#he abandoned me and my mother for a life of dumpster diving

[lucius-official]

R.C: would you possibly allow a hoard of racoons to patrol the school with pink kazoos and finger pointer sticks so they can catch students skipping out on classes or breaking the rules or just to annoy anyone you want?

My Father was a racoon actually.

But I don't like my father.

So no.

#he abandoned me and my mother for a life of dumpster diving #perhaps you know him #he's the leader of an infamous racoon gang #daddy issues #lucius speaks #unreality #twisted wonderland rp #twst roleplay

[retroknightx]

hypmic headcanons

since nobody on my instagram appreciates me, i’m going to put them here, and it’ll be like a master post i can add onto that way anyway (which is convenient for me, because i keep adding on… yeah, it’s bad lmao. my notes document can only take so much) all of it will be under the line so you guys don’t just have a big ass post clogging your feed! to whoever my 4 followers are

starting with fling posse…

---

Ramuda Amemura

He’s trans.

He has a superiority complex to hide his inferiority complex.

He also likely has a little bot of a god complex… Just a tiny bit… Not to the point it’d endanger his life, but to the point he can never admit he’s wrong (I suppose this can also count as the superiority complex).

He also has a little bit of a schoolboy crush on Dice… that has lasted far longer than he’d ever like to admit – not that he’d ever admit it in the first place – and he gets jealous over Dice.

He started his whole thing with girls, whatever it is, as a power trip, which also explains why he likes to cause so much chaos.

Since he used to smoke, he started candy as a way to stop smoking and it slowly replaced his smoking habit (as I have yet to see him smoke otherwise, but keep in mind I’m not far into the manga and mostly I’m going off the ARB story).

---

Gentaro Yumeno

All writers are perfectionists (I’d know as one).

He’s probably very particular about the details and doesn’t like doing things without a plan.

He’s the lyric write for Fling Posse’s raps and does not enjoy making up lyrics on the spot; however he can if he must – This is also why he carries the book everywhere.

I honest to god don’t feel like he’s of this world and whatever his actual form is (irony in his rap name?), it scared Ramuda enough to create Fling Posse, so here they are.

---

now for the dice ones… it’s gonna be long!

---

Dice Arisugawa

He is, unfortunately, very oblivious to romantic approaches – especially from close friends such as his division members, for he’s been with them for so long that he can never imagine them falling in love with him.

He has abandonment issues/a fear of abandonment because his mother left him.

Speaking of his mother, Dice likely knows how to do “noble” things because he was raised by a politician; i.e. how to play piano and stuff like that.

Adding on top of that, I feel like Dice has an accumulation of many different skills from being all over the place – He learned how to do card tricks by watching others, and he probably learned bird calls from spending time with Rio.

He undoubtedly has ADHD (as a person with ADHD myself, you cannot tell me I am wrong)!

He’s well aware that’s he a leech, but he can’t stop himself because the addiction is stronger and he feels terrible about it; it’s why he often begs instead of anything else that would fit his character more.

He’s a very talkative person and often rambles to get his thoughts organized.

He doesn’t like being put into awkward situations or forced into silence because he is used the buzz of a casino and a busy city.

Relating to the ADHD canon, Dice puts his life on line not only for the thrill of it, but to keep his mind off of thoughts, and it’s also why he gambles; so he can focus on one thing.

He is numb to change because he’s a gambler.

He is very good at adapting to a new environment.

He doesn’t like being looked down up and that’s why he started gambling; to prove that he’s worth something.

He uses humor to cope if he can’t get his mind off of things with the thrill of gambling.

---

Extras (Fling Posse all together)

Dice has weird limbs, so clothing fits him weird, and Ramuda started making clothes for them because of that.

Ramuda chased after Dice after he stole his signature parka and the Fling Posse star was embroidered on later by Ramuda after the formation of Fling Posse.

Ramuda likely pulls whatever strings he has access to to make life easier for his division members (not that it stops them from getting into trouble, that is).

Gentaro spends a lot of time away when writing and likely forgets he’s even alive during those periods, so his division members make sure he’s still taking care of himself when he gets like that.

They all piss each other off, but in a platonic love kind of way.

---

moving onto matenrou! my favorite division <3

---

Jakurai Jingui

Oh, my poor man’s so tired. He just needs a long break and a spa day; speaking of this, he likely doesn’t ask for help often – it’s the messiah complex he undoubtedly has.

His hair is too long for him to be taking care of it himself, and it definitely looks in fantastic condition, so he definitely takes good care of it – I just don’t think he takes care of it himself; I think he enlists the help of his division members (as I headcanon that Matenrou is in a poly relationship).

Jakurai’s matureness can sometimes get in the way of other things, such as emotional moments, and he can come off as cold or distant when he doesn’t mean to come off that way.

Unlike the other divisions, Jakurai wanted to really separate from his past, and that’s why he named his division Matenrou instead of reusing something from the past. He also probably doesn’t like talking about the past.

His hair is naturally silver, but the lighter shades that are nearly white underneath was caused by stress.

He gets cold quickly, which is why he always keeps the lab coat on, and it’s also why he wears a turtleneck.

Jakurai does live in the same apartment as Doppo and Hifumi, but he’s always so busy that he often can’t get there, so he ends up sleeping at the hospital; he also has a separate apartment of his own that’s closer to the hospital if he has free time, but he’s not off work/off work but still on call.

---

Doppo Kannonzaka

Man, the first thing I thought when I saw him was that he has a choking kink. Enough said. He also likely has a praise kink.

If he didn’t have social anxiety and wasn’t so busy, he’d also probably be going over to Rio’s camp a lot. I think it’s because he’s so overworked that he doesn’t care about what’s in the food; as long as he gets it.

He’s probably passed out from exhaustion more than once and just got used to it.

Despite all his problems, he definitely wants to be known and he wants his name out there; he wants to be just like the other two and he definitely looks up to them already, but he aspires to be them.

He is so thankful for his divison members and he’s glad that they accepted him.

---

Hifumi Izanami

Hifumi is a classic case of “fake it till you make it”; I really don’t know how he became one of the most popular hosts in Shinjuku, but it’s definitely about the fake confidence and the jacket is a comfort object for him that allows him to have that confidence.

He cooks all the time for his division members and he uses the catches from fish all the time, too. He even brings the lunches to their works for them.

---

Extras

Since Hifumi’s always out so late, the others make sure he has everything he needs for whenever he wakes up and sometimes they wait for him.

They’re all in a poly relationship and I refuse to believe anything else; I mean, have you seen those “my room” dialouge in ARB? Fruity.

They probably all love to cuddle whenever they get the chance because they can’t do it often.

They definitely set up one day of the month for all of them to just be together.

---

buster bros time!

---

Ichiro Yamada

This may just be the Ichiro simp in me, but I think he has a very nice tummy that’d be nice to lay on; like a soft one if that makes any sense to anybody other than me.

He’s a very friendly person and if you’re close friends with him, he’s definitely loyal; he’d be willing to drop anything to help you kind of loyal, like he is to his brothers – all that, except the willing to die part.

I think he gets flustered easily and doesn’t know how to respond to compliments. That’s also probably the Ichiro simp in me.

Although he has to stop his brothers from ripping out each other’s throats all the time, he’s very proud of them and of their achievements, no matter what they are. He’s willing to praise them even for the tiniest things to make up for his absence in their lives.

He probably has a terrible sleeping schedule, but he could probably operate on pretty much anything. Two hours of sleep? That’s not an issue for him; he’s used to it.

He’s likely a cheapskate when it comes to himself, but when it comes to his brothers, he spares no expense if he can.

---

Saburo Yamada

He has a superiority complex. I mean, just look at how he acts with Jiro – that’s enough proof right there.

He got into hacking and all of that computer stuff because it was interesting to him; he’s probably pursuing a career in it, considering just how good he is at it. I feel like he’d make a good white hat hacker that tests your website security, like Alma in Va-11 Hall-A.

Call him a library, because he holds grudges for years.

I think he just likes picking arguments because he think it’s funny and there’s nothing better to do when you’re stuck with your brothers (as somebody with a sibling myself, I can attest to that).

---

Jiro Yamada

Anger issues. Yep, that’s it. That’s the headcanon.

Man probably goes dumpster diving to see what kind of treasures he can find; his room is probably full of that kind of junk.

He probably has greasy hair. It doesn’t matter how much he cleans it, it’s just greasy (as somebody with the same issue, go clean your pillows Jiro).

---

Extras

Ichiro has to hold Jiro back from just punching Saburo all the time.

God, somebody save Ichiro from his siblings; with how much they bicker, he probably has taken so much ibuprofen to stop headaches in his life that he should be considered dead from an overdose.

Despite being assholes to each other, they all help each other out – Saburo helps Jiro with his work, Jiro helps Saburo with whatever he can’t do, and Ichiro takes care of the rest. It’s the only thing keeping their bond together.

---

mad trigger crew, my beloved.

---

Rio Mason Busujima

Rio’s very stoic and that often doesn’t break, so it’s very rare to see a smile on his face. He has different smiles for different things too – there’s the business one; one so he doesn’t look as intimidating, and the actual genuine smile that’s very rare to see, but it happens when somebody appreciates his food.

Rio’s not good at understanding emotions and it takes him awhile to process emotions; he goes quiet in these moments and it can be confusing for those who don’t know him, but once he’s thought everything out, he’s very smart about responding.

He’ll never fully adjust to a life outside of the navy and military.

Opposite to Dice, he finds the buzz of a city to be too distracting for his thoughts and he enjoys his solitude, but he doesn’t mind company at all.

Due to how his unit was broken up, he refuses to abide by H law and keeps his gun on him. Even Rio can be spiteful. However, he mostly uses it for hunting, which is why he’s so far out in the forest.

He definitely has a lot of scars and that’s why he often wears his fatigues; he doesn’t wana come off as off-putting. His cards without the jacket did him so dirty. Of course he’d have scars from fighting in World War 3.

He can come up with strategies on the spot and is a very quick-thinker when it comes to combat.

Despite how ruthless he is when it comes to rap battles and being an ex-navy, he’s actually a very gentle soul.

I feel like he’s asexual, but homoromantic.

---

Samatoki Aohitsugi

He only uses the bad guy persona as a way to be left alone, but he’s actually a very kind person.

Despite being a yakuza, he actually abides to the H law and it’s probably only because of Nemu (however, this is only based off of the anime, so I can’t say for certain, but I haven’t seen anything in the manga disproving otherwise yet).

I just feel like he eats a lot throughout the day. I can’t explain this one, but he has the vibes.

He also knows how to cook quite well himself, and he does it for his division members sometimes.

---

Jyuto Iruma

He’s very cocky because he knows he can get away with things; I mean, he’s the authorties, why wouldn’t he get cocky about what he can do? However, it’s somewhat annoying to Samatoki.

If he wasn’t a gay bastard, Samtoki and Rio probably would’ve been arrested long ago. Thankfully for them, he is a gay bastard.

He likes looking good no matter what; it helps his confidence, so he dresses up to go out anywhere.

His glasses are probably just reading glasses.

He likes spending money on expensive things.

---

Extras

Samatoki and Jyuto are in a relationship. They’re so fruity that I’m sure I don’t have to explain this one.

Samatoki doesn’t approve of Rio dating Dice at all and it’s only because of Jyuto that Dice is still alive.

Rio is pretty much their marriage counselor; he has to constantly deal with them bickering, so of course he is. He’s pretty much the adopted child to save their marriage.

---

Ships

Riodice

Samajyu

Poly Matenrou

---

i will likely make a separate post for the ship headcanons because this will be much longer, but i think this covers all of them anyway, so here you go. enjoy.

#headcanons #hyperfixation #hypmic #hypnosis mic #samajyu #riodice #matenrou #mad trigger crew #fling posse #buster bros #ichiro #saburo #jiro #ramuda #dice #gentaro #samatoki #jyuto #rio #doppo #jakurai #hifumi #master post #poly matenrou

[valatheapprentice]

Echoes of the Past

Brought to us by @arcana-echoes

Vala Quintus

Hometown

Vala was born as Princess Alexandra Cirillo in the kingdom of Sparta. She wasn't allowed to go out into the kingdom. The few times her hand maiden would allow her to sneak out, shed find herself in a rowdier part. Despite being loud and reckless, they seemed to be very mindful and playful with her. She ran away at 6 and came to Vesuvia, where she was adopted and lived a fairly normal childhood in a nice neighborhood

Parents (mentions abuse)

Her birth parents were very cordial at best. They were very patriotic, proud and loving of their kingdom. When their son, valas older brother, was born, they loved him about as much. Years go by and they make a deal with the devil. Im exchange of their children's magic, he would be sure sparta lived on forever and that their children would go down in history. Since their son had no magick and an only child then, they agreed. A few years go by and they give birth to vala. While they loved her at first. That changed the moment she displayed magical abilities. With fear of the devil and magick being outlawed and detested , they would lock her in a cellar and place shackles on her to prevent her using said magic. By age three, Centaurs had threatened the kingdom. In exchange for being left alone, her parents agreed to let her be taken from time to time to entertain them, beating and r*ping her when they had gotten drunk. At this point they had seen her as more of an object and annoyance. When she ran away, war broke out and they died in that war.

