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goliath-de-senfina-sango · 5 years

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Fights, both physical and verbal, abound! Local Science Boy Tired of Friends' Arguement. Local Astronaut Trying Real Hard not to die Here. Local Ghost Hunting Family Talk SCIENCE and Local Art Boy Does Research

Danny and Tucker sat in the vice principal’s office. On the wall next to the door was an array of monitors that showed security feeds. Across from it was a desk with a globe and the filing cabinet that Lancer was going through at the moment. If Danny had to guess the chairs were intentionally made to be uncomfortable. An added punishment for even being there.

“Tucker Foley,” Lancer droned. “Chronic tardiness. Talking in class. Repeated loitering by the girls’ locker room. Danny Fenton. 34 dropped beakers in the last month. Banned for life from handling all fragile school property, but no severe mischief before today. So, gentlemen, tell me.” Lancer set down the folders he was reading from on his desk and leaned forward to yell in their faces. “Why did the two of you conspire to destroy the school’s cafeteria?”

“Dash started it when he threw his mud pie into the back of my head!” Danny was going to need a thorough shower later, but for now, turning his head to display that he’d been hit in the head with mud was enough for him.

“He literally tried to make Danny eat the mud.” This is why Tucker was Danny’s best friend. He and Danny were on the same wavelength.

“Besides, destroy the cafeteria is pretty hyperbolic, don’t you think?” Please lighten up on us because I used a vocab word.

“Mr. Baxter, as well as everyone caught on camera participating in the food fight is going to be punished for it. You two, however, are taking the first of it with him.” Lancer stood and walked out the door. “I’m going to fully map out your punishments when I return. Mr. Baxter, make sure they don’t leave.”

“We gotta find Sam!” Tucker got up and went around Lancer’s desk. By the time Danny was next to him, Tucker was already going through the security files on Lancer’s computer. “Do not ask why I have his password or how. We don’t have time for that. Oh, thank gods, this place has security cameras in the weirdest places.” On the screen, Tucker tracked the meat sweep through the school until it settled in one place. “Directly below us. Got enough juice?”

Danny closed his eyes and reached inside, stretching into the void of cold winds and vast darkness, and dragged himself into it. It swept outward over his body in a flash and for a moment he had to reorient himself. Danny grabbed onto Tucker and intangibility filled them both. They fell through the floors and stopped right above the floor of the basement. “Is this… a meat locker under the school?”

“See, this is the kinda stuff that Sam needs to get changed. Where they store their food, not what food groups are fed to us.” Tucker started walking, and Danny stood beside him.

“This is like the time she convinced our middle school teachers to hold a Sadie Hawkins dance when no one felt like doing a dance.” Danny rolled his eyes and looked around. “Except this time she’s the one who got kidnapped instead of her nabbing us. Also, repeated loitering by the girls’ locker room?”

“I figured that’d be a great place to meet someone to ask for a date.”

“How are you both a genius and a dumbass at the same time, Tuck?”

Before the geek could valiantly defend his honor, they heard a voice of strained cheer. “My dear child, meat is good for kids. It helps them grow and makes them smile.” The boys looked around the corner and saw Sam stuck in a pile of meat that was definitely inedible now. The Lunch Lady was floating in front of her, a fish and a chicken leg held up in either hand. “Why won’t you eat it?”

“We don’t need meat. That’s fact.” Sam never was one to back down when she was championing something. It was something that Danny admired about Sam. He never thought that food was the hill Sam was willing to literally die on though.

“Silence!” The ghost’s voice echoed and that wind picked up yet again. Danny wondered if he could call up special effects like that for Halloween. “You need discipline, manners, respect. You know where that comes from? Meat! Fish, or chicken?”

“Plus, most of the nutrients we need are in fish and chicken,” Tucker muttered. Or at least, he probably thought it was muttering. What it happened to be was loud enough for the ghost to hear them, eyes bright red eyes turned toward the boys.

“I’ll deal with the ghost, you get Sam out of that meat pile.” Danny ran as fast as he could. His fist reared back and collided with the ghost’s head harder than he expected it to. She was launched into the wall. Danny immediately followed up with a kick to the face. The Lunch Lady grabbed onto his ankle and held Danny up while floating upright.

“This is why you need meat! You’re skin and bones!” She then tossed Danny across the room, and at the last second, he phased through the wall. And the ground. It took a couple seconds of carefully making the tips of his gloves more - or less, it was still hard to tell - real to pull himself back up to the basement.

There, Danny found shish kabobs beings flung at him. Going completely on reflex, Danny separated his torso from his legs and the deadly food sank into the concrete behind him. There were even cracks in the wall. While Danny pulled himself back together, an enraged Lunch Lady ghost let out a furious roar, and all the meat in the storage locker rose up. Even the meat Tucker was pulling off of Sam in chunks rose up off of her and swirled around the ghost in a storm. Sam and Tucker got closer to Danny until they were in arm’s reach, and the 20-foot behemoth of meat with green torches for eyes roared down at them.

“Fuck no.” Danny grabbed his friends and the chill of invisibility and intangibility rushed through them all again. Danny pulled and snap the gravity tethering Danny and his friends to the Earth was undone, and Danny flew through the wall to the outside, flying faster when he heard a loud crash.

“Thanks, Danny, Tuck.” Sam shot them both a big grateful smile. “You must be exhausted, ghost boy. Fighting in ghost mode, yanking us through walls. Holy shit, Danny you’re flying!”

“What would give ya that idea?” Danny yawned in the middle of that sentence but felt it was irrelevant. But then, everything went dark as they tumbled into a heap on the grass. And then it went silent.

Tucker and Sam stare at each other. For a handful of moments, neither is entirely sure what they should do. Sam could've died. Her best friends could have died. How is a teenager even meant to process that? She wants to curl up on the ground and hide from everything in that moment, will all the nasty reality that is Ghosts away. But Tucker is bent over Danny, and Danny is out cold. So she packs away the emotions, cools her shit, and bends down. "You get his legs, I'll take his shoulders. FentonWorks?"

They get him there. Danny's parents are downstairs, working on something. They get Danny on his bed, and Sam slumps against the door. Tucker and Danny skipped a detention essentially and all three have skipped school. So Tucker goes down to erase the Fenton's voice mailbox and sends out a bug to his own. Sam has no clue why he has that ready but asks if he can do it with her folks' line. He asks for a few minutes. The silence passes, Tucker gets on Danny's laptop. He always fled to the tech when he needed somewhere safe. Eventually, he asks. "You ok? Today went to shit."

"No, I don't think I am. I’m pretty sure she was going to crush me to death under all that meat that should’ve been stored in a far more sanitary manner. I’ve got bruises and meat juice all over me and I need a nap and a shower, not in that order.” Sam checked Danny's closet and found something she'd left there a couple of months back. "I'm gonna do that actually. Keep an eye on him?" Tucker grunted in acknowledgment. That was the best she'd get so Sam grabbed a spare towel from the dresser and headed to the shower.

When Sam got back she looked over Tucker's shoulder. Images of old ladies in familiar-looking uniforms were all over the screen. "Looking her up?"

"If we know more about her then we can talk it out with her right?" Tucker's fingers paused over the keyboard. He stretched, looking over at her. "Right?"

"Probably. Looking to work that Foley Charm on her?" Sam elbowed him lightly in the ribs. Tucker clutched his chest as though he'd been broken. Thank gods for that smile on his face. "Tell me you aren't planning to flirt with her. Danny might get jealous." Tucker snorted.

"I don't think Danny is into old ladies who occasionally burst into flames." Tucker went back to typing and clicking, screen light glaring off his lenses. "So, my theory is that ghosts draw on ambient energy to sustain themselves. When we went into that fight my phone was on like… 50 percent. When we got here it was at 17. So maybe we should carry batteries on us?"

"And our wrist rays." Sam was never letting herself be helpless like that again. "what've you got on her so far?"

"She said the menu hasn't changed in 50 years and she wasn't kidding. So I'm looking back at people employed by Casper back when she was alive, and hoping I can recognize her facial structure."

"Impressive." Sam sighed and looked over at Danny.

He zipped up his suit. Sam made a face at him and pulled off the logo of his dad's face. "You can't go around with this on your chest." He agreed. If Danny ever met aliens of the extradimensional kind, he didn't want them to see his dad's face plastered on him. Danny walked into the tunnel that was his parents' ghost portal, looking all around it. The whispers of those other worlds called out in his head again. As he walked deeper into the portal, Danny saw nothing wrong. Not a nut or bolt out of place. He got to the end. It was dark. Too dark to see anything. Turning back, he kept a hand on the wall to steady himself. His foot hit a raised panel, and Danny leaned to the left for support. There was a click.

Danny opened his eyes and saw Sam looking down at him. Not unusual. The soreness in his muscles, however, was. Danny stopped mid-stretch and winced. "Oh. Right. 20-foot meat monster." Tucker was at his desk, turned around in the chair and giving him that frown he had when Dash had slammed Danny into a locker. "How long was I out for?"

"Four days." Tucker reached under Danny's bed and lifted up a bag of Nasty Burger.

"Four Days?!"

"Nah, like, 2 hours dude." Tuck chuckled and handed him a wrapped burger. "You need this dude, that fight took a shit ton outta you."

“Don’t I know it.” Danny unwrapped the burger and sank his teeth in. He'd been hungrier than he thought. It felt like a blink before the burger was gone. "Thanks, dude, I needed that. We basically skipped lunch, didn't we?" That thought had a horrible domino effect and Danny tore the burger wrapping in half. "Fuck, my parents are gonna kill me!"

"I erased the voicemail from your box, mine, and Sam's. Don't worry about that."

"Speaking of, how ya doin Sam?" Danny turned, looking his friend over and wincing at the bruises on her arms. “Fuck, the meat pile did that?”

“Yeah, turns out being grabbed up by a bunch of proceeded corpses can do some damage.” Sam shrugged. “It’s nothing I can’t fix with some concealer and sleeves.”

“It’s still warm though,” Danny said. “You good baking yourself?”

“The heaters in the school barely work, and it’s nearly October, Danny. Things have cooled down plenty.” Sam frowned and looked over to Tucker. “Do head injuries affect the perception of temperature?”

“I’m sure they can. If only someone hadn’t summoned up a meat-obsessed lunch lady with a menu change.” Tucker paused and raised a brow. “Actually, how in the hell did you even get them to change it? Nevermind the why.”

“The why, Tucker, is that schools need to promote healthier changes in the food we consume.” Sam had that fire in her eyes. Again. Danny let out a long sigh, which went ignored by his bickering friends.

“And removing an entire food group from the menu was your solution?”

“It’s one we don’t even need Tucker! Do you know how inefficient the transfer of calories from meat into our bodies is?”

“We need protein, Sam! If there’s anything that the Lunch Lady said truthfully it’s that! Look at Danny! He barely gets any protein, you can see how that’s turned out for him.”

“My dude, I’m not the only skinny person here.”

“And whether or not we have meat and protein isn’t your decision to make for us all, Sam!” Tucker glared balefully at the vegan and stood up from Danny’s chair. “You had to be an individual and have all your individual needs met over what anyone else wanted, didn’t you? No one but you even wanted this menu change!”

“The menu as it is now is far healthier for both us and the environment - and the ecosystems we tear down to sustain ourselves and animals that get butchered so people can enjoy the taste of their flesh don’t get a choice in what happens to them, so someone needs to make choices that help them out!”

“Oh, oh, so mud is healthier for me to eat than chicken? That’s fucking rich, Sam, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever fucking heard!” Tucker was now agitated enough to start ranting in Mandarin, which was great. “Actually, no no, the most ridiculous thing is that we’re equating the right to a choice in what we eat to an animal’s right to chose anything. Are you insane?” Tucker opened the door so fast the knob banged against the wall. “I’m gonna make sure this shit doesn’t last the week!”

“We are no more innocent than those animals and they’re lives shouldn’t be put on the line for us needlessly! And don’t you think you can go undoing all my hard work!” Sam barged out as well, completely forgetting Danny as she slammed his door shut. And Danny stared at that door for a moment before groaning into his pillow.

“This is going to be a whole thing, isn’t it?” For several moments, Danny laid there and stared up at the constellations he’d put up on his ceiling in glow in the dark stickers. His stomach reminded him of its existence, and Danny groaned again. He still had some allowance left, so he went out and headed to the Nasty Burger. Considering Tucker’s words and how much he’d done that day, Danny ordered a full meal.

After he’d eaten and walked it off on the way home, Danny let what had happened that day go through his mind. Even as he fought off a small angry blob with his wrist ray, growling at it. “Ghosts aren’t mindlessly violent beings. I know that.” He needed to believe that. “So, that means that she can be calmed, somehow. She kept going on and on about the benefits of meat, and she died years ago…” An email notification popped up on Danny’s computer, and he sighed. “Right, homework assigned by Lancer. What would I do without Tuck?”

The next day, Danny pulled on one of his darker shirts - a gift from Sam with some constellation’s accurately displayed - and some jeans. His parents didn’t come up to join him and Jazz that morning, which was likely for the best. Danny didn’t need their ghost radar pointing at him before he could figure out how to break their biases. The second his cereal was finished, though, Danny pulled out his journal and attached pencil. “No,” Danny snapped when he heard Jazz take a familiar breath. “It’s not a diary, no you may not read it. For the 11th time, Spazz.” One weird benefit of super hearing - I can tell when she’s about to speak. Everyone had different rhythms for when they spoke and when they were thinking etcetera. Danny knew his sister’s patterns almost as well as Tucker and Sam’s.

Danny wrote into his journal a goal of recording his encounters with apparently sapient ghosts and how quickly he managed to pacify them. If only he could think of how to pacify this one.

Once the hybrid got to school - later than he would’ve been had those damned blobs not been so interested in fucking with him - Danny groaned as he was dragged to the Vice Principal’s office. There he found Tucker, who was glaring down at the desk in just the right angle to look like he was glaring directly ahead. A trick he’d developed for gathering valuable passwords while tricking Lancer and other authorities into thinking he was just a semi-rebellious teen. Danny couldn’t tell what Tucker could be trying to gather from the desk now, but he may have just been scowling. Tucker was complicated that way.

“Take a seat, Mr. Fenton.” Danny obeyed and took his seat, looking steadfastly at the space just behind Lancer’s head. “Tell me, gentlemen, how and why did you leave my office when both of you were already being punished for starting a food fight in the cafeteria?” Before either could come up with an answer, Lancer slammed his hand down hard on the desk, and Danny flinched. “What could possibly have possessed you two to skip school for the rest of the day?”

