#i just really like erik’s writing and if sometime *IN THE FUTURE* if he ever decides to write smth with that. i’ll be first in line to | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aggravatetheaxe · 3 years

Note

Hey! Saw your post and saw you said you were upsettie spaghetti so I wanted to cheer you up!

Slashers who stop everything they’re doing because their “My S/O needs me” senses are tingling and go to their rescue to comfort their angry s/o?

I was hoping to come up with A way for you to get your emotions out through your writing- 😅

Hope you feel better! 🖤

I've never done a post in this style before so hopefully I do okay! I think I covered pretty much all the slashers I write for so far (I didn't do Billy Lenz because I still need to read the novelization). I may have gone way overboard, so if I do these in the future, I'll probably just pick a few instead of doing the whole roster 😅 (or you can pick for me). But doing this much work did distract me!

Above the cut:

Bo Sinclair

Vincent Sinclair

Lester Sinclair

Included below the cut:

Michael Myers (OG)

Jason Voorhees

Leslie Vernon

Thomas Hewitt

Bubba Sawyer

Brahms Heelshire

Erik ("The Phantom")

Deacon Billings (OC Ghostface)

Courtney Dwayne Delmont (OC slasher)

Kathleen Montgomery (OC slasher)

Masterlist

***

Bo Sinclair

Despite being autistic, Bo is very in tune with peoples auras and body language. He has to be to manipulate and deceive people with any modicum of success. He's trained himself when it comes to these things; even besides masking or manipulation, he needed to be keenly aware of when his parents were in Bad Moods so he could either avoid them or prepare himself.

The mood he's probably best at when it comes to this, for those reasons, is anger. He can smell anger a mile away. So if you're fuming, you better believe he notices.

At first he's annoyed and will demand to know what your problem is. He's not a very tolerant person, and he can be a bit of a hypocrite. He's allowed to have big, messy feelings, but when it comes to others having big, messy feelings ... he's not so comfortable with that. He gets overwhelmed.

Once he realizes that this is more than an attitude problem, he'll take it much more seriously. And assuming you're not mad at him, he'll want the rundown on the whole situation from beginning to end. He wants all the dirt.

He'll let you rant, and honestly, he'd think you being this angry (when it's not directed at him, but even still sometimes) is kind of sexy. And don't expect him to shut his mouth, either; he'll be ranting right along with you, affirming you and insulting whomever/whatever you're angry about.

He doesn't wanna cuddle. He genuinely thinks you can't cuddle anger away. He'll put on some loud-ass music and let you vent your frustration however you prefer. Maybe suggest a long drive down to the lake or into town or just ... picking a direction and going. He has fantasies of running away from his anger sometimes. He knows how it is.

Depending on what you're angry about, it could definitely get to the point where he's angrier about the situation than you are. And if it really hurt you, he will not let it go as long as he lives. The best he will ever do is maintain a grudging neutrality or distance from the person/situation that made you angry.

He's very protective. If you're angry at someone you need to maintain a relationship with, you're going to have to keep an eye on Bo to make sure he doesn't deliver revenge for you behind your back. If it's something he can solve, he'll do it, so if you don't want him running his mouth, watch him.

Vincent Sinclair

Vincent is in the same boat as Bo when it comes to sensing auras, though his handle on body language and facial expressions is not as keenly honed. While Vincent was not physically abused as brutally or as often as Bo, this wasn't because of some sterling quality he had that Bo lacked. He was always The Good One because he saw what his parents did to The Bad One and knew he needed to protect himself. He tried not to do anything that might provoke his parents.

You can feel anger before a fight like you smell ozone before a storm. Vincent is attuned to the feeling not just because of his parents but because of Bo's temper, too. Because of this, like Bo, he can very accurately sense anger in particular.

His initial reaction is to observe you, gauging if you need time to cool off. If you need space, Vincent is the Sinclair for you. He's used to being quiet and deflecting and riding out anger.

However, once he realizes that your anger is not directed at him or isn't explosive enough to become a problem for him, he's concerned. Rather than asking what happened, he will ask if you're okay, and leave it up to you whether you'll tell him about it or not.

If you vent, he'll sit and listen patiently, maybe even thoughtfully working on a sculpture while you rant. He's not judgemental and he can be very emotional himself, so you could say the most ridiculous, dramatic things and he wouldn't even bat an eye. Let out all your messy, destructive thoughts and feelings. Just try not to throw or punch anything; that's when he shuts down.

If you decide you just want comfort, or decide you need comfort after ranting, art is his first suggestion. It may seem cold to you at first, that his instinct isn't to hold you or kiss you but rather to redirect you to a project - once you got to know him, however, you'd know that's his most genuine way to show he cares. Redirecting to something creative calms him down more than platitudes ever could, and he wants that for you. He's nonjudgmental about the art you create as well, even if it's objectively terrible. It's not about the quality.

He won't turn you down if you need physical affection, however. His twin is extremely tactile, so it wouldn't be the first time he held someone after a breakdown. He prefers to do this if he's certain you won't lash out physically, but if you were in a really bad way and needed to be touched, he'd do it regardless.

Lester Sinclair

Lester witnessed his parents' anger, but it was usually indirectly; if Bo was the Bad One and Vincent was the Good One, he was the Overlooked One. He's not a perfect person, probably not even a good person, but of the three brothers, he's the most normally socialized. He isn't trained to be tuned into everyone's every shifting mood in order to survive.

It takes Lester a little longer to pick up on your anger than his brothers, but not too much longer. It takes him a couple tries at trying to talk to you or get your attention before he realizes something is really wrong.

His first reaction is to get upset. He soaks up emotions like a little sponge, so he's suddenly cranky, too. He also jumps to conclusions and assumes that you're angry with him, and he does not take rejection well. He might be bitter and passive aggressive. You being angry just makes him want to go in another room and not be around you, and yet at the same time, he wants your reassurances. It's messy and sad.

Once he realizes - either through observing you or through you communicating with him - that you're mad at another person or situation, then he'll feel comfortable enough to approach you and ask you about it. You'll definitely need to reassure him that you're not mad at him though.

If you wanna rant, he'll take you on a long drive and let you vent your heart out to him. He won't be quite as aggressive as Bo, but he'll be on your side, frowning with disapproval, telling you "Ya can't fix stupid." If you want only comfort or need comfort after venting, he feels much more equipped for that. He'll put something relaxing in the VHS or let you play his old Super Nintendo, get you a beer, just let you chill out. And he'll let you win at Doctor Mario.

If the situation is something really serious, you best believe he'll be talking to his brothers about it the second he gets a chance. He may be a sweet guy, but he can be real nasty, and he doesn't fuck around when it comes to you. You might have to keep an eye out to make sure he doesn't tell someone off or punch out someone's lights.

Michael Myers (OG)

In 1978, Michael is not very in tune with any emotions besides fear, and even then he only really understands it in an abstract way, as his condition and upbringing haven't really been conducive to him learning about emotions. Unless you're screaming in terror, have tears running down your face, or are shouting angrily, he really can't read your moods. Without any obvious change to how you normally act or look, there's a huge chance he might just not notice if you're angry. He spends a lot of time in his own little world.

In 2018, even though he's spent over 50 years institutionalized, Michael has had time to take in the world, and he's seen a lot more. He understands fear much more than he did when he was 21, but what he understands most of all is anger. His anger fuels him. He would pick up on yours right away and be curious, though he wouldn't verbalize it.

If you tell him how you feel, he'll take note of it. If he witnesses you doing something destructive because of your anger, he'll simply observe. He would be fascinated with this thing you're doing, because it's not something you normally do, and though he might not notice emotions, he certainly notices routine and pattern. Either way, you'll have to tell him how you feel, because he'll simply watch you otherwise.

One thing that can be said for Michael is that he's a good listener. He may not internalize everything you say, but he will remember what he thinks is important. You may be surprised; he may remember tiny little details that seem inconsequential to you but loom large in his mind.

Unless you were caused serious physical or mental harm, he would not be angry on your behalf. He would, however, do nothing to assuage your anger. He thinks it would be kinda neat and interesting to see you snap. He's not 100% sure why you don't just do it.

In 1978, he won't be much help beyond listening to you, but he would be curious to see what you do to vent your anger. You may find him by your side more often, observing you. He may also want to find and observe the object of your anger, especially if it's a person. In 2018, he would, in his own way, suggest you solve the problem by murdering someone/something. He's insatiable, but killing is the closest he's ever come to satisfaction. You should try it.

Jason Voorhees

Out of all of the slashers, Jason is the most likely to actually literally sense your anger, especially if you're psychically sensitive/powerful like Tina Shepard. I'm talkin'—assuming you have a pre-established relationship—he'll be doing something else and just get this itch that tells him you're out there somewhere, pissed off.

Obviously this is untenable. As long as he's not super busy or Pamela has other plans, Jason will stomp his way through the woods to get back to you, regardless of the urgency of your anger. If Pamela doesn't approve, well, he'll let a little anger go and assume you're okay. If he suspects you may be in danger, though, he's sprinting regardless of what Mom says. There's time for both things, Ma!

The first thing he'll do when he returns to you is scan your dwelling, then you, making sure nothing is broken. At that point, you'd probably be able to sense his confusion even without him signing. Jason doesn't experience emotions quite like a human anymore, and he's quite tactile besides, so a lack of tangible or visible clues as to why you're upset would trip him up for a second.

He doesn't want to comfort you at first, he wants to know what's wrong. He'll listen to you vent only long enough to understand the situation and identify his target. His immediate next move would be to eliminate the problem. You'll definitely have to hold him back, and it may take a bit of convincing. Earthly consequences don't really apply to him.

Before comfort comes blowing off steam, for you and for him. His first choices would be mangling some trees (you can pretend it's for firewood) or skipping/throwing stones into the lake. You're welcome to join him if those things calm you down; watching him get his stone to skip like 11 times on Crystal Lake may make you feel better, at least.

You might hang out there for hours before he suddenly decides it's time to go home. He'll do what he can to make your comfortable or stay out of your way while you make yourself comfortable, then comfort you as you please. His go-to choice is always foot or hand massages.

Leslie Vernon

Leslie is extremely observant and surprisingly analytical given how silly he is in the day to day. His intuition makes it pretty easy for him to read people, but especially you, since you two are so close. Especially-especially if you're his Survivor Girl (gender neutral term of course). You two are in sync, so he knows if something's up. Maybe even before you fully figure it out.

God, you're so hot when you're angry, you really are. He almost wants to let you scream and holler and go nuts. But he prefers you only get angry like that at him, especially if you're his Survivor Girl, so his first move is to comfort you or talk you down to a place where you can be comforted. He'll speak to you calmly and rationally, reassuring you and touching you if you wanna be touched—on your upper arms or shoulders or face, or with one arm around your back.

He doesn't just want to comfort you, though, he wants to calm you down enough that you can tell him what happened. Even if you claim you don't want to talk about it, he will coax it out of you eventually. He's gotta know what got you so upset. It's his business to know everything about you!

Assuming you're angry at someone/something that isn't him, he'll talk it through with you. If you're upset about an argument with someone, he has the capacity to see it from the other side, but ultimately, he's there for you. He'll let you bitch as much as you want, still touching you, and he'll be disgusted and/or disappointed with the situation.

Above all, though, what he wants is to see you smile again. The only worries on your mind should be the ones he comes up with, and man, he's not even halfway done grooming the next batch of unlucky teenagers. He'd pat your face or touch your hair and tell you to cheer up, and probably defuse the situation with a stupid quip or joke. Take you out somewhere fun, maybe.

Once you were cheered up, he'd humbly suggest you solve your problem with a little murder. "I mean, I know killing's not really your thing—you're really good at it, though, a talent! You know that..." Pause, considering you. "You want me to do it? 'Cause I can clear my schedule for the rest of the night." If you decline, he'd be like "Suit yourself" but may or may not still murder whoever upset you. If you agree, he'd be super excited to make a romantic night of it. His mind would be going a million miles an hour planning everything out.

Thomas Hewitt

Tommy knows anger when he sees it. Not only does he have loads of internalized anger, he's been on the receiving end of it plenty. He's far too large to be scared of anyone in a physical sense anymore, but he's been shouted at countless times. To know when to shut up and do as he's told versus arguing back, he's learned to gauge intensity and direction of anger, and he well knows that anger can be redirected to him.

So, he instantly recognizes your mood, but it might be a while before he approaches you. When he does approach, he'll let you decide what to do, whether that's throwing your arms around him or banging your fists on his chest to vent your anger. You won't hurt him.

Eventually, once you're all hugged or cried or screamed out, he'll wrap his arms around you and give you a reassuring squeeze. There's no need to tell Tommy what's wrong—he won't ask unless you're obviously in serious distress or injured—but if you decide to speak, he'll listen, brows drawn tightly the whole time. He's thoughtful about the situation.

If you're mad at someone in his family, there isn't much he can do for you besides comfort you and assure you that whoever upset you—Hoyt, probably—didn't mean what they said. If you were hurt physically, it would be another story, but his family gets in shouting matches all the time.

Rather than offering help, he'd wait for you to request it of him. Whatever you ask, shy of hurting his family, he will do. Murder someone? No problem. Make you some food? You got it. Bring you a blanket? Sure. Give you some quiet alone time? That's fine, too.

If you need to vent, he's got plenty of ways to get out your frustration. Plenty of farm work to do, or you could work on something around the house with him. He might suggest knitting or sewing or some other handicraft you enjoy. It always makes him feel better to buckle down and use his hands for something.

If you're still preoccupied/upset by the time you two bed down, or heaven forbid the next morning, then he starts taking it more seriously. Something that disturbs you for that long is bad news. He'll watch you carefully the next couple days to see how you're doing, waiting for you to need him for something.

Bubba Sawyer

Like Tommy, Bubba has been on the receiving end of anger many, many times, so he's familiar with what it looks and feels like. Despite his size, he's still susceptible to physical violence at the hands of his loved ones, so he's very wary of anger.

However, he doesn't have a female presence in his life like Luda Mae, who expresses her anger through passive aggression—so, he's more used to shouting and screaming. If you aren't prone to screaming and shouting, it might take a little bit for him to realize you're not just sad or upset, you're angry.

Bubba will be over you. He'd give anyone else their space because he'd be afraid of retaliation, but you're his special person, and he's pretty sure you're not going to hurt him. He'll touch your hair, your arms, your wrists; he'll babble as he tries to figure out what's wrong. He just wants to comfort you and let you know everything is all right.

If it's too much or you're overwhelmed and you snap at him, he'll ease back. He'll blubber like a kicked puppy, but he won't give up. He'll still try to comfort you, just in other ways, such as getting you a comfort item or article of clothing, or maybe some food. And boy will he helicopter.

There's no need to tell Bubba what's wrong. In fact, it might be better if you didn't; if it's something he can't fix, it would do nothing but majorly stress him out. If it was one of his family members who upset you, as with Tommy, he wouldn't be able to do much. Even if you were hurt, he's just not in a position to stand up for you. That fact would absolutely kill him, though. He'd end up getting even more upset than you.

He doesn't know what help to offer you beyond comfort, but like Tommy, if you requested something specific, he'd try to carry out your wishes. He'll also try to cheer you up with some music and dancing, or just being silly like you like.

Need to blow off steam? He's got plenty of coping mechanisms! Bubba's idea of a perfect de-stress session is turning up the radio and getting lost in crafts. He's got lots of supplies, mostly to create clothing and accessories, and you're special, so you can have your pick. A drive and the radio might be nice, too. If neither of those appeal to you, he'll try cooking or baking with you. He loves sharing the kitchen with someone.

If none of that works and you're still upset, be prepared, because he's gonna be an anxious mess until you're better.

Brahms Heelshire

Brahms is somewhat familiar with other people's anger. He certainly has a whole fountain of internalized anger brewing just beneath the surface, but that's different. He knows that when Mummy is angry, she yells and cries, and when Daddy is angry, he seethes and stews. The former would be obvious to him, but the latter would take him a few minutes to be quite sure about. You're not acting how you usually do. Are you being stern or are you angry? Are you cross with him?

He does not have a lot of empathy for other people, so if your anger gets in the way of his routine or the attention he wants, he'll be irked, cranky, sad. Not necessarily at you—though that is possible—but the situation in which you find yourselves.

Much like Bo, he's allowed to have big, messy feelings, but it makes him uncomfortable and scared when other people have those feelings. He might even hide from you for a while, especially if you screamed and cried.

Once he realizes something is really wrong and you're not mad at him, however, he'll start thinking of ways to cheer you up so things can go back to normal. He hates having his routine interrupted; he's very particular. And he cares for you, so seeing you in distress is very scary and uncomfortable for him.

He'll start by fetching you something you like—something manageable for him like your favorite juice or a sandwich, or if you have a special item or article of clothing, that. He's quite shy, though, and like I said, he'll probably be hiding, so he'll leave it somewhere he knows you'll find it (on the bed, outside your door, on your desk, etc.)

If that doesn't calm you down and your anger is really getting in the way of his routine, or otherwise making him uncomfortable, he'll finally make an appearance. Very bashful and timid at first, using his little boy voice. "What's wrong, Y/N? Did something bad happen?"

If it's something that can't be helped, he'll suggest you do something together to take your mind off it (most likely something he likes to do). He may even be coaxed into taking a walk around the grounds, though he doesn't like to leave the manor at all, so you'd have to convince him. He prefers quiet playtime, maybe some coloring books or loud music to vent your emotions. It would intrigue him to see someone else use his toys to calm down. As long as you recognized he was being very nice, sharing them.

If it was an argument you had with someone, he would want more information. Are they likely to leave you alone, or will they come to the manor? Will he have to deal with them? Because it's scary, but he'll do it for you.

If, for some reason, none of those things work, he may cry or throw a fit. Either way, he'll be frustrated. Adult Brahms may make an appearance and try to help you in more Adult ways.

Erik

Though he lives five cellars beneath an opera house now, Erik hasn't always been entirely reclusive. Even these days, when he can stomach it, he sometimes goes out to see the world. As a younger man, he observed people's lives and moods with a hungry fascination (that has now mostly been replaced by melancholy and longing and bitter anger). Like several of the other slashers here, he's had to train himself to sense fury to protect himself. He's also incredibly wrathful, so you could call him an expert!

He has a very keenly honed sense when it comes to you specifically, since he's watched you so much. He notices the change in your demeanor immediately.

If you know him as the "Angel of Music," his voice will appear to you once you're alone, asking you what's wrong and assuring you you can confide in him—he will insist you tell him, though. "There are to be no secrets between us, Y/N." He will listen without interjection as you vent your heart out, and when you're done, soothe you. Don't let his calming voice deceive you, though; behind that mirror, he's seething, planning to take matters into his own hands.

If you know him as Erik, he will go to you the second he recognizes the shift in your mood and take you from what you're doing, regardless of your wishes. He'll sit you down, kneeling before you with your hands in his, and gaze into your eyes, imploring you to tell him what's wrong. He'll absolutely allow you physical comfort, but he will also absolutely insist you tell. He'll need reassurance that you're not angry at him, because that thought would break his heart.

He will let you vent however you wish. You could have the most dramatic breakdown ever—throwing things, beating your fists on his chest, wailing—and he wouldn't judge you. He would be awfully concerned, though.

Will be 110% on your side. You are his poor little meow meow. "My poor love, my poor Y/N!" He is beside himself with sympathy for you and you only, and is very offended on your behalf.

He will always suggest music as an outlet for your anger, but he will have taken note of your other hobbies and interests as well. He'll fetch your things for you without being asked, as long as it won't separate him from you for very long. If you'd rather just have comfort, that's fine, too. He could hold your hand and caress your face for hours on end under normal circumstances, so no problem there. He may also suggest a little time on the surface, if you normally live in his home. Fresh air will do you both good, he reasons, and he enjoys spending time with you where others can witness it. It fills him with pride and love.

Otherwise, he's at your service for any other soothing activities you need. A calming bath, some sweets, shopping, anything. Perhaps avoid asking for any sexual contact, however. First of all, being asked directly makes him very skittish and nervous; second of all, his method of love-making (when you can coax him) is very intimate and tender, which may be tedious if you're in an angry mood.

Unless the situation is extremely serious or dire, his first priority is making sure you're soothed. Once that duty is fulfilled, however, he is absolutely angrier about it than you are. If it's not that serious, he won't skip straight to killing, if only because he knows it upsets you. He will definitely be writing an extremely strongly worded letter, however. If someone slighted you seriously, they're getting threatened. If someone hurt you physically, they're meeting the Punjab lasso.

Deacon Billings (OC Ghostface)

Deacon definitely knows when people are angry. His step-mom was a passive-aggressive laundry-folder and his dad was a storming out of the house kinda guy; when the two of them were together, they were all hushed but heated arguments at night when they thought he couldn't hear them, or else extremely embarrassing passive-aggressive arguments in public. Growing up, he found himself around a lot of angry people. And there's no shortage of anger in him, either.

So yeah, Deacon knows when people are pissed, and he knows when people are pissed at him. The thing is, he just thinks it's fucking hilarious. He was that kid that would goad peers and teachers just to be an asshole and had virtually no friends as a result. He's a menace on the internet, too: a horrible troll for no reason, stirring the pot even when he doesn't have a stake in the argument. He's trained himself to find people's weak spots so he can strike at them. He does it to make himself feel more in control of his life and his own anger.

So when you're ticked off, he's gonna notice the change immediately. If you made a vent post on social media, he probably knows you're angry before you even see him. He follows all your social media (even if you don't realize it) and checks it constantly. He'd call you out of curiosity to ask what happened. He's open about his stalking tendencies: "I saw your post, babe, who do I need to stab?"

If you otherwise come home angry, he'll be up on his feet, following you around the house and pestering you, trying to get you to tell him what's wrong. If you try to hug him, he won't push you away, but he'll be distracted, trying to needle answers out of you the whole time.

