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karanna1 · 4 years

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AU - Lena Luthor Saves Krypton

Lena is somehow sent back in time and finds herself on Krypton 30 years before the planet explodes. Kara doesn’t exist yet. Krypton has no idea what’s about to happen to them.

Lena realizes that with her knowledge of what’s to come and intellect to devise a solution, she can do two things. One, she can save an entire species from near extinction. Two, she can save Kara from ever having to experience the pain of losing her family, her home, and being abandoned. Kara could live a happy life and never know the burden of Supergirl or being the last daughter of Krypton.

So instead of trying to find a way back to Earth, back to her own time, she settles into life on Krypton, becomes fluent in Kryptonese, and sets about with a spectacularly single-minded focus of changing the future - to save this dying world (and Kara).

She succeeds...mostly. They can’t fix the damage that’s already been done to the planet. Their sun will die and destroy Krypton still, but with Lena’s help they’re able to locate a barren planet in another system that has a white star. It’s brand new, strong, and will live for untold trillions of years (provided Kryptonians didn’t try to harness its power again).

They terraform the planet and create “New Krypton” using the dome concept that Zor-El invented fused with Coluan bottling technology. All Kryptonians are instantly transported to their new home that’s identical to the old one save for one difference - the white sun grants them god-like powers that are beyond what Lena ever saw Kara and Clark capable of on Earth. Kryptonians are overwhelmed en masse by these powers. Some go power mad and attempt coups and form radical sects. Others realize the gift they’ve been given and, with Lena’s guidance, Kryptonian society develops under a new mission - to travel the galaxy and offer help to all those in need. Not just offering knowledge and technology this time, but themselves with their newfound powers.

Lena keeps her distance from the House of El as much as she can. It’s nearly impossible considering their standing with the Kryptonian High Council. Lena has to work very closely with the Council. Jor-El and his brother, Zor-El, are brilliant scientists and statesmen. Alura In-Ze is a rising star in the judicial system. Her marriage to Zor-El, second born son of the House of El, caused quite a few waves, but when Lara Lor-Van, a brilliant biologist and prominent noble of the House of Van, agrees to marry Jor-El, it’s all anyone can talk about. All 4 of them live very public lives due to their professions, their positions on the High Council, and their nobility.

They’re ever so fascinated by Lena Luthor, the human from Earth that appeared one day to save their entire planet. Their savior. The one their people have named “The New Dawn”. Lena wants nothing to do with the House of El. It’s too much. She can’t bear to be so close to Kara’s family without Kara. It feels wrong. Unfortunately, with how much Lena tries to avoid them, the 4 nobles think they’ve done something to offend her, and constantly attempt ways to make amends. It only makes Lena’s life that much more difficult.

But she still knows the exact date and time that Kara Zor-El steps into existence. Later, she will know the moment Kal-El is born (mostly because Lara’s natural birth is all anyone can talk about).

Lena meets Kara on New Krypton entirely by accident one day when Zor-El brings his brilliant young daughter, a prodigy in the Science Guild, to see Krypton’s finest laboratory entirely unannounced. The same laboratory that Lena founded and runs. She’s stricken, having tried to avoid this moment for as long as she could, knowing that eventually she’d have to see Kara as child, which would spell the end of every fanciful dream or slightest hope she had of a chance that someday she would find Kara, her best friend, again. Seeing the reality both warms her heart and breaks it all the same. This bouncing bundle of joy and inquisitiveness has the same blinding smile, in all its purity, with that same head of golden hair.

“You’re THE Lena Luthor?”

She kneels before her so they’re at eye level. “I suppose I am. And you’re THE Kara Zor-El?”

The ten year old gasps. “You know who I am?”

“Of course. I know all the important people. And you are a very important person, Kara.”

“I am?”

Zor-El interjects. “I’ve told Lena all about you, my dear. I’m sure she’s grown tired of my endless babbling about my wonderful daughter and her keen scientific mind.”

“Not at all,” Lena replies a bit flatly and tries to tune him out as she focuses on the young girl who will one day be a most extraordinary woman. “Do you enjoy the Science Guild, Kara?”

“Yes! I love to learn new things. As many things as I can! Sometimes father asks me to work with him in his laboratory at home and I help him with his projects!”

“That does sound like fun. I enjoy creating things as well.”

“You’re the most brilliant bio-engineer on Krypton! I’ve read all about you! You saved us.”

Lena shies away from the praise and instead fumbles her way forward, uncomfortable under the scrutiny of Zor-El, whom she’d never given the time of day until he walked in with his daughter.

“Tell me, Kara, do you like other subjects besides science?”

Kara fidgets, a little confused. “Well, I don’t...they don’t give you much time for other subjects. I-I do try to read about other things like art and history when I have free time, but I’m not really allowed—“

“She’s a hard worker and a wonderful student,” Zor-El interrupts again.

Lena ignores him. “Do you enjoy writing, Kara?”

“Writing?”

“Creation comes in many forms. I enjoy being able to create things with my hands. Machines. Technology. Things to help people. Science is my passion, but there are many other ways to help people. Ways that I’m not very good at, but others are. Writing takes a curious mind, creativity, and a way with words. I believe you might have a gift for that.”

“A gift for words?” Her little brow crinkles as she considers it.

Lena nods. “A writer can do a great many things that a scientist cannot. They are equally as powerful and important. What matters is doing what you love most, what inspires you most. You’re going to do great things one day, Kara. Maybe with the Science Guild, maybe with something else... The future is limitless for you.”

“You really think I could be that important someday?”

“You already are.” Lena smiles and breathes deeply. “Do you know what your name means where I come from?”

She shakes her head. “I have read about Earth. It’s very far away and my Aunt Astra says their civilization is primitive and filled with savages. They have my name there too?”

“Daughter, do not speak—“

Lena waves off Zor-El’s warning without looking at him.

“That’s not an unfair assessment of Earth compared to Krypton, but I do believe humanity would surprise a great many Kryptonians, including your Aunt. In my native language, Kara means ‘beloved friend’.”

Kara beams in a way that is so achingly familiar. It’s like an echo in Lena’s memory. Not exact, not complete, but the beginning of what it will become.

“I like that. Does that mean I’m your friend?”

Lena feels it in that moment. The melting warmth simultaneous with the absolute shattering of what was left of her heart.

“I will always be your friend, darling. Always.”

Kara leaves with her father and Lena’s coworkers are concerned when she goes off planet for an impromptu holiday without notice. She returns two months later and picks up as if she never left.

It’s around that time that one of the people she’s befriended in her years on Krypton remarks at how ageless she seems for a human that supposedly has a short life span. It sparks Lena’s curiosity. Indeed, it’s been nearly 30 years since she traveled back in time and found herself on a new planet. Yet you’d be hard pressed to find a single physical difference. Kryptonians aged slowly under a red star, and even slower still under the white star, but Lena was human. Her body wasn’t designed to accommodate solar radiation the way Kryptonians did. She was over 50 years old now, yet she still didn’t look a day over 28.

More years pass and New Krypton thrives. The galaxy is brought together through New Krypton’s diplomacy and thousands of planets and species are united under a banner of peace. There are always dissenters, but happiness and prosperity is widespread. Lena finds joy in friendships and attempts romantic relationships, but nothing ever really takes. Still, she’s content. She misses Earth, of course, and hopes to return one day before she dies, whenever that will be, but she’s found peace in knowing that she is able to be the one thing she’s always wanted - a force for good.

She’s at dinner with coworkers one night when Lara and Jor-El spot her. She sighs and straightens, preparing for their next attempt to get in her good graces.

“Do they never desist?” One of them mutters next to her ear. “Surely they’re intelligent enough to know when they’re not wanted?”

“Don’t be unkind, but help me keep it short if it goes on too long.”

“Lena! It’s wonderful to see you,” Lara says.

“You as well. How are you?”

“Very well, thank you.”

Lena’s table has gone conspicuously, and therefore awkwardly, silent.

Lara and Jor-El look around at the group uncomfortably.

“We were wondering...well, our niece is being inducted to the—“

“The Science Council as First Order,” Lena finishes for her. “Yes, I’m aware. It’s a great honor. I’m sure the House of El is quite proud.”

“Indeed we are,” Jor-El jumps in. “She’s a most remarkable young woman and we couldn’t be prouder of who she’s become.”

“We are holding a celebration to mark the occasion and were wondering if you might honor us by attending? It will be quite the event.” Lara does a slight eyeroll. “Jor is insisting on all the fantastical things.”

Jor-El nods enthusiastically. “My brother isn’t one for celebrations so I’ve taken up the mantle. Kara deserves all the praise she’s earned with her hard work and dedication.”

“You’ll have to forgive my mate’s enthusiasm. He’s quite invested in Kara since she can share his passion for his life’s work while our son is—“

“Disgustingly hopeless,” Jor-El grumbles.

“Oh?” She raises an eyebrow. “A great disappointment he’s been then?”

“Goodness no!” Lara shakes her head and shoots a warning look at her husband. “Kal is a fine boy. Just...a little lost.”

“Perhaps he is simply in need of a different path than the one his father has in mind,” Lena finds the words tumbling out of her mouth without thinking twice. The couple stares at her agape, but she continues without care. “I can certainly sympathize with the need to step out of the shadow of a family’s overbearing legacy.” She sighs. “While I thank you for considering me, it’s simply not possible with my days usually booked from dawn to dusk. Besides, parties have never been altogether pleasant endeavors for me.”

The disappointment on their faces isn’t what changes her mind. It’s that as soon as she says the words, she regrets it. She’s, of course, kept up with Kara’s doings and was concerned when she heard about the recent move in the Science Guild. Was journalism just a secondary passion since she couldn’t truly use her mind on Earth the way she could on Krypton? Or was this a woman just following in her family’s footsteps because she believed it was the right thing to do? Lena hadn’t seen or spoken to Kara in 16 years. Not since the day Zor-El brought her to the lab.

In the end, it’s Lena’s concern and curiosity for Kara’s well being that wins out. Though she very well knows that the woman that existed in another life, on another planet, is not the woman who lives here now on New Krypton. Even if she shared the same name and the same face...maybe even the same bright eyes and sunny smile. Even then.

“Send me the invitation. I’ll see what I can do,” Lena says, to the surprise of everyone at her table, including the two standing next to it.

They nod, stunned but pleased, and say their goodbyes quickly, walking away.

Lena’s coworkers all turn to her in surprise, but she refuses to answer their questions and excuses herself early for the evening.

She doesn’t show for the celebration. She torments herself for a week coming up to it and can’t bring herself to go. The fear of the past and her memories being trod upon are too strong. But somehow she finds herself in the Starling Grove anyway, just as it comes to an end. The evening is late and guests slowly make their exit after the long day of partying. Lena practically sneaks in, staying in shadows, not knowing what she hopes to find or what she could see that would make all her fears come true.

Is it any wonder that fate would intervene? That there would be no circumstance in which Lena could fly so close to the sun and not be touched?

“If avoiding people is your specialty, you’re very skilled at it.”

It’s almost terrifying to hear her voice again. It’s a different language being spoken, but the voice is the same. As if it’d been snatched from the deepest recesses of Lena’s memories, of a different life and a different world, and brought to the present in flesh and blood with a bolt of lightning.

She turns and it’s Kara smiling at her. Not the sunny smile. The soft, tender, reassuring one. The one that she used to share with Lena when she had one of her harder days. Kara was no longer the small and precocious child she met all those years ago, the one that she could almost convince herself was a complete stranger and that there was no connection between the child and the woman she knew. But that was gone now. The Kara standing before her was the same one she’d left behind on Earth. The one she’d given up in order to save her. The one who walked into her office so many years ago, trailing behind her cousin, and Lena knew she was done for.

Her eyes were so blue as she looked at her...bluer than Lena remembered and it seemed so impossible. Perhaps it wasn’t real. Perhaps she was dreaming. But she wasn’t...was she?

“My skills must be rusty since you were able to catch me.”

Kara put a finger to her smiling lips. “Shh. Finding people is one of my untold gifts.”

“I imagine you have a lot of those.”

Kara looks pleasantly flustered and she stammers over her words in a way that Lena knows so well that the sound of it squeezes her heart in a vise like grip.

She’s not the same person. She’s not your Kara. Your Kara doesn’t exist anymore. Over and over she repeats this in her head.

“Wait...” Kara finally collects herself and peers at Lena more closely. “You’re-you’re Lena Luthor! My Uncle said you might be here, but I never thought...”

“On my home world, they like to say it’s fashionable to be late. However, tonight was just a tad bit too far. I...I simply wanted to stop by and wish you well. A-and to congratulate you on your achievement.”

Did she manage to say that with any passing conviction?

“Thank you. That means a great deal coming from someone like you.”

“Are you happy?” She blurts before her good sense can kick in. “This life...does it make you happy?”

Kara looks at her oddly for a long moment, clearly thrown, but not put off. Lena doesn’t know what else to say that could fix her blunder.

“Yes,” she says, a serene smile creeps across her face. “I’m very happy. I love my family and my friends. I enjoy my work. I hope to have a family of my own one day, but I don’t mind waiting for the right person. Everyone always wants to rush me into something, telling me that I shouldn’t be alone, but I don’t mind it. When it’s right, I know that it will be worth the wait.”

Lena’s heart stutters and freezes. “I-I’m glad to hear that. Truly. I shouldn’t take up anymore of your time though. I’m sure you have somewhere to be and it’s late so I really should be going anyway.”

“Oh! Um. Yes, of course.” She looks disappointed, but Lena can’t think about that. “Thank you for being here.”

Her legs feel as though they’re weighted with cement as she walks away. Her mind screams at her to run, but her body doesn’t seem to get the message. She doesn’t want to leave Kara’s side. Not like this. Not after she’s found her again.

But it’s not her. Not really.

“My Lady?”

She turns around at once. Kara stands there, fiddling with her hands, her head tilted to the side.

“Apologies. I-I remember reading that you never liked that title. You prefer...what was it...” She closes her eyes as she searches for it. “Oh!” Her eyes fly open again. “Miss Luthor. I should have addressed you as ‘Miss Luthor’, yes?”

The ‘Miss’ was heavily accented and sounded nothing like how she used to say it, but it still tore Lena apart.

“I never forgot what you said.”

The voice in Lena’s head screams again for her to run, but instead she draws closer. She needs to hear it.

Her Kara.

No, it’s not her.

“What did I say?”

“I was a little girl. My father brought me to your lab to show me around.”

“I remember.”

Don’t let her do this. Don’t let her pull you in again. You can’t. For both of your sakes, you can’t.

“You talked about different ways of creating. Of passion. It’s silly, I know, and I’m sure you say it to all the children who read about you in school and have a serious case of hero worship, but...you told me I was important.”

“You are.”

It’s a reflex. She can’t help it.

“And you said that I had a gift for words. I never understood why you would say that. How you could know...”

Lena chuckles awkwardly. “Looks like I was off the mark since you’ve just joined the Science Council.”

“But you weren’t.”

Lena’s breath hitches.

“I’ve never told anyone else this...”

Kara steps closer, sharing a secret that Lena doesn’t know she deserves to hear. She wonders if she still knows how to breathe with Kara being this close after so long...so many years gone...

“I started writing that day. That very night I went home and I tried it. I never stopped. I’ve never been happier than when I’m writing. Imagining stories or just writing my thoughts, putting memories into words, keeping a record of each day and what I’ve done, who I’ve seen, what my first thought is in the morning and my last thought at night. All of it.”

Kara was so close. She could smell her. Nothing like what she remembered. It was something altogether new and still...still... Lena’s heart beat so loudly, she was sure every Kryptonian within miles was wondering what that raucous drumming noise was. What must Kara think? Surely she could hear it. Lena was embarrassing herself.

“You inspired me.”

Lena doesn’t know how she manages it, but she somehow strings together coherent words.

“But you continued to pursue...”

“The Science Guild, yes. I’m very good there. It comes easily. It makes my family proud.”

“It’s not your passion though.”

Kara shakes her head gently.

“What stops you?”

“Well, what if I’m not really good at writing after all? I’ve never told anyone about it. I’ve never let them read anything... What if I make a terrible mistake and humiliate myself and my family?”

“Following your heart isn’t a mistake.”

“That’s not a very Kryptonian sentiment.”

“No, but it is a human one.” Lena sighs. “I tried so hard, for so long, not to listen to mine. But it won out every time. Despite all the pain it brought me...I remind myself that it’s what brought me here. To this planet. To this time. To do good. To be good. Following your heart is the most terrifying notion, but in my experience, it has also led me to the greatest moments of joy and love that I’ve ever known.”

Kara stares at her in wonderment. Her long blonde locks flow over her shoulders. Her dress is white and flowing, almost luminescent under the glow of the evening flowers blooming in the garden. It became quickly apparent how very alone they were, the last guests and servers from the party were gone. The torches were still lit, but it was their own world.

Wasn’t it always?

It’s not her.

“I don’t think I could be as brave as you.”

“You have always been brave and I know that you are capable of the most extraordinary amount of courage...courage and boundless hope. You are the one who inspires me, Kara. You always have.”

“Me?” She replies in the softest utterance. “But I haven’t done anything nearly as incredible as you.”

“The kind of person you are is far more important than any sum of career achievements. Don’t let fear make you hide in the shadows, Kara. Step into the sun. You’ve always belonged there.”

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“When will you step out of the shadows, Miss Luthor?”

A voice calls for Kara in the distance. It’s jarring and breaks the spell that seemed to lock them together in time suspended.

They step away, now acutely aware of how close they’d been this whole time.

Kara blushes and opens her mouth to say something, but Lena can’t bear to hear it.

“Goodnight, Kara Zor-El. I hope you enjoyed your party.”

Another voice joins the first. Two people are calling for her now. Kara seems frustrated and turns back, yelling to them that she’d be there soon.

She turns back. “I—“

But Lena’s gone.

She leaves New Krypton again. Journeys to other planets under the guise of a holiday and scientific exploration. She wonders if now is the time to return to Earth. She can’t even call it home anymore, but it’s home...isn’t it? 45 years could be enough to make New Krypton home and maybe it was. Maybe it was more of a home than Earth. But New Krypton had spectres walking among the living. Lena’s past had caught up to her here as well. She was no longer alone. Would Earth be any better with a reminder at every street corner? A certain smell. A park bench. A pair of glasses. Food. All of the food on Earth. She would never truly escape there either. It has to be a different planet. Not New Krypton, not Earth, something else entirely.

She searches across galaxies for it. Finally, one appeals to her. She can see herself settling down there. She can make a new life for herself...again. She returns to Krypton with determination. She resigns from her position, ignores the High Council’s pleas, ignores their more pointed demands, and even their attempted orders when it appeared that nothing else was working. She packs her things and bids farewell to her friends. They’ll visit now and again, but soon she won’t be seeing them at all. It doesn’t bother her all that much. She’d find replacements eventually. No one had ever been like... Well, she’d never let anyone get close enough to try.

She was walking out of her building for the last time, her luggage already sent ahead, and was headed to the transport when she heard her voice again on the wind, calling her name. Of course she would hear her now. This was exactly why she needed to leave this place. The sooner the better to end this torment.

The transport doors were nearly closed when a hand shot between them. The metal alloys were crushed in a powerful grip and the doors were jerkily pried open again.

Kara stood in front of her. Her hair windswept, almost what it used to look like when she would fly to Lena at breaking speed to rescue her. Did she fly here? Was she really here?

“Kara?”

“Lena, don’t go.”

“What are y—?”

“That’s government property!” someone shouts at Kara from further away.

A Kelex zooms in beside her. “And you were flying within city limits which is strictly prohibited. Unfortunately, Lady Kara, this means we must place you under arrest.”

A patrolman, the one who shouted, walks up behind Kara, nodding his head in agreement.

“Arrest?” She rolls her eyes at the Kelex and turns to the patrolman. “The doors were an accident and sorry about the flying thing. I’ll pay the fines. I doubt Alura In-Ze will take kindly to you dragging someone in for petty infarctions, let alone that someone being her daughter.”

Lena finds herself walking out of the transport, entirely of her own volition, and watches it leave without her. Kara is arguing with the patrolman over what her fines should be, but suddenly Lena feels someone take her hand. She looks down and sees that indeed there is another hand holding hers. She drags her gaze up to find those blue eyes again. A ghost. A spectre. Everything she was trying to escape.

“I’m sorry to just...burst in on you like this. But you’ve been gone for months and I only just heard that you’d come back, planning to leave New Krypton for good. I didn’t...”

“You didn’t what?”

“I don’t know.” Her brow furrows in frustration. “I didn’t plan this. I just...when I heard, I felt like I had to stop you.”

Lena pulls her hand away and crosses her arms. She needs to get ahold of herself. This was all so out of control.

“Why?”

Kara is just as bewildered as she is. “Well, I...I’m not sure. But we’ve only just started.”

“What?”

“Don’t you feel it? I know you must.”

She swallows thickly. “Kara, I...”

“I think there’s a lot you haven’t told me. A lot that I hope you will tell me. You promised me once that you would always be my friend. Please, Lena. We both know that this...it’s not supposed to end here.”

“When is it supposed to end?”

“I hope not for very long time.”

“I’ve lived a lifetime already.”

Kara grins. “Then what’s one more? Should be easy if you’ve already done it.”

Lena shakes her head. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Somehow I do...and I don’t. I know it’s strange. I know what I sound like. But I think you understand. Don’t you?”

“Kara...”

“Are you hungry?” She interrupts. “I’m famished. The flying thing is really fun, but I always get so hungry after. How about it?”

“I’m supposed to be boarding a ship in 20 minutes.”

“We can eat fast!”

“I know you can eat fast, that’s not the point,” she mutters. “I have to go.”

“But you see? You say things like that. Like it’s normal to just know these things about me, but it’s not. How do you know? We’ve only met twice and both times it feels as though you know everything about me.”

“Everything?” She scoffs. “No. Never.”

“Well, the important things anyway.”

Lena falters.

“Please? Just...for a little while? There’s always another ship if you really must go.”

No.

No, I’ve been through this before. I saved you. I saved your people. You’re happy. I don’t belong here. I’ve never belonged. This is your world. I don’t belong anywhere. I did what was right. I helped people. I still help people. But I won’t do this again.

“I’m pretty sure you know that a Kryptonian can tell when you’re lying. The white star brought us untold abilities. And the longer I’ve lived here, under this new sun, I’ve discovered more abilities. Would you like to know about them?”

Lena can only stare.

“If I’m close enough...and I concentrate hard enough...I can feel what you’re feeling. It’s not mind reading exactly, but something deeper. I can feel you right now.” She swallows hard. “What have I done to cause you such pain, Lena? I never thought that... If you have to go, I won’t stop you. I just thought...” She sighs defeatedly. “I don’t know what I thought. But it wasn’t this. It wasn’t pain. Or anger. Or betrayal.”

Lena’s eyes widen at the same time as Kara’s. She seemed to realize it only as she spoke the word aloud.

“Betrayal?” Kara whispers, half to herself. “I don’t understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand.”

“You’re lying.”

“Stop it.”

“I can’t! Tell me what’s happening. How can you be so angry with me, but also feel...like this...when we don’t even know each other?”

“But we do.”

At last she admits it.

In the quietest whisper.

“We did. Once. In another life.”

Kara nods slowly. “Where?”

“On Earth.”

“I’ve never been to Earth.”

“Not in this time. But in another...you were Earth’s Champion. Our Protector. The Paragon of Hope.”

“As you are the Protector of Krypton? Our Salvation. The New Dawn.”

Lena shrinks uncomfortably under the titles.

“Will you tell me more?”

“You believe me?”

“Of course I do. You’re Lena Luthor. Also, with my powers I can sense you’re telling the truth, so...” She shrugs lightly at that, a sheepish smile.

“Right. Well, I admit I’m still a bit resentful that after everything I’ve been through, I still didn’t get even a hint of those powers.”

Kara takes her hand again, tentatively this time. She probably thinks Lena will pull away.

She doesn’t.

“There’s been a rumor for ages that you’re immortal. Are you saying that’s not true? From what I’ve read, humans have a shorter life span than us. Your species only live about 85 years or so.”

“I’ve heard the rumor and, yes, the average human lifespan is shorter than a Kryptonian’s.”

“You look pretty darn good for your age if you’re preparing to join Rao in a few cycles.”

Lena has to laugh. She lets Kara lead her away from the platform and down to the street. They walk hand in hand.

“So you’re not immortal?”

“It remains to be seen.”

“Then maybe our white sun did give you a hint of something after all.”

“Maybe. I have yet to ascertain the cause.”

“I could help you with your study, should you choose to explore it further.”

“You want to study me?”

Kara blushes. “I...I didn’t mean it like that. I only meant—“

“I know what you meant.”

Silence falls between them.

“You’re still holding my hand.”

“You’re still letting me.”

“It’s strange.” She stares. “You’re different. You’re so different than you were before, a completely different person, but somehow...when I look at you, you’re exactly who you’ve always been.”

“Are you different now too?”

“Yes.” She shrugs. “I think so anyway.”

“But we’ve still found each other. That means something.”

“Are you sure you want to hear this? You might be angry with me. I...I made choices that changed your life. A great number of lives.”

“I want to hear everything. But even if I do get angry, I won’t leave. I promise.”

Lena starts at that. How could she know exactly—? The realization hits her.

“My fears...you feel them right now, don’t you?”

Kara nods. “I won’t betray you, Lena. Whatever mistakes I’ve made before...in that other life...I won’t make them again.”

“You’ll make other mistakes.”

“Of course!” She laughs. “I’m gifted, but hardly perfect. You’ll make mistakes too, even if you are the Great New Dawn.”

“Two prodigies...” Lena raises an eyebrow. “I don’t know how people stand us. We must be insufferable to be around.”

“I can’t be held accountable for the jealousy of others.”

Lena chuckles. “Good to know you’re as competitive as ever.”

“And you? Are you competitive as well?”

“On occasion...when it comes to the right things.”

Kara grins. “Tell me more about Earth.”

“Earth or...you on Earth?”

“Both. Or just one. Whatever you like. We have all the time we need. We’ll get to it eventually.”

“Kara?”

“Yes?”

“What do you want?”

“You.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

“You’re not afraid?”

“Of losing you? Yes, I’m afraid. I thought I did when you left me in the Grove that night.”

“It’s different this time though.”

“Different how?”

“You were afraid before. O-on Earth. So you lied to me. Hid things from me. You were afraid I’d reject you.”

“So I lost you anyway?”

“For a while.”

“I know who I am and I want to share all of that with you. I’m afraid I’ll lose you if I don’t. Do you think that means I learned my lesson with a second chance?”

“Even though you don’t remember the first?”

Kara tilts her head thoughtfully. “Are you familiar with the theological concept of reincarnation?”

Lena nods.

“Many species and cultures detail it differently, but the belief that a soul does not reside in an afterlife fascinates me. The idea that one could instead be reborn and is destined to learn new lessons with each life that it failed to learn in the last. Maybe we found a way to do that without needing to die at all.”

“Are you sure you’re the First Order of the Science Council? Because that sounds an awful lot like preaching I’ve heard from the Religious Guild. You’re in the wrong profession.”

Kara rolls her eyes. “If anything, I should have joined the Artisans. But it’s too late for that.”

Lena’s quiet for a moment. They’re walking along streets she’s never seen before and doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter.

“I think I’m learning...” she says softly, “that it’s never too late. If you want something enough, it’s never too late.”

“I hope you’re right.”

Lena looks around. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“No, I thought you did.”

“No. I guess we’re lost then.”

Kara shrugs with a charming, sunny smile that lights her whole face. It’s the one that Lena hasn’t seen in over 40 years and it takes her breath away.

“Oh well.” Kara squeezes Lena’s hand happily. “I suppose we’ll find our way together.”

#supergirl #supercorp #supercorp fanfic #supercorp fic #supercorp fanfiction #dont read this #im sorry #it was a rambling stream of conscious moment

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beelzegrub · 3 years

Text

The Boys as New Fathers Headcannons/Scenarios

Listen I know everybody does headcannons but I have a lot of thoughts ™ probably part 1 of many tbh

They/Them pronouns but mentions of pregnancy.

Lucifer

Pretends not not be interested in the baby when they’re this little but makes sure to do his fair share anyways.

Diapers don’t bother him.

Makes goofy faces when nobody is around and if you catch him he will deny it.

Has no problem watching the baby on his own. MC can leave their child in his care worry free

If he does start having trouble getting the baby to settle down, he will hold them up to eye level and speak to them like an adult. “Really now, What’s with all this fuss?” And the baby will settle immediately.

If by some chance baby still won’t settle and is particularly fussy, he will put on some music and hold the baby in his arm as he does his work, talking to them occasionally. Even when they eventually falls asleep, he doesn’t put baby down until he has to.

Mammon

At first he’s so afraid to touch the baby, until MC finally just. Slips Baby into his arms

Absolutely terrified for 3 seconds and then immediately he’s in love.

Stares at the baby constantly

His greed for sure extends to his child. If you thought he was clingy with MC whoooo boy

“Hey! What are ya doing with Baby?! Put them down right now! You’re holding em all wrong!” When he catches any of his brothers holding the baby.

Not very good at diaper changes but he tries.

Buys a stupid amount of presents for baby, even though they can’t use them yet.

“Babe, how could I not buy the Lamborghini walker?!”

Leviathan

The birth was particularly hard on him, watching MC in so much pain just to have a baby that’s half of him?? Why would they want that?

Never pictured himself as a father, and has a difficult time adjusting to a life where he isn’t the center of MC’s attention.

“All they do is eat sleep and poop! You like them more than me don’t you?! Of course you do! Look at that face! How could you possibly not love a face like that.”

Levi. He has your face. Oh my god you’re such an idiot I love you so much.

MC at their wits end and running on practically no sleep. How can MC get him to bond with his child?!

Lucifer has had enough and steps in. Silently hands them a package and then takes his leave. MC opens it and facepalms. They really hadn’t thought of this?!

Levi finds MC in their old room (turned nursery) with Baby in their arms, and wearing a tiny little Henry costume. “I didn’t know you were into cosplay..” he says. To the baby. To the newborn baby.

MC tell him Baby is into lots of the same things as he is. He’s half yours, after all.

Something clicks and now Levi refuses to be separated from baby. Sits Baby in their pumpkin seat and talks to them about whatever he’s watching/playing.

