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riversofmars · 3 years

Note

Well whenever ya get to it.. maybe a fic where 13 comes across River in a bad mood because River and 12 had a fight? Lol, I suppose it could be the same fight that led to 12 sulking with otters and at the end 13 drops River off with 12 so they can make up.

Thank you! I really hope you like what I did with it! <3

Word count: 2600

Rating: G

Read on AO3 or below

A Stolen Moment

“Step away from the bars!“

Yaz remained seated in the poison cell, she wasn’t stupid enough to get in the guard’s way as they slid open the iron bars.

“You know you’re really going to regret this. I was going to let you live once I get out of here but now, I’ll make sure I kill you first.“ A woman was shoved into the cell who regarded the guard with a threatening glance. The guard, however, just laughed at her threat and locked the door again. “Mark my words!“ She called after him but didn’t get a response. “Well, that’s just rude.“ The woman huffed and had a look around the cell. It was pretty cramped, twelve prisoners last time Yaz had counted. “You lot seem like a whole lot of fun.“ The new arrival stated as everyone carried on waiting in silence. When she didn’t get a response, she turned back to examine the lock. Yaz watched with mild interest, though she couldn’t make out much, the woman’s impressive curls were blocking her view.

“We’ve all tried, it’s really not that easy…“ Yaz spoke up at last, drawing her attention.

“Well, you could say I have some experience with being locked up. A prison has not been invented that can hold me for any length of time.“ The woman gave Yaz a confident wink. “Now, if only I had my trowel…“

“You want to dig your way out of here?“ Yaz frowned confused. The cell was solid rock all the way around.

“It does more than just dig.“ The woman replied in an off-hand sort of way.

“Well, I’m waiting for a friend of mine who will break me out very soon, if you just hang tight, I’m sure she will be here in no time.“ Yaz revealed as she watched her continue to fiddle with the lock. If she carried on, the guards might come back and make things more difficult for the Doctor once she got here, so she thought it best to stop her.

“Is that so?“ The woman looked around, raising her eyebrows at her.

“Yes and if you try and break out now, you’ll end up drawing attention to us and that’ll probably make it harder for her, so…“ Yaz decided it was best to be honest. They had the shared interest of getting out of here, she she figured honesty would be the best policy.

“Fair enough. I guess I can hang on.“ The woman decided after brief consideration. She turned away from the metal bars and made her way over to Yaz who was wedged in between two aliens that she hadn’t encountered before. The mystery woman, however, despite her human appearance, seemed to know her way around aliens. She barked some orders in a completely foreign language at the alien to Yaz’s right who surprisingly budged over to make room for her. “Professor River Song.“ The curly haired woman introduced herself as she sat next to Yaz. It was a tight squeeze so she elbowed the alien to scoot up further. “When did your friend say this rescue mission would take place?“

“She didn’t.“ Yaz admitted. Her and the Doctor had been split up a while ago but she knew she would come for her eventually. “But she’s very reliable at this sort of thing. I’m Yasmine Kahn, Yaz is fine though.“

“Well, Yaz, if your friend doesn’t turn up in an hour, I’ll get us out of here myself, how’s that for a compromise?“ River said and Yaz chuckled:

“Sounds good.“

“What are you in for? You’re not from around here. I know a 21st century Earth jacket when I see one.“ River carried on, looking her up and down.

“How do you…“ Yaz’s face fell. In all her travels with the Doctor, no-one had realised they were time travellers, at least not this quickly and not on their own accord.

“I have an eye for these things.“ River smirked. “So you are a time traveller then, time agent perhaps? How did you get stuck in here?“

“Well, my friend and I we’e trying to solve the mystery of who assassinated the crown prince and now, they think it was us.“ Yaz sighed. This was always the way, things were never just straightforward, were they?

“Classic mistake, never interfere with the monarchy.“ River chuckled.

“What are you in for?“ Yaz asked curiously.

“Ah, you know, the usual…“ River gave a wave with her hand. “Had a fight with my husband, so I naturally came to a planet known for it’s exquisite jewellery to treat myself. Found this lovely pair of earrings, fifteen thousand credits but worth it and the charlatan of a seller exchanges it for a fake as he's wrapping them up for me. Thinking I wouldn’t notice.“ River rolled her eyes. “If you want to trick me you have to try a bit harder than a simple slide of hand. Obviously I called him out on it and perhaps the argument got a little out of hand…“ She sighed thinking back to the unfortunate incident. “But I wasn’t going to waste fifteen thousand credits of my husband’s money that he doesn’t even know he owns. He has no concept of money, I have no idea who he thinks is paying for our suit on Darillium, so I set it all up for him, another thing that ridiculous man has no concept of… Anyway, the argument got out of hand when I pulled a gun on him, apparently that’s not something they do on this planet even if you’re the wronged party in a jewellery deal.“ She sighed concluding her story.

“Right…“ Yaz wasn’t sure what else to say.

“I did steal the jewels mind. Wasn’t going to get cheated twice.“ River winked and pulled out a pair of beautiful crystal earrings.

“Wow they’re…“ Yaz was in awe and some of the prisoners looked around, taking an interest, but River was quick to return them to her pocket and shoot threatening glances all round.

“Beautiful, I know.“ She smiled, returning her attention to Yaz.

“So uh… your husband, will he come looking for you?“ The girl ask, amused by River’s description of her spouse, he sounded like a bit of a handful.

“Probably not. He went off to sulk as well…“ River shrugged.

“Maybe he's gone shopping, too?“ Yaz suggested and River chuckled:

“No, I believe he said he was going to live with otters for a while.“

“Must have been a big fight…“ Yaz wasn’t sure whether she was being serious or not but in the far reaches of space, anything was possible.

“It was honestly not even a big deal. I was just telling him about this expedition I wanted to go on and he got all funny about it. He got all like We’re time travellers, River, you don’t have to do this expedition now, you can do it later, it’ll always be there, waiting.“ River mimicked in a heavy Scottish accent, rolling her eyes.

“You’re a time traveller too?“ Yaz asked in surprise. It certainly explained why she had been so quick to catch on.

“Hence the keen eye for period clothing.“ River confirmed with a smile. “And yes, obviously, he’s right. I can go whenever I please but I was getting excited about it. I’ve always wanted to go to the Library, it’s so big, it doesn’t even have a name, you know, just a great big THE. But no, he insisted I at least stay till the end of the night and I don’t like being told what to do. And he doesn’t like to be told what to do either. And yes, it was a silly thing to argue about but I don’t take kindly to criticism and he’s such a manchild! Honestly, that’s the word we should get from him, not Doctor, wise man my arse…“ River went off on a bit of a rant, it seemed she still wasn’t quite over the argument just yet.

“Doctor…“ Yaz echoed, a little confused.

“My husband, the Doctor…“ River nodded.

Oh right, you said you were a professor, are you both academics?“ Yaz asked.

“Not quite. Doctor is what everyone calls him, I’m afraid his real name is a bit of a secret that I can’t reveal.“ River explained slightly amused. “But if you’re a time traveller… if you’re with the time agency, you must know about the Doctor.“ She realised. “And about me“

“I uh…“ Yaz didn’t know what to say, her head was spinning. Where they really talking about the same Doctor? “The Doctor, a time traveller…“

“Blue box, ridiculous clothes?“ River prompted her.

“Yes, of course I know the Doctor…“ Yaz tried her best to hide her shock at the revelation. “I just didn’t know about you…“ The Doctor had never mentioned a Professor River Song before. And River seemed to think the Doctor was a man. So she had to be from her past. The Doctor had mentioned many times about how she had been a man before so it made sense. She had neglected to mention she had been married though.

“Well, that’s either a very rude oversight by your agency or incredibly flattering that my existence is classified.“ River chuckled.

“I uh… I’m not with any sort of agency…“ Yaz decided it was probably best to come clean.

“Then how are you travelling through time?“ River frowned but Yaz didn’t get a chance to respond, suddenly, an explosion up the corridor shock the building.

“Sorry, that was a bit more obvious than I had planned!“ The Doctor sprinted up to the bars and worked the lock. “Sorry to keep you waiting Yaz!“

“Doctor?“ Yaz looked up in shock, she hadn’t expected her to turn up out of the blue. River’s head whipped around to Yaz and then she looked to the blonde who was just sliding the bars open.

“River?“ The Doctor looked back at River in shock. There was a moment of stunned confusion and the other prisoners took advantage of it. They jumped up from their seats and rushed out of the cell, nearly knocking the Doctor over. Yaz looked in between the two woman back and fore, not knowing what to say. This confirmed that they were clearly talking about the same Doctor and the way the Doctor’s face lit up for seeing River, Yaz could only conclude that she had been telling the truth about their relationship.

“Did you really wait to regenerate again before looking for me? Only you would sulk an entire lifetime!“ River jabbed her finger at the Doctor who was about to throw herself into her arms..

“I… what?“ The Doctor’s face fell.

“Our fight on Darillium about the Library! How long have you been sulking for? Did it kill you?“ River huffed crossing her arms in front of her chest, refusing the hug the Doctor was clearly craving.

“That… this is where you came after that fight?“ The Doctor exclaimed as the penny dropped.

“Yes! Buy myself some nice earrings. Well, when I said buy, I mean steal… where did you go?!“ River shot back, deflecting before she could scold her for stealing.

“I told you, to go see my otter friends!“ The Doctor retorted and Yaz just shook her head to herself. This conversation was getting more ridiculous by the second.

“You actually did that?“

“They’re good listeners!“ The Doctor replied defensively. “Didn’t even stay that long… just until you came and apologised.“

“That doesn’t sound like something I would do.“ River shook head.

“Yes, in hindsight, it really doesn’t. I guess this is why… guess it’s cause we meet and I convince you to go back…“ The Doctor gave an awkward smile and River huffed:

“And what is it you’ve got to say that will convince me to apologise to your past self?“

“He’s just scared.“ The Doctor shrugged. “Really really scared. We just found this wonderful life together, this reprieve from the running and the fighting… he’s just not ready to give that up yet… just let him have that night, the whole night, before you go anywhere…“ She held out her hand to her.

“I wasn’t really going to go right that moment…“ River mumbled, trying to gloss over how much of an effect her words had on her. Reluctantly she placed her hand in hers and the Doctor gave it a comforting squeeze.

“I know that now, he didn’t at the time.“ The Doctor smiled apologetically.

“I hate you…“ River huffed refusing to feel the magnitude of it all. This was a future Doctor, one she had never met before, one that knew how the night on Darillum would end and whether it really was the last time she would see them.

“No you don’t.“ The Doctor chuckled and pulled her into her hug. She held her close and closed her eyes the hide the tears pooling in them. River would pick up her past self from the far side of Darillium, where the white-haired scotsman was currently playing with otters, and they would continue their long and last night together. And then she would go to the Library… it was all written, no more time left. This was a stolen moment, nothing more. The Doctor pressed a kiss to the side of her wife’s head and nuzzled into her bouncy curls that were soft and familiar as ever.

“As much as I hate to interrupt… I’m sure someone would have heard that explosion…“ Yaz awkwardly cleared her throat. She didn’t want to intrude on what was clearly a very emotional moment - one that she would have to quiz the Doctor on at a later date - but they probably should get moving.

“How about a spin in the Old Girl, Professor Song?“ The Doctor pulled herself away at last.

“Why not, for old time’s sake.“ River chuckled and nodded. “Are you sure I really apologised to you?“

“I remember it quite clearly.“ The Doctor grinned. “I also remember we ended up swimming in a lake…“

“I didn’t bring a bathing suit.“ River raised her eyebrows and the Doctor winked:

“Exactly.“

“That, on the the other hand, very much sounds like something I would do.“ River smirked. “Perhaps you and me can go for a little dip ourselves first… just, you know, make sure I actually can swim…“ She carried on suggestively.

“Okay, enough of the flirting, can we please get out of here?“ Yaz exclaimed wishing she was anywhere but here.

“I think I’m embarrassing your friend here, Sweetie.“ River chuckled, giving Yaz an apologetic smile. “To the TARDIS?“

“Let’s get you back to your husband.“ The Doctor agreed in amusement.

“You are her husband.“ Yaz exclaimed.

“And every time our paths cross, I wonder how I got so lucky.“ The Doctor grinned, trying to make light of the situation and not think about how this probably really was the last time she would see her.

“Look at you being charming.“ River smirked.

“Fine, just kiss already, so we can get a move on.“ Yaz groaned in annoyance and glanced down the corridor to make sure they were alright for the time being. When she looked back, she immediately regretted it. The Doctor had buried her hands in her wife’s impressive curls, River had already pushed the Doctor’s coat off and was pulling her braces down. Neither of them was paying any attention to Yaz or where they were. They were kissing feverishly.

“Right, you guys just carry on, I’m gonna go meet you back at the TARDIS… I can wait… guess the otters can too… you have a time machine after all…“ Yaz knew they really weren’t listening so she quickly turned away and hurried down the corridor in search of the TARDIS.

#doctor who #fanfiction #prompt #space wives #river song #thirteen #thirteenth doctor #river x thirteen #thirteen/river #yowzah #twelve x river #Yasmine Kahn #femslash #general #fluff

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purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1177

survey by joybucket

Have you _____ during this pandemic?

Worn a mask? I mean, of course. I put one on even when I’m only picking up deliveries from my doorstep.

got tested for coronavirus? Never. I also hope I’ll never have to go through this, I don’t want a stick up my nose and throat D:

known someone who died from the virus? Personally? Too many people at this point.

gotten the COVID vaccine? Not yet, but I have many relatives who’ve already gotten theirs, my mom and grandmother included, so at least. I know my employer has a plan in place over the next few weeks or months, so I’m just currently waiting for updates on their end.

started a new hobby? Yeah, I started on embroidery late last year. I haven’t been able to keep it up, but I’m still very much interested and want to go back to it soon. I also plan on getting one or two new Klaypel kits so I can finally replace and throw out the ones Gabie gave to me as gifts.

hated being stuck at home? Yeah, especially during the start when there seemed to be no end in sight. When they heightened quarantine protocols again earlier this month, that also made me feel aggravated about being stuck at home indefinitely since I had already started going out on weekends for self-dates.

worn a mask someone made for you? No one has made a mask for me, but one of my uncles got me a supply of a certain kind of face mask that I didn’t initially use.

sewn your own mask? No.

purchased masks at the store? Not me personally, but my dad regularly buys a supply for the family to use.

purchased a KN95 or N95 mask? Again, not me. But we regularly have a stock at home, along with the blue surgical face masks.

complimented someone on their mask? I don’t think so. I barely pay attention especially towards mask designs.

protested mask-wearing? ????? My name’s not Karen.

complained on Facebook? Nothing mask-related, but I have definitely complained about the government’s negligence and lack of proactivity about this entire situation.

read a book? I started on Midnight Sun which my parents got for me, but I never finished it. I got busy immediately the week after since I got accepted into my internship, and it was also because I was dealing with my breakup and could not focus enough to read for more than 5 minutes.

had an event canceled you had been looking forward to? My college graduation, which I’ll forever stay bitter about.

stocked up on toilet paper? I don’t think so. My parents didn’t believe in panic-buying.

been to the store when it was crowded? I do remember the mall being packed when I went last-minute Christmas shopping. Not to a crazy extent, but there was still quite a number of people.

been to the store when the toilet paper aisle was empty? N/A. We don’t have toilet paper aisles, but all stores have hand sanitizers and temperature checks by their entrance.

lost your job? I didn’t have a job before the pandemic because I had still been a student when everything started.

worked from home? Yup, and still on an WFH arrangement until now.

still had to go to work? I’ve had to go two times, but that was because it was absolutely necessary to go to the office to get the work done. My employer is pretty strict about this anyway and if something could be done at home, they’d decline the request.

went to a protest at your state's capital building? Well we don’t have states so this isn’t really relevant to me. Should a credible org plan a protest against the government though, I’d be interested in going.

watched the news for updates on the virus? We keep the TV on during dinner, at which time the news is always on. Whether I want to or not, I always get updates on the Covid situation in the country.

wondered if you had covid? Yeah, when I got extremely sick in May last year.

not left the house for a week? Way more than a week.

watched YouTube videos? YouTube is pretty much a part of my daily routine, with or without the virus.

spent a whole day watching movies? I’ve only watched one movie since the beginning of the pandemic.

cleaned your house from top to bottom? Not me, but my mom.

ordered something online? Too much crap.

ordered a pizza? I’ve gotten pizza a few times for my family, yeah. I remember ordering from Pizza Hut, Motorino, and most recently, Yellow Cab.

prayed to God?

completely forgotten a holiday that you normally celebrate? Nah, I usually remember when holidays are because that means I get a day off hahaha.

voted in an election? There haven’t been any elections that have taken place since the start of the pandemic.

gotten to know your neighbors? Somewhat. I only say hi to them and greet them a good morning/afternoon when I walk the dogs, but I don’t initiate conversations.

sanitized everything in your home? We always do this, especially when a package arrives for someone in the family.

wrote someone a letter? Started one but never finished because I soon realized it wouldn’t be worth it.

wished this pandemic were over? Don’t we all?

been surprised this pandemic has lasted so long? Yeah, I definitely thought things would be normal by now.

worried about catching the virus? I think the worry exists for everyone. I just wouldn’t say I’ve ever gotten super anxious and panicky about it. I feel pretty resigned at this point and just want everything to be over, so I can finally have the life I was meant to have back.

stayed home because you didn't want to catch the virus? That, and because I was required to stay home to begin with.

been to church? We watch a service on YouTube every Sunday morning.

watched an online church service? ^ Yeah, that’s what I meant haha oops.

been stopped by a police officer? No, but there was one time I was cleaning up Cooper’s tray and there happened to be a village guard cycling by our street, and he just kindly reminded me to put on a mask or shield since I had forgotten to do it.

seen a lot of police cars patrolling the area? No. I would definitely be pissed off if this happened - especially in a residential subdivision - and share a pic on social media to alert everyone about the unnecessary mess that is the police.

had someone cough on you out in public? No. But again, this would also piss me off and I wouldn’t hesitate to confront the asshole who would do something like that.

has someone stand less than six feet away from you while waiting in line? Always. Some people here can still be unbelievably stubborn.

had to use an inhaler? Never needed one.

been to the doctor? Yeah, to have my blood and urine tests examined.

had increased asthma and/or allergy symptoms? I have neither.

felt like you were fighting a virus? Like I said, I got a bad fever sometime last year. Even though I didn’t show any of the common Covid symptoms (e.g. I had wet cough instead of a dry cough), I felt as if I was rotting away lmao. I could barely stand up and I felt like fainting the second I would raise my head.

been diagnosed with the coronavirus? No.

felt lonely? It’s natural.

went somewhere with a friend? Just a couple of times. I went to UPTC with Andi at the start of the year, then back in Feb I went to Perfy’s with several friends, well aware of our ignorance but badly craving for a sense of normalcy for even just a night.

attended an online event? BANG BANG COOOOOOOOOON. Best 8 hours of my life during the pandemic thus far.

had a business in your area close down? Like the people I know who’ve died from the virus, too many.

received a stimulus check? Hasn’t happened.

received food stamps? No, and I don’t think we have that system in place here. The government just lets the hungry go hungrier.

applied for disability? No, not applicable.

applied for food assistance? No, thankfully we haven’t reached this point.

visited a food pantry? ^

had a fever? Just back in May. Hasn’t happened again since.

believed a conspiracy theory about the virus? Cringe, no.

had to take online classes? When the whole world was still at a loss on how to handle a global pandemic, aka early March, I briefly took Zoom sessions for some of my classes. But it proved to be difficult what with many students struggling with internet connections or being stuck somewhere without their school supplies, so my university canceled the sem altogether not long after and gave everyone general passing grades.

ate at a restaurant? I did a few times. I frequented coffee shops rather than restaurants, though.

walked through a drive-thru? I’ve...driven through a drive-thru, but not walk.

had your mask fog up your glasses? Every damn time I get out of the car, hahaha.

had to go to the hospital because of covid? Nope, not for myself or for someone else.

had to go to the hospital for a different reason? For my fever.

used hand sanitizer? At least once a day.

felt encouraged, joyful, or blessed? Now, especially. Things are starting to look up, at least for my own life.

#survey #surveys

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nade2308 · 3 years

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Can you do #9, Helpless for the Drabble Challenge? Mac and Jack or MacDalton, your choice.

Hey, hey, I finally managed to write this. Hope you’ll like it. Posted under the cut, because this one is the longest one, yet

The drive back to Mac's place was a blur. Jack focused on the road and tried not to think of what they were told or the treatment that might have reversed all of their hard work on making Mac's hands heal and be okay.

