#did not expect me to finish ALL THREE PAGES within the span of like

[themetropolisborough]

i am so powerful, final page of the lil comic about @solbucks-hq’s character cider is getting inked TONIGHT

#just finished lining #THUS it will probably be up and posted tomorrow afternoon #because i gotta put tags and a caption and whatnot #and that takes Time for me #HONESTLY???? #did not expect me to finish ALL THREE PAGES within the span of like #a WEEK #(little less than a week actually) #i have never done this before #paw borough is fueling my art brain rn #solbucks ftw #nic speaks

[chellyfishing]

well, i finished the last book i meant to read for the year, and i’ve been wanting to do a lil year in review of all the media from this year, but the main problem is that i don’t log movies/tv anywhere and my memory is uhh?? real bad?? i also definitely didn’t listen to nearly as much new music this year as usual :\\ anyway i figured i’d start with books for now and maybe ponder music/tv/movies/games over the next couple days.

NO i will not include fic even though i definitely did spend like a week recently accidentally reading a 600+k fic for a fandom i’m NOT EVEN IN, i can’t believe i read the whole thing

my storygraph is here

i read fifteen books this year, which makes it my best reading year since 2016, when i inexplicably read 40 in one year?? who is she i gave 5 stars to three of them:

confessions by kanae minato: this is a thriller told from multiple POVs about the supposed accidental death/actual murder of a teacher’s young daughter and the fallout that happens when she reveals she knows the truth. it is hard to root for anyone in this but that’s not really the point. every chapter reframes the original story again and again and again up until the final page so honestly don’t bother making your mind up about anything at any point before then.

the last house on needless street by catriona ward: i feel like explaining almost anything about this book and why i loved it so much would be just one massive spoiler, because its strengths lie in its abilities to subvert. subvert what? kind of... everything? it’s about a man, and his cat, and his daughter. it’s about a woman searching for her missing sister. it’s about illness, and abuse, and a serial killer. trigger warnings abound, especially regarding things happening to children. i don’t really know how to recommend this, except that it’s just Good and i haven’t stopped thinking about it.

you’ve lost a lot of blood by eric larocca: this is the book i just finished. it is very short, you could almost class it as a novella, in fact there is a novella in it? but also other things? i literally just finished it, so i’m still processing, because SO MUCH happens in a very short span of pages. i might reread it quickly because it really does go so fast, you almost don’t have time to breathe. the novella within the novel(la) is told in present-tense, in very short sentences and paragraphs, and you especially fly through those sections. i don’t know at this point if i think the whole thing could have benefitted from being longer or not. i might even change my rating of it later, but i sat for a minute after the last page and felt pretty strongly it was a five-star read so for now i go with my gut. i could feel myself going on a face journey the whole time, from sentence to sentence. it has things to say, in a sort of recursive way, it’s hard to explain. i think what it’s about is art, and also identity. i think i’m going to be thinking about it for awhile.

several other books i read this year probably would have been 5 stars if i was still using goodreads instead of storygraph, like a powerless fool, with the top ones of those being:

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid: you all know this book!!!!! i’m late to the party. there is a lot in here that is so beautiful and compelling. there is something about her writing that i also felt in malibu rising (which i also read this year) that keeps things from being a full five stars from me. i don’t think i can really explain it succinctly. but i was still very moved by this book, i cried a lot, and i do intend to read more by her, because her work is very readable.

piranesi by susanna clarke: i think this is a book that i only didn’t love quite as much as other people because i heard how good it was going in and expected something more revolutionary or life-changing instead of just A Very Good Book. like if i didn’t have any expectations i probably would have finished it and gone “wow!” instead of “oh, that was nice.” it’s about a man who doesn’t know much living almost entirely alone in a place that can’t be real, and what happens when both he and outside forces start to peel away at that reality.

all the feels by olivia dade: this is the sequel to spoiler alert, which i also read and loved this year, but slightly less. both of these books are very wonderful funny wish fulfillment romantic comedies about fat women and gorgeous prestige television star men (the show they’re on is like game of thrones but make it greek myth), they were the kind of thing that i just kind of needed to read at the time. what puts this one slightly ahead of its predecessor for me is that most of the conflict comes from the characters not being able to get out of their own way and sort of having to learn how to grow and be better people both for themselves and each other. i also just liked their romantic dynamic a bit more and i think anybody who is familiar with both pairs and also me would be like “yeah that tracks.” there’s a third book in the universe featuring a very minor background couple from the first two coming out soon!! ready for it!!

and the other good to very good things i read:

the ghost bride by yangsze choo (4.5): this book is set in 19th century malaysia and is about colonial chinese families (the author herself being chinese-malaysian). it’s about a woman whose family is Respectable but in a precarious position, and so naturally that means hoping for an Advantageous Marriage. there’s a man she loves, but he’s out of reach, and then his family proposes the idea of her marrying... that man’s dead cousin? which she’s not into (for whatever reason). but then he starts haunting her, and she has to figure out how to get him off her back so she can actually live her damn life. it’s very cute and fun and adventurous and sweet and romantic. it’s also a series on netflix which is somewhat faithful, it changes some things for the better and some things for less so, i enjoyed it though! the dead man, who is a limp weirdo in the book, is kind of a banger character in the series (i mean, still a weirdo, but with killer fashion sense).

the bright spear trilogy by hl macfarlane (all 3.75): these are three books classed as “gothic scottish fairy tales.” in terms of writing they are very light and frothy, kind of romantic drama with a fairy tale backdrop. there’s a bit more plot in the first one but things gradually become more about the relationship drama as things progress. slight spoiler but absolutely approve of the heroine having two handsome suitors and deciding she will keep both. they aren’t amazing books overall but they were fun fast reads and i honestly appreciate them being kind of just lightly poly. the third book is... unexpectedly dark? like trigger warnings for SA among some other things. things never get truly grim but after i read it i was like oh yeah that was kind of a lot wasn’t it, if you think about it. the author has promised a sequel series about the child character born at the end and... yeah. yeah i’m gonna read it.

malibu rising by taylor jenkins reid (4.5): another book in the taylor jenkins reidiverse, about the family of a minor evelyn hugo character. he’s a rock star, he’s got a wife who’s been with him from before he Made It, they’ve got kids who love to surf. the action focuses on the kids, taking place over one night, with flashbacks filling in the stories of their parents, and how actually, their dad kinda sucks. this is a lighter read than evelyn hugo but deals with similar ideas and themes.

penpal by dathan auerbach (4.25): this is kind of a famous no sleep/reddit horror story that was published as a novel. it’s about a man who’s reflecting on his childhood, putting together a lot of seemingly disparate, out-of-order events to form a truly disturbing narrative. the most important thing about this book that you should know is that it’s a bummer. you won’t walk away from this one feeling very good about anything. the pacing is kind of slow as things build over time and then A Lot happens in the last bit and then you just kind of have to live with it.

neverworld wake by marisha pessl (3.5): this was easily the most disappointing book i read this year. it’s about a group of friends who are stuck in purgatory reliving the same day over and over again, and it’s also about their friend who died a year ago and what happened to him. i... don’t really know what to say about this book. it wasn’t bad, obviously. maybe i just don’t get it. i don’t know what it was trying to say. i don’t know what i was supposed to feel. but i wasn’t feeling conflicted in the way i was with something like, say, confessions. it was just kind of like, “...okay? and?”

spoiler alert by olivia dade (4.25): as mentioned above.

autumn of the grimoire by jl vampa (4.0): listen... i read this because it’s arranged marriage. more broadly it’s about four sisters who are like, seasonal witches, and they pass around a grimoire from season to season that gives them tasks passed down by their predecessors. our protagonist is sister autumn and she always gets the absolutely worst most grim and traumatic tasks, and now she’s inexplicably being forced to marry Some Guy. the thing that i liked the least about this book is how it was told from different viewpoints of characters who have different amounts of knowledge but the reader is constantly being kept in the dark for no real reason, like, we weren’t learning with the characters, the characters already knew!! we were just being teased with constant reminders about how there’s More Going On, which is so tedious to me. “had i but known” and related writing tropes are among my least favorites. also, i knew it was going to be het, but there was a teeny tiny part of me that thought maybe the male half of the marriage was already in a relationship with another man and he and his wife were just going to end up bffs and i read like half the book through that lens and it took quite awhile before the book reached a point where i could no longer pretend that made sense. i recommend trying this anyway because if the author is going to repeatedly remind me there are things i don’t know it’s my right as a free american to pretend the thing i don’t know is gay. overall in spite of all that there are some fun characters, and some fun plot twists! i didn’t expect it to end how it did and i’m actually kind of looking forward to reading more in the series when they come out!

i didn’t read any books i hated this year, which was nice!! i think i read more 5 stars last year but i also read some real duds too. the “worst” was just being disappointed by

neverworld wake

.

i started so many others but i don’t consider any of them DNFs becaaaaause i start books all the time and put them down and it has nothing to do with the book and everything to do with the fact that i have a squirrel brain and reading is so so hard. hopefully i’ll finish some of them next year?? i don’t think anything i read this year was an aborted attempt from last year tho sooooo idk. i wish my brain was better but i still consider this a pretty good reading year overall!

#deep thoughts

[malewifegradyruewen]

Ceux Qui Ne Meurent Jamais, Chapter Three

three chapters in three days i'm insane-

previous | next | masterpost

trigger warnings: overall creepy vibe, i was almost too scared to finish, that's why it stops so abruptly, i don't recommend reading late at night or in the dark, ask to tag

word count: 1715

tagging: @fire-sapphics @zoyyanazyalensky @dirty-racoon @della-vacker-supremacy @raiinyrxse @lucat13 @tiergan-andrin-alenefar @genyyasafin @cadence-talle @thewhiteblades @gay-otlc @brilliantblindinglights @enbies-and-felonies @love-pyramus @silver-war @pencilwritesshiz47 @littlemisscupcake lmk if you want to be added/removed!!

SLAM!

Nathalie awoke to the sound of what she assumed was a door slamming shut. The wind howled outside her window, making the panes rattle. She looked at the clock, but the room was too dark for her to see. She lit the candle that had been sitting on her bedside table and padded across the floor to look. Two-fifty-four.

Given the strong winds outside, a draft blowing a door shut was nothing too out of the ordinary, so Nathalie decided to return to bed. She started crossing back to her four-poster when she heard another SLAM! It sounded closer, as though the first one had been one of the vacant bedrooms at the far end of the hallway, and this one was only a few doors down. While it did seem odd, she didn’t think much of it. An old, empty manor could only withstand so much on a night as windy as this one.

SLAM! A third door slamming shut, this one stopping Nathalie in her tracks. It sounded as though this door was across the hall, the door to the only accessible room that was currently vacant. She turned around slowly and crept towards her door, so she could check the hallway and put her mind at ease before returning to bed. She reached out to grab the doorknob before she realised she was shaking. Maybe checking the hall wasn’t the best idea. But her curiosity got the best of her, and she kneeled down on the floor and laid down on her stomach, peering under the door. She couldn’t see anything, and after a few minutes she was ready to go back to bed, until she saw movement out of the corner of her eye.

She could just make out a heavy pair of boots, walking swiftly yet somehow silently across the floor. She held her breath as the boots stopped right in front of her door. Her heart was pounding, louder than it ever had before. The boots moved closer to her door, taking one step, then another, before stopping once more. They turned and ran down the hallway, towards the vacant bedrooms.

Nathalie wasn’t sure how long she stayed there, on the floor next to her door, the only light the candle on her nightstand slowly dimming as the wax melted. Not another door slammed, though the wind blew ever stronger. Who was that, with the black boots, and why were they here? How had they gotten here? Her brain rattled with questions, like the panes clattering in the window frames. But there was nothing she could do about it tonight. She’d ask Lady Lucie in the morning.

Slowly, she got up off the floor and climbed back into bed, snuffing out the candle as she did so. Her heart was still racing and her head was still pounding, but as darkness enveloped the room once more, she couldn’t fight the exhaustion, and she slipped into an uneasy slumber.

-:-

Nathalie was awoken by the sun streaming through her windows, so bright it felt blinding. The house was quiet, the ticking of the clock the only sound. Nine-twenty-seven. Lady Lucie had said breakfast was typically at nine, but she’d make it fresh for Nathalie. She could afford a few more moments in bed before getting ready for the day.

Thoughts of breakfast and sunlight and the other ladies in the house distracted her for a moment, but it wasn’t long before her questions about last night’s events took front and center in her brain. Even now, she shuddered at the memory of the boots standing outside her door, silent on such a creaky floor.

She couldn’t bear to sit and wallow in memory any longer, so she instead climbed out of bed and changed out of her nightdress to an outfit nearly identical to that of last night, only the skirt was green and the blouse was white. She quickly untied the ribbon wrapped around the end of her braid and tied her hair into a bun, the same way she had everyday since she was a child. Slipping her grey shoes back on, she headed downstairs to the dining room they’d eaten in the night before.

There was no evidence anyone had used the dining room thus far that morning, but the door to the kitchen was propped open. Nathalie cautiously walked towards the kitchen, spotting Lady Lucie elbows deep in the sink. The clatter of dishes being plunged into the soapy water was loud, but it still seemed strange to Nathalie that her footsteps hadn’t been loud enough to alert Lady Lucie to her presence.

“Good morning,” she said, raising her voice so she could be heard above the dishes.

Lady Lucie whipped around, as though she hadn’t been expecting Nathalie. “Lady Nathalie!” she cried. “Good morning! Don’t mind me, just tidying up after breakfast! I left a bowl next to the stove for you, and there’s a plate of fruit and a bowl of sugar on the counter.”

She pointed as she spoke, guiding Nathalie to a pot of porridge on the stove. She groaned. After eating it nearly every day of her childhood, she despised porridge. The bland, tasteless mush was one of the worst things about Hazelford Children’s Manor. However, she couldn’t deny that her stomach was rumbling, so she took a small scoop and added several heaping spoonfuls of sugar before taking her bowl and the whole plate of fruit to the dining room. There wasn’t much on the plate, as the native berries were mostly out of season, but there were apple slices, which in Nathalie’s opinion, were the best of all the fruits. She reluctantly put a bit of porridge on the apple slice and ate it, delightfully surprised at her creation. No longer despising the food in front of her, she ate it as quickly as she could.

Partway through her bowl of porridge, Lady Lucie emerged from the kitchen and joined Nathalie. “I trust you sleep well?”

For a moment, Nathalie debated lying, saying that her sleep had been uninterrupted. Would Lady Lucie know if she lied? But she decided to ask about the heavy yet silent black boots last night.

“There were some doors that slammed last night. I don’t know if you heard them. They woke me up, and I saw something...strange.”

“Oh? Strange how?” Lady Lucie seemed surprised, though Nathalie couldn’t fathom how. The doors had been quite loud, and she wasn’t sure how anyone could sleep through them.

“There was...a person, in the hallway upstairs, I think. I saw, under my door, a pair of black boots, but they were silent.” She decided to leave out the part where they had walked towards her door, and had seemingly been called away.

Lady Lucie paled. “Le Cavalier de l'ombre.”

“The what?”

“Cavalier de l'ombre. A legend,” she said, jumping up. “Come, to the library, I’ll show you what I mean.”

Nathalie had no time to argue, because Lady Lucie had grabbed her wrist and was pulling her away from the table. She had no choice but to run to keep up as they wound through hallways, past closed off sitting rooms and boarded up doors, too many to count. Finally, they reached a pair of the largest doors Nathalie had ever seen, even larger than the front doors. Lady Lucie let go of her wrist to push the door open, not straining despite their size.

Had she not been terrified of what seemed to be imminent doom, Nathalie would have stopped and marveled at the library. The ceiling was three stories tall, and at least half of Hazelford Children’s Manor alone could fit in here. Bookshelves spanned from floor to ceiling, with two balconies wrapping around the entire room so books higher up could be accessed. There were at least a dozen ladders hung onto rods above the bookcases with small wheels at the bottom so one could reach any book they pleased. The highest balconies had small baskets on pulleys to lower books down while climbing down the narrow spiral staircases hidden in the corners. Grand chandeliers illuminated the room, along with the light streaming in the great stained glass windows directly opposite the doors, the only bit of wall space that wasn’t covered in books. Sofas, tables, armchairs, and desks were scattered about so that everyone had a spot to read and study, although there was a fair number of floor pillows as well.

But Nathalie had no time to marvel at these wonders as she was dragged up a spiral staircase and around a balcony until Lady Lucie stopped so abruptly, she almost fell over.

“Here it is,” Lady Lucie said breathlessly, pulling a book off a shelf at eye-level and flipping through it frantically. “Legends of the Ladies, by Lady Auriane. It’s old, maybe 12 cycles, but it’s one of the best when it comes to our lore. Here,” she said, settling on a page and pointing to the header. “Le Cavalier de l'ombre.”

She offered it to Nathalie, and she took it and started reading. “Le Cavalier de l’ombre is a figure who has no face, makes no sound, and leaves no memory of their visit. They travel in shadow, typically appearing at night to unsuspecting souls. Only appearing to the ladies of the order thus far, they seem to steal immortality, weakening the lady until she has no life left within her, so she meets her demise shortly thereafter. The ladies who fall victim pass with no knowledge as to how or why. No lady has been able to speak of how their immortality is stolen, but all can recall a sense of dread and a drop in temperature before their memory is blank. There seems to be no pattern as to who falls victim to this being, but they will choose one lady and pursue them until they have achieved their goals. Thus far there has been no way found to harm this creature.”

Nathalie finished reading and looked at Lady Lucie, who was paler than any person Nathalie had ever seen. “What does this mean?”

“It means,” Lady Lucie choked, “you’re the next victim of le cavalier de l’ombre, and we don’t know how to stop it.”

#jolie's shitty writing #cqnmj #ceux qui ne meurent jamais

[haosvteen]

Are You Bored Yet? | choi seungcheol

a/n: here’s just a super short, cute lil cheollie imagine :] i hope you enjoy it! let me know your thoughts, if you’d like!! <3 also, i haven’t proof read yet, so i apologize if there are any errors!

college!seungcheol x reader

~ - fluff

word count: 1.2k

masterlist

You check your phone for at least the 80th time in the past ten minutes. You just cannot seem to focus on your assignment that’s due in the morning. Why you waited to do one of the biggest projects of the year in five hours is a mystery to you. Running your hands through your hair and taking a sip of the coffee that’s been your companion since 11:00 pm, you place your fingers on the keyboard with the intention of writing as much as you can in a span of five minutes. You have to work in little bursts, that’s the only way you’ll get the project done at this point. 

You’re almost finished with another body paragraph when your phone begins ringing, disturbing the silence and causing you to jump in your place on the couch. Looking down, you see that it’s one of your closest friends.

“Hey, Seungcheol, what’s up? Why are you up at 3:00 am?”, you ask through the phone after swiping the green ‘answer’ button over on your screen. 

“I’m working on this dumb project just like I’m guessing you are,” he retorts. It sounds like he’s laying upside down on his bed or something because his voice sounds a little distorted.

“Wow, I’m glad to know there’s another person who procrastinates just as badly as me,” you laugh out while scrolling through the 43 page document you have yet to complete.

You hear some shuffling on the other end of the phone, “Hey, would you want to maybe stay up together and finish these projects? Either you can come over to mine or I can come to yours?” he suggests.

For some reason you get butterflies in your stomach, anxiety slowly rising, “Oh! Yeah, sure, you can come over here if you want!”

“Sweet, I’ll be there in like 10 minutes! I’ll pick us up some coffees on the way, too,” he cheerily responds as you hear him loading things into his backpack and zipping it up.

“Sounds good! I take mine with-”

“Three creams and two sugars. Don’t worry, I remember,” Seungcheol says, you can basically hear the cheeky smile plastered on his face. “I’ll be there in a few!”

Once the call is hung up, you immediately spring up from your place on the couch and begin frantically cleaning your apartment. There are dishes in the sink that still need cleaned, papers and shoes strung everywhere. It’s not that you’re unclean, you just are way too busy to keep tidy every day. Maybe you also changed into an outfit better looking than the baggy sweatpants and tshirt you had on...not for Seungcheol of course. Just because you...felt like it.

As you were drying the final dish from your sink, there was a rap on the door. You quickly make your way over and look out the peephole to check that it’s who you are expecting. You notice that Seungcheol is wearing a red hoodie with his glasses on (which he rarely wears to class) and his hair is quite disheveled as well. 

You try to subdue your smile and twist the lock, swinging the door open. “Hiii,” he says, outstretching his hand with a coffee cup in it, a big smile plastered on his face.

“You are literally a life saver,” you exasperatedly respond, grabbing the cup from his hand and welcoming him in. He makes his way over to the couch and set his bag down at the opposite end of you.

