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paperbackribs · 4 months

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A Tarnished Copper Boy (5)

Previous | Next | Ao3 Last chapter, Steve disappeared in Eddie's bed leaving only a bloodstain behind, but not before the boys decided that the best way forward is to avoid changing anything in the timeline.

cw: homophobic language, violence

Chapter 5: Bitter Serpentine Beast

Eddie thinks he may be going a little crazy thinking about the stain that Steve left on his bed two weeks ago. Stumbling into the bathroom that morning, he’d found a small pile of blood-stained bandages stuffed into the bathroom bin too, immediately ratcheting up his alarm to near panic. He’s since forced it to settle into a low-level anxiety that nonetheless persists, a pervasive presence curling and twining at the base of his spine.

He can’t decide whether seeing Present Steve helps to relieve his concern or simply encourages Eddie to concentrate on it, like worrying at a loose tooth.

Even today, watching an unwitting Steve play in the shirts versus skins basketball game below him, proves only to be a distraction by increments.

Eddie’s gaze often helpless to do anything but follow him, eyes dipping to his short green shorts, riding high above rippling thigh muscles, the scattering of hair on Steve’s legs creating an enticing shadow before being hidden away underneath high, white tube socks.

Honestly, the outfit’s almost indecent and Eddie tears his gaze away before he becomes provoked enough to do something stupid like unroll his tongue and howl at the moon.

As he does, he catches the mildly annoyed look that Coach Harbour shoots him, perched as he is mid-way up the bleachers. One clasped hand around a clipboard, gut hanging over his jeans, and whiskers twitching in tired irritation for the least athletic boy in this class, including Asthmatic Brett two rows below Eddie who has his nose buried in a blue binder.

He happily hangs back though while Coach pretends to believe that Eddie has a similar medical excuse; the last time Harbour forced him to participate, he’d ended up with a bloody nose from falling into a wall. No one had been near Eddie, he’d even half-heartedly been running towards the centre of the action, but he’d managed—in an absolutely unsurprising turn of events—to trip on air and ram face-first into brick.

A truly stellar moment in his school career that Eddie only survived the searing embarrassment of because no one had seemed to notice but Coach. In his gym uniform, shoulders bare of black leather and fingers bereft of heavy silver rings, Eddie is invisible within the crowd of students at Hawkins High School.

Now, Coach pityingly allows him to sit on the sidelines, and, out of respect for the privilege, Eddie refrains from heckling whenever someone’s throw bounces off the rim.

The shouts of cajoling players reverberate through the space as Steve catches the ball and, in one smooth turn, deftly sinks it through the net. Shawn Stanton high-fives Steve and Eddie looks away from the sliver of skin that’s shown as his shirt rides up, reminded that whatever injury Future Steve has, it’s in a place that Eddie couldn’t see at the time.

He traces it at night, the remnants of the bloodstain he’d not been able to scrub out. Like it’s an augury of death and destruction, an omen that will allow Eddie to read the future if he only interprets the lines and shades of it correctly. Hoping that Steve has landed safely back into his time; closing his eyes shut against the growing conviction that Steve is somewhere, sometime bleeding out, alone.

A small, shameful part of him wants Steve to fall back onto his living room carpet. He wants to hear that thud and groan and see Steve’s wry smile, maybe comfort him in his arms again.

The guilt of it hangs low in his gut, a sour ball lodged deep and weeping, because, whatever the catastrophe that happens in the future, Steve is obviously deep in its trenches and deserves to rest. Not forever doomed to fall on Eddie’s shitty trailer floor without so much as a cushioned landing.

He's thought about it, mulling over how he could drag pillows and blankets into the living room. Make a soft cloud for Steve to land on, fit for a man falling through the sky. But, with his uncle sleeping in the living room, the idea is impractical, and he has no idea how he’d begin to explain the installation to Wayne.

For now, he hopes that Steve falls safely back into his own time while also secretly wanting to see him again. A small, forbidden puff of wishful air against a dandelion in the dark.

Shawn is shoved by an opposing skin’s team member, falling to the ground and the coach’s whistle blows as they make sure that he’s all right. He shakes his blonde head, saying something to Michael Chrest that makes the other guy laugh before he swings up, dusting his shorts and ignoring the red of his knees. He won’t need first aid today.

Though if he needs it, Eddie now has a set-up at home that would be more than capable of taking care of his injury. Buying it had wiped out the stash he was saving for a new amp, but at the persistent anxious hum, Eddie had caved and bought a full first aid kit in preparation should Steve fall, injured, to him again.

As large as a small travel suitcase, the brilliant green of the cover blares conspicuously from the corner of his room. Inside are six self-contained modules, colour-coded and carefully outlined with its contents of bandages, gloves, swabs, tape, pads, gauze, and gel packs. Eddie’s not even sure of the difference between half of it, but it comes with an inventory list and covers everything from cuts and grazes to burns and initial trauma care.

That trauma care is an option, actual wounds caused by something like gunfire with objects potentially lodged in Steve’s body, has the curl tightening uncomfortably around his spine. He’s borrowed a first aid book from Hawkins Community Library to study up on the key concepts, but Eddie suspects it’s not going to cover something that deadly.

Turning over ideas like bullets and open injuries, blood and bones, has his mind spinning, unable to settle on classwork and even distracting him from Hellfire and band practice. Eddie blames his preoccupation on how closely he watches Steve now, even outside gym class. Because if the preppy king is strutting the hallways then Eddie can breathe again, a buoyant force until his thoughts close the circuit right back to that dark stain on his bedsheets.

The frustration of his powerlessness against his mind’s obsession is only further aggravated by a persistent thin needle of envy, pricking whenever he watches Steve lounge a possessive arm around Nancy’s shoulders. But at least the latter is warranted and not unusual: straight boys get to hang onto straight girls, and Eddie can easily swallow that sting down like the everyday poison that it is.

Startled out of his thoughts by a loud shout, Eddie’s focus falls on Billy Hargrove aggressively dribbling through a cluster of defenders, bronze skin glowing in the autumnal light and the lines of his body revealing a deliberately sculpted body. It shows a dedication to working out that makes Eddie want to break out into hives.

Whatever attraction Eddie may have entertained for his toned, muscular body is undercut by the unsettling anger that roils underneath Billy’s skin. Whenever Billy is near him, the hair on the back of Eddie’s neck rises at the palpable aura of danger that dances in the air around him. Eddie knows what cruelty looks like and Billy’s eyes betray a chilling intensity that he wants nothing to do with.

Not that Billy has ever noticed Eddie, especially not when Steve is anywhere in the vicinity. Billy walks through Hawkins High like he’s hot shit; like he doesn’t notice that he becomes a well of gravity whenever he passes a group of giggling girls. But should Steve appear in his periphery then those snake eyes tighten and focus, his body often following to coil around Steve in an unsettling performance that Eddie figures he’s supposed to think is enmity.

It happens again as Steve careens down the court with the ball, his face alight with the joy of competition and shirt stained by the sweat of his exertion. Eddie can almost see Billy’s eyes light up at the chance and he speeds forward, coming to box Steve from behind with his arms outstretched in a parody of an embrace.

Ostensibly the tactic is to secure the ball back for the skin’s team, but as the seconds pass the manoeuvre turns into a goddamn conversation with Billy practically rubbing up Steve’s backside in front of God and everyone. It’s all in the name of good honest heterosexual rivalry, right? Eddie thinks bitterly. Because no one is shooting Billy dirty looks or calling him a fag.

He bites down on the injustice of it, the bile of unfairness rising to a red in his cheeks and likely in his eyes too as it develops into a sour anger.

If he went around shoving sophomores into lockers and generally being an insufferable asshole, then maybe he could touch Steve too. Talk to him without being labelled a covetous freak. Eddie glowers at Billy’s wild grin because the quiet envy that had felt small and warranted when watching Steve with Nancy is unfolding into a bitter, serpentine beast. A savage creature with gnawing teeth that eats sharply away at Eddie’s vulnerable gut.

The jagged gash allows poison to spill into the soft meat and open blood of his body, fuelling the convictions that Eddie knows in the deep of his heart: he’s a lonely, feral boy who will only ever be allowed to live at the fringe of the normies. Only afforded a begrudging dignity as long as he knows his place, and that is far from the glowing centre of good parents, good home, good looks. Good means golden and Eddie has always been a tarnished copper.

He roughly scrubs a hand down his face, trying to get his anger under control, the rising heat of it threatening to spill like a tsunami. Old feelings and tired thoughts like these are only a pointless exercise in hurting himself. Wayne has taught him better.

A hard thud resounds through the air, the excited shouting of the boys stilling, and Eddie looks up from his covered eyes to see that Steve has fallen to the floor. Billy leans over him with one strong hand outstretched in camaraderie. Steve accepts the gesture, taking it in good faith.

Billy’s demeanour immediately converts into unapologetic condescension. He heatedly whispers words into Steve’s ear and pushes him violently back to land on the polished floor, a calculated look of disdain crosses his face before he strides away. Smirking, Billy cockily joins a group of laughing boys on the other side of the court.

Eddie hates him.

Fiercely and full of ripe heat. He hates how he acts towards Steve, curling in around him like he’s trying to block out the sun. Is full of rage at how he’s allowed to treat Steve, no one shooting him suspicious glances for long touches and faces so close they’re sharing the same breath.

Feels ready to explode from the wrath thundering through his body that Billy gets to safely exist no matter the vile anger that he carries, while Eddie will always have to hide, hide, hide. Conceal the foul and loathsome parts of himself lest he be tossed to the floor too, abandoned by the wayside again.

At the reminder, Eddie drags his furious gaze away from Billy to check on Steve. He’s just hauled himself onto his feet and is spearing his bronze hair away from his face when he glances up. Looking across the gym he accidentally catches the fierce glare still present on Eddie’s face. Recoiling automatically, Steve glances behind him but, at seeing that there is no one else there, his shoulders drop, and he turns his head away.

Eddie immediately blanks his expression, but the damage is done and Steve refuses to look back up at him as he moves towards Eddie's direction, the path to the locker rooms to his left. He tries to keep his gaze straight, pretending that he’d never even looked at Steve, but a dreadful urge has Eddie’s lips parting as Steve begins to walk past.

In that awful mix of missing Future Steve, hating himself for wanting him back even injured and displaced in time, and ignited by his fury at pricks like Billy who, under the guise of masculine rivalry, get to talk to and touch Steve, Eddie’s stupid mouth strikes.

He wants his attention, is all. Just for a moment, he wants to hear Steve speak in a clear, uninjured voice, and to talk with Eddie like he’s not an invisible nobody to him at this junction of time. He clears his throat and says the only stupid fucking thing that occurs to him as he looks out into the brightly lit gym, “Good game, Harrington.”

Steve pauses, looking up at him incredulously while he works his jaw. Finally, he says in a low, hard voice, “Fuck off, Munson,” before striding away, out of sight once more.

Eddie drops his forehead into his palm, hiding in the dark of it as all the gnawing jealousy and confusion drops away into a cold cavern of self-loathing. Yeah, he’d deserved that.

[section break]

Nearly a month after Eddie’s failed attempt to speak to Steve, he finds himself shuffling through the mess in his locker, shaking off one strangely sticky piece of paper onto the school floor. He is trying, with very little success, to find his pre-calc homework.

Gareth Emerson, their newest member of Hellfire this year, lounges beside him, back propped against the silver metal walls and gesturing with excited hands.

The younger boy has taken to cutting the arms off his flannel shirts, and Eddie has a sneaking suspicion that he’s imitating his own denim vest covered in pins of solidarity with movements, bands, and generally rude phrases that make him giggle. That a Quiet Riot band pin has appeared on Gareth’s red flannel today converts that suspicion to conviction.

“I just think that it would be really cool if I went against the grain, you know. Like, Thokk is a grumpy bastard — he’s honourable, but he wants to make a name for himself too. A half-orc is just as fearsome and intimidating as a full-orc, so screw his tribe.”

Eddie absently hums at the sophomore, whose curly brown hair around his baby face bounces in animation. He has it, he knows he’s done it. While the mathematics of it all does very little to inspire Eddie, he’d learned by the end of last year to pretend that algebraic functions are the first step to rune casting: establish the right number or variable and divine whether it’s chicken nuggets or sloppy joes for lunch, remember the determinant and enhance intuition on whether Mr Mundy is going to be a cunt about forgetting his worksheet today.

He knows he did Mundy’s assignment so clearly the spell was well cast because his intuition is telling him that he’s going to get a big fat zero for not handing it up.

“So, I want to make him accidentally charming, liked despite himself and he becomes a real ladies’ orc. All the girls want him, and all the boys want to be him.”

Eddie finally catches on and turns to Gareth scowling, “No. And, I have a free, but aren’t you supposed to be in class.” He glances around, the hallway has begun to empty, the faint sound of laughter and chatting teens fading away, taking with them the clash of perfumes and cheap cologne, leaving only the distant hum of fluorescent lights overhead.

The cold illumination bores down on the last remnants of Halloween, exposing the faint trace of last week’s holiday now reduced to peeling jack-o’-lantern decals and weathered paper bats clinging tenaciously to the walls.

Gareth ignores Eddie’s pointed observation and continues to try to convince his DM of a frankly absurd swing in his character. “You always say that role-play—the background and motivations—are what makes a good character.”

“I also say that you rolled an absolute abysmal seven for Thokk’s charisma stats and that’s before the two-point penalty. I’ve only seen worse when Jeff rolled four snake eyes on intelligence.” Eddie grins at the memory, it had been fun setting up the bumbling elf cleric for obvious scams and transparent lies. Jeff had looked like he was going to blow a gasket for a month straight.

“So do it to confuse the rest of the club,” Gareth suggests.

Eddie eyes him, reluctantly intrigued. “What do you mean.”

“Everyone knows Thokk’s stats, but if he suddenly starts charming his way through situations then they’ll be scrambling to figure out what’s going on. Maybe it’ll even distract from a few of your traps.”

A little chaotic confusion is tempting. Eddie thinks it over. “Okay,” he says slowly. “Perhaps a certain amulet is found with a persuasion bonus, or a grateful wizard saved by Thokk wants to help the bad-tempered fighter. Let me think about it. But it may not be that big of a boost,” he warns.

Gareth brightens, grin stretching, “That’s all I ask. Thanks, Eddie. I—” Gareth glances over Eddie’s shoulder and suddenly shrinks against the wall, stepping further into his shadow.

Eddie looks over and sees Tommy Hagan striding down the hallway, head down but rectangular face set in the perpetual scowl he’s had ever since he and Steve experienced their latest upset.

Eddie raises a brow at Gareth, “Has he been hassling you?”

Gareth shakes his head even as he keeps his gaze trained on Eddie like Tommy won’t notice them if he doesn’t make eye contact. “No, he’s just been a massive asshole in general lately. He tripped Mark from ninth grade and pushed him face-first into a trash can yesterday. The guy wasn’t even doing anything, but Billy sure thought it was funny.”

Gareth frowns thoughtfully, “Who ever thought I’d miss the apparently calming influence of King Steve?”

Eddie hums, “I haven’t seen him today.”

Gareth’s face screws up in a grimace of sympathy, “Yeah, well, that slow roll break-up with Nancy Wheeler is fucking awkward to watch, maybe the guy is skipping. I would.”

Now that, Eddie had noticed. Ever since Halloween there had been longing glances (from Steve) and averted ones (from Nancy). It was painful to watch for multiple reasons. But also, Eddie wants Steve to be happy and he looks like he is with Nancy. He deserves to be content before he fights his war.

But that gaping hole that had started to be chewed at by sharp teeth, fuelled by envy and injustice, has let loose the sick feeling that he’s a tiny bit glad that they’re breaking up. Because if he’s not with Nancy then Eddie could ask him— no.

Eddie shuts that shit down quickly and ruthlessly. Even if Steve is like that which he clearly isn’t based on simple statistics and obvious dating history, he still wouldn’t want the tarnished copper of Eddie with his distinct lack of good parents, good home, good looks.

He ignores the sound of Steve’s voice calmly outlining all his good points while lying in Eddie’s bed as if he’d already catalogued a list and was just waiting to unfold it before Eddie like a most unexpected but delightful gift.

Eddie with his knobby knees and skinny build, mouth too large for his long face and usually full of foot; he’s the quintessential boy from the wrong side of the tracks and Steve meant that he’s smart and kind despite his drawbacks.

He’s distracted by thinking about Steve and Nancy, but he still sees the exact moment that Tommy clocks Eddie as he’s about to pass. His stocky wrestler’s body squares up and pivots to sneer at Eddie and Gareth, who’s mostly hidden behind him. “Well, if it isn’t the freak. Hitting on the freshmen? That’s gross dude, predatory behaviour right there.”

Gareth’s gulp is audible and Eddie turns, nudging him with an elbow, “Aren��t you late for class?” To his credit, Gareth pauses with a question in his expression before Eddie reassuringly nods, and he books it. Curls flying behind him as he rushes away from the seniors.

Closing his locker and carefully making sure his bag is zipped and firmly slung over his shoulder, Eddie flatly says, “Why don’t you get lost, Tommy.”

Tommy laughs at Gareth’s back, a grating sound more akin to a hyena than a human boy, “I thought it was a girl. You really are grooming your own little harem in that freak club of yours.”

Tendrils of poisonous resentment uncoil to manifest into that familiar beast, stirring it awake to release the tail between its fangs, becoming watchful and poised to strike. Eddie clenches his teeth so hard that he’s briefly afraid he’s going to crack a molar that he can’t afford to have taken care of. It won’t be Tommy who gets into trouble with Principal Higgins if Eddie punches him right in that smarmy, smirking mouth.

Instead, Eddie speaks with a measured precision, “Fuck off, Tommy. Go sniff after Carol if she’s still giving you the time of day.”

Tommy’s expression flickers at that and Eddie wonders if even his girlfriend has lost patience with his petulant pouting, his eyes narrow and he hisses out, “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? I see you sniffing after Steve, watching him all the time. You want him, don’t you? Wish he’d let your little fag mouth on him.” Tommy crudely grabs at his bulge, “You want dick, Eddie, have at it.”

Eddie’s fury has risen with each word and burns hotter for the terrible twist of half-truths within the cruel and deliberate misinterpretation of his actions. He forgets Higgins in a haze of rising red and the patience he had been holding onto wears thin until it snaps like a taut wire.

He lunges forward, catching Tommy off guard, his fingers close around the fabric of his polo shirt, pulling him forcefully towards Eddie’s seething gaze. In that moment, the hallway seems to shrink, the rest of the school fading away as Eddie’s focus narrows onto one of the sources of his frustration.

“You’re one to talk, Tommy boy,” Eddie hears an echo of Eddie boy that causes bile to rise in his throat before he uses it to fuel his words into a dangerous whisper, each syllable dripping with pent-up rage, “How long have you been trailing after Steve, wanting it huh? Begging for it. I see you, lapping up every little crumb of attention. Just waiting for your chance, Tommy? Maybe he’ll get drunk enough at one of your ragers and deign to glance at your tiny pecker.”

Tommy’s face contorts in a mixture of rage and humiliation, and he pushes Eddie with all the force of a grappler on Hawkins's wrestling team. “Fuck you,” he spits, his anger rippling out to clash against Eddie’s. His hands clench into fists and he swings at Eddie with a wild, unchecked ferocity.

But Eddie has had plenty of practice dodging and twisting away, even before Wayne took him in and Tommy’s knuckles meet the unforgiving metal of the locker behind them, a loud clang echoing through the school. Pain flashes through his face, briefly rocking him out of his fury. Tommy shakes off the throbbing in his hand, eyes narrowing as he fixes a menacing gaze on Eddie.

