#and he’s walking from that twenty year death to a new alive life with ellie | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bubbles-for-all-of-us · 1 year

Text

Butterfly IV

a/n I hope y'all are still enjoying this! Do let me know if you want me to continue to write this or should we have one more lovely chapter to end this with.

summary: When Joel thinks that his life is over his little butterfly sends him a new reason to stay alive. The only problem is that he doesn't know how to love but when you are the meaning of love itself how can he not fall.

Previous chapters are on my blog cause tumblr ain't letting me add links.

warnings: mention of past trauma, forced starvation, fainting spells.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Your eyes snapped open in a frantic attempt to search for the body that was laying pressed right beside you all night long. Ellie wasn't there. You sat up quickly, your hand instantly coming to hold your head as a wave of pain shot through it. The sleep seemed restless at best. You tried to first fall asleep in the bed you and Joel shared, but the sheer size of the emptiness that surrounded you only made your heart hurt more. So you made your way to Ellie, wrapping your hands around her as you focused your mind on her presence.

Yet your dreams were still filled with images of Joel. Of the times you two were utterly, truly, fully emotionally naked in front of one another, when the knives you two held for self-defense were long forgotten. Pushed to the side. And you two just were. Fingers laced together as you started at one another. No words were needed at moments like that. Eyes said it all. Truly the window to one's soul.

If only loving and staying true to yourself was that easy. Writing it all off as the consequence of the outbreak felt lame after twenty-plus years. Surely by now, people would have adapted. Moved on from the past. Well, if not moved on, at least make peace with it. You hated the fact that all you wanted to do now was cuddle closer to Joel, hiding your face from the morning sun in the crook of his neck just like most mornings. He had been your shelter. He still was. Nothing besides death could truly keep you apart. If that scared you, it sure as fuck scared him. With that, you fell back onto the bed. Eyes staring at the ceiling.

"So what is this?", Ellie had slipped out of bed to the sound of Joel walking downstairs. The sight of you asleep, even if your eyebrows were slightly crunched up, made Ellie choose against waking you up. So she made the best of the situation and followed Joel. Now, about an hour later, she was inspecting the car that was supposed to take you to three places. Joel looked up from the side of the garage, "A wing mirror." Ellie looked around, "Where's the wing?" She questioned, truly invested in breaking down every part of the spaceship in front of her. "Have you never seen a car before?", Joel asked, and Ellie quickly shook her head.

Joel was not expecting Ellie to follow him out to the garage. When he heard someone stepping in, he hoped it was you. He needed to clear the water. The tension and the lack of your presence in the past 24 hours had been torture for him. "Sorry for pointing a knife at you," Ellie had first croaked out, and Joel had shifted in his seat. He cared for the girl. Even if he was constantly telling himself that he didn't. He had started to care for her the moment he bashed her into a wall. Joel wasn't expecting to do that to a kid. He could have given her a concussion.

"You defended Y/N; good to know you have some serious balls," Joel said, turning away from Ellie as he looked over the wall of guns. Ellie snickered, "You said balls", "You're a kid if it still makes you laugh", Ellie went into a defensive monologue after that. Trying to prove Joel wrong, but his face stayed blank. She offered to help him do whatever Joel was doing, but that mostly resulted in her getting star-struck by the car as she circled it.

"You want to sit in it?", Ellie's eyes grew big at that suggestion, a light smile tugging at her lips. "Get in then", Joel stood up to approach her. The worrier inside was afraid that if he was too far away and Ellie somehow got the car started, he wouldn't be fast enough to stop it. He watched as Ellie looked around the inside. Fingers grazing over different buttons, "Don't press anything", Joel said firmly, yet deep down he was enjoying seeing her like this.

"Dude, it's a spaceship," Ellie said as her hands clasped the steering wheel. Until she moved to turn it slightly, at which point it yielded to her motion. Ellie's hands instantly came off the wheel as it did, eyes snapping to Joel. "If you'll let go of it like that in the middle of the road, you will be dead", Ellie could swear she heard a light snort before Joel said it. Her eyes fell to the side mirror, catching a figure in it. She turned behind her but was met with the seat instead of the view of the garage. Quickly leaving out of the door, she turned to look back again. "Look, I'm in the car wroom, wroom," Ellie chirped happily.

Joel turned to the side as well. He met your gaze as you stood there leaning onto the door frame, hands crossed over your chest. For the first time, Joel found it hard to read your face. He couldn't make out if it was anger or just pure nothingness that lingered in your features. Was this how you felt looking at him? When he had one of his masks on. Or have you learned to read through them as well?

"Looks like you two have been busy," you said, taking a step closer. Joel debated whether he should speak up. More importantly, he didn't know if he could take being ignored by you. "Morning," you muttered to him as you passed, strolling closer to Ellie. A breath got caught in Joel's throat, and all he managed to do was nod his head your way.

"Missy, your things are still unpacked. If we want to leave today you better get going", you pointed your finger Ellie's way, and she copied your actions. Pressing her finger against yours. "Are we leaving today, though?" Ellie questioned, turning to Joel. "Yes, it's best if we do that and as soon as possible", Ellie hopped out of the car before embracing you in the side hug. Head resting right below your chest. You ran your hands up and down her side as you smiled down at her.

You couldn't and didn't blame her for making up with Joel. She probably needed him more than she needed you. And they had been secretly wanting to grow closer. Just instead, they constantly stepped on each other's toes. You moved to drag her with you. Her hands did not leave your torso as you pulled her through the garage. Ellie's laughter echoed throughout the place. "Could we possibly talk?", Joel's fingers skimmed over your skin, making you stop in your tracks. Ellie quickly looked between the two of you before muttering something about how she preferred to pack alone anyway as she stepped out of the garage.

You only stood there. Keeping your gaze fixed on the man in front of you. A male with whom you had been through a lot of shit. You two always made it. No matter how darn hard it was. You always clawed through. You could see it in Joel's eyes that this whole tension was suffocating him as much as it was suffocating you. "I didn't…I," Joel stuttered, quickly running his fingers through his beard, "I overstepped a line." You let out a bitter laugh, eyes coming up to look at him. "Ain't the first time, now that we think about it, huh", you wanted to be sweet and let him off. But you had done that for too long. Joel's jaw clenched, yet he didn't say anything in return.

"I'm trying to see eye to eye with you," "Joel, come on, your eye to eye seems backward", you pulled out a chair for yourself, sitting right in front of him. Joel's arms came to rest over his knees as he looked at the floor. "Well, forgive me that I want this. I want calmness, a touch of normality. I'm tired of running," you rasped. You knew those things you both envisioned differently. Or, more accurately, Joel had never discussed his vision for the future. If he even saw one. Sometimes his carelessness led him on suicide missions. Once again proving to you that he didn't want to live. And there was only so much you could do for a drowning man.

Joel shook his head, "Don't you apologize, I don't blame you for it", you let out a sigh, fingers twisting the strand of the hair between them as you contemplated the next step. "You can be angry all you want, but all I ask of you is human decency. You can want the whole world to get fucked because of what happened, because of the things that got taken from you, but there is a line in Joel". He opened his mouth to speak up, but you quickly lifted your hand. "I'm not asking you to become a ray of sunshine. In all honesty, that wouldn't suit you", you reached for his hand, and to Joel, it felt surreal to once again feel the warmth of your skin. He felt like an addict. Who through the years had formed a serious dependence on you. "Just try to be more human. Emotions are a natural thing, you know", you whispered the last part. Your eyes glossed over with tears once again. Joel pulled you closer by the hand. Instantly wrapping you up in his embrace. Finally being able to breathe. Finally being able to think. You were here. You were with him. You two were going to make it through. Yet the hug didn't last long as you pushed against his chest and stepped away from Joel.

"I'm not ready to forgive you." Those words cut deeper than Joel could have imagined. But he nodded his head anyway. "It'll take more than one nice conversation with Ellie," "I know. I… I will try", Joel spoke out with not that much confidence but he was willing to. Mostly for you. But he was willing to. You nodded. Just like the evening on the terrace, your fingers grazed over his chest as you stood to leave. "Meet you down here in twenty?", you asked softly. Joel's hand moved up to catch your palm, letting his fingers linger on your skin just a little longer. "Okay," he rasped out as you walked out.

Your hand was pushed out through the open window as you drove through the empty highway. The breeze was nice and cool. Ellie was passed out in the front seat. Like a true kid after too many stimulations. Joel barely allowed you to drive. Most of your attempts were met with him saying that you needed to rest or that he wasn't as tired yet, so after a while, you dropped your attempts. The last couple of days felt repetitive. Stops at every potential gas station or by any left-out car in the open. Sleeping somewhere deep down in the woods or further down the main road. Then repeat. Repeat. And repeat.

Ellie had slipped into the abandoned station as you and Joel walked around the cars checking for petrol. You stumbled slightly, bracing yourself against the broken-down car. Black dots start to cloud your vision. You let out a sharp breath. "Not now," you whispered under your breath as you slowly lowered yourself to the ground.

Your food supply was good, but knowing your overthinking brain, you had opted for lowering your portions and making sure that the two of them ate more instead. In situations like that, you were familiar with Joel and his habits. Bad habits. Habits of not sleeping. So if his body wasn't getting sleep, he at least needed to make up for it with food. And Ellie was always hungry. Like a true little puppy. As long as there was food in front of her, no one was going to stop her from eating.

You heard Joel's voice, "Y/N." Cursing under your breath, you tried to get back up but failed miserably. Hands slip down the side of the car as your bum hit the ground. "Love," Joel put the fuel tank down as he walked towards you, "You okay?" You nodded your head. Nonetheless, your eyes rolled to the back of your head, as your consciousness started to slip. The ringing in your ears became increasingly loud. It seemed like there was just not enough oxygen left in the air.

"Did you fucking eat today?", Joel was kneeling right in front of you now. He cupped your cheek with his hand as he snapped his fingers in front of you, trying to keep you alert. "Ellie!", Joel shouts, turning back. Ellie quickly turned her head towards the two of you. The sight of you on the ground forewarned her instantly. "Fucking fuck", your head limped into Joel's palm as he held you up from falling over. "Hand me your jacket", Joel reaches for Ellie, and she quickly shrugged it off her shoulders. Worried eyes watching Joel. He carefully lowered you to the ground so you would be lying on your back before moving to lift your legs slightly, rubbing his palms alongside your thighs, "Come on, now love, come on".

You had your fair share of fainting spells when you two had just met. You were severely underweight then. The fuckers who had you under their control had run you down to the last drop. Joel had visited them after he got you to a somewhat stable state. That was the moment he realized he was ready to burn down the world for you. QZ was painfully quick to realize that you were Miller's girl. And sure as hell, only brainless people dared to cross your path after that.

"Joel," Ellie's worried voice jolted Joel out of his reverie. Making him remember the first time he saw this happening. Genuinely thinking the worse. "It's okay. She just fainted. The front pocket of my bag, grab a packet or two", he had never seen Ellie move so quickly before. She took off like a bullet, coming back with handfuls of tiny glucose packets that Joel always carries with him. "Hold this up", he motioned for Ellie to replace him by your legs. Joel quickly opened the packet, pouring some of it into his fingers. Ellie frowned as she watched Joel rub the white powder on the inside of your cheek before his fingers moved to rest over your pulse points. "Joel…", she whispered again. Ellie had never seen people faint. It looked too close to death for her liking, and you couldn't die. Not now. Not ever.

Joel only got to glance at Ellie as your eyes twitched, and you started to blink frantically. "Here you are, here you are, easy", Joel's fingers ran down the side of your face as he looked at you. "You didn't eat," he said firmly, "You two needed to eat", you rasped out. Hating the bright sun that found its way into your eyes despite Joel's shadow. "Y/N," Joel said in a warning tone, yet you were quick to copy him, "Joel."

"Should have told me at least", now came in a worried tone. It always slipped out. "Our communication is complicated at the moment," you sassed back as, he slowly helped you sit up. "It's not funny", "Who's laughing?", Joel only rolled his eyes. He was glad you were okay. That's all that matters now. He reached for the water that Ellie must have brought with her, handing it to you, "Drink this, and then we'll try to stand up." You downed the water as if you hadn't drunk in days. Your body still felt strange, but that little rush of sweetness seemed to have been enough to kickstart your system.

"Y/N," your gaze shifted to the side, where a concerned Ellie stood. You reached your hand towards her, and she was quick to sink next to you. "I'm a fine baby," you muttered, kissing the side of her head. "You should have listened to Joel," you snorted, "Oh, nice, you two are now ganging up," making Ellie giggle as well. "But he does know best. Sometimes…," you raised your eyes to Joel, giving him a small smile that he returned.

"Okay, let's get going", Joel helped Ellie up as she picked up the fuel tank that was closest to her. Joel's arms sneaked under your legs, "I can walk", you fought back as he carefully lifted you up, "Yeah, and I can carry you", in any other way, you would have argued back, but you still didn't have it in you to do so. So you let him. Wrapping your arms around Joel's neck, you cling closer to him. Joel hoped the walk to the car would have lasted forever. He missed your touch. Even if you were in speaking condition, it was clear that you had drawn a line. You were just business partners now. The affection you two once shared was nowhere to be found.

You were sat by Joel now. Ellie said she wanted to sleep in the back, but you knew the real reason, and so did Ellie. Joel still wanted to keep an eye on you. It was quiet for some time until Ellie pulled something out of her back. The ruffling of pages caught your attention, making you turn around to look at her. "There's not much reading here, but the pictures are quite something," she said, as Joel's eyes looked up to the rearview mirror.

His eyes grew big as he turned to her, "Throw that away now", his voice had a warning tone but the sense of panic was way more visible. "No way, dude, I want to see what the fuss is about!", Ellie shifted the magazine in her hands, flipping through the pages, "How do you walk with that thing between your legs?", "Let me see", you curved towards her, and Ellie was quiet to turn the picture to you. "Y/N, don't encourage it", Joel growled from beside you, but you only let out a laugh, "Oh, this is average. I've seen bigger and better".

You clapped Joel's lap a couple of times as you turned back around. A smirk spread over your face as you bit your lip, trying hard not to laugh. Joel shook his head in disbelief before glaring at you, "I will throw you both out of the car." You lifted your hands defensively, "Only speaking facts." A gasp left Ellie's mouth once she finally clocked in on your words, "Oh gross, you've seen his… no, don't answer that", she pulled a disgusted face as she lead closer to the window to get rid of the magazine. "Seen? Girl, I've…", "No!", Ellie clapped her hands over her ears and hummed a loud melody to herself to muffle the noise. You let out a laugh. Eyes meeting Joel's as he turned to you breathily, shaking his head, "You are losing it", you let out another giggle, "For you? Always".

The camp for the night was set, and Ellie was already fast asleep. Clenching your hand in hers. You looked at the ever-so-slowly approaching darkness. How it slowly seeped through the trees. The suspense of what was still ahead of you was unsettling. Were you doing the right thing? What if you were willingly bringing Ellie into even more danger? What if you didn't even make it? What was Joel thinking? Was he thinking of you?

You felt someone nudging your shoulder, and moments later Joel slipped to sit right beside you. You two seemed okay the past couple of days. But were you? "You're thinking loudly again," Joel said, handing you another cup. You couldn't help but roll your eyes. He kept a close watch on you tonight during dinner. Joel knew you hated when he counted your bites, but it was for precaution. There wasn't much medication on hand. If your conditions were to go bad again. Well, Joel would have gained a whole head of white hair trying to find the right medication and help for you.

"You know I will be pissing all night if you'll keep this up", you growled, only making Joel smile a little, "I see plenty of bushes that could be utilized," he said and you hit his chest playfully. "How are you feeling?" Joel asked you, bringing his own cup closer to his lips. "About us or in general?", your words took Joel by surprise. Of course, first and foremost, he was referring to your health. That was the most important thing in Joel's eyes now. "I want to give you space. I don't want you rushing into a relationship, especially when I'm like this," Joel blurred out, hands gripping the cup tightly. "Well, it's ten years too late, Joel," you said, moving to rest your head on his shoulders.

"You should give up on me," Joel said, the darkness making it easier for him to speak. He felt like he could almost hide behind it. Like it somehow shielded his fears, "Here you are wrong. Plus, we made a promise to each other." You lifted your left hand. The hand with the butterflies. The hand Joel had slipped a makeshift ring on a couple of years into your being together. He had sat down every night for over a week, trying to make a ring for you out of all the little things he found around the place. Joel had no idea why, but he had to do it.

"We had a little too much to drink and…", "Excuses, excuses. Unless you want me to take it off," you said, lifting the hand that was playing with Ellie's hair and moving it toward the ring as Joel caught both of your hands in his. "You promised to never take it off," Joel said firmly, "And I ain't planning to. That should be an answer in itself." Your hand reached for the side of Joel's face as you once again rested your hand on his shoulder. He gently kissed your palm before kissing the side of your head. Watching over the dark forest in front of him. That's why a man like you and I are here.

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller imagine #the last of us x reader #the last of us imagine #pedro pascal imagine #pedro pascal x reader

644 notes · View notes

thelightsandtheroses · 7 months

Text

and my soul has changed, and my heart

Your Hand In Mine | Joel Miller x female reader.