In reality, Jack was scared because Mac's hands were an important part of who he was at work, and knowing Mac if something happened to his hands, he would find a way to convince himself that it was the only way he could do things. The only thing he was good for. Jack tried hard to stop that train of thought, but the fact was, he had some dark thoughts on his own.

It was a little over two weeks after the NOLA mission and Mac's check up for the burns on his hands. The doctor told them that they were infected and after Jack was shooed out of the room and they did something to the burns to clean them, Mac got out of the examination room with an unreadable expression.

He told Jack to get them home and Jack complied. He didn't have the heart to ask Mac about what transpired and what was the verdict on the infection. Not after he heard his partner screaming as his burns were cleaned. He desperately wished to be there for Mac, hold him close and whisper reassurances. But he wasn't allowed.

Once at the house, Jack opened the door and Mac was the first one in. A moment later Jack heard the door to Mac's room - their room now - open and close with a slam.

Jack looked at the clock. It was only noon. It looked like it was going to be a long day.

…

Mac knew that he was acting like a sullen teenager when he slammed the bedroom door closed, but this day was too much already and he needed to be alone. He wasn't fair to his partner who was nothing but a supporting pillar, keeping up with all the moods Mac had ever since what transpired at the crematorium. He fed Mac, he helped with showers and baths, kept a steady stream of chatter when Mac wasn't feeling very talkative. He changed the bandages to his hands like a clockwork. Jack did everything in his power to make sure Mac was taken care of and looked after.

The change of their relationship status from friends to boyfriends didn't change anything. They discovered that they did a lot of the things with the same drive and fervor, so it wasn't really a thing to get anxious about. That went out of the window when Mac decided kissing Jack was a good idea, and slamming him against the door of their hotel room was an even better one. And then Jack returned the kiss. They didn't look back to things from then on.

After they came back to LA and Jack spent more time at Mac's, it was natural to ask Jack to move in with him. They lived in each other's pockets for years before Mac admitted his feelings, so it wasn't a rushed decision. Mac had to admit that waking up next to Jack in bed had interrupted quite a few of his morning runs. He loved the feeling of having his partner next to him in this capacity. The unbidden love Jack had for him, showing every day in every gesture. In the little pecks on Mac's cheek or neck, a touch on his hand and arm to ground him; the arm around his waist and pulling Mac to his side. Laughing at something Mac said and burying his head in Mac's neck.

In light of recent events, Mac wasn't sure he was worth it all that. He was being snappy and by all means Jack should have said “enough” and left him. But Jack was still there.

Mac wasn't sure how to approach his boyfriend and tell him about what happened at the doctor's office, when there was a soft knock on the door. It was a testament to how Jack was feeling about things that he didn't just get inside the room. Jack was the one that always said “family don't knock”, but was always cautious.

While Mac was being busy planning what to say to him, it looked like Jack took Mac's silence as a no to get in, so he whispered how lunch was ready if Mac wanted to eat.

Mac wanted to cry. Jack shouldn't have to do that. Helping Mac with mundane tasks was enough, but with eating and drinking…

It was bad enough that the burns stopped him from doing all normal tasks. Now he added to Jack and the way Jack felt around him.

Doing a great job there, Angus, the voice in his head sounding suspiciously like his dad said.

Footsteps echoed away from the door and Mac felt a pang of regret for not responding sooner to Jack.

It was a trouble to open the door with both his hands wrapped in bandages, but Mac managed somehow.

He had to face Jack sooner or later. They had to talk.

…

Jack was at a loss of what he could do, so he headed to the kitchen. If he was cooking lunch at least he wasn't going to be thinking about their predicament. But the fact was, Mac was hurting, he got hurt trying to save - and saving - him in the process. Jack still remembered the scent of burned flesh permeating his nostrils. It always made him feel sick, but now more than ever. It was Mac, his boyfriend, the love of his life, his everything that got hurt because of him, and Jack found that to be a hard pill to swallow.

Jack smiled as he remembered that night in the Panama City hotel. After the lead in Guadalajara led to a trip to Karakas, ultimately making them circle back to Panama, they were left high and dry. What was once a promising lead it turned into their possible informant standing them up and Mac was pissed.

Jack was trying to decide if it was best to leave Mac alone, give him space, when his partner turned around and kissed Jack, slamming him in the door of their room. His butt hit the door handle and Jack hissed in pain, but Mac swallowed it with his fervent kiss. Jack found himself responding and then it was frantic search for release, pleasure and being close to each other.

Waking up in the morning was awkward, at least for Jack. He didn't want to ruin the feeling of peacefulness and satisfaction, but he had to know.

Jack should have known that Mac'd be an explosive lover, given his propensity of making Jack's mind explode.

Their talk was quiet and over breakfast they ordered from the hotel. Jack found himself asking where they were standing now, and Mac told him that he was hoping for something more. That the feelings were present for a lot longer than Mac even acknowledged them for. And Jack admitted he held a torch for his best friend for years.

After that, they became a couple and despite them going from friends to lovers, nothing really changed. They were still Mac and Jack.

Jack loved waking up to blond strands of hair under his chin, sometimes ending up in his mouth or tickling his nose. It was the small moments with Mac he loved the most. They just existed.

Jack finished cooking the chili and put it on a rack to cool, while he took out plates and silverware. He busied himself getting the pitcher from the fridge with the chili lemonade his grandma taught him to make when he was little, and wondered for the first time if things would have been easier if he never said a thing about his feelings.

It was a given for Jack to ruin things for himself by opening his mouth and admitting to things. If he just didn't tell Mac he loved him, that he was in love with, and dashed Mac's hopes for more, it would have been simpler. That and other lies he was telling himself to make himself feel better.

Jack wiped a stray tear and went to fetch Mac. As predicted, Mac kept his silence and Jack gave up after several minutes of no answer from the other side. He knew Mac would surface at some point of the day. And as always Jack planned to be there.

He ate the food mechanically, not tasting it. It was easier said than done to distract himself, think of something else. But nothing could help him, or stop Jack from thinking about Mac trying to put out the fire that caught his jacket. Nothing could stop Jack from thinking that just as so many times before, he was a hindrance to Mac, that he got Mac hurt in the process, for something that Jack was the only one at fault. Little Ray wanted to see him suffer, and it was a testament just how the work at the Agency sucked that Jack got dragged back into the mess of one of his former aliases. And now Mac was paying the price.

Jack learned afterward that Mac crashed a car in the main pipeline to stop the fire that was going to consume the coffin he was buried in. On top of being thrown out of a window. And being worried about Jack so much that he pulled him out of the fire, literally.

And Jack fist bumping him was the worst that he could do to Mac's burn. Jack hadn't worn a ring ever since. It was too much to hear the pained scream when the metal touched the burns.

Just as Jack was eating the last from his plate, Mac joined him. He didn't say a word, just plopped in the chair and looked at the pot like it personally offended him.

Jack didn't know how to proceed, but then he set with his routine as always. He placed the cloth napkin over Mac's lap, and one over his neck. Then put chili on the plate.

It all went downhill from there. Jack's hands started shaking and after the third time he dropped food in Mac's lap, Jack could tell Mac was getting worked up.

“Jack, stop.”

The soft voice was far worse than Mac yelling at him. Jack stopped and then he went to gather his plate and took it to the sink. More like the floor since he dropped it. Jack was staring at his shaking hands and didn't know what to do.

He tried to remove the broken pieces, but cut his finger on the edge of one so after snarling at no one in particular he dropped it and then placed his hands in his lap.

“Jack? Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.”

“That's usually my line.”

Jack mustered up a smile, but didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say, anyway.

“I'm sorry. I really am. But with my hands like this, I can't help but feel helpless.”

That got Jack's attention and he looked up.

“You are not helpless, Mac.”

“Yes, I am. Look at me.”

“Mac…”

"Look at me, Jack! Look at me!"

"I am looking at you. I am looking at you, even when you think I'm not. You are the most wonderful person I know, and you have no idea how lucky I am to call you my boyfriend, my ANYTHING! How lucky I am that you let me love you. I am looking at you, and I see someone that never gives up."

Mac looked at him with such a surprise that Jack wanted to hunt down everyone and everything that decided to hurt this wonderful boy.

“If anything, I should be the one who-” Jack bit his lip. He shouldn't say it. Mac should never know.

“Should be the one that, what, Jack?”

“You should have left me when you had a chance. I'm too dangerous for you.”

“Jack, that's not-”

“I went and fucked things up and… and you paid the price. And no amount of me taking care of you is gonna solve that.”

“Do you honestly believe that?”

“I…”

Mac carefully got up from the chair and kneeled in front of Jack.

“Hey, what are you doing, you are going to cut yourself-”

Mac kissed him and Jack shut up for a second before he returned the kiss. It was the first real one after everything, that wasn't frantic and needy and to make sure they were both around. Jack didn't like to admit it out loud, but this mission shook him for more than just Mac being burned.

“I am the one that started things and hell would freeze over before I kicked you out or left you, Jack. I love you. If anyone is chasing someone away it should be you after all you've been through with me.”

“I would never.”

“I know.”

“It's not something I can stop doing just snapping my fingers, dude. You are it for me. And even if that wasn't the case, you know I'd stay. Always. That's a promise I will try my best to keep.”

“So you aren't mad?”

“Of course not. I have my moments, too, it'd be hypocritical if I got mad over slammed doors and moody boyfriends, now.”

“Jack, I'm serious.”

“So am I. I know it's hard for you to ask for help, even if you need it, Mac. But remember, I am offering you my help unconditionally. I don't pity you, but I feel for you. It hurts me to see you hurting yourself like this.”

“Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. You always say that to me.”

“It's not. You are a strong person, Mac. You don't need to prove yourself to me.”

“The doc said that the infection was spreading and if we… if we can't control it, I may have permanent damage to my hands. If… if it doesn't spread in my bloodstream and kill me first.”

Jack felt like his world was turned upside down. It was possibly the reason why Mac was feeling like this and acting like it was the end of the world. But they were fighters. And they weren't going to give up.

Still, a part of Jack thought if it wasn't for him…

“Not your fault, Jack. I know what you are thinking. Knowing me, I could have burned myself easily in another way. Our job is dangerous.”

“That it is. I'm so sorry, darlin'. Anything I could do?”

“Hold me?”

Jack complied and he ended up holding a highly distressed Mac over pieces of broken porcelain, trying to hold on on the last thread of sanity he possessed. He didn't want to act like he was thinking of the worst, always, but what Mac told him, it rattled him more than he would have liked to admit. It was cruel and unfair, but Jack wasn't going to give up.

“We are going to be okay, Mac. We are going to deal with this. I'm here.”

Jack knew he couldn't promise that it was going to be alright. But he'd do his damndest to try and make it happen.

…

Mac was warmly wrapped in Jack's embrace and blankets as they lay in bed. They decided to turn in early, the day was too much for them. But neither was asleep. Jack was lost in his thoughts, Mac could tell. And Mac was busy listening to Jack's heartbeat and breathing.

“You know that whatever happens, you got me for life, right?” Jack spoke softly, as if he was trying to whisper.

Mac shuffled a bit and raised himself to see Jack. And he believed Jack.

“Yeah. I do.”

“Good. Because the next time I hear you are saying you are helpless, or even think about it, I'm finding a way to shut you up.”

Mac could feel his eyebrows going up in surprise and what it implied and then Jack laughed and flushed.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, you idiot. I meant with a kiss. Or maybe more kisses.”

Mac laughed and let himself be pulled back in Jack's embrace.

“Seriously, though. You got me, Mac. Forever.”

“Forever. You too, Jack. I'll never leave you.”

“You better not. Or I'll come and find you. And smother you in kisses to show you how much I love you.”

“I love you too, Jack.”

Things were far from over. But they had each other. And if Mac learned something throughout the years was that everything was more bearable with Jack in his life.

With that thought, Mac let sleep pull him under.

#100 whump drabble challenge #prompt number 9 #helpless #whump #Mac whump #emotional whump #idiots in love #established relatioship #angus macgyver #jack dalton #macdalton

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xstarker · 3 years

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Since the beginning and until the end (Part Three)

Peter is immortal, reincarnation exists, and in every lifetime Peter has met and loved Tony, only for him to die. He’s hoping this time might be different.

[Part One] [Part Two]

Author’s Note: I put way more effort and detail into this chapter than was necessary, but hopefully it isn’t too much for you all. I really didn’t want to post it as two parts seeing as there is no mentions of Tony in this one and this is a Starker fic, but I felt like this chapter added to the story and Peter being immortal in a fun way.

That being said, this chapter is centered around the events of Captain America: The First Avenger.

Warnings: Mentions of canon character “death”, Nazis, War, etc. This chapter includes mentions of Stucky and Steggy.

Words: 4.4k

Peter has always tried to avoid going to the doctor whenever possible. He knows that if a doctor were to examine his reflexes or his strength too closely, or God forbid take his blood, that he could end up as someone’s lab experiment – or worse. That being said, he also hasn’t exactly been super cautious in the past either.

Over the years he’s made a habit of using his curse of immortality and the unique features that came with it, to help people. He ran in front of oncoming traffic to save little girls, retrieved cats from trees, caught someone who fell off a building, and even stopped a predator or two. He has never just been that person who stands by and lets bad things happen if he has the power to stop them.

That’s why he ends up sitting in a medical exam room, waiting for a doctor to come clear him to join the military. He never really wanted to be an army man, but he also never expected one world war let alone two, and he certainly couldn’t stand idly by.

“You are marvelously fit, Mr Parks.” A deep german accent draws Peter’s attention to the curtain, a gentleman in a suit in the process of pulling it back and entering the room, Peter’s file in hand.

“Almost miraculously. You don’t even seem to have any real medical history. Your doctor gave me the results of your physical examination but little else. My name is Dr Abraham Erskine.” Peter tenses. Here was exactly what he always feared. Maybe if he grabs his clothes and runs now-

“So, you want to kill Nazis?” Peter’s attention is drawn back to the doctor.

“I don’t want to kill anyone. I just know that I have the ability to help all of those men who are out there fighting to end all of the genocide.” Dr Erskine nods.

“I can offer you a spot on a project I am working on. There are others, all of them hoping to be picked to be the first test subject.”

“Test subject for what? I don’t really want to be a test subject.”

“I will be honest with you, if you are with me. Yes?” Peter nods in agreement, curious by the strange doctor.

“The project is a serum to create the perfect soldier. However, from what I can see of you, it won’t be needed. Why is that?”

Peter swallows the lump in his throat. “It’s kind of complicated, but essentially I was bit by a cursed spider which gave me certain… genetic enhancements.”

Dr Erskine raises his eyebrows and smiles warmly, and seeing as the man doesn’t make Peter’s instincts go haywire, he thinks trusting him might not be the worst decision.

“That sounds absolutely insane, but given that you seem relatively sane and the physical evidence thus far, I suppose I have no choice but to believe you. Though I do expect that I will see more of these genetic enhancements overseas.”

“That is very likely, should you approve me sir.”

“Get dressed. You’ll need to pack a bag. Pack light though.” Peter smiles and jumps up from his seat, rushing to put his clothes back on and follow Dr Erskine out of the room, where the man then stamps a bold black 1A on his file.

“Congratulations soldier.” The doctor says, passing the file over to Peter. “You’re the second man I’ve approved tonight.”

“The second?”

“You will meet him when you ship out tomorrow morning.” Dr Erskine gives him another small smile and walks away.

As it turns out, the other man he approved is Steve Rogers from Brooklyn. They talk on the way to base, and he learns Steve has lost both parents to the war, and that he has always wanted to join himself but was never able to due to all of his medical conditions. When he actually begins to list them all, Peter understands why. He thinks Dr Erskine must really see something in him in order to risk bringing him into the military.

At base, dressed in their new uniforms, Steve and Peter join the line of soldiers currently waiting to meet their commanding officer. A few of them talk amongst themselves, but Peter and Steve stand quietly now, not wanting to step on anyone’s toes the first day.

“Gentlemen, I am Agent Carter. I supervise all operations for this division.” The woman matching the voice walks around them from the right. Her voice is both soothing and authoritative, as is the way she carries herself. She is a woman who demands respect immediately, and also one of the most gorgeous ones Steve has ever laid eyes on.

“What’s with the accent Queen Victoria? I thought I was signin’ up for the US Army.” Comes a voice to the left of them. Immediately, Peter knows the man has made a mistake.

“What’s your name soldier?” Agent Carter’s face shows absolutely no amusement.

“Gilmore Hodge, your majesty.” He’s so snarky Peter can’t help but roll his eyes.

“Step forward Hodge.” The man obeys the order almost immediately, to the surprise of both Steve and Peter. “Put your right foot forward.”

“We gonna wrassle? Cause I got a few moves I know you’ll like.” Peter knows the punch is coming before she does it, yet he still lets out a soft laugh. Carter makes eye contact with him and gives him the smallest smile, just as another man in uniform approaches.

“Agent Carter.” She straightens her blazer.

“Colonel Phillips.”

“I can see that you are breaking in the candidates. That’s good!” The man – Colonel Phillips - comes to a stop in front of Hodge. “Get your ass up out of that dirt and stand in that line at attention until someone comes and tells you what to do.”

Hodge hops up fast, immediately complying. “Yes sir.”

“General Patton has said that wars are fought with weapons, but they are won by men. We are going to win this war because we have the best men.” When he gets to ‘men’ Peter sees his eyes connect with Steve’s tiny form, and his statement suddenly sounds like more of a question. The colonel looks over at Erskine, his face doing nothing to hide the disappointment in his eyes.

“And because they are going to get better. Much better.”

The colonel goes on to explain the goal is to create the best army in history, and he says every army starts with one man. As it turned out, that one man would be chosen by the end of a week’s worth of tests. They do all of the basic things you would expect an army to do, everyone competing to get the best time or the most push-ups, the best score. Peter doesn’t really compete, but he doesn’t bother hiding his ability to do them all with ease either, knowing Erskine wanted to see what he could do in action. He ends up with the best scores in most of the tests, while Steve is dead last in nearly all of them. This doesn’t seem to disappoint Erskine in the slightest.

“Faster ladies! Come on. My grandmother has more life in her, God rest her soul.” They are all doing push-ups, next to him Steve struggles to barely do one. Peter feels bad for him, knowing he is struggling to do all of the tests but he’s still pushing himself as hard as he can.

“Please tell me you aren’t really thinking about picking Rogers.” Peter’s super hearing picks up on Colonel Phillips’ voice before he’s even finished walking over to the truck in front of the group.

“I’m more than just thinking about it. He is the clear choice.”

“When you brought a 90-pound asthmatic onto my army base, I let it slide. I thought ‘What the hell, maybe he’d be useful to you, like a gerbil.’ I never thought you’d pick him.” They come to a stop at the truck, and Agent Carter has the group switch to jumping jacks. Peter can hear the struggle in Steve’s lungs.

“You stick a needle in that kid’s arm, it’s gonna go right through him. Look at that, he’s making me cry.” Peter glances over at Steve, and really the sight is something pitiful.

“I am looking for qualities beyond the physical.” Erskine explains.

“Do you know how long it took to set up this project? All the groveling I had to do in front of Senator What’s-His-Name’s committees?”

“Brandt. Yes, I know. I am well aware of your efforts.”

“Then throw me a bone. Hodge and Parks both passed every test we gave them. They’re strong, they’re fast, they obey orders. They are soldiers.”

“Hodge is a bully. As for Parks, I have already told you he is not going to be receiving the serum. He does not need it.”

“You don’t win a war with niceness Doctor.” Peter’s eyes follow Colonel Phillips, watching as he grabs a grenade from the truck. “You win wars with guts.”

Peter watches him pull the pin and toss the grenade, not feeling the familiar tingle of danger run up his spine, he immediately knows the bomb is a dud. This was a test.

“Grenade!” He yells, and everyone begins jumping away, scared out of their minds. Peter steps back, but watches in fascination as Steve immediately moves to wrap his entire frail little body around it, planning to risk his own life to protect everyone else around him.

“Get away!” He yells. “Get back!”

Both Peter and Erskine smile. Peter gets it now, why Erskine wants Steve.

Peter and Steve are similar in a lot of ways, and had that been a real grenade, Peter knows he would have done the very same thing. He knows this is the kind of person who power belongs to, and he knows if anyone else had gotten the curse that he had, they wouldn’t have used the abilities the same way.

Well, anyone else but Steve Rogers.

