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buckyownsmylife · 3 years

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Holy Ground - Chapter 1

The one where Andy seems to have lost everything, but he’s not ready to give up.

A terrible car accident ruins Andy Barber’s idea of a perfect life. But if the love’s still there, why wouldn’t he retrace the steps that led him to his happy ending? After all, the best love stories were made to be written more than just once.

for general warnings and author’s notes, please go to the fic’s masterlist and if you’d like to be tagged on my following Chris Evans and characters stories, just fill out this form.

Andy’s P.O.V.

The never-ending beeping of the machine had become a constant in my life. It was both a melody and a curse, a relief and the worst of tortures, it truly depended on my mood for the day. Sadly, for the last few weeks, it was hard to remember that this meant a good thing, it meant she was alive, there was still hope for us.

Hope was dying quicker than the woman on the bed, who I watched with unwavering attention, and that only meant it was getting harder and harder to remember that she was still even there.

A body isn’t a life, that had never been as obvious to me as it was right then, and although her hand was safely wrapped by mine, she never seemed more distant than in that moment. So close, yet so out-of-reach. Still alive, but seemingly just… not there.

Sighing, I released her hand only to run both of mine over my face, needing a moment to close my eyes and imagine I was somewhere else, anywhere else other than this stupid fucking hospital, the only place I ever went to since the accident.

But then, as it happened every time I tried to sleep, flashes of what I imagined had happened to her startled me into opening my eyes again, and sitting up on the chair that was starting to mold into the shape of my body. I really needed her to wake up. Soon.

A surge of anger rushed through me - not the first one I’d felt since this entire situation had happened, and suddenly I was up from the chair, leaning over her, cradling her unresponsive face in my hands.

“Wake up,” I urged, trying to shake her as softly as possible, but still determined to get a response from her. “Wake up, dammit.”

Unsurprisingly, it was in vain. There was no response, no single movement, no sign from the heavens that the woman I loved was even there at all.

Defeated, I slumped back on the chair and pondered over the same damn details when suddenly, something happened. The beeping had changed. It was quicker now, mirroring my own heartbeat inside my chest.

“Nurse!” I shouted, desperate for someone, anyone to tell me that this was good news, but the second two people entered the room in blue scrubs, I was being thrown out.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we need you to go wait in the lobby. Someone will come get you once things are stable again.”

Stable. Again.

That’s not what I wanted. No, it was not. Because nothing about my life with Y/N had ever been just “stable”. That word could simply not encompass everything she was, everything she meant, everything we had lived together. Not the way she woke me up with the smell of pancakes in the morning, only to be singing the softest of melodies when I got to the kitchen to watch her sway and cook at the same time. Not the way she listened attentively to everything I ever got to say, especially when I was frustrated and it took me some time to make any sense at all. Not the way she held me in her arms when the night came and brought horrors from the past to my mind, raising nightmares that seemed even worse while I was awake.

I wanted her back, and not the beeping of the machine that kept her there, but not really alive. That wasn’t alive. That was merely existing, and that’s how I felt that I was doing, too. But how does one find the motivation to even try when the love of your life is just… not there?

I was quickly becoming overwhelmed by my own feelings, I could recognize that. Finally deciding to take a seat in the waiting area, I covered my face again as I struggled to think through the fog of emotions clouding my brain. What the hell was happening back in her room? Could it be…

No. I could not afford to think that. I could not afford to lose her. Looking up to the ceiling in the hopes to control my desperate desire to cry, I prayed to whoever was listening that they gave me my girl back. I needed her. God, how I needed her.

“Mr. Barber?” I almost got whiplash from how quickly I turned to meet the doctor, trying to determine if he was coming to share bad or good news by the expression on his face. Unfortunately, the dominion of emotions came with the profession - I expected that, mostly because I used to have the same skill, developed in the exercise of mine.

The days where legal routines ruled my week seemed like a lifetime away.

“We have some news for you.” I nodded, not trusting my own voice as I got up from the chair to follow the doctor closer to the room where she rested, hopefully still alive. “At last, there was some response to the treatment we had been administering…” I ended up blocking whatever medical terms he used while explaining what had happened as I tried to peek through the curtains into the room, check if she was still there, still unresponsive but there. “...She’s waiting for you.”

That startled me, making me meet the doctor’s eyes again.

“I’m sorry, what?”

The man had a good heart, that much was obvious, because instead of impatient, he just smiled and repeated, “She’s awake now. We still haven’t been able to figure out the damage that the impact has done on her cognitive functions, but she’s alive and awake, and when we said you had been waiting, she asked to see you.”

I nodded, immediately turning my back to the doctor without any further comments and reaching out for the door, eager to see her again. I knew I’d only believe that she was awake when I saw it with my own two eyes.

Her gaze fell on mine when I pushed the door open, my mouth falling open and tears erupting from the utter relief that I felt. It was really true. She was okay. We’d be okay.

I threw myself on her before even thinking twice about it. Instinctively, I knew how to avoid the wires and bruises she still had, after having spent so long just looking at her, memorizing every inch of her face while she couldn’t move.

When her arms closed around me, it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. And then I was crying. Just like she always did the few times I’d done this before ever since we got together, she just held me, hands softly running circles on my back as I let go of all the pain and fear I’d been accumulating these last few months without her.

She didn’t even say anything, just patiently waited as I slowly calmed down, sniffling like a little kid and taking her natural perfume in now that I could bury my face in the crook of her neck. I knew that my unkept beard tickled her, but despite a few chuckles, she never complained.

I was thankful for that. Because I truly needed this. I needed to feel close to her again, in this physical sense, as long as it was the only one I could have until she was able to leave this hospital. I hoped to God that now that she’d woken up, it wouldn’t be too long before I could get her back home.

“How are you feeling, my love?” I watched her eyes momentarily widen, seemingly in surprise, when I pulled away to watch her expression, knuckles grazing softly over her cheekbones. And then she looked confused, maybe even guilty, that deep frown appearing between her eyebrows as she almost pouted at me.

“I’m okay, I swear. I wish you wouldn’t have spent this long waiting for me here.” The sentence was so puzzling it froze me on the spot. What did she mean, I shouldn’t have waited for her to wake up? I should have simply gone home and walked around like nothing was wrong, while she was here alone, possibly dying?

“Why is that?” I finally managed to get out, reaching out to hold one of her tiny, freezing hands between mine, and although she once again looked up in shock at me, she seemed somewhat grateful, the goosebumps along her arms showing just how cold she really was.

“I mean… You just didn’t have to, Andy. I know you’re a nice guy, I wouldn’t have agreed to go on that date with you if I didn’t think so, but I think this is too much, even for you. You barely know me. There was no reason to feel so obligated to keep me company, you know?” And just when I was sure that the pain in my chest signaled a heart attack, she looked down at our joined hands, squeezed mine and said, “Although I must admit, I’m kinda glad you did. I’ve been dreaming about our second date ever since you brought me back to my apartment and gave me that kiss.”

The weight of my wedding ring suddenly became all I could focus on, even if she didn’t even seem to realize the metal was there, warming her cold skin. But it was the burning of the matching jewelry safely tucked inside my pocket since the night of the accident that really made me realize that car crash might have taken more from me than I ever expected.

#andy barber angst #andy barber #angst #andy barber fanfiction #my series #andy barber requests #andy barber request #andy barber fan fiction #andy barber fic #andy barber fics #andy barber reader #andy barber reader insert

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aristidetwain · 3 years

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The Shared Dalek Universe of the 1960s: A Case Study

In 2011 (a little over ten years ago!), El Sandifer cited my dearly-beloved 1960s Who Annuals as examples of stories which ended up influencing the TV series many years down the line despite making an unrepentant hash of continuity.

Her first example is that the Doctor is called Dr. Who, and that he alternates between being from Earth on one page, and not being from Earth three pages later. I would point out that TV was doing much the same thing in those days, and went on flip-flopping basically until Jon Pertwee, so it’s not a terribly good argument to begin with.

However, she spends more time pondering the Daleks of the comics. These Daleks, she notes, are very different from those on television at the time. There are hordes of them, they travel in fleets of saucers, and they’re ruled by the Emperor. This contradiction, she argues, later fed back into the TV series in the RTD era, when huge fleets of Daleks became the norm and, earlier but still well after the first burst of Annuals, in the form of Patrick Troughton facing a very different Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks.

In no way do I wish to undermine Sandifer’s ultimate conclusion that “canon” in the sense of diegetic consistency is a red herring of little importance, and what matters for any sane definition of ‘canon’ is whether a story is referenced at all, not whether it’s contradicted.

However.

Having gone back to 1966′s The Dalek Outer Space Book, I have made a very startling discovery, in the story entitled The Secret of the Emperor. The rest is after the cut; I will leave you with a delightful panel from this story, showing the “bewildered” Dalek Emperor being bullied by knights at the Battle of Agincourt. (This is one of my favourite Doctor Who images ever, and if it doesn’t put a smile on your face I am not sure I want to take you seriously.)

So, famously, when he debuted in the comics, the Dalek Emperor was not the giant, static Dalek later shown on television in The Evil of the Daleks and The Bad Wolf of the Ways; instead, he was golden, squat, and had a bulbous head; to house all the ego, one expects.

Thus, most people will point at the fact that when the Doctor met “the Emperor” in The Evil of the Daleks, he resided in a huge tower-like casing in the Dalek City, as evidence that although ideas received a first treatment in the comics which later made it to screens, no direct continuity was intended; the comics’ Emperor was an alternate, a first draft, to be discarded once a more definitive TV portrayal emerged.

And yet, of course, it is somehow appealing to think of the two as the same Dalek, isn’t it? John Peel (Dalek writer voted most likely to be a 19th century Victorian man who stumbled into a time eddy; it’s mostly the remarkable sideburns) spent a lot of time in his Dalek novels establishing the life story of the Dalek Prime, the First Dalek Ever, who transitioned from the globe-headed casing to the towery Evil one and then deeply regretted it, what with the “getting killed by his own infighting troops with no way to escape”.

But this is usually viewed as a retcon. A cute retcon, an admirable retcon even, but a retcon. My good friend and esteemed fellow canon-welder, @rassilon-imprimatur, espoused such a view four years ago:

Well, all of this is, if you’ll pardon my French, bollocks. John Peel didn’t make anything up, except for the snappy name of “the Dalek Prime” as a designation for the individual. The Dalek Emperor in Evil of the Daleks was always the Emperor of the 1960s comics, and there is a very good reason for his seemingly-contradictory change of appearance. What’s more, I am not talking about murky authorial intent: these are things that the discerning Dalek fan in 1967 was meant to have known.

Let me wind back the clock to 1966. A Dalek master-plan is unfurling, a multi-media agenda spanning several years, more ambitious perhaps than even Time Lord Victorious in its scope; for the ultimate aim of a small cabal of men including David Whitaker, Terry Nation and Brad Ashton is nothing less than spinning the Daleks out of Doctor Who and into their own non-BBC TV show — to be made in America, and in colour, if you please!

For over a year now, a Dalek story arc has been running in the pages of TV Century 21, tracking the early rise of the Dalek Empire and its early interactions with 2060s humanity. Though the Daleks encroach over other parts of the book, including the headline stories, the bulk of this story arc comes in the form of weekly one-page comics making up one long serialised history of the Daleks, under the minimalist title of The Daleks.

Also under the solo brand of “The Daleks”: Annuals, an exclusive audio story, and, of course, toys. Time for Phase Two. It is time to end the Daleks’ endless confrontations with Dr Who on television, and set the stage for a new status quo able to support the TV series Nation dreams about.

Important background: Terry Nation, famously, does not like the Dalek Emperor. Whitaker made him up without consulting Nation, who maintains that the highest rank in the Dalek hierarchy should be the Dalek Supreme. The Emperor was hard to do away with in the comics, since he was basically the protagonist of the TV21 strip, but one imagines Nation was keen to jettison him from the world of the planned TV series.

I am speculating, of course, but I picture Nation sitting in his office, pondering the two great thorns in the side of the Independant Daleks Masterplan.

Thorn one: the Daleks are entangled with the Doctor both diegetically and symbolically; unless something can be done, the Daleks will remain “the Doctor’s enemies”, and a show where they commit evil and the Doctor fails to show up would ring false with the kids watching. The Daleks must be removed from Doctor Who in a sensational and definitive manner, or the whole enterprise is a nonstarter.

Thorn two: I, Terry Nation, have foolishly allowed David Whitaker to shape the lore of the Daleks, and he has made this Dalek Emperor guy very central to early Dalek history, leading up to the 22nd century Dalek Invasion of Earth that most of the Doctor’s subsequent conflicts with the Daleks have stemmed from. But I do not like the Dalek Emperor. I wish I could get rid of him in my new status quo.

…………Aha.

A triumphant Terry Nation adds a post-it note to the ever-widening corkboard representing the multimedia Dalek Masterplan setting up the TV series, which must already include things like “convince Jean Marsh to come back as Sara Kingdom”. Notes distilled from this corkboard will form the backbone of The Dalek Outer Space Book, this year’s Dalek annual, which exists principally to set up the prospective main characters of the new TV series: Sara Kingdom and Agent Mark Seven, of the Space Security Service.

The new post-it note reads:

Construe the Daleks’ enmity with the Doctor as a personal enmity between the Doctor and the Emperor, a la Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty. Have the Doctor triumph over the Emperor on TV in a big ‘event’ story.

Result: the Doctor-vs-Daleks storyline is over; the Emperor is dead; I get everything I ever wanted.

(Except maybe a pony.)

Then he phones David Whitaker, smirking all the while like an evil genie preparing to grant a badly-worded wish.

“Good news, old chap, I’ve decided you can write a new Dalek story for the BBC, all by yourself. I promise I won’t interfere.”

*confused and delighted David Whitaker noises*

“ And you can even bring in that Dalek Emperor of yours. Yes, you heard me!”

*Whitaker enthusiasm intensifies*

“Ahhh, but there’s a catch. The Dalek Emperor must DIE.”

Of course, like all good Faustian bargains, this is irresistible even though it is ruinous and the victim knows it to be ruinous. Whitaker agrees to the scheme. He and Nation begin planning out the events of the great finale of the Dalek-Doctor confrontation, which will hit the screens in 1967 as the mildly racist, but otherwise quite well-loved, ‘The Evil of the Daleks’.

Quickly enough, it is decided that Patrick Troughton crouching to berate the short and bubble-headed Golden Emperor would look silly. If the Emperor appears on TV, alongside human performers, then it should tower over them. Besides, this is to be the archvillainous Dalek Emperor’s last stand, and certain traditions must be followed.

Hence another task is added to the bucketlist of the Dalek Outer Space Book: tell the story of how the Emperor transformed from the globe-headed dwarf to some huge and terrible towering form under the Dalek City, for the Doctor to stumble onto later. This rebuilt Emperor may be teased, but must not be truly seen or truly defeated in the book; that would defeat the whole idea.

Hence, The Secret of the Emperor, a story which sees the Emperor becoming self-conscious about his own efficiency and letting the Scientist Daleks rebuild his casing from scratch. The final page is a splash panel, a delightfully nonsensical diagram of the mechanical components of the new casing.

The almost surreal array of colours and shapes is so arresting as to obscure an important detai. Many have seen this page over and over, and yet still missed it. The recent(ish) ‘Anatomy of the New Dalek Emperor’ artwork from Time Lord Victorious clearly looked at this page for reference, in spite of the fact that the TLV Emperor is much more inspired by the old Emperor than the rebuilt one.

Let me spell it out for you: look at the Scientist Daleks in the top right and centre-left. Look at them.

The new Emperor is huge.

And what else?

That Scientist on the left is plugging huge wires snaking from the wall into the tower-casing.

He now resides in the Great Hall of the Dalek City.

The background wall is a weird checkered pattern.

In addition, the following facts are seeded throughout the earlier pages of The Secret of the Emperor.

The point of moving to the new casing was to grant the Emperor increased brain capacity (suitable for concocting masterplans).

He acquired said increased brain capacity to help the Daleks attempt to overcome humanity once and for all.

The Emperor has recently had a trautmatic but eye-opening experience with time travel.

Ignore the fact that the Emperor was here depicted with what appears to be a still fairly bulbous, and golden, head, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is very, very direct setup for how the Doctor finds the Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks — tower-like, in an imperial throneroom in the Dalek City, with a checkered wall pattern, planning out a complicated scheme to harness time travel as a means of defeating humanity once and for all!