“Try me, sweetheart,” Eddie deliberately sneers, if he’s condemned to be a faggot then let him fucking play with it then. “Come at me or mine again and I’ll delight, I’ll fucking prance, on top of the cafeteria tables while I repeat this little spat of ours.” Tommy pales and Eddie continues to twist the knife, “What would your new friend Billy think? What would King Steve think?”

Eddie may have felt some guilt or sympathy for the unbridled fear in Tommy’s eyes if he wasn’t such a complete and utter prick that has it coming. The defiance in Tommy’s stance drains away at the gravity of Eddie’s words and he steps back, shoulders dropping and face twisting in a mix of anxiety and resignation. Eddie stonily watches him for a moment, dizzy triumph filling him before turning, leaving Tommy to grapple with his own sins.

The urge to unleash more violence lingers though, a fire crackling through his veins ready to consume him. Eddie shakes the prickling out of his itching fingers as he blindly strides away, thoughts of turning back and striking out at Tommy racing through his mind. The temptation lingers to sink his fist into the soft meat of Tommy’s middle or shove his shoulder until a well-known pain pops it out.

Yet, even as the vile images swirl in his mind, a familiar voice echoes, cutting through the red haze. Uncle Wayne talking down a younger Eddie, filled with aimless anger, with no specific target to focus on except to start petty fights on the playground.

Wayne had drawn him aside, gentle and loving in a way that Eddie couldn’t trust yet, “You can go down the same path as your father, and that’s your choice. But I know you’re better than that. I know you’re kinder than that, Eddie.”

The reminder acts as a lifeline, pulling back from that taut edge. It helps to cool the white-hot rage that had threatened to engulf him. Eddie slows his gait, his breath coming in slow and deliberate counts.

Ten seconds, inhale.

Ten seconds, exhale.

He stops in the middle of the empty hallway, shoulders slumping and mouth sour. Sometimes, victory feels like defeat, he thinks bitterly.

In times of uncertainty, he asks what his uncle would do: Eddie changes direction to head towards the boys’ bathroom. He’ll run cold water over his wrists like Wayne had taught him and take a few more precious seconds to get his temper under control.

He isn’t his father and he’ll break his fingers before he ends up on that dark path.

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#steddie #time travel #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #a tarnished copper boy #paperbackribs writing

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xxgoblin-dumplingxx · 2 years

Note

can we please have the next episode of the amnesia verse?

Dick let himself into your shop and paused at the door to stroke Sammy who was contentedly gnawing on his bone. Happy to look pretty for the customers and keep you company.

"Hey," you call from a ladder, adjusting a display. A tree made from salvaged copper. Handmade necklaces and a few pieces of in expensive vintage jewelry hanging from the lower branches, "Feel free to look around. Let me know if you have any questions!"

"Thanks," he said, roaming towards a display of little collectibles. Kitschy little knick knacks that little old ladies loved to collect. Glass dishes in every color. A few tea sets- one he'd LOVE to send to Alfred if only because it was tacky- peak 70's. Lime Green and mustard yellow with gold leaf making rose details. The man would be beside himself.

He ponders it for a second, wondering how he'd ship it back east when the bells above the door jingle and Dick looks up slowly to see a man. Maybe in his 60's. A farmer, probably. With close-cropped grey hair, a red face and a belly hanging over his belt buckle. "Honey Girl," he panted, "Ya gotta help me-"

"What'dya forget this time Merle?" you ask, looking around the display with a grin.

"Forgot Loretta's GD birthday. 42 years and I swear she changes the date-"

Dick watches, smiling a little when you climb down off your ladder and stretch lazily, "Well," you hum, "Does she know you forgot yet or-"

"Not yet. I stalled his this morning and I got a cake coming from Roxie but I gotta have a PRESENT."

"She still use her vanity?" you ask, unlocking the glass case in front of you.

"Every day," Merle said grinning, pleased with himself, "You really saved my bacon with that one Honey-"

You smile and pull a tray out of the case. On the tray, there was a silver hand mirror- a little tarnished and in want of a polish but Ornate. The slight fog on the actual mirror giving it a magical quality. And two matching silver hair combs. A matched set. Something somene had had made for their daugher when she turned 16. "This might just do it, huh?"

Merle rocked back on his heels and carefully picked up one of the delicate combs, "I dunno kid-"

"Come one Merle, 42 years and I bet she still likes feeling like a princess. Loretta does love a good updo. Some fancy combs for her french twist-" You break off, grinning as his face softened. The man loved his wife. Even if he was bad with dates. And you could see him picturing her face light up.

"Wrap it up for me?" he asked, reaching for his wallet, "Maybe find some nice earrings? Hell you know what she likes-"

"Come back around 11," you tell him, winking. "I'll have it all wrapped and looking pretty. She'll never know."

"Keep my tab under $300, huh? I still gotta pay the mortgage."

"Anything to keep my favorite customer out of the dog house."

"God bless ya, Honey," he said, setting the comb down, "Don't know how I'd stay married without you."

He turns to stroll out of the shop to get his other errands done, skulking around while Loretta was busy getting her hair done, and Dick watched him go.

"Honey?" he asked, watching you set about making a gift basket. Making good on your promise to make it all look nice.

You shrug, face heating when you notice how he's looking at you. "My Grandpa used to keep bees," you answer. "When he had extra he used to sell it but with the horses, sometimes e couldn't drop it off himself- so he used to saddle up a horse for me and send me to town. People startled calling me "The Honey Girl"... After a while it just got shortened to Honey."

"So does everyone call you that or-"

"Any more? People who knew my grandparents are the main culprits- but sometimes it's people who knew me at school."

You feel the heat flood your body and you have to try not to look at his lips, mentally smacking the back of your hand. Sure. It had been a while but-

"What's the matter, Honey?" he asked smirking, "You look a little warm."

"Dick," you protest.

"C'mon," he teased, "Let me see if you taste as sweet as you look?"

But before you can answer the door bursts open and a woman comes in, screaming kids in tow. And Dick had to turn quickly to cover his irritation. Last night, playing pool there'd been tension. A really delicious tension. And this just proved it. You wanted him s bad as he wanted you. He just had to get you alone.

#Dick Grayson #Dick Grayson x reader #amnesia!verse #ask answered #minors dni

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doitwrite · 2 months

Text

Prompt: to write a creative story based on a photo of a little girl holding a jump rope on a playground)

The Playground

“Here we are…finally.” There were kids there. Screaming, laughing, playing on the grass. Isabel glared at her mother, coming to a dead stop outside of the black metal gate.

“Don’t wanna.” Isabel didn’t like other kids. They were too loud and never wanted to share their toys, and frankly, neither did she. Her mother shook her head wearily, dragging Isabel forward towards a park bench with an expression of long-suffering determination that only people who raised difficult pets or children could wear properly. The gravel path that wound through the park made an unpleasant grating sound beneath the soles of Isabel’s sneakers, startling a squirrel from the bushes. It shimmied up the side of a tree, scuttling up the bark in a series of quick, nervous movements as an icy draft blustered through. The branches, drooping with thick green leaves, bent for a moment, descending on the animal and concealing it from view. Isabel waited, but it didn’t emerge again. Sighing, her mother rubbed a hand over slightly bloodshot eyes and sank down onto the bench. It sagged under her weight with a quiet squeal of protest.

“Just…please. Go jump rope or something. Maybe you can ask that girl for hers when she’s done playing.” Her mother pointed at a girl with pigtails jumping rope on the turf beside the playground, kicking up dust from the bare spots where no grass grew to cover the parched soil. The park was in a sorry state, with tarnished metal benches and a field that was patchy from being trampled under hundreds of feet. The only thing that looked new about it was the jungle gym made out of eye-catchingly garish bright red and blue plastic towering at its center. Kids swarmed over it like termites on an anthill, scrambling up the rock wall and swinging from the monkey bars like clumsy, overly energetic acrobats.

Isabel pouted, turning away to watch a man on a bench nearby slump forward, eyes fluttering closed. His phone slipped out of his hand, hitting the pavement with a clack as he let out a quiet snore. All of the parents around were glued to their phones with bleary eyes or dozing lightly in positions that suggested they had drifted off without meaning to, heads lolling. Isabel wondered how they could sleep through the noise of pedestrians and traffic just outside of the park.

“No.” But her mother had already crossed her arms and closed her eyes, leaning her head back with a yawn. There was no point in whining any further. Isabel trudged away, circling around the edges of the playground, then paused. The ground here was soft. Like a wet sponge. Gross. She kicked at the dirt, stomping to a corner of the park, as far away from the other children and their parents as possible. Dropping to her knees, she reached down and ripped up handfuls of the grass at the base of the metal railing, relishing the wet tearing sound they made as they came up and wrinkling her nose at the faint smell of copper that rose around her. If she had looked up, she would have seen that just outside the fence, people crossing the street and on the sidewalk were braced against a harsh wind that sent coats flapping and hair whipping. Within the park, the children giggled as they frolicked on the jungle gym, and their parents, all overcome with an inexplicable exhaustion, lay sprawled on the ground or across the benches. No wind disturbed their clothes or made them shiver with sudden cold. The grass did not ripple. The tree branches did not shake. The air was thick, and still.

All at once, the children were swallowed up.

A girl sank into the sandbox where she had been playing, vanishing with a whispering sound among the golden grains. A boy laughed as he dove headfirst down the plastic blue tube slide and did not reappear at the bottom. Twin children yelped as they lost their grips on monkey bars that had suddenly grown too slippery to hold. They fell, right through the wood chips on the ground and into the earth. The girl with the pigtails giggled as the rope went around under her feet, and a moment later it landed in the dirt, alone. The sounds of chatter stopped all at once, because there were no longer any children to make them.

The sudden silence split the air like an ax. Isabel jerked her head up, blindsided. The playground looked desolate with the sudden absence of kids. Where did they all go? Goosebumps rose on her skin, even though there was no wind. Her eyes darted to the unconscious adults. Why were they all sleeping? The cars and people just outside the fence were still going about their business, showing no sign that any of them had noticed anything amiss. Other than the sounds of her own rapid breaths, it was completely quiet. As if the world outside was a massive screen, and someone had turned off the volume. In a panic, Isabel spotted her mother asleep on the bench she’d collapsed on, a strand of hair that had fallen across her face fluttering with each snore. Isabel jerked herself up to her feet and started to run, desperate for the safety of her mother’s arms, to escape the sudden wrongness that had descended on this place that was supposed to be safe, that had other children laughing and playing in it mere seconds ago. Her feet were suddenly pulled from beneath her and she pitched forward, barely catching herself on her hands and knees. The girl’s jump rope from earlier had coiled itself around her ankles, like a thick white snake. Isabel clawed wildly at it with shaking fingers. Her vision was too blurred with terrified tears to notice it twitching as she loosened loop after loop. Unraveling the last snag with one last desperate jerk of the handles, she leapt to her feet.

But something was wrong.

The rope was taut in her hands. With a slow, uncomprehending dread, her teary eyes followed it from her hands, frozen around the handles, to the dirt at her feet. The center of the cord was tethered to the ground, as if welded there. She merely stood, grounded by a disorienting confusion, blindly realizing that the handles were oddly warm and were quivering slightly in her fists—for a second too long. The rope jerked, as if the earth itself was playing tug-of-war with her. She stumbled forward. The ground before her feet opened up as the grass split open in a yawning maw of darkness. A picture from a book she’d read flashed into her mind, of a girl with yellow hair and a blue dress tumbling down, down, down into a pit after a white rabbit in a waistcoat. Isabel teetered on the edge of the hole, eyes wide and mouth open in noiseless terror. She could see that the sides of the hole were a fleshy pink color, wet and slimy-looking. A warm, wet wind rose up out of it. It smelled.

With a sickening certainty, she knew there was no tea party waiting for her at the bottom.

The ground closed up a moment later with a moist sound.

The grass suddenly looked a little greener and fuller, and the jungle gym had grown a new set of swings. The rusty patches on the benches shrunk and disappeared, and the seat beneath Isabel’s snoring mother straightened up, like new. The jump rope lay innocently on the ground, waiting. For a single moment before the adults began to stir awake, before the sounds of traffic returned to the air, before the trees resumed their feigned swaying in the wind, the park sat in heavy, satiated silence.

Unlike Isabel, it liked kids well enough.

#once again #I am in a bit of a dry spell #but I dug this out of my dusty old documents #this was part of an accepted arts-related application lol

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dalgaardmagnusson · 2 years

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10 Excellent Ideas To Enhance Your Home

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Make sure to examine your doors and windows, too. While the water damage is not likely to be from dripping pipes, it is a really common place for water damage to sneak in. Examining them during or after an excellent storm should make discovering the issue simpler. And, if caught early, it can be an inexpensive fix-and maybe even an easy a do-it-yourself task that takes just minutes. Copper will taint like silver in existence of wetness and sulfur. Most of the times, nevertheless, a lacquer is baked on to prevent the fashion jewelry from tarnishing. To clean copper, utilize any black countertops kitchen business cleaner that defines it safe for copper. Do not utilize ammonia, which can wear down copper. First you require to ensure that the area where the water damage happened is protected. Because method you will prevent the spread of the contamination. But do not take it actually, you still need to keep windows open and let air can be found in. Next is to browse all other areas to guarantee that they do not have mold contamination. Keep in mind, after you have an area that is polluted after water damage there is constantly the chance that that adjacent places might develop a mold issue. Carpet cleaning services can reallyhelp to keep your carpets clean. Nevertheless, prior to mold removal costs generate any expert, remembera couple of things. First, these services usually cost a lot. So, look foran inexpensive service that can do the work efficiently and my home is flooded professionally. 10) It is essential not to utilize a regular home vacuum to remove the water. You will ruin your unit. It is best to leave the water extraction to the professionals. If you require to eliminate a small bit of standing water and it can not be finished with a mop or towel and wet/dry shop vacuum is the very best tool for the task. You ought to also ask the cleaning business what sort of cleaning products they utilize or if you need to supply these products. If you are desiring your house cleaned up with green products, then you need to let the company understand that you do not desire anything else utilized to clean your house. It is likewise crucial that the business you hire has experts who understand how to use the equipment in order to restore your home of much of the damage. Technology and devices combined must help in the extraction of water and ideally the smoke that remains in your valuables. The employees must have experience at this, and they must be understood for doing their job well.

#Hurricane IAN #Hurricane Stormed #Hurricane stormed damage #high wind Hurricane #roof damage

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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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No Matter What

CW: Hungover whumpee – headache, nausea, etc all mentioned. Alcohol use referenced. References to throwing up, nothing graphic or descriptive. References to conditioning, past noncon and its effect on a whumpee and their view of themselves years later, trauma responses, and trauma recovery. VERY brief transphobia reference. References to domestic violence and child abuse, including verbal abuse and abandonment.

I… promise I was going for fluff.

Set post this drabble where Chris is drinking and this one where Laken gets him back to Jake’s house.

Tagging: @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump, @whumpfigure, @stxckfxck, @slaintetowhump, @astrobly, @newandfiguringitout, @doveotions

Oh, he hurts.

His head is one giant throbbing ache, like someone wrapped a hammer in wool and smacked around his brain until it bounced against his skull. The worst pain is just behind his eyes and he can barely crack them open before he has to squinch them shut again, pulling a pillow over his head with a groan to hide from the hint of morning sunlight cutting lines through the blinds.

He knows enough to know he’s in his own room at home, not his dorm, but he’s not entirely sure how he got here and why he’d come here, anyway.

One hand presses the pillow down - the pressure against the top of his head feels so good, cool from the pillowcase but firm, soothing some of the ache - and the other moves to find the feather around his neck, rubbing at the little carved vanes in the gray plastic. Did he take the feather last night? He must have, but he can’t remember anything past throwing up Sir’s favorite martini in the bar’s bathroom, rinsing his mouth out, drinking water straight from the bathroom sink and then going back out to order a gin and tonic and do it all again.

He hurts.

Did the bartender refuse to give him the gin and tonic? He might have, he knows Kauri, all the ones who know Kauri - and it feels like every bar in town knows Kauri and half the men in them - seem to know who Chris is, too, the second he walks in the door.

He hopes the bartender refused him.

He hopes he didn’t offer the bartender anything more than money.

There’s a shifting weight in the bed next to him and Chris freezes, for just a second the breath catches in his throat, but then he relaxes with the knowledge that it can only be Jake or Antoni, there aren’t anymore silk sheets, there aren’t anymore nights with his hands gripping the headboard to hold back the scream inside his head, there won’t ever be again.

Dead in the ground, rotting away, his Sir can’t hurt him anymore.

Chris swallows - there’s a pain in his throat, too, probably from throwing up, and his mouth tastes awful, his tongue is a dry dead weight - and dares peek out from under the pillow.

Laken lays next to him in the bed on their stomach, naked except for their underwear, a pair of black boxer briefs that look like bike shorts, lying on their stomach and Chris would love the way the light hits their shoulder blades if he wasn’t hurting too badly to focus his eyes.

Their hair is a riot of thick black curls across the pillow their head rests on, lips curled in the slightest half-smile. Chris just watches their back rise and fall as they breathe for a few seconds, wondering what happened after his last memory - stumbling out of the bathroom at the bar, shoving Will away, going back to the bar for another drink.

Hating himself for being glad his Sir is gone, hating his Sir for what he had done to Chris’s life, loving his Sir for all the times he was the only good thing in the world, loving him so much he couldn’t bear the loss.

Laken is beautiful, their mouth slightly open, parted just enough to show a hint of the bottom of their top teeth, maybe the slightest bit of pink tongue. Black eyelashes lay so lightly along their skin, eyeliner from the night before still there with the little swoop at the ends smudged into something closer to smoke than kohl.

Laken is a lightning bolt that walks the earth near him, and Chris is a bit of copper tarnished, turning green, a penny rubbed to shiny nothingness with all the hands that have touched him when he had no voice to refuse their attention.

Laken is worth everything there is, and Chris feels like money no one will take because too many hands have already held it.

Chris’s fumbles blindly off the bed, searching for the side table he knows is right there, finding his phone facedown next to the lamp and pulling it under the pillow with him. The lockscreen is a photo of he and Laken together down by the campus lake, Laken in their usual black-and-slightly-less-black with a slight knowing smile and Chris laughing at whatever Dill was saying when he took the picture. He winces at the brightness, the light and the looks on their faces, and unlocks it with the pincode, 5-2-5-3.

The homescreen is he and Jake and Antoni standing outside the house the day it belonged to Jake for real, Jake holding the deed in one hand and his arm around Chris’s shoulders, all of them smiling. Chris kind of hates that photo, too, right now.

He scrolls through text messages, wincing as he sees his own words garbled, letters switched, eventually nearly nonsensical. He wants to sink into the ground and disappear when he sees seven calls, three to Laken, two to Jake, one to Antoni, a final call to Laken again. He must have called them to come get him, but he can’t remember any of these calls, not one.

There’s a soft sound from near the door and Chris pulls the pillow off his head, wincing as the pounding headache suddenly worsens, making him close his eyes against it and whimper, lowin his throat. Oh, last night was a mistake. Through his eventual hesitant squint, he can see Jake framed in the open doorway, holding two steaming mugs of coffee, with the white childproof cap to a bottle of tylenol visible just above the rounded shape of the pill bottle stuck in his front pocket.