Danny squirmed a bit, while Tucker took even, obviously measured breaths. He then looked up at Lancer directly. “We were worried about Sam, sir. She hadn’t answered any of her texts, and she always answers even when we’re fighting to make sure we know she’s safe.” Not untrue, Sam wouldn’t have been able to answer a text if they tried that. Danny nodded along to Tucker’s story.

“We left out the window to find her, which took forever since she had gone to find a way to help organize something for the school.” Danny put on his most apologetic face. “We’re truly sorry about ditching you, Mr. Lancer, but we had to make sure our friend was safe, you see. We wanted to make sure none of the jocks or anyone had gone and done something horrible to her as revenge for getting the menu changed for a week.”

Lancer glared between the two of them for several seconds more, and Danny fought to keep himself still. “Fine,” Lancer finally allowed. “I will be following up with Ms. Manson to confirm all of this, but you won’t be receiving too harsh a punishment for looking out for your friend. For endangering yourselves by leaving through the window, however, and for leaving without simply telling me, you will be serving both lunch detention and after-school detention. Do you understand, boys?”

“Of course, Mr. Lancer.” It amazed Danny, at times, that he and Tucker could speak in unison. They were like twins.

“Dismissed. You two best not be late to my class.”

On the way to class, Danny brought up his thoughts on trying to appease the Lunch Lady. “Her name is Agatha,” Tuck said. “Agatha Reece. And maybe you could, I dunno, teach her about the health crisis in America? Help me organize the school to reform the menu the right way?”

“You want it changed too now? I thought you were gonna get it changed back early, or something?”

“Oh no, the food around here sucks either way.” Tucker rolled his eyes. “I just wish we had like, a better storage of better food in general. I could recommend my uncle and aunt’s farm for fresh, nearby food products.”

“If only we knew how Sam had convinced the school to do this whole ‘veggie week’ thing.” Danny shook his head. “That’s what really doesn’t make sense to me. We’ve only been in school for like, a month or so. How the hell did Sam ‘wear them down’ so quickly?”

“No clue,” Tucker growled. For a moment the hair on Danny’s nape stood on end at the sound. “But, I’m going to make a petition, and head around the school getting signatures for a better permanent change decided on by the students.”

Danny patted Tucker’s shoulder and nodded somberly. “Leave some printer paper for the rest of us at least?”

Tucker raised his nose, Danny now straining to hold in the laughter in front of the door. “Sorry Danny, but a man on a mission has to go to all lengths to complete his quest.”

Danny bowed at the waist. “Of course, Friar Tuck, how could I possibly forget?”

“You are forgiven, peasant Daniel.” Tucker laughed and pulled Danny into the classroom. Things would be alright. Danny just needed to weather the storm and make sure both of his friends were still friends by the end of it.

It proved far more difficult a task done than said. The three had most classes together, but Tucker was busily writing something down every few seconds in a second journal in his desk while he worked. Tuck had the most fascinating form of ambidextrousness. He barely paid any attention to Danny’s attempts to start a conversation and crumpled up any notes about Sam he slid over.

Similarly, Sam was ignoring him almost entirely. She took her notes, but every time she caught him whispering to Tucker, she glared and went cold on Danny himself. Am I not allowed to talk to both of my friends?

Lunch came around, Lancer had them eating in his room, and Danny had never been more grateful to Tucker’s mom than he had been when Tuck handed him an extra bagged lunch. “Tuck, you are the best.”

“I know it, dude.”

“Gentlemen! This is meant to be a time of quiet reflection upon your misdeeds.” Lancer glared at them until the teens went to silently eating, and Lancer went back to whatever he was doing on his computer. If Danny focused on the man’s headphones hard enough he could pick up the faint sound of… blasters? Weird.

At the end of the day, however, while the two were meant to be heading to detention, Tucker was going around and asking groups of friends who were lingering about something and holding up a clipboard that Danny was almost certain he stole from his dad’s office. Along with that pen. Never was Danny ever earlier than Tucker to something, but apparently, detention was one of those things. Sam, surprisingly, was also there.

“Lancer got you too?” Danny asked as he swept a bit nearer to the goth

“I was gone all day.” Sam shrugged, pushing the few remains of grass and mud into a pile and then grabbing a dustpan. “Plus I wanted to help clean it up anyway. We need this place to eat in after all.”

“Actually, I heard Jerry and Katelyn at least were eating on the theater stage.” The two scooped everything up into a trash bag with the dustpan. “They were inviting some other people to bring sandwiches and chips and stuff.”

“Oh wow,” Tucker called out from where Danny was very sure he shouldn’t have been able to hear them. “No one wanted to eat garbage right from the ground? I’m surprised, shocked even.”

“Had you actually been there to see, Tucker, there were plenty of people eating peacefully in the cafeteria today!” Sam looked downright murderous and stomped off to clean away from Tucker. Danny sighed a heavy sigh and shook his head.

The detention had gone on for an hour, but it’d felt like forever. Danny watched both his friends march off in different directions and groaned. Another friendless night for him. After a trip to the Nasty Burger, Danny did a little walk around the city. A few ghosts that he could see when the world lost focus skittered away from him or ignored him entirely. Some attacked, but his wrist ray had yet to run out of juice even though he forgot to charge it last night. “Maybe something to do with my other-self. Gonna have to ask mom and dad about that.” A shiver ran down Danny’s spine, a puff of mist coming out of his mouth and he looked around, letting his senses shift into that surreal state of his ghostly self. He saw nothing out of the ordinary. Relaxing, Danny sighed and headed home.

"Danny!" His dad, Jack Fenton, only seemed to speak in exclamation marks. Danny wondered if he'd ever had an inside voice. "C' mon, dinner's ready son!"

Danny raised a brow. "Who cooked?" He'd eaten his Nasty Burger meal and was pretty sure he got all he needed.

"I did!" On the other hand, more food that wasn't infected with ectoplasmic residue sounded nice. Danny set down his bag and headed into the kitchen, where his dad had set out chicken, mashed potatoes, garlic bread, and spinach. His mom and sister were already sitting and eating, and Danny gave them both a wave.

"Hi, Danny! Juice is in the fridge. Jazz reminded your father and I that we need to refresh our minds with some air now and then. I thought, why not a family dinner?" Mom shrugged as she picked up a chicken leg. "Jack insisted on cooking."

"Mom," Jazz said in her best calming voice, "Dad never mutates the food."

While Mom and Jazz debated who had the bigger mishaps with ectoplasm - Danny felt the Christmas turkey and Dad dragging them into a world of blinding perpetual light ranked as the biggest mishaps period - Danny grabbed himself a plate and fruit punch. Jazz clearly grabbed some groceries before telling their parents to surface.

Halfway through his meal, a thought struck Danny. "Hey Dad, Mom? How does ectoplasm interact with electricity in its rawest most natural form? The ectoplasm, not the electricity."

Jazz stared at him in betrayal, Why written in her expression. His parents, however, jumped on the thought of their son having an interest in their work. Danny had never seen his dad swallow food that fast.

"Ya see Danno, ectoplasm as it is when we retrieve it is naturally an energy thief. In relation to electromagnetic radiation, it soaks in any and all of it from the area with the exclusion of green visible light. That's why it feels so cold."

"If we can refine our engines properly we can utilize the flip side of that natural state," his mom added, "We could revolutionize energy efficiency in technology around the world!"

"It can store up a lot of power, but once it hits it's maximum?" Dad held his hands together then spread them out so fast he almost smacked Jazz and Danny. "It all comes out in an intense burn! Ectoplasm is either plasma hot or cold as space. When it's cold, it'd drain the power out of everything around it."

Danny nodded, letting the info process for a couple of moments while he ate. "So if, say, a ghost was to eat human food…?"

"Well," his mom twirled her fork around. "It likely wouldn't, but if it did the ghost would soak up all the energy that could be gotten out of the material in the food, leaving nothing but ashes."

Danny nodded, curiosity satisfied, and steered the conversation elsewhere. Once he was done clearing off his plate, Danny was struck with a realization. It was the sort of thing that happened all the time, when a thought lingered in his head, waiting to present itself. Usually, that was artistic inspiration. Now he knew exactly how to calm down Agatha. Up the stairs, he ran to his computer.

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galadrieljones · 5 years

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A Funeral: Chapter 18 (Arthur Morgan x Mary Beth Gaskill)

Fandom: Red Dead Redemption 2 | Pairing: Arthur x Mary Beth | Rating: Mature

Content: Existential Angst, Friendship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Nature, Touch-Starved, Humor, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Angst, Violence, Hurt/Comfort, Fake Marriage, Epiphanies, Backstory, Banter, Deep Emotions, Sharing a Bed, Swimming, Arthur to the Rescue, Forests, Abduction, Angst, Heavy Angst, Mutual Pining, Friends to Lovers, Sexual Content, Sexual Themes, Adult Content, Canon Divergence, Found Families, Brotherhood, Fatherhood

Summary: To help her process Sean’s death, Mary Beth asks Arthur to take her on a hunting trip, somewhere far away. He agrees, and on their journey, they find quietude and take comfort in their easy bond. They’ve been friends for a while now, but life is full of uncertainty and complications, and in their desperate search for meaning together, they endure a number of trials, some small, some big—all of which bring them closer to the insidious dangers of the natural world, as well as to one another, and to their future.

Credit to @bearly-tolerable for the banner!! Art is my own.

***For the rest of this story, you can visit the masterpost or AO3, both linked in the replies to this post and also at my blog.***

Chapter 18: The Storm

That night, a storm rolled into the swamps. It was big, and the black sky ripped open then stitched back with huge lightning deformities and the whole world filled with the sounds of the thunder. Arthur and John were taking a long time to get back from their fishing trip. Mary Beth was reminded of the storm up near O’Creagh’s Run and was struck with anxiety and could not bear to be alone. So she sat in with Abigail and Jack in their room, and Jack had fallen asleep already to the sounds of the storm, while Mary Beth sat by the window, trying to read, but it was no use. Abigail sat knitting quietly, lacking in distress. Sometimes, she would hum little songs. Mary Beth didn’t understand how she could be so calm, but she did not feel like making a big deal or flying up with worry. That was a nuisance. So she just stayed quiet.

The rain was coming down hard. She knew they’d probably built a tent somewhere to wait things out, or maybe they’d stopped in Rhodes to have a drink at the saloon. They were grown men, used to weather. They were smart. They were okay. Her instinct was to get on her horse and go out and try and find them, but she knew that was a dumbass idea of which nobody, not even her conscious mind, could approve. Hosea, Lenny, and Dutch were in St. Denis. Out on the perimeter, getting battered with the rain, were Charles, Bill, and Sadie. She’d seen Kieran ride off sometime in the early afternoon on Arthur’s old horse, Diana, but she didn’t see Diana back with the others now, and she thought it could have just been she was hidden, but Mary Beth was worried he had never made it back—that he, too, was out there, somewhere, festering in the storm. Karen was downstairs, snoring drunk, and Tilly was asleep, too, and Molly was in the other room, and about an hour before, Mary Beth had gone in to see if she’d wanted to come join her and Abigail, but she was not interested. She was not interested in the other women of the camp at all.

At some point, outside, they heard a sort of ruckus. It was Micah and Pearson, and they’d gotten into a sort of spat. Mary Beth spied while Abigail just rolled her eyes, until Charles came slopping in out of the surrounding trees, up to his knees in muck, and he clocked Micah over the head with the butt of his sawed-off until he was all but crawling back to this tent. Pearson had already taken a bad hit to the jaw and was rolling around in a puddle, holding his face. Charles checked on him and hauled him back to one of the covered wagons. The rain was starting to slow down now. The storm finally moving over the water. Mary Beth could feel her chest physically loosen, and at some point, she must have sighed so loud that Abigail looked up, set down her knitting, and became concerned.

“You all right?” she said.

“It’s just this storm,” said Mary Beth.

“You worried about the boys? They’re fine in this, Mary Beth. It’s just water.”

“I know,” said Mary Beth. “I just—there was a storm when we was up north. Some bad stuff happened. I’m feeling anxious from it.”

“What happened?”

Mary Beth kind of glanced out the window where Sadie was coming back to the house with a lantern. She told Abigail about what had happened, with the Murfree Brood. Abigail didn’t know who they were, but she seemed to instinctively understand the concept of backwater murderers. When she saw how it affected Mary Beth so, she seemed to get an idea, and then she reached under the bed and took out a bottle of bourbon. She poured them each a short glass and said, “Let’s go out and sit on the porch. Get some fresh air.”

So they did.

Meanwhile, Arthur and John were holed up in Arthur’s tent—which was actually Hamish Sinclair’s tent—on the shore just north of Braithwaite Manor, passing a bottle of rum they’d found while out exploring the river banks of the Lanahachee. The storm had snuck up on them pretty fast, but they were not strangers to this sort of adversity in the weather, and in some ways, it made it feel like old times.

Their talk on the river had rekindled them as friends again in unexpected ways as they remembered what it was like to just exist in cooperation with one another. Sometimes, running with Dutch was like a competition, in which the concept of loyalty took strange shapes and would phase in and out of importance, focusing all your energies inward, depending on what exactly he had planned, and his chimeric brand of expectations for the day. Over the years, as Arthur got older, he began to feel the lack in the age difference between himself and Dutch, and how Dutch was filled with idealism that had once appealed to him on the level of youth and poverty of the soul, but this had ended. Spending time with Mary Beth, to whom he could actually communicate his feelings and frustrations without fear of being doubted or belittled, and now spending time with John, which was uncomplicated and natural in major ways, he began to see just how little need he had left for Dutch’s philosophies of salvation.

Still, he dreaded the conversation. He had a deep-seated guilt inside him, typical of the eldest child. Even as Dutch was not his father, and he never seemed as such, it was a paternal role he had played in Arthur’s life at a very young and vulnerable age. Arthur often felt mixed up. He did not feel free. He seemed to miss a life that he could no longer remember and possibly had never experienced at all. At some point, John went out to patrol the perimeter of their camp, out of instinct, and Arthur took out his journal to try to wittle away at these feelings he was having.

