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wrestlingoneshot · 2 years

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A LOVER OF A SERIAL KILLER (PT.4)

(Pairing: Ryan Erzahler/Dylan Lenivy)

(Trigger Warning: Same as before. Blood, Murder, torture, slight heavy language.)

A few weeks went by and another body been found. Ryan rubbed his eyes as he was at the crime scene as Max finished covering the body. Max couldn't help but to stare at Ryan who took an deep inhale and a long exhale.

"Hey. You look stressed" Max said.

Ryan started to rub his temples. "I'm sorry, it's just draining me. It's like we will never catch this killer."

"Listen, I know things look bleak..and I so would understand if you had quit." Max lightly chuckled. He stopped and cleared his throat as he seen Ryan gave him the 'Not Funny' stare. "What I meant to say, quit as in take a break. Recharge. Um..reset. I'll tell Chief that you need some time."

"Yeah. Thanks Max."

"No prob."

Ryan left Max and went to his favorite place. The park. Ryan enjoyed a nice walk in the park. It helps him relax more and get more things done. Ryan stopped under a tree and took in the breeze.

"Well, hello there handsome. Funny that I bumped into you."

Ryan chuckled as he turned to a smiling Dylan. "I'm glad that you did."

Dylan smiled. "Oh, I was counting on somehow you wound me."

Ryan chuckled. "Nah. I'm happy to see you. Busy?"

"For you? I have plenty of time." Dylan said as he stood next to Ryan. "So, I kept thinking about our date."

"And how you almost drained my wallet?"

"Annnnnd there it is." Dylan laughed.

Ryan laughed. "Sorry. It's a habit."

"Just admit that you like to damage my pride. I totally get it, Ry. You just want to see me sweat! Hm? Isn't that it?" Ryan just looked at Dylan and listen to him ramble. "You just like to see me crumble. I see your plans, Ryan. You're not slick. I can see right thro--"

Dylan was interrupted by Ryan's lips on his. Dylan didn't move when he felt Ryan's lips on his. The only time he moved when he felt Ryan kissing him, so Dylan kissed back. The kiss was soft and passionate. Something Dylan wasn't used to. After the kiss, both men stared into each other eyes.

"....Wanna tell me what was that for?" Dylan whispered against Ryan's lips.

Ryan bit his bottom lip. Even he couldn't process what just happened. But it was Dylan. "I....uh...well, I wanted to do that for a while now."

Dylan smiled. "Ryan, you like-like me?"

Ryan snorts. "Ok I'm regretting it."

"Nope too late. I'm hooked. Now I expect kisses and lots of them from now on."

Ryan laughed with Dylan. Dylan smiled. "So, does this mean that you and I..?"

"Boyfriends? Hm. Maybe? I dunno. I really dunno how to take this." Ryan laughed nervously.

"Hm..well I know what we can do."

"Oh?" Ryan raised an eyebrow.

Dylan smiled. "You, me and ice cream."

Ryan laughed. "Ice cream?"

"What? Don't tell me that you're too old or grew out of ice cream. I mean, who can say no to ice cream?"

"Uh...vegans? Lactose Tolerant folks?"

Dylan waved his hand. "Sure, sure. But we're aren't one of them soooo."

Ryan laughed. "Alright. Fine. But you're treating."

"Hey now. Why would I not treat my handsome guy for ice cream?"

Ryan smiled as he goes next to Dylan. Dylan laughed as they both went to the nearest ice cream stand.

While walking through the park's path, Ryan and Dylan both was eating their ice cream cones. Just laughing and enjoying each other's company. Mid walk while not thinking about it, Dylan's free hand was bumping close to Ryan's free hand. That's how close they were. Dylan listened to Ryan talk as he just hooked his pinky to Ryan's. Ryan noticed, but instead of saying something, Ryan entwines his hand with Dylan's. Dylan smiled at the fact they are holding hands.

"Thank you for today, Dyl."

Dylan bit at his lip at his nickname from Ryan. Never did Dylan thought he would be in this position. Ever. Dylan chuckled. "Hey now, Ry-Guy. That's what I'm here for. To make you happy."

Ryan stops Dylan and looks at him. "Who knew it took someone to block my view to get to this point now?"

Dylan laughed. "It's fate, handsome."

Both Ryan and Dylan smiled at each other warmly before slowly draw closer to each other for another kiss. Until they were interrupted by some random man decided to walk right in between them, causing Ryan to knock his ice cream onto his shirt and then dropped it.

"What the fuck?!" Ryan yelled as he watched his now stained shirt. He turned his attention back to the man who didn't even stop.

"HEY!" Ryan yelled at the man. He watched the man stop and looked back at him. "Rude, much?!"

"How about you two fags don't hold up the walk way?! Nobody want to see that nasty shit between you two. It's disgusting!" The man spits at Ryan. "Fucking disgusting faggots." The man turned to walk away.

"Yeah, well fuck you too, bitch!" Ryan angrily yelled as he walked over to a water fountain to wash the stain out of his shirt. "I can't believe that asshole."

As Ryan was washing his shirt, Dylan saw red. His eyes never left the male who rudely interrupted a special moment. He needs to be dealt with. Dylan pulled out his phone then looked at Ryan.

"Hey handsome, I have to take a call from my boss at the radio station. I'll be back and I'll get you another ice cream cone." Dylan said.

"Yeah sure." Ryan didn't pay too much attention. He was too angry.

Dylan made sure Ryan was ok before following the man. The man never left Dylan's sight. Dylan made sure he wasn't too close. Every turn, every block, every street Dylan followed this piece of trash homophobe. Dylan watched the man walk into a apartment complex. It looked like a drug infested place. Good. Nobody will miss this waste of air. Dylan walked in an followed the man to the fourth floor. The man walked into his apartment and with some skill, Dylan slips in the apartment quietly. The man goes to take off his shirt and walked into his kitchen. Dylan, who already slipped on some gloves, grabbed a chain that the man had hanging on a wall. The man haven't noticed Dylan yet was too busy buried in his fridge. He found what he looked for. A bottled beer. He shut the fridge and opened the beer and took a few swigs in before he felt the cool chain go across his neck.

"What the--ACH!" The man dropped the beer and watched the bottle shattered on the floor as he fights the chain around his neck. The man struggled to fight off Dylan. But, Dylan kept the chain tight around the man's neck. The man tried to ram Dylan against the wall, but Dylan just yelped and glared deadly angry at the man. He whispered deeply in the man's ear.

"You, fucking trash! How fucking DARE you to talk to my Ryan like that? Or matter of fact, talk to anyone like that?!"

The man tries to reach up at Dylan's face to either claw at his eyes or pull his hair. Dylan grips at the chain as he heard the man's gasps was getting deep and raspy.

"People like you always get away with talking to anybody with a nasty attitude for minding their own business. Guess what asshole, you just crossed the WRONG one!"

Dylan grips the chain again and this time did a hard twisting yank until he heard a satisfying..

CRACK!

The man's body went limp and Dylan drops the body to the floor. Dylan closed his eyes with a smile.

"Now...to put you where you fucking belong."

Dylan went to the back of the building without being seen, he dumped the body that was wrapped in a bag into the dumpster.

Ryan sighed as he sat at a park table where the stain was still visibly seen. He couldn't believe that his impromptu date was ruined by some biggot.

"Hmph. You had seen better days." Kaitlyn said as she sat down at the table near Ryan.

"Yeah. You're right." Ryan said.

"I kinda figured you would be here." Kaitlyn said as she finally spots the stain. "So, wanna explain that?"

"No."

"Fair enough."

Ryan turns to her. "What are you doing here?"

"Just because I'm Chief of Police doesn't mean I don't have a life, Erzahler. I do want to get some fresh air too."

"Sorry, Kait. I didn't mean--"

"I'm yanking your leg, Ryan." Kaitlyn laughed. "So, what are you doing out here?"

"Long story. But I'm waiting for Dylan to come back."

"Oooh. I finally get to meet this Dylan that get you all hot and bothered."

Ryan glared at Kaitlyn. "I hope he isn't distracting you from your work."

"Kaitlyn--"

"Heeeeeey!"

Ryan turned to see Dylan walking back with a Ice Cream cup in his hand. Dylan smiled as he sat the cup of Ice cream in front of Ryan. "Sorry, handsome. But they sold out of cones. Could you believe that? I hope this is good enough."

Ryan smiled. "It's perfect, Dyl."

Dylan smiled as he leans in and kissed Ryan softly. "You know, I like it when you call me Dyl."

"Ahem.."

Dylan and Ryan both turned to Kaitlyn. "So, this is the most adorable shit and too much of this will make me sick." Kaitlyn said.

Dylan sat up and his eyes turns to Ryan. "Umm. Who's this?"

Embarrassed, Ryan rubbed the back of his neck. "Dylan, this is my close friend Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn, this is Dylan."

Dylan eyed Kaitlyn. He wasn't impressed with her. "Hi."

"Hello." Kaitlyn reached her hand across the table and hold it out to Dylan.

Dylan's eyes never left Kaitlyn. Something about her screamed trouble to Dylan. Dylan hesitantly took hold of Kaitlyn's hand. They shook it.

"Nice to finally meet you. I'm glad there is somebody who could get Ryan here to get out of his dull life a bit."

Dylan gave Kaitlyn a fake smile. "Yeah. I told Ry-Guy here that being dull isn't cute." Dylan watched Kaitlyn nods. "Um..I'm sorry but your name again is..?"

"Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn Ka." Kaitlyn said with concern.

"Kaitlyn Ka. Huh. That name sounds very familiar." Dylan said.

Ryan and Kaitlyn looked at each other. Kaitlyn laughed. "Well, you probably seen me on the news a lot. I'm the Chief of Police."

Dylan blinked. He had to make sure he heard her right. "C-Chief of P-Police?"

Kaitlyn frowned as she looked at Ryan who also expressed worry on his face. Kaitlyn turned back to Dylan. "Yes. Yes I am."

Dylan felt his eye twitch. He's sitting in front of one of them. Dylan's leg bounced in place as he tries to keep his composure. "Well, it's surprising that you're out and about. I'm sure you're a very busy chief."

"Ugh. Busy is an understatement. I'm just here to grab some air." Kaitlyn smiled as she turned to Ryan. "Um, I need a report on my desk by Tuesday."

Ryan nods. "I'll have it sent to Laura by tomorrow."

Dylan blinked and turns to Ryan. "You're a cop too?"

Ryan shook his head. "Oh no. I just do a journal report for her and she goes over to see what I can publish."

"Publish? Are you writing a book or something?" Dylan asked.

Ryan chuckled. "No. I'm a journalist. I work at the Daily Journal."

Dylan heart sank. He couldn't believe this. His Ryan....a journalist? Dylan suddenly got up. Ryan frowned at the sudden action. "Dyl? Is everything alright?"

"Uh..y-yeah. I have to go and..uh feed my cat. It's way past her lunch time." Dylan said as he backs up a bit.

"Schrodinger?" Ryan asked.

"....Heh. You remembered."

"Oh. Ok. Um..I'll call you later?"

Dylan nods. "Uh yeah. Sure. Um...nice to meet you chief." Dylan did a bow and leaves.

Kaitlyn turned to Ryan. "Um...that went great."

Ryan who was frowning watching Dylan leave. "Did...did we piss him off?"

Kaitlyn shrugs. "I dunno. Call him later once things get cooled down."

Ryan nods with a sigh.

Dylan made it home. He paced back and forth as he was biting on his thumb nail in deep thought. Schrodinger was watching her human walking back and forth.

"Damnnit! DAMNNIT!" Dylan yelled out.

This wasn't suppose to be. Ryan wasn't suppose to be friends with cops or being a journalist. Those were the two corrupted force right next to the government. Ryan couldn't be one of them. He just can't! Not when Dylan finally starting to understand about compassion and affection. Ryan swept him off his feet. How the fuck could this be possible?! Dylan shouldn't had fell hard for Ryan. But Ryan fucking had to be such a perfect guy.

"FUCK!" Dylan screamed out. Dylan goes to the bathroom and stares at himself in the mirror. Dylan grips the edge of the sink until he heard his phone ring. He looks down and his phone reads 'Ryan'. He let the phone ring a bit before answering.

"...Y-Yeah. Hey handsome."

Ryan sighed on the other end. "Hey. Are you ok? Look, I didn't mean to make you upset."

"Nah. Ry. No. You didn't make me upset. I really had to come home to feed my cat. Good thing I did because the little shit got in the cabinets and started to claw into her treats."

Ryan chuckled a bit. "I'm sorry Dyl."

Dylan closed his eyes. "Y-yeah."

It was silence on both end.

"Um..I was wondering if you like to come over my place tomorrow evening? I'll cook for us. I want to apologize from earlier."

"Ry, I told you there was nothing to apologize for--"

"I know. I just....I want to make it up to you. Can you come over say around 8pm?"

Dylan stared at his reflection as he didn't answer.

"....Dylan?"

Dylan heard Ryan's worried tone. "I'm sorry handsome. The cat was distracting. Um..yeah I'll love to come over."

Ryan sighed again. "Good. I was worried you would say no."

"To you? Never."

"Alright. Um. I'll let you be. Tell Schrodinger I said hi. I'll see you tomorrow....and wear something nice for me."

Dylan still stared at his refection as he heard Ryan. "...Yeah. Later." Dylan hangs up.

So many thoughts went a mile a minute in Dylan's head. But the one thought that stood out in his head was...

Ryan can not be trusted.

He's too close to the cops and he working for the biggest liars on the planet. Dylan can't accept that. He just can't let Ryan be corrupted as the rest of them. Dylan have to save Ryan by the only way he knows how.

He must kill Ryan.

#drylan #dylan leviny #dylan x ryan #dylan/ryan #radioheads #ryan erzahler #ryan x dylan #ryan/dylan #rylan #the quarry

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apocalypticgargoyle · 3 years

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meet clay, he knows how you'll die.

intro filler chapter sorry

☾ pairing: dream x reader

☾ cw: interact at your own risk; contains graphic depictions of various character death and violence, suicide, blood, gore, and other triggering material. angst, language, guns, adult content, mentions of sex, slow burn friends to lovers

☾ wc: ~4100

Clay pulled the strap of his backpack further on his shoulder as he wove through the mindless sea of college students, eyes scanning the crowd for you, his best friend and the only person he could stand at the early hour. His knuckles flashed white as he sighed, taking the blunt impact of someone walking into him. He removed one of his headphones, mumbling a quick apology and swatting off the enthusiastically apologetic sophomore girl. All he could focus on was how much she bit her lip as she stammered on about not seeing him. It wasn’t alluring to him when most girls tried to sway his affections by looking at him with a puppy dog expression; all his mind drifted to was the dead skin across the body of her lower lip.

He finally nodded and reinstated his headphone, turning on his heel and heading for the front of the building. He received a few greetings from his peers as they crossed his path, people who shared past lectures with him and who had cheated off of him during exams. He wasn’t popular by any means, but he stayed out of people’s business and didn’t express his opinions loudly, so people tended to like him. The autumn breeze picked up as he stood in the dwellings of political science majors on the front lawn, acting as if they hadn’t seen one another in years when it had been only a few days. Clay absent-mindedly looked down at his cellphone, flipping through music as he leaned against the cool brick of the hall’s facade, waiting for you to find him.

Clay’s usual brooding manner was often off-putting to outsiders, with the careless-hollow look in his eyes giving bystanders the impression that he was nothing but a machiavellian. But you always saw the brightness in him; the side that you always experienced was specifically for you, and he made sure to keep it that way. You had wedged herself into his life and he was ever grateful for the love you had given him.

Despite the understood truth between the two of you that nothing was to be left unsaid, Clay still found himself keeping one of the most important aspects of his character unknown to you. His bloodcurdling secret was his own curse, something that would only be poison for another soul to know.

“What’s up, stud?” Somehow a flush of relief rippled through Clay’s body as his eyes locked to yours, pulling him from his isolated shell. Your hair looked brighter today against the dark hoodie peeking out from beneath an all too familiar bomber jacket. The wind fluffed your locks slightly as you continued towards him.

His eyebrows perked up as if to signal he was attempting to downplay his excited demeanor. “Stud, huh?” You smirked at his response, taking one of his headphones and putting it in your own ear, her face angled up to Clay as you waited to recognize the song, swaying slightly.

He chuckled as you shrunk away from him after muttering the song’s artist disappointedly and rolling your eyes, pulling on his hoodie pocket to follow you. As chaotic as his life often felt, he could always rely on the consistency of you. You usually attached yourself to one of his backpack straps, handles, his belt loop, or ended up under his arm, wedged against his side. It had gotten to the point that he felt naked if you weren’t within arm’s length of him, which was rare for the two of you. “So, I have something for you.” He smugly looked down at you, green eyes masking a hidden sparkle as you handed him a can of root beer, making him chuckle.

“Aren’t you sweet?” He popped the tab, taking a sip as you waved at a group of girls passing the two of you before slipping your hand against the crook of his elbow where his hoodie sleeves were pushed back.

“Actually, I was hoping it could be payment for later. I need to head over to the cemetery for some rubbings. History 270 has me getting into some weird shit, huh?” He laughed again at you, offering you the drink.

“And you need wheels?” You nodded and smiled politely at him, beaming at his words. “Yeah, alright. I have to sketch something for art anyway.” He thought about the week’s assignment and then about your little project he had dealt with the prior year. You had acted like the two of you hadn’t been to the cemetery on a regular basis, but he was grateful that you wanted him to come along with you.

You quietly jumped once. “You are my hero in faded denim, Clay. You know that, right?”

The two of you parted ways to your select destinations, one of Clay’s least favorite parts of the day, which was only solidified as he sunk into his seat and attempted to look equipped for the lecture. He spotted an unfamiliar kid shaking his knee in a distant section of the classroom. In any other circumstance, he wouldn’t have thought twice, but the sie of the class had given him the pleasantries of getting his own personal curse out of the way on the first day.

He carefully watched the boy speak smugly to a few of the more athletic kids in the room. One of the athletes pointed to the general direction Clay was sitting in and they all moved towards him. He, yet again, took out his headphones, knowing full well that they would be talking to him for the rest of the class.

“Oi, Shaman,” one of the main guys greeted Clay like they always did: a strange pattern of slapping and shaking his hand. He was thankful he had gotten all of their first impressions months prior and didn’t have to worry about getting their scenarios again, but he geared up to meet the new kid.

“How are you, Punz?” Clay took a deep breath as the new kid was gestured to and brought into the light.

“This is Mark. He’s a transfer from one of the commuter campuses. Mark, this is the mastermind you pay for notes.”

Clay sarcastically smiled at Punz. “My, you flatter me more than any girl. Nice to meet you, man.” As soon as he touched Mark’s hand, Clay’s mind flashed to a dingy-looking barn out in the middle of nowhere before an older man in his mid-thirties came into view with a lever-action rifle in his hand. In another flash, Clay was in front of the man, now kneeling with the gun in his mouth, red, blurry eyes looking straight through Clay. A pang of guilt broke open in Clay’s stomach as he pushed against the handguard lever and pulled it back into place, squeezing the trigger and sending Ckay back to the class. He let out a sigh and fought to plaster one of his less absent smiles.

“Speaking of our lovely girls, Mark here has a question about her.” Clay’s head tilted towards Mark, not exactly squaring up to him, but sending him an amused look as if to warn him not to cross a line, knowing full-well this conversation would somehow involve you. “We all know that no guy would ever intrude on her without your blessing, but Mark sat near her on the bus before his first class and was thinking about asking her out.”

Clay bit back a laugh, feeling like the Vito Corleone. “Well, you know her, Punz, and you know she would be mortified if I told some guy to fuck off, so I would just ask her yourself?” Oh, how desperately Clay wanted to bash Mark for not even telling Clay himself and the fact that the boy before him was nowhere near your type, but Clay knew better than to burn bridges and he felt bad for the way Mark would meet his end.

Nobody, not even you, knew about Clay’s gift. In the going-on-five years of knowing you, he came breaths away from letting his secret slip but has always kept it hidden, hoping to bury it with him after being married to you for forty happy years.

The visions started around his fifth-grade year, beginning with vivid dreams of dying in the midst of the Civil War, feeling the warm gushing of blood leaving his system, and the stabbing pain of being shot multiple times beside a woman who oddly looked enough like you that he almost called out your name. He had lived what he presumed to be his death in the life before this one several times, each vision taking him a few clicks further.

Soon, he found himself catching glimpses of others’ deaths before they happened as soon as they touched him, but thankfully it was usually over with no time passing and he only endured the visions once for each person, fate having already sealed itself. The only person who seemed to mix him up was you.

It was love at first sight for him, but as soon as you touched his arm, bleak snapshots of a boating accident raced into his mind, only to have to re-experience the scenario a few months later with you stepping in front of a train. Even as a measly high school freshman, he promised himself that there was no way he was letting you die in the gruesome manners being predicted to you. He didn’t think changing fate was possible until he witnessed you in action. He hated seeing you so young in each of the glimpses, tearing him to shreds as he knew time and time again that there was no way he could change what was meant to be.

There were even times when he quietly promised you that he’d die by your side if he couldn’t stop it.

As his lecture let out, Clay found you tucked into a corner of the library, smiling to yourself silently as knew you had finally found what you were looking for in one of the massive books before you. There were many moments like this that Clay wished he could pause and remember for the rest of his life. He was proud that you were there for him even though you could have left instead of playing your own little game of library scavenger hunts.

Since knowing you, he had taken note of how you treated other boys, usually as first dates and never true pick-ups. You didn’t care if they called you the next day or not and he was sure you had never even been kissed before. Something about your guys’ relationship gave others the nod to leave it the fuck alone, and that your heart truly belonged to Clay; a responsibility he wished didn’t plague you with. Despite this, he couldn’t bring himself to be with you, only worried that what you had would be destroyed because he knew that as soon as he told you about his gift, you might leave.

You always brought a bag of marbles and a bouquet of flowers to the cemetery. You loved to find the tombstones that looked neglected or ones with older dates, knowing that the possibility of having family members who remembered the person was lower. The trees in the graveyard were reds and yellows with the changing season, leaves scattered over the grass, naturally piling in large masses. This was your favorite for how neglected it seemed to always be. You had a knack for making inanimate objects and lost souls feel loved; Clay often feeling like he was one of these disembodied figures.

Clay leaned his back against one of the massive trees a few paces from the tombstone you had picked, smiling as he watched you carry out her routine. He flipped to a clean page in his sketchbook as you sat cross-legged in front of the great stone resting place, pulling the long-dead flowers from the concrete gauntlet and replenishing a few flowers in their place while setting an equal number of marbles along the grass line of the stone. A daisy was tucked behind your ear as you ran her fingers against the worn chiseling of the dates, smiling slightly. He began to sketch you out. Your eyes drifted to him before the corners of your mouth curled up into a smirk and you returned to her previous position, straightening your shoulders. “Who is it?” He asked, blending a rough edge with the pads of his finger as you tilted your head at the script carvings.

“George McAfee. Born 1926. Died 1963.” The wind picked up, blowing your hair away from your face as you pulled your jacket closer around you. “What was happening in 1963?” You turned your head to him momentarily before looking back at the lucky man. “I mean besides Beatlemania and JFK’s assassination?”

Clay outstretched one of his legs, swallowing as he thought, his eyes fluttering from the page in front of him to you. “Well, Alcatraz was shut down, Studebaker stopped production, the USSR sent the first woman into space…” he trailed off, watching you as the gears began to spin in your head.

“Do you think he died in the Coliseum explosion?” You wet your lips and he couldn’t help but smile at you.

“Maybe he died in the USS Thresher sinking?” He was thankful that he could capture your thoughtful gaze in this picture.

“You’re smart, Dream. Have I ever told you that?” He chuckled at the sigh in your voice. He detailed the bomber jacket you were wearing---which you’d stolen from his closet god knows when---a bit as you placed a piece of paper over the engraving and rubbed a crayon against the stone, his name coming to life on the paper as you came to life on Clay’s. It didn’t matter why you two would be in the cemetery, you always had a type of bond with the dead, surprising Clay due to how bright you were and your power of holding onto so much compassion. He threw his sketchbook into his backpack and slug in over his shoulder, moving to help you up. You decided to give the rest of the flowers to George as Clay stood next to you, gazing down at his grave.