Chris blinks at him - once, twice, three times - and then slowly nods, watching Jake come in. He’s so tall, full of muscle and there’s so much to him. Jake is sunlight and a warm touch and Chris should have known Jake would be the second thing he saw when he woke up here, that he would have coffee ready.

Jake’s eyes flicker to where Laken is still sleeping, then back to Chris, and he carefully gestures at them with his coffee. It takes Chris’s hurting, slow-moving brain a minute to realize Jake wants him to cover Laken up more, give them some privacy so Jake can’t see their back, see them topless, see them without the ever-present binder that Chris pictures even when he thinks of Laken naked.

Laken seems so vulnerable, without it. Lightning brought lower, closer to earth. Chris pulls the covers up on their side until only their head and hair is showing and then slowly pushes himself up to seated, rubbing at his forehead, swallowing over and over even though his mouth is dry.

“G-... g’mornin’, Jake,” He whispers. His throat hurts. How much did he throw up last night? Did he throw up here, too, not just in the bar?

“Hey, kiddo.” The scrape of the ceramic against the side table as Jake sets down the mugs is so loud. Chris whines and drops his head back down, looking pitiful and he knows it. His hair is a dirty blue mess around his head, from sweating and dancing and holding it back with one hand as he bent over a barroom toilet, crying all his grief out.

He wants to cut all his hair off, suddenly. Shave it short, as short as the hair on the sides of Laken’s head. Let it grow in strawberry blond all over again, back how he used to be, when his hair was the thing Sir loved most about him. Would sit and rub it between thumb and forefinger while Chris hid under his desk, perfectly still and silent, statue boy to decorate a man’s days nd nights.

Laken shifts but doesn’t wake, and Chris is too dirty, too gross to be anywhere near someone so good and clean and without all the things Chris has had to learn, to do. Did he and Laken talk last night? He has memories, he thinks, of taking his shirt off - of Laken leaning over him - of maybe saying things he knows he should regret, but he can’t remember what exactly he said.

The pain and the cotton-brain want him to stay lying down but the feeling of how dirty he is, inside and out, drives Chris up. The grime on his skin, left by his handler and his Sir and everything that hurt him inside and out, pulls him out of the bed to stand on trembling legs in just his boxers - when had his pants come off? How had his pants come off? Laken maybe? He picks up one of the coffees and leaves the other for if Laken wakes up and moves, one hand holding the feather bumping against his bare chest, the other clutching the coffee as a lifeline.

It’s not until they’re in the hallway with the door closed behind them that Jake says, in a low voice, “How you feeling?”

“Like I, I, I-I-I ate a live ostrich and, and threw it back up and then ate another one,” Chris mutters, and Jake’s lips twitch in a smile he tries to hide underneath genuine sympathy.

“I’m sorry, man.” Jake pushes a bit of hair out of his eyes for him as Chris takes a sip, and the coffee doesn’t taste like anything but hot but that’s still better than the taste that was in his mouth before.

“Sorry for, for, for what?”

“That I forgot the day. I’ve been really busy with work shit and I let it slip that it was going to be the anniversary yesterday. I should’ve called you, been there for you, and I wasn’t. I knew it would be hard.” Jake’s blue eyes are full of utter sincere regret, and Chris moves to him with all the instinctive trust and need he’s always had for his big brother to fold his arms around him, hold him, chase away the lingering need to be good.

Some of the pain fades, in Jake’s arms, like it always has.

“You don’t have to, to… to babysit me just because he’s dead a year,” Chris mumbles against the fabric of Jake’s t-shirt. Same smell as always - same laundry detergent, same Jake-skin, same deodorant, same same same. The smell of safe. “I, I shouldn’t have gone out, anyway.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve all gone out and gotten blackout over stupid shit before, in this house,” Jake says gently, resting his chin lightly on Chris’s head. “I once got drunk and called an ex-boyfriend and cried about how much I missed him when I was the one who dumped him. For cheating on me. Six times. So… no judgement here. Recovery’s a process, not a straight line, man.”

“You, you, you you you sound like Nat.”

“Yeah, well, my whole career plan is to turn into her, isn’t it? Might as well start there.”

There’s a silence for a second, and Chris sighs, keeping his eyes closed, not willing to face the light and the pain in his head again just yet. “I think I, I, I said something stupid to Laken last night.”

“Couldn’t have been too stupid, they came downstairs after you fell asleep talking about how great you are.” Jake shrugs, the movement shifting him where he holds Chris.

“They did not.” Chris feels blood rush to his face, the flush in his cheeks making him dizzy. His stomach lurches and spins with nausea but sipping the coffee, held so carefully between his body and Jake’s, helps. “They, they, they they-they did not.”

“Yep. They got you to bed around 2 and we were up ‘til almost 4 just talking about how fucking great you are. Accept it, kiddo, you’re stuck with both of us even on your bad nights.”

Chris is quiet for a long moment and then whispers, “He didn’t even-... even have me that, that, that-that that… that long.”

It takes Jake a second to change gears when Chris does, and then he takes in a breath. “It’s not about time, Chris. This shit doesn’t work that way.”

“I, I didn’t want to be good, Jake. I always… I, I always wanted to scream.”

“I know, man.” Jake presses a kiss to dirty blue hair, without hesitating, without caring what Chris looks like, how everything about him feels gross now. Layered over with what was taken away, what he can’t get back. “I know you did.”

“I… think I tried, to, to get Laken to… have sex with me last night.” The words tremble, they’re miserable. He’s ashamed of himself for trying to make something happen he didn’t even want, just because it would have felt familiar. Reliving the memories he has, forgetting for a while about the ones he wasn’t allowed to keep.

“They wouldn’t have,” Jake says. There’s a pause, and then he adds, “And I’d slaughter them myself if they did. Just… I could probably google how to hide a body, right?”

Chris can’t help the way he shakes in silent laughter, but it makes his head hurt worse and he buries himself back against Jake’s collarbone, sipping the coffee in the safety of Jake’s arms. “Probably, sh-... shouldn’t. Get on a, a, a list.”

“Oh, Chris. I’ve been on a government fucking watchlist since I got arrested at my first pet lib protest. I like being on all their lists. Makes me feel important. C’mon, let’s go downstairs, I’ll make some eggs and hash browns to soak up all that alcohol you poisoned yourself with.” Jake moves, and Chris goes with him, secure in the arm that stays around his shoulders, in the slight rattle of the painkillers in Jake’s pocket as they head down the hall. He can hear Antoni’s light snoring from behind his bedroom door and smiles, just a little. It’s nice, having Laken come here, be part of the other half of his life, the one where he can be safely known.

Jake gets him settled at the table, keeping the lights off and the kitchen dim, pulling the curtains closed. In the slightly surreal half-light Chris feels more relaxed, pulls his feet up to sit cross-legged on the kitchen chair, feeling at the feather hanging around his neck, letting the shift of air through the kitchen make his skin feel less sticky and gross, less dirtied by last night and the years before.

“More coffee?”

Somehow Chris had had the whole cup. He frowns down into it and then looks back up at Jake. “Is, is, is is is it okay for me to have, um, more?”

“More caffeine? Yeah, Chris. Trust me, everyone in this house needs more sleep than what we got last night. Three cups of coffee’ll knock you right out, and here we are at two.” Jake pours him more, even adds milk and sugar for him, and Chris hums and takes more sips, finally tasting the coffee’s flavor and not just its temperature. Something in him soothes, as his thumb rubs at the rough ridges in the feather necklace again and again and again.

“I, I… I think I should, uh, break up with Laken.”

Jake stills, at the cutting board where he’s grating potatoes for the hashbrowns. He doesn’t look back at Chris, but there’s a tension in his shoulders when he asks, “Now why would you need to do that?”

Chris swallows another mouthful of coffee, and answers in a low voice. “They shouldn’t have to, to, to-to deal with this, Jake. With…” He pauses, and the words bottleneck in his mind, three separate tracks of thought colliding in a terrible wreck of with someone this dirty with someone who was used like this with someone who misses the man who hurt them with someone like me

with someone like me

“Chris… I’m the last person to lecture on trust issues, or pushing people away, but…” Jake takes a breath and looks over at him. Chris’s lower lip trembles, just a little, at the wealth of love in his eyes. “Have you considered that it’s Laken’s decision to make? That they’ve already had the chance to say it’s too much - when they found out what you had to heal from - and instead they chose to stay?”

“But-”

“Ask them if they want to handle it, but I know that if you were my boyfriend, I’d want to stay.” Jake goes back to grating the potatoes, his hand moving in sure strokes to press the flat-cut end of the rounded potato and Chris watches the thin grated bits create a small pile under the grater, like a rounded pyramid.

“Even though-”

“Even though.” Jake says it firmly, strong as every stone they pulled out of the backyard to make the new garden and moved to the front to look like landscaping. “I talked to your partner for two hours last night, Chris, and all they talked about that whole time was how great you are and how much they fucking love you.”

There are tears in Chris’s eyes that run down his face when he ducks his chin to hide them. His stomach roils, his throat aches, his head throbs and the coffee is only barely holding off the bad taste in his mouth. He doesn’t know what he said or did after the bar bathroom except he kind of thinks he came on to Laken in ways he didn’t want to, because lying in the bed screaming in his mind underneath someone who didn’t care had felt, for just a while, like it might be closer to who he really is than all the things he’d worked so hard to build after.

“When you love somebody,” Jake says, talking as though he doesn’t know that Chris is sniffling but really he does and he’s giving him the space to calm. Chris feels gratitude cut him apart into ribbons for the moments Jake will give him to breathe. “You do what you have to do. Sometimes that means being there when they fall apart.” Jake pauses, staring into space, then starts grating the next potato. “Sometimes it means… other things, going with them or letting them go or forgiving them for stupid shit they did a long time ago-”

Chris smiles, wondering what Nat’s up to today, anyway.

“-but last night Laken saw you fall to pieces and said, that one, that’s the one I want, that boy who lived through hell and came out smiling, that’s the Chris for me. Let that count, man. Let that mean something. They fucking love you. Shit run of luck and all.”

“I… I know.”

“Bigger than that, they think you deserve the love, just like Ant and I think you deserve it. Just like Nat thinks so, just like Kauri, just like everybody loves you, Chris, even on the days you don’t love yourself. I know everybody in this house absolutely fucking sucks at remembering to care as much for ourselves as we do for other people, but…”

Jake sighs and steps over to the table, opens up the painkiller bottle, lays two small blue pills in front of Chris. Chris fights back the residual fear and takes them, swallowing them dry. He’s never lost the ability to take pills whenever they are given to him, only lost the requirement.

“These will help your hangover. I can’t give you anything to fix feeling down on yourself except tell you that we’re all here, and I’m sorry, again, for forgetting about yesterday.”

“It’s b-been… it’s been almost f-five years since you saved me. I sh-shouldn’t… shouldn’t ever-... I shouldn’t, um, shouldn’t care any, anymore, right?”

Jake spreads the potatoes out on a baking pan, shakes salt and pepper over the top, slides them into the oven and sets the timer. A faint blast of heat from the oven hits Chris just before the door closes again.

Jake pours himself a cup of coffee, then, and sits across the table from Chris, holding the cup in both hands and looking him right in the eyes.

“My dad sent me fucking packing when I was fourteen years old,” Jake says, quietly, holding Chris’s gaze with his own. “With a black eye and my backpack still packed. The last thing my dad ever said to me was that I wasn’t worth loving, wasn’t his son anymore, my mom’s life and his would’ve been better if I never existed. The very last thing he said before I got on that bus was Jacob Collins Stanton, you are the worst mistake I wish I never made.”

His voice never wavers as he speaks, and Chris stares at him, his hangover forgotten in the wake of the horrified cold that washes through him at how casually Jake speaks, describing abandonment in the same tones he might talk about his least favorite topping for pizza.

“I haven’t seen him since then. I’m almost thirty, Chris. I haven’t seen my dad for half my fucking life and sometimes I still hear his voice in my head, telling me that shit. You were a mistake, no one’s going to love you, all that shit. It still makes it hard for me to trust anyone because if I couldn’t-...” Jake’s voice hitches only slightly then, but his face is impassive, hard to read.

His face tells Chris nothing, and the simple act of removing his usual open expressions tells Chris everything, too.

“-... if I couldn’t be good enough for the people who made me, who can I be good enough for? More than half my life, man, and I still… still live the way I do because of what that asshole tried to make me believe about myself and my mom. It built my whole life, that last conversation, because I thought to myself that I was going to be a better person than he was in every fucking way. And... here we are. So… yeah, it’s been five years, but you also do a lot of not letting yourself think about it, and… I think it caught up with you, man. The way it catches up with me sometimes, too.”

Chris keeps his hands curved around his coffee mug, then, and says softly, “I love you.”

“Yeah, I know. I love you, too.” Jake takes a drink of his coffee, gives Chris a half-smile. “It’s normal to have stuff come back like this. Especially when you do so much pretending it’s not there. Trust me, I know. Next time, though… call us before you need a ride home from a bar, huh? I’d rather be the one that goes with you, and I know Laken would have gone with you last night, too, if you’d asked. We… everyone in this house right now, including Laken… knows what it means to be told you’re too fucked up to deserve the love that you should never have been denied. But it’s a fucking lie.”

“The love?”

“The idea that you don’t deserve it. You deserved the life you had before they took it from you, you deserve the life you’re living now. You deserve Laken, and more importantly - Laken wants to be here. They’re choosing you, every time. Let them choose you. You’re not dirtied, I’m not a mistake, Antoni’s not responsible for all the pain he went through. Promise to remember that, if I do?”

Chris pauses, then reaches his hand out across the table for Jake to take, closing his eyes at the feeling of Jake’s thumb rubbing back and forth across his knuckles. “Promise. I, I, I’m not dirty.”

“I’m not a mistake.”

“An, Antoni isn’t a, um, a a a a bad person.”

“Laken’s a fucking deity and no asshole hiding behind his bigotry gets to tell them whether or not they’re worth loving unconditionally.”

Chris snorts laughter and opens his eyes to see Jake grinning at him, head tilted, coffee mug in hand. “You really did talk to them last night.”

“Yeah, I probably know more about their life story than you do by now. We bonded over shitty dads.”

Chris hesitates, then says again, “I’m, I’m not… dirty.”

Jake holds his eyes. “I’m not a mistake.”

“I’m good… good enough for Laken to, to, to-to love me. Even when, when I’m drunk and, and do stupid things.”

“Even when you’re drunk and do stupid things.”

“Even though I used to be-... to do-...” He can’t finish the sentence. He lets the silence hang between them, full of all the words he won’t say.

“Even then.” Jake squeezes his hand, and Chris squeezes back. “You can’t do anything, or have anything done to you, that takes away what you deserve. We love you, Chris, whether you like it or not. You’re stuck with a couple of fucked-up brothers and Laken, too. We’re all choosing you.”

Chris feels the tears again, barely holds them off, and smiles through blurry vision at Jake, who won’t let him fall too far into the cold horror of the light, who always pulls him back to the dark.

Upstairs, Laken sleeps, another person in this house who saw Chris fall apart and still said that one, that’s my Chris, the boy who went to hell and back, that’s the one I won’t let go of.

No matter what.

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theteenygemthief · 3 years

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The Things That Weigh On You: Prologue & Ch. 1

Rating: Explicit | Word Count: 2.56K | My Hero Academia | HawksxOCxDabi

It’s just as easy to justify being a hero when everyone excuses your actions with the amount of glamour and power that comes with it. The media covers all of your triumphs and failures. You get endorsements. It’s almost second to being an A-List celebrity. But what happens when hero’s fall and suddenly, the justification leaves? What happens when ones own inflated ego gets the better of them and how do they bounce back from the rubble?

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Prologue:

Was it always this quiet?

She pondered this as she stared quietly into the abyss of her grandmothers home. A note telling of her sisters leaving was pinched tightly between her index and forefinger as she wondered, why? Why did everyone have to leave? What was it about her that was so wrong? Were things not as perfect as she had believed them to be?

I left to go and live with my dad.

I need to be around someone I can depend on for a while.

-Daphne

The words were read almost a thousand times. And now that the house was empty, what was there for her to protect?

She recalled another time when someone else had been leaving. Only, he hadn't written an elaborate note. He didn't bother leaving a forwarding address or a number to reach him. He didn't even say goodbye. He just left an empty room with an empty bed and a bunch of photographs from when they grew up together. Now, she occasionally spotted him on the news with his striking gold eyes and deep crimson wings as he worked alongside his hero. And all she could do was beam with pride, knowing that this person who had once been like a younger brother to her had flown the coupe. Her little sister used to sit beside her and help her cheer him on.

They were both heroes now, right?

Maybe their paths could cross again, eventually.

Chapter 1:

The taste of copper and sugar flooded into her mouth as the feeling of raw power surged throughout her body. A good friend of hers had come to town and promised to help her with a jewel heist, and had been willing to lend her some of his power. Her body warmed up with near immense heat, as though she had taken an aphrodisiac with a cup of hot chocolate. She had learned with time that blood with certain quirks had a very distinct taste to it. Almost like spice or flavoring in a cocktail. And this particular friend, despite his calm, stoic demeanor, somehow had the sweet tinge of spicy hot chocolate and nutmeg to his. She wouldn't lie, that when she met him, they had a certain chemistry. Occasionally they would get together for a drink at a local villains club in Shibuya for an evening and spend the night away with their own kind of trouble.

Trouble.

She chuckled to herself and imagined how the goodie two shoes she used to be would stand aghast at the very idea of trouble out of wedlock. Especially with a villain on casual terms. That mousy little thing would have lost sleep over engaging in any sort of activity with a man who wreaked of danger. And she guessed that it was a good thing that the little mouse died after her sister left to go live with her father.

“While this is sexy as hell,” Dabi said with a low hum. “And I would love to see where else your bite will lead, we need to focus at the task at hand.”

A sure sign that the mouse had been dead, was the comfort with sexuality. Something that a younger version of herself would not be comfortable with.

She pressed closer to the taller of the two and drew her tongue along the bite wound she had recently inflicted at the base of his neck. She could feel him harden against her as his hand settled on her waist and pulled her closer to him, using his other hand to force her to look into a pair of piercing blue eyes. His body had been covered in scars, and that had made him all the more appealing as the idea that she would be playing with fire is what drew her to him. And sure at first, she had approached on a whim, not giving a damn whether she lived or died in trying to flirt. She was so drunk on her vices that if she were to leave an empty house in Fukuoka, then so be it. And hell, if she was honest, she wanted to die that night.

What good was a hero with no one to protect?

“I thought villains paid more attention to their surroundings.” sneered a voice.

She looked up with a scowl as her eyes danced with the intent to kill. Three men in suits had entered the alley, one without a quirk yet somehow ballsy enough to keep a switchblade at his side, and another with what looked to be an octopus face. A low chuckle escaped her lips as she then proceeded to ignite a small flame within her palm. She had been craving calamari.

“I thought security guards knew their place.” She replied.

One of the men in the back had been eyeing her intently, watching as she stepped forward and observing her movements. There had been something about him that seemed familiar, though she couldn't quite place her finger on it. He had just been standing there, watching, waiting as she stepped forward and set the entire alley on fire, putting enough attention on it from the public that she and her companion could make their grand escape.

Two out of the three men panicked as she and Dabi darted forward, evading them all together. The man who had been watching her merely stepped out of the way as wind swept along his black hair. Piercing flects of gold had shown behind a pair of green contacts and his trench coat seemed a bit too big for his build. If she hadn't known any better, she would've assumed that she would be seeing a blast from the past.

Oh well.