There's no question in his mind as to whether or not you're angry at him. He just assumes you're not; he has a pretty good handle on how you act when you're angry at him specifically.

He'll let you rant all day if you want. You could talk about the shit that's pissed you off for hours and he'd still listen. Outwardly, he might poke you a bit and play devil's advocate for the other side of the argument, if there is one. This is purely for the purposes of being a little shit.

Internally, he's already going down his pre-murder checklist. If it was someone at work, they're dead. Someone in the neighborhood, dead. Online? It'll take a couple days, but they're dead. Even if you're not angry at anyone in particular, just a situation, he'll find someone to menace. He'd walk through fire for your approval.

He's not good with soft, emotional comfort, so instead he'll try to think of something to help you let off steam. His go-to is something competitive, especially if it involves you chasing each other. A Nerf or water gun war, a PVP game with you on opposite sides. He'll put up a good fight, but you always kick his ass.

Once the immediate situation is addressed and you've ranted your heart out to him, he can't keep his hands off you. "Seeing you all pissed off drives me crazyyyyyy." He's grinning, brown eyes sparkling. "Come onnnnn ... I'll get it off your mind!"

Courtney Dwayne Delmont (OC)

Courtney is a hunter of all manner of game, so he's used to interpreting non-verbal cues and body language—when an animal is in distress, when an animal is about to attack, etc. His grandfather was a very angry man, as well, in a simmering sort of way. He would seethe about something before suddenly delivering one decisive strike. Courtney himself is not a particularly angry man, unless some prey is really giving him a hard time, but he can read your body.

If you come home angry, he'll stop in the middle of what he's doing and watch you, still and quiet, just confirming his suspicions. If you leave the room he's in to go collapse on the sofa or something, he'll follow you, looming over you and waiting for you to tell him what's wrong. He's patient.

If you want to vent, he'll sit and listen thoughtfully, doing something with his hands while you speak—probably cleaning his gun or some other weapon. He doesn't look at you. He wouldn't demand greater context to the situation but he would ask "Why?" and "Who?" until he understood Enough.

If you want comfort, he'll sprawl on the couch and let you lay on top of him. He'll probably pull a blanket on top of you to try and encourage a nap. If the nap doesn't make you feel better, he's feeding you protein. Do you like homemade jerky?

Sex is also on the table (not literally ... unless). He's found it's a great way to blow off steam, and he's more than happy to make all worries, troubles, and other thoughts go away for a little bit. Expect that to be the rest of your night, though, because he doesn't do quickies.

Generally, he trusts you to handle your own shit, so he would be more focused on you than whatever made you feel the way you do. However, if days passed and you were still angry/upset/sad, or if it plunged you into a breakdown or was an otherwise extremely serious situation ... just give him a target. It's up to you, but if you tell him to take the shot, it'll be quick and clean. If you're unable to make the decision, he'll decide for you without hesitation.

Kathleen Montgomery (OC)

I'm still developing her so this one won't be as in-depth and is subject to change.

Kath makes it her business to know everything about you. Chances are she's seen you explode screaming while stalking you ... chances are, if you've been in a relationship for a while, she's made you explode screaming. She knows what you look like when you're angry. Besides, she's strong for her size, but she often has to take down people who are much bigger and stronger than her; she uses manipulation and trickery to help ease that divide, so she's good at reading people.

Like Deacon, she also monitors all your social media, so if you made a vent post, she already knows you're in a shitty mood before you come home. Unlike Deacon, she doesn't tell you how she knows, so you're left to assume she's just all knowing. Considering her god complex, that works for her.

She'd probably text you to come home, and she expects you to answer. If you're unable to come home, she'll call you to ask what's wrong.

Once you're together, she wants to know everything about the situation. Even as you're speaking, she's already on her phone or laptop, looking up the people involved. Instead of getting mad on your behalf, she laughs. She's a fan of emphasizing how pathetic or weak the opposition is.

She takes your feelings on the subject seriously, but everyone else in the situation? Insects. Not even worthy of your time or concern, let alone hers. You're obviously in the right here (even if you're not). She'll tell you as much, and say some pretty intense, over-the-line things about whomever/whatever you're angry at.

Overall, however, she's calm and collected about the situation. Your bout of anger is a chance to get you to be reckless with her. She'll do your hair and makeup and dress you up nice, then take you out. Fast driving, drinking, baiting people at bars, menacing neighborhoods ... maybe a little killing, if you'd like.

***

Masterlist

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crash-cinematic-universe · 3 years

Text

tiger lilies, self destructing, and richard siken

pairing: peter maximoff/reader

summary: to peter maximoff, love is an anomaly that scares him more than anything else. however, you might be able to help him overcome his fear.

warnings: language! but that’s about it. kind of cheesy at some points but yknow what im not lactose intolerant

notes: this is the monsterous fic thats been kicking my ass this past week (6.2k words babey!!!) i was originally going to add ~~steamy~~ section to this one but i decided against it to make it readable for those who don’t wanna see that kind of stuff. if you want me to separately publish that then just lmk!! (if any of yall wanna talk about richard siken to me then please do, his work is so good)

taglist: @stranger-names , @gooseyhouse , @parkersdarling

To Peter Maximoff, physical affection has always been a touchy subject-- no pun intended. His speed is a blessing, but also a bitter curse. He moves at the speed of sound, bouncing off the walls and tearing up the roads; he moves impossibly fast, and no one ever tries to catch up with him. People get tired of Peter rather quickly, not bothering to get attached to him when they know they can’t keep up.

That’s why it’s so jarringly startling when you decide to stick around. When faced with the grand decision of throwing in the towel and leaving Peter behind or sticking around and trying your best, you chose the latter. It was surprising, to say the least. Peter waited patiently for the distance between the two of you to start growing; he waited for the void you once filled to open up again. However, the void never emptied, and the distance never grew.

To anyone else, this would be a wonderful experience. Knowing that you wouldn’t be left behind or forgotten about would be comforting to anyone else in Peter’s position. However, this did the exact opposite for Peter. He wasn’t comforted or relaxed, on the contrary, he was always on edge. The future was cruel, and the mystery of it all felt like torture.

To quote the great Richard Silken, “Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.” Peter lived and breathed by this ideology, that everyone he loves would have to leave eventually, whether it be by their own volition or not. It was obvious that you didn’t plan on abandoning ship anytime soon, so Peter decided he’d take matters into his own hands. If you weren’t going to be the first one to walk away, then he’d be the one to run away from you. He soon came to learn that loneliness was at its most bitter when you’ve come to taste the sweetness of love.

Love was a strange, complicated beast that Peter Maximoff had never dealt with before. If he were to be completely honest, love scared him. It scared him more than dying scared him. To Peter, death was an escape. Death was the end of a tiring journey, it was safe and simple and easy. Love was the opposite, it was the mouth of a dragon and the edge of a blade. It was the beginning to something so fragile and powerful, something that could end in flames.

Peter realized he loved you on a summer afternoon. The sun was shining and you were in the shade. He sat down next to you, and within minutes Kurt and Ororo appeared at your side. They seemed so put together, so sure and strong. Peter felt out of place-- he felt as if he were standing outside of a cabin looking in through the window at your wonderful friendships. He watched with his nose pressed against the glass as you walked across the room and opened the cabin door to let him in.

Peter realized he was in love with you in the middle of the night. A thunderstorm raged outside the mansion walls and raindrops kept time as Peter walked down the hallway. You were sitting on the floor of the common room next to a dying fire, a book clenched tightly in your hands. For a moment, he just stood against a wall and watched you. As creepy as he felt, a part of him believed he’d ruin your night by making himself known. He was okay with being a fly on the wall if it meant he’d get to see you. Peter wondered if there was a world where he had the pleasure of knowing you, without you having the burden of knowing him.

Still, you saw him. And you knew him. And you waved him over with a smile. He felt the urge to run, to leave you here alone with yourself, but he stayed put. Then, one step at a time, he moved forward. He got closer and closer before he found himself standing at your feet.

“You’re welcome to stay,” you told him. He believed it. Peter sat down next to you, letting his shoulder brush against yours.

“What’re you reading?” He asked. Peter already knew what you were reading, he read the cover of the book the moment he sat down, but he still wanted to hear it from you.

“Crush by Richard Siken,”

“Oh. What’s it about?” Peter already knew what it was about. He’d read it at least fifty times.

“It’s kind of hard to explain. I’d much rather just read it to you and let you decide for yourself,” Peter’s stupid little heart lurched, and he almost cried at the thought. He held it together, though.

“That would be nice,” He said softly.

“Sorry about all the writing in the margins, I can’t help myself sometimes.” Peter scanned the sides of the pages, marveling at your notes. Some of them were reactions, littered with exclamation points and question marks and bold letters. Some of them were underlined phrases and little doodles-- most notably a little drawing of a chameleon on a tiger lily. He loved them.

“It’s okay. Literature is meant to be marked up-- what’s the point of reading if you don’t get to share the love?”

“That’s a good point,” You grinned. Then, the reading began, and you allowed Peter to rest his head on your shoulder as you read to him. Even though he’d heard the poems a billion times by now, they sounded brand new coming from you. He listened closely. You were arriving at his favorite part, “You are Jeff” section 24.

“You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you, but he loves you...” You read on, not noticing the way Peter’s eyes had shifted from the book you were holding to your face. Peter’s mind wanders, and he curses himself for missing the lines you were reading “... You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you didn’t even have a name for.”

Peter felt like he was going to cry. You kept reading and he kept looking. It was getting late, and Peter was getting tired. Your voice had softened and slowed, and the fire that was burning in the fireplace had all but died. Peter was the one that fell asleep first, and you followed closely after. Both of you had lingering smiles on your faces.

Intimacy is an odd thing, isn’t it? Thinking critically, intimacy is just vulnerability with more layers. It’s the closeness between people, it’s allowing yourself to connect with someone you care about. It’s stripping yourself down to muscle and bone and hoping the other person doesn’t let you bleed out. It’s a level of trust that is more than closing your eyes and falling backwards; it’s closing your eyes and letting them push you over the edge into the unknown, and trusting them enough to know you’ll be okay when you hit the ground.

It didn’t take long for Peter to realize that he had trouble with being intimate with other people. Too many times had trusted someone to push him over the edge, only to realize he’d be shattered when he hits the ground. After that, he decided intimacy was overrated. It’s not like anyone was going to have that kind of relationship with him, anyway.

Of course, then you came along and uprooted his entire worldview, like you had with everything else. He found himself thinking about you at every waking moment, which inevitably led to him… thinking about you at every waking moment, if you catch my drift. Sure, intimacy involves more than just physical intimacy, but Peter knows he can’t ignore the feeling that rises in his stomach whenever he’s around you. For the first year or so of your relationship, Peter became very familiar with the feeling of an ice-cold shower.

What Peter didn’t take into consideration was you. For some reason, Peter struggled to understand the fact that you were just as attracted to him as he was attracted to you. It was no secret that Peter was insecure, but he never really realized how much his insecurity affected his relationships. If he couldn’t love himself, how could anyone else? Peter is the only one who gets to see his persona in its truest form, and every time he has to avert his eyes. It’s safe to say his physical appearance has been the cause of very many painful-- and occasionally tear-filled-- sleepless nights.

He told you this. He told you everything. He told you about Erik, he told you about his childhood, he told you about everything he loved and hated and feared and yearned for. That ordeal alone was scary enough, knowing that at any moment you could decide you didn’t want to deal with him anymore, but as always, you stuck around. You told him everything. You told him about your family and your struggles. You told him about everything you loved and hated and feared and yearned for, and not once did Peter even think that he wanted to walk away. This is the kind of intimacy that, over the years, Peter had struggled with less and less.

Still, it was the sexual aspect of intimacy that freaked him out. It was a beast he’d never dealt with, a feat he’d never faced. That being said, as every day went by Peter became more and more… frustrated. He didn’t know how to approach the subject, so he'd just let the subject approach him and wing it.

And as he sat on his bed watching as you twirled around to Tears for Fears “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”, Peter realized he didn’t have much to worry about.

“Dance with me, dollface,” you laughed, reaching out for him. You looked like someone straight out of a movie, the lim blue light coming from Peter’s arcade machines illuminating a halo above your head. You put Molly Ringwald and Emilio Estevez to shame. Peter took your hand, grinning like an idiot as you twirled him around.

There he was, dancing in his mother’s basement with his favorite person in the entire world. He wasn’t a great dancer, and neither were you, but that didn’t matter. Peter was dreading this visit-- he hated the idea of being back in the basement that made him feel like a failure. But you assured him that you’d be there with him, and that getting to see his family would make it all worth it. His family isn’t what made it worth it, though.

“Brain Damage” by Pink Floyd came next, slower and a bit more somber, but still danceable. Your arms shifted to around his neck, pulling him closer than he already was. Somehow, you ended up with your back against the wall as the song came to a close. He kissed your forehead, then your cheek, then your lips.

“I love you,” Peter spoke softly. This was a small victory-- he’d been so scared of the mere idea of loving someone. You were the only one who got to hear his love confessions. They were for you, and for you only.

“I love you too,” Peter would never, ever get tired of hearing that. Knowing that you love him is enough to keep him going for a hundred years. And he knows the odds, he knows that love is rocky and painful as much as it is beautiful. He knows that love can feel sweet in the beginning and go sour overtime. He knows that first, second, third relationships don’t always work out. But he thinks this is going to work out. And Peter doesn’t think this will ever go sour. Maybe that’s his blissful ignorance talking, maybe he’s jinxing it, but at this moment, he doesn’t care. Right now he is at his happiest, at his most content.

“You wanna watch a movie?” You asked softly, pecking Peter on the cheek. He could feel the warmth radiating off of you, and Peter grinned. In an instant the tv across the room began playing the opening credits to the first movie that popped into his head.

“The Breakfast Club?” You questioned. Peter shrugged.

“What can I say, I’m a sucker for a good coming-of-age kind of movie,”

You sat against the headboard of Peter’s bed, allowing Peter to settle beside you. Your head rested on his shoulder, and he was quick to grab your hand. Peter loved the closeness. Over the past year, he’d come to realize he was a very affectionate person. Previously, Peter hadn’t known soft, physical love; the only time anyone would ever touch him would be as punishment or defense, not love. Love. Peter had gotten more comfortable with the idea of love, because when he thinks of love he thinks of you.

Every good story has a villain. A villain that you love to hate, or hate to love. A villain you can sympathize with, a villain you can’t excuse, a villain that the mere mention of makes you sick to your stomach. An unexpected villain. An obvious villain. A villain that’s just trying his goddamn best. Sometimes the villain is defeated, sometimes the villain changes their evil ways. Sometimes the villain dies and the crowd cheers.

Peter Maximoff never thought he’d be the villain of his own story. He tried his hardest to be a good person, but there was always that side of him that made him afraid. He was like an explosive; whenever someone got too close, he’d detonate and destroy everything around him. It was a self-defense tactic, albeit counterproductive.

It killed you to see him that way. He told you about the relationships he’d lost to himself. He told you about the abandonment and the loneliness. It broke your heart. He tried to distract himself, drowning himself in work so he’d never have the opportunity to ruin what he had with you. Peter Maximoff was a walnut tree; every time he planted his roots and began to grow, he’d kill anything that grew too close. However, the constant working started to wear Peter down.

It started with the late nights. He’d collapse next to you at four AM, knocking out the minute his head hit the pillow. Still, he’d be awake before you were, already scrambling around trying to complete various tasks. He was like a machine that was running from it’s problems. The late nights turned to all-nighters, and the few hours Peter managed to salvage set aside for sleep had shrunk to a few minutes at a time. He didn’t eat anything with even a hint of nutritional value. At this rate, he was going to work himself to death.

The worst part? Peter knew what he was doing. He wasn’t stupid. He just needed to shut up the little voice in his head that urged him to act out. The entirety of his childhood, Peter destroyed what he created. The need to be isolated, the feeling that he deserves to be alone spread throughout his body like a cancer. He locked himself away in the basement, trying desperately to stay out of everyone’s way so they wouldn’t shut him out. People tried to coerce him out of his cave, to pull him out of the bottomless pit he threw himself into. Peter saw them as the sirens trying to lure him into the ocean of loneliness, and he wasn’t going to fall for it. In his eyes, anyone who tried to help him were the villains of his amazing, heroic tale. Fortunately for him, one by one, they started to give up on helping him. They thought he was a lost cause; a fucking loser who was destined to wallow in his own self-pity until he died. At first, this was a triumph. He defeated them, he outwitted the sphinx and slayed the dragon. But a part of him hated himself for becoming the worst-case scenario that every parent feared their child would grow up to be.

He pulled himself out of his pit and back onto his feet, all by himself. It was hell on Earth, but he did it. That cancerous feeling of uselessness retracted back into itself, now residing in the place next to Peter’s heart. However, that horrifying fear of becoming a burden began to grow again, this time when Peter was in his mid-20s. He began to overcompensate, and that led him to where he was; always on the brink of collapse, running on nothing but coffee and twenty minutes of sleep. In return, Peter got to have friends. In his mind, that was fair. In your mind? Not even close.

You managed to catch him in his bedroom as he was in the midst of simultaneously scribbling in a notebook and reading an open novel. Peter Maximoff would always be the most beautiful person in the world in your eyes, but at that moment, he looked like hell. Your plan seemed foolproof, but then again, you weren’t sure what you were walking into. Lately, Peter didn’t seem like himself. Probably because of the lack of sleep.

“Peter?” He looked up at you, eyes half-lidded. “I got you something.”

“You did?” A sleepy smile was all he could muster, but that was google enough for you.

“I did. It’s to mark exactly three years since I first met you,” you sat down on his bed, placing the small wrapped book right next to you. Peter glanced at the calendar on the wall-- oh god, you were right. It’s been three years to the day and he forgot. He deserves the title of “World’s Worst Boyfriend”. Scott will probably be upset that he’s losing his title.

“What’re you up to?”

“Finishing up some old work I’ve been putting off,” he punctuated his sentence with a yawn. “Some of my old work and some of Hank’s, too.” “Why are you doing Hank’s work?”

“He seemed stressed about something, thought I might help clear his head,” The sentiment is sweet, you’ll give him that.

“Alright, well, can we talk for a minute?” Alarm bells went off in Peter’s brain. There has never, in the history of the universe, been a good conversation that started with ‘can we talk for a minute?’ or any of it’s cruel variants.

“Actually, I’m kind of busy right now, can this wait?” It was obvious that the answer to that was no, but still, he felt the need to ask.

“Not really, no. It’s important.” Peter saw the next few seconds playing out in his head. The inevitable had come to fruition; you realized that you could do better, and now you were cutting him loose. He couldn’t blame you, not really, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t going to rip him to shreds. He realized that whatever you brought for him was most likely a parting gift. How sweet.

“Oh. Alright.”

“Well, I’m going to give it to you straight,” you sighed. “I’m worried about you, Peter.”

Oh. He’s heard this speech before, he knows the spiel. He can vaguely recall a guidance counselor telling him the exact same thing before Peter decided to call him a slew of expletives. The tar pit in his chest began to grow.

“I’m fine.” This was a lie. The first lie in a long chain of lies that Peter was about to tell to you, his favorite person in the world. He loved you, but in that moment his vision clouded over. You weren’t the person he loved and cherished anymore, no, you were just another faceless blur that provided a temporary escape.

“Really? I feel like you’re pushing everyone away, you’re pushing me away.” Peter was becoming more and more irritated by the second.

“I told you, I’m fine. I’m not pushing you away.

“Don’t lie to me,” your voice is firm and unwavering. “You don’t sleep, you almost never eat-- I don’t think I’ve seen you stand still for more than three minutes once in the past month--”

“That’s just how I am,” Peter huffs. He wanted this conversation to be over. “That’s not your problem.”

“Your wellbeing is my problem, Peter, that’s the whole point of being friends with someone. Even more so now, because you’re my partner and I care about you--”

“Then stop,” Peter rolled his eyes. He's more irritable than normal-- most likely because he hasn’t slept in days. He could almost feel the venomous arms of isolation creeping around him. It’s a sick pattern, he knows; every time someone gets close to him, he feels the need to self-destruct before they lose interest. Even now, even after all this time, Peter’s still powerless against the poison in his veins.

“What?” You’re losing your reserve and your stature. He can tell. You’re slouching and picking at the cuticles on your thumb. It’s almost as if he’s been shoved into the back seat, and is now being forced to watch as a stranger takes the wheel and crashes the car. So much frustration, so much hurt, and it’s all coming out right now, onto you. Peter already regrets this entire interaction, but still, he manages to spit acid.

“Stop caring. Just leave, I know you want to. I know every night, you lie awake and think about all the different ways you can leave me in the dust. Not that it would matter to me.” This is another lie. Your eyes flash with hurt, but you stay put. You know he’s just being an asshole because he’s exhausted and too stubborn to admit that you’re right. He’s egging you on intentionally, trying to get you to snap and walk away.

“Peter, god, I love you but sometimes you can be so...”

“So what? C’mon, be honest with me,” He huffed.

“Frustrating,” You surrendered. The poise you once held was gone. “I know it isn’t your fault-- I know you’ve trusted so many people so deeply and been betrayed or sold out and I know you’ve loved so many times and been thrown to the curb without a second thought. But I don’t know what I can do to convince you that I’m here for you, and that I love you. I’ve tried everything, and it feels like I’m talking to a brick wall. I want to make this work, but I need you to work with me.” It’s evident in your voice that you’re desperate. You’re just hoping you’ll get through to him, somehow. “I need you to want it as bad as I do-- hell, I need you to want it at all.” Here it comes--

“You ever think, maybe, I just don’t want you to be that person for me? I’ve spent my life being independent, my entire existence so far has been built around the fact that I’m going to end up alone. People come and people go-- people like you and Charles-- and they tell me they care. They tell me that they love me and that they're here for me. And then they get tired of me and they leave. I wish that you would just leave me the fuck alone and let me live in solitude,” There it was. The lie to end all lies. The words tasted awful coming out of his mouth, and the whole ordeal left his mouth tasting very… sour. Peter had to look away, he couldn’t look at the expression on your face.

