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permanentcrossfics · 3 years

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Blurred Lines: A Different Christmas // h.s.

How do we write Christmas fics in a really weird year? I’m still not sure, but I tried to string together a bit of relief for the end of December. I’m shutting myself up now, even though there’s lots I want to say. This is for anyone who wants it, anyone who needs it, anyone who enjoys it (or hates it!) silently and vocally alike. My Christmas gift is the happy and unexpected bonus of anyone reading what I have so much selfish fun thinking of and spinning out. Happy and Merry Christmas if you celebrate it, and a happy and merry end of December if you don’t and are just doing you! x

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It was the big Christmas tree you’d dragged back home by yourself on top of a rickety shopping cart all the way from a place on Second Avenue that had been your breaking point. Picking it had its own bittersweet undertones, but the smell of fresh pine tickling your nose even through a mask had kept you afloat as you struggled to get it off and onto curbs before traffic pancaked you in the middle of the road. It wasn’t until you were back inside, still wrapped in your coat and struggling to get it upright in the stand the correct way that you burst into a torrent of hot, selfish tears and bowed your head, kneeling next to the mass of needles and branches. He should be here! He should be helping you. He should’ve helped anchor lights in windows, he should’ve had an opinion on the scented candles, he should’ve made you go back for decorations you just weren’t sure of because you wanted them regardless of what he thought, and he should’ve helped pick, and carry, and set up the tree. The whole reason you’d gone out to get a fresh tree – something real in a year that had felt anything but – was to lift your spirits, but instead you were sobbing next to it and it all felt a little dramatically pointless. It was everything you’d avoided last year by flying off to England but that you couldn’t escape this time. What was the point? What was the point of pretending?

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“You coming home with me this year?”

Again. He asked the same question you’ve been dodging for weeks since plans had started to look uncertain again, not because he was pestering you, but because somehow, some way, you were both hoping for an answer with a loophole.

“I can’t,” you said softly, regretfully, holding your phone close to your face with one arm as you curled up under the duvet of a bed in an apartment that had somehow become yours together instead of his alone throughout the course of a very new, very different, very unsettling year. “For a few reasons.”

And he knew that.

Harry’s deep breath crackled and he dragged his hand down his face, holding it there as he shook his head, the thought processes you’d learned to read so well hidden from view.

You’d liked going home with him last year -- loved it, even. You’d hardly had time to look forward to a repeat when the world had flipped in the first quarter or sooner, and the sand had just kept slipping through the hourglass until all time for hope of a new and normal Christmas was gone and sucked away into the void of the year.

So many plans. So many memories that lived only as memories of daydreams now. So much else, so much more important, devastating, and tragic you couldn’t even put it into words and, frankly, didn’t want to. Not now -- you spent too much time thinking about it to think about it now, too.

“Filming’s done soon,” he said from behind his hand. “I can book my flight to New York--”

“Harry--”

“And then go to Manchester after Christmas -- after the New Year, we always take a bit of a longer break. Mum won’t mind--”

“Your mother’s barely seen you since last Christmas,” you said. “Your sister, too, and there’s not enough time to--”

“Course there is!”

“Two weeks quarantine in each?” you asked. “That’s a month of staying put, let alone--”

A split second glance at his face was all you saw before the screen went black and you bit your tongue. He hadn’t hung up, because you’d heard the soft thud when his phone collided with his chest, and you could hear him breathing now, so you waited, suppressing your own urge to snap as he had his. Despite having spent the better part of the year together, it was frustrating to think about not being together for the season. All you wanted was him, though you knew better than to voice it out loud. He’d do it -- for you, he’d do it if you asked him to -- and you’d have to live with the guilt of taking him away from his family at the time of year where family should be together most, if it mattered to them. And you’d been weirdly lucky enough to have him most of the year between carefully navigated business trips. He was only one man with one body. It didn’t -- couldn’t -- matter that you wanted him, too.

That you wanted to be with the man you loved.

When he picked up the phone again, his face was drawn, tired, and not just from filming, you suspected.

“Go home,” you urged, swallowing the break in your voice. “You miss home, and home misses you. I’ll have fun decorating and send you all the pictures you won’t be able to do anything about.”

His throat bobbed hard, audibly, and his eyes looked dangerously shiny.

“Next year I’ll go home with you,” you said, burrowing half your face into your pillow. “London and Holmes Chapel both.”

“Next year,” he said eventually, voice raspy. “We’ll have Christmas at home next year.”

You nodded, forcing the lump rising up, up, and up back down. “You should go to sleep,” you said. “It’s late and you have to be up early.”

“Later for you,” he said and you sighed, noting the 3:08 timestamp at the top of your screen.

“Let’s go,” you said. “Call me when you can.”

“I will.” Sad, but resigned. You wanted to reach through the screen and touch the downturned corners of his mouth to push them back upright again. “Sleep well, and I love you.”

Taking a deep breath, you murmured, “I love you, too,” before hanging up the call and the room descended into darkness and you into a fitful sleep.

***

At first, you were determined to make the most of it. Your studio had always been small, cozy, and Christmasy to the best of your abilities, but his -- your -- apartment had so many more possibilities. Candles were the first to be set out, with strategic clusters of red, green, and gold-colored wax placed all about and nestled in fake holly wreaths. String lights that cast a pretty glow lined windows even in the bedroom for some last minute holiday cheer, and despite the urge to drive him up a wall, you did your best to only pick out other decorations that you’d both like and want to use in the future. Because as much as you might avoid talking about it in many certain terms the longer the relationship went on (it still felt so funny to think that a one night stand had turned into a relationship), there was a future. He was your future. It wasn’t your first Christmas together, but it might be your last one apart.

He should be here! He should be helping you. He should’ve helped anchor lights in windows, he should’ve had an opinion on the scented candles, he should’ve made you go back for decorations you just weren’t sure of because you wanted them regardless of what he thought, and he should’ve helped pick, and carry, and set up the tree. The whole reason you’d gone out to get a fresh tree -- something real in a year that had felt anything but -- was to lift your spirits, but instead you were sobbing next to it and it all felt a little dramatically pointless. It was everything you’d avoided last year by flying off to England but that you couldn’t escape this time. What was the point? What was the point of pretending?

Wiping your nose, you stood, eyes heavy, swollen, and itchy. With your coat gone, you heaved the tree up until it was sitting securely in its stand, needles scattered in its wake but branches full and outstretched, enveloping you in the warm smell of Christmas in a way the cedar- and balsam-scented candles couldn’t. Stepping back with your hands on your hips, you looked up at it, the swell of your anxiety simmering, thanks partly to your crying fit and partly to succeeding at the task. You’d decorate it bit by bit to draw the season out, and then on Christmas Eve, you’d call him and you’d both sit by your own trees and talk until it was Christmas Day for him. It was just for now -- this wasn’t the way of all ways for all time.

Click.

You nearly passed out cold from the rush of fearful adrenaline shooting through you when the lock on the door clicked. In three seconds, you ran through whether or not you’d locked the door, determined that you had but then had forgotten, and figured out that somehow, someone had gotten in and they weren’t supposed to. You spun, frozen, brain zooming to determine if you dove behind a sofa or if you charged, but you didn’t get the chance before the door opened.

A duffle bag, a foot, a body, in that order, and then a pair of wide, green eyes rimmed with circles just above a cloth mask.

“You do not get to be mad at me,” he said, voice muffled. He grunted and pushed the door open wider to bring in the rest of his luggage as you stood there, as equally speechless as you were breathless. “I tested before I came here,” he said, speaking with a loud if exhausted sort of authority, like he was trying to get the words out before you could protest. “But I’ll take the guest room, and I’ll get my own food, and we’ll keep out of each other’s space until the two weeks are up.”

He brought his bags in the rest of the way, and it was only when he was halfway by you that he stopped in his tracks. “Y’haven’t moved,” he said, eyebrows furrowing as he narrowed his eyes on you. “Are you all right?”

Lightheaded, you nodded.

“O… kay,” he said, stilted, still eyeing you. “M’just gonna go get settled and showered, then.”

“What are you doing here?” you asked, the words finally forcing themselves from you.

“S’Christmas.”

“You’re supposed to--”

“Mum knows,” he interrupted. “M’taking Christmas here this year. Gem’ll have Christmas with her and I’ll go along after. She’s excited about having two. ‘Scuse me….”

Nodding, you waved him away to hurry, shoo, because you could feel the emotions rising in you again and your confusion wasn’t enough to quell them. Fifteen minutes ago, you’d been kneeling on the floor with aching knees, crying, and now here he was.

You’d wrestle with the confliction of doing what was right and doing what you wanted… later. Later, when you could wrap your head around it and the choice he’d made.

Two weeks. That would put you just on Christmas Day, basically. Just two weeks.

***

Dodging him around the apartment was a lot more difficult than you would’ve guessed for how big it was. More than once you nearly slammed into him in the kitchen, and someone was always in the favored bathroom. For his part, he’d taken to wearing a mask when he roamed, and even though you told him he didn’t have to do that, all he did was hum behind it. You got it -- the positive result from the crewperson on set had spooked everyone, and he was being safe. You both were being safe, but for as mindful as you’d been throughout, all you wanted to do was hold him, hug him, kiss him. Video calls were ridiculous when you were in the same house and you could hear his laugh through the walls. But you got it, and if you kicked too much he’d book a hotel to quarantine away from you, so you’d rather have him here, as selfish and risky as it was.

It was three days into your little bubble that he finally dared to get within arm’s reach of you. You were mulling over where to put the chimney sweep ornament when he shuffled over to the foot of the ladder you were leaning on, and you raised an eyebrow, arm outstretched.

“Can I help you?” you asked.

He shook his head, the lights from the tree reflected in his eyes. “Just watching,” he said from behind his mask.

“You’re standing a little close, aren’t you?” you teased. Jokes were all you had -- all anyone had this year, if they were lucky.

Immediately, he scowled -- how funny you could tell what his face looked like so clearly even with the cloth stretched firmly across it -- and you giggled. “Watch what you’re doing,” he said, taking his hands from his sweatshirt pocket to grab the ladder legs, and with his support, you held on tightly and leaned over to place it on the prime branch.

“Thank you,” you said. “Do you want to pass me that box?”

He did so and you murmured your thanks, resting it on the top step as you pulled ornaments out to hang them.

“Not there,” he said before you could drop a hook over a branch with a snowflake. “Give it… thank you.” He took it carefully from you and placed it on a different one closer to him, lower than where you were placing it but slightly higher than you could reach without a ladder.

“Thank you.”

Together, slowly, ornaments were hooked and rehooked (and rehooked yet again when one of you noticed the other had moved them from a spot you each thought was perfect) until the tree was trimmed, each branch heavily laden, bearing the weight of ornaments and of providing joy after the year behind.

“How’d you get this home?” he asked, looking up at it with you once you were off the ladder.

“Carefully,” you said dryly. “Oh! The top.” You turned, but he cut across your path.

“I’ve got it,” he said, grabbing the box from the precarious stack next to the coffee table.

“I want to,” you whined and he snorted.

“You’ve done the whole bloody thing,” he said without venom. “Let me do just the one.” With it in hand, he climbed the ladder as you held it steady, and he set it on the topmost branch, prodding it until it was tall and straight up, all five points outstretched and shining.

“That’s perfect,” you said under your breath, resting your head on his leg, and he patted the top of your head gently. You stayed like that for a minute, two, three, and more, with your arm curling around his calf, embracing as much physical contact as he’d allowed since he came home. “How many more days?”

“Eleven.” He sounded thoughtful, resentful, and exhausted all in one go. You squeezed his leg and kissed his knee through his joggers.

“Then it’s Christmas,” you said.

He exhaled slowly, still patting your head. “Christmas morning.”

***

Eleven. Whole. Days.

Eleven days of more of the same. He’d eased up, thankfully, and dared to venture a little closer with a mask on, because, as you’d reminded him, he had tested negative. You sat on opposite ends of the couch, enjoying the Christmas tree and decorations together, laughing, talking, planning, and exchanging stories about everything that had happened while you were apart. His, of course, were wildly more interesting, but he somehow managed to hang onto every word of even your most droll and mundane ones, and always with the right questions and supportive murmurs of agreement as necessary.

Eleven days of saying goodnight and crawling into a bed that was too big for one when two was next door.

Eleven days of not being able to share meals properly or touch each other -- sex aside -- and eleven days of Hell.

“It’s your fault,” you said one night from your end of the couch, scowling with your arms crossed. The tree twinkled happily despite your sour mood, and music that was too merry and bright played from the television.

“Me?” he asked indignantly.

“Yes! You had to do that stupid film.”

“It’s not stupid.”

“You’re wearing a mask in our home,” you said, burrowing into the cushions. “If I want to call it stupid, I will.”

He groaned, dropping his head forward. “Baby….”

You grunted.

“It’s only a couple more days. A couple more days, and then it’s Christmas. Think of it like a present you’re waiting for.”

Despite yourself, you snorted.

“I’m all you want for Christmas, aren’t--?”

“Shut up,” you said, kicking his thigh with your extended leg. He snickered, eyes crinkled and full of light all their own.

“Couple more days,” he said, patting your ankle. “Couple more days, and then you won’t even be able to get rid of me. We’ll be in bed all weekend.”

“I’m not calling your mother from bed.”

He waggled his brows with some exaggeration and you rolled your eyes.

That had been around day five, maybe six. Suffice it to say, by Christmas Eve, you were done.

“It’s one day!” you said over breakfast in the kitchen. “One day, Harry!”

“We made it this long,” he said, pouring hot coffee into a mug that had his face printed onto the head of dancing elf -- a gift from his mother shipped along with a matching one for you that she insisted you both open ahead of time to enjoy for as long as possible. “We can make it a couple more hours.”

“If I stripped naked, what would you do? Stand there and watch me?”

He froze and looked at you over his mask, the heated warning pinning you in place. Huffing, you pushed the stool away from the counter and hopped off it.

“Where are you--?”

“Out,” you said. “I’m going to get--” You floundered. “Coffee.”

A beat passed and his eyes dropped to the mug in his hand.

“We literally have--”

“I’m going out!” you said, wrapping your neck and half your face up in a scarf to keep warm. You were going out, because you were mad, and the tantrum was burgeoning. That poor man had seen more unreasonable tantrums from you this year than he had in the entire two and a half you’d reciprocally acknowledged each other’s presence, and you hated it. But he’d hate it, too, if you’d gone on a trip for work and come back and things were off.

Could be worse, you reminded yourself. It could be so very, very much worse.

“I love you,” you said, calmly, firmly. “I’ll be back. I’m only going around the block. Take that--” You waved at his mask, “--off. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way in..”

When you returned, he was in the guest room, but a fresh cup of coffee in your own dancing elf mug rested on a mug warming plate. The last of your frustrations that hadn’t melted with the walk deflated and you picked it up, enjoying the aroma before taking a deep sip.

He always made it better. And the coffee was nice, too.

His mother called in the afternoon and you hardly noticed he was at your side until the phone was in front of your face and you gave a startled hello.

“Has he been wearing that the whole time he’s been home with you?” she asked, her gleaming eyes and wide, genuine smile matching her son’s own warmth.

Home. With you.

“He has,” you said.

“S’posed to be proud of me,” Harry said and Anne laughed.

“Of course, sweetheart. We’re still calling tomorrow?” she asked you.

“Yeah,” you said. “We’ll be here.”

“Next year will be different, won’t it?” she all but clucked. “Did you like your mugs? I got one for me, Gemma, and Michal, too.”

“Used them just this morning,” he said, squeezing your hip and wandering away. “Won’t be posting them anywhere for people to see, though….”

Eventually -- finally -- the day drew to a close, and you crawled into bed with the knowledge that it was just one more night. One more night, and then in the morning you could say hello like you wanted to. One more night and you wouldn’t want to bite his head off. One more night and you wouldn’t feel so mental, as he would put it.

And yet, lying there, the minutes dragged. Ten? No, just one. Fifteen? Five.

It felt like Christmas, though. As much as this was pure torture, this was what Christmas was supposed to feel like -- like it used to feel when you were a kid and you’d wait for weeks tingling anticipation, counting down, hoping that you’d find what you wanted under the tree, bursting with more energy than any amount of sugar could give you. Except instead of presents, or money, or sweets, you were waiting for the man who’d been under your nose for two weeks by this point. You got to kiss your boyfriend tomorrow. You got to see your boyfriend, hold your boyfriend, and celebrate Christmas with your boyfriend.

Twenty minutes? Two.

12:02.

Two minutes after midnight.

Christmas.

Fourteen days.

Oh!

You sprang from the bed before you could think about the matter and darted to the door over the cold wooden floor, but when you rounded the corner in the hallway, out of nowhere, something all but slammed into you. Sucking in a sharp breath with a screwed up face, you squeaked when you collided with a very warm, very sturdy frame. Belatedly, two arms shot out to grab you by yours to steady you. “Oh my God, I--”

Hair, forehead, eyes, nose, and mouth, too. No mask.

“Are you o--?”

He didn’t get to finish his question. You clapped your hands over his cheeks and kissed him soundly before he could kiss you first. Under ordinary circumstances, he’d laugh -- you both would -- but rather than that, he locked both his arms around you tightly and spun you, teetering precariously with you in tow until you got to the guest bed. Tackle was an apt word for how he delivered you to it, but you were the farthest thing from upset at finally having not even an inch of space between you. The bed smelled like him and it was warm, he was warm, and you were kissing again, and again, and again, cold noses smushing together as you found new angles.

“Christmas,” he mumbled between them.

“Mmhm,” you returned against his mouth, legs interlocking with his. “I missed you,” you whispered.

“Missed you, too.”

Shivering, you both pulled the duvet up over your shoulders, and you curled up against him. Cologne, skin, and laundry detergent, with a bit of his minty toothpaste. There was no scented candle for that. You pressed your fingers against his chest and scratched lightly through the smattering of hair there. “We could go to our bed,” you reminded him, but he shook his head.

“Y’here now,” he rasped, leaning in to press his lips comfortably to your hairline, one arm draped over your back. “Let’s stay here tonight and we can change things later.”

“Were you coming to get me?” you asked, voice shaking as the last of the shivers left your bones.

“Yeah,” he admitted. You laughed, teeth chattering, and he pulled you closer. “Don’t laugh!” he said, rubbing your back and warming you. “S’been two weeks for me, hasn’t it?”

“For you!”

“You try bein’ home with you for that long,” he mumbled.

Shaking again, but less than before, you kissed the underside of his chin. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, darling.”

***

When you woke up, his back was to you, and his one shoulder was rising and falling with the rhythm of his sputtery, wheezy snores. You smiled, closing your eyes, and snuggled into the pillow. Better -- much better. You dozed on for an unknown amount of time, and you were walking the line between sleep and consciousness when featherlight kisses across your brow startled you and you jerked awake.

