#the ungratefulness of having a cool weird woman not only be in your life but be YOUR cool weird woman

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

Kanaya: Men Will Make A Reddit Post Saying Their Gf Is Weird And Then Describe The Coolest Woman Imaginable

#homestuck #incorrect homestuck quotes #kanaya maryam #mod terezi #the ungratefulness of having a cool weird woman not only be in your life but be YOUR cool weird woman #disgraceful

[mythiccheroacademia]

My Vow to You

A/N: Dragon King!Bakugo has my heart and so I wrote a little something based off a dream I had awhile ago. I like writing Bakugo with a spouse that’s just as much of a hardass as he is :’) I’m not sure if I’ll make a part two. This could stand alone butttt we’ll see. 

Important things to note: ~*Aurea: It means golden in Latin. This is your family name that is used in public. Even though you’re married to Bakugo, I made it tradition that you keep your last name for distincition purposes, but you’re a Bakugo when I addressed elswhere. That’s based off something from my own culture. Also, it’d be kind of weird if Bakugo said his own name lmao. You’ll get it as you read.  ~*You and Bakugo have dragon-like traits? Idk man. I just thought the red eyes and fangs added flare.

Word Count: 1.6k Pairing: Bakugo x Fem!Reader Warnings: blood, injury, death, there’s a severed head in there but the description isn’t gory, cursing

All Characters are 18+

My Vow to You:

You remembered the day you were wedded to your husband. It was one of the most treasured days between both the Crimson and Golden Tribes. A day so powerful and glorious in meaning that it was named the Holy Matrimony of the era.

That day, two of the most powerful tribes in the nation joined in hand to rule. Their people prospered, their land grew rich, their army went by the hundreds, and best of all, this would happen out of true love.

There was no contract—no arrangement. The only reason the two tribes had encountered was to trade. When you and Katsuki had first met during the primary meeting, the next day, he brought you his most precious stone to begin courting. From then on, it was like destiny took ahold of the reigns. At the wedding, you wore it proudly upon the crest of your head.

The dress, the decorations, and the gifts were all beautiful, but nothing could compare to the sight of your groom. When the warriors parted, revealing his path to the alter, you almost forgot how to walk.

Matching ceremonial tattoos were painted across his bare arms and chest. He stood tall under the weight of precious stones of ruby and gold and led the length of his white fur coat across the floor. And despite his heavenly appearance, his crimson eyes, full of love, regard, and dignity were what led your feet to stand before him.

Katsuki was as gorgeous as he was powerful. There was a moment of reverie between the two of you before you both kneeled, bowing your heads when the past Kings and Queens walked to the alter.

You remembered when you shared your vows, words of strength to affirm the sacred bond the two of you would never break. When you both spoke, each word was a threaded swear into the other’s heart. From that moment, you were not two, but one. You were no longer just a couple, but a union. Once the religious leaders had said their prayer, you two shared a kiss, anointing the other with the love you were ready to boundlessly give.  

That promise was seared into your heart. You would act on it every second you were married.

So, even as your guards worriedly rushed you into the infirmary, blood dripping from the open wounds on your body, you wickedly grinned in triumph. No one would be able to take this away from you.

Not that foreign king. Not his weak ass army. Not your worried parents.

And certainly not your raging husband.

“What the hell were you thinking? Damn it, Aurea*! You could’ve been killed!” he roared.

Honestly, he looked worse for wear. If it wasn’t the dark circles underneath his eyes, it was the obvious stiffness in his neck. Apparently, he had been at your bedside every minute during your three-day coma. He was worried to say the least. Bless his heart.

You tried to lighten the mood with a smile. “Aww, you do care. How kind of you, my beau~”

Evidently, the joke wasn’t appreciated. Katsuki’s face soured into an expression only a mother could love. His eye twitched and the guards winced.

“You want me to put you back in your shitty coma?”

“Bakugo, I’m fine,” you sighed, relenting to the seriousness of the situation. “I know you’re worried, but I made it out. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“That’s beside the point!” he snapped. Perhaps you wouldn’t have felt so attacked if it weren’t for the harsh glare he gave you. “I told you the Black Fleet was dangerous and yet you still acted foolishly! If Kirishima hadn’t found you—“

“I endangered no one—“

“No one but yourself, and that’s what you fail to understand!”

Despite your conscious telling you to calm down, his scolding got the better of you. And your temper rose like an ugly beast. “And if it were for the safety of you and any one of our people, I’d do it again; because when they threatened to put your head on a platter, it was personal! I won’t be scolded like a child for doing my duties as Queen!”

In better circumstances, Bakugo would’ve treaded lightly. He would’ve empathized with your sentiment. However, he had done nothing but stare at your bloody bandages and bruises for the past three days and his patience with just about everything ran thin.

“And I’m doing mine as King! If I tell you to stay away, what I fucking say goes!”

“I don’t know what kind of women you dealt with before me, but if you think that you can just order me around like some bitch, you’ve chosen the wrong woman to marry,” you seethed.

Bakugo’s furious scream thundered the hall and the guards jumped as his fist hit the wall. “ARGH! FUCK Y/N! WHY CAN’T YOU JUST LISTEN TO ME!?”

The use of your personal name in the presence of guards made you reel. Now he was just being disrespectful.

“YOU ARE NOT MY MASTER!” you shouted.

His eyes glowed with rage as he grew in size, a feat that would’ve sent anyone running. “NO, BUT I AM YOUR HUSBAND!” he boomed.

Your eyes turned to blood and fangs shot out from your lips as you roared, “AND I AM YOUR WIFE!”

Katsuki tried to subdue you with an intimidating growl, abnormally large canines bared towards you. However, you only matched it with your own. There was an intense moment between you two as your energies nearly bubbled over. However, one of the nurses at your bedside reminded you of your injuries.

“Please, my queen. If you’re not careful, you could reopen your wounds,” they softly spoke.

The gentle hand on your abdomen reminded you of the ache. You winced and sighed away the sizzling anger as you were led back into the comfort of the cot. The weight of your husband’s glare fell upon you for a moment more before he frustratingly blew out of his nose and turned on his heel, out the door.

Once the door slammed shut, you rolled your eyes. If he wanted to throw a tantrum, then so be it.

“Ungrateful brat,” you muttered. Just then, a sharp pain shot up your leg from one of the nurses changing your bandages. “Ow!”

They shrunk back and gave you a shy smile. “My apologies, your highness,” they giggled.

Despite your sour attitude, you just huffed a laugh from your nostrils. “Careful there,” you sighed. They ducked their head again in slight embarrassment and went back to tending to your wound with a softer hand.

The silence gently settled in the air as the atmosphere returned to its once lax state. When the nurses had finished patching you up and left you and the guards stationed in your room, you found yourself finally able to process the harsh exchange of words between you and your husband.

You couldn’t believe he would just order you around like that! Talking to you as if he didn’t know the type of woman he had been married to for the last five years. And to use your first name in the presence of non-family members? Mitsuki would have his head if she knew!

Regardless of that, you thought back to when you two truly lost your cool and frowned. You hated acting out of character, especially in front of a crowd, but you couldn’t help it. His words were an insult to your pride and abilities.

He was being ridiculous. You were the Dragon King and Queen, damn it. The fiercest rulers the earth would know, governing over two tribes with armies that sent shivers down their enemy’s spines at the mention of your name. And just as their people stood strong, their leaders were stronger, and that meant protecting their honors to no bounds.  

When the enemy sent your kingdom a severed head of a deceased warrior as a threat to have Bakugo’s next, there was nothing left to be said. You saw your chance to humble your foe and took it. And you succeeded. That should’ve garnered celebration, not a dispute.

You carefully turned on your side and noted your crown with the lone jewel he gifted you before you courted. Memories of your spoken vows ran across your mind and reinforced the stubbornness in your heart. You remembered the way his eyes, brighter than any precious stone, glowed with pride and love as he swore his life over to protect you by any means necessary.

You could still feel the warm squeeze he gave your hands when you repeated those same words back to him.

So if it was an apology he wanted, then tough luck. You wouldn’t apologize for defending his honor.

Not when you knew he’d do the same for you.

#bnha bakugo x reader #barbarian!bakugo #dragon king!bakugo #katuski bakugo #bakugo katsuki x reader #bnha fics #mha fics #bnha oneshot

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #354

“swimming through the void, we hear the word  /  we lose ourselves, but we find it all”

The last time you washed your hair, did you use conditioner? I never do. My hair is naturally pretty oily, and conditioner just adds oil to it. Do you prefer light or dark jeans? Dark. I never liked light-hued jeans. When you listen to music, do you generally sing along, or just listen? I almost always just listen. Do you have any of your exes as friends on Facebook? Yes. Who was your first love? Do you ever miss that person? My first "real" boyfriend. I always do to varying degrees. How many cars are parked at your house right now? Just one. Do you have any Italian ancestry? No. Do you prefer water to be ice cold or at room temperature? The colder, the absolute better. I can barely stomach drinking water that isn't cold, like literally. Has anyone ever told you you’re a control freak? No. Do you know anyone who has gone missing? If so, were they ever found? I don't think so, anyway. What was the spiciest thing you’ve ever eaten? A certain hot sauce on the wings I used to get at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was close to the top of their little heat rating thing. It made me feel awful, and yet I enjoyed it still?? I think it was an adrenaline thing. I only get medium sauce now; I'm more interested in enjoying my food than feeling like I'm eating fire. Do you need to talk to someone? I'm ready for my therapy appointment honestly, but it's not 'til the start of June. Mom and I both don't want to go through the process of finding a new one, so I've chosen to just suck it up and wait. Is something confusing you at the moment? I'm always confused with myself and my feelings. When was the last time you had a real deep chat? Real deep, I'm sure that would've been during PHP. Who did you last see on webcam? My former group therapist. I miss him a lot and really wish he could treat me outside of the program, but he doesn't do that. :/ What’s your best friend’s pet’s name(s)? Doris, Martha, Crowley, Little Dot, Jane Marie, Buster, Beesly, Winter, and I believe only one of the fish is named: Raisha. Have you ever taken a picture while laying in the grass? No. Who’s your favorite Disney character? Dory, probably. Have you ever deliberately tried to get someone drunk? What the fuck, no. When was the last time you used a pay phone and who were you calling? I've never used one. Do you like being kissed on the neck? Whoa now buddy, we better be kind of serious by then for you to do that because it doesn't end "well" lmao. Have you ever had sex with someone you weren’t dating (but had feelings for) in the hopes that they would ask you out later? I almost deleted this question because I didn't want to answer it, but I try to leave more unique ones in, so... whatever. I haven't. But I would for "somebody." What’s the most you would be willing to spend on a good bra? Ugh, my relationship with bras is a hellish one because NONE FUCKING FIT ME CORRECTLY. Mom's tried so, so many places, so many different stores online and in-person, and even if the bra fits in the front, it won't go around my back comfortably. I guess my body is shaped weird, I don't fucking know, because I have literally ZERO bras that don't aggravate me. At some point, I'm going to some woman Mom knows who can size me properly and therefore buy some that don't piss me off. All that to say I'd actually pay more than the usual, but not a ridiculous price. Do you have any of your teachers’ personal cell phone numbers saved in your contacts list? My old Physical Science teacher, who is actually now a very close family friend and our landlord, is in my phone. Do you ever stalk peoples’ personal blogs, even if you don’t know them very well? No. What’s one thing about today’s generation that you just can’t stand? How ungrateful they can be. Be honest: how do you feel about abortion? I am pro-choice. Is there anyone you currently want to reach out to? There's a lot of people, actually. Old friends I miss. What is your favorite piece of art you own? It... sounds cocky, but it's probably the drawing I did in high school of Pyramid Head and the Halo of the Sun intertwined. I worked my fucking ass off and I'm extremely proud of it. What’s the one thing you apologized for this month? Hm. Probably just something minor, like bumping into Mom or something when passing her. My favorite color is ______? Pink, specifically pastel pink. I wish I had _____? A job. What did you buy today? Nothing. What has challenged your morals? Life, my dude. Live and learn. What made you pick up the last book you started reading? It's the sequel to the last book I read. What about your life concerns you the most? Concerns me, my physical health, especially just how weak my legs are. I'm terrified of them continuing to deteriorate. What do you find particularly offensive? Would you say you’re easy or difficult to offend? I cannot fucking stand the misuse of the word "retarded." Like just keep your damn mouth sewn shut if you have the audacity to say things like "hurr hurr this driver is retarded." ANY mental illness/condition is NOT to be mocked. Onto the next question, I'd say I'm more towards difficult to offend. It really depends on the topic. What was the last series you finished watching? Do you have any plans to begin another? I re-watched Fullmetal Alchemist w/ Sara. We're working on Avatar: The Last Airbender too, but I won't resume watching it again until we can do it together. What is one way in which you are different from a year ago? What is one way in which you are still the same? Well, I weigh a lot more. .-. I gained back almost all the weight I shed since quarantine started, and I'm forever fucking furious about it. I'm the same in most other ways. If you could learn about anything without the stress of grades or cost, what kind of classes would you take? Uhhhhh meerkat behavior? Idk. Name a song you’ve listened to today? I've got Halocene, Lauren Babic, and Violet Orlandi's cover of "Aerials" by System of a Down on loop right now. It's fucking gorgeous and so mesmerizing. When you were younger, did you have a swing set or a playhouse in your backyard? We had a small playhouse with swings and a slide. Is your mall nice? GOD no. You better accept the possibility of getting shot before you walk in there. There's nothing that cool at all there. Do you have a Sonic near you? If so, what’s your favorite drink from there? Yeah. I love the strawberry slushy, and the Reese's Blast thing if KILLER. Will you be voting in the presidential elections next time around? Yes. How do you feel about chocolate-covered strawberries? GOOD. STUFF. Did you ever stop having feelings for someone and then started having those feelings again for them? I think so. Do you hate the last guy you had a thing with? No, he's my closest guy friend. To whom did you last give the finger? Probably some idiot that ran a red light. I'm sure it happened in the car, whenever it happened What was the last musical instrument played in your presence? I've got no clue. Do you like sprinkles on your ice cream? No, I hate the texture difference. And just sprinkles in general. Honestly, have you ever crashed a party before? No. Do you know how to do the moon walk? No. Has anybody ever told you that you have a good singing voice? Yeah, but I beg to differ. Onion rings or french fries? French fries. I'm not a big fan of the other. Has anybody ever described you as a heart breaker? Nope. Has anybody ever told you that you talk too fast? When I'm excited, yes, it happens sometimes. Who is the best cook that you know? Uhhhhh idk. Which meal throughout the day do you skip the most? I don't really skip meals. What’s the largest amount that you can juggle at one time? I can’t juggle at all. What was your favorite thing to go on at the playground as a kid? Swings. I'd dash to those at recess to try to actually get one. Do you know how much you weighed at birth? How much? All I know is six pounds, no clue on the ounces. Which aspect of your daily routine takes the most time? What do you do? Sitting my ass at the computer, really... I don't exactly do much. Do you enjoy buying gifts for others, or could you do without this? It feels sucky of me considering whenever I do get someone a gift, it's because Mom is letting me use her money with me being without an income, BUT I still do LOVE the process of thinking of something meaningful for those important to me and hopefully seeing them love whatever I got them. I cannot wait until I actually can do that regularly. What is one thing you are expected to do, if anything? Take care of my pets. How do you tend to view driving? Monotonous or entertaining? I hate driving because you're in a speeding box of death, man. I do really want to start working towards my license though; I've long since reached the "enough is enough" point. But first I need new glasses so I can actually see five feet in front of me. Do you enjoy talking about music with others? Yeah! Is acting something you enjoy? No. I'm too awkward about it. When do you feel most accomplished? When I finish a big art pierce. Do you think Manwich is amazing or completely gross? I like 'em. Just messy, which I'm not a fan of. How many best friends do you have? One. Are you a smoker, drinker, pothead or none of the above? None of the above. If you have your ears pierced, when did you get them pierced? I don't remember exactly, but I was a kid. Do you own any exercise machines? No. I wish. On Facebook, do you have people listed as your siblings who aren’t really your siblings? Nah, but I used to do that. Have you ever drawn or painted a self-portrait? Painted, but only because it was a school assignment. Who was your last voicemail from? I don't get voicemails because mine isn't even set up. Have you ever been falsely accused of something serious? No. Did you ever set up a lemonade stand when you were a kid? No. When was the last time you spoke to someone in a different language? Not since I was taking a test in high school for my German course. My teacher was a Germany native, so she was a total pro and fun to learn from. Have you ever received an anonymous gift? No. Have you ever camped out somewhere for an event the next day? No. That's always sounded miserable to me. When were you the saddest in your life? 2016 was fucking miserable. Do you know anyone, personally, who is in an abusive relationship? Are you? I don't know if it's abusive, but it's toxic and dysfunctional as HELL. I don't know WHY she keeps going back to him, I feel awful for the woman. I'm definitely not, 'cuz I wouldn't tolerate that shit for half a second. If you have siblings, have they moved out or do they still live with you? They've both moved out by now. Have you ever gotten searched by the cops? Yes, as a safety protocol with mental illness stuff. Do you like fried rice? Yes. What was the last thing you drank? Would you believe me if I told you I have water right now?

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''aerials'' by system of a down

[joeycupcakerichter]

A letter he'll never read.

This is just going to be a incoherent mess of thoughts that I need to get out of my skull because otherwise they're going to drown me. so I'm gonna throw it under a read more and post it here so the thought can be out of my head and I can go back and reread whenever I start to feel like I'm losing control again.

Dear [him]

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know I've probably seemed obsessive and weird and I wish I could stop but I think writing this down, explaining it even though I know you'll never read it will help me process the feelings and move on.

I'm sorry it had to be you. I'm sorry that you were the one that caught me on a bad day and made me smile. I read too much into it. If I've ever made you uncomfortable in anyway, I'm so deeply sorry. There's some things that I think you need to understand about me that I think will help the two of us make sense of this and move forward.

My marriage was one built on trauma and distress. I was married to a man that loved the idea of me, not the person I truly was. He spent six years trying to shove me into a box that I didn't fit into, trying to make me into the girl he always wanted when he simply was not. It may sound ungrateful to say, but I was drowning in his attention but you have to understand that this was not the kind of attention anyone deserves. It was manipulative, it was guilt tripping, it was toxic in every sense of the word. He hated the things I loved and if he didn't start off initially hating them, he would quickly begin to hate them because they were associated with me. I know you're probably wondering what that has to with you and I promise I'm getting to it

The earliest date I have to tell you when this started was February 4, 2019. Yeah, you heard me right, two fucking years of this nightmare coping mechanism that you didn't ask to be a part of. February 4th was the day I created a playlist on Spotify because I was going to go to the gym. The first song on that playlist was Rev 22:20 by Puscifer because that's the song that every time I hear it, I think of you. The beginning of the song is enough to explain what I was feeling in that time.

Don't be aroused by my confession Unless you don't give a good goddamn about redemption I know Christ is comin', and so am I And you would too if this sexy devil caught your eye

I wanted you so badly. You represented everything that my current relationship lacked. You would give me attention, but only if I earned it. I was married at the time, so confessing my attraction to you would be something that you would have to not care if it sent you to hell. It was stupid, and I kept my mouth shut about it. I wasn't about to have an affair with you. I know I was already emotionally cheating on my husband, but I was not going to take the next step. I would just cling to this concoction of you I'd made in my head to cope with the misery that I was forcing myself to live with. It wasn't healthy and it DEFINITELY wasn't fair to you. You didn't ask to have someone develop an infatuation with you that you didn't want. I did my best to be cool and remember who the fuck I was but I know you knew. I deluded myself into thinking that you were interested, even if you couldn't pursue it. I think that made it worse.

Your trip and the jokes we made about it truly cemented this stupid ass infatuation into my brain. The thought of running away from my life with you haunted my dreams. In fact, there was one dream that I had that I still distinctly remember that plays in my head on repeat every now and then. We were at a party, you pulled me into the pantry and we were talking and you looked at me, confused, and said, "You know I like you, right?" I woke up immediately after, confused and with my heart pounding. This came shortly after you told me that your friend had backed out of the trip and you had an extra ticket, if I just got my passport. I didn't, of course, but I remember you telling me that I could sit next to you on the plane and rub your back as you puked into your airplane bag because you were afraid to fly.

I'm terrified that I sound insane and creepy and unsettling. I KNOW you were just kidding around but it was something I could cling to. It kept me alive when I was laying in bed staring out of my window wishing I had to courage to just jump. That was a lot to put on you but I comforted myself by reminding myself that you would never know. I would never ever cross the line of telling you how much that stupid little joke meant to me. You'll probably never know this, but you saved my life. And for that I can only thank you.