“Fine. If that’s what you want.” Your eyes never met his, but you paused before you exited the room. “I know you’re probably just… I don’t know, going through something, but you’re being an asshole. Don’t talk to me until you’ve sorted your shit out. Enjoy your solitude.” You left the room impossibly fast, your fists clenched so tightly Peter feared that your nails would break the skin on your palms. He struggled to keep it together-- why the fuck did he do that?

Peter collapsed onto his bed, and it’s only then that he realized you left behind the gift you got him. A part of him thought he should return it to you, but the other part of him urged for it to be opened. He tore the wrapping paper off before he realized what he was doing. The hardcover book the wrapping paper concealed was handbound, the cover littered with your beautifully familiar handwriting. In big, bold letters The Best of Poetry in the Humble Opinion of Y/n L/n was scrawled at the top.

Peter vividly remembers a late night you spent talking to him. You told him about your favorite poems, outlining each and every little detail you loved about them. Some of them he’d read already, some of them he hadn’t, but all of them sounded like artwork coming from you. He opened the front cover, and you’d written something else on the inside.

“In the words of the wonderful Peter Maximoff, ‘What’s the point of reading if you don’t get to share the love?’. This is me, sharing the love.”

Carefully, Peter opened to a random page in the book. He saw the notes in the margins and the doodles and the exclamation points and before he knew it Peter was on the verge of tears. He was barely containing himself, and then he read a specific annotation you made.

He had opened to the first page of “The Worm King’s Lullaby”, one of your all-time favorites. A specific line was underlined, one that Peter was all too familiar with: “Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story.” Beside it, you wrote:

“As much of a genius Mr. Siken is, I have to disagree with this. If you love someone enough, you’ll never leave them and they’ll never leave you. Even if they die, even if things don’t work out, you’ll always have a little part of them to carry with you. Carry this part of me with you, Peter. Not that I plan on leaving anytime soon.”

That was it. The floodgates broke. Everything that Peter had held back came pouring out-- the past 10 minutes finally caught up with him, and they hit him like a bus. He sat in the corner of his bedroom, his knees pulled up to his chest so tightly he thought his legs would snap. Peter wanted to rip all his hair out or punch a hole in the wall or hold his head underwater until he was nothing but an obituary and a headstone. His chest burned and the pit of despair inside his chest had overtaken his system, and he hated himself with a burning passion. Why did he do that? Why did he do that? Why the fuck did he do that?

Peter Maximoff had his breakdown in solitude, revealing in the fact that he was, undeniably, the villain of his own life.

As it turns out, ‘getting his shit together’ is much harder than Peter originally anticipated. He's trying, he really is, but it's hard. Especially without you there. Peter knows that he fucked up, and he knows that he needs to work for your forgiveness. And don’t worry, he’s going to work for it.

It had only been a week, but the entire mansion could tell that something was off. Life just wasn’t the same without the randomized gusts of wind that would knock people off their feet; no one had been seriously injured or had something stolen from them. The whirlwind that was mansion life, while still chaotic, lost it’s fun.

Charles tried to keep things running smoothly, but he was an old man and didn’t exactly understand you and Peter. People would knock on your door every now and then, but you didn’t answer. You were much too busy analyzing exactly how much of a bitch you were being-- realistically, the answer is 0%, but you didn’t see it that way. No, from your perspective, you saw Peter having a mental breakdown and you ditched him. Pretty shitty move.

What you didn’t realize was that Peter was doing the exact same thing, however, the blame falls mostly on his shoulders, and boy does he know it. He’s been scripting his grand apology, trying desperately to find the right words to express exactly how sorry he is. Peter was never very good with words-- it’s always too hard to know if you’re going to say the wrong thing and mess everything up. Although, it’s hard to see how the scenario could get any worse.

He made the executive decision to start with “I’m sorry”-- a solid start to any apology. Sure, he could stop there, but Peter realized that he’d probably need more to win back his partner. So, he managed to scribble down a few more lines on a tiny notecard he was supposed to use for studying. Oh, what a wondrous redemption arc this would be; Peter gets into a fight with his wonderful partner and ruins their relationship and then struggles to come up with a coherent apology.

“I’m sorry about what I said, that was shitty. I shouldn’t have said that.” Peter’s eyebrows furrowed in frustration. God, he was going to die alone, wasn’t he? Maybe this is the cruel punishment the world is dealing to him, the universe is deciding that Peter’s redemption arc would be better if it, well, didn’t exist. Even so, he isn’t planning on giving up or giving in just yet.

He scrapped what he had so far and started at the beginning once again. His 9th grade english teacher would tell him to write about what he knows, and though he doesn’t know much, he’s an expert when it comes to himself. Peter knows how he feels about you, he knows how sorry he is, and he knows that he really, really, really wants you to know that he didn’t mean a word he said about not wanting you. Peter knows about love, at least a little bit, and he realizes he’ll need more than just words.

His mind drifts to that night, years ago, in front of the fireplace. He vividly remembers a tiger lily and a chameleon scribbled in the margins of your book. Realistically, Peter couldn’t get his hands on a chameleon, but a tiger lily was a different story. In high school, Peter took a botany course because he thought it’d be easy. It wasn’t, it was boring as all hell, but it seems like his slacking paid off. He knew tiger lilies were indigenous to Asia, but they’d become quite common along New England-area roadways.

Peter grabbed his jacket and took off, tearing through the roads like his life depended on it. In less than 10 minutes, Peter found himself in the middle of New Hampshire drenched in rain. In hindsight, he probably should’ve checked the weather before leaving. Nevertheless, he takes off into the small wooded area that laid passed the road’s end. Dozens of mushrooms dotted the muddy ground and mossy rocks clouded his peripheral vision. The rain begins to lighten as he spots a bright orange tiger lily peeking through the remains of a tree stump. He sprints over to it.

The tiger lily is bloomed and beautiful and Peter can’t tear his eyes away from the wide array of speckles and splotches and color. It’s pristine, but some of the petals are torn or wilting. The roots stretch into the stump below it, and Peter leans closer. The stump is old and worn, fungi and bugs eat away at the base next to a large hole where a family of worms reside. The stump is ugly, sure, but it’s useful. It helps keep the bugs fed and keeps the worms warm. There’s a metaphor here somewhere, but Peter is too distracted to find it.

He gently picks the flower and spins on his heel, taking off once again. The rain makes it harder to run, but it’ll take a lot more than water to stop Peter. By the time Peter gets back to Xavier’s the flower is a little crushed, but it’s still somewhat pristine.

He has the flower, he has the apology, and now all he needs is courage. Thankfully, that courage comes quickly as he instinctively knocks on your bedroom door. He probably should’ve stopped to collect himself, but he was riding a wave of adrenaline that wouldn’t come back.

“Go away, Jean,” You called from inside. You sounded tired, and it made Peter sad.

“It’s-- uh-- it’s not Jean,” Peter can hear your hesitant footsteps approaching the door, and suddenly the courage he managed to build up drained. His hands are shaking by the time you open the door. You look up at him, and Peter looks back at you, and suddenly everything is much harder to do. He looks down at his feet.

“Hi.” Your voice is hoarse, but clear.

“Hi.” Peter’s voice is uneven and quiet. You stand there in silence for a minute before Peter pipes up again.

“So, uh, you’re probably still mad at me and I get that, but I just want you to hear me out. I-If that’s okay,” You nod slowly, and Peter takes a deep breath. He thinks about the written apology that sat in his coat pocket, and he makes the last-minute decision to forget about it. He’ll speak from the heart, or, whatever people in rom-coms do.

“I’m sorry. It was really shitty of me to get angry at you because you were worried about me-- although, I guess shitty is an understatement. Everything that I said about, yknow, not wanting you or Charles or anyone else around anymore wasn’t true. I need you guys, and I love you guys and it was unfair of me to push you away. Solitude really sucks. I guess I’m just not very good at navigating relationships,” He exhales, and his chest shudders. “I understand if you don’t want to be with me anymore, I just thought I should make it clear how I feel.” It’s only then that he remembers about the tiger lily in his hand. “Oh, and this is for you.”

“A tiger lily?” you smiled softly. “These are my favorite-- how did you know?”

“I’m just observant, I guess. You usually draw them when you’re bored, I figured you’d like to see one in person,” You gently took the tiger lily in your hand. The silence that hung in the air was deafening, and Peter realized that was probably a bad sign. His chest drops just a bit, and he takes a small step backwards.

“I guess I should probably leave you alone--” Peter can’t get very far, because you immediately jump forward and wrap your arms around him. Eyes wide and heart pounding, you can feel Peter’s arms lock around your waist.

“Thank you,” You whispered. “Please don’t go.” Peter was smiling so hard his cheeks ached, and a horrible weight had been lifted off his shoulders. The close-contact was refreshing; he didn’t realize how much he missed it until that moment. He was pretty sure he would never, ever let you go. Not again.

To Peter Maximoff, physical affection has always been a touchy subject-- that is, until you came along. You proved to him that he deserved physical affection, that his mutation and his personality and weirdo quirks didn’t make him lesser or unlovable. Peter Maximoff deserved love, and you were the one who never failed to love him.

You sat on a wooden chair in front of the fireplace, reading to the group of children sitting at your feet. The emotional lines of “Snow and Dirty Rain” fell from your lips, and with every turning syllable the small group would listen just a little bit closer. Peter did, too, desperately trying to hear every single word you said. Class was almost over, and once the students were dismissed you’d probably stop reading.

“I made this place for you. A place for you to love me. If this isn't a kingdom then I don't know what is,” Your eyes tore away from the page to look at the kids at your feet. They fell upon Peter, and a smile erupted on your face.

Peter vaguely recalls the twisted idea of love that he held as a teenager. He thought love was a dragon to be defeated, a battle that could be won or lost. It’s clear now that love is the opposite-- it isn’t a fight or a battle or a thing to be conquered. It’s more like a flower; it needs to be cherished and cared for in order to grow. Sometimes the flower wilts and dies, and that’s natural, but sometimes the flower lasts for a lifetime.

Love wasn’t a dragon or a knight, it didn’t have a hero or a villain; it was much more like a tiger lily and a tree stump.

#Evan Peters #peter maximoff #pietro maximoff #pietro maximoff x reader #peter maximoff x reader #wandavision #xmen fanfiction #xmen

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jerakeenc · 3 years

Text

many kidfics i’ve read and loved

look who’s reccing a million year old fics now. kidfics, very many. posted to dw for snowflake, thought I’d copy here as well. will be reading most, if not all. if you don’t hear from me again, this list is the culprit.

101 Ways To Get Lucky (In Love) by lenore

18,200 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

Rodney McKay is rich, gorgeous and at the top of his game—except someone just moved the goalposts! Now Rodney realizes he is sorely lacking the one status symbol that everybody seems to have…the perfect family. Rodney needs help, so he hires a relationship coach. Single-dad John Sheppard may be an expert, but not when it comes to his own relationships! And every day he spends with Rodney makes him wish that he could be the one to fill the vacancy in Rodney's life…

A Beautiful Lifetime Event by astolat

29,000 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

An Earlier Heaven by regann

67,400 words | X-Men, Erik/Charles

In the wake of Cuba, Charles and his students are ready to pick up the pieces and work toward achieving Charles's dream of a safe haven for young mutants. Those plans, however, take a surprising turn thanks to a very unexpected complication. As he slowly builds a future for his students and for his child, Charles struggles with the loss of Erik and the secrets he's willing to keep to protect his family, but those strides are shattered when Erik makes a startling reappearance into his life. [mpreg, kidfic, ensemble]

And everything nice by noelia_g

30,200 words | Social Network, Mark/Eduardo

The one where Mark somehow ends up with a child and of course needs a nanny for the amount of time he spends at the office. Only problem is a string of nannys keep trying to get into his pants for what he assumes is his money. Cue Mark's assistant hiring a male nanny, enter Eduardo.

asking to be born by longtime_lurker

26,500 words | Bandom, Pete/Patrick

"Don't worry, it's probably just his big gay freakout," Andy yells cheerfully and unhelpfully into Patrick's ear as they're hustling Pete over to the nearest private clinic.

Better with You by harriet_vane

38,100 words | 1D, Liam/Louis

Based on this prompt at the kinkmeme:

Single parent and solo artist Liam Payne hires Louis Tomlinson to be a full time nanny to his four year old son Sammy. Although the two men don't quite click from the start it's love at first sight between Sammy and Louis. Eventually Louis and Liam warm up to each other and get on like a house on fire, in fact the two become a little too fond of each other.

I refuse to apologize for how sweet this ended up, okay? It's kidfic, I am forever writing kidfic, and this one is even kid-fic-ier than usual.

Can't Get Enough of You (Baby) by eternalbreath

22,100 words | Inception, Arthur/Eames

Eames vanishes from dreamshare and Arthur goes a little crazy looking for him until he stumbles across him -- with a baby.

Chelsea, Chelsea, I Believe by empathapathique

300,800 words | Hockey, Kane/Toews

Patrick meets a girl his rookie year.

Don't You Shake Alone by dsudis

62,180 words | Generation Kill, Brad/Nate

Nate looked exactly like Brad always pictured him: exhausted in the full life-in-a-combat-zone sense of the word.

Dude, what's a bulwark? by kellifer_fic

12,150 words | Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles

Beacon Hills is the kind of small town where everybody knows everybody, and what everybody knows is that surly diner owner Derek Hale and free spirited single dad Stiles Stilinski have been in love with each other for years. If only they knew it too.

Every Other Beautiful World by rhiannonhero

43,280 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

Some things are unexpected but still inevitable in every beautiful world.

Forever, Now by harriet_vane

227,100 words | Bandom, Frank/Gerard, Jon/Spencer, Brendon/Ryan, Brian/Greta

Brian rescues kid!Gerard and Mikey from life on the streets, and eventually everyone finds a family.

here comes the sun by oflights

56,600 words | Social Network, Mark/Eduardo

This is a story about growing up, sad 70's rock songs, too much hair gel, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", a baby with curly hair, a Geiger counter, a dog that isn't named Max, the Chicken Dance, Cheerios, pepper-spray, drugs, sex, and a stuffed chicken named Cluckerberg, nicknamed Cluck. or: Mark raises Sean's accidental baby, and I write the fluffiest thing ever.

I Got a Love (That Keeps Me Waiting) by svmadelyn

163,700 words | Hockey, Kane/Toews

There's a lot of different ways this summary could go, like:

Patrick Kane gets more than a gold medal in Sochi.

Or, the classic: It's too late to pull out now.

Or: Patrick Kane continues to thrive in high pressure situations.

Or: Patrick Kane gets knocked up, goes to White Castle, and finds love, not necessarily in that order.

But, ultimately, all that really matters is this: Patrick Kane is keeping his baby.

I Would Be by cathalin

20,290 words | American Idol, Kris/Adam

AU. Adam and Kris meet a few years down the road, when down-on-his-luck Kris and his young daughter Katherine show up to rent a room from Adam, who never made it to an Idol audition.

Ice Ice Baby by uraneia

51,340 words | Hockey, Claude/Danny

A gold medal isn't the only souvenir Claude brings home from Prague.

OR: The one where Claude gets drunk, gets pregnant, and gets convinced to move in with Danny, whom he's been secretly in love with for years. What could possibly go wrong?

my heart is bigger than the distance in between us by estrella30

15,000 words | 1D, Nick/Harry

Nick chuckles quietly but grabs the remote and follows Emma, Aimee coming up close behind him. It’s indeed Harry on the telly, singing along to his latest radio hit and smiling slowly into the camera far too seductively for half eight on a Friday morning, if you ask Nick. He presses the volume just in time to catch the crowd’s roaring applause and see the pink flush Harry’s cheeks. Nick watches him duck his head as he gives a small wave to the audience, and it hits Nick that Harry is still the most humble and appreciative billionaire Nick’s ever met.

Good job, popstar, Nick thinks to himself.

or, Nick is a single dad and Harry is his bff and it's a bunch of years into the future and they fall in love

Once Upon a Furry Octopus by skoosiepants

11,270 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

He was an intelligent, intuitive pet, but he wasn’t going to start sniffing out ZPMs or hidden Ancient weaponry or detailed instructions on how to kill a Wraith with a common household item. A pen, for instance.

Reconcilable Differences by astolat

40,000 words | Smallville, Clark/Lex

Luthor Family Values.

Shelter by harriet_vane

63,500 words | Social Network, Jesse/Andrew

From the kinkmeme prompt: Some sort of AU vaguely based on Shelter! For whatever reason, Jesse has to take care of Hallie and give up his dream of being an actor. He ends up working in a dead end job when former, now successful friend (Andrew) returns home. They fall in love, etc, only Jesse can't go away with him because he has a responsibility to his family. CUE ANGST.

Show Me The Way Back Home Baby by stilinskisparkles

15,000 words | Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles

In which Lydia and Jackson produce the world's cutest baby, and the pack goes crazy-- the good kind of crazy. Except for Derek, who is afraid of tiny cute babies and Stiles who plans to be the best Uncle ever. Even if Danny called dibs on Godfather.

Skybird by windsweptfic

33,785 words | Inception/White Collar, Arthur/Eames

Arthur and Eames adopt a kid and raise that kid into Neal Caffrey.

Small Cells and Fibers by sevenfists

7,830 words | Bandom, Frank/Gerard

Tuesdays were finger-painting days. Frank made sure to wear his oldest pair of jeans, because even with his full-length apron and his constant reminders that paint belongs on paper and not on clothing, he always ended up with tiny, multi-colored handprints all over his clothes. There wasn't a thing he could do about it, so he just wore pants from 1995.

Small Primes and Square Roots by liviapenn

12,500 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

"I hope you picked someone really intelligent, otherwise it seems like it would be kind of a waste. Of incubation time, if nothing else."

So Wise We Grow by deastar

81,250 words | Star Trek Reboot, Kirk/Spock

"Commander Spock, we have located your son," the Vulcan lady on the screen says, which would be great, except Jim can tell by the look on Spock's face that he's never heard of this kid before in his life. "If it is expedient, the child will be sent to join you on the Enterprise within the week."

Something Better by lovelypoet

18,350 words | Bandom, Frank/Gerard

"We all have to take jobs we don't like sometimes, you know?"

The Next Time You Say Forever by Thistlerose

27,300 words | Star Trek Reboot, Kirk/McCoy

After his ex-wife's death, McCoy is forced to leave the Enterprise to look after his teenage daughter. Under normal circumstances, this would be the end of…whatever it is he has with Kirk that's more than friendship, but less than what he wants. But the universe has other intentions.

The Reeducation of Misters Kane and Toews by jezziejay

15,900 words | Hockey, Kane/Toews

In which Kaner sort of has a kid, and Mr. Toews doesn't know which of them is the bigger brat.

AU featuring teacher!Jon and hockey-player!Kaner. With bonus 'Hawks characters, love notes, pasta jewelry, Be Better Pizzas, pirouettes, a sprinke of angst and guest appearance by Derek Jeter.

The Road Delivered Us Home by keelywolfe

117,430 words | Hobbit, Thorin/Bilbo

In the years since Bilbo left Erebor, he has lost his respectability, gained a nephew, and gotten on with life at Bag End.

He'd left aside adventure for the comforts and peace of his little Hobbit hole, and for the love of a child who needed him. Though perhaps, adventures can yet find him.

This Story Was Brought to You by Our Sponsors by scaramouche

29,500 words | Supernatural, Dean/Castiel

Dean's post-apocalyptic life is a friggin' soap opera. Romance! Angst! Separations! Reunions! Pizza Dinners! A Child Dean Never Knew He Had! It's all very dramatic.

throw a little sparkle all over it by etben

26,000 words | Bandom, Frank/Gerard

"Hey, Ma," Mikey says. "No, everything's fine—well, I mean, Gerard accidentally adopted a baby—no, he's changing her now, he can't talk."

Tiny Houses by ohmyjetsabel

77,130 words | Teen Wolf, Derek/Stiles

"So this is what Stiles does. He lies in Scott’s bed and waits for Melissa to say she’s found someone to get it out of him, to cure him of the wrongness and the bad, and he dreams.

God, he dreams.

He dreams of fire and swollen bellies and that scene in Alien, of giving birth to jackals through his urethra, the whole horrific nine yards. His head is a terrible place to be, he can’t imagine his stomach is much better, why anyone would want to put a thing inside of it."

Tip, Slide, Tumble by j_s_cavalcante

42,900 words | due South, Fraser/Kowalski

Ray knew when he found the body in the alley it was going to change someone's life. He just didn't expect that life would be his.

Turn by saras_girl

306,000 words | Harry Potter, Harry/Draco

One good turn always deserves another. Apparently.

Unless it's lies or it's love by sprat

25,300 words | American Idol, Kris/Adam

In which Adam (a rock star) meets Kris (a single dad) at an Emergency Room in Arkansas at the end of a particularly shitty night. Also features: San Francisco, fresh starts, baked goods, OCs, cameo appearances by Matt and Megan, pirates, monsters with garbage heads and a recording studio.

What Child Is This by lamardeuse

30,150 words | Merlin, Arthur/Merlin

A modern AU with Merlin, Arthur, mayhem, a baby and a jingly elf hat.

What to Expect by arsenic

29,200 words | Bandom, Bob/Mikey

Mikey has his band, and his little girl, and that's enough. Really, it is.

Winter's Children by neery

66,890 words | Marvel, Bucky/Steve

When their attempts to recreate the super soldier serum failed, Hydra started trying to breed Captain America clones from his genetic samples. Unfortunately, the serum's effects aren't passed down genetically, so instead of an army of tiny Captain Americas, they get a bunch of tow-headed, asthmatic, allergic, immuno-compromised little Steves.

