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shijiujun · 3 years

Text

on the danmei twitter fight

okay guys i didn’t wanna say anything about this and yes it’s that hot danmei twitter translations saga thing that’s going on, because honestly i feel like there’s nothing much to say but when i see dumb posts on tumblr taking about that, by people who present a misleading hot take and their friends or moots run off with it without even knowing what exactly is going on - it really pisses me off.

and also if you shit talk translators for not continuing their translations or locking their translations whatever - the door is that way on your right and left, but anyway here’s a rundown on what happened because i am seeing people make comments without two brain cells put together, without the slightest bit of consideration for the people who bring them translations

here’s my hot take and thesis: if you enjoy english translations made by fan translators, you don’t, in any way, no matter happens, shit talk fan translators. fan translators do this for free, and whatever their intentions are, whether genuine sharing or like some of you like to say, for clout, if you consume, and you enjoy these translations, i’m sorry, you’re not uninvolved, and you don’t get to sit on a high horse and say translators should or shouldn’t do something. you should just keep quiet, honestly, because someone else is doing you a favour, a favour that you are enjoying and taking. that’s what respect is.

i’m presenting both sides or i guess three sides of the story as objectively as i can, altho my support is still for fan translators who were just minding their own business before this blew up.

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🔺 what happened:

so it started because one of the bigger translators in the fandom did this poll - i’m not blaming her at all, i doubt she had any intentions of shaming anyone or causing any controversy and was plain curious, but her poll asked english speaking danmei twitter how many people buy the digital, print copies of the danmei they read, and who did not.

in my honest opinion, it’s not strange at all for her to have created that poll, considering just how much work she’s put into making sure things are accessible for the eng-speaking danmei fandom. i mean i’d be curious too, to know out of my thousands of readers, what the reading and buying behaviour is like. do yourself a favour and don’t read too much into it.

obviously in an era where a lot of people do consume content for free whether the underlying content is profit-making (like anime, donghua, manhua, manga etc.) or not (fanfiction etc.), it was unsurprising to see that the last option - the ones who consume danmei without paying a single cent, came out as the majority. i don’t think this is a surprising result at all, for all sorts of reasons that i will not get into now.

anyway, this is obviously kind of a sore point in the fandom especially for translators who want a wider audience to support their fave author’s works - i won’t get into that for now, but the issue began because other translators or fans started to criticize the majority of people who don’t pay for objectively rather affordable danmei and just consume things for free.

and yes, i don’t deny that the argument on both sides got really heated and emotionally charged with both sides calling each other names which i believe is uncalled for, but it totally derailed the crux of the issue, which basically is that the majority of english-speaking danmei fandom - consumes danmei for free.

anyway this whole thing escalated and fan translators were brought into this for no fucking reason at all except that the people who didn’t want, or were unable to pay for the danmei they usually consume, made what i call a LOGICAL FALLACY in argument by going to the extremes, i will explain why later.

the end result is that fan translators were brought into this (most of them, the bigger ones i know at least) without even participating in the direct crossfire. and obviously, you can see why they’re hurt and decided to lock their translations. let me explain why

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🔺 kind of like four camps:

(1) translators and fans who criticized those who consume danmei liberally but do not pay for them in any way - no merch, no digital copies, no physical copies, no audio dramas whatever

*** their arguments:

danmei is so cheap right, that technically people should be able to pay for it in one way or another, even if not all

danmei and its authors are, at the end of the day, out here to earn a living, and the industry, like any money-making industry, is a for-profit enterprise - and unlike public goods, if you cannot afford danmei, then there is no obligation for others to make it free for you (fan translators or otherwise, it wasn’t super clearly stated while this shitshow happened) when it is inherently a for-profit industry

yes, i don’t deny that some of them did call the peeps who don’t pay at all, “leeches” and other sort of names. personally, i wouldn’t go that far or even like venture there to be honest because in general, if it’s something that i’ll get punched in the face for if i called someone that in real life i tend not to do it, but i’ll leave my opinions, whatever they’re worth, for later

(2) the readers and fans of danmei who do not pay in any sort of way for them

*** their arguments:

some of them really cannot afford, even the dollar or more, to spend on danmei for several reasons: upbringing, culture, money-spending mindsets, real poverty, struggling to make ends meet etc. - some definitely more valid than others (and when i say not valid, it’s because SOME, a minority or like those few stragglers, say they cannot afford and then you see them like idk, throwing $50 on other merch on kpop and stuff - i’m just bringing up ONE example. not shaming anyone for spending more money on one aspect rather than the other, but yeah you can see why some of them, when making this same argument, are a little invalid, that’s just a small number of them tho)

if translators are blaming them for consuming free of charge, then the fault lies, at its foundation, fan translators who translate illegally, which i mean, in that definition, all of them including me

did i mention that we were called illegal translators like you know in response to being called leeches? anyway-

(3) others translators who literally were just minding their own fucking business before some smart alec dragged them into it

i don’t think most of us had an argument. we were just quietly munching on popcorn and staying out of it and yeah, can you imagine, we provide a service, however illegal it is, for free on our own time, we don’t even check whether people support legally or not, we just... provide, and pray that those who are able to, at least support in some small way or another do so, on their own time. i mean i don’t check, most of us don’t, not the bouncers at your local club before COVID happened do, and then suddenly, to be used to derail an argument, we were called illegal translators. and that we should stop translating, and that it is our fault that there are free riders in the fandom

(4) people who offered to provide JJWXC credits to those who said they couldn’t afford it etc.

honestly i think they were just trying to help - no different than a gofundme. there’s no shame in taking a free thing that people already weren’t intending to pay for. it’s there, just take it!

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🔺 the shitshow that led to fan translators locking their stuff up:

i would provide some actual examples in the form of screenshots but i’ve blocked most of them, and i don’t want to direct any sort of traffic to them so i guess you’ll have to take my word on it or go search on twitter yourself but-

(1) the affordability issue: i can understand the frustration at being called leeches, and some if not a majority of people, do have valid reasons for not being able to afford something or anything and end up pirating content they enjoy. hey, i am not about to crucify anyone for pirating at some point in their lives. we all have done it at some point, or for example hate disney+ and that $30 they were trying to rip off us for a subpar Mulan live action. i don’t have anything to say about that. inherently, is it wrong and illegal? yeah sure of course it is. do we call people leeches? i wouldn’t go that far.

if anyone cannot afford, cannot access for whatever reason, fine, i’m not gonna go check if jjwxc truly is banned in your country, or is your postal service so terrible that you definitely won’t be able to receive a hard copy of the book you like at affordable rates.

and if you have to pirate? go ahead. i mean it’s always been a rampant thing. the only thing fan translators and fans can do is encourage, motivate and incentivise as much as possible to get people to support legally. they can only put up REALLY COMPREHENSIVE guides as to how to access jjwxc or taobao or whatever.

and if you still cannot afford it and pirate, honestly no one cares about the story behind it. you owe no one justification, just as how no other person is obligated to take it into consideration or understand you or empathize with you. i don’t say this in a malicious way - i do think that in general, you just do you.

(2) the poor people don’t deserve nice things argument: honestly, this was not the point of this entire debacle, altho yes, people were rude to those who could not afford to support legally. but this is not the point of this whole thing.

main point - there are free riders who can support but choose not to because they choose to just consume it for free and if you are able to you should support

everyone going off on a tangent - you guys hate poor people / you guys are leeches

well guess what, no one wins in this argument.

there were a lot of people saying “reading danmei is our only source of happiness, are you saying poor people who can’t access legally don’t deserve to read danmei” (this is just one example i’ve seen, there are other variations), and it wasn’t put across perhaps in the right way, but the other camp of people were saying “you’re not entitled to it for free if you cannot afford it”, which raised a lot of hackles and anti-poor yellings

altho i do not deny that there are those who mean it maliciously, i think what everyone is trying to say is - the danmei industry, like any other profit-making industry, is looking to make profits. the people working in the industry, the authors even, are looking at numbers - traffic to jjwxc or other legal platforms, how much revenue they’re making from their live actions etc., comments, rankings, etc. i think @/hunxi-after-hours made a really succinct post on this aspect which yall should read.

it’s the same as - if you wanted to purchase a standee which costs $20 USD, but you cannot afford it = you don’t get it. there’s no way you can get this standee unless some gifts it to you for free. what the camp trying to ask people to support legally is saying, is that danmei is NOT A PUBLIC GOOD. it is a private, for-profit product. it might be intangible, but it is a PRODUCT that has a price that needs to be paid.

if you cannot afford it, you either don’t get access entirely (i’m saying this objectively and honestly from an economic standpoint). if someone gifts that standee to you for free, count yourself lucky - if someone makes a danmei accessible to you for free, COUNT YOURSELF LUCKY. you don’t have to be grateful and treat them as gods or like obey their every word, but it’s not rocket science. someone did you a favour that you accepted and consumed, show some respect.

if you cannot afford to buy the standee - you do not go on twitter demanding that someone ensures that you have access to the standee for free. do you see how ridiculous this sounds once it’s a tangible product? and danmei novels ARE PRODUCTS. they are not FREE CONTENT. if someone cannot afford the standee, this is the equivalent of people going “we didn’t get the standee for free because poor people don’t deserve nice things”

totally missing the point. i don’t even know how it got to this. once again, i do admit that some users were unnecessarily mean, but going to the extreme of this is ridiculous. in argumentative essay writing we call this a logical fallacy:

e.g. “if you cannot pay for merchandise or danmei, it is a fact that you might not have access to it” morphing into “if we cannot pay for food, does this mean we cannot have access to it?!” - this is a slippery slope, and factors are not equivalent!!!! do they not teach people anything in school

don’t confuse fanfiction with danmei - danmei novels ARE PAID PRODUCTS unless for free chapters, just because it’s released online doesn’t mean it’s free public property, and also selected novels (did you guys know the WHOLE of SCI novel is free? about 500 chapters sorry, random, just a tidbit)

there are of course nuances right, like if anyone told me they were pirating disney+ content i’d be like yeah hey get one over those bloodsuckers, they take enough of our money and produce shit content anyway. the difference is that danmei authors, and the danmei industry itself can still be considered a nascent and not-yet matured industry, with a majority of authors if not all, depending on monetary flow, likes, comments, virality on the sites their content is hosted on, for a living, unlike hugeass MNCs trying to squeeze us dry for content that isn’t even interesting.

danmei is priced rather reasonably - and this brings me to another argument that was made, that the value of money is not the same for everyone. i don’t want to make comments on this because yes this is correct to a large extent. a $6 book might be cheap to most of us, but might be expensive to someone else. i’m not gonna comment on how cheap or whatever it is, if you gotta use your money for other things, definitely! i still maintain however, that a novel less than a dollar should be affordable to most people, a majority of people. and i definitely side eye some users who obviously have money but are just creating noise because they wanna continue free-riding

(4) the “they’re losing out on their international audience” argument: honestly, i feel like english-speaking danmei fandom gives themselves a bit too much credit. danmei has long thrived in china in its domestic market - sure the international audience is a plus to have and i’m sure the authors are grateful and flattered that people who don’t understand chinese love their content and love it a lot, but do they and their companies care about fans who basically don’t bring in money? i’m not sure (okay i’ll get to the fan translators doing illegal shit later okay i got it don’t be impatient)

and international fans are great, i don’t deny that - but when i see arguments like “oh but it’s their loss if they don’t cater or deny access to us, they get more popularity and sharing overseas”, i honestly think they don’t care as much as you think. once again, hunxi made a really good argument regarding non-sinophone audiences, but it really irks me, because this is the same as:

an instagram influencer saying they’ll give a restaurant exposure for free to their followers, if they get a free meal

it’s par for par - danmei authors wants earnings, popularity, tangible results that show that they are succeeding. this is life. if i put something out there for sale, i better be getting returns, simple economic logic. they probably don’t care that a non-paying reader is bringing them greater ‘exposure’ - once again, i mean this objectively.

and yes if they’re thriving without the international market then why should it matter that people are pirating right? which brings me to the next point~

(5) it’s fan translators faults for so many people pirating, and fan translators are the ones doing the “illegal” work: this one is like... wow where do i unpack this and how-

firstly, we are talking about assholes who can pay but decide to free ride and not pay for danmei, and we assume that if you really cannot afford and have to pirate, no one’s saying anything as long as you don’t go around spreading how to pirate, how the hell did it get to fan translators from “you guys are anti-poor” and whatever

yes, fan translations are indeed illegal, i don’t deny that, and i also don’t deny that there are translators who translate for clout and popularity but putting these aside - here’s what i have seen from people who ran their mouths and made this argument

“if you guys care about us pirating the book so much than fan translators shouldn’t have translated in the first place” and “if you wanna come after us for reading illegally, then fan translators, you guys should go get the copyright for the book and then translate it cuz what you guys are doing is also illegal”

hooooo i’m telling ya, i am all for translators locking up their translations at this point. see how fucking hurtful that is? you eat from my hand and then now you biting at the hand that fed you the gays in love?

honestly if you’ve made this argument or supported this, you can basically go to hell. yes this is personal because what, you think fan translators don’t take out their personal time and effort and hard work to make translations accessible to you? if you’re ever consumed and read translations, don’t be a hypocrite and make this argument. you benefitted from it, now you wanna say it’s their fault?

most translators want to share and spread the love they have for a novel right, want to show you how wonderful all these authors are, how much enjoyment u get from reading these wonderfully thought out stories of gays in love. yes we all know we are illegally translating, which is why on top of sharing we first, purchase the novels legally ourselves first, and then we try to encourage people to buy etc. and actually put their money to use. it doesn’t make it any less illegal, but we are bridging the gap between danmei and basically the english-speaking fandom, albeit illegally

we aren’t that self-important to ask for gratefulness but some respect would be nice. like i said, you read it, you consumed it, you enjoyed it, you can only access it because of illegal translators - a bit counter-intuitive to yell at these translators, who are simply telling you, if you can, please support. and none of us went “if you cannot afford, begone!”

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🔺 some people tried to help by offering jjwxc credits so people who cannot afford as they say, can get legal access: honestly, just take it right, guess what some of these users did in response

they said the people giving away credits are trying to redeem themselves for their comments by giving away free stuff

they also said that we are trying to shame the people who cannot afford it with this handout to them, to show that they are the bigger person - the fact that they think this is a handout to them is TELLING. the people offering this is giving their money not to these readers, but to the authors! that’s the point of this exercise!!!

one of them even said “instead of trying to do these giveaways, here, there are greater world problems out there, donate instead to these causes” - love the initiative, but how did we get from being able to afford danmei and entertainment content to saving the world? i just- i cannot

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🔺 so why i get why fan translators are locking up their translations, because wow, so hurtful:

you have no idea how many fucking assholes went “sure, lock up your translations, deal with the consequences” - ermmmm firstly, thanks for making a threat. like who the fuck do you think you are?

the consequences is... the authors still don’t get the money these free riders weren’t going to give them anyway, so no loss, and they weren’t reading on jjwxc anyway so you know, the authors don’t lose or gain any readership numbers or traffic they didn’t already have. instead, it WILL push and force people to pay for the PRODUCT. once again, it’s a product.

this works, and i’d say Word of Honor’s payment model worked marvellously for Youku, because they fucking forced everyone to pay to access content. ALL OF THEM. sure ok some people still pirated it, but how many MORE people paid on Youku, on Youku Youtube, watched on Viki etc. than if they didn’t? even english-speaking fandom were wracking their brains trying to purchase a Youku pass even if there were no subs initially - and other examples that lovely hunxi brought up in her amazing piece

and for translators?! honestly me for one, i’m glad i don’t feel pressured anymore to churn out a chapter every week since we get called names etc. most of us are glad to have a break to be honest. we’ve lost all motivation to translate because it’s a free service, at the very least we don’t expect like hate, or rudeass fuckers. for those who are doing a proof of purchase thing - go for it honestly!

hopefully it’ll minimize the free rider problem - some people for whatever reasons really cannot buy or support legally, that’s totally cool and they don’t have to justify it, i get that. but for others making the same argument but obviously are just unwilling to pay because they can’t read chinese, think it’s too troublesome when there are guides and translators provide it for free anyway so what’s the point - we all make concessions and make decisions to grab what we like (not talking about the ppl who have their various troubles and difficulties!)