If I listen to Hosea, he wrote, and that is all I have ever strived for, then I am doing the right thing for myself and for the love I have found, so unexpectedly, while traveling north with Mary Beth. There is a nice Sister in St. Denis—Sister Calderon—to whom I should call for further guidance, maybe. I am sure she would encourage me to commit acts of goodness, the only acts of which I can presently identify being those that involve leaving Dutch and starting fresh with a life that I can be proud of, far away. I never been a religious man, and I don’t fancy becoming one, but sometimes, looking up at things don’t feel so bad. It’s raining here. I hope Mary Beth is not too worried. It reminds me of that bad night up at O’Creagh’s Run when everything felt hopeless for a while. But it turned out that night at Hamish Sinclair’s may have be the first night of my entire existence. Here I go, sounding like a teenager again. Who knows. In any case, the rain seems to be letting up some, and we’ll ride out of here as soon as we’re able. I hope she’s okay. She needn’t worry, but I think she does. It’s so endearing. I just need a ring, then I’ll marry her. I will. That is, if she don’t get too sick of me first. I am confident she won’t, and that I am a fool for even having written this, but we shall see.

When John got back, he said the sky looked like it was calming down. Arthur put away his pencil and his journal into his pack and got up to start putting things away onto his horse. It was nearly midnight, but they decided to ride in anyway. On their way south, past Braithwaite Manor, they ran into a couple stranded klansmen who looked like they’d got caught in the rain. One of them asked Arthur for a lift into Rhodes and caught a boot to the face while John dispatched of the other with the butt of his shotgun. It was too late to start outright murdering, and neither Arthur nor John was in the mood for bloodshed, so they ditched them unconscious by the side of the road, stole their clothes and valuables, which they tossed into the swamps on their way into Shady Belle. They didn’t want to go back to the girls with blood on their hands if they could avoid it, no matter the sort.

They got into camp about half past one. Mary Beth and Abigail were on the porch, drinking whiskey with Sadie. The rain had stopped, and the yard was sloppy. Cain barked as the men got in, and Charles echoed a welcome as they hitched their horses up with the others. When the women on the porch saw what was going on, they all rose up to say hello, and Mary Beth tossed her whiskey cup and then hitched up her skirt and took off through the mud of the lawn and ran straight into Arthur’s arms, colliding with him hard so that he stumbled back a few steps as he caught her, mid-air, her legs wrapped around him tight.

“Hey,” he said, real low, and she tucked her face deep into the scruff and curve of his neck and took a long, deep breath. “It’s okay. I’m fine.”

“I know,” she said.

He kissed her on the temple and carried her all the way back to the house. At some point, he turned back to look at John, gave him a sturdy nod.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” said John.

“Sounds good,” said Arthur.

“Night, lovebirds,” said Sadie, tipping her hat.

Arthur smiled, but Mary Beth was very weary and would not even bring herself to look up from his collar.

They went inside, went up the stairs, to Arthur’s room. He closed the door, still holding her.

“I’m sorry we got so held up,” said Arthur into her hair. “With all the lightning, we didn’t wanna risk it.”

“It’s okay,” she said, still hanging on.

“You were worried,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said. “I know I’m overreacting. But the storm.”

“I know.” He sighed, deeply, pushing the hair off her shoulders and off her face. She looked at him, her eyes drooping. She was tired, he could see. “It’s been a long time since I had someone worrying about me like this.”

She just smiled.

“I don’t want you to worry,” he said, “but I will admit, I like coming back from somewhere, anywhere, to you.”

She looked like she might either fall asleep or start crying. She kissed him instead, revived somehow, and he kissed her back till it turned passionate. Hurried, they undressed each other piece by piece and made love in the bed, full of wanting and relief at being together again. She begged him for his seed and told him stories about their future lives. He said nothing—strong and silent—just loved her, obeyed her, listened to her, until he was done and loose inside of her, and they went slow, then very still, and he fell asleep almost immediately with her running her fingers through his rain-damp hair, and he was sinking like a heavy stone with her smells and her hair and her skin all around him. He was safe.

After Arthur had drifted, Mary Beth slipped away, wrapped in a sheet, and she went outside to pee. It was quiet out there, besides the weird birds and the nighttime noises of the swamps. The whole camp was asleep and at peace around her, and she could hear Pearson snoring in one of the covered wagons and Cain having his whimpering puppy dreams on the porch. What would become of her, of them, of this place, this magical palace of Americana and dying dreams? She turned around to go inside.

But then, she realized she wasn’t alone out there. She saw Sadie. It was a surprise that she was still awake. Did she ever sleep? She was way out in the mud, close to the water, flinging knives at a Tupelo tree and crying. She was unaware of Mary Beth’s presence, stifling her tears to her sleeve and angrily trying to hide it though as far as she knew, there was no one there to see her.

Mary Beth was filled all of a sudden with an indescribable sadness and a huge sense of pessimism and fear. What had become of them? It was terrifying. Sadie was so tough and so strong and so mean sometimes, like one of the men almost. It was easy to forget that she was a widow.

Mary Beth went back inside then, to Arthur. He breathed steadily in his sleep, on his stomach, face buried in the pillow. So peaceful and long and big and full of life. She tried not to think of Sadie, though it made her guilty, made her sore. She placed her hand on Arthur's wide, warm back, absorbing his presence with her own. She hadn’t talked to god since Kansas City, but that night, she decided that she would do it again. She had a reason now, making her burn. She just thought, Let him be okay. Let him be okay. Please? And that was all, and then she turned down the lamp on the windowsill, and she lie down beside him in the quiet sheets. She closed her eyes. She waited.

Meanwhile, John and Abigail lie together in their bed not far away, with Jack asleep on his cot by the window. Abigail had fallen asleep as well a little while before, but John was still worked up from his conversation with Arthur by the river. He was a simple man and his mind could change quickly, and he knew now how right Arthur had been, how close they were to freedom if that is what they so chose in this world. He was filled with terror and excitement, staring up at the ceiling, listening to Abigail breathing by his side. It was the first night they had slept in a bed together in a long, long time, and he knew this had to mean something. Something big. He had almost forgotten what she felt like, how small she was, how much he actually loved her, needed her. Without her, he was just a fuckin balloon, blowing around, getting caught in bad places and nasty heights and horrifying situations in which he kept facing death, always.

He was conflicted, too, with irrational anger for Dutch. It was huge and consuming him, this anger at having been somehow swindled out of a life he could respect, and yet he also knew that this was not Dutch’s fault, that he needed to take responsibility for his own bullshit, and this was a crippling dilemma. He was a goddam idiot, and it was time for him to see this for what it was, accept it, and make a choice. Arthur had already made his choice, which was monumental in scope, thought John, considering the fact that Arthur, of all the people he’d ever known in his whole idiotic life, had always seemed so set in his ways—more so than anyone, it was remarkable. To see him moving forward like this. It was almost enough to give John hope for a future he had never even considered before, let alone considered as a real possibility for himself and for his family.

Abigail stirred then, like she could sense his epiphany in her subconscious dreams. He turned onto his side to face her, cupped her hands in his own. She didn’t wake. He felt the nerves building inside of him. What was he so afraid of? When he realized that it was nothing, that was when he finally felt tired, and he went to sleep.

The next morning, Dutch and Hosea met out on the upstairs balcony of the high saloon in St. Denis. The air was clean and crisp, cleansed from the storm, with the sun coming down and drying the streets, making beautiful colors in the foliage. Dutch was reading the paper when Hosea came out, smoking a cigar and nursing a cup of coffee with added cream. Lenny was downstairs, in a poker game, as the ensuing discussion between the camp elders did not concern him. Hosea took his seat, poured himself a cup of coffee, while Dutch took a puff off the cigar, ashed it into a crystal ash tray on the table. All around them were the sounds and sights of the bustle in the city. The clanking of the trolley cars, the horse hooves on the cobblestone. Elegant women spoke in French accents while their American suitors smoked by their sides. Hosea sipped his coffee, surveying all the morning held in store. He slouched back in his chair with one leg crossed over the other and sighed.

“A fine day,” he said.

“Indeed,” said Dutch. “As soon as young Lenny finishes up the pot downstairs, we should head back to camp.”

“That reminds me,” said Hosea, taking a sip from his cup. “Arthur and Mary Beth returned from their hunting trip, the night before last. ”

Dutch glanced up, over the top of the paper. “You’re just telling me this now?” he said.

“It slipped my mind,” said Hosea, smiling.

“Well, it’s about time,” said Dutch. “I was starting to worry.”

“Me, too,” said Hosea.

Dutch went back to his paper and his cigar. Hosea sipped some more of his coffee, set down the cup, and lit a cigarette. “We need to talk, Dutch,” he said.

“I know,” said Dutch, shaking his head.

“Do you?"

“I know you’ve got feelings about this…Bronte business,” he said. “It ain’t my cup of tea either, Hosea, but we’ve got to play the hand we’re dealt here. Just...trust me. I'm working on a plan. When it comes through, you'll see.”

“This isn’t about Bronte,” said Hosea, smoking, staring off the balcony into the blue sky. It was filled with smog. “Though I do have opinions about that as well. We can cover those back at Shady Belle.”

“Well then, what do you want to talk about?” said Dutch.

“I want to talk about Arthur.”

“What about Arthur,” said Dutch, again consumed with his paper, sipping his coffee.

“Arthur and Mary Beth,” said Hosea.

“What about Arthur and Mary Beth.”

“They’ve found love.”

Dutch glanced up, curious, surprised. “Excuse me?” he said.

“They’re together,” said Hosea, smoking. He was looking right at Dutch now. “It’s serious.”

“How serious?”

“They’re gonna get married,” said Hosea, almost casually, “and they’re gonna have a family.”

Dutch set down his paper. He leaned forward with his hands folded together on the table. He looked confused, hurt even, like he couldn’t wrap his brain around what he was hearing. “Is she pregnant?” he said.

“That much is unclear,” said Hosea. He smoked, ashed the cigarette into the crystal ash tray on the table. “She could be.”

“I’m—this is news to me,” said Dutch, looking down at his hands. He was shaking his head, exasperated, like he’d missed something, something huge. “Arthur and Mary Beth? When did it happen? All on that trip of theirs?”

“According to Arthur, it was latent for a while. The trip brought it to the surface.”

Dutch sighed. He stared off into the distance, past Hosea, into some infinite nothing. “I did not know,” he said. "How is it possible that I did not know?"

“I didn't know either,” said Hosea. “Not until he told me.”

“He told you?”

“Only after I asked him, of course. Yesterday. Arthur isn’t a particularly forthcoming man when it comes to his personal life. You know this.”

“Yes, I do.”

“There is a change coming, Dutch,” said Hosea. He smoked. “A real change.”

“What sort of...change?” said Dutch, softly, still staring past him, real far away—almost like he knew.

“That is what we need to talk about,” said Hosea.

Dutch blinked, looked back down at his hands, which he flexed and studied for a moment. Then, he fussed with the ring on his finger, and he looked up. They met eyes, seriously. Hosea lifted his chin, still slouched, still smoking. For the first time in many months, he felt good. He had Dutch's attention. For the first time in a while, Dutch was listening.

#red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #rdr2 fanfic #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x mary beth gaskill #mary beth gaskill #mary-beth gaskill #a funeral

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dolphinitley · 6 years

Text

Arthur Morgan x Female Reader

The Best Sleep in Years

Reader awakes at Clemens Point by Arthur’s side the morning after he escaped the O’Driscolls.

Word count: 1,979

Master List

“What are you doin’ on the ground, girl?”

You awoke with a smile to Arthur’s gravelly voice. You lifted your right hand that had been resting on his hip while you slept. He was weak but in a much better state than when he collapsed from his horse at camp last night after escaping the O’Driscolls.

“Takin’ care of your sorry ass,” you replied jokingly. The late morning sun felt nice on your face. You rose and began peeling off the bandage on his bullet wound so you could put on a fresh one. “You cauterize this wound yourself, Mr. Morgan?”

“Yes ma’am. With a file and a candle.”

“Oh, I saw the wax.”

“Thank you for cleanin’ up the wound.” Arthur looked at you, waiting to catch your eyes.

“You’re welcome,” you said softly with a concerned look. You finished up with his bandage. His gaze was fixed on your face and hands the entire time. He had always respected your medical skills, but watching you care for him now made his heart warm. He was also impressed because removing pieces of a bullet from a cauterized wound was the most complicated procedure you had done with the gang thus far.

“Why you lookin’ so damn sad, girl? I ain’t dyin’ am I?”

“No.” You lightened up a bit. “No, you’re not dying just yet Arthur Morgan. You do got a couple broken ribs, though.” You showed him the bandages around his ribcage. “Gonna have to take it easy for a few weeks. Let people help you get around.”

He grunted in response. “Well, who am I to disobey the doctor’s orders?” he replied with a wink, which earned a smile from you. It was a relief to joke with him again after his absence. Everything was okay for a moment, but then your stare drifted to the sparkling lake.

“I’m gonna kill Micah.”

“It’s gonna be alright.” Arthur was gently stroking a loose strand of your hair in his fingertips. He’d never done that before, but it was soothing to you.

You heard footsteps approaching.

“Y/N? I can sit with him for a while if you wanna take a break,” Karen offered.

You looked to Arthur and he nodded back to you. You accepted Karen’s offer and headed over to the horses. You checked on your horse and had a healing hug with her. Then you stroked Arthur’s horse, gave her a sugar cube, and thanked her for bringing him back safe.

In the following weeks that Arthur took to heal, you were by his side. You felt pleasure in doing extra chores around camp that he was unable to do. You were constantly thinking of a way to leave and start a different life. Arthur’s injuries weren’t life threatening, but when he was a hostage he was in grave danger and could have easily been killed. The incident got into your head. This man was extremely important to you. You hadn’t felt like this for any man even before you started living on the run. You wanted Arthur to run away with you but you knew how fiercely loyal he was to Dutch and Hosea. So, you decided to stay for now and just keep going.

You were playing with Jack on the morning that Arthur was officially healed. Arthur walked toward you and Jack and was smiling. He’d let you cut his hair while he was healing, but he wanted to grow his beard out. There was something a bit different about him now. The time he spent resting allowed him to do a lot of reflecting. He was wiser now, and stronger. He finally looked put together again. He was wearing a red shirt with the sleeves rolled up and light wash jeans. He looked very handsome to you. You loved to watch him play with Jack. You caught yourself imagining what a good father he would be, but then snapped out of your pointless daydream.

“I’m gonna head into town later,” Arthur told you. “Help Dutch with some things.”

You were the slightest bit annoyed at his show of loyalty to Dutch but knew you had no real reason or right to be angry. Arthur was going about his normal business that he’d always done before he’d gotten captured. It didn’t bother you before. The time you had spent together during his healing was so intimate and delicate. It affected you and you wondered how much it had affected him. Maybe you just needed time to get back into the normal routine of things.