I'll never forget when you left, either.

I channeled the confusing feeling of loss and pain into a story that I'm still incredibly proud of. I won't bore you (or creep you out) with details, but you left two months after your trip and I did nothing but write. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote that pain away until I couldn't feel it anymore. It was gone. I fixed it all. I was fine. I barely thought about you. That initial hyperfixation was gone. You were gone.

Until you weren't.

A mutual friend told me that you were coming back and I thought my heart was going to erupt. That was when I stopped writing my story because I didn't need it anymore. You were coming back. I tried to remain casual, but that December when you were finally back, I could've wept with joy. It was sad, it was pathetic but you were back and everything was going to be fine. I had my coping mechanism back. We both know I can't help but look at you when you're near by. Even just a glimpse could make me smile. You were so soothing to me. You still are. It's illogical and it doesn't make sense, but whenever I talk to you, or even just see you I am simultaneously relieved and set on edge. I have to watch myself. I don't want you to know this creepy stalker narrative I'd unintentionally crafted. It wasn't even stalkery.

I didn't cross lines, I just wanted to talk to you, be around you somewhere that was an even playing field. I've only texted you when I absolutely had to. I couldn't bring myself to bother you. I put you up on a pedestal and didn't ask you for anything more. I wanted more, I craved that sweet validation but I wouldn't cross that line. We were work friends, if you could even call it that. We were coworkers that sat together on break all the time. Sometimes I would feel like maybe you could be interested but I would always reminded myself that just because I wanted you to be, didn't mean you were. I constantly kept myself in check. I barely even mentioned you to my friends and even when I did, you were the mediocre white guy at work. Hell, I still refer to you as that because I need to keep myself in check. You are not the end all be all of men. Believe me, I would let myself believe that if I didn't keep myself in check.

When the pandemic hit, you were gone again. I thought it was forever this time and I decided it would be okay. It had to be okay. I wasn't going back to work if you weren't going to be there and by all logic, you shouldn't have been. You were the reason I didn't hate my job. I liked talking to you for fifteen minutes at a time that much. It's silly, but it made everything better. I didn't need to date you. I didn't need to sleep with you. I just wanted you to be my friend and you had been. I thought that chapter was closed.

And then my husband left me. And I found out you were back again. Despite everything I'd figured, that you wouldn't go back for a third time, that you wouldn't even be able to, another mutual friend mentioned that you were back. And I was ready to run back into that hellhole's hateful arms to have you close and as my friend again. I couldn't talk to you outside of work, I didn't know what to say. I was scared it was going to come out wrong because things were different now. I was different now. I wasn't going to be married for much longer. I let myself stray into thinking maybe now could be different.

You gave my husband an instrument to fix and he left it and me here so I figured I could give it back to you, at the very least. I was gonna shoot my shot. "of course I remember you". Now I'm not sure if that was as flattering as I initially took it but you forgot and I cried. But I left you alone. If you had any of the same feelings I had, you wouldn't have. It was okay. You didn't have to match my energy. Mine was out of control and emotional, coming only a week after my husband left the state. I was a train wreck and I'm glad now that you didn't come pick it up. I would've embarrassed myself. I would've tried to tell you all of this to your face and it would've been a mess. It wasn't fair to you. It wasn't fair to me. I was in mourning, I was in shock. Just like most of the people I knew, you probably wouldn't have known what to say. What do you say to a woman who had been abandoned so easily and quickly? Awkward pity in my experience with people who weren't you. But I told you. You knew. That's all I wanted.

And now, I'm terrified that I'm becoming FAR too obvious. I wasn't subtle before, but I KNOW I'm not subtle now. I'm terrified of making you uncomfortable, or even worse, acting like Mandee. Becoming so overbearing and not picking up on vital social cues that would tell me that you didn't want me around. Every now and then, I'll forego sitting outside to sit with you but I won't do it every break. I don't want to seem like I won't leave you alone. I don't want to seem like a crazy woman who's obsessed with you. Maybe I still am, despite my best intentions, but I try so hard not to be. You don't owe me ANYTHING. And sometimes I get the vibes that I need to leave you alone so I do. And I resign myself to the fact that I ruined it because I couldn't keep my shit together.

My standards are so low right now, that you can talk to me first and I feel like maybe we could still be friends. Not a damn thing more than that. I can't stress that enough. Despite everything I've written here, it's not like I want you to sweep me off my feet and save me from everything. I just.... I want to be your friend. I want to actually know you other than anecdotal conversations.

I don't know how to finish this. It's pathetic, its cathartic and I just needed to get it out of me. I'm so tired of keeping it in and while I won't tell you, just writing it down helps. So thank you. Thank you for everything you don't know you've done for me. I'm sorry I let it go this far and get this... weird. Thank you again.

#nova trauma dumps #nova speaks #nova rants #tw: suicide mention #tw: suicidal ideation #ask to tag #if you were wondering where I get my Ted from this should give you a good idea #goddamn I wrote a lot about something that doesn't even matter #personal

[nachohypno]

The Daylight Club Ch. 6 - Upside Down

Kevin’s POV

After school (And excusing ourselves from that awful party, because there was no way we could survive 5 hours of ‘partying’ with mind controlled preppies), we all raced back to our respective houses.

And apparently, I was now in charge of the new plan. What can we do against a whole town of adults stronger than most of us? Nothing came to my mind.

Legally, there’s a curfew and very few want to break it. Illegally speaking, there’s no hope. The principal technology provider is definitely behind something, there are invisible and apparently unstoppable voices that seem to appear when we cry loud enough in our heads.

‘WE CAN HEAR YOU’ A voice resonated in my head. A cheerful one, like a dude before bursting in laughter. It was kind of annoying.

‘Oh, shut up!’ I thought, fidgeting with my fingers as I waited for the voices to leave me alone. I didn’t know how I could be sure that they left, but at least they should have the decency of leaving me with my private thoughts! I can’t monologue like this!

‘YOU NEED TO DANCE A LITTLE MORE, HUN! MAYBE SOME MUSIC WILL HELP—’ This one was a woman’s voice, but less cheerful and more… kind? Even as I interrupted her, I could feel she just wanted to share a passion for music.

“Get out of my head!” I roared. Donnie looked at me, like I was bothering him. The mind controlled guy was back at his desk, writing down stuff for an essay.

“Least you can do is remain silent while I do my homework. It was pretty rude that half the club walked out of the party we prepared for them, but not even saying a ‘thank you’ hurt my feelings…” He said, going back to his paper.

“It wasn’t that great of a party, anyway... Who has crackers as the main snack? It was depressing, and I could tell that the drama guys were more hurt than happy to see you guys celebrating that they can’t have a good laugh anymore.” I replied, laying down on Brandon’s bed. I needed a bed, sleeping with Donnie’s dad was probably a one-time thing. It would be weird if I did that every night.

Especially if Donnie turns out to be the Stalker.

“Y’know what, you turned out to be a pretty ungrateful guest and I’m getting sick of it—” Donnie froze. I noticed his face going blank for a second, before resuming his speech. I raised an eyebrow at the sudden interruption. “I’m sorry Kevin, but I’ll have to speak with my dad about this.”

The guy left his pen at the desk and faced me. Donnie was disgusted. I couldn’t tell if he was angry, but his face did show a particular frown, like a kid smelling boiled spinach.

I should have worried, but I couldn’t. His dad was under my control, which gave me the security to think that I actually have control around the house.

Donnie can threaten me all he wants, but if he wants to play by the rules his mysterious master is giving him, then he has to shut up and do as his dad says. Bobby already told me how Donnie cried for his dad the day they tried to talk after he got trapped.

I waved my hand at him. “Lemme know what he says, bro.��� I went back to looking at my phone. Speaking of the cowboy, Bobby was messaging me to check what the plan I mentioned back at the party was. Truth is, if I want to have a chance…

It was nice to have my demon power at 90% but I’ll have to do some reality warping here. Otherwise, we’re busted.

I prepared a clear idea of what I wanted in my mind. It was risky, but maybe I could have Donnie back at our side if I… Corruption isn’t something new, I’ve done it countless times before. And it should give me full control over the guy’s body.

I don’t know if that’ll be enough to expel the voices from Donnie’s body, but it’s worth a try, right?

Never heard about the voices before, but they seemed to be deity-like beings, so it should take a powerful enough move to push them away, just like Corruption is.

‘When freedom is at risk, everything’s valid except not defending it’ The famous quote crossed my mind, as I doubted myself for a second. ‘I’m such a hypocrite…’

Letting out a sigh, I thought clearly about my plan. I had to leave Donnie and Patrick out of it. Maybe the club guys too, so they notice that reality has been messed with.

I snapped my fingers, and watched as my idea came to life. ‘I’ve been living in this town for quite a while. The adults are free from the voices’ influence, this is a normal little radio-quiet town’. Seems like a very powerful idea. And if the voices are deity-like as I thought they were, this thing won’t last more than a day or so. 

Nobody would notice that we won for a day, and that the adults are free. If they noticed and everything went back to hell, the poor club guys would start asking questions about what happened. It was more like an illusion thing though, we haven’t really won. 

Reality warping isn’t as broken as I always thought it would be, it just tricks people’s minds long enough for our demonic missions to be done.

I just hoped that a day turned upside-down would be enough for Donnie to be vulnerable to Corruption.

My body felt on fire as my demon MP¨got drained all the way back. 5%... 4%... 3%... 2%...

-----

Brandon’s POV

I’m not supposed to be angry. But Kevin is trying to push my buttons and I’m not going to let him. I’m also not going to be around a guy I don’t know anything about, for once. It was such a dumb idea to begin with and I should have taken care of it since I’ve came to terms with myself.

Kevin won’t spend another night at my house.

“Hey, dad?” I asked, as soon as I wandered downstairs. My father was watching the local news, probably attempting to fall asleep before his night shift. I felt bad for interrupting him, he was a great dad.

Dad turned around and smiled at me. “Hey there, Don. How was school?” I hated that people still call me by that awful nickname, but this was my dad, I could take it. I wanted to show him as much respect as I could, as the adult taking care of me.

“It was nice, we had to plan this nice party but…” I shook my head. “It’s not really important, dad. I wanted to ask you if you could have Kevin… move away, or something?” It was a rough thing to ask, I know, but I got myself in this mess and I needed help to get out of it. The voice told me it would be right this way.

“Can’t do that, pal” Dad’s smile was gone. I didn’t think it would be a problem. If the voice told me to go with him, I assumed that Dad was already in the song, too? “We’re not animals, we have a guest and we’ll respect him. ‘sides, he’s sleeping in the basement. How is he bothering you, little guy?”

“Basement? No, he sleeps in my room—”

“Check it.” A bland, cold ‘Check it’. I nodded, and shutted my mouth. I knew better than to never doubt my father, he’s friendly and amazing until I start to bother him too much. According to grandma, ‘He used to be a real pain in the ass when he was my age’. And I feel like he hasn’t changed much in that—uhhhhh…

I would never say that to him though. Not now, at least. I’m a good boy, I have to respect my elders.

Walking out of the living room, I went to the basement. We mostly used it as a place to store the Christmas stuff and boxes with old clothing inside. There are a few high school trophies dad won too, but those are untouchable.

I was wrong though, the basement now seemed to be a full on bedroom, with a mattress on the floor with a few sheets on top of it, a good amount of clothes (Old clothes of mine, that I used to wear for school a week ago or so…) were resting on top of some boxes, with some books laying there too.

“What the cheese?” I mumbled to myself. Kevin was nowhere to be seen, but when did he get the basement all for himself? It’s such a cool room… Shaking the bad thoughts off my head, I closed the door behind me and began snooping around.

What? I’ve got permission from the voice in my head!

He was nowhere to be seen, it was already past six pm, which means he may be still at my room, or he already left for the club. Where did he move out of my bedroom and into the basement? Beats me, but dad may have some more information.

The room wasn’t really clean, but it had some degree of order. Kevin’s school bag was lying beside his mattress, but that was all I could see of interest.

Of course, I grabbed the bag and started looking inside. Besides the usual stuff for class, and a few extra books, the only thing that caught my interest was a bunch of personal papers that stated his birthplace as Lingperton. I haven’t heard of that place, but everything else seemed in place.

The other thing that caught my attention was a picture of Kevin and another guy, a few inches taller than him and his face showed a mix of disgust and fear. 

The guy had green hair, and seemed to be looking at the camera reluctantly. Behind the picture, a ‘Made a deal with a funny guy!!’ was written in a colored green pencil.

I left everything back in the bag and went upstairs. Dad was still on the couch, and I knew that I shouldn’t bother him, but I had to get the guy out of the house ASAP. It was a little step against the daylight club, but he bothered Think-As-One, and he’s an outsider anyway.

“Uh… When did Kevin move to the basement?”

“Like a week ago, buddy. Don’t you remember? You helped me and everything.” Dad didn’t take his eyes off the tv now. He always does this when I ‘want to have an argument’. He disconnected himself from the conversation until I stopped.

I shook my head “Are you alright, dad? I can confirm that it never happened—”

“Alright, that’s enough. You won’t be mean with your classmate, especially after offering him to live with us for the time being. Y’know what? You’ve made your bed; you sleep on it. I don’t wanna hear anything else about this.” Dad finished the argument by giving me an angry look before shifting his attention to the TV.

In some way, he did have a point… I’m the one who offered Kevin to stay with us as long as he’s a member of the daylight club, to help out on missions, and Dad accepted that pretty well.

Is it late to bang my head against a— I’ll find a solution to this.

----

I walked over to Robert at the school’s corridor, as he lazily tried to open his locker. Maybe he went out last night? I should tell him that breaking the curfew is illegal.

First class was already over, but I didn’t share it with him so this was my first chance to speak to him today. 

“Howdy Robert, have you seen Kevin today? He’s been missing since yesterday and I’d like to have a word with him.”

“Oh, hey Donnie, how are you doing? Kinda surprised you speak to me again, bro.” Robert said coldly. “I’m tired of correcting you over and over even since you’ve got mind fucked, so if you call me Robert again…” He punched his locker and it opened.

Such disrespect for the school establishment! And why was he making a big deal out of it? It’s his name, it’s not like I’m insulting him or anything…

“All right, I’m sorry.” Such a stupid thing to apologize to, but anyway, I had to talk to Kevin and I was sure Bobby would know something. They seemed like best friends lately. Funny, never thought I’d be that replaceable.

I shook my head, shouldn’t worry about that. I had Patrick now, my best friend. It was a fair exchange; I like to believe.

He looked at me, as I tidied my polo shirt. “Soooo… Have you seen Kevin?”

Robert shook his head. “Nuh-uh. Isn’t he staying with you? How could you miss him?”

“He’s staying for longer than I intended and now he won’t leave, sadly…”

“Dude, chill out. Kev’s a great guy and he’s been a nice friend ever since you stopped hanging out with us. What kinda trouble could he be in if you suddenly don’t want him around anymore?” Robert replied, grabbing the book for our next class. Literature, I should do the same and grab my book too.

“Well, at least you can say that!” I told him, a bit careful with my words to remain calm and maintain composure. “You don’t have an stranger living in your basement, Robert!—”

“Okay, I warned you.” PLAF. I flew a few meters away from him.

Bobby— Robert had never been the aggressive type of guy, that’s what I liked about him. He was the brain and I was the brawn of our entire operation after Pat had— Patrick had left the club. Then I left, and thus Robert had to occupy both chairs, maybe.

My head was spinning, and I was in pain. I could have returned the hit. I was bigger than Robert, and stronger, and— 

‘STOP. DON’T RETURN THE ATTACK.’ The voice, or voices, of a man and a woman at unison shouted in my mind. Think-As-One was watching me today. Oh god, I was so honored!

And no, violence is not the solution! The voice was right! An adult might take care of this situation and put that bully in his place!

“Brandon! Are you all right?!” Patrick came to my aid. My best friend and best ally, the best guy in the world, had come to help me out. My heart was beating fast and a warmness I couldn’t describe flowed through my body. I noticed my cheeks burning a bit, what was happening?

“I am, just a little… ugh…” I got up, as my best friend helped me up and I watched as Robert walked away. “A little misunderstanding with an old friend.” I finished with a nice smile.

“Seems like more than a little misunderstanding. Come on, we’re heading to the principal’s office. This will NOT go unpunished.” Patrick patted my lower back a bit, probably to clean the dust off my shirt.

We went to the principal’s office, and the secretary told us to wait outside. Ten minutes later, Patrick and I were inside of the office explaining everything that happened.

Something weird was happening, though. Before, I could feel myself connected to the principal and a lot of other adults, also some classmates like Patrick.

But today, that connection was gone with the adults. I could only feel Patrick. It was unnerving, was I unprotected? Adults are good, they’re always right and must be respected… right?

Patrick seemed so passionate about it, after I explained what happened he started suggesting possible punishments for Robert. I interrupted him for a bit, just to ask if he had any news about Kevin.

“Sadly, I don’t have a way to know if a student is present or not before the first period. It would make my mornings so much easier…” The old man mumbled.

“So, what can you do? Will the bully get punished, sir?” Patrick’s expression faded for a second, before recovering his angry expression. Huh, I wonder what he was thinking if he needed correction from the voice in our heads.

But the principal shook his head. “From what you’ve told me, the student gave you a fair warning and you continued to pick on him. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can doooooo~” He slurred that last set of words.

“SOMETHING IS WRONG.” Think-As-One said in my mind. “HE IS STILL IN THE SONG, BUT HIS CONNECTION SEEMS TO BE DAMAGED. I WILL SEND AN AGENT TO LOOK AFTER HIM ONCE YOU LEAVE.”

“But, sir…” Maybe I could do something to help the voice. “I can’t just go to my house and tell my dad ‘I was just picking on a guy and the principal didn’t do anything to stop him’! It wouldn’t be right!”

The principal gave me a very accusatory look. “I’m pretty sure Mr. Thompson won’t be quite amused after learning that his son is getting into fights and detention, just because he decides to call ‘names’ to his classmates.” The man replied, moving a few papers to his side to have a better look at us.

I noticed Patrick’s hand was closed in a fist, but I grabbed it and he quickly intertwined his fingers with mine. ‘Violence is wrong’ I thought, and I assumed he got reminded of it due to the blank expression on his face. 

I felt kind of bad, we’re pretty much a mess if Think-As-One has to correct us that much in one day.

“No, you’re right, sir. We won’t bother you with this matter anymore, sorry for wasting your time.” Patrick said, sounding a bit defeated and walking out of the office.

“Have a nice day, students” The principal waved us goodbye as we went back to class.

-----

Luckily, things didn’t escalate further and neither of us got detention. I would have been so ashamed I may have jumped off the cliff! Having the adults against me again was bad, but Think-As-One is really powerful, they’ll know what to do!

Today was an awful day, of course. Robert was totally out of control and I think I should help him out, maybe speaking to him about considering Suppression?

“NO.” The voice corrected that thought, and it slowly faded away. What was I talking about? Oh, yes.

The principal thought I was getting into fights and tried to punish ME for it!

We tried to keep an eye on each other for the rest of the day, which went quite normally except for the fact that I heard Marlene scolding Robert for punching me at the recess.

Kevin never got to school, he was nowhere to be seen and neither my normal classmates or the dangerous club guys could help me out, because they haven’t seen him either.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Patrick asked me, a smile appearing on his serious face. We had already left school. Patrick had practice with his team, but decided to ditch it in favor of spending the evening with me. Such a sweet best friend I’ve got!

His house was a bit far from school thought, and from my house. He lived in the expensive part of the residential zone in Greenwood. The houses aren’t ‘mansions’ per se, but you could easily notice the difference that the architects tried to make.

“A bit worried, that’s all.” I didn’t want to worry him though, he was already mad because of our classmate’s bad behavior.

“If this is because of what happened, you shouldn’t worry. I’ll make sure everything goes back to normal by tomorrow morning, okay?” I always liked his city guy accent. It highly contrasted with my southern one.

That was one of the reasons his parents didn’t want me around at first, they thought I was taking advantage of my best friend’s wealth by hanging out with him. He wasn’t a very social guy, but not because of shyness, he was just raised to not trust ‘peasants’.

“I mean, besides that… I worry that I may have been a bit rough with Kevin today and now he ran off or something… Nobody has seen ‘im, y’know?”

“DON’T WORRY ABOUT THAT” The voice returned in my head. It was nice to listen to it, along with the song playing in my always-present earbud. But I was doubting it now. How could I not worry? Yeah, the song felt good in my head. Yeah, it was good to listen to it, but is it really worth being a good boy if I can’t even keep track of my old friends’ doings?

We reached Patrick’s room. 

Patrick’s room was spacious. I can’t remember coming here before, we used to hang out a lot by the woods and other secret spots around town.

