#keeps a journal in a home-made insane code

[gradient-of-aster]

I'm listening to Harrow the Ninth (after reading it the first go around) and I ADORE Harrow's extreme dedication to collecting information. Her whole 'cataloging information on the lyctors' section goes like this: "Jod said things to you, ending with, 'Maybe don't mention that to Mercy or Augustine' When you mentioned it to Mercy, she got a very interesting amount of angry, and when you mentioned it to Augustine he said a bunch of things you later took down word for word in your secret code journal" It's like she's the protagonist of a JRPG, dead set on experiencing every line of dialogue in the game.

[inkofamethyst]

April 5, 2025

I've had an idea for an app for a while now. It's based on a notion template that I use but have heavily edited since, and I think it'd be useful for several of the people I've talked to in a finance way and it baffles me that this isn't something I've come across in the three banking apps I've used. Unfortunately, I've never made an app before. I've (obv) done some coding, but I'm no graphic designer, software engineer, any of that. I know there are similar apps on the market, but I think I have ideas that'd make mine distinct based on the ways that I'd customize my notion page even more (which I don't think notion can handle). It's an idea I'd considered building last spring for my coding final project, but of course I gravitated toward """game design""" more (I'm still really proud of that project.. maybe I'll go back to it sometime and make the additions I'd dreamt up). Anyway I really think the app could be useful.. just not sure when I'll have the time to build the skill necessary to make it.

Coding is totally a muscle in that it needs to be regularly strengthened and stretched to properly maintain its efficacy. If replit keeps their 100 days of code available online for free, those could be fun little exercises to work on to build skills (though only in Python... perhaps I could find some other mini-course for other languages (though I had a look at html earlier and maybe that's why I didn't enjoy coding when I first took CS in hs, html looks awful)). Maybe in the fall? My summer is going to already be pretty packed with learning bass and prepping cosplays and moving forward with lab work.

Speaking of the summer, my island-friend's suggestion of keeping a task journal was so good in keeping me motivated to complete things week over week. Now that I've let that practice slide, I'm not nearly as active in lab (possibly partly due to writing my quals). I will get back on top of that, I think. I have a few research-based deadlines coming up that I'll need to hit.

Also speaking of the summer, I just finalized my last month of saving toward my bass guitar fund. That feels so crazy to me. I'm technically a month ahead due to an erroneous calculation a while ago, but still, this is a representation of the end of my second year. And after the last, mmm, week and a hallf/two weeks, I don't feel so intimidated by it anymore.

There was this one girl in my program who would tell me that she always looked at the examination portion of the quals as a wonderful opportunity to have esteemed scientists try to help you excel in your field. I thought she was full of it tbh. But recent weeks have shifted my mindset on it quite rapidly, and maybe I've stopped thinking of it as being so adversarial. Yes, I will prepare as though it is an examination. But I feel good about what I know. And I want to do good science. So I want to improve my ways of thinking. Highkey I'm looking forward to the panel's commentary now??? Who even am I??? Where did that anxious version of me go???

And, for a bit of TMI, my hormone cycles have been fairly regular all my life. Four weeks to the day. The first time I experienced disruptions was during the last semester of college when I was interviewing for graduate school and deciding where would be the best fit. My cycles became irregular or shortened by a week. The second time started during the first semester of grad school, where the same thing happened. Except it didn't stop. I have been irregular or short by a week for almost two years, with the greatest amount of joint pain I've ever felt, in addition to fatigue and brain fog, all more often on a shorter cycle. The only times I magically got relief happened to be when I would travel home for breaks, and they'd magically lengthen to normal again, only to shorten right when I got back to school. This month, I had a normal-length cycle. And I think it's because I've been so insanely stressed that I wouldn't be able to get over this hurdle for literally years and it's only recently just kind of.. melted away.

Today I'm thankful for a normal cycle. And ibuprofen.

That said,

MY STOCKS D:

Okay, there is one more thing to be thankful for. I'm thankful that my father had the literal divine foresight to suggest that I open a second Roth IRA account where I could keep the full year's amount in cash or conservative investments while slowly dripping funds into my aggressive, professionally-managed account over the year. Last year, I put in the whole year's worth at once (due to a policy with another account I have blah blah blah), and had I done that on April 1 this year, I would've been in for a much bigger world of hurt than I currently am.

But I'm not sure when I should start the drip. It's hard to know what's a momentary market freak out and what's a sign of economic collapse, you know? Or maybe it's not hard. Maybe I'm just not educated enough on the matter. But I also don't fully trust pundits who often are just catering to what their audiences want to hear (even if, in the case of liberals maybe, what they want to hear is that this is an awful awful thing and that we're going to enter a depression etc etc). Anyway I guess attempting to time the market is bad as a noob so maybe I'll just drip teeny tiny amounts into my managed account over the next several days. I cannot touch the big amount anyway for the next forty years other than to invest it or let it sit.

Maybe I should be more concerned, but some part of me has trust that the billionaires to profit from the system the way it is don't want it to collapse. So I feel like it won't. That could be naive. Idk. I've never been the biggest fan of having my chance at a dignified retirement dependent on me investing into capitalism (honestly, it feels like a threat to me), but there's currently no other way that I know of.

[mvsicinthedvrk]

@irresistiibles asked : does your muse keep track of their family ancestry? why or why not? how much do they know about their family history? (for mo xi)

not actively, but his family is very well known back home and being from the mo clan is a big deal. so yes, he would know exactly who he was descended from, and who his relatives are, and who his relatives are who are supposed to be kept a secret, all of that. he doesn't know every single thing about the people in his family-- and is distant from most of them-- but lineage-wise, he's very knowledgable.

@tragcdysewn asked : how does your muse store and display memories? do they have a shoebox full of photos, polaroids hanging on the wall, etc.? (mo xi)

mo xi doesn't display memories at all. the most important memories to him are ones he doesn't have physical proof of anyway. while here in the city he's probably tried journaling once or twice, but it seems pointless (who's it for? he remembers well enough what's happened to him) so he gives up on that fairly quickly.

@grcycosmcs asked : Author Hasn’t Read the Books • what part of their life or personality is your muse really bad at explaining or showing to others? ( for mo xi )

the fact that he is really, really emotional. he feels things so deeply, but in looking at him or talking to him, it's difficult to guess that considering he doesn't show it outwardly.

@tragcdysewn asked : The Spiral : does your muse ever worry they’re going mad? do they fear madness, or are they alright with the idea that their mind might be deceiving them? (mo xi)

if there's one thing he's confident in, it's his own mind and his own judgments. so no, he wouldn't every have spiral-adjacent worries or fears about his mind playing tricks on him. he may not be able to count on other people, but he can count on himself.

@irresistiibles asked : 🌼 Cottagecore: If muse had the opportunity to live out in the countryside, away from civilization, and live peacefully would they take that chance? (for mo xi)

in 0.5 seconds, yes, he would take that opportunity.

@irresistiibles asked : for mo xi: The Slaughter : has your muse ever committed an act of senseless or unmotivated violence? do they regret it, or do they think it was justified?

no. nothing he's done would be considered "unmotivated." he has committed violence, both on the battlefield and especially when calling on the power of his spiritual weapon that is the size and shape of a whale and that can pretty much destroy anything within a sizeable area. but the only reason he would use that tool would be if there were no other option. the same with killing directly: even if they're the enemies of his allies, he wouldn't slaughter them only to slaughter, because he doesn't like killing, doesn't take any pleasure in it, and would avoid doing so if he could. but because he follows such a strict code about when he relies on violence, he does not have regret, about those cases or situations.

@masqce asked : what pokemon would your muse identify with and why? ( for mo xi )

mo xi is SO unfamiliar with pokemon that he'd have no frame of reference for identification, so i had to turn to online sources. so i googled, and found a reddit thread where someone had put together a very extensive pokemon personality test on google sheets, and in taking it and answering as mo xi, i learned he would be a steelix (99.3 percent match). this apparently comes from his personality trait type matching 'steel' types, because he is consistent, trustworthy, keeps his commitments, is studious and diligent, and it's difficult to change his mind from "what he believes is the truth."

other descriptions from this personality test say he is "mature and patient with others" and "may feel uncomfortable asking for help" which rings true, along with "often appears sophisticated or refined" and "focuses on small details" and "may struggle to open up emotionally." so i believe that whoever made this insane google sheet knows what they're talking about when they assigned him the steelix pokemon.

[cherrygorilla]

The Mixtape Mysteries: Chapter 1 (Part 1)

Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra - 5:05

Is this a valid amount to have written of this story since I last posted? Probably not. But has dental school been kicking my ass for the past three months? Absolutely. I promise I’m trying my best to be more consistent with my uploads though - I just hope you haven’t forgotten about this story in the mean time! It’s too important to me to give up on now haha. 

Also, if you feel as though this first chapter is vaguely reminiscent of the prologue...that’s intentional...trust me.

Listen along with the gang here. Enjoy!

Monday - October 8th, 1984

Eyes, the colour of the caramel on those apples from the county fair, gingerly cracked open as early morning sunlight seeped through cheap, cotton curtains. The rustling of amber leaves skittering across the tarmac outside made him stir further. And as a chilly, autumn breeze whipped around the loose drainpipe, rattling the plastic against the wall behind his head, Royce resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn't be pulled back into dreamland with a heavy sigh and a long stretch. 

Shuffling up his mattress, he grabbed his journal from its spot on his bedside table and blindly felt around for a pen. A yawn interrupted his train of thought before it had even left the station though, and he had to rub the sleep from his eyes before they would focus on the empty page he'd opened the notebook to. Pen uncapped, and mind still hazy from his reluctant rousing, Royce felt his attention begin to wander as the nib of his biro met paper. He scrawled out the date, and managed a couple of lines about what his dreams had entailed, but as soon as he started thinking back to the prior day, his mind ran away with him too quickly for his pen to keep up. 

He and Bentley had spent most of it at Vivien's house, where she'd finally fulfilled her promise of teaching Royce (and, once he found out about it, Bentley too) morse code. She dug out some of her dad's old books from the garage that went along with his amateur radio set and pinned one of the charts to her bedroom wall. After a few quick lessons, the trio were tapping out phrases to each other through the door for hours on end, just about driving the poor girl's mother insane. In a bid to earn some peace and quiet, she took to the garage herself, and came back later with a set of old walkie talkies she handed over to the children before banishing them to the backyard. Codenames were created, make believe spy storylines were played out and laughter was shared until the sun sunk behind the fence that separated Vivien's yard from the dense forest beyond, signalling for Royce and Bentley to head back home. 

Glancing down to his backpack, which had been slung at the foot of his bed, Royce couldn't take his eyes off the brick-like hand radio, sticking out from between the shabby library books and old candy bar wrappers. He still couldn't believe Vivien and her mom had let him and Bentley keep them. But after all the fun they'd had with them yesterday, he wasn't about to turn down the offer - especially after Vivien had suggested using them in place of the landline the Murphys had had to disconnect a few months back due to a faulty connection and the fact that they'd rather have running water than a working telephone. He didn't exactly know what they'd have to talk about, since they usually spent as much time together every day as they could manage, but there was no way he could have said "no" to her when she'd been smiling at him like she had. The second those dimples make an appearance his brain turns to mush, and his palms get so slick with sweat they practically need their own 'caution' sign. Even just thinking about her draws a smile of his own to his lips, and he can feel this sweet warmth unfurling in his chest that-

A snatched breath and rustling of duvet covers ripped Royce away from his thoughts as Bentley sat bolt upright in his bed. Chest heaving and choice locks of golden hair plastered to his forehead, the boy scanned the room with wide, blue eyes until recognition replaced the bewildered fear behind them. With his brain finally catching up to what his eyes were telling him to be true, Bentley let out a long, slow breath as he realised where he was - or, more importantly, where he wasn’t. Sluggishly pulling the floppy, balding stuffed dog he slept with every night to his chest, he eased himself back down against his pillow, inhaling the musty, yet comforting smell of old socks and sweet popcorn as he tried to will his heart to stop racing. 

"...You okay, Ben?" 

Jumping at the sound of another voice, Bentley's head whipped to face his brother, bearing another look of bewildered terror. But when his eyes met those of the older boy, brimming with familial concern, relief washed over him. 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he quietly promised. "Just a bad dream, that's all." 

Quickly averting his gaze and snuggling back underneath his moth-eaten comforter, Bentley prayed that the matter could be dropped - just wanting to push the nightmare to the back of his mind so that he could catch a few more zs. But it appeared as though the abrupt wakeup call had bothered Royce just as much as it had him.

"How bad?" he asked, setting his pen down and closing his journal.

"...I don't know. It was just a dream, it's not a big deal," Bentley mumbled into the grubby fur of his comfort toy. 

"It looked like a pretty big deal to me, Ben."

"Well it wasn't, okay?" Bentley snapped with a sleepy sigh. "It was a stupid dream. Why are you even up this early anyway?"

Ignoring the pre-teen's grumpy comments, knowing he was only being defensive because there was more to the story than he was letting on, Royce swung his legs over the edge of his mattress and fully turned to face his younger brother. "It… It wasn't about Dad, was it?"

"What?" Bentley spluttered. "No!"

"-Because it's fine if it was; I still get them too. I just thought that since you hadn't had one for a while you were maybe in a better-"

"It wasn't about Dad, okay?" Bentley insisted with a frustrated sigh, still furiously avoiding his brother's gaze. "It wasn't about anything. I was just running down the street. I tripped over on the sidewalk and woke up before I could hit the ground. That's it."

Royce spent several seconds digesting the information, but his look of concern never shifted. "Running down the street? Away from what?" Clearly he didn't believe that the root of the problem could be something so innocent. 

Bentley rolled his eyes. "It wasn't away from anything; I was just playing tag. I wasn't looking where I was going and I lost my footing - that's why I woke up like that; it felt like I'd been falling."

"...That's it?" 

"Yeah, that's it. That's all it was, okay?"

Royce wanted to believe his younger brother, he really did - if not for Bentley's sake, then for his own; he knew otherwise he'd just be worrying about him for days on end - but something was holding him back. Whilst the boy's words were convincing, the fact that he couldn't lift his gaze from the greying fur of his stuffed dog told Royce that there was still more that he wasn't saying. And whilst he understood that it was hard to talk about traumatic events, it wasn't like Bentley to hide things from him - especially when it came to their family, which is what he still suspected the boy's dream had involved, despite his insistence otherwise. "...You know you can talk to me, right Benny?" Royce gently asked. 

Swallowing and reluctantly lifting his eyes to meet those of his brother, Bentley nodded and croaked out a quick: "yeah" that had sounded a lot more confident in his head. Still, his look of earnest at least made Royce pause before continuing his spiel. 

"You don't have to struggle with this on your own. We've had to deal with a lot over the last few years with Mom and Dad and Uncle Tommy and everything - it's been hard. And starting middle school on top of that doesn't make it any easier - believe me; I've done it. I've been in the same, exact position as you, Benny. I know exactly what you're going through right now, exactly how you're feeling, and it sucks, I know it does, but you don't have to go through it alone. We're both here for you, Ben - me and Miles - but we can't help you if we don't know what's going on. You've got to talk to us, okay?"

Bentley could feel his chest growing tight, and his throat felt scratchy when he swallowed, having been ravaged by the words he was fighting to keep down. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from screaming at Royce that he had no idea what he was going through, and that he never would. But he funnelled that pent-up frustration into holding onto his older brother's concerned gaze, and willing his neck to deliver a strained nod. 

Royce could see that there was a new glassiness to Bentley's eyes that made his stomach clench - there was definitely something the boy was keeping from him. But before he could press the matter further, heavy footsteps came thundering towards their bedroom door, followed by a mop of messy, chestnut hair bursting through it.  

"Guys, guys, get up, we overslept!"

Toothpaste dribbled out of the corner of his mouth, the toothbrush in his fist dripped water onto the floor and his hair looked as though it hadn't seen a comb in days - but as soon as Miles set eyes on his little brothers, the panic behind them disappeared. 

"Oh…sweet, you're already up," he said with a breathy smile. "Get dressed; we've gotta leave in ten minutes."

"What about breakfast?" Royce asked, but Miles was already racing down the hall towards the kitchen. 

"I'm making PB&Js!" he hollered back, likely trailing more water behind him as he dove into the bathroom to make a quick pitstop to replace his toothbrush. 

A soft smile tickled Royce's lips as he watched his older brother's frantic retreat, mind temporarily clouded by hectic amusement. But when he turned back to look at Bentley, his smile slipped into a puzzled frown when he found the young boy lazily grabbing a clean pair of socks as though nothing had happened at all. 

Bentley felt Royce's eyes tracking him as he gathered together his clothes for the day, and eventually glanced across to ask: "You okay? Aren't you getting dressed?"

"I just- Are you sure you're alright, Benny?"

"It was a dream, Royce. I'm fine," he replied, slipping into a chuckle at the notion that he could be feeling any other way. "You won't be if you don't find some pants without cowboys on them though," he added with a cheeky smile, prompting Royce's eyes to flit down to his pyjamas and the rest of his body to spring to action. "Vivien's not gonna be impressed when she finds out you still dress like a six-year-old."

Maybe that nightmare hadn't been so bad afterall. Royce knew Bentley like the back of his hand, and if that dream had been as bad as Royce suspected it had, there was no way he'd feel up to laughing and joking like that - not this soon afterwards anyway. He must have just been overreacting. And besides, Bentley was growing up now - if he thought that the nightmare had been 'no big deal' then Royce owed it to him to believe him. Yeah, it was hard to take a step back and let go of the reins he'd looped around Bentley's shoulders to keep him safe, but the carefree smile the boy shot as he ran past him towards the bathroom made the blow sting a little less. 

A morning without chaos in the Murphy household was practically unheard of, but there was something about the mayhem that Royce took great comfort in. Quietly making his way into the kitchen, where sunlight splashed over the pile of unwashed dishes in the sink and Mr. Blue Sky crackled over the dusty radio on the windowsill, he couldn't help but smile as he watched Miles swipe jars across the cluttered countertop as though he was performing an elaborate magic trick. In reality, the seventeen-year-old was just trying to find a jar of either peanut butter or jelly that had any sort of viable contents for him to scrape out. One jar of peanut butter was so runny it was practically soup, the other was too solid to even stick a knife into. The only jar of grape jelly they had was so empty it looked like a minimalist stained glass window, and the only other jelly option was strawberry, which no one really wanted due to the hideous lumps suspended throughout it - but, thanks to a schedule tighter than the sweatband their neighbour, Mrs Martin, wore around her head every time she went speed-walking around the block, it would have to do. Royce had never seen someone break a sweat making a sandwich before, but Miles was giving it a damn good try. 

"Did you brush your teeth?" he asked, hurriedly cutting the sandwich and handing one of the halves to the boy beside him. 

"Eww, of course," Bentley replied with a chuckle as he set his glass of orange juice down and accepted the droopy sandwich. 

"Alright, good," Miles responded, absentmindedly running a nervous hand through his hair. It wasn't until after the fact that he realised he'd definitely smeared jelly all over his hand in his haste though. Knowing he had no time to do anything about the sticky hair situation, he just muttered out a quick curse and went back to his pedantic questioning. "Uh, did you pick out a clean shirt?"

"Yes."

"Did you make your bed?"

"Do I have time to go and make my bed?" Bentley asked through a mouthful of brown bread, eyebrows raised in quizzical amusement. 

"...Good point," Miles nodded, a smile pulling at his lips as he picked up the other half of the sandwich and took a bite. Out of the corner of his eye, he finally noticed Royce searching for a glass, prompting him to slide a plate bearing a PB&J along the countertop and extend the grin to him. "Eat up, buddy."

"Thanks," Royce smiled back, steadying the plate with one hand and plucking a cup from the shelf above his head with the other. "Have I got time for juice? Or am I going to have to try to eat this thing whole?" he continued with a chuckle. 

"Sure, we've got time," Miles said, eagerly setting his own sandwich down and brushing the crumbs from his hands as he stepped towards Royce and opened his palm. "Here, I'll get you some, you concentrate on eating."

"Yeah, 'cause I need my whole brain to eat a PB&J," Royce teased, earning him a snort of laughter from his older brother.

"So," Miles continued as he swung open the refrigerator door, empty glass in hand. "You guys got anything exciting going on at school today?" 

"Nick said he was gonna be planning something for us over the weekend," Bentley mused whilst licking a blob of peanut butter from his thumb. 

"Oh yeah, what?"

"I don't know, he wouldn't say. I think it's something to do with this game his cousin dropped off when he visited last week though," Bentley explained with an optimistic grin. "So that should be cool!"

"Sounds it," Miles chuckled, turning and handing Royce his glass back, now full of orange juice. "What about you, RJ?"

"Not really," he mumbled back, too preoccupied with finishing his breakfast to think about the day ahead. 

"Don't you have your book report presentation today?" Miles asked.

"Oh yeah, but that's not exciting."

"Sure it is; you and Vivien worked super hard on it." 

"Tell me about it, they wasted even more time than usual at the library working on that thing," Bentley teased. "I thought we were never going to get back to playing on her Atari."

"Oh yeah? Were you having to act as their chaperone, Benny?" Miles chuckled.

"'Chaperone'? What the hell would we need a chaperone for? It wasn't like it was a date or anything. We were just doing schoolwork," an appalled Royce insisted.

"Relax, I'm only teasing," Miles said with a reassuring grin and bump on the arm. "And I'm sure you'll both have done a great job. I want to hear all about how it went tonight, okay?"

"You really care about Emily Brontë?" Royce asked with a dubious smirk. 

"No, but I care about my little brother," Miles grinned, fondly ruffling the boy's hair. "Especially when he's acing his English lit class, you little genius."

"I don't know about 'acing' it," Royce mumbled, but his blush and shy smile betrayed his efforts to downplay his gratitude. 

"Hey Benny, have you got your English project back yet? You were working on that like it was gonna determine whether or not you got into college," Miles asked with playfully teasing chuckle as he revisited his half-eaten PB&J. 