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🔺 and those who are saying why is it the ‘rest of us suffer’ from locked translations just because of a few bad apples:

IT ISN’T ABOUT YOU. where the hell were all of ya when we were getting called illegal huh? it’s about us fan translators getting shot at for no reason, and then people still demanding things for free. i don’t see any of the people i’ve seen on tumblr complain about fan translators stopping or locking translations defend any of us in any way. instead, you’re complaining.

it is the translator’s prerogative to start, stop and end translations, unless of course the original author starts to sue i suppose. i see people on tumblr going like if they were gonna do this, they shouldn’t have started in the first place etc. - i don’t what world you live in, but when i do something for free, then get called names and am attacked or get dictated on how i should do something that’s already like free, i tend to be less generous.

i’m sorry, do us illegal and free translators owe ANY OF YOU? i wasn’t aware any of us were being paid for this hobby. readers, especially those who CAN and just refuse to support, don’t get to say SHIT. translators deal with so much shit and so many entitled readers, i say they get to lock whatever they want as long as they aren’t profiting off of this monetarily.

let me give you an example - nan chan, which is translated by lian yin, completed translations by the way for all chapters. it is all free for viewing, and she only locked up one extra and asked for proof of payment. some dumbfuck quotes that locked up extra chapter tweet and said “honestly, this turned me off reading this novel because they restricted access”.

the. fucking. entitlement. the whole of nan chan is free, that’s like what more than 80 chapters. she locked up the EXTRA and the money goes to the author, she doesn’t earn anything. AND HERE THAT BIJ is (yes, i’m going to call them names because you know, fucking asshole who didn’t bother to check) going “yeah i didn’t wanna read because 1/80+ chapters were locked”.

AN EXTRA. LITERALLY AN EXTRA!!!!!!

at the end of the day, translators are not like DYING to translate, not like some of you are DYING to read the translations. once again, this isn’t a “BE GRATEFUL” message, it’s a please be respectful to the people who put in time and hard work for free and share the goodness ya know? what’s the use of yelling at fan translators as if we owe you anything?

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🔴🔴🔴 TOO LONG DIDN’T READ 🔴🔴🔴

some people may need really need to pirate - and no one needs to justify why they cannot afford to purchase etc. pirating happens all the time, translators only hope that when you can, and in whatever way you can, to support legally - in general we don’t ask and we get it! we’re just annoyed that some people think that it SHOULD BE FREE, when it is a paid product, especially for those who CAN afford it

readers are not entitled to shit on translators for what they do with their translations - once again, you’re not OBLIGATED to have it. so what if i start and stop? i’m the one doing the work, i get the only say. don’t be a hypocrite and shit on translators, whose works you’ve read - it’s no loss for translators, we read and enjoy danmei just fine

yes, fan translations are illegal, but you can’t read and enjoy them like some of you have, and then turn around and point the finger at translators - a lot of us are happy to stop translating - this isn’t a threat, but at the end of the day, shitting on translators simply decreases access, and sure, some people can indeed live with you know, MTL or shitty translations from people who’ve learnt chinese for only six months or whatever, but you’re gonna be reading an entirely different book tbh

the people saying illegal translators are at fault - funnily enough, most of them consume the translations, so what the fuck? i mean we know it’s illegal, we’re trying to share the love and trying to minimize the illegalities of it by redirecting people to hopefully support legally. it’s still illegal yes, but i think it’s hypocritical for people who have read translations, stab translators in the back. and now that translators are indeed ‘restricting’ and ‘removing’ their ‘illegal translations’, yall yelling again? and threatening?

fan translators aren’t “elitist” or “classist” - just looking for some respect in a community which seems to have taken them for granted, and also looking for support for their fave authors - and honestly a lot of us were caught in the crossfires truly, don’t be an asshole and demand things from fan translators - who are you talking about? do you know why they decided to lock? do you know know what their locking system is like and what for?

it’s not EASY to lock the translations up - it’s more admin work, it’s putting together a whitelist of people, if given the choice i’m sure translators would prefer to share everything. but not when there are assholes who have a comment on how they should translate etc. and yeah!!! calling us illegal!! i mean we are but still!!

the last straw was seeing that post on tumblr and people in the comments going like fan translators shouldn’t or should do something, without getting the whole picture, without even considering how hard it is for fan translators being caught in this situation.

whoever puts in the work gets to decide, and everyone else should leave them alone.

be nice to the people who really cannot afford as they say so (or just don’t think about it), be nice to the translators feeding you content, and the people who free ride and shit on translators - honestly, i’d say ready the pitchforks.

edit: i forgot to mention this is my hot take and i’ve tried to like present all the arguments i’ve seen so far. i’m definitely not doing all of it justice and i don’t claim to speak on behalf of any of them except maybe one or two- and i’ve definitely left out stuff, but anyway, lmao we’re just tiny people doing what we love. i wish we could solve you know inequality or poverty or hunger or other pressing concerns. if i was that great i wouldn’t be stuck on tumblr or twitter or have to make posts like these like a loser.

thanks for coming to my ted talk.

#danmei #danmei twitter #rambles #long post #literally cannot take the stupidity of some people anymore

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iamtrebleclefstories · 3 years

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I believe in second chances - part seven

teasing friends and wedding dates

hi, it’s been a minute. life got crazy busy and I had major writers block. if you need a refresher on what happened previously, go check out my master list

—Part 7—

“Wow, you clean up nicely,” Meredith teased as she walked into the attendings lounge to find Alex getting ready for the wedding.

“He’s taking Wilson with him to Bailey’s wedding,” Jackson shot a sly smile over their way. “That’s why he keeps fiddling with his tie.”

“Shut up,” Alex grumbled as he straightened his tie for the fifth time.

“Aww he’s nervous,” April laughed as she fastened her earrings. “How sweet. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this flustered, Karev.”

“I’m not nervous,” Alex furrowed his brow and smoothed down his jacket. “I just want to look nice. Is that so bad?”

“Oh, he’s totally nervous,” Cristina snickered. “Twenty bucks says he makes a fool out of himself tonight.”

“Nah, I think he’s gonna get laid tonight,” Jackson’s lips curved up into a grin.

“Will you guys shut up already?” Alex huffed, annoyed at their constant meddling. “We’re going as friends. I already told you guys. I’m not rushing anything, I’m not pushing anything. And my goal isn’t to get into her pants.”

“I hate this mature, sappy side of you,” Cristina scowled in disgust. “You’re no fun anymore. What happened to filthy, diseased, manwhore Alex?”

“He fell in love,” Alex replied simply, gaining a slew of raised eyebrows and surprised looks from his friends.

“Woah he actually said it. He admitted that he’s in love with her,” April’s jaw dropped.

“Pay up, Avery,” Cristina extended her hand. “I told you he was gonna say it.”

“You guys suck,” Alex glared at them and stood up from the chair and walked towards the door. “I’m leaving. I’ll see you guys at the wedding.”

Alex walked out of the attendings lounge and over to the intern locker room, palms sweating. He didn’t know why he was so nervous. It wasn’t as if he and Jo hadn’t spent alone time together. They’d gone out to the bar and for pizza after work multiple times. This wasn’t anything they hadn’t done previously. Even in the before, when Jo and Alex weren’t nearly as close as they were now, the concept of the two of them going out alone wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. But for some reason, Alex couldn’t slow the hammering of his heart as he approached the locker room.

Straightening his tie one more time and clearing his throat, Alex walked into the room. He felt his breath hitch in his throat as Jo walked out of the bathroom and mooted out her dress. Jo’s eyes widened as she saw Alex waiting in the doorway, dressed up in suit and tie, fidgeting nervously.

She blushed lightly when she noticed his staring, “You clean up nicely.”

“Thanks,” Alex smiled bashfully. “You… you look beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Jo’s cheeks flushed at the compliment.

They stood there awkwardly for a second before Alex shook himself from his thoughts and spoke, “You ready to go?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m ready,” Jo answered and grabbed her purse, walking out the door Alex held open. “So… Bailey’s actually getting married today.”

“Yup,” Alex nodded.

“Guess that means the interns should stop calling her booty-call Bailey. Since she’s going to be a married woman and all,” Jo chuckled slightly.

Alex let out a snort. He’d forgotten about the nickname the interns had given Bailey his first year as a fellow, “Yeah… might be a good idea.”

*****

“Dude go talk to her,” Jackson urged Alex. “She’s been sitting at the bar alone for the last twenty minutes. You need to go over there before one of the groomsmen tries to pick her up and take her home tonight.

Alex shot Jackson a glare, “Shut up, no one is going to take her home tonight except me.” His eyes widened when realized how that sentence sounded. “I mean… I’m going to, I just… I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to say.”

“I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to seeing you like this,” April took another sip of her wine. “Just have a conversation with her like a normal human being. Jackson is right. You can’t sit here forever.”

“I know that,” Alex groaned when April and Jackson’s pagers went off.

“Well, it looks like you’re going to have to go talk to her now because we are leaving,” Jackson smirked and held out his hand for April to follow him.

“Good luck Romeo,” April waved as she and Jackson walked away.

Alex exhaled and made his way over to the bar where Jo was sulking. Burying his hands in his pockets and plastering a nervous smile on his face, he motioned for the bartender, “Beer for me and another round for Hobo Jo. Let me guess… Thunderbird? Or is it straight paint thinner?” He grinned at the bartender. “You got a little brown paper bag you can put that in?”

“Stop that,” Jo rolled her eyes as a smile creeped its way onto her face. “I had no parents. I lived in my car. But you can’t exactly say you’re any better, “Mr. I went to juvie.’”

“Shut up,” Alex laughed. “At least you didn’t have to see your schizo mom go after your baby brother with a steak knife. Which reminds me - I should call and check on them. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, that might be a good idea,” Jo hummed. She looked down at the drink in her hand. “Where did Kepner and Avery go? I thought you were talking with them at the table.”

“They got paged for a trauma,” Alex answered.

“Do we have to go?” Jo stood up from the chair. “Let’s go.”

“Oh no,” Alex guided Jo back to her seat. “You don’t get to practice medicine with booze in your system. Besides, you’re on peds and we’re not needed.”

“But I wanted to get in on a cool trauma surgery,” Jo pouted.

“If you keep drinking like that, you’ll be the trauma case,” Alex quipped, eliciting a playful glare from Jo. “After this, no more paint thinner. I’ll buy you a couple beers, though. I know your limit on those.”

“Kill joy,” Jo responded and ordered a round of tequila shots, leaving Alex to stare in disbelief. “Oh come on, do at least one round of shots with me. I’m much more fun to be around when I’m drunk anyway.”

“Call me crazy, but I prefer you sober,” Alex pushed the shot glasses the bartender had placed in front of them away from Jo.

“Alex. Please,” Jo looked at him with wide eyes and stuck out her bottom lip.

“Really? Puppy dog eyes. You’re seriously going to go there?” Alex gave her an unimpressed look.

“Is it working?”

Not being able to say no to that face, Alex relented, "Fine. But only one round of shots and no more. I don't feel like throwing you over my shoulder and hauling your drunk ass out of here tonight."

"Why not? That sounds like fun," Jo's eyes shined brightly.

"Shut up," Alex rolled his eyes.

*****

"Oh my God, did you see his face?" Jo held her stomach as she cackled. "It was priceless. And your face! Your face when he walked in was hilarious."

"And then you threw the vodka shots at him," Alex wiped a couple tears. "Oh man… I haven't laughed like that in years."

It was true, the first time he'd experienced breaking into a stranger's hotel room in the before had been hilarious, but this time around was somehow funnier than he remembered it. Maybe it's because he knew Jo better in this reality. Knowing who she was made it easier to laugh with her and be himself.

Something that he was reminded of since waking up in this timeline was that he never had to be afraid to be himself with Jo. In this timeline as well as the previous one, she had immediately accepted him for who he was. It was an overwhelming realization. Before Jo, no one had simply accepted him for who he was and not who they wanted him to be. Sure his friends accepted him--eventually--but It wasn't without trying to change him first before realizing that this was who he was.

He fought the desire to just pull Jo into his arms and kiss her. He couldn't do that. Not when everything that happened in this timeline depended on the decisions he made going forward.

Still, Alex couldn't help himself as he stared at Jo who sat at the Kitchen island with a carefree smile on her face. So, he finally made his move, "Let's go out today. We both have off, we should do something fun, go somewhere nice.”

"Why would we go out when we can laze around and do nothing here?" Jo reached out for a banana that was in the bowl in front of her. "Besides, going out during the day isn't really our thing. If we go out it's usually for drinks after work and we inevitably end up back here and sit on the couch watching bad TV and joking around for hours until we fall asleep. Plus, I don't even want to think about alcohol after last night. And I definitely do not want to see the state of my liver."

Alex shook his head, "I'm not asking you to get day drunk with me. I'm asking you to go out with me."

Jo's jaw dropped and the banana in her hands fell onto the counter and her eyes looked as though they might bulge out of her skull at any second. She opened and closed her mouth a couple times before speaking, "Oh… You mean a… Oh!" She blinked at him a few times. "Alex… I'm just… I come with a lot of baggage--"

"I know, and that's okay," Alex assured her.

" I'm- I'm not ready to be with anyone yet," Jo attempted to let him down gently. "I like you, I really do. You're probably my best friend. But I need to fix my mess first. One day soon, I'll do it. I'll fix the mess in my brain and I'll be ready."

"Okay," Alex nodded. "Well, I'll be here when you are."

If Jo needed any confirmation or indicator as to what kind of man Alex was, that one comment was enough to crush any doubts she may have had about his character.

"You'd really do that? You'd wait?" She asked.

"Look, I'm going to say something that might freak you out a little because you get squirrely when you're scared, but Jo… I want you and I'm not going anywhere. I'll wait my whole damn life for you because you're worth it. You’re worth being waited on," Alex sighed, eyes softening at the woman sitting across from him. "For now, we're whatever you want us to be. You're taking the lead."

"Let's go out," Jo shrugged. "I mean, we're friends, right? We can still go out. Friends go out with each other."

"Yeah," Alex replied casually. "We can do that."

"Okay."

#jolex #jolex fanfic #alex karev #jo wilson #grey's anatomy #jo x alex #grey's anatomy fanfiction #jolex fanfiction #jo and alex #grey's anatomy fanfic #meredith grey #cristina yang #april kepner #jackson avery #rewriting canon #callie torres #miranda bailey #I believe in second chances

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jjba-hell · 3 years

Text

Fate and Fortune

Part 11

Here’s Part 10 but hop on the Fate and Fortune tag for the rest

Second week of 2021 and I’m straight up not having a good time ✌︎('ω')✌︎- I hated the original piece so ended up re-writing it so uhhh good luck with this piece (really not a favorite for me)

For my moots: @fyre23 and @risottoneroo

Content warning: none in particular, just a SLEEZY Steely Dan

The tarot cards laid out before her two stacks- the ones whose stands who are known and those are not. Mr Joestar had politely asked for a reading- wondering if Hermit Purple could help him choose the card Dio’s stand held.