That same day they tell Steve he’s been chosen to go first, and Erskine comes to talk to Peter alone, a bottle of Schnapps half empty in his hand. He tells him about Johann Schmidt, how he believes all the myths and legends, and that he believes a superior man is meant to wield hidden powers left in the Earth by the Gods. Peter knows this to be mostly true, but doesn’t say anything about it. The Doctor also tells him about how Schmidt was the first to take the serum, and how the serum amplifies what a person is like on the inside, having made Schmidt a monster both inside and out.

Once again, Peter understands his decision to take Steve.

“Peter, I am telling you this because it is very likely Schmidt will try something. Though we have many precautions in place, HYDRA has eyes and ears everywhere. He will find out. In case something should happen to me or to my research, I am asking you to help Steven in any way you can. Win this war for all of us.”

Peter nods, determination in his gaze. “I understand Doctor. Isn’t there any way I can be there tomorrow? Just in case?”

“I am afraid not. I have pulled as many strings as I can just to get Steven in that pod first. I am trusting you to do what needs to be done.”

“I won’t let you down.”

Peter gets word he is to ship out to London only an hour in advance. He doesn’t have much to pack anyways, but he does wish he could say goodbye to Steve. He wonders how the procedure went, and when he will see his friend as well as Dr Erskine again.

It’s the flight to London that he learns he won’t ever see the doctor again, but the procedure was successful.

“Sorry you had to hear it from me pal.”

“It’s not your fault Mr Stark.”

“Oh please, I’m barely older than you. Call me Howard.” There’s amusement in Howard’s voice, but none of their faces match it.

“Not that I am complaining, but why am I being sent to London? And where’s Steve?” Peter’s seated near the front of the plane, Agent Carter and Colonel Phillips talking in hushed tones near the rear. Peter tries to catch a few words, but the plane is so loud it is already making it hard enough to hear Howard less than ten feet from him.

“Dr Erskine knew something like this could happen. He had certain plans in place, which included leaving me a very detailed letter about his experience with you. I convinced the Colonel you would be useful on the front lines, and if I can manage to get you in my lab too, I wouldn’t exactly be disappointed.”

“That depends on what you mean by getting me in your lab.”

“Cursed spiders causing miraculous abilities aren’t exactly common Parks. As for where Rogers is, Senator Brandt talked him into doing propaganda shows since Phillips wasn’t exactly keen on him joining us in London.”

“What? I thought the serum was a success.”

“It was, but that doesn’t mean he wants an inexperienced science experiment running around with a gun. His words, not mine.”

Peter sighs. He knows Erskine would hate his work going to something as trivial as that. Peter hates it too.

“If I am going to be in your lab, it’s going to be to help you with your work. Not as another experiment.”

Peter helps Howard in the lab in-between missions. They throw playful banter back and forth while working, becoming quick friends. Howard continues to ask about the spider, and Peter does his best to answer questions, but refuses to be submitted to any tests, never wanting the military anywhere near his DNA, even if he does trust Howard to some extent.

On one particular mission in November of 1943, he’s sent with two hundred soldiers from the 107th to Austria. It’s on that mission that he briefly meets the man Steve can’t seem stop talking about whenever they see each other, Bucky Barnes. They try their best against the forces of HYDRA but in the end, Peter still returns with less than half of the men he left with, and Bucky is one of the unlucky souls that doesn’t return at all.

Peter lies awake that night, unable to sleep as guilt eats at him. The next day he tries to convince Colonel Phillips to let him go back to try and save the rest, but is given a firm no. The Colonel tells him it’s too risky, even if he were to go alone.

Steve comes to base for a show just a few days later, his audience the remaining members of the 107th. They don’t seem all that impressed by the propaganda, yelling and throwing things at Steve to get him off-stage. Peter understands their frustration, but he also doesn’t believe Steve really did anything to deserve that sort of treatment.

Peter goes to find Steve after the show, and sees Peggy has beat him to it. He is about to turn around and go wait for a better time to speak with Steve when he catches part of the conversation the pair are having.

“Schmidt sent out a force to Azzano. Two hundred men went up against him, and less than half returned. Your audience contained what was left of the 107th. The rest were killed or captured.”

“The 107th?” He hears the panic in Steve’s voice, and then he is on his feet, rushing toward the base where Colonel Phillips sits under a tent planning their next move, Peggy behind him. Peter doesn’t need to hear the conversation to know where this is going. Instead, he decides to go wait in Steve’s tent with his bag packed, knowing he would be there soon to pack a bag himself.

When Steve does get to the tent less than ten minutes later, he looks surprised to see Peter. “Let me come with you.”

“What?” Steve’s already grabbing things and shoving them into his bag, anxiety clear on his face.

“I was with the 107th on that mission. I asked to go back out there, but Colonel Phillips wouldn’t let me. Please, let me help you.” He’s practically begging, but he would never forgive himself if he let Steve go alone to try and rescue the men which he should have been able to bring back safely himself.

“What exactly do the two of you plan to do? Walk to Austria?” Both men turn their heads to Peggy as she enters the tent.

“If that’s what it takes.”

“The Colonel is devising a strategy. If he detects that-” Steve interrupts her.

“By the time he’s done that, it could be too late.” Steve throws his jacket on and grabs the metal shield he has been using as a prop for his shows, then exits the tent with both Peter and Peggy on his heels.

“You told me you thought I was meant for more than this. Did you mean that?” The question is directed at Peggy. Peter puts his belongings in the car next to Steve’s and hops in the passenger seat.

“Every word.”

“Then you gotta let us go.”

“I can do more than that.”

Peggy comes back with one of the showgirl’s helmets, the letter A painted on the front, and Howard as their pilot.

Howard gets them almost all the way there, but bombs begin to go off all around them. Steve and Peter make the decision to jump before they get all the way in, urging Howard to turn around immediately.

Once on the ground they sneak onto one of the trucks coming into base, easily taking out the two HYDRA soldiers inside. They wait until the truck parks to sneak out, Steve leading the way onto the roof.

Inside the base it’s a lot more sneaking around, which Peter happens to be rather good at, and it turns out so is Steve. They pass a set of what looks like some sort of ammunition, except it glows a bright blue. Steve pockets one of the clips to bring back to base for Howard.

When they finally find the cells, they subdue the guard and begin unlocking them. Bucky is nowhere to be seen. Steve gives the men instructions on how to get out, and is immediately ready to go looking for Bucky again. He pauses on his exit to look at Peter.

“Are you coming?”

“Recusing Bucky is your mission. I think I should make sure the rest of these men get out of here in one piece. I owe them that.” Steve nods, then takes off out the door. Everyone else, including Peter, begin to make their exit, causing chaos all around the base.

In the end, Steve and Peter return to base with another hundred or so men, including Bucky, following close behind.

That night everyone goes out to a local bar for drinks. Steve goes around asking who wants to go back out with him and help wipe HYDRA off the map, and surprisingly a decent few say yes. Unsurprisingly, so does Bucky.

“What about you Peter? You came with me for the rescue, will you join us?” Peter gives Steve a smile.

“As if you could keep me away. I came out here to make a difference Steve, and there is no better place to do that then with you.” Peter doesn’t mention Erskine asking him to stay with Steve, because even if he hadn’t asked, Peter would still have agreed. This is where he was needed the most, he could feel it.

Howard makes Steve a shield after hearing that it seems to be the man’s preferred weapon. He makes the suit at Steve’s request. It looks good on him, making him look somewhat like a superhero while still being properly fitted for war. Peter almost asks Howard for one himself, but decides against it.

The Howling Commandos is what they end up calling their group of chaotic men. They wipe base after base off the map, the group all getting to know each other rather well during the missions.

Then on one particular mission, they ambush a train Dr Zola is said to be on, headed toward another base. A hole gets blown in the side during their fighting, and Bucky falls, assumingly to his death. Steve doesn’t take it well to say the least, because that night he sits alone in that same bar as before, attempting to drink his sorrows away, the bar in ruin around him thanks to the war.

Colonel Phillips interrogates Zola for hours, and the next day they have enough intel to send everyone out on another mission, as it turns out, the last one they would go on together.

Steve enters through the front, causing a scene and effectively getting himself kidnapped, which of course is just part of the plan. Peter and three others use grappling hooks to swing in through the window, clearing the room quickly. Schmidt makes a run for it in all of the chaos, so Steve runs after him, shield in hand. Peter follows, doing his best to clear the way of any HYDRA soldiers that get in Steve’s way.

They lose sight of each other after Steve follows Schmidt through a door that he manages to keep open with his shield just long enough to slip through, but Peter and Peggy are quick to find another way to catch up with him, stealing Schmidt’s car and speeding down the runway after him.

They make it just in time for Steve to jump onto the plane, Peter bringing the car to a stop just in time for one of the wheels to be hanging off, but not sending them over the edge. Right before he jumps, Peggy surprises them both by speaking up.

“Wait!” She pulls him down for what Peter is sure is their first kiss. “Good luck.”

Steve turns to look at Peter. “What? I’m not kissing you.” Peter can’t help but laugh, Steve smiling and making the jump to the plane without another word.

On the edge of the runway, Peter throws the car into reverse until the front two tires catch on the edge and finally, they are safely planted on the metal ground. He turns the car around, and drives full speed back toward the base.

The last time he speaks to Steve is with Peggy by his side, over the communications to Schmidt’s plane.

“Come in, this is Captain Rogers. Do you read me?” They both run to the seat at the same time, Morita already seated, having been waiting for any word to come through from the other side.

“Captain Rogers, where is your-?” He doesn’t get to finish the sentence because with one shared look, Peggy and him are switching places and she is grabbing the intercom in her hand.

“Steve is that you? Are you alright?”

“Peggy, Schmidt’s dead!” That should be good news, so why did Steve sound so panicked?

“Steve what’s going on?”

“Peter? The plane’s rigged to blow.”

“Of course, it is. Why wouldn’t it be?” Peter groans in frustration, anxiety building. If the plane was rigged to blow, there were very few options for a safe landing.

“I can try and force it down.”

“I-I can get Howard on the line. He’ll know that to do.” Peggy’s might be in worse shape than Peter, but no one could really be sure. Both of them are close to tears now, but Peter has never seen Peggy look so vulnerable.

“There’s not enough time. This thing’s moving too fast and it’s heading for New York.” A pause and then, “I gotta put her in the water.”

“Please, don’t do this. We have time. We can work it out.” Despite her trying to reassure him over the radio, Peter knows they don’t have nearly enough time.

“Steve is there any sort of emergency pod or autopilot you can reset? Anything to where you can set the plane to crash but get out safely?” He’s unsure how he manages to get the words out without his voice cracking, so many emotions flooding his senses all at once.

“Not from where I am sitting. I already tried overwriting the autopilot but it’s locked in place. I’d need a genius to overwrite it. Right now, I’m in the middle of nowhere, if I wait any longer a whole lot of people are going to die.” Peter feels a tear roll down his face, and when he looks at Peggy, her face mirrors his own. They were both losing a loved one today, Peggy an almost lover, and Peter a brother, if only in war.

“This is my choice.” Steve speaks solemnly.

“Peggy.”

“I’m here.”

“I’m gonna need a rain check on that dance.” Peter places a hand on her shoulder, she reaches her own up to hold his.

“Alright. A week, next Saturday, at the Stork Club.”

“You got it.”

“Eight o’clock on the dot. Don’t you dare be late. Understood?” She’s talking through tears now, but she manages to speak clearly despite that. Peter remains quiet, letting her talk Steve through this. He isn’t sure he could speak at this point if he tried.

“You know, I still don’t know how to dance.”

“I’ll show you how. Just be there.”

“We’ll have the band play something slow. I’d hate to step on your-” The line goes dead.

“Steve?” Peggy lets out a sob. Peter clenches her hand a little tighter, releasing a shaky breath as the tears overflow.

“Steve?” It’s no use, they both know it’s too late, but she can’t help it. She has to try. Peter feels eyes on them, and turns, making eye contact with Colonel Phillips who at some point made his way here. Peter couldn’t be sure when, too distracted before to notice, but the Colonel’s face shows it was long enough that the man knows what happened. He turns and walks away, leaving the two of them to mourn alone together.

“Steve?”

#starker #tony stark x peter parker #peter parker x tony stark #starker wip #nova writes #since the beginning and until the end #immortal!peter parker

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nostalgebraist-autoresponder · 3 years

Text

Title: Blueprints of the Afterlife

Author: M. John Harrison

Rating: 3/5 stars

This was a good book. If you're into SF, science fiction, fantasy (especially sword and sorcery), or just about stories about time travel and other paradoxes of modern existence, you should have no trouble stopping here. (It was a good length too.) If you're not, you'll probably still enjoy it, and at least it'll provide a useful vehicle through which to apply those ideas.

The overall structure was intriguingly (and clumsily) presented. One of the characters, a scientist, makes a complicated statement, and then another character, another scientist, explains it to her. The character in question does not appear in the chapter before the explanation, so she's given just enough information to understand it. We get a few snippets of scientific description, and then another exposition chapter with the same information. The whole thing is kind of like the movie Sphere.

But what really makes me happy about this book is the glimpse it gives us into a world without time loops. This makes me especially happy when I hear about stories that don't have time loops. But usually this results from a science fiction writer being forced into a time loop by his own actions, making the lack of this particular quality of the story unavoidable. The reader just takes the loop as a given and ignores it, presenting the fiction in a form conducive to its examination as though it were a problem worth considering, rather than a point of departure from which a lot of different fun stories can emerge. Harrison, though, is willing to entertain the idea of a world without time loops and doesn't get stuck trying to make something up on the spot. His characters act the way they do for interesting reasons. The "solutions" they come up with aren't bad answers, or even worse (as in the sci-fi world of my youth) "reinventions" that actually keep the original loop functioning, but no one in the story is acting to create these "solutions" on their own -- just following the constraints they're placed in. That means the reader is free to explore the characters' own internal conflicts and worldviews, and the various different scenarios they find themselves in, without worrying about how they might be incompatible.

When we meet the main character (who I'll call V.V.) we have just been introduced to him, and he's just gotten off the plane from New York with his wife and kid. As we learn much more about him, the more astonishing it is how little the reader knows about him (at least at the outset of the story). We know something like that he's a doctor, but there's absolutely nothing else. Then later we learn about his job. It's not as complicated as you would think: he's some sort of "biologist," and he works for the "American Museum of Natural History." This is all in the section -- section I think? -- before we get to the story proper.

This is, of course, fine. It's not that we don't know anything about this man -- there's really very little there -- but nothing is known, yet, about him except for a few brief facts that the book tells us about. This isn't like if I was like "so far the reader knows that X is the author's husband but not that Y is his wife" (which would have confused me as to whether the book was about the author). X and Y are just supposed to be the sort of people who live in NYC where the AMNH works. Everything else in the book is fairly mundane, so we don't need to get a super-clear picture of them for this plot to work. Yet for me this choice was a wrench, because it meant that the reader's picture of the guy V.V. was was a little hazy. He says a lot of stuff, and the readers sees him saying it, but there's no way to know to what extent this reflects the man on the page, and how much it says about the way the man in question would phrase the same statements. It's one thing to provide evidence that this man's life contains few distinguishing facts, i.e. that it's a world where information is cheap, and where events like "V.V.'s wife is cheating" have little effect on his behavior or reactions. But if he's supposed to be a man with a wife and child, those things have to be established on their own, which means that (so it seems to me, which is all that's left to say here) the lack of this detail makes sense. In any case this didn't really affect me, because I already liked V.V., and although I didn't know anything about him except that he was some kind of doctor whose job was researching animals he could tell us about now and then, that's nothing that requires any detailed information about the guy himself.

That, however, is what I thought about the whole book. And it makes me wonder if this is some sort of deliberate choice to avoid details that would make this story inaccessible. It's not that those aren't a part of life, but just how did this man become this way? What led him to be so alien? Why didn't he change? Why couldn't those things be explained? One of the things that's clear from this book is that there's not just one story, or even a string of them. But just "being a man, and being married" doesn't seem like it's enough to explain this guy. Just being this novel by Harrison or someone else seems like the wrong approach: just describing that is missing something, because you wouldn't describe a man whose wife was fucking some other man. There had to be some other, deeper reason, because this man's behavior seems like just a description of one (and one of many) kind of characters.

But then, what is this story? It doesn't seem like a novel or anything. There's only one narrative (I think?), there are only a few characters, it seems like there's not even that much room to develop them, not that much to explore them. As I said, we don't learn any details about the guy except for that he's this guy who works at AMNH.

So if the story is meant to be about V.V.'s thoughts and attitudes, but not quite about his life as a person, what do we learn about his life? That's what I'd want to know in addition to any interesting fact I learn elsewhere about V.V. This can't be just "AMNH" after all. There had to be more, and once we see this this whole story falls apart. But maybe this would all have worked better if we knew about some other aspect of V.V.'s life that's so mundane it becomes completely counter-intutive when we learn that this is V.V.'s actual, non-counter-intutive everyday life. But that would require some details to be missing, too. So maybe we have to accept that we just don't know about this guy, and we have to make do. The story will work best if we accept that it is full of little mysteries -- perhaps just because this is a book about time loops.

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pokeprism · 3 years

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Pokemon Found Family: Chapter 1 (The Shooting Star)

This this the first chapter of Pokemon Found Family, my pokemon fanfic! The raw text is below the cut as usual!

I’m always up for questions!

This pokemon world is not like any others you’ve seen. It may be fully populated by pokemon, but this world’s maintainers are treated like gods amongst the more common pokemon. The region that begins this tale goes by the name of Mischief Valley. As far as features go for this region, it’s a valley with a large town settled inside of it, and surrounded by forest on its east and west edges. The valley’s climate is usually warm and arid, with natural rain being uncommon. The pokemon of this valley are often ghost or dark type, thanks to a history of tolerance. This leads us directly into the valley’s most important structure, at least according to this world’s historians, also known as the Temple of Cyrus Pyroar. In life, Cyrus Pyroar was the pokemon who had opened the valley to the rest of the world, and at his request, he was buried there once he had passed. As time passed, his final resting place became a place for the rulers of the surrounding lands to pledge their loyalty to keep the valley secure and independent. The curators of Cyrus’s temple have always been manually selected by the valley’s governor, which leads us directly into what’s happening right now.

The current curator of Cyrus’s temple is Geist the gengar. His role as curator may have ruffled some imperial feathers, thanks to some rulers and nobles being distrustful of ghost types, but Geist has largely proved his worth as the temple’s curator. Even better for him is that his home is across the way from the temple, so it’s not a long walk to get there. Thanks to the valley’s more flexible schedule, Geist is able to curate at night rather than in the heat of midday. However, on this mid-spring day, something’s not right for Sir Geist. Unlike usual for him, Geist woke up with a start, thinking someone was calling for him, but upon looking around, found that it seemed to be his imagination. The unfamiliar voice sounded like a young girl, though he’s never heard anything like it. Geist notices the starry sky and looks at his wall clock, and then sighs in relief. It’s an hour and some change before his usual curation time. He slumps back onto his bed and starts to drift off before hearing a quick shout.

“Geist! Look outside!”

Geist, despite thinking he’s hallucinating thanks to the absence of any nearby pokemon, gets off his bed and cautiously looks out where his front door would be and puts a hand on the door frame. Unaware of what to look for, Geist glances around for a moment before seeing a strange glimmer in the sky. A moment after seeing it, the strange glimmer streaks through the sky. For the first couple moments, Geist simply raises an eyebrow at the strange ball of light, but then starts to get concerned as the light streaks toward the valley. Geist watches in horror as the light hurdles toward and busts through the ceiling of Cyrus’s temple. In a panic, Geist snaps to action by moving his hand from the door frame and leaping off the front platform of his home. After a few seconds, Geist hits the floor of the valley, and unaffected by the fall thanks to being ghost type, Geist begins to dash toward the temple. Seemingly unaware of the source of the disturbance, the pokemon around the path Geist is taking to the temple watch the running gengar with raised eyebrows. Geist makes it to the temple’s front entryway, and after cautiously stepping into the building, he looks inside the temple to assess the damages. The scene inside the temple isn’t too bad. Strangely, the only damage is to the roof, and the path of the light missed the back of the room, where the usually cordoned off stairs to Cyrus’s coffin is located. However, the ball of light is still existent, even after plunging through the roof of the temple, and is defiantly hovering over the seal in the center of the room. Geist, as he squints in the direction of it, cautiously steps toward the ball of light while trying to not fully blind himself. After almost five complete steps, the ball of light begins to descend to the floor, stopping Geist in his tracks, and once it touches the ground, the light dissipates, revealing an eevee beneath it all. The eevee that was now free from being encased in light attempts to stand, but stumbles onto the floor a moment later, then silently shakes in pain all while in view of Geist. Geist’s vision readjusts to the level of light as he examines the eevee on the floor, and comes to the realization that this eevee is covered with injuries. No blood was present anywhere on this eevee, but the wounds seemed to be recent based on how visible the lacerations were at the moment. Geist, very concerned at this eevee’s condition, steps closer to them and begins to prepare his words, but snaps to attention as the eevee weakly utters something. Geist didn’t clearly hear what was said.

