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bestfriendforhire · 1 year

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Children of BFFH, Entry 183

I grinned as I looked around for dangerous beasties, being the appointed security guard for my squad. Ella was busy designing lodgings out of the available flora… and some rocks. I couldn’t tell if any of what I was seeing was real due to the suit. Most of the trees had blue bark and violet leaves. The grass was somewhere between pink and red. Then there were these weird tendrils that Maika claimed were part of a carnivorous plant. The quadruplets always made neat gadgets, but getting to use an augmented reality suit in an actual forest clearly put this among their top creations!

“Aspy, on your left!” exclaimed Ella from where she was working.

I whirled and shot the moment I saw the vibrant red fur of a wolf-like creature with hard-looking plates instead of fur. Instead of the Star Wars like blaster bolts I had been expecting, the gun kicked in my hand and sounded like an ordinary gun. Orange blood squirted onto my visor as I was knocked to the ground—which amazed me, given that none of this was real. I rolled to the side and shot again, but missed.

“Behind you!” came Ella’s warning again.

A second wolf-like beastie was already leaping at me, so I rolled to the side, shooting after it. “Head up a tree!” called Maika. “The scarlet wolves can’t climb!”

I didn’t argue, stepping off one of my platforms and leaping onto the tree. “Woops. Sorry.” I apologized, realizing that I shouldn’t be using magic during our AR game.

“It happens.” replied Maika, who was still grinning from the fun. She and Ella each had their own tree nearby.

“What are we supposed to do now?” I questioned as I watched the wolves below us.

“You have a gun, so shoot them!” exclaimed Maika, sounding as if she thought I was being silly.

“The gun bounces too much! How am I supposed to hit anything?” I asked, guessing she was underestimating how difficult this was.

“Momma Mila did the coding, so you can complain to her if you want, but I’m sure it’s just more realistic than you’re used to, given that we asked her to try making things as realistic as possible.” explained Maika with a tone that clearly said this was not her problem.

I did my best to balance on my branch and fire, but I nearly fell off. Worse yet, I didn’t come particularly close to hitting anything. Maybe this gun was meant for someone who was stronger than me. “I think you should add a training course pre-game.”

Maika called back “Probably. We’ll talk with Momma Mila about it, but make sure to submit a suggestion at the end! We have a questionnaire!”

“Are we allowed to fight those?” asked Ella, who might have forgotten about why she was in a tree until she looked down again. Whatever my difficulties, she had to be struggling even more with so much new stuff thrown at her.

“They’re stronger than they look, but you’re free to try!” replied Maika, who sounded like she was curious about what would happen. “No magic, Ella! This game doesn’t have a spell system.”

If Ella replied, I didn’t hear it come through on the suit’s communicator. Seeing a wolf notice her as she climbed down, I started shooting again, trying to keep all of them distracted, but I really didn’t think holding the gun steady and staying in the tree were possible, at least without using magic.

I also had forgotten about having limited ammo, and had to follow the information on my HUD to reload, which wouldn’t be an issue from relative safety if Ella wasn’t already on the ground. She started dodging attacks in almost typical Ella fashion, but she seemed thrown off. I could guess why. Part of what helped Ella in real world fights was her Fey ability to sense living things. With nothing to sense, she was relying completely on her normal senses, which were currently being fed information from a suit.

By the time I was firing again, Ella had somehow gotten her hands on a thick stick and sharpened one end to a point. I noticed there were also a few more of the wolves that looked wounded, but even she hadn’t managed to kill one yet. These creatures were tough!

I managed to get a good shot off—nearly falling out of the tree again in the process—just after Ella stabbed a wolf. She stabbed again the moment the wolf looked to see what had hurt it, and this time her improvised spear went deep. The wolf howled in pain, and the others closed ranks in a circle around Ella, making them much easier targets for me as I started to shoot at any that were close together with bursts of fire. My aim was still abysmal, but I was doing some damage. One of the wolves even dropped without Ella stabbing it.

Somewhere during the fight, Maika had snuck out of her tree and made a spear of her own. She came out from behind one of the other trees, charging into the wolf with the point of her spear and even lifting the wolf a little off the ground. I wished I was that strong, but I was certain the quadruplets occasionally wished they were as strong as Four. As I kept firing, I realized it was a little funny that no one ever wished they were as strong as Messy or Crazy. I wasn’t actually certain how strong those two were physically. Knowing they were overwhelming was enough. With that kind of strength, I’d break stuff by accident way too often.

After the fifth wolf went down, the rest fled, leaving us with a bunch of meat! “Does this solve the food problem?” I asked with a smile after I was back on the ground.

“Nope.” stated Maika as she fiddled with some device.

“What!? Why not!?” I demanded, feeling disappointed despite knowing this wasn’t real.

“Their flesh is toxic to us. Unless we find a way to cook it that counteracts the toxin, we can’t eat any of these.” she explained, sounding a little disappointed herself.

“That’s just no fair!” I grumbled, despite sorta almost liking the challenge that gave us. I was looking forward to seeing what other types of creatures were here.

“If we can find more of these puppies, we could use the hide plates for shingles.” suggested Ella in a way that almost sounded hopeful. Almost defensively, she added “I’m supposed to be making shelter.”

Maika and I figured out a way to strip the tough plates off the wolves as Ella went back to making shelter. Instead of having to come up with a way to tan the plates, Maika had some neat tool that had some overly-complicated-sounding method of drawing out any moisture while cleaning the inside. Games certainly made some things convenient. Since we had an abundance of ammo, I did some shooting practice while trying to do a better job of being the lookout.

#Children of BFFH #Children #of #BFFH #Jovial Times #Jovial #Times #Fantasy #Fiction #Story

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depressedacadamia · 3 years

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Fight Me Part 2

Summary: Nico prepares for his date but it seems someone has forgotten.

Warnings?: Nothing much. A bit of kissing. Some fluff.

A/N: FJLKJLHGK, I completely forgot that i wrote this and that i was gonna write a part 2. Anyway, my exams are next week and i haven't revised so wish me luck. Little tribute for @thebigqueer and their old blog description of ‘people make fun of me because I’m short but I can reach their knees’ because lateron, Nico embodies that. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy! <3 from me!

Read Part 1 on tumblr Read parts 1 and 2 on A03

It was 7:30

Will was late.

“Hello?” Nico turned around. “Anybody here?”

The sun was going to set in around an hour and half and somehow, the sky was already getting darker. Nico could feel the sun's rays getting weaker and the warmth slowly draining away.

He had a small bag clutched in his hand with a collection of his favourite mythomagic cards and a couple of sandwiches and some bottles of juice. It certainly wasn’t a banquet but at least it was something and Nico had assumed that Will would have had a tiring day after working in the infirmary during a day of capture the flag ( The Ares kids were always involved).

He lifted his wristwatch to his line of view to glance at the time, noticing that the time was moving annoyingly fast. If it continued like this, it would be sunset and Nico would have officially been stood up. He could feel his chest prickling in anxiety from the idea- that all along it was a sick joke, made only so everyone could make fun of him.

“Hello? Anybody?” It was almost eight and Nico was getting agitated. Sure it was normal to be a bit late, even if it was a date that Will had asked him on but 45 minutes? 45 minutes late to a date? Nico was finally so sick of pacing behind his cabin like a loser, he worked up the nerve to march over to the infirmary to give Will a piece of his mind.

As Nico entered what he believed to be the infirmary, he questioned if he was in the right place. Then it hit him. The infirmary was so crowded, Nico couldn’t even recognise it. It was full of campers, from many different cabins, all covered in injuries and blood. This room, to surgeons, was like candy but with blood, which as Christina Yang had said- was way better,

That was only, of course, if you weren’t meant to be on a date with your cute ex-patient.

To Will, the sudden influx of patients infuriated him. He was meant to be having the best date of his life with Nico but instead, he ws here treating all these stupid injured buffalos who were too incompetent to prevent themselves from being injured.

“Next time, if an Ares kid threatens to break your leg, you should take them more seriously,” Will sighed as he finished the cast on the Athena camper’s leg. Weren’t these ones meant to be smart, Will thought.

His eyes searched across the infirmary, for the next most urgent patient; as head of the Apollo cabin, he was in charge of the infirmary which at first had sounded great. Now, he realised, it was not.

He was about to assist on setting a broken arm but he saw another healer get there first and simultaneously, he saw a very recognisable set of onyx eyes that came with a stunning appearance.

Nico was wearing black skinny ripped jeans with a chain hanging by the waist of it. His stygian iron sword that never left his side was being held to his waist with a skull strap and Nico’s eyeliner was absolutely perfect. Winged and angelic, his eyes were standing out like never before. Nico had been a bit nervous about wearing eyeliner outside of his cabin, but after much persuasion from Hazel, Jason and Percy, he had agreed to wear it.

Will thought he felt his mouth drop. But then, he felt his heart drop. Why was Nico in the infirmary? Was he involved in the fight? Was he hurt? Will rushed over to Nico, pushing through the injured masses, ignoring their shouts and snaps of discomfort. He waded through them like thick oceans of blood until he managed to spot Nico’s hand, decorated with expensive looking rings.

“Nico,” Will gasped, his eyes running up and down, scanning his body for injuries. “What are you doing here? Are you okay?”

Nico’s winged eyes squinted. “ What am I doing here? Did you forget?”

Will’s mouth opened and then closed again, his brain clearly racking for what he had forgotten.

“Our date. You were meant to meet me an hour ago,” He mumbled, raising his wrist to his face, checking the time once again.

Will’s face dropped, his expression ghostly. “ No! No, no, I can’t have forgotten- it wasn’t today. I could have sworn it wasn’t today.” He turned to Nico. “ It wasn’t today, right?”

“It was today.”

“Fuck.”

“That’s a good response, at least,” Nico murmured, kicking his boots at the bloodied tile floor.

“I'm so sorry. I got hoarded with patients, like hoarded. The Ares kids had some new weapons made today and the Hephaestus kids thought it would be fun to mess with them. Somehow the Athena kids got involved and I think there are some Dionysus kids who got involved just for the drama.” Will grabbed Nico's hands, squeezing them with such intensity, Nico feared they might break.

When Nico looked at Will’s face at that moment, he knew he was going to say ‘yes’ to whatever was about to be asked of him. Whether Will just wanted some gum or if he wanted to burn the entire world; there was something alluring in those eyes that Nico could simply never deny. “Nico, fuck, please give me another chance. I know I shouldn't have stood you up like that and I really wasn't planning to. It’s just, we got so many patients all at once that it completely slipped from my mind and-”

“-I’m not mad. A bit annoyed, yes, but I get it. You have people to fix. Go do your job.” Nico paused for a moment. “But one thing. Next time you almost stand me up, a note or a messenger would have been nice.”

Will frowned. “I thought I sent a note?”

Nico paused again. Did he send a note? Nico’s memory racked- did anybody come to give him a note? He couldn’t distinctly remember it.

The only thing he remembered was someone running to his cabin, panting and him slipping himself into the shadows, avoiding whichever body had come wandering into his domain- he had not been in the mood to interact with anybody other than Will (Or maybe Hazel or Annabeth because they always knew what to say and when to say it).

Woops.

“Oh, That note you mean. I might have hidden from the messenger in the shadows…” Nico trailed off, looking everywhere but Will. Expecting a loud scoff or perhaps a jeer, Nico could feel his hands clenching up, ready to get him out of this situation. But when he heard a little giggle and saw Will giving him a genuine little smile and holding out his hand, he couldn’t help but be surprised.

“I know that I’m currently meant to be working but I guess taking a little break couldn’t hurt. Besides, I haven't eaten a proper meal all day and those sandwiches look delicious.”

Nico happily let Will lead him to the room reserved for the staff who were in this case, just the Apollo kids. But then he stopped.

“You haven't eaten all day? Will, what the hell? You were nagging me the entire of my stay here to eat and you don't even do it yourself?”

“I do eat, it’s just sometimes, I forget to because everybody is being stupid and trying to fight their healers,” Will huffed as he grabbed a sandwhich and stuffed a bite into his mouth.

“What idiot tries to fight their healers?” Nico asked as he took a sip of juice. They were sitting in the corner of the ‘staff room’ which in reality was just the back room. It just had 2 bare beds for quick resting and back up medical supplies. There was a bare sink and a couple of cupboards which were most likely empty. The freezer however, had several pints of ice cream.

“Oh who tries to fight their healer? Must I remind you of your behaviour every time you're in this infirmary?”

Will opened a pack of chips that he had managed to snag from one of the other healers; he doubted they’d notice. Well, he hoped they wouldn't notice.

“I can’t be that bad.” Nico batted his hand in the air, his hand reaching over to Will’s pack of chips and stealing one. Will smacked his hand and gasped, showing his mock offence.

“Oi! Those are mine!”

“Says who?” Nico argued. “ I happen to know you stole them!”

“Yeah but finders keepers!”

“I will fight you for those chips,” Nico snarled. Will, smiling wickedly, held his front; not in the least intimidated by Nico's violent demeanor.

“Perfect, now we finally fight. After all, I did tell you that I’d fight you later when you were recovering.”

“I’ll turn you into ashes.”

“Nu uh, I don’t think so. Remember I have regeneration,” Will boasted. They were both now standing, their food abandoned on the table.

“If I remember correctly.” Nico moved forward for the attack, “You told me you wouldn’t fight me because you knew I would win.”

Will gave a smirk. “You were ill. I couldn't tell you the truth.”

Nico squinted his eyes and waited for Will’s punch. He didn’t expect for Will to be waiting for his; Oh right, Will always fights defensive

But then he realised that this could be used to his own advantage. He went in for an attack, his leg going round to kick the back of Will’s knees, making him buckle to the floor. Nico was aiming to disable him from moving, not hurt him.

I may be short, but that just means I can reach your knees.

Will let out a rueful laugh, the game was on. Just as when Nico went to grab Will's arm, Will used his other arm to grab Nico and used all his strength and Nico’s momentum to flip Nico onto his back so that when Nico looked up, He saw Will's smiling face.

