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dreamersparacosm · 1 year

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austin butler - clumsy

warnings ; none

prompt ; in which your celebrity crush causes you to become a flustered, blubbering mess.

a/n ; a little something fun i wrote during the fall but never published! it’s basically anxious!reader and honestly how I imagine myself reacting to meeting aus so enjoy xoxo

Okay, don’t panic.

Do not panic.

It’s just a man. A man with blonde, curly locks, blue eyes, over 6 feet tall… but still, a man. Nothing special. You could probably find ten of him walking down Rodeo Drive.

Except that’s probably not true either.

It is Austin Butler, after all.

You hike the tail of your dress higher as you descend up the stairs to the red carpet, inhaling as much oxygen as possible to tame your nerves. It does nothing for you beside provide a placebo effect of calmness. Your publicist, Jane, stands next to you with her eyebrows furrowed in permanent worry, a crinkle she’s had since the day she took you on. “[Y/N], did you get a chance to look at your seating arrangement?”

“Uh, no, not yet,” You respond slowly, wincing slightly as you brace yourself for her reaction. She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose before turning towards you.

“You know what, that’s fine, sweets. Just go stand on the carpet so we can take these pictures,” She goes back to her clipboard full of tedious things like timing and interviewers and stupid seating arrangements, and you’re trying to stay focused, but how can you do that when Austin Butler is standing 8 feet away from you, posing on the red carpet?

You’re pretty sure you’re drooling.

Whoever keeps leaving his shirts unbuttoned is a menace to society and needs to be locked away for endangerment to the general public.

This whole idiotic schoolgirl crush began relatively long ago, when he was still deeply in love with Vanessa Hudgens and playing a teen heartthrob on The Carrie Diaries. You weren’t even famous at that point, just a mediocre commercial actress trying to get her big break. Once you finally booked your first big role, the crush faded away (only the tiniest amount) but that all came crashing down like an avalanche when you saw Elvis with your best friend.

They probably could’ve posted the entire movie on a porn website and made the same amount of money. And, thus, your crush ensued, full throttle and invading your every thought at the worst moments. Including this one.

Jane kicks the back of your leg, cursing under her breath as you tear your eyes away from him. You’re not new to this scene, you’ve been in major leading roles and you’ve been nominated for Oscars. But that doesn’t take away from the fact that at your core, you are a complete and utter mess. A klutz. A loser with some money in the bank.

So, you take the pictures, with not too many mistakes as you expected, just a few shots of you blinking while smiling. You’re sure they’ll end up on Twitter where your fans will laugh about it while saying how much they love you.

This part always goes by fast. It’s camera flashes, smiles that are strained under the bright lights, talks with interviewers that always go far longer than expected, and then before you know it, you’re being ushered into a tight room with celebrities you had only dreamed of seeing in real life. Jane is glued to your side as you wait for your turn to enter the theater.

Despite the cool temperature of Los Angeles, you’re somehow drenched in sweat. You’ve done this before, you know that. But that doesn’t stop your entire body from going into fight or flight mode, teetering towards flight.

“What’s the hold up?” You hear a female’s voice yell out, and you almost think it’s Jane before you hear her chuckle beside you.

“Speak that truth. I am so sick of these fucking Oscars dimwits wasting my time,” Jane says loudly enough for the girl to hear it, and before you know it, they’re enthralled in a full-blown conversation. If you weren’t trying to fan your armpit sweat, you might’ve joined.

Maybe it’s a good idea to find out where you’re sitting. Probably will need to know that before you enter. You can only assume they’ll sit you next to your last co-star, Timothee Chalamet. What a delight that would be (and that’s not sarcasm, he always smells like cashmere and some type of forest.)

You turn your body slightly, eyeing Jane and the girl she’s talking to. She’s a redhead, also wearing a suit and clearly another publicist that has been in the position for far too long to enjoy it.

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice a male figure standing next to the redhead. Hm. A black suit. Your eyes trail over his body, a soft black lace shirt that is half-unbuttoned peeking over the hem. How nice. You love that look on men.

Oh, fuck.

Your body freezes. Mouth runs dry. Sweat shrivels back up into your body only to start forming at impossible speeds. Heart palpates so quickly you think you might be going into cardiac arrest.

In front of you, is Austin Butler. And he completely, totally, entirely, caught you checking out his entire body, head to toe.

There’s a smirk on his face that is undeniably directed towards you, eyes glimmering with amusement. You can’t even believe that you’re looking directly at him. He can’t be real, he has to be a figment of your imagination.

“Come here often?”

You did not just speak.

No, you didn’t. That couldn’t have been real. That couldn’t have been what you just said. After years of dreaming about this moment, that can’t have been what your brain and tongue agreed on.

He chuckles, a deep one that rumbles through his chest, and says, “I try not to make it a habit. You?”

You entangle your fingers with each other, hoping the sweat that has gathered on them just slides right off. “Me either. Trying to cut down on my presence and all that.”

He raises his eyebrows quizzically, that soft smile that curves upon his lips widening a little, “Well, can’t say the Oscars is the best place to do that.”

“Yes, well…” You trail off. Thoughts empty. Brain just a shallow void with nothing but dirty, filthy fantasies about him floating around. Oh god, get a grip.

And he should end the conversation right there, then back around and not acknowledge the weird girl who clearly hasn’t had enough media training. But, he doesn’t. Instead, he sticks out his hand for you to shake, and says, “I’m Austin. Austin Butler.”

“I know,” You say almost immediately. His facial expression contorts into something unreadable, and your lips flap again to try and salvage the rest of your dignity. “I’m [Y/N].”

You shake his hand, praying to some otherworldly creature above that he won’t feel the sweat on your hands. It’s a little weird, when you touch his hand. Feels like you’re envisioning yourself with him, like you’re some kind of wizard that can tell it won’t be the last time you see him. It feels a little like something out of a rom-com, with the electricity zap and the sounds of your hearts beating erratically.

You both pull your hands away, smiling to the ground. You really, really, really hope he’ll keep talking to you.

“Nervous?” He asks, taking note of the way your thumbs twiddle and the sidestep you keep doing with your heels.

“A little. Kinda. Maybe,” You let out a sigh of relief. “I’m not really the most organized.”

“Hm. Well, I’m sure you’ll be great,” His grin widens just enough to show off his pearly white teeth that glimmer under the remaining sunlight that California has to offer.

“Thanks,” You smile back. “How about you? Nervous?”

“Always,” He responds, almost taken aback by the transparency he’s having with another celebrity. He’s never had a conversation about nerves, never felt validated enough by someone to open up about the fear that comes along with being at this level of fame. “It’s my first Oscars.”

“Right,” You say, “Well, I’ve been to a few, and honestly, I’ll let you in on a secret. Even Leonardo DiCaprio shits himself a little when the nominees are announced.”

He lets out a laugh, a real one, one that sounds like all good things in the world and you would be more than happy to capture it in a jar and keep it on your bedside forever. “Somehow, I don’t doubt that,” He switches gears, shifting his body around a little. “What afterparty are you going to?”

It’s a simple question, one you’ve been asked numerous times by other people in the industry. It usually offers a sense of dominance over who got the better invite. “Er, yes, that would be a question for my lovely publicist, Jane, because I don’t have a rat’s ass idea of where I’m supposed to go.”

He laughs. Again. Part of you is enthralled, part of you is confused as to why he thinks you’re a comedy show. Maybe he thinks you’re a joke. Yes, that makes good sense. “That honestly makes me feel better because I don’t really know where I’m going either,” He admits.

“Are you kidding?” You ask incredulously. “You look like that and you don’t know where you’re going? I think the President of the Academy Awards has a personal invite waiting for you.”

Okay, maybe you shouldn’t have said that. But really, it has to be blamed on the fact that there are a swarm of murderous bees flying around in your stomach that are making you feel woozy.

His cheeks turn a crimson glow, “Like that?”

“Oh, you know…” You trail, slowly laughing to brush off the fact that you basically just admitted your undying love to him. “Just…. That’s a great black shirt. I’m gonna buy one for my brother.”

His lips curve upwards a little more, blue eyes sparkling like little oceans. “Thanks. And, you know, you don’t look bad yourself.”

You blink twice. Did he just say that?

Before you even whip up a flirty comment, or even a funny one that’ll have him doubling over in laughter and proposing to you by tonight, you feel Jane gripping your forearm tightly. “Stop dicking around, [Y/N]. We need to go in.”

“Right, yes, totally,” You smile awkwardly over to Austin, and he returns it. You feel soft and warm and glowy inside, like you might levitate off the floor.

And then you really are levitating off the floor, because your feet miss the step and you’re falling before you even have a chance to stop yourself. Your arm extends to try and delay your inevitable fall, but it doesn’t work and you’re really sprawled out. Immediately, Jane rushes down to try and drag you up, hurriedly asking if you’re okay.

You nod slightly, balancing yourself on your knees. Thankfully, you think the vast majority of people have entered the theater and missed out on your embarrassment of epic proportions.

Well, maybe not everyone.

Suddenly, like a light peeking from beyond the clouds, you see an outstretched hand to your right. It’s tan, a male’s hand for sure. You look up to see who could possibly be nice enough to help you up. Maybe it’s God telling you it’s time to pass away.

It’s Austin. And he has a really worried look on his face that you’re shocked by, but his expression falters once he sees the look on your face. You’re smiling, a real big goofy one, because it’s so ridiculous and he’s so ridiculous and you’re pretty sure one of your heels is broken.

You place your hand in his, and his other hand wraps around your waist to help you up and steady yourself against him. Once you’re finally standing, he grins, leaning into your ear, “Remember, even Leonardo DiCaprio shits himself at the table.”

You don’t even realize his arm is still wrapped around your waist until you notice the absence of it. You giggle lightly, biting your lip. “Of course. And I think I saw Brad Pitt throw up in the bathroom last year.”

“Austin, we gotta go,” His publicist grabs his hand, and you feel a pang of disappointment. You almost think he does too, his blue eyes turning grayish as he looks back at her.

“Right,” He clears his throat. “Well, good luck tonight, [Y/N]. I hope you win.”

“You too,” The smile on your face is probably permanently tattooed on. You feel Jane’s hand on your back, slowly moving you away from him although your feet beg to stay.

“Oh, and [Y/N]?” You turn back around to face him, “Big fan of your work.”

With that, he turns away with his publicist to go and find his seat amongst the crowd. You watch him disappear, an indescribable feeling washing over your entire body. You’re also being whisked away to your table, greeted by familiar faces and friends. But it’s pretty clear that’s not the reason why you’re smiling.

Some part of your brain decides on one thing: this won’t be the last time you see him.

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓

You decide that you like California. Not a whole lot, but enough to make you sign a contract for a new film. Normally, you believe that Los Angeles and all its surrounding cities are a dreadful structure that encapsulates all the worst features of privileged Southern California lifestyle. But the food is undeniably tasty, and your new apartment is decorated with high ceilings and well-lit rooms, so you’ll make do. You’ll be filming in sunny Calabasas, where the houses are painted a perfect shade of white, where time stills a little and every cloud is just the right amount of fluffy.

The Oscar’s had came and went, and you won, to no one’s surprise but your own. With that accomplishment came offers. People really, truly wanted to work with you, and although it baffled you, Jane was having the time of her life coordinating auditions and interviews.

Everything was truly perfect.

You flip through the pages of your fresh script, your manicured nails turning through the warm pages, the black ink bleeding onto the sheets. Jane sits across from you, feverishly scribbling something, negotiating your pay for your new film. She’ll deliver. In the end, she always does.

She hangs up her call, sighing from relief. You’re about to ask her how it went, if you got the price you wanted, before her phone blares again with that god awful ringtone she refuses to change. She answers it, a cheerful tone in her voice, “Kate? So good to hear from you! What’s going on?”

You tune out of her conversation, focusing your eyes back on the mass of paper in front of you. A new story to be told. A new character to embody. A new chapter of your life. It’s all very emotional and sappy and you almost want to cry tears of happiness, but you’ll save that for later, once you get home and crack open a bottle of wine.

You hear Jane place her phone down, and your eyes flicker back up to her. There’s an expression on her face that’s unreadable, and you’re unsure of how to process it. Oh, no. If you didn’t get the price you wanted, that would suck. Or, maybe you did and she’s just unsure on how to process emotion. You always thought she was a robot.

“I just had the weirdest phone call,” She finally speaks, scratching her forehead quizzically.

“What’s up?” You ask mindlessly, certain she’s going to tell you something personal like her cousin getting married to a farmer.

“That was Austin Butler’s publicist. She said he’s been asking about you since the Oscars.”

There’s no fucking way. She’s pranking you. Any second now, Ashton Kutcher is going to pop out behind the doorframe and say “You’ve been Punk’d!” and then maybe he’ll also bring out Austin to further your embarrassment.

“Excuse me?” You blink.

“Yeah,” She seems just as baffled as you are. “She said he’s been trying to find a way to get in contact with you, but turns out, you guys don’t have a lot of mutual friends.”

Well, that makes sense.

She continues on, “Anyway, she gave me his number and then said he wants to ask you on a date. So, do with that what you will.”

She unlocks her phone, slides it across the table to you, and you see a phone number typed into her notes. Your hand trembles as you pick up the iPhone, copying the number into your own contacts. You feel woozy, just like you did on that red carpet, just like you did the moment you locked eyes with him.

“Right, well,” You clear your throat. “I’ll just step outside and call him real quick.”

She nods, raising one eyebrow. There’s a small grin that appears on her lips, a knowing one, and you slide out the door into the hallway.

You don’t know what comes over you, or what demon compels you, but you click the number. You hear the ring. There’s a pause. Your heart drops as you think that he might not answer.

And then you hear him. His voice.

“Hello?”

“Uh, h-hi. Hi. This is, um, [Y/N]. Your publicist gave me your number.”

It almost sounds ridiculous.

“[Y/N]. You know, I’ve been trying to get ahold of you but turns out you’re not an easy person to reach,” You can hear the smile in his voice.

“Well, you know me and my presence. All time low,” You say sarcastically, and he chuckles.

“Right. Well, congratulations on your win. Very well-deserved,” His voice is deeper than you remember. There’s a slight desire that pools between your legs for a moment before you snap yourself back into reality.

“You too. Some would call it the performance of the year,” And you can’t even believe it’s happening. You’re really flirting with him.

“Thank you,” He says so softly, so charming. He’s always grateful and humble, and it makes you even more attracted to him. If that’s even possible at this point. “So, do you think there’s a chance you would allow me to take you out to dinner? Somewhere lowkey, you know, for your presence and all?”

The question is so unbelievable that you can’t even take it in. You make a few sounds, splutter over your words and trip over them like you did your own two feet at the Oscars. Your heartbeat travels up to your eardrum, pounding with every ounce of blood that travels through you. “U-uh, umm… well, you know, let me go ahead and check my schedule.” There’s a pause. You cover the reciever and scream a silent yell into the void, jumping a few feet high.

Clearing your throat, you say, “Hm. Seems like I’m free tomorrow.”

“You can’t do tonight?”

The question takes you aback. Surely, he can’t be asking that because he wants to see you. “Oh, why? Are you leaving California tomorrow?”

“Not at all,” You hear him shuffle. “I just really want to take you out.”

“Right, yes, of course.” You let his question hang in the air. You know your answer, but you like letting him think there’s a possibility you might reject him.

“I am free tonight.”

“Great,” His voice is upbeat, a newfound excitement peeking through. “Well, text me your address. I’ll send a car to pick you up.”

“Yup, totally. Super duper cool. Looking really forward to it,” You babble on, pacing the hallway you’ve trapped yourself in.

He lets out a low laugh, “Me too. I’ll see you tonight. Bye, [Y/N].”

You say your goodbyes, leaning against the wall for stability before you collapse into a puddle. Later, a janitor might come to find your lifeless body glued to the wall. Cause of death? Man built like a Greek god asks woman on date.

But, everything is fine. You’ll somehow make it.

There’s a ridiculous feeling in your heart, a warmth that spreads to your toes and fingers. Now, everything is perfect.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

masterlist + request

#austin butler #austin butler elvis #austin butler x reader #austin butler fanfic #austin butler fluff #austin butler angst #austin!elvis #austin butler smut #austin butler imagine #austin butler gif

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hikarimiyanaga · 3 years

Text

I'll Always Be Yours (Part 8)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Eight Song : Sleep Tonight

A/N : Another English song and the finale of this series.

You enjoy your honeymoon with Natasha Romanoff. Still, nightmares persist.

A little late but better late than never.

Tell your goodnight to the light and close your eyes

There's a better place for you than to stay awake

You'll get closer to a paradise of dreamers in love

You'll get better like heaven has done something

You smile as you and Natasha settle down in your room. You’re in a resort in Palawan and Steve assured that no one would bother you two for at least a month. You unpack the last of the suitcases when Natasha hugs you from behind. You laugh then turn to her.

“Y/N Romanoff.” You kiss her and smile.

“Yes, Natasha Romanoff? Do you want something, my love?”

“You.” You smile. “Always you.”

You sigh as you can’t sleep. You look over Natasha and smile. She looks so peaceful… granted you did kind of overdid with 5 times nonstop. You just can’t help but savor your lovely wife. You pull her closer into you. You were just falling asleep when you hear Natasha whimper. Your open your eyes as she tries to hit you. She whimpers again and you rub her back and whisper comforting words to her. She was having a nightmare. You should’ve been used to this but it still breaks your heart a little when it happens. She calms down after a minute and you sigh in relief. You stare at the ceiling before groaning. You can’t fall asleep again.

So lay now, hear me all through the night

There's no teardrop, you can count on me tonight

Or I'll stay up with you

You two are just exhausted tonight. It’s been three days since Natasha had her nightmare. You were talking about everything that came to mind before you noticed that she fell asleep. You smile and kiss her forehead before tucking her in. You get your sketchpad and pencil and begin drawing. You get through at least two drawings before Natasha reaches out to you.

“Y/N?” You put aside your sketchpad and pencil before turning to her.

“What’s wrong?” She pouts and you can’t help but smile.

“What are you doing?”

“Sketching? I can’t get those beautiful beaches out of my head and I just had to.”

“But sleep?” You get a hair strand out of her face and she hums.

“Sorry, baby, I promise I’ll cuddle you after I finish.”

“Promise?”

“I promise, Nat.”

After half an hour of sketching you hear her whimper and you quickly set aside your sketchpad and pencil.

“Nat? Baby?” You try to calm her down, but she wakes up. “Are you okay?” She nods and looks at you. She kisses you and you kiss her back.

“It was a nightmare.” You nod as she settles on your side. “Can I watch you?”

“Watch me do what?”

“Sketch.”

“Of course.” You kiss her forehead before getting your pencil and sketchpad. She puts her hand on your thigh and you smile. You sketch for an hour before she falls asleep. You sleep besides her after you hide your pencil and sketchpad.

Baby it's alright

I'll be right by your side

No need to cry out loud

Nothing to cry about

Baby it's alright

I'll be just by your side

I'll keep you on my sight

I'll never leave 'til you sleep tonight

Natasha cries this time and you panic as you try to calm her down. She hugs you tightly.

“I’m right here, baby. Don’t cry.” You say as you rub her back. She calms down and you can’t help but sigh in relief… it feels like her nightmares are becoming more often.

“Nat. We need to talk.” She gulps and goes to you. You pat the spot besides you and she sits.

“Y/N? What-“

“You keep having nightmares, Nat.” She gets teary-eyed. God, did you get tired of it? Of her? Everything- “It’s not that Natasha. I know what you’re thinking.” You take her hands. “I’ll never get tired of you. Even if you make me pass out by your libido or keep me all night with your nightmares. It’s just-“ You sigh and run a hand through your hair. “I’m worried. Are you stressed? Sad? Guilty?”

“Afraid.” She mumbles and you hum. She takes your left hand and smiles at the ring. “I just- I keep thinking about messing things up and then all of those worri-“

“Get in your dreams. What was your dream last night?” She looks up to you and you give her a smile.

“You know that kid you helped yesterday?”

“Yeah?”

“It was… you were with his mom and you were both just so happy.”

“So you got jealous and worr-“

“And guilty. I can’t give you kids, not until I stop being an Avenger and I don’t-“

“Nat. Have you ever asked what I wanted?” You smile and she shakes her head. “Ask then.” She takes a deep breath and looks you in the eye.

“Okay. What do you want, Y/N?” You take her left hand and kiss it.

“You. And everything you’re willing to give. Will that include kids? I don’t know. Will it kill me? Of course not. As much as I love imagining a little you and me running around our own house, it’s early for us. We just got married two weeks ago. You are the love of my life, Natasha, nothing and I mean nothing could ever change that.” She’s crying by the time you were done and you wipe her tears away.

I'll cover you with my arms and hold you tight

And I'll be listening to your wonderful and calm little voice

I'll keep watching 'til my eyes burn down

“Y/N?” Natasha shakes you but you just whimper. “Baby?” You wake up with a gasp and you look at shock. You stare at each other then you suddenly cry. “Y/N.” She hugs you and you tremble.

“You were gone again.” You say and Natasha nods. She straddles you and hugs you again.

“I’m not going anywhere anymore, Y/N. I swear on my life.” You nod and hug her back. You fall asleep after a few minutes and Natasha lays you down slowly. She cuddles you and falls asleep.

“Y/N? Not sleeping yet?” You shake your head and smile at Nat.

“Go ahead. I’ll just finish this piece.” You’re both back in the compound and you’ve been painting for the last ten hours.

“Okay.” She complies and you hum. You take your phone and earphones out. You choose one of her recorded messages. She recorded them so you can listen to her voice even if she was on a mission.

“Y/N. Have I ever told you how blown I am by your paintings?” You smile. She has. Multiple times actually since you’ve given her one. “The way you make art is like the way you love. You’re attentive, focused, and determined.” You chuckle. “That’s why I was floored when you gave me one… and when you let me back inside your life. I messed up. I know that. But I’m going to try and make it up to you with every single day of my life.” You hum. “And when I’m away… well, just listen to this and the other recordings. I’m going to come home to you. I know I will. I don’t think I can spend another lifetime away from you.” You finish it up and sigh in relief. You clean up your art supplies and stretch your body as you make your way to your room. You see Natasha fast asleep and you go to bed beside her. You can’t fall asleep yet so you get your sketchpad and sketch your wife.

Natasha wakes up before you and it was a rather rare sight. You usually wake up alongside her or before her. She notices your open sketchpad and gets it. Oh. That’s why. She chuckles and you stir awake.

“Morning, Nat.” You greet and she puts the sketchpad aside.

“Morning, baby. Nice sleep.” You hum in confirmation and she can’t help but kiss you. You smile against her lips.

“Now, it’s a good morning.” She grins and you sit. You notice your sketchpad and look at her.

“You drew me.” You scoff at her.

“Woman, I draw you all the time.” You stand and go to your closet. You open it and gesture at the top shelf full of sketchpads. “All of these are filled by you. My landscape sketches are with Silvia.”

“Really? How come you neve-“

“Because some of them are kinda what I just remember of you.” You get the oldest one and give it to Natasha. “That’s the first one that I filled.” She opens it and smiles.

“It’s beautiful.” You chuckle and sit beside her.

“That’s because that’s how I remember you.” She looks at you and you put a strand of hair behind her ear. “Beautiful, bad-ass, kind and smart. The love of my life.”

“I love you, Y/N Romanoff. I’m so glad you’re mine.” You grin and kiss her.

“I love you too, Natasha Romanoff. I’ll always be yours.”

A/N:

And thus ends my series that I somehow wrote under a week.

I'm still floored by fast I wrote this.

And how it's more than 10,000 words in total.

Also, it's pretty amazing that this series' total notes is over 100 which is beyond my expectations?

I expected 20+ and that's that.

So, Thank You so much for all the love you all gave this series of mine.

#Natasha Romanoff x Reader #Natasha Romanoff x Fem!Reader #Marvel #Marvel Fanfic #Natasha Romanoff Fanfiction #Black Widow x Reader #Black Widow x you #Natasha x you

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 3 years

Text

TWDG: The Final Season | Character Discussion | 2/2

Part 1 | Part 2

[Brody and the basement scene]

“I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. You're gonna be okay, I promise. Goddamn it, help! Why did you say that, Brody? I...I told you not to say it. Please be okay...”