A high-pitched moan startled the two of you, snapping your heads to look over the hedges separating your section of graves and the one beside it. Clay’s eyes widened as they fell to a girl in all black with porcelain skin propped on top of one of the tombstones. You clasped your hand over his mouth pulling him onto the ground next to you as you peered through a hole in the bushes. His mind noticed your arms first. One of them was secured over his chest and the other wrapped around his shoulder from beneath his arm, holding onto him as he steadied himself in the weird crouching position. “Are you enjoying this?” He jeered, looking over his shoulder slightly as he heard you snicker. The girl began to ride the stone harder.

“How many times in your life are you going to see a girl humping a gravestone? Honestly, Clay, how many?” He shook his head as you both looked at the girl, giggling to yourselves. You dug her face into his shoulder trying to stifle the next laugh trying to rip through your body as the gothic girl moaned, letting out more labored breaths. Clay’s face contorted into a twisted look of disgust as the girl tugged on her own hair. “Oh, do you think that hurts?” You took the words out of his mouth, tightening your arms around him as he shrugged.

“I doubt it’s any rockier than sex with a human.” He bit his lip, a hollow sound interrupting him quietly laughing at his own joke as you thumped him in the chest. The girl moaned louder. “Alright, she’s climaxing. I’m uncomfortable now.” Clay stood and Willow popped up next to him, lacing your fingers with his, bringing color back to his cheeks as you slipped the remaining marbles into his pocket.

“Oh, hi!” In the midst of holding hands with you again and trying to slink back to his car, he hadn’t even realized that the moaning had stopped. The girl now stood near the two of you in what seemed to be a black slip. Clay found it hard to make direct eye contact with her. “Are you guys looking for someone?”

“We were, but we couldn’t find him so-” you began, gesturing for Clay’s car and pulling him next to you.

“Well, I can help. Who are you looking for?” A thousand sarcastically vulgar comments ran through Clay’shead but his eyes flickered from her face to the tombstone she was on previously.

“Uh, my grandpa. His name was Rupert Daniels,” Clay managed to choke out. Your nails dug into his arm while your hand squeezed his. The girl looked around at the surrounding stones.

“I don’t see him right now, but I can look?” You both shook your heads quickly and muttered various responses before finally slipping away from her and getting into his car. Neither of you said anything as you pulled off the gravel driveway until crossing the railroad tracks when Clay burst out laughing.

“Do you think she even knew who it was she was gettin’ it on with or did she just pick somewhere random?” Clay laughed harder at your stunned response. “I’m serious. Clay, what the fuck. How can someone even get off in a cemetery?”

“I don’t know, man. Would you hook up with someone in a cemetery?” Clay quipped, wiggling his eyebrows at you, causing you to laugh. You dug into his console, pulling out a bag of M&Ms you had stashed in there last week, popping one in your mouth.

“Only if it was you.”

He giggled. “Excuse me, what?”

“There are just some things you do with certain people, Dream. You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered I’m the only one you would have sex with in a cemetery, or like, disgusted?” You laughed at his reaction.

Within ten minutes the sun had begun to set and Clay sang loudly with you to the song playing over the radio as Clay sped along one of the county roads near your apartment complex, not wanting the night to end. He loved these moments with you. You turned down the radio and threw your hair back into a ponytail. “So, what do you think of that new kid, Mark?” Something in Clay shifted, taking away the free feeling he had recently possessed next to you. He thought carefully.

He chewed his bottom lip. “Depends on what you think?”

“Well, he seems like a wannabe Punz. And he asked me out. Naturally, I said ‘yes’ because maybe he’s different?” Clay chuckled at your sarcasm, putting his car in park on the side of the street your flat was on and getting out with you. The radio still hummed in the air lowly. “He insisted on Friday, though.” Clay dramatically acted like you had stabbed him in the heart, even though it did hurt. Friday night was their night. It had been a running tradition for movie night every Friday since your freshman year and you had never canceled on Clay for a date. “I know, I know. But I figured that I’d tell him I had diarrhea when it hit eight o’clock and be over at your place with an extra pizza? Your roommate’s working right?” He chuckled with a nod, walking you up the first three steps to your place as you made it to the concrete landing. You turned to him. “And he said he was taking me somewhere fancy, so I’ll snag you some breadsticks.” He tilted his head at you as you winked at him.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Wanna be Punz might be fun. Maybe I’ll call up Minx and hang out with her?” He joked. Minx was a friend of yours that hung out with the two of you sometimes. He had never really liked her, but she was friends with you and thus he was always civil.

“You’re still my number one, babe.” You pushed him slightly as you climbed a few more steps, leaning on the railing as he waved to leave. “Hey, Dream?” He turned on his heel as you forced yourself to make eye contact. He stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets. “You could kiss me, you know? For science.” You smiled softly at him from where you were perched. He wet his lips as his heart hammered in his chest. He wanted to scale the steps and close the space between you, to knock you off your feet and show you just how much he was in love with you.

He hated himself. “A first kiss should have more magic in it than just for science. As a romantic, you should know first hand.” You smiled at the ground in front of you.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” The two of you seemed to shake off the serious moment as you stuck your tongue out at him and slipped inside your house as both giggled.

“I love you,” he murmured as you left, punching himself in the shoulder as he got back into his car.

Clay’s heartbeat pulsed in his ears, making him truly believe he was going to pass out. He had lost his gun at least a mile back. He was running mindlessly now, not knowing how long or where he was going. He trudged through the forest, hearing dogs barking and gunshots erupting around him, the ringing in his ears building with every step he forced himself to make. He wanted to rip open the front of his jacket to release the body heat drenching his collar, but he didn’t move other than propelling his body further and further away from the soldiers. You ran beside him, holding your skirt up while your hair danced around your shoulders like a great waterfall. As soon as his body felt like it might just give out, he would look at you and somehow find more of a drive to pull forward. His breaths were brittle and hoarse as he drew in borrowed oxygen. His lungs felt shallow like they were giving out on him.

You reached back, grasping his hand and pulling him into a sharp corner, hoping to lose the group. You both had managed to weave into the forest, but the dogs were somehow still picking up on your scent. The pair of you finally came upon a clearing and kneeled down out of sight, spotting a house in the middle of a glen. Bullets were streaming through the air. The forest was catching fire and cannons were echoing through the distant air. You squeezed his hand tightly, looking at him with terror in your eyes. He had gotten the two of you into this mess, but he was glad he was beside you.

He pulled you to your feet as the pair of you sprinted for a distant house. A sharp pain stabbed into Clay’s back, making him drop to the ground. How did he not hear the gun? You dropped to your feet, your eyes welling with tears, ripping at his jacket, but he pushed you off, telling you to leave quickly. He leaned forward, eyes locking on the soldiers in gray coming towards them, reloading their rifles. He groaned, pushing himself up, but only having the same stabbing sensation two more times in his chest. He heard you scream, but he couldn’t see you.

His hands were going numb as he touched where the bullets entered, feeling the warm and sticky crimson substance seep between his fingers. The soldiers reached you before you had made it to the house, pulling you to the ground next to him. You were crying heavily as you looked at him. Everything began to run quiet as you held onto him tightly. You were saying something to him, but he couldn’t hear you. He was only aware of his jacket soaking with blood. He coughed, wanting to tell you he loved you one last time, but you were tugged away from him, pressed to one of the men in gray. He raised a hand to you as you fought against the man. And then everything went dark.

Dream Tag List: (hopefully this works)

@karlkitten @pluto-dizzz @more-like-reyna @honk-izzie-was-taken @marrymetheonott @froggyy06 @ghoulandghost @savingpluto @marshmallow-babe @drunkpumpkincake @unstableye @tinyegg @behzzyboo @twist3dtinkerbell @sparkletash @shroomieissmall @clubfairy @camerondiaz48104 @victory-is-here @rat-poisin @alm334 @acidluvs @pachowpachowbucket @bbigbbrainn @cdizzlevalntyne @idiotinnit @generallysleepdeprived @sacvf @phsychopathetic @froggerrrr @robinslie @essencee @jemalovesmarvel @sbi-is-my-onlysanity @jenlouvre @victoria-a567 @miilliiie @bunnylotl @thegirlwhowritesawksh-t @carlyferrell @dumb-chaotic-bi-energy @nyxieahh @quivvyintheclouds @sarcasticmichelle @book-of-anarchy @millavalntyne @lightdreamy @baddiesforcorpse @sunnynapp @fantasy-innit @rat-poisin @wreny24 @deepestofwaters @exenestea @indecisivehusky @fallxnly @alm334 @skaratjung @punzcanrailme @sap-naps @denki-exe @angeltears18 @silvemistxe33 @andreamalik6 @kris-stuff @sun-fiower-seed @where-thesundoesntshine @dilfdream @esmegregory04 @itsparasocial @mlqcool @mcgoddess404 @rinatdawn @chaoscait @peppermintkisses @libbynotfound @speedrunningtherapy @lunxramour @aoonai @loraleiix @ghoulpixiie

#dream x you #dream x fem!reader #dream x y/n #dream imagine #dream x reader #mcyt au #mcyt x reader #cw gore #cw language #tw violence #tw death #tw angst #tw gore #tw suicide #tw blood

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jaskiersvalley · 3 years

Note

I just reached the bottom of your writings and felt the need to say that i appreciate you. You’re really cool and im happy I stumbled upon you.

You are far far too sweet. This has been sat in my inbox for so long because I don't think anyone has called me cool before and I wanted to bask in that. I really appreciate you too and I'm really happy you stumbled upon my blog. So I hope you're still in the fandom and enjoy this little bit of odd zombie AU.

CW: Zombies, apocalypse, Resdent Evil/Last of Us inspired AU.

Last Hope

Nobody expected the Continent to turn to shit. War had been on the horizon, Nilfgaard was advancing but not once did anyone expect them to have been experimenting with creating superior soldiers to fight for them. Allegedly the idea had been to harvest some of the Continent's monsters' attributes and imbue them into soldiers, creating a new class of warriors. It hadn't worked. But what Nilfgaard did manage to create was a virus like no other before. It turned humans and animals into mindless, violent creatures whose sole purpose was to feed, preferably on human flesh. The virus spread like no other, bringing the whole Continent to its knees.

Pockets of survivors remained, walled up in thick stone keeps. Kaer Morhen was one such sanctuary. Witchers, it turned out, weren't immune to the virus. Letho had watched Serrit and Auckes succumb to it, had put them down before setting light to where they'd been trying to stay safe and he set off to find somewhere, anywhere, that would accept him. The cold didn't impact much on the undead, they still moved just as deadly fast, unencumbered by things like fatigue, hunger or frostbite. Still, he made it up to the keep and was welcomed in. It was probably the most full Kaer Morhen had been in a long time. There were witchers, sorceresses, humans, dwarves, vampires and who knew what else, all coexisting and trying to make the best of their lives.

"I heard rumours," Letho said over dinner. "There's someone immune to this whole wretched thing down South."

"And I heard a rumour that taking a shit over the parapets cures piles," Lambert shot back with a snort. Being cooped up with so many people didn't exactly suit him, even when Aiden was there along with Eskel too.

Yennefer sat up straighter. "I've heard that rumour too. Sent word out that if it's true, we're probably best placed to try and find what makes the person so special. Maybe derive a cure from them."

Not long after, Gaetan arrived with Guxart. And with some news.

"There's a man and a girl travelling North. Allegedly with the hope of a cure."

The others exchanged looks, not wanting to believe rumours. Hope was a dangerous thing, but they could all use a dose of it. Things had been bleak to say the least.

Guxart picked up the story. "There's a lot of people gunning for them. So far they've evaded being captured, left quite a bloody trail too. We saw what remained of a tavern. Allegedly the group living there had been luring in weary travellers with the promise of safety, only to throw them into a fighting ring." Unfortunately such stories weren't unusual, humans had the most disdainful ideas of entertainment at times. Guxart pressed on, "If it was those two then I hope they're not headed here. They left no survivors, cleared out the place of humans and undead alike. It was a massacre."

There was nothing to do but wait. A week passed, then another. The hope they'd felt at the mention of a possible path to a cure dwindled and turned into bitter disappointment at the backs of their minds. It was almost three weeks later that there was a commotion on the path to the old keep. The undead who lurked in the trees were snarling and howling as two figures broke into a sprint on the last stretch of the path, pursued by quite a hoard of hungry zombies.

"Get the gate!" Vesemir bellowed and it was a mad dash to open the gates while armed. They weren't quick enough and a scuffle broke out as the two travellers were up against the gates, the undead descending upon them. A sharp scream went up from what sounded like a young girl. The gate opened and Eskel reached out, pulling her in first before Lambert gruffly yanked her protector in too. The others pushed to slam the gates shut, bolting it once more.

"Cahir! Are you okay?" The girl ignored them all in favour of checking over her guardian, wisps of blonde hair sticking to her sweaty face.

"I'm fine." A gruff answer and the so called Cahir looked up at them with an exhausted, hollow gaze. "This is Kaer Morhen, right? We were told this is where we had to come. She's Ciri, I'm Cahir."

Vesemir stepped forward with a brisk nod. "Welcome. Let's get you settled. From what I hear, you had quite the journey."

Yennefer ushered Ciri away and the others trailed after her, curious to see what someone immune to the virus looked like, acted like. The left Eskel to lead Cahir to a room of his own.

"Nilfgaard's quite a way," he said by way of conversation, ignoring the way Cahir rubbed his wrist under his cloak.

"Vicovaro is even further." The answer was a little prim and offended. "I'm not Nilfgaardian."

"My apologies. If you want to clean up, we have a communal bath in the lower levels. You're welcome to join us."

The offer seemed to go ignored as Cahir simply flopped on the bed and closed his eyes without even kicking off his worn boots. Eskel couldn't begrudge him, such a journey was long and tiring even before the world went to shit. To then have to cross the Continent while chased by who knew how many people wanting his precious charge and the unending masses of undead no doubt made the whole thing exhausting.

Dinner was bubbling away in a large cauldron over a fire and the chores for the day were done. It was quite common for most of the residents of Kaer Morhen to settle in the baths, one of the few remaining luxuries left for them. To everyone's surprise Cahir bumbled in a little while later, still sleep rumpled but without his cloak. It left his ragged and torn shirt in full view, including where one sleeve had been ripped off at the elbow. On his lower arm was a freshly applied bandage with blood that had seeped through in an all too telling pattern. Cries of alarm went up as they spotted the bite.

"You've been bitten!"

"How could you endanger us like this?"

"You idiot!"

It was a cacophony as various witchers jumped out of the baths, reaching for their swords and heedless of their nudity. There was a very real danger in their midst that needed to be taken care of. Cahir held up his hands in a placating manner, surrendering without a fight.

"If I may?" He pulled his shirt over his head and the others tried to make sense of what they were seeing. His body was littered with scars from bites. Some were healed, others still scabbed over. When the trousers slid down, Cahir's legs were no different.

"What the-?" Lambert scowled.

It was the exact moment Yennefer arrived, Ciri in tow. She gave Cahir a once over. "It would seem we made some assumptions. Cahir, when you're rested and fed, I'd like to take a sample of your blood and hair please."

Next to her, Ciri giggled and tucked a strand of hair out of her face. She walked up to Cahir and took his bandaged arm in hand, inspecting his handiwork.

"You're getting better at this," she announced. "Hopefully it's the last one you've taken for me or anyone else though."

Her words were followed by an eerie silence in the baths as the others mulled over everything.

"So-" Eskel rubbed the back of his neck with a small frown, "-is Ciri your daughter?"

A bright laugh bubbled out of Ciri at that. "If only I was so lucky. I was his escort and bodyguard. Our pursuers often assumed that me being so young looking meant I was the immune one and Cahir was protecting me. That deception worked well for us."

Guxart cleared his throat. "We saw a tavern that was a fighting ring."

Both Ciri's and Cahir's faces darkened at that. It was Cahir who answered.

"We survived. But barely." His hand rubbed over his shoulder where a large chunk had been torn out, leaving a visible dent. "Had to lay low and recover for a while after that. Ciri injured her throat."

"And you got a bitch of a fever. You're the worst patient ever, always fidgeting and poking. It's a miracle only that bite got infected so bad."

Cahir stuck his tongue out at Ciri and she poked him in the stomach. In turn Cahir ruffled her hair and danced away. Taking it as a challenge, she dashed after him and gave him a shove that sent him flying, landing with a big splash in one of the baths. Spluttering and laughing, he surfaced.

"Oh you little bitch!" He playfully splashed water in her direction but Ciri let out a scream and the water froze mid arc before dropping into a sad little puddle on the ground.

The others stared at her in awe and horror. She grinned at them with a shrug. "You didn't really think they'd send some random, helpless girl as a bodyguard, did you?"

A hand landed on Ciri's shoulder as Yennefer smiled down at her. "You and I have a lot to discuss. How would you feel about learning how to control your powers even better?"

For the first time since the news that there might be a solution to the virus, hope trickled back into the lives of the residents of Kaer Morhen. It wasn't going to be an overnight solution, they knew it wasn't going to be easy. But they were one small step closer to a safer, happier life and that was more than enough for them after years of despair.

#geralt of rivia #yennefer of vengerberg #cirilla fiona elen riannon #cahir mawr dyffryn aep ceallach #the witcher #letho of gulet #gaetan #guxart #vesemir #lambert #eskel #zombie apocalype au #tldr: ciri and cahir arrive at kaer morhen as the immune one and the bodyguard

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

Text

Title: A Tale of Two Slaves (10/17)

Summary: “Soulmates don’t exist. Fate doesn’t exist. Everything is a choice.” At that moment, Levi could only watch as she made the choice for him.“

Reincarnation AU. Levi remembers everything from their past life. Hange doesn’t.

Note: This took a while. I had this written out for a while, I just spent a good amount of brain cells trying to figure out where to cut this. It’s almost done actually. I’m expecting like (at the most) 5 more chapters so maybe I can get it done by the end of March if I muster up the courage and the effort to do all the final revisions to the last few chapters.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Other Chapters:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Link to cross-postings: AO3

As Levi soon found out, Hange kept a folder online tagged ‘Levi Ackerman.’

The oldest pictures were dated more than three years ago and the first had been one of his cool down after his performance at his first tournament. There was variety in the pictures and they covered everything, all the way from warming up on the bench, positioning himself to run and those few moments right after launching himself in the air to the peak of his jump. She had even snuck pictures of his interviews.

The first time he opened it, he had first checked the dates to make sure he hadn’t been dreaming or assuming she of all people had been a fan. The weirdly strong emotions he had felt at the realization of the existence of such a folder had only made him all the more vulnerable and the last thing he had wanted to do was an act on an illusion or trick of the mind.

The experiences he had on the field clearing jump after jump had become routine over the five year period. Despite the changes among the faces in the crowd, the cheers that had only been getting louder and louder and of course, the oval that changed with the venue, sometimes the only thing Levi did remember was the blue sky staring him down and gravity pulling from behind.

Maybe that was why he had ended up in a state of disbelief the first time she had shown it to him.

How did you not notice her? Levi was sure he wouldn’t have anyway. She was a stranger, one stranger in a crowd of people. Although she may have been one unchanging face in a crowd of thousands of changing faces, she was still a stranger to him. And strangers just tended to blend in more easily.

A valid point. Yet the regret and frustration were still fresh inside him despite it having been weeks since she first gave him access to that folder

She had first showed it to him the morning after that eventful night, after having dealt with a hungover Nanaba. It was only in the evening that day after Hange had escorted her three friends to the station did she sit next to him on the bed and scroll through the pictures herself with Levi right beside her. Naturally, she was still hesitant to show that side of her, she scrolled a bit too slow at times, while a bit too fast at other times.

For a while their roles were reversed and Levi found himself prodding Hange for more details. Eventually, she did share the link to the folder in exchange for links to his story and Levi was quick to comply. They were both exposed anyway, there was no need for any more secrets between them. Only one condition that had seemed a little too frivolous at first glance, yet somehow Levi understood it.

Hange requested that he go through the pictures when she wasn’t around. And soon after she requested it, Levi realized he preferred that too. Despite the fact that he did trust her not to judge whatever she may find on the folders, there still existed an uneasiness at baring one’s heart out to someone in words one couldn’t control anymore having written the stories out too long ago.

Consequently, he requested the same thing from her. Do not read it while I’m around. When he told her the stories, he at least had control of his tones, his diction and the packaging of the overall story. Watching her read them, he knew he would find himself doubting the words he had written while at the same time vacillating between decisions to correct his previous writings or let her read. The constant self consciousness that came with the second option had just been too stressful of a prospect. He decided himself, he would rather have full control of the exposition or none at all.

The decision to have no control and no input, to be absent when he bares his heart out was not easy to make. And he continued to feel the traces of that struggle in the way he so easily lost focus and ended up mindlessly scrolling through the folder. His mind had shifted to other things more specifically the prospect of whether or not Hange was doing the same thing then and there.

She was only a phone call away. He could ask. But it had just seemed idiotic. Of course she wouldn’t be checking on it, she had been cramming for an exam that morning in between preparing for her mid semester thesis presentation. She hadn’t even bothered to say any greeting but an ‘I’ll follow’ before he left for the therapist that morning.

He looked through the messages in the waiting room, and up at the time displayed on the upper right part of the screen.

9:43. She was still in the middle of her exam. She won’t be checking on it.

Levi looked at the ceiling above him, allowing the plain white view above him to ease him back to his reality. How long had he been staring at the phone? He closely felt for the aches and discomforts around his body. The dull soreness that made itself known as he stared up at the white ceiling above him only served as a reminder that he had been a little too exposed to quick scrolls and the unnatural glare of his phone for a potentially unhealthy amount of time.

It was his first physical therapy session and Hange had pointed out that he should be early just in case. Consequently, he had shown up at 8:30 for a session at ten.

Just in case you get lost. Just in case there is paperwork which still needs to be filled. Hange would have done the paperwork already. He had ended up clocking that little doubt and that need for a little prophylactic thinking to caution on their end. First times tended to make people a little more cautious. And more importantly, what else was there to do on a Saturday morning other than sleep in?

Either way, that long wait had left him with eyes a little too tired yet at the same time, he was bored out of his wits. He looked around the waiting room finding something else to entertain himself with.

I only have seventeen more minutes to kill. It shouldn’t be too hard.

The atmosphere of the waiting room was nothing like getting lost in nature or on the road. It was stark white, bleak and a little too rehearsed. In other words, it lacked dynamic and consequently. it was too boring to find any amusement in. Of course, they wouldn’t want to stress out any patients with anything too fancy or overwhelming. Yet, the only thing which Levi could have found worth giving more than a passing thought to were the people around him.

And only when Levi started focusing instead on the people and not on the off-white plastered walls of the waiting room, he somehow was able to distract himself from the dragging motions of time.

There was an old man with a knee brace. A middle aged man with an arm in a sling and a girl with a casted right leg. There were others who could have passed up for nothing more than a visitor, until they stood up and Levi noticed in their gait the slight hesitancy to put one foot in front of the other. A small detail which Levi probably wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t looking for it then.

As he preoccupied himself and reflected over the small details that could have told stories of the people around him, that natural reflection to one own’s self had him a little too focused, a little too fixated.

The door to the waiting room slammed behind him and the trance disappeared as quickly as it came and as silently as a bubble that had just been popped.

Levi found himself irritably following the sound of the footsteps that came right after the slam of the door. It reverberated across the quiet and tense room, so loudly that if Levi did look around him, he would have realized he wasn’t the only one who had been so abruptly disturbed by it.

“Aaaand... My rounds are over for today,” The man said looking not at all guilty for that rude awakening. He wouldn’t have known anyway, and as Levi looked towards the front where the man had settled by the nurse’s desk, he might just have been the only one in the room rudely awakened by that sound.

“Ah, Doctor Jaeger, That was quick,” the nurse commented a little too pleasantly for Levi’s taste.

“Not too busy of a morning.” The man said, or as Levi soon deduced, was Mr. Jaeger. He recognized that irritating voice and as he looked up at the man, taking in the gruff features, the blond hair and beard and the rounded glasses, he quickly grasped for the name.