Nico rolled away, quickly forcing his way up. They both stood facing each other, none of them throwing a punch or a kick. They were dancing around each other, around their feelings. Nico ran into Will and used every force in his favour to force Will to fall onto the bare bed behind him. They landed safely with an oomph and immediately Nico got to work in immobilising him.

Nico quickly straddled Will, trying to grab his arms but Will, while not the fastest, was relatively strong. He managed to grab Nico’s arm, stopping him from being trapped. He then used all the strength he could summon from his abdominal muscles and managed to flip Nico so that it was him holding both of Nico’s arms above his head, effectively pinning him to the bed.

Nico struggled but Will was too strong. He had tried to flip Will back onto his back but it was too hard so he settled for trying to wrestle his wrists out of the blond boy's grasp. They were panting and their faces were close enough that they could feel each other's warm breath on each other's face.

Nico felt his eyes being drawn to Will’s lips and then his ocean blue, like eyes. It was a magnet being drawn across Will's face and Nico had no choice but to follow it everywhere. From the perfect slant of his cupid’s bow at his lips and the fullness of his lips to the half lidded eyelids that covered his deep eyes. The eyes that we're currently analysing Nico’s face, in the same way he was doing to Will’s, right this moment.

Will felt Nico’s wrists stop resisting as much in his grasp as his eyes slowly drifted to his own. Their eyes locked. Ocean Blue met Onyx. The sea had met the depths of the earth and it was only the roaring sound of their own blood being pumped ferociously by their hearts that acted as the soundscape of the ocean as Will lowered his lips to meet Nico’s in the most tentative of kisses.

Their lips brushed gently, as a taster and then, Nico slipped one of his supposedly trapped wrists out of Will’s hands and slid it around Will’s neck, pulling him to deepen the kiss. Will’s face felt heated as he moved his hands from above Nico’s head to cup his face; he could feel the heat radiating from it.

They broke apart- only for a second- but alas, even that felt like too much. Their lips found each other again, even in the darkness of the room, due to sunset and yet they were only in the dark for a matter of seconds. Nico, despite having his eyes closed, could feel the soft glow of Will’s skin.

“Hey Will, Where did ya g-” The startled young healer was stunned before cringing immediately at their older brother.

“-Oh god, Will, My eyes! My eyes have been scarred, dear, good gracious Gods, Help me!”

Nico’s hands flew to Will’s chest, pushing him off while Will himself made an attempt to scramble off Nico. They keyword there being attempt, because the next thing he knew, Will had stumbled and managed to trip Nico into falling face first into Will’s chest, straddling him and thus making their situation so much worse.

“What do you want?” Will groaned at his younger sibling, as Nico climbed off him, slowly burying his face in his hands out of embarrassment.

“You have another patient to fix.” The kid was now holding his hands over his eyes- something that deeply irritated Nico.

“Oh calm down, it’s not like we were doing anythi-”

“-Nico!” Will cried. “ Go out and find someone to cover for me. Tell Kayla she’s in charge; I’m off for the night,” Will declared as he grabbed Nico’s hand, kicked open the back door and fled into the early night with Nico, hand in hand.

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winryofresembool · 3 years

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Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 34

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: At Waystation, please don't ask me what part

A/N: Woop, not as long a wait as earlier! I am kind of surprised that this chapter ended up being easier for me to write than the previous one despite the emotional stuff L&C are talking about in it. But I'm also extremely happy I got it done!

Hmmm, should I say anything else? I guess I just hope you guys enjoy this monster chapter! (almost 5k words, a lot for me) And please, please let me know what you think of this chapter because I really, /really/ want to know!

Words: 4900+

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / AO3

...

It took Calypso a while to collect herself after her breakdown. On one hand, she felt bad that she had yelled at Leo like that, especially in front of Georgina. But on the other hand, she felt he had deserved it. When Leo had asked her if something was wrong, she had already been emotional because of the song and the feelings it had made her realize. When she added the frustrations caused by the ‘present incident’ and also her fear for her future and what her father might do to that, she was kind of surprised that she had managed to stay calm even that long.

After she had made sure that the redness on her face had faded a bit and she would be able to speak in a normal tone, she finally joined Leo’s family who had just started preparing the dinner. Leo himself wasn’t present; apparently Festus had been expecting a long Christmas walk, but Calypso still wondered briefly if that was only an excuse. Luckily she did quite enjoy cooking while listening to Jo and Emmie’s stories because that gave her something else to think about.

The dinner guests arrived about an hour later. Among them was a man named ‘Lit’ (Calypso had to raise her eyebrow at the nickname), who apparently took care of an actual living elephant among other things. With him was the ‘Golden Haired Dude’ whom Georgina had mentioned earlier, only he had dyed his hair brown recently. He introduced himself as Lester and he mentioned liking music, which piqued Calypso’s interest but she didn’t have a chance to ask more about it during the dinner. The two had also brought Lester’s young ‘master’ Meg with them. Calypso was still too distraught by the earlier events to really focus on getting to know those people better, but somehow they, especially the two men, seemed to be even louder than Leo was usually. Meg seemed nice, though, and Calypso found out that they shared an interest in gardening. She still noticed wishing that the dinner would be over fast so she could just withdraw into her room and try to calm down a bit.

***

”Alright, what’s going on here?”

Jo and Emmie dragged Leo and Calypso out of the dining room after the dinner. Calypso didn’t understand why; they had managed to behave perfectly neutrally while the guests had been there, at least in her opinion. Well, honestly speaking neither of them had talked much - mostly when they were asked some standard questions like ‘what do you study again?’ - but that was probably for the best. Otherwise Calypso might have said something she would have regretted.

“What do you mean?” Leo asked Jo defensively. “It’s not like I step danced on the dining table or anything like that! We were behaving just fine!”

“Mr. Valdez,” Jo used her most threatening voice, which actually intimidated even Calypso who had gotten used to many kinds of threatening in the past. “In your case that means that something is definitely going on. I have not gone through a single Christmas dinner with you where you haven’t tried to tell at least one of your favorite Santa jokes. And yes, don’t think we have just forgotten what happened this morning.”

“Besides, Calypso’s eyes have been red since this afternoon,” Emmie added. So she had noticed, Calypso sighed in her mind. She had made sure to wash her face carefully with cool water after her little mental breakdown and had even added some concealer under her eyes to hide the redness but of course these two wouldn’t miss a thing.

“And we did notice your glares at the table,” Jo finally finished the chastising.

“Listen, moms.” Leo crossed his arms. “I appreciate you trying to help but this is between Cal and me.”

“Alright,” Jo said. “Then how about you try to deal with it while doing the dishes.”

“Wait, what?” Leo protested. “Georgie needs my help with building the 1000 piece puzzle she got from the neighbors; I promised her I would…”

“Georgina can wait,” Emmie said firmly. “Leo, Calypso is our guest and no matter what your issue is, you two are adults and you should be able to talk it out maturely.”

Calypso had already learned to know the two women well enough to be able to tell that once they had decided something, you wouldn’t be able to change their minds easily. She too did want to protest because this was not how she wanted to do her ‘grand talk’ with Leo, but it seemed rather pointless. They really did need to talk, and the sooner they’d get it done, the sooner they might be able to find some sort of normalcy in their situation. Maybe. Calypso didn’t think their relationship had ever been particularly ‘normal’.

“Alright, we’ll do the dishes,” she said eventually. “But I don’t know what happens after that. I guess it depends.”

“Hmm, I guess we can’t ask more than that,” Emmie nodded. “OK, we’ll leave you two to it. And if anything breaks, remember, you will be replacing it!” she referred to the fancier dinnerware they had been using that day.

“As if I would even dream of breaking your plates,” Leo mumbled when his mothers were already on their way out of the room. Calypso almost snorted at his comment before she remembered that she was mad at him, and simply made a sound that was a bit like a sneeze.

An awkward silence fell in the room once the flatmates were alone.

“Well…” Calypso finally broke it after they had been scrubbing the dishes for several minutes without saying anything.

“Yeah…?”

“Are we going to talk about what happened today or not?” She folded her arms, dropping some soap water on the floor in the process.

“I don’t know, are we?” Leo attempted to provoke her, but he was lacking his usual spunk. When Calypso kept glaring at him, he finally sighed. “Listen. I know I acted like an idiot earlier. What else is new? But the thing is, this day is just… always getting to me. I can’t help it. I know it sounds pathetic, but…”

Leo was stopped by Calypso’s hand around his wrist. “I know what happened to your mother. I mean, the full story. Jo and Emmie told me. What happened was really, really horrible, but that doesn’t excuse you yelling like that when I was only trying to help. You also really made us worry when you ran away like that. I was afraid something was going to happen to you! And when you came back, you were acting like nothing had happened! Can you imagine how frustrated that made me feel?” Nearly tears in her eyes again, she finished. “It made me feel that you don’t care about us!”

“Calypso, calm down! I’m sorry, OK?” Leo raised his voice. “Yeah, I was selfish. And yeah, I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I didn’t think much at that point. I know it doesn’t excuse what I did but let me at least explain why I did what I did before you blow up the whole house.”

“Alright,” Calypso gave in. “Do explain.”

“Every day since my mom died…” Leo started, emphasizing the two first words, “I’ve been feeling guilty about her death. Some days I feel better, but it’s always worse during Christmases. Because that’s when she died.”

Calypso had a feeling that Leo wanted to say more, so she waited quietly, trying to look encouraging.

“This morning, before our present opening, I had a nightmare. Yeah, you probably already guessed what it was about. I saw how the fire started - I had left my blueprints too close to the fireplace and it just… spread - and how the policeman told me my mom had gone inside the house when… when I was lying unconsciously in our backyard. She had been looking for me because she didn’t know I had managed to escape.” He tried to clear his throat but his voice was still cracking when he finished: “My mom was my only family and she died because I was stupid and careless.”

While Calypso and Leo had had plenty of arguments in the past, she had rarely seen him as bitter as when he said those final words. It seemed as if he was in physical pain because he was so angry at himself. She wanted to say something encouraging, but she knew from experience that there was nothing that she could say in a situation like that that could make it better. Kind words didn’t bring the people you loved back. She did, however, try to show with gestures that she understood – she really did – and she moved closer to him, gently putting her hand on his shoulder.

Leo attempted to collect himself for a moment before he continued, blinking his eyes furiously: “It didn’t help me mentally that my aunt was forced to take me in after the fire. You can probably imagine her reaction. “You mutt, you really think you deserve to live after what happened to your mother?” Yeah. That happened. She told that to an 8-year-old boy. I’m almost thankful to her that she did eventually send me to a foster home. Only almost though.”

Calypso remembered his stories of the foster homes he had been in and understood what he meant.

“I hope that this explains why I don’t want to deal with fire now. Not because I’m afraid of the fire itself. But because I’m afraid of what it could do to people I love. So, yeah, that is why I was not thrilled to get those matches on this particular day.”

Calypso had to admit that after hearing the story from Leo himself, his reaction made more sense.

“I’m… sorry. About what happened to you and about the matches. I really picked an awful time to give them to you. But I still wish you had told me all that earlier instead of just waiting to blow up. And I never meant anything hurtful; I didn’t mean you need to use them any time soon… I just wanted to show you that I have faith in you. Because I do!

Leo was quiet for a while.

“Yeah… I know you were only trying to help,” he sighed finally. “I don’t know. I had such a good day yesterday and then one night turned it upside down. It’s not your fault. Some things… just had been building inside me for too long.”

“I know how you feel,” Calypso said quietly.

“You do?” Leo asked.

“Yeah. Um, I think it’s my turn to open up about some things. You told me your story so I should do the same.”

“Okay, go on,” he encouraged, seeming curious even though he was still visibly upset.

Calypso took a moment to decide where to start from. “As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been battling with some ghosts of my past for a long time now, and this fall has been quite a rollercoaster for me emotionally.”

Leo nodded at her.

“I thought that when I would move out… escape from my father’s mansion… I could just put all that behind me and start from the beginning. And in a way I was able to do that. I do enjoy living here. I like my studies – even though it has been very different compared to what I did at home… sometimes difficult... but I’ve never been one to sit around when I know I have work to do so I. That’s the way I’ve been raised.”

She looked up from her hands. “I’m also really grateful that I’ve met all the wonderful people who have become my friends here. Yeah, believe it or not, you included. But… All that makes my fear even stronger. I’m afraid that it all will be taken from me again.”

Leo frowned. “I don’t understand now. Why would that happen? Is it because of your father? You mentioned something about that once.”

Calypso was on the verge of tears again but she bit her lip and tried to put herself together. “I… I did something awful when I was 16… and my father wants to make sure that no one will ever hear about it.”

“What happened?” Leo asked.

“I… had some… um, relationship issues, for the lack of a better word. My boyfriend of that time had discovered that his previous girlfriend had moved back to New York, and, surprise, he wanted to end our relationship. He wasn’t the first to do that. That’s what always happened. They always had someone who was more important to them than me.” Calypso rubbed her forehead tiredly. “I was pretty down after that because the 16-year-old me thought that no one would care about me.”

Leo looked at her with a ‘that’s bullshit’ kind of expression, but for once he said nothing. She could still see that he had sympathy in his eyes.

“So, one day pretty soon after that guy went back to his ex, I was invited to a party. Most of the people there were a bit older than me so yeah, there was alcohol involved. I was shy and still really upset about what had recently happened to me so I thought that maybe a drink or two would make me feel better. But I drank way more than that because I just wanted to forget about everything for a while. Someone at the party knew my big sister Zoë and thought that it would be the best for me if she’d come to get me home before something bad happened to me. Well, ironically…” Calypso’s vision started blurring as she attempted to finish the sentence. “Zoë would probably still be here if she hadn’t come to pick me up.”

She swiped her face into her hand very ungracefully and sniffed a couple of times before she was able to continue.

“So… she arrived and when we got into the car, she naturally started scolding me. I don’t remember anymore what exactly she said but I know I deserved it. But at that moment I was being an idiot so of course we got into an argument. And she didn’t…” She couldn’t hold the tears in any longer, instinctively searching for support from Leo’s shoulder.