Yes, the designs don’t quite match — but how could the artist behind the visuals of Secret of the Emperor have known precisely what Shawcraft would build, a year later, based on the same basic description by Nation & Whitaker? The parallels far outweigh the minor differences in execution. (It’s worth noting that elsewhere in the Outer Space Book a different artist drew what was clearly intended to be the Golden Emperor as a large, golden, but normally-proportioned Dalek, so it’s not like the visual descriptions of these scripts were exceedingly precise…)

The rebuilt Emperor is never seen in the Outer Space Book outside of this ‘dissection’: he is heard throughout The Brain Tappers but kept carefully off-panel, and his new and dangerous new casing is pointedly not destroyed in the story’s conclusion. Well, of course not. That’s what Dr Who is for.

tl;dr: it is not a post hoc retcon, or even a secret, that the round-headed Emperor of the comics became the Dalek Emperor of Evil of the Daleks. A holistic view of the state of Dalek media in 1966-1967 shows that, in fact, it was the whole point that this be the Emperor of the comics; and that the comics had begun setting this up long before Patrick Troughton encountered Edward Waterfield on TV.

And thus, to circle back to Sandifer’s 2011 post, it is not enough to simply say that the “seemingly non-canon” comics inspired the show down the line. In fact in this instance, what appeared on Doctor Who existed for the benefit of the Daleks spin-off — not vice-versa!

#Daleks #Canon-Welding #Doctor Who #Analysis #Doctor Who Meta #Dalek Emperor #Dalek Prime #The Evil of the Daleks #Terry Nation #David Whitaker #Brad Ashton #The Secret of the Emperor #El Sandifer #Canon #Jacob Black

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jokertrap-ran · 3 years

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(光与夜之恋 Light and Night) Main Story Chapter 3-1: 海水与火焰 Seawater & Flames Translation

“The flames of the sunset flicker within your orbs; and the leaves flutter, falling upon the water surface that is your soul.”

*Light and Night Master-list *Spoiler free: Translations will remain under cut *Join the Light & Night Discord (＾▽＾)~ ♪ *CG Image used with permission from 蓝咕咕 ☆ *Main story tag will be #For Light and Night

Brother Mao: It's soooo god-damned hot out today! A new coffee shop opened down the east street with huge grand opening sales. Come on, come on, everyone grab your share!

Brother Mao had just returned to the office after completing his out of office assignment. He didn't even have a minute to spare to put the bag of goodies down, only wiping his sweat before giving said goodies out to everyone.

MC: Thank you, Brother Mao!

Brother Mao waved his hand in dismissal and threw the neatly folded plastic bag into the bin, only for his eyes to suddenly stop on the handle of the door. He incredulously widened his eyes.

Brother Mao: Since when did our door handle get all fixed up?

Li Man'man: No idea. It was already fixed when I came in in the morning.

Hao Shuai: Sister Zheng Lin, did you nag at the administrative department for this?

Zheng Lin: She fixed it. I saw her fiddling around with it when I clocked in this morning.

Zheng Lin retrieved her documents from the photocopier and jerked her chin at me.

Brother Mao: So this is our beloved heroine of the day! Do humbly pardon me!

MC: I'm the one who broke it after all. Plus, it didn't take that long to fix anyway.

Brother Mao poked his head in front of me, curiously twirling the sleeve of the formal dress I was currently fixing up and doing corrections on.

Brother Mao: You're changing it up that much again? You don't have to reply to me, but you're adding these butterflies? That's real creative! ...And they're all made of twisted metal wire?

MC: Yeah. I started out using soft tulle mesh, but it was all droopy and didn't seem very nice for wings that are supposed to look powerful and lively.

Brother Mao: Now not only does this give it a dynamic feel, but also brings about a romantic yet cruel one!

Brother Mao: Not bad, not bad! Keep at it, and you'll definitely be able to finish fixing it up before next week!

MC: But the Deadline got brought forward… She's going to be doing the fitting tomorrow morning, so I have to finish it by today...

Brother Mao: No way! Don't tell me it's that agent again...

He glanced around, checking that no one had their attention turned to us, before leaning down to my ear.

Brother Mao: I asked around about it earlier, and I heard that the agent has a pretty foul temper.

Brother Mao: Not just to the staff, but her daughter as well. She'll start scolding people at the drop of a hat, even if they did nothing!

It felt as if I could hear the piercing and horrid lashing from that day resounding in my ears again. Her words had been ingrained into my very brain like a needle stuck into a pincushion.

Brother Mao: Geez, Lin Yao's such a brilliant kid. What's there for her to be so unhappy about?

Brother Mao: My mom always told me not to blame myself, and that health always comes first, whenever I fail the promotion. She even said that if I couldn't make it big, then I could just go back home and she'd raise me.

MC: I don't know either. Maybe all these feelings we take for granted come on a conditional basis for her, I guess.

He'd stared at the table and spaced out for a long while. It was almost as if he'd retreated into his memory palace as his expression turned a little sad.

Brother Mao: I'll help you twist them into shape too. Just treat it as my way of thanking her for helping us get out of the pickle we found ourselves in that day.

MC: Okay.

Time passed silently, and it wasn't till nightfall that we finished our work. The office had already cleared out a long time ago, and sporadic stars glimmered in the ink-blue sky up above.

Brother Mao: Done!

I nodded at him in gratitude and kept the now completed dress away. That was when a message notification popped up onto my phone screen.

Housing Agent: Miss (Y/n), don't forget that we're supposed to sign the agreement today at 8 PM. Be there or be square!

Brother Mao: What's wrong?

MC: I'm supposed to go check out the new apartment I'm getting with my agent at 8 PM today, and sign the agreement if all goes well.

And the time displayed on my phone right now was… 7:28 PM.

MC: I should run! Thanks for today, Brother Mao! I'll treat you to food next time!

Grabbing my bag and my work ID, I made a mad dash downstairs.

❖☆———————————★❖

I thought that I'd make it there right on the dot if I'd left now, but who knew that the taxi-hailing app had 80+ people waiting in line! Seeing as how the app wasn't an option anymore, all I could do was to run to the nearest taxi stand.

MC: Why's it not here yet…?

I paced back and forth at the stand, but no taxi ever made an appearance. Just as my anxiousness was about to reach a tipping point, a black sports car drew to a stop before me. The car's windscreen slowly rolled down.

MC: ...Evan?

Evan: Waiting for a ride? Headed somewhere?

MC: Yeah. I'm going to take a look at an apartment. The place I'm renting right now is too far from here, so it isn't terribly convenient.

Evan: Location?

MC: Guangqi-Century City.

He slightly inclined his head, glancing at his watch before getting out of his car and opening the door to the passenger seat for me.

Evan: Get on. I'll send you there.

★Night Choice: Turn him down

MC: No need. I'd be causing you too much trouble.

Evan leaned his arm atop the door of the car, beaming as he looked at me.

Evan: Not at all.

Evan: Besides, I don't have anything on tonight. On the other hand, you seem like you're in quite the rush.

Evan: It'll be bad if you end up late for it because you dawdled here.

His eyes were filled with such sincerity that it made me feel like I'd be doing him a disservice if I refused.

I eventually nodded, seeing as there was no way I could shimmy myself out of this without feeling bad about it.

MC: Thanks.

☆Light Choice: Accept his offer

I glanced back at the taxi stand. It didn't seem like a taxi was coming anytime soon. And I'd really be late if I didn't get a suitable ride soon…

MC: Thanks. Don't mind if I do then.

8 PM, right on the dot. We reached the entrance of the housing estate where the agent was already waiting.

MC: Here it is. Thank you for this! I'll treat you to a meal someday!

Evan: Sure.

❖☆———————————★❖

I hurriedly got out of the car as the two agents quickly rushed up to me upon seeing me.

Agent A: You have a good eye, Miss! This apartment's a hot favourite! 10 over people booked slots to come check it out the moment the listing went up!

Agent B: We've kept this apartment for you till now since you seemed especially keen on it!

Agent A: Let's get the contract agreement signed tonight if there are no problems lest it keeps you up at night!

MC: Sorry, but I'll still have to confirm with you again later. Let's go check the house out first.

Both agents sidled up side by side, enthusiastically explaining and introducing things to me on either side as they urged me forwards.

Thud.

The sound of a door closing behind me made me turn, only to see that Evan hadn't left, and had gotten out of his car.

MC: ?

Evan: I'll go with you.

The agents continued their endless stream of marketing chatter as they pointed out every selling point of the apartment.

Agent A: —And that's all from us. If you sign the agreement contract today, then we can persuade the landlord to give us a little discount...

MC: Okay, then I'll-

Evan: Sorry, but we'll think it through a little more. Could you recommend us some other apartments as well? Sorry about that.

I looked at him in surprise, but he gently shook his head. Hence, I calmed my initial excitement down and turned down their request to have the contract immediately signed.

❖☆———————————★❖

The night was already deep into the throes of darkness by the time we returned to the car park.

The riverbank was coloured with streams of yellow light from the streetlamps above in picturesque disorder. I could smell the refreshing scent of blooming greenery that hung in the air.

MC: Was something wrong with the apartment earlier?

Evan: I don't think you'd like to stay in an apartment filled with construction noises, yes?

MC: But I didn't hear anyone renovating anything?

It was only after the words left my mouth that I realized something.

MC: Oh, right. It's nighttime right now, so all the construction workers should be off work by now… Still, how did you know?

Evan: I noticed that there were paint stains at the edge of the neighbouring apartment's door frame upon entering, and it looked rather fresh too.

Evan: Plus, that housing estate was built 10 years ago, yet the elevator has its interiors boarded up with temporary protective boards.

Evan: So, I'd garner that the neighbouring apartment's most likely, not the only one undergoing renovation recently.

MC: I'd never have realized if you didn't point it out…

Evan: And adding on to that, I observed the surroundings a bit when we entered the housing estate and the security personnel stationed nearby seemed rather sparsely spread.

Evan: So it wouldn't be too safe for you to be staying here alone.

MC: Yeah…

Evan continued talking about the pros and cons of the apartment as the enchanting lights from above reflected in his eyes, melding into the smile that wavered within.

MC: You're so knowledgeable when it comes to this. Did you rent an apartment before?

Although, for someone with his family background, he shouldn’t ever need to rent an apartment on his own.

However, Evan nodded, affirming my suspicions.

Evan: I’ve rented a couple of places for my company back when I was in university.

MC: You mean, the company you founded back when you were studying in Lordton?

Evan: You know of it?

MC: I’ve heard of it before! It’s truly a legendary tale!

Evan: Looks like I’ll have to personally clear up the rumours for you then. It wasn’t exactly a smooth experience.

Evan: I, too, encountered a great many difficulties that I hadn’t thought of before during my first time renting an office.

Evan: For example, unreliable agents. The relevant renting procedures never came to pass for a long time due to that.

Evan: Hence, the office wasn’t ready even if all the employees were already in place.

Evan: And another example would be poor property management, with robberies aplenty as a result.

Evan: Also, I had no choice but to take drastic action and relocate the entire office to a new location since I hadn’t initially considered office expansion.

MC: Wow, I never knew that starting a business would be so hard. You’re amazing to have done it!

❖☆———————————★❖

Suddenly, my phone vibrated.

[Guangqi Rental] Whole apartment for lease. Felin Avenue, 199 Street. 1 bedroom and 1 living room. [Guangqi Rental] Whole apartment for lease. Changle Heights. 1 bedroom and 1 living room.

It was the agent, recommending me a couple more apartments.

[Guangqi Rental] How about any of these?

MC: Now that's way too many…

Evan: You can forward them to me if you don't mind. I can check them out with you.

Evan: I might not be very experienced in this, but nothing will go wrong with having another person to think it through with.

MC: Thank you, Evan.

The night breeze blew past, gently ruffling the loose hairs that had fallen out of place in front of Evan’s forehead.

Evan: We've been talking for so long that I forgot that it's already 9 PM. Are you hungry? Do you want to eat anything?

MC: I said I'd treat you! How about we do it now?

MC: Is there anything you'd like to eat?

Evan: Just pick anything you want to eat. I'm fine with anything.

MC: Don't say that! I'm going to need a proper answer from you today.

Evan: Alright then. I'd prefer for it to be something cooling, if possible.

MC: Hmm… Something cooling?

I glanced around, my eyes sweeping past the signboards of teahouses, food stalls, fast food outlets… until it finally stopped on an old and aged sign that stood not too far away.

MC: I know! Wait for me for a while!

❖☆———————————★❖

MC: Auntie! Can I get two servings of red bean ice and two servings of fruit soup?

Many customers surrounded the small shop. The owner stirred the pot of soft red beans, filling the air with a delectably rich scent of sweetness.

Due to the auntie being the only one manning the store, the demand for the red bean ice far exceeded the available supply. Hence, I had to wait for quite a while before my order finally got done.

Just as I happily took the icy delights from her, the pitter-patter of rain sounded from behind.

The rain came down hard and vicious.

The raindrops that pelted against the roof were akin to silver metal wires, trapping me within the confines of the narrow eaves.

With no other option in sight, I held the two cups of icy treats to my chest using my wrist and freed a hand to shoot Evan a message to inform him of my predicament.

However, before I could fish out my phone… a silhouette had come to a stop before me. He put the umbrella away.

MC: I was just about to ping you. What are you doing here?

Evan didn’t say anything, only smiling gently as he took the icy treats from my arms, quietly standing by my side.

Evan: The rain should cease soon. Let's wait together.

MC: ...Okay.

The curtain of rain secluded us in our own little world, and the puddles, reflecting the neon lights of the signboard above, rippled from the night breeze of summer.

And like a domino effect, this soft and gentle ambience made our moods calmer and much more relaxed in turn.

❖☆————— ⊹ For Light & Night⊹ —————★❖

Previous Part: (Chapter 2-24 Light) / (Chapter 2-24 Night) | Next Part: (Chapter 3-3)

#光与夜之恋 #Light and Night #Otome #Translations #Tencent #萧逸 #Osborn #齐司礼 #Sariel #陆沉 #Evan #查理苏 #Charlie #夏鸣星 #Jesse #For Light and Night

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googledocsdyke · 3 years

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i have not seen any episodes of spn past season 10. but i am asking u because i trust ur opinion. should i watch the other 5? or is it not worth it?

oh ABSOLUTELY watch the other 5. you'll get some big hits and some big misses. my opinion on ~dabb era~ as a cohesive concept changes every time the wind blows but (and i was yelled at on discord for this) season 12 is one of my singular favourite seasons of supernatural. some general pros of seasons 11-15:

- genuinely post-carver supernatural just feels like it's less afraid to have fun. like you get yockey and perez who specialise in writing an all-caps WHAT IF... on the top of a whiteboard and just fucking slamming the gas from there. but like WITH the reading. the 3-episode season 12 yockey hat trick is like. BING BANG BOOM. angel gender! cas backstory! hunter funerals that aren't lonely devastated burnings but a big crowded house full of drinking games and collective community lore! THEE banes twins! other one-episode wonders include the chitters, scoobynatural, baby, regarding dean, tombstone, ouroboros, mint condition..... late seasons supernatural is at its best when it says fuck the very tiresome molasses mytharc and let's be insane and do a Concept. and it WORKS. like the finales mostly drag but many individual episodes are so good that i could live there

- you get claire's coherent arc!! miss newton killed it in 10x09 and 10x10 and 10x20 but a lot of it is claire having like. the worst fucking life of all time and being prickles and thorns and too much anger behind too small of a gun. her relationship w jody is SO good and aching and the wayward sisters setup is super fun even if. yknow. they didn't follow through

- BILLIE is truly one of the best chars they've ever done though they did her dirty at the end. like she haaaates the winchesters but rather than being some deep seething hyper-personal resentment she has a fascinating relationship to like. the desire to generally bring order to the universe — not imposed power, but just like the natural cycle of being in the world. in a way she's not so much working against the winchesters as she is the like very existence of the entire show — what dies Should stay dead and what is clearly dying Should be put out of its misery and YET the show rolls on. like it's deliciously uncomfortable every time she's on the screen because she's RIGHT! the only reasons the winchesters "should" survive another day is like.... they want to. her style her flair her lines her philosophy her position as Librarian mwah!

