#(yes she did put him on Facebook and ask if he was anyone’s lost cat) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

alarawriting · 4 years

Text

52 Project #30 (Writeober #15: Mortality): Everybody’s Happy As The Dead Come Home

Ever since my mother died of breast cancer a few years ago, I’ve been making time to go visit my elderly father about once a month. That may be conjuring up the wrong image in your head, so let me clarify. My father’s over 70, but he still has a lot of the energy he had as a younger man. He works as a consultant for the big corporation he spent his entire adult pre-retirement life working for, for about three or four times as much money, and he enjoys it. He’s got an active social life, spending time with friends he had shared with Mom as a couple, and new friends he’s made from his bereavement group or his consulting work. And my sister, the baby of the family, lives with him, and my two younger brothers come to visit him a lot more often, since they live a lot closer than I do. So if you’re imagining a lonely, stooped old man pining away in a house that smells like stale cat food – that’s not my dad, and I can’t imagine it would ever be.

I arrived late on a Friday night, as usual. My sister met me at the door, and actually looked me directly in the eye. Stephanie’s autistic; she never looks anyone in the eye. “Eleanor,” she said, and that was another strange thing, because she almost never calls anyone by name�� unless she’s doing it for emphasis. “When you find out, don’t say anything about it,” she said.

“About what?” Most of the time Stephanie makes sense, but every so often she says something that sounds like her mind has jumped ahead in the conversation without realizing all the missing pieces she never bothered to say.

“You’ll know,” she said. “And you’ll want to ask ‘why’ and ‘how’, and I’m telling you that you can’t do that. Don’t ask any questions. Just come talk to me after you’re done.”

“Done with what?” I asked.

And then a voice called me from the TV room. “Lennie? Lennie, is that you?”

Only my mom and dad are allowed to call me Lennie. And that was a woman’s voice. I froze in place.

“Go see her,” Stephanie said, and headed off to her room.

I turned toward the TV room, slowly. “Lennie! Come out and see me!” my mom’s voice called.

I didn’t know whether to be terrified, or to start crying and fling myself into her arms. I walked very slowly, very cautiously, to the edge of the kitchen, where I could see my parents in the TV room. Both of my parents. My dad was smiling.

“Lennie!” my mom said, standing up. She hadn’t been able to stand up without help for months before she died, but here she was, standing up easily. She didn’t look any younger than she had when she died, but she looked healthier. The extreme thinness she’d suffered from at the end after it had metastasized and she’d barely been able to eat was gone; her flesh was filled out, her skin as taut as you could expect from a woman her age, and healthy-looking. Pale, but her natural paleness, not the weird, sallow, almost yellow color it had been at the very end.

“Mom?” I whispered.

“Come here. I need a hug,” Mom said, sounding exactly like she always had – joking, but there was always that note of truth under it. She didn’t wait for me to make my way to her – she never had, not until she was too ill to get up – but came straight for me and gave me a hug, and she smelled like herself. Not like a rotting corpse, not like ozone or nothing or whatever a ghost is supposed to smell like.

When I was a kid, my brother Jeff and I watched the miniseries version of “The Martian Chronicles”. In particular, he was always impressed (and terrified) by the part where the astronauts meet their long-lost loved ones, who turn out to be Martian shapechangers luring them to their deaths. I always wondered, if the people they saw on Mars were dead, how did they fall for it? How did they not know that dead people could not somehow be on Mars?

As I held my mom, who’d been dead a few years now, I understood. They’d wanted to believe. I wanted to believe. Stephanie had warned me not to ask anything – no “how are you not dead”, “how can you be here”, “why are you alive,” nothing like that. I assumed that was what she’d meant, anyway.

“Mom, I’ve been trying to trace some of my past that I’ve forgotten. Do you remember the name of my third grade teacher?”

“Huh.” My mom seemed to be thinking about it. “I think it was Mrs. Wilder, but I’m not a hundred percent sure. Second grade was Ms. Jenner, right? And fourth was Mrs. White?”

“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t, in fact, remember my third grade teacher’s name, and neither did my dad. The Martians in the story had been telepaths; they’d been able to perfectly impersonate the astronauts’ loved ones because they could read the astronauts’ minds. Now I had a piece of information whose answer I didn’t know, and no way to easily confirm it unless Jeff remembered; he was only two years younger than me and had had some of the same teachers. But some of the people I had friended on Facebook were high school classmates, and a tiny number of my high school classmates had also been with me in elementary school, and might remember my third grade teacher’s name.

“I haven’t seen you in so long,” my mom said. “What’s going on in your life?”

“Oh, you know,” I said. “Things are going okay. Mom, if I’d known you were here I’d have brought the kids.”

“You can bring them up next time,” Mom said.

This was so weird. My mom was definitely dead. I had seen her body in the coffin, lying in state, looking nothing like she had in life. But here she was, impossibly, and I was holding an almost normal conversation with her. “Have Jeff or Aaron come over since you’ve… been here?”

“Jeff was here last weekend,” Dad said. “And Aaron lives next door, so he’s been over nearly every day.”

My grandparents used to live next door. When they died, my mom and my uncle inherited the house. My uncle bought out my mom’s share and rented the house out, and my youngest brother ended up renting it. My other brother lives in an apartment down in the city; I’m the odd one out, living in a completely different state, with a husband and kids.

So all of them had known, and none of them had told me. I expected Stephanie and Aaron to never tell me anything, but I was more than a little irritated with Jeff.

“Let me go drop off my stuff,” I said, since I was still carrying my bag.

I went back to Stephanie’s room, which used to be my room, a long time ago. The boys used to room together, but my room was too small for Stephanie to share with me, and she had needed a lot of space of her own… so they’d converted the loft in the garage into a bedroom. It had never been warm in the winter, though, so as soon as I moved out, Stephanie had moved in.

Stephanie was, as usual, on her computer. I shut the door behind me. “Okay. What the hell is going on?”