Unfortunately, that couldn’t happen. Only a few days after Arthur’s full recovery, the law had found your camp. They tried to make a deal with Dutch and he refused. They left, promising to be back with 50 men. At that, Arthur and Charles went out to find a new camp location. You helped everyone quickly pack up over the next day and get ready for the move. Arthur and Charles returned, saying they’d cleared a huge abandoned house. You couldn’t believe it had been years since you called a house your home. Sure, the area was swampy and humid, but at least it was warm and the land was beautiful and secluded. The camp was happier for a while, but of course that never lasts. You thought you’d escaped the problems in Rhodes, but the Braithwaites had other ideas. They kidnapped Jack in the night and handed him over to a rich and dangerous man in Saint Denis. Dutch, Arthur, and John set out to find him. You tried to comfort Abigail as best as you could, but there was no consoling a mother whose child was missing. You loved Jack, too. He was a great kid and your friend. If those idiot Braithwaites could steal Jack in the middle of the night without anyone knowing, this camp was obviously much more vulnerable than you thought. You kept your gun and axe on you at all times now. You were very alert and could feel it affecting your stress level and emotions.

The men finally returned with Jack, safe and sound. Everyone in the camp could breathe again and you spent that night drinking and singing by the fire. At first you had a spot by yourself by the fire, smiling at the happy gang. Arthur came up behind you and nudged your shoulder blade with a beer. You looked up and smiled at each other. He sat down next to you and you clinked bottles.

“Nice job getting Jack back. I can’t put into words how relieved everyone is that he’s home and safe,” you said.

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if we hadn’t gotten him back,” replied Arthur. “I hate to say it, but this whole thing brought that family a lot closer.”

You looked at Arthur intently. He met your gaze and quickly ran his tongue over his bottom lip. You gripped his bicep and shook him a bit with a smile. He smiled back and took a swig of his beer.

The next day you decided that if you were going to ever have a chance of leaving, you’d have to start saving up more of your own money. You were going out alone a lot more often and Arthur noticed, but didn’t question you.

Arthur thought of you even more than you thought of him. He thought of how smart, gentle, and beautiful you were. He thought of how careless it was of him to develop feelings like this and become vulnerable. This was a dangerous life and he knew he could lose anyone at any moment. He couldn’t stop himself from getting closer to you. You were his best friend. Your presence was one of the few things that elicited genuine smiles from him. When you were resting or otherwise busy, he’d spend time with your horse, talking to her and brushing her. When you caught him doing it once, you smiled.

In the following months you had gathered quite a lot of money for yourself from hunting and scavenging. You hid it in a lock box inside a hole in a tree by the house. You were just putting it away one evening when you heard a scream. You ran to the front of the house to see Kieran’s body and decapitated head propped on a horse that was sent into camp. Your hand went to your gun. Then O’Driscolls began emerging from hiding spots, one after another. You took cover behind a shed and saw Sadie running toward you with her gun out. You and Sadie took out O’Driscolls one a time until you saw Arthur sprinting through the cross fire to retrieve you and Sadie.

“What are you doin’ out here?!”

“Takin’ care of these dumbass O’Driscolls!” replied Sadie.

You all sprinted inside and finished off the attackers. You cleared the area all around the camp and made sure everyone was accounted for. Nobody was hurt, but you were all a bit shaken. The attack strengthened your doubts about Dutch and your thoughts about leaving.

That night you lied awake even after everyone had fallen into restless sleep. You stared into the crackling fire in the fire place and ran through the events of the past few months. You tried to convince yourself that things would work out here. You couldn’t help but think that there must be a better life somewhere. A life where you weren’t in a constant feud with another gang. A life where you weren’t always checking that nobody was following you home or trying to scam you.

You lifted your blanket off yourself and put on a cardigan over your knee length nightgown. You padded to the staircase and quietly climbed up to the second floor. Your felt your heart beating harder, a lump in your throat, and butterflies in your stomach. As carefully as you could, you opened Arthur’s door and stepped inside his room, but the floorboard creaked. Arthur turned on his side and saw that it was you in his room.

“Y/N? What’s wrong?” He was visibly concerned.

“Nothin’.” You shook your head and tried to give him a comforting look. You took a breath and focused on what you needed tonight. At this point, in this world, nothing mattered but for you to be held by Arthur Morgan. You walked over to Arthur’s bed and got under the covers as if it were natural. You turned on your side, away from Arthur, and grabbed his arm to wrap around your waist. He was still and puzzled for a moment, but then relaxed into the embrace. He brought his chest to your back, his knees to the back of your knees, interlaced his fingers with yours, and rested his lips on the back of your head. There was so much warmth shared between the both of you. With his lips gracing your head, Arthur whispered, “You sure you’re alright?”

At this question, you thought of how wonderfully ‘alright’ you were in this moment. The satisfaction of sharing such genuine affection caused you to tear up. You nodded in response to him. When he lowered his nose to the crook of your neck, you shivered at the tickling sensation of his scratchy beard on your shoulder. Your squirming caused you to push into his body more and he held you tighter and began tickling your sides. Your shared laughter was so childlike and joyful. You turned to face him and he allowed you to grab hold of both of his wrists, finally stopping the tickling. You released his wrists and he cupped your face and kissed your forehead. You wrapped your arms around each other and exhaled in the pleasure of feeling affection. You talked for a while, and then had the best sleep either of you had in years.

Tags: @igotshinee

#rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x female reader #arthur morgan #red dead redemption 2 fic #rdr2 fic #rdr2 fanfic #read dead redemption 2 fanfic

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squidproquoclarice · 5 years

Note

Chap 20 was amazing!! The description of Arthur’s anger as “Fire and Steel” gave me chills, been a while since we’ve seen that anger. But whats rolling around my head is Sadie’s “mental wandering” during the threesome convo, she seemed to be processing a lot and she seems to be generally pretty intuitive so was that her genuinely figuring out the reasoning behind it or was that her maybe wandering around the idea of a bed and our clueless cowboah? Or is she still hesitant to have those thoughts?

That’s one thing I enjoy about both Arthur and Sadie--the complexity. They’re capable of great compassion and caring, but holy shit do these two also have hot tempers and a capability for violence. You get things like watching them yelling at each other at the end of “Icarus and Friends” with their tempers obviously flaring, and other moments of them being short tempered with people. You also get even uglier things like Sadie’s rage-fueled vendetta against the O’Driscolls, or Arthur being so caught up in a fistfight that Tom Downes literally has to intervene to keep him from beating Tommy to death (and Arthur’s still left Tommy with some pretty heavy brain damage, to judge from what we see later). Then there’s Arthur beating Downes later, and I’m going to say that’s as much him lashing out in frustration at not being able to close out this debt that Strauss and Dutch are both hounding him about, as to make a point to Downes about the debt.They’re both people with intense emotions, and that caring can lead them to compassion and gentleness, or it can lead them to anger and violence. And it’s always going to be like that, so yeah, the anger isn’t gone for either of them, but I think they’re both getting a much tighter leash on it in the interest of being the best versions of themselves.Sadie’s idea of “subtly hinting to Arthur that the door is open for us to be lovers as well as friends” is...really not very subtle. Which is about what I’d expect, given Sadie ain’t subtle overall. If Arthur wasn’t oblivious AF given his conviction that nobody would ever want him, he’d clue in instantly to the very obvious signals she’s sending here. No, she’s not interested in an actual threesome. But she took that opportunity to try to startle him a bit, and see what she could maybe uncover. She was hoping for what Arthur thought but didn’t say: no, I don’t want anyone but you. Though she figured she’d also use it as an opportunity to poke a little bit and see if he had an interest in anyone else besides her, which would also answer her question.As is, they ended up being two ships passing in the night once again. And seriously, only these two self-sacrificing dumbasses could turn joking about a threesome into a heartfelt “No, my kink is seeing you happy with someone, whoever that is.”At this point Sadie’s not that hesitant to imagine one (1) cowboah and one (1) bed, or admit to herself that’s what she wants. (Like she observed before, she’s often too hesitant, and then too fierce.) It’s just a matter of figuring out if he wants that too, but she does still have that tricky impasse of trying to find out if he does without feeling like she’s shoved him into it.

#sadie adler #arthur morgan #sadithur #rdr2 #may the sunrise #Anonymous

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niallismymuse · 6 years

Text

Chapter 8

By the time Sadie had found the will to get up from the watery sidewalk and go home, the sky was black. She was freezing, teeth chattering as she took step by wretched step back towards her dorm room. Her thighs were chafing because of her sodden jeans, but that was the least of her problems.

It was warmer inside thankfully. She was leaving puddles all over the floor. Sadie didn’t care. She took off her wet clothes and left them on the bathroom floor, somehow having the mental fortitude to dry herself off. After pulling on a thick pair of gray sweat pants and a nondescript t-shirt, she collapsed in bed and pulled her blanket over herself completely.

Lighting struck, and thunder crashed, briefly illuminating her dorm room. She could see it through the material of the blanket, though it darkened too quickly for her to register anything. Sadie laid there, breathing, letting her body warm up enough until she wasn’t shaking anymore. Well, until she wasn’t shaking of cold – there was a different sort of tremble wrecking her bones.

Sadie thought briefly about pushing her head clear of the blanket, so she wouldn’t suffocate from lack of oxygen or pass out from heat stroke. Her breath was making the air around her face too hot and damp. Finally, she pushed her head clear, relishing in the quick coolness washing over her head.

I should have stayed under the blanket.

She almost called Becca, to tell her younger sister that she had fucked up and ruined everything, to tell her that she was a fucking monster incapable of having a relationship, that she was worth nothing. But that would have required talking, so Sadie slept instead.

She didn’t wake up for her class the next day, which normally would have freaked her out, but Sadie couldn’t bring herself to care about that either. When she woke up, the only thing that flashed into her mind was the total devastation on Niall’s face: he had laid himself bare, and she had ripped him apart.

Now, it seemed, she could at least think the l-word. I love you, I love you, I love you Niall, I’m so sorry, I love you I love you love you love you love love love.

After rousing herself enough to check her somehow perfectly fine cell phone, Sadie found it empty of notifications. Not that she had been expecting anything, but she was so used to seeing at least one message from Niall. Her heart sunk even further down than her stomach, resting somewhere near her toes.

Sadie called Becca, not caring what time it was or even what day; her sister probably had class. But, to Becca’s credit, she answered.

“Sadie, what’s up?” she greeted, voice light and calm, like it wasn’t strange at all that Sadie was calling at 10:02 AM on a Friday. Sadie normally had class right about now herself, which Becca was aware of – she had sent Becca her schedule for the semester when it was finalized – and at any rate, she normally called in the evenings.

Sadie tried to speak and found that she couldn’t. She cleared her throat, felt the rawness and the ache that came with it, and tried again. “I fucked up.”

A beat of pure silence. Then, “what happened? You sound awful. Do you have a cold?”

Most likely. She had sat out in the cold rain for hours last night, like the dumbass she was. But she had deserved it. She deserved the cold she was inevitably going to get too. “I…Becca, he told me he was in love with me, and I…”

Sadie couldn’t finish her sentence, because all of a sudden, a loud banging sounded from the door. Hope flared in her chest. Niall. It had to be. He was literally the only person who ever came to her dorm, besides her RA, and she never pounded on the door like that. Niall would have every right to.

“Come in,” Sadie croaked out, about 95% sure she had forgotten to lock her door last night. The door opened, and in stalked Nellie, looking righteously angry and simultaneously disappointed. The hope in Sadie’s chest exploded into sadness and the tiniest amount of fear.

“Sadie Fraiser.” Nellie’s voice was hard and loud; she could have been a commanding general about to humiliate a squadron. “What in the hell did you do?”

“Sadie,” Becca whispered, undoubtedly hearing the unrelenting authority in Nellie’s tone, “what did you do?”

Sadie put Becca on speaker and opened her mouth. However, Nellie beat her to it. “Actually, you don’t need to tell me what you did. I am already completely aware of the fact that you just shattered Niall Horan’s heart into a million little tiny pieces. You know how I know that? Because Niall went over to Louis’ last night and cried. And Louis told me this morning. So here we are.” She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot, clearly waiting for some sort of explanation.

“I…” Sadie couldn’t imagine Niall crying. The closest he had ever gotten to it was the time he was drunk and sleeping over on her floor, and he had told her about his mom. That had been way before they had ever started dating.

She, on the other hand, didn’t cry regularly, but often.

And she was about to do so now.

When Nellie saw the tears brim in her eyes, she softened, clucking her tongue and sitting on the edge of her bed, brushing a hand over her back. “You poor little broken thing.”

Sadie could only agree, tears finally shedding as she began to cry.

After sobbing uncontrollably for around twenty minutes, Sadie got it together enough to speak. She took in a shuddering breath and nearly choked on it. “Okay. I think…I think I’m done.”

Nellie clucked her tongue again and stroked the hair back from her face, completely her transformation from angry general to mother hen. “Oh, love.”

Sadie grimaced and glanced down at her cell phone. “Becca, are you still there?” She had completely forgotten that her younger sister was on the line, and hence did not expect her to still be listening. She was, after all, in class.

“Yes,” came her cheerful response. Sadie blinked.

“But you’re supposed to be in school.” She had a terrifying thought: Becca sitting in class, listening as Sadie cried over the phone, all of her classmates listening too. Some of those bastards had made her cry themselves.

“Well, while you were crying, I went back to my teacher from the bathroom and told her I was having a family emergency. And then I left.”

Sadie huffed, wiping at her eyes. “My emotional breakdown isn’t a reason for you to leave class, Becca.”

“Well, I do have a project due tomorrow, so this will give me time to work on it.” Sadie laughed against her better judgement, and then realized that had been Becca’s goal all along. “Now, what exactly happened? I’m still not connecting the dots here.”

“Well…” There was a hollow, aching sensation in her chest. “Niall told me he was in love with me, and I left…without saying I loved him back…I just left him sitting there…”

Nellie was gazing at her seriously. “But you do love him. Don’t you?”

“Yes.” Sadie whispered.

Becca cut in this time. “So why didn’t you tell him? Why did you leave?” There was no judgement in her voice, but Sadie felt it anyway, felt herself compress as a result.

Nellie lifted an eyebrow, as if to say, my questions exactly.