His parents hated when he spent time with me and my old friends. Glad to see they don’t seem to have a problem anymore.

Patrick seemed sad, though.

“Do *you* have something that’s worrying you?” I asked him, once my friend closed the door and sat on his bed. He motioned me to go near him, and I did so.

“I mean, besides seeing you being mistreated by our classmates and the faculty members?” I felt myself blushing. The warmness inside of me returned. I have… feelings for Patrick. I don’t know how to call them. I’m sure I knew the name of this before, but the voice told me that it was wrong.

It was chaotic, bad, and often led to awful outcomes. Ditching that feeling was good for me, and I was thankful the voice did that. It took well care of me, just like Patrick takes good care of me, too.

“It’s okay, really. It was just a bad day, we’ll get to the bottom of this tomorrow. Let’s just… relax for a while?” I never knew how to flirt, nor I was attempting it right now. I just said what the warm feeling inside of me told me was right. It wasn’t a voice, it was just my own doing.

One of the only choices I get a say on lately: My words around Patrick.

He’s the reason I surrendered to be suppressed, after all!

Patrick smiled, then leaned in to kiss me. The warmness grew, and I could feel my dong dong growing too. I liked this… I… I loved this.

I shouldn’t have said that. I just like this, yeah. No need to use the L word, the less important L word. ‘Like’ was a perfect word, yeah.

I kissed him back, and got pushed back to the bed. He was on top of me, and continued to kiss me while getting his hands on my body underneath the polo. His caresses felt amazing, not going to lie!

Then, a little jolt of pain. “Ouchouchouch” I mumbled, slowly pulling away from him. Patrick stared at me, probably wondering what was wrong.

I lifted my shirt for a bit, and noticed a purple bruise at the spot I got punched by Robert.

“Oh, fuck… Brandon, I’m so sorry…” Patrick was apologizing? Why? He didn’t do this!

“It’s okay! Just a bruise, it’ll go after some days or so-”

“No, it’s not just the bruise. You’ve had an awful day and I couldn’t do anything to help” My best friend sat back on the edge of his bed, grabbing the sides of his head.

‘That’s not true!’ I thought, but I didn’t want to interrupt him. He seemed to be onto something and it would be rude to interrupt him.

“It’s all my fault… I’m the one to wanted to have you back… I wanted them to get you so we would be together again…” Wait, what? “I’m the one who fell for it and now you’re paying for my ass… I JUST WANT TO TALK TO HIM, LEAVE MY FUCKING HEAD!” 

The last words seemed weirdly out of context, but then he grabbed the earbud on his ear and threw it against a wall.

His breathing was heavy. He was agitated, and I was scared. Our earbuds were very important. I didn’t know why, but still we had to keep them on at EVERY moment. We can only take them off to charge for one or two hours a day, and they’d be at full power.

“Patrick…? Are you alright?” I asked him, wary. His sudden outburst was indeed pretty scary, but he was still my best friend.

Right?

He looked at the floor, where the earbud fell. The thing was broken, of course. The hit was pretty strong, and the song couldn’t be heard anymore coming out of it.

Patrick looked at me, nodding slowly. “Y-Yeah… shouldn’t have done that…” A long sigh. “Y-You should go, Don- Brandon. Please, I need some space.”

I nodded, and grabbed my bag. The voice in my head also told me I should leave, so it made giving some space to Patrick make so much sense. I noticed him looking as I walked towards the door and closed it behind me.

‘I just hope he’s alright’ I thought. Almost immediately, I got an answer from Think-As-One.

‘HE WILL BE. IN TIME.’

I didn’t find Patrick’s parents on the way out, so I just left the house and started making my way back to my house.

------

Chapter 7 is already available in my Patreon!  And by pledging you also get access to other stories before they go public!

#The Daylight Club #mind control #brainwashing #brainwash #gay hypnosis #straight to gay #hypnotized

[life-observed]

The Crane Wife

Ten days after I called off my engagement I was supposed to go on a scientific expedition to study the whooping crane on the gulf coast of Texas. Surely, I will cancel this trip, I thought, as I shopped for nylon hiking pants that zipped off at the knee. Surely, a person who calls off a wedding is meant to be sitting sadly at home, reflecting on the enormity of what has transpired and not doing whatever it is I am about to be doing that requires a pair of plastic clogs with drainage holes. Surely, I thought, as I tried on a very large and floppy hat featuring a pull cord that fastened beneath my chin, it would be wrong to even be wearing a hat that looks like this when something in my life has gone so terribly wrong.

Ten days earlier I had cried and I had yelled and I had packed up my dog and driven away from the upstate New York house with two willow trees I had bought with my fiancé.

Ten days later and I didn’t want to do anything I was supposed to do.

*

I went to Texas to study the whooping crane because I was researching a novel. In my novel there were biologists doing field research about birds and I had no idea what field research actually looked like and so the scientists in my novel draft did things like shuffle around great stacks of papers and frown. The good people of the Earthwatch organization assured me I was welcome on the trip and would get to participate in “real science” during my time on the gulf. But as I waited to be picked up by my team in Corpus Christi, I was nervous—I imagined everyone else would be a scientist or a birder and have daunting binoculars.

The biologist running the trip rolled up in in a large white van with a boat hitch and the words BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES stenciled across the side. Jeff was forty-ish, and wore sunglasses and a backward baseball cap. He had a winter beard and a neon-green cast on his left arm. He’d broken his arm playing hockey with his sons a week before. The first thing Jeff said was, “We’ll head back to camp, but I hope you don’t mind we run by the liquor store first.” I felt more optimistic about my suitability for science.

*

Not long before I’d called off my engagement it was Christmas.

The woman who was supposed to be my mother-in-law was a wildly talented quilter and made stockings with Beatrix Potter characters on them for every family member. The previous Christmas she had asked me what character I wanted to be (my fiancé was Benjamin Bunny). I agonized over the decision. It felt important, like whichever character I chose would represent my role in this new family. I chose Squirrel Nutkin, a squirrel with a blazing red tail—an epic, adventuresome figure who ultimately loses his tail as the price for his daring and pride.

I arrived in Ohio that Christmas and looked to the banister to see where my squirrel had found his place. Instead, I found a mouse. A mouse in a pink dress and apron. A mouse holding a broom and dustpan, serious about sweeping. A mouse named Hunca Munca. The woman who was supposed to become my mother-in-law said, “I was going to do the squirrel but then I thought, that just isn’t CJ. This is CJ.”

What she was offering was so nice. She was so nice. I thanked her and felt ungrateful for having wanted a stocking, but not this stocking. Who was I to be choosy? To say that this nice thing she was offering wasn’t a thing I wanted?

When I looked at that mouse with her broom, I wondered which one of us was wrong about who I was.

*

The whooping crane is one of the oldest living bird species on earth. Our expedition was housed at an old fish camp on the Gulf Coast next to the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, where three hundred of the only six hundred whooping cranes left in the world spend their winters. Our trip was a data-collecting expedition to study behavior and gather data about the resources available to the cranes at Aransas.

The ladies bunkhouse was small and smelled woody and the rows of single beds were made up with quilts. Lindsay, the only other scientist, was a grad student in her early twenties from Wisconsin who loved birds so much that when she told you about them she made the shapes of their necks and beaks with her hands—a pantomime of bird life. Jan, another participant, was a retired geophysicist who had worked for oil companies and now taught high school chemistry. Jan was extremely fit and extremely tan and extremely competent. Jan was not a lifelong birder. She was a woman who had spent two years nursing her mother and her best friend through cancer. They had both recently died and she had lost herself in caring for them, she said. She wanted a week to be herself. Not a teacher or a mother or a wife. This trip was the thing she was giving herself after their passing.

At five o’clock there was a knock on the bunk door and a very old man walked in, followed by Jeff.

“Is it time for cocktail hour?” Warren asked.

Warren was an eighty-four-year-old bachelor from Minnesota. He could not do most of the physical activities required by the trip, but had been on ninety-five Earthwatch expeditions, including this one once before.Warren liked birds okay. What Warren really loved was cocktail hour.

When he came for cocktail hour that first night, his thin, silver hair was damp from the shower and he smelled of shampoo. He was wearing a fresh collared shirt and carrying a bottle of impossibly good scotch.

Jeff took in Warren and Jan and me. “This is a weird group,” Jeff said.

“I like it,” Lindsay said.

*

In the year leading up to calling off my wedding, I often cried or yelled or reasoned or pleaded with my fiancé to tell me that he loved me. To be nice to me. To notice things about how I was living.

One particular time, I had put on a favorite red dress for a wedding. I exploded from the bathroom to show him. He stared at his phone. I wanted him to tell me I looked nice, so I shimmied and squeezed his shoulders and said, “You look nice! Tell me I look nice!” He said, “I told you that you looked nice when you wore that dress last summer. It’s reasonable to assume I still think you look nice in it now.”

Another time he gave me a birthday card with a sticky note inside that said BIRTHDAY. After giving it to me, he explained that because he hadn’t written in it, the card was still in good condition. He took off the sticky and put the unblemished card into our filing cabinet.

I need you to know: I hated that I needed more than this from him. There is nothing more humiliating to me than my own desires. Nothing that makes me hate myself more than being burdensome and less than self-sufficient. I did not want to feel like the kind of nagging woman who might exist in a sit-com.

These were small things, and I told myself it was stupid to feel disappointed by them. I had arrived in my thirties believing that to need things from others made you weak. I think this is true for lots of people but I think it is especially true for women. When men desire things they are “passionate.” When they feel they have not received something they need they are “deprived,” or even “emasculated,” and given permission for all sorts of behavior. But when a woman needs she is needy. She is meant to contain within her own self everything necessary to be happy.

That I wanted someone to articulate that they loved me, that they saw me, was a personal failing and I tried to overcome it.

When I found out that he’d slept with our mutual friend a few weeks after we’d first started seeing each other, he told me we hadn’t officially been dating yet so I shouldn’t mind. I decided he was right. When I found out that he’d kissed another girl on New Year’s Eve months after that, he said that we hadn’t officially discussed monogamy yet, and so I shouldn’t mind. I decided he was right.

I asked to discuss monogamy and, in an effort to be the sort of cool girl who does not have so many inconvenient needs, I said that I didn’t need it. He said he thought we should be monogamous.

*

Here is what I learned once I began studying whooping cranes: only a small part of studying them has anything to do with the birds. Instead we counted berries. Counted crabs. Measured water salinity. Stood in the mud. Measured the speed of the wind.

It turns out, if you want to save a species, you don’t spend your time staring at the bird you want to save. You look at the things it relies on to live instead. You ask if there is enough to eat and drink. You ask if there is a safe place to sleep. Is there enough here to survive?

Wading through the muck of the Aransas Reserve I understood that every chance for food matters. Every pool of drinkable water matters. Every wolfberry dangling from a twig, in Texas, in January, matters. The difference between sustaining life and not having enough was that small.

If there were a kind of rehab for people ashamed to have needs, maybe this was it. You will go to the gulf. You will count every wolfberry. You will measure the depth of each puddle.

*

More than once I’d said to my fiancé, How am I supposed to know you love me if you’re never affectionate or say nice things or say that you love me.

He reminded me that he’d said “I love you” once or twice before. Why couldn’t I just know that he did in perpetuity?

I told him this was like us going on a hiking trip and him telling me he had water in his backpack but not ever giving it to me and then wondering why I was still thirsty.

He told me water wasn’t like love, and he was right.

There are worse things than not receiving love. There are sadder stories than this. There are species going extinct, and a planet warming. I told myself: who are you to complain, you with these frivolous extracurricular needs?

*

On the gulf, I lost myself in the work. I watched the cranes through binoculars and recorded their behavior patterns and I loved their long necks and splashes of red. The cranes looked elegant and ferocious as they contorted their bodies to preen themselves. From the outside, they did not look like a species fighting to survive.

In the mornings we made each other sandwiches and in the evenings we laughed and lent each other fresh socks. We gave each other space in the bathroom. Forgave each other for telling the same stories over and over again. We helped Warren when he had trouble walking. What I am saying is that we took care of each other. What I am saying is we took pleasure in doing so. It’s hard to confess, but the week after I called off my wedding, the week I spent dirty and tired on the gulf, I was happy.

On our way out of the reserve, we often saw wild pigs, black and pink bristly mothers and their young, scurrying through the scrub and rolling in the dust among the cacti. In the van each night, we made bets on how many wild pigs we might see on our drive home.

One night, halfway through the trip, I bet reasonably. We usually saw four, I hoped for five, but I bet three because I figured it was the most that could be expected.

Warren bet wildly, optimistically, too high.

“Twenty pigs,” Warren said. He rested his interlaced fingers on his soft chest.

We laughed and slapped the vinyl van seats at this boldness.

But the thing is, we saw twenty pigs on the drive home that night. And in the thick of our celebrations, I realized how sad it was that I’d bet so low. That I wouldn’t even let myself imagine receiving as much as I’d hoped for.

*

What I learned to do, in my relationship with my fiancé, was to survive on less. At what should have been the breaking point but wasn’t, I learned that he had cheated on me. The woman he’d been sleeping with was a friend of his I’d initially wanted to be friends with, too, but who did not seem to like me, and who he’d gaslit me into being jealous of, and then gaslit me into feeling crazy for being jealous of.

The full course of the gaslighting took a year, so by the time I truly found out what had happened, the infidelity was already a year in the past.

It was new news to me but old news to my fiancé.

Logically, he said, it doesn’t matter anymore.

It had happened a year ago. Why was I getting worked up over ancient history?

I did the mental gymnastics required.

I convinced myself that I was a logical woman who could consider this information about having been cheated on, about his not wearing a condom, and I could separate it from the current reality of our life together.

Why did I need to know that we’d been monogamous? Why did I need to have and discuss inconvenient feelings about this ancient history?

I would not be a woman who needed these things, I decided.

I would need less. And less.

I got very good at this.

*

“The Crane Wife” is a story from Japanese folklore. I found a copy in the reserve’s gift shop among the baseball caps and bumper stickers that said GIVE A WHOOP. In the story, there is a crane who tricks a man into thinking she is a woman so she can marry him. She loves him, but knows that he will not love her if she is a crane so she spends every night plucking out all of her feathers with her beak. She hopes that he will not see what she really is: a bird who must be cared for, a bird capable of flight, a creature, with creature needs. Every morning, the crane-wife is exhausted, but she is a woman again. To keep becoming a woman is so much self-erasing work. She never sleeps. She plucks out all her feathers, one by one.

*

One night on the gulf, we bought a sack of oysters off a passing fishing boat. We’d spent so long on the water that day I felt like I was still bobbing up and down in the current as I sat in my camp chair. We ate the oysters and drank. Jan took the shucking knife away from me because it kept slipping into my palm. Feral cats trolled the shucked shells and pleaded with us for scraps.

Jeff was playing with the sighting scope we used to watch the birds, and I asked, “What are you looking for in the middle of the night?” He gestured me over and when I looked through the sight the moon swam up close.

I think I was afraid that if I called off my wedding I was going to ruin myself. That doing it would disfigure the story of my life in some irredeemable way. I had experienced worse things than this, but none threatened my American understanding of a life as much as a called-off wedding did. What I understood on the other side of my decision, on the gulf, was that there was no such thing as ruining yourself. There are ways to be wounded and ways to survive those wounds, but no one can survive denying their own needs. To be a crane-wife is unsustainable.

I had never seen the moon so up-close before. What struck me most was how battered she looked. How textured and pocked by impacts. There was a whole story written on her face—her face, which from a distance looked perfect.

*

It’s easy to say that I left my fiancé because he cheated on me. It’s harder to explain the truth. The truth is that I didn’t leave him when I found out. Not even for one night.

I found out about the cheating before we got engaged and I still said yes when he proposed in the park on a day we were meant to be celebrating a job I’d just gotten that morning. Said yes even though I’d told him I was politically opposed to the diamonds he’d convinced me were necessary. Said yes even though he turned our proposal into a joke by making a Bachelor reference and giving me a rose. I am ashamed of all of this.

He hadn’t said one specific thing about me or us during the proposal, and on the long trail walk out of the park I felt robbed of the kind of special declaration I’d hoped a proposal would entail, and, in spite of hating myself for wanting this, hating myself more for fishing for it, I asked him, “Why do you love me? Why do you think we should get married? Really?”

He said he wanted to be with me because I wasn’t annoying or needy. Because I liked beer. Because I was low-maintenance.

I didn’t say anything. A little further down the road he added that he thought I’d make a good mother.

This wasn’t what I hoped he would say. But it was what was being offered. And who was I to want more?

I didn’t leave when he said that the woman he had cheated on me with had told him over the phone that she thought it was unfair that I didn’t want them to be friends anymore, and could they still?

I didn’t leave when he wanted to invite her to our wedding. Or when, after I said she could not come to our wedding, he got frustrated and asked what he was supposed to do when his mother and his friends asked why she wasn’t there.

Reader, I almost married him.

*

Even now I hear the words as shameful: Thirsty. Needy. The worst things a woman can be. Some days I still tell myself to take what is offered, because if it isn’t enough, it is I who wants too much. I am ashamed to be writing about this instead of writing about the whooping cranes, or literal famines, or any of the truer needs of the world.

But what I want to tell you is that I left my fiancé when it was almost too late. And I tell people the story of being cheated on because that story is simple. People know how it goes. But it’s harder to tell the story of how I convinced myself I didn’t need what was necessary to survive. How I convinced myself it was my lack of needs that made me worthy of love.

*

After cocktail hour one night, in the cabin’s kitchen, I told Lindsay about how I’d blown up my life the week before. I told her because I’d just received a voice mail saying I could get a partial refund for my high-necked wedding gown. The refund would be partial because they had already made the base of the dress but had not done any of the beadwork yet. They said the pieces of the dress could still be unstitched and used for something else. I had caught them just in time.

I told Lindsay because she was beautiful and kind and patient and loved good things like birds and I wondered what she would say back to me. What would every good person I knew say to me when I told them that the wedding to which they’d RSVP’d was off and that the life I’d been building for three years was going to be unstitched and repurposed?

Lindsay said it was brave not to do a thing just because everyone expected you to do it.

Jeff was sitting outside in front of the cabin with Warren as Lindsay and I talked, tilting the sighting scope so it pointed toward the moon. The screen door was open and I knew he’d heard me, but he never said anything about my confession.

What he did do was let me drive the boat.

The next day it was just him and me and Lindsay on the water. We were cruising fast and loud. “You drive,” Jeff shouted over the motor. Lindsay grinned and nodded. I had never driven a boat before. “What do I do?” I shouted. Jeff shrugged. I took the wheel. We cruised past small islands, families of pink roseate spoonbills, garbage tankers swarmed by seagulls, fields of grass and wolfberries, and I realized it was not that remarkable for a person to understand what another person needed.

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/07/16/the-crane-wife/

#CJ Hauser #The crane wife #Essay #story #self #love #relAtionship #break up #grief #marriage #true story #storytelling #paris review #gaslighting

[whateverittakestoavenge]

Last of the Red Room (Part Three)

Avengers X Reader

Part One Part Two

Y/N eyes were watering from the blunt trauma received to her nose. Annalise was four years older than her and she had about an extra forty pounds on her. Right now, Y/n wasn’t winning and she knew that wasn’t acceptable.

Annalise had maneuvered Y/N onto the ground, giving Y/N only three seconds to win before she had to surrender. Thinking quickly Y/n used all her might to headbutt Analise in the head, causing the older girl to throw her body back far enough for Y/n to gain the upper hand.

In a great gust of speed, Y/N had crawled onto Annalise back, locking her arm around the bigger girl’s neck. Annalise had accepted her loss, tapping out.

Madame B, who had stood in the corner of the room the whole time, gave Y/N an all too familiar look. With a nod and tug of her arm, Y/n broke Annalise’s neck, killing her instantly.

“Losing to a child is inadmissible. If you lose to Y/n, let this be the new punishment. Now,” She added with a sickly smile, “everyone go get your ballet slippers, it times to dance.”

---

“We are here to return for the child we left in your care 13 years ago.” The German spoke harshly and quickly.

Baron Wolfgang von Strucker had arrived at the academy needing to secure Hydra’s Future. Their greatest weapon was gone, the Winter Soldier, had fled after the battle in D.C., leaving them with an open position.

Madame B, the school’s headmistress, was not easily swayed by the man’s demands. “She isn’t prepared yet, she hasn’t had her graduation ceremony.” The Academy followed protocol for every girl’s exit. The sterilization was used to take away whatever little bit of humanity the girls had left.

“We have no time for your silly tradition, now bring us the girl,” Strucker sneered to the old woman.