Okay... here’s where the glass shatters, Marlon becomes the episode’s antagonist, and I wish there was an option to just stay in bed.

Up to this point, Marlon’s been sincerely kind, stubborn, sometimes a little agitated, but overall? A decent guy. There are flaws with his leadership and not everyone likes him, but that comes with the territory, yeah?

He wants to keep Ericson safe, he saved Clementine and AJ’s lives, he loves Rosie, he’s Louis’ best friend- what reason do I have not to trust him?

I was rooting for you, Marlon. The first time I played, I was team Marlon.... until we got back to the school after the incident with Abel at the train station.

Brody’s freaking out, and Marlon comes over... and the unsettling feelings starting creeping up when he grabs Brody’s arm and she shoves him down.

The first time I played, I had the gut feeling that she wasn’t overreacting like Marlon claimed she was and this is when I started to actually doubt him. I was still rooting for him, like maybe it’s just a misunderstanding and the game wants me to question Marlon, but he’s not the real issue. Y’know... a fake out.

Then I heard his voice in the pipes and... oh boy.

Marlon, my guy, you hurt me.

But not as bad as you hurt Brody.

Okay, let’s do this- Marlon and Brody. Start from the beginning with their relationship and how we got to the basement scene.

One thing you’ll notice back when I was talking about Aasim is how quick Brody is to snap “Be nice, Aasim” after he gets agitated with Marlon. Then, we see the two of them sitting together on the steps during the “HELP AJ MAKE FRIENDS” segment. There’s no conversation you can overhear or anything, but you get the impression that Brody is supportive of Marlon.

I mean... why else would she be so quick to tell Aasim to be nice... right?

Except no, we already know that these two are so close because of what happened with the twins. But if you don’t know that, then obviously this seems like nothing.

Though interesting to point out that people assumed Marlon and Brody were a thing based on this little tidbit, an idea that a lot of people theorize about. Hell, I believe even Kent said they might’ve had something going, albeit something unhealthy. There isn’t any evidence of a previous romantic relationship in the game, just a speculation amongst players that can add some even darker tones to their problematic relationship.

So, Brody and Marlon chat before dinner, AJ comes over and apologizes, Marlon is once again super chill and sweet to AJ and it’s great. I love the way he handles AJ.

Marlon and Brody even have a little moment where they look at each other, silent conversation and all, before he accepts the apology. Hmm.

We don’t get to chat with Brody again until after the office scene if you choose to go fishing, and here’s where I start theorizing about Brody’s true reasons for wanting to go on a road trip.

Obviously, the whole Brody and Violet thing is what’s at focus for this scene- do you help Violet forgive Brody or not, but the whole time outside of that, Brody is very focused on another idea- taking a road trip.

“I've lived here my entire life. Heck, I'd say I know every inch of these woods. I'd kind of like to un-know it. “

And while you can easily look at this as “Oh, Brody’s just a dreamer, she wants to go on a road trip with all her friends and explore somewhere new. So what?” allow me to put on my tinfoil hat and look too much into it.

Brody wants to escape Marlon, the situation they got themselves into, and leave the guilt behind. Hop in a truck, leave Ericson and the place she and Marlon traded away their friends at, leave Marlon behind, and start somewhere new where she can pretend everything’s okay. Escape the anxiety and trauma. ��

Just to clarify, I don’t think Brody would just up and abandon everyone to go on a road trip or anything, this is just something she fantasized and talks about wistfully. Which is fair- if it’s the apocalypse, I’m going to have fantasies like that to escape and help maintain my sanity, too. It’s a way of coping.

The reason I say she wants to get away from Marlon is that he appears to be the driving force behind her being quiet. Though I do think we tend to gloss over the fact that Brody was indeed there and she could’ve come clean about the twins prior to Clementine and AJ’s arrival due to her murder.

Sure, I don’t doubt Marlon told her to be quiet, that he’d figure something out... but when his decision was to keep it a secret and move on with their lives, Brody agreed. We don’t know what it took for her to agree, though. That’s the thing.

Maybe Marlon convinced her, maybe he threatened her, and maybe she agreed all by herself.

We don’t know. She never got to tell us.

But going off of what I’ve seen of Brody and her behavior towards Marlon in Done Running, I’m more inclined to believe that she was willing to agree because, just like Marlon, she had that guilt weighing on her shoulders. She couldn’t stop what happened, and she had no choice but to go along with it.

She was there with Marlon when the twins were taken away. She was the one who broke the news to Violet and that had to be so damn hard all by itself, y’know... having to lie to her face about it. She helped Tenn, the twins’ little brother, take down Sophie’s paintings and clean out their dorm.

She and Marlon stood side by side, kept quiet and watched everyone mourn the deaths of Sophie and Minerva, all while knowing what really happened. Neither of them came clean for their own reasons.

That kind of shit will destroy your insides and drive you mad, which is what we see down in the basement. These are two broken partners in crime who are seconds away from snapping. They’re stuck, they’re overwhelmed, they can’t agree on anything, they’re arguing and getting physically upset with one another. They’ve turned into worse versions of themselves because of this.

Marlon is no longer the chill, kind, genuine guy I praised in the beginning of this, and Brody isn’t the sweet, friendly dreamer who wanted to take a road trip with her friends.

Marlon is angry, scared, and lashing out. Brody is an anxious mess.

And they kind of hate each other.

It’s horrible. It breaks my heart.

And thinking about what happened the day they got themselves into this disaster... maybe Brody did protest in the beginning before Marlon convinced her that the best thing to do was be quiet and move on, that maybe they’ll never come back and this was the only thing they could do for the best interest of the group, and she agreed.

Maybe she went into a full blown panic attack that Marlon helped her work through all while dealing with his own emotions and that, in a twisted way, brought them closer.

We don’t know.

But you’d think that if she so easily spilled everything to Clementine, that she would’ve eventually broke down and told everyone else, too... yeah? That Marlon would’ve pushed her far enough that she slipped.

To that you can argue that it was the fact that Abel and his people were back that set her off, seeing that it was happening all over again and she refused to go through that. Then, when Marlon says he has a plan, that they’ll use Clementine and AJ, that was the final nail in the coffin that sets her mind to confessing. Clementine just happened to come down and Brody took the opportunity.

The thing is... Brody had to be feeling to same way Marlon was- ashamed, guilty, heartbroken, traumatized, terrified, and so many overwhelming emotions. I think she knew what would happen if they came clean and that scared her.

She wanted to be friends with Violet again, the way they used to be- “We all used to be friends. Guess I just kinda miss that.“ and if Violet’s distanced not knowing the truth now? Imagine what she would’ve been like if Brody came clean.

Same goes for the rest of the crew.

Marlon gets a lot of the blame for what happened, which is totally fair and justified, but like I said, we gloss over that Brody was there as well. I just wish we had more context as to how they handled it at the beginning as that would give such a great insight to Marlon and his growth [or decline] over the year prior to TFS.

And y’know... I think it was a blessing and a curse to have someone in on the secret. He has someone to talk about it to so he doesn’t feel as alone... but that comes with the constant worry of “what is she confesses?” and that’s where I think Marlon turned to intimidation out of his own fears and insecurities, which put a huge strain on his and Brody’s relationship, as well as their mental health.

It doesn’t help that it seems Brody has issues with anxiety and panic attacks going off what we saw in Done Running.

Moving on to the beginning of the red flags with Marlon... let’s look at their conversations after Clementine and crew get back after the deal with the train station.

Right as we enter, we hear them in the middle of this-

Brody: “You are not listening to me. Marlon, listen to me- I'm telling you, the place was ransacked!”

Marlon: “It's fine. We'll deal with it.”

Who knows how long this conversation has gone on... and once again, Marlon isn’t listening. Hell, Brody is flat out saying he’s not listening. If this wasn’t alarming enough, Brody goes off on Clementine upon learning Abel’s fate and Marlon rushes in... probably to make sure she doesn’t say anything he doesn’t want her to.

Brody: “I just can't... I won't... just not again... fuck!”

Marlon: “What the hell's going on here?”

Brody: “She took them outside the safe zone... They saw someone! You know what that means-!”

Marlon: “Enough! It just means there's a hungry guy out there looking for food. It's happened before. You are overreacting.”

Brody: “You can't be serious!”

[Marlon grabs her arm]

Marlon: “Come on, let's go somewhere and talk about this.”

So... yikes.

It’s that arm grab, man. That set off some alarm bells. It happens super quick before it cuts back and Brody shoves him so hard, he falls to the ground. Which takes a lot of force. Then Brody turns the blame on Clementine, which is interesting.

None of that is great. But Marlon gets up and you can feel how exasperated and stressed he is that Brody made that scene and that Clementine took Louis and Violet outside the safe zone. He’s just learned that Abel is back, Brody is cracking, and it’s the calm before the storm.

It’s worth noting that even though he’s clearly upset, he’s still holding onto to this “I’m the leader, I know I asked you for help and you did, it’s fine, we’ll be eating for a while. It’s fine. I’ll go talk to Brody, go eat. Everything is fine.”

Giving off the appearance that everything’s okay. Nothing wrong, Brody’s just paranoid. It’s fine.

And if you’re like me, you said, “Hmmmmm... I have bad feelings.”

Though, I’d like to add that I also like that he admits that he always worries if Clementine tells him he doesn’t have to. A bit of vulnerability slipping through. So that’s it, right? He’s just worried.

Well... that’s not wrong, but...

Also, Marlon tells Brody she’s overreacting quite a bit and I bet that’s something he’s said to her plenty in the past. It’s just.. ugh.

Okay, time for the fun part.

As we all know, Clementine and AJ are woken up by voices in the pipes. They belong to Marlon and Brody as they’re having an argument down in the basement.

What’s really sad is that they’re the only ones who seemingly notice. Clementine’s the only one who bothered to get out of bed and see what the hell was going on. Which makes me think that this isn’t the first time they’ve fought like this, so the rest of the Ericson crew just ignore it.

Which is pretty fucked up. You’d think that someone would hear it and go down there to at least tell them to knock it off.

You could argue that maybe only Clementine and AJ could hear it because they’re closer to the basement door, which is fair. But there are other rooms in that hallway that are close enough, so unless those rooms are all empty... someone else had to of heard something.

Hell, they all hear Marlon and AJ yelling at each other in a thunderstorm outside... why not hear this?

In order for me to go over the entire basement conversation, we all gotta be up to speed. The conversation is below but if you want to hear the voice acting, you can watch this video here.

Marlon: “Why can't you just do what I ask you to do?”

Brody: “Because we caused all this, and now we have to deal with it!”

Marlon: “I am dealing with it!”

Brody: “By tradin' more of us away? That's not fixin' the problem, that's runnin' away from it! ...Let me go!”

Marlon: “Hey, calm down.”

Brody: “Don't tell me to calm down! You can't do this! You can't just-ahh!... Please...please! If we just tell everyone what's goin' on, maybe we can-”

Marlon: “I said shut up!”

[it’s implied Marlon does something here... grabs her, pushes her, hits her... there are no other sounds in the video but it’s not good. You can hear it in both their voices and “I said shut up!” is exactly what he says before he hits her with the flashlight later soo...]

Marlon: “Shit, shit. Brody, are you okay?”

Brody: “Fuck you. ...There's got to be some other way.”

Marlon: “There is no other way. Goddamn it, so few of us left... What else would you have me do?”

Brody: “Something! There's got to be something.”

Marlon: “No, no, no, there's nothing. Nothing, Brody!”

Brody: “That can't be true!”

Marlon: “You know, maybe...maybe it doesn't matter. It probably doesn't matter at all. It's just a couple of cigarettes. I mean... Just one fucking guy! This is an insurance policy.”

[insurance policy = Clementine and AJ. Nice, Marlon. Also his denial and inability to listen is super prominent here.]

Brody: “An insurance policy? These are fucking people, Marlon!”

Marlon: “I know that! Fuck, I know that. ...You are overreacting. I'm telling you!”

Brody: “What if I'm not?”

Marlon: “No, you are. So knock it the fuck off, Brody.”

Brody: “You knock it the fuck off! You are unbelievable! You fucking coward!”

Marlon: “Hey, HEY! We are in this together. You will not put this all on me! ...Damn it, Brody! We don't even know for sure it was them!”

Brody: “You know he's not alone. Those bastards are back and it's only a matter of time before they find us. You know that!”

Marlon: “I don't know shit, and neither do you! Goddamn it, Brody, keep it together!”

Brody: ‘There you go again, getting so mad.”.

Marlon: “Well, what do you want me to do? You're making me mad!”

Brody: “Oh, we have to tell the others! About what you did!”

It’s not a fun conversation. At all. I hate it, even if the voice acting is terrific.

So here’s the thing about this conversation... Marlon is stuck. He’s refusing to see any other way of handling the raiders return because what else is there to do? Fight them off? We know that’s something Marlon doesn’t want to do for a number of reasons- he’d have to come clean, he’d have to develop a plan of attack, he’d risk everyone at the school- so in his mind, being quiet and keeping Clementine and AJ as “insurance” is the best course of action to keep the others safe.

But then there’s Brody. She’s had enough and you can tell that it’s all become too much for her. She just wants to come clean and face the consequences, she wants Marlon to own up to what happened, and she’s willing to face his anger and call him out on it. It gets to the point where she starts to plead that they have to tell the others.

The more and more she goes on, the angrier Marlon gets. All his shame, grief, stress, and anger have became a dangerous cocktail that causes him to lash out.

And he fucking does. That part where he tells her to shut up then there’s this dead pause? Then his voice breaks as he apologizes and asks if she’s okay? Followed by Brody’s “fuck you.”?

Their fight has become physical now. It’s not just them yelling at each other, and while I want to give Marlon the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe he grabbed her like he did before which isn’t great either but fucking hell, that’s not what it sounds like. He hit or pushed her or something and... God damn it, Marlon. That’s inexcusable and it makes me question if he’s ever gotten physical with her before. Especially since Brody continues the conversation like it’s happened before....

God, I miss when Marlon was chill and sweet. Remember when he helped Clementine with Rosie? I do... Can we go back to that?

...Anyway, this whole conversation sucks and it gets worse. Marlon is a hair away from melt down and Brody is becoming desperate for him to listen to her.

So when Clementine comes down, everything comes to a head.

And at first, you think think that maybe Clementine can calm the situation, defuse it. But then Marlon goes into defensive “everything’s fine” mode, telling Clementine there’s nothing to worry about and to go back to bed.

Take note of his hard tone here, too. He’s doing that dominating tone, but elevated from when he used it before. He shines the light in Clementine’s face and says, “Brody and I were just talkin', go get some sleep. You deserve some shut-eye. You had a busy day.” In hopes that she’ll be intimidated and cooperate but... well, Clementine isn’t and doesn’t.

And Brody seizes the opportunity.

Brody: “The man you met at the station. We got history.”

Marlon: “Brody... Don't listen to her, Clem, she's acting crazy. She gets this way sometimes, you just gotta tune it out.”

The desperation in Marlon’s voice here is just... ugh. Trying so hard to discredit Brody and take control back of the situation.

That’s what it all comes back to, isn’t it? Marlon’s control. He knows Brody’s slipping and no matter what he does or says, he can’t regain his control over her and the situation. Clementine is threatening that and it’s spiking his anger.

We all know what happens next.

Brody: “Marlon let him take the twins. Him and his people.”

Marlon: “Damn it, Brody!”

Clementine: “Tenn's sisters? I thought they were killed by walkers.”

Brody: “That's the story we told everyone.’

Marlon: “Shut up.”

Brody: “'Cause Marlon was so ashamed of what-”

Marlon: “I said SHUT UP!”

Marlon loses control, hits Brody with his flashlight so hard that it kills her, and realization of how badly fucked up he’s become dawns on him.

Yeah, Marlon... Brody’s bleeding out on the floor because of you, because you were so desperate to keep control and hide your shame from everyone, and this is what it manifested into.

Yet, he tries to rationalize it like it’s not his fault. He’s in denial. He told her not to say it, and she did. But it’s okay, she’s going to be okay.

Which is fucked, but at this point, Marlon’s in a full blown panic - “Oh, shit, Brody. I'm sorry! I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. You're gonna be okay, I promise. Goddamn it, help! Why did you say that, Brody? I...I told you not to say it. Please be okay.” He’s all over the place and doesn’t know what to do.

And it gets worse.

Because Marlon’s in such a panic, brain scattered with a shit ton of horrifying thoughts- “What do I tell everyone? Brody’s dead and I killed her. How will everyone look at me? I betrayed them. I betrayed all of them. The raiders are coming back. Clementine knows the truth. What do I do? I can’t let them know. I can’t tell the truth because they will see me for what I really am.” -when he hears Brody tell Clementine everything, he once again does something shitty to save himself. He runs and locks Clementine in the basement, knowing that Brody’s going to turn.

Clementine: “Marlon, you son of a bitch, don't do this!”

Marlon: “I'm sorry... I can't...I can't let you talk to the others.”

So... what does this entire scene tell us about Marlon?

Well, first off, I shouldn’t trust someone just because they love dogs. That’s on me.

This is where Marlon goes from friend to foe and it’s a lot to take in. This scene is the reason people question Marlon’s real motivations, question whether or not he was ever good if he had it in him to murder Brody in order to keep her quiet.

But that’s the thing, when you watch this scene, you can tell that Marlon didn’t mean to kill her. In a fit of anger, he didn’t know his own strength and lashed out and she died because of it. He should still be held accountable for it, even if it was an accident. But because he’s holding on to whatever he can, he refuses to take accountability, choosing to then leave Clementine for death and pin everything on her.

He has no plan after that, he just knows that he has to regain control over everything or else he’s done. He doesn’t have time to mourn Brody or come to terms with what he had done because he’s moving so fast to “fix” everything, y’know?

What Marlon did down here was inexcusable. I can do my best to explain what lead Marlon to this point and why he did what he did, but that doesn’t justify anything.

Now... before I move on to talk about the confrontation scene, there is one more important character in Marlon’s life to cover.

[Louis and a broken friendship]

“I hope you know Louis didn't mean any harm there. He's just the world's biggest dumbass. He's my best friend, so I can legally call him that.”

Where to even begin?

From the beginning, I guess.

Louis and Marlon have known each other for years, back before the walkers came and the world ended. We know this because of the photo in Marlon’s office and how everyone tells us that they’re best friends.

And it’s funny that they’re such best friends but the game doesn’t care much to show us that, or even go into details about their relationship. Which, in my opinion, was a bit of a failure on the writers part. I know you probably didn’t have time and all the usual reasons, but you’d think that this relationship would be important enough to cover just a tad bit more considering that Louis is a potential love interest and Marlon’s the antagonist.

Y’know?

The only times Marlon and Louis actually interact with one another for more than two seconds is during the card game and during the confrontation, and even that is slim if you choose to appeal to Violet.

But like, no guys, they’re super best friends. Trust us, we told you, like, twice.

I hate to get into the Louis vs Violet thing since this is about Marlon, but let me explain why this bothers me.

They didn’t have any issues letting Violet spill her guts about her past with the twins, specifically Minerva. Now, the twins are considered dead at this point, so it’s not like they could show them interacting, so they get a pass for the show rather than telling. Except they do show that Violet and Minerva were girlfriends when you go fishing and look at the initials on the wall.

I’m not saying that this isn’t important. It is. I explained why it’s important to Marlon’s character previously, too.

But this is when we run into a problem with what they decided to do with Louis- Louis doesn’t tell us jack shit about his relationship with Marlon in Done Running prior to appealing to him during the confrontation. All I ask is why not?

Look, to be frank, the picture is nice and all, but it’s not enough. Marlon saying “Oh yeah, muh best friend,” once isn’t enough. You barely scraped by with what you gave us.

Louis doesn’t tell us anything about his past, at least nothing important to the plot. When Aasim makes a comment about him being Marlon’s lap dog, Louis brushes it off with a joke, and never mentions Marlon again. The only time Louis actually lets us in is if you take care of the walker with him and he explains his way of thinking before realizing he let his guard down and puts the mask back on.

Louis isn’t willing to share anything about his friendship with Marlon but Violet’s over here super willing to open up about the twins and Brody? That’s hilarious because you’d think it’d be the other way around.

You’d think that they’d have Louis saying something about Marlon to show us that he has a blind faith in Marlon or trusts him to a fault. He can see that Aasim doesn’t get along with Marlon and questions his leadership, so why not have him say something in defense of Marlon?

And perhaps it’s on purpose. Maybe Louis’ trust in Marlon is so great that he doesn’t feel the need to defend him because he knows how Aasim gets. They have plenty of other stuff to argue about, why add another thing? Fine, that makes sense... but why not have him say something to Clementine? Hell, have Clementine ask him about Marlon and the safe zone and what he thinks about it?

Like when Clementine’s all “Hey, let’s go to the train station.”

Louis just stands there like “’kay,” without any indication of “Yeah Marlon wouldn’t like that.”

...Maybe he doesn’t care? Who knows.

I’m just saying, they would’ve benefited from adding a conversation with Louis about Marlon so that we could get his perspective of their relationship BEFORE the confrontation rather than waiting until ep2 for him to give us some details.

But, like, it’s fine... I’ll just work with what I got.

There isn’t too much to say about them during the card game. They’re chill, they’re buddies. Louis does this cute whistle that Marlon bobs his head to and that’s pretty neat.

After Louis asks Clementine if she ever had to kill someone she loved and the game ends, Marlon goes to make sure Clementine’s okay and let her know that Louis didn’t mean to hurt her feelings, he’s just a dumbass.

But it’s fine, they’re best friends so he can legally call him that. This is the first time we see Marlon say something like that about Louis, the second time being in the office. He’ll admit that he hopes Louis will actually show up to go hunting, which says a lot about the amount of faith he puts into Louis.

Which is interesting to think about how one-sided their friendship can seem when you start putting pieces together. Louis has complete faith in Marlon but Marlon doesn’t return that faith due to the fact that he knows Louis runs on his own time, y’know? Louis appears to be honest while Marlon is dishonest.

Knowing how Marlon is and his need for control, you’d think that he’d be more stern with Louis. He’s like that with everyone else... until you remember that Marlon has a soft spot for Louis. One that allows him to take control in a different way.

I can’t help but feel Marlon had this sense of entitlement to Louis as his best friend. Marlon’s been Louis’ friend the longest, Marlon is the only one who can call Louis an idiot, Marlon gives Louis special treatment in many ways that others notice, Marlon knows Louis better than anyone else does. Marlon loves Louis like he’s his own blood.

And if you know anything about Louis and his character, you know a big part of his arc is confidence and self-esteem. I mean, real self-esteem, not the persona he puts on. Looking back at everything we’ve covered, it’s not out of the question to think that Marlon could’ve used that part of Louis to his advantage. He’s Louis’ best friend, Louis can trust him because Marlon’s always had his back, always appeared to see beyond the jokes and piano because they’ve know each other longest. They’re practically brothers.

Having that control over Louis is important to Marlon, and while that seems like a slimy way to put it, it’s true. I don’t think Marlon ever saw Louis as a pawn or anything- I believe Marlon genuinely cared about and loved Louis- but when it came to the twins, he didn’t confide him. Marlon didn’t want to lose the closest connection he had, the one person who couldn’t see him for who he turned into, and he didn’t want Louis to tell everyone else.

There ya go- yet another layer of guilt and shame for Marlon.

Not only that, but Marlon didn’t have much confidence in him, found him irresponsible. He had to deal with the fact that he still loved Louis while acknowledging that he’s not reliable.

That brings us to when Clementine appeals to Louis.

Here’s where Marlon becomes a cocky bastard.

Clementine: “Louis, don't let him do this!”

Louis: “Oh, no. I am not involved.”

Clementine: “What?”

Louis: “I like you, Clem, but I...”

[Louis looks to Marlon, who gives him an intimidating look back that shuts Louis down. There’s the control.]

Louis: “Not me. I'm sorry. You're, uh, on your own. Sorry.”

And Marlon’s face...? He’s so smug I could slap him. He looks at Clementine like “Oh, you thought Louis was gonna help you, huh? HA! My best friend, dingus.”