Satan

Excited about being a father, but also very nervous. What if he hurts them? Baby is part human.

Reads all the pregnancy and parenting books he can get his hands on. Becomes very confident until baby is born and then all his confidence crumbles.

Thinks he needs to read all those books one more time...

Why is Baby crying so much? Should Baby be crying this much? He needs to check on some things.

MC gets tired of this and snaps at him. Tells him he can read every book available but there’s no such thing as a parenting manual.

MCs anger is enough to tell him something needs to change. He starts trusting his instincts more and realizes his anxiety might have been having an effect on the baby :(

He gets so angry about his shortcomings. Now he’s hurt both MC and his child. This won’t do. This WON’T do. He won’t allow himself to fail. He refuses.

Stops reading parenting books. Buys a truckload of picture books and spends his time learning about HIS baby and not just babies in general. Everyone is happier

Asmodeous

Oh honey. Oh sweetie. Oh darling. MC is giving him and the entire world the greatest gift. Another Asmo!

Spends MCs pregnancy making sure they are taking care of themselves. Buys all the expensive skincare items.

Buys hundreds of outfits for the baby, even after MC tells him they won’t possibly be able to wear them all before they grow out of them.

“Well we’ll just have to change them several times a day! My followers won’t be able to get enough of their cuteness!”

He doesn’t do diapers. Period.

Wants to take Baby out all the time to show them off.

Doesn’t like to be told no, and doesn’t understand why he can’t take a newborn to The Fall? He won’t give them alcohol obvi.

Sneaks Baby out while MC is sleeping and takes them anyways. They go out all over the devildom on a Daddy and Baby adventure. MC wakes up in a panic wondering where their baby has gone, since Asmo didn’t tell anyone and is too busy to answer his phone.

Finally returns home to find MC in pieces, a frantic Beel and Mammon trying to comfort them. Everyone else went out to search for the two of them.

A Hard slap to his beautiful face and a long talk makes him realize he has to start thinking more about MC and baby.

Beelzebub

Probably the most excited of any of the brothers. Family is so important to him, and now he’s made his own 🥺

Baby has his appetite before they are even born. MC could swear they eat almost as much as Beel. He makes sure they are always fed as he doesn’t want MC or his baby feeling hungry. Always bringing MC snacks.

Once baby is born he will hardly leave their side. Has to have a fridge put In his room so he doesn’t have to leave to eat.

Takes his job as Dad VERY seriously. Wants to do everything himself.

Tries to get Belphie involved as much as possible

“Are all babies this cute? I wonder if we were like this when we were little...”

“If I had to choose between never eating Hell’s Kitchen again or having to be apart from them, I’d choose Baby in a heart beat. That’s not even a question.”

Already asking about more kids lmao

“Is there a way to increase chances of multiples..?”

Not subtle 😂

Belphgor

Thinks MC is joking when they tell them they’re expecting. What is he going to do with a baby?

Begrudgingly gets on board when he sees it’s making MC upset (and some pushing from Beel)

When Baby is born he doesn’t immediately form a connection

Kind of indifferent tbh

Walks into the attic one day to find MC and Baby curled up together, sleeping peacefully in his bed.

Hm. Okay. Baby is intriguing...

This baby is the best behaved baby. This child has such a cool temperament. Hardly cries. Sleeps through the hell ouf the house no problem.

“I use Baby as an excuse to get out of whatever thing Lucifer is trying to get me to do. It’s great.”

How quickly he went from indifference to adoration. This baby is always in his arms. Just vibing.

“Belphie, could you-“

“Sorry, Baby is crying.” While holding baby. Who is stoic and silent. Turns around and leaves anyways.

Thanks for reading!! Should undo the side characters next? 🤔

#obey me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #pregnancy tw #baby #the brothers as fathers #fatherhood au

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samwrights · 4 years

Note

i really like your seijoh baby fever hcs 😭 could i please request with 3rd gym + ushi and tendou ☹️

BABY FEVER PART 2 HUH 🤧🤧 alright, lets dive in y’all. Also, side note, I am sooooo soft for Akaashi’s inferiority complex. I just wanna hold his hand and tell him he’s perfect.

Also, Tsukki kinda got angsty??? I m sorry.

Bokuto;

This nut has baby fever with you

That baby radar we talked about last time—you both had it.

You can bet there’s a competition of who saw the cuter baby at the grocery store when the two of you go.

Though, no one ever wins because they’re all fckn cute.

You’re a little bit worse off than Bokuto though, in the sense that you won’t stop mentioning “when” you guys have kids versus “if”

And it’s kinda doing lots of funny things to him

Especially if you guys have friends over that have kids.

If you’re nowhere to be found, you can bet that you’re in the backyard playing tag or hide and seek.

H o l d I n g t h e m.

Friends who have babies are especially allowed over, just so you can hold them.

And feed them.

Oh my god, the way their eyes open?? So full of love and wonder??

Your weakness #7.

And Bokuto weakness #41—seeing you feed and hold a newborn

Never in his LIFE has the owl seen you look so happy and loving and glowing.

Not even on your guys’ wedding day.

You did but whatever, Bo.

Wait who’s got baby fever? You? Or Bo?

Both. Both is good.

But, Bokuto being him, he kinda starts to worry about the fact that you haven’t even brought up having kids.

Like y’all have been married for a year

This is what married couples do, right? No

So he’s in emo mode, but this is a whole different kind of dramatic.

He’s so serious and blunt and it’s kinda scary.

“[name], do you even want to have kids with me?”

ASSFGHJKL

“Bo, please tell me you didn’t just ask me that.”

But you can tell by the way his pupils his shrink yet his eyes become wider than the moon—he’s hopeful.

“Koutarou, I’ve literally been saying for the last four years, when we have kids. It’s kind of a given.”

“...can we get started then?”

Akaashi;

Akaashi gets soooo flustered when you start talking babies.

Because no matter how many different ways he looks at it, he thinks he’s not ready.

Especially when your newborn nephew gets dropped off for baby sitting.

How are you such a natural with kids?

Akaashi pretends not to notice the soft spoken voice you use for the baby.

Or the way it looks so natural, so right, to see you balancing him on your hip while you warm up a bottle.

He learned you’re also a co-sleeper and jump at the opportunity to nap with your nephew

It’s hard image for Akaashi to force out of his mind

But he can’t help but wonder if you’d do the same with your kids.

Then he starts panicking a little because he.’s falling down the rabbit hole of thinking he wouldn’t be a good dad.

Even more so when you bring up wanting to have a family with him.

Apparently you were prepared to just forego the entire idea of marriage and skip straight to family

Akaashi can and will freak out about that at another time.

“Shouldn’t we wait? Until we’re ready?”

“I am ready, Akaashi. But something tells me that you aren’t.”

“...I don’t wanna mess up.”

Akaashi isn’t very vocal when it comes to his insecurities—it came with the territory of handling Bokuto for a couple years.

So when he’s sharing them with you, you naturally jump into overprotective mom girlfriend mode.

“Akaashi, I wouldn’t want to have kids with you if I didn’t think you’d be a good dad.”

Did I mention he’s got a bit of a praise kink?

Cause that just went straight from his ears to his dick.

Kuroo;

Being married to Kuroo Tetsurou comes with a warning label.

One you had to recite as a vow.

“I will not bring up children until I am ready.”

You always thought it was a little weird when he asked you include something along those lines.

And, after a year, you sometimes forget your vow. You’re only human.

What else is human is this ADORABLE toddler in the car next to you guys at a stoplight who won’t stop waving at you.

“Aw, Tetsu look! Say hi!” The former captain’s eyes narrow questioningly, but he doesn’t say anything yet.

It only gets worse from here on out.

Why do kids like waving at you? Idk, but it happens pretty frequently.

Like when the two of you go out to eat and a baby in their high chair stops throwing their food on the ground, just to smile and babble as they look at you.

It makes you soft.

And, considering you’re sitting right in front of him, Kuroo sees the way your eyes become three shades lighter with every interaction.

“Remember your vow, baby.” He grits out, though the strain goes entirely over your head.

“Why did you make me say that anyway?” Kuroo never explained why—only begged that you included it.

“Cause once we start having kids, we aren’t stopping until you physically can’t anymore.”

Oh.

OH.

“Hey, Tetsu?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we start when we get home?”

Tsukishima;

If you expected all of these to be happy hcs, I hate to disappoint.

But Tsukki wants to strangle you when you bring up kids.

He’s brought it up so many times that he does not want kids.

No matter how many times you fawn over your friends’ children.

Or how much you splurge on gifts when you have to attend a baby shower.

That last one in particular especially made him want to fight you.

You will tease and joke over and over how much you just want him to impregnate you.

“[name], no.”

“Come on, Tsukki. You’d be such a hot dad!”

He’s not gonna deny that.

But he is definitely going to deny impregnating you.

Unfortunately, this is a recurring argument for the two of you.

To the point where you feel a little empty every time you hear once of your old friend’s just introduced another family member.

And Tsukki knows it’s wearing down heavily on you.

To where you almost aren’t really yourself anymore.

“I’m not agreeing to this,” he says one day when he finally sits you down, “but give me some time to...mentally prepare for being a family.”

“N-no, I’m okay, you don’t—“

“No, you aren’t. I miss you, [name]. And if this is what it takes to get you back, then I have to try.”

Ushijima;

Let’s be real—Ushi kinda dense.

So honestly, don’t expect him to pick up or understand the excitement you have when you see a baby

Or fawn over receiving wedding invites because someone still hasn’t popped the question.

I’m not pointing any fingers. Wakatoshi.

N e way. You’re not as eager for a baby as some. Or at least, you’re not as transparent about it.

Yes seeing little babies napping in their stroller sends your ovaries in a frenzy

Or seeing or hearing a baby cry in public forces your maternal instinct to go into overdrive.

But you were good! Really!

At least that’s what Toshi thinks

Until he overhears you on the phone with someone after getting home from work. Your mother, apparently.

“No, mom, he hasn’t proposed. Yes, I know we’ve been together for the better half of a decade, thanks for reminding me. No, you aren’t going to have any grandkids anytime soon.”

Oh. Was...was he doing something wrong?

“I should go, Toshi’s gonna be home soon.”

As soon as you open your bedroom door, you’re met with your stone-faced partner who was standing close enough that, if the door were still closed, he would have been pressed up against it.

“Are you upset with me?”

“Wha—no! No, you know how my mom gets...”

Ushijima may be a little dense, but he is at least somewhat aware enough to know when you’re lying.

“Let’s talk.” Not allowing you to escape, his large hands plant themselves on your shoulders just as firmly as his voice, leading the two of you to sit on the edge of the bed. “Is that what you want? A marriage? A family?”

“Of course, Toshi, I love you. We’ve been together for seven years—“

“Whatever you want, I will do for you.”

Tendou;

You had always told Tendou you didn’t want kids any time soon.

And he’s totally okay with—gives you two the chance to be just that.

So you both agreed to you going on birth control. IUD specifically, just so you didn’t have to worry about anything for a few years at a time.

Nothing to worry about!

Except seeing your best friend hold her newborn is doing funny things to you

And your other BFF just found out she’s pregnant

Now they’re both kinda just expecting you to follow in line

“You guys know I’m not ready.”

But they see just how tender you are with the newborn

Or how you’re very involved with the pregnant one, constantly asking her questions of what she’s feeling and how excited she is to be a mom

They know you too well—you’re already entertaining the idea.

So while you and Tendou are laying on the couch together, you try to nonchalantly bring it up. Try.

“How would you feel if I didn’t replace the IUD this time around? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

Tendou’s typically bemused face perks up. “Oh? Making plans without me?”

“Wha—no! I’m just asking a question!”

“Mm, okay,” though his tone is light, there’s a bit of a teasing drawl, “then, hypothetically speaking, I would try to convince you to finally let me get you pregnant.”

Haikyuu!! Tag List

Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list!

@hihiq @dreamyjaems @tamcitrus @yourlocalmemedumpster @90s-belladonna @basicallyberry

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dreamescapeswriting · 4 years

Text

BTS Reaction | You’re An Idol and He Finds Sleeping Tablets [Request]

A/N: I am in no way saying that taking sleeping tablets is bad because I use them a lot, I have to or I just don’t sleep

Seokjin

You knew the life you signed up for was a hard one but you also knew you could manage it but lately things had been getting a lot harder with comeback season coming up and trying to keep your group of 17 members under control as well as have them all learning the choreography as well as keeping all of it on top of you as well. You were the leader so you took everything to you instead of letting your members deal with everything.

"Jin?" You called out when you woke up to him walking around your studio, you were taking a small nap on the sofa since your insomnia played up a lot and you tried to get as much sleep as you could whenever you could.

"Sorry, I was coming to bring you food and saw you sleeping." He held up a bag full of food and you sat up telling him to get you some chopsticks from the top drawer of your desk. You kept almost everything in your studio since you practically lived there, along the top shelf there were bathroom products and you had spare clothes stuffed away as well in case you ever had to stay the night.

"Have you been working on new songs again?" He questioned when he noticed the producing set up sitting on your desktop,

"Yeah, It was a ballad that Soona was working on with me." You'd told him about the second oldest member of the group before and he smiled at how fond you were of her you'd always expressed that you were scared that you wouldn't get along with them but everything seemed smooth enough.

"What drawer?" Jin questioned as he got to your desk,

"Top one, should be towards the back." You began laying the containers of food out onto the coffee table in front of you when you heard Jin gasp and you frowned turning to see him holding a bottle of unmarked pills,

"What are they?!" You heard the panic in his voice as he began to list off all possibilities that they could be but not coming close to what they actually were,

"They're just sleeping tablets." You whispered taking the small tub away from him and putting them onto the shelf,

"They're not prescribed to you, you shouldn't be taking them." You rolled your eyes at him and he sat down in front of you trying to make you see how serious this was,

"What if it wasn't me that had found them? What if someone told tabloids?" You knew he was right deep down but it was the only pill that would help you sleep,

"They help me-"

"We will find something else, I don't want you to take anything unless it's prescribed to you." He shifted so he was sitting beside you and he pulled your head down to rest on his shoulder,

"Jin-"

"I mean it y/n, I won't hear anything else." You nodded in agreement knowing he was right and you shouldn't take anything unless a doctor gave them to you.

Yoongi:

Your group was just as big everywhere as BTS was which meant you were under a lot of stress just like the guys but your group was significantly larger than BTS which made it a little harder and felt like you were constantly looking after 10 giant children but you knew others had it more stressful than you.

"You okay?" Yoongi asked when he noticed you looking around your bedroom for something,

"Yeah." You lied knowing you'd put your sleeping tablets somewhere but you couldn't find them now. You needed them to sleep or you couldn't fall to sleep, you would end up laying there awake and staring at the ceiling while worrying about everything going on with your group instead of getting some well-needed rest.

"You sure?" You looked over at him and he was holding the bottle of red and blue sleeping tablets that you normally kept in your bedside drawer but he'd clearly found them and was going to question you about them,

"Why do you need sleeping tablets?" You looked at the bottle and tried to snatch them out of his hand but he was too quick for you,

"Well?" You looked down at the floor biting down on your lip and tried to think of something, anything, you could say to make him give you those pills back.

"You know what it's like when you can't sleep-"

"I do but I don't take pills to help me." He shot back and you stared at him a little shocked that he would snap at you like that, it wasn't as if you were taken them illegally. They were given to you by a doctor and you were kept under regular observation to see if anything needed to be changed from them.

"Yoongi. My doctor gave them to me. My insomnia is kicking my ass lately." He instantly felt bad for snapping at you the way he did, he knew they were prescribed he could see that from the bottle but he didn't think you would ever need them,

"You usually tell me when you're struggling." He mumbled handing you the bottle back and watching as you took one out to take,

"I didn't want to come to you with this." You whispered staring at the pill in your hand, you wanted nothing more than to not have to rely on them but it was just something you had to deal with.

"Baby I didn't mean to yell..." He kissed your cheek and you took the tablet looking at him and nodding knowing he was sorry,

"I promise next time when I'm giving something to help me I will let you know about it." He brushed the hair from your forehead and kissed your lips softly.

"Let's get settled okay?" You nodded and got into the bed, laying in front of him as he spooned you from behind, kissing your shoulder softly.

Hoseok:

Being the leader wasn't all it was cracked up to be, you thought it was going to be fine when you were first assigned as the leader but it was hard and full of sleepless nights. You were always worried about your other members, and when you weren't worrying about them you were working on new songs, new dance routines or stressing over things that weren't yours to stress over but it fell onto you as the leader of your group.

"You deserve the break." Your maknae said as Hoseok was packing up clothes for you. Your boyfriend was taking you out on a week-long holiday since it was your month break and he had some time off too.

"I have so much to do though." You whispered as your member walked you into the bedroom and sat you down on your dorm bed,

"Make them relax." The maknae warned Hoseok who chuckled going into the bathroom and calling out asking what you wanted packing.

"I'll do it!" You said in a rush running into the bathroom to stop him from going through the cabinets but he was already searching through them.

"I've seen tampons and pads before it's not big-" He stopped himself from speaking when he found a bottle of pills with your full name and date of birth as well.

"Hobi-"

"What are they?" He asked reading the label and having no idea what they were,

"Temazepam, it's a sleeping tablet. A strong one." You whispered taking the bottle from him and sliding them into the bag that he was packing,

"Why-"

"Because it's stressful being the leader of 14 giant children and having the entire company down my neck about how I need to keep them in control." You whispered not wanting the group to hear you talking the way you were. None of them knew that the company was always breathing down the back of your neck about the way they acted and how you never got anything done on their time scale.

"I struggle sleeping so it's just a little helper...and it's only when I need to. I don't take them all the time." He sighed looking at you, you were almost in tears at the thought of leaving your members here while taking a break when you knew you should have been working.

"They gave you the month off for a reason, we're going to get you well rested." You nodded and he told you to start coming to him when things got too much for you to handle.

Namjoon:

Namjoon knew you struggled a lot with your group since you were the leader like him but you have 20 other members to look after, you were a huge group mixed with boys and girls and you were huge in the kpop scene. He knew you kept a lot of your struggles and stress to yourself but he was still surprised when he found the sleeping pills sitting on the bedside table, he'd gone to your dorms to surprise you but the only member home was the maknae who said you were running late.

"Namjoon's here?" He could hear your panicked tone through the dorm bedroom and he waited on the bed holding the bottle of pills, he'd been reading through the ingredients and then researching them online for you.

"Joonie?" You questioned staring at him as he held some of the tablets in his hand staring at them,

"They're not prescribed by a doctor." He mumbled staring at them and you snatched them out of his hand and put them onto the bedside table again.

"Because they're safe, they're herbal and I get them from a medicine shop." You told him not meaning to snap and be nasty to him but you'd had a long day and coming home to your boyfriend going through your things wasn't making things easier for you.

"They're not prescribed!" He yelled and you stared at him and then at the pills on the side,

"No, but they help!" You finally yelled back and he stared at you, you never yelled at him even when you had your fights you would never yell back at him so he knew he'd struck a nerve with it.

"It's not as if I'm doing lines of coke Joonie, or doing worse things. They're safe and my manager knows about them." You defended yourself and he could tell you were upset about it so he brought you into his arms, holding you tightly against his chest rubbing the small of your back as you stayed silent not knowing what to say.

"It's so hard Namjoon." You whimpered and he hummed kissing the top of your head as you ranted about the stress that you were under by management to keep everyone under control as if they were only your responsibility and not the company, you had no help with looking after them and you had to make sure they were under control at all hours of the day.

"I just need to sleep that's all there for." He hummed and laid down on the bed so you were laying on his chest, he kissed your head as you continued to talk but your words were starting to slur since you were half asleep.

"Sleep." He whispered when you tried to stay awake, you didn't fight him on it you just nodded and drifted off to sleep without the help of the small tablets for once.

Jimin:

Jimin had flown out to surprise you while you were on tour with your group and you were beyond shocked.

"I can't believe you're actually here!" You yelled as you finally got back to your hotel room, you were so surprised when he'd started clapping from the side of the practice stage.

"I thought you could use a cheer up." He must have seen the photos of you and your members looking sad when you arrived in England, but it wasn't anything bad you had just gotten scolded by management on the plane because some of the members were being louder than usual and you were getting it the worst since you were the leader.

"I'm fine, but thank you, baby." You giggled as he kissed your lips and then backed you up towards the bed, you didn't get to see each other a lot so it was a nice surprise to have him with you.

"Do you have erm-" He nodded and reached into his bag to find some but he groaned not being able to find the condoms in there,

"I think I have some in my purse." He walked over to your bags and you told him to look through it for them, but instead of finding the condoms he found pills and frowned pulling them out and reading out the long name that was on the front. Your eyes widened as he found the strongest sleeping tablet the doctor had prescribed to you.

"What's it for?" He questioned not noticing or knowing the name of them,

"They're to help me sleep." You said bluntly taking the bottle and putting it down on the counter, you tried to kiss him but he pulled away shaking his head.

"You need help sleeping?" You nodded and he stared at you, only just now noticing how tired you looked. You weren't in the usual makeup your management made you wear and he could see the bags under your eyes and you looked like you hadn't slept all night.

"What?" You whispered trying to hide but he groaned pulling you into a hug and walking you to the bed, he laid down beside you and made you promise to take a nap with him now.

"I'm fine Jimin." You tried to tell him but he wasn't going to listen to you, he wanted you to be well-rested and he was going to take a long nap beside you.

Taehyung:

"You have to go again?" He asked when he noticed you packing up a bag for the second time that week, it was supposed to be your week off but your company kept calling to tell you to go back to the dorms. You were the leader of a group of 12 members and you were under a lot of stress to keep them under control as well as make sure you were taking care of yourself again.

"Yeah. Noise complaint." You grumbled not wanting to leave your boyfriend, Taehyung, at his apartment alone but you knew if you didn't go back and sort it now it would only be bad news.

"Can't they look after themselves?" You sighed looking in your bag to make sure you had everything,

"Evidently not." You mumbled looking up to see him, he was just as stressed as you were but he was stressed about not being able to see you and trying to take a break away from his famous lifestyle.

"Sorry baby, I'll be back tomorrow-"

"Don't bother. You're just making excuses to leave, why don't you just break up with me?" You stared at him, you knew he was insecure about your relationship since you had to hide it and were always busy so it made it seem as though you didn't want him when you did.

"Tae I love you more than I can ever find the words to say it, I wouldn't break up with you."

"Prove you love me. Stay here." You pulled your bag over your shoulder and shook your head,

"I can't Tae, I'll come back later when I've calmed them down." You tried to give him a kiss but he pulled away and held onto your bag trying to get you to stay but he ended up pulling the bag and knocking the contents onto the floor.

"Sleeping pills?" He asked when he noticed you reaching for the bottle of them, you nodded and slid them into your bag.

"You are sleeping?" You shook your head again and he frowned looking at you and then at the door.

"Are they looking out for you the way you look out for them?" You stayed silent and he grabbed his car keys telling you that he was going to go and talk to your members but you begged him not to, you didn't want to be the reason there was more stress in the group.

"I promise I'll come back tonight...I never need them when I'm with you Tae, it's just them." You whispered kissing his cheek and letting yourself out of the apartment. Taehyung was still going to talk to your managers about the stress they had you under.

Jungkook:

Jungkook knew that you struggled with your sleeping patterns but he had no idea it was at the point where you were taking pills to help you finally drift off. Your insomnia was a huge bitch to you which sometimes was a blessing since you were the leader of your group and you were the main producer of songs and would spend all of the time you should have been sleeping in making music but it was getting harder now. You were falling asleep during important meetings due to the lack of sleep and you had even fallen asleep in a fan meet which ended up in a scandal in the media.

"Shit." You hissed as you ankle came out from underneath you during practice and your members yelled as you tried to get up only falling back down, Jungkook came rushing over with your bag looking through it for some painkillers when he found the sleeping tablets he said nothing in front of the others and waited until he got you back to your dorms to question you about them.

"Are you not sleeping enough?" You looked down at the tablets and shook your head,

"I don't have enough hours in the day to sleep and my doctor told me I have to take them...but Jungkook I can't...I don't, can't sleep. I have so much to do and there aren't enough hours in the day." He sighed getting into the bed beside you and letting you rant about all of the things that were laid on your shoulders to do since you were the leader of your group.

"Why don't you talk to your manager about cutting you some slack?" You shook your head explaining that you'd tried all of that before,

"It's my responsibility." You whispered feeling tired from the practice and having Jungkook holding you was making you feel more relaxed by the second,

"I'll stay here all night if you want?" You nodded and he laid down on the bed so you were snuggled against his chest, listening to his heartbeat as you drifted off to sleep beside him. He made plans to ask Namjoon for tips for you on how you could make sure you get enough rest as well as get the things that needed doing done.

tagline:

@writingdreamsnottragedies @yoongisdumplingcheeks @snowy-meowl @lynnthevirgo @jooniesdarlingdimples @chimchims-stories-and-tales @fan-ati--c @lyoongx @rjsmochii @mitzwinchester @btsiguess-kpop @callingmyangel

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writingwithcolor · 4 years

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Cultural Christianity, Christian Appropriation, and Derailment

Periodically, I discuss the concept of cultural Christianity, the dangers of authors mucking with folklore that is not theirs, and what you have to guard against when you’re a part of a culturally Christian society.

And every time I do, like clockwork, Christians come in and say “but what about [non-Christian nation appropriating Christianity], hmmmmm????? That’s just as bad!”

So let’s talk about all of it.

Cultural Christianity

For starters: What is cultural Christianity?

Cultural Christianity is the fact the Western calendar is primarily built around two things: farming, and Christianity

Our dedicated time off that is mostly guaranteed to all workers are Christian holidays. Easter, Christmas, Good Friday. The time between Christmas and New Year is also prone to being off and this also in some dominions has Christian events.

And yes, I know that most of these holidays actually have pagan roots. Christianity co-opted them and thoroughly Christianized them, to the point their re-paganization only really started in the 1800s… by people who were also culturally Christian, and often wrote whole books on Christianity on top of their neo-pagan beliefs.

It’s how Christmas is considered a “neutral, secular” holiday, when it’s celebrating the birth of Christ. It’s how the concept of “other religions” exist, let alone the fact they have to ask for time off for their own holidays that count against their personal vacation time, when Christians often don’t have to do that. It’s how you see more churches than mosques or synagogues in the West by a very large factor.

There are very few places in the West that are not, on some level, culturally Christian. Some very insular communities might be able to escape a lot of the trappings of Christianity, but still. The government mandated days off are mostly Christian things.

Cultural Christianity means everyone who was raised in a culturally Christian society has a Christian lens. They are aware of Christianity, its holidays, its general story, its values.

This translates to them having to unlearn all of this and learn a whole new framework when they begin researching other folklore (Native religions, in my case, but this also applies to other religions such as Judaism and Islam) cause other folklore/religions do not have the same holidays, values, or even relationship to the deity in question.

Christian Appropriation

So in a non-Christian society, it is possible to appropriate Christianity. Because the same factors that have Christians appropriate everything else in the West are at play with a different dominant religion.

This mostly shows up in Japanese media. Japan has Shinto/Buddhism as a dominant religion, and you’ll often hear anime or manga artists say they simply picked Christian imagery because it looks cool.

And I agree this is disrespectful! It is really not fun to watch sacred imagery of your beliefs be used because “it looks cool” and I would love it if all appropriation of others’ beliefs ended.

But that often isn’t the focus of the posts getting these comments.

Derailment

This is twofold.

1- Very few places where Christianity isn’t the dominant religion exist.

Because Christian nations colonized most of the planet, there are a lot more culturally Christian places than you probably want to admit, if you’re the kind of person who pulls “but what about the appropriation.”. This includes a lot of Africa, a lot of Southeast Asia, a lot of Oceania, a lot of South America, basically all of North America, and basically all of Europe.

You might disagree with how they practice Christianity, but they are still Christian. This means they are culturally Christian. Just not your culturally Christian.

But, as I mentioned in the previous section, appropriation can happen. It just doesn’t happen much in the English speaking world, and I am speaking to the English speaking world. Specifically, the Western English speaking world, which is very much culturally Christian.

The places where Christianity isn’t the dominant religion, however, is mostly composed of non-white people, specifically Arab, South Asian, and East Asian. So these “but what about where Christianity is appropriated” often end up sounding like “why aren’t you persecuting people of colour”, which sounds like trying to justify racism against people over there to me.

2- You are trying to say you are as much of a victim as us, when you are not

If you live in the West, you are culturally Christian unless you have grown up very deeply entrenched in a non-Christian community.

You have grown up with a wide, wide, wide variety of Christian stories, Christian based stories, Christian values/worldviews-as-default told to you your whole life. Some of it has been terrible, some of it you disagree with, but by and large, every story has some infusion of Christianity to it. Some of the most popular fictional texts are deeply religious things, like the Chronicles of Narnia.

You have not had your religion forbidden from being practiced, to you personally.

You have only seen true appropriation in very recent times, because of the influx of non-Western media being imported.

You have not had your sacred places constantly, consistently infringed upon and destroyed for reasons like “an observatory” or “a pipeline” or “a dam” or “a mine”.

You may have dealt with misunderstandings and miscommunications but you have rarely had somebody fundamentally misunderstand what Christianity is (Jesus as lord and saviour, died for our sins, we should try to live a more godly life and a good life to get into Heaven and get eternal happiness).

Native people have not had any of those luxuries, and it has mostly been culturally Christian people who have taken what is ours and turned it into what they wanted it to be.

We have Christian pagans (paganism was founded and codified in the Victorian era, so no, it’s not “ancient wisdom” but more Victorians—who were definitely culturally Christian—interpreting everything to prove Christianity as more universal than it was*) peddle dream catchers and calling themselves medicine people and burning sage to the point it’s endangered, all trying to claim they’re “following Native practices” when they’re not.

So when I’m speaking to somebody in the Western world, 95% of the time I will be speaking to somebody culturally Christian.

*When you start to track the “studied ancient mysteries” things, you either find types like the Theosophical Society that wildly appropriated Hinduism and Buddhism to fit their own ends and often put in messiah figures into them to show how there’s a Christ everywhere on the planet, or you start to dive into people who took Christianized recordings of folklore who may or may not have sipped some “older religions are better for noble savages reason” juice.

It’s very often racist and pulling from records written down by missionaries who had a vested interest in modifying the folklore in question, or from people who’d already been Christianized, so its validity is questionable.

Beginning to Unlearn

If you want to learn more about cultural Christianity and how to be more respectful of non-Christian belief systems, take a look at the this post and the folklore tag in general. Those are great starting places for you to do deeper research into whatever marginalized belief you’re looking to use.

I’d also suggest earnestly learning about other belief structures’ customs, challenging your assumptions of what is neutral and universal and the proper way of doing things. You might find a lot of surprising things that you weren’t expecting, even just looking at Abrahamic religions.

In the end

When I’m speaking to somebody who wants to use Native folklore, I’m going to assume they’re culturally Christian and educate them accordingly.

I am having a conversation to Christians about the appropriation of Native culture and how not to do that.

I am not going to suddenly change topics to make Christians comfortable by proving that I’m a champion for them, because frankly, they shouldn’t be dangling respecting Natives if only they interrupt themselves to prove they’re properly educated on Christian issues. Because that demand is once again centring Christianity above Native people.

I am talking about Native issues, not Christian issues.

I do not accept derailments that are thinly veiled racism or persecution complexes based off “what if”s that have not actually happened in the West. I acknowledge they happen elsewhere, and that’s tragic. I am not the person to talk about those details. I’d rather pass the mic to Christians in the area and let them speak. They are not Western Christians’ shields to use as they will. They have a voice, as well.

I am not going to coddle people who feel that Christian values are diminishing from society because we need room for more than just Christian values and Christianity does not have a monopoly on being a good person.

I am talking about Christians appropriating Native American beliefs.

And if that makes you uncomfortable, to hear Western Christians have protection, insert their own dogma into too much, and have unlearning to do—without being able to tack on a story about how no, really, you’re a victim in the West—then you have more unlearning to do. I’ve given places to start learning above.

We are talking about Native issues right now.

And I will not stop calling Christians out for their religious-based colonialism.

~ Lesya

#guides #native american #culture #cultural christianity #folklore #religion #Christian #Christianity #long post

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cno-inbminor · 4 years

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adsentio

a/n: for some reason, i got the idea of prince!akaashi stuck in my head. mildly inspired by the swan princess.

wc: ~2.1k

genre: arranged marriage!au, royalty!au, emerging feelings. fluff mainly? idek, it’s word vomit

royalty!au: adsentio (pt. 1) | bonus letters (pt. 1.5) | the masque (pt. 2)

Prince Akaashi likes to believe he’s a smart cookie, even if he’s only seven. Then again, his parents aren’t exactly the most subtle people on the planet, and he believes it’s quite obvious as to what they’re planning. In fact, not only is he aware, but the whole castle is as well. Hell, even 90% of the citizens in the kingdom are fully aware of what’s to be expected. He strongly dislikes it, and he wishes it didn’t loom over him every summer.

Ever since the summer of the year he turned five, Princess (y/n) of the West Kingdom would show up for two months to make his life miserable. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly your fault, as you were very much forced into this arrangement as he was, but it was easier to blame you. He’d rather just play fight with Bokuto all summer rather than try to include a girl. It’s not because you’re capable of kicking his butt.

That is absolutely not the case here.

His mother, the queen, is scrambling to get all the preparations done in time for (y/n)’s arrival. Akaashi almost rolls his eyes when he spots her rearranging a bouquet of roses in the dining hall. Unfortunately, she spots him from the corner of her eye and beckons him over with a frantic hand. Never one to deny a parent, he quickly jogs over to her.

“Oh darling, would you be a doll and check in on your father? He needs to be dressed properly for the West Kingdom’s arrival. Tell him to wear that cyan blue shirt of his, it’s much more flattering.”

“Do we need to be so overboard like this again? They’ve already been here twice, it’s not like they don’t know us.”

“For reasons you don’t know, they’re extra special to us. Aren’t you excited to see (y/n) again? You two got along so well last summer!”

Akaashi wrinkles his nose in distaste. “It feels like I just saw her yesterday. Bokuto and I just wanna play by ourselves.”

“Nonsense, dear. Now go check on your father, please,” His mother implores before scurrying off to another bouquet of flowers.

It’s so obvious, he thinks to himself as he jogs towards his parents’ chambers. Did they really need this alliance with the West Kingdom? Would they be that much more powerful together? “In due time, you’ll understand,” his parents always said. Akaashi was starting to become tired of hearing those words.

Why is it so hard to just tell him now as to why they want him to marry Princess (y/n)?

“You know why I’m here, right?” (Y/n) asks him one evening. They’re sixteen now – Akaashi counts that this is your twelfth time at the castle. You call the castle your second home, as he once heard you tell your assigned handmaiden, the same lady who attends to you every summer. Somehow, the statement strikes a chord within him – his initial childish annoyance at your presence had long disappeared and been replaced with something akin to defeat. There was very little chance that they could run from this, but in the late nights, Akaashi found himself believing that if there were someone to be betrothed to, (y/n) wasn’t so bad.

“What do you mean?” He replies, slowly turning a page in his book. You both found that one way to quickly pass the time was to raid the royal library. At first, it was custom to read your respective books at opposite ends of the castle. Yet as time passed, you found yourselves meeting closer and closer towards the middle. If desired, the servants could find you two either together in the library, in an empty ballroom by the massive windows, or on the balcony in the summer sun. Most times, Bokuto, Akaashi’s most loyal friend, was with you as well. Reading wasn’t necessarily one of his top hobbies, but he’d rather be with friends than alone wondering around the castle.

This time, the two of you have taken refuge by a fireplace, a terrible thunderstorm casting a chill over the building. Bokuto is conveniently off doing his own thing.

“The reason why I’m here every summer.”

Akaashi casts his best exasperated look towards you, but it goes unnoticed as you refuse to look away from your book. “I’ve known since I was six.”

You sigh and gently shut your novel closed, one finger stuck between the pages to keep your place. With the grace of an angel (Akaashi thinks), you pick yourself up from the lounge chair and drift over to the couch he’s sitting on. Because he’s sitting upright towards the end closest to the fire, there’s more than enough space for you to sit and stretch your legs across the cushions. In fact, you do just that, settling for leaning your back against Akaashi’s strong side profile, his arm supporting most of your weight. Without meaning to, Akaashi finds himself adjusting his sitting position for your comfort. He feels your body tremble slightly and a small wave of concern washes over him.

“Should I ask one of the servants to bring a blanket for you?”

“That won’t be necessary. But thank you for your concern, your highness.”

“You don’t have to address me as so.”

“My apologies, it’s a force of habit.”

“Hmm.”

Akaashi has long given up on reading the words before him. Your question repeats in his head like a broken record.

“Doesn’t it frustrate you?” You whisper, interrupting his thoughts. “Doesn’t it anger you that since my birth, you’ve been forced into a game that you have no choice but to play?”

Akaashi hesitates. This topic has never been broached before, and he’s not sure how to address it.

“I’ll admit it was more frustrating in the beginning. Nobody enjoys being told what to do, especially when you’re little. But I learned to just accept it. In fact, to call it a game would assume that there is a losing side. From what I’ve studied, both of our kingdoms would benefit from this merger. What’s the loss?”

“Our freedom and choice,” you bite out, yet refusing to look at him. You’ve also given up on reading, yet you don’t want to arouse suspicion that this conversation is happening. If a servant were to hear, rumors would fly around the castle like a plague. “I think it’s only human that I want to experience love the way ordinary people do. We don’t even get a say.”

“What about both of our parents? They were arranged yet they love each other.”

“Simple, they got lucky.”

“Then would you rather run away and find another man to fall in love with?”

“More than that, I just want to experience life beyond the castle walls. My position is different from yours.”

“How so?”

You purse your lips, pausing. “Your Highness, what do you think would happen to you if I were to disappear, or god forbid, die?”

Akaashi’s eyes widen in bewilderment. “Why would you ask that?”

“You just need to answer my question.”

“Well,” he ponders. “I…believe I’d be somewhat sad. We would mourn the loss, surely.”

For the first time this summer, he hears a genuine chuckle from you. “I’m honored by your sentiment, your highness. I’m asking more of what you think would politically happen to you.”

Akaashi’s cheeks flush with embarrassment. “I guess…politically I’d be okay. Mother would be devastated, but I guess they’d find me another match. The merger with your kingdom would’ve been our strongest move, but it could still happen since we’re already on such good speaking terms. Supposedly there are other princesses waiting for a chance, and a merger could result from that as well.”

“What a humble braggart you are, your highness,” you tease.

“That’s not what I meant—”

“I know. But in all seriousness,” you switch to a more solemn tone. “The point is, you’d be okay. As you so nicely put it, you have women lining up to be with you.”

“Aren’t men lining up to be with you as well?”

“It’s not the same, Your Highness. As a princess, I’m brought up to constantly prove my worth to others. More importantly, I’m raised to prove my worth as a wife and a queen. We’re left to care for the children we must bear, we must keep our noses a reasonable distance away from kingdom business. If this engagement were to break, many outsiders would automatically assume that I was deemed unworthy of you, that I must’ve wrapped myself in some horrible scandal.”

Akaashi hums and stares into the fire. “I suppose that it’s rather unfortunate. I wish I had realized that sooner.”

“Your self-awareness speaks volumes. I usually wouldn’t admit this to you, but I know you’ll be a great king when it’s your time. Your people already love you, and they will only continue to love you more.”

“That’s very kind of you, Princess.”

“I only speak honestly. There’s no need to sugarcoat my words around you.”

Somehow, Akaashi finds that very comforting. Perhaps as someone in his position, he would consider honesty and wisdom to be valuable. Just because he’s destined to be king someday, doesn’t mean he would always make the right decisions. He would appreciate having you by his side in his decision-making.

“If this happens,” Akaashi finds himself speaking, also not one for beating around the bush. “I can promise now that I’ll try to change that. Even if we end up never loving each other, I’ll do my best to ensure that you never feel confined to such a role. As my w-wife,” he stumbles over the word. “I would want your input. You have a good head on you, and I’m sure you have valuable wisdom that I will need in due time.”

“Somehow, that’s the most romantic thing a man has ever said to me,” you say. He can hear the smile in your voice, his own small one forming on his face. When you move off the couch, his body immediately misses the warmth of your body pressed against his. After you’re done dusting yourself off, you begin to curtsy. He knows that this means you’re retiring for the night, but he’d rather you not leave right now.

“Wait,” he calls out, reaching for the hand not holding your book. You stay silent as Akaashi delicately holds your hand, then breaking out into a slight blush when he lays a soft kiss on the back of your hand, eyes never breaking contact with yours. He’s never been more princely to you than this moment – though his mother had made him do this on every first day you arrive at the castle, it never held so much meaning. This was of his own doing, his own volition, and that spoke volumes to you. He was trying to make this work in his own special way.

You don’t miss the way his thumb ghosts over your knuckles before releasing your hand, although the movement seems hesitant and troubled. “Good night, Princess,” he bids quietly, eyes looking back at the ignored book in his lap. Your heart beats with adrenaline, the chemical fueling you to step closer to him and bend down to place a kiss on his cheek. Akaashi does his best to not look surprised, but he knows that he has failed when he hears the sound of your gentle laugh.

“Good night, Keiji.”

The prince concludes right then and there that he has never heard anything more beautiful.

When you return to your chambers the next night, it’s hard to miss the most beautiful glass vase you’ve seen that’s sitting on your dresser. Inside stands a half-bloomed peony, a flower you recognize from the castle gardens. The petals have a tender shade of a light blush pink – if the flower-arranging lessons taught you anything, they stood for romance, compassion, and bashfulness. A neatly folded cardstock with your name stands demurely by the vase. The handwriting is strikingly familiar, and you can’t help but smile at the words neatly written inside.

To my future queen.

As you bring the flower to your nose and inhale the sweet scent, you begin to think that perhaps, you and Akaashi might just be lucky enough for love.

feel free to send requests for this au!

#haikyu #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#akaashi fluff #akaashi haikyuu #akaashi keiji #haikyu fluff #haikyuu fluff #akaashi imagine #akaashi x reader #akaashi x you #akaashi keiji x reader #akaashi keiji x you #adsentio #akaashi scenarios #keiji #akaashi #got a little..preachy? idk #so sorry!

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ververa · 4 years

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Like Mothers, Like Daughter

A/N: You have no idea how nervous I am right now, but I said I’ll post the first part, so I’m keeping my word, even though I feel like it’s not good enough. It has been rewritten at least 10 times and this is only some kind of introduction. For now it’s just my precious little Ellie. There’s no Mildred and no Wilhemina yet. But they’ll appear soon, I promise. Just bear with me, please 🙏🏼 Many thanks to @awildgothappeared!!! Thank you so much for helping me with this series and thank you for convincing me to post this part!!! I’d probably never decide to do it if it hadn’t been for you Stevie <3 This story truly means a lot to me and all three of them - Ellie, Millie and Mina have a special place in my heart. They’re my new holy trinity. I put a lot of effort into this story - that’s why it’s taking me so long.

Anyways, I hope you will all enjoy it!!! And just in case, I am sorry if this is shit, cause I actually sort of feel like it is 🙈 Also if anyone has any thoughts/suggestions/opinions do let me know!

Words count: ~3k

Tag list: @midnight-lestrange, @natasha-danvers, @stopkillinglilyrabe, @welshdragonrawr, @saucy-sapphic, @yang12e, @xixxiixx, @pradababey

Seemingly nothing had changed. Life was going on as it used to before, its usual way. Some governess would wake Ellie up at 7am, it wouldn’t be the same one who was there the previous evening. No, because for some reason the former one wasn’t suitable for the position. None of them were, because it was truly impossible to measure up to Mrs Staple’s expectations. Ellie knew, because she had been trying to ever since she had learned to speak. It didn’t matter how many languages she mastered or how good her grades were or that she became a champion of the fencing team. The woman, she was supposed to call her mother, would never be satisfied, the same as she would never be happy with the work all those governesses did. Some of them were fired, because they truly were useless, others were just unlucky and had a horrible timing - it really was an unpleasant experience to get in a way of annoyed Mrs Staple‒

Ellie stopped getting attached to them a long time ago. Not that she actually had a chance to. In fact, she didn’t even bother to remember their names any more and decided to give them numbers instead. Though sometimes, she did wonder where they find all of them. How many well-qualified governesses could be there in town? Where did they all come from?

That morning, the governess was bearing a name “241”. Quite impressive. Ellie thought as she was brushing her teeth. But it wouldn't last for too long. Perhaps it was only until the evening or maybe afternoon - depending on Lillian’s mood. And then the poor woman would have to leave, quicker than she appeared, just like 240 other women before her. That's how it worked with her mother. The demonic, callous woman really knew no limits.

Ellie was barely twelve, yet she was well aware what motives drove her mother's behavior. Each action had a perfectly explainable reason. The desire for power, the need of being in control. Though, the truth was, Lillian wasn't in a place to be a decision making one. She had never actually had a say and she knew, for a fact, that she would never have. She wasn't even close to it. She wasn't Staple, not by blood. And yet, despite this, she always introduced herself using her husband's family name - being boastful and vain as ever, nearly driving her only child apoplectic each time.

Lillian wanted to matter so badly, even if just for a moment, but still her actions, words, commands meant less than nothing. Even Ellie, though still a child, had more power than the cruel woman. And that's why Lillian hated her. She hated her only daughter, because Ellie was born Staple, she was born to the purple and carried an incredible power within her small body–

And all that appeared to be a good enough reason to terrorize 240 babysitters, who would not be needed at all if Lillian could just bring herself to care about her only child in the first place. But she couldn't and she didn't. She never wanted to have children, definitely not a girl. Maybe a son. Maybe–

If Ellie was a boy… maybe she'd be able to care, to love her child. But even then it wouldn't be the unconditional type of love. It would be yet another transaction, the tying agreement, which would, of course, be in her interest. Just like her marriage and all the relations within the family. But Ellie wasn't a boy and she didn't matter as much as a male successor would and so Lillian didn't care. She did what was expected of her, she gave birth to the next successor, and that was it. All she was willing to do and there was no way she'd put any more effort into it. She gave her husband what he wanted and was the least bit interested in her child's future. Lillian was too selfish to care, too busy fighting for her own position to even think about Elizabeth.

Ellie's father always told her that everyone had a little bit of the light and dark in them. People were complex like a cosmic system, both inside and outside. She liked that comparison.

"None of us are just black or white, or always right and never wrong. We have a universe within ourselves. We all have a little bit of the sun and moon inside. Everyone has good and bad forces working with them, within them and against them"

She believed it, but as much as she tried - she couldn't find any kind of light within her mother. There was nothing, just coldness and hatred - guiding her through life, leaving her blind to everything, but her selfish needs and whims.

"Elizabeth," her teacher's voice would bring her back to reality. And the day would carry on, as usual.

Ellie would participate in her classes and then have lunch downstairs. She would eat alone, as her father would be still at work and Lillian wouldn’t even bother to join the girl, preferring her own company over watching her little defeater, a perfect copy of her husband. Or maybe if they were lucky enough, the governess would keep her company. Though even if she would, even if somehow lady “241” would manage to keep her position and call it a day - Ellie probably wouldn’t decide to talk to her anyways. Why would she, knowing that the woman would soon disappear from her life forever?

But Ellie didn’t mind being on her own at all. She already got used to it. She had been a homeschooler since… always. She had been under lock and key her whole life, because that was their way of keeping her safe. That’s what they told her at least and she accepted it. That was the only way of living Ellie knew and she completely settled into it. She didn't ask, she didn't question their motives. She let it be, because there was nothing she could do. She didn't want to do anything.

She liked her life, well, she thought so leastways. She had nothing to complain about. She was safe, warm, had her books and her piano. Her teacher, constantly-changing governesses and servants provided some kind of company - preventing her from loosening her grip on reality completely. Her life wasn’t all that bad. Yes. It could have been worse after all. And homeschooling wasn’t the end of the world, right? It had both positive and negative sides, as everything - just like her father said. And that’s what Ellie was focused on.

After lunch her lessons would continue. The teacher would ask about some mathematical equations and she would solve all of them, before unerringly answering all subsequent questions. Ellie was a clever child and a fast learner. She was also stubborn and aimed at mastering whatever she wanted to perfection. She had to be good enough, she had to measure up, prove herself. And she was doing her best, steadfastly.

Everyone was foretelling her a bright future. She could do anything she wanted, those who didn’t know certain things were convinced of it. And those who knew the truth, the reality, the true meaning hidden behind the Staple’s name and the family roots - remained silent. Ellie was only a child after all, besides no one wanted to have a problem with her father, or even worse - with her grandfather. But they didn’t need to talk about it. Ellie, as a highly intelligent girl that she undoubtedly was, knew. She knew her future was doomed, because she was a prisoner, just like her father and grandfather, even her mother and the rest of the family. They were all prisoners, shackled with invisible cuffs - the life-long deal their ancestors had made ages before. They were prisoners to the nonreversible decision.

It may seem quite dramatic, sad even to some people, but they didn’t understand it. They never cared enough to comprehend the deep meaning behind the family’s actions, perhaps too ignorant or narrow-minded to decipher it. But they didn’t matter. Their opinions were irrelevant.

Ellie never had a problem with that. She never truly allowed herself to think about the future, but she didn’t need to worry, not just yet. She had her father - her guardian and friend - who was there to keep her safe. He always knew how to make everything better. How to fix what appeared to be unfixable. And he was there at all times. He was there to hold his little girl, the apple of his eye. He was there to teach her and guide her. To grant Ellie the love and approval she couldn’t receive from Lillian. He was there, so that she could have a happy and peaceful childhood. And all that made Ellie feel lucky. Not all kids had what she did. Not all children were able to experience this kind of love. She knew. Elias told her about those children - left on their own, without anyone who would look after them, or love them the way he loved her. Whenever she remembered all those stories something inside her hurt. Her heart - it ached, every time Elias was telling her about that one little girl.

Ellie undeniably was compassionate and sensitive, her soul was still pure and free, untainted. She didn’t have to bear the burden of her decision, she didn’t have to carry it on her own like her father. That’s why she couldn’t understand his breaking down. She couldn’t figure out the reason for his tears, when she gave him one of her teddy bears, saying he should give it to the little girl. Ellie couldn’t know. Not back then.

And then, when her lessons were over, their butler - Leonard would take her to the fencing classes. That was the only time Ellie was out, freed from the thin walls of the castle they lived in. She always cherished every second of it, because every moment of freedom was like an incredible adventure.

She had been training for years, because fencing made her stronger and showed a certain set of thinking skills. The classes would go great, as always. Ellie as a wonderful fencer would win some clash, but she wouldn't even think about it, already engulfed by anticipation of the evening.

Ellie’s favourite part of the day was dinner. No, not the dinner itself - the whole process of it. The anticipation and preparations. Their servants would be preparing everything, putting a lot of effort into details, so as to avoid getting in trouble with Lillian. She was fabled for her choleric nature and no one wanted to be reprimanded. That's why they always did their best, striving to meet Lillian's expectations and avoid unhinging her.

The table had to be polished until it gleamed. Table covers had to be clean and smoothed. Dinnerware and cutlery had to be polished to a high gloss. And napkins… napkins had to have the right colors, because colors couldn't clash. After all those years Ellie learned the process by heart. She remembered everything, every little detail and the order of all those actions.

A plate in the middle. A napkin on the left, then forks - salad fork and dinner fork. The right side was where a dinner knife, dinner spoon and soup spoon were placed. And then glasses - a water glass and wine glass - on the right, above the spoons. It wasn't all that hard to remember. It definitely was far more complicated when it came to the formal dinner place setting, but when it was just the three of them - Ellie and her parents - the servants didn't have to worry about it. Informal setting was enough, unless Lillian decided differently.

By the time the table was set, Ellie would be fully in on her anticipation mood. After all it wasn't about the dinner or setting the table, it was about her father finally coming back home. Elizabeth would wait impatiently - pulled up to comfortably sit on the windowsill of the living room window. She did it every evening. Awaiting her father's car to turn into the driveway. Waiting for him to cross the doorstep and take her into his arms as he always did. She anticipated having dinner with him and then spending hours on talking and listening to his stories.

Ellie waited. One hour passed. Then another. Lillian gave up and ordered someone to bring her dinner upstairs, as she wasn't going to eat with Ellie even under those circumstances. They complied, Lillian got her dinner and finished it, while Ellie kept waiting, not moving from her spot even for a second, so as not to miss the moment of Elias' arrival. She waited, but he didn't come back. She fell asleep eventually and Leonard carefully carried her to her room. His heart was breaking for the girl, because he knew exactly what was happening. He already knew what Ellie didn't or maybe she did. She did, perhaps, but refused to accept it…

She kept waiting. For hours, days, a week. Whenever she heard some car, she would rush to the window, hoping it was Elias. Ellie found it hard to focus on anything else. She barely ate and sleep, she just passed out from exhaustion basically every evening. Each time Leonard would take her upstairs and tuck her in bed. Though in the morning she'd be back downstairs, most likely wearing one of her father's hats or shirts - almost three times too big for her- but it didn't matter. She didn't care. If she could, she'd most likely not only wear his clothes, but also spend every minute of the day in her spot on the windowsill.

Where did he go? Why didn't he come back? Every part of her aching heart couldn't accept it. She needed him… who would protect her now? Who would be there for her? Where did he think he's going and why couldn't he take her with him? He always did. They always did everything together. And then he was gone, just like that–

Honestly, she knew he wouldn't come back. She knew, but she didn't want to let go, not yet. She wasn't ready to do it.

And it was okay. Ellie could say it by the way their servants looked at her - so sympathetically. They hurt too. Perhaps not as much as she did, but they did in their own way. The only person who seemed to remain untouched was Lillian.

Even then, all she could think of was herself. She didn't display any kind of emotions. She wasn't sad or hurt and she didn't even try to pretend that she was.

"Will you finally pull yourself together?" Lillian growled, sipping on her drink, not even looking at Ellie "He won't come back. Ever."

Ellie frowned a little. There were a lot of things she could tell her mother, a lot of mean and hateful things. Though it didn't feel okay. It didn't feel like her, so she didn't. She held it all back, responding with simple "Why do you have to be like that?"

"Like what?" Lillian asked, looking at her manicured nails, acting the least bit interested in what her daughter actually had to say.

"Why can't you at least pretend that you care?"

"Don't be pathetic, Elizabeth."

Ellie sighed. There was no point in continuing the conversation. She wasn't pathetic. It wasn't pathetic. Feeling was a human thing, right?

A few days later a tall man dressed in black suit brought Elias' stuff from his clinic. They packed it all in a box. Over 20 years of his research, his work, his life - were enclosed in just one box. Leonard carried it to Elias' office and Ellie followed. She needed answers that no one wanted to give her, so she hoped she'd actually find something in the box. And she did. Her father left her a note–

Seemingly nothing had changed. Her body was still susceptible to pain, still breakable. It had to eat and breathe air and sleep. It still shuddered, as it had shuddered before. She still had to learn and she did, as she had done before. Life was going on, its usual way. Nothing changed - and yet everything was different. People, manners, course of boundaries. And amid it all her soul traipsed elusively. It disappeared, then came back, drew nearer and moved away from reality. She hurt, she cried. Feeling like an alien - at times certain, at others uncertain of her own existence. Trapped in her own grief and pain.

Ellie had been raised in a box - her father's castle, a perfect world he created just for her. But life was more than that. Life was different and not at all perfect. In truth it seemed to be far more unfriendly and sinister than she may have expected. She found herself lost in the new reality. The reality without her father. The world she knew had been shattered, completely destroyed. And learning to live all over again wasn't all that easy, but she was strong. Elias taught her how to be strong and she knew she could face all the obstacles. She had to - for him.

She was born into this goddamn family and that was the only thing she couldn't change. Though all the rest, everything else depended on her. He hadn't taught her all the things she knew without a reason…

"In life there are only two permanent things - happiness and existential pain. Life likes to gratify and hurt. It's a venom that heals and a rose that pricks. At times it's pretty good, although sometimes it's quite bad. And future matters are unforeseeable…" Elias' note said.

And so despite the pain she still believed there was more good than bad in life. She just had to look hard enough - like her father said.

#ellie staple #dr ellie staple #wilhemina venable x mildred ratched #Mildred Ratched #wilhemina venable #sarah paulson imagine #sarah paulson fic #like mothers like daughter #part 1

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magaprima · 3 years

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Okay, maybe it’s my knowledge of history, maybe it’s the fact I did studies years ago into human trafficking where similar instances happened, maybe it’s knowing people in my family’s countries have had to do similar things throughout history, maybe it’s the fact I remember my lit tutor saying ‘how a person reacts to a fictional character’s plight is revealing of how they would behave in reality’, but I am getting so fed up of people condemning Lilith for what happened to Adam, or worse, mocking and belittling it like ‘omg she straight up murdered her kid lmao wtf’ which was actually a real comment I just fucking deleted off a GIF set I made. See, this is why I’m seeing these idiots, because they feel the need to comment on a GIF they’re NOT EVEN REBLOGGING. But whatever, I digress. My point of this post is:

LILITH DID NOT MURDER ADAM. SHE DID NOT KILL HIM IN PETTY REVENGE. SHE DID A HEARTBREAKING THING THAT MADE HER WANT TO DIE WHEN IT WAS DONE IN ORDER TO SAVE HIM FROM THE HORRENDOUS CRUELTY AND ABUSE SHE HAD SUFFERED FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. And this is without the added consideration that the trauma of such a painful, unnatural birth and post-natal exhaustion and other hormone/chemical issues would have effected decision making and problem processing.

Okay, so listen; mothers killing their children to spare them from horrors is not an invented concept. It is horrendously true and has happened throughout history. Primarily, to stop their children being taken into slavery, being raped by invaders, saved from sex rings or taken for whatever miscellaneous yet horrendous situation they’re in, which has included abusive fathers. I am speaking as someone who is Irish, where Cromwell swept the land throwing children into slavery (my great-great-so-on Uncle was a child who was taken, but he survived, and we have relatives out in the Caribbean due to this, which is also how a great-great.great-grandparent met his wife. But again, I digress) and knows there were instances where those, unable to hide their children, killed them rather than submit them to the absolute horrors Cromwell’s men were inflicting (they raped a lot of women, murdered the men, raped and/or stole the children. Whole villages were decimated) and as someone with Mexican grandparents and knows how ancestors were treated so violently and cruelly by invaders that killing children to spare them was by no means an uncommon reaction (and an entirely understandable one).

The most famous incident of this happening, possibly because she was already a slave and therefore considered ‘property’ rather than an unnamed native person being dragged from their home, and it was recent enough for official news reports, was Margaret Garner. She was a runaway slave, and, when surrounded by slavers to take her back, she cut the throat of her 2 year old daughter, and planned to kill her other three children and then herself, but the slavers got to her first. They then told her she was property and not a mother at all, and they weren’t her children, but the slaver’s property and therefore she’d damaged property. The horror of that story is undeniable and Margaret’s actions undeniably understandable and cry for sympathy and empathy....and YET, there are still people who condemn her today. Really. So it shouldn’t surprise me there are people condemning a woman in a fictional story too.

More recently, there have been cases/stories coming forward of human trafficking victims, getting pregnant through no fault of their own, and, knowing the child would be trafficked too, have smothered them in their sleep before they could be taken.

Lilith is an abuse victim. Severely abused. She is treated as a slave, Lucifer even says ‘you belong to me and only me’ considering her to be his property, ‘Lilith knows her place; to serve’, ‘there is no escape to Tibet or anywhere else’. Lilith, really, in part 1 and half of part 2 has fucking Stockholm Syndrome; she has no reason to be loyal to Lucifer, we see how afraid she is of him, yet she sticks by him and is grateful for the scraps of approval he gives her. She has suffered so much abuse for thousands of years and lived through it that she had been entirely mentally conditioned by it. It took a huge amount of inner strength, and developing relationships with others (namely Sabrina and Adam 2.0, but also the likes of Theo Putnam, Mrs Meeks) for her to break free of that mindset.

But Lucifer is her abuser. There are countless instances of where we see her absolute terror; look how she begs for mercy after Sabrina’s failed Dark Baptism, how she flinches and covers her face when he comes near her, think of the terror in her eyes when he says ‘and you know what I’m like when I’m bored’, think of her sickening fear in part 3 when she realises the Dark Lord is free, how full of panic and fear she is trying to find out where he’s hiding, of how she desperately tries to hide at fucking Mary’s to get away from him, how she’s dragged out by her hair, think of the fear she has on her face when she chooses to face him and watch the horror on her face as she realises what he’ll do to Adam, and look at the fear and broken spirit of her when she realises she can’t stop him.

Lucifer has abused Lilith for millennia and convinced her that it was love that he was ‘lifting her up’ and ‘making her worthy’, classic abuser language. He even used her own freaking familiar against her. She was treated as property, treated however he chose in that particular moment, and by her own claim she’s done ‘unspeakable things’ to help him, believing she loved him. THOUSANDS of years of abuse and she’s only recently broken free of that, before she’s forced back into his arms, metaphorically-speaking. She is now, however, aware it’s abuse, and she knows what she’s suffered, and how cruel he is, and how he made her into something else, how he used that abuse and cruelty to mould her into what he wanted (think how differently she behaves when she’s his ‘loyal servant’ to how she behaves when she’s free from him and independent. We see a very different Lilith). She knows what Adam will suffer, because she’s suffered it herself. When Lucifer says he’ll suckle on a hell hound and ‘toughen him up and all that’, the expression on Lilith’s face is heartbreaking; she knows exactly what he means by toughen him up. It’s the same as ‘make you worthy’. And the thought of her son going through everything she went through, and then constantly having to fight for his life, fighting against Caliban or Caliban’s children, suffering everything Lilith has, but never having known anything else, never having anyone who loves him truly, no one who could help him escape...it fills Lilith with fear.

And, she’s seen the Dark Lord get his way over and over again. She’s seen how even Sabrina accepts him as her Father now. She knows the Aunts offered to protect her, but even Hilda is only suggesting they leave, like they can’t actually physically fight him, only do their best to keep Lilith safe. And Lilith knows he’ll find her eventually; her experiences and her severe abuse mean she sees it as inevitable, because she’s ‘learned’ it’s inevitable. Lilith cannot see a possible way to keep baby Adam safe. She knows the only way she can protect him from the Dark Lord is to kill him, and destroy the body (or devour the body, however you wish to interpret the bloody scene) so he can’t resurrect him after he’s killed her. Because, yes, Lilith intends to die. Like Margaret Garner, her plan was to die WITH her child, but she was stopped. Lucifer knew that was her intent, that that was what she wanted (she does openly beg him to kill her) and that is exactly why he makes her immortal, so she can never be with her son, but by cursing her with humanity-- to age and rot etc-- he’s making sure she will only get weaker and not have the power to get back her son by any means.

Lilith continues to try to join her son throughout the next episode, to the point of getting a hold of the only blade that can kill an immortal, and it’s only when Marie gives her her son’s spirit, placing it in something solid, meaning-- with magic-- Lilith does have a chance to bring her son back, that instead of wanting to die, she decides to destroy Lucifer instead, as she has nothing to lose. Either, she destroys Lucifer and takes all her power back and gets her son back, or she fails and she dies. She essentially becomes a woman with nothing to lose, and they’re the most dangerous people, because there’s nothing to make them hesitate. As Lucifer learned in a very hard way.

#this was essentially a frustrated rant #but it's also #random thoughts #observations #and #headcanons #it's all the things #i don't normally do tw but this is quite in depth so #tw suicide #tw abuse #tw rape

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heatherclowndler · 4 years

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An Open Letter To the Six Fandom

I'm gonna be real with you guys: I’m getting really tired of the moral superiority of some people in the Six fandom. Six is a barely historically accurate concert-musical where the queens fight about their trauma for an hour, but it’s about white women, so I guess that means that its #girlpower is so much more respectable than Hamilton being representation to POC.

If you think I'm not talking about you, I am, @historemix / @ghostheather . I’m fucking sick of your bullshit. How come every time you get called out for being a hypocritical bully, you have a little meltdown, say you'll be better, and then go back to the same bullshit as before?

Before I actually get into the reasons that you’re a hypocrite and a bully, I want to thank everyone that sent me the screenshots and testimonials used in this post. It’s good to know that multiple people are as fed up and disturbed by this behavior as I am, and it wouldn’t have been possible without you.

Anyways, back to the matter at hand. First and foremost, your obsession with being on a fucking high horse is embarrassing. Your self-congratulatory posts about the Six fandom being so much better than the Hamilton fandom is fucking laughable coming from you, and here's why.

Before you get on about the Hamilton fandom being toxic, and the major reason why you can't fuck with the musical, remember that much of the fandom are people of color: most of whom are also minors. And they’re often the first to be driven out of it– not by harmless headcanons and fanfics or kids being "cringy”, but racist, toxic ass adults, colorism, whitewashing and constant harassment. Black fans, minors especially, would be the first to tell you this, since there’s been multiple incidents on Tumblr and Twitter where Black fans have been harassed, called slurs, etc. just for liking the musical, and that isn’t even getting into the amount of shit that’s been sent to the Black cast members for being a part of it. But clearly you haven't been fucking bothered to read the posts of how Black people in this fandom and in the cast have been treated, because maybe if you did, you’d be quiet and think before you start spouting shit, instead of constantly putting Hamilton’s name in your mouth to say shit that you think will give you woke points with the funnymen crowd.

Do you really think that the same bloggers that make fun of Hamilton would see any difference between those fans and you, the adult stanning a musical where Real Life Catherine of Aragon, a character played by a black woman, owned slaves, and was the person that introduced slavery into England is portrayed as a strong, feminist Queen? Or how Catherine Parr, a woman who was complicit in child molesation and later got upset with said child for being a victim of sexual abuse, is portrayed as the ultimate feminist and hero of the musical? Or is it okay for you to talk about how these child-molesting slaveowners were oh so admirable and honorable because you "respect the history,” whatever the fuck that means.

Yes.. I'm sure white women from the 1500s would be so pleased about the fact that their history is being told by women that they thought were inferior to them based on the color of their skin.

Also sidenote, you may want to reconsider your definition of what is a respectable Six fan when you're writing a literal AU for your favorite dead queens. Sis, just say that you want to write Six fanfiction. There’s no shame in it– especially because the people that write Six fanfiction are more respectable than you are.

But speaking of history, you need to take off your clown mask and realize how ridiculous the notion that “respectable Six fans” are ones that have a genuine respect for Tudor history, because despite the fact that you say this, Six completely disregards the actual Tudor history.

Take the example of Boleyn. Anne Boleyn – a woman who was judicially murdered on false charges including incest with her brother, witchcraft, and adultery in part because she couldn’t give birth to a son and wouldn’t be a submissive wife to her husband – is reduced to a three minute comic relief song that makes light of her murder and states that yes, she actually was guilty of adultery, but she only flirted with those guys to make Henry jealous! Writing an entire song about a woman whose name has been dragged through the mud for nearly 500 years after she was murdered on false charges and then saying that she actually did do the thing that caused her to be executed is just peak #Feminism, am I right? And so is making light of her unjust execution by calling the song “Don’t Lose Your Head” and continuously making joking references to her being beheaded, I guess. Never mind the fact that Boleyn was reportedly near-suicidal and “ready to be done with life” by the time she was executed. Never mind the fact that the six fingers rumor – something that’s also repeated in the musical and presented as a fact – was started by Catholics attempting to quell people’s sympathies over Boleyn’s execution by attempting to make it seem like she actually was a witch and therefore deserved to die. None of that matters because Six is about feminism and it does the Queens justice, right?

And let’s not even get started on Catherine of Aragon. You know, the person who you've reblogged posts about that claim she was “a remarkable woman”, and that you’re apparently so sad about the fact that she died that you’ve made memorial posts about her knowing good and well that she was a garbage person who owned human beings? The same Catherine of Aragon that was reduced in the musical to only being angry that her husband cheated on her and wanted to divorce her, as well as bickering with Boleyn? The same Catherine of Aragon that also was reduced to constantly talking in the musical about how she was forced to move to a country where she didn’t know anyone? On that note, isn’t it funny how that works? Especially since she and her garbage family owned slaves, forced them to convert to Christianity and change their names to Spanish ones, and then forced them to come to England with Catherine when she moved there to marry Arthur Tudor!

All of the queens are dumbed down for the sake of the musical and it isn't until the very, VERY end of the musical that they all realize that fighting over who got the worse abuse from their husband is fucking stupid. And, even then, it’s still incredibly fucking problematic and gross because the Queen that makes them realize that the fight is stupid, and ultimately the Queen that’s praised for being the most feminist in the musical and by its creators, is the Queen that literally held her stepdaughter down while her husband molested her. If you’re really so damn upset about how much Hamilton and its creator glorify the Founders that it ruined your ability to enjoy the musical when that musical at least still acknowledges the fact that Presidents Washington, Jefferson and Madison owned slaves (and its creator acknowledging that none of the Founders were good people), why aren’t you upset about how Six portrays Catherine Parr and Catherine of Aragon as feminists when they were a child molester and a slave owner, respectively, and it's never acknowledged in the musical? Why isn’t your enjoyment of Six ruined by the fact that the Six creators praise Child Molester Parr and Slaveowner of Aragon for being strong feminists, or the Six Instagram calling Ferdinand and Isabella (you know, the people that committed genocide against Black people in Spain, had others tortured and executed for their race&religious beliefs, and literally caused Columbus’s colonization of the Americas [and by extension, the Transatlantic Slave Trade] to begin) a “power couple”?

The entire premise of Six is flawed, arguably even more so than Hamilton’s, because at least Hamilton actually did what it sets out to do throughout the entire musical, and not just the last five minutes. But even so, the basic plot idea remains– fictionalized (heavy emphasis on the fictionalized, Heather!) versions of real people fighting to tell their story. So, if the creators of Six cast aside historical accuracy for the sake of creating a diverse and modern take on the Queens’s lives and you eat it up as much as you do, why should we give a shit when Hamilton does the same thing? Since you love Six so much, you clearly fucking don't, because otherwise you’d be shitting on Six just as much as you like to shit on Hamilton. It really just goes to show how much of a hypocrite and a pick-me ass bitch you are, because the fact that you love Six makes it really obvious that you only care about hating Hamilton so much because it’s a stance that you think will give you more street cred with the Tumblr and Twitter crowds.

^^ The absolute hypocrisy of you reblogging this when you regularly make posts and reblog posts of you and other people doing the same thing with Hamilton and its fandom. Embarrassing.

I'm saying this as someone who enjoys Six’s songs and also has common sense and brain cells– they're fictionalized versions of real people, and those real people were shitty. And that’s okay. But you need to stop embarrassing yourself and acting like you’re morally superior to people that enjoy Hamilton when your core arguments for enjoying Six literally could also be said for Hamilton, and your core arguments for hating Hamilton could be said (and would definitely apply better) to Six. I see you all the time making the argument about how important it is for Six fans to see an all-woman cast, do you think Hamilton fans of color can't make the argument that they feel it's important to see a cast with over 95% POC? How for those teens, it brought them into giving musicals a try in the first place (this is just one of many examples)? How Hamilton's overwhelming success brought jobs to so many actors of color, including helping some of them (most prominently, Daveed Diggs) make a stable enough income to give them a place to live and rest their head? When it paved the way for musicals like Six to gain popularity, too? Cognitive dissonance isn't a good fucking look on you, luv.

And don’t even try the "creator is problematic argument", bitch. You're all over Mean Girls, where the creator (Tina Fey) is shitty for a multitude of reasons, blackface and saying the n word included. Not to mention the Heathers musical, where the creators turn JD into a sympathetic villain and apologise for him when the director and writer of the original movie made it clear that JD wasn’t a character that people are supposed to sympathize with. It's a fucking joke that you go "I can't get behind a musical with a bad creator!" when you base your whole blog around a musical whose creator that's transphobic and antiblack, as well as a musical whose creators apologise for an attempted school shooter and use their musical to make him sympathetic. We know LMM is a piece of trash, but that doesn't give you the right to steamroll over fans (again, most of whom are minors of color) who just want to mind their business and enjoy a fucking show, like a pick-me ass theater kid you are.

And while we're talking about your hypocrisy, let's talk about your incessant harassment of a teenage Six fan for fucking months. You’ve instigated wave after wave of bullying towards a fan who was only 15 at the time when it started, for various reasons. I don’t give a fuck if you were just trying to “spread awareness” about their actions, or get them to change their ways, or whatever. You’re a grown ass fucking adult. If you see a minor in fandom – especially one that’s 3+ years younger than you – doing cringy/problematic stuff, let other minors be the ones to say something about it. Your harassment and creepy behavior around minors isn’t justified by the fact that you think that you’re doing something good.

This is just one of the many examples of you vaguing/posting about the teenage Six fan under the guise of trying to “spread awareness” about their reaction. This one is just fucking rude, especially because they’re a minor with ADHD/ADD that projects traits that they have onto fictional characters and vice versa. I’d expect you to know a lot about projecting onto characters and picking up traits from them, since you channel Heather Chandler and Regina George’s bitchiness and their consistent harassment of teenagers that they consider to be lesser than them into your internet persona and identity, am I right?

The potential end result doesn’t justify the means; but clearly you think it does since you never say shit about this teenager getting harassed until you get called out for your complicity in it, say that you never sent them any asks, promise you’ll do better about the way you interact with minors in fandom, repeat.

Not to mention the complete hypocrisy of this statement in the tags of one of the below posts– especially considering that you were the one that made it open season on this girl in the first place with your consistent vaguing about her and making joke posts about her with your friends when she was only fifteen. And on top of that, denying that you ever harassed Lizzie, claiming that your only crime was vague posting her – when you and your shitty friends posted memes about stuff that she had been doing and making it really clear in your vagues that it was about Lizzie. Just because you didn’t name her directly doesn’t mean that it wasn’t harassment, asshole.

Oh, and here you are, months earlier, admitting that you did cause her to get harassed and acknowledging that you named her? Interesting.

The fact that you say that you have to take responsibility for it, but you never fucking do? [Narrator Voice] Heather would not take responsibility for that.

And let’s not forget how after almost driving the girl to the point of suicide and after getting called out multiple times for it, you promised to be a better person, before running to Twitter and continuing to vague about her. And in addition to that, you making memes and joke posts about Jay, the black teenager who was also bullied almost to the point of suicide for minding his own fucking business and making some fucking fanart and quirky headcanons, is fucking nasty. To further stick your nose up at him and go “not my fandom” at him for drawing Trans!Jefferson art when your Tumblr icon is Anne Boleyn with a lesbian flag behind it and your Twitter icon is the same thing with Katherine Howard... the joke writes itself. Do I have to repeat my point?

Not to mention the fact that you fucking lied in your apology on your viral post about him, because you said that you only became aware of the fact that he was a Black teenager that was harassed after the post whent viral.. when someone told you months before (in the replies to the above post) that he was a Black teenager that was harassed relentlessly for his fanart and asked you to leave Hamilton fans of color alone. But clearly you still stand by your point about Hamilton fans. Who’s surprised?

And then after receiving a 22-anon thread where anon presumably called you out on your hypocrisy of this, you still went to Twitter and started bitching about the fact that you were called out despite saying that you were deeply ashamed and that you would do better. Yet another example of Heather the Hypocrite, am I right or am I right?

You really switch up from “I feel incredibly ashamed and I want to reassess where to go forward from here” on Tumblr to “I hate Tumblr purity culture” when you’re on the safety of your Twitter account like clockwork. And it’s awfully bold of you to mention Tumblr purity culture like you didn’t cause waves of harassment to be sent to a 15/16 year old girl to the point where she felt paranoid that someone was going to come to her house and attack her, and later make memes/joke posts about a Black minor who was harassed to the point where he tried to commit suicide and later had to get rid of his online presence altogether for his own safety.

Also, you posted the IP address of the anon who called you out, and tagged them as “asshole” on the website that you use to track IP addresses. But you genuinely felt ashamed, right? You wanted to change and reassess yourself, right? (The anon’s IP address has been blocked out by me to protect their privacy, because the person who sent in this screenshot didn’t black it out, either.)

And even then, aside from all that, your actions have caused multiple minors in the Six fandom to feel uncomfortable. Below are testimonials about your behavior, and how it’s made minors in the Six fandom feel. One of these is also a reply on a post that called out your behavior. (URLs and icons on both Tumblr and Discord are blacked out to protect their privacy.)

Take in what these testimonials are saying. The fact that your behavior with harassing minors has grown so much that people are afraid to post in the Six tags and express their love for the musical because they don’t want to get harassed by you and your group of friends is concerning.

You, a grown adult, have made minors scared to be themselves and do things their way. You’ve created a culture of fear in a fandom where over 80% of its active fans are minors. You should have been leading by example, showing Six fans how the message of uplifting women should be implemented, but instead? You caused a floodgate of harassment to be sent to a then-15 year old girl that got so bad that she was suicidal and paranoid that people would come to her house, and it ended with even more minors afraid to post in the fandom’s tag because they’re afraid that you and your shitty friends will come for them, too. Shit, I was a follower for a while! I had only unfollowed due to your moral high horse, but it wasn't long before I was made aware about your history of bullshit.

You shouldn’t just be ashamed of yourself– you should be mortified with yourself. And your little friend group should be, too: not only because of their part in all of this, participating in harassing and making fun of that poor girl with you, but because of the fact that they keep enabling you to do this harmful shit by not properly shutting you down or calling you out. But it's not like you care anyways, because you’ve made fun of people voicing their concerns about your behavior and calling you out for making the fandom an unsafe space.

"But I said I'm sorry-" Yeah, we know. We saw a series of half-assed “I'm sorry” posts, paired with you not taking real responsibility for any of the harm you’ve caused. And clearly you didn't actually mean anything you said, because you kept doing it again. And again, and again, and again.

By the way, Heather, the implication that you would be indicted for murder if Lizzie committed suicide despite never speaking to her isn’t just an implication: it’s a literal fact that people can be prosecuted for manslaughter/murder without ever laying a finger on the suicide victim. This includes cyberbullying.

It means nothing to admit you're a hypocrite and do nothing to improve, especially because you’ve said this same exact “apology” multiple times, almost word from word. You're a grown fucking adult that vicariously lives out her dream of being a highschool bully through Tumblr by harassing teenage girls on the internet, and it gives me secondhand embarrassment. Grow the fuck up already, Heather. You’re 20 years old.

You're always harping about how the Six fandom is becoming toxic and embarrassing without considering the fact that you’re one of the toxic ass adults that make children embarrassed and ashamed to be a part of their fandoms. Whenever they do something even slightly cringy, and not even genuinely problematic like some of the other shit in the Six fandom, you’re quick to be like “This isn’t respectable,” “The Six fandom is going to be the next Hamilton fandom,” or whatever the fuck else you say. Teenage girls calling Boleyn a gremlin and making headcanons about the queens siblings/children is not the end of the world, and the fact that you act like it is when you’ve actively created a culture of fear in a fandom that’s mostly made up of teenage girls is embarrassing and disgusting.

I don’t care about whatever apology or sob story you’re going to say after you see this post, because in the end, it’ll just be an empty promise as long as you stay on here. At best, you’ll say that you’re going to do better and leave Tumblr for what, a month? Only to bitch on your Twitter account for the entire month, then come back to Tumblr and do the same exact thing that I’m calling you out for.

You need to stay away from minors in fandom. As a matter of fact — stay out of fandoms that are mostly made up of minors as a whole. You’ve proven time and time again that you don’t care about the safety or feelings of minors, nor do you care about actually “improving” or reassessing yourself every time you get called out. The fact that you’ve been called out for the same things via being indirected on a Tumblr post (linked here), being sent multiple anons by different people (shown above), and being sent a 22-anon thread by one single person calling you out (stated by you above), and you still haven’t changed? Is all of the proof that I need that you won’t change.

That’s all I have to say to you.

People in the Six fandom, I’m heavily urging you not to continue giving this person a platform. I can’t force you to do anything, but you all deserve the right to know what’s been going on. Aside from her hypocrisy about Six, it’s historical figures, and its fandom as a whole, she’s been involved in harassing a minor to the point where she felt paranoid and wanted to leave the fandom on separate occasions, made jokes about another minor in a different fandom that was harassed to the point of attempting suicide on multiple occasions (then lying and claiming that she was never told he was a Black minor who was harassed after she was called out due to a post she made about him going viral when someone told her months before that he was all of those things in the notes of another post she made about him), and other minors have posted/stated that they feel her behavior went too fair, and that because of it they feel unsafe posting stuff in the fandom.

She’s been called out on her behavior on multiple different occasions, and each time she said that she would reassess her behavior and discuss how her actions were toxic. People have given her multiple chances, and each time, she’s gone back to the same toxic behavior and done the very things that she claimed she would stop doing. It’s getting ridiculous at this point, and her actions have gotten to the point where it seems like the only course of action is to call her out publicly.

Like Heather herself said, and I will now brilliantly quote because karma is a bitch: “If you keep making the same “mistake” MULTIPLE TIMES, people aren’t gonna be happy about it.” She isn’t exempt from criticism, especially when this stuff has happened multiple times and she hasn’t done anything to change her behavior. Listen to what she said, and hold her accountable.

Again, I can’t force you to do anything, but I hope that everyone in the Six fandom keeps what was said in this post in mind the next time they consider interacting with her or her content. Take care.

#six the musical #six musical #if youre in the six fandom pls reblog this to spread awareness. this has gone on for long enough #ghostheather

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broadstbroskis · 4 years

Text

surprises- pt 6 | mat barzal

part 5

Mat’s fingers are tracing patterns over your bump as he lies beside you in his bed and if he doesn’t stop soon, it’s going to be a problem. “Don’t start something you can’t finish,” You mumble at him.

He laughs. “Who says I can’t finish? I could go again.”

You turn to look at him, laugh on your lips. “Oh yeah?”

“Give me five minutes.” He says, but you’re not in a rush. Sure, you wouldn’t mind if he moved his hand down lower or if he’d pull you back on top of him like he had earlier in the evening, but since jumping back into bed with him a couple weeks ago, it’s been much each easier to spend time out of bed with him as well.

Even though, at this moment in time, you are technically in bed with him.

Mat’s hand stops moving, resting comfortably on your belly, which somehow, the cantaloupe in there seems to recognize as daddy and always takes as a calming influence. It’s one of the few times that they’ll seem to stop moving, when his hand is resting on your or his arm is wrapped around you or even when he’s just talking to you, and tonight is no exception. You can feel your breath start to even out and sleep start to take you, when Mat suddenly whispers, “You should move in with me.”

Well that wakes you up. “What?”

And he’s still quiet, more quiet than you’ve ever heard him, but he doesn’t back down, looking at you with a smile that matches the soft voice he’s speaking in. “You’ve been here every night I’ve been home for the last two weeks. It’s going to be easier for you after the baby to have me closer.” You open your mouth to protest but he continues. “It’s going to be way easier for me to have you close.”

“Mat-” You start, gently reaching out for him, resting your hand on his forearm.

“I don’t know what I’m doing in this.” Mat confesses. “And you just know-”

“I have no clue what I’m doing.” You admit. “I’m just happy to have you to figure it out with.”

He smiles, that same soft one from before. “Will you at least think about it? Moving in?”

You nod, trying to settle yourself in a new, comfortable position as there’s a kick against your stomach. “Yeah,” You tell him. “I’ll think about it.”

But there’s no response from Mat and when you look over, he looks completely dumbstruck. “Was that-”

You nod, sliding over toward him, even though you can’t guarantee that there will be another one. “Yeah.”

“Holy shit!” He breathes, palm moving as he tries to chase that feeling.

“Baby likes your voice.” You tell him, which makes him beam so wide that it practically lights up the dark room. “You might not feel anything else tonight.”

He kisses you, so soft and gentle that you almost don’t even reciprocate, just barely managing to return it before he’s pulling away. “That’s okay.” He’s still grinning. “I’ll catch it next time.”

He doesn’t take his hand off your belly the entire night, but that does put him in prime position to catch it next time when the baby is up and kicking first thing in the morning.

-----

Following that one time though, Mat becomes increasingly bitter as the baby starts kicking up a storm when literally anyone puts their hand on your stomach except for him. Molly and Tito almost always feel a kick, every time they reach their hands out. Brian, still a little more hesitant than the other two to touch you, gets one pretty frequently. Your brother had visited and gotten to feel, Mat’s parents and sister had stayed for a long weekend and each managed to feel something every day that they were there.

But anytime Mat reached his hand out, his large palm covering like half your huge belly, it was instantly calm. The one time there was no kicking. You were certain that whenever the baby did come out, they were coming out with Mat’s athletic genes; it was a running joke between you and Molly.

“Baby hates me.” Mat whines, lying in bed some other night, his hand resting on your stomach again, after the baby had been actively kicking for Molly, Tito, and Brian at dinner that night.

“Baby doesn’t hate you.” This is the best part of your day. When the coconut wasn't kicking your ribs or somersaulting around.

“Hates me.” He insists.

“I told you.” You tell him, moving as close to him as you can, with the bump in the way. “Baby likes the sound of your voice. It’s calming.” That does get him to smile, just a bit. “It might be one of the only times that your child isn’t beating my ribs up.”

His thumb brushes softly over the curve of your belly. “Are you beating your momma up in there?” Almost as if they could tell, Mat finally gets the kick he’s been dying for, a gentle little thing that if he hadn’t smiled at, you wouldn’t have even thought he’d felt. “You should stop that. Be nice to her in there.”

You laugh at him. “I don’t think that’s going to do it.”

“Won’t know til we try.” Mat says cheerfully and you just shake your head, so much fondness for this absolute dork.

-----

“I cannot believe you did all this.” You look around Grace and Anders’ house in awe, shocked at the baby shower that’s occurring around you.

“Oh come on.” Molly scoffs. “You can’t be mad we threw you a baby shower.”

“I’m not mad at all!” You tell her honestly. “This-this is incredible. Better than I could have dreamed.”

She beams, looping her arm through yours and resting her head on your shoulder. You smile, and lean yours against hers, watching the chaos around you.

There’s a room full of gifts, presented with tags and already unwrapped, as she’d stated she knew you wouldn’t want to sit around and waste time with any of that. One wall has two lines of pictures, one each of you and Mat, with a crowd of people studying each one, as they make guesses about what age you each were in the different pictures. At the kitchen table, Brian’s collecting money and running the pool for baby sex and date and time of birth.

But for the most part, it’s just a group of people-your friends, Mat’s friends, Mat’s family, your brother, some coworkers-just gathered to celebrate and you couldn’t have asked for a better baby shower from her. Or the rest of her accomplices. Grace is a perfect hostess, hushing you each time you try to thank you. Tito and Brian are proudly wearing those stupid Team Baby t-shirts, and what’s worse is that they did manage to get your brother one. Chris is rocking his under a flannel, showing it off to anyone who asks.

“I think they’re taking orders for more.” You mutter to Molly. Tito looks pretty suspicious over in the family room, surrounded by a few teammates.

“I don’t think you want me to tell you the real answer to that.” She says and you laugh, just as an arm drops over your shoulders.

“Does your brother have any idea how old you are?” Mat asks.

You and Molly both burst into laughter. “Probably not.” You admit and Mat gives you the most incredulous look. “He’s eight years older than me and he was gone once he left for college. Actually. A lot before then too.”

“I was gone a lot too but I know how old my sister is!” Mat cries.

“That’s a lot of shade for someone who didn’t know what she was studying in school.” You tell him and he laughs, appropriately called out.

“Alright.” He grins at you, a smile you instantly return. “Fair enough.” And then, immediately, he says, “You good, Moll?”

You turn, just in time to see your best friend’s face change from interested curiosity to a bright grin. “Yup. I mean, I’d be better if you two would have, say, given me a name, but I’ve settled. At least there’s a nursery theme.”

You and Mat both smile. She’d begged and pleaded- first, to be allowed to find out the sex, then when she’d given up on that, for you both to finally pick a nursery theme, and now, for you to just give her the name options. The only thing you’d given in on was the theme. Mat had dropped it to her one night and she had, quite literally, taken it and ran.

But she’d done great with it, constantly sending you both pictures of animal and safari themed nurseries and incorporating part of it into the shower. There was a pile of stuffed animals in the corner that she said she “had a vision for” and you were leaving her to it. She hadn’t let you down yet and you knew this wouldn’t be when she started.

“Maybe there isn’t a name yet.” Mat grins at her and you bite your lip to keep back the laugh at the face Molly makes.

“Don’t test me on this, Mathew.” She huffs at him. “You are only proving my point as to why waiting until the baby is born is a terrible idea.” She unlinks her arm from you and pushes her way over toward Grace.

“I changed my mind.” Mat says, turning to you as soon as she’s out of ear range. “If it is a girl, we can name it after her if you want.” You burst into laughter, burying your face in his shoulder. “Solely just to see the reaction she’d have if we did.”

“Nahh,” You tell him. “I don’t want to risk the overdramatics. Just in case.”

He laughs and you’re sure he knows exactly what you mean. “Cross it off the list.”

“We are doing a lot of crossing and very little adding.” You tell him, mentally thinking of the very short list of names that neither of you have nixed.

He squeezes your shoulders. “Still got time. It’ll come to us.”

“Yeah.” You smile softly at him, but that’s all you get to say about it for the rest of the party, as you’re being called away to tell the story behind one of your photos on the wall. Then it feels like it’s hours later before you get the chance to talk to Mat again, both of you pulled from person to person or group to group, eager for your attention, that you’re more than happy to share after this amazing afternoon they’ve pulled together for you.

By the time you do get to cycle back around to Mat, the party’s pretty much wrapped up, only a few stragglers left to help Grace and Anders clean up and you and Mat load up Mat’s car.

He’s actually standing outside, which is the only reason you find him. He’s out on the back porch, alone, which explains why you couldn’t find him at first and why he hadn’t responded when Tito had called out for him a few minutes ago. You slip out behind him, sliding the door shut after you and then immediately start shaking. “Mat?”

He turns, and then frowns. “What’re you doing out here? You’re shivering.” He holds his arm out, and you step into him, burrowing close.

“Looking for you.” You poke his side. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just thinking.” He says quietly, which you give a soft hmm to in response, waiting for him to continue, but he’s silent for a few moments longer. You’re just about ready to tug him inside when he takes a deep breath, and you know that he’s gearing up for something big. “Would you-” Another breath. “I know I said to take your time, and I mean that still, I do! But what would you think about moving out here?”

“With you?”

He laughs, gently. “Yeah, with me.” And it’s now that you see he’s looking around the yard and the neighborhood, checking out the space around you, compared to the building of condos you two live in. That this is likely what he’s been thinking about the entire time he’s been out here, why he disappeared in the first place.

“You want to buy a house?” You look out at what he’s been looking at for...well, who knows how long now, trying to picture it.

“I want to buy us a house.” He clarifies.

“You-” You trail off, unable to form thoughts or words or sentences.

“Look, still think about it.” Mat says. “Just-just know that this could definitely be on the table. If you want it.”

But-but it’s not just what you want, isn’t it? Isn’t that a whole thing of parenthood and adulthood and life? This is closer to the rink, closer to Mat’s practice facilities. You’ve already committed to working from home after maternity leave ends, so you’re not overly worried about the increase in time to your own work (which you are pretty sure is actually fairly small anyway). The schools are better our here- you know that was a big thing for a lot of Mat’s teammates, the whole reason they all settled out here. It’s a little terrifying, sure, to think that you’re old enough to be thinking of houses and commutes and schools, but everything’s terrifying right now. There’s another human growing inside you, for god’s sake.

You squeeze your arms around Mat. “Let’s look at some houses.”

#mat barzal imagine #mat barzal fan fic #hockey imagines #hockey fanfiction #hockey fanfic #nhl imagines #nhl fanfiction #my hockey fics #surprises series

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hockeysweetheart · 4 years

Photo

So I asked this question Earlier. Do you think that Katniss was in love with Gale the romantic way.

Easy answer no. I do beileve she loved him as you love her friends. But there were just no sparks there. Okay this will be a super long thing. I’ll add all chapters and pages below

Lets dig into this.

So at the start of the book they meet up in the woods on the day of the reaping This is Katniss Discribing Gale ( This is after they talk about running away Katniss blurts out I am never having kids, Eating bakery bread Gale said he would have kids ect...

Chapter 1 Page 10 The hunger Games

This Conversation feels all wrong Leave? How could I leave Prim, Who is the only person in the world I’m certain I love? And Gale who is Devoted to his Family. We can’t Leave, so why bother talking about it? And if we did... even if we did... where did this stuff about having kids come from? There’s NEVER been anything romantic between Gale and me. When we met, I was a skinny 12 year old and although he was only two years older. He already looked like a man. It took a long time for us to even become friends, to stop haggling over every trade and begin helping each other out.

Besides if he wanted Kids, Gale won’t have any trouble finding a wife. He’s good-looking, he’s strong enough to handle the work in the mines, and he can hunt. You can tell by the way girls whisper about him when he walks by in school that they want him. It makes me jealous but not for the reason people would think. Good hunting partners are hard to find.

Page 38- 40 Chapter 3 The hunger Games

( Now this is when Katniss is saying goodbyes and Gale says goodbye)

Finally Gale is here and maybe there is nothing Romantic between us, but when he opens his arms . I don’t hesitate to go into the. His body is familiar to me- the way it moves, the smell of wood and smoke, even the sound of his heart beating I know from quiet moments on a hunt- but this is the first time I really feel it, lean and hard-muscled against my own.

"Katniss, it's just hunting. You're the best hunter I know," says Gale. "It's not just hunting. They're armed. They think," I say. "So do you. And you've had more practice. Real practice," he says. "You know how to kill." "Not people," I say. "How different can it be, really?" says Gale grimly. The awful thing is that if I can forget they're people, it will be no different at all. The Peacekeepers are back too soon and Gale asks for more time, but they're taking him away and I start to panic. "Don't let them starve!" I cry out, clinging to his hand. "I won't! You know I won't! Katniss, remember I - " he says, and they yank us apart and slam the door and I'll never know what it was he wanted me to remember.

Pages 109 to 112 Chapter 8 The Hunger Games

When they first met. Please note this is Before Peeta confessed his Love for Katniss.

I had been struggling along on my own for about six months when I first ran into Gale in the woods. It was a Sun- day in October, the air cool and pungent with dying things. I’d spent the morning competing with the squirrels for nuts and the slightly warmer afternoon wading in shallow ponds har- vesting katniss. The only meat I’d shot was a squirrel that had practically run over my toes in its quest for acorns, but the an- imals would still be afoot when the snow buried my other food sources. Having strayed farther afield than usual, I was hurrying back home, lugging my burlap sacks when I came across a dead rabbit. It was hanging by its neck in a thin wire a foot above my head. About fifteen yards away was another. I recognized the twitch-up snares because my father had used them. When the prey is caught, it’s yanked into the air out of the reach of other hungry animals. I’d been trying to use snares all summer with no success, so I couldn’t help dropping my sacks to examine this one. My fingers were just on the wire above one of the rabbits when a voice rang out. “That’s dangerous.”

I jumped back several feet as Gale materialized from be- hind a tree. He must have been watching me the whole time. He was only fourteen, but he cleared six feet and was as good as an adult to me. I’d seen him around the Seam and at school. And one other time. He’d lost his father in the same blast that killed mine. In January, I’d stood by while he received his medal of valor in the Justice Building, another oldest child with no father. I remembered his two little brothers clutching his mother, a woman whose swollen belly announced she was just days away from giving birth. “What’s your name?” he said, coming over and disengaging the rabbit from the snare. He had another three hanging from his belt. “Katniss,” I said, barely audible. “Well, Catnip, stealing’s punishable by death, or hadn’t you heard?” he said. “Katniss,” I said louder. “And I wasn’t stealing it. I just wanted to look at your snare. Mine never catch anything.” He scowled at me, not convinced. “So where’d you get the squirrel?” “I shot it.” I pulled my bow off my shoulder. I was still using the small version my father had made me, but I’d been practic- ing with the full-size one when I could. I was hoping that by spring I might be able to bring down some bigger game. Gale’s eyes fastened on the bow. “Can I see that?” I handed it over. “Just remember, stealing’s punishable by death.”

That was the first time I ever saw him smile. It transformed him from someone menacing to someone you wished you knew. But it took several months before I returned that smile. We talked hunting then. I told him I might be able to get him a bow if he had something to trade. Not food. I wanted knowledge. I wanted to set my own snares that caught a belt of fat rabbits in one day. He agreed something might be worked out. As the seasons went by, we grudgingly began to share our knowledge, our weapons, our secret places that were thick with wild plums or turkeys. He taught me snares and fishing. I showed him what plants to eat and eventually gave him one of our precious bows. And then one day, without either of us saying it, we became a team. Dividing the work and the spoils. Making sure that both our families had food. Gale gave me a sense of security I’d lacked since my father’s death. His companionship replaced the long solitary hours in the woods. I became a much better hunter when I didn’t have to look over my shoulder constantly, when someone was watching my back. But he turned into so much more than a hunting partner. He became my confidante, someone with whom I could share thoughts I could never voice inside the fence. In exchange, he trusted me with his. Being out in the woods with Gale . . . sometimes I was actually happy. I call him my friend, but in the last year it’s seemed too ca- sual a word for what Gale is to me. A pang of longing shoots through my chest. If only he was with me now! But, of course, I don’t want that. I don’t want him in the arena where he’d bedead in a few days. I just . . . I just miss him. And I hate being so alone. Does he miss me? He must.

I think of the eleven flashing under my name last night. I know exactly what he’d say to me. “Well, there’s some room for improvement there.” And then he’d give me a smile and I’d return it without hesitating now. I can’t help comparing what I have with Gale to what I’m pretending to have with Peeta. How I never question Gale’s motives while I do nothing but doubt the latter’s. It’s not a fair comparison really. Gale and I were thrown together by a mu- tual need to survive. Peeta and I know the other’s survival means our own death. How do you sidestep that?

Now through out the Games Katniss does Question How Gale would feel about all this like the Kissing, The being in love with Peeta for an act. ( only everyone knows it’s aha not an act.)

Catching Fire.

Catching Fire Chaper 1 Page 9.

Basically saying how painful It was for Gale to see his best friend in love with someone else.

Hazelle nods “ That’d be good. Gale means to, but he’s only got his Sundays. and I think he likes saving those for you” I Can’t stop the redness that floods my cheeks. It’s stupid. of course. Hardly anybody knows me Better then Hazelle. Knows the bond I share with Gale. I’m sure plenty of people assumed that we’d eventually get married even if I never gave it any thought. But that was before the Games. Before my fellow tribute, Peeta Mellark , announced he was madly in love with me, Our romance became a key strategy for Peeta. I’m not sure what it was for me. But I know now it was nothing put painful for Gale. My chest tightens as I think about how. on the Victory Tour. Peeta and I will have to present ourselves as lovers again.

Catching Fire Chapter 2 Pages 23- 28.

Now this is when Snow basically tells Katniss he can kill Gale and that Katniss goes into the kiss ( the surprise one)

"Peeta. How is the love of your life?" he asks. "Good," I say.

"At what point did he realize the exact degree of your indifference?" he asks, dipping his cookie in his tea. "I'm not indifferent," I say.

"But perhaps not as taken with the young man as you would have the country believe," he says. "Who says I'm not?" I say.

"I do," says the president. "And I wouldn't be here if I were the only person who had doubts. How's the handsome cousin?"

"I don't know ... I don't ..." My revulsion at this conversation, at discussing my feelings for two of the people I care most about with President Snow, chokes me off.

"Speak, Miss Everdeen. Him I can easily kill off if we don't come to a happy resolution," he says. "You aren't doing him a favor by disappearing into the woods with him each Sunday."

If he knows this, what else does he know? And how does he know it? Many people could tell him that Gale and I spend our Sundays hunting. Don't we show up at the end of each one loaded down with game? Haven't we for years? The real question is what he thinks goes on in the woods beyond District 12. Surely they haven't been tracking us in there. Or have they? Could we have been followed? That seems impossible. At least by a person. Cameras? That never crossed my mind until this moment. The woods have always been our place of safety, our place beyond the reach of the Capitol, where we're free to say what we feel, be who we are. At least before the Games. If we've been watched since, what have they seen? Two people hunting, saying treasonous things against the Capitol, yes. But not two people in love, which seems to be President Snow's implication. We are safe on that charge. Unless ... unless ...

It only happened once. It was fast and unexpected, but it did happen.

After Peeta and I got home from the Games, it was several weeks before I saw Gale alone. First there were the obligatory celebrations. A banquet for the victors that only the most high-ranking people were invited to. A holiday for the whole district with free food and entertainers brought in from the Capitol. Parcel Day, the first of twelve, in which food packages were delivered to every person in the district. That was my favorite. To see all those hungry kids in the Seam running around, waving cans of applesauce, tins of meat, even candy. Back home, too big to carry, would be bags of grain, cans of oil. To know that once a month for a year they would all receive another parcel. That was one of the few times I actually felt good about winning the Games.

So between the ceremonies and events and the reporters documenting my every move as I presided and thanked and kissed Peeta for the audience, I had no privacy at all. After a few weeks, things finally died down. The camera crews and reporters packed up and went home. Peeta and I assumed the cool relationship we've had ever since. My family settled into our house in the Victor's Village. The everyday life of District 12 - workers to the mines, kids to school - resumed its usual pace. I waited until I thought the coast was really clear, and then one Sunday, without telling anyone, I got up hours before dawn and took off for the woods.

The weather was still warm enough that I didn't need a jacket. I packed along a bag filled with special foods, cold chicken and cheese and bakery bread and oranges. Down at my old house, I put on my hunting boots. As usual, the fence was not charged and it was simple to slip into the woods and retrieve my bow and arrows. I went to our place, Gale's and mine, where we had shared breakfast the morning of the reaping that sent me into the Games.

I waited at least two hours. I'd begun to think that he'd given up on me in the weeks that had passed. Or that he no longer cared about me. Hated me even. And the idea of losing him forever, my best friend, the only person I'd ever trusted with my secrets, was so painful I couldn't stand it. Not on top of everything else that had happened. I could feel my eyes tearing up and my throat starting to close the way it does when I get upset.

Then I looked up and there he was, ten feet away, just watching me. Without even thinking, I jumped up and threw my arms around him, making some weird sound that combined laughing, choking, and crying. He was holding me so tightly that I couldn't see his face, but it was a really long time before he let me go and then he didn't have much choice, because I'd gotten this unbelievably loud case of the hiccups and had to get a drink.

We did what we always did that day. Ate breakfast. Hunted and fished and gathered. Talked about people in town. But not about us, his new life in the mines, my time in the arena. Just about other things. By the time we were at the hole in the fence that's nearest the Hob, I think I really believed that things could be the same. That we could go on as we always had. I'd given all the game to Gale to trade since we had so much food now. I told him I'd skip the Hob, even though I was looking forward to going there, because my mother and sister didn't even know I'd gone hunting and they'd be wondering where I was.

Then suddenly, as I was suggesting I take over the daily snare run, he took my face in his hands and kissed me. I was completely unprepared. You would think that after all the hours I'd spent with Gale - watching him talk and laugh and frown - that I would know all there was to know about his lips. But I hadn't imagined how warm they would feel pressed against my own. Or how those hands, which could set the most intricate of snares, could as easily entrap me. I think I made some sort of noise in the back of my throat, and I vaguely remember my fingers, curled tightly closed, resting on his chest. Then he let go and said, "I had to do that. At least once." And he was gone.

Despite the fact that the sun was setting and my family would be worried, I sat by a tree next to the fence. I tried to decide how I felt about the kiss, if I had liked it or resented it, but all I really remembered was the pressure of Gale's lips and the scent of the oranges that still lingered on his skin. It was pointless comparing it with the many kisses I'd exchanged with Peeta. I still hadn't figured out if any of those counted. Finally I went home.

That week I managed the snares and dropped off the meat with Hazelle. But I didn't see Gale until Sunday.

I had this whole speech worked out, about how I didn't want a boyfriend and never planned on marrying, but I didn't end up using it. Gale acted as if the kiss had never happened.

Maybe he was waiting for me to say something. Or kiss him back. Instead I just pretended it had never happened, either. But it had. Gale had shattered some invisible barrier between us and, with it, any hope I had of resuming our old, uncomplicated friendship. Whatever I pretended, I could never look at his lips in quite the same way.

This all flashes through my head in an instant as President Snow's eyes bore into me on the heels of his threat to kill Gale. How stupid I've been to think the Capitol would just ignore me once I'd returned home! Maybe I didn't know about the potential uprisings. But I knew they were angry with me. Instead of acting with the extreme caution the situation called for, what have I done? From the president's point of view, I've ignored Peeta and flaunted my preference for Gale's company before the whole district. And by doing so made it clear I was, in fact, mocking the Capitol. Now I've endangered Gale and his family and my family and Peeta, too, by my carelessness. “Please don't hurt Gale," I whisper. "He's just my friend. He's been my friend for years. That's all that's between us. Besides, everyone thinks we're cousins now."

Chaper 7 Pages 93-101 Catching fire

Basically talking about running away and then Katniss can’t leave Peeta or Haymitch and Gale is angry about that But Prior Gale is happy to run away with her Says He loves her... but HA. ( we all know how that worked out)

Then I sit on the tiny concrete hearth, thawing out by the fire and waiting for Gale. It's a surprisingly short time before he appears. A bow slung over his shoulder, a dead wild turkey he must have encountered along the way hanging from his belt. He stands in the doorway as if considering whether or not to enter. He holds the unopened leather bag of food, the flask, Cinna's gloves. Gifts he will not accept because of his anger at me. I know exactly how he feels. Didn't I do the same thing to my mother? I look in his eyes. His temper can't quite mask the hurt, the sense of betrayal he feels at my engagement to Peeta. This will be my last chance, this meeting today, to not lose Gale forever. I could take hours trying to explain, and even then have him refuse me. Instead I go straight to the heart of my defense. "President Snow personally threatened to have you killed," I say. Gale raises his eyebrows slightly, but there's no real show of fear or astonishment. "Anyone else?" "Well, he didn't actually give me a copy of the list. But it's a good guess it includes both our families," I say. It's enough to bring him to the fire. He crouches before the hearth and warms himself. "Unless what?" "Unless nothing, now," I say. Obviously this requires more of an explanation, but I have no idea where to start, so I just sit there staring gloomily into the fire. After about a minute of this, Gale breaks the silence. "Well, thanks for the heads-up." I turn to him, ready to snap, but I catch the glint in his eye. I hate myself for smiling. This is not a funny moment, but I guess it's a lot to drop on someone. We're all going to be obliterated no matter what. "I do have a plan, you know." "Yeah, I bet it's a stunner," he says. He tosses the gloves on my lap. "Here. I don't want your fiance's old gloves." "He's not my fiance. That's just part of the act. And these aren't his gloves. They were Cinna's," I say. "Give them back, then," he says. He pulls on the gloves, flexes his fingers, and nods in approval. "At least I'll die in comfort." "That's optimistic. Of course, you don't know what's happened," I say. "Let's have it," he says. I decide to begin with the night Peeta and I were crowned victors of the Hunger Games, and Haymitch warned me of the Capitol's fury. I tell him about the uneasiness that dogged me even once I was back home, President Snow's visit to my house, the murders in District 11, the tension in the crowds, the last-ditch effort of the engagement, the president's indication that it hadn't been enough, my certainty that I'll have to pay. Gale never interrupts. While I talk, he tucks the gloves in his pocket and occupies himself with turning the food in the leather bag into a meal for us. Toasting bread and cheese, coring apples, placing chestnuts in the fire to roast. I watch his hands, his beautiful, capable fingers. Scarred, as mine were before the Capitol erased all marks from my skin, but strong and deft. Hands that have the power to mine coal but the precision to set a delicate snare. Hands I trust. I pause to take a drink of tea from the flask before I tell him about my homecoming. "Well, you really made a mess of things," he says. "I'm not even done," I tell him. "I've heard enough for the moment. Let's skip ahead to this plan of yours," he says. I take a deep breath. "We run away." "What?" he asks. This has actually caught him off guard. "We take to the woods and make a run for it," I say. His face is impossible to read. Will he laugh at me, dismiss this as foolishness? I rise in agitation, preparing for an argument. "You said yourself you thought that we could do it! That morning of the reaping. You said - " He steps in and I feel myself lifted off the ground. The room spins, and I have to lock my arms around Gale's neck to brace myself. He's laughing, happy. "Hey!" I protest, but I'm laughing, too. Gale sets me down but doesn't release his hold on me. "Okay, let's run away," he says. "Really? You don't think I'm mad? You'll go with me?" Some of the crushing weight begins to lift as it transfers to Gale's shoulders. "I do think you're mad and I'll still go with you," he says. He means it. Not only means it but welcomes it. "We can do it. I know we can. Let's get out of here and never come back!" "You're sure?" I say. "Because it's going to be hard, with the kids and all. I don't want to get five miles into the woods and have you - " "I'm sure. I'm completely, entirely, one hundred percent sure." He tilts his forehead down to rest against mine and pulls me closer. His skin, his whole being, radiates heat from being so near the fire, and I close my eyes, soaking in his warmth. I breathe in the smell of snow-dampened leather and smoke and apples, the smell of all those wintry days we shared before the Games. I don't try to move away. Why should I, anyway? His voice drops to a whisper. "I love you." That's why. I never see these things coming. They happen too fast. One second you're proposing an escape plan and the next... you're expected to deal with something like this. I come up with what must be the worst possible response. "I know." It sounds terrible. Like I assume he couldn't help loving me but that I don't feel anything in return. Gale starts to draw away, but I grab hold of him. "I know! And you... you know what you are to me." It's not enough. He breaks my grip. "Gale, I can't think about anyone that way now. All I can think about, every day, every waking minute since they drew Prim's name at the reaping, is how afraid I am. And there doesn't seem to be room for anything else. If we could get somewhere safe, maybe I could be different. I don't know." I can see him swallowing his disappointment. "So, we'll go. We'll find out." He turns back to the fire, where the chestnuts are beginning to burn. He flips them out onto the hearth. "My mother's going to take some convincing." I guess he's still going, anyway. But the happiness has fled, leaving an all-too-familiar strain in its place. "Mine, too. I'll just have to make her see reason. Take her for a long walk. Make sure she understands we won't survive the alternative." "She'll understand. I watched a lot of the Games with her and Prim. She won't say no to you," says Gale. "I hope not." The temperature in the house seems to have dropped twenty degrees in a matter of seconds. "Haymitch will be the real challenge." "Haymitch?" Gale abandons the chestnuts. "You're not asking him to come with us?" "I have to, Gale. I can't leave him and Peeta because they'd - " His scowl cuts me off. "What?" "I'm sorry. I didn't realize how large our party was," he snaps at me.

"They'd torture them to death, trying to find out where I was," I say.

"What about Peeta's family? They'll never come. In fact, they probably couldn't wait to inform on us. Which I'm sure he's smart enough to realize. What if he decides to stay?" he asks.

I try to sound indifferent, but my voice cracks. "Then he stays."

"You'd leave him behind?" Gale asks.

"To save Prim and my mother, yes," I answer. "I mean, no! I'll get him to come."

"And me, would you leave me?" Gale's expression is rock hard now. "Just if, for instance, I can't convince my mother to drag three young kids into the wilderness in winter."

"Hazelle won't refuse. She'll see sense," I say.

"Suppose she doesn't, Katniss. What then?" he demands.

"Then you have to force her, Gale. Do you think I'm making this stuff up?" My voice is rising in anger as well.

"No. I don't know. Maybe the president's just manipulating you. I mean, he's throwing your wedding. You saw how the Capitol crowd reacted. I don't think he can afford to kill you. Or Peeta. How's he going to get out of that one?" says Gale.

"Well, with an uprising in District Eight, I doubt he's spending much time choosing my wedding cake!" I shout.

The instant the words are out of my mouth I want to reclaim them. Their effect on Gale is immediate - the flush on his cheeks, the brightness of his gray eyes. "There's an uprising in Eight?" he says in a hushed voice.

I try to backpedal. To defuse him, as I tried to defuse the districts. "I don't know if it's really an uprising. There's unrest. People in the streets - " I say.

Gale grabs my shoulders. "What did you see?"

"Nothing! In person. I just heard something." As usual, it's too little, too late. I give up and tell him. "I saw something on the mayor's television. I wasn't supposed to. There was a crowd, and fires, and the Peacekeepers were gunning people down but they were fighting back. ..." I bite my lip and struggle to continue describing the scene. Instead I say aloud the words that have been eating me up inside. "And it's my fault, Gale. Because of what I did in the arena. If I had just killed myself with those berries, none of this would've happened. Peeta could have come home and lived, and everyone else would have been safe, too."

"Safe to do what?" he says in a gentler tone. "Starve? Work like slaves? Send their kids to the reaping? You haven't hurt people - you've given them an opportunity. They just have to be brave enough to take it. There's already been talk in the mines. People who want to fight. Don't you see? It's happening! It's finally happening! If there's an uprising in District Eight, why not here? Why not everywhere? This could be it, the thing we've been - "

"Stop it! You don't know what you're saying. The Peacekeepers outside of Twelve, they're not like Darius, or even Cray! The lives of district people - they mean less than nothing to them!" I say.

"That's why we have to join the fight!" he answers harshly.

"No! We have to leave here before they kill us and a lot of other people, too!" I'm yelling again, but I can't understand why he's doing this. Why doesn't he see what's so undeniable?

Gale pushes me roughly away from him. "You leave, then. I'd never go in a million years."

"You were happy enough to go before. I don't see how an uprising in District Eight does anything but make it more important that we leave. You're just mad about - " No, I can't throw Peeta in his face. "What about your family?" "What about the other families, Katniss? The ones who can't run away? Don't you see? It can't be about just saving us anymore. Not if the rebellion's begun!" Gale shakes his head, not hiding his disgust with me. "You could do so much." He throws Cinna's gloves at my feet. "I changed my mind. I don't want anything they made in the Capitol." And he's gone. I look down at the gloves. Anything they made in the Capitol? Was that directed at me? Does he think I am now just another product of the Capitol and therefore something untouchable? The unfairness of it all fills me with rage. But it's mixed up with fear over what kind of crazy thing he might do next. I sink down next to the fire, desperate for comfort, to work out my next move. I calm myself by thinking that rebellions don't happen in a day. Gale can't talk to the miners until tomorrow. If I can get to Hazelle before then, she might straighten him out. But I can't go now. If he's there, he'll lock me out. Maybe tonight, after everyone else is asleep ... Hazelle often works late into the night finishing up laundry. I could go then, tap at the window, tell her the situation so she'll keep Gale from doing anything foolish

Catching Fire Chapter 8. Pages 115-116

I don't know exactly what my mother means by things starting again, but I'm too angry and hurting to ask. It's registered, though, the idea of worse times returning, because when the doorbell rings, I shoot straight out of bed. Who could it be at this hour of the night? There's only one answer. Peacekeepers. "They can't have him," I say. "Might be you they're after," Haymitch reminds me. "Or you," I say. "Not my house," Haymitch points out. "But I'll get the door." "No, I'll get it," says my mother quietly. We all go, though, following her down the hallway to the insistent ring of the bell. When she opens it, there's not a squad of Peacekeepers but a single, snow-caked figure. Madge. She holds out a small, damp cardboard box to me. "Use these for your friend," she says. I take off the lid of the box, revealing half a dozen vials of clear liquid. "They're my mother's. She said I could take them. Use them, please." She runs back into the storm before we can stop her. "Crazy girl," Haymitch mutters as we follow, my mother into the kitchen. Whatever my mother had given Gale, I was right, it isn't enough. His teeth are gritted and his flesh shines with sweat. My mother fills a syringe with the clear liquid from one of the vials and shoots it into his arm. Almost immediately, his face begins to relax. "What is that stuff?" asks Peeta. "It's from the Capitol. It's called morphling," my mother answers. "I didn't even know Madge knew Gale," says Peeta. "We used to sell her strawberries," I say almost angrily. What am I angry about, though? Not that she has brought the medicine, surely. "She must have quite a taste for them," says Haymitch. That's what nettles me. It's the implication that there's something going on between Gale and Madge. And I don't like it. "She's my friend" is all I say.

Catching Fire Chaper 8 Pages 116-119

This is after Gales whipping and Did we just whitness Katniss having a mid life crisist at age 17. Because she is like “ Gale is mine I am his bull shit”

Alone in the kitchen with Gale, I sit on Hazelle's stool, holding his hand. After a while, my fingers find his face. I touch parts of him I have never had cause to touch before. His heavy, dark eyebrows, the curve of his cheek, the line of his nose, the hollow at the base of his neck. I trace the outline of stubble on his jaw and finally work my way to his lips. Soft and full, slightly chapped. His breath warms my chilled skin. Does everyone look younger asleep? Because right now he could be the boy I ran into in the woods years ago, the one who accused me of stealing from his traps. What a pair we were - fatherless, frightened, but fiercely committed, too, to keeping our families alive. Desperate, yet no longer alone after that day, because we'd found each other. I think of a hundred moments in the woods, lazy afternoons fishing, the day I taught him to swim, that time I twisted my knee and he carried me home. Mutually counting on each other, watching each other's backs, forcing each other to be brave. For the first time, I reverse our positions in my head. I imagine watching Gale volunteering to save Rory in the reaping, having him torn from my life, becoming some strange girl's lover to stay alive, and then coming home with her. Living next to her. Promising to marry her. The hatred I feel for him, for the phantom girl, for everything, is so real and immediate that it chokes me. Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable. Why did it take him being whipped within an inch of his life to see it? Because I'm selfish. I'm a coward. I'm the kind of girl who, when she might actually be of use, would run to stay alive and leave those who couldn't follow to suffer and die. This is the girl Gale met in the woods today. No wonder I won the Games. No decent person ever does. You saved Peeta, I think weakly. But now I question even that. I knew good and well that my life back in District 12 would be unlivable if I let that boy die. I rest my head forward on the edge of the table, overcome with loathing for myself. Wishing I had died in the arena. Wishing Seneca Crane had blown me to bits the way President Snow said he should have when I held out the berries. The berries. I realize the answer to who I am lies in that handful of poisonous fruit. If I held them out to save Peeta because I knew I would be shunned if I came back without him, then I am despicable. If I held them out because I loved him, I am still self-centered, although forgivable. But if I held them out to defy the Capitol, I am someone of worth. The trouble is, I don't know exactly what was going on inside me at that moment. Could it be the people in the districts are right? That it was an act of rebellion, even if it was an unconscious one? Because, deep down, I must know it isn't enough to keep myself, or my family, or my friends alive by running away. Even if I could. It wouldn't fix anything. It wouldn't stop people from being hurt the way Gale was today. Life in District 12 isn't really so different from life in the arena. At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead. The hard thing is finding the courage to do it. Well, it's not hard for Gale. He was born a rebel. I'm the one making an escape plan. "I'm so sorry," I whisper. I lean forward and kiss him. His eyelashes flutter and he looks at me through a haze of opiates. "Hey, Catnip." "Hey, Gale," I say. "Thought you'd be gone by now," he says. My choices are simple. I can die like quarry in the woods or I can die here beside Gale. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to stay right here and cause all kinds of trouble." "Me, too," Gale says. He just manages a smile before the drugs pull him back under.

Catching fire Chapter 9 Page 120

Someone gives my shoulder a shake and I sit up. I've fallen asleep with my face on the table. The white cloth has left creases on my good cheek. The other, the one that took the lash from Thread, throbs painfully. Gale's dead to the world, but his fingers are locked around mine. I smell fresh bread and turn my stiff neck to find Peeta looking down at me with such a sad expression. I get the sense that he's been watching us awhile. "Go on up to bed, Katniss. I'll look after him now," he says. "Peeta. About what I said yesterday, about running - " I begin. "I know," he says. "There's nothing to explain." I see the loaves of bread on the counter in the pale, snowy morning light. The blue shadows under his eyes. I wonder if he slept at all. Couldn't have been long. I think of his agreeing to go with me yesterday, his stepping up beside me to protect Gale, his willingness to throw his lot in with mine entirely when I give him so little in return. No matter what I do, I'm hurting someone. "Peeta - " "Just go to bed, okay?" he says.

Catching fire Chapter 12 pages 169-170

I'm hoping she's wrong. I haven't had time to prepare Gale for any of this. Since the whipping, I only see him when he comes to the house for my mother to check how he's healing. He's often scheduled seven days a week in the mine. In the few minutes of privacy we've had, with me walking him back to town, I gather that the rumblings of an uprising in 12 have been subdued by Thread's crackdown. He knows I'm not going to run. But he must also know that if we don't revolt in 12, I'm destined to be Peeta's bride. Seeing me lounging around in gorgeous gowns on his television ... what can he do with that?

Catching fire Chapter 13 Pages 178-179

Thanks," I say. I should go see Peeta now, but I don't want to. My head's spinning from the drink, and I'm so wiped out, who knows what he could get me to agree to? No, now I have to go home to face my mother and Prim. As I stagger up the steps to my house, the front door opens and Gale pulls me into his arms. "I was wrong. We should have gone when you said," he whispers. "No," I say. I'm having trouble focusing, and liquor keeps sloshing out of my bottle and down the back of Gale's jacket, but he doesn't seem to care. "It's not too late," he says. Over his shoulder, I see my mother and Prim clutching each other in the doorway. We run. They die. And now I've got Peeta to protect. End of discussion. "Yeah, it is." My knees give way and he's holding me up. As the alcohol overcomes my mind, I hear the glass bottle shatter on the floor. This seems appropriate since I have obviously lost my grip on everything.

Catching Fire Chaper 13 ( Later on) Pages 185-186

Even Gale steps into the picture on Sundays, although he's got no love for Peeta or Haymitch, and teaches us all he knows about snares. It's weird for me, being in conversations with both Peeta and Gale, but they seem to have set aside whatever issues they have about me. One night, as I'm walking Gale back into town, he even admits, "It'd be better if he were easier to hate." "Tell me about it," I say. "If I could've just hated him in the arena, we all wouldn't be in this mess now. He'd be dead, and I'd be a happy little victor all by myself." "And where would we be, Katniss?" asks Gale. I pause, not knowing what to say. Where would I be with my pretend cousin who wouldn't be my cousin if it weren't for Peeta? Would he have still kissed me and would I have kissed him back had I been free to do so? Would I have let myself open up to him, lulled by the security of money and food and the illusion of safety being a victor could bring under different circumstances? But there would still always be the reaping looming over us, over our children. No matter what I wanted ... "Hunting. Like every Sunday," I say. I know he didn't mean the question literally, but this is as much as I can honestly give. Gale knows I chose him over Peeta when I didn't make a run for it. To me, there's no point in talking about things that might have been. Even if I had killed Peeta in the arena, I still wouldn't have wanted to marry anyone. I only got engaged to save people's lives, and that completely backfired. I'm afraid, anyway, that any kind of emotional scene with Gale might cause him to do something drastic. Like start that uprising in the mines. And as Haymitch says, District 12 isn't ready for that. If anything, they're less ready than before the Quarter Quell announcement, because the following morning another hundred Peacekeepers arrived on the train. Since I don't plan on making it back alive a second time, the sooner Gale lets me go, the better. I do plan on saying one or two things to him after the reaping, when we're allowed an hour for good-byes. To let Gale know how essential he's been to me all these years. How much better my life has been for knowing him. For loving him, even if it's only in the limited way that I can manage. But I never get the chance.

Now the only time she Mentions Gale in the arena is when Peeta pretty much is reminding her value alive. That her Family and Gale needs her. and Other then that She did say her personal goodbyes since she has no intent on coming back alive and the Jabber jay attack. But that’s it. She didn’t think of him when Peeta nearly died. or when Peeta said that Katniss was pregnat and Already Married. Nope her thoughts were okay well oh shit now what. Okay play it cool loll.

Mockingjay Chapter 2 Pages 27- 31

After a while, the door opens and someone slips in. Gale slides down beside me, his nose trickling blood. "What happened?" I ask. "I got in Boggs's way," he answers with a shrug. I use my sleeve to wipe his nose. "Watch it!" I try to be gentler. Patting, not wiping. "Which one is he?" "Oh, you know. Coin's right-hand lackey. The one who tried to stop you." He pushes my hand away. "Quit! You'll bleed me to death."

The trickle has turned to a steady stream. I give up on the first-aid attempts. "You fought with Boggs?" "No, just blocked the doorway when he tried to follow you. His elbow caught me in the nose," says Gale. "They'll probably punish you," I say. "Already have." He holds up his wrist. I stare at it uncomprehendingly. "Coin took back my communicuff." I bite my lip, trying to remain serious. But it seems so ridiculous. "I'm sorry, Soldier Gale Hawthorne." "Don't be, Soldier Katniss Everdeen." He grins. "I felt like a jerk walking around with it anyway." We both start laughing. "I think it was quite a demotion." This is one of the few good things about 13. Getting Gale back. With the pressure of the Capitol's arranged marriage between Peeta and me gone, we've managed to regain our friendship. He doesn't push it any further - try to kiss me or talk about love. Either I've been too sick, or he's willing to give me space, or he knows it's just too cruel with Peeta in the hands of the Capitol. Whatever the case, I've got someone to tell my secrets to again. "Who are these people?" I say. "They're us. If we'd had nukes instead of a few lumps of coal," he answers. "I like to think Twelve wouldn't have abandoned the rest of the rebels back in the Dark Days," I say. "We might have. If it was that, surrender, or start a nuclear war," says Gale. "In a way, it's remarkable they survived at all." Maybe it's because I still have the ashes of my own district on my shoes, but for the first time, I give the people of 13 something I have withheld from them: credit. For staying alive against all odds. Their early years must have been terrible, huddled in the chambers beneath the ground after their city was bombed to dust. Population decimated, no possible ally to turn to for aid. Over the past seventy-five years, they've learned to be self-sufficient, turned their citizens into an army, and built a new society with no help from anyone. They would be even more powerful if that pox epidemic hadn't flattened their birthrate and made them so desperate for a new gene pool and breeders. Maybe they are militaristic, overly programmed, and somewhat lacking in a sense of humor. They're here. And willing to take on the Capitol. "Still, it took them long enough to show up," I say. "It wasn't simple. They had to build up a rebel base in the Capitol, get some sort of underground organized in the districts," he says. "Then they needed someone to set the whole thing in motion. They needed you." "They needed Peeta, too, but they seem to have forgotten that," I say.

Gale's expression darkens. "Peeta might have done a lot of damage tonight. Most of the rebels will dismiss what he said immediately, of course. But there are districts where the resistance is shakier. The cease-fire's clearly President Snow's idea. But it seems so reasonable coming out of Peeta's mouth."

I'm afraid of Gale's answer, but I ask anyway. "Why do you think he said it?" "He might have been tortured. Or persuaded. My guess is he made some kind of deal to protect you. He'd put forth the idea of the cease-fire if Snow let him present you as a confused pregnant girl who had no idea what was going on when she was taken prisoner by the rebels. This way, if the districts lose, there's still a chance of leniency for you. If you play it right." I must still look perplexed because Gale delivers the next line very slowly. "Katniss...he's still trying to keep you alive." To keep me alive?And then I understand. The Games are still on. We have left the arena, but since Peeta and I weren't killed, his last wish to preserve my life still stands. His idea is to have me lie low, remain safe and imprisoned, while the war plays out. Then neither side will really have cause to kill me. And Peeta? If the rebels win, it will be disastrous for him. If the Capitol wins, who knows? Maybe we'll both be allowed to live - if I play it right - to watch the Games go on.... Images flash through my mind: the spear piercing Rue's body in the arena, Gale hanging senseless from the whipping post, the corpse-littered wasteland of my home. And for what? For what? As my blood turns hot, I remember other things. My first glimpse of an uprising in District 8. The victors locked hand in hand the night before the Quarter Quell. And how it was no accident, my shooting that arrow into the force field in the arena. How badly I wanted it to lodge deep in the heart of my enemy. I spring up, upsetting a box of a hundred pencils, sending them scattering around the floor. "What is it?" Gale asks. "There can't be a cease-fire." I lean down, fumbling as I shove the sticks of dark gray graphite back into the box. "We can't go back." "I know." Gale sweeps up a handful of pencils and taps them on the floor into perfect alignment. "Whatever reason Peeta had for saying those things, he's wrong." The stupid sticks won't go in the box and I snap several in my frustration. "I know. Give it here. You're breaking them to bits." He pulls the box from my hands and refills it with swift, concise motions. "He doesn't know what they did to Twelve. If he could've seen what was on the ground" - I start. "Katniss, I'm not arguing. If I could hit a button and kill every living soul working for the Capitol, I would do it. Without hesitation." He slides the last pencil into the box and flips the lid closed. "The question is, what are you going to do?" It turns out the question that's been eating away at me has only ever had one possible answer. But it took Peeta's ploy for me to recognize it. What am I going to do? I take a deep breath. My arms rise slightly - as if recalling the black-and-white wings Cinna gave me - then come to rest at my sides. "I'm going to be the Mockingjay."

Mockingjay Chapter 3 Pages 39-41

I skim my list. "Gale. I'll need him with me to do this." "With you how? Off camera? By your side at all times? Do you want him presented as your new lover?" Coin asks. She hasn't said this with any particular malice - quite the contrary, her words are very matter-of-fact. But my mouth still drops open in shock. "What?" "I think we should continue the current romance. A quick defection from Peeta could cause the audience to lose sympathy for her," says Plutarch. "Especially since they think she's pregnant with his child." "Agreed. So, on-screen, Gale can simply be portrayed as a fellow rebel. Is that all right?" says Coin. I just stare at her. She repeats herself impatiently. "For Gale. Will that be sufficient?" "We can always work him in as your cousin," says Fulvia.

"We're not cousins," Gale and I say together.

"Right, but we should probably keep that up for appearances' sake on camera," says Plutarch. "Off camera, he's all yours. Anything else?"

I'm rattled by the turn in the conversation. The implications that I could so readily dispose of Peeta, that I'm in love with Gale, that the whole thing has been an act. My cheeks begin to burn. The very notion that I'm devoting any thought to who I want presented as my lover, given our current circumstances, is demeaning. I let my anger propel me into my greatest demand. "When the war is over, if we've won, Peeta will be pardoned."

Dead silence. I feel Gale's body tense. I guess I should have told him before, but I wasn't sure how he'd respond. Not when it involved Peeta.

"No form of punishment will be inflicted," I continue. A new thought occurs to me. "The same goes for the other captured tributes, Johanna and Enobaria." Frankly, I don't care about Enobaria, the vicious District 2 tribute. In fact, I dislike her, but it seems wrong to leave her out.

"No," says Coin flatly.

"Yes," I shoot back. "It's not their fault you abandoned them in the arena. Who knows what the Capitol's doing to them?"

"They'll be tried with other war criminals and treated as the tribunal sees fit," she says.

"They'll be granted immunity!" I feel myself rising from my chair, my voice full and resonant. "You will personally pledge this in front of the entire population of District Thirteen and the remainder of Twelve. Soon. Today. It will be recorded for future generations. You will hold yourself and your government responsible for their safety, or you'll find yourself another Mockingjay!"

Mockingjay Chapter 4 Pages 53-55.

We hunt, like in the old days. Silent, needing no words to communicate, because here in the woods we move as two parts of one being. Anticipating each other's movements, watching each other's backs. How long has it been? Eight months? Nine? Since we had this freedom? It's not exactly the same, given all that's happened and the trackers on our ankles and the fact that I have to rest so often. But it's about as close to happiness as I think I can currently get. The animals here are not nearly suspicious enough. That extra moment it takes to place our unfamiliar scent means their death. In an hour and a half, we've got a mixed dozen - rabbits, squirrels, and turkeys - and decide to knock off to spend the remaining time by a pond that must be fed by an underground spring, since the water's cool and sweet. When Gale offers to clean the game, I don't object. I stick a few mint leaves on my tongue, close my eyes, and lean back against a rock, soaking in the sounds, letting the scorching afternoon sun burn my skin, almost at peace until Gale's voice interrupts me. "Katniss, why do you care so much about your prep team?" I open my eyes to see if he's joking, but he's frowning down at the rabbit he's skinning. "Why shouldn't I?" "Hm. Let's see. Because they've spent the last year prettying you up for slaughter?" he suggests. "It's more complicated than that. I know them. They're not evil or cruel. They're not even smart. Hurting them, it's like hurting children. They don't see...I mean, they don't know..." I get knotted up in my words. "They don't know what, Katniss?" he says. "That tributes - who are the actual children involved here, not your trio of freaks - are forced to fight to the death? That you were going into that arena for people's amusement? Was that a big secret in the Capitol?" "No. But they don't view it the way we do," I say. "They're raised on it and - " "Are you actually defending them?" He slips the skin from the rabbit in one quick move. That stings, because, in fact, I am, and it's ridiculous. I struggle to find a logical position. "I guess I'm defending anyone who's treated like that for taking a slice of bread. Maybe it reminds me too much of what happened to you over a turkey!" Still, he's right. It does seem strange, my level of concern over the prep team. I should hate them and want to see them strung up. But they're so clueless, and they belonged to Cinna, and he was on my side, right? "I'm not looking for a fight," Gale says. "But I don't think Coin was sending you some big message by punishing them for breaking the rules here. She probably thought you'd see it as a favor." He stuffs the rabbit in the sack and rises. "We better get going if we want to make it back on time." I ignore his offer of a hand up and get to my feet unsteadily. "Fine." Neither of us talks on the way back, but once we're inside the gate, I think of something else. "During the Quarter Quell, Octavia and Flavius had to quit because they couldn't stop crying over me going back in. And Venia could barely say good-bye." "I'll try and keep that in mind as they...remake you," says Gale. "Do," I say.

Chapter 5 Mockingjay pages 63-64

Gale, who's not usually much of a talker during meals, makes an effort to keep the conversation going, asking about the makeover. I know it's his attempt at smoothing things over. We argued last night after he suggested I'd left Coin no choice but to counter my demand for the victors' safety with one of her own. "Katniss, she's running this district. She can't do it if it seems like she's caving in to your will." "You mean she can't stand any dissent, even if it's fair," I'd countered. "I mean you put her in a bad position. Making her give Peeta and the others immunity when we don't even know what sort of damage they might cause," Gale had said. "So I should've just gone with the program and let the other tributes take their chances? Not that it matters, because that's what we're all doing anyway!" That was when I'd slammed the door in his face. I hadn't sat with him at breakfast, and when Plutarch had sent him down to training this morning, I'd let him go without a word. I know he only spoke out of concern for me, but I really need him to be on my side, not Coin's. How can he not know that? After lunch, Gale and I are scheduled to go down to Special Defense to meet Beetee. As we ride the elevator, Gale finally says, "You're still angry." "And you're still not sorry," I reply. "I still stand by what I said. Do you want me to lie about it?" he asks. "No, I want you to rethink it and come up with the right opinion," I tell him. But this just makes him laugh. I have to let it go. There's no point in trying to dictate what Gale thinks. Which, if I'm honest, is one reason I trust him.

Mockingjay Chapter 6 Pages 81-82

Fulvia Cardew hustles over and makes a sound of frustration when she sees my clean face. "All that work, down the drain. I'm not blaming you, Katniss. It's just that very few people are born with camera-ready faces. Like him." She snags Gale, who's in a conversation with Plutarch, and spins him toward us. "Isn't he handsome?" Gale does look striking in the uniform, I guess. But the question just embarrasses us both, given our history. I'm trying to think of a witty comeback, when Boggs says brusquely, "Well, don't expect us to be too impressed. We just saw Finnick Odair in his underwear." I decide to go ahead and like Boggs.

Chapter 9 Mockingjay Pages 116 -118

Come morning, I stick my forearm in the wall and stare groggily at the day's schedule. Immediately after breakfast, I am slated for Production. In the dining hall, as I down my hot grain and milk and mushy beets, I spot a communicuff on Gale's wrist. "When did you get that back, Soldier Hawthorne?" I ask. "Yesterday. They thought if I'm going to be in the field with you, it could be a backup system of communication," says Gale. No one has ever offered me a communicuff. I wonder, if I asked for one, would I get it? "Well, I guess one of us has to be accessible," I say with an edge to my voice. "What's that mean?" he says. "Nothing. Just repeating what you said," I tell him. "And I totally agree that the accessible one should be you. I just hope I still have access to you as well." Our eyes lock, and I realize how furious I am with Gale. That I don't believe for a second that he didn't see Peeta's propo. That I feel completely betrayed that he didn't tell me about it. We know each other too well for him not to read my mood and guess what has caused it. "Katniss - " he begins. Already the admission of guilt is in his tone. I grab my tray, cross to the deposit area, and slam the dishes onto the rack. By the time I'm in the hallway, he's caught up with me. "Why didn't you say something?" he asks, taking my arm. "Why didn'tI ?" I jerk my arm free. "Why didn'tyou , Gale? And I did, by the way, when I asked you last night about what had been going on!" "I'm sorry. All right? I didn't know what to do. I wanted to tell you, but everyone was afraid that seeing Peeta's propo would make you sick," he says. "They were right. It did. But not quite as sick as you lying to me for Coin." At that moment, his communicuff starts beeping. "There she is. Better run. You have things to tell her." For a moment, real hurt registers on his face. Then cold anger replaces it. He turns on his heel and goes. Maybe I have been too spiteful, not given him enough time to explain. Maybe everyone is just trying to protect me by lying to me. I don't care. I'm sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it's mostly for their own good. Lie to Katniss about the rebellion so she doesn't do anything crazy. Send her into the arena without a clue so we can fish her out. Don't tell her about Peeta's propo because it might make her sick, and it's hard enough to get a decent performance out of her as it is. I do feel sick. Heartsick. And too tired for a day of production. But I'm already at Remake, so I go in.

Mockingjay Chapter 9 Pages 127-130

As we trudge back through the woods, we reach a boulder, and both Gale and I turn our heads in the same direction, like a pair of dogs catching a scent on the wind. Cressida notices and asks what lies that way. We admit, without acknowledging each other, it's our old hunting rendezvous place. She wants to see it, even after we tell her it's nothing really. Nothing but a place where I was happy, I think. Our rock ledge overlooking the valley. Perhaps a little less green than usual, but the blackberry bushes hang heavy with fruit. Here began countless days of hunting and snaring, fishing and gathering, roaming together through the woods, unloading our thoughts while we filled our game bags. This was the doorway to both sustenance and sanity. And we were each other's key. There's no District 12 to escape from now, no Peacekeepers to trick, no hungry mouths to feed. The Capitol took away all of that, and I'm on the verge of losing Gale as well. The glue of mutual need that bonded us so tightly together for all those years is melting away. Dark patches, not light, show in the spaces between us. How can it be that today, in the face of 12's horrible demise, we are too angry to even speak to each other? Gale as good as lied to me. That was unacceptable, even if he was concerned about my well-being. His apology seemed genuine, though. And I threw it back in his face with an insult to make sure it stung. What is happening to us? Why are we always at odds now? It's all a muddle, but I somehow feel that if I went back to the root of our troubles, my actions would be at the heart of it. Do I really want to drive him away? My fingers encircle a blackberry and pluck it from its stem. I roll it gently between my thumb and forefinger. Suddenly, I turn to him and toss it in his direction. "And may the odds - " I say. I throw it high so he has plenty of time to decide whether to knock it aside or accept it. Gale's eyes train on me, not the berry, but at the last moment, he opens his mouth and catches it. He chews, swallows, and there's a long pause before he says " - beever in your favor." But he does say it. Cressida has us sit in the nook in the rocks, where it's impossible not to be touching, and coaxes us into talking about hunting. What drove us out into the woods, how we met, favorite moments. We thaw, begin to laugh a little, as we relate mishaps with bees and wild dogs and skunks. When the conversation turns to how it felt to translate our skill with weapons to the bombing in 8, I stop talking. Gale just says, "Long overdue." By the time we reach the town square, afternoon's sinking into evening. I take Cressida to the rubble of the bakery and ask her to film something. The only emotion I can muster is exhaustion. "Peeta, this is your home. None of your family has been heard of since the bombing. Twelve is gone. And you're calling for a cease-fire?" I look across the emptiness. "There's no one left to hear you." As we stand before the lump of metal that was the gallows, Cressida asks if either of us has ever been tortured. In answer, Gale pulls off his shirt and turns his back to the camera. I stare at the lash marks, and again hear the whistling of the whip, see his bloody figure hanging unconscious by his wrists. "I'm done," I announce. "I'll meet you at the Victor's Village. Something for...my mother." I guess I walked here, but the next thing I'm conscious of is sitting on the floor in front of the kitchen cabinets of our house in the Victor's Village. Meticulously lining ceramic jars and glass bottles into a box. Placing clean cotton bandages between them to prevent breaking. Wrapping bunches of dried flowers. Suddenly, I remember the rose on my dresser. Was it real? If so, is it still up there? I have to resist the temptation to check. If it's there, it will only frighten me all over again. I hurry with my packing. When the cabinets are empty, I rise to find that Gale has materialized in my kitchen. It's disturbing how soundlessly he can appear. He's leaning on the table, his fingers spread wide against the wood grain. I set the box between us. "Remember?" he asks. "This is where you kissed me." So the heavy dose of morphling administered after the whipping wasn't enough to erase that from his consciousness. "I didn't think you'd remember that," I say. "Have to be dead to forget. Maybe even not then," he tells me. "Maybe I'll be like that man in 'The Hanging Tree.' Still waiting for an answer." Gale, who I have never seen cry, has tears in his eyes. To keep them from spilling over, I reach forward and press my lips against his. We taste of heat, ashes, and misery. It's a surprising flavor for such a gentle kiss. He pulls away first and gives me a wry smile. "I knew you'd kiss me." "How?" I say. Because I didn't know myself. "Because I'm in pain," he says. "That's the only way I get your attention." He picks up the box. "Don't worry, Katniss. It'll pass." He leaves before I can answer.

Mockingjay Chapter 11 Page 158

"Can we have a coffee?" asks Finnick. Steaming cups are handed out. I stare distastefully at the shiny black liquid, never having been much of a fan of the stuff, but thinking it might help me stay on my feet. Finnick sloshes some cream in my cup and reaches into the sugar bowl. "Want a sugar cube?" he asks in his old seductive voice. That's how we met, with Finnick offering me sugar. Surrounded by horses and chariots, costumed and painted for the crowds, before we were allies. Before I had any idea what made him tick. The memory actually coaxes a smile out of me. "Here, it improves the taste," he says in his real voice, plunking three cubes in my cup. As I turn to go suit up as the Mockingjay, I catch Gale watching me and Finnick unhappily. What now? Does he actually think something's going on between us? Maybe he saw me go to Finnick's last night. I would've passed the Hawthornes' space to get there. I guess that probably rubbed him the wrong way. Me seeking out Finnick's company instead of his. Well, fine. I've got rope burn on my fingers, I can barely hold my eyes open, and a camera crew's waiting for me to do something brilliant. And Snow's got Peeta. Gale can think whatever he wants.

Mockingjay Chapter 13 Page 185-186

Gale must have been released from the hospital this morning as well, because I find him in one of the research rooms with Beetee. They're immersed, heads bent over a drawing, taking a measurement. Versions of the picture litter the table and floor. Tacked on the corkboard walls and occupying several computer screens are other designs of some sort. In the rough lines of one, I recognize Gale's twitch-up snare. "What are these?" I ask hoarsely, pulling their attention from the sheet. "Ah, Katniss, you've found us out," says Beetee cheerfully. "What? Is this a secret?" I know Gale's been down here working with Beetee a lot, but I assumed they were messing around with bows and guns. "Not really. But I've felt a little guilty about it. Stealing Gale away from you so much," Beetee admits. Since I've spent most of my time in 13 disoriented, worried, angry, being remade, or hospitalized, I can't say Gale's absences have inconvenienced me. Things haven't been exactly harmonious between us, either. But I let Beetee think he owes me. "I hope you've been putting his time to good use." "Come and see," he says, waving me over to a computer screen. This is what they've been doing. Taking the fundamental ideas behind Gale's traps and adapting them into weapons against humans. Bombs mostly. It's less about the mechanics of the traps than the psychology behind them. Booby-trapping an area that provides something essential to survival. A water or food supply. Frightening prey so that a large number flee into a greater destruction. Endangering off-spring in order to draw in the actual desired target, the parent. Luring the victim into what appears to be a safe haven - where death awaits it. At some point, Gale and Beetee left the wilderness behind and focused on more human impulses. Like compassion. A bomb explodes. Time is allowed for people to rush to the aid of the wounded. Then a second, more powerful bomb kills them as well. "That seems to be crossing some kind of line," I say. "So anything goes?" They both stare at me - Beetee with doubt, Gale with hostility. "I guess there isn't a rule book for what might be unacceptable to do to another human being." "Sure there is. Beetee and I have been following the same rule book President Snow used when he hijacked Peeta," says Gale. Cruel, but to the point. I leave without further comment. I feel if I don't get outside immediately, I'll just go ballistic,

Mockingjay Chapter 14 Pages 196-200

Gale finds me when they arrive late one afternoon. I'm sitting on a log at the edge of my current village, plucking a goose. A dozen or so of the birds are piled at my feet. Great flocks of them have been migrating through here since I've arrived, and the pickings are easy. Without a word, Gale settles beside me and begins to relieve a bird of its feathers. We're through about half when he says, "Any chance we'll get to eat these?" "Yeah. Most go to the camp kitchen, but they expect me to give a couple to whoever I'm staying with tonight," I say. "For keeping me." "Isn't the honor of the thing enough?" he says. "You'd think," I reply. "But word's gotten out that mockingjays are hazardous to your health." We pluck in silence for a while longer. Then he says, "I saw Peeta yesterday. Through the glass." "What'd you think?" I ask. "Something selfish," says Gale. "That you don't have to be jealous of him anymore?" My fingers give a yank, and a cloud of feathers floats down around us. "No. Just the opposite." Gale pulls a feather out of my hair. "I thought...I'll never compete with that. No matter how much pain I'm in." He spins the feather between his thumb and forefinger. "I don't stand a chance if he doesn't get better. You'll never be able to let him go. You'll always feel wrong about being with me." "The way I always felt wrong kissing him because of you," I say. Gale holds my gaze. "If I thought that was true, I could almost live with the rest of it." "It is true," I admit. "But so is what you said about Peeta."

Gale makes a sound of exasperation. Nonetheless, after we've dropped off the birds and volunteered to go back to the woods to gather kindling for the evening fire, I find myself wrapped in his arms. His lips brushing the faded bruises on my neck, working their way to my mouth. Despite what I feel for Peeta, this is when I accept deep down that he'll never come back to me. Or I'll never go back to him. I'll stay in 2 until it falls, go to the Capitol and kill Snow, and then die for my trouble. And he'll die insane and hating me. So in the fading light I shut my eyes and kiss Gale to make up for all the kisses I've withheld, and because it doesn't matter anymore, and because I'm so desperately lonely I can't stand it. Gale's touch and taste and heat remind me that at least my body's still alive, and for the moment it's a welcome feeling. I empty my mind and let the sensations run through my flesh, happy to lose myself. When Gale pulls away slightly, I move forward to close the gap, but I feel his hand under my chin. "Katniss," he says. The instant I open my eyes, the world seems disjointed. This is not our woods or our mountains or our way. My hand automatically goes to the scar on my left temple, which I associate with confusion. "Now kiss me." Bewildered, unblinking, I stand there while he leans in and presses his lips to mine briefly. He examines my face closely. "What's going on in your head?"

"I don't know," I whisper back.

"Then it's like kissing someone who's drunk. It doesn't count," he says with a weak attempt at a laugh. He scoops up a pile of kindling and drops it in my empty arms, returning me to myself.

"How do you know?" I say, mostly to cover my embarrassment. "Have you kissed someone who's drunk?" I guess Gale could've been kissing girls right and left back in 12. He certainly had enough takers. I never thought about it much before.

He just shakes his head. "No. But it's not hard to imagine."

"So, you never kissed any other girls?" I ask.

"I didn't say that. You know, you were only twelve when we met. And a real pain besides. I did have a life outside of hunting with you," he says, loading up with firewood.

Suddenly, I'm genuinely curious. "Who did you kiss? And where?"

"Too many to remember. Behind the school, on the slag heap, you name it," he says.

I roll my eyes. "So when did I become so special? When they carted me off to the Capitol?"

"No. About six months before that. Right after New Year's. We were in the Hob, eating some slop of Greasy Sae's. And Darius was teasing you about trading a rabbit for one of his kisses. And I realized...I minded," he tells me.

I remember that day. Bitter cold and dark by four in the afternoon. We'd been hunting, but a heavy snow had driven us back into town. The Hob was crowded with people looking for refuge from the weather. Greasy Sae's soup, made with stock from the bones of a wild dog we'd shot a week earlier, was below her usual standards. Still, it was hot, and I was starving as I scooped it up, sitting cross-legged on her counter. Darius was leaning on the post of the stall, tickling my cheek with the end of my braid, while I smacked his hand away. He was explaining why one of his kisses merited a rabbit, or possibly two, since everyone knows redheaded men are the most virile. And Greasy Sae and I were laughing because he was so ridiculous and persistent and kept pointing out women around the Hob who he said had paid far more than a rabbit to enjoy his lips. "See? The one in the green muffler? Go ahead and ask her.If you need a reference."

A million miles from here, a billion days ago, this happened. "Darius was just joking around," I say.

"Probably. Although you'd be the last to figure out if he wasn't," Gale tells me. "Take Peeta. Take me. Or even Finnick. I was starting to worry he had his eye on you, but he seems back on track now."

"You don't know Finnick if you think he'd love me," I say.

Gale shrugs. "I know he was desperate. That makes people do all kinds of crazy things."

I can't help thinking that's directed at me.

Mockingjay Chapters 14 and 15 Pages 200- 206

Gale, who is too restless to sit at the table for more than a few hours, has been alternating between pacing and sharing my windowsill. Early on, he seemed to accept Lyme's assertion that the entrances couldn't be taken, and dropped out of the conversation entirely. For the last hour or so, he's sat quietly, his brow knitted in concentration, staring at the Nut through the window glass. In the silence that follows Lyme's ultimatum, he speaks up. "Is it really so necessary that we take the Nut? Or would it be enough to disable it?" "That would be a step in the right direction," says Beetee. "What do you have in mind?" "Think of it as a wild dog den," Gale continues. "You're not going to fight your way in. So you have two choices. Trap the dogs inside or flush them out." "We've tried bombing the entrances," says Lyme. "They're set too far inside the stone for any real damage to be done." "I wasn't thinking of that," says Gale. "I was thinking of using the mountain." Beetee rises and joins Gale at the window, peering through his ill-fitting glasses. "See? Running down the sides?" "Avalanche paths," says Beetee under his breath. "It'd be tricky. We'd have to design the detonation sequence with great care, and once it's in motion, we couldn't hope to control it." "We don't need to control it if we give up the idea that we have to possess the Nut," says Gale. "Only shut it down." "So you're suggesting we start avalanches and block the entrances?" asks Lyme. "That's it," says Gale. "Trap the enemy inside, cut off from supplies. Make it impossible for them to send out their hovercraft." While everyone considers the plan, Boggs flips through a stack of blueprints of the Nut and frowns. "You risk killing everyone inside. Look at the ventilation system. It's rudimentary at best. Nothing like what we have in Thirteen. It depends entirely on pumping in air from the mountainsides. Block those vents and you'll suffocate whoever is trapped." "They could still escape through the train tunnel to the square," says Beetee. "Not if we blow it up," says Gale brusquely. His intent, his full intent, becomes clear. Gale has no interest in preserving the lives of those in the Nut. No interest in caging the prey for later use. This is one of his death traps.

The implications of what Gale is suggesting settle quietly around the room. You can see the reaction playing out on people's faces. The expressions range from pleasure to distress, from sorrow to satisfaction. "The majority of the workers are citizens from Two," says Beetee neutrally. "So what?" says Gale. "We'll never be able to trust them again." "They should at least have a chance to surrender," says Lyme. "Well, that's a luxury we weren't given when they fire-bombed Twelve, but you're all so much cozier with the Capitol here," says Gale. By the look on Lyme's face, I think she might shoot him, or at least take a swing. She'd probably have the upper hand, too, with all her training. But her anger only seems to infuriate him and he yells, "We watched children burn to death and there was nothing we could do!" I have to close my eyes a minute, as the image rips through me. It has the desired effect. I want everyone in that mountain dead. Am about to say so. But then...I'm also a girl from District 12. Not President Snow. I can't help it. I can't condemn someone to the death he's suggesting. "Gale," I say, taking his arm and trying to speak in a reasonable tone. "The Nut's an old mine. It'd be like causing a massive coal mining accident." Surely the words are enough to make anyone from 12 think twice about the plan. "But not so quick as the one that killed our fathers," he retorts. "Is that everyone's problem? That our enemies might have a few hours to reflect on the fact that they're dying, instead of just being blown to bits?" Back in the old days, when we were nothing more than a couple of kids hunting outside of 12, Gale said things like this and worse. But then they were just words. Here, put into practice, they become deeds that can never be reversed. "You don't know how those District Two people ended up in the Nut," I say. "They may have been coerced. They may be held against their will. Some are our own spies. Will you kill them, too?" "I would sacrifice a few, yes, to take out the rest of them," he replies. "And if I were a spy in there, I'd say, 'Bring on the avalanches!'" I know he's telling the truth. That Gale would sacrifice his life in this way for the cause - no one doubts it. Perhaps we'd all do the same if we were the spies and given the choice. I guess I would. But it's a coldhearted decision to make for other people and those who love them. "You said we had two choices," Boggs tells him. "To trap them or to flush them out. I say we try to avalanche the mountain but leave the train tunnel alone. People can escape into the square, where we'll be waiting for them." "Heavily armed, I hope," says Gale. "You can be sure they'll be." "Heavily armed. We'll take them prisoner," agrees Boggs. "Let's bring Thirteen into the loop now," Beetee suggests. "Let President Coin weigh in." "She'll want to block the tunnel," says Gale with conviction. "Yes, most likely. But you know, Peeta did have a point in his propos. About the dangers of killing ourselves off. I've been playing with some numbers. Factoring in the casualties and the wounded and...I think it's at least worth a conversation," says Beetee.

Mockingjay Chapter 15 Page 207

Gale's plan exceeds anyone's expectations. Beetee was right about being unable to control the avalanches once they'd been set in motion. The mountainsides are naturally unstable, but weakened by the explosions, they seem almost fluid. Whole sections of the Nut collapse before our eyes, obliterating any sign that human beings have ever set foot on the place. We stand speechless, tiny and insignificant, as waves of stone thunder down the mountain. Burying the entrances under tons of rock. Raising a cloud of dirt and debris that blackens the sky. Turning the Nut into a tomb. I imagine the hell inside the mountain. Sirens wailing. Lights flickering into darkness. Stone dust choking the air. The shrieks of panicked, trapped beings stumbling madly for a way out, only to find the entrances, the launchpad, the ventilation shafts themselves clogged with earth and rock trying to force its way in. Live wires flung free, fires breaking out, rubble making a familiar path a maze. People slamming, shoving, scrambling like ants as the hill presses in, threatening to crush their fragile shells.

Mockingay Chapter 17 Page 244

"I told you he hated me," I say. "It's the way he hates you. It's so...familiar. I used to feel like that," he admits. "When I'd watch you kissing him on the screen. Only I knew I wasn't being entirely fair. He can't see that." We reach my door. "Maybe he just sees me as I really am. I have to get some sleep." Gale catches my arm before I can disappear. "So that's what you're thinking now?" I shrug. "Katniss, as your oldest friend, believe me when I say he's not seeing you as you really are." He kisses my cheek and goes.

Mockingjay Chapter 19 Pages 267-268

The dinner whistle sounds, and Gale and I line up at the canteen. "Do you want me to kill him?" he asks bluntly. "That'll get us both sent back for sure," I say. But even though I'm furious, the brutality of the offer rattles me. "I can deal with him." "You mean until you take off? You and your paper map and possibly a Holo if you can get your hands on it?" So Gale has not missed my preparations. I hope they haven't been so obvious to the others. None of them know my mind like he does, though. "You're not planning on leaving me behind, are you?" he asks. Up until this point, I was. But having my hunting partner to watch my back doesn't sound like a bad idea. "As your fellow soldier, I have to strongly recommend you stay with your squad. But I can't stop you from coming, can I?" He grins. "No. Not unless you want me to alert the rest of the army."

Mockingjay Chapter 19 Page 274

I move to Gale, press my forehead into the body armor where his chest should be, feel his arm tighten around me. We finally know the name of the girl who we watched the Capitol abduct from the woods of 12, the fate of the Peacekeeper friend who tried to keep Gale alive. This is no time to call up happy moments of remembrance. They lost their lives because of me. I add them to my personal list of kills that began in the arena and now includes thousands. When I look up, I see it has taken Gale differently. His expression says that there are not enough mountains to crush, enough cities to destroy. It promises death.

Mockingjay Chapter 23. Pages 328-329

We change bandages, handcuff Peeta back to his support, and settle down to sleep. A few hours later, I slip back into consciousness and become aware of a quiet conversation. Peeta and Gale. I can't stop myself from eavesdropping. "Thanks for the water," Peeta says. "No problem," Gale replies. "I wake up ten times a night anyway." "To make sure Katniss is still here?" asks Peeta. "Something like that," Gale admits. There's a long pause before Peeta speaks again. "That was funny, what Tigris said. About no one knowing what to do with her." "Well,we never have," Gale says. They both laugh. It's so strange to hear them talking like this. Almost like friends. Which they're not. Never have been. Although they're not exactly enemies. "She loves you, you know," says Peeta. "She as good as told me after they whipped you." "Don't believe it," Gale answers. "The way she kissed you in the Quarter Quell...well, she never kissed me like that." "It was just part of the show," Peeta tells him, although there's an edge of doubt in his voice. "No, you won her over. Gave up everything for her. Maybe that's the only way to convince her you love her." There's a long pause. "I should have volunteered to take your place in the first Games. Protected her then." "You couldn't," says Peeta. "She'd never have forgiven you. You had to take care of her family. They matter more to her than her life." "Well, it won't be an issue much longer. I think it's unlikely all three of us will be alive at the end of the war. And if we are, I guess it's Katniss's problem. Who to choose." Gale yawns. "We should get some sleep." "Yeah." I hear Peeta's handcuffs slide down the support as he settles in. "I wonder how she'll make up her mind." "Oh, that I do know." I can just catch Gale's last words through the layer of fur. "Katniss will pick whoever she thinks she can't survive without."

Mockingjay Chapter 24 Page 275

A chill runs through me. Am I really that cold and calculating? Gale didn't say, "Katniss will pick whoever it will break her heart to give up," or even "whoever she can't live without." Those would have implied I was motivated by a kind of passion. But my best friend predicts I will choose the person who I think I "can't survive without." There's not the least indication that love, or desire, or even compatibility will sway me. I'll just conduct an unfeeling assessment of what my potential mates can offer me. As if in the end, it will be the question of whether a baker or a hunter will extend my longevity the most. It's a horrible thing for Gale to say, for Peeta not to refute. Especially when every emotion I have has been taken and exploited by the Capitol or the rebels. At the moment, the choice would be simple. I can survive just fine without either of them.

Mockingjay Chapter 26 Pages 366- 367

There's a tap at the door and Gale steps in. "Can I have a minute?" he asks. In the mirror, I watch my prep team. Unsure of where to go, they bump into one another a few times and then closet themselves in the bathroom. Gale comes up behind me and we examine each other's reflection. I'm searching for something to hang on to, some sign of the girl and boy who met by chance in the woods five years ago and became inseparable. I'm wondering what would have happened to them if the Hunger Games had not reaped the girl. If she would have fallen in love with the boy, married him even. And sometime in the future, when the brothers and sisters had been raised up, escaped with him into the woods and left 12 behind forever. Would they have been happy, out in the wild, or would the dark, twisted sadness between them have grown up even without the Capitol's help? "I brought you this." Gale holds up a sheath. When I take it, I notice it holds a single, ordinary arrow. "It's supposed to be symbolic. You firing the last shot of the war." "What if I miss?" I say. "Does Coin retrieve it and bring it back to me? Or just shoot Snow through the head herself?" "You won't miss." Gale adjusts the sheath on my shoulder. We stand there, face-to-face, not meeting each other's eyes. "You didn't come see me in the hospital." He doesn't answer, so finally I just say it. "Was it your bomb?" "I don't know. Neither does Beetee," he says. "Does it matter? You'll always be thinking about it." He waits for me to deny it; I want to deny it, but it's true. Even now I can see the flash that ignites her, feel the heat of the flames. And I will never be able to separate that moment from Gale. My silence is my answer.

"That was the one thing I had going for me. Taking care of your family," he says. "Shoot straight, okay?" He touches my cheek and leaves. I want to call him back and tell him that I was wrong. That I'll figure out a way to make peace with this. To remember the circumstances under which he created the bomb. Take into account my own inexcusable crimes. Dig up the truth about who dropped the parachutes. Prove it wasn't the rebels. Forgive him. But since I can't, I'll just have to deal with the pain.

Chapter 27 Pages 384 385

Over the eggs, I ask her, "Where did Gale go?" "District Two. Got some fancy job there. I see him now and again on the television," she says. I dig around inside myself, trying to register anger, hatred, longing. I find only relief. "I'm going hunting today," I say. "Well, I wouldn't mind some fresh game at that," she answers. I arm myself with a bow and arrows and head out, intending to exit 12 through the Meadow. Near the square are teams of masked and gloved people with horse-drawn carts. Sifting through what lay under the snow this winter. Gathering remains. A cart's parked in front of the mayor's house. I recognize Thom, Gale's old crewmate, pausing a moment to wipe the sweat from his face with a rag. I remember seeing him in 13, but he must have come back. His greeting gives me the courage to ask, "Did they find anyone in there?" "Whole family. And the two people who worked for them," Thom tells me. Madge. Quiet and kind and brave. The girl who gave me the pin that gave me a name. I swallow hard. Wonder if she'll be joining the cast of my nightmares tonight. Shoveling the ashes into my mouth. "I thought maybe, since he was the mayor..." "I don't think being the mayor of Twelve put the odds in his favor," says Thom. I nod and keep moving, careful not to look in the back of the cart. All through the town and the Seam, it's the same. The reaping of the dead. As I near the ruins of my old house, the road becomes thick with carts. The Meadow's gone, or at least dramatically altered. A deep pit has been dug, and they're lining it with bones, a mass grave for my people. I skirt around the hole and enter the woods at my usual place. It doesn't matter, though. The fence isn't charged anymore and has been propped up with long branches to keep out the predators. But old habits die hard. I think about going to the lake, but I'm so weak that I barely make it to my meeting place with Gale. I sit on the rock where Cressida filmed us, but it's too wide without his body beside me. Several times I close my eyes and count to ten, thinking that when I open them, he will have materialized without a sound as he so often did. I have to remind myself that Gale's in 2 with a fancy job, probably kissing another pair of lips.

#thg #hunger games #catching fire #mockingjay #mockingjay part 1 #mockingjay part 2 #The Hunger Games #TheHungerGames #CatchingFire #hunger games catching fire #cf #gale hawthorne #gale #Katniss #katniss everdeen #Peeta Mellark #Peeta

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tricktster · 5 years

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Honestly, I cannot say enough about my german study abroad program, in no small part because the people i met through it were the wildest bunch i have ever met. We had:

Me, a cursed American stumbling through increasingly unlikely and unfortunate situations, including:

getting arrested and hauled off in a cop car for the serious crime of not transcribing the five digit number printed on the back of my bus ticket onto the front of my bus ticket

slipping on dog poop on a crowded street while running late for class (leading a number of tourists to run over and photograph me in my undignified heap on the cobblestones) only to suffer one final indignity when i had to leave my poop shoe out in the hall outside the classroom, and subsequently discovered after class that it had been (correctly) identified as garbage by the custodian, and had been disposed of

spending the entire month of November with essentially no money after a bank error caused me to be cut off from my US checking account, thereby forcing me to figure out how to survive by my wits alone in a series of schemes, cons, and 1€ sausages

burning my thumb so badly on an oven in an attempt to make the world’s worst stuffing for the world’s saddest expat thanksgiving that my friends all had an intervention where they gave me a single black glove to wear because it was grossing them all out.

Enough about me. There were also my closest friends:

L , a horrendously wealthy New Englander who would drop lines in her stories like “so we were all smoking opium in my parents library,” and, “so every time my room gets too dirty, i just move to the next one down until the whole wing is filthy.” In spite of everything I’ve just said, she was also a genuinely good and incredibly fearless person who would throw fists without hesitation if she thought anyone was insulting her friends. She had a weird sexual relationship with her obscenely wealthy family friend in Frankfurt, which the rest of us suspected maybe been part of a business deal that their parents arranged at birth. It was better than Game of Thrones, honestly.

Y, a four foot tall Puerto Rican that I met when we were both walking down the street kind of near each other and some wild impulse called me to say to her, without so much as an introduction, “Yeah, you walk pretty cool, but if you wanna walk REAL cool, you gotta do it like thissssss,” while kinda lunging around. Just as inexplicably, she chose to continue talking to me, and several months later the two of us ended up making a harrowing 2:00 am escape from the private bar of a frat house that we had suddenly noticed had an awful lot of Nazi memorabilia on the walls for a frat located in a country that had criminalized the display of Nazi symbols. “Why are you leaving?” The frat-nazis complained as we bolted. “You will come back tomorrow afternoon for the barbecue, ja?” “Ahahhahaha nein fucking way, motherfucker,” Y muttered under her breath as we smiled and nodded politely all the way out the private garden, through the enormous iron gates, and out into the night. Once we were in the clear, we stared at each other, shaken, until Y broke the silence. “Welp. Those guys were Nazis. That actually just happened. I can’t.... man, I dunno, i’m still processing, let’s just go get some fucking falafel.”

We did.

S, the Australian, who one time invited me over to her apartment, opened the fridge, grabbed a plate of cheese, shoved it under my nose while going “HERE SMELL THIS!” and while i lurched away, gagging, cheerfully added “IT’S REALLY FOUL, RIGHT? ONE OF THE WOST THINGS I’VE EVER SMELLED!!” She was also absolutely obsessed with High School Musical, and was very disappointed every time the Americans shattered one of her illusions about the US public school system.

K, the girl from New Zealand, who had broken up with her serious boyfriend shortly before leaving for Germany, causing her to mourn his loss every time she got drunk by describing his penis with increasingly strange metaphors, such as “like a big wax candle but part of it’s gone,” and “like one leg off a spider.”

So, i had a pretty solid crew of five big weirdos. But there were, naturally, more people than the five of us in our program. For example:

R, from Minnesota, who dressed like she was about 72 and glared at anyone who was laughing too loudly near her because “i just don’t think jokes are funny.” More importantly, she would post facebook videos of herself reciting, entirely sincerely and in a steady monotone, the worst fucking poems that I have ever heard. She posted them under a pen name that was along the same lines as “the lyrical falcon.” She was in a feud with not one but two poetry clubs at her christian college, and while she never admitted this, all evidence suggested that it was because they both kicked her out. She was the Tommy Wisseau of poems. They were so bad they looped back around to good. Also, one time on the train she told me that she liked to think that she was a very good kisser because she played the french horn so she had strong mouth muscles. when i finally recovered from the mortal blow that she just delivered my soul, I asked her if she blew into people when she kissed them, and she got so insulted that she blocked me from her facebook poetry page. let me back in, R. please, if you’re reading this, let me back in.

They’re good poems, R.

Zoolander, from Pennsylvania, who was so, so handsome, but so, so, so dumb. One time he told me about this dream he had, and it was just an entire episode of Dexter’s lab. No changes or anything, he just... dreamed that he was watching that episode, and then the whole thing played in his head until it was done. He said it was the best dream he’d ever had. I once watched him pick up the same coin off the street four times because he couldn’t figure out that his pocket had a hole in it. When he noticed me, he said excitedly “Somebody left money everywhere!”

Juan, who constantly confused all the kids from Spain who went up to talk to him in their native tongue, only to discover that he was a very sarcastic man from Liverpool who didn’t speak a word of Spanish and was sick of everyone trying to bond with him. He only liked the Americans, because that’s where the tv show Family Guy was from, and only the Americans liked him, because we tend to like surly british assholes for basically no reason. At the end of the program while we were all saying our goodbyes, he came up to me, looking really upset. “I can’t believe it,” He said, uncharacteristically serious. “I can’t believe it’s all over and i’ll never...” He looked like he was about to cry.

“Oh, dude, we can keep in touch on facebook or something?” I fumbled. He blinked.

“What? No, no, ugh, it’s just the last day of the program and I’ve LOST MY FOOKIN SCARF!” he roared.

God, I know this is weird, but I still really miss that guy.

The Croatian: There was a dude from Croatia in my apartment building who outright refused to tell me his name, because, “It’s an embarrassing word in English. You’d laugh.” I badgered him for five months, until finally, his defenses down, after many earnest promises that no matter what his name was, I would not laugh, he relented.

“My name is Tin.” He said sheepishly.

His name was fucking Tin.

Beardy, Beardo, Redbeard, and Weirdbeard: four drastically different young men from all across our beautiful planet who had one thing in common: thinking that they’d try out a beard while they were abroad. We always admired them from a distance, and compared their beards’ various unique and bad properties, until one day Beardy (who was australian and had developed a sort of flesh colored goatee) walked up to S, his countryman, in a club. “DO YOU WANT TO DANCE?” he yelled, trying to get her attention, but she was in a dance-off with K, and didn’t notice, so he tapped her shoulder. She whirled around, startled, and upon recognizing him, said without thinking, “OH, HI BEARDY!”

The song faded out.

Beardy stared at S.

“...Did you just call me ‘Beardy?’” he asked quietly. S looked like a deer in the headlights. She glanced towards me, hoping for an out, but I, dear reader, was laughing too hard to be of any use.

“You did,” he went on, “you called me ‘Beardy!’ Why!?”

“Cuz of your beard, probably. That’s a better name for you than Josh.” Zoolander interjected from out of nowhere, strolling out of the club, a beautiful woman on each arm.

“My name isn’t Josh...” Beardy tried to call after him.

“Who’s name isn’t Josh? Oh! Beardy!” A drunk K could be heard deducing from the back of the room.

He shaved it a week later, but the damage was done. He was Beardy for the rest of the semester.

When I look back on that period of my life now, I can’t help but reflect - with the clarity one only gets from experience - that my time in Germany was not as weird as I thought it was at the time. I lacked the perspective to see that it was all, actually, absolutely bonkers batshit nuts. It was some sitcom shit.

All in all, I highly recommend it.

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let-it-raines · 3 years

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Walking the Baseline (Year: 2015)

Summary: This should be the happiest he’s been in years, but it’s not. He and Emma already had wildly different schedules, but now that she’s no longer on tour, it feels like they barely see each other. When they do, it’s for a day here, a week there, two if they’re lucky. That’s no way to live when his girlfriend is carrying their baby and freaking out about it more than he is.

If only he could have a bloody break from tennis to focus on his personal life for once.

He’s got to be careful what he asks for.

Rating: Teen +

a/n: Hello again! I know these have been slow going, but I’m here with another installment! This may or may not be the last one. I haven’t decided on that yet, so we’ll see what happens there as I know there are many more things that could be told in this universe but don’t know how much motivation I have to write them 😘

ao3: 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 (CURRENT) | 2016 (original one-shot) |

-/-

November 2014.

Shit.

“This is bad,” Rob says from across the room, as if that isn’t the most obvious bit of information on the planet right now. “What are you going to do, mate?”

He wants to do a myriad of things, but he can’t right now.

“Play my match and then call Emma and make sure she’s okay.” Killian shrugs and bends down at the knees to squat against the wall. He hits the timer on his phone for a minute, and he tries to focus on that instead of the news Ariel just texted him.

He’s not doing great at that. All these years of being able to block life out before a match have suddenly deteriorated.

“Do you want to call her now?” Robin prods.

“She won’t answer if I call now. Watch.” Killian exits out of the timer and hits Emma’s number on his phone. It rings and rings and rings, and she never answers. He stands from his squat and tries again. Still, no answer. “Emma, darling,” he speaks into the phone, “I’m about to play, so I can’t talk to you anytime soon. I love you. Everything is alright, yeah? We knew this was going to happen at some point, but I’m sorry it happened this way. I’ll call you as soon as I can. You and the babe stay safe, alright?”

“Do you think that’s going to do any good?”

“No,” Killian answers honestly, “it’s not. She’s going to be freaking the hell out, and nothing is going to calm her down, certainly not me.”

He thumbs through his phone once more, looking through his texts and clicking on the links Ariel sent him. It’s pictures of Emma in her neighborhood, which is supposed to be private. That is a lie, though, because someone managed to take pictures of Emma walking to get her mail, her clothes tight enough that the roundness of her stomach is obvious, especially compared to how she usually looks.

It’s not good. Not good at all.

After the US Open, Emma stopped playing, telling the WTA she was out for the rest of the season on injury. A few people know because of how often Emma has to get drug tested, but it’s all been a well-kept secret.

That is no longer true.

Bloody hell.

“Mr. Jones,” the tournament director says when he pokes his head in the warm-up room, “it’s time to go.”

“Aye, I’ll be right there.” He stands from his squat and stretches out his legs, jumping up and down a few times before grabbing his racket bag from the floor. “Rob, get Ariel to try calling Emma while I’m playing. She’s more likely to talk to her than any of us.”

“I’ll try.” Rob nods and claps his hand over Killian’s back. “Good luck in your match. I know it’s a rubber, but don’t be a loser.”

Killian blows air out of his nose with his laugh. “I’ll try not to be a loser. My fucking motto for life.”

-/-

Killian isn’t a loser that day, but he is out of the tournament. He hates the season-ending final, how it’s a round robin event. He lost the same amount of matches as the man who got to advance to the semi-finals but because he lost three more games, he’s packing his bags to go home.

(Though, he didn’t hate it when he won it years ago, but now is not the time to think of his own hypocrisy.)

To his home here in London, half an hour away from the tournament, instead of back in America with Emma. It’s been odd staying here for the past two weeks. For so long, he was used to living here alone. Sure, Ariel and Rob would pop in, especially after Milah, but it was his home. It was a place to sleep and shower and watch television between having to constantly be on the road and in the air. Then Emma came along and though she’s here less frequently, she’s made her mark.

Some of her clothes litter his closet, her mugs fill his cabinets, blankets she has bought are in the baskets in his den. She hasn’t been here since mid-September when they needed to get away for a little while, but she’s still everywhere. Killian has been finding her bobby pins in his carpet the entire time he’s been here.

The only thing of Emma’s that isn’t here is Emma.

The sun has set outside, darkness taking over, and though it’s past midnight in America, Killian presses Emma’s name on his phone as he sets the timer on the oven for his dinner.

“Hello?”

“Now, tell me why you’ll answer your phone at one in the morning but not during daylight hours?”

“Because I’m a stubborn ass with no real sense of time.”

Killian huffs and moves to his living room, plopping down on the couch. “Now, I thought that was me.”

“It is. We both are. It’s why we’re dating.”

“Is that the only reason?”

“Well, I could say other things, but I’m trying to work on my dirty jokes, trying to say fewer of them.”

“Oh, you should never do that. I like when you’re dirty.” Emma’s silent on the other end of the line, and Killian waits for her to speak, to make another joke, to ask him if he could litter this conversation with innuendos. When she doesn’t, he decides it’s better to bite the bullet now than to drag it out. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I want to change what I was wearing to get the mail this morning,” Emma says through gritted teeth. “I don’t know how I could have been so damn stupid.”

“It’s a private area. You thought you were safe. It’s understandable, love. Don’t beat yourself up about it. You were going to have to tell everyone eventually.”

“Eventually being the key word.” She whistles, and if he had to guess, she’s sitting in bed with a tub of icing in her lap and one of her favorite shows on the television. She’ll beat herself up about the icing tomorrow even if she shouldn’t. “Mary Margaret took my phone for a little while so I couldn’t check anything online. That’s why I didn’t answer you when you called earlier. It’s been…a day. I’m sorry you didn’t make it to the semi-finals.”

“Yeah, me too,” he tells her, allowing himself to wallow for a moment. “I get to come home to you sooner, though.”

“I’ve saved the tree for you to help me put up. And Mary Margaret has started on the sides for Thanksgiving. There’s going to be so much food for you to pig out on before off-season training starts.”

He can hear the smile now. Good.

“There’s nothing I’m looking forward to more. I’ve heard there’s such a thing as a dad bod, and I fully intend on getting one this holiday season.”

Emma blows air out her nose. “You and I both know that’s not true. You’re too vain for that.”

“I am devilishly handsome, aren’t I?”

“I’ll let you keep thinking that. Killian?”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“I’m fine. I mean, I’ll be fine. This entire…situation has sucked, but I’m slowly coming around to it. What happens, happens, and I’ll deal with it. If I can get through half the things I’ve gotten through, I can get through a human being growing inside of me and the world knowing about it. I think the hardest part is how bored I am. Do you have any idea what it’s like to constantly be on the move and then for it to suddenly stop?”

“No, I don’t.” He pulls a blanket over his lap to warm him. “I hope I never find out.”

“I hope you don’t either.” Emma yawns, and the corners of Killian’s lips tug up. Maybe this means she’ll try to sleep instead of staying up worrying all night. “I think I’m going to go to sleep. Or at least try.”

“Goodnight, Swan. I love you.”

“Yeah, you too.”

-/-

Killian gets two weeks off in Florida for Thanksgiving and to have a break from training. It’s lovely to do nothing if only for a moment (he would be horrible having to take the extended break like Emma) and to spend it with Emma and her family, but then it’s back to practice and tweaking his game during the off-season.

Rob and Nemo work him harder than they ever have, bemoaning him about his slow legs and his age – he’s nearly twenty-nine, which was once considered ancient in his sport – but he keeps pushing through. Hours are spent on the court and in the gym, and the rest of his days are spent with Emma, going on walks and watching TV in their house. She’s still practicing and going to the gym, even if those are modified to how they were before, and if Killian closes his eyes, it’s almost like normal.

But then, slowly, December passes, Christmas lights everywhere fading a little every day, and Killian is packing several suitcases for the month he’s going to spend in Australia. Three years ago, Australia is where it all began for them, and it’s odd to be going without Emma.

She’s made a rule that most of their conversations have to be about things other than the baby. Part of it is because Mary Margaret overloaded Emma with baby talk. It was constantly about names and clothing and what color the nursery should be painted. If it wasn’t that, it was book after book about pregnancy, hormone changes, and the many processes that happen when giving birth.

Even for Killian, who isn’t particular about medical procedures, that was too much. He loves Mary Margaret as much as Emma does, and while she’s great most of the time, it all has been a little much.

The media attention has been too.

Thus, Emma’s rules. Their lives are supposed to go on as normal with the occasional conversation about the baby, usually when it’s absolutely necessary or when it’s late at night and they’re in bed or lounging on the couch watching TV and Killian’s hand finds Emma’s ever-growing stomach.

He thinks that’s what’s so bloody difficult for him as he zips up his suitcase. He’s going to be gone for a month, and in that month, everything can and will change.

Killian is missing seeing his child grow and missing being with his girlfriend, and as much as he loves what he does, as passionate as he is about having the fucking best job in the world, he would trade it all to not have to give up so much of their lives.

Emma would never let him.

She’d slap him if she knew he was even having these thoughts.

“Do you like this jacket?” Emma asks as she shuffles through their closet next to him. “I mean, I like that it’s red, but do you think it’s too bold?”

Killian turns and looks, glancing up and down at Emma. “I like the red leather.”

Emma nods and smiles, looking at herself in the mirror and tugging the coat over her stomach. “One day again, it’ll zip up.” She rolls her eyes and then begins to take it off, but Killian stops and walks toward her, running his fingers over the lapels until she’s flush against him.

“One day,” he echoes before dipping his head to her neck and running his lips across her jaw, “but for now, I think it’s fine to not have you covered up.”

Emma cranes her neck and makes a nose he’s going to memorize and take with him all the way to Australia. “That was a horrible line. You need to be a better flirt. This isn’t working for me at all.”

His hand falls from her shoulder and slowly makes its way to her ass before he has a firm grip. She makes that noise again, and Killian smirks against her neck.

“Well,” he drawls, making his accent as thick as he can as he nibbles at her ear, “I have forty-five minutes before I have to go. What do you say I use about fifteen of those focusing on you?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Oh, absolutely. I want to take in as much of you as I can while I can.”

“Dirty,” he whispers in her ear before kissing her and walking her out of the closet and back to the bedroom.

-/-

January 2015.

ES: Good luck today, babe! Or tomorrow. I’m not really sure what time it is in Australia, but I do know I will not be awake for your match.

Killian laughs at his phone. He’s been here three weeks, and Emma still hasn’t gotten the time difference down. He figured she wouldn’t be too bad with it since she makes this trip every year, but according to David, he changed all of Emma’s clocks and she never really knows the difference after the first two days.

It’s technically yesterday afternoon back home, or at least it was when she sent this, and he texts her back, thanking her and promising to call after his practice.

He’s got the first night session match in RLA tonight for his quarterfinal match, and if that weren’t three in the morning back home, he knows Emma would be up for it.

He wouldn’t ask anyone to be awake at that ungodly hour for him.

“Have you finished your hair yet?” Ariel asks.

She’s sitting on his bed in his hotel room, has been for an hour even though he definitely did not invite her over, and he’s had to listen to her rambling about sponsorship pitches and contract negotiations and all the things he hates the entire time. So he’s spending a little extra time messing with his hair and shaving his beard. She’s used to this, of course, and probably knows the exact amount of time it’ll take him to get ready better than he does.

“Not quite, love.”

“You know you’re going to put it under a hat and get it all sweaty, right? It doesn’t matter what it looks like.”

Killian shakes his head and puts his razor down before walking out of the bathroom to peek his head over at Ariel. “Are you really that bored that you can’t find something else to do other than bother me?”

She sits up and props herself on her elbows, her red hair flowing down her back, but a small bit gets stuck in her eye. She quickly blows it off. “It’s a big match day, and you’re nervous. I’ve been sent here to keep you occupied so you can’t think about how nervous you are or how much you miss Emma or how much you want to write an entire book of poetry about how much you love her.”

“I have never said that last part,” he counters.

“But you’ve thought it, Mr. Darcy. You and your big ole heart and your obsession with your girlfriend and your baby.”

Killian chuckles and leans against the wall. He crosses his arms over his chest and arches a brow. “Am I not supposed to be in love with my girlfriend and our child?”

Ariel shrugs. “I just think that for someone who loves a woman that much, there might be a ring and a question rattling around somewhere.”

His eyes roll, and outwardly, he deals with the question with annoyance. Inwardly, his heart quickens and he thinks some things he’s been trying not to.

Some things that, well, shake him to his core and make his breathing a little more difficult than normal.

He and Emma have talked about marriage, but it’s always been brief, seemingly inconsequential. It’s something they’d consider a long way down the road, maybe when their lives are normal, when they can profess their love to each other without any professional blowbacks.

With how the game is progressing and how long players are starting to play now, and more than just the top guys, he doesn’t know when that’ll be.

Killian loves Emma. Emma loves him. They’ve both made each other better people and committed to each other and to their unborn daughter, and Killian doesn’t see that ever changing, marriage license or not.

“A,” he whispers, his fingers tapping over his bicep, “Whatever happens with us is as much up to Emma as it is to me. We like how things are now, and I can write a book of poetry on our love no matter if she is my wife or not.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. I just want to go to that wedding. I feel like it would be the party of a lifetime.”

“Tell you what, I’ll take you to the party of a lifetime when I win this damn tournament. We’ll go clubbing like we both don’t go to bed for ten when we can.”

Ariel winks. “You’ve got yourself a deal. Now, come on, we’ve got things to do, and you’re making us late with all your unnecessary primping.”

“Because I’m that damn good-looking and should accentuate it when I can.”

Ariel rises from the bed wand comes over to pat his shoulder. “Whatever you tell yourself to sleep that night.”

-/-

Killian runs through his practice with ease, and he feels good. He’s seeing the ball clearly, doesn’t feel any aches in his body, and though his opponent has handed Killian’s ass to him on a silver platter many times, he’s feeling good about tonight.

Until he isn’t.

It’s the second set when it happens.

Killian is up a set and has two break points to solidify a lead when he’s running down a forehand and loses his footing on the court. His ankle is the first thing to twist, and before he can think, he’s propelling forward toward the ground.

For the entirety of his life, Killian has been told not to fall on his wrists. It’s the first thing any athlete learns. Hell, it’s the first thing anyone learns, but instinct takes over him in that moment. He’s trying to keep from landing flat on his face, and so he lands on his left wrist.

His fucking left wrist, which has caused him trouble his entire career.

Now, though, as he sits on his courtside chair and the tournament medical examiner touches him, he knows this is worse than any injury he’s had in the past.

Fucking hell, he has to pull out of the tournament.

He doesn’t know if he’s going to be able to play for the rest of the season.

Shit.

Should have fallen on his face and knocked out his teeth. He could still play with no teeth.

-/-

“It’s a fracture,” a doctor tells him that night as he sits in a hospital bed in nothing but one of those awful paper gowns. “You’ll want to consult with your physicians back in Britain, but I’d say a ten-week recovery at the least, six months at most.”

“That’s not exactly a short time span,” Killian grumbles. “You can’t give me something more exact?”

He shrugs. “I think it’ll most likely be about three months for you, but you won’t know until you start playing again. It’s more the rehab than the recovery that I would worry about.”

“Thank you, Dr. Weissman,” Rob tells the doc, dismissing him before Killian can take the piss out of the man for doing his job. Dr. Weissman nods and leaves the room, and all that’s left are Killian, Rob, and Ariel. Nemo is back at the hotel, probably watching the video of Killian ruining their season over and over again. “How are you feeling, Jones?”

“Just peachy,” he lies, flashing them his brightest smile before it falls. He pushes his hair back and yanks at the strands, pulling hard enough for it to hurt. “Fuck.”

What has he done to himself?

People are playing longer now, but what if he isn’t one of those? What if this is the injury that begins the slow deterioration of his career? The one that whittles him away from a great player to a star trying too hard to hang onto his shine?

He hates himself for even thinking that because it’s conceited and self-loathing and all the other things he’s tried not to be lately. He was the one who had to talk Emma through something similar, to tell her that the pregnancy wouldn’t be the end of her career, that one day she’d be standing at the top of the podium again with a shiny trophy in hand.

It all felt so convincing when he was telling her that.

But he’s also an asshole who can seldom take his own advice.

And what Emma is going through is much harder than what he is, so how dare he even compare the two situations?

Seriously.

Fuck.

-/-

February 2015.

David picks him up at the airport in Florida, but it could have been a stranger and Killian wouldn’t know the difference. He’s been moping on a plane for twenty-four hours and doesn’t notice much of anything.

That is until he walks in the front door of his home and is wrapped in the tightest embrace he’s ever felt. Emma, like always, smells of vanilla and flowers, and he inhales her scent. It’s been a month without it, and he never wants to lose it again. Her hand comes into his hair, scratching down to his skull, and she pulls him as close as possible, her stomach pressed between them. She’s seven months along now, was six when he left, and the difference feels almost impossible to describe.

He tries not to think of all he’s missed, not when he’s back in her arms once more.

What a beautiful place to be.

He’s thought that his world was falling apart, that he had no control over anything, and it was one disaster after another.

As his uninjured arm run up and down Emma’s back and he continues to breathe in her scent and her warmth, he’s reminded that his world, the most important one, is more solid than it’s been since he lost Liam.

If his brother could see him in this moment, even when his mind and body are at low points, Killian would hope that Liam would be proud of Killian’s accomplishments instead of disappointed in Killian’s failures.

“I missed you,” Emma whispers against his cheek.

“I missed you, too, Swan. You have no idea how much.”

“Are you okay?”

“I will be.” His hand comes to rest in her ponytail. “I promise I will be.”

-/-

The world seems to stop for the both of them, and it’s not just because Killian spends his first week at home moping in bed, watching more TV than he has in years. Emma joins him, lounging with her legs crossed over his, basically using his body to make herself comfortable when her back is sore, and if it weren’t for food delivery services, they likely wouldn’t eat. Well, at the very least, they wouldn’t eat any proper meals. Emma’s doctor wouldn’t like that.

Killian’s doctor, on the other hand, has encouraged him to stay active but to rest his wrist. He’s not supposed to pick up a racket except to lightly hit a few forehands, and he definitely isn’t supposed to do any weight work in the gym lest he wants his arms to become horribly unbalanced.

It’s a change in lifestyle, and Killian hates it.

He obviously still hates himself because he spends a hell of a lot of time online looking at articles and tweets about the Australian Open. Half of them are about him, half are about the eventually winners, and a small sprinkling are about how Emma couldn’t defend her title because of her pregnancy.

That sends him into another spiral, and in the darkness of their bedroom, he reads article after article about how Emma Swan will never come back to the game, about how she’s ruined her career, about how if she does come back, she shouldn’t have a protected ranking because pregnancy is not an injury and does not merit any help in building back a ranking.

Absolute bullshit.

How is the WTA the largest sports organization for women and yet it has no pregnancy protections for its players?

That sets him off more than anything else, and as Killian reads article after article and tweet after tweet, and he hopes to God that Emma hasn’t spent her nights reading this like he has.

What kind of darkness has he stumbled into, and how does he get out of it?

“Get up.”

Killian groans and rolls over, burying his face in his pillow and trying to go back to the sleep he didn’t know he’d fallen into. His head is screaming at him.

“KJ, get up.” He feels Emma’s hands on him, shaking his shoulders, but he ignores her. The last thing he wants to do is open his eyes and get out of bed. “My water broke.”

He immediately flips over and sits up, staring at Emma who is standing over the bed with her arms crossed over her chest. “Are you serious? What are you doing just standing there? Have you called your doctor? It’s too soon for your water to have broken.”

Her eyes roll. “My water did not break. It’s noon, and you’re still in bed. Get up.”

“Now, that’s just cruel. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“I didn’t expect for you to be coherent enough to really listen.” Emma sits down on the edge of the bed and leans in to kiss his cheek and brush his hair back. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

“Now I’m never going to believe you if you tell me your water has broken.”

Emma shrugs. “Next time I say it, I promise I will mean it.” Her hands wander down his side, moving over his collarbones and through tufts of hair on his chest. She’s always fond of doing that. “Look, I get the moping and the internet doom scrolling. I’ve been through that, and I support you doing whatever you need to do.”

“I feel like there’s a but coming.”

“But,” Emma continues, “this baby girl is coming in two months, possibly less, and I don’t know if you’ve looked in the nursery since you got home, but it’s all boxes and disassembled furniture.”

“You didn’t get to all that while I was gone?” She yanks on his hair, and he grits his teeth to keep from yelping. “Only teasing, love.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t get to it. All of this baby stuff freaks me out and after putting together one railing for the crib and having a hormonal meltdown because I didn’t want it to be my fault if the crib fell apart while she was sleeping in it, I stopped. Figured it’d be better if you were here.”

“So that it’d be my fault if the crib fell apart?”

“Exactly.” She tilts her head toward the bedroom door. “I made you coffee, so get your ass out of bed and lend me a hand.”

He raises his broken, wrapped up wrist. “Was that pun intended?”

“Believe it or not, no.” She leans in to kiss his cheek once more. “I’m not going to kick you while you’re down.”

“You’re just going to kick me out of bed.”

“Exactly.”

His legs slowly drag him out of bed and to the kitchen, where he takes the pain medication he’s allowed to take, downs some water, and drinks his coffee. It’ll be awhile before the caffeine and medication kick in, so he tries to blink himself awake to get rid of the sleepiness and the pain.

It doesn’t work.

He does, however.

Emma’s been up for awhile and has moved all the boxes in the nursery into their own sections. It’s just as chaotic as it was before, but it at least looks a little more put together. Killian settles down in front of the crib, reads through the instructions, and he starts piecing things together while Emma works on the dresser. She flits around the room, helping him when he needs it, and as much as he’d like to say they finish quickly, they don’t. It takes them all morning just to do those two pieces of furniture and for him to fix the roller on the glider, and he’s exhausted.

Maybe he can convince Emma to take a nap with him later.

After he exercises. He has to move a little today. His body hasn’t been this stiff on a non-tournament day in ages.

Okay, so maybe nap first, then exercise. That sounds like a better plan.

“What the bloody hell is this doing in here?” Killian asks. He bends down and picks up Emma’s gold medal, dangling it on his arm, which is a much safer space than the floor under a stack of books where it was.

“Oh, yeah,” Emma hums, “Mary Margaret wanted me to display that in here.”

“Why?”

“Well, she wanted me to put some of my trophies in here, but I said that was weird and probably a little dangerous. But then she suggested we do, like, this little wall collage of some things about us for her. That’s the achievement I’m proudest of, at least professionally, and I figured it would be kind of badass for my kid to know her mom was an Olympian.”

“Is,” Killian corrects while he walks toward Emma and tucks some strands of hair behind her ear. “Her mom is an Olympian. Present tense.”

Emma shakes her head and looks away, eyelids covering those beautiful green eyes of hers. “Was. I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to competition, Killian. I’ve been reading what exactly my body is going to go through, which, big mistake by the way, and I don’t know how I’m going to get back into competition shape to work my way back up to the top. I spent most of my life conditioning my body to be an athlete. I don’t think it knows how to be a mom and an athlete.”

“You’re always going to be an Olympian and an athlete,” he promises, meaning every word, “and it’s not going to be easy getting back. The cards are fucking stacked against you. But if there’s anyone who can persevere through hardship, it’s you. And me and the babe will be right here with you.”

“Except you’ll probably be back on tour traveling again. Hopefully your wrist will be healed soon, way before she comes.”

Killian leans forward and dips his head down to rest his forehead against Emma’s. “I’m staying with the two of you for as long as I can. Can’t get rid of me that easily, Swan. You’re stuck with me for life.”

“That isn’t as appealing sounding as you think it is.”

Killian tilts his head back with laughter before kissing Emma’s temple. He still hasn’t brushed his teeth this morning and has some major coffee breath. He’s surprised she hasn’t kicked him out of the house yet. She surely will if he attempts to kiss her.

“Let’s install these shelves and then go take a nap, yeah? Get rid of all our fears for a little while with sleeping. Maybe we’ll even go for a walk tonight since the neighborhood is now extra secure.”

“Sounds like a plan, KJ. Oh,” Emma gasps, moving away from him and reaching into a basket to pull out an old book. “I meant to tell you this, but I was shopping for books online and I found one from when I was a kid. I used to read it in the foster system, and I don’t know, it would bring me comfort. I thought maybe it would be a good name for her.”

She hands him the book, and he looks over the cover, reading the words written in large print.

“Olivia,” he whispers, sounding out the name on his tongue. “Olivia Swan-Jones.”

He can’t wait to meet her.

And he can’t wait for her to see what a badass her mom is, and how Emma is definitely going to stand at the top of that podium again.

Hopefully he is too.

-/-

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#walking the baseline #cs fic #cs ff #cs fanfic #cs fanfiction #captain swan fic #captain swan fanfic #captain swan ff #captain swan fanfiction #Captain Swan

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dawnrider · 4 years

Text

A Continuation of Spitfire (THE SPICY STUFF)

1 | 2 |

Was it just a coincidence? There were thousands of babies who were born the same day as I was. I couldn't just assume that my birth had awakened a half-demon who had been sleeping for five hundred years. But Inuyasha seemed sure. My grandfather had seemed sure. "What does that mean?" I breathed. "Why me?" He didn't respond right away, staring at me with those intense amber eyes of his. It hit me suddenly, an epiphany that nearly tore out my heart. Inuyasha flinched, hands reaching for me even as I pulled away. "I'm... You think I'm her." It left me in a whisper, pain stealing my voice. My lungs suddenly felt too small.

"No," he was quick to assure me. "No, you're completely different people. Your soul has been reincarnated several times since it was Kikyo's. I didn't wake up until you. Nothing ever woke me until you entered this world."

“So my soul just needed time to bake or something?” I cried, standing from the bed and tossing the blanket on the floor. I went to the window, popping it open again to let in some fresh air. I felt lightheaded with the force of everything I was learning. Had I only been drawn to Inuyasha because my soul thought we were supposed to be together? Did he simply think of me as a Kikyo 2.0? “This is too much. It’s too… too much.” I had never had a panic attack before, but I was starting to feel like that’s what was happening.

“Kagome…” His voice was soft, pleading. “This doesn’t change anything,” he murmured. I whipped around ready to refute his claim but found him so close that all I could do was gasp. “It might explain some things, but it doesn’t change them.” His large hands framed my face, keeping my eyes on him. “You are intelligent, beautiful, kind.” I sucked in a shuddering breath at his words. “But what really makes you the person you are, what pulls me in, is your determination, your strength. Your fire,” he growled the last, his lips catching mine for a brief but intense kiss. He didn’t give me time to respond before he was speaking again. “Kikyo wasn’t like that. She was… demure. She was a product of a very different time.”

“But you loved her,” I whimpered, wanting to kick myself for my weakness.

Inuyasha frowned a little. “In a way, yes. We didn’t trust each other though.” He paused to scan my face. “Do you know the real story, why she died and I ended up on that tree?” I shook my head in what little space I had between his palms. He pulled me against him, scooping me into his lap as he plopped down in my armchair. He told me the story of a lonely and nearly feral hanyou teenager who met a miko who saw the human in him and wouldn’t destroy him. Even when he repetitively attempted to steal the Shikon no Tama from her. Even when he snarled, swore and tried to chase her. Even when he threatened to destroy her village. She saw the emptiness of his threats, the call for help they were, and slowly accepted him until they became friends. “I had never had a friend before, and for the first time in my life, I wasn’t constantly starving or running for my survival.” He kept my face tucked against his neck, seemingly needing the shield of not making eye contact.

His words weaved a tale of young love, naive love, which thought the world wouldn’t care about a miko and a hanyou being together. “But… Wouldn’t she have purified you by accident?” I asked, interrupting him. The jealousy at the idea that she had been with him… upset at the idea that she had maybe hurt him in the process.

“She did, a few times, when we kissed. Kikyo didn’t realize that she held such doubt in her heart. Eventually she wanted to use the jewel to make me human, permanently.”

“What?” I couldn’t keep silent at that, couldn’t let him hold me in silence. “You weren’t going to let her, were you?” The stunned and pained look on his face told me he still felt he should have, even if he hadn’t wanted her to. “Inuyasha, no one should have to become someone else to be loved.” He didn’t respond right away, looking down at where his hand rested on my thigh, where his claws gently pressed against my skin. Clearly he still thought being part demon had kept him from a life he wanted. “I think you’re perfect the way you are,” I murmured.

Inuyasha stiffened around me, his arms tightening a moment. “What?” he breathed. I looked up into his face, catching his searching golden eyes with my own serious gaze. “Kagome…”

“I mean it. You’re… stronger and faster than a human.”

“That’s what makes me dangerous.”

I scoffed. “Would you intentionally hurt someone who didn’t deserve it?”

“Of course not!”

“Then it makes you an excellent protector.” He bit his lower lip in thought. His eyes seemed to search my face. “Your human side makes you feel, makes you able to love, doesn’t it?”

His dark brows came together in a thoughtful little frown. “I suppose. Youkai feel love too, just maybe not as… openly.”

“So, there you go. Your youkai makes you strong, your human makes you soft.” I laughed a little when he growled at me. “I think it’s the perfect balance.” He looked up at my more serious tone.

“No one… no one’s ever thought that before.” I bit back the silly comment I’d wanted to make to lighten the moment at the intense way his eyes locked with mine. “Kagome.” I shivered at the timbre of his voice when he said my name. “The first time I saw you in person was when you were fifteen. You were helping a nekoyoukai kitten out of a storm drain.”

“Neko… That cat was a youkai?” He nodded. “I had no idea.” His lips quirked in a tiny smile.

“That’s what caught me. She was bristling at you and hissing because she knew you were a miko, but you just soothed her and hushed until she trusted you enough to let you help her.”

“She ran away shortly after.”

“I took her.” I looked at him, stunned. “She would have ended up hurting someone without proper training. A friend of mine, Sango, has her. Kirara has made a great companion.” His smile grew. “They’re inseparable now. Sango is from a family of demon slayers. I think you’d really like her. She’s been demanding to meet you for years.”

“Y-you’ve told your friends about me?” Inuyasha’s cheeks flushed slightly and his look turned sheepish. “You’ve been so sure all this time that I was… what? A way for you to say your goodbyes? A second chance?”

“Goodbyes? To Kikyo?” His voice made his confusion clear. “I made peace with that a long time ago. I looked into the stories more after your grandfather mentioned we’d been tricked. I realized that we’d been set against one another by a demon after the jewel. Kikyo destroyed him, but destroyed herself in the process. Binding me was a mistake, one she didn’t have time to fix before she passed.” Inuyasha grunted a moment as he hefted both of us up, plopping me down on the bed so he could lean over me, hands on either side of my head, caging me with his body. “And this is so much more than a second chance. If it were only that, I would have woken up every time your soul was reincarnated. We would have had to mess it up over and over again.” He came closer, nose tracing the line of my jaw. “This is a completely new start. I’ve watched you grow up since that first time, saw the woman you were becoming. I had to stay away because I was too tempted to approach you earlier, before you were ready.” His tongue slid softly against my pulse before his lips gently pressed against the tender skin. “I know that makes me sound like a creep, but I knew from that first moment that you were the one.”

“The one what?” I breathed even as I felt my back arch to bring us closer together. Inuyasha growled low in his throat, his hips introducing themselves between my thighs a little roughly. His mouth became somewhat more insistent as well, teeth nipping my shoulder. A hand sliding under my pajama top reminded me that I wasn’t wearing a bra, but he didn’t move in on that territory right away. He was too content kissing me breathless, sucking on my lower lip.

“The only one I should be protecting. The one I want to share my life with.” His hand moved over my top to slowly undo a button at a time from the bottom up. He stopped to gently caress my stomach when I tensed slightly. “The one who would accept me, love me,” he whispered as though afraid to voice the hope.

“Inuyasha,” I sighed, sliding a hand into his hair at the nape of his neck and pulling him down for a kiss. He let out a rough breath through his nose in relief, his kiss soft and languid. “Silly man,” I laughed when he pulled back a little. “You should have said something sooner. We could have been doing this a long time ago.” Inuyasha was stunned for a moment before he let out a little chuckle.

"Waiting makes it that much sweeter," he whispered against my lips. He kissed his way down my throat and the valley between my breasts. He continued down, dipping his tongue into my navel. I gasped at the tingle of heat that suffused my body, my back arching. "I want to taste you, Kagome." There was that growl in his voice again, an intensity that made me shiver.

He used his hands on my hips to move me further up the bed and then pulled my shorts and underwear off in one go. I startled, trying to hide or keep him out. "Yash..."

"Please, Kagome," he whimpered, "I won't do anything more unless you ask me to. I just... The moon tonight. My youki is stronger tonight than any other time of the month and I need you." He took a deep breath. "I know this is all new to you. I know you're not ready. This way I won't go too far and you decide when I stop."

I had to think about it for a moment. I wasn't ready, definitely not for the giant step of actually sleeping with him. Was I ready to let him do something so intimate? Could I handle what he intended to do and not ask him to do more? "Tonight... Even if I ask..."

It looked like it pained him, but he promised. "No matter what you say, I won't take it further. Everything will stay on," he said, indicating his own clothing. I chewed my lip a moment before slowly releasing the tension in my thighs. Instead of going straight for his goal, Inuyasha moved up to kiss me again. He nibbled and licked, teasing me with light kisses. Then his lips became more intense as he pressed for an open kiss, tongues meeting somewhere in the middle. Then he made his way down my body, nipping and kissing, leaving little marks behind on the tender skin of my stomach. His glowing golden eyes met mine and he smirked, forcing an expectant breath into my lungs.

~~~~~~

I took a moment to savor the scent of her, how wet and open she was. Her trust was a gift, one I treasured and fully intended to keep forever. That, as a virgin, she would allow me this, allow me to pleasure her in this very intimate way, proved that she trusted me. "You are so wet, Love," I purred as I gently licked and nipped the inside of her thigh. Kagome let out a soft whimper in response. My youkai was beginning to surface more and I had to slam down my control to keep it down. The sight of her soft, wet folds slick with her arousal was not helping. She was relatively free of hair, just a light dusting covering the outer mound. Her pussy was smooth, her clit peeking out from between swollen folds. I let my hands drift to her hips to hold her still as well as to keep my claws away from her more delicate skin.

She sucked in a startled breath when I finally laid the flat of my tongue against her, the tip lightly caressing her clit before fully tasting her. The youkai side of me tried to leap forward at the taste of her, my mate. I hadn’t mentioned the way my youkai instincts saw her to Kagome because I didn’t want to frighten her. It was one thing to show her what I was and admit that I knew she was the one. Telling her I wanted to mate with her like an animal would be too much. I was able to soothe my blood with another gentle lick of her folds, her soft sounds of pleasure making the inuyoukai purr with happiness. Pleasing your mate is top priority in the bedroom. All that ego bullshit about gaining your own pleasure first just didn’t work for inuyoukai. Your mate comes first, then maybe second as well, before you do. In the long run, it’s worked out for us since we have some of the longest lasting and happiest relationships in history.

What I also didn’t mention was the real reason I’d shown up tonight, why I hadn’t been able to stay away. I went to Brazil to get away from her. Kagome was finally ready, at least physically, to become my mate. She had gone through her cycle relatively normally up until just before I decided to leave the country. Her scent was so enticing that I had to have Miroku and Shippo restrain me to keep me from finding her and making her mine. Right now, her fertile window was calling to my heightened youkai senses and I needed to be with her. I was glad to find that, at least so far, I was able to restrain myself as long as she let me pleasure her.

“Inuyasha,” she murmured, her voice breathy as she shifted under my attention. I could smell her desire increasing, her body tensing and releasing as I pushed her toward climax. “There,” she pleaded when I softly sucked on her clit, letting my tongue trace the underside. Gladly, I repeated the action with a little more force. A cry left her, her hips pressing up toward my face. The growl that vibrated through me seemed to increase her pleasure, a whimper sitting in the back of her throat.

When I could tell she was close, I slid my tongue into her passage, her slick heat pulsing and pulling. She called my name again and her fingers yanked lightly at my hair. Her legs stiffened and tightened around my head, locking me in place as my tongue continued to move within her, riding out her orgasm and desperately trying to hold back my own.

My beast was purring in contentment that she had enjoyed my touch so much… but I knew that contentment wouldn’t last long. It wasn’t going to be enough for the demon inside that wanted out. That wanted Kagome to be ours.

As soon as her thighs relaxed, I dropped back to the floor on my ass, scooting backward until I hit the wall. “Kagome…”

“I-Inuyasha?”

“I need to… I have to go.”

“Wait!” She was still recovering, which should have given me a sense of pride, but instead just riled my youkai. It wanted to do it all over again. My claws dug into the floorboards at my sides as I kept myself perfectly still. Kagome scrambled to pull her blanket up over her nakedness and slid onto the floor so our eyes could meet. “Don’t leave, please.”

“I gave my word,” I could barely whisper. “I cannot break my word. Especially not to you.” My nose picked up her scent again and I slammed my eyes shut to at least block out the delicious visual of her wide eyes glowing at me in the moonlight. “Kagome, call Miroku.”

“No.”

I snarled, biting my lip as hard as I could. “Call Mir-”

“No! I’m not afraid of you.” That fire in her was everything I loved. Her fierce protection of others, standing up for what she knew was right, fearless in the face of a monster… But right now I was that monster and I needed her to be safe. I needed her to get Miroku over to her apartment immediately so he could lock my ass up. I was a fool to think that I could handle this. Tonight of all nights. “Inuyasha, let me help you.”

~~~~~~

His eyes popped open at the offer and I could see that they were changing color. A turquoise tinge shaded his irises and the whites were more pink. Was this the youkai side he was trying to warn me about earlier? “Kagome, don’t,” he rasped. I could see how his knuckles were turning white with strain. “I can’t hurt you,” he told me pleadingly.

Taking a breath, I steeled my resolve and moved closer. His growl rose for a moment before a whimper took its place. He was biting his lip, gaze fixed on me as the blanket dropped away. “You stay put, I’ll come to you. Nothing comes off,” I emphasized the rules to him and to myself. Confusion tilted his head and I smiled at how it made him look like a puppy. “I want you to feel good too.”

“N-No,” he whispered, but made no move to leave or to stop me. I slid into his lap, watching his hands twitch. He wanted to reach for me… but he didn’t. Part of him seemed curious enough to let me try what I had in mind. Which was a bit terrifying. I had never actually tried to get a guy off before. Not in actual practice. But even with my lack of experience, I could tell he was on edge and would likely not take much effort to get him the relief he needed. “Kagome, please.” This time his tone was begging me to keep coming closer, not trying to scare me away. A soft smile lifted the corners of my mouth.

Slowly unzipping his pants, I opened the fly enough to get my hand inside. He yelped at the touch of my fingers against the very hard ridge under the cotton. I jumped, but knew that it was from surprise and not pain that he’d reacted. “Do you like more or less pressure?”

“Fu- Just touch me,” he whined. “Doesn’t matter.” I explored light and firm touches, watching his face carefully for any sign of what he preferred. Soft touches to the spongy tip definitely elicited a reaction, thought not as big as firmer touches along the vein that seemed to run along the underside. I could hear the scratch of his claws burying into my floor. I would demand he help me get my deposit back later, right now I just wanted to hear him cry out my name. I wrapped my hand around him and ran my thumb over the slit at the head and was happy to hear him gasp, then tense. His mouth was tight as he fought to keep in his sounds and I gently kissed him until he responded, sighing and whimpering a muffled version of my name as I repeated a squeeze, pull and the movement of my thumb.

“Inuyasha, you’re so tense,” I scolded him. I increased the pace of my movements and pressed my chest to his as I kissed him again. He jolted, a deep breath in through his nose. “Let go,” I whispered against his lips.

Not thinking that would work, I was surprised to feel him arch up against me, a snarl on his lips and his hips pressing up toward mine. His voice came out in panting whimpered, a whine stretching as he froze under me. Then he collapsed to the floor and I could feel the hot sticky texture of his release on my hand and wrist. Eyes closed, he was taking great deep breaths through his nose, relaxing by degrees.

“Kagome?” I hummed, still not moving from my position. “I love you.”

I smiled, rolling my eyes. “Yea, right. Me too, Yash.”

His eyes opened and he frowned, golden gaze intent on mine. “I mean that. I love you.”

I couldn’t help the tears that welled in my eyes. I leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his lips, which he happily accepted. “I love you too, Inuyasha.”

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#Dawnrider Fanfiction #InuKag-Week #Desire #Modern AU #Spitfire #Smooty!

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