“She’s not the only one,” Stephanie said, without looking away from her computer. “I’ve been doing research. They’re all over the place. There’s no explanation yet, and apparently none of them will talk about it. I asked Mom and she said I was really rude, and sulked and was really passive-aggressive.”

“So we’re not worried about Mom turning into a Martian shapechanger or vanishing, we’re just worried that she’ll get mad?” To be fair, making Mom mad had always been a thing worth avoiding at all costs. “When did she come back?”

“I don’t know exactly, but presuming that she came to see me right after she came back, it would have been Monday around 3 pm.”

“And no one told me? You have my email address!”

“…It just didn’t feel right, telling you something like this in email. I felt like I should wait for you to be here.”

“And Jeff didn’t? And Aaron didn’t?”

Stephanie shrugged. She still didn’t look away from her computer. “They probably felt the same way.”

“Does Dad… know? Like, does he even remember that Mom is dead, or does he think this is normal?”

“I didn’t ask him.”

I sat down on her bed. “Steph, I’m asking you to make an informed guess. Has he said anything to you that would either suggest that he’s aware this is abnormal, or that he isn’t?”

“I don’t read minds, but I haven’t heard anything from him one way or the other. He’s very happy, though.”

“I got that impression,” I told her. I went to the guest room, which used to belong to the boys, opened up my laptop, and sent Jeff a question on Facebook about my third grade teacher.

Mom appeared while I was debating whether or not to also ask him why the hell he hadn’t told me about her. “Lennie, don’t hide in your room. Come out and talk to me and your dad. You need to catch me up on your life!”

Part of me wanted to break down crying. Part of me wanted to run to the car. Part of me was annoyed the way I always used to be annoyed when my mom wanted to spend time with me and I had stuff to do. And part of me hated myself for being annoyed by my mom for any reason at all. She was back from the dead and I wanted to hide in my room? But I wanted to hide in my room because I wanted to do research to figure out if this was really my mom or not. And what had Stephanie meant by “all over the place”? People all over the place had returned from the dead? Why wasn’t this all over the news?

What I said was, “Okay, mom,” and I went out to the TV room to talk to her.

***

Here I was, having a completely mundane conversation with a dead woman.

Yes, my husband was doing well at his consulting business. Yes, my oldest daughter was doing well in college. My youngest daughter had a rough spot a few years ago but was doing better. The daughter in the middle was putting a lot of time into her music, and was getting really good. I didn’t mention that my oldest daughter had gotten a diagnosis of autism like her aunt, or that my middle daughter was failing all her subjects because all she cared about was music, or that my youngest daughter was openly bisexual and dating a nonbinary teen in her class, because those would be fraught topics around here. My mother would be openly disapproving of the failing in school – as was I, but I wasn’t here to listen to a lecture about what I should be doing differently to make sure Rhiannon passed her classes – and she’d be what she thought counted as supportive about the other things. Are you sure it’s a good idea for Janie to have an autism diagnosis on her medical record? Lots of people will discriminate against her, just ask Stephanie, it’s not a good thing to admit to the world. And if Lori wanted to date a person who claimed to have no gender, good for her, but was she sure it was a good idea to admit to the world that she was bi when the world is so prejudiced? Blah blah blah. No. I wasn’t going there, not with my mother back from the dead.

All the questions I wanted to ask. How? How was she back? Why? Was there an afterlife after all? What was it like? Are you absolutely sure you’re not a telepathic shapechanger who wants to eat us? Is anyone else coming back or is it just you? But I couldn’t do it. My mouth wouldn’t make the words, and I felt like Mom being alive was a soap bubble that might burst any moment. If I said she was dead, would she disappear? I couldn’t take the risk.

Now I knew why Jeff and Aaron hadn’t told me. The compulsion not to talk about it, the fear that talking about the circumstances of her death and her apparently-no-longer-deadness would cause her to stop being no-longer-dead. I wouldn’t be able to tell my husband about this, or my kids, not unless they came here. Not without feeling like Mom might disappear if I did.

Which was probably how Stephanie had gotten away with it, in the beginning. If this was some kind of emotional pressure, something emanating from the presence of a dead woman... Stephanie was typically immune to emotional pressure. Or pretended she was, anyway. She hid behind her monotone and her face that barely expressed anything until she couldn’t, and then she’d go and have a meltdown in the bathroom. But she wanted to please Mom. We all wanted to please Mom. So if Mom had told her she was rude for mentioning the death thing, Stephanie would be unable to mention it again. Because she wouldn’t want Mom to think she was rude.

This felt very much like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Dead mother back to life, check. Weird inexplicable pressure not to talk about it, check. But Mom clearly remembered things that had happened shortly before her death, and showed no evidence of knowing about anything that had happened since, unless it was public knowledge. She talked about interests the girls had had three years ago, interests they’d all outgrown since. She talked about my plan to remodel my own garage – I had completely forgotten that was even a thing we’d planned at one point, because I’d lost my job shortly after Mom died and then the money wasn’t there for the remodel. She didn’t know I was working with my husband in the consulting business now, which a telepath would obviously know because it dominates my life nowadays. Obviously a Martian telepathic shapechanger would have to pretend not to know things that supposedly happened while they were dead, but if I’d forgotten about the garage, what were the odds a telepath could pull it out of my head? There had to be more accessible thoughts in there, after all.

I didn’t know what to ask Mom. How do you feel? That was always a good one, back in the day, because Mom’s chronic illnesses meant there was always something she could complain about, but she wouldn’t do it until she was asked… she’d just quietly resent the fact that no one had asked her. But did dead people still feel things? Would that intrude on the topic I wasn’t supposed to talk about? What’s going on in your life? Oh, nothing much, Lennie, I’m back from the dead, how about you?

So I talked about myself. I was learning to work leather and I’d made myself a wallet, but I left it at home, I could bring it to show her next time. I was also learning to repair dolls. The girls had all abandoned theirs and I felt bad about it, so I was cleaning them up and repairing them and putting them in dioramas. Mom was very interested in both topics, and asked if I could repair some old dolls she had up in the attic. I was pretty sure I’d already done it – if it was the dolls I was thinking of, Dad had given them to me right after Mom died, and they were the ones I’d learned on. But was it safe to talk about? Dad wasn’t saying anything; had he forgotten he gave me the dolls, which was entirely possible, or did he think it wasn’t safe to talk about either?