"Oh yeah, Miss Hardy gave us them on Friday. I meant to tell you at work but then I went over to Kona's instead and by Saturday morning I'd forgotten all about it," Bentley began, rambling away as he rummaged through his backpack. Stray pencils flew in all directions and random doodles on scraps of paper fluttered to the floor, until finally, Bentley plucked a (slightly crumpled) piece of lined paper out from the chaos. Turning back to Miles, eyes alight with pride, he pushed the essay out from his chest as though he was taking his heart along with it. "But look, I got a B+!"

"Seriously?!" Miles exclaimed, eyes glittering with amazement before melting into the same pride his brother displayed. "Oh my god, Bentley, that's incredible!"

"I know, isn't it great? Miss Hardy says the only thing holding me back from an A was my spelling, but that's like a given anyway, so it's still pretty good if you think about it."

"Nice job, Benny," Royce congratulated, wrapping the younger boy in a side-hug as a proud grin of his own tugged at his lips. 

"It's not just good, Benny, it's amazing!" Miles gushed, setting his now-empty plate down and wiping his sticky fingers on the nearest dishcloth he could find. "This is like the best you've ever done on a project for English class. Hand it over, I've gotta read it; this is huge."

"You don't have to," Bentley bashfully chuckled with a roll of his eyes. "It's just a boring school report." But he handed the paper over anyway. 

"I know I don't 'have to', I want to. And it's not just 'a boring school report', it's your boring school report," he grinned, setting his little brother off giggling.

But before he could get past the title, a familiar horn crept through the cracks in the windowpane behind them. 

"Our chariot awaits" Royce sarcastically chucked, downing the last of his juice and slinging his backpack over his shoulder as Miles let out a frustrated sigh.

"It's alright, you really don't have to read it," Bentley tried. 

"No, no, I will, I promise," Miles stammered, juggling all the events he had lined up for the day in his head and trying to judge when was the best point to throw a little light reading into the mix.

"Are you guys coming, or what?" Royce called to them from the front door. 

Letting out another frustrated sigh, Miles gave up and grabbed a spare magnet from the refrigerator door: one shaped like a UFO that Bentley had been all too pleased to find at the bottom of an old Cookie Crisp box. He pinned the essay to the front of the fridge and turned back to Bentley, laying his hands on his shoulders. "I'll read it when I get back from work tonight, I promise."

Bentley already knew Miles would never lie to him, especially about something as trivial as this, but the way his blue eyes shone with sincerity, and his voice edged into slight desperation, drew a smile to his lips nonetheless. "Alright, alright, I believe you," Bentley reassured with a chuckle that satisfied Miles enough to let his shoulders slump as he returned the fond grin. 

"Did you guys forget about hurrying or something?" Royce joked, poking his head back into the kitchen. 

"Hey Royce, get over here," Miles said, quickly beckoning the boy over to join him. He set a hand on each of the boys' shoulders and bent down to eye level, taking a second to hold each of their gazes as his lips melted into another warm grin and his heart swelled with admiration. "I'm so proud of you both, you know that, right?"

"Yeah," Bentley chuckled.

"Well duh,"  Royce playfully drawled as Miles pulled them both into a tight hug. "Why the sudden urge to tell us now?" he went on, words becoming muffled by Miles' moth-eaten sweatshirt. 

"I don't know, it's just… I know I don't always get the chance to sit you down and tell you but-"

Another longer, louder blast of a car horn blared through the chilly, morning air. It was unbelievable how much exasperation could be conveyed in one sound. 

"Oh shit, come on, we'd better go," Miles muttered, sighing as he straightened up and lovingly ruffled their hair before propelling them towards the front door. 

Whatever heartfelt sappiness Miles was about to share with the boys was lost to the school run rush as the three of them hurried to pull on their sneakers and attempt to appease their impatient driver. Seemingly, sentimentality had no business trying to worm its way into the Murphy brothers’ messy morning routine - at least not if their ride to school had anything to say about it anyway.

“You know, if I drove a school bus, your asses would be walking to class,” Butchy called out as the boys tore across their front lawn.

“Sorry Butchy, Miles slept through his alarm,” Bentley replied, shooting a cheeky grin back at his older brother.

“I didn’t sleep through my alarm,” Miles retorted with a defensive scoff. “…I forgot to set it.”

“Just get in,” Butchy chuckled with an amused smirk, opening the passenger door behind him.

“Where’s everyone else?” Royce asked.

“The hell if I know,” Butchy muttered. “I swear to God they’re gonna get me fired before I even see a pair of handcuffs.” A glance at his watch and an impatient scan of his surroundings later, he announced: “Okay, I've had it. If they’re not here in the next two minutes I’m leaving without ‘em.”

“You always say that,” Bentley giggled from his seat in the trunk.

“Yeah, well, this time I mean it,” he huffed, setting his face in a scowl that disappeared as soon as he caught sight of a certain brunette running down the street towards them. “And what time do you call this?” he asked with a teasing smirk that he at least somewhat conveyed his frustration.

“Sorry!” Mick cried, skidding to a halt, and struggling to catch her breath as she raced through her explanation. “My dad found some eggs that were gonna go bad in the pantry and he didn’t want to waste them, so he tried making pancakes, but we didn’t have enough milk so the batter was super clumpy, and then he couldn’t find his spatula to flip them, so he was trying to use these stupid salad tongs and then the smoke detector started beeping like crazy and suddenly there was melted plastic all over the stove-“

“Let me guess, he ended up burning them?”

“Yep, every single one,” Mick sighed with a deadpan delivery that always drew a chuckle from her boyfriend’s lips. “And the rangehood. It was a total disaster.”

“Damn,” Butchy laughed. “I’m surprised your mom still lets him in the kitchen.”

“I’m surprised we still have a kitchen. So, see? At least I have a valid excuse for my lateness,” Mick said as she grabbed the car door handle and wrenched it open. “It’s not like I just forgot to set my alarm or something.”

Butchy had to bite back another laugh as Miles shot her a look of weary disbelief and Royce and Bentley started giggling from the backseat.

“Don’t tell me you actually forgot to set your alarm,” Mick chuckled once she clocked Miles’ expression.

“…No comment.”

“What are we going to do with him?” Mick jokingly asked as she turned to Butchy, fondly shaking her head at the boy. “He can’t even work a damn clock.”

“You’re one to talk, you can’t tune a car radio.”

“That was one time!”

But Butchy was quick to shut down the bickering when a head of black hair darted by in the corner of his vision. “Hey, hey, hey, where the hell do you think you’re going?” he demanded as he turned to face his little sister, who was swanning down their driveway without a care in the world. “We’re five minutes late as it is – get in the car!”

“Huh?” she squeaked, stopping in her tracks as she adjusted her dangly, pink, heart-shaped earrings. But a look of recognition soon flashed across her face that allowed her lips to slip back into that same giddy grin she’d been sporting for the last month. “Oh wait, didn’t I tell you? I’m catching a ride with someone else today.”

Butchy’s eyes nearly popped out of his skull at her announcement – partly because he couldn’t believe he’d waited for her all this time for nothing, but mostly because he couldn’t believe his baby sister was blowing him off so casually. “Oh yeah? Who?” he asked, trying his best to sound nonchalant.

But even if Lela’s expression wasn’t enough of a giveaway, the yellow Volkswagen camper van, decked out in hand-painted, groovy doodles, and blasting Walking on Sunshine by Katrina & The Waves, that pulled into view certainly was. Rolling down the passenger window, Tanner called out over the chatter of his three, rowdy friends in the back: “Morning, Lela! You ready to go?”

With the engine still running, and her usual, fellow passengers still gawping at her in incredulity, Lela giggled and skipped over to the van. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” she chirped back as she threw open the passenger door and hopped in, slipping straight into whatever highly animated conversation the four teens had been sharing as they sped off into the distance without a second thought.

Momentarily stunned into silence, Mick, Butchy and the Murphy brothers watched the retreating vehicle – all still processing the bizarre turn of events that had injected a rather unwelcome unpredictability into their structured chaos of a school-run.

It was Mick that finally took the plunge and broke the tension though, nudging Butchy on the arm and offering him a mischievous grin as she tried to dampen the shock with a little humour. “Oh well, guess I call shotgun!”

Despite the rocky start, Mick and the Murphys made it to school with plenty of time to spare, much to Butchy’s relief. The four of them piled out of the black station wagon and bid their driver farewell before he sped out of the parking lot, allowing a dopey fool in round, reflective sunglasses and a ridiculous, orange jacket that made him look like a traffic cone, to roll through the cloud of dust it left in its wake.

“Waddup my dudes and dudette,” Ethan chuckled as he kicked his skateboard out from underneath his feet and caught it in the hand that wasn’t outstretched in a lazy wave. “How are we doing on this fine Monday morning?”

“All the better for seeing you, buddy,” Miles laughed through a yawn as Mick rolled her eyes from beside him.

“Shakespeare, Picasso, what the hell are you doing here?” he continued with an excited grin, high fiving each of Miles’ little brothers in turn. “You guys on a field trip or something?”

“No, we just haven’t walked to class yet,” Bentley chuckled, as amused by the older boy’s antics as ever - especially the bewildered look he sported before remembering just how close the Hawkins Middle campus actually was. 

"You guys totally sure you have everything you need?" Miles checked for what felt like the fiftieth time that morning. "School books? Lunch money? Stuff for gym?" 

"Neither of us have gym today," Royce clarified. "And yeah, we're totally sure. You already made us check like ten times yesterday, remember?" 

"Okay, okay, just checking."

"Can we go now? I think I just saw Gus’ mom parking her car," Bentley asked, craning his neck around Royce to look for any evidence of blond hair amongst the crowds of pre-teens. 

"If you're not going to spring any bogus reasons for me to give you more lunch money then sure, be my guest," Miles teasingly chuckled, crossing the arms he'd just held up in surrender. 

"It was for a bake sale!" Royce insisted.

"Was that, by any chance, the same bake sale Vivien told me she was organising with her figure skating friends?" Mick asked with a smirk.

"That's the one," Miles confirmed as Royce's cheeks started to tinge pink.

"Are you kidding me, little man? You paid for that crap? You totally could have sweet talked her into giving you something for free," Ethan impishly grinned, causing the thirteen year old's entire face to flood scarlet. 

"Okay, I'm leaving!" Royce announced, quickly spinning on his heels and marching away.

"It's okay, he's just mad because he knows it's true," Bentley explained to the older teens, prompting them to let out a hearty laugh. 

"Have a good day, Benny," Miles grinned, fondly ruffling the boy's hair before sending him on his way. "Let me know how your science experiment goes, okay?" 

"Okay! Bye guys!" Bentley exclaimed, excitedly waving at Mick, Miles and Ethan before racing across the stretch of grass towards the middle school parking lot and straight past a still disgruntled Royce, who was about to get a farewell of his own. 

"Hey Royce!" The brunet turned to face his older brother, thankfully having managed to extinguish the fire prickling beneath the skin on his face in the few seconds he'd had his back turned. "Nail that English presentation, okay?" Miles called out with a beaming, proud smile that couldn't help but make a shy grin tug at Royce's lips. 

"Okay," the boy nodded, already beginning to turn back around. But a further, mischievous shout caught his attention before he could escape.

"And say 'hi' to Vivien for me!" Miles simply couldn't help himself; Royce's clunky little middle school almost-romance, or rather his fierce denial about it, was just too entertaining to ignore. And the bird Royce flipped him as he scowled and retreated across the field did nothing to deter the chuckles slipping from his lips, in fact it only egged them on more. 

Mick's next comment was quick to shut him up though. 

"So, is it just a coincidence that you and Royce are both hopeless with girls or is it like a genetic thing?" 

Miles' easygoing grin dropped from his face like a fly from a rolled up newspaper, replaced by a frown that felt all too familiar given the setting and chilly, October breeze. 

"Hah! Dude, it's gotta be genetic. You both have that same blotchy cheek thing going on and you both get all prickly and weird every time your chick's around," Ethan said with an amused snort of laughter as he scratched some dirt from the edge of his skateboard deck. 

"I do not," Miles insisted. "What the hell are you even talking about? I don't have a chick; I've been single since like-"

"Oh hey, Carrie."

Miles' heart leapt into his throat and his eyes bugged so far out of his head they almost fell out all together upon hearing Ethan's laidback greeting. But when he scrambled to straighten his posture and turned to follow the stoner's line of sight, only to find an empty stretch of parking lot, his shoulders slumped in defeat. "Really, man?" he asked, face set in a scowl. 

"You were saying?" Ethan smirked. 

"You're so fucking annoying," Miles grumbled, play-punching him on the forearm despite his best, yet lethargic, efforts to dodge it. 

"Why? Because I'm right?" 

"No, for bringing her up again. I told you I was done thinking about her like that," Miles replied with a huff as he leant back against a wooden, parking marker sticking out of the unkempt lawn. 

"Hold up, you're not actually listening to my advice, are you?" Mick asked with a smug quirk of her eyebrow. 

"Not if that little performance was anything to go by," Ethan scoffed. 

"Well you caught me off guard," Miles tried.

"I don't know why you're both so against it, I say just let it happen," Ethan said with a blatant nonchalance that riled Mick's usually mellow temper up to no end. 

"'Just let it happen', gimme a break," she muttered with another roll of her eyes. 

"Why? What's wrong with that?" Ethan defended. "Best case scenario: he gets the girl. Worst case scenario: he doesn't - which, in case you hadn't noticed, is no different to where he is now. What's he got to lose?!"

"His dignity, his social life, all my respect for him-"

"Okay, okay, I think we get the point," Miles jumped in. 

"You guys are blowing this way out of proportion," Ethan said before giving Miles an affectionate thump on the arm. "It's just feelings, man. Feel what you've gotta feel. Let nature take its course."

"Sounds like the kind of advice that gets baby birds eaten by stray cats," Mick snarkily retorted.

"Oh yeah? You got a better suggestion Little Miss Stick-Up-Her-Ass?" Ethan fired back. 

"Woah, woah, woah, let's walk it back a few steps," Miles cut in with the weariness of a father after a nine-to-five shift at the bank. "No one's giving bad advice, and no one's got a stick up their ass. It's just…time to call it quits. I don't have the energy for that crap anymore."

"You're really done?" Mick asked.

Miles simply nodded. 

After holding his gaze for a beat, and realising that he was actually telling the truth, Mick felt her shoulders relax. And all her scepticism melted into a warm, sympathetic smile. "I do think it's for the best," she gently prompted, to which Miles snorted out a self-pitying laugh. "I mean you have a crazy amount of stuff on your plate right now - piling unrequited love on there wasn't really your smartest move."

"'Unrequited'?" Ethan scoffed.

"It means 'one-sided', dumbass," Mick huffed. "I forgot you have the vocabulary of a four-year-old."

"Uh, I know what it means," Ethan retorted. "I just don't think that it applies here."

"Oh come on, man, don't start this again," Miles sighed. 

"I'm just saying, there's something there!"

"Yeah, with the boyfriend she's had for the last year and a half."

"Deny it all you want, pal, but these peepers don't lie. My ability to see the world in its truest form should not be underestimated; it's a gift."

"Yeah, and it was given to you in a plastic baggy by a seedy college drop-out," Mick quipped.

"Well, if that 'something' was a big enough deal to her then she'd have ditched Eric and made her move by now," Miles said with a blunt nonchalance that even took himself by surprise. "I'm telling you, she's happy as she is, and so am I. I've got great friends, two awesome neighbours, and the best little brothers anyone could ask for. What more could I want?"

"...A hot cheerleader to bone?" Ethan suggested, earning a look of disgust from Mick. 

"Not this time, pal," Miles responded with an amused chuckle.

"Not even on the side?" Ethan pressed. But he just got another chuckle from Miles and a smug shake of his head. "Damn… You really are getting over her, aren't you?" he grinned proudly.

"I told you!" Miles exclaimed.

"I'm proud of you, man!" Ethan said, grabbing Miles' hand and pulling him in for a 'bro hug'. "You passed that test like it was nothing," he finished with a loving clap on the back. 

"It was nothing. I told you, I'm over it - she's just another girl to me now."

"You sure about that?"

"Positive."

"Good…because she's handing out flyers over there so we're definitely gonna have to walk past her if we want to get to home room," Ethan said, smacking his hands down on Miles' shoulders and giving them an affectionate pat as he gestured towards the high school's entrance. 

Miles groaned as he yet again turned, only this time it was because he found that the lanky brunet was right. Apparently his newfound certainty over his feelings would have to be put to the test a lot earlier than he'd been planning. He at least thought he'd have until their shift started tonight anyway. But no, there she was, with her unruly golden curls and gravitational pull that made the Earth spin at half its usual speed every time he set eyes on her. How she wasn't freezing in her cheerleading uniform, he would never know - but he had a sneaking suspicion that Eric's letterman jacket hanging around her shoulders was playing a rather important role. Beaming and waving at every peer that crossed her path, she was the picture of high school popularity - greeting and laughing with them all as though they had been friends for years. Suddenly their interactions at All Skate didn't feel so special anymore. 

His chest ached as he watched her, strutting along with a spring in her step to match the bouncy beat of Walking on Sunshine, which was still blaring from her twin brother's camper van, parked a few feet away. A carefree smile stretched across her face that only broadened as a girl with a big, white bow holding her blonde ponytail in place, and an identical cheerleading uniform, ran up behind her and threw her arms around her neck. Her eyes sparkled with a delight that even Eric's presence couldn't ignite as she turned to face Juliet with a look of adoration that could have been plucked straight out of a John Hughes movie. Even though Miles knew that the girls had been best friends for well over a decade, he couldn't help the stab of envy that struck through him upon comparing their greeting to the one he typically received: the same cookie-cutter smile and wave she seemed to dole out to everyone else - and he only got that when she remembered he was there. He could see his resolve crumbling before his very eyes as Carrie and Juliet entwined fingers and babbled away to one another with giddy grins, so enamoured by one another's presence that Miles almost felt as though he was intruding by just standing there watching them. His eyebrows furrowed, and bile licked at the base of his throat as the truth of his reality finally dawned on him: not only was he back to square one - he was back at square one, and willing to hand over the keys to his house to swap lives with Juliet Harmon, of all people. Anything was worth Carrie looking at him the way she looked at that damn, blonde trust fund baby. 

"You still feeling confident, big guy?" Ethan teased. 

"...Yep."

Ethan and Mick took one look at Miles - stone-faced and misty-eyed - and knew that he was a lost cause. Mick was more disappointed than anything, but took a sympathetic approach to her consoling by laying a hand on his slumped shoulder. Ethan, on the other hand, took to imitating a trombone with a "Wah, wah, wah," that had Mick shooting daggers at him across Miles' blank stare. "Well that was fun while it lasted," he went on to joke.

"Ethan, you're not helping," Mick hissed. 

Ignoring her comments, Ethan rambled on, steering Miles away from the cheerleaders and brushing Mick's hand from his shoulder in one swift shove. "Hey, I've gotta give you credit though, man; you kept that up for way longer than I expected - it was like a solid fifteen hours this time."

"Yeah, well, I was asleep for half of it," Miles mumbled.

"But did you dream about her?" 

"No -"

"Then I'm calling it a win, my friend!" Ethan exclaimed, grabbing Miles' wrist and teeing himself up for a high-five that, surprisingly, managed to draw a smile from Miles' lips. 

"Hmm, now you've just got to figure out how to turn fifteen hours into a lifetime," Mick dryly snorted from beside the pair.

"Don't listen to her, buddy. Negative Nancy doesn't know what she's talking about," Ethan said, waving a dismissive hand in Mick's face and locking Miles' gaze onto his with a protective hand on his upper arm. "You're making good progress! And we're gonna keep making good progress because I, personally, am gonna navigate us… so that we can get you to help…you through this…together."

"...I get what you're trying to say, and I appreciate the sentiment, but that made almost no sense whatsoever," Miles chuckled. 

"How the hell are you passing English?" Mick muttered. 

"I am hanging by a thread, Mickey Mouse."  

"You're seriously gonna accept help from someone who can't even string a sentence together?" Mick demanded, jabbing an accusatory thumb in Ethan's direction as she stared Miles down. 

But a head of dirty blonde sticking out amongst a crowd of middle schoolers in the distance, and a curly mop of brown hair trailing behind, watching a brunette with a messy ponytail and a pair of round glasses like she was a prime time TV special, caught his attention before he could respond. An immediate, and unexpected wave of pride washed over him, filling him with a confidence he couldn't quite explain, and suddenly crushes on co-workers and bickering best friends felt like trivial, distant memories - tiny obstacles in the grand scheme of his whole life that were no more consequential than a paper cut or a stubbed toe. Sure, they could hurt, and they could be a major inconvenience, but nothing could hold a candle to how important those two boys were to him. And things were really looking up for them right now - they were both doing well in school, they both had solid friends, and most of all: they were happy. And if those two were happy, then that was all he needed to be happy too - blonde cheerleaders be damned. 

"You know what?" Miles chuckled as a smile slipped into place of his weary frown. 

"What?" Mick sceptically asked. 

"No; I don't need any help," he simply replied as he puffed out his chest and glanced over his shoulder at Carrie. Whereas once this act alone would have sent his senses into overdrive, all he felt this time was the crackling flame that her presence always ignited in his chest fizzling out into a pile of glowing embers. "I've got it under control."

"...Seriously?" For Mick, it felt too good to be true.

"Yeah, I've got a good feeling about this week," Miles said, scanning his surroundings with an optimistic grin. The October breeze nibbled away at his rosy cheeks, and ruffled his hair, but nothing could shake his determination this time. "Things feel like they're actually looking up for us for once," he went on to explain. "And I'm not gonna let myself ruin it by getting worked up over some stupid crush that's never going to go anywhere." 

Mick and Ethan shared a momentary look of astonishment before relieved smiles broke across their faces. 

"That's more like it, buddy!" 

"Wow, look at you, Mr Positive. I'm impressed," Mick chuckled. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

With another glance across to Hawkins Middle School, where Bentley, Royce and Vivien were disappearing inside, Miles settled on his fond response: "I guess I just remembered what's actually important."

"Good," Mick said with a fond smile of her own that soon turned sour thanks to her next statement: "Because it's definitely not that narcissistic asshole."