And then the Winter Soldier stumbles across Hydra's failed experiment...

With Six You Get Eggroll by speranza

31,000 words | due South, Fraser/Kowalski

"Kick 'em In The Head: A Guide To Parenting."

ETA: Bonus! Because I apparently lost my bookmark for this one but have the memory of an elephant for kidfic, so it came to me eventually. :D

A Farm in Iowa 'Verse by sheafrotherdon

166,000 words | SGA, McKay/Sheppard

John inherits a farm, Rodney ends up entirely out of his element, and there is much ado about baseball.

#kidfic #recs

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datorchoe · 4 years

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“Quest” Followers Headcanons

(These are my favorite followers if I forgot someone pls tell me <3)(also there are others so look at those before telling me okthanksbyeloveyou)

Eola: (I really don’t have a lot for her)

- She grew up in Daggerfall with her mom who was...not ok to say the least. Her mom was also a cannibal who made her eat flesh. Eola ran away but still kept her urges until she found a Namira’s shrine.

- Eola has about 17 trillion different knives. Each one for a different “meal”. If she doesn’t have the specific knife for it, it just “doesn’t taste the same”

Erandur:

- This BABY I love Erandur so much. Poor thing still has some really bad nightmares from his time with Vaermina. When he gets those nightmares, he’ll read over a book that has Mara’s teachings.

- If your looking for some pure romance, you’ve come to the right man. He is such a “candlelight dinner” type and I’m so here for it :’)

- Erandur is also a bit of a zoologist, knowing a lot about animals. He’ll see a black bear in the wild and he just goes “did you know that black bears will ‘patrol’ the same area over and over?” Sometimes its annoying but other times its pretty cute.

Kharjo

- Kharjo has some SERIOUS smelling abilities. His line about maybe smelling the enemies is absolutely sarcasm.

- He loves it when someone plays with his tail. Normally cats don’t like that but please play with it, he will love you forever.

- Has never sworn. Well, he did once on accident and he shoved soap in his own mouth.

- Kharjo still has gambling debts but your welcome to kill these debt collectors.

Mjoll the Lioness

- I think Mjoll is a pansexual. I have no reasoning, I just get that vibe from her.

- Mjoll loves dogs a lot. She grew up with her fathers hunting hounds and they were always the best companions. Aerin wanted to get her a puppy for her birthday but he’d rather not have that in the house.

- She also loves the snow and cold. She can jump into the snow ass-naked and barely even flinch. But the moment it gets too hot, she’ll pass out.

Serana

- Serana has some minor ADHD. She fidgets with her hands pretty much all day everyday.

- She loves the Dragonborn adopted children and they love her. If you marry her (I know that's not possible but everyone loves her), the children are already calling her mom. She’s super good with kids.

- Serana is a READER. She has read more books than anyone will ever read in their life. She also has an interesting point of view on the world because of her age. She talks a lot about the past world.

Talvas Fathryon

- Talvas was actually an Apothecary before joining up with Neloth. Now, he creates potions in an attempt to help his conjuration spells.

- Talvas names all of his conjuration creatures. His familiar is a wolf named Fluffy.

- Poor Talvas has so many scars from tests that Neloth did on him its not even funny. Furthermore Neloth does it sometimes in his sleep and he wakes up with new scars.

Ghorbash the Iron Hand

- Ghorbash is such a DAD. He absolutely loves children and wants his own.

- Ghor has some pretty bad PTSD from his Legion days, but he is proud of his service.

- He has pretty good eyesight. He has a high archery skill, being able to see pretty far away.

- He also has absolutely no sense of fashion. He sees purple and puke green together and goes “yeah thats good.” Its probably because purple is his favorite color.

Erik the Slayer

- Erik loves butterflies. Ask him anything about them and he will tell you anything correctly.

- Erik writes letters to his father often. He loves him dearly but he prefers to love him from a distance.

- Erik is actually a really good chef. After being a farmer for so long he’s picked up tricks to making good food.

Benor

- Benor has an absolute fascination with birds. He doesn’t know much about them but he thinks they are dope. He wants to fly.

- Benor has never once had a job. He mainly just walks around in Nord tombs and steals the Septims from them.

- He’s also not once been sick. He grew up in Morthal and was once burried in the snow but he didn’t even flinch.

Uthgerd the Unbroken

- Uthgerd is terrified shitless of spiders. When she was younger she got bit by a spider and nearly died from being poisoned.

- She has a lot of fantasies. No no not the sexual kind. Like the future kind. She imagines her future a lot and has basically planned out everything.

- She also makes her own armor. She was a blacksmith at one point but decided she needed more adventure.

#The Elder Scrolls #the elder scrolls v: skyrim #Skyrim #elder scrolls #tes #tes headcanon #eola #erandur #kharjo #mjoll the lioness #serana #talvas fathryon #ghorbash the iron hand #erik the slayer #dorc writes

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fanfoolishness · 3 years

Text

Interview with a Fic Writer

Tagged by @novantinuum, thank you!

How many works do you have on AO3?

242 works. The actual fuck??? Wow, me. Of course, this does span about 9 years, so I guess that's not that insane?

What’s your total word count on AO3

549,737! But that averages out to only 2271 words per story, haha. You got me! I think I have less than 10 fics that have more than 1 chapter. I love one-shots, what can I say?

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Oh, you want to get into this? All right. We'll get into this:

The X-Files, proto-fandom, ur-fandom, first OTP ever... yeah, 15-year-old me went. WILD. Many horrible Mulder/Scully stories, and some Doggett/Scully and character study stories as well. Mostly not very good, but with occasional flashes of decent writing. Really had a difficult time writing romantic feelings between 30+ year-olds given a) I did not date in high school and b) was 17 and not an emotionally stunted FBI agent.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - not a huge volume of stories, but definitely some very angsty Spuffy and Spike tales.

Harry Potter - just one published fic (Lupin grieving Sirius), and one with Snape and Harry having a heart to heart I could never quite get right.

Then came the dark times (vet school) where I was exhausted and hard at work for a few years and I thought, horribly, I might have outgrown fandom. Thank god for...

X-Men First Class and the undying love of Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr! I'd never fallen for a slash ship before but my god I fell hard for this one and wrote my first fandom smut and my first real AU (mutants with zombies) that I never finished.

Then.... let's see...

Quantum Leap drabbles!

Two Avatar the Last Airbender fics!

Agents of SHIELD fics, mostly focused on Coulson and FitzSimmons, and super angsty.

Bioshock Infinite sads (god I love writing the sad bad dad)!

And then the juggernauts of Mass Effect (my longest fic to date with 30 chapters!) and Dragon Age, which were endlessly productive and are still productive given the variety of different protagonists you can create, different choices, and different relationships to canon characters. I'm still working on a Hawke/Varric fic in the back of my mind here.

There's one random Gravity Falls fic (wish I could have got a little more obsessed with it, or gotten into it while it aired) of Stan sads, and one tiny Avengers ficlet of a sad Tony and Peter.

There's one Wheel of Time fic! Dammit I wanted Rand and Tam to reunite so much sooner than they did.

40-odd Steven Universe fics! So many SU fics!

One random Schitt's Creek fic of David and Patrick!

And finally, The Mandalorian, with 47 fics. Phew!!!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. The Invitation, The Mandalorian. Din Djarin finds himself in dreams that seem realer than real, reminding him of his loss, but he begins to find a sense of hope again. A promise is kept.

2. The Outstretched Hand, The Mandalorian. Din Djarin is a man of action, but sometimes, the quiet finds its way in. Din reckons with the aftermath of the events of Chapter 14, the Tragedy. (My very first Mando fic!)

3. Not the Sentimental Type, Steven Universe. Priyanka Maheswaran has long prided herself on keeping her emotions in check. But a mother's love can only grow, and sometimes it expands to people she never anticipated. Like the Universe boy.

4. Translation, The Mandalorian. Din Djarin was a man of few words, but many languages. Some might have thought the Child had no language at all. Din Djarin and the Child grow to understand each other.

5. Full Disclosure, Steven Universe. Just as the world begins to recover from Spinel's attack, Steven starts having nightmares. The more he ignores his fears, the worse they become, until he's left with no other choice but to ask for help. (My thoughts on what would drive Steven Universe Future, and I wasn't far off.)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I really try to! Even sometimes years later if I realize I've missed some. I appreciate each and every one, and have definitely made friendships through comments <3

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Oh, hell... I'm too lazy to link these but if anyone wants to read them let me know or find them on my AO3!

A Stopped Clock from Bioshock Infinite has Booker DeWitt ravaged by Korsakoff's amnesia from his long-standing alcoholism. Is Columbia real or imagined? Hard to say.

The Viscount's Way shows Varric Tethras having become his parent, and a cruel, hard viscount of Kirkwall.

Songs in the Key of Red shows how Cullen fared under the dark future in Redcliffe in DAI, and they write happy endings, don't they? shows what happened to Varric. Both horribly depressing in different ways!

Two by Two, Hands of Blue shows a not unexpected end to lyrium addiction :( Poor Cullen, he got a lot of angsty developments, didn't he?

Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever written?

Never really got into crossovers or AUs. Just... meh for me!

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, I don't think so.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Charles/Erik, Shepard/Garrus, Shepard/Liara, Shepard/Tali, a mess of different f/f femShep drabbles, and most of my Dragon Age pairings have gotten sexytimes. On the other hand I helped start the NoRomo Mando tag for the Mandalorian to help find non-pairing Mandalorian content. Depends on the pairing and the fandom, for sure.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope, thank goodness!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I think so! There used to be a Spanish-language wiki linking to some of my old X-Files stories XD

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but friends and I definitely will beta each others' things to help with sticky points.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

ALL-TIME? Just, why? So many ships I loved in years past turned out to have pretty damn problematic elements I didn't see at the time, so it's hard to say... Mulder/Scully actually has a ton of issues, Buffy/Spike obviously has issues... so maybe Hawke/Varric (except not canon!) or Garrus/Shepard or Brosca/Alistair.

What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Still need to finish my Hawke/Varric fic for after Adamant! I have 3 chapters written that I haven't posted. Maybe posting them will help inspire me....

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and POV writing from different characters; I feel fantastic writing Steven and Greg, though totally at sea trying to write from Connie's POV, randomly. But I think my dialogue and emotional beats are what people tend to tune in for. When I do write romance, it's usually very sweet and silly and pulled from life. I also love writing nature scenes and settings to help establish mood. Mood and emotion and catharsis are my bread and butter, and I like my poetic prose.

What are your writing weaknesses?

What the hell is a long, well-thought-out plot? Like what even is that???? My longest fic with 30 chapters is basically "Shepard has PTSD and hangs out with her crew. They have some funerals." THAT'S IT. How the heck people actually come up with plot that ties into the lore of a fandom I genuinely have no idea and it's the biggest thing that's held me back from finishing original work. I can come up with a setting and characters and then trying to make them do stuff that's more than just talking to other characters and deepening their relationships with them... how the fuck???

I also definitely have 10-20 words that I am in constant danger of reusing like every other paragraph, LOL!

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I don't speak any other languages so I always avoid it as much as possible. I've seen people describe sign differently in fics and picked one way to depict it that made sense to me for Grogu, but that's about it.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

The X-Files, of course!

What’s your favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Towards Another Day, the tale of how Cullen went from being a templar in Kirkwall to commander of the Inquisition, is definitely up there.

Reverberations is one of my rare multi-chaptered fics and one of my favorite for the catharsis at the end. It makes me tear up every time. 5 times Din and Grogu encounter the Dark Side, and one time they find the Light.

Either a world for the birds (Steven develops a closer relationship with his Uncle Andy, learning birdwatching along the way) or on the subject of rocks (Steven and Jasper finally reach a peace) might take the prize for favorite SU fic.

Tagging (if you’re super bored and would like a fun thing to do) fellow writers:

@lastwordbeforetheend, @runrundoyourstuff, @honestlyhufflepuff, @art3mys, and @fake-starwars-fan if you would like to play!

#fandom #writing #on writing #fanfiction #damn look at me go #memes

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letterboxd · 3 years

Photo

Noir Zealand Road Trip.

Breakout noir filmmaker James Ashcroft speaks to Letterboxd’s Indigenous editor Leo Koziol about his chilling new movie Coming Home in the Dark—and reveals how Blue Velvet, Straw Dogs and a bunch of cult New Zealand thrillers are all a part of his Life in Film.

“Many different types of feet walk across those lands, and the land in that sense is quite indifferent to who is on it. I like that duality. I like that sense of we’re never as safe as we would like to think.” —James Ashcroft

In his 1995 contribution to the British Film Institute’s Century of Cinema documentary series, Sam Neill described the unique sense of doom and darkness presented in films from Aotearoa New Zealand as the “Cinema of Unease”.

There couldn’t be a more appropriate addition to this canon than Māori filmmaker James Ashcroft’s startling debut Coming Home in the Dark, a brutal, atmospheric thriller about a family outing disrupted by an enigmatic madman who calls himself Mandrake, played in a revelatory performance by Canadian Kiwi actor Daniel Gillies (previously best known for CW vampire show The Originals, and as John Jameson in Spider-Man 2). Award-winning Māori actress Miriama McDowell is also in the small cast—her performance was explicitly singled out by Letterboxd in our Fantasia coverage.

Based on a short story by acclaimed New Zealand writer Owen Marshall, Ashcroft wrote the screenplay alongside longtime collaborator Eli Kent. It was a lean shoot, filmed over twenty days on a budget of just under US $1 million. The film is now in theaters, following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it made something of an impact.

Erik Thomson, Matthias Luafutu, Daniel Gillies and Miriama McDowell in a scene from ‘Coming Home in the Dark’.

Creasy007 described the film as “an exciting New Zealand thriller that grabs you tight and doesn’t let you go until the credits are rolling.” Jacob wrote: “One of the most punishingly brutal—both viscerally and emotionally—first viewings I’ve enjoyed in quite a while. Will probably follow James Ashcroft’s career to the gates of Hell after this one.”

Filmgoers weren’t the only ones impressed: Legendary Entertainment—the gargantuan production outfit behind the Dark Knight trilogy and Godzilla vs. Kong—promptly snapped up Ashcroft to direct their adaptation of Devolution, a high-concept novel by World War Z author Max Brooks about a small town facing a sasquatch invasion after a volcanic eruption. (“I find myself deep in Sasquatch mythology and learning a lot about volcanoes at the moment,” says the director, who is also writing the adaptation with Kent.)

Although Coming Home in the Dark marks his feature debut, Ashcroft has been working in the creative arts for many years as an actor and theater director, having previously run the Māori theater company Taki Rua. As he explains below, his film taps into notions of indigeneity in subtle, non-didactic ways. (Words in the Māori language are explained throughout the interview.)

Kia ora [hello] James. How did you come to be a filmmaker? James Ashcroft: I’ve always loved film. I worked in video stores from the age thirteen to 21. That’s the only other ‘real job’ I’ve ever had. I trained as an actor, and worked as an actor for a long time. So I had always been playing around with film. My first student allowance that I was given when I went to university, I bought a camera, I didn’t pay for my rent. I bought a little handheld Sony camera. We used to make short films with my flatmates and friends, so I’ve always been dabbling and wanting to move into that.

After being predominantly involved with theater, I sort of reached my ceiling of what I wanted to do there. It was time to make a commitment and move over into pursuing and creating a slate of scripts, and making that first feature step into the industry. My main creative collaborator is Eli Kent, who I’ve been working with for seven years now. We’re on our ninth script, I think.

But Coming Home in the Dark, that was our first feature. It was the fifth script we had written, and that was very much about [it] being the first cab off the rank; about being able to find a work that would fit into the budget level that we could reasonably expect from the New Zealand Film Commission. I also wanted to make sure that piece was showing off my strengths and interests—being a character-focused, actor-focused piece—and something that we could execute within those constraints and still deliver truthfully and authentically to the story that we wanted to tell and showcase the areas of interest that I have as a filmmaker, which have always been genre.

Do you see the film more as a horror or a thriller? We’ve never purported to be a horror. We think that the scenario is horrific, some of the events that happen are horrific, but this has always been a thriller for me and everyone involved. I think, sometimes, because of the premiere and the space that it was programmed in at Sundance, being in the Midnight section, there’s a sort of an association with horror or zany comedy. For us it’s more about, if anything, the psychological horror aspect of the story.

It’s violent in places, obviously, but there’s very little violence actually committed on screen. It’s the suggestion. The more terrifying thing is what exists in the viewer’s mind [rather] than necessarily what you can show on screen. My job as a storyteller is to provoke something that you can then flesh out and embellish more in your own psyche and emotions. It’s a great space, the psychological thriller, because it can deal with the dramatic as well as some of those more heightened, visceral moments that horror also can touch on.

Director James Ashcroft. / Photo by Stan Alley

There’s a strong Māori cast in your film. Do you see yourself as a Māori filmmaker, or a filmmaker who is Maori? Well, I’m a Māori everything. I’m a father, I’m a husband, I’m a friend. Everything that I do goes back to my DNA and my whakapapa [lineage]. So that’s just how I view my identity and my world. In terms of categorizing it, I don’t put anything in front of who I am as a storyteller. I’m an actor, I’m a director. I follow the stories that sort of haunt me more than anything. They all have something to do with my experience and how I see the world through my identity and my life—past, present and hopefully future.

In terms of the cast, Matthias Luafutu [who plays Mandrake’s sidekick Tubs], he’s Samoan. Miriama McDowell [who plays Jill, the mother of the family] is Māori. I knew that this story, in the way that I wanted to tell it, was always going to feature Māori in some respect. Both the ‘couples’, I suppose you could say—Hoaggie [Erik Thomson] and Jill on one side and Tubs and Mandrake on the other—I knew one of each would be of a [different] culture. So I knew I wanted to mirror that.

Probably more than anything, I knew if I had to choose one role that was going to be played by a Māori actor, it was definitely going to be Jill, because for me, Jill’s the character that really is the emotional core and our conduit to the story. Her relationship with the audience, we have to be with her—a strong middle-class working mother who has a sort of a joy-ness at the beginning of the film and then goes through quite a number of different emotions and realizations as it goes along.

Those are sometimes the roles that Māori actors, I often feel, don’t get a look at usually. That’s normally a different kind of actor that gets those kinds of roles. And then obviously when Miriama McDowell auditions for you it’s just a no-brainer, because she can play absolutely anything and everything. I have a strong relationship with Miriama from drama-school days, so I knew how to work with her on that.

Once you put a stake in the ground with her, then we go, right, so this is a biracial family, and her sons are going to be Māori and that’s where the Paratene brothers, who are brothers in real life, came into the room, and we were really taken with them immediately. We threw out a lot of their scripted dialogue in the end because what we are casting is that fundamental essence and energy that exists between two real brothers that just speaks volumes more than any dialogue that Eli and I could write.

Matthias Luafutu as Tubs in ‘Coming Home in the Dark’.

What was your approach to the locations? [The area we shot in] is very barren and quite harsh. I spent a lot of time there in my youth, and I find them quite beautiful places. They are very different kinds of landscapes than you normally see in films from our country. We didn’t want to go down The Lord of the Rings route of images from the whenua [land] that are lush mountains and greens and blues, even though that’s what Owen Marshall had written.

I was very keen, along with Matt Henley, our cinematographer, to find that duality in the landscape as well, because the whole story is about that duality in terms of people, in terms of this world, and that grey space. So that’s why we chose to film in those areas.

Regarding the scene where Tubs sprinkles himself with water: including this Māori spiritual element in the film created quite a contrast. That character had partaken in something quite evil, yet still follows a mundane cultural tradition around death. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. I’m not really interested in black-and-white characters of any kind. I want to find that grey space that allows them to live within more layers in the audience’s mind. So for me—and having family who have spent time in jail, or knowing people who have gone through systems like state-care institutions as well as moving on to prison—just because you have committed a crime or done something in one aspect of your life, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t room and there aren’t other aspects that inform your identity that you also carry.

It’s something that he’s adopted for whatever reasons to ground him in who he is. And they can sit side by side with being involved in some very horrendous actions, but also from Tubs’ perspective, these are actions which are committed in the name of survival. You start to get a sense Mandrake enjoys what he does rather than doing it for just a means to the end. So any moment that you can start to create a greater sense of duality in a person, I think that means that there’s an inner life to a world, to a character, that’s starting to be revealed. That’s an invitation for an audience to lean into that character.

Erik Thomson and Daniel Gillies in ‘Coming Home in the Dark’.

What is the film that made you want to get into filmmaking? The biggest influence on me is probably David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. I saw that when I was ten years old. A babysitter, my cousin, rented it. It’s not a film that a ten-year-old should see, by the way. I was in Lower Hutt, there in my aunty’s house, and it was very cold, and there’s a roaring fire going. My cousin and her boyfriend were sitting on a couch behind me, and they started making out. I sort of knew something was going on behind me and not to look. So I was stuck between that and Dennis Hopper huffing nitrous, and this very strange, strange world opening up before me on the television.

I’ve had a few moments like that in my life [where a] film, as well as the circumstance, sort of changed how I view the world. I think something died that day, but obviously something was born. You can see what Lynch did in those early works, especially Blue Velvet. You don’t have to go too far beneath the surface of suburbia or what looks normal and nice and welcoming to find that there’s a complete flip-side. There’s that duality to our world, which we like to think might be far away, but it’s actually closer than you think.

That speaks to Coming Home in the Dark and why that short story resonated with me the first time I read it. Even in the most beautiful, scenically attractive places in our land, many different types of feet walk across those lands, and the land in that sense is quite indifferent to who is on it. I like that duality. I like that sense of we’re never as safe as we would like to think. Blue Velvet holds a special place in my heart.