Zeke Jaeger. He hadn’t even said the name out loud just yet, but somehow he tasted venom. Levi though had enough awareness of his surroundings and his own ability to quickly yet correctly guess names to have kept silent. Regardless, he continued to watch as Zeke lowered his voice, possibly whispering something about going out for a drink and some dinner with the nurse in front of him. He found himself silently judging that audacious invasion of privacy as Zeke looked over at whatever paper was on the teacher’s desk.

Ackerman?

If Levi had actually been a little more aware of his surroundings, he would have realized Zeke did not at all say the name loud enough for him to hear. It was the result of Levi having watched too closely as Zeke enunciated those syllables, having noticed as the nurse made eye contact with him and having heard peppers of conversations about a jumper and an injury.

“Oh… An Ackerman? Who does high jumps?.” Zeke confirmed it himself, as he once again spoke a few decibels louder, obviously with the intention of making himself heard.

It wasn’t anything new. The past few months, Levi started to realize that at the least, many people in the local scene were familiar with him.

“My brother’s best friend is an Ackerman too and she started jumping recently.”

“I don’t have any relatives who jump,” Levi answered, in an attempt to shoot that attempt of a friendly interaction down.

Zeke stared at him, looking surprised. “You sure? With how quickly she picked it up, I thought she should have been related to you.”

Levi kept silent, making no effort to look open at all to conversation. Somehow, Zeke didn’t seem to get the hint.

“She’s been sweeping their interhigh competitions since the start of autumn… With the pace at which she’s going, she might even replace you.”

Levi had gotten used to those types of comments, hearing them as whispers the few times he went out, seeing them on a few forums as people discussed his injuries. He shouldn’t have been at all bothered by the statement, having shifted his attention in life to things which weren’t jumping

The blond man in front of him had been crass and blunt and Levi was starting to feel the beginnings of a bad mood. The irritability only worsened even as Levi tuned out the blond doctor. His mind went elsewhere, as he instead decided to seethe silently at the insensitivity of that statement.

A Tale of Two Slaves

Eventually Levi did get a break from that one-sided conversation. But the countdown to that break was slow and painful. He only noticed as he struggled under the trappings of that long and excruciating wait how long it really took for minutes to count down on a digital clock.

An eternity could have passed before Levi was called from the waiting room. As soon as the clock struck ten, Levi could not help but be more than slightly annoyed that she had been late.

If you’re early then you’re on time. If you’re on time, then you’re late. Any other day, Levi would have acknowledged the hypocrisy of that statement since although he was always early to training, he was never that religious when it came to academics. Having just bounced back from such an excruciating exchange with Zeke though, everything had just been pissing him off more than necessary.

It was almost remarkable how he managed to nod in return at the woman who met him at the exit of the waiting room. But Levi soon realized, as the anger quickly dissipated from inside him, she seemed like an old friend more than a stranger and like for all people, as long as there was history between them, he could save a little more patience points.

The woman who helped him up and led him to the room ahead was shorter than him yet had a way of handling herself that made Levi guess that she was at the least, a university student.

Levi didn’t need to guess anything else. Somehow, her name, her personality and the familiarity had all been somewhere in his head.

She cocked her head to one side in greeting and spoke up. “You can call me---”

“Petra,” Levi said. Somehow, he just knew her name. He had been inclined to complete that statement, only to make more real the nagging feeling in his head as soon as he had noticed her enter the room.

Petra’s eyes widened in shock. “Yes, how did you know?”

“It’s on your nametag,” Levi answered almost automatically, thanking the heavens she was wearing a nametag.

“Yeah, my bad. I get a little absent minded at times,” Petra patted her own head and gave Levi a wry smile.

Petra was hospitable. And when Levi thought that exact statement, he couldn't help but think how the word 'hospitable' had fit her so well. It was in her presence. She had this special talent, of finding ways at least to add color to the stark white hospital walls and the overly sanitized tiled floors underneath.

It could have been the tone or it could have been her word choice as she rattled off what could have been an outline of his physical therapy regime. As Levi did figure out, it could possibly have been the unique enthusiasm she had towards the whole patient recovery process

"So you're my physical therapist?" Levi asked. He never really did pick up what she was saying. He had heard enough about leg raises, timings on when to remove casts and knee bends that he at least guessed she knew enough about them to be one.

Petra though was quick to shake her head. "No actually. After college, I have plans of taking the exam. Then after that, I’ll be a physical therapist. I’m just taking advantage of this internship to learn more about the occupation.”

“It suits you,” Levi said. He kept his own comments brief. At that point, he did start to lose a little bit of awareness of his surroundings. His thoughts flew slowly back to his dreams.

Those first two encounters in the hospital had been two missing puzzle pieces. The stories had been an incomplete puzzle set of words and pictures and as he put it all together in his head, he couldn’t help but note how vivid the memories actually were. It took all his strength not to react, not to bolt out then and there, and go back home, to fill in the gaps on his laptop.

He put two names on his phone.

Zeke Jaeger. Petra Ral. Levi could have sworn there was more to remember and to write about.

And who did Zeke mention then? The other Ackerman? The other jumper?

The dreams were faint, as faint as the image an incomplete puzzle would make. Some parts were clear and vivid like a scenery behind a newly cleaned window. Others were hazy, his mind having filled up those gaps with blurry images. But the other Ackerman was there, and she moved fast enough to justify those blurs in the scene. Back when they fought the war, she flew in those cables much faster than he and Hange had.

I am strong. I am stronger than all of you.

A Tale of Two Slaves

The pain that came with his first physical therapy session was excruciating and it only served to further aggravate the anguish and his eagerness to get home before the sceneries in his head faded into faint memories of something else.

He managed at least to keep himself in a good in-between, by repeating the mantra of that other Ackerman to himself as he went through each and every exercise.

They had started off slow, as slow as a walk in the park maybe, a few stretches here and there. While doing some of the stretches and the warm ups, he did wonder if he had attended the right therapy session. Some of the warm up exercises had nothing to do with his knee after all.

The actual challenge came when Petra and the physical therapist he had failed to get the name of, had him sit down. As soon as Petra unwrapped the brace and pulled it from underneath him, Levi felt the weight of his injury almost instantly. It didn’t help at all that he was looking right at it.

“We’re going to try bending it a bit. Maybe put some weight on it if we have some extra time” The physical therapist’s words felt ominous.

The surgical scars and the healed wounds on his knees from more than two months ago only served to rattle Levi a little more. He had avoided looking at the scars many times before during meetings with Erwin and Hange. The few times Hange did pull and prod at it, he had it stretched out on some pillow.

It was fragile. And it felt unnatural. There in front of him then, it was dangling from the exam table, gravity pulling it down from underneath. Levi swore that if he tried hard enough he probably could imagine it completely disconnecting from his body at that moment. And maybe if he did move it, attempt to stand up without the confines of a knee brace as support, it might just fall off.

“Hey, it happens to the best of us,” Petra said.

No, it doesn’t happen to the best of us. In the room at least, there were at least five other people struggling to do something so simple as to bend a knee. But Levi could have sworn, in the outside world he was surrounded by people who wouldn’t think twice about bending their knee.

“Just bend it as far as you feel comfortable.” Bullshit directions. Levi had to admit, he wasn’t comfortable having it bend at all. Just the sensation of having it dangle so easily in the air, at the mercy of gravity underneath was already unsettling.

Was it a challenge then? To get it to bend as far as he could?

The directions of the therapist were flawed and Levi naturally opted for a flawed response as well. The process of bending his knee had been slow and excruciating. Levi found himself closing his eyes a few times, finding some sort of a rhythm in the faint sounds of the heater in the room, the murmurs from all the way across the room.

Or maybe a mantra? From someone a little too familiar. I am strong. Stronger than all of you. Another Ackerman.

And the way Zeke had mentioned it was grating. Was it a challenge? A threat? Was it supposed to be pushing him to go further?

It could have been Zeke or it could have been that phantom Ackerman that had been a motivation at that moment. But something then had Levi’s heart racing, his mind going in circles.

I’m strong too. I’ll get out of this rut. He thought to himself, a weak yet still effective act of protest. It worked both as a catalyst for a burst of motivation and an odd source of rhythm. The flexibility of bending came in slow, steady but continued attempts. The rush of adrenaline came halfway through.

A few minutes later, he was sweating and maybe he had been shaking a bit before that. When Petra had mentioned the optimistic progress and the plan to at least attempt to put weight on his bum knee, Levi was quick to comply.

And maybe a little too reckless. They had least helped him next to a wall, a good place at least to lean his body in the off chance he did lose control.

“One foot forward then one back.” The therapist guided.

As he watched the therapist simulate that same position, Levi quickly followed suit. He remembered, he had put some weight on his leg. Back then the brace had kept his knee stable.

At that moment, the brace was off, and it would be his bum knee, exhausted from the prior exercises taking the full weight.

I’m strong. Levi repeated to himself. Bending wasn’t an issue before. He had been bending his knees, possibly before he even knew how to walk. It should have been nothing, The excitement of a while ago, the adrenaline rush, pushed him further. It had him so seamlessly balancing the weight from the back of his foot, to the foot in front.

And maybe his knee had been bending farther in, the weight of his body on it. Somewhere along the way he did start to feel the beginnings of a dull pain.

I’m strong. To keep going, Levi had to find an escape. Stronger than all of you. It was easy at least, to leave the movements to his procedural memory as he distracted himself with his own musings, willing himself not to forget what he had wished to write down.

Where did they all fit? The Beast Titan… The Survey Corps… The War… The Alliance?

“Levi, I’m sorry I’m late. The test ended later than I expected…” She came as a faint voice, but Levi was too far gone to hear it.

He had only felt her presence then, when the physical therapist called a break, when he had collapsed on the floor in exhaustion, his knee throbbing, his breaths coming in heaves. He only realized she had been watching for a good long while when he looked up to see the concern etched in her face as he caught her gaze.

“I’m fine…” He at least managed to say that much before he closed his eyes, allowing that few minutes of rest to gather his thoughts and steady his breaths.

“You shouldn’t have pushed yourself too hard. This is just your first session,” Hange said from right next to him.

He still had enough energy to process those words at least.

A Tale of Two Slaves

That night, Levi gripped his dream catcher a little tighter and pressed it close to the back of his phone as he scrolled through google links on the other Ackerman.

It hadn’t been hard to find her at all. Zeke’s tirade that morning had been more than a guide enough.

High school. Ackerman. High Jump. Those were the only three keywords he needed to figure out the whole name of that missing Ackerman. For a moment, he had expected to find his own articles, and had braced himself for the pain of sifting through old articles about himself in between looking at hers.

It turned out Mikasa Ackerman had been the talk of the high school high jumping scene for a while, and she had been the topic of at least 90% of the articles he was scrolling through on Google.

A few times they did allude to the other Ackerman. The older articles heralded her as a successor to the rookie Levi Ackerman, the newer ones that were dated past his injury called her the brand new Ackerman, a replacement.

A replacement to damaged goods. Levi had to add that part himself, an attempt to make a joke out of his shitty situation as he closed that last article. “Mikasa Ackerman,” Levi repeated those words so quietly to himself as he dropped the dreamcatcher haphazardly onto the table in front of him. It had been useless at that moment. Or maybe at the least it had been the reason he felt a little too frustrated at having looked through too many articles that evening.

He looked to Hange who was sitting on the dining table, looking deep in thought on something on her laptop. Mid semester presentations for her thesis proposal were coming up, along with a few new exams next week. She had been conscious enough to point that out at least and Levi happily gave her the space she needed.

The turmoil inside him at first seemed difficult to pacify. Just watching Hange so focused and deep in thought had helped somehow quell whatever unresolved tensions and feelings were settling in his stomach then.

Maybe if he talked to her, the tensions might just disappear altogether. Levi deemed it worth the effort at least. “Hange? You okay?” He asked

Hange’s head shot up and she looked straight at him almost instantly. “Sorry, how long were you calling me? I’ve just been a little too focused on my exam on Monday and the thesis presentations on Wednesday… I don’t think I’ve been in the right mind for a while…”

Levi saw it in the way she looked at him, she hadn’t been focusing on his eyes. It was as if she were still probably seeing whatever words or numbers she was studying. She had been like that the past week since the line up of the thesis presentations were released along with the midterms schedules for all the exams.

Their kiss, their one night in the bedroom almost forgotten. Levi was sure though there was something that had been bothering her, maybe something that extended beyond academics.

I can ask about that after finals. Levi thought to himself, pushing aside that bout of concern. He could start with a light question at least, which didn’t involve Hange too much. “Have you heard of Mikasa Ackerman?”

“Mikasa Ackerman? The high school high jumper?” Hange asked. “Maybe I have been following her too… Lately...”

“She’s really good apparently.”

“Her jumping positions reminded me a lot of yours, so she had been fun to watch. I always did want to ask… Is she related to you? I did some research but I don’t see much which connect you both other than a few articles comparing you as jumpers and maybe speculating a relationship.”

Levi shook his head. “I never heard of her… Until today… A doctor mentioned her back in the hospital before my therapy session.”

“She only started making waves last month when her school made it to the regional competitions. No one really follows the district and the interschools… And apparently she only started jumping recently, during summer and she only started breaking records during the regionals,” Hange said. “That is… According to what I’ve read up on her.”

“So, you have been following her?”

“I still watch videos during study breaks,” Hange admitted. “And she just broke a few records a few weeks ago, of course they’d show up in my feed.”

“And you didn’t feel the need to ask me about it before? About an Ackerman doing the same jumping positions I did? You didn’t want to talk about it?”

“I thought of asking you about it maybe after exams. Besides, do you want to talk about jumping? After everything that happened?”

Levi put his phone down beside him and looked up at the ceiling above him. Of course he wouldn’t have heard of her until then, he had purged himself of all track and field news since the injury. The tournament with Nanaba and Mike and the round of research on Mikasa have been two exceptions and the feelings after that had only reminded him why he had spent his days actively making the effort not to think of the life he used to have. "I told you I'm fine," he said. He half meant that part at least, the writing had helped.

"No you aren't.”

Levi found himself shocked by how certain Hange’s tone had been. And for a second, maybe he had been a little irritated at the audacity of it all. Who was she to assume how he felt? But the surprise and the irritability had him silent and listening. Hange always had a reason for her conclusions. She never made assumptions so easily, he had known her enough lifetimes to be sure of that.

“There's a certain sadness to knowing you can't do what you used to before.” Hange continued. “I think everyone feels it, even a bit."

"A certain... sadness?" Levi asked.

"Wait, that does sound vague... Lemme think of an example." Hange paused for a second, looking up in thought. "Like maybe if you imagine people who’ve been skating or people who've been playing instruments their whole childhood. When they stop training or practicing these things altogether, these people can feel themselves lose their motor skills or their thinking skills that got them jumping double axels or playing arpeggios or pulling off vibratos like they’re second nature. And when they come back to it years later, I’m sure everyone feels the sadness or some sort of a frustration, looking back at their old self and processing the realization that they can’t bring their body or their mind to do something as effortlessly as they had done it many years before. Processing how they ended up so weak, so stupid after abandoning their old passions for so long."

“What if I’m an exception?” Levi challenged, still a little annoyed at such an assumption and at such a long unsettling tirade.

Hange shook her head. “You’re not. For a while, I wanted to entertain the possibility that maybe you and I are exceptions, maybe we can easily jump from one passion to another. When I was watching you during therapy though. I saw the terror in your eyes, the frustration, the sadness. ‘Why isn’t my body moving the same way it used to?’ Maybe you don’t want to think back to jumping because you don’t want to see how quickly your body has forgotten the motions, how quickly it had lost the flexibility and the strength to carry you over the two meter bars…” Hange trailed off. She avoided his gaze and for a while she had been staring at the blank wall in front of her. For a second after that, she did look to him, and there was a glint of realization in that. Realization at what she had just implied possibly. "But you know what, you might just be an exception. Maybe I’m just projecting." Hange added a second later.

Levi was sure though from the quick change of tone that accompanied those last words that Hange probably didn't mean it. On top of that, having heard Hange's small lecture, Levi almost immediately realized he wasn't at all an exception.

Her voice had been light as she mentioned that last sentence. It could have been a thoughtless comment. Hange didn’t make too many thoughtless comments though. “Projecting?” Levi asked.

Hange let out a short light laugh “I’m talking too much, I should go back to work…” Her words seemed like a band-aid, a lazy coverup for whatever emotions had supported such a tirade in the first place.

Projecting? There was a reason behind that word use and Levi was more than eager to press on it.

Hange wasn’t listening anymore though. She was buried once again in whatever subject she had chosen to study for that night. She was in work mode again and she had gotten back to that mode as quickly as she had fallen out of it.

All questions can wait until after her exam week. Levi told himself. The word ‘projecting’ had stayed though. Hange’s words had left its mark and maybe it did have Levi reflecting on his own feelings, his own fear and his own frustrations at his regressing skills, the painful awareness of his body that was slowly forgetting the motions he had built over years. At the end of that tunnel of reflection, he did end up thinking back to that word.

Projecting. She had to be feeling something for herself to say something like that right?

Hange what are you projecting?

And that at least distracted Levi enough, enough for him to ignore the dull pain in his left knee, channel his focus elsewhere. The next few days, having been left alone in the apartment while Hange went about classes, lab work and library visits, Levi did manage to channel his energies to academics or to filling his gaps in his own stories: Levi Special Squad, the Beast Titan and something about some new rookies in the survey corps.

The pain in his knee never left though. It was nagging and annoying like a cavity. It was a pain Levi had assumed would disappear in time. His left knee had always been painful since the injury.

Yet, maybe his left knee had started to get a little frustrated at Levi’s negligence. Maybe it had started to get angry. It was a creature and Levi soon realized, it was a monster that demanded attention.

The night it demanded his attention so stubbornly, so angrily., it did it through sharp pains that coursed through him like bolts of electricity, it did it through a crushing sensation that left Levi almost unable to breathe.

And maybe it did have Levi hallucinating----Or could it have been dreaming--- of having saved one of his soldiers from being eaten by a titan.

A Tale of Two Slaves

“Connie!

“Captain!”

In his dreams, he had been too out of breath, or maybe a little too distracted to have reacted at the crushing pain that had spread through him like bolts of lightning. The dream was hazy that Levi doubted whether he had been completely rooted in anything or not.

He had been flying. He had been in pain. And he had been pushing past the pain, slicing at a titan in every direction. And when he had seen one of his soldiers unconscious, about to be eaten by a titan, he had jumped in between the titan and the soldier so instinctively, so desperately that the in-between had been a blur. He found himself in the midst of an excruciatingly painful ordeal. He gritted his teeth, biting back any attempt to scream. For god knows if he screamed, he might just run out of energy, he might just pass out.

When he woke up to the dark room though, he processed almost naturally the fact that the circumstances his reality had offered him were different. The view in the middle of the night, the faint sound of cars had been different. He wasn’t in a battle field and as if his body had been completely aware of that, it did push past his attempts to subdue any reaction.

Even before he realized it though, he had been screaming. Only when his throat burned and the sounds faded into a whimper, only when the tears started to run down his face, only when he closed his eyes and keeled over, a pathetic reaction to the bombardment of stimuli, did Levi realize the pain of having his leg almost bitten off by a titan was still there.

“Levi! I’m here. What’s going on? Are you okay?” Hange was right next to him. Beyond the pain, that was all he could process.

Hange hadn’t been there in the dream. God knows where Hange had been when he was flying from titan to titan. God knows where Hange had been when he found himself, jumping in between his fellow soldier and the titan that had lunged to eat him.

And god, it was painful. Even past the dream, even when he started to realize that Hange was right next to him at least in the dark room at 3am. The pain stayed and it was crushing his knee, it was leaving him unable to even take any sort of a decent breath, his own coping mechanism reduced to ragged breaths in between tears.

“Levi, breathe…”

How pathetic where his own breaths sounding for Hange to have to coach him like that?

“Oh god, Levi, we might have to get you to a hospital?”

How pathetic did he look for Hange to have to suggest a hospital visit? When she helped him up at least, when she slung her free arm over his shoulder and helped him to a sitting position, he did at least feel the unnatural weight on his left knee. What was going on?

Everything after that, came as a hazy dream. As hazy as the fight against the many unnatural looking titans. In that dream, Hange had been absent for some reason he could not yet comprehend. And Levi found himself trying to push it away, instead focusing on the Hange in front of him who had put a blanket over him, who had dialed a number on her phone and who was rattling off medical jargon to someone on the phone.

“Erwin… I…” Why would you need to call Erwin at three in the morning?

After that, Hange had helped put a hoodie over him, she had called one more number. And within a few minutes, Levi found himself lying down on a taxi, half conscious, only hanging on by a thread at the view of Hange under the dim light of the taxi and the city lights.

Somehow, he was terrified of falling asleep again. Hange hadn’t been there in the dream. And she might just disappear if he closed his eyes. As he unwillingly held on to the crushing pain in his knee and the view of Hange who sat next to him on the taxi, he was awake. Only barely, but barely was enough to not fall into another world of dreams, a world of wars and a state of complete chaos and confusion.

Eventually, he lost consciousness but it had been a gradual process.

He had lost some sense of time along the way, his body having been too focused on Hange. The darkness in the taxi had quickly shifted to the stark white of the hospital as he was helped onto a stretcher. Then along the way, he may have heard Erwin’s voice rattling off something about a swelling knee that was crushing his joints and a knee aspiration.

Then there was something about painkillers, an IV, a slight pain in his hand before everything enveloped him again. Maybe at his peripherals, Hange had been by his bedside.

It was a huge improvement at least from the messages of his own dreams. And maybe it was relief that finally had him letting go of his tight yet weak grip on reality. The crushing pain on his knee hadn’t been from a titan biting it off. Hange’s absence in the war had only been a dream.

The last few things he had processed then before completely letting the darkness enveloped him, may have been the sound of a laptop opening next to him, a few wires pattering on the floor below, the sound of the mouse and finally, the relaxing rhythmic clacking of the keyboard..

Hange was right next to him and she wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

A Tale of Two Slaves

“Sorry.” It came out as a croak but Levi was still hoping she heard it. Despite the haziness of the first few moments as he opened his eyes to the light streaming into the hospital room, despite the discomfort which came with a dry throat, it had been Levi’s first instinct to apologize.

Hange looked worse off than last night. He at least picked up enough images of her to know that there was a stark difference between the Hange of a few hours ago and the Hange then. The laptop hadn’t moved, it was still on the table next to his bedside, just like he had guessed it to be having fallen unconscious to the sound of the clacking of the keyboard.

Right then and there, Hange’s hair fell in chaotic waves, her glasses askew. And compared to last night where he saw panic, in front of him, he saw calm etched on her face, an ominous calm that somehow seemed even more alarming.

“Hange,” Levi said a little louder. The concern he felt only gave him the motivation to push past the discomfort of having just woken up. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you saying sorry? Hadn’t everything to this point been my fault?” Hange’s voice was soft, reflecting the ominous calm. It was cold, maybe even frozen. “"The reason the fluid built up in your knee was overexertion apparently. They’re guessing it was the physical therapy session last Saturday." Hange looked away. "I can't help but think... If I didn’t bring you to the tournament or talked to you about jumping , maybe you wouldn’t have pushed yourself too hard."

Levi had listened closely and he could have sworn he heard a crack in her voice. “But the fluid is gone right?” He asked. He noted that his knee was numb and to his relief, the pain had devolved into a dull ache, similar to the one he had been dealing with the past month. Not at all as alarming as it had been the night before.

Hange shrugged. “Maybe it’s the painkillers or maybe it’s the fact that they drained the wound. But don’t count your eggs before they even hatch. Your back to square one. All progress, out the window. Fuck this. Fuck all this. And you wouldn’t have been in this damn situation if he hadn’t fucked up way too many times. Was I pressuring you to jump? Was I pressuring you to recover quicker? Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned Elijah, or maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned MIkasa? Maybe I shouldn’t have let you go to that fucking meet in the first place.”

Levi kept quiet. Watching what had been Hange, leaving her laptop open on the table, watching her pace around the room, avoiding his gaze as she fell into her soft tirade had been unsettling. Even he couldn’t tell how it was making him feel. “It’s over. It happened. So many things had happened at once, it couldn’t have been anyone’s fault.”