“How much do I owe you?” you ask, lifting up the coffee cup slightly as you join him.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. Your company is enough,” he casually says while pulling his laptop out of this bag. A blush creeps up on your face. It’s not that you like Seungcheol, but maybe you have a crush on him? Maybe? ...Probably.

At first, you two tried you very best to focus on the project. You discussed what each of your topics were and how you were approaching them. But somewhere along the lines you got to talking about your favorite tv shows & holidays and everything else went out the window.

It was now 5:00 am and you two had Christmas music on, playing at full volume in your kitchen while making cookies. Thankfully you happened to have all of the ingredients to make his favorite. Of course, you definitely should be working on your projects, but that’s just a grade. This is a memory you’ll keep forever. 

You ended up with flour all over your face (courtesy of the hijinks of one mister Choi Seungcheol), so you smeared the melted chocolate in his hair. By the end of the little food fight, you both ended up within inches of each other, a giggling mess.

Looking up at him through your eyelashes coated in flour, your eyes flick down to his lips. The room grows noticeably quieter, the only noise heard is the fading jingle-jangle of a Christmas tune. Clearing your throat, you say, “We uh...we should probably get back to the projects…”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he responds, looking down at you fondly. 

After getting cleaned up, you work on your projects in silence for about an hour, only speaking when asking each other questions about the project. At 6:30 am, Suengcheol’s phone starts ringing loudly, startling both of you which causes slap happy giggles to come from both of you as you make fun of the other’s shocked face. 

“Must be my alarm for my eight a.m.” he says, while closing his laptop and packing his things up.

“You’re actually going to it?? After staying up all night? PLus with chocolate in your hair,” you tease him.

“That’s why I’m going back to take a shower and then power through this class,” he responds, slinging his bag over his shoulder.

Standing up, you walk him over to the door, “Thanks for the coffee…and company,” you smile  while leaning against the doorframe, completely exhausted.

“Of course, anytime,” Seungcheol says. “Now please go get some sleep, I can tell you are so exhausted.”

You let out a breathy laugh and nod as he makes his way down the steps of your apartment, “See ya!” he calls out.

“Bye!” you chime as you close the door behind you. Pressing your back against it, you’ve decided: you definitely have more than just little crush on Seungcheol.

As you are wrapped in reliving your memories of the past hour, you are startled by another sharp knock at your door. Turning around to open it, you see Seungcheol.

“Hey, did you forget-” you begin.

“Could I kiss you?”, he asks, eyes wide, full of hope. All you can think to do is nod your head yes because you are too shocked to even think of words. Seungcheol quickly leans his head in and gives you a quick and soft peck on the lips. He pulls away, blush evident on his face as he stumbles his way back down the stairs.

“Okay, bye for real this time! And thanks for letting me kiss you, I hope to do it again sometime when I’m not rushed!” she shouts up the staircase.

“Me too,” you quietly say to yourself, waiting in excitement for the next time you see him.

#seventeen #svt #caratwritersclub #seungcheol #choi seungcheol #scoups #seungcheol imagines #seungcheol scenarios #seungcheol drabbles #seungcheol fics #boyfriend!seungcheol #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #seventeen drabbles #boyfriend!seventeen #seventeen masterlist #seventeen reactions #seventeen mtl #scoups imagines #scoups scenarios #scoups drabbles #scoups fics #seventeen fics #boyfriend!scoups

[velvethopewrites]

Ending a story that you have been writing and working on for a better part of a decade (I’m discounting the years it remained unfinished and I never thought about it) is …an emotional thing.

So I need a little more patience than normal, I suppose.

Essence is nearly done. And I started it in 2006? Maybe 2005. 17, Clumsy and Shy was part one. In Essence: Undivided was part two. And I originally foresaw it as a story told in three parts. But I am not sure that will happen now. At least, not the way I had originally planned. C’est la vie. That is the nature of life and of the beast of telling a story.

A brief backstory - started before the series was over I hilariously wanted to do my own version of the end except with smut and more kissing and less death and less, oh god, the angst. Because back then, Harry and Ginny didn’t really have a lot of stories like that. (Smutty semi-happy ones, I mean, I am sure there were plenty of others.) And then book six came out and then book 7 and…somewhere in between there, I left fandom and lost interest. Not in Harry, just mostly in my own voice.

To be honest, the story has often felt like an albatross around my neck - sometimes good luck and good feelings, other times, the dead weight threatening to make me buckle, but somehow I persevered and the muse kept talking to me and I kept writing.

I’m not known for finishing things.

Small things, yeah. One shots, short stories, poems, yes. Long, multi-chapetered fic spanning over 100,000+ words? Um. No. Essence is almost at around 800,000 words, by the way. So you could argue that I still haven’t learned how to finish things, but…

I can tell it is near. Indeed, the next chapter may be the last. Or it could go on into that aforementioned third part. I remain undecided at this moment. And I fluctuate between all these moods - yes! It’s over. No! It can’t be over and mostly, oh my god! It’s over.

It’s definitely been a learning experience. One I was unprepared for. If blood could be written, then this story would hold mine. What started out as a simple (smutty) story about Ginny, Harry and an old, quirky Irish Goddess quickly grew into something larger than myself and it has brought me happiness, and sadness and joy and anger and frustration. But over all it has made me a better storyteller, a better writer and above all else, a better human being. Sounds rather lofty, doesn’t it? Yeah, don’t worry, it has also taught me that people are shit. lol Especially if you rattle the cage bars of expectation. Not that I really needed another lesson in that, really. (I do/did work in retail pharmacy, after all.)

So when I do finally close this chapter of my life (see what I did there) and move on, I think a tiny little part of me will still be there - in between the pages (screen?) of a fan fiction that has defined me and yet not defined me at all. It is a scary place to be, actually. And hey, I can still royally fuck it up (even more than it already is, some people would argue, I am sure) because I’m me and that is what I tend to do, but…long after I am dead and gone I like to think that Harry, Ginny, and Brogan will do me proud and keep loving and laughing and living within this story that I was compelled (for whatever reason) to tell and to tell the truest way I knew how.

Return is not a way of going forward after all, nor a way of turning back. In any case, it seems a matter of opinion how you face it - the changing bed and the changing voices around a different room may all testify to movement that is either entry or exit into the next phase. It is the motion that takes you in, and it is only memory that lets you out again.

Or, as this love will let me say; the body travels faster than the keeping heart will turn away.

-June Jordan, Roman Poem Number Nine

#Personal #In Essence: Undivided #Blog entry #writing #my writing #I’ll be back to coffee pictures soon enough #Harry Potter #fan fic

[talesofsonicasura]

Origami Dreams

Another experimental fic involving Jujustu Kaisen but with Yuji this time.

Origami, the craft of folding paper to create extraordinary creations. An art very treasured in the far East especially one specific legend. It was said if one were to fold a 1,000 paper cranes, then the gods will grant that person a single wish for their dexterous hard work. Something a lot of people gave up on from how difficult or monotonous the task was.

To one little boy named Yuji Itadori, it was a pastime he spent alongside his grandfather. For it all started when a classmate had given him a book on origami. He couldn't remember her name but he never forgot the image of fire and lightning upon the memory.

Not even the next day, his classmate had perished in a vicious car accident. To keep her last gift from becoming forgotten, little Yuji began to learn the craft of origami. First it started small like flowers or a snake, then in three months he crafted fantastic dragons, phoenixes and even an origami castle from scratch with masterful talent.

His favorite pieces of origami were simpler than all of his creations. It was a pair of sibling rulers, a king and his younger sister. They sat happily together on two thrones belonging to his origami castle, although he needed his grandfather's help to put them there properly.

Something that always brought him joy was looking at his masterpiece alongside his grandfather. You can only imagine the look of 7 year old Yuji on a day that could be described as a nightmare. A small boy with chocolate brown eyes, salmon hair sitting over almost black thin locks, and barely 3 ft tall watch his grandfather get carted into an ambulance.

The man had suffered a severe stroke which had put his only guardian into a deep coma. A tragedy that left a child returning to an empty house all alone. For a few days, Yuji barely ate anything and avoided his room where his castle lied. One day, he had found or to be precise tripped over the origami book given to him by his fallen classmate.

The book opened onto the legend of the 1,000 paper cranes. Something that gave the boy's soul fire once more. He returned to his room and began his quest to fold the finest paper cranes he could make. Searched every room for spare paper, if he ran out then he took any he could such as pages and color sheets.

Over the span of months, the little boy crafted paper crane after paper crane. Even if he missed up multiple times or lost a few cranes, Yuji never gave up. Finally on the night before his birthday, the child was crafting the last two paper cranes. Cranes crafted from various paper circles around the near 8 year old at his desk.

Slightly pudgy hands tiredly work to fold the wings of a red paper crane with the light of his desk lamp. Above his highest shelf sat a large green checkered origami castle and between its walls were two thrones which sat two origami people. They were sibling rulers for the folded crowns that sat on their sun blond hair heads.

"I'm... almost finished." Said the little boy, drowsiness slowly taking over his senses. He shakily picked up the last piece of blue construction paper and began to fold. Yuji's eyes felt heavy as fog filled his thoughts. First was the body, then came the head, and the wings were to follow.

"Only...a few…*yawn* more folds…" His head turned slightly to the castle of origami's sitting rulers. Their smiling eyes looking back at him as he was on the last two folds. Yuji needed to make a wish before folding the last crane.

It was getting harder to stay awake but he wouldn't sleep until he finished this. The salmon haired child looked at the incomplete paper bird in his hands. Vision growing fuzzy from tiredness, Yuji made the last fold and with his last bit of consciousness made a wish.

"I wish I wasn't alone…" And the boy's mind went black followed by a soft thud. Unbeknownst to the child, his wish would come true as the clock struck twelve. It wouldn't be how he expected though.

Something dull and pointy began to poke the boy's pudgy cheek. Crumbled words reaching the child's ears as his brain slowly came to life. "Hey brother! Our not paper creator is waking up! His rosy cheeks feel like pillows!" A childish young girl's bursting with excitement spoke as Yuji tiredly realized he wasn't alone.

Sleepy brown eyes slowly open to two very familiar pieces of origami overlooking him. Two people with one female and the other male. The female had blond hair with two large curls folded at the back, a folded dress robe made from yellow construction paper, peach paper forming the head with two small black strips to make little eyes, two point folded paper crown that adorn her head, white point fold arms and dark brown point fold legs.

Her male companion had pale blonde hair folded into a large curl that cover the left side of his face, a royal robe made from dark violet construction paper, a gold three pointed paper crown sat on his head with narrow black pieces paper to form eyes that were in a deadpan expression at the moment, purple point fold arms and white point fold legs.

Yuji knew who these surprisingly 1 ft and half tall origami were, they were the two siblings of his Origami Castle: Olly and his little sister Olivia. His two prized creations were floating before, completely alive almost if by magic. The 1,000 Paper Cranes magic. In seconds, the sleepiness faded away as the salmon hair boy sat up in relative shock.

"No doubt the young child is having an existential moment. He may have crafted the 1,000 paper cranes but he wasn't aware of the power that origami can possess. Particularly to those dedicated to the art." Spoke Olly who floated around the room to observe the child's work.

Olivia merely sat herself on the boy's desk to look at the various cranes that sat there. "Creator, take a few deep breaths. It should help calm you down a bit." Without even questioning her instructions, the little boy took a few deep breaths. His nerves and shell shock dissipating in little time.

"You're saying that all my hardwork brought you both to life? Does it mean that something happened to Grandpa too?" Olly flew over to Yuji upon the spoken question. "If you are talking about 'Wasuke Itadori', the hospital had made a call a few hours ago. His pulse has returned to normal and should be waking up soon. He is in extensive care, sadly. It means he can't leave without further risk to his health."

Even though his grandfather was stuck in the hospital, knowing his only family is going to be okay made the little boy happy. The 1,000 Paper Cranes had fulfilled his wish although with two extra attachments. Olly and Olivia had been brought to life. Speaking of which…

"You guys don't have to call me Creator all the time. Just call me Yuji." Yuji smiled brightly at the origami siblings. Olivia giggled before playfully patting the child's cheek. "Sure! Olly, Olivia and Yuji! That sounds like the beginning of a fairytale." The paper princess wasn't wrong on that assumption.

After that day, the little boy now lived in the once empty house with the two living origami. Something that had a lot of obstacles to face but nothing too harsh. First was money for necessary essentials, such as food and water but learning material too.

Selling origami was actually a good source of income with the presence of the two paper siblings. Olly and Olivia had magic which they used for various things but at the moment was to keep any origami Yuji sold to be immune to both damage and age. Some of his creations went from 200 yen to even 5,000 yen per piece depending on how advanced it was.

The two siblings would have to keep out of sight since any normal person would hunt them down for bad purposes. Luckily, Olly and Olivia could fold themselves to pocket size pieces that Yuji could carry with no trouble but they couldn't come to school.

Cooking wasn't much of an issue to learn although there were quite a few accidents with cookbooks and a blender that should never be told. However it appeared that there was much more to his life than magical Origami. For two years later, Yuji learned Olly and Olivia weren't the only ones who changed. He did too.

A 10 year old Yuji Itadori had found himself in a very bad situation. Sometimes selling origami creations would be difficult at some point during each year. This often led the young boy scavenging through abandoned places to look for anything valuable to sell.

He had found an old empty shack that wasn't too far from his house. It had enough scrap metal and loose change that could make up around 9,000 yen in cash alone. Problem was that there was... something living in the shack. And it wasn't friendly.

Yuji was running for his life with Olivia and Olly in his pockets. Behind the child was a blobfish-like abomination with multiple bulging yellow eyes across a gross green body, 15 deformed hands bent in unnatural ways that serve as legs and a large mouth filled with monstrous teeth along a long slimy tongue.

"What is that thing?! It looks so gross!" Olivia screamed within his shirt pocket. The monster had taken them by surprise when they were searching for more scraps. Too fast to prepare anything except to run. "I think it might be a Curse. Something about this world felt off so I did a personal investigation." Chimed Olly from Yuji's jacket pocket.

Both kept their little tirade about breaking the house rule quiet to hear what vital information that could save their life. "Curses are creatures invisible and invulnerable to those without Cursed Energy. I did come across an interesting fact, our Origami Magic can be used to successfully fight them!" Eyes widened upon Olly's explanation.

Too bad Yuji's foot got caught on a tree root which sent the child to the ground hard. "Yuji!" Olivia shot out of his pocket quickly unfolding herself to full size so she could help the boy up. None of them could prepare when the hideous Curse leapt at the two. Life flashing before his eyes, a single thought went through the salmon haired boy's head.

I want to live!

In seconds, the sound of rippling paper and a distorted gasp tore the silence to pieces. Opening eyes he didn't realize that he even closed, Yuji was greeted by an incredible sight. The vicious curse had been snared in large peach ropes of folded Origami that led to a dark blue fold. The very paper itself was the child's own arms, flesh and cloth turned into powerful origami of 1,000 folds.

Without hesitation, Yuji held the monster tighter in his grips as he raised his long origami arms into the air. "Leave us alone!!!" And the child slammed the monster brutally into the ground. It splatted but not into blood or gore. No, the creature exploded into paper confetti of its original green color.

Olly slipped out of Yuji's pocket to stare at the scene in utter shock before turning to his sister. A glowing orange symbol of a hand was on the right side of her chest which vanished upon Yuji's hands turning back to normal. "That was the 1,000-Fold Arms Technique you just did! And the...Curse turned into confetti." Olivia gawked in absolute shock.

It made no sense. Only paper or origami could use the technique and only origami would become confetti upon defeat. Not the hands of a child or a defeated monster. There was only one explanation. "Our magical presence has affected Yuji. He can use origami magic." That very sentence from male origami ruler was enough to picture how things had drastically changed.

After that day, the boy and his two paper companions learned to understand the powers little Yuji now had. It was a hard task for experimentations were needed thus led to occasional battles against Curses. Over the span of 5 years, the child had grown into a young man skilled in the art of origami magic.

There were still some spells he couldn't do without assistance from either Olly or Olivia but Yuji could defend himself against moderate strength Curses now. Although, nothing could compare for the third thing to come into his life. The Cursed Finger of Ryomen Sukuna.

It had occurred two weeks before afternoon clubs would begin at his local high school. The once small child now was a teenager standing around 5'8 in height and most of his baby fat was replaced with lean powerful bulk. Even though Olly and Olivia couldn't really grow like he could, the two happily took advantage of his new height to hang onto his shoulders instead.

Wearing a long coat or cloak on his back along with this 'koala cuddle' meant they didn't have to hide in his pockets if the weather was nice. Anyway, he had a huge cram session to deal with since there would be a big test in a few days. This meant that sometimes he couldn't cook and had instant ramen substitute for dinner.

What he didn't know was in the extra large cup of beef and pork ramen, something had accidentally got inside the package. Olly was sitting across the table looking through the stack of books Yuji had brought home. The origami prince had taken up reading and writing as a personal hobby so the teen often picked up books or writing material.

Olivia was sitting on the couch watching a cartoon on the TV. She usually spent her time drawing comics or acting out scenes from her favorite shows. In fact, Yuji made an account on the computer where the origami princess could post her comics whenever she wanted. Something that exploded across the internet as they end up getting emails to publish them on real paperback.

"Hey Olly, that stapler you wanted to buy should be in stores a few days from now. You want me to grab it for you?" Yuji questioned while slurping some noodles. "Table manners Yuji. And yes, I would like that. It's been so long since I've seen my beloved pet." The origami prince replied while flipping to the next page of his book.

The salmon haired young man pulled up something wrapped up in his ramen noodles. It was too tightly wound to take a better look but the teen could see it was dark meat of some type. Shrugging his shoulders, Yuji put the clump of noodles and meat in his mouth.

Olivia who was about to ask her brother something instantly paled at what was about to go down her creator's throat. It looked like a decrepit old rotten finger with a large claw, so old that it was dark purple and clearly toxic. "That's a crusty finger not beef!" And the finger went down the boy's throat before anyone could move.

Olly quickly flew over to the couch as the kitchen table exploded into splinters. The cause being their salmon hair roommate whose arm was held up in a swipe manner, an arm covered in intricate black tattoos and had large violet claws. Both watched as two slits that emerged under Yuji's eyes alongside black tattoos opened to reveal smaller red eyes.

Or the fact their friend laughed in a deeper more manic voice reminiscent of a psychopath. "Ahahahaha! It feels good to be alive again! Wonder what massacres I can unleash upon this age! The women and children crawling around like lambs to the slaughter!" The possessed Yuji then rips off his shirt apart to reveal even more intricate tattoos going down his slightly more powerful looking body.

"Our big brother got possessed by a psycho devil stripper!!" Olly could only freeze upon his sister's cry as four blood red orbs had now spotted them. Not Yuji stared at the two origami people behind the large plush furniture. Surprise and confusion crossing his four eyed face before he let out a manic chuckle.

"Hahaha! It seems this body belongs to a Jujutsu Sorcerer who knew how to craft living origami. Quite an interesting Cursed Technique… I wonder what I can learn from tearing you apart!" Both siblings were ready to fly away when Not Yuji suddenly froze. A familiar hand symbol emerged on Olivia's chest as Not Yuji's hands morphed into long appendages made of folded origami.

The Thousand Fold Arms wrapping itself around the possessed teen like a straitjacket much to their anger. "What?!" He shouted only for a mouth to pop up on his right cheek and the right eye's iris turning brown in color.

"Good to know origami magic can counter possession to an extent. Alright asshole, who are you? You already pissed me off since you tried to hurt my family and now ruined my study session!" Yuji threatened from the sudden transmutation. Not Yuji growled at the threat in irritation realizing he couldn't move or even retreat into the teen's soul.

This boy had somehow purposely locked him out from both the inside and outside. "No matter what age, you Jujutsu Sorcerers are still a pain in the ass! I am Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses! Show some respect you damn brat!" Howled the possessor as he struggled to break the teen's powerful hold over this body.

"Jujutsu Sorcerers??? What the heck is even that? And Curses have a king??? Then again, your crusty finger ended up in Yuji's ramen so maybe you're a gag?" Sukuna decided that he was going to tear the yellow origami girl apart first for the blatant disrespect. If he got out of this boy's grip. Her questions however raised one of his own.

"You telling me that not only do you fools don't know about me but also Jujutsu Sorcerers? Are you a bunch of dumbasses or completely ignorant?!" The King of Curses would've said more if a large blade didn't pop appear by his neck.