“You asked me to be harder on her than the others, and now you want to take her out before she is even finished? This is absolutely absurd,” Madame B had said in a cool tone. She never lost her composure.

She had no time to add anything else to the conversation before the Baron left her office.

Y/N stood outside of Madame B’s study eavesdropping on her conversation. She didn’t know the man, but she knew he was here for her. She has been in the program longer than anyone. She was never told why.

Strucker exits the room, followed by Madame B. “Go get your things girl, we have big things planned for you.” The man had a cold voice, but YN wasn’t scared, she was almost comfortable with the harshness, she had never known warmth in all years.

Y/N stood by her bed. She had never had anything of her own so she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to bring with her. As she stood in the dormitory, Madame B approached her.

“You will do great things for Hydra.” Madame B had been a constant in the girl’s life. She supposed she would be fine with Strucker, Y/N had taken orders her whole life, now she was just taking them from someone else.

“What if I fail?” For the first time in her thirteen years, Y/N sounded uncertain.

“We both know you never fail. You were trained too well to fail.” That was all the reassurance Y/N needed and all the reassurance the headmistress was going to give.

The headmistress took Y/N’s hand and placed a pair of handcuffs into the young girl’s palm. It may have been the most sincere act the Head Mistress had ever shown Y/N. Every night of her life.Y/N had slept with her left handcuffed to the bedpost. The cuffs were the only thing she would bring with her as she left.

And within twenty minutes, Y/N exited the only place she ever knew. As she descended down the staircase, she made eye contact with every girl she grew up with. And then she exited the Red Room, without looking back.

---

As soon as Y/N arrived in Sokovia, she was lead to a room that housed seven men and women.

“You know what to do.” And with that Strucker slammed the door behind him. The soldiers pounced on the young girl, giving Y/N little time to react.

She had managed to knock one woman unconscious before the remaining 6 had backed her into a corner. She could’ve easily been beaten to death had an alarm not been blaring, signaling the soldiers to stop.

Strucker then came into the room to send the soldiers away, while a medic came to carry the unconscious woman away. “Soldaten, zurück zu deinen Stationen.”

“You did better than expected. They were all elite soldiers and you managed to take out one. By the time we are done with you, you will be able to demolish 10 people all on your own.” Strucker then shut and locked the door, leaving Y/N all alone.

Y/N noticed a bed in the corner, grabbed her bag and removed the cuffs out of it. She then cuffed her left arm and went to sleep only to be met with an agonizing nightmare.

---

“Pietro, I- I’m scared.” I was buried under rubble in a building but, I wasn’t alone. I had a boy my aged with me.

“Quiet, Wanda.” The boy, Pietro, was shaking.

“Pietro, Mama, and Papa, they’re dead.” Y/N suddenly felt a pain she had never felt before, losing two people who cared deeply for her.

“I know, Wanda, keep still. Help will be here soon.” The boy was only trying to comfort his sister, he moved closer to her to take her hand when with all of the shifting, more rubble came crashing down on the pair.

Y/N suddenly woke up, unable to breathe, feeling suffocated. She didn’t know who the siblings were or why she was dreaming about them. She put it back in her mind and went to sleep.

---

Within the next six months, Y/N’s had finally been able to pass Strucker’s test, defeating ten soldiers singlehandedly. The day after she met his expectations, the Baron had arrived in Y/N’s room with a gurney.

“Come, it is now time for you to become the person you were born to be.” Strucker had a sickening happy look on his face. He gestured to the gurney, and Y/N climbed on ready to be wheeled to her future.

As Y/N was in the medical area being prepped for the procedure, Hans Schmidt, the head scientist, turned toward Baron von Strucker with doubts. Countless others have died due to not physically being able to withstand the procedure.

“Is she strong enough to withstand this, sir?”

“Of course, she’s been training her whole life, and the ones before were never strong enough to take on our soldiers. ”

----

Y/N woke up feeling different. Nothing hurt and everything hurt. She couldn’t pinpoint what was wrong she just had a weird feeling in her whole body.

Strucker had entered her room with a genuine smile on his face. “You have made me incredibly proud.”

Y/N wanted answers. “What did you-you do to me?”

“You are aware of Captain America, correct?” After Y/N nodded he continued. “The super soldier serum that was used on him, has failed on every single person except for Steven Rogers. So we made our own, modifying it to fit our needs. And after years of trying it’s worked. On you.”

“So I’m super strong now?”

“You are so much more than strong. We gave you something special. A gift, really. In your bloodstream, now runs the venom of a Viperidae. You are now able to poison anyone by simply exposing them to your blood. Come, we must upgrade your training regime, it’s time you met the twins.”

Y/N had no fucking clue what they turned her into.

----

She hated the twins. Really fucking hated them.

She was confused on to how she recognized them, then remembered the dream she had on her first night in Sokovia.

The boy, Pietro, would run circles around Y/N, causing her to black out from lack of oxygen. But it was the girl that she wanted to kill.

Wanda Maximoff picked Y/N’s mind apart piece by piece. She could no longer eat or sleep. Every time she closed her eyes the Maximoff girl was there sending Y/N farther along her downward spiral. Y/N was a walking shell of the already empty person she was to begin with.

Y/N had found out the reason as to why she and the twins were in Hydra’s possession. The Avengers had outed Hydra towards the world and caused them to lose their greatest weapon, the Winter Soldier.

Y/N knew one of the Avengers. Natalia, or Natasha as she went by now, had graduated the Red Room when Y/N was very young. She was the star pupil of the Black Widow Program. And she betrayed everything the Academy stood for. She turned her back on the KGB. On Madame B. On Y/N.

Y/N remembered Natasha teaching her to speak Latin. It was an almost fond memory. She had no more fond feelings towards her. Natasha Romanoff was off pretending she was something else. Y/N hated her. She was no hero and she needed to stop acting like one.

---

Strucker was tired of the girl’s ungratefulness. So he gave her a mission.

“I don’t understand, why I am back at the Red Room?” Y/N was confused. No one comes back to the red room after leaving.

“You are going to burn it. Set it aflame. Make it go boom.”

For the first time in her life, Y/N begged. She pleaded with Strucker to not make her do it.

“Please, this is my home.”

“People like you never have a home. Now, do it, before Maximoff makes you.”

Y/N could hear their screams as she walked away from the Red Room. She did something for the first time in years, she wiped tears away from her face. So Y/N shut her emotions off, for good. It would be many years before she would ever be able to feel again.

---

“Viper, get up. The Avengers have entered the compound. Escort the scientists out through the tunnel.” Y/N left her cell towards the scientific section of the building. She had no interest in fighting the Avengers.

As Y/N was leading the Scientist through the tunnel, Hans Schmidt made a comment that would cost him his life.

“We can’t lose any of this research, we’ll never be able to create more people like the twins if we do.”

Y/N didn’t want any more people like the Maximoff’s in this world, so she did the only reasonable thing, she killed the people who responsible for creating them in the first place.

With eleven dead bodies around her, Y/N didn’t even grimace. She knew that Hydra stood no match against the Avengers. They beat an alien army for god's sake. She made her way to the roof to access the damage.

Hydra’s agents were littered everywhere. The Maximoffs were nowhere to be seen. So Y/N headed back to the tunnels to go somewhere new.

As she was walking down the road, an older man stopped to offer her a ride.

“Where to?” The old man seemed to be a jolly person, a glass half full type. God, she hated people like that.

“The bus stop,” Y/N replied sweetly. She was taught espionage so she could pretend to be a nice person for a car ride.

The man had wanted to talk on the way to the bus station. “I have a daughter around your age. Light of my life, even when she’s in a bad mood. So sweetly, whatever your parents did, it’s best for you to go home.”

Oh god, he thought she was a runaway.

“Ok, so say my parents hand me over to a group of Nazi scientist as an infant, who in turn hand me over to an assassin school fronting as a dance academy, who then give me to Nazi scientists, to experiment on me. So, should I return to my parents?”

The old man wasn’t sure how to respond. He brought the car to a stop, unsure of how to proceed with the teenager in his vehicle.

Y/N smile a vicious smile, worthy of a viper, and then in one swift motion, grabbed a knife from her boot and slashed her palm open. The dark protruding blood was smeared on the old man, causing him to break out in venomous boils, killing him quickly.

Y/N pushed the old man out of the car and then drove away without looking back. She had people she wanted to find.

---

“Clint, I need your help.” Natasha Romanoff felt sick to her stomach after hearing Wanda’s tales about Y/N.

“What do you need, Nat.” Clint was tired, he was enjoying retirement, but Nat wanted to pull him back in.

“I need you to help me find someone. Someone who grew up like I did. I wanna help her.”

---

 "Soldaten, zurück zudeinen Stationen."=“Soldiers, back to your stations.”

Sorry it took so long to get this chapter finished! Please let me know how you guys feel about this chapter! If you want to be tagged let me know!

---

@ludwigvonbaethoven @just-some-stars @chloe-geoghegan1 @what-inspirational-name @cecedofficial @infinitystones2018  @euphoniumpets  @kewl-r @-thatgirloverthere-  @fiftyshadesofriri @wolfiea03 @fatalecoffee

#avengers x reader #avengers endgame #avengers fic #peter parker x reader #tony stark #avengers #avengers imagine #avengers infinity war #clint barton #natasha romanoff #steve rogers #wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x reader #pietro maximoff #natasha romanoff x reader #age of ultron

[dearericbittle]

Sterek masterpost

So, now that I’ve written 30 (!) Sterek fics, I figured it was about time that I made a masterpost of my stories. You can find the full list on my Tumblr as well!

Been here before and it just feels right (strangers tonight) - (T, 3.4k) Summary: Derek Hale was an awkward teenager, but he grew into himself. He grew out of that pulling pigtails phase. Shame that being reunited with his old crush brings it all back. Even worse: Stiles doesn’t even seem to recognize him. Or does he?

Better that I break the window (than miss what I should see) - (M, 9k) Summary: Someone opened Stiles’ window. But he’s all the way on the 7th floor - how the fuck did that happen? Spoiler alert: werewolves are real. And really hot.

Bring on the monsters (bring on the real world) - (E, 11.1k) Summary: He was supposed to be making an impression on Lydia, but instead he’s making fun of a terrible werewolf costume. To be fair, those mutton chops remind him of Michael J. Fox in the worst way, and the guy didn’t appear to be too offended. He was too busy smelling Stiles for some reason. He really shouldn’t have forgotten cologne.

but that’s just a first impression (I could be totally wrong) - (T, 2.9k) Summary: Derek is on a really awful blind date (Laura will pay for this). But the waiter is really cute.

The coolest wolf in the whole wide world - (T, 8.3k) Summary: Stiles is surprisingly good at being a wolf. Like, super good at control, loves the drama of making weird entrances, and determined to try all the things. Because he has to find out what’s different about being a wolf. And Derek is going to be his Yoda, whether he wants to or not. Only Stiles is pretty sure Yoda never smelled this good.

Detective Stiles Stilinski and the Case of Derek Hale’s Mysterious Mate - (T, 5.6k) Summary: Mates are a thing. A werewolf thing. Which is fine and shit, but finding out that Derek fucking Hale has a mate? That gets to him. And seeing as Derek won’t tell him who it is, well… Guess that means this is a job for Detective Stiles Stilinski - if he’s not too distracted by his traditional banter with Derek.

Everything mixed up (and baked in a beautiful pie) - (T, 6/6, 42k) Summary: Stiles’ friends are more of a pain in the ass than usual around the holiday season. Just because he spends all of his time at his bakery, doesn’t mean he’s unhappy. So hiring a fake boyfriend seems like the perfect, simple solution. Instead Stiles stumbles onto a stupid quest to make Derek Hale happy. But surely that will all work out in time.

Fit hot guys have problems too (don’t objectify us with your male and female gaze) - (T, 1.7k) Summary: To Cora, 1:24 AM: im tired of guys just wanting to hook up with me. im like, guys, i know im pretty and i have a slammin bod and i love making out, but cant someone treat me with respect?? Derek is tired of being objectified. Enter Stiles Stilinski, hot mess who has an opinion about everything. Derek is surprisingly intrigued.

Gymnophoria - (T, 0.9k) Summary: Stiles is paranoid - he keeps feeling someone’s eyes on him. Surprisingly, no nefarious plans happen.

He got lost in my DMs (wanna be way more than friends) - (T, 2.8k) Summary: Derek is somewhat of an online hero, providing candid pictures of himself to anyone who wants persistent suitors to just go away already. Stiles… is suddenly surrounded by assholes who apparently really want to hear about how great his fake boyfriend is. Part 1 of Slide into those DMs

Heard you were tough (but you don’t look it) - (T, 3.6k) Summary: Derek is a protective Alpha, and whenever he sees a human in danger, he has to step in. Usually people are grateful. This guy? Not so much. 3 times Derek saves that ungrateful magic user’s life, and 3 times the ungrateful asshole saved his in return

Here we are two strangers (with nothing but this little spark) - (T, 6k) Summary: Stiles is only at this masquerade party for revenge. Theo Raeken has taken everything from him, and this is the only way he can get close enough to ruin his fucking life. He gets sidetracked by a mysterious stranger who’s looking for revenge of his own. Maybe they can help each other…

I might never be (your knight in shining armor) - (T, 2.9k) Summary: So, in Stiles’ defence, he didn’t actually know that the woman harassing the dude-sel in distress was an actual witch. Or that the dude in question was an Alpha werewolf who claimed to be able to handle himself. Stiles agrees to disagree on that one.

I take this magnetic force of a man (to be my lover) - (T, 6k) Summary: Derek is pretty happy with the mate he’s somehow chosen, even though Stiles has no idea - and no interest in Derek. But that’s fine. Except Peter just has to open his big mouth, because he clearly wants to ruin Derek’s life. Part 2 of Laura Hale is the best Alpha

I’d be a fearless leader (I’d be an Alpha type) - (T, 7.8k) Summary: Most teenagers would run off if they found a bleeding half-wolf, half-lady with red eyes snarling at them. But Stiles’ fight or flight response has always been a little fucked, and Laura Hale looks like she could use a break. Part 1 of Laura Hale is the best Alpha

I’m gonna light a spark (gonna hold my breath until the morning) - (T, 2.5k) Summary: Derek hates the bus, hates how people use it as an excuse to sit close to him and bat their eyelashes at him. And then this stranger who smells like home just falls asleep on his lap.

Lie under different stars (I’ve not seen you in the flesh for so long) - (T, 3,4k) Summary: In which Laura Hale is a queen of holding on to childhood mementos and seeing things her brother won’t, and Derek Hale rediscovers his love of Mischief.

The man who’s gonna marry you (make you feel alive) - (T, 4.2k) Summary: Only Finstock could marry the wrong people. Only Greenberg could fill out the papers wrong, but Finstock didn’t even check. It was like he wanted Stiles to be married to Derek Hale. And no one would want that, except maybe… Stiles.

No more dark sad lonely (k)nights - (T, 2k) Summary: Derek is an Alpha without an emissary, so his nosy betas made sure he attended the convention. Stiles is clearly in the wrong convention hall, because his Batman cosplay does not appear to be going over well.

Old you in the garbage (new you in display case) - (T, 13.4k) Summary: Stiles is lonely and desperate and suffering from a crush on the grumpiest librarian. So what’s a boy to do but cook up a ridiculous plan to get himself dated and/or finally get laid before the holidays? He just wants his She’s All That moment, okay? He never expected that the plan would actually help him get the guy.

Real life isn’t a movie (life doesn’t make narrative sense) - (M, 11.6k) Summary: Somehow accidentally insulting a hot guy in a coffee shop leads to pretending to be his boyfriend in front of a house full of werewolves. Stiles Stilinski is living his best life and making the most of his Hallmark movie moment.

Shoot your shot when you see em (he’s already in my DMs) - (T, 3.9k) Summary: Derek may or may not be falling in love with one of Laura’s employees, and he’s only ever spoken to him on the phone. Stiles doesn’t even know his name! But apparently, he does know how to slide into his DMs. Part 2 of Slide into those DMs

Some Cupid kills with arrows (some with mistletoe) - (T, 9.5k) Summary: It’s the same thing every time. Derek Hale comes home, the town is in a snit, and Stiles Stilinski polishes his metaphorical armor and gets ready for a battle of wits. Not that he considers Derek’s comments particularly witty. Their friends are just tired of the sexual tension and the rampant egos, and they’re ready to do something about it.

Such great heights (corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces) - (T, 3.3k) Summary: In which everyone in the pack is together and alive, because fuck canon. In which Stiles is surprised that Derek’s super hearing fails him. He just wants to know how tall Derek is, why is that such a big deal?

Teach me how to thrive (i was a loser just like you) - (T, 4.9k) Summary: Scott was cool now - the Squip had made sure of that. Stiles? Not so cool. All he has left are his cryptic conversations with perpetually wasted Derek Hale as he desperately tries to get an evil computer chip from taking over Beacon Hills.

We were young once (innocent and fun once) - (T, 5,3k) Summary: So maybe making Lydia jealous is just an excuse for him to finally talk to Derek Hale - it’s been ten years and clearly that high school crush is not over. There’s just a lot more to Derek than he was expecting.

We’ll put on a show (Scotty has to know) - (T, 7.7k) Summary: Stiles is a stubborn asshole, determined to have fun in Europe even though Scott stays behind in Belgium because of a girl. So asking a stranger to make out with him for the ‘Gram? Totally the best decision he’s ever made, and not just because that’ll totally show Jackson (and Scott!). Shame he won’t see the guy again, though.

What it looks like to forget (it’s easier that way) - (T, 4.9k) Summary: He has no idea who he is, but the stranger with the whiskey eyes is calling him Derek. And the guy has been sitting at his bedside for three days, so he’s got some credit. Especially because the guy smells like he should be his - though that is a supremely weird thought that he probably needs to figure out first.

You want forgiveness (I’ll give that to you) - (T, 2.8k) Summary: Derek is running from the Alpha, suffering from wolfsbane poisoning and he’s clearly losing it. Why else would he be seeing his mother - and everyone else he might as well have killed himself. But Stiles can’t just let him get what he deserves. Stiles never leaves him behind, even when he should.

You’re moving me around you (I said darling hold me) - (T, 14,5k) Summary: Derek is the only beta in a pack of two, blaming himself for the loss of their entire family. When his sister pays someone to get him used to human contact again, Derek preps himself for a couple unwilling handshakes before he kicks the stranger out of his den. Stiles is… not what Derek expected.