What’s funny is that in all my searching through reddit and youtube and what have you, a lot of people complain that Louis is “harder” to get to side with you. Which, technically, no he’s not. Both he and Violet require you to pick two dialogue choices before they help. Louis only appears harder because Marlon intimidates him into being quiet and that makes it seem like he won’t help you.

Though, to be fair, he does attempt to step in after Clementine pleads with him the first time.

“Shit. Marlon, come on, man. Drop the gun.”

And Marlon really doesn’t like that.

He snaps out Louis’ name and you see Louis visibly flinch at this. Either this is the first time Marlon’s risen his voice at him like this or it’s not, it’s hard to tell.

“She. Killed. Brody! We can't let her walk away.”

Funny how he says we there...

You can feel how conflicted Louis is here, just like how you can feel Marlon’s control and manipulation at play. Louis wants to believe Marlon, but he’s out here with blood all over his face and waving a gun around. He’s about to shoot Clementine, and that will make him a murderer no matter how you look at it and Louis knows this.

He’s looking at a version of his best friend that he doesn’t recognize, but because he’s scared, it makes Louis backtrack and curl into himself.

“Clem, I... I... I gotta trust Marlon. I just... I gotta. I always have.”

Here, you have two choices:

“He didn't trust you with the truth! He lied to you about the twins. He doesn't deserve your trust.”

“Brody trusted him. And now she's dead. And he killed her!”

Personally, I prefer the first one, but both of these strike a nerve within Louis. He knows she’s right.

Marlon yells at Clementine and gets ready to shoot her, which she accepts by the way she steps back and closes her eyes.

Louis, with both hands up, slowly steps between them, free of Marlon’s control and trying to save both him and Clementine.

Marlon, baffled that he’d ever do this, even moves the gun away as he stares at Louis in disbelief.

Marlon: “You don't know what you're doing, man!”

Louis: “C'mon, dude, just drop the gun. This is how adults do things. Not us.”

Can I just say that Marlon must feel so fucking powerless seeing Louis step up to him like this? Like, with Violet he’s not surprised and not even remotely intimidated by her little meat cleaver, but with Louis? He is not okay.

The others step forward and Marlon knows that he’s lost. Pointing a gun at his best friend? Knowing that if he so much as accidentally squeezed the trigger, Louis would be dead? Everyone has turned against him.

Not great.

You guys know me, you know that I much prefer appealing to Louis over Violet because of the power behind this and how much of an effect it has on Marlon. It’s perfectly executed.

A couple more things to talk about regarding this scene. If you call Marlon pathetic, he says something interesting to Louis.

Clementine: “You're pathetic.”

[Marlon drops his gun]

Marlon: “I know. Always was.”

Louis: “That isn't true.”

Marlon: “No, Louis, it is. You were just the only one who couldn't see it.”

When I say my heart hurts... muh heart hurts. Because this is what their friendship became, they both realize it, and Louis is devastated.

On the flip side, if you say-

Clementine: “We can still fix this, Marlon. It's going to be okay. We can make this right.”

Louis: “We'll help you. We're all family here. The only one any of us has left.”

Which shows that despite everything, Louis does have a little bit of faith left in Marlon and wants to help him, which Marlon feels he doesn’t deserve.

Then AJ shoots Marlon in the head.

And I really, really wish there was an option to just stay in bed to avoid all of this.

Okay.

Louis is a fucking mess after this.

The writers finally said, “Hey, remember when Luke had absolutely no reaction to his best friend’s death in s2? What if we don’t do that this time?”

I don’t want to get too into this because this isn’t a Louis analysis, but let me quickly summarize the affect Marlon’s death had on Louis.

Anyone who was around when Suffer the Children came out remembers all the discourse about Louis. Lot of people pissed at him for being upset. Which fine, you’re allowed to be upset with him because he’s mad at Clementine and AJ, but let me remind you that he just witnessed his best friend of 8+ years being murdered right before his eyes after no longer being a threat and he was powerless to do anything about it.

Marlon’s death hurt and traumatized Louis in so many ways and that’s something we see throughout the episode. Even though Marlon is dead, he continues to have an effect on Louis and everyone at Ericson because of what he did and how he died.

And to clarify, Louis never hated Clementine and AJ for what happened. He just didn’t know what to do. He was overwhelmed, hurt, pissed, and never had time to mourn before raiders came knocking on their doors. He dealt with the fact that his best friend wasn’t who he thought he was and how Marlon hurt everyone at this school, that Marlon was a murderer.

That’s a fucking lot.

And it continues to hurt him through the rest of the season.

Honestly, Louis says everything best:

“You sound like Marlon. I mean, not about fighting, but when he was trying to cheer us all up. For years, I sat around making stupid jokes, playing stupid games, while my best friend was left with all the responsibility. All the tough calls. All the sleepless nights. And eventually, a bullet in the head. And I didn't do a damn thing about it. And then, when you tried to tell us what he was really like, and AJ shot him, I blamed you. Both of you. If I could take it back, I would. I knew that the day you got back. I still do. ...He was my best friend. Almost like my brother, but the things he did? They were fucked up. I'll never be glad he died. But I understand why AJ thought it was the right thing to do.”

[The final confrontation and Marlon’s murder]

“I know I betrayed you... all of you. Just let me leave. You'll never have to see me again. Just let me become...a bad memory. Just give me that. Please.”

The final confrontation is my favorite Marlon moment from a storytelling standpoint.

Just... everything about it. The thunderstorm, the voice acting, Marlon’s complete turn to antagonist and break down, Clementine appealing to Louis/Violet, Rosie barking in the background... it’s just great. It hurts but I love it.

This is where we see Marlon’s manipulation at it’s peak. He knows he’s fucked, but is still so desperate to cling on that he throws everything he can at Clementine. He accuses her of murdering Brody, working with the raiders, takes low blows against everyone, especially Louis and Violet, and goes as far as to point a gun at Clementine with the intention of shooting her.

Because that’ll fix everything... I guess?

Marlon didn’t think this through.

Anyway...

“We saved their lives when anyone else would've kept walking! We fed them, we kept them warm! And this is how they thank us?! Guns being pulled and murder! Well, FUCK! THEM!”

Marlon is broken, his last resort it to try and salvage himself, to win the group’s favor.

“Aw, come the fuck on! They only met up with these ‘raiders’ because Clem insisted they go out there. Quite the coincidence, isn't it? Shame I don't believe in those. Think about how scared we all were when the adults left. I pulled us out of that fear. I gave us all courage again. Who are y'all gonna believe, huh? Johnny-come-lately and her little fucking lunatic? Or me? Your friend?”

He’s pulling out the big guns, reminding everyone that he was the one who pulled them out of their fear and gave them courage, that he’s their friend who they’ve known and trusted for 8+ years while they just met Clementine two days ago.

Who are you going to believe?

As well all know, Clementine takes a risk and appeals to Louis or Violet. I already covered them so we’ll skip ahead to everyone turning on him.

This is when Marlon realizes he’s losing and that anger bubbles up.

“You don't get it. You- you don't understand at all, do you? I'm trying to protect you! All of you! Every fucking one of you!”

And he lashes out, pointing the gun at everyone now, and finally... the truth comes out.

“...I made the right call. I saved the lives of everyone in this fucking school! If they came back... I'd do it again!”

...Yikes.

Now, I’ve talked about this scene in previous parts, said most of what I wanted to say, but there is one thing I haven’t covered, and that’s Tenn.

Tenn: “You told me they died!”

Marlon: “I had to save the rest of you, okay?”

Tenn: “You gave my sisters away. Why would you do something like that? I trusted you, Marlon! THEY trusted you! ....We all trusted you...”

Marlon: “I know... I know..”

Tenn was first introduced along side Marlon and you can tell that he cares about him and is protective. Not only that, but Tenn is comfortable enough to play in Marlon’s office, which is something I assume he does regularly.

It makes me think that Marlon took Tenn under his wing, if you will, after the twins died. Perhaps as some way to try and make himself better, maybe to try and make it up to the twins by swearing to protect him.

Tenn is what gets Marlon to take it down a bit, to explain that he didn’t want to hurt the twins, he just didn’t have any choice. He even admits to Tenn that he was too scared to develop a rescue plan.

You can hear it in his voice when he looks to Tenn and speaks, and Tenn is the one who gets him to confess that he was the one who killed Brody, not Clementine.

Marlon: “I wanted to get them. Stage some kind of rescue. Honest, Tenn. I just couldn't. I was...I was too afraid.”

Tenn: “You killed Brody because she knew?”

Marlon: “Mm-hmm... I didn't mean to. I didn't want this. I wanted to save all of you. Sophie, Minerva. I didn't want to hurt them.”

Which is huge. It wasn’t Clementine, it wasn’t Louis or Violet who got him to confess, it was Tenn. Hearing this boy on the verge of tears tell Marlon that they all trusted him, how could he do this to them... that got through to him.

And I believe Tenn is the one who solidified that Marlon wanted to leave. He didn’t want to stay and see everyone look and treat him differently, see everyone hate him- He couldn’t face Louis, his best friend. He couldn’t face Violet, the girl he betrayed. He couldn’t face Clementine and AJ, couldn’t face everyone he tried to protect.

And he couldn’t face Tenn.

But you know what says a lot about Tenn? If you choose to remain silent after Marlon says he didn’t want to hurt them, he says:

“I forgive you.”

[?] Marlon won’t forget that.

But even with that forgiveness? I don’t Marlon believes he deserves that, especially from Tenn. He grateful Tenn forgave him, but he still feels it’s best that he leaves.

“I know I betrayed you. All of you. Just let me leave. You'll never have to see me again. Just let me become...a bad memory. Just give me that. Please.”

And we all know what happens next.

So... this begs the question... after everything that Marlon did and didn’t do...

Did Marlon deserve his fate?

No.

Marlon didn’t deserve this. That’s the short answer.

In my opinion, AJ was far from justified in what he did.

This is a good time to compare Marlon and Lilly, since that comes up quite a bit. When Lilly surrenders at the end of Broken Toys, she does it to manipulate the situation in her favor and get the upper hand again.

The second you show any sort of kindness towards Lilly, she takes advantage of you because she never saw the error in her ways. She believed every cruel thing she ever did was for a good cause and only ever feels remorse when she loses everyone.

Marlon, on the other hand, genuinely surrendered. This was the first time he gave up his control and accepted what he had done, ready to face the consequences and be outcast from Ericson for his crimes. He dropped his weapon, he was no longer a threat. Marlon no longer had any malicious intent once everyone turned against him.

And the biggest difference between Marlon and Lilly is that Marlon felt that shame since the beginning. He did bad things for the sake of Ericson, but not once did he take pride in what he did to the twins or Brody. He felt nothing but remorse.

Brody’s dead, Sophie and Minerva are gone, and he realizes what he’s become.

The tragedy of Marlon is that his fate was decided by a child who was unable to read the situation for what it was, who took it upon themselves to take Marlon’s life despite the fact that everything was over. Marlon never gets a redemption arc, and maybe he didn’t deserve one. It depends on how you feel.

But for me, he definitely didn’t deserve to be shot in the back of the head like that.

[Final thoughts]

“...It's hard to survive too long these days without being a bit... ‘troubled.’”

Marlon is... complicated.

That’s a good word.

On one hand, he does have some genuine moments where he’s a chill dude looking out for his family and there’s a lot to like about him, but on the other hand... he did a lot of bad shit.

If I had to pick a “problematic fav” within TFS, Marlon would be it.

Like I mentioned previously, I wish we had more interactions with him and Louis, but we did get enough to get the point across.

As for Marlon’s backstory and why he was sent to Ericson, it’s never stated and none of the creators have come forward with information. My theory? That’s a great question.

Most are inclined to believe that he’s there due to anger and behavior problems, but for all we know, that stuff developed over time since I don’t know if someone like that would be put in a leader position. Or maybe it is and he forced himself in, I dunno.

My guess is that it’s something we’d never expect. I don’t know if I have a theory because, well, I don’t exactly feel qualified to diagnose Marlon with something I haven’t done a shit ton of research on, y’know?

Even after writing this and looking through everything... I couldn’t tell you.

I find Marlon to be a compelling character that I wish stuck around longer. He’s an example of a kid who grew up too fast with the lives of his whole community on his shoulders. He was faced with a no-win situation and suffered with every decision made. His desire to control everything around him, to ground him, led to his downfall.

In the end, Marlon expressed sincere guilt for what he did. Apologizing doesn’t magically make everything he did okay, far from it, but it was a step in the right direction. I wish he had the chance at some kind of redemption, but it’s The Walking Dead. Not everyone gets a redemption arc, most get theirs torn from their grasp. Marlon is one of those people.

He had a lot of good qualities that were severely overshadowed by his final moments. I believe he genuinely cared about Ericson and believed he was doing all the right things to protect him. He took things too far, manipulating those closest to him and causing them more pain than he ever thought.

All in all, an enjoyable, complex character.

Want to see more of these long character discussion posts? Let me know! Feel free to send suggestions for characters you’d like me to cover in the future! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this Marlon character discussion/analysis/rant thing! Let me know your thoughts on Marlon!

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akumageist · 4 years

Text

I would die for Hitori Uzune. RIP to Kazuaki, but I’m different.

The Hatoful fandom consists of 13 people and a paperclip. It always has. Unfortunately, it probably always will. Where this is cause for some perks, it’s also some of its faults. In example, it’s still an anime game, made by a Japanese woman, and attracts weebs. Weebs tend to like to think of characters 2-Dimensionally, breaking the character down to what they think is their core personality traits. Hitori is no stranger to this, and is beaten down into this heartless, manipulative, selfish bastard. But I believe Moa is saying “anyone, even the best of us, is capable of becoming a monster if driven to it.” Let’s roll.

2162. Hitori was born into a world of war and hate, plopped into an orphanage at just 2 years old. This can be found in Moa’s canon spin-off manga, where Hitori at about ten years old is caring for the other war orphans along with the other older birds. Luckily for him, he was a genius. He was able to go out and get jobs tutoring birds and support his rag-tag family at his young age.

With that, we know Hitori was not originally cold and heartless, despite how the world may have birthed him. Especially when Nageki arrived frail and sickly. Hitori and the other birds were happy to put in overtime in an attempt to pay for the poor dove’s medications, even in his protest.

Then, 2180 happened. Imagine what sort of toll that would take on Hitori. he was absent. He was at work, unaware of the jeopardy that befell his family. What kind of horrible, mind-rattling survivors guilt must rack this bird’s brain, knowing he wasn’t there as his family was massacred one by one?

“What did we do? We had nothing. Our parents and homes had already been stolen by the humans. All we had left were each other.”

We can gather from this same scene Hitori blames himself for not being there. For not being able to protect his family, or even Nageki. Even though had he been there, he would have died alongside everybirdie else, and left Nageki to succumb to his illness alone. Something of this magnitude would create anxieties and trauma unfathomable to those who did not deal with it.

In Hitori, this manifested as full-blown helicopter mom. He can’t help but think of every little nit-pick detail over Nageki, terrified one feather out of place will kill him. The fandom is good about this side of his character! And of course, so is Moa. This may be the Summer Vacation Drama CD: Hitori The Worrywart (which takes place in MIRROR AU), but I love it’s portrayal of the anxious quail.

Hitori continued to care and ache over Nageki’s declining health. He was desperate. Begging doctors, even though deep in his little quail brain he knew Nageki was a lost cause, and that he was dying. But he couldn’t think of a life without Nageki, and did all in his power to try and keep the bird as well as he could. We can see a great example of this love in words you might not think of.

“How about this? From now on, ‘I’m fine’ is not allowed.”

I’ve always imagined Hitori getting mildly heated at Nageki in this conversation.The quail is on his last strands of stability, and the dove he cares endlessly for is trying to hide the very thing he ails himself over. The genuinity in his words shines through- telling Nageki he’d rather hear he’s bad and hurting.

So, in this desperation, Hitori carted Nageki off to some strange doctor in some strange prestigious school. And how couldn’t he? A doctor who claimed to know of the virus eating away at Nageki’s life, and how to cure it. Hitori’s beacon of hope in a sea of darkness. The only bird in the entire universe he had left to love, the one he had arguably always favored and adored, was dying. He would do anything in his power to keep the one thing he loved alive, no matter the irrationality or cost. No matter the very dying bird’s own lips saying “I… don’t want to go.”

Whether or not you ship these birds, I firmly believe Hitori is in love with Nageki in a romantic sense.

“I can no longer love another creature // I think we meant more to each other than anybirdie else in the world... // The love I felt soured into resentment // I should remember the beautiful face I knew, not… a photo covered in scribbles”

Not to mention admitting he can’t bear to live without the dove in BBL. And, in his route, Hiyoko goes as far as to refer to this bird as a female, which means he’s speaking so fondly she’s assuming it was a lover, and therefore a woman. Hitori’s stopped any sort of love at the idea he can only love Nageki post-mortem. That is canon. And well… that’s not very brotherly, no matter how good of a relationship you may have with your sibling (I speak from experience).

Okay, okay, this persuasive essay is NOT for convincing you of this ship, that is another essay for another time. I’ve only mentioned this opinion because I need you to understand his irrationality for the one thing he has left, and the fragility of it. And why it might drive anybirdie to… Hitori-level madness. Moving on.

2183. A mere 3 years after Hitori had lost the majority of his family to human terrorists. Nageki sends a coded letter, and… we can see Hitori’s anxieties outright.

“It’s happening again. Nageki needs me, and I’m not there.”

This is… a very powerful line in the game. We’re seeing just how vulnerable Hitori truly is. This is a traumatized individual in a panic attack- realizing the love of his goddamn life is once again faced with something horrible, and Hitori is once again absent from the scene.

And just like that, he’s gone.

The only thing. The only one Hitori had left in life to love. To live for. Taken from him without so much as a second chance. This is painful to write. This part of Hatoful is, without a doubt, the most agonizing. I know how it is to lose something so dear and feel as though maybe it’s not worth going on without them.

This is the peak of Moa’s tragedy writing ability (and yes, I’m including Holiday Star). But this is my point, is it not? Though his kanji may be “sun bird”, the actual word for his name “Hitori” quite literally means one, alone, solitary. He is now all alone in the universe, no family left. How can anybirdie even remotely remain in charge of their faculties (as Sakuya would put it) by now? You wouldn’t.

Hitori is now a husk of his former self. Anything he’s ever cared for is gone, he has nothing left to live for. He goes- my favorite coined term for him- absolutely batshit. He gets what we call “trauma-induced psychosis”, and begins to hallucinate very vividly, a form that he refers to as “Nageki”. We all know him of course, as Shadow. Shadow, from the little information we’re able to gather from BBL, is tormenting Hitori ruthlessly.

Shadow is easily misunderstood, because Moa made him fathomable, so the reader was able to understand exactly what was happening. What had become of Hitori Uzune. Shadow in all his simplicity- is Hitori. It is an introjection of Nageki, manifested to validate Hitori in his self-hatred. Don’t you get it? He hates himself just as much as you hate him!

Anything Hitori thinks of himself, Shadow is there to back up. He’s taunting him day in and day out, reminding him that he killed Nageki, and every ounce of Nageki’s suffering life was the fruit of Hitori’s inability to protect him. But again, it’s his own brain, telling him exactly what he wants to hear. What he truly believes. Telling himself what he’s done, and how he deserves this. ...And to seek revenge.

Hitori lost his mind. He had nothing else to lose, after all. He became obsessed with Nageki even moreso than he was in life, because there was no level-headed dove to calm him and tell him to stop worrying so much, or keep him at least reasonably held together by simply being there.

He listened to his psychosis, and when he made a friend (Moa gives evidence Hitori and Kazuaki were friends prior to Hitori’s ill-intentions), his psychosis got in the way of that, too. As he travelled down this relationship (which Moa herself says is pretty much romantic), we can assume he realized just how unable to love he was. He had Kazuaki around because, let’s face it. He wanted someone like Nageki who was incompetent so he could nurture and care for them. And for a while, it worked. But it didn’t. Hitori didn’t love Kazuaki. He couldn’t. He was too busy looking for Nageki.

So, you’re reading this in english. You speak english. At least a little, right? So maybe you played the english (and localized) version of the game. Well then you may not know the following. Please pay attention! This gets a bit rocky, and a bit more “Hitori...!”.

In the English version, Hitori disguised as Kazuaki is “tired”. In the Japanese version, he’s “sleepy” or “dreamy”. I’d describe him as ditsy, for sure. He kind of acts like an airhead who knows absolutely nothing, and his students don’t take him seriously. In the Hatomame Sweet Blend Drama CD, there is a track that follows Kazuaki on a little adventure of his narcolepsy, and going to Shuu for help.

In and out of comatose, Hitori, as himself, is there in his dreams as a separate bird.

“This bird with a face I had never seen spoke to me in a voice I had never heard, and this is what he said.”

“Nanaki-sensei” is clearly denying his own identity.

“I’ll sleep, just a little, and then leave… good… night…”

“But sleeping is my job… You still have a little longer. Tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that…”

This is dream Hitori telling himself that he has to continue his alias until his revenge is fulfilled. The quail that was once Hitori must remain dormant until he is reunited with Nageki again, and can be happy again. As a metaphor for depression… don’t you feel like you’re a shell of your former self?

So, going off this information… I believe Hitori has repressed himself. This is due to my own knowledge on psychology but-- Hitori doesn’t want to be Hitori anymore. It’s too hard. Hitori the war orphan. Hitori the lone survivor. Hitori the murderer and identity thief. It’s him not wanting to deal with his trauma in a healthy way, and instead locking it up and becoming somebirdie new and undamaged.

He killed Hitori.

This falls into the other delusion- that Nageki is somehow not completely dead and gone and ash- but still trapped, somehow, somewhere, and Hitori needs to find and get him. To kill Isa and the researchers who “killed” Nageki, and bring “Nageki” home. Whatever he believes Nageki is. In BBL, we see this quite literally varies! He tried to cut Ryouta open and steal his liver!

“Sir, Nageki would have never wanted this…!”

There is no difference between a serial killer and someone in a court room screaming for the serial killer to be murdered in turn. That mourning mother is then one in the same with that killer, is she not? She sees him, and wants him to die. She wants him to die and suffer. She believes that will bring her a sense of justice. Even though she knows it will not return her son to her. Hitori, is that mourning mother. He sees Isa, and all he can see is the man who murdered his dove.

I know the biggest aspect as to why the fandom hates Hitori is the sole factor that Kazuaki is #relatable. He’s a depressed college student who thinks he’s better off dead. Then, Hitori tricks him. But you’re not reading Kazuaki right. It’s okay, he’s easy to misread from Holiday Star’s plotline.

Holiday Star was written with Kazuaki as the villain, do you forget? A grey villain as well, but a villain nonetheless. He told his tragic sob story death in such a way, you can’t help but to cry. He’s the victim! I’m not saying he’s not. But he was written specifically to be pitied in Holiday Star, and as you continue on, you begin to see he’s actually just anti-self help. He doesn’t want to face his fears. He doesn’t want to leave his safe egg and take the risk he should have.

Kazuaki is meant to be pitied, yes, but just on the brink of annoying with his helplessness and self-deprecation. He’s, forgive me, a “sad sack of shit” who does nothing to help himself. Don’t come after me for being “ableist” or whatever- Moa literally wrote him this way.

This is also depicted in “Kazuaki-kun’s Book”. Now, this book takes place in the MIRROR AU, but it tells of how Kazuaki met Hitori. Moa starts the manga off by explaining Kazuaki had a great chickhood, a healthy life, and an easy, happy time. But then, he flunked his college exams and didn’t even get into his safety school. He lazed around, grew depressed, and let his apartment rot. He played video games until his online friends got jobs, and wasted any money he had on them as well. The only thing that scared him out of it is when his next door neighbor was found dead, having rotted into his own futon.

So imagine Hitori, who has worked so hard and lost everything he had done so for. Tirelessly, through his horrible, fucked up existence. Nageki, who had his short and miserable life robbed from him, had to die. Had to kill himself. And this random quail has the audacity to bitch and moan, thinking he’s got it bad? He’s a waste of space that could have been filled with Nageki. This is what Hitori’s brain is thinking. Hitori’s only ~20 years old when Nageki dies, after all.

