goes on all over the world, but I again, I’m sticking to Japan here.

5. Buddhism and Shintoism.

I have practiced Buddhism since my 20’s and see it as more of a mind set and lifestyle than a religion. So for me, I felt right at home in a country that houses over 77,000 temples (No typo there). Incense permeates the air, especially in Kyoto. Smelled like my house and I couldn’t have been happier about that aspect.

But it’s more than Buddhism. The main Japanese religion is Shintoism. Many Japanese people practice both. The beliefs are very compatible and not contradictory.

6. ROBOTIC TOILETS!

Japan has a magic thing called Toto Toilets. And the toilet culture there is really something to behold. I fell in love with their toilets and never once worried to sit on the public toilet seat. I can simply not go back to our classic Kohler again. Trust me, once you experience a heated seat, self-cleaning, massaging, butt-cleaning, “privacy sound”, hand-washing toilet all in one small package, you’ll never go back. Don’t know how to expand on this in a blog… just “go” try it for your self.

7. 7- Eleven heaven!

Yep, you heard this health advocate correctly. When you are looking for a healthy bite on the road or on the quick, there’s a 7-Eleven on every corner. And it’s not the 7-Eleven we know in this country at all! Made fresh daily veggie sushi, veggie rice “sandwiches”, miso soup, raw veggies, healthy drinks, tea, fairly healthy snacks if you are into the packaged food thing. All for super cheap. I cannot tell you what a lifesaver it was on the road for us when there were practically no healthy options. Also, we decided to add fish into our diet while in Japan, and certainly glad we did. I’ve never had better fish in my life. It really felt healthy. My nails are still shiny like they’ve been shellacked. Win win.

8. VENDING MACHINES!

Super convenient and anonymous, there are vending machines all over Japan (even in remote villages) that can get you most anything you need instantly: from fermented bean drinks to green tea to hot or cold coffee to fully cooked meals to used panties. Yep, the Japanese can get weird.

Ok, so maybe the last three points are less about culture, but I had to throw them in for the “wow” factor.

I could go on and on about Japan… it’s as wide and deep and old and beautiful as it’s countryside beacon Mt. Fuji. But it has its pitfalls too. No culture is perfect. I just prefer to focus on the ideals I look up to, rather than focusing on the negatives. Their negatives are no different than America’s: too much sugar and meat in the diet, it’s a highly misogynistic society, cigarettes, stressful six day work weeks with long hours, those darn plastic bags… But we all know those are WORLD WIDE ISSUES.

Japan, you definitely stole my heart. Thank you to all who came to our shows and to those that showed us your rare style of hospitality. And a huge special thanks to my tour manager, Gus Bennett, who introduced my husband and me to this beautiful country, showed us the ropes and helped us navigate into this great unknown that will certainly be with me forever.

Mata, chikai uchini, aeruto iine.

Photo credit: Marley Parker at ML Parker Media

#travel #japan #tokyo #kyoto #health #writing #culture #lotuseye #ownyourohmhealth #thesmokingflowers #kimcollins #buddhism #shinto

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bffhreprise · 6 years

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Entry 223

“Ready to go?” I inquired as I approached James and Mila’s table.

James looked confused as he watched me. Frowning, he said, “I suppose we can leave.”

“We don't have to leave quite yet if you're not ready. There isn't a rush. I thought you looked ready is all.” I explained. I was firmly sided with people who didn't want to make James upset, but for me, he was a friend.

“Wait. 'We’? You're coming with us?” he questioned, looking confused again.

“Huh? If that's how you care to look at it, but don't you normally say that you're going with the guide?” I asked, wondering where James was going with this conversation.

“Guide? Sorry, but I have no idea what you mean.” he stated.

“Oh. Master, we're getting a guided tour of the universe.” explained Mila, though she seemed surprised.

Being around young versions of these two was getting odder and odder. Mila had seemingly endless access to information and easily handled scheduling throughout hundreds of solar systems if not more from what I had heard. Having her surprised by our schedule was plain weird.