"Damn, who shit in your cornflakes?" Ethan snorted.

"I had pancakes," Mick deadpanned, just as game for Ethan's dopey shenanigans as ever. 

"Look, do you actually still not like her? Or are you just saying that for kicks?" Ethan asked. "I mean, I got it at first because it was super weird that she was even talking to us, but we've been working with her for months now and she has definitely proved herself to be more than an asshole." But when Mick showed no signs of acknowledging that he was right, he pressed on. "Haven't you at least grown to like her a little bit?"

"No, because unlike some people, I'm not swayed by hollow compliments and scraps of petty gossip," Mick replied with a pointed look at her two sheepish co-workers.

"Hey, no, come on, you've gotta admit that her telling us about Hayley Baskin tying her boyfriend to his bed frame was fucking insane - it was like an episode of Dynasty," Ethan tried to defend, but there was no changing Mick's mind - not even when Miles gave a reluctant nod of agreement.

"Yeah, because humiliating her classmates is the way to get me to see her as a nice person," Mick sarcastically fired back with another roll of her eyes. "She may have fooled you two with her stupid 'girl next door' act, but I'm not buying it," she continued, barely even sparing the two cheerleaders a glance over her shoulder as her lips settled into a bitter frown. "Look at them: smiling and laughing like they don't spend half their time ruining everyone's lives - like butter wouldn't fucking melt."

"Uh, it wouldn't anyway, it's freezing out here," Ethan said, earning himself a death glare from Mick as Miles stifled a laugh. "It's gotta be like, what? 40 degrees out today?" 

"It is when you get caught in Mick's eyeline," Miles quipped with an exaggerated shiver. 

"You're such idiots," Mick huffed, once again sending her eyes to the heavens as she turned and started heading to class. "I don't know why I waste my breath on you."

But Miles was quick to grab her hand, dropping the act and turning on the sincerity. "Hey, come on, we're just joking around. Don't let him get to you - or her for that matter; you said it yourself: she's not worth it." 

"...And I am always right," Mick begrudgingly quipped back, softening as Miles chuckled and pulled her in for a side hug, affectionately rubbing her arm. "You're both still idiots though."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know you love me really," Ethan grinned.

"Hmm, something like that," she hummed with a chuckle of her own as she turned to Miles and patted the arm that he had just wrapped around her. "Alright, I've gotta head off to class; I've got an algebra test first period and I'm not risking losing any more brain cells by standing around out here and talking to you bozos. I'll see you at lunch - keep that good attitude going," she instructed Miles with an encouraging smile, before turning to Ethan and flicking his forehead, "And keep him on the right track - don't be a fucking moron." 

"Aye, aye, captain," Ethan replied with a lazy salute once he recovered from the thump.

"Don't lose focus," she continued, calling out to Miles over her shoulder as she headed towards the school's entrance. "You've got thi-"

But her sentence was cut off when she collided with a lacy push-up bra and found herself enveloped in a cloud of heady perfume. 

"Woah, watch-" As the two girls whipped to face each other, Carrie's wide-eyed, furious glare softened into an amused smoulder the second she realised who had almost mowed her down. "Oh, hey, Makana," she said, exaggerating the name as though she was playing a game with a child - one she found rather amusing if her smirk was anything to go by.

"Carrie," Mick huffed back, not prepared to greet her with anything more than her name as she averted her eyes and tried to hurry past her. 

But Carrie was too quick, and side-stepped in front of the girl before she could escape - blocking her path with glittering eyes and a toss of her hair. "You're coming to the pep rally this Wednesday, right?" 

It was more of a statement than a question. 

A brightly coloured flyer for the event was confidently waved under Mick's nose, as if could convince her to ditch her plans from just the choice of font alone. "No; I've got work. And so do you, remember?" she deadpanned back, not even bothering to pluck the piece of paper from the blonde's manicured fingertips. 

"Oh please, it's a Wednesday - we never get anyone in on a Wednesday. Big Ralph isn't gonna miss us for like an hour. And even if he did, if everyone comes to the pep rally, then we won't be losing out on any revenue, will we? It's a no-brainer."

But Carrie's blasé attitude did nothing to sway Mick, and it showed in her face.

Undeterred, the blonde ploughed on with her sales pitch - although it did take a rather catty turn. "Oh come on, Mick. When else are you going to get the chance to show off your school spirit? You could practically be the face of the pep rally with that smile of yours - you know, when you actually show it." 

Mick's scowl flared in retaliation before warping into a strained, sickly sweet version of that aforementioned smile. "Well, I hate to disappoint but you and your pep rally will have to manage without me, because, unlike you, I actually care about keeping my job. Not that I have much 'pep' to offer anyway," Mick said, trailing off with a dejected grumble as she once again tried to push past the senior.

Once again, Carrie blocked her path. "Hey, I care about keeping my job," she said, but the laughter that kept edging into her voice told Mick otherwise. 

"Could have fooled me," Mick muttered, praying that she hadn't cared enough to hear. 

As usual with Carrie, Mick was proved wrong.  

"Oh yeah? …Care to elaborate?" Folding her arms and raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow, the golden-haired diva stood back to watch the show with a challenging smirk. 

"I'm just going by your clock-in times from last week, that's all," Mick replied with a smirk of her own, emboldened when she caught Carrie's eye twitching - likely in shock that she'd actually dared to stand up to her.

"Stickler for the rules, huh?" she scoffed before her lip gloss laden smirk twisted into a wicked grin. "I bet Biagio likes that."

Now it was Mick's turn to see red. She should have known better than to stoop to such sugar-coated spiteful bickering, but with Carrie it was all too tempting. If only the senior wasn't so well-trained, Mick might have had a chance at coming out on top - but if there was anything she'd come to learn over the years, after seeing countless other students fall victim to her razor-sharp wit, no one was a match for Caroline Cole when it came to bitchy back-talk.  

Mick bit her tongue so hard she nearly severed it as she set her jaw and tried to keep her cool. "Is there a point to this conversation, Carrie? Or can I just go?" she finally asked with a heavy sigh. 

"Well are you going to come to the rally?" 

"No."

"Then no, we're not done yet." 

Letting out an exasperated huff, Mick crossed her arms and glared straight into the pair of unbothered, blue eyes in front of her. "Look, nothing you're going to tell me is going to get me to go to your stupid pep rally. I'm not missing work, and I'm certainly not covering you whilst you do either. I'm done working my ass off to make up for your laziness. So either get out of my way, or give me a flyer and do the right thing for once in your goddamn life."

"...What? Like ditch the rally?"

Mick could have screamed. Carrie's ditzy flippance was infuriating at the best of times, but right now it was just unbearable.  

"I can't do that, I'm already missing the party afterwards - actually, I might have to dip from my shift a little early so that I can at least go for like an hour because, you know, I don't want people thinking I'm a total lame ass-"

"Carrie!" Mick snapped, cutting the blonde's self-centred rambling off before she reached her boiling point. 

Startled by the girl's outburst, Carrie pushed her trivial social quandaries to the back of her mind and actually took stock of the sight before her: wide, resentful brown eyes and a pair of shoulders so tense she'd have offered to massage them herself had she not suspected she was the cause of their strain. A fleeting moment of sympathy resonated through her chest as she abandoned her own problems in favour of solving Mick's, although her soft smile and flippant laughter might not have been the most sincere way of attempting to smooth things over. "Alright, alright, I'll stay the whole shift, don't get your panties in a twist," she chuckled as that wicked smirk of hers started to reappear. "Or, you know, do; I don't know what Officer Buzzkill likes." 

Even her attempts at being nice were laced with malice. Mick couldn't even bring herself to crack a smile as the girl's carefree giggles filled the air around her. 

It took a few seconds, but Carrie did eventually notice that Mick wasn't laughing along with her, and promptly deflated like a beachball on the first day of autumn. "Oh come on, Makana, you know I'm just joking around."

"Yeah, well, I guess I'm not in much of a joking mood," Mick retaliated with another heavy sigh. 

Softening yet again, Carrie chipped off another layer of her 'stone-cold bitch' casing and let what was left of the warm, earnestness bubbling away beneath spread to Mick as she set the pep rally flyer back with the others in the pile and placed her free hand on Mick's upper arm. "Hey, look, if this whole work schedule thing is really getting to you then I'll start taking it more seriously, okay? No more late clock-ins, no more 'off-the-record' breaks and no more ditching at the last minute to go to the movies - I'll be on my best behaviour, I promise."

"I didn't think you had a 'best behaviour'," Mick retorted before she could stop herself - but surprisingly, Carrie was the first out of the pair to laugh at the comment, which did far more than any of her other efforts to settle Mick's nerves. 

"I'll figure something out," she joked back. 

"Seriously?" Mick asked, trying not to get her hopes up too high. After all her joking around, and her general lack of trust for the girl, it was hard to know if this time was actually genuine - although her affectionate smile did a lot to help her cause. 

"Totally, I'll do whatever you want if it stops you looking like you want to murder me," Carrie chuckled. "Within reason of course," she added with a wink that took Mick so much by surprise that any words that could have formed any sort of response totally fell out of her head. And for the first time in what felt like weeks, Mick felt a real smile begin tugging at the corners of her lips as she stared back at Carrie. Maybe Miles and Ethan were on to something after all. There was something intoxicating about that grin of hers - the way it made her eyes sparkle like her work outfits when they caught the light from the disco ball. And when she had you locked in her tractor beam, it was hard not to succumb to the warm, tingly sensation her genuine kindness sent flooding through your core - perhaps because it could be such a rarity. 

Before Mick could linger on the shift in dynamic though, and the curiously flirtatious undertones she felt sure that wink had carried (if her experience with Butchy's winks was anything to go by), a bright blonde ponytail popped up over Carrie's shoulder that immediately snatched her attention away. 

"Guess whose boyfriend just dumped her after she dyed her hair green?" Juliet said with a hushed exclamation that just about worked its way through Carrie's mane of unruly curls. 

Unlike Juliet though, Carrie made no attempt to hide her delight at the comment as her eyes lit up like the 4th of July and a downright villainous laugh burst from her mouth. "Holy shit, she actually did it?!" 

"Yep!" Juliet gleefully giggled as she once again looped her arms around Carrie from behind and pulled her in for a hug. 

"Damn, that is such a shame - I could have sworn Brad said that he liked when girls went unnatural with their hair," Carrie started with what appeared to be a genuine look of concern. "Oh no, wait. Or was it that he didn't like it?" 

Any of the hope for Carrie turning over a new leaf Mick had been harbouring wilted as Juliet began to giggle and another wicked grin tugged at the curly-haired perpetrator's lips. 

"...Oops," Carrie said, flashing Juliet a momentary look of mock-regret before bursting into cacophonous, callous laughter and collapsing back into her embrace. 

Mick felt sick to her stomach watching the two girls cackle at the expense of their classmate - both too self-absorbed to care about the consequences of their 'jokes' for those on the receiving end. Carrie could douse herself in all the glitter and perfume in the world, but that would never change the ugliness of the person underneath. She did a fantastic job at turning on her charm to convince people otherwise - after all, it had certainly convinced Miles and Ethan - but Mick saw through the charade; she saw her for who she truly was. And fleeting moments of superficial kindness were not enough to get her to forget about the years of cruelty she'd subjected her peers to. 

As expected though, Carrie spared no thoughts on the rest of the world around her as she steadied her white sneakers on the tarmac and rested her head back on Juliet's shoulder once their laughter subsided. "Oh, I love being me," she finished with a blissful sigh. 

"Come on, she's over by the bike shed," Juliet said, entwining her fingers with Carrie's. "She's bound to have turned on the waterworks by now."

And with that, the giggling girls scurried off in search of further amusement without even sparing Mick a glance, let alone a farewell. 

"Bye?" Mick called after the pair (moreso Carrie though, since she was the one she'd been speaking to), but they still didn't turn around - too wrapped up in their own conversation to think about the one they'd left behind. 

Letting out a huff of frustration - both at being left in the dust, and at her hopes of Carrie changing for the better being dashed - Mick pulled her Walkman out of her backpack and started plugging her headset into the right port. A pair of hands slamming down on her shoulders startled her so much they were sent to the ground with a clatter though. 

"Oh shit, sorry," Miles chuckled. 

"This whole 'I'm over her' thing had better be real, Miles, because I swear to God she's getting worse," Mick grumbled as she bent down and retrieved the beat-up cassette player. She spent a few agitated seconds brushing it off before turning to him with a warning, fiercely protective look in her deep brown eyes. "Stay away from her."

"Hey, you're the one who nearly tackled her to the ground," Miles grinned, holding his hands up in surrender as Mick conceded in her own way with a begrudging smile. "I'll be glad when this algebra test of yours is over; I don't like you being this tense," he added, giving her arm a reassuring squeeze. 

"I'm more worried about you than this test," Mick replied with a snort of incredulity. 

"Well don't be; I can handle myself - especially against a cheerleader who's more hair than human," Miles laughed. "And besides, Kona's been practising her karate moves on me - I'm basically ready to take on anything at this point."

"Yeah, well, for my sake, don't put that to the test," Mick replied with a fond grumpiness that soon lost out to the smile Miles' laughter drew from her lips.

"Speaking of tests, try not to fail yours," Miles chuckled, wrapping an arm around her as she set about plugging her headphones into her Walkman again. 

"I'll do my best," Mick replied, bidding Miles a nod of farewell as he continued on his way into school after a dazed Ethan who hadn't even realised he’d left his side yet. 

Smiling as she watched Miles leave, Mick pressed play on her cassete-player. But before she could lift her headphones up onto her ears, she spotted a flash of white and blonde in the corner of her vision. Sure enough, there were Carrie and Juliet: animatedly chattering to a group of school basketball players and, from the looks of their coy, fluttering eyelashes and flirty tosses of their hair, doing their best to convince the jocks to show up to a pep rally they already knew damn well were going to attend. Still, if they wanted to drive their relationships into the dirt, then Mick certainly wasn't going to stop them. Girls like that would never know a love like she and Butchy had anyway. 

So, as her smile became tinged with a rare smugness, beyond the initial disgust, she took a deep breath and let her head be filled with sweet music, rather than poisonous thoughts about a certain bitchy blonde. And as she trudged her way through Hawkins High's dingy halls, she couldn't help but feel as though Electric Light Orchestra's 'Evil Woman' was an apt choice of song to accompany the morning's events. Fate worked in funny ways like that.

[afewmarvelousthoughts]

The Call Pt. 1

Summary: Marie is not crazy. She isn’t. Or she hopes she’s not. But the happenings that follow a mysterious phone call begin to make her hope otherwise. 

Warnings: Suicidal ideation, maybe mildly creepy

A/N: Well, if you’re tagged it’s because you said you were interested in taking a peek at my original content. This is the first half of a short story I’ve been using as kind of a warm up/playground for a few weeks. Kinda hate the title (so if you’ve got suggestions hit me with them) and am open to literally all feedback!  (If you want to know when I share original content lmk!)

“I’m not crazy. I know how this sounds but I am not fucking crazy!” 

Funny enough, I’m also not an idiot. I know that screaming I’m not crazy at 4am after tearing my room apart to find a picture that apparently doesn’t exist implies otherwise. But still-

“I’m not crazy, Alex.”

“Ok. You’re not crazy.” 

The way he’s looking at me really makes me wish I was. 

“But Marie, what you’re asking me to believe-“

“Is crazy,” I say, collapsing on the edge of the bed. 

I stare down at my hands. There used to be a scar on the left one, thick and rope-like carving a path straight through the center. The original wound had cut to the bone. 

I know it was there. 

I know because I remember how it didn’t hurt at first. It was like a dull warm sting, too many nerve endings cut to make my brain register what happened. I remember how I was fascinated by the blood welling, dark and thick and so different from any time I’d seen my own blood in my short 13 years. I remembered the drip, drip, drip. 

And then I remember screaming. 

“Marie…” He takes a deep breath, pacing away from the bed. 

I don’t move, don’t respond. Just run my fingers over where the scar should be. 

Another thing I remember is the choice I made that resulted in the scar disappearing. I remember that conversation, both sides of it like two images superimposed on one another. 

Somehow, remembering those disparate, impossible, things so clearly only makes me more certain that I am not insane. Which may actually make the whole insanity argument stronger…

The first phone call happened on a random night in December. I was baking, trying to recreate those Levaine Bakery cookies and, honestly, not sucking at it. 

I was not drinking. 

I was not on drugs. None that I wasn’t supposed to be on anyway. 

Everything was normal. 

My phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize. Usually, I would have just ignored it but the area code was from my home town and I know far too many messy people back home to ignore an unknown call on a Friday night. 

If someone was dead, I didn’t want to find out through a voicemail. 

“Hello?” A muffled voice responded, warped by a shoddy Bluetooth connection. “Wait, sorry hold on.”

Fucking useless $100 earbuds. 

“Hello?” 

“H-hi… Hello.” The voice on the other end was clearly a kid, a little girl. I didn’t know any kids save for my nephew and he was eight months old so children should not be calling me. 

“Yes?”

“Hi, ma’am,” the girl paused, clearly restraining a giggle. The line crackled in a way that sounded odd but I assumed she was just muffling the mic. “Did you order a pizza? This… This is Pizza Hut.” 

I stifled a laugh of my own. Who knew kids still did prank calls. I thought those died off with the landline. Amused, I played along. 

“No, I didn’t order a pizza.”

“Oh, well, I guess we called the wrong person. Sorry!” The kid hung up. 

I shook my head and reconnected my earbuds. As far as prank calls went, I had my criticisms on their form but hoped they enjoyed themselves. 

Quickly, I fell back into my baking rhythm, my audiobook of the week keeping any further exploration as to why kids would bother with prank calls when the internet existed at bay. At least until the book paused, accompanied by an off-putting crackle in one earbud.

“Motherf-“ My phone ringing interrupted my expletive. 

I looked over, it was the same number. 

I don’t know why I answered. Maybe I was getting soft after 30 years of being, by default, a cold bitch—I had been crying at far more commercials recently. Or maybe the novelty of a prank call was too good to pass up. 

“Hello.”

For a moment there was silence. Then, someone breathing. Something about it made me feel uncomfortable. Not in the whole, I’m calling from inside the house, kind of way. More like the feeling you get when you almost fall asleep at the wheel, the adrenaline rush of waking up just in time. 

“Hello?” The breathing quickened. “Look, kid-“

She started speaking. Rather, she started making sounds, gibberish with the inflection of words. After a string of them, she paused. 

“Uh-huh, well then,” I said choosing to humor them. 

This was followed by another string of gibberish. Only this sounded more frantic, there wasn’t the undertone of laughter. They stopped. 

“Kid, are you ok?” I began to worry. 

“Em raeh uoy nac?” She said with the inflection of a question. I realized suddenly that this may not be the same person. There was something similar about the voice but it didn’t sound as young as my pizza prankster from earlier. 

“Look, this is just getting weird. Don’t-“

“On!” The person yelled into the phone. “On! On! Esaelp!” The voice cracked, a stifled cry sending chills up my spine. 

On… On… On… Something clicked. 

No. This person was saying no. 

Maybe I am crazy. Because the moment I realized the words were coming to me backward they righted themselves and the person began speaking in the proper direction. 

“Please, don’t hang up.” She took a ragged breath, “Please.” 

Sitting on the edge of my bed now, staring at my scarless palm, I could still feel her desperation. 

“Marie,” Alex knelt in front of me, eyes wide and pleading. “I have known you since we were 15. You’re my sister and I love you.” He takes my hands in his own, sighing, “You’ve been under a lot of stress recently and that-“

“Jesus,” I pull my hands back getting to my feet, and push past him. In the doorway to my bathroom, I pause, turning back to face him. He now sat on the floor with his back against my bed. 

“I’m just saying, maybe it’s all been too much. That’s all. There isn’t any shame in that.” 

“I know there isn’t. Don’t you think I, of all people, fucking know that?!” 

I mean for fucks sake, I was the head of HR at my company. I had a bachelor’s in counseling and a master’s in communications. Not to mention years of therapy under my belt. I understood what stress could do to someone’s mind and I understood that this wasn’t that. 

“Ok,” he holds his hands up in surrender. “Ok. Sorry. I know you know. But you want me to believe you’re really ok when you-“

“I don’t want you to believe shit. You asked me what was happening. I’m just telling you.” 

He studied me, trying to find something to hold on to, some way to believe me. 

For a moment I studied him too. Burning this image of him into my mind. 

This was real. He was real. Just like everything else was real. 

On that first night, the shock the voice on the other end of the line sent through my whole body was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. 

“Please be there,” she begged. 

Our own voices always sound weird when we hear them played back. Something to do with the way sound travels through the body. The way it resonates in our bones. It’s easy to not even recognize our own voices when we hear them. 

“I called this-“

“You called this number 10 minutes ago,” I cut her off, my unease giving way to anger. “What do you want? If you’re in trouble-“

“I called this number when I was eight,” that edge to her tone was too familiar. “I’m 15.” 

“Hilarious, kid. Find something better to-“

“0606.”

“Yup, that’s the last four digits of the number you just called. Owned by a woman who is very-“

“Those are the last four numbers of the cell phone I got when I was 13.” 

“Very funny.” I had no idea who had put her up to this but I was over it. “I’ve had this number for 17 years.” 

“I always thought it was funny because I remembered those numbers ever since I made that prank call. Funny that they’d be the last four of my own number.” Her voice had a disconnected quality to it. I rubbed my finger over the scar on my palm, a nervous habit. 

“Kid-“

“Wait,” she cut me off, something which was starting to wear on me. “You said 17 years. How… how old are you.” 

“Thirty,” I answered automatically. 

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Ancient to you I’m sure.” The timer went off for my cookies. “Look. If you’ve sated your gen alpha need to dip your toes into the nostalgia pool-“

“So, I don’t do it.” 

“Do what?”

“On April 13th, 2006 you decided you would kill yourself you your 16th birthday.” My heart stopped. “Maybe you don’t remember that…” 

I remembered it. 