I’m not saying this is cause for murder and identity theft. Don’t you dare misread me on this. But as I’ve stated prior- Hitori’s completely lost it. But you ship him with the chukar that literally ruined his life. Hitori’s a grey villain but holy fuck why would you want him to fuck the partridge that tortured and drove his only loved one to suicide?

It was wrong to trick Kazuaki. It was wrong to insult him as he died. It was wrong to steal his identity. That’s obvious and a given. But you all seem to look at that factoid alone, chalking it up to ‘preying on a poor mentally ill man” but not taking into consideration Hitori is mentally ill himself. ...Just not #relatable enough for you.

Hitori is suicidal as well. He’s been suicidal presumably since Nageki died. Don’t you dare say Hitori isn’t at least a little in the same boat. I don’t care if he’s not as soft and uwu and cuddly as Kazuaki. Mental illness is not rainbows and butterflies and emo hair (though Kazuaki is not portrayed this way).

Holiday star bears all the answers. I raise you important points, so pay close attention. The first key component is Hitori, found upside down in the pudding. He’s crying. Why is he crying? Because he’s lost his name? Oh, but think deeper.

“I’m Nemo”.

“Nemo” is latin for nothing, and his name translates to “nothing” in every language of HoliStar. The King has vomited him up in his kingdom, and robbed him back of what he stole from him. His identity.

But it goes even deeper than that.

“I’ve lost something, and so, I think I might cry.”

From this phrase alone, it’s painful to play this game. Nageki is right in front of his beak. But what did he do? He ate his own eyes. Hitori, in his refusal to identify with himself, has robbed himself of quite literally seeing the very bird he adores and sought after. Then, he is renamed his own identity by that bird (the only identity he accepts). How surreally real.

The second key component is when everybirdie is being rescued, but Leone warns Yuuya the quail is clearly falling more rapidly into a coma, and may not be able to awake. Why is this? Because Hitori wants to die. He’s fine with it, and Kazuaki is more than happy to keep him. When Yuuya finds him, Hitori is not at all alarmed as he should be. He seems passive, and simply wants to fall back to sleep. He’s to the point of trying to strangle Yuuya in attempt to let himself fall into eternal slumber (even if he thinks Yuuya is… Kazuaki..?).

Heed these next words carefully. When Yuuya asks if The King did something to him, Hitori replies-

“...No, all The King did was close the door.”

I am a firm believer this is Hitori indirectly saying “Kazuaki did nothing wrong, and I do not resent him for hating me.” Especially since Hitori shows signs of knowing it’s Kazuaki, and repenting.

“He said I need to be punished. Apparently I did something bad… and I think I know what it was.”

This is confirmed in my next point, so bear with me.

Hitori, in this same conversation, is admitting he wants to die. The only thing that stops him- as morbid as it may be, is remembering this takes place before the events of BBL. He hasn’t fulfilled what he believes is his “something I need to do”. Which is seek revenge, and bring Nageki home, as per Shadow’s orders.

Lastly, at the bitter end of Holiday Star when everybirdie is plummeting through the air from the false star, Hitori is still blind and confused. Suddenly, The King erupts from behind Hitori, and appears to be talking to him.

“Oh, is that right?”

“...I know, I know. ...but it’s still too soon. That’s right, I’ll be along soon. I’ll catch up with you. Someday…”

This is arguably my most prominent point in the entire essay. This is Hitori, admitting not only does he still plan to kill himself, but that he intends to keep his promise and reunite with Kazuaki in the afterlife. These are not the words of a heartless quail. These are the words of somebirdie who knows they’ve taken advantage of a friend, but is continuing to do their best to keep their promises and make amends. This is Hitori telling Kazuaki he still cares for him.

Hitori is the result of trauma and hardship beyond compare, and his inability to cope. He is not meant to be hated. He is meant to have shock value, yes. What he has done his disgusting, but you want to love him. Because he raised the sweetest bird in the entire game who would rather kill himself than hurt others.

Grey-villains are difficult, and because you can’t love them for being purely evil, you end up hating them for being a good person who’s done bad things. Hitori is a cracked window. Not quite shattered, but no longer whole, with a faulty image. Hitori is not just some heartless, manipulative, selfish bastard. He’s quite literally a bird with a broken wing (or entire ribcage more like), trying to… well, Live, and be happy.

#hitori uzune #uzune hitori #hatoful boyfriend #hatoful kareshi #hatoful #hatoful boyfriend bbl #kazuaki nanaki #nageki fujishiro #hatoful boyfriend holiday star

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ecfandom · 4 years

Note

ok let's see: big city lawyer return to her small town at christmas time to stop some corporate closure and magically fall in love with some woman and her dog

Ah, I love it! This totally got away from me. I’ll do more tomorrow!

***

Okay so Clarke is the youngest partner at Azgeda & Weather, a NYC corporate law firm that handles all the big Fortune 500 companies along the eastern seaboard. Being the youngest partner at the firm means two things: Clarke takes no prisonrs, and the law firm is her life. We’re talking breakfast, lunch and dinner at her desk (a large desk in a large corner office on the top floor, there’s not a lot to complain about honestly), a second wardrobe in the sleek, modern armoir in her office, sheets and pillow tucked under the stylish but massively uncomfortable couch. She has a nice apartment that she’s spending a fortune but there’s no telling why seeing as how she’s never there.

She’s got a good routine. Up at 4:30 every morning, to the gym for a good “sweat out your rage at the world” session, steaming steaming shower so hot it almost hurts, she dawns her impeccable outfit including her signature pencil skirt which costs more than most people’s monthly rent, then it’s off for her morning juice cleanse and back to the office for her 8am briefing. It’s practiced, its perfected, it’s...necessary. If her day is not scheduled down to the minuted, if she’s not busy, thinking, always occupied...that’s disastrous. That means thinking about all the things she doesn’t want to think about...like how lonely she is, how much her heart still aches from the day her entire life crumbled into a million pieces...

So you can imagine how furious she is when her boss pulls her into his office and tells her to pack her bags, she’ll be spending her Christmas holiday overseeing the closing of the factory at the heart of a small town named, Arkadia...HER small town named Arkadia.

“This is a joke, right?” She asks, actually laughing in his face. But he doesn’t smile, doesn’t blink in fact, and her heart sinks. It’s not a joke and she’s expected at the airport at 7am the following morning.

Meanwhile, in that little town across the country, residents are in a full blown panic. The factory in town was just bought out by a big corporation and all operations are shutting down. Of course, this factory employs 95% of the town and these works will have no where to go, no job, and essentially no severance just weeks before Christmas.

The day her aging father comes home and tells his daughter with tears in his eyes that he’s out of the job is the day coffee shop owner, Lexa’s, famous smile falters. Her little shop lies in the heart of the town and sees just about every town member pass through at some point during the week. Lexa’s drinks are dreamy and her shop is warm and cozy. It’s a safe haven and though she’d never acknowledge it, if you asked any neighbor, they’d tell you that the magic has nothing to do with the shop, it’s all Lexa. She’s always got an ear to lend and the fluffy golden retriever that’s always by her side never fails to bring a smile to everyone’s faces. Except this week. This week, the whole town is grieving.

“I don’t understand how they think they can just come in here and unemploy an entire town of people and get away with it.” Anya, Lexa’s barista and long-time friend, looks scary, and puts on a good show of being tough, but she’s a big softy. But this week, Lexa genuine worries about the safety of her mugs as Anya roughly towels them dry, scowling at the black town car that pulls up outside, clearly from out of town. “How do they fucking sleep at night.”

“They don’t sleep,” Lexa says. “These are the kinds of people with no lives, no friends, and no conscious.”

Anya whistles quietly. “They may not have a conscious, but they certainly have something to look at.”

When Lexa looks up she’s definitely taken by surprise. The beautiful woman walking through the door is nothing like she expected. Strikingly blonde is the only thing that grabs her attention before the sweetness of her face. But that sweetness is impressively overshadowed by the coolness in the woman’s pale, blue eyes the second they connect with Lexa’s.

Before Lexa can even open her mouth to tell her they’re about to close, the woman is holding up her hand. “Please, before you tell me all the ways in which I am ruining your life and killing your beloved pet, I just need some fucking coffee,” she huffs, not bothering to look at Lexa as she digs through her purse.

“What a surprise, she’s a raging bitch,” Anya quips, tossing her towel on the counter and walking away when the woman looks up at her and glares. “Sorry, Lex. I’m not serving the wicked witch of the east.”

“Pretty sure it’s wicked witch of the west,” the woman snaps back.

“You’re from the east aren’t you? I rest my case,” Anya says, then looks at Lexa. “You can fire me if you want, but I won’t serve her kind. You’re on your own.”

“My kind?” The woman mouths, outraged.

Lexa’s shakes her head and grins at her friend’s antics. She’s no happier about these outsiders than the rest of the town, but a customer is a customer. “What can I get you?” She asks, barely taking notice when her trusty pup, Max, gets up from his bed and pads away from her.

Clarke is momentarily caught off guard by the gentle tone, expecting more of the nastiness she’d been encountering since she landed in the tiny, regional airport. No one recognizes her or if they do, they don’t care that she used to be one of them. Why should they? It’s been 20 years.

Even more startling than the gentle tone is the woman behind it. She’s tall and sturdy, just as handsome as she is pretty. The picture perfect red flannel she wears stretches perfectly along her broad shoulders and she is perhaps the most attractive woman Clarke has ever seen. Not what she was expecting from the tiny town she hoped to never see again.

She’s never one for a loss of words--she’s an attorney for christ’s sake--but this woman has Clarke tongue tied like never before. It takes three attempts for her to order her coffee, granted, the second time was interrupted by a cold wet nose pushing into her hand. Now, sitting at the table in the nearly empty cafe, Clarke can’t stop watching the woman behind the counter. She’s beautiful, in an androgynous sort of way. Sure, she had long, brown hair and pretty green eyes, but there’s was something masculine about her. Something rugged. Whatever it was, Clarke was mesmerized.

They part ways with little conversation. After all, Clarke is here to ruin all of their lives, and Lexa has to get home to her newly unemployed father who can’t pay for his medical bills without a job, so there’s that.

They don’t run in to each other again for a day or so, and Lexa can almost forget about her life derailing...until the day she’s in the local bar and she hears an argument break out. Getting up, she moves down the bar to get a better look. A lifetime ago, she was a Marine, and she can’t help but run toward trouble, as her father would always say.

She’s expecting the usual brawl over a drinking contest or a lost bet, but instead, she finds a few out of place suits almost completely surrounded by a ring of angry factory workers. “Call the police,” she tells Frank, the bartender, knowing what’s about to come. She’s concerned, but not too concerned. There’s still time to de-escelate things with some open conversation, so she moves carefully, cautiously, edging her way into the circle. That is until she sees the woman from from the other night, face scared like a dear in headlights but eyes glinting, ready for a fight.

Lexa’s unsure of whether she’s more scared for the woman or annoyed. Whoever she is, she’s not afraid to back down, that’s obvious, and that means trouble. And trouble for her, in this town, could very well end in blood. At the head of the confrontation is Sal, a fourth generation factory worker taking the closure the hardest. He’s been stirring up the town for weeks, just waiting for a battle. Lexa is angry like the rest of them but she’s sure as hell not going to let blood be spilled. She’s almost too slow. One moment, she’s telling Sal to back off, the next, a broken beer bottle is hurtling towards the men in suits. In seconds, the two groups converge on each other, and Lexa has just enough time to grab the woman’s arm and yank her out of the middle. Lexa practically picks her up and carries her out the front door just as the police are rushing in.

Clarke is struggling the entire way, cursing about god knows what under her breath.

“You’re welcome,” Lexa retorts, dropping the woman into a pile of fresh snow. “Next time I’ll try not to save your life.”

“Oh don’t be dramatic. I was fine.”

“You were seconds away from getting the business end of a broken beer bottle shoved into your face. But suit yourself.”

Lexa’s beginning to walk away when Clarke comes to her senses and goes after her, begrudgingly thanking her.

“I’m Lexa.”

“I’m Clarke.” There’s a handshake, and somehow it almost feels like a temporary truce. That and Lexa’s hand is warm and strong and firm.

For the next several days Lexa can’t shake the fact that she’s a traitor. She can’t get Clarke off her mind and while everyone else is cursing she and her colleague’s existence, Lexa is just hoping to run into her again. Just to get another look at those eyes. There’s something buried there, something Clarke has gotten really good at hiding, and Lexa wants in.

The next time she sees Clarke, the woman is rushing down the street, a small group of angry residents shouting at her. Lexa sees her coming from the shop window and steps out to pull Clarke inside, just as the group was beginning to converge on her. Clarke makes some quip, laughing it off, but she’s clearly shaken and Lexa has an inexplicable need to protect her.

She’s in the back making a special drink of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cherries to warm Clarke up, and when she comes back around to the tables, she smiles to see Clarke asleep in a booth, leaning against the wall, Max sitting protectively beside her.

“Good boy,” she murmurs, patting his head. Clarke rouses and Lexa slides into the opposite booth, watching with a little bit of pride and a lot of sexual attraction as Clarke moaned her delight and thanks at the delicious drink. Lexa tries her best not to blush at Clarke’s sounds of pleasure, but she’s really never been good at hiding her feelings.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Clarke asks.

“You’re just making a lot of noises.”

“Noises?”

“The...moans...and...you know what? Nevermind. Just drink your drink.”

Clarke smiles like she knows exactly what she’s doing, and she knows flirting with a local is the last thing she should be doing, but Lexa has saved her life now, and she’s handsome and kind and her dog is cute, and Clarke really can’t help it.

They do this again, the next day, just as the shop is closing. Clarke stays after the doors are locked and they talk for hours. Mostly Lexa talks, and Clarke skirts around her own life with half truths and questions about Lexa. They do it again and again, until it’s almost a routine.

“Why are you letting this happen?” Lexa finally asks her one day. “You’re not a bad person. You have to do know what this is doing to our town. You may not understand, being from a big city and all, but we’re family.”

Oh but Clarke does know. She knows because she grew up here. She knows this town better than Lexa does, but she’ll never tell. She can’t revisit those memories. She can’t think about the past. Not without losing the control she has spent her entire life building. She can’t let Lexa into that part of her life, but that doesn’t stop her from falling for the sweet drinks and the even sweeter drink maker. She gives the cowardly answer about her job, her duty, nothing she can do about it, and Lexa just nods because what else is there to say?

If Lexa is annoyed by her answer, she doesn’t show it. They continue to spend time together and the more they are seen with each other, the more the residents start to relax around Clarke. Some of them even like her, chatting her up when they see her in the cafe. Some of them look at her as if she belongs, as if she’s always belonged, as if they’ve known her from some other lifetime.

Things feel good. Suspiciously good but Clarke does her best to just let live. Lexa is walking her back to her car one night when they pass the ice skating rink in the town square.

“Don’t even think about it,” she says when Lexa turns to her with a glint in her eyes.

Lexa wins, and she’s holding Clarke’s hands, skating backwards to help keep Clarke upright. They can’t stop giggling and it feels like grade school when everything was okay and good and nothing hurt.

Clarke trips over her own feet and she tumbles into Lexa, laughing. Lexa is strong and sturdy and when Lexa catches her and pulls her close, Clarke is a goner. Looking up into those green eyes, it takes second for her to lean in, looking for a kiss. She’s not even thinking, she’s just wanting. Wanting Lexa. Wanting her close. Wanting to know if her lips are as soft as they look.

They are. God, they are and it’s perfect. Lexa’s perfect. They’re in the middle of the rink, forcing people to skate around them, but Clarke can’t stop kissing her, and Lexa has no interest in pulling away.

It’s feels natural, it’s feels right and wonderful and so so good when they go home together that night. It’s been so long since Clarke has opened her heart to anyone, and now that she’s opened it for Lexa, Lexa has it completely.

Lexa brings her coffee and a croissant in bed, crawling back under the covers to love up on Clarke again as soon as she’s done with her breakfast. It’s noon before they finally get out of the door. Clarke has a meeting and Lexa has to get to the shop. They’re walking together to Clarke’s car, and Lexa’s leaning in for a kiss when Clarke sees a man glaring at them from across the street.

It throws Clarke back into her past so quickly she jerks away from Lexa, dodging a kiss, and getting in her car and driving away without a word. The radio silence last days and Lexa is as pissed as she is heartbroken. They run into each other at a press conference the corporation who bought out the factory holds to inform the residents about the planned demolition.

Lexa can’t hold back her pain and anger. “I thought you were different from them, but you’re not, are you? You used me. You got me and the town to like you so that what? You’d be left alone long enough to help them destroy us? Is that it? Make me fall for you so I’d let my guard down? Let you get away with this? I feel bad for you, Clarke. I feel bad that you don’t know what it’s like to have a community like this. To have friends and family for neighbors. People you’ve grown up with and lived beside and I pity you.” She’s too angry to realize that she’s admitted to falling for Clarke and she doesn’t give Clarke the chance to say anything before she’s walking away.

Just days away from the demolition, they’re both miserable. They haven’t talked and when Clarke goes to try to see Lexa to tell her she’s going to make things right because she’s fallen for her to, she can’t be found. She thinks she’s being avoided until she overhears a patron talking about Lexa’s father being in the hospital. Clarke doesn’t think, she just goes. It’s not hard to find out that Lexa’s father got pretty sick and racked up some pretty hefty medical bills that Lexa’s now on the hook for thanks to her father’s unemployment making it impossible to pay for his shitty insurance’s deductible.

Clarke does the one thing she can think to do to help but she doesn’t dare go to Lexa. Now’s not the time and she knows she’s the last person Lexa wants to see.

Lexa, of course, is completely at a loss. Her father is still sick and needs to stay at the hospital, but the longer he stays, the bigger the bill gets. She’s distraught and out of options, so imagine her surprise the day she’s informed that her father’s deductible has been paid and his treatments not covered by insurance have been paid for. They can’t tell her who paid it for confidentiality reasons and Lexa doesn’t have time to think too much about it. She has to get her father taken care of and she has to get back to the shop.

Things are starting to feel okay again, except for the fact that she can’t stop thinking about Clarke. The only thing that makes it a little more bearable is the news that the demolition has been paused. Some kind of red tape fiasco. The town makes a collective sigh of relief as the corporate giant loostens it’s grip around their necks. Clarke is nowhere to be found, but Lexa wonders what this means for her. She’s too pissed by Clarke’s disappearance to find out.

Meanwhile, Clarke is back in NYC, sitting in her office while she is screamed at for pointing out the anti-trust issues with this corporation buying up the factory, creating a monopoly.

“If the DOJ blocks this acquisition because YOU brought this contract to them, this will be the end of our relationship with Dante Corp! Do you have any idea the money you have cost us?!”

But Clarke’s not listening. She didn’t care about her job. She didn’t care about the money. She cared for the people of the town. She cared for Lexa’s father. She cared for Lexa and she had to make things right.

A month passes and the entire town is elated when they learn that factory is no longer being bought and demolished and everyone has their jobs back. Someone is still paying off Lexa’s father’s medical bills, beating Lexa to it every time Lexa calls to make her own payment. Her father is back on his feet again and the everything is back to normal. Everything is good. Except it isn’t, because Lexa’s heart is broken and she can’t comprehend how someone as incredible as Clarke could be so selfish.

She’s tired and feeling particularly down the night she walks into the bar after work and sees that radiant blonde hair at the end of the bar. She doesn’t want to believe it, but when Clarke turns and their eyes meet, Lexa’s breath leaves her and she feels everything all at once. Sadness, elation, betrayal..love. Through it all, it’s still love.

“Hey,” she says softly, cautiously sitting down beside her. The bar is quiet tonight, but the other patrons are too absorbed in their own conversations to pay them any attention.

“Hi,” Clarke says, studying the beautiful face that hadn’t left her thoughts for one second since she’d left.

“I suppose you heard about the factory?”

Clarke nods, smiling slightly. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Guess you got unlucky.”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, whoever made that contract fall through cost you this client, I imagine.”

When Clarke doesn’t say anything, Lexa frowns. “What am I missing?”

Clarke pulls out a trifold of paper and slides it over to Lexa. Lexa picks it up and squints at it. “What is this?”

“It’s anti-trust suit.”

“I...I don’t understand.”

“Magnus Unites, the company that bought Arkadia Beverage Company, which is the company that owns the factory, doesn’t exist and neither does Arkadia Beverage Company.”

Lexa shakes her head, trying to follow along, but not understanding. “That doesn’t make any sense. What does that mean?”

“It’s means that Magnus Unites and Arkadia Beverage Company are shell companies. They’re not real. Magnus Corp is actually just Dante Corp and Arkadia Beverage Company was bought out five years ago by Atlantic Foods.

“Dante Corp? As in the Dante Corp that owns practically every product you see in a grocery store?”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Okay. So?”

“So, Dante Corp and Atlantic Foods are the two largest food and beverage packaging companies in the United States. Atlantic Foods is worth 83.7 million dollars. If Dante Corp had bought out Atlantic Foods through this shell company, they would own a complete monopoly on the food packaging industry. It’s illegal.”

“Holy shit,” Lexa breathes, looking back at the paper. “So someone found out and what? Told?”

Clarke chuckles. “Yeah. You could say that. This is an anti-trust suit submitted to the Department of Justice. An immediate injunction was ordered and the factory was returned to the previous owners of Arkadia Beverage.”

“Wow. That’s an incredible.”

Clarke watches her, so fond of the studious, careful way Lexa studied something important. When Lexa looks up, she’s almost startled by the emerald green she had missed you very much.

“Why do you have this?”

“You told me I didn’t know what it was like to know a community like this. To live side by side with friends and family.” Clarke pulls out an old, worn picture from her purse and slides it towards Lexa.

Lexa looks down at young Clarke, beaming between two people she could only assume were her parents. Behind them stood a building Lexa knew like the back of her hand.

“That’s my shop,” she murmurs, looking at Clarke confused.

“When I lived here, it was a pizza parlor,” Clarke murmurs.

Lexa nods. “The kitchen still smells like pepperoni.” Clarke laughs and nods, and Lexa nearly jumps up at the sight of tears in Clarke’s eyes. “Clarke?”

“Those are my parents,” Clarke says, looking down at the photo. “We had pizza night every Friday at that parlor. It was something we’d done for as long as I can remember.” Clarke uses her pointer finger to drag the photo closer to her. “They died,” she murmurs, her voice taught with restrained tears. “Drunk driver. The cameras caught him clearly...but the prosecuting attorney was paid off. He didn’t see a single day of jail time. I was twelve.”

“Clarke, god, I’m so sorry.”

Clarke looks up, blinking back tears. “This was my home. These people were my home. And having this community was the only thing that got me through. When I left, the only thing I could think about was going to law school and making sure what happened to me never happened to anyone else. Somewhere along the way I fell into corporate law, and I forgot why I was even doing this. Family and friends are everything.” She shrugs. “I had to make it right. For them.” Then, she looks up at Lexa, her eyes earnest and sorry. “For you.”

Lexa swallows back her own emotions. “Why did you leave back then?”

Clarke laughs bitterly. “After my parent’s died I lived with my neighbors for a while. They had a daughter my age and we were best friends. Eventually, we were more than friends. On my thirteenth birthday, we were at park watching a meteor shower. She told me she wanted to kiss me and I let her. I was over the moon. There had been so much pain since my parents dies, and here was this perfect, little moment, to distract me for a little while. The next thing I know, some man is running towards us, shouting at us, asking us how dare we do such things in public. It’s a small town. Word travels fast. When her parent’s found out, they kicked me out. And I never came back.”

Lexa wants nothing more than to pull her into her arms and hold her, never letting her go, but Clarke is already sliding off the bar stool and putting the paper and photo back into her purse.

“I’m sorry I ran on you, and I’m sorry I left without saying good bye. You didn’t deserve that. And I’m not here for forgiveness. I just wanted you to know that nothing between us was ever fake. I never had ulterior motives or...nefarious plans. I never planned for you. But there you were, and I couldn’t help it. It was just you. It was only every you.”

“Clarke, I--”

But the door to the bar swings open and a rowdy crowd tumbles in from the snow storm. Lexa looks up at the commotion, feels herself get jostled as people push towards the empty bar stools. When she looks around, Clarke is gone. She goes to find her and steps on a piece of paper on the floor.