Her adoptive parents were a lot different. They found her on the beach and took her in, despite originally not wanting kids. With nightmares and being former royalty (now kept secret) came behavior issues they had to help her overcome. They were extremely patient but stern. They gave her a fun and warm home and she lived 9 years as a fairly normal and happy child until her mother died when she was 15. She learned to cook and got her sense of humor from them. They signed her up for belly dance lessons, which she uses along woth her root work. Which they encouraged her into practicing.

Magick

She first showed signs of magick at age 2, but didn't really know it. As she got older she realized she could do things but was quickly punished for doing them. Once she was able to harness her power, she realized she was strongest with fire and chaos magick. She found some travelers and learned root work and conjuring from them. Which she continued researching and practicing after they left. She also has a strong connections to spirits and works/talks to them often

Education

She was heavily tutored as a princess, forced to learn Italian, and law despite being told she could never amount to anything due to her duties. In Vesuvia, she attended a public school until she dropped out at 15. Due to her love of dance and her Magick type, choir and science were her favorite subjects

The "aunt"

In her teens, she had been in trouble with the law frequently. Once she got back on her feet, she found qnd abandoned home and more or less squatted in it. She fixed it up with asras and her dads help and turned it into her shop "Magick and Mayhem". As soon as they started getting business, she was able to pay rent for it. The police she dealt with before let her slide of some formalities so they can keep seeing her stay out of trouble

Friends

In Sparta, her only friend was her handmaidens son, whom she rarely played with. In vesuvia, she had a habit of befriending colorful characters. One she was close to before she dropped out happened to be the daughter of a crime boss, Stella (another oc and LI for valerius)

Occupation (mentions substance abuse)

She dropped out of school after becoming dependent on drugs and entering an abusive relationship with her dealer. Despite helping forgive his debt in unsavory ways, she learned /some/ business skills through selling for him after a few years, such as negotiations.

Familiar

Her familiar is a possum named Arthur. She found him in a box labeled "free kitty" and couldn't resist. They are able to communicate and heal eachother. Hes able to sense peoples energy and his reactions can be seen as a warning for her. Together, they can manipulate the energy in anyone and anything. Its just a matter of if the want to or should

First loves (mentions abuse)

She had one love before meeting asra. Pete Uchiha (street name Ocho) was her dealer turned boyfriend when she was 15. Despite the good times she clung to and being too young to know better, he mentally, physically, and sexually abused her and forced her into dealing for him and attacking people who owed him. After 2 years of his paranoia and control. She met asra when he was homeless and a thief. They quickly went from being friends to facing an affair.

Cuisines

Growing up with her new family, her dad absolutely loves making chili and spicy beer chicken. While she could eat those everyday, she and her mom loved anything involving shrimp and gyros.

Defining moment (mentions substance abuse, attempted suicide, and crimes)

While she was considerate of others and wanted to be nice to everyone, she had little foresight, no impulse control, and often just thought of herself. The moment that really made her change her life was when she was 19. She had discovered she she could make any surface become soft and safe to land on. So she, Pete, and mutual friends would go onto a roof top, get high And basically fall into a dumpster. This went on for years until one day, her friend jumped and missed the spot, killing him. Once she realized what happened she was grief and guilt stricken and tried to overdose. Luckily, she was found and taken to the hospital where she started to detox. Later on she was arrested for manslaughter but was released on probation. That was the moment she realized she couldn't live like that. Pete was put on jail, she broke things off, and swore to never get high again and makeup for every wrong shes everyone, or try, since she finds herself responsible for the war as well. Still is and always will be, impulsive though

Holidays

She is a pagan, worshipping the Greeks gods (patron is Hermes, arcana is judgement). She follows the basic pagan holiday wheel. She will give either food drink or dance offerings and meditate to give her thanks to them and the spirits

Aftermath

After she had died, outside of asra, her father was completely grief stricken. Customers and neighbors felt sorry for their loss, a few even missing her and her energetic and kind energy. When asra brought her back, everyone knew something messed up happened and looked at them like outcasts. She has absolutely no memory and has to relearn how to talk, so this confused and disheartened her greatly. When asra told her dad, they got into a huge fight, her dad angry for putting more turmoil in their lives. So far (in my stories at least) he can't bare to face her, knowing she doesn't remember him yet/anymore

In another life

If she hadn't have left sparta. She would have died. Lets be real.

Given how she got the plague (kissing lucio, in a story ill post), it could have been avoided but then asra wouldn't have needed to be at the palace in her place and who knows what would have happened if lucio got his way in the ritual. Even ignoring that, when shed face asra again, it wouldn't have worked out. At least nothing would be easily forgiven. She'd probably be a numb and tired person after

If she had left with him, I think she'd feel guilt for leaving. Like itd be a happier life, being safe with asra in a new place, but I see her being more depressed and submissive. She just agreed to leave her home and father to rot in her mind.

Freebie

So, and I didnt know why until my husband helped me figure it out, but I always imagined her and julian getting married before having kids and her and lucio getting pregnant before getting married. Im one for diving deep into the psychology of my and other characters. While she and julian are no where near innocent and all, they tend to have a more wholesome relationship. She is very headstrong and a switch. Julian is in my mind a switch but is more submissive in personality. Lucio is just as headstrong as well as temperamental. So they but heads a lot and can be seen as a very emotionally charged couple. She does believe love is an action more so than a feeling, thanks to her adoptive mom and dad, and not many people put up with his shit out of love, so they do put the effort onto each other. So the more traditional route, in my mind I guess is better fit for julian and the chaotic route fits lucio better. (Idk I love doing deep dives into this kind of thing. Like ill spend hours talking to my super smart husband or researching to find the correct mindsets)

#the arcana apprentice #the arcana game #the arcane mc #the arcana #echoes of the past #arcana eotp #the arcana asra #the arcana julian #the arcana lucio #oc backstory #my oc stuff

[fruit-teeth]

More TF2 OCs: the children

Okay, so...this is the result of me realizing that I have a lot of TF2 OCs who are children of various characters, and I wanted to just like...gush about them, I guess?? I haven’t made a post like this in a while and no one asked for it but I just wanted to have it here. These are in no particular order, and I may add on to the list but I’m not sure yet. There’s a lot of kids, and this took me a while to complete, so...yeah. Also, if you wanna see stories involving these characters, uhh let me know! I love writing for these little folks. 

Dee-

First appearing in my story Dumpster Diving, Dee is Sniper’s adopted daughter who he found abandoned inside a dumpster. Dee didn’t find out she was adopted until she was five years old, when Sniper showed her a picture of her birth mother and explained what happened. She wasn’t upset to find this out, and she’s never shown any interest in finding her biological family. While Sniper adopted her, Dee sees Scout as her other parent, as Sniper and Scout began dating when Dee was still a baby.

Dee loves nature, she’s very good with animals and she’s also very interested in marine biology. She has a bunch of books all about animals, and every Saturday she gets Sniper to drive her to the library to check out more books. She gets along well with other children but she’s somewhat introverted and prefers her alone time.

AJ-

AJ showed up for the first time in my story Avalanche, where he’s born. He came into the world very unexpectedly, but Sniper and Scout immediately accepted him despite everything. They raised AJ alongside Dee, and since then they’ve always seen each other as brother and sister.

AJ and Scout have always been very close, ever since AJ was born, and as a result, AJ developed a lot of interests like Scout’s, such as baseball, drawing and even Tom Jones. But AJ also took an interest in movies and movie making, and seeing this, Sniper bought him a video camera for his birthday. AJ loved it, but it got him into some trouble when he secretly filmed Spy (his grandfather) sleeping and then played it on the projector during their movie night.

Titania-

Titania has only appeared in maybe 2 stories of mine, but she was first mentioned Hiccup (though she’s unnamed in that one). Her parents are Heavy and Medic, who both treat her like a total princess. While she isn’t considered spoiled, it’s not a secret that her parents would move Heaven and Earth for her.

Titania is very well-behaved, she always seems to be in a good mood, and she’s also very social and talkative. She speaks three languages (German, Russian, and English), and she’s known how to use weapons from a young age, mainly for protection purposes. She spends a lot of time playing piano and generally has a fondness for music, which likely comes from Medic constantly playing records of all kinds around her as she’s grown up.

June-

I can only say so much about June, because if I gave every detail about her then I would spoil parts of my current story In the Wall, in which June appears. June is Miss Pauling’s daughter, born illegitimately and under very strange circumstances. Pauling cared for June when she was a newborn, but due to time constraints and her demanding job, Pauling eventually was forced to put June in someone else’s care. Luckily and seemingly out of the blue, Spy offered, and he took June in to care for her while Pauling got herself sorted out. June still sees Pauling regularly and knows that she’s her mother, and while the two are close June prefers spending time with Spy since she’s used to him.

June is very quiet and keeps to herself, although she’s known for being quippy and funny when she does talk. She always had difficulty making friends, but she eventually bonded with Dee over their shared love of animals. June likes Dee, although they don’t always get along due to June’s reserved nature. June’s ‘best friend’ is a tiny doll that she sewed herself and affectionately named The Denzel, and she’s often seen talking to it. This makes Miss Pauling very nervous, and she tries to convince June not to carry around the doll anymore, but June just ignores her. Spy doesn’t see anything wrong with it and thinks she’s just playing, but he keeps on eye on the situation.

Abraham-

Abraham (called ‘Abe’ for short) and his twin sister haven’t appeared in any stories of mine, not yet anyway. He’s the older twin child of Soldier and Zhanna, and although he’s always been somewhat small, this has never stopped Soldier from training him for warfare ever since the day he was born. Much like his sister and his cousin Titania, Abe has known how to use a gun ever since he was a toddler, although he can only use smaller guns since the recoil of a bigger one could possibly hurt him.

Abe is a very loud and rambunctious child, although he doesn’t always mean to be. Despite his vibrant nature, he’s actually very sweet and cuddly with everyone, especially his mother. He loves both of his parents but he’s very clingy with Zhanna, and while she didn’t mind this at first she’s starting to become a bit sick of it the bigger he gets.

Abe is obsessed with comic books and loves superheroes, to the point where he creates little stories about his favorite heroes and talks about them to whoever will listen any chance he gets. He even has a notebook, which is just full of pages upon pages of his stories and his superhero drawings.

Aleksandra-

Aleksandra (called ‘Sandra’ for short) is the younger twin of Soldier and Zhanna, and she’s the physically stronger one as well. Sandra really took after her father, immediately taking a liking to firearms and developing a strong love of America. Although Soldier encourages her and her brother to be as American as they can, Sandra and Abe are both bilingual, as they are fluent in English and Russian.

Sandra loves wrestling and watches it all the time, but as a result, she’s very pugnacious and prone to violence. It got to a point where she was just too rough with the other kids and accidentally ended up injuring AJ during a play-wrestling match, and afterwards, Zhanna had to scold her about it. Sandra tries to be more careful now, but it isn’t easy as she’s not a small girl at all. Despite her rough nature, Sandra does play with the other children but prefers to spend the most time with Titania, her cousin, who she considers her best friend.

Maria-

Maria has not appeared in any of my stories, although I plan to write about her at some point. Her background is very troubled, and she wound up in the Teufort Orphanage where she stayed until she was twelve years old. At twelve, she ran away from the orphanage but ended up meeting Engineer in a gas station. Engineer pitied her and eventually convinced her to go back to the orphanage with him, but when he saw the appalling conditions she was living in, he ended up adopting her. Maria didn’t like him at first since she felt like he was too intrusive, but eventually, she grew a fondness for him and now she’s just accepted him as her father.

Maria appears to have a rather hostile nature at first, but she’s really very loyal and kind. She’s also incredibly smart, namely in the areas of math and literature, although she doesn’t always show her intelligence off. She has a hard time fitting in with the other kids, as she’s significantly older, but she became a sort of big sister to them and helps them with their homework from time to time.

Cora-

Cora’s backstory is still a bit fuzzy, but I plan to write more of her in the future. Cora spent the majority of her life alone in the rural areas of Scotland with her ailing mother, but when she was six years old her mother died very suddenly. Cora, however, was found to be related to the DeGroot family, but when most of the family either wasn’t able to care for her or couldn’t be bothered to, Cora was sent to live with Demoman. Even though they were related, the two had never met and Cora was rather afraid of him at first and would hide from him a lot. Demo managed to win her over, though, luring her out of her hiding spaces with food or toys or funny jokes. Now, Cora looks up to him and follows him everywhere, and his influence helped her develop a better sense of confidence and self-esteem.

Cora discovered her love of explosives after spending time with Demo, although her interests lean more towards fireworks or an explosion that has vibrant colors. While Demo encourages her interests, Cora has been reprimanded several times by the other mercenaries for setting off her fireworks, since her fireworks would result in either disturbing the wildlife or destroying property. Cora found a different, colorful outlet, though, in watercolor painting, as she can be as colorful and wild with painting as she wants. However, fireworks are really what she prefers, and the Fourth of July quickly became her favorite holiday after she moved to the US. 