“Sorry,” Harry mumbled, only sounding slightly truthful. You made a noise and stretched, shaking from head to toe before curling up into a tight little ball next to him and opening your eyes fully. His own were puffy with sleep, but he grinned radiantly as if he’d been awake for a while.

“What?” you asked in a croak.

“Nothing,” he said. “Mum’s gonna call soon.”

Groaning, you halfheartedly turned your head to look over your shoulder. “What time is it?” you asked, straining to see the window and get a gauge.

“S’ten,” he said. “So about three for them. Sure you don’t want to call from bed?”

You glowered at him and his lip twitched. “I’ll put the coffee on.”

When you finally managed to leave the warm nest of the bed, the living room had been transformed. The tree was on, twinkling under the streams of light pouring in through the windows, and he’d lit the fireplace, too, flames licking up and up behind the glass. Soft, melodic Christmas music floated from the far corners of the room, and the smell of coffee tickled your nose.

“So,” he said from his spot at the island as he unwrapped cheeses and opened jars of olives, and jams, and honeys, and other goodies. “What time do we pop the bubbly?”

Laughing softly, you shuffled over. “It’s ten.”

“Little after ten now,” he said, lips pressed tightly together and arms flexed until the lid popped. “And somewhere in the world it’s five o’clock.”

You pulled a grape off the bunch lying on the counter and popped it into your mouth, chewing not so delicately but enjoying the sweet burst of freshness. You’d no sooner swallowed than his phone started buzzing and you grabbed it, sliding your finger to answer the call from the incoming Mum and pointing it at him.

“Happy Christmas, honey.” Anne’s voice was warm even through the phone, and Harry’s head whipped up.

“Wh-- Happy Christmas-- didn’t know you were-- ‘scuse the mess,” he said as you giggled behind the phone.

“Having a good morning so far?”

“Goin’ ok, yeah,” he said. “Just getting started, heating up the coffee.”

“Where’s your better half gotten off to?”

Trying not to melt, you waved your hand in front of the camera.

“Hello, love,” she said. “Happy Christmas.”

“Happy Christmas, Anne.”

“Are we going to get to see you today?”

“Fair’s fair,” Harry chimed in. “Turn that thing around, why don’t you?”

Rolling your eyes, you flipped the phone and waved, sliding around the counter to stand next to him.

“That’s better,” Anne said with a firm nod. She had a red top on with a festive, sparkly necklace, and looked a good deal more put together than either one of you.

“Where’s Gem?” Harry asked, taking the phone from you so you could unbox the crackers.

“Upstairs napping off the morning,” she said. “She’ll want to call again later.”

And that was how the morning went, with each of you passing his mother back and forth while you carried plates and trays full of snacks to the coffee table and couch in front of the tree to nibble while tearing into gifts on camera, including a box full of chocolates for you, Branston pickle for him, and Christmas crackers for both of you to have, “A little bit of home this year.”

“Thank you,” you said, clutching your sweets close. “And thank you for--” Unbidden, you choked up, and Harry glanced at you sharply, his inquisition vanishing with his understanding. For sharing him -- allowing you to steal him away during the holidays in a year where everyone needed family, either by blood or choice. He squeezed your shoulders and his mother, as adept as he was at redirecting a conversation, piped up.

“Promise you’ll come see us again next year,” Anne said. “It’s been too long.”

“It has been,” you agreed, resting your cheek on his shoulder.

“Maybe sooner.” Harry looked down at you. “If things ease up?”

You nodded. “Summer in London,” you mused. “That would be nice.”

“And then a bit of time back home. We could go before things pick up in August.”

Summer in London. A beacon of hope you couldn’t erect just yet, but a beacon nevertheless. A bit of time with him before he, hopefully, went back to work and you got to revisit adjusted and postponed plans.

The rest of your Christmas Day was quiet -- different from the year before when you’d been overwhelmed with names, faces, screeches of Uncle Harry, and not being sure how to break your way in. You kept trays of cheese, crackers, and other snacks within an arm’s reach, and by the early afternoon both of you had a comfortably steady buzz from the bubbly he was good at topping off both your glasses with -- never sloppily drunk, but enough to be warm in your fingers and toes and to seek out cuddles from him under the blanket you were snuggled in on the sofa with paper crowns on both your heads.

“Can I tell you something?” you asked, ribs crunched from how far you’d slid down on the sofa to nestle into his side, all but eye-level with his chest. “And have it not be as awful as it sounds?”

You felt his laugh before you heard it. “Sure,” he drawled. “What is it?”

Squeezing his wrist, you turned your mouth into his forearm, eyes on the television as a snowman leapt and bounded over a wide, snowy plain before jumping into the air. “I like this Christmas,” you admitted into his skin.

Harry snorted. “S’not awful, s’the point -- Christmas is supposed to be likeable.”

“You know what I mean,” you said, sighing. “I know it’s just us and there’s no family or anyone around, but… I dunno… it’s not all bad, is it?”

“Like having me to yourself?”

You groaned and rolled your eyes, shaking your head. “Shut up,” you mumbled.

He kissed the top of your head, crown crunching under it, and you grunted. “S’not so bad,” he said into your hair. “Like having you all to myself, too, y’know.”

“You’re just saying that because you have to because you’re stuck with me,” you said and he laughed with another smacking kiss.

“Not stuck with me yet,” he crooned. “Can leave any time you want.”

“Maybe I will….”

“Oi!”

Giggling, you untangled yourself from him and squirmed out from underneath the blanket. “More bubbly?”

***

Boxing Day was a Christmas redux, with more cheese, sparkling wine, music, and calls with family and friends. Long distance versions of old favorite games were adapted and adopted, and you snickered quietly from the corner of the couch, staying out of his way when he shouted about how he had hit the button, it was his trackpad that hadn’t worked.

The late afternoon and on, though, was yours together and alone with the time difference breaking up the party earlier than it normally would be. The bittersweet cloud vanished, though, when you at some point you separated even further into your own activities -- him with his stack of new books and you with a film you played quietly on your laptop. Able to be near each other without having to be wrapped up and begging with your bodies for sorely missed attention, it finally, really, felt like home again.

“It’s so pretty out,” you murmured, nose pressed to the windowpane to see as much of the light-lined streets as you could. It got dark earlier and earlier these days, and yet later than it had even a few days ago. “I love Christmas in New York. I wish--” You caught yourself ahead of finishing the sentence, thinking better.

You wished it was a normal year -- for many reasons -- so you two could go out and see the city. So you could show him your favorite places, so you could make memories together like you had with him last year. It wasn’t anything life altering or new, but it was different when you were with someone you loved. You wanted him to know you -- all of you, even the unknowable parts.

“Y’know,” he said next to your ear, hand on the back of your neck as he slunk up behind you, “it’s getting pretty late.”

You turned your head slightly, looking at him in the reflection of the glass. “Do you want to go to bed?”

Too early for sleep. Was he asking for sex?

Harry hummed and shook his head. “How ‘bout you get your coat on?” he murmured. “Let’s have that Boxing Day walk we didn’t get last year.”

“Now?”

“When else?” he said. “Haven’t been out yet, and it’s late. Streets’ll be empty. We can go wherever, do whatever, see whatever.”

“You’re serious?”

Nodding, he pulled you by the arm and you stumbled with him, still processing it even as you pulled beanies on with masks and (winter) gloves.

“Where are we going?” you asked.

He shrugged, calling the elevator. “Dunno,” he said. “Figured you’d lead the way. Show me your favorite bits. Seem t’remember summat about Bryant Park last year.”

There were sobering realities at the street level, too. Gates were down on storefronts that hadn’t been pulled up since March, awnings above them tattered from months of neglect and ‘For Rent’ signs flapping against them in the wind. The usual post-holiday influx of tourists was thinned, with hardly a white sneaker in sight, and everything was just a little quieter than it should be and would be in a usual year.

But there were lights. Broadway’s may have dimmed for the time being, but endless, endless displays of lights, brighter without the ambient light pouring from storefronts diminishing their power, offered beacons of hope -- literal lighthouses in a storm of a year -- and led you uptown like a trail of breadcrumbs.

You pulled him this way and that way, weaving through side streets to look at any display that looked bright enough from a distance, fingers locked tightly with his in a way they never were outside of the house. As bittersweet as it was no one was out, it afforded you a level of privacy you never had, anywhere. Not even Holmes Chapel. You couldn’t remember a time where you’d ever held his hand for this long at one time, if you were honest, and while you didn’t need it, you enjoyed the option.

In between zigs and zags, he mumbled stories to you about this time, and another time, and a time after that, pointing at buildings, venues, restaurants, and hotels, and you listened half in awe and half in earnest. It was a whole other life he’d lived without you before, and you’d only been aware of the surface of it. Nobody knew what he was telling you except the people he’d lived it with, and you didn’t think you’d ever get over or be able to thank him for trusting you to be someone he chose to share it with.

“I love Sixth,” you said, sighing as you walked past giant red Christmas ornaments three times the size of you both, the reflection of the string lights wrapped around tree branches bouncing off their shiny surfaces. Radio City’s electric red script beamed at you both from a distance, and traffic lights winked and waved in the wind up and down the avenue. “They do a lot with it.”

“It’s pretty,” he said, squeezing your hand. “Tree’s this way, isn’t it?” he asked.

You raised your eyebrows. “Yeah,” you said.

He jerked his head and you blinked.

“You want to?” you asked.

“Just a bit,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“There’s people!” you warned him, because even from here you could see the trickle of people with the same thought. “And I saw online they have a schedule--”

“We don’t have to get close,” he said, pulling you firmly. “S’big enough we don’t need to, just wanna take a peek.”

He was so certain, but you were less so, because all you needed was someone to see him to break the serene bubble you’d blown around yourselves. Despite that, you shuffled with him until the tree was visible, a bright, glowing ball of multi-colored lights stretching towards the sky. “Wow,” you whispered under your breath.

“S’nice,” he said and you nodded your agreement. It was nice -- despite the sad press it had gotten, the tree had turned out very nice at the end of it all, tall and impossibly beating all odds. What a metaphor for the year.

“It’s beautiful,” you murmured, squeezing him around the middle.

“Come here,” Harry said next to your ear.

“Hmm?” Reluctantly tearing your eyes from the tree, you gasped when he pulled your mask down first and then his own in two swift tugs, revealing a cheeky grin with a face cradled by the fabric. “What are you doing?” you asked, eyes darting around.

“Getting a kiss by the tree with my girlfriend,” he said. “Now, come here,” he repeated. This time, you obliged and allowed him to steal one, two, three kisses, each one of them smashed against your lips with a palpable sort of eagerness that made you think he would drink you if he could. This felt… normal. Normal, safe, and free.

You couldn’t remember the last time you’d felt like that.

When you broke and burrowed against his neck, he covered the back of your head and wrapped his other arm around your back, cocooning you in the shell of the most protective embrace he could give. Just a man -- any man, a regular man -- holding the person he loved, and, after his decision to stay with you through Christmas and New Years, he arguably loved you most.

Through the thick knit of your beanie, you felt him kissing your head, and you nuzzled into his scarf. “Thank you,” you said, face safely out of sight. “For coming here.”

“Not mad a’me for it?” he mumbled and you shook your head. “‘Kay, good.”

Shivering, you huddled closer and he tightened his arms, shielding you from the brisk wind.

“People will see,” you said, but despite that you held him closer.

“Who cares?”

He did, despite his quiet rasp. He did, and you knew why he did, but right then, you could pretend that it didn’t matter at all.

***

It was simultaneously the longest and shortest week of your life.

The longest, because time didn’t exist, much like it hadn’t for most of the year. Days, afternoons, evenings, and nights blended together, blurred by a happy holiday haze onset by too much of everything good -- sleep, sustenance, and spirits. The weird, if nice, part of all the extra time was having the chance to do things you’d enjoyed over the course of the year all over again. Nine times out of ten, when the two of you were together, it was rushed even on the long layovers. You’d watch one series or a film the whole way through, and next time you’d have to be on to the next one you’d agreed to hold off on until the other was there, but after having spent most of the year under the same roof, the typical race to the next one was paused. Instead, you settled in for old Christmas films and other ones you hadn’t seen since you first started properly dating, lending a timeless sort of quality to the week.

The shortest, because he’d only just gotten there. How had it been three weeks since he’d walked in the front door with a mask on and a warning? Three weeks, two of them masked, and now it was over and done. The whole year was over and done, with 2020 coming to a slow close after feeling simultaneously like it never would and like it was moving much, much too fast. Who would’ve known this would be how it would turn out after kicking it off in the back of his car with a paper plate full of snacks and the countdown on his phone? You’d made it through another year, together.

“Do you know what I just realized?” you asked as you unpacked the bag from El Diablito at the kitchen counter. In the background, the low hum of commentators on the TV remarking about how different this year was provided a steady buzz amidst familiar scenery of lights in different cities. Berlin had gone first, then London, and now, gradually, the new year on the east coast was gliding ever closer.

“What?” he asked over the noise of him unfurling the bag of tortilla chips.

“This was our first year together,” you said. “Full--” you drew an arc through the air-- “year, I mean. Saying it and all that.”

He didn’t say anything, but when you looked at him the corner of his mouth was lifted up slightly. “S’pose it is, yeah. Feels like longer.” He fished a chip out with his index and middle fingers before crunching into it noisily.

“Almost three years of everything else,” you murmured, unwrapping a taco to inspect it. “This one’s yours.”

“‘Everything else’?” he teased, snickering when you slid the taco across the counter to him. “Watch it, it’ll fall apart….”

“Shut up and eat,” you said and he barked a laugh, grin permanent and eyes sparkling as he unwrapped it to peek.

“In a minute,” he said, setting down his food, satisfied it looked right. “Come here,” he said.

“Why?” you asked, smiling slightly though you eyed him suspiciously. “What do you want?”

He motioned with his hand. “C’mere a minute,” he repeated, voice light but eyes tight, and he swallowed hard. A cold wave washed down you from head to toe. You didn’t know why you were suddenly so nervous, but the nerves themselves spiked your anxiety and made your scalp prickly and your palms sweaty, and they got worse when he grabbed one of your hands -- your left hand -- to hold between his. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about summat.”

Oh, God.

“Harry,” you said, but he shook his head.

“Lemme do this.”

Five seconds. Five seconds was all it took to imagine the words coming out of his mouth, quietly, with soft, trusting eyes waiting patiently, hopefully for an answer. Five seconds was all it took for you to imagine mucking it all up with a twisted tongue, not because you weren’t sure what to say, but how to say it. No, no, no -- you didn’t want to hurt him, not even temporarily, not even by accident.

Clearing his throat, he squeezed your hand. “I dunno how to do this,” he said, and for the first time ever, you were pretty sure he laughed without his eyes. You made a noise in your throat and curled your fingertips into his palm. “I love you,” he continued, Adam’s apple bobbing, lips trying and failing to form a smile. He was terrified, but determined, and you held his hand tighter while pressing your opposite one into his cheek.

I love you, too. You couldn’t say it, but you felt them swelling in your chest, growing your heart not two, not even three, but six times over.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times before saying, “M’going to spend the rest of my life with you,” with a thoughtful quality in his rasp. “I think, if-- if that’s somethin’ you….”

You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t, you were trying, but it was like sucking in helium.

“So, m’kind of wondering if--”

“Harry--”

“I’m not,” he shook his head. “I’m not asking you anything right now, because we’re not ready.” He rubbed the back of your hand assuringly. “We’re not ready, you have… and I��m….” He exhaled sharply, dropping his head, and your hand moved from his cheek to his hair and you rubbed the back of his neck. “I just want to know,” he said, breathing heavily, with his voice muffled into his chest, talking very fast, barreling through and tripping over words, “if I’m totally off base here. Cause m’not gonna now when there’s so much shit happening, but like… I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth when-- if I do, so if I could just get an idea of what you think, because we had a talk once but now every time you cut me off at the knees and--”

He sputtered, stopping short, and you pressed your face into his short hair.

“I want it,” you said, sounding braver than you felt admitting wants out loud. “I do. I will.”

His shoulders fell with his slow, deep breaths, and you rubbed your fingertips into his scalp gently.

“I will,” you say. “Promise,” you added, voice cracking. “You’re not off base.”

Neither of you said anything for a while. You couldn’t -- you quite literally, physically couldn’t -- and he was gulping for air as quietly as he could.

“Okay,” he said into his chest finally, sounding inexplicably embarrassed. “S’good to know.”

Silly, silly man. Did he really think… did he doubt…? “I love you,” you murmured.

“I know,” he said. “I know y’do.”

“No, you don’t.” You kissed his head. “I love you, I-- you’ll never know.”

Harry took a deep breath before straightening up, head high and curls falling over his forehead above the weariest, most agonized eyes you’d ever seen. His cheeks were bright red, and he might as well have just run a marathon for how spent and miserable he looked.

“I promise,” you repeated. “I promise, honey.”

He nodded slightly, mouth still set in a thin, grim line, and, instinctively, you stepped in to kiss him, because no. No, that wouldn’t do. Stiff and unmoving at first under your lips, gradually he warmed and softened, releasing your hand to grab your hips and you moaned softly, hands running across his shoulders over his hoodie. You promised -- when it was right, when you both could, if he asked and it was what you both wanted? There was only one answer you’d ever give.

The stool scraped against the floor when he stood, but he never broke the kiss, and you squeaked when you stumbled back against the counter. You opened your mouth wider when he coaxed you to, dizzy behind your closed eyes, and you let your hands wander freely, pulling him into you as the intensity behind the kiss escalated from comfort to need.

Two weeks. Two weeks -- three -- of pent up energy. Of hardly being able to touch each other, of being close but not close enough.

“Come here,” he demanded in a mumble, the firm hold he had on your jaw to hold you in place as he kissed you the way he wanted leaving you breathless. Rarely did he ever do that; usually, he guided you into what you both wanted to build it until the bubble of tension popped. There was something thrilling about being told though -- something that reminded you of when you were new, three months instead of almost three years in. Something that was like when time was limited and you had to be efficient to learn each other and what would feel good and do good for the other and yourselves, and telling was sometimes all you had.

Harry broke away with a wounded little noise and you blinked, dazed. “M’just….” He grabbed two tacos with one hand and threw them back into the paper bag. “M’moving these.” Tacos, nachos, and burritos all went back in, topped off with the chips, and he shoved them aside with some impatience. You laughed breathily and lifted yourself up onto the counter with his help, but it faded when he stepped between your legs and cupped your cheek and jaw and you caught a glimpse of the blown pupils and flushed cheeks that gave him a wild, primal look before your own eyes shut.