Drabble Summary: Joel and Tommy catch up on patrol after word of Joel's date with you spreads around Jackson. Word Count: 1245 Drabble Warnings: mentions of past child death (Sarah) and grief, 18+ blog MDNI Notes: I'm here with another Joel POV drabble! Thank you so much for your patience with this update, I am partway through chapter four so hope to update that shortly. The title for this drabble is from the song Orange Juice by Noah Kahan

Previous | Series | Next

The patrol route is quiet. There’s not a sign of infected or people around. Joel rests the back of his head against the tree he’s leaning against, watching Old Beardy drink from the nearby stream.

Joel can’t quite stop that alertness, the background wariness in case of something changing. It’s not a curse, it’s kept him alive this long.

It’s peaceful though. The area is illuminated by dappled sunlight between the trees hitting the water, the sounds of water babbling over the rocks and nature around are inescapable - you could forget about the world for a moment here.

Joel remembers how Ellie had taken everything in with such childlike wonder when they’d left Boston, how a world he’d known and taken for granted had seemed so new to her. He hadn’t wanted to let her in there, wanted to define her as cargo, as the reason Tess was gone, as a means to an end.

He was different then.

Joel allows himself one more moment of reverie before he focuses again. He feels the familiar pang in his chest as he realises Sarah would have loved it here, would have been scrabbling up the nearby rocks. For just a moment he’s back in Texas, hiking with her on a weekend and nothing’s changed, nothing’s happened. He can almost see her, but he’s afraid to encourage that, too many nightmares start that way and end with her bleeding out in his arms.

Joel shakes his head, makes his way over to Old Beardy, runs his hands on the horse’s neck.

“I reckon we should make our way back now,” he says calmly.

“Yeah.” Tommy doesn’t move though; he stands there looking at Joel with a growing smirk on his lips. “So,” Tommy starts and Joel realises exactly what this is.

He’s unknowingly walked right into his brother’s set up here - patrol, getting out of Jackson.

“Just get it out your system, Tommy, ” Joel deadpans, arms folded. He should have known going to the Tipsy Bison, having a date in Jackson, would spread around town faster than a virus.

“I’m happy for you, Joel. The idea of you and Ellie putting roots down here, building a life, that’s - that’s what it was all about right? What you told me about why you -” Tommy breaks off.

They don’t talk about it.

They don’t talk about the secret Joel told Tommy only days ago on a patrol. He had to tell Tommy, had to tell someone. Tommy understood. He was worried about that, especially with the baby - he wondered if Tommy would ever forgive him for that, for condemning his niece to a world without a cure. Or maybe it’s because of her that Tommy gets it.

“I have one drink with someone and -”

“Small towns, man.”

“Didn’t miss that.”

“Nope. You’ll get used to it. She’s friends with Maria, you know?”

“No, I didn’t know that.” Joel pauses. “She’s … I don’t know, Tommy. I thought after - after Tess, after everything that was all gone for me.” He’d resigned himself to what his life could be - one better than he had expected over the past twenty years, but he hadn’t seen you in his horizon, hadn’t thought there could be a you.

“Fate works in funny ways, I guess.” Tommy pauses and looks at Joel quizzically. “I can see it, y’know.”

“See what?”

Tommy laughs. Sometimes it surprises Joel - how easy his brother seems to live now and how foreign the sound of his laugh had become to him too. Getting to Boston, surviving those years … there wasn’t much humour. There was always laughter in the house before.

He can hear Sarah’s laugh faintly even now. The way she’d almost fold herself up with laughter sometimes, shaking her head furiously.

Since Ellie, since everything over the last year, it’s like he’s bleeding Sarah everywhere.

Every memory he’d boxed up and hidden away is here now, out in the open and sometimes they feel less like a knife, or shiv, in the gut and sometimes the loss is as raw as it was the day his world fell apart. There’s always a dull ache though. That will never fade.

You’re not supposed to have to bury your kid.

He tries to shake the memory away, to bring himself back to now and this moment.

Joel’s here. He has his brother and Ellie and these delicate tendrils of a future again - Jackson, you, a chance. He’ll take that.

“So, I’ve got to ask, brother, how did you even get talking to her?”

“You sayin’ she’s out of my league?” You are, he thinks, you’re different to him, if you knew what he’s done … would you let him sit with you at night? Would you have kissed him on your porch?

Would you get it? You’re a parent, maybe you would. Or maybe you wouldn’t.

“I didn’t say that,” Tommy says, “Just she usually keeps to the library and her home mostly, and you’re not exactly a voracious reader.”

“Maybe I’ve changed.”

It’s not like Joel has ever hated reading; it’s just it’s not been a priority. Escaping into someone else’s story is a luxury when you’re fighting to make rent, to provide for the people you love. After the outbreak, it seemed fanciful, foolish even.

“Maybe you have,” Tommy says with a weight and stare that says more than his words.

Joel knows what Tommy thinks. He thinks he’s softened in age, with Ellie and Jackson. He isn’t the man of those nightmares anymore, not a hunter, not dangerous. He broke down in Jackson to his brother after all, bared his soul on his age, his deafness, his fears. He’d all but begged Tommy to take Ellie then. maybe it was about more than that - maybe he was just putting up barriers. He did it though.

Tommy’s wrong though. That man hasn’t vanished, that man hasn’t changed. He’s still there under the surface.

You can never fully exorcise those demons.

To live and survive in this world, you probably shouldn’t either.

“So, how did you get talking?” his brother asks, “How’d this start?”

Well, I met her on a bench in the middle of the night in some secret insomnia club we’ve created because hey, I’ve not slept properly in months, years even. No, Joel can’t say that to Tommy.

“We bumped into each other a few times, got to talking.”

“She seems nice, from when I’ve spoken to her and she’s been around with Maria. I can see you two gettin’ on. I mean I really thought you and Esther could have had something though -”

”She had a Victorian doll collection, Tommy. That shit was scary before the end of the world.”

“Yeah, but other than that.”

“I couldn’t get past the dolls, they were in her goddamn bedroom, staring at me …” Joel shudders at the memory. The cracked porcelain heads, faded fabrics and unblinking eyes staring at him when he didn’t want their attention. Esther was a lovely woman but there were over twenty of those dolls in her bedroom alone.

Maybe they helped her. But they sure didn’t help him.

“Okay, I get it, I get it. What if -”

“She won’t have a collection like that.” At least, Joel hopes you don’t.

“Here’s hoping. We should head on back now.”

Joel nods, shifts his backpack, and moves to get on Old Beardy.

He takes in the scene around him just a second longer.

Peace.

Maybe it’s not so far away.

Tag List

YHIM: @orcasoul @pedropascalsbbg @yoursoulsunbreakable @iamskyereads @genetics4life @everyth1ngfan @frickatives @perennialdoll247 @joelsgreys @noisynightmarepoetry @pedrobaby @noisynightmarepoetry

Everything Pedro tag-list: @harriedandharassed @pedrostories @hiroikegawa @pedrosaidsheispunk @pastelnap

#joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x female reader #joel miller #the last of us fanfiction #pedro pascal character #joel miller fanfiction #the last of us #your hand in mine fic

104 notes · View notes

actual-changeling · 1 year

Text

I found the first part of this in my drafts, dating back all the way to February (written right after episode 5 aired I believe), and I simply had to finish it. It's just a little ficlet for once, no title, nothing big. Just the missing scene where Ellie gets the hug she needs and Joel reaches an important understanding.

It's the way Ellie looks at him, Joel realizes afterward, when the bodies are buried and they're walking along overgrown rusted cars and rubble. She is a child, fourteen years old and without anyone who ever took responsibility for her. No one to raise her, protect her, give her the comfort of a parent keeping their child safe. FEDRA takes in whatever healthy children they can find (usually not even bothering with the ones that aren't) and raises them to be soldiers, to follow orders, emotional care deemed unnecessary. They're not the only ones only focusing on how to survive in a world that doesn't know a Before, only an After.

Joel remembers how it should be, though. Remembers Sarah in his arms, small and helpless, screaming for him because it was the only thing she knew how to do. He always came, every single time she cried for him he answered. There is a look of complete and unconditional trust children have for their parents, their caregivers, an acceptance of an unspoken promise.

I will take care of you.

It was the last thing he saw in Sarah's eyes before she died.

He subconsciously recognizes it in Ellie, Sam's blood spattered across the floor, her face, her clothes, and his instincts drive him to act, leaning forward to get to her without any hesitation. The same deep-seated parental fear lives on, too, it always will, and it sparks up in him again and again and again with every threat to Ellie's life. Kill the soldier, shoot the infected, keep her away from harm, get her somewhere safe. Joel would have build a new world for Sarah, brick upon brick stacked with his bare hands, but he lost her before he could try. Ellie is his second chance.

Henry stops him from getting to her, growl building in his throat, and then Henry is gone just like his brother, and Ellie's whimper echoes louder than the gun shot. Pain flares in his knees when he finally drops down next to her, arms outstretched, grasping, and she falls into him stiff with panic, eyes wide open. She is warm, alive, and Joel can feel her frantic heartbeat pounding beside his own as he cradles her against his chest. The sudden silence rings in his ears, drowned out only by the tiny, hiccuping sobs ripping through her, and Joel responds without thinking, pulling her further into his lap and gently rocking them back and forth.

Twenty years ago, he did the same covered in blood with a dead daughter in his arms, and the memory fades in and out in time with her breaths, suffocating him as a part of him expects every exhale to be her last. One of his hands comes up to cup the back of her head, fingers buried in her hair, and Joel carefully pushes her face down until it fills the space between his neck and shoulder, eyes covered and kept away from the death lingering around them. He whispers mindlessly against her scalp, less coherent words and more soothing noises, not seeking to quiet her but to provide whatever comfort he can.

They're both shaking with adrenaline and fear, and Ellie clings to him so tightly their tremors are one and the same, her fingers clawing at his shirt, nails digging into his back. His skin is wet with her tears and Joel can't help but press his lips to her temple in a desperate attempt to help her calm down, previous resistance gone. All of his walls and defenses shattered the second she screamed his name so loudly her voice broke, begging him to safe her, and no matter how much he denies it, he will always be a father at heart. Joel needs a purpose, a reason to keep going, to let a child cry in his arms because he is the only thing standing between her and the world, committed to shielding her from whatever horrors he can as long as he is alive.

Ellie trusted him and he failed her today.

In-between sobs, she quietly whimpers his name like a chant, asking him to take away a pain he knows she shouldn't have to bear, aching with the awareness that she will never be the same after all she had to endure.

Joel soothes his hand along her spine, rubbing circles up and down her back, and he makes a promise to himself, to her, to Sarah's memory on his wrist.

He won't let another daughter die.

#alex writes tlou #the last of us #tlou #joel and ellie #tlou episode 5 #joel miller #ellie williams #ellie needs a hug #and she gets it #hurt/comfort #mentions of sarah because im mean #cause that is apparently all i know how to write but boy do i love doing it #anyway do you think joel ever managed to get sam and henry's blood out of her clothes #or did she walk around with whats left of them on her for like three months #also tentatively working on the requests i got but pls feel free to send more

38 notes · View notes

whump-tr0pes · 4 years

Text

HB4-32/Whumptober day 12

Honor Bound 4 - 32 (I Should Have Been Better) - @badthingshappenbingo

Requested for Ellis by anon

This is a series. Start here, continued from here.

This is a sequel to Honor Bound, Honor Bound 2, Honor Bound 3, and Vera.

AO3

Masterlist

Content warning: Welp, blowing through another boundary of mine today. Wheeeee. Read the fucking warning: gun violence, Ellis’s dead family, murder as revenge, suicidal ideations and gestures, death thoughts, human trafficking, dehumanization, the syndicates really are just awful people ok, noncon mention, DEATH OF A MINOR (who also happens to be a terrible person), blood, gendered slurs, thievery, starvation mention, income inequality, poverty, government takeover, emesis

Note: I do not show Ellis’s family’s deaths

Years ago

In the concealment of the near-darkness behind a dumpster, Ellis stood perfectly still. A light mist fell from the sky, dampening the hood over their head, casting their face in shadow.

Their hand wrapped tightly around the gun shoved deep into the pocket of their jacket. They rubbed their thumb gently against the edge of the trigger guard, the cold metal comforting them. Back, forth. Back, forth. The gun was what brought them peace, brought them justice. Every time they used it.

They tipped their head back and shivered at the cold mist of water on their face. They were soaked to the bone, now, having been standing in the shadow of that alley for hours. Waiting. Just waiting.

They weren’t sure why they still wore a hood. Maybe it made them feel safer, feel more anonymous. Maybe it made them braver, during the muggings.

It didn’t really matter, in the end. No one survived their muggings anyway. Just a simple crime gone wrong, everyone would think. ‘Who could do this? What kind of monster?’ they all probably thought.

I’m the monster you made when you murdered my family.

Eight months. For eight months, they’d been alone, walking through the world feeling their family’s blood smeared on their skin, the smell as strong as if the blood really did cling to their clothes. For eight months they’d been tormented by their own mind when it supplied how much their family must have screamed and suffered. And now… Christopher was gone, Chloe and Galen were… were gone, but every day their deaths stung like a new wound. Stabbed in the heart, over and over and over. They murdered Ellis that day, too. They just weren’t dead yet.

The muggings were the only thing that made them sane. They were the only thing that brought them back from that edge, when they’d find the gun in their hand and pointed at their own head. Doing this was the only thing that kept the voice in their head quiet enough to be ignored, the voice that urged them to drink enough that they wouldn’t wake up, to step out into traffic, to pull the trigger on themself. The muggings were what kept them alive.

And yet… they couldn’t make themself think of them as executions. If anything, they were retribution, tilting the scales of the world a little more balanced. Ellis couldn’t find justice for their family, so they’d settle by bringing justice to the people who murdered them.

They’d been standing in the alley for hours. They couldn’t risk doing this in a well-travelled location. The point was dread. The point was fear, the syndicate fuckers finding their people’s bodies in alleys and empty parking lots. If Ellis could make them feel just a sliver of the fear that the syndicates themselves created in the world, then it might be enough. If they killed enough syndicate people, it might eventually be enough.

Not yet, though. Nothing was enough yet.

Footsteps echoed down the alley. Two sets.

Two dead motherfuckers. They’d never tried to take two before. The gun in their hand had taken three lives, each one a lone syndicate member, confident in their ownership of the world. Never watching their backs.

These two would be the same. Walking down an alleyway in the north end of town, without their bodyguards. They probably thought they owned the fucking place.

Fuck, they kinda do.

Ellis slowly, carefully pulled the gun out of their pocket. They crouched so the dumpster would conceal them for just a moment longer, waiting for the two fuckers to walk past it, so Ellis could—

They froze as they heard one of them speak.

“I don’t understand why we had to go this way, mom. The clinic is just—”

“Yes, darling, the clinic is that way. But your father told you specifically not to use the belt on her again. If the clinic can get her healthy again before your father returns from his trip, then it’ll be a lovely little secret between us both. But if your father’s security sees you in and out of the clinic into which his plaything disappeared…” A sigh. “Really, Aaron. I would have thought we both taught you how to handle a whipping better than this.”

That’s right. They’re taking people off the streets now, people who piss the syndicates off, or just look too damn pretty or maybe bleed too damn well, whatever the fuck that means… Ellis bit their lip and let the rage stir inside them, rise to the surface, and it never had far to go. Rumors of disappearances had been slowly becoming fact, just a part of life now that everyone knew but did nothing about. Everyone had at least one story of someone they knew, or someone who knew someone they knew, disappearing one day, poof, gone. Only to wind up in some fucking dumpster or the bottom of the river, with marks of abuse and torture that made Ellis’s stomach turn. They couldn’t go a week without hearing another report of someone who’d gone missing months or years ago turning up dead, covered in scars, and branded.

Poor fucks. It’s slavery, it’s fucking torture and these lunatics call it playing.

The man – it sounded like a young man, and the woman spoke to him with a long-suffering air – drew closer to Ellis’s hiding spot. Their shoes clicked on the wet cement, his a low, resounding sound and hers a high, delicate one. Ellis could hear the soft hiss of rain is it fell on his coat. Their hand tightened around the gun and they blew a slow, silent breath out through their open mouth.

“Maybe I wouldn’t have whipped the fucking thing if you gave me one of my own. Everyone my age—”

“You can have one when you’ve proven you can properly maintain one, darling. If you continue to break your father’s toys—”

Vile, bitter rage swept through Ellis. They stepped out of the shadows.

The woman gasped and jumped back, looking down her nose at Ellis like they were… trash. Scum. Looking like Ellis like they were the type of thing she could take, use up, and dispose of and think nothing of it.

The young man, on the other hand, looked at Ellis with a burning hunger in his eyes. He looked eighteen, maybe twenty. A shock of pale blond hair was dampened and flat against his head, the exact same shade as his mother’s. Each of them wore a long coat with the collar pulled up against the cold wind and rain, each costing more than Ellis had had to eat in the past month.

“Step aside,” the woman said primly, but Ellis could hear her voice was trembling. Ellis raised the gun and her eyes went wide, fixed on the barrel. Her son fell back a step and then froze, and the terror on his face was…

Ellis swallowed dryly. If they could stare at the terror in his eyes for the rest of their life, it still wouldn’t be long enough.