“It’s OK, Cal… You don’t have to tell me more if you don’t want to,” Leo tried to calm her down, awkwardly patting her back.

“Can you hand me some of that paper towel?” she sobbed when she managed to get some words out of her mouth, pointing at the roll on the table. “I must look like a mess.”

Leo attempted to give her an encouraging smile even though Calypso knew that must have been hard because he was probably feeling as bad as she was on the inside.

“R-right, here,” he said and pulled one piece of the paper towel from the roll, handing it to her.

“Thanks,” Calypso mumbled and swept her nose and cheeks into the paper.

“No problem.”

Calypso chuckled at the irony of the situation while she was attempting to dry the last tears. “Why is it that I was the one who was worried about you… and now I’m the one who ended up crying?”

“Guess we’re both pretty messed up,” Leo concluded for her. “But it’s OK. We can… you know… try to support each other?” It was more of a question than a statement, and Calypso assumed Leo was still unsure if she’d let him stay in her life.

“Yeah… maybe we can. But, um… I should finish my story.”

“Take your time.” Leo nodded at her.

“So…” she finally said. “We were fighting. And she got so distracted that she… I mean, neither of us… noticed that there was a car coming really fast from behind a curve and the road was pretty narrow and… before she had time to brake… the car hit us.”

Calypso’s heart was still beating rapidly when she remembered that situation, but taking a couple of deep breaths, she managed to avoid another crying fit. A couple of tears fell on her cheeks but her voice turned angry rather than sad.

“She… she died almost instantly. I don’t know how I got so lucky that I ended up with only a couple of broken bones and bruises. The driver of the other car was injured quite badly but from what I heard, also survived. I bet my father was relieved about that,” she finished bitterly.

“Cal…” Leo tried to say something but she interrupted him.

“If you say your mother’s death was your fault, so was Zoë’s death my fault. She would still be here if I hadn’t messed up at that party. She would still be here if we hadn’t been arguing on the road. So, I know exactly how you feel.”

“Yeah… there are some similarities there…” Leo admitted. “But I don’t think it was your fault. It was an accident.”

“Similarly to what happened to your mom,” Calypso noted.

Leo decided to not continue with that topic. “One question: how does your father have anything to do with this?”

Calypso sighed out of frustration. “I told you once that he basically…” She decided to change her approach. “Um, after that accident he didn’t let me go anywhere anymore, especially unsupervised because if someone had found out that I had something to do with my sister’s death… that would probably have ruined his career. Instead…” she said darkly, “he was able to take advantage of people’s sympathy. ‘Oww, poor Mister Astal… he must have been devastated after such a loss!’ But you know what?! I know… he couldn’t have cared less. The only thing that man cares about is his money and power.”

Calypso noticed that Leo was clenching his jaw. “I… I haven’t even met the guy but I really, really hate him. Trust me, I’d punch him in the face if I happened to meet him. Hard. But honestly, I think he deserves way more than that. He’d deserve…”

Leo proceeded to tell Calypso what exactly he thought her father would deserve, and weirdly enough, somehow that made her feel slightly better. Sure, nothing would ever give her back the years she had lost because of him. But at least she knew she had people on her side, and that was the most she could ask for in her situation.

“Even though I support your plan 100%... which by the way isn’t something I expected to say… I’d prefer it if you never, ever had to meet him.” Calypso shook her head. “I’ve already told you that he is capable of ruining lives if he wants to.”

“And I’ve already told you that I don’t care,” Leo said challengingly.

“Yeah, but I do!” Calypso exclaimed angrily. “How do you think I’d feel if he hurt you, because of me?”

That finally stopped Leo from arguing with her. Maybe he realized that he would feel just as awful if something happened to her.

“Okay. I won’t be hunting him down right now. But I’m still sticking to what I said after the Halloween party. If he ever does anything to you, know that I will help you. No matter what it costs.” Calypso looked at him with awe. No one had told her before that they’d be willing to risk so much for her sake.

“Why… why would you do that for me?” she whispered.

Fire was burning in Leo’s eyes. Maybe because he was angry… maybe for some other reason too. Before Calypso could prepare herself, he announced without hesitation:

“Because I love you, Cal! It’s as simple as that!”

There. The words Calypso had been both hoping and dreading to hear were out now, and there was no way to take them back. She couldn’t say she was completely surprised by his confession after everything that had happened since Halloween, but still… to hear him say it aloud… it still felt different than just knowing that it might be the case. Only a few hours earlier she herself had come to accept the fact that her own feelings were deeper than just some regular crush, and now this… She felt extremely overwhelmed.

“Don’t say that,” Calypso mumbled, not able to look him in the eyes at that moment. “I’ve heard people tell that to me before… and they’ve never meant it…”

“Yeah, but I do!” Leo kept insisting. “You should know me well enough by now to know that I don’t say things I don’t mean!”

Finally, Calypso lifted her eyes from her hands to Leo’s face. He was watching her with a dead serious expression, but at closer look she noticed that there was also a certain softness, gentleness in his eyes. The kind that made her knees feel weak.

“I know that,” she said quietly, and before she could stop herself, she stepped closer to Leo and took the towel he had been using to dry the dishes from his hands and threw it on the table. Her heart was racing and she felt a bit shaky, but she moved even closer, leaving only a couple of centimeters between them. Before she progressed from there, though, she very lightly brushed his cheek with her thumb, stopping at the corner of his lip, to let him know of her intentions. For a moment he just stared at her dumbfounded before nodding slightly while blushing furiously, and that was the only sign she needed. Moving both of her hands to the sides of his face, she rose on her tiptoes and kissed him fully on the mouth.

Calypso still remembered how the kisses she had previously experienced had often felt like the other one had been in a rush to get somewhere, possibly out of his real love interest’s sight. But this time was different. When their lips touched, Leo froze for one moment (Calypso hoped it was because he was thinking ‘whoa, can’t believe this is happening!’ and not because he was horrified), but he quickly recovered from that and responded, at first slowly, lightly, but when she kept encouraging him, he got more eager. Before he got ahead of himself, though, he stopped and looked at her straight into eyes as if to ask if it was OK. That was how Calypso knew that he wanted this just as much as she did.

“Keep going,” she whispered, and Leo did what he was told to do. He pressed his lips firmly against hers and sunk his fingers into her hair, sending sparks down Calypso’s spine. Warmth spread through her entire body when he tilted her head slightly to get better access to her lips and deepened the kiss. She was surprised by how soft his lips felt against her mouth (for some reason when she had been picturing this situation – which, yes, had happened more than once, she had to admit to herself – she had imagined them a bit rough, like his hands) and she felt a little light headed as Leo’s tongue gently poke her lips to ask her to part them. She happily reciprocated and discovered he tasted like the gingerbread cookies she and Georgina had baked, which probably meant he had liked them.

Even though Calypso would have liked it to continue longer, soon they needed to break away to get some air. Her face was red, she was panting and somehow her hair had also gotten messy in the process, but she didn’t care. Why would she when she felt loved possibly for the first time in her life? Leo was looking at her gently and she wanted to reach in and continue from where they were left off, but before that she felt she needed to say something.

“Don’t tell your mothers that happened,” she mumbled while resting her head against his shoulder, trying to sound serious but knowing she was failing.

“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t dream of it.” Leo stopped stroking her hair when she lifted her head from his shoulder to see his expression. Leo’s eyes were so unlike they had only been about 15 minutes earlier when Jo and Emmie had ‘forced’ them to talk. Back then they had looked almost black and emotionless, but now they were back to the lighter chocolate brown Calypso was used to, sparkling happily at her comment. It made her very relieved to see him like that; she must have done something right after all.

“Good.” She nodded and looked at him expectantly. Leo picked up the hint, but instead of kissing her right away, he lifted her on a kitchen cabinet so she wouldn’t have to stand on her tiptoes (not that Leo was tall; Calypso was just that short). Calypso rolled her eyes at the gesture, but when Leo took her face into his hands, she forgot all about it and leaned in for another kiss. Unfortunately, this time they hadn’t taken into account that there was a cupboard right behind Calypso’s head so when they started leaning more backwards as the kiss got more heated, she hit her head against it. “Oh great, of course when I finally get to kiss the girl this would happen,” he rubbed the back of his neck and looked apologetic, but Calypso just chuckled.

“Don’t worry about it. Maybe it was a good reminder for us that there would probably be better places to do this than the kitchen of your parents’ home.”

“Yeah, maybe…” Leo had to agree. Before Calypso got off the cabinet, though, she pressed a light kiss on his forehead. She didn’t know why she did that; it just felt good at that moment.

When she pulled away from him, Leo asked, sounding a bit unsure: “So… does that mean that you love me too?”

Calypso shook her head, kind of amused that this boy who could figure out a really difficult math question within minutes was so unsure about her feelings. “What do you think, idiot?”

“I don’t know… I still wasn’t entirely convinced by those kisses,” he attempted to joke but quickly received a fist on his arm. “Ow! That hurt!”

“Not a good moment to joke,” Calypso stated.

“Fine, sorry,” Leo said while rubbing his arm.

“You are lucky that I happen to love you.” Calypso stuck her tongue out at him, but before he had time to say anything, she took his hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

“Yeah. I am,” Leo said, completely seriously this time. “But how did we get to this point from my… um, issues anyway?”

Now that Leo mentioned it, Calypso realized it was a valid question. It felt like everything she had felt that fall had been squeezed into a very small package and then suddenly just popped open. But she also felt relieved that they had finally managed to speak up about what was bothering them.

“I don’t know, to be honest,” she replied. “But I’m kind of glad that Jo and Emmie closed us here.”

“Yeah. Me too,” Leo agreed.

“Listen…” Calypso kept her eyes on their intertwined hands. “I don’t know what is going to happen. You know, with my father and everything. But you made me realize that I can’t just give up without a fight. That I can’t get what I want if I don’t try. So I’ve decided… I want to try this… us… if that’s what you want as well.”

“Are you crazy? I’d be the stupidest guy on earth to say no to you,” Leo said dramatically. “Even though this will sound cheesy as hell, I’ve noticed that I’m happier when I spend time with you. You know, just cooking, chilling, whatever. So, I’m thinking… Maybe together we will also be able to kick our issues’ asses. I will be working on getting over my fear. And… I guess I will also have to try harder to open up… about my past and all that… It probably isn’t always gonna be easy but hey, feel free to call me out if you need to.”

“You bet I will, Leo Valdez.” Calypso smiled at him, a real, genuine smile. “And I too will do my best to talk about what’s bothering me more. I realize now that I should have done it way earlier.”

“We are some stubborn idiots, huh?” Leo gave her a lopsided smile.

“Yeah.”

“Um, so… just to be clear… What do we tell the others? About… us?” Leo asked after a while.

“I’m thinking… maybe it would be better if we don’t tell everyone quite yet. I’ve had a lot of bad experiences in the past as you know so I’d prefer to keep it just between us for a while. You know, just to make sure that… nothing goes wrong.”

“Alright, that’s fair enough,” Leo agreed. “Although, nothing stays a secret from my family for a long time. It’s like they’re psychics or something.”

Calypso chuckled. “Can’t disagree with you on that. I swear that I’ve known them for a few days and they already know more about me than I do.”

“You’ll get used to it, though,” Leo reassured her.

“Hopefully so. Well… what should we do now?” Calypso asked tentatively.

“They’re probably expecting us to be done with the dishes by now…” Leo glanced at the clock on the wall. “But… I guess one more kiss won’t hurt?”

“I would hope so,” Calypso said and reached for him, pressing another kiss to his mouth.

#caleo #leo valdez #calypso #heroes of olympus #percy jackson and the olympians #trials of apollo #my fics #caleo uni au

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thoschei-rights · 4 years

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Season 12 but The Master kept pretending to be O??

Basically self-indulgent Thoschei with a twist.

lots of typos bc?? i aint got time to go correct stuff yet? I will later??

So Spyfall is resolved, The Kasaavin are banished back to their realm and the Fam and Doctor are clueless as to the true mastermind, Barton taking the fall while the Master continues to pose ad O, having decided he’s enjoying the game of tricking her too much.

Perhaps among their texts they’ve grown close, or perhaps the brief time together in the outback led to events?? ;) But either way, he changes his mind mid plan and continues to act human.

Since he never leaves the message or has the confrontation in Paris, the doctor remains unaware of Gallifrey’s destruction. The fam wait off on asking their questions since she isn’t off with them.

Orphan 55 happens, and while the fam go do their shit, O stays with the Doctor bc admit it, she was like oh ;-; when everyone went to explore. My poor baby. So they hang out together before everything goes to shit, how cute?? Things get resolved, but with the revelation of one of earth’s potential fates, and the potential that the doctor lied about knowing, the fam decide to ask to know more about her. She shares what she believes its true at the time, being born on gallifrey and being a timelord, O looms in the background looking awkward bc he knows none of that is true and he feels horrible keeping the truth from her, it makes him as bad as the rest of the time lords- but he is selfish and he doesn’t want to stop what he’s doing, he’s started to really enjoy her company, its everything he’s ever wanted, every star.

And then it’s ruined when Yaz asks to see her own planet. Blissfully unaware of its destruction, she takes them, and so they’re right there with her when she sees, opens the doors to the rubble, the dying flames- and oh god. The fam are horrified, she’s horrified, O has to fake it, while being utterly glad those nasties are dead- maybe he gets to sneakily comfort hug her??? like she’s trying not to tear up even after that whole shit show of the confession dial, it was her home??so yeah he’s like hugging her but he’s so angry bc they dont deserve her tears??