Vera didn’t say it quite off the bat from asking but she had her money in The World- simply because that was the end of their journey as a group was heading- to Dio. It had seemed almost poetic when thorny vines wrapped around the World card. Joseph thanks her for the reading and proceeded ahead to grab some food. So with that, she slid the deck back together and as she rose back up on her feet a quiet whisper over her ear brought her plans of walking back to the others to an abrupt end. “So- this is what Enya’s killer looks like? I suppose I have to thank you, Dio’s faith in her servitude was wavering.”

Vera craned her neck to take a look at the owner of the voice behind her- somewhat handsome if not marred by the godawful sneer plastered over his ear.

“Got some guts coming after me directly, don’t you think?”

Fortune materialized behind the man, Vera taking his moment of surprise to step out from his looming stance over her shoulder. “Got a name, jackass?”

“Dan, Steely Dan. My stand represents the lovers.” He said almost as if he expected her to know who he was. “Now that you know my name and I have most certainly heard more than my fair share about you- join me for a coffee? Just across the street.”

Vera’s scowl only seemed to worsen at the offer. “For what?”

“For taking care of Enya for me, of course. It truly does make my life so much easier.”

She didn’t trust this weasel as far as she could see him and she was convinced the others might smell something was up soon enough but until then she’d have to deal with it- maybe she could manage some information out of this bastard.

“Fine then- let’s talk.” She dematerialized Fortune back and with her hands back into her jean pockets, she followed.

Unsurprisingly two cups of coffee were already set on the table outside the shop. “How hospitable of you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you knew I was going to take your offer.”

Steely Dan brought his cup to his lips. “Rest assured, I’d never allow any harm to come over a stunning creature such as yourself.”

Vera sat back, bringing a cigarette to her lips. “I’m a bit young for you, aren’t I?” She sneered- the slight twitch in his right eye enough to get a chuckle out of her. “Besides, no matter how pretty I am, doesn’t change the fact that I am, essentially, your enemy.”

“What can I say? Birds of a feather flock together.”

She laughed, watching the others approach her from across the street. About time.

“My, my- your vanity that important to you? How about we cut to the chase, Dan? What do you want?”

Dan leaned in over his edge of the table, folding his arms in front of him. “Surely that’s an easy answer- I’m here to destroy your little group- one by one.”

Uttered just in time for the others to hear.

“And what exactly makes you so confident you stand a chance against five of us?” Polnareff was one to speak first.

The simpering laugh he have made Vera’s blood boil. This guy really thought he trumped them somehow. “Simply put, none of you can lay a hand on me.”

Vera flipped her cigarette between her fingers and pressed the hot coal into the top of his right hand. He flinched away angrily fanning his hand before balling it into a fist and swinging her way. She held her hand up to grab his wrist as a block but Star got him first- sending him....and Mr Joestar flying back.

She ran to Joseph to help him back up again- her mind running furiously to connect why he flew back? Was it a fluke?

When Mr Joestar’s breathing started laboring, her gaze shot towards Jotaro with his grip on Steely Dan.

“Jotaro, stop.”

He shot her one glance over the shoulder before relaxing his grip- Joseph’s breathing evening out a bit.

She looked up at the sleeze ball Dan and scowled- “Your stand, the lovers. You’re interconnected with it aren’t, you?”

“A good start. Doesn’t explain how Mr Joestar’s getting hurt though, does it?” He taunted.

Vera thought about it for a moment, trying to piece together why only Joseph would be targeted. It had to be a choice- he’d pick the seemingly weakest one who couldn’t take the beating.

“The niche of it I’ll yield on but it seems whatever you experience, your stand deals to your target.”

That same sickly smile spread over his lips. “Good looks and good brains- not that the latter matters very much.”

Jotaro grabbed hold of the bastard’s collar again, threatening to kill him too quick for it to hurt. Fortune’s dials moved back quietly over Joseph’s injuries- unable to revert back to the state it was in before the stand but maybe just before the punch. “So... how are you making this work, Dan?”

Somehow knowing more did nothing for her to come up with a plan but when the bastard started making a scene with Jotaro- rock in hand- she started to worry. Vera moved closer to where Jotaro had to be held back by the other two men- when Dan brought the rock up over his shoulder to swing at Jotaro’s head she simply had Fortune snatch it out of his hand.

“Tch, how primitive.” She grabbed hold of Kakyoin’s wrist, pulling him away from the scuffle. “I think you know what to do- I’ll make sure this cuck doesn’t do anything stupid.”

The corners of Kakyoin’s mouth twitched a bit before he and Joseph took off down the street- shortly followed my Polnareff.

“Oh, I see... you think you could exploit a range weakness.”

She didn’t answer, taking a moment to stand beside Jotaro whose jaw was painfully clenched.

“No matter. Since you two will be following me around for a day.” She figured he’d pull the move, fucking sleezeball. He grabbed hold of one of her belt loops and pulled her flush to his side. He threw an arm over her shoulder and started walking.

Jotaro- simmering behind them, followed. “Admittedly, you’re pretty even when you scowl but I think a smile would suit you better, wouldn’t it?”

Steely Dan’s hand wrapped around her jaw, making her look at him- the disdain on her face still evident. She figured he’d threaten her with his own pain, or rather Mr Joestar’s, so she swallowed her pride for a moment and forced a smile.

He let her go completely as they reached the drainage ditch- turning towards Jotaro to instruct him to act as the bridge. “Didn’t take you as the lazy kind, Dan. Surely a physique like yours is earned”, she tried so hard not to say the last bit but she just couldn’t resist. “Especially at your age, walking must be the best way to get that exercise in.”

Once again- the comment made his eye twitch and as penance his leg swung into the pillar. Fortune moved too quick though and moved him just enough to slip and fall on his ass.

Once again, she swallowed her pride and came to his aid- helping him back up on his feet, that sickly sweet smile plastered to her face.

“Oh come now, I’m just teasing. Nothing wrong with being just a little playful, is there?”

He squinted at her in disbelief, as he should, taking her hand regardless and walking past her to address Jotaro. “Troublesome woman- someone should have beat that out of you. It might just end up being me.”

She wrapped her hand around Jotaro’s clenched fist, just long enough for him to relax a bit until Steely Dan gave his next request.

Vera didn’t dare follow Dan, she simply phased herself to the other side of the ditch Jotaro was stretched over- a trick she knew would tip fortune out of her favor for a while but she didn’t care.

“Oh? You actually followed me?” Dan taunted as she bent down to help Jotaro into the other side and fix any of the damages he caused. She didn’t answer him though.

“Tch. Very well.”

“That fuck is going to wish he were never born.” She growled through gritted teeth. Jotaro gazed up at her, the same anger in his eyes.

His hand moved up, almost looking like it was going to cup her face but instead it moved to grab a strand of her hair.

“That move cost you.” He commented as she peered down at the grey strand. Vera was used to moving Fortune forward and back to her will but because she could only move her own forward she noticed little changes like longer nails or outgrown hair a bit too often for her to rule out that other people’s fate didn’t affect her.

The gray hair however... she suppose that was due to the shock her system had been given the past few days. “Doesn’t matter.” She rose up again, taking his hand in hers. “Come on- he’s gonna get up to something I swear.”

They followed after like obedient dogs- both Jotaro and Vera’s patience growing painfully thin. From back scratching to shoe shining- Vera stood between Jotaro and whatever onslaught of petty jabs at Jotaro he could throw. Jotaro’s torture was physical for sure but the scathing comments thrown at Vera had her fingers itch for his neck under her grip.

She angrily wrenched his hand from the hem of her jeans- gritting her teeth as she hissed. “Reach into my jeans one more fucking time and I’ll-“

“You’ll what, dollface?”

“I’ll make what I did to Enya tané in comparison to what I’ll do to you.”

“Oh is that a threat?”

“A promise, motherfucker.”

He shrugged her off, her blood boiling more with every step she has to watch him walk away. “Let me make it up to you, Vera. I’ll treat you to some jewelry...”

It was trouble from the second she stepped into the shop after him- looking at nothing in particular except the back of his neck right in front of her. When it was Jotaro holding the bracelet, it was the only time she couldn’t stop him from getting hurt.

Outside the shop he slipped a gaudy gold necklace around her neck and soon as he finished clasping the thing she phased straight out of it, letting it fall to the ground.

She only gave one look at the piece of jewelry laying on the ground and then up at him. “Suits you better, looks cheap.” Fortune moved towards Jotaro to start on his injuries- Dan thinking he could take a hit on her but once again missing poorly.

“Y’know- I can’t tell when no one’s ever used their own fists to fight their way out.” She gazed over her shoulder at him. “My dodges are slow and the fact that you can’t hit me says a lot. A bit too comfortable with your stand if you ask me.”

As if on qeue, Dan’s frown soon turned bloody. Kakyoin must’ve gotten a hit on the jackass’s stand.

Relieved, Vera reached into Jotaro’s jacket pocket for a cigarette and the notebook he’d been working on. She scribbled down the shit he’d said to her and then closed the book- handing it back to him.

“You’ll take care of this one for me, yeah?”

“You going to check up on the other three?”

“Yeah, best not avoid any brain damage your grandfather could have suffered from the extraction.”

Jotaro nodded- Dan’s begging getting louder as she walked away. She figured it best to let him handle it-moving her own fortune forward was never good and she had the right idea to do so since no sooner she turned a corner down an alleyway did a door slam open and give her a bloody nose.

BONUS:

“You can take a lot of verbal abuse, huh?”

Jotaro had muttered at her as she laid her head on his chest. The night was too young and too hot for them to be touching too much.

“And you can take a lot of physical abuse, what’s your point?”

He gave a huff, of laughter or frustration she wasn’t sure. “You shouldn’t.”

“I don’t. I just don’t deal with it the same as you.” She lifted her head a bit to get more hair out from under her head. “I’m much rather humiliate them before I just punch them.”

“Where’d you pick up that trick?”

She laughed, “Boarding school, unsurprisingly.” She put on her best British posh voice. “A lady’s hands must never draw the blood of her enemies.”she shrugged, laughing at her own impression. “So when you can’t throw hands- violence comes some other way.”

Jotaro only hummed, bringing the little ice pack they’d bought back to her. She took it and gracelessly held it against her nose which had turned violently blue the first few hours.

“I’m sorry.”

The phrase came out of the blue for her but she looked him head on regardless, “For what?”

“Dragging you along.”

She shook her head- “I’m sorry to tell you JoJo but I’m as much after saving Holy as I am avenging my parents-“

The mere word made he zone out, or just become quiet in the conversation.

So he wrapped is arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer, letting the doe eyed glare in her eyes clear up a bit before starting the conversation a new.

“She’s not dealing with it well.” Kakyoin sighed, leaning against the hotel balcony railing as Jotaro smoked. “I understand why she’s doing it but I don’t think she processed what she felt back there.”

Jotaro only nodded, swallowing a heavy lump in his throat as he straightened. “She’s been acting off, I’d be lying if I said I’m worried.”

Kakyoin sighed, unfolding his arms over his chest before doing the same. “All we can do is hope that Avdol might know what to tell her.”

#jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo no kimyou na bouken #jojo part 3 #jotaro kujo #muhammed avdol #joseph joestar #Noriaki Kakyoin #Jean Pierre Polnareff #OC content #OC Vera #fate and fortune

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ericsonclan · 3 years

Text

Dysfunctional Decorating

Summary: Carley and Lee work with their kids to decorate the house for Christmas and have some chocolaty drinks afterwards.

Word Count: 4193

Read on AO3:

Marlon sat on the couch, his hands brushing against his guitar as he positioned it on his knee. Slowly his fingers began to pluck the strings, causing a series of notes that sounded like a familiar Christmas song. His tongue stuck out slightly while he concentrated on reading the sheet of music in front of him. The caramel colored guitar let out a sour note, causing the twelve year old to scrunch his face in annoyance.

“Damn it,” Marlon whispered under his breath and worked to retune the guitar before starting up again. He was through the first few notes of the song when his younger sister Clementine ran down the stairs, her arms filled with white Christmas tree lights.

“Hey, Marlon.” Clementine gave a warm smile to her brother. “Working on a Christmas song?”

“Yeah, I wanted something to make our first Christmas as a family special,” The blond scratched the back of his head with an introverted smile. “But I’m still learning how to play.” He had hoped he would learn to play the song by now to surprise the others and make it so that they would bond more together as a family. It had only been a few months since they’d become a new family and to say that it had been rocky so far would be an understatement. But Marlon was hoping that Christmas would turn that around.

“Well, I thought it sounded good so far.” Clementine gave a soft smile towards Marlon. “You wouldn’t mind me decorating for a bit while you play, would you?” “Not at all,” Marlon waved a hand. “But I thought we’d start decorating when Mom and Dad got home?”

“We will with the tree and stuff,” Clementine walked over to the display table and placed down the lights on the sofa next to it. “But I couldn’t wait to decorate with my animal skulls!” Clementine’s eyes danced with excitement at the thought.

Marlon gave a soft chuckle. “Sounds good to me,” His fingers repositioned on the strings and his full concentration returned to the song. The notes began to dance through the air, bringing to life “Silent Night”. Clementine hummed along to the song happily as she weaved the lights around and through the various animal skulls of hers. Marlon glanced up, sharing a gentle smile with his sister before returning to his playing. After a few minutes the song stopped and Clementine had finished draping her lights. With a drumroll given by Marlon, Clementine plugged in the lights, brightening up the skulls and illuminating their beauty. Marlon gave a whistle, placing down his guitar before strolling over to stand by his sister.

“That looks awesome, Clem.” Marlon placed his hands on his hips and smiled down at her. Clementine looked up and immediately shared the smile. “Thanks. I-”

She was suddenly cut off when she heard the excited cheering of her older sister Renata coming from the kitchen. The brother and sister shared a look before strolling into the kitchen to check and see what was happening. When they did they were surprised to see Renata bouncing ecstatically by the kitchen counter. Her hands pressed on the counter while she cheered on her brother Mitch. Mitch seemed to be completely focused on whatever odd challenge he and Renata had concocted. Marlon and Clementine watched in curious silence as Mitch chugged whatever was in the mug. A small string of steam showed that the liquid was still quite warm. The brown liquid poured into his mouth but quickly overfilled it and fell down his face and throat in a steady stream. With a frantic gurgling sound, Mitch ran to the sink and started spitting out a massive white blob from his mouth along with the brown liquid.

“Whoa! That was impressive, Mitch!” Renata gave a round of applause before a mischievous smile overtook her face. “But I’m gonna do way better!

“Bullshit!” Mitch gave a sharp cough. “No way you can drink more than I could.”

“What’s going on?” Prisha’s voice appeared from the entryway to the kitchen. Marlon and Clementine glanced back at their oldest sister.

“Mitch and I are having a special Christmas challenge,” Renata wiggled her eyebrows playfully. “We stuff our mouths full of marshmallows then try to see how much hot cocoa we can chug. Mitch wimped out after only drinking a third of his drink.”

“Wimped out!” Mitch huffed, a competitive smile appearing on his face even though his eyes held a small level of annoyance at his sister. “Please, I bet you can’t do any better!”

“Ha!” Renata shook her head. “Ye of little faith,” She strolled over to where the marshmallows were and started stuffing her mouth. Prisha rolled her eyes at the sight and was about to walk off when Aasim’s voice appeared beside her.