If I tried I could remember the way my room smelled. I could remember how my hands didn’t even shake as I wrote those words in my journal. I could remember sitting on my bed, picking up my phone…

And calling my own number. 

I looked down at my phone. I’d only paid attention to the area code before, nothing more than a passing glance. Now I realized, it was my grandparent’s old landline number.  

She continued, “Anyway, I just called my own number to-“

“Leave a voice mail,” I said finishing her thought. It was my substitute for a note, something that if they found they found but if not then fuck them. 

“Yeah. But instead of it going to voicemail, you answered. My phone is sitting in my lap but you answered. And I remembered your voice from when I was eight and…” 

“What the fuck,” I breathed. 

“I don’t know…”

My head was spinning. I had never spoken to anyone save for my therapist about my intention to end my life when I turned 16, so it seemed unlikely someone was playing a cruel joke. But it was even more unlikely, or rather completely fucking impossible, that I was currently speaking to my 15-year-old self.  

“Look,” I sank to the floor of my kitchen, sliding my glasses up so I could massage away the tension headache building between my eyes. “Clearly, you’re not me. But it’s pretty obvious that you’re in a bad way.” There was silence. 

“Kid?” 

“I’m here,” the voice was so small. 

“I don’t know what you’re going through, but the best advice I can give you is the same advice that my best friend gave me when we were your age. ‘If you can’t find any other reason to keep going, just do it out of spite.’” 

To this day, do it out of spite, was the motto we lived by. I embroidered pillows for us with it, we signed off letters to one another with it when he took a year to wander Europe with his ex, hell we got the word ’Spite’ tattooed on our wrists in the other’s handwriting when we were 19—thanks to Alex’s terrible handwriting people always asked me why I had ‘Sprite’ tattooed on my wrist. 

She snorted. 

“I know it sounds oversimplified but-“

“No. I’m just not into listening to people who don’t take their own advice,” the anger in her voice was searing. 

“What do you-“

“Alex Cameron, said the same thing to me yesterday.” My ears started ringing, my whole body tingled like a limb when you’ve sat on it for too long. 

“Then,” she took a shaky breath, “he killed himself.” 

My smoke alarm began to scream, the smell of burnt sugar seeping from my oven. 

tags

@wonderlandmind4 @coffeebeforewater @empty-fromthestart​ @this-kitten-is-smitten @saundrasays​

[the-cult-of-russo]

Push and Pull (Part 23)

Pairing: Matt Murdock x OC

Warnings: cursing

-------

Daphne's head rested on the glass of the cab window as it drove. After falling asleep the day before, she'd ended up sleeping well past noon. She'd woken to a message from Mrs Grimes asking for an update and decided to go and see her. She’d needed a serious talk with her about what they'd found. This was so much more than some petty revenge and she needed to make sure she knew that. When she'd shown Mrs Grimes what she'd found, even the older woman was shocked and a little frightened. She knew he'd been getting money slipped under the table from the mob but she hadn't realised just how bad it was. Daphne had told her that she'd been working with Brett on the Italian case and she needed to pass over the intel. She told her to hold off on the divorce thing for now because it wasn't the best time and she might end up hurt. Her advice was to act normally as to not give anything away, and since the married couple rarely saw each other these days, it wouldn't be too hard. With protective custody not being an option as it would have sent off red flags, she assured her that once she told the cops, they'd have eyes on her to make sure she was fine. 

Mrs Grimes seemed satisfied about it all and even agreed to cooperate with the police when the time came. It was selfish in nature since she'd known about some of the shady dealings and kept it quiet. She probably hoped it would keep her out of trouble. But in the end she would eventually get what she wanted, which was her husband disgraced and locked up. So she agreed. 

Now Daphne was on her way to the station to give Brett what she had. She worried her lip, eyes glazed as she stared out of the window. Her mind was swirling with what she'd found and it itched at her brain that the pieces didn't quite fit. She didn't understand why Mr Grimes had written down the name of a military ship or how it was connected to this mysterious weapon. She even wondered if it was some kind of military weapon but even that still didn't explain how the Italians would be connected to it. Her brain hurt. It was all way above her paygrade and she just wanted to hand off what she had to the cops and leave it at that. This was their problem. Of course she'd help out in her own way if Brett needed her to and she wouldn't rule out the possibility of her doing her own recon because of her natural curiosity and need to know things. But for now, she needed a break. Things had been way too hectic and now she had to deal with the lingering anxiety over just what was coming for Hell's Kitchen. 

Once the cab pulled up, she murmured a thanks as she paid the driver and got out. The sun felt like it burnt into her retinas and she winced. Despite the long sleep, she was still tired. Her sleep schedule was all fucked and her body was angry at her for it. She'd also not been eating much lately and she was well aware of how she was starting to lose weight. She had on jeans and a simple tee, her backpack slung over her shoulder and her hair in a messy bun on the top of her head. She didn't even look in the mirror before she left the apartment this morning. 

"Daphne!" She turned her head as she rubbed her bleary eyes, finding Karen, Matt and Foggy loitering outside the precinct, Karen being the one to call her over. She didn't know why she was surprised to see them since they seemed to be here more often than not. She walked over, her hand clutching the strap of her backpack. 

"Wow, you look rough," Foggy winced at her and she squinted.

"Just what every girl wants to hear," she snorted wryly.

"No! I mean… I just meant, you know, you look… tired and maybe a little… sickly," he muttered carefully.

"She's not been eating," Matt piped up, earning a dirty look. She almost made a quip about him using his senses and hearing her growling stomach but she kept her lips firmly sealed given present company.

"As fun as this is, I need to give Brett what I found from the ball," she sighed.

"That bad?" Karen asked sympathetically.

"Bad and confusing," she huffed. 

"Anything useful?" Matt asked as he glanced her way. 

"I'll swing by the firm when I'm done here and you guys can see for yourself," she murmured. She didn't linger around much longer before jogging up the steps and heading inside. She headed straight for the offices, peeking her head through the door. When Brett looked up, she gestured with her head for him to go to her.

"Got something?" He asked curiously.

"Yeah. We need privacy though," she muttered tensely. He nodded, looking apprehensive of the news she might have as he led her to an empty interrogation room. Once they both sat down, she grabbed the file she had made from her backpack and slid it over to him. 

First she explained about her case with Mrs Grimes since she hadn't done so before. She anticipated the lecture he gave her about how risky her plan at the ball had been, but he couldn't deny it was worth it. He was just as confused about the cryptic writings from the journal but he seemed very interested in the evidence of Mr Grimes selling information. There were a lot of names in the book and that gave them some leads on where to look. It seemed to take forever to explain the whole thing to him but she wanted to make sure she hadn't left any of it out. She wanted to hand this case over to the cops so she could wash her hands of it. Or as much as she could since it would still bother her that she couldn't figure it out. 

She was dead on her feet by the time she got to Nelson and Murdock and she walked right in. They were just seeing out a client, saying their goodbyes as she loitered in the waiting room patiently. Karen pushed her gently to sit in a chair and then the other three did the same, sat in some kind of weird circle. Crime seekers anonymous. 

"Alright, let's hear it," Foggy said resolutely.

"There were two books. These are from the first one. Some kind of record of his transactions with the Italians. I did some digging and the ones with crosses next to them are all missing. I think it's safe to presume they're dead," she said wearily, handing them her own file on the case. 

"What about the other book?" Matt asked. She was so tired she almost handed the pictures to him and told him to see for himself. She was glad she didn't because she'd feel like a real asshole. Instead, she handed it to Karen.

"He's fucking insane. I can't make heads or tails of the shit he wrote about. The only good thing I got were some names of big players. And also that," she muttered, pointing to the picture of the cinnamon dusted writing as Karen looked at it. She read it out loud and furrowed her brow.

"What does that even mean?" She frowned.

"Maybe some kind of code?" Foggy suggested with a shrug.

"It could be," Matt sighed. He sounded as frustrated as she felt. 

"Why's the writing all weird and redish?" Foggy questioned as he took the picture from Karen.

"The page was ripped out but the imprint was left behind. I only had cinnamon," she snorted in reply. Foggy found it hilarious and Karen grinned as she shook her head.

"Resourceful as always," Matt smirked at her. 

"I tried. It's not the greatest shit I've found but it's better than what we had. I gave Brett everything so I guess it's up to the cops now," she sighed.

"Which means you can actually get some sleep and eat real meals," Matt said firmly as he looked in her direction. 

"I miss the days you cooked for me," she muttered in contempt. 

"Wait, what? You used to cook for her?" Karen shot them both a goofy grin like it was the cutest thing she’d ever heard. 

"Damn right he did! He'd send me over with it and I might have kinda kept it from her that Matt was the one who cooked it. But it's only 'cause she really didn't like him back then,” Foggy chuckled. 

"That's adorable. Why'd you stop?" She asked as she glanced at Matt. He'd been looking somewhat bashful with his head lowered and he chuckled.

"He started banging her instead," Foggy replied. He seemed to do so without thinking because he looked shocked before snorting at the dirty look Daphne shot him. 

"Foggy, I will hit you with my cane," Matt glowered. He was vaguely amused though if his slightly quirked up lips were anything to go by. Daphne covered her mouth as a giant yawn forced its way out.

"Alright, it's time for you to get to bed, missy," Karen said firmly, pointing at her. 

"Need me to walk you?" Matt asked. She shook her head as she stood up, putting her case files back in her backpack.

"I'm just gonna get a cab. I'm not sure if I can walk home right now," she admitted with a grateful smile. 

Karen pulled her into a warm embrace which was soon followed by Foggy's bearhug. She was a little caught off guard when Matt pulled her into a hug too but she didn't say anything. She just gave him a quick hug back and presumed he did it so it didn't look weird that he didn't. Her brain was too tired to care. 

She dozed off a few times in the cab home. She felt like she could sleep for a week and part of her wondered if she should. She could have a mini break from all of this. Just relax before she took on another case. When she finally made it up the million stairs of her building, she unlocked her door and trudged through. There was a brown envelope on the floor, someone slipped it under the gap at the bottom. She frowned as she scooped it up. She idly wondered if it was the landlord or something. 

She tossed it on the coffee table as she got ready for bed. Once in her pyjamas, she opened it. She was going to leave it until the morning but honestly, her curiosity wouldn't let her. After ripping it open, she stilled completely at what she was looking at. It was a picture of her. She was just out walking in the street, no doubt running some kind of errand. She turned the picture over in her hand and read the writing scribbled on the back.

'They're watching you'.

She inhaled a sharp breath, a chill running down her spine. Her first thought upon seeing it was that it was a veiled threat from the Italians. Something to scare her. But the wording suggested that even though it was most likely the Italians who took the picture, the person who sent it wasn't. It wasn't a threat, it was a heads up. A warning. She had no idea who it could be. Anyone she actually knew would have just told her. 

She felt unsettled when she slipped into bed. The knowledge that someone was watching her, that a target was on her back, worried her. She thought she'd been careful but somehow they knew. She wasn't sure what to do about it all. A huge part of her knew she should tell Brett or Matt, anyone. But she didn't want to drag anyone else into this mess. She didn't want anyone else she knew with a target on their backs. She'd keep it to herself for now and see if anything else happened. She fell to sleep with the lingering question of who it was that sent her the picture. 

Taglist:

@purplexparadise​

@strawb3rrydr3ss​

[ragingbookdragon]

You Can Take Off All My Clothes And Never See Me Naked PT. 3

A Haytham Kenway x Reader Story

Word Count: 4,400 Warnings: Explicit Language, Mentions of Assault

Author’s Note: This part does contain mentions of sexual and physical assault, so if that’s a trigger for you, please be advised. -Thorne

***Set One Year After Part Two***

           The usual grouping of Templars gathered in the backroom of The Ethereal Crew Tavern, that grouping being Haytham, Shay, Gist, (Y/N) and a few others she didn’t care to name. Most of them had arrived on their own, but she and Haytham had taken the liberty of getting a carriage together. Rather scandalous given that neither were married nor courting the other, but personally, she could care less about social etiquette governed by the elite who had their heads shoved up their asses.

           She kept herself guarded, one leg crossed over the other, her fingers curled around the handle of the dagger in her jacket. Haytham probably knew, but he’d yet to let her know, absentmindedly flipping through the pages of his journal. It drove her up the wall how he seemed to place enough trust in (Y/N) to actually sit in a carriage with her, alone—she hated the feeling. Hated that he cared enough. Sometimes she’d wished she’d never accepted his offer to join the Templars. It was too late for regrets though as through a flurry of group missions and her own personal ones, she’d managed to climb the ladder of success within the Templars, coming to rest just below Lee. No doubt (Y/N) had certainly upset the chain of command, especially with pushing half the men of the group from their positions to claim them as her own, and as much as she hated it, she had to acknowledge that it gave her a sick sense of pride to take them down a few pegs—fragility of male pride, she decided.

           “Is something on your mind, (Y/N)?”

           She looked up from her boot laces and to him, though he’d yet to take his eyes off the pages. “Nothing that would make you happy, Grandmaster.”

           Haytham chuckled and snapped the journal shut before meeting her eyes. “You’re more than welcome to call me Haytham when we’re not with the rest of the Order.”

           (Y/N) cocked an eyebrow and deadpanned, “Honestly, I’d rather stab myself in the thigh…twice…with a dull knife…but that’s just my personal opinion.”

           He let out a snort and stowed the notebook in his jacket before regarding her. “Why are you so adamant to keep people from being friendly with you?”

           “Why are you so nosey about my adamancy?” she retorted.

           “I’m simply curious.” His steel eyes narrowed. “Is that so wrong?”

           “Unhealthy, would be the better word.” (Y/N) shot back, but on a rare whim, she revealed, “I don’t trust you.”

           Haytham evidently hadn’t expected that because his eyes widened ever so slightly. “Truly? Even though we’ve served together for a full year?”

           She huffed and turned her gaze to the window. “Don’t take it personally, sir, I don’t trust anyone.”

           “Then what do you trust in?” he inquired.

           “Myself.” (Y/N) murmured with a deep breath.

           “And when you can’t trust in that?”

           She eyed him from the corners of her eyes. “Psychological warfare isn’t going to work on me, sir. Been there, done that. I’ve learned my lesson.”

           Haytham smirked and she instantly cursed herself at her carelessness. “So that’s your reason. You won’t allow yourself to be taken advantage of again by someone.”

           (Y/N) couldn’t help but glower at him and if looks could kill, he’d have been dead and buried. “You smug bastard.” He barked a laugh but didn’t respond, and the carriage began to slow.

           They climbed out, her first, still fuming, Haytham following in suit. She opened the door and walked inside, leaving him, but he wasn’t upset, far from it. By the time he got to the backroom, (Y/N) had already poured drinks and taken her seat between his and Shay’s, a glare still in her eye.

           They stood at his entry and when he sat, they did as well. “Thank you for readying the drinks, (Y/N).” he acknowledged, and her grunt of acceptance served as a reply. He looked to the others. “We’ve started with more practical pursuits of taking over the colonies.” Haytham gestured to Shay. “With Shay helping to claim New York, we’ve control over two major cities and ports of the Americas.”

           Shay tipped his head and took a sip of his beer.

           Haytham looked to (Y/N). “You’ve also been helpful to help claim the city too, taking out public menaces during the nights. It’s kept the people safe.” She looked in the other direction, feeling the warmth rise on her cheeks at the praise. “But I’d like to do more.” He waved a hand and Charles unraveled a map along the table and everyone leaned forward in their seats to gain a look. “We’ve most of the New England and Middle Colony territories, but I want to focus our attention to the South. Gaining leverage would give us control of the colonies and we can turn them any way we wish.”

           Shay raised a hand and the Grandmaster nodded at him. “Ports in North and South Carolina and Georgia could be decent routes to start with. If at least to get us a feeling of the locations.”

           Haytham tipped his head in agreement, then looked to (Y/N) who was busy dragging her eyes up and down the map. “Have you any ideas, (Y/N)?”

           She hummed. “I’d start with negotiations with Native tribes or go to Florida and start there.”

           Before anyone could ask, Charles snorted. “Why go to the natives for help? Do you doubt that we can’t do it ourselves?” His voice was haughty, full of arrogance, and it pissed her off.

           (Y/N) met his gaze and he audibly swallowed from the sheer anger in it. “Perhaps because they’re the ones who could help us further our goals farther than we could on our own considering the fact that they’ve lived in the Americas long before colonial intervention? Perhaps because this is their land we’re talking about controlling? Perhaps because colonists like you have your head shoved so far up your ass that asking for help from actual natives of the land is considered insane? Perhaps because you’re a stupid son of a bitch who thinks that that colonials are somehow placed high above natives because we’re ‘civilized’ solely based on the fact that we live in brick houses and speak the King’s English—which by the way isn’t even a universal language because more countries speak a multitude of other languages besides English—Spanish and French being two examples.” She leaned forward. “Have I got the point across or should I keep offering rhetoric about how idiotic your complaints are until it goes through your thick skull?”

           Charles face had turned at least six shades of red, each darker than the last and he fumbled for an answer but all he could sputter was nonsense. (Y/N) glanced at Shay beside her who’d long since put his face in his arms to keep from laughing hysterically. Only the shake of his shoulders told her, and she looked to Haytham. “Start negotiations for help with the Cherokee and the Creek or go to Saint Augustine and work up. That’s where I’d start.”

           Haytham merely wore a smile as he nodded. “Shay would you mind traveling down to Saint Augustine within the month?” The Irishman didn’t even raise his head, simply waving a hand in response. “Well then, we’ll start with finding someone who speaks the Cherokee and Cree—”

           His words were cut off by the door slamming into the wall, and immediately everyone grabbed either a gun or a sword to defend themselves with when they caught sight of a disheveled woman.

           (Y/N) let go of her dagger and stood from her seat, ignoring how it toppled over behind her. “Priscilla?” The woman ran over to her and upon closer inspection, she took in the sight of the torn dress and the blood and bruises along her skin. A breath of shock left her. “What happened to you?”

           Priscilla practically burst into tears and as if her strength suddenly failed, her knees gave out beneath her. (Y/N) caught her before she hit the ground. “(Y/N)!” she cried.

           The Templar yanked her gloves off and gently cradled the woman’s face in her hands. Bruises littered her amber skin, and (Y/N) saw handprints around her throat and arms. Anger welled inside her and she didn’t need to lift the woman’s dress to know what had happened. She opted for, “Who did this to you?”

           The woman sobbed and shook her head. “He’ll kill me.”

           (Y/N) removed her jacket and laid it around Priscilla’s shoulders, allowing her some decency in the presence of men. “Priscilla…give me his name.”

           “I can’t,” she whimpered, raising a hand to wipe her face. “He told me he’d kill my family.”

           She cradled the woman’s face once more. “Where is your family now?”

           “At home.”

           (Y/N) looked at Shay. “Shay.” Her voice was calm, quiet, and it made his blood run cold. “Just North-East of the gang headquarters in East Village there is a small home that stands on its own. You’ll recognize it by the blue painted door. I need you to go and collect the woman and young boy that live there and bring them back down here.” He didn’t move for a moment and she narrowed her eyes. “Now, Shay.” He rose and motioned for Gist to do the same, and the two of them disappeared from the backroom.

           She drew her eyes back to Priscilla. “Go to my room and look in the chest at the foot of my bed.” (Y/N) dipped so she could catch her eyes. “You remember the code?”

           “I do,” the woman whispered.

           (Y/N) nodded. “In the right corner there’s a little bundle of packages. Find the one labeled Queen Anne’s Lace. Open it and chew a handful up and wash it down with water.” She helped the woman to her feet. “I’ll tell Anita to draw a bath for you when I leave.”

           “Where are you—”

           “Give me his name, Priscilla.”

           The woman met (Y/N)’s gaze and her voice booked no room for any arguments this time. “It’s…it’s Lord Josiah.”

           “The one you’ve been providing maid services to for the last few weeks?”

           Priscilla nodded, fresh tears springing to her eyes. “I’ve been trying to avoid his advances but I wasn’t paying attention and he—and he—” she burst into tears once more and (Y/N) raised a hand to her own mouth clenching her jaw so tightly it began to hurt. “I should’ve listened to them!” She cried.

           After a moment she took a deep breath and rested her hands on Priscilla’s shoulders. “Go to my room and lock the door. Don’t open it unless it’s me or Anita, do you understand?” She nodded. “Come on, I’ll walk with you.” (Y/N) gently guided her towards the door and out of the backroom. They came across the stairs when a younger woman was coming down the stairs. “Anita, there you are.”

           She looked between them but didn’t say anything, an unspoken conversation that she simply nodded to. (Y/N) tipped her head to Priscilla. “Get her a bath ready. Hottest water you can get.” Anita helped Priscilla up the stairs and in an ungodly rage, (Y/N) headed for the doors of the tavern.

***

           She sat in the brush just outside the manor of Josiah Galbraith, silently watching the armed Regulars patrol the perimeter. So far, she’d counted two pairs of Redcoats go around, telling her that they were going clockwise and counter to keep anyone out. The first pair appeared from the opposite side and she waited until they got to the next corner to begin a mental timer. A minute and a half later, the second patrol appeared and as they reached the corner, she readied herself when a hand snapped on her shoulder and pulled her back.

           (Y/N) swallowed her own scream of fear, opting to spin around and immediately throw a curled fist to whoever had grabbed her. They let out a grunt as her hand collided with their jaw and they yanked her harder, toppling her off balance. She landed on the ground and before she could move again, they had her hands pinned to the ground.

           She started to struggle when they hissed, “(Y/N)! It’s me!”

           Focusing on their features with only the light of the moon, they soon became clear and she seethed, “Haytham, what the fuck are you doing here?!”

           He released her and pointed to the opening at the brush. “Keeping you from getting shot by a guard on the rooftop!”

           (Y/N)’s brows furrowed and looked out. Sure enough, a lone guard appeared from the backside of the mansion, a musket in his hands, occasionally looking around. She let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

           “If you’re going to get at Josiah, you need to manage to not get shot trying to get in.” Haytham advised. “Let me help you.”

           She turned on him. “I don’t need your help. Get out of here.”

           “You need my help, (Y/N). Josiah has more training than you realize. You won’t stand a chance against him.”