“Wh-what…” The woman shuddered and her eyes flicked up to Ellis’s face. For a moment a chill of fear drew a cold finger down their back.

She’s never going to tell anyone what I look like.

The boy finally moved and Ellis slowly moved the gun to point at him. He shifted forward a half step, drawing closer to his mother… and then stepping in front of her.

“Aaron, no,” she whimpered, but she was frozen with fear. Ellis may as well have been pinning her down.

“M-mom,” he said, his hands shaking, before he drew himself upright, glaring Ellis down. They could see the mantle of power he was trying to draw around him, could see him struggling to be in control.

That’s who the syndicates were. Constantly in control.

“B-back off,” the boy said, and Ellis laughed in his face.

“You one of those fucks who plays with people?” they sneered, their hand tightening around the gun. “You one of those sick fucks that tortures people? You kill people, kid? Rape people?”

All at once, the fear dropped away, and malicious, arrogant self-satisfaction rushed up to replace it. The boy’s face became a mask of contempt. “They’re not people by the time I’m done with them, you fucking—”

BANG.

The bullet punched through the boy’s chest and flung him back against his mother. She screamed as blood spattered her face and they both slumped to the wet pavement.

“AARON!” she shrieked as he fell on top of her, pinning her under his weight. He choked for a moment, his eyes rolling sightlessly in his head before he convulsed, once, and died on top of his mother.

The woman wailed in horror as Ellis took a step closer, her fingers digging into the thick wool of his coat. “Aaron, NO!” She sobbed raggedly and looked up to Ellis. Ellis took another step forward until they were standing just beside the mother. Hate blazed in her eyes, and grief, and everything else that had made a home inside Ellis since their children were taken from them.

How does it feel, syndicate fucker?

“You killed him!” she sobbed. “You… you fucking bitch, you fucking… creature! I will tear you apart!”

Her pain filled them up, fed them. Their skin was on fire with it.

The woman screamed helplessly, and even through the rain, Ellis could smell the puddle of blood that was rapidly spilling out over the ground. Her face twisted in her agony and her voice echoed off the walls of the alley. “I will kill you! I WILL KILL YOU!”

“Naw, don’t think so,” Ellis said, and held the gun to the woman’s head. They watched her eyes as they pulled the trigger.

The bullet tore through the woman’s head and her skull slammed against the rain-slicked pavement. Blood colored the water.

Ellis’s bones ached with vicious retribution. Their hands shook as they tucked the gun back into their jacket. They couldn’t tear their eyes away from the woman lying splayed on the ground, pinned underneath her son. Her son, who not thirty seconds earlier had been talking about whipping some poor woman somewhere half to death just because he wanted his own “toy”.

There’s no hell deep enough for you people.

Ellis knelt down to complete the last part of their ritual. They slid a hand inside the boy’s coat and pulled out a cell phone and his wallet – and took the gold watch from his wrist as well. Then they heaved the boy off his mother like he was so much dead weight. Ellis pocketed the woman’s wallet, too. They stood and looked over the two dead syndicate members, their stomach starting to heave with the smell of blood, the sight of the dead, soulless eyes. It always came, after. The sickness. They refused to think of it as guilt. They turned and ran.

Rain pattered on the top of their hood, spraying their face, clearing their mind. Slowly, the bloodlust faded from their body. Slowly, they became human again, not the monster the syndicates had made. They ran across intersections, barely looking to see if the cars had stopped. They passed street signs, lights, restaurants that sold steaks covered in fucking gold while people starved just outside. The embargoes the syndicates had put on the cities were more like a siege. Only food, fuel, and medical supplies destined for syndicate homes, syndicate people, were allowed in. Everything else – you better fucking pray you have a good connection in the black market. Six weeks, it had been like this, and would be until the mayor decided to step down and give in to the syndicates’ demands.

They ran until their legs ached and their lungs burned. They ran until they didn’t know where they were anymore.

They slowed to a stop, leaning hard against the gray, featureless wall of an industrial building. They couldn’t hear the rush of traffic anymore. They heard only the dim hum of electricity, and the distant clanking of heavy machinery. The slid down the wall and sat with their back against it, rain soaking through the seat of their pants. They pulled out the wallets and looked through them.

The woman – Sherise Lawton, according to her ID – had three different credit cards tucked into the folds of her wallet. A picture was tucked into one pocket, one of her, her son, and a man Ellis assumed was her husband. It was an old picture. The kid looked barely ten years old. Ellis swallowed hard against a sudden wave of nausea and moved on.

A membership card to an exclusive gym downtown. A business card for an interior decorator. A receipt that had been handled so many times Ellis couldn’t make out what it was for. Six thousand units of… something, in cash. Ellis didn’t recognize the money. Ice clutched their chest, just another piece of evidence that the syndicates were taking everything: the government, the money, the schools, their fucking safety.

Safety doesn’t matter anymore. Everything I ever wanted to keep safe is gone.

Ellis pocketed the money and tossed the rest of it down the sidewalk. They opened the boy’s wallet.

They never looked past the first pocket. They pulled out the boy’s ID, his picture smiling, proud, excited.

Galen and Chloe could have had this. They could have had their first driver’s license, too. They shivered and pressed their hand to their mouth. Their eyes suddenly burned.

Their eyes flicked to the boy’s birth date. May 24, 2006.

It felt like a fist twisted in Ellis’s gut. Frantically, they tried to think of what day it was… but they could barely think of the year. Their heart pounded in their chest and their hands shook as they clutched the ID card.

2022. It’s 2022.

This boy was sixteen years old.

The ID fell from Ellis’s grip as they crumpled back against the wall, their chest heaving with sobs. He was sixteen. He was sixteen and I killed him. I murdered a sixteen-year-old. Ellis smashed their fist against their mouth, trying to muffle the strangled sobs that came from deep inside them.

Across town, a few miles away, there was a sixteen-year old kid lying dead in an alley with his blood staining his mother’s clothes. With a bullet from Ellis’s gun buried in his chest. Ellis lurched forward and vomited up everything they’d eaten that day, and kept heaving, choking as nothing came up but sour bile. They slumped onto their knees and covered their head with their arms, shaking violently, as the world lurched sickeningly around them. The rain fell harder, soaking their clothes.

Continued here

@untilthepainstarts, @womping-grounds, @free-2bmee, @quirkykayleetam, @walkingchemicalfire, @inpainandsuffering, @redwingedwhump, @burtlederp, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog, @whatwhumpcomments, @cursedscribbles, @whumpywhumper, @stxck-fxck, @omega-em-z-02, @whumps-the-word, @justwhumpitwhumpitgood, @justplainwhump, @moose-teeth, @slaintetowhump, @finder-of-rings, @inky-whump, @thatsthewhump, @orchidscript, @insanitywishes, @this-mightaswell-happen, @newandfiguringitout, @whumpkitty, @pretty-face-breaker, @cinnamonflavoredhugs, @inaridriscoll, @im-just-here-for-the-whump, @endless-whump, @grizzlie70, @oops-its-whump

43 notes · View notes

ranger-report · 4 years

Text

Opinion: JURASSIC WORLD Learned Nothing From JURASSIC PARK

Twenty-seven years ago (god, can you believe it?) a sci-fi blockbuster with Things To Say exploded into cinemas. Tackling the subject of science, control, and whether or not man should play God, it also featured state-of-the-art special effects, intense sequences of dinosaur action, and just enough human heart to win audiences over. Of course we’re talking about Jurassic Park. It’s a monumental film that still holds up today, even as the effects are finally starting to show their age. It’s a deep shame that the sequel series, Jurassic World, has learned nothing from it. If anything, World is very much a reaction to Park...and not in a good way.

The first three films in the Park series all dealt with questions of science and progress, and what responsibility man has to the things he creates. Sure, The Lost World and Jurassic Park III weren’t nearly as deft in the handling of these themes as the first film, but they maintained the same spirit. Jurassic Park asked whether or not mankind had the right to resurrect a dead species for their amusement; The Lost World carried this over, asking how much responsibility man should have in maintaining this resurrected species’s existence; Jurassic Park III insinuated that man could still finds things to learn from these science-born dinosaurs even if they weren’t the real deal. Science was the forefront in these stories, perhaps to diminishing results, but at least Science maintained a consistent role of moral gray area. Park III is considered the low point of the series, a brisk hour-and-a-half of rollercoaster excitement with goofy moments and lightweight human drama, but even that film conjures impressive moments of dinosaur action and awe, including a river sequence where Dr. Alan Grant, finding himself returned to this world he vowed to disavow, discovers he still has reverence for the giant beasts that roam this island, and maybe doesn’t hate them as much as he lays claim. The scene in the aviary with the pterodactyls is particularly effective, using shadow and light and fog and height to add tension and terror. No, it’s no masterpiece, and if you detest the film, I don’t blame you. But detesting that film is what led to the existence of Jurassic World, which claims to hold the same ideals as the first series, but none of the actual heft.

Jurassic World starts off with an interesting premise: what if Jurassic Park had actually opened to the public and was a success? This is a great hook, sure, but with everything that has come before in the first three movies, this isn’t something that should have ever come to pass. But, movie needs to movie. We have questions of whether or not science should be creating these creatures, whether or not they have the right to experiment with DNA and create “new” dinosaurs that are bigger meaner and badder than regular dinosaurs, questions of corporate influence. As with the first Park, World plays the same beats: everything is great, people are coming to visit and inspect certain aspects, everything goes wrong, dinosaurs get loose, people start dying. World turns the scale up to 11 since now we have an entire amusement park full of people instead of a small group of survivors, meaning bigger thrills, bigger sequences, bigger dinosaurs. Everything is bigger, including the science, but while it’s bigger it’s also hollow. Nostalgia and references to past films can’t fill the void that the film builds around this premise we’ve seen before. I admit that when I walked out of the theater the first time, I was happy. After the letdown of Park III, World felt exciting and invigorating and fresh. Then I watched it a few more times, and the sheen began to vanish. Stilted dialogue, characters with little charm, obvious setups, contrived danger, and an obvious sequel bait ending revealed the true corporate influence of the film: franchising. Meanwhile, Science and Nature were still adversaries in this new series of dino-centric films, but Science became less of a gray area, less of a “How much right do we have?” and dialed into a “Science Is Evil And Scientists Do Evil Things For Money.” Meanwhile, Nature, which is true neutral in the first three films (just don’t fuck around with Nature and you won’t get bit), has become the True Good Guy, and instead of seeing the fear of messing with Nature, now we see how Nature is being oppressed by Science, and so we should begin to empathize with our friendly dinosaur foes.

And what about those sequels? Both The Lost World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom start with the premise that Something Has Survived and opens with dire situations. One involves a family on a beach who stumble across dinosaurs, the other involves corporate espionage gone horribly awry when they underestimate the prehistoric menace around them. Both are tense, well-shot, and arguably Kingdom’s sequence is the best opening scene in the series. And both films move forward from there, revealing the dinosaurs are still alive (Lost World explains a second island called Site B, Fallen Kingdom simply continues the tale), getting Jeff Goldblum involved, and asking what responsibility the creators have for their creations. But the key difference between the films is that Fallen Kingdom asks the audience to have empathy and sympathy for the dinosaurs of the island -- most of them, in fact, excepting the genetic mutations crafted and grown by the park scientists. Blue, a raptor introduced in the first World, is the reason Chris Pratt’s Owen goes back to the island to help rescue the creatures from imminent death. He formed a bond with the raptor from birth, and the dinosaur -- of a species that once was the scariest goddamn thing in cinema -- is reduced to little more than a pet with big teeth and claws. The Lost World shows us that Nature is scary, and when Science believes that it can control Nature then Life Will Find A Way (remember that line?). Dinosaurs in the first three Park films are forces of Nature, and if left alone will leave you alone. But Nature doesn’t take kindly to intruders: see literally every scene in The Lost World. Even the big leaf-eaters are dangerous and scary when uncaged and scared. Fallen Kingdom makes the big ask of the audience to see the dinosaurs as on-par with the human characters, to have empathy for them. And while, to an extent, we should have empathy for Living Things, Fallen Kingdom goes so far as to spare the lives of dinosaurs brought to the mainland rather than let them die so they don’t get released into the world of humans. Which, if you’ve seen The Lost World, is kind of a bad thing. Many people reacted poorly to the T-Rex roaming through San Diego searching for its young, and Fallen Kingdom decides to not only go with that same premise, but ups the ante by unleashing several species out into the human world, this time a cliffhanger. In fact, the upcoming third film, Jurassic World: Dominion rests entirely on this premise, and will no doubt focus on attempting to contain the prehistoric creatures roaming through suburbia. But how can we, the audience, even take this seriously when we’ve been asked to have empathy with the dinosaurs now? If these creatures are now characters, toys to be sold and displayed on children’s coloring books, exactly how deadly can they -- or will they -- be?

Dominion already appears to be making similar decisions as Jurassic Park III, by including Sam Neill and Laura Dern as Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler respectively. And in continuing to funhouse-mirror the previous trilogy, now instead of a dinosaur island that is strictly off-limits to humans we have dinosaurs in the human world. Both sequels were primed as rollercoasters, introducing new creatures and thrills, and no doubt Dominion will make the same mistakes as Park III and the other World films. But Park III at least remembered that the focus of the show is the big bad dinos, how uncontrollable they are, how scary they are, and how Nature is a force unto itself. Alan Grant learned by the end of Park III that the raptors he was researching in his studies were similar enough to the raptors of Site B that he could find a way to communicate with them to a degree of saving everyone’s lives. He had turned his nose at the Science of the creations, not recognizing the Nature that still existed in their modified DNA. What will he learn -- or unlearn -- in Dominion?

The Jurassic Park films were all about asking questions. “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should,” Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm says in the first film, to great effect. Meanwhile, Jurassic World’s tagline could be summed up as “The scientists never should and they are still doing it.” Where we were asked to think in the first films, now we can sit back and be told the moral. We can just watch the onscreen drama as Things Happen and People Get Eaten. Jurassic World learned the wrong things from Jurassic Park, and to that effect, perhaps the filmmakers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could make a new Jurassic film that they didn’t stop to think if they should.

#jurassic park #the lost world #jurassic park iii #jurassic world #fallen kingdom #dominion #steven spielberg #colin trevorrow #dinosaurs #film #opinion #universal pictures #ck burch #rubyranger #ranger report

25 notes · View notes

p4nkow · 5 years

Text

You take my breath away - part V

i swear i’m alive! it feels like it takes me forever to finish a chapter but finally here it is. there’s going to be some tea ☕️ in the next part so stay tuned! what do you guys think it’s gonna happen? let me know your speculations in my inbox or in my dms, i’d love to read what you guys think

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV

Summary: reader has always dreamt of being an actress and she gets the chance of a lifetime when she’s cast as Dominique Beyrand in the infamous biopic about the legend himself, Freddie Mercury. But what will happen when she gets to know better the man who plays his love interest in the movie, Roger Taylor? Will Ben and Y/N’s story be as lucky as the one of characters they portray or will they be starcrossed lovers? Because it happens that things might get complicated because of Ellie, Ben’s long-term girlfriend.

Enjoy and pls, please!, let me know what you think

June 2nd, 2018 – London

Today was the day — the fateful moment had arrived. Finally, after almost a year of work, you and your cast mates were starting to promote BoRhap. You had no idea how to handle all the interviews and trips to other countries and the sudden notoriety you’d have gained, but you were grateful for one particular thing — being away from Ben.

No matter how many times you lied to Lucy, Joe and even to yourself, the truth was that you were starting to feel something for him. And he was just using you to forget his ex girlfriend. You wanted to kill all the butterflies you felt in your stomach every time you heard his name.

“I just thought of what I want to make my New Year's Resolution!” You couldn’t help but give Joe a confused look. Was he really talking about New Year’s Resolutiomm on June?

“Buddy I think you’re a bit late for this”, You pointed out with a small laugh. It was just you, him and Rami waiting in the backstage. The rest of the cast was still getting ready and luckily you hadn’t seen Ben yet. You knew he was there, Joe had told you, but that didn’t mean you had to talk to him.

“There’s still at least the 60% percent of the year left.” You couldn’t tell if Rami was being serious or not. You limited yourself to look at him with an amused smile and you started to think about his situation — you couldn’t have the slightest idea of all the pressure he was under. Now that the award season was about to start his life would’ve been a nightmare. You just hoped he’d get all the recognition he deserves for his hard work.

You zoned out from the conversation as soon as you heard your phone buzzing, sign that you’d received a message. It was from Laura, your best friend, and it was a link to an article. You narrowed your brows, confused by that sudden and unexplained message, and you opened the link. You gasped in surprise as soon as you read the headline:

“Is Ben Hardy single? Let’s take a look at the 'Bohemian Rhapsody' star’s love life.”

You froze in your chair just by reading that sentence only. Joe and Rami were still chatting in the background as you took a deep breath, trying to summon up the courage to keep reading the article.

“Is he single or not? That is certainly one of the undeniable questions on the mind of viewers who can’t wait to watch the hit biographical film Bohemian Rhapsody. So, we're all wondering, is Ben Hardy single? Hardy recently got out of a longtime relationship but he could’ve already found a new love. In fact he was spotted while leaving Y/N Y/L/N’s house. The new star of Hollywood is his costar in the upcoming movie and we’re all wondering if their relationship in front of the cameras led the two actors into something completely different and deeper.”