“Fucking hell Levi, when I’m supposed to be writing about your injury, when I’m supposed to be writing every single bout of mini progress, writing out the mechanics of the injury… I can’t help but see… you were in no condition to jump. You were exhausted, your wounds from the first time we met were far from healed. But for fuck’s sake, if I had told you to wait it out a week, instead of letting you do jump after jump, maybe you’d be in class right now or maybe you’d be preparing for your next tournament… I don’t wanna write this anymore. I don’t wanna reduce whatever is going on inside you to a fucking case study.” Hange slammed her hand on her keyboard, and sat so violently on the chair, she had pushed it a few inches back.

“You need to graduate,” Levi said. What will Erwin think? What will your parents think?

“At this point, who cares? I’m miserable. I can’t fucking get anything written. I write a paragraph, I get self conscious and I delete it. I write out my interpretation of the numbers, of my findings, my gut wrenches then I delete it again."

“Take a break?” Levi weakly suggested.

Hange had laughed at that. The reaction came out of nowhere and Levi found himself speechless and maybe a little confused. Take a break? That had seemed like a natural suggestion. He had at least spent a good few seconds thinking in between listening to Hange’s rant to have come up with such a suggestion.

Either way, from the way Hange had laughed it off and slammed her laptop close, from the way she had sat back on the chair and looked at nothing in particular, the way she had avoided his gaze through the whole tirade and the fit that had followed, Levi was sure that had been the wrong thing to say.

A little ashamed at his own ability to have come up with something a little more comforting, Levi kept quiet. And for a second, he looked up at the own ceiling above him, and maybe distracted himself by appreciating the view from the wide hospital window, following the birds that were doing some sort of dance in the sky

For a moment, he did forget about Hange. She hadn’t helped at all to make herself any memorable, having kept silent.

The silence in that moment had been too peaceful, had been too otherworldly that it was only natural that it would be broken by even the softest and steadiest things.

Like an off-rhythm knock on the door.

“Hange?”

Levi recognized the voice even before his head popped up from behind the slightly opened door. “Moblit?”

Levi looked towards Hange. The latter sat unmoving on her seat, her head bowed down, her face unreadable. Even as Moblit opened the door a little wider and approached her, she hadn’t moved at all or even looked back to greet him. Levi bent over to get a better look at her and saw panic. A type of panic he had never seen before. Panic, confusion, maybe a little urgency. “Hange? Moblit’s here.” Levi managed to say. He kept his voice gentle, a natural gesture having to process Hange’s face at that moment.

“Hey Hange. Erwin told me you’d be here. The others were worried about you--- I was worried about you. You’re supposed to be presenting now."

Hange stayed silent. From what Levi could see, her face was frozen. Was that panic? Shock?

Moblit continued. "I explained your situation… They said they could push it back until this afternoon...You think you can make it?" Moblit paused as he got closer to her, as if waiting for her to say something. He had his phone out,as if ready to call the panelists at any moment.

"Hange. Go to the presentation," Levi said. It was difficult to bend over and make eye contact with her with her head bent down, her eyes downcast. He kept his words firm, hoping at least that was enough to reach her.

“I can’t…” She managed to say. She left her mouth half open, as if she had expected to say something after. She looked back up at Levi, then bit her lip. Levi could have sworn that was the first time he had seen her in such a loss of words yet at the same time, struggling to get something out.

“Hange, go. I’ll be fine…”

“You don’t understand, I can’t… present.”

“Hey, I’ll help you set up. We have until tonight.” Moblit scooched beside her on the table and typed out her password.

“No, you don’t get it, I have nothing…”

“Hey, I’ll help you get a powerpoint. We can revise your manuscript together. That’s what friends are for,” Moblit pressed as he pushed the laptop towards Hange. “Come on, type out your password.”

“No Moblit, there’s nothing in here. It’s over. I’ll try again next year.”

“It’s too early to give up Hange, remember how fast you got Elijah’s data processed? It helped me a lot.”

“You don’t get it do you?” Hange pulled the laptop towards her and angrily typed what could have been the password. The laptop booted to life and from where he sat, Levi made out the characteristic log in tone of the computer. “There’s nothing in the document. Just the introduction. No preliminary results. No observations. Nothing.”

Levi couldn’t see the screen from where he sat. But he did see the flashes of a changing screen through Moblit’s eyes. He could guess the results from the way Moblit’s jaw dropped and the way Hange just avoided both their gazes, keeping her eyes downcast.

Levi maneuvered himself to the side of the bed, getting Hange’s laptop at arm’s reach. His leg protested the action but that was the last thing on his mind. God forbid, what Moblit was seeing at that moment could have been Levi’s first assumption.

Hange… Didn’t you spend hours in the library getting everything written out?

Didn’t you spend whole days outside working in the lab?

Didn’t I fall asleep every night to the angry clacking of the keyboard?

Didn’t I wake up in the middle of the night to you in the dining room writing out your thesis?

She had been writing at least. The introduction, the review of related literature were all filled out. The methodology had been filled out. It was a far cry though from what she had made in high school. Each part had been furnished with links to sources, half completed sentences and maybe a few question marks here and there.

The observations and the results and discussions though, were all blank.

“Hange… You….” What were you doing? This can’t be it. Levi didn’t even know if he had said that last part out loud. His brain was on overdrive trying to prove his own quick conclusion wrong. He navigated through old versions of the document. His hands were quick, maybe they had been moving on their own and the PC couldn’t catch up.

A few times, Levi found himself tapping impatiently on the keyboard as the laptop loaded each version.

More links, more half completed sentences, and a very empty observations and results section. “We can get something written right? Help make a powerpoint? If we work together, we could get something presentable."

Moblit shook his head. He bent down next to Hange and spoke softly. “Does Erwin know about this?”

“I told him to just leave it to me… But I can’t. I can’t write this anymore.” Hange shook her head as she looked up at Moblit then up at him. There was some sort of a smile of resignation plastered on her face, reminiscent of the laugh of only a few moments ago.

That was what the laugh had meant when he had suggested the break.

Of course, she would laugh. There was no time for breaks. There was no time for work either. Hange was royally fucked.

Moblit left the room, neither Levi nor Hange asked for what. For a few more minutes, maybe for even an hour longer while Hange had been in her catatonic state, Levi did continue to look through her drafts, see what kind of sense he could make of the half complete sentences and the links to journals in her document with his limited knowledge on human anatomy.

His background had him very much unready to complete a thesis proposal on a technical subject he studied nothing about, let alone in the span of a few hours. Having been pumped with painkillers and sleeping drought only an hour before, his brain was in no state either to bullshit what he could. Despite all his desperate attempts to make sense of it, to write out something coherent, he found himself converting it back to the state he and Moblit had found it in.

Levi closed the laptop slowly and pushed it towards Hange. He was surprised and a little relieved to find that she did pull her weight, setting the laptop back on the table next to his bed.

Hange smiled at Levi and spoke up. “I appreciate you trying to do all this Levi but… I’ve given up already. I’m not getting this thesis done.”

It was a pained smile. A smile of resignation. A smile that was so clearly telling him that he had definitely wasted those last few minutes pouring through the versions of her document for nothing.

Levi took a deep breath and spoke up. “Then what’s your plan now?”

#levihan #levihan fanfiction

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some-cookie-crumbz · 3 years

Text

A Little Charismatic

A Little Charismatic Fandom: My Hero Academia Pairing: FuyuPress Summary: FuyuPress Week 2021 Day 1 Prompt Fill: Life Swap - Never said who had to swap lives and I’m running on too little sleep and too much caffeine to stay in the lines. Standard Disclaimer: If you read and enjoy this, please give it a like/ reblog so I know if I should write more.

Sako Atsuhiro liked to consider himself an observant fellow, if not also a bit of a creature of habit. He had a handful of places that he enjoyed frequenting, where he knew his face was safe. He could walk about in his usual work garb, with or without his mask and hat, and none of the other patrons would bat an eye. It wasn’t because the company he found in these places was particularly trustworthy or noble sorts, however; oh, no, they were far from that. He had just taken the time to establish that, despite his seemingly frail physique, he was not a force to be tested. He was always watching, always vigilant, watching to make sure that men conducted themselves like proper gents in the company of potential romantic partners. And if not? Well, he may have done a sleight of hand trick to remove a wandering hand or two.

It wasn’t often that there were new faces wandering around his usual haunts, so when there were, he noticed. That night was one such example.

She’d been settled at the bar when he walked in, another bar patron already trying to get cuddly with her. Judging by the glower in those bright baby blues, she was less than impressed. She was an odd one to place as Atsuhiro moved past them, her eyes straying from her suitor to chase him instead. Ah, that was unsurprising. Many a woman’s eyes had wandered over him, taking his attire to mean he must be some brand of wealthy and useful. They’d come over and start up with the fluttering lashes and slow, playful touches while asking for a drink.

It was always entertaining to watch how their expressions shifted when he insisted they have separate tabs.

It took her a full ten minutes to shake the guy she was dealing with at the bar, but once she’d gotten him off, she approached. “This seat taken?” she asked, her hands laced behind her back and head tilted to one side. He chuckled as he sized her up, taking in the leather jacket tossed over a halter dress and combat boots. The damn thing was incredibly low cut and he was quick to avert his eyes, instead taking a sip of the beer in his hands.

“Not at all,” he hummed, indicating the booth seat across from him with the wave of a hand.

She offered him a polite bow before settling into the seat, a nice change of pace. Usually the women that approached would slide in beside him first go, but she seemed to have some iota of manners, at least. “You are a difficult man to track, you know,” she mused slowly, “Mr. Compress.” He froze mid-sip to stare at her, doing his best to keep the shock from showing on his face. Very few knew of his moniker, even when he was out and about in his full regalia, so for her to address him so matter-of-factly… She was a threat and would need to be disposed of. As if sensing the bleak thoughts running through his head, she held her hands up in a placating manner to him. “Don’t worry, I’m not a narc. Or affiliated with one. I don’t think many of the people around here are, in fact.”

“Whatever it is you are trying to play at, dear, you are wasting your time,” he quipped, turning his attention away from her to the bar keep. He seemed to be more focused on a loud, clearly drunk man arguing the merits of his tab, thankfully.

He kept her in his peripheral view, though. Just in case.

She blinked before her face morphed to show hurt. “So quick to disregard me… Ah, that seems to be a trend with men in my life,” she lamented with a long-suffering sigh. He got the distinct impression that most of her behavior was an act. One of her legs shifted out to prod at the side of his calf gently, trying to coax him to look at her again. “Won’t you at least hear me out?”

He scoffed but did return his attention to her. It was the least he could do and might yet yield some further information to help him discern her authentic intentions. “There is no reason to do so outside of wasting both our time,”

“What about a game, then? You seem like a man who fancies a fun game,” she suggested.

A game? Well… He couldn’t help but be intrigued by the hand she was laying down. “Depending on what the wager is, I may be inclined to humor you,”

“Here,” she shifted to rummage through her jacket pockets. After a moment, she dropped three items onto the tabletop between them; a lighter, a small vial of some kind of liquid, and a yarn and bead bracelet. With the items spread out, she picked up the bracelet and dangled it off her index finger, before indicating the other two items with her free hand. “Use your Quirk to put these three items away. Only one of them - this one here - is of any value to me. If I can get this one back from you, you’ll agree to comply with the request I have for you.” When she spoke, she waggled her index finger to attract his attention to the bracelet briefly, before dropping her chin into her other hand.

He blinked owlishly, contemplating her game. It was in his favor, yes, but then it became a question of what she could offer him in return. “And if you are unsuccessful?”

“I’ll comply with a request of yours. No limits,” she drawled the last two words out in a leading way, her fingers lightly drumming away along her own jawline. He wrinkled his nose a bit at her implication, but found it could be a rather useful trap. After all, there would be no indication as to which marble held what once he used his Quick to compress them. Only he would be able to say for certain, and it wasn’t as if he couldn’t easily swap them around if she picked the right one. There was much more to gain in this than he had to lose. “So, what do you say?” She stuck her hand out towards him, beaded bracelet still hanging on.

“Very well,” he said, taking her hand for a brief shake before sliding the bracelet off. Judging by the yarn on it, the thing was old and may be in dire need of some new yarn or replacing outright. He waved the thought off as he compressed it and then set to doing the same to the other two items. Under the table, he was sure to shuffle them around, placing the marble with her bracelet in the back pocket of his pants. He waited until she stepped away to get a drink to make that adjustment, sly grin on his lips. There was no way she’d be able to determine it was there as he wouldn't present it as an option, and then he could easily be rid of her. “There we are now. Just be aware, however, that I am very wise to the tricks a young minx like you is prone to attempting.”

“Is that so?” she hummed.

From there, they started up a fun little back and forth. He tried to get more answers to why, exactly, she knew his street moniker and why she’d been looking for him, but she flitted about the subjects using redirection. It was Take-aPenny, Leave-a-Penny logic she was trying to enact and he couldn’t help but find it amusing. It was clear she had some kind of experience with this kind of situation, with having to negotiate ones hand without tipping it too much. A flurry of questions came to his mind at the thought. She was such a young, demure young lady once she was engaged in a conversation. Something about those mannerisms and the idea of her living her whole life on the streets simply didn’t add up quite right to him.

It did, however, give him a fun little mystery to chase around.

After a good while she shifted to sit more upright, hands folded neatly in front of her. Her eyes were alight with mirth as she repositioned herself. “Well, I think that’s enough of that. I came here to accomplish a goal, not play footsie all night,” She stretched languidly and her gaze shifted from his face down lower, giggling a bit at what she saw.

He blinked twice before glancing downward himself and uttering a small short curse.

His eyes widened as he suddenly registered what, exactly, she’d been playing at all along. A glance downwards revealed a layer of ice sticking to the outer traces of his body, over his legs, hips and wrists specifically. Given that he was wearing his full gear minus his mask, of course he hadn’t noticed the change in temperature! She must have been assessing him during their conversation, skirting about with her verbal distraction while leaking small traces of her Quirk to gauge his reaction...

A clever ruse that he’d fallen into with regrettable ease.

“What in the devil did you do?” he spat, keeping his voice low as his eyes scanned the bar. No one else had noticed their exchange, thankfully. The last thing he needed was other hooligans taking advantage of this situation.

She tilted her head with a feigned innocence. “Hmm? What’s wrong? Don’t like that I used my Quirk too?” The faux concern melted into a mischievous grin of delight as she moved from her perch across from him to sit beside him. She nudged the chunk of ice pinning his legs down with the toe of her boot as she settled in nice and close. “I never said that it was against the rules, you know. And it’s only fair that if you got to use yours, I get to use mine. Wouldn’t that be the gentleman’s viewpoint on this matter?” Her tone was light and playful, but he could cast the mocking wisps underlying her words. Without further preamble, she reached over to rummage through his coat pockets as well as the pockets of his slacks, humming to herself as she ignored his quiet snarls to cease her actions. She leaned back just a bit once she gathered seven marbles in total, swirling one in a circle in her palm. “Ah, there’s more in these pockets of yours than just what’s mine. How uncouth! Scandalous even!”

He tried to twist himself free but the ice pinned up along his wrists and hips didn’t budge an inch. Not even a thin crack was visible, to his uncensored chagrin. “What game are you playing at, wretch?”

“Just the game we agreed to,” she hummed. She peered at his marbles with an appraising eye before stuffing them into the pocket of her tattered denim shorts instead. “Since I’m the obvious winner here, I guess that means you have no choice but to abide by my rule, hm?”

“Name your damn price, then,” he growled lowly.

She giggled and leaned closer, walking two fingers up along his chest to his face. “You’re going to come with me to have a meeting. With. My. Boss,” Each of her final few words was followed by a mocking tap to the tip of his nose. If he could move his hands, he would have firmly shoved her from his personal space, but instead settled for jerking his head to the side. It only made her Cheshire grin grow wider. He could almost see a feline tail swaying in delight behind her, he swore. “He has a very… prosperous job opportunity for you. One that I think you’ll be very much inclined to take.”

This young woman was dangerous, and he was unclear if that was unappealing to him or not.

#My Hero Academia #FuyuPress #Mr. Compress #Sako Atsuhiro #Todoroki Fuyumi #FuyuPress Week 2021 #my fics #I am surprisingly pleased with this one #All things considered

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713deepsubmerge813 · 3 years

Text

Short- ABO universe!

Keigo Takami x (gn) reader

Hawks x (gn) reader

Warnings-mostly SFW, only one sentence where hawk's mind goes to the gutter. That's it.

Note- if any one likes it I'll continue 😁

Letting him see them was the commission's biggest mistake.

Hawks contemplated calmly as he soared high above the city. From time to time when the avian man had a lot on his mind and not enough patients to deal with every fan he comes across, he would take to patrolling the skies. From high up keigo had a great view of the city and thanks to his sharp eyes could easily see what activities the bustling city was going through. Citizens on their way to and from work, some hanging out with friends after school and some walking their little ones accross the busy intersection. The pro hero couldn't help but let his eyes linger on the parents fawning over their children. It made him Think back to his own bleak childhood.

He couldn't help but wonder what it Would feel like, having a family to protect and fawn over. To make matters worse his rut was super close. He could already begin to feel himself pant and sweat, the usual symptoms befor his rut fully hit. It was a good thing patrol was almost done. He needed the week long vacation he was promised.

Having been traned by the commission since he was a child, the people in charge of him had to find ways to deal with his more avain tendencies. When puberty hit keigo takami, they had to learn the hard way quickly that some born with animal like quirks were increadably difficult to handle during mating season. They tried giving him suppresants and for a while they worked. They're biggest mistake however was letting him see the small creature they'd brought in to train.

The incident keigo will never forget came when he was fifteen. during his highschool years they found his ruts were getting more difficult to control. Keigo had been training in a massive out door obstacle course (courtesy of the funds donated by the hero commission) when he'd first caught the smell. It was tantalizing. It made feathers ruffle. He couldn't describe the smell but knew that it was intoxicating. He couldn't help but search for what it was. This scent had him swooning with each inhail as he made his way closer to it as fast as he could. This smell made him feel safe. Like a long forgotten memory used to comfort your anxieties. Keigo had never felt this way. His whole life was filled with neglect and abuse and that was before the commission took him in.

The smell and the feeling it gave him was something he could not pass by. He needed it. He needed it like he needed air. He vowed to find what ever it was and keep it for eternity.

As he brushed through the thick forest, he could feel the branches of trees scrape his wings, but paid them no mind as he gained speed. Coming in to a small clearing, he could see people standing around in a small semi circle clearly whispering among themselves. They were toadies and doctors from the commission and there beside them was a smaller creature with beautiful little white wings. His abrupt intrusion however startled the group of people who all grabbed the smaller child and shoved the tiny thing behind them before he could get a better look.

"Hawks! What are you doing here? Your not scheduled to use the obstical courses until after classes! " the doctor in the coat yelled up at him with a slightly panicked look.

Hawks lowered himself to the ground as he spoke .

"Sorry classes were let out early today so I figured I'd get a head start. You know, fastest man around and all that. "

It was the mantra they'd been drilling into his head for years now. Part of his conditioning to make him the best hero.

He landed with gentle feet on the grass so as to not alert them. Judging by their behavior he'd say they were definitely scitish and they were definitely hiding something.. or someone he thought as he heard a small whimper.

The few adults in the back began to usher that small someone further away from him. He realized they must have been testing the quirk of a new recruit. But why hide it from him? He's eaten and trained with other kids here before, why was this one a secret? And why did they smell soo damn good? Keigo felt a jolt of panick run up his spine. Why were they taking them away? His breathing became heavier. His body started to sweat and he could feel a painful pressure in his fingertips and gums. A glance down told him his nails had elongated and by running his tongue over his teeth he could tell that his canines were longer too . What was happening to him? The delectable scent was invading his nostrils to the point that he felt his brain go foggy. The rest was a blure.

When he awoke the next day it was in a hospital like room. But he could tell he was still with the hero commission. It was only logical they had their own hospital wing considering they put minors through extreme training. He looked down at himself to asses the damage but only found a small pinhole surrounded by a bruise on his chest. So they'd tranquilized him. He had to have been very close in range , practically right on top of them for it to have left that kind of mark. It made him shudder. What would have happened if they had not shot? Or if they had taken the shot with a real bullet . He tried to think back to what happened but could only recall a few flashes like pictures and emotions from his memory before his head started to pound.(must be from the drugs he thought bitterly) And that scent that would not leave his mind.

Who were they? Why did the commission want him to stay away? Why did he lose control?

When the doctors came to check on him he figured he'd ask if they knew what happened. And for onec they were thankfully honest. From what they could tell Hawks had a secondary gender that usually showed up in those with animalistic like quirks. Hawks was an alpha. And the tasty smelling person they were assessing in the woods was an omega. They told him it was a normal reaction but he didn't fully believe it. Even now as a full grown pro hero, Hawks had smelled quite a few omegas around different cities but none of them smelled the way that the forst one did. Who were they? He only caught a glimpse of small white wings.

Hawks never caught sight or smell of them again... Until recently.

The commission must have moved them to a different location. For years keigo tried to smooz information out of the commission about other children they had taken in to train. But they stayed on top of their game, never letting a speck of information slip but, Japan is small and he finally caught the sent he'd been searching for, for years.

He'd followed it to a quaint little apartment building the next town over. It was a small town more on the impoverished side of the tracks but keigo didn't mind. It would only help him locate them easier. The only thing that stopped keigo was the shout of a woman in distress. He should have figured, crime never takes a break. He altered course and flew to where the commotion was coming from. A petty thug trying to rob a middle age woman, hawks already knew it wouldn't take long for him to defuse the situation, take the criminal in and get back to his hunt before his rut fully kicked in.

That was until, a beautiful creature with wings white as snow swooped down faster than even him and took the criminal out with one hit. That may have been over kill thought hawks before he completely lost his train of thought when that sent hit him again... Oh no, his mind was already fogging. Why did they have such an effect on him? Years of mental discipline flew out the winow every time he caught taste of that smell on the wind. Could he hold out? Could he control himself so close to his rut? What if he ended up hurting them? He stopped to rethink his plan when he heard their beautiful voice ring out.

They were consoling the womam who had been attacked. That's when Hawks finally realized he'd been hovering mid air for at least a few minutes deep in thought. He'd never been so off his game. Finally, the other hero turned to him and their voice rang out.

"Sorry pal, didn't mean to steal the spot light. I mean this is my area to patrol today."

Hawks was flabbergasted. There they were. He'd been searching for so long and here they were and of course his mind wouldn't function. They were beautiful. (Hairlength (y/h/c) curled in soft waves and your (y/e/c) eyes looked up at him with amusement. How had he never actually seen you before. A rush of anger towards the commission had him breathing heavier. How could they keep you apart? You were perfect. Your costume hugged you perfectly and accentuated all the best places. Hawks was shook. He panicked momentarily.. What was he even supposed to say?

'Hi I'm hawks you don't know me but I've been hunting you for years. '

Funnily he couldn't see that going over well. He tried to think fast.

The first Impression they had of him was probably when he attacked the commission members. The last thing he wanted to do was scare you off now. Not now that he finally found you. Think! He told himself.

"That's alright pretty bird. I was just in the neighborhood after patrol, thought I'd lend a hand."

Hawks lowered himself slowly to the ground a distance away. He didn't want them smelling his pheromones which were surly escaping without his consent now.

The other hero finished clapping some quirk canceling hand cuffs on the villain and made sure the woman was okay to leave after taking a brief statement and calling the police. They did everything perfectly, efficiently. And hawks had to use all his self control to not rush over and begin sniffing their neck like a weirdo. Every thing about them screamed at him to take them, to protect them, to make them his forever. To burry his cock so deep inside them that they never thought about another. Keigo shook his head. Don't scare them off he thought.

'Take it slow, no rushing this. You can do this'. He told himfelf with confidence. He's flirted and gained people trust before, this would be easy for him.

"Always the hero even on your time off?"

They asked with a chuckle.

"Guess I shouldn't expect anything less from the number two hero. "

They shot him a cheeky smile and continued to help the police officer load the villain in the vehicle.This was going to be harder than he thought...

But no matter. He could have patients, he's waited this long after all and good things do come for those who wait.

"Well baby bird. How about I get your number? Or I could give you mine incase you ever need a hand. "

Hawks panicked... That was apparently the wront thing to say. They quirked an eye brow at him and took a more offensive stance by folding their arms across their chest. And what a beautiful chest it was Keigo thought. Then tried desperately to shove that though away when they finally answered.