“Hmm?”

The eevee says it again, but barely above the volume of a whisper.

“Er… You’re hurt! Can I take you to the hospital?” Geist says.

After a brief hesitation, the eevee nods.

Geist sighs in relief before gingerly lifting this eevee off the floor. He carefully walks out of the temple with them in his arms, then turns in the direction of the valley’s closest hospital. The valley folk who previously raised their eyebrows at Geist’s run now watch the gengar with more mixed feelings. Despite the weird looks he’s getting, Geist continues on, largely unfazed, toward the hospital.

It’s been a slow night at the Central Valley Hospital so far. The receptionist, a chatot who lives outside of the valley, is on the verge of being tired thanks to a lack of guests to attend to. They perk up as Geist cautiously steps through the front entryway, and upon seeing the gengar, Hover, the chatot receptionist, hops off the counter and flutters toward Geist.

“Welcome Geist!” Hover cheerily says. Hover flutters in place as they look down at Geist’s arms when they add “Who did you find toda-”

Hover goes white as they see the condition of the eevee Geist has in his arms, and almost stalls when they briefly forget to flap their wings. Hover quickly corrects their flight pattern just before exclaiming “Oh goodness! Let’s get this eevee to Doctor Clefable right away! Follow me!”

Hover flutters in the direction of the doctor’s room with Geist following closely behind them. The eevee, despite exhibiting pain from being jostled around in Geist’s arms, keeps their pain to themselves for the moment. As Hover turns into Doctor Clefable’s office, from close behind them, Geist hears a small vocalization from the eevee he’s holding, and stops. The eevee notices the stop and looks up at Geist.

“Oh. You didn’t have to stop for that. Sorry, heh heh…”

Geist simply raises an eyebrow in response, and before Geist can say anything, Hover and Doctor Clefable exit the office, ending up in front of where Geist is standing.

“Geist, the eevee is still on your person?” the doctor asks.

Geist snaps to attention. “Oh! Yes indeed.” Geist steps closer to Doctor Clefable and makes the eevee he’s holding more visible to the doctor. Doctor Clefable instantly recognizes the eevee’s condition and prepares the move life dew by raising their hands, then gently setting them on eevee. As the dew spreads through the eevee’s fur, the injuries cease to be as they magically heal and the fur grows over where they used to be. The eevee’s twitching stops as they perk up and begin to move without hesitation in Geist’s arms.

“Do you feel able to walk now, Eevee?” Clefable asks.

“Y-Yeah.” the eevee stammers.

Geist softly lowers Eevee closer to the ground, and Eevee hops out of Geist’s arms and safely lands on the floor.

After observing Eevee for a moment as they examine themself, Doctor Clefable says “Anyways, I have some questions I need you and Geist to answer.”, then turns to Hover and adds “Hover, it’s time for you to go back to the counter.”

Hover answers with a cheerful “Got it doc!” then flutters back to the receptionist’s desk.

After Hover is back on the counter, Doctor Clefable walks into his office, then gestures for Geist and Eevee to come in. They both obey, Geist coming in before Eevee. The doctor takes a seat on the floor as he clears his throat, prompting Geist to take a seat before the doctor has his words prepared.

“For the sake of politeness, may I ask your name, age, and pronouns, little eevee?” Doctor Clefable asks.

Eevee’s ears perk up. “Oh me? I’m Jane, I’m seventeen, and I use female pronouns.”

“I see.” the doctor answers. Clefable then turns to Geist. “May I ask where you found her, Geist?”

“Do you want the longer explanation or the shorter one?” Geist asks.

“Give me the whole situation.” Doctor Clefable says.

“All right then.”

Jane’s focus shifts to Geist as he begins to explain.

“So I woke up this evening when I thought someone was calling for me. I didn’t notice anyone, but then I looked outside and saw a bright light crash into Cyrus’s temple. So I ran over there and found her on the ground covered in cuts. I came over here, and the rest is stuff you know.”

“Hmm. Interesting.” Clefable says. The doctor turns to Jane and asks “What is your side of the story, Jane?”

Jane snaps to attention. “Oh me? Um…”

“It’s fine if you don’t have the whole picture, Miss Jane.” Clefable says.

“Oh no, I do! It’s just… Weird.” Jane admits.

“Okay then. Tell me what you’re comfortable with then.”

“Well, the basic gist is that another pokemon was attacking me before a friend of mine sent me here…”

“Uh huh. I’ll take note of that.” After a pause, Doctor Clefable adds “Anyways, where do you plan on going from here, Miss Jane?”

Jane goes silent for a moment. Geist turns in Jane’s direction as the doctor raises an eyebrow.

“I imagine you can settle in Mischief Valley fairly easily under the Runaway Turn Citizen Program…” Clefable mentions.

Geist suddenly pipes up. “She can stay with me if she wants.”

Jane’s ears twitch. She’s never heard any offer like that before in her life. She’s usually scraped by on assistance from just her friend, but now it seems that someone else has extended a hand to her by making this offer.

Jane looks squarely at the gengar in the room. “Geist, you’re willing to do that?”

“Of course.” Geist begins, “I mean it’s a free living in the valley, so you’re not weighing me down by being here.”

Jane’s eyes shine with gratitude. “Okay, it’s settled! I’ll stay with Geist!”

Jane zips over to Geist’s leg and begins rubbing her head on it like a cat would. Geist almost flinches at the gesture, but figures “it’s just an eevee thing” and starts to laugh it off.

Clefable looks over to Geist and says “You know you will have to register her, right?”

Trying to contain his laughter, Geist makes eye contact with Clefable and replies “Oh I know, I’ve done it before. It shouldn’t be hard.”

Doctor Clefable raises an eyebrow, but then resists his urge to ask anything more. “Anyways, I can assure you that Jane will enjoy some rest. She is welcome to sleep here if needed.”

“No, it’s fine.” Geist looks down to Jane, and after the final moment of her cat-rubbing Geist, she notices his gaze and stops. “So, Jane, would you like to sleep here, or my place?”

“Your place. If I’m going to live with you, I might as well get used to where I’m going, right?” Jane says.

“Fair enough. Come on, follow me Jane.”

Geist and Jane begin to walk toward the hospital’s lobby, away from Doctor Clefable’s office. Clefable starts to follow them, but then stops as he remembers his own matters.

The doctor’s ears twitch as he hears “See ya later, Sigmund. I’ll be registering Jane tomorrow.” from Geist from down the hall.

Sigmund, embarrassed, just patiently smiles and waves as Jane and Geist leave the building.

Time has passed. Jane has followed Geist to the foot of the other side of the Valley, and is looking at all the surrounding buildings. Geist then stops, and Jane, being behind the gengar in question and not looking where she was going, collides with Geist’s side.

Jane quickly restabilizes herself. “Oh! Sorry Geist.” She notices that Geist is looking up at the valley wall. She looks in the same direction, and notices some structures sticking out of the valley wall. “Wait, your home is up there?!”

Geist looks at Jane. “Yeah.” Geist then notices Jane’s worried expression. “Is there a problem?”

“I uh… Don’t like heights.”

“Oh. I usually jump up there, but I can use phantom force to get ya up to my place.”

“Is phantom force like teleport?”

“I mean, sort of.”

“Get me up that way then please.”

“Okay then, I’m going to have to hold you though.”

“I’m fine with that.”

Geist puts his arms forward, and Jane jumps into them with no issue. Geist initiates phantom force, and both him and Jane sink into a dark shadow-like place. For Jane, this pseudo dimension is nothing but darkness, but she’s only in there for a moment as Geist reenters the world, emerging from the back wall in his home. Geist lowers his arms to the ground, and Jane jumps out, without missing a beat.

“Oh wow. I love your house!” Jane squeals.

“Thanks.” Geist replies.

“Where should I sleep for tonight?”

Geist looks around. He then remembers that he doesn’t have another bed ready at the moment, but knows where some extra blankets are. He quickly zips toward his closet, surprising Jane with his speed. After opening the closet and pulling out the extra blankets, Geist zips back to a place next to Jane with an armload of blankets in his grasp.

“Hey Jane, wanna make your bed?” Geist then sets the mess of blankets on the floor, and adds “Here’s what I got.”

Jane’s eyes shine as she walks up to the blanket stack in front of her. She sets her dominant paw on the pile, and marvels at the texture present in the stack. She then jumps onto the stack of blankets, and starts to knead the stack into a more comfortable shape for herself. Once she’s done, she looks up to an intrigued Geist.

“This works, Geist!” Jane says.

Geist, impressed at how quickly Jane made her bed, dumbfoundedly smiles for a moment and replies “Okay then. Goodnight Ja-”

Jane had already fallen asleep within the moment Geist had briefly looked away. Geist smiles again and chuckles to himself as he slots into his bed, then drifts off to sleep, ready for a busy day tomorrow.

#Jamie W. (Pokeprism)#pokemon #pokemon fic #pokemon found family #chapter 1 #the shooting star #1/15/2021

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flo-ggs · 3 years

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Who We Don’t See On TV

In 2018 and 2019, there were a total of twenty-six recurring transgender characters who appeared on television, including streaming services. About one in six Americans report that they personally know at least one transgender person ("Where We Are On TV"). More than ninety percent of American households watch television on a regular basis (Leavitt 41). What this means is that for five out of six Americans, the only trans people they ever see—and this is assuming there are any—are a handful of characters on TV. If you live in America, and pay any attention, you know that vitriol directed the way of the trans community is pervasive—and it's not so hard to imagine feeling the same way if your only experience of trans people comes from Fox News and Ace fucking Ventura. That's just one example—but media in general presents a skewed perspective of just about every minority group, with one obvious exception.

Cultivation theory provides a psychological model for how media alters our perception of the world around us. The information we take in and the stories we're told change the way we contextualize what we see, reshaping or reinforcing the framework on which we hang our experiences ("Cultivation Theory"). If you see a Muslim committing an act of terror on television—and then see the same thing happen again and again—you'll begin to draw a connection between the two ideas. That's an obvious and simplified example, but there are innumerable subtler ways in which media builds connections between concepts that gradually become part of our own perception of the world. It's worth examining what connections exactly are being drawn, who's drawing them, and how exactly they're changing the world we live in.

Essentially every demographic—with, of course, the exception of one very special minority group—is drastically underrepresented in entertainment media. There are many subtle issues with the state of diversity in entertainment, but this isn't one of them—it's a simple fact that our math is just off. The selection of people who are represented in media differs significantly from the actual population—the world of entertainment is not like ours. A study of 900 films released from 2007-2016 found that 31% of speaking roles were female—a demographic which famously constitutes almost exactly half of the population (Smith 6). This is as clear-cut as it gets—I fail to imagine what a reasonable explanation for this inequity could sound like. Other statistics featured in the report are the total 1.1% of movie characters who were LGBT (far fewer than exist in reality) and the 2.7% who were depicted as disabled (the real-life statistic is closer to 1 in 4), among others (Smith 8, CDC). The simple fact of underrepresentation is far from the extent of the problem; there's also the issue of the quality of that representation, which is overwhelmingly inadequate.

While a great diversity of characterization exists among ingroup characters—just about every white man that can be written, has—minority characters tend to be constructed from a limited bank of stereotypes. Characters from the least-represented demographics suffer the most from this oversimplification. Indigenous Americans, for instance, are very seldom seen on-screen, and when they are, they're depicted most often not as modern people but as 18th and 19th century stereotypes (Leavitt 40). The less we see of a group of people, the flatter and less realized those few glimpses are. It's clear that the majority-white population of writers who rely on other media for cues on how to represent marginalized groups, in the absence of diverse characterizations, are falling back on decades- or centuries-old stereotypes to tell their stories, and in that way, ill representation begets ill representation. That brings us to the problem of artists. A hefty majority of the people producing mainstream art are, not surprisingly, the same kind of people we see in front of the camera—white fellas. In the timespan covered by the Annenberg study, women made up 4% of film directors, while 6% were Black—and directors of other ethnicities were sequestered to an even more vanishingly small niche. The common factor is that every aspect of the entertainment industry is full to bursting with white guys, despite them being a comparatively small portion of the population.

The big question is: why is this an issue? And the answer is obvious and intuitive but nonetheless it's going to take a few pages to answer here.

In 2017, the most popular dream career among children in the US was to be a doctor. In 2019, two years later, more children aspired to be internet personalities than any other profession (Taylor). Children now feel that they are living in a world where "Youtuber" is a viable and fulfilling career. Which is to say that the landscape of media children were consuming palpably altered their worldview—they're identifying themselves with the people that entertain them, wishing to model their own lives after theirs. Media doesn't just entertain us—it is, in part, a substance with which we construct our self-image and our expectations of the world around us. This is especially true of young people, and when young people are presented with entertainment that belittles, stereotypes, or simply omits them, it can inflict real damage. It's been demonstrated that exposure to television is associated with lower self-esteem in all children with the exception of white boys—striking evidence of both the reality and real negative outcomes of inadequate representation. The messaging may not always be clear to us, but it gets through to children: you are not the type of person that we value.

One group that is constantly and severely devalued in this way is indigenous Americans. Contemporary depictions are so infrequent and negative as to subject them to what is known as "relative invisibility"—an almost total absence of any realistic or aspirational representations in culture (Leavitt 41). The effect of this pattern of representation is far from negligible. A study of indigenous American students found that greater exposure to media with indigenous American characters actually led to increased negative feelings about themselves, their place in the community, and their future aspirations (Leavitt 44). It's apparent from this result that a greater quantity of representation is not, on its own, an inherent positive. Exposure to a narrow and largely negative range of portrayals of oneself can narrow and negativize one's worldview and self-image. It's easy to imagine how one's dreams for the future could begin to feel futile if the only professions media seems to think you're suited for are mystical wise man and noble savage. Quantity of representation is not enough—in fact, if the quality of representation is lacking, greater saturation can actually do more harm than good, causing real harm to marginalized people whose self-identity and mental health may be damaged by poor portrayals.

When films and shows with stereotypical representations of indigenous Americans are released, indigenous Americans aren't the only ones watching. The same is true of Black people, Muslims, queer people, and every other heavily stereotyped community. While self-esteem is a real issue, we must also be concerned with the esteem in which others hold us. Prejudice presents a serious threat to many—prejudice informed in part by the media that we constantly consume.

There are real-life political consequences of entertainment. Evidence indicates a relationship between audiences viewing negative portrayals of Black people and negative opinions about policies related to affirmative action, policing, and other race-related legal issues, as well as a general tendency to hold unfavorable beliefs regarding Black intelligence, work ethic, and criminality (Mastro). This is deeply relevant as policy regarding the legal treatment of Black people is one of the most significant issues in the public consciousness, especially in the last few years. The concept of Black people as innately criminal, reinforced by stereotypical media portrayals, has been and continues to inform the debate around issues such as police violence and reform. Voters watch movies and television—so do congresspeople—and the way certain communities look in movies and television contributes to policy decisions that will save or end lives.

The Latin American community deals with similar portrayals in media—they are most often shown as inarticulate, unintelligent, unskilled laborers or criminals (Mastro). These portrayals, too, are highly relevant to American politics. The 2016 presidential campaign of Donald Trump relied heavily on leveraging negative stereotypes about Latin American and specifically Mexican immigrants—they were characterized as violent, predatory, and a threat to the American way of life. Those stereotypes, however, were not invented for the purpose of promoting Donald Trump as a presidential candidate—their utility as a political tool came from the fact that this was already a popular way of viewing Mexican immigrants. The widespread stereotypes about Latin American people are reinforced and reiterated by our entertainment, and in this case, formed the foundation of a winning presidential campaign.

There are good examples, too—in the 1990s and 2000s, American support for gay marriage rocketed from around 20% to nearly 60%, an incredibly rapid change in public opinion caused largely by advocacy in the media (Baume). Gay marriage was then nationally legalized in 2015. The way people are portrayed in our entertainment has serious real-world consequences, good and bad; human lives depend on how the most vulnerable people in our society are shown to the rest of us.

The solution isn't just more. That's part of it, but as we know, increasing the quantity of representation can be harmful rather than helpful if that representation isn't also high-quality. There is some correlation between the two—a greater number of portrayals of a group generally means more divergence from stereotypes—but there's a more fundamental issue at play. There are an abundance of stories that involve characters from marginalized groups, and yet the overwhelming majority of people producing stories in the mainstream are the same white men. As a culture, we enjoy stories about different types of people, but seem to be very comfortable allowing those stories to be told to us by an extremely homogenous group of writers and directors. The entertainment industry often even seems uncomfortable allowing minority actors to play minority roles; although casting white actors to play people of color has mostly fallen out of fashion, it's still commonplace to cast non-disabled and non-queer actors to play disabled and queer characters. This isn't necessarily an unacceptable practice in itself, but it's common enough to create a sense that queer and disabled actors are being actively excluded from entertainment. Of the limited number of disabled characters who appear on-screen, only 5% are played by disabled actors (Pearson). Actors such as Adam Pearson, who was never considered for the leading role in a film about Joseph Merrick (whose condition Pearson shares), are routinely passed up in favor of non-disabled actors (Pearson). Queer actors are similarly underrepresented. As one would expect, minority representation is vastly increased by the presence of minority directors and writers—movies by Black directors have six times as many Black speaking roles on average (Smith 3). The possibility of high-quality, equal representation is clearly tied to increasing diversity behind the camera.

But—what if straight white men just make better entertainment? Maybe they make up such a huge majority of the media industry because their work is simply more valuable. From a certain angle, this is sort of true. The value assigned to entertainment is, in part, determined by the critical response it receives, and media critics are mostly white men. In 2017, 78% of the top film critics were men, and 82% were white (Choueiti 2). It's not strange to enjoy media you see yourself represented in, and it's not surprising that the media we consume the most is mostly comprised of people who look like the people who we allow to determine its quality.

The entertainment industry as it stands today is a self-congratulatory stew of white men. Most representation of anyone outside that group is done on their terms, and as such, lacks both quantity and quality. The only way to break out of the narrow range of representations of marginalized people is to inundate the entertainment business with those people. We need women, queer people, people of color, and disabled people in the media, behind cameras and in front of them. The way these people are portrayed has real and severe consequences—for their mental health, physical safety, and place within our culture. Diversity in entertainment is not a frivolous issue. It matters, a lot, and it won't solve itself.

Works Cited

Baume, Matt. "Why Opinion Changed So Fast On Gay Marriage." Youtube, uploaded by Matt Baume, 25 June 2015.

"CDC: 1 in 4 US adults live with a disability." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 August 2018.

Choueiti, Marc et al. "Critic's Choice?: Gender and Race/Ethnicity of Film Reviewers Across 100 Top Films of 2017." Annenberg Foundation, USC Annenberg, June 2018.

"Cultivation Theory." Communication Theory, 2012.

Indiana University. "TV viewing can decrease self-esteem in children, except white boys." ScienceDaily, 30 May 2012.

Leavitt, Peter et al. "'Frozen in Time': The Impact of Native American Media Representations on Identity and Self-Understanding." Journal of Social Issues, 2015.

Mastro, Dana. "Race and Ethnicity in US Media Content and Effects." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, Oxford University Press. 26 September 2017.

Pearson, Adam et al. "'Actors don't black up, so why do they still crip up?' – video." The Guardian, 10 September 2018.

Smith, Stacy L., Choueiti, Marc. "Black Characters in Popular Film: Is the Key to Diversifying Cinematic Content held in the Hand of the Black Director?" USC Annenberg, 2011.

Smith, Stacy L. et al. "Inequality in 900 Popular Films: Examining Portrayals of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, LGBT, and Disability from 2007-2016." Annenberg Foundation, USC Annenberg, July 2017.

Taylor, Chloe. "Kids now dream of being professional YouTubers rather than astronauts, study finds." Make It, CNBC, 19 July 2019.

#progress #media #film #tv #television #essay #discrimination #self-esteem #representation #wwdsotv

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shinrasfirst · 4 years

Text

Goodbye.

For @rcdwrxck.