“What the fuck!” Your tone was louder than expected and you gained a confused look by Joe.

“Is everything alright?”

You quickly stood up from your chair as Lucy joined the three of you and you took deep breaths to calm down. She noticed something was off by the way you looked at her, so she completely ignored the boys and asked “What’s wrong?”

“Where’s Ben?” It was a matter you had to deal with him and with him only. Her lips parted in confusion and she slightly shook her head, vaguely gesturing towards the hallway. “He’s still in the dressing room.”

You gave her a quick nod and you ignored her questions, walking past her through the hallway. You were so bloody mad — deep down you knew it wasn’t Ben fault, but you didn’t want to be known just as Ben’s new love.

So as soon as you arrived in front of the dressing room, you started to knock on the closed door. “Just a minute!” Ben’s voice came muffled but his words didn’t stop you from knocking even more insistently. “Bloody hell!”

Not even ten seconds later the door swung open and a very shirtless Ben stood in front of you. Your lips parted in surprise — you didn’t see that coming. You forced yourself to move his gaze from his bare chest to his face, locking your eyes into his.

26 days.

You hadn’t seen his beautiful eyes in twenty-six days and only now that he was right in front of you, you realised how much you missed him. It was like receiving a punch in the stomach but you forced yourself to focus back on th reason why you were there.

“What the fuck is this?” You placed your phone right in front of his face and his brows became more and more narrowed as he read the article. He took your phone from your hand and by doing so his hand touched yours. You missed his touch so bloody much that it almost gave you the goosebumps.

“I have no idea”, He replied in a low voice while keep reading the article. “I hadn’t noticed the paparazzi.”

“This is bullshit!” He gave you a confused look and took a step towards you.

“Why are you so mad? It isn’t like there’s written something so outrageous!”

You couldn’t believe his words. “It is for me! That’s one of the thing I feared the most — being objectified for a relationship.”

“You’re not being objectified.” Ben’s tone was as loud as yours, the two of you yelling st each other by now. “And we’re not in a relationship.”

You couldn’t deny that his words hurt you deeply and that’s why you blinked a couple of times, a knot forming in your throat as you fought the tears. “You’re right, we aren’t.”

He seemed to realise the impact his words had on you and his features relaxed a bit. He pursed his lips and he was about to say something when the two of you were interrupted by a newcomer. “What the hell is going on?”

Callie was looking at the two of you with her brows more narrowed than ever. That’s probably because the two of you were arguing ten minutes before a very important interview for your careers.

You sighed deeply and nodded towards Ben, who extended your phone to Callie for her to read the article. There was a weird silence between the three of you for a couple of seconds and then Callie’s gaze met yours. You couldn’t read the look in her eyes but you had a bad feeling about it.

“Well this might be useful.” To say that you were shocked at her words was an understatement.

“‘m sorry?” You squeaked and moved your gaze to Ben.

He’d placed his hands on his hips and he shrugged as soon as he met your gaze. “Tell her that it isn’t.”

“Listen, Y/N”, Callie started. “This might be a good publicity for the movie and for your career.”

“I don’t care, it’s my privacy we’re talking about!”

“Y/N”, Ben said but you gave him a death stare. “Don’t you dare”, You murmured in a low tone, pointing a finger at him. You heard him sighing deeply as you turned again towards Callie and she pursed her lips.

“Listen”, She said after inhaling deeply, holding her papers against her chest. “Y/N, I’m not saying that you should fake-date or something like that, ‘kay?”

“Then what?” You placed both your hands on your hips and you looked at her with your eyes narrowed.

Callie sighed again, giving a quick look at the hallway on her right. You could tell she was torn and Ben was surprisingly quiet. “I'm just saying that if the two of you were spotted spending some time together without confirming or denying anything, it'd be incredibly useful to your careers. Y/N, you just made it to Broadway and Ben, you're in a Michael Bay's movie!”

You immediately looked at Ben, hoping he'd say something to get that insane idea out of Callie's mind, but he limited himself to stare at the ground. Was he okay with all that nonsense? “So you're suggesting for us to pretend we're dating?”

“I'm just saying”, Callie urged to reply. “That yeah, you should spend some time together without confirming or denying anything. Let medias do their job.”

“I can't believe it”, You murmured under your breath, avoiding their gaze and turning your back at the two of them. But then a thought popped up in your mind. “What if I'm dating someone?”

Ben coughed and when you finally decided to look at him, he was already looking at you with his brows raised in surprise. “Are you?”

“Don't you think I knew if she were?”, Callie quickly replied and gave you a death stare. "Listen, it's just an idea. 'm gonna look for Emma— Ben's manager needs to be involved, too. Just... don't go anywhere." She pointed her index finger at you before walking away, her heels echoing in the hallway.

What did you get yourself into?

Ben's green eyes met yours again and you shook your head in disbelief before walking past him and sitting on one of the chairs in the dressing room.

He followed you and as much as he wanted to say something – anything – both of you remained quiet for a while. You watched him, though — the way his toned back muscles moved as he hurried to wear a white shirt.

“This is bullshit”, You said in the exact same moment he murmured “Congrats, anyway.”

You gave him a little smile and before you could say anything he added “You first.”

“This isn't right, Ben.” You desperately wanted him to really think about that story. “What does Ellie think of it?”

As soon as you pronounced the girl's name, Ben turned towards you. “It's over with Ellie, you know that.”

“Yeah, right.” You clicked your tongue and looked away. You heard Ben sighing deeply while trying to put on a leather jacket.

“Y/N, what happened—”

“Forget about it, Ben”, You quickly interrupted him, and you couldn't help but chuckle when you heard him swearing under his breath while struggling with the collar.

You stood up and walked towards him, driving away his hands as he sighed deeply. You gently fixed the collar of the jacket and you could feel his green eyes staring at you. “Are you?” His voice was low and your bodies were so close that you could easily smell his cologne.

“What?” You raised your gaze to meet his and it was like receiving a punch in the stomach. You missed the intimacy you had but you also knew it was all a lie.

“Dating someone else.”

You bit your lower lip at his words, looking away from him and taking a step back. The odds were in your favour and before you could answer him, the door swung open.

“Aaron called.” Callie entered the room followed by Ben's manager, Emma, and extended you your phone.

“And?” You unlocked it just to make sure there were no unread texts.

“And I told him you were already doing the interview. Now let's talk about serious things.”

“Who's Aaron?” Ben asked, stepping in the conversation.

“Y/N's costar in Moulin Rouge.” By hearing Callie's words Ben looked at you and by the look in his eyes and the way his features tensed up, you could tell he'd misunderstood everything. Still, you said nothing to make things clear.

The super fast meeting in the dressing room didn't go as you expected and that's why, an hour later, you were leaning against Ben's arm, which was placed on the back of the sofa.

That's the reason why Lucy was looking at you in disbelief— if stares could kill Ben'd be already dead. She was assisting at the interview from behind the scenes – you'd been divided in two groups and casually you ended up in the same group as Ben and Joe.

“What's your favorite Queen song that hasn't been included in the movie?”

Ben clicked his tongue at the interviewer's question while you exchanged a look with Joe. “I still haven't seen the final cut 'cause I haven't been able to do it – is '39 included?”, Ben asked the two of you.

You limited yourself to shake your head 'no' and Joe murmured “No, it isn't.”

Ben pursed his lips and have you a quick look before looking back at the man sitting right in front of you. “I'd say '39, then. We had a lot of fun while filming it – we played it in Japan and that for me was one of my favorite days of filming.”

You tried to stay focused on his words but it wasn't easy at all given that his body was pressed against yours. Your left shoulder was leaning against his chest and your thigh was right against his.

You focused back on the interview when the man called your name. “What's yours, Y/N?”

“Uhm – I'd say It's late. It's a song written by Brian and I've loved it since the very first time I've heard it. Love the meaning, the tune, the guitar solo... everything.” The interviewer seemed to be satisfied with your answer and he proceeded to ask Joe the same question.

You lifted your chin yo meet Ben's eyes – you were terrified. That was your first interview ever and you were bloody nervous about it. Ben noticed it by the look in your eyes and he gently squeezed your shoulder, giving you a tight smile. Despite everything that happened between you two, you were grateful to have him by your side.

July 13th, 2018 - New York

“I swear, it's just a few blocks away.” Joe's words came muffled from the phone as he tried to convince you to have lunch together.

“Joe I swear to God that if I have to walk—"

“Oh, c'mon! Trust me!”

“You sighed, giving a quick look at the traffic light – red light, of course. You loved the atmosphere that characterised New York. Everyone seemed busy, lost in their own thoughts and minding their own business. Not to mention the incredible buildings that surrounded you.

You missed London like the desert misses the rain but you wouldn't complain if you had to move to the Big Apple.

“Okay, fine.” How could you say no to Joe? You heard him saying something in an excited tone but you didn't pay attention to him — you'd gotten the notification that Ben was trying to call you.

“Joe, gotta go.” You didn't like to interrupt people while they were talking but you weren't much sensible when it came to Ben.

“Why?”, He protested. As soon as the traffic light became green you hurried to walk across the street.

You took a deep breath, telling him the first lie that came to your mind. “Aaron's calling me, I'm late for rehearsal.” You we're starting to become a proper liar, geez.

After promising him to meet him in a few hours, you hung up and called back Ben. Three blasts later, he picked up the phone. “Hey, love.”

“Y/N”, You corrected him. He had no right to call you that. Not after everything that happened.

“Hey, Y/N”, He repeated as if he was mocking you and you sighed deeply.

“Hi, Benjamin. Hey, excuse me! Watch where you're going.” A mid-aged lady had hit you and you had almost lost your balance in the middle of the street.

“What?” Ben was clearly confused and amused at the same time by your words.

“Sorry, that wasn't for you.” You noticed the theatre in the distance and you slightly smiled, feeling the adrenaline that only the stage gave you. All the recognitions in Hollywood were nothing compared to the theatre.

“Are you in New York?” You heard a thud and Ben swore under his breath.

“Yeah, I'm going to work. What the hell are you doing?”

“Almost broke my neck – damned wires.” You chuckled and you shook your head in amusement.

The door of the theatre was so heavy that it took you almost a whole minute to open it. “There's a reason for your call or—”

“Uhm...” Ben seemed almost nervous and it made you smile.

You gave a nod to one of the members of the crew and he smiled at you. The sound of your boots echoed in the hallway and the more you approached the stage the more exited you were. “I was thinking...”

“Yeah?”

“I'm gonna be in Italy next week and I've got some time off between a shot and the other.”

“Uh-uh. Hi everyone!”, You said as you entered the backstage room, waving at those presents.

“Would you like to come with me?”, Ben continued. You narrowed your brows at his question while you put away your bag and your jacket.

“To Italy?” His request took you off guard.

“Y/N, rehearsals start in five.” You turned towards Aaron by hearing his words. His dark blonde hair was longer than Ben's, even its shade was very different. He gave you a polite smile and you immediately noticed the laugh lines around his eyes.

“Yeah, coming”, You quickly replied and focused back on Ben as he asked “Was that Adam? Yeah, anyway. To Italy.”

He seemed a bit... annoyed by Aaron? Who knows.

“It's Aaron, Ben.”

“Whatever.”

You shook your head in amusement and sighed deeply. “Listen, Ben. I don't know...”

“Callie told me you won't be working in those days.” Why did he care so much anyway?

“I'll think about it. Gotta go now.”

You heard Ben sighing deeply and you closed your eyes, thinking about his request. Was it really the right thing to do?

And those thoughts led you to your next question. “Why should I accept?” You didn't mean to sound rude or anything but you weren't in a good relationship at the moment. “It's not like we're together or anything.”

Ben stood quiet for a few seconds and you checked if he had hung up. “Just thought it might help us with all that paparazzi-thing.”

It's not like you were expecting a different explanation -- maybe something that involved feelings, y'know -- but man, that hurt.

“Yeah”, You whispered before clearing hour throat. “I— uhm... I'll think about it.” And with that you hung up. After almost a month from when the decision was madeX you still didn't like at all that story about medias and paparazzi. You didn't want to pretend to be someone you weren't, not even when it came to Ben.

July 20th, 2018 - Florence

It was like being free again, after months of oppression. Italy felt like home and being able to visit it to often was a gift.

You raised your chin, your gaze slipping through all the historical monuments around you before focusing back on Brunelleschi's Dome. A masterpiece. And for the first time after days loosing sleep because of it; you didn't regret accepting Ben's proposal.

Ben. He was standing right on the Dome, held by strings for his safety. He was gesturing towards the window and you could barely see him because of the height.

“Pretty scary, huh?” Emma leaned towards you, her words were just whispers as she spoke to you.

“Yeah.” And you were amazed by what a terrific actor Ben was. You already knew that — after all you'd worked with him — but it was nice to see him in another role rather than Roger.

“He never said anything about it but he misses you.” It took you a few seconds to process her words. You moved your gaze to her and she was already staring at you with a brow raised and a mischievous smile on her face.

You limited yourself to give her a nod — you had no idea what to say because the truth was that you bloody missed him too. And Emma knew it. “I can see it in your eyes. You miss him too.”

“I'm still mad at him.” The director gave you two a death stare but Emma didn't seem to care.

“You can be mad at someone and still miss them.” And you wondered if she was right.

When almost half an hour later Ben was done with the filming, he approached you with a big smile. It was like nothing ever happened between the two of you, like if the events of your birthday were long forgotten.

And when he hugged you, holding you tight, all you could see when you closed your eyes and sighed was the look in his eyes when he spotted you right next to Emma. It was so overwhelming that it woke the butterflies in your stomach.

His nose touched your neck and that touch was so gentle that it gave you goosebumps. You held him tighter, smiling at the feeling of his body against yours. “Hey.”

He backed away and now his face was right in front of yours. “Hey. How was the flight?”

“It was good, yeah.” His face was dirty, purposely covered in mud for the filming. But that didn't mean he didn't look handsome as hell.

“You okay? Wanna get some rest?” His concern made you smile and you shook your head 'no' at his question.

“Ben, I'm fine.” His hand slipped through your arm and you took a step back. It wasn't good for you to be this close to him.

“Ben, you're done for the day. Good job, now get some rest.” The director approached him and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

Ben gave him a nod and a polite smile but you stood quiet. He thanked him and when he walked away Ben turned towards against you. “Hope you brought a fancy dress, love.”

“Y/N”, You corrected him almost immediately, creating a bit of tension between you two. A corner of Ben's lips lifted in an amused smile and you bit your lower lip when he grabbed your hand, making his way through the rest of the cast.

“And why's that?”

“Because,” He gave you a quick look from above his shoulder. “We are going out tonight.”

You heard the clicks of the cameras even before noticing the flashlights — they weren't there when you'd gotten to the set but now the square was full of paparazzi and their eyes were all on you and Ben.

He noticed how uncomfortable you were, probably because you tightened the grip on his hand, and he gave you a soft smile. “We're almost there, Y/N. Don't mind them. Focus on me.” And found that was even harder than avoiding the paparazzi.

That night you wore the fanciest dress you'd bought with you and you'd put your hair up with a simple hair-stick. Even though you weren't together; you still wanted to impress him.

When he knocked on the door of your hotel room you'd just finished getting ready. You weren't surprised to see him wearing all black but sure as hell you were surprised when you movies he was holding a red rose.

“Hey, love.” And probably for the first time in months you didn't correct him – maybe because he's caught you off guard, maybe because you didn't want to.

Your cheeks turned rose when you felt his gaze slipping through your body before locking his green eyes back on yours. “You're... stunning. Gorgeous. Beautiful. Sexy.”

“Whoa”, You murmured with a soft laugh. You bit the inside of your cheek at his words and looked away from him while taking the rise. “You look good, too.” You gave him a little smile before bringing the rose close to your nose – you loved the smell of flowers.

And the look Ben gave you, brought you back to when he was almost yours. You missed his touch, the feeling of his lips on yours, the way he made you feel. You missed Ben, and Emma was bloody right about it.

“Wait”, He murmured when you closed the door behind you, taking a step towards him in the hallway. He took off the hair-stick and your hair fell on your shoulders. You gave him a questioning look and he murmured with an apologetic smile “I like your hair down. You look pretty.” And your heart went whoosh.

Ben had reserved a table in the private area of a fancy Italian restaurant and the atmosphere was almost overwhelming. It was looking out over the River Arno with the unforgettable view of the Ponte Vecchio – that's what Ben told you while pouring some wine.

“It's so posh.” Ben gave you a quick look and you gave him a tight smile. You were starting to relax again with him and you loved what he was doing for you. No one ever did something like that before.

“Is it, huh?” You hit your lower lip while trying not to chuckle at the look he gave you.

You were almost afraid to bring up the subject but that didn't stop you from saying “And what does Ellie think about this situation?”

“Y/N.” He sighed deeply and gave you the 'seriously? again?' look.

“What?”

He placed his elbows on the table and leaned towards you, a mischievous smile lighting up how beautiful face. “And what does Adam think of it?”

“It's Aaron.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

You pursed your lips and exhaled deeply, giving him a little smile. “Aaron and I are not together.” Not that you owed him any explanation.