This blade or to be precise, blades, belonged to an inhumanly large pair of cutting scissors that were the size of a van. His three crimson eyes burned holes at Olly's own whose paper left arm was enveloped in a wild green circle depicting the tool ready to chop off his head. The prince's face burned red with rage.

"You're lucky I care about Yuji or I would cut your head off for disrespecting my family. We don't know about you or these Jujutsu Sorcerers and frankly don't care. Get out of our older brother's body now so he can study for his exam." Olly threatened, his tone similar to a lion ready to cut down intruders targeting its pride.

"Well too bad! I can't leave your little master's body even if I wanted too! He only ate one of my 20 fingers and even if he did eat them all, the boy's body will become mine! Unless you can fully pull my soul out then I'm stuck with you brats." Sukuna's words dripping with foul venom.

The information painted a very bad picture for the makeshift family of three. A psychotic demon was trapped in the eldest body and soul split into 20 pieces. Even if they could find all the fingers, it didn't mean the King of Curses would leave Yuji's body willingly.

"Then let's find those fingers." Yuji's second mouth grabbed everyone's attention. "You might be stuck in my body but that doesn't mean I can get you out somehow or someway. At best, I can make a origami body that you can possess temporarily so you won't be cooped up in my soul. And once we find all the fingers, I can get you out of my body with the 1,000 Paper Cranes."

A look of realization passing over Olivia's face. "That's right! The 1,000 Paper Cranes ritual can grant a free wish if you can make all the cranes faster than you did the first time! We can use that wish to get Sukuna out of your body! Nice thinking Yuji!" The King of Curses' couldn't help the shellshock.

These three were willing to collect every piece of his soul and use some wish making technique to make him whole again? None of them had any idea what they were getting themselves into by him or those who still seek to destroy the demon. If he played his cards right, then he will finally live once more.

"Alright you cocky little shits. I can help you locate my fingers since they're a part of my soul. Don't think we'll be buddy buddy because once I get out of that brat's body, I will rip you to shreds! Hear me?!" The pair of scissors by the two faced being's neck shrunk back to normal size before hitting the floor.

"We'll fight back when that time comes. For now, you better behave yourself. Come Olivia, let's see what paper we can use for Sukuna's origami vessel." With that said, Olly dragged his sister out of the room. Yuji's arms returned to normal once the magic connection was cut then ripped Sukuna's control over his body.

The tattoos vanished and one of the slits closed except for the right he forced open which took its original red hue. "Why haven't you fully blocked me out yet? You clearly have enough control to fully suppress me. Are you pitying me, dumb brat?!" Yuji merely ignored Sukuna's threat to grab a piece of paper and a pencil.

"What do you want your origami body to look like? It'll have a form similar to Olly and Olivia but you can choose the customization. Even give it four arms if you have the normal amount of fingers per hand like a human does." Yuji questioned, the mouth on his cheek going silent for a moment.

A few seconds later Sukuna spoke up once Yuji finished the body's outline. "Give it four arms and four crimson eyes. The clothing should be a kimono but I want different color sleeves." The salmon haired teen smiled as he got to work on the concept with the demon's instructions.

Maybe things wouldn't be so bad despite having to search for 20 fingers of a literal demon that had entered his life.

And that's it. Today's story was mixed with the newest Paper Mario game: The Origami King. Without spoiling the game to those who wish to play, it's a very fun game but the ending is very bittersweet.

I also wanted to experiment a bit with Yuji as a kid. How different this Yuji could turn out than his canon incarnation since there is new factors to his life.

Olly and Olivia will be serving sibling roles to Itadori but also taught him how to use Origami based magic or Cursed Technique. I'm taking the Smash Brothers' approach to bypass the requirement of Cursed Energy since in Smash Bros, rules are changed to allow each fighter to be on equal terms.

The game mechanics such as 1,000-Fold Arms, enemies, bosses and different locations will be incorporated into Yuji's moveset. This Yuji is also smarter due to Olly and Olivia's presence, perfect motivation to learn.

Spoilers?: Sukuna is going to get attached to the three.

I hope you guys enjoy the story! Until next time folks! Oh and have this Origami Ryomen Sukuna design! Chou!

Edit: Fixed a few spelling mistakes and grammar. Apparently me misspelling Jujutsu is pretty common in early works with this franchise. 😅

#crossover #jujutsu kaisen #yuji itadori #jjk yuji #paper mario #paper mario the origami king #olly paper mario #olivia paper mario #jujustu kaisen sukuna #ryomen sukuna #sukuna #au #tales of sonicasura #fanfic #sonicasura #jujutsu sorcerer #jujustu kaisen yuji

[rokutouxei]

the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

ikemen vampire: temptation through the dark theo van gogh / mc | T | [ ao3 link in bio ]

The challenge seemed pretty simple: to try to befriend the university bookshop’s most sour employee, Theo van Gogh. As a literature major with a boatload of book recommendations on her back, it ought to be a simple task indeed. But as she uncovers what lies between Theo’s pages, the more she finds it harder to become closer to him without having to put the feeling directly into words. What can she learn from Theo about what it means to stay—and how can she teach Theo about what it means to let go? | written for ikevamp big bang 2020!

[ masterpost for all chapters ]

CHAPTER 18 OF 22

how intricately love crosses love; love makes knots; love brutally tears them apart. I have been knotted; I have been torn apart.

- Virginia Woolf, the Waves

 --

Her phone receives three calls in the span of an hour.

The first one is from an old friend, who rings to ask her how she’ll feel like being neighbors again. Her friend is planning to apply to the university’s MA program, and that she’ll be dropping by within the next week to submit some requirements for the application. She’s asking if she’s free, and if they could hang out a little before she goes home. She bites the butt-end of the marker in between her teeth as they’re talking, scribbling out onto the date on her calendar tacked to the wall. It’s a great phone call.

The second one is from the school she’s going on exchange to. A lady with a thick (but lovely!) accent tells her that they’ve finished signing the paperwork she needs to submit for her student visa. That the document is in her email, and that they’ve forwarded the hard copy to the Office of Student Relations, saying that she should pick it up at their office by the end of the week. She nods and thanks them as they big goodbye. When the call ends, she flutters with excitement.

It’s that last call that’s a little more troublesome.

“Busy today, aren’t we?” Vincent comments with a small laugh, their little conversation about the finalized date for the exhibit cut short once more as she excuses herself to take the call. She awkwardly grins at him as she heads out of the studio, ducking into the living room.

“Yes?” A beat. “Oh, yes. Yes it’s me.” Silence. The smile that was originally on her face upon recognizing that it’s one of the OSR staff organizing her trip disappears quickly. “Is… that really the only schedule available, sir?” More silence. “Oh, no, that’s not—” a pause. “I see. I’m sorry. Yes, I understand.” She bites her lip, looks across the house through to the kitchen, eyes gluing distractedly onto the unwashed coffee mugs on the sink. “Of course. Yes. Thank you. This is noted. I’m sorry. Yes.”

She puts the phone down. Stares at the “ended call” screen before she looks up again, catching Vincent’s stare from the studio doorway. He smiles at her. She smiles back, but she feels so weak.

She turns back to her phone with a sigh.

--

She has a solution for at least one of the phone calls: the first one. She rings up her friend the next day and proposes a drinking party.

Says she’ll bring her other university friends to introduce to her, and they’ll hang out, then maybe share in the good energy (and the misery) of being in the same university—likely soon, we’re manifesting it!

They agree to crash at a place downtown for the night, everyone pitching in for an Airbnb in the middle of a school week. She invites Dazai, and Isaac, and Arthur; they each invite some other familiar faces, Napoleon, Leonardo, and Sebastian, of course—her friend’s brother.

She doesn’t know if she wants to invite Theo.

Only because it’s been… weird.

She’s sure she wants to invite Vincent, though, and inviting him is tantamount to inviting the other, so she does anyway. But because fate is a cruel tutor, the exact reverse of what she has wanted to happen, happens.

Vincent apologizes profusely, saying he’s in the middle of a rather time-sensitive painting (something about painting while the paint is not entirely dry, and his timer is set to just about tonight) so can she bring Theo instead?

And she knows the drill. Theo does not say no to Vincent.

Theo, of course, could just lie to his brother, a little white lie about coming with her to the little Korean barbecue drinking party they had planned tonight, to introduce her group of friends to her childhood friend, who was in the campus lately because she had applied for an MA in the very same department.

But Theo doesn’t.

He goes with them, just as Vincent had expected him to.

Gets in the small van and listen to Arthur and Dazai sing along to the annoying song on the radio way too loudly, the windows rolled down, she and her friend laughing at the boys making a ruckus, her friend’s quiet, stern-looking older brother focused on driving them out of the campus.

Theo wonders if he should’ve lied, after all.

But he knows that even if he knew that he should’ve, he would have come anyway. Because he knows himself. Knows that he will be lying to everyone else and denying it with his whole chest but in truth, he knows that he is just buying some more time with her. Even if that is time spent sitting at the end of a grill table flipping meat as the rest of the table laughs and makes a cacophony of noises, half-drunk on cheap alcohol. Even if that means just sitting next to her as the long night passes, silent in their fullness, not speaking, not breaking the illusion that everything is alright, that she won’t be leaving him soon, that there’s so much brewing in his chest and he still…

Doesn’t have the courage to tell her a single word of it.

--

Her hands are numb with her nerves, but the night goes… surprisingly well.

She and Theo hang around each other, passing barbecue and utensils, but they do not… have an explosive argument like she feared they would have. She reminds herself that they have nothing to argue about, that nothing had been done wrong. Still, she doesn’t want to make a scene out here. She’d told her friend she was going to introduce her university friends, and a shouting match in an airbnb isn’t exactly what friends do.

Instead, she pretends like nothing is different. Like nothing had changed drastically over the past few days. Teases Arthur and Dazai as they huddle each other and have excessive amounts of PDA that would have been unacceptable if they were actually a couple. (“They get a free pass because they’re fuck buddies?” “Mmhmm, somehow it doesn’t count.” “Who said it doesn’t count?! This is scandalous!” “Arthur did. …Wait a minute.”) Gapes at Sebastian and his very obvious mental hard-on for Napoleon, who is busy discussing with him something about a historical note on food rituals in the 1600s, or something—she really isn’t paying attention. Texts Isaac with a winky face waiting for him to finally get here like he promised he would.

Ignores the one person she wishes she could talk to right now but does not have the courage to.

And just as Theo makes his way out to the porch, maybe to sober up, maybe to get some time to himself, her friend, face already flushed with alcohol, a silly grin plastered on her face, elbows her lightly, “So, which one of these cuties is the one you’re pining for?”

“Give me a minute,” she says, as she gets up on her feet to follow Theo walking away.

--

Somewhere in between pizza and the first two or three rounds of beer, Theo goes out to the terrace for a little bit of silence. He’d expected her three usual suspects to come—Isaac, Dazai, Arthur—but he hadn’t expected a crowd, especially not of people he barely knew. The whiskey that Leonardo guy had handed to him was pretty strong, too. He’s still standing straight, but his mind is already spinning in circles.

On one hand, seeing her act so normal gives him some sort of relief. This is what he wanted for her. He wanted to step back, fold the dog-eared parts of his heart back onto itself so that he doesn’t notice them—the bookmarks of affection he’d left along the edges of their friendship’s pages. And sure, pulling away was a feat on its own, particularly because he knew she was leaving, and that made him want to spend even more valuable time with her, but—

This is better for her. He knows that. He understands that. And he’s willing to give that to her.

Besides, she said so herself. She no longer wants anchors.

But on the other hand, seeing her act so normal, so oblivious when he’s torn himself open to give her peace of mind leaves an undesirable taste in his mouth.

But it’s not like he could tell her.

Theo’s just about downed the rest of the whiskey in his glass when she comes out to the porch, the sight of her face like salt to the wound.

It takes him all his strength to smile.

“Mind some company?” she asks, and he shakes his head, leaning against the barrier carefully. “Too loud inside?”

He laughs. “The whiskey was crazy.”

She nods. “Leonardo has a ridiculous alcohol stash. A wildcard during drinking parties.”

She closes the door behind her and leans against the balcony next to him, taking a deep sigh. She’s close enough to him that Theo can smell the faint citrus of her perfume.

Theo doesn’t know what to say but he knows he wants to talk to her.

“Nice shirt,” he says, eyes trained on the pastel yellow linen of the off-shoulder blouse she’s wearing. “Color suits you.” She smiles—even if it hurts a little—and shrugs to emphasize them when he points it out.

“Thanks,” she says. “Finally the season to wear bright colors, you know.”

In his mind, she is still beige coat and black boots in the middle of fall. But even that feels like an entire lifetime ago. The months have gone by in a haze. Theo begins to feel the weight of regret—of letting it pass by out of his grasp—sink inside his gut.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Theo says off-handedly, eyes turned to the ceiling. “Busy?”

“Yeah,” she says, with a half-sigh that’s dragged out of her. She takes a breath and leans her back against the veranda as well, but she looks downward, instead. At the corner of his eye, he catches her pursing her lips as if choosing what to say. “Paperwork.”

“Welcome to bureaucracy,” he jokes, and the two of them laugh.

But just a little.

As if they both knew they were hiding something else underneath the laughter.

“How’ve you been?”

It’s a simple question. One they’ve asked each other a million times before. One that doesn’t have to feel as heavy as it does right now.

“Okay,” she says, but her voice falters. “Could be better.”

Theo hums. She knows that means me too.

“But it’s going great, you know. For both of us.”

That makes him turn.

“With, with the exhibit, right?” she follows up, caught off guard by his gaze. “And with the scholarship, and you’re on your last class, aren’t you? Pre-thesis?”

“Hopefully,” he says.

She smiles at it. “Will be, I promise,” she says.

For a moment, the two of them stand there next to each other in silence. Which should have been normal and comfortable between them, but today…

Today is different.

With another sigh, she decides to just go for it.

“Can I just… get straight to the point?” she asks, as if cautious.

Theo nods, even when his heart is twisting into knots.

 “Why have you been ignoring me?”

When she says it, it sounds like her voice is crumpling with the weight of the words.

Theo doesn’t dare look at her. Eyes open but still trained at the ceiling, he says, “I haven’t been ignoring you.”

Her face scrunches up, for the briefest of moments, into a potent kind of anger. An expression that clearly spoke then what the hell have we been doing?! without even a word. Then, it dissolves into something gentler, like defeat. “I’m not mad… just tell me if there’s something wrong?”

A plea for help. Theo hates how transparent he’s become to her, over the few months. Theo wonders if she has something she doesn’t have the courage to tell him either.

“Nothing is wrong,” he insists, closing his eyes as if it makes saying it easier. “It’s just been busy. Like you.”

“Then can I ask why you’ve been upset?”

“I haven’t been upset.”

Theo doesn’t like the feeling. The lie is acid in his mouth. He can avoid questions, he can dodge them, he can make up the most convoluted reasons to divert them—but he does not like lying.

He isn’t lying. He’s not upset.

He���s distraught, and that’s not the same thing.

“Arthur says you’ve been out of character.”

Somehow, the idea that she’s been keeping tabs on him doesn’t make him feel any better. “You know how Arthur is.”

“Arthur doesn’t lie.”

Theo quickly snaps, turning toward her with narrowed eyes. It makes her recoil. It’s an ugly feeling. Theo thinks he deserves it. “Are you saying I do?”

With a deep breath, instead of shouting back, she only shakes her head. “I’m not. You don’t.” She bites her lip as she turns her eyes back to the ground. “…though I kind of wish you were.”

“What?”

She doesn’t answer. Not right away, anyway. Theo looks at her and tries to figure out the expression on her face. It contorts, half-pain and half-pity.

He doesn’t know for who.

“I don’t want to leave like this, Theo,” she says after what feels like forever, her voice as fragile as snowflakes. “It’s like I’ve lost you. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t know where you are. Something happened that made you drifted away. I don’t know what it is. I can’t fix it if I don’t know what it is. I don’t—do you know how important you are to me?” She pauses, out of breath. When they make eye contact, they both look away. “You are important to me. So if something happened, tell me.”

Nothing ‘happened’, he wants to tell her. Something ‘happening’ implies that there was something that changed the way things are. But nothing changed. It’s always been like this from the start. That she was going to go, and he was going to stay.

Nothing happened, it’s just his stubborn heart refusing to shut up or speak up. He doesn’t know which is worse.

Theo doesn’t want to speak because the last time he had spoken they had fought over the one thing that is the most important to her. He doesn’t want to speak because he doesn’t know what it is that he can say.

She takes his silence as a denial.

“Does this just not mean as much to you as it does to me?”

“You’re my friend,” is what he says. Not an answer, but a response.

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

From the inside, there’s a sound of glasses clinking. Someone must have initiated another shot for everyone. But the cheerful laughter that rolls out the window does not lessen the weight of their conversation.

Maybe it makes it worse.

“Dazai says you don’t want me to go.”

The lilt of her voice says curiosity, not anger. That relieves Theo only the slightest bit.

He doesn’t look at her. “That’s a lie.”

“Then why did it make you so upset?”

“I told you, I’m not upset.”

“Not-upset enough to avoid me for weeks?”

“I wasn’t avoiding you.”

“Look, Theo, if you just—”

“You want to go away, so go away,” he says, sharply. He doesn’t like where this conversation is going. He doesn’t want to tell her. He doesn’t want to be someone holding her back. Maybe if he tears at the string holding them together hard enough, she’ll be able to sail away.

But what he said only makes her fold even deeper into herself, distress written plain on her face. Like something snapped inside of her. Guilt begins to tear at him, but this is the only way he knows how to do this. It will hurt, but these are only growing pains. “Are you still holding that against me?”

“I’m not holding it against you.”

“Yes, that’s probably exactly why you brought it up,” she says, her voice now louder. “All of that, all those days and weeks together and you’re still clinging on to that conversation at the rooftop, aren’t you? We don’t need to see eye to eye on it, Theo.”

“I agree, we don’t.” Every word she says in that broken voice makes it harder and harder for him to not just tell her the truth, but he knows he can’t. It will cost them both too much. “I’m still allowed to have my thoughts on it.”

“Right, right.” She laughs. A dry sound. “So you would feel bad, then, huh? That I got offered the finishing course? That I’m considering staying there. Forever. Finish my degree there. Maybe work there. Is that it? Are you going to get mad at me for that?”

For what feels like the billionth time tonight, he says: “I’m not mad at you—”

“Do you know how much this hurts?” she interrupts, but this time her voice is small, like it’s hiding in the back of her throat. She could shout at him all night but it’s this tone that makes Theo hurt the most. “I just thought you’d be a little more supporting, you know, you’re my friend, after all, but…”

“I do support you. I won’t be stopping you from leaving,” he says.

“Then why does it hurt?” she blurts, and it’s obvious on the look on her face that she hadn’t meant to. She turns her back to him, crossing her arms in front of her chest. She takes a few shuddering breaths in the silence Theo doesn’t dare get in the middle of, and continues, “why did it seem like you were disappointed?”

Theo stops. Genuinely doesn’t know what to say, just stares at her back in front of him, feeling like she’s already disappearing out of his grasp. That if he reaches out to her right now he won’t be able to reach her—so he does, stretching a hand to see if he can still touch her, the soft cotton of her cardigan—

And he does, and it makes her turn toward him, anger in her eyes.

“I’m not disappointed,” he says. It’s all he can say. It’s the only truth that his mouth can form a shape around. “I’m very proud of you.”

And somehow—somehow that makes it worse. “Then act like it!” she says, tears already stinging the corner of her eyes. “Don’t just push me away and then expect me to be fine with it.”

“I wanted to give you space and let you focus on what you have to do.”

“I didn’t want to focus you out of my life, Theo!” she says. She looks at him like a wounded beast, pain radiating everywhere. “You don’t get to decide what things I add or cut off from my life, you do know that right?”

The thing is, he could admit right now. Could just tell her that he’s been running himself sick wondering if he should tell her. But he doesn’t want to tell her. Why would he, when all she’s ever really wanted was to go away? Why would he when all she’s wanted was to be free of anything that’s holding her down, and he doesn’t want to be that.

He wants her to go.

He does. Or maybe he doesn’t. It doesn’t matter, because he knows what he has to do.

He’s always been the one that stays.

Which is just a prettier way of saying he’s the one that gets left behind.

Her voice takes him back to the present, the sound of it sinking in his brain.

“Did you ever stop to consider what I’d feel about this?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re my friend, I wanted you to be by my side and—”

“I’m sorry.”

“—it’s not that I couldn’t have done it on my own, but—”

“I’m sorry.”

“—you don’t know what’s going on in my head all the time and I don’t know what goes on in yours,” she says. “Theo, what if I told you I loved you?”

He falters for just a moment, but then he says: “I’m sorry.”