           (Y/N) cocked an eyebrow. “You know this how?”

           Haytham let out a sigh, steel eyes watching the patrolling pair pass. “He used to be a Templar before I got here.”

           It did little to soothe her rage, but she managed, “He’s not anymore?”

           He shook his head. “The Templars of the colonies before I arrived had him removed. There wasn’t any reason I could find.” He met her eyes. “I know this is something you have to do but let me help you.”

           (Y/N) stared him down for a minute then nodded, and before he could breathe a sigh of relief, she had a dagger to his neck. “If you do anything to compromise the minute trust, I am placing in you right now, I will slit your throat. Do you understand me?”

           Haytham’s response was solemn, but it was trustworthy. “I understand.”

           She pulled away. “You help me take him down, but I’m delivering the final blow.”

           “Understood as well.”

           They sat next to one another in the brush and she quietly explained, “There’s two patrols that go around the manor. When this one hits the opposite corner, it takes a minute and a half for the next couple to show up.”

           Haytham nodded, eyeing the guards passing by them then up to the top. “There’s only one up top, but he goes back and forth every thirty seconds.” He looked down the street. “I’ll see about climbing the walls to take him out. When I come over the side, then you can move forward.”

           (Y/N) didn’t necessarily like the idea of being told to wait, but he had a point and she nodded. “Hurry then, the next couple will appear in a minute.”

           He was off at that, occasionally glancing up at the rooftop to make sure he was undiscovered. She watched as he disappeared around the side and when the lone gunman appeared, so did Haytham. He covered the man’s mouth to prevent any sound, then he fell over the side. When he hit the ground, (Y/N) couldn’t help but wince at whatever bones he’d broken, but he didn’t get up, and that was the important thing.

           She sprinted to the door and tried the doorknob, but when it clicked, she grunted and pulled the lockpick from her jacket. Softly she twisted the pick until it stayed, then she jiggled the lock a few times. Almost there. She thought. C’mon, hurry it up. Just a little mo—

           “Hey! What do you think you’re doing!”

           The sudden shout from behind followed by the bayonet pressed up against her backside made her blood run cold and she sucked in a breath, quickly stowing the lockpick in her sleeve. (Y/N) raised her hands beside her head and slowly turned, coming face to face with the pair of redcoats.

           She smiled. “I was trying the door, but it was locked, so I was knocking.”

           One of the guards sneered. “That’s not what it looked like to me.”

           “And what did it look like?”

           “Like you were pickin’ the lock.”

           (Y/N) internally winced but kept a smile on her face. “Pfft, I would never break and enter. That’s illegal!” C’mon Haytham, where are you? She wiggled her fingers. “It just looked like I was picking the lock, but I promise I wasn’t.”

           “Well if you weren’t pickin’ the lock,” the other guard sneered, “then what are you doing here?”

           She met their gazes. “I’m the replacement for Priscilla.”

           “For whom?

           Her eyes narrowed and she explained, “Priscilla. The woman that you two probably laughed at when she stumbled from the front door with a torn dress, bruised and beaten.” Their faces fell at her words and she saw Haytham sneaking up behind them. “The woman that you’ll die for.” Before they could react to her promise, they went down, Haytham’s hands at the back of their necks.

           He stood straight and slung the excess blood from his hands before retracting the blades into his sleeves. He met her gaze and she said, “I don’t know where you and Shay got those, but I want some.”

           Haytham chuckled and nodded towards the door. “Break the lock while I hide the bodies in the brush. The second patrol will notice two dead bodies.” (Y/N) didn’t wait to be told twice, immediately spinning on her heel to pick the lock once more. It broke with a click and she pushed it open to slip inside, Haytham behind her.

           They stood in the entrance and she whispered, “Do you think there are more guards inside?”

           He shook his head. “It’s possible but not likely. He’s probably paying for perimeter check only.”

           She hummed. “Unfortunate for him.” He glanced at her. “But very fortunate for us.” (Y/N) nodded to the stairs. “His room is probably upstairs.”

           As they made their way to the staircase a door opened and a servant came out, freezing as they spotted the two. Haytham pulled his flintlock out and pointed it at him. “If you want to live, go back inside and stay quiet. You are not our target.”

           The servant blinked but turned right around and walked back into the room. (Y/N) couldn’t help but snort. “And you say I’m threatening to people.”

           Haytham stowed the pistol and climbed the staircase, keeping close to the wall. “You are. But I only threaten people when I need to get the point across.”

           The lock sounded from the door the servant had gone through and she quipped, “I guess he got the point.”

           He hummed. “I’ve heard Josiah is a bastard to his staff.” He glanced back at her. “From he did to your friend, that’s proven true. I doubt any of the servants will weep at his passing.”

           “Murder.” (Y/N) corrected, passing in front of him as they reached the top. “At his murder.” He said nothing, and with a quick glance down the hall, Haytham’s probability had proven true, there wasn’t a guard in sight.

           They crept down the hallway to the door at the end and took either side. She looked at him as she held the doorknob and he pulled out his flintlock and cocked it, nodding at her. (Y/N) took a deep breath and opened the door with as much silence as it would’ve allowed; Haytham went in first, her following and they were shocked to find Josiah waiting for them.

           He looked up from the foot of the bed, ignoring Haytham outright to stare at (Y/N). “I knew you were going to come,” he said. “I knew when she threatened me with your name you would.”

           “You know nothing of my name.” She hissed.

           A chuckle passed his lips. “I know more than you think.” His eyes drifted to Haytham. “You’re the new Grandmaster for the Order, aren’t you?”

           “I am.” Haytham responded, flintlock still poised and ready. “You’re lucky you left before I came, else I’d’ve killed you much earlier.”

           “I’ve no doubt.” He stood and held out two sabers. He tossed one to (Y/N) who caught it and then he unsheathed the blade and pointed it at her. “A duel, then.”

           She took a step forward, ignoring Haytham’s voice of complaint and pulled the sword from its scabbard. “You want to fight me.” Her eyes narrowed, yet she got in a defensive position. “Why?”

           Josiah raised his blade like a fencer, one hand behind his back. “Engaging in duels is honorable practice.”

           (Y/N) scowled. “There’s nothing you could ever do that would make you honorable again, you sick bastard.”

           “And yet, you still engage in a duel.”

           “So that I can cut your heart out of your chest!” She leaped forward and swung the sword at him with enough force that he grunted and faltered back. (Y/N) didn’t let up, strike after strike, she sent him, and with each blot of crimson appearing on his pristine white shirt, she knew her blows were landing.

           For some odd reason, he didn’t seem to be fighting back and while it was only a minor concern in her mind, it soon became a major one. She made the mistake of leaving herself open when he parried her blade, and she paid the price when his fist collided with her stomach, taking the air with it.

           (Y/N) gagged and felt the blade go slack in her grip but it was all the time he needed to yank the sword away and spin her around, one hand coming around to lock at her throat, the other pointing the sword at Haytham, who wore a stern look, but she could see the fear bleeding in his eyes.

           Josiah chuckled in her ear and it made her stomach churn. “Anger makes you predictable dear.” She struggled against him, but the hand at her throat tightened, cutting off her air and she gasped. “You think I didn’t know you were outside, learning the guard patterns?” (Y/N) reached for his hand and pulled, trying to gain air. “I let her leave alive because I knew you’d come after me.”

           “Why?” she gasped as best she could.

           “Why? Because you’ve been a thorn in the elite’s side for years.” He shifted the hand that held the sword and flipped open her jacket, pulling the dagger out. Josiah took a few steps back, taking her with him, and Haytham followed. He put the dagger against her side and hissed in her ear, “You stick your nose where it doesn’t belong and mess up plans left and right. All in the name of vigilantism. And what good has it gotten you? Dead.”

           (Y/N) met Haytham’s eyes and she nodded at him. She swallowed and muttered, “You’ll die before I do, you sick fuck.” Her elbow jerked backwards into his gut and he cried out in pain, letting her go. She reached out. “Haytham!”

           Her fingertips brushed the barrel of the flintlock, but she closed them around it, pulling the gun to her. She found the handle and spun on Josiah. With how close they were, there was no space to flee and she pulled the trigger, watching as he stumbled backwards to the wall, a circle of crimson blooming larger with each second.

           He slid down the wall and chuckled, but it dissolved into a cough. “My death—wins you nothing.” (Y/N) stared at him and grabbed the handle of her dagger, yanking it from where he’d embedded it in her waist. Besides a grunt, she made no sound of pain. “I might die—but my legacy will still—stand.”

           She wiped the blood of the dagger and sheathed it, remarking, “No it won’t.” He met her eyes, fuzzy and growing dark. “I’ll run every trace of your name into the fucking ground. When I’m done, there won’t be a soul alive who’ll remember you. And if they do,” (Y/N) knelt down and whispered, “It’ll be because your crimes will outweigh it all.” He sucked in a breath and with a final gurgle, he went still.

She stood and pulled her jacket around her, stealthily pressing onto her wound to keep pressure. “We’re done here.” She handed Haytham his flintlock. “We should leave before the other patrol comes.”

           Haytham grabbed her arm. “Are you alright?”

           (Y/N) met his gaze. “No.” Pulling from him she made her way to the door. “No, I’m not.”

***

           It was well past closing time when they got back to the tavern and (Y/N)’s wound felt like it was on fire, and she herself could barely stand on her own feet. Still, she pushed on, knowing she needed to at least see Priscilla and her family before she took care of it.

           Stepping inside, she was greeted by Priscilla’s screech of relief and a bear hug from the woman. “You’re okay!”

           (Y/N) weakly patted her arm. “Yeah…I’m good.”

           The girl stepped away and looked at her, eyes full of concern. “(Y/N), are you alright? You look ill.”

           Haytham appeared by her side and peered at her. “She’s right. You look like you’re going to pass out.”

           She shook her head and swallowed the sickness climbing her esophagus. “I’m fine. I’m just tired and need some rest.” She looked at Priscilla. “Since you and your family are here, take a guest room and get some sleep. We’ll talk about moving you tomorrow.”

           (Y/N) ignored their concerns as she made way to the stairs and she’d barely climbed two of them when she collapsed. Hands grasped her shoulders and while she wanted to struggle, she couldn’t find the energy to do so.

           She vaguely felt them turn her over and she groaned as her back hit the staircase. Shay and Haytham appeared in her vision, their faces contorted with apprehension. Haytham’s lips were moving but nothing was coming out that she could understand, and she felt cool air rise under her shirt, telling her that someone had opened her jacket. Haytham looked down and back at her, eyes wide.

           Someone’s hand touched the edge of her tunic and with a renewed burst of energy, she gripped their hand tightly and squeezed with all the strength she had left. “Don’t take—my clothes off.” She hissed.

           Haytham’s hand touched her cheek and with a slow intake of breath, her head lolled backwards, consciousness fading from her.

[make-it-mavis]

Homesick (Entry #40)

(cw: discussion of addiction and relapse) ----------

02/02/88  8:04 PM

Hey.

Well. At this point, it feels like there is so much to say, yet so little… comparatively.

Most of this bedtime story has been rife with screaming arguments, hallucinations, and explosions. There will not be so much of those, moving forward. I could say that the day I blew up Felix’s apartment was a turning point for me. It was the first moment where I truly felt like I had taken a step towards moving on and… letting go of what I could. But it was not a sharp turn, nor was it a great, leaping bound. Things did not suddenly get easier. No, they were only difficult in a different way.

But they were different.

I could probably fill a completely separate notebook with the details of my journey through counselling since then. But that would be very boring to read and to write, so I will just give you the important bits to catch you up to speed. Stay with me, now. This is going to be a whole lot condensed into chewable pieces.

In counselling, we learned about the five stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Looking back, I can see how non-linear it was for me. I spent so long dancing around the first three. But after my amnesia was cured, I arrived at depression. Collapsed into it, really. 

Now, I’ve been depressed before. It was quite some time ago, before you and I even met. So I recognized what I was experiencing. But this time around, it was… more acute. Less existential, and more like an injury. I wasn’t lost inside my head. I knew exactly what I was sad about, and it was as real and tangible as any physical wound I had sustained before.

It was as if my very code had been pushed to the point of exhaustion and could not get back up. I spent most of my time on Felix’s couch, and most of that time was spent sleeping. I barely showered and I smelled like hell, but Felix still insisted on having tea and chatting at least once a day. He did almost all the talking, and I usually didn’t drink the tea, but he didn’t mind. He’d just drink it for me, and end up taking such frequent trips to the bathroom that I’d fall asleep again.

Given that I could barely make myself get up and walk around, going to counselling was more daunting than ever. November passed by without me taking notice, and it was maybe a week into December before I was able to make it there again. When I did, I told everyone what I’d done. What I’d remembered. And how I had been absent so long because I felt too depressed to come. Then, of course, they told me that the best time to come to counselling is when you don’t want to. I wanted to argue with that, but they were probably right. 

I very quickly came to understand why counselling was done in a group. At first, it felt like a punishment, like we all had to sit around and think about what we’d done. Or that there just weren’t enough counsellors for one-on-one therapy. It’s not even entirely just for empathizing with others’ similar experiences, or creating a sense of community. No, it’s something much more annoying than that.

A group will hold you accountable. They’ll make sure you’re participating and call you out when you’re not. I went into the counselling experience hoping I could just do the time and get out, but no one gets away with that in a group. You can’t just rip off the bandaid.

No, counselling is more like ripping off the bandaid, then digging into the wound with tweezers to pull out all the shrapnel, then stitching up the wound, and repeatedly changing the bandages to avoid infection. And then those stitches can sometimes come loose and you have to do them all over again.

It sucks. It hurts. But I won’t say it doesn’t work.

Anyway, around this point in the ‘story,’ I still hadn’t quite finished Step 4, with the ‘fearless moral inventory.’ I was still having trouble deciding just what to say. I had Felix be the audience to my venting one night. I explained to him my predicament: I had done many things that others would consider ‘bad’ or ‘immoral’ over the course of my life, far too many to count or to list. And a whole lot of them, I didn’t even feel bad for. Pranks, petty theft, and general snarkiness seemed harmless enough. I didn’t know what was worth adding to the list.

Felix suggested sticking to the big ones. What things did I consider not so harmless? What things were bad enough to make me lose sleep over? What did I really, truly regret?

I didn’t want to tell him. Those questions felt too prying. But, reminding myself that I was trying to make big changes, I eventually managed to name it all.

I felt bad for… assuming the worst of everyone. Especially anyone close to me. I felt bad for getting them all involved with my problems, and… refusing their help, but still somehow taking advantage of them. For making Felix worry that I was going to die, and for making Wreck-it feel responsible.

And Tapper. Just… in general, Tapper. Everything I’d done to him. Lying to him. Using him. Endangering his game. 

Endangering my game.

Threatening that one anonymous stranger for a hit of GC.

And getting you hooked on my Shield and Lift buffs… way back when.

I took Felix’s suggestion to write all that down, and whatever else I might have been feeling. It definitely helped me sort out my thoughts. It didn’t feel good. At all. In fact, it was hard to fight the idea that I was a lost cause, and that even before all this, I was not worth saving. But I pushed on regardless, because it felt like the only direction to move in.

As difficult as it had been, listing all that earned me Step 4, and after I recounted it all to the counselling group, I had Step 5, Integrity, under my belt.

Even though it was hard, I was doing well in the program. I really was, all things considered. I had made it farther than I thought possible at the beginning. But like I said… those stitches come loose sometimes. Recovery, like my grieving process, has not been linear. And after Step 5, some part of me felt stretched too far. Like my code once more remembered that I’m not the sort to lay myself open for others to see. Too many sprites had been given deeply personal pieces of my mind to take home with them. It was unnatural. It wasn’t right. It was not like me. I couldn’t piece together this new life with the life I knew before and have it make sense. I was trying to make meaningful changes, for sure, but suddenly, I felt like I didn’t recognize the sprite I’d become. I didn’t recognize my game or anyone in it. It was… eerie.

It put a panicked, defensive fight in me. I had to set things straight. I would not allow this strange, foreign life to continue until I did. So, for the first time in… longer than I had realized, I went back to my den in the woods. Just to be somewhere familiar and see if I could remember who I was.

It helped a little at first. I dug through all the junk I had amassed, each one connecting to some small memory from before this all happened. But then I found three things that were… a dangerous combo.

Your scarf and goggles… and the bottle of blue wine Tapper had given me at the memorial. Still unopened.

I was able to resist the wine. But I… didn’t exactly get rid of it, like I should have.

As for your old, burnt belongings...

I didn’t understand what I was doing at the time, or why. I get it now, I think. Writing my thoughts down had helped in Step 4, and my head was a twisted, tangled mess that I just had to sort out before I went insane. I needed to understand what I’d been through and how I got there. It’s just that I was only inspired to start writing once I saw your scarf and goggles again. Once they threw that angry, vicious anxiety through me and I was possessed by the overwhelming need to reach you from beyond the grave and tell you just what you had done to me.

So… I started writing this story. Or these letters, or... journals. You know.

Since then it’s been… well, incredibly therapeutic. And, just like I thought they would, the folks at counselling said that journaling is a very healthy coping mechanism. That’s what I called it, too. Journaling. I wanted to keep the fact that I was writing to you private. I was already revealing so much to them. I wanted to have just one thing I didn’t have to tell them.

I didn’t think it would have made a difference, anyway, and it didn’t. Not at first. I finished Step 6 just fine, which was Willingness. I was pretty willing to let go of my old bad habits in whatever way I could. Step 7 was harder for a few reasons, not the least of which being that my higher power is not sentient, and I could therefore not ask it for forgiveness, or to remove my character flaws. But I sort of earned Humility in a different way.

You see, I didn’t tell them I was writing to you, but I also... didn’t tell them about the wine. 

And thoughts of you had not mixed well with the temptation of substances in the past. So, around Christmas, I holed up in my den and… relapsed. It was nothing big, as far as relapses go. But I’m still not proud of it. 

I just wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be. My first Christmas without you.

Anyway… don’t worry. That didn’t put too big a snag in things. I told Felix, and I told everyone in counselling about it, and they all understood. A couple others actually had similar challenges. Many of us had someone to miss, and it was a hard time of year to miss somebody. I admitted to them that I sort of felt like I’d failed. But Clyde remarked that I showed humility by so willingly turning to the group for support, which had been hard for me at the start. I very easily could have tried to hide out of shame or a need to shoulder it alone. Maybe I couldn’t ask color for forgiveness, but in a way, I asked the group for it. 

I still sort of don’t understand it. But, hey. Whatever the ghost says.

In any case, I was able to let the mistake go and move forward, which… felt very freeing, now that I think of it. Since then, I’ve been counting the days I’ve spent completely sober, slowly racking them up like the most boring, most difficult sort of high score.

It’ll be forty today.

I’m forty days sober, and I just finished Step 9 a couple days ago. So… I guess I’m doing pretty well.

I’ve been writing a while, and this pen is nearly out of ink, but before I wrap this entry up, I really ought to tell you about Step 9, and what it brought about.

Step 8, for the record, is barely worth mentioning. It’s Love, which, y’know, gross. But it’s basically making a list of the sprites you’ve wronged, which I felt like I had done three times already. Step 9, then, Responsibility, is making amends with those sprites wherever possible.

I’m already well on my way with Felix. Tapper, well… I’ve done the best I can for now. I don’t even know who the sprite I threatened was, so there’s little I can do there. And you… are kind of hard to reach lately. So, the only possible option left was...

Wreck-it.

I’d known for quite some time that we were overdue for a chat. We hadn’t really talked at all since I’d come out of that coma, which meant we had been surviving on brief, awkward greetings and the smallest of small talk for a couple of months. We were not on bad terms, nor good terms. We just sort of existed in the same space, trying our best to just tolerate each other and to ignore the elephant in the room. And before all this, I would have been content to leave things that way forever if it meant I wouldn’t have to talk to him about our feelings.

I only managed to speak to him once the 12 Step Program gave me any idea of what to say, and the desire for things to stop being weird outweighed the awkwardness.

I caught him shortly after the arcade closed the other night, just as he was about to board the train to leave our game. Caught him quite off-guard too, apparently, given the way he jumped and tried to smooth his little yelp into a casual speaking voice.

Like this: “Ahh--!! Ahh! Ahh, Mavis, I, uh, didn’t see you there.”

Making someone jump always brings at least a bit of a smile to my face. “Hey there, uh… Ralph.”

The use of his name rather than his title already earned me a confused eyebrow quirk, but I saw it as setting the mood for the uncharacteristically intimate conversation we were about to have. It seemed effective, given how still he became, almost holding his breath in a nervous sort of curiosity.

“You, uh… going to Tapper’s?” I asked, trying to get him to relax a bit.

“Yep…” he said, rapping his fist against his leg slightly, like he does. “Do you… wanna come too, or..?”

I pressed my lips together, not quite smiling. “Nah. Still can’t go anywhere.”

“Oh-- oh-- yeah, of course. Wow. Stupid question,” he sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “That, uh, counselling thing still goin’ on, then? Or am I not allowed to ask?”

“It is,” I shrugged, shoving my hands in my pockets. “And… you are allowed. It’s actually more or less what I need to talk to you about.”

“...Really?” he asked cautiously. “Me? Why?”

I closed my eyes and let out a steady breath, sorting my thoughts for the hundredth time. “We probably should’ve talked sooner, it’s just that…” I opened my eyes and looked at him. “Well, I’ll say it outright. I’m supposed to talk to everyone I’ve wronged. And that includes you.”

He paused. Then he squinted. “Everyone?”

“Well,” I said flatly. “No. Just the ones I’ve done the dirtiest. The big deals.”

“And I really made that list for you? Me?”

I sighed with a slow blink, and cut to the chase. “Ralph, I heard everything you said to me when I was in that coma. Everything.”

“Oh,” he said, shifting his weight awkwardly, until the memory visibly returned to him and he stood rigid. “...Oh.”

“Yeah. Do you…” I struggled to maintain eye contact, “Do you… I mean, do you still actually blame yourself for anything that happened to me… after that night at Tapper’s?”