Each and every tender sponging of his lips across your jaw and down your neck made you ache, and it was all you could do to stay upright and not collapse back, limp from how weak you were. His needy, mesmerized groans made your belly tighten, and when he tugged the hem of your shirt you nodded.

Shirt, sweatshirt, bra, and undershirt were the first to go, and the straps had no sooner fallen down your shoulders than you let out a wordless, guttural shout from deep in your chest when Harry latched on and sucked your nipple with greedy enthusiasm, moving with you when you squirmed, his stubble scraping the soft skin of your breast.

“Oh my God,” you gasped, eyes watering and elbow nearly buckling underneath you in your effort to hold yourself up. “Yes, please,” you said when he pulled the strings on your sweats.

“That’s my girl,” he said, releasing with a pop and latching on again. “That’s my girl… gonna make it better for you.” He stood tall again when he pulled by the waistline, and you wriggled until they were at your knees and you could kick them off the rest of the way with your underwear as he dropped his own to his ankles.

With nothing left between you, you shivered, shrinking into him when he stepped closer and drew his hands around your body in a circuit. Legs first, stomach, back, breasts, shoulders, arms, and repeat, each squeeze and dig of his hands and fingers just a little restrained and not as zealous as his groans and heavy breathing made him out to be -- like he was trying to be good, or patient, or….

“It’s ok,” you murmured between kisses. “You don’t have to wait.” They’d done the waiting -- more than enough of it. You just wanted him now.

“Sure?” Harry rasped and you nodded, eyes rolling up when he slipped his fingers between you both and they slipped up and down your folds. “Sure,” he confirmed under his breath. “Open a little more for me, love-- there we are, thank you.”

You folded your arms around his neck and over his back and locked your ankles loosely just under his ass, heart racing in your chest.

“Breathe in--” Harry murmured and you squeezed your eyes shut when he fit his head against your entrance. It slid and you laughed, kissing his jaw when he kissed your brow through his grin. “Deep breath for me.”

Every time. He did that almost every time with you, first asking for a deep breath and then, invariably, pulling a long exhale from you when he thrust into your warm, wet cunt. “Oh, fuck,” he whispered in awe, holding still. You could feel the tremors pulling each fiber in his muscles, and when he throbbed inside you, you bit your lip. “Holy shit, you’ve got me good,” he groaned.

You laughed once. “Yeah.” Yeah, something like that. Wincing, you rolled your hips forward and gasped softly from the stretch before tightening your arms and pressing your face against his hot skin. You nuzzled in between your own slow, lingering kisses, taking deep, grounding breaths. He was soft, and smooth, but firm, and hard, and he smelled amazing. Clean -- all soap and cologne with some detergent that smelled even more from the warmth of his skin.

“Oh, God,” you whispered. “Oh, God, I--” You sucked in a harsh breath, abdomen tightening as you pulsed around him, feeling wetter, and you moved your face higher, nose pressed into the base of his sheared hair as you moaned quietly. “Oh my God, I love you.” Pitchy, bordering on hysteria, but you’d be hard pressed to remember a time you felt it as much as you meant it like you did right then. “I love you, I love-- I-- you feel--” Good. Better than good. No one had ever fit like he had -- too much, but just enough, physically, mentally, emotionally.

“I love….” Harry gulped. “Shit, ok, m’gonna….” He made to pull his shoulders back, but you shook your head.

“No, no, stay,” you begged, wrapping your arms and legs tighter. “Stay, please,” you murmured.

“I can’t-- ok,” he panted. “Lemme….” He gripped your ass and pulled you closer and your back arched as you opened your thighs just a little more. “There we go,” he grunted, hips snapping forward as he finally moved. “That’s… fuck, that’s better now.”

You could hear the effort you could feel between your legs -- each sharp pull of breath between his teeth, each muted grunt between his driving thrusts, and the pants he let out when he had to stop for a moment to catch his breath. “M’ok,” he said every time between labored gulps for air. “M’good, I just need to--” and he grit his teeth before he began again, and again, you gasped and whimpered, shrinking closer to him.

You didn’t want to be anywhere else, with anyone else, now or ever. You didn’t want to be this close to anyone else again ever. This was never supposed to happen. He was never supposed to meet you, know you, fall in love with you, nor you with him, but now he had, and you were, and you couldn’t imagine it any other way. You couldn’t imagine a world in which he didn’t come home to you, for you, and where you weren’t there. Not waiting -- never waiting on a man, any man, but ready for him when he returned and ready to move forward together.

He was yours. He was yours, and you were his, and the mere thought pulled something behind your belly button, making you groan.

“What?” he asked, kissing the side of your head. “What, darling, what?”

“I’m gonna cum,” you whispered and then whimpered, tightening your hold around his neck and in his hair. “Harry--” you choked, shuddering with your deep breaths.

“I know.” He grunted, thrusting with slightly more power. “Fuck! Tight little--”

“Don’t stop,” you begged. “Don’t stop, I’m close, I’m so-- I just need--” Faster and faster you rolled your hips against his, crying out against him when he wedged his thumb between you both to catch your clit, a stream of mumbled, “I’m gonna cum, you’re making me cum,” confessions hidden in his neck. Deep breaths. Long, slow, and deep, with your toes curling behind him until you were barely breathing in your efforts to concentrate, because you were right there. And then, you did cum, hard, convulsing and sucking in harshly as you trembled your way through whimpers of his name, immediately and thoroughly exhausted.

Both his arms locked around you, then, all but crushing you to his torso in his efforts to hold you up, and he thrust hard, fast, deep, getting the right rhythm and stroke he needed. Barely able to keep your eyes open, your mouth moved soundlessly around the demand -- request -- to cum. Cum, Harry, cum, baby, please. Wordlessly, he sputtered through a sharp exhale, and it was the only indication before you felt the hot, wet release accompanying his groans.

“Fuck,” he choked, one of his hands landing hard on the counter to prop both of you up. You laughed, eyes rolling up, and you held on tightly through his turn to shake.

“Happy New Year,” you said, still feeling a little punch-drunk from your orgasm.

He nodded. “H-Happy--” he gulped. “Happy New Year, darling.” His shoulders slumped. “Reckon this was the problem,” he said. “Should’ve fuckin’ rung the year in right last time, y’know?”

“Right,” you breathed even as you shook your head, not quite caught up with what he was saying.

“M’only sayin’,” he said. “We had sex the one time last Christmas. Should’ve had… a bit more,” he said indeterminately.

“We haven’t had sex since you’ve been home.”

Sighing heavily, he kissed your shoulder. “S’pose we’d better start,” he slurred. “S’not the new year yet.”

#harry x reader #reader insert fanfiction #harry smut #harry styles smut #harry styles imagine #harry imagine #harry styles blurb #harry blurb #harry styles one shot #harry one shot #christmas #blurred lines #blurred lines: adc #blurred lines: a different christmas #a different christmas #permanentcross #original writing

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beann-e · 3 years

Text

Mha characters reacting to you forgetting things in the store

Read Part One Here

Deku

You’d been traveling down different aisles for hours so many that deku found himself getting amazed that the store could even hold this many

he found himself thinking that the store just had its own shape shifting quirk that could change the aisles anytime someone went down them

that was the only way to explain it I mean It had to have one right because how did you find this new brand of ceral and he didn’t

How did you just pick up this new candy bar that he had never known abo—

wait candy bar

he snapped himself out of his trance drawing himself back into the real world finally hearing your voice and seeing your cart that was filled to the brim with different items from the original plan that he didn’t even know you two needed

“ oh god babe look — they “ you jumped in your shoes as you reached up to the top shelf “ they have hot chocolate “

“ we um y/n— baby”

you turned to him with a smile on your face

“ we don’t nee— “

“ deku could you get the hot chocolate it’s too far in the back at the top my hand doesn’t reach that way it’s at an awkward angle “

he looked to the floor for a moment before turning his head to look at the hot chocolate biting his lip as he stayed in his spot on the ground maybe if he just stayed here he could lie and say he’d been hit with a glue quirk you wouldn’t know righ—

your stare sent chills down his spine as he hurried over to pickup the box setting it neatly on top of the rest of the things in the cart shaking his head when he finally seen everything you’d gotten

He could never tell you no

all he wanted was for you to be happy he loved seeing you and everyone else happy he hated to see people with any other emotion it made him feel like it was his fault regardless of who it was

family or friend

villian or hero

he felt like everyone deserved to be happy which is why he was following every order you gave him like a puppy

his little protests every once and a while falling on deaf ears

“ my love we don’t need crackers “

“ but I want to make s’mores “

“ but baby then you have to get the rest of the ingredients for s’mores you can’t just buy crackers “

he moved to grab the box carefully putting it back a pout on your face as he bit his lip shaking his head in defeat and holding it out to you and looking to the floor

“ yay —now where are the other ingredients for ‘ em do you know deku ? “

his last attempt finally hitting you when you two were standing in line to checkout “ y/n “

“ yeah “

“ baby can —how about I pay for the stuff ok “

you looked at him in shock

“ I don’t —you just did all the shopping and I want to help and let you rest “

he reached in his pocket as he maneuvered the cart to be placed In line dropping his keys in your palm “ here—go sit In the car ok my love “

he kissed your forehead as he moved up in the line

“ but—“

“ no I swear I got this just go you’ve been on your feet all day “

“ but dek—“

“ look how about this “

he moved to stand on the side of the cart next to you “ you tell me what you really look forward to that your buying and i’ll make sure to get that first ok so you know that I got it and whatever else is in the cart i’ll pay for last ok “

you smiled as you listed off the ten things you’d originally had a taste for which, is why you guys ended up going to the store in the first place

you just wanted to get some groceries so you two could have some food in your new apartment

Deku had finally agreed to move out of his moms apartment thinking that she was ok and had finally come to terms with him being a real hero

allowing him more time to spend with you after making sure she was taken care of

The hero association offered him a house with no down payment after they found out but they were hit with your boyfriend saying no and explaining how you would both like to work hard for everything you two get in the future

sad thing is you wanted the house

you kissed his cheek leaving the store him putting every item you just said on the check out register watching it move up as he started conversation with the lady in front of him

“ yeah being a hero’s actually harder than I thought “

he laughed as he watched her ring everything up “ y’know actually could you do me a favor “

she shook her head small smile on her face as he gulped “ might uh — might be a weird request bu— “

“ no we don’t do hero referrals here “

“ wait no I — wait hero referrals no I “ he laughed uncomfortable with how many people were around “ no I don’t want to trade companies — uh let’s not uh “

he looked around making sure no one heard as he set his arms on the ledge speaking soft “ let’s uh let’s not say that aloud ok y’know —cameras—my company — and yeah “

he cleared his throat “ what I was actually y’know talking about was “

“ we don’t do — “

“ please allow me to speak “

she moved to scan his items as he sighed and started over “ again this may be a weird request but can you um — can you just like take this and put it back “

“ oh yeah of course you should of just said that “ she cupped her mouth as she screamed to her friend “ hey mari can you put his item back for me “

“ yeah sure —an item where’s it at ?“

“ oh it’s um not just one ite— “

“ it might be this — I don’t know who eats canned fruit so — he’s probably putting it back “

“ no uh — “ his eyebrows furrowed in slight annoyance “ actually my s/o eats those i’m not putting them back “

he whispered under his breath “ they’d kill me “

“ ok then where’s the item “

he laughed as he talked to her “ well um I meant could you actually put this back “

“ oh yeah sure if it’s just like 4 thin—- the whole cart“

her eyes widened as she watched deku push the cart towards her “ s-sir the — that’s like our whole store in one cart “

he shook at the comment

“ do you know how long i’m going to be walking around and putting things back where they belong “

his head dropped in embarrassment as he turned red his ears wiggling in fear “ oh trust me I know —i should be applying for manager with the way I know every aisle by heart now “

she shook her head and grabbed the cart as she rolled off

“ w-wait actually “

he ran after her as he rummaged through the cart “ ok yeah got it i’m done “

she stood stone faced as she looked to the male in front of her in pure annoyance and hatred

“ you stopped me to grab the things to make s’mores from the cart “

“ my —my s/o wants to try s’mores “

“ you have to be the best boyfriend ever or something because you allowed them to get all this stuff and waste your time and mine just to put it all back “

the lady at the register moved to grab his card bagging his stuff and handing it to him “ the fact you even acknowledged this and love them enough to let them run wild in the store for hours —like a child says a lot “

“ their not a kid “ he snapped eyes hard on the woman in front of him only softening when he saw her scared expression

“ yes I do — I love them and just being in their company so I love our trips when they get lost in what their doing and I just get to see them happy “

he left the store hand gripping at the backseat as placed the bags he held there

smile nervous and shaky while getting in the driver seat starting the car

“ babe I coulda sworn I got more stuff than that “

he shuddered as he sweated “ I—wh—no I —that’s all you l-left me in the store with babe—with —with your stuff“

his nervous smile widened “ got —got it all “

“ huh guess you did I was kinda out of it anyways “

you looked to him he looked away afraid to make eye contact

“ oh yeah deku did you get the stuff for us to make s’mores I totally forgot to tell you I left it off the list of things I wanted when you asked “

he took a deep breath as he turned his left turn signal on ‘ thank god I stopped her ‘

“ I got it y/n your good “

you smiled as you looked to the backseat again “ damn it is really bugging me that I really only had so little in a cart that looked so full “

his grip tightned as he pulled into your apartments parking lot “ god it all looked like so much in the cart“

“ yeah that uh that happens to people —it’s—it’s like science my love “

you moved to open the door to the backseat as he screamed at you through the cracked window from the drivers seat

“ hey uh babe you can go in the house I got it “

“ aw your so sweet deku you keep doing nice things for me “

he shook his head up and down as he watched you walk off to your new shared apartment

his head falling to the steering wheel as the horn went off in a slight honk jolting him head only moving over a bit mouth opening in a silent prayer

“ god of all might I ask that you don’t allow her to find out — and shit—theres no way to hide thi —wait I didn’t mean to curse don’t hurt me quirk gods please —i’m just stressed “ he almost cried when he thought about it

“ god we even live in the same apartment now there’s no way I can keep a secret or even the fact that I put her groceries back to myself all night “

he cursed as he thought about everything you were so happy about “ please I pray I haven’t left anything important or seriously i’m gonna cry “

he sucked it up as he got out the car walking through the hallway and placing the bags on the marble top walking over to go sit down trying to get as far away from you as possible

hoping if he could go to sleep or even stay out of your way he may be able to get out of this

his body doing what he wanted by almost falling asleep until he heard your voice pout out in front of him “ baby — have you seen my advil “

his eyes widened” I swear I bought ‘em because my head was killing m— wait deku babe why are you crying “

“ I— I i’m worsening your headache — I— I i’m making y-you hurt “

your eyes opened as you hugged him tightly “ no no why would you say that “

his voice was whiny as tears fell “ I put all your stuff back and only got what you could remember —which was only 10 things because I knew the stuff you remembered was the stuff you really wanted “

he sucked up his tears as he looked at you “ but I got you s’mores— I put everything else back but got you s’mores “

he choked back a cry “ baby I put your stuff back “

your voice was hot as you moved away from him flicking his head after turning your body towards the door “ you put my stuff back—all my important stuff that i was looking forward to “

he shook his head as you went to grab the keys “ asshole “

you slammed the door his body shaking as he heard the car start up wiping at his eyes

moving to the door to lock it only to hear the door open wide and present you who fell straight into his chest that was blocking the entrance

voice muffled as you spoke “ I can’t even remember half the stuff I picked up “

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ithinkilikeit-reactions · 4 years

Text

NCT 127 “They realise they love you”

NCT 127 masterlist Group Masterlist

Not requested, but I needed some fluff in my life ♥

Taeil:

(I’ve been so attracted to Taeil lately)

It started off with simply sitting in the same room and listening to music as you both worked on your computers. But it progressed quickly, singing along to the random tunes on the radio. Moving on to standing and dancing around to them, quite horribly.

Grabbing onto Taeil’s hand and spinning into his chest, making him laugh. You couldn’t help but do the same as you wrapped your arms around his neck. Taeil tucked his face into neck and started swaying you back forth, slow dancing to fast music because you could.

Taeil realised he could be as weird as he wanted with you and that you were just as weird him and he loved you for it.

Johnny:

(I am mad that this hoody is not in my posession)

Walking between the aisles, Johnny was looking for you attentively after he found the drinks he was looking for. He spotted you in an aisle, standing on your toes and reaching for something on the top shelf. You were just too short to reach.

“Need help?” He asked, placing his drinks in your shopping cart. “That would be great.” You answered, smiling at him. He reciprocated a cheeky smile before crossing his arms. “Hmmm, tell me that I’m the best man in the world first.” You snorted at his words, needing to stifle a laugh. “You know what, I got it.” You told him, placing your feet on the lower shelves to reach the item you needed. Jumping down with it in your hands, you shook it at him triumphantly making him laugh.

You weren’t shy to put him in his place with his bad jokes when you needed too and you were completely dependant on him, it made him absolutely love you.

Taeyong:

“It’s going to be a late night again.” Those seemed to be the words you had been hearing a lot lately, but it didn’t bother you. You were understanding that his job wasn’t like a regular 9-5 job, you knew that when you said you would date him. This time wasn’t any different for you, you accepted it and simply watched your show until you were tired.

However it was diferent for Taeyong this time, he felt guilty for not being there and it was evident when he came home to find you simply watching your show. Taeyong walked over to you and hugged you tightly, catching you off guard. “Thank you for always understanding when I need to work. Thank you.” He felt the need to tell you, even if it was out of the blue.

He realised every time he came home to find you still there, he loved you. He loved that you understood and that you never blamed him for his schedule.

Yuta:

Yuta was feeling the need to be productive, tidying up the house slightly and doing some of the general housework while you were out. But when he got to your room, he found some interesting reading material. It was all about Japan, recipes, popular things to do, important culture information. This was normal, but what stood out to him were the sticky notes placed on the pages. Places he had mentioned being fun and food he had mentioned being good had little notes written by them.

“Oh you found my book.” You remarked, looking at him from the door frame. “Yeah, what are all these notes?” Yuta asked with a smile. You moved to sit down by him and took the book from his hands. “These are places you have talked about, things you said you enjoyed doing and eating. Because well, I want to learn about what you love and what you enjoyed doing and stuff we can do and try together in the future.” Your words made Yuta smile even wider.

You wanted to know about his interest, you cared enough to study on these things and make future plans. He loved you for it.

Doyoung:

The little projector in his room was perfect for movie dates, broadcasting your movie onto his wall as you both laid in bed and watched. Doyoung’s commentary was witty, the movie not really being that good... quite bad actually and deserving some harsh commentary.