“I can’t do this if you two are going to be rude about it,” Sadie snapped, wrapping her arms around herself. “I couldn’t tell him because he could still leave me. And if he left me after I admitted I loved him out loud, I would…” her voice cracked, and her eyes watered up again. She had thought she had cried all of her tears out. But she found the strength to finish her sentence: “It would kill me. He was the best thing in my life here.”

“Is,” Nellie corrected gently, “he still is. You can fix this.”

Sadie shook her head. “I can’t. He knows how mentally fucked up I am now. He won’t take me back.”

“So, let me get this straight,” Becca spoke, her voice made of pure steel, “you couldn’t tell Niall you loved him because you were afraid he would eventually leave you.”

Sadie swallowed harshly. “Well, when you put it like that…”

“It’s stupid.” Becca finished for her. “Completely idiotic. He loves you, Sadie. You are a wonderful woman, and he knows that. I can’t say that you two won’t ever break up, because I can’t tell the future, but even then, having him now is worth it. And you might have him for the rest of your life.” Her voice softened. “Don’t self-destruct like this, Sadie…you are not a worthless person. You deserve love and happiness. Quit telling yourself you don’t and quit running from things that might not ever happen.”

Nellie looked at the phone with newfound respect in her eyes. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” She pushed the fading purple bangs out of her face, frowning slightly. “You can still fix this. Niall’s a mess right now, but if you go and plead your case and throw yourself on the floor in front of him, declaring your love for him, he won’t tell you to leave.”

Sadie looked down at the bed. “I would tell me to leave if I were him.”

“Yeah, well he’s not you, and he’s put up with your bullshit before, so he’ll probably do it again,” Nellie snipped, and Sadie winced. Nellie took a deep breath and blew it out harshly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. You have your problems, yes, but you’re working through them. And you need to try. Don’t let him go.”

Don’t let him go.

Sadie nodded her head slowly, repeating the words in her mind. “Okay. You guys are right. Okay.” She stood up on wobbly feet and walked into the bathroom. She was a wreck – hair messy and knotted, eyes bright red and swollen. She started to run a brush through her tangled mane, cringing at the pain of pulling out the knots. But it focused her. “I can do this. I can fix this.”

“Hell yeah you can,” said Becca from the phone on the bed, voice echoing.

Nellie tossed a fond look towards the phone, then at Sadie. “You’re a mess, kid. But you can fix this. He loves you. Tell him you feel the same.”

Sadie took a deep breath and nodded. She roughly yanked her hair up and herded it into a bun, thought about changing her clothes, decided against it. Sweatpants and a t-shirt were going to have to work. She had never presented herself any differently for him, and that wasn’t about to change now.

“Go get your man.” Nellie firmly stated, and Becca cheered “Yeah!” loudly through the phone, making it crackle.

“Yeah,” Sadie nodded in agreement, grabbed her bag, and whirled out of the room, leaving Nellie and Becca behind to wait.

She stood outside of Niall’s dorm room for fifteen minutes, loitering and shifting her weight from foot to foot. Every now and then, she raised her hand to knock, then let it drop. She knew Niall was inside – she heard someone moving around in there, and he lived alone like she did, so it could really only be him.

Sadie just couldn’t bring herself to knock.

It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since she had shattered his heart. Since she’d seen that utter despair ring clear on his face. How could she waltz right back in and demand forgiveness, claim that it wasn’t him but her, that she actually did love him? Would he even believe her? Sadie wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.

Her courage was starting to fail her. If she didn’t do it now, she never would. She would leave and suffer with the consequences.

Taking a deep breath, Sadie knocked hard on the door, letting her fist fall back to her side after three sharp hits.

She heard shuffling on the other side of the door. Then, heavy footsteps approaching. Finally, the lock clicked, and the door opened, and Niall stood there. He looked at her, frowning, and blatantly not surprised.

“I don’t want to see you,” he said hoarsely, and he looked like shit as he said it. His glasses weren’t even on, giving Sadie a clear view of the redness in his eyes, the bags purpling the skin beneath. It had hardly been a day, but Niall looked like he had barely survived the plague. That’s what she had done to him.

“I know,” she answered, voice thick. Sadie felt like crying already. Niall didn’t deserve the mess that she was. He deserved someone better, someone stronger and more in control of herself and her emotions. “I know, but…I want…no, I need to see you.”

Niall leaned against the doorway, looking inclined to stay there and hash this out in the hallway. She cringed – that’s how upset he was with her. Upset enough that he didn’t invite her in to hide this from his nosy dorm hall friends. That’s how badly she had fucked up.

But he stayed. That had to count for something. He stayed and watched her warily, clearly waiting for her to speak.

So, she spoke. “Yesterday, that…that was…not you,” she whispered, hating herself even more strongly as his eyes shuttered. That blue she loved was cloudy, that smile not even close to breaking out. “That was me. That was me, and how incredibly, incredibly fucked up I am. I…I shouldn’t have left.”

Niall stared down at her, boring into her with those depthless eyes. “No, you shouldn’t have.”

Something inside of her shrunk. “I shouldn’t have,” she echoed hollowly, twisting her hands together. Her guts were twisting right with her hands.

He merely lifted a brow at her. This wasn’t the Niall she had come to know and love – this was the Niall that only emerged when every good thing had been sucked out of him. They didn’t coexist in the same space; one came out, and one disappeared.

Sadie took a deep breath. This – whatever this was, it was slipping through her hands like grains of sand. “I love you, Niall Horan,” she finally admitted, and something inside of her chest seemed to lighten and disappear with the words. “Not only do I love you, but I am in love with you. And…and I will always be choosing you over everyone else, because I am in love with you and you are my home.” The words released even more of the tension in her chest, until her shoulders were loose, and she felt lighter than air by speaking them.

“And I get it, if you would rather slam your door shut in my face, because it’s what I would do to me if I were you. But I can’t let you think that…that I don’t love you. Because I do. I love you so much that the thought of not having you in my life takes my breath away. I panicked, and I ran, and that was so fucked up of me, and I know that. But I love you. I love you.”

Niall didn’t say anything for a long time, and Sadie wondered distantly if this is what it had felt like when he had been waiting for her to respond to his declaration of love yesterday. She eventually couldn’t look at him any longer, so she dropped her gaze and stared at the floor. And waited.

She felt his fingers, the touch of them gentle, brush against her chin, then tilt it upward. Sadie let him. She looked at him, and his eyes were simmering with anger. “You shaved about ten years off of my life,” he murmured, and she cringed, “but I love you. You know that?” At her nod, Niall continued. “I love you because of your flaws, not in spite of them. And, yesterday…that was one of them shining through, and one I think we’ll have to work on.”

“Yes,” Sadie agreed, scarcely breathing out of the fear that she would accidentally turn him away or make him leave, “I have this…this fear that…one day you’ll finally realize that you deserve someone better than me. And you’ll leave me because of it. I’ll have opened up and let myself love and trust, and it’ll all have been for nothing.”

“That’s going to have to go,” he muttered, and she laughed humorlessly. “Sadie, I’m not going to dump you and run off with some other woman. I love you. I would never have told you that if…if I wasn’t in this for the long run.”

Sadie’s heart beat started to pick up in her chest. She looked up at him, felt her eyes burn with tears that were so far unshed. “Really?”

That anger that had been resting in Niall’s eyes finally vanished. “Really. I’ve never told another woman that I’ve loved her. You’re my first.”

“Oh,” Sadie croaked out, even though it made sense, because he had told her before that his previous relationships had never been that serious.

“Yeah, and to be honest, it could have gone better.”

She swatted at him on instinct. He laughed, which made her smile. Then he leaned down, cupping her chin now, and kissed her. She kissed him back, not very effectively, because she was smiling too hard to focus.

It just made Niall laugh even more, and Sadie knew – he was back. And he was hers.

“I’m picking you up at six tonight, remember?” Niall leaned down to peck her lips. “Make sure you wear something nice – I mean, you always look nice, even in sweatpants, but try to look better – I mean, not better, just…” Seeing the laughter in her eyes, he stopped. “Don’t laugh at me,” he pouted.

“You’re just so funny when you ramble and dig yourself deeper in the hole,” Sadie replied, smirking at him. He rolled his eyes and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, as if he couldn’t help himself. Niall waved, and then strode briskly in the way they had just come, heading for his own class. She often suggested that she could ‘drop him off’ first, but he never agreed, the stubborn idiot.

She headed into her last class of the day, though she knew she wouldn’t be able to focus. Ever since she had stood outside of Niall’s dorm room and proclaimed her love for him, they had both been taking things slowly. Slower than usual; those two quick pecks were normally what Niall chose to do to express his affection, to express his love, as if he was afraid he’d scare her off by doing anything different.

Sadie missed the longer kisses, but this part of their relationship, this ‘I love you’ part, was so newthat she just dealt with it. They would work their way back up.

And maybe tonight was the first step in working their way up. Niall had asked her on a date yesterday – a date, something they had never done before. Normally, they just spent time together in each other’s rooms, or at the Holy Bagel. They had never gone on a date before, much less anything that required fancy dressing. Which was why Sadie was a bit panicked.

She had one dress, and it would have to work. It was a wine-red halter-style dress that clung to her shape, ending below her knees. She had bought it on a whim while out shopping with Nellie, who had smirked and commented, “I think Niall would spontaneously combust if he saw you in that.” Sadie, blushing, had bought it for that specific reason, and then stuck it into the back of her closet, waiting for an opportunity to wear it. It wasn’t like she could have just put it on and wait for him to show up at her room; okay, she totally could have done that, but it would have been awkward to show him the dress in that manner.

After class, Sadie hustled back to her dorm room and shut the door, checking the time. It was three; she had three hours. That was enough time for an hour nap to energize herself and then makeup and hair.

So, Sadie did just that. She napped, somehow calming her mind enough to sleep, and then she woke up and glanced at her disheveled reflection in the mirror. Time to beautify that.

She hadn’t touched her makeup in a long time – she had done Becca’s for Christmas, using red and green themed items, but beyond that, she just hadn’t…felt like it. Sadie hadn’t felt like painting herself up, or anyone else, though Nellie had once begged for a makeover.

Now, though, she stayed simple: neutral eyeshadow, black eyeliner, and bright red lips, her signature. If she thought hard enough, she could remember back to that party, the first time things had gone terribly wrong; the red had given her confidence, and Nellie had told her she looked great in it.

So red it was.

Sadie often pulled her hair up, so she decided to leave it down for once. She finger-combed it, twisted a few curls, and voila, she was done.

Sadie checked her phone. 5:47.

She strode to her closet and pulled out the dress, laying it carefully on her bed after unzipping it. She stripped and then pulled it on, yanking the fabric down before it bunched up around her hips. Sadie tried, and failed, to zip it completely up, and, sighing, knew she would have to ask Niall to help her finish it.

Taking a deep breath, she looked at herself in the mirror. And was stunned.

She…Sadie was beautiful.

The dress fit her just right. It accentuated her curves, every dip and sweep of them. It left her shoulders bare, and while she normally hated exposing her arms, it just worked. She felt, for the first time in a long while, happy with how she looked in a dress. It had been a good look in the store, but now it was perfect.

Right on cue, a knock sounded from her door.

A bit breathless, Sadie quickly strode over and pulled it open. Niall stood on the other side, a bouquet of flowers in his hands. His lips parted, and his eyes slowly swept down her body, from her face down, then back up. Flames engulfed her entire body at his stare. She swallowed nervously, shifting on her feet as the silence stretched on.

When his eyes finally made it back to hers, he grinned, still looking a little dazed. “I…wow, Sadie. You are gorgeous.”

Huffing out a breath, Sadie took the offered bouquet and stepped back into her room, Niall following. She tried not to act like her heart hadn’t just melted, snipping, “Oh, I know,” that was only half-fake before setting the flowers on her desk. She filled a coffee mug with water and set the bouquet inside of it. She didn’t own a vase, so the mug would have to work. The only ever bouquet she had been given before had been edible, so she hadn’t needed a vase.

“Do you want me to zip up your dress the rest of the way?”

His question made her pause. She had forgotten about that stupid zipper. Sadie looked over her shoulder at him, biting her lip. “Yes, please.”

Niall stepped up behind her, and Sadie stilled as she felt the warmth of his hand on her back. She gathered her hair on the other side of her shoulder, making sure it wouldn’t tangle with the zipper. It also gave Niall access to her neck, something he definitely noticed, because his thumb brushed the base of her neck immediately, despite the fact that the zipper was a few inches below. She sucked in a breath, held it.

Pulling the zipper up completely only took a second, but Niall’s fingers lingered, and then she felt his lips press against the base of her neck, his hands coming up to cup her shoulders. “There. Absolutely perfect now.”

Sadie spun in his arms, thankful she hadn’t put her heels on yet. “You…you are too much,” she breathed out, entire face hot. Niall smirked and pecked her nose in response.

He stepped out of the circle of her arms and fiddled with the flowers he had gotten her, arranging them properly. It gave Sadie the chance to study him – he was dressed in pressed black pants with a long-sleeve, button up, baby-blue shirt that matched his eyes. If she hadn’t already been breathless, he would have stolen the air right out of her lungs.

As if feeling her gaze on him, Niall turned and smiled softly. Sadie was a goner for him. “Are you ready to go?” he asked unhurriedly, still smiling.

“Yes,” she smiled back, reaching out to take his hand. He gripped hers and helped her to her shoes, pausing while she slipped them on and grabbed her purse, then Niall led her out of the dorm. He guided her towards the dormitory parking lot, and Sadie suddenly realized she didn’t know how they were going to get to dinner. “Niall, where are we going? And how?”

He winked at her. “I’m not telling you the first one. But I borrowed Louis’ car for the night.”

Sadie lifted a brow, then raised it further as Niall gestured to the sleek, electric blue BMW waiting for them. To confirm that it was their ride, he dangled the keys and then hit the unlock button. The corresponding chirp made her laugh. “God, he’s loaded.”

Niall chuckled quietly and opened the door for her, letting her settle in before closing it. He hopped in the other side and grinned. “And off we go, madam.”

They drove for twenty minutes before pulling up in front of an upscale restaurant, upscale enough that a valet waited for Niall and her to exit. Sadie’s eyes widened as she got out, Niall quickly coming over to her side and taking her arm. They walked together up to the front doors, which he opened for her. Inside was all crystal and glass, sparkling light shining everywhere she looked.

“This is…a lot,” Sadie murmured softly, trying her best not to feel intimidated. But as they approached the hostess, she couldn’t help but feel judged. She did not belong here.