“Pfft,” he huffed, smiling joylessly. “C’mon. Ew. Did I say that?”

I stared.

He quickly gave in, folding his arms with a sigh. “...No. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad about it. I wanted to help you. I did. I never would have dragged you out there if I’d known you’d… Well. Whatever. Bad Guys aren’t meant to help anybody. Lesson learned, yet again.”

“Yeah… sure. Except the thing is, you, uh… did help,” I said, and saw him perk up the tiniest bit. “You let me stay with you. Even though I was a thankless, entitled pain in the neck. You kept me company just because I didn’t want to be alone. I know you n’ I aren’t exactly bosom pals, and I know you’re a Bad Guy, but… I guess that just makes it even more of a damn decent thing to do.”

He seemed surprised by my words, even a bit shaken by them in some way, but still, his gaze fell away from me a bit. Seemed like he was no better at accepting genuine praise than I am.

Pushing on, I said, “And if you feel guilty right now because you actually wanted to cave in my skull the whole time, then, don’t. I’d have wanted to throw my ass to the curb, too, if I were you. I don’t blame you for pushing me out. I did at first, but I don’t anymore. I was already primed to spiral, Ralph. I was headed for rock bottom one way or another. Don’t blame yourself for what I did. That’s my fault, not yours.”

He looked at me again, a quiet sort of disbelief in his eyes, which was good, because I needed to look him in the eye for what I was about to say.

“Ralph, I’m sorry.”

At that, he seemed… put on the spot, almost. Like he had no idea how to react. He took a moment to think and to breathe, like everything had to sink in. I knew that he would be surprised, so I didn’t really react. I had gotten all of my weird, emotional words out. The hard part was over.

I watched him begin to scrutinize me, like there was some hidden trick behind my back. He even slowly walked in a circle around me, trying to figure me out. He found nothing, and I offered nothing.

“So…” he said, squinting at me sidelong, “you’re sayin’... you’re sorry. You. You, Make- it Mavis, high queen of the gremlins, are sorry.”

I knew he would do that. Make a huge, obnoxious deal out of it. “Yes,” I said plainly.

“For everything?”

“Yes,” I repeated, with just a twinge of annoyance.

“Everything.”

“Yes.”

Then he pointed at me, as if firing off his question quick-draw style: “Even for calling me a trash gorilla?”

“Hell no,” I recoiled a bit. “I’m a recovering addict, not a kiss-ass.”

That was the first time I saw him almost relieved that I’d sort of insulted him. He straightened up and folded his arms, the tension in his body visibly relaxing as he sized me up. He nodded the slightest bit. “Yeah, I know,” he said, “that was just a test to see if you’d actually lost your mind.”

“Oh, so this is the point where you question my sanity. Nothing in the past couple months has been all that unusual, then,” I said, sort of smirking.

“Nah,” he reluctantly mirrored my smile. “Home intrusion, explosions, tryin’ to conk Gene over the head with a wooden club -- all standard Mavis fare.”

That earned a snicker from me. “Don’t think he’s escaped my clutches just yet.”

“Yeah, in his dreams.”

A silence set in at that point. Both of our smiles slowly began to fade as the silence grew from content to awkward once again. I wasn’t sure what else to say, but Ralph looked like he was working on something, so I waited.

“So,” he eventually said, his tone more sober, “you… really mean all that, huh. What you said about… Y’know. That you’re sorry.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I do,” I said quietly.

“Wow,” he almost chuckled, and gave me a sort of smile that I’d otherwise never seen on his face. “Counselling’s sure done a number on you, huh?"

"Well," I shifted my weight, unsure how to respond. It was a strange truth, and it was even stranger hearing it from him. "That's the idea, anyway."

Ralph seemed pleasantly surprised by the whole encounter, but it was just about over. Some small part of him must have wanted to draw it out even longer, a sentiment that I'm sure came as puzzling to him.

Scratching his chest a bit, he said, "Yeah, well… maybe once you're free again, and if you're up for it, we could go for drinks at Tapper's again. Just rag on Gene like the old days. Or Felix, even. I'm sure he's drivin' you up the wall lately with all the fussing."

I clicked my tongue. "Not… for drinks, no. As amazingly depressing as it is to say, I don't drink anymore."

"Really?" He asked, just before lightly smacking himself in the head. "D'oh, of course you don't. Wow. Sorry. I don't know where my head's at today."

"S'okay," I shrugged. "But there's more than just drinks at Tapper's. We can still go. I'll just have snacks or something. Maybe some actual, real pretzels, unlike last time."

He tilted his head. "Last time…?"

Opting to not recount the embarrassing tale of my snack hallucinations from my last visit, I waved it off. "Nevermind. Anyway, this is all making the very big assumption that Tapper will even let me through the doors. Y'know… after everything."

Ralph frowned. "You miss him, huh."

My gaze fell to his feet. "Yeah," I muttered.

"Well, I'm just on my way to see him now," Ralph said, finally turning around to slowly squeeze himself into an undersized train car. "I'll let him know."

Just the thought of any sentiment of mine reaching Tapper sort of sprung a leak in my heart, and before I could think, I was talking, my voice trembling the tiniest bit.

"If-- If you're talking to him anyway," I said, stepping forward almost as if I would follow him, "could you tell him something more?"

Ralph seemed a little surprised by my emotion, but he nodded anyway. "Sure. What is it?"

"Tell him I'm-- I'm…" I sighed, and my shoulders fell heavy. "I'm... sorry. I was probably the worst to him, out of everyone. And I know I can't take any of that back. And if he never wants to see me again… I can accept that. But there's just one thing I really need him to know."

I swallowed. "He's the reason I even agreed to counselling in the first place."

"Really?" Ralph asked quietly.

I nodded, not quite looking his way, focusing all my energy on keeping it together. "Yeah. He… urged me to get help, and when I didn't, I… nearly got his game unplugged. I'm putting in the work now. I'm getting help. I'm getting clean, just like he said. I'm thirty-eight days sober. And it all started because I just… had to make it right. Doing right by him is what's kept me going through a lot of this."

I took a moment to breathe and rein in my unruly emotions, trying to consider just how much I really wanted to share with Ralph. I'm working on being vulnerable, but I've found that I can't rush it. Plus, I'm sure Ralph felt a little awkward on the receiving end. He just watched me, unsure of what to say, but a quiet sympathy still showed in his eyes.

"Just…" I cleared my throat, "just tell him I'm sorry… and thank him for me. Please."

He offered me a half-smile and a soft nod. "Okay. You got it."

At that point, the dinky little cord train began to slowly pull out of our tiny station, sort of squeaking with the effort of bearing Ralph's weight. I watched him go, feeling that hot embarrassment that follows a particularly personal share. The thought that Ralph was probably happy to see me being good to Tapper for once was both comforting and… kind of annoying.

After the train had moved a short distance away, I just about turned to leave, but Ralph's voice caught my attention.

"Oh, and Mavis?"

I looked to see him twisting awkwardly in his seat, calling back to me.

"...Thanks."

That just made my face feel a little bit hotter, but I gave a small smile and flicked a casual salute his way. "Don't mention it," I called back, and waited until the train disappeared into the dark mouth of the tunnel before adding quietly, "...ever."

After that, for the first little while, my evening carried on just about the same as ever. I wound up in Felix's apartment for the usual tea and chats. I played my guitar for a while, and Felix listened happily until the tea was all brewed, and we sat on the couch while he told me about his day. I talked a bit too, but I didn't tell him about my conversation with Ralph. I wanted some light chatter about nothing in particular, a break from the heavy topics that run so rampant for me lately. I even wanted a bit of tea. I still maintain that chamomile tastes like soap, but peppermint is actually pretty good with a hefty scoop of sugar.

It was a couple hours into our visit that the most unusual, most… amazing thing happened.

I had given in to the primal need to lie flat on the floor as I often do, and Felix was sitting at the table polishing his medals when we heard footsteps in the hall. Huge, heavy, thumping footsteps. We glanced at each other for just a minute before we both nearly leapt out of our pixels from the front door being knocked off its hinges.

Through the open, splintered door frame, there stood Ralph, eyes wide. Instantly, his face filled with apologetic embarrassment.

"Woops," he chuckled nervously. "Sorry."

I sat up, and Felix walked over to the door with a bit of an exasperated sigh. "That's alright, Ralph," he assured, easily repairing the door with his hammer and holding it open anyway. "It's polite of you to knock."

My heart began to settle from the frightful shock it suffered, but I was sort of wary to see Ralph again so soon after our last conversation. I didn't know what more he could want, but I didn't feel the emotional energy to deal with whatever it was. I stood and walked over to the door to meet him. He had to twist down a bit to see through the doorway, and his awkward stance was punctuated with a nervous grin.

"Hey-- Hey Mavis," he said.

"Ralph," I grit my teeth just a bit, more from discomfort than anger. I let my eyes dart to Felix just a bit, hoping to signal to Ralph that now was not the time. "...Hi. What… what's up?"

"Uh, well…" he sucked his teeth, "could you step out here for a sec?"

"Why?"

"So I don't have to stand like this."

That was fair. I obliged, and nodded to Felix to give us some privacy. After he closed the door, I immediately whispered to Ralph, "Okay, now what's so urgent?"

Even though he didn't have to bend over anymore, Ralph still had to bow his head to fit under the relatively low ceiling. He put out his hands just a bit to urge me to be calm.

"Look, I'm not here to bug you," he said, and lowered his voice when I shushed him. "I'm just here to make a delivery."

I squinted at him sidelong. "Of what?"

"Well, a message, for one," he shrugged, smiling a little bit. "I talked to Tapper for you, like you asked. And he wanted me to tell you something."

I straightened up, and my heart sort of skipped a beat. "...Oh. What did he say?"

"A couple things. He's, uh… well, he's real happy to hear you're getting help. He wants to congratulate you for that. You've got his full support, he said. It meant a lot to hear that you've been doing well, because you've been on his mind. He thinks about you all the time."

I didn't know what to say or how to react. It was a lot to take in. I had sort of made my peace with him hating me after everything I did, so to hear that he still cared about me was… a relief so acute that it sort of broke my heart. 

I barely had time to process it all before Ralph revealed the true hard-hitter.

"In fact, uh," he said, "he'd been thinking of you so much that he… made something for you. He told me to give it to you right away, because… I dunno, he said you seemed ready for it."

Then he reached into the chest of his overalls and pulled out a square picture frame. I was confused at first, but once he handed it to me and I saw what it was, my heart stopped.

Inside the frame were napkins from his bar. Four of them, arranged in a neat square. And on those napkins were… drawings. Two of them were clear, loving depictions of you that I didn't even remember drawing. And on the other two were doodles that you and I had done together. Unflattering, playful caricatures of each other. Our drawing styles could not have been more different -- mine being fluid and organic and yours being clean-cut contour line drawings, but somehow, they worked so well together. The fragile paper was slightly ripped in places from the pens we used, and there were small sections where the ink bled from mug-shaped rings of moisture. All in all, it was a chaotic, dirty mess.

It was us. 

It was us at our very happiest moments, just goofing off together, adoring each other without ever needing to say it.

It was the most beautiful gift I'd ever received.

Struck silent by a wall of emotion, I just held it and stared at it in utter disbelief. The fact that Tapper would have cared enough to save such simple things was more than I could comprehend. The drawings could have been years old by then, but still…

It wasn't until my tears fell and splashed against the frame that I even realized I'd been crying.

"Oh," Ralph whispered, a bit of panic in his voice. "Mavis. Crying. Uh-- I'm-- I'm sorry. I didn't want you to-- I'm--"

His hands hovered around me hesitantly, completely lost as to how to comfort me. But he didn't have to decide. I felt an urge and followed it immediately.

I just reached out and took one of his huge, square fingers in my hand, even though his heavy code burned a bit to touch. He froze, rightfully taken aback. I didn't explain. I just stepped a bit closer so that he would not have to reach out to me quite so far, hugged the frame to my chest with my other arm, and bowed my head while I wept silently. Ralph said nothing, but I felt his arm relax a bit once he accepted the situation.

Eventually, I pushed a few quivering words out. "Thank you," I muttered. I looked the gift over once again. "I… I can't believe this."

"So you like it?" he asked quietly.

I could only nod.

"I'll pass that on to Tapper, then," he sighed, but I could hear a smile in his voice. "Gee, I'm just a nine-foot-tall messenger boy, aren't I?"

"Thank-- thank you," I choked out again.

"Nah… it's nothin'," he shrugged.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the gift in my hand. It was so perfect. It felt like everything I needed. Like it was the one thing that was missing in my road to recovery. That feeling in itself stood out to me, and I followed it through my mind. Apart from all the staggering sentimental value, there was something about Tapper's gesture that felt so empathetic, so validating, like he was acknowledging that I lost something wonderful, something worth mourning. It was the first thing anyone had given me, or the first thing anyone made at all, that honored your memory.

Then it hit me. The thing that was missing. The thing I would absolutely need if I had any hope of moving on.

I let go of Ralph's hand and burst through the door of Felix's apartment. He had gone back to polishing his medals, but he quite nearly dropped one when he saw the tears on my face.

"Mavy? What--"

I interrupted him, trying to keep up with my rush of clarity. "Felix," I said urgently, "I need your help. There's something I need from you. I know what I need."

He stood, approaching me with concern in his eyes.

"I need a funeral for Turbo," I said firmly. "A real one. It doesn't have to be big. In fact, it'll probably be just the three of us," I glanced back at Ralph, who was bending down once again, "but that'll be fine. It just needs to happen. Please."

I looked at Felix again, and his eyes were full of understanding, sympathy, and love.

"Then we'll do it," he said gently.

"Yeah," I heard Ralph say. "Count me in."

I choked out a single, grateful laugh. "Thank you."

We began planning right away.

It's happening tomorrow.

[nancythedrew]

Can I just vent for a hot second about how much I LOVE how the plots in the older games, specifically the ones involving “treasure,” make at least some logical sense in terms of intent of the original creator and how all the components fit together?

TRT - Marie Antoinette had the tiara separated and sent off in separate directions and while it’s kind of attenuated that Hotchkiss and Jacques had theirs in the castle at the same time it fits together that Marie would then have in her journal the decoder for how to place the medallions in the correct spots and to dig at the purple rose to get the key for it, and then all the other puzzles leading into the tower were designed by Ezra Wickford who was just trying to block off a historical section of his hotel.

SSH - Henrik tracking down the pieces of the key to open to the monolith which the Mayans intended to keep locked forever because the Whisperer was talking shit, and Henrik has located most of the pieces but some Nancy can’t track down and has to use replacements(using that mold, and the replica that Prudence had) which makes sense that they work because the Mayans weren’t like designing some hella high-tech contraption anyway.

DDI - Hilda Swenson becoming a recluse after her husband died but still wanting to talk to someone who she thinks is capable and worthy enough who proves themself through unscrambling the text on the souvenirs she left for people she loved and contacting her via morse code. 

SHA - LEGENDARY. Dirk Valentine leaves this series of puzzles for the woman he loves because he knows she loves puzzles and loves how beautiful she looks solving the puzzles. And even aspects like the “green bottle / under cellar stairs” note that Frances wrote to herself to find where she hid the letters from Dirk. I cry

CUR - Just a kooky ass family that assumes this meteorite has magical powers and carries on this tradition of every other generation creating a puzzle to help keep it protected but leaving all that’s necessary to complete it in the family home.

DAN - Homegirl Noisette was a CITY PLANNER so she was able to use the entire city of Paris + her own moulin as a means to find what she had hidden away to keep safe.

And then after this.... they get kind of bad.

Like they aren’t -horrible-

But they really do feel like a stretch. It kind of starts feeling like HeR had a formula in their heads for what a game needs(puzzles, secret passages, treasure) but forgot how to actually tie it into the plot in a believable way.

CRE - Dr. Quigley found this ancient nose ring that we get handed that unlocks a ton of ancient secret passages that also include a puff of air that can murder us? 

ICE - Trapper Dan creates these insane secret passages that eventually 4 different coins obtained in various ways to get to his “needle” which is just like...a little hideout?

CRY - enough said

RAN - Literally no subtly or lead in. 10 minutes into the game we’re told we have to find some guy’s treasure for the kidnapper. O.K., I guess.

SAW - Instead of just communicating to her daughters that they can choose whatever career path they want Kasumi gives them each half of a nonogram that they can only solve if they work together using both halves to find a letter containing her wishes...but the necessity for the letter would only exist if they were having issues working together ??

ASH - We’re supposed to believe Nancy Drew has never discovered HIDDEN TUNNELS in her hometown before this point

MED - I’m not trying to be facetious with this game but there’s just so much that doesn’t make sense even with a replay and trying to be generous. Who made these caves? How did Jin know how to get through these caves? How did Jin draw cartoons that predict what would happen in the gameshow? Where did Sonny get the component parts used in the gameshow?

MID - hahaha..haha..ha...

[olivedoesmagic]

Journal 19: Everything I wanted [Billie Eilish]

Journal 19: Everything I wanted [Billie Eilish]

I’ll start this journal with an entry. I met a griffon like spirit who wished to be my “spirit guide” he introduced himself as Whether. He was a shining blue griffon who claimed to exist outside the multiverse. He took me on a guided mediation sort of trial where I reality shifted through his help, the exercise was as follows.

“Imagine a white portal or door with one thing changed (you dr) and focus on it. Step through visualize it then imagine a blue door back to here and take that thing with you and thrust it through that's how you shift this reality to your liking”

He gave me instruction for a sigil for him.

So I start off this log with the fact that I reality shifted in my sleep. I visited a whole world where your dress code determined who you were and I was essentially rebelling against the order by choosing to dress emo with a few others. That and also getting wrapped up in a cult like religion at the same time. The pacing was really strange because it was a dream and I don't remember it fully but it was the second time I "fully” shifted by technicalities sake. The second time in my sleep as well. I have a long history with the emo fashion of going in and out of it so this shift isn't completely out of place for me. But the environment and choices of it were quite strange.

The next shift was super brief I was in the shower and met a cat humanoid person who was surprised and shocked to see me because "humans are long since extinct" she looked like one of those cats from the cgi movie Cats that recently came out. She made note of water falling on place across me that seemed out of nowhere when in reality I was shiting from the shower. This shift was different from others because I was shifting my whole person there appearing like physical rather then as a spirit coconcious with myself previously as I normally do. The shift of this reality basically boiled down to "you don't belong here" so I quickly left. 

I visited Z again. I’ll just tell you the character’s name. He goes by Zone. He's my fictional character. I was in his home. He took me to a new location in his home that I recently established in my writing. A room with the number 7 on the door frame. Inside it he showed me a box with the decapitated head of his former companion. I was spooked. I knew he was going to keep some kind of momento from when CH his friend eventually dies in the stories I write about the two, leaving Zone heartbroken and alone but the whole decapitated head thing was wild and something I never would've written or even come up with. He confronted me about being “his writer” on earth C which is what I call this reality that we are currently staying in.

Last shift was at 2 in the morning. It was a fictional universe. I was ages between 11-13. I slit my wrist. I was in the Twilight universe and Alice bit me and fully fed off the blood from my wrist unable to control herself. This universe was mildly scripted using parameters in my mind which I hastily did as soon as I saw I was headed there. This has to do with some stuff from the past when I was skiso which is the only reason it was scripted at all. Basically in this universe around 11-13 I don’t know quite young, I turned into a vampire. Carlile offered to adopt me admitting he had never taken one so young before. He told me we would have to fake my death and separate me from my adopted parents (I’m adopted in our reality as well) which I was upset about asking for one more day with them. He told me no, that I'm a vampire I couldn't do that. He told me as a vampire I would no longer need food or drink and I couldn't consume it and he knew that that would be hard for me. He seemed familiar with me. I had reality shifted here before once with within a dream, and I think that’s why the Cullens knew me here. Alice apologized for being unable to control herself. Say what you want about Twilight as a work of fiction but the world building in those books is insane. 

Still not a fan of reality shifting to fiction but the multiverse seems to want to take me to fictional realities. I’m not a fan of the atheistic views of chaos magick. But pop culture magick holds a strong horse. The multiverse wants me to value this. It wants me to see this. It wants me to view these things as valuable. So I’m stuck here and I have to. I didn't intend to go to the Twilight universe. Where Bella was nowhere to be seen. But I quickly put in some scripts aka some manifestations as I saw that I was going there. I'm a fan of twilight in fact I'm re-reading the first book as I write this but I digress.

Overall lately I've been struggling with what I call "reality sickness". Reality sickness is basically when you become obsessed with the aspects of reality shifting and courses of your actions in correlation to reality shifting or generally get confused about realities or start to experience unreality due to reality shifting. Ie, overthinking actions because of how they will change timelines, experiencing general unreality and so on. I think this can be a general effect of shifting too much and as someone who's been doing it every other day unreality is generally something I'm starting to suffer from. 

I'm on antipsychotics though and they tend to keep me grounded but this unreality still poses a danger to anyone less fortunate or not on any meds. It's also why most witches suggest you do grounding. I can handle it but just know it's a struggle and it's there. I don’t feel “real” anymore and reality shifting has become almost like an obsession for me. So much so that I’ve taken a break from other forms of magick which have suited me better over the years. I don’t reality shift to escape. I reality shift to explore.

I’m a magician because I want freedom. That’s why I do magick. I want exploration, power, and excitement. Traveling is something that’s always caught my eye. But this isn’t doctor who. We’re not gifted with unlimited funds or the ability to go anywhere we desire. So reality shifting in many ways is a way to quench that thirst of mine. Reality will always be stranger then fiction. But I want it stated clear and strong right here and now on thick white and black paper, that I do not reality shift to escape.

-Olive Brimstone

9:16 PM

10/5/2020

[dontshootmespence]

Supernatural AU: Episode 1 - Born to Fire

Part 4

This was ridiculous. Sitting in the middle of the stagnant station, surrounded by papers and small-time officers was a waste of his time. He should be out there.

He realized these people were just doing their jobs, but Dean couldn’t help laughing as he was brought into the station. That usually caused more trouble, but he couldn’t help it. Of course with the articles they’d found taped to the walls of the hotel room, he did look guilty as hell, but that was only because they didn’t know the things his family did. “I don’t think you know how much trouble you’re in son,” the chief said.