- rowena as well. god. milfnatural REALLY goes crazy in the later seasons i don't know what to say she's so good. the FLAIR the drama the royal court shakespeare production of it ALL

- MARY PLOTLINE HIIIIII. WOW. Well. if i think about mary for too long my brain does microwave noises but like the fact that they Literally resurrect the ghost of an inciting incident, the mother-as-plot device who does not speak, never the mourner eternally mourned???? And they stick her into the living world????? And she takes off that stupid nightgown???? big qualms w mary in lebanon and lack of john followthrough BUT LIKE. and her relationship with dean like she cannot meet his eyes. she cannot meet his eyes. multiple dean mary scenes that i cannot physically watch it's like a live wire MMM DELICIOUS

- JACK. SO important to understanding cas' arc. he is gay and he is a dad and he is a dad ON PURPOSE w such sweetness and sincerity and presence like i will become so fiercely father-shaped it's just quite excellent like the dude queers fatherhood. i am of split minds of how they did the dean jack relationship bc at the risk of over-spoiling it i think it's all setup and no followthrough/denouement/proper resolution. and like this is a general problem w supernatural in general that doesn't go away in late seasons you can see the moving parts of something great and then they kind of shrink back and explain it away in the vaguest way possible. But still. jack amazing mesmerising so much potential much of it realised it IS ABOUT father and sons

- you get to see dean and cas build up to 15.18. which is just, like, delicious and SO rewarding. season 12 almost-get together! widower arc! divorce arc! tenuous quasi-parenting debates! all building to I Love Every Body Be Cause I Love You

basically like much of supernatural, it has a lot of truly delicious moving parts with a lacklustre mytharc and some truly egregious writing decisions thrown in. it's not coherent in a way that supernatural has never been and arguably gets worse. BUT it has some of my personal favourite characters and writers of all time and if you want to see any of the above it's like. entirely worth it. and there is something delightful if disturbing in watching a show go on for so long that it parodies itself and references itself and eats itself whole. it is so often so much FUN let's hear it for cwification

#answered #anonymous #sorry for this being insanely long. also this isn't my coherent/complete view on 11-15 just some of the delights that come to mind #spn

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aellynera · 3 years

Text

An Off Day (Nathan Bateman x Reader)

AN OFF DAY

(okay, look. my husband thought he was being funny and said “give me a character and i’ll give you a scenario” and then i snorted laughing and then...well. this happened. set sometime before the events of the movie.)

((shoutout to @anetteaneta for an important bit of info and @tinygaydemonbby for the random chat and another key bit.))

Word Count: 2100(ish)

Summary: It’s your day off and you’re just trying to enjoy it. Nathan is working and he’s trying to enjoy it. It doesn’t at all go the way you imagined.

Warnings: Cursing. Banter. Robot sex (not graphic). Personal injury. Innuendo. Propositions. Nudity. Complete and utterly ridiculous trash. Possible typos. Nathan Bateman.

The absolute magnificence of the Alaskan landscape was something that, quite frankly, you were never going to get used to. The trees, tall and majestic, towering over the lush green grass. The river, crisp and pristine, bubbling its way to the immense waterfall that cascaded down the cliff face and eventually made its way into the ever-vast ocean. The bald eagles that would soar from treetop to treetop, even the occasional moose that would make itself known at the edges of the compound and then disappear like ghosts into the forest beyond.

It was otherworldly.

The occasional twig snapped and leaf crunched under your boots as you hiked along your usual trail along the north side of the property. Today’s air felt cool on your cheeks despite the sun overhead; at least it was summer - technically, even if the temperature wasn’t getting much above 60 degrees Fahrenheit these past few weeks - so you had twenty hours of daylight instead of the twenty hours of darkness in winter.

You found your favorite spot on a nearby rock and perched on the smooth surface, tilting your face up to that glorious, shining orb. This really was what you needed right now.

*ding!*

...And that was really what you didn’t need. Definitely not right now, and probably not later either. Speaking of otherworldly.

Your boss was a difficult man, and you had a strange rapport with him that was irritating on a daily professional basis, and to your dismay, increasingly so on a personal level. To be fair, you were the only two humans out here. To also be fair, your boss was kind of annoyingly hot.

You sighed and reached into your pocket, pulling out your phone and glancing at the screen.

God: Where the fuck are you?

God? What the… You were annoyed by the text, but more annoyed by the name. When the hell did that bastard changed his name in your phone? He was insufferable on the best of days, but this was a new low. A new high? You weren’t really sure. Sighing, you shot a text back.

You: It’s my day off.

God: You know that’s not really a thing here right?

You: It is when I need a break from you.

God: I’ll make it up to you.

You: Unless you’re asking me to dinner, I don’t want to hear it.

You groaned. You really didn’t mean to say that.

The little ellipses that showed he was typing back flashed across the screen several times, then stopped. Then popped back up, and stopped again. And just because your boss was your boss, it did it four more times, but still no response.

You shoved your phone back in your jacket pocket and returned your attention to the river, breathing deeply and watching the water swirl around a pile of rocks on the opposite bank.

*ding!*

Dammit.

God: I need you to come back like right now.

You: I’m not gonna sit around and be your Eliza Doolittle today, Nathan.

You weren’t just saying that. Last week, the man had dragged you, literally, into the lab by your elbow and had you repeat vowel sounds and random words extremely phonetically while holding a pulsing orb of glowing blue goo. He claimed it was some kind of brain training. You’d said it wasn’t part of your job description, but honestly, it probably was. You were there to assist, you were there to manage, you were there to occasionally have a satisfyingly intelligent and non-arrogant conversation, and you were mostly there to make sure Nathan Bateman didn’t blow anything up or burn anything down.

That didn’t necessarily mean you liked any of it. Okay, fine, you kind of liked the assisting part and definitely the intelligent conversation part. But it was your day off, and all you wanted to do was not be in the house.

God: What? No, it’s...I just need your help with something.

You: Nathan. It. Is. My. Day. Off. No assistance today. Bother me tomorrow.

God: ...Please?

That gave you pause. Since when did he actually ask for anything politely?

You: Fine. I’m halfway up summit trail, give me like 20.

God: Make it 10.

You: Asshole.

God: And bring a bag of frozen peas.

What the actual hell.

You blinked at the screen twice, turned your phone off completely, and started back towards the house.

*****

You didn’t know why you paid the slightest bit of attention to Nathan’s request, but once in the house, you found yourself in the kitchen, pulling a bag of frosty legumes out of the freezer. With it in hand, you made your way to the lab.

Nathan hadn’t told you where he was, but you knew where to find him. He was always in the lab.

“Okay, I’m back,” you called out as you pushed through the door to Nathan’s inner sanctum. “Now what is so damn important that…”

“Oh thank fuck,” Nathan’s voice called out. “Do you have the stuff?”

You glanced around suspiciously. You couldn’t see him. Until you came around the side of the long table in the middle of the room and found him. Your eyes widened at the sight of Nathan, curled up on the floor in a fetal position, sweating and vaguely shaking.

And totally naked.

He glanced up as he saw your shoes approached and weakly raised his arm and made a grabby hand. “Gimme.”

Tossing the frozen vegetables to him, your mouth opened and closed several times, trying to process the scene. Before you could really take it all in, you watched as Nathan reached over his shoulder, grabbed his discarded t-shirt, and wrapping the icy bag in the shirt, placed it directly on his crotch.

“All right,” you finally got out, “what the actual hell is going on?!”

“Ohhhhh,” Nathan moaned as the cold compress made contact with his skin. “I thought I was gonna die.”

“Why are you naked?” you yelled at him.

“There was a malfunction,” he replied, nonchalant as if you were simply discussing the weather.

You just gaped at him. This was definitely not in your job description.

“A malfunction,” you repeated.

Nathan made a feeble gesture at the table. It was covered in metal parts and wires, screwdrivers and other things you assumed were robotic but couldn’t recognize. He had been working a new body build for the past few days, that much you knew. But now there were metal bits everywhere and Nathan was bare as the day he was born, sprawled in the middle of the floor. Your eyes scanned the table again; the biggest object, in the middle of the mess, looked sort of like...oh, you did not like where this was going. You pinched the bridge of your nose.

“I may have miscalculated the required tension,” Nathan said, still curled up on the floor.

The required...oh hell no.

“Nathan...you know you’re the literally the smartest person I know, and you know I think you’re brilliantly creative and inventive and all that important stuff, but please, please tell me you were not actually doing what I think you were doing,” you muttered.

“I was working!”

“You know I can just check the security footage, right?” you stared him down.

Nathan looked at you over the top of his glasses. “I had to test it and make sure it worked.”

You buried your face in your hands.

“Why does a robot have to have working...parts?!” As soon as you asked, you wished you hadn’t. This idiot genius actually had the nerve to blush. Slightly. He would never admit it, but his ears definitely got pinker than they’d been a few seconds ago.

Nathan sat up suddenly and glared at you, adjusting the ice pack again - thank the heavens - to keep himself covered. “First of all, it’s not a robot, it’s an AI. There’s a big difference. And second of all, we talked about this. The point is to make it as human as possible, so this particular part was necessary.”

The glare you shot back at him could have melted his current loincloth. It was your day off and Nathan couldn’t even leave you be for one whole day without his compulsion to cater to whatever whim was in his head and get under your skin. You dropped into one of the lab chairs.

“So...let me get this straight,” you sighed. God help you. But not the God in your cell phone, because he could go fuck himself. Or get fucked. Whichever.

Suddenly, through your haze of utter exasperation, what you’d just thought clicked into place and you snorted a laugh. Your eyes flashed over to the thing in the middle of the table. It was definitely shaped like a pelvis.

Nathan’s eyes became daggers. “What’s so fuckin’ funny?”

Your eyes went to the thing on the table and to his hands, and then back again. You shook your head, cleared your throat, and tried not to laugh again. It didn’t work. “Sorry. Um. So...what you’re saying is...you got injured because you were...fucking a robot pelvis.”

“I should fire you,” Nathan grumbled.

“And you got injured - from fucking a disembodied robot pelvis -”

“I am so going to fire you.”

“...because it was too...tight?”

“I shouldn’t have asked for your help. I should have just let myself die here, naked and unsatisfied.” He flopped back down.

You couldn’t help yourself any longer. Your laughter rang through the lab, a mixture of actual amusement and horrified reality. You snorted again and that made you laugh harder. Nathan had always joked about making a sex robot. Well, you thought he had been joking, but now, clearly not - and he’d hurt himself in the actual process of trying to make sure it worked. You weren’t a monster, you hoped he wasn’t truly actually injured, but you also took a little satisfaction in knowing karma existed.

After a few minutes, you wiped your eyes and looked down at him. Nathan stared back, but you could see the start of a sheepish smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“I told you I miscalculated the tension. It was fine--”

“Until it wasn’t?” you wheezed.

“--until it cut off all the circulation to my dick.”

You bit your lip. “Nathan Bateman. You literally cockblocked yourself.”

He didn’t respond right away. But then he spoke, at the same moment you noticed the smirk on his face fully bloom and what you’d come to call his “up to some bullshit” look glimmer in his eyes.

“Are you gonna come help me or not?”

“Excuse me?” You were fairly certain your eyebrows could not go any farther up your forehead.

“Well, I’m not in excruciating, unimaginable pain now, and I’d like to make sure my dick isn’t going to fall off. And I didn’t finish. Need a little help here.”

“You want me to--” you stuttered.

“Un-cockblock me,” his wolfish smile broke out fully now.

You hurled a pen at his head. “You really are an asshole.”

“I admit,” he continued, easily dodging your projectile, “this wasn’t what I was expecting for the first time you saw me naked, but I’ll work with what I got.” He started to remove the ice pack.

Another pen went flying his way. “You know, I’m just going to pretend that you’re not about to flash me with your mechanically impaired penis, and that you didn’t just proposition me, and I’m leaving this room now,” you said, standing up and shaking your head.

“Baby, you’re just gonna leave me hanging here?” he grinned, stretching back out on the floor. He folded his hands behind his head. The t-shirt wrapped bag of frozen peas remained - now perched rather proudly, you noted - on his groin.

A vexed growl left your lips as you walked towards the lab door. “Leaving now!”

“Well could you at least toss me my pants?”

You glanced down. Nathan’s sweatpants were balled up behind the lab door. How they’d gotten all the way over here...nope. Nope. You decided that information was entirely unnecessary.

You threw his pants at him and they hit him in the face with a satisfying whump.

“You sure I can’t convince you to help me out here?” Nathan asked serenely from under the fabric.

He couldn’t see the small smile on your face as you walked out the door. Thank god. Or...God. Whatever. The man was a menace.

“Ask me to dinner,” you called over your shoulder.

“I’ll text you,” he called back.

God.

~end~

taglist: @anetteaneta @autumnleaves1991-blog @damerondjarin @deeandbobbymcgee @rosemarysbaby13 @iamthe-shadow-on-the-wall @itspdameronthings @poedjarin @spider-starry @tinygaydemonbby @writefightandflightclub @woakiees @veuliee2 @yourbucky084

(taglist open, click here to join if you’d like)

#nathan bateman #nathan bateman x reader #fanfic #oscar isaac characters #my writing

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theroyalmile · 3 years

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No Returns, No Exchanges

Disclaimer: I have debated for quite a while whether or not I should post this blog. Social media is such a curated space for joy and happiness, it can feel oppressive at times. There is so much life-changing positivity, from engagements to new jobs; and don’t get me wrong, that happiness is great to see. But on the other hand, all of that positivity makes me feel like sharing any kind of negative information is attention-seeking and an immense overshare. So let’s ask ourselves why I feel that way. Why is happiness celebrated while the sad, sometimes harsh realities of life are thought to be oversharing? More specifically, why do we feel like life-changing news can only be shared when it doesn’t make other people uncomfortable? Our expressions of pain should not be regulated by the comfort levels of the people who surround us. There comes a time when not sharing something begins to feel like hiding something, and hiding something turns to shame. That is a feeling that I refuse to welcome into my life right now. So here we go.

It has been a while since I posted anything… a really long while. It has been rare, these past few years, that I have even felt I had anything much to say let alone write anything, mostly because my life has been fairly normal, fairly unextraordinary, and I am rather blessed to be saying that during such a difficult time for so many. The few moments where I have felt like I had something to say have been fleeting, and after a good 2am word vomit on paper, I have filed these musings under “not to be seen by the light of day” which is probably for the best.

Sometimes in the past I would find myself wishing I had something interesting going on in my life, something worthy of commentary… I don’t know, I was thinking like a cool hobby, an interesting skill, a kick-ass career, or a run in with Tom Hardy like I’d always dreamed of… something.

Well, to whoever is in charge, this is not what I meant, and I would like to request a refund.

Because as its final parting kick in the ass 2020 decided to gift me with breast cancer. This isn’t a bad punch line, it’s just the truth.Let me give you a second to process that one. I certainly needed a few.

The thing is, a little itty bitty 3-centimeter tumor- that’s not something I can give back, as much as I might want to. It’s not a too-large sweater you can return with a gift receipt, and it’s not a bad haircut you can complain about and get your money back (though it certainly will include one in a week or so!)

A lot of you already know this story and frankly it’s not one I can tell with much finesse or humor, so I will keep it brief. It was a dark and stormy 6pm when I found a lump in my breast in the shower back in November. My initial thought was “you’re a crazy lady and a hypochondriac, let’s give it a few weeks since this is probably nothing.” A few weeks, when my imaginary lump seemed to not actually be imaginary, I figured okay, it’s time to see my doctor, it’s probably nothing but we need to make sure. I was in fact so unconcerned about it that I didn’t even see my regular doctor. I figured I just needed a medical professional to feel me up and let me know what to do next. I didn’t even bother mentioning it to my parents. (For context of my laissez-faire, when I was 14 I found a lump in my breast that turned out, after little fanfare, to be a cyst which was unceremoniously drained on a cold metal table by a male doctor in a somewhat traumatizing but ultimately benign event. That’s a longer story for later).

Cue a physical exam, confirming I was not crazy and there was a lump, but it was probably nothing; an utltrasound, confirming the lump was a shape that they did not like, but it was probably nothing; and an ultrasound guided biopsy, in which the probably nothing was sampled. The week between Christmas and New Year’s was spent impatiently waiting for the news, increasingly feeling that my probably nothing was maybe, actually something.

On December 28 around lunch time I received a phone call in the middle of the work day from the radiologist, who while very nice, was someone I had only met once while she shot a needle in and out of my boob. She asked me how I was doing and then told me my test results were in. “I’m sorry to say it’s not good news,” she said.

And believe it or fucking not my immediate thought was “It’s not good news… it’s great news!” My brain supplied this as if on autopilot like some kind of 90s game show host, knowing fully well that I would not be so lucky because we are not living in a Brooklyn 99 episode. It’s weird where your brain goes under duress.