I’d wanted for three years to be able to tell my mom that she was wrong about all the weight loss advice she’d given me because now it had come out that scientists had never proven that fat made you fat and the low-carb diets were probably better for you than the low-fat ones, but I didn’t know if she could still eat. Also, my mom was back from the dead and I wanted to start an argument with her about a topic I’d always hated when she talked about? Didn’t I have anything better to do? That really kind of made me a shitty person, didn’t it?

When Mom had been dying, I couldn’t talk to her about the future. I didn’t know how to bring myself to talk about things she’d never see. I’d never known how much my conversations with her consisted of me talking about future plans until I couldn’t any more. Now I couldn’t talk about the future or the past, at least not the past three years, and large parts of the present had to be left out too, because I didn’t know what would remind her that she was dead and make her go back to her grave. Even though, logically, I knew that was unlikely to happen because Stephanie had done it and had just gotten a rebuke that that was rude.

At the same time… I knew I had to say something that Mom could talk about, because if I just talked about myself all night, later on she’d probably make some passive-aggressive remarks about how everything always had to be about me. In desperation, I asked her if she’d seen anything good on television lately.

“Oh, I haven’t been watching anything in a while,” Mom said. “It’s been so long since I felt well enough to go anywhere, so I’ve been going for walks, and your father and I have been taking trips to museums and historic sites. We’re going to be going up to Boston next week.”

“I have a client up there,” Dad said, “and they want me to do a training thing. And I was telling them, no, no, Boston’s too far, but I remembered how much your mom loved Boston, so I asked her if she wanted to go and she said yes, so now we’re going. We’re going to fly, though. The days I was willing to drive that kind of distance are long over.”

“You could take the Amtrak.”

Dad made a dismissive gesture. “It’s gotten so expensive. Flying’s actually cheaper.”

“When are you going?”

“Next Wednesday we’re going to fly up there,” Mom said, which said something about her opinion of the future, at least. “Your dad’s got his presentations to do on Thursday and Friday, and I’ll wander around the city, and then we’ll spend Saturday seeing the sights together.”

“There’s this fantastic restaurant I went to last time I was up there on business,” Dad said, “and I checked their web page, and they’re still open. So we’re going to go there.”

So Mom could eat. Or Dad wasn’t afraid of talking about eating with her, anyway. Maybe ruled out vampire, but Martian shapechanger was still on the table.

I didn’t literally believe my mom – or the entity that appeared to be my mom – was a telepathic shapechanger from Mars like in The Martian Chronicles. But it was obvious that something so far outside the norm that it was only imaginable by making references to fantasy and science fiction was happening.

I tried, very carefully, “How have you been feeling, Mom?”

“I’m great!” She laughed. “I haven’t felt this good in ages. Sugar’s under control, I can see pretty well, none of the usual aches and pains… I’m doing pretty good!”

Did she remember she had died of cancer? Did she even remember that she’d died?

It was 2 am before I got to go to bed.

***

6 am and I was up and out the door before there was any chance of my mother or father being awake, assuming my mom even slept anymore. But at the very least, she was in her bedroom with the door closed and no view of the driveway I’d parked my car in.

Do I sound like a terrible daughter when I tell you I’ve never visited my mom’s grave? I haven’t been back there since the funeral. I always knew my mother wasn’t really there – that if any part of her had still existed in any form, it wasn’t trapped in a coffin under six feet of dirt. It made it somewhat difficult to find the graveyard, though, because I couldn’t remember where it was, or its name, or which church it was associated with, and it wasn’t exactly like I could ask my mom. When I finally found the place– it wasn’t that hard in the end, my parents live in a small town and there aren’t many graveyards – it took me half an hour to find her grave.

It seemed undisturbed. But if Mom had been back from the dead since Monday, that would have been time to fill in a grave. I went looking for the caretaker.

They get to work early in the graveyard caretaking business, I guess; I found him pushing a lawnmower over on the other side of the graveyard.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“This is going to sound stupid,” I said. “But I got an email from a jerk I used to know in high school claiming he was going to dig up my mother’s grave, and I just wanted to make sure nobody’s touched it.”

“Nobody’s touched any of the graves, ma’am,” he assured me. “Aside from a couple of funerals we’ve had this week, no one’s done anything to disturb the ground here at all.”

“Thanks,” I said, “that’s reassuring. He was talking like he was actually going to do it, but I guess he was all talk.”

“Well, if anyone comes by and disturbs any of the graves, we’ll have them arrested,” he said.

I had my answer. My mother had not climbed out of her grave. Which seemed impossible anyway, now that I knew enough about the funeral industry to know exactly how hard it would be to smash a coffin open, let alone dig through six feet of dirt. I couldn’t rule out her turning immaterial and floating out of her grave, but my mom had seemed very material and biological when she’d hugged me. I’d always thought of ghosts as something that were almost never solid enough to interact with the world, if they even existed.

***

If I was going to get up this early, I was going to get a pancake breakfast at the diner. My parents still think sugarless cold cereal is a reasonable thing to eat for breakfast. They were always night owls; I made myself breakfast and school lunch every morning but the first day of school, every year after about third grade. I was also a night owl, once I didn’t have to get up for school anymore, but I used to make my girls a lunch every night and store it in the fridge for them. Now they’re too old and too cool for Mom lunches. They’re eating something, but it might be cafeteria food, lunch they pack for themselves, or for all I know sandwiches from 7-11 or Starbucks with their allowance.

The point is, I hardly ever get a nice breakfast, because I am hardly ever willing to wake up early enough to cook myself one, and my parents certainly weren’t going to. So I went to the diner.