“Neither are Ellie and I.” You narrowed your eyes at his words and temporarily decided to believe him while taking a sip of wine. And you were grateful to him when he switched the sickest of the conversation. “How's Broadway?”

You thought about it and it took you a few seconds to find the proper answer. “Exhausting.”

Ben seemed interested in your stories about Broadway and you carefully avoided to mention Aaron while updating him. And you chatted basically for the entire night, between a dish and the other.

And almost two hours later, you'd moved the conversation to the small terrace looking out over the river. Your elbows were resting on the railing as you took a draw of his cigarette. “Promotional tour starts on Monday.”

“In London, right?” His tone was just as low as yours and it felt like a moment of intimacy. You extended him the cig without saying anything at first, taking your time to reply.

“Yeah.” You gave him a quick look with the corner of your eyes and then you looked away. How could you face the entire tour without Ben by your side?

You heard him sighing and he turned towards you so you raised your gaze to meet his. “You're so beautiful tonight.”

You shook your head, almost begging him to stop. “Whatever we are— Y/N, I still remember the way we were. And I miss you.” He took a step towards you and as much as you didn't want to, you did it too.

What the hell you were doing? You were supposed to stay away from him.

Taglist: @caborhapch @ohtheseboysilove @classy-fangirl @royalblueviper @rogers-weirdo @geek-and-proud @mrsbenhardyx @julessbrown @the-little-warbler @beyrxnd @benders-diamond-earring @radiob-l-a-hblah @luvborhap @mrsmazzello @orchideax @gardengirl-18 @dearestdeaky @brianandthemays @ixchel-9275 @rita-tlr

If you wanna be added to the taglist just tell me!

#ben hardy #ben hardy fic #ben hardy x reader #borhap fic #borhap imagine #bohemian rhapsody #borhap #bo rhap #roger taylor #roger taylor x reader #roger taylor fic #queen #queen band #queen fic

114 notes · View notes

rockislandadultreads · 4 years

Photo

Previous Bookclub Picks available now on Overdrive

-Summaries and ratings pulled from Goodreads-

The Martian by Andy Weir

4.4/5 stars

Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.

Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.

After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before a rescue could arrive.

Chances are, though, he won’t have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old “human error” are much more likely to kill him first.

But Mark isn’t ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills — and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit — he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed

4.01/5 stars

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State — and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

4.37/5 stars

It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier, and will be busier still.

By her brother's graveside, Liesel's life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger's Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel, with the help of her accordian-playing foster father, learns to read. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book-burnings, the mayor's wife's library, wherever there are books to be found.

But these are dangerous times. When Liesel's foster family hides a Jew in their basement, Liesel's world is both opened up, and closed down.

In superbly crafted writing that burns with intensity, award-winning author Markus Zusak has given us one of the most enduring stories of our time.

At the Water's Edge by Sara Gruen

3.66/5 stars

After embarrassing themselves at the social event of the year in high society Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve of 1942, Maddie and Ellis Hyde are cut off financially by Ellis’s father, a former army Colonel who is already embarrassed by his son’s inability to serve in WWII due to his being colorblind.

To Maddie’s horror, Ellis decides that the only way to regain his father’s favor is to succeed in a venture his father attempted and very publicly failed at: he will hunt the famous Loch Ness monster and when he finds it he will restore his father’s name and return to his father’s good graces (and pocketbook). Joined by their friend Hank, a wealthy socialite, the three make their way to Scotland in the midst of war.

Each day the two men go off to hunt the monster, while another monster, Hitler, is devastating Europe. And Maddie, now alone in a foreign country, must begin to figure out who she is and what she wants.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

4.37/5 stars

On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane's bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War. The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he'd been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.

Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

3.92/5 stars

Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She’s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy. And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Now Rachel has a chance to become a part of the lives she’s only watched from afar. Now they’ll see; she’s much more than just the girl on the train...

#libby #libby app #overdrive #overdrive libraries #public library #book club #book club pick #ereader #literature #modern literature #literary #reading recommendations #fiction #historical fiction #book recommendations #book recs #enterainment #adult reads #reading

4 notes · View notes

islareeveswriting · 5 years

Text

STORY PAGE

PREVIOUS | NEXT

Harry sighed and picked up the pen.

“Can’t hurt,” He whispered to himself, remembering Molly’s words as he sat at his kitchen worktop and stared at the scrap of paper he’d managed to find, probably out of Molly’s notebook from where she’d been working there before. The kitchen was dark, only the spotlights of the extractor hood to light up the space, and it stunk of the brand new candle he had lit, musky and unassuming, barely noticeable if he didn’t think about it too much. He had a glass of red wine on the go, he could taste his last mouthful still on his tongue, but he took another sip nonetheless before he started, licking his lips of the residue.

Mum,

His hand was scratchy, barely legible. He hadn’t written properly in years, he had no need to. Little notes here and there, a scrawl in his diary at work so he knew who to invoice at the end of the week, but other than that nothing, and it showed. For a second he thought about letting it put him off the idea. If no one would be able to read it anyway, what was the point. But he knew the point wasn’t for anyone to necessarily read it, just for him to write it. So he continued.

It’s been ten years

Harry scribbled that out, she knew how long it had been, so did he, he mapped his life out by it. Ten years since his mum had left him at his nans without so much as a goodbye, eight since he’d broken Liam’s collar bone, five since he was stabbed in the leg, two since he got Ellie pregnant. It was nearly eleven now really. Lola was nearly three. A three year old grandchild his mother would never know about.

You broke me, did you mean to? Is it payback for Ida, making sure I feel this way? Nan says you just couldn’t cope after Ida, and I get that, but you didn’t have to say the things you said to me, and you didn’t have to lean on me like you did. I was so young. You were selfish. I was the one who found her like that, at least you didn’t have to see that, at least the last time you saw her face it wasn’t covered in blood so you could barely even see her skin.

It was pouring out of him then, words he didn’t know he had inside him, the anger flowing through the pen out of him. It felt addictively good. He had no idea he had so many thoughts and feelings about any of it. He thought he was just angry. It was far more than that.

I’m angry all the time, I’d like to blame it on you, but I don’t want to give you even that much credit. I don’t want you to be that important to me. It’s shit that you are that important, that even after all this time you still have that much effect on me. I can barely remember Ida’s eyes sometimes, struggle to hear her voice, but your eyes I see just fine, your voice is loud and clear. Why is that? It’s cruel. You never even asked me how I was after, you never asked how I was doing, if I was ok, if I wanted to talk to you or anyone, you told the school I’d be fine. I wasn’t fine, far from fine, I don’t know if I’ll ever be fine. I thought I’d come to terms with that but I’m not so sure.

Just OK had always been enough for Harry, he didn’t crave fantastic, or marvellous, or perfect, just ok was fine for him. If he wasn’t striving for it to be better, he wasn’t disappointed. Now he wanted it better, he wanted it perfect, he’d had a taste and he liked it. It looked like a girl that accepted his flaws, that helped him accept them too. It looked like a tribe of friends that held him higher than he held himself, and a little girl he could teach things he’d never been taught. To be who she was, and be happy with that, and love herself as fiercely and wildly as she loved anyone else.

For a long time I wanted you to come back, you just needed a break you’d say in my head when I imagined it happening. Now I don’t want you back. I don’t want you to walk back in and poison what I’ve got. You’ve done enough of that just living in my head. I know it’s not all your fault, I chose to do the things I did and say the things I said, you didn’t take my free will from me. But I suppose when the only person in the world who is meant to love you unconditionally regardless, tells you you’re a waste of space, hates you for breathing, for something you didn’t do, you start to despise yourself enough to not care about how damaging what you’re doing is. I never hated myself, I was just indifferent to myself, I didn’t matter. I don’t matter so who cares if someone wants to beat me half to death, who cares if people hate me, who cares if I say something that makes someone want to knock me out. Doesn’t matter.

It had taken twenty five years for Harry to realise life could mend him just as easily as it could break him, if he let it. If he let himself heal, instead of letting the wounds fester, things could be good, not just one or two nice things, everything could be good. There’d always been good in his life, but he’d kept the bad alive too, letting it simmer in the background of everything, a constant reminder everything was always a flame away from boiling over. And he always let it.

I don’t want to tell you her name, because I don’t want you in that part of my life, but since I’m not letting you have that control anymore, I want to tell you all about her, and how wonderful she is. Part of me wishes you could meet her, know the woman who taught me to love myself a little more, and open up a little more, and not be ashamed. I don’t know how she did it in six months or whatever it’s been, it feels like forever and five minutes all at the same time, it’s magic I swear it. Is this turning into a love letter? Who cares? Better that than a long list of all the ways you managed to fuck me up. I’m not perfect, I’ll never be perfect, I’ve still got so much work to do on myself, but I swear I think Molly, my Lolly, might be perfect, and she somehow, god knows how she does it, make me feel pretty close too.

There was a lot of Harry to dislike. There were so many parts of himself he hated, too many to even list. But he loved that he had Molly, and he loved that he knew he’d do anything to keep her happy and keep her with him, for her to always be his. He wasn’t ready to ask her for it yet, he needed a little longer to figure out the right words, and he wanted her to be sure she’d made the right choice in choosing him again. All he wanted to do was prove to her that she meant more to him than any of the other stuff, that she was all that mattered, that she was the most important thing to him. Of course he had Lola, but that was different. With Lola it was built into him, to care for her and love her, it came as natural as breathing to want to fight for her. He thought it was the same with Molly, but the past week or so had shown him how crafted it was, how much work it was to love and be loved, and that was what made it so special and so worth fighting for.

She makes me nervous in the best way, but I trust her with everything. I never want to let her down. I only want her to be happy. I want to make her happy too, and help her find all the things that make her happy. I always thought it was wrong to feel the things I felt, she showed me it was natural. I could really gush about her and part of me wants to, but I won’t. I just want you to know I’m finally happy, or at least working on my happiness, feeding that rather than the anger inside me. It feels better. I can feel myself changing and I like it. People will say I shouldn't give her so much credit, she’d say it too, it was when she came along that I went back to that place fully, but it was also when she came along that I realised how much I needed to do something about it. I never regretted it before, I thought it made me powerful, but since Molly whenever I went there I felt weak and I always felt sick about it.

It made him feel awful that even after the promise he’d made to Ellie he’d had thoughts about going back, whenever he gave Lola back actually, and she outstretched her arms for Shane and called him Daddy. It made it sound like Lola wasn’t enough. But that wasn’t the case. Having Lola in his life was enough, but when she wasn’t there it hurt enough to make him want to cry, and so often when he wanted to cry, it turned to anger. It was a vicious circle.

I could go on about her forever, but I won’t. Nothing hurts more than being hurt by the person you thought would never hurt you. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to make your mistakes, it’s taken time, and I’ve done it the hard way, but I’ve learned to never let it get that far again. I don’t want to play it safe, I don’t want to find it hard to trust those I love, I don’t want to feel afraid. So I’m not going to. I hope you’re happy with the choices you made mum, I suppose you are otherwise you’d have come back.

Harry swallowed then on nothing, and stared at the paper for a few seconds, clearing his throat of nothing but the lump that had formed.

I’m going to take my turn to be happy now, and I don’t need to ask your permission for that. I haven’t done anything to be as angry as I am at life, you just made me think I had. I was doing ok until you made me feel like I’d murdered my own sister. I’m moving on from you, you don’t get this power over me anymore, I don’t want your voice or your eyes in my head so I’m letting you go. I hope you’ve had a nice life, but that’s it from me.

Harry.

The breath Harry had been holding as he scrawled frantically through the last lines of his letter, came out shaky and uneven. He folded it over, not wanting to read over what he’d written. It was honest and truthful, he didn’t need to edit his for feelings for anyone's convenience.

“You ok?” Harry turned on the stool to Molly, hair wrapped up in a fluffy white towel, her lips and cheeks puffy from the heat of her bath and her skin glowing from her moisturiser. She was wearing his dressing gown. It was too big, and even though it was tied tightly at her waist, the fabric continued to slip off her shoulder exposing the milky, freckled skin underneath. Harry just nodded, a little taken back for a few seconds.

“How was your bath?” He asked at last, as she padded closer. He could smell his lavender bath salts clinging to her skin, and the coconut body lotion that was making her legs glisten a little where they poked out under his dressing gown.

“Perfect,” She smiled widely, finally getting to him and wrapping herself around him, leaning her chin on his shoulder. Harry’s arm lifted instinctively around her waist, hand in the dip of her middle. “What have you been doing?” She asked, glancing to the glass of wine and the piece of paper where the pen was resting. She reached for the wine, her fingers circling around the stem. For a second Harry thought she was going for the paper, and it was strange that his heart didn’t race at the prospect of someone reading his innermost feelings. He just felt calm though, and watched as Molly took a sip of the deep red wine he’d poured himself with a glitter in her eye that always made him weak.

“Just writing a letter,” Harry told her and Molly nodded slowly, her lips folding together, her tongue just peeking out through them as she swiped away the wine. Neither of them said anything, but Molly lowered her face a little and caught Harry’s lips with hers. She tasted of the red wine, and she smelt of lotion and freshly washed towels. Harry’s heart fluttered, his free hand, the one not holding her waist, moving to her head, holding her in place as he got to his feet and pulled her body into his. He’d never wanted all of someone in quite the way he wanted all of Molly. But more than that, he’d never wanted to give all of himself to someone in quite the way he wanted to give all of himself to Molly. He wanted her to have all of him, every darkest part of his mind as well as the rest of it, every scar on his body, and every little thought and dream that crept into him.

Maybe it was that Molly was the first woman he'd trusted. Maybe she was just the first person he'd let in enough to be able to trust fully. Either way it was poignant. Either way it said something about the kind of orbital gravity she was having on his life. Either way he was falling, had fallen, through time and space, to be with her, to be in love with her, like that was his only purpose.

This is potentially one of my favourite things I’ve ever written so I really hope you like it and I can’t wait for you guys to come chat to me about this one. I hope you do eek!

You’ve all been so kind and lovely about this fic and I’ll love you all endlessly for it.

All the love x

28 notes · View notes

ghostcat3000 · 5 years

Text

Yuletide 2018 is LIVE!

Yuletide, the yearly multi-fandom anon gift exchange, is now live! There are over 1K of fandoms on offer, so chances are, there's bound to be works of interest for all you fic enthusiasts! Click here to check out all of the stories, listed alphabetically by fandom!

Like last year, I’ll definitely try and have some recs up in the coming weeks.

SO I goofed big time this year by forgetting to add my Dear Yuletide Author letter to dreamwidth and lj which means I probably won’t get any extra treats. Oh well. I blame the tumor.

While my current story shall remain anonymous until 2019, here are my past Yuletide offerings:

2014: Under the Snow (Gilda, 1946) - F/M, Rated T, 10,685 words

Gilda dyed her hair red in November and changed her last name too. Mr. O’Hanlon bumped her up to two song and dance spots a night. Not with Lucy, who'd left for California, but a new gal named Maude with a big pair of knockers and a sweetheart face. Maude was gone soon enough, a casualty of that bosom, and Gilda was on her own, a solo spot, making enough money to move out into her own place closer to the club. She and Johnny kept things quiet—he was a manager now, of a cop bar in Queens that the Big Boss owned in addition to the club. Johnny told her he grew up with those guys, knew how they worked and how to handle them, and she never knew if he was talking about the Irish cops or the Irish gangsters who ran half the clubs on 52nd Street. Probably both.

2015: A Fool For Your Face (You’re The Worst) - F/M, Rated M, 8,423 words

Lindsay has tears in her eyes, fat and glassing her gaze. She slumps forward and wipes slowly at her face, two fingers on each side, like a child. The curve of her back makes her seem vulnerable in way that's too real.

“Hey.” He leans towards her, but stops himself from reaching out. She's Gretchen's after all, not his. “Abnormal cells, that's all it is. You can't let yourself get worked up about it. It’s been handled.”

Lindsay stands up, and picks at her cleavage with two fingers, eventually pulling out what looks like a piece of lemon cookie. She pops it into her mouth and glares at him in a way no cleavage-cookie-eating person has a right to.

2016: The Eternal Face (The Clouds of Sils Maria) - F/F, G, Not Rated, 5,453 words

Spoiler alert : Helena disappears from the play with about twenty minutes to go; her absence never explained. In the 1988 version, Rosenberg’s Helena was a hand wringer of the highest order. Nervous, pale blue eyes perpetually moist, clad in boxy black and gold Chanel, Whippet-thin, she looked as if she were about to snap at the wrists, then the elbows, until finally she’d be nothing but a flat, folded garment. It was easy to imagine her wandering outside at dawn, discarding her bracelets and shoes, walking right up to the jagged cliffs of Sils Maria, and stepping off into the clouds. Ruined by love, drawn to her death. Depressed, dramatic, and oddly sexless.

2014’s Helena is no such animal. Sensual and alive, Enders gives you the vivid sense that her exit is a statement, another power play directed at her younger, fickle lover. Ellis’ Sigrid might argue and roll her eyes at her boss-cum-paramour, but when they are together, feeding off of each other’s vitality, they are equals.

2017: Exile on Main St. (The Defenders/Jessica Jones/Daredevil) - F/M, 19,507 words

“Did somebody say my name?”

Jessica twists her neck so fast to look up, the whiplash blinds her. Up on the fire escape, crouched and ready to spring, is… Daredevil?