It was one of the most uncomfortable phone calls I have ever had, wherein I found myself trying to reassure a complete stranger that I was okay and I’m pretty sure I even said, “it is what it is.” I was told a breast surgeon and oncologist from my provider network would be in contact and the call ended. Ultimately, I was diagnosed with Stage 1B Triple Negative Invasive Ductal and Lobular Carcinoma. No returns, no exchanges.

I am two months into my diagnosis, and 1/8 of my way through chemotherapy, the first part of a three series treatment (to be followed by surgery and then likely radiation.) This Friday, after my second chemotherapy treatment, I will begin to lose my hair. Anyone who knows me at all knows that the hair loss will be a pill likely far harder for me to swallow than the chemo itself. And while the look may have worked for Demi Moore in GI Jane, I do not have her bone structure, nor her body. I anticipate I will look more like the yellow peanut M&M, which while obviously the best M&M of the bunch, I think we can all agree is not a cute look for me.

I do not say this to be melodramatic, I just say this because I am cynical and pragmatic by nature: I am not particularly surprised that I have cancer. And this is for several reasons, some of which probably deserve a longer blog later. To put it simply, I have been surrounded by cancer, both by choice and by cruel fate and happenstance, my entire life.

Cruel Fate and Happenstance: Having several relatives who have gone through cancer, and a mother with a BRCA 1 genetic mutation (which I had a 50% chance of inheriting, and in fact did) I always figured it would eventually happen to me. The odds this condition dealt me? “About 13% of women in the general population will develop breast cancer sometime during their lives. By contrast, 55%–72% of women who inherit a harmful BRCA1 variant… will develop breast cancer by 70–80 years of age.” That 55-72% is the kind of percentage you want winning the lottery, but the lottery this most certainly is not, and that much I understood. So, I always figured something like this would probably happen. Did I think I would be 28? No. But I figure that just makes me an overachiever.

Choice: I volunteered at a cancer support non-profit from the time I was 12 to the time I was 22, and I wrote my college senior thesis in anthropology on women with ovarian cancer, the cancer that killed my aunt Lizzy when I was 4 years old. I have likely read more books on cancer than your average newly diagnosed person, which I find to be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I know some of what’s coming. On the other hand, I know some of what’s coming. Of course I don’t think any of these things gave me cancer but you might say I have been training for this my whole life. I think this joke is far funnier than pretty much everyone I say it to except my immediate family, because the Tenney/Koss folk are very big on gallows humor, in which case this is hilarious. Comedy is our family coping mechanism, and I am guilty of occasionally forgetting not everyone is wired like that.

So where are we right now? Taking it day by day. Do I frequently find myself wallowing in self-pity these days? Sure. But all the same I feel truly lucky. This is a feeling I am trying to hold on to, because I think the other options might be truly unbearable. Why? Well, I found this tumor. I’m 28-years-old, which means I am hardly old enough for a regular mammogram and MRI. My last yearly physical was a TeleHealth appointment (hence no actual physical) and I will be honest, I never made a habit of regularly checking myself like I should have. But this tumor just presented itself casually during a shower. Breast cancer, when caught early, is highly treatable and curable, and I am fairly confident, knock on wood, that is where this particular nightmare is headed. The fact that it was caught early: pure luck.

Another reason I feel lucky is for the most part, I feel like I actually have the stability to handle the oncoming struggle. I have a large and wonderful support system, an incredible and supportive partner, a savings account with actual savings in it, and a job where I am cared about as a human. If this had happened to me three years ago, almost none of these things would be true. There will never be a good time to have cancer, but some times are apparently better than others. Of course, the ongoing pandemic means I can’t have people go with me to chemo, or my wig fitting, or my surgery consultations, and alone a lot of this seems much more daunting and difficult than it might otherwise have been, but I am trying to make a habit of counting my blessings, and despite this terrible thing I’ve been given, my blessings are many.

There isn’t a “right way” to have cancer, but I think there might be a “right way” for me. I am a private person and I find sharing some of these details difficult and more than a little uncomfortable, but I am also intimately familiar with the healing nature of writing and comedy, so I am going to give it a shot.

And now that I think of it… the peanut M&M is going to make a really great Halloween costume.

#cancer #breast cancer #personal #newly diagnosed

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toysoldiers-rwby · 3 years

Text

[CS] 1. The Rebels

Cutting Strings

Characters: Penny, Ironwood, Pietro, Aro Word Count: 5k

Penny is almost ready to leave the lab. But is she truly ready for how unpredictable the world can be?

Read on Ao3

Day 239 since creation. Day three since latest artificial skin tear. Three trials cleared.

Penny waited as Dr. Pietro and General Ironwood configured the training room. She closed her eyes and bounced on her feet. Processors warming up for the trial to come, with a review of the previous ones.

The second test was the easiest and soon breathing became second nature. Dr. Pietro and General Ironwood tested her strength. Several broken equipment later, they tested her control. That was the hardest to pass. Everything broke under metal fingers. Dr. Pietro had to make several alterations to the synthetic skin Penny wore. It was a complicated mix of Dust and wires that relayed Aura and pressure to her processors.

The first test overloaded her systems. Too many inputs, too many anomalies. But strangest error was conflicting drivers…

Penny realized it after the 5th prototype. Father didn’t design the artificial skin! No scientist, or official Atlesian scientist did! Ironwood was very hesitant and careful with his words whenever she had asked about it.

Dr. Pietro smiled and said, “You’ll meet her… hopefully soon.”

Penny frowned remembering it. Father said the last bit softly, as if he was whispering to himself. Like it was a secret from the General. But he couldn’t have forgotten her sensitive hearing. One that could detected a change in his voice, even if Penny did not know what it meant. Yet. It was similar to when Ironwood talked about the council.

Was it contempt? What did it feel like?

“Ahem. Penny, darling?” Dr. Pietro called out. A hand rested against her own and Penny opened her eyes. Her background processors did tell her someone was approaching but she was too focused on internal questions.

“Is the last trial ready?”

“Yes but… is something on your mind?”

“Is that possible?” Penny asked with wonder. “The mind doesn’t take physical form so-”

“No, no, darling,” Dr. Pietro chuckled softly. He let her hand go after softly patting it. “You seemed to be thinking hard about something.”

“Oh!” Penny perked up, “It’s about who created this artificial skin. Does General Ironwood not want me to meet them? If they are capable of adding functionality or upgrades wouldn’t it be more productive if they know what I am?”

Dr. Pietro was silent for a moment. Penny saw his eyes flicker, small twitches in his face before everything smoothed out. He let out a long and tired sigh, “I guess brains run in the family.” He muttered. She noted soft whispering seems to be personal so she didn’t comment on how brains don’t have the functionality to run. “I tried convincing James but… there are other factors at work.”

“Hm…” Penny nodded. It wasn’t answer but she was satisfied with the attempt. For now.

Penny entered the training room. Hard-light shaping the room into one with random short square. Up in the control room, Penny could see the unique silhouette of her father and his chair next to Ironwood. They talked briefly before the General’s voice came through the speakers.

“Penny, your final test is a combat test. Your goal isn’t just to destroy the bots, it’s to show me what your made of.”

She frowned, head tilting and raising a brow. “But sir… You already know what I’m made of.”

There was a moment of silence. Then some soft chuckling through the speakers. “Show me that you are combat ready.”

That lit a spark in Penny. She grinned, swords flaring from her backpack. “Yes, sir!”

Side panels opened an Atlesian Knight-130 marched into the training room. They were… stiff. Mechanical. She looked at her own hands for a moment. Opening and closing them. The artificial skin detected her fist, hide the ball joints. Everything looked natural…

Penny looked forward, “Ready, sir!”

The AK-130 opened fired and marched forward. The bullets were easy to deflect with Floating Array and it took little effort to slice them open. She took a moment, looking at the sparks and wires…Then next wave AK-130 marched forward, opening fire. It was wasn’t a challenge. They were predictable. Her own programming was far beyond what the AK line could simulate.

2, 3, 4 waves later and she looked to the control room. Penny saw two additional figures before the speakers on the AK-130 crackled to life.

“Security Breached-”

“Uh! Ignore that!” A stranger’s voice quickly said over intercom. “I have full permission to alter their program this time!”

“This time…” Another women softly muttered with a snort.

For a moment the AK-130’s guns lowered. Then several in the rear broke out into a sprint- Penny gasped. Flanking maneuvers were beyond this current model. Her instincts moved Floating Array in front of her. Spinning blades slicing bullets. Two bots ran left. Two running right. Three marched forward, a constant burst of bullets.

Penny retreated back. Floating Array shifted into guns and boosted her into cover. That was her intention anyway. She technically didn’t need it-

“Oh!” A bullet bounced off the hard-light structure. Penny stepped behind it. There was a conflict in her programming. There was a 100% chance of success in standing her ground and fighting, a 20% she might get hit. But… she wasn’t scared. So what if she got hit? Her chassis can withstand more pressure than the bullets can create. Yet was just something telling her to protect herself.

But she was not in any real danger.

The flanking robots appeared first, only to be shot in half. Floating Array spun around her. Red and faint smoke caught her eye. She had charged it too fast. With a small frown Penny shifted it back into her swords. Jumping out of cover she sent them flying forward, piercing the remaining three robots.

After that the waves blurred together. No breaks. Just an endless stream. The bots grew more and more challenging. From basic flanking maneuvers to militant sacrifices and distractions. Sometimes her own AI struggled to find a satisfying solution and it left her frozen on the battlefield. Then the bigger guns came out.

The Spider Droid.

It dropped in front of her from the ceiling. Metal tiles broke under its feet, a small explosion of sparks, wires, and broken metal. Penny blinked up at it. That didn’t make sense. General Ironwood would never allow such a dangerous-

The cannons charged.

Penny stood her ground, stance widening as Floating Array charged for another attack.

The intercom crackled, the two strangers bickering despite the General’s presence.

“Are you crazy!? That will kill her!”

“Ironwood said not to hold back!”

“Of course an Atlesian wouldn’t understand consequence! Shut it down or-”

Penny gasped. The cannons fired before they were fully charged. Floating Array pushed her back, firing at the ground just avoiding the attack.

“Glade! Get back this instant!” This time Ironwood’s voice rang through the speakers instead of being muffled through thick glass. A few seconds later the doors of the training room opened. A women with familiar yet unfamiliar gold horns skated in on hard-light blades that cut into the metal floor. She was in the Military’s Database, but file came up. Not an ally, not another soldier, a student… A civilian.

What was the General doing? Why was she in this facility?

Penny frowned. “Ma’am. Please evacuate.”

The goat Faunus paused, staring at her with… an expression. One Penny have never seen in the labs, with her father or General Ironwood. Brows furrowed, mouth in a small scowl, head tilted. Did Faunus express themselves different? Penny filed it away for later. Right now a flash of alarm came over the Faunus features.

“Move!” In a burst of bright red and purple she was suddenly carrying Penny. Metal talons of the giant security bot pierced the floor where they both once stood.

Her metal frame was nearly five times stronger than the floor. Without reinforcing it with Aura. “Your assistance is not necessary!” Penny frowned struggling against a surprisingly tight hold.

“Glade!” The General’s voice came from the speakers again. It was lower, hard. Her programming instantly recognize it as commanding and furious. She didn’t like it. “Do not interrupt Ms. Polendina’s combat test.”

“Not happening Tin Man!” The women yelled back with a roll of her eyes. Glowing Eyes… Civilians don’t normally have their semblance unlocked. Penny heard a soft sound of metal cutting metal and looked down. The hard-light blades barely floated above the surface, then it dug deep stopping the drift. Purple glow and weightlessness despite Penny’s high density? Gravity Dust, Penny concluded with a nod, and a very skilled, non-civilian usage of it. “Besides, you seriously thought I’d just stand by and watch? What does my record say?”

*“Technically Glade doesn’t have a record because she was found innocent of all the 43 charges of assault. Or she was assisting legal Huntsmen, so there for it wasn’t assault.” The hacker’s voice playfully informed.

Glade huffed, glaring up at the control room. Then those glowing blue eyes shifted to Penny. “Want to shut them up?”

“I… I…” Penny froze. Her processors didn’t know what to make of Glade’s tone or grin. Part of her said not to follow the advice of a women with a possible criminal record. But this situation was an anomaly her simulators could never mimic. Curiously eventually won but Penny’s caution didn’t fade. “Possibly. What do you have in mind?”

“Teach that Atlesian what consequence means.” Glade suddenly dodged back, eyes not leaving Penny even as several shots followed her. The women easily dodged them all. “The main cannon is on cooldown! We need to piss it off first!”

“That is counterproductive to my goal!”

Glade rolled her eyes. Much to Penny’s relief, the possible Civilian stopped blindly dodging and finally looked at the Spider Droid. Penny noted the glowing Dust in the women’s legs. It glowed a soft purple, as gravity gently lifted her off the ground again. Small debris floated until Glade drifted away.

“Is it really a victory if it ain’t fun?” The non-combative asked with a wink. Penny frowned and didn’t answer. She allowed Glade to focus on dodging.

Why would enjoyability of her mission override the results?

The fight continued and with two targets the Spider Droid was more aggressive. Penny was more passive. She couldn’t take any drastic measures with an unknown variable on the field. She had to be more careful, more mindful of the synthetic skin hiding her metal frame. Worst yet she couldn’t entirely focus on the Droid. More and more processing power went to Glade, trying to predict her next move and analyzing the fastest way to help her.

The Faunus women should be frighten. She had no weapon to defend against one of Atlas’ strongest military robots. Instead, the non-combative laughed. A glance at Floating Array showed no signs of overheating. She sent the blades as deep as she could get it into the Spider Droid’s chassis.

Too deep.

Penny gasped, pulling the strings but it didn’t budge. Glade jumped on, gravity Dust latching her onto the metal as if it was the floor. She pulled at the handle of the swords but that didn’t work either.

“And victory goes to me!” The hacker laughed over the speakers. The main cannons started charging again. Glade cursed, kicking at the joints but the hard-light blades on her legs couldn’t cleave through the thick metal.

“Jump!” Glade yelled.

Certainly Penny didn’t hear right, “Jump?”

“Yes! Jump!” Glade repeated. “As high as you can!” Penny jumped but didn’t obey the second command. That much force would break the floor. Of course the Droid’s targeting parameters means that the cannon followed her up. The Faunus ran off the barrel and waited a few seconds.

The cannon hummed louder and louder, energy shining bright.

Then Glade leaped off, lunging at Penny and grabbing her. “Oh shit,” Gravity pulled hard on both of them. Much harder than anticipated, with Penny’s mass. Penny barely had time to shift their positions, moving Glade on top of her as her robotic body created small crater in the floor, bending tiles up and causing broken wires to spark at her false skin.

Beyond Glade, Penny saw the cannon aimed at-

“The control room!” Penny gasped.

“Off, off, off!” The hacker’s fingers scrambled across the keyboard. “I can’t-”

Dad!

Penny shoved Glade off her. She charged Floating Array for a full shot and aimed for the rear joints of its legs. It pierce through. The Spider Droid tilted back, impact just a few feet above the control room. Hard-light barrier flickering at the impact. The Spider Droid shut flickered, smoke coming from the joints as it overheated and shut down.

It reminded Penny to take a deep breath. Her Aura was awake and sending nearly overwhelming power through her circuits. Emergency took priority over her own systems and they were on the verge of overheating as well. Penny slowly eased out of a battle stance. It took a while for her combat analysis to catch up and finally read the situation as a success.

It helped that Glade was on the floor laughing. She had a hand over her eyes, “Goddess and Gods! I’ve never been more terrified in my life.”

“And…” Penny frowned looking down at her. “You’re laughing?”

“I’m alive, unharmed, rescued by a cute girl.” Glade listed. There was a quiver to her voice, almost smoothed out with a grin. Penny frowned down at her. Glade, the other visitor called her. “Where’s the negative?” Glade asked rolling onto her knees and pushing herself onto her feet- prosthetic feet, most of her legs were metal- with a long groan. “I’m out of breath. How do people do this?”

“With proper training, one you rejected time and time again,” Ironwood answered through the speakers. Even as Glade made a face and attempted to wave away the voice. “Ms. Glade, Ms. Xanthic. Thank you for your… assistance. A transport will be here shortly to return you both home.”

“Of course he’d want me gone as soon as possible. Can’t blame him,” Glade sighed under her breath. She gave Penny a smile as she walked… or floated- how much gravity Dust is on that women, to the door, “Nice to finally meet you!”

Penny wasn’t sure if the feeling was mutual.