She picks it up and unfolds it, confused at first at what she’s looking at. It’s a medical bill. With her father’s name on it. No, not a bill. A receipt. A receipt for a recent payment for the last installment of her father’s payment plan on his medical expenses. And under the payer’s information...is Clarke’s name.

“Oh, Clarke,” Lexa murmurs, her eyes brimming. She runs out of the bar, but Clarke is nowhere to be found.

***

Clarke is just settling onto her couch having dawned her paid, flannel pajamas and whipped up a big bowl of drown your sorrows flavored ice cream. The best part of losing her job is that she finally gets to enjoy her fancy apartment with the best view of the city she’s ever seen. She plans to wallow in her big fancy apartment and watch RomComs until she can’t keep her eyes open anymore because she’s sick of being alone with her thoughts.

She’s contemplating adding in a bath to this plan when there’s a knock at her door. She frowns, but is not entirely sure that she didn’t forget that she ordered delivery, so she goes to the door anyways. For all the fancy features of her apartment, there is no peep hole and she is too depressed bother for any self preservation. She opens the door, ready either to accept her forgotten order or yell at the solicitor knocking on her door at 9 o’clock at night.

But it’s not delivery and it’s not a solicitor. It’s Lexa. Lexa with those sweet eyes and gentle smile. Lexa with a piece of paper in one hand and roses in another.

“Oh god,” is all Clarke manages to get out before she’s crying.

She cries harder when she feels Lexa’s arms around her, holding her close. “I’m so sorry,” Clarke says, and neither of them are sure what she’s sorry for. Clarke is just so damn thankful to see her.

Lexa holds her and presses kisses to Clarke’s hair until she calms, then she pulls back and brushes away Clarke’s tears from her cheeks.

“How did you know where I live?” Clarke asks, sniffling and leaning into Lexa’s sure body.

Lexa holds up the medical bill receipt and Clarke colors, finally caught.

“You should have told me,” Lexa says gently, so incredibly in love with the teary-eyed woman in front of her. “This was too much, Clarke.”

Clarke shakes her head. “It was the least I could do.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

Clarke’s eyes brim again and she shrugs, shyly. “I don’t need any thanks, Lex. I did it because...I love you.”

Lexa grins and puts the receipt aside, taking Clarke’s face into her hands. “You have no idea how much I love you,” she says and captures Clarke’s lips. Lexa could kiss her forever, but Clarke can’t stop smiling and of course that makes Lexa laugh.

They pull away, but keep each other close. “I’m pretty sure I’m the one who’s supposed to bring you flowers,” Clarke says, gesturing to the roses Lexa had put down on the table inside the door.

“Why’s that?”

“I’m the one who messed up.”

Lexa shakes her head. “I let you walk away from me three times. Do it once, shame on you. Do it twice, shame on me. Do it three times, and well, I think I went and lost my damn mind for a minute, but it’s back, and it can’t stop thinking about you.”

Clarke smiles and leans in, kissing her again. “How long do we have?”

Lexa pulls a slip of paper out of her back pocket and holds it up. “It’s a one way ticket, love. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

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tatooines-ghosts · 4 years

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*show up 3 days late with the little plotlet I've been chewing over*

(A side note before I begin, how bad does your writer's block have to be when you start thinking up AUs of your own AU?) Also, I'm not taking this seriously at all. It was just a fun thought exercise.

SPOILER WARNING!

I talk about subjects that if you are not caught up on the main story, may be a spoiler to you. Turn back now if you don't want spoilers.

Sorry for the super long post. I'm on mobile and can't do a read more cut.

I'm calling this the "No Jedi Allowed" AU of Shades.

We start off a couple months later than where Shades started. Anakin, of course, won the Boonta Eve race, everyone was happy, no Jedi got called over to investigate weird Force shenanigans on Tatooine.

Anakin's favorite bounty hunter just finished a job for Jabba and she got picked to be his "completion bonus" for the night. She's actually, for once, happy to serve a client, because Jango Fett is a pretty decent human being.

I've always hc'ed Jango as aro/ace (the man cloned his own son. Cmon, we all know what he looks like. He could fuck if he wanted to and have a child the natural way. But he didnt. Coincidence? Not in my projections on fictional characters!)

Anyways, Jango can't exactly refuse a gift from Jabba, but he has exactly 0 interest in sexing up any slave of any gender or species, so people actually like spending time "servicing him". Because 90% of the time Jango's just like "wait an hour and leave. I'm doing to sleep. Don't touch my stuff." Anakin in particular really likes Jango. He teaches her useful stuff, and she is actually interested in hearing about Boba. (Everyone knows how rare it is to find another adult genuinely interested in other people's children.) And so they become sorta-kinda friends over the years.

Anyways. Cut to a couple months past the Boonta Eve. Anakin is still pregnant, and everyone knows. Jabba is "making up his mind" about what to do about that, and Anakin is in full blown panic mode. Her options are a. Jabba will force her to terminate or b. Her child will be born a slave. Enter her guardian angel in beskar armor.

So Anakin breaks out the "help me Jango Fett, you're my our only hope" routine. He's not budging. No way Jango is gonna put himself on every crime lord's shit list for stealing a couple slaves.

Then Anakin informs him that she's pregnant. And Jango says "fuck" because now he's going to put himself on the shit list of every crime lord in the galaxy. Good thing he has a mostly forgotten planet to hide out on.

So he manages to break Anakin and Shila out if Jabba's palace and they rocket back to Kamino to lay low for a while. (Side note. Anakin and Shila both fucking HATE Kamino, because it is the exact opposite if Tatooine in all the worst ways. Too much wet. No dry land. Cold and constantly raining.) So Jango brings Anakin and Shila home and introduces them to Boba. And Boba is a precious child and goes "I have sisters now? Thanks Dad! Best souvenirs ever!" And the Kaminoans are fascinated by Anakin too, because she's naturally carrying a human-pantoran hybrid child, and the genetics of that are scientifically fascinating. They ask very nicely, and Anakin agrees to let them science with her.

And naturally, since Jango lives within spitting distance of the cloning complex, Anakin probably stumbles across the clones and I'm 100% certain all 4 million of them reach an agreement that the Strange woman, her sweet baby sister, and her actual baby are the most precious people in the galaxy and should be protected at all costs. Thanks. This is executive order one through infinity now.

So Anakin basically hangs out on Kamino, safe and sound, and has her baby, and things are great for a while. Jango somehow got out of Tatooone without becoming suspect number 1 for who stole Anakin, so he's been milking that as long as it lasts and purposfully misleading the hunt for her. He also takes on other jobs, because now there are three new mouths to feed in his house. He needs the moneys.

(Also also. You will pry Mandalorian Jango Fett from my cold dead hands. As soon at they were free he totally adopted Anakin and Shila into his family, and they're a clan now.)

Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice, things are going approximately according to canon, and Obi-Wan through a series of events finds himself on Kamino, looking for a certain bounty hunter. And he's introduced to Jango by the Kaminoans after checking out the army, and he was expecting the boy that he had been told about, but not the young woman, or the toddler, or the baby. And there's something really strange about that woman and her baby, other than the baby's half-human genetics, but he doesn't exactly get the chance to pry into things too deeply.

So Obi-Qan pretends to leave, and the Fett clan high tails it off Kamino. Anakin's not about to let this Jedi creep split up her family, so she joins the fray once the kids are safe on the ship. And Obi-Wan is impressed and also scared for his lofe because that woman is Too good of a shot with a blaster.

They get away to safety.

Idfk what happens next. I'm in half a mind to think Jango would tuck Anakin amd the small children away somewhere safe with trusted friends while he an Boba go off to Geonosis. But I'm also of the mind that they all gonto Geonosis because there's no time.

Maybe Jango survives the battle because the Jedi get a bit distracted by that super strong Force user they don't know.

Maybe Jango doesn't survive and Anakin helps Boba with his revenge plan and becomes a general pain in the ass to the Jedi during the war. I imagine they would team up with some other bounty hunters, like Aurra Sing. And since all the clones know and love Anakin, they kind of "forget" of they ever see her someplace she shouldn't be.

Does Anakin get trained in the Force by Dooku? Do she and Obi-Wan develop a sexually-tense repartee over the course of their meetings in the war? While under cover and hiding from Hutt spies, does Anakin meet and fall in love with a certain Senator?

The world will never know, because I don't fucking know. And I'm not turning this into a full story.

That's the end of that plotlet.

It hasn't done much to help my writer's block on the main story, but hoo boy was it fun to play with.

#shades of tatooine #star wars #anakin skywalker #jango fett

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geffbob · 3 years

Text

First short story I’m proud of part 3

Both of us head to the part of the chanting that we hear the loudest. Both of us look down and start to focus. I’ve never really been a prodigy in magic. I never paid attention in magical theory class; I was too busy looking at the teacher. A lovely dwarven girl that wouldn’t even give me the time of day if I asked her a thousand times to date me. But every human knows how to create fire. And every human knows how to blow something up. And when you want to blow something up with magic, and you’re next to an elf. Something’s about to get blown up.

We look at the ground and I start to feel it. It’s like a tingling feeling overwhelming you, crawling up from your lungs. “Breathe” I hear Miss L’ark say. “Breathe, magic comes from inside you, from your spirit, from your soul. Basically, from your stomach”. I breathe. And shoot. Rupturing the ground underneath, me. Herah does the same, only about 20 times bigger. Fucking elves, always having to one-up us. Whatever. I’ll take it. We dive down the hole and land at the bottom. Herah falling gracefully as all elves do, and myself crashing down like a boulder, rolling over and striking the first thing I see. My sword’s already in the person before I even realise what I’ve done.

“IT’S A FUCKING KID” I scream. Dropping my sword. The kid falls to the ground with a huge blade sticking out of them. I look around in a panic. I’m in an underground chamber of sorts, the walls are too close together. There are candles and blood everywhere, people surround me. I don’t know how far away they are, they’re sitting in some wooden seats, or wooden altars. Drawings of some unknown beings litter the room. Portraits, landscapes, stars, monsters, people. The cultists are looking stranger than I would have expected. Some old, some young, some underage. All wearing the same cloaks. All chanting. None have even noticed that I’m here. None seem to care.

The kid looks at me and holds onto the sword, trying to pull it out of him, cutting his hands in the process. He gurgles something and looks at me, before screaming. Screaming louder than any human has ever screamed before. Louder than any being is able to scream. I don’t have time to cover my ears before I feel a substance around it. The elf, again, has put her spell on me. I feel something soft and – white? – around my ears. How does it feel white?

Whatever. I look back at the kid and he’s no longer there, he’s different. His face contorts, his body shapes, his back breaks again and again, the screaming gets louder, I feel like if my ears weren’t blocked with whatever’s over them, I’d be throwing up right now. His legs grow longer and wider, his face changes into two, then three, then four, then a thousand. The room lights up, the chanting grows louder, the people are screaming now, the candles are glowing with a large light. The walls are closing in, the space is getting smaller, I can’t stop it, I can’t pick up my sword, I can-

I get slapped harder than I’ve been slapped in my life.

“GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF YOU SHITTY HUMAN” I hear, looking at Herah. My face is burning, and her hand is outstretched. “BLINK YOU MORON”

I blink and look around again. These fucking assholes. The room isn’t shrinking, the chanting isn’t getting louder, but the thing I’ve stabbed clearly isn’t human. My fucking claustrophobia is getting to me, and considering I just thought I killed a child, there’s no wonder I’m freaking out. It’s growing, changing its face and body, growing with a sickly feeling, like a caterpillar emerging from a cocoon. I step back, picking up my sword as I go. I can’t hold it in one hand, it’s far too heavy. So, I have to hold it with both. I feel like I won’t shake as much if I’m holding onto it.

I look up.

The ‘thing’ towers over me. It’s like a giant centipede. It’s made up of about 5 pulsating white balls. The bottom most one is on top the ground, it’s covered in legs, human legs, insect legs, animal legs, it drags itself along the ground with surprising precision, considering how fucking huge it is. The second blob is full of cuts and arms, human arms, insect pincers, animal paws, everything. The same goes for blob 3 and 4, with the topmost one having the face, or should I say, faces. It’s changing expressions and screaming louder with each subsequent face. I don’t recognize any faces on the being, except for one. The old man from earlier. Blood is leaking from their eyes, noses and mouths. Unimaginable torment. It sounds like it’s in pure agony, and yet, all the faces are looking right at me.

“Tits” I say.

It lunges at me, crashing down with a thud. It’s at least 5m tall and clearly not wanting to talk. I jump into a fighting stance and Herah does the same. She shouts to me

“DISTRACT IT FOR A FEW MINUTES, I’M GOING TO STOP THE RITUAL”

I turn and look back at it. Pus is coming out from the damaged parts of it when it slammed into the ground, healing up the wounds almost instantly. How the fuck do I fight this.

Herah runs to the nearest cultist, grabbing them harshly and pulling them down, she starts muttering some sort of spell and something leaves her fingers and goes into the cultist’s body. I can’t see any more of it because the blob monster’s already gotten back up and is raring to charge at me again.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU” I should, spinning out of the way and dragging my sword along its side. Sending pus everywhere.

It screams, violently, and heals itself up. Turning around and hissing at me. The faces start to converge and point at me. I hear sizzling and realise what’s coming too late.

“SHIT” I yell, as molten hot blood shoots out of its face(es) and hits me square in the chest. It burns like nothing you can imagine, but thankfully this armour I’m wearing isn’t just for arrows. It at the very least can help me not die from blood magic, but a few more of those and I’m out.

I look back at Herah, she’s trying something else with the same cultist now. She’s pulled the cultist to their feet and are now trying a different spell, this one’s green. Great. Green magic.

I turn back towards the grub. Before it has a chance to shoot magic again, I force myself up and lunge towards it. Cutting off a few of its limbs in the process. Blood shoots out of them and sprays up at me, just as hot as the mouth blood. It then turns around and slams into me with the other side of limbs and extremities, pushing me against the wall and keeping me held there with multiple extremities. It screams and converges its faces again, pointed straight at me. This time, I can’t move.

“DAMN” I yell, and drop my sword, pulling out my dagger and throw it at the converging point. It hits with a satisfying chunk and forces the being to rear backwards. I breathe, pick up my greatsword and slam down on the back part of it, cutting into the joining parts of the bottom blob and the penultimate blob. Screaming as I do so. It lets out a yell even louder than the last ones – something I didn’t think possible. I look back at Herah and she’s trying more magic, this time, blue.

I just hope it works.

I cut again, and again, and again, but the parts just won’t separate. It jumps and tries to crush me with its weight, but I dodge out of the way and jump towards a wall. I hold onto the wall, focus my energy, and have it explode out, breaking the wall and pushing me towards it with incredible force. I don’t think it was expecting that as I cut through the part I was just slashing. So fast, in fact, that I cut straight through it. Separating it from its other parts. Unable to move itself, it merely shrieks and screams. Old news at this point. I remind myself to thank the elf for the ear buds before yelling and charging again. I jump up and pull the dagger out of its face, cast a quick fire spell and jam it into the penultimate (now the final) part of the giant blob creature. With the burning dagger inside it, I don’t think it’s able to regenerate. And I can focus on the other parts of it. As it’s now a stationary object, in a manner of speaking, I’m able to focus on the more important part. Its mouth.

I leap up and try to cut, but every time I do so, it just drops pus and regenerates quickly. Clearly, it’s not making much of a difference whether I cut it or not, so I change my tactics. I run around the room looking for something to use. A torch, a knife, anything. While I can’t find anything good, I dodge over another blood splurt attack and grab a candle, now burning brighter than I’ve seen regular candles burn. I swiftly cut it in half and pull out the string. As I expected, it’s dwarven silk candles. These candles can burn for about 20 days non-stop without much trouble and it’s all in the dwarven string that’s inside it. The wax is just regular old wax from bees or whatever. I start running around the room, cutting candles as I see fit, pulling out the string and tying them together. Dodging the attacks as I go. Jump, cut, spin, dodge, cut, dodge, spin, dodge, cut, dodge, spin.

I look back at Herah. She’s trying something red now, there’s red clouds coming from around her. I have no idea what she’s doing but I can’t figure it out, I’m busy.

Once I amassed enough string, I cast a quick fire spell and light it all up. Immediately, it catches fire and starts to burn. A long, slow burn. Perfect.

I leap towards the thing and spinning cut the “neck”. Jumping back as I do so, while still holding onto the burning candle string. As I do so, I chuck it inside the being, setting the inside pus part of it alight. Like all dwarven products, they don’t stop working if there’s blood on it. Dwarves are disgustingly efficient.

The strings burn inside the blob worm, causing it to scream up into the ceiling and claw at its neck, but its extremities are too short. It can’t even attempt to get it, let alone pull it out. I set my blade alight with another quick fire spell and start swiping at it, it can’t reach me because it’s too busy trying to pull out the burning string, so I swipe, again and again, jumping into the air and pulling down, cutting through layers of fat, pus and blood, weakening it with every strike. It starts spinning and screaming and shooting blood at random. Its faces scream in anguish and despair, but it can’t get me. Nothing can get me. I’m not A class for nothing. I blast off the ground and swipe at it, causing it to jump, again, and again, and again. Until finally, I cut something hard inside it. I look back and see what I cut. It looks like a heart. A heart of metal.

“Huh” I say. As it falls over.

It crashes to the ground with an earth shattering thud. All the pus and blood from it starts spilling out of all the wounds I put on it, covering the middle arena in liquids and mucus. My eyes start to water as I realise, I might have some of it on my face, so I pull out some tissues and wipe my face. I didn’t get any pus on it, but I’m definitely going to need a shower after this.

I turn around and look up at the surrounding area. And notice, everybody’s dead.

Herah is there, holding the final cultist member in the air. The member doesn’t even seem to notice, as he just continues to chant. She cuts his neck open with a knife, spraying red blood everywhere like a cloud. So that’s what the red cloud things were before. Of course.

“Herah. It’s over. I killed it.” I say, turning to her.

She’s covered in blood. It’s almost sickening. But she does what any elf would do in this situation and casts a quick cleansing spell on herself, draining all blood and mucus from her person and basically restoring her to how she looked earlier. I almost forgot how much I hated elves.

“I see” she says. Breathing heavily

“Are you okay?” I say, looking at her.

She drops the body on the ground and puts her knife back in her belt. “I’m fine”. She says. Clearly lying, but I’m not about to comfort her.

We look around at the beings. And then I look up into the sky. It starts to get lighter, as the wind starts to go back to normal, and the feeling I get of something being wrong goes away. While it’s not gone, it’s certainly a lot better than before.

I look out of the hole we made and at the old man lying against the house, but he’s not there. He’s directly above the hole, looking it. His eyes are closed. He appears to have dragged himself over and was watching us fight. I don’t know when he died, but it looks like he has a smile on his face.

Good.

Herah holds onto me and jumps, pulling me into the air. We leave the hole and she drops me onto the ground. Next to the old man.

I look over and see it, next to the man, he’s written 4 numbers on the ground.

5218. TY.

“What does that mean?” Herah asks.

“Valt number, inside his house. TY is thank you.” “Oh”.

I walk into the house. It smells like death in here, but I wasn’t about to leave empty handed. I just killed a giant fucking slug monster and I want some sort of recognition from it. Immediate gratification if you will.

I open up the safe and have a look inside. 2 gold bars and a book of cooking recipes. Whatever. I pocket the lot of them.

“You’re robbing the house of an old man, a lovely old man that reminded you of somebody. I saw it in his eyes, do you humans feel no shame?” she asks, bitterly.

“Not really” I reply. “Besides, he told me I could do it.”

“Sure, you keep telling yourself that human. Where I come from, we respect our dead, and besides, he never invited you into his house. Which if I remember correctly, is complete taboo in every culture imaginable”

“Oh whatever. You don’t report my slight pilfering and I won’t report your mass slaughter in there”

“I did what had to be done human” she scoffs. “You would do well to do the same.”

Whatever, I think. It’s going to be a long walk back to the guild. And I need some sleep. I’ll tell everyone about what happens tomorrow. I’ll let Herah deal with the bureaucratises.

The next day, after some rest. I head back into the guild. I wave to a table of adventures and sit down next to them. They’re talking about something cool as usual, although I’m not paying much attention.

“So, it’s all done then, you got your payment? How are you doing?” says one, turning towards me. “Everything’s done. Herah took care of it. She’s not happy because I made her do my paperwork, but a gold bar changed her mind. Speaking of which, I got something for you.” I say. Handing over the book I have.

“What’s this?” the man asks, turning it over.

“Old recipe book, one of its kind. I heard it’s got a lot of cool things in there; I know how much you like cooking.”

“Thanks” Geff says. “Appreciate it.

#fantasy short story end

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hey-you-i-just · 4 years

Text

oh how sweet it is (to be loved by you)

For @adrinetteapril 2020 - Posted to AO3 & FFN - Chapter 1 here

So this chapter should make sense as a stand alone, but it is becoming more cohesive in the future

Rated G

Day 12: Piano Lessons

Summary: Marinette goes to Adrien’s house for a piano lesson.

“Oh my goodness, Tikki,” Marinette squealed as she looked down at her phone. “He wants me to come over today!”

“That’s so exciting, Marinette,” the kwami replied.

“I can’t believe this is actually happening,” Marinette could feel her excitement bubbling in her chest. “I’m actually going over to his house today. And he’s going to teach me to play the piano. This is the best day of my life!” Marinette flopped backwards onto her chaise.

“Marinette!” Her maman called from the kitchen. “You’re going to be late!”

Marinette squeaked, ran to get her things, and scrambled down the ladder. She didn’t want to make a bad impression on Adrien today of all days. (Never mind that this sort of behavior was something he had most likely become accustomed to.)

She ran across the street with a croissant shoved in her mouth as she attempted to make it to class before the bell rang.

She ran in with just a few seconds to spare, quietly returning the blonds enthusiastic wave while she made her way to her seat.

Marinette tried her best to pay attention to Mme. Bustier. She really did. But the back of Adrien’s head was much more interesting. It was all she could do to not make goo-goo eyes at his hair the entire class.

The second their teacher called for their morning break, Adrien whipped around to see Marinette.

“Hey, are you able to come today?” He asked. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say he looked hopeful.

“Uh, yeah! I can!” She stuttered.

He grinned from ear to ear. “That’s awesome. It’s going to be so much fun.”

“Can’t wait!”

“Wait, what’s happening today?” Alya piped up from her chat with Nino.

Adrien turned to her excitedly. “Father said Marinette could come over to my house for lunch and I was going to teach her a few notes on the piano.”

Alya’s eyes bulged out of her head. “You guys are… what?”

Adrien cocked his head. He was so cute when he did that, almost like a kitten. “I’m going to teach her some piano during lunch today. After all, a few days ago I ate at her house and destroyed her at Ultimate Mecha Strike III. I think she deserves to win at something, don’t you?”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Marinette retorted with a smirk. She may be nervous in front of her crush, but she will never let anyone trash talk her. “You did not ‘destroy’ me. I already told you, I let you win.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, Prince-” She watched as the color drained from his face.

Did he almost call me… Princess?

“Alright class, back to your seats, please,” Mme. Bustier called out.

Adrien gave her a shy smile before turning around and slumping in his seat. Marinette sat back in hers reeling. He tried to call her Princess. That was Chat Noir’s nickname for Marinette. And only Chat Noir’s. She hadn’t even told Alya about it. How could Adrien have known about it? Chat could’ve told him about it, but why would he have brought that of all things up?

Unless…

Unless he knew because he was Chat Noir.

She shook her head. That was ridiculous. Sure, they had a few similarities, but that didn’t mean they were the same person. As much as she tried, she couldn’t picture Adrien Agreste traipsing around Paris dressed in leather and fighting the forces of evil. (Although, thinking about him in leather wasn’t as hard as she would’ve liked.)

It had to have been a coincidence, right?

She knew what Tikki would say, ‘You’ll never know unless you ask him.’ As always, she knew the kwami was right. She should ask him what that whole thing was about. She should, but could she? Regardless, she was determined to try.