“Mmm, trouble,” he said, begging his mind to shut up as the words came tumbling out. “Misdemeanor kind or don’t-bend-over-for-the-soap kind?” He really needed to think before he spoke. The tendency to word vomit was strong in him.

The chief was exasperated - like he was way too tired for this shit after too many years of this shit. “Cute. So Dean,” he said pointedly, taking the younger man off guard. He’d never told them his name. “Recognize this?”

Shit.

It was their father’s journal. It held lore for every being he’d ever faced, including ways to kill it, sometimes along pictures and ciphers and codes that only made sense if you were in the life. He never left without it. Something was really, really wrong.

                                                            -------

As soon as Sam and Bobbie snuck out the window of the bathroom of the motel, they made their way to Constance’s former husband.  He had some explaining to do. The youngest and oldest of the Winchester children had a very plausible theory, but they needed confirmation. “Hi,” Bobbie said as he cracked open the door. “Are you Joseph Welch?”

Warily, he opened the door and stepped out, taking a picture from Sam of the four of them from when they were kids. All of them were smiling. It was the day after the fourth of July when Bobbie was 10; it was one of her favorite family memories. She had the same picture in her wallet. “Have you seen him?”

“Yea, he’s a bit older,” the husband said gruffly. “But that’s him. He said he was a reporter.”

Sam confirmed. Despite his being the youngest and not wanting this life, he took naturally to it. “We’re working on a story. Can we just ask you a couple questions?”

Joseph was less than enthused. “Do I have to do this again?”

“Fact checking,” Bobbie said, which technically was true. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

Constance was buried near their old place according to Joseph, which meant that in all likelihood John had already salted and burned her body. Of course they’d check, but it was the natural order of things.

After his kids had died, Joseph never wanted to step into the house again and he never remarried. Bobbie couldn’t shake her gut feeling though. It made her angry so she stepped back to let Sam continue the inquisition. “Constance was the love of my life.”

Right. Sure she was.

“Thanks for your time,” Sam said with an appreciative nod.

Bobbie was five steps away from the car when her anger got the better of her. “Mr. Welch, have you ever heard of a Woman in White?”

“A what?” It was basically understood that you didn’t tell ‘civilians’ about the supernatural because in all likelihood they’d think you were crazy, but she couldn’t stop herself.

Bobbie started explaining, attempting to keep her emotions in check. “It’s a phenomenon, a ghost story if you will. They’ve been around for hundreds of years and been spotted all over the world.” Her voice started to shake as she approached him again. If her suspicions were confirmed that didn’t mean that Constance wasn’t culpable, but she would’ve definitely been driven by outside factors. He turned away and attempted to walk back to his home, but she kept talking. “They all have one thing in common though. During their lives, their husbands or boyfriends were unfaithful to them and in a moment of temporary insanity they killed their children and then themselves. They’re cursed now and whenever they find and pick up another unfaithful man, they kill him.”

His eyes pierced into hers when he turned around again, minute ticks in the muscles around his mouth showing just how much he hated being so accurately picked apart. Suspicions confirmed. “You think that has something to do with Constance?” The shakiness in his voice, the ‘mistakes’ he made, Bobbie didn’t need to hear it. And she sure as hell didn’t want to. His eyes told the whole story. “Get out,” he spat. “And don’t come back.”

“What was that?” Sam asked when she made her way back to the car. “We already knew.”

“Some of these vengeful spirits get a bad reputation,” she said, her mouth dry from anger mixed with the dirt floating through the air around Welch’s house. “Don’t get me wrong, what Constance is doing is not okay, but somebody else should be culpable. He should know what his betrayal did to her. Maybe if he’d kept it in his fucking pants she’d still be here and we’d be halfway across the country.”

                                                             -------

Back at the station, Dean tried to convince the chief for the 100th time that the code he’d found, 35-111, was his high school locker combination. It was apparent that the chief wasn’t buying it, but then a 911 call came in and caused everyone to leave the station. Dean was left alone, handcuffed to the table with the journal and a handy-dandy paperclip for lock-picking within his grasp. It only took a few minutes for him to get out of the cuffs and near a payphone a couple blocks away from the station. “Hey, Sam. Fake 911 call? Pretty illegal. Was that you or Bobbie?”

“You’re welcome,” he laughed, catching his sister’s surprised face in the passenger’s seat. He’d made the call when she was grilling Joseph Welch so it came as a surprise to her. “Listen, the husband was unfaithful, so we’re definitely dealing with a Woman in White and she was buried behind her house so that probably would’ve been Dad’s next stop.”

“Would you shut up for a minute? Dad’s gone.”

“What?” Bobbie blurted out. “How do you know?”

The journal. And like any good ex-marine he’d left coordinates for them to follow to another case who the hell knew where. “Woah, Sam look out!” She cried.

On the road ahead among the mist, stood a woman in white clothing.

                                                             -------

Sam smashed his foot down on the brakes, the sound of Baby’s wheels screeching against the pavement getting louder and louder until they came to a stop. Looking in the rearview mirror, Bobbie saw her in the backseat, but she wasn’t paying any attention to her at all; she was looking at Sam. “Take me home.”

“No.”

Before either of them could bail out of the car, Constance bolted down the locks and steered them down the road. It took less than two minutes to get to her home, which was beaten down by years of the elements and no upkeep. With the stories floating around the small town, no one wanted to step anywhere near it to take care of it or even to demolish it all together. “Don’t do this,” Sam spoke.

Bobbie caught her eye as she looked wistfully toward the house. What she wouldn’t have given to bring Constance’s attention toward her instead of her baby brother. No matter how routine a case was, no matter whether they all knew how to handle things or not, she loathed having Dean and Sam in danger more than anything else in the world.

“I can never go home.”

“You’re scared to go home,” Bobbie realized in sudden understanding.

The heat flared in the spirit’s eyes and in the blink of her lashes she was in the front seat, pushing Bobbie out of the side of the car and locking it again. She wanted Sam alone.

As she rolled out of the car, Bobbie hit her head on a rock and stumbled for a brief moment before finding her footing. The condensation on the windows obstructed her view, but it was as clear as day. The young woman was sitting on top of her brother, trying to coax unfaithfulness out of him in an attempt to justify killing him.

“No fucking way,” Bobbie muttered. “No one gets to kill him but me.”

Reaching to the small of her back, she clasped her Beretta 92 Combat and aimed at the spirit. Since her body was already burned, the bullets wouldn’t do anything, but if she could distract her long enough for Sam to get away that was all that mattered. The scream he let out as her hand pierced his chest threw Bobbie off and she nearly missed, blinking away the uncertainty before taking aim again.  

Just as the woman seemed to disappear, Dean showed up, gun at the ready. In the split second it took Dean to ask what was going on, Sam sat up and drove the Impala into the old house.

Ohhhh, Dean was going to be mad.

“Sammy!” Bobbie screamed.

Dean bolted into the house and stuck his head in the car. For how much he loved that thing, Sam mattered more. “You okay?”

“Yea, I think I’m fine.”

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Bobbie’s thoughts exactly.

“I took her home.”

Sam was forever the gentleman.

Dean pried the door open and held out his hand for Sam, yanking him out and clapping him on the back. Bobbie ran to him, wrapping her arms around him before pulling back to smack his chest. “Don’t do that again! You scared me!”

“Sorry, Mom,” he laughed. Sad thing was that was basically what she was to him. He was way too young to have formed any lasting memories of their mother.

A crack of glass behind them caused them all to snap to attention again. She was back. Dipping down, she picked up an ornate, gold picture frame from the floor that held a picture of her with her two children. They were the picture perfect family torn apart by indiscretion and a moment of insanity. Tragic didn’t even begin to cover it.

When she looked their way, the heat in her eyes could have melted them on the spot. This is why she couldn’t come home. She could never bring up the nerve to confront her kids about what she did to them. Bobbie couldn’t help but think that their father owed them a big, fat apology too. If just a few decisions had been made differently, this could’ve been avoided and this little family might have been saved. It was such a stupid, fucked up mess. Good thing they specialized in exactly that.

As the lights flickered in the small house, Constance stepped out of the way and sent the vintage dresser into them, pinning the siblings against the passenger side doors of the Impala. Instinct told Bobbie to push the drawer out of the way and do something and Sam sensed it, grabbing her arm to hold her back.

She wasn’t focused on them anymore. Constance’s gaze had been drawn up the stairs. At first they couldn’t figure out what it was and they didn’t want to move and draw her attention back to them, but then they heard it.

“You’ve come home to us, Mommy.”

In the silence of the house, the ghosts of Constance’s children appeared at her side and fixed their eyes on her. In them Bobbie could see the unconditional love of children. There was no hatred there. They didn’t seem to be mad at what had happened. Could they see the guilt in their mother’s eyes?

Before she could back away, they grabbed her by the arms, sending an ear-shattering scream throughout the house. It had been over a decade since she’d been able to look them in the eye and the pain in her scream said it all. In an instant, Constance and her children were gone.

Without the supernatural entities to keep the dresser in place, Dean, Bobbie and Sam pushed it off of them and walked toward the area where she’d vanished. “That’s why she couldn’t go home,” Sam said. “She was too scared to face what she did.”

“I didn’t seem like her kids were all that mad,” Bobbie replied. It was astonishing the love a child could have for a parent even under the worst of circumstances.

Dean took a deep breath and turned away. The wheels in his mind were already turning. One job was done – onto the next. “If Dad’s not here, then where?” Sam and Bobbie replied with silence. When they did find him, Bobbie was going to have it out with him. If he was alive and just not responding, he was a dead man.

As Dean glanced over the Impala. “Sam, if you screwed up my car, I’ll kill you.”

“What?” He exclaimed. “We solved the problem, didn’t we?”

                                                            -------

A/N: There’s so much more in store. If you want to be added to the taglist, go here and like the post.

@remember-me-forever-silent-angel @gaylemonshark @marveldivergentouatdctvfangirl @lalirang @averagekansan @addsomesalt @stusbunker @sebba-hiddles @fanfictionrecommendations-com @hoppy519@thatwrestlingfan91 @extremeobsessions101 @spence-imagines @bettercallsabs @whaaatthefuuuuck @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @your-imagination-runs-wild @cryinglots @steggy01 @gigilame @sedulous-mind @a-unique-girls-heaven @just-antiyou @rmmalta @original-criminal-fanfics @ties-n-suits @veroinnumera @eurusholmmes @fanficienjoyedreading @astridstark13​

[fapangel]

SO what do you what will happen now with the whole fake Bomer guy supposedly be a trump supporter? Do you think the blue wave will restart or is it too little to late?

The most significantrevelation of the mail-bomber incident was that the Republicanmainstream – not the usual fringe kooks, but the levelheaded,respected commentators – immediately suspected it to be amanufactured “October Surprise.”

Some of those knee-jerktweets have since been deleted, likelyfor the same reason that I was more alarmed that I could entertain a“false flag” theory in the first place than I was by the possible“false flag” itself. Embracing asinine conspiracy theoriesis, to me, a hallmark of left-wing agitprop, an indelible impressionfrom my formative Bush-era youth when ~Halliburton~ and~Bush’s cabinet of puppeteers who have Jewish last names~was unceasingly invoked in anypolitical argument. And yet, despite knowing theoverwhelming odds of a lone lunatic being the perp (as indeed theywere) and my own decades-old biases against conspiracy theories, Istill found myselfmuttering dubiously.

Iwasn’t alone in that impression – the NewYork Times picked up on it too, and as is their wont managed todisclose their unique myopia as well. In their effort to equate allright-wing media to Alex “Lizardman Chemtrails” Jones’s usualconspiracytainment bullshit, theydrop this revealing paragraph:

Mr.Jones has been largely pushed tothe fringes of the internet — kicked off Twitter, Facebook and adozen other services — and his cries for attention now seem mostlypitiful. (This week, he was filmed yellingat a pile of manure outsidea rally for President Trump in Texas.) Buthis spirit lives on in the larger universe of pro-Trump media, whichhas fused the conspiratorial grandeur of Infowars with an unshakablefaith in Mr. Trump’s righteousness.

Theyautomatically equate media exposure of an idea with how manyviewers believe the idea. The thesis of the article lies inthese two sentences; Alex Jones has been silenced, but the moremainstream right-wing media has picked up his ideas, and that’s whythey’re still alive.

Thisalone speaks volumes about the media’s worldview, but to reallydrive it home see thisarticle wherein the reporter blames Trump’s attacks on themedia for their plummeting popularity, as if the Great PresidentialPumpkin can sway millions of Americans into hating themainstream media via his eldritch mind-control rays. This is why theyspeak of “an unshakable faith in Mr. Trump’s righteousness-”leftists view the world in terms of stupid mobs and the influentialdemagogues that sway and lead them. They simply cannot comprehendthat their own actions have shattered the public’s trust in them,despite the problem long predating Trump (one of my Journalism 101professors cited trust polling that consistently put Journalistsbelow used car salesmen back in 2007!) They find it easier tobelieve that their vast media empires’ combined megaphone is beingdrowned out by RumpleTrumpskien pied piping on his magical racistdogwhistle than to admit that people might think for themselves longenough to call them out on their egregious lies.

Thisdovetails nicely with recent revelations thatthe FBI leaked information to the press, then cited said “reporting”to the Justice Dept. as justification for further investigations,including FISA wiretapping warrants. Whilethe media’s lunacy is frequently amusing – reporters leaningdramatically into nonexistent wind, CNN’sfit over a panel truck blocking their stalker peephole in the hedge,or going bugfuck insane because Trumphad dinner without informing the media – nobody’s laughinganymore. And it’s precisely because of the growing understandingamong the populace of how the media has wantonly abused its power toaid the abuse of Federal power to nullify the results of a democraticelection.As Ian Miles Cheong said; “if the media can lie about somethingas insignificant as a koipond feeding ceremony, what else are they lying about?”

Well,now we know – and the people don’t seem amused.

I’vecovered the media’s worldview and demonstrable myopia before; Iaddress it in this instance to show thatthe media simply cannot adapt their message. Indeed,the NYT article on fringe-to-mainstream cites the mocking/pol/ “suspicious devices” meme without apparentunderstanding of how it undermines their implicit assumptions mereparagraphs prior of deplatforming speakers equalingthe silencing of their ideas. Theleft-wing “mobs and demagogues” is more than theory to them; it’show they organize – which is why John Oliver’s sick Friday nightburns are being repeated ad nauseam on Facebook by early Saturdaymorning. Theleft truly cannotmeme;it’s simply how they function. So when RumpleTrumpskien needles themedia into talking All About Themselves instead of the issues at handyetagain, iteffectively makes the mediathe issue at hand – and given that pollingconsistently shows that many Democrats are coming to distrust themedia of late, that’s not a strong issue for the DNC.Conversely, right-wingers will be shitposting the latest dank memeswith or without Alex Jones’s Twitterfeed, comehellor Maxine Waters.

Thusly,I conclude the mail bomber incident won’t have a significant impacton the electoral map – notjust because of widespread cynicism engendered by constant mediafalsehoods, but also because the structural problems that producedsuch alsocripple the media’s ability to exploit such incidents. In fact, themedia’s incredible blindness makes them likely to harmthe left-wing’s cause by doubling down on narratives that wereasinine the first time around. There is no bad news for the DNC thatthe media’s mental illness cannot make worse. Takethe latest example of thesynagogue shooter thatturnedout to be a Trump-hater who thought POTUSwas controlled Jews. Theusual hate-mongeringWaPo crowd actuallydug up the “star-shapedbackground graphic in a campaign ad” gem that was laughablelunacy beforeTrumpmoved the US embassy to Jerusalem and made defending Israel in the UNa cornerstone of US foreign policy. Thisis placed at the topofthe article, as if it’s a powerful and convincing lead-in to thelong-winded paranoid rambling of “troll armies” motivated by theusual mystic ~coded signals~ mentioned later on. Eventhe more sober-sounding takes likethis NYT hit-piece must open by blaming Trump for the crimes ofTrump-supporters andTrump-haters,which obliges the author to afascinating attempt in pissing up a rope without getting wet.

Itnaturally follows, then, that breathless media polling reports citing85% and upwards chances of a “blue wave” retaking the House areabout as trustworthy as similar polling in 2016. Even Nate Silver’smuch-vaunted “538” polling agency has come under prettypointed criticism for the number of times they’ve shrugged offsimilar “80%” predictions that haven’t come to pass – froma Harvard professor, no less. Furthermore,midterm elections are different in many ways – local issues oftenhave people more fired up (read, pissed off,) especially regardinggubernatorial elections. Since midterms are traditionally very lowturnout, a popular gubernatorial candidate can have a huge impact on“down-ballot” races – i.e. people show up to vote for thegovernor, and vote straight party ticket for alltheother candidates, US House included. In short, the polls mean jackdiddly squat, soeveryone’s simply reporting what they want (if you don’t believeme, look no further than Fox News’s reportinga nail-biting dead heat currently, then thisSeptember 22ndarticle on how dismissing “blue wave” rhetoric as the bullshit itis could suppress the Republican vote via overconfidence.A “dead heat” narrative is the safest way to turn out votes; norisk of overconfidence or hopelessness keeping people away from thepolls.) Soto evaluate the potentials, we must turn to the murkiest of allpolitical-forecastingcrystal balls - “energy levels.”

There’sbeen multiple media-exacerbated own-goals for the left in thatregard, most notably the mind-blowingly vicious smear campaignagainstJustice Kavanaugh that only managed to rile the right wing via sheeroutrage even more than the left. I could roll this one around fora while – talking about the surprising pluralities (note therelatively high numbers of Democrats and low numbers of Republicans“Very Angry” over Kavanaugh’s suffering; a surprisinglycenter-right plurality,) or how big the Republican benefit really was(Republicans being moderately more outraged than Democrats amounts toa low gain if Democrats enteredthe fray with high outrage already; but it’s likely that manyRepublicans who didn’t care at all before are outraged now).Butthere’s a larger factor to contend with – the historical realitythat the party controlling the Executive usually loses seats in theHouse in midterm elections. It happens with regularity for the samereason PoliSci101 shows you a “standardized plot” of Presidential approvalratings over time – human nature. Whoever’s in charge gets blamedfor everything bad, simply enough – so even popular Presidents willshed a few seats in the mid-terms. Combine this with the importanceof turnout in midterm elections and the oft-lamented anti-Trumpobsession on the left, and everything seems to point to Democratsbeing more motivated.

However,I’m not so sure they are.

Youtuber“Aydin Paladin,” an advanced psych student who usually talksabout psychology in a political context, did a video 11 months agotitled “LeftistLethargy and Low Energy,” specifically addressing how aconstant state of horror and outrage at every single damn Trump tweethas the inevitable consequence of emotional burnout. One cannot stayoutraged forever. At some point, you simply stop caring. Onecould debate Ayadin’s point that the left was demonstrablyhittingthis point a year ago, or posit that they’ve had time to recover –but I personally believe the lethargy lingers. Myevidence? A quick jaunt through the New York Times’ editorial page:

*A Halloween op-ed about Trump literally being worse than the fuckingbogeyman (“WhenNightmares Are Real” by Jennifer Finney Boylan,)

*An article begging Democrats not to take a usually-safe votingdemographic for granted, Native Americans

*An article on “how to turn people into voters,” featuring a modelspecific to “black Southerners,” who are a safe Democraticdemographic – but only when they actually turn up to vote,

*Andmost tellingly, an article titled“You’redisillusioned. That’sfine. Vote anyway.”

Blindand narcissistic they may be, but I trust the media to know their owntribe – and theiroutlookon the base’s revolutionary fervor looks rather dim. Once again themedia’s endless talent for own-goals is apparent. The continuingdemonizingof Trump as theworst nightmare ever onlyensures that a choir that tired of the preaching a year ago willremain so. The struggle to get black voters to actually turn out isan old and ongoing one, but pissed-off Native Americans isn’t justElizabethWarren’s fault – it was mostly the media that accepted her DNAtest showing some squillionth of a percent of native DNA asvindication,andthen gallopedover to Trump to triumphantly flaunt it at him, giving him a goldenopportunity to mock it on national TV – on their own live networkbroadcasts, even.

You’llnote that the point regarding the media’s self-sabotage of theleft-wing movement was made many paragraphs ago, but it continues torear its awful head as a salient factor in almost every exampleillustrating any otherpoint in this article – this is how pervasive it is.

There’smore to Democratic lethargy than the media pissing off key left-wingDemographics in western states with important House races, however –there’s also the overall lack of a message. Instead of coalescingon a single one, Democrats appear to be taking a local-issuesapproach, which is rather awkward given they – and the media –have spent the last two years making absolutelyeverything aboutTrump. They’re stillmaking everything about Trump (e.g.synagogue shooter) even now,inthe eleventh hour. Thenthere’s the notable and growing strain between old-schoolblue-collar union Democrats and the “progressive wing” (viz.privileged wealthy white socialists) whichdivides their messaging on the economy – especially tellingconsidering the record-low unemployment and rapidlyrising wages. (It’s hard to tell people they’re living inObama’s economy whenyou were telling them it was Trump’s climate a few months ago.)

Andof course, the cherry on this shitstorm sundae is the latest greatestmigrant caravan advancing through Mexico – seven thousandstrong, originally – which took Trump’s single greatest electionissue and slam-dunked it in the middle of the debate again. Thecaravan is significant because it tangiblyprovesTrump’s long-standing point regarding immigration problems, and isexactly the kind of thing a big wall would hinder – awall Trump can’t build if he can’t get a funding bill through theHouse.

Insum, the left still lacks a coherent message, is still desensitizingtheir electorate with constant panicked screeching, is frequentlypissing off their own key constituencies with their ham-handedagitprop, and are helping to suppress their own vote by portraying anelection that’s all but won. Meanwhile the Republicans have aPresident who’s actually delivered on many of his promises, has agreat recent event to showcase how delivering on the rest rides onthis next election, and, in general, have optimism.Somethingabout Kanye West’s recent visit to the White House stood out to me– he saidhe had nothing against Hillary’s campaign slogan, but when he puton a MAGA hat, he “felt like Superman.”