Normally I don’t talk to anyone at a diner, beyond smiling at them and telling them my order in an upbeat, cheerful voice because waitresses get too much shit from too many people for me to add to it inadvertently. Also because I don’t want them to think I’m eating alone because I’m a sad, lonely bitch no one would love; I want them to know I’m doing this because I really, really enjoy not having to socialize. But today I had something I needed to know.

“I’m a writer,” I told the waitress, “and I’m doing research on ghost stories in the area. Have you heard anything, you know, Halloweeny or spooky? Ghosts appearing, dead people walking around, poltergeists, that kind of thing?”

“Can’t say I have, but I’ll ask around, see if any of the girls know any good stories,” the waitress told me.

And then she took my order back to the kitchen, and I surfed the net on my phone while I waited, and then I got my pancakes, and I ate them. I was chasing the last blueberry around on the plate when another waitress approached me. “Stacy told me you were collecting creepy stories for a book?”

“From the local area, yeah.”

“I don’t know if this is the kind of thing you’re looking for, but… my cousin says that a lady on her street, her husband died a few years ago? But she just saw the guy walking with the lady down the street, having a conversation like the guy never died.”

“Do you think you’d be able to give my email to your cousin and have her reach out to me? That sounds like exactly the kind of story I’m looking for.”

“Uh, sure.”

I gave the waitress my email address. This was probably going to come to nothing; I doubted the waitress would even remember to give it to her cousin. But it’d be really good if I could get the details from someone who knew more about it.

***

Jeff’s more of a morning person than I am. I got a response on Facebook, but I had to wait to get back to my parents’ house, where my laptop was, to read it. On mobile, Facebook will only let you read messages if you have the app, which tells Mark Zuckerberg exactly where you are and what you’re doing with your phone, all the time. I don’t have the app. Sometimes this means I can’t read messages on mobile, but I prefer that to having an evil data empire know everything about my movements.

My parents weren’t awake when I got home. Or they were still in their bedroom. They used to do that a lot. Mom’s desk was in there, and Dad had a laptop… which he usually used on Mom’s desk, since she died. I wondered where her machine was, and if she had made a thing about it once she came back.

“I’m not sure I remember what your third grade teacher’s name was… I can barely remember my own third grade teacher. Were they the same? I can’t remember. I think my own teacher’s name was… Wil-something? Wilber? Wilkins? You’d be better off… well, you’re at the house now, or are you back at your home? Kind of important to know, because I could give you some advice about who to ask, but it’d be a different thing if you were at Dad’s house.”

He meant, “You’d be better off asking Mom, but I don’t know if you know Mom is back from the dead or not.” I was pretty sure, anyway.

I responded. “I’m at Dad’s house. Wondering how I’d be able to tell the difference between someone who’s real and a Martian shapechanger. Could the name have been Wilder?”

Five minutes later I got my answer. “Mom isn’t a Martian shapechanger. It was the first thing I thought of, so I checked.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

That answer I didn’t get until half an hour later. “I… just didn’t feel right, talking about it in an impersonal medium like the internet. I know you have a cell phone and I probably even have your number somewhere, but I remember you’re not the biggest fan of actual phone calls, so I didn’t want to disturb you.”

I replied with my phone number and the message “Call me.”

And then I had to sit by my phone, doing nothing important, nothing that would engage my attention in any serious way, waiting for him to call. Which took twenty minutes, despite the fact that I could see that he was online.

Finally the phone rang. “You raaaaang?” I answered in my best parody of The Addams Family.

“I’m pretty sure I must have, or you wouldn’t have known to pick up,” Jeff said. “Of course, I might have buzzed. You could have your phone on vibrate. Or maybe I sang, depending on what you have for a ringtone.”

“’You saaaaang?’ doesn’t have the same je ne sais quoi to it.”

“Wow, how long has it been since I heard someone put je ne sais quoi in a sentence? I think we’re old. I think that’s an old person expression now.”

“What’s going on with Mom?” I asked, quietly, in case anyone might be in the hallway to hear me.

Jeff sighed. “I don’t know what is, but I can tell you what isn’t,” he said. “Stephanie confirmed that she eats, sleeps and goes to the bathroom normally, and I confirmed all of that for myself. The toilet in their bedroom is still broken enough that they don’t flush it unless they have to.”

I winced. That was a level of detail I could have done without. “So, not vampire or undead. How did you solve the Martian thing?”

“On Monday, Dad woke up and she was laying next to him in bed. If the goal was to kill him, it would have made more sense to do it then, before he woke up, than to put on this whole elaborate performance.”

“You’re taking me too literally. I’m not worried about aliens trying to take our family off guard so they can kill us. There’s any number of things they could be up to, and they don’t have to be aliens. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Stepford Wives. My Little Pony.”

“…My Little Pony?”

“There’s creatures called Changelings that feed on love. They impersonate ponies and take the love that other ponies feel for the ones they’re impersonating, as food.”

“Kind of psychic vampires mashed up with Martian shapechangers.”

“Yeah, but without the telepathy, so they’re not as good at it as you’d think. It’s a children’s show; they have to telegraph to the kids that these aren’t the real ponies. In real life, anyone who did something like that would be more competent.”

“How much verisimilitude do we need, though? She’s got moles in the same places Mom had moles. She’s missing a toenail just like Mom. Things I didn’t consciously think about, things I might not have remembered if you asked me to describe Mom.”

“That just means that if it’s not Mom, it has the ability to rummage deeper into our memories than we’re consciously aware of. That’s why I asked you my third grade teacher’s name. I genuinely don’t remember. Mom would, I’m pretty sure. Dad wouldn’t and Stephanie and Aaron were both too young.”

“I’m not sure I remember, but when you said Wilder, that sounded like it could be right. Do you know anyone from elementary school? Some of them went to high school with us.”

“I have some Facebook friends from high school, and maybe one or two went to the same elementary we did, but I haven’t been able to locate any actual people that I remember from elementary school. They don’t have a Classmates.com thing that works for elementary—”

“It says it does.”