Marinette was brought out her daydreams by the bustle of the classroom as her friends were packing up their things to head out for lunch. She bent down to grab her bag and froze. It was lunch time which meant in less than ten minutes she was going to be at Adrien’s house, eating lunch at Adrien’s table, playing Adrien’s piano, sitting on Adrien’s couch.

She was about to make an absolute fool of herself. She was going to babble incoherently and he was going to shun her and throw her out of his house and his father was never going to approve of her designs and she would be disgraced in the fashion world so she would have to go into hiding underground and design clothes for the black market criminal gangs—

“Marinette? Do you need help getting—”

“I’m fine!” She sat up right as Adrien knelt down to help. His forehead collided with hers with a smack.

“Oh, no! I’m so sorry! Are you ok?” Marinette panicked.

Adrien laughed. “I’m fine, I’m fine. How about you?”

“I’m good, I think.” Her cheeks felt like they were on fire. “I’m sorry, I just got distracted is all.”

Adrien maintained his smile as he stood up holding her bag. “It’s alright. No harm, no foul, right?”

She relaxed and shouldered her backpack. “Right.” It was unreal how he was able to calm her nerves without even doing much of anything. He made her comfortable and safe and unjudged. She marveled at the effect he had on her.

Adrien checked his phone. “My bodyguard is here. Shall we?” He bowed and cocked his head towards the door.

She giggled and lead the way out the door.

Lunch at the Agreste mansion was awkward to say the least. The table itself was twice the length of her room, maybe longer. The astronomically high ceilings and marble floors caused every word of their hushed conversation to resonate. She counted herself lucky his father was busy with work because she already felt so vulnerable in the imposing house. Adding in the intimidating nature of Gabriel Agreste, her favorite fashion designer and father to the most wonderful boy in the world, would’ve certainly thrown her into a full blown panic attack. She couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to live in this house every single day. Nothing could be a secret; the echo’s would betray every step, every word.

She didn’t begin to feel comfortable until they made it back to his bedroom, which was not what she was expecting to feel. But the juxtaposition of the lifeless rooms and hallways of the rest of the house to Adrien’s warm, colorful room gave her a peace she wasn’t able to understand.

She followed Adrien over to the grand piano in the center of the room. “Sorry my father wasn’t able to join us today. He’s usually busy, but I thought he might make an exception for a guest.”

She studied the look on his face carefully. He was very good at hiding things from people, she guessed, but she was better at reading people. “Do you guys eat together often?”

He barked out a laugh so bitter it startled her. “Rarely, if ever.” He sighed and turned to her with a practiced smile. “But it’s alright. I may be able to talk him into letting me go to your house more often for lunch. Your family is so nice!”

Her eyes widened. “You-you want to-to come over again?”

He beamed. “Of course! I wouldn’t ever want to impose, but if it’s ok with your family, and you, I’d be honored to be a guest at the Dupain-Cheng residence again.”

She felt her face heat up again. “Yeah, that’d be awesome.”

“Awesome,” He said as he patted the seat on the piano bench next to him. Right next to him. She tried so hard to sit comfortably on the bench without touching him, but the bench was too small. Her leg was pressed up against his and she felt like it was on fire. “Sorry, it’s a bit of a tight fit on here for two people. Are you comfortable?”

“Mhmm,” she forced out. She knew she looked like a tomato. She just knew it.

“Ok,” He chuckled and she felt like she was melting. “Do you know any of the notes?”

Ok, breathe, Mari. Just breathe.

“I know a couple,” she managed.

She watched as Adrien checked the time on his phone and frowned. “Hmm,” He thought out loud. “We don’t have a lot of time to teach a whole lot.” He thought for a while and she could see the gears turning in his head. “I got it!” He exclaimed. He got up from the seat and stood behind her. One arm on either side of her, he set his fingers on the keys. “Put your hands on top of mine.”

She blinked. “What?”

“We don’t have time for a proper lesson,” he shrugged. “This way you can know what it feels like to play.”

She was sure he could hear her heartbeat pounding in her chest. She could feel his breath on her neck, the warmth of his chest pressed against her back, his hair tickling her ear. Eyes wide, heart thrumming, she slowly set her hands on top of his.

She watched completely captivated as his fingers began to dance over the keys. A beautiful melody rang throughout the room and reverberated like a concert hall, the sound surrounding and inspiring her. His fingers moved from note to note with a grace any ballerina would be jealous of. She closed her eyes and focused on the muscles of his hands as they twitched with each note he pulled from the piano.

“Push the right pedal,” she heard him whisper in her ear. She did and the room filled with the dissonance of elongated notes. “Ok, let off and push it again,” he instructed. She smiled, the uplifting melody ringing around her again.

He guided her with the pedal a few more times, and with each action, she felt more confident. She let her head fall back on his shoulder completely entranced in the music they were creating. “Ok, big finish. Hit that pedal,” he murmured as he played the final chord.

They stayed in their position until the last of the echo’s had muffled. She was loathe to move from her spot, the most relaxed she had been since she became the guardian. Adrien moved first, sitting backwards on the bench, hips touching.

“Good job,” he whispered, his voice low.

She met his eyes, still dizzy from their song. “It was all you,” she gulped.

“Nonsense,” his lips rose into a soft smile. “It wouldn’t have sounded half as good without your fancy pedaling.”

His eyes drifted to her lips for the briefest of seconds. In her daze, she wasn’t quite sure if that’s what she had seen, but her breath hitched all the same.

Beep, beep, beep.

The alarm on Adrien’s phone caused both of them to jump off the bench.

“That’s my alarm-“

“It must be-“

“Time to go!” They stammered in unison. Marinette couldn’t be bothered to appreciate their comedic timing. Her skin was still singing with the warmth of his touch.

They gathered their things and made their way to the car in silence, the tension as palpable as the music they had made mere minutes before.

Marinette sat in the car trying to commit everything to memory and wondering if what had just happened had actually just happened.

“Sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” Adrien’s voice broke the silence.

She turned at the sudden noise. He looked so worried, almost pained. “N-no. It’s ok.”

He met her eyes finally. “Are you sure? I would never want to make you uncomfortable. You’re too important.”

Her stomach fluttered. “Yeah, I’m sure. I liked cool. Um, I mean,” Marinette sighed. “I was trying to say ‘I liked it’ and ‘It was cool’ at the same time.”

“You’re so cute, Marinette,” Adrien chuckled.

“What?”

“When you stumble over your words. I think it’s cute,” He shot her a smile that made her knees weak.

“I, uh,” Marinette gaped.

He laughed again, and she knew she would never tire of that sound. “You’re welcome.”

When they arrived at the school, Adrien got out of the car first and held out his hand to assist her, which after his compliments she was grateful for.

She walked into class floating on air and as she sat down behind him, she knew she wasn’t going to be paying attention to the board the whole rest of the day.

#adrinetteapril2020 #adrinetteapril #adrinette #miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #marinette dupain cheng #personal #oh how sweet it is #day 12 #piano lesson

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benhardyisdaddy · 5 years

Text

Love Of My Life - Part 6

MASTERLIST

(this is when it gets better i promise <3)

Word Count: 2,271

You said goodbye to John at the first place you ever said hello. His funeral was today and you weren’t sure if you could even get out of bed. You were numb, exhausted and broken. Your husband was no longer your husband. You were now a widow. Something you didn’t think you’d ever be. He was gone and you had prayed for the last three days that you could go with him. You didn’t want to live a life without him, because what’s the point of living if it’s not with him? All you could think about was the last moment you saw him. How in love he looked when his eyes stared into yours. How he lingered that kiss a moment longer, as if he knew that would be the last one. Roger had made sure to check on you almost all day every day since he passed. You were almost emotionless and it scared him. You wouldn’t speak, eat and your face was empty of any emotions. You were so numb that crying was even hard. You just wanted to sleep and be angry at the world.

“You have to get around, baby.” says your grandma gently.

She had been a mess since John passed. Her heart ached for you. She knew what it was like to lose the love of your life. She knew the feeling of waking up with them not beside you. The emptiness you would feel for the rest of your life. She knew you were hurting and she didn’t know how to help.

“We have to be there in an hour. Just slip this dress on and we’ll be ready, okay?”

You look over to her and watch as she lays out a sundress for you. You furrow your brows and stand up quickly. You walk to your closet and pull out a black dress instead. Your grandma's heart broke even more. You always wore bright colors to funerals, so you choosing something black just showed how broken you really were. You quickly change and ignore your makeup and hair. You didn’t care what you looked like. You knew you looked as if you hadn’t eaten or slept in days, because you haven’t. You wanted to close your eyes and wake up from this horrible nightmare, but you don’t.

The first night of being alone was the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do. That was the first night in over four years that you had slept alone. You laid on your side of the bed and turned to face John’s. You expected to see him there, but he wasn't it. It was just a cold empty space. You reached your hand out and touched the sheets, hoping it would bring some kind of comfort. You close your eyes and sob as you begged loudly for John to come back. You needed him to come back. You needed him to tell you everything was going to be okay. You needed him to touch you and to tell you he loves you. You just needed him.

Your mother drove you to the funeral. You pulled up to the building as they got out of the car. You continued to sit in the backseat and stare at the front doors, where you had first met John. You imagine him looking shy and nervous as you walk up. How you wish he would still be standing there. Your mother and grandmother look at you then to each other. They didn't know what to say. You weren’t you right now. Your mind wasn’t in its right place. You were far away and you wanted to stay there. You continue staring at the building until a figure walks up. Roger bends slightly and looks at you through the window. You know it’s him, but you continue staring forward. He frowns as he watches you motionless.

“Y/n?” he asks gently.

You don’t look at him. You feel tears begin to fill your eyes, but you don’t dare to blink them away. Roger notices.

“Y/n?” he aks once more.

You look over to him and he realizes just how bad you really are. He nods his head as he slowly opens up the car door. He reaches forward and gently holds your hand. He leans back as he helps you stand from the car. Your mom and grandma stand back as they weep to themselves. Roger wraps his arm around your shoulder and slowly begins walking towards the building with you. People stared sadly as you walk by. They don’t dare speak to you, noticing the faraway look in your eyes. You walk up the steps and freeze. You stare at the area where you first laid eyes on John. You just wanted to go back to that day and relive it over and over again. You turn away and begin walking once more. You enter inside and make your way to the large room where everyone is standing. You look to the front of the room as you take a seat and spot the casket. Roger watches you closely as your eyes are glued on it. You weren’t sure if anyone tried to speak to you, you weren’t listening.

The pastor walks up to the front of the room and clears his throat, getting everyone’s attention. Everyone around you takes their seat as he begins speaking. You don’t listen to a single world the man says. You’re lost in your thoughts when suddenly a song begins playing. You look up to the front and freeze. Roger looks over to you and watches.

Oh, you're the best friend that I ever had I've been with you such a long time You're my sunshine and I want you to know That my feelings are true I really love you Oh, you're my best friend

The song plays for a few more seconds and then it’s turned off. You feel all eyes on you as you continue to stare forward.

“John wanted to dedicate that song to his beautiful wife, y/n. He said, and I quote, ‘she’s the love of my life and my best friend forever and always’.”

Tears sting at your eyes as Roger reaches his hand over and takes yours. You’re sat there for many more minutes until the service is over. Everyone stands up and begin making their way outside for the burial. You’re still sat there as the room is emptied. Your mother, grandma and Rog are all stood as they look at you.

“Y/n?” asks Rog, holding his hand out. “You ready?”

You stare at his hand for a moment and slowly take it. You stand up and wrap your arms around yourself as you all walk outside. You reach the site and wait as they bring the casket out. They situate everything as Roger sniffles beside you. This is it, you think to yourself. This is goodbye. I’m never going to see him again. This is the last memory I will have of him. It’s over. You furrow your brows as you fight back tears. Suddenly, they begin to slowly lower the casket down into the grave. A wave of panic comes over you. You couldn’t watch this. You couldn’t watch him disappear from you for forever. You take a step back and Roger looks to you, worried.

“Y/n?” he asks as your grandma turns around.

They all look worried at the expression on your face. You begin breathing hard, almost gasping. You look panicked. You shake your head and continue to walk backwards. Roger turns and takes a step towards you. You look to him, turn around and run. You didn’t know where you were going, you just couldn’t be there. You darted so fast and unexpectedly, it took Roger several seconds to understand what had just happened. You run and run as you hear him shout at you.

“Y/n! Stop!”

But you don’t. You’re sobbing as you continue running. You want to leave. You want to go home. You run onto the sidewalk and raise your arm as a cab drives by. They quickly stop and you rush inside. You give the man your address and look out the window as Roger continues to run after you. The car drives off and you finally take in a deep breath.

***

The cab drops you off at your home and you hurry out. You rush inside your house and slam the door shut. You look around and half expect John to walk out of the bedroom and greet you, but he doesn’t. You walk inside and have never felt as empty as you currently do. You break down once more, but you don’t hold back. You fall to your knees in the middle of the living room and sob. You scream out as your body shakes. Your lungs burn as you wail. You take in a deep breath and suddenly get angry. You’re angry at everything. You stand up and continue screaming as you knock over your lamp.

You shove everything off of your counter and flip over the coffee table. You were just so angry. You pause as you catch your breath and look around. Your house was now a mess. You look at the floor near the coffee table and spot a shattered picture frame. You lean down and slip the picture from it. Your heart breaks as you look at the photo that you had took of John.

You run your fingers over his face and smile as tears drip down. You begin walking to your bedroom and slide on your bed. You stare at the picture and hold it close to you as you close your eyes and drift to sleep.

***

You’re awoken by the sound of loud banging at your front door. You open your eyes and slightly stretch. You still have the picture in your hand as you stare at it, smiling once more. You blink awake and hear the banging once more.

“Y/n!”

It’s Roger.

“Y/n, please open up! I know you’re in there! Please let me in!”

You continue to lay in bed and ignore him. You want to let him in, but you also wanted to be alone. You close your eyes once more as Roger continues. He finally stops and it goes quiet. You don’t want to see anyone right now or ever again. You just wanted to lay in bed and cry and that’s exactly what you were going to do.

Everyday for the past four days, Roger would knock on your door and check on you. He would ask for you to please open your door, but you never do. You would find yourself aimlessly walking around your house doing nothing until one day you decided to play music. You had a specific song you wanted to blare. You turn on You’re My Best Friend and allow it to fill your house. You close your eyes and listen. You begin humming along with the song until you were full blown belting it out. You were in your living room as tears run down your face as you sing very loudly. Just then, there’s another loud knock on your door. You look towards it and for some reason, for just a moment, you thought it was John. Your heart drops as Roger calls out.

“I hear the music, y/n!” he says. “I got your mail for you. It was piling up. Please let me in! I’m worried sick about you!”

You take in a deep breath and turn the music off. You slowly walk to the door and hesitate for a moment, before opening it up slowly. Roger’s eyes open wide. He wasn’t expecting you to actually open it up for him. He looks you up and down. You look so exhausted and thin. You didn’t look like you and it scared him.

“Oh, y/n…” he whispers.

You turn around and walk, leaving the door open for him. He walks in and looks around at the mess. You hadn’t picked up anything since that day you freaked out. It was still all scattered everywhere.

“What- What happened?” he asks.

You look around, then to him and shrug. You sit down on the couch as he follows.

“This is for you.” he says, placing the mail next to you. “When have you eaten? I’m going to make you something, okay?”

He turns and walks to your kitchen. He opens your refrigerator and begins rummaging through it.

“Rog,” you sigh. “I’m not hungry.”

You pick up the mail and lazily go through it.

“I don’t care, you’re going to eat. You need something.”

You roll your eyes and continue looking through the mail. Bills, bills, ads, bills. You stop. There was a letter in here addressed to you. Your name is written in cursive on the front. There’s no return address as you look at it confused. You tear the envelope open and slide out a folded up piece of paper. You carefully unfold it and begin reading. You freeze and instantly recognize the handwriting as well. You cover your mouth and let out a sob. Roger looks over to you fast.

“Rog,” you cry out.

He rushes over to you and looks to the letter in your hand.

“What’s wrong? What is it?” he asks fast.

You scan through the letter and run your fingers over the ink.

“He wrote me.” you whisper.

Roger shakes his head, not understanding.

“Who?”

You smile to yourself and look up to him.

“John.”

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the-quiet-winds · 5 years

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Lay in the Atmosphere (part two)

hi i almost forgot to queue this post so this is the shortest intro ever so i can go back to sleep. it’s like 4:30am for @ichlugebulletsandcornnuts and nearly midnight for me so have fun?

[part one]

[Part 2: Any Moment, Any Time]

parr finally gets katherine calm enough that she stops shaking, although tears are still streaming down her face. parr glances over at the bedside table, wondering if jane’s voice would help kat, but then she notices that the screen has gone dark. she frowns; did jane hang up? she doesn’t have time to question it at that moment, because katherine lets out a terrified whimper when parr goes to stand up. parr may not have been jane, but the idea of being alone was too upsetting for katherine to bear, and any sign that parr could be about to leave sends a wave of fear down her spine.

parr sits back down and gently tugs katherine against her. she very lightly puts her arms around her, fingers playing with the ends of tangled dark hair.

“shh, kid,” she hushes quietly. “it’s alright now, we’re all safe.” katherine whimpers out a word that vaguely sounds like ‘jane’. “she’s okay, she’ll be back soon, i promise. it’s okay, kid. we’re all okay.”

truth be told, parr was more worried than she sounded. she wasn’t sure if katherine would be able to deal with this level of emotion every night until jane came back without crashing hard at some point. it was still uncertain when jane would even be able to make it back, and even a couple more days of this kind could really hurt katherine. all she can do, as she murmurs soothing sentiments, is hope that things would all work out alright in the end.

like clockwork, jane calls katherine exactly fifteen minutes before curtain of that afternoon’s matinee. it rings and rings and rings with no answer, till finally she hears the click.

“jane is that you?”

“boleyn? anne?” jane asks.

“yeah it’s me, you couldn’t have called at a better time.”

jane swallows heavily, only imagining what those words could mean. “what’s wrong?”

the call ends. jane looks at her phone in confusion, only to be getting a video chat request from katherine. she accepts immediately. boleyn, hair in space buns and in full costume, appears on the screen. “i think she needs to see you, janey.”

“what’s the matter?” jane asks instantly, on high alert. boleyn doesn’t answer, instead heading across out of the dressing room and into the corridor. jane can see a couple of the other queens standing around, looking worried.

“parr!” boleyn calls. “i’ve got jane.”

“pass her here,” parr’s voice sounds from off-camera, and there’s a muffled noise as the phone changes hands.

“parr?” jane asks. “what’s going on? is something the matter with kat?”

“depends on your definition of ‘the matter’,” says parr. there are muffled shouts in the background and jane can make out aragon’s voice yelling, “she’s on the floor!”

the phone pans to the floor of their dressing room, where katherine is tightly curled up, rocking slightly, eyes blown wide and breaths short and sharp.

“she’s having a panic attack,” jane breathes.

“kat!” jane calls, hoping to get through to the girl. parr kneels down next to katherine, not so close as to crowd her but close enough that jane can see her properly. “kat, it’s me, it’s jane, sweetheart, can you hear me?”

katherine’s eyes are unfocused and panicked, and she doesn’t show any sign of calming down.

“you need to get her to breathe,” jane says urgently. “kat, honey?” she tries again. “kat, can you take a deep breath in for me?”

katherine’s head is buzzing. everything is white noise and nothing she see is in focus. she can hear a familiar voice telling her to breathe, to calm down, that it’s alright, but, in her haze, she doesn’t recognize the voice at all.

parr looks around, everyone is still in the room, probably too close to katherine. “this probably would work better,” she says quietly, not looking at any of them, “if you all left.”

none of them question parr. they all leave the room, leaving parr with the phone and katherine on the floor.

parr knows better than to try and touch katherine to get her attention, so she keeps enough distance to not frighten her.

“katherine, kid, you need to breathe. can you hear me?”

“that’s it,” jane coaches from the other end of the phone. “that’s it, kat, we’ve got you. deep breath in, you can do it.”

katherine still can’t quite recognise the voice, but something makes her trust it more than anything else right now. she takes a shaky breath in, far too shallow, but better than nothing.

parr nearly winces at the grinding, wheezing sound coming from katherine’s chest as she struggles to breathe. “come on, kid,” she whispers encouragingly. “couple deep breaths, that’s all you need.”

“you can do it, love,” jane says louder. “just breathe, honey, a little bit more.”

katherine takes a few painful breaths as jane and parr talk her through it. she manages to slow her breathing down slightly but the fog in her mind doesn’t clear, and she’s completely disoriented with wide, scared eyes. she clutches at her knees, drawn up under her chin, and lets out some wheezing coughs as her lungs try to adjust to the sudden intake of air.

“kat...katherine,” jane calls. “it’s us, it’s jane and parr.”

katherine doesn’t react in the slightest, eyes blown and still trembling.

parr reaches out a hand and very lightly tucks some hair back behind katherine’s ear.

jane holds her breath for the imminent explosion but none comes.

if anything, katherine’s eyes begin to focus, her shaking subsiding, her breathing slows.

parr then puts a gentle hand on katherine’s upper arm. jane knew that trying to initiate any sort of contact with katherine during one of her attacks can lead to things getting much, much worse, but parr’s slim, gentle hands seem to be calming katherine down.

“wh-” katherine goes to speak, but her voice is croaky and hoarse. parr hushes her gently.

“it’s okay, kid, you don’t need to say anything, don’t worry. another breath for us, that’s a good girl.” katherine follows the instructions, taking a deep inhale, and then breathing out when parr tells her to.

jane watches everything on her phone screen, feeling almost helpless. she was so far away, she couldn’t help like parr was.

parr isn’t sure where all of these comforting instincts are coming from, but she doesn’t question it. she simply allows herself to comfort katherine as best she can. she helps katherine to slowly sit up and lean against the couch.

“here,” parr says, handing katherine the phone, where jane’s concerned face was illuminated brightly on the screen. “i just need to sort something out, yeah?” parr speaks softly and gently.

“don’t leave!” katherine suddenly exclaims, voice cracking.

parr dithers for a moment, glancing between katherine and jane on the phone. she doesn’t want to leave katherine if she’ll panic again, but she also wants to give jane and katherine a chance to talk by themselves. she notices how quiet jane is and decides to broach the matter herself.

“hey, it’s okay. jane’s here, see?” she points to the phone screen.

katherine looks at the screen for a long moment. jane smiles hopefully, wanting to break the ice that had settled between them since last night’s phone call. katherine stares back at her through the screen, eyes still somewhat wild and hurt, then looks back towards parr helplessly.

“but she’s not really here,” katherine says resolutely, albeit in a very quiet voice.

jane’s heart just breaks. she understands what katherine means, that seeing her on a screen wasn’t anything compared to actually being there, but it pains jane the way that katherine almost can’t even see her, that jane can’t help at all.

parr sighs softly and places a gentle hand on katherine’s shoulder. “oh, kid,” she says, and her voice is heavy.

parr takes back the phone carefully. jane’s screen goes from parr’s concerned face to a ‘paused’ screen as parr mumbles something about texting aragon. then she’s back. parr sets the phone down and sits next to katherine in front of the couch, the latter of whom immediately clings to any contact she can get.

“what’s up, kid?” parr asks quietly. “what’s got you so wound?”

katherine had forgotten that jane was on the call when she begins to speak. “what if she doesn’t want to come back?”

“that’s absurd, kid,” parr reasons. “why would she-“

“because i’m not there! i’m not-“ she cuts herself off sharply, then sighs and continues much softer, “i’m not doing to her exactly what i’m doing to you.”

“what would that be?”

katherine makes wide gestures to the room, being on the floor. “this.”

“oh, katherine,” parr begins. “of course she wants to come back. she loves you, and she loves taking care of you.”

“how?” katherine says, an edge of bitterness in her tone. “how could she like taking care of me? i’m clingy and overbearing and stupid and can’t get through a night without having bad dreams and-” she takes a shuddering breath, tears welling up in her eyes.

“kat?”

jane’s voice startled them both. parr grabs the phone and brings the camera over to katherine, whose body stiffens and eyes turn wide and anxious.

parr very slowly moves away, feeling that this may be a conversation best had in private, and leaves to go find courtney or vicki, preparing to beg one of them to cover katherine’s spot in the show.