When she returned to the control room. The two strangers were gone but they left small pieces of evidence. Coffee rings on the terminal, which all Atlesian military personal and student faculty knew not to do. Some bits of candy and scratch marks on the floors were proof that Glade was up here too.

“Penny.”

She stood at attention, eyes snapping back to General Ironwood. “Yes, sir?”

“I apologize, I haven’t been completely honest with the final trial.” The General started, “It wasn’t just a combat test, but also how you would handle yourself in an uncontrolled environment, with… unorthodox civilians.” So General Ironwood… brought in a hacker and Glade because he knew and wanted them to disobey orders?

“Gah,” Dr. Pietro scoffed at him, waving Ironwood’s concerns away. “What do you think of Glade, darling?”

Penny paused, replaying footage of the fight. “She’s… good with Dust. Reckless.” Glade dodged without acknowledging the Spider Droid, "Very perceptive." She listed. But it didn’t feel right.

“But what do you think of her?” Dr. Pietro gently prodded.

Penny hummed, trying to turn off her combative protocols and focus beyond the fight. It was difficult. Her programing was confused, telling Penny a civilian wouldn’t run towards danger. “I don’t… understand?”

“She ran out because she thought you were in danger,” Dr. Pietro corrected with a smile. Penny didn’t like the way it lacked the same muscles as usual. How it slowly sank into… something sad? “Glade is hotheaded and stubborn at times, but she’s brilliant. And deep, deep beneath it all, caring.”

“It’s because of that brilliance she shouldn’t be sent on this mission,” Ironwood argued, but it had no real effort in the tone. “Though I suppose a personal connection with you Doctor, will ensure Penny’s success.”

Penny frowned, staying silent until she was finally addressed again. Ironwood listed many cons against Glade and the hacker while her father gently persuaded that some of them were advantages. Her father was silent as the General emphasis that they weren’t trustworthy.

Finally Ironwood sighed, “Penny.” She stood at attention again. “One fight doesn’t prove that you are ready for true combat, against the Grimm, against higher powers, but you have proven capable of fulfilling this duty.” This felt a little redundant but Penny didn’t speak up. She willed her processors to focus on what Ironwood was saying instead of comparing the list of pros and cons herself. How can a kind person be untrustworthy- “So we are sending you to the Vytal Festival.”

“What?” Penny gasped. Her Aura flared a crossed her systems, giving more energy than she needed. She found herself bouncing, fist tightly clenched. “I’m going to Vale!”

“And school,” Dr. Pietro added with a smile.

At that Penny paused, head tilted in confusion. Anything she’d need to know about fighting Grimm could easily be downloaded. Studying was… an obsolete method to obtain information for her.

“It would be suspicious if a student with your talents suddenly appeared at the Vytal festival with no public record. The other nations may try to accuse Atlas of cheating.” Ironwood said with a soft chuckle. “Ms. Glade is one of the possible teammates we have chosen for you.”

“Oh! I think me and Ms. Glade will get along splendidly-” Penny cut herself off with a gasp. What did Glade say? Nice to finally meet you. They did call her brilliant- “Did she design the sensors in the Artificial skin?”

General Ironwood frowned, looking at his right arm. “That… and more,” He said, one again whispering the last bit under his breath. His face was different than her father’s when he did it, but it was definitely not a positive emotion. Could the same physical behavior be used for more than one emotion? Why did the General not trust Glade?

“Father, may I formally met Ms. Glade?”

Dr. Pietro let out a nervous and sad laugh. “Soon, darling. We’ll let Glade recover first. She’s not who she used to be,” His eyes shifted to Ironwood. Why? Whatever look that crossed over her father’s face was gone in an organic blink. “And Ms. Xanthic pushed that Spider Droid well past its limitations.”

With the meeting winding down and Penny’s final trial run a success she was dismissed back to the labs. Her walk was quiet and undisturbed. Only her father and Ironwood had permanent access to this facility. A brief research into Ms. Glade brought up several women in the data banks. She filtered her Faunus Horns and found none.

Penny frowned and adjusted the parameters. Instead of horned Faunus she filtered it to all Faunus’. Only one women came up but the features were wrong. Instead of those golden horns wrapping around her head there was ears protruding from the sides. She looked at the meta data for the date.

Weird right? She looks better with the horns.

Penny paused. Tempering with official Atlas records was a criminal offense. And it was not a glitch. Penny refreshed her visual feed, blinking a few times and referred the page on Glade. The photo changed to one that did not fit Atlas’ requirements for a dossier. All photos must be shoulders up, forward facing with a neutral expression.

This one had several people it and was dynamic. Glade struggled against another Faunus who laughed and used her legs to keep a golden prosthetic horn out of reach- as it sunk into her Deep Pockets. Or at least Penny hoped the horns were prosthetics. The photo itself could be altered. A hacker was not a reliable source of information.

Huntress Fiona Thyme bullying civilian Aurora Glade.

Penny looked around. The hallway was empty but there were was a drop of evidence that someone other than her father and General Ironwood has passed through. Precisely a drop of coffee on the ground. Penny looked around, “Altering Atlas information is a poor method of communication, Ms. Xanthic.” Her scroll pinged before she was done speaking.

“It’s about sending a message.”

“How does changing the delivery method-”

“By the Brothers- I’m not one of Ironwood’s soldiers so he can’t order me around like one. I want to know what’s up.”

“Well… the city of Atlas is up.”

Penny had to wait a few seconds for a response. For some reason it made her nervous.

“Okay, plan b. We’re going to see the goat.”

“The goat- Ms. Glade!”

“Yep. I’ll meet you here.” Ms. Xanthic sent a map of the facility with a red blinking dot at the back. “All the cameras are on loop but hurry. I don’t want get caught again.”

Penny held the scroll to her chest. This… This wasn’t an approved course of action. Meeting a hacker skilled enough play with Atlas Drones and the database was not a smart thing a robot should do. But didn’t care. She bounced on her feet and looked around. If she snuck out her father would be disappointed… Right? But it seems that he wanted her to meet Ms. Glade. For unknown reasons General Ironwood is stopping him. Glade jumped in to rescue her, her father believes Glade is kind and trusting. The Faunus wouldn’t harm her…

But every reason and logic was drowned out by curiosity. This was a situation that was beyond what her simulators could produce.

“Okay.” Penny whispered to herself. She felt… unsure?

The ride to Mantle was awkward and silent, except for the soft music playing from the speakers. Ms. Xanthic was… not as welcoming or kind as Ms. Glades. The only similarity was their abnormal eyes. Glade’s glowed from her semblance while Xanthic’s was glowing obviously cybernetic.

Her first words to Penny was, “Don’t talk to me. Talk to Glade.” So Penny quietly sat in the transport and played with her hand.

Until the view outside… Outside the lab her attention.

“Wow! The sky is gorgeous!” The vast blue melted into pink and reds, brighter than the lights or plasma cutters in the lab. “It’s much different in person…” Penny closed her eyes and pressed her for head to the window. With a thought she recalled her visual data of just seconds before. The view of Atlas and Mantle, the setting sun and a palette of color Penny never saw within shining metal walls. It was better than the pre-installed photos. It was the same as the world beyond the window, pixel for pixel but… Being outside…

“Brothers, you really do sound like Glade sometimes,” Xanthic mumbled under her breath, cybernetic eyes rolling. “But… I know what you mean. Things haven’t been the same with these replacements.”

“If I may,” Penny said looking at the hacker. She gestured for the girl to continue talking, “What happen to your eyes?”

“Nothing you’ll find on the net,” Xanthic said. Her chest puffed out a little proud. The grin on her face matched her a lot better than the scowl but it was gone in a few seconds. “Seems like Dr. P gave you an upgraded version.”

“Oh um… Possibly.”

“What happen to yours?”

At that Penny found closed her mouth, lips pressed to a tight line. Nothing happened to them, she was created with these eyes. But that was highly confidential information. Penny is highly confidential information. She shouldn’t be out here. Penny looked at her hands in her lap, wringing them ever so slightly. If anyone applied the right pressure they could feel the ball joints in her fingers.

“A secret for a secret, Ms. Polendina,” Xanthic said resting back against the backseat. She took a shaky breath and hugged her jacket to herself. “I thought Mantle had heaters? How is it this cold.”

“I…” Penny couldn’t tell a stranger, a hacker, she was a robot and couldn’t feel the cold. “This is my first time in Mantle.”

“I guess… you can say it’s my first time down here too,” Xanthic said with a small laugh.

The silence afterwards was much more comfortable and shorter. The transport landed right on top a building. Penny thanked Xanthic’s robot butler who looked at her but did not respond. Instead Xanthic frowned and rolled her eyes, “So much like Glade…”

“Do you know Ms. Glade?” Penny asked following the women to the roof access. She watched her pull out her scroll. The hacker didn’t press it to the scanner for entry, she opened it and… Lines of code appeared- Xanthic hacked the locked and the door hissed open. Penny gasped, “We can’t break into Ms. Glade’s home!”

“Is it really trespassing if she’s expecting us?”

“Well, we are…” Penny paused double checking the dictionary and Atlesian laws in her head. “Not infringing on her privacy.” Penny wrung her hands again. This was definitely not acceptable behavior, even her father wanted her to meet Glade, he definitely disapprove of this. “Nor have we come with the intent to harm… but…” Glades may not want to harm Penny but this was a hacker. Penny could be lured into a trap though… she would easily be able to sense whatever was lurking in the dark and fight her way free.

“Oh, now the huntress-in-training is scared? Where was this with the Droid?” Xanthic said, once again rolling her eyes. Penny frowned. She wasn’t scared. Safety protocols was just overreacting again. “Then I’ll have Glade drag you in. And to answer your question, no. I don’t know the damn goat personally, Glade’s reputation precedes her.” Xanthic entered without checking to see if Penny would follow.

After a small nervous dance and looking around as if someone would order her, Penny finally entered the building. She made sure the door would properly lock behind them. Xanthic was just a few steps down, looking at the building’s layout on her scroll.

“Her living quarters are… second floor from the top. Fun fact, she owns the entire building and her shop is the first two floors. Space between that and her apartment are testing rooms, workshops and storage.” Xanthic pocketed her scroll and lead Penny down a few more steps then to a door which she immediately opened.

Penny expected another hall but instead was greeted by bright lights and a living room. Random bits of machinery laid scattered the place, almost in an organized mess. Penny could see an open drone on the coffee table, screws and internal parts too close to a prosthetic arm to be organized.

From the other end of the living room a door opened. Glade had that expression again, brows furred, mouth slightly open. After spending time with Xanthic, Penny realized Glade was glaring a little. Behind her another young adult in Police Academy uniform. She stared intensely at Ms. Xanthic.

“Ashley Xanthic. Age 19. Recently found guilty of hacking Atlesian Military Facility.”

That odd face Glade had on instantly turned to joy. At least that was something Penny knew. “And you were ragging on my record! You were dumb enough to get caught!” Glade said throwing her head back with a laugh.

Xanthic scowled, a blush contrasting her blue bob. “Shut it, you goat!” That only made Glade snort and laugh harder. “I have so many regrets.”

“I suppose breaking the law, multiple times, isn’t one of them.” The officer-in-training frowned. She walked around Glade but no further into the apartment. Her eyes inspected Penny, “You are… unknown.”

“She’s Penny Polendina,” Xanthic said while Glade tried gasping for air. She just laughed harder. The hacker hummed, not a pleasant hum like father’s singing. Xanthic had her lips parted in a slight scowl, so more of a growl than a hum? Ms. Xanthic waved her arms, “This bitch is Ciel Soleil, and you’ve already met Aurora Glade.”

“Play nice, Xan,” Glade giggled. It finally stopped once she detached her metal feet. There was a soft hiss from the prosthetic and from pain. Glade slotted lighter, simpler ones. Indoor feet, Penny giggled to herself. “Shoes off, make yourself at home! Apparently we’re going to be spending a lot of time together.”

But Penny is a highly classified weapon. She wasn’t suppose to be out here, wasn’t suppose to be with people. “What… do you mean?” Penny asked hesitating. Her mind quickly fired up several scenarios, most of them involving the hacker discovering her origins-

“I was trying to get rid of my records but found something else linked to my file,” Xanthic said with a shrug. She took Glade’s offer and walked into the kitchen. The sound of a coffee machine followed. “Apparently we’re going to be a huntress team.” Of course! Ironwood was saying something about Glade and the Vytal Festival. “I’d like to meet everyone on my terms before becoming Ironwood’s puppet.”

Penny tried not to flinch under those words, but it spat out like hot wires against her processors. At first she thought no one notice but Glade’s eyes lingered a little too long. They both looked at Ciel when she scoffed.

"I’m not interested in behind dragged into whatever you anarchist have planned. If the General of our Kingdom," Penny noted how Glade and Xanthic rolled their eyes, “Has a directive for us we’d best follow it,” Ciel said. “I have an exam tomorrow, so if you’d excuse me-” She was not excused. Glade stepped in front of her.

“I’ll help you study,” Glade offered, “I helped my friends all the time while they were in combat school.”

Ciel looked up with a stare that had no emotion. A blank stare? Penny believed it was called. “We aren’t friends.”

“But we will be teammates.” Glade said with a grin. She leaned forward until she was eye level with the officer-in-training and held up one finger, “And it’s called being polite.” A second finger went up, “A new perspective will help.” Three used her thumb instead of her ring finger, “And this way you won’t be wasting time going back home and cooking your own dinner.” Then Glade straighten out to nearly half a head taller than Ciel and held out her hand. “Good?”

“Those are… acceptable terms,” Ciel relented with a sigh. She shook her hand and finally stepped into the apartment. “Rumor has it you’re a good cook.”

“Rumor has it you humans have a taste buds like cardboards.” Glade said with a small laugh. She looked at Penny and crossed her arms. “What? I need to talk you into staying too?”

Penny was still by the door, hands clasped together. She bounced a little, still unsure if she should stay or go… Her father trusted Glade. General Ironwood didn’t trust either of them. But if the hacker and mechanic wanted to harm her they would have done it already. And if not, P.E.N.N.Y could handle two civilians.

“Hm. No, I think I’ll stay for the moment, Ms. Glade.”

“Ugh, Glade is too formal. My friends call me Aro.”

Friends call me… Penny gasped bouncing a little more. Her power core leaking her Aura into too many components, “We’re friends?!” Someone wanted to be friends with her?

“Only if you like how Aro sounds- Hey!” Glade yelped, tackled a few steps backwards. The gravity Dust in her legs tethered her to the ground. Ciel and Xanthic frowned glancing at each other. Ciel gestured to the babbling ginger and the laughing goat but Xanthic choose to look around for cream and sugar.

Day 239 since creation. Three days since last artificial skin tear. Four trials cleared.

Day One of Team APCX.

#penny polendina #pietro polendina #fic #cutting strings #apcx #qued

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martellthemandalor · 4 years

Text

Assistance - Chapter 5

Pairing: Din Djarin x F!Reader (No Y/N, reader is nicknamed)

Warnings: Swearing, I think that’s it

Rating: 15

Word Count: 2.9k+

Summary: You ask some questions and Mando gives you hand with your armour.

A/N: There’s some possible sexual tension in this if you squint, as ever I’d love feedback :) (also yeh the gif is really bad I’m still figuring them out lmao)

Masterlist!

The ambient temperature of the barn was soothingly cool, and the change of it felt like a balm against your flushed skin. Your legs were unsteady beneath you as you tried to feign your usual confident strides; however there didn’t seem much point in doing so as from the way the Mandalorian had studied your walk before, you were certain he could see through you right now. He had situated himself on one of the many piles of long red gratham stems that lined the walls of the barn, sitting so impossibly still with his visor trained on you. He watched as you collapsed against the pile opposite him, letting your bag slump against the ground next to you. You leant your head back and closed your eyes, running your hand down your face to massage at your neck as you tried to regulate your heartbeat. Despite the cooler climate of it, the atmosphere in the barn felt hot and heavy.

You could feel him staring at you again and as much as you wanted to counter it with a fierce stare of your own, you just couldn’t conjure the energy for one. Instead you opted to open you bag and pull out your tool kit before unclasping your right cuff and beginning to tinker with it. The silence felt thick, only interrupted by the occasion sizzling spark of a live wire making contact with your probe. The respite here did you give you time to think about what had happened today and thinking back you realised you only really had one question to ask. You looked up from your work and your gaze fell across his figure, splayed across the long stems piled beneath him, helmet leant against the wall, still so motionless that you wandered if he was even awake.