Silence. She looks at him for a long moment, her eyes glassy. No tears fall.

Maybe if they begin to roll down her cheeks, she might just get him to say it.

The tears might get him to hold her face in his hands, wipe the tears away, tell her he loves her too, tell her he still wants her to go.

But before they can, she turns away from him and goes back into the room, shouting as she enters: “Oookay, I’m too sober! Give me some more of that gin!”, and the door closes behind her with a small click.

Theo stands outside on the porch in the late spring night, with no words left in him.

--

They stay away from each other for the rest of the night.

Theo wakes up just as the sun is about to rise. Napoleon, Leonardo, and Sebastian seem to have taken shelter in the house’s other bedrooms—but he, Arthur, Dazai, Isaac, her friend, and her have camped out in the living room to sleep.

Theo’s eyes scan the room. Professor Newton arrived late last night but joined in just as he’s promised. Her friend had clung all night to Newton like a flirty leech, and the usually-reclusive man had no choice but to stay still and… well, stay flustered; Theo wakes up to him draping his jacket over her friend, as he tries to leave ahead of everyone else to make it to his morning class.

Across the room, Dazai and Arthur are also already awake, watching something intently on Dazai’s phone, giggling and with their hands held together in between them over the blanket. Theo doesn’t know at this point if they are lovers or really just fuck-buddies, but he yearns anyway—to be able to have the courage to connect like that.

And next to Theo, she is asleep, huddled under a blanket with a silly print, a large cartoon penguin sitting on top of an iceberg. The penguin has its arms raised wide, open, laid upon her side like protecting her from danger. From him. And Theo—Theo is about to reach out his hand and brush off the stray lock of her hair that’s now dangled in front of her face, trying his best to not wake her up with his movement.

She makes a small sound, and Theo’s heart stops for a moment, but then she does not wake up.

She’s right there next to him, and she hasn’t left, and it’s still spring, so she isn’t leaving soon, but Theo already feels so lonely. To whom will he recite the interesting lines of poetry that he encounters? To whom will he discuss all sorts of philosophies with, sitting in the alcove, waiting out the rain? Who else will be at the bookstore every week, aggressively haggling for books that already are in set prices, who else will team up with Arthur to make his head hurt? Who else will ring their little bike bell when they pass the bookshop at odd hours of the day?

His hand grazes just the tops of her cheeks as he tucks the stray lock of hair away behind her ear. He imagines the flush of it, should she be awake. But she is not awake, and he gets to be alone in his loneliness. His touch hovers there for just a moment, memorizing her warmth, before he pulls his hand back, and turns away.

Across the room, Arthur is watching, and shaking his head in defeat.

#the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart #ikemen vampire #ikevamp theo

[kyber-kisses]

Too Soon (part.12)

Dean Winchester x Reader

Warnings: spoilers for 15x04, the usual angst, cursing, spn level gore

Summary: A reality without you in it? That’s not a world Dean wants to live in. y/n tries to ease some of the tension between her and Dean.

Red.

That’s all he could see. It wasn’t just the flashing emergency lights of the bunker- it was the anger and fire he felt boiling in every nerve and cell of his body. the feeling practically wrapped around him like a blanket.

Happiness never lasted too long. Not in this life. But he never expected it to go like this. So terribly, terribly wrong.

Adjusting his rolled up sleeves and adjusting his tactical vest, he stalked down the hallway, hand white knuckling the pistol gripped between his fingers. This was a mission, and he had to finish it.

Another screech from down the hallway sent his feet moving forward faster, his hunter 6th sense kicking into full gear. The moment the demon came into view He stalked forward, using his reflexes to grab onto its wrists and twisting, successfully forcing it to the ground. As he did, he could see another demon rounding the corner. Without hesitation he aimed and fired, still holding the first one down.

When the body hit the tile, he twisted his first opponents arm once again, listening to the crack of bone as he threw him against the wall. Not hesitating once, he threw a punch, sending the demon towards the ground. He aimed again, and fired.

One bullet.

Two bullets.

Three bullets.

His anger had him emptying an entire cartridge into its skull. Bullet after bullet. Watching as the life flickered out of its face. Reaching into the vest strapped to his chest, he loaded a new cartridge into his gun, continuing his way down the hallway.

Dean Winchester took down demon after demon as he stalked through the bunker, searching for one thing and one thing only.

His brother.

In the short time span the body count within the building grew. Half of them were monsters and demons and the other half were people on his side. He had just lost Benny in the process and that just became another name on a very long list of people he couldn't save. He failed to protect.

After what felt like an eternity, he stepped into the war room, eyes scanning the piles of bodies around him. How did it come to this?

As if on cue the man himself stepped out into view, wiping the blood off his hands with smirk.

“Sam.”

The words came out slowly, Dean taking even slower steps as he neared his brother- or what used to be his brother. Gun still raised, he locked eyed with the executioner.

Sam Winchester smiled, looking down the steps towards the figure of his brother. “Dean, don’t try to stop me. You should know that, especially after Sioux Falls.”

“What you did to them. . .” Dean took another step forward, eyes burning. “What you did to Bobby, Jody- what you did to Y/N.” His voice cracked as your name left his lips.

Every time he closed his eyes. Every time he blinked all he could see was your mangled and bloodied corpse. It was painted into the insides of his eyelids. He couldn’t shake it. Your cold, dead eyes. Your still chest. a limp, pale hand. every feature seemed to pop out in his mind.

“They tried to stop me.” Sam stated, his face going sour with disgust. “And I will not be stopped.” He continued, taking a single step forward as he did.

“You killed the love of my life--. My best friend.” Dean swallowed, failing to notice he had dropped his weapon in defeat. “My wife.” He ended with a deep sigh, looking up to his brother with an even more pained expression.

Dean Winchester was a shell of the man he once was- and it was all due to his brother. His baby brother.

“Sammy, listen to me, this is the demons blood. You gotta fight it.” He urged desperately. As he did, Dean let his thumb trace over his wedding band- a tick he had developed to keep him calm. “Please.”

Sam smiled again, his grin wicked and unfriendly as he bore down on his brother. “Now why would I want to do that?” With a quick flick of his head, Sam got rid of the last remaining piece of his past.

Dean Winchesters neck snapped, his body crumpling to the floor.

Going down the remainder of the steps, Sam passed the body of his older brother, only pausing for a second to look down at him.

“Tell Y/N I say hello when you see her.”

And with that he stalked forward, leaving all parts of his past behind.

*. *. *. *. *.

It had been almost two weeks since your outburst with Dean. The atmosphere inside the bunker was tense. The three of you were each dealing with somewhat different problems. Sam spent most of the time locked away in his room, Dean was either drinking or just going on drives by himself. You on the other hand- well you found yourself wandering the halls of the bunker deep in your own thoughts or you were seated at a table in the library reading. Anything to distract you from the tension.

You still talked to Dean- even if it was just to ask a question or you were passing each other in the hallway. There was somewhat of an awkwardness between the both of you. Each time you acknowledged each other it was almost like neither of you knew what to do to make it comfortable.

Dean understood all too well that he had hurt you, and he felt terrible because of it. He wanted to apologize more than anything, make everything go back to how it used to be- he just didn’t know how to. His blood still boiled when he thought of Cas. Hell, he couldn’t even bring himself to utter his name. He knew he shouldn’t be acting like this, but that was how he worked - that was how he had always worked.

It was early in the morning when you had your usual bump in with Dean as you stepped into the kitchen. The two of you maneuvering around each other in silence as you both poured your coffee. You could have easily just left the room once you were done, but instead you found yourself stopping in your tracks.

“Dean?” You quietly questioned, turning back around to look at the older Winchester. “Can I talk to you?”

The was a pause, Dean slowly looking over the rim of his mug as he lowered it from his lips. “Uh, sure.” His voice almost coming out in a whisper as he leaned back against the counter.

You took a deep breath, eyes darting down to look at the dark liquid in your mug. “Well, um- first of all; I don’t want you to think I’m apologizing for yelling at you a few weeks ago. I don’t think I’m ever gonna apologize for that. “ you stated quickly, fingers tightening around the mug as you did.

There was silence again, you half expected him to fight back, justifying his reasons for why he acted the way that he did- but there was none. He took another sip of his coffee, setting it down on the counter next to him. He ran a hand down his face,for some reason finding it hard to look it you.

“But I am sorry for isolating myself from you- and from Sam these past few weeks. Our family is already fractured, I shouldn’t have done that.” You breathed, shaking your head quickly. You were going to continue but Dean stopped you, putting a hand up in the air.

“Woah, woah, woah, No Y/N.  don’t say that. We all had an equal part to play in that. It’s not your fault. Don’t apologize.” He shook his head, eyebrows knitted together in confusion. He could see you were beating yourself up about it. He knew the look all too well from his own experiences. He let out a sigh, crossing the kitchen in a few strides. Once close enough he reached out to grasp your hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “It’s not your fault.” He repeated, eyes locking with your own.

You nodded, giving his hand a squeeze as well. The two of you going silent as you looked into each others eyes. It was a good amount of time before Deans eyes darted away awkwardly, turning to walk back to the counter.

“I was gonna make breakfast. You want some?”

“Uh, yeah sure.” A small smile taking up your features as you watched him. “ You need any help?”

“Nah, I’m all good.” He shrugged, pulling out a pan before venturing to the fridge. A part of you felt dissapointed that he didn’t want your help. The two of you used to make breakfast together all the time. Singing terribly off key to music on the radio while you did. Sometimes even loud enough to wake up Sam.

Smiling at the memory you made your way over to the kitchen table, sliding into one of the chairs and nursing your cup of coffee. Now that the two of you had had somewhat of a conversation you realized how much you missed talking to him. Yes, you were still mad at him for making Cas leave, but he was still your partner in crime. You helped keep each other grounded.

you just hoped that your words were enough to get Dean in the right frame of mind again. You needed him to understand- more than anything. You had a gut feeling that this fight against God had only just begun, and if you were correct, everyone needed to be on the same page.

Twenty minutes later, Dean was sliding a plate of bacon and eggs across the table towards you before taking a seat himself. “Cooked the eggs in bacon grease. Just how we like em.” He shot you a smile before shoving a forkful into his mouth.

“You know me so well Winchester.” You sighed, pulling the plate closer and grabbing a fork.

“Damn right I do.” He mumbled, eyes falling on you for a moment before moving to the door. “Heya, Sammy.”

Whipping your head around, you watched as Sam made his way into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from his eyes. You gave him a small smile as he slid into the vacant seat next to you. You could see his eyes darting between you and his brother suspiciously.

“Here have some veggie bacon.” Dean slid another plate across the table. While Sam shot his brother a confused glare you were sending him more of a scolding glare, knowing full well that it wasn’t veggie bacon.

“What?”

“You’ve been asking for it.” Dean countered, biting into his own piece of bacon.

“Yeah, but every time I do, you say- and I’m quoting I don’t want any of that hippie, grass eater crap in the meat mans kitchen.” Sam finished slowly, his brain clearly still trying to wrap around the whole thing.

Upon hearing what Sam had just said your own brain had a disconnect, making you inhale coffee down the wrong pipe, proceeding to make you cough midway through your sip of coffee. Both brothers turning their heads to give you a worried glance.

“And for what it’s worth, you gotta stop calling yourself the Meat Man.” Sam continued, throwing a slightly disturbed look at his brother. “It doesn’t mean what you think it means.” He stated, raising his eyebrows.

You were trying desperately to suppress your laughter, keeping your coffee mug held up to your lips in a half assed attempt to hide it.

of course Dean would call himself the Meat Man.

Dean let out a light breath, somewhere between a huff and a laugh, a short period of silence settling right after. “Uh, yeah it does.” He countered.

Don’t laugh Y/N. Don’t laugh.

“Anyways it’s not that bad, give it a shot.”

Sam shook his head with a smile, “no- I’m good.” With that he was pulling out a book, trying to get away from the attention on him.

You could see The cogs in Deans head moving, processing. He knew Sam wasn’t doing well. You expected him to say something about it but he didn’t. You studied Deans features with a small frown. He looked tired. He looked so so tired. Seeing him like this broke your heart all over again.

“Well, anyways I think I found us a case.” Dean tried, flipping the computer around to face you and Sam. “In the last month there has been over a few dozen cattle mutilations in Beaver dale, Iowa.” Trying to busy himself, Dean slid out of his seat, grabbing his coffee cup and silently gesturing for you to hand yours over as well so he could refill it.

“So? It could be a mountain lion.” Sam countered, shrugging as he kept his eyes on the pages of his book.

“Well, three days ago the body of a girl was found. Sounds like our sort of thing. We should go check it out.” Dean returned to the table, handing you back your now full cup of coffee, giving you a small wink as he passed it over. Quickly thanking him, you brought it to your lips again, attempting to hide the faint blush crawling up your face.

“I’m down. I need to get back into the game anyway. Apparently I’ve become rusty with my skills.” You confessed, mind bouncing back to when you were thrown around like a rag doll by a vengeful spirit.

With a little persuasion the younger Winchester finally agreed. You and Sam staying seated at the table as Dean walked out of the room, leaving to go pack. As he did you failed to notice Sam reaching for the bacon. It was too late to warn him as he bit into the piece. You watched with a grimace as he spit it back onto the plate.

“Dean! This is real bacon!”

Deans figure quickly appeared in the doorway again. “You’re damn right it is!” He thrust a finger out to point at Sam, his other hand still gripping his coffee. He then used his thumb to point back at himself, still very serious. “Meat Man!”

You and Sam sat in confusion, staring at the doorway Dean had disappeared through. There was silence for a good minute as you tried to come up with words.

“Why- why is your brother so goddamn weird?” You questioned. Sam let out a huff, shaking his head.

“I honestly don’t know. I stopped trying to figure that out years ago.” A smirk crossed his features as he looked over at you, seeing a wide smile on your face.

You loved Dean. It was incredibly easy to see. Hell, anyone could see it if they had functioning eyes. Sam was grateful that you were back. Dean needed something good in his life, and this was it.

Taglist:

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#dean winchester imagine #dean winchester #dean winchester x reader #spn x reader #SPN #supernatural #spn imagine #supernatural imagine #supernatural x reader #bi-danvers0

[theplaguezine]

STRATOVARIUS

Interview with Jens Johannson by Daniel Hinds

(conducted May 2003)

At the start of the 90s, it would have been folly to predict that power metal would be the big thing in the metal world by the end of the decade, yet that's just what happened.  One of the bands leading that revolution was Finland's masters of bigger-than-life metal, Stratovarius.  Their slick combination of melody, speed, orchestration and, yes dammit, metal has made them one of the biggest bands in the genre the world over.  The thing that amazes me the most about the band is they somehow manage to make each new album even better than the previous ones and Elements Pt. 1 is utterly brilliant.  Keyboard maestro Jens Johansson recently gave me the background on this phenomenal release… Prior to recording Elements, the band took an extended break.  Do you think it helped to get away from it for a while? I think so.  Of course, it's difficult to say how the album would have turned out if we had just forced it without the break.  Maybe the listener wouldn't be able to tell the difference, but for us it was much nicer recording it this way.  When we finally got back in the studio, everybody was really excited about the prospect.  The problem was we did five records and five tours in five years, basically.  It got very hectic and that's when we decided to take this break.  Perhaps it shows in the record because everyone was confident that we had enough time.  It gave us more time to do anything we wanted to do, explore every little avenue or waste time on stupid stuff in case it turns out better. So you got to experiment a little more this time then? A little bit.  More in the sense of production or trying out different ideas.  I wouldn't say it was a highly experimental record compared to the other ones, it's still well within the style. What did everyone do during the break?  Did you work on other music or just totally get away from it? I think a couple of us did that.  Timo the guitarist and Timo the singer made solo records, but that didn't take so much time.  I think in the case of Timo the guitar player, it took maybe a couple of months at the most.  I guess everybody just sort of relaxed and then this September 11th crap happened in the middle of everything, too.  It was a good time to take a break. This is possibly the most diverse collection of songs you guys have done yet.  Did it just work out that way? I don't know.  It could maybe stem from the fact that the tempos are a little lower.  The average tempo is maybe lower than the previous one, but beyond that I think maybe just because we had more time to work on the stuff.  Of course, if you have very high tempos, you can't fill in with too many things because it becomes too cluttered.  I think it's just a combination of everyone being happy to go back to work and having more than enough time. "Soul of a Vagabond" is quite possibly my favorite Stratovarius song ever.  What are your thoughts on that track?  It seems to have a little of everything. When you record something, you really don't know what's going to turn out good or bad, but I like it, too.  A lot of those orchestral songs are very slow and I would say that is the fastest of the orchestral songs, the epic songs.  It's got more of a driving pulse to it.  A lot of people like it, but then they had this vote on the web page on which song people liked best and a lot of people voted for the first, very poppy song ["Eagleheart"], so you can never really second-guess what people will think, it's impossible.  You can't really get inside people's heads…fortunately, I guess (laughs).  You just have to throw shit against the wall and see what sticks. (laughs) Can you tell me a bit about the concept behind Elements and when we can expect a pt. 2? Actually, it's pretty close to being finished right now.  It's not really a concept record, though.  I think we have some sort of tradition that we name the album after one of the longer tracks - it doesn't really mean it's a concept album.  That of course becomes a problem with Elements 2because that album has nothing to do with Elements whatsoever.  I don't know why it's going to be called Elements 2 (laughs).  I think, in my mind, it's more like a double-album; it's just released over the span of a year.  When the first one was released, we were still working on the second one and we'll put that out as soon as it's finished, which should be at the end of this year. Did the band do anything new this time recording wise? Not as far as completely bold ideas.  The only thing we did now that we haven't done is to be consciously aware of not compromising, because we had so much time.  If there was some strange avenue to go down, more often it was explored than not.  The songs are what they are - I mean, they're not going to be reggae songs or anything very experimental.  Production-wise, technically and stuff like that, we really took care to make it sound as good as it can.  And also arrangement-wise.  Apart from that, there's not a huge difference.  It's done in the same studio up in Helsinki as the other albums.  There's more orchestral stuff, because of the slower songs, it makes sense to spend the money to have the full orchestra do a lot of the stuff. How hard is it to arrange all of the orchestral side of things? We delegate parts of that as well.  There's this one guy who has very good contacts and I think he gets special prices.  He's done it on a couple of the other records for us as well.  We tell the guy approximately how it should sound, sometimes very specifically, and after that he works on making the orchestration, printing up all the parts for the guys to play it.  If we didn't delegate that, I think it would be very messy.  We'd have to learn a whole new process of interaction with these people.  He's like our intermediary, which is very handy, and he's quite talented as well.  Some of the ideas he came up with as well, with the arrangements, and some of it was too crazy so they ended up cutting it out.  He's a cool guy.  That's basically how we worked.  He would have tapes and we would have meetings with him about stuff and then he would contact the orchestra to actually record the parts.  It's like a very expensive and very sophisticated, thinking keyboard (laughs) that you can tell sometimes very vague things or hum things and all of sudden they appear in orchestral form.  It's the best way to do it, I think.  If you want to have that fine of control over it without knowing the mechanics in such detail, I think you'd be in a bit of trouble when the time comes to record.  I think you'd be nervous and want to change things at the last minute.  You'd be running around with a pencil and penciling things into people's scores and stuff. (laughs)  I think it's worth it because you can sometimes make this kind of orchestral stuff with keyboards and samplers, but it doesn't sound as good.  It doesn't sound as organic or living, basically - it's canned.  You're always playing canned notes.  It's like somebody else is recording the orchestra playing one note and then you're basically playing those back in different combinations.  It's not as living as when you have all the people focusing on the parts at the same time in real time - it's a completely different sound.  And it's fucking expensive. (laughs)  They've gone to the conservatory for ten years, so they don't really play for pizza and beers, like in the rock world. Can you give me an idea of your involvement in the creative side of the band and how it has changed since you joined? I think that's where we spend most of the energy this time, in the rehearsals.  We allowed ourselves a lot of rehearsal time, like a month or something, and that's where you hash out what goes where.  You need to do that, just playing through the songs and thinking of new things, new approaches.  That's still the time-tested and best way to deal with it, I think.  It's like three guys in the bands that have even tried to write songs and that's me and the singer and Tolkki.  We have decided that what we do is when the time comes around to make a new record, each one of us pull out what we have in terms of material at the time that could fit; then we let Timo Tolkki decide which songs we should rehearse and which we should record.  It becomes very simple. I had maybe four or five songs that I thought could remotely fit on either of the albums and I think Timo the singer had two or something.  In the end, it's just best if he decides because otherwise we would just argue too much about it (laughs).  We would waste more time on that than recording.  He's the longest-surviving member of the band, even though he's not an original member, but there's nobody left form the first line-up.  So far, it's worked really well, really smooth recordings.  The natural instinct when you start out is, 'Oh yeah, I have to have my songs on the album,' but as long as the albums are good, I don't really care who is writing the stuff.  I try to make as much material as I can that might fit, but it's difficult.  It has to be a certain style and I'm not so good at writing that style. Stratovarius has done a number of albums now.  Is it hard to come up with new ideas? Yeah, a little bit.  Of course, you have the old albums as baggage and the people who listen to those old albums, so you have in your mind that you don't want to make too much of a departure.  Even if we completely became reggae fans, it would be very difficult to make a reggae record - people would be very angry.  We would spend more time fending off our old fans than we would our brand new reggae album (laughs).  I still can imagine that we can make more records without it being too much cliché, but who knows.  It's very hard to say.  It's a fine line to tread if you want to make something too different or too much like the old stuff. I saw you had a song you wrote called "Run Away" on the single - why is it not on the album? I don't know.  I guess we had a limit on how long we could make it and had lots of songs that we could have thrown on there.  It's also like, you need songs for a single, so we always record a few more than we need and they end up getting used somehow. What are some of the most challenging songs for you to play? I think the songs are quite easy to play, actually.  They're a lot harder to write and record.  Once that part is done, there is nothing technically difficult about them.  I think any decent prog metal might be able to play this stuff half asleep.  Some of the fast stuff might be difficult to play on the drums unless you're used to that type of stuff.  The kids nowadays, the tempos that they play in death metal bands, they could probably do it completely drunk and with one foot amputated.  (laughs)  It's not technically challenging, none of it.  But the writing and the production - you have to be inspired. Can you give me your idea of the personality of each member of Stratovarius? We all have a lot in common actually, which is why I think we've stayed together so long, like six years now.  We have four Scandinavian guys and one German, the center of gravity is somewhere up in Scandinavia, which is in itself a bit strange with how many people up there a little weird.  One of the central things with people up there is that people don't talk so much.  There are good sides to that and bad sides as well, but people don't tend to waste words.  I know that that has created problems in the past because if you are used to people communicating, you just don't understand why they don’t' say anything.  If something is wrong, why don' they speak up?  It's just a cultural thing that is sometimes very hard to understand for people who aren't used to it.  Of course, I am completely used to it and in a sense it's good because there's not so much bullshit flying around.  People speak when they need to.  Apart from that, there are like different personalities, but in a sense everybody focuses on the big picture of the band.  There's no really big fights or drug use or anything and I think that contributes to the stability.  There are no really crazy people in the band.  Everybody has a clear understanding of what needs to be done and everybody trusts Timo the guitar player with a lot of the decisions.  Unlike some other bands I've been in where people are constantly fighting over control over the whole situation, whether it is money or creative-wise, you get these skirmishes or all-out wars on these things.  It eats up a lot f the time you could spend doing other stuff.  Everybody in this band is on the same page.  The outside of the band is the drummer; of course because he's from Germany, but he's spent so much time in the band, he's turning into a Scandinavian guy as well.  He's being poisoned by the sick shit going on up there (laughs).  He was a normal talkative guy when he joined the band. (laughs) Do you enjoy touring? I actually like touring - it's the traveling I don't like.  The playing part is very nice; the other 23 hours a day wears you down in the end.  Living without a fixed point, cramped spaces, sometimes bad food, staying up late and having to wake up.  But the playing of course is nice; we all still enjoy that bit.  With this break behind us now, I think some of us might even be excited to go out traveling again, which is unheard of. Stratovarius at The Metal Archives