#this is all i got for now but #hope you like them #im gonna draw them at some point too #writing #my writing #long post #tf2 #tf2 sniperscout #tf2 heavymedic #tf2 soldierzhanna #tf2 ocs #so many kids #damn #my ocs

[ren-c-leyn]

Our Real-life Fantasy Novel by Ren C. Leyn

 It’s a bit of a long short story, if it can even be called a short story at this point. I really should start giving myself word counts when I write these. It was inspired by @humdrummoloch ‘s prompt here. No swearing, no death. I think the worst of it is two teenagers sneaking out at night. 

“What are we even doing here?” he asked, hands resting in the worn-out pockets of the ratty, blue hoodie.

 Even I had to admit that it was a valid question. Just what were we doing here? I guess something in my pea-brain decided that it would be a blast. I couldn’t bring myself to say it out loud, though. I shot him my most confident smile, tilting my head as I raised my left hand, snapping my fingers for dramatics.

 “Going on an adventure, duh. It can be just like one of those cheesy fantasy books you keep your nose in all day. Or one of those....”

 My hand lowered as I tried to think of the term he used.

 “One of those...” I tried again, twirling my wrist in pointless circles. “Those games you play, with the magic and swords and stuff.”

 “Rpgs?” he replied, voice bland and face blank.

 I snapped my fingers, smiling again.

 “Right, rpgs!”

 “... So, why are we here again?”

 I stopped and faced him fully, putting both hands on my hips.

 “I already told you, we’re on an adventure!”

 “... Right. Oh look, there’s a side quest to return home before our mothers skin us alive.”

 “That’s not going to happen,” I replied as I turned around.

 “The pool party?”

 “Freak accident.”

 “The principle and the....”

 “Not my fault.”

 “Johnny....”

 “Sabotage,” I replied before marching onward again. “If you want to go home, then fine. Go home. I’ll just find it myself.”

 There was silence behind me as I stormed ahead. He’d come. He always came. After a few minutes of hearing nothing, though, I began to get a bit worried that he actually wasn’t going to come after all.

 I looked back and felt my breath catch in my throat, which is probably the only reason I wasn’t screaming my lungs out. There were a pair of dark, dark eyes with ash rings around them just staring at me. Combined with the blood-red streaks against a pale face, it wasn’t exactly the kind of thing a person wants to see standing just outside of the comforting light of a streetlamp.

 He blinked, those owlish eyes narrowing.

 “I thought adventurers weren’t supposed to be scaredy-cats.”

 “At least make some noise when you’re walking behind someone! Or stop dying your hair that color! You look like something out of a horror movie in this light. And why are you slouching so much? I shouldn’t be eye level with you!”

 “If you don’t stop screaming, someone is going to call the cops,” he replied nonchalantly as he slowly straightened up. “And I thought you knew I was behind you.”

 I let out a shaky breath.

 “I didn’t know if you were, you were too quiet.”

 “Guess that makes me the rogue of this traveling party.”

 “Rogue?”

 “Forget it. Let’s just go find that secret door the crazy old lady told you about so we at least have one success under our belts before our hides wind up on the walls.”

 I giggled before spinning back around. I led the traveling party, as Rumor called it. We made our tiresome trek down the concrete and asphalt paths, weaving in and out of pools of orange lights and black shadows. Cats yowled, dogs howled, and I think it was a raccoon that we heard thrashing around in a dumpster. We didn’t stick around to find out.

 Eventually, our shoes found sand, our noses breathing in the salty air of the sea, and our eyes stared at the sliver light reflecting off of the crests of the waves. The sand glittered like moon dust. I paused for a moment, just taking it all in. My nerves were slowly melting away, along with the memory of what I had sneaked out to find. That is, until a certain someone decided to remind me.

 “Aren’t we looking for something?”

 “Can’t you just enjoy the moment? Look at this. It’s way prettier than any of your... your... the games.”

 “Rpgs.”

 “Right, those. It’s prettier than anything in those, and you just want to blow it all off?”

 “That’s entirely a matter of opinion.”

 I sighed.

 “Whatever. We can look for the door, and after we find it, you can go back to your books and... um... rpgs.”

 He hummed before looking around.

 “What was it she told you again? Somewhere by the cliffs?”

 “Let’s see.... In the shadow of the cliffs, where the waters look calm.”

 “That sounds suspiciously like a riptide.”

 “Good thing we’re both decent swimmers and know what to do.”

 “Bad thing is sharks hunt at night.”

 “Good thing neither of us are wearing yellow, then.”

 With that, I walked over towards the cliffs. The closer I got to the shadow of the cliffs, the more I found my heart pounding. By the time Rumor and I stood side by side at the edge of the cliffs, it sounded like it was in my ears and felt like it was crawling up my throat.

 “Look over there, the water by that rock isn’t moving at all.”

 I swallowed as I followed Rumor’s extended hand. Sure enough, there by a small tip of a rock in the water was a smaller area where the water didn’t look like it was moving at all. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but I refused to show fear. I popped my best smirk on my face.

 “Here I was expecting a decent rip tip. Heck, that doesn’t even look as big around as a kiddie pool.”

 “So, we’re jumping in the water to check it out, like the crazy woman said?” he asked as he lowered his arm.

 “I don’t know about you, but since I’m already getting grounded for the rest of my high-school life for this, might as well finish our quest, right?”

 “So be it, then.”

 With that, the ratty hoodie and the plain black t-shirt beneath it were shed. I dropped my cape jacket down next to them. Heeled boots and converse sneakers were abandoned as we raced each other to the sea. It probably wasn’t the best idea for us to jump into the ocean in the fall, but we didn’t care. We were on an adventure, after all.

 We both dived into the navy and black darkness of the water. I wondered what I was doing, but pushed it out of my head. Rumor was here, it’d be okay. As long as I wasn’t along, the darkness couldn’t bother me.

 We swam to the rock, coming up for air. We both looked to each other, scarlet and hickory hair hanging in our faces. With a single nod we both dived both in, down into the dark depths. We kept going until we reached the base of the rock. I ran my hands across the surface.

 I was surprised when I felt the carvings, just like the old woman told me. I pulled the odd purple pebble out of my jeans. Holding it by the leather thread, I pushed it into the center of the runes. It glowed, it glowed brighter than the moon over our heads. It felt like the crushing dark of the sea was turned into a warm summer day.... 

 Then, it came, a loud click. I watched with wide eyes as the rock tore itself in half. The water rushed in, sucking Rumor and I in with it. I tried to scream, but could only get bubbles to form. Into the rock we flowed.

 I don’t remember exactly what happened next. The very next thing that was clear was having an even more nightmarish looking Rumor glaring at me through a dim purple haze.

 “You wanted a fantasy novel, well congratulations, we’re in one.” He pointed in a random direction. “Because that freaken fairy just winked at me.”

 I followed his finger and sure enough, there was a woman with butterfly wings. She giggled and disappeared in a flash of silver light. I blinked before looking at him. He just glared at me from behind the dark rings which marked his many insominatic nights.

 “What do you want me to do?”

 “Find a way out.”

 I looked around.

 “Four-O-Four, your way out has not been found. Are you happy now?”

 “No.”

 “Well good, that makes two of us then. I never wanted to be stuck in a fantasy novel or one of those....”

 “Rpgs.”

 “Right, I never wanted to be stuck in a fantasy novel or an rpg. Little alone one with a fairy flirting with my cousin.”

 “Well guess where we are.”

 “Don’t remind me,” I replied with a heavy sigh.

#fantasy #adventure #comedy #short story #sneaking out isn't worth it #diving into the ocean at night isn't smart either #My writing #a story by Ren

[roonil-wazlib-at-221b]

Hacked: Part 4

You didn’t go to lacrosse practice.

There’s no point and you need the money, anyways, so you forgo fun and go to work. The boy watches you as usual, the bus runs late as usual, and you mop the floors of the hospital until they’re shining, muck the floors of the stable until the only thing on them is dust, and then you go home and prepare for two hours of frantic homework.

You used to live in a regular house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and now you live in a trailer with one bed, a couch, and one bathroom. How the mighty have fallen, except you weren’t all that mighty before your mom got sick.

“Y/n?” she calls when the door creaks open. You’d left your keys at home again, but it’s not a big deal because your mom always forgets to lock the door and anyways, if you’re really in a pinch, a good, hard shake of the door will have the locking mechanism popped out.

Good thing you two live in the scrubby backwash area of shining New York, the toilet of Queens, a blemish in the city. No one comes here of their own volition, and everyone dreams of leaving as quickly as they can. The crime rate here is as low as it gets because no one has anything worth stealing, and no one would rack up a big enough ransom to make it worth the kidnapper’s time. Plus, there’s cameras everywhere and we’re not rich enough to pay off the police if we get caught committing murder.

“Yeah, it’s me,” you call back, dropping your backpack at your feet and wincing when it thunks. You never welcome charity but don’t have a problem with stealing. What a fucked-up child you are. And the food in the bins was going to go to people who’re in the same trouble as you are, so what’s the harm? Worst comes to worst, you get caught and explain your position. Your boss would understand. “I got food.”

Your mom probably knows about how you get money, but she can claim ignorance as long as you don’t hurt anyone else in the process. She might have a conscience, but you don’t. It should bother you that you would steal from someone struggling like you if you were hungry.

It should.

It doesn’t.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and no one’s going to help you, so you put a smile on your face and steal from the stores no one else would bother stealing from and you take the cans out of a donation bin because your stomach is complaining. You raid food pantries. You Dumpster-dive.

You humiliate the rich and rack up the money.

Your mom appears in the doorway, looking as thin and ragged as ever even in four sweaters and multiple layers of pants. “Did you have a nice day at school?”

“Yeah,” you say absently, already typing an English essay on your computer. You know your world’s gonna end soon, but you don’t want to spend the entire time waiting around. You’ll do the work and not stress about the bad grades for once in your life. It’s freedom and it’s fun.

“My shift starts soon,” she says. “I’ll be back by the time you’re leaving for school.”

She has one job. You have four. You resent her for that, slightly, because it’s her fault the two of you are in this position, and she doesn’t even try anymore. Inside, you know you’re dying, but on the outside you can at least pretend everything isn’t going to shit. She’s not even giving you that much false peace of mind.

Once again you consider moving out and living with your friends. You used to love your mother, you know, but now you mostly feel blank around her.

She ruined your life. She’s not trying to fix it. She’s going to die soon and leave you with nothing and nobody except for the man who knocked her up and then left her, because she’s too stubborn to see around the issues she had with her parents.

You smile at her. “Don’t work yourself too hard, okay? I’ll see you later.”

“Love you!” she calls while exiting the trailer, leaving you alone in a drafty tin can.

You race to the window to make sure she’s left before pulling up the research you really want to work on.

You’ve spent days trying to hack into Tony Stark’s bank account. It’s heavily protected and you’ve never seen a security wall quite like it, but you’ll get through it… eventually. You know nearly everything there is to know about Stark, partly because because he’s a celebrity, he’s got no privacy, but even the most private secrets aren’t hidden to you. You know his birthdate, the birthdate of Pepper Potts, the day his parents were killed, what road they were killed on, who killed them, and so much more.

Your laptop bings with an incoming video call. Stick’s face pops up onto your screen, scowling—as usual. Through the computer’s speakers, his voice is tinny when he asks if you’re in yet.

“Not yet,” you say, biting your lip a bit at the disappointment on his face. Even though Stick’s got no stake in your project, he’s still invested in it, wanting you to succeed just as much as you.

He’s practically your dad. You’d like him to be your father much more than Tony Stark.

“We can have Pom help you tonight, if you want,” he offers. You hesitate before shaking your head. You wouldn’t let Pom anywhere near your laptop even if your life depended on it. Stick’s actual daughter, and therefore your rival, is everything you want to be in life—smart, tall, tattooed, pierced, great at fighting and sneaking, and Stick’s daughter. The only thing she doesn’t have is a great personality, but then again, neither do you.

You wish you could get a tattoo—of what, you don’t know, but you’d like one, like a planet or a flower or a bird. And you’d also like second piercings.

More than once, Pom’s nearly gotten everyone killed on a mission because of her hot head, and you’d had to hack into some tech to save them. She hates being saved, so she hates you, and she’d do anything to sabotage you. Besides, you’re better at hacking than her. She’d probably announce your presence, chipping away at the shields.

You don’t hate her, per se, but you don’t go out of our way to be in the same room as her, mostly because she’ll start trying to pick a fight with you.

“What are you going to do once it’s released?” Stick asks.

You shrug, trying to appear nonchalant, but warmth glows in your stomach at his absolute faith you’ll be able to do it. “Run to Canada, maybe?”

“I’ve got contacts there,” Stick says thoughtfully. “I could probably still help you, all the way from here.”

“Maybe I could still save your asses on missions,” you joke.