What other films did you have in mind when forming your approach to Coming Home in the Dark? Straw Dogs, the Peckinpah film. The original. Just because it plays in that grey space. Obviously times have changed, and you read the film in different ways now as you might have when it first came out. But that was a big influence because there was a moral ambiguity to that film; those lines of good and bad or black and white, they don’t apply anymore. It just becomes about what happens when people are put under extreme pressure and duress, and they abandon all sense of morals. The Offence by Sidney Lumet would be another one, very much drawn to that ’70s ilk of American and English filmmaking.

‘Coming Home in the Dark’ was filmed on location around the wider Wellington region of New Zealand.

Is there a New Zealand film that’s influenced you significantly? There’s a few. I remember watching The Lost Tribe when it was on TV. That really scared me. I just remember the sounds of it. Mr. Wrong was a great ghost story. That stuck with me for a long time. The Scarecrow. Once I discovered Patu! [Merata Mita’s landmark documentary about the protests against the apartheid-era South African rugby tour of New Zealand in 1981], that sort of blew everything out of the water, because that was actually my first induction and education that this was something that even occurred. I think I saw that when I was about eighteen. That this was something that occurred in our history and had ramifications that were other than just a rugby game.

And Utu, every time I watch that, it doesn’t lose its resonance. I get something new from it every time. It’s a great amalgamation of identity, culture, of genre, and again, plays in that grey space of accountability. Utu still has that power for me. It’s one of those films, when it’s playing, I’ll end up sitting down and just being glued to the screen.

It’s a timeless classic. I will admit that when I watched your film, The Scarecrow did immediately come to mind, as did Garth Maxwell’s Jack Be Nimble. Yeah. [Jack Be Nimble] was really frightening. Again, it was that clash of many different aspects. There was a psychosexual drama there. You’ve got this telekinetic mind control and that abuse and that hunkering down of an isolated family. There are plenty of New Zealand films that have explored a sort of similar territory. They’re all coming to me now.

Bad Blood has a great sense of atmosphere and photography and the use of soundscape to create that shocking sense of isolation and terror in these quick, fast, brutal moments, which then just sort of are left to ring in the air. But I love so much of New Zealand cinema, especially the stuff from the ’80s.

Kia ora [good luck], James. Kia ora.

Related content

Leo’s Letterboxd list of Aotearoa New Zealand Scary-As Movies Adapted from Literature

Dave’s Cinema of Unease list

A Brutal Stillness: Gregory’s list of patient, meditative genre films

Sailordanae’s list of Indigenous directors of the Americas

Follow Leo on Letterboxd

‘Coming Home in the Dark’ is available now in select US theaters and on VOD in the US and New Zealand. All photographs by Stan Alley / GoldFish Creative. Comments have been edited for length and clarity.

#coming home in the dark #letterboxd #daniel gillies #james ashcroft #maori culture #maori movie #maori director #native director #indigenous film #miriama mcdowell #noir #new zealand noir #leo koziol #imagiNATIVE

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sareyen · 4 years

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Das Haus am See: The Lake House Cherik AU (Part 3/3)

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A Lake House Cherik AU: Charles and Erik both lived in the lake house, Charles in 2017, and Erik in 2019. By magic or fate, the two find out that the house’s letter box is able to send letters through time - and, in doing so, the two fall in love despite living in two different years. They vow to meet in the future, but fate is fickle, and time waits for no one.

Chapter 3

Charles stared at the screen of his computer, page blank. There was a half-drained bottle of scotch resting beside him, and pages of crumpled and torn note paper was strewn across his desk and oak floors – papers covered with desperate apologies that Charles had only just stopped sending to Erik through the letter box.

A week had passed, and the letter box was full to bursting with the numerous letters Charles left there, hoping that Erik would read them – any of them. Each day, Charles wrote handfuls of apologies, pleas and wishes, praying that he could hear the familiar phantom scrape of the letter box’s red flag and see the letters disappear two years into the future.

But Erik had been true to his word – he hadn’t come back to the lake house again.

When Charles saw the pile of forgotten letters through the haze of his hopeless gaze, he felt his blue eyes grow wet again, slamming down the screen of his computer before dropping his face into his hands. He pressed hard against his eyes with the palms of his hands, trying to will the tears to stop, as if he were applying pressure over a stab wound.

Erik’s final letter had felt like a stab wound, in the end, and had left Charles bleeding.

Charles had spent the majority of the week drinking his sorrows away and berating a version of himself that didn’t even exist yet. Charles had laughed bitterly, never hating himself more than he had in that moment. Charles hated the him living two years in the future, a version of himself that was as much a stranger to him as the nameless people he passed on the street.

Hours passed until Charles opened his laptop again, steeling himself as he tried to write – to finish Max and Wesley’s story.

Charles Wesley clung to the letters from Erik Max like they were his tether to everything that was real – because, to Wesley, there was nothing more real to him than Max. Max’s mind was a beacon, a light house saving Wesley from crashing onto the rocks. Before Max, Wesley had been floating aimlessly, adrift and lost.

It was when Wesley met the man beyond time that everything seemed to make sense, that Wesley began to find his purpose. With Max, Wesley finally felt like he wasn’t alone.

But, Max was not a man who believed in love so easily. Unlike Wesley, who was optimistic and filled to the brim with unadulterated hope, Max was a pragmatist, a realist and cynical in nature. Max was not one to easily believe that Wesley’s affections were strong enough to stand against time, even if Wesley himself knew the true magnitude of his longing, his pining – of his love.

Wesley did not know how to make Max hear his voice. With the seemingly insurmountable wall of two years between them, Wesley could scream and scream, but Max could not hear him, his head and his heart blocked by barriers of impenetrable steel.

How could Charles get Erik to hear him?

Charles looked at the clock on his desk, and it was well past midnight now. The lake outside was still and quiet, so silent it was almost eerie. The sound of cicadas punctuated the silence outside, alongside the occasional creak of the rafters as wind tugged at the walls of the lake house.

Getting up from his desk, his laptop left open to his novel without an ending, Charles walked outside with the bottle of scotch and planted himself by the edge of the lake. The night was crisp, but Charles warmed himself up with the burning slide of liquid amber down his throat.

Charles wondered if Erik ever sat by the lakeside like this, looking out over the expanse of water from the same vantage point as Charles did now. Have they ever appreciated the same view? If they have, Charles could begin to pretend that Erik was sitting beside him, looking in the same direction.

“Why did I abandon you?” Charles whispered to no one, his question responded to by cicadas and the wind. “I don’t understand… I would never abandon you, Erik.”

Charles drained the rest of the scotch, feeling light headed and heavy at the same time, and let himself fall back onto the plush grass. As Charles stared up at the stars, they stared right back at him, judging and questioning.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Charles grumbled at Cassiopeia, the constellation seeming to roll her eyes back at him. “I’m not lying. I’d never leave Erik like that. Never.”

Soon, Charles’s vision began to swim, the alcohol and his fatigue overtaking him.

‘Yes, I’d never leave you like that, Erik.’

‘I’ll find you.’

***

“You don’t look too good, Sugar.”

Erik didn’t even bother to lift his head from where he was staring into his now-cold coffee in the break room, sensing Emma slide into her usual seat across the table from him, white tailored suit filling Erik’s periphery.

“Not in the mood, Emma,” Erik grunted, finally taking a sip of his coffee.

“No, you’re definitely not. Your mood is terrible, it’s making all the new interns consider dropping out because you terrifying them,” Emma said, Erik looking up at her with weary eyes rimmed with dark circles. Emma just raised a brow as her cool eyes flicked up and down her co-worker, before letting out an irritating, all-knowing hum as if she could read Erik like a book.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Erik said, Emma smiling.

“Of course you don’t. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Come on, Erik. Sometimes it helps to get things off your chest, instead of bottling in all of those feelings you so abhor,” Emma pushed, Erik glaring at her. Emma was undeterred, leaning forwards a little in her seat. “Erik, we’re friends – at least, I consider us friends. Talk to me, I’m worried. Frankly, you haven’t been like this since… you know.”

Emma waved her hands around vaguely, but her insinuations were more than vague, the unspoken word divorce lingering in the air.

“I really don’t want to talk about him, Emma,” Erik said, Emma snapping her finger.

“Ah, so it’s about a him? I see.”

“Emma.”

“Erik,” Emma countered, rolling her eyes and tugging up her white sleeves. “I’ve seen you. You were always a workaholic, and I’m going to be blunt, but that’s part of what made things fall apart with Magda. Of course, there were other things, but let’s not pretend that your work wasn’t a part of it. But lately, over the past month, you’ve always been leaving the office on time on Fridays, and that Wednesday the other week. You never leave work early, and especially not when Shaw has given you so much to do. It’s obvious that you met someone, and I was honestly glad for you. You’ve seemed… happier, as of late, Sugar. And we both know you haven’t been happy in a long time.”

Erik stared at his co-worker – his friend – who was just giving him a look which told Erik that it was pointless to argue. Emma, as always, was right – and far too observant for Erik’s liking.

“If you know so much already, Emma, then you know better than to ask me anything else,” Erik responded with a grimace, sinking into his chair. Emma just sighed, rolling her eyes.

“I wouldn’t ask anything else if you didn’t look so depressed, Erik. Ever since last weekend, you’ve looked like a kicked puppy. Did things fall through with your new guy?”

What could fall through, when nothing ever started?

“There was nothing there to begin with,” Erik grumbled, shrugging. “We… We had only met once.” And I didn’t even remember it.

Emma blinked.

“Sugar, you met this guy once and he’s got you moping around like this? Damn, I want to meet this guy who managed to do this to the great Erik Lehnsherr.”

“It’s… complicated,” Erik said, biting his lip. “We… we talked. Through letters. We wrote letters to each other, and met once – a coincidence, really. At least, I think it was, on my part at least.”

“When did you meet him? Is that why you look like a kicked puppy now? The real thing didn’t match up to the person in the letters? And… letters? Really, Erik? How antiquated.”

“The letters were… I’m not even going to bother explaining it to you. And no, he-” didn’t show up. He abandoned me. “No, we met two years ago, right before Magda and I… I didn’t really remember, but we started talking through letters about a month ago and… Ugh. Anyway, it’s complicated, and long story short, we made plans and he didn’t show up. So that’s that,” Erik said, Emma sighing.

“Ah, so you got stood up. That must hurt, Sugar,” Emma said, before pausing. “But wait, so you met two years ago, but only now started talking again? You said you forgot him – he must have remembered you, though? To start talking to you again?”

Erik snorted at that – of course Charles remembered, he had just lived it, while it was two years in the past for the lawyer. Charles was still in 2017, and as much as he promised Erik he would weather time for him, he hadn’t.

“It’s too complicated to explain, but it’s over now. I ended it, and… and it’s for the better. He has his life, I have mine,” Erik said, Emma tilting her head to the side, scrutinising him before getting up from her chair to pat Erik’s shoulder once. The action reminded Erik of the balcony and Charles, how the once-stranger had comforted Erik in a similar manner.

Erik’s heart ached.

“Love is complicated, Sugar,” Emma said, giving Erik a small smile. “But, does this letter-writing ex-man of yours have a name?”

“Why do you want to know?” Erik asked, eyes narrowed. Emma just smiled, laughing a little.

“I did say that we were friends, did I not? I’d like to know the name of the person who stood you up in case I ever run into him. With my car,” Emma said, Erik letting out a snort at her ridiculous notion, but giving her a grateful look for her (potentially ill-directed) support.

“I don’t want him to be hurt, Emma. He… Charles had his reasons,” Erik said, Emma humming.

“Charles. Sounds like a pretentious prick,” Emma said, Erik barking out a laugh at that.

“I thought so too, at first. I mean, ‘Charles Xavier’ – I really shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that he has a posh English accent,” Erik said, Emma freezing.

“What did you say, Erik?” Emma asked, voice still.

“What?”

“Xavier? You said his name is Charles Xavier?”

“Yeah?” Erik said, frowning now, confused by Emma’s odd reaction. The woman rarely looked thrown, but right now she was gazing at Erik with a foreign look. “What is it, Emma?”

“No, it’s probably just a very scary coincidence. I mean, Charles is a common enough name, and I could have heard wrong, and it wouldn’t be surprising if there was more than one Charles Xavier in New York…” Emma said, tapping her chin thoughtfully.

“Emma, I don’t get what you’re trying to say,” Erik said, standing from his seat now to level himself with Emma.

“No, it’s just that, you know the case Shaw is working right now?”

“The Francis Graymalkin one, of course I know. Shaw hasn’t shut up about it for the past few weeks,” Erik responded, Emma nodding.

“Yes, well Francis Graymalkin was just the man’s pen name, a pseudonym,” Emma said, and Erik let out a grunt of knowing.

“I know. The man’s sister is the one who hired Shaw, right? Because their step-father and brother are trying to weasel their way into Francis Graymalkin’s inheritance. Her name was something Darkholme, so I figured Francis Graymalkin was a pseudonym – he’s probably called Francis Darkholme, or something of the like,” Erik said, Emma shaking her head.

“See, that’s the thing. Erik, Francis Graymalkin’s real name is Charles Xavier.”

***

Charles woke up the day after with a headache and a chill in his bones – falling asleep on the grass outside had made Charles awaken with a scratch in his throat and lungs that felt two sizes too big for his chest.

Still, Charles remembered the dream he had that night – of driving to NYC, of banging on Erik’s door, his pregnant wife be damned. In his dream, Charles had been selfish, pulling Erik into a molten kiss that sent his heart into spasms, his toes curling in his shoes. In his dreams, Erik hadn’t tasted of cigarettes but of scotch, heady and warm.

The Erik in his dreams had murmured a sigh against Charles’s lips, saying “Gott, Charles. What took you so long?” before tilting his head to slot his lips closer to Charles, devouring him in body and spirit.

People were always bolder in dreams; maybe it was a subconscious understanding that dreams couldn’t hurt you, and that they weren’t real. Dreams weren’t real, but they reflected Charles’s innermost desires. He wanted Erik, and he knew he wanted him, more than he has wanted anything before in his life.

Erik had said in his final letter that, since Charles hadn’t shown up to any of their planned meetings, that he clearly didn’t want Erik. That Charles couldn’t wait two years. Charles hadn’t believed him, but Erik knew the future better than Charles.

So, if it was true, and for some reason Charles couldn’t wait, why did he have to?

Erik said that he had to live his life, and maybe Charles should do the same. He should find Erik, talk to him like he did at the wedding. Yes, Erik had a wife that was with child, but Charles knew how that would turn out. Charles abhorred his own selfish and distasteful thoughts, but he couldn’t help them – Charles never wished such tragedy and misfortune upon any one, least of all Erik, but he couldn’t help but want a man who was taken.

At least, in 2017.

But oh, Erik. Erik. Charles couldn’t give up on Erik like that. Not Erik, who inspired Charles, who made him feel and live and want to live.

Charles rallied his determination, and peeled himself off the grass. Charles showered and shaved, and tamed his slightly over-grown mop of chestnut hair as much as he could. He brushed his teeth and ironed his clothes, pulling on his most comforting cardigan that he wore like armour.

Then, Charles picked up the keys to his rust-bucket car and gingerly tucked Erik’s The Once and Future King under his arm, thumb rubbing against the worn paperback.

As he walked to his car, Charles checked the letter box like he did every day, and found that it was still empty.

‘I’ll find you, Erik. Here and now,’ Charles vowed silently, getting into his car with Erik’s book in the passenger seat.

‘I’ll return your book to you, in person. I vow to you that I won’t break this promise, unlike the me of the future, which broke them all.’

***

‘Francis Graymalkin’s real name is Charles Xavier.’

The words echoed around the empty darkness in Erik’s head.

Coincidence?

Fate?

“But, since the man has been dead for two years, it’s obviously just a scary coincidence that he shares the same name as your pen pal,” Emma said, Erik barely registering her words over the repeated chant in his head of ‘Francis Graymalkin’s real name is Charles Xavier’.

Logically, it had to be a coincidence. But, there was nothing logical about any of this – about Charles, about the letter box, about everything.

Erik didn’t say a word as he pushed past Emma and out of the break room, his numb legs taking him straight to Shaw’s office. Bursting in, Erik was glad to see that the man was not there.

Erik wasted no time, not hesitating for a moment, striding over to the files splayed out on Shaw’s desk. Francis Graymalkin’s – Charles Xavier’s – poorly-written will was on top. Legal documents from some people surnamed Marko, notes regarding Charles Xavier’s properties and financials were scattered across the mahogany tabletop.

Properties.

Erik sifted through the papers, seeing some documents of ownership for a house in England, a holiday home in Cuba and a sprawling estate just outside of New York. Among them was a document of ownership for an idyllic lake house made of red-brick and a roof topped with blue tiles.

Erik felt like his heart was in his throat as he picked up the document, eyes flitting down towards the signature at the bottom – an elegant scribble with wide, confident loops sat under a printed name, in hand-writing that Erik had seen time and time before.

Charles Xavier.

The name had the same swooping ‘C’, the same looped ‘l’, and the same curled ‘r’. Charles Xavier was written in the exact same way that Erik’s Charles signed his letters, letters that Erik had unwittingly engraved in his memory and heart. Erik would never mistake that handwriting.

Erik’s Charles was Charles Xavier, and Charles Xavier was Francis Graymalkin.

And Francis Graymalkin was dead.

Erik felt bile begin to rise up his throat.

Francis Graymalkin died two years ago.

That meant that Charles, Erik’s Charles, died two years ago too.

“Oh, Gott,” Erik choked out, hands dropping the stack of property papers in his hand as his heart plummeted, everything going blank.

Erik now knew why Charles hadn’t picked up the phone that day. Why Charles hadn’t surprised him in Central Park in person. Why Charles didn’t show up for dinner at Genosha last weekend.

How could he, when he was already dead?

Erik remembered everything – Charles had been so sure that he would never break his promise to Erik. He had been adamant that he could wait, that he was a patient and faithful man. Charles, who knew who Erik was on the balcony but didn’t give in to his own selfish notions, because Erik had a pregnant wife. Charles, who begged and pleaded for Erik to give him another chance. Charles, who loved Erik. The man never said it aloud in words, but screamed it between every line in each of his letters. Erik knew that Charles loved him, that he loved him enough to be willing to wait for two years.

The plaque on Erik’s bench in Central Park had asked Erik to wait for Charles to catch up.

But, Charles had always been the one waiting for Erik. Charles, who loved a man that hadn’t yet known that he existed, that hadn’t had the chance to fall in love with him just yet, because Erik hadn’t lived at the lake house until later, because he hadn’t received that first letter until after Charles was already buried beneath the ground.

And what had Erik said to him, in his last letter? He said that he couldn’t wait for Charles, that Charles didn’t feel as much as Erik did. That Charles couldn’t keep his promise, to meet Erik two years in the future.

While Charles had always whispered his love between the lines, Erik had accused him of abandoning him in the same spaces.

But Charles hadn’t abandoned him – hadn’t even been given a chance to choose to abandon Erik. No, Erik had abandoned Charles, and Charles had died.

Charles died thinking that Erik hated him. That Erik didn’t love him.

Erik never told Charles that he loved him.

Oh, Gott. Fuck. CharlesCharlesCharles. No.

Suddenly, the door to Shaw’s office opened, revealing the man and a slightly familiar woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes.

“What are you doing here?” Shaw asked, voice snapping. Erik didn’t even care that his boss was staring him down, absolutely livid once he noticed the messy papers on his desk that Erik had obviously rifled through. Erik was too busy staring at the blonde woman, who was just looking at Erik curiously, a large book bag hanging from her slender shoulders.

“Did you know Charles?” Erik asked the young woman dumbly, voice cracking. The girl frowned, but nodded.

“Yeah, he was my brother,” she said slowly, Erik’s heart cracking.

Was.

Erik suddenly lost all words, as well as his breath. The woman – Raven Darkholme – stared at Erik questioningly.

“Did you know my brot-”

“Erik, I said, what are you doing in my office?” Shaw said, cutting the woman off. Raven’s large eyes flashed with something akin to recognition.

“Erik? Your name is Erik?” Raven asked, stepping past Shaw towards the man of that name.

“Yeah,” Erik coughed out, Raven biting her lower lip. “Yeah, I’m… I’m Erik. And I know… knew… shit. I knew your brother. Charles. How did you… Did he tell you? About me?”

“He only mentioned you once, on the day he…” Raven said, suddenly swallowing, like she had a boulder in her throat. Coughing a little, the young woman continued.

“What happened?” Erik whispered, Raven blinking to get rid of the tears. It had been two years, but Charles’s death still hurt her – he was her only family, even if not by blood.

“He told me about you, how he had… met someone. He said he – you – were a lawyer, who lived in New York. And… And that he was going to see you, and said that he had to, even if you didn’t want to see him or even know him – I never understood that part – but then there was a car accident. It was raining, and Charles… Charles was tired and sick, feverish, and… and… a truck… The paramedics, they said that he was calling out ‘Erik’ when he…”

Charles was going to see Erik.

Charles died because he was going to see Erik.

Erik swayed on his feet a little, but did not collapse, even if it felt like his head was ringing.

“When?” Erik asked, voice stretched thin, simmering with panic. “When did Charles… die?”

“Wednesday, March 15, 2017, at 7:39pm. Two years ago today,” Raven said quickly, like she was reading from a book.

Francis Graymalkin died two years ago, on Wednesday the 15th of March, 2017.

That meant that Charles, Erik’s Charles, died that day too.

Today was Friday the 15th of March, 2019.

That meant that two years ago, Charles would die today.

“No,” Erik breathed out, rushing out of Shaw’s office. Shaw yelled at his retreating figure, Raven stared at him in confusion, and Emma’s eyes followed Erik’s form with disguised concern.