“What is happening?”

“Mit-” Renata began to talk but then started to choke. Marlon ran forward and gave her back a few whacks, clearing her airway. Renata turned to her brother and gave him a thumbs up with watery eyes.

“Renata and I are having some good Christmas fun, “ Mitch answered with a happy smile.

“It seems ridiculous,” Aasim looked on with disapproval.

“Thank you, I was about to say the same thing. I can’t believe-” Prisha paused in her sentence when she realized she was agreeing with Aasim. Even after all these months, Prisha’s insecurities had blocked her chances of connecting with her brother in fears that he would prove to be the smartest and make her position in the family moot. Renata’s odd laughter, half blocked by the marshmallow in her mouth, drew the other siblings’ attention to the middle child. She had successfully filled her mouth with marshmallows again and was beginning to drink the hot cocoa. A weird noise emitted from her mouth as steam poured from it. The siblings watched in awe as their sister nearly finished the cup before leaning over the sink and spitting up the marshmallows.

“What the fuck!” Mitch’s eyes were large with disbelief. “I want a rematch!”

Renata looked up at her brother, her face completely drenched in hot cocoa. “ Anyti-” A sudden burp stretched out her word until she finished it. “Time.” The siblings all looked at each other and started to laugh at what had happened when the front door opened. Mitch and Renata were off like shots, barreling past Prisha and Aasim who started scolding their younger siblings for their rudeness when they saw their parents at the door.

“We’re home!” Lee’s comforting voice rang out through the house. He placed down the bag of groceries and began to help Carley take off her winter jacket.

“Thanks,” Carley smiled lovingly at her husband then captured his lips in a quick kiss.

“Bleh!” Mitch stuck out his tongue in disgust, making the couple look over at their son.

“Mitch, “ Lee began, “That's not a very nice thing to say.”

“Yeah,” Renata scampered forward. “You’re losing major points.” She gave a teasing smile over towards her brother then looked up at her mom. “I can help you with that scarf, Mom.”

“That would be great, thank you.” Carley smiled down at her daughter, a smile that disappeared for a second when her hands touched Renata’s, surprised that they were sticky. “Renata, why are your hands sticky?” Carley asked even though she had a pretty good idea what her daughter would say.

“Mitch and I had a friendly competition. I won!” Renata declared proudly. Mitch’s frown grew at that statement.

“What kind of competition was it?” Lee picked up the groceries when Clementine moved forward.

“I can help, Dad.”

Lee’s smile grew; he was still getting used to having daughters and them calling him their father, even if not all of them did yet. “That would be great,” Lee and Carley began to walk to the kitchen to help unload while Renata answered the question.

“Who could drink the most hot cocoa with their mouths filled with marshmallows.” Renata skipped over to the kitchen with the rest of her family.

“You got eggnog!” Marlon’s eyes danced with excitement at the sight while he helped put away groceries.

“Couldn’t have Christmas without it,” Carley gave a warm smile that dissipated when she saw two large white sticky blobs in the kitchen sink. One look towards her children made it clear who the culprits were. “Renata, Mitch, clean this up please.”

“But, Carley-” Mitch started to argue but saw the look in Carley’s eyes and shut up immediately. The two siblings groaned as they worked to clean up their mess while the others finished putting away the groceries.

“Once we have everything put away, we can bring in the tree.” Prisha’s eyes brightened at that and she moved quicker in helping out. When all the groceries were put away the family moved outside to the car where the tree remained tied on top. Lee went to work right away to help untie the tree along with Marlon and Mitch. As soon as the knots were loose the family worked to carry the tree. Carley led the way followed by Marlon who stood in front of Prisha. Next in line was Renata then Aasim, lastly were Clementine and Mitch who insisted on taking the base since he figured it would be the heaviest. Lee stood at the back and made sure the weight was distributed before speaking up.

“Alright Car, we’re good to go.”

With that confirmation Carley started moving forward and within minutes they were inside the house and working to set up the tree into the tree holder.

“A bit more to the left,” Carley instructed. The kids worked to push the tree as their mom tried to get the tree centered. “Alright, we’re good.” The kids all let out sighs of relief before they noticed Lee working to press the screws in place to hold the tree up. Aasim immediately moved to help along with Clementine and with the three sets of hands the tree was set.

“Okay, let's split up the work. Renata, can you start the Christmas music?” Lee smiled over at his daughter.

“Sure thing, Pops.” Renata slid across the floor and started the music while Lee and Carley worked to split up their kids into the most fitting roles. “Surprise!” Renata ran forward and started to put Santa hats on everyone. Some members of her family looked touched by the gesture such as Marlon and Clementine who both thanked their sister after she put the hats on their heads, while others seemed less enthusiastic about the whole thing.

“Why do I get the shitty one?” Mitch huffed, snatching the pink sparkly Santa hat off his head and throwing it on the ground.

Renata gave a dramatic gasp. “How dare! I gave you Mom’s prized Christmas hat and you toss it on the ground!”

“I’m not surprised,” Prisha replied with a hand on her hip.

Mitch repeated the sentence in a mocking tone, causing his eldest sister’s eyes to narrow in anger.

“Alright, alright,” Lee stepped in between his kids with his hands outstretched. “I’ll wear the special pink hat.”

Renata’s eyes sparkled at that and with a big hop she placed the hat on Lee’s head. With that argument under control, Lee and Carley continued to split up the tasks. After a few minutes the teams of two were beginning their work. Renata and Clementine stood on opposite sides of the tree and began to string up the lights. The pair of sisters giggled as they tossed the pile of lights back and forth, haphazardly draping them over the tree’s form. After a few minutes the two stepped back and smiled over at Lee.

“Look, Lee,” Clementine held out her hands and displayed the tree alongside Renata who was being her usual dramatic self.

Lee looked at the tree that had weird lumps of lights that tangled and swirled around it. “I think you two gave it a good try. But why don’t we start again - I’ll help out this time.”

Renata and Clementine shared a sad look but that quickly faded.

“Okay!” Renata’s smile grew when Lee gave her and Clementine each a head pat before the trio worked to untangle the lights on the tree and start again. Prisha and Aasim glanced up from their spot on the floor.

“Pass me that next box,” Aasim held out his hand and Prisha gave him the box of Christmas ornaments. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Prisha gave a short smile. The pair worked in silence, unraveling the different ornaments and organizing them into different categories. The brother and sister were starting to get along through the simple act of Christmas organizing. But that all went away when Lee came by to check to see how they were doing.

“Hey you two, how are you doing? Need an eggnog break?” Lee’s warm smile made his son return it in kind but it didn’t seem to work on Prisha.

“No thank you, Lee.” Prisha immediately returned to her work but her statement seemed to have rubbed Aasim the wrong way as he looked at Prisha with annoyance.

“You should call him Dad.” Aasim’s statement made Prisha’s eyes shot up. Lee looked alarmed by what was happening and was about to speak up when Prisha beat him to it.

“I won’t since he isn’t my dad. If you want me to call him that, then why don’t you stop being a hypocrite first and call our mom Mom.” Prisha’s tone had some bite to it that made Aasim stand up.

“No, I won’t do that. I thought you knew that but I guess you can’t comprehend that with your puny mind.”

“What was that!” Prisha hissed and jumped to her feet. The argument had caused everyone to stop what they were doing and look at the two siblings. “If we want to talk about small minds, then we don’t have to look anywhere else,” Prisha pointed at her brother with a smirk. “Because it's right here.” Aasim’s anger reached a new level, his eyes hardening as he opened his mouth to speak again.

“Enough, you two,” Carley stood in between them with her arms crossed. “Now both of you apologize for what you said and we can return to having Christmas fun.”

“But, Mother,” Prisha began but the look in Carley’s eyes made it clear she would lose the argument.

“Fine,” Aasim walked forward and held out his hand. “Let’s move forward.”

“Apologize first,” Prisha glared at him.

Aasim looked shocked “ What? Why? You started this whole thing!”

“I did not!!” Prisha huffed.

“Alright, you two, apologize and move on or else both of you will get in trouble.” Lee moved forward with a stern look. All the other kids were watching their siblings in tense silence. Marlon and Clementine hoped that they could move past this and continue the decoration while Mitch and Renata seemed more interested in the chaotic route their siblings could take. Prisha stared at her brother’s extended hand and walked forward only to slither around the hand, walking past it.

“Prisha!” Carley scolded her daughter, but before she could continue Aasim spoke up.

“See! I told you it was all her fault!”

“My fault! I didn’t ask for some snotty sibling!”

“I could say the same thing!” Aasim snapped back.

“My family was perfect before you-” Prisha was cut off when Carley spoke up once more.

“Enough!” Her voice made all the siblings grow silent. All of their gazes looked towards the floor. They couldn’t believe Prisha had said that even if all of them had felt that to some varying degree during their first few months as this new family. Carley stared at both of her kids then back towards her husband. “Lee, can you grab the sweater?”

Lee gave a short nod and ran off towards his study. All the siblings shared a look, lost as to what that could mean. After a minute, Lee returned with a big, ugly Christmas sweater that had the words Our Getting Along Sweater on it. It only took a moment for Aasim and Prisha to get what their punishment was going to be.

“Wait, no, I apologize.” Aasim looked toward his sister frantically. “Accept it, Prisha.” “I accept, I apologize too,” Prisha hoped that it wasn’t too late to get out of the punishment.

“Sorry, kids.” Lee gave a smile. “But rules are rules.” Carley and Lee worked together and got the sweater over the brother and sister who look less than thrilled to be stuck together.

“Now you two will be stuck in that sweater for twenty minutes. If either of you make a mean comment about each other or say anything bad about this family, Lee and I will extend the timer.”

“Holy shit,” Mitch laughed wildly and fell off the couch where he was sitting. Renata joined into the laughter too and even though they tried to hide it, Clementine and Marlon had small smiles on their faces. Prisha and Aasim shared a mortified look before their faces fell.

“Now that that's done, I’m going to set up the reindeer display with Marlon and Mitch,” Carley leaned over, kissing Lee before giving his hand a quick squeeze.

“Alright, have fun.” Lee had a goofy smile on his face from the kiss.

Carley stole one more look then turned her attention to her sons. “Okay, who's ready?” she smiled over at the pair of brothers.

“I am,” Marlon held up his share of the reindeer. Mitch gave a mumbled response and with Carley’s help started to carry out the display. Once they had dropped off the reindeer Mitch sprinted around, slipping and sliding as he worked on the display.

“Careful,” Carley called out to her son who seemed too caught up in setting up the reindeer to listen. Marlon worked alongside his brother and soon the display was all set up. Carley got the cord and held it by the outlet. “So who should do the honors?” Me, me, me!” Marlon and Mitch chanted at the same time before frowning at each other. Carley let out a small half chuckle.

“Why don’t we all do it together?” The suggestion was received well and after placing a few fingers each on the cord, Carley started continuing up. “One… two.. Three!” The plug went into the outlet and lit up the white reindeer, giving them an ethereal glow on the snow-covered lawn. Mitch and Marlon stared in awe at the sight and shared a happy grin.

“Good job, you two,” Carley held up her hand, offering the chance at a high five. Marlon took the opportunity right away, his smile growing wider when he saw how happy it had made his mom. Mitch looked hesitant at the idea but moved forward and high fived with enthusiasm. Carley was taken aback by the strength but even more so by how happy Mitch looked at the high five.

“Let’s go back inside and see what else we can put up for decorations.”

The two brothers nodded and ran back inside, leaving Carley to bring up the rear. Once inside they saw that Renata and Clementine were setting up some more decorations. Lee had placed Clementine on his shoulders and was being navigated by Renata who held the wreath they were trying to put up.

“Yeah! Yeah! Right there!” Renata giggled and stood on her tiptoes to hand off the wreath to her sister. The trio cheered amongst themselves when they had successfully placed the wreath on the upper part of the wall. The odd placement made Carley think that Renata had asked for the wreath to be placed there.

Carley’s eyes looked over to see Aasim and Prisha still working hard on the ornaments, a more somber expression on each of their faces. She hated to put a damper on their moods but their fight had escalated to a point where they needed to have consequences. Her eyes stopped when they saw the vacation Santa that held a saxophone in one of the boxes. A small smile appeared on her lips at the story Lee had told of how Kenny had gifted him that many Christmases ago. Marlon and Mitch followed her gaze and soon smiles appeared on their faces as they ran over to get it. Carley moved forward, passing Prisha and Aasim who were talking amongst themselves.

“No, no, no. This should go in the fragile pile.” Aasim tutted as he took an ornament and moved it.

“You’re a fragile pile,” Prisha muttered under her breath.

“That's another five minutes,” Carley remarked as she strolled by, causing the pair of siblings to look shocked by the time increase.

“Good going, now we’re stuck in this sweater for even longer thanks to you. Who’s the dumb Indian child now?” Aasim smirked.

“That another five minutes,” Lee commented as he carried both Clementine and Renata across the room. Prisha and Aasim stared in disbelief then fell backwards with annoyed groans. Carley looked at them for a moment before Marlon’s voice drew her attention back to the task at hand.

“Mom, you put the batteries in wrong.”

“Hmmm, oh damn it,” Carley looked down at the batteries. She had in fact put the negative where it was clear the positive side of the battery should be.

“It’s no big deal,” Mitch grabbed the batteries and rearranged them. Marlon gave a reassuring smile towards Carley before the trio screwed the battery holder back in place. Just as before the three of them pushed the button together, causing jazzy Christmas tunes to play as Santa did a little dance. Everyone seemed intrigued by the funny Christmas display and took turns pressing the button.

After that was done they were finally ready to work on putting the ornaments on the tree. Clementine worked alongside Prisha, placing their favorites on the tree. Meanwhile Renata was hopping up and down to reach a spot when Marlon offered to help. Aasim worked with Carley, even though it was a bit of a struggle since he was still stuck in the sweater with Prisha. Aasim placed some ornaments and listened as Carley told the tales behind some of her favorites then proceeded to share some of his own. Mitch worked with Lee, getting on his shoulders to place the star up. When that was done, Lee moved to plug in the lights. Everyone watched in excited anticipation. When the bright lights of red, green, yellow and blue shone on the tree, the family gave a cheer.

“So, who’s ready for some hot cocoa?” Lee asked with a smile.

“Can I have eggnog too?” Marlon kicked his foot on the ground.

“Sure,” Carley placed a hand on his shoulder. “But only a little bit if you’re having both.”

“We can have both?!” Renata practically fell from her spot on the chair. Soon the other siblings joined in the discussion of what drinks they wanted. The family was starting to make their way to the kitchen when Clementine saw Aasim and Prisha still in their Christmas sweater, sitting on the couch. They both looked tired

“I can get you guys some drinks.” Clementine offered. Aasim and Prisha both gave small smiles to their youngest sibling, thanking her for generosity before saying that they both wanted hot cocoa. As the hot cocoa was made and distributed around the family, all of them sat around the front living room. Different Christmas-based conversations were brought up by each side of the family giving some tales from their past Christmases. When Renata was in the middle of her retelling of the Christmas where Prisha’s head had gotten stuck in one of Clementine’s animal skulls, she was shushed by her mom.

“Shh, a little quieter, Renata.” Carley gestured over to Prisha and Aasim whose heads were leaning against each other as they slept in their joined ugly Christmas sweater. Lee tiptoed forward and tossed a white winter blanket over the sleeping siblings.

“Oh,” Marlon got excited about an idea but quickly quieted down.

“What is it?” Carley leaned forward to place down her empty mug.