#sterek #sterek fanfiction #masterpost #all the fic

[i-am-here-with-fanfic]

It was going to happen either way (All Might x Reader) Chapter 1/5

I have a few things to. say: I wrote this story last year (2018) because I was feeling down, I just remembered that it existed in my note app. A few songs were inspired, I will linked them down below, just beware that they are in Spanish, which is why I provided the english lyrics.

~~~

Your dream became a reality.

You became the number 1 musician in the world, with tickets being sold out every time you had a concert to sing at. Your quirk was Empathy, and you used your quirk with the music you made. Being a hero was something you always wanted to be, inspired by the all mighty All Might. Something about him made you happy and his warming grin was it.

But you failed, not having a powerful quirk you knew that you were destined to become a hero but it didn't come to you what until you listened to music. When you were happy, you listened to the music but when you were sad, you listened to the lyrics and it was so weird how music could do that to you, in relating to the music, feeling the emotions.

At age 17, you were given a guitar by your grandpa who was a less popular guitarist and he taught you how to play

In the family reunions, you sang for your family. You let the strumming of your guitar and the lyrics reached into their hearts and understand your message. If it was a happy song, they would get happy. If it was sad, they would get sad. It was a way for you to show your realism ideology to people and you were discovered by a music agency. You were in a hero program, not U.A. because of your lack of combat skills but a program to gain knowledge of heroism. You didn't mind it wasn't U.A. but it was a longshot. You worked hard to graduate with honors and to work in the music agency. You met Present Mic there because of his Mic quirk and you were just intrigued of it. The agency was a hero agency but it also provided music production. You met a lot of people who had instrumental quirks, like a Bass Drum that used his belly to produce the ugliest and the most beautiful bong. The ugliest cause villains to be in pain in their ear drum, the beautiful part was used in the band.

You were the only one that did not have an instrumental quirk but the first one to use your quirk in music that can help people.

In the recording booth, you sat on the chair and when signaled, began singing:

If only you had told me

The truth always

If only you responded to my calls

If only you loved me when I loved you

You would've been in my dreams as the best man

If you didn't know how to love, now is the time to march!

If only you had known what I suffered for you

Having to forget you without knowing why

And now you call, you want to see me

You vowed you changed and think of returning.

Get away from me, there's nothing left to talk about.

With you I lost, now I have someone to win.

And that, was the start of your music career.

The women and even men understood your music, the breakups that lead to crying only made them stronger in finding relationships. Girls would send you fan-mail about them forgetting their ex and finding someone who truly change their life for better and you would respond. That was when your fans were from 200 to 300.

Now, you would send videos of your respond as you read comments from your phone along with your boyfriend (named Hiroki Tsuki, who was number 2 in music), thanking them and responding to the questions. You were kind-hearted, emotional, sympathetic and golden-hearted. With his popularity, you went up to rank 3 but you didn't care since you were blinded by the love you received from him, when you alone and out in public.

In the interviews, you were asked who inspired you to go to the music industry and you responded with:

"I've always wanted to be a hero, and it was every hero that would push me further into having some kind of cool quirk, saving people, making sure they have the best life they can enjoy. But one hero in specific gave me that hope to continue...All Might. When I was given the results and rejected by U.A., I didn't let it affect me, because All Might's smile...he, in some way was giving me this sense of "Don't give up, there's something for you, you just have to search for it"."

You sounded so dreamily, as if he was your prince charming and you were 20 when you gave that answer.

In another interview, you were surprised to see All Might walk out of the curtains in his hero costume. In person, he was incredibly handsome, and the smile you admired for so many years, was bright with hope.

The host of the show made you two play a game after the interview to give entertainment for the audience. The premise here is simple. You square off against a friend in a game of blackjack. The person who loses each hand gets, well, a hand — to the face. And, really, what's more fun than slapping someone with giant prosthetic digits? Playing with All Might who was the inspiration of the giant, foamy hands was a lot of fun and you two were enjoying the game more than expected. He would laugh so heartedly when you had to place the giant hand on his face and you stifled your laughs every time he did it to you.

After it was over, you were inspired to write a song, called "Give you a Kiss." that left people with pleads and theories that you two were dating and your boyfriend jealous.

The lyrics that made so many "(All Might x y/n ship-name)" fans born and take over the internet was:

"To love you how I love you is complicated

Thinking how I think of you is a sin

To look at you like I do is prohibited

Touch you how I want to is a crime

Now I don't know what to do

For you to be okay

To turn off the sun to light up your smile

Speak in Portuguese

Learn to talk French

Or bring the moon to your feet

I only want to give you a kiss

And give you my mornings

Sing to calm your fears

I want you to not miss a thing."

When that was published, you were ranked number 1 from fans' support and the music productions.

That was also when hell was at your doorstep. You were eating with your boyfriend in a restaurant, you peacefully and he was tensed. You noticed but you didn't want to ask, he was like this for a long time and you were afraid of him hurting you with words. You gulped softly and risked it all, just so you can get it out of the way, "What's wrong, Tsuki?"

You sounded so calm, you wanted to let him know that you wanted to talk about it and he took it the wrong way. Even your quirk didn't work on him. He was too prideful and too angry, his emotions controlled him.

The next thing you didn't expect and it felt like it was going slow when you saw him push the table away, causing many gasps and screams to appear. You sat there, in shock and you saw a beast right across you.

"YOURE CHEATING ON ME ARENT YOU?! WITH THAT STUPID HERO, ALL MIGHT!! ARENT YOU?!"

You were humiliated but you continued to sit there, "I'm not...you should know this Tsuki...You read all my messages, I know how Open I am..."

He scoffs, his eyes going red. His quirk was mood. His eyes change color by which mood he was, now you really knew he was mad and he was capable of hurting you and others but you sat there in shock, not knowing what to do. His target was you, that you knew.

"YES, I KNOW HOW OPEN YOU ARE." And he chuckles, "I WAS THE ONE WHO OPENED YOU UP!!!"

You felt tears go down your cheeks, you couldn't believe your ears. He was betraying you and humiliating you further.

"DID "HE" OPEN YOU UP MORE? HUH?! DID YOU OPEN UP FOR HIM?!"

"YOU IDIOT!" You cried out, looking down a bit. "YOU IDIOT IDIOT IDIOT!!!" Paparazzis were taking pictures and videos of the incident. Some people were already recording.

You cried, hoping someone was going to save you and you silently prayed for someone to save you and it was your security. Police arrived and pushed the paparazzi out of the way and held down Tsuki to take him to jail for public destruction in the restaurant.

You were taken to your house and you called the agency to cancel your tours and interviews. You were in your house for 2 months crying and screaming. Paparazzi tried to get you vulnerable but you were completely isolated, thanks to your security, it was very likely you can cry in peace.

You watched TV, news about the scene that ocurred. The humiliation that made you go through and to start blaming on All Might.

"If he hadn't been in the host show, Tsuki wouldnt have been jealous."

"You stupid All Might fans, is this what you support? The violence that had to go through the greatest couple in the world? Stop this Ship now!!"

You were infuriated that they do that when he had no relation to it. You haven't posted on social media in that time frame, you haven't even turned on your phone to avoid calls and messages until now.

You opened up your laptop and read every message. Many called you vulgar names, some gave you inspiring messages, that it was going to end soon, that was going to be okay. Someone even gave you the link to your first song. The song that started all. The song of betrayal and going forward. Your mind took control and made you look at the TV screen, to see a sad host older woman of the show.

"...I will risk my own life, my own job just to say this in front of the cameras and I hope your watching this (y/n). And I hope you ungrateful people watch this. I am a quirkless human, I have a family. (Y/n) had a terrible day and you defending the awful Hiroki tsuki is worse than being called a criminal. What has she done to him? To you? You remember how she started? By singing from her heart, from her emotions. To let you know that you are not alone and through her music to help you move on. After this ocurred, what did you do?" She was glaring at the camera, her fist clenched. You cried silently as you heard her defend you. You released your quirk, for kilometers so everyone can feel what you felt. The pure sadness that erupted from you. You saw the lady on TV stop glaring and her eyes start tearing up. " I know I'm not the only feeling that...you guys feel that? She's sad!! She sad for what you made! SHE MADE MUSIC FOR YOU, TO HELP YOU RECOVER AND NOW THAT THIS HAPPEN, WHO IS GOING TO BE THERE FOR HER?! WELL, I AM HERE! (Y/N), I AM HERE!!!"

Your quirk was on for more than two minutes and such power made you bleed through your mouth, coughing out a bit and when hearing that from her, you smiled small and that emotion travelled through the people until it got to the woman again. She relaxed a bit and smiled softly.

"Let me in honey...please...my sweet daughter...let me be there for you." As she let the tears roll down her face. There was a sense of hope, until you felt a quick pain in your head from a whack that immediately stopped your quirk to function as you fell unconsciously on the fell and the man in the shadows, with maroon eyes glared at you.

He punched the wall and that caused the news and paparazzi to look over at your house. To see you in your white pajamas being taken by someone fast. He laughed for a short while he taken you somewhere.

#toshinori yagi #all might #bnha #bnha toshinori #mha toshinori #all might x reader #toshinori yagi x reader #toshinori x reader #original story

[waveridden]

FIC: we only ever wanted one thing from this

“Aria, you recently passed away after one of your concerts. Right now, you and I are in what you would call the afterlife.” 

A Good Place AU, Aria/Jacqui, 1.7k. All my love to @leonstamatis, who had the original idea and let me use it for this.

AUcember || read on ao3

#

The door opens, and there’s a man standing there, handsome and dark-skinned. “Aria,” he says, and smiles. “Come on in.”

Aria isn’t sure what’s going on, because she doesn’t remember coming to this room, or where she is. But years of practice take over, and she gets to her feet and smiles. “Of course.”

She lets the man lead her into what must be his office, a simple and brightly-colored room. There’s some clutter, enough that it looks lived in, but Aria’s first thought is that it feels like a movie set.

“Have a seat,” the man says, and Aria does. He sits at his desk and smiles. “Aria, my name is Ibex. I’m the architect of this neighborhood.”

“What, like the landscaper?” Aria cranes her neck to look out the window. The neighborhood outside is positively idyllic. Everything is sunshiney and pristine, and there are people walking by holding hands and laughing. “Whoa. We’re in a nice part of town.”

“Do you know where you are?”

“I’m assuming I’m still somewhere in LA, right?”

“Not exactly.” Ibex’s smile takes on a sympathetic turn. “Aria, you recently passed away after one of your concerts. Right now, you and I are in what you would call the afterlife.”

“Oh,” Aria says, because there’s not much else to say to something like that. She lifts one of her hands in front of her face. It doesn’t look ghostly or anything, so she lifts her other hand and pokes her palm. Her finger doesn’t go through, so that seems like a good sign. Or maybe a bad sign. She looks up at Ibex, who’s still smiling sympathetically at her. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m afraid I’m sure.”

“So did I make it up top?”

Ibex laughs. “Yes, Aria, you made it up top. You’re in the good place, don’t worry.”

Aria relaxes into her chair. “Okay, good, because this would be a really weird aesthetic for hell.”

“It would, wouldn’t it,” Ibex says musingly. “Well, you’ve arrived in your neighborhood, where you’ll be spending the rest of your days. As the architect, I wanted to be the first person to welcome you, and I’ll be personally showing you around soon.”

“Cool,” Aria says. Something about this seems incredibly weird, but maybe she’s just not used to the way that the place works yet. Of course she feels out of place when everything around her is manicured to hell and back. She’s sure she can find ways to manicure herself to match. That’ll be fun, getting to look like she’s a native person in literal, actual heaven.

“Excellent,” Ibex says. “AuDy?”

“Hello,” says a voice behind Aria. She nearly falls out of her chair turning around in surprise, and there’s a robot standing there. An actual robot.

“Uh, hi,” Aria says. “How did you-”

“I am Automated Dynamics,” says the robot. “You may call me AuDy. I am the physical form of the informational system for this neighborhood. I am here to guide you and answer your questions.”

“All my questions?” She pauses. “How did I end up here? Not that I’m disappointed or anything, but-”

“You earned a total of more than twelve million points,” AuDy says, which explains both everything and nothing.

Aria turns back to Ibex. “Can you tell me what that means?”

“Every action that you take on Earth accumulates points, whether those are positive or negative. Only the people with the highest point totals are able to enter the good place.” Ibex smiles faintly. “AuDy, Aria and I are going to walk through the neighborhood. Can you ensure that her home is prepared for her?”

“Of course,” AuDy says, and then vanishes out of existence. It makes Aria’s ears pop.

Ibex gets to his feet. “Anything you need, you can just call for them, and they’ll be there.” He offers a hand to Aria and helps her to her feet. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  #

  The neighborhood is full of gourmet popcorn places and people who seem really excited to tell Aria about themselves. It reminds her a lot of Los Angeles, and she’s not sure if that’s a good thing just yet.

But everyone she meets is nice, and Ibex is friendly and informative, answering all of her questions easily. He takes her through the neighborhood and explains things like points and the kinds of torture that famous people are going through in the bad place.

He also explains that Aria can’t swear anymore, which is kind of disappointing. She would’ve hoped that heaven had freedom of speech, or something.

“There is one thing I haven’t mentioned,” Ibex says, towards the end of the tour. They’re on the outskirts of the neighborhood now, moving towards a cute little cottage, and also a massive palatial house. Aria doesn’t know which one they’re going to turn towards, but she thinks she’s okay with either one.

“Is it restaurants where you can get food other than popcorn?” Aria asks jokingly. It’s not a joke, but she doesn’t want Ibex to know that. It’s probably rude to be ungrateful for anything in the good place, even if that thing is limitless popcorn. Aria doesn’t even really like popcorn.

Ibex smiles. “No, we’ll have people opening those up soon. The thing I haven’t mentioned is the existence of soulmates.”

“Of what? ”

“Romantic or platonic, these are people who have been matched perfectly, based on personality and life on earth. You have one soulmate, and in order to save on accommodation, she’ll be living with you.” Ibex takes a distinct turn towards the cottage.

Aria lets out a breath. “What’s she like?”

“You’ll have plenty of time to get to know her.” Ibex laughs. “The rest of eternity, in fact.”

The rest of eternity is kind of a daunting thing to consider, but Aria squares her shoulders as they approach the door. “Great,” she says. “Cool! Let’s meet her.”

Ibex opens the door and Aria steps inside. It’s a cozy place, smaller than Aria’s penthouse, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Everything is very sparsely decorated. Tiny kitchen, small living room, pretty big TV.

And there’s a woman standing in the living room with purple hair and the biggest arms Aria has literally ever seen outside of a movie.

“Aria, this is Jacqui Green,” Ibex says from behind her. “Jacqui, this is-”

“Aria Joie,” says Jacqui.

Aria startles. She moves forward to shake Jacqui’s hand - wait, is that weird? If it’s her soulmate, should she go straight for the hug? Jacqui doesn’t look like a hugger, but those arms… “You, uh, you’ve heard of me?”

“You’re kind of famous,” Jacqui points out. “I’ve heard your music. I didn’t realize you’d… be here.”

“I didn’t either.”

“I’ll leave you to it,” Ibex says. Aria can hear the door close behind her, but she doesn’t bother turning around.

Jacqui glances over her shoulder as Ibex leaves, then looks back at Aria. “Okay, we’re soulmates, right?”

“Uh, apparently.”

“I’m going to ask you something, and you need to be honest with me.”

“Shoot.”

“Do you think you’re supposed to be here?”

Aria shrugs. “I mean, who can really say who’s supposed to be in heaven? I’m surprised that I’m, like, top-tier, but I tried to do a lot of charity work. Apparently that paid off.”

“Okay,” Jacqui says. “Great. I’m pretty sure I’m not, actually.”

Aria frowns. “You’re not what?”

“Supposed to be here.”

“As in, in this house…”

“As in, the good place at all.” Jacqui frowns. “Is there someone we can ask about this.”

Aria turns around. “AuDy?”

“Hello,” AuDy says.

“What the fork,” Jacqui says, and then, “gosh forking darn it, I miss cursing so forking much-”

“Me forking too,” Aria says, and grimaces. It really just doesn’t feel the same. “AuDy, is it possible for someone to end up somewhere by mistake?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Like…” she tilts her head. “Let’s say that two people die at the same time in the same place. And one of them was good, and one of them wasn’t. Can they get mixed up?”

AuDy stares at her for a long second. Aria arches an eyebrow at them, presumably as they think.

“Everyone here is supposed to be here,” AuDy says at last. “Ibex and I have personally confirmed it.”

“Great, thanks, bye,” Aria says. AuDy pops out of existence, and she turns back to Jacqui. “Okay, so what do you want to do about it? And why do you think you shouldn’t be here anyways?”

“I’m not telling you that.”

“I’m your soulmate.”

“Probably not,” Jacqui points out. “I mean, if there’s a mistake and I’m not supposed to be here, I’m probably here instead of your real soulmate.”

Aria makes a face. “Well, we live together, apparently, so you’re as close as I’m getting to a soulmate right now. But if you don’t have any better ideas, I want to meet our mansion neighbors.”

“What, Cassander and Larry?”

“Larry?” Aria repeats. “Like, a full grown adult who goes by the name of Larry?”

Jacqui shakes her head. “He’s some famous philanthropist dude. Lots of charity missions. He seems nice. Cassander is the prince on some tiny island nobody’s heard of, and they’re kind of stuck up.”

“They sound like my kind of people.”

“Yeah, they would.”

Aria frowns. “I don’t know what you mean by that, but I still want to meet our neighbors.”

“You seem awfully okay with me being in the wrong place.”

“What am I supposed to do about it? Tell Ibex and get you sent away? That would be awful, Jacqui, I don’t want to do that to you.”

Jacqui stares at her. Aria raises her eyebrows. “You don’t have a very high opinion of me, do you?”

“I don’t have a high opinion of most celebrities,” Jacqui answers. “But you’re not what I was expecting.”

“Good,” Aria says. “I want to meet our neighbors. You can introduce me. And we’re going to figure out how to deal with this. Deal?”

“Deal,” Jacqui says. The corner of her mouth quirks up, and that feels like a victory for Aria.

#aria x jacqui #counter/weight #friends at the table #fatt fic #waveridden.fic #aucember19

[captainderyn]

Writing Commission: Delavairess

I had the pleasure of writing a little bit of our original universe for @delavairess and finally have finished it <3

——

Some may call her odd, but Quinn had always been drawn to graveyards. Not in the angsty, wear-my-over-sized-black-sweater-and-existentially-think-about-life way, though there had certainly been a period of that mixed in during her teen years, but through an inexplicable pull. An energy, she might say, if it wouldn’t get her weird looks and crazy hand gestures behind her back. A fascination was the word that she now used if someone ever asked why she haunted the oldest graveyards in the city.

There are other places entrenched with history, you’re in Boston! If she had a nickel for every time, she heard that, she would be able to buy herself her own Authentic Haunted New England Home instead of loitering around those owned by others. Much to her disappointment, it was one thing most people weren’t willing to pay her for.

This late at night, slipping over the gate on Tremont Street, no one paid her any mind. The cars that did breeze by were too intent on their late-night destination to give a second glance to a girl walking down the road and by the time she was a dot in their rear-view mirror she had already hopped the fence. Within the yard itself the streetlights didn’t spill their warm glow over the old headstones.

“Hey guys,” her breath formed, white and foggy, in the air with each breath, “I’m back.”

For a moment she simply stood there, looking across the stones, eyes drifting across the foggy-chill sweeping across the grass before she sighed out a long, white breath, “So we’re going to be like this today? I took the T to get here and everything, just to be snubbed.”

Walking forward, the leaves crunched under her boots. The autumn wind had knocked the brittle leaves from the branches above her, piling them high against the feet of the tombstones.

“Are we really upset about this?” Quinn muttered, kneeling in front of one of the worn, ornate gravestones. Gritting her teeth against the dampness of the leaves closest to the bottom of the pile, she pushed the pile away, beneath the leaves and the duff that stuck to the stone, she rocked back on her heels, slapping her hands across her thighs to clean off the dirt and leaf litter. Despite the stone being battered by the Massachusetts winters it had seen, she knew the lettering by heart. A rubbing of it was taped down on her desk in her apartment, ever since she’d learned that the names weren’t just old and faded markings on stone,

IN MEMORY OF SARA ANN DEVLIN Died November 15, 1902 in her 22nd year of age.

And also her beloved companion

LYDIA BARNES Died October 30th, 1920 in her 40th year of age.

With still no stirrings in the air around her, Quinn made a frustrated noise in the back of her throat, shoving herself to her feet. She knew better than to expect anything every time she came here and disappointment still sank her heart, “Sara Ann? Lydia?”.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, “Fine,” Quinn grumbled, stuffing her hands beneath her arms to ward off the incoming chill. The late night breeze from the Atlantic was blowing across the city, curling around the yard and yanking bits of hair from her ponytail. But wait, it was too gentle for a October night’s breeze, too much like a caress and—

“Ah,” With a murmur, Quinn’s eyes found the convening mist of fog, the glimmer in its depths, “I’m sorry I doubted you.”

The wind was an unhappy murmur, swirling the fog around like a stirrer in a coffee cup until from it’s shape came the figure of a women older than Quinn. Though Quinn could still see the gravestones and leaves through the woman, she could still make out the black of her mourning gown and the hazy detailing—ruffles here and there, the shine of what might’ve been a silk ribbon, the hitching of her skirts.

“There is a trespasser.” The woman’s voice was breezy, distant. She had never been as forthcoming with Quinn, hadn’t wanted the same companionship as the woman buried beside her, yet this seemed enough to drive her to speak, “My darling Sara Ann, of course, went to explore.”