There was a lul in the film, making you slip your hands under the hoodie he was wearing, not for any other reason than he was nice and warm. Doyoung knew that and accepted your touch. “This acting is so-” He stopped midsentence once he looked at you. Seeing that all you needed was his body heat to get you to fall asleep. His lips curled up into a smile and wrapped his arms around you tightly.

It was a small action of dependency on your end but it made Doyoung’s heart swell. He loved that you were started to depend on him, because well, he was depending on you too.

Jaehyun:

The record store had music playing softly in the background when you both entered. It really had a nostalgic feeling, old records filling the racks and old band posters lining the walls. You both spread out through the store, taking your time to look at records and cd’s. You were great at spending time together but not necessarily needing to be right next to each other.

Jaehyun looked at you from across the store, simply watching you flip through the records with a little smile on your face. You looked up and locked eyes with him, waving softly once you noticed he was staring. Jaehyun laughed to himself and looked away, only to find himself staring at you once again. This time you were oblivious to it and simply flipping through cd’s.

You always caught his attention, you were effortlessly beautiful to him even doing the bare minimum. It was something he loved about you.

Winwin/Sicheng:

Sicheng had noticed you had been studying something over the course of the last few weeks. That your nose was stuck in your books and it was clearly a subject you were interested in. one day, curiousity got the better of him and he couldn’t help but flip through your study books.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were learning Chinese?” Sicheng asked you, holding your books. “I was going to surprise you. I know you’re more comfortable speaking Chinese and I want you to be completely comfortable with me.” You said softly and you could see his ears turning red. “That- I- I want to help you then! Be your teacher!” He stuttered, trying to hide how happy it made him.

You wanted him to be incredibly comfortable with him, you wanted to be able to communicate on the fullest level and it was something he really cherished.

Jungwoo:

“Shhh you don’t want to wake anyone up.” You said, looking at Jungwoo’s face as you tiptoed through the dorm. “You shhh, this was your idea.” He laughed and you raised your fingers to your lips, trying to stifle your own laughter. You both made it to the kitchen and turned the lights on. Jungwoo went to the fridge and opened it quite agressively, a bottle of juice rolling out and hitting the floor with a loud thud.

You both couldn’t hold back your laughter anymore, your adventure for a midnight snack being nothing short of a disaster and comical. Jungwoo grabbed what he was originally looking for from the fridge and handed it to you to turn around. “What are you two doing?” Taeyong asked, arms crossed and staring at you both. “Nothing.” Jungwoo quickly said, brushing past the older male and sending you into giggles. Once you both reached his bedroom with your snack you broke out in a fit of laughter.

Jungwoo looked at you as you settled in his room, still laughing. He loved that he could make some lighthearted trouble with you. He loved that he could laugh with you.

Mark:

You had been considering asking him for the longest time, but you knew Mark was very busy and probably didn’t have the time too. But you still wanted to learn, so you finally took the step. “Mark... can you teach me how to play the guitar?” You asked, holding his guitar by the neck gently. The question caught him off guard, making him look up at you with wide eyes. “I didn’t know you wanted to learn how to play.” Mark said, gesturing for you to sit by him.

“I’ve been wanting too, but you’ve just been so busy. I didn’t want you to feel like you needed too.” You explained, allowing the guitar to rest in your lap. Mark wrapped his arms around you after moving the guitar. “I mean I don’t need too, but I want too. It would be really fun to play together.” Mark said and you smiled not being able to contain your own excitement. “Ahh thank you!” You hugged him tightly, making him turn pink.

He loved how excited you got over small things and how eager you were to learn something new. It was just so endearing to Mark.

Haechan/Donghyuk:

You had both made yourselves comfortable, laptops and gaming computer ready to go. It was you and Donghyuk vs. Johnny and Jaehyun and you were both not planning on losing. “Y/N’s like impossible to kill!” Johnny said in frustration and you simply laughed, bouncing around the map happily. Donghyuk laughed, taking out Jaehyun as you swiftly did the same to Johnny.

“There we go! That’s my baby!” Donghyuk cheered, knowing that the fact that you two won meant that you wouldn’t have to pay for snacks that night. Annoyed, the two older guys left to go pick up the order while muttering things under their breath. “I keep telling them to stop challenging us as a duo, but they don’t learn.” You said, settling into Donghyuk’s bed. He joined you with a small laugh and rested his head on your chest. “You’re right, we’re just too good.” You both laughed and allowed your fingers to toy with his hair.

In that moment he realised that you and him had so much in common, even in teasing it made him realise he was head over heels for you.

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freddiekluger · 3 years

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please drop the essay length analysis Judas and Jesus (extra gay Swedish edition), O great and knowledgeable monarch of our times

alright, you ask i deliver! please excuse any typos, my eyes aren't exactly working rn

welcome to my probably super subjective but correct analysis, aka

Judas Was Right and Jesus Was A Victim (At Least, In Swedish)

Before we get started, a couple points: i’ll try to avoid comparisons to other specific productions, i’ve only seen the other recorded 2012 british version which i didn’t like for reasons including but not limited to the amount of white people with dreadlocks. Also, my understanding of swedish is limited to a couple words and phrases, so most of the lyrics i reference will be english subtitles from Ola Salo’s swedish translation and therefore might not be the most accurate !

There’s so much i could cover in this, but for now i’m going to focus on how jesus and judas are portrayed in the 2014 swedish arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar (JCS) starring Ola Salo as Jesus and Peter Johansson as Judas, along with how this production more implicitly views god.

From the opening number, translated into swedish as En Dimmig Himmelsdröm (A Foggy Heaven’s Dream), Peter Johansson’s acting and semantic differences in the lyrics present us with a deeply sympathetic portrayal of Judas. Looking purely at language, the english equivalent Heaven On Their Minds instantly paints Judas as much more of a faithless doubter- lyrics exclusive to the english version like “all your followers have gone blind / too much heaven on their minds” and “they think you’re the new messiah / and they’ll hurt you when they find they’re wrong” strongly enforce Judas’ main motivation for his actions being that he has less belief in Jesus and God’s plan than any of the other disciples with strong statements judging the other disciples for following him and claiming that Jesus ISN’T the messiah. The swedish translation doesn’t paint exactly the same picture- the focus of Judas’ number becomes his fear for Jesus’ wellbeing, not because he isn’t the messiah (the production remains fairly ambiguous on this point), but because Jesus can’t cope. The root of Judas’ concern comes from fear for Jesus’ wellbeing, and the disciples are referenced as regularly misunderstanding and wilfully twisting Jesus’ words. The swedish equivalent lyrics for the above examples are “they say, “jesus is god’s son” / but you know how people can change” (judas isn’t concerned with truth, just the danger that jesus will be in if the tide turns), and “the kingdom of heaven is within us, that’s what you said / bu they sew it, stitch by stich into some kind of foggy heaven’s dream”. Judas is showing that he HAS been listening and cares for Jesus’ teachings, but ‘they’ [his disciples] are turning them into something else entirely, and Judas’ worries that the support of the masses is fragile at best- the lines “and everything you say gets twisted by your lackeys / it will be anything but what you’ve said” and “you are being used by people who want you in their battle” reinforces this again. When combined with Peter Johansson’s tough but tender performance, in which he dances between disdain for Jesus, the institution, and affection for Jesus, the man (an important distinction), Judas is the harsh realist doing his best to look out for the man he loves. The way he takes Jesus hands and looks at him with love and urgency straight away establishes that his motivations are pure- Judas is doing what he thinks is best, even though it feels like no one will listen to him.

That was long, but En Dimmig Himmelsdröm is the perfect character introduction for Judas. He’s not totally unrecognisable, still delivering digs about ‘Jesus, the little carpenter’s son’, his manner is still rough and at this point we’re not sure whether or not the claims he makes about the disciples have any truth to them, BUT we can also see how much Jesus means to him, an important point that give context to the intensity of their future arguments and really makes the whole story much more heartbreaking.

This brings me to Ola Salo’s Jesus. Delightfully camp and queercoded, Judas describes him as being caught up in his own magic and mystery and buckling under the pressure, and he’s not entirely wrong. Throughout the first act, Jesus basks in the luxuries that being messiah can give him (the oils Mary paid for using disciple funds that were supposed to go towards helping the poor, him absolutely thriving in the shopping cart in What’s the Buzz?), and is shown actively avoiding any reminders of the seriousness of his position. He’s sick of the disciples asking him for a plan, he chooses the comforting Mary, who’s theme consists of telling Jesus everything is okay and he doesn’t need to think about anything, over Judas, who is less perhaps ‘cosy’ but is actively trying to warn and protect Jesus from an awful fate. During The Temple, he starts to crack as he’s overcome by the followers begging him to make him well, fear in his eyes as he raises his arms while frozen on the spot trying to avoid being devoured by the frenzy in desperate need of a messiah. Judas’ point about Jesus buckling under the pressure is starting to look more and more reasonable, and the dashes of showbiz campness add to the sense that much of Jesus is a persona constructed for the masses to give himself enough distance to prevent him from being crushed by the weight of God entirely. Jesus, the institution, prances around, lays his hands on his followers, and projects an air of easygoing calm. Jesus, the man, is scared and alone, and Jesus, the man, really comes out in Last Supper, but before we get there, I want to circle back to the Jesus/Mary/Judas thing.

Jesus, Mary, and Judas are presented as a love triangle: so much so, that Judas seeing Mary sing of her love for Jesus (I Don’t Know How To Love Him) is actually played as the inciting incident that sends him to the pharisees. Judas, the picture of the jealous lover, storms onto the scene, breaking them up and attempting to kiss Jesus, who instead shoves him to the ground in disdain. Judas, who is perhaps a little controlling, realises that any influence he had over Jesus has gone, and it’s likely a combination of jealousy and the knowledge that Jesus won’t stop that prompts him to head to the pharisees. In his meeting with the pharisees (known in english as Damned For All Time, although that phrase doesn’t appear once in the swedish), Judas’ expresses outright that “I’m the one who sees / Jesus, he can’t handle it anymore” “the truth is that this hysteria is making him lose control”, once he can get past explaining how much this plan of action feels like a last resort. He never even verbally or physically accept the pharisees’ offer of money, he denies it twice before it is eventually thrown over him after he reluctantly gives them the date and time to find Jesus- we never even see him pick it up, unlike other productions which show Judas grabbing for the cash and place a higher emphasis on Judas making sure he ‘won’t be damned for all time’, painting Judas as far more self serving. When it comes to Jesus, Judas is active- he’s running around trying to help, caressing him, embracing him, grabbing his hand, kissing him. They share countless moment of intimacy, especially at the start, establishing the fondness between them instead of instantly jumping to their conflict. When it comes to Mary (and admittedly, this is partially because she’s a secondary character- don’t get me wrong I still love her and Gunilla Backman does a brilliant job), she’s much more passive. Other than the much more gentle kisses in I Don’t Know How To Love Him and her penchant for dabbing Jesus’ forehead, she’s mostly just ‘there’. She cares for Jesus after the fact, and even when performing acts of intimacy like the oil and the kiss, she maintains a lot of physical distance- her songs touch on this as, much like Jesus (admittedly for different reasons), she actively distances herself from feelings to protect herself, so naturally she literally places distance between herself and the object of her love.

This brings me back to Last Supper, Gethsemane ( I Only Want to Say), and the kiss of death that broke all of our hearts. Throughout this segment, this is when Jesus, the man, really comes through, and it’s devastating. In Last Supper, he properly expresses the sheer amount of loneliness he feels, reiterating how he feels everyone will forget about him once he’s gone, and doesn’t really care about him as a man (”for you, my blood is not worth more than wine / for you, my body is not worth more than bread” “you will have forgotten me as soon as i give up my life”). This devolves into the disciples fighting each other and, you guessed it, ignoring him. For the first time, Jesus meaningfully lets out his anger, and as it turns to Judas, Judas does the same. Because of the set up of their complicated romantic relationship and the stakes involved, the amount of personal attacks and anger that comes out of Jesus and Judas’ repeated fights (which get physical) make complete sense- Jesus’ frustrations come from the fact that his entire fate has been predetermined and to him, Judas is just another instrument in the ways he’s been controlled (both with Judas being his betrayer, but also the way that Judas’ constant advice and interference with Jesus’ life (most obviously, the mary thing) are acted by Ola Salo as becoming increasingly frustrating to Jesus)- these frustrations are directed at their real cause, God, in Gethsemane. Judas’ frustrations come from the fact that no matter how hard he tries to help Jesus and keep him safe, Jesus keeps rejecting his efforts resulting in “all that we’ve built up [being] destroyed”- Judas’ heart hasn’t just been broken by Jesus rejecting him romantically, but on every level. Here, he’s actually shown to be the disciple most passionate about helping people practically and long term, being the only one concerned about Mary taking money which was supposed to help people, manipulated by the pharisees with the promise of doing good for the masses, and criticising Jesus for how they could be doing so much for people, ending his part of Last Supper with “every time i look at you i ask myself why you let all your things go so wrong? / all i ever wanted was to help you”.

This is also the point where Judas’ claims about the disciples are essentially confirmed, and this productions intent to portray Judas as more of a tragic hero become absolutely clear. In the english version, the disciples chorus remains virtually the same each time it appears, generally being far too calm considering their leader is about to die, revealing their aspirations to be apostles, and their intent to write the gospels to be remembered. the swedish translation still achieve this, but with variations from chorus to chorus it becomes much more poignant. i’m just going to stick to ttwo, which are choruses 1 and 3. In chorus 1, lines roughly translate to “i’ve always wanted to be an apostle / life is so nice when you’re saved/ then when we’ve got time we’ll write the gospels / then everything will be the way we want”- the apostles declaring that life is so good when you’re saved supports Judas’ opening statement that they care more about some idea of heaven than anything else, not to mention ignoring the absolute horrors that Jesus will have to go through to be saved, while the final line about the gospels introduces their intent to change whichever details they need to make ‘everything the way we want’: once again, exactly what Judas warned us of in En Dimmig Himmelsdröm. In chorus 3, taking place after Judas storms out for the last time, these lines change to “never really liked that judas / never saw what jesus saw in him / then, when we’ve got time we’ll write the gospels / and we’ll angle it so he gets all the blame”. Judas as a sympathetic character is confirmed here, as the disciples straight up admit how they don’t like Judas anyways and intend to write him as a villain (also inadvertently admitting that, since they have to write the gospels to make it look like only Judas’ fault, Judas isn’t really the sole one responsible for everything that is to come). It’s deeply unsettling, and for me was the point where I really began to question how good any of these disciples were, and by extension, how good is this production’s God if his truly sanctified followers are acting like this?

Jesus vents out all of his anger and desperation in Gethsemane. He acknowledges his own powerlessness and begs him to change the plan, but with the dark stage and no response (along with Ola Salo’s spectacular acting) it becomes clear that if anyone is there, they’re certainly not listening (”you, who have all the power / can you please change the plan / for i can already feel the pain burning in me”). It’s worth mentioning that a lot of the imagery in this swedish version is much more intense than the english, both in this song and the production as a whole. Jesus plainly calls god “thoughtless”, begging to understand, and it’s that this point we realise that he agrees with much more of what Judas has been saying than he’s been letting on- Jesus’ faith appears to be the only thing keeping him from listening to Judas and running away. Judas’ messages about people misunderstanding Jesus’ words also come out (”you care that everyone sees / but not that anyone understands”), and his eventual agreeing to die is played less as an inspiring act of faith, and more an act of desperation as he realises, he realise has no other choice. In this song, we see just how much of Judas Jesus has valued and taken on board, and that his air of carefree aloofness which frustrated Judas was, as we’ve already touched on, a complete act. The line “might as well finish what i’ve... what YOU’VE started” is absolutely miserable, reinforcing one of the major themes of this production: the idea that Jesus and Judas were both just ordinary men tormented by futures defined by forces out of their control. Just as Jesus has absorbed Judas’ logic, as an audience so we have, and it’s difficult to view the rest of the play’s events as anything other than an immense and unnecessary act of cruelty.

we’re almost done i promise!

Even knowing what Judas has/will do, Jesus still greets him with love. Judas, still under the impression that Jesus will be okay and that he’s doing what’s best, approaches him with the utmost tenderness, and the kiss is a beautiful signifier of two things. For Jesus, the return of his love for Judas shows his realisation in Gethsemane that Judas isn’t the one who’s sealed his fate and has only being trying to help, it’s god himself who has decided Jesus’ future. For Judas, the kiss shows that despite all of the anger and frustration that has been pouring out of him, he truly does love Jesus, and the way he cradles the scared and alone Jesus to his chest afterwards shows just how much he wishes he could be the one to help him and keep him close. Even with all their arguments and dysfunction, here Jesus and Judas find comfort in each other, and it almost seems like everything will end up alright. It’s in this moment that Judas and Jesus are most identifiable not as enemies, or as villain and hero, but as archetypal lovers from a Shakespearean tragedy. Neither of them set out to hurt each other, but through miscommunications, their own flaws, and external forces (both natural and supernatural), their love is simply never to be. Furthermore, in the following torture and spectacle, everything that Judas predicted for Jesus is about to come true. Another detail I find interesting is the way that Jesus and Judas both sport black nail polish, leather pants, and similar length hair: along with just looking cool as hell, the similarities really reinforce how close they are and how much they influence each other- it feels like a contemporary version of carrying a cameo or a lock of your lover's hair with you, a way for 'star crossed lovers' to keep a piece of their beloved no matter what.

The disaffected persona of Jesus, the institution, comes back as he’s taken by the authorities and subsequently insulted, degraded, and whipped. Also the swedish version of The Arrest, when the chorus starts singing questions, contains this dick joke and I think we all deserve it: “why were you dating a whore? / talk about a huge magic wand!”

Skipping forward to Judas’ Death, this is where both his character and the production’s conception of god beautifully (and miserably) align. When Judas runs to the pharisees, minor semantic changes (along with the genuine concern and great acting from Peter Johansson) reinforce that this Judas genuinely didn’t know that Jesus would be beaten and sentenced to death the way he has been, and Judas’ concern regarding how things look is played less as ‘oh no people will hate ME!’, but how having sentenced the man you love to death is one nightmarish thing, but for everyone to think you did it knowingly and willingly and then congratulate you for it is unthinkable. Where the english shows Judas’ attempting to evade responsibility for Jesus death, the swedish is more focused on Judas’ guilt, horror, and regret. The english “I’d save him all the suffering if I could / don’t believe our good / save him if I could” is swapped in swedish for “If anyone should die here I should / don’t say I’m good / better if I died”. While the english statements are somewhat empty (sure, Judas says he’d save Jesus’ suffering if he could, but he can’t so we’ll never truly know) and are still focused on Judas’ attempt to construct himself as a good guy, the swedish translation has Judas admit his guilt (even if it’s not really his fault), and make the promise of “better if i died” which, given the name of this sequence, he later delivers on. When english Judas sings “Christ, I’d sell out the nation / For I have been saddled with the murder of you”, swedish Judas sings “Jesus, I’ve been deceived / because of my act your blood’s now being spilt”, and instead of ending this first section with “I should be dragged through the slime and the mud”, swedish jesus returns to the theme of character assasination with “i will be cursed as the one behind your murder”.