#Stratovarius #interview #may2003

[jinniesxlamp]

Goodbye, Hello - Chapter 4

LIST OF CHAPTERS –> Masterlist

Surely, the scortching rays of sunlight that penetrated through every grain of sand, and the outside temperature of thirty one degrees celsius were more than enough to precipitate a gushing amount of sweat pouring endlessly out of thirty-plus bodies scattered along the beachside of Pyeongchang. 

The torturous heat stretching across the unsure filming site only gave out the least apprehension; The nerve-wracking, heart-stopping sound of each 'cut’ that was relentlessly made over twenty times in a span of five minutes; The sharp, vulturous eyes of the impatient woman standing by the director, eyeing the entire vicinity with grave intimidation. Now these...these were the big stressors.

What felt like an eternity of both verbal and non-verbal tension finally ended as the first scene was finally perfected. The heavy, displeased sigh that had come from the woman in front of the disappointing crew caused a drought in everyone’s throat; one that was enough to prevent them from speaking.

“After the fifteen minute break, gather around in one area before proceeding with the next scene” demanded the woman.

“Wae?” Asked one of the younger crew members who in return received threatening looks from his colleagues. He didn’t really have to add more insult to the injury.

If it weren’t for the phone call that basically just saved them from an hour-long sermon and what-not, that poor boy would have had his first taste of what the rest of the staff would pertain to as “it-was-nice-knowing-you” conversation with the boss.

Y/N’s POV

Everything about this day was frustrating to say the least. I was never really called in to do site visits unless bad problems occurred, which unfortunately was the case today. I came two hours early to the office to finish two stacks of paperwork, not to be sent three hours away from Seoul because of a highly disorganized filming location and incompetent staff who had to be tamed.

Somedays I wish I wasn’t the problem fixer. 

The young boy who had the audacity to answer back in that tone made me twitch another nerve, lucky for him Chairman Byeon had called, again. 

“Yeoboseyo, Chairman Byeon” a heavy, displeasing yet predictable sigh was the first thing I could hear. What is it this time.

—

Yoongi’s POV

Two weeks. That’s how long it has been since we’ve started airing Champion Trainee Season 2, a talent show featuring trainees from agencies all over South Korea who competed for the title of “Champion Trainee”. Each season focused on different aspects talent-wise. Season 1, which aired over a year ago was in search for the best vocals among the younger ones. This season’s focus was rap, and that’s exactly the reason why I’m here. Why we’re all here.

Today was supposed to go by fast, or so we thought. In the two weeks-span, everything seemed to be in place, no disputes, no technical errors, nothing. Not a single problem was encountered. But today, the air that circulated around the vicinity was different. Maybe too different. Something was wrong.

Everyone was doing what they were expected to do; the stylists were in one corner, preparing the attires, some of the noonas were ironing while some were fiddling with the clothing. All the camera directors were also huddled in their stations, coordinating with the script writers and producers. The lights men and sounds personnel were doing their usual duties as well. It seems like a normal day to us, but we all know it wasn’t on their end.

“Museun il-iya?” All heads turned to Monsta x’s Jooheon who seemed to have noticed the oddness that was going around.

“Jinjja! I thought it was me. You feel it too right??” Jumped Got7′s Bambam announcing his own similar feelings.

“Why is everyone acting weird? It’s like they’re all nervous or something” Hwasa, who had been turning her head from all directions joined into the conversation as well.

Now that everyone had brought it up, the harder it was to ignore the little things that felt somewhat off, especially now that we’re barely just sitting backstage on our seats, waiting for the show to start.

“I think they lost something important” Lisa, who had just returned from walking around the studio joined into the discussion we were having.

“I heard one of the producers talking on the Phone with Park In Jung, she said something about a License” Chaeyoung, who was tailing Lisa continued, chewing on the manggae she had most likely grabbed from the snackbar

“License? Geuge mwoji?”

“It must be their License to Operate.” I said, answering Jooheon who had an even more puzzled look on his face.

“Oh! That would make sense. I would be nervous too if I had lost that thing” said Loco.

“What does that mean, Oppa?” Asked Hwasa

“It means that we’re illegally operating right now if they lost that thing.” Sounded an unfamiliar voice, making all of us to turn back to its direction.

“Ehhh?!” Bambam, who clearly was starting to get nervous about the whole situation yelped.

“But don’t worry, someone is coming in to take care of it. I just thought we would let all of you know.” The young man, who we later on learned was one of the producers gave us a reassuring nod.

After introducing himself as Im Daehan, he right away told us about how Park In Jung couldn’t come in today due to a same-day meeting he had all the way in Jeju Island. Hence, adding more difficulty for the staff to fix the current issue.

“Is that why everyone seems so restless? Because In Jung isn’t here and the License incident?” Hwasa who seemed to be the most curious about this whole situation inquired some more.

Somehow, her comment seemed to force out a heavy sigh from Daehan. One that sparked more interest from all of us.

“I want to believe it is....but it’s not, actually.” The young producer smirked, eyebrows raised, hand behind his neck, massaging it in distress.

“What do you mean?” Jooheon questioned.

Before anyone else could make another sound, the noticeable change in Daehan’s facial expression was enough to catch our attention.

“You’ll see why” he said as he ran forward to where the door was, greeting the body that had just walked in.

A woman. I could barely picture her face, the mix of both darkness and random beams of light made it difficult for me to see anything clearly from a distance. But what I did notice though, was the change in behavior of everyone else inside the room. Everyone, except us seven. Jaws clenching, throats drying, mouths shut and bodies stiffenning—like statues. So this was the reason.

It’s her.

Who was this woman?

Allowing my sense of sight to adjust without force, I started to see clearly after a few blinks. She wore a baby blue sundress that flowed until her knees, revealing milky white skin below it. Closer, I thought. I was curious to know who she was.

The next five steps she took already gave me a sustainable view of her neckline, revealed through a decent v-cut on the midline of her chest. Until they made a stop by the well-lit snackbar that stood only eight feet from where we were, the rest of her features were still slightly unclear. Slowly, they began unblurring.

Long, brown hair—strong, furrowed brows—eyes that could demand authority towards anything it met—stern, but soft-looking peach pink lips that remained still and quiet.

That’s all there was to picture. That’s all I thought there was...until I noticed something familiar. In fact, too familiar. A white gold pendant dangled along her neck, glistening from the perfect contrast of her pale, white skin. I’ve seen this pendant before.

Years ago. Five years ago.

It can’t be. Can it?

“Oh. Isn’t that the lady that came on the first day?” Suddenly my moment of hysteria paused, turning to where Chaeyoung was.

“It’s Y/N.” Scoffed Jooheon, smirking as his arms folded across his chest.

That name.

Just when that started to resonate inside my head over and over, a certain scene from weeks ago flashed before my memory. It was when I was going over the show guide that I had encountered that name.

So it is her.

Y/N’s POV

Within a six hour time frame, a total of seventy three people have drained me of all my energy that could’ve sufficed for another ten hours. First I was sent to Pyeongchang to fix one site’s problem, and not even an hour after I had gotten there I was sent back to Seoul to cover for In Jung to fix another site’s problem.

Taking a tremendously deep, exhausted breath, I wanted to scream inside this small, secluded room where I spent almost an hour and a half making phone calls to secure another copy of the License to Operate in this vicinity.

“Naega michingeoya” I whispered to myself, rubbing my face with both my hands, pushing my hair back afterwards.

Leaning back on my chair, I rested my sight on the piece of bundled paper that sat right in front of me. It was a list of names for everyone involved in this project.

“Come in” I said calmly as I heard a knock on the door. It was Soojin.

“Y/N, a few people want to see you. Can I bring them in here?” Peeking her head over the small opening made by the door, she asked.

I nodded carelessly. While waiting for ‘them’ to enter, my gaze shifted back to the bundle of paper. Sliding it towards my direction, I began flipping over the pages, going over names I’m already familiar with until I heard another knock on my door.

“Come in” I said, eyes still fixed on the sheet I was reading.

“Annyeonghaseyo”

Said a voice that was too ecstatic for my day. Paying almost no attention to the visitors, I continued to scan over the list that had four more names to be read.

Then, my heart stopped.

Min Yoongi (방 탄 선 연 단)

“Hello” said another voice.

“How have you been?”

In that moment, I felt everything around me slowing down hearing only the very distinct noises—the ticking of the wall clock, roars of heavy machines from outside, and the shuffling of papers that I was holding, the rest were muffles and murmurs. 

There was an unusual weight that pulled my head down, unwilling to meet the eyes of the person right in front of me. But I managed to fight the feeling.

“Hello” I said with feign confidence.

How long has it been? Three? Four? Five?

Five years.

I could still remember vividly the last time I had met those eyes, the feelings it had brought me until the very last goodbye. Surprisingly, the memory appeared as though they were fresh that I remember every second of it. All of it but the feeling. My heart no longer recognizes anything from his blank eyes. No hurt nor anger, and especially not love. Nothing. 

“Jugiyo” 

Sounded another set of voice, it was Soojin.

“The attorney is here to see you.”

“Oh, grae. I can see him.” 

“Joesonghabnida, there’s an important matter I need to accommodate. I hope you understand” looking at both Jooheon and Yoongi, I apologized before having Soojin escort them outside.

Yoongi’s POV

Eventually the day had ended even after the midday plight. The rest of the day was spent on a chair, commentating, scoring and applauding the contestants. Something that didn’t really require physical efforts, causing me to ask myself: Why am I always tired at the end of the day?

Walking myself to the parking lot as soon as I had bid goodbye and said my thank yous to the staff and crew, the only thought that lingered inside my head was a hot pot of kimchi jjigae on the center of our dining room table with steam running towards the ceiling. It was our fifth year anniversary today. The boys are at home, waiting for me to finish so we can have dinner together. As soon as the thought of stew faded, replaced with those boys’ faces, I heard a loud ring coming from my left pocket.

“Are you on your way?” 

“Oh. I’ll be there in ten minutes”

“Arasso. Drive safe!” 

I had gotten to the parking lot right after I ended the call with Jin hyung. Halfway through opening the door of my black Audi, I started hearing resounding footsteps that potentially came from a pair of high heels. But of course, it wasn’t that that delayed me from entering my vehicle. It was the voice that came with it.

“De, Chief Byeon. De. We have the new copy. De. I’ll work on it in the morning.”

Leaning my back on the cold metal of my door with both hands tucked inside my pockets, I watched as she ransacked her purse, struggling to find what I assumed to be her car keys while she answered her phone that she clipped between her ears and her shoulders. Tossing her purse and the rest of what she was carrying into the passenger’s seat, I attempted to initiate another conversation before she entered her own car.

“How are you? You didn’t get the chance to answer me earlier”

I could tell she was completely unaware of me being here as she stopped halfway into stepping her foot in. 

“This is unexpected for the both of us. I’m surprised to meet you here as you are to see me. Am I right?” I asked again as she seemed to ignore my previous question.

“Andwae. I knew I’d see you again sometime soon. The industry is small, after all. But you on the other hand....never in your whole life would you have imagined our paths crossing again this way.” 

An amused grunt, along with a usual smirk was my only response upon detecting the masked chicness and sarcasm between her syllables. 

“As your friend for many years, may I at least know how you’re doing?” Again, I asked, making a third attempt.

“Friend?” she grunted back, something that actually caught my attention.

“If this was based on my own preference, then no, you may not know how I’m doing--”

She continued, not even sparing me a glance.

“--I hope you don’t confuse our past affairs with the present, we are not friends.”

Astounded with the words that were spiking out of her, I couldn’t cease myself to stop and look at her with brows furrowed. I have never, ever experienced this with this woman before. This woman who I’ve known for many, many years and was even intimately involved with for a reasonable time being. 

“--but since it’s been a long time since last we’ve seen each other, consider this as a gift--”

“--I’m doing very well, Min Yoongi”

Once again she started to step inside her car, leaving me completely unnerved. And then, before closer shutting the door, she turned to me with an unfamiliar look on her face. I could no longer picture the same woman I once knew, this wasn’t her anymore.

“Goodbye.” she said, confidently.

I watched as she took off in a silver BMW X1, disappearing from the first corner towards the exit.

“Goodbye.” I said, five years ago.

“Goodbye.” She said, five years later.

Who would’ve thought that that foolish word would only mean ‘We’ll see each other again.’

#bts #bts fanfiction #bts angst #bts fluff #bts smut #min yoongi #min yoongi smut #min yoongi angst #min yoongi fluff #bts suga #lee jooheon #monstax #monsta x fanfiction #monsta x fluff #monsta x angst #monsta x smut #kpop smut #kpop fluff #kpop angst #kim namjoon #kim seokjin #jung hoseok #park jimin #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook

[missmarquin]

A Rip in Time

A Yuri On Ice Star Trek Inspired AU by @missmarquin and @theangryuniverse.

Read on A03!

Prologue

There is a lot resting on my shoulders, here.

He could feel it, the weight of his father’s expectations. He had joined Starfleet to get away from his strict and traditional family, but what a stupid idea that had been. Admiral Nikiforov was one of the most renowned Commanders in the history of the organization, and the moment that his own name had been uttered on the roll call lists, all eyes had turned his way.

That was the moment that Victor had decided to show off, rather than coast through the Academy on a low radar. Brilliant, flamboyant, and incredibly gay, he let his talents speak for themselves. He graduated a year early, with grades that were far above par. He was a prodigy when it came to military tactics and planetary navigation, and several of his maneuvers already graced the pages of textbooks.

But it hadn’t been enough. His first assignment had been on his father’s ship, but the man had been so embarrassed by having a gay son, that he had requested Victor to be immediately transferred. Despite happening nearly eight years prior, it still stung.

And now, there he stood on deck three of the Beta Centauri Space Station. Staring out of the forcefield, towards the port where the USS Agape was currently docked. Crewman in spacesuits walked along the hull, making their last minute inspections before it set off. The ship was a prototype model, brand new and sleek, and never-been-flown.

And she was his. Victor had been gifted this amazing Command, marking his place in history as the youngest Starfleet Captain ever, at the age of twenty-seven.

“Did he bother to show up?” he asked, but the moment the question left his mouth, he already knew the answer. Eight years was a long time, but not long enough for a bitter old man to realize that his son wouldn’t ever bring home a girl.

“I sent the invite, as you asked,” another man responded, following it up with a sigh. Victor turned to look at Admiral Yakov Feltsman, his lips twisting into a knowing small, knowing smile.

“I didn’t expect much, honestly,” he replied. “Even making history isn’t good enough for that old fool.”

“Fool indeed,” Feltsman said, “but still technically a superior officer.” He didn’t really mean anything by it though, and Victor laughed.

“I think I get a pass this time, being his son and all.”

“He’d court martial you on the spot, if he heard such informality.”

“He’d court martial me for plenty of other things too, if he could have his way.” Silence stretched between them, and it didn’t take a genius to know exactly what Victor meant. Finally, he back back to look at the ship, and said, “I know that I deserve this. I don’t have to sit here and wonder, ‘Why me’. But I can’t help but wonder-- will I do her justice? Will I do my crew justice?”

The Admiral reached out, pressing a hand against his shoulder. “That’s a question that every Captain asks, and it’s not just the first time. Every Mission brings such a question, and it never gets easier.”

At that, Victor frowned. “If you’re trying to give me a pep talk, it isn’t working.”

“I’m not done,” Feltsman continued with. “It’s a good thing. Imagine if it did get easier? Captains would get sloppy, and when Command is sloppy, people die. It is a good thing to be confident, but it is more important to question yourself. It keeps you in check, and it keeps your crew safe.”

Victor had served on plenty of ships, and he had saved plenty of lives. But never before, had he been responsible for them. But he was the most confident person he knew, and despite his momentary apprehension, he would remain that way.

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he said, reaching over to return the shoulder grasp, trying not to think of things that had happened before. There was nothing good about getting lost in his past. “We’re not going to war, or anything,” he finally finished with.

“That’s more your father’s style,” the Admiral said with a smirk.

Victor smirked back. “Now who’s breaking protocol, with all that informality?”

Feltsman just threw his head back, and laughed in response.

…..

How the fuck did I get here?

The question had been his constant mantra for the last four hours.

Initially, it had been what the fuck am I doing, as he stepped onto the small transport ship. Looking back at his mother, who should have been the concerned one. But she had looked excited for him instead, leaving him feeling like he was going to hurl.

Yuuri Katsuki didn’t do space.

He had graduated the Academy with flying colors, and he could crack complicated alien languages with little more than a few lines of dialogue and a decent set of headphones, but intergalactic space travel?

Absolutely the fuck not.

He was actually impressed with himself, now that he thought about it. He had only wanted hurl, the entire trip to the Space Station, but he hadn’t.

Yet. There was still plenty of time, and despite Beta Centauri being stationary, despite his feet firmly on the deck floor, and the gravitational control systems working to a perfect tee--

There was just so much that could go wrong. Space was dangerous. It was dangerous, deadly and worst of all, permanent. If you died in space, you stayed in space, where there was nothing else. And that freaked him out the most.