"Thanks but I think I'll be okay. " they turned to walk away but kaigo panicked!

"Wait! " hawks nearly yelled but composed himself quickly. "You live around here? I could walk you home."

Keigo rubbed his neck sheepishly trying he's best to seem cool but instantly wanted to shove his foot in his mouth. Why did he say that? He knew he came off as creepy and deprate. He's never had anyone knock him off his game before.

"No thank you, I'll be fine. " they responded as they turned to leave. Well what was he supposed to do now? He couldn't let them disappear again but at least he had a good idea where they lived, if the stronger scent surrounding the building he'd found a few weeks prior was anything to go by. For now he'd have to play it cool until he could figure out a good plan to ask them to date. Date? Or was it courting? He'd never had to before in his life. He'd become very accustomed to the fast lane- instant gratification kind of life style he's been living since he broke out on his own. But for them.. He'd wait an eternity. Their scent lingers even after they've left. But hawks didn't move, still trying to breath in the last of the fading aroma and when it had finally faded he felt a very deep pit like whole in his chest. How was he going to survive without them? Could he survive taking things slow? He could tell they weren't some fan that usually tried throwing themselves at him. He'd have to take his time, he told himself. He'd have to for them.

#bnha x reader #.hawks #for.keigo

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fizzingwizard · 4 years

Text

I fell asleep so here’s day 5 a bit late to party... Day 6 will surely be late too xP Again, thanks for the comments last time, I enjoyed them, even the ones hidden in tags haha.

Koushirou and Taichi have a talk post-Bokura no Mirai. Watch out, cuz both boys have mouths on them. Taishiro if you squint.

---

Tri week day 5 - Survival - They Make Miracles

Taichi texted him wanting to hang out over after school, and as Koushirou had spent the day at the office, that meant Taichi came there. He spread out on the couch, flipping through the pages of some comic book. Koushirou sat at his desk. They had a bottle of cold oolong each and a bowl of shrimp crackers. Out the window, the din of rush hour traffic filtered in from the Tokyo streets below.

Some might look at them and think they were ignoring each other, each occupied in separate activities, only looking up to acknowledge there was someone else in the room when their hands bumped reaching into the cracker bowl. But their friendship worked like this. In fact, if the long stretches of silence bothered Taichi at all, he would have ditched Koushirou way back in elementary school.

That was something about Taichi not everyone understood: he could get as wrapped up in his own head as Koushirou did. Sometimes it seemed like Taichi sought him out because he wouldn't have to feel pressured to make small talk. He wanted to think, and he wanted someone else to be there while he was thinking, but not Sora, who would want give him advice, and not Yamato, who would stay quiet but coiled with tension until Taichi finally said something to bring them back to known waters. Koushirou, at least, understood the need for privacy for his thoughts, even if he didn't quite get why Taichi still wanted another body there anyway.

So it came as a surprise when Taichi shattered the silence, a page of the comic book suspended in the air as he paused mid-turn. "I'm never going to know if it was a mistake or not, am I," he said.

Koushirou looked up. Taichi's gaze was fixed on a random spot on the coffee table. But then he straightened, throwing his arms over the back of the couch in a deceptively casual move. His face, though, he kept turned away.

On days like this, Koushirou tended to be so involved in his work that, even if Taichi did have something to say, all he'd get in reply was a vague "Hmm." Later he might not even remember that they'd talked. It was a habit that drove Mimi up the wall, but once again, Taichi never seemed to mind that much. Of course, most of the time the conversation was along the lines of "Look at the cool play this soccer star made," or "Can you believe Satou-sensei expects us to finish the group project by tomorrow?" and "Hmm" was, more or less, all the response needed. Plus Koushirou was pretty sure Taichi sometimes took advantage of it to insist he had agreed to things he couldn't recall ever discussing.

Too bad he couldn't pretend this was about a mistake on some test.

His fingers hovered over the keyboard while he weighed his options. "... The world isn't divided into good and bad, Taichi-san," he said at last, though once the words were out, they felt pale and trite horribly inadequate. "For what it's worth, I think you made the right choice. Really the only choice."

He didn't add the rest: that he viewed killing Meicoomon as akin to chopping off a gangrenous limb. A terrible choice to make, but without it, the necrotic tissue would continue to spread and infect until there was nothing left. The metaphor worked, but he felt pretty sure the depersonalization wouldn't sit well with Taichi.

Taichi made a noncommittal noise. Something knotted in Koushirou's stomach. Probably, more than any of the others, Koushirou was the least upset with how things had ended with Meicoomon. In his wildest dreams he'd never imagined separating a Chosen from their partner, let alone - let alone killing one. When he'd realized Meiko might know the password to unlock the Digimons' sealed memories, hope had struck him like a bolt of lightning: all those dark predictions he couldn't see his way out of were about to be swept away by a miracle. Just like when they were kids.

That was the fatal error. There hadn't been any miracles when they were kids.

It had only felt that way because they didn't know how else to explain the unexplainable.

He and Taichi had talked many times over the years, about the fact that they were killers. The others didn't get a lot out of putting it into words like that, but it was true. They'd been killing since they were ten years old, killing to protect, killing to survive. It was just that, this time, they'd killed someone that loved.

"I just," Taichi swallowed thickly. "At the time, we... there wasn't any more time, but... now I just wonder... no one else wanted to do it, they all followed my lead and maybe... Sorry, I'm not making any sense..."

"We followed your lead like we always do, Taichi-san, because you lead us well." In a sudden fit of nerves, Koushirou pushed off the polished surface of his desk and stood. Once standing, though, he felt infinitely more awkward and wished he hadn't.

He was trying to think of an unobtrusive way to disappear behind his workspace again when Taichi at long last gave up staring at the wall. He looked over at Koushirou with liquid brown eyes. It was only the briefest of glances before he hunched over on the edge of the couch, fingers digging into his scalp.

His next words were muffled and wet-sounding.

"Nishijima-sensei died. I was - I was so messed up. I shouldn't have made that decision. I shouldn't have made any decisions. I was - what's the word they use -"

"Compromised?" Koushirou offered.

"Yeah, that."

Fuck.

Why did Taichi have to come to him for comfort? Yamato or Sora would be so much better at this.

If they were better, he would have gone to them, Tentomon's matter-of-fact voice in his head pointed out. Tentomon was in the digital world at present, but Koushirou didn't need him there to know what he'd think about this.

Then another voice, one that didn't sound like Tentomon at all, added: Maybe comfort isn't all he wants.

"You witnessed something... unspeakable," Koushirou said gently. His feet seemed to move as if on automatic, making a winding path around the desk to stand at the coffee table's edge, an arm's length away from where Taichi had begun to collapse in on himself. "It had to affect your judgment."

A beat. Taichi gave a tremulous nod.

"It doesn't follow that your judgment must have been mistaken, Taichi-san."

The hands smoothed down his face. "But I'm never going to know," he said in a dull voice.

Folding his arms, Koushirou sat down on the opposite seat. "Let's not deal in vagaries. Here's what I know," he said, careful to keep his tone level, bussinesslike. "I know the world was going to change, at that moment, one way or another. I know a lot was at stake." Lives, the entire world - Mochizuki and Meicoomon. Taichi was certainly thinking it on his own. Koushirou forced himself to hold his gaze as he went on. "I know Meicoomon's data had been corrupted beyond recognition. I know Yggdrasil and Homeostasis both intended to move regardless of how we felt about it. I don't know how much was ever really salvageable. But I know you salvaged control. We're not their unwitting pawns, and that's thanks to you."

A slow smile crept over Taichi's face, brittle at the edges. "Isn't that thanks to you? Every time we need a miracle, Koushirou, you -"

"There are no miracles," Koushirou interrupted, with a stubborn set of his jaw, "that don't sacrifice on the altar of mysticism the ones who broke their backs to make them happen."

Stunned silence. Taichi gave a startled laugh. "Wow... I'm not sure I understood all the words there."

"Maybe there was a way to save Meicoomon." The words spilled out like a runaway train, and he had no idea if he was helping or hurting, but he couldn't stop now. "And maybe there was a way to save the digital world that didn't involve abducting eight children from their homes and making them fight for their lives, resetting their innocence, teaching them how the world assigns value, whether something is cheap or precious, based on circumstance, on convenience. We all handled it the best way we knew how, and sometimes - sometimes that way wasn't very good. The whole time, there was one thing that got us through it, day after day. Taichi-san, do you know what it is?"

Taichi looked as if he were hanging onto what Koushirou was saying like it were a lifeline. He nodded. "It was hope."

"No, Taichi-san," Koushirou said viciously. "It was you."

Taichi's throat worked, and his long, dark lashes stuttered. He seemed to try to answer, but lost the words he'd been looking for. "Fuck," he choked out after a while, head tilted back to stare at the ceiling.

Koushirou gave him time to get a hold of himself. He'd seen Taichi cry before. Always out of guilt. Well, not this time - not if he could help it.

The ping of an incoming message lit up his computer, followed by an insistent buzz from his phone a moment later. He didn't get up.

"I-I wish-" Koushirou listened in silence as Taichi tripped and stumbled over his unruly emotions. He suspected it had been a while since Taichi had done any sort of maintenance on them. Not since Meicoomon, probably.

"I wish we could have saved Meicoomon, Koushirou." He'd never sounded so much like a child, not even when he was one.

"We all do."

"But I don't know if it's because I regret what I did, or because I don't like the way Yamato and Sora treat me now, like I'm about to break down any second, or because Hikari will never look up to me the same way again-"

"None of the above. It's because you're a good person, Taichi-san."

The look on Taichi's face was somewhere between bleak and utterly desperate. "How can you be so sure about that?"

"I know many things," Koushirou said. "I think you'll agree with me there. I could be wrong about any of them, but not that one thing." He didn't smile, he didn't let his gaze waver. "Never that."

I don't wany any leader that isn't you.

"Fuck you," said Taichi, voice breaking, but there was unexpected laughter at the end of it. "Geez, Koushirou. What am I supposed to with that?" He shook his head, looking exhausted. "I couldn't talk about it before. I couldn't - make things all about me, when Mochizuki's the one who-" He stopped, fists curling and uncurling on his knees. "Yamato will beat me up if that's what I want from him. Sora will tell me everything's fine even if it's not what she really thinks. Hikari won't talk about it all. I figured you at least didn't hate me for what happened. Out of all of us, you would have thought everything through for yourself. At least your opinion would be your own."

"It is," Koushirou promised.

Taichi nodded. The color had begun to return to his face. Slowly, as if carding through his thoughts, he said: "I'll never know if it was a mistake. But it's done."

"It's done."

"That's not much of a balm for the soul," Taichi sighed.

Koushirou looked down. "I guess not," he said. "It's real, though."

Another silence followed. Like the calm after a storm, Koushirou thought. He did feel as though they'd just weathered some catastrophe, or perhaps escaped it by a hair.

"She says she doesn't hate me," Taichi said after a few minutes passed in therapeutic quiet. "Mochizuki."

"Ah."

"But she's... y'know. Kind. She's the type to blame herself for things that aren't her fault."

Koushirou shrugged. "Seems like you two are a matched set, then."

Taichi gave him a sharp look, but didn't say anything. He took a deep breath, whole body swelling like a cresting wave. Then he reached for a shrimp cracker.

"Damn... heavy talk makes me hungry."

Koushirou couldn't help it. He laughed. And reached for his bottle of oolong. He was parched.

"Koushirou..." Ah, he knew what was coming now. "Thanks. When I came over, I didn't mean for..."

"I don't want thanks. Or apologies." I just want you. But, no, that... he wasn't at a point where he could say that just yet. "I just want you at your best. I still think we can change the world, Taichi-san."

A hesitant grin. "That's a promise," Taichi said, only it sounded more like "fash a fwomish" with his mouth full of cracker.

Demons couldn't be defeated in a single afternoon, over oolong tea and shrimp crackers, despite best intentions. Koushirou knew that. He'd dealt with his fair share of demons and they were intractable little brutes. But Taichi could out-stubborn anything. He wouldn't have been able to lead them this far if that weren't true.

As for Mochizuki Meiko - even if Taichi couldn't quite admit it yet, Koushirou thought he understood why she was being "kind." Because though what they'd taken had been enormous, they'd done their utmost to give back what they could. It might be small, but seeds always are. Mochizuki had a future stretched out before her too, free from the designs of any government organization or mysterious otherworldly power. Teeming with possibilities, neither good nor bad. Simply there.

Taichi was going to change the world. Koushirou meant to do the same. People would say they made miracles, but the two of them would call it something else.

They would call it living.

---

as usual i am an overdramatic bitch

side note: I was gonna have Koushirou call out Taichi for saying Yamato would beat him up, but just didn’t find a spot for it. So for clarity’s sake, this is Taichi being hard on himself, not indicative of what Yamato would actually do. We all saw him cry after losing his bestie *wibble*

I don’t know how they can both reach the shrimp cracker bowl if Koushirou’s at the desk and Taichi’s on the couch, by the way. I guess it’s hovering in the air between them, or they both have Elastigirl arms :P

#triweek2020 #digimon adventure tri #koushirou izumi #taichi yagami #digimon #fizz writes

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gra-sonas · 3 years

Photo

Interesting interview with CW President Mark Pedowitz. Roswel, New Mexico is not mentioned, but he talks about programming decisions, straight to series orders, the next fall schedule etc. Another thing he mentions is, that he's happy that The CW will air a few more "family oriented" shows (like the Kung Fu and Walker reboots, and Superman & Lois). If you squint, RNM's very much a "(found) family oriented" show - with aliens. ;)

Pedowitz also mentions, that they have several slots to fill for the upcoming fall, and the 2022 spring schedule, but they haven't made all the decisions yet. While we might not hear about a S4 renewal very soon, this gives me a fairly good feeling tbh. RNM's an established show, it's comparatively "cheap" to make, they have great tax incentives in New Mexico, and the show is doing overall well enough in ratings and international sales.

—————————————————————————————

Mark Pedowitz, broadcast's longest-tenured chief, has no regrets about delaying the start of The CW's fall season.

His network (like Fox), made the decision last summer to wait until the new year to bring back scripted originals like Riverdale and All American. The late start afforded productions more time to get used to filming during a pandemic, where episodes take longer (and cost more) to complete. It also.

While the January fall launch gives the network a backlog of originals to air without interruption (provided the pandemic doesn't have other plans), it also delayed decisions like the network's traditional mid-January slate of early renewals.

Now, as The CW prepares to formally launch its fall season on Sunday with the returns of Batwoman and All American, Pedowitz talks with The Hollywood Reporter about how the network is plotting a return to business as usual, including more straight to series orders, developing shows with heart and, yes, the future of all things DC.

Let's pretend we're at TCA: When will you bring Supernatural back?

If they boys want to come back, we're ready to have them. (Laughing.)

The CW traditionally hands out early renewals during this time of year. Where are you in those conversations, especially since your season doesn't formally start until Sunday with Batwoman.

I'm just getting into those discussions. I came from a studio background and understand the importance of early pickups — it allows for better preparation. We're a few weeks away but I need to finish up some internal discussions.

ABC, NBC and CBS all returned originals late last year. In hindsight, any regrets holding the season start to January

No. Once we said it, we felt it was the right thing to do. It would have been too patchworky. At this point, it gets longer and longer and you're waiting to get back into some form of what's your finished product going to look like? I have no regrets. I just wish it didn't take this long to happen.

How much has The CW's late start to the season — originals return next starting Sunday night — impacted the way you conduct business, both in terms of renewals and the negotiations for pilot orders, etc.?

We did this strategically and made choice in the summer because we were concerned with misleading affiliates, the consumer and the ad sales community that we were going to have a fall schedule in the fall and felt that wasn't the right thing. We found some successes with some of the acquisitions, like Stargirl, Coroner and World's Funniest Animals. Some of those are good linear, a lot of them were great on digital. Our digital presence was kept alive because of that. That said, our fall had Supernatural. And once that came back, we were doing [ratings] numbers we were doing pre-pandemic.

We are interested in seeing how people react. It's not just a covid issue right now; it's also the uncertainty in the country with news being as much of a viewing choice as anything else. We're going to have to see how it all plays. We're getting a little colder of a start than we would have if we rolled out of summer. On a digital basis, we're fine. On a linear basis, it's gotten harder. On the development basis, nothing has really changed. I think straight to series [orders] will be done again this year — just for financial purposes so people can get going as quickly as possible — by the end of January. That could change because the surge could change. But there is a bit more flexibility to it. We're still on the same schedule: we have to talk to advertisers in some form in May about what things look like for the following fall. We're hoping that the following fall is closer to a normalized fall — like 2019 was. Do I think it will be completely that way? No. Do I think it will be much more that than not that? Yes.

So, you'll be focused largely on straight to series orders instead of pilot pickups this season?

We haven't seen a lot of development yet. Lost Boys and Maverick [ordered to pilot last year], because of what occurred, are back in contention as development, not because they got picked up to pilot last year. They're in the mix with many other things, including dramas from Ava DuVernay, Black Lightning spinoff Painkiller, Wonder Girl, PowerPuff Girls, The 4400. The scripts are coming in slowly. Right now, I've seen just a handful of scripts and I'm waiting for others to come in so I can make some decisions. They're in contention for how we pick up pilots or direct to series.

Last year, you went straight to series on Superman & Lois and Walker largely out of concerns that there could be a WGA strike. Why is this an attractive model for some development this year?

A lot of is dependent upon what we're dealing with in terms of production needs with ongoing series in a sense. The other is what's the economic impact. Bypassing pilots is short-term less money than going straight to series. We look at the economic impact and if we believe enough in these shows and that will determine the decision.

With two veteran shows — Supergirl and Black Lightning — ending, how much more room on the schedule do you anticipate you'll have? You're making straight to series decisions based on a slate that will have just gotten under way.

We'll have space for three or four shows for next season, 2021-22. We're sorry to see Supergirl and Black Lightning go, but we're happy to have Naomi, Wonder Girl and Painkiller in the hopper right now. From The CW-DC/Arrow-verse — whatever we're calling it these days! — I think we'll be OK for the next generation. The Flash is new leader with Arrow gone and we're hoping Superman & Lois and Batwoman step up there for a new grouping of shows.

How much more life is left in veterans like Flash and Legends as you develop the next wave of the Arrow-verse? Especially when you have Greg Berlanti doing a big-budget Green Lantern and DC world at HBO Max and J.J. Abrams doing Justice League Dark for the streamer?

And they have Matt Reeves' Gotham PD there, too. It always makes me feel good when we're copied. (Laughing.) There's a lot of life left. Greg and I speak quite frequently. I'm not that concerned. You recently passed on Green Arrow and the Canaries. Why? Timing. We couldn't quite figure out a model similar to Stargirl and couldn't quite get there. We were hoping to have it start at HBO Max and take a second run on The CW, but we couldn't figure out how to do it and couldn't make it all work. Last year's pilots Lost Boys and Maverick are back in the development stage. What's the status of The 100 prequel?The 100 prequel is still in discussions at the studio level. I'd like to see it happen. I'm comfortable with where the prequel spinoff episode we did this past season. It's not a pilot; the earliest that would happen would be probably summer 2022, if that happens. We may end up deciding that we can't put the pieces together and it won't happen.

Speaking of the studio level, Warner Bros. is in the midst of a massive change as Channing Dungey is replacing Peter Roth. How does the changeover at Warners — which co-owns The CW alongside CBS Studios — impact the network? What kind of conversations have you had with Channing about their content pipeline since Warners is your main supplier?

Peter and I had remarkable partnership and relationship, and that will be missed. Channing worked with me when I ran ABC Studios and we've known each other for a long time. She's very supportive of The CW and the shows that go on The CW. There are shows she'd like to keep there and get on the air there. Obviously, her priorities may be a little different than Peter's. We are all working toward the same goal.

How has the pandemic and our current state of the world changed the types of programs you're looking to make? Can you do a show like Maverick, set on a college campus, during a pandemic? Do you still make dystopian stuff, especially if it's expensive?

Maverick is still in contention. I just had this conversation with our development team. I've come to the point right now about hope. About safe havens and a place where you can just ease your tension a little bit. One of the nice things about Superman & Lois, Walker and Kung Fu is at the end of the day — despite all the superhero/genre and Texas Ranger stuff — all three shows are about family, which is an important aspect going forward. You'll see Superman in a way you've never seen him before. And you'll see Jared Padalecki in a way you've never seen before. After watching all eight of Wentworth, I switched to Bridgerton because I wanted something light and fluffy. And I found Ted Lasso a worthy successor to Schitt's Creek — it gave me a hug and made me feel good. It made me remember that the human condition is not always bleak. That's where my head's at these days and I'm hoping development is more hopeful than it is dark and dismal.

Have you considered keeping production on your scripted shows going through the summer given the current covid surge that's happening this winter and the uncertainty in terms of vaccinations and new, more contagious strains?

We work with the studios on episodic orders and when the shows would end, when they can revert back to a normalized schedule — some can do more easily than others — so we could be there for next October with a more normal schedule. We've sat with the studios and our production partners and have figured this out. Barring catastrophe, we think we're in good shape.

The CW is a joint venture between Warner Bros. and CBS Studios. Since both studios have prioritized their own studios, how much longer does it make sense for them to operate a linear network?

That's a question for them. for the moment, both parent companies are happy with how this is set up. They recognize the value of The CW brand for selling their shows in digital aftermarket.

Interview edited for length and clarity.

#mark pedowitz #the cw #roswell new mexico #(well not really but close enough)

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imnotwolverine · 4 years

Text

The marriage pact - Pinky promise

Henry Cavill x OC Alice - multi-chapter

< Part 16 | Part 17 Pinky promise | Part 18 >

Disclaimer: a tiny bit naughty *shrugs*

Author’s note: Merry Sunday!

Word count: 1.820

(Link to my Masterlist)

Dear readers,

Guess who’s back? Once again? Chocolate cake’s back. Tell a friend.

Alright. Let’s stop it right there and come to the unfortunate conclusion that mixing rap lyrics and word quirks is not really my thing. What is my thing however, is writing a daily blog about my life. So here goes; I am terribly excited, dear readers. The winter seems to look a little less bleak as today I will not only pick up my chocolate cake, but I also may or may not have found a potential new home.

Close to my parents home, walking distance from the beach, a tiny balcony for my herbs and just enough space for a kitchen table for four. I kid you not; it is perfect! But, let us not get ahead of ourselves and sell the skin, before the bear has been caught. If it is meant to be, it will be. Same goes for chocolate cake.

Oh..yes..chocolate cake, I hope you are ready for me, dear cake, because I just read your label and it said: “eat me” *winks awkwardly*

Alright, now we must come to the even more unfortunate conclusion that I cannot even write a proper blog post anymore, so let us just wrap this up.

I bid you all a wonderful day,

Your ever excited,

Ali

Two long weeks. Two very long weeks of video chatting, phone calls and cute little text messages. All, despite our best efforts, mere futile attempts to fill the real void that is left behind when you are apart.

Standing on the muted grey tiles of the airport, I had nearly zoned out when finally people started to walk out into the arrivals hall. The large empty space echoed with the sound of tiny suitcase wheels reeling in and people greeting their loved ones with excited squeals, my eyes carefully looking before finally noticing a familiar face. Or snout actually. Kal.

‘KAL!’ I exclaimed, immediately getting noticed by the large “service” dog at work, his poor owner needing to put all his weight in his heels to not to be dragged off and haul over a bunch of grannies. With wide smiles I met that all familiar, though this time unshaven, face of one very happy Henry.

‘Hey babe.’ He cooed after a few rushed steps to get in my vicinity. ‘Hi.’ I breathed, looking up into those tender blues of his. Like a stormy ocean, the speckle of brown in them a desolate island or perhaps an autumn leaf that has fallen from its mother branch. Drifting. Lost. Though in Henry’s case not entirely. He was back home.

‘I missed you so much.’ He murmured, quickly wrapping me in his large arms, not heeding any mind to people taking pictures of him. Of us. ‘I missed you too.’ I whispered, petting Kal’s head that was desperately trying to squeeze in between our moulded together bodies. ‘Hmm.’ Henry smiled into my neck, feeling the eager dog pressing into his thigh. ‘That makes two.’