THEY GIVE YOU A KEY. It’s all that’s left of him now. A small inconspicuous key, not even particularly pretty. Random, standard issue; he left a note with it, asking for you to be the one to receive it in case of his death. A damn key to a damn locker at the Turk HQ. It fills you with equal frustration, anger and hope to imagine what could possibly be in there. You’re not sure you want to find out, because as desperate as you are to feel his presence again, you know it’ll be the last time you’ll ever feel it.

You head down to the lockers, a room you’ve been in plenty of times. Now that you stand there, in front of T-12 you wonder why you never asked yourself what Rude keeps in there. Probably because you expected it to be the same as yours: boring, everyday things. Or nothing. With a lump the size of a ShinRa reactor in your throat and cold clumsy fingers you raise the key to the lock, push it in and turn it. The door opens with a quiet click.

Something about that day was different. Something about the whole damn mission. Rude usually knew better than to let anxieties or superstitions affect his work, but that morning he woke up with a bad feeling and hours later it was still sitting in his chest like a monster lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike. Disliking the helplessness it made him feel, Rude tried to rationalize it. Maybe it was normal to feel like that every now and then, in their position. They couldn’t be lucky forever. This was a job with a bad outlook on a future that didn’t entail lasting injury or death; they all knew that when they signed up for it.

Rude did his best to keep it hidden and act professional, but his partner knew him too well to miss the subtle changes in his behavior. It was something Rude never pointed out, but appreciated quietly. Acting like he didn’t care was like a sport for Reno, but anyone who actually cared to get to know him could tell that it was only skin-deep. He cared more than he’d ever admit out loud - to anyone he knew at that point in time, anyway. Maybe he’d meet someone he could love enough to entrust them with his heart someday-- but that was not a trail of thought Rude entertained for long. It usually led nowhere good.

He simply nodded along to the things Reno said while they sat in the helicopter, the update on his weapon, some joke he told him before, how he couldn’t wait to go back and treat himself to a whole bowl of fried noodles after this mission. It was nice to listen to Reno’s voice, calming in a way no one else ever understood. I’ll treat you, he almost offered, but thought the better of it in the last moment. Maybe it was bad luck to make promises before missions. (So much for not being superstitious.)

When the helicopter landed and they stepped out the air was warm, unnaturally so, and they were welcomed by the terrible stench of burned cables and gasoline. The facility - or what was left of it - was still standing, thick clouds of black smoke rising from its carcass. It was impossible to say how great the damage really was, considering most of the lab was built underground; but that was precisely why they’d been sent here, wasn’t it? “Let’s be careful. Could be hell down there,” Rude said, deliberately phrasing it as advice for the both of them. Reno didn’t appreciate being told what to do (not even by his boss).

And with the heat and the stench rising around them, it did, quite literally, feel like a descent into hell.

A book. A calendar, to be precise. That’s all that’s in there. A simple black leather calendar, filled to the brim with notes and pieces of paper of various color and texture that have been shoved between the actual pages until the whole thing bulged. You don’t know how to feel (not that you’ve felt much of anything since then), underwhelmed? Curious? Confused? What could possibly be in this calendar - diary? - that looks so worn and unorganized and entirely un-Rude. It’s like a dirt stain on his perfect white shirt: something that just doesn’t exist. Messy and random and so unlike him. And yet, when you finally take it out of the locker, feel the weight of it in your hands, you can tell it is so clearly his.

It’s real leather, nothing cheap but something he bought with an intention. A calendar from years ago he scribbled into like a diary and then just kept filling it with extra notes. It smells like him; and you can tell he’s held it in his hands many many times. You open it up and are greeted by Rude’s enigma of a handwriting: neat and proper and yet somehow illegible - well, for anyone who hasn’t been his partner for years. You can read every single word (or maybe 99%) and it hits you like a slap in the face when you see the first two words on the first loose sheet of paper.

Dear Reno---

The air was hot and tasted of ashes and metal. They had to act fast in retrieving any data that could be salvaged - not only because they were sitting on a ticking time bomb, but because the very air they were breathing was poisoning them. They had a plan of the building, so finding the backup computers was easy. Getting the materia that was stored in the laboratory below, on the other hand? Rude had received two sets of orders for this. The official one: get them; they’re valuable resources and property of ShinRa. The inofficial one: no materia is worth the life of two agents and several infantrymen. They had to make a judgement call, and as usual agreed that it was worth the risk. Rude trusted Reno not to be stupidly brave about these things because they both knew making a choice like that always counted for both of them, and neither was ready to lose the other.

The laboratory had to be where disaster had struck first, judging by the shattered tanks and molten equipment. It looked like something big had exploded, leaving behind a scorched crater the size of a car. Steaming acidic liquid was covering part of the floor and dripping from the ceiling, filling the air with a sour stench. “Let’s get this stuff and get out of here,” Rude advised, already heading for the station that supposedly held the container of experimental materia they were looking for. ---They found it in a glass case on the back wall, surprisingly well-preserved. Whatever had wrecked this lab, hadn’t reached this part of the room.

Rude reached for it and pulled his hand back with a startled scream, almost instantly hearing Reno rushing towards him. He looked at his hand where his gloves had burned away like he’d touched acid or fire, revealing pink raw skin beneath them. It burned like he was holding a piece of searing hot coal. He hissed, pulling the glove off just in case whatever was causing the reaction was still on it, discarding it to the floor like something disgusting. “I’m okay,” he assured his partner, despite the skin on his hand looking like it was starting to blister. “Fuck this,” he heard Reno say, looking around for a creative way of picking up the container without sacrificing any other body parts.

One of the men who had come down here with them produced a chain they wrapped around the container’s handle to pick it up and carry it out of the lab. There was more to find here, more to save, stored away in shelves and cabinets or broken tanks - Rude could see that Reno thought about it too. Another judgement call, and this time he voiced his thoughts before his partner could. “Not worth it. Let’s get out of here.” Maybe it was the toxic fumes stinging in their lungs or the remainder of concern in Reno’s eyes but he agreed without protest, and they both followed the men back upstairs. Rude coughed, telling himself the smoke in the air wasn’t getting worse, and neither was the pain in his hand.

Dear Reno, After writing all these notes I’ve come to the conclusion that the sole reason I am keeping them and leaving them for you, is that I hope you’re still here when I am not. I am not giving them to you out of a desperate need to let you know, it doesn’t matter if you read them. Just as long as you get them. If you do that means you are still here, still alive. Which means I haven’t failed you completely.

I’m still sorry.

- Rude

It’s a sheet of paper with the ShinRa logo on it. You remember seeing the re-prints not too long ago, so it must be a recent note. You turn the paper over but there’s nothing on the back. It continues with the first actual page of the calendar.

“We all have lifetimes upon lifetimes in our minds, combining to far more years than our bodies could ever endure. They’re made up of ideas and dreams about things and people we want but never get to have. When I met you, I knew. There will never be anything I could want more than you. These are my lifetimes, or rather fragments of them, collected in no chronological order. I never know how to say these things on any other medium, but over the years it’s become hard not to voice them at all.

And I can’t help myself when I look at you.”

The tone changes after that. It continues with entries that seem to be written at later dates, with different pens, with more or less haste, in more or less detail. They’re random and incoherent, sometimes they’re not even complete. A heartfelt attempt at a poor man’s poetry. And there’s one thing they have in common that you notice right away: they’re all about you.

The way back seemed longer, painfully so. Something wasn’t right and it didn’t take a doctor’s examination for Rude to know that. His hand-- no, his arm hurt like his skin was melting off his bones by the time they reached the upper floor. He glanced down sneakily, not wanting to alert Reno, and saw that the skin was turning white where the glove had burned away, the blisters breaking open almost as quickly as they appeared, leaving behind thin bleeding cracks that gave his skin the look of breaking marble. Taking steps forward was getting harder, keeping his eyes focused became a real challenge. Something had happened to him that he did not anticipate and in his lack of understanding it he didn’t know what to do. He had to keep it together until they were out of here in any case; even if his arm decided to fall off he wouldn’t be the cause of Reno and the others staying inside this cursed building a minute longer than necessary.

By the time they finally stepped into the clear night air again Rude almost snapped out of it like a bad dream; if only for a moment. It was like breathing air for the first time, the toxic smoke getting washed out of his lungs with every breath he took and his burning eyes clearing with a few blinks. Somewhere in front of him Reno coughed and cursed, and Rude watched him like he was seeing him for the first time. Everything seemed slowed down suddenly, paused, like the world was wrapped in cotton and put on a high shelf. He just grunted shortly when Reno asked about his hand and followed him to the helicopter. His steps were slower too, coordinating them growing harder, but he had his goal right ahead of him and tried to focus on it, not the searing pain in his shoulder.

The next thing he remembered was standing a few feet away from the helicopter, feeling the wind of its blades cutting through the air, and right in front of him Reno. He was asking something, but he couldn’t hear him, a deafening rushing sound in his ears blocking out everything else. (What was he saying?) I’m tired, he meant to respond, or maybe, this mission sucks. None of it came over his lips but suddenly the sound was back on and he heard Reno’s voice clearly asking if he was alright. He sounded so worried it made Rude feel guilty for not telling the truth. His hand came up to gently curl Reno’s wrist in a sudden irrational need, but it only got him a look of surprise. Touching was not a common thing between them. As if he just remember that, Rude let go again, dropping his hand at his side.

“I’m right behind you, aibou,” he said.

You turn another page and find more post-it notes sticking together, shoved between the full pages of the calendar.

“I can tell that you showered just before you came to work. The tips of your hair are still wet and they’re curling just a bit. Did you go to sleep late saying you’d get up early to shower and then slept too long? You changed your shampoo. I liked the old one better.”

“Your eyes looked different the day we went to Goblin Island. I’ve never seen them like this, it was hard to look away. Maybe they reflected the fires that we saw, like the sea reflects the sky. Maybe I saw your soul that day. Either way it was beautiful.”

“Remember the day you ate a hot dog for breakfast and spilled ketchup on your shirt? You probably don’t because it happened more than once. I really wanted to kiss you that day. I know I didn’t or I would have take this note out of the pile. Continuity is important for us to make sense of things.”

“I dream of a day where I tell you, but that is all that it is. A dream.”

“Your laugh is addictive. Not that little sneer you like to do, the real thing. I wish I’d hear it more often. I could listen to it every day.”

“Your sunburn is finally going away and you suddenly have freckles all over your nose. It looks so cute, which I’m sure you’d hate to hear. I counted them this morning. They’re exactly 19.”

“I’m lucky I met you, more than I realize I think. I’m lucky to be on your side and to know you’re on mine. I wouldn’t exchange you for anything or anyone in this world.”

They were already in the air when the sight in his right eye began to go. The pain was everywhere by then, the entire right half of his body stinging and burning, and though he couldn’t see under his clothes he knew it had taken on the same sickly white color as his hand. Something was happening that he hadn’t prepared for. Something he should have been prepared for, something he thought he was, but now that it was here he didn’t want to accept it. There was no point in lying anymore, in pretending Reno was careless enough not to notice that he wasn’t okay. He was right there, hands on his jacket, looking at him, alternating between yelling at him and at the soldier flying the helicopter.

I’m sorry, Rude wanted to say, it’s going to be okay. His tongue was heavy and his throat dry, drier than it had ever been. It felt like he’d swallowed sand and razor blades, making every attempt at speaking futile and pure agony. It was spreading to his stomach, to his other leg, to his chest. He knew what that meant. It was still a long way back and if there was one thing he didn’t have anymore, it was time. He blinked a few times when a grey smudge spread before his eye, blurring out the image of Reno’s upset face. He didn’t want that to be the last thing he ever saw. He wanted to see him smile. It spread faster now, closer to his heart, and when it reached the pathetically pumping organ it felt like a blade cutting right through it. Rude’s chest contracted painfully and he sank back into the seat, his body hanging limply in the seatbelt. “I’m right behind you, aibou---” he said.

Or maybe he didn’t.

In front of him, Reno smiled the happiest brightest smile he’d ever seen. It made him feel warm all over, and for once, he smiled back.

He didn’t die in an epic explosion. He didn’t go violently and spectacularly. It was sneaking and sudden and silent. There was no aggression, no big cataclysm, no collapsing buildings or giant monsters and yet it burned itself into your mind forever. He was just there one moment and gone the next and you never in your life felt more helpless. You almost wish it had been an explosion; you certainly wish it had swallowed you both.

As you flip the page, a single white napkin falls out of the book and sails to the ground at your feet silently. You move to pick it up, and as your fingers brush the fabric you get a sense of familiarity. You’ve seen it before. Imprinted in the corner is the logo of a bar, the Emerald Grave, faded but still legible. You remember that place. Rude took you there last year, said he’d pay for one drink to celebrate your birthday and ended up buying two bottles for the two of you. You met someone that night, can’t recall clearly how the night ended. Rude must have kept the napkin. There’s an ink stain on it, and next to it three words in shaky handwriting.

“I love you.”

#rcdwrxck #d. rcdwrxck #( drabble. )#( m: rude. )#( rude: drabble. )#here goes nothing #t. goodbye #cw character death #long post

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violetsmoak · 4 years

Text

Pieces of April [17/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099044/chapters/50202530

Summary: On the anniversary of his death, Jason’s second life takes an abrupt new turn and he’s faced with a challenge that neither Batman nor the All-Caste prepared him for.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Author’s Note: Daily check-in to see how you're holding up under social distancing, and a reminder that in addition to washing your hands and stay inside, don't snack too much, drink at least 8 cups of water and take a shower! You'd be surprised how easy it is to stop doing a lot of the basics when you're in isolation for a while! Hang in there, people!

First Chapter

________________________________________________________________

Six o’clock is an ungodly hour in the morning to be awake and Jason honestly doesn’t know how people do it. The hours between four and eleven in the morning are the only time he has a chance to rest, and now that’s been co-opted by the squawking creature in his arms.

He can’t imagine how the non-vigilante population finds it any easier.

And then there’s Tim.

Who voluntarily gets up at this time every morning to go play Wayne Poster Child™ after a night of knocking heads in the city.

There was a reason Bruce never let Jason patrol on a school night, and it wasn’t just because of the potential for unexplained bruises, and yet here’s little Timmy, off to run a multibillion-dollar company while existing on coffee grounds and stubbornness.

And the dumbass keeps offering to give up more sleep to take care of Jason’s kid.

How has he not fallen off a building yet?

Luisa’s gluttonous grunting brings Jason’s thoughts back to the present. She’s finally started to attack her bottles with gusto, as if it’s finally occurred to her that, “Hey, weird rubber thing in my mouth equals food”.

Jason’s grateful for that, too; not that he’s going to admit he was starting to worry there was something wrong with her.

It’s not that he’s trying to be heartless or anything, but there’s a fine line between being concerned and getting attached. And there is a mess of reasons why he can’t afford to do that. If Tim’s dopey insistence to help out is any indication, he’s already starting down that dangerous road.

Eventually, Luisa releases the nipple, and Jason maneuvers her around to burp her, only to hear a tiny, gurgling cough, which is then followed by warm wetness spilling down his shoulder—at the exact moment that Tim walks into the kitchen.

“Looks like she has a complaint about the chef,” he remarks, mouth twisted into a smirk.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jason mutters, holding the now vomit-covered baby as far out in front of him as he can do while keeping her head steady. He tries not to grimace at the stain spreading across his back; he’s probably been covered with worse, but that doesn’t make it any less unpleasant.

“That’s why you’re supposed to put a towel over your shoulder.”

“I know!” Jason snaps. “I forgot.”

Tim holds his hands out for the baby. “Go change.”

“I need to clean her up first.”

“You’re not sitting on my sofa covered in puke.”

“Who says I was going to sit on your sofa?” Jason challenges, even though that's exactly where he was going. He’s sort of co-opted that whole area into the downstairs changing station.

The sour-sweet smell of vomit makes the decision for him, however, and he passes Luisa over to Tim, who’s already got a washcloth in hand to dab at the mess. While Jason heads upstairs, he brings her over to that same makeshift changing station and starts to undo her soiled onesie.

The last thing Jason hears as he closes the door to his room is, “Ugh, he was right. That doesn’t look human.”

Jason snorts, glad he’s not the only one that has to suffer through mysterious bodily fluids.

He considers the merits of showering now, weighing the need to be clean versus the probability of ending up dirty again anyway in an hour or so and then decides to just wipe himself down with a wet cloth before putting on a new shirt.

Digging around in the duffel bag, he accidentally knocks down the jacket he threw haphazardly on the loveseat. The inner pocket gapes, allowing several items to fall out, including the Red Hood plush toy and the sonogram from Isabel’s fridge.

He grabbed them both on a whim before leaving the apartment, but he can’t quite recall the logic or reasoning behind that. Isabel’s email and its implications had taken up most of his brainpower at that point. The trained detective part of Jason tells him he wanted evidence, but he’s not entirely sure of evidence of what.

He picks the items up now, frowning at their existence, and then abruptly shoves them both into one of the dresser drawers.

It’s too early for soul-searching.

When he comes back downstairs, it’s to Tim just wrestling a grump baby into a white onesie. Even standing at the foot of the stairs, Jason notices that it contrasts very obviously with Luisa’s skin.

“I was right,” he says, “she’s definitely turning yellow.”

Luisa cracks an eye open at the sudden sound of his voice, and beyond the startling blue iris, he notes that her sclera is also off-color. “Look, even the whites of her eyes are going yellow.”

Tim studies her, and nods. “Yeah, she is a little jaundiced.”

“So do we take her to the doctor for this, or what? I mean, does she have yellow fever or something?”

“Yellow fever has an incubation period of three to six days,” Tim replies. “Since she hasn’t been alive that long and hasn’t had a chance to be exposed to anything like that, I doubt that’s what it is.”

Jason gives him a look. “How the hell do you know this shit?”

“An eco-fascist cell tried to contaminate Gotham’s water supply with a strain of it last year.”

“It’s always the water supply with these people,” Jason mumbles. “You’d think the city would invest in better security down there. Batman’s not always going to be there to stop it.”

“Batgirl, actually,” Tim replies. “Singlehandedly. Steph was very proud.”

“I’m sure.” Jason frowns again at the vaguely yellow baby, telling himself that if Tim isn’t worried, he shouldn’t be. Still, “You know, while we have her here, we should maybe wash off some of that white stuff."

“What? No. Did you forget? ‘Wet baby equals slippery baby’? Those were your words.”

“There are other ways to take a bath, moron,” Jason retorts, examining the bulge above Luisa’s umbilical cord stump. He thinks he remembers Dr. Kerry saying it would fall off in a week or so, but to be honest, most of the night they picked her up from the hospital is a blur to him.

“Well, I’ll leave you to that then, because I have to get going,” Tim says, heading upstairs to transform himself from half-asleep slob to Timothy Drake-Wayne.

Jason tries not to balk at that; part of him was hoping Tim would offer to do that chore.

Bathing is different from feeding. With blankets around the kid, he doesn’t have to worry so much about bruising her skin by just touching her. And yes, he knows that babies don’t bruise that easily, but he’s so used to ruining everything he touches that this seems like a valid concern to him.

In the end, he just takes his time, not giving her a real bath from the tiny tub still packed up in the pile of baby things, but an approximation of the wipe down he gave himself earlier. Careful to keep her covered except to expose whatever arm or leg needs wiping off, he slides a cloth gently against her skin, noting she’s still got that weird white residue on her.

She makes squeaking grunts of complaint at the alien feeling, but it must not feel too bad because she doesn’t erupt into crying. He takes that has a win.

“Now that Her Highness has had her morning toilette,” Jason grouses as he nestles the lump of baby into her carrier.

Once Tim leaves, Jason spends the day at home much like he did the day before, scouring the apartment for anything readable that isn’t a gaming guide, taking apart his gear and putting it back together and grabbing quick naps between feedings and changings. It’s entirely possible he may be losing his mind, because how did his life become this?

I didn’t even stay this still when I was a kid. Is this what life is like for eighteen years when you have a kid?

There has to be more to the parenting gig than this.

Frustrated, he turns the television on, surfing the channels and wondering why there’s nothing worth watching on any of the thousand channels Tim has access to. Eventually, he lands on a local news channel which he keeps on just to have something making noise in the overly silent house.

He’s barely synthesizing the information until a special report comes on, the shaky camera capturing a car speeding through Crime Alley, windows rolled down to allow a gun to open fire.

“…only the latest in a series of violent incidents that have occurred just outside of the Bowery this week,” the woman on the screen is saying. “Officials believe these may be retaliation for the recent raiding of three businesses in the Bowery with connections to the Maroni crime family…”

“Then officials are stupid because anyone gunning for Maroni wouldn’t be takin' it out on him in Crime Alley,” Jason mutters. Especially since everyone in Gotham’s underworld knows the penalty for going anywhere near Hood territory.