Erik was barely registering what his body was doing, and soon he found himself in his car and driving down the highway out of the city.

Like his body was being controlled by an outside presence, Erik drove to the lake house, where he had to tell Charles not to find him. To tell Charles that he would die if he did, to tell Charles that he should wait a little longer.

Wait for Erik a little longer, because Erik loved him.

Erik had to tell Charles that he loved him.

***

Charles’s cold took a turn for the worst about five hours into the drive. He pulled over for a short break, refuelling his car, using the restroom and buying himself a coffee to warm his throat and shivering body. It didn’t take long for Charles to get back on the road, headache building and throat churning out harsh, shoulder-wracking coughs.

Charles smiled sourly to himself – of course, the day he chooses to see Erik, he had to have a cold. Even if he had showered and blow-dried his hair and picked out clean and crisp clothes, his effort went out the window the moment he got sick – his cheeks were feverishly flushed and dark eye bags prominent. His nose was dribbling and his lips chapped, and he was hardly attractive in such a ragged state.

Still, Charles wasn’t banking on anything happening – it was 2017, and Erik was still married, and his wife still pregnant. Charles wasn’t going to push anything, not now. But, Charles could be there for the man, get to know him in person. They could become friends, and maybe, two years in the future, when Erik was no longer married and knew who Charles was, the author could tell him that he loved him, and Erik could, maybe, say it back.

It was a nice dream, a dream that was shattered when a large freight truck slammed into the side of Charles’s car without warning, sending his rust bucket rolling across the highway. Charles couldn’t even scream, because he didn’t even know what was going on – one moment, he was fiddling with the radio that kept dropping out, and the next he was hanging upside down by his seatbelt, glass falling like snow over his face and something wet and warm dribbling down his forehead.

Strangely, Charles didn’t hurt, but he couldn’t move his legs. In fact, he couldn’t really move anything at all.

Images flashed before his blue eyes, which were slipping in and out of lucidity. Charles heard voices, so many voices, but he couldn’t understand a thing. Soon, there were flashing lights in pretty shades of red and blue, and then Charles was finally moving, even if he couldn’t really feel it.

Paramedics kept asking Charles questions, but the man couldn’t answer – his chest gurgled with blood, and he heard the paramedics curse, which made him try to laugh. God, why did laughing hurt?

Laughing should never hurt.

Things drifted in and out for Charles, but strangely, Erik was there; when Charles was awake, he saw Erik resting beside him, wearing the suit he had at Angel’s wedding, with his copy of The Once and Future King in his large hands.

‘Oh, I must have returned it to you,’ Charles thought, the Erik sitting in the ambulance with him smiling with all of his teeth.

When Charles fell unconscious briefly, Erik was still there – this time, Charles saw him sitting in front of a familiar letter box, small smile on his face as he read a letter covered with Charles’s cursive scrawl.

When Charles woke up again, Erik had disappeared, but a paramedic was hovering over him and yelling for him to stay awake.

“Erik…” Charles gurgled out, the paramedic leaning in to try and hear him over the sounds of his lungs collapsing.

“Erik? Is your name Erik?” the paramedic asked, trying to keep Charles’s focus on him. “Come on, stay awake for me!”

Charles tried to speak again, but everything was red, so he just thought instead.

‘I’m coming, Erik,’ Charles thought into the screaming silence, the ambulance pulling up to the emergency wing of the hospital.

The paramedics wheeled Charles out of the chair, blue eyes beginning to lose their lustre.

‘Erik, wait for me.’

“He’s crashing!” a doctor yelled out, wheels rolling across the concrete leading up to the hospital, rain beginning to drizzle down.

‘Erik, where are you?’

“We’re losing him!”

Charles’s blue eyes flittered here and there, losing their hold on everything real.

Well, everything except for the man standing outside of the hospital, brown-copper hair a little damp with rain, glowing embers of a cigarette dangling from his fingers. When Charles was wheeled past the man, time seemed to slow, if only for a moment.

The man’s face looked distraught, which was understandable considering he was at the hospital because his wife had miscarried for the third time and he had come outside to try and clear his head. When the man looked up into the sky, he wondered how much longer it would take for him to stop feeling so lost.

In a final flash of clarity, Charles recognised the man as the person he has been looking for this whole time.

Erik.

‘Oh, there you are, Erik. See?’ Charles thought, blood-splattered mouth curling upwards with eerie tranquillity.

‘I found you. I didn’t abandon you.’

***

Erik was sure that he would get a speeding fine, but he didn’t care. All he could think about as he drove like a madman, the route to get to the lake house second nature by now, was that Charles is going to die.

Erik’s car clock said that it was just past ten in the morning and Erik had been driving for an hour already, having bolted from work barely an hour in. Erik had always been good at numbers, and if it took Erik six hours to get to the lake house, he would get there around 3pm.

Charles died at 7:39pm, but he had been on the road at the time.

How long had Charles been driving for? Was this the stretch of road Charles died on?

‘Please, please let Charles still be at the lake house. Please, don’t let him leave, not before I tell him that I love him, not before I beg him not to look for me.’

When Erik reached the unfixed bottle neck that Charles had found frustrating two years ago, Erik screamed in the suffocating confines of his car – Erik willed the cars around him to move, because he had to get to Charles, and he was already two years too late.

When Erik finally pulled up to the front of the lake house, parking haphazardly on the lawn, he didn’t even bother to turn the engine off before fumbling to find some paper and a pen from the glovebox of his car. Erik ran to the letter box, scribbling frantically and wildly, breath lodged in his throat and heart threatening to burst open at its stitched seams.

Charles, I know why you didn’t answer your phone, why you weren’t at the park, why you didn’t show up for dinner. It wasn’t your fault, Charles. You didn’t abandon me.

I know who you are now, I know that you’re Francis Graymalkin. You were trying to find me that day – today. Charles, you died that day, trying to find me.

So please, don’t go.

Just wait, please.

Don’t look for me, don’t try to find me. I need you to live, Charles.

I love you.

It’s taken me all this time to say it, but ich liebe dich, Charles.

I told you in my last letter that I couldn’t wait for you, but I was wrong. I’ll wait for you forever. Professor X waited for Magneto for decades. For you, I’d wait centuries, because I want a life with you, Charles. I want you by my side.

We want the same thing.

So please, wait for me once again. Wait with me.

Just wait.

Wait.

Wait two years, Charles.

Then come to the lake house. Come home.

I’m here.

Erik’s hands were shaking as he shoved the letter into the mail box, slamming the flag down. Erik took a hasty step back, like giving the letter box space for it to work its magic would help.

Erik’s breaths were thin and shaky, steel-grey eyes staring at the unmoving letter box without blinking.

‘Please, please, please, Charles. Check the letter box. Please, don’t let me be too late. Please, I love you, bitte. Gott, please, not Charles. Please, please.’

A sob clawed its way out from Erik’s throat when the letter box didn’t move, sending Erik crumpling to his knees. Erik crawled forwards to grip the letter box, shaking it before dropping his forehead against its still surface.

For the first time in a long time, Erik cried.

“Please, Charles, bitte,” Erik whispered, shaking. The letter box remained still, stagnant. “Gott, please. Not now, not after all this. Please.”

Erik held on to the letter box like he wanted to hold onto Charles, to tether him to this world, to keep him by his side, but it remained unmoving, and all Erik could think was:

‘Oh Gott, it’s too late. I’m toolatetoolatetoola-”

Thunk.

Erik’s tremors ceased at the sound, the familiar scrape and clunk of the metal flag tickling his ears.

‘Wait for me.’

Slowly, Erik looked up through wet eyes, a sprig of hope emerging from beneath the cold.

Then, the letter box shook, the flag leaping.

Erik let out a sound between a sob and a laugh, opening the letter box with careful hands.

Inside was a single red carnation atop a small folded piece of paper, a single sentence written upon it.

Turn around, Erik.

Erik pulled himself to his feet, shuffling around like he was compelled to follow the written words. As he did, he saw a slightly beat-up car begin rattling across the street before stilling by the curb of the lake house. Erik’s breath caught, his feet beginning to walk, one step at a time, across the lawn.

The driver stepped out of the car, wrapped up in a light lilac sweater and grey tweed coat. Full head of dark brown hair, flushed red cheeks and even redder lips, bright blue eyes that were so alive.

Erik’s mouth parted slightly in awe, relief and hope as he walked towards the man – Charles – who began moving towards Erik as well.

The two met, almost toe-to-toe, in the middle of the lawn in front of the lake house. Erik held the three-word note and carnation, while in Charles’s hands was a very worn letter – the one that had been in Erik’s hands only moments ago. The one that told Charles that Erik loved him.

Erik stared into Charles’s eyes, and Erik into his, like they couldn’t quite believe what was happening. They both seemed to be waiting, waiting like they always did, so Erik had to speak.

“You waited,” Erik breathed out, and that was all it took for Charles to immediately surge into Erik’s space. Charles cupped Erik’s cheeks desperately, fingers careful but firm, and kissed Erik with two years’ worth of longing. Erik almost whimpered into the kiss, wrapping his arms around Charles’s frame and pulling him close, crushing him against his chest and deepening the kiss, wanting to feel Charles, to confirm that yes, he’s alive, he’s here, he’s with me, he waited.

The two pulled back for a brief moment, only when they remembered that they needed to breathe.

“Sorry for the wait, darling,” Charles murmured, kissing Erik’s mouth again, and again, and again.

“What took you so long?” Erik asked teasingly, nipping at Charles’s mouth, which curled up in a wide smile that made his eyes crinkle in the corners, a small peal of laughter lighting a fire in Erik’s heart.

“Mm, sorry. Traffic was horrendous. You’d think they’d have fixed that blasted bottle neck by now,” Charles said, shooting Erik a small smile before leaning in close to bury his face into Erik’s neck, breathing him in. Erik held him tightly, deciding that he’d never let go again.

“Let’s go home,” Erik murmured against Charles’s hair, the shorter man humming in agreement, Erik taking his hand as they walked towards the lake house that had been the beginning of everything.

When Charles and Erik stepped through the threshold of the lake house, the red brick and blue-roofed house seemed to sigh – it had been waiting for this moment too.

***

Erik’s hands traced abstract patterns atop the map of freckles on Charles’s back, the author letting out a blissful sigh. It was late at night, and the two men lay in bed, tangled in each other’s limbs.

“Your sister owns this house now?” Erik asked, Charles nodding from where he rested his head on Erik’s chest.

“Mm. I gave it to her two years ago. I… knew I couldn’t live there, not when you were supposed to move in. You changed the future – my future – Erik. This… This wasn’t the plan, and I thought that if I tried to force it to change, to meet you prematurely like I tried to before…”

Erik knew what Charles was skirting around – the last time Charles had tried to upend Erik’s past, he had paid the price with his life. The two men didn’t understand the fabric of time travel, they didn’t know of the rules that fate and lady time had laid down. All they knew was that they were meant to meet, but only at a certain time. Charles had tried too early the first time, and he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.

He hadn’t made the same mistake again.

“I don’t think we were meant to meet until now,” Charles then whispered, pressing a kiss to Erik’s collarbone.

“We met at Angel’s wedding,” Erik reminded Charles, as if it were yesterday. Charles chuckled, a little wistful.

“Yes, but I didn’t try to change anything when I met you then. Meeting me didn’t change the course of your life between 2017 and now. I mean, Erik, you didn’t even remember me,” Charles said, chuckling in jest as he kissed away the frown building on Erik’s face. “But, the day I… died, I wanted to… well. Let’s just say that the world didn’t want me to change your past.”

“But it let you change my future?” Erik mused, Charles propping himself up to look at Erik, reaching out to smooth some of Erik’s sex-mussed hair from his eyes, gaze fond.

“I don’t know how this works, Erik, but, I wrote a theory about it, in my novel.”

“Your incomplete one?” Erik asked, raising a brow. Charles grinned.

“Well, considering I didn’t die, I had two years to finish writing it, darling. My theory is that the past can’t be unwritten. I couldn’t change your past, as in, anything that would have a lasting impact on your life before 2019. And you couldn’t have changed what would be considered my past, either,” Charles said, Erik’s mind whirling.

“But, I did change your past. I… You died before, Charles. But now you’re here, and…” Erik felt his tumultuous emotions begin to surface again, and before he completely lost it there and then in their bed, Erik kissed Charles. Charles indulged him, sighing into the lawyer’s touch, before pulling back with a serene smile on his face.

“Yes, I’m here, darling. And I don’t plan on leaving. But, like I was saying, you can’t change my past. Erik, I was living in 2017, so even though everything that happened that year for me was the past for you, it was still my future. You simply changed my future, Erik.”

“But still, what about all the other effects? The ripples that change caused. I still remember everything that would have happened – your step family contesting your will, your sister hiring Shaw. None of that would’ve happened if you died…”

“Ah, yes, well, that’s what has me in a bit of a rut. You seem to remember the events of your past timeline, but what I remember is different. It’s a funny thing, really – I ended up re-writing my will when I was… reminded of my mortality. There are no more loopholes, and my step father and brother lay no claim to anything I own. As for my sister, she still ended up hiring Shaw, just not about my will. Something about a secret trust fund that was hidden from her, courtesy of our lovely step-father,” Charles said, rolling his eyes. “So, in the end, not a whole lot changed – I’d wager that these minor ripples didn’t bother fate herself too much.”

“And you’re saying that you escaping death was only a ‘minor ripple’ as well?” Erik said, scoffing.

“Well, in my book I do say that fate had made an error in her original time line and sought to correct it,” Charles said, eyes softening. “You see, I’m inclined to think that we were destined to meet earlier.”

Erik’s mouth twitched at Charles’s words, instinctively drawing the man closer.

“Go on,” Erik said, bumping his forehead against Charles’s. “Tell me about this theory of yours.”

“Mm, demanding. But yes, I believe that we were supposed to meet sooner, but fate and time cocked up and we missed each other – so, they had to try and fix their mistake without undoing all of their other work. That’s why they linked us through the letter box, so we could meet and… well. The rest is history, isn’t it?”

“You really are a fiction writer, aren’t you, Francis?” Erik said, Charles laughing and swatting his lover’s chest.

“Oh, please! I know you’re a fan of my work, you’ve told me before. I have the letters to prove it!” Charles said, before suddenly sitting up like he had been struck by a bolt of lightning. Or an epiphany.

Erik was surprised when Charles suddenly wrenched the blankets off their naked bodies and jumped off the bed, tugging Erik’s arm. “Come on.”

“Charles, what are you doing?” Erik huffed, wanting nothing more than to have Charles’s weight pressed against him in bed, his thoughts apparently written all over his face when Charles laughed, kissing Erik’s lips briefly.

“I promise we’ll go back to bed soon. Just… humour me, for a moment, I almost forgot,” Charles said, squeezing Erik’s hand. Erik wasn’t going to protest, not now. Charles could probably ask him to do anything, and he wouldn’t think twice about doing it.

The two men didn’t bother putting their clothes back on, just wrapping some blankets around their shoulders as Charles nudged Erik down the upstairs hallway and to the drop-down ladder leading to the attic.

“The attic?” Erik asked, Charles nodding.

“Yes. Remember your first letter to me? The one you addressed to the new tenant?”

Erik did, Charles having brought Erik all of the letters he had saved, the two of them reading them together curled up by the fireplace.

“You mentioned the burn in the kitchen, courtesy of my poor cooking skills,” Charles said, giggling at his self-deprecating remark, which Erik found endlessly endearing. “But, you also mentioned the box in the attic. You obviously didn’t think too much of it back then.”

“No, I only glanced inside when I moved in, but it was just… full of stuff,” Erik said, Charles laughing.

“Full of my stuff,” Charles corrected, climbing up and tugging a dusty, slightly humidity-damp box, sneezing as a flurry of dust swirled in the air. Opening it up, Charles rummaged through the random knick-knacks that Erik had disregarded when he had moved in, before procuring something hidden beneath all of the irrelevant bits and pieces.

“What’s that?” Erik asked, Charles giving Erik a small smile, pressing it into Erik’s hand. And oh, Erik knew what this was.

“I believe I promised you that I’d return this to you, in person,” Charles said, leaning forward to lay his hand atop Erik’s, which caressed the book in his hand.

‘The Once and Future King.’

It had been here all along, simply waiting for Charles and Erik to unearth it, together.

“I love you,” Erik said, the words not quite able to convey just how deep Erik’s love ran. But, Charles seemed to understand, like he could hear it pouring directly from Erik’s heart.

“I love you too, Erik. Let me show you just how much,” Charles said, Erik letting out a breathless laugh as Charles kissed him.

Charles did show him. In the span of a kiss, Charles showed Erik two years’ worth of love.

And they both thought, for a moment, that yes, the wait was worth it.

Every single second.

#cherik #Charles Xavier #Erik Lehnsherr #X-men #x-men fic #xmen #the lake house #ao3 #AO3 fanfic #james mcavoy #Michael Fassbender

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lovelocksers · 5 years

Text

I made a few posts in the past about how I liked (and kind of almost expected) Juvia being Mercuphobia’s daughter, and then I mixed Jellal into the family, and as much as I loved the idea I never really gave it much thought. But the idea was brought up in the gruvia server I’m in, and lo and behold, in the span of about 2 hours, we almost have a complete story for these three. So big big shoutout to @i-write-fanfics-to-procrastinate and @juvi-of-the-great-sea (and a few others) who gave me amazing feedback and ideas, and I definitely borrowed some of theirs 💙 So here’s the story:

- Mercuphobia fell in love with one of his worshippers, who eventually became pregnant (yes, they’re twins!) but because she was only a worshipper, and he was seen as a god, she thought it would be best if she left the town before anyone found out she was expecting.

- So, she moved in with her brother and gave birth. Unfortunately Juvia was born, or more like cursed, with an abundant amount of magic power, which she inherited from her father, and because of this, the skies always threatened to rain ever since she was born.

- As they were growing up, Jellal continued to tell Juvia that he would learn Heavenly Body Magic so she could see the clear night sky.

- One day, their mother left Juvia to stay with her uncle as she took Jellal out for a ride, where they stopped at a village full of recruiters for the Tower of Heaven. Jellal was taken, and their mother was killed.

- Believing that both of them were killed, Juvia’s rain increased to downpours and after a week the village she and her uncle inhabited was threatened by floods, all the while Juvia could not stop crying. Fed up with the crying, complaints from neighbors about the floods, and the fact that he was in no position to raise a child by himself, Juvia’s uncle attacked her, rendering her unconscious. Once he calmed down, he turned himself in, the guilt plaguing him that he attacked Juvia — the most important recollection his sister left him. Juvia woke up in an orphanage, told that her uncle was put in a facility, with no memories of her mother or brother.

- After the fight against the White Mage ended and his powers were returned, Mercuphobia decided to visit Fairy Tail to say thank you. However, after he gets there, Diabolos ambushes the guild. Juvia and Jellal just happen to be nearby when he’s almost attacked, and they protect him.

- Mercuphobia prepares to thank them, but when he sees them together, Jellal’s tattoo, and Juvia’s water magic, he stops right in his tracks and the gears start turning. He begins to tear up, muttering that they remind him so much of “her”. The two ask him what’s wrong, and he explains.

- Once the fight ended and Diabolos was defeated for good, Fairy Tail did what they did best: partying. Mercuphobia was the guest of honor, and while everyone was sober, Juvia and Jellal decided to tell the guild the whole story.

- Gray and Erza were possibly the most shocked, and somewhat worried that they wouldn’t get to spend time with either of them while they figured things out, although they’d never admit it (especially Erza, since she was new to the whole ‘jealousy’ thing)

- Jellal and Juvia didn’t really know how to interact with one another for the first few days, after all they had never done much interacting before, but occasionally they would say the same thing at the same time and look at each other like 😮

- One of the first things Juvia told Jellal was that she was now “obliged” to help Jellal and Erza get together, and he couldn’t say no.

- They tried going to restaurants together, whenever their guilds would allow, to catch up and share mementos that Juvia’s uncle and Merc sent them. Sometimes Gray and Erza tag along, and no, totally not because they miss them, only because they wanted to make sure they were getting along, of course, obviously. Not that Juvia minds though, because it’s essentially a double date, and it’s funny seeing Jellal and Erza scared to sit next to one another.

- One thing they had in common was that they both were introduced to Fairy Tail as enemies, and so they share with each other their regrets, but also advice on how they’re moving forward.

- Jellal became protective of Juvia fairly quickly, and now him, Gray, and Gajeel are the basis of the unofficial “Juvia Protection Squad.” Erza and Natsu are members too, of course.

- One time Juvia was making dinner when she cut her finger on the knife, it wasn’t bad but the shock caused her to curse and gasp in pain, the next thing she knew Jellal and Gray had busted down the door to see if she was alright.

- Juvia can also be protective though; she’s told the other members of Crime Sorcière (namely Erik and Sawyer) to stop giving Jellal a hard time a few times before.

- Then there was that time when Fairy Tail and Crime Sorcière joined forces, Jellal got hurt, and Juvia was almost as scary as she was on Tenrou Island. The other members of Crime Sorcière (and even some of Fairy Tail) knew not to mess with her after that, especially when it came to Jellal.

- Speaking of Crime Sorcière, Meredy was overjoyed at the news and she tried desperately to make them wear ‘sibling best friend bracelets’, which was the one thing Jellal would not do.

- The only downside to this new sibling relationship was dating. Jellal has followed Gray and Juvia a few times, telling Gray “if you hurt my sister I won’t hesitate.” Juvia gets somewhat annoyed but it’s not like she hasn’t followed Erza and Jellal, although for the exact opposite reason which would be to cheer them on.

- And yes, of course they tease each other. Jellal often rests his elbow on her head and tells her how short she is.

Gosh these were so fun to make! I got so into this 😂 I hope I’ll come up with more in the future, as well as a trio name that’s catchier than Mercuphobia, Juvia, and Jellal sooo suggestions are welcome!