“I just wanted to….” Marlon fidgeted with his mug. “I learned how to play “Silent Night” on the guitar. Well, I’m learning it and I wanna play what I know so far if that's okay.”

“He’s really good,” Clementine gave a warm smile to her brother. Renata gave an excited squeal but immediately cupped her mouth when Prisha muttered in her sleep and stirred for a moment.

“Why don’t you get your guitar,” Lee whispered over to Marlon.

Marlon quietly made his way over and grabbed his guitar. Slowly he began to play the notes, forming a soft, sweet melody of the classic Christmas song. The family sat back and enjoyed the moment. Lee and Carley sat beside each other, their fingers intertwining as they listened to the song. It had been a chaotic time decorating for their first Christmas, but it had ended on a happy note. It had been fun. Looking at the expressions on their kids’ faces, it seemed they felt the same way.

#twdg #twdg clementine #twdg marlon #twdg renata #twdg mitch #twdg prisha #twdg aasim #twdg carley #twdg lee #twdg carlee #fanfic #twdg christmas #everett bunch au #ericsonclanchristmaschallenge

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spn-ficfanatic · 5 years

Text

F*ck Cancer- Ch 5: The Point Of It All

SERIES MASTERLIST - CHAPTER ONE - CHAPTER TWO - CHAPTER THREE - CHAPTER FOUR - CHAPTER SIX

Summary: It’s the big day, and with Sam keen to follow tradition and keep you out of his sight Dean and Bobby are left to help you get ready.

Genre: Angst, fluff

Characters: Sam x Reader, Dean x Platonic!Reader*, Bobby x Platonic!Reader *For the Dean ladies/lads: it may not be romantic between him and the reader, but it’s a very close brotherly/sisterly relationship and I still think y’all will really enjoy it :)

Words: 2422

Warnings: None for this chapter!

A/N: Sorry for the delay guys, life got in the way!

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“Hi Bobby, How’s things?” “Well well well, if it isn’t the little idgit! Long time no hear! Nice to learn you’re still kickin’.” “Yer, well, about that…” “Everything ok pumpkin?” “No not- *deep breath* not really Uncle Bobby. A lot’s happened. There’s some good news and some bad news and I’m not really sure which to tell you first.” “Good news first.” “Well, I’m gonna need you to get your fed suit out and give it a good shake. You’ll be needing it next week when you walk me down the aisle.” “YOU WHAT NOW?!”

You woke up remembering it was your wedding day, so things were already starting off on a good note. You opened your eyes groggily and looked outside, seeing the branches in the nearby tree swaying in the light breeze. You smiled, excited for what the day would bring. Bobby had arrived the night before, and Dean had made most of the arrangements for you strangely. You never picked him for the wedding-planning-type but he seemed to have a plan and was excited about it, so you didn’t want to harsh his buzz. You promised him you would steer clear of the backyard until it was time to walk down the aisle, and he’d even gone to the trouble of blocking out the windows with aluminium foil.

Sitting up you stretched your arms and yawned widely. You’d slept soundly, despite the fact Sam had not joined you. He was a traditionalist it would seem, and opted to spend the night at a motel down the street to avoid seeing you before the wedding. You gave a small chuckle at the idea, which felt moot given you’d been up speaking with him until midnight, and you could see he’d already texted you this morning. You reached over and lifted your phone to your eyes to read it.

“Can’t wait to see you walking toward me,” you mumbled aloud as you read, unable to help but grin like a school-girl with a crush. This was certainly more than that though, and while this whole thing had started off under unusual circumstances you had never been happier.

A small knock at your bedroom door pulled you from your thoughts, and you checked your top to make sure you were decent.

“Uh, yer, come in,” you called out, pushing your hair behind your ears. Bobby walked in with a cup of coffee and you smiled broadly.

“Aww Bobby, you brought me sustenance,” you beamed, taking the cup greedily before taking a big sip.

“Well, figured you could probably use it. Considering you were up so late,” he grumbled, taking a sip of his own drink.

“You… you heard me?” you asked him with wide eyes.

“You wouldn’t stop giggling,” he told you flatly, and your face flushed red with embarrassment. He chuckled and sat down on the bed by your feet, patting your knee affectionately. “I’m just kidding. I mean, you were. But it’s sweet, you two remind me so much of Karen and myself in the beginning.”

You smiled and took his hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. “From what I hear, if we’re even half as happy as you two were I’ll still be the happiest I’ve been in my entire life.”

He smiled back, and patted your knee again before standing up.

“OK, so Dean tells me that you need to get into the shower and get dressed. The marriage guy-”

“Celebrant.”

“Yer whatever. He’ll be here at around 10 and then we’ll be walking you down to Sam about 15 minutes later.”

“Alrighty then, guess I better have a shower and get ready,” you sighed, pulling back the sheets and making a move to stand. Putting a leg on the ground you frowned when it felt a little shaky, but keen to get moving you simply brushed it off as nerves.

Bobby was already halfway out your door when he heard a thump behind him, and he was alarmed to turn around and find you on the ground.

“Jesus girl, are you ok?” he cried, rushing over and kneeling down to face you. You looked at him shocked, your eyes filling with tears that quickly spilled over your lashes. “What? What is it?” he asked.

“I- I can’t- m-my legs…” you sputtered, and Bobby’s eyes went wide.

“Dean!” he called out, putting his arms under your shoulders to lift you back onto the bed. Heavy footsteps were racing down the hall and he appeared at your door, and you knew the look on his face the second you saw it.

He came into that room thinking you were dead.

“Christ old man, what the hell?!” he shouted back, not bothering to hide the fear in his voice.

“She tried to get out of bed and she fell to the floor,” he told him, and Dean’s eyes widened further. You had told him and Sam what the doctor had told you about your condition, and how it would worsen over the final weeks of your life. Specifically the part about how you would lose the ability to walk.

“Tell me you tripped,” he begging you, and when you shook your head with a sob he ran his hand through his hair. Licking his lips he came toward you with wild determination in his eyes.

“No no no, you’ll be ok. You just woke up, they’re probably just sleepin’ right?”

You shrugged. “I can feel them ok, they’re shakey though. I’m not sure I can put weight on them.”

He leaned in closer to you, patting his shoulder. “Wrap your arm around me. We’ll try and walk it off ok? I’ll help, I promise I won’t let you go.”

You nodded tentatively, and did as he asked. Lifting you up he had to bend slightly so that your feet still touched the ground. You took a deep breath, and as Dean put his first foot forward you did the same. You felt the strength underneath you fail, and Dean took your weight as your legs collapsed under you. You cried out in frustration.

“It’s ok kiddo,” Bobby told you from the sidelines. “Just give it some time.”

With Dean’s help you walked to the bathroom, practically dragged at first but thankfully shuffling yourself by the time you got there. You look at the shower, then averted your gaze to the bath in resignation.

“Dean, I think we need to call Sam,” you told him sadly.

“Nuh uh,” he replied, shaking his head. “He wants to do the stupid ‘no seeing the bride before the wedding’ thing and I’m not taking that away from him.”

You nodded in agreement. “Yer ok, I don’t want to either. But how will I…”

“God gave me eyelids for a reason kid,” Dean told you, sitting you down on the nearby seat before turning the taps to fill the bath. “We’ll put some bubbles in there, give you a towel; I won’t see a thing.”

“You’re- you’re going to help me?” you asked him incredulously.

“Well, I could ask Mr Grumpy Pants if you’d prefe-”

“NO!” you replied, simultaneously with Bobby himself.

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The bath wasn’t nearly as embarrassing as you expected. You had washed your hair the night before so all he needed to do was make sure you didn’t slip down and drown yourself, thankfully not an issue as it turned out. Conversation was light despite the events of the previous hour, and when Bobby called out to say some men had arrived you figured that was your cue to finish.

“Who’s he talking about?” you asked Dean as he helped you out of the water.

Dean shrugged. “Some of the guys from work are giving me a hand setting up, it’s no biggie. Now, how’s the legs?”

You gave them a small shake, and were grateful to find they were much better than before.

“Still wobbly, I can walk but I’m still not sure I can carry the weight myself,” you admitted, and he nodded with a frown.

“OK, let’s get you to your room. I’ll lay your stuff out and you just take it one step at a time ok? Get yourself in a bra and underwear at least and I’m sure Bobby can help from there.”

“Do you think he’d prefer a red lacey number?” you asked with a wink, and laughed at his reaction.

“God I hope you’re talking about Sammy. Then again, I still don’t want to hear it,” he scolded at your terrible joke, and soon enough you were alone in your room left to your own devices. You put on your underwear first before your phone started buzzing, and you gulped when you noticed Sam was ringing. For the 6th time that morning.

Shit.

“Hey hun,” you greeted him cheerily, only to pull the phone away from your ear as he let loose. “OK, calm down, everything’s fine.”

“Why the hell isn’t anyone answering their phones?” he demanded. “I’m sitting in the car about to head your way, I thought-”

He didn’t finish the sentence when his voice broke, and you were instantly reminded of Dean’s face when he stormed into your room earlier that morning. You felt a lump form in your throat.

“I’m sorry Sam, I really am. I was in the shower, Bobby was sticking nearby in case I needed anything. And Dean is busy outside... I’m not really sure what he’s doing.”

He sighed in relief, and you could practically hear him run his hand through his hair. “You’re ok then?”

You pulled the phone way for a moment, closing your eyes as you tried to calm yourself down enough to be believable.

“Everything’s fine, I swear,” you told him, with the happiest voice you could muster.

----------------------------------

The rest of the morning went by in a blur. You could hear men’s voices out in the yard and the curiosity was killing you quicker than the cancer, but you didn’t want to upset Dean any more than you had by spoiling it. Thankfully your ability to walk was returning slowly. You were able to shuffle about by holding onto things as you went, otherwise Bobby would jump in to offer you his hand.

“Guess we’ll be shopping for a walking frame when all this is over,” you tried to joke, sitting on the couch opposite Bobby with a cup of tea. He failed to see the funny side though and just looked at you with a frown.

“I don’t want to kill the mood or anything,” he started, “but Dean looked pretty determined to prove this wasn’t happening. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

You sighed, and started playing with a loose thread on a nearby blanket.

“This is kind of signaling the end,’ you told him, and he looked to the ground with a small nod. “My doctor told me when my legs started to go, things would happen pretty quickly from there. I thought it would be weeks before this happened though, it's taken us a little by surprise.”

You fell silent then, giving Bobby however much time he needed. He was a gruff old man, not one for showing his emotions, so he surprised you when he came over and sat down next to you. Taking your hand, he looked into your eyes and you saw the pain he was feeling.

“Pumpkin, I just wanna say… well, thank you. For letting me do this for you and Sam today.”

“Is it kinda weird for you?” you tried to joke. “I mean, he’s like your son and I’m like your daughter…”

“No ‘like’ about it darlin, you ARE my kid. Botha ya,” he corrected you firmly, and your vision blurred a little with unshed tears. “But you were never brother and sister. I could see it from a mile away, I’m surprised it took you this long actually.”

“Yer well, nothing like a bout of cancer to remind you what’s important in life,” you replied dryly, grateful when he chuckled quietly. He rested his hand on your knee and you rested yours on top, looking into his eyes and returning the grin he gave you.

“I know it won’t be long. But I hope you two have the happiest goddamn marriage that ever was,” he told you, and you quickly pulled him in for a hug so he wouldn’t see your tears fall.

“Thank you for everything Uncle Bobby.”

You sat with him like that for at least 5 minutes, and only parted when you heard the small sound of Dean clearing his throat. You pulled away to see him standing in the hallway, looking at you with concern.

“Everything good here?” he asked.

“All good things,” you smiled in response as you wiped your cheeks, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well, Sammy’s here and so’s the marriage guy-”

“Celebrant,” you correct him with an eye roll.

“Whatever.”

You looked at Bobby who let out a laugh as he stood, offering you his elbow. “You ready darlin’?”

“Sure am,” you grinned, standing with his help and holding on tightly. Dean started walking back when you whistled at him. He turned back and as you held out your hand he looked at you confused.

“I have two arms dummy,” you told him, wiggling your fingers. “Don’t leave me hanging.”

He looked between you and Bobby, who was just smirking at him. You had already told Bobby about your plan and he was greatly enjoying the confusion on Dean’s face.

“What are you…?”

“What? You think Bobby’s the only one who has been my family throughout my life? Times like her wedding, a girl needs her big brother by her side.”

Dean just stared at you, his eyes misting over. He tried to talk but his voice caught, and he cleared his throat. “What, what abou-”

“I spoke to Sam earlier, he wants this too,” you assured him, wiggling your fingers again. “Only if you want to of course.”

He scoffed, and wiped a stray tear from his cheek. He came toward you slowly, finding his place beside you before looping your hand into the crook of this elbow. He leaned down and placed his mouth by your ear.

“Love you kiddo,” he whispered, placing a kiss on your temple before standing up straight.

“I know,” you replied with a wry grin, and as he shook his head with a chuckle the two men half carried you to the back door, and to the man you were going to marry.

CONT.

SERIES MASTERLIST - CHAPTER ONE - CHAPTER TWO - CHAPTER THREE - CHAPTER FOUR - CHAPTER SIX

MY MASTERLIST

Tag Lists (Open)

Series Taglist: @deghostyboi , @dreaminemz , @spence-rreid, @almostelegantfire , @ericaprice2008 @mirandaaustin93

“Dean/Jensen” taglist: @mrsambroserollinsacklesmgk, @perpetualabsurdity, @mlovesstories

“Everything” taglist: @angelsandwinchesters, @grace-for-sale, @growningupgeek, @iamnotsaneatall, @nanie5, @waywardasfudge, @im-dead-inside05, @julzdec, @adoptdontshoppets, @meghanbeinghappy, @sleepylunarwolf , @sammysgirl1997, @imaginationisgrowth, @screechingartisancashbailiff , @flamencodiva

People who requested tags, that I cannot tag (but will still mention because I feel bad :( ): @ronja-uebrick, @lilydarcy, @cabbagewithissues

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ghostmartyr · 6 years

Text

Fic: A Terrible Idea [9/?]

Fandom: Attack on Titan Title: A Terrible Idea Author: Immi Rating: PG-13 Summary: Ymir’s pursuit of the hot cheerleader was meant to stay strictly lustful. But it’s a high school AU with a ship tag, so you know, fuck that. Notes: This fic has a thing about three in the morning.

Segment summary: Kenny imparts life advice.

I II III IV V VI VII VIII

Maybe an actual parent would have wanted more details about what kind of party his bereft, innocent teenager was absconding away to instead of bonding with her friends and siblings in a night of passably sober revelry.

With Kenny, the conversation went something like this:

“Can I ditch homecoming to feel up a hot babe?”

“As long as no one ends up back in the house while I’m making out with my boyfriend, I physically could not care less.”

He didn’t mention the boyfriend in words during the actual conversation. He didn’t have to. The man might as well have been whistling all week long, asking them how many hours they thought they’d stay out come dance night. He’d conned Levi into being their chauffeur and everything. He got a haircut. Sometimes there really was fucking whistling.

He gave Ymir the green light to go be surrounded by people whose neckties cost more than all of her organs on the black market without so much as a suspicious question. To the untrained eye, it was negligent bullshit that Ymir was happy to exploit.

Years of living under his roof said that he already knew every single person at the Reiss party and had personally threatened at least five of them with murder. Creepy, but if it meant he wasn’t badgering her about her life choices, swell.

Too bad a certain other person couldn’t follow the example.