She whispers out of the side of her mouth. “Did you know about this?”

Matt’s eyebrows are so far up his hairline, she guesses the answer is no.

Daredevil flips forward smoothly and lands in front of them, addressing the White Power duo confidently. He’s more slender than the last time she saw him in action. And shorter. “I think you guys might want to use this time to consider your life choices.”

The men stare at each other.

“Really? No? Does no one in the city know how to take a hint? Fine.” He leans forward, fists held up, like a boxer. “I can see there’s going to be a lot of butt kicking going on tonight.”

Under his breath, Matt mutters a single, indignant no.

I like to think they’ve gone up in quality. That’s my hope anyway! Please give a read if you can.

#Yuletide 2018 #past Yuletide offerings #Ghostcat fics #The Defenders #Jessica Jones #Daredevil #You're The Worst #Gilda #Clouds of Sils Maria #tw: long post #tl;dr

5 notes · View notes

clawfootpress · 3 years

Text

Dear Mr. Met:

The other day I was riding my bike and I blew right through a stop sign. Didn’t even slow down. Didn’t even see it. I blame the Mets, partly. I was listening to a Mets game on my phone and they were winning but the Orioles had the bases loaded in the eighth and I was getting nervous. It was only my second day as a dog walker, so the part of my brain that wasn’t worried about the Mets was worried that I’d left a dog outside or a door unlocked or maybe the owners thought my notes were weird and they didn’t want me walking their dog again. With my brain full of such thoughts and feelings, I blew right through the stop sign.

I don’t mean I saw the stop sign, slowed down, looked both ways, and rolled on through without coming to a full stop. I do that all the time. No, I’m talking about blowing right through it, not even knowing it was there.

I don’t normally listen to my phone when I’m out biking, running, or walking. I don’t like things in my ears, for one, and I genuinely like hearing the sounds of the city. I thought I might be okay listening to the game since I wasn’t wearing ear buds. I had the phone mounted on my handlebars, the volume turned all the way up. It worked right up until the bases were loaded and I got nervous and blew right through the stop sign.

A guy in a truck honked at me and called me an asshole. It could have been worse, he could have also been distracted, maybe also by the Mets. Who knows? It’s a big city in a big world. Maybe it was his second to last day on the job. Maybe it had been too many days since his last day on the job. Maybe his daughter was in the hospital. Maybe his daughter wasn’t talking to him. Maybe his daughter finally called him that morning after twenty-eight years. Maybe his boyfriend broke up with him. The multiplicity of possibilities boggles the mind.

The point is, the guy could have also been distracted and blown right through the stop sign and then I really would have been in a jackpot. I still didn’t like being called an asshole, though, so I hit my brakes and turned around.

Oh, he said, yeah?

Yeah, I said, and rode right back at him.

You know how there’s this idea that if we put energy out into the world our desires can manifest? I believe that to be true. I’m not sure exactly how it works, I just know it works because I’ve seen it work. Rather, I’ve seen the inverse work. The energy I put out disintegrates the objects of my desire, which Buddhists say is good, I think, but I don’t know. I find it to be frustrating more than anything.

It makes sense when you think about it. If there is a law of attraction, then there has to be a law of repulsion. No light without dark. No day without night. No hot without cold. No pleasure without pain. No sweet without salty. No joy without sorrow. No life without death. No attraction without repulsion. Imagine someone out there setting an intention for something. As the thing is moving toward them, it has to be moving away from someone else. In order for them to attract, someone else must repel. That’s physics.

Even the great Jacob deGrom is not immune. In a game against the Rockies, he struck out nine batters in a row. Ten, as you know, is the record, held by the greatest Met of all, The Franchise, Tom Seaver. deGrom looked untouchable. He looked inevitable. I got excited. I texted my friends. The next batter got a hit.

Boy, was the guy in the truck mad. Understandably. I broke the law and put myself and others in danger, including him. He honked and yelled at me, which was freedom of expression at its finest. I stopped and turned back toward him and rode right back at him. I did that because he called me an asshole. I was wrong to blow through the stop sign, but I’m too proud to let someone call me an asshole.

God and Ben Franklin gave that man every right to shoot me dead in the street (Freedom of Worship), but he didn’t shoot me, even though I charged at him like a wild beast.

Instead of shooting me, he said, Oh, yeah?

Instead of apologizing, I said, Yeah. You don’t get to call me names.

I said this because I’m a man and deserve to be treated as such, even when I fuck up. I dared to look the man in the pickup truck in the eye and demand he treat me with basic dignity. To which he responded, You’re right. I was wrong about that.

Organized religion is dying but religiosity is alive and well. Prayers of Confession are all the rage.

Everybody wants confession, everybody wants some cathartic narrative for it. The guilty especially. I’m watching True Detective, Season One.

Look: Ellie Kemper should not have been in that Veiled Prophet debutant ball mostly because debutant balls are dumb, but raking her over the Twitter-coals until she apologized did nothing good. She was nineteen. At nineteen she was just as much a Victim of the Patriarchy as a Perpetrator of White Supremacy, but the crowd demanded atonement. Atonement for what? For being born into and participating in the life of a particular place with particular people at a particular time?

Maybe you never had to navigate growing up with racists. Maybe you never had to navigate the complexity of loving racists. Or being loved by racists. Maybe you never had to do the emotional labor of depending on racists to drive you to the hospital. Of knowing racists are more than their racism. Knowing they are capable of great acts of love, which make them beautifully human, but makes their racism more stark, more deliberate, more sinful, awful, frustrating, heartbreaking. Of having to choose as a child, then as an adolescent, between participating or feeling completely alone. In a time and a place where there were no counselors, or the counselors were also racist. Maybe you’ve never had to parse out different subcategories of racism as you try to discern which relationships are worth it, whatever that might mean, and which are completely irredeemable, and then finding the courage to act accordingly. If you haven’t, you’re lucky. Privileged, even.

Twitter got its confession, but neither you, nor I, nor Ellie Kemper, nor America is any less racist for it. I submit that Twitter only got its confession because Ellie Kemper was already prone to introspection, has been introspecting most of her life, and has done more introspecting than the average Twitter-activist. She didn’t change her mind, she was forced to dig up her past shit and lay it on the table to be picked over by people who only just took a seat. The new arrivals took a look at the shit and said, Boy that stinks. Then they felt better, and Ellie Kemper felt worse, and nothing else changed and that’s called progress.

My tension and adrenaline drained away. I saw his face, his particular face. He wasn’t a Man In a Pickup Truck, representative of everyman in a pickup truck; he was who he was. He had a round nose and bags under his eyes. Two or three days of stubble on his cheeks and chin. I wonder if he has grandchildren who complain about how scratchy it is? He looked scared, like a tired man who’d almost hit a careless cyclist. He didn’t to kill anyone and he was angry that I almost caused him to kill someone. I didn’t want this man to kill anyone, and I certainly didn’t want him to kill me.

It was then that I apologized for blowing right through the stop sign. Well, I was wrong about that.

He looked a little confused. It was a confusing situation. So, he said, we’re good then?

I felt a little confused. Weren’t we supposed to keep yelling?

We’re good then, I said.

His last words to me were either, I love that, or I love you. I’m 99% sure he said, I love that, but isn’t it pretty to think that he said, I love you?

Listen: it’s not that I’m anti-confession, but I’m wary and increasingly wary of proforma Prayers of Confession, especially when they are religiously proscribed by a demographic that claims to be Not Religious. (In the words of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Ask them a question and you are told the answer is to repeat a mantra.) Public confessions do, for better or worse, what religion does, for better or worse: tell us a story, give us a sense of control, shape our experience, and help us think we’re actually doing something – Look what we did, we extracted a confession! Private confessions don’t provide narrative, characters, or catharsis. All they offer is humanity, complexity, intimacy, vulnerability, and, occasionally, transformation.

I’m working on non-attachment, and, accordingly, on non-judgment, judgement being a form of attachment to the story we tell ourselves about how things should be.

It’s difficult. I remain attached to the story that thirteen-year-old boys should be allowed to grow up, no matter how much they fuck up when they are thirteen-years-old, therefore I judge the officer who killed Adam Toledo. I judge the adult who gave the boy a gun and showed him how to shoot. I judge the people who made the gun and all the hands that carried the gun to the boy. I judge people who love guns more than they love thirteen-year-old boys.

I ‘preciate you, I said, clipping the first syllable like I was someone I’m not. If this was fiction, I’d strike that dialogue as sounding untrue, not in character, but real life is messier, real people are inconsistent, and that’s really what I said.

I’m not great at talking to people. I was kind of hoping to get this one job with a delivery company because it was closer to home and paid more. The interviewer asked how I’d heard of their company. I said a friend had used them to move a large machine. I should have stopped there, but there is a word-gremlin inside me that likes to blow through stop signs. I said I’d moved that machine before and boy was I glad I didn’t have to move it again. I said that to the guy interviewing me about moving machines.

So I’m walking dogs.

What I want to do is write stories. I desire to never sit through another interview. I want my stories to be my interview and you, the reader, the one who says, You’re hired, you can start immediately, you’ll never have to move machines or walk dogs ever again.

I hesitate to say this too loud, lest the Inverse Laws of Attraction hear me. I also say this with an acute awareness that what writing does, for better or worse, is tell a story, give me a sense of control, shape my experience, and help me think I’m actually doing something. The obligation I have, then, is to tell good stories, to the best of my ability, populated with characters full of humanity, complexity, intimacy, vulnerability, who, at their best, offer the possibility of transformation. No cartoon villains.

Unless I’m writing a cartoon. And there are villains.

Is it possible for me (or anyone) to privately apologize for something I say or write, but publicly defend the right – and even the necessity – of saying it? It is. Is it possible for each to be equally true? It is.

Fully human/fully divine. Very well then, I contradict myself.

In the meantime, the world keeps shouting. It’s really difficult to talk when people are shouting all the time, especially when they are shouting the same thing over and over again, which is, BANG BANG BANG!

I don’t know what to do with that. It feels like I either have to shout or ignore it. Shouting makes me tired but ignoring it feels as reckless as blowing right through a stop sign. So I work on my stories and let them try to make sense of this absurd world.

Speaking of absurd, just when I thought I had this letter all buttoned up and ready to send out the door, my wife was in a car accident. Another driver blew right through a stop sign and slammed into the driver’s side of our car. My wife is okay; our car is not. The woman who hit her was not distracted by the Mets because the Mets were rained out that day. I don’t know much about her other than she was driving on a suspended license without insurance. God and Ben Franklin gave her that right (No Quarter Without Consent). Who are you or I to tell her how to live?

Equally, my wife could have shot her right between the eyes (Redress of Grievances) and of course that would have solved everything, except my wife doesn’t carry a gun. She probably never will. Can you believe that?

The guy in the pickup truck nodded and drove away. Such things can happen, even in America, depending on the characters, and when they don’t the story seems more stark, more deliberate, more sinful, awful, frustrating, heartbreaking.

#LFGM,

Matt Lang

PS –While I was naming and claiming my desire to watch Jacob deGrom strike out ten batters in a row, in another part of space-time Aaron Nola struck out nine batters in a row, and he looked untouchable, he looked inevitable. Someone got excited, someone texted their friends. On June 25th Aaron Nola, pitching for the Phillies, against the Mets, in New York, struck out ten Mets in a row, tying the record held by the greatest Met of all, The Franchise, Tom Seaver. I listened to all ten while riding my bike.

Be careful what you wish for.

0 notes

thepurplelegion · 4 years

Photo

Percival Theobald-Godwin

Universe: American Horror Story Born: September 14th, 1994 (New Orleans) Age: Twenty-Five Years Old Nationality: American Full name: Percival Theobald-Godwin Status: Half-Undead Occupation: - Former Student of Hawthorne School for Exceptional Young Men (Formerly) - Former Mercenary of Supernatural and Non-Supernatural beings (Formerly) - Ally to Miss Robichaux’s Academy of Witches (Currently) Titles: - Percy - A Beautiful Darkness - The Saviour - The Walking Fear - Big Softy - The Failed Father - The Forgotten Son - The Cursed - The Deathless - The Wraith Species: Human/Wraith Hybrid (Formerly Cursed Warlock – Revenant; Currently Gifted Warlock – Phantom) Gender: Male Family Members: - Tana Theobald (Mother; Deceased; Died in Childbirth) - Isaac Godwin (Father; Deceased; Killed in Car Accident) - Sinder Godwin (Step-Mother; Alive; Mentioned) - Elliot Godwin (Half-Brother; Esteemed Warlock) - Astrid Godwin (Half-Sister; Esteemed Witch) - Adeline Godwin (Mentioned Grandmother; Dark Witch; Caster of Percival’s Curse; Deceased; Strangled to Death by Percival Theobald-Godwin) - Maria Theobald-Godwin (Wife and Mother of Ellie and Henrick; Formerly Deceased; Torn to Pieces by the Werewolves of New Orleans; Resurrected by the Demons of Hell) - Ellie Theobald-Godwin (Daughter; Twin to Henrick; Toddler) - Henrick Theobald-Godwin (Son; Twin to Aliza; Toddler) Other Associations: - Michael Langdon (Ally and Friend) - Mallory Catherine (Unknown) - Cordelia Goode (Ally and Friend) - Myrtle Snow (Ally and Friend) - Zoe Benson (Ally and Friend) - Kyle Spencer (Ally and Friend) - Misty Day (Ally and Friend) - Madison Montgomery (Ally and Friend) - Queenie (Ally and Friend) - Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt (Ally and Friend) - John Henry Moore (Former Mentor and Friend) - Behold Chablis (Former Mentor and Friend) - Baldwin Pennypacker (Enemy) - Ariel Augustus (Enemy) - Dinah Stevens (Enemy) - Miriam Mead (Enemy) - Lucifer/Satan (Enemy) - Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Enemies) - Lucian Brood (Arch Enemy; Victim) Height: 6’4’’ (Feet), 1.93cm Hair Colour: Dark Brown Eye Colours: One Dark Green Eye, One Pale Blue Eye (Present in a glowing form during Wraith form) Skin Colour: Limestone Belongings: N/A Abnormal/Significant Features: Percival has many scars alongside his body, a large scar alongside his left eye, small scars along his face and large claw scars along his chest and stomach (a reminder as well as the indicator of his death, which reappear after he reawakens his Revenant power, following the re-awakening, the scars remain) brought upon him by a pack of Werewolves. On his unnaturally built body resides a Raven Tattoo on the left side of the chest and a Moon Tattoo on the right side of the rib cage.

Powers and Abilities:

Due to his Theobald (Witch) and Godwin (Warlock) Bloodlines, as well as the indissoluble curse exacted upon his soul at birth due to the forbidden romance that conceived him, Percival’s magical abilities are almost unmatched, yet volatile and dangerous if not under complete control. Exiled from Hawthorne School for Exception Young Men and without guidance, Percival was forced to learn his limits and simultaneously master his own magical practice in order to stop his powers from destroying him from the inside out, resulting in an almost flawless technique. Percival’s power does not match Cordelia, Mallory or Michael, and is not limitless, so he is not unrelenting, however, Percival can easily dispatch beings of the supernatural with ease.

Following his death by the hands of a pack of Werewolves, Percival was brought back to life via his curse and transformed into a Hybrid of Wraith and Human, granting Percival numerous demonic abilities beyond the practice of magic, as well as enhancements to his physical limits, all of which he finds extremely difficult to understand and control. However, during the battle against Michael Langdon, Percival begins to want to understand his power and use it to stop the Apocalypse from occurring, in doing so, giving himself the purpose, he’s been searching for his entire life. A way to use this malevolent power for good rather than evil, using his bloodlust and rage to destroy those who threaten the World, as well as the future of his children.