The doctor is off after that, and the fam know why, and none of their words of comfort do much, because sure they’ve just witnessed the death of earth too but that is just one timeline, can be completely avoided, while gallifrey is gone forever, and she believes she’s once more the last of her kind. it hurts.

they visit tesla all the same, and when that big ass scorpion looking alien (bc im sorry i didnt like the episode and i’ve forgotten her name so....) mentions dead planets, she can feel the fam stiffen, as though the doctor is gonna blow at any minute, but she keeps calm, tries to bury the rage, but O can tell, can tell by the way her arms shake, hands clenched into fists in her pockets- and it hurts him to see her like this- the longer he spends around her, pretending to be someone he’s not, he’s just realizing more and more what a dumbass he is and that he’s still as in love with her now than he was all those years ago in the academy- none of the truth will change that-

and then boom the shit show with the judoon occurs and suddenly O is confused af because that Lee guy could ONLY have been him. Who else on gallifrey was stupid enough to hide out with the doctor, marry them and die for them?? him because he’s a dumbass? but he’s a dumbass who definitely doesnt remember this memories?? which theoretically in the doctors timeline should have been sometime after the division? or during? he’s not sure? but to his knowledge he shouldn’t have been alive at this stage? and now he’s not sure what the fuck HIS own life is too? did they take his memories from him too? has he lost part of his life? suddenly the truth doesnt seem as known as he thought- so while the doctor is reeling from the information of Ruth being her somehow? O is having his own mental crisis because what the fuck did they do to him too? what is he missing??

praxeus continues as similar as it did originally, O is only the tiniest impressed at Yaz, ever since Spyfall he’d sensed she was the human with the most potential to not be utterly worthless so he’s glad at least one of the doctors latest pets seems to have some initiative?? but yeah i dont wanna change much about praxeus? its not important- except the doctor saying she’s a romantic and the master wants that? wait what- he’s conflicted about his own thoughts? he wanted to break her, destroy her with the truth? but he also just wants to wrap her in his arms? make everything as okay as he can? what the fuck is even happening with him? jsut your usual ‘im a mess’ vibes lmao

when can you hear me? rolls around, it happens in a similar way, i dont wanna get to into it because i dont wanna think too much...the episode was weird, it was just weird-- i cant?? although maybe bc that zellin and the lady whose name i forgot...but they were immortal right?? maybe their species is the doctors species?? huh? huh? think about that- but don’t think too hard bc i hate that theory and i’m gonna pretend i never had that thought- lets just ignore can you hear me even though the end made me cry for yaz bc lol relatable sis, relatable. do whatever you want for this bit fam, idc.

Anyyyyyway. the bit I’m waiting for... Villa Diodati ;) O is ready to smack Byron round the face, fingers itching towards the tce everytime he tries to flirt with the doctor. the lone cyberman appears and wopdie doo earth is going to be destroyed and the doctor is about to do something stupid, thinking there is no other way? the master is like um lol change of plans i dont want the cybermen to win, look how in pain my baby theta is?? i gotta help?? oof? and idk, his patience is like nope all gone? and he whips out his TCE on the lone cyberman and boom. crisis averted? except now the doctor is looking at him in horror and shock and- she realizes who he is then and there, and normally he’d made a big drama out of his, throw in some words, a speech about how easy it was to deceive her, how he destroyed gallifrey- about how he was under her nose this whole time- but he doesn’t, instead he meets her gaze and can barely manage to whisper an “im sorry” and wow shit i wasn’t gonna write that version, i was gonna have feral confrontation but now im stanning a sad master who just needs a hug and some therapy because nothing makes sense, he thought he had everything figured out but he doesnt and he just wANTS HIS FRIEND BACK uiferkghlujkfaghjfkgladhfajkg; i m fine

i dont know what i wanna do after this point? it could go a lot of different ways?? but thoschei rights bitches. could go angst confrontation and then she abandons him in whatever century that was set bc wow i studied frankenstein in school but i couldnt tell you what century the author is from bc im dumb? 18th? maybe idk that seems likely? or 19th? but anyway yeah or maybe she’s just relieved someone else is alive? or is she shouting for answers or?? i dunno.... but woop ???

wow this turned into a big mess but hopefully you can kinda see where i wanna head with things? after this he’d probably show her the truth? i dunno how that’d go down, but he’d be there with her?? But anyway, this idea is free for anyone to write, but holla us a link and I'll give yall a free promo at the end of this post!!

Versions of this that yall Lovelies have blessed us with:

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bush-viper-cutie · 4 years

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“Back at Hogwarts” || YEAR 3 – Ch.8 (HP au)

Chapter List

<-- Last Chapter Next Chapter -->

Day posted: 8/4/2020

Word count: 3,200

Relationship: EVENTUAL severus X oc (slow burn)

Rating: E for everyone

Warnings: none

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A/N: This is my first fan fic I’m writing mainly as a way to practice. This is a retelling of the hp books with an inserted character. Although most every character will be written about, this is mostly for the pro snape fandom. Please do not fear, although this is a severus x oc story, it is an incredibly slow burn as I do not intend for them to get together at all until after the final book events. Chapters will be posted twice a week.

This derivative work follows the events of the Harry Potter books by Jk Rowling and is intended as a fun way to practice my writing. Thank you for reading :D

Apologizing in advance for any extra spelling or grammar errors than normal! I didn’t have as much time with this chapter as usual because I am in the process of moving and its very hectic right now XD Thanks for reading tho! :D

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“What happened? You feinted and scared us all to death is what happened!” Ron shook his head and sat back down.

“Are you alright?” Hermione helped Harry back up to his seat.

Heather sat back and watched him piece together what had just gone down.

“Did you hear that woman screaming?” He looked around as if there was an extra person hidden somewhere on the compartment.

“You heard screaming? None of us heard it,” Heather looked at Ron and Hermione worried. They were all thinking the same thing. “Was it another snake? Was it that thing?”

Harry shook his head, “No. No it was a woman.”

There was a snap and a surprised squeal from Neville. Everyone turned towards Professor Lupin who was offering up pieces of stale chocolate.

“Here, everyone. Take some,” Professor Lupin handed out all the chunks of a chocolate bar and sat back down.

“What was that thing?” Neville pointed a shaking chocolate smudged finger at the door.

“A dementor. Or as I’m sure you’re more familiar with… an ‘Azkaban Guard’.”

They all stared at him hoping he’d go on, but he simply put away the leftover chocolate and stood, making his way out the compartment door.

“I’ll go speak with the driver. Everything’s fine now.”

Heather stuck her hand on Harry’s forehead, “You’re really ok? Do you want my piece?”

Harry shook her hand off him and looked around at everyone once more, “No one heard the scream? What happened then?”

“It was horrible!” Neville scooted as far back from the door as possible. “It stuck it’s head in and… and…”

“Everything went cold and I remembered when that spider seized me up around my waist… It was weird,” Ron shivered. “I’d forgotten what happiness felt like.”

Hermione nodded and put her arm over Ginny who was still sobbing into her sweater sleeves.

Harry looked at Heather, “Did you fall off your seat too?”

“No, but I remembered some stuff I thought I’d forgotten.” She looked down at her hands and rolled them into fists, squeezing tight and let go. “It looked at you and you were closest… so I’m sure that’s it. That must be why it affected you so bad.”

The compartment door opened and they all jumped. Professor Lupin was back with a smile.

“We’ll be at Hogwarts in ten minutes. Better get your robes on.”

The train stopped at Hogsmeade station and every student hurried to get off, excited for a new year. Nothing seemed too different, not at first glance. There was the usual horde of older years, the bossy voices of Prefects and Head students cutting through eager chatter, and Hagrid who still stood as tall as the carriages trying to herd all the first years to the boats. What was different this year, was the cold and rainy atmosphere instead of the usual somewhat warm and sunny one.

Hagrid noticed them as they walked towards the carriages and waved. They waved back and spotted an empty carriage and made their way inside. Heather pressed herself to the window and watched as the castle grew and grew as they got closer. Her excitement was seeping from her body and all she wanted to do was jump out and run the rest of the way there. The carriage stopped and she jumped out, pulling Harry off faster. They helped push the crowd to move faster, wanting to get to the feast as soon as possible.

“Heard you feinted, Potter!” Draco’s voice hushed the crowd of students pushing up the stairs.

Everyone stopped and looked down, up, and to the side for Harry and Heather. She was about to respond with ‘I didn’t feint’ but thought better of it. She didn’t want to throw Harry under the bus, at least not when he couldn’t help his reaction to the horrible creature.

“Weasley, did you feint too? I can imagine it now, a pile of rags crumpled to the floor under a scawy dementor!” Draco hopped up the steps to level with Harry. “Which one of you looked more stupid?”

Heather frowned and put her hand up to stop Ron, “No one feinted, Malfoy.”

Draco turned on his heels and pointed at Neville, “Calling Longbottom a liar then?”

Neville made himself as small as possible behind two Gryffindor boys, “Sorry, Harry! I was telling Dean…”

“Why don’t you shove off!” Ron pushed passed Heather and Hermione.

“Or what.”

He looked at Harry, who nodded. “Or we’ll make you.”

“That won’t be necessary, will it?” Professor Lupin came up the steps behind them and put his hands on Ron and Harry’s shoulders. He stared down at Draco with a grin.

Draco looked him up and down, taking in the little tears and undone seams at the edges of Professor Lupin’s teaching robes and chuckled. “Of course not, Professor.” He turned around and headed up the steps followed by Crabbe and Goyle.

“Everyone keep heading up, now,” Professor Lupin smiled down at the four of them and led everyone into the castle.

They made their way into the Great Hall and split up, taking their seats in their respective houses. Heather sat across from Pansy and rolled her eyes at her annoying smirk. Draco crossed his arms and stared at the podium looking bored out of his mind. There were decorations everywhere with hundreds of candles hovering above them and their house banners swaying gently over their heads. The golden plates and cups were spotless and everyone wore sparkling smiles.

After everyone was settled, Professor McGonagall marched dozens of scared looking first years up towards the stage to begin the sorting ceremony. She unrolled her parchment and picked up the sorting hat, calling the first years up one by one. Each house applauded for their new members, even Draco added to the cheers for new Slytherins.

“Can’t we hurry this up? Why can’t they arrive early or something for this,” Draco dropped his head on his arms over the table.

“I agree. They should take a different train. Or get sorted over the summer!”

Heather rolled her eyes at Pansy’s annoying neediness. Draco didn’t even reply to her and she was smiling like he’d just given her a compliment.

“Are there ever any students here during the summer?” Heather didn’t think they’d know, being pruebloods and having no need or interest in staying in school, but it was worth an ask.

“Oh, poor Heather. Can’t stand those muggles anymore? Why don’t you just stay with your other family? Or.. oh, woops. Sorry,” Pansy pushed her lower lip out in a pout.

“You’re forgiven, Pansy. I know remembering things can sometimes be hard for you,” Heather quickly turned up towards the High Table for fear Pansy’s gaping mouth would make her burst out into a laughing fit.

“Merlin. It’s finally over,” Draco sat back up. “Now this old toad has to make a speech.”

Professor Dumbledore stood up at the podium and smiled at every house, lingered on Gryffindors, and more specifically Harry. He smiled at everyone and started his usual beginning of term speech. “Welcome everyone!” He paused for the applause to end. “It is a new year at Hogwarts, and so I have some new things to say. The most serious of them being, the dementors of Azkaban.”

Heather looked over at Harry, who eyed her back.

“They have been placed here by the Ministry of Magic… to guard the school.” Professor Dumbledore sounded annoyed and tapped his fingers on the podium. “Because of their presence, I will be asking everyone not to leave the school without permission. There is no fooling dementors. Not with disguises or even any invisibility cloak.”

Heather stared at Harry until he looked away at Ron, who was also being stared at by Hermione. Heather’s heart started beating faster and her palms got sweaty. If the dementors were so dangerous, why was the ministry placing them at school? What if Harry DID try to leave school with an invisibility cloak? She looked over at Draco and then at Marcus far down the table. They were laughing at almost all of the warning. Maybe she should have stayed to get the permission slips signed somehow. So that Harry wouldn’t even be tempted to try anything. She tuned back into Professor Dumbledore’s speech.

“They only know how to be predators and how to identify prey. So please, do not give them any reason to want to hurt or harm any of you. Prefects and Head Boys and Girls, I am putting my faith in you to enforce these rules. For the safety of others.” He looked around at all the prefects and Head students.

Heather heard quiet snorts and scoffs from the Slytherin table and saw a few students with badges rolling their eyes.

Draco chuckled and leaned towards her, “Wouldn’t want anyone feinting, oh no. How embarrassing it would be.”

“Please welcome Professor Lupin, our new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher” Professor Dumbledore motioned for him. “And Professor Hagrid, our new Care of Magical Creatures teacher.”

Heather clapped under the table where no one could see. Only a few other students clapped, mostly those who knew Hagrid and then those in the same compartment as Professor Lupin on the train. Again, Heather felt she had to hide her enthusiasm, hardly anyone from her table even looked amused in the slightest. All of the Gryffindor table was clapping though, and the hall was so loud she was sure the other tables must be clapping as well.

Heather looked up at Professor Lupin and Hagrid standing awkwardly and nodding at the applause. Professor Lupin didn’t look like the normal teachers. His robes looked second hand, with tatters and patches just barely noticeable. Either he didn’t care how he looked – except the way he looked awkwardly around and fidgeted with where to place his hands told her otherwise – or he couldn’t afford to purchase new teaching robes. He sat back down quickly and shook Professor McGonagall’s hand to his right, turned to his left where Professor Snape sat looking away, and quickly turned back to Professor McGonagall again.

“See that? Professor Snape won’t even look at him. I bet he’s just as worthless as the last one,” Draco turned to the food that had just appeared before them.

Pansy nodded, “Maybe it’s because he applied again for the position and was refused it!”

Heather pulled a chicken leg off the large plate and plopped some steamed vegetables on her own. “Maybe it’s harder to find a good potions teacher?”

“So typical of Dumbledore to value POTIONS over DARK ARTS,” Draco ripped some meat off the chicken bone.

Pansy ran her tongue over her teeth behind closed lips and nodded, cutting her bone out with a fork and knife. “I was just about to say that.”

Heather laughed, “No you weren’t.”

Pansy’s head shot up, “Of course I was, Potter! You think just because you’re a stupid Potter you’re a genius or something?”