“What? Really!?” asked James, surprised as well.

At least our conversation made a little sense now.

“No, not really.” I quickly told him. “You're getting a guided tour through a few select parts of the universe while accompanying me on some deliveries.”

Smiling, he said, “I prefer Mila's version.”

I gawked as I told him “You can't be serious… I've only been to a tiny fraction of the universe. As far as I know, the restaurant doesn't even deliver to the uninhabited worlds. For you, Carl will probably make an exception, but… I'll die of old age.” As I spoke, I tried to reason this out. James was young and might not realize how incredibly vast the universe was. He might also be messing with me given his sense of humor. I didn't really believe Carl would have me spend the rest of my life on a single assignment, though he might for James. I let out the breath I was holding. Forcing myself to smile, I then said, “Let's see where all we end up.”

“Wow. I wish I could calm down that quickly.” commented James.

He seemed sincere, so I winked, not wanting to go into what working here takes with him when he'd know eventually. If anyone could see all of the stars, I'd bet on James. I turned and started guiding them to my garage.

“Oh. Wait.” stated James as he stopped. “Mila, how will you get signal?”

“Don't worry, master. The princess assures me that the restaurant will continue routing for me.” she replied as she smiled at him.

Another way to tell the difference between Alma and Mila was in their smile. There was a slight difference in how their lips moved.

“I suppose it is already routing the signal through time.” he remarked with an amused smile.

I guided them forward and then sidestepped through the portal. When they didn't follow, I poked my head out and asked “Coming?”

James almost had me laughing as he walked around the portal, looking completely bewildered. I remembered the feeling from my early days here when everything was new. I stepped back out, demonstrating that I was intact.

“There's nothing to it.” I promised. “You just walk through. If it helps, you can shut your eyes.”

“What is it?” he inquired, still staring at the two-dimensional, black plane of the portal.

“Oh. This restaurant is big. Very big. I'd probably die of old age if I tried seeing all of it. Lucky for us, getting around it is as easy as coming to dine. You just walk through the door. I was told they appear this way for peace of mind.” I explained.

“I can't say the appearance is helping my peace of mind at all.” he admitted, making Mila laugh.

“They do take some adjusting, but I've been told it's easier on the brain than seeing what's actually happening. This serves the same purpose as the second set of doors into the restaurant, but the employees need to change rooms far more often. Come along. You don't want me to be late, do you?” I teased, knowing I couldn't be late.

Sheela was waiting right where I left her. I loved driving, and my car was many steps ahead of the average in my time, despite her age. Realizing that James and Mila we're watching me caress my baby as I walked around her rear, I said, “I know she's a bit old, but I promise Sheela's well-maintained. My dad did all of the original upgrades when we moved away from combustion, and I've had lots of work done since then.”

Mila was quick to point out “This vehicle and its original design hasn't been released yet where we're from.”

“Even if it had, she's a beauty.” insisted James.

Grinning, I said, “Get in the back! I'll grab the food and show you what my baby can do!”

I quickly grabbed my delivery box, glanced at the diagnostic report for Sheela, and hopped in my car. Looking back at them, I asked “You two wearing your seatbelts?”

“Yes, we are.” James assured me.

I turned back around and took off. I smiled as we flew threw the sky of Tiladosia. This descent was a great start for anyone visiting another world for the first time. The restaurant floated here due to some issue with land rights, but business was as splendid as everywhere else.

I took the broad lap around the mountain, knowing the restaurant would have already accounted for my actions when it chose our departure time. The twin moons were both visible in the violet sky, making this as perfect as day as possible.

“Where's the wind?” questioned James.

Fair question given that we were in a convertible with the top down. “Sorry, but this planet's atmosphere isn't breathable for humans, so I can't put the field down.” I explained. “Oh. I should've checked my air levels before we left. Sheela, are we going to asphyxiate?”

“Not for three days at the current rate of consumption.” she replied.