#this is so long omg #i love this family

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side-effect-of-the-meds · 5 years

Note

Whenever you can, can you write some Andrew bad mental health days angst with Nicky trying to help single-handedly? Maybe while the twins were living with him? With a hopeful ending of course. More importantly I wanted to ask if you’re alright? Your last post was worrying.

So I’m doing a lot better now. It’s just that sometimes I feel like my parents treat loving me like it’s a chore and neither of them really want to do it. They also just remind me all the time about how hard it is to love me and implying that my theoretical future husband would leave me over these flaws. I made the mistake once of implying that maybe I should have a wife instead and my mother looked ready to murder me. Which u literally see me project in almost exact words in this piece. Sorry. Anyway.. that’s how my efforts at coming out are going :)) It’s fine tho. I’m going to college in a year which is its own headache.

Thanks again for your concern and your patience. I hope this is what you were looking for <3

A bone-deep sense of exhaustion had been weighing Nicky down for so long that he almost didn’t notice it anymore. Almost. Dragging himself into the backroom of Eden’s, he felt another wave of it crash over him.

“Nick,” Roland called. His eyes were wide and his legs were trembling. His lips were swollen and bruised too. A smile curled the edges of Nicky’s lips. Before he could prod Roland about his disheveled appearance, Roland said four words that always sent every thought careening out the window. “Something’s wrong with Drew.” Shoving him aside, Nicky raced down the hall. From the end of the corridor, he heard labored breathing.

“Andrew,” he called as he nudged the door open. Nicky felt his stomach plummet at the sight of his cousin curled on the floor. Tears were welling in his eyes. “Hey, man,” he started.

“Get. Out!” The words tore from Andrew’s throat, low and guttural. Fury was written into every crevice of his face. Nicky stumbled backward, falling onto his butt. The door slammed shut in his face. Crawling up to the door, Nicky lay his head up against it. From behind it, he heard Andrew’s breath coming in ragged gasps. “No. No. Please, no.” Nicky’s heart stuttered. When he’d first met Andrew, he’d made the mistake of saying please. He’d been rewarded with a none too gentle warning about using that word in Andrew’s presence. For Andrew to be saying it now…

“Andrew, let me in,” he begged.

“No!” Andrew screamed. “Leave me alone.” Tears raced down Nicky’s face. His fingers ached for they’d been clutching tightly to the doorframe.

“Let me help,” he whispered. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. A week ago, Nicky had been summoned by the school to pick Andrew up early after a similar episode. According to Aaron, it had happened a few times when they’d lived with Tilda too. However, they’d been occurring more frequently since the twins had moved in. Was it something Nicky had done? Had he hurt Andrew?

Nicky didn’t know how long he sat there, begging softly for Andrew to let him in before the door finally creaked open. Andrew stepped out, dry-eyed. His blank facade had resettled over his face but his eyes were red and puffy.

“Water,” he croaked. Nicky scrambled to his feet and checked a few of the back rooms until he found some bottled water. Offering it to his cousin, he chewed on the inside of his cheek as Andrew down the whole thing in one go.

“Andrew,” he pleaded once more.

“Home,” Andrew ordered. Nicky’s shouldered sagged but he obeyed. Shuffling down the hall, he did his best not to look back at Andrew. He gathered up his jacket from the front before grabbing Aaron. As they walked to the car, Nicky felt a cool breeze blow past. From the corner of his eye, he caught Andrew shivering. Shedding his coat, he waited for Andrew to pass him before throwing it around his shoulders. “I don’t need your shitty jacket,” Andrew snarled.

“Whoops. Guess you're so small I mistook you for a coat rack.”

“You’ve got three seconds to start running, Hemmick.” Nicky was running before the words were out of Andrew’s mouth. It was less than three seconds before Nicky heard Andrew’s footsteps pounding the asphalt behind him.

“That’s cheating,” he cried. “Doesn’t matter, though. My legs are longer anyway.”

“They won’t be after I break them,” Andrew gasped between breaths. Nicky should have known better than to rile Andrew up. While Nicky was the faster of the two, Andrew had incredible endurance. He didn’t have to outrun Nicky. He just had to wait for Nicky to run out of steam. Hooking a left, Nicky headed for the park. Vaulting over the chain-link barrier, Nicky risked a glance back. Andrew had banked to the right and was now running around the perimeter of the barrier.

Looking back was a mistake. Nicky tripped over the playground border that. Falling face-first into the mulch, he felt several pieces of it embed themselves into his flesh.

“Not so fast now, fucker,” Andrew said. For the first time, Nicky saw a smile tug at the edges of Andrew’s smile. It was a sharp, cruel thing but a smile nonetheless. As Andrew’s eyes roved over Nicky’s face, he saw the smile slip away. “You idiot,” he muttered as he grabbed Nicky’s sleeve. Too dumbfounded by the fact that Andrew was touching him, Nicky didn’t protest to being dragged across the park. He still couldn’t find his voice as Andrew shoved him onto a swing and rolled up the sleeves of the coat.

A first aid kit appeared in Andrew’s hands. Producing a pair of tweezers and antiseptic, Andrew set about picking the mulch from Nicky’s face. All the while, Nicky whined about how much it hurt. It didn’t hurt. He just needed something to fill the silence. Plastering a bandaid over the final cut, Andrew stepped back to inspect his work.

“I thought you didn’t need my shitty coat,” Nicky said. Andrew looked down as though he were just noticing what he was wearing. With a scowl he shucked it off and threw it in Nicky’s face. Andrew sat down on the swing beside Nicky. For the first time in a while, his legs were long enough to touch the ground. “Hey,” Nicky started. Andrew groaned as though the conversation was already too long. “I know you don’t want to talk but I need to know what I can do to make this easier for you.”

Silence settled over the pair of them. Just as Nicky was about to give up Andrew answered. “I just need space.”

“I’ve given you all the space I’ve got. I gave you a room. I gave you the keys to the car. I let you come and go as you please. I know you didn’t ask me to come here. You didn’t ask me to stay but I’m always going to be here. No one else really wants me anyway.” A sad smile settled over Nicky’s face. It was true.

Every person has their own love language. Nicky’s was touch. Growing up, Nicky’s parents hadn’t understood that. No, they’d chosen not to. Loving their child was their duty as parents, nothing more. Luther and Maria treated loving Nicky like a chore, never failing to point out how his every flaw would prohibit him from finding a respectable wife. Well, then maybe he didn’t need a wife. Maybe he needed a husband.

Telling his parents as much resulted in them pulling away entirely. Any semblance of love that they’d shown him was now gone. Where Maria woke early to make Nicky’s favorite breakfast, he’d begun coming downstairs to a table set for two. Where Luther brought home little things that he’d thought Nicky may have enjoyed, Nicky watched as his father actively shifted his gift-giving to Maria. It knocked Nicky’s self-confidence to a low he’d never thought possible. Suicide was something Nicky had never understood. Why would anyone want to die? Well, what point was there in living if you had no one to live for?

For as long as Nicky could remember he’d spent his life trying to please his parents. The most he’d ever gotten was a five-second hug for winning a national art contest. Shut out by the only people that had ever meant anything to him, Nicky had spiraled into depression. If it hadn’t been for Dr. Krauss’s push to send him to Germany, Nicky might not be alive today.

In Germany, Nicky had found love. Not just in Erik but Erik’s family loved him. Erik’s friends loved him. They breathe life back into Nicky and offered him a place to stay. And he’d wanted it. Going back to America, Nicky had been okay with facing his parents’ disappointment because he’d known that it didn’t matter. Soon he’d leave Columbia and he’d never look back. Everything was finally going to be okay. And then, Nicky’s world turned itself on its head. Learning about the twins had brought all of Nicky’s plans to a grinding halt.

Nicky knew what living with Luther was like. There was no way he was going to force Aaron and Andrew to brave all of that alone. Germany meant so much to Nicky because he’d been greeted with open arms. The Klose's didn’t love one single aspect of Nicky. They loved him as a whole and Nicky hadn’t had to fight for an ounce of their affection.

The twins were broken and battered and bruised, just as Nicky had been. Luther and Maria weren’t going to welcome them into their home with open arms. Nicky doubted anyone would. There wasn’t anything that Nicky had learned from his father that he’d truly taken to heart, save one: there’s always someone that needs saving. Sure, Luther had meant converting people to Christianity but, from the moment Nicky lay his eyes upon the twins, he knew that no one in the world needed saving more than them.

Nicky didn’t know how to fix them (or even if they could be fixed at all) but he’d take care of them until he found someone that could. He didn’t know how long it would take for them to each find their own Germany, but he was more than willing to stick around until they did.

“I do,” Andrew said. Nicky looked up to find Andrew’s eyes already on him.

“You what?” Nicky’s voice broke halfway.

“I want you to stay.”

#just a pipe dream #andrew joseph minyard #andrew minyard hc #andrew minyard #nicky/erik #nicky hemmick #reveal to me your deepest desires

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crampdown · 5 years

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Cramp’s Comic Recommendations For Fans Of Classic Rock And Co.

Allright here we go. This is my current list of comics/manga/graphic novels you might enjoy if you’re into classic rock. Before we get started I’d just like to let you all know:

- This list is far from being complete. I’m sure there are many more groovy comics out there that I’m simply not aware of yet so if you have any suggestions feel free to add them :)

- I know I said “Classic Rock” but some of my choices may drift into other musical directions

- Needless to say I do not own any of the following images. They all belong to their rightfull owners and I’ll use them as visual reference material only.

- Sorry for eventual misspelling

Let’s go ^^

1. Bob Dylan Revisited

Let’s start with an obvious choice. This is a collection of 13 well-known Dylan Songs, each of them graphically interpreted by a different artist. The most striking feature therefore is the high variety of different art styles. Some of them are cartoony, some are very abstract while others are almost photo realistic.

Dylan’s mesmerizing lyrics have always been inspirational and these beautiful depictions truly are a sight to see.

Including works of Thierry Murat, Lorenzo Mattotti, Nicolas Nemiri, François Avril, Jean-Claude Götting, Christopher, Bézian, Dave McKean, Alfred, Raphaëlle Le Rio, Maël Le Mae, and Henri Meunier, Gradimir Smudju, Benjamin Flao, Jean-Phillippe Bramanti and Zep.

Zep’s take on “Not Dark Yet”

Jean-Phillippe Bramanti’s interpretation of “Knocking On Heaven’s Door”

Definitely worth checking out not only for Bob Dylan Fans.

2. Baby’s In Black” by Arne Bellstorf

I’ve seen several people in the Beatles fandom complain about the lack of Stuart Sutcliffe material when it comes to early Beatles history.

Well, here it is: a graphic novel that focuses on the relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe and fotographer Astrid Kirchherr who took the very first professional photos of the Beatles during their time in Hamburg (1960-61).

Told mostly from Astrid’s point of view this comic presents itself in a grey and melancholic tone that fits the rather sad story. Bellstorf’s drawings are simplified and charming (they remind me of early sixties children book illustrations which suits the setting’s time period)

If you’re interested in early Beatles history (especially their Hamburg days) you should give this one a try.

3. Blue Monday by Chynna Clugston Flores

I really wish I had known about this amazing comic series a few years earlier, not only because this is a slice of life/coming of age story with teenage characters who are actually likeable and relateable but also because “Blue Monday” is an overall highly entertaining depiction of early nineties teen culture/rebellion in an American suburb that comes with a lot of references to Britpop, mod culture, Buster Keaton movies and Adam Ant (to name only a few).

To quote the author herself: “It’s like Archie on crack, with cursing and smokes”.

The art style of Chynna Clugston Flores is very vivid and expressive and has a certain stylistic touch of anime/manga (like a lot of comics from the early 2000s). I also really enjoy all of the graphic fashion details in this one. Plus, this is the first comic with it’s own soundtrack and that’s always a nice bonus.

I’d recommend “Blue Monday” for fans of Britpop, Punk, New Wave and early 1990′s culture.

4. Punk Rock And Trailer Parks by Derf Backderf

Another story about growing up in American small town madness, this time set in 1980s gritty Punk subculture of the former rubber city of Akron, Ohio. Protagonist Otto who likes to refer to himself as “The Baron” becomes fascinated with Punk after attending a Ramones concert. He meets several Pubk icons (thus as The Clash, The Plasmatics, rock journalist Lester Bangs and many more) and becomes someting of a local punk star himself.

Derf Backderf (who is best known for his highly acclaimed graphic novel “My Friend Dahmer” and his Eisner award winning comic “Trashed”) created a comic that is as “raw and dirty as punk itself”. His art style is an unique combination of expressionism, underground cartoons and punk magazines.

“Punk Rock And Trailer Parks” is a must-have for punk fans (especially if you’re into The Ramones and The Clash. It made me a huge fan of both of them).

5. “CASH - I See A Darkness” and “Nick Cave - Mercy On Me” by Reinhard Kleist

Two biographical graphic novels by Reinhard Kleist, both of them tell the story of a fascinating personality in rock history and both of them are incredibly well drawn. Kleist’s art is full of life and movement and very atmospheric due to his impressive use of stark contrasts.

I personally love his semirealistic way of drawing people and I’d highly suggest you to check out his other works too. He made a lot of biographical comics that really amazed me.

CASH

Cave

Definetly worth reading. Not only for Johnny Cash and Nick Cave fans.

6. Nowhere Men by Eric Stephenson, Nate Bellegarde, Jordie Bellaire and Fonografiks

I talked about this one a while ago but I’ll gladly do it again since it’s just too cool. “Nowhere Men” is set in an alternative past/present and future where scientists became as popular as pop stars (catchphrase “Science is the new Rock n` Roll”) but somewhere along the way something definetly went wrong.

The hype of science shares obvious similarities with the beatlemania of the 60s and the founding of Apple back then. Furthermore, the characters are partly inspired by well-known personalities of Rock history. There are many more or less hidden nods and references to musical popculture wich is why I put it on this list.

Nowhere Men is a thrilling sci-fi dystopian that requires an observant reader because there is a lot of jumping back and forth i time and inbetween information. The art style is realistic and full of very vibrant colours.

I found myself reading this multiple times to get all of the details in the world building. A thoughtful and brilliant writing indeed.

7. P.I.L. by Mari Yamazaki

Japan 1983: 17-year-old Nanami couldn’t be more frustrated. Her grandfather loves to spend all of their household money on useless luxury junk and her strict school criticizes her messy hairstyle. Caught between teenage rebellion and responsibility as she tries different side jobs to earn at least a little bit of money, Nanami also has a thing for punk music and overall everything originated from England.

P.I.L. tells the story of conflict between two generations who aren’t as different as they might seem. Sometimes funny and heartwarming, sometimes with a bit of drama this is a charming slice of life/ coming of age josei with a more simplistic but aesthetical pleasing art style.

as the title might suggest, Nanami is a big fan of P.I.L. and other bands of the punk, neo punk and new wave movement such as The Stranglers and The Killing Joke

8. Yellow Submarine by Bill Morrison

A comic adaptation of an animated film such as Yellow Submarine? Yeah, I was skeptical at first too but hear me out: This is really great. Morrison did an amazing job at capturing the trippy and psychedelic feeling of the legendary Beatles film. As the 1968 film used the medium of animation as an actual form of art to accomplish things only animation can do, Morrison did the same thing and used the advantages of the comic medium to accomplish things only comics can do. And it works. It really works.

Every single page of this colourful book has a different panel layout. Some of them are so beautiful and creative that I’d love to have a full-size poster version of them :’D

If you liked the film, if you love the psychedelic age, you’ll probably like the comic too.

9. In The Pines by Erik Kriek

“In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines...”

5 Murder Ballads, some might call them dark Country Music, each of them beautifully illustrated by Erik Kriek. Atmospheric, dark and gritty and always on point to match the spine-chilling western-like storytelling of these ballads, great for fans of horror literature a la E.A.Poe.

10. Andy - A Factual Fairy Tale by Typex

Allright folks this is it:

Typex’s “Andy” is by far one of the best comics/graphic novels I’ve ever red. It defenitely is my personal favourite reading of 2019 (and tbh I kinda doubt anything will top this anytime soon)

This is more than just a biographical take on of the most enigmatic pop-art artists of 20th centuary’s America, this is a portrait of the 20th centuary itself. There are so many references to art, history, literature, music and more that I could fill a book counting them all. And of course this is a monument for the medium of comic itself. Typex really managed to show what comic’s are capable of (At this point I’m really sorry I can’t explain it better I’m not good in writing stuff like this yet...)

Visually one of the most appealing things are the different art styles Typex manages to pull off so well for every chapter in Warhol’s life because each of them are a mirror of their zeitgeist. The introduction of Warhol’s childhood during the 30s is drawn in a cartoony style of old news paper comic strips. The chapter of 1967 has a psychedelic edge. The chapter of the early 60s shows similarities with the works of Roy Liechtenstein

So many icons from the 1930s-1980s have a cameo in this graphic novel it’s just amazing. If you’re even remotely interested in anything of this time period you’d definitely should read this. (seriously, READ THIS). But at this point I’d also like to mention that this comic does not shy away from showing very explicit content and sensetive topics (please keep in mind this has a mature rating for a reason)

Yeah so I couldn’t give this piece of art enough praise. It is absolutely brilliant, a masterpiece in every sense and word.I wasn’t too aware of Typex before but appearentely he also did a graphic novel on Rembrandt. I’m gonna read this too.

Some honorable mentions:

California Dreamin` by Penelope Bagieu

I haven’t red this one yet so I can’t say anything more about it. But I wanted to let you know that a graphic novel about the life of Cass Elliot exists.

Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre by Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner

One of the prequels of the legendary “Watchmen” by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. It’ “only” an honorable mention because you’ll have to be familiar with the Watchmen universe to fully get all of the story. This prequel focuses on Laurie Jupeczyk, the second Silk Spectre and her own adventures during 1967, the summer of love in San Francisco.

Hip Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor

Another one I haven’t fully red yet, but so far I’m loving it. It basically tells the history of Rap and Hip Hop from the early 70s to the mid 80s. The art style is intentionally old-school wich really fits it’s tone and setting.

Fritz The Cat by Robert Crumb

I suppose I can’t make a list like this without at least mentioning an absolut icon of the underground comix movement. Crumb created the adventures of this nasty junky cat during the 60s. Fritz can be seen as a satirical mirror of counter-culture’s zeitgeist.

and speaking of Crumb, his “Heroes of Blues, Jazz and Country” trading cards are neat too...

allright that’s it for now. like I said, if you have anymore suggestions, feel free to add ^^

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lowsodiumfreaks67 · 5 years

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Some questions are difficult to answer

Sorry Iv been a little m.i.a bit I got a little something for y’all.

a/n : for some unknown reason this piece does not look right on tumblr mobile so I apologize in advance if its difficult to read, I also uploaded it to my wattpad if you want to read it there instead. @obsessionunhealthy

Summary : Its your first Supernatural convention of the year in Nashville because Seattle got Con-blocked. You’re joining your husband Jensen and your costar Jared for your first panel together when a fan asks a question that brings back some memories.

Warnings : Talks of attempted suicide.

Word Count : 1806

More chapters will be posted as soon as I get time :) xx

"Ladies and gentlemen please welcome to the stage the Winchesters, Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles and his wife the wonderful Mrs Y/N Ackles"

Richards voice rang loudly through the speakers as you made your way up the stairs and through the curtain to the stage, you were greeted by loud cheering and whooping from the audience, Richard and Rob welcomed you all with warm hugs and wished you good luck, you waited until Louden Swain had finished playing Carry on my wayward son before you raised your mic to speak.

" What's up Nashville " you all shouted into the mics at the same time making the crown cheer even louder than before.

" Wow y'all are loud " you said with a massive smile on your face, you turned to Jensen.

" Howdy y'all, it's good to be back, I do love me some Nashville "

Jared then raised his mic " How you guys doing today? Any first timers? " a lot of people in the audience cheered loudly making all three of you look at each other surprised.

" Really y'all have never been to a supernatural convention, this is your first one ? " you asked making them cheer again.

" How long have we been doing this ?" Jensen asked still in shock

" 14 years " Jared answered quietly " 14 years " Jensen got up from his seat a little and shouted into his mic " 14 YEARS "

" Some of you guys were only 2 when the show started so that's understandable " you said as you looked out across the audience before someone shouted from the back " I was only born " you jumped from your seat in shock and walked to the edge of the stage

" You were what, how old are you ? "

" I'm 14 "

" Your 14 oh my gosh WE'VE BEEN DOING THIS YOUR WHOLE LIFE" Jensen exclaimed.

“ When were you born ? “ you asked

" I was born in January " she answered

" January what ? " Jared asked

" January 25th "

" Two thousand and ? " Jensen trailed off trying to work it out

" Five " she answered back

All three of your dropped your mics in shock, Jared and Jensen slumped into their chairs whilst you just dropped to the ground at the front of the stage and lay there, the audience erupted into laughter and cheers.

" We’re so old " you said into your mic dramatically without moving making the audience laugh even harder.

" So you're what a freshman in high school ? "

" Yeah that's right "

" Oh my god freshman in high school, that's mind boggling " you sighed from the ground

“ I can drive too “ she shouted

" You can already drive ? " Jensen asked before turning to Jared and shouted " IT DRIVES "

" Alright alright calm down " Jared chuckled placing a hand on Jensen's shoulder

" Fun fact he still can't drive " Jensen stated matter of factly whilst looking out at the girl and pointed at Jared

" And I still got 22 years on ya " Jared said mockingly but then began to fake cry as Jensen pulled him into a side hug, the audience was laughing loudly at your guys reaction at this.