“Pom would hate that,” Stick remarks. “Come over whenever. We’ve got booze.”

You gasp as a sudden thought comes to you. “Booze!”

“Well, I didn’t think you’d be so excited—”

“No,” you say loudly, “how much booze Stark drinks! It’s no secret he drinks a lot… what if I get records of how much he drinks and make an article questioning if it’s safe for an alcoholic to be leading the Avengers? I’ve also got records of all the women he gets—I’ve got, like fifteen half-siblings here in New York—he’s an alcoholic and cheating on his wife!”

“All those girls were before he got married,” Stick says, but he’s excited, you can tell.

“Well, they must’ve dated for awhile, right? I’m coming over. Save me some Mike’s. I need to check the dates with Dennis.”

“You got it,” you almost-father-figure says, amused, and ends the chat. You quickly pack up your equipment. Your end may be coming even quicker than expected.

You grab your second backpack from the compartment over the microwave your mother’s all but forgotten about and stuff your equipment into it. And by ‘equipment’, you mean ‘laptop, headphones, and USB drives’. Before leaving, you reach behind your refrigerator and pull out your hoverboard. Being friends with a tech genius sure has its perks, even if you can’t flaunt those perks anywhere but at Stick’s. Then again, where else would you need to flaunt them? The people there are the only ones that matter.

You click the ‘on’ button and step onto the board. You could also ride it on your bum, and sometimes do, but that’s not as cool. The stabilizing tech on this thing allows you to take sharp turns without the board ever getting more than slightly tilted, and ’d included a way to make the board’s surface latch onto your boots when it’s on, so you can’t fall off it either. Best part of it is that you don’t have to charge it—the tech’s regenerating and powered by light, including that of the artificial and moon variety.

You lean forward to start the board’s movement and press down harder with your back heel to gain a little height. You can’t go as high as you’d really like to, because it’s not super dark. You’d prefer to be riding above the trailers in your park, but now you’re just skimming along around the height of your knees if you’d been standing on the ground. The cool air laps against your skin like the ocean. You feel like you’re flying.

Once you enter the trees, you slow down a bit to navigate the different tree trunks and branches. The sounds of the party reach your ears before you see Stick’s base. The base is way into the forest, which doesn’t do much to muffle the sound all that well. It used to be a cabin but was abandoned before Stick found it and decided to claim it. You smile upon seeing it. When you were younger, you’d pretended this place was your real home.

A few people whistle when you emerge from the foliage. You grin and wave, dropping down steadily before turning your board off and tucking it under your arm. Dennis exits the crowd, a scowl on his face. He scowls a lot, just like Stick.

Just like his dad.

He’s got Stick’s dark hair and bushy eyebrows but his chin is more blocky, his cheekbones less evident.

“Stick said you wanted to run some dates by me?” he says immediately. He’s not one for greetings.

“Possibly,” you reply, smiling at a younger girl who’d just placed hard lemonade in your hands. “It’s just a hunch, and I’ve not even looked them up yet. It’s probably just a dead end.”

“Well, it’s better than nothing,” he says emotionlessly and you follow him into the house and up the stairs. The study is soundproof, so even during one of the parties you’re able to research.

Five minutes later, you lean back in your chair and let out a loud sigh. “Well, that was pointless.”

“Say what you will about a murdering alcoholic, he hasn’t once cheated on his wife,” Dennis says sarcastically.

You groan. “Tell me about it.”

“Well, let’s keep with the original plan, then. Wanna frame him for something?” Den offers halfheartedly.

You consider it for a second before shaking your head. “I want him brought down by his own actions.”

“Ooh, kinky,” your friend says blankly before cracking a smile when you giggle. “Oh, wait, have you seen the new YouTube videos? There’s this new superhero called Spiderman.”

“I’ve heard of him,” you say casually, taking a small sip of your lemonade, “but I thought he wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“Depends. He got lucky with Toomes a bit ago, but nearly killed everyone on a cruise ship by baiting some of our people.”

“What an ass,” you say lightly. “Is there a reason you’re bringing him up?”

“Am I not allowed to fangirl about the new superhero on our block?”

“It’s not really like you, no. How’s your boyfriend?”

“He’s still being smart and in Harvard,” Dennis shrugs. “You’d be surprised the number of students who’d give anything for some drugs.”

“We’re still doing that stuff?” You feel slightly put out. You haven’t been to the most recent meetings because you’d been working on your project, but you hadn’t thought you’d miss that much. Dennis should’ve texted you about it. It’s not like he no one else knows about your project; it’s literally your coming-of-age ceremony, so to speak.

“The lower people are, but some of us’ve taken over Toomes’ biz.” Den shrugs again. “I bet I could get Spider-boy in my bed.”

“You could get anyone in your bed,” you laugh.

“Except you.”

“That’s cuz I’ve seen you shit your pants when a rifle was pointed at you.”

“Unfair.”

“When did he ever load it? Never? You should’ve known it was an empty threat.”

“Well excuse me! There’s a reason Vin’s in Harvard and I’m not. Wanna go down now?”

You shrug. “Sure, let’s go.”

“It’s time for you to start training with Dennis,” a familiar voice says behind you.

You turn around, a wide smile on your face. “Stick! What’d you say?”

“It’s time for you to start training with Dennis,” he repeats.

Your grin falters. “Right now?” Normally you’d be all for it, but you’re pleasantly buzzed right now, all your senses dulled by a comforting blanket called ‘alcohol’.

“Den’s got a sobering pill,” Stick says, reading your hesitation correctly. “I let you have your fun, but you’ve gotta remember that you’re not safe as long as you’re continuing with the project.”

Your cheeks burn at his scolding. You set your drink down and follow him into the kitchen, where Dennis hands you a pill and a glass of water silently. After gulping it down, you follow him into the back, where a lone figure stands. The golden strands in her black hair give away her identity.

“She’s all yours, Pom,” Dennis says and goes back into the base.

“Seriously?” you mutter when he passes.

“I heard about your project,” Pom says after a beat. Who hasn’t? You ask silently. “You do realize no matter how incriminating the evidence is, people are gonna wonder how you got it?”

You scowl and say, “Why do you care?”

She flashes a surprised look at you, raising her pale eyebrows. “You’re my friend, of course I care.”

You squint at her. “What?”

Pom squints back at you, tilting her head. “What?”

“Since when are we friends?”

“Since you got me out of that jail,” she responds.

“That was a year ago,” you remark incredulously—around the same time she started trying to punch you— “and you never said anything about it! You just started trying to hit me when I wasn’t looking!”

“Yeah. For training. Is that not how girls do it?” She tucks her hair behind her ears. “That’s how Dennis makes friends.”

“Yeah, well, Dennis is a sociopath. You’ve seriously been thinking we’ve been friends for a year without me saying practically anything to you?”

“We fought,” she points out. “You’re not very good at it, though.”

“Oh, thanks,” you say sarcastically.

“We’re both helping each other, though, and that’s what friends do,” Pom says, sounding pleased.

You scoff, “How on earth could I help you?”

“I need to learn how to do the computer stuff,” Pom admits sheepishly.

You tilt your head at her before shrugging. She’d never shown any interest in hacking before this, but whatever. “I don’t think I’ll be very good at fighting,” you warn.

“That’s what I’m for. And I don’t think I’ll be very good at hacking.”

Turns out that you’re pretty good at punching, but not at dodging.

“Sorry, sorry,” Pom says again but she’s laughing.

You flip her the bird with the hand not used to pinch your bleeding nose.

“How ‘bout we call it a day? It’s nearly eleven,” she suggests. Your eyes widen.

“My mob!” you gurgle.

“I didn’t know you had a mom,” Pom remarks, then winces when she realizes how stupid it sounds. “What’s she gonna do after your project?”

You shrug. “Bot goba be here after. Cabcer.”

Pom winces, saying, “That sucks,” which is so much more refreshing to hear rather than ‘I’m sorry’.

“Doesn’t really batter,” you shrug again. “Don’t like her all that buch, really. That’s probably wrog, right?”

Pom shakes her head. “Blood doesn’t mean shit. Especially when they’re assholes.”

You hesitantly stop pinching your nose and wipe it on your sleeve. “She refuses to get in touch with by gradparets eveb though she’s leavig be a trailer wheb she dies. I’m workig four jobs a day and she’s got—” you hold up one finger.

“What a bitch,” Pom says with disgust.

“You bow what? Fuck her. She cab worry all she wants; I dob’t feel like goig hobe tobight,” you declare loudly.

Pom laughs. “Wanna make some trouble?”

“Let me clean up my face first.”

Peter’s sitting on a fire escape when someone on a motorcycle drives by, way too fast. “Excuse me, sir or miss!” he yells, shooting a web at a building next to them. “You’re going too fast!”

The figure must not hear due to their loud motorcycle, because they don’t even twitch. They just turn a corner into a dark alley.

“Stop!” Peter yells, shooting a web at the bike’s back wheel and missing narrowly. “You’re going to hurt someone! Karen, release the tracker. I’m going to try to get in front of this guy,” Peter commands, swinging into the alley way behind the motorcycle rider.

“Sure, Peter,” Karen says easily. A small metal spider detaches off the shoulder of Peter’s suit and leaps onto the motorcycle just as it turns another corner.

Peter sprints along the rooftops, using his webs whenever possible, until Karen commands for him to stop. Peter jumps to the ground just as the rider roars into the alley. He can see their eyes widen and they skid to a stop just inches away from Peter.

“Dude, you were going way too fast,” he scolds, scowling even though the person wouldn’t be able to see.

The person lifts up their helmet, revealing a pale, thin face and long dark hair. “Sorry,” she says with a rich voice.

“Be careful next time,” Peter says, deepening his voice. “You could’ve hurt someone.”

“Peter,” Karen says suddenly, “there’s a situation at a supermarket across town.

Peter jerks his head up. “Where?”

“To your left,” the girl on the motorcycle giggles. She kicks it into gear and zooms off, but this time her bike’s silent. Peter curses and shoots a web to the top of the building on his left. Sure enough, he can hear screams coming from that direction. He swings to the top just in time to see a flash of light. The girl’s motorcycle roars somewhere behind him, just for a moment.

There’s another flash of light, and for a second Peter swears that someone’s hovering in the air, like something photoshopped against a photo’s background, but when he blinks they’re gone.

“Karen, did you see that?”

“See what, Peter? Are you talking about the person on the hoverboard?”

“Yeah,” Peter says with relief. “That.”

“No,” Peter insists, “I swear, Mr. Stark! Karen saw it too!”

“Your A.I.” Tony’s voice drips with disbelief. “Well, send the video to me, kid. It was probably just a big bird.”

“Got it, Mr. Stark.” Peter hangs up the phone. “Karen, send Mr. Stark the video of the person on the hoverboard.”

“Of course, Peter.”

You and Pom are sitting on a fire escape on the outskirts of New York, eating the candy you’d stolen.

“I bet we could do a bank,” she suddenly says. The very thought gives your stomach that nervous weightless feeling that you get while missing a step going down, or going down the drop on a big rollercoaster.

“Probably,” you say cautiously. “But that would be a bit harder.”

“Oh, definitely, but we’ve done it before.”

“Not just the two of us.”

She shrugs. “We could get Dennis in with us.”

“Speaking of, how mad do you think he’s gonna be that we stole some of his mini-bombs?”

“He’s got millions. He won’t probably even notice, don’t worry,” Pom reassures you. You nod and look away, out at the skyline of New York, looming in front of you, massive.

#peter parker x reader #peter parker #marvel #Peter Benjamin Parker #fluff #peter parker fluff

[qqueenofhades]

the tangled web of fate we weave

This is highly self-indulgent because I, an extremely stressed-out final-year history PhD student, needed extremely stressed out final-year history PhD student Lucy Preston and also Garcy, because I always need that. 

This is an unofficial sequel to this, where Flynn was the one to save Lucy from the car accident in her sophomore year. 

March 19, 2010

It’s Friday, and it’s the first time all week that Lucy Preston has seen the sunset. Possibly in two weeks, for that matter, or more. She has been shut up in the library since what feels like the start of the new year, buried in her carrel among an endless stack of books, articles, notes, photocopied primary sources, her overworked laptop, her three thumb drives (someone else in the department has a horror story about their computer dying five days before submission, and Lucy isn’t taking any chances), a rotation of takeout cups and sandwich wrappers from the library café, and whatever other sustenance she needs to keep going. She’s rented a campus studio apartment, otherwise she would probably be sleeping in the stacks in the basement. Be way too much hassle to try to commute back and forth to Mom’s house in Mountain View otherwise.

The Stanford campus is cool and blue and quiet, and Lucy leans against the outside library wall, rubbing her eyes and trying to get them to focus. They don’t seem to want to. She turned twenty-seven two months ago, and feels about eighty-one. It’s been a nonstop grind of work, from that moment she nearly died seven years ago, almost exactly to the day – that was the twenty-first of March, 2003, she’s never forgotten. Dumped Jake, abandoned her plans of joining a band, enrolled for junior year of history, finished, graduated, went straight onto her master’s degree that fall, and now, the fact that the end might actually be in sight is one Lucy cannot wrap her head around. It feels surreal and dreamlike.