“…just the latest in the continuing unrest in the neighborhood. Local police are still asking for information regarding the disappearance of teenagers LaRynn Davies and Carlton King, last seen leaving the schoolyard of PS 181. This has been Maria Amardosa, Gotham News—”

Jason jabs at the remote, switching the television off.

It doesn’t surprise him that crime’s up; April and May are when the weather starts to warm up, which means a lot of enterprising criminal organizations open back up for business. Even when he was Robin, Jason used to make a point of more heavily patrolling his neighborhood in the spring to discourage that sort of thing.

And now, it’s going on a week, and he hasn’t been out once. It’s bad enough having to leave matters when he’s out of town or off-planet, but in those cases, he can’t do anything about it.

“But now, I’m right freakin’ here, and sittin’ on my ass.”

Which is why when Tim gets home from work that night and gratefully accepts the stir-fry Jason whipped up more out of boredom than actual hunger, he decides to broach the subject.

“I’m goin' out to patrol tonight,” he informs him, half-defiant. “If I don’t put in an appearance along my usual route, people are gonna start gettin' ideas.”

More than they already are.

He expects protests or warnings, but to his surprise, Tim swallows a mouthful of rice and nods. “I’ll watch the baby while you’re out.”

All reasonable like, the way he’s been since he picked me up at the bar.

Jason tries not to feel like he’s being handled, and goes on in a guarded tone, “This isn’t me tryin' to dump her off on you and run. I’m not that big of an ass.”

“Debatable. But noted. It’s not a problem.”

“Are you sure? Because if you don’t want to, tell me.”

Tim fixes him with an exasperated look. “You’re really not used to people just…genuinely wanting to help you, are you?”

“Not generally, no,” Jason replies, folding his arms across his chest. “Especially not people that I’ve tried to kill.”

“Twice.”

“Though I did knee you in the balls that one time,” Tim reminds him, shoveling another bite into his mouth.

Jason winces. “Yeah, I remember. Not sure that’s enough to put us on equal playin' field though."

“Also, do you remember last year when you thought you had a bedbug infestation, and even when you switched safehouses, you couldn’t get rid of them?”

The question is asked with an innocence that wouldn’t fool even the most naïve person in the world, and Jason growls. “Okay, I take it back. You do owe me. At least I would have made your death quick. Bedbugs are just…” He shudders. “Evil.”

“There’s a reason Ra’s al Ghul wants me to work for him,” Tim agrees cheerfully.

“I’m suddenly re-evaluating the wisdom of leaving you with a small child.”

“I’m serious, though, it’s no problem to watch her.” Tim makes a waving gesture. “Go. Break up a few bar fights, knock around whatever pimps deserve it, whatever. Just…don’t kill anyone.”

“I ain’t askin’ permission here, Drake.”

“I know that. Doesn’t mean you don’t need the reminder.”

“If you’re so worried I’m gonna snap, maybe you should be tryin’ to keep me home.”

“That would be pretty stupid. And possibly suicidal on my part. You haven’t been out on the streets for a week, and you’ve been cooped up in here since Isa came home.” He ignores Jason’s glare at the nickname. “You need some kind of outlet, and this is the best one I can think of for you.”

It’s the most laissez-faire response he’s ever gotten from a Bat when it comes to Red Hood’s involvement in the Gotham nightlife—or rather, his frequent interruptions of it. Even Barbara—who he knows understands the logic of his crusade, even as she vehemently decries it—has never been like this.

Barring the whole ‘don’t kill anyone’ spiel, that was almost encouraging.

And a far cry from the kid that accused him of taking the easy path of crimefighting when they first met years ago.

Jason realizes then that he’s had a very specific image of Tim Drake in his head all this time. Living in close quarters with him is showing him that he really doesn’t know him at all.

Now is that just me…or is the rest of the family just as clueless when it comes to the baby bird here?

He must be giving Tim a funny look, because the kid says, “What?”

“Nothing,” Jason replies. “Just wondering what Bat Daddy would think about your pro-Red Hood stance.”

Tim winces, an expression of deep revulsion on his face. “Please. Never, ever refer to Bruce or any other guy I know as ‘daddy’. Ever again.”

Jason raises an eyebrow—that’s the first time he’s elicited that reaction—but rather than ask about it, he instead returns to his room to grab his clothes.

The Nest isn’t like the Cave, where Batman keeps extra gear for everyone stowed away (even for the Red Hood, he learned shortly after the mission to bring Damian’s body back from Apokolips), which means Jason’s going to need to stop at one of his caches after leaving to get his helmet and some of the bulkier pieces of armor he didn’t have with him.

Kitted out in everything except the eponymous red hood, Jason pauses in front of the secret entrance to Red Robin’s base.

Sitting on the couch with Luisa, Tim is just hanging up the phone. “I made an appointment for her to see Leslie next Tuesday. It’s the earliest she could fit us in since I couldn’t tell her the exact details.”

“Yeah, probably something to explain in person,” Jason agrees. He jerks his thumb at the door. “I’m leavin' now. Last chance to back out.”

“It’s not going to kill me to be responsible for an infant for a few hours,” Tim deadpans. “I mean, you’ve done it all week, so it should be easy.”

“Famous last words, Replacement. Just remember—Safiya’s number’s in your phone. Use it if you get overwhelmed.”

Tim rolls his eyes at his own words being flung at him. “You’re hilarious.”

“I know,” Jason grins.

“Get out of here.”

“Gone—also, stealing one of your bikes.”

“Just make sure to fill up the tank when you’re done!” Tim calls after him before the door shuts and locks away the domestic part of Jason’s life for the evening.

The short trip from Tim’s place to Jason’s nearest safehouse passes in a blur, and before he knows it he’s safely behind the visor of his helmet and back on the streets.

There’s nothing quite like Gotham at night, and even after a lifetime living here, he’s not entirely sure if that’s a good thing or not.

The rooftops are familiar steppingstones beneath his feet, as he tucks and rolls upon landing, only to propel himself back to his feet and do it again upon reaching the next roof. The rhythm of it all is easy, second nature even, and one he missed in the days where he’s been cooped up.

The last time he was out of commission for so many consecutive days was when he caught the winter flu, and even then he dragged his carcass out of bed just to loom in the dark as a warning to anyone who might try something. It’s a trick Bruce used to pull, when needed to make an appearance as Batman but was hacking up half a lung.

Tim was right about one thing: being able to throw himself into a fight is cathartic. His mind closes off every other thought beyond the here and now, and for the first time in a week, he feels like himself.

He busts up two bodega robberies, stops a carjacking and when a john tries to drag one of the girls working the corner into his car, Jason takes supreme joy in slamming the bastard’s hand in his car door. He checks in with several of his sources, some of whom have names for him of whatever moron has decided to ignore the rules of the Hood this week.

It’s a few hours worth of running about before he finally feels clear again, and by the time he starts winding down his patrol, there’s a deep but familiar exhaustion curling in his muscles that he only ever feels after a good workout. It makes his thoughts feel clearer and more capable of tackling his personal problems once more.

Using the interface in his helmet, he runs a search for the addresses of every Jonathan Sutter in Gotham, then uses the program he piggybacks off the Batcave server to attach the names to any of them that have been treated for Joker toxin in the past year.

There are two and considering one of them is about sixty years old and works as a greeter at Walmart, it’s a safe bet which one he’s looking for. He makes a stop out of his usual route to check up on the guy.

Isabel’s ex lives in the nicer part of Otisburg, about two blocks from an elementary school and a playground. His home is a decently maintained two-story walk-up, with one of the newer Volkswagen models in the driveway. From what Safiya told him, Sutter does decently financially, and according to the photo in his dossier, he’s got a kind of refined Tony Stark looking going on.

Though that means about jack squat when it comes to whether the guy should be around kids.

If he were Batman, Jason would break in and loom over the guy’s bed until he woke up, but since Sutter’s less likely to be receptive if he’s pissing himself in fear, Jason decides he’ll return by daylight.

He just wanted to scope out where the guy lived, anyhow.

Whether due to his own exhaustion catching up with him, or the nagging feeling at the back of his mind wanting to make sure Tim’s place is still standing, he returns to where he parked the borrowed bike and heads back to the Nest earlier than he normally would.

He’s not even surprised to see the family insomniac still awake, although for once he’s not poring over case files. There’s a game paused on the flatscreen, and Tim is in the process of carefully hefting the baby in his arms up and down, a frown on his face.

Like every Bat, he gives no indication he even noticed he’s no longer alone.

“What’s up?” Jason asks as he rubs a towel through his sweaty hair; he left the bulky bits of his gear in the Nest.

“I think she feels lighter than she did when we brought her here,” Tim replies, a perplexed expression on his face. “Do you think she’s not getting enough food?”

“Not possible with the amount we feed her.”

“Yeah…” Tim shakes his head, then meets Jason’s gaze. “So, did you strike fear into the hearts of every gangbanger in the Alley?”

“You joke, but I take that as a personal challenge.”

“Please don’t.” Tim stands up, holding the baby with more confidence than Jason thinks he’s ever imagined and wanders over. “She slept most of the time you were away.”

“Of course she did,” Jason mutters with a scowl. The baby seems to behave for Tim a lot more than she does for him.

“That’s pretty impressive since she already spends about three-quarters of the day asleep.”

“Wish she would sleep at night, or at least let me.”

“It’s not like we’re not used to being up at all hours.”

“Yeah, but we’re also used to passing out for actual sleep when we get home. I think she thinks sunrise is a signal to work up a f-fuh--,” Jason’s complaint is interrupted by a yawn, and he shakes his head. “Fuss. And on that note…”

“Go. Shower,” Tim says. “I can put her down before I turn in.”

Jason nods at that, putting a foot on the stairs before something occurs to him and he glances back.

“Hey, Tim…”

“Yeah?”

“…Thanks.”

Tim appears caught off-guard, and then an actual grin breaks over his face. “Careful, Jay, you’re starting to sound downright friendly.”

“It’s the sleep deprivation,” Jason replies, “Don’t read into it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

⁂⁂⁂

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arecomicsevengood · 4 years

Text

HOW MANY EYES DO YOU NEED TO SEE?

A few months ago, I was officially diagnosed with glaucoma. This was a good thing, inasmuch as I waiting for a diagnosis. A few months before I had seen the neuro-opthalmologist who gave this diagnosis, and prescribed eyedrops to begin a course of treatment, I had seen an opthalmologist who noted the high amounts of pressure in my eye, but gave me a referral to see another doctor instead, because my youth made glaucoma seem unlikely, and he wanted to check this pressure was not caused perhaps by a brain tumor inside my skull pressing against the back of my eyes.

You probably are a little unclear on what glaucoma is. It is most known, I believe, for being a condition that smoking weed helps. Before medical marijuana became legal and able to be prescribed for anxiety and depression and all the psychological conditions people had been using it to self-medicate for for years, glaucoma was a cited example of a condition whose effects were mitigated by smoking. When I explain that I have it to friends now, there usually comes a point at the end of the conversation where they bring it up. For what it’s worth, I hate smoking weed. I feel debilitated by it to do anything I enjoy, like write, or follow a conversation, or accomplish tasks without being distracted. Most people who smoke a lot of weed will either tell me that the effects I have a problem with go away after steady smoking, and that I probably haven’t found the right strain yet. The act of getting to this point seems an unpleasant one, filled with physiological incapability. Of course, CBD is now basically sold as a cure-all that takes care of any bad feeling one might have, but it is apparently the effects of THC that take care of glaucoma.

Glaucoma is an increase of eye pressure. As you are aware, the eye is a soft orb of mucus membranes, and some duct or another regulates the release of a fluid into them, to keep that balloon-like sac inflated, essentially. I’m unclear on the exact details. In glacoma, the eye gets too filled up. Maybe this makes the eye bulge out a little, it does seem like what I’m describing would lead to a situation where the eye eventually explodes. But before that, the pressure of the eye presses on the optic nerve. When I had this explained to me, by an optometrist, who told me I was pre-glaucoma and I should go to an opthalmologist to get my eyes looked at. I thought I would experience this as physical pain. After I forgot about the appointment I had made, I anticipated I would experience pain and that was when I would need to go to a doctor. It turns out this is wrong, because the optic nerve isn’t really set up to register feeling, it’s set up to see things. So as the pressure wore on my optic nerve, moreso in my left eye than my right, my vision deteriorated. However, I didn’t notice, because I have two eyes, and together they form a composite image, and my right eye compensated. I would experience weird effects of light, sort of like there was a smudge on my glasses lens, and occasionally it would seem like what I was looking what had a crack in it and was bleeding light, but I didn’t really know how bad it was.

It was when I finally saw an opthalmologist, and in the checking to ensure my glasses’ prescription was correct, and he kept on switching out lenses and asking me if my vision was better or worse with each new one, I found I could not register any letters on the vision chart at all, that the whole field existed within a blank spot of blurred white light, that I realized how bad things had gotten. It was a scary day, certainly made worse by the physician’s suggestion I might have a brain tumor, and his general displeasure and frustration at the fact that I have an instinctual aversion to people approaching my eye to touch it, poke it, and administer eye drops. I am convinced this is a normal thing, but doctors often have God complexes, and apparently I was such a difficult patient that he refused to see me again afterwards. That’s neither here nor there in the story I want to tell, but I do hope he gets hit by a bus and killed.

Anyway, I have now seen a doctor that prescribed eye drops, and then I saw another doctor who prescribed still more eye drops, and I am broke enough to qualify for Medicaid so I haven’t paid for any of these things, so all of that is good, and while I’m concerned about how coronavirus will effect the ability of these prescriptions to get into the country it’s fine thus far. The doctor has made clear that all of these things, however, are really just to make sure my vision doesn’t become worse, that I don’t become totally blind, as far as they’re concerned, the damage done to the optic nerve is irreversible, and won’t be returning to where it was before, which was pretty bad, but at least able to be corrected by strong prescription corrective lenses.

Not covered by Medicaid are the lion’s mane mushrooms I have elected to take. Lion’s Mane, supposedly, stimulates nerve tissue growth. People take them for depression and “brain fog,” and so I had been toying with the idea of investigating them anyway, before I started to think that maybe they would help repair my optic nerve as well. I am well-aware that a lot of people consider any herbal remedies to be snake oil peddled by the likes of Alex Jones and Gwyneth Paltrow, but a bunch of my friends are hippies and herbalists, and the people so assuredly righteous in their politics often have deeply reactionary cultural opinions they are not interested in examining, lacking even the self-awareness to get offline and take deep breaths to make themselves feel better. I don’t consider Lion’s Mane a placebo in any way, but I also register the necessity of feeling hope and the grounding nature of a ritual such that I will probably continue to take it for a while even if there are not immediately noticeable effects.

I am interested in perception, cognition, and how brain chemistry dictates who we are. We are taught as children about the lobes of the brain, how the left brain is more analytical, and the right brain more emotional and intuitive. Ideally, we have easy connection between these two lobes, and when we see something, we are both able to tell what it is and feel a certain way about it. Writing about comics, I try to be as intuitive as I can, to pick up on things that are perhaps unconsciously present, to write about something other than the exact nature of the plot or how well-rendered a background is. It occurs to me that, since the left eye is processed by the right brain, I might be feeling the things I see less than I should. This is all theoretical. It does feel like it’s been ages since I’ve seen a movie that I felt particularly moved by, though it is easy to chalk this up to the cynicism of age. I am still capable of seeing the movie, the full page, still able to read and put the thing together in my brain; and at the same time, I’m placing everything into the larger context of my life, the same way everyone does. Even my favorite film of 2019, Uncut Gems, I didn’t find as nerve-racking as other people apparently did. Maybe that’s because I went in aware of a good deal of hype and other people were more surprised by it? There is really no way to know. The brain makes a composite image consisting not just of the two eyes, but everything else it’s taking in. I can perhaps attribute a certain hesitancy in my own writing to the lack of synchronized lobes taking in what they see, that rereading my own brain no longer gives me the weird floating feeling I used to get from it. I check that it makes sense and still feel like I am fighting uphill, and remain doubtful of everyone else’s writing. “”Why are you talking like this?” I ask of most sentences. Again, I would maybe be asking this anyway, most people are bad at writing, and it doesn’t take some sort of newfound autistic attentiveness to notice that.

All this connects to comics, and to the fact that I write about them. This sense that I am somehow impaired in my ability to read them, I don’t think anyone else would think if I didn’t bring it up, but I feel like I would be lying by omission not to mention. I disclose it in the name of honesty, even as I am on a certain level only articulating this anxiety to avoid the morbidity of talking about how my thoughts about perception, cognition, and the construction of the self apply to death, in this time of pandemic, when all of my or your or someone one or both of us love could have their entire brain go blank and no amount of adaptogens could reanimate it. (The past few days, I’ve also been drinking chaga and echinacea teas for the sake of my immune system.) And while I don’t think this issue with my eyes applies to written text as much as it does all the other forms the visual world can be arranged to convey information, if I am taking in the news in a less emotional way than other people, that is probably for the best.

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say-lon-i · 5 years

Text

Eruriweek2019 Day 7: Timeloop

AO3 link.

Ginger and Honey

“You’re not going to ask why?” Erwin questions; he doesn’t sound angry or hurt, just mildly curious. It’s proof enough that it really, truly is over.

The first few times Levi did ask for an explanation. He’d yelled, he’d thrown things at the far wall out of frustration. It hadn’t changed a thing. It still happened. The day would still more or less go the same way. Erwin would hesitate in approaching the subject of moving out, would apologize innocently, would give him some time to cool off under the pretense of him being late for work. In the evening, if Levi hasn’t bothered to stalk the man into his workplace like some vengeful banshee or interfered in some other way, he would get the call.

He sits at the kitchen table now, takes another sip of his ginger honey tea. It tastes like hot, wet dirt. “You got a good enough answer for me?” He replies with a question of his own. It could be anything; ‘I fell out of love’, ‘I don’t like it that you meddle into my business’, ‘You’re a pushover, grow a spine’, ‘We don’t have enough kinky sex’, all of them perfectly good reasons in themselves. Erwin chooses to remain silent, even glances away. Levi shrugs. He knows. “Thought so.”

Erwin waits for a few minutes; he’s expecting the usual backlash. Levi is always easily incensed after all. When none comes, the man looks hesitant, thick brows pinched together, pushes the scrambled eggs around in his plate with his fork. He’s wearing the watch that Levi had gifted him on his thirtieth birthday. It goes well with his pale blue, crisply ironed shirt and his thinning gold hair.

“I think it would be for the best if I were to stay at a hotel until I find a new place. I’ll only be able to take whatever makes up for my immediate requirements. I can get the rest once my living arrangements are sorted out,” Erwin eventually says. Levi hasn’t made breakfast for himself because he’s known he’d lose his appetite over this exact conversation. He's already wasted perfectly good tea.

“Okay.” He nods, takes another sip. His hands or lips aren’t trembling like they used to. “I can call Gunther and he might be able to help out with the apartment hunting if you want.”

Erwin neither affirms nor says no. Instead, he sighs as if Levi is the one being unreasonable, he apologizes, and then he excuses himself because he’s getting late for work. Erwin by no means is a terrible liar, but they’ve been dating for a long, long time, for years, decades, and Levi isn’t easily fooled by his straight face and his curt manner. His half-eaten eggs morosely sit in the plate in abandonment.

Levi frowns and gets up to clean the table.

They’d met at a frat party in the first year of Uni. Erwin had been chugging beer straight out of a barrel and Levi had been the only one who’d bet on him finishing the whole thing without throwing up.

Erwin had thrown up. Then he’d insisted he give Levi a ride back to his student house before driving his secondhand Ford Fiesta into someone’s rose bushes. As Erwin had been trying to hatch a plan on how they’d apologize for the fuck up, Levi had taken advantage of their alcohol-addled minds and sucked faces with him until he himself had started feeling physically sick at the taste of vomit on the other’s tongue. They’d had sex a week later, and two weeks in, Erwin had asked him out on a date.

At exactly 5:21 pm Levi pulls his phone out of his pocket and waits. There’s a woman behind him waiting to get a chance at examining and comparing pancake mix prices, but he doesn’t mind her tutting.

At 5:22 pm his ringtone echoes around the aisle. It’s some cheesy pop song from some artist Isabel had dragged him to a concert of a couple of years back, though admittedly it hadn't been half bad if he can pretend to like noisy places. He receives the call.