Crabe banged his goblet down, “They physically can’t be. Duh.”

Goyle nodded and Draco and Pansy snickered to themselves. Heather stared down at her food, stabbing it calmly, trying to pretend she didn’t know what he meant. Does Draco think she can’t beat him at potions because she’s not a pureblood like him? She’s only ever heard him make fun of muggleborns… but there was absolutely no reason he wouldn’t think less of her too. She imagined his face on the tiny carrot pieces she was stabbing and breathed out. She needed him for Quidditch. If anyone could help convince Marcus again it’d be him – at least until her muscles set in. A darker part of her mind wanted to try out for Seeker, just to see Draco crying with fury, but she could feel how horrible of an idea that was all throughout her current bruise-less body.

The rest of the feast Heather kept her eyes down and ate, even during dessert. She soon heard people getting up to leave and waited in her seat until most of the Slytherins had gone. As soon as the Quidditch team, the older students, and Draco, his goons, and Pansy had left she got up and sat in front of Harry and Ron and between Neville and Hermione.

“I hope you heard that one specific part,” Heather eyed Harry menacingly.

“What part? I was too busy thinking about getting expelled,” Harry laughed and avoided a well-deserved slap on the wrist from both Heather and Hermione.

“Oh look! Most everyone’s gone!” Ron got up and led them to the High Table.

“Hagrid congratulations!” Hermione jumped up and down.

Hagrid looked down shyly, “Now now, I’m sure yeh won’t be saying that after I start teachin’.”

Professor Sprout tisked at him, “You’ll do fine Hagrid! Don’t you worry! It’s just the new teacher jeebees. Believe me.”

“You’ll do great,” Harry gave him a thumbs up.

“I always… I always…” Hagrid blew his nose with a napkin and dabbed at the small tears forming in his large eyes. “Always wanted tuh teach.”

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat next to them, “Mr. Potter, Mrs. Granger. If you would please follow me back to my office.” She got up from her chair and started walking around the table.

“What did you do now!” Heather pinched Harry.

“Ow! I haven’t done anything!”

“Well I certainly haven’t.” Hermione waited for Professor McGonagall to walk around the table.

“On your way, please.” Professor McGonagall started walking towards the large wood doors.

Ron and Heather watched them leave with arms crossed.

“Why them?”

“They’re not in trouble… I don’t think Hermione would ever be stupid enough to get caught doing anything,” Ron tapped his chin thoughtfully.

Professor Sprout cleared her throat, having heard the part about Hermione not getting caught. “I’m sure she wouldn’t do anything worth getting in trouble over. Regardless if she got caught or not…”

Hagrid laughed, almost spitting out his wine.

“Do the ‘creatures’ count as animals?” Heather thought she should change the subject with anything. She didn’t get why she always heard the word ‘beast’ and ‘creature’ when it came to large snakes and color-changing foxes and toads and other animals like that.

“Merlin, you’re as bad as Hermione.” Ron took her arm and led her away from the table.

She pulled her arm back and punched his arm, running away before he could exclaim anything. She ran towards Professor McGonagall’s office, Ron following close behind, and spotted Harry walking out.

“What was that about?”

He shook his head, his cheeks were going red. “Nothing.”

Ron huffed next to Heather, punched her arm back, and stood straight. “What d’you mean ‘nothing’?”

Hermione came out, smiling. “And you’re sure you’re ok? Madam Pomfrey said it was perfectly normal to still feel some effects after – ”

“I’m fine!”

Heather couldn’t help laughing with Ron. It was both impressive and disgusting how quick news spread around the school to the point even teachers had heard about the dementor mishap. She felt guilty about being glad it hadn’t been her that feinted. Maybe the fear of feinting again would do a good enough job at keeping Harry put in school.

“We should go before the Prefects enter the common rooms.” Hermione started up the stairs.

“I should go too.” Heather waved goodbye and headed down.

She was on the last few stairs when she saw the tall Slytherin Prefect girl waiting by the corner of the Slytherin passageway and locked eyes with her. She gave a smile and walked deeper in. Heather’s anxiety rose like a busted fire hydrant and ran to the common room door just in time to watch her close the door with a single nasally ‘HA’.

Heather groaned and banged on the door several times. She figured she’d still receive some hate for Slytherin losing the house cup for the first time in almost a decade because of Harry. Why couldn’t they understand she was just as devastated about it as them! She banged harder and gasped when her fist didn’t meet the door like always. Pansy stood at the entrance and looked her up and down.

“Heather! Don’t you know you’re supposed to be here in time for the password?” She shrugged and stepped aside, “You’ll have to ask Professor Snape for it tomorrow.”

Heather stepped through with her arms crossed. She smiled, “Oh, no need.” She spotted Draco quickly and ran over, slowing down just in time to appear calm and collected by his side. She looked over her shoulder at Pansy who slammed the door and stared her down. She turned to Draco and dropped the act. “What’s the password? I wasn’t here for it.”

He scratched his head, “Poison Pines.”

“Thanks.” Heather headed into the girls’ dormitories and into the room with her, Pansy’s, and the two other girls from last year and the year before’s names on the door written with some type of permanent chalk.

She smiled at Toad sleeping peacefully in his cage, curled under his little overgrown moss. She ran to her trunk and took out her new potions guide, new herbology guide, and the sketchbook from last year and stuffed them under her pillow before anyone else walked in the room. She jumped on the bed, pulled the emerald curtains shut, and took out her sketchbook. She opened it up to the last page where she had written down her goals.

She circled the words ‘Dark Arts’ and triple underlined them like she had potions and herbology. “Hopefully this year Defense isn’t a total waste of time… and I guess it wouldn’t matter if Hermione is better at the other subjects.” She didn’t like hearing those words coming out of her own mouth. She wanted to be the best at everything, but this stuff was good enough… hopefully. She’d be able to rub it in Draco’s face and she could at least handle being tied for smartest with Hermione.

She went to change into her pjs in the bathroom and came back to see Pansy sitting up on her bed with her hands folded. Heather crawled into her own bed and waited for her to speak, knowing it had something to do with her.

“You know, I think maybe I’ll ask Draco to include me in his potion’s lessons with Professor Snape.”

Heather’s annoyed smirk dropped. Pansy smiled and laid down, pulling the sheets up and snuggled in. Heather gripped her sheets and threw them over her, crossing her arms over her chest and rolled away from Pansy. She couldn’t tell if Pansy was just saying that to annoy her and regardless if Pansy just confirmed the potions lessons were real, it bothered Heather to a new extreme. She could handle Draco boasting about being top of the class… but if Pansy did it too…

Heather shook her head refusing to think on it more. She was about to close her eyes when she remembered her workouts. She carefully slipped out of bed onto the floor and quietly did the barrel pushes and a few forward pulls before sliding back into bed and forcing herself to sleep, thinking only of what the next day would bring.

~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~ * ~~~

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littlebarrelboy · 3 years

Text

auld lang syne || Bu

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne?

takes place: dec. 28

in which Barrel and Su say goodbye...

@princess-su

[tw: discussion of death, literally one of the most bittersweet things i’ve ever rp’d im tearing up as i post this oh my god]

BARREL:

Barrel stood at the train station. Luckily for him, he didn’t have much to pack and it had all fit in this old suitcase that he’d found at Whosits. Most of his clothes and stuff had burned back in the fire in August. He had some new stuff that Shock and Lock had bought him with Anthony’s credit card. He had some Christmas presents. He had things from the Qins. He had the Nintendo Switch that Lock had given him for Christmas.

The one Lock had not gotten to see him open.

That one was actually in his backpack.

His train was theoretically coming in fifteen minutes, but he’d wanted to get here early. The train would take him to a little suburb outside of Cardiff, Holley Shiftwell had told him, where he would meet a short, dark-haired woman with bangs named Jane who would escort him to a family. They’re really nice, Holley had reassured him. We’ve been working with them for years — they looked after me when my parents were in Russia.

This was the right decision. Barrel would finish up school in Wales. Barbie and Holley told him the RAS would take care of all the paperwork. Shock said she’d pay for any university he needed, if he decided to go with that. He wouldn’t be anyone’s problem. He could figure out a life for himself.

But he glanced at Su now, and with a pang to his heart, he wondered if this was the right decision.

She was the only one who’d accompanied him to the station. He didn’t know where Mei was, but he’d left her a note. He’d cracked Ting’s door open to say goodbye and she’d jumped up, apologizing over and over about how she’d forgotten and how she could be ready in just a second. But he told her it was no worry. That he could go on his own. Ting-Ting looked tired. She looked like how he felt a lot of the time, like he wanted to cry but had a hard time figuring out how to start the tears.

That was why he was leaving.

The Qins thought it was social services who stepped in after Ting reported it all to the police, which wasn’t super far from the truth, Holley had said. He could still write to them and text them and play Animal Crossing with Su.

“I’ll send you a Dodo code as soon as I get my wifi set up in Wales,” he told her right now, trying to smile.

SU: The day had come too quick. That’s what Su wanted to tell Barrel when he spoke of Dodo codes and wifi. She didn’t want to think about how they’d have to do that method now instead of the easier, closer local play option. It was less of a hassle, honestly.

Of all things for her to focus on when Barrel spoke, that had to be the silliest. But she would rather think of something silly that could help her return the small, sad smile than the reality of the situation. The reality of their lives now. Lives that would now be lived apart.

Which, really, was the normal for them. Honestly, they’d only become so close within the past year. Only met each other in that time as well. But the tragedies they’ve stood by each other throughout, it made her feel like she’d known him for a lifetime. And now that life was coming to an end. Waiting like this train, ready to whisk Barrel - her friend, someone dear to her - away.

It was selfish to feel this way, she knows, enlight of everything that’s happened to him. It’s why she didn’t say any of this and simply nodded, hands gripped tight together behind her back as she looked at her feet. “You better. I'm going to start setting up a fun New Year’s firework show and I need you to see it.”

This was the right decision. He deserved to leave this pain behind, even if that means leaving Swynlake. And whatever decisions he makes going forward, she’d support him. Because she was his friend, and he deserved a soft epilogue, if you will, after the chaos of his teenage years, his childhood.

“You stay warm too. It’s really cold out today, and going to be even colder tonight,” She fussed, moving closer to fix his jacket, as if doing so would just make it warmer.

BARREL:

At the mention of New Year’s, Barrel remembered something. It hit him with a jolt and he immediately bent to reach for his bag — just as Su reached for his jacket.

“Woops sorry — “ Their foreheads almost collided. Barrel felt his face flush. He looked at Su. She was very near him. She smelled very nice. She was very warm.

He was going to miss her a lot.

That thought also hit him with a jolt.

He knew he was gonna miss Swynlake — miss school and his friends and going to soccer games and working the counter in Whosits. He was going to miss the Qin house and how it always smelled like something yummy and he was going to miss Ting randomly singing and Mei laughing and MuHou telling stories. He was going to miss Su, but it didn’t hit him till right now how much.

She was very pretty.

Also, at one point he’d reached for her hand as it rested on the collar of his jacket. He didn’t realize that till right now.

“I got you a birthday present,” he said. He realized he was still holding her hand and let it go. “It’s in my bag — one second — “

He rifled through his backpack and pulled out a little gift bag from the front pocket. His cheeks felt very warm still. Hadn’t Su said it was cold? It didn’t feel cold.

“You can open it now if you want,” he said, handing her the bag. “I’m sorry for missing your birthday. I got this … well, before everything. I hope you like it.”

He’d picked out the gift because of Animal Crossing, but also because Su liked plants and her magic was plants and Barrel always thought that was so fitting.

SU: “Sorry,” Su also said, the apology mixing with his in the wind at their clumsiness. But she chuckled a little. “My bad.”

His hand at some point came to hold hers. It was big and warm compared to her tiny ones that always struggled to hold any heat. It fit perfectly, she thought. Comfortable and safe. Like that night so long ago when he’d first come to the Qins’ home. Somehow, he’d seemed so small then. Someone she wanted to protect and cradle in her world, inside their home of magic.

When did she have to tilt her head up so high to look at him?

She blinked just as she did so, his words taking a moment to process as his hand left hers and then she was holding a present. “Birthday present…?” She questioned, looking at it a moment longer before realizing - oh yeah. Her birthday. She was going to be seventeen at the start of the new year.

Her face warmed as she smiled down into the bag. Of all things he was worried about…

“Thank you, you didn’t have to…” She started, quickly opening it so he could see her reaction. And she hoped it didn’t disappoint. Honestly, anything Barrel would give her, she would have loved, but something about this necklace… Why did she want to cry? She held it in. Instead, she smiled wide and looked at him. “It’s so pretty, Barrel! I love it!” She said, before throwing herself on him in a hug. Trying to hide those tears. “I promise I’ll always wear it.”

BARREL:

Su hugged him.

His arms fit around her waist, pulling her closer. Truth be told, he was crying a little bit too now, though he didn’t realize she was crying, only that he was crying and he didn’t want Su to see that he was crying.

For a second, he wanted to stay.

He thought about what it would mean to stay. To graduate from Swynlake Secondary. To go to Pride U with the money that Shock had given him. To continue living with the Qins, and sitting for dinner and Sunday morning pancakes. He thought about that for a moment, clinging to a warm, impossible dream.

Because he knew it was impossible. Because it wouldn’t be the life he thought it would. Because Lock was dead and Shock was gone and everything had changed. He didn’t know what that would mean for the future in his head, but Barbie had offered him a way out. A place where Lock and Shock didn’t haunt every corner. A place where his parents had never touched.

For the first time in his life, Barrel saw the possibilities that offered. He had to take it.

He’d just miss Su a lot.

He pulled away to tell her this, to try and say something about how he really wanted that other life — the one where he stayed, the one where he went to Pride U, the one where they got to celebrate her birthday together and eat pancakes — how he wanted that one to happen, but at the same time, he wanted it to never happen, because it was golden, warm, bright, and untouched by reality.

In some pocket universe, it happened and it was very nice over there and he was very happy for that.