King’s Chapel wasn’t a particularly expansive graveyard, and just beyond a roll in the ground, she could see the soft glow of Sara Ann’s figure peering out from behind one of the larger tombs. Beyond that, she couldn’t hear or see a thing, “I don’t…”

“Just follow,” Lydia brushed by her, a whisper of cold air biting through the thick material of Quinn’s jacket, and bewildered and without an argument against exploring, she followed.

Sara Ann, curly hair billowing around her in spiraling mist when she turned her head, looked over at them as soon as they approached. Immediately she twined her fingers with Lydia, their spectral hands seeming to pass through each other; her other hand gestured down the other side of the rise, “I know not what she is, or what brings her here.”

“She looks like a girl,” Quinn’s dry remark passed right over the heads of her companions’, as Sara Ann breathed out a whisper of a wistful sigh,

“Yes, a girl.”

Keeping from rolling her eyes was a study in immense self control, even as she hopped to her feet and began an ungrateful stumble down the hill. The leaves crunched beneath her feet, giving her no traction.

“Hey!” She growled. The girl startled, fumbling for the black winter hat that nearly tumbled from her head, “The hell are you doing in my graveyard?”

“Your graveyard?” The girl gestured something back over to her, the bottom of her long coat rustling, “I didn’t take you for a graveyard owner.”

She hadn’t been being literal, Quinn huffed out a breath that was dangerously close to a scoff, “Yeah well I think you—“ the girl looked up at Quinn yelped. “Holy—fuck, what the fuck?”

Where the girl’s eyes would have been there was nothing. Nothing at all, and Quinn found she couldn’t look away. Short ginger hair, fringed out into bangs didn’t hide whatever supernatural causation had well…caused that. At her exclamation, a skeletal cat slipped from beneath the girl’s coat and Quinn felt as though her eyes would pop out.

Hm, that felt wrong to even think. She fixed her eyes on the gleaming bridge piercings instead of where the girl’s eyes should have been. One thing she knew for sure now, was that she wasn’t the only one with an eye for the supernatural here.

While her mind was running a steady stream of fuck, she did her best to keep her voice steady and cuss free, “Sorry, um, what brings you here?”

“Ingredients.” The girl raised a brow, shifting to reveal a small cluster of mason jars behind her, “I would ask you the same, but I can see you’ve brought friends.”

Quinn felt the cold breeze of the ghosts coming up behind her, felt a touch like a freezing block of ice on her shoulder, “Nice observation. But ah…a witch?”

With a nod, the girl went back to scooping a little bit of grave dirt into her jar, rubbing her other hand across the knobby spine of her cat. For a moment, Quinn watched in quiet and rapt fascination.

“I’ve…never seen a witch, well…hm.” Biting her lip, Quinn flopped her hands around rather uselessly. The only other witch she knew of was a bit of an oddity, sure, and the fae he had been tied to was a terrifying Eldritch looking abomination of branches and horns, but he still had all of his…

“Eyes?” The girl’s voice was rather amused. “Lose her eyes? Summoning a demon as a child is never a good idea. But I’ve also never seen a…?”

There was a gap left for a definition left in her question. What was Quinn, with the two ghosts hovering behind her? A witch? A medium?

“A Bostonian,” she offered instead. “Communicate with ghosts? Yeah, it’s a hobby I fell into.”

It earned her a laugh and it brought a smile to her own face. The girl grinned, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard it called a hobby. Can I have a name instead of Ghost-Lady?”

“Quinn,” she supplied, “And you are…presumably not just The Witch.”

“Dakota, well, Kota.” Kota ran her hand over the skeletal cat rubbing against her legs with a smile, “And this is Butters.”

Stepping back, feeling the cool shift of Sara Ann and Lydia moving beside her, attention fixed on Kota. She waved a hand around, before tucking it across her chest, “Well, Kota, I guess I should formally welcome you to my,” she smirked, “graveyard. You’re welcome here any time. But I think the sun’s coming up—want to grab some coffee?”

Kota chuckled, tucking her mason jars back into the backpack slumped next to her, “There should be twenty-four-hour Dunks somewhere around here.”

Nodding to Sara Ann and Lydia as they began to drift away, Quinn couldn’t repress her smile in full, “Perfect. I already like the way you think.”

#my writing #my commissions #writing commissions #original work #original fiction #char: Quinn #other people’s characters: Kota #i know the formatting is a little messed up #but i will fix it when im back at my dorm xD

[holymintea]

KM | 1.1 Lost Garden.

WordCount: 1,391 - I swear I have never written so much before (for a chapter)

Warnings: None... Well, actually, i’ts not edited so...

WordList: Fear, Kisses Meant To Distract The Other Person From Whatever They Were Intently Doing...

WELL, NOT IN THIS ONE, BUT HAVE TO CUT IT ‘CAUSE IT WAS GOING ON FOREVER.

Thank you for having me m(_ _)m 

----------------------------------------------------

Chapter 1.1 | Lost Garden 

There was an old but mesmerizing shop at the most remote corner of the large alley deep in the heart of the city, called “The Lost Garden” where you could find strangest ingredients from all around the world, information, and solutions to a variety of problems.

There is a saying, that with the right words, there is no ingredient or information they cannot gather. But not only the place is spotless clean, the ladies working there, you have to beware, as they’re no delicate flowers, and the locals like to call them with love, the stunning Lady Belladonna and serious Miss Hortensia. 

In a particular brisk evening, a cute lady in her 20’s could be seen polishing a shining green vial like her life depended on it. It was almost time to close, the last item to clean.

Always clean. Always neat.

That was Sia’s motto for everything in her life, the opposite of home, all the contrary of her. 

Focused on the vial, the tingling sound of the bells in the door awake Sia and directs her attention to her new client, but the familiar lipstick strikes back and Sia returned to her monotonous task, now ignoring the stunning woman at the door.

“How heartless, my sweet Hortensia, not even a hello? Look at you, with that tight pony hairstyle, not a single strand of hair out of place, if I weren’t sure I went out, I could swear you haven’t moved at all, like a statue.”

“... Good to see you still alive this 4 months away, Leonora”

The Purple Woman face twist into a grimace.

Leonora, or the Purple Woman, as Sia liked to call her, was the one who adopt her back in Sun Gates, and if Sia had to define her in 3 word they would be: Chaotic. Free. Dangerous.

Don’t get her wrong, she wasn't being ungrateful, Leonora had given her a roof, a warm meal, but most important… lov- no, education. More precisely, and her favorite, the introduction of How to not eat your friends, the course of Advanced Magic and Curses and the helpful books of Witch Management 101, the best volume being the no. 35 Tidy up that Shop!, in the personal opinion of Sia.

The deal with Leonora was that, well, she wasn’t a mother, casually, the only wish that an orphan have.. Sia can’t even call her that, and she’s only being allowed to say Leonora or... Lady Belladonna. 

A light tremor runs along her body.

No, not in this life.

“Well, things happen and I couldn’t get back-”

“From the candy store?”

The now lively shop now had one Belladonna making funny faces and a deadpanned Hortensia not taking any shit of the former.

“Yes… from the candy store, BUT, before you get mad…” Leonora peeks at the arched brow on Sia’s expression and correct her statement. “...before you get angrier, I found some new, cool and nice items that can be useful!”

In a desperate gamble to save herself from the stern clutches of the annoyed Hortensia, she walks to Sia and hands over a medium sized bag to her arms with force and Sia stumble a few steps back, perfect to Leonora for making a quick escape to the back of the counter and shelf of books, where it was the staircase to her home upstairs.

“OH! I’m so tired of being productive, SEE YOU.”  

Without looking back, Sia now held a somewhat heavy, brown and sully bag, alone again. She could feel the mustiness trespassing her dark green cotton blouse, and when she look down, she swear could see an insect at the bottom of her long, white skirt.

Dear heavens, why. Just, why must you treat me like this.

While she was a little obsessed with being clean, she wasn’t mysophobic, and was also accustomed to this, more than one way, dirty tactics of Leonora, and decide to check out what was in the the life rope of Leonora tomorrow. 

Sia stood up and walk forward to lock up the front door of the shop, the outside was now pitch black, a night without moon, Sia didn’t have good memories about that, and she was getting a nasty feeling and choose to stay behind the shelf of the counter, lights off and a little candle. The Purple Woman always warn her to never ignore that feelings, the sense only a witch could have.

Waiting the feeling to disappear, Sia grabbed the brown bag to inspection. She was idle, and there was a little wood table, with the candle illuminating the tiny space where she could put the items.

Quietly, the first thing that came from the bag was actually a little Timekeeper. Green with needles of gold, time had marked the edges and was small enough to cover the palm of Sia’s hand.

Eternal Vial, Immense Existence. 

Sia can’t read the year, a un lado of the message (that doesn’t seem like the brand) but in the center of the Timekeeper she notice un grabado so tiny that if you weren’t paying attention, it would pass as an old Timekeeper cualquiera. 

“Enhanced Vision”

With a simple spell, Sia now can actually made the details of the seal, and where she can’t actually make out the whole sequence, it’s not the first time she encounters a sealed magic container, being good or bad, Sia can tell with an external totem given to her by Leonora. White for weak or harmless, Blue for mild strength and peace, while Pink for tough and chaotic, and last Red, for really strong or hostile.

White, almost transparent. If the totem wasn’t even close enough, you would almost miss it.

Whatever is in there don’t pose a threat, and is almost disappearing. Alone, forgotten, isolated. Sia stares lost to the little Timekeeper, but can’t reflect on her emotions long enough.

A scratching sound breaks the quiet space from the direction of the door. Sia tense for a moment, watching the activated totem changing from the friendly White to a deep Blood Red. She can’t fight it -being an intermediate witch- and decide to charge into Leonora’s room upstairs when suddenly she hear a loud bang, like a mild explosion outside the shop. Startled, Sia goes around the counter to exit the shop, whatever it is, it’s causing a ruckus and Sia assume Leonora will go down in a second, but a wave of energy doesn't let her go to far the shelf, throwing her against the counter and turning on all the lights in the floor.

The totem has fall not to far away from her, and in a moment of confusion, she watch it reverting to transparent. Nothing. Whatever it was, it’s gone now, not before stuck her to the floor. Nop, she couldn't get up, that energy wave had messed up with her in an energy level, and all she could do was slowly begin to circulate her own magical spells along her body

Great.

When Sia was going to her second phase of “Why me?” situations, she abruptly stops to breath.

There is something else here.

Scratching and really subtle noises could be heard from the other side of the shelf, Sia couldn’t see anything, but accelerate the process of the magic circulation along her body. Now every light was on, even the lamp on the counter, and while the noises were getting louder and nearer, Sia was transforming into a puddle of sweat by the force of magical energy when she saw it.

A little shadow could be seen on the floor in front of her. 

What kind of tiny being was that?

The shadow made by the lamp began to move, like, searching for a way to go down. It moved weird, like in stop motion, but crude, and just like that, it fell to the ground. Well, Sia couldn't see it fall, but assume the action by shadow and the racket of something mechanical crashing with the floor.

With now no shadow to see, just sound, Sia wasn’t that pressured anymore, as it was so tiny it didn’t feel like a threat, and the totem was silent as if nothing was there.

Finally, Sia could move freely, but waited in the floor for the miniature being, and surprisingly, what she was dealing with was the little TimeKeeper! 

Well... almost?

#original #writing #writblr #writer #wiptober #wipweek #original wip #KissMonster #KM #i'm so sorry #i'm late #this took forever #and ever #i love you #thanks for reading

[rancoeur-the-unfortunate]

Pills (Chapter 16)

(1743 words!)

The Doctor stood in the control room of the massive it was dark and empty aside from the blank static-filled screen covered the main wall, thoughts soring through his head like the wind. Zim was going sober and was not something to sneeze at. It had taken them years to find Zim and shut that rebellion down. Despite how much the good Doctor down talked them and often called them the rebellious Smeets, in reality, they were no mere Smeets. 

That rebellion cost them trillions in expenses. They destroyed factories, took down armies, and worst of all almost killed the control brains before they managed to incapacitate Zim.

Zim may have been the smallest of his generation but he was also the most tactically smart and driven Irken the Doctor had ever seen and would have made a fine commander to the Irken race had he not betrayed them. He had remembered the Control Brains asking him to preserve Zim to at least try to keep that sensational leader skills. 

However, that proved to be a lot more difficult than previously thought. First, they had to capture the little plague then engineer a pill that would only force the subject into obedience but keep that fighting spirit with said out loud was a bit of a have your cake and eat it too kind of number. Though how do you say no to the Control Brains without losing your position as head Doctor.

The Doctor will never outlive the shame he received for failing them. He maintained his position for saving the Control Brains ungrateful lives but they mentioned quite often how they were disappointed in him in making Zim into just another ANNOYING service drone.

The Doctor sat down in his chair and stared at the many screens in front of him before gently massaging his temples. Thinking of the plan was hard but the fact that he was getting horrible deja vu was annoying, to say the least.

Just go to Earth, find Zim, and administer the pill. But if Zim was going sober this could be easier said then done. Zim was probably using Earth as a hideout and that would make things a little difficult. They couldn't just storm the planet, they had little to no information on it aside from the info intoxicated Zim provided them with. Which was a lot but barely anything useful.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor raised lowered his hands at the sudden appearance of the new voice. 

He stood up and turned around to face his very short assistant. The Tallest were very puzzled when he asked for this Irken by name and even inquired about the much taller associates the good Doctor could have picked. He simply told them that all would be explained in the future (he wouldn't the Tallest didn't need to know) and that he would like to without their ever gracious presence looming over his shoulder.

"Yes? Have you found anything?" The Doctor inquired.

"I have sir." The short Irken peered up from his clipboard and visibly flinched at the imposing Doctor.

The good Doctor was taller than most Irkens and thus had a very intimidating stature.

"From Irken Tak's evolution about Earth, it seems the human race is a very dull band of creatures and won't cost as much as we previously thought. They tend not to notice the most obvious things if properly hidden and provided with food."

"Aww, marvelous. Anything else?"

"The collar you requested has been constructed and will be sent to your quarter shortly."

"Good. You may leave."

The short Irken turned around and opened the door.

"Oh, and Skoodge?"

The smaller Irken paused and turned around.

"Enter without knocking again and I'll leave you on withdrawal for months got it?" The Doctor practically spat the words at the short Irken before him.

Said Irken nodded looking visibly shook before leaving with a bit more rush than before.

The Swollen Eyeball's meeting structure was a cold and damp place. A huge abandoned warehouse once full of crates and other equipment became the nesting ground for the conspiracy theorist. In the very back of the warehouse was a stage made for showings and meetings while the rest was full of foldable chairs. Across from the stage was a balcony with five chairs set inside in perfect view to the stage.

The stage was decorated with the Swollen Eyeball's banner and spotlight pointed to the center of the stage. In the center sat a pedestal and beside it was a screen made for presentations.

It was 10:30 pm on the dot and the warehouse was packed full the sounds of pouring rain could hardly be heard over the chit chat of the visitants. On the balcony sat the five superiors on the stage was one lone kid probably in his late teens. The smirk on his face was condescending, to say the least. Like he was just about to explain to them the meaning of life.

"Ahem." He called to the crowd, ceasing their chatter.

"As all of you may know I have just made the most astounding discovery known to man. Extraterrestrial life!"

No one in the audience looked impressed.

"My guy we literally get the same speel from Dib every week don't make us sit through this while we got a break from him." Someone shouted from the crowd getting a few agreed groans.

"That's just it. Every week Dib comes in here screams about an alien named Zim and makes us watch his boring presentation but with no real proof." The teen reasoned making everyone pause.

"I however actually have proof of Alien life. Behold."

The teen pressed a button on the clicker in his hand and the screen next to him lit up displaying a picture of the inside of Zim's base.

"It was insanely easy to get inside and consequently I  managed to get lots of pictures even pictures of the alien itself." The teen pressed the button as he spoke eventually leading to the picture of Zim sleeping at his computer.

"This is proof that aliens exist." The teen smirked and looked up at the superiors.

"All I ask for is some resources to search and capture for this alien and bring it to the Swollen Eyeball."

The superiors whispered to each other for what felt like forever. Giving the teen enough time to study them.

The one the far left was an elderly looking black woman with her dark hair tied in a bun. She wore a red visor to cover her eyes. The one on her left was an old man that many knew as agent Darkbootie. The center one was an older man with was obviously in his 70s but looked as though he was trying to hide it. What with the fake wig and facelifts he was failed to cover. The fourth one was a woman who seemed to be the youngest out of all of them. Her blond hair was tied in a ponytail and there was an obvious nose job there. The last was a black man who looked like this was his first meeting considering how he dressed. Though the teen knew that wasn't the case because he knew this man personally as agent GubGrub.

The one to the far left was the first to speak up.

"If what you're saying is true you must understand the importance and the consequences of lying to us." She spoke with a cool chill to her voice.

The teen nodded.

They whispered a bit longer and then turned to the teen and nodded.

"You better not fail us." Agent GubGrub warned.

The teen's grin grew as he nodded.

"Of course."

And with that, the meeting was adjourned. Everyone got up and left to their own lives, while agent Callus smiled in triumph. He'd soon to be the first human to ever catch an alien and he could hardly hide the fact that he was excited.

Gaz was awoken in the middle to feverish knocking on her window. Now Gaz lives on the second floor so feverish knocking wasn't something she was used to. She sat up and grabbed her bat with the nails in it. She opened the curtains and almost fell backward in surprise. Outside the window was Zim's weird robot thing in its horrible dog costume. It was currently licking the window and knocking with it's balled up fist.

"What do you want?" She hissed at the robot.

It smiled at her and dove back on its thrusters and charged at the window, giving Gaz just enough time to dive out of the way before the glass could shred her face to pieces.

The robot rolled on the floor for a bit stan and hugging her knees.

"Hiya sissy!" It screamed.

"What are you doing here?" She would've yelled had she not been so tired.

"Moose told me ta come here!"

"Moose?"

"Yaya moose told me ta come here and gets you!"

Gaz was about to tell the robot that she wasn't going anywhere before she was grabbed by the ankles and thrown onto the robot's back gib=ving her no choice but to grab onto the dog costumes ears in order to avoid getting thrown off at terminal velocity. Before she knew it they were zooming through the streets and had this been on her consent this probably would have been fun.

It must have been no less than a few minutes before she was suddenly thrown off the robot and onto Zim's couch. 

Gaz was about to stand up and throttle the robot when she was again interrupted this time by and weird floating moose thing.

"my me gh im moo."

"So you're that moose thing that called me here?"

"me" The doomsday device answered.

"Alright, you got 20 seconds to explain yourself before I blow this whole base to bits."

"gh me ih in meh?"

"Yeah, he's my brother."

"Hen jh me mi mei uh."

"Those two are idiots."

"Meme mi meh my mq qe gh me po lik me."

"So you want my help? Why?"

"Mei!"

"Alright, I'm sold. What do I need to do?"

"hg, my mu we me."

"Alright do you think can take me back to y house so I can get some stuff." 

"Me!"

"Cool thanks."

That's how Gaz found her self actually driving the robot and just about having the time of her week.

#invader zim zadr #zadr #invader zim #zim x dib #skoodge #GIR #minnimoose #casual kidnapping

[polygamyff]

7. Part 4

Stretching my body out as my eyes fluttered open, my eyes still hooded as I stared to the side of me. An empty bed, no sign of Maurice. Last night I went to sleep before him and wake up after him, clearly he had slept in the bed but no comfort in this, no comfort from his touch against me. The biggest sigh left my lips, I have the worst feeling that today is not what I seem it’s going to be like, I have only come to spend time with him but he’s just always doing something. I think he knew he annoyed me last night, that face he pulled when the word marriage came out from my lips, it was like he suddenly didn’t want to know. It was ok when he was making love to me but now the word marriage is scaring him, but what about me. He scared my ass when he did that, he has pissed me off with that and I am still just that. He plays himself off because of money, nobody fucking cares about money, I really don’t anyways. I wish I placed my phone close by because now I have to drag myself out of bed, annoying. Maurice is so much more loving in California then here, his mind is never mine and he’s always thinking or doing something. I didn’t want to be here to be his second shadow or even burden him, he should have just been upfront with this.

Picking my phone out from my bag, a text from mommy. I actually didn’t call her, damn. She is not going to be happy at all. Unlocking my phone to read the message.

From: Mommy

To: Robyn

Hope you have got there ok Robyn, your dad is blowing a fit. You said you would let us know, remember this is hard for us, you’re with a man we don’t know, so please be mindful. Love you x

Taking in a deep breath, I did really forget about it. I know my parents are not happy. They want to know this man, they hearing about this unknown guy and I am flying away to him. It is a lot for them, but my mom knows my feelings to Maurice is strong so that is why she has backed down, I do feel bad in texting her at least but let me reply back now.

To: Mommy

From: Robyn

I am sooooo sorry mom, it slipped my mind. As soon as I saw him it just got hectic but I’m fine, I’m with Kellen too so don’t worry and Tif is here x

I just want my mom to have a peace of mind because I don’t care about them two but she will feel more happier that I am with some people she knows, I hope she don’t get annoyed at the fact I forgot but knowing my mom she will be. Placing my phone on top of the table in the room, I am not about to wear this out there. I did bring Maurice’ hoodie with me so I can wear that, walking slowly towards my suitcase. Crouching down, grabbing my slides and placing them down. I am sure I placed the hoodie right at the bottom, shifting the clothes a little to the side. There we go, yanking it out of my suitcase, I would actually walk around like this but I have no bra on and my panties be riding up my ass too, there is other boys out there too. Placing my feet in the slides as I placed the hoodie over me, I can deal with my legs being out. I hope I don’t look too much of a mess, dragging open the bedroom door. It’s weird because in the bedroom you don’t hear shit, open the door you hear everything. They are even listening to music, and being rowdy.