“Hey Dabi,” She called as soon as the duo had made it several streets down and far enough out of earshot. “Lets go pick up our parcel and grab a drink, yeah?”

“Not tonight.”

“No fun,” She whined playfully. “But some other time then.”

She should have probably been paying attention to the sudden change in his demeanor.

The return to her home took little to no time at all as she had turned a few corners. She had made sure to pass by the house a couple of times before sneaking in through the back to avoid watchful eyes and went as far as to move through the dark and change into regular clothing before slipping out again in her civilian attire. She had to avoid any kind of suspicion. And in doing so, donned a brown styled wig and avoided putting on any makeup. No one would know that she was the fallen hero Susanoo. She crept her way through the dark house again and slowly made her way to the back. Staying silent, avoiding even the smallest of sounds and remaining light on her feet.

Suddenly a hand came out of nowhere and spun her around, pinning her back to the wall behind her. Her mind began to race to several conclusions as she reached for an old dollar store vase that sat at the edge of her grandmothers bookshelf, bringing it down and crashing it upon her assailants head. A low grunt could be heard, and while the voice sounded familiar she had to attack while they were distracted. She soon ducked out of their hold and pinned them against the wall, only to be backed against the corner and knocked from their feet.

At this point, she was certain that she was going to die if she didn't act soon.

She looked up at an end table where she hid a tactical blade and reached for it as her assailant straddled her hips, swiftly pinning both of her arms above her head. It had already been thirty minutes since she had used Dabi's power. She would be taking a huge risk if she took on another quirk twice in one night.

“Go ahead, bite me.” The intruder taunted. “You'll be stuck in here for weeks if you do.”

A pause came over her. The voice that she heard had sounded all too familiar and she had been certain that it's owner wouldn't bother looking back. The person fighting her couldn't possibly have been who she thought it was until she looked up in the dim light. Green eyes stared down at her as strands of blond hair had slipped from beneath a black wig. A too large trench coat had cascaded over her and her assailant and she was finally able to recognize the man from earlier based on the markings on his eyes.

“Green really isn't your color, Keigo.” She said coolly, scowling up at him.

“And brown is yours?” He jeered back with a smile.

His smile wasn't at all like the one she remembered from when he was a kid. In fact, it was much colder, more calculated and well practiced as opposed to sad or carefree. The boy she knew was gone. And the irony of the situation left a bitter taste at the tip of her tongue.

“So what?” She mocked. “Are you going to take me in? Tell me I've been a bad girl and spank me on my way to jail?”

Her words shook him. There was a pained expression as he tried to find a response to her taunts. Her mocking tone and venomous tongue. And she knew he had been caught off guard before she turned the tables, pinning him beneath her.

She learned the hard way how heroes were hypocrites, and how having a false sense of honor and nobility is what somehow kept them going. It was why she so readily tarnished her name after everyone left. It's why she gave it all up. Hell, she even stopped watching the asshole beneath her on t.v., refusing to cheer him on for the false justice he brought about. And she learned first hand the type of man his hero was. Endeavor. The bastard who paid for his quirk marriage and tortured his own wife to a point where she mutilated her own son.

She refused to fall in league with those assholes.

“So why the fuck did you really show your mug around here, Takami?” she hissed.

“I was in the neighborhood and saw that an old friend of mine had become a villain.” He said coolly. “I figured I could stop by and say hello.”

Bullshit.

“I'll bite.” She sighed. “Hello.”

He smiled up at her, a warm smile this time before she rolled her eyes and stood. She stepped away from him and continued to move toward the door.

“Hello, Edith.”

His voice was like a whisper in her ear as his arms wrapped around her, holding her still. She wondered what he was doing and if he was biding time for reinforcements.

“You said your hello's, Hawks.” she warned. “You got what you wanted, now leave.”

His arms were too warm. Warmer than she was accustomed to. She needed empty affection to stick to her convictions. Familiarity or not. And besides, it wasn't as if she missed some dumb kid who walked out without a word. He made that choice, not her. And if he continued to hold her the way he had been, she would begin to assume that there were some sort of ulterior motive behind it.

“Your voice is shaking.” He pointed. “Do you really want me gone?”

Edith looked at Keigo's reflection in the doorknob as he hovered over her like an old lover. His contacts dimmed the piercing gold of his eyes, taking away the striking effect that they'd had on her.

“You left this house seven years ago.” She growled. “What difference does it make that you leave now?”

“I grew up.”

“Get out.”

He was right, her voice was shaking. There were so many emotions that she had been holding back in that instant. And she hated that he now had the ability to taunt and mock her in her own home. He had the ability to remind her where she had failed.

“You didn't answer my question.”

“Get the hell out, or I will fucking kill you.”

“Then do it.”

She'd been spun around quickly enough to a point where she couldn't blink. His hands removed from her as he stepped back and held them out to show that he was ready for whatever she may deliver unto him.

“Kill me.”

Shock and disbelief had been the correct words for the situation at hand. And he had been calling her bluff right then and there. Everything she had done up until this point, had been muted and she tried to recall when someone besides a certain friend with benefits had directly challenged her this way. She backed into the door and stared in awe at the man before her. How dare he? How dare he just waltz into her home like this and just present himself for a kill. She grit her teeth and curled her fingers behind her back. The only time she had found herself in a situation where she absolutely had to kill someone had been when she was a superhero...and back then, she knew that if she didn't kill the person in question, she in turn would be obliterated.

“I...” She hesitated.

“You're a villain.” He reassured. “Killing heroes should come easily to you, shouldn't it?”

“Please leave.” She whimpered, finally.

A soft laugh came from the superhero as Edith fought to catch her breath. This time, she knew for sure that he had been mocking her. Teasing her very existence as a villain and silently berating her for hesitating on a simple kill when it presented itself.

“You have a lot to learn, kid.”

Her eyes darted up to the man before her as he stepped closer, claiming her lips before opening the door behind her.

“Expect to see more of me.”

And like that, he was gone.

He...

He just took off like it was nothing.

She moved to touch her lips, questioning the situation entirely. Yet, like many things, she tucked the thoughts away. Never bothering with them for the rest of the evening. Takami Keigo had left. And she was going to leave it at that.

“Let me get this straight.” Dabi crooned as he laid beside her, pulling her closer as he tucked his arm beneath a pillow. “Your former childhood friend who walked out on you suddenly appeared out of nowhere and kissed you?”

“If that is the best way to summarize it, then yes.”

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

Edith could tell from the blank expression on the other villains face that he had much to say to her regarding the matter. His messy black hair had stuck out and about on all odds and ends as a result of an earlier coupling that the two had shared, and yet his eyes remained focused. A thing she both loved and hated about his eyes was that they were unreadable. She loved it, because it meant no attachment...she hated it because it meant that attachment couldn't be made.

Not that she was complaining.

It just meant fewer chances at a broken heart.

____________________________________________________________

Note from the author: Thank you for taking the time to read my fanfiction pilot for “The Things That Weigh On You”. I understand that the title is long, and a sure fire angst warning, but hey, this is tumblr. And we all love our soapbox.We all love erotic soapboxes, especially!

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Table of Contents:

P-1, CH2 , CH3

#bnha dabi #dabi x oc #bnha keigo #wing hero hawks #bnha #bnha oc #touya todoroki #bnha fanfiction

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lovelylogans · 5 years

Text

the worst in me

NARISSA: Ah, all this nauseating talk of true love's kiss, it really does bring out the worst in me. You know I've been thinking, if I'm going to remain Queen, I'm gonna need some sort of story when I go back. Hmm... What if a giant vicious beast showed up, and killed everyone? And poor defenseless Queen Narissa, she just couldn't save them! Let's begin with the girl who started it all, shall we?! ROBERT: Over my dead body. NARISSA: Alright. I'm flexible.

-enchanted, 2007

ao3 | read my other fics | coffee?

warnings: remus, maybe unsympathetic thomas?, confusion/bitterness, self doubt/hatred, mentions of animal cruelty

pairings: none

words: 1,548

notes: so, this is for the 13 days of halloween prompt over at @sanderssidescelebrations! today’s prompt is dragon witch! this is my first time writing the garbage man, so i hope i did him justice! also i better not see any remrom in the comments/tags!

R—No, no, it’s Roman now, Roman Roman Roman—tightens his fingers around the hilt of his sword, his free one into a fist. His hands shouldn’t be shaking. They shouldn’t.

He’s done this a hundred thousand million times before. The Imagination is still his realm, still his place, despite the fact that...

Well. Despite the fact that he didn’t feel like him very much, anymore.

But a jaunt into the Imagination could change that. He’ll run around, save some people, feel more like him again. Or, well. The him he’s supposed to be now. Right? Because he’s supposed to be the good part, isn’t he? He’s supposed to be all damsels and dragons and danger, outwitting the enemy and saving the day. That’s him. That’s Roman.

...Right?

He doesn’t know. He should know, but he doesn’t. Since The Split (it’s warranted capitals, in his mind, and he wonders if they’ve kept enough similarities that it’s warranted the same in his mind, too) Roman’s felt... off. Confused. He finds himself shying away from things he’d have fully enthused about before—now he hates things he’d liked, and he likes things he’d hated, and everything is upside-down and inside-out and it’s like his whole existence has been thrown into a maze in a fun-house full of distorted mirrors, and he can’t get out of it, but he’s trying.

So. Imagination. Damsels. Dragon-slaying. Dashing sword-fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise—but is that his thing now, or his? Is disguising himself good or bad? Is sword-fighting good or bad? Who’s got what?

Like he said—he’s trying.

He follows his lines, even if everything’s changed around him—some of his usual subjects have vanished, replaced by new ones, scrubbed clean, and they act like that’s the way it’s always been, so he does too. The whole thing is straight out of a storybook—a (new) page comes to his palace, tells him of a fair maiden who’s been abducted by a (new) dragon witch, in an (old) crumbling tower that’s been the set of a fair few dramatic reenactments before. So he gets on his (new) horse, which doesn’t stink of the stables like his old horse, Phillipe, did, doesn’t have the pretty, burnished copper coat Phillipe did, but rather this one is pure white and only tarnished by streaks of gold in its mane. He isn’t sure what to name it. Caspian? Gwendolyn? Something very fairytale and innocent and pure?

He gets on his unnamed horse. He examines his (new) sword in its (old) scabbard. He rides through the forest.

Some things have changed and he has no idea why—the flora and fauna swap between familiar and alien—and some things have changed and he knows only too well why they might have changed. But he doesn’t want to question it. He’s supposed to be the good one now. If he questions the status quo now, maybe there’ll be a new new one, who knows how to smile and wink just so and is always kind and gallant and never screws up and never comes up with nicknames that sound mean.

Maybe he’ll be called Romeo, or something equally saccharine.

Roman snorts, and then immediately shies away from the thought, like some bolt of lightning will come to strike him down, strike him in two—or would it be three, then? Because if the bad one is already taken and the good one isn’t good enough anymore, what’ll happen to that one? Will he just be thrown aside? Like a toy that’s lost all entertainment value, replaced by something newer and shinier?

He’ll try harder. He will. He’ll be the best, most perfect, most fairytale prince that ever walked the earth. He won’t ever, ever find out.

“Sorry,” he tells the too-blue sky above him, as if anyone is listening.

And maybe someone is—because he can hear a scream, and a distant, furious roar.

The dragon witch. Roman’s heartbeat starts to thunder and finally, finally, the fight, the rescue, that’s his favorite part, he’ll go out there and he won’t be able to think about being good or bad or right or wrong, he’ll only think about parries and ripostes and lunges, and he digs his heels into the horse’s side with a “HYAH!” and goes galloping further into the depth of these recognized-foreign woods, to the tower, to the climax of the story—

The (new) dragon witch is clutching to the tower, gouging out stones with its massive claws, sending dust and debris scattering upon the ground like snowfall. It roars, again—it has black scales, with almost sickly-green accents, two wings flapping, and massive, curving teeth that would surely gouge Roman right through, if he stepped wrong of them.

Well. It’s certainly a foreboding villain, for his first solo fray back into the imagination, but he mustn’t let any misgivings halt him—he urges the horse forward, and bellows up at the witch, “Unhand her, villain!”

Strangely, the dragon seems to frown at him, and he calls down, voice cartoonishly villainous, “What happened to Phillipe?”

Roman falters, as the horse cants in place. He knows that voice. It’s a new voice, but he knows it, knows it as it’d been the first thing he’d heard after the split.

“Is that... you?” He calls uncertainly.

The dragon seems to shudder, before abruptly, it’s shrinking, downsizing and downsizing and changing until it’s in the shape of a man—a familiar man, wearing black and an almost-sickly green, a demented grin, and a mustache. He’s got bags under his eyes that Roman can see, even from here, ones like Anxiety’s got, and he feels a traitorous spark of concern.

And, for an alarming moment, Roman is jealous. Why did he get the kickass transformation powers—into a dragon?! That’s so cool!

Or at least, that’s what he would have thought before The Split—now, his brain is tossing up example after example of villains transforming into animals—Ursula into Vanessa, Jafar into a genie, Maleficent into a dragon—it’s a sign of evil. It’s a sign of something Bad, and he’s supposed to be the Good One. But half his brain is still stuck on Before, while half of it is stuck on After, and he doesn’t know which thought is his, and he doesn’t know what he believes now, and—

“Did you send Phillipe to the glue factory?”

Roman recoils from the very thought—he’d spent days grooming Phillipe’s fur, feeding him apples and carrots and cubes of sugar, he’d loved Phillipe—and the other him laughs.

Or—no. The other Roman? The other twin? The other side? Is he technically his own side, now? If they were both Creativity, then what—

His confusion gets abruptly set to the side when there’s another, terrified scream within the tower. Roman shakes his head, hard, as if he’ll be able to dislodge this whole crisis of personality like he’s erasing an etch-a-sketch, and solidifies his grip on his sword’s handle, not quite bringing it out of the scabbard yet.

“Unhand her, foul beast!”

He blows a raspberry, swinging frightfully from the side of the tower, only held by his boot, lodged between where a brick had been dislodged and his grip on one of the (new) spires—he could fall, and what would happen then?

Is he supposed to care? The death of a villain would be a good thing now, wouldn’t it? But then if that was what was meant to happen, then why bother to keep them split in the first place, why not just divulge the bad, keep the good? Is it bad that he’s thinking about this? Murder is bad, it’s definitely bad, he shouldn’t be thinking about it, but—

“Boooorrrr-iiiiing. C’mon, give me an insult with some pep to it, aren’t you supposed to be Creativity now?!”

Roman grits his teeth, and snaps before he can even think of stopping himself, “Aren’t you supposed to be the scary one, Ja-nefarious?!”

For a moment, Roman thinks he’s gotten him, but that’s before that demented grin widens and that worrying crazed look in his eyes shines brighter.

“I said an insult, not a compliment!” He preens, and Roman scowls.

“What, you can do better?” He says scornfully.

“Well, duh,” he says, and then, gleefully, “You’re boring now—Roman, isn’t it?”

Roman forces his hackles not to rise.

“I mean, think about it,” he wheedles. “Which of us is more useful—the one who comes up with the original ideas, the unorthodox ones, or the one who comes up with the same—“ He flicks a dismissive hand, nose wrinkling. “White horse, sword, save-the-girl kind of story, over and over and over again?”

Roman feels an angry flush take over his cheeks. “Unorthodox doesn’t have to mean murder.”

“Why not?” He said, and he sounded genuinely curious—like a small child asking why the sky’s blue, not posing the question of if murder’s genuinely punishable or not. “Which one will make more of an impact—if I drop this sweet, innocent damsel from the tower, or you saving her?”

“Don’t you dare,” Roman snarls, and the other one—Remus—bares his still-animalistically-curved teeth in a grin.

“Watch me.”

With a wild yell, Roman unsheathes his sword, and charges.

(He wonders if it makes him bad that a fight and seeing his brother him is the first thing that’s made him feel semi-normal since The Split.)

#my post #text #my fic #this occurred to me..... pretty soon after remus' reveal?#and this gave me an opportunity to write about it #so #sanders sides spooky month

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chngmic · 7 years

Text

A Whole Lot Greater Than the Sum of His Parts - Halloween Fic Exchange

For @skyroseblog or now @skywalkertvvins . Happy Halloween!

This isn’t scary at all (fuckin rip my horror writing), but this could be considered a creature AU if you thought about it. I suppose.

Well, I hope you enjoy! I actually had to cut it because it was longer than it already is (and this is pretty long). I may make oneshots to add those moments I had to cut out.

Thank you for reading, as always!

AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/1256616

The invention Todoroki Shouto’s father kept in the basement had been a part of his life ever since he was little. He could easily remembering the cutting of metal and the smell of iron vividly, eating his breakfast and staring at the locked basement door, hoping maybe the glare from his eyes could shoot a laser and knock a hole in the door.

His father was very secretive about his creation, not letting anyone else see it - not even his wife knew what is exactly was. Shouto would always ask his mother what his father was building, and his mother always avoided the question by distracting him with questions about school.

As Shouto grew up, he also became bitter. His father started forcing him into the engineering field, as well as abusing his family. Shouto was to “become the next great inventor, and needed the advanced courses he deserves”, as his father said, making Shouto to watch him work.

He still never saw the creation his father spent his whole life working on.

Shouto also found out that he hated machinery - the coldness and apathetic aura that surrounded the rooms he worked in reminded him too much of himself. He could feel himself slowly losing the spark he had inside, rotting into a cold, calculating machine himself.

It got even to the point to at his father’s funeral, no tears were shed out of his eyes. Why should there be? The old man ruined Shouto’s life and drove his mother past the brink of insanity, leaving her to pour boiling water on his face and give him a brand of his own passiveness in the fight against his father. Yet, he was his father, his own flesh and blood, and Shouto should feel something, but he didn’t, and watched his father be put in the ground. His family would be talked about of course - people could understand Shouto not crying, but when a whole family just stares as their father is six feet under, it causes concern.

“Your father left a will, did he not?” Shouto’s close friend Iida asked one day as they poured over books about mechanical engineering. “I remember seeing your mother being told its requests.”

“He did,” Shouto said slowly, copper and iron starting to tang his tongue. “He left everything to me. The house, the inheritance. Even the key to his room in the basement. He didn’t leave anything for Fuyumi, or for my mom and brothers. He’s a pain in my ass even while covered in tons of dirt.”

Iida snorted, pushing his glasses atop his face. “That’s terrible, truly. What are you going to do about it?”

Shouto closed the book he was reading. “Split the inheritance and sell the house, giving the money from the house to a charity. I hope the bastard rolls in his grave.” That made Iida fully laugh, shutting his book as well.

“You sound a lot like Bakugou right now,” he teased, which made Shouto groan. “Just saying! I’m curious about this as well: what are you going to do with the basement key? Throw it away?”

“Actually, yeah,” Shouto blinked as he started placing stuff in his bag. “There’s nothing in there that’s of use to me. You have any good ideas, Iida?”

Iida hummed. “Well, this is just a suggestion, but I would be very curious to see what my insane dictator of a father has been pouring his life into for the past 16 years. You can’t help but want to know, right?”

Shouto nodded, shrugging. “Yeah, I suppose. Curiosity kills the cat, though.”

“Yet satisfaction brings it back,” Iida finished, throwing his bag over his shoulder as he stood up. “Not saying you have to do this, but I think it would be good closure.” With a wave, Shouto’s best friend left, leaving Shouto with half finished notes and half finished thoughts.