He had wanted a post on Earth, preferably. In the end, he would have taken any planet, really. He wanted his feet firmly on the ground, where you could stand nice and solid, and you couldn’t get blown out of the sky, careening to your death, or suffocating in space, or--

There he went again, thinking of the worst of things. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tried to settle himself.

Why the fuck am I here?

A slightly different question, with a slightly different answer. He had been posted to the USS Agape, and for whatever reason he had agreed. Clearly, he was sick.

Or insane.

And still not entirely convinced that he had made the right choice.

Someone stepped right next to him, dropping their bag onto the metal grate of the floor. “Seriously, what a beautiful ship, and she’s all ours!”

Yuuri winced slightly. There was literally nothing beautiful about that death trap sitting out there, and the idea of spending the next few years on there was slowly looking less and less appealing, and he--

He paused, taking a deep breath again. “Nishigori-san,” he said politely, as he turned to look at her. “I would appreciate it, if you wouldn’t remind me about my grave mistake of taking this assignment.”

Yuuko blinked back at him innocently, but he knew better. Finally, her lips curved into a smile. “At least you aren’t alone, you know. At least you have your best friend here.”

Best friend was pushing it, but he was incredibly fond of the woman, and her stupid husband. He had always been a bit of an outcast and a weird kid, and at the academy, they had looked right past that.

They also spoke Japanese, which was an instant comfort.

“It’ll be fine, Yuuri,” she said, opting to drop formality. She had always been casual around him, and he had always struggled with following suit. “I mean, you heard about who our Captain is, right?”

No, he hadn’t, and he told her as such. She looked at him dumbfounded. “I didn’t really read the brief,” he admitted. “I thought that if I did, I’d chicken out and well…” He cast a wary glance back towards the ship.

“You know, I’m honestly surprised that you haven’t passed out.” He was too, but he didn’t waste his time telling her that. She opened her mouth to continue. “Anyhow, we’re under the command of the illustrious Captain Victor Nikiforov. I could just about die, I do believe.”

That made Yuuri come to a full-stop. “Isn’t he the one that destroyed half a ship, with some crazy maneuver?”

Yuuko nodded enthusiastically. “He managed to survive on limited life support, while it took the fleet over two days to find him. Kind of amazing, yeah?”

“And isn’t he the one that the Riki Tiki Niki is named after?”

“I mean, it might be a ridiculous tactic, but it works. Apparently.”

Yuuri just stared at her, like she had lost her mind. It worked, sure, but only if you had a death wish, and didn’t mind being catapulted into dead space if it didn’t. Victor Nikiforov was famous for a million things, not limited to being insane.

“I’ve made a mistake,” he said, breathing faster. “This was a mistake, I can’t… Nishigori-san, I can’t do this--”

He felt two hands press against his shoulders, turning him to face her. “If you say what I think you’re going to say, I won’t hesitate to slap you. Seriously Yuuri, you haven’t worked your ass off to get anywhere but here.”

“Why couldn’t I have been stationed on a planetary outpost? That would be nice, and most of all safe.”

“And useless. Yuuri, this is an exploratory mission. A Xenolinguist of your caliber is necessary.”

“There are plenty of others to choose from,” he said, his throat feeling dry. But she shot him an unconvinced look. “Right?”

“Like I said, Yuuri,” she said, slinging her arm around his shoulder, and motioning to the ship. “You won’t be alone. Takeshi and I will be here with you, every step of the way.”

“More like making sure that I step onto that damn ship,” he muttered.

“Damn right.”

Yuuri sighed and pulled away from her, before leaning over and picking up Yuuko’s bag, and handing it to her. “Then let’s go, before I actually change my mind.”

I’m crazy, he thought, as they left the corner and headed towards the gate. I’m absolutely, fucking crazy, and I will regret this the rest of his life.

Yuuri decided that he could live with the regret.

He just had to survive space first.

…..

I’m tired of all these fucking ships. I’m tired of rules, and captains, and missions that I won’t ever finish.

Six ships. That’s how many ships Yuri Plisetsky had served on, within the span of a year. And he was tired of being kicked off of one, and immediately thrown onto another. The USS Agape would be no exception, he was sure.

He couldn’t help that authority pissed him off. It wasn’t his fault that Starfleet Captains were rigid, unfunny jerks, who couldn’t take a fucking joke. Or you know, something as simple as a suggestion.

Then again, his idea of a suggestion, usually consisted of blowing off an order entirely in favor of a different direction. Sometimes, those directions worked.

But most of the time, he was just some punk who couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

This ship was different than the last, smaller and sleeker in design. And brand-spanking new, from what he had heard, not even broken-in. Different, than his usual assignment. When Starfleet had realized that he had no intention on listening to authority, they had started stationing him on clunkers. Part of him wondered if they were just sick of him.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

He frowned, as distant memories of a mother who didn’t give a shit surfaced, before swapping to a much preferable one of his grandfather. He had told his mother he wanted to soar through the skies, and she had laughed, saying that the idea was ridiculous. Which was ironic, coming from a dancer that was way past her prime. But then he mentioned it to his grandfather Nikolai, who had only ruffled his hair and told him that he would need better grades for that.

Guess which parent he had listened too?

But it hadn’t been easy. Starfleet Academy was built upon rule after rule, classes and grades, and an overall sense of superiority that had pissed him the fuck off for years. The moment he had turned eighteen, had been the best moment of his life.

And then his first position had been a miserable disaster. And then the next… and the next… and the--

This would be the seventh time, he would try to do this whole thing called responsibility, and quite frankly, he wasn’t looking forward to it.

Suddenly, the bag hanging on his shoulder felt heavy, and not because of his belongings within it.

“They said that he asked for you personally,” Kenjirou Minami said from next to him. They weren’t friends, and they barely knew each other, but Yuri recognized his face well enough to remember having classes with him at the academy.

“Who?”

Kenjirou blinked, like he was surprised that he had offered to grace him with words. Yuri reminded himself to make these the last words that he ever said to the man. “Captain Nikiforov, of course.”

It was Yuri’s turn to pause and think. Finally, he blurted, “Why the fuck would he do that?”

The other man shrugged. “Not a clue,” he said, before turning and heading towards the gate.

Yuri hated the way that he followed after him, like a pet cat.

….

I super didn’t design this engine to actually be built.

Really, Otabek Altin hadn’t.

It had started out with mindless tinkering about with temporal mathematics, which had led to theories. He loved theories, and he just had to write them down, and so he did like always. It looked like gibberish to just about anyone except him, and there was literally no credibility to it, aside from the fact that Otabek was a literal genius when it came to these kinds of things.

But then his sister had found the stupid doodle he had made, covered in tons of equations, and she just had the brilliant idea to turn it into Starfleet.

And they had just had the brilliant idea to think that it actually might just work.

Sure, he liked to build engines. He liked the way that tools felt in his hands, and the way that oil and grease stuck to his skin. It was therapeutic, pulling things apart and putting them back together, in the warm heat of the engine room.

He hadn’t meant to design such a thing, and he certainly hadn’t ever planned to build it.

Otabek had met with Starfleet though, despite being a lowly engineer that only fixed warp drives. They had decided to task him with building this ridiculous engine that he had theorized, offering him as many grants and personnel that it would take.

Three years later, and it worked.

Well, at least it had in tests. Moving an entire ship was another matter, and while they had run test drives for months, throwing an entire crew aboard and calling it a mission was something else entirely. And he wasn’t sure that he wanted that responsibility.

He didn’t do people really, he only got along with engines and his sister Maya-- and that was only because they were twins. He had never liked serving on starships, and after having a team of scientists and engineers forced to work with him for several years straight…

Well, he wanted some alone time. And it didn’t look like he was going to get any.

He had to admit though, the USS Agape was just as impressive looking, as the first time he had seen her, for her initial testing.

Maya leaned against him, waiting a long moment before saying, “You know, if you think any harder, you just might break your face.” He didn’t warrant that with a response, prompting her to frown slightly. “Really, what’s going on in that head of yours?”

“The first time we took this engine on a test run, the Temporal Warp Drive blew out half of the ship’s hull.”

He eyebrows rose high and she let out a low whistle. “You told me that the first test hadn’t gone well, but damn Beka.”

“The second time we tested it, the engine imploded instead, throwing half of the ship into a space-time rift that had been ripped into the atmosphere. It took nearly three days to close it, and make sure nothing was damaged beyond repair.”

“And…?”

“The USS Eros was immediately decommissioned, and this one was built.”

Maya hummed lightly at that. “You’ve never been a worry-wart, Beka,” she chastised.

“Even if the Agape has been through extensive testing, that was with a skeleton crew. This time around there’s not ten people, there’s a hundred.” He pointed to her. “Even civilians.”

“And think of the future, when this engine works out perfectly. You’ll have literally changed space travel!”

“If, not when.”

“No,” Maya hissed, “when.” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him shrewdly. “This isn’t about the ship at all, is it?”

“I want to go home, and I want to work on my bike.”

“Why work on a bike, when you could change history?”

Otabek to sighed, before looking at her. “I never wanted to change history, Maya. You made that decision for me.” When she had turned over his work to his commanding officer.

She leaned forward and patted his chest. “Which is why I’m here,” she said sweetly. “I take responsibility for my actions.”

“You’ve always wanted to own a lounge aboard a starship. This isn’t a punishment for you, it’s your damn dream. What was it you used to say? All Starfleet and no play, makes Maya very bored?”

She pulled back with a grunt. “Not everyone is an anti-social technophile of a hermit, who would rather grease up an engine, instead of a woman, if you know what I mean.”

“Maya--”

“You know Beka, I was only thinking of you. I was tired of seeing you mope around your garage--”

“I don’t mope--”

“--covered in who knows what. You’re an engineering genius, made top marks at Starfleet and could have your pick of a Command, and what do you do? You tinker with engines all day in a dirty jumpsuit, and you let that rank go to waste. You’re worth so much more, Beka.”

Otabek sighed. “It’s not about worth, Maya. I like fixing engines. I like working alone. I prefer it.”

Maya only shook her head, tutting at him. “What a waste,” she said with humor. And then she left him, heading for the gate. Otabek sighed again, this time dragging his hand down his face.

New goal-- get to the ship, find the engine room, never leave.

When put that way, it didn’t sound so bad.

#Yurionice #Yuri on ice #Fanfiction #Yuri On Ice Fanfiction #victor nikiforov #yuuri katsuki #otabek altin #Yuri Plisetsky #Star Trek AU #gays in space #victor x yuuri #Otayuri

[rauliskafan]

Magic in Manhattan

Would you like a little Rafael Barba x Reader by way of “Tristan and Isolde?” Read on for more (for lt-sammi-matthews Twist on the Myth Challenge). Enjoy!!!

“You’re going to put the screws to him, right?”

Mark spoke out of the corner of his mouth as the pair of you sat at the defense table, listening to the man whose sole mission in life was to take your client down for fostering a campus rife with harassment complaints. While the idea of the latter turned your stomach, Mark swore up and down that it was a setup, that he was collateral damage in a world gone mad. You wanted to believe him. He had never been anything but generous as your mentor. The fact that he occasionally flirted was beside the point.

The fact that you wanted to beat ADA Rafael Barba at his own game had everything to do with the matter and more.

As soon as the well-dressed man with the emerald eyes rested his closing argument, he sent a smirk your way. You resented it. Did he think that you were being played? Or that you weren’t up to the challenge?

You would do your best to prove him wrong on both counts..

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, good morning. The prosecution took up the better part of an hour essentially repeating the same point. Surprised he didn’t throw an interpretative dance into the mix.”

That got some giggles out the jury, and you took the moment of laughter to deliver your own smirk to the ADA. He sat stone-faced but just curled his long fingers around a gold pen. Good. You wanted to get under his skin from the start.

“I will not be nearly as long-winded,” you continued. “My client, Dr. Mark Brower has served Hudson University’s Criminal Justice Department honorably for the last seven years. He certainly respects the gravity of these accusations. He would be the first to tell you that he applauds any woman with the strength to come forward after an assault.”

You caught a glimpse of Barba leaning forward in his chair. He had to wonder where you were going with this.

“But make no mistake,” you continued. “There are such things as baseless claims in our current climate, and three students in a span of seven years does not a predator make. I would argue it makes up a select student body who simply could not hack the coursework, and now here we are.”

Hearing the murmurs from the gallery mingled with two jurors who nodded at your logic set your mind more and more at ease. And Barba looked ready to sport a glove of ink, his pen about to explode in his palm.

“I’m sure the ADA is prepared to jump through a lot of hoops to convince you otherwise. But we have our own evidence. And when we reach the conclusion of this case, I have faith that you fine people will make the right decision. Thank you.”

Feeling supremely pleased with yourself, you sauntered back to the defense table, your eyes locking with Mr. Barba’s. Perhaps he wanted to wield his pen as a different kind of a weapon. No matter. Those possible sentiments mirrored yours exactly, and by the end of this trial, you would wipe that smug look off his face for good and all.

“Fancy meeting the likes of you here.”

Looking up from your legal briefs, you cringed at the sight of Barba polluting your favorite watering hole. Wasn’t he the Forlini’s type, his lips forever pressed to that holier-than-thou lieutenant’s ass?

“I trust you’re not following me, Mr. Barba,” you challenged as he hovered close to your place at the bar.

“After trying to track your dizzying line of questioning for the better part of the afternoon?” he shot back. “Thank you, no. I’m in the market for a reprieve.”

“And yet, here you are.”

As the bar was jam-packed on a Friday night, the man wearing pinstripes had one of two choices: retreat or assume the seat at your side. It did not surprise you when he opted for the latter, a feeble attempt to mark his territory and make your night a misery.

Two could play at that game.

“What are you working on?” he asked as he sipped a glass of scotch on the rocks.

“In what world do you think I would share my strategy with you?” you inquired in a blistering tone, taking care to shield your notes with your forearm.

“Certainly not this one,” he reasoned. “I thought maybe you were prepping for your next client.”

“My next client?” you asked, suddenly and slightly confused.

“That’s right,” he said, letting you hang in suspense as he took another drink. “Who’s next? Going to try to get Madoff a retrial? Or perhaps you prefer educators who take advantage. Absolutely no shortage of those these days.”

Seething where you sat, working overtime to let the insult wash over you and drip to the floor littered with peanut shells and pretzel dust, you polished off your bourbon and signaled to Bree, the distracted girl behind the bar who kept checking her phone, for another.

“And you are so sure that my client is guilty,” you spat. “Because you’ve never head of someone lying to get a leg up.”

“Of course I have,” he admitted as he downed the rest of his drink. “It happens. I’d ask if you made the same move with Brower---”

“Careful, counselor,” you warned as the door to the bar opened, bringing in a double date and an early autumn breeze.

“I was only going to say that you’ve made your marks based on merit. I would never deny that.”

He finished his drink and also ordered a refill. You stared at him carefully, considering how you should take the compliment and whether or not there was something sinister lurking beneath its surface.

“You would just accuse me of selling out my entire gender to get my name on the front page,” you finally said, not willing to give so much as an inch. Now his silence spoke volumes, and you turned away with a sneer.

“Hey!” you called out to Bree who was deep in conversation with one quarter of the double date. “Some service here, please?”

Bree started forward when her boss, a burly man with tattoos, intervened.

“Come on, Bree,” he muttered. “Got to move faster on a Friday.”

With that, he quickly picked up two shots of what looked like tequila and set one glass before you, one next to Barba.

“On the house,” the tattooed man said. “We’ll get you your right refills in just a moment.”

Needing a drink of something, anything, now, you lifted the shot glass to your lips and drank the contents in one swallow.

Strange. It tasted far sweeter than you expected. Barely any trace of alcohol. If you didn’t know any better, you would swear it was honey seasoned with… seasoned with what? Herbs? Was it laced with something? You just made out Bree’s eyes go wide and started to speak when Barba chuckled.

“That supposed to intimidate me or something?” he asked. “You mixing your drinks? Better study your adversaries a little more closely.”

Before you could offer anything in the way of a warning, he followed your lead and consumed the shot. Almost instantaneously, you saw his puzzled eyes, his lips lengthening into a straight line as his brow furrowed. He had to taste it, too. Had to wonder what was wrong with the beverage. Feeling the need to ask him as much, you met his eyes.

The world stopped moving. All the sounds in the room retired like children being called away from a summer night so they could get some much-needed sleep. The light in the bar stayed dim. Except for the place where Barba sat. There you saw a glow emanating from the man. Had it always been there? Why had you never noticed it before?

“Barba…”

Your own voice sounded different. Softer. At the very least, it was a tone that you had never used with him. When he tried to speak, only a sigh hit the air, sweet and gentle. Like a pie left cooling on a windowsill and promising even more thrills once one bit into the crust to savor the juices of the fruits so artfully buried within.

“I… I don’t know…”

He said nothing else. Simply took your hand in his. That same hand that might have crushed a pen with one squeeze let its fingers lace with yours. So soft. Setting your skin on fire and yet there was no burn.

“I don’t know either,” you murmured as you stretched towards him

And his kiss claimed yours, your flavors blending as you solved the mystery of your heart’s hidden desires by way of his mouth.

“What the hell, Bree?”

“Jerry, I can explain.”

“Did you dose them with something?”

“It wasn’t supposed to be for them.”

“So you admit it?”

“It was for my friends. Well, for their dates.”

“Why? You trying to set them up or something?”

“No! It was to make them fall in love!”

Bree and the bartender continued bickering back and forth. Some sense of sound returned when they ushered you from the bar to a backroom.

But Barba’s moans still bested any other voices.

“God, why didn’t we do this sooner?”

Answering his question with another kiss, you sat beside him on a battered couch. With your arms about his neck, you ran your eager hands across his back, under his blazer. You could feel his muscles straining through his vest, his shirt. He grazed his fingers over your legs and tenderly reached under your skirt. Sliding closer, sighing as he stroked your thighs, you dragged your lips towards his ear.

“Time… wasted,” you managed as you nibbled his lobe. “Looking at you in court every day… it was torture.”

Drawing you nearer, he guided you to his lap. One hand stayed on your leg as he began to unbutton your blouse, your breasts anxious for his touch when Jerry cleared his throat and Bree rushed forward.

“Guys,” she started. “Sorry. I… this was a mistake.”

“Hardly,” Barba argued before gazing into your eyes again. “I was fated to come here tonight. To fall in love.”

“Oh, Rafael!” you sighed, pushing him to his back, desperate to have him wearing much less when Bree furiously clapped her hands and stamped her foot.

“It was a love potion!” she shrieked.

“And it’s in her eyes,” Barba said as he caressed your face, and you leaned your cheek into his palm.

“You say the sweetest things,” you said, needing to kiss him again when Jerry groaned.

“Before I fire you, Bree, please tell me that there’s an antidote.”

“Not really,” she said. “I mean… I mean we could try to separate them or something.”

“Not on your life.”

Easing away from you ever so slightly, Barba rose and helped you to stand on wobbly legs. But as long as you could lean against him…

“She stays with me always,” he said. “Isn’t that right, querida?”

Your weak knees knocked together at the word, and you had no other choice but to cling to him, squealing as he lifted you into his arms. Jerry and Bree stood stunned as Barba brought you out the city street that seemed paved with even more flowers.

And you kissed him so hard that he had to sink to the curb even as his embrace stayed tight.

“What?” he asked as he nuzzled your nose.

“Querida?” you asked.

“Term of endearment. Do you not like it? I can change it if---”

“I love it,” you said. “I want to call you so many things.”

“Like what?” he asked, kissing you again as if he needed your breath to stay alive.

“Mine,” you murmured. “Always. Forever.”

He nodded, and you started to drift deeper into the pavement as a taxi pulled up.

“You crazy kids okay?” the bearded cabbie asked. “Somewhere you need to go?”

Once again, Barba helped you to your feet. You were more than ready to offer your place for this night, for the weekend and longer, when Barba stopped short and fashioned a smirk that made you blush.

“What are you thinking?” you asked.

“What you said. Making you mine. Forever.”

“Are you serious?”

You were still giddy and barely able to walk from the feel of Barba inside you for nearly two nights straight. But despite your ardor, there was still a job to do. And you stood together before the bench as you smiled into his eyes.

“Forgive me… forgive us your honor,” you started. “But it has to be a conflict of interest for me to go up against my husband in court.”

Barba laughed and kissed your lips, your mussed hair. The flight to Vegas took no time at all in the space of his arms. Once arrived, you found the first chapel available and spoke vows with an Elvis impersonator as your witness. When the officiant deemed that you were indeed man and wife, he tossed chips in the air. But you had no desire to make your way to the tables. Better to linger with him in a bed adorned with Lucky Sevens and savor so many sensations as the arid sun set and rose and left the room once more. You wanted his hands everywhere, kept him by your side throughout bubble baths and the few stolen moments to eat. Beyond that, you held him until he looked to his phone with a heavy sigh.