Slowly walking the hallway that leads straight into the living area, I instantly see Maurice in a wife beater “hold the fuck still, seriously. Like I am here helping your ungrateful ass” that chick is here again, it’s early in the morning. I am not feeling her being crouched down right in front of Maurice “it’s just a small mark, it’s wiped off now. You out here complaining” she is wiping something off his black slacks he got on “cool, pass me my belt” Maurice said as he paced away from her, Shawn is even awake and Malik. He is smoking a blunt “Robyn, you awake” my eyes dragged to Maurice’ face, he walked towards me but I was quick walk around him. That shit is not it and it was not something I expected from him, I think I am so right. These rich men have sex with everyone, I am not about to start anything because I don’t know this chick “your belt….” the girl dragged out and stared at me, she is a girl. I don’t know her like that “Rob G in the morning” I wish the kitchen was in a different part but it’s literally here, they can see me still. I want food before I slap someone “you want some food? We can go and get some?” staring at Malik “where is the food?” I asked “we have pizza from last night, I was hungry. You have options, you can either order it here or we can go there or we get Ally to go, we have options. I am hungry too” I assumed this was a hotel, I thought wrong but I am not about to cook “Maurice already ate, Ally bought him his stuff. Perks of having an assistant” he didn’t even think of me, not only does he not want to marry me he is forgetting me “do I look ugly?” I asked Malik “no, it’s crazy you walk out looking fine no matter” I’ll take that “we can go and get some food” I need to eat.

Placing my shades over my eyes, these braided pigtails have lasted through the night but will be a pain to do later. We can be quick and get some food I guess, I just need some food “where you going with your shades on?” oh he comes now “ain’t you busy having some girl crouched in front of you or are you used to that position?” Maurice’ mouth fell open “wow Robyn, that is messed up. How you going to say that to me? She is my assistant, we work every day together. Why you being like this?” I ain’t being like shit, just stating the truth “assistance don’t be on the their knees ok? You may not be used to having a partner but shit works differently. I am going to assume you not used to having a girl around, I am a woman. I know this shit, don’t be play me. I am going to get some food” pushing by him, he really think I am stupid. Assistant my ass, I will keep making remarks and being pissed with him until he can admit it. Walking into the living area “Malik, come on” Shawn looked confused, he is too high to notice shit “I have a better offer now Ally, I don’t need you” Malik said to her but I don’t know what he was speaking about.

I am kind of regretting walking around with just a hoodie on in New York, I am mess. I ain’t even washed my ass, I am walking around this place “we could have got a SUV, you do know that?” this long ass line in Subway is not it, it’s the closest thing but even this wasn’t as close “so I have to speak to your brother” I was determined to not “oh, why y’all not speaking already?” Malik likes to not stand still, does he have ADHD “because I have a feeling he used to fuck with that girl, his assistant. I don’t want to see her in my face, or even in that position and then we was just talking and I said marriage. Maurice like brushed me off, he didn’t even want to know so that annoyed me “oh” Malik said, looking down at his hands and he is really scratching his hand, like there is an open wound already on there “are you ok?” turning fully to him “you’re like hurting your hand” grabbing his arm “stop it” he moved his hand away “I am fine, but yeah. My brother does like you, he wouldn’t fuck Ally. They just close, Maurice wouldn’t let me shoot my shot if that” grabbing Malik’ hand and looking at the wound “you’re making me want to fix that for you” squinting my eyes staring down at the wound “you burnt yourself? Does it not hurt? This is fresh, did you not disinfect it? Seriously stop poking it” looking up at Malik, he is sweating “we need to check on that” I am not going to question him on it.

I was going to bring this back to eat at the apartment but decided against, I will eat it here. Now that I am actually seeing Malik, I can see the difference in him. He was very much fine but there is really something odd with him, I don’t want to say anything but he is not eating either and I spent money on that “Malik” I said his name, he has been staring out of the window for the longest “Malik!” I half shouted, he looked at me “why are you staring at the guy? He is getting annoyed” every symptom is screaming drugs, I can see it all over him and know I am stuck with him “he’s after me, I know it” god help me “I doubt it” maybe we should go back “you got a problem nigga?” some guy said behind me, Malik stared at me like the fuck am I going to do “speaking to you nigga!? You got a fucking problem?” looking behind me “he doesn’t, there is no issues here. So please” this guy is so scary, my god “not speaking to you princess, you fine” I will just take that “we are going now, just please” getting up from the chair “you lucky she is here, don’t be staring at niggas like that!” he pointed at Malik, I felt like today wasn’t going to be good.

The moment where I have to hold Malik’ hand, he keep touching the wound and I don’t like it “we have to bandage that up for you” I got a few things from the store, you know what. I should stayed my ass in California, Leon would have been laughing at me if he was here and say this is what I deserve “sorry” Malik said “for what?” I said holding his hand as we got to the complex “I am ok, I mean I am trying to be” clearly he’s not, dragging open the door and walking into the building “I understand, you just need help” pressing the button the elevator “does Maurice know you are taking drugs?” I have to know “he said suck it up” he knows, still let me go with him. This is what I get for searching for food, my life. Tapping the keycard and pushing the door open, how am I even juggling things like this. Least someone is dressed, I would compliment how handsome he is but I won’t, Maurice mean mugged me so hard “why are you holding my brother’ hand!?” he shouted, I forgot all about that “it’s not about you ok? Come, let’s get your hand bandaged” I am caring, I have to see this through now so forget him.

I am just glad to have bandaged that up, he can stop poking it for whatever reason he is doing it. Maurice on the other hand cleared the living room, there was a few people here “now you can’t touch it” holding Malik’ hand up, he smiled at me “you nice” that is just me “the fuck is this!?” here he is “are you blind? Can’t you see your brother is suffering? He is coming down from drugs, he hurt himself” Maurice looks furious, he is so very mad. I have never seen Maurice mad, why would I. I always see the nice side to him “what did I say to you? This should have happened” Maurice reached over and gripped Malik from his top and dragged him straight off the couch, I gasped “Maurice” I said in shock “stay there!” he spat, he is dragging his poor brother “I would stay out of it Robyn” Shawn said, he is so calm about this. The door banged shut “but what is he going to do to him? Seriously?” I don’t like this “see what happens, he won’t hurt his brother. It’s fine, just let it happen” I want to know what, what is he doing.

I am not happy with Maurice at all, like what ever he doing to him is wrong. It just makes me wonder how bad his parents are, both of the kids like that. Broke my heart seeing Malik like that, Maurice finally appeared out of the bedroom and closed the door. Staring at the door waiting for Malik to appear out but he didn’t, looking back at Maurice’ face wondering what he did. His Tuxedo is intact “sorry you had to deal with that” Maurice apologised “don’t say sorry, I want to know if he is ok?” Maurice walked off and into our bedroom “come with me” he gestured, getting up from the couch and followed him to the bedroom “I would like to know what you did?” He acting all cool and calm right now but I want to know, closing the bedroom door behind me “where is your brother Maurice? There was no need to do that at all, dragging him off like that. He harmed himself” Maurice is the least bit happy but his brother needs help “I assumed he would have been ok but obviously not” Maurice turned to face me, I felt slightly awful because I can see the stress all on his face. This is what he deals with everyday, I am just seeing the bare minimum “you good though yeah? I shouldn’t have let you gone with him, I saw he was ok but he wasn’t. He didn’t harm you or anyone?” Shaking my head “do I look harmed? I held his hand to bring him home that was it” Maurice nodded his head “look, I did what I had to do. Until I have got the time to take him” raising an eyebrow “do what? Exactly?” Did he knock him out or something “I erm, I let him have some drugs to calm him and help him” my eyes bulged our “what!? Are you trying to kill him? He needs help, not the drugs, oh my god” this is stressful “I don’t need this, I don’t need him acting out right now. I am late and I need to go, you more than likely think what Kellen thinks of me but I got to do what I go to do” this is a mess, this whole trip is a mess.

I feel a little helpless, this is his family so who am I. I can only support him, no wonder he’s always stressed and like this. Maurice remained silent with me, with the huffing and puffing he is thinking “I just want you to get him help, please” I said in a whisper “I will, not just right now. I get it, it’s a mess. I’m sorry, I really wanted to see you and this is what I get, I am sorry my family is crazy I didn’t want to expose you to that but it’s too late” his phone started ringing, he didn’t bother to touch it but just closed his eyes and sighed out “Robyn I need to go, I’m sorry. I will be busy today, I will be at my hotel. Shawn will take you to the event, I am sad I am missing it with you. Please forgive me. Tonight I will be yours, I promise” I want to be mad with him, I want to scream out how dare you make me come here but everything is a mess in all ends “I’m so sorry” clenching my teeth together as I breathed out heavily through my nose, walking over to Maurice. Placing my hand over his clasped hands and moving them down, getting onto my tiptoes and wrapping my arms around his neck “you looks so handsome” I said in his ear, Maurice held my body close “I am embarrassed, like that shit actually happened. I will come back, please take a picture so I can see you ok?” Moving back from the hug “I will, you better be back for me tonight, I came here for you and right now you need me to hold you down so you better” Maurice nodded his head, he pressed a kiss to my lips.

I feel like shit is becoming a living hell, I didn’t think stupid over here would have done that with Robyn. I don’t even want to speak to Malik, I just want to get this thing over and done with so I can go back to Robyn, I think I need to make it up to Robyn after today. Even though Malik fees like shit he has not choice but to come here, I told him we doing this together “get out of the car” I said to him as I got out of the SUV, slamming it shut. Fastening up my button on the suit jacket, least Robyn says I’m handsome, that all that matters. I know last night I kind went off with Robyn, she said marriage I was like nope. I just need to get out of one marriage first before that, Robyn doesn’t know that though. Malik dragged himself out of the SUV “you can do this, it’s a couple of hours. We got this” I just want to get him in rehab now, staring down at Malik’ hand. That inner surgeon came out of her “I’m trying, I’m fine now. I just want to party now” he smiled at me, he will be sticking right by me so he can think again with that.

As soon as I got into my hotel Ally is already waiting for me “did you get dressed?” I pointed laughing “ha, ha, ha. Hilarious, your dad is here. I mean everyone is here” I wonder what she mean by everyone being here, the party ain’t until tonight here that is when I am running “ok, take me to them” following behind Ally “is that your new fuck buddy?” Ally openly asked “who?” I said confused “that girl walking around just half dressed coming out of what I think is your bedroom” Ally need to shut her mouth “you don’t need to worry about her Ally, and she’s not a fuck buddy” I corrected her with that, Robyn is not my fuck buddy she is my girl but I won’t say that just yet “then she is something to you, where you get her from?” Ally is asking too many questions “if you know me so well then you will work it out” Ally side eyed me “California, you spent enough time there” see she knows “there you go” walking into the ground floor meeting room “you’re such a whore” seeing Nalah, she is always here “oh, well. Look at this, the family are all together” it’s a sign of hell “and Naomi” I knew she would come “she bought her family, great. I need a drink” my mom shook her head at me “anyways, I am so proud of you my boy. You have so many hotels under your belt, now Santa Monica. I am so very happy” nodding my head feeling not good, I want the day to end already “if dad just maybe gave me them, life would be great” my dad just smiled at me “Malik, what did you do your hand?” my dad asked him, looking behind “I hurt him but it’s lit, we lit. We good, Robyn helped me” my eyes widened, is he stupid “who is Robyn?” my dad asked “she is my friend” clearing my throat “so anyways, y’all ready to just get to the events?” I want to drop kick his stupid ass.

My soul feels like it’s not here, like these events. I feel they are so tedious to me and I really just want to be back with Robyn, I only come here because Tina is a very good client and she invited us. We make a hell of a lot of money with the party alone at the hotel, she wanted us to come to her fashion shit like we do every year. I have got Robyn in the Gucci gig, Tome ford too and a few more but these a far from here. By the time we go back to the hotel she will be there, so it’s like a miss with that “come here you” Tina pointed at me, I ain’t about the camera bullshit “me?” my dad pushed me, walking onto the red carpet “in my dreams I am dating him” I mean if she was younger I would have but I’ll pass on that, placing my arm around Tina “he is a very close friend, treats me well. I have known Maurice since he was born” she said to the camera “come on” Tina shouted at my family to come over “Davenport family, we have all been in a hotel that your family practically own. Are you excited to see the fashion show?” nodding my head “as we do every year, support Tina the whole family. I am excited to see it all” I have no idea who I am speaking too “thank you Mr Davenport, take some pictures now” Tina laughed out loud “girl you don’t mind me stealing him” seeing Naomi right next to me “it’s ok Tina” Naomi said, I want the ground to swallow me right now. My heart is in my mouth right now, I just can imagine Robyn seeing this. Naomi placed her arm behind my back.

I am sweating my balls off, I swapped seats with my mom so I am now sitting with Nalah. I wanted to sit next to Malik but clearly my dad has got him “look over here” Nalah said at the side of me, looking over at her and then seeing her phone out. I smiled as she took the picture “you actually taking normal pictures, my little brother” my sister said looking down at her phone “you know” she paused mid-sentence “I always wanted to take that away from you” she locked her phone “take what?” I asked “this burden, not in a bad way but you take all the shit for us but it should be me. I am the oldest. We get away with it all, I do feel bad but I am proud of you. You have done so well with things, but I can so tell Malik has had something. He is so odd” rubbing the side of my face “I gave him a line, he was going crazy. I just wanted to get today done and Nalah. My life was written out for me as soon as I was born, I never had a choice. I was in diapers and travelling with dad, he was never going to leave it. I never saw mom, I was with dad. I had a carer that is how less I saw of you all, that time I was with you guys we near got taken away because of what happened. But it’s something that is happening to me, I don’t want you to feel bad. You still my older sister, even though you a bitch at times, you my sister” Nalah hit my arm “you an asshole still” I can take that because I am just that.

I am deadass staying away from Noami, I don’t want to be near that. Holding the care door open for my sister “we partying now?” Malik has been saying nothing but that “I swear to god, you annoying” Nalah complained, my smile grew seeing my hotel. It looks great, fit for a luxury party for the fit anyways. I don’t even think there is a single regular guest in here, it is just filled with the rich and famous “wine” sir the waiter outside of the red carpet asked “no for me but my sister will” I knew should have took a glass “help me got up these stairs” Nalaha hooked her arm around mine as we walked up the stairs “I hope to god I meet ASAP Rocky, I want his babies” scrunching my face up “you old though and you taken by some old man” my sister scoffed “you ruin everything, stay away from me” she walked off away from me, I am glad she gone. I can just try and just make sure things are going ok so I worm my way out.

To be sat at a Gucci fashion show is amazing but also to be sat next to Shawn and not my man hurts, I wanted him with me but it’s whatever. I didn’t know this place has assigned seats and Maurice got me on front row, like how does he do it. I have clocked Tif, she is in the back. My heart fluttered seeing someone point at me, that is so awkward “why is someone pointing at me?” I said to Shawn “maybe they like you, probably. This place is full of designers” he got a point “what you think though? There is a few things I like you know” shifting in my seat “I like the bags, that is a thing I may actually buy” Shawn’ eyes are so beautiful, they draw you in. That shit is scary “cool, you like it then? I don’t really come to these things but it was actually decent” I wish Maurice is here “thank you for coming, I wanted to be mad at Maurice but I couldn’t, you know. We really wanted to see each other and we did but he’s busy. He has so much going on” Shawn didn’t look fazed “honestly Robyn, I hate it for him. I see him stressed free with you, when he came back from Cali I was like you a whole ass new man, you are good for him” smiling a little “you think Maurice would move to California? I want to ask him” Shawn chuckled “you know what, you ask he will do it but he will always be going Texas once a week. But you could change that, I feel you can” Shawn thinks I can, that is crazy.

I actually want to see Maurice’ hotel, I heard it is like one of the tallest hotels in New York “we are close to Davenport hotel right?” I said to Shawn “just around the block why?” he said, I want to go there and see it “maybe we can go there and and then get Maurice to come home” Shawn paused not saying a word, he just stared ahead “why don’t we just go back to the apartment?” waving him off “you can follow me” I am sure he will, walking off. I want to see my man’ hotel so why not, he never took me there so I want to go there “Robyn, wait up” see I knew he would come, placing my jacket over my shoulders “you men are so predictable” looking over at Shawn “how so? I couldn’t let you walk on your now” I grinned to myself “such a gentleman” I hope I see Maurice there “just that there is an event there and it’s like an exclusive event” what is Shawn trying to get at with this “I will just tell them to get Maurice, I did that last time. He saved my ass from the doorman” Shawn’ smile grew “why?” Maurice is forever saving my ass “because I parked my car outside the hotel and he was like you can’t do that, he chased me all the way inside and I goes to him speak to Maurice he knows. He assumed I didn’t know him but obviously Maurice said it to him and he was quiet after that” I just want to spend some time with Maurice, I am being so calm about this.

The hotel is huge, it looks beautiful but wow “this was the second hotel that the Davenport family bought back then, Texas was the first hotel. I still don’t understand how his great great grandfather got it, they say the guy was a con artist but we will never know. But they are very much business men, they have a whole neighbourhood in New Jersey. It’s literally named their street, it’s an amazing business they are in but there is a lot of family politics. Back in the day they made that stupid rule, it has to be you first born son. It’s something that has been passed down, which to me sucks. Nalah would have been fine with it” Shawn should be a tour guide “ever thought of being a tour guide?” Shawn snorted laughing “perhaps but we can just see it, I did text Maurice and they are busy still” nodding my head “I just want to see” these doormen are bodyguards, scary ones too. Walking up the steps “names please” one of the guys said “Shawn, should be on their with the family” Shawn said behind me “what about yours?” the guy looked at me “are you asking for yourself or to check the sheet?” the bodyguard just busted out laughing “wow!” he shook his head “well it can be both ways, you funny” he pointed at me “get inside, I am guessing you’re with Shawn” shaking my head “not really but thank you” I winked at him.

Shawn is laughing so much at me “do you know you can use your face for everything? Got niggas just letting us come in” I can hear the music in this place “can we just have a little look, just one little peek. I will be good” Shawn slouched forward “you are a pain, just stay close” twirling around and skipping towards the music, I have no idea where I am going. Grabbing the wine as I made my way down the hallway, the music getting louder as I got close. The double doors opened up and the music is well and truly blaring out, that hall looks amazing “he’s such an asshole Shawn! I am so fucking done with him” looking behind me, wonder why she is upset “you’re here Naomi!” Shawn spat but that lady just pushed passed him, Shawn shook his head “let’s just go!” he shouted, I really don’t want to go though. Downing the wine, I think I have seen enough though. Staring down into the hall, I cam see Maurice from here “we should go, I want to get some pizza too” staring at Maurice with this woman, they are both laughing a lot. My hearts wants me to go in there and hug him, this makes me so sad. So close but yet so far, Maurice placed his arm around this woman “that is Tina, she is a client” Shawn said, dragging my eyes away “let’s go” I think I want to go back now.

These heels hurt like a bitch, placing the empty wine glass down on the reception desk “come again” the lady said, I didn’t even know she was sat there “complimentary for the business” she held out a magazine “thank you” taking it from her, smiling at her faintly walking off “come on then Shawn, let’s get pizza” New York pizza is supposed to be nice actually, walking out of the door “leaving so soon? That was quick” twirling around to the bodyguard “maybe I was never supposed to be here and you let me in?” he doesn’t know that “never thought of that did you?” his face dropped “why did you come here for? You’re out now anyways” I shrugged “to sight see, thanks for the wine boo” blowing him a kiss “you cali girls are crazy” I am just that at times.

#chrianna #chrianna ff #fanfic #fanfiction

[loneberry]

The Economics of Being a Woman Artist

Feminist artist Christen Clifford

Being an artists today means navigating a weird corner of the gig economy where there are no standard rates of pay. The amount an artist is offered for events/performances/readings is probably based on the budget of the institution/program, the artist’s prestige and accomplishments, and how “hot” the artist is in the moment—Do they have a big social media following? Are they addressing topics that are trending? Are they associated with a cool art scene or publisher or movement?

But much of the time the amount an artist is offered is based on the organizer’s intuition about the lowest amount they can get away with paying the artist while still having them say Yes to the invitation. These calculations are made on the fly, and embedded in them are unconscious gendered assumptions about the value of someone’s artistic labor.

When I started asking cis men participating in panels and events I was invited to do I began to realize just how fuck this whole economy is. In every case, the men were getting paid more. By a lot. And it wasn’t always the case that they were more “senior” or “established.”