The swedish translation of the next rework of I Don’t Know How to Love Him also places much more emphasis on Judas’ genuine romantic love for Jesus- we’d be here for hours if i listed everything but here are a few key contrasts. The english has Judas sing “I don’t know how to love him / I don’t know why he moves me”, whereas the swedish has Judas crying while singing “how do I show my love / all I want is to be close to you”. Along with acknowledging Judas already loves Jesus, the entirety of this segment is shifted from Judas singing about Jesus in the third person ‘he’, to a direct address. Judas isn’t performing his sadness, or venting his emotions, he’s emitting one last desperate cry to the man he loves as he sobs on a stage completely shrouded in darkness, and it’s devastating. Peter Johansson lets his voice run raw as he’s belting, and interrupts lines with sobs, and this Judas answers the question of “do you love me too? do you care for me?” with a quiet “no”- Judas is about to go to his death convinced Jesus must hate him, just as Jesus will face his knowing his love inadvertently put him there.

We finally reach Judas’ actual death, and the production’s far more ambiguous (if not negatively geared) depiction of god comes to a head. Judas’ screaming at god the moment he realises that his god essentially forced Judas to be the one to kill Jesus (an act of ultimate cruelty given their love) comes across as horrifying in it’s validity, unlike in other english language productions where it follows the more common characterisation of Judas being an unbeliever who can’t take responsibility for his own actions. When he spits on the ground, screaming “you have murdered me!”, we can’t help but agree- Judas was trying everything he could to stop Jesus from dying, and yet here he is. Most notably, Judas doesn’t set up his own suicide- a noose literally descends from the heavens, already tied, and Judas is literally trapped between the edge of the stage, and the symbol of death behind him. Much like he didn’t choose to kill Jesus, Judas has no choice in his own suicide- it’s suggested to merely be another part of the plan god has for him, and Judas raising his arms to form a crucifixion pose before he finally turns and jumps, disappearing into the depths of the theatre as the rope trails down (somewhat evocative of a leap to hell), highlight the sick joke. Much like Jesus begging in Gethsemane, a plea with god that in anyway implies fault or cruelty is met with silence followed by a death sentence.

When Judas reappears to the broken and bloodied Jesus in Superstar, he appears as more of a twisted hallucination than the literal spirit of Judas. He’s the opposite of everything he was in life, draped in colour, surrounded by red lighting instead of the signature blue, his hair quite literally let down, joking and dancing. Despite singing about him, Judas virtually ignores Jesus for the whole song except when he’s taunting him, snatching his hand away after a broken and desperate Jesus reaches out for the image of his beloved (refuting Judas’ belief that Jesus would die hating him), along with the swedish additions of Judas repeatedly addressing him as “little Jesus”. Where the living Judas was serious, sometimes harsh but always well intention, often paying more attention to Jesus than he received, this Judas is the opposite: light hearted but cruel, not caring about Jesus one bit. It’s somewhat an inversion of the beginning of JCS, where the tormented Judas was constantly reaching out to Jesus, and often met with scorn and insult (see: most of their arguments, this line from Everything’s Alright: “the thought is beautiful but quite unrealistic / yes, even quite stupid”). As the song goes on, and even as Jesus is crucified, the victorious scoring of the Superstar theme ends up reinforcing the cruelty and questioning of god distinctive of this production: Ola Salo’s Jesus is one of the bloodiest Jesus’s (Jesii?) I’ve been able to find, with blood covering his torso, his arms, and all over his face, not in passive dribbles, but violent ‘swooshes’ spreading out from his eyes, emphasising the fear and pain contained within them. As the music suggests how great and wonderful Jesus’ death is, the images straight out of a horror movie before us don’t seem to match up: as both Judas and Jesus question, if no one is understanding what Jesus is saying, why kill him? instead of making a point, you’re ensuring that the falsehoods continue to circulate, unless spreading the true message isn’t really the intent at all. or, simply that Jesus was wrong: his interpretation and teachings of god were far too kind and practical, and the true god really is the one that he briefly saw in the garden of Gethsemane, and that Judas saw before his death- a cruel and vindictive god using them for his own sick purposes. If you're a strong Christian, I'm sure you could watch this production and still believe that God was right (although I think Jesus and Judas being in love counts as blasphemy), but I think in doing so you'd lose part of what makes this production so hard hitting and, as i keep saying, devastating.

that’s pretty much it for this one! i feel like jesus and judas as a queer couple is less significant to this production than the fact that it’s specifically jesus and judas that are in love - they don’t face explicit homophobia as such, although i do think the paratextual and historical associations of queerness (both with them each looking visibly queer, and them as a couple) adds a beautiful dimension by subverting the standard christian teaching of Jesus’ sacrifice as “a love that changed the world” and making the love that truly could have been transformative (and was, to a degree) the love between Jesus and another man, not to mention the way in which queerness is often viewed as radical perfectly upholding the ‘radical’ views of god and the story of Jesus shown in the production. Why wouldn’t the love between two men be the love which has us questioning god, faith, and that which many of us have been taught since birth? Ola Salo has talked about how he’s able to be positive and negative towards christianity, along with how he wanted Jesus and Judas to really represent two sides of the same coin (’faith and intelligence’), and being bisexual along with having alluded to being raised christian (not to mention Breaking Up With God, a song by his band The Ark), it’s not surprising he’s managed to present such a nuanced and layered interpretation of Jesus Christ Superstar that even me, a trans exvangelical, can fall in love with.

UPDATE: @bands-and-hobbits has just let me know that Ola's dad was a priest! Apparently he's said that he liked the organs and the music, but that was all when it comes to christianity, which (when combined with Ola stating in interviews that the JCS soundtrack has been one of his favourite albums since he was 14) makes a lot of sense about the level of familiarity he had with the text giving him confidence to go in and make changes to really capitalised off of some of the themes that are hinted at in the english version- you have enough information to understand how everything works together, but aren't so dedicated to preserving belief that you feel you can't improve/change things (and my god are we glad he did)

#thank you if you made it this far!#also the inherent rhythm in swedish as a language just makes all of the songs sound better i'm gonna say it #english is really hit and miss when it comes to music and can get especially clunky with musicals requiring exposition #also sorry there's so much i've left out !#anyways enjoy #jesus christ superstar #jesus christ superstar swedish arena tour 2014 #jcs #peter johansson #ola salo #also i have barely edited this so i hope it's coherent

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finleycannotdraw · 3 years

Text

Guess what? I’m re-binge-reading Good Omens. And here are some Obervations that I forgot about and some things I might put in fics. Also things I found funny. Basically my dumb commentary on the book.

Crowley actually flees Sister Mary. He doesn’t saunter vaguely away. He flees.

Ligur is rather more thoughtful than he’s portrayed in the show

Anathema likes to read about herself, and her teachers are confused because she spells words like Agnes Nutter

Crowley apologizes

By page 41, it is mentioned at least twice that Aziraphale and Crowley Do Not choose each other’s company for any reason other than that they are constants, that they have an Arrangement, and that they are Friends because being Enemies got boring.

Aziraphale blushes!!!!!!

The Drunk Scene is fuckin hilarious and it’s actually a lot longer than it is in the show, and really you ought to read it. (Book pages 47-50)

My mom (who has a PhD in human development) would probably like to talk to Crowley about upbringing because they seem to agree on how important it is

War has always looked 25, and had a vulture that died of fatty degeneration

Pollution is very cleverly compared to actual pollution

Warlock has Kermit the frog overalls, and Nanny Ashtoreth is described as someone who “advertises unspecified but strangely explicit services in certain magazines”. The tutors are present for about four paragraphs. Warlock is good at math and likes banana flavored bubblegum.

Crowley has a slice of angel cake. Aziraphale eats it. Aziraphale also eats deviled eggs. Hm.

Crowley calls Aziraphale angel casually enough to suggest he’s been doing it for a long time

Some girl at Warlock’s party calls Aziraphale a f*ggot

Crowley glares suspiciously at a gerbil. It is suggested that Hell has, in the past, sent hell-gerbils in place of hellhounds.

“Oh dear,” muttered Aziraphale, not swearing with the practiced ease of one who has spent six thousand years not swearing, and who wasn’t going to start now.

Adam and his friends play in a place called The Pit, where shopping carts go to die, apparently

Crowley is the first one to mention sides in the book!??!? Also Crowley goes on about how humans are more evil than Hell (but he calls himself evil—is he calling himself human already?)

Aziraphale yells “get off the road, you clown!”

“What’s a velvet underground?” *love confession???* “you wouldn’t like it”

Aziraphale is a bit rude to Crowley in the “flashes of love” scene and Crowley is less panicked about it

Crowley glares at the Bentley and it fixes itself

Anathema’s bike is called Phaeton

COULD THEY ACT ANY MORE MARRIED OH MY GOD

Aziraphale speaks like. Like ugh. “FlOUndeR on tHe rOcKS of inEquiTY”

“Thirty seconds later someone shot both of them. With incredible accuracy.” *cuts to a random pleasant story about Mary Hodges* *cuts back to where Aziraphale has fallen into a rhododendron and Crowley licks the paint before he knows it’s paint* dumbasses

Crowley does not slam Aziraphale into the wall

Crowley is actually pretty impatient and doesn’t argue with Aziraphale when he’s worried

“Nothing but dust and fundamentalists” “that was nasty” “sorry, couldn’t help it”

When the radio sings “Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me,” Crowley sings “for me” and then screams

Crowley asks Aziraphale if he’ll keep in touch, and Aziraphale doesn’t say tickety-boo, and then Crowley says “right” and feels very alone

the international express man is small and has glasses, and wears green woolen socks

The sword, which turns out to be Aziraphale’s, is described as having an aura of hatred and menace, which makes me think of how it could’ve gotten that aura from Heaven or from humanity or from War...

In the book Pepper has red hair and freckles, which makes it a cool comparison to War’s appearance and the defeat of War

Adam is excellent at slouching, apparently

Occasionally, as Aziraphale reads the book, he would very nearly swear

“He wouldn’t have said ‘that’s weird’ if a flock of sheep had cycled past playing violins.”

“If you had told him there were children starving in Africa he would’ve been flattered that you’d noticed.”

“...that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide.” (151)

Wensleydale watches David Attenborough programs

Shadwell’s voice is described as “the color of an old raincoat” and seems to fake smoking cigarettes

Aziraphales cocoa is moldy and solidified by the time he calls Arthur Young, and has a thin layer of dust on himself too

Newt says that the walls look like nicotine and the floor looks like cigarette ash, and he suspects both are, actually, coated with these substances

Newt looks a bit like Clark Kent, and people seem to like Shadwell for some reason, much to his annoyance.

Aziraphale calls Shadwell “dear boy” on the phone

Agnes Nutter called God a daft old fool #goals

Adam is wayyyy too good at video games

Smelling Anathema’s perfume makes Newt uncomfortable

Adam suggests that Pepper ought to have Russia cause of her red hair (huh)

Anathema and Newt actually have decent conversations?? Like?? Show??? C’mon, man. The show kinda butchered their relationship.

Trees, apparently, make a ‘vvrooooommm’ sound when they grow very fast

“He suspected that Crowley was from the Mafia, or the underworld, although he would have been surprised how right he nearly was.” Shadwell also thought Aziraphale was a Russian spy. Wow, Shadwell.

Aziraphale calls Crowley and actually says “shut up” to him, and then when the answering machine beeps, he tells Crowley to “stop making noises” and then he swears for the first time ever.

The fuckin’ footnote on page 227

“A sleek computer was the sort of thing Crowley felt that the sort of human he tried to be would have.” I like the word choice here. He’s not pretending to be a human, he’s trying to be one. That’s a really important distinction.

It never actually says what Crowley does to his plants.

Crowley’s flat is very white. Wow, Crowley. It just looks dark because of the lighting. Heaven imagery and symbolism out my ears, goddammit.

Why does Hell say Crowley’s name so much when talking to him?? Honestly, I think that’s an intentional dig at his chosen name, using it in their speech to scare him. Wow, Hell. (And wow, Finn, excellent sentence)

Whenever the book says something is shaped like something, it definitely isn’t that thing. “man-shaped” “dog-shaped” “car-shaped”... makes it pretty obvious they aren’t men, dogs, or cars, huh.

The code to Crowley’s safe is 4004. The year he “slithered onto this stupid, marvelous planet”... and the year he met Aziraphale, of course. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, Crowley, my dude.

Crowley consideres sticking Hastur into his car until he turns into Freddie Mercury but then decides even he isn’t that cruel

Actual text that I feel like nobody really agrees with: “Madame Tracy was by many yardsticks quite stupid”

“Do I look like I run a bookshop?” “...imagine me out of uniform, sir, and what kind of man would you see before you? Honestly?” “A prat.”

I’m crying. The fucking bookshop fire scene made me fucking cry. I’m literally crying.

“...on all fours in the blazing bookshop, Crowley cursed Aziraphale, and the ineffable plan, and Above, and Below.” “The police and firemen looked at him, saw the expression on his face, and stayed exactly where they were.” “...a crack of thunder so loud it hurt....” *the sound of Finley sobbing into their cat*

The shortest biker in the cafe thing is 6′2, what the fuck

War, Famine, Pollution, and Pop Trivia 1962-1979

“Pollution removed his helmet and shook out his long white hair. He had taken over when Pestilence, muttering about penicillin, had retired in 1936. If only the old boy had known what opportunities the future had held.” HMMMMMMMMMMM

“There were no bitches in Hell either.” I know it’s talking about female dogs, but I rather thought Hell was full of bitches.

“Why are you talking like a poofter?” “Ah. Australia.”

“gOsh, aM i on teLEviSiON?” (Basically Aziraphale gets passionate about stuff and likes to talk).

Crowley is actually an optimist and doesn’t dwell too much on how sucky the world is. He doesn’t go get smashed in a bar. He just finds Aziraphale’s notes in the book and heads to Tadfield. And also, his new pair of sunglasses just... materializes out of his eyes. And he likes to whistle.

“Death and Famine and War and Pollution continued biking to Tadfield. And Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty to Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After You’ve Given Them A Good Thumping But Secretly No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People traveled with them.”

“on top of the pile a rather large octopus waved a languid tentacle at them. The sergeant resisted the temptation to wave back.” Honestly dude, if an octopus waved at me I’d wave back.

Wait Agnes was apparently talking to Shadwell and not God when she said yowe daft old foole. I dunno

Madame Tracy: You old silly. Shadwell:

Aziraphale does not know how to get rid of demons. Canonically. “Had never done other to get rid of demons than to hint to them very strongly that he, Aziraphale, had some work to be getting on with, and wasn’t it getting late? And Crowley always got the hint.”

The road to Hell is paved with frozen door to door salesmen, apparently. The question is where it is, because the demons always seem to just stem out of the ground.

“Heigh ho,” said Anthony Crowley, and just drove anyway. I love this sentence during that scene.

I bet Hastur gets really mad whenever he hears Aziraphale’s voice from now on

Crowley isn’t breathing the entire burning Bentley scene

ADAM. SAID. “But I reckon you can make your own side” AND WE FUCKIN IGNORED IT?

The temperature above the M25 was simultaneously 700ºC and -140ºC which makes me think of something I read about magenta not being real. The M25 is magenta.

I feel like “Agnes” is just going to become an inside joke between Anathema and Newt at this point, and it will drive Crowley insane because he knows who she is but somehow still doesn’t get the joke.

I’m six inches taller than R.P. Tyler, and apparently according to the back sleeve of the book jacket, I’m very similar in height to Neil Gaiman

R.P. Tyler thought Shadwell was a ventriloquist’s dummy, and then sees cows doing somersaults

“That’s terrific. Much obliged,” said Crowley. — “Funny weather we’re having, isn’t it?” “Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” “Probably because your car is on fire.” .... Also the fact that Crowley looks like a young man which I find interesting.

“The Four Button-Pressers of the Apocalypse”

“Where is Armageddon, anyway?” “I’ve always meant to look that up.” “There’s an Armageddon, Pennsylvania”

Famine is the one that says “that’s one big avocado”, and also, I find it interesting that War, more than once, talks about love. (All is fair in love and war much?)

Anathema threatens the guard with a stick, pretending it’s a gun

Aziraphale, of course, asks Crowley to sort it out because he, Aziraphale, is “the nice one” and then proceeds to sort it out himself. Because of course he does. Because what else could he possibly do.

I just ADORE THIS BOOK OKAY

I’M PROBABLY GOING TO READ IT AGAIN IN A MONTH

Aziraphale and Crowley are so fuckin married I can’t

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morimakesfanart · 3 years

Text

Sindria's Prophet #13

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

[AO3]

((edited because I figured out to add some more history facts that I think are important))

~POV Sinbad~

"The Kou Empire, huh?"

"That is going to make things risky."

With all of the Generals caught up with what happened in Balbadd, they needed to start planning for King Sinbad's trip to the Kou Empire, as well as catching him up with everything that had happened in Sindria while he was gone.

"LadY YamuRAI H AA AA A" A yell came from the hallway accompanied by the sounds of running.

((Sinbad is hidden on the left. There's a hint of him poking out.))

A panting magician gave apologies for disturbing their meeting and ran to the head of Sindria's magicians. "I wish I knew you were here so I didn't search the tower first~" Then he started explaining about some magical proof. Most of his words sounded like gibberish to the rest, but it was clear that he had made some kind of break though.

Yam jumped out of her seat. "How did you finally figure it out?! Who figured it out?!" She whipped her head to her King, "Sorry your majesty," and then looked back to the other magician.

"It was the work of the Prophet!” the magician answered. "We were talking about her illness and she pulled out scrolls that- you just have to read them for yourself!”

Mori had said that she had written other scrolls before she started coping down Fate. This must have been what she was working on.

Both magicians bowed out to go test out this new information. Before they could leave, Sinbad ended the meeting; there was no way he was going to wait to learn what other information Mori had blessed them with. Ja'far followed as did a few of the other Generals.

When they got into the court yard, the doctors that had been sent to take care of Mori were already pushing their supply cart back to their main building. The magician that had stayed behind spotted them and raised two scrolls up triumphantly. "She let me take the scrolls!"

---

News of the scrolls written by a Prophet spread throughout the Black Libra Tower within an hour. Yamuraiha and the doctors explained their significance to King Sinbad.