Overachiever that she is, her PhD is being conferred jointly by two departments, history and anthropology, which means her dissertation is at least one and a half times longer than everyone else’s. She’s teaching HIST1210 on the Civil War and HIST1300 on primary sources, she still has papers to mark from both, and she needs to update her CV and apply for research funding for the conferences she submitted paper prospectuses to. And think, again, about the future. Even having a mother who basically invented the Stanford women’s studies department isn’t a guarantee that she’ll get a job, even if it does pitch her odds a lot better than most people’s. Lucy has already had most of her tuition paid by Carol Preston’s institutional pull, and she can’t help but wonder where the gravy train stops. She likes to think that she’s smart enough that she’d have earned scholarships on her own merit anywhere, but why go anywhere else, when it’s Stanford, for God’s sake? Not Jim Bob Jones Community College.

After a long pause, Lucy straightens up, swings her bag to her shoulder (she leaves most of her stuff in her carrel overnight) and starts down the path. She’s wondered if now might be an opportune moment to develop a drinking habit, but her anxious mind won’t let her. One near-fatal car crash was bad enough, after all. No need to push her luck with a second.

(She thinks again of the man who rescued her. Just dove in, no hesitation at all, and fished her out, told her not to quit history for a boy, and vanished. She never got a name.)

(Is he pleased, then, that she threw herself in headfirst? Is that what he wanted? Not that it matters. Not that that is the reason she’s doing this.)

Lucy comes to a halt in front of the beige-stucco residence halls and digs for her keys, wondering how obnoxious her neighbors feel like being tonight. This is postgrad housing, supposedly quiet, but the way they go at it, you’d think it was undergraduate party central. Lucy has been over to bang on their door at 1AM a few times, and she could complain to the office, but – again, Lucy Good Girl Preston – she shirks from the idea of actually getting anyone in trouble. She’ll be out of here soon anyway, moving on. She can endure it, she can –

“Good evening, Lucy.”

She almost has a heart attack. Drops her keys and fumbles for them madly in the dimness, having some panicky idea that it’s someone jumping out of the bushes to put a bag over her head and drag her off behind a dumpster. Yes, it seems odd to politely address her by her first name beforehand, but who knows? It’s a man’s voice, gravelly and accented, almost familiar. But it’s been at least two years between boyfriends, it’s not any of her professors (and it would be more than a little creepy to follow her home) and –

She whirls around, gets a good look at his face in the portico light, and feels momentarily faint. She was, of course, just thinking about him, and wonders half-seriously if she’s charmed up him up like a djinni. He looks exactly how she remembers: tall, dark hair, sharp-nosed profile, though this time he is not dripping wet, having not had to dramatically dive into the Bay to save her from her sinking car. He’s wearing the leather bomber jacket and a nice pair of jeans, has his thumbs linked casually through his belt like a Grease extra, but it comes off casually competent and slightly chilling. She also remembers what she thought about him last time, that instant response to high-pressure situations might be something he deals with a lot. What the –

“You,” she says at last, having managed to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “What are you doing here? How did you – how did you know where to find me?”

He has apparently been prepared to remind her how they know each other, but sees at once that he doesn’t have to. He shrugs. “I know people.”

That’s not exactly a reassuring answer. Lucy clutches her bag closer, as if he’s really come here for the $3.20 in her wallet and her backup thumb drives. “Have you been stalking me?”

He looks amused, but only briefly. “We should get inside.”

Lucy goggles at him, not least at his apparent presumption that she’s going to ask him into her house, but something makes her do as told. Hands trembling for no good reason, she taps her key card, buzzes them in, and climbs the stairs to her second-story apartment. She can hear the thumping of rap music before she even reaches the hallway – yep, her neighbors are at it again. Trying to ignore it, not least because she suddenly has bigger problems, she reaches into her bag for her phone, trying to dial a 9 and 1 without him noticing. But why would the man who saved her life want to kill her?

His eyes flick to her hand. “You don’t need to call the police, Lucy.”

“Don’t need to, or you would prefer that I didn’t?” Lucy refuses to budge. “There’s a difference.”

He looks admiring of her bravery, if irritated at the timing. “Don’t need to. Go inside, I’ll be along.”

Lucy debates dialing the last 1 with her thumb. Or campus security, they could probably get here faster. But – weird as this is, and as he is – something stops her. He slowly removes his hands from his belt and holds them up, then opens his jacket to show her that he isn’t packing heat inside. There is, however, a holster as if he usually does, and he reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a slim black case, and flips it open, holding it out. It’s a U.S. government ID. Gives his name as Garcia Flynn.

“Okay,” Lucy says, a little weakly. “Why didn’t you lead with that?”

Garcia Flynn doesn’t bother to answer this perfectly reasonable question, making another gesture at her apartment. Lucy goes inside, puts down her bag on the couch, and feels like collapsing onto it. Next door, the music continues unabated for a few more moments, until it abruptly cuts off. The silence is blessed, but suspicious. She hears voices, but can’t make out what they’re saying. Then her front door opens again, she jumps, and Flynn enters, looking smug. “That’s better.”

“You didn’t kill my neighbors, did you?” Lucy isn’t sure they wouldn’t deserve it, but that is obviously not a man she wants to be alone with. Not that she knows how he would kill three people in thirty seconds with no noise, but. . . it’s the sort of thing that doesn’t seem out of his ability. “Or – ”

“I didn’t kill anyone.” He seems somewhat aggravated that she keeps harping on this point. “I’m not here to hurt you, Lucy.”

Lucy remains looking at him tensely, but he returns her gaze forthrightly, and she finally lets out a whisper of a breath. “What’s going on?”

“That’s complicated.” Flynn is prowling around her living room, tapping and shaking things, picking them up and turning them over, in a way that seems – to say the least – out of line in a perfect stranger’s house. Maybe Lucy’s watched too many spy movies recently, switches on whatever looks halfway interesting on Netflix and vegs out, but it looks a lot like sweeping for bugs. He takes a small silver thing that looks like a coin out of his pocket and sets it on her bookshelf. “I’m not sure you’d understand.”

“I’m a PhD student,” Lucy says, voice brittle. “I’m pretty sure I’d understand.”

Flynn glances up at her, one eyebrow raised, but doesn’t answer. He presses something on the silver thing, which hums as if to disrupt any nearby listening equipment, and finally seems satisfied that her shithole student flat is in the clear. “So you kept up with history?”

“Yes. And I’m due to submit my dissertation in about two weeks, my supervisor is supposed to email me by Monday with my oral exam date, half the committee is from Harvard, and I just spent thirteen hours reading nineteenth-century handwriting. So you better make this quick.”

Flynn half-grins, seemingly despite himself. “A PhD at – what, twenty-seven,” he says. “That’s very impressive. You’ve worked hard.”

Lucy doesn’t want to accept the praise of a possibly crazy government operative, but it makes her glow, a little. Her mom always wants to know how much more she still has to do, as if keeping a timetable in her head and marking her off, and of course Amy is encouraging, but Lucy has kept her nose to the grindstone so long that she’s barely picked it up to look at the rest of the world. She doesn’t even know what she’s doing, other than that she has to do it. She does love history. She really does. You don’t get this far without it, and you have to enjoy the tedious parts (well, mostly), even if you’re re-reading your draft and shouting at your first-year self because they didn’t put in page numbers, thus obliging you to go grumbling to hunt them down. She is damn and justifiably proud of this accomplishment, and she doesn’t need anyone, much less FBI Freddy here, to tell her that. But still.

“Never mind that,” she says. “Why are you here?”

Flynn regards her for a long moment. Then he says, “Scientia potentia est. You’ve heard that?”

“It’s Latin,” Lucy says, a little shortly. She is not up for having a fright, and her time wasted, for something he could have typed into Google Translate. “It means knowledge is power.”

“Yes, I know that.” Flynn sits across from her, looking too big for her secondhand armchair. “It’s also a motto. Have you seen it anywhere?”

“No.” A phrase as banal as that could be a motto for dozens of private schools. “Mr. Flynn, I’m afraid I can’t – ”

“Very well.” He sits forward, gripping his knees. “Rittenhouse, Lucy. Have you ever heard of that?”

“Rittenhou – David Rittenhouse?” Lucy is vaguely familiar with him, a leading intellectual of the eighteenth century, polymath and professor of astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania, and correspondent and cohort of the Founding Fathers. Has Flynn come here to ask for help with some research project, some kind of sponsorship some historical society is doing to raise awareness of his life? That at least might make more sense. “Is that what we’re talking about?”

The expression on Flynn’s face seems to say that he momentarily isn’t sure. “So he founded it?”

“What?” Lucy gets up, not entirely sure that she isn’t asleep atop a stack of books back at her carrel, drooling on her notes. “Founded what?”

“The society in his name. Rittenhouse. Scientia potentia est. That’s their motto.”

“There is no society in his name. Unless you mean the astronomy club?”

“I don’t mean the astronomy club. The other one.”

“Is this a – ” Lucy isn’t sure what it would be, some extended performance-art practical joke, perhaps, but he doesn’t look like he’s trying to prank her. Besides, why would an eighteenth-century astronomer have anything to do with why Flynn wanted to sweep her apartment for bugs? “I work more on the nineteenth century than late colonial-early federal America, but if you have some kind of question about him, I can recommend someone in the department to – ”

“I’m not asking anyone else,” Flynn says brusquely. “I’m asking you.”

“Well then. You’re in the wrong place, I can’t help. I don’t have time.” Lucy gets up, pacing toward the kitchen. Flynn remains seated, but she can feel his eyes following her. She runs a glass under the tap and takes a drink, then returns to the living room, as if this will somehow have fixed the problem. “What do you want to know about him for? There’s Wikipedia, there’s whatever else, there’s – ”

“Nothing of what I want is available online.” He says this with the tone of somebody who’s looked – and NSA Nicky probably has. “You, though – I thought there was a chance you might. Given who your father is – ”

“What?” Lucy’s father died almost nine years ago. Lung cancer. The reason she won’t take up smoking either, that and the way her mother’s been coughing a lot and she’s urged her to get it checked out. She feels slapped. “My father’s dead.”

“Henry Wallace?” Flynn shakes his head. “No, not him. I meant your biological father.”

“What?”

He pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket and holds it out to her, but Lucy does not budge to take it. In a savage whisper, she says, “You need to leave.”

Flynn belatedly seems to realize that it might not have been the best time to bring this up. He opens his hand and lets the paper flutter onto the floor, but doesn’t move to retrieve it. He gets to his feet instead, eyes never wavering from hers. He is just so damn intense in everything he does, it makes Lucy feel like she’s on the inside of a forge, burning, burning. “Very well.”

With that, he starts across the floor, but seems reluctant to go entirely. Any other person would apologize for the intrusion, or tell her to be careful, but he doesn’t. “Ask your mother about your father,” he says. She can’t tell if his eyes are green or brown – in some lights they look one, in some lights the other. He looks at her challengingly. “Ask him if he is who you thought.”

Lucy’s about to respond, but just then, headlights waver on the ceiling through her half-closed curtains, and she looks down to see a car pulling into the parking lot. It’s the sort of nondescript black sedan that screams shady government business, and she might have thought it was Flynn’s ride, but after he strides to the window and looks out, his mouth goes very thin. He jerks the curtains shut, reaches into his jacket, and remembers he’s left his gun off in a bid not to alarm her. He swears in something that sounds Slavic; Lucy can’t be sure exactly what. It fits with the accent and appearance, but he had a U.S. badge – unless that was some kind of forgery and –

Flynn whirls back to the silver gizmo he has, switches it off, and pulls something else out of his jacket that kills the lights. Then he takes hold of Lucy – it feels much too forward, even as she remembers him pulling her out of the water – and tugs her flat on the floor. “Don’t open the door,” he hisses. “You’re not home.”

Lucy is about to struggle, to ask questions, but the look he gives her is so searing that she bites her tongue instead. She can hear footsteps on the stairs, then a knock on her door. “Miss Preston?” a voice calls. “It’s FedEx.”

She’s pretty sure it isn’t FedEx. She and Flynn lie close together on the floor, his arms still around her, the lights off and the apartment dark. Are they going to go look at the library next, or just assume she’s out having a life like an ordinary twenty-seven-year old woman would on Friday night? She tries to concentrate, to slow her breathing, as if they could hear it. The thump of Flynn’s heart seems distractingly loud, though her ear is pressed directly against his chest. He is so tall that if they were standing, her head would tuck easily under his chin. What is it about him and appearing out of nowhere to get her out of – or into – life-threatening situations?

The faux FedEx man knocks again. They don’t budge. Lucy has to admit, it is more than a little freaky that this has happened right after Flynn has turned up talking about secret societies and – whatever else, and it unwillingly makes her think that there might be something to his story. Oddest of all, however, is the fact that it almost feels familiar to lie next to him, not just because he saved her life. Like it’s something else, and she just has to remember what.