The hostess smiled and asked for the name the reservation was under, Niall replying, “Horan.” She remained chipper as she led the couple to their table in a large dining area, smack dab in the middle. Niall pulled her chair out for her and scooted her in before claiming the opposite side. The hostess deposited two menus and swept away gracefully.

Sadie carefully, ever so carefully, lifted her menu. It was heavier than she expected, and it fell open with a thunk that had her wincing. “This is quite the place,” she said, looking at Niall across the table. She thought maybe Niall was just as uncomfortable as her, judging from the stiff way he held his body up straight.

“It is,” he agreed, eyeing the heavy-looking silverware set out.

Sadie looked down at the menu in front of her and her mouth dropped open. “And expensive,” she ground out. How in the hell would they afford this?!

Niall nodded once. “Yeah, I was prepared for that.” His voice was quiet suddenly, and Sadie gazed across the table at him.

“This…isn’t us,” she finally said after a long minute.

Niall shook his head. “I wanted…to take you somewhere special, somewhere nice, so I could treat you like the queen that you are.”

Her face softened, and she had to press her lips together to stop from screaming about how cutethat had been. “Oh, Ni…everything we do together is special for me. You don’t…you don’t have to take me some fancy place, pay too much money for too little food. I love what we do together, laying in our rooms or at the Holy Bagel. This isn’t us,” she repeated, saw that spark begin to glimmer in his eyes again.

Their waitress appeared, smiling brightly. “Good evening, my name is Michaela. What can I get you two to drink?”

Niall looked at her, nodded to himself. “Actually, Michaela, we were just leaving.” Standing, he offered his hand to her, ignoring the raised eyebrow and pursed lips of the waitress. Grinning, Sadie took his hand and rose up, grabbing her purse. Together, they strode out the way they had come in just two minutes earlier, and they both pushed the doors open.

The valet, probably having just dropped off their car, merely held his hand out for their ticket. Niall handed it over, still gripping her hand, giving it a squeeze. The valet disappeared, coming back with their car – Louis’ car – only minutes later. Niall let her in again, their actions repeating, and then he drove towards the road that had brought them here.

“Where to?”

“Let’s just find somewhere more our speed.” Sadie suggested, smiling over at him. Her heart was racing in her chest. “I can’t believe we just left that place,” she added after Niall got onto the main road, grinning once more.

Niall burst out laughing. “Did you see our waitresses’ face?” he crowed, laughing hard enough that tears watered up in his eyes. He brushed at them under his glasses, and she squealed out a quick “eyes on the road!”, making him laugh harder.

“Yes, I did see her face,” Sadie giggled quietly, lifting a hand to cover her mouth. “She looked personally offended. I bet they’re going to put us on some sort of ‘do not let enter’ list.”

They laughed together and just drove, Niall choosing the directions, until they found a little diner tucked off of the road that looked exactlylike what they wanted. Niall parked and they both got out. “We are totally overdressed,” she muttered, smiling at Niall’s chuckle. For some reason, she wasn’t embarrassed at the thought.

They walked inside, and Niall pointed at the sign that instructed them to choose their own seating. Sadie chose a booth near their windows, giving them a view of the road and the trees surrounding it. Their menus were placed next to the wall, held by a metal bracket. A far cry from their original dining place.

This was perfect. Even though they were overdressed, it was perfect, and it was them.

The older woman who came to take their drink orders either didn’t notice or didn’t care that they were both in their finery, even though every time Sadie looked at Niall sitting in the cracked, red upholstery in his button-up, she had to fight the urge to laugh. There was a no-nonsense look on her face, thin lips pressed into an even thinner line, so she bit her lip and asked for a water. Niall ordered a coffee, and the waitress briskly moved to the next table. She hadn’t even given them her name.

Sadie looked at Niall, and this time she started laughing uproariously, Niall joining her, even as the rest of the customers in the diner looked and stared. She couldn’t help it; this whole scenario was so different from where she and Niall had just come from, how could she not laugh?

The waitress, a few tables down, merely rolled her eyes and muttered something about college kids.

Niall and Sadie laughed even more as they ate, edging towards the line of hysteria. They never crossed it, instead calming down a bit before starting up again. “You look so ridiculous and over-the-top,” Niall snickered as he took a bite of his waffle, pausing just enough to chew before continuing to laugh. They had both decided on breakfast for dinner – Niall ordered a waffle with sausage, and Sadie ordered a chocolate chip pancake with cheesy, greasy, hash browns. Everything was delicious. She was considering living here.

“Whatever, Mr. Button Down,” she snapped back, pointing her fork aggressively across the table at him.

Niall snorted and batted her fork down with his own. “That was lame.”

“You’re lame.”

Obviously, eating the food was more of a priority to Sadie than snark was.

They finished their dinners in companionable silence, holding hands. It was this – this sense of comradery, the contentment, that Sadie loved. Even when they were bickering, they were enjoying themselves. He was her everything, and it was insane to contemplate that there had been a time where she hadn’t liked him, where he hadn’t been hers.

In the space of a moment, everything settled for good inside of her. There would be no running from this, no turning back. She looked across the table at Niall. “I love you.”

He smiled widely enough that his eyes crinkled, and it made her smile grow bigger in return.

The waitress chose that moment to drop off the check, definitely dampening the moment but not ruining it for good. “I’m paying half,” Sadie warned, already reaching for her wallet, and Niall shook his head.

“Absolutely not. I’ve got this. It’s not expensive, like, at all. Besides, I make good tips at the Big O because I’m such an attractive donut salesman.”

Sadie reached across and smeared her thumb across the lens of his glasses, ignoring his squawk of outrage as she sat back down. She was trying not to smirk – that had been something she had wanted to do since day one. “You’re a loser. I bet you’re a terrible donut salesman.”

Niall glared at her, squinting as he took his glasses off and cleaned them with his shirt. “You can cover tip.”

After glancing at the bill, Sadie pulled out the appropriate amount of money (plus some; she recognized that she and Niall had been annoying) and laid it on the center of the table. Right as Niall set down his bills, exact change, the sky opened up.

Lightning cracked, and thunder boomed, lighting up the dark night sky. The rain struck the metal roof almost rhythmically before increasing in speed and force, until there was nothing but the constant beat of water striking aluminum.

“Well. It’s raining cats and dogs out there.” Niall stated, turning to look out the window. “You want to stay and see if it slows?”

Sadie shook her head. Glancing outside, she couldn’t even see the moon, so the storm was probably large enough for it to take a while to pass. “Want to make a run for it?”

Niall smiled crookedly. “Sure.”

Sadie slipped her heels off and stuck them haphazardly in her purse, standing up and heading towards the door, trying not to think about the floor she was stepping on barefoot. “Is the car unlocked?”

Headlights flashed in the parking lot. “It is now.”

“Okay,” Sadie blew out a breath, clutching her purse tightly, “3, 2, 1…go!”

Niall, like the dumbass he was, stopped to hold the door open for her, and since the rain was coming in sideways, the entranceway of the diner became wet. She barreled past him, nearly slipping on the slick tile, but charged on into the storm, Niall following close behind. In a single second she was drenched, hurtling towards Louis’ car like a lion zeroing in on a gazelle. She only had one target – inside.

Sadie threw herself in the passenger’s side, panting and dripping. Niall was in a millisecond after her, soaked to the bone as well.

“You got…” she paused, trying to calm her breathing, “you got a little bit of water on you there.”

Niall laughed, shaking his head hard enough that water sprayed off of his hair, making her squeal. “Oh, stop, you’re already soaked, you drama queen,” he muttered as he turned the car on, giving her a playful eyeroll.

“Can you even see?” Sadie asked suddenly, genuinely fearing for her life. “Your glasses have water all over them. And you can’t see without them.” Niall frowned, eyes locked on the speckled lens.

“No,” he admitted, “trade with me?”

Sadie sighed and nodded. After turning the car off so they wouldn’t hit any buttons or accidentally step on the gas pedal and send the car careening into the forest, Niall ended up crawling into the backseat. She climbed into the driver’s seat and began adjusting the seat and mirrors. Once she was situated, he pulled himself into the passenger’s seat. “Your old seat is wet.” He told her disdainfully.

She flicked his shoulder.

Sadie turned the car back on and started the careful drive home. She could see Niall watching her out of the corner of her eyes, and finally asked, “what?” She didn’t dare take her hands off of the wheel due to the weather, but she was tempted to grab his hand. Just because she could.

Niall shook his head and glanced. “I’m wondering how we’re going to explain to Louis why his car is so wet.”

Sadie eyed him for a nanosecond, then focused on the road. “Easy. We tell him exactly what happened. Besides, he probably won’t even know. The seats are leather; they’ll dry by morning. What are you really thinking about?”

He was quiet for a few moments, but then he reached over and placed his hand on her knee, permeating her skin with his warmth. She nearly shot down on the accelerator. Niall, seeming to know her reaction by her stuttered breath, smirked. “I was thinking about how this was an incredible first date, and I would like to do it again sometime.”

Sadie pressed her lips together to hide what would be a too-wide smile. “So…I’m getting a second date out of this?”

Niall’s hand crept a little higher. She wondered what his goal here was, though the feel of his fingers on her skin…she was tempted to let him continue. “And a third, I hope. And many, many more.”

She grinned, felt those fingers brush her thigh, and then moved her hand briefly off of the wheel to hit the button that would make Niall’s window roll down. He shrieked and began to curse as the first touch of the cold wind and rain hit him, and laughter nearly made her swerve down the road. Sadie slowed down to a snail’s pace even as she rolled her own window down and stuck her hand out of it, letting the rain strike her skin.

Something like glee sent a thrill through her skin as Niall, seemingly over his hissy fit, copied her movements. That was joy on his face – he was soaked and cold, but there was pure joy in his smile at her. So, she smiled back, and that smile turned into a laugh as she continued to drive with her hand out the window, getting hit by the rain. It wasn’t safe exactly, but it felt like an adventure.

And Sadie knew there would be many adventures to come, hundreds if she bothered to count them. She would go on them all without hesitation, so long as he was going with her.

It was funny how mere months ago she had dreaded his company, and now she yearned for him constantly, even when he was right next to her. Funny how, despite both of their mistakes, they were still here, like it was meant to be.

Sadie liked that thought: that they were meant to be.

Because at the end of the day, there was no one else she would rather have beside her than Niall Horan, glasses needing to be pushed up and mega-watt smile in place.

The end.

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vanderlindc · 5 years

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🌻 + lovedefeats + missoshea + hellbentwidow + charmedgun + fleewest

🌻 + URL POSITIVITY MEME // ACCEPTING . // @lovedefeats !!! @missoshea !!! @hellbentwidow !!! @charmedgun !!! @fleewest !!!

Ayee girl power ok !!! in order to not make this the longest post in the world I’m gonna (*holds back tears*) try and refrain myself from writing too much dsjkh. I’ll also put it under read more because who am I kidding it’ll be long anyway.

🌻 +lovedefeats:Legit the second I saw your blog I fell in love fhdjk I just adore how you’ve taken Annabelle and made her such a real and thorough character ? She has so much depth and I admire you so much for what you’re doing with her. You must work with r* because I find it rlly hard to believe that your Anna isn’t canon hfdkj I just love her sm and I love our few threads tho I’m so slow at replying. Your blog is perfect and TJ,,, you’re one of the coolest people ever ??? you’re sweet and SO TALENTED and just completely hilarious fhdkjhf THANK U for being you and for making Anna so awesome 💖

🌻 +missoshea:O m g how am I supposed to cut down what I want to say to you ?? Honestly I think I’ve told you this a billion times by now but I worship your blog so much. Your passion for Molly and the genius talent you have completely floors me ! You capture Molly so well, I really don’t know how you do it. I hear her voice in everything you write, you just capture her voice so well ?? Idfk you amaze me time after time. I love every single one of our threads hdkjs and I just adore our conversations ooc. I love how we spend 99% of the time gushing over our idiots !! Layla, I think you were one of the first people I spoke to on this blog and I just liked you instantly fhdkjsfh you’re fun and sweet and thanks for being so awesome 💖

🌻 +hellbentwidow:Okokok I’m crazy about you. First of all, your blog is a treasure and your headcanons are so fkn good ?? Especially the ones about Dutch & Sadie lmao !! Your portrayal of Sadie is absolutely spot on, I get amazed every single time I read your threads tbh fhdkj and I love our threads. In my opinion we have too few lmfao. I honestly never would’ve thought of our ship if it hadn’t been for you fhkjf I love our dumbasses and Marina, I LOVE our conversations so fukn much. You’re such an awesome person and I can’t wait to talk more and obvs. plot/write more. NEVER CHANGE and pls gimme more hc’s fhdkj 💖

🌻 +charmedgun:Though we haven’t interacted much, I am positive that I’m in love with your blog dhfkj I just love Karen and idk how but you capture her so well ?? She is legitimately spot on; the thoughts, emotions, voice, speech fhdkj everything is just so well written I’m amazed !! wow hfjdh and I just love the small interactions we’ve had so far — and ooc you just seem like such an angel ?? I really can’t wait to see your other threads + ours flourish bc I love Karen and I love your blog hdkjd 💖

🌻 +fleewest:Okay I truly, deeply adore your blog. We haven’t interacted much because I’m slow, but you were one of the first people I followed on this blog and you never fail inspiring me to write. You’re so talented and your Tilly is absolutely spot on while still being yours. Generally, Tilly is such an underappreciated character and I love the passion you have for you muse !! She deserves so much more praise, and I love her character so much and I love the way you portray her. Aahh fhdkjf I love your blog so much💖

#Anonymous #lovedefeats #missoshea #hellbentwidow #charmedgun #fleewest #❛ — 《 PROMPTS 》//a #❛ — 《 OOC 》#💖everyone gets the glitter heart 💖💖💖💖#wow there were a lot of people in this but I love these asks sm #I LOVE THESE PPL

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conseqvential-blog · 6 years

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♡ . * ––––––––– ROUND TWO Y’ALL who’s ready to thirst over this amazon warrior princess bc i sure as hell am ??? we love us a tall woman w brains even tho she’s a dumbass. this is 𝓼𝓪𝓭𝓲𝓮, ur local math loving, track running, aspiring model wanna-be w an innocent dumb heart.

* ––––––––– 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

( alexis ren • twenty • cisfemale ) look, it's 𝓼𝓪𝓭𝓲𝓮 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓪𝓴 from apartment 3C! apparently she moved into moreau apartments six months ago and rumour has it, they can be quite guileless— good thing they’re also benevolent, hey? i hear they’re the SACCHARINE of the building.