“kat, honey, is that honestly how you feel?” jane asks carefully. there’s a gentleness in her tone? one that tells katherine that there will be no judgement in her answer.

katherine barely shrugs.

“oh, kat,” jane whispers. “that’s not what i see or feel at all, not even in the slightest bit.”

katherine is silent for a moment, before she speaks quietly, so quietly that jane can barely hear her.

“why?”

“what do you mean, sweetheart?” jane asks softly. katherine doesn’t reach her gaze.

“why aren’t you annoyed at me?” her voice is small and fragile, and jane wants nothing more than to pull katherine into her arms and keep her safe.

“darling,” jane says firmly but lovingly, “how could i ever be annoyed with you?” on instinct, jane reaches out a hand to katherine, but realizes that there were no tears that she could gently wipe away or shoulders to rub or hugs to be given. she had words, and words only. “i know that you don’t see it, love, but you are the best thing in my life. i never, ever, for one second want you to think i don’t want you or i’m annoyed with you. do you understand, kat?”

katherine doesn’t reply for a moment. slowly, she lifts her gaze to look down the camera at jane, and her voice comes out in a quiet rasp, heavy with emotion.

“you really mean it?”

“of course i do,” jane says honestly. “i love you, my sweet, brave girl, and i could never be annoyed with you. that is a promise.”

a few last tears escape from katherine's eyes. "i love you too," she whispers. "please come back soon."

"i'll be back as soon as i can, kat. i'm doing the best i can."

jane's mind is raging with anger and sadness, upset that she wasn't there with katherine and that she is alone in istanbul.

katherine looks like she wants to say something and jane notices.

“is something the matter, kat?” she asks, voice soft and caring. katherine fidgets slightly.

“i don’t wanna go onstage this afternoon,” she says in a rush. “i wanna just... stay here and talk with you.” she looks pleadingly at jane. “please don’t make me go on.”

jane relaxes slightly and smiles. "of course not, you don't have to go on if you don't want to. someone will cover for the both of us, yeah? we can talk for as long as you'd like."

as if she had been listening, parr enters the room a second later. "vicki said she'd cover your part today if you aren't feeling up to it." katherine nods enthusiastically. parr takes a few hesitant steps forward until she's within arms reach of katherine. she gives her a very awkward pat on the shoulder, then dips her head slightly and leaves the room, closing the door behind her.

katherine adjusts her positioning, laying on her front on the couch and balancing the phone against the arm of the couch in front of her. she crosses her arms and rests her head on them, looking at jane with tired eyes.

“i miss you,” she says softly. jane smiles at her, barely able to resist the urge to reach out to tuck kat’s hair behind her ear.

“i miss you too, love.”

katherine yawns and jane chuckles gently. “are you sleepy, sweetheart? you didn’t sleep much last night, did you.”

katherine flushes pink. “did parr tell you?”

“it’s also obvious, love,” jane smiles.

katherine adjusts herself again and pulls a pillow under her chest. "i won't fall asleep though," she promises. "not while we're talking."

jane laughs again. "i'd rather see you get some much needed sleep so you can go on tonight, love. i'll be right here until you do."

katherine looks at her though heavily lidded eyes, an adorably exhausted look on her face. "it's alright, darling," jane encourages. she starts to sing a familiar song, one that jane had heard many times but never shared with katherine. "when the pain cuts you deep, when the night keeps you from sleeping, just look and you will see that i will be your remedy..."

jane’s voice is so soothing and katherine is so tired that it takes her a moment to register the lyrics. she lets the words wash over her, a soft warmth running through her as jane continues to sing.

“when the world seems so cruel, and your heart makes you feel like a fool, I promise you will see that I will be your remedy.”

katherine’s eyes slowly start to drift shut, the effort to keep them open being too much.

jane continues to sing as she watches katherine begin to fall asleep, and her heart aches from the knowledge that she isn’t there, able to let katherine rest her head in her lap and play with her hair.

‘soon,’ she is forced to remind herself. ‘you’ll be back to her soon.’

by the time jane’s finished the song, katherine is fast asleep. “i love you, sweetheart,” jane whispers softly. she doesn’t want to end the call just yet, just in case katherine wakes up and needs her, so she just props her phone up against a cushion and grabs her book from the bedside table. this time, she takes care not to get too sucked into the book, sending regular glances over at her phone screen to make sure katherine’s still sleeping peacefully. jane is determined to be there for kat this time, and distance wouldn’t stop her.

the call is cut short, however, by jane receiving a call from the airline.

“miss seymour? we have a flight bound for london departing in three hours, you’ll arrive close to nine this evening. are you interested?”

jane can hardly believe it. she’d be back with katherine by the morning. “uh, yes, please, i am.”

the airline employee sounds delighted. “it’s flight 403. your information is already being sent and a ticket is being reserved.”

jane is absolutely thrilled, and after thanking the airline employee she sends a quick text to katherine reading simply “i’m on my way!!” before shoving her belongings into her bag and heading down to the front desk to check out. she heads to the airport as quickly as possible, absolutely over the moon that she was going to be seeing katherine in just a few short hours. she quickly texts the information to parr too, including details of her flight.

the flight is crowded and loud and long, but jane couldn’t really care less. katherine had never responded to jane’s text, something jane hadn’t noticed by the time she boarded and took off. jane is seated between two very large, beefy looking men who don’t speak a word the entire flight. all jane can do is listen to her music and try to savor the last few chapters of her book.

katherine’s song from the show comes on her shuffle, and it takes all of jane’s willpower to not react in one way or another: cry because she misses her, get angry because mannox and dereham and henry deserve to rot in hell, or just skip it altogether. she simply lets the song play and tries to remember that she will be seeing her girl soon.

at some point in the flight, jane’s arms start to ache from holding them in their current position; the two men on either side of her had commandeered the arm rests and she’d had to keep her shoulders at an awkward angle to avoid them. she thinks about getting up and stretching her legs, but apparently she’d spent more time lost in her thoughts than she realised. the seatbelt sign lights up above her, and over the speakers a flight attendant announces that they will shortly be landing and that all passengers should return to their seats. jane feels a sense of anticipation building; she can’t wait to see katherine, to finally be able to hug her and kiss her forehead and tell her that everything would be okay.

it’s a bumpy ride down into london, the remnants of the massive storm lingering over the english channel. but they hit the ground and slow to a stop outside the gate and slowly, very slowly, taxi into the jetway. jane is one of the first passengers off, speed walking into the terminal where she spots aragon waiting for her. “it’s about bloody time,” she says teasingly, hugging jane.

“where’s everyone else?”

she opens her mouth to reply when there’s the thud of a toddler falling over followed by a wailing cry from somewhere behind jane and they both instinctively glance around as the other passengers start to enter the terminal. aragon raises an eyebrow.

“maybe we should head on,” she says. “i parked the car in the short stay zone.” jane barely notices the use of the word ‘I’ in her eagerness to see katherine and follows aragon without another thought.

the ride from the airport is the longest half hour of jane’s life. they go straight to the theater, where they arrive an hour before that evening’s performance was meant to start.

“i don’t think she knows you’re back,” says aragon as she parks.

“i texted her earlier,” jane says in confusion.

“she’s been passed out on the sofa since the beginning of the matinee.”

and that’s true, jane finds out. katherine is still laying stomach down on the sofa, very still in sleep.

jane smiles down at katherine, just so relieved to finally be in the same room as her again. she almost doesn’t want to wake her up; katherine had a difficult night and the fact she was finally getting some rest was a relief. however, jane’s heart longs to give her a proper hug, and she can’t resist leaning down and giving katherine’s shoulder a gentle tap.

“kat? it’s me, sweetheart.”

katherine slowly blinks to alertness. she hears a familiar soothing voice...no.

she looks up, and there’s jane, smiling down at her she’s not on a phone screen. she’s not in turkey. she’s here.

“jane...?” she murmurs. “is that really you?”

“of course it is, silly,” jane laughs gently. “who else would it be?”

katherine blinks sleepily and sits up. “thought i might have been dreaming,” she mumbles. then, very suddenly, she throws her arms around jane, almost pulling her over with her enthusiasm.

“i missed you so much,” she says quietly.

jane immediately hugs her back, holding her tightly. somewhere in her mind, she was terrified she’d be separated again. so she holds katherine like she may never hold her again.

“and i you, my love.”

“how did you get back so fast?” katherine asks, voice slightly muffled by the fabric of jane’s coat.

“a flight was announced last minute, love. luck was on my side today.” one of jane’s hands plays with the very ends of katherine’s hair as the other keeps her held close. “oh, my sweet girl.” she pulls back just enough to look into katherine’s eyes. “you were so brave without me, kat.”

“i wasn’t,” katherine mumbles, looking down. “i was so scared.”

the hand that had been in katherine’s hair pulls back to cup her cheek. “you’re brave just to admit that, kat. and letting parr help you because i couldn’t be there...that’s even braver.” jane leans in and very softly kisses her forehead. “and now you don’t have to be scared, love. because i’m here, and i am not leaving you again,” she finishes determined. “ever.”

katherine stares at her with watery eyes for a few moments, before letting out a quiet whine and throwing herself back into the hug.

“promise me,” she mumbles, and jane nods, rubbing katherine’s back soothingly.

“i promise you, kat. i’m here for you, always.”

a few moments of silence pass between them before the door opens quietly.

“good, you’re back,” parr says with a relieved smile. “we all really missed you.”

jane returns the smile, soft and graceful. “i missed you all too.” she extends a hand out to parr, beckoning her closer. ‘thank you,’ she mouths. parr nods once, squeezes jane’s hand, and makes to leave when she is stopped by katherine.

“parr?”

she moves closer again. “yeah, kid?”

katherine turns to face her. “thanks for looking after me,” she says, blush crawling up her cheeks and ears.

parr looks surprised for a brief moment, but then smiles. “don’t worry about it, kid. it wasn’t any trouble.” she turns to leave again, but pauses when she reaches the doorway.

“jane, it’s completely up to you if you want to perform tonight. grace is prepared if you’re too tired after your flight, which is completely understandable, but if you did want to, then the option’s open.”

jane looks at parr, then down at katherine, who’s arms are tightly wrapped around her midsection, then back to parr. “tell grace that she has the night off,” she says confidently. parr smiles and takes off down the hall.

jane turns back to katherine, placing a kiss in her hair. “it would take hell itself to keep me off that stage with you tonight, love.”

katherine practically beams at jane. the hug lasts for several moments longer before jane taps katherine’s nose with her index finger. “right, missy. we’d better get ready for the show, shouldn’t we.” katherine lets out a reluctant whine.

“just a tiny bit longer?” she asks. jane chuckles.

“fine, love. but then we need to get sorted, okay?”

“okay,” katherine half-nods. then: “i love you.”

“love you too, kat,” jane smiles softly. “in this life, or any other.”

#six the musical #six musical #jane seymour #katherine howard #catherine parr #julie and jess write #lay in the atmosphere

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marionthegeek · 6 years

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Can We Talk About Pavi? Heck, Can We Just Talk About Ravi?

Because he needs to be a better man if he wants this to work out.

Ok, I know what you’re thinking. She’s a big-time RaviOli shipper, of course, she doesn’t like Pavi. But just hear me out a minute, okay? Because I want to like Pavi. I really wish I could.

I adore both Peyton and Ravi. I want them to be happy. I just have serious concerns about how Ravi (and to a much lesser extent, Peyton) views romantic relationships. Ravi’s so bad at it I don’t even want him with Liv until he gets his shit together. And you know I ship it...hard. This essay is not about one ship vs. another. This essay is about how Ravi needs to grow as a character.

Ravi tries very hard to impress Peyton. That, in and of itself, isn’t so bad. But he treats their relationship (and Peyton) like a prize to be won. Like an end goal. Not like the beginning of a partnership or the start of a life together. She deserves better than that. They both do.

I’m not saying they couldn’t get there. And if they do, I will at least be reasonably happy with the narrative. I could be happy for them and happy with Liv and Ravi as the best of platonic friends.

Ravi, even in season 1, has one real flaw. He likes to impress pretty girls. And yes, it’s with the goal of dating them. But he’ll talk himself into a corner to achieve goal one. He never thinks very far beyond what he wants to get out of it. See episode 1x2, where he lets a woman believe he’s a detective so he can chat her up.

Ravi is gorgeous and tall and smart. More than that, he’s funny and charming and a genuinely nice guy. In a show full of morally grey characters, Ravi is as close as we get to a perfectly good “good guy”. He’s forthright and loyal to his friends. He takes his Hippocratic Oath very seriously. He has a noble goal of finding a cure and saving the world. He’ll even put his life on the line to save one of the “bad guys”. And at first, his one real flaw is a “blink and you’ll miss it” thing.

When he’s first asking Liv to find out if Peyton’s dating anyone, he expresses interest in dating her. But, he has her best friend right there. Someone who he’s very close to. And he asks absolutely nothing about Peyton except if she’s dating anyone. She’s a goal. A thing he wants. He doesn’t ask Liv what Peyton likes to do or what her dreams are. He doesn’t even ask what kind of flowers she’d like or what her favorite color is. My point is, he takes very little interest in Peyton beyond her being a sexual object. A goal.

Once they have a few dates, he does try to tailor them more to her interests. Visiting the sites where Vertigo was filmed would probably have made Peyton happy. But it is still very much framed in the narrative as Ravi trying to impress her. And then Peyton leaves. And Ravi is more upset for Liv than he is for himself. Because he knows Liv has far more emotional attachment to Peyton than he does. Which strikes me as a little off, given how fast he formed emotional bonds with Liv and Major... It tells me Ravi views friendship and romance very very differently.

Now, let’s talk about Steph. Because Ravi’s epic f***-ups of season 3 were very well foreshadowed in season 2.

He meets a girl at a club the one time in his life that he’s high. But she’s cute and willing to sleep with him, so he decides to keep seeing her. They start seeing a lot of each other. She’s clearly into it. Into Ravi. And we see from the way he talks about her with Lv and Clive (and later Peyton and Major) that he’s just not that into her. But he keeps dating her. Because she’s cute and willing to sleep with him. She starts to assume a real relationship is possible here. And he panics.

Meanwhile, he’s enjoying the fact that his hot ex, Peyton, is staying with him. First of all, I’d like to point out that Steph is a class act. She wasn’t bothered by Peyton staying there. And when he tries to whine to Peyton about Steph becoming clingy, Peyton shuts him down masterfully.

Now, Steph and Ravi didn’t have much in common. And her sweet but misguided attempt to remind him of home is played for laughs. And their break-up was inevitable. But he treated her poorly. He let her believe there was relationship potential when there wasn’t because he likes getting laid on the regular. He knew weeks before he broke up with her that they at least needed to have a conversation about what they wanted. He put it off because she might take sex off the table. And even when he absolutely knew he was going to break up with her... he slept with her. He waited until the morning after. Dick move, Ravi.

The audience wasn’t emotionally invested in Steph. And Ravi is such a wonderful person otherwise. And Steph was played for laughs. But Ravi’s pattern of bad behavior is there if you look.

And hours... just hours... after he ended things with Steph, he tries to kiss Peyton. The woman who wants to be his friend and hang out. He goes in for the kiss without even thinking about it. And she calls him on it. Thank goodness. But he also doesn’t pick up on the fact that she needed a friend because he’s too disappointed that she isn’t sexually interested in him. She’s visibly upset and he retreats to his room because of the failed kiss, even though she clearly wants to still hang out.

When he finally does realize Peyton is having problems a couple of episodes later, we start down the saga of Ravi being hungover all the time trying to impress Peyton who can drink him under the table. The sad part here is this was the best time between them. They were talking. They were being friends. And Ravi was showing real concern for Peyton as a person, not just a potential lay.

Another window into Ravi’s dating habits is given in season 2. Darcy, the barista at Positivity Coffee from episode 2x14. Ravi thinks she’s the “city’s foxiest cashier.” And later in the episode, he tries to flirt with her. It falls completely flat. She’s never seen Star Wars and she likes transgressive rhymes. It’s played for laughs, and it is funny. But it also shows that Ravi knew nothing about this girl. He’s been making eyes at her for (at least) months, but all he knows is she’s cute to look at. Ravi’s priorities about the women he views as potential romantic partners are very one dimensional.

The end of season 2 sees Peyton and Ravi getting back together after Ravi jokes about “Nice guys finishing last.” Let’s pause for a moment at this point in the timeline to talk about this for a second. Ravi is a genuinely nice man. He’s a great friend. But in many ways, his dating life verges on him being a Nice Guy™️. Now, it’s definitely on the cusp. It’s one of the things that makes the writing in this show great. Ravi is shown to be a genuinely nice friend to Liv, a woman that at least in earlier seasons he cannot be sexually interested in without becoming undead. So, we know he can have a successful friendship with a woman. But Ravi doesn’t really have any other female friends. If you discounted his friendship with Liv, every other attractive woman --of the right age, who is available-- he’s encountered in the show has been a potential bang.

Now, I think Ravi fights these tendencies. He’s not blowing up at women who reject him. He’s the least violent person in the show. A true passivist. And he means his apologies when his romantic overtures fall flat. But it’s not hard to imagine Ravi as someone who would describe himself as “in the friendzone”.

So, Peyton and Ravi are back together. And then Ravi finds out she once slept with Blaine. He freaks out. Even he knows it’s irrational. But it still happens. Peyton is kidnapped and Blaine saves the day. And yes, Peyton is grateful to Blaine for saving her life. But as far as she was concerned, she was still dating Ravi. But he ghosts her for a week after she’s just had the most traumatic experience of her life. Because he can’t get right with the fact that one of her past sexual partners was Blaine. And Ravi tries to figure out why he can’t put it behind him and comes to the conclusion that it must be that he’s in love with Peyton. Which he blurts out at an extremely inopportune moment.

Of course, Peyton didn’t know what to think of that. Who would? He’s been ghosting her and treating her poorly for something she can’t go back and change. When she slept with Blaine, she didn’t know who he was. She didn’t know the horrible things he’d done. But Ravi was still holding it against her. I’ll give Ravi credit for knowing it’s his own stupid macho problem and not hers. But he handles it terribly. Peyton was 100% in the right when she told him off in her office.

Then there’s Katty. He’s just blurted out that he’s in love with Peyton. But he’s pretty damn sure he’s blown that up completely. So he accepts Katty’s offer of a hook up the very same day. And then kisses Peyton when she shows up with Katty still in the next room. Not good.

I saw a lot of upset in the fandom about this incident. Much was said of it being out of character for Ravi to screw up so badly. But the foreshadowing is all there. The pattern of behavior is there. I wouldn’t even call what Peyton, Ravi, and Blaine had a “love triangle”. Ravi screwed up his chance with her. Blaine was Peyton moving on.

Then it comes out that Blaine was lying and Peyton is now single again. Ravi, in episode 3x9, is straight up obnoxious to her while the group is playing D&D. He’s making her uncomfortable and he doesn’t seem to notice.

Now, let’s talk about Rachel. Because when Ravi thinks with his penis instead of his brain he gets stupid. He didn’t know very much about this woman, but on the off chance it’ll get him laid, he tells her all about zombies. She turns out to be a reporter, and Liv ends up on the front page of the Alt-weekly. He’s put himself at risk as the doctor who is working on the cure, and he’s put his very best friend at risk because she’s now Seattle’s only recognizable zombie. Good job, there.

Which brings us to season 4. Everyone seems to be getting along. Our core group of Liv, Ravi, Peyton, Clive, and Major have wildly different experiences in New Seattle. But they’re all friends. Ravi and Peyton seem to be getting along well, even though she’s dating other people.

One day, Peyton drops by the morgue. She’s having a rough week and she wants a win. She needs to find this dog. (Now don’t get me started on the fact that they live in a walled city and could probably have shown a picture of the dog on the news. It’s not like he could have gone far.) Ravi points out that the guy she asks Liv to eat is a heroin addict. All three of them agree this is a terrible idea. Liv does not eat the brain.

Then Ravi realizes it’s his (zombie) time of the month. And in his apparently never-ending quest to impress Peyton (Major even calls him on it), Ravi decides to do the stupidest possible thing. Even he knows it’s a terrible idea. That’s why he stopped Liv from doing it. When it works and actually gets him the attention he wants from Peyton, no one looks more surprised than Ravi.

Well, now Ravi’s won the affection of the woman of his dreams. Now what? That remains to be seen. Is he going to grow into this relationship and be the kind of partner Peyton deserves? I don’t know. I’m watching with interest to find out. I’d like to see him develop a friendship with her like he has with Liv. Something that could be a real foundation for something more. And if that happens, I’ll root for them. I’m already rooting for Ravi. For his character arc and his growth. And Peyton deserves much more than to be his learning experience. Whether she finds that “something more” with him or in herself in her own arc remains to be seen.

Characters need flaws. Otherwise, they’re boring and come off sanctimonious. Ravi is an excellent character. He balances being a compassionate, compelling man, with having flaws that stem, in part, from social awkwardness and a lack of relationship experience. And I think, for the most part, he’s actively trying to get better. Ravi’s incredibly likable, and even loveable, both to the other characters and to the audience. But he still has some growing up to do.

#izombie #meta #ravi chakrabarti #character analysis #pavi #character development

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winterflash-2019 · 6 years

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Playing Cupid

You were Starling City’s only Meta-human called The Shadow. It all happened when you were in Central City with your boyfriend at the time, Roy. The both of you were supposed to go with Barry and Iris to see the particle accelerator but Barry had to stay at work extra late that night and it just so happened for the Particle accelerator to explode unexpectedly causing you to be the first one to get hit and waking up 5 months later with Darkness manipulation hence why everyone calls you shadow.

Fast forward 4 years later you’re now part of team arrow after helping Oliver save Thea one night. Now here you are training while Felicity and Oliver were debating on who’s a better hero, him or Barry. Barry, the speedster you’ve had a crush on even before you got with Roy which was the only reason you moved to Starling City…well that and the fact that you believed Barry had feelings for Iris.

You and Barry made a promise that you would keep in contact with each other and you did just that. Calling each other every day, visiting each other every now and then, even falling asleep on the phone together. Roy knew deep down that you had feelings for Barry and he couldn’t be mad at you for it if anything it’s the reason the both of you have such a good friendship now.

“Oliver, the boy has got speed” Felicity sighs with Oliver on the other hand rolls his eyes

“And I have arrows” He poorly states and Diggle holds back a laugh while you on the other hand giggle as you let go of the pull up bar in the middle of the room.

“Seriously Ollie” You say with raised eyebrows and he scoffs

“What” He tilts his head sassily and you shake your head with a smile before walking over and stealing Roy’s water bottle.

“Hey!” Roy whines and you just wave him off, taking a sip and sit on his lap.

A whoosh was heard and papers fly everywhere as the wind blows your hair in Roy’s face.

“Barry, you cannot keep doing that one day I’m going to shoot you with an arrow” Oliver says while lowering his bow and sitting it on the desk next to Felicity.

“um I think you’ve done that before” Barry chuckles as his eyes land on you sitting in Roy’s lap and his chest tingles with jealously.

“Barry, hi” You greet as you hop off Roy’s lap and hug him and his grip tightens around you as he breathed in your strawberry scent.

“Hey y/n” He softly replies and Felicity clears her throat once she notices you two were hugging too long.

“Sorry guys” You sheepishly apologize and Barry blushes as he looks down at you, admiration in his eyes.

“Barry, wanna tells us why you’re here” Oliver says and Barry turns to face him with realization.

“Oh yeah um we need your help”

“With what” you ask with folded arms and Roy comes up behind you, putting a hand on your shoulder when Barry saw this he quickly clenches his fist.

“There’s a new Meta and he wants to take over Central City”

“My team and I tried everything but no matter what we do he always comes back from it”

“and how are we supposed to help” Roy questions and Barry’s eyes flick to his hand on you again and he could feel his face tur red with anger.

“I was thinking about doing a stake out, Me and y/n go after him and Oliver and Diggle will be there in case anything goes wrong” He growls

“What about me”

“You have to stay here with Felicity” Barry didn’t want Roy anywhere near you, you were his…well not really but he can dream.

“Sounds like a plan” Oliver pats Barry on the back and walks out with Felicity to get prepared for the mission.

“So how you been” You ask and Barry felt his heart rate speed up when he sees you smile.