“Feltlike Superman.” That’s a sentiment of empowerment.Obamaunderstood the power of positive messaging – it’show “Hope and Change” swept him into office in his first term.Democratsthis year simply don’t.

Ican’t call it either way. But I cantell you that anyone who thinks this election is all over but for thecounting isnuts. The battle lines of 2016 have only been dug deeper, and thesimple truths of human nature make for an uphill fight – but by thesame token, Democrats have badly misplayed the hands they have, arecompletely incapable of real self-reflection on any significantscale, and Trump’s been President for two years with realsuccesses, with the much-ballyhooed Trumpocolypse yet to descend.

Insofaras I can call anything, I’d say this election is going to be close.I’d tell you to go out and vote, especiallyif you don’t want to see the party encouraging mob intimidation andstoking racial hatred controlling the House – which they’ll useto launch endless sham investigations of Trump long after Mueller’scharade finally gives up the ghost, in addition to impeaching himjust for the hell of it. If Trump loses the House he- and his agenda- will be a lame-duck for the next two years, because any seriousbill needs to be passed by both House and Senate.

Onceagain, everything is on the line.

I’mnot sick of winning yet.

[samanthassandcastle]

13 Tips For Making Your Semester Just a bit Easier

Why hello there. I'm a graduate, which is super scary to say. I also am a perpetual student and as someone with mental illnesses, school can be hard. I mean, it's hard for a lot of reasons, lets be real. It can also be a wonderful experience. Below, I've listed 13 of my personal methods of helping my year be just a bit easier. Will they work for you? Maybe. I can't possibly know that, only you can. Bear that in mind. If you know something wouldn't work for you, ignore it. There's no harm in that. :)

Read the effing syllabus

No lie. Every single class I had at my last university had a quiz on the syllabus during the first week. They’re incredibly important because they typically have a calendar of assignments, tell you when you’re going to be doing things, give you policy information, have a grading breakdown, and have all of the required materials, not to mention your class and professor information.

Plan your semester

After you get all your syllabi, make a master calendar. I got one of the monthly calendars from the target dollar spot, or really anywhere like amazon, staples, office depot, etsy, target, etc. I personally used bullet journaling and created my own planner. I went over the top and color coded the classes, but you can simply put the class and the assignment on the date it’s due. This helps make sure you always know what’s coming and aren’t blind sighted when it comes due. You don’t even have to do it in a paper planner. One of my classmates scheduled reminders on her iPhone on the due dates. She said it took forever, but she liked it.

seek out accommodations

This may not be as obvious, but is tremendously important. my second semester I was taking six classes in the same department and just all happened to have projects due around the same time. I was having an incredibly hard time keeping up because I have severe anxiety and would become overwhelmed incredibly easily. I couldn’t take any less classes because my major courses were on cycles and that was the only time they were offered and I had a specific time frame to finish, so don’t start with that. My point is that when I realized that it was becoming an issue, I spoke to my school’s disability services and received accommodations from my professors. It’s contractual, and they cannot ask what the disability is, and they’re required to uphold whatever you and they agree on. I was allowed more free absences than the “unpenalized” ones, and a leniency with due dates, provided I let the prof know what was going on, generally. I always said that I was having a “flare up” because that’s not violating my privacy, but still allowed the prof to understand that I was having an issue. Most schools don’t require formal documentation from a doctor, but I had it, so I provided it. Some even are very lenient, and will have the on campus health services help you out too. 

don’t be afraid of being less than perfect

I went into school telling myself that I was going to be on the deans list, have a 4.0, and have all of the regalia when I graduated. That didn’t happen. What did happen was that I had 95 units in five semesters. Yes, that averages 19 a semester, but the way I did it was hell. First semester I had 5 classes- 18 units, second semester I had 5 classes, band, and lessons - 21 units, the six week summer I had 4 classes, one of which was a one on one which I will talk about later - 15 units, my last fall semester was 6 classes and band - 23 units, and my final semester was 5 classes and band - 18 units. Needless to say there was no way I was getting that 4.0. What did happen was I joined an honor society, was on the editing staff for the literary journal, got two articles published in the school paper, was on the executive board for a national club, and commuted 45 minutes each way, every day and sometimes weekends, for two and a half years, and ended up with a 3.2. Not only that but I had regalia for my honor society and my club, and I set a precedent for future students and got an award at the end of year honor’s banquet. I don’t think that I did too shabby, and I don’t regret not getting that 4.0.

apparel matters but not how you think

We all know that the brain is weird. For instance, if I throw on leggings and a tee immediately when I wake up, my brain is in chill mode. This is why I rarely wore loungy clothes to school. I even dressed up on Fridays, calling it fancy Friday because I love alliterations. This tactic might help you stay in the correct brain space, or not. I don’t know how your brain works. I do know that someone looked into the relationship between clothes and mood, so it can't all be rubbish.

go to office hours

So many times I heard people complain because they don’t understand something, or that the prof is being too hard on them or other things, but there’s one thing that can help with that. Go to office hours. Your profs set them up for a reason. That’s where you can get help with assignments, clarification on things, or help in other academic things. They won’t bite you I promise. You may even grow an amazing academic relationship with them. My advisor was one of my profs. She is a very intimidating woman in the classroom but a completely different prof in her office. In speaking to her about my graduation plans and needs and such she did the amazing thing of teaching me a one on one, honors, independent study, of one of the classes that she teaches that was out of cycle, so that I would be able to graduate on time. Granted, cramming an entire semester of books to read into six weeks of once a week sessions was INSANE, but it was one of my favorite classes, and an amazing thing that she did for me.

take advantage of free things

Free things are literally the best, amirite? Go to the events because they typically have free food. My school, around midterms and finals had free test taking kits with pencils and test booklets. I believe that there were a ton of free events and things for residents, but I lived off campus and commuted a long time, so I rarely did things. I did however, get a free shirt at nearly every event I went to, and got a sweet tumbler just before I graduated.

seek out associations and clubs

I am a(n inactive) member of the Phi Alpha Theta honor society because of my grades in my history courses and an alumnae of the Kappa Phi Club which is a national Christian sisterhood similar to traditional Greek life, but founded on different ideals and values. -I could go on and on about Kappa Phi, so don't get me started. :)- Both of these organizations can be started at your school if they aren't already available. By seeking out associations and clubs and the like, there are innumerable opportunities for you. As a member of PAT I have scholarship opportunities for grad school and Kappa Phi has given me amazing friendships to women across the country and will grant me leadership opportunities in the future.

don't be afraid to talk to professors like they’re real people

News flash: they are. They have feelings. I adopted a kitten from one of my profs, and I’ve babysat his children. I formed a close enough friendship with a different prof to be able to write his end of semester evaluation in emojis, which ended up in his tenure package. With forming relationships with your profs, they are able to know more about who you are and will be able to write you amazing letters of recommendation in the future.

mental health days are important

As part of my accommodations, I was given a leniency with attendance and I was able to take mental health days. I didn’t take a lot, maybe on average three a semester, but they helped me so much that if I hadn’t taken them, I would have fallen behind in my work. Your mental health is so important in school. Please don’t mentally drain yourself so that you can achieve “perfection.”

do more early on in the semester

This may seem like a silly thing, but it helps in the long run. After you go through your syllabus, take a look at things that look like they’re easy to do, or wouldn’t take long and do them the first couple weeks. Sometimes, if it’s an online submission, you can even submit it early and not have to deal with it. I did that for one of my senior projects and was incredibly happy that I did. While all of my classmates were struggling or hadn’t even started the couple weeks before it was due, I had mine finished and was just waiting to turn it in. That took the load from 5 senior projects to do to 4, and with them all due the same week it was a tremendous help.

be aware of your spending

$4 here and there at the coffee shop or quick mart on your campus may seem like nothing, but it adds up. I realized one semester that I had spent nearly $100 in one month just on coffee, which I could easily make at home, so that’s what I did. I made coffee at home and sometimes lunch and was able to keep better track on my spending.

noms are important

Sometimes it’s hard to make the cafeteria hours for meals, especially if you’re an athlete with practice during the meal times. This is why snacks are super important, or quick meals that you can make at home or in your dorm. During the summer my class started before the coffee shop opened so I couldn’t grab food there, so I started making overnight oats. I took a mason jar and filled it about half way with dry quick oatmeal, put other things (my fave was peanut butter and jelly) inside it and filled it the rest of the way with almond milk or soy milk because ya girl can’t have dairy, then put the lid on and popped it in the fridge before bed, and in the morning I had breakfast to eat in class.

There you have it. Easy peasy, right? Duh. I hope something here helped you, and if it did, let me know. If you have any to add, also let me know. I wish you the best of luck with your semester and the rest of your year! 

xoxo s

[mishivymendi]

A Small Few (Open Rp Invite)

**Journal Entry**

New beginnings start with small and careful steps. With meditation on the past, learning from the lesson wrought, and moving forward with conscious thought to not repeat the same mistakes. It is with new hope and a new understanding that  I take my first steps to such a beginning. Knowing that such a beginning is paid for by an ending.

The Othardian Resistance was successful and those who added to it cause, forever heroes in my heart. The time for hidden armies is ending for now, as the Alliance takes up the mantle and others rebuild what was lost.

The need for grand dojos and warlords has also come to an end. At least for me. The politics of war, I have come to learn, are but the musing of leaders who are entrusted to make the right choices. Those choices are based on their own perceptions, their own ignorance, pride, purpose, and their own discriminations. Those decisions are made under the influence of rules, laws and in the end their own moral code. Even I am at fault for this. Though never again.

Never again will I offer hope to masses of people in a manipulation of their spirit to a cause that is decided by a select few. Never again will I allow the ideals of another to silence my own. Never again, will I wait for permission to do what I know is right. Never again will I allow the lackings of heart, soul, and mind to be ignored because of some showcase of politics. Never again will I pretend to be something or someone I am not.

I am no leader of war or battle. I am, however, clever and know when something is right. I am no leader of hearts and minds, but I am compassionate and strive to understand.  I am no priest of the spirit to offer blessings and act as some benevolent leader. I am however a Shrine Witch and though I am trained to heal and exorcise demons of the soul, I also know how to take someone apart and condemn them to the abyss. I am not just any one thing. I am many. Just like the water and rain. Sometimes I am gentle and kind, offering love, hope, and joy. Other times, the rain turns into a hurricane and like it, I have a temper that is unmatched and without relent.

It is upon my reflects of the past and present that I have come to a new path.

If a small few can make choices that cause the slaughter of many for an agenda that is never shared with them, then a small few are powerful enough to stand up and do what needs to be done.

**Sinpets From rp**

 "It is my hope that instead of a great army, and need of a warlord, that a small few that train and learn to work together, can do far more for this world. That this small few can gather information, seek the truth, and protect all who need it. That this small few will not be blinded by parading displays. Will not be deafened by honey fed words. Will not be moved by side door politics. That this few will not sit idle while others plan battles that will eventually cause war. " She took a breath.

  The story is rather broken but the ending is the same regardless of who tells it. Alliance force meet Imperial forces in the gamma quadrant of Azys Lla. During their battle, a great beast started attacking. It is said that a ceasefire came to terms and both sides retreated. The issues lie in two things:

One, the reason they were there, and the second is that only one side went home with anything, and that is the Imperials. They captured or killed the beast. It is my aim to retrieve the beast or at least information that they have collected about it. The truth of these people will come in time and perhaps we will find it, but my goal is to make sure we know everything we possibly can about all threats. Starting with this one."

She nodded at Mishi's words. "Yes it would take a long time to train an army to a level of a somewhat decent fighter. I myself started my training as Samurai at the age of three and finished around 15 years later, only then I was able to call myself a Samurai. But yes I know what you mean and I hope you have this small few in mind already to be of aid for us.”

“So tell me, what are we against? I don't know this Azys Lla but for sure we can retrieve this beast, from the fangs of the Imperials. All we have to know where it is and then we can work out a plan"

Mishi Mizuchi giggled and smiled brightly. "I do not have people in mind. Though I have a function in mind.  Finding those people who can fill that function will prove a task on its own. I want to find people who are their own person. Who will not bow down to another because they are told to, but because they want to. I never again wish to see men and women cornered and corrupted by the ideals of another.

Once we are a small few." she sighed and let out a single breathy laugh. "If my reasoning is sound, we will need a scholar or two, both of Allagn and Imperial Tech and weapons. A scholar on ekons and oni. Though perhaps not right away. One or two capable of gathering information and fighting in close quarters. One or two magi, one or two healers Or a mix of both. " she paused and thought for a moment.

"I think that should do it. If we can find people who are a mix of two things, then we narrow our numbers. Something I would like to keep small. Tight knit and without the ability to be swayed by others. " she smiled with purpose and hope in her eyes. "Think we can do it?"

She nodded to Mishi “Yes I am sure we can do that, we just have to be careful and keeping it small, is probably the best way to go yes, easier to look over things. I know we can do it. Failure is something I do not accept and I will do everything possible to prevent such"

OOC Info:

If anyone is looking for a plot based rp and is interested in being involved in a long an winding series of shanagians, you’re welcome to join in the fun. These RP going ons are not tied to any FC, location, or race. ( Though if you’re garlean expect some IC eyeballing and probably constant scrutiny). Please be aware that we ( the small group) rp in the realm of plausible lore. Which means we are not lore strict but try to make sure that all our plots, ideas and what have you are based in lore fact and have at least two examples of lore /game content lore, to back it up. We also do not ignore anyone IC, including questionable lore. We go with it and will accept it as either something to be included or insanity. Our plots will hopefully never break lore, but we understand that other events and plots that are found out organically and created by others, may break things. We understand that people are trying to have fun and make events that are exciting and fun. At no point will we dismantle someone’s event or ongoing plots because of ooc lore/knowledge, leading to IC breaking of story/ realm/ plausible cause. We will work with what we can take from it and leave the rest alone. We are after all, here to have fun! Not tell others what they can and can not do in their rp. If you’re ok with all that and you would like to join in, give me a poke and we will find a way to pull you in!

[castlesbuiltintheair]

I was tagged by @westbrookwestbooks​ for a meme thing. Thank you! :D

Here are my answers:

1. Do you keep a journal or diary?

I used to maintain an Word doc, update-log thing, when I was in high school. Fell out of the habit in undergrad, unfortunately. Though I did update it every other birthday for a few years with my hopes for the next few years. I incidentally found/read it a little while back while cleaning out an old hard drive. It... really put my current life in perspective because my goals for myself? - I’ve kinda done that, or I’m in the process of working towards it right now. That was a pretty neat ‘No matter how awful or impossible it seems right now, this is what you really hoped and wished for just five years ago’ type moment. (Sorry, I rambled.)

2. What is your most favorite genre of fiction? Your least?

Oooooh epic fantasy/sci-fi/sci-fi fantasy is my hands-down fave. Anything where you imagine something different and fresh and new, and build a whole complex diverse and interesting world within that concept. Least favorite, contemporary drama, especially of the relationship kind. No matter how ‘well-written’, I’m usually pretty bored reading those. (Though I also realize, books by Bronte sisters and Jane Austen were technically contemporary for *their* time, so maybe my current extreme disdain of the genre is unwarranted lol.) 

3. You can pick one person from any point in the history of the world to have a conversation with. Who do you pick?

Not sure. Can it just be a random person from the Mesopotamian or Indus Valley or Mayan civilizations, that I can magically understand and gain insight into their everyday life of? Haha I don’t even know!

4. If you were a noble or royal, what would your two livery colors be for your House?

Hmmm. Blue and Green. (For my Ravenclaw+Slytherin hybrid personality because I have no imagination lol). But also, I should hope if I were a noble, it is in a country with rich green fields, and many beautiful rivers, so it flourishes and prospers.

5. What piece of art would you have in your home?

Some abstract interpretation of natural beauty, that is colorful and bright!

6. What are you currently reading?

‘Currently’ has been for the past five months (ugh), but Anna Karenina. I’ll finish it eventually ;-;

7. How do you think technology and science will change and advance in your lifetime?

I think a definite possibility is neo-evolutionism, with humans meddling with our own fundamental genetic code to selectively remove specific diseases from being a thing, right at the DNA level (see link, pretty neat for a start!) I definitely also think revolutionized forms of travel, like the hyperloop, will crop up before I turn 40, if I’m lucky. I also have a secret hope to see colonization of at least one planet or moon (I’m holding out for you, Mars or Europa!) and maybe more accessible space travel/tourism. I think things like extensive science-assisted farming and a global switch to clean energy will be inevitable, due to the fact that climate change is an actual thing that will have devastating consequences within the next 50 years, we are running dry of fossil fuels/other non-renewable sources of energy, and one of the richest countries in the world decided to elect in a denialist buffoon for a president. I also think personal AIs and robots will be a thing before the turn of the century! (Aka, exciting times!!!!) 

8. If you had the ability to meet alternate versions of yourself, who made different choices, and see how their lives were going, would you?

Yes. A million times yes. I believe the best life is the most well-informed and thoroughly educated one, irrespective of whether that knowledge can cause distress or demoralization or envy. Ignorance is bliss, but so is cocaine when you’re doing it. I’d rather know all the problematic truths! 

9. Have you ever met a celebrity and been starstruck/giddy?

Ohh I have not. I doubt I’ll ever be giddy, but I’ll definitely express my star-struckness by being exceptionally awkward and non-responsive I’m sure /o\

10. Are you introverted or extroverted?

I’ll go on a limb and say ambivert! I thought I was an introvert, but I genuinely do enjoy being in social settings, and meeting new people, and if I’m enjoying myself, can keep going for hours. The caveats are that I like doing those things on my terms, and I do need my alone time to recharge at the end of it, or I go insane.

11. What are 3 things that make you happy?

An empty calendar with no deadlines, perfectly brewed coffee, and Fridays.

Thanks for the questions!! This was fun :D

[bylerchoseme]

Oneshot #19 :) Should've known

Winter break rolled around and students were returning home. Scorpius needed to have an important discussion with his dad. He rushed inside the house searching for him. Draco was in his office, of course. "Dad! I am happy to be home." Scorpius rushed to give him a hug. "Home sweet home." He missed their bonding time. Draco noticed the change of mood. Something happened, he thought. "What's got you excited? Do you wanna share with me?" Draco knew the conversation would be interesting. Scorpius smiled and sat down. "It's important. I have to tell you the news." He was giddy. "Go on, tell me. I am all ears." Draco paused on the work he was doing. Scorpius couldn't wipe the green plastered on his face. "I met a boy and I am in love with him." He continued. "I have a boyfriend." He said happily. "A boyfriend? Do I know him?" Draco only new one at the top of his head. "Albus Potter is my boyfriend. I asked him out and he said yes. Can you believe it?" Scorpius hoped his father would be accepting. Draco being surprised would be an understatement. "Actually I can. You see I was there. You just didn't see me." "You were there?" "Indeed. I'll tell you what happened." Draco took a deep breath, "You see, it all started out like this......" Flashback: On the day Scorpius was supposed to return home, Draco spent his time re-organizing the house. He saved Scorpius's room for last. While vacuuming, he noticed a journal on the side. The cover of it had the title: "Sixth month plan with Albus." From mere curiosity, Draco decided to make a not so smart decision and read inside. "Sixth month plan? I wonder what this is about." Draco said to himself. He turned to the first page taking notice of the different color coding. "Hmmm...." At the top, month one was written and below a listing of steps included, each in their own color. #1. Pretend to be into girls. #2. Get a reaction out of him. #3. Become closer. P.S. I'll think of something. "Such a dork," Draco kidded. Draco skipped to month six. #1. Act gay. #2. Keep him distracted from females. #3. Plant the seed. His eyes looked at the final step: -Throw him off guard, kiss him and ask him out on the last day before vacation. He shut the journal and was amused. "Well, well, well. Would you look at that?" Draco apparated to Hogwarts wanting to have a word with his son. There was still some time before students would be dismissed. However, he heard Scorpius's voice and followed it. He was just about to approach Albus. Draco was quiet. "Albus wait up. Where are you going?" Scorpius asked. "To class. We are late." Albus stated the obvious. Scorpius pulled him over. "Can we skip this once? I have to ask you a question." He had his fingers crossed. "Right now? You can't wait?" It dawned on Albus today was the last day before break and changed his mind. "You know what, never mind. What do you need to ask me?" "It's not simple." Scorpius pointed out. Albus gave him a questioning look. "So what is it? What's your question?" Scorpius wondered if he was making a mistake. "You and I are close and recently I've been making realizations that could change things between us." He stared at the ground. "I can't help you unless I know what you need to say." Albus had no idea what was coming. Barely having time to blink, Albus's lips were captured by Scorpius. His eyes didn't close. He had to process what was happening. Scorpius kissed him vigorously, unlike a first kiss . It was wild and the fact they are underage made it out of this world insane. Albus kissed back and it nearly escalated out of control where the kiss could lead further which wouldn't be deemed appropriate. Neither realized what they were doing. Scorpius pulled back to prevent inappropriate courses of measure. "I am very sorry. I wanted you and I got carried away." Scorpius didn't want them in an uncomfortable situation. "I never had a first kiss before." Albus was scared. "Neither did I. You are my first kiss." Scorpius confessed. Albus missed the feeling of Scorpius's lips and kissed him again, breathlessly. "Do you want to be my boyfriend Albus?" Scorpius wasn't expecting much. "Yes I do if you will willingly take me. I hope extra kissing is a part of it." Albus blushed. Scorpius wouldn't trade it for the world. "I'll never get enough of kissing you." He kissed him back. Draco apparated home knowing fully well he will hear what went down from his son. Until then, he would wait. Cut to the present. "Oh my god, this is embarrassing. I can't believe you saw us." Scorpius put his head down. Draco rubbed his shoulder, "Don't be embarrassed to be gay as long as that gayness is with a Potter." He warned him. Scorpius brought his head up. "I am gay for Albus Potter and only Albus." He proudly told his dad. "Wait until your grandfather hears about this." Draco nudged him.