* ––––––––– 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒙𝒕

sadie leigh novak, child of the sun, born in the heat of the summer on june 7th, 1998, destined for something so far beyond the scope of herself. the middle child to a pair of high school sweethearts, “idyllic” would be almost too well-suited to describe her upbringing. her parents credit her for it through and through——- a darling child forged by kind words and a work ethic unmatched by many of her peers. little lacombe was the perfect vessel for her growth ; she was friendly and well-liked, a shining star on the track team and an advanced math student. earnest and gentle-hearted, gullible and sincere, she would have been readily poised to live the perfect life in lacombe, but a love for all things beautiful and bigger than herself pushed her to make waves in her small town by being one of the first to leave it in years. she framed it as “taking a scholarship opportunity” to warrant the approval of her simplehearted parents, leaving out any and all mentions of her aspirations to pursue modeling in the big city of vancouver.

* ––––––––– 𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒛𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏

hi again ok so sadie’s my lil love angel she’s so soft and stupid lmfao. basically she’s just a rlly nice lil girly girl, a slave to the aesthetic but not to the point she’s a real artsy hoe abt it..... just always rlly appreciative of beautiful things in life. she’s like the living incarnation of a golden retriever i s2g. just rlly endearing and innocent but moving to vancouver made her realize she’s gotta branch out and try new shit and just LIVE HA LIFE. she’s half the mom friend, half the friend who needs supervision bc tbh she’s just so gullible n soft? will do anything for the vine if u ask kindly enough and say ‘it’s totally something everyone does around here.’ she’s really easily SWAYED ok she just wants everyone to have a good time. ok this is IMPORANT but like..... if she were to post on the snapchat hidden talents story..... she’d b reciting numbers of pi or solving a proof or somethin EXTRA BC !!!! this bitch is SO good at math. like SO good. cady heron who?? sadie was doin calculus by the 10th grade and by senior year she was being bused out twice a week to the local community college in lacombe for advanced differential equations and multivariable calculus. only part of adulthood she’s rlly enjoyed so far is budgeting and doin taxes lmfao. currently studying electrical engineering at bc institute of technology bc she loves math literally that much. ummmm in other news? huge weeb ? genuinely obsessed w cartoons n anime and lives for them like a big ole dumb loser. loves animals, rlly rlly dedicated to her friends, n catches crushes so easily but she’s real hesitant abt rushing into things bc she’s had like only one real relationship her whole life so she’s kinda inexperienced to the point it makes her insecure ( which reminds me...... gimmie this plot pls )

no viable life skills that allow her to be livin on her own if u want an example the first like 45 seconds of this video with this jessica girl are like prime sadie material. can’t cook, can’t figure out how half the SHIT in the house works, can’t navigate the apartment for the LIFE of her but if a circuit busts ??? she just needs some electrical tape n some wire cutters thats the ONE non-monetary thing she knows how to handle HDSKDJFKS. in other news she’s really in tune with her emotions but the athlete in her makes her a lil less likely to cry and a lil more likely to just shut down and detach herself when situations are beyond her control which is so unhealthy for her but :/ it be like that sometimes

* ––––––––– 𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒄𝒌𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕

QUICK FACTS / AESTHETICS : — not being allowed the aux cord because her music taste is so WEIRD, people will def riot. cuddles on a lazy sunday wrapped in white sheets. fostering a whole litter of kittens just to have something to keep her company. seeing herself in her first magazine spread and buying as many copies as the store’s got. bein so fuckin’ tall eye contact w other women??? unrealistic. 5′11 for those of u wondering. she played piano and danced in her youth before track took over her life, and if she sang, she’d sound a whole lot like alina baraz. perfectly planned days starting with a run at 5 AM and ending in the most unpredictable of ways. all the love in the world to give and keep giving. ( and giving and giving and giving. )

ZODIAC : gemini

HOGWARTS HOUSE : hufflepuff

SEXUALITY : bicurious, previously thought to be heterosexual/heteroromantic but at this point willing to try literally anything

OCCUPATION : 2nd semester as a full time electrical engineering student at bc tehcnical institute, aspiring model, part time sales associate at a small athletic clothing store uptown

POSITIVES : benevolent, focused, sincere, adventurous

NEGATIVES : guileless, highly dependent on others, maladapted, insecure

SOUNDTRACK : cherry cola by kwuada, girl almighty by one direction, r.e.m. by ariana grande

* ––––––––– 𝒄𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈

tldr ; love comes in all shapes and sizes and in this case, it’s an almost 6 foot tall wanna-be swimsuit model who rlly let her best friend convince her that plants grow better when they’re talked to kindly 3x a day. u need someone to help prepare dinner or go grocery shopping ? literally don’t ask sadie unless its just to tag along n keep u company bc entrusting her w adult shit on her own means ur gonna end up w R EGRETS. need someone to randomly calculate 3 figure by 3 figure multiplications in their head or help u w fractions for ur baking recipe ? someone to stay with u through the night when u’ve had a rough go ? someone who’s willing to genuinely try anything and go anywhere as long as u ask nicely ? sadie l. novak is your girl.

#moreauintro #♡ — 06. INTRO — 𝓼𝓪𝓭𝓲𝓮 𝓷 .

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raspberry-starship · 2 years

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Start reading the series here.

Masterlist for this book is here.

Read by scrolling up the tag here.

A week passed since Sam and Dean had finished the wraith case. The morning went by at its usual, sluggish pace, and finally they all ended up spread around the library. Sadie was writing notes down on a notepad Cas kept stealing from her, while across from them Sam scanned through things in the database. Ren, Jack, and Ian sat at the furthest desk in the back, Ren’s laptop playing music and all of them with their faces buried in books. Dean sat at the first table, flipping through a book thicker than the Oxford Dictionary. Occasionally, he’d call across the middle desk to request a song from Ren, but otherwise they were mostly silent.

Parallel to this, two other entities were doing research into the same subject. Billie and Violet stood in front of a big metal-looking fusiform vessel large enough to stand up inside. On the side facing them was a reinforced door. It hovered here in a dark corner of the dimension that housed Death’s Library. Violet glanced up nervously at Billie’s profile.

“Understand that this is a great honor.” Death said solemnly, “Allowing you into the time stream is a rule I will break only this once.”

Violet swallowed, very nervous. “Wh—why do you need me to go with you?”

“You have the keenest eye.” Billie replied without emotion, “And I need someone who focuses on the details.”

“What if there’s nothing in the lore?” A voice spoke up from the end of the library.

All the adults raised their heads, turning to Ren.

She shrugged. “What if it’s something that’s never happened before?”

“No, there’s no way there’s not something we can use here.” Dean replied, already turning back to his book.

“Are we not assuming that you two were one of the first people from this universe to cross over to another one?” Ren insisted, “What if it’s some kind of side-effect from you guys traveling?”

Dean’s brow furrowed and he snorted. “No. If transporting fifty people isn’t significant enough to cause these kind of—of problems then two dumbasses aren’t about to break the world.”

Ren frowned and thought that over, unable to find a counter-argument.

Death opened up the door to the vessel, walking in to what must’ve been billions upon billions of trails of light. Every color imaginable flashed before Violet’s eyes, and with them came the story of a life. A vibrant purple strand represented the timeline of Hannah Moon, from her birth in Pennsylvania to her death in New York City eighty years later. Hannah Moon’s misfortunes, her triumphs, her missteps, and her great leaps all played out in front of Violet’s eyes in a split second and then they were gone.

“Come on.” Billie called her focus back from Hannah Moon’s life. “We’re not here for human timelines.”

She went out into the lights perpendicularly, phasing through trails without disturbing them. Violet quickly moved to catch up.

“What are we here for, then?” She asked.

“The ones about things.” Death replied. “You see, there are infinite timelines in this universe. My books talk of possible futures, but these give undiluted truth about the past.”

Violet kept up, but didn’t stop looking around in awe as they went. They moved through the vibrant lights to a section of subtly-colored trails.

“Any object or non-sentient item of importance on the planet has a timeline as well.” Billie said, indicating a series of shorter trails of light. “And these are objects of significance that are all not of this world.” Pointing to them in turn she said, “There’s the tree, the silo, and so on.”

Violet nodded, following along.

“There’s not much to learn from these timelines, of course because they only started after the object appeared in this universe.” Billie continued, “But there is information to be gained from the rest of them.”

“What do you need me for?” Violet asked.

“All of this is knowledge I have access to whenever I want. I know all of the timelines in here but that then becomes the problem.” Death replied, “I need to find a connection.”

Violet began meandering around, studying the timelines as she listened.

“I need a day where enough things changed that it points to a significant shift in the balance.” Death began searching too. “These things always leave footprints behind their destruction.”

In the Bunker, everyone had retired to the kitchen for dinner except for Sam. He sat with a mug of coffee right under his nose and a quizzical expression on his face. He was staring off into space as he considered all the options, then glanced up when Sadie appeared on the steps. She gave him a small smile and walked over to sit down across from him, setting a plate and glass down in front of her.

On the plate were two sandwiches, one wrapped up in a paper towel. She picked them both up and held the wrapped one out to him. He looked from it to her and then back again, letting out a little chuckle of surprise. He sat forward in his chair, reaching out to take it from her hand. When his long fingers wrapped around the sandwich they covered hers. He looked her straight in the eyes, holding them there for a second.

“Thank you.”

She swallowed and nodded, blushing a little.

Violet sifted through timelines patiently. She moved through them until she came to one that was a pale pink. Something about it drew her in closer. She looked into it and saw a rich history for this object; it was first formed in ancient Egypt, then was notably lost for many hundred years only to be found by a man named Itri Zero.

“What about this one?” Violet asked.

A week passed for the humans like this; nothing to show for all their trying and morale stooping to a low, especially in the kids. Sam was still in that same seat, contemplating. Before she’d left, Sadie had turned the blackboard over. It sat across the table from him, and half erased on the surface was a familiar list. Written in his own hand on the board was:

Sam considered Ren and Dean’s early conversation.

Dean’s brow furrowed and he snorted. “No. If transporting fifty people isn’t significant enough to cause these kind of—of problems then two dumbasses aren’t about to break the world.”

Who could travel between worlds and cause this kind of damage? It would have to be something big and powerful. His face shifted as he considered the fact that two archangels had followed them across the border. Maybe that had done it? But Lucifer had traveled before and it seemed too easy that the addition of Michael caused the barrier between worlds to start disintegrating. There was something he was missing.

“The Seal of Solomon.” Violet said, indicating the pale pink timeline. “Something changed in it.”

Death drew closer to get a better look.

“Soon after the Winchesters came back with their refugees it cracked.” Violet continued, “I can’t see why it cracked, though.”

“Hm.” Billie frowned, “It’s powerful enough to direct the energy needed to break through this reality into another one more than once, but it cracks suddenly and without explanation?”

It was a rhetorical question so Violet decided not to answer. Death thought beside her, considering the other timelines that had significant alterations on that date.

Sadie returned later with a cider in one hand and a beer in the other, setting the latter down in front of Sam. He murmured his thanks, but his quizzical gaze was still focused on the blackboard. She glanced from him to what he was staring at with a small frown. She turned back to him and cocked her head.

“What’re you thinkin’?” She asked softly.

“I’m just…” He squinted a little, “…How did Michael and Lucifer get back here?”

Sadie frowned. “Lucifer saw us do the spell, he knew the ingredients. Besides, I’m sure this blackboard was in plain sight for him when he was here.”

“Right, but…” Sam narrowed his gaze even further, “…how did they get the blood of a most holy man in the apocalypse? Not to mention the, uh, specimen of parallel locus.”

Sadie opened her mouth to reply then closed it, truly considering his words. She turned from him to the blackboard, now similarly confused.

“That’s a fuckin’ excellent question.” She murmured, now pondering it as well.

Billie called a colorless timeline over to them. It was shorter than the rest, and lined up perfectly with the crack in the Seal of Solomon. It was the stream of light that correlated with the alternate-universe Michael.

“He appeared in this reality at the exact second that seal was cracked.” Billie said, “And I know how he got here. He…”

Death drifted off in the middle of her sentence, realizing something. Violet waited for a moment then prompted, “What?”

Billie stared at the gray timeline unwaveringly. “They must’ve used brute force to get back here.”

“Well, there, you have your answer.” Violet said animatedly, “You don’t think that could cause damage like we’ve been seeing?”

“I thought it might be,” Billie admitted, “but that still leaves the conundrum of how to solve the issue.”

“You can’t?”

“Not alone, I can’t, unfortunately.” Billie sighed, then something seemed to occur to her. “But if it’s magic that damaged it then it’s magic that will fix it.”

“How?” Violet asked as they left the vessel and reappeared in Death’s library.

Billie replied simply, “I’ll have to pay Rowena McLeod a visit.”

#spn fic #supernatural rewrite #spn fanfic #spn rewrite #supernatural fanfic #spn fanfiction #sam winchester fanfiction #supernatural fanfiction #sam winchester fic #sam winchester x oc #supernatural #spnfandom #supernatural fic #an imbrication of worlds

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bookishreviewsblog · 5 years

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April recap & May tbr | Lara

April recap

Sorry guys, I know I'm kind of late with my monthly recap and tbr since it's already 8th but I'll write it anyway because it actually helps me keep my reading in track. I've had a minor slump considering reading and reviewing but the good news is it seems it is going away xd

Some statistics for my April reads:

9 books

8 YA books and 1 adult

genres: contemporary (3), fantasy (3), science fiction (2), historical fiction (1)

average monthly rating: 3,4

>> Bright We Burn by Kiersten White

This was an amazing finale to a great historical fiction trilogy. If you have any interests in historical fiction I'd definitely recommend reading this.

>> The Red Scrolls of Magic by Cassandra Clare

A solid fantasy novel from one of my favorite authors - I always like going back to the Shadow World.

>> The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas

This book was really wow. It was so emotional and I just have to watch the movie too.

>> Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by A.B. Sáenz

>> Illuminae and Gemina by Amie Kaufman

I keep feeling really frustrated about these books since they have a really good idea, but I just keep not liking them. I'll definitely read Obsidio, but I needed a break from the trilogy so it'll probably be in May.

>> The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

I kind of died while reading this book since it has 800 pages, and my slump definitely did not help. Anyway, I finished it and it was pretty good.