Following the destruction of Michael Langdon and the ceasing of the Apocalypse, the Demons of Hell seek out Miss Robichaux’s, the new Hawthorne and their allies, including Percival. While each Academy is giving back those who perish in the ensued battle, and in a further case of Miss Robichaux’s, their home back, Percival is predominantly awarded for his efforts in the battle. Due to his hand in the death of Michael Langdon, Percival is given back his sister, Astrid, who was burned alive by Michael’s Langdon’s Hellfire, as well as his long-lost Wife, Maria, who had died alongside him years prior to the battle. Lastly, the Demons of Hell reconnect Percival’s soul, rather than ending his curse, greatly modifying it into a gift, changing him from a Revenant, a spirit of vengeance, to a Phantom, a spirit of light and all-power. Traditional Magical Abilities; The Seven Wonders: - Telekinesis (Mastered) - Concilium (Mastered) - Pyrokinesis (Mastered) - Divination (Mastered) - Transmutation (Mastered) - Descensum (Able to Perform; cannot without being sent permanently to Hell) - Vitalum Vitalis (Unable to Perform; Undead) Traditional Magical Abilities; Hawthorne Academy: - Stiricidium (Mastered)

Revenant and Phantom Abilities: - “Supernatural” Strength (Able to lift up to 10 Tonne – ability not altered by the transition from Revenant to Phantom) - “Supernatural” Stamina and Durability (Able to withstand extreme internal and external damage without major injury – and is able to function for extreme periods of time without tiring or straining – Percival does not need sleep or sustenance, however, sleep and sustenance makes him feel human, so he continues to do so – ability not altered by the transition from Revenant to Phantom) - “Supernatural” Healing (Percival can heal at a drastically increased rate – with all injuries healing near-instantaneously - toxins and drugs cannot affect him, however, he is able to force his healing ability to stop in order for alcohol to affect him – if internal organs such as his heart or major limbs are removed such as arms, legs, he can survive but he generally stops his healing entirely, allowing himself to bleed out and his physical body to be temporarily destroyed. In regards to decapitation, if Percival’s head is removed from his body his physical body will immediately perish – Cursed Weapons and Hellfire could counteract this ability and kill him permanently, however, this weakness has been altered by the transition from Revenant to Phantom, resulting in absolute invulnerability) - “Supernatural” Senses (Percival’s senses extend to a level beyond superhuman and into the expanse of demonic level – similar to Michael Langdon, and being half-undead himself, Percival has the ability to see and speak to spirits who are not in hiding – Percival can see, touch, taste, hear and smell at a much higher level to humans, giving him the advantage and making him difficult to ambush – ability not altered by the transition from Revenant to Phantom) - Soul Verge (Due to his soul being split in two, the two forms regarded as “himself” and the “other him”, this allows him to go anywhere his soul can regardless of whether or not his physical body can, including underwater, under extreme pressure, and through fire without harm. The presence of Soul Verge is fast and ghostly, divided into the Revenant half of his soul, appearing as a shadowy ghost of a hideous undead man, moves at high speed, while the Human half of his soul slowly catches up, connecting once the Revenant half stops moving – following the reconnection of his soul by the Demons of Hell, the appearance and overall ability of Soul Verge changes significantly; rather than his soul already being split in two, Percival can now sever and reconnect his soul whenever he pleases, essentially allowing him to continue the practice of this ability. As a Phantom, his soul is divided into the Human half of his soul, and the Phantom half of his soul, which appears as a much brighter, angelic form of himself – allows Percival to move and attack at Super Speed and also allows a form of Levitation and Flight) - Soul Extraction and Absorption (Percival has the ability to extract and absorb the souls of both Human and Supernatural Beings – temporarily enhancing his abilities even further and for even some abilities of the victim to be temporarily adapted – ability not altered by the transition from Revenant to Phantom)

Former Revenant Abilities: - Revenant Form (Similar to Michael Langdon’s True Demonic Face ability or a Werewolf’s ability to transform into their beast form, Percival has the ability to transform into his inhuman and terrifying Revenant form, completely and temporarily disregarding his physical body as he enters a state of violent rage, however, this ability is unrestrained and only one thing follows this ability; death – however, during the transition from Revenant to Phantom, this ability cannot be used any longer) - Immortality (Without the correct method of dispatching, Percival’s physical body will only be temporarily destroyed, and will eventually regenerate through replication of the Human half of his soul – this aspect of the ability was not altered by his transition from Revenant to Phantom. During his time as a Revenant, Percival was Immortal and did not age, and without Hellfire or Cursed Weapons, he couldn’t truly die. Following his transition from Revenant to Phantom, Percival’s weaknesses not only seized to exist, but he was gifted his mortality back, allowing him to grow old alongside his wife and children; which is now the only way he will ever die)

Significant Quote: “I thought that death meant the end… hell… I was ready for it… ready for the pain to end… my love and I… we were meant to die together… we were just lucky our children were in safe hands when the Werewolves attacked us. With my spine broken… I was forced to watch them tear her apart… limb by limb… piece by piece… until she finally died of shock… I was killed shortly after… I was ready… I was so ready. But when they’d finally ended my suffering… my death was short-lived… I’d emerged from death… no longer the man I once was… no… now I am half the man I was… half alive… half dead… equally merciless.”

0 notes

txnystarkimagines · 7 years

Text

Paradox (Part 2/?)

Disclaimer: This story contains triggering content that includes: violence, abuse (both domestic and sexual), as well as emotional trauma, anxiety, and PTSD. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE TRIGGERED. I repeat, DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED,OR TRIGGERED. I apologize for inconveniences caused by me.

Words: 2000+

Pairings: Tony Stark x OC, Pepperony

Warnings: Panick attack,angst

Summary: A sick Pepper Potts on her death bed, asks her best friend Eleanor Belikov to marry her husband Tony Stark AKA Iron Man and be a mother to their child of six months Exton Stark.

Paradox Tag List: @tonystarkfanfiction @ melizzzabeth @lovely-geek @fanficqueen306

Permanent Tags: @sybil-howlett @palaiasaurus64 @sherlockholmesisbae @redroomproperty @alwaysoutoftheordinary @withouthannah @metaphysicalmisha@andybubblebath @secretninjachild @whatshernamemaria @pou-noikiazeis-to-oneiro @alwaysenjoythelifeyoulive@niallandsebastianaremylife @raindancer2004 @v-esperteen @purpledolphin-f @sour-kangaroo1998 @princeffreeshgoddessofgreatbooty @melizzzabeth

To continue or not to? Please, feedback is very much appreciated. I need it.

Paradox Masterlist | Masterlist | Request Here | Tag list is open

Eleanor,was shocked no doubt. How could Pepper even say that? She couldn't fathom the thought of marrying ever again,let alone an already married man. She new Pepper was a physically sick, but this was a new level even for her.

"Please tell me this is a joke Pepper."Eleanor grimaced at the redhead.

"No, itsn't. I am quiet serious."She replied.

"No just no!"Eleanor leaned back against the seat.

"Ellie please, just hear me out."Pepper begged.

"Don't do this Pep."

"Just listen. I am dying."She shifted uncomfortably in her place on the bed. Pepper herself had accepted the fact that she was going to die but that by no means meant that she was comfortable with it. She didn't want to leave this world so early. She wanted to see her child grow up, his first steps, his first words, his first day of school and anything and everything inbetween and more. She wanted to see whether Exton would take after Tony's genius or her ordinary brain. Though no, fate worked in crueler ways than one could imagine and now almost 7 months after the delievery, she did not even have the energy to lift her child. She could never have imagined. A woman who was once stong enough,could not even pick up her own son. How weak was that? Pepper felt almost hopeless, she never though of life coming and stopping at this point but this was the reality and she needed to fill in all holes, and make sure everything was taken care of after her death. Eleanor was the only way of making sure.

"My organs are giving up on themselves, literally eating each other. In a way I am self destructing."She took a deep breath, even speaking for a long time made her unwell. "Starks do that, they have a tendency to do that, while I am doing so physically, I know that Tony out there is completely tearing himself apart, preparing for-"Her coughs interrupted her speech.

Her whole body shook with the coughs as Eleanor quickly got up to pour her some water. While Pepper caught her breath,she took a seat besides her on the bed. "It's okay."Eleanor pressed the bedridden woman's shoulder as comfort, only to get a sad smile in return.

"See? Can't even speak properly. Anyways,when I'm gone he is going to be a mess, he needs someone to take care of him. He is Tony Stark, an inventor, a superhero and the CEO of the world's biggest multi national company.He will be in the lab for days. My son will be alone. With nannies. How can I let him be raised by them when he has a perfectly alive father? When he can have a suitable mother? I need you to raise him, and push Tony in the right direction to do so also. Please Eleanor, I am begging you. This is my last wish. "

"I-I honestly don't know what to say."Eleanor stated, disbelief evident in her voice.

"Think about it. Meanwhile Jarvis will show you the contract. I can't speak more." Pepper could already feel the medicines she took before El came taking over. They made her whole body numb,which while did help, made Pepper even more helpless. With them she could only speak and turn her neck,no other part of her body moved. Moments like these,made her want to lash out. Scream at God. Why her? Why her when she had just started a family? Why take her away from her loved ones? She was just trying to save another person. She in no way asked for this. Killian did this to her,and she hoped he burn in hell for what he had done to her and hundreds of others,for he was already dead.

"Contract?"

"Yeah, help me lay down?"

Eleanor complied doubtlessly, slowly easing Pepper onto her back, as she closed her eyes,but before she told Jarvis to ask Tony to come to her in about twenty minutes.

As Eleanor exited the spacious room with her bag, Jarvis asked her, "Miss Lockwood would you like to read the documents in holograph, tablet, or hard format?"

"Hard if that can be arranged. "El answered, carefully making her way down the granite stairs.

"It's waiting in the living room, on the table along with a cup of coffee."

"Thank you!"She appreciated the AI 's thoughtfulness.

Eleanor made herself comfortable on the leather couch, besides the fire before grabbing the papers. Taking a sip of the coffee she opened the file, starting the reading.

The first few pages were all the legal formalities,who was involved in it, and when would it start and what not.Then came the clauses.

Only after Tony and Pepper would divorce will he marry Eleanor.

If both parties agreed then the procedure will start immediately.

None of them are allowed to be a part of any sort of extra marital affairs.

Noone is to be told about the contract.

If both parties agreed to get married Eleanor would automatically assume Pepper's position in the company which would be a personal assistant to CEO and chairman Tony Stark as well as at home, as his wife.

As far as matters are concerned with Exton, no nannies will be hired, he will be raised by the couple as his parents.

The couple is not allowed to divorce in a minimum of five years and only if Exton knows the truth about his parents and his real mother.

Exton will not be told the truth until and unless circumstances call for it or he hits maturity.

While this was only the summarized version, the documents were a lot more detailed including the details of what would happen when they agreed, what was to be told to the world and in case of interviews their history as a couple.It took her more than 30 minutes to read through. At the end, three empty lines rested for their signatures.

As Eleanor moved onto the more personal notes by Pepper on what exactly she would have to do, she heard a loud crash from upstairs. Alert, she sat up."Jarvis?"

"Nothing to worry about, Miss Lockwood.Mr. and Mrs Stark are having a fight. Mrs. Stark is telling him what she told you. He is not in a good mood."

"Of course why would he?"Eleanor mumbled under her breath.

Biting her lips she tried to concentrate on the file in front of her, but her mind was somewhere else. She wondered what was happening upstairs. Tony was obviously angry, but how much? Would he agree? Would he be mad at her too? Everything was a jumble. She didn't want the fight to escalate and decided it was best to act as a cooling agent between the two overly heated people.

As Eleanor made her way up the stairs, she froze. Tony was making his way towards her.Well not exactly, as he hadn't caught sight of her yet. His whole demeanor screamed anger and frustration. His fists were clenched by his sides, and his feet stomped as he climbed down the stairs, only to find El standing in the middle.

"You."He seethed, glaring at her as he walked closer only to stand a few inches above her on the step.

"Me?"She whispered.

"What did you tell her?"

"I didn't tell her anything Tony. I found out about it only a few minutes before you."

"Don't you fucking lie to me.What the hell did you tell her?" He screamed at her, pushing her against the wall, with no way to escape. His arms caged her between the wall and him. Eleanor flinched at the situation, bad memories floating through her head.

"Tony please, believe me I didn't ask her to do any of this. "She grimaced,looking anywhere but at him.

"Look at me."He ordered.

Eleanor slowly turned her head to look into his raging brown eyes, that almost seemed black with anger. His hand traveled to her cheek, softly pushing the curly strand of hair behind her ear,where he then cupped her neck. If not for the situation she would have definitely thought he was pulling a move on her.

"You see Miss Lockwood,"He spoke softly, still caressing her hair. "If I find out that you had even one percent of involvement in Pepper's crazy plan,I am going to fucking destroy you. You are never going to be able to find a job, not even in a run down diner. So you better pray to whatever God you pray to, that you don't."With a final shove to her shoulder against the wall,the genius stormed down and into the elevator.

For a few seconds El stood there frozen in shock, marveling at what had just happned. Memories flashed through her head. Dimitri and her against the wall. Dimitri holding her in a chokehold. Similar situations moved through her mind one after another not giving her time to process them. She gasped for air,sliding down the wall, and sitting down on the step, all unknowingly as she remembered the time she broke her arm for hitting the wall to hard. Memories of Dimitri playing with her hair, threatening her just like Tony did mere minutes ago. Her heart beat fast and she could feel the blood rushing through her veins. She made the mistake of holding her breath and made it even harder for herself to calm down. In distress she fell forward, hand resting against the cool granite, her only source of comfort right now. Her curls fell around her face, shielding her away from the world, while she squeezed her eyes shut, flinching at the images that greeted her.

"Your heart rate is unbelievably high. Do you want me to call Mr Stark? Miss?"Jarvis called out.

For a few seconds, there was silence, with only her struggle to breathe as the music, as she tried to calm down enough to let out a reply. "N-" She gasped,"No."

God! She felt so weak. Two weeks. It had been two weeks, she had been without a panic attack, and this measly incident was all it took to break that streak.

Eleanor counted to ten, with holding her breath and releasing every other number. Soon enough as she reached twenty-three she was stable enough.

"Argh!" She let out a frustrated scream. What was wrong with her? He was long gone. Why was she so scared,so weak all the time? She thought to herself.

This was it. This was the moment decided. No more hesitation,no more fear,no more weakness. She had faced far worse than an arrogant man in a can. She was done being weak,she was a survivor she is a survivor,Eleanor determined. Perhaps it was that moment when she signed her life over,one again as history repeated itself. Eleanor reached down a shaky hand,still a bit breathless and grabbed the file which had fallen down a few steps. Immediately she flipped to the last page,not delaying the least bit in case she changed her mind. And then,she signed,a single drop of tear falling down next to the line as she did so.

85 notes · View notes

script101 · 7 years

Text

An alternate hypothesis of Clara and Twelve's relationship.

I know that Clara and The Doctor loved each other profoundly.

I think he remembers what Clara would have wanted him to remember.

I think The Doctor loved Clara more than he had ever loved anyone.

Clara was The Impossible Girl.

I think their love and their perception of each other was, appropriately, IMPOSSIBLE.

I don’t think their perception of their relationship was planned from day one, but I do give Steven Moffat quite a bit of credit in terms of remembering what has happened and understanding what will and won’t work.

They loved each other. Profoundly. Painfully.

I do NOT think they were IN love, though.

Fellow Clara stans, tell me if I’m crazy:

___________________

(I will preface this by admitting that I thought they were heading towards romantic love when it was Eleven and Clara, and I now I have to edit this because I remember that I felt cheated that we didn’t see more of those two actors together after Clara saved him from himself. But, after both Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi were adamant about there not being any romance between them, I can only guess that perhaps Matt Smith had a little crush on JC. And crucially, since Heaven Sent and Hell Bent show how much The Doctor loved Clara, Clara would have had to have been wildly out of established explicitly stated character, and have been a mindbogglingly shallow hypocrite for 4/5ths of her run, if she permanently fell OUT of love with The Doctor and dumped him for handsome Danny simply because Twelve didn’t look like he was in his late twenties/early thirties anymore. Jenny hung the lampshade on that in episode 8x01. Appearances don’t matter if you’re IN ROMANTIC LOVE. No. Romantic love doesn’t really work. Yes, they flirted. He was cute, he saved her life, and he followed her around like a puppy ostensibly finding new ways to entertain her. But instead he was actually trying to figure out what in the universe she was. He was sweet and cuddly and genuinely concerned for her safety, but Eleven’s interest in Clara was NOT pure. Clara was Eleven’s new shiny Rubik’s Cube, not his partner. He was Amy’s friend. He wasn’t really Clara’s. She fancied him, she adored him, she risked her life for him and then chose to DIE for him. But if we think about how Mme Vastra described The Doctor to Victorian Clara, he was cruel and almost dead inside. In HIDE, the kindest woman on earth, a true empathic psychic made no secret of her deep dislike and mistrust of Eleven even though “Eleven” is how high he had turned up the charm! She told Clara “He has ice in his heart”. This has a second meaning in terms of “The Impossible Girl” puzzle, but Emma Greyling wasn’t reading Eleven’s thoughts, she was reading his EMOTIONS. In the context she stated it, her meaning was unambiguous. Imho, until Clara walked into his Time Stream, Clara was no more then a pretty entertaining puzzle for the emotionally wounded Eleven to solve.)

“Romantic love” is also almost too easy.

It doesn’t explain why Twelve HAD to have his specific memories of Clara erased.

“In love” dismisses, denies, and insults both River and Rose, not to mention The Doctor’s first wife. Dismissing Rose makes Ten’s treatment of Martha inexcusable.

It undermines his friendships with Amy and Rory and Donna.

The Doctor is 2000 years old. He’s lost… everyone.

You can survive losing a love. You can survive losing a spouse.

There is one relationship, so rare that we don’t think about it, where the loss of one FOR ANY REASON AT ANY AGE, has (per Psychology Today) predicted the death of the other within two years at a horrifying rate of 50%. I read that and found it so disturbing I can’t bear to believe it. The idea that there is one person, and that if you have that person in your life, and they die, or worse you see them murdered in front of you, the chance that you will be dead within 2 years is a coin toss? THAT WOULD justify and REQUIRE a memory wipe.

______

I’m operating on the assumption that everyone reading this has seen seasons 7-9. I’m only pointing out a few episodes as reference.

Eleven met a doomed Clara in the first episode of season seven. That Clara was the same as all the Claras: so insanely smart that the Daleks wanted her, but so devoid of anything resembling a cruel thought that they were unable to make her a Dalek. Subtract love, add hate. You can’t subtract love if love IS what you are (please google the translation of La Habanera and note how it fits Clara’s arc down to the bird), you can’t add hate if you aren’t a hate filled person.