“Why were those bounty hunters after you?” Your voice rang across the barn, it startled you how loud it sounded in the quietness, but the Mandalorian didn’t move a muscle. You let the question hang for a few moments, before conceding that he probably was asleep and so ducked your eyes back to your task.

“I broke guild rules,” His even tone cut through the peace, making you look up from your work.

“Yeh no shit laserbrain, I figured that bit out” You retorted, waving your probe at him.

“I was sent to fetch for a quarry for an imperial warlord,” You prickled upon hearing that, jaw tensing on impulse. Kriffing imp. “I did the job, I brought it back to him, I took my payment and left. I knew it was wrong but he was offering beskar that had been collected in the purge, my clan would do anything to have that back. It was only after payment that I realised I couldn’t leave the quarry with the imp, so I took him back, destroying their safe house in the process.” He lifted his head from where it had been laying against the dusty brown wall to look properly at you. A smirk had twisted itself onto your lips, eyes glinting with mischievous delight.

“Anything that involves destroying an imp safe house and, presumably, killing some bucket heads is a victory in my eyes. Are they after you then? Or do you still have the quarry with you?”

“The quarry is under my protection.”

“Well then you’re an idiot,” you scoffed, “the guild will keep sending hunters until what’s owed is given over, surely you know that?” You shook your head at him in disbelief that this druk for brains still had the quarry with him.

He cocked his head to the side slightly. “They will. And I’ll keep fighting and running. The kid is all that matters now.”

“Mother of moons Mandalorian, the imp wanted a child? Whatever for?”

“The kid’s special.” There was a beat, like he wanted to say more, but all he gave was silence.

“That’s it?” You asked, taken aback at such an abrupt response.

“That’s all anyone needs to know.” His head dropped back against the wall. You had so many more questions now, however the soft thud of the beskar hitting the wall told you the conversation was over. Mandalorian’s are known for how they take in foundlings, nonetheless you found it hard to believe that the tin can sitting opposite you had taken one in for himself, let alone one with a bounty on its head. You furrowed your brows, shaking your head as your work drew you back in, enveloping you once again.

“How do you know about Mandalorian creed?” He asked suddenly. You looked up to see him sat up, feet planted firmly on the ground, his posture a dramatic shift from the relaxed way he had been lounging what surely must have been mere moments before, his helmet on a slight tilt as he regarded you. You slightly furrowed your brow at him, scoffing.

“The Mandalorian’s are the fiercest warriors in the universe, how could I not know?”

“Yes, most people know us, but you know us.” He leant forward ever so slightly, helmet straightening on his shoulders. Even from across the cracked floor of the barn you could feel his presence bearing down onto you. You were the one to tilt your head this time, your brows forming a harder line across your face as you furrowed them further.

“I don’t understand,”

“You never asked my name, you don’t ask personal questions, you actively told me you wouldn’t look when I had to drink, you told the people here we would eat in the barn and even then you sat outside to make sure no one came in while I was eating. Others ask questions, they want to know. You already know. Why.” All this time of answering the same questions, people pressing him for answers he simply couldn’t give, he had grown used to the exhaustion of it all. In reality you were a breath of fresh air, yet it was eating away at him that you hadn’t asked the questions yet. For him it was part of the routine and without the usual interrogation it felt like there was something missing from the exchanges the two of you shared.

You blinked at him a couple of times, before letting your eye wander from the T shaped visor to the cobwebbed beams of the roof above. You swallowed thickly and returned your gaze to statue of beskar.

“I studied,” your eyes fluttered shut at the admission, shoulders sinking somewhat as they did. “As a child I had heard about an ancient creed of fighters, whose battles are legend and whose weapons are a part of their religion. Story’s like that stuck in my impressionable mind, so when I was old enough to travel and discovered the city over had an info stack, it was the first place I went. The Mandalorian’s were all I was interested in studying, you have such great tales and legends and wars, your weaponry is unparalleled and your armour? It’s something else,” The mere idea of that was enough to make your face light up, nose crinkling slightly as you looked up at him. “I’d just turned 18 when all the information was wiped from the info stack. The empire had banned all knowledge of Mandalorian’s; they were eradicating your history. It’s more important than ever that the creed is respected and your clans live on. That’s why I don’t ask questions. That’s why I respect your creed to never remove your helmet.” The assuredness of your voice was punctuated by you flicking the interface of your cuff shut with a flick of your wrist, the snap of the metal pieces connecting echoing through the dry air.

The Mandalorian leant back slightly, arms bracing against his armoured thighs. He could see the glint in your eye when you spoke of his clan, the way you waved your probe at him talking with your hands in way he hadn’t seen before now. You truly cared about this.

“Thank you,” he affirmed simply, adopting a softer tone through his vocoder. You nodded back him, pressing your lips into a small smile of acknowledgement.

“So then,” You started, eyes scanning across the bails of gratham scattered around you, eventually falling on the pile of blanket the pair of you had carried out from the house, “seeing as you’re the one sleeping in the helmet, I think it’s only fair you get pick of the bail.” Standing up, you gathered an armful of blankets and threw them at the man of beskar. He caught them without looking, gloves closing expertly around the soft fabric. You watched as he looked down at them, hand splaying over the bundle, then back up at you.

“I’m fine on this one,” He informed you, before rising to spread the blankets across the bail. You’d already spied a particularly comfy looking pile. The long plants hadn’t been carefully stacked into a rigid formation yet, and when you arranged your own selection of blankets on top of them it resembled some sort of nest. You nodded your head indignantly at the makeshift bed you had created, then glanced over to find your assistant already lying on top of his own bedding. He hadn’t taken off the heavy beskar, and you found yourself wandering how comfortable he could actually be sleeping like that. You shook away the thought, turning your attention to removing the durasteel of your own armour. Bringing your left arm across your chest you winced as the muscle of your bicep spasmed in pain.

“Kriffing mother of moons,” you hissed bringing your hand to tentatively palm at the armour covered area, but you found nudging the metal only made spikes of pain bloom across your upper arm. You were stupid to think you’d gotten out of that fight unscathed; the blow that hit your bicep must have left a bruise and a damn big one at that. Rolling your shoulder you attempted to ease the tenseness of the muscle, hoping it would make it easier to stretch across- nope.

You groaned quietly, running your right hand through your hair resting it at the nape of your neck, the low sound rippling from you and disturbing the soft quiet of the barn. Your breastplate had been designed to release right side first and it made the magnetic claps feel alien under your fumbling fingers as you tried to undo them with just one hand. Strings of curses hissed through your teeth and you swung your head back to look up at the high beams of the ceiling when your fingers had slipped over the first clasp again, hands tensing into fists as you fought back the urge to kick something.

The Mandalorian’s attention had been drawn by your audible struggle, watching as your hand repeatedly slipped over the obtuse metallic fastenings that descended the side of your torso. After what had happened this morning he knew that you weren’t likely to accept any help, yet at the same time he could see your frustration simmering hotter and hotter and he didn’t want to see the outcome of you detonating.

“Want some help with that?” He asked, swinging his legs over the stiff bale beneath him and sitting up, watching your erratic movements becoming steadily more exaggerated.

“No,” You hissed, throwing him a warning look. One, two, three more times your digits harshly skimmed the harsh metal. You growled, cradling your aching fingers, watching as the fingertips flushed a darker shade. Taking deep breaths you slowly pivoted to face your beskar clad assistant. “Yes,” You conceded through gritted teeth. You could imagine the shit eating grin he was wearing under the helmet, even if his body language betrayed no sign of gloating as he got up moved towards you.

He stood in front of you, his confidence seemingly faulting, unsure of how to proceed. You lifted your arm slightly, bracing your hand on the back of your neck and angled your side towards him so he could see what he was doing. He hoped his vocoder didn’t pick up on the way he swallowed thickly as he started fumbling with the metallic clasps. The only time he was ever this close to anyone was during fights, but here he was close by choice. It made his brain run in overdrive that you were even letting him this close, letting him help you remove the very items that keep you protected, especially since you’d known him less than 24 hours. Granted you had jumped into a battle that he was possibly, and only possibly, outmatched for and helped him without a second thought. This however was a whole different level of, dare he think it, trust? After a minute of his gloves sliding over the first fastening and muttering various expletives, he noticed you stifling a laugh.

“It’s hard to do undo them with gloves, why do you think mine are fingerless?” You chimed. Right as you did however, the first fastening popped open. He looked up at you, visor inches from your own face.

“You were saying?” He retorted, the victory in his voice evident even through the vocoder of the helmet. You rolled your eyes in response, and by the time they returned to look at him his focus had returned to your armour. “Besides, I thought they were a fashion choice,” He joked quietly. He wasn’t exactly used to making jokes and he was surprised when you laughed properly this time, a rich sound he hadn’t heard you make yet.

“You’re making jokes now?” You marvelled, tentatively giving his armoured shoulder a soft tap. The next clasp popped free with a click, making the Mandalorian nod his head. You watched your reflection in the beskar silver warp and shift at the movement.

“While I’m winning against these fucking fastenings? Yes.”

Once again the familiar silence fell between the two of you. You didn’t mind, between his laser focus on your armour and your own focus on steadying your heart after working yourself up over undoing the damn thing, it was very comfortable. His pace picked up slowly as he got into a method for undoing them and so descended the length of your torso with ease. The both of you relaxed a little into the intimacy of it. Both of you also ignoring when his shoulder would brush against your raised arm or how at the final clasp his hand was resting half on your hip as he worked the fastening open.

“Switch,” He murmured as the final clasp opened, his gentle tone not suiting his cold beskar exterior. You nodded lightly as you shifted position, but as you went to raise your arm the familiar pain in your bicep returned. Your face contorted as you dropped it back down to your side. The Mandalorian took a small step back from you, visor focused on your upper arm. Then without saying a word he disengaged the magnetic seal of the armour plate covering your bicep and removed it, before doing the same with your shoulder plate. You watched his hands as they deftly worked removing these pieces; you figured his armour must use magnetic seals to, given how quickly he disengaged yours.

“Try now.” You moved your arm, the pain was still there, except it was considerably less intense than it had been with the durasteel pressuring it. Resting your hand on the base of your neck again, you gave the Mandalorian a nod to continue. He hesitated a moment, then closed the gap between your bodies and got back to work. There were fewer clasps on this side than the other, so when the shaped metal suddenly started to fall away from your body it took you both by surprise. The Mandalorian was faster than you in catching it, you watched as he carefully removed it from your figure and placed it softly by the side of your nest, next to the other discarded plates.

You got back to removing the rest of your armour, starting with the cuff that circled your left forearm. What you didn’t expect was for him to come up behind you and start removing the armour from your right arm. He worked wordlessly, and while you initially flinched at the sudden contact, you made no effort to stop him from helping. Your torso and arms felt practically buoyant without the usual weight of your armour resting on you. The Mandalorian paused, you could feel his hesitation radiating from behind you. Then you felt his hand graze your hip as he reached to disengage your thigh plates.

“I can handle it from here,” the words almost fell over themselves as they let your mouth, your body curving away as you stepped from his touch. His own hand instinctively shot back, landing in a fist by his side.

You both circled away from each other, moving around like clockwork, him towards his bail and you towards your nest as you discarded your thigh plates. He stole glances at you, cursing himself for doing so. You thought of the brief contact at your hip and cursed yourself for doing so.

That was out of necessity, you both told yourselves, it can’t happen again.

You curled into your bed, cocooning yourself in blankets as you felt your eyes grow heavier. The dim light of the barn faded away and you finally let sleep claim you.

Next Chapter

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sandeshblogger · 3 years

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Step-by-step: The most effective method to Change Your Life Completely in 30 Days

Two infants, both brought into the world around the same time simultaneously and in similar origin to two distinct families. Both are fit as a fiddle. Both will put themselves out there with grins, looks and changed sounds that will be perceived by their particular families.

The two children have totally virgin personalities, as of recently.

Quick forward five years, the two five-year old kids are presently ready to talk, walk and get ideas and thoughts somewhat better than anyone might have expected. Both are dependent upon the existence rules that they will handle and utilize while they are growing up.

Presently, in light of what they will hear and see around them, their brains begin to be shaped.

Quick forward fifteen years, both of them are in their twenties. These two are currently in school and following a way that society, they and their families judged sufficient for their expert and individual accomplishment in their lives.

Differences among them are as of now progressively present: they shift in the kind of mates they have, the sorts of activities they like doing, how they see their possible results, how they see themselves and individuals around them, how they treat others and various other enthusiastic highlights.At this point, the manner in which they were raised and the conditions they went through are extraordinary influencers of their choices and convictions. Their psyches are not, at this point virgin. Their stories are presently enormously affected by how their psyches were, as of recently, "modified" since their introduction to the world.

Today, both are at an age where they are dependable of their own lives and are considered self-governing. One of them is content while the other isn't. Why? What is the distinction? What has set off this result?

The subsequent one feels that there is something else entirely to life than simply tolerating and accepting what has been educated to the person in question. The person is presently in a profound addressing stage: Can I change the manner in which I see things? Would i be able to move from a fixed mentality to a development attitude? Would i be able to make my own way? Can I and how is it possible that I would begin thinking in an unexpected way? Furthermore, eventually, how might I revamp my mind for progress?

After the entirety of this past addressing, we should really attempt to respond to each address. Go on, re read them, and after each question mark realize that the appropriate response is a plain certain: "Yes.".

It is extremely not unexpected for individuals to feel debilitate, unmotivated, troubled, and overpowered sooner or later. There is no an ideal opportunity to cry vulnerably once you understand you fall into those sentiments; it is the ideal chance to make a move. The person who isn't happy with his life currently is going to start another excursion: an excursion of personal growth.

The explanation it is known as personal development is just in light of the fact that everything starts with self, and closures with self, and each certain change is produced using inside. Maybe you are encountering an episode of debilitating circumstances at home, work, or in your life as a rule, and you truly feel the requirement for a good change.

This article takes an inside and out take a gander at how you can change your life totally in just a month by illustrating significant life exercises that will help in re-wire your cerebrum totally and start your own "zero-to-saint" venture.

Significance of "Re-Creating" Yourself

Somewhere inside you lies a limitless potential that must be acknowledged through sure living. Antagonism is one of the greatest (if not the greatest) factors restricting people from understanding their maximum capacity.

Everything starts with establishing a solid framework of making yourself as a matter of first importance. Nobody knows you better than yourself, and as it has been said previously, you can't mislead yourself. You realize what distresses you, what pulls you back, and what remains in transit better compared to any other person. Making yourself initially resembles laying an outline for completely changing yourself to improve things, and the quicker you can do that; the better.

Presently, on the off chance that you really need to completely change yourself to improve things, and have the option to re-program you mind for progress, you need to purposefully carry your psyche to acknowledge the way that your prosperity or disappointments are the entirety of your own obligation and it is your own obligation to get it going for your own self.

At whatever point you are prepared, take a full breath and how about we start this bit by bit groundbreaking interaction.

Step #1: Self Awareness: Take a second to review yourself for development.

It takes a calm psyche to assess self authentically. Your propensities and schedules may assist you with characterizing the sort of individual you are, yet they can't characterize the sort of individual you wish to be. Make time for yourself, liberated from any interference, and take a gander at your life exhaustively. Take a full review of what your identity is, you can be just about as point by point as you need in your investigation. Weigh both your qualities and shortcomings with absolute genuineness, yet try not to be too hard on yourself. Your qualities should assist you with beating your shortcomings. Survey your life dependent on your present position or circumstance, and choose whether you are agreeable the manner in which things stand, or you'll have to make changes. This progression is the start, all things considered, You need to begin by knowing who you genuinely are.

Step #2: Write down your aims

Subsequent to assessing yourself decisively, center around both what assists you with getting better, and what pulls you down. Set aside effort to record your arrangements and goals for the present moment yet consistently guarantee you are being sensible.

Expecting a lot from yourself inside just a brief timeframe can cause issues down the road for you as you can without much of a stretch return to old propensities subsequent to neglecting to accomplish your own pronounced goals inside oneself specified course of events, or surprisingly more terrible; announce yourself a disappointment. Hence; you'll need to adjust your energy similarly to accept what you expect to become, and to disregard what you don't need.

Step #3: Clarity of Goals: Set objectives that ensure greatest positive effect

Everybody has their special objectives, some of which can be accomplished inside a brief period while others must be useful in a long stretch. Positive change ought not be made to stand by, really it should start the second you plunk down to consider your life. On the off chance that you truly put your heart into it and are significantly centered around rolling out this improvement for yourself, now and again a month can be excessively long of a period, and change can happen sooner than 30 days, however to be reasonable, it is a sensible chance to lay out your objectives. Maybe you are battling liquor abuse, family questions, business related issues, weight issues, or one of numerous addictions. Considering you are not marking anything under coercion, your objectives ought to be for all intents and purposes conceivable to accomplish on the grounds that you kept in touch with them down yourself.