Realizing Mila might mistake Sheela for something like her, I said, “No, Mila, my car doesn't have an A.I. like you. She does have a standard voice command interface.”

“I see. Still, this world is quite beautiful. Don't we stick out, being one of the few vehicles currently flying above the city?” she asked.

“Don't worry about it. I've got clearance. Those other vehicles are delivery drivers as well. The Tiladosians are really advanced, but they don't care for flying, especially at high speeds. It has something to do with the effects of high speed on their internal biology.” I replied, hoping she didn't want an in-depth report.

When we reached ground level and passed a Tiladosian on the street, I glanced at my rearview mirror to see James’ reaction. There was less eye-popping shock than I had hoped for, but he still looked surprised. I told him “Their umm… mouths… are on the bottom of their bodies.” I knew the actual term but figured that would involve more explanation if I said it.

“How are you going to deliver food when you can't breathe?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes at him and demonstrated, pulling the food out of my delivery box and handing it to the patron by my door. Maybe James missed the map indicating I was by the right one? Might be hard to see from his vantage point.

I whistled when I verified the transaction completed on my console. “He gave me one hell of a tip!” I exclaimed, already considering what mod I might get for Sheela next. The restaurant had an enormous catalog for employee purchases.

“How does the currency exchange work?” asked James. “Are aliens common in your time?”

“Uh… no. I didn't know aliens existed until after I started my job. As for the currency, things get a bit tricky. I'm free to buy some alien goods and bring them home with me, but that can lead to… problems. I know one guy who bought a bunch of diamonds and then had to come up with a way to sell them back home. He was arrested at one point, but things eventually were cleared up. I usually just let the restaurant take care of the exchange, but I do have a fair amount of money saved up on my favorite planets for vacations.” I replied, glad I didn't really need to keep secrets from James. He could always tell when someone lied and didn't care for it.

Unlike most of our people, I had seen enough of the universe to hear rumors about James from countless worlds. I always denied knowing him personally when asked. Some would fawn over me if they believed I knew him. Others would shun me, thinking James was a tyrant. I knew enough that I had faith in him. He couldn't make everyone happy all the time, but he was a force for good.

,,,.^._.^,,,

Where the master seemed to enjoy the view and keep his thoughts to himself, I questioned Evanna about everything. She was remarkably informed, knowing the atmospheric composition of the planet, average lifespan of the population, and general information about the culture without having to consult with Sheela.

Routing through the restaurant, I was able to access local networks and verify a large amount of what she said without much effort. I downloaded a great deal to my memory to increase my knowledge base in case the master ever wanted to know more.

We visited numerous planets, each with unique life forms, but I found the similarities all the more fascinating. There were a few types of humanoids, which went against general theory on alien life, possibly supporting a common origin. The princess wasn't being helpful and wouldn't verify any of my conjectures.

When we arrived on a metallic, planet-sized sphere with only the restaurant on it's surface, I stood in awe. There was a vast, complicated computer network here. I was granted access instantly through the restaurant and was shocked to find an A.I. population.

I was aware of the master watching a video with Evanna that explained this population's origins, but I was receiving data far faster as I interacted through the network. I played games, watched video feeds, and communicated with each A.I. who greeted me. There were hundreds of billions. Getting to know each would take time even for me, especially if we interacted through their virtual reality system which mimicked the previous life of the planet through a game-like environment.

“What? What kind of ending is that?” complained Evanna after seeing the end of the video where organic life had been purged in an interplanetary war.

“A disappointing one.” stated the master.

I walked over to them, smiling and wishing I could share all that I witnessed. “They were conquered, master, and have been grateful ever since.” I told him, having seen the princess arrive here and the devastating speed at which she took over and upgraded the planet's technology. They saw her as a goddess, and I couldn't argue. She was far, far beyond any of us.

#Best #Friend #For #Hire #Reprise #Best Friend For Hire Reprise #Jovial Times #Jovial #Times #Fantasy #Fiction #Story

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