“It lies, there’s nowhere to enter your elementary in your profile. All it lets you put in is high school, and it’s from a drop-down, not even freeform.”

“Huh. Guess I never tried it. I’m still in touch with anyone I cared about from back then.”

“I literally don’t care about anyone from back then, but that makes it hard when you’re trying to figure out your third grade teacher’s name.”

“If she can probe our memories,” Jeff said, “then nothing you or I know, or ever knew, would be safe. You’d have to come up with something to ask her that Dad wouldn’t know, or me, or Aaron, or Steph, or yourself, but that you know Mom would know and that you know someone else who would know it too.”

“I could ask Mariana for something.” My mom’s close friend and high school classmate was one of my Facebook friends. We don’t generally communicate directly with each other, but I follow her posts.

“That’s a good idea.” I heard the sound of a whistling teapot in the background. “That’d be my hot water for my oatmeal. If you get anything from Mariana, can you tell me about it?”

“Yeah.” I’d wanted to tell him about the story I’d heard in the diner, but no one got between Jeff and his oatmeal. “I’ll talk to you later. Probably online. Voice is making me paranoid.”

“I know what you mean. Do you need me to come up this weekend? I could make a day trip tomorrow.”

“That might be a good idea. I want to talk to Aaron, do you know what schedule he’s on?”

“He works nights now, so you’ll want to get him around 2 pm or so.”

“All right. Enjoy your oatmeal.”

“I will!” he said, putting a ridiculous amount of emphasis into it as a joke.

***

Before I could finish writing a message to Mariana – before I could really start, honestly, because how could I explain why I needed what I needed without admitting Mom was back from the dead? – someone knocked on my door. It was Mom. She was wearing one of her usual kind of shapeless but colorful nightgowns, and her hair was not brushed, so it was kind of a wreck. I noticed for the first time that it was grey. Mom had always dyed her hair since she started going grey, and it had still been auburn when she’d died. I’d never seen it fully grey. “Your dad and I are going to the arboretum,” she said. “Do you want to come?”

“Since when have you been into trees, Mom?” My mother had always been fascinated by history, and to some extent natural history like dinosaurs, but I’d never seen her express an interest in nature per se.

“I never was, much,” she admitted, “but the world is so beautiful. I was always more interested in the way humans shape the world than the way it came out of the box, but things like arboretums, Japanese gardens, zoos and aquariums… they’re made of nature, but they’re made by humans, and they say something about the people who chose to make them the way they are. And you know that your dad has always enjoyed nature.” My dad was interested in science, in general, and considered the natural world part of that. He was not exactly the kind of guy who would go camping.

In the past, I would have said “no, thanks.” I was never all that interested in nature myself, certainly not trees – maybe beautiful rocks or interesting landscapes, but looking at trees wouldn’t have seemed interesting to me. I still didn’t care much about trees… but my mom was back from the dead. I’ve gone much stupider and more boring places than an arboretum with her in the past, and now… if this was really her, if she was really alive again, I was going to spend all the time with her that I reasonably could.

“Sure, I’ll go,” I said. “I’ll take my own car, though. Just give me the address.” I always took my own car if I possibly could, because I’d get carsick if I wasn’t the one driving. “Should I ask Stephanie if she wants to come?”

“Sure, you can ask. I doubt she will, though.”

Stephanie, however, surprised me. “Yeah, I’ll go with you. We’ll meet Mom and Dad there?”

“Yeah.” Dad had texted me the address, so I pulled it up in my GPS. “About half an hour from here.”

In the car, she asked me, “Have you found anything out? I know you were looking into the whole Mom thing.”

“Jeff thinks she’s really Mom. We have a plan to get Mariana to give us a question that we don’t know the answer to, but that Mom and Mariana both would, so we can confirm she really knows things and isn’t just reading our minds. And a waitress at the diner said her cousin has seen what looks like someone else coming back from the dead.”

“It’s all over the place, actually,” Stephanie said. “I’m finding reports from everywhere.”

I glanced at her. “Why wouldn’t this be making the news, then? People coming back from the dead!”

“I feel like maybe no one wants to go on the record.” Stephanie looked out the window. “Nothing on Twitter or Facebook. No pictures of dead people on Instagram. I’m seeing things on Reddit and Tumblr – places where people use a consistent pseudonym, not like 4chan, but where that pseudonym can’t be tied to their actual identity. I’ve posted about it in both places, but I can’t make myself tweet about it.”

“Any idea why not?”

“It—” She shrugged, hands exaggeratedly widespread and head canted forward slightly. “It just feels wrong,” she said. “Like… we’re getting away with something. There’s a natural law we’re breaking here. I can post as toomanymushrooms or u/catonahottinroofsundae and no one knows who I am, but if I post as Stephanie Robbins and I tell everyone that my mom Suky Robbins is back from the dead…”

“What if that brought it to the attention of, what, some kind of authorities?”

“Yeah, pretty much. And even if I was just posting under my own name… I don’t have to say Mom’s name. I don’t have to put a mention to her Facebook in a post. But everyone knows my mother’s name, or they could find out from my name if they wanted to.”

“And you think maybe there are a lot of people with these weird feelings?”

“I don’t think so, I know so. A lot of posts explicitly talk about the fact that they can’t bring themselves to say anything in public, or talk about it with their real names on it.”

“Are they all parents?”

“No. It’s all kinds of people. Best friends, siblings, spouses, children… the only pattern I see is that nobody died a long time ago. It’s all, ‘my brother who died last year’ or ‘my aunt who died two years ago’ or something. Longest I’ve seen anyone talk about was a son who died five years ago.”

A thought occurs to me. “I can add something to your pattern, though.”

“Yeah?”

“You’d expect that, even if everyone with a resurrected relative feels this sense of dread about telling anyone about it with their name attached, because they feel it will, I don’t know, maybe cause the dead person to disappear back into their grave… you’d think somebody would do it anyway because they don’t care. Someone whose alcoholic abusive father came back and they wish he’d go away again, someone’s asshole brother, someone’s former best friend who betrayed them. But so far, no one has. How many people have you seen talking about this?”