The door to the basement still looked the same as it did years ago. Shouto took a deep breath, holding the key in his grasp. It was silver, a simple design that wasn’t meant to be showy. Clearly his father did not want people knowing about this room or project.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay by yourself?” Fuyumi said gently, an ever cautious hand wavering over Shouto’s shoulder. He covered his sister’s hands with his own, smiling a soft smile that’s only been directed at her.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine, Fuyumi. There shouldn’t be anything too horrible down there. He was a piece of shit, but I don’t think he would build anything to tarnish his reputation.” Steeling his nerves, he unlocked the door with the simple silver key, pushing the basement door open. “You’re welcome to stay here and wait for me though,” Shouto said behind his shoulder, shrugging. “If it makes you feel better.”

“It actually does, so I’m going to do that,” Fuyumi said, sitting in a pulled out kitchen chair. “If you’re not back in ten minutes I’m coming down, just saying.”

Shouto snorted and waved at her behind him, slowly starting to descend the stairs. Squinting, he took out his phone and put the flashlight on, at least until he found the light switch. The kitchen light got dimmer and dimmer as he went into the basement until there was only him and the light guiding him.

After what felt like forever, which was probably like 3 to 5 minutes, Shouto hit the last stair, and the lightswitch. A generator hummed as he looked around at his father’s invention table, still with metal scraps, and the mess of tools and materials strewn about the room. When Shouto watched him work, he was never in the basement - it was his father’s research lab that he was in most of the time, watching him build little trinkets and gadgets.

“He sure didn’t keep the place spotless,” Shouto muttered, turning his flashlight off. He glanced around, but didn’t see anything particular.

His heart stopped.

In the far corner of the room against a wall was a boy, seated on the floor. His eyes were closed and didn’t seem to be breathing. After a second look, because panic made you think stupid stuff, Shouto realized that he had lines from his eyes that fell vertically to his jawline. He was wearing green, black and red armor, plates coming together to form some sort of jumpsuit. There were bright red shoes that could have lightened up the room themselves, and atop his head was green curly hair. He appeared to be slumped against the wall, sleeping.

At second glance, Shouto realized the boy was plugged into the wall, and wasn’t even a boy at all - it was a robot. His breath stuttered a bit upon this realization, and Shouto slowly walked to the robot, and bent down in front of them, his hand reaching up and brushing the breastplate, looking for a switch.

“Is this the thing my father has been working on for a decade and a half of his life?” Shouto whispered, freezing when he felt the switch. He paused, thinking of the consequences.

There aren’t any consquences. The only person who’d give you any consequences kicked the bucket a few weeks ago.

With that in mind, he flipped the switch to On.

The robot’s generator hummed, and slowly their eyes opened, blinking blearily. Shouto looked at them in awe, waiting for them to speak.

“Ah,” the robot said softly. The voice sounded like a young boy, around Shouto’s age. “Um. Hello.” They gazed around, seemingly confused. “You aren’t the professor. Who are you?” They asked, head turning with a little whirring sound to make it look like their head was cocked.

“Professor...I’m guessing you mean my father,” Shouto said slowly. “I’m Todoroki Shouto, his son.” The robot’s eyes widened, and they smiled happily.

“Shouto! I’ve heard a lot about you!” They beamed. “My name is D3K|_|, but please, call me Deku!” Shouto stared at Deku, confused.

Why would his father name a robot useless?

“Is that your only name?” He asked Deku, his eyebrows furrowing. The robot continued to look confused.

“Yes. The professor gave it to me. I’m very proud to own it!” They said, puffing out their chestplate. Shouto smiled a little at their antics.

“Okay, I understand. How long have you been charging?” He asked the robot, unplugging them. Deku stood up, stretching their limbs.

“I don’t have an exact concept of time, but the clock the Professor placed in me said I was placed in hibernation about 3 weeks ago.”

A month? Shouto blinked, but sighed softly. “That’s understandable.”

“Speaking of the Professor, where is he? He usually is the one who wakes me up,” Deku exclaimed, looking around as if Shouto’s father was hiding, waiting to jump out of the shadows. Shouto stiffened, and placed a hand on Deku’s shoulder.

“Ah, Deku, I’m sorry, but ah, the Professor, as well as my father died a week ago. He won’t be coming back.”

Deku stared at Shouto with wide eyes, and looked down again, looking crestfallen. “I-I seem yes. Human’s do do that, I suppose. They aren’t forever, like I am.” They let out something like a sigh, and smiled ruefully at Shouto.

“I don’t know much about emotions. The Professor was teaching me about them, and I’m still learning, and right now...I feel this tightness in my chest. I don’t have a heart, so why is it so tight?” Deku asked, their robotic hand coming up to grasp at his chestplate.

Shouto let out a shaky breath, and looked down at the robot, “That’s called sadness, Deku. That’s what you’re feeling.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Sadness. I see.”

“So he was just….in Dad’s basement?” Fuyumi asked as they watched Deku look around the kitchen in awe. Shouto nodded.

“It’s just as insane as it sounds. I can’t imagine why he would build them in the first place. Maybe Pops was trying to create a mature AI with human emotions?” Shouto guessed, rubbing the back of his head. “Anyways, I can’t bring it in myself to turn them off. This isn’t their fault.”

“What are you going to do?” Fuyumi asked, looking up at him. He laughed humorlessly, grinning down at her.

“What else? I’m going to take Deku in. Technically, they’re my property now,” He said, placing both hands on the back of Fuyumi’s chair. She blinked.

“I mean, I suppose you can do that. Will your school let you though? You can’t have a different gendered roommate,” Fuyumi countered, leaning back to watch Deku open and close the oven repeatedly in awe.

“I can change that,” Shouto said. “Hey Deku, did the Professor ever give you preferred pronouns to go by, or a gender?” Deku looked up at Shouto’s words.

“Well,” Deku hummed. “Considering I am a robot, I am genderless. So I have no gender. Though, the Professor did build me with a masculine structure, and used masculine pronouns. Going off of that, I assumed he saw me as a male.”

“Disregarding that bas-I mean, the Professor’s opinion,” Shouto corrected - he didn’t want Deku to find out how the Professor actually was just yet. “How do you identify, Deku?”

“Well, if I had to decide on how I feel, I do honestly feel masculine,” Deku said genuinely, shutting the oven door. “So I suppose use those pronouns for me, they make me quite comfortable.”

“Alright then,” Shouto said to him, a small grin on his face. “See? It works out.” Fuyumi sighed.

“Well, whatever, I guess he is a robot. The people at your school aren’t politically correct enough to ask, I bet,” Fuyumi said dejectedly, waving her hand. “He’s your robot now, so do what you want with him.”

Deku beamed, his eyes almost lighting up like a light bulbs. “I get to be with Todoroki? That’s exciting!”

Shouto shifted, and sighed. “I guess. I’m not that fun to be around honestly. All I do is work.”

Still with that same stupid smile. “I’ll help you then!” Deku exclaimed, standing up straight. “I’m an ever growing, ever maturing AI! My intelligence level is high as well!”

Fuyumi and Shouto glanced at each other.

“Have fun with him,” Fuyumi said.

“So, what do you do?” Deku asked as he watched Shouto plug in his charger and other means. Shouto paused, pushing the block to the side and glancing towards the robot on the bed.

“I’m currently an engineering student,” Shouto said, stiffening a little as his guard went up. He hated bringing up his forced career track. Now that his father’s dead, though, Shouto supposed he could change that, but there was still this voice in his mind forcing him to stay with it. Deku’s eyes widened.

“So you work with machines as well! Are you aiming to become like the Professor?” Deku asked innocently, swinging his legs up and down on the bed. Shouto’s stare went cold, and he looked away. “I don’t want to ever be like him.”

Deku blinked, confused. “The Professor said you were going to be though. He said that you were his masterpiece, and that-”

“Deku.” Shouto’s voice was ice, and it made Deku freeze in his tracks. Shouto looked up at Deku, eyes piercing.

“The Professor is dead. He also didn’t consider the fact that I am my own person. His ideals aren’t my own,” he said sharply. “So please, don’t bring up what he said about me again.”

Deku’s eyes dimmed, and he sagged a little. “I-I apologize. That was rude of me, talking about things I have no idea about.”

“It’s not your fault,” Shouto sighed heavily, not wanting the robot to think he hated him. “You’ve only been with the Professor so far, so you only know his ideals.”

“What are your ideals, then?” Deku questioned, staring at him. Shouto blushed a little, going back to setting Deku’s things up.

“I originally wanted to be a writer,” he finally said, standing back up and walking to sit next to Deku on his bed. “A novelist, to be more specific. I love writing stories. My father saw it as fantasy though, and forced me into engineering.”

“Do you not like machines?” Deku asked slowly. Shouto shook his head. “Why not?”

“They’re cold, and hard fact. They deal with too many factual things and I don’t feel my soul in them. I don’t feel the love that I do in a book.” Deku was silent and he glanced over at the robot, who was stared at his red metal feet.

“Do you think I have any love, Todoroki?” Deku asked softly, his hands clutching the comforter below him. “Do you feel love in me?” Shouto thought for a moment.

“My father doesn’t have an ounce of love in his body. So if you do, it’s not his,” he said, trying to find the right words.

“Can I find it then? Love?” Deku asked immediately, turning to look at Shouto. Shouto blinked, staring into Deku’s eyes.

“There’s many different types of love, but…” Shouto thought about his sister, Iida, Uraraka, Momo, and even Bakugou and Kirishima. He thought about how despite how cold he was when he entered University, they warmly welcomed him, and made him feel like he was important.

“If you’re surrounded by the right people, then yes. You’ll find it.”

“So your father built a robot?” Iida exclaimed at their friend group’s study meeting. “Like, an actual talking robot?”

“That’s so cool!” Uraraka said, clapping her hands together. “Do we get to meet it?” Shouto closed his eyes and tried to focus on not telling his friends to stop talking at the same time.

“To answer your question Iida, yes, he did. I can’t believe it either. To answer your question, Uraraka, he’s still new on people. The only people he’s met are my father, my sister, and myself,” Shouto said, sipping his coffee as he read his textbook.

“Does he have a name?” Uraraka asked, abandoning her note taking to question Shouto on his new friend. Shouto sighed - once Uraraka started getting curious, there was no way out.

“He said to call him Deku, which is kind of a contradiction since he’s basically named worthless-”

“It doesn’t sound like that to me!” Uraraka said. “It kind of also sounds like ‘I can do it’, you know?” Shouto blinked. No, he didn’t know, but that was a far better alternative to think about.

“That does suit his personality better,” Shouto said thoughtfully, taking another sip of his coffee, textbook unfortunately ignored.

“Does he have a personality? Considering the fact that he’s a robot,” Iida said, curious as well. Shouto nodded, agreeing.

“That’s what I thought, but Deku is quite polite actually. He has this childlike innocence about the world and believes that everyone is a good person,” Shouto explained, leaning back in his chair. “Even my father.”

“Does he know about your father?” Momo piped up, after listening to the conversation for a good bit. “I’m sure your father wouldn’t tell his robot that he’s abusing his family.”

Shouto chuckled a little. “Not that I know of. I can’t bring myself to hurt him like that, though. It would kinda suck finding out the person who brought you into this world was also trying to take people out of it.”

There were hums of agreement as the conversation came to a close.

“I still want to meet him though.”

“God damnit.”

“Angelface told me you have a fucking robot now,” Bakugou said to Shouto while they were at the gym. “How is that?”

“My old man’s,” Shouto replied, placing down his weights. “I don’t have it in me to turn him off permanently, so he’s staying with me.” Bakugou grunted, placing his weights down as well.

“Are you sure it isn’t gonna fucking shiv you in your sleep or something? It was made by that piece of shit after all,” Bakugou exclaimed, wiping his forehead off with his sleeve. Shouto barked out a laugh.

“He got upset yesterday because I killed a spider in the bathroom,” he said, grinning slightly. (“If I had a crying function, I would be sobbing right now! How could you have killed Spidey?”

“Wait, you named him?!”)

Bakugou snorted. “It sounds like a fucking wimp. Aren’t robots supposed to destroy the world or something?” Shouto rolled his eyes, picking up a heavier weight.

“This isn’t War of the Worlds, dumbass,” he said, pumping up and down. “He just acts like a human being.”

“Well, isn’t that great? A robot who acts like a human, and a human who acts like a robot.” Bakugou grinned. “You two are perfect for each other.”

Shouto didn’t speak to him for the rest of the session.

“He’s so cute!” Uraraka squealed upon seeing Deku in Todoroki’s room when she, Iida, Momo, and Kirishima came to visit. Bakugou and Momoko were currently in class (“But they send their regards!” Kirishima said cheerfully.)

“Um, thank you!” Deku said uncertainly. “Todoroki, who are these people? Did you allow them entrance?”

“Yes I did,” Todoroki said gently, ever patient. “These are my friends Uraraka, Iida, Momo, and Kirishima,” he introduced, pointing to each of them in turn. “They wanted to meet you, so I brought them here.”

“Ah! So these are friends!” Deku said, beaming. “Of course! Well, hello! My name is D3K|_|, but please call me Deku!”

“Hi! I’m Uraraka, like he said!” She said in a bubbly tone, beaming at him. Shouto had to turn away from how much sun suddenly filled up his room.

These two are dangerous together.

“Hi there, it’s a pleasure to meet you!” Deku replied, sitting cheerfully on his bed. Shouto smiled softly.

“My name is Iida,” he said in a professional tone, holding his hand out. “I have heard much about you. It’s great to put a face to the name.” Deku stared at Iida’s hand, confused. “Um…”

“Take your left hand and place it in his hand and move it up and down,” Shouto whispered to him, and Deku’s mouth made an ‘o’ shape, doing so. Iida moved away, satisfied.

“Yo! I’m Kirishima,” Kirishima said cheerfully. “Any friend of Todoroki’s is a friend of mine! Feel free to talk to me anytime, I heard I’m quite easygoing.” Deku smiled again, nodding at his words.

“Thank you! I’ll be sure to keep that in mind!” Deku said genuinely, making Kirishima grin.

“You’re really cool. Todoroki, does he have lazers and shit?” Deku shook his head.

“Professor made me to be exactly like a human, so I don’t have many powerful functions,” he admitted, sagging a little. “My intelligence and design though is very extraordinary!” Deku said proudly, puffing out his chestplate.

“If you don’t want him, can I keep him?” Uraraka whispered to Shouto.

“He’s mine, sorry,” Todoroki whispered back. She pouted.

“Anyways, I must leave, I’m afraid. I have class to attend,” Iida said, pushing his glasses up to his face. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Deku. I hope we talk soon!” After bowing low to the ground, he left.

“What a goody two shoes,” Kirishima joked, and him and Uraraka joined the pair on the bed, and talked for a few hours.

(“Did you like them?” Shouto asked Deku after they left. Deku thought, and smiled a soft smile, making Shouto’s heart leap.

“They’re amazing. They make you smile in a different way. That’s….that’s love, right?”

Shouto smiled.)

A couple of months passed since he decided to take in Deku, and Shouto could definitely feel something happening to his body. Lately, he was starting to get nervous around the robot, like the butterflies in the stomach, heart pounding kind of nervous. Shouto wasn’t running a fever (he had Deku check) so he wasn’t sick. He didn’t understand why he was feeling this way.

From the way Momo was grinning, Shouto could tell he wasn’t going to like his answer either.

“From what you’re telling me, I’m 90% sure you have a crush on your robot,” Momo said, calmly sipping her tea after Shouto’s tangent.

Shouto choked on his coffee.

“I beg your pardon? I can’t have a crush on him. He’s a robot!” Shouto said in an unusually high voice, making Momo chuckle.

“You have all the symptoms,” she explained gently. “I felt the same way about Jirou when I met her, and look at where we are now.” Her engagement ring glinted in the sunlight by the window they were sat by. Shouto felt sick.

“Jirou is a human though! She’s flesh and blood, not machinery and electricity!” He shrilled, clearing his throat to calm himself down. “Is he even capable of liking me back? If what you’re saying is right, did I just set myself up for the ultimate unrequited love?!”

Momo placed her teacup down. “Well, you said it yourself, he’s an ever growing AI, so he has a mind that grows like a human’s. Also, a lot of humans have prosthetic arms and legs! It’s just, his entire body is a prosthetic, I suppose.”

Shouto placed his forehead on the table. “That doesn’t make me feel better.” Momo gently patted his head, resuming to look at her book.

“Just sit on it for a little bit. I could be wrong, but that’s what I’m saying, and what the others will say I’m sure.”

Shouto’s groan could probably be heard down the block.

When Todoroki was out at class or studying, Deku usually hung out with Iida’s girlfriend Mei and helped her out. She was very eccentric and brash, but extremely clever and genuine. Deku liked her a lot, and could see why Iida did. Right now Todoroki was with his friend Momo, so it was the perfect time to ask the inventor a question.

“Pardon me Mei, but I think I’m malfunctioning,” he said, making Mei pause and pop her head up from her current project.

“What do you mean? I’m sure I can help you, but I just checked you last week, What’s the problem?” Deku looked at his hands, clenching and unclenching them.

“When I’m around Todoroki, my chest feels very warm,” he started, watching Mei work. “And my memory drive feels quite fuzzy. So does where I assume my stomach would be.” He sighed loudly. “I can’t figure it out. I don’t have a heart, so what’s wrong with me?”

Mei stared at Deku.

“Oh my god, you want to touch tonsils with Todoroki.”

“What does that mean?” Deku asked innocently.

She stared at him. “Nevermind,” Mei said, placing her wrench down. “Anyway, Deku, based off those deductions, you have romantic feelings for Todoroki.”

“Feelings?” Deku asked, watching her go back to work. “Romantic feelings?”

Mei hummed trying to think of an example. “Yeah. Like how I feel for Tenya. How Tenya feels for me. It’s like….you want to be with them all the time. Seeing them smile makes you smile. If they were upset or angry the world sort of feels like it’s crashing down.”

Deku nodded, his eyes bright with wonder. “Okay. I see what you’re saying, and….I do want to be with Todoroki all the time.” He looked back down at his hands. “When he smiles, I want to smile. Seeing him upset - it makes me feel what you might call ‘worried’?” At Mei’s encouraging nod, he goes on. “Todoroki is an amazing person. He wants to be a writer, and I think he should be one. I told him so, but he said he has to stay in engineering,” he frowned. “Why does he feel like that?”

Mei was silent as she stood up, examining the metal machine in her hands. “I feel like that’s a conversation for you and him to have, Deku. I would ask him since you don’t already know.”

Deku nodded, thinking. “Yeah, I’ll ask him about that. Thanks for listening, as always! I’m glad you’re my friend Mei.” She laughed, waving him out the door.

“Yeah yeah yeah. Go get your man.”

“Hey Todoroki?” Deku asked as he watched Shouto get ready for bed. “Can I ask you something?”

“Hmm?” Shouto turned to look at Deku, his shirt halfway over his head. Deku looked away pointedly, more focused on his feet.

“Why are you sticking with engineering?” Deku finally asked, his hands fidgeting in his lap. Shouto froze as he was putting on his pj shirt.

“What?”

Deku looked up at Todoroki determinedly, a glint in his whirring green eyes. “You’re a fantastic writer. You have such a way with words, and I can tell there’s nothing else you would rather do than write. Yet you force yourself into engineering, where I can even tell it hurts you. It makes your eyebrows furrow, and you frown a lot, and….” Deku hesitated. “I don’t like seeing you so sad. It makes me feel sad. So, please tell me why you put yourself through something you don’t want to do.”