‘Or three.’ I laughed, leaning back a little to get another good look at him. Even unshaven and travel weary he was one hell of a handsome man to behold. Sharp cheeks, chocolate curls - was his hair growing out? He looked back at me with equally studious and sweet loving eyes, one hand now travelling up to cup my cheek, his other quite deftly holding on to both an excited Akita and a bag that was hung over his left shoulder.

Henry too, enjoyed traveling light.

He sighed, visibly relaxing as he leaned in, lips caressing mine and beard burning on my skin. And much to soon the kiss was broken again, his hand now moving to push a bit of hair back behind my ear. ‘Hello love.’ He whispered, remaining close enough for his voice to only reach my ears. I smiled, almost a bit stupidly and practically threw myself back in his arms, hiding my face in the crook of his neck, my nose eagerly sniffing up that scent that I had missed so.

‘Hmmmmm.’ I hummed, enjoying every moment of it. That was until Kal started to whine. Henry chuckled. ‘Alright. Looks like someone needs a tree. Now!’

With wide laughs we quickly ran out of the airport, the nearest square foot of greenery having to do the trick for poor Kal.

—

‘Hey and I saw that Charlie’s back as well.’ I said, looking out over the road, my hand on the steering wheel of my mom’s car, Henry on the shotgun seat and Kal panting in our necks. It was not a particularly large car. More the size of: “Honey, I’m going to get groceries, but if you want more than two crates of beer you’ll have to fetch it yourself.”. In fact, it was a tiny car, really. And it sure looked funny to see these two large bears folded over in their seats, Henry having to keep his head slightly tilted to not hit the roof.

‘Yea. We’re working on a new project actually, through Promethean Productions. And he hadn’t seen mom and dad in months, so, decided to combine the two.’

‘Family first, hmm?’

‘Always.’ He sighed, turning his head to watch the wintery coast line, the beaches now deserted as ice cold winds rushed through the dune grass. ‘It’s good to be back.’ He said, more to himself, than to me.

‘It’s good to have you back.’ I agreed, keeping my eyes on the road, the houses of both our parents now slowly coming into view.

—

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come along?’ He had managed to squeeze himself out of my mom’s car again, Kal already happily sniffing through his parents front yard. ‘Really Hen. I am more than capable of checking out that apartment myself. See you tonight…babe.’ I winked, gesturing him to close his door. He laughed and shook his head, refusing to close the door and instead manoeuvring back inside to press another longing kiss on my lips.

‘Well make sure I can fit in there. Because this car..’ He widened his eyes in exasperation. I laughed. ‘Gotcha gotcha. Superman’s buns of steel need ROOM hahahah. See you tonight.’ - ‘See you soon love.’ He rested his forehead for the slightest moment against mine. As if wishing to imprint my scent and the warmth of my body in his memory.

I’d better make sure I’d to the same. But that would be a good mission for tonight. First things first; the apartment.

—

‘It even has enough room for a big bed!’ I giggled, feeling his beard scratch my belly from beneath the sheets. ‘Mhmm.’ He rumbled, nodding his head in such a way that his scruff was tickling me even more. I jolted and squirmed, but nonetheless continued my story: ‘And ..HAHHAHAA..oh gods..And..eh..a bath. Henry. Stop HAHAHA It has a bathtub. A very nice…HENN..bathtub.’

‘Mhm.’ He smiled, crawling back up and poking his head out from underneath the sheets. ‘YOU!’ I warned, making him quirk up a challenging eyebrow. ‘Whatcha gonna do about it, princess?’

I bit my lip and slowly shook my head. ‘Two and a half months and you are already teasing me like this? That is no way to treat a la..-‘ He flipped us over, my surprised mouth halting mid-sentence as I was now suddenly straddling him. ‘Very well, I’m listening.’ He wrapped both his arms behind his head, giving me a smug smile, the vision of his large, popping muscles obviously making simple things like speaking full sentences just about impossible.

‘UGH..’ I sighed, letting my hands fall on his hairy pecs. ‘So mean.’ I pouted playfully. He grinned and shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly. ‘I’m not doing ANYTHING, dear. Please continue. The bathtub.’

Suddenly the mere thought of a bathtub made me think of all kinds of things unholy. Two weeks without Henry sure had made me a itsy bitsy bit crazy in the nether regions, because simply no toy or self loving session could quite calm me down like he could. I sighed again in utter defeat and slumped down on his gym honed god physique, my head resting on his chest and my ear picking up on the excited drum of heart.

Which meant that it wasn’t just me who was a little bit excited. In fact, I could feel some.. things.. that definitely implied he was very..very happy to see me.

‘Hen, I think, for the sanity of the both of us, we really should start looking into eh..the distance issue. Okay? I mean. This is two weeks. Two weeks!’ I shifted my hip slightly, making my point even more valid. He inhaled sharply, suppressing a moan and quickly lowered his arms, wrapping them carefully around my lower back and booty.

‘What are you trying to say Ali?’ He said, his voice a bit unsure.

I felt his unease quite immediately, propping myself up on my arms so I could look in his eyes, my legs still straddling him. ‘I mean that I just have to be with you. Could we please look into this? Find out how we can make it so?’ I said, seeing his worried face relax again. I sighed a tender smile. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to let you get away from me this time. RAWR!’ I growled, leaning down and sucking his bottom lip into my mouth, tugging it playfully.

‘Mmwwkey.’ He mumbled, his lip still caught between mine, until finally another one of his million dollar smiles broke through, his whole chest rumbling with mirth. ‘Give me your right hand.’

I leaned back up again and licked my lip, quirking my head a bit in confusion by his request. ‘Are you going to eat it? Be honest now Cavill. I see that look in your eyes.’ I warned him, with a teasing glint in my otherwise serious expression. He laughed aloud. ‘Please no, Ali. There’s other things I could eat..out..but that will have to wait. Give me your hand.’

Hesitantly I offered him my hand, waiting for him to do his worst. But, he didn’t. Instead he reached his own right hand in between our chests, then looped his pinky around mine.

‘I hereby solemnly pinky swear that I will do the best I can to make sure we will be apart as little as possible.’

I blinked, looking down at our interlinked pinkies, before the whole dorkiness of the situation caught up to me, my whole body convulsing as I started to laugh. ‘HAHAHAHHA. Oh Cavill. You are..hahah..by far..the worst..pirate…-‘

‘YARRRR.’ He laughed, rolling us back over again, his right hand staying interlocked with my pinky. ‘Now before I come to claim my booty. Do you solemnly swear, too, fair lady?’

‘Ye—HAHAHHAa HEN-‘ He brushed his beard hair into my neck, lathering a few wet kisses on the sensitive part of my skin. ‘Ye—yess. Okay. I swear. I swear. HAHAHHAAHa.’

‘Good.’ He grinned, disappearing below the blankets again. Ready to claim his prize.

General tagsquad: @harrysthiccthighss @tumblnewby @magdelen69 @thereisa8ella @mary-ann84 @darkbooksarwin @summersong69

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#henry cavill fanfiction #henry cavill fanfic #long story #romcom #henry cavill x author #henry cavill x oc #henry bear #kal #the marriage pact #pinky promise #airport

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yatorihell · 4 years

Text

In The Darkness Chapter 56 - Invasion

Noragami x Harry Potter AU

Words: 5,072

Summary: Yukine confides in Yato and Hiyori, and some unwelcome visitors arrive.

Also available on Yatorihell AO3

Yukine bolted.

He had pushed past Nora and her invasive manoeuvre and stumbled of the greenhouse, gardening gloves falling from his shaking hands. Now, the snow fell heavier, blanketing the world and blurring his vision amongst the sting of his tears.

Was it Nora who snitched about their secret society? Was that why Oshi banned student organisations? Have they been looking for them all this time? Had Nora been here the whole time?

Questions flew in Yukine’s head almost as fast as he ran back into the castle, slipping and sliding over the snow-covered steppingstones. The tears had dried stickily on his reddened cheeks when he had reached the landing of the Grand Staircase.

“Yukine!”

He whirled around at the sound of his name. Yato and Hiyori were walking towards him out of the Great Hall, Yato’s hand raised in greeting. He had never been so relieved to see them.

Yukine took a deep, shaky breath and braced himself to bear the bad news as Yato and Hiyori approached.

Hiyori’s eyes narrowed as Yukine stared at them, as did Yato’s. Immediately, they could tell something was wrong. They had spotted the redness around Yukine’s eyes immediately, and Yato opened his mouth to speak.

“Nora’s back.”

Yato didn’t have a chance to ask what was wrong before Yukine had blurted out two words that made Yato’s heart stop.

Hiyori’s head snapped to look at Yato before looking back at Yukine, mouth slightly open but lost for words.

“How do you know?” Yato’s brow furrowed. He could feel another headache coming on, but he pushed it to the side as he waited intently for Yukine’s answer.

Yukine stumbled over himself, stuttering and trying to find a way to put it, but it didn’t change what she had done to him. Instead, tears welled in his eyes again and Yukine felt his vision blur once again, face feeling red hot as he choked back a sob.

Yato quickly took Yukine by the elbow, steering him out of view from prying eyes in the Great Hall and down the hallway. Three sets of footsteps and sniffles gently echoed in the empty caverns of Hogwarts as Yato sat Yukine down on one of the window arches.

“Yukine,” Yato said softly. “What happened?”

Yukine let out a shaky breath.

“She was in the greenhouse,” Yukine mumbled. “She said that she couldn’t reach you, and that she needed me. I don’t know what for…”

Yato blinked. She’d been trying to reach him? How? And why would she need Yukine?

Silence enveloped them, but Yato could see that there was something more bothering Yukine. He expected the worst; Nora could be vicious when she felt replaced, as they had seen before when she had purposefully injured Hiyori in Quidditch.

Yato crouched so he was level with Yukine and placed a hand on his knee. He waited for Yukien to make eye contact before he once again gently spoke, the way in which one would speak to a frightened child.

“What did she do?”

Yukine hesitated and swallowed heavily, feeling his mouth go dry.

“She… kissed me…” Hiyori put her hand over her mouth at this revelation. Yato’s mouth set into a hard line as Yukine continued in an unsteady voice. “After she said ‘she needed me’, she kissed me.”

Yukine roughly pulled his sleeve across his eyes and sniffed, shell-shocked that Nora would do something like that. She had desecrated Suzuha’s favourite place, as well as where they had first kissed.

“What do we do if Nora’s back?” Hiyori gave the back of Yato’s head a questioning look. “She will be reporting back to your, I mean, her, Father as well as the Sorcerer.”

“We need to tell Sakura. Nora being here isn’t good news; the Sorcerer may be on the move if he’s sent her back here. And she might have information about what will happen next.”

Yato stood up. He looked at Yukine piteously as he stood, but he shot Yato a look that told him not to treat him like a victim. He’d had enough of that.

Yato could only think that the Sorcerer was closing in. He needed someone to watch Yato’s every move to make for an easy kidnapping – or murder – depending on the contents of the prophecy.

Yato’s echoed footsteps abruptly came to a stop after just a few paces. He had the sudden realisation that the mirror was still missing and that Sakura hadn’t sent Coo Phone back yet. He hadn’t heard from her in over a week now.

“What’s wrong?” Hiyori asked.

“My mirror, the one I talk to Sakura with, I can’t find it,” Yato frowned, racking his brain to try and think where he hadn’t looked.

Yukine and Hiyori exchanged looks, clicking the same pieces of the puzzle together behind Yato’s back.

“If Nora is back, could she have taken the mirror?” Hiyori asked.

The lightbulb went off in Yato’s head. He didn’t know how, but it was a possibility; there were no enchantments on the boy’s dormitory to keep girls out. Nora could have just as easily have got into his room to take the mirror.

But the question was, how did she know he had it?

“No mirror, no Sakura,” Yato growled. He ran a hand through his hair and half-turned, allowing Yukien and Hiyori to see his annoyed, defeated expression.

“You can use Floo Powder to talk to someone,” Yukine chimed.

Yato’s head snapped to Yukine. How could he forget about Floo Powder? He’d seen Sakura use it only a few weeks ago to contact someone with the fireplace. Yato gave them a slow, shit-eating grinned when he realised what they had to do.

“We need a fireplace and we have to be quick, and the closest one to us is…”

The Room of Requirement was too far, and it was still dinner time. All the teachers would be out of their offices.

The three of them looked up the spiral staircase at the end of the hallway and said the same name together.

“Oshi!”

Yato all but broke into a run, closely followed by Yukine and a breathless Hiyori as she tried to keep pace with the much lankier boys. Hiyori checked over the stone banister as she rounded the corner on the staircase, seeing a few confused first-years watch them, and prayed they wouldn’t tell a teacher.

Her footfalls became softer as they reached Classroom 3C, finding that Yukine had already unlocked the door as she saw his wand in his hand. He held the door open and ushered Hiyori inside.

“I’ll keep watch here, in case Oshi comes back,” Yukine said. Hiyori nodded and ducked under his arm into the classroom.

The classroom was darker than usual, perhaps because there were to candles to light up the room in the bleak mid-winter. The snowstorm continued outside, and Hiyori could just about see the neighbouring snow-topped turrets as she crossed past the windows.

The classroom had impressed her in her first year at Hogwarts, but now the wrought iron chandelier seemed sinister, and the eye holes of skeletons within the display cabinets followed her. She spared a glance at the dragon skeleton that hung over her head, feeling small as it menacingly loomed over her, as if it knew they were intruding.

Hiyori heard rustling in Professor Oshi’s office and she quickly made her way up the steps. She could see Yato – also wand in hand – rummaging through the desk drawers looking for something.

“Alohamora,” Yato muttered, pointing his wand and the bottom and final drawer of the desk. A soft click sounded and Yato wrenched it open. A second later he produced a black pouch that seemed to weigh heavy in his hand.

Yato quickly made his way to the fireplace and dropped to his knees, wand aimed at the cold fireplace.

“Incendio.”

The fireplace burst into life, sending waves of warmth washing across the room which was much appreciated by Hiyori. Hiyori looked back out of the door to Yukine who gave her a thumbs up to indicate they were ok.

Hiyori quietly came to stand beside Yato. He had torn the pouch strings open and scooped out a fine, glittery powder that leaked in between his fingertips as he threw into the fire. The flames engulfed the powder and quickly turned green, crackling with renewed energy.

“Sakura!” Yato hissed the name, and Hiyori stared into the flames, intrigued.

The flames licked and leaped at the air before Yato’s intense gaze, and within a few moments, a face appeared shadowed in the flames.

“Yato?” Sakura’s voice came from somewhere within the burning log pile. “Why are you calling me with Floo Powder? Where are you?”

“Teachers office, the mirrors missing, no time to explain,” Yato said quickly. “Nora’s back.”

At this, the flames grew into a deeper shade of emerald and Hiyori could see Sakura’s features sharpen into a frown. “I thought you said she wasn’t at Hogwarts anymore?”

Yato nodded. “She wasn’t, but she’s turned up tonight. We don’t know how or why, but she’s here.”

Yato had told Sakura about Nora, his ‘adoptive sister’, and that she hadn’t returned to Hogwarts that year. Sakura had suspected foul play as Nora was probably being used to help the Sorcerer in whatever way possible.

“If the Sorcerer can see your mind, he may be aware of the Order and of me,” Sakura said grimly. “Nora must be a spy sent to keep an eye on you, and to split us up before the prophecy can be found.”

Yato had thought as much. The Sorcerer surely knew about Sakura escaping Azkaban and reuniting with Yato, but did he know about Grimmauld Place? If he wasn’t at Hogwarts, he may not have a safe place to go if Grimmauld Place was compromised.

Sakura seemed to read his mind.

“For now, we have to assume that the Sorcerer isn’t able to see too much of your mind; remember Legilimency works best with eye contact,” Sakura said firmly. “He would’ve attacked by now if he knew where the Orders Headquarters were.”

Yato nodded and he felt Hiyori’s comforting hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her, eyebrows knitted together with worry.

“As for Hogwarts, you need to be careful that you don’t get caught now that Nora may be watching you,” Sakura said.

Yato and Hiyori looked into the flames which had begun to wilt without their firewood, Sakura’s visage fading from view. Her final words seemed to echo in the room as the flames died to embers and left them in the darkness.

“Don’t let Nora find you.”

Training dropped down to once a fortnight, and at a later time after dinner when it would be less suspicious as student’s movements weren’t noticed as much as they were free to roam the castle until curfew.

Yato gave no explanation for why the training was less frequent other than that he had to prepare for exams, which wasn’t a lie really, but he didn’t want to put them on edge. Not that he could tell them about the Sorcerer and Nora trying to catch them out anyway.

They covered stunning again, and then the Patronus Charm, and then disarming. Over and over for the next few months, they would practice until the moves were ingrained in their bodies like breathing.

Not too long after their call in the fireplace, Sakura had sent Coo Phone back to Hogwarts with a message. He savoured her loopy handwriting, happy that he could speak to her again in less than ideal circumstances.

Yato scribbled a quick message back, updating her on the situation at Hogwarts and their theory that Nora may have broken into the room and took the mirror.

Nora hadn’t made any creepy sightings, which if anything was more unnerving than actually finding her tucked in the shadows muttering some omen like she usually did. Yato couldn’t help but jump whenever he saw shadowy specters hugging the edge of the Slytherin common room, expecting Nora to emerge, but it seemed that she had vanished into the cracks of the castle. He couldn’t even be sure if she was in Hogwarts anymore.

Yato gently tied the scroll to the pigeon’s leg and took him to the window of the Owlery. He could sense Coo Phone’s nervousness at being back in the Owlery, his yellow eyes looking over the bigger owls that in turn eyed him like a snack.

Yato opened the window with one hand and held Coo Phone into the spring breeze with the other. With a smile, he watched as Coo Phone’s wings spread and he took flight into the sunlight until he was a speck of grey in the distant blue sky.

Slowly, the uneasiness faded to the back of Yato’s mind, but there was still a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right as the weeks passed, and it affected his Occlumency lessons.

He hadn’t hurt Madame Kofuku too badly, but his anxiety made for some violent spells as he tried to protect himself from the invasions. She had insisted he was improving, but he didn’t feel like it. No matter how hard he tried he found it nearly impossible to block the attack, only to end it after a moment or two.

Yato sighed as he made his way out of Madame Kofuku’s office and down the stairs. Whilst the Defence training had slowed down, the Occlumency lessons and increasing pressure for his O.W.L and N.E.W.T exams in the next few weeks had left him exhausted.

The castle was rather quiet for the time of evening – it was only eight o’clock and he had no idea where Yuine or Hiyori were. Probably studying for the exams, Yato thought to himself.

Yato turned and paced down the hallway and his footsteps echoed as he made his way into the dungeons of Slytherins dormitories, ready to go straight to bed. Only a few of his fellow roommates were in the common room amongst a smattering of other years, and he was thankful that no one was in the dormitory to disturb him from getting into bed early.

Yato slid open the drawer and placed his wand in the case Sakura had given him at Christmas, which lay beside the framed photo. Yato stared at it for a second and lingered on Sakura’s face. On the memory that soon he would be back at Grimmuald Place to live, he smiled.

Even if the Sorcerer was watching, Yato knew Sakura would protect him.

Yato settled into the pillows and wrapped himself in the sheets, warning off the invading cold. The dim candlelight barely shone through the curtains that surrounded his four-poster bed and seemed to muffle the world around him.

Yato closed his eyes and sighed. He stretched out, trying to find a comfortable spot on the aging mattress, until his feet kicked against something heavy on the end of his bed. Yato opened his eyes and frowned, turning his head to look at the foot of the bed.

He couldn’t quite see what he was looking at, but a thick, rope-shaped object lay next to his feet on top of the quilt. Yato sat up and looked at it once again. The dim green light his curtains cast onto his sheets made the object blend into his bed, and he could hear a rattling breath.

Yato reached out a hand…

And the attack came, more intense than anything he’d experienced with Madame Kofuku, and far more invasive. Two eyes pierced right through him and dragged his worst memories into the light, searching for something within in. The room spun away and Yato felt his mouth open into a scream, but no sound came as he was lost into the abyss.

Yukine, imprisoned within the chest and his voice broken from screaming, not knowing what events had unfolded the night he failed to save stop the final task.

Deatheaters gathered around the defiled sculpted angel as he lay pinned and helpless as the Sorcerer returned, telling him the truth of what would happen to his friends if he didn’t escape.

Dementors attacking him and Hiyori in her hometown just last summer, and the helplessness he had felt once again as Hiyori tried to save him.

Yato collapsed backward into the soft pillows, gasping and sweat running down his neck as he fought off the last invasions with his mind alone. His head was pierced by a sharp ringing, and when he’d scrambled for his wand and faced the beast at the end of the bed, it was nowhere in sight.

Yato tore the covers away from his body and jumped out of bed, wand trained on the floor as he frantically searched for the creature, breathing heavily. He kicked at the suitcase that poked out from underneath his bed and swept around the edges of the bed frame.

Nothing.

Yato looked once more, the soft candlelight throwing ombre shades across the room. He knew his mind wasn’t playing tricks on his, but he still didn’t want to believe he had actually seen that familiar creature.

Yato let out a heavy breath, deliberating whether he should go find Madame Kofuku, Professor Tenjin, or call Sakura late in the night. He could hear footsteps in the hallway now, no doubt someone coming to bed or to check on him if he had actually managed to scream.

But no matter what he thought he did or didn’t see, Yato knew that he had been staring straight into the eyes of a snake.

“You have to tell Madame Kofuku!” Hiyori scolded.

Yato looked away but he found no respite as Yukine was giving him the same look as Hiyori.

He had found the pair sat at Gryffindor’s near-empty table at breakfast the next day, and with the Great Hall near enough deserted as it was so early, he was free to tell them what had happened last night.

“If it was the snake you saw in the first vision, then you need to tell Professor Tenjin too,” Yukine added, arms folded on the tabletop. “Or it was a normal snake he had possessed to enter Hogwarts undetected to get at you.”

Hiyori nodded her agreement, and Yato caved instantly.

It was true the Sorcerer needed eye contact for Legilimency to be most effective, but that was something else entirely. Surely Hogwarts would’ve stopped him from getting in? He shuddered to think that Hogwarts wasn’t as safe as it seemed, and it had already affected his previous night’s sleep.

“I’ll tell Madame Kofuku tonight, after our Defence training,” Yato dropped his voice despite there being no one around them to hear.

His eyes slid behind Hiyori and Yukine as a few people entered the Great Hall. A huddle of Ravenclaws had made their way over to their table opposite them, heads down, and Yato saw why a moment later.

Professor Oshi entered the hall, white robes billowing behind her as she made her way up the aisle between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff. Her long, dark hair fanned out behind her, head held aloof, but Yato could see her watching the three of them out of the corner of her eye as she passed.

Hiyori and Yukine turned without much grace to see what Yato was glaring at as Professor Oshi sat to the teacher's table.

“I wish she’d leave already,” Yukine grumbled, unconsciously touching the faded scar on his hand.

“When the Order has the prophecy, the Sorcerer will be defeated and the Ministry won’t interfere at Hogwarts anymore,” Hiyori said, trying to interject some hopefulness into the conversation.

Yato had reservations of whether the Ministry would actually step aside; the only way they would be if they had the Sorcerer’s body at their feet, but he nodded regardless.

More students began filtering in, and Yato could sense that the Gryffindors who sat around him and Yukine wanted them to go back to his own table. Yato had no shared classes with Yukine and Hiyori today, so he bid them a brief farewell before having breakfast and setting off to his own class.

Yato sat his way through Charms, Divination, History of Magic, Muggle Studies and Ancient Seals. His eyes were drooping by the end of the day, having them closed for too long in Ancient Seals meant that Professor Takemikazuchi had him stand and read from the book as punishment for sleeping in class.

By the time the final bell of the day rang out, Yato was ready for bed. Alas, he still had dinner in an hour, training, and a trip to Madame Kofuku, which no doubt would result in an emergency Occlumency lesson before bed.

Yato trudged his way back to Slytherin dormitories and changed, heading straight back upstairs so he wouldn’t be tempted to lie down and fall asleep. He had to be present at dinner else someone might miss him and catch him going to the Room of Requirement later on that evening.

Though he debated all through dinner about going to a fireplace to call Sakura, Yato put it off. She wouldn’t be happy if he did that again, and Madame Kofuku would surely inform her of the news when he told her tonight.