“I’ve been fine just the usual, fighting metas…win some lose some” He shrugs and you giggle

“But still no Iris?” You say quietly and he looks at you weirdly

“Iris is great and all but I’ve realized that I been hooked on her for too long…I like someone else” He says while searching your face for a reaction and you bit you lip as you bounced on your tippy toes.

“Oh” You were hurt you thought that you had a chance with Barry now that he stopped going after Iris but it seemed as you were too late.

Barry panics as the tension in the room became too much for him. “uh see you tomorrow y/n”

“Bye barr” and just like that he was gone.

You, Oliver, and Diggle walk into Star Labs to see Cisco sipping on a slushy and Barry slouching in his chair…where was everyone else?

“Oh, hey guys you’re early” Barry perks up when he sees you already dressed up in your all black suit with the zipper zipped down just a little for you to have cleavage.

“Well Barry you didn’t exactly give us a time” You sarcastically say with a smirk before sitting down on the edge of the desk Cisco was sitting at.

“So, give us all the details on this meta” Oliver can see you staring at Barry out the corner of his eye. He doesn’t know why you just tell him you like him…what’s Barry going to do reject you that boy won’t even dream of it.

“Well- “Barry was cut off when the Meta human alarm went off

“That’s our cue” soon all three of you leave the lab as Caitlin and the rest of team arrow walk in

“Whoa whoa whoa what is this…a party?” Cisco shouts before sipping his slushy again.

“We got bored back in Starling so we decided to come here” Felicity stated as she walked in the cortex

“Have you guys noticed Barry and Y/n give each other the heart eyes” Caitlin excitedly says and Felicity smiles now that she knows she wasn’t the only one to notice.

“Um guys they’ve always been that way we all noticed a long time ago” Harry states when he walks in the cortex

“I think this is the perfect time to play cupid” Felicity says and everyone agrees

“yes finally, I get so sick and tired of Barry moping around 24/7” Cisco cheers and Harry smirks at him

“I am so going to tell him you said that” He taunts and Cisco sits up straight

“You wouldn’t dare”

“Try me Ramon” Harry challenges before walking into Cisco’s office with Cisco right behind him.

“This is the perfect opportunity, they’re gone so we have to plan something and quick” Roy says and they all smile.

You were exhausted when you walked back into the lab with Barry straying behind you, Oliver decided to take a break and stop at Jitters because he had to sit down his legs were killing him.

You and Barry stop at the entrance of the Cortex when you notice everyone gone.

“Where the hell did they go” Barry furrows his eyebrows in confusion and you tiredly sigh

“I really don’t want to play the games guys can you please just come out of hiding” You shout but the entire lab was quiet…too quiet for your liking.

You look behind the desk and you see rose petals leading to the med bay and Barry sees you following them so he does the same.

When you two finally reached the end of the petal trail the door slammed shut and Barry jiggled on the door knob but it was locked. You look out the glass window to see Team Arrow and Team Flash looking back at you.

“Guys unlock this door right now” You sharply state but you see Felicity shake her head no, squinting you see Oliver behind her smirking back at you.

“Ollie, you knew about this” You gasp and he nods

“of course, I didn’t make up going to Jitters for nothing”

“the both of you are not leaving that room until you confess your undying love for each other” Roy says through the glass and your eyes widened.

“W-What I don’t” you stumble to get your words together as you turn to face Barry who was blushing like crazy.

“Barry doesn’t have feeling for me” You deny but you hear him mumble from behind you.

“Barry” you whisper and he looks up in your eyes while walking closer to you.

“I do have feelings for you y/n, always have…I couldn’t stand seeing you with Roy even after you broke up him being around you makes me jealous because I’ve wanted you for so long” He puts a stray hair behind your ear as your eyes watered. You’re finally getting what you wanted and what you wanted was Barry.

“Barry I-“

“it’s okay if you don’t feel the same y/n I understand” he closes his eye out of embarrassment and you let a tear fall as you put a hand on his cheek, causing him to look up at you.

“I love you Barry Allen” you say before pressing your lips against his.

“GET A ROOM” Cisco yells from the other side of the glass and Barry pulls away from you with a chuckle

“we do” You say with a smirk and everyone turns their nose up in disgust.

“Alright open the door before it turns into a full blown porno“ Harry says and everyone looks at him strangely

“what” he asks before walking off.

“Well I guess this is goodbye” Felicity says after everyone was done hugging each other and Barry felt hid heart plummet to the floor, he wanted you to stay but Starling City needs you and he knew that. As Team Arrow was walking out the cortex you come to a stop.

“Wait” you say and they stop and look at you

“what is it y/n?” Oliver asks and you look back at Barry who was looking at you with hopeful eyes

“How would you feel if I stayed here…with Barry”

“I would miss you but I would be fine with it at the same time” He states

“Well in that case…I’m staying” you walk towards Barry and grab his hand, giving it a tight squeeze.

“Are you sure y/n” Felicity asks with sadness in her voice

“Yeah, I’m sure” you say while smiling and Team Arrow hugs you

“If you hurt her Barry we are all coming after you” Oliver growls as he harshly pats Barry’s back

“Ollie leave him alone”

“Stay safe kiddo” Roy hugs you again before walking out the cortex.

“I guess you guys playing cupid actually worked this time” Barry says with a smile at team flash

“I finally got the girl”

I really liked this request because it’s really different from what I’ve been writing and if you guys liked this then that means I can make more of these type of imagines.

- Winterflash-2019

tag list:

@andy-blur @onceuponateenpanwolfian

#Barry Allen #barry allen x reader #barry allen imagine #cw #The Flash #iris west #caitlin snow #harry wells #joe west #cisco ramon #grant gustin x reader #grant gustin

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fanficimagery · 7 years

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Anonymous asked: Can you do an angsty imagine where Stiles and Lydia teamed up together on a quest and Stiles has a panic attack and didn't know what to do but kiss him (like in season 3) and the reader saw that they kissed (Stiles and reader are dating) and she thinks of it as another way. Sorry if that doesn't make since

Author's Note: I, in no way, support the idea that a kiss can stop a panic attack.. but for the sake of this ficlet, just go with the flow.

Stiles X Reader

Running through the woods for your life is not your idea of a calm evening.

The whole point in coming to Beacon Hills was to meet your boyfriend's father face to face instead of over Skype, but a call from your boyfriend's alpha had you making a pit stop by the Preserve. This you had no problem with, but you did protest being left alone in the jeep because hello! horror movies were your favorite and you knew this was how nearly every one of them started. But your boyfriend still left you alone, only for some creature to scare you out of the jeep and have you running for your life.

Tree branches have smacked you in the face and snagged your clothing, and you've tripped numerous of times over the uneven forest floor. You can hear something snarling behind you, their footfalls getting closer and closer. You can see an opening up ahead, but before you can make it something is tackling you to the ground.

You scream and squirm under the weight atop of you, and when you're pushed down onto your back you're staring up into the clearly agitated face of a blue-eyed werewolf. Hearing more snarls off to your right, you manage to tear your gaze away from the terrifying wolf above you only to see a yellow-eyed wolf beat down another blue-eyed wolf. Winning, the yellow-eyed wolf turns his attention to you and the one above you.

"Please tell me you are part of the McCall pack and I'm not about to become wolf chow?"

The blue-eyed wolf blinks his glowing gaze away in surprise and his fangs shorten into blunt human teeth. Behind the wolf visage is that of a man with perfectly coiffed hair and a dimpled chin. "You know Scott?"

"Mhm. I frequently Skype with him and his mother. I'm Stiles' girlfriend."

"Stiles has a girlfriend?" The once yellow-eyed boy asks. "Why didn't we know?"

You shrug from your position on the ground. "We don't really flaunt our relationship. I talk to Scott, Melissa and Mr. Stilinski. And I've met Malia over video chat a couple of times. I know about the pack, so I'm guessing you're Liam and the wolf on top of me is Peter?"

Peter slowly lets up, eyes still suspicious. "What are you doing out here by yourself?"

"Stiles told me to stay in the jeep even after I told him that's how every horror movie starts," you huff. "And guess who got scared enough to actually leave the somewhat safety of the vehicle to take her chance in the darkened woods?"

"Yep. She sounds like someone who Stiles would date."

You flash a grin at Liam, scooting a bit away from Peter as he stands and then taking his offered hand to stand back on your own two feet again. As you dust yourself off, you ask, "So is it all over? Did you guys win?"

"Pretty much." Liam answers. "The pack is meeting just up ahead. Wanna meet the rest of us?"

"Sure."

Peter leads the way while Liam keeps pace with you. The walk isn't far at all and when you finally break into the clearing, you nearly run into Peter's back. Chuckling, you sidestep him to see what had him freezing in place and your smile immediately drops. Your stomach plummets, your throat closes up and your heart completely shatters.

Because there in the middle of the clearing is your boyfriend locking lips with a redhead whose hands are clutching at your boyfriend's face.

Tears immediately well in your eyes and you sidestep Liam's hand when he goes to touch your shoulder. "Don't," you mumble. You finally pull your gaze away from Stiles' betrayal and Liam looks as uncomfortable as he probably feels. Peter, though, Peter is glaring at Stiles. You open your mouth to say something, but your breath stutters in your chest and you have to choke back a sob. Swallowing it down, you manage to meekly say, "I know I have no right to ask, but can one of you give me a ride somewhere? Anywhere."

"Yes," Peter growls. "Liam, stay and let Scott know what's happened. I'll be taking Stiles'-"

"Y/N," you interrupt him. "My name is Y/N. I don't think I'm Stiles' anything anymore."

"Right. I'll be taking Y/N wherever it is she needs to go."

Liam nods and offers you a sad smile, and you briefly return it while waving as you follow after Peter when he turns around to stomp off in a certain direction. Peter doesn't have anything to say to you and for once you're grateful for the quiet as he leads you through the woods once more.

You manage to keep the sobs at bay, but every fiber of your being is burning with hurt and betrayal and misery. When you make it to a sleek black car, you immediately pull your phone free from your pocket and scroll through your contacts. Staying in Stiles' home is out of the question and knowing the history of Beacon Hills, you're not quite comfortable staying alone in some cheap motel room.

So you scroll down to Melissa McCall's contact, find out she's off and at home through a quick texting session, and ask Peter to drop you off at Melissa's house.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Melissa is great," you say. "I can stay there for a bit while I figure out how to get my stuff from Stiles' jeep."

"Well if you're sure."

Peter drives you without another word and all too soon you're pulling up to the McCall residence. As soon as the passenger door closes behind you when you step out, Peter is driving off without even waiting for a 'thanks'. Melissa opens the front door to her home as you're walking up the sidewalk, arms crossed tightly over your chest, and once you enter the zone of light from the porch Melissa is opening her arms at your expression.

"Oh, sweetheart, what happened?"

Your expression crumples even further as the sobs finally break free and you willingly walk into her arms. After a few moments she leads you inside where everything that's happened comes out and she's left sitting there in disbelief.

"Stiles..? And Lydia?!" She sounds both surprised and disappointed. "What the hell were they thinking?"

"I don't know," you miserably mumble. The both of you are seated on the couch, Melissa's arm wrapped around you and your head on her shoulder. "And now I have to get my things from his jeep and find someplace to stay until I figure out how to get back to Uni."

"Don't worry about it. We have a spare room here. You can stay here as long as you need to find yourself a ride back home."

"..thank you."

Melissa then takes the time to make up some sandwiches and by the time she's placing them in front of you, the front door is banging open. Scott slides into his home, relief making his shoulders slump at the sight of you. And then Stiles is rushing in, smacking into his best friend's back with a grunt of pain. You nod at Scott's sheepish smile and then completely shut down at Stiles' apologetic expression.

"Um, Scott?" Melissa calls out hesitantly. "I think.. I need," she trails off uncomfortably. "I need you to help me out. Upstairs. With the bathroom.. or something."

You huff a laugh at her weak attempt to get Scott out of the room, the alpha walking by you but not before pressing a quick kiss to your cheek in greeting. "Nice to finally meet face to face," he smiles. "We'll talk later."

You gulp and then, shaking your head in fond amusement as Melissa pushes her grown son up the stairs, you face Stiles. Immediately, he rushes up to you with wide eyes. "Whatever you saw, it wasn't what it looked like!"

"So you weren't attached by the lips with Lydia?" You deadpan.

He opens his mouth to retort, but only ends up groaning. "Okay. So it was what it looked like, but I swear-"

"Just stop, Stiles. I saw what I saw. There's nothing-"

"I was having a panic attack!"

"-you can, wait.. what?" You stammer, heart picked up speed. Stiles rarely had panic attacks and when he did they were pretty bad.

"I had a panic attack!" You take a step back at his over the top exclamation, he freezing before taking a deep breath and calming himself enough to explain himself to you calmly. "The wolves wreaking havoc here did their homework on the whole pack. They had people watching us at Uni and when they confronted us here, they had video of us. Of you," He says, stepping even closer and cradling your face in his hands. You can feel your anger and hurt already dissipating, shame and guilt replacing it at knowing you were the cause for Stiles' attack.

"The thought of them going after you freaked me out and then I just went into full blown panic when I realized I had left you alone. I'm so, so sorry you saw what you saw. That was apparently Lydia's way of getting me to stop freaking out and focus on one thing. You gotta believe me, Y/N. I'd never hurt you on purpose."

By now tears have already welled up and you have to gulp down the lump in your throat at his honesty. Your hands come up to encircle both Stiles' wrists. "That's a rather inappropriate way to stop a panic attack."

Stiles snorts and drops his hands from your face, he then completely wrapping his arms around your shoulders as he hugs you close. You oblige him and wrap your arms low around his waist. "Trust me. Lydia feels bad, too. Liam couldn't even look at me and Peter took too much glee in informing everyone of what you saw. Which, by the way, how did you get Peter to like you in such a short period of time? Peter hates people."

You giggle while rubbing your cheek along his chest. "Speaking of Peter. You didn't tell me he was a hot psychopath."

Stiles gasps in offense. "What?! Never. Again. I never want to hear the words hot and Peter in the same sentence."

You manage to pull back a little, staring up at his cute little pout. Then leaning up you nip his chin. "You got to kiss another girl. The least I get to do is briefly ogle the hot werewolves."

Stiles' pout deepens. "You're never allowed back in Beacon Hills ever again." He leans down and presses a chaste kiss to your grinning lips. "Never ever."

Shaking your head in amusement, you finally fully relax in your boyfriend's arms. Misunderstandings suck, but they're part of every relationship and you're just glad to have gotten this one cleared straight away.

"Mom!" You hear Scott call from the bottom of the stairs. "The coast is clear. You can come down now." He turns to both you and Stiles, flashing you both a dopey smile. "Glad everything's worked out. Pack bonding night is tomorrow and I'd hate to have Peter antagonizing Stiles the whole night."

"Yeah. Sorry about that," you sheepishly smile.

"Hey. There's nothing to be sorry about," Stiles murmurs, his lips brushing your temple. "If the roles were reversed, I'd have jumped to conclusions too."

"He really would have," Scott agrees.

"Alright. That's enough out of you," Stiles remarks. "Now if you and Melissa don't mind, Y/N and I have a date with my dad." He looks back down at you, stepping back and releasing you but then reaches for one of your hands to hold within in his own. "Ready?"

You slowly smile at him, realizing how much this boy really adores you as he stares at you with nothing but devotion in his eyes. And for a moment, you can't believe you actually thought he had a single cheating bone in his body. "Yeah. I'm ready."

#imagine #stiles stilinski #stiles x reader #stiles stilinski imagine #teen wolf #scott mccall #liam dunbar #peter hale #melissa mccall #fanficimagery

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karnesworth · 3 years

Text

i found love where it wasn’t supposed to be (right in front of me) ~Chapter 5

The first time Connor and Karina fuck, it’s for a mission, and it’s supposed to not be personal, it’s supposed to not mean anything, it’s supposed to be professional, but somehow it doesn’t quite end up that way.

(FORMERLY “you touched me and it’s almost like we knew (that there would be history”)

Day -130

I-3 Unit 412

Karina

So there’s a timeline. It looks scary-- horrifying, to be honest-- but Karina’s done her research, knows exactly what each of these terms means. And the terms by themselves don’t look too bad, here on paper, divorced from accompanying action. Divorced is a good word for this, she thinks: divorced from meaning, divorced from feelings, divorced from thought.

She can do divorced.

She’s done it before, divorced herself, shut herself out of her own body and floated, her senses muted, in a small pool in her mind. During torture, it helps with the pain. During firefights, it helps keep her anxiety from taking over. The company-mandated therapist calls it disassociation. She calls it a tool.

She closes her eyes and imagines rough hands grabbing her, pushing and prodding. Squeezing her tits. Tearing clothing. She practices disassociating, zoning out and letting it happen, stepping back from the moment.

It’s not so bad. A body is just a body. A hand is just a hand. A weapon is just a weapon.

A knock sounds on her door, and she pulls herself back. It’s almost like swimming to the surface of a deep pool.

“Come in,” she calls, shaking any residual sluggishness out of her limbs.

It’s Michael. “Found something you might want.” He shoves a tablet over toward her, motioning for her to start the video he’s pulled up.

“What am I looking at?” Karina asks. As if she doesn’t know.

“It’s their… their acquisitions process.” Michael says it oddly, like he doesn’t quite hear what he’s saying. “This is what the first day looks like.”

It’s security footage from an alleyway-- the one she’s labeled Alleyway X. Most of the abductions take place around this area of town. A girl sprints down the alley, screeching to a halt when a van barrels toward her. Two men jump out of the van, grabbing her by the hair and arms while the first man-- the one she’s running from-- catches up. One grabs a pair of scissors and cuts her shirt off. The other zip-ties her hands behind her back. Then she’s in the van and it’s gone. The whole thing takes less than twenty seconds.

When Karina looks up, Michael’s staring at her, like he expects her to say something.

“So?” he prompts.

“Fun,” she deadpans. When Michael rolls his eyes, she continues. “You’re acting like I’ve never been kidnapped before.”

“Not this type of kidnapped,” he answers, and she’s forced to agree. “This is scarier.”

She laughs a little. “I can do scary.”

He scoffs, looks up at the ceiling. “I know. It’s just-- It’s going to be you, and another agent, and an entire compound of panic triggers.”

“Then I won’t panic.”

“You say it like it’s that easy.” Michael shrugs. “Panic attacks have a habit of happening at the worst possible moment. Like calls from your mom.”

And Karina has to laugh, the way Michael says it. Like her mom is the scariest human in the world. Like, in this world of mobsters and assassins, the person most to be feared is a music teacher from upstate New York armed with cookies and a terrible sense of timing.

Of course Michael devolves into silliness, Karina thinks. It’s his visceral reaction to any tension, anywhere. A defense mechanism. A weapon.

Karina has her own defense mechanisms, her own weapons. Divorce is one. Deflection is another. She can take a tense conversation and turn it inside out, parsing and dissecting it until the conflict is small and manageable. This comes in especially handy when Michael and Judith butt heads, and neither of them is able to articulate why exactly they’re mad.

It’s not that she’s a particularly good agent. It’s just that she communicates when the others don’t. She follows protocol when others don’t. She hears subtext that others don’t.

And she hears the subtext in Michael’s words, sees the way he’s fiddling with the buttons on the tablet. She takes a step closer, breathes in and out again, casts an easy smile on her face.

“I’ll be fine, Michael,” she reiterates. “You know I’m a good agent.”

Michael nods and purses his lips. “You know me. I just had to check.”

She laughs. “Fuck you.” Then, when he raises his eyebrows, “No, really. I appreciate the concern but. Fuck. You.”

Michael raises his hands, like a gesture of surrender, then leaves the room.

And she’s got a moment of silence to think about what he said. She can do scary. She’s not worried about that. She’s never done rapey and terrifying. Not yet.

And anyway, she’s got fifteen minutes for a quick snack before Connor arrives for their meeting. She goes to the kitchen and grabs a cup of yogurt from the fridge. Then turns around and--

JUDITH.

Karina shrieks a little, dropping her yogurt.

“Hi,” Judith deadpans. “I need the coffee. It’s right behind you.”

Karina moves out of the way and picks up the yogurt cup, opens it. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“Won’t promise anything,” Judith answers, nudges Karina, and finally cracks a tiny smile. “I’ve gotta bother you for at least another twenty years.”

“As long as you let me stab you with estrogen every week,” Karina answers. They’ve made a ritual out of Judith’s weekly hormone therapy shots. They’ll shut the four of them-- Judith, Karina, Michael, and Claire-- into Judith’s office, dim the lights, share a snack. Some ice cream or the cookies that Karina’s mom bakes. Judith hates needles but won’t let anyone know it: she even tries to hide it from Claire and Michael. So Karina will whisper a few words, a reminder to breathe. To forgive her past. To treasure her present. To look forward to her future. And, before the spell breaks, Karina will slip the needle into Judith’s thigh and depress the plunger slowly. Afterward, Karina will safely discard the needle while Judith, Claire, and Michael finish the ice cream. They do it every Monday.

“So, about this mission,” Judith continues. “You’ve got a plan?”

Karina nods, spooning yogurt into her mouth.

“And you’re sure you’re going in?” Judith asks. “Just you?”

Karina nods. She doesn’t answer, still swirling yogurt around on her tongue.

Judith sighs. “Cut the bitches. Hell, kill them all. They deserve it.”

And she’s gone, coffee in hand.

The doorbell rings just as Karina’s finishing her yogurt. She lets Connor in and silently leads him to her office. He knows the way, but he still stays a full three feet behind Karina as they move down the hall. It is her turf, after all. If Karina were to visit Connor’s unit, she’d stay behind him, she’s sure.

When they reach her office, she closes the door behind them and takes a deep breath. This is the conversation that she’s avoided for weeks. The one that’s probably going to push him away.

“So,” she begins, and lets the word dissolve in the air between them.

Connor takes a breath. “You said you wanted to talk.”

She nods. “So, up till now we’ve been designing this mission in hypotheticals,” she says. “But now we need to talk particulars.”

Connor worries his bottom lip between his teeth. “But we can’t work particulars until we have specific agents to design this mission for.”

Karina inhales. “Exactly.” She pauses, searching for the wording. Finally, she just takes the plunge. “I’m going to be the victim.”

Connor looks almost as if he’s been knocked out of his clothes. “Karina--”

She cuts him off. “Listen to me. I can’t ask someone else to do this. It’s too risky.”

“So you’re going to risk yourself?”

She scoffs. “Of course I am.”

Connor’s voice gets louder. “Maybe-- Karina, maybe if you’re not willing to ask someone else to do this, you shouldn’t do it yourself.”

Karina takes a step closer to him. She pushes her point as she pushes into his personal space. “Oh, so you were fine with this mission in theory, but as soon as we talk about putting it into practice you get queasy?”

Connor looks away. “Karina, it’s not that--”

“Then what is it?”

Connor’s full-on yelling now. “You can’t do this-- not you!”

Karina cuts into his rambling. She’s anticipated this argument. “So you think we should pick someone expendable? That we should send someone else to do our dirty work?”

She’s backed him into a corner and she knows it. But he just lashes out more. Still yelling. “God, yes! Anyone but you.”

Karina’s so taken aback by this that her only instinct is to fight. Like a reflex, she snaps a hand back and aims it at his cheek. Before it can impact, though, Connor’s caught her wrist, squeezing it so tight she’s sure that it’s going to bruise.

Connor punctuates each word clearly, speaking so deliberately that it stops Karina in her tracks. “If you want to kill yourself with these batshit missions, do it. But, for God’s sake, let the rest of us know so you don’t kill us too.”

Their faces are so close, Karina can feel his breath on her lips. He’s breathing hard, and she is too. He’s still gripping her wrist, and she can feel her hand wilting above his grasp. She glances at his lips, the way they’re flushed and almost trembling, the way his voice is hoarse and gravelly, the way his eyes are flared wide and his pupils blown open.

She pulls her arm away from him, just a little bit, testing his grip. He holds on for half a second, and then he’s gone, not holding her, not even close, his back turned and already disappearing down the hallway.

#tw sui mention #otp: karnesworth #Karnesworth #you touched me #fic: I found Love #OC Fiction #whump fic #karina #karina + connor #Connor

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