If even a fraction of the theories in the scrolls proved true it would completely changed their understanding of how illnesses work. If Mori wasn't sick she would undoubtedly be swarmed with questions and demands for proof. According to the magicians, nothing in the scrolls went against any known information. Instead, they gave explanations to why certain things that had been attempted in the past had failed. What she wrote about 'cells' was what really caught the eyes of the white magicians and doctors. As an example, according to Mori's writing there were blood types and most couldn't mix; that would explain why most past attempts at blood transfusions had failed.

The 2nd scroll showed a break down of even smaller particles, and how the structures of different particles made up everything. This was going to bring alchemic magic to a whole new era. Sure, such things would most likely be limited to high magicians, group efforts, and the Magi, but it looked possible now. A lot of common magic of the current day took extreme amounts of magoi in the past because they hadn't found the right formula yet. Mori's writing -if true- could easily be used as a guide to finding the right order of commands for many spells.

And even more than that, Mori had said that she had even more information to share; she had just ran out of scrolls and ink.

Mori's presence in Sindria, and everything that went with it were Fate and the Rukh's guidance. King Sinbad could see it -the future he wanted.

---

~POV Mori~

In Sindria's Palace there is a Great Bell. It is rung during celebrations, and to signify the King returning home like it did earlier that day, but it's main use was to ring every 2 hours to tell everyone the time since clocks weren't invented yet. So even though I was a sick person trying to rest during the day, I was woken up by the Great Bell every 2 hours... which of course is also situated right on top of the guest tower.

For obvious reasons, I was awake again.

I wish I knew how the others responded to the scrolls. I really wanted to know Yam's opinion most. Those scrolls basically gave away the secret to Yunan's signature alchemy magic.

I still had the first scroll I had worked on -the one on the science behind blimps-, and the last science scroll I had started. That one was on DNA, and reproductive systems. It was the last one I started in Balbadd. I hadn't started working on it until sunrise on my 2nd sleepless night and it showed; there were missing words everywhere, many incomplete sentences, and I couldn't stay in topic.

These mistakes were too great to fix with an ink knife. Editing was going be super annoying and time consuming since I couldn't work digitally. I'd have to physically cut up the first draft to put everything in the right order before making the next one.

Wait- Did this world have scissors???

Back home the first evolution of shears that could be labeled as scissors was in Roman barber shops in the last hundred years or so before Rome fell. China would spontaneous also create something akin to scissors not long after. Reim and the Kou Empire seemed to line up with Rome and ancient China for the most part, so I tend to use them to place the time period, but the dress Princess Dunya wears is centuries off and throws all historical accuracy questions out the window. Rome was long gone by the time boning was added to women's undergarments, and that dress had all the signs of boned corsetry.

Fuck it. I'll ask for scissors and if they don't have them I'll just invent them myself. I had been drafting professionally for the past 4 years. That may have been for microelectronics, but it uses all the same skills; I could do this. I needed to get a ruler -or at least a straight edge- and a drafting compass which they probably have based on the look of maps in the series, and pencils, or at least colored inks if they had them. I probably needed to reinvent the French curve(stencil tool used in art & drafting)...

Since I was struggling to fall back asleep I moved to the table and pulled out my test scroll. It was full of random marks and some of my early drawing attempts that I used to practice with the dip pen -it's also where I wrote down the dreams from the Rukh. I'd write the list of things I needed, rip the section out of the scroll, and pass the list to someone who could get me what I was asking for. I added some living necessities too like sleep wear and a comb.

The maids that came to give me dinner, and next dose of medicine were not pleased that I wasn't in bed -I was an important guest who was sick after all. And I wasn't pleased to have to drink more of that bitter medicine, but we can't have nice things all the time, now can we?

My voices was strained but I managed to communicate enough. I gave them my list, and laundry (the clothes I wore on the boat) before they left. They'd get me the things the next day. I was instructed to sleep until someone brings me breakfast the next day... which is what I was going to do anyway since the sun was practically gone. I might be a bit of a workaholic but I'm not going to let myself pull an accidental all-nighter when I know I'm still sick. I'm far more self aware than that.

And besides, the Great Bell didn't ring at night.

---

Maids brought my breakfast (& meds) the next morning and let me know that my clothes would be cleaned and dry by the end of the day. I guess they didn't use magic for everything.

They also gave me all of the drafting and inking supplies I asked for except for scissors. In one of the omakes Sinbad was shown cutting his hair with a knife as a part of his normal grooming. I had hoped he was just old fashioned.

For the greater good and the future of my own hair care, I drafted up detailed designs for a few different types of basic scissors. They wouldn't look fancy, but hopefully I had put enough of a detailed explanation on everything for the smith to figure out what I was asking. Steel wasn't developed until the middle ages and some of the counties of this world matched that so I hoped

that God and anime were on my side. I really wanted scissors that would be a good quality.

And if that didn't work I'd just have to get used to using knives and bladed rollers like a regular person.

The Great Bell rung for 10 am. There were at least another 2 hours before someone would show up, to give lunch, that I could ask to take my draft for the scissors to a black Smith.

I should be resting as a sick person. I should be more exhausted and in pain as a sick person. What was making me recover this quickly?

I still didn't feel like laying back down, so I decided to start drafting up the materials and equipment for proving everything I had written in the scrolls I gave the previous day.

Globally, micro-organisms, viruses, and bacteria were not really accept or proved until the late 1800's. Since Magi seems to take place some time around our 100AD-1300, and Yunan hinting at chemical compounds was seen as shocking by Yam, I knew that my bio scrolls were probably causing an uproar in the Black Libra Tower. I refused to use actual people or wait for an outbreak to prove it like how it happened in history -like how John Snow proved it when finding the cause of cholera outbreaks in 1848 and 1854 England. No, I needed to show how to prove these things in a lab, and to do that I was going to need to explain how to keep samples and invent a way to see microorganisms.

First was for a glass petri dish and other containers for samples. I'd need at least 3 -preferably more. I know glass works have been around since BC, and that this world had glass windows in some scenes, but I worried about the quality of the glass contaminating the experiments. I was going to have to boil them beforehand to sterilize them anyway.

Gosh I wish I had access to nonporous, air tight containers, and a temperature controlled environment. The heat and humidity of Sindria could easily mess everything up.

Wait... I suddenly remembered a scene from the Magnostadt arc when they showed how a sample was being stored. They already had good enough glass. I knew there were magic bio experiments but I had no idea how they worked.

With the realization that I was getting ahead myself, I switched to writing about how to use the scientific method to test for germs. It was basically the bread in a bag test to teach young children about germs but with petri dishes. I also wrote about how to analyze samples with a microscope to see micro organisms so I was going to have to figure that out next.

Lunch came as the perfect break.

Just thinking about reinventing this thing made me nervous. I knew magnifying glasses existed in ancient Rome, but they would be nothing like what I was used to. I had to explain how light moves and made multiple diagrams showing how concave and convex lenses affect light as well as the material of the lens. I ended up also showing how to make a telescope even though I knew Yam already had one.

Magicians were the only ones shown with glasses. Maybe now the rest of the world could have them too.

4 o'clock came and so did 3 doctors and a magician. It was less than yesterday, but still more than necessary to treat or analyze one person. I only recognized one of the doctors from the previous day. All of the new faces looked nervous. None of them looked young by any measure, so I really doubted this was their first time treating someone.

They weren't happy to see me at the table and made me return to my bed -their loss.

The doctor from the previous day was the one doing most of the talking. "Your recovery is amazing. You will most likely be better in another 3 days at this rate if not sooner. It's practically a miracle."

I smiled. "It's pretty shocking for me too." As long as I spoke quietly and kept my comments short, I found I could talk again for a bit.

The doctor was silent for a moment before changing the subject. "I know you need rest, but would you be willing to answer a few questions about those scrolls from yesterday?

The 3 other men looked expectant. This was why they were here.

"I don't mind as long as you don't make me talk too much."

Then came the question I was expecting since I had first made the scrolls. "I know you are a Prophet and the information came from your visions but is there any way you can prove what you wrote?"

I pointed to the table with the scroll I had started earlier. "I can't prove it with the current equipment I have, so I've been drafting up the needed equipment and processes for proving it."

They all turned to look at where I was pointing.

I added, "It's not done, but you're welcome to read what I have so far."

I was thanked as they went to the table they had called me away from when they entered.

'He called it 'visions?' Really?' I had to ask Sinbad later what he was telling his people about me so I could keep the story straight.

The magician confirmed for the others what I wrote about light bending. There was magic to do that, but not everyone is a magician. I had just invented a way for non-magicians to bend light.

Just wait until I show them a prism that can split light into colors. Or teach them how light is perceived in the eye. Or even better, show them the double slit experiment that proves that light is a particle not just a wave... Did they know light was a wave yet?

"Lady Prophet."

I was pulled out of my thoughts.

"You said this isn't finished and there is plenty of space in this scroll for more, but would you let us take this back to the tower so we can get started?"

I wanted to say 'no.' I was still coming up with things to add to it, but I also knew that holding things back because I wanted to save paper was a fool's game. Besides, I could always add more to it later.

I nodded and they thanked me before making me promise not to leave my bed. They were grateful for this new scroll but not at the expense of my health -they were doctors after all.

And then they left.

It was probably about 5pm if my internal clock was on schedule, so I had about an hour before the next ring of the Bell.

Even if I wasn't a man of my word, I would have lost the motivation to work with my current project taken from me while I was still in the middle of making it.

So, I did the thing I grew up doing when I was bedridden from illness: I looked out the window. From the bed I could only see the tops of the buildings on the other side of the courtyard. The Tower that was just poking in from the left had to be the Black Libra Tower.

The waves in Sindria were calmer yet stronger than those in Balbadd. It was probably due to Sinbad's influence. He brought stability and security to his people. I could understand why so many chose to follow him or ally with him. But I knew where all this would lead. As he obtains more power and influence he will stop being able to see himself from the pedestal that he and everyone else put him on; his greed will make him blind to the wants and needs of others, and like a middle aged parent that isn't ready for their child to leave the nest he will take out his frustration on the world that was moving on without him. When Sinbad dies at the end of the manga, Drakon realizes that they all put too much on Sinbad's shoulders.

To change Fate, I was going to have to make sure I never put him on that pedestal nor rely on him for much. And I was going to have to convince the 8 Generals to do the same -or at least to start pulling more of the weight.

The 6 o'clock Bell came faster than I expected, as well as my dinner not long after. They brought my clean laundry, a sleeping gown, and some other common clothes and things for my convenience.

I would have preferred something much shorter for the night gown since I hate having a lot of extra fabric around my legs when I already have blankets. I was not going to risk being walked in on by doctors or whoever when sleeping naked, so I would make do for now.

There was no way King Sinbad wasn't going to reward me for those scrolls. If it was some kind of treasure I'd sell it and buy a new wardrobe for myself that actually suited me, and if the reward was a request then I would ask that he pay for everything directly.

The light coming in my windows changed, and I watched my 2nd sunset in Sindria.

When Sinbad found this island 10 years ago, he completely terraformed it. He didn't get rid of all of the vegetation that was here, but he did break down one of the sides to allow for easier access by boat. The side he carved out faced northish towards all of the other known countries, so no boat would have a reason to circle the island. It was a decision that would benefit the merchants and make it easier to defend.

It also meant that my windows faced west, so I could watch the Sun set every day. I couldn't help but see that as a blessing and a curse. Sure not getting the sunrise meant I'd need to put more effort into

waking up in the morning but that wasn't the part I was worried about.

See- The thing is... I have synesthesia (having 2 or more senses overlapping). I see sounds, letters, and numbers as colors and textures. I have it mild enough that I can normally block it out so it's not too distracting (thank God because music is a main stim), but sometimes I'll hear something and get overwhelmed by how it looks.

Each letter and number is a color. So every voice can make every color, but language, pitch, tone, and accent all affect the colors and textures I see from a person's voice like a filter. There have definitely been some people that I struggled to give my full attention to when I first met them because I was entranced by how their voice looked. The more I hear a person's voice the more I'm able to move its visuals to the background so I can focus -desensitizing myself to it.

Luckily, Sinbad's voice is normally not so distracting that I stop paying attention. Since it's like a merger of every voice actor I've heard play him (All the characters I had met so far were like this.) I'm already desensitized. The similarities across all of the VAs meant that his voice looked like a sunset -full of deep purples and magentas, and bright reds, peach, and gold, and with a smooth and flowing texture like painting in acrylic with a wet brush -like a painting of the last moments of a sunset.

His voice was as pretty as he was.

I hadn't actually gotten to see or hear him for a whole day. But I'd get to look at his voice's equivalent every day while living under his protection.

It was frustrating to admit -I barely knew him as a real person- yet I couldn't deny that I missed him. I feel asleep watching the sun set.

((I wasn't going to write about my synesthesia, but this is my fanfic and I thought it might be fun to reference the colors peoples voices make when the characters talk. I'm not going to paint every VA and head cannon, but I will describe them as I go. Ja'far's Japanese and English VAs have voices that look very different so finding the middle ground is proving tricky.

Also, anyone who noticed that the purple I see in Sinbad's voice is the same as the purple I've been using for the illustrations and comics is super smart and cool.))

#magi prophet fanfic #magi fanfiction #magi fanfic #sinbad magi #king sinbad #magi sinbad

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blissfulparker · 4 years

Text

Moral of the story→Ceo!tom

Parings: ceo!tom x reader (flowershop!Au)

Summary: tom thinks love is a waste of time, overrated, but doesn't realize how real and how much it effects him until he meets the pretty girl who owns the flower shop.

Warnings: fluff!! Loads of fluff!

A/n: this is for @quackeroos writing challenge! It’s with the prompt, “love is overrated” I hope you enjoy it! 💗(also, I apologize for no ‘read more’ sign.🥺

Business. That’s almost everything tom knew. Tom knew a lot about his business, how to manage people, how to impress people, all of it to keep himself on top.

flowers always pleased people. Roses for when meeting with younger woman, sunflowers when meeting with older, a casual spring mix when meeting with a group of people and white roses when meeting with men. White roses seemed to intimidate people. And when there were kids involved with the business he made sure to always do something colorful.

Sending flowers was very important too. When hiring a new person he would send flowers as a compliment and almost peace offering. Sending flowers as a thank you, an invitation, and even as a sorry were all used and so tom spent a lot of money on flowers and a lot time in your shop.

Today was like any other, it was a Friday so you spend the time preparing for Saturday in the garden, expecting your highest sales day to hit.

Flowers hung from the ceiling and filled every inch of the place, always making people smile when they walk in and see their options.

But for Tom, it was just another week at your flowershop. he preferred to come in instead of call because he likes the feeling of being inside and seeing all his options but more importantly he likes you.

The bells rings which makes you perk up from the back and come down to the front. Tom moves some flowers that have already hit his face and makes his way to your front desk.

“Good morning tom!” You smile at him before moving a bouquet that’s getting ready for shipment off the desk.

“Good morning.” He shoves his hands into his pocket and takes a deep breath. “I just need an order of 24 roses and baby breathes sent out by Friday.” He tells you and you write it down. Noticing his orders in roses you only assume he had a girlfriend, he seemed to order roses a lot.

“She must be lucky. And very very pretty.” You tell him and he gives you a shocked look. You catch his eyes of confusion and give him a small laugh.

“Red roses mean you love someone? Baby’s breath shows love for eternity?” You type in his order and add everything up for him.

“Well, she just got married to my brother and so I’m sending them as a gift for the two of them.” He tells you and you heat up feeling slightly embarrassed for assuming he had someone. But it was also resssuring knowing he didn’t have someone.

“Oh,” you clear your throat. “Sorry. I just thought.” You apologized and he shook his head. He reaches over to touch the small daisies that sat on your desk. His fingers fiddle with them gently making sure they don’t crumble in his hands.

“Your boyfriend must love you working here, brining home flowers all the time must be beautiful.” He comments trying now to figure out you. You let out a soft laugh and he looks at you look up from the register.

“No boyfriend. Just me.” You tell him trying to bite back your own disappointment. He keeps that in mind, keeps that in mind that you’re single.

“But that girlfriend of yours must love how much you order flowers.” You tell him since he never admitted to having one, just sending flowers to his brother. he shows a small grin knowing the game you’re playing.

“N-No girlfriend. Love is overrated.” He shoves his hands in his pocket and you look up with a cocked eyebrow.

“You think love is overrated?” You ask him almost with a scoff in your voice and he nods.

“I mean yeah, with work, life, little time I have, I just can’t have it right now. and I mean if you think about it, it’s so much work and effort.” What he really wanted to say was I wouldn’t be good enough. But that was personal and he doesn’t get personal with people he doesn’t know well.

“Love is a beautiful thing. and if you’re really in love you can find time and life around it.” You tell him leaning your hands on the counter and he rolls his eyes.

“It’s just stupid, a waste of time.” He told you and you felt your heart sting but shook off the feeling as he was just a regular customer.

“You order a lot of flowers.” You change the subject completely and he almost feels bad because he thought he hurt your feelings.

“I know.” He checks his phone quickly to distract himself. you come around to the front of the desk to move the other order of flowers to a cart for your worker.

“How come? I mean if you don’t believe in love then why do you order so many flowers?” You ask him. he helps you move the flowers seeing you struggle.

“I never said I don’t believe in love I just think it’s overrated.” He dusts off his hands and you flick off a piece of dirt from his shoulder.

“It’s basically the same thing.” You huff and he moves a strand of fallen hair for you.

“I order flowers for my work. It helps lighten meetings and let’s employees and clients know I care.” He tells you and you knew somewhere he had a super soft spot and wanted just as much love as he’s given.

“Smart man.” You tell him before going back to the counter. “Just write the address and if you want a note.” You tell him and he fills out his information.

You reach over and touch the daisies and then look back at tom. His handwriting sloppy on the paper as he writes down his love for his brother and new wife, his brown curls fall into his face and tickle his forehead.

“What’s your favorite flower?” You ask him and he hums softly.

“Not sure. Would I be basic if I said roses?” He looks up and you shake your head.

“No, not at all.” You tell him and he bites down on his lips and looks around.

“Then roses. Where’s that list of yours? The one with all the meanings?” He asks and you give him a smirk.

“Oh you mean my favorite book?” You ask playfully and he laughs a little as you drop down to pick up the book filled with flower meanings.

He looks at it and flips to the roses. Seeing all the different colors and meanings. Most he’s already known. Yellow means friendship, White means purity, orange means happiness, but one catches his eyes the most. One he’s never ordered and one that you never even brought up.

“Lavender roses means love at first sight?” He asks pointing to the scratched up picture of the faint lavender painted rose.