Yato made his way back to Slytherin once again to wait for training. He resisted the urge to sleep in his bed, which seemed even softer than usual, instead opting to read up on Ancient Seals which was becoming a somewhat problematic topic.

Chin in hand and elbow resting on his knee, Yato scanned the pages, taking nothing in. The minutes ticked by and turned to hours when eventually Yato slammed the book shut and headed out of the dormitory, wand concealed in his pocket. He was probably late, but he was sure they would have already started practicing without him.

Yato’s footsteps echoed in the dank hallway and the stairs, eventually fading as he made onto the deserted ground floor of the castle. He broke into a jog as he took the stairs two at a time, and then one at a time, until he was out of breath on the seventh floor.

The Room of Requirement grated into existence and Yato lipped inside, closing the door behind him with a gentle bang. As expected, they had already started training, and it seemed that Yukine and Kazuma had taken up the role of teachers.

Kazuma guided a younger Ravenclaw student – Touma, he believed – as they fought to keep their friend levitating, whereas Yukine was beside a Hufflepuff girl he recognised as Tomoko refining her stunning skills.

Yato smiled to himself, looking across the room of mismatched students working together. Bishamon’s Patronus sat in the centre of the room, encouraging those who had not yet been able to produce a full-body Patronus. It playfully batted at the silvery trails the younger students produced from their wands, beckoning them to give it a friend to play with.

A bang came from nowhere and Yato looked around, trying to work out who was casting which spell. Dust from the cracks in the ceiling overhead scattered down as another bang came, and this time Yato frowned when he saw the other confused looks as wands began to fall to their sides.

The flames shook in their gas lamps, sending the room into temporary darkness every few moments as if the castle itself were being bombed. It became apparent that no one in the class was casting that spell.

Yato caught Hiyori’s eye as he looked around, her wolf Patronus which trotted to her side faded as her attention wavered. Bishamon’s Patronus let out a roar which faded as quickly as it came, disappearing into thin air and leaving the room in the eerie silence that followed.

Boom.

Yato turned around to the noise, facing the wall where the door would have been, finding Yukine was already next to it.

Yato went to open his mouth, but Yukine held up a hand to quiet him and pointed at the wall. When he looked closer, Yato could see a gap had formed in the thick flagstone wall. Muted voices sounded from the other side of the wall where the hallway was, and Yato felt his blood run cold.

Yukine stepped forward quietly with Yato close behind him, and bent at the waist to look through the crack.

Professor Oshi, wand aimed and surrounded by other students – Slytherin, Yukine noticed –, stared straight back at him.

There was no warning, no announcement. Just two words.

“Bombarda Maxima.”

Yato heard the first word of the spell being uttered and reacted instantly. He grabbed Yukine roughly by the scruff of his jumper, pulling him away from the wall and a short distance away before the spell could inflict major damage on them.

Debris of ancient flagstone and fine dust exploded across the room, a few terrified screams ringing out and students taking cover behind their own arms as the wall was blown away. Yato fell harshly with Yukine by his side, uninjured but disheveled and swearing from the force of the explosion.

Yato coughed and covered his mouth with his arm as the dust settled, revealing the imposing figure of Professor Oshi stood in the makeshift doorway. But her apprehension of their training was pushed from his mind when he realised not only how they had been found, but who had revealed where they were.

Small in the corner of the doorway, tucked beside a few Slytherin students he recognised from the common room, was someone he didn’t expect to see.

Nora.

Tenjin leant against the table in his office, engaged in a quiet conversation with a small man with a weathered face as Yato, Yukine and Hiyori were hauled into his office by Professor Oshi and Nora’s presumed spies.

Yato caught a glimpse of fiery red behind Tenjin as the three of them were brought forward, noticing that Fawkes –Tenjin’s phoenix – was sat on a perch watching over the scene.

Yato’s eyes slid to the man who had turned to face them, and he recognised him instantly; the Minister of Magic. He was accompanied by a few other wizards – Aurors, perhaps – who lined one side of the wall close to the doorway preventing escape.

Yato could see why people called him paranoid. His beady eyes looked over the trio and then at the paper Professor Oshi had handed him whilst spewing nonsense about conspiracy, looking oddly deranged and unkempt for a woman of such cold stature.

Yato scowled and threw a cold look in Nora’s direction, but she seemed either unfazed or didn’t notice as she looked dead ahead with a near-vacant expression. She seemed to be in better shape compared to what Yukine described, but he still couldn’t figure out how she’d not been in class nor how she found the Room of Requirement.

That would be a question or another day, for now, they had to get Tenjin out of trouble. But how?

“‘Hogwarts’ Order of the Phoenix’, its right there! That’s enough proof that Tenjin is Behind all of this!” Professor Oshi exclaimed.

It wasn’t looking good, Yato had to admit. Of course, the Minister knew about the Order of the Phoenix from the First Wizarding War, but it seemed he didn’t know about the new one, which was some relief. They thought that Tenjin had recruited them, and unfortunately, that’s what the Minister would have to believe so the Order and its mission wouldn’t be compromised.

“We knew this smokescreen about the Sorcerer was to divert attention from your bid to seize control of the Ministry,” Professor Oshi spat at Tenjin, who cocked an eyebrow in surprise.

Yato could feel the pride and smugness oozing from her as she declared Professor Tenjin was basically a traitor to the Ministry itself.

Tenjin took a breath as if all this excitement had tired him out. “Well, it seems you have caught me.”

Yato blinked. What?

He spared a quick look at Yukine and Hiyori who were held by other students beside him. They gave him the same look but remained quiet, watching the situation play out.

“As it says ‘Order of the Phoenix’, you can see it was me who ordered this society to be made, and I alone am responsible for its activities,” Tenjin announced.

Tenjin didn’t move from his place despite the Minister and Professor Oshi triumphantly resigning him to his fate, unlike the Aurors who stood with stoic faces.

“Send an owl to the Daily Prophet,” the Minister of Magic said over his shoulder to one of the dark-haired Aurors. He folded the piece of paper in his hand and turned back, “and escort Tenjin to Azkaban to await trial for conspiracy and sedition.”

Yato panicked and looked to Tenjin. What was he meant to do?! Confess to the new Order and Sakura as its leader?!

“Ah, it is here we come to an impasse.”

All eyes fell on Tenjin as he walked around his desk and stood behind the highbacked chair that was tucked under it. Yato could see Professor Oshi was seething as she glared daggers at Tenjin and his calm demeanour.

“It seems you are under the impression that I will, how you say, come quietly?”

Tenjin side-eyed Yato discreetly before looking back at his would-be captors. He held the sides of the chair and leaned forward as he spoke, long grey goatee skimming the edge of the chair as he did so. “I have no intention of going to Azkaban.”

“Enough,” Professor Oshi hissed. Yato caught a glimpse of her wand in her hand and felt his heart skip a beat. “Take him!”

Yato, Yukine and Hiyori stared at Tenjin with horrified expressions as the Aurors, Minister, and Professor Oshi rushed forward to capture him, but Tenjin gave them a wink.

Tenjin quickly raises his arms above his head with a loud clap, and in the same moment Fawkes had swooped down from his perch. His talons wrapped around Tenjin’s clasped hands and the pair burst into flames in a brilliant flash of heat and molten gold.

The sun had seemed to enter the room despite setting hours ago, blinding its occupants who shielded their eyes, and the pair vanished in a ball of flames.

The ball popped in a puff of grey smoke, and Professor Tenjin was gone.

#noragami #noragami aragoto #yato #yukine #hiyori #sakura #kofuku #hp au #harry potter au #in the darkness #my writing

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docmurph12 · 3 years

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Ok super late and sort of abbreviated review time.

Thanks to my sister for the recommendation on this one.

This is not live, my wife and I watched the movie like 3 weeks ago and have been super crazy busy so I haven't gotten around to writing this, but here it is!! Circle is a very small movie with a lot to say. This is NOT THE Circle, so you don't get it mixed up with the other movie. You can find this pretty easily on Netflix with a quick search, and for what its worth, its a quick watch.

The story is VERY fast paced, the basic premise is that something important and dramatic happens every 2 minutes, so for a movie with a runtime of only 86 minutes, you can imagine this moves along as a pretty violently quick tack. I am going to go ahead and put a spoiler section after the final verdict of this one so be warned and don't read too far. That said I feel for the most part the script does a good job of establishing characters and moving the story along without feeling ungrounded. At first glance and with only one viewing under my belt at this point nothing feels very.......Hollywood, to use a word. These people feel like real people rather than over dramaticized film archetypes. Theres a few stereotypical things happening here but without giving too much away, the film's characters all have surprises up their motivation sleeves, At least in my average Joe's eyes. I WILL SAY HOWEVER, that there seem to be more questions than answers at the end of this thing. Primarily, my wife and I both found ourselves asking what the central theme or question was. What is this film ultimately trying to say? More on that in the spoilers section.

This film visually feels perfectly claustrophobic. There isn't much to speak of in terms of a score, but sound still has intense and profound meaning in this film. Perfect use of the "sound v silence" concept. There is almost nothing in terms of stage direction or even scene changes. There are a ton of close-in camera shots that give a more personalized and suspenseful angle to the atmosphere of the movie. The close ups give the director/cinematographer the means to pull off a few surprises too, without sacrificing much of the feel at all. The set for the single stage in the film is pretty visually striking as well, especially considering how little there actually is. It actually feels very much like a slightly more filled in old school Shakespeare performance, not necessarily in terms of story style or dialog, moreso in set design. Very minimalistic, but very effective.

Final verdict, prior to the brief spoilers that is...

Perfect use of sound and silence, great lighting and set design, interesting story, and good performances. The only beef I have is that not much is answered by the end of the film. This definitely merits additional viewings, I feel, but I am not sure I will be doing so soon, especially given the other things I want to take in before I feel like I might need to sit through this again. Still a cool project, and I would be lying if I said we didn't enjoy it. Im going to give this one a solid mid-B, and move on to the next film. I strongly suggest looking this one up and at least giving up 87 minutes of your time to take this one in.

SPOILERS---READ NO FURTHER IF YOU WANT TO DIVE IN BLIND (it might be worth the wait,, I strongly recommend not reading more until you have seen it)

The dude in the end made a super dubious choice in manipulating the kid and the pregnant lady so they both died, and I had some difficulty in understanding the ending. I feel like this dude has been through a few of these, and that it is also possible that, given the way this is presented, that the end scene might be either the start to either the first or the next scenario or maybe just the end of the one we see in the film. Ultimately I feel like the message we are supposed to receive is that humanity is scum and we all have problems that will push us to cutting each other's throats rather than seek out pragmatic or even altruistic ends. Unless there is no message and this is just a "what you see is what you get" type of movie, but this feels a little different than that. Without any extended research on the background of the writing or whatever, its kind of difficult to see anything else. Its really fucking bleak and after being sucked in and REALLY enjoying the first part of the film, I felt conflicted about having enjoyed it. Please, by all means, watch it, and if you do or if you already have please drop a comment here. I would love to have a public discussion on this one.

#circle #film #docmurph12 #review #movies #film review #netflix

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dustedmagazine · 4 years

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Dust Volume 6, Number 8

Angel Olsen

Now half a year in the pandemic, we’re starting to see the emergence of quarantine records, whether in the trove of reissues hastily assembled to stand in for new product or home recorded projects made with extremely close friends and family or albums that are conceived and written around the concept of isolation. Music isn’t real life, exactly, but it lives nearby. And in any case, it’s still music and can be good or bad whether it’s been unearthed from a forgotten box of tapes, recorded at home without collaboration or side people or technologically gerry-rigged so that distanced partners can work together. So, as long as you all are making music, we will continue to listen and find records that move us, as the world burns all around. This edition’s contributors included Patrick Masterson, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Jonathan Shaw, Justin Cober-Lake and Ray Garraty. Enjoy.

+ — #playboy (Deluxe Edition) (self-released)

#playboy (deluxe edition) by +

One of the most genuinely confounding records I’ve heard this year comes courtesy SEO-unfriendly artist + aka Plus Sign fka Emanuel James Vinson, a Chicago rapper, city planner and all-around community activist who spends his time helping with the city’s Let’s Build Garden City initiative when he’s not making music (which is frequent, by the way — take a look at the breadth of that Bandcamp discography). The concept with #playboy, originally released in April but deluxed in late May, is simple: Two kids find a music machine called #playboy in their basement and start tinkering with it. Its childlike whimsy is conveyed in the song titles (“Getting the Hang of It,” “Wake Up Jam (Waking Up)”) every bit as much as it is in the music, with occasionally grating indulgences, the odd earworm and a brief appearance by borderless internet hip-hop hero Lil B that makes perfect sense in context; the kindred spirit of that community-building cult auteur is strong here. You may wind up loving this record or you may wind up hating it, but I can promise you this: You’ll be thinking about it and the artist behind it long after it’s over.

Patrick Masterson

Actress — Mad Voyage Mixtape (self-released)

I once suggested Darren Cunningham mucks about with his music because he can’t help himself. That was about six years ago on the occasion of his purported “final” album Untitled; with the benefit of hindsight, we can see he was (like so many others, to greater or lesser consequence) just pulling our leg with that PR. Hell, he’s released two albums worth of music in July alone: The first was the mid-month surprise LP 88, which follows in the vein of his acclaimed high period as an often brilliant, occasionally frustrating patchwork of submersible beats best played at high volume with a low end. The second came at the end of the month in an m4a file shared the old fashioned way on a forum via Mediafire link, nearly an hour and a half long, and per the man himself, “All SP-303, sketchbook beats, recorded this past week [the first week of July] straight to recorder or cassette.” It feels very much like a homespun Actress mixtape and is probably best thought of as livelier accompaniment to 88 but, even still, there’s no noticeable drop in quality — once Actress, always Actress. If headier lo-fi beat tapes are your beat, this will slot comfortably in line.

Patrick Masterson

bdrmm - Bedroom (Sonic Cathedral)

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Hull five-piece bdrmm play a satisfyingly crepuscular version of shoegaze on their debut album Bedroom. Ryan Smith, his brother Jordan on bass, guitarist Joe Vickers, Danny Hull on synths and drummer Luke Irvin combine the widescreen sound of Ride with a cloak of gothic post-punk. Like the late, lamented Girls Names, bdrmm find a sweet spot where atmosphere and dynamics either build to euphoric crescendos or bask in bleak funereal splendor. Bedroom seems deliberately sequenced from celebration to lament. “A Reason To Celebrate” evokes Ride at their most anthemic, the tripping staccato driven “Happy” summons the spirit of The Cure of Seventeen Seconds before the pace drops for the second half, the songs become quieter and darker as the band finds a more personal voice. “(The Silence)” is an ambient whispered wraith of a thing, “Forget The Credits” impressively mopey slowcore. bdrmm don’t always transcend their influences, but this debut is an atmospheric treat if your taste runs to the darker end of the musical buffet.

Andrew Forell

Circulatory System — Circulatory System (Elephant 6 Recording Co.)

Circulatory System by Circulatory System

Nearly 20 years after its initial release, the excellent eponymous debut album by Will Cullen Hart’s psychedelic chamber-pop band Circulatory System gets a long overdue vinyl reissue. While his previous project, the undeniably great Olivia Tremor Control, tended to lean more towards classic psych-pop’s traditional tropes — hard-panned drums, loads of disorientating tape effects, wonky harmonized vocals — Circulatory System taps into something utterly uncanny. Both Signal Morning (2009) and Mosaics Within Mosaics (2014) have their moments, but this is front-to-back brilliant, conjuring a sublime atmosphere of reflective estrangement. The music is a thick, grainy soup of shimmering instrumentation, from the eerie (“Joy,” “Now,” “Should a Cloud Replace a Compass?”) to the joyful (“Yesterday’s World,” “The Lovely Universe,” “Waves of Bark and Light”), but part of the album’s magic is the way everything flows into a seamless whole. As is vinyl’s tendency, the rhythm section really comes alive here, the fuzz bass and tom-heavy drum parts booming out, with plenty of vivid details in the mix swimming into view. A worthy reissue of an essential album.

Tim Clarke

Cloud Factory — #1 (Howlin’ Banana)

Cloud Factory #1 by Cloud Factory

Cloud Factory, from Toulouse, France, overlays the serrated edges of garage pop with a serene dream-pop drift. It’s an appealing mix of hard and soft, like being pummeled to death by pillows or threatened gunpoint by a teddy bear. “Amnesia,” for instance, erupts in a vicious, sawed off, trouble-making bass line, then soars from there in untroubled female vocals. Later, “No Data,” punches hard with raw percussion, then lays on a liquid, lucid guitar line that encourages middle-distance staring. None of these songs really up the ante with memorable melodies, sharp words or that intangible R’NR energy that distinguishes great punk rock from the so so. Not loud, not soft, not great, not bad. Cloud Factory resides in the indeterminant middle.

Jennifer Kelly

Entry — Detriment (Southern Lord)

Detriment by Entry

Nuthin fancy here, folks. Just eight songs — plus a flexing, fuzzing intro — of American hardcore punk. Entry has been grinding away for a few years now, and Detriment doesn’t advance much past the musical terrain the band marked off on the No Relief 7-inch (2016). That’s OK. The essential formula is time tested: d-beat rhythms, overdriven amps and Sara G.’s ferocious vocals delivering the necessary affect. That would be: pissed off, just this side of hopeless. Detriment sounds like what might happen if Poison Idea (c. 1988) stumbled into a seminar on Riot Grrrl; after everyone got tired of beating the living shit out of one another, they’d make some songs. “Selective Empathy” is pretty representative. Big riffs, a breakdown, and more than enough throaty yelling to let you know that you’re in some trouble. You might recognize the sound of Clayton Stevens’ guitar from his work with Touché Amoré — but maybe it’s better if you don’t. This isn’t music for mopery. Watch out for the spit, snot and blood, and flip the record.

Jonathan Shaw

Equiknoxx — VF Live: Equiknoxx (The Vinyl Factory)

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There’s nothing like a little roots music to get you through the sweltering summer heat, and this early July mix by Gavin “Gavsborg” Blair (half of forward-thinking Kingston dancehall unit Equiknoxx) was a personal favorite of the past month for hitting that spot. The group tends to throw curveballs at the genres it tinkers with, and Blair’s mix highlights why they’re so good at it: The crates run deep. Spanning everything from legendary producer and DJ Prince Jazzbo to in-house music fresh out the box (e.g., “Did Not Make This For Jah_9” was released in late May), Blair sets the mood and educates you along the way. Like everything else these cats do (and that includes the NTS show — support your independent radio station!), it’s hard not to give the highest recommendation.

Patrick Masterson

Ezra Feinberg — Recumbent Speech (Related States)

Recumbent Speech by Ezra Feinberg

Knowing that Ezra Feinberg is a practicing psychoanalyst, it’s tempting to read meaning into the name of his second solo album. But be careful to think twice about the meaning you perceive and ask yourself, is it the product of Feinberg on the couch or your own projection? His choice to name one of the record’s six instrumentals (there are voices, but no words) “Letter To My Mind” certainly suggests that there’s an internal dialogue at work, but the music feels most like a layered deployment of good ideas than an exchange of intrapsychic forces. The synthesizers shimmer and cycle like something from a mid-1970s Cluster record, resting upon a pillow of vibraphone and electric piano tones, which in turn billow under the influence of undulating layers of drums. Feinberg’s guitar leads are bright and pithy, like something Pat Metheny might come up with if he knew he was going to have to pay a steep price for every note he played. Ah, but there I go, projecting an implication of adversary process where there may be none. Might it be that Feinberg, having spent a full work week immersed in the psychic conflicts of others, wants to lay back on the couch and exhale? If so, this album is an apt companion.

Bill Meyer

Honey Radar — Sing the Snow Away: The Chunklet Years (Chunklet)

Sing the Snow Away: The Chunklet Years by Honey Radar

Jason Henn of Honey Radar has a solid claim at being his generation’s Bob Pollard, a prolific, absurdist songwriter, who tosses off hooky melodies as if channeling them from the spirit world. His least polished material glints with melody hidden beneath banks of fuzz, whispery and fragile on records, but surprisingly muscular in his rocking live shows. This 28-song compilation assembles the singles, splits, EPs and bonus tracks Henn recorded for Chunklet between 2015 and the present; it would be a daunting amount of material except that it goes down like cotton candy, sweet, airy, colorful and gone before you know it. Like the Kinks, Henn has a way of making strident rock and roll hooks sound wistful and dreamy. In “Lilac Pharmacy,” guitar lines rip and buck and roar, but from a distance, hardly disrupting Henn’s placid murmur. “Medium Mary Todd” ratchets up the tension a bit, with a tangled snarl of lick and swagger, but the vocals edge towards quiet whimsy a la Sic Alps; a second version runs a bit hotter, rougher and more electric, while a third, recorded at WFMU, gives an inkling of the Honey Radar concert experience. A couple of fine covers — of the Fall’s early rant “Middle Class Revolt” and of the Monkees rarity “Wind-Up Man”— suggest the fine, loamy soil that Henn’s art grows out of, while alternate versions of half a dozen tracks hint at the various forms his ideas can take. It’s a wonderful overview of Honey Radar so far, though let’s hope it’s not a career retrospective. Henn has a bunch of records left to make yet if he wants to edge out Pollard.

Jennifer Kelly

Iron Wigs — Your Birthday’s Cancelled (Mello Music Group)

Your Birthday's Cancelled by IRON WIGS

As an adjective, “goofy” had gotten a bad rep in hip hop. Anything that is unusual, inventive and not in line with “keeping it real” is immediately stigmatized as goofy, weird, nerdy and bad. Iron Wigs is goofy but hold the pejorative connotations. Chicago representatives Vic Spencer and Verbal Kent team up here with Sonnyjim from the UK to do some wild rhyming. They collaborated before, but Your Birthday’s Cancelled is a complete, fully fleshed project, masterfully executed from start to finish. Instead of the usual gun busting you get a fist in the ribs. Instead of drug slinging, a blunt to activate your rhymes. Each member of the group has a distinctive delivery which makes you to listen carefully for every verse, no skipping. It’s a relief to listen to rap artists who don’t pretend they’re out in the streets while they’re at home enjoying a favorite TV series. The standout track here is “Bally Animals & Rugbys” with Roc Marciano dropping by for a verse.

Ray Garraty

Levinson / Mahlmeister — Shores (Trouble In Mind)

Shores by levinson / mahlmeister

Jamie Levinson and Donny Mahlmeister’s Bandcamp page indicates that they’re based in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago. This goes further towards explaining their association with Trouble in Mind Records, which is located in the same county, than their music, which brings to mind something much further north. The duo’s music is mostly electronic, with modular synthesizers setting the pulse and sweeping the pitch spectrum while lap steel guitar adds flourishes and a shruti box thickens the textures. The album is split into two, with each track — one is named “Ascend,” the other “Release” — taking up one side of a 50-minute cassette. The first side trundles steadily onwards, and the second seems to bask in a glow to that never totally fades. Since there’s no “Descend,” it’s easy to imagine this music sound tracking a drive into the Canadian north, the journey unspooling under a sky that never darkens, its progress towards Hudson Bay unhindered by other traffic or turns in the road. Perhaps that’s just one listener’s fantasy of easy social distancing and escape from the present’s grim digital glare into a retro-futurist, analog dream. But in dreams we’re free to fly without being seated next to some knucklehead with his mask over his eyes instead of his mouth, so dream on, dreamers. This tape is volume one of the Explorers Series, Trouble in Mind’s projected program of limited edition cassette releases.

Bill Meyer

Klara Lewis — Ingrid (Editions Mego)

Klara Lewis’s latest recording shows a narrowing of focus. Previously she seemed to be trying ideas and methods on for size, investigating ambient electronics or hinting at pop melody without completely committing. Given the approach to music modeled by her father, Graham Lewis of Wire and Dome, she probably does not feel the need to do just one thing, and that’s a healthy angle if one wants to stay interested and flexible. But there’s also something to be said for really digging into an idea, and that’s what she has done here. Ingrid is a one-track, one-sided 12.” Burrowing further into one-ness, it is made from one looped cello phrase, which gets filtered and distorted on each pass. The effect suggests decay, but not so much the gradual transformation of a William Basinski piece as the pitiless abrasion of a woodworker going over a plank with sander. The combination of repetition and coarsening hits a spot closer to one that Tony Conrad might reach, and that’s an itch worth scratching.