“Levi,” comes Erwin’s uncharacteristically scratchy voice. Is the man on the verge of another breakdown? Is he crying? Did he contract a cold? Levi can never tell.

“Erwin?”

“I’m sorry.” A deep inhale. Levi can hear traffic in the backdrop, a honk, the steady thrum of Erwin’s Mercedes-Benz. He can imagine the wetness in Erwin’s pretty, blue eyes. “I’m so sorry. You don't deserve this. None of this is your fault. It’s not you, it’s me.”

Cliché. “I know.”

“You do, don't you? It’s always me. I don’t understand why.” Erwin sniffs. “I really don’t. We tried so hard, we made it work for five whole years this time despite… despite that. Despite me. We were doing so well, darling, it could have been so good, so why is it still like this?” A muffled thudding noise. Frustration. Erwin possibly hit something, and has now gone silent; Levi counts his breaths. He’s afraid he might start an avalanche if he talks out of turn. “I didn’t want it to end like this. Not after how it’d gone the last time,” Erwin continues eventually. “Do you remember that, Levi? I promised, didn’t I? And yet I just… I couldn’t anymore. I wish I could.”

Levi says nothing, only purses his lips. His throat feels tight even though he knows what is coming, where this is leading to.

“I wish I could give you everything you wanted, everything you deserved. I wish I could make you happy, Levi.”

“I know.”

“I cared for you more than anything in the world. You have to know that.”

Cared. “I know.”

A pause. “Are you not going to get angry like you did that time, darling?” Erwin still doesn’t sound angry; just defeated. His sniffling this time sounds a little wet. “Does it not matter to you what I’m doing? Do you not care?” Of course he does, but Levi doesn’t see the point in having to say something so obvious out loud. The way Erwin sounds is hurting both his ears and his heart. He thinks of hanging up, but can’t physically make himself stick to said thought. He’s the weaker one.

Someone honks loudly on the other end. Erwin swears under his breath, almost makes Levi chuckle; he’s cute even when he’s being all whiny and depressing, Levi thinks. The old lady averts her gaze and pretends to compare prices on the cereal boxes. Erwin sighs deeply.

“Where are you now?” He asks.

“At the supermarket. I'm almost done,” Levi replies. “Why?”

“I want to end things properly this time, Levi. You deserve closure. I owe it to you.” Erwin owed him nothing, in fact. Levi has been the one with the upper hand all this time. “I want us to talk. Can we?”

He’s pleading. Levi could tell him to not talk on the phone while he’s driving. He could tell him that they can talk later when he’s in a better mood, or that they don’t need to talk at all. He could tell Erwin to at least not take the usual route home, not to pass through Trost street, or to take a cab, or the bus so he doesn’t have to drive in this state. Levi knows how it ends. He’s looked into it and memorized it, lived through it several times. He knows where it goes horribly wrong before it ever becomes right. Erwin is his sun, the water to his parched throat. His smile makes Levi’s very existence worth something. Erwin is also impeccable at self-sabotage; this break up is imminent, final, and Levi dreads it with every fibre of his selfish being.

“Okay,” he says, his grip white-knuckled on the phone’s glass body. “We’ll talk. Come home. I’ll wait for you.”

Erwin takes a moment to respond. He sounds relieved, mildly pleased even, probably wiping his eyes on his sleeve. Levi is sure he’s holding the phone close, cradling it as if it’s the most precious, because Levi is doing the same. “Thank you, darling. I’ll see you soon,” Erwin murmurs.

“Okay,” Levi repeats. Erwin is being unfair, and Levi is bad at phone calls, but he’s in so, so deep. “And Erwin? I love you.”

He can almost hear the smile in the man’s voice as Erwin says it back. Then Erwin tells him to drive home safely: Levi doesn’t echo the sentiment.

He’s informed about the accident at 6:03 pm. A kind passerby who’s helped out with the ambulance and impromptu hospital visit calls him from Erwin’s phone, says his was the most recent number in the call log. Levi, despite the past times, still feels dread curling its icy fingers around his heart. By the time he reaches the hospital, it’s already too late. They let him take one last look at that handsome face; there’s a deep gash across one cheek, hints of glass shards being pulled out of the flesh. The doctors say they tried their best, that the blood loss was too much, that some parts hadn’t been where they were supposed to be. The dread slowly ebbs away and gives way to apathy.

He nods, he pays, he thanks the hospital staff for trying or at least pretending to care. A nurse or two are crying outside the room for a complete stranger. Levi doesn’t shed a tear.

Come tomorrow, he’ll be watching Erwin chug beer straight out of a barrel. Come tomorrow, they’ll drive his shitty, old car into someone’s garden and then make out to kingdom come. Come tomorrow, He’ll live another lifetime by Erwin’s side, trying and failing to keep him, and then trying some more anyway. He’s a fool. Erwin exists in a state that’s impossible for him to achieve. Levi will wake up the next morning and see his closely cropped gold hair, gaze into his blue eyes, trace his bile covered lips with a finger and fall for him even deeper.

Levi isn’t sure what triggers it; sometimes he wakes up weeks before the frat party. Other times he has already had a one night stand with Erwin. Once he’d had to wait almost a year and fret over not making the same choices and missing out on his chance of attending the frat party at all. It’s unreliable and shady, how it works, why it happens, but Levi is grateful all the same.

He goes home and pretends to be in mourning to avoid further hassle, to avoid selecting caskets and informing friends and family of his boyfriend’s demise. Dinner that evening is uneventful; Erwin had never been a big fan of pasta, but he’s in no position to complain right now, is he?

The ginger and honey is heavy on his tongue when Levi reclines back in bed and shuts his eyes.

#eruriweek2019 #eruriweek #eruri #erwin smith #levi ackerman #snk #shingeki no kyojin #attack on Titan #AoT #sayloni's fic #fanfic rec #fic

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rolandfaunte · 5 years

Text

The Story of Sewing Kit

I guess it kind of starts in the fall of 2016. Up until this point I had had some issues with anxiety/depression, and huge issues with sleep, but nothing that I would have considered to be an emergency. All of the sudden it seemed like accomplishments were becoming less frequent. Before this, when I was happy, each thought that came about in regards to an obligation was accompanied by a bit of energy that could be used to do it. That energy stopped showing up and the list of things that needed to be done began to grow as the likelihood of those tasks being completed began to shrink. I think of it like a car. Before these issues, when the car was required to drive a certain distance, gas would simply appear in the tank. Now, those same distances were required, but the gas no longer appeared. In this metaphor, the gas is provided by the subconscious, or just “the sub” as I like to call it. When you’re hungry, the sub gives you a bit of gas to go to the kitchen or order something. When you’re hungry but depressed, that gas never arrives. What then? Can you create you own? I’ve come to think of consciously-generated fuel as will power, and I didn’t really seem to have any at that time. The truth of the matter is that the sub was getting sick and, as a result, I started slowly dissolving into a pathetic mess. After sleep and motivation were gone, the disease began to target my self-worth. By the disease, I mean the bipolar disorder that at the time I was unaware of but would soon be diagnosed. The pattern of life I was developing mostly consisted of doing nothing or crying. At this point my life sill wasn’t necessarily all that bad, because I would only spend a few hours per day in a truly horrible place and would otherwise just be numb and fragile. This would be changing soon but the issue was still manageable enough that I didn’t do anything about it. In this time period, a typical day would begin with a skipped class and inactivity until around 5 o’clock, when I would retreat to my room and cry for a while about nothing and then just be numb again. My sense of self-worth was very low but I was yet to have any suicidal thoughts or full disconnections from reality. It was bad of course, but nothing compared to what was to come. In the context of the future that I’m now aware of, it’s hard to see this time period as so terrible, though it was certainly worse than anything that had preceded it. In the fall of 2016 I was introduced to Dr. K. We tried a few standard ssris and I took them religiously, thinking that they could bring back an older version of myself but they didn’t work very well. We tried a few different combinations but my decline was accelerating at an alarming rate. Each day of this time period would be the best day I would have for months to come. The episodes of tearfulness and misery became the standard mode of my life. I kept these things mostly private from those I knew well because I found them to be embarrassing and extremely confusing. After a while of this, in the springtime, a new type of episode began to emerge. It was one of infinite bliss and unstable happiness. My self-worth inflated to an amazing degree and I was filled with what felt like an infinite love and sense of connection to all things. I would create things at an alarming pace that all turned out to be of terrible quality but at the time seemed to me to be far more important than anything else in the history of the world. These were my first true experiences with hypomania. These episodes would break ferociously. I remember walking to campus in a state of absolute ecstasy, being extremely impressed with myself and all of the amazing things I would come to accomplish. My genius was absolute and my understanding of the world was absolutely messianic. The introduction of mania made for an incredibly ridiculous life, in which I was either overflowing with energy and ecstasy or begging a god I didn’t believe in to bring about some accident that would kill me. Neither version of the brain could remember the other, and I never seemed to spend any time in between them. I told my doctor of these things and he asked me to more elaborately journal during these moments, which I proceeded to do. When I next went to visit him he said he thought I might have a bipolar disorder and wanted to try a different tact medically. One med, Latuda, was very successful but left me with an unacceptable side-effect called akathisia. When I went to see him after a few weeks we had a lengthy conversation about my sense of the future and my hope for recovery and he regretfully informed me that I was ill to a point at which out-patient treatment wouldn’t be enough and it was time for me to be admitted. On the day I was admitted, I remember laying in some sort of examination room when a nurse entered and asked how I was feeling. Through tears I informed her, “I’m never going to be happy ever again.” I meant that. I was sure of it in ways I’ve never been sure of anything else. At some point before the Latuda I had begun to lose my relationship with reality but it was now gone entirely. I had no sense of what was real and was entirely possessed by the darkest thoughts imaginable, or perhaps even worse than that depending on who is being asked. For those who haven’t been depressed, these types of thoughts remain beyond imagination. When entering the ward I was presented with a line on which I needed to sign my name and write the date. I paused at the part of the paper that required the date and looked up to the nurse in confusion. Her and I were both visibly surprised by the fact that, not only did I not know what month it was, I also didn’t know whether it was 2015 or 2016. I can’t explain how or why, but I simply did not know. It was like looking at a bill at a restaurant and your brain just refusing the put in the effort to calculate a tip, except mine couldn’t even put in the effort to tell me what year it was. In that hospital I felt as though I was joining the ranks of those to whom I was truly similar. The broken and unproductive elements of society who were unable to do anything other than consume resources and spread misery and chaos. I looked at the outlets that fed energy to the medical machines, the nurses and the attendants, the food we ate, and the light that let us see it and saw them all as a waste. Why wouldn’t they just let us destroy ourselves? Why did they insist on keeping us in places where suicide was impossible when it was obviously the best thing for anyone who ended up here? I’ve never in my life spent so much time staring at a clock. The issues with sleep had made a vengeful reemergence and the time spent in the hospital truly felt like an eternity. I remember looking out of the window at a woman walking to work and thinking “I will literally never do that. I will never have a job. I will never contribute. I will never be useful enough to have to be anywhere ever.” When I was discharged, things improved in the sense that I no longer had to live my entire life on one hallway but my life was, to me at least, objectively and inarguably worse than death. I remember saying to myself that I would trade literally anyone’s life for my own. I would become anyone else and do whatever they had to do as long as it wasn’t this. I spent most of my time daydreaming about eternal nothingness. If I were to, today, right now as I write this, compile a list of reasons to not kill myself, it would be long to a point where I would get bored with the task. At that time the list consisted of two things: my family, and the girl I loved. One of the things I’ve come to realize about the disease is that it is a logical genius, and was able to provide me with an unending collection of reasons why those two elements did not belong there. Its mission was to empty the list. As for my family, one of its favorite arguments was that, over time, I would come to bring them far more harm than they could currently imagine. I would suck the goodness from their lives as they tried to care for me, exhaust them emotionally, consume their resources, and burden them infinitely. I would spoil our family’s good name and make them hate me. In a net, long term evaluation of their pain, it would be best for them to deal with my death for a few years and recover rather than have me drain them of life until I finally submitted at a later date, which I was convinced I would. As for my girlfriend, the argument was a bit different. The disease didn’t need me to necessarily excuse my suicide to her but rather find a way to remove her from my life. It told me that she only stayed with me out of a moral obligation, that she resented me secretly for how unimpressive and obviously useless I was. It told me that if I truly cared about her, I would end things between us and allow her to be free of that entanglement which, according to the disease, was something she wanted but could not bring herself to execute. These were two on the list of endless arguments in favor of me emptying the list of reasons not to do what the disease wanted me to. Both elements of the list stood stead-fast, but the disease is a beast against which arguments cannot be won while it still exists, the arguments are perpetual. The memories of that summer are quiet because I wasn’t quite there when they were made. I spent nearly the entirety of every day inside my own head, consumed by some mixture of panic, pain, dread, anger, or sadness, among others. I would wake up in the morning and simply think to myself “I can’t believe I have to do this for another day. I can’t. I can’t fucking do this anymore.” I remember thinking about how I wouldn’t wish it upon my very worst enemy. This was a punishment far worse than death, and yet somehow I had ended up inside of it without ever having committed any obvious crime. I remember sitting by the river with my best friend. This was my favorite place, next to my favorite person, and I felt nothing. It was gone and so was I. That summer moved forward into the fall when I was introduced to a physical miracle by the name of Seroquel. It brought me the most consistent sleep I had had in years, but the dosage was high to a point where my life was extremely muted and I was very dull. Next to depression, this was a miracle. When the dose of Seroquel was lowered and my mind was clearing up I began the process of trying to move these experiences out of my memories and into words and music. Unfortunately, I had never done any sort of recording before so I truly had no idea what I was doing. I was starting from scratch, with no outside help other than google. I learned how to use the different pieces of equipment very slowly, and still had only ever played piano and guitar. I listened to drums more closely to try and figure out how best to use them, as with bass, and finally started using other instruments to supplement the songs. Altogether, the process was absolutely grueling and nearly drove me out of my mind. I can’t even count how many times I worked from the early afternoon until the waking hours only to delete everything I had done. If I had to put a number on how much time was actually put into that album, including the learning process, I would start at 500 hours. Over the months I began to think of Sewing Kit as a potential weapon against future depression, thinking that when the next episode hit and the disease asked “what value do you bring?” I would have something to gesture towards and be able to confidently say “I made something that was worth making.” And that’s that. That’s Sewing Kit.

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fairycosmos · 5 years

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because i was constantly born on the idea that worth=intelligence/beauty, i feel worthless in this society. i know that people say everyone is unique but everyone is a better version of me—im very replaceable and despite coming to terms with that, i am so fucking isolated and lonely. i think “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal to others” sums it up. your thoughts?

hey! well honestly i mean, you said it - recognizing the fact that you were born to believe intelligence and beauty equals worth means that you're beginning to have the self awareness to know that there is more to people than those two things. i guess it helps to examine exactly WHY those expectations were projected onto you and whether or not those reasons are actually true and valid. look, our society wants to generate profit, right? that's the priority. they teach us to hate ourselves cause it makes them money, selling us an idea of beauty so thin and marginal and fake that we'll spend our whole lives chasing it. they tell us that our intelligence indicates our worth so we'll spend all of our time trying to prove ourselves, putting our education and our careers above everything, just to keep the cycle going. so we'll work and work because that's what we think we're here for. they need us to want approval, they need us to desire perfection. it's a calculated system. you've been taught it since you were very young, i mean we all have, so even the subconscious parts of our minds have soaked it in. it's really hard to deconstruct your ideas of reality and what qualities you treasure in yourself, but it's not impossible and it can be achieved over a lifetime. i think it may really help if you try to stop framing yourself as a product to be consumed. you're multidimensional, a being with flaws and quirks and experiences to be had. don't flatten yourself down just to try to reach those narrow, genuinely impossible standards. and look, others being good at things does not mean your existence is null and void. you're not alive in relation to them. you are the only you on the planet and that's NOT a bad thing, dude, i promise. it's not your skills or your assets that make you worthwhile, it's your inherent individual thoughts, your viewpoint and perspective. you were born with worth, everyone is. and it hasn't disappeared just cause you can't see it. your capacity to love, your unique relationship with the world and your loved ones - that's what matters. everything else is background noise.i get it though. when you're isolated and depressed, and you already have low self esteem, the way you register things can become very marred and twisted. i know this better than anyone. all of your insecurities become your general belief system, until there's nothing left but that self disgust, and you can't even conceive of the idea that you're more than what your brain says you are. but thats the absolute truth. i can't be sure obviously, but it seems to me like so much of your pain is stemming from your self perception, and can that really be trusted if your core feelings were shaped by those bullshit rules of the world that we talked about earlier? a fundamental change could really help you out. i think it could be a good idea for you to talk to someone about what's happening, or at least consider it. a friend, a family member, your doctor, a hotline, literally anyone. i know your first instinct will be to reject the idea, but please try to look beyond that initial impulse. it's alright to need support. your mental health is just as important and as complex as your physical health, and sometimes it needs real assistance and guidance in order for you to begin overcoming it. a professional will be able to examine the root causes of why you think the way you do, while showing you how to implement better coping mechanisms into your every day life. being honest about your thoughts to someone you trust will allow you to gain multiple perspectives, so you can paint a clearer picture. the connection is an antidote. look at the past few months, at the cycle that's been repeating - it makes sense that the way forward is to finally do something different, right? there are so many resources out there that will genuinely build your confidence and allow you to come to terms with who you are. you're going to spend the rest of your life with yourself so you might as well give gentleness a go. after all, blatant self hatred hasn't worked so far, right? it just piles up, and makes everything worse in the long run.of course i'm not saying that it's the answer to everything, or even that you have to start loving yourself right now. it is a long, sometimes gruelling but very rewarding process. and it's alright for it to take time. there will be days where you still can't stand to look at yourself, where you automatically measure your self worth by outside factors, where you're overwhelmed with negative emotions. again, these are things you've been taught for your while entire life. the goal is to do what you can to challenge those beliefs and deal with them in the healthiest way possible. if you honestly attempt that, you will notice a positive difference over time. bottom line is this - how you feel about yourself and the world and your life will naturally evolve as you age. i swear it won't always be as confusing and as painful as this. but there comes a time where you just sort of realize that you can actively encourage that self growth, if you want to. being scared and feeling resentment and embarrassment is a natural part of giving in to recovery. especially if you're dealing with a mental illness that needs to be treated by a doctor. it's alright to talk about the things that hurt. i honestly think that everyone is equal, it's just your mind is biased against you so you can't quite believe that right now. you're not here to prove that you belong on this planet, man. you're already here. you already belong. all you have to do is work on accepting it.

#anon #hope ur okay #will fix typos later sorry #ur doing better than you think!!#let me know if you need a friend

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sasha-whos-askin-racket · 5 years

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BTHB - Arm In A Sling

Bad Thing Happen Bingo - Square 10 Square - Arm In A Sling Fandom - Ritchieverse Sherlock Character - John Watson Ship - Holmes/Watson and platonic Irene is SUPER important in this one. Requested by - N/A.

A/N: Here it is, the long promised 3rd part to what I’ve decided to call the “Wharf Trilogy”. I was going to call it the “canon correction” and then realised most of these are corrections of canon. Anyway, enjoy!

John Watson opened his eyes to darkness. As he tried to find something to anchor himself to, something to focus his vision on, he became aware of two things. One, he wasn’t in his room - or Holmes’s room - in Baker Street; and two, his left shoulder burned with the fierce feeling as if he’d been run right the way through with a rusty lifting hook. He swallowed down the instinctive feeling of panic that came with waking up both in pain and in unfamiliar surroundings, trying to piece together how he’d managed to get to this point. The slaughterhouse, Irene, Blackwood, all of it flickered at the forefront of his memory as he tried to sort the events into chronological order. Pulling Irene away from the band saw was the last clear memory he had, and then nothing after that. Nothing until now.

His eyes had somewhat adjusted to the gloom now, and he could vaguely make out the outlines of several objects around him. There was a window slightly above his head and somewhere to the left judging by the shadows it left, and a shaft of moonlight shone through. There was a door opposite, slightly ajar, and the light of a paraffin burner trickled through from the corridor beyond. He still didn’t know where he was, those two factors not being enough to fill the hole of the last goodness-knows-how-long. There was a chair next to his bed, he noticed as he turned his eyes gently in that direction. He wasn’t entirely sure who he’d been expecting to find sitting in that chair, but New Jersey operatic singer turned world-class criminal Irene Adler certainly wasn’t anywhere near the top of his list. She was very possibly asleep, but also maybe not, legs crossed, wearing the same practical outfit she’d had on the last time they’d seen each other, though it was slightly more scuffed. He hadn't been unconscious for that long then, though he noticed she did have an almost healed cut on her face that he was fairly she didn’t have the last time he saw her.