Shouto stared at Deku for a moment, meeting his eyes. Sighing softly, he finished putting on his shirt, walking to sit on his bed with resigned dedication. “You really are persistent, aren’t you?” He muttered with a quiet scoff, his hand coming up to cup Deku’s cheek. His cheek was metal, that much Shouto could tell, but it was also warm, power generating through the wires that encompass the robot before him.

Deku’s eyes widened, but didn’t push him away. He looked more confused at the gesture than anything, but him not moving Shouto’s hand away from his face meant that he trusted him - due to an unfortunate incident with Uraraka sneaking up behind Deku, he wasn’t too fond of people touching him without permission. Seeing Deku letting his guard down in front of him made Shouto’s heart melt.

“Todoroki?” Deku whispered, looking up at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Shouto,” Shouto said, clearing his throat to avoid any voice cracks. “Call me Shouto. I feel as if we know each other well enough.”

If robots could blush, Deku certainly did. He glanced away from Shouto’s gaze and he could feel his cheek get hotter, which made Shouto chuckle. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s just a suggestion.”

“I-It’s okay, Shouto!” Deku exclaimed, that determined gleam in his eye again. “You’re right, we have known each other well enough to go by that name! Unfortunately, I just have the name Deku, but that’ll have to suffice.”

Shouto let out a puff of laughter, and pulled his hand away from Deku’s face and placing his hands in his lap. “Well, you do want to know, don’t you? Why I won’t change my major and why I make myself miserable in engineering.” At Deku’s earnest nod, Shouto looked away, telling the story to the ground.

“I apologize. I haven’t been the most honest with you, Deku,” Shouto said with a sad smile. Deku cocked his head, listening. “My father, the Professor….he may have been a brilliant inventor, but he was a horrible father and husband. He abused my siblings and I, and my mother to the point of insanity.” His hand slowly crept up to the scar on the left side of his face.

“My mother did this to me. She poured boiling water on me, saying that I was unsightly because I reminded her too much of my father. I don’t blame her - my father drove her into a corner where she couldn’t get out. It just made me angry.” He felt a hand on his shoulder, and placed his own hand on Midoriya’s, knowing the robot was trying to comfort him the best he can. “He made me bitter. He was forcing me into something I didn’t want to do, but I had no choice. My father controlled everything about my life. Now that he’s dead, I suppose that’s not true, but this has been a routine for all my life. It’s become mechanical movements.” His laugh was bitter. “Honestly, I think you’re more human than I am, Deku.”

Deku was silent as he spoke, and after a moment’s pause, he quietly asked, “What makes you think I’m more human?” Shouto looked up at his glowing green eyes, which held a slight bit of confusion.

“You’re so bright. You have this gentle aura surrounding you, and you’re so alive. Deku, you feel emotions so strongly, and it’s so beautiful. You’re beautiful.” Deku’s cheeks flushed as much as a robot’s could, looking away. “Me? I can’t seem to feel. It took me so long to get the friends I have now, mainly because they’re persistent jackasses and sort of forced me to be their friend.” Shouto smiled softly. “I am thankful though. They’ve helped me a lot.”

Deku turned so he was sitting in front of Shouto, and took Shouto’s hands in his. “I don’t know too much about grief, and sadness,” Deku said slowly, trying to process his words to come out of his mouth in a correct manner. “I’m always learning, and still learning. Shouto, coming from a machine, I don’t think you’re more of a machine than myself.” Deku squeezed Shouto’s hands. “Humans work differently than machines. We either work or we don’t. We can easily get fixed and not remember how much we hurt, or had hurt. Humans don’t function like we do. Human’s can get fixed in a sense, but they don’t fully heal. There are scars, bruises, blemishes. You can’t turn a gear and get fixed.”

Shouto stared at Deku with wide eyes, listening to what the robot had to say. “You’ve been through more than most others have. Professor hurt you physically and mentally all your life up until this point, and you’ve had no one you felt comfortable enough to turn to.” Deku stared determinedly at Shouto. “Listen to me. One thing I have learned is that humans are not meant to be alone. You just can’t. You've subconsciously realized this, and you’ve made friends. You have been living this routine, this function, all your life. Todoroki Shouto, life is not meant to be on one function. The parts of you, the abilities you have, they help you to do multiple functions of life, and living. You are a whole lot greater than the sum of your parts.” Deku blushed a little, rubbing the back of his head with one hand.

“If I’m beautiful, than you are too,” He mumbled, looking away from Shouto. Shouto felt his hands reach up and cup Deku’s cheeks and make him look straight at him. Deku blinked, looking at Shouto with wide eyes.

It was like Shouto was on autopilot. He leaned in towards the robot before him and gently connected their lips. Deku made a small noise, but didn’t move away, and actually closed his eyes, taking in the presence of the male cupping his face. He could feel the heat from Shouto’s hands, and from his lips, and it set Deku on fire. He moved his hands to sit lightly on Shouto’s knees, holding them.

Shouto pulled away, and scanned Deku’s face, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Then, it was almost as if he got his bearings; the boy blushed and took his hands away, looking down at their legs.

“Ah, sorry,” He mumbled, refusing to look at Deku. “You just, said something amazing. That was my first reaction.” Deku was silent for a moment, and Shouto squeezed his eyes shut, ready for the inevitable rejection that was coming.

“Well….” Deku paused. “I’m not sorry. I actually really enjoyed that.” Shouto whipped his head up to look at Deku’s face, trying to figure out if he was joking or not. Deku chuckled a little bit, looking Shouto straight in the eyes with a shaky smile.

“So you-?”

“Yeah.”

“You actually wanted to-”

“Yes. I did. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

Shouto just stared at him with a dazed expression on his face, and Deku started laughing more. He finally broke out into a smile, shaking his head. Suddenly, Deku’s expression turned serious, making Shouto sit straight up.

“I don’t know much about romance,” Deku said, his chin up. “Yet, I would like to learn. I already know that I hold romantic feelings for you. According to an article from Wikihow I analyzed, we are supposed to go on these things such as dates. I don’t know what a fruit has anything to with it, but I will do my best!” His eyes held passion, and Shouto did the only thing he thought to answer that question.

He laughed.

“Okay, sounds good,” Shouto said, feeling the oil in his veins turn to blood, and the generator of his heart starting to beat instead of run.

#verasficexchange #ficwriterhalloweenexchange #tododeku #todoroki shouto #midoriya izuku #momo yaoyorozu #kyoka jiro #kirishima eijirou #katsuki bakugou #mei hatsume #todoroki fuyumi #uraraka ochako #bnha #fanfic #a whole lot greater than the sum of his parts

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novi-la · 5 years

Text

INKTOBER IS HERE

I made a custom list for my dear @empress-of-snark but I invite all my artist friends and @jenshi13665 particularly to partake as well as long as you tag me! It features objects of aura and texture. Let’s go!

1. Bridal hair clip- Made of shiny black horn, it carries a dignified energy.

2. Dancing fans- one black, one white, Mother used these fans to beguile men when she was young.

3. Heirloom pearl earrings- Simple yet elegant. Each girl of the family was presented these at the end of finishing school.

4. Haunted Blade- Used for blood binding rituals, this black blade gives off the uneasy feeling of betrayal

5. Wooden Mirror- A small glass in a carved wooden frame, words of encouragement will appear when you look within.

6. Wind Chime- Metal chimes and a metal disc ring to the tune of a song you sing often with a faraway friend.

7. Squid In a bottle- The preservative has turned a pinkish hue; you can make out suckered arms through the haze

8. Beaded Necklace- large chunky wooden beads form a link to your home country. Two of them resemble zebras.

9. Rorschach’s painting- A little dingy from being left by a dumpster, it could be a butterfly or two faces.

10. Family Ring- five birthstones held between two gold bands, it has tarnished with time.

11. Chalice- A bronze cup with a gracefully thin stem. There is a crescent moon stamped on it to honor the Ocean

12. Chessboard- Onyx black tiles and wavy green jasper tiles make a battlefield for kingsmen

13. Heiroglyph box- beautifully gold and stamped with ancient language, it is lined with red velvet gentle on treasures

14. Lava lamp- pink floating magma in a red fluid, sometime it seems to form watchful eyes in floating orbs

15. Copper bangle- an armband in the shape of a cobra, it seems to glimmer with fiery power

16. Silk pants- cinched at the ankle and the waist, its smooth fabric has a pattern of little flowers and vines

17. Tattered quilt- Hand sewn with love, this old and heavy quilt brings on an instant rest

18. Clay whistle- shaped like an eagle with wings spread, this whistle calls out to all those who ride the wind

19. Stone sphere- the size of cupped palms, this gray stone flashes in colors of the rainbow when light hits it. It pulses with strong magic.

20. Chipped Mug- A weathered vessel that seems to hold warmth from the potter’s hands. The words painted on it are now unintelligible.

21. Insect Diorama- different species on display pinned to a square board. Their eyes seem to follow you.

22. Potted Plant- a new sprout with spiky leaves in a fishbowl. There is a beautiful stone sitting on the soil

23. Thorn Wand- a thorny branch that makes a gentle s shape. Its thorns aren’t as sharp as they look.

24. Jar of Chalks- chalks shaped like eggs and wedges and little cylinders, all colors, in a mason jar.

25. Leather Grimoire- comprised of rough sheaves of paper, the leather bears a circular rune. It begs to be opened.

26. Incense Tower- a little house for scented smoke, tiny diamonds let the aroma float out.

27. Worn Coin- maybe a quarter or a nickel once, the face has been entirely scuffed away. Perhaps to pay the ferryman.

28. Mysterious Deck- in a gray velvet drawstring bag live 72 cards with Celtic knots in their backs

29. Snake shed- paper thin and empty, yet complete from nose to tail. Bury it to breaking hexes

30. Crowded keyring- keychains and baubles, old keys and new, It jingles merrily unless completely still

31. Mosaic Handprint- a circular concrete block with a hand print in the center. All around it are pieces of broken glass and ceramics picked from parking lots and roadsides

Have fun and create.

#inktober 2019 #mine

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darling-i-fancy-you · 7 years

Text

A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More Kiss Me - Part 5

[A/N: Okay so here is the penultimate chapter! This includes the teaser that was posted last week! Quite angsty but things are only going to get better from here. The next chapter is the final one and the resolve, I’ve already got it all planned out and I already love it so I hope you will to! Thank you for reading this fic, hope this part was worth the wait!]

Word Count: 1615

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4]

Jughead didn’t return back to his home that night at the drive-in, he spent the night wandering the streets of Riverdale until a text from a certain Kevin Keller caught his attention.

As his phone buzzed in his pocket he tried his hardest not to hope that it was Mo, he knew that if he did he would be sadly mistaken.

The information contained in the text however was just enough to distract him from crushing thought that maybe he’d never receive a text from her again.

Kevin: Jug, you up? You’ve got to come down to the lake, I’ve found Jason’s body. Quick before my dad gets here.

With that information Jughead sprinted through the street and towards Riverdale Lake, it was a hard feat considering he could only breathe through his mouth, but he had to see this with his own eyes.

Jughead managed to spend a few minutes looking down at the body of Jason Bloom, water-bloated and decaying with a bullet-hole straight through his forehead, before long he could hear Sheriff Keller and the rest of squad making their way through the leaf terrain.

Jughead made the smart move to hide out of sight; he wasn’t supposed to be here and looking the way he did right now, with a blood stained face and clothes, it could raise some questions from the cops.

As the day began to break and Kevin’s and Moose’s texts got read by their friends, and their friends-friends, and their friends-friends-friends, more people began to turn up to the clearing at the lake and Jughead revealed himself from his hiding spot.

From across the way he spotted Archie, standing alone, their eyes caught each other and Jughead wasn’t sure how he looked but Archie appeared concerned for him. He nodded his head in a way that suggested he wanted Jughead to come over; Jughead was considering it until a small raven-haired girl dressed in black strolled up from behind him and linked her arm through his.

Archie he could forgive, but Veronica and Betty? Well that was going to take some time.

Jughead slunk off into the darkness of the trees and out of sight of the red-haired boy and brown-haired girl. Jughead watched as Archie tried the scan the crowds, but to no avail, he couldn’t see his friend. Jug continued to watch from behind the leafy green as Veronica marched up to Betty, she was speaking animatedly but that wasn’t Jughead’s focus. Standing just behind Betty was Mo, she was wearing his green hoodie -one that he’d left at her house months ago and she swore she couldn’t find it.

His eyes were transfixed on her, her anxious face scanning the crowd, was she looking for him?

He barely noticed the other people surrounding her until they were all turning to leave. He watched as Betty, Veronica and Kevin linked their arms together. His eyes flickered back to Mo, just in time to witness Archie sling his arm around her shoulder and look at her warmly, he whispered something into her ear and she smiled.

Jughead’s heart dropped.

You had made it back to Archie’s and after the last twenty four hours only awkward silences could fill the space of his room.

You sat on the floor with your back resting against the bed, Betty and Veronica sat side-by-side on the bed, and Kevin sat in Archie’s computer chair spinning idly around. Archie was downstairs preparing some snacks, whilst Betty and Veronica flicked through Netflix – unable to agree on any of the others suggestions.

‘You guys bicker like an old married couple,’ Kevin quipped, ‘You’re so cute.’

The two girls smiled at each other and then continued with the argument with what to watch. You had to be honest you had completely zoned out, you had been focusing all of your attention on the string of your hoodie. So when you felt Veronica’s stocking clad foot tapping the back of your head, calling your name, you had no idea what she asked.

‘Huh?’ you sighed, turning your head back to look at girls.

Veronica tossed you a sympathetic smile, ‘I said Santa Clarita Diet, should we watch that?’

‘Uh, yeah- whatever.’ You muttered uninterested.

Kevin looked at Veronica and Betty from across the room, he pouted his bottom lip and used his eyes to point towards you in a gesture of pity, telepathically he was asking the girls what they were going to do about you. Despite the subtlety of it all, it did not go unnoticed by you. You loudly sighed in frustration and gathered yourself from the floor.

‘I’m going to see what’s taking Archie so long with the snacks,’ you grumpily announced, ‘and when I come back – less of the pity party, okay?’

You left Archie’s room and began to descend down the stairs, you could see from the stairs that doors to the kitchen were open, a bowl of chips and guacamole lay abandoned on the countertop and the kitchen looked empty.

‘Archie?’ you called out half way down, ‘I was getting bored of the pity party that the guys were subjecting me to, so I came to see what was taking so lo-’

The words caught in your throat as you stepped around the staircase, stood at the end of the hall was Jughead Jones. Archie had Jug’s arm held behind his back, his strength forcing the small boy to stay in his place.

Jughead looked awful, his faced was streaked with dry brown blood, purple crescents formed under his eyes and his lower lip quivered violently. In fact his whole body shook aggressively, the fingers on his free hand trembled and his legs wobbled at the knees.

‘Let him go, Arch.’ you croaked.

With your command Archie released Jugs’ arm and it swung limply down to his side. Archie nodded, asking you if you were going to be okay, you confirmed with a small sharp nod and the tall redhead side-stepped past Jughead and moved towards you. He lightly patted your arm as he walked past you and headed up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.

You both stood awkwardly on either end of the hallway, above you could hear the creaking of Archie’s floorboard as undoubtedly the people above you pressed their ears to the floor.

‘Maybe we should go outside and talk?’ Your voice was hoarse and your tongue felt thick in your throat.

Jughead shakily nodded and made for the back exit, you wished he hadn’t. The time spent in Archie’s backyard was filled with happier times: in the days before Kevin and Veronica, the four of you – Betty, Archie, yourself and Jug, would spend your days lying about in the backyard. You’d cloud-gaze, play childish games, see who could swing over the bar of Archie’s old swing-set – it was always Jughead.

You didn’t want to tarnish those times with such a glum conversation, however Jug had already taken a seat on the old rusting swing-set. Hesitantly you took the swing next to him. Your hands wrapped around the copper metal chains, they were cold to touch but you didn’t mind. Your feet slowly scuffed at the dirt and you swung yourself lightly forward and backward.

Jughead’s seat swung slightly from side to side, the bars of swing-set creaked and groaned under the pressure. You could hear Jughead’s lip parting and then closing again, short words caught in his throat but he could form nothing substantial to say. A small droplet of rain hit your forehead, you could have laughed at the cliché-ness of the moment.

You turned to look at Jughead, the light wind stuck his hair against his skin and the light rain began to dampen it. He looked sorry, he just couldn’t say it. You sighed taking in the sight of him, the memories of the backyard and days at Pop’s flooded into your brain, the laughs, the smiles and touches. You knew despite the foolishness of it all that this would never be the end of your friendship with Jughead Jones. Of course things would never be the same but-

‘I’ll forgive you, you know.’ your voiced wavered slightly.

Jughead shot his head up quickly at you, his eyes looked uncertain.

‘Not today,’ you continued, ‘and not tomorrow either.’

You kicked at the small stones that laid buried in the dirt.

‘Someday though.’

‘Do you hate me?’ he almost whispered.

‘Right now, yeah, a little bit.’

He took in a large deep breath and then exhaled, his eyes closed and his lips curled in towards his teeth. He opened his mouth and began to stutter.

‘I- I- I’m-’ sorry, the words went unspoken.

‘I know, Jug.’ You got up from the swing, the wind started to violently pick up and the swing rocked in your absence, your hair whipped around your face and the light rain drizzled on your cheeks. Your eyes stung with a light sheen of unshed tears, but you refused to let them fall in front of him.

‘I think-’ you took in a breath, ‘it would be- be for the best if I didn’t- if we didn’t see each other for a little while.’

Jughead looked up at you, the knuckles curled around the rusting chain were white with tension, he chewed at his bottom lip before giving you a weak nod. Your shoulders deflated and your lip trembled, a rogue tear betrayed you and broke free. You took a step back to make your way back into the house, Jughead could leave through the backyard gate, slowly you turned and made quick steps back into the safe house of Archie Andrews.

@lostinpercyseyes @every-day-is-wednesday @mysticmurder @assonanceambiance @murderyoursoul @fuck-i-dont-care-anymore’t-care-anymore @satanwithstardust @itsjaynebird @phanofmydreams @pendletonthethird @doktorswho @frickflop @kingpendleton @an-enigmatic-avenger @captainjacksparkles @casismyguardianangel @lost-in-wonderland-x @the-winter-imagines @multiversegalaxygirl @lumiele @ineedtoorganizemybookshelf @florenceivy @yazminmcd @wishingtobelost @gottalovetheapocalypse @keepcalmandflywithtoothless

#Jughead Imagine #Jughead Fic #Jughead Jones #Jughead X Reader #Jughead X OC #Archie Andrews #Betty Cooper #Veronica Lodge #Kevin Keller #Fic #Riverdale Fic

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iamterra · 7 years

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Scale vs scales (A Marik ficlet)

I have seen the scales of judgment and something is terribly wrong.

I always imagined them golden. Polished smooth with a gleam of refined beauty, possibly even decorated with a few precious gemstones but not this repulsive abomination. This scale were tarnished with time and showed no love over the years. The one side even busted to where two once golden chains hung down. One remaining in place to keep the circular plate attached. The other side still functional though it seemed as if it might fall apart at any moment as well.

Beyond that sat a miserable man. His skin green like oxidized copper and expression just as corrosive. This was no man, I instantly realized, but rather the god, Osiris.

Osiris raised one hand from his throne's armrest and turned it over slowly. A long feather appeared over his palm and stretched out past his fingertips. The feather emanating a pale glow of warmth and kindness that was strikingly different from the aura of the god holding it who rose from his throne.

“Even now as I stand before you, Marik, you doubt my existence?” Osiris moved closer and from the darkness behind him immerged a terrible beast. “You are no different from the rest who have forgotten us. Who allowed us to fade and lose our power.”