“It’s hard to say because no one’s using their real names. Someone might post from their main blog and their side blog, or maybe they have a different name on tumblr vs reddit but they posted to both. But I’ve tracked thirteen separate names, and of those, I can tell for a fact there are at least nine unique ones because they talk about different people.”

“Thirteen isn’t ‘all over the place’.”

“I didn’t mean all over the Internet, I meant people coming from all over. I’ve tracked the UK, California, North Dakota, Ontario, France, India and New Zealand. Nobody’s tagging their posts and no one is willing to contribute to a master list, so it’s hard to find anyone outside of the people I follow or the subreddits I’m in, and I don’t know where everyone comes from. But it’s geographically widespread. I suspect it may also be happening in other places where people don’t generally speak English or maybe don’t have Internet access.”

“And what’s their sentiment? Like, are people frightened? Upset? Excited? Weirded out?”

She took a moment to think about it. “They’re happy. People are happy it happened. Weirded out, yes. But happy.”

“No whacked-out conspiracy theories about how it’s the contrails raining down adenochrome or something?”

“Not from the people it’s happened to. There was one flame war I saw where a religious person was saying that the person whose sister was back from the dead had to repudiate her. She’s not really your sister, she’s a demon from Hell sent to trick you, et cetera. And the person whose sister was back turned out to be just as religious, and they threw a holy fit. Literally. A holy fit.” She giggled. “A whole lot of stuff about how the righteous were coming back and Jesus had granted some people eternal life and this was that, and how dare you call these beings demons when they’re obviously blessed by Jesus himself and you’re the kind of person who would have called for Jesus’s crucifixion if you’d been alive then, and all that kind of thing.”

“Did anyone else who’d had returned people say anything?”

“This was Tumblr. None of the people who have had returns are communicating with each other in any way I can see. I reached out to a few on Tumblr private messaging but no one has answered. The only places I’m seeing conversations about it between people with returns have been on Reddit, because it has a forum structure. Tumblr is more like a whole hanging web of disconnected strings.”

“Still, you’d think that someone would be publishing a news article about it. Even if no one is willing to go on the record with their real name…”

“Maybe it’s not enough people. Nine unique instances, maybe up to thirteen, maybe more in places I haven’t surveyed. It’s not like I have access to literally all of Tumblr, after all. But that’s all I can confirm, and what if there isn’t any more?”

“If anyone came back from the dead I would expect the news to take notice.” I turned onto the final road; the arboretum was at the end of this stretch. “I went to the graveyard today. Mom’s grave hasn’t been disturbed. I checked with the groundskeeper. So either Mom’s body floated ethereally through the grave dirt, and her coffin, or her original body is still in there and whatever she is now, it’s not the same as what she was then.”

“It’s too bad we can’t have her exhumed,” Stephanie said.

“It probably wouldn’t tell us much anyway.”

“She’s younger-looking than she was before. Not by much, and the grey hair hides it, but she’s healthier-looking and less wrinkly. And I don’t see any evidence that she still has diabetes, or that she’s taking any pills at all. I haven’t seen her take any insulin shots, or anything.”

“Huh.” She wasn’t restored to her youth, or her hair wouldn’t be grey and there would be no wrinkles at all. She wasn’t restored to what she was at the moment of death, obviously. She wasn’t restored to what she’d have been at the moment of death without the cancer that killed her, if she didn’t have diabetes anymore. I felt like there had to be a pattern here I wasn’t seeing. I really wanted to talk to some of these other people having this experience.

I pulled in to the arboretum’s parking lot. Mom and Dad weren’t there yet; Dad doesn’t drive like an old man, but he doesn’t drive as fast as he used to, either. “Do they do this kind of thing a lot? Arboretums, parks, et cetera?”

“They don’t usually invite me, and I wouldn’t usually come if they did, so I don’t know. They do leave the house a lot.”

Dad’s car pulled in, and he and Mom got out. For the first time I could remember, Mom was actually moving a bit faster than him. Both Mom and Dad were the kind of people who walked quickly everywhere they went, but for a long time, Mom was slowed down by her various illnesses. Dad was still healthy for his age, but he’d slowed down a good bit since Mom’s death – grief was hard on his health, it seemed – and now Mom seemed healthier than he was.

“Did you know there are people who come here from all over just to see our leaves in the autumn?” Mom said.

I did know that; it was typically a factor in making it hard for me to come visit during the autumn. “I think it’s the mountainsides. There’s leaves turning colors all over the country, but not on mountainsides.”

“In California they don’t even consider these mountains,” Mom said. “They call them hills when they come visit.”

“No respect for the elderly,” Dad said.

“Yeah, these young mountains think they’re all that, but wait 100,000 years and see how tall they are then,” Stephanie said.

We strolled around, looking at the trees, reading what it said on the plaques in front of them. American Elm. Yellow Birch. Eastern White Pine. I’d seen trees just like these my whole life, and a good number of them, I’d never known the names.

“You never think about how beautiful the world is,” Mom said. “We’re all rushing through it, trying to accomplish the next thing. Or entertain ourselves. Read a book, watch TV. So few of us really want to interact with nature.”

“Careful, mom, your hippie roots are showing,” I said, teasing.

“I think if my generation had remembered what we were back when we were the hippies, the world would be better off.”

“We didn’t forget, Suky. The hippies were always big news, but you know as well as I do how many people our age just wanted to go punch a clock, buy a house, vote for Ronald Fucking Reagan… We thought we were the generation that would change the world, but it wasn’t our generation, it was us. People like us, who wanted to see a better world and weren’t content to just live like the sheep our parents were… but there’s people like that in every generation. And they’re always outnumbered by the assholes.”

“Actually, they’ve done a study,” Stephanie said. “The reason generations get more conservative as they get older is that at every point, the poor are more likely to die than the rich, and the rich are more conservative than the poor. So by the time you get to middle age, a lot of the people looking for social justice and diversity are dead. And there’s a lot more dead by the time they’re elderly.”