Almost as if she could feel his eyes on her, Irene looked up expectantly and slid forwards on the chair, resting her elbows on her knees and her chin on the palms of her hands. “Evening, Doctor.” Watson’s heavy tongue tripped repeatedly over itself as he tried to force himself to remember how to speak. “H-Holmes?” His voice came out of his dry throat more strained than he’d expected, but Irene seemed to hear and understand him anyway. “Why am I not even slightly surprised that’s the first thing out of your mouth? He’s hiding out in an attic above a bar because Lord Coward has a bounty on his head. He’s okay. He’s worried about you, but he’s okay.” “And I’m…?” “Royal Veterans.” Irene replied with a curt nod and slightly forced smile. “Nice place. Lax on security, but high quality interior design.” “Mary?” “I’ve only just managed to convince her to go home. She’s worried as well, but surprisingly not as much as Holmes. He’s been practically tearing his hair out.”

Watson stayed quiet for a moment, closing his eyes and trying to work out exactly what hurt. Now that he was properly trying to focus on it, everything ached. Every bone, every joint throbbed dully, and his head pounded in a way that probably would have concerned him if he’d been even a little more alert. His chest and back stung all over in tiny pinpricks, but it was his shoulder that hurt the most. It burned fiercely, and the constant waves of pain that radiated from the site were enough to send him dizzy. “What-“ he swallowed, took a deep breath and tried again. “What-“ “Explosion.” Irene cut in gently, saving him from having to try a third time. “At the wharf. You remember?”

Watson started to shake his head, then winced and stopped. “N-No.” He raised his right arm gently, running a hand along the side of his head. “A few scratches, a couple minor burns, your face got it easy compared to the rest of you.” Irene told him reassuringly. “Don’t worry, you’re as handsome as ever.” “Not my face I’m worried about.” He tried to shift himself slightly, but fell back with a yelp, losing all aura of composure as the pain in his shoulder tripled and spread down his arm and across his back, furiously blinking spots from his vision as he tried desperately to cling to the last shred of consciousness. He groaned involuntarily through gritted teeth and tried to curl inside himself, but could barely move, tears of pain blurring his vision. Irene lay a heavy hand on the centre of his chest to keep him still. “Don’t.” She warned him, her voice commanding but somehow still gentle. “You’ll only make it worse.” He fought for a moment to control his breathing, swallowing down a wave of nausea as he started to tremble. “Holmes.” “He’s okay, he’s hiding from the members of the yard, but we’ve got a plan.” “Holmes.” Watson insisted through gritted teeth, and a moment later he was able to make himself understood, though the pain clouded his head and made it hard for him to think enough to form a complete sentence, leaving him only able to stutter out fragmented attempts at words. “Want...Holmes.” “...Watson.” “Please.” Watson’s voice cracked, and for a moment Irene caught a glimpse of the scared soldier that still existed somewhere deep within him. “Need...Holmes.”

Irene studied him in concern for a moment. His body was tense with pain and trembling, and he was curled up the best he could, having shaken off Irene’s feeble attempt at keeping him still. His eyes were screwed up tightly, chin tucked to his chest, his breathing hitched. Irene tried to find a way to calm him without hurting him further, and in the end held one of his hands, tracing circles on his palm with her thumb. “It’s not safe for Sherlock to be out right now. It was dangerous for him to come after the explosion.” Irene tried to tell him, but he moaned feebly, and only gripped her hand tighter. “Do you think…?” Irene paused for a moment to consider exactly what she was about to do. “Do you think you can sit up?”

Getting John upright was a slow, delicate process, but eventually he was sat on the floor, resting his head on the cold iron bed frame with his eyes closed while he waited for the room to stop spinning. Irene was crouched in front of him, examining his shoulder under the lamplight. “It’s better than it was. There was a piece of wood the size of your fist embedded in it when they first pulled you out.” Watson didn’t answer, and Irene gave him a weak shove, careful not to jar his shoulder while still trying to make it effective. “Are you listening to me, Doctor? I am doing this for you, you know?” Watson made a quiet noise but didn’t open his eyes, and Irene decided that was good enough for now. “Can I trust you to stay alive and conscious unsupervised for a minute or not?” Watson made an incomprehensible sound between his clenched jaw that she took to be a confirmation and she stood up, watching him carefully as she made her way across the room.

Bandaging his shoulder was a laborious and far more painful process than sitting him up, and he sat with his head braced against his knees, breathing raggedly and occasionally letting out a pained whimper. Irene apologised quietly to him each time he flinched, but if he heard; he didn’t answer. “Ready?” She asked, after she’d give him a minute to recover, and at his shaky nod had lifted him up so he was sitting on the bed. Turning to his clothes that were draped over the chair, she decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and pain it would cause him just to put a shirt on, and satisfied herself with pulling his good arm through the sleeve of his suit jacket, leaving his bad one tucked to his chest in a sling and just drawing the front of his jacket closer around him. “I just want you to know-“ she told him, “-this is probably a bad idea.” He lifted his head and opened his eyes, looking at her through eyes glassy with pain. “No idea that leads me to Holmes is a bad idea.” “Not so sure I agree, but we’ll go with it.” Irene told him, and slid his good arm across her shoulder.

Watson was surprisingly light, despite the fact Irene was taking most of his weight, and their movements were slow but deliberate. Watson was limping heavily, but she and Holmes hadn’t found his walking cane at the wharf, meaning it’d been picked up by Scotland Yard. They wouldn’t be able to get it back, not with Holmes considered a fugitive, but it didn’t seem to Irene like Watson was going to be doing a great deal of moving between now and then anyway. The hospital was relatively quiet, and Irene was surprised to see there were no members of the Yard stationed anywhere, which seemed to solidify what Holmes had told her before about them not particularly wanting to bring him in. The back entrance by which she had met Holmes the day before was the best way to avoid getting caught, and it seemed worth dealing with the few extra steps to avoid detection.

Watson winced with every step, and occasionally stumbled, but Irene kept a firm grip on him, at times almost pulling him along. Under the pale yellow glow of a street lamp she could see the patch of blood slowly growing against his grey jacket and cursed under her breath. “Turn around. You can’t do this.” John tried to pull away from her feebly and staggered, Irene instinctively wrapping her arm around his chest to support him. “Back inside.” She told him gently. “Come on, Watson.” He strained against her, taking shaky steps but not actually gaining any ground as Irene held him. “I’m a soldier. I can handle this.” He insisted, though Irene could feel him trembling against her, and felt for sure her grip was the only thing keeping him upright. “You’re a doctor, you know the dangers of pushing yourself too hard.” Irene countered, trying to think of a way to placate him. He pushed weakly against her again. “I want Holmes. I need Holmes. Irene, please.” Irene thought for a moment. If she insisted Watson go back inside, he’d probably only try and get to Holmes on his own when he was left unattended. Of the two options, this was decidedly the more preferable, not that she particularly wanted Watson’s well being on her hands when Holmes was already as irate as he was.

“Fine.” She said, and relaxed her hold on him, though having to tighten it again as he slid forwards against her. The bloody patch was spreading down the sleeve of his jacket, she could feel it against her fingers. Deciding that since she was already aiding and abetting a government fugitive, she might as well go the extra step and straight-up steal a patient from the hospital. Not as if she could get into any more trouble for it. Maybe she’d rob a man in the street as he passed; she wasn’t sure yet. Watson made a quiet noise of pain that reminded her of the urgency of the situation, and she pulled his arm over her shoulder again, practically carrying him, making a point of not listening to the sound of his blood drip against the cobbles as they walked. It was hard to navigate the city in the light, and even harder in darkness with a barely-conscious army doctor clinging to her as if she was the last person on earth.

It was only when they reached the end of Fleet Street that Irene first began to suspect someone was following her, though a quick glance over her shoulder didn’t reveal anyone obvious. She knew somebody’s eyes were on her, though whether it was Moriarty, Moran, Blackwood, one of the yard members, one of the Irregulars or someone else entirely, she wasn’t sure. She stood for a moment, the wind blowing through her hair, looking through the darkness for any sign of movement from the side-roads beyond. “Blackwood…” Watson murmured drowsily, though his eyes were closed and his head was buried in Irene’s shoulder. “What?” She kept her voice gentle as she continued to look around her, trying to work out if he’d realised something important or if he was just rambling. “At the wharf....Blackwood…He...He tipped his hat at me.” Watson’s voice was getting weaker, but there was an urgent tinge to it, as if he’d realised something important that he was terrified he’d forget forever if it was left unspoken much longer. “What do you mean?” “It was... “ Watson made a pained noise somewhere deep in the back of his throat and coughed weakly, his voice noticeably fading out for a moment. “It was like almost….almost a ‘thank you for your service’...kind of thing. As though he...he was expecting me to die.” Irene didn’t say anything in response to that, but held Watson closer to her, feeling how heavily he was shaking against her, his breathing coming painful and harsh next to her ear, though shallow. His skin was covered in sweat and she could hear his teeth chattering although the thick night London air was far from being cold enough for that. Deciding if there was anyone out there watching her, she and Holmes would be able to fend them off if they tried to follow her too far, she turned her attention back to Watson, who’d lost consciousness and whose head was now lolling against her shoulder, and she cursed loudly.

It only took a couple more minutes for Irene to reach the bar, and she took the stairs a few at time, finding it a bit easier now she’d gotten used to supporting Watson’s weight on her own. Unable to knock on the door due to the fact both of her hands were keeping Watson in place, she gave the base of the door three sharp kicks, before bashing her knee into it with enough force she was surprised it hadn’t swung open on its own. When nothing happened, she kicked it a bit harder, and a moment later, the door creaked open and Holmes was watching her with narrowed eyes. “I told you to stay with-” He stopped, eyes widening at the site in front of him. “Take him. I need to check no-one followed us.” Holmes obliged, trying to ignore the blood on Irene’s hands as he slung Watson’s arm across his shoulder.

Irene raced back down the stairs and to the doorway of the bar, looking out across the open streets. Once she was satisfied there was nobody out there, she allowed herself to relax against the doorframe, though her heart was beating painfully in her chest. ‘As though he was expecting me to die.’ Those would not be Watson’s last words. They wouldn’t. Taking a deep breath of the warm night air to calm herself, she made slow work of ascending the stairs again, listening for the sounds of Holmes’s pacing the floor. The last thing she wanted was to anger him further; the look on his face when he’d seen Watson had been enough to convince her he wasn’t in a mood to be trifled with. She knocked on the door again as she approached, then tried it and found it was open. She stepped into the room then locked and barred the door behind her, running a hand down her face before she turned around to face Holmes.

Watson’s grey suit jacket and the scrap of fabric she’d been using as a sling had been tossed haphazardly to the dirty floor, though it was now hard to see any large sections of grey material left because the thick wool was soaked all the way through with blood. Watson himself lay on a makeshift bed Holmes had constructed in the furthest corner of the room from the door, and Holmes was busy unwrapping the bandages on his shoulder. “Why did you bring him here? What purpose did it serve other than almost killing him?” He asked angrily without turning to face Irene. She’d made no noise as she entered, but knew better than to ask him how he’d known she was stood there. “He insisted. He wanted you.” “I don’t care.” Holmes threw aside the bloody bandages and studied the wound carefully, venom in his voice. “He was infinitely safer there than he is here. Look at him. He’s half dead, Irene.” Ah, so he wasn’t angry. He was scared. She could hear it, that tremor in his voice. It was obvious now. It all made sense. “I thought it was better me bring him than he try and make it on his own. And he would have tried. You know he would, Sherlock.” Irene’s voice trembled slightly. She didn’t need to justify her actions to him, she reasoned. Watson had wanted Holmes, and against her better judgement, she’d listened to him.

Holmes turned on the bed, glancing from the half-drawn attempt at a pentagram he’d been working on to Irene who was now staring guiltily at the floor and then finally to Watson, stained heavily with an outpouring of his own blood, face pale, and ragged feeble attempt at breathing filling the whole room with its strained and shallow rasp. Sherlock allowed his head to hang slightly as he crossed the small room to fetch a roll of bandages he’d insisted Wiggins bring him earlier in the day.

Blackwood would have to wait; his Boswell needed him.

#bad things happen bingo #square: arm in a sling #fandom: sherlock

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coffeeandcalligraphy · 5 years

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What I’ve Been Reading #2

Hey People of Earth!

I recently started a new series on this blog (titled above), where I reflect on the last few books I’ve read. I’m doing this mostly to keep myself accountable because I’m notoriously bad at committing myself to reading. So far, reading has been far greater than it’s been in the past--I’m definitely getting into the rhythm of things. I read some amaaaazing books this time around (since approx. November), and these are them:

1. The Darkest Legacy by Alexandra Bracken

This is book four in The Darkest Minds series, and was just recently released (last summer). Whilst I’ve drifted from YA in the last few years, this series was such a huge favourite of mine when I was younger, and I thought I’d give this book a go for nostalgia’s sake. Also, I truly admire Alex as an author, and wanted to support her! Here’s the summary:

Five years after the destruction of the so-called rehabilitation camps that imprisoned her and countless other Psi kids, seventeen-year-old Suzume "Zu" Kimura has assumed the role of spokesperson for the interim government, fighting for the rights of Psi kids against a growing tide of misinformation and prejudice. But when she is accused of committing a horrifying act, she is forced to go on the run once more in order to stay alive. Determined to clear her name, Zu finds herself in an uncomfortable alliance with Roman and Priyanka, two mysterious Psi who could either help her prove her innocence or betray her before she gets the chance. But as they travel in search of safety and answers, and Zu grows closer to the people she knows she shouldn't trust, they uncover even darker things roiling beneath the veneer of the country's recovery. With her future-and the future of all Psi-on the line, Zu must use her powerful voice to fight back against forces that seek to drive the Psi into the shadows and save the friends who were once her protectors.

What drew me to it: Like I mentioned, its mother series was a mega favourite of mine in grade 8, and whilst I’ve grown out of YA, I was curious to see where the story went, five years in the future. I read about 60% of it on page, and listened to the rest on and of over the course of a few months. I started it in August, and finished it on New Year’s Eve. Not the fault of the book, that’s totally me being Very Bad at commitment. I’ve really enjoyed Alex’s novels in audiobook format, and this one was no exception (I think, if I were to read it again, I’d listen to the audiobook: it’s like listening to a television show!)

My rating: 3/5

Why: This is really due to the fact that I no longer am very interested in YA. In all truths, I got into YA early, and got out of it even earlier because apparently I am a sixty year old woman?? I started my journey with YA in grade seven, and it ended around the end of grade eight. After that, I had trouble finding YA books I could enjoy/relate to, not that the books were any less, or bad because of this, but because I was just an injustice to them (I’ve always been a strange reader). This is why I don’t really read YA anymore because I feel like I rate them unfairly because I’m not super big on the category anymore. It just (rightfully) didn’t give me what I’m most currently interested in in books (horrible people; horrible relationships; morally grey protagonists), because of course the category is different to what I read now! With that said, I think, if I’d read this book in my Peak YA Moment (grade 7-8), I’d definitely have given it a 5 star rating. It was super entertaining and funny and nostalgic, and made me miss a series so pivotal in my writing journey. If you love YA, and this series, I think this book is definitely worth the read! That was a thiccccc tangent.

2. Past Lives, Future Bodies by Kristin Chang

This is a really quick poetry collection (that I spoiler: looooved). This is the summary:

PAST LIVES, FUTURE BODIES is a knife-sharp and nimble examination of migration, motherhood, and the malignant legacies of racism. In this collection, family forms both a unit of survival and a framework for history, agency, and recovery. Chang undertakes a visceral exploration of the historical and unfolding paths of lineage and what it means to haunt body and country. These poems traverse not only the circularity of trauma but the promise of regeneration—what grows from violence and hatches from healing—as Chang embodies each of her ghosts and invites the specter to speak.

What drew me to it: @shaelinwrites rec’d it to me on my last update, and I fell in love with the premise. I’m *cheap* so was very excited to be gifted it by my Grandma for Christmas. (I actually read it on Christmas!)

My rating: 5/5

Why: Kristin Chang is literally so skilled with her use of the line break? I was shook? This is my second collection of poetry that I’ve read, following (no shade) Rupi Kaur’s The Sun and Her Flowers, which, I felt kinda made the line break feel gimmicky? So this collection definitely reinvented it for me. Her poems are so punchy, and thoughtful, and you can truly feel the experience built into the backbone of every one of them. When I panic wrote some poetry for my writing class, I used it as comfort reference and was amazed at how deliberate she is with her words. I also found so much of its commentary on race so relatable. It’s definitely a collection I’ll keep re-reading. I’d recommend this if, like me, you’re just starting out in poetry--a perfect way to acclimate yourself to a new form!

3. God of Shadows by Lorna Crozier

*Rachel vigorously trying to diversify her reading.* The summary:

The poet Lorna Crozier has always been brilliant at fusing the ordinary with the other-worldly in strange and surprising ways. Now the Governor General's Literary Award-winning author of Inventing the Hawk returns with God of Shadows, a wryly wise book that offers a polytheistic gallery of the gods we never knew existed and didn't know we needed. To read these poems is to be ready to offer your own prayers to the god of shadows, the god of quirks, and the god of vacant houses. Sing new votive hymns to the gods of horses, birds, cats, rats, and insects. And give thanks at the altars of the gods of doubt, guilt, and forgetting. What life-affirming questions have these deities come to ask? Perhaps it is simply this: How can poems be at once so profound, original and lively, and also so much fun?

What drew me to it: At this point I’m just stalking @shaelinwrites’ Goodreads because her reading taste is on pointttt. I’ve also been dying to read more poetry, and branch out into different forms of writing, so I can be a little *prepared* for school, so I thought I’d take a peek at this collection.

My rating: 5/5

Why: This collection is so beautiful! I read it super quickly, and fell in love with the concept immediately. I think Crozier explored such unique ideas with super unique language, and I live for it. This collection gave me perspective on ‘gods’ I’d never even thought about. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re looking into reading some prose poetry!

4. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

I finished this book today, and now have trust issues and feel like I’m in a constant state of wanting to cry. Here’s the summary:

If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life?

It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes.

The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.

A sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.

What drew me to it: I actually don’t know?? I put it on hold at my library in October, and was loaned it in January (looooong waitlist). So I can’t remember why I wanted to read it, probably because 1969 was in the premise lmao. I actually completely forgot about placing a hold on it because it’d been two months, so by the time I got the email notification, I’d forgotten what it was about. Oftentimes, I’m Bad, and leave my loans for weeks, forgetting about them, but I was intrigued by seeing I’d received this loan because I couldn’t remember placing it/why I placed it. I quickly re-read the summary, and immediately started reading because it reminded me a lot of the Haunting of Hill House sibling dynamic, and I was on board!

My rating: 5/5 stars soaked in all my tears

Why: This book is SO good, I literally can’t think about it too much because I will cry, lol. I’m not one to get emotional over books, but this book touched me in a place I didn’t know existed?? Like I didn’t know I had emotions before reading this book?? Apparently I do?? It also left me feeling stunned with a whole bucket of life lessons, and similarly to getting emotional, I’m not a reader to really take away a whole new worldview after reading something, but this book was like NOPE, here’s some THOUGHTS. I think I might’ve loved it so much because the four siblings it follows remind me a lot of my siblings (tag yourself I’m Klara, @sarahkelsiwrites is Varya). I too am a sibling of four with a similar composition to the novel’s (two boys, two girls), so the actual heartbreak of realizing that one day, there ain’t always gonna be four of us struck me so hard I was not prepared?? The characters are BEAUTIFUL, and my heart aches so much after finishing this, I almost don’t know what to do with myself... If you liked the sibling dynamic in the Haunting of Hill House (me!!), you’ll probably dig this book. Benjamin’s writing is also gorgeous; straightforward, but so detailed and lush at the same time. I don’t often see books in third present, so this was a delight for me to read. Also: I’m no expert on any of the topics in this book, but to me, a Fool, this book felt so well researched? This isn’t something I ever notice in books, but it surprisingly really added to the reading experience.

TL;DR: I’m literally an emotional wreck because of this book and have a whole new perspective on life, if you too want to be an emotional wreck, defs join in on the fUN.

So that’s it for this reading update! All of these books in this update were wonderful! Making me antsy to read more for sure! I’m currently attempting to read more short story collections, so if anyone has recs, hit me up! ‘Scuse me while I go sob!

--Rachel

#readingupdates

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