Bill Meyer

Luis Lopes Humanization 4tet — Believe, Believe (Clean Feed)

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The cruel economics of contemporary creative music-making favor an ensemble like Humanization 4tet. At a minimum, the filial Texan rhythm section of Stefan and Aaron Gonzalez (drums and bass respectively) and Lisbon-based duo of Rodrigo Amado (tenor saxophone) and Luís Lopes can each count on having the other half of a band on the other side of the Atlantic. But any project that’s on its fourth record in a dozen years has more going for it than the chance to save on plane tickets. For the Portuguese musicians, it’s an opportunity to feel an unabashedly high-energy force at their backs, as well as a chance to drink from a deep well of harmolodic blues. And for the Gonzalez brothers, it’s the reward of being the absolute right guys for the job; it has to be a gas to know that the heft they put into their swing is so deeply appreciated. While Lopes’ name remains up front, everyone contributes compositions, and everyone gives their all on every tune.

Bill Meyer

Joanna Mattrey — Veiled (Relative Pitch)

Veiled by Joanna Mattrey

This solo CD, which closely follows a collaborative cassette on Astral Spirits, is only the second recording with Joanna Mattrey’s name on the spine. But Mattrey is no newcomer. The New England Conservatory-trained violist has been playing straight and pop gigs for a while. If you caught Chance the Rapper on Saturday Night Live, Cuddle Magic with strings or a host of classical gigs around New York City, you’ve seen her. But if black dress and heels gigs pay her bills, improvised music nourishes her heart. And if sounds raw enough to scrape the roof of the world nourish yours, this album is new food. The premise of Veiled is finding veins of concealed beauty concealed, and that search impels Mattrey to tune her viola to sound like a horse-haired Tuvan fiddle, clamp objects to the strings and blast her signal through some satisfyingly filthy amplification. And whether it’s a slender tune or a complex texture, the reward is always there.

Bill Meyer

Angel Olsen — “Whole New Mess” single (Jagjaguwar)

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Everyone processes a breakup differently (though, to be fair, that’s probably less true now than ever). For Angel Olsen in 2018, it meant retreating to The Unknown, a century-old church in Anacortes, Washington, that Mount Eerie’s Phil Elverum and producer Nicholas Wilbur made into a recording studio. What ultimately came from those sessions was All Mirrors, but Whole New Mess is a chance to revisit that album (fully nine of these 11 songs are ones you’ve heard before; only the title-track and “Waving, Smiling” are new) in a more intimate framework — just Angel, a guitar, a mic and her reverberant heartache. The most cynical view to be taken here is that it’s a stopgap capitalizing on people’s vulnerability amid a pandemic quarantine, but it could also be a corrective for the bloat of All Mirrors, a record I listened to once and haven’t thought about since. Late Björkian excess doesn’t suit her nearly as well as the light touch delivered herein, and your interest will similarly hinge on how much Whole New Mess sounds like the old one.

Patrick Masterson

Ono — Red Summer (American Dreams)

Red Summer by ONO

Ono, the long-running noise-punk-poetry-protest project headed by P Michael Grego and travis, tackles the Red Summer of 1919, evoking the brutal race riots that erupted as soldiers returned from World War I. During that summer, conflicts raged from Chicago to the deep south, as white supremacists rioted against newly empowered returning Black veterans and an increased number of Black factory workers employed in America’s northern factories. Ono captures the violence—and its links to contemporary race-based conflicts—in an abstract and visionary style, with travis declaiming against an agitated froth of avant garde sound. “A Dream of Sodomy” lurches and rolls in funk-punk bravado, as travis declaims all the nightmarish scenarios that haunt his nocturnal hours, while “Coon” natters rhythmically across a fever-lit foundation of hand-drums, mosquito buzz and flute. “26 June 1919” wanders through a blasted, rioting landscape, sounds buzzing and pinging and roaring around travis’ fractured poetry. “White men, red men, Manchester town, send ‘em home, Oklahoma, send ‘em home, in a Black man house, send ‘em home, send ‘em home,” he chants, ominously, vertiginously. The center isn’t holding, for sure. The disc closes with the uneasy truce of “Sycamore Trees,” where steam blasts of synthesizer sound rush up and around travis’ vibrating, basso verses about meeting under the sycamore trees, a metaphor like the blues and gospel and nearly all Black music is full of metaphor about reuniting in a better place. Powerful.

Jennifer Kelly

Julian Taylor — The Ridge (Howling Turtle, Inc.)

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Singer-songwriter Julian Taylor does the little things well. That's not to say that he doesn't do the obvious things well, too, on his latest release The Ridge. His easy voice fits his songs, letting autobiography come with comfortable phrasing. As a writer, he tends toward the straightforward, avoiding extended metaphors or oblique references. The title track considers a particular form of life, and Taylor sticks to the tangible, singing about the stable, “Shovel manure, clean their beds, and prepare the feed for the day.” Taylor's songs make sense of the immediate world and relationships around him, but they avoid woolgathering. The album feels a bit removed from the current climate, but that's no complaint when Taylor's developed a welcoming place to visit. It isn't always easy here, but it's always companionable.

But back to those little things. Each song has carefully detailed orchestration and production. The record goes down easy whether tending toward James Taylor, Cat Stevens or something closer to country, and much of that easiness comes from the precise placement of every note. Burke Carroll's pedal steel, for instance, never exists for its own sake, but to serve the lyric that Taylor sings. The album contains enough space to feel like a rural Canadian ridge, with details drawn into to support Taylor's direct stories. The Ridge could easily go unnoticed (unobtrusiveness not being a highly rewarded trait), but its subtlety and care make it worth taking your boots off and sitting down for a minute.

Justin Cober-Lake

Various Artists — For a Better Tomorrow (Garden Portal)

For A Better Tomorrow by Various Artists

Compilation albums loom large in the American Primitive Guitar realm. Takoma, Tompkins Square and Locust all had larger ambitions than merely offering a sampling of wares, and to them, Garden Portal says, “hold my beer. I’ve got some collecting and playing to do.” For A Better Tomorrow started out as a Bernie Sanders fundraising endeavor. But when Bernie bailed and COVID-19 came on the scene, Garden Portal pivoted to support Athens Mutual Aid Network, an umbrella organization that coordinates aid to the underserved in this trying time. But in addition to good works, there’s some good work going on here. Not all of it is guitar-centric, but even the tracks that aren’t are close enough to the strings and heart template of the aforementioned parties to merit consideration under the same rubric. Joseph Allred’s been ultra-productive recently, so it’s actually helpful to be reminded of the spirit that infuses his playing by listening to it one track at a time. Rob Noyes’ “Diminished” takes the listener on a deep dive into the construction of sentiment and sound. And Will Csorba’s Pelt-like blast of fiddle drone, “Requiem for Ociel Guadalupe Martinez,” will put your hair up high enough to make that self-inflicted quarantine do a bit easier to execute.

Bill Meyer

Various Artists — The Storehouse Presents (The Storehouse)

The Storehouse Presents by The Storehouse

The coronavirus pandemic put the brakes on many things. You doubtless have your own list of loss, but for the proprietors of The Storehouse, the catalog of things kissed goodbye directly corresponds to their endeavor’s inventory of reasons to be. Over the past few years, the Storehouse has invited audiences out to a West Michigan farmhouse to enjoy a potluck meal and a concert played by some musicians of note. If there had been no lockdown, listeners could have enjoyed the Sun Ra Arkestra last April. Instead, no one’s playing, and no one’s getting paid, so the Storehouse has compiled this set of live and exclusive studio tracks to sell on Bandcamp in order to benefit the musicians and the Music Maker Relief Foundation. The cause, is good, but so are the tunes. Want to hear Steve Gunn and William Tyler in sympathetic orbit? Or Joan Shelley pledging her love? Or the first hints of Mind Over Mirrors’ new direction? Step right this way, preferably on one of 2020’s first Fridays.

Bill Meyer

Z-Ro — Rohammad Ali (1 Deep Entertainment / Empire)

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On one of his previous tracks, Z-Ro admitted that he’s basically just writing the same song over and over again (that’s how meta he is now, writing songs on writing songs). While he exaggerated a bit, he was not that far from the truth. In the last half dozen years he’s been writing the same three or four songs in various combinations, reconfigurations and forms. Rohammad Ali follows the same template: haters hate him, but he’s OK and is counting his money. Multiply this by 17, and here is the album. Despite this self-cannibalizing (lots of poets did that), Z-Ro with every new album sounds fresh and far from tired. The self-repeats just fuel him. Rohammad Ali has only one rap guest, and it’s Shaquille O’Neal whose rap career didn’t jump off in the 1990s. A lack of guests only proves that Z-Ro can self-sustain without support from the outside. The only thing from the outside he needs is hate.

Ray Garraty

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bunkershotgolf · 4 years

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Funny How Things Work Out

By ED TRAVIS

Those of us who play golf for the fun of it sometimes wish we could use our Visa card to fix our game not to mention filling in any gaps due to a deficit of talent.

Rather than beating balls on the range or spending hours on the putting green it would be a lot easier to “buy a game.” Just stop in the local golf shop and pick up the latest and greatest carbon-titanium-steel-graphite driver or plumber’s neck-mini-mallet-blade putter. The only problem then becomes keeping the secret from the brother-in-law so Saturday’s $10 Nassau would be a sure thing.

Ideally, our clubs should help rather than hurt our chances of scoring somewhere near our potential. Unfortunately, as with a lot of things, the real-world intervenes and it’s not just the time constraints of our busy lives that clearly puts the task of evaluating clubs in the “unsuited for the uninitiated” category. There is also the feeling one may need a PhD to figure out all the esoteric and often mysterious differences in clubs which assuredly shoves the solution way beyond those of us in the deskbound office brigade.

Let me tell you a story to prove the point.

Living in Florida where 75 million annually vacation provides lots of opportunity to golf with a cross section of fellow strugglers and one afternoon the starter matched me up with a typical husband and wife escaping from the bleakness of a Midwestern winter.

Both were experienced players and the wife, back into the game after a hiatus to raise a couple of kids, teed it up regularly with a group of “girls” at the club back home. Her husband, the quintessential mid-level executive weekend warrior, had a pronounced left to right ball flight which probably meant his favorite courses were not ones with trees lining the left side of the fairway. They were nice people and enjoyable companions for the few hours it takes for this maddening game.

While waiting on the par-3 third hole husband noted my bag had clubs from seven different manufacturers and asked, “What’s that all about?”

The simple explanation was seven manufacturers because the company who made the longest-straightest driver for my swing did not have an iron model that produced the best distance and control. Similar computerized shot analysis sessions put two other wedge brands, a fifth company’s fairway wood and a sixth’s hybrid in my bag. The choice of putter, from still another manufacturer, had been the computer’s second selection since the first choice was distinctly unappealing; in fact if you can picture an ungainly lump on the end of a shaft you would have the idea. Given my decades of playing and writing about the game the importance of custom clubs was beyond question as was the need to reevaluate specifications every couple of years.

The critical point is as we age our swing changes, especially the speed we can generate, and that necessitates changes in our clubs. In my case I now walk right past the “tips” heading for two tees forward and depending on how the body is feeling on any given day, maybe three. This isn’t a complaint simply a realistic assessment by a someone who can no longer play at the level to which he was accustom.

Getting back to our friends and the husband’s question, he told me that back home only a few of his buddies had been through a fitting (most likely the ones worried about that $10 brother-in-law Nassau) but he readily understood the idea of carrying clubs to help not hurt his game.

He even agreed the fee paid to a professional clubfitter makes sense when viewed as a modest investment in your future enjoyment of the game and the question of finding a professional clubfitter was answered by a quick smartphone consultation. There was one less than 10 miles from his home.

At the end of the round we exchanged business cards and promised to stay in touch, but in my mind I’d let a week or so go by and then send an email prompting him about a club fitting appointment.

The temptation was also there to mention how much more his wife would enjoy playing with him if he didn’t offer advice and tips after each swing but then having travelled that particular road myself I figured he could learn to navigate the potholes himself.

Interestingly, while husband was off in the palmettos attempting a recovery from another boomerang-shaped drive, his wife she asked if a fitting would make sense for her. Though we had played only a few holes it was apparent with her basic swing and better than average short game she had the potential to score much lower. After surveying her bag, it was obvious a fitting would help.

Out of curiosity I inquired where she had gotten the stiff shafted irons and steel headed driver, but the reply did not surprise me. When she started playing again husband came home with this bunch of beauties and a, “Here honey, play with these.” He must have gotten a heck of a deal but at least the bag and headcovers were a matching mauve.

This is important. Do not let a friend dictate or even gently steer you toward something they like. The corollary of course is trying your buddy’s new driver and absolutely striping it one time does not mean you’ve found the answer to the maiden’s prayer. Do not stop on the way home to get one just like it ‘cause chances are that one driver swing was the golf gremlins messin’ with you.

Also be cautious of being fit by someone who sells a single brand or a limited number of brands. The truth is even the most knowledgeable best-intentioned fitter can only fit you to the driver or irons for which he has samples. You will never get the chance to try the perfect club if it is not in the shop.

But getting back to the story, a couple of weeks later the husband sent an email saying he had been to the fitting and how surprised he was the club specs had changed starting with a swing weight. Rather than the graphite shafted ultra-lights he had been playing his new clubs were a heavier D-3 swing weight and the driver had a strong draw bias to help straighten out his slice.

His excitement was evident. Another Florida visit had been planned but the timing coincided with the PGA Merchandise Show, so I missed seeing him however a few days after the Show another email arrived.

This one was from the wife, and she was over the moon, writing she had been fitted for clubs as well and also made the trip south. Both of them were happy with the “instant” improvement—hitting the ball farther and straighter. Best of all, she confided, there’s no doubt in her mind she can take her husband on in a $10 Nassau straight up.

Funny how things work out.

#EdTravis #golf #sports

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dannyd0levito · 4 years

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September 26, 2020

I’m not sure why, but I find myself not being able to look directly outside through the window. It’s blue and grey, and quite gorgeous as the world wakes up. I’ve been awake since 5:12 a.m. myself. I’m reading a book I don’t remember the name of, but it inspires me to type out my feelings as I find my eyes blurring and my chest get tight. My throat has been dry and caught the entire time I read it.

It’s a story of a 17-year-old girl who has had a bad run in with someone named Fucking Frank, coping with the loss of her friend, Ellis, who attempted suicide and didn’t die, but lost enough oxygen to her brain to essentially be a vegetable. She was homeless, her father and dog dead at some point and her mother physically abusive, and she was raped. She tries to escape everything by cutting so deeply with broken mason jar glass in an attempt to end the buzzing and pain but ends up in a hospital and is later transferred to an all-girl nut house. Now, she’s staying at a friend’s studio home, which is really a done-up garage, and struggles to find a sense of normal.

I found myself relating to it a little too much all at once. It reminds me of my time at Heritage Oaks off Auburn Boulevard in Citrus Heights. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but I think I was living in Orangevale in Sarah’s studio-home at the time. I think Charlie and I weren’t technically together at the time because I remember a guy in the loony bin taking an interest in me, which now that I think of it, might have been the first and only time in my life a person took interest in me first. I often forget about it, though, because everyone was crazy in that place. He gave me his number before I was discharged at the end of my two weeks and told me the day he was going to be released. I waited in the parking lot for him that day, but never saw him walk out. I haven’t heard from or seen him again.

A couple months later, the crazy festered more and I tried to find him since he wasn’t answering calls or texts, no acknowledgment of the voicemail I had left. I found his name on the Internet associated with a pizza place in Chico. I remember calling them, the woman who answered sounding very skeptical and confused, but promising to pass on the message that Dani was calling for him. I don’t even remember his name. It’s stalkerish and creepy to do that, now that I look back on it. But I didn’t know this at the time and had no ill-intent. I just wanted to connect to someone who seemed to like me and see me, even when I was at my lowest point. I figured if someone could like me in there, then they could like me for who I really was.

But I was wrong once again.

I’m tearing up as I write this, but it’s not sadness. I don’t know what it is exactly. Something deeper, more like grief and depression and hopelessness. A loss of some kind. Innocence, maybe?

Everything hurts in me right now and feels dark. The void is opening back up for some reason. I was getting so good at bottling my emotions – I envision a mason jar – and sucking it back into some hidden away part of me, but that fucking book opened it all back up.

I’m relating to that 17-year-old girl somehow, but she was worse off than me. Sure, I attempted suicide that landed me in the nuthouse years ago. I don’t remember how old I was at the time. I think old enough to drink, maybe. Maybe it was 2015.

I would’ve been 21 at the time, turning 22 July of that year, but I had been drinking and doing drugs long before then.

I started smoking pot heavily after I started working at KFC when I was 16. I was vehemently against alcohol until I met Charlie. I was against it because of my mom.

I don’t know why I clung to that relationship like I did. I don’t even remember who he was anymore. But that happens with all of my exes. At some point, I think I’m so enshrouded in a cloud of dissociation, I never really see them for who they are. They become an extension of myself that I project onto. And I don’t really know who’s fault that is. I’ve been told I’ve gaslit others and had it done to me in return by soon-to-be ex-husband. But I don’t really know if I believe the latter.

I think I paint myself in a better light so someone will pity me at the very least. Making myself the victim and manipulating others to feel bad can be easy. But I really try not to. I’ve just heard that I do that. I don’t consciously do it, I just talk about how I’ve felt and what has happened to me in the past, and I talk about it casually because I know that despite how fucked up it sounds, I brought it all onto myself. Therefore: do not feel bad for me. Shit sucks wall-to-wall, but I know it was of my own curation and I’m at fault.

I think about how alone my dad is. He has his friends and has always been very charismatic, but he has also been very manipulative emotionally. I never could get a full read on him. Sometimes, he seems quite jovial and polite and nice, like he’s really turning a corner and opening up. Then the more time I spent with him, the real him came out incrementally. If it happened all at once, he’d scare people away. But to normalize it slowly over time traps a person and they don’t realize it until years later what has been done. I think that’s why Marie left him without any warning and won’t go back.

I’m like him in my own eyes. I don’t have an identity; if someone were to ask me who I am, I wouldn’t know how to answer. I’m a person, but I struggle with assigning even a gender to myself. I’m a biological woman, but I don’t feel like one. It’s not gender dysphoria because I don’t feel like a man, either. But something a little further down the road. I don’t feel like a woman because I don’t feel like a person at all. At best, I can describe my experience up to this point as watching the world through a lens, like a movie that I’m witnessing.

I dissociate so often that I can’t remember most of my past and don’t even know when it’s happening. Others around me can’t pin-point when it occurs either. I’m really good at switching on auto-pilot. I’m existing at this point, not thriving or living. I’m usually okay with this.

Occasionally, the cracks deepen and the emotions seep out a little. Like this morning. I think it’s been about a decade since I’ve written my emotions down like this. As a kid, I had tons of journals and treated them as the friend I never had: something to keep all my secrets.

I still don’t have friends. The closest I have to this is Jerry. Everyone else is an acquaintance. But I don’t even view Jerry as a friend, or really a person. But I don’t say this out of spite or hatred, or anything malevolent. I think it’s just due to my morphing him as part of my weird way of viewing life through a gaussian blur filter. I know he’s a living, breathing individual and yet somehow, I see him as just another extension of myself. I’m still not sure how to explain it, but he’s not real to me anymore.

Once upon a time, he was. Something happened to me between now and then, though. I fought hard for him from mid-2018 through about September of 2019. He really drew me to him, someone who could understand how bleak life really is for some of us and all the depth of pain a person can experience without being able to fully comprehend. Broken to broken, blind leading the blind.

It was a mistake I now see. But not a regretful mistake. Just a natural one, like with everyone else in my past. Tom was a mistake. Charlie was a mistake. And every other man and boy before him depending on what age I was.

It’s been a really long time since I’ve come apart like I am this morning. I guess I needed to at some point or I’d lash out again. It was cyclical for a couple years, my emotions. Despite how fucking terrible I felt every waking moment and wanted to end the pain, I could count on it. But I’ve been empty since maybe February of this year. Jerry screamed at me and something inside me snapped. It’s not his fault, I incite anger in others and goad them. But something in breaking him broke me, I think. I’ve been an empty vessel ever since. It’s pleasant not feeling most of the time, but when I do, it’s like I’m crying over the deceased and I don’t know why.

I’ve been hurting a lot lately. I’m upset I can’t remember the good times from exes. Not for any reason in particular other than taking personal inventory of how my brain works. I remember some times from Tom, like us going to the San Francisco zoo for his birthday in 2016 so he could see the bears since they’re his favorite. I remember having a good day and I even have photos saved from that day, but I don’t remember emotionally. It doesn’t feel like that day even existed. I often daydream about being saved by someone and that memory holds the same sensation.

Now he’s divorcing me. I don’t exactly remember where things went wrong, but I know it’s because of me. It was before 2018 when I started to get frustrated with us. He was calm and very nice, but also very cold. I know I got to see a part of him he didn’t allow anyone else to see, something reserved for significant others, and yet we couldn’t speak each other’s love language. His was touch, mine was thinking. He picked the wrong damaged person. My ability to love through touch has been skewed through rape, molestation, and sexual assault before him. Then, the same things happened while I was with him. Once from a man posing as a Lyft driver in 2018 when we had a fight at Pre-Flite on Kati’s birthday. Once in early 2019 when a “friend” from Bakersfield came all the way up to see me under the guise of missing me from high school and as an opportunity to catch up; he instead sodomized me in his hotel then left right after, but not before I offered to buy him dinner. He was antsy the whole time and during dinner, he took a pretend call saying his girls got hurt and he had to drive all the way back home. I tried to make it work logically in my mind, saying that this happens, it’s okay, he didn’t do what I think he just did. But I never heard from him again. Then Tom did it. I don’t think he meant to do it, but I can’t answer that honestly anymore. He had pent up sexual frustration and unfortunately, my experience with the men in my life included that in the form of rape. I know not all men are bad, and I know it’s my fault for picking people like this. But it still hurts. Right after I moved out, summer of 2019 when we separated, we got drunk at Burning Barrell. I was too much to drive, so he took me back to his place where I promptly blacked out. A few hours later I woke up undressed but not remembering how that happened. I was disoriented because I didn’t remember the drive home and it terrified me for a moment as I didn’t recognize his room already, though it was maybe only a month after I moved out. I panicked and put two-and-two together, feeling violated by my own husband and his sad confusion as he apologized. I know he didn’t mean it. I think. But I wailed and sobbed and felt robbed all the same.

I’m the most stable I’ve ever been as of this year. I lost almost 50 pounds, cleared my skin, and stopped drinking and doing drugs, which were primarily weed and cocaine. And yet, I feel the emptiest I’ve ever felt. I think I’m technically in a relationship with Jerry and I say so because I think he believes that, but we’re not in my mind. I don’t know who he is and I’ve closed away most of who I am because he would scream at it. I hide behind dark humor and anger towards outside sources that don’t matter, like the anti-maskers and the Black Lives Matter protesters, and I live in a world where I’m white but I’m also not entirely, but I’m afraid to feel the way I do because to not support something that I can’t make the emotional space for makes me the evil one.

I can’t help it. I don’t care about police brutality. I don’t care about the conservative agenda and how Trump is admitting to dictatorship if he loses the election. I don’t even care about myself, so how can one expect me to support things outside of what affects me directly?

I have to go back to feeling nothing shortly. Today is Steph’s birthday. I have to collect my innards and mush them back into place and paint my face into something acceptable because to be anything else but cheerful would be selfish. This is not a day for me; that day comes once a year and passes as quickly as it arrives because I don’t emotionally celebrate it. Sometimes, people around me do, but I surely don’t. Every year I get closer to 30, I feel more and more disillusioned and like a failure.

I told myself if I were alive by 30, I’m ending it. I think I still hold that promise to myself. Except I’ve attempted suicide several times now and it hasn’t worked out yet. I’m not afraid of eternal death and don’t believe in any sort of afterlife, but I’m afraid of the pain, then fucking it up, then ending up worse off than I was before – paralyzed, a brainless zombie with no consciousness like those who experience hypoxia, and being unable to finish the job.

#depression grief emptiness cananyonehearme mentalillness rape sexualassault molestation abuse dissociation mentalhealth rage

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