I asked a friend of mine who is a working artist about this issue. She said, “yeah I asked a guy on a panel I did recently and he was getting paid three times as much as me.” There have been times where I was not getting paid at all, while a guy I asked was getting ~$1,000.

This is all the more disturbing considering I’m usually called on to speak about various forms of social inequality, including gender and racial inequality, and that my work is on racial capitalism and materialist feminism. Although my experience (& this post) is mainly with navigating the pay gap as a woman, it’s likely that nobinary, trans, working class, and people of other marginalized identities are getting bilked too.

A book I read recently on negotiation and the gender pay gap (titled Ask For It) noted: “In many cases, women don’t ask for as much as they can get because they…don’t know what other people are getting. This problem is particularly acute in industries without fixed and well-known pay standards. One of Linda’s studies discovered that the gap between men’s and women’s average salaries in industries without standardized pay structures is more than three times as large as the gap in industries in which pay scales are well publicized and widely understood.” You’d think when institutions are advertising their good leftist politics that they would not be perpetuating this egregious form of economic oppression, but they are. The art/literary world is no different.

Given that the gender pay gap is 3 times larger in industries without pay standards than industries with standardized pay structures, the gig-ification of virtually every domain of the economy could fuck women over even more than they’re already getting fucked.

I know all this, and yet I still have a hard time addressing this issue on a personal level. My temperament is easygoing and friendly, I’m an anti-capitalist, I do events at social centers or for fundraisers for free if they’re to support something I believe in. I only say Yes to events aligned with my values or organized by people who seem cool, so it’s hard for me to be assertive about pay when I’m invited to do things. I also find something gross about monetizing social relations. And I’ve been socialized as a woman, which means expecting to do things for nothing, accommodating others, and undervaluing myself.

But I also provide financial assistance to my brothers (one was recently unemployed, the other is in prison). As an artist I need time to write/work, a place to plop myself while working, and other life necessities. I also don’t want to eventually retire into poverty (like so many women do)! Mentally, I have not at all been in a place to plan for my future until the last couple years, but I’ve recently taken steps to, materially, set up the life I want to live.

What can be done about the pay gap??

For curators/event organizers: When trying to stretch your programming budget, are you reinforcing gender, race, class and other forms of economic oppression? Are you doing this unconsciously? Is it the case that men/male socialized people are the ones asking for higher honorariums? If that is the case, how can you fight paying women less by default? Can you be more transparent about who is getting paid what for an event? If, for instance, you’re curating an event with multiple participants, could you implement a policy of equal pay for equal work? If a woman/femme person asks for a higher honorarium do you react negatively? Do you think she’s pushy/bitchy/demanding/uncooperative/ungrateful? Do you have the same reaction to a cis man who asks for more? How can you check these reactions?

For women/femme artists: You have to ask for more. Unless you have an agent, no one is going to negotiate on your behalf. Ask the men how much they’re getting paid. When there is a pay discrepancy, bring it to the attention of the organizer of the event and ask for equal pay.

For men/male socialized people: You could help by *sharing how much you’re getting paid* with women/femmes you’re doing an event with, and by approaching the organizer when there is a gendered pay discrepancy. The taboo on discussing compensation for literary and artistic labor must be broken.

#Political economy #art #economics #gender #feminism #materialist feminism

[staticscreenwriting]

Everything there is - Billy Hargrove

Synopsis: Billy’s mom is not dead in this one. She has a boyfriend though and Billy isn’t sure if he fits into this new family dynamic.

A/N: I like this story it was fun to write. I do hate the header image though, it didn’t work out the way I wanted it but at least I hope the writing is good. Hope you enjoy, feedback is very much appreciated ♥

“ I can't remember what I used to do Who I trusted whom, I listened to before I swear you've taught me everything I know Can't imagine needing someone so But through the years it seems to me I need you more and more “

Iron Maiden’s Wrathchild is blasting from his stereo, as Billy Hargrove lays on the floor of his childhood bedroom. A sweltering, clammy heat has taken over California and the floor seems to be the only place providing some kind of cooling.

The gray muscle shirt is sticking to his skin like a damn glove and he feels disgusting. It’s like all the whining he’d done about it not being warm enough in Indiana, has finally come back to bite him in the ass.

Sure he could go downstairs where there are actual working fans in several rooms that still possess all of their blades, unlike the one in his room. He could go downstairs in favor of a less sticky, less uncomfortable surrounding but really he’ll take sweaty balls over the shit downstairs any day.

Going downstairs means dealing with Craig. Dealing with his mom. Dealing with his mom and Craig. As a couple. As a family. As two people who don’t seem to be able to stop kissing and hugging and touching like a bunch of teenagers who have just discovered french kissing for the first time in their goddamn lives. A couple who bought a cat together, a fat ginger one, and called it Cat Benatar. Who do crossword puzzles together over the breakfast table and watch game shows cuddled up on the sofa every saturday evening and who go to concerts together and road trips and dates to the bowling alley. A couple who’s happy. A family that’s complete.

Going downstairs means seeing all of this and realizing once again how out of place he is here. How much he doesn’t fit into this life, this family. How happy his mom is. Without him.

It’s half an hour later and an entire run through the Killers album again, that a knock sounds at Billy’s door.

He grumbles a “come in” and hopes the person doesn’t hear it and just assumes he’s asleep or busy — or dead, and leaves him alone.

They don’t.

Craig, all blue eyes and over the top toothpaste commercial smile, sticks his head through the slightly opened door and looks at Billy as if he’s about to drop some life changing news, like a lottery win or something.

He doesn’t.

Instead he approaches Bill with a “Hey Bud” effectively wanting Billy to punch himself unconscious so he never has to hear anyone, let alone this complete stranger, call him Bud. Or champ. Or any of those weird ass nicknames Craig has been hurling at him since him and mom had picked him up from the airport.

Billy is 18, not 8. Those nicknames stopped being funny or endearing a while ago and at 18 they’re pretty much just creepy.

Also he’s not Craig’s Buddy in the first place so he doesn’t know where he got that idea from.

“ You wanna come downstairs for lunch ? Your mom made some sandwiches. Asked her to add some extra bacon. I heard you like that. I can remember when I was your age I would put bacon on literally everything”.

Billy finds it hard to even imagine this slightly balding, stach wearing man with the paint splattered jeans and the ridiculous CCR shirt, as an actual living teenager. It feels like Craig just came out of the womb all boring and bad jokes and all.

“ ‘m not really hungry, thanks though “:

He doesn’t want to be rude or ungrateful, he really doesn’t. It’s just that sitting down at the kitchen table with his mom and Craig is just gonna end up being a torture for him and he doesn’t want to end up saying something that would hurt his mom. They’re gonna ask about College and School and Friends and, god forbid, his love life. He really doesn’t fancy any of those talks. Especially not with Craig.

“ I know man, but your mom really wants to spend some time with you. Come on, give her that. She missed you “.

Billy thinks that’s the biggest bullshit of the century. Clearly his mom hasn’t missed him all that much. She went and got a whole nother life. A better one. A happy one. While she sent him to live with his dad who they both know doesn’t give two shits about Billy. Clearly she hasn’t missed him enough to have him over for Christmas instead of going on a trip to Montana with her new boyfriend.

She hasn’t missed him at all he feels like.

But she’s still his mom and even if she breaks his heart he will never be able to break hers. Because despite it all she’s still one of the few people he has ever truly loved.

“ Alright “ He murmurs and gets off the floor, shirt sticking to his back. In that moment he kinda misses his dad’s old home in California, it might’ve been a shitty run down place but it had a little pool in the back and that was basically heaven to Billy.

As he follows Craig downstairs, he can hear his mom hum along to Hall and Oates. She’s in a summer dress and her hair is up in some intricate braids and Billy almost doesn’t recognize her. This isn’t the woman that stayed behind while he was sent away. Back then she was all tired eyes and messy hair and sweater sleaves pulled over her hands. This woman had her shit together in the best way possible. Billy isn’t sure he’ll ever fit into this equation.

“ There’s my boy. Come sit “ she exclaims as she spots Billy waking into the kitchen and pats the barstool by the kitchen isle where a plate is already waiting for him.

Billy can’t remember the last time his mom made a home cooked meal for him. Back when he was a little boy she had a habit of trying out the most ridiculous dishes from her own mother’s cookbook, which usually resulted in the entire family feasting on a big cheesy pizza because she burned the dish. When things got bad between her and his dad, she stopped trying all together.

Sitting down at the kitchen isle, Billy starts chomping down on the sandwich. It’s not the most outrageous and delicious 4 course meal but there’s bacon and cheese and that’s basically all he needs.

For a moment he feels like a kid again, who’s mom greets him after school with sandwiches and juice boxes and hugs and love.

Then he notices that neither his mom nor Craig seem to be eating anything. In fact, they’re not even sitting down. They’re cooped together, Craigs arm around his mother’s waist as they both intensely focus on Billy himself.

“ You guys alright ? “

“ Yes, yes. Of course “ his mom exclaims, her words coming out jumbled and too quick for Billy’s liking. There’s something she isn’t telling him and it’s both annoying and hurtful.

“ Actually we are more than alright “ Craig speaks up from beside her.

There’s this look in both their eyes of excitement and joy but also fear of judgement and anxiety. Whatever it is they’re trying to tell him, Billy isn’t sure he’s going to like it very much.

His half eaten sandwich now completely abandoned, Billy raises his eyebrows in question.

“ What’s that supposed to mean then ? “

“ I — “ his mom starts and takes a deep breath before continuing “ we. We have something to tell you. There’s a reason I asked you to come visit me this summer. Not only because I missed you but also because there’s something really big you need to know “.

She pauses again and Billy feels like every second that goes by he gets a little more sick to his stomache.

“ What is it, mom ? “

“ Craig asked me to marry him and I said yes. The wedding is next saturday and I — Billy I just really wanted you there for it. We’re just gonna keep it real small. Get married at the courthouse and then have a tiny celebration at the Comet View. There’ll be dancing and drinks and good food. You know, just a fun night “.

Billy feels like he just drank and entire bottle of ice cold water in one go. His insides are frozen, his mind is frozen. There’s something about these news that make it impossible for him to process them. It’s like a thunderstorm crashing down on him in the middle of an Indiana winter.

A relationship was one thing but marriage ? Marriage is big and it means a lot and it’s — forever. And it feels like that might just completely close the door on Billy ever being a part of his mother’s life that isn’t just a visit every few months if at all.

“ Billy ? “

He realises that they expect and answer. A congratulation. Something. But can he really pretend to be happy about something that might just break his heart entirely ?

Yes he can.

Pretending is all he ever does.

“ Mom that’s — good. Congrats. Really, that’s great “.

He hugs his mom and shakes Craig’s hand and he needs to get out. The nerves in his fingers and and his toes are tingling and his heart is beating at a speed he’s sure it shouldn’t be. He’s hot and cold and everything in between and he needs to be somewhere else.

Somewhere he feels happy and safe and calm and comfortable and — like home.

Somewhere with his girl.

He knew he’d find her here. It’s her place, their place.

While the tourists and the loved up couples and the families mostly flocked to the pier, (Y/N) and Billy had found their own little spot of heaven and calm in the form of an abandoned beach watch tower further down the shore where the driftwood accumulated and the white sand wasn’t as picture perfect.

But it was theirs. Unofficially sure but it was. He hopes it still is.

“ Hey Chewie, didn’t expect to see you here “.

It’s like no time has passed and yet it feels like another life completely. She’s there in her shorts that are way too tiny to even be called that and shades on her face shaped like stars. There’s a sunhat on her head and a book in her hand and he’s sure he’s never seen anyone more perfect.

She is his poison and his cure all wrapped in one big mess of a girl. She is perfect and flawed, complicated and so well put together. She is everything and all.

He wishes he could’ve stayed. Wishes that the future he had so desperately wanted to have with her wasn’t but a mere dream to wander off to at nights he couldn’t seem to fall asleep.

He wishes she would still love him. And that the universe would work out for him for once, so he could allow himself to love her more.

“ Why am I Chewbacca ? “

“ The hair ?! “ she says and motions to his curly mullet. There’s a laugh hidden in her words and it makes the anxious tingles in his fingers disappear for a moment.

“ Fair enough. What makes you Han then ? “

“ Well, you always made sure I shot first “.

Billy almost chokes on his own spit right then. This beautiful girl with a smile that can compete with the sun, spouts dirty jokes so casually like there’s nothing about it. But that’s who she is, who she’s always been. And Billy’s heart aches so much when he realises just how much he missed her.

“ Come here you big Wookie ! “ she exclaims, takes off her shades, and pulls Billy into a hug. She’s all warm and familiar and she smells like the ocean and her signature Opium perfume that Billy knows so well because he used to buy her a new one every Christmas.

He kisses her head softly like old times. Like when things were good and they were happy and they didn’t have a lot but they had each other and that was really all the needed. Now he has a shitty room in a shitty house in a shitty town. With people he can’t stand and a family that shouldn’t even be allowed to be called a family.

And she has —

He honestly doesn’t know because he never bothered to call. Not only did he want a clean cut to make it possible for her to move on eventually, but he was also a fucking coward and calling her, hearing her voice, hearing she was happy without him would’ve killed him.

“ You doing good ? “ he asks and almost has a heart attack as she looks up at him with her big beautiful eyes that hold so much love he can’t even fathom it properly.

“ I’m okay. What about you ? “

He could lie. Tell her how amazing his life is and how happy he is. How it doesn’t break his heart to see his mother move on to a life that he has no place it. How Hawkins is all he ever dreamed of and how he doesn’t miss her like crazy.

He could, but he doesn’t.

He’s done a lot of shit in his part, still does a lot of shit, but one thing he’s never done, is lie to (Y/N).

She’s always been his person. The one that you can’t and don’t ever lie to. She knows him inside out and accepts him still. All faults and issues and baggage.

You don’t lie to people like that.

“ Mom’s getting married “.

He wants to say so much more because there’s so much more bubbling inside of him but he has absolutely no idea how to put them into words. It’s too much, too fast. So he leaves it at that.

“ I know “

“ You do ? “

“ Yeah. Just because you left doesn’t mean I stopped all contact with your family “

That makes him feel a little better although he doesn’t really know why. Maybe it’s because it reminds him that she was so much more than just some highschool girlfriend. She was his girl. Part of his family. And knowing that some part of that stayed, some part of that is still there, makes him happy.

“ Also, I don’t know if you recall but my dad owns the place where the reception is held so even if she didn’t ask me to be her maid of honor I still would’ve found out about it “.

“ She asked you to be what now ?!”

“ The maid of honor. Look Billy, when you left it was hard on both of us and we kind of bonded over that. “

That was ridiculous, his mom sent him away it’s not like he had left on his own accord. He didn’t want to leave, he would’ve given everything and more to be able to stay. But he was a minor and both his parents had decided leaving for Indiana was the better choice. That was a fucking bullshit decision.

“ I don’t think I can do this  “

“ Do what ? “

“ Watch her getting married. It’s like she’s starting this completely different life that makes her so happy. And don’t get me wrong I want her to be happy. But that life began without me and it’s gonna end without me. There’s no place for me. I don’t fit in there, (Y/N). I’m not part of this future. I’m not part of this family. “

(Y/N) untangles her arms from around his waist and takes a step back.

“ Billy, what do you think your mom did when you left ? “

“ I don’t know “ he says and shrugs his shoulders. He hasn’t really spent any thoughts on that. In his mind his mom was doing what she always did, only without him. “ Meeting men apparently. Falling in love. Being happy “.

“ You are delusional “

“ I’m sorry ? “

“ Billy I know this is not something you wanna hear but your mom wasn’t a saint before you left. She wasn’t happy but that wasn't your fault. You were her happiness, everything else was what made her unhappy. I know you see her as this superwoman who always did everything perfectly and who could do no wrong. But that’s not the person she was. You know what she did when you left ? She got help. Went to therapy, tried to fix her life so by the time you were done with highschool and maybe decided to return, she would be better. So she could be the woman you always thought she was. Everything she does, everything she did, was for you. She didn’t send you away because she didn’t want you here. It broke her heart to see you leave. She sent you away so she could fix herself without relying on you to pick up the pieces if things didn’t work out “.

Billy swallows the huge metaphorical lump that’s built in his throat while he listened to (Y/N)’s words. He had always known that his mother wasn’t happy and that she didn’t really have her shit together the way other mothers did. But he never thought it was this bad.

And maybe being angry at her was easier than admitting that she wasn’t this fearless, invincible saint he had always pictured her as.

“ She didn’t get better because you weren’t there, Billy. She went out and did something to change her life so she would be better once you came back. “

He wants to cry. He wants to scream and yell and punch something. Because life is terribly unfair and his mother of all people doesn’t deserve to ever feel unhappy. He wants to cry, but he doesn’t. Because it’s not what he does.

Instead he pulls (Y/N) back into an embrace. It’s sticky and gross but it’s what he needs. Because she’s his sun and his stars and his home and the one person to always align his planets and put things into perspective when he’s losing his head.

“ I don’t want to leave again “

He hasn’t said it out loud before but he’s been thinking about it for a while. Ever since he stepped a foot back into his childhood home. This is the place he wanted to be and even though with Craig around it all felt like things had shifted slightly, it was still better than Hawkins.

This was his home. His heart.

This was where his mom was and this weird new family she was creating with Craig and Cat Benatar. But maybe they could make some room for him in that constellation. He really didn’t need much space. Really.

“ Then don’t. “

“ You think they’d let me stay ? “

“ Billy, your mom is missing a piece of her heart whenever you’re not here. She’s got a proper job now and a wonderful man in her life that you should really give a chance. “

“ And a fat ginger cat. “

“ And a fat ginger cat ! She’s got her life figured out pretty well, you’re the only thing that’s missing. It’s ridiculous that you even consider the possibility of her not letting you stay “.

She softly combs her fingers through his hair like she always did when they were cuddled up on her couch or in the back of his car. He had missed this girl so much.

“ I’m missing a part of my heart to, you know ? “ he says and takes her face between hands.

“ You are ? “

“ Mmmmh … I got not one to watch shitty horror movies with. Got no one to steal my fries and eat the pickles off my burgers. “

“ What else ? “ she ask and rubs her nose against his.

“ There’s no one there to make fun of my mullet and then later hold onto it when I make them see stars. There’s no one to make me shitty apple pancakes. No one to sing along to Whitesnake with and no one to call me out on my shit. No one to keep me from falling apart. No one to love me. Not the way you do. Not even close. “

“ I love you Billy Hargrove and I miss eating your fries and all the burger pickles. “

When she kisses him, she tastes like the ocean and the sun and pink lemonade and home.

Billy Hargrove’s heart beats at an alarming speed as he walks his mom down the little courthouse corridor. It’s a good feeling though. It’s excitement rather than anxiety. It’s a feeling that something is changing, for her and for him. Maybe this can be a step into a new life, one that he can be a part of if he makes an effort. One that he is no doubt accepted into.

His mom cried when he had told her he wanted to stay. Good tears. Happy tears.

He kisses her cheek as he puts her hand into Craigs. Craig who turns out to be a huge Metalhead. Craig who’s quoting shitty B-Movie Horror flicks. Craig who saw something in Billy he didn’t know was there and helped him get a part time job at a garage specialized on muscle cars and vintage vehicles with a good change of full employment after high school.

Craig who’s actually a pretty cool guy.

When he sits down, in the front row, (Y/N)’s hand slips into his and for that moment he’s sure his world, his universe, is as good as can be.

It’s later at the reception when he’s dancing with his mom. Yes, Billy is dancing. He’s a good dancer, okay ?! No shame !

His mom looks at him with that typical motherly stare of pride and unfiltered maternal love. He hasn’t seen that looks in so long he’s really missed it.

“ I’m so happy to have you back. Things are gonna be good from here on out. I know it. “

Billy’s eyes wander over to the girl in the bright purple dress that he thinks is terribly ugly but she makes it work anyway.

His mom’s eyes follow his and a smile appears on her lips “ You know, you guys could be next. To get married I mean “.

“ Mom, come on “ he complains but secretly, it’s all he’s been thinking about.

“ I know, I know. Go dance with her at least “ she says and places a kiss on his cheek.

“ I’m proud of you, Billy. “

Before she can walk away he calls out to her. “ Hey mom ? “

“ Yeah ? “

“ Thank you, for everything. I’m proud of you too “

She smiles but he can see the tears in her eyes. He hopes they’re happy ones.

“ Hey pretty boy “ a voice speaks up from beside him. (Y/N) looks all crazy and bright and out of place with all the elegantly dressed middle aged friends of his mother and Craig but damn if she isn’t the best thing he’s ever laid eyes on.

“ Hey pretty girl. “

His hands grab her softly by the hips as her arms fall around his neck and they start swaying to the music softly playing in the background. If this is what his life is from now on, he’s happy. 

This new little family is broken and weird and unconventional but It could be good, real good.

He looks into (Y/N)’s eyes and sees their entire future right there in front of him. 

“ I’m glad you’re back. “ 

“ Of course I am. Can’t live with half a heart now can you ? “ 

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