After a long pause and one last knock, the fake deliveryman departs. Flynn doesn’t let go of Lucy until several minutes after they’ve heard the car pull out, he’s looked through the window to make sure, and swears again. “That is the last time I leave my gun at home.”

Lucy sits up slowly, rattled. “Are you going to tell me that was Rittenhouse?”

“Might be.” Flynn speaks distractedly, eyes still on the parking lot. “I don’t suppose you carry?”

“I’m a history student.” Lucy has never wanted to touch a gun in her life, especially since she plans on being a professor. “No.”

“Of course.” His brow remains furrowed, as if he’s judging the advisability of leaving her alone long enough to go back and get his own. Finally he says, “I think it’s better for me to stay here tonight.”

Lucy opens her mouth to tell him that he can’t invite himself to stay the night, but the words get stuck. Despite herself, she is scared. Nonstop dissertation anxiety and crushing uncertainty about the academic job market almost seem preferable. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” Flynn turns slowly, the dim light from outside etching the sharp features of his face. “They could have guessed something about what I knew, or. . . I’m not sure. It could blow over, but I’d feel better about it to stay. Just for tonight.”

“And then what?” Lucy demands. “I can’t go into witness protection, just because of whatever stupid thing you got me into! I have to finish my dissertation!”

“You can do that, Lucy.” He looks at her frankly. “I’ll protect you.”

Whatever she is about to say withers on her tongue. After all, isn’t that what he did – the first time, and then now? She doesn’t know what’s going on, he has been an enigma in a bomber jacket ever since she met him – seven years ago, technically, does it count to have known him for seven years, if it’s only been one night and this one? That did freak her out. As strange and unwise as it might be, she would in fact feel better if he stayed. Not that her sagging yellow-plaid couch, older than her, which she picked up at a garage sale for $12, is exactly comfortable to sleep on. She can’t believe she’s thinking about this, but –

Flynn, still clearly ruing his lack of a firearm, makes another check around her apartment, then sits back down on the couch. It’s about half as long as he is, and his legs will clearly be dangling over the end. Lucy has no obligation of hospitality, and in fact is sorely wishing she left the library at her normal time of eleven o’clock PM. Then she wouldn’t have run into him (unless he let himself in to wait for her) and this would not be happening. It’s not that late, and ordinarily she might get into bed and watch something on her laptop, but her concentration is shot. She heads into her bedroom, shuts the door, and changes into her pajamas, then goes to the bathroom and washes her face several times, staring at herself in the mirror. She still appears to be real. Somehow, this is happening. Maybe it will stop doing that.

Lucy brushes her teeth and hair, and mulls a long bath, but it feels awkward with a NSA (she thinks he’s NSA, at any rate) agent sitting in her living room, even one ostensibly there to protect rather than spy on her. She goes out and climbs into bed, tugs the covers up, and lies there for a long time, staring at the ceiling. Every time a car pulls into the parking lot, she tenses. Keeps listening for footsteps on the stairs, a knock on the door, but nothing.

Lucy eventually drifts off, has scattered and turbulent dreams, and wakes with a start sometime past midnight. She gets up in search of a drink of water, and when she peers into the living room, sees that Flynn has dozed off on the couch, still dressed and sitting up. Something wrenches in her heart, she can’t even explain what, and she pads out. Taps on his shoulder, and he wakes instantly, snapping to awareness, in what must be a long-honed reflex. When he sees it’s her, he relaxes, if only slightly. “Is something wrong, Lucy?”

Her name sounds softer in his mouth than it did earlier. Less as if it’s coming from a stranger, and Lucy shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. It’s. . . you just didn’t look very comfortable.”

“I’m all right.” He grimaces, though he tries not to let her see. “It’s not the worst place I’ve slept.”

“Thank you,” Lucy says simply. “For staying.”

He starts to say something, then forgets or stops halfway through. Their eyes meet with a frisson that Lucy is fairly sure both of them feel. There is a touch of destiny about the idea that they’ve run into each other seven years apart almost to the day, that he saved her life the first time and is making sure he does again. Trying to be unobtrusive, she glances down at his left hand. He isn’t wearing a wedding band, but she doesn’t know if there’s someone else in his life anyway. Not that this is remotely her business. She’s not interested in dating him. For Pete’s sake.

(She isn’t altogether sure, however, that she isn’t interested in something else.)

She considers a moment longer. Then she decides that he can take it however he wants, and says, “Come on.”

Flynn looks almost comically startled as she beckons him to his feet. He hangs back, then follows her into the dark bedroom, her covers still tousled and warm with the imprint of her, her sheets glowing soft white in the murk. It’s clear he’s wondering if he’s supposed to climb in with her, and it is equally clear that he isn’t sure if he’ll refuse. “Lucy – ”

“Look, just. . .” This isn’t her style. Lucy Good Girl Preston. She has never had sex on a first date, this does not even qualify as a first date, and similarly, she likes nice men. Genuinely nice ones, that is, the smart and thoughtful ones with a grown-up job who she can talk to and feel supported. Whatever Flynn is, he is not nice. “It’s a queen bed. There’s room.”

Flynn continues to hesitate. Finally, he shucks his shoes, jacket, and belt, and gets on top of the covers next to her. The bedsprings creak under his weight, and even here, his feet extend a few inches past the end of the mattress. Lucy lies there with her eyes closed, well aware that she knew she wasn’t going to get back to sleep with this unfamiliar masculine presence on her bed, fighting herself back and forth. She thought he was here to possibly throw her into the trunk of a car or whatever else, it is – to say the least – concerning that she is now considering, well, the opposite. Her mouth is dry. It has been two years since Noah and as noted, she doesn’t do one-night stands. She doesn’t think Flynn is horrified or repelled by her. Oh God, this is stupid.

After fifteen minutes of increasingly excruciating feigned-sleep, Lucy gives up the ghost. Sits up fast enough to startle him, and she feels guilty, as if she’s somehow the one jerking him around by all this. They stare at each other, faces close in the dark. She can feel the whisper of his breath on her cheek. In this light, his eyes look almost hazel. His tongue darts out to touch his lips, almost unconsciously, and he shifts as if to ease the fit of his trousers. “Lucy – ”

Slowly, lightly, timidly, Lucy raises her hand and brushes her fingers across his chest, to the unbuttoned neck of his shirt. A shudder runs through him – well, no, he doesn’t look repulsed. It seems to take a great deal of self-control for him not to reach up and grab her hand, but not because he doesn’t want her to touch him. Just that this is a man used to controlling everything, to setting parameters, establishing boundaries. Sweeping for bugs. Making sure it’s clear. He takes the lead by temperament and occupation. That’s just who he is. And yet –

Lucy’s fingers settle in the hollow of his throat. She can feel his pulse bumping against them like a jackhammer, the way both of them have forgotten how to breathe, noses almost brushing. If she kissed him right now, if she actually did that – it would be one way to relieve her stress, an unhelpful little voice whispers in her brain. And then possibly cause any number of other things, but still. If he’s meant to be here somehow, if they’ve been led together again for some greater plan. . . Lucy isn’t religious, exactly, but she finds herself believing in some sort of unity, some kind of intention. Maybe it comes from being a historian. Looking at how everything has fitted together and interlocked, built upon each other like a flowering vine, gone forward and backward. The big picture. That’s how she always looks at it.

This feels like that, but different. Something like design, maybe. If she wants to call it that. But really, a whole lot more like desire.

Flynn doesn’t try to pull away from her, but Lucy can’t tell if that’s just because he’s stunned that she’s the one making a move on him, after the way the night started out. She shifts her weight, absurdly self-conscious, feeling like a nervous, bespectacled seventeen-year-old all over again. Lifts her hand and lays it alongside his face, strokes a thumb over the groove alongside his mouth. Then, when he still doesn’t stop her, she leans closer.

Flynn recovers from his paralysis just enough to lean in himself, and they knock noses painfully, forcing them away with muffled exclamations. It seems to jerk them back to their senses, both of them apologizing at the same moment. Lucy’s cheeks start to flame. “I – we should – shouldn’t.”

If Flynn was feeling as dickish as she gets the sense he might usually be, he could easily point out that she was the one who thought they should. He, however, doesn’t. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, even though they didn’t actually kiss. “I’ll go back out.”

Lucy supposes that, strictly speaking, is a good plan. She doesn’t need to keep making this mistake, having been saved from it the first time around. Her voice is breathy and choked. “Ok – okay.”

Flynn glances back at her, then shifts himself off the bed, standing up and collecting his jacket and shoes. It’s on the tip of her tongue to tell him not to go, but if he stays here on the bed, something else is going to happen, and on the most brutally practical level, Lucy doesn’t have any condoms. They’re not something you need when you’ve been single for two years because your current relationship is with Abraham Lincoln (and in a less weird-cat-lady-way than that sounds). She wishes for once that she wasn’t so confoundedly rational. But still.

Once the door shuts behind him, she falls back on her pillows, flushed and breathing much harder than she should. All that, and she didn’t even get actually kissed for it. This night has been a total bitch.

(Dissertation, she reminds herself. Tomorrow is Saturday, and she needs to go grocery shopping and clean the house, but she can still do a little work.)

(Dissertation.)

Flynn’s face floats in front of hers. She has a hard time thinking that she’ll forget it again.

Out in the living room, the couch creaks as Flynn must sit back down to resume his lonely vigil, and Lucy clenches her fists, reminding herself that she is absolutely under no circumstances going to go out there instead. She rolls over into a more comfortable position, reaches for her phone to check the time – it’s 3:32 AM – and closes her eyes determinedly. Maybe he will be gone when she wakes up, and she will successfully convince herself that it was all a dream.

Finally, slowly, badly, she sleeps.

#lucy x flynn #garcy #garcy ff #timeless ff #and of course it ended up 5k words #the tangled web of fate we weave

[justanoutlawfic]

(I have a feeling where you’ll take this one but I love it) can I have some red Snowing/ mama ruby s2 curse broke 4. “I should have told you a long time ago.”? 💖

All the feels in this one. Aghhh, we talk about this head canon a lot, but it hurts to put it into words. 

4. “I should have told you a long time ago.”

Also on AO3/FF

Ruby set her purse down and let out a sigh. Anothernight alone. She had considered Granny’s offer, about moving into the loft atthe inn, but it was small enough. They were getting along better now that thecurse was broken, but she didn’t want to rock the boat. They butted headsenough at the diner, all friendly and she hoped to keep it that way.

Her apartment was small, just enough room for one. Theway she felt she was destined to be.

Just as she was about to start making some ramen, sheheard a knock on her door. Raising an eyebrow, she walked over and opened it,finding Emma on the other side. Her heart skipped a beat, as it always didsince she gained her memories back. She had never even gotten to see Emma as ababy, but somehow she had turned out exactly as she pictured. A beautiful blendof Snow and David. Sometimes she wondered if she was imagining things when shesaw a bit of her in there as well.

They hadn’t spoken much since Emma and Snow got backfrom the Enchanted Forest. While her reunion with Snow and David had beensweet, they now remembered what she did to them. They were hurt and shecouldn’t blame them. From the look on Emma’s face, she wondered if they hadtold her about things.

“Emma, hey,” Ruby gave her a small smile. “What are youdoing here?”

“I finally sat down and read the book, all of it.”Emma pushed passed her and walked into the loft. “My parents had told me thatthe three of you were once in a relationship, but that you ended things.”

Ruby bit her lip. “It’s complicated…”

“I read the book, I know what happens.”

Emma flipped forward to the page where it showed Rubyand Blue together. Ruby flinched at the memory of that night. She had gone outto fetch some chocolate for Snow, her pregnancy cravings were growing. Blue hadconfronted her, telling her of a vision she had. If Ruby stuck around, shewould inevitably hurt Emma in wolf form. It would be an accident, but it couldlead to the princess’ death. She told Ruby that for the sake of the baby, shehad to end things with Snow and David. Ruby had hesitated, sure there was a wayto stop it from coming true.

Blue reminded her that she had killed before. Andbesides, every vision came true, even if the ending was altered a bit.

So, she had done the hardest thing ever and packed herbags that night. She told Snow and David it was for the best, that it was fortheir own good and it had nothing to do with anything they’d done. They hadn’tbelieved her, they had been so hurt. She couldn’t blame them, her own heart wasbroken.

“She lied to you,” Emma said, interrupting herthoughts.

Ruby tilted her head. “What?”

“She didn’t have that vision, she lied to break you upwith Snow and David.”

She put the book into Ruby’s hands and the latterflipped the page. Sure enough, on the next one was Blue consulting with anotherfairy, telling her that the deed was done. The kingdom was “pure” once more dueto her lie, polyamory wasn’t acceptable and it was the one way to get rid ofit.

Ruby felt like she was going to be sick. Her heartbegan to race and it took everything she had not to tear the book to shreds.Slowly, she placed it down and began to pace the room. Everything she hadbelieved, was a lie. It wasn’t the first time, Granny had done the same withher, her entire life. Another person she trusted, someone supposed to be thegood guy, had lied to her. At least Granny’s had been for her own good.