He wanted to tell this to Su and he looked down at her, about to, but the words were too complicated and Barrel wasn’t good with words, so somewhere along the line, they got caught in his throat. He didn’t know how to say what he wanted to say, so instead of saying any of that, he leaned down and pressed his lips to Su's.

It was a short kiss — short and golden and warm and bright.

SU: Stay.

The plea was on the tip of her tongue. Su felt it. Even as she tried to smother it and the rest of the storm in her mind. Don’t leave me in this mess alone. She didn’t feel strong enough. Even as she held onto him now, she felt maybe if she let go, he’d never leave. She could keep him here with her, and then maybe things would go back to normal.

But that was selfish and untrue, no matter how loud her thoughts were.

Then everything seemed to go silent with a sudden kiss.

Her eyes widened. Her face flushed. She’d never been kissed before. Her first kiss. And it was a kiss goodbye. Despite how bittersweet it was, she felt incredibly warm. And her fingers curled into his coat, pulling him closer into the kiss - only for a few seconds more, it’d feel like it was just them there. She wished that were true.

But with one bold action, she knew one thing: she knew Barrel would be okay. She knew things would be far from easy but - she believed in him. Believed in him and the person she knew he’d grow to be while also staying the kind boy she met in the Swynlake Secondary cafeteria and let into their home. It was the only reason she was able to pull away with the kiss with a warm smile.

“We’re going to be okay. I promise,” She said, smiling while wiping at her tears, the necklace still clutched in her hand. “You’ll always have a home with us too, if you ever want to come back, even for a visit.”

A visit. Yeah, that would be nice. And then this would be less like a goodbye and more like...see you later. Su liked that a lot better. Even if later was...years from now.

BARREL:

He had to go.

Barrel was even more sure of this after kissing Su.

It had been a nice kiss. He liked it a lot. It was a very good first kiss (he didn’t even realize it was his first kiss till right now and now he felt very bubbly and light that Su had been his first kiss). And maybe one day they could kiss again. Maybe one day.

But Barrel had to figure out who he was and what he was going to be that one day. Barrel had spent nearly 18 years of his life defined by Shock and Lock. He loved them. He loved them more than anything — including himself.

He needed to figure out who he was without them. He couldn’t do that in Swynlake, not in the home where his brother died and his sister left, not a few streets down from the burned remains of their house. He had to do that on his own. In Wales, which was not so far away.

He could always visit.

There was a future for Barrel. For maybe the first time in his life, there was a future.

“Thank you for everything, Su,” he said, gently touching her hair. “I don’t know how I would’ve… without you and your sisters. Without you…” His voice trailed off and he reached for her hand to give it another squeeze. “We’ll always have Animal Crossing, at least. I can’t wait to show you my island once I get it looking nice.”

He smiled a little, just as the train started to whistle into the station. A lump formed in his throat and he tried not to count the seconds till it pulled in fully and just enjoy these last moments with Su.

SU: Su swallowed thickly. Swallowing more tears, not allowing anymore to fall. She had to remind herself this wasn’t truly a goodbye. The world was so small because of phones and the Internet. She could talk to him every night still. Even though it’d hardly ever be the same.

She squeezed his hand back. Go. Live. “You don’t have to thank me for anything. I - we’d - do it all again,” She smiled, forcing herself to let go of his hand - to let him go. “Remember what I said about turnip exchange! It’s a life changer!”

She laughed at that, but really used it to cover up any sobs that might want to bubble out. She’d be okay. They’d be okay. He’d be okay. That was all that mattered now. She was still suspicious about the story he told them but...it wasn’t her place to ask about social services.

She trusted he knew what he was doing.

She took a step back, glancing up at the train and smiled. It hurt. But if she could distance herself, it’d hurt less and be easier to watch him go. “You better hurry so you can get a good spot and get your luggage put up. I…” She looked at him then to her feet. Then back at him. “Text me when you get there, ‘kay?”

BARREL:

“I will,” said Barrel. His head still spun from the kiss. He’d already picked up his duffle bag. He’d taken a step back from Su, not realizing she’d done the same. The distance between them now could not be closed with an embrace. Soon he’d get on the train and the train would bring him further and further away —

He couldn’t think of it like that. He could still talk to Su. He’d just said he was going to text her, after all. They’d meet on Animal Crossing. He’d text all his friends: JJ, Nemo, Finn, Wilbur, and Tony. Maybe some of them would text back. He’d video call Su and Ting-Ting and Mei and show them his new room and tell Su about his new school and his new town.

But he would also go to a new school. He’d meet new friends who didn’t know about Lock and Shock or his parents. He’d graduate. He’d go to university. He would study animals and he would get a job at any place he could work with them. He would become a zookeeper one day, in the far future, and he would get an apartment of his own where he fed cats behind the building and took them home.

He’d see Shock. He’d see Su and Mei and Ting-Ting. They could come to his apartment and meet his cats and he would learn how to cook so he could make them dinner like they did for him so many times.

One day, maybe, he would even come back to Swynlake.

He didn’t know if that would happen, actually. Or when that would happen. Right now, he couldn’t think of Swynlake without thinking of Lock — and Shock and his parents.

One day, maybe, he would come to this station again and when he stepped off the train, he would smile at the town.

Right now though, his smile was for Su.

“Goodbye Su,” he said, touching her shoulder gently. When he glanced back, stepping on the train, it was for her. He found a good seat by the window, pressing his face against it, waving as the train rolled out of the station. When Su was nothing more than a speck in the distance, when he squinted and couldn’t see the town, Barrel sat back in his seat.

He took a deep breath. His heart hammered, but — he felt light. He felt hopeful. He could see a future for himself, bright and clear.

Barrel closed his eyes and he dreamt of lions.

#auld lang syne #bu #su #ship: we'll always have animal crossing #bu getting a ship tag in their last post together #to really hammer it home lol #im legitimately crying asdjklasdj

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crowsent · 5 years

Text

i just watched Dealing With Intrusive Thoughts at like. ass o clock in the morning. and i have a lot of thoughts™ about it. however, since i am a flesh goblin with no filter, half this shit is just gonna be me vomiting onto a post. okay? okay.

before anything else, i just wanna say that tired!Thomas is a mood. “look mr duke im really stupid right now” BIG MOOD. the stuttering? BIG MOOD. the messing up of words? BIG MOOD

onto duke himself. i feel like i saw a train wreck of a human being that has already crashed and is in the process of burning somehow get into a larger more spectacular crash despite being in absolute fucking shreds. duke (remus, but im calling him duke and no one can stop me) has Energy. idk what kind of Energy but he has Energy. a lot of it.

he also gives off the same vibe as deceit. not exactly the same vibe, but i see deceit in him. both duke and deceit give off chaotic energy. a waterfall of chaotic energy. but they are both so very Very different from each other.

duke and deceit give off “thirsty” vibes. extra™ vibes. dramatic gay vibes. trash and they know it vibes. but in like. two complete opposite ends of the spectrum.

deceit is the classy thirst. the wine and dine thirst. the always dressed up™ thirst. the chickflick unrealistic romance thirst. always a black-tie event extra™. eyebrow(s) on fleek extra™. looking like he stepped out of vogue extra™. i will make costumes for everyone to fit a courtroom skit dramatic gay. “draw me like one of your french girls” dramatic gay. flirting with everything that moves dramatic gay. “smirk” trash. winking trash. “good lord i am surrounded by idiots” trash

then duke. duke the “netflix and chill thirst” guy. duke the "using fuck as a comma” guy. duke the “thomas murdering people he loves extra™” guy. duke the “butthole dramatic gay” guy. duke the “unmitigated well-manicured raccoon trash” guy. duke the “lemme tell you my name immediately” guy.

like. they interact with virgil in two complete ways too and it’s just so... jarring?????? to suddenly go from deceit smooth-talking his way through the court and losing his cool when he realised that everyone around him is an idiot. to duke. to fucking remus “unicorn porn” duke.

like. the episode gave me emotion whiplash. strapped me down a rollercoaster of weird and sent me off careening into the cliffs. like.

we get virgil, getting really loud very uncharacteristically. like. even if he doesn’t like duke, it’s still weird seeing him louder than usual. sure as fuck didn’t like deceit but virgil never raised his voice that much in the courtroom. sure he got heated (one angry man) but in DWIT he just has a consistent loud voice and aggressive disposition not only to duke but to thomas too. it’s just???? odd. like seeing someone eat corn on the cob vertically instead of horizontally. valid™ but fucking weird. it’s confusing. did something happen to you virgil? are you okay?

all the sides got some development, actually. not all for the better.

like. patton got character development WOOP WOOP so that’s good. it’s like he’s relearning the thing from Mind vs Heart. hopefully he won’t be too controlling next ss video.

roman just. roman. my baby. to me, it feels more like he’s pretending to be okay, rather than actually feeling okay. it’s sad.

deceit didn’t get much change (or he did and my brain just can’t remember jack right now) but we just had a huge ep with deceit last time so i’ll allow it

the one who surprised me the most was logan tho.

even with the reveal of virgil as a former Dark Side (WE BEEN KNEW. WE BEEN KNEW ALL ALONG BUT HOLY SHIT THAT REVEAL), logan’s participation in the video is heartbreaking to me.

logan looks and sounds so sad. when virgil tried to shut him out, when they accused him of being deceit, when the others rag on him, when duke said that “he’s reached his limit” of listening to others, just. look at his face. listen to his voice. he doesn’t sound happy. he doesn’t even sound like the smug bastard we know and love. he sounds so done. like he’s accepted that this is all he’s ever going to be. the side that brings others down, the side that other’s don’t want to be around. the side that is only good when he’s useful.

he sounds so resigned and it’s fucking heartbreaking. you can see how hard he’s trying. he stops himself from calling virgil “paranoid” to avoid hurting virgil. he doesn’t retaliate when they try to shove him out. he tries so so hard. and he doesn’t look alive. he doesn’t look like Logan. he looks like Logic.

the only part where he doesn’t look like a machine is when he says “THAT IS WHY I SAY IT” but that only lasts for a short moment before Logic is back, and Logan is once again gone.

at the end. when thomas says he's cool. logan doesn't look happy. he looks like someone who has accepted that they will never be part of the "cool" kids, that his contributions will be forgotten. that approval is only superficial. that he won’t be remembered unless he will be of use. he looks so resigned and dead and done and it just breaks my fucking heart.

give logan happiness 2k19

also. thomas. get some rest. don’t push yourself to make videos if you can’t. your health is more important than the content you create.

DWIT is an emotional rollercoaster and while i can’t wait for the next ss video, your health should be prioritised.

holy fucking hell. i might watch DWIT again, just to see if there’s anything I missed

#ts #sanders sides #logan sanders

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jojosbunnyadventure · 6 years

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I was wondering how you made the rabbit cage where you got the materials etc

lumber, cable ties, hinges, nails, linoleum tiles, superglue, screws, mechanical screwdriver, (optional) hand saw- home depot

storage cube grids- probably better to order these online, but we got em at bed bath and beyond.

make sure you read all the steps here before starting, since it’s hard to include all the information you need in one step and you might do something too early and have to undo it. i also probably forgot stuff...its hard to remember everything i did.

STEP ONE(measurements and preparation): first we measured the space that the cage was going to go. it is not an easy cage to move around once constructed unless you detach the floors/cut some of the cable ties, and even then it is pretty cumbersome. to move it on carpeted floors i have had to use furniture sliders. keep this in mind before building the cage: is it going to stay in that spot? will you be moving soon? do you have carpet or wood floors? theyre all things to consider before you start. if you have wood floors you will want something to go under this cage because it is likely to damage the floor otherwise.

STEP TWO(buy storage cube grids, do more measurements): after you’ve measured the space, you need to know the dimensions of the storage cube grids. they dont all come in the same size, so i can’t provide this to you. the reason you want the dimensions first is so you know what size to cut your lumber. i watched a youtube video to see what materials i would need, and in the video they cage was four grids long. after measuring the space and buying the grids, i decided that it was better if i made ours three grids long. as you can see in the post, it is also two grids wide, and each cage section is two grids tall. the goal was to make a big cage for two rabbits, so it is four grids tall in total. each section of the floor(except for the bottom one) has grids supporting it as well. this means we used 56 grids for the entire cage.

STEP THREE(purchase wood and other materials): the wood needs to be untreated wood. no processed woods with glues in them. likely the rabbits will chew on them so its better not to risk them consuming any weird chemicals. you can use treated wood for the bases,(especially if it’s lighter wood) since the rabbit will not have access to that part. it will be covered by the grids and the floor tiles. when cutting the lumber, you’ll want to make it so the base floor section fits inside the grids. the grids will sit on the floor around it. the floor sections will also need a sort of lip around them to attach the grids to. it’s hard to describe so just look at this picture to see how the wood sections go.

as you can see we messed up cutting the lumber on one side, so we just had to put it together as best we could. also youll notice the ramps are some kind of particle board material...i wasnt comfortable with that so i took them out later and we have yet to replace them. it’s been a tough year financially and i cant drive so i haven’t made the trip out to home depot to get new wood...we also haven’t adopted another rabbit yet for the same reasons. jojo has been using the bottom section of the cage and that alone is huge enough for me to fit inside pretty comfortably so i’m not too worried about him having limited space for a while.

STEP FOUR(floor tiles, then put all the wood together): you will want stick-on linoleum floor tiles to cover the floors of the cage. this is just to make sure things are more sanitary if your bunny pees on the floors. pee will probably still get on the sides of the wood if your bunny is not litter trained, but there is nothing you can do about that. basically just install the floor tiles as you would in your kitchen, with the edges flush against one another so your bunny can’t dig them up. i would reccomend you use superglue(the kind that works on these materials) around the bottom edges for added security. depending on what kind you use, the glue will take time to cure. this applies to every step of the project, but make sure the room is well ventilated. between the the wood and the glues, it might build a strong smell in a small room. this is something you want aired out before you put bunnies in because theyre more sensitive to fumes than we are. after we were done the smell was strong enough for us to notice, but it did go away eventually.

once the floor tiles are secured on, you can drill the wood sections together. don’t put the floor tiles on afterwards or you will have an awkward time getting them in there. since the tiles are thin they are easy to drill through.