A long green snout taking shape from the dark, bumping against the god’s legs before the rest waddled in.The front lion half melting away into a fatty purple lower half of a hippopotamus. This was Ammit, the devourer, eater of souls. But she was not as fit as I once imagined either. If anything, she appeared swollen but none of that shook away the horror building in my chest.

“You, whose family was meant to serve, protect, and always be faithful to the gods. To lead one of us back into the land of the living with renewed purpose and rule again-”

“A task I never wanted!” I screamed.

“-And restore our ways that have been forgotten,” Osiris spoke louder as he stopped before me. His form much taller than I recalled it being moments ago. The god looming before me with his own crook and flail tucked at his side while he instead focused on holding the feather of Ma’at.

“He was going to kill him!” I hissed, trying to get my own side of the story in but the god kept talking. “I had to break tradition! We were dying in wait for a man who did not know we were waiting. A man who didn’t even care when we did try to tell him after our escape!”

“Silence!” Osiris’ voice boomed all around us as if we were in a tomb. The darkness not allowing me to see if it were so but that thought didn’t matter when he reached with his free hand into my chest.

An excruciating burn bloomed in my chest as he pulled out to reveal a heart. My heart. Red and still beating though as he turned to the scale he gave it a light squeeze and I fell to my knees. Arms over my chest where it had been removed.

“You will be judged.” He sat my heart onto the higher scale plate before placing the feather onto the busted side. My heart not moving as the plate rested on the table still and the feather floated in the air. “Just as I thought. Filthy.”

“WHAT!?” How could he judge my soul with a broken scale? This was not fair! “You curse us to a life we never wanted and then give me a rigged trial? I don’t care who you are! I-”

Pain raced through my being as my heart was picked up and squeezed again. A cry caught in my throat as this time it was much harder than before.

“You don’t get a say in what is right or unfair. Your soul has been judged and you have been found unworthy.” His words further fueling my hate towards the gods and their corrupt behavior. “Ammit.”

The heart tossed to the beast but missed it’s mouth and struck the floor. Another surge of agony while the soul eater waddled to turn around and go claim it’s ill gotten treat.

“You disgust me! All this power and how great everyone had made you out to be. I once believed in you but the more I saw and witnessed the easier it was to disbelieve!” I now glared at the god of judgment. His pet no longer in my sights but I could tell my time was soon up. “Now that I know you are real I still can’t help but be disgusted in myself for ever thinking you were great. You sicken me! I hope you all waste away into nothing!”

Osiris’ face looked just as disgusted as I felt.

“I hope you all die and become nothing! I hope this world becomes nothing and no one will ever remember you!”

A low hiss followed by a sharp whine erupted from the darkness. “Ammit?” Osiris finally seemed to have another emotion apart from disgust. The devourer flew across the room and crashed heavily into the scales in a thunderous clatter. The beast moving but unable to roll itself over.

“Fiiinally,” hissed a chilling voice from within the dark. “Sssomeone who undersstandssss!” Two glowing red dots revealed and easily growing in size to be greater in height than Osiris himself.

“Ap- How?” The green god stumbled backward in shock as an enormous snake head moved into view. A long purple tongue flickering as it tasted the air then slithered further in. The rest of it still emerged in black shadows.

“Ssiiilencce, old bonesss!” Sickle-like fangs were bared making Osiris reach for his weapons, drawing out his crook and flail though he did not attack. “I wisshhhh to sspeak with the mortal,” the serpent mused. It’s purple tongue flickering again but before he could speak again the god of judgment made his move. Battle quickly breaking out though it seemed that the snake was to win as everything Osiris did seemed to bounce of its scaly hide. Ammit finally up and trying to assist her master only to be flung over my head and crash into something unseen.

“Yourr heeaart, boy! Go get iit!”

I stood to my feet shakily unsure what all this pandemonium meant but headed for the heart all the same. Running into the dark, parts of it moved away and I could see stone pillars where a thick coil of a serpent's belly weaved between. My heart resting on the floor and still red though now a part of it seemed to have blackened. Probably from filth on the floor, I realized.

“Reememmberrr my name,” the serpent called back as the whole area shook with force. “Apophhhissss!!”

Panic filling me now as debris started to fall from above as pillar shook and crumbled. The only thing I could think to do was shove the heart back where it once was. My hands pressing it hard against my clothed chest till it began to ache and burn. At last it was in fully and the world itself became to grow light. The darkness ebbing away but the cackling remained like a steady hum in the base of my skull.

Water splashed around me and I gasped, now grasping the side of the tub. The water tainted red with blood from my arms but when I checked to see the damages, the cuts were scabbed over. The razor though at the bottom of the porcelain tub even after I shakily climbed out to dry off. None of this made sense. Nothing I saw made sense either but that name… That name was ringing some bells and yet I just could not place it for the life of me.

Apophis?

The ruddy water mocking me as I tried to steady my breathing and pulled the cord on the drain.

Suicidal thoughts, crazy dreams about forgotten gods and their pet abominations, no wounds, what was this? I must be tired… I had to be… I was always tired but this was something more. Something- I don’t know. I can’t place it but it was important. Maybe I needed to do some research. There had to be something on any of this. At least on Apophis...

#kind of want to write more but am too drained to #implied suicide at the end #death #rebirth? i mean i was planing on him coming back being a pseudo rebirth deal #anyone ever read the kane chronicles? i totes want marik to strike a deal with apophis and house him #means tons of near death burnouts for marik and chaos all over the place and fights with other characters housing different gods #but yeah i want a ygo/kane chronicles crossover #the title is stupid but i am so drained and realized i haven't eaten today WOOT #Yu-Gi-Oh!#ygo #marik ishtar #yami malik #egyptian gods #osiris #apophis #ammit #i need to proofread but i never do #i fail at life

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sduswdnd · 4 years

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Campaign 1 Part 7: The end?

From Part 6

Our heroes finally decide to go to Wave Echo Cave. With Rockseeker as their very crappy guide, they fight off sentient jello, magic mushrooms, and outwit both a wraith named Mormesk and a spectator named Kevin. They also find a brassier of green flame that ups their armor and weapons for twelve hours….

Part 7

Our intrepid heroes settle down in the workshop, splitting into pairs for watch. Gundren takes the first watch and Teiris decides to join him. Once everyone is asleep, Teiris sits next to him and hands him a bottle of whiskey.

“Sorry about before,” she says.

He nods and takes several swallows and hands the bottle back. “Thanks.”

“I didn’t mean to intrude on your grief, but…” she starts.

“Yeah, I know,” he cuts her off. “Not the time or place.”

She takes a drink and hands the bottle back. “Were you to very much alike?”

“Oh no,” he smiles. “He was the brave one…” he starts, telling her the tale of his brothers and the map. ~~~~~ Morning comes without issue and the group takes turns jumping through the green flame. Once everyone is suitably singed, they head off to the last part of their adventure.

Baze and Teiris go first and come across a giant set of bellows connected to an enormous blast furnace.

Teiris looks at Baze, “Hey, look what I can do!” She pulls out a piece of copper wire and speaks into it. “Hey guys, we found a giant air-pumper thingie connected to a giant pizza oven, come this way, you may respond after the beep… BEEP!”

In another part of the mine, Maik looks around confused. “Where the hell did that come from?”

There’s a momentary pause.

Teiris’ voice comes across again, clear as day. “Language, you may respond after the beep… BEEP!”

Maik grabs Mirea’s shoulders, terrified. “It’s happening again! The voices!”

Mirea readies a spell when she hears Teiris’ voice. “Uh, Mirea? I think I broke Maik. You may respond after the beep… BEEP!”

Mirea looks down and sighs. “Hey, guys, let’s go follow the idiots.”

“Which idiots?” ~~~~~ They all make their way to the idiots—I mean their compatriots.

“That’s a big pumper thingie,” Traxion marvels.

(That’s what she said!)

Around the furnace, numerous corpses in varied stages of decomposition lay about. They still wear the remnants of armor and look to be the last of the cave’s dwarven protectors and the orcs they fought.

Above them is what resembles a green flaming skull.

“Dibs!” says Baze, starting to sneak.

“You can’t call dibs before everyone else sees!” shouts Traxion.

“Dude!” Baze yells back. “Stealth!”

The sound of many palms hitting many foreheads echoes through the cave.

Traxion starts to follow Baze. Unfortunately, Paladin armor is not quite as silent as leathers. The flameskull hears their approach and activates the corpses, who begin to attack the party.

“Dammit!”

The battle starts.

Baze takes the first shot, hitting the flameskull. Maik, not to be outdone, goes after the nearest zombie. The zombies retaliate, but lacking depth perception, miss. Teiris hops up on the bellows and casts thunderwave. One zombie down.

“Hey,” says Gerrol, taking down another zombie. “What is the preferred brand of zombie clothing?”

Silvenhost swings and kills (re-kills, re-deads, can undead be killed…) a third zombie. “I don’t know?”

“Half a Zombie and Lich!” Gerrol answers, cracking himself up.

Captain Aerostar looks at them both, “Is now really the time?” she yells, setting Lucifer on one of the remaining zombies.

Mirea swings her flameblade at the flameskull. Traxion moves in to assist. Mirea yells, “Hey, get your own zombie!”

Teiris inspires Baze with a little ditty:

Because you know it’s all about that Baze, 'Bout that Baze, he’s trouble it’s all 'bout that Baze, 'bout that Baze, he’s trouble it’s all 'bout that Baze, 'bout that Baze, he’s trouble it’s all 'bout that Baze, 'bout that Baze He’s bringin’ booty back! Go ‘head and tell those scary witches that I know he thinks that he’s all that, But he’ll tell you, every inch of him is gnomish from the bottom to the top.

Baze finishes off the flameskull with a poof! The remaining zombies turn their ire on Maik. The party returns their ire and raises two malcontents; within a few rounds the rest of the zombies are dead. Again.

With several ways to exit the room, the party ‘decides” to split up. (Actually, Baze wanders off, Cap decides to follow, and the rest of the party stands there, oblivious.)

Baze and Cap come across two bugbears and a drow. Baze takes down the first bugbear with one shot, because sneak attack. Not to be outdone, Cap shoots at the second bugbear. The drow runs screaming from the cave. ~~~~~~ The remainder of the chaos crew stumble on one of their most feared foes: a closed door.

Traxion tries to push the door open. The door laughs in his general direction.

Gerrol shoves his shoulder into the door with more force. The force is not strong with him. The door creeks sinisterly.

Silvenhost jumpkicks the door. The door yells, “Ole!” Silvenhost misses.

Teiris studies the door a moment, noticing the small tarnished sign that reads “Pull.” She pulls the door open-- (Cue victory music…)

To five bugbears and a pile of goblins.

“Well, poop!” she sighs.

“Language.”

Maik starts by casting Pass without a trace. Mirea casts Moonbeam, toasting the bugbears like marshmallows. Blinded by the moonbeam, Teiris swings her rapier and misses.

Silvenhost swings and swings again, hitting one of the toasted bugbears. Gerrol and Traxion follow suit, letting Maik make the finishing blow on it, taking it out.

“Yay, teamwork!”

(That’s what he said!)

Mirea starts to chase the remaining bugbears around the room with her moonbeam. Mysteriously, Yakkity Sax begins to echo through the room.

Teiris singles out one bugbear and starts clapping and chanting:

“U!G!L!Y! You ain’t got no alibi! You ugly! You, you, you ugly!”

The rest of the crew start clapping along, distracting the bugbear and allowing the rest of the group take their shots. Teiris then inspires Silvenhost: Don’t screw this up, We’re havin’ such a good time, We’re havin’ a ball. Don’t screw this up, We wanna have a good time, We’re ownin’ this brawl Don’t screw this (cause we’re havin’ a good time) Don’t screw this (cause we’re havin’ a good time) Havin’ a good time…

Silvenhost, bopping the royal rhymes, swings and takes out his bugbear. Gerrol follows suit and finishes off the last one.

Teiris takes out her wire. “Hey, Cap, where’d you two go? You may respond after the beep… … BEEP!”

“We’re chasing after a drow. What’s up?”

“We just killed some bugbears, and are checking stuff out again. You may respond after the beep… … BEEP!”

“Argh, we’ll catch up with y’all.”

“Roger roger, You may respond after the beep… … BEEP!”

Teiris waits a moment, then says, “They’re chasing a drow. Should we help them?”

Traxion strikes his pose. “Of course we should!” He then furrows his brow. “Think we should try that sneaking thing Baze is always doing?”

Everyone shrugs. “Why not?” They stare at each other, “What do we do?”

“Baze always yells, ‘Stealth!’ and disappears. Should we try that?”

They all look at each other and shrug again. “STEALTH!”

No one sees them. Baze doesn’t even see them. They are retroactively stealthing from two weeks ago. ~~~~~ Baze is sneaking down the hallway when he trips over Traxion’s cape.

“Dang!” he says, “When did you guys get here?”

Traxion looks at him, “Dude, stealth!”

The crew make their way to the last room (FINALLY) and carefully open the door. Inside, they see four giant spiders and Nezznar, the Black Spider responsible for all this mess.

Baze looks at Cap. “Hold this,” he says, handing her a beer tankard. He carefully takes aim and snipes Nezznar. BOOM! Down!

“That’s it?”

“Well, that was anticlimactic.” “Disappointing.”

Mirea moves into the room carefully, Baze following closely behind. They begin to loot the body, grabbing his staff (no, not that one, you weirdos) and a potion of healing (ugh, you guys are terrible).

Traxion moves to the doors on the side of the chamber. His armor, however, clanks loudly, alerting the spiders. They attack!

Lots of spiders start spraying stuff all over the team (eww, you guys suck, get your minds out of the gutter!) tangling up Lucifer and biting at everyone. Silvenhost casts Magic MissileTM, taking out one of the spiders. Teiris gets webbed and starts cutting herself out.

Silvenhost says, “Screw this mess,” and casts Chromatic Orb.

YAY!!!! (He’s been trying to cast it ever since he got it!)

It hits! Dead spider guts everywhere!

They get through the doors and eventually find Rockhammer’s other brother, Nunyo, and get him and themselves safely out of the mines. True to their word, Gendry Racknacker and his brother draw up a contract giving a total 27% (3% per adventurer) of any of the profits from the mine to the team. The Phandalinarians also give them rooms at the inn whenever they like as well as the deed to the tumble-down manor. Teiris immediately starts contracting workers to fix up the place, calling it The Cloister of Shadow and Whispers, because every superhero team needs a hideout with a cool name. The group calls it the Cloisters for short.

After lots of hard work and a lot of gold, the group finally move into the Cloisters. One night in the common room, Teiris sits in the window, playing her viol. Maik, Aerostar, and Lucifer curl up by the fire, napping. Traxion sits with Gerrol, playing cards. Korrin is sharpening blades with Silvenhost. Mirea is druidcrafting ornaments for the mantle. Baze throws his dagger into the floor repeatedly. Mirea throws a pinecone at him, hitting him in the head.

“Hey! That is mahogany!” she yells.

Baze whines, “But I’m bored!”

Korrin mumbles, “Hi Bored! I’m Korrin.”

Teiris drawls, “Well, I still have this map we found in the mine…”

Baze looks up. “Road trip?”

Teiris nods. “Road trip!”

They run to their rooms, grab their bags and yell, “Don’t wait up!”

The end... or maybe the beginning?

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danithebookaholic-blog · 5 years

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SPOTLIGHT!

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Of Metal and Earth

By Jennifer M. Lane

Publication Date: July 19, 2018 Genre: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance

Synopsis:

In 1964, a rural town is rocked to its core when only one young man returns from Vietnam. Emotionally scarred, James hides from their pity and only finds the determination to lift himself up when he realizes what remains to be lost. He buys a little green Jeep, like the one that gave him shelter in the war, and hopes it will lead to salvation again. But the fortune it brings tarnishes, and James is left to sacrifice the thing that gave him hope for the people who need him most.

Over the next thirty years, the Jeep changes hands, passing between friends, family, strangers, and lovers. A single mother who buys a car for her reckless son nearly destroys a friendship with a man who silently loved her for two decades. An insecure youth at the start of his career learns that the most important lessons are the ones you never set out to learn. A family torn apart by their differences finds that love can be the hardest road to take. And a city architect must choose between the easy way to restoration or a difficult path that could save far more than just a rusty old Jeep.

Fans of THIS IS US, MITCH ALBOM, and NICHOLAS SPARKS will enjoy this heart-warming tale of restoration and redemption, a must read book for anyone inspired by the the resiliency of the human spirit.

Goodreads

Excerpt:

CHAPTER ONE

Dirt. Bullets of rock. Tree and plant and bone showered James in a hailstorm of earth. It smelled like hot metal. They’d prepared him for a lot before they shipped him off to Vietnam, but nothing prepares you for that much blood.

He wiped his face with the back of his hand, the copper taste of flesh and gore washing over his tongue. Not his. Someone else’s. There wasn’t time for his stomach to lurch, to give in to the question of which flesh. Whose blood.

James ran for the Jeep, one hand on his helmet, hot from the sun and pitted by the enemy. The other clutched a gun that was no match for artillery. He rolled beneath the Jeep.

Squinting through smoke and dirt, trying to focus while the sky settled, all he saw was earth, strewn red with flesh in strips and slabs. A foot. A finger. Andrew. Norman. David. Indistinguishable.

They weren’t supposed to be here. Four friends volunteered. Three followed. Tom stayed home to work at the bar with his dad. James should have stayed. They all should have stayed. If only he could close his eyes and wish Elk River into focus, but he needed to see, to make out the forms of his friends, what was left of them. Thirty men. Seven childhood friends. No one could have survived this.

Calling out to check would give him away. He wouldn’t hear their reply, anyway. His hearing had dropped out when the shells fell, heightening his sense of smell. Bile and blood. James buried his face in the grass, playing at death as it gripped his company. He waited for salvation. He didn’t care what kind.

* * *

James wore his fatigues home from Vietnam, more a habit than a choice. The bus rocked from side to side. Beside him, a woman tucked one magazine into her bag and pulled out another. Premier Kháhn from South Vietnam painted on the cover of Life. Her hands moved constantly, thumbing through pages and digging through her giant bag for hard candies and mints, which she offered to James with a running commentary on the state of the world.

The motion of the bus should have been calming, but there was nothing to calm. The closer James got to home, the more aware he became of the things that should bother him but didn’t. His chest was an empty pocket where sadness and pain should have been. He focused on the back of the seat in front of him, concentrating on the ripples in the leather. Little rivers, black with dirt. Maybe fifteen miles to Elk River? With the exception of the trip to Vietnam, James had never been so far from town. He was tempted to ask the lady next to him, but she’d only spoken at him, not to him, and James wasn’t ready to open the door that he’d closed between himself and the rest of the world. At least she wasn’t a war protester.

“Did you see this? John Glenn wants to be a senator.” She flipped through the pages. “There are protests everywhere. Segregation. I read that a group of boys in New York burned their draft cards. Where did you say you were heading?”

James craved quiet, but he didn’t want to be rude or invite sympathy. “Just heading home.” His mouth was dry, and his voice sounded foreign and distant.

She paused, turning up her nose at an ad for Hamm’s beer and playing with her cocktail ring, a chunk of turquoise surrounded by little blue and clear stones. She reminded him of someone’s grandmother with a pillbox hat and an oversized blue dress that looked like curtains. She smelled like mothballs and cheap perfume. “A few minutes ahead here is tiny little Elk River. It was on the national news for losing all those boys. Such a rare thing for so many who knew each other to end up in the same platoon and then to lose so many at one time? Tragedy. They’re talking about ending the Buddy Program.”