This was malicious.

“I can’t believe this,” she said. “How could she dothis?”

“I’ve been wondering why you all have trusted her fora while,” Emma said. “Between her lying about the wardrobe and now this…I don’tthink she’s exactly the hero we pictured.”

Ruby turned back to face Emma. “You have to understandwhy I did this…I had to protect you…Emma, you weren’t born yet, but I had togive you…”

“My best chance.” Emma softly smiled. “I know. Snowand I talked about it in the nursery. She and David gave me up so I could haveit, you did the same. You wanted to keep me safe, you didn’t know.”

“I should’ve told you a long time ago, abouteverything. I just knew all the issues you had with abandonment…”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m trying to build a relationshipwith David, I already have one with Snow…kind of, it’s not the same anymoresince the curse broke. We had one too…but it can be different. I want it tobe.”

Ruby let out a sigh of relief. “I’m glad.”

“The question is, when are you going to tell them?”

Her relief quickly drained. “Emma….”

“They’re hurt, but it’ll all make sense,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter. I left them, I didn’t even tellthem why or give them a chance to react….I just walked away.”

Emma tilted her head. “You know, Henry’s dad left me.He didn’t tell me why, I’ll probably never know.” She bit her lip. “It hurt, alot. But I still love him, I never stopped. And if he came back and had a goodexplanation for everything…who knows? I think I just may be able to forgivehim.”

“Emma…”

“You’d be surprised what people can forgive. Trustme.” She looked from the book to Ruby. “Henry said you can borrow it.”

With that, she walked outthe door, leaving Ruby alone with her thoughts.

Emma and Ruby continued to bond over the next fewweeks, with Snow and David having no idea. Emma knew that it had to be Ruby whotold them about what happened, as far as they knew she was just hanging outwith her friends. Ruby didn’t seem anywhere closer to building up the courageto tell them.

One evening, the two were sitting in a middle booth atGranny’s, enjoying grilled cheese and onion rings, chatting. It was hard forRuby to hear about all of the things Emma had been through. There were somethings that her daughter obviously didn’t think were a big deal, like sleepingin her car or dumpster diving. She knew that if Emma was opening up like thatto David and Snow, they had to be just as worried as she was.

“You bitch!” A sudden voice interrupted theirconversation and they spun around, finding Snow standing in the doorway of thediner, David beside her.

Ruby’s heart skipped a beat, worried that Snow wasabout to throw down with her. To her surprise, Snow stormed past them and to atable near the back. Emma followed her mother’s path and realized she washeading straight towards Blue. She pulled her up by the collar, anger writtenon her face. It was still a new sight for her. A part of her was still used toMary Margaret, the meek school teacher. She was long gone. The princess turnedbandit was in her place and she was not someone you wanted to mess with. Davidchased after his wife, pulling her off of the fairy.

“Snow, I want to kill her just as much as you do, butit won’t do much good,” he said.

Snow shook her head, her body trembling. Blue lookedterrified for the first time in her life and took a tiny step back. “First, youlie to us about the wardrobe! I missed out on 28 years of my daughter’s life, partiallydue to you! Now, I find out that you scared my wife off, you lied to her!”

Ruby’s eyes widened and she looked over at Emma, whoshook her head. “I didn’t, I swear.”

David put an arm around his wife, glaring at Blue.“Why would you do this to us? To Ruby? To our family? We thought we could trustyou.”

Blue sighed, shaking her head, looking over at Snow. “Youare a princess, Snow. You know the expectations that come from that. There is aking and a queen, that is it.”

“You know that David isn’t royal, yet you had no issuewith him being a prince,” Snow said.

“That was bad enough. We can’t put up with…withwhatever the hell it was you three were.”

“We were in love,” David told her. “You ruinedeverything, and for what? Your perceived ideas about how our lives should be?Here’s a bit of a newsflash for you, you may be head of the fairies, but youare not in charge of anyone else.”

Blue shook her head. “I’m doing what’s best for thekingdom.”

“No, you’re doing what’s best in your mind, howeverclosed it is.”

Blue looked around, everyone was staring and no onelooked too happy with her. She was being called out on her shit in front ofpractically the entire town. Granny walked over, wiping her hands on a dishrag.

“There’s the door,” she said, waving a hand in the direction of it. “Don’t letit hit your ass on your way out.” She watched as Blue huffed and stormed outthe door before turning to Ruby, David and Snow. “You three, breakroom.”

Ruby bit her lip. “Granny…”

“Red, go. Now. You all know you have a lot to discuss.I’ll keep an eye on Emma, make sure she doesn’t burn the place down.”

“Hey!” Emma exclaimed. “I’m 29.”

“Yes, and the last time you were here, I nearly lostmy kitchen.” She put an arm around her great-granddaughter, leading her off.

Ruby looked at Snow and David, shifting from foot tofoot. After a few beats of silence, she lead them to the break room, shuttingthe door behind them.

“How’d you find out?” She whispered.

“Henry let it slip,” David said. “You know he knowsall our stories, probably better than we do.”

“I was going to tell you. I just…I was scared.”

“You left us,” Snow spoke up, her voice soft andbroken. It was quite the contrast from how she screamed at Blue. “You walkedaway, you let her get inside your head.”

“I was trying to what was best for Emma,” Ruby said.“I was scared, it wasn’t like I hadn’t killed before. What I did to mymother…it has stuck with me ever since. If I hurt Emma, I don’t think I couldlive with myself.”

“You don’t think I could’ve helped you? You…you don’tthink we could’ve gotten to the bottom of it all? You really didn’t believe inus?”

“I did believe in you!” Ruby exclaimed, the tearsgathering in her eyes. She took a deep breath, her voice cracking when shespoke again. “I just didn’t believe in me.”

David rubbed the back of his neck. “I can see why youdid what you did. It still hurts, but I get it. Why didn’t you tell us when youfound out? Why wait?”

“I knew I hurt you two, I wasn’t sure how much itwould matter. At the end of the day, I left.” She shrugged. “I didn’t know ifyou could forgive me. I already thought that you wouldn’t, but if it wasconfirmed…well that’d hurt worse.”

David and Snow were quiet for another moment, lookingfrom each other and back at Ruby. They remembered every kiss, every time theymade love. Their wedding day, or days really. Every single happy moment andevery victory they shared. They remembered the day she left. Snow cried forweeks and David tried to be the strong one, but would break down whenever hewas alone.

It hurt to lose her, it hurt even more to get theirmemories back and have them hit them like a ton of bricks. They hadn’t evenknown why and now they did. That stupid fairy had ruined their happiness for solong.

Could they stand to let her do it for another minute?

Snow noticed something hanging between Ruby’s tank andflannel top. She stepped forward and pulled out the chain, finding the ruby ringshe had given her on their wedding day. It had once belonged to Eva, just asSnow’s ring had to Ruth’s. She looked up at her, tears in her eyes.

“You still have this?”

Ruby slowly nodded. “I never let it go.”

David softly smiled, walking closer to the women. “We’renot going to work this out in one afternoon…but we can…in time.”

Snow nodded. “David’s right.”

“To start…you could start crashing on our couch.”

“That couch is uncomfortable,” Ruby mumbled, rememberingit from the few times she visited “Mary Margaret’s” loft during the curse.

“We’ll get an air mattress then. “

“This is really what you want?”

Snow rubbed her arm. “Rubes, all we’ve ever wanted isyou. We never stopped loving you and we never will. We found our way once, wecan again.”

50 Dialogue Prompts

List of the ones I’ve already done.

#red snowing #red snow #red charming #snowing #mama ruby #prompt #loboselinaistrash #asked and answered

[wordcreatr]

Here’s another chapter from my book about my brother. I’m not breaking the text up with subheadings like a regular post. This is not a final draft, so there may be some overwriting and rough spots. Let me know your thoughts, particularly if something is unclear or doesn’t work. All feedback, both positive and negative, is appreciated.

Chapter: The Big Reveal

When I was around twenty-three, I picked up the ringing phone in my townhouse one Saturday afternoon; my sister Bridget dispensed with the normal pleasantries and said she had something to tell me. The tone of her voice oscillated between gossipy excitement and shock. An alarmist by nature, I sat up on my bed, where I had been lounging.

“Oh my God, I think Kevie is gay,” she blurted out.

Of all the possible scenarios racing through my head such as salacious affairs, unexpected divorces, or heinous crimes — that wasn’t one of them. My stunted big-brother instinct to protect a sibling kicked in. No way our little brother was gay. Even though I was jealous of Kevin’s good looks, I took a certain brotherly pride in seeing him with beautiful young women who stared doe-eyed at him.

“Don’t be stupid,” I snorted dismissively. “He’s not gay; he’s shy.”

But Bridget stood by her reporting.

Kevin and his fabulous friend Kelly

Now don’t misunderstand my reaction; it wasn’t homophobic (okay — it was a little homophobic but not as bad as it would have been years before). By that time in the early 90s, gay rights had definitely made inroads into the culture as attitudes slowly changed, and I had jettisoned a lot of erroneous nonsense about homosexuality. I felt pretty certain that homosexuals were born, not made, though I still thought of it as a genetic error that might be medically fixable at some point. Obviously, my enlightenment still had a ways to go.

So when my sister revealed her suspicion, did I rise to the occasion like a champion of tolerance and acceptance? Fuck no. I took on the role of a seasoned defense attorney attacking a hostile witness as I asked her if Kevin had told her he was gay. She said no and I pounced.

“Okay, how do you know he’s gay then?”

“Because I was helping mom flip his mattress today and we found a magazine under it. And it was full of naked guys!”

There is a reason I’m not a lawyer because my sister had just counter-punched me into near silence. My weak follow up was their discovery didn’t prove anything.

“Sean! It was called Inches!”

Arrrrgghhhhhh!!

I banged the heel of my clenched left fist painfully against my eye socket in a vain attempt to poke myself in my mind’s eye and prevent any more unwanted images from popping into my head. A disconcerting whirlpool of emotional instability spun me around. Our humdrum family now had something novel in it, but I didn’t feel ready. I felt a twinge of hypocritical guilt. As far as my views on sexual orientation, I considered myself to be a fairly enlightened and accepting person, but at that moment, my sister’s revelation put my beliefs to the test, and I was failing it. Other people had gay brothers, and that was great. But not me. Kevin couldn’t be gay. Could he?

I briefly wondered if all those times punching him the balls as a kid had had any effect.

When you consider my reaction, you have to keep in mind the era when I grew up. In the 70s and 80s, being gay — or even being suspected of being gay — really sucked if you were under the spotlight. In most areas of the country, being gay brought a lot of unwanted attention along with varying degrees of revulsion and hostility. Some states still criminalized certain aspects of homosexuality. Plenty of people openly cracked jokes about gays or mocked them. Some openly harassed them. Some physically attacked them. Popular culture typically depicted gay men as either a lisping, limp-wristed effeminate or a muscular leather boy in chaps and a vest sporting a handlebar mustache, a guy who’d have his way with you, whether you were into it or not, if you walked into the wrong bar. Basically, in the parlance of the day, you were a twinkle-toed fairy or in the Village People. Gays weren’t real people, they were caricatures, and it seemed to be okay to make fun of them and tell fag jokes — hell, as a teen, I laughed at those jokes and retold them. My only defense lies in my immaturity and the culture at the time. But I didn’t personally know any gay people (well, I did, I just didn’t realize it then) and they were just jokes, though I did feel bad if people directed their sharp barbs against an actual person. Of course, I didn’t saying anything in their defense because then people might start thinking I was gay, and I’d had enough of that as a young teen.

Kevin 1st grade 1978

Sean 6th grade 1978

In junior high, my bashful nature made me a natural candidate for teens looking to hassle someone for being gay. Filled with raging hormones, I obsessed over girls but could not act directly on it due to my crippling shyness, intense sensitivity to embarrassment, and an acute awareness of my gawkiness. (Age 12 to 16 was not kind to me). I perfected what I thought was a stealth approach to girls. By being in their proximity, I  and assumed the girls would detect my natural animal magnetism (which of course I assumed I had, hidden beneath my ill-fitting clothes, bad haircut, and prominent Adam’s apple). The Universe quickly disabused me of that notion with a soul-destroying experience where one of my 7th-grade crushes, Alicia, preemptively gave me my first ever ‘We can be friends’ talk in front of other students when I got the courage to sit behind her during free time. She shut that shit down before I even got started. Crushed, from then on, I went to extremes to feign disinterest in girls to avoid further humiliation, which ironically got me targeted for even more humiliation as a potential homo.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Have questions or need help? PFLAG is an international support group of LGBTQ, families, friends, and allies committed to advancing equality through support, education, and advocacy.[/perfectpullquote]

Because the major job requirement for being a boy in junior high is being an asshole, some of my classmates enjoyed exposing my shyness and making me uncomfortable with prying questions about my nonexistent romantic life. For added hilarity, in front of our female classmates, they would press me to declare which girl I liked. Dying of embarrassment, I would try to play it off, which invariably led to someone asking me accusingly if I was a faggot. To get them to leave me alone, I felt compelled to tell them how much I hated gay people. It’s not something I’m proud of, but at the time, I would have disowned my own family to get those bastards to leave me alone. And while I didn’t hate gay people as a teen, I did somewhat fear the unknown. I worried about the myth that being around a homosexual could make you gay, as if they had the vampiric power to turn an unwilling person into one of their own kind.