STEP FIVE(attach the grids together): the grids themselves are secured together with cable ties. this might seem structurally unsound, but it really works if you use a lot of them. you will most likely use over a thousand cable ties in the process, so get a big bag. it doesnt hurt to have extras. just lay the grids out on the floor and tighten each section together. for added security, make an “X” shape with the ties at the corners. for the horizontal-laying grids that support the floor sections, make sure to attach them together with as many cable ties along the edges as you can. when it’s all put together it can support the weight of the wood and it’s very secure. if you want to take the cage apart you will have to cut some of the cable ties with a wire cutter. IMPORTANT- make sure you don’t attach all the grids together before putting the wood in or you’ll have to cut the cable ties again. we did this. woops. for the doors, just make sure a section of the grids in the middle is only attached with cable ties on one side. you can use a binder clip or something to lock the doors when they are closed.

STEP SIX(construct the wood pieces together): you will need a mechanical screwdriver to screw the wood together. i would also recommend having a hand saw in case the wood was cut too large at the hardware store...you really dont want to make the trip all the way back out there. it’s good to have the exact measurements written down when you get the wood cut so there arent any mistakes, but as mentioned we messed it up somehow anyway. it works as long as the wood is secured together properly and fits inside the grids. drill holes on the outer lips and put cable ties through them to secure the grids to the floor sections.

STEP SEVEN(ramps): the ramps need to be long enough so that it isn’t too steep for the bunny to climb up, and they need to be wide enough for the bunny’s body to fit onto. we don’t want bunny to fall. we nailedd thin, rounded pieces of wood(it comes in long sticks at the hardware store, dunno what its called) at short intervals up the ramps as a sort of grip for the bunnys feet. they dont have pads at the bottom of their feet so i think this makes it easier to climb up. you will need door/gate hinges for the ramps to attach to each floor and to drill them on. i would drill the hinge to the floor part first, then attach it to the ramp. looking at the picture our cage is actually two separate cages stacked on top of each other. we plan to cut a section out of the second “floor” and add another ramp to it later. you want to do this during construction if it’s going to be one entire cage from the start.

STEP EIGHT(check your work): make sure everything is secure and attached. the finished cage should be really strong and sturdy. clean the floor sections of any wood shavings, residues or plastic from the cable ties before letting bunny in the cage. the tiles make the cage easy to clean, using a dustpan and then wiping down with an animal-safe cleaner like nature’s miracle. hopefully bunny will use the ramps and climb to the other sections of the cage. if they dont do this eventually, consider getting wider ramps or something to make them easier to get onto.

sorry i could not make the instructions more clear. let me know if you have questions! it has been several months since we built this so im fuzzy on the details and mightve forgotten something. look up “rabbit cage storage cube grids” on youtube and you might find similar projects. i got the idea from watching one of these and tried to follow it, but we had to improvise some of the details ourselves. it took three days to put together and then several weeks afterwards airing out the room when we realized we had left the cage in there to build up fumes. but jojo loves the cage now.

#silverinkwings

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animetrashlmao · 7 years

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SasuSaku Month, Day 1: First Love

A/N: Lol woops sorry this is a day late, but I definitely wanted to participate in at least a few prompts for SS month! Hopefully you guys like it!

Sasuke clearly remembers the day Sakura told him she was pregnant.

They had been traveling together through a small, unmemorable town in Land of Wind. They’d walked through the shopping areas, picking up necessities and replacing their worn down items. Sometimes they’d take care of their errands together, other times they’d just separate naturally, always managing to find one another once they’d completed their tasks. On this particular day, Sasuke had seen Sakura walk into a seamstress shop, emerging with nothing about a half hour later. He’d thought that a bit strange at the time, but didn’t deem it worth asking about. Once she’d successfully located him, they’d left together.

They’d then spent a week in Wind making their way through the desert, as they’d had some business to take care of in Suna. Their last night in the desert together, they’d been sitting near the fire that Sasuke had built, deciding to take a quick break to eat before making it to the hidden village by morning.

“Sasuke-kun, is it okay if I have some clothes tailored while we’re in Suna?”

They had only recently married in the past few months, so Sakura continued to ask his approval, though she knew she didn’t need it. They both had reasonable desires, which meant that were no outlandish requests either of them had to say no to.

“Sure, if you happen to find the time to,” was his response.

“Well actually,” she started, “I was hoping you’d come with me.” She smiled at him sweetly, her eyes telling him she wanted him to say yes.

This was definitely strange. He raises his eyebrow slightly, encouraging her to explain.

Sakura rummages through her pack before pulling out a cloth uchiwa fan, the type she’d taken to having sewn into the back of her tops since they’d been married. This one, though, was exceptionally small. It looked more like one that belonged on the sleeve, or maybe in front of the breast.

“Are you trying something new?” Why was she being so elaborate about having some tailoring done?

She smiles, looking away from him sheepishly. “Well, yes, definitely something new.”

“I see. Well, the sleeve or chest isn’t the most popular placement for them, but if that’s what you’d like.” He shrugs his shoulders, figuring that it was a strange conversation but one that’d ended, his gaze moving back to the fire in front of them.

“No. This one’ll be on the back too.”

He looked back at her, thoroughly perplexed now. Such a small piece of cloth for her size, unless…

“That…looks like it’s made for an exceptionally small piece of clothing.”

She was having trouble stifling her giggle. “You would be correct about that.”

He only stares at her, waiting for her to confirm his thoughts.

Her face beams as she places the small piece of cloth in his lone hand, closing hers over it.

“Someday soon, there’ll be an exceptionally small Uchiha to bear this crest on his/her back.”

His eyes had widened a fraction, and he can still remember the way his throat felt like it’d been closing as he pulled her to him. Her excited laugh still rings through his ears, the way her green eyes shined even in the darkness, ever so captivating.

Unknowingly, his lips had curled into a smile. A genuine, wholehearted smile; one that he’d felt from the depths within his blockaded heart, underneath the ash that blanketed his listless soul.

She had brought a light into his life when she showed him forgiveness and patience. She had kindled a fire in his stomach when she admitted her love for him - his own version of butterflies. She had filled his chest with pride when he first witnessed her proud display of his family’s crest on her back. And now? She would help fill the emptiness left behind from his childhood tragedy, with a child of his own. He had always expressed his gratitude to her in words, but that didn’t feel like enough for an occasion such as this.

He had grasped her chin and kissed her fiercely, full on the lips, hoping that she would understand his message. Though he was never a man for forward gestures that were fueled by emotion, he also hadn’t felt this excited for anything in a long time. And he loved her, God he loved her for bringing this new sense of…wholeness into his life.

She had pulled back from their kiss, red-faced and giddy as they sat there together for a few moments longer, savoring the moment that brought them closer than they’d ever been.

A few months later, they had decided that they wanted to know the gender of the child. It didn’t matter to either of them what they had, so long as the child was healthy and strong, but their excitement left them curious.

She had smiled at him warmly when the ultrasound tech had placed the transducer on her growing belly, moving it around to find the best position for a clear picture. Sakura had figured it out before the tech said anything.

He still remembers the gentle look on her face when she’d murmured, “a girl…”

They had both forgotten the tech at that moment, when he’d asked for confirmation. “A girl?”

She had nodded at him, her gentle features taking on a look of pure joy. Sasuke had smirked to himself, unable to hide his pride and excitement. He wasn’t one for displays of affection in front of others, but he placed a firm kiss on her forehead when she confirmed they’d be having a girl.

He remembers that on the next day, Sakura had told him she wanted to go shopping for some baby clothes now that they knew the gender. Normally, he wouldn’t accompany her on such trips, but he’d felt the desire to on this particular occasion.

He’d looked, and felt, out of place in a shop that was decorated in pastels, soft stuffed animals adorning the walls, and sweet faces of baby models in every direction he turned.

As Sakura perused the racks full of tiny dresses and outfits, Sasuke decided it might be best to wait outside. Just as he opened his mouth to let her know, a young clerk walked up to the two of them, asking if they’d needed any assistance. Sakura politely declined, even though the shop was mostly empty, save for the two of them and another woman.

“So, are you having a girl? I’m assuming that’s why you’re in this section.” She was a young girl, no older than maybe fifteen. She had smiled at the two of them, waiting for one of them to confirm her thoughts.

Though Sasuke’s face remained neutral, Sakura was feeling a bit playful.

“What makes you think I’m pregnant? I’m perfectly in shape!” She feigned indignity at the supposed insult.

“Oh, no! I wasn’t- I didn’t- I just- since you were shopping- you know, most couples…” she trailed off, red-faced, embarrassed for having unintentionally insulted her customer.

Sakura began to laugh, unable to keep the joke going. The corners of Sasuke’s mouth had lifted slightly at his wife’s antics. He almost rolled his eyes at the reaction of the young girl. No one knew who they were in this town, otherwise her reaction would be much more different for having possibly insulted one of the strongest women in the world.

Sakura smiled softly at the young girl, her fit of laughter having subsided. She placed a hand on her swelling stomach and confirmed the clerk’s thoughts. “We are having a girl.”

The signs of relief on the girl’s face were visible.

“Well, you know what they say about girls and their fathers,” the young clerk had stated, her gaze flickering over to Sasuke. He hadn’t said a word during their entire exchange, so she decided to address him herself.

Sasuke only gave her a bored expression, ready to take his leave.

“Every girl’s first love is her father!” She then told the two of them to let her know if they had any questions and went to check on other customers.

Sakura was a bit surprised at the odd comment, but looked at him and shrugged it off. He told her then that he’d wait outside while she shopped, and left the store feeling a bit shaken.

Her first love, huh?

He thought he’d understood the implications of that when he’d heard it from the clerk. Of course, their family would never be normal, as shinobi families never were. But still, was he equipped to raise a little girl? Was he worthy of being her role model? Did he have the emotional capacity to bring up a child, let alone a sweet young girl?

Sakura had always reassured him, telling him that no matter what, they’d figure it out together. And he was thankful for that. Though doubts clouded his emotions from time to time throughout Sakura’s pregnancy, she somehow always knew what to say to bring him confidence in his impending fatherhood.

All of these memories flood him now as he looks down at the beautiful bundle that’s been passed into his arm. His perfect baby girl looked up at him and began to cry, and he was sure that he’d never heard a sound so sweet. A tear slipped down his own cheek as he fell into a natural rhythm of rocking her for comfort. Sakura’s eyes filled with tears as she watched the two of them, her whole world right in front of her: her family. Together they’d created a beautiful, small, perfect family. Sasuke leans over to kiss Sakura’s hair, her exhaustion from the birth still noticeable by the sweat covering her brow and her uneven breathing. He’d never be able to thank her properly for all that she has given to him. She had helped him rebuild his life, and his family. She was the love of his life, and she had now shown him a love even greater than that. The tiny baby girl in his arms was only proof of that.

As his daughter’s cries begin to subside, Sasuke understands that the bond between him and his wife has only been strengthened, but he decides that there is no first love greater than the one between a parent and child.

#sasusaku fanfiction #ssm17d1 #ss fanfiction #ssm17 #sasusaku fanfic #ssfanfic #ssfanfiction #mine #my fic #idk i'll tag the rest later

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lozbotwstuff-blog · 7 years

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Bad Ideas

Summary: Sometimes, you have bad ideas. Some end worse than others, this one in particular.

Title: Bad Ideas (Pt. I of ?) Word Count: 1 484 (between a drabble and a fic, woops) Warnings: Cursing, boulders, falling. Characters: Revali, Reader Relationships: None, yet.

Author’s Note: I WROTE MOST OF THIS AT ONE AM IM SO SORRY GUYS - mod q

Maybe this was a bad idea. This was probably a bad idea.

This was totally a bad idea.

Maybe you should have realized that before you ended up hundreds -- thousands? -- of feet above Hyrule, sitting on a boulder with your last octoballoons on their last legs. In the distance, the dragon, Naydra, made the descent toward the soil from the heavens, and you watched your perch. The crisp morning air bit at your pointed ears, and your arms and legs had long since numbed from how cold it was up here. You had run out of cold resistance elixirs, and your traveling clothes weren't nearly as warm as anything made for temperatures this low.

Your breath clouded in front of your face, and you put another octoballoon on the boulder just as another popped, and you stood and balanced as it swung. That was your last octoballoon. Another pop and you didn't have another to replace what was. You hopped over to where the last balloon was, not at all ready for it to pop. In fact, in your desperation to continue living, you started talking to the damned thing.

"Hey, little octoballoon. Please don't pop. I really, really don't want to die today. I have a lot going for me! I'm smart, good-looking, and clever! You really shouldn't pop, so that I don't die. Like, seriously don't-"

It popped.

And down you and the boulder went, with you screaming for dear life and clinging to the damn thing. But soon the cold air seared your throat, and you merely grit your teeth and separated from the boulder. If you died, you didn't want to die clinging to a damn boulder. No, you would spend your last moments messing around in the air as you fall to your death.

So, for what felt like a long while, you 'sat' in the air, thinking about the world soon approaching that you would leave behind once you squished against it. Like a cucco egg being dropped. Above, the boulder was falling, since you had dove down lower beneath it simple because you wanted to. Only about a two hundred feet until you hit the ground, you could assume, when you saw a figure soaring through the sky. Immediately recognizing the wings of a Rito in the place of arms, you dove toward the flying figure, hoping you wouldn't take both of you to your death.

Luckily for you, they were just below you, and it was a straight dive toward them. It was then you felt a tug at your back, and you realized your glider was catching the wind. Your glider!? How had you forgotten your recent acquirement? Smacking yourself in the head angrily, you immediately spread it out and glided lazily, no longer risking death. Perfect.

That is until you remember there's also a falling boulder, and that both you and the Rito are in its sights. Yelling towards them, you swore when your warnings were caught and carried off by the vicious winds. In a quick movement, you switched your legs into the loops of your glider, somehow tilting your hips so that you could steer. Thank goodness you learned to somehow fly like this when you first got the glider, for some odd reason.