It’s almost Monday.

Let’s not go back.

Just to recuse ourselves. And then I’m taking my bride home.

Which led you to the courtroom. Just holding his hand was so much less than what you needed from his fingers, but the judge ultimately rolled her eyes. She warned of consequences for both of you. No matter. Soon enough you were back in the fresh air, on the courthouse steps, and in Barba’s arms.

“How do I love you so much?” he murmured into your hair.

“I know. Was it the drink?”

“No way. I always thought you were amazing.”

“Did you?”

“Smart as you are? How could I not.”

Weak in the knees all over again, ready to hail a cab and get back to the nearest bed, your wish was cut short by the harsh sound of a familiar voice.

“What the hell, you bitch?”

Mark stood only a few feet away, glaring with his hands in his pockets as Barba eased you behind his back.

“Don’t talk to my wife that way,” he cautioned.

“Your wife? In one weekend?”

“Mark, please,” you said. “Just find another attorney.”

“I want you.”

“I’m spoken for.”

Once again, the world came to a halt, Barba glowing as your mouth met his. His kiss tasted sweeter still, and you were more than ready to take your leave when Mark lunged forward.

“Do you think I would let you do this?” he barked.

“Hey, let her---!”

“You’re not like those other sluts. They were asking for it. You played hard to get. What else do I have to do to make you mine?”

Seeing him clearly as if for the first time, you shuddered but still summoned the strength to push him away, to nearly send him stumbling back.

“So it’s all true,” you said. “Mark, you need a lot more help than what I can give you.”

“I paid for you to stand by me.”

“Then you can have your money back,” you reasoned, any ire in your soul calming as Barba touched the small of your back. “I got a better offer in every way, shape, and form.”

Still strange how it happened. A part of you had desired him the second you saw him walk by in a three-piece suit. Now you only wanted him out of the pinstripes once more and started to kiss him…

“I’ll sue the both of you for damages!”

Mark screeched as he plowed forward. Barba pushed you out of the way and stood to ward Mark off when they both tumbled down a few steps. You screeched, your hands on your mouth as you thought of his head hitting a sharp edge, his beautiful mind stilling his beautiful heart.

“Rafael!”

Seeing no blood in is hair, you raced forward and clasped his hand.

“Baby?” you whispered.

His green eyes sparkled, the one breath he managed to exhale sweeter than ever as his finger reached for your hair.

“Querida…”

Hearing him speak soothed your heart, and you were ready to help him up when you saw the gold pen that had stayed so long in tact dislodged from his pocket…

…and sticking out of his chest.

“Uh… Mrs. Barba?”

You sat with his bloodied blazer in your hands, listening carefully to the doctor’s words. Lost a lot of blood. Critical but stable. Think he’s going to pull through.

Now the world moved. You heard his mother weep tears of joy and saw his colleagues, the lieutenant you had disparaged in particular, smile at the news. Your husband. Your most beautiful love going to come back to you in one piece. You hugged the doctor as you cried happily and asked to see him.

“Of course. Right this way.

Finding him pale under thin sheets, you set his coat aside and sat beside him.

“Hey. You’re going to be alright. You better be, Mr. Barba. You don’t get to barrel your way into my heart and leave me in the lurch.”

Not that you fully understood how it had even happened. Had Bree said something about a love potion? But that was the stuff of fairy tales. This was real, more real than any other moment or man that you had ever---

“Hello,” he said in a weak voice. You barely took in the sight of his troubled expression when you hugged him gently, your kisses threading through his hair

“Don’t you dare go scaring me like that again,” you whispered as you finally met his eyes and stroked his clammy cheek. His eyes grew more and more quizzical until he took your hand…

…and lowered it to one side.

“So… so it wasn’t all a dream then?” he began.

“What Mark did? I’m so sorry, baby. That was very real.”

“No. No I mean… us.”

“Us?” you echoed. “Well… yeah. We… we fell in love. We got married. Don’t you remember?”

You showed him the cheap band of gold that was now your most cherished piece of jewelry and watched his face appear to put the puzzle pieces together.

“I… remember,” he finally said. “We… we took a drink. And then…”

“Magic,” you insisted, your throat starting to tighten. Maybe it was a spell of some sort, but you didn’t care. It seemed so right. He said… he showed you that he felt the same way.

So what---?

“I think…”

“Yes?”

“I think it wore off.”

And your heart that had been so full shattered, the bits of glass seeming to swim through your body, bringing pain to more places than you could count.

“No,” you said. “You’re just… maybe it’s the anesthesia or something. Plus you lost a lot of blood.”

“I get that,” he admitted. “But I don’t… it doesn’t feel the same. You don’t… look the same. I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you. But---”

“Save it.”

Finding it a struggle to stand with your broken heart, you removed the ring and started to leave the room. Suddenly feeling more like your old self, you turned on your heel to stare him down.

“Was it a trick?” you accused. “To make me throw the case? Look like a fool in front of the judge?”

“Think we’re both in that boat,” he murmured, his face seeming so sad. But now you were seeing him as was before, as he had always been.

“So maybe it was just about getting me into bed,” you hissed.

“No, I---”

“Save it, Mr. Barba,” you barked. “I’m having this sham of a marriage annulled ASAP. And do not call me again.”

Maybe it was his hurtful words or your dose of flowers having run its course, but now the spell ceased for you, too.

You sat solemnly in your office, trying to make sense of the past few days. As you were still his wife, word had reached you that Barba was to be released from the hospital. Not that you had any plans to see him. Toying with the notion of abandoning Manhattan altogether, you glanced up at the sound of a soft knock on your door.

“Hi.”

He still seemed pale, but he was up and about. While you did not wish the man dead, you stood with every intention of ushering him out when he held up one hand.

“Five minutes. That’s all I ask.”

Nodding, you glanced at your watch and crossed your arms over your chest.

“Come to rub salt in my wounds?” you asked.

“Nothing like that,” he said. “I… I should’ve called you.”

“I wouldn’t have answered.”

“I figured. So I… I actually called the girl from the bar.”

Lowering your arms, you watched him reach into his pocket. He held a vial of the same liquid from that fateful night.

“No,” you quickly said.

“No?” he echoed.

Even as you were tempted to see him shining again, to feel his touch, to look into his eyes and feel only love springing forth from his green orbs…

“It won’t work,” you said. “It’ll only fade away again, and I… I can’t go through that…”

Breaking down, you avoided his intended embrace and sat behind your desk. Barba grimaced as he dropped to one knee, still dangling the vial between his long fingers.

“You’re right,” he said. “But what if I told you that there’s another way?”

“What other way?” you asked, reaching for a tissue to dab your eyes.

“Maybe it was… I don’t know,” he started. “Witchcraft or whatever. But that weekend with you was the happiest two and a half days of my life.”

“You’re just trying to be nice,” you muttered.

“When have you ever know me to do that?” he asked, his smirk back in full force as you relaxed some in your chair.

“Point taken.”

“And see… see the thing is…”

Finally setting the vial aside, he reached for you hand. It felt oddly familiar and yet somehow altogether different. But you did not relinquish his hold.

“When I talked to Bree, she said that she’s never seen it work that fast. She couldn’t quite figure it out. But she… she surmised that it meant that there already had to be some feeling in my heart for you.”

“For me?” you asked. “I wouldn’t have guessed that. The way you spoke to me at the bar.”

“I wouldn’t spar like that with just anyone,” he confessed. “Only someone I couldn’t help but admire. Respect. Because you’re smart. And strong. And…”

His voice trailed off as he popped the cap off the vial and promptly poured the contents into your waste paper basket before reaching for your face.

“So I say let’s give it another try,” he said. “Without it. I would have taken it again for you. But maybe… maybe we don’t even need it. Let’s give forever a chance on our own terms.”

His eyes were wide and hopeful as he tightened his grip. Of course you had always felt the same way about him. There were just too many complications to contend with.

“I… I think that’s what hurt the most,” you admitted as a fresh stream of tears trailed down your cheeks.

“What’s that?” he asked, wiping the wetness away.

“Losing you… when I… when I had wanted you for so long.”

You felt your lips mirror his smile, and he leaned in for a chaste kiss. Maybe he didn’t taste quite as sweet, but there was still a kind of magic in his mouth.

“So?” he asked as he rested his brow against yours. “What do you think?”

“I… well… I guess we are already married,” you admitted.

“Elvis said you were a beautiful bride,” he teased, causing you to laugh.

“But we need to take this slowly,” you said. “Like really get to know each other.”

“You mean out of bed,” he said with a chuckle.

“Something like that.”

“Well…”

Standing slowly, he offered his arm.

“Can I take you out for a cup of coffee?”

You waited for only a second before rising to accept his touch. Would you have ever come to this place without Bree’s brew? No way of knowing. And maybe it was better to see him clearly, to explore the possibilities over which potions had no power.

“I’d like that,” you said. Leaning closer to his side, you stepped back towards what you had lost, what you had never known…

“I like you,” he whispered, as he pecked your cheek.

And somehow his simple schoolboy words were the most enchanting incantation that you had ever heard.

#raúl esparza #rafael barba #rafael barba x reader #law & order svu #svu fanfiction #twistonthemythchallenge

[vantekay]

brain on fire by susannah cahalan

summary of the book: The book narrates susannah's issues with an autoimmune disease that goes about a month or more before being discovered  in her system. the book opens with her awaking constrained to a hospital bed. she begins to thrash around and pull at the restraints in an attempt to free herself, unaware of why she is in the hospital in the first place. what susannah is unaware of is her past month of living in the hospital and her experiences of psychotic behaviors, hallucinations, seizures and extreme paranoia. prior to these changes in her health and overall mood, susannah worked at the new york post as a journalist. her eventual diagnosis is made more difficult by various physicians misdiagnosing her with several other possible reasons as to why she is acting the way she is, such as "partying too much" and schizoaffective disorder. eventually Dr. Najjar is brought in to assess susannah and finally diagnoses her with what has actually been plaguing her for the past month of her life (for the sake of not ruining the book, because what made you want to keep reading was the fact that you didn’t know what was wrong with her and when it is finally revealed it is a wonderful feeling so I will not be disclosing the autoimmune disease they finally diagnose her with) using a simple clock drawing test that is typically used to diagnose patients with Alzheimer's and dementia. susannah draws the clock with all its components, except she has squished all of the numbers onto the right side of the clock instead of spreading them out like a normal clock face. this leads Dr. Najjar to conclude that the right hemisphere of her brain- the hemisphere responsible for the left side of our body, is inflamed and therefor causing her to act out as she has been- with extreme paranoia, sudden body stiffness, seizures, psychotic outbursts and extreme shifts in mood and being mute at times. from this point on the book follows susannah’s road to recovery and her life after being cured from the autoimmune disease. she reveals that it wasn’t easy, and that month of her life is a huge mystery to her as she has no recollection of her memories during that time period and she uses that as a way to improve her life. she also reveals that she knows she will never be 100% like she was before her disease, but she knows she can be better and stronger than she was before. Cahalan uses the rest of the book to talk about how she started an organization in hopes of helping other people with this strange and rare autoimmune disease that- as Dr. Najjar discloses often goes unnoticed and undiagnosed in patients- find out what is wrong with them and help them get the proper help they need to recover. 

(paraphrased from this wiki article)

genre: memoir

number of pages: 252 (273 including her notes , acknowledgements, illustration credits, about the author, and topics and questions for discussion pages)

my review of the book + the movie below the cut

I absolutely loved this book. it took me about three days to read but if I had had more free time I definitely would have finished it within one day flat. I never wanted to put the book down, and the way susannah writes about her experiences is both intriguing and heartbreaking at the same time. it’s amazing to be able to be in her head, as if you are almost experiencing the same emotions, thoughts and more that she does throughout the course of the book. I think that’s about all I have to say about the book, surprisingly haha but I really just wanted to talk about the movie a little more, since I was a little disappointed with it and wanted to share my reasons why. it was still a good movie and it does heighten some of what susannah experiences throughout the course of the book but the movie did not do the book justice. 

the movie was released in 2016 and is an hour and a half long. the beginning of the movie was pretty good. it portrayed susannah’s decent into madness pretty well, starting out with the visions she was having, the bright lights that were making her sick, the first seizure she has in the middle of the night and her increasingly poor performance at work as her mental health deteriorates, but after that the movie starts to take a turn for the worse- as in it doesn’t portray the helplessness and loneliness susannah experiences during her time in the hospital and all of her episodes in there. the one scene I was majorly disappointed in was the scene when her father comes to pick her up from her apartment and have her spend the night at his house so he can keep an eye on her. in the book, susannah has a massive breakdown at dinner, believing that her stepmother is calling her names despite her mouth not moving (her hallucinations and paranoia being the creators of this outbreak). in the movie they add a scene here where susannah breaks the dinner plate and screams, accusing Giselle, her stepmother, of talking bad about her and then she pushes herself into a corner where she screams over and over that her father is trying to kidnap her and that she needs to leave. while this part in the movie is heartbreaking to watch-it is not what happens in the book (which is to be expected, I know that not every scene can be shown to the authors every want and desire but it would have been nice to see this scene as it was in the book which I will now explain). in the book, after her father and giselle finish eating, susannah goes back and forth from asking her dad to stay with her because she is scared of being alone to screaming at him to go away and then apologizing and asking him to stay again. susannah reveals in the book that while she sat with her father in the living room for this period of time she said something awful to him that it made him cry, something that she does not remember and something that her father has consciously chosen to forget about. after whatever it was she said to him, she orders him to go upstairs to his bedroom. she then begins to hear pounding sounds from upstairs (auditory hallucination) and then heard giselle pleading for her life. she was hallucinating that her father was beating giselle because of what she had said to him moments prior to asking him to leave. because susannah now believes that her father is going to kill her next, she attempts to leave her fathers house, banging her fists against the front door. her father comes down the stairs to see what is wrong with her and in response, since susannah believes he is going to hurt her, runs and locks herself in the bathroom for the rest of the night. 

in my opinion, this scene would have been a bit better to include than the one they actually implemented as it truly shows the extent of susannah’s psychotic behaviors up until she was hospitalized but there is nothing that can be done about it now. 

alongside some scenes that I believe should have been added, I was disappointed with the way the rest of the movie progressed. in the book, it is definitely easier to write about days within a couple of pages but it is harder to portray days within a typical movie’s time-span without losing the interest of the audience however, the movie made it seem like susannah just hopped from one doctor to the next without any days in between and then magically met Dr. Najjar- the one who would finally properly diagnose her. in the book, there are many tests that are run in between, many more manic episodes that susannah encounters that would have been interesting to see portrayed in the movie and many other doctor consultations and possible diagnoses that were left out. the movie pretty much went from- okay well our daughter needs to be hospitalized, none of these doctors are diagnosing her properly, oh look here’s a really well known and smart doctor who knows what he’s doing, oh he finally found out what’s wrong with our daughter and then that was it. the movie shows susannah returning back to work after 7months and how she gets her first real story at the post. in the book, susannah writes about how she needs to relearn everything that she was unable to do during her month in the hospital like speaking normally, acting normally and even walking. she writes about her experiences of attending many different social events and how she feels during them, how her family reacts to seeing her post hospitalization and everything else. it would have been nice to see this happy ending in the movie in contrast to the abrupt way it ends in the film.

overall, the book and the movie are good. the book is well written and overall very easy to get lost in, trying to understand susannah’s feelings during this time in her life and watching her come out of it stronger than before. its uplifting and a good read. the movie was also well directed and had a very good cast, in my opinion. the characters did a good job of portraying susannah’s family and friends but there are still discrepancies throughout that made the movie a bit of a letdown.

god this is long I’m so sorry sksks but this was fun! to those of you who actually read all of my nonsense, I hope you enjoyed it and have potentially found a book that you would want to read for yourself! I’m excited to be doing this book rec’s and reviews and I hope you all enjoy them as well :)

#kayakookie book recs #kayakookie book reviews #kayaks book review + rec #not bts #book rec #book review #brain on fire #susannah cahalan

[fuckkerydicckery]

Sirius and Lily

Quitely Sirius Black walked down the stairs into the Gryffindor common room, it was three in the morning but Sirius couldn't fall asleep. He tried to just lay in bed and hope he would but his mind was racing with thoughts he couldn’t escape. Mostly about his family, at this point, he stopped talking to them. His brother- Regulus- wouldn’t even look him in the eye. Sirius thought his brother would at least talk to him, or acknowledge him. Before Reg was sorted into Slytherin, before Sirius was sorted into Gryffindor, before anything- they got along. Over the past few years, Sirius slowly distanced himself from the Black family, until he fully moved into the Potter's house. He knew that his parents told Regulus to ignore Sirius, to disown his brother. Sirius told his friends he was okay with it, but deep down he wished his brother would at least talk to him or acknowledge him.

Sirius stood on the bottom step to look over the common room.It was pitch black except for the fact a small fire was burning in the fireplace. The common room seemed much bigger when no one was in it, he had it all to himself. He was debating sitting on the couch or the chair when he heard a quiet sniffle. Sirius quickly looked behind him and all around the room to see if someone was visible or watching him, but he seemed all alone. He took a step closer to the chair when he heard another sniffle, once again he looked around to find himself alone. Sirius took another step but this time he stepped on a creaky floorboard causing it to make a creaking noise. He saw a head pop up from the couch, but he couldn’t see the face because of how dark it was.

“Hello?” The head said to Sirius, he could tell it was a girls voice. He recognized the voice but he couldn’t pinpoint it. Sirius continued to walk toward the couch, replying to the girl.

“Sorry for bugging you, I just couldn’t sleep.” Sirius got close enough to recognize the girl- Lily Evans.

“It’s fine,” Lily replied eyeing Sirius as he sat down on the chair. She was wrapped in a few blankets, gripping a letter. Sirius saw that she had tear stains on her cheeks but decided to not mention it. Lily Evans kept looking at him, he could tell she was trying to string a few words together to start a conversation but she didn’t say a word. Sirius was twirling his long hair from his fingers, he was thinking it was a mistake going down to the common room. Sirius was debating going back to his dormitory, but somehow he felt comfort with Lily being with him- even though there was an awkward feeling in the air. After a few minutes, Lily stopped starting at Sirius and looked at her letter. Sirius could tell she was taking in each word, he could see tears forming in her eyes, and every once in awhile she would put down the letter and take a slow deep breath trying to calm down. Sirius wanted to know what was in the letter causing Lily to get so upset. The letter itself was around two pages but Lily kept reading it over and over again, he wondered what was going through her mind.

Sirius started to hum a song he didn’t know what song he was humming to but he continued to hum. Quite frankly Sirius was bored out of his mind. Evans wasn’t talking to him and there was nothing else he could do. Soon Sirius noticed he was tapping out the rhythm of the song with his hands and his humming got gradually louder.

“Do you mind?” Evans snapped at him, Sirius looked her dead in the eye and continued to hum and tap his hand this time louder than before she talked to him. He heard Lily groan and slam her letter onto the table.

“You realize your not the only person in the room Sirius?” Lily quietly yelled at him, something about her getting mad made Sirius stop.

“I do, but I’m just trying to distract myself from my pending thoughts about my terrible life.” He told Lily. He saw her shake her head in disbelief.

“How terrible can your life be? You come from a noble family, one of the best wizard-”

“Let me stop you right there Evans,” Sirius interrupted Lily, “you know how terrible my family is. How they agree with the Dark Lord, how they think they are superior above everyone. So why are you saying that my life is perfect?” Sirius was sick and tired of everyone thinking he had it easy. He saw Lily mouth sorry then pick up her letter.

“I don't have many friends and within the span of a year, I have lost my two best friends. Severus, and my sister, Petunia.” Lily started to explain to Sirius, she didn’t know why she was telling him. But she needed to tell someone how she felt.

“Ever since I got into Hogwarts, Petunia has grown to hate me. I think because I left her because now I'm our parent's favorite daughter. They have forgotten about her, which is reasonable. Not every day you learn that your daughter is a witch. For the past six years she’s been so distant, whenever I went home she would ignore me. But recently she's become worse, when I recently went home she kept calling me names like ‘freak’ and ‘misfit’. I ignored her at first, but slowly it's been catching up with me. And it hurts a lot, your sibling hating you.” Lily explained, her voice started to crack when she finished. Tears started to flow down her face, she quickly wiped her face with one of her blankets. But she continued to cry, soon she was bawling. Lily tried to speak but her voice was cracked and her sobs replaced her words.

Sirius felt for Lily, he knew exactly how she felt. He knew how much it hurt when a sibling ignored you.