Anyway, by my early twenties, I’d come a long way in my evolution as a human being. Just not quite far enough. Now, my sister’s revelation had me stuck in a groove, as my brain skipped and repeated like a scratched record.

“I don’t know, man,” I muttered to her. “Do you really think he’s gay?”

Bridge let a sliver of doubt into her voice.

“I think so. I don’t know. The only thing I know is I saw naked men with big willies!”

At that, I cringed as an unwanted image of my brother cavorting with naked guys flitted through my head. I quickly hustled everyone offstage.

Okay, I had to admit to myself, maybe he was gay.

“What did Mom say?”

Over the phone, I could practically sense my sister rolling her eyes.

“What do you think? We put the magazine back and flipped the mattress. She didn’t say a word.”

Yep, that was a quintessential Mom response for something out of her comfort zone, that she needed to think about and process. Pretend nothing happened or if it was too serious to overlook, then hand it off to my dad to do the dirty work. A classic example occurred during the summer of my thirteenth year when her snooping uncovered my share of the porn mags that my brother and his friend, James Zeier, had found in an abandoned suitcase while dumpster diving. Being a newspaper boy, I had brashly hidden a few of the magazines in the delivery bags on my bike so I had easy access to reading material, figuring my mother would be none the wiser. I never found out how she uncovered my scheme — probably some slight change in behavior that set off her mom detector — but she never said a word to me. Instead, she quietly summoned dad home from work to ambush me while she retreated across the street to Mrs. Zeier’s, presumably for a cup of tea to soothe her nerves while dad dealt with his degenerate eldest child.

But this new discovery, this was way beyond a simple dirty magazine. This had universe-altering implications; I had no idea how my dad would react when he found out, but I feared not well. So far, the lack of a sonic boom from his head going supernova confirmed that my mom had not yet mentioned anything about it to him. Personally, I doubted she ever would. Not only was my dad retired military with twenty-eight years of service under his belt, but he came from hillbilly country in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia — not exactly a liberal hotbed. And while he was not an inflexible conservative, he was not exactly on the cutting edge of social evolution either. I didn’t know where he stood on the whole gay thing, but I suspected it would not be at the front of a Gay Pride Parade.

Christmas UK 1975

July 1984

When we were growing up, neither of my parents had ever mentioned homosexuality in any context at all. I’d once heard my mom’s friend make an off-handed complaint about “queers” during a holiday dinner, but my mother, unfailingly polite, had neither condoned her friend’s comment nor rebuked her and simply went about as if she hadn’t heard it. The possible fireworks when my dad found out about Kevin — I didn’t even want to think about. And I sure as fuck wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up.

I didn’t find out until years later, but my mom did ask my sister to inquire about the magazine. With the chance to come out of the closet and confide in his closest sibling, Kevin ducked back in and denied ownership of Inches. A senior in high school, he wasn’t ready to deal with his homosexuality. Taking a page out of my playbook, he blamed someone else for the magazine, telling Bridget that our childhood friend Dean Seyfferle had asked him to stash it for him — Kevin claimed to have obliged and then forgotten about it. Now, Dean had stayed over our house a million times since first grade and old man Seyfferle was a church-going Catholic known to apply the belt if his boys didn’t toe the line, so the explanation seemed somewhat plausible, and my sister readily accepted it. The only person not happy with the “Dean is gay” storyline was Dean, who, 30 years later, still occasionally bitches about being framed.

The Layton Kids and Bridget’s friend Susie Rhodes.

Bridget had easily embraced Kevin’s denial, but her friend Tess, always a straight shooter with a 24/7 bullshit detector, kept telling her that Kevin had to be gay. Eventually, my sister pressed him on it and he confessed, though he promised her to silence. And she kept that promise because she sure as hell never bothered following up and letting me in on it. No, I had to confirm it myself.

In hindsight, Kevin’s response to Bridget made total sense. Being Irish Catholics (Dad was a convert, so he didn’t really count), our culture had hardcoded shame into our core, so anything potentially immoral or uncomfortable, we avoided discussing or acknowledging due to the inevitable embarrassment (or fear of being implicated). Our mom, a very loving person, wanted us to be able to confide in her, but unfortunately, we just couldn’t. She would sometimes talk about delicate things like sex in a very general way, such as “Sex between married people is a very beautiful thing.” She couldn’t even tell us about where babies came from but made Bridget and I watch an ABC AfterSchool Special: My Mom’s Having a Baby, while she disappeared over to Mrs. Zeirer’s for a cup of tea. (Actually, by the time my dad passed away, I was 45 and still waiting for my official sex talk). Whenever one of these conversations threatened to break out, I made sure to not to respond in any fashion to deprive it of fuel. Standard protocol involving anything verboten was to keep your head down and your mouth closed and hope it went away quickly. And if someone accused you of anything you denied it — even in the face of overwhelming evidence. In fact, the more evidence the accuser had, the harder you denied it and the more indignant you became as you tried to deflect blame. We would have made excellent politicians when it came to handling scandals.

Anyway, as my phone conversation with Bridget began to wind down, I thoughtlessly blurted out how unfair life was: “You know if God was going to make Kevin gay, why couldn’t he at least swap our looks instead of wasting them on him?”

“Don’t be silly,” said my sister giving me a reality check, “Kevie needs to get dates too.”

Kev looks like he should be in Duran Duran and me Metallica

Huh, well, I had never thought about it that way. Chalk me up for selfish and ignorant. But her comment brought up uncomfortable thoughts about my brother and his possible relationships. That would be weird around the holidays. But I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

After Bridge and I hung up, I kept thinking about it. My brother was gay. My brother was fucking gay! I couldn’t get over it. When I told my coworker and occasional lover (a complicated relationship that I naturally kept hidden from my family), who’d been around a lot of gay men in her former career as a makeup artist, she confessed she hadn’t picked up on Kevin’s sexuality.

Nothing happened right away after our conversation. On my next visit to my parents, I waited till no one was around and cautiously looked under Kevin’s mattress and sure enough, the boner mag was still there.

I spent a fair bit of time trying to figure out how to get Kevin to fess up that he was gay. The thought of just walking up and asking him never occurred to me. Maybe they did that in other families, but not in the Layton household. We weren’t wired that way. As much as I hated myself for it, I always had to subtly crab-walk my way into a delicate conversation. No, instead I would need to set a trap and lure Kevin into it. So, I fell back on a ruse I’d recently used on my friend Gary Eberhard to get him to admit to me that his older brother Larry was gay, something I’d suspected since junior high. Basically, I told Gary about a fake science fiction story I was supposedly writing where the protagonist was a gay teen whose parents forced him against his will to undergo a gene therapy procedure that made him straight. My fake story had worked then, so I figured I’d give it another shot.

That shot took a while in coming. Kevin had graduated high school and never seemed to be around. By then, I’d moved into another townhouse with my co-worker/occasional paramour and finally, my brother decided to stop by to hang out, which was unusual. I figured I’d never have a better chance, so I waited for the perfect moment to tell him about my story, but I ended up having to awkwardly shoehorn it into the conversation. My brother listened and I could tell he was thinking and then the magic happened: He admitted to me he was gay. It was a huge step forward — even though I’d basically had to trick him into it.

His relief that I didn’t attack him or even say anything snarky was almost tangible. I told him it was cool and that I’d support him and he thanked me.

“Okay, but you’re sure you’re gay then?” (I just had to be sure.)

“Well, as sure as wanting to have sex with other guys makes me,” he answered dryly, and I felt my face redden. Touché.

As we talked, I reminded him about the porn stash he’d found as a kid and how the neighborhood boys would gather in the park with Hustlers and Penthouses for an obscene reading session. He’d appeared to be ogling the naked ladies with the rest of us.

“I was looking at Captain Beaver,” he replied, referring to a faux porno superhero in one of the photospreads who’d used his giant, capitalist dong to defeat two female Communist soldiers from North Korean and force them into orgasmic surrender.

The fact that we were having our first, real adult conversation — albeit a kind of a weird one — felt liberating. I felt we’d made a breakthrough in our relationship as brothers and as human beings. With the floodgates now open, I asked him when he knew he was gay or if he’d always known.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I  didn’t know I was gay as a kid because I didn’t even know what being gay was, but I knew I was different. I was never interested in girls.”

“And you don’t like sports.”

“Ha, Very funny.”

“But you do like musicals — but I like musicals too.”

“You are such an idiot.”

In high school, he said he’d tried to fake liking girls and gone on a couple of dates, but felt no attraction and never slept with one. He’d felt fraudulent and uncomfortable trying to avoid intimate situations without blowing his cover and making some poor girl miserable.

Then I asked him if it was a choice.

His tone became agitated as bitterness crept into his voice.

“Do you really think I would choose to be gay? Would you? Why would I choose this lifestyle just so people can hate me? I fucking hate being gay,” he said. “I just want to be like everyone else. You know, have a family. But I’m just not attracted to women.”

I mentioned that I’d worked with a gay guy at America West Airlines who told me that being gay was a choice. He claimed he’d consciously decided on homosexuality after he got out of the Navy and had divorced his wife. But the guy was a sociopath and done some evil shit, like wooing a nineteen-year-old who was freshly out of the closet while neglecting to mention he’d just found out he was HIV. So I didn’t trust anything he said.

“That pisses me off,” Kevin said his eyes flashing in annoyance. “He’s not gay; he’s bisexual. He can make a choice. I can’t unless I want to live a lie.”

Kev talked about the torture of keeping his secret, of being afraid to tell others he was gay because of how they might react. How some people ostracized him when they found out.

The amount of self-loathing touched a chord in me and I wished I could make things right for my little brother, so he’d be happy. But there was nothing I could do except tell him he had to learn to be happy with who he was.

Years later he would tell me how lonely and confused he’d been at that time because he had no one to talk to. He didn’t know how to be gay. He had no mentors, no gay friends. Afraid and hating himself, he had started relying on drugs more. His friends, the kids we’d grown up with, drifted away because he’d taken his partying to the next level and began using meth; some simply couldn’t accept his sexuality or didn’t know how to deal with it. His isolation became pronounced. By the time he was old enough, terrified, he got up the courage and went to a gay bar, alone. And that’s really kicked his drinking and meth use into high gear.

“Everyone I met was partying. I thought that’s just what gay culture was about. Having fun and using meth. I didn’t know any gay people who were successful and led regular lives. I fell in with the wrong crowd.”

But that lay in the future. While we chatted in my townhouse, Kevin became wistful about the family he would never have and an imaginary daughter he would have doted over.

“She’d be adorable, and I’d name her Violet,” he sighed.

At the time, the name sounded old-fashioned to me.

“Violet? Lucky for her you won’t be having kids.”

He punched me hard in the shoulder.

“Ooo, why do you make me hate you?”

Actually, what I’d almost said out of reflex before I caught myself was “Violet? That is so gay!” Which might have elevated the punch into a headlock.

Suddenly, it dawned on me I was going to have to start policing my vocabulary. I used the words fag and gay a lot. Not in reference to homosexuals — but just as general insults or in reference to someone being dumb or a douche bag. Now there would be no more utterances of “Quit being gay” or walking into a room and saying “So what are you fags up to?” Obviously, things were going to have to change.

Then it was time to get down to brass tacks.

“What are you going to do — are you going to tell mom and dad?”

Kevin got animated.

“Fuck no! Mom would want me to talk to a priest. And I don’t know what Dad would do. Probably disown me.”

And that was the great unanswered question. What would Dad do?

“I think mom already knows,” I warned him, though obviously, I knew she’d found the magazine.  (Bridget would tell me years later that she had already sat down and told Mom, who’d quietly accepted it without really saying much.)

“She probably does. Just promise me you won’t open your big fucking mouth around Dad.”

The implication that I was the weak link mildly offended me, but I had to admit there was a precedence of weasely behavior in my past. So I agreed not to say anything — not that there was any danger of that happening in this particular case. I began telling him what I would do if I were him, which always got under his skin, and he told me to shut up, he’d figure it out.

“I’m not joking. Do NOT say anything to Dad! I’m going to do it when I’m ready.”

Apparently, doing it on his own time meant never because a couple of years later, the fact that Kevin was gay was still the elephant hiding in the closet when it came to my father.

But by that time, the family had bigger things to worry about because Kevin had developed a full-blown drug problem.

Check out these other sample chapters!

Late Night Offerings to Mammon

Car Swimming

Sample Chapter: The Big Reveal Here's another chapter from my book about my brother. I'm not breaking the text up with subheadings like a regular post.

#Catholicism #coming out #family #gay brother #homosexuality #parents