There was one side effect of dealing with a parental unit on this that wasn’t so great. Cowboy Dad believed, so very dearly, in cleaning up good so the rest of everyone would fuck off. He liked to call this having manners. As someone who’d had to sign paperwork to take on a more active role in not caring what teenagers did, he also thought it was his solemn duty to impart some of these manners to the spawn he could happily disown at will.

Predicted side effects of that included small talk about not pissing off the people who had invited her into their home. Since Historia had been the only one at all interested in her presence there, that wasn’t the worst promise she could think about keeping, so fine, whatever, can I go now and so on.

Unfair fucking blindsides included the suggestion (suggestion, like every other thing Kenny suggested didn’t carry promises of life getting very unpleasant if the suggestion didn’t see some follow-through) to go out and fetch some flowers to present to Historia’s parents when she showed up at the party.

“She doesn’t like her parents,” Ymir had said. That was a large part of the point.

Kenny had looked at her, unimpressed in the face of logic. “Sunshine,” he’d said, “where in the hell do you get the thought in your head that manners are for people you like?”

An hour later Ymir was hanging out in a flower shop, stretching the boundaries of her artistic sensibilities to figure out just how ugly a bouquet they were capable of. Kenny had stopped just short of making her pay for the damn things, so she had room to work, but there was only so much she could do. The worst combinations she had so far said, “Your daughter has let someone with zero taste into your house, but the good news is they’re desperate for you to think they’re trying.”

When what she wanted was closer to, “Fuck you for thinking I care about your approval before fucking your daughter, also fuck you in general,” preferably in freshly-picked pastels.

Ymir had never been a flower connoisseur, and turning the notch on her style of aggression back to passive definitely wasn’t her speed, but she knew passive aggressive went best with pastels. From what she knew of the Reiss family, their entire mansion would be covered with the things. Kenny would approve of her commitment to speaking her hosts’ language, but she’d have to work extra hard to keep from complementing their color theme.

Her only entertainment for the day was watching Porco freak over how to handle being at a dance in Pieck’s proximity. She had time.

She was also an efficient multitasker.

Porco’s sneakers tapped loudly against the linoleum floor. “She liked the roses last year,” he said, nowhere near the rose section. He was looking at peonies.

“She’ll like whatever you get her, and they’ll be dead in a few days. Stop angsting and pick something,” Ymir said, even less interested in his problems than usual. Pieck had sent an innocuous text earlier to remind her that she liked tulips. Hint hint. Somehow they were all still pretending that it wouldn’t melt her overly devious, mushy heart to be getting flowers from Pock at all.

Except for Porco. He really was that clueless, so cue the hours of fretting over which collection of stems would brighten Pieck’s desk best before their inevitable deaths. Accompanied by Ymir for reasons beyond a good laugh and pity, all thanks to their weird non-parent’s sense of propriety. Bringing a girl’s parents flowers wasn’t good manners, it was something out of Victorian era courtship advice bulletins. Near the end, after the two weeks of knowing each other had passed and it was time to ask the patriarch for his daughter’s hand.

Ymir thought she had a good idea of how that proposal would go. Awed by her acute flower arranging skills and misled by her tailored garb, she’d receive the father’s blessing and it would be rendered immediately moot because Historia would never forgive her for involving him in their love life.

“It doesn’t bother you that she’s using you to piss off her parents?” Porco had asked oh, maybe seven times when Ymir broke the news about how she was spending her Saturday night.

“Not anywhere near as much as it seems to bother you,” was the only answer to that, and it still took three more tries before he gave up in disgust and stopped blocking the middle of the hallway so she could go to bed.

Porco had weird ideas about family. Namely, that they were supposed to like each other. His blood parents were dead, automatically promoting them and everyone remotely like them to sainthood. His brother was so fervently adored that any first year psych student would gleefully attach a complex to it. He seemed to find it personally offensive that Historia couldn’t stand the people who hired her a personal driver.

Ymir would have loved not to care. She’d spent most of the previous night happily not caring. She’d spent most of their friendly afternoon jaunt to the neighborhood flower shop not caring. Pock had responded by making it his life mission to do enough caring for both of them. If he didn’t have the stress of not asking Pieck to dance to look forward to, he’d still be ranting her ears off.

“You don’t even want to date her!”

Way to state the obvious. That hadn’t been worth any response at all.

Ymir looked around at the colorful displays surrounding them. All perfectly designed to suit Porco’s purposes of failing to ask a girl out, none of them meant to check off a politeness box that had been summoned out of thin air to make her life more difficult.

Garish wasn’t going to play. No matter how badly the bright colors clashed, all the flowers were too healthy and friendly to get away with being used as a fuck you collage. She needed something with contrast to bring out that deliberate eye-gouging quality. Some of the lighter carnations could work. Classy and decorative in a clump, but put them next to something with some flair…

“Ymir?”

Ymir tilted her head Porco’s way and walked over to a selection of painfully sunny sunflowers. “What now?”

The follow-up didn’t follow through. His shoes squeaked and his jacket rustled while Ymir carefully mapped out her success of floral offense. Signs pointed to a talk happening.

“I—never mind,” Porco muttered.

One of those talks, then. Ymir rolled her eyes and searched out the heliotropes. Past experience dictated no gathering of custom bouquets herself, because the cashier would cry, and that would hold them up, but the second she said she was done and they fetched Pieck her tulips, Porco would be back to questioning everyone else’s life choices instead of his own.

“It’s too late to be her real date,” Ymir said, stopping to smell the roses. “You should have said something earlier if that’s what you wanted.”

Porco crossed his arms and scowled at the hydrangeas. Somehow they failed to burst into flames. Maybe because he looked closer to bursting into tears.

Ymir took magnanimous pity on her baby brother. “Just do what you always do: Wait for her to ask you to dance, and instead of mumbling and letting her drag you away, tell her you don’t want it to be a friend dance. She smiles, your heart melts, you live happily ever after, and I owe Marcel ten bucks.”

“Marcel wouldn’t bet on this,” Porco said, showing off the kind of deep misunderstanding only idolatry could foster. “He likes me.”

“That’s why he bet on you growing a pair,” Ymir said. “Don’t go letting your big brother down, now.”

Porco sulked. He had a way of doing it audibly.

They were through the purchase of Ymir’s custom monstrosity and Pieck’s much lovelier tulips before he brought it up again. A true sign of growth; last year he’d started the conversation once and then sworn her to absolute secrecy.

“You think she’d want to? If I asked?”

A flash of Historia’s wide eyes under the snack shack lights came to mind. A glimmer of a smile that matched the glitter on her cheek, all of her face lit up by Ymir.

“Sure,” Ymir said distantly, “girls like it when you show some initiative.”

----

“You keep tugging at your sleeves and I’m gonna feel insulted.”

Ymir dropped her hand from her suit jacket. “Dressing up three times a year isn’t enough to get used to formalwear. Perfect fit or not.”

Kenny didn’t bother dignifying her with a look. He was driving, and whatever Parenting 101 class he had crashed oh so many years ago had drilled not taking his eyes off the road with children present into his head better than a construction crew. He simply took the next turn, and drawled, “Funny, and here I thought it had something to do with your nerves making a fuss over this girl.”

Did no one ever stop to consider that if she wanted their thoughts about this, she’d ask for it? “Could also be that your shortcut landed us in the middle of nowhere and there’s nothing else to do but pluck threads.”

“Ymir, if you’d caught a single thread out of place, you’d be crowing about it ‘till the end of next month.” He took another turn. Second-to-last one, if Ymir was counting. “Find a better excuse or rub two brain cells together and work out how to stop lying.”

Ymir rolled her eyes and continued looking out the window. The winding road they were heading down was pure black-and-white movie horror. All they needed was some lightning. If the Reisses hadn’t already splurged on it, they ought to invest in a drawbridge and a moat. Great for parties.

Cowboy Dad had volunteered to drive her, and keeping up with his creepy way of knowing too much about everything, had told her they were taking a shortcut he knew before she had a chance to hand over the address. She’d told him she needed to be dropped off at the guest house, which was a fucking thing, so maybe his idea of how to get there could use some help, and got a shrug.

With the look he’d given her bouquet when she presented it, she’d call it a punishment, but passive wasn’t his brand of aggression either. Punishments were delivered with a highlighted anvil.

She pulled at her tie. Kenny sighed loudly.

One last turn, and they came back to civilization. Or some over-glammed approximation of it. A large stretch of road away, a gate shrouded in floodgates heralded their destination, and if it had a giant R in the middle of it, Ymir would have a great start to her bingo card for the night’s festivities. Historia had written the security code for it down on her hand the night before.

The car slowed halfway down the street, going at the speed society could agree belonged to stalkers or people who didn’t know how to read maps.

“You got everything?” Kenny asked for the third time that hour.

‘Everything’ in this case meant Ymir, the invited one, her phone, the toy she’d brought along for another tally in her win column with Historia, and the gate crashing flowers. “Yeah,” Ymir said.

Heading up the slight hill to the cliché gate, Kenny dotted in the code smoothly, and open the spiked monstrosity went. Step one of the night accomplished. Historia hadn’t explicitly said that she wanted Ymir to avoid talking to anyone on the property until they laid eyes or other parts on each other, but Ymir could read between the lines. Her invite said to show up an hour early and head over to where the staff wasn’t preparing for the party. Until the curtain rose, Ymir was invisible and waiting in the wings.

They drove by the house, also known as an affront to taste so brightly lit that Ymir had to blink several times to confirm that it hadn’t been decked in four stories of cheap Christmas lights, and hit the side road that would lead to the guest house.

Ymir had never had much money, but she had trouble imagining a world where she’d look at her grand mansion with its sixty bathrooms and forty bedrooms, and decide that what it really needed was a smaller house next to it. Just to remind the first house how much better it was than everything around it.

Kenny rolled the car to a stop in front of the whipping house, and in a move that said she wasn’t the only one feeling the horror vibes tonight, killed the engine. He turned to her with his parent face on.

“A few ground rules before you go in there,” he said.

“Was there some reason you couldn’t do this at home, or—”

“No drinking.”

Ymir unbuckled her seatbelt to slouch more effectively in her seat. “Kuchel was just giving Marcel and Pock this lecture,” she said. “If you wanted me to hear it, we could have left five minutes later.”

“Sunshine,” Kenny said, “you’ve never partied with rich people before. All you know about these folks is that a girl you like can’t stand them, and each one’ll have a lawyer on speed dial so they don’t catch consequences when they show off for their fancy friends. That’s not company you want to lose your wits around. No drinking.”

“Great. Next up?”

“No having sex with this girl until you see a clean lab report.”

Ymir was too fucking young and too removed from the blood pressure problems Porco had to worry about a heart attack at her age, but for a second her cardiovascular system, built up by all the recent running, submitted to blind horror and slammed her chest with a sledgehammer.

“What.”

Parent of the Year, showing his usual concern for his offspring, propped his elbow against the steering wheel. Not a sign of remorse or pity in his eyes, he said, “You want to go about devirgining yourself, you do it safely. No letting your hormones go so wild you need a medical consult.”

Ymir took a second to pave over her new mental scars. “Right, I’ll just send her off for one instead,” she said. That’s what all the appealing sexual partners did these days. ‘I really want to jump your bones, won’t you pee in this cup for me?’ With a dash of ‘my dad wants confirmation that you are as much of a touch-starved virgin as everything you do says you are.’ The absolute pinnacle of game.

Kenny was the sort of guy who had probably met sympathy once in a bar and shot it. “You want your bits to fall off, or you want a fun time?”

The bad answer to that was that Ymir just wanted Historia. In a lot of ways and positions, all perfectly lewd. Only when the thought popped up, all she could think of was the marker against her cheek.

“Asking her for clerical proof of how diseased she is sounds like a real riot,” Ymir said instead.

“You can’t work your way around that, you’re too young to be having sex,” Kenny said. “Falling head over heels down a flight of stairs is how you get concussions, and I have enough of that to worry about with your brother.”

This conversation was a better case for not skipping the homecoming dance than anything the school had ever come up with, and it was unfair to the nth degree that she’d still rather be sitting outside the reject house. Unquestionably, which meant, put together with Kenny’s magic sleuthing powers, Ymir was now promised one more fun conversation with Historia in her future, putting to graphic verbal life all the things she thought about doing to her and couldn’t, because they didn’t have the right paperwork. Historia would definitely be on board with that. Things to look fucking forward to in the middle of looking forward to fucking.

Cowboy Dad was committed to his parenting course. He could write his dissertation on this feat of manipulation and emotional trauma. Jackass.

“Fine, great, anything else you want to ruin?”

Kenny unbuckled his seatbelt and opened his side of the car. “Your tie needs sorting. Out you get.”

Ymir rolled her eyes and stepped out into the night under the shadow of the guest house. Since it wasn’t drowned in lights, it was actually capable of casting a shadow. Kenny rounded the car and began his deliberately pointed adjustment of her suit, undoing all of the casual muss Ymir had fidgeted her way into. He saved the tie for last, securing it much tighter than her style called for.

“Anything goes wrong, or you need pickup early, you call. Got that?” he asked.

“Are you trying to make up for not knowing me when I was five?”

His large hands held her head. “Got it, kid?”

Way, way too committed to the parenting thing. Ymir made a show of sighing, and saluted him with the ugly bouquet of flowers he’d coerced her into buying. “Got it, cowboy.”

He pecked the top of her head. “Then you’re all set. Have fun, keep the stupid to the minimum, and don’t be afraid to use a fake name if someone’s too interested.” He set her free and clapped her on the back. “Knock ‘em dead.”

Umbilical cord officially cut for the evening, Ymir sauntered off to the doorstep, respectfully resolving to fix her tie once she was inside.

With Historia.

So much better than homecoming.

#yumikuri #yumihisu #shingeki no fanfic #fic #mine

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xoxoemynn · 6 years

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can i complain? im gonna complain. my mental health has been horrible lately, and as if i'm not struggling enough, my downstairs neighbor has decided to hate me. literally. she's like 60 years old, and calls in the middle of the night claiming that i'm throwing things into the floor and making noise, even though i'm literally doing nothing, and other neighbors think she's crazy too. also she smokes so that the tobacco scent travels up through my balcony door and when i asked her to stop (cont)

she claims she will continue to bother me with the smoke until "i have learned my lesson" (not making noise? i'm not making noise, she is literally waking me up complaining about how i just made a noise?? i'm asleep??? lol) and she's called authorities bc my dogs apparently never get to go outside?? they are outside four times a day on long walks but ok??? lol. and now she found out i have snakes so ofc she called the authorities bc "they're venomous, they're going to escape and crawl up my toilet!!" lmfao. i'm so tired. my snakes help me with my anxiety and i have locks on their enclosures and i walk my dogs and i am very careful not to make noise i literally want to die i'm dealing with enough shit. sorry i needed to go on an anon rant im sry love u em

omg oh no bb I’m so sorry this sounds awful, your neighbor sounds like a petty, spiteful beast and I know it sucks that there’s just no escape. Shitty neighbors are the worstttttt, and I’m sure hearing from the authorities isn’t helping your anxiety at all. :( Okay so idk if any of this will actually be applicable/helpful but just some things that came to mind when reading your messages:

Okay first just BREATHEEEEE. You did literally nothing wrong, you’re just living your life and being a responsible pet owner and you don’t deserve to be treated this way. I would just try to avoid her as much as possible, since I kind of doubt she’s going to change. But I would also just take some steps to protect yourself so she can’t make things any worse for you.

If you have a landlord who’s remotely useful, reach out to them about this neighbor’s behavior. If she’s violating any parts of her lease, that’s their job to deal with. Plus, it sounds like her behavior may even now be considered harassment at this point?