In The Snowmen, we meet Clara again. She’s so much like Eleven I remember thinking they were separated at birth! Just like The Doctor, she was running around with a fake name that we never learn. She was NOT calling herself “Alice Montague”. The closing credits, Amazon Prime, and IMDb confirm that Alice was the name of the housekeeper. We NEVER learned the pseudonym of the Governess*.

We finally meet Clara Prime. She and Eleven seem to flirt and he follows her around like a puppy. They hug, but never kiss. He isn’t interested in Clara, he is interested in trying to figure out what Clara is and how she continues to exist. There are no longing gazes. The one time that Eleven comments on Clara’s appearance in a sexual way, he immediately shudders. The shudder bothered me.

At the end of season 7, Clara, a human, walked into the Eleventh Doctor’s time stream (Name of the Doctor). While she was in his time stream, Eleven FINALLY kissed his wife like a man! Applause combined with me shouting “it’s about damn time!” After saying goodbye to River, Eleven was then able to pull Clara out safely. He found her a few feet from another version of himself (the War Doctor). We have two more episodes with Matt Smith and from then on it’s Clara and the Twelfth Doctor.

Then it starts getting bizarre.

After regenerating, Twelve describes Clara as “the NOT me one”. Huh? Seriously, what??? Because he thinks it’s hard to tell them apart?

The mystery is solved, but Twelve is more dependent on Clara than he was on anyone to date. Their relationship was odd, but now, for the first time, they were partners. They were EQUALS.

There are viewers who hate that Clara became arguably the most important person in The Doctor’s life. It logically really should be either Davros (the creator of the things that defined who the doctor wasn’t), or Missy/The Master (the only other member of his species still alive). Steven Moffat solidified Clara’s influence on The Doctor relatively early on in “Listen”.

From Twelve’s point of view, once Clara walked into his time stream Clara has been with him his entire life. In LISTEN the audience sees that she really has been with him his entire life. We also know from that script and the script to Dark Water that Clara never could have wound up in The Doctor’s bedroom to comfort him as a child if their time streams weren’t INTERTWINED and if they too didn’t share a profound emotional and psychic link.

Twelve is seemingly very rude to Clara, but he also still follows her around like a puppy. He insults her appearance by saying they look the same age.

So I have to wonder: what if he wasn’t insulting her? What if he actually thinks of her as being the same age as he is?

He clearly can’t live without her.

He is very troubled at the end of Flatline (a personal favorite of mine). He’s upset because Clara was way too good at being him. She should have been upset about the people who died. She wasn’t. He was. Quite a reversal of the previous week.

Clara WAS in romantic love with Danny Pink. They were both teachers. They both loved children. CLARA MET AND SPOKE TO THEIR GREAT-GRANDSON ORSON PINK. After Danny’s death (in a cruel irony, he died after being hit by a car. Clara’s parents met after her mother Ellie saved her father Dave from the same fate.)

Having met Orson, Clara wasn’t just grieving a boyfriend, she was grieving the man she believed was going to be her husband and CLARA WAS GRIEVING THEIR CHILDREN.

Clara believed, ever since Listen, that she and Danny were going to have at least one son, and at least one grandson who would be Orson’s father. She snapped. Who can blame her? We were never given proof that Missy murdered Danny. Clara is the type to blame herself. In her mind, because she was too afraid to tell Danny about all her lies to his face, she believed she had killed Danny, she believed she had killed their son, she believed had killed their grandson, and she believed she had killed her great-grandson Orson. Clara believed she had obliterated her entire family, and the weight of that was just too much for her. Again, who can blame her?

Clara threatens Twelve to try to make him save Danny, even though she knew it was impossible. Huh. Ok. Um… How DID human Clara know that it was impossible? Yes she’s very smart, but that’s a stretch. We in the audience knew. How did she? How much “Time Lord Wisdom” did she absorb while she was in Eleven’s time stream?

When did she learn his biography? He could have told her, but it doesn’t seem like something season 8’s Doctor would talk about.

The opening credits for Death in Heaven showed Clara’s eyes in the spot reserved for The Doctor. To play with the audience? Sure. To hint at The Hybrid? Why not.

We learn Missy put them together. Missy is insane, but she knows The Doctor. Out of all the people in the universe, she knew Clara was the perfect match for The Doctor. In her wacko mind, Clara was a gift.

On to season nine. Clara is becoming more and more reckless and more and more like The Doctor. Twelve is becoming increasingly worried about losing Clara.

Then he sees her murdered.

Stop. Back up. Why were we shown the Osgoods? >

Yes it was a brilliant two parter and I thought the political message was perfect and desperately needed.

But why did the Zygon story begin by showing us that when one Osgood died, her twin went insane? This element of the story was irrelevant. Moving, yes, but irrelevant to the larger narrative unless it wasn’t important to an even larger story arc. Grief was enough. Why madness?

In Heaven Sent, we KNOW The Doctor understands what is happening once he realizes the significance of the word “Bird”. But he keeps going. He wants to die. He is afraid to die but the thought of living without Clara is too much to bear. He is ready to give up. It’s only a pep talk from a hallucination of Clara that makes him continue through the most evil torture I can imagine.

He does it in order to cheat death. In order to cheat CLARA’S death. In order to try to attempt what Clara had tried a season earlier: rewrite a fixed point in time even though he KNEW damn well he couldn’t.

Once forced to accept that Clara’s heart will never beat again, we see that Twelve STILL refuses to accept it.

He’s still trying to cheat.

His logic makes no sense.

Ashildr (as the Voice of Moffat) is tasked with explaining “The Hybrid” to The Doctor and Clara (a human who has activated the monitor of the second TARDIS she’s ever been in, and who has been able to control THE TARDIS with a snap of her finger just like The Doctor since the 50th anniversary episode). Ashildr explains that she isn’t The Hybrid, the Hybrid is Twelve and Clara TOGETHER.

She’s right.

The two of them were The Hybrid. The hearts Twelve burned were his own.

_______

…I remember thinking they were separated at birth…

At the beginning of this essay, I mentioned that there is one death you can’t recover from. The death people can’t recover from is losing THEIR TWIN. Identical or fraternal, the surviving twin always feels that a piece of them is missing. If that surviving twin was a Time Lord with a Tardis, would he EVER give up trying to make his twin sister’s heart beat again? We saw evidence that 3.4 billion years of torture wouldn’t stop him. Twelve would never stop until the universe burned. THAT was why he had to lose his memory.

Somewhere Clara is still flying around in a TARDIS she shouldn’t be able to fly and she still loves Twelve. But once her murder was a fixed point, Twelve couldn’t handle remembering her anymore. The memory of her was too dangerous.

_______

So yes, I agree that they loved each other, but it wasn’t romantic love.

Clara and Twelve… their love was something else. Something, appropriately, completely IMPOSSIBLE.

I think that when Clara stepped into The Doctor’s time stream and splintered across it, she became psychologically more than a bit like him and he became psychologically more then a bit like her.

Danny recognized how close Clara was to The Doctor. Clara was worried about his reaction to her continued travels in the TARDIS, but Danny seemed as ok with their relationship as could he expected. Danny couldn’t stand Twelve, but even after Kill the Moon he had accepted that they were a set. If he loves one of them, he’s gonna be stuck with the other. He saw and stated that Clara and The Doctor very close and got along. He didn’t want her taking idiotic risks (he was right), but he had no problem at all with his girlfriend spending time with a man he hated (even when they had specifically gone somewhere that is inherently romantic like The Orient Express) as long as it was safe. He was amused by her concern about his reaction. As long as she was safe, she didn’t have to explain. Being the bait for a Skovox Blitzer? No. Hell No. Unacceptable. Running off with a man he hates to spend at least one night on one of the most romantic trains ever? Yeah, that’s fine. That was amusing and nothing he was going to try to stop.

Danny himself recognized that the only thing to do about his girlfriend running around with this “Time Lord” he hated was to accept it as long as she promised not to lie if he was going to put her in mortal peril. Danny seemed to know in Mummy on the Orient Express that if he wanted to date Clara, he was stuck with the pompous ass who would always demean and dismiss him as a PE teacher. They were a package.

__________

After Ashildr explained to how they TOGETHER were The Hybrid, Twelve tries to cheat Clara’s death with a memory wipe.

Clara won’t allow it.

Clara, a human, somehow manages to reverse the way the memory wipe device works. Instead of erasing her memory it erases his.

He knows something is wrong. He knows he’s forgotten someone. He still can’t remember Clara specifically.

Clara and Ashildr, in a TARDIS Clara should not be able to operate, leave. Just like in the lyrics to La Habanera, Clara beat her wings, broke the cage, and flew away.

Even though Twelve can’t remember Clara Oswald, he seems to still retain her humanity.

Eleven was at times terrifying. By the end, he was insincere more then he wasn’t. He was at times utterly terrifying in both Season 6 and in Season 7.

Twelve, in contrast, was ALWAYS not quite right. He was too human.

Does anyone really think Twelve could have done what Eleven did at the end of The Rebel Flesh? No. Even upon a second viewing knowing Eleven wasn’t trying to hurt Amy but was panicking and desperately trying to wake her up so he could rescue her, does anyone really think Twelve could have violently slammed a companion into a wall and hollered hostilely in her face? No.

Twelve couldn’t have done it because CLARA couldn’t have done it.

Look at Twelve in season 10. He’s a teacher. He didn’t need Clara’s “tact” cards when Bill asked him what was going on at the end of Extremis. He somehow REMEMBERED how to tell someone, ahem… very bad news. Clara would have been proud. He REMEMBERED how to comfort children in Thin Ice just like Clara would.

He has forgotten the specifics of Clara because he had to, but he couldn’t forget her personality, her kindness, her love of children. She is still a part of him.

So yes, I think Clara was the most important character in The Doctor’s entire existence.

I think they loved each other beyond what they could understand.

But I do NOT think they were EVER in romantic love.

She was The Impossible Girl.

I think their love was impossible.

When Clara walked into The Doctor’s Time Stream, I think she and he became Fraternal Twins.

Again, they never realized this. Ashildr had to explain how the two of them together were The Hybrid. But it fits the dynamic of their relationship. They would both die for each other. They bicker constantly. She bosses him around. There is NOTHING that one could do that could make the other leave.

I have lost count of the number of times their relationship was described as unhealthy or disfunctional. It reads quite differently if Twelve is Clara’s annoying bratty brother. Nearly every interaction going back to Deep Breath works if he perceives her as his sister and best friend and he’s always around annoying her because they used to do everything together but now she’s got a social life while he doesn’t.

I think they were The Hybrid because they were, on a deep psychological level, fraternal twins.

And I think they both perceived Clara as being the one who was a few minutes “older”.

Thoughts?

____________________ (*I like to imagine that Victorian Clara was calling herself “Becky Montague” because I find the reference to Vanity Fair funny. Victorian Clara and Vanity Fair’s Becky Sharp were social climbers, and Victorian Clara wound up literally climbing stairs for a social reason. Victorian Clara was sharp as a tack, but unlike nanny Becky Sharp, she cared deeply for her charges. Plus, one of Becky Sharp’s charges was named “Amelia”. It’s just too on the nose.)

#nevermore #clara oswald #twelfth doctor #oswelve #doctor who #danny pink #12th doctor #doctor who meta #jenna coleman #peter capaldi

13 notes · View notes

worldfootprints · 5 years

Text

Benjamin Franklin gestured dramatically toward the moldering gravestone of the Revolutionary War soldier. “And then,” he proclaimed, pausing for effect, “He killed ‘im dead!” Twelve adults and a handful of children stared at him wide-eyed as he finished the dramatic account of the Yankee soldier’s death. “Follow me, I will take you to Old North Church and the site of the Boston Massacre.” He whipped Paul Revere’s woodcutting of the Boston Massacre out of a pocket and displayed it with a flourish. A camera flashed. Benjamin Franklin posed for a second photo.

Obviously, our downtown Boston tour guide was not actually Benjamin Franklin. To be honest, he wasn’t even pretending to be—although I thought the tour company was missing out by not taking advantage of the fact that this man was the spitting image of the famous figure. Eleven-year-old me soaked in every aspect of the spooky graveyard tour, trying to pretend I was fending off the October chill with a deerskin coat rather than a windbreaker and imagining what life might have been like long before Boston became characterized by skyscrapers of chrome and glass. Even after a decade and a half, the memory of this adventure in Boston is clear in my mind.

History Road Trips

Boston was the first stop on our family’s history tour of the East Coast, our annual family “field trip.” Instead of the summer vacations to the beach, we took autumn trips to historical or geological sites around the United States. One thing my sister and I loved about the trips is that they counted as school days. This was one of the many perks of being homeschooled, although it didn’t mean we got to skip out on finishing our math workbooks! Just because the trips were considered “school” didn’t mean they were boring. My mom, a teacher, and my dad, a geology aficionado, built up our expectations of the trip through a semester of historical fiction, vivid storytelling, period-accurate toys, movie nights, and projects both recreational and educational. By the time we arrived on the East Coast from Arizona, we felt like we were old friends with George Washington and Paul Revere. We were excited to see everything, and the opportunity to spend money we earned by memorizing geography facts certainly didn’t dampen our enthusiasm.

Statue of Paul Revere in Boston.

There are many benefits to taking an educational East Coast vacation. First, it’s fun! Both my sister and I were voracious readers, and my love of history mixed with her interest in photography set the stage for fun on our East Coast road trip. However, touring the history of the East Coast can be a blast even if you or your kids aren’t particularly enamored with books or dusty artifacts. Creepy graveyard tours will excite Ghostbusters wannabes, art lovers will revel in the many museums, foodies will find Heaven on Earth in fine New England eateries, movie buffs will enjoy the many film settings, and the mischievous among us will get a kick out of trying to make Plimoth Plantation actors break character. There’s so much to see and do!

Secondly, of course, a tour of the United States’ roots provides a rich educational opportunity. Experience this region’s history, government, art, geography, marine life, architecture, music and more in real life, and you’ll never see them the same way again. Take your kids on a trip like this, and they’ll have to try to fail social studies tests in the future. There’s just nothing like reading original documents or seeing historical sites in person.

Points of Interest on an East Coast History Tour

When touring the East Coast, why not start where the Revolutionary War began? Boston is not only the birthplace of the American Revolution, but it’s also a great northerly point to start at so you can work your way south. You can see pretty much all of Boston’s history if you take the Freedom Trail. Squint your eyes a bit, and you can almost block out the rush of traffic to imagine 18th Century crowds moving through the cobbled streets. The urban path leads past nearly twenty historic sites, including Boston Common, Granary Burying Ground, old North Church, and the USS Constitution. Don’t forget to see where the Boston Tea Party took place at Boston Harbor. If you want to enjoy some scientific excursions, the MIT Museum and Boston Aquarium are rather impressive. Of course, you can’t leave Massachusetts without a visit to the settlers and Natives at Plimoth Plantation.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Heading south from Boston, you can stop in Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park in Connecticut on your way to New York City. Once in NYC, you’ll have to pick your favorite attractions! I recommend bypassing the Statue of Liberty to tour Ellis Island, although if you’re short on time, you can view both from a distance by taking the Statin Island Ferry across the harbor. If your heart is set on seeing a Broadway play while you’re in Manhattan, you can keep with your historic theme by getting tickets to Hamilton. Of course, you can’t miss the chance to get a glimpse of the Chrysler Building, the Flatiron Building, or the Brooklyn Bridge, but don’t forget to have some fun on the century-old Coney Island Cyclone roller coaster.

View of Ellis Island

Philadelphia, Delaware and D.C. Sites

Emerge from the lightning-speed pace of New York City life into the antique air of historic Philadelphia. Thanks to National Treasure, you might already be pretty familiar with the major attractions: The Liberty Bell, Washington Square, Old City Hall, and Independence Hall. Depending on your interests, you might also like Battleship New Jersey or Morris Arboretum.

Delaware, as the nation’s first state, certainly deserves a quick visit, which can be achieved with a visit to Fort Delaware. From there, head to Washington, D.C., where you’ll wish you had more time to explore, no matter how long you stay. Where do you even begin? Well, the National Mall is a good place to start. You can burn a lot of calories walking from the White House to the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Capitol, and the various Smithsonian Museums. You might not have time for all the Smithsonian Museums, but you can pick your favorites. I was a fan of the Air and Space Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. After all that walking, you can try to spot senators while refueling at some of the fancier restaurants, like 1789, a popular institution named for the year the Constitution was adopted and offering an 18th-Century experience. If you can plan ahead, book a tour of the White House or your representative’s office. Finally, end your road trip with a jaunt down to George Washington’s estate, Mount Vernon in Virginia.

When you walk the streets of the historic East Coast, the past comes alive! Next time you open an American history book or watch a documentary, you’ll be able to say that you were there. From the centuries-old brick of Boston to the sprawling countryside of Virginia, there’s no better way to learn about the roots of American culture.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

East Coast History Road Trip Benjamin Franklin gestured dramatically toward the moldering gravestone of the Revolutionary War soldier. “And then,” he proclaimed, pausing for effect, “He killed ‘im dead!” Twelve adults and a handful of children stared at him wide-eyed as he finished the dramatic account of the Yankee soldier’s death.

0 notes