James pulled in his elbows, a protective measure. “National news, huh? Tom Brokaw?”

She chewed her lip, flipping past ads in the magazine. “And Walter Cronkite. All of them. I know a man in Elk River. He owns a hardware store. Actually, I knew his wife, but she passed away ten years ago. Goodness, he must be ninety years old by now. I think it’s next to the diner.” She pursed her lips and shook her head. “I’ve eaten there so many times, and now I can’t remember the name of the lady who runs the place. Anna, maybe. Or Amber.”

“Angie. It’s down the street from the hardware store, but yeah. Angie.” James kept his eyes trained on the wooded horizon. He’d heard little from Elk River. Just a letter from Tom offering him a place to stay, saying that his mail was at the bar and how hard it had all been on the town. Tom hadn’t mentioned anything about the national news. James didn’t want to ask about the town, to invite questions he’d have to answer or sympathy he’d have to assuage, but he needed to know what was on that horizon. “What’s it like there? Media camped out downtown?”

She wrinkled her nose and fumbled for words, which she offered in sing-song sympathy. “Um…It’s been a tough time for that little town. Our church went down to offer some support. There’s a lot of pain. I think most of that town lost someone.” She offered a sad smile to her magazine.

“They’ll be glad to have you back.”

James took in a long slow breath, letting air fill so much of him that there was no room for emotion—if any decided to show up.

Someone at the back of the bus sneezed. Another offered a blessing. Both felt like the spread of disease to James. He shifted in his seat, searching for elusive comfort for his weary bones. “It’s been a long trip. Do you mind if I tune out for the last leg?”

“Of course. Listen to me, prattling on. You’ve had quite the experience. I have a whole pile of magazines here. I’ll just let you be.” She lifted her hand and patted his knee with her painted nails and giant ring.

James leaned away and held his breath for as long as he could to keep from fogging up the window. There should be fear in there somewhere, but a numbness kept the world outside from coming into tune, like radio static. What would he say to them? What would they want from him? Would they want to know what he saw? Would they want to hear the last words? There weren’t any. What would they expect from him? Sadness? He didn’t have enough for himself, and he certainly didn’t have any to spare. Their questions, what he expected they’d ask, came at him fast. He tried to prepare answers, create a procedure for handling them.

He stopped trying. He didn’t plan to talk to anyone, anyway.

Rolling hills melted into farmland, into patchwork quilts of corn and soy. Valleys dotted with sheep and cows. The houses crept closer to the street and each other until they were closely packed.

Everyone who lived there was touched by the loss of someone in the war.

Downtown appeared in the windshield. The bus passed his father’s house, and he looked away. The faintest shadow of loss passed over him, but he couldn’t grasp it.

Not ready for that yet, he thought. The smell of the house, of sawdust and varnish. Of a future and a family he expected to come home to, if only his father’s heart hadn’t given up. Unexpected shrapnel from home.

Let’s just hope that Tom has a comfortable sofa. Something better than that cot he’d slept on at Tom’s when they were kids.

The brakes squealed at the only red light in town and the bus gave a gentle lurch forward. The Methodist Church sat adjacent to the Baptist Church. James had never been inside either. A carefree group of boys dashed out of the five-and-dime store, ricocheting off adults on the sidewalk like pinballs, clutching hauls of penny candy and toys. He and his friends had been carefree once, but that was a long time ago.

Almost home. He tapped his heel against the floor and ran his fingernail along the seam of his pant leg, counting the stitches, a habit he used to keep it together, though lately he was so numb and distant he wished he could fall apart. Another squeal from the brakes, another lurch, and the bus threw open its doors. The chatty woman stood and allowed James to pass.

“You take care now,” she said. “Welcome home.”

“Thanks for the company.” James offered a weak grin and gratitude that he couldn’t feel. “Enjoy the rest of your trip.”

Heat rose from the sidewalk, and humidity hugged the town. An air conditioner buzzed and dripped water into a pool on the sidewalk. James stumbled onto the pavement and slung his bag over his shoulder. His boots were heavy. Running his hand along the brick wall that led to the door of the bar, he traced the mortar with his finger. He wondered how many years it would take to wear away that mortar if he ran his finger along the sandy trench every day.

Purchase:

Kindle / Amazon

Author Bio:

A Maryland native and Pennsylvanian at heart, Jennifer M. Lane is a resident of East Norriton, PA. She holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Barton College where she served as editor of the newspaper. She also holds a master’s in liberal arts with a focus on museum studies from the University of Delaware, where she wrote her thesis on the material culture of roadside memorials. She once co-hosted a daily automotive blog and served as the president of a large car club. She enjoys coffee, whiskey, Earl Grey tea, and spending time with her partner Matthew and their own 1964 Jeep CJ-5.

Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Goodreads

From one bookaholic to another, I hope I’ve helped you find your next fix. —Dani

Have a book you’d like to suggest or one you’d like me to review? Please feel free to leave your comments down below.

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dazzlersjewellery · 7 years

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Things to Consider When Buying a Harmony Ball (Bola Necklace, Angel Caller)

Important Considerations when Buying a Harmony Ball Necklace (Bola Necklace, Angel Caller Necklace)

So Many Websites out there to Choose from when Buying a Harmony Ball Necklace

So this is good for the consumers, right?

.... well Yes and No as with many other things it really is a case of 'Buyer Beware'

Beware of websites with just pretty pictures and fancy presentations that lack details about the product, its actual size and importantly what it is made of and offering fantastic deals. Competition no doubt creates more competitive pricing for all of us but it also brings about potential traps for consumers.

As a Jeweler myself who is passionate about quality and very concerned with the increasing number of websites misleading customers about jewelry, I feel compelled to offer some advice, based on industry and scientific facts and my own training and experience, to help intending purchasers to understand the pitfalls they may face in buying Silver jewelry.

"Silver is not always Silver when it comes to jewelry and far too many people are being mislead about what they are actually buying." .... author unknown.

This article is worth reading as it will arm you with the knowledge that will help you make an 'informed decision' when you purchase your Harmony Ball

/Bola Necklace/Angel Caller/Pregnancy Necklace.

A few years ago there were far fewer websites selling Harmony Ball necklaces (and other quality jewelry items) than there are today. The explosion of websites selling these chiming necklaces is due to the Chinese manufacturers getting in on the act - making and selling simply silver 'Plated' copies of the original Hand Made Sterling Silver Harmony Balls, hand crafted by Artisan Silversmiths in Bali and in Mexico, the places of origin of these wonderful jewelry items. (by the way I am not anti-Chinese, I am anti-misleading consumers when buying Silver jewelry).

It is fair to say that prices have become cheaper - but so has the quality - if you really shop around you can buy a Harmony Ball / Bola Necklace for under U.S.$5 ... but would you really want to?

As a Consumer You Essentially Have Two Main Choices - 1. Buy a Quality Genuine 925 Sterling Silver Harmony Ball Necklace

or,

2. Buy merely Silver Plated (Costume jewelry)

Please take the following into account before you spend your money;

- the price saving between the two choices is in the vicinity of about $15 to $25 - the average price for a typical size (18mm or 3/4" diameter) Harmony Ball in 925 Sterling Silver is in the $45 to $55 range (more than $55 for that size and you are likely paying too much) - for a silver Plated one of the same size the range is generally $30 to $40 (if less than $30 it will likely be very poor quality and have a very poor chime sound, and over $40 you will be paying too much for just silver Plated)

- a Genuine Sterling Silver Harmony Ball is a Genuine 'Keepsake' while the silver plated one is simply a piece of Costume jewelry

- this will be a 'very Special' jewelry piece', right? ... purchased and worn for a 'very Special Reason' - and possibly for more than one pregnancy!

Silver Plating WILL WEAR OFF ... the facts are that the plating process adds a only a very minute thin coating (only a few microns thickness) of Silver onto whatever the material underneath is - most of the materials used in the making of Costume Jewelry (called Base Metals in the Jewelry making industry) are just made up of a mixture of scrap metals thrown into the melting pot, it could be anything - refer to this authoritative article about plating of costume jewelry here for more details (Silver-Plating-and-How-it-Differs-from-Sterling-Silver)

Why will the silver plating will wear off? - "I have other silver plated jewelry that I have had for years and the plating hasn't worn off"!! - plating quality can vary greatly between manufacturers and Silver itself is a very soft metal and can be easily worn off with abrasion - that is why copper is added to Silver to create Sterling Silver, to give it strength and toughness - see details about Sterling Silver below). Additionally a major difference is that a Harmony Ball necklace is worn day in and day out for 6 months or longer (200+ days and nights) and is in continual contact with either the skin or clothing or both intermittently and is being touched regularly - hence there is abrasion or wear of that very, very thin silver plating, the pendant bouncing and rubbing against an abrasive surface of clothing materials and even the skin with its natural oils plus any sweat or perfumes, body lotions etc can also be abrasive. So compared to any other piece that is not worn every single day and night for moths on end and is not in direct contact with clothing etc the Harmony Ball plating is copping some really harsh punishment. The rate of wear will vary, no doubt, depending on circumstances. Some clothing materials are 'rougher' than others, some people have oilier skin than others and some perfumes and body lotions have some pretty harsh chemicals that can accelerate the rate of wear of the very thin silver plating - all of these factors effect abrasive wear. It may take some time but it will wear off, especially if it has been a poor quality plating process.

What happens when the Plating wears off? with whatever the metal mixture is underneath the worn off plating rubbing on the skin it can lead to any number of things - rashes, dermatitis, dirty marks on the skin (green from the copper content is common) and worse if by chance the material the pendant is made of contains Nickel, a known cancer causing carcinogen - "but the website said it didn't contain Nickel", I hear you say. The problem with this is that virtually ALL Websites selling these silver plated Harmony Ball pendants are simply resellers, buying in from wholesalers in China via sites like Alibaba.com or DHGate.com and not even from the actual manufacturer and as such they have to take the word of the wholesaler who in turn takes the word of the Chinese manufacturer - there really is NO WAY to VERIFY for the consumer or anyone else for that matter what the metal alloy content actually is made up of and hence whether or not it contains Nickel. So it all comes down to trust.

TRUST and the website you buy from - aside from fancy professional appearance and impressive product images it is important that the website is giving you all the necessary information you need so that you know exactly what it is you are buying - information like actual size on the pendant (diameter) and what it is made of ... and not just the word Silver - in this day and age there is no such thing as just silver - it is either Sterling Silver or it is silver plated. Most sites selling Chinese made Harmony Balls refer to just silver so you will not know if you are buying Sterling Silver or merely silver plated, and rarely do they say silver 'plated'. Some are indeed up front whilst others will say Sterling Silver and in the fine print, in a hard to get to page, they will sate it is Sterling Silver 'plated' (a Chinese invention) to confuse or mislead consumers. Some sites do not even say what the pendant is made of on their fancy web pages, simply relying on the 'wow' factor and impulse buying based on a pretty picture. We probably need to ask ourselves the question 'Why are these websites so evasive in providing factual information?' The problem is the Chinese manufacturers are very good at making something look pretty. Some sites are run by very nice honest folk who believe they are selling a quality product, they have believed the wholesaler, others are sharks knowing they are misleading consumers.

Be wary of sneaky misleading embellishment terms like "generous layer of high quality Silver" or " silver filled" or "rhodium plated silver" (rhodium adds extra shine and reduces tendency to tarnish - it is used often on 'fine' jewelry, including Sterling Silver) - the term 'Rhodium plated' or 'coated' is used in conjunction with plated jewelry to try to deflect from the fact that it is only plated. The worst is just the word 'Silver' on its own leaving it the judgement of the buyer, and unfortunately none of this is regulated.

"Silver is not always Silver when it comes to jewelry and far too many people are being mislead about what they are actually buying." .... author unknown.

FAKE Gemstones - in addition, any so called gemstones on any Chinese manufactured silver plated Harmony Ball / Bola Necklace / Angel Caller are simply colored glass - (I know, I have smashed a few very easily with a gentle tap with a small hammer).

Sterling Silver complies to International Standards - Sterling Silver, sometimes called 925 Sterling Silver or 925 Silver is made to International Standards - it is consistently made up of 92.5% Pure Silver (or 925 parts per 1000, hence the tag of 925) with the remainder being Copper to give the Silver the 'tensile strength' it needs to be formed into jewelry (pure silver is too soft for making jewelry). Sterling Silver is classed as a 'Precious Metal Alloy' so the quality of Sterling Silver is regulated and is consistent and jewelry pieces made with it are regarded as 'fine' jewelry. (refer to this link to an authoritative website for detailed information about Sterling Silver)

At the end of the day we all have to make our own choices - it is much easier to do so armed with knowledge. Hopefully this article has provided some beneficial knowledge to assist you in your purchasing decision.

We all want to get a 'Bargain' but maybe we should look for 'Quality Bargains' ? ... so maybe ask yourself if you want save about $20 or so on a possible throw away or spend that $20 and buy a beautiful quality 'Keepsake', something that can be handed down from Mother to Daughter and on to further generations.

Ask any Jeweler, your local jeweler, for his or her opinion.

"Value for money is better in the long run than just getting a bargain" ... author unknown

p.s. it is not just individual websites that you need to be careful with - many sellers in the huge shopping sites like Amazon, eBay, Etsy and others are offering plated products 'without full disclosure to the shopper' (i.e. using just the term 'Silver') and it seems these big sites do not enforce stringent enough policies or controls about materials that their jewelry for sale is made of or how the seller projects that aspect of their product. So do not fall into the trap that it is a big name site so it must be OK.

Over 90% of the Harmony Ball products on these sites are simply silver 'plated'.

Alternative names for a Harmony Ball include Bola Necklace, Angel Caller, Harmony Necklace, Pregnancy Necklace, Bola de Grossesse among others

#harmony ball #harmony necklace #harmony ball necklace #angelcaller #Bola de grossesse #bola necklace #women's fashion #pregnancy gifts #pregnancy necklace #pregnancy

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friendlylocaldk · 7 years

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It’s bitterly cold out and they cannot remember the last dawn that graced these wretched streets. Most hunt in packs if they can, beasts and hunters alike though there are fewer and fewer hunters to be seen as the night wears on. For their part, they hunt alone, taking out hunters who are drunk on the blood of those they hunt and the beasts that stalk the cobbled streets. The only sounds are those of their whetstone running along the blade of their scythe and the distant howls of beasts. Perhaps this night has gone on for aeons or perhaps mere hours they’re not sure, the hunt never seems to end and those that are still alive and human cower in their homes, smart enough not to venture out.

Their footsteps echo as they move swiftly through the streets, a flash of red, gold and black trailed by moonlight glinting off tarnished steel. They’ve woken in the past from wounds that should have killed them, felt claws and teeth rend at their flesh and heard their own screams as they die, though each time they have woken at the last place they rested and surged back into the fray. When the hunt first started there were many hunters like them, those who would come back from death and walk the streets killing beasts with ruthless efficiency. They pause briefly when they spot a beast in the courtyard in front of them, the beasts fur is matted and blood coats the floor. It’s a matter of moments before they surge forwards and raise their scythe in an arc, the blade flashing dully in the moonlight and blood splatters the ground. The beast releases a strangled howl before collapsing in a heap.

The streets are largely empty and the scents of wolfsbane and various herbs linger in the air in a thin haze though nowadays it does little against the beasts, most hunters no longer wear masks to keep the miasma out preferring instead to rely on the incense that hangs in the air. They know few hunters, themself included who still wear the beaked masks filled with herbs and wolfsbane. They’ve been walking for what feels like an age when they come across another hunter resting on some stairs leading up to the cathedral which looms over the city. As they come closer they realise the hunter is a young man who has fear etched all over his face, it’s clearly his first hunt.

“Tell me young hunter do you dream?” They ask coming to a standstill in front of the man who peers up terrified.

“Yes.” He squeaks. It’s been a long time since someone had answered with ‘yes’ and their heart is filled with dread for the young man.

“Then there is no need to quake in your boots. The night is long but the hunt is longer.” With that they stride past him and into the silent darkened cathedral.

The moon reaches its peak maybe minutes or hours later and the beasts are no longer the wolf-like creatures they’re used to facing. Rather they’re octopus like and move with a squelching noise. It feels like they’re being driven to madness almost, the air is eerily still and the moon seems to have taken on a red tinge. They wonder briefly if the hunt had ended previously or if it is an endless night for they cannot remember the last time the sun warmed their skin or glinted off the windows as every time they have awoken from what should have been death it has been dark. The squelching noise makes it easy to tell when the creatures come and while the creatures may be fast they are faster and unusually coloured blood paints the streets. They rest again, in a small alcove where incense hangs thick in the air and beasts nor creatures seem to stray. They drift off for a while and dream of varying things, they’re grateful for that when they wake for while they’re taught to fear the old blood many hunters fear the time when their dreams end and they must become cautious or go mad with bloodlust. How many friends and comrades have they had to kill they wonder as they lurch upright and make their way through the streets.

They slip easily through well-used shortcuts, occasionally pausing to read notes written in the handwritings of long dead friends, some showing the slow descent into bloodlust and others being outright ramblings. They pause when they reach a note hastily scribbled on parchment, the ink still wet and the smell of copper hangs in the air. Below them in an overgrown graveyard where grey stone is being splattered crimson they see a brown-haired man, eyes obscured by bandages hacking at long dead beasts, citizens and the octopus like beasts they’d seen earlier. A rune hangs around his neck and they know him, he was an old friend once, their backup when things went wrong. They’d both died many times but looking down on him from the upper storey window they know what they must do, no one comes back from the madness. They move quietly down wooden stairs littered with papers, the candles beginning to burn low causing their shadow to elongate and their scythe to glint dangerously. A weight settled in their chest, it always does when they have to kill those they knew, though truth be told there’s always a madness in the eyes of those they have to kill like they’ve seen too much or all the knowledge in the cosmos has filled their brains and they can’t deal with it.

They notice he stills when he hears their footsteps and turns mere seconds later. For a long while neither of them move, it’s as if even in his madness he knows them. It doesn’t last though, he’s as quick as they remember and they rush backwards scythe coming up to meet the blade and the sound of metal on metal runs through them. It’s mere seconds later that they’re run through with the blade, a scream dying in their throat before it’s even fully formed, the sounds of the blade being wrenched out is the last thing they hear. They wake in the upper storey window above the graveyard, having dreamt but still feeling the pain of the wound even though it no longer mars their skin. Their feet carry them into the graveyard again where he stands muttering and hacking at the pile near his feet. This time they don’t hesitate, their scythe swings a broad arc their black cloak billowing out around them revealing the red and gold undershirt. He may have been their backup once, they may have loved him once and shared information on shortcuts but now his blood splatters on their cloak and they feel nothing for the madman he became but a part of them aches for the hunter they once knew. They pull the rune from around his neck, move his bandages to close glassy green eyes before covering them again and then leave the graveyard.

The moon hangs low in the sky, perhaps the hunt is ending and they’ll see the sun again, they muse. It’s a sliver of hope but it’s just enough that no matter what they’ve seen be it the wolf-like beasts that stalk the outer districts or the octopus like creatures that roam the inner ones they can hold onto their sanity. They’ve stood in front of those the Church claims to be gods and struck them down, they’ve begged and pleaded for the sun to rise so that the citizens may resume their lives for while the night is long the hunt is ever longer and it has sown seeds of distrust amongst those who live here.

#writing #inspired by Bloodborne

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