Even if the landlord thing is a moot point, I would keep a paper trail and document everythingggggg. This may just be because I’ve been spending a lot of time reading stories at JustNoMIL, but once people reveal themselves to be this horrible, “little” things can escalate quickly...and honestly, if she’s already contact the authorities for completely unsubstantiated reasons, I’d say she’s already pretty far up there. Any time she calls, yells, or snaps at you, does anything to make you feel REMOTELY uncomfortable, write it down. PAPER TRAILS ARE EVERYTHING SERIOUSLY PROTECT YOURSELF. Pro-tip: get one of those black and white marble composition books , because it’s then really obvious if a page just “mysteriously” goes missing for whatever reason. I’m sorry if I sound paranoid and I don’t mean to alarm you, but I’m just a HUGE proponent of always having everything in writing because it protects YOU, so always better to be safe than sorry.

Okay, so it sounds like “the authorities” = animal control or the like, yes? And not the police? Because if it’s the police, I have a feeling they’re going to get fed up REAL fast with some asshole filing false complaints...especially since, ya know, that’s a crime. If it IS the police, and if you feel safe doing so, it may be worth calling their non-emergency line and say you have a neighbor harassing you and filing false complaints, detailing exactly what’s been happening. Honestly it’s doubtful they’ll do anything but it may serve as a pre-emptive action step so if she DOES go to them, they have a record of it. If it’s some sort of animal control, it may be worth doing something similar and perhaps inviting them to your home to do a wellness check? So that way if she calls again they can go “lady please fuck off you are wasting everyone’s time and oxygen.”

Okay but she’s CALLING you in the middle of the night, what the hell??? Two options here: 1) BLOCK HER ASS or 2) Set it up in your phone so calls from her are always set to silent/do not disturb mode -- that way she won’t wake you up but you’ll also have record of all the times she called you for your paper trail.

It’s occurred to me that I sound very Dramatic in all this so I hope nothing I say in here is frightening to you!!!! Chances are she’s just an obnoxious twatbox who’s miserable and bored and trying to make life difficult for everyone around her, but I just want to make sure you are SAFE bc she worries me. :(

Okay so now that I’ve gotten all the safety precautions out of the way LOL just please take care of yourself!! If your mental health is already struggling, having to deal with this indomitable force of ... idk evil sounds dramatic but I’m gonna run with it anyway, can REALLY fuck you up. (Seriously, I’m shuddering imagining it, all the hugs to you.) So make sure you really prioritize things that do help with your anxiety. If that means more snake time, going on long walks, baking, writing, taking bubble baths, WHATEVER, do that and be entirely unapologetic about it.

Maybe find some camaraderie with your neighbors? Misery loves company and all that, it may make you feel a little better to just be able to vent to someone who gets it. Plus it’s always good to have some allies on your side. (Also, honestly, I LOVE reading JustNoMIL, even though I don’t have a mother-in-law, lol, but they do give a lot of really good advice and inspiration on how to stand up to these kinds of people who are out on some mean-spirited, vengeful spite fest.)

Seriously go treat yourself to some ice cream or something because you deserve it.

I’m so sorry, lovely, this sounds really terrible and it sucks that you feel uncomfortable in your own home. :( Please just take care of yourself and stay safe. Hopefully she’ll calm down or move or something and you won’t have to deal with her for much longer. Pop into my inbox anytime you need me. I hope you get a good rest tonight!!!! Sending you all the hugs and good vibes in the universe.

#Anonymous

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puckish-saint · 7 years

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hiya~ just passing by and thinking about reaper76 (no reader insert) and their pretended marriage au 😏 whatcha' thinking 'bout that love? p.s. just wanted to tell you that your writing always bring smile on my face, the way you have with words captivated me from your first posts and i don't think i will ever forget your style (just really love your humour the jokes in it work every time) (although i find your blog only when you started writing overwatch fics i wish i found you sooner)

(my jokes work, thank god. You have no idea how long I’ve been chewing on that one, waiting for someone to tell me if my attempts at humour land. This really made my day Also Fake Marriage, yes pleas.Because just, hnnngh. Gabe more or less reluctantly teaming up with Overwatch after it turns out he’s been set up/lots of misunderstandings/shenanigans. But he and Jack have been drifting apart for so long and even though both technically know they’ve been played out against each other, knowing it and acting accordingly are two very different things. They fight, they argue, they can’t stand being in the same room and it’s worse because both remember they used to be inseparable.So, shit happens and they have to pretend to love each other. They have to dig deep under all the baggage to find that affection they used to hold for each other, and what’s scary is that it’s easy.The first morning Gabriel shovels six spoon fulls of sugar into his coffee cup, hesitates, then just upends the whole damn sugar bowl into his coffee, Jack doesn’t have a problem hugging him from behind and kissing him good morning.And when Jack loses horribly at some video game because he’s too busy admiring the scenery (”look at those trees, Gabe, they’re all handcrafted. Every one of them. Look at the trees.” “Will you please look at the giant venomous spider instead?”) Gabriel laughs like he hasn’t in ages.

I will go down with that trope tbh, and because I have no restraint, I wrote just under 2k words which may or may not be the beginning of a multichapter fic I’ll be putting on AO3.

Gibraltar base in low energy mode creeps out everyone. The lights are low, turning longhallways into twilight suffused tunnels with no end in sight, entireportions of the base void of life and activity. Only the dormitoriesand kitchens still have full power, a warm haven surrounded bymonsters in the dead of night. Everyone deals with the creepiness intheir own way. Lena drives her accelerator to its limits, skipping inand out the darkness as fast as she can. Mei asks a friend toaccompany her, whereas Hanzo plain refuses to go.

Lúcio talks.

“I’m here one time and theymake me go to the damn locker rooms to get some trivial shit nobodycares about,” he mutters under his breath, chasing away theoppressive silence. “First time in months we see each other and Ibrought them all souvenirs, but they’re all like, oh Lu-lu can youdo us a huge favour and get this random shit from our demon cellar,and if you get eaten do we get your skates?”

He turns a corner and comes face toface with a demon. Black holes where the eyes should be, a being ofpure darkness melds from the shadows to take his soul. Lúcio’scomplaints stick in his throat, hiding just like he wants to be. Theshadow seems to stare right through him. Then it moves.

“Gabe! Puta merda, you scaredthe crap out of me.”

Gabriel chuckles deeply and the grimreaper hunting for his innocent soul becomes the latest addition totheir ragtag bunch of misfits. They fall in step together, Lúciomuch more at ease now that he has someone tall and strong to protecthim from Overwatch’s version of a haunted house.

“Wimp,” he says good-natured.“We’re needed in the conference room. Something came up.”

“What, now?”

“No, the next Saint Patrick’s day.”

In the beginning Gabriel’s sarcasmput him off, but by now Lúcio has learned to appreciate it. Theyspend more time together than most anyone on base, seeing as hismusic is what’s slowly but surely healing Gabriel of his specialproblem.

“Your skin hurt again?” he asks,gesturing to the mask he wears again. Lately he can go mostly gowithout, but every now and then the degeneration flares up again andforces him to protect himself. Gabriel shrugs.

“It’s nothing compared to what itused to be like.” he says.

“Still. I can write you something tohelp, okay?”Gabriel argues only a little and by the time theyenter the conference room he has convinced him. Half the team hasgathered, including Fareeha through video conference from Cairo.

“... spotted them twice coming in,but they have an alternate route for leaving. I’m on it right now.”

“Good work, Amari.” Winston turnsto face the team. “We have eyes on Vishkar’s top suppliers. Idon’t need to tell you this op could make or break our effortsagainst them. Yes, Lúcio, you’ll be on the team to take them in.”

Lúcio has barely opened his mouth andnow grins, leaning back as they watch the low-res pictures Fareehamanaged to take of the couple they’ve been after for months.Vishkar’s increasingly unsavoury activities rely almost completelyon these two people, elusive as they are efficient, supplying Vishkarwith everything from stolen technology to weapons. Whatever thecorporation needs, they can get it. And now Overwatch knows wherethey are.

“We need to send in a strike-team,”Jack says once they’ve gone over the bullet points. “And quick. Idon’t suppose we can get Miss Song on such short notice, but withmyself, Lena and Fareeha we can move quickly enough to evade a drawnout fight. Lúcio should stay back until we’re well into it. Ifthey spot him before-”“Hey,” Gabriel barks. “Who died andmade you boss?”

“I don’t see you contributinganything of value.” Jack shoots back with just as much venom.

“You wouldn’t let anyone get a wordin edgewise, golden boy.”“You act like I’ve beenmonologuing for hours, it figures you have to make up something to beupset about-”“You don’t even hear yourself speak, doyou?”“Guys? Stop fighting.”

Both Jack and Gabriel fall silent underLena’s soft but firm rebuke. They won’t look at each other, sitwith crossed arms through the rest of the briefing. Two teams will goin, one lead by Fareeha closing in on their targets, the other leadby Reinhardt blocking off their escape. Winston reminds them to atleast try and bring them in alive for interrogation.

A few hours later the team sets out.

A few hours after that, a furious duetof Amaris relays the mission to Winston.They’re speaking over eachother, curse the sky green and look one wrong word away from becomingphysically violent.

“-completely disregarded theplan-”“-charged in there like madmen, fighting each other,like they didn’t even see all those damn turrets-”“-Reinhardtkept shouting at them to listen but they were too busy with theirpissing contest-”“-had to double back and bail them out, TeamB got pinned down by drones-”“-targets almost got away, if ithadn’t been for my daughter, we’d be back to zero-”

“-can’t work with those two, theycompromised the mission, the team, themselves-”“-likechildren in a playground, no professionalism-”“Alright,alright!” Winston interrupts holding up his hands to protecthimself from the Amari wrath. He doesn’t want to know what Jack andGabriel had to hear before they called. “I’ll talk to them. Inthe meantime, what about our targets?”

The targets are secure and brought tothe base and surprisingly accommodating. They have no loyalty forVishkar and eagerly share everything they know in return for a deal.Jack and Gabriel are taken off the mission roster for the time being,although both had to be persuaded to stay at all, ready to walk outafter this latest fiasco that proved to them trying to work togetherafter everything that happened is a moot exercise.

“We used to joke they could read eachother’s minds,” Reinhardt says while they wait for Winston andAna to finish up with the intel they gathered from their targets.“You have never seen closer friends.”

Lúcio looks up from his tablet to giveReinhardt a look of pure doubt.

“Hard to imagine, I know” Jessesays, smoking despite everyone’s subtle and not so subtle-nods tothe no-smoking rule. “But it’s true. Took the UN almost twodecades to push them apart, and that’s sayin’ somethin’...”

Lena makes to answer but is interruptedby the arrival of Winston, followed by Ana and, surprisingly, Jackand Gabriel.

“Thought we were benched.” Jackvoices everyone’s thoughts.

“Something came up,” Ana repliescurtly and loads their info up on the main screen. “We got ourtargets just in time. They were ready to retire and Vishkar promisedthem new identities and a safe home.”

“If Vishkar made them disappear, we’dnever have found them,” Lúcio says and then whistles when Anabrings up a picture. “That what I think it is?”

“Jannat, Vishkar’s top-secret gatedcommunity. It’s their magnum opus, located an hour’s drive fromUtopaea. The families of their top executives and scientists all livethere. It’s also where they keep all their records.”

“So what?” Jesse says. “We’regonna wire them and let them go?”

“Better,” Ana shows a grin that’sall teeth and even though she hasn’t so much as glanced at Jack andGabriel, they both swallow, knowing whatever she has planned, they’llbe the butt of the joke. “Our targets were extremely careful. Noteven Vishkar knows who they are. They have a vague description of twomales in their fifties or sixties, one of which is black or latino,which puts us in the prime position of being able to send two of ouragents in their stead.”“Fuck that.” Gabriel says, wellaware of who’s going to end up playing the part. Jack at leasttries to be a bit more subtle about it.

“Reyes and I aren’t exactlynobodies. They’ll recognise us.”

“They’ll recognise your faces, butit won’t matter. We can fool their DNA sensors.”

“Still, they might getsuspicious.”“It’s a risk we’re going to have to take.This is our only chance to get into Jannat and we don’t have thetime to hold castings.”

Jack knows when he lost a fight, butGabriel keeps arguing. He damn near flips the tables when Winstonwon’t be persuaded to use someone else, gets into a shouting matchwith Ana that lasts for hours. Mission prep lasts a little under aday and when it’s done and their identities forged, they have todrag him kicking and screaming onto the plane, less metaphoricallythan anyone would prefer.

“He’ll get us killed,” Gabrielspits while Lúcio walks him through the last few points. “He didit before.”

Jack tenses but says nothing, sittingat the opposite end of the aircraft and pretending to read the news.

“It’s going to go fine,” Lúciosays cheerfully. “Mister Jack’s got you. Now listen, because asfar as we know there’s a sort of quarantine and we won’t be ableto talk for at least a month. I’ve built you a miniature version ofmy sonic tech and packed every song I ever wrote on that. Nothingwill go wrong with our treatment plan, but if it does something onthere will help you, okay?”“Yeah, yeah, fine.” Gabrielswats at him, cheeks hot with embarrassment at being mothered bysomeone half a foot shorter and almost three decades younger thanhim.

And then it’s just them and Lena inthe cockpit, flying them to their destination. In less than an hourthey’ll be Sam and Steve Carter, married for thirty two years,criminals for slightly longer. They’ll have to kiss and hug and saystupid corny shit and for all that Gabriel wants to forcefully ejecthimself from the plane, he knows they can’t blow this one. The endof Vishkar for good lies just within their reach. If he fucks this upbecause he couldn’t play nice he’ll never be able to look Lúcioin the eye again. The kid was the only one who accepted him with openarms after the whole mess with Mercy and the UN was over. When evenReinhardt and Ana kept their distance, it was Lúcio who sat with himfor breakfast, who included him, who went up to him in all his 5’3’’glory and asked to spar because even Jesse wouldn’t. He can’tfuck this up.

They step into the sweltering Indianheat arm in arm and gritting their teeth.

#overwatch imagines #reaper76 #reaper #soldier 76 #no reader #i call this The Intro #also i love the idea of reaper and lucio together #platonically or romantically #dark and brooding versus neverending sunshine is my jam #rustedrobonerd

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thegoldenavenger · 7 years

Text

fic bits roundup

vague ballet au

“you know, i dont think anyone has ever asked me that before” he says. the television is small and old but bucky can see the wistfulness even with the poor resolution.

“well, then,” the interviewer asks after a pause, “what did you want to be as a kid?”

his grin wobbles into something just a bit less confident and his voice gains this, this breathless quality and suddenly it’s twenty years earlier and bucky remembers one of steve’s friends staring at him, wide eyed, mouth just slightly open as bucky transitioned from one held position to the next.

“a dancer,”

steve had tugged on the man’s arm pulling him away, and bucky had only gotten an introduction far later. he’d been gangly and looked more like a teenager than the fortune 500 ceo he turned out to be and he always, always looked at the dancers in the studio the same way. there was far more to it, but bucky always suspected that the looking was half the reason steve never made a move.

“i mean, i used to prance around as a little boy but i stopped to focus on the family business, for the good of everyone involved; i was admittedly terrible”

bucky remembers steve’s friend, rewiring the shitty lighting on the catwalks, speaking around the tools stuffed in his mouth. his dad started pushing him towards the family business when he had been four. four. everyone was terrible at what they did when they were four.

zombie apocalypse au

Clint thinks he’s going to die when he meets Tony. He knew he shouldn’t have trusted Barney, but give him a break. If you can’t trust family while the world burns around you, who can you trust? It turns out, not family. At least, not Barney. Clint finds himself running as fast as he can on a shit leg, beat up and bruised and out of ammunition because Barney has sold him down the river.