The objectives you will set ought to just be the individuals who will make the greatest positive effect. For instance, in the event that one of your expectations is to get thinner, you can follow this thinking: we as a whole realize that we need to eat day by day, subsequently, rather than going directly to the old "I need to begin practicing regular" the objective with the best effect is exclusively shift your dietary patterns to better ones, you will consistently need to eat regardless.

Step #4 : Free yourself of what is keeping you down: Get freed of potential interruptions

Envision that you can run, yet at the present time you have imperceptible chains that are just allowing you to walk. Envision how free you will feel in the event that you permit yourself to eliminate those chains. The similarity here can be applied to a negative conduct or habit that is keeping you away from releasing your maximum capacity, and on the off chance that you don't have the foggiest idea what is keeping you down you can generally return to step #1 and attempt to sort it out.

It isn't unexpected to have shortcomings, similarly as it is entirely expected to have qualities; they make us people. Our shortcomings and awful practices are disturbed by our intentional and ceaseless relationship with various boosts, consequently, to keep away from that what prompts us to make a stride off course we need to turn out to be more self-restrained.

In the event that you are battling liquor abuse, you will not be helping yourself staying nearby bars with companions after work. Also, in the event that you are an admirer of lousy nourishments yet you need to get in shape you'll need to reevaluate your dietary patterns. A decent excursion to personal development starts with partner with what is correct, and that which matters. Endeavor to spend time with the right organization of companions consistently, take up life counsel from them, and before you realize it's anything but a piece of them.

Step #5: Be prepared to make penances

Nothing comes simple, and the sky is the limit from there so makes a difference to do with change. Expecting you understood the need to transform yourself all alone, or upon relief from outer powers, it takes balls to own it.

Positive change includes relinquishing old propensities which some of the time include hard-hitting addictions. It won't be a smooth excursion, however it is great. Keep your contemplations completely centered around your objectives, and you'll see that all that you'll do in the process will be for a decent course. Regardless of how intriguing something can be, keep away from it no matter what, if it highlights on your rundown of shortcomings.

Step #6: Audit your advancement: Make irregular individual evaluations

Individuals will see changes in you normally, however before they bring up it, sit back now and again and perceive how much advancement you've made since the very beginning. In the event that your advancement is unmistakably recognizable cheer for yourself, in the event that it is little cheer for yourself as well and consistently recall that "something will consistently be superior to nothing."

No one but you can be straightforward to yourself, and no one but you can have the option to recount your own experience that far. You'll go over obstructions en route, and as you make your own appraisal you'll be better positioned to see how successfully you can manage them.

Step #7: Remember where you began

At the point when you continually remind yourself where you've come from, you'll be stimulating yourself since you don't wish to encounter comparable circumstance later on. Keep your focus on the big picture and visually impaired on what might actually divert you en route.

Even subsequent to achieving your chose objectives, consistently investigate your excursion, consistently recollect that you began for an explanation, it takes difficult work and devotion to will situate you would have carried yourself to. Similarly imperative to representation, occasionally utilize these blaze backs as inspirations to continue pushing forward for a superior, more joyful and better life.

The Important Take Away

You are making yourself, you are deliberately pronouncing to the universe that you would prefer not to be a consequence of your conditions, but instead a result of your choices. It doesn't make any difference how stained your past has been, or how individuals have treated you before. Tips for every day life are focused on close to home advancement and there ought to be no conviction at all.

Keep in mind; you needed to change your life totally, and you settled on the intentional choice without help from anyone else. It takes discipline and difficult work to accomplish your life objectives, and you'll should be directed by your brain all along.

That implies you'll have to have your brain completely set on accomplishing that transform you long to find in your life. That implies that you won't abandon yourself en route. Continuously recall that through life, we as a whole follow our ways, we are for the most part sitting on our own driver's seat. While you are perusing these words, support yourself, you are a piece of the individuals who put stock in themselves enough to realize that an extraordinary life is only an issue of incredible choices.

#The most effective #Change Your Life #Re-Creating #self awareness #Write down your aims #clarity of goals #potential interruptions #be prepared #Audit your advancement #remember where you began #The Important Take Away #the motivation #the mind motivated #motivacional

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outroshooky · 4 years

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whatever in heaven | knj

⇢ genre: series; part three (mafia!au) (angst, fluff, smut)

⇢ pairing: kim namjoon x reader

⇢ word count: 5.8k

⇢ warnings: smut (soft d/s dynamics. grinding, oral [m receiving], brief use of the word daddy, marking, gentler dirty talk [praise]) angst (implied usage and mention of knives, nightmare), some fluff. this fic is a bit of a mind-fuck; there are darker themes here, so please read with caution.

⇢ a/n: i’m so excited for you guys to read the next installment of verses & vibes! a huge, huge thank you to my beta readers @sunkoos (go check out nas’s work!) and @hobiswitch; an even bigger thank you to @guksheart for not only beta reading this fic but posting this for me because of laptop difficulties!

...which leads me into, unfortunately, some bad news. my laptop crashed permanently over the weekend and i may have lost all of my files. i’m working to get them back, but this also means i have to buy a new laptop. thus, verses and vibes (and my writing in general) may go on hiatus until i can figure out a way to keep writing and posting new content. more updates forthcoming— for now, enjoy whatever in heaven!

“i know not if i could have borne

to see thy beauties fade;

the night that follow’d such a morn

had worn a deeper shade:

thy day without a cloud hath pass’d,

and thou wert lovely to the last,

extinguish’d, not decay’d;

as stars that shoot along the sky

shine brightest as they fall from high.”

⤷ and thou art dead, as young and fair; lord byron (george gordon)

It is always the same in the beginning.

He is kneeling on a concrete floor that goes on as far as he can see, cold and callous against the skin that peeks from the stringy rips in his pajama pants. A single light flickers above his head, murky cream, faded with age. His arms are bound behind his back with braided rope, biting vengeance into his tender wrists. His exhalations wisp pale smoke, rushing from his lips to touch the folded legs of a woman sitting just out of the ring of wired lamplight.

The supports of the chair are metal; he momentarily ponders how her skin isn’t dotted with gooseflesh through the thin fabric of her dress, but her cherry-red heels catch the light in a way that has his breath hitching. Something in him presses to reach out to her but he can’t, straining against his bonds like a feral cat caged. He snarls, a gritting sound in the silence of the warehouse, and she hums something seductive in return.

It is a dark heat that kindles in the pit of Namjoon’s stomach when he realizes he is staring at temptation herself, clothed in cherry pumps and scarlet lipstick. She is the antithesis of everything he should have and yet, yet—

He craves her more and more with every second that goes past. He doesn’t need to see her face to know that she is hauntingly beautiful, a devil crafted from memory, sent from hell to tempt him in all the ways she knew how. The blooming lust in his veins climbs with viney fingers straight to his brain, his head spinning, flying high; he barely knows what to believe. Somehow, she’s pulling on the strings of his thoughts, a marionette and his master dancing on the brink. One wrong string and the puppet collapses in a heap of cloth and kindling.

He groans, the sound of frustration and need echoing on and on in the dim room. She laughs velvet rich, sickeningly sweet. He wishes he could rend the binds from his arms, crawl to her, worship her the way she deserves; he shuffles forward an inch, two—

A plain black combat knife skitters to a stop in front of him, twirling once before coming to rest, just grazing his left kneecap. Resting potential against the crook of his leg, and he sucks in a breath when he feels the chilled edge level against the puckered scar on his knee.

She doesn’t speak, but Namjoon knows exactly what she means to say.

Thoughts clamor at the base of his skull, hissing seduction like a writhing mass of coiled snakes snapping for attention. They strike at one another, seeking dominion, and he’s nearly consumed by the din. A choice, cut out for him by the hands of fate, burned in the ashes of every decision he’s ever made. It boils down to this, to him and her and everything in between.

At one pellucid flicker of insanity, his hands are freed.

The ropes fall frayed to the floor and he straightens, rubbing at the burn in his forearms, rolling his neck to loosen the strain. His eyes flicker to her mass in the darkness, the shape of her just touched by the faintest tendrils of light. She is just out of reach, but so close, so far when her head tilts, a hint of fascination. He is mortal, she is eternal— a man reduced at the end of the day, stripped of money and power and the demons that lick at his heels. Greed is his master, but she is his, coveted in the secrecy of this cushioned nightmare.

He knows though, in the deepest reaches of his twisted soul, that only one of them will leave the warehouse alive.

In this horrible, shattered husk of reality, only one of them is destined to live.

And somehow, the choice has fallen to him.

Pick up the knife. Pick it up, feel it in your hands, smooth and weighted, perfectly balanced. Everything you’ve ever wanted is in the palm of your hands. Make the right choice. Do it for me, baby. For me.

Namjoon is pitted against his own self-preservation, warped desires clamoring for attention, needy yet sick. Needy, he is so fucking needy, but for what? Anticipation itches the back of his neck; he can barely think when the handle melds into the curve of his palm with such a sinful fit. The metal glints promise of things yet to come, but when he tilts the blade towards himself, he sees only the industrial struts that crosshatch the ceiling, the dust that hovers thick in the clogged, choking air. Emptiness and fulfillment, hand in hand, only a breath away.

You know what the answer is, Kim Namjoon. Do it. Do it for me.

Does he know? He must know, deep in the recesses of his bones. Deep inside the fucked-up mind of his, playing tricks on him; a trickster, what trickster? The last of his sanity is threatening to drip, melting like liquid wax onto the cool, callous cement. It’s bubbling in his hands, pouring through the gaps between his fingers, but when he shakes his head, a mad dog, it solidifies molten silver, black titanium.

Do it for me.

Do it for her.

He must.

Namjoon’s eyes flicker to her calf, following the silk of her skin to the hem of her saccharine dress; it flutters scarlet just out of reach. He’s on his knees now; there’s something pulling at him, some indeterminable force dragging him through the floor. The blade slips; the knife twists in his hands as he falls forward, and—

The air rushes out of Namjoon’s lungs as he writhes himself awake, mouth agape in an silent scream. He’s wheezing with the first rush of oxygen into his lungs, his lips swollen with gnashing of teeth as he twists away from the warmth settled next to him in the sea of rippling sheets, curling in on himself.

“Namjoon, are you alright?”

The broken man lifts his head, taking in the naked form upright in bed beside him, hair awry, concern bleeding every word.

It’s you.

He’s safe.

Indeed, Namjoon has had many dreams, but none quite like this one.

It is as if the very breath was sucked from Namjoon’s lungs when he first wrested himself awake in a cold sweat. Control is something he craves, something he owns save the late night hours when it is ripped from his hands by the sick desires of his own brain, playing tricks on him. He exercises his grip on every minutiae of his life, but when his eyes flutter shut and his conscience takes hold, it wraps a silken tie around his thoughts and begs him to pay attention.

You’re calling his name in a voice burdened by drowsiness. He knows you were awoken because of him but he can’t seem to think, to do anything else but sit here in this bed, in these rippling creamy sheets, and feel his lungs fill, empty. Fill, empty.

“Namjoon, love, breathe with me, okay?”

Breathing. Breathing is all he has been reduced to, a creature of the night with oxygen in his lungs and demons in his head.

You take his hand in your own, feels the slim digits trembling against your skin. You rub gentle circles into his knuckles and it somehow grounds him in the midst of the chaos, the overwhelming flood conjured from his worst nightmares. He watches as you carefully trace every crooked angle of his fingers with your own.

It is this simple motion that produces new thoughts, a mental clamor not of his own demise but for his own safety, the protection that he seeks. You are so much more than the sum of your parts: you are safety in the midst of a den of ruby-eyed cobras simply begging for a chance to strike. He’s never thought of anybody the way he thinks of you; there is no one else who comes close to you, and that’s saying a lot when it comes to his line of work.

“Namjoon, you’re safe, okay? You’re safe with me. We’re in our bedroom. You’re still the head of the most feared crime ring in the country. Nothing has changed. Yoongi is just outside the door; I’m right here. Nothing has changed, baby. You’re safe.”

Your words are warm against his skin, dotted with the press of lips to his temple, his cheek. You’re burning up against him, sweat beading at the roots of his hair, the silver strands falling low into his eyes. Somehow, the heat only serves to make him cooler, and he’s nestling into your arms before his mind catches up to his body. He’s safe. Somehow, in the roaring din of his mind, he is safe. His demons won’t follow him here, locked outside the door, palms scrabbling at the windows. The windows. Namjoon’s eyes flick to the glass and find the shades drawn, blocking out the ambient light that hovers thick on the other side. Bulletproof, he insisted, and for good reason. But Yoongi would have called if there was a problem, and he’s got Seokjin at the front gate, and it begins to seep in, sweet relief, that he truly is safe.

He is cradled to you like a child, a position compromising for a man of his stature, but he knows you won’t judge. Your hand trails from his thigh to his hip, his ribs to his shoulders, and your fingers nest in his hair, gently scratching his scalp. Lord knows he won’t be able to close his eyes until daylight breaks over the dark oak floor of your shared bedroom, but he hums and noses at your neck. You smell like sage and lavender with a touch of his own cologne, a memory of last night, and he inhales deeply, tries to savor the muskiness.

“You’re okay baby, I promise.” A kiss to his temple, another grounding touch. “I’m not going anywhere. I love you; you’re safe right here with me. Just let me love you, okay baby?”

Love. Love, a concept Namjoon knew better by verbal parry than by any real, tangible memory. It was wielded by a father he barely knew, an absent mother who preferred the company of socialites to the company of her own son. It was really a wonder he found it in him to love at all, really; he’d assumed he’d leave such an emotion to those who built a life out of a 9-5 day and mediocre sex. He’d been proven wrong, however, when you came along— you, once a high-profile escort in the dirty underworld he’d built for himself, proved yourself a worthy companion when you stayed beyond his guttural moans and dirty secrets. It was in fact, a moment like this when he realized he quite enjoyed your company, and there was something more to it than just a good fuck, an easy pussy.

You were the closest thing to real love he’d ever experienced, a home to come back to that wasn’t a prowling security team and a clean gun barrel. He’d exposed the grittiest parts of himself to you, the most private secrets and still you came back for more. You were just as fucked up as he was, really, and that was his favorite thing about you. You’d killed for him and he knew you’d kill again, and that was, very plainly, the matter of things.

Plus, that mouth made him see the stars more times than he’d willingly brag about at the poker table.

He presses a kiss to your shoulder, exposed through the lip of your shirt (his shirt, actually). It’s a careful kiss, chaste for him. Your fingers rub comfort into the base of his skull and he swears he could purr, an alley cat sleek and pleasured.

“You doing okay, Joonie?” Your eyes tell him everything he needs to know and he nods, unsure if he trusts himself to speak. Fear still gnaws at his bones, muted terror of a red-heeled succubus and a silver blade that gleams in the lamplight. Somehow though, you know, scraping the blunt of your fingernails against his roots. “You don’t have to talk to me about it if you don’t want to. I’m here regardless of that, you know me.”

Namjoon noses the column of your neck in reply, folding his sizeable frame until it molds against yours. Some things he’d never let the boys know about, but some things, he thinks, they knew about already. He is hard and cold and calculated yet soft and warm and comforting, a living contradiction unto himself; you’d never believe it if you hadn’t seen it yourself. A complexity of men who prefers to live by the simplest of rules, but you’d learned long ago not to try to understand something that was fucked-up from the start. Some things in this world were just fucked up, and that was the way they were meant to be.

Neither of you know how long you sit there, adrift in messy sheets, dry eyes gritty with the lateness of the hour. Your hand weaves through Namjoon’s hair as the vines around his heart flex, their thorny stems unraveling. He stopped shaking minutes before, but if you know anything about him, the internal tremors never cease, not outside of the safety of this bedroom, impossible with the life he lives.

He stirs a little, murmurs your name against your neck, his lips brushing bare skin and the small freckle that dots just above your collarbone. There’s something so intimate, so human about it, screaming vulnerability that hangs open and aching in the silence. His hands slide smooth across the breadth of your back, your waist, palms settling atop your thighs as he draws back slowly, slowly.

There’s a question in his eyes, one you meet with your own.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He hesitates.

“Namjoon…”

He swallows, tilts his head, steals a kiss. “I’m sorry.” Then another.