“Yeah, not a lot of people know that. but that’s what it means when they order it though. Most people order them for the color. You know, ‘my mom’s favorite color is pink so I need pink roses!’ Or the ‘my son just had a baby boy can you do blue roses?’. Black is pretty popular on halloween but of course black means morning and death.” You keep eye contact as you tell him. His eyes go soft and for a moment you see every detail of his face, you see how badly he needs love. You see how hurt he is. You can see everything.

“They’re pretty.” He tells you before clearing his throat and moving back to the book.

“Yeah.” Your shoulders almost touch his and you feel too close, you feel too close to him and get scared you’re getting too close to him emotionally.

“It’s gonna be $78.09.” You clear your throat and he nods pulling out his card ready to pay. He swipes his card and the transaction is done, he’s done with being here but he wished he could stay a little longer.

“They’ll be delivered by wednesday, I’ll see you soon I guess?” You ask hope laced in your voice.

“Yeah soon!” He smiles softly before leaving making the bell ring again. You don’t mean to watch him but you do, you watch him get into his car and drive off.

“You know, you can always send flowers to him.” Your worker, Lily, speaks up snapping your daze.

“Yeah, no, he doesn’t even believe in love.” You tell him and she smiles big.

“I never said anything about it being love…” she teases and you grow red. You clear your throat knowing her little game she was playing. She was young, always trying to play matchmaker with you.

“Go water the marigolds.” You shoe her off and she giggles a little as she walks away. You rest your head in your hands before going back to work. Thinking maybe her idea wasn’t so bad.

Tuesday morning

It’s 5:30 in the morning and something about feeling the first day of sunshine come though the shop was magical.

You make sure everything is perfect for when people come in. You start preparing orders to be shipped off for the day and write down future orders that need to be done.

Tom was on a different schedule as you. He got the luxury of waking up at 8:30am and getting to his office by 9:30. Either way you two both did a lot of work. So while you were already half way done with the important parts of your day, Tom hasn’t even started his.

When he did start his though it was always rushed. He always got ready quick, walking his dog fast and then getting in his car and going. Adding early mornings to a reason why he can’t have love, he wouldn’t have time to even say goodbye.

His office was always far more awake than him. Getting up the the 15th floor of his building and working as the CEO until around 7:30 at night. Another reason why he can’t have love.

They were a lot of reason why he couldn’t have love and a lot of times he thought about you, he can’t have you. You make everything seem perfect while he’s 23 trying to be the top CEO in London.

“Mr. Holland!” His front desk attendant stops him before he can get to his office.

“These were dropped off for you.” She pushed him the bouquet of lavender roses and baby breath. The looks at her and then the flowers.

“I didn’t order any.” He pushes the flowers away knowing they were from you. He remembers the conversation about the roses, he remembers the conversation about the lavender color. scared of attaching himself more to you, he pushes them away.

“They have your name on them.” She tells him again and he nods knowing he has to take the flowers. She goes back to her own work not caring about her bosses love life anymore.

Love can’t be that overrated If you don’t give it a chance

He smiles down at the note before looking at his secretary again.

“Nancy?” He asked saying her name softly and she looks up at him. “Move my 12:30 meeting to tomorrow and move my lunch to 1:00?” He asks her and she doesn’t even question before she starts to type away. He picks up the large bouquet and brings it to his office. Smelling the roses as he walks in and thinks this is the first time he’s gotten the flowers.

Maybe love was not that overrated after all.

☆some tags!(so sorry if you didn’t wanna be tagged!) @thollandss @joshuaparkers @tomsrebeleyebrow @selfcarecap @hollandstea @tomhollandd

#tom holland imagine #ceo!tom #tom holland x reader #tom holland fluff #tom holland fic #tom holland au #tom holland fan fiction #tom holland fan fic

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chaotic-noceur · 4 years

Text

pedro boys + IKEA headcanons

warnings: swearing, food, javi’s has one line of suggestive content

a/n: so this is what happens when you put @din-damn-djarin @ezrasarm and I in a group chat together when two of us are bored and one of us has just been to IKEA... enjoy! (We had too much fun writing this)

Din Djarin

Agreed to do it because it sounded like a cute couples activity

But then you actually do it

He can’t get his gloved fingers in between the creases

The Allen key keeps falling out of his hand

He can’t see anything through the bucket on his head

He storms off eventually saying he’ll fix it later

He comes back to find you sitting amongst the scattered mess

Yodito’s in your lap, turning the Allen key with surprising ease

Din swears he’s cheating with the Force

Don’t get him started on the actual trip

You drop Yodito off at the kiddies playground thing

Din goes running back not even 5 minutes later because he is sTrEsSeD™

You lose Yodito in the maze anyways

Several times

Din loses 10 years of life every time he realises

But he keeps showing up in empty flower pots

...and levitating stuffed animals into the cart

Din doesn’t have the heart to put them back

You get back to the ship with a bag full of toys

Din swears you are never going back there again

But when he realises you didn’t actually get everything you needed

He refrains from slamming his head into the nearest wall

☾☾☾☾☾

Ezra

Is indifferent about the actual shopping part

Loves spending time with you though so he will go anywhere you take him

Is personally offended that the books in the showroom are props

Throws an excessive amount of scented candles into the cart

*deep inhale*

“Ezra. Babe. WE DO NOT NEED MORE WE ALREADY HAVE 20”

“But this one smells like ‘afternoon escape’, we need it”

Will ramble about the “dire importance” of this candle until you give in

Knows exactly how everything should fit together

But “I CAN’T DO IT WITH ONE ARM GODDAMNIT”

*hurls the Allen key across the pod*

Takes to hovering over your shoulder as you assemble it

Makes everything more complicated with his fancy vocabulary

You’re getting annoyed but he can’t help it

“No that goes there” “The other way”

“DO IT YOURSELF THEN SINCE YOU KNOW EVERYTHING”

You regret the words as soon as they leave your lips

The teasing smile on his face drops instantly

You’re stuttering out an apology before either of you can move

“I- I didn’t mean that.”

“I know.” He giggles

This time you’re the one who wants to chuck an Allen key…

...At his head

“You should’ve seen your face!”

☾☾☾☾☾

Frankie Morales

Going to IKEA with Frankie turns into an entire day trip

He refuses to let you leave until you get meatballs

It takes you 3 hours to get to the checkout

Because he gets distracted by everything

“Come feel this bath mat!”

“Do we need new knives?”

You try out every piece of furniture in the showroom

He doesn’t let you touch the tape measure because “it keeps giving me paper cuts”

You end up buying twice as much stuff as you originally planned on getting

Insists that everything will fit in his truck

It does...barely (but only if you end up sitting on one of the boxes...no one has to know)

Swears that he doesn’t need help carrying anything

You step in when you see him dragging a box through the door, clearly labelled ‘fragile’

He’s good with his hands so he loves building it

It’s like therapy for him

If he’s in a good mood, he tosses the instructions out because “I can fly a helicopter and shoot a target a mile away. I don’t need instructions.”

10 minutes later, he’s digging through the garbage looking for it

He tries to pretend he’s just emptying the garbage bin

But you see right through him and hold the crumbled sheet up with the biggest smirk on your face

☾☾☾☾☾

Javier Peña

Does not have time for this bullshit

Hates the concept of IKEA

“Who turns a furniture store into a fucking maze?!”

Is complaining the whole time about how you don’t need new furniture

“Your couch cushions are basically two layers of fabric.”

Wants it to magically assemble itself

“I paid 60 dollars for this and it isn’t even built?!”

But also refuses to let you touch anything

Loses his patience in 0.5 seconds

But would rather be shot dead than read the instruction manual

“I take down entire drug cartels for a living. I can build a fucking couch.”

Spoiler alert: He cannot.

“Get these out of here” *instructions go flying out the window*

“How did you lose all the spare screws?!” “I’ll give you a spare screw” he grumbles

You both wind up binge eating pepparkaka (IKEA ginger snaps) on the floor shamefully because you couldn’t figure out how to put the legs on your chairs

You also may have called Steve to help

Steve can’t stop laughing at your pathetic attempts

Until he tries it

He ends up calling Connie

She gets the whole thing done in 10 minutes flat

☾☾☾☾☾

Marcus Pike

Loves the idea of building IKEA furniture with you

Because he thinks it’s the boyfriend-ly thing to do

He insists that he knows what he’s doing

But in reality, he hasn’t got the foggiest clue what’s going on

“WHY ARE THERE SO MANY PIECES?!”

“tHeRe aRe nO wOrDs iN tHe iNsTrUcTiOnS?!”

He also has no spatial awareness which means not only can he not figure out how the pieces fit together, but he also keeps tripping over everything

He just about wiped out on a piece of cardboard

“How are you an FBI agent?! You have no stealth whatsoever!”

You try really hard not to laugh when he can’t figure out why the Allan key won’t fit

(He was using it backwards)

“They trust you with a gun?!”

Eventually you can’t stand watching him struggle anymore

You delegate him to DJ-ing while you take over

It takes you hours to assemble what should have taken you half an hour at most

But you’re not even mad about it

You’re having too much fun

He won’t stop dancing around you like a dork to ABBA

(Which isn’t distracting at all)

☾☾☾☾☾

Oberyn Martell

Would not be caught dead building IKEA furniture

He has people to do that for him

“We don’t need more furniture Dove”

Refuses to entertain the thought of going to IKEA

“IKEA could not compete with Dorne’s craftsmen”

You end up sneaking out with Ellaria

Ellaria is on ‘distract Oberyn’ duty while you assemble the chair as quickly as possible

He figures out something is going on when Ellaria does everything imaginable to stop him from leaving

He’s not complaining but his curiosity has peaked and he will not be kept in the dark about the events taking place in his own castle

You hurl the newly assembled chair across the room when the door flies open

It splinters apart on impact with the floor

He’s smirking at you from the doorway

“I did warn you my love”

A week later, Dorne’s best craftsman is going head to head with you, Ellaria and another box of IKEA furniture

The entirety of the royal staff are watching as the competition unfolds

They’ve placed bets on who would win

You and Ellaria work seamlessly to assemble your “pathetic excuse for furniture”

He’s lying if he says he doesn’t find it a little attractive

You both refuse to talk to him for a week when he picks the Dornish furniture

☾☾☾☾☾

Whiskey

Loves going IKEA shopping with you

You make your first trip a few weeks after moving in together

You’re just putting plates into the cart when he freezes

Images of your future together start falling into place in his mind and he panics

He never thought he’d find something like this again… not after his late wife

This is real now

“Earth to Jack,” you call, waving your hand in front of his face

When you ask him what’s wrong, he chokes out a ‘nothing’

You don’t push it, he’ll tell you when he’s ready

He burns the instructions as soon as you get home

“Darling, I’m part of a secret intelligence agency. I can handle a few nuts and bolts.”

He lives to regret that statement as soon as he lays out all the pieces

But he’s too stubborn to ask for help

You can tell he has no idea what he’s doing but you go along with it

You hand him misnamed parts and tools when he asks for them and you breakdown cardboard boxes when he tosses them carelessly to the side

The radio’s playing in the background but neither of you are paying it any attention

Three hours pass before he proudly presents his masterpiece to you

“See that wasn’t so ba-“

It collapses to pieces the moment he tosses the Allen key he had been using on top of it triumphantly

He swears he’s reading every single word diagram next time

You’re dozing off in his arm on the mattress on the floor (the bed frame in a dozen unassembled pieces around you) when he tells you he loves you for the first time

“I love you too.”

#din djarin x reader #frankie morales x reader #javier peña x reader #oberyn martell x reader #agent whiskey x reader #ezra (prospect) x reader #the mandalorian x reader #marcus pike x reader #din djarin headcanons #ezra prospect headcanon #frankie morales headcanons #javier peña headcanons #marcus pike headcanons #oberyn martell headcanons #agent whiskey headcanons #pedro boys headcanons #collaborative headcanons #kay writes

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anxiouslyfred · 3 years

Text

Time Increases and Falls

Summary: Virgil doesn’t want to meet his soulmate after the things his brother has said since finding his. He doesn’t try to avoid meeting them though, not even by making choices to deliberately increase the countdown to meeting on his wrist.

/\/\

Most people didn't check the timers on their wrists very often. Society thought that chasing the timers obviously was immoral, a sign of impatience and desperation.

Arguing against that, and giving Roman a chance to actually try and find his soulmate had originally started Remus checking his timer regularly, but now it had become a game. How would making decisions in his life change the time it would take to meet his soulmate? Also how many reasons could Remus imagine for unexpected jumps up in the time they had until meeting?

The actual time wasn't really motivating for Remus. He'd meet his soulmate eventually and the timer changed too often for him to try and predict when. It was fun occasionally to make a decision based purely over which had the shortest time to meeting his soulmate, but then again, it was also fun sometimes to change decisions over which would cause the most chaos.

He was certain that his soulmate did pay attention to it though, and often made sure to chose the option that increased how long they'd take to meet. Remus had an entire list of excuses for the commiserating glances people gave if they happened to see his timer jump up, which given timers were on the back of the wrist, rarely covered by sleeves, was quite often.

Virgil didn't want a soulmate. He'd witnessed Patton and Logan meeting and how they now treated each other and something about it made his skin crawl. They'd dote on each other and insist on constantly being together through any possibly difficult situation, to comfort, protect or help. His parents though it was sweet but Virgil just thought it sounded exhausting, like they'd decided to abandon being individual people after meeting despite how different they were.

No he didn't want to lose his identity or spend every waking moment glued to the side just because a timer reached zero when they met. He liked his own space, thank you very much. That didn't mean he was trying to avoid their meeting though, just that he didn't mind each time he learnt later the timer had once again had days added to it.

Honestly his anxiety did seem to be a primary cause of delays to their meeting and that was pretty much the only good thing Virgil could say about the condition. Someone would comment asking if he was excited about meeting them when the counter got to be within a few days, and the surge of fears about what that could mean for his identity would make him back out of some event or other. Even if the event was nowhere close to the time they should be meeting dodging it would increase the time.

Of course there were also times when he'd deliberately try to keep all his appointments, to concerned about Patton and Logan attempting another intervention that he would push himself to keep to the choices he'd made. The timer would still increase, and Virgil couldn't find any explanation for it other than he would have gotten distracted by something along the way that changed their chances of meeting.

His timer had once again gotten to a matter of days before he was meant to meet this soulmate and Virgil was wondering when it would change again, double checking whenever he was alone to see if he'd inadvertently messed up their future meeting again.

His life still needed to be lived though so Virgil was doing a weeks grocery shop and trying to ignore the nosey glances everyone shot to each others wrists. They should be able to cope without knowing if he had a soulmate yet or not, but everyone did it automatically now.

“Oh, are you going to be doing something special for your meeting?” The cashier asked, making no attempt to hide her staring as she scanned all the items.

Normally Virgil would brush comments like that off, except there was something big happening on the day the timer currently indicated. He had a big presentation coming up that would be in front of far too many important people for his career to progress. On top of that stress, the shop had been busier than usual and Patton had called up halfway round to ask if he could get something from right at the front of the store for them. Pushing through the people and making sure he had everything he needed had Virgil clinging onto calm by the thinnest final thread and that question was breaking point.

He'd shaken his head violently, paying by card as quickly as he could before running out of the store, bags in hand, with no glance spared for the timer on his wrist that he'd just felt change. Experience said it would just had extended anyway.

Virgil managed to get the bags shoved into his car before leaning against it, trying to remember any grounding exercise he could to calm down. Nothing was working and he started to turn and walk somewhere, anywhere, just get the excess energy out of his limbs enough that he could drive.

He made it two steps before finding himself on the ground under a complete stranger, a shopping cart rolling further through the car park as they watched. “Dude, what the bloody hell were you doing? Trying to go cart racing with a trolley or something?” Virgil glared up, but froze as the usually unnoticeable movement of his timer vanished.

The man must have felt the same thing as he scrambled back, pulling Virgil back to his feet quickly too. “No but that sounds like an awesome idea if you want to try it. I bet there's something in there I could use to rig up an engine for a trolley too. I'm Remus and you're my soulmate.”

“Virgil and if you're doing crazy shit like that I'm not getting involved.” There was none of the need Patton and Logan had claimed came from being soulmates to stick with Remus and Virgil couldn't be more relieved about that. It still wouldn't convince him to put his life at risk for the maniac.

“Setting boundaries straight off. How long do I have to know you before I can push them?” Remus didn't seem phased by the harsh tone, just nodding along and absently watching his shopping cart as it finally stopped against a curb.

The question was one nobody had asked before, and probably nobody else would ever think of asking, but it made Virgil relax. “At least a few months. If you pull the have to be around each other 24/7 thing my brother pulls with his soulmate make it a few years.”

“I get you, everyone needs their space to do insane stunts on their owns sometimes. Can I have your number to at least stay in touch?” Remus pulled his phone out, pouting as he saw a car swerve to avoid hitting the cart. “Come on! You should've hit it! Charged the supermarket for lack of places to return carts to or something!”

Taking the phone, Virgil snickered at the yell. “Couldn't they just turn that back on you? I mean your shopping is in there.”

“And I'm stood all the way over here where we fell ages ago. Either they shouldn't make their car parks slope enough for the trolley to roll that far or they should give them like auto breaks for when the carts roll to fast.” Remus nodded as though that was entirely logical. “Also so I can test just how good auto breaks would make trolleys at sending me flying. Ro always holds back when trying to make a cart stop.”

“Okay, I'll add that to the million questions this meeting has given me. I've already text myself from your phone so we've got each others number, but I've got frozen stuff to get home before it's dangerous to refreeze it again. And you better be getting that cart back because I am not helping to replace anything you lose in your idiocy.” Virgil decided, finding that somewhere in talking to Remus he'd calmed down properly again.

Remus was chasing through the car park as soon as he'd taken his phone back, promising to call later over his shoulder.

Virgil had never wanted a soulmate, but he could be happy with whatever kind of adventure just talking to Remus was going to be.

#virgil sanders #remus sanders #soulmate au #dukexiety #background logicality

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gogogobarry · 3 years

Text

IMPORTANT HEADCANONS TO CONSIDER

tagged by: @athenaswolf & @distortsverity (tysm, and sorry for the wait!) tagging: you!!

Can they use chopsticks? — The short answer here is yes, Barry is capable of using chopsticks. However, ask this question to anyone who has ever eaten a meal with the speedy Sinnohan and they will probably provide you with this wise disclaimer: give him this type of utensil at your own risk. You see, Barry is all about swiftness: he talks quickly, he walks quickly...and yes, he eats quickly too. Chopsticks only enable this man to eat even faster, much to the amazement (and horror) of his dining company. Oftentimes, Barry will revert to using his chopsticks like long, inefficient shovels to scarf down a meal, making a mess while also lacking any sense of elegance whatsoever (impressive). Thankfully, all it takes is a hard kick under the table (usually administered by Hikari or Lucas) for Barry to snap out of his “chopsticks fever” and reconsider his etiquette. Still, sometimes even his closest friends aren’t quick enough...Barry cleans his plate like a madman, and chopsticks? They’re his forbidden tools.