>> Sadie by Courtney Summers

I still haven't gotten over this book. No. I actually think I'll never get over it and Sadie and her story will remain in my heart forever, as well as stories of thousands other kids suffering abuse <3

>> The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan

I'm baaack for some more of my favorite dumbass Percy and probably the only person in the world who can put up with him - Annabeth. I just want to keep reading books from this world forever but if I do that I'd never read anything else again xd

May tbr

>>The Son of Neptune and The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan

>> One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus

>> City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

>> Obsidio by Amie Kaufman

>> Enchantress Undercover by Arcane Artisans

>> The House of Hades and The Blood of Olympus by Rick Riordan

>> The Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

>> Five Feet Apart by Rachel Lippincott

What about you? How does your May tbr look like xd?

#monthly recap and tbr #recap #tbr

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unproduciblesmackdown · 7 years

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s2g that moss has even been foreshadowing that lars was gonna get briefly killed like…not that specific but since we’re shown that the moss is lars and the flowers have a bit of gem in them…………

ppl are always weird about stuff everywhere smh but like…theres been obviously weird things like being way more ok with ancient beings ready to destroy all life on the planet than lars being too ill-tempered or doing something selfish like…i see that…. like lars doesnt need to be redeemed for anything jeez. every episode where he does something crap its on a minor scale vs like endangering lives or something and he gets k.o’d for it and then makes some sincere form of apology like? theres your redemption…i guess maybe people expect him to become acceptable overnight maybe but thats how people work and then every episode is like The Lesson of the Week instead of a closer look at a character and another step in their development as people figuring themselves out

like literally every character has issues smh! in like this and everything also but like….honestly lars has been a super self conscious and anxious teen from the start and really unhappy and like sometimes he does dumbass shit but who hasnt. if you think youve never hurt people you havent been paying close enough attention

anyways one of the things i really dont like? despite general overall stuff like teenaged lars momentarily losing his patience and realizing he’s in the wrong and immediately trying to make amends = him being judged more harshly than like….every millenia-old actually murderous actual antagonist introduced…. is that overall? its like really really clear really early on that he’s always struggling with a lot of mental health issues, and a common theme is irl people who really do have disorders pointing this out. like, that point can be made for every character in su and lars isnt The Mentally Ill One who alone represents the whole of the universal mental illness experience because obviously that doesnt exist and its a very unique and personal experience, and people dont have to directly relate to lars or any other character with such problems to verify their own. but lars and the cool kids is like super upfront about anxiety and he obv has really low confidence and low self worth and i’ll fight anytime about island adventure hinting strongly at depression—in addition to having him state outright that he feels lonely and isolated all the time. and like, he hates the job he works all the time, he’s not good in school, he and sadie feel an early connection but they obviously had to do a lot of work on that and step on each other’s emotional fingers along the way to finally get to where they are now—which i’m guessing is dating but without acknowledging so or at least not to others, he isn’t very close to his parents currently, he starts the series with 1.5 friends maximum and cant even approach the cool kids besides being desperate to be friends with them

like clearly he’s unhappy and for a while sadie and steven are probably the people closest to him even tho he is a lot more annoyed by steven at the start of things when steven is more little-kiddish than he is now…..but lars still acts mostly like himself around them But at the start him and sadie have too many complications and uncertainties to be really comfortable and again steven doesnt really come across as very mature, with lars pointing it out just now how stevens changed in that way, and it being difficult anyways for lars to confide in anybody

so like lars is and has always been super super defined and restricted by his fear of everybody he encounters, specifically being afraid of being hurt by them / fear of being disliked. i like to say that i think the way he prevents himself / his image is meant to be a way of controlling the reactions he expects people to have: i.e. making people dislike him is less scary/painful than being judged badly while hoping for the opposite. but i also never like saying that anyone who consciously cultivates their Look is faker than someone who doesnt put any thought into it, or is lying to themselves or others or whatever, i just would bet thats a part of it. but moreso than that, the fact that he’s irritable and ill-tempered all the time fits really well as a result of being so unhappy and afraid and trying to deal with it solo. it’s not about him not caring about people, when on an unrelated note but related-to-the-universal-human-experience he does something thoughtless or mean or just generally crosses a line, he notices immediately when someone feels hurt, and he’s shown to immediately feel bad, arguably to a fault and going too far with how guilty he feels. but anyways clearly even though he has the capacity to hurt people’s feelings, he’s very sensitive to that, he cares deeply when it happens, and he doesn’t want to hurt people. like apologizing with any genuine depth to it right off is an incredibly difficult task even for grownass adults, and lars is already really good at it. its wild that people think of him as super cruel and selfish when it’s clear that he’s very emotionally vulnerable and doesn’t have the capacity to callously disregard other people’s hurt feelings

anyways a point i’m taking a really long time to come around to is that lars is a really good example of someone who’s young and unhappy and isolated and really struggling with a lot of things and afraid of everything and the fact is that usually when youre looking for characters who are struggling with this kind of shit you get one-dimensional, maybe even one-episode characters like the person who shows up for the very special episode where everyone has a serious talk and learns a serious lesson and the Depression Character never shows up again, having gone off to be depressed somewhere else since we already know about depressed people. or depression and anxiety is something that can be solved literally overnight if you just confront the root cause, like eliminating the life problem that made x depressed or giving y a makeover or throwing them a surprise party to show them they have friends or something. or you learn that joe the bully is actually just physically violent because he is insecure, whoa man. or the Sad Kid is a running joke and a periphery character and their parents are getting divorced etc etc etc etc

the point is that lars is a main character and even when he learns things about himself that put him in a better place than when the episode began, his issues still don’t vanish (and i wouldnt be surprised if people use that as evidence that his character doesnt “grow”). and dealing with / revealing some of his issues arent a special episode, its just an episode, and its about him. he’s developed over and over and he’s shown to be a complicated person. he’s shown to enjoy things and have interests and a life. he’s a regular character as much as anyone else is, he isnt set aside in a special category

but the thing is that maybe people expect Mentally Ill™ characters to be more of the hamfisted media clichés with zero nuance and about as much accuracy to them? because there’s always the sweet-and-soft kind of person who’s surely dealing with mental illness acceptably because they make up for it by being pure and noble and something approximately like a newborn lamb. like depression is being maybe a bit cagey and avoidant and crying a lot and writing poetry (which will later be revealed as their secret talent!!) and sighing and generally just waiting for someone to approach them, very gently because they are shy and nervous like a fawn, and that savior will cure them with love and also with showing them how beautiful life is!!! and then they will start wearing more colorful clothes and they will be happy and the depression is over now, because someone just had to show their delicate, beautifully wounded soul the light

trauma? you can tell someone has Trauma because they act very stoic and strong 1000% of the time no exceptions but it is just a façade. they will never talk about The Thing. they will finally talk about the thing because someone pries about it with pure intentions and it is a big dramafest and theyve never talked about this before and everyone cries and its super serious and heavy and the person is a bit softer after that because they could finally let it out that one time. thanks, another savior. having disorders is just having turned away from the light

the point is that irl obviously things are very different and its rare to see people with such issues being treated the same as any other character and being able to grow in a realistic way and being able to have flaws the way that everyone else does, not having to be a pure defenseless dewy-eyed baby kitten who someone strong and Normal needs to rescue and put on the right path away from these problems forever. being pissed off and frustrated and confused but trying a lot of different ways to figure things out anyways is a lot more common, the way lars reacts to and deals with his vulnerability is a lot more realistic than just being a fairy-tale in-distress type figure. his character feels a million times more like he was developed by people who understand what its like to be experiencing what he does and developed for people who can relate to him, rather than being made by and for people who cant directly relate and who tend to make content thats wholly inaccurate and treats that kind of thing like an Other issue for Others that you only need to learn bullet points about because if its going to be a part of your life it’ll be a fleeting, one-time thing, not your everyday reality

i mean, its unsurprising that lars is actually pretty comfortable with steven now, given how long theyve known each other, but also how relentless steven is in being supportive of lars and treating him like a friend. its not surprising that it took lars this long to accept that, or that it was in part forced along by being stuck in a “we might die” scenario with steven. and its important to point out that this wasn’t just lars changing that made their relationship better, but steven growing as a person as well. if you put both if them in that situation during the start of the series, they could probably get along better than usual still, but you cant say that this is the first sign of lars developing any more than you can say this is stevens first development. lars has been struggling with himself just as steven has, although not in a fate-of-the-world way till now. lars couldnt be so conscious of his own fear and frustrated with it, and steven wouldnt have the maturity to do stuff like freakin sacrifice himself for earth by separating himself from the other crystal gems, much less lend lars the emotional support needed to give lars enough confidence to protect the off-colors

lars has been developing the whole time and even if people look at individual episodes and think lars learns nothing during them, i cant see how anyone could deny that this isn’t a turning point for lars as much as its the culmination of a gradual path he’s already been on. not to mention that “turning point” has implications like “redemption arc,” as if lars was inherently bad or worthless at the start of the series. he wasn’t; none of the characters were, but each character and all of their relationships were least developed of course. we see details and different sides of the donuts right away, and they both care enough about steven to treat him more as a little brother than a customer and to humor him sometimes. theyve always been important, and the fact that lars has always been a main character in the set of protagonists and that steven has always been a friend means that he cannot be converted by a “redemption” arc. he’s already there smh he’s always been there. seriously name one episode where he’s done something shitty and didnt do anything to make up for it. the only thing unresolved rn is he couldnt fight topaz for sadie, and he said himself he felt guilty over it, and it was already at that point the boldest thing he’d done and like, its not that unreasonable for a wisp of a teen to be terrified by a giant gem warrior that he had zero chance of doing anything to anyways. it wasnt glistening heroics but if thats gonna condemn lars like throw me in the pit too i guess. then he went and died for twelve individuals and left himself defenseless in hostile unfamiliar territory so that steven can go back to earth so thats something. but before all this alien drama like, again…..he’s always directly apologizing for shit and he’s just making everyday kinds of fuckups. he beats himself up about stuff. and gets beat up. and really like doesnt ever require an apology when he’s the one to get hurt, which isnt a requirement by any means and which is probably part of him thinking too badly of himself

the point? that maybe i still havent made besides saying i was gonna make it like half a dozen times?? is that lars is a really real portrayal of a person dealing with things in a real way. and its not the “pain is transcendent” thing where if someone is Suffering from mental illness it makes them wiser and kinder and holier than us regular people. its not where all you need to help someone with mental illness is one incidence of reaching out and telling them you love them and look at the stars and isnt it lovely. its not where disorders themselves are an arc and at the end, people’s personalities will be indistinguishable from that of those who never experienced what they did. its where dealing with this shit is normal and human and everyday and its not beautiful and its not gonna make other people “inspired” or get to feel good about themselves as your savior. its about pushing people away or having them avoid you anyways because they can hurt you in ways they can’t understand as being hurtful and shits confusing and sometimes kids will lash out and i bet lars was a lot more Difficult closer to stevens age than he is now. its about characteristics that seem ugly or repulsive or otherwise don’t directly cry out for help. its about shit staying with you even while you’re trying to figure out how to work through it. its about the unpleasantness of it all but also the real humanity behind it, not just using it as some device. lars’s problems are about lars and belong to him

and yeah of course he hurts people, but literally all the characters do; it has nothing to do with having disorders or not. everyone hurts each other even though they love each other, sometimes with the best intentions or 0% knowingly because they just have to figure out more things about themselves and each other. everything is about people making mistakes. lars is no worse in that matter than any of the other characters, he just happens to have a less appealing/inviting personality, god forbid less relatable. in the recent episodes he didnt have his usual defensive abrasiveness, even his frustration with steven in “stuck together” wasn’t that significant, and wasnt even much directed at steven. after that he was just scared, without it being masked by anger. he could be brave for the other gems because he knew he wanted to be brave and he knew how it felt for them to be so afraid and he was finally told that it was an okay thing that he still felt terrified. he could be completely himself with steven because of all the ways steven has gotten to know lars and refused to stop valuing him and how steven has grown to be someone who could protect others on his own in serious situations—which in this case included supporting lars emotionally as well as protecting him physically. if lars was dropped in that situation with the kid who just learned to summon his shield and was having an ice cream crisis five minutes ago, he couldnt trust or rely on him or count on him for encouraging advice. the way lars is in the wanted arc being so different from earlier episodes is as much about stevens development as lars’s really

like the real lars is and always has been deeply sensitive to peoples feelings (to the point he feels extremely vulnerable to them e.g. afraid of being hurt by being regarded negatively) and he’s always cared about the people he feels close to and he’s always been capable of moments of bravery for the sake of others and he likes wrestling and he’s good at cooking and he’s a dumbass sometimes and he watches scary movies and plays video games and sucks at school and is grumpy and is passionate and is scared and is a huge nerd with nerd parents and he never got over feeling hurt by the explorer club incident and he doesnt like fries and he and his coworker like each other and relate to each other and he sees steven as his annoying little brother and he doesnt know what he wants and also he’s a bi icon, it must be exhausting

lars has always been good and complex and i might be willing to forgive my slight disappointment in people realizing he’s good only now if and only if they go back and acknowledge that he’s been good this whole time. like obviously he doesn’t have to be your Fave or even “liked” to just be not hated or to be recognized as a complex, solid character. lars is so, so developed, probably more than any other human. he’s always been important, even before his importance had direct cosmic significance. he’s always shown signs of being thoughtful and caring and soft, and the fact that he’s hurt people he cares about and who care about him isnt evidence that he’s bad, not only because of the fact that literally all the Good characters hurt each other, but because irl hurting people you love isnt even necessarily evidence of a failure, its just an inevitability, and what happens following the event is whats a lot more telling than the fact any negative emotions were ever a part of a good relationship

anyways what’s definitely true is that lars didnt need to die. it wasnt a necessary atonement for anything lars has ever done. he didnt and doesnt need to be redeemed. he just was willing to risk his life for gems in a situation he could immediately relate to, and that risk happened to win out momentarily. besides, what lars was overcoming in that situation was his own fear, it wasnt anything that caused the stuff in the past that people seem to think so badly of him for. he was also protecting steven, sure, but steven was pretty much fine by the end of it coz of his shield. but he also hadnt ever really Not protected steven or anything so he didnt really need to make up for that or whatever

also one more thing ive always meant to bring up is that lars doesnt think much of himself and is prone to being too hard on himself but i know there are probably plenty of people who believe him when he says he needs to “deserve” being alive again. nah!!!! lars always deserved it

#i havent rambled this long about lars in a minute sorry #as usual i lose track of the point i was saying and everything probably switches gears at some point but im just out here thinking these #essays in the back of my head so #Lars Was Always Good and is a great character #even having disappeared a lot he's been developed a ton #long post ////:

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