" Oh my god we gotta change the subject im not liking this " you said as you got back up from the floor and walked back to your seat. Jared turned his seat to face the right side of the stage " Yeah lets get some questions going, hey there " he said to the young girl at the left of the stage waiting with a mic " Hello everyone I just wanted to ask if there has there been anything embarrassing or funny happen on set recently ? " you let out a small chuckle and spoke first " Well I kicked Jared's ass last week whilst playing with Tom and Shep last week, all i'll say is that I a woman and 2 kids managed to pin him down whilst Odette attempted to give him a wedgie, Gen videoed thing I’ll get her to post it for you guys, that must have been a pretty big kick to the ego " the audience laughed as you blew a kiss in Jared's direction.

The rest of the panel went on like this, you guys making fun of each other, telling stories, making jokes and having tremendous fun with the audience, it wasn't long before it was time for the last question, you finally stopped laughing after Jared finished his story about the train in Europe and turned to face the girl standing to the left of the stage.

Now you were in front of her you could see her face was soaked with tears and she was shaking like a leaf, you pulled her into a tight hug and whispered in her ear " Its okay honey, what's the matter? "

" I uh um I just got a little overwhelmed sorry I wasn’t expecting to be chosen for a question, I just wanted to thank you guys for everything you've done for me this past year " you pulled away slightly but still held her arms, " What's your name ? "

" Its Gabriela but everyone calls me Gabby "

" Well Gabby i'm very pleased you’re here with us and that this massive family has helped you through a tough time and as Jared would say Always Keep Fighting because it will all be some sort of okay someday "

" Thank you so much, may I ask you how it is that you keep a positive mindset even when going through tough times ? "

You pulled her in for another tight hug before heading back up onto the stage, Jared handed you your mic as you sat back down between the boys again.

" Alright sorry about that guys, the wonderful Gabby has asked how it is that I keep a positive mindset even when things are tough and if i'm being honest it's pretty damn hard to stay positive sometimes, just like everyone else I do have days where I just don't feel happy, I’m run down or i'm feeling super unmotivated but I get through those days with the help of my friends and family, both on set and here with you guys " the crowd cheered loudly as you turned to Jensen and Jared who were both smiling at you gently.

" Surround yourself with those you love and who make you happy, shutting yourself away and pushing those people away can be the worst thing you could ever do, I did that and it was quite possibly the worst decision of my life, that and the haircut I had during season 4 I mean what was I thinking " you joked making the audience chuckle a little before they quietened down again.

" About 7 years ago I went through a pretty tough time and instead of speaking up and accepting the help that was right there in front of me, I suffered in silence and that led to my mental state getting so out of control that one day when I got home I broke down completely as soon as my front door shut, it had been a good day on set, the scenes weren't too hard and everything went smoothly but inside my head I was fighting a losing battle, so I just I locked myself in my flat and turned my phone off, I shut out the outside world completely " the crowd was eerily silent as they listened to you speak, you could even see a few people in the front row with tears in their eyes, taking a deep breath to calm yourself you started back into your story.

" Uh no one but Jared, Jensen and Erik Kripke know what happened that night but that was the night I tried to take my own life " you let out a shaky breath when you heard a few people in the audience gasp, Jensen wrapped an arm around your shoulder and pulled you into his side as Jared grabbed your free hand and squeezed it then held it between his two large warm hands as you continued.

" I had forgotten that these two were coming over to run lines for the episode ' A little slice of Kevin ', I wasn’t answering the door or my phone so they decided to break down my front door Winchester style, I’m about to get a tiny bit graphic here but when they charged into my apartment they found me lying on my bathroom floor covered in and lying in a puddle of my own blood, they got me to the hospital in time for doctors to save my life, I will always thank Chuck for putting these two Idjits on this earth " a few of the audience members chuckled whilst others awed when you leaned up and kissed Jensen gently then reached over and pulled Jared into a tight hug.

" Okay so the lesson you should take from that is that you need to wake up positive, never go to sleep angry with anyone because you never know what could happen, try not to worry about what might go wrong in the day, focus on what will go right no matter how small it may be whether it be going out for lunch with a friend or grabbing a coffee with someone you haven't seen for awhile, remember you never fail at anything, you just gain experience and knowledge you can use to help in a future situation " you pulled yourself from the boys and got up and walked to the front of the stage.

" Y'all I want everyone here to know that there will always going to be someone out there who is going to listen to whatever it is you have to say and if right now you don't know who that person it then come to me, my email is on my Instagram and twitter, you guys can send me private messages, I even have a P.O box if you'd like to write me a letter, i'll always be here to support you guys no matter what and i'll always try my best to help you in anyway that I know how " the crowd cheered and clapped as you made your way off the stage back to Gabby.

" Thank you so much for coming and asking your question today, if you ever need someone to vent or talk to then drop me a message and i'll try help the best I can " you wrapped your arms around her in a tight hug before heading back on stage which was now occupied by Richard and Louden Swain.

Jensen met you at the end of the stage and extended his hand to you to guide you back up the stairs as Jared spoke to everyone, " Thank you so much everyone for coming out, sorry if we bored you too much with our stories, well see y'all later on " the audience cheered and clapped as you guys waved before exiting the stage whilst Louden Swain played Your Love by The Outfield.

#supernatural #supernatural imagines #jensen ackles #jensen ackles imagine #Jared Padalecki #jared padalecki imagine #dean winchester #dean winchester imagine #Sam Winchester #sam winchester imagine #spn #alwayskeepfighting #jared x reader #jensen x reader #dean x reader #sam x reader

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twistytwine · 5 years

Text

Victor’s POV

A chapter that is the first chapter with Victor’s POV, which is from a super old and unfinished draft of Two Birds Cracked The Stone.

Warning: Has blood, violence, injury, alcohol, smoking, animal death, animal killing, language, and childhood trauma + abuse

(Disclaimer: I’ve changed a lot of things with Victor and Erik since then and I’m definitely changing his past and how it played out. His dad and mom still are kinda the same, but eh...? I’ll figure it out later)

(Also my writing’s pretty bad D:)

Victor

I’ve always had dreams. Dreams about my past. Dreams about the most terrible events that have happened in my life.

I was blinking angry tears out of my eyes and staring at the stale grass draped upon my backyard. There was that bird. That stupid bird. Its beak was inches away from pecking my bruised hands, the bruised hands of a poor, lonely child. My teeth were clenched so tightly that I felt like they would snap into a billion pieces.

“Victor!” I heard Dad bark. “Come on, just kill it already!”

“B-But—“ I hiccuped miserably, sniffling as my eyes became wet and damp. “But Mom a-and— and Erik said—“

“Who gives a shit about what Erik said?” Dad snapped. “And your mom’s words mean nothing! So just kill that damn bird!”

I struggled to hold onto the small creature, yet I was having even more trouble trying to let it go. The thoughts endlessly swarmed in my head like a flock of dizzy crows over a dry cornfield. The bird in my grip was fluttering helplessly, but I couldn’t release it. Its red belly was barely visible between my fingers. Another robin.

“If you don’t kill it, Victor,” Dad warned, “you won’t be stepping outside ever again.”

“B-But Erik—“

“Quiet! Kill it! It’s so noisy and it’s driving me crazy!”

Indeed it was noisy. The bird was squawking here, squawking there, practically killing my ears with screams and shrieks. My head was spinning. Why did I have to kill it? Why couldn’t Dad just let it fly away? Why couldn’t Dad just go upstairs and work? I was fine with it. Why couldn’t he be fine with it, too?

Erik wasn’t fine with it at all. I had only left him a month ago and I wasn’t ready to leave my dear friend alone. He was an angel to me. I could never let him go.

But as I heard Dad’s heavy footsteps trudge on behind me, fear took over my actions. Immediately, my hands snapped the bird’s neck with a sickening crunch! that made me cringe. Erik wouldn’t have liked that. He would have hated me for that.

Dad crouched down, resting a hand on my shoulder. It was rough. It squeezed me uncomfortably, wanting to control me. Dad had always treated me like some sort of object; I shouldn’t have been so surprised.

“Good,” he hummed, his voice growly in my ear, like a predator catching his prey. “Now bury it.”

His hand didn’t leave my shoulder, even when I stood up. I stared at the crumpled up, blood-stained carcass in my hands. Dad wanted me to throw it away. To clean it up. It was all my job, my duty, all I had. It was all I was good for.

Shaking, I took my hard hands and began to scrape away at the dirt, digging a nice comfortable hole for the corpse. What would Erik say. What would Erik do. What would Erik think. Then plop! The misshapen bird fell into its resting place, and I smeared it over with the dirt I had dug out.

“Go back inside and eat your breakfast,” Dad sneered. “And watch your hands this time, for God’s sake. You always forget.”

In that dream, I looked back at Dad’s face, and I saw that his eyes were cold and blank. Dark. Lifeless.

Dead.

My eyes fluttered open to the real world. Weak and heavy on my face, droopy and twitchy. Everything was blurry and distant. My heart felt like it was closing in on itself, all tight and locked up in its own little cage. I was surrounded by darkness. My head was foggy and incomprehensible. Where was I?

A coppery taste was flooding my tongue. I was used to it. But this time, it was so intense that I could barely breathe. It was like someone was squeezing my throat, piercing my skin with monstrous claws. This darkness was suffocating me.

I let out a groan as I tried to move, only to be hit by a wave of sores and pains. I blinked rapidly to try and rid of the muddy cover in my eyes. That was when the outside world began to kick in: distant chatter, honking of cars, rumbles of footsteps. I was in town. And as I saw the thick brick patterns across from me, I realized that I was in an alleyway.

I was slumped against a wall. Weakly, I turned my head to see the people passing by in the light. All of them were too busy to look closely in the darkness, to spot me. But I didn’t care; it didn’t seem like anybody gave a shit about me, anyway. I was always left behind. Unnoticed. Ignored. Left to fend for myself. It was a norm for me.

For the umpteenth time, I was alone.

I did my best to lift my heavy, shaking hand to my face. It was covered in new cuts and bruises. Memories of last night swarmed in my head. A bunch of guys. Bitter and drunk. One of them with a knife. Brittle anger began to build up in my chest as I thought harder of the fight that broke out, how I lost and was humiliated instead of them. I was beaten up by a bunch of idiots. Goddamnit.

For a few minutes, I just laid there, trying to ignore the dull aches in my body and the annoying voices of the people in the light. I hated how happy they sounded. How they passed by me without a second glance. They were glued to their phones or their friends, and they had smiles pasted to their faces. It pissed me off. They probably had a great morning.

Unlike me, who woke up to this.

Slowly, I bended my legs, hissing at the burns that were scorching my knees. My face felt numb and cold. My hands were practically burning with pain as I pushed myself against the wall, slipping a little but managing to stand up. A wave of dizziness crashed into me as I forced my eyes to open.

Something was in my mouth. I spat onto the ground. There landed two teeth and a splatter of blood. Motherfucker. How did I get hit like that, anyway? I swore that I was completely focused last night. Even if I was up against a couple of drunkards, I should’ve at least escaped. Angrily, I wiped my mouth with my fist. I’d get those assholes back someday.

With shaking legs, I heaved a quivering breath. I spat again and again, trying to rid of the disgusting taste in my mouth. But it stayed. Now that I was more awake, the pain was becoming worse. Stronger. Flooding my mind.

I spotted a pool of water. It was raining last night, hard and fast. A few raindrops fell from the gutter above me. I stumbled over to it and fell onto my knees with a grunt. I hated feeling so weak. So vulnerable. So useless.

Upon seeing my reflection in the water, I scrunched up my nose in disgust. One of my eyes were swollen shut. A nasty red gash was diagonally spread across my lips. Bruises were smeared all over my face. I already thought that I looked ugly before. Now I looked beyond hideous.

Not that anybody really cared. And I didn’t care since nobody paid attention to me, anyway.

I forced myself to stand back up, wobbling a bit. My head was spinning like a crazy carousel. If I had to walk out in public like this, so be it. Let me be humiliated. People will forget about me afterwards.

I leaned onto the wall for support. Then I slowly edged out into the open, forcing myself to walk as normally as possible to blend into the crowd.

The bright sun skewered itself into my barely opening eyes. The chatter around me quieted down, some of them turning into gasps as I passed by, head down and bleeding fists shoved into my pockets. I glared at the sidewalk; I had to pretend that I was the only person here.

“Excuse me, sir?” I heard a lady call to me. I began to walk faster, zipping around a corner and stepping over my foot, tumbling and tripping onto the ground.

I groaned, pushing myself up as a few people began to surround me, hissing, “Are you okay?” and “Whoa, what happened to you?” all over the place. They sounded like buzzing mosquitos, ready to suck the blood from me.

I veered back up onto my trembling feet and pushed them out of the way. “Move,” I growled at them.

The lady that was calling my name brushed my shoulder with her hand, causing me to jerk away from her touch and glare her in the eye. I gnashed my bloody teeth together. What the hell do these people want?

“Sir, are you alright?” she asked in a shrill, frantic voice. “Do you need me to give you a ride? My car is a few blocks back. I can—“

“Leave me the hell alone,” I snapped.

She blinked stupidly, frowning. “But you’re all beat up! You need to be taken to the hospital, at least! I—“

“Fuck off!” I snarled. “I can take care of myself.”

I left her staring, her eyes digging into my back as I stormed away. All of these people were nasty. Ignorant. Dumb. Some of them, like the guys who beat me up, were demons. Monsters who fed off of others. Possessing people.

You could ask, “Aren’t there angels, too?” I’d laugh at you, loud and bold. I only met one angel in my life. That angel left me a very long time ago.

Sometimes, even in my darkest of moments, I thought of him. He gave me a sparkle of hope. Drove me on to fight all this loneliness and anger.

But that hope would burn out afterwards, because I knew that my angel had forgotten me already.

What do you want me to talk about? Symbolism or some shit? How some things mean predictions for the future? Future, my ass.

Fuck you. Fuck everyone.

* * *

It took me some time to actually get into my apartment. People kept bugging me and stopping me in the hallway, and I pushed them out of my way the best I could. One person even complained about me dripping water and blood all over the face; I thought it was the janitor.

“Stop getting all this dirt all over the halls!” I heard him shout. “I just cleaned this up!”

I blocked out his voice as I slammed the door to my room, grumbling and hissing curses underneath my breath. I didn’t give a damn if I was messing his job up. He was the one annoying me, anyway. None of my business.

My room was plain as hell. Shrunken and small. It made me feel like I was strangling the walls and floors with each and every step I took. I felt like there was barely any room between the kitchen table or my bed, and the bathroom was terribly tiny. Reminded me of my own head. Shrunken and small. Locked away to keep anything from slipping out.

In this case, my room was probably the only place I ever felt safe in.

I was all alone, too. I had to patch up everything on my sore and aching body. From the scrapes on my knees to the bruises on my fists. But like everything else, from getting beaten up and moping away from people treating me like a little baby, I was used to it. I was used to being the lonely, irritated Victor Norres.

I did my best to wipe away most of the blood in the bath-room. I winced and hissed when the wounds stung, especially the one on my face. I washed my mouth out with water, still pissed off at the two hollows left in my gums. Would they grow back? I didn’t know and I didn’t care.

I applied ointment to most of them and wrapped them up afterwards. As I stared in the mirror, I began to feel stupid. I looked stupid. Black eye, jagged lips, torn jeans and knuckles covered in red and blue. Sometimes I wished that I was the only person in the world. I wouldn’t have to deal with anybody’s bullshit. Nobody would get in my way. Nobody would humiliate me. I wouldn’t be so disappointed in everything.

But at the same time, I wished that I had somebody beside me. Someone who could understand me. As I stared into the mirror and at the blood covering my skin, I wondered if someone would clean my wounds for me. I wondered if someone would hold my face. Hold my hands no matter how roughed up they are.

Hold me. Tell me that they were there for me.

I’d have a guardian angel.

I shook off the thought. No. I was all alone here. Monsters were surrounding me. Disgusting monsters that did nothing but hurt people. My dad was one of them. He was a demon who manipulated me and manipulated others into thinking I was the danger. But I knew better than him.

I limped out of the bathroom and to one of the cabinets in the kitchen. I took out a box of cigs, lit up one of the sticks, and pressed it to my lips. I inhaled deeply. It distracted me from the sores on my body. Filled my throat with smoke and warmth.

One of the only things I really liked about this place was that smoking was pretty much allowed anywhere, anytime. Best part was that the people next door to me never complained about anything I did.

Only that one dude. The janitor. I hoped he wouldn’t bark another word at me ever again.

I stepped out onto the balcony and leaned on the railing the best I could. My knees nearly buckled. I took a deep breath, blowing smoke into the grey sky. Felt like a machine. A lonely machine, pumping out dust. Polluting the air. Polluting myself and rusting my engines until they were all dirty and crinkled.

My eye caught a few birds in the distance. It made my heart leap for a moment, remembering Dad’s voice. Good. Now bury it. These birds were free from my grasp, and I was free from their’s.

Still, I couldn’t help but look around, wondering if there were any other birds that were close. Slowly, I backed up, wobb-ling back into the safety of inside.

* * *

Later, I was all cooped up on the couch, staring at the television screen. I wrapped myself up in a cozy blanket, my jacket off to the side. I couldn’t believe that blood had gotten onto my shirt. I didn’t have that many clothes and they pretty much all looked the same. But I was sure that my jacket was zipped up just fine last night.

“Look at all those doves,” Jack said to his lovely sister Diana. “Remind me of Mom and Dad. You get that feeling?” He pointed to the dark evening sky, coated with silhouettes of many birds — devils they were in the bloody horizon. “Look at those two. They’re right next to each other.”

“Ah, yes!” Diana exclaimed. “Just like Mom and Dad. They’re gonna soar off together.”

Jack paused for a moment before looking at the ground, sighing. “What’s wrong?” his sister asked.

“I miss them. I miss Mom and Dad.”

Jesus fucking Christ, I thought to myself. Get over it. I should’ve played a drinking game while watching this shit. Every single time they said “Mom” or “Dad”, take a shot. Alcohol poisoning 101.

I rubbed my face tiredly with the blanket. My bandaged hands came into view. Ugly, beaten, and raw. It hurt just staring at them. Once again, those desperate thoughts crossed my mind: would anybody want to hold these hands?

Watching this movie wasn’t helping at all, either. Jack and Diana still spoke in cheesy, forced voices, staring out at the sunset that didn’t seem to move from its place.

Diana spoke about her boyfriend, a man who wore funky glasses and went to libraries. I wish I had a boyfriend, I moped. Then Jack began comparing his sister’s boyfriend to his own girlfriend, a woman who was a painter and writer. I wish I had a girlfriend, I sulked. I wished that I had somebody. Even a friend. Just to sit with me, talk, drink. I wished, I wished, I wished.

That lovesick feeling was practically dancing in my stomach the longer I watched. Grumbling to myself, I stood up, went over to the fridge, took a bottle of beer and went out onto the balcony once more.

There were times when I’d experience a heavy swing of emotion from thinking about love. Or anything, to be honest. My loneliness was practically controlling me, heaving itself onto my shoulders whenever I realized that even in my small home, there was so much empty space.

Afterwards, that emotion would toughen up, squeeze itself, then become nothing. It would disappear, basically, and I would feel empty. Hollow. Unmotivated. It happened a few times, I remembered as I took a sip from the bottle, when I was a kid. Mom would fuss about it, telling me to stop putting on that “long face.” At that time, I thought I had depression, but since neither Mom or Dad really paid attention to my mental health, I shrugged it off like they did.

The night was dark. Pitch black. No stars to be seen, no moon to awaken from slumber. Kinda made me sad as I stood there, leaning on the railing. I shivered from the gust of wind that brushed against me, swinging my jacket on. Winter was coming soon. A bit too soon for my tastes, to be honest. I hated the cold. I only had one jacket and it was getting a bit worn down. Barely gave me any warmth.

Below me, I heard laughter ringing like birdsong. I looked down. A few ladies and guys were paired together, giggling childishly and tip-tapping away at their phones. I frowned at them. Cigarette smoke was practically steaming from their throats, up, up, up into the air until they morphed into a thick cloud.

I sharpened my glare at the group, wanting them to look up at me. They were giving me a headache with their shrill voices. Idiots. They didn’t know how loud they were being and it was annoying the hell outta me.

Still, as I stared at them, I didn’t yell or shout. The emptiness inside of me was still very much there. The anger in my gut was weak. I watched them wearily, slipping out of my sight, their giggles dying in my ears. I took another sip out of my bottle, sighing deeply as the bitter taste flooded my mouth.

My tongue ran over the two hollow places in my gums. Two teeth. Punched out. Made me wonder if people would cringe when I smiled or laughed. I imagined myself in place with the ladies and guys, laughing with them and smoking with pride. Then I shook the thought away. Impossible. I would remain alone.

Only time I ever felt alive was with Erik. Met him a long time ago, left, never saw him again. Thought that afterwards we’d at least cross paths. At least once. But nope; we stayed on our own sides, never to spot each other’s faces ever again.

I had always had a longing for him, a feeling that I didn’t know how to describe. Hot, burning, searing in my chest. My face would grow hot whenever he was near me. He was almost oblivious to it no matter how close we were to each other. But we were just kids. Both of us would be denying those feelings no matter what.

What if he forgot about me? The nicotine from the passing group was flying into my nostrils, dusting my face. I accompanied it by taking another long drink from the beer in my hand. What if Erik didn’t know who I was anymore? What if I was crazy? Did anybody remember their childhood friend, even after tons of years of never seeing them?

I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to lurk into danger. It all seemed too risky making friends, having hope. I didn’t want to crawl out of the safety of my shell.

Deep down, even though I wouldn’t admit it, I was afraid.

But I won’t show it, I thought to myself, finishing the rest of the bottle and slipping back inside to watch Jack and Diana leaving the sunset together.

#victor #twisty's writing #twisty's characters #injury tw #violence tw #blood tw #trauma tw #abuse tw #child abuse tw #alcohol tw #smoking tw #ok to rb

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