Lucky pants next to him. At least the dumb dog picked Clint.

That won’t mean much though, when Clint is dead because he can’t this pace up. Not with his leg like it is. And he is being chased. By zombies, of all things.

It’s looks bad. It is bad.

Clint’s leg finally gives out and he sprawls onto the pavement in what he’s sure is the least graceful manner possible. He can’t hear the hoard behind him, but he knows it’s there. Giddily, he feels lucky he won’t be able to hear them eating him; the batteries for his hearing aids have run down long, long ago.

There’s a moment where Clint feels like just giving up. Lie down, close his eyes. Maybe he’ll stay asleep while he’s getting chewed up. A guy can dream. But, and get this, Lucky sits down in front of him. Stupid dog doesn’t know what’s best for him, and he looks pleadingly at Clint. After a moment, Lucky lies down like he always does, waiting for Clint to finally get up to feed or walk him.

“Aw, dog.”

Clint gets up, for Lucky. The dumb dog would’ve just waited his turn once the zombies caught up.

He’s stumbling, limping along. At this pace, he’s still gonna get eaten it’ll just take longer. He calculates another couple of blocks before he’s over taken, so it surprises him when he’s grabbed bodily by the shoulder. He has a moment to brace himself, he takes that moment to regret not making it to Sword & Shield but otherwise he’s lived a great life. Nat will be mad but--

“Cooperation would be nice!”

Clint isn’t being mauled by a zombie. He’s being yanked deeper into the mouth of the alley.

“Come on, come on, shit tell your dog follow us!” The man is holding onto Clint’s hand, rough fingers clinging to his, pulling insistently towards a dead end alleyway. Clint figures he’s already doomed.

“The dog does what he wants most of the time, actually.”

The man, he turns and looks at Clint, really looks at him. His eyes are wild, wide and brown, ringed with purple sleep circles. His hair is greasy and floppy, his beard rough with days of unkempt scruff.

“Just call him past this line, don’t want him to get caught in the show.”

“Show?”

“You good with that leg of yours? I can’t carry you and the dog up the ladder.” Clint looks up at the alley walls, and besides the standard gutter and water pipes, they look bare. The man is rummaging around in a bag, and Clint suddenly realizes he’s trapped in a dead end alley with someone he doesn’t know, a horde of zombies on his tail and his dog. The man is muttering vaguely under his breath, and Clint is just about to make the decision to chance the zombies again. The choice is made moot rather quick though, as the shuffling horde passes by the mouth to the alley at that moment.

Clint holds his breath instinctively, quieting like he’s sighting down targets. The first few zombies pass the alley and Clint almost allows himself to hope the rest might follow when, like a switch, the horde twists on itself, decaying bodies trying to scramble past each other to squeeze into the alleyway. Clint whips around to, to not get away but at least delay death the four more yards into the end of the alley. Instead he stares at the man fighting, of all things, with Lucky. Lucky’s got his mouth around a paper towel wrapped bundle and the man is trying to pull it back.

“What are you-- this isn’t the time for tug of war, we’re going to die!” Clint yells, backing away from the approaching horde.

“What?” the man glances up past Clint, like he’d forgotten the zombies altogether, his eyes widening just a bit, “Oh, them. Right.” He lets the bundle go, which Lucky, opportunistic ass that he is, scarfs down.

“Get back here,” The man orders, waving Clint over while kicking at a cluster of boxes and a garbage can. Clint can’t hear it, but he can’t imagine it helps them hiding.

“What are you doing? What are we doing? Shit, shit,” Clint hisses, but the man seems to take no notice, just pulls back for another kick.

This time the garbage can topples sideways, the boxes get shoved aside and with a whoosh of motion that must be triggered by some kind of weighted pulley system, something like a fire escape unfolds down the side of the building.

“What the--”

“Come on, then,” The man says, already climbing up, “Hand me the dog then yourself, hurry up or you’ll get splattered. Uh, probably.” Clint can’t hear him but it looks like he mutters hopefully under his breath.

Clint must take a second too long just staring because the man makes an insistent here here gesture with his hand, and Clint says fuck it, and grabs Lucky.

He manages to heft the dog up, the man grabs him by the scruff at first, which is. Alarming. But they don’t have much options besides that, and then pulls himself up after. The man grabs his shirt when they’re close enough, and helps to haul him up.

Clint collapses on he metal landing, but even this is only temporary safety. Zombies aren’t smart but Clint’s pretty sure they can figure out ladders. Or just, pile themselves onto each other.

He’s gasping hard, his leg strained and his body hurt, when the man grabs his shoulder again. Clint glares up at him, but the man isn’t even looking. He’s staring at the zombies and Clint turns his head to see what’s captured his gaze. The horde approaches and Clint guesses the man is just held captive by their impending death.

He gets a tap on his shoulder and he looks back towards the man who signs--signs?-- “watch this,” and then presses a button on what looks like a phone? Clint still can’t hear anything, but he feels a buzzing and when he turns the scene he sees isn’t pretty, but he can’t take his eyes off for awhile.

Some kind of grid has lit of the alley, suspended like a net from wall to wall. The zombies stumble head first into it, and the moment their decomposing flesh hits the light they just topple over, sliced into burning, grid sized pieces.

It takes probably five minutes for the horde--now that Clint isn’t running for his life and can count them, it’s more like a group of six or eight (it’s hard to separate the cubes)--to be diced and sliced by whatever scifi laser grid the man next to him activated with his phone. He looks at the man, who is a bit paler than before, clammy and sweat damp, after the chunks settled into a gross pile.

“Who the hell are you?”

“My name’s Tony,” The man says, while his hands sign in pretty okay ASL, “Is coffee okay for dogs to eat? Because I’m not so sure and yours just finished the last of my mix.”

Lucky throws the coffee back up later, but otherwise is just fine. Way more fine that he’d have been if Tony hadn’t decided to help them out. Clint promises to replace the bag when he can. Tony’s face gets an out of place expression, wide-eyed and longing, for just a second before he shuts his mouth like catfish getting noodled. But he doesn’t tell Clint not to bother, and when Clint points to the block where Sword & Shield is located and says that’s where he’s headed, Tony just shrugs and shoulders his pack.

Clint’s already got one partner he needs to find--two, but he and kate had a plan and that girl is too smart to throw everything away trying to meet up with him--three, but barney’s sold him out and Clint knows, should know, when to cut his losses--but Tony can liquify zombies with just a little bit of prep time, and he’s handy with a wrench. Besides, Lucky has taken to following Tony around licking at his hand like he’s got scraps.

Clint just doesn’t want to find out who Lucky would follow if they decided to split ways.

plausibly post civil war My Favorite Scenario

in which team capsicle (that’s, steve, wanda, scott, clint, sam, bucky) somehow plot-conveniently get inserted into Tony’s mind.

they wake up separately in piles of glittering garbage. looking closer, they can see it’s just mounds of old missile casings, guns, magazines, bullets, shells, the guts of several iron man armors, computer chips and mother boards all piled high around them.

they’re confused, but establish contact with each other (by yelling) and try to regroup. no body really knows what’s happened or where they are. they try to debrief, clint climbs up a giant pile of shit to get a better vantage point. bucky investigates some of the loose weaponry.

“this is stark tech,” he mumbles under his breath

then clint yells “somethings coming!” and distantly, the group can hear loud, rumbling mechanical noises. Grinding, shrieking, servos thrumming. They all climb up to where clint is, sees in the distance a giant shape in the distance lumbering closer.

“what is that?” sam asks to murmurs. no one really knows.

They wait, tensely for it, as the lumbering monstrosity edges closer. it moans, they realize, as it gets closer. it’s moaning, wailing almost, and then screams as it lashes out at the piles of munitions. Debris flies every where, enough that they can see the metal and wires flying even at the distance they’re at.

It continues on, moving in a different direction, passing them on. It keeps far enough away they can’t see a clear picture of it.

they decide, unanimously, to head in a direction opposite. Staying still is too close to the creature for comfort.

they walk in a heavy silence until the mounds start leveling out and rising quickly in the distance before them is a mansion.

Without having to speak, they approach the building. The lighting is dim but the house casts a shadow, and once they step in it, the temperature drops immediately. it feels like walking through molasses.

“i feel like, maybe we shouldn’t be going towards the creepy mansion house that feels like doom,” scott says

everyone agrees but what other choice do they have? it’s the house or the monster, and this way they might get some information.

#kamaeteWRITES #i still want to work on these but....#into the aether they go #untagged and untamed

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kingsuckjin · 3 years

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Hey moon, i just read your post on how fanfic writing can be such a pressure. You know you're one of the first writers i read fanfics of and decided to open a tumblr account. Your writing is so good moon. I hope you know it. And i actually understand where you are coming from. Maybe not with writing but with other stuff that i love to do. I think it's only human nature that we feel like doing better that we did before. Fear of failure, rejection it gets everyone i believe. So i think it's okay that u feel like that? Like okay in the sense that i happens cause we're all humans and it's part of the struggle. Pretty shitty but that's just how it is. When i get overwhelmed i usually take some time off of everything and everyone. Like get in solitude type until i feel like i fixed myself enough to face the world again. Whatever it is that's making you feel so tired or guilty (which it shouldn't be) i hope you let yourself heal from it. Life is changing all the time, so even though if you feel like you can't do this anymore right now. Sometimes later you might get the enthusiasm back to do it again. And then it wouldn't matter if anyone is liking it or following it much or not. It'll be only about your happiness. I hope you find that soon moon. But attaining you inner peace is the first thing here.

Idk if what i'm trying to say made much sense. You don't have to reply. I just wanted you to know this. I hope you feel better soon. Sending positive vibes and good wishes. Take a virtual hug and stay blessed sweetheart. Love you tons ❤💜❤💜❤💜❤

Hey there love🖤 it made perfect sense. This is going to be a long one and I'm gonna put warnings Tw: sexual harassment, bad friends, mental health, name calling, bullying and just a lot of terrible things I've been through and me explaining why I just can't be here on this blog. I know I've said dome of it before but I'm telling you, you all really have no idea.

I don't know if it's as much burnout or guilt as this blog is becoming overwhelming and I'm not sure how to maintain it. Before I started writing is casually comment on fics and leave reviews and compliments, and sometimes writers wouldn't answer them and I felt like it was something I did or said or they just didn't care, I was a whole idiot then. Even when I started writing and began to kind of gain a following I said to myself “this is easy to reply to comments and messages and requests, I don't have to accidentally hurt anyone by not replying” and then I just kept growing and learned how dumb I was. I love the interaction, and I read it all, every comment, every ask, every message and I'm unbelievably grateful for it and I'm fully aware other writers lack it and need it (and to even say all of this makes me feel terrible, I also deal with the feeling that I don't deserve all the kindness and comments) like, other writers get little to no interaction but sometimes when you aren't at your best mentally it's hard to keep up with even the slightest amount of interaction with people and often times id take a break after putting out something that did well because it was a little overwhelming and I also didn't feel like I deserved it (good old imposter syndrome). I have so many friends I've made on here that don't do as well as I do but in my opinion are MUCH better writers. On the opposite end, I've also had “friends” on here that would talk to me only to ask me to reblog their fics. Idk that's the other end of it, you just don't know who to trust on here and who actually cares and wants to really be friends. Since I've announced that I'm leaving this blog it's really shown me who actually cares about me as a person and not only whatever little measly about of influence I can give and bring to others. So I just want away from it all.

My actual plan is to shut it down here on kingsuckjin and keep writing on my other blog where I have set up boundaries for limited personal interactions. I don't care about the likes or reblogs, I just don't want the tangled web of this blog anymore. This is a hobby and it should never be this deep, but I know it was my fault for making it this deep so now I'm just going to start again and just keep it as a hobby and not let it take over so much of my time. It's not that I don't have the willpower to write, I'll always write, it's what I love, I just don't have the willpower to deal with some of the toxic stuff and people that come along with it all when you're in too deep here.

It's all just draining, and that's not even counting the terrible and scarring asks I get telling me bad things that someone is going to do to you all and myself, you wouldn't believe the stuff I've gotten and that I know others close to me have gotten in their ask boxes. Some people say they don't get anon hate and it makes me so happy to hear them say that, I long for that, I know a lot of us do. But leaving this blog is like leaving a bad relationship. I see my peers get a wave of anon hate and I say “fuck, not this again, that makes me feel so bad”, I see a wave of fics being stolen and say the same thing, I see other writers bullying smaller ones and say the same thing, I see racist people, gatekeepers, people hating on olderpeople here, people scrutinizing others hard work, people hating on genders and sexualities. You know what one of my first asks was when I started? “You need to be using more commas, it's hard to read your fics and you look illiterate” and English isn't even my first language, it's not the language first learned, I didn't learn it until I started school. I'm not a professional writer I've had never claimed to be a good writer, I didn't ask for any “constructive criticism” or anyone's two cents and honestly some people just need to keep stuff to themselves.

I've seen too much shit and while I spent a lot of time fighting all sorts of shit on here because it feels right, but it gets me nowhere and nothing but being labeled as some sort of a problematic blog and I’ve been told by other writers “yeah, I blocked you because I don't want to see that problematic shit on my dash” after I was fucking bullied along with countless others by one group of people. You can imagine after taking all of this, everything I've mentioned so far, how someone could feel too drained and scared to interact with people on here.

I know blogs that don't get into stuff or talk about things like that and I'm definitely not saying they're wrong because I now have a blog that I do that on too. Tbh, sadly, I think that's where a chunk of my followers came from, not my fics but me saying something isn't right and it feels in a way that I've gained followers off of “drama” and that makes me a little sick. While not saying anything and ignoring problems on here might not be great and also ignoring it won't make it go away, neither will me getting all fighty and upset over it, that just hurts me. I just want things to be more shallow, I just want this to be just a hobby again.

Anyway, the point I suppose is that I just need to shut the hell up and keep this place as it's needed to be for me, a place for me to share my writing and that's all because it's what best for me mentally. While interaction and stuff is great and myself and other writers do love it, there can be a darker shadow that comes with it like asks that state gross shit in detail that they would do to me or all the hateful the comments on fics id have to delete. I've been stalked, sexually harassed, plain old harassed, bullied, manipulated, made fun of, blackmailed, backstabbed, lied about, exposed, yelled at, and called horrible names more than I've ever publically and openly ever shared with any of you on this blog and more times than I can count on two hands or even four. Some people are fuckin just... well, they're not good, and it's made me just a little bit bonkers as well. it could be manageable, any one or two or even three of these things I've listed could be manageable and enough to carry on, but it's been a lot to keep carrying with all of this built up over the past few years. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love this place and how it brings people together and helps make changes and do so much good, but at the same time FUCK this place and I say that from the bottom of my soul. It's time for me to stand back away from it all and start again where I limit everything. I just wanna chill and write somewhere fresh and that's what I've been doing and I love it so much and I don't think if trade any about of followers, notes, popularity, or whatever else for it, that's not what it's about for me and if it is for someone else then that's okay, that's fine, as long as they're not hurting others to get it. I'm just saying I'm having a hard time engaging normally on here with everything else that's happening and has happened, it's just a me thing and I speak for no one else and it's nothing at all that all of my kind, supportive, loving, and talkative followers and moots have done.

#anon #im sorry for the rant #lub you 🖤

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