What would they impulse buy at the grocery store? — As expected, Barry is the ultimate impulsive grocery shopper. He routinely commits the two cardinal sins of grocery shopping: he will only go to the store when he’s starving, and he will almost never prepare a list in advance. If something strikes him as tasty, it goes in the cart--Barry can’t leave without buying some (or ten) extra items: mainly snacks, sweets, and/or even magazines that he won’t end up reading. Knowing all of this, I’m going to counter with a question of my own: what wouldn’t Barry impulse buy at the grocery store?

What’s their coffee order? — After snatching his dad’s mug off the table, Barry had his first sip of coffee at age eight...and stayed awake for two straight days. Following this incident, his parents were more careful with their drinks, but they didn’t have to worry...Barry thought (and still thinks) that coffee is gross. If he needs it for a last-ditch energy spike and it's an emergency (he had a cup in the Snowbound Lodge to power onwards to Snowpoint, for example), he’ll just drink it black. Instead of ordering coffee in a restaurant, Barry will always opt for a sweeter choice, like boba, milkshakes, or Soda Pop. Plus, let’s face it--the world is not ready to reckon with an over-caffeinated Barry.

What order do they wash things in the shower? — Barry scrubs his face, soaps up, and washes from head to toe. While rinsing off soap, he quickly lathers and then rinses out his shampoo. It’s a pretty generic routine, but again...speed is everything. Barry is out of the shower in a little over five minutes. He usually doesn’t even care if the water is hot or cold...this madman jumps right in. He’s got places to be, after all!

What sort of apps would they have on their smartphone? — Barry doesn’t have a lot of installed smartphone apps because...well, he’s prone to losing his phone. He’ll use the weather and Pokedex apps from time to time, but recently, he’s gotten hooked on Jubilife TV’s newest app: a video-sharing platform called KrickeTok. Barry uses the messaging app in bursts, checking in on group chats and spamming sharing his favorite KrickeToks with Lucas and Hikari. Even with the growing prevalence of apps, Barry still prefers his trusty Poketch over his smartphone--they’ve been through so much together! Though he won’t admit it, Barry has entrusted a large number of his life decisions (many of them important) to Magikarp Coin Flip.

How do they act around children? — Barry is fantastic with children because he’s still such a kid himself--even after all he’s been through on his journeys, he still holds fast to the boundless energy, playful enthusiasm, and wide-eyed curiosity that so many people tend to lose as they grow older. Therefore, children love (and often look up to) Barry because he’s a blast to be around, serving as the complete antithesis to stiff Professor Rowan or other “colder” authority figures in their lives. At the Trainer’s School for example, Barry is a hit with the students, known for telling exciting, only slightly exaggerated stories, sharing his unorthodox battle strategies, showing off cool tricks with his Pokemon, and tolerating (while even partaking in) classroom mischief. In these settings, Barry truly shines, his self-confidence bolstered by the positive attention. He hasn’t admitted this to anyone yet, but in the very distant future, he would love to become a teacher (Professor Barry has a nice ring to it!). For now, however, his sights are still set on the Sinnoh Champion title...an enduring childhood dream.

What would they watch on TV when they’re bored and nothing they really like is on? — Barry watches TV for one reason: Pokemon battles (especially bouts that feature his father!) Barry isn’t a channel surfer at all, so if battles aren’t on the menu, he’ll usually head outside to hang out, train, or kick off new adventures with his Pokemon. If the weather is really bad, Barry will grind at a game in secret so that he can be better prepared for his next competitive get-together with Hikari and/or Lucas.

#long post #thank you both for the tag!!#WOW I feel so rusty but it felt good to write this all out :')#i dont care what anybody says i am proud of Kricketok #memeZ

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a-solitary-marshmallow · 3 years

Text

Rewind Chapter 3

Awareness came in pieces, like waves lapping over the shore, slowly bringing back each sense. Ford yawned and rolled his neck to ease out a crick. He really should stop sleeping sitting up.

The warm form cuddled against him stirred and he placed a soothing hand on their head of soft curls until they stilled, burying their face in his shirt. Ford hummed happily and let his head rest back against the headboard, content to just stay here forever…

…wait a second.

Ford’s eyes flung open with a jolt.

What had he been thinking, falling asleep? Sleep was the one thing he couldn’t afford! He looked around quickly, heart pounding. He was still sitting against the headboard of his bed, pillows propped behind his back and a child-sized Stanley curled up in his lap, the way they had been when he must have fallen asleep part way through telling stories of his previous discoveries. His journal lay open at his feet. To his relief it was bereft of cryptic code and taunts. Bill must have been busy, or perhaps had not noticed Ford’s slip-up. He hadn’t been possessed.

Ford cursed himself. How could he have made himself vulnerable like that? The portal was wide-open for the taking! And there was no telling what Bill Cipher would do to his brother – his child brother, who was currently helpless and foolishly, trustingly snuggled against the front of Ford’s turtleneck.

He forced himself to take a deep breath. He couldn’t change the past, only the future. Now he had other things to concentrate on – namely, building a Bill-proof barrier, since his investigation on how to cure Stanley had hit a snag – he had none of the components he would need to start reverse-engineering a cure. The sun peeking through his window told that he must have been sleeping for at least an hour. Morning was already slipping away from him.

“Mmmph.” Stanley mumbled. Ford’s hand was still in his curls. Ford couldn’t resist ruffling those curls as Stan pulled his head up, yawning and blinking sleepily. “F’rd?”

“Good morning, Stanley.”

Stan rubbed at his eyes. “Whaza time?”

“Time to start working. Come on, up you go.” Ford lifted his brother from his lap. Stan whined at being put down on the covers.

“Nooooo, ‘s cold!”

“Then hurry up and get moving.” Ford swung his legs over the bed and stood. “I have a lot to do today.”

Stan grumbled the whole time. He was still wearing that old shirt. Perhaps Ford should get him something that fit better? No, it would be useless in a day or so anyway.

Ford spoke to himself as he walked.

“Now, I’ll have to go as soon as possible to get that hair – what’ll I do with you? Oh, children need to receive their daily nutrients, don’t they? Hmm, when was the last time I ate?” He couldn’t recall. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter, I’m an adult, I can stand to skip a few – hmm. Weeks? No, that can’t be right. I should eat too. I have coffee? Is it safe to give a child coffee?” He opened the fridge and stared in dismay at the rows of empty shelves. “Oh. That’s why I haven’t eaten. Guess I’ll just have to – buy some supplies. Yes. Come along Stanley, we’re driving into town.”

“Who’stha whatnow?” Stan stumbled into the kitchen after him. That was right, his brother was certainly not a morning person. Ford wondered again how ethical it was to give a child coffee. Probably shouldn’t risk it.

“Town, Stanley. I have to do some shopping. And come to think of it, you’ll need someone to watch you…” Unless he could just leave the child locked in a room? Ford wasn’t exactly familiar with babysitting protocol. Maybe it was better to just bring him along for now.

He dropped one of his old coats around Stanley’s shoulders and ushered him outside. The coat was a good call – it was still freezing. Ford was climbing into the car when he hit another snag.

“…ah.” He didn’t have a booster seat. Stanley would be riding in the back seat, it seemed.

Luckily the town was still waking up, so it was quite simple to walk in, grab some supplies, pay and leave without having to deal with the hustle of crowds. Ford pulled up in his driveway with a relieved sigh. He thanked his lucky stars that Gravity Falls was slow to wake on a Sunday… wait, no, what day was it?

Didn’t matter.

With his arms full of groceries, Ford nudged the door open with his foot. He could hear Stan grunting under the weight of his own load as he placed the bags on the kitchen bench.

Maybe he had gone a little over the deep end, Ford admitted to himself as he went about sorting groceries. He hadn’t realized until this morning that his fridge was empty. That did explain the hollow feeling in his stomach though. Come to think of it, when was the last time he ate? Not counting the copious amounts of coffee and energy drinks he ordered weekly.

It also explained Stan’s rumbling stomach. Honestly, Stan should have said something if he was hungry!

Said child wobbled his way into the kitchen with a shopping bag in his arms. Ford took it and started unloading it as well. Marshmallows – he didn’t remember buying those. Maybe Stanley snuck them into the cart. Ford could remember the gleeful giggles he and Stan would break into when they’d managed to sneak a treat into their mother’s shopping cart. Stan was always better at it than Ford.

Ford shook his head to clear it. He had no time for nostalgic thoughts anymore. He snagged two frozen single-serve pies plates and started searching for clean plates to put them on. Finally he found two with only a few crumbs on them – he brushed one off and placed it in the microwave, trying to remember if he’d paid his electricity bill recently.

He must have, because the microwave was heating and glowing when he pressed the right buttons. Ford sighed and leaned against the bench to wait.

Stanley was in the process of pushing a chair towards the table. He paused to let out a gigantic yawn, rubbing his eyes with his too-big sleeve.

“Tired?” Ford found himself asking. Stan nodded and yawned again.

“Mm hmm.”

“Did you have trouble getting to sleep?” The uncomfortable position must not have helped.

Stan finished pushing the chair and now he crawled up into it and rested his elbows on the table. On closer inspection he did look tired, dark bags collecting under his eyes.

“Nah.” Stan rested his cheek on one hand, squishing his round face slightly. “Just had weird dreams.”

A shiver ran down Ford’s spine.

He hadn’t even considered if – what would happen if Stan made a deal with Bill Cipher? Had already made a deal? It would explain why Bill wasn’t in Ford’s dreams. Ford hadn’t warned his brother about the demon, he’d been so sure that Bill would focus on him and him alone, but Stanley was vulnerable here and Ford hadn’t even thought about it-

“Did you make a deal?” He demanded. Stan blinked at him blearily.

“What?”

“A deal. In your dream. Did you shake anyone’s hand? Talk to anyone?”

Stan shook his head with another yawn. “Don’ think so.”

He was a child, Ford reminded himself sharply, a child that didn’t grasp the significance of what was happening. He needed to have patience. Or else Stan might clam up and refuse to talk to him further.

“Stanley.” Ford forced his tone to stay even and slow. Stan send him a curious look. “I need you to tell me everything that happened in your dream. It might be important. Okay?”

Stan frowned. “Uh – okay. Are you gonna interpret my dream, like Ma does?”

“…something like that. But it’s very important you don’t leave out any details.”

“Okay.” Stan hummed for a minute, in thought, before he brightened. “Oh, yeah! So I was in my car – I mean, I don’t have a car, but it was a dream and you just know stuff in dreams so even though I don’t have a car I knew it was my car – and it was all snowy outside. I think I was stuck in a snow bank or something. Hey Ford, where do snowmen keep their money?”

The microwave beeped. Ford placed the hot pie in front of Stanley and searched for a fork. “A snow bank. Continue.”

Stan pouted. “You ruined my joke!”

Ford handed him a fork. Stan sighed and poked at his pie while Ford started heating up his own. After a moment the child continued, his voice uncharacteristically somber.

“It was really cold. Like, really cold. I could see my breath and it wasn’t even cool. Haha – cool. I… didn’t know cold hurt so much. It was like my bones were made of ice, all cracking and popping.”

“Was anyone in the car with you?”

Stan screwed up his face in thought. “Um, no. Just me.”

“Then what happened?”

“Well, I had some matches and I was lighting them for warmth, but then they ran out.” Stan paused for a moment with a frown, comedic on his childish features. “I, um, was looking for some more in the glove box and a gun fell out. An’ I don’t know where I got it but I know it’s mine. S’ gotta be, if it’s in my car, right? But I don’t remember where I got it and I don’t know if it’s got any bullets in it.”

Ford nodded along. If Stanley could recall the dream so vividly, it probably wasn’t a normal dream, the likes of which tended to fade as quickly as they had appeared. But so far it didn’t seem like Bill’s style.

“What happened then?”

Stan bit his lip, wincing. “Um, you remember how we used to play Russian Roulette with soda cans? How we’d shake one up and take turns opening ‘em and try not to get the fizzy one?”

Ford got a bad feeling in his gut. “Of course.”

“I, um, I can’t remember why, but I wanted to find out if it had bullets in it. So I put it to my head and pulled the trigger.” Stan pulled a face like he’d tasted something sour. “There was this click and I guess it was empty because nothing happened. So I put it back and curled up all small, because it was still super cold, and I think I went back to sleep.” Stan shrugged with one shoulder. “Then it ended.”

Well, there was a lot to unpack there, and Ford could unpack it later. The microwave beeped to signify his breakfast was sufficiently warmed. He took it and slid into the seat opposite Stan.

“Is that everything? No one talked to you? How clearly do you remember it?”

“S’weird.” Stan admitted, pulling off the top of the pie to get at its insides. “So normally dreams kinda fade, all fuzzy-like, right? But the ones I had last night aren’t fading. It feels real but not-real.”

“Vivid?”

“Yeah, maybe.” Stan shrugged. Ford took a bite of his pie and was chewing before he registered what had just been said. He spluttered a little.

“Ones? Plural?”

“Uh, yeah.” Stan shrugged again. “The other one was weirder. Do you wanna know about that one too?”

“Do I – why wouldn’t I? Why didn’t you mention that?”

“Well, it was shorter and way more blurry. I couldn’t even see anything so I don’t think it really counts as a dream.”

“Tell me.”

Stan scrunched up his face. “You sure? It’s kinda silly.”

Ford sent him a look and Stan sighed.

“Fine. In the second one it was all dark, I couldn’t see anything. Well, not at first. There was this… man.” Stan shuddered. “This, uh, really creepy guy. And he put me in a coffin? No, um, a car trunk I think. It was all dark and then I couldn’t see anything. Then there was just lots of noises, and rumbling, and it got all wet.”

“Wet?” Ford echoed. Stan shrugged.

“Yeah, all wet. And cold. Like I’d been dumped in a lake or somethin’! Cause the whole trunk started flooding, which was really scary. An’ I don’t remember how I got out but at some point I was swimmin’ up feeling like my lungs were gonna explode.” Stan shivered, hugging himself. “An’ my mouth hurt and the water tasted like metal an’ it was so dark. Then, um… I dunno, I woke up or something?” He frowned. “Wait, no, there was something else – about a llama that knew too much? It all kinda gets smudgy.”

Unsettling, certainly, and something to ask questions about later – but for now it sounded like Bill had missed his chance to mess with the Pines twins. Ford let himself relax slightly.

“Thank you, Stanley, for telling me.”

“So are you gonna read my future or something?”

“No.”

Stan poked out his tongue. Ford sighed. The matter aside, he still had to find someone to look after Stanley while he got the unicorn hair! But there was only one person in Gravity Falls he trusted, and…

Well, that person might not pick up the phone.

But desperate times called for desperate measures. Surely, surely Fiddleford would at least hear him out? And if that failed Ford could always lock the child in a room for a couple hours.

Mind made up, Ford excused himself to go make a call.

His palms were oddly sweaty as he dialed the number he knew off by heart and pressed enter. The phone rang once, twice, thrice in his hand. Surely a hopeless endeavor. Ford was sure he wasn’t going to pick up, when there was a click and a crackly voice sounded tiredly down the line.

“Hello?”

His old assistant’s voice sent his heart leaping in his chest. Ford hurriedly cleared his throat. “Fiddleford? It’s me, Stanford.”

In the half-second of frigid silence that followed, Ford began to realize he might have made a mistake by introducing himself.

“Wait!” He gasped out. “Please don’t hang up.”

“What do ya want?” Fiddleford growled out. He sounded so unlike himself that it made Ford pause. But – no. This was Fiddleford. His research assistant. His friend. The one person he could trust.

“I – I need your help.” Ford admitted. He plunged on before Fiddleford could interrupt, “I was an idiot. You were right – about the portal, about Bi- the demon.”

There was a crackly silence. Ford took a deep breath.

“I know that what I did is unforgiveable. I abandoned you and refused to heed your warnings. I understand if you can never forgive me. But please, I need your help to fix what I’ve done.”

“I aint goin’ near that portal!” Fiddleford’s voice lifted in both volume and pitch. Ford hurried to reassure him.

“No, no, of course not. That’s not what I need your help with. And it’s not for me, it’s for my twin brother.”

“You have a twin?” Fiddleford demanded, a lilt of curiosity sneaking into his tone. He sounded a little more like the man Ford knew. “Why didn’t ya tell me that?”

“Stan and I haven’t on the best of terms recently.” Ford explained. “Fiddleford, you’re a father, you know how to take care of children. I need you to take care of my brother – just for a little while.”

“Whoa, hold up.” There was shuffling on the other end of the line. “I’m gonna need ya to go back to the beginning. What did ya get yourself into this time?”

Ford chuckled humorlessly. “An experiment gone wrong. Stanley – my twin brother – has been reverted back into a child.”

A pause.

“Fiddleford?”

His friend let out a sigh. “Yeah, sure, course this is happening. Weird stuff always happens around you, Stanford.”

Ford chose to take that as a compliment. “I currently have my hands full. There is a spell – a magical barrier, in fact – that can protect us against the demon you warned me about, allowing me to disassemble the portal without risk. But to do this I have so obtain several rare ingredients. I can’t take Stanley with me, and I can’t leave him alone. I was hoping you would be able to watch him. Just for a little while!” He added nervously. “I know Stanley can be a handful but I’ll be back as quickly as I can and-”

“Ford, shut yer yap.”

Ford shut up.

“I’ll not leave a child alone, no matter what I think of his brother. When d’ya need him taken care of?”

Ford let out a breath and thanked any and all deities that may have lent a helping hand. “I was hoping, today? As soon as possible?”

Fiddleford groaned. “Fine, fine – but only for the kid!” He added. “And in the name of keepin’ that demon away. Not for you.”

“I understand completely.”

“Ya still at yer cabin?”

“Yes.”

“’Course ya are. Now, how old’s yer brother?”

“Ah…” Hmm. Ford had never been good at ages. He’d passed through them himself and never looked back. “He’s old enough to talk. And complain about not having clothes that fit. Maybe about as old as Tate was when I last saw him…?”

Another long-suffering sigh. “A’right, a’right. I’ll bring some old clothes of Tate’s, see if they fit, and I’ll watch the little tyke for ya. But I’m not goin near that portal. Or any of your hinky experiments, ya hear?”

“Certainly. Thank you, Fiddleford.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be there in an hour, maybe two.”

“Thank you.” Ford said again. Fiddleford hung up.

#fic #chapter 3 #gravity falls #The stans #stangst #rewind

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