The wind rushed you toward the Rito, which you observed to have dark, stone blue colored feathers, and you grasped his sky blue scarf in your hand. And steered your glider in the entirely opposite direction, dragging the Rito by his scarf. You felt bad for having to choke him momentarily by his scarf, but you knew a temporary strangling was less than a permanent death.

Grabbing his waist instead of his scarf, you slowed your panicked speed in favor of a steady glide. It was then the Rito regained his senses and began struggling in your form grasp, his bow knocking into your face frequently. "What are you doing!? You nearly killed me!" he yelled right into your face, and you cringed backward. Before you spoke, you steadied your grip on him so that he didn't fall. Sure, he could probably save himself now, but he didn't deserve the stress.

"Look I'm sorry, but I'm sure you wouldn't want to be squished beneath a boulder," you quipped back.

"What boulder!?" he, for lack of a better word, squawked into your face.

It was then the massive rock came whizzing by, impacting the earth with a thundering boom that rocked the landscape. Luckily, you were in the open wilderness, where the open space was void of anything but the random bokoblin camp or rock structure. Sighing in relief, you steered the glider to a landing space, still upside down and holding the unnamed Rito in your arms.

"Still, really sorry for grabbing you like that, but I'm pretty sure you would prefer me to that boulder, right?" you asked, before pointing out silently that they were incoming toward the ground. "Just stick out your legs like a normal landing," you hummed, and as he touched the ground, you let him go. Deciding it would be best if you landed now and fully explained yourself, you spread your hands out and, grasping the ground with gloved hands, kicked your feet out of the glider's holders and righting yourself, before picking up the fallen glider.

You brushed your windswept hair from your face, momentarily resting your hands on your knees before standing straight. The Rito was now standing straight and looking at you with a look that could kill the mightiest moblin. It was then you recognized who he was, and physically slammed your hand into your forehead, before falling back onto the grasses. "I took Revali, Champion of the Wind, Captain of Vah Medoh, and best archer of the Rito out of the sky. Good job, me," you said, loud and sarcastic.

"Well, at least you recognized my prowess and many titles. But I don't recognize you, or why you just fell out of the sky, followed by a FALLING BOULDER!?" he yelled, and you sighed. Looking to your far right, you could still see the grand monstrosity that had almost killed you both. A breathless laugh on your part, before you let your head fall back again.

"I'll give you a few hints, and you can put it together. Two hundred octoballoons, a big boulder, a stupid adventurer who initially forgot they had a glider on them," you say, before punctuating your words with a groan of pain. Your muscles ached, and you were sure walking would be a pain in the ass. Literally.

"You're not kidding about the stupid part," Revali voiced and you cracked an eye open to manage what could be somewhat called a glare. You didn't know anymore. Honestly, you just wanted to sleep, and you were sure this pain would last a very long time if you didn't do something about it now. Finally sitting up, you looked around the area.

"Um, is my bag anywhere? My legs hurt and I have some healing stuff in there," you said, standing up on your feet and looking around for it. You knew you had had it with you on the boulder, where else would you have gotten the two hundred octoballoons? Oh god, was it still up there? Groaning, you looked up, and sure enough, a dark blob was hurtling downward, right toward where Revali was standing. Groaning again, you warned him, "Hey, you might want to move backward a bit. My bag is about to fall on top of you."

He gave you another look, before warily stepping back, and sure enough, down splattered your bag. Cracks and the sounds of shattering glass resonated in the air, and you sighed in exasperation. "So much for my healing stuff. Anyway, I'm really sorry for.. grabbing you out of the air while hanging from my glider by my feet, but I guess you can cross that off your bucket list!" you apologized, the air soon ringing with your nervous laughter. Now, this was awkward. Grabbing your bag from before his feet, you slung it on your back and gave an awkward wave. "Yeah, I'm.. going. I don't have a place to be or anything, I'm an adventurer after all, but um, this is super awkward and if looks could kill I'd be dead a hundred times over."

With that you turned and ran, escaping his brutal stare despite your aching legs. You whistled loudly, and your horse came running beside you, to which you leaped onto it and galloped off. At least a mile away, you leaned back in the saddle and sighed. Oh god, that had been bad. Sitting back up, you looked to the horizon. Almost dusk, you concluded, and you were beat. Trotting away from the awful encounter, you nearly rejoiced with relief, glad that was over.

Oh, how wrong you were.

#breath of the wild #reader #revali #mod q #mod q writings #drabble #revali x reader #possibly #octoballoons + stupid person + boulder = bad idea #and an angry bird #hehehehe #reader is the most awkward little shit i swear #series #bc im trash for the bird husband #IM SORRY OK

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mattbrothersscriptwriter · 6 years

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Once Upon A Time

I’d like to have a little ramble and shout into the void about a truly unique, life affirming and heartfelt movie. Not because any of this hasn’t been covered before - I’d bet my guitar case full of coins it has. Not as a review or a hot take or a think piece, though perhaps it’s a little of all of those things. But because I recently rewatched the 2007 musical drama Once (dir: John Carney) and it reminded me how much this movie makes me fucking feel… which is also the hardest thing for me to eloquently put down into words but hey, I’ll try.

Once tells the simple story of Guy (Glen Hansard), a busker in Dublin who lives with his Dad and works in his hoover repair shop. He’s a talented musician but is still living in the shadow of a long since broken relationship, something that evidently both haunts and drives him. This inner conflict has inevitably kept him stranded in the same place – possessing the skills and the ambition to transform his passion into a career but lacking the courage and the heart to truly see it through. That is until he meets Girl (Markéta Irglová), a Czech immigrant who gets by selling flowers and the Big Issue. She’s a keen pianist and the unlikely pair quickly form a unique friendship, bonding over songwriting, heartbreak and Dublin itself.

Shot for next to nothing in three weeks, it’s a film so raw (and perfectly suited to that style) that just a single step in either direction would shatter the illusion. Too glossy and the magic is somehow lost. Any more ramshackle and there probably wouldn’t be a finished film to even worry about. Cillian Murphy was supposed to play Guy but dropped out, making way for director John Carney to convince Hansard, who was already set to write the music, to take the natural next step and just play the role himself.

It’s a story that manages to exist in the moment like nothing else I’ve really seen, thanks in part to the guerrilla style production but also thanks to its immense, bittersweet heart and commitment to bottling the ‘life as it happens’ feeling. It’s how we all experience life after all and it’s only afterwards that we may look back on certain memories as feeling like scenes from a movie: those perfectly captured instances where decisions have huge consequences and it feels like some higher power is writing you into a cruel plot twist or inevitable turning point. Its one thing to physically make a movie feel so grounded but to write and perform it that way too shows a real understanding of the tone they were aiming for – and absolutely nailing in the process.

It’s a joyful movie but an effortlessly melancholy one too. Like I said, it’s bittersweet. Anyone who has ever had a dream, ever been in love or ever wished for something more, you can understand and feel all of that through one look at Hansard’s exhausted face. Avoiding saccharine movie tropes and clichés, he’s simply a bloke who rides the bus with his guitar. Who chases thieves stealing his busking money. Who exists in our world. We probably see him every day, out on the streets or hunkered away in a corner of the tube. His or her music echoing through crowds, ignored by most but probably connecting to more people than we might think.

Guy never seems more vulnerable than when he’s hiding behind a forced smile or his sad, puppy dog eyes and watching this mask of happiness slowly blossom into something genuine is where the film really hits me. It reminds us that we have to seek change – or allow change to happen to us – to move from where we are to where we want to be.

I love how Guy is a thirty something pessimist whilst Girl, despite living with just as much of an uncertain, unstable future as Guy, is a ray of sunshine in comparison. She’s a stubbornly joyful extrovert, happily striking up conversations with strangers - a comically recurring trait that rewards her with casual piano practice in the music shop, helps to secure a bank loan for the recording session AND score a reduced charge for the studio hire later on. It’s the ‘if you don’t ask, you won’t get’ mentality, utilised by someone with no ulterior motives; a real pure soul who finds happiness in what she has, not what she’s lacking.

She speaks her mind, unconcerned with any risk of social awkwardness. Her abrupt “I have to go now” way of announcing she’s leaving becomes something of a catchphrase and it works wonderfully in establishing not just the generational difference between the two characters but the cultural one as well. I really love how we first meet her in the film – when she is drawn to Guy performing his most emotionally raw song (the amazing ‘Say it to Me Now’) all alone, in the middle of the night. This exorcism of his repressed feelings, expressed only through his music, is in fierce contrast to Girl’s happy go lucky outlook and she wastes no time in probing him for the truth.

This film is one of the most genius, underplayed and natural musicals ever – essentially doing the ‘bursting into song’ thing whilst remaining firmly in reality, never quite breaking that thinly veiled fourth wall that all other musicals do. Here, it’s in a beautifully captured song-writing-on-the-fly sequence (‘Falling Slowly’) or a late night jam session between family and acquaintances (‘Gold’) or in a great sequence where Girl sings lyrics to an instrumental track given to her by Guy whilst on a walk back from the corner store to buy batteries (’If You Want Me’). It’s so relatable; from the street kids watching her go past to her fluffy slippers to the clunky portable CD player in her hand. Who hasn’t done something like that? A more traditional musical might have been tempted to convert the pedestrians to background singers, cooing harmonies over her shoulder or snapping their fingers in a dance routine through the street but this film shows that life can be full of ‘movie-adjacent’ moments and not feel cheaply earnt whilst portraying them.

This movie is something of an Irish, folksy Before Sunrise – except Guy is probably in the period of his life where he’s actually living in Before Sunset (jaded, wondering what could have been) whilst Girl is firmly in Sunrise (open to new connections, optimistic about the present). They’re on different paths and perhaps even swap roles throughout, with Guy becoming more enlightened and eager for new experiences whilst we learn that Girl is caring for a small child who is product of her past. These two never really come to any real conflict themselves. The closest they maybe get is when Guy makes an awkward, kinda sad pass at her one night – but it’s practically all forgiven and forgotten by the next day. That’s real life too and I’m glad a moment like that is addressed in the story but promptly resolved. It doesn’t need to be this instance of overly contrived setup/payoff, it’s just a misunderstanding that the characters are aware enough to acknowledge and put aside. In fact, so much of this narrative goes against the grain. Guy never gets ‘the Girl’. He chooses to chase down a woman who is probably bad for him. And Girl ends up giving her husband another shot – a character we’ve never met and have barely heard about. Again, just because we aren’t aware of a person’s backstory doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or that we’re responsible for making any grand change to the way things pan out. Here, a kind gesture of purchasing a piano for a kindred spirit is more than enough… if a little unpractical.

So much of this movie acts as a mirror to the lives of the people making it. The struggling artist narrative is straight out of Hansard’s life, even recording the demo tape in the same studio as he once did. The ex-girlfriend who moved to London is right out of Carney’s own past. All of this helps blur the line between fact and fiction, The scene where Girl tells Guy that she loves him, unprompted and ingeniously unsubtitled, is perhaps the most quietly powerful moment in the film – because the line between performance and truth is shattered as we, like Guy AND Hansard, perhaps can’t tell who’s saying what anymore – the character or the actor. In reality, it may have been both. And it’s captured right there on screen. Lightning in a bottle.

Arguably, this film is set in the last era of when a story like this could be romantic – or at least romanticised. If it was made today, in 2018, Guy would be recording in his bedroom, uploading to Soundcloud, plugging his Patreon page and filling a Youtube account with cover songs sang directly to his webcam. There’s no doubt that the advancements in technology has added an artifice to the whole struggling artist thing and it means something very different in this day and age. Here, in the far flung days of the mid 00s, there’s no real social media presence (Myspace was sort of at its peak but was more of a Facebook precursor than the platform for music it slowly morphed into) and Guy ends the movie with a handful of CDs to show for his time in the studio. Ah physical media, how I miss thee… sometimes…

This is definitely one of those movies that is firmly lodged in my brain. Despite only having watched it twice, three times at most, I’ve had the soundtrack on rotation for ten years and the time I caught Glen Hansard himself in concert (at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in 2015, natch) was legitimately one of the most memorable gig experiences I’ve ever been to. Everything from the setlist to the showmanship to the intimacy to the grandeur, it was just incredible. An unplugged encore starting with Say It To Me Now up on a balcony in the crowd through to Falling Slowly on piano? Woop woop!

But I digress… this is a film that is firmly time-stamped in my memory. I watched it on the very same night that I first properly met someone who ended up becoming a huge part of my life. Nearly ten years ago to the day, me and some friends - energised by both the movie and the hazy summer evening - trekked across town to a housewarming party. This was a decision which would inevitably change the very direction of my life, which is insane when you really sit down and think about it… and being able to pinpoint the origin of such a huge personal crossroads is kinda what Once is all about so it really does resonate.

And I think this rewatch really did resonate, because I now saw myself more as the cynical, pessimistic person Guy is at the start of the film – just trying to keep on keeping on and push himself out of his comfort zone. To achieve something special or worthwhile. Without getting too personal, I can be my own worst enemy and while 2008 mostly feels more like a lifetime ago, there are times when it feels like it was just yesterday and I blinked and went from then to now in a flash. And we all have these moments. Be it meeting someone influential, deciding to move house, to travel to a new country, to quit that job and take that risk; they can be scary or freeing or even traumatic but they’re an element of life that movies strive to replicate… and this one just does so by downplaying the weight of these moments rather than draw attention to them in an artificial manner.

John Carney has said that the title of the film is in reference to other talented musicians and artists that he knew, who always said ‘once I do this and once I do that, then I’ll pursue my passion’ etc, referring to the realities (and the safety nets) of life that can sometimes stop people from taking the plunge and chasing their dreams. I’ve definitely felt the same way and have constantly had that conversation inside my own head: that once I get these things sorted then these things lined up then I’ll do such and such and how in the end, time just keeps on moving regardless… so you have to act.

This film is about making that choice to act.

#once #glenhansard #marketa irglova #john carney #ireland #dublin #indie film #musical #falling slowly

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