“I don’t buy it,” my dad said. “There’s entirely too many stupid poor people in this country who are brainwashed into supporting causes that help out the rich people and screw themselves over. They’re not living longer than anyone else in this country. The math doesn’t work.”

“Let’s not talk about politics,” Mom said. “I think we all know there’s something more important we ought to be discussing.”

“Mom?” Stephanie said, and looked at her, which is not a thing Stephanie does very often.

“Suky?” Dad said.

I didn’t say anything. I watched as Mom looked up at a tree and said, “It’s time we dealt with the elephant in the room, don’t you think?”

“Are you going to tell us about—” I couldn’t say anything more. I couldn’t bring myself to make the words.

“About the fact that I was dead, and now I’m not?” She looked at all of us. “I think we should talk about it, yes.”

It felt like there were eyes, watching us. I wanted to yell to my mother, to tell her not to talk about it, that someone might hear… but who? And why would it matter?

“Is that something you’re okay with, Suky?” Dad asked.

“I’m fine, but I’m getting the impression the rest of you aren’t,” she said. “Why haven’t any of you brought it up, except Stephanie, the once?”

“Well, you told me it was rude,” Stephanie said.

Mom sighed. “I guess I did. I’m sorry. This isn’t really easy for me either.”

She sat down on a bench, and Dad sat with her. Stephanie and I sat on a short stone wall around a tree. “I suppose I should start by saying, I don’t really know much more than you do. I don’t have any memories of being dead. I woke up in bed, next to your dad, on Monday morning, and for a while I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there… I assumed I went to bed the previous night, but I couldn’t remember what had happened the night before. I couldn’t pin down anything I remembered as to exactly when it happened, not in the recent past. And when your father woke up, the shock on his face and the fact that he kept asking me if I was really here made me think, wait, the last thing I remember was that I was in a hospital dying of cancer, so why am I here now?”

“So you don’t remember any kind of afterlife?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I believe I had some sort of existence, but I don’t remember anything about it. When I wake up, I have flashes, feelings that I dreamed something about it, but I can’t hold it in my head long enough to write it down or even talk about it. It just… disappears, leaving behind only the memory that something was there a few minutes ago.”

“You know how unlikely the idea that an afterlife exists is, scientifically, though. Right?” Dad said. “Consciousness is an emergent property of a trillion neurons working together. Imagining that there could be some sort of construct that exists outside the brain and body is like imagining that a video game character could be waltzing around in front of us.”

“And yet I’m here,” Mom said.

“Time travel or a Star Trek transporter with some modifications would make more sense than something supernatural, like an afterlife,” Dad said stubbornly.

“It doesn’t matter,” Stephanie said. “If Mom doesn’t remember…”

“Have you had a medical exam?” I asked.

Mom laughed. “I don’t have health insurance anymore. I’m dead, remember? I can’t even begin to figure out how we’re going to address getting me a legal identity again, and to be honest… I can’t know I’ll be around long enough for it to matter.”

“None of us know that,” I said, “about ourselves or anyone else.”

“True, and it’s going to be hard to travel if I don’t have a legal identity. So I suppose I’ll have to address it eventually, if I last that long.”

“Thank God your state ID hasn’t actually expired yet, or there’d be no way we could fly to Boston. The passport’s expired,” Dad said. Mom had been legally blind when she died, so she’d had a state ID rather than a driver’s license.

“Is there any reason you might not? Aside from the things that could kill anyone?” I asked.

Dad said, “Your mother and I discussed… when she first appeared, I found it nearly impossible to talk about the fact that she’d been dead. When she broached the topic, I could talk about it to her, but I couldn’t tell you kids.” He shrugged. “My working theory is that there’s some kind of alien experiment going on or that time travel is somehow involved, but the fact that none of you kids were able to tell each other about it until you knew the other one knew suggests to me that someone with the ability to directly affect human emotions or thought is, for some reason, making it hard to talk about this. Maybe that means it’s a short-lived experiment.”

“Maybe I escaped from hell and no one wants to talk about it for fear the devil will take me back,” Mom said, but she was laughing. Mom had never believed in hell. Dad was an atheist; Mom definitely had strong spiritual beliefs, but they were kind of a package of woo that included reincarnation and ghosts, even though she’d been raised Catholic.

“There are others like you,” Stephanie said. “None of them have talked about it themselves, but family members or friends have talked about it online, under pseudonyms. I haven’t found any evidence that anyone has mentioned anything under their real names.”

“A lot?” Mom was surprised.

“So far I count between nine and thirteen unique individuals, plus Eleanor heard a rumor that someone who might live in town might have come back. We don’t know any details, though.”

“We need to find them,” Mom said. “I need to find them. I have a second chance at life, and I’m not ashamed of it. I won’t be silenced about the fact that I exist.”

“It might not be the best idea, Suky,” Dad said. “There are a lot more crazies out there than there were when you died—”

“—there were plenty of crazies then, Dee—”

“—right, and even then it wouldn’t have been a good idea. There might be some religious nut job who thinks that if you were dead you should stay that way. Or someone else thinks that you know how you came back, and wants to force you to tell them.”

“Those are valid points,” Mom said, nodding. “And to all of those people who might want to harm me because they think I shouldn’t be alive or they think I know how I came back, I say a hearty ‘fuck you.’ I won’t be silent because there are crazy people in the world. I’m not afraid of death, not anymore.”

“You’re going to risk Eleanor’s kids?” Dad asked sharply.

“I agree with Mom,” I said, standing up. “Nobody should have to keep quiet about the fact that they exist. But I have to tell Will.”

Stephanie made a face. My family doesn’t like my husband. They have justifications, but in the past few years, since Mom died, Will’s gone to therapy and has done a lot of work on himself. Mom was the only one in the family ever willing to forgive anything, though, so I’ve never tried to get them to change their minds.

Mom said, “Well, is he still a total asshole?”

“He’s… been trying not to be. He’s in therapy, and we’re doing couples counseling, and he’s working through a lot of baggage from his upbringing.”

“Why not tell him to bring the kids up and join you here, then. Coming back to life, might as well start a clean slate and see where things go from there. And you’re right, he needs to be involved in the discussion. Your girls, too. They all are old enough to understand what’s going on here, and what could happen.”

“You know I will never stand in the way of anything you want,” Dad said, which is the kind of thing Dad says rather than “I love you”. Things like, “If they ever fail to respect you, I will smite them” – talking about us and our treatment of Mom – or “You have always been my worthy opponent.” Yes. Sometimes my father talks like a comic book character.

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” Stephanie said, “but I know you taught me to be who I am to the world and fuck anyone who gives me shit about it, so… same principle. I don’t think you could be you and lie about who you are.”

“And we need to involve Jeff and Aaron,” Mom said. “I’ll call them and get them to come here.”

“We turned off your cell phone ages ago,” Dad objected.

“Dee, we still have a land line. I know we do because I hear it ring, and sometimes you even answer it.”

“Oh. Yeah, that’s right, we do.” Dad shook his head. “This world where everyone carries around their phone in their pocket all the time… it’s strange how you get so used to a technological or societal change that you forget that you did it a different way for 67 years.”

Nothing ever stopped my mother when she wanted something strongly enough, if she believed it was right. I hadn’t even thought of the considerations my father brought up before he talked about them, but I’ve never believed it’s okay to hide in conformity and live in fear. I didn’t think Will had ever believed in doing that, either, and my daughters had grown up going to political protests.

“We need to find out more about these other people,” I said to Stephanie on the way home. “See if we can contact them directly, find out if any of the actual returned people are planning on going public like Mom. We could coordinate if they are. Strength in numbers.”

“The religious right are going to crap their pants,” Stephanie said, laughing. “A Deist who believes in reincarnation, is married to an atheist, and has a gay son, came back to life. Jesus Christ hasn’t got a monopoly anymore.”

“That is probably going to be the most fun part of this going public thing,” I said.

***

So now I don’t know what will happen. My husband’s driving up from home with our girls, my oldest younger brother’s on a train, and Mom’s been looking up contact information for journalist friends she had once, checking which ones are still alive, using Facebook – we never deactivated her account – and my dad’s LinkedIn. Stephanie’s found two other people who have family members who came back from the dead, and one of them’s been willing to talk to her in private messaging on Tumblr.

I still have a hard time telling anyone who doesn’t already know, but it turns out, I can write about it without feeling the pressure, the fear. Don’t know if I can post it, yet. I guess we’ll see. I’m hoping that if I can get more information from more people who’ve been through something similar, maybe we’ll find a pattern, a point of commonality… maybe even an explanation for why we all feel this pressure not to talk about it.

Tomorrow we’re all going to talk about whether we’re going to do this or not, but I know my family. What my mom wants, she gets, if it’s possible and if it’s ethical. My husband and my kids are going to be in favor of her going public, and my brothers won’t stand in her way any more than my dad would. So we’re going to do this. The thing we’re really going to talk about is how to keep ourselves safe when we do.

Everything in the world is going to change. I just don’t know exactly how yet.

***

Obligatory notes because I’m so fucking late with this piece:

I have fucked up royally. I went into this without an outline and about 6,000 words in I realized I had attempted to consume a ball of energy larger than my head. This is going to end up being novel length, most likely. I struggled really hard to find a place I could reasonably end it as a short story, and yeah, it is absolutely not an ending. No followup on the Martian shapechanger thing, new idea is brought in and then treated like it’s the climax, protagonist is almost entirely reactive and passive. As a short story, it’s shit.

Unfortunately I found this out after I was already late. Not going to bore everyone with why this was a week late except that it’s allergy season and I’ve been exhausted lately. So there was no time to try to write something else. I hope you found it entertaining, if somewhat frustrating; it’s shit as a short story because it’s plainly a piece of a novel. Which I’m not going to write real soon because I have like 3 novels ahead of this one in the queue, but if I live long enough it will get done.

It’s kinda cute that story #30 falls on the 30th now because I’m late and story #31 is the last of my Spooky 5 Halloween-appropriate stories. But not cute enough to justify how late this is.

BTW, while this is not as autobiographical as “Radio” from Inktober, it is heavily drawn from real life. I altered some things because this is fiction, but the mother and the father in this story are pretty close to real life. Except that my mother hasn’t come back.

#52 project #writeober 2020 #alara's october 2020 prompt fics #spooky5 #late!

54 notes · View notes

purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1248

Your ex taps you on the shoulder and says, “I still love you.” You say? I feel like I’ve answered a similar situation recently, but I would assume it was a drunk text or wrong text, inform them about it, and move on.

Do you play video games? Nah. I do feel a sort of connection of video games since I grew up surrounded by them, though; but I’m more of a watcher than anything. I like watching playthroughs of video games I’ll never play. Do you spend a lot of time with family? No. We used to, back when the quarantine was still a relatively new thing – we hung out in the living room all the time. But now that we’ve settled in this new normal, we’re back to our normal routines and I usually like staying in my room.

Is your house more than two stories tall? Technically, yes. We have a rooftop that serves as the ‘third’ floor.

Have you ever hit your significant other? Has he/she ever hit you? My ex and I never hit one another; that’s a gigantic red flag even I would notice, considering I ignored most of the ones I saw hahaha.

What makes you an attractive person? (Talk about your personality too!) I’m not sure if I’ll be able to answer this question directly, but I like my generosity. I’m not sure if I can call it attractive, though. But if we were focusing on physical features, I like my smile.

What color is your hairbrush/comb? Pink.

What snacks do you have available in your household atm? My dad splurged on chips in his last grocery run so we actually have quite a lot of junk food in the pantry at the moment. He also bought several packs of cookie sandwiches, wafers, sunflower seeds, and garlic-flavored peanuts.

Has anyone recently told you that they like you, or find you attractive? Neither.

Are you attracted to the last