With the third you’re pulling away, chest steady, finger to his lips. “Namjoon, you’re not thinking clearly. We can’t do this right now—”

“Says who?” He is breathless with the thought. “I wanna make you feel good, baby. You deserve that.”

The sweetest words wrap themselves around the breadth of your bones, melting between the gaps. He’s always been so good with his tongue.

“Namjoon, I wanna make you feel good too, but not when you’re like this.” You shake your head. “Not when you’re waking up screaming about death and knives and all sorts of horrible things.”

His hands brush your curves. “If this bed is an ocean, I wanna drown in you.”

“Joonie…”

It’s so easy to work at you, the sharper edges that he can dissect piece by piece. He knows exactly how far to push, what little to say to reel you in hook, line, and sinker. “Just go with it baby, alright? Just trust me.”

It’s easy to fall into Namjoon, collapsing every time as he folds around you. His head tilts to the side as he leans in, his nose brushing your own. He tastes like mint toothpaste and something uniquely him, an element you can never place but when he’s exposing the most vulnerable parts of himself to you like this. His mouth moves easy against yours, just tender lips, warm kisses. His hand smoothes up your spine to cradle your neck, thumb brushing at the nape, the soft hairs that tickle the back of his hand. “Just relax baby, relax.”

Once more. “Joonie, are you sure you’re okay with this?”

He nods. “I want this.”

He’s never been one for kissing but tonight he craves it, the simplicity of two mouths and hands that fit themselves perfectly against the curves and the edges. Musk curls under your nose as your eyelids flutter shut, dusting the apples of your cheeks a pinkish hue. Your hands meet his chest, burning with heat through the oversized Grateful Dead shirt he wears to bed with you, and they slide to his shoulders when he slips an arm underneath you to tug you closer.

You settle atop the apexes of his thighs, legs folding around him as he gazes up at you. The utmost adoration he has for you, written in the stars and in two hearts that beat as one, rattling against their cages with a need for closer, closer, closer. Fear melts underneath practiced fingertips and patience; he’ll be damned if he doesn’t return the favor. His eyes, usually tawny and mellow, burn blacker than charcoal but sweeter than syrup, running with emotion. It’s evident in every brush of his hands against your bare skin when his fingertips edge under the hem of your shorts, the gleam in his eye that warns of everything that is about to come. One hand supports your back as the other squeezes your thigh, and you can’t help but smirk down at him with the easy smile that tugs at his own kiss-bitten lips.

You aren’t smirking, however, when he leans in and nips a bite at your neck, teasing with his teeth, making you whimper and whine atop him. His tongue pokes between his lips, assuaging the pain, and your own mouth falls open as your fingers clench at his shoulders, nails sliding a lazy path along his spine. He licks once at the bite, then once more until he’s satisfied with the petaled violet that blossoms across the breadth of your throat. He nibbles a matching purple rose on the other side; you can feel the smile on his lips when your mouth shamelessly tips open and you stutter out his name.

“Hm, what is it?” When he draws back, you moan a singular complaint. “What do you want, love? I’ll give you anything you want.”

“W-Wanna make you feel good,” you pant, eyes fluttering. “Wanna make you feel so good.”

“I wanna make you feel good too, baby. Let’s just focus on the now, yeah?” Namjoon’s hand squeezes your thigh but you’re already pressing your body flush to his, kneeling over him. You cup his face and he strokes your wrist lightly, the most tentative of touches, thanking god that somehow, in the midst of the lion’s den, you’d found him. He had you and he knew he could trust you, trust the smell of your shampoo and the heat of your skin. “Focus on me.”

You lean down to kiss him, brushing his cheekbones, tangling your hands in his hair, but apparently, Namjoon had other plans. His lips graze your own, trailing the edge of your jaw to pepper the lightest kisses at your ear and move lower, lower. When his mouth lavishes the column of your neck with the utmost pleasure, you can’t help but feel your core ache, the purest whines permeating the thick air as you beg. He’s definitely hard now, weight against the inside of your thigh, and the temptation— no, the need to grind down on him sparked the fuzziest pleasures in your mind, the most sinful ideas.

“Please Joonie, please feels so good, please, w-wanna—”

When Namjoon mouths wet at the shell of your ear you writhe, losing control with each second that slips between your fingers like sand. His lips burn fire against your already heated skin, sizzling and crackling like a live wire under his touch. You hiss and he growls deep in the back of his throat, continues his ministrations.

“I forgot how much you liked that,” he breathes shakily.

“You’re so fucking hot,” you gasp, releasing your iron grasp on his roots. Luckily he’s unfazed; damn lucky you to be with someone who actually enjoyed their fair share of kinkiness. “So fucking hot and you’re so thick, I can feel it—”

When you grind down on him, pressing yourself onto the growing bulge in his slacks and swiveling your hips with practiced ease, he groans feverishly. With every brush of the head of his cock, he’s harder than before, memory weighty in the palm of his hand. He chokes on the breath in his lungs, his nails blunt on your back, and he moans once in content. Feels so fucking good.

“God, baby, you’re gonna ruin me like this,” Namjoon chuckles.

“Maybe that’s the intention,” you trill.

“Fuck.” The word lies heavy in the air, heavy on his bated breath.

You smirk, sinful seduction in his ear. “And what if I did this?”

As his eyebrows furrow, you ease yourself onto his thighs, so strong and sinewy. Your fingertips slip down his shoulders, trace every muscle that strains under his loose sleep shirt. Beneath the fabric is the coiled power of a lethal creature, a tiger poised to devour his prey. And he is utterly wrapped around your finger, letting his head tip back against the headboard with a sigh. He’s lost in your touches, an angel fallen from heaven, no idea which way is up or down.

You rub circles into his hip bones; he twists under you. Practically begging with his gasps, knowing what awaits him. Your fingers toy with the hem of his boxers and he’s hissing between his teeth. “Baby…”

You hum a response, press a kiss to the shell of his ear.

“Please…”

“Oh Namjoon,” you coo. “You’re a mess, baby.”

He is. Hair sticking to his forehead, sweat gleaming at his temple; he’s a model for destruction, the dirtiest of kinds. Hips arching underneath you, and there’s a wet spot that stains the fabric. He smiles somehow, teeth flashing in the low light. “All for you.”

You withdraw, spit into your palm. “Then you get all of me.”

Your hand slips beneath the waistband of his boxers, finds his cock, thick and hard. At the first stroke, lazy and full, he can’t stop the raspy grunt that leaves his throat. “Shit, baby. Feels so good.” When you lower your head to mouth at him over his sweats he practically writhes, begging, needy. So unlike him, but a welcome change to see him falling apart, falling apart over you. The fabric is soaked with saliva and dotted with a pearl of cum, a carnal work of art.

You rub slowly down his length, thumbing the swollen head leaking his seed. It’s messy and wet and he’s moaning and it’s all worth it, worth it to see him wrecked like this. His balls are heavy in your palm; when your eyes flutter up to meet his, wide and expectant, Namjoon hisses. That sound enough jolts burning heat between your thighs, twisting devilishly in your stomach. “B-Babygirl?”

There’s question in the word, question that makes you pause. You moan against his clothed cock; he chokes on his words.

“Can I make you feel good too?”

A sloppy kiss pressed to his member. “Later, okay? I wanna focus on you right now, Joonie.”

His hand strokes through your hair, flyaway, disheveled. “You’re so good to me. So fucking good—” He chokes on the downstroke, fingers tightening out of reflex. “Want you so bad.”

You press. “How bad? Bad enough to want my mouth?”

“Shit, your mouth,” he whines. “Want your mouth, want you—”

“Joonie,” you murmur.

His heartbeat resounds like gunfire in the ringing silence.

“Lift.”

He lifts his hips as you tug, pulling his sweats down to his thighs, the fabric ridged underneath your perch. His cock falls free, standing slightly crooked against his still-clothed abdomen, rippling with tension. It twitches under the heat of your gaze, steadily seeping liquid bliss, and your mouth waters at the thought. It’s been so long since you took him like this; when it’ll happen again, who’s to say.

You pepper kisses along his thighs just to hear him whimper, feel the predator writhe in his own constraints. His hands burn their own trails along the curves of your body, spreading heat in their wake as you cave to your own desire, slipping a hand between your thighs when you take him in your mouth with practiced ease. He’s firm under your fingertips, lithe and sleek and powerful in all the right ways, but he falls apart when it comes to you, crumbles like rock under the breath of the tidal wave. He grunts sin from between gritted teeth but whines complaint when you pull back to tease, to draw things out. He’s gentle in his touches but firm in his demands, even through the cottony billows of his neediness.

“I-I’m close,” Namjoon stutters, skin crimson from lavished attention. There’s saliva smeared down your chin and tears twinkle liquid starlight on your lashes, but you’ve never felt more electrified, burning up at the seams for him. From the heated confines of your throat you withdraw his cock with a firm touch at the base, his fingers running through your mussed locks.

“Where do you want to cum, baby?”

He squirms. “Fuck. Wherever you’ll take m-me—” He shudders, ribs heaving. Your fallen angel, shattering under your touch. “Oh shit, I’m gonna cum for you, babygirl.”

“Cum for me, angel. Cum for me...” you murmur, gaze level with his own as you wrap your lips around his member.

“Gonna cum for you, fuck—”

“Daddy.”

The cavernous heat of your mouth is a slick warmth, so wet and warm and utterly divine. He loses himself in it, lets himself go, pushing towards that edge of no return, riding the crest of the wave as it rolls faster, harder, heavier. “‘M gonna fucking cum. Oh god, fuck, shit, babygirl, I’m cumming, I’m—”

A drawn out groan fills the air, raspy and thick and throaty as he thrusts into your mouth once, twice, spills over. He’s bitter on your tongue, acrid but you take it, swallow it all. It’s worth it to see the pleasure overtake him, to see him let go of every capacity and capability to fall drowning, dizzy. Whatever in heaven, above or below, he’s tumbling headlong into it, collapsing into himself like a burning star falling from the cosmos.

He’s the first to break the silence that falls, withdrawing himself and tucking his softening cock back in his sweats with a remarkable amount of composition for a man who’d just seen the very sparks of the universe behind closed eyelids. He chuckles breathless, bated. “Fucking hell, angel.”

You try to speak but merely croak at first, throat grating dry. He hushes you soothingly, easing you back on the pillows now soaked with sweat. “Let me get you some water, yeah? Just stay here for now.”

You whine a complaint— shouldn’t you be taking care of him?— but he’s insistent and already on his feet, legs shaky as he heads towards the bathroom. There’s a pang in your chest watching him go, the reality of the situation settling in, and vulnerability flowers in your heart.

The tap squeaks; the faucet runs. Room temperature water, not too hot but not too cold to soothe the burn in your esophagus. He knows you better than anyone, knows how to take care of you when you fail to take care of yourself, life spent always on the run. You’re the one holding him when his nightmares consume him, the steel that he draws from his belt to wield before him, the ultimate weapon. Yin and yang, black and white, blooming nebula and neutron star. The water turns off, a grating complaint.

It’s been too long; you’ve delayed too much. Play to his fantasy; he has no idea what’s coming.

“If the water’s not enough, I can send Yoongi for some tea— oh.”

Oh.

You are no longer prostrate, the limp rag doll exhausted from her play. No, you are stretched out on the bed, ass up on your hands and knees, silver glinting between your teeth as a pair of handcuffs dangles in the air. You are looking at him with fire smouldering deep in your eyes, blazing a burning glare straight through him.

The predator has become the prey.

“Daddy,” you purr, right on cue. “Come here.”

It’s automatic, the way Namjoon moves towards you, glass forgotten on the nearby dresser. He’s completely transfixed, fascinated by the possibilities, and when he reaches the end of the bed, you stop him with one outstretched foot, bare with the lateness of the hour. “Turn around.”

He’s so submissive, so compliant simply by the force of his own surprise. It’s hard to keep going, hard to push through the adrenaline thrumming through your blood, the underlying current that threatens to sweep you away, too. But you mustn’t listen, mustn’t feel.

“Hands behind your back, Joonie, baby.”

He’s perfect, perfectly whole in the way he follows each command that falls from your lips like silk spun thread. He surrenders himself so willingly to you, it stings raw.

You rise to your feet, level with the back of him. Your fingers make quick work of the cuffs and with a firm click, the deed is done.

With a tender motion that surprises even you considering the brevity of the situation, you wrap your arms around your torso, bury your face in his skin, inhale his scent. Amber and citrus. Musk and spice. Whole contradictions that somehow manage to summarize him perfectly. You whisper against his spine like it’s a secret. “I’m so sorry.”

“What, baby?”

You can feel his heartbeat against your cheek, thudding rapid with excitement, wonder at what lies ahead of him. Guilt roars its ugly head and you beat it back with double the force.

You stiffen, step away from him. Four years you’d waited to formulate these words, to hear them drop from your lips, plummeting on high. Four years and now the moment is here, and you swallow past the lump in your sore throat.

“Kim Namjoon, you are under arrest for charges of extortion, murder, murder-for-hire, drug possession, and arms trafficking. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you…”

“...Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”

You’re sitting in the open door of a police cruiser, more specifically a SWAT cruiser, an aluminum blanket wrapped around your bare shoulders. The air is warm, but you can’t stop shivering.

Seokjin paces fifteen feet away from you, ever more handsome in his suit and tie. Hoseok is finishing his interview of the conclusion, anticlimactic for the better. Yoongi’s legs dangle from the open doors of one of the ambulances called when your colleagues expected the worst. Thankfully, no casualties had occurred but a sprained ankle, a fight between one of your fellow law enforcement officers and that guy that manned the back gate. Everyone can go home, rest easy.

After Seokjin’s interview is yours, and you realize by the time Hoseok is asking the last question that you don’t remember a single word of what you’ve said. Elite agents taking down the biggest crime boss in the country are not supposed to feel so empathetic, so broken. Guilty. Regretful.

Four years, the longest and most dramatic chase of your career. Justice fell, a swift hammer; you’d saved the day once again, added another face to the chalkboard in your sterile office a thousand miles away. You’d won. Hadn’t you?

There’s a faraway look in your eyes that Hoseok somehow understands, a glimmer of something more than success. He straddles the age gap between the members of the team, incorporating Jeongguk’s youthfulness with his elders’ experience, the glue of it all handed the most important task. He calls your name. “You’ve been out of it the entire time I’ve been interviewing you. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.”

But there’s no bite to the words, no whet of passion. They fall flat below the crackle of radios, the mist that reflects red and blue through the evergreen trees scraping the stars winking high above.

Hoseok puts his pen and clipboard aside. “Hey,” he says. The kindness in his tone pierces daggers through your heart. You somehow would’ve been more comfortable if he had yelled at you. “You did the right thing. He hurt a lot of people. Killed many more, and did so without remorse.”

That’s what you think, you want to scream. Because to you, he is some foreign criminal, far removed from any last dregs of humanity. He is a monster and a crook and a fiend, twisted into something unrecognizable, but you didn’t see what I saw. Did you see the warmth in his eyes when he rolled over and buried himself in my arms all those mornings in bed? Did you see the way he saved those dogs about to be euthanized in a shelter, because those pups reminded him of how he used to feel, staring death in the eyes every day? Did you see the way he loved me?

Hoseok pats your shoulder. “I’ll put in a month and a half of vacation time for you when we get home. Lord knows you’ve earned it. And we can rest tonight, rest for the first time in a while. We’ve got a nice hotel an hour away from here, top floor. We’re not done flushing out the rest of his boys, but that can wait for now. We can handle that on our own; they’re scattered all over the continent anyways. It’ll take time.” He picks up his supplies, turns to move on to Yoongi. The look in the elder man’s eyes, the special ops agent thinks, is exactly the same as your own. What had you two seen in that hellhole?

You tuck the blanket tighter around yourself and nod once. It’s the most you can do.

Hoseok smiles, but it’s not quite the beaming, sunshine-filled glow he usually carries about himself. “You did good work and I’m proud of you. Get some sleep, agent.”

Sleep does not come for a long, long time.

When it does, it eats away behind your eyelids, filling your mind with visions of a man adrift in an ocean of bedsheets, rocking on the waves of an endless concrete floor that goes for miles and miles, whispering promises of things to come that never would be.

Kim Namjoon is sentenced to life in prison for six counts of murder, fifteen counts of extortion, three counts of murder-for-hire, six counts of drug trafficking, three counts of arms trafficking, and two counts of drug possession.

He never makes it to see his twenty-sixth birthday.

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