“I guess I feel the same,” Siris began, “ ever since I moved in with James my brother has ignored me. He won't even look at me. I get that we have our differences, we are different people. We both have changed over the last few years, out relationship was affected when I was sorted into Gryffindor and once again when he was sorted into Slytherin. He became the golden child and I became the embarrassment. I thought we could continue our relationship, or at least try to rebuild it or something along those lines. But we can’t, Reg will always be my parent's puppets. He does whatever my parents ask him. My guess is they told him to ignore me, so he did.” Sirius sighed, he never told anyone about this. Never in his wildest dreams, he would expect him telling his life story to Lily Evans. He noticed that Lily had calmed down as he was telling his story, she was nodding along and he could tell she related to Sirius.

“It’s the worst Sirius, the absolute worse. But I rather have Petunia ignore me then send me this-”

Lily gave the letter to Sirius and told him to read it out loud.

“Lily, you are my sister. You were my sister, but not anymore. Over the years you have clearly chosen what's more important in your life. And you chose that school for people like you. Those people are freaks, like yourself. Mum and Dad clearly think your steller but I can clearly see that this school is nothing more than a scam for nutjobs. You say that you're perfect like that makes you important. It doesn’t Lily, why would it matter if this school doesn't’ teach you anything worth your while. You will never have a career nor a life, and I promise you I will never support you ever. You made your choice choosing the school.  Now you are mum and dads golden child but soon Lily they will see what a waste the school is. What a waste you are. You're not special, you aren’t gifted, you’re nothing Lily. Nothing at all. You're worthless, to me and to the family. Whenever people ask if I have siblings I tell them I don't have one, because you aren’t my sister. You will never ever be my Sister.” Sirius read.

Sirius couldn’t believe what the letter read, he knew it wasn’t true. Lily was the best in their class, she aced every spell she tried, she was amazing at potions, she would have an amazing career in the wizarding world. Sirius sometimes envied Lily on how good she was, she knew nothing about the world of magic anyone who didn’t know Evans was muggle-born would think she came from a noble wizard family. Sirius came from a wizarding family and he wasn’t as half as good as Evans. Lily once again started to cry, Sirius walked to the couch and sat beside her. He guided Lily’s head to his shoulder for her to cry on.

“Lily this isn’t true!” Sirius affirmed he was petting her head crying to calm her down.

“But what if it is!” Lily cried, “what if this is a joke, what if I can't get a job. What if Sirius, what-” Lily looked up to Sirius hopelessly, his hand was still combing through her hair. She could feel how damp his shirt was now from her tears.

“Lily is isn't and you know this! You are the most talented student in the whole school, you are everything we do, you do good on exams. The teachers love you. Lily, you will do amazing in the wizarding world, I promise you.” Sirius assured Lily, she looked at Sirius then nodded her head and whispered: “thank you”. He continued to comb through her hair as her sobs became quieter and quieter until she was no longer crying. They both sat there in silence, Lily on Sirius' shoulder, Sirius combing through her hair. It was calming for the both of them, for once they understood each other. For years they bickered and had a grudge against them, but for this moment the past was forgotten. For hours they sat there in silence, by the time they spoke again the sun was starting to rise.

“Thank you, Sirius,” Evans said to Sirius smiling, “you’re not as bad as I thought.” Sirius laughed at what Lily said.

“I could say the same thing about you.” Sirius joked, Lily started to laugh but her laughter turned into a yawn. Both of them got up and started to walk towards the staircases to their dormitories.

“Goodnight Sirius.”

“As you, Evans.”

#siriusblack #sirius black #Lily Evans #Lily Potter #marauders era #marauders #maraudersheadcannons #headcanon #harrypotterheadcannon #Harry Potter #harrypotter

[all-sortsa-stuff]

What may come, part 4

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston x Reader

Word Count: 2690

Warning: Language

  Part 3

 The morning that followed, you were up early.  A burst of ideas had woken you around 5 am and you had to write them down before they faded into the fog of early morning.  You were on your second cup of tea at the kitchen counter writing when Mila came down all dresses and ready to go.

“What are you doing up so early?”  The auto timer on the Keurig had filled her cup of coffee, now she stood, taking that first sip of delight for the morning.

“I woke up with ideas! I had to get them down.”  Mila laughed as she popped bread into the toaster.

“I’m glad to hear it. I can’t wait to see what you come up with.  I know you are going to knock everyone’s socks off.”  Excitement had been building in your belly.  While you were trying to stay cautious and not get your hopes too high, you could not help the thrill of it all.  Having the chance to shoot the teasers for a movie was an amazing opportunity and you did not want to waste it.

“I am supposed to call Mr. Tafuri at nine to go over the rest of my ideas then we will set up a time to do the shoot.”  Mila nodded as she buttered her toast and stood against the counter to eat.

“It will work out.  I think you already have a good grasp of the project’s concept.  There is another copy of the script on my desk if you want to read it and get an idea for the rest of it all in one piece.”  Your eyes lit up at the offer.

“That would be great, Mi! Thank you so much.”  All but running to the office, you could hear Mila call out behind you.

“Don’t mess up anything in there!  It should be right on top.”  The script was sitting on top and looked to have many Post-its set in pages throughout. Mila called out her goodbye as you stood there reading the first few pages.  By the time nine rolled around you had gotten through most of it and had come up with a few more ideas.  In total, you had ten plans for the four main characters.  A few of them were just off the top of your head the others had been more elaborate and had developed more after reading most of the script.

You called right at nine. His secretary put you on hold for a few minutes until Mr. Tafuri answered.  “[Y/N], I like punctuality.  Thanks for calling.  What do you have for me?”

Taking a deep breath you explained the ten proposals.  He shot down two of the basic ones right off the bat, which did not surprise you.  However, he asked question after question on several of the others.  He wanted to know what you were thinking and how you wanted to work it with the script. The call lasted just over thirty minutes.  All the while, your heart had been pounding in your chest but you were able to answer his questions without stumbling.  To you it sounded like a great call.

“How much of the script have you read?”  Mr. Tafuri asked after a brief pause.

“I am about two thirds of the way through, sir.”  You could only hope that would not be a problem.

“Think you can finish it by this afternoon?  I want you to meet with a couple of people from the art and design team.  I need some project boards made and presentable by tomorrow.  I have a meeting with the promotions department and I want you to be there to show them these ideas.  They are the others you have to convince.  The budget for the shoot is their territory.  You good with that?”  The conversation went from 0 to 60 in a very short span of time.  He was asking if you were ready to present your ideas to other bigwigs of the movie.

“Umm yeah… I mean yes. I am ready.  Whatever you need me to do, Mr. Tafuri.”

“Great.  Meet me here at two.  And good reading, [Y/N].”  The called ended with you trying not to hyperventilate.  Closing your eyes you took slow deep breaths counting as you did it. Once you had calmed enough you sent off a text to Mila about what was going to happen.  The response thirty minutes later showed her excitement.  It was all congratulations and encouragement, which is typical of your sister.  She was and had always been your biggest cheerleader no matter what it was.

 With the script finished a shower, lunch and rechecking that you had all you needed you left for the studio. By the time you made it to the gate, you were given a badge that you had not had the previous days.  Mr. Tafuri left this one for you for you to have access to the back building on site.  It was where you were going to meet with the teams.  He met you in the lobby as you arrived right on time.

“I like my team on time, awesome.  Let’s go meet the designers, [Y/N].”  He led you down a long hallway with lots of doors and people then up an elevator to the third floor.  Once there he brought you into a rather large room with art supplies and boards on one side and desks on the other.  There were four people waiting and as you entered the room another came up from behind you.  She scooted around the both of you, with a hand on a round tummy.  “Sorry, baby was on my bladder.”

“[Y/N], this is the art and design team.  The team lead with the watermelon under there is Kirsten, her assistant Jax., The designers are Elly, Richard, and Jose.”  The five of them all smiled and a couple of them waved in your direction.  “Team this is [Y/N].  As long as Promotions likes what you all do today, she will be doing the teaser shoot.  Now go on and make me look good.”  Mr. Tafuri winked as he left the room, leaving you with the team.

“Umm hi.  I’m really glad to be here.”  You held your folder tight against your chest.  Kirsten was the first to step forward and offer her hand.

“Nice to meet you, [Y/N]. I promise we don’t bite during work hours.”  This elicited a laugh from everyone and helped calm you slightly.  “Show me what you have and let us work our magic.”

Nodding you released some of the force you had holding the folder to your chest.  Everyone gathered around one of the tables as you pulled out the papers with your ideas.  You had adjusted some of the details but had left the majority of the originals intact. Within a few minutes, five sets of eyes were listening attentively to the ideas that poured from you.  Your arms were waving around as you tried to describe some of the more intricate plans you had.  Several questions were asked, as well as suggestions about how to adjust a detail or two.  When you had finished, you watched as they spoke among themselves firing ideas back and forth and sometimes even finishing each other’s sentences.  

Before long they all went to work.  The designers had pulled out sketchpads and had all chosen different ideas to work on. Kirsten and Jax were doing something on the computer that you could not see but were talking about colors and print types as they worked.  Within a few hours all of the preliminary designs had be completed and were in your hand. While they still had to but redone onto presentation boards and prepped for the meeting tomorrow, they were incredible.

“I can’t believe how wonderful these look.  You are all so talented.  These are exactly how I envisioned.”  The team grinned over at you before high fiving each other.

“I am going to send this to print now; they should be back in a few hours.  Can I call you tonight and email them so we make sure this is what you want?”  Kirsten had pushed up her glasses on her face as she looked over to you.

“Oh of course.  What time do you think it will be?”

“Probably at least after eight.”  She stood from the desk and stretching her back.

“Whenever is fine.  I will make sure I have my phone and laptop with me at all times.  Thank you all so much.”  With the exchange of phone numbers, you were out the door.  As you made your way down to the lobby, a sigh of relief escaped. This was turning out so well you could hardly stand it.  All you wanted to do was tell Mila now.

It was easy to find the set from where you were.  You were given immediate access due to your badge and previous visit the few days prior. Everyone looked to be packing up for the day when you glanced down at your watch.  It was nearly six; the afternoon had flown by with the flurry of activity.  Mila was easy to find as she was shoving papers into her bag.  “Glad I caught you before you left.”

“Hey sweetie, how did it go? By the looks of that grin it must have went well.”  You felt like you were about to burst with everything you wanted to tell her.

“It went great.  I can tell you over dinner.  I want a glass of wine and something delicious.”  She grinned though shook her head.  

“I wish I could do dinner with you tonight but I have to meet with the producers tonight.  I am supposed to go over how the project is going and all the really boring shit that I hate.  Rain check for later tonight?”  Though you were a little disappointed, you would still be able to tell her every detail later on.  Most likely after your call with Kirsten.

“Definitely.  I am going to grab a pizza and a bottle of wine on the way home then.  I have a call with the design lead after eight so whenever you get home later.” Mila hugged you tight before pulling her bag onto her shoulder.

“Great.  I will see you later.”  You watched a moment as she walked off with three men towards the opposite end of the set.  Turning quickly towards the exit you did not watch where you were going and ran directly into a broad chest.  The folder that had been in your hand went flying sending papers everywhere.

“Oh shit.  I am so sorry.”  When you looked up to further apologize, that bright beautiful smile of Tom’s shone down at you.

“No, [Y/N] I am sorry. I was going to say ‘hello’.  I did not expect you to turn so quickly.  I should not have been so close.  Here let me get your papers.”  He crouched down trying to retrieve the ones directly at his feet. You followed suit.

“I should have been paying better attention.  My head was in the clouds.”  Laughing quietly he handed you some of the papers as you pulled a few more into the folder.  

“You do look quite happy today.  I hope that means you are having a lovely day.”  Just listening to his voice was weakening your knees.

“Yes it was a great day actually.  I got a lot accomplished and I am going to meet with the Promotions team tomorrow. I am pitching my ideas with them and Mr. Tafuri.  If they like them then… well I will be given the green light for the shoot.”  As the last of the papers were set safely inside the folder, you both stood looking at the other.

“That is wonderful.  I am elated for you.  We should celebrate.”

“Oh no, I don’t want to celebrate.  I haven’t gotten the job yet.”  Tom shook his head like he wanted to argue, but he refrained.

“Fine we won’t celebrate the job.  How about we get dinner and a drink to celebrate having a great day?”  His excitement made him even more cute and difficult for you to refuse.

“Alright let’s go get something to eat.  I can’t drink too much.  I still have a business call tonight.”  

“Wonderful!  Let me grab my things from my trailer and we can go. Follow me.”  The walk to the trailer was short and he was quick in packing up.  The drive to the restaurant was short.  It was just down the street from the studio.  A lovely little pizza place that smelled of wood burning ovens.  You could not help but let all the details of your day just pour out as you sipped on your wine.  It felt so good to tell someone and Tom seemed very eager to listen. The smile on his face and his questions had kept the conversation going for some time, well after the pizza was finished and the wine bottle empty.  Before either of you knew it you had been sitting there talking for hours. You found he was very easy to talk to and he found a way to bring you out of the shell you tried to hide in before people got to know you.

“It must not have been that bad.  You are sitting here aren’t you?”  Tom laughed as he leaned back in the chair crossing his arms over his chest.

“It was awful!  I screamed the entire time and I refuse to go on any ride at an amusement park that drops you that far.  But yes… I guess I survived.”  Laughing came easy, you found with him.  Tom was not how you expected in your mind.  Mila was right when she said how down to earth he was. Your phone started to vibrate in your pocket, it was Kirsten.  Somehow, you had forgotten about the call and your laptop was in the car.  Holding a finger up to Tom, you answered.

“Hey Kirsten!  I am so glad they are ready.  Give me just a moment to go get my laptop.  I had lost track of time.”  Flashing a smile to Tom, you motioned that you were going out to the car.  He nodded before summoning the waiter over for the check.

You chatted with Kirsten as you tried to get your laptop to boot up with the wireless hotspot you had. As you waited, you watched Tom walk out of the restaurant and towards your car.  He stood there quietly waiting with you.  Once the machine had finally loaded you were able to open your email.

“Oh my God, Kirsten…”

“Pretty good?”

“Pretty good doesn’t even cut it.  They look fantastic.  I can’t wait to show these off tomorrow.”  Turning the screen towards him, you wanted Tom to be able to see what the design team had come up with.  His response was an enthusiastic nod and grin.

“I’m so glad.  You can pick them up in the morning before the meeting.  See you then.”

“See you!”  Ending the call, you screamed with excitement. “This is so freaking amazing.  I can’t believe this is really happening.”

“You deserve it.  The world should see your talent.”  He leaned over to hug you tightly.  You almost forgot your excitement for a moment being so close to him.  When he pulled back, he gave you an odd look.  “Are you alright?  You went a bit flush.”

“Umm yeah.  Fine.  Just all the excitement.”  

“Good.  [Y/N], look I was trying to build up the nerve all night. This wasn’t exactly how I wanted it to go.  I mean I am so glad we had dinner tonight.  Together I mean.  Bloody hell I sound like a fool.”  Narrowing your eyes, you canted your head in confusion looking up at him as he was raking his hand through his hair.

“What do you mean? You aren’t a fool.”

“I sound like one.  I mean, [Y/N] would you like to have dinner with me?  A real dinner date where I pick you up and we have a lovely time together?”

 Part 5

 Tags: @feelmyroarrrr  @bolontiku  @aquabrie   @malindacath  @almondbuttercup @falloutwyntxr  @white-chocolate-mocha-fan @thejulesworld  @shutupiminlooove  @portietomednalynn   @ex-bookjunky  @frenchfrostpudding  @saraholdtheh972

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[dreams-of-wings]

Impossible (1/8)

Imagine Billy Hargrove with a Mixed/Biracial S/O

Warnings: Racism, some swearing, light violence, you throw hands, you don’t take no shit.

Masterlist

Being his prime target for bullying at first.

You’ve heard every racial slur in the book by now.

“Hey, mutt!”

You just roll your eyes, he isn’t worth it.

He starts picking on your friends just as much as he does you.

“Well, well, well, Harrington - I should have known. A dog never strays far from it’s master.”

Steve looks rather discusted with the mullet wearing meathead, “Grow up, Billy.”

You’ve never wanted to hit someone so much in your life.

“Shove off, Hargrove.”

“Keep your dog on a tight leash, Harrington.”

Your relationship is a slow burn, not gonna’ lie.

You take up tutoring during lunch and after school for the younger kiddos.

Spoiler, Max is one of your students.

His little sister loves you.

She actes like your kindness is annoying, but she would low-key clock someone across the face for you.

“My brother’s such a dick”

“Yeah, he is.”

You end up taking her home that day because tutoring went on longer than expected, and Billy didn’t wait for her.

It takes a while, but she eventually finds solace in you.

You guys start hanging out at the arcade after tutoring, this is how you get well acquainted with the rest of the kiddos: Dustin, Will, Lucas and Mike.

You take her home again.

Billy sees you with her and warns her to stay away from you like he did with Lucas.

“That’s going to be kind if hard since they’re my tutor.”

“Just do what I say, brat.”

She actually comes to you crying one day because of her life at home and how Billy treats her.

You kind of feel sorry for Billy now, knowing what goes on at his house.

“Hey, mutt!”

Aaaand it’s gone.

“Fuck off.”

He shoves you against the lockers and threatins to “beat the shit out if you” if you don’t stay away from Max.

Steve, Jonathan and Nancy see him just as he grabs you by the collar and run to push him away from you.

“The hell is your problem, Hargrove?!”

Steve handles his title of ‘stressed out mother’ well.

“The hell is my problem?! What the hell is-”

He doesn’t get to finish.

You deck him across the face.

You’ve got a mean right hook.

You actually make him stumble back.

“The only one with a problem here is you, Hargrove.”

He’s torn between being pissed the fuck off, and actually giving you some respect for standing up to him.

No one’s done that yet.

Well not while he’s sober or not drugged.

“Walk away, asshole.”

You look pretty badass right now, go you.

He looks around and notices all the eyes watching before looking back at you.

You’re friends shield you from him.

“This isn’t over, Heinz,” (I actually had to look this crap up cuz I haven’t heard many racist names in my life #MixedRace. The amount of racial slurs baffles me).

The lot of you just glare at him as he storms away.

He lays off on the bullying a little.

He doesn’t bother Max about hanging out with you anymore.

You both get paired up for a class project some odd weeks later.

You turn to look at him and he has a smirk on his face.

He looks at you and mockingly winks.

Smug motherfucker.

You get stuck doing most of the work.

But you do try to get him to do some of it.

You drag him to the library while he spews profanities at you.

“My grade is not going to tank because you’re lazy, like it or not we have to work on this together.”

I mean you don’t get paid to be a tutor with C’s and D’s.

He huffs and opens up one of the books from the stack you’ve aquired on your topic.

“If you flip those pages any harder there’s not going to be a book left to read.”

“That’s the goal.”

At least he isn’t throwing racist names at you anymore.

It takes weeks to read through and take notes for everything because you refuse to do the work alone.

“You’re going to have to work for your grade, Hargrove.”

The project means you have to stay even later for tutoring, which means you’ve started taking Max home regularly.

You guys actually get a B. It’s a low B, but still a B.

Billy can see why you’re a tutor, you’re good at explaining things you know or understand.

He actually learned some things.

Within the span of several months, he went from racist, to rude, to just ignoring your existence completely after the project.

Till you had another project to do in science the following month.

You do your best to refrain from hitting your head on the table when he sits next to you.

“Ready for round two?”

“I don’t know, are you?”

The sass is palpable.

You and Max still hang out at the arcade or grab smoothies regularly after her lessons, and take her home when you do so.

She was so much happier now that she had been accepted into the 'Party’ (Eleven is still a WIP), and now she was like a little sister to you.

You almost forgot about her and Billy’s life at home.

Till he showed up in the library a week after the project had been assigned with a busted lip and slightly discolored jaw.

“Holy shit, what happened to you?”

“Just a fight with another student.”

Wouldn’t tell you who, and insisted it was some nobody so he didn’t bother remembering they’re name.

Carol and Tommy have made it a habbit of interrupting y'alls study time.

The redhead trys to coax Billy into poking fun at you like he used to.

“Carol, if you don’t shut the hell up I’m going to shove this book down your throat-” you caught yourself, “or maybe you’d like that.”

“Ooooooh,” Tommy’s such an instigator.

“Look here, you little-”

You actually manage to make Billy snicker, “Just walk away, Carol.”

The pair would have argued, but Billy’s pretty intimidating.

Three weeks pass and Billy has been coming in with cuts and bruses periodically, but today, the day you both are supposed to present the project to the class, he doesn’t show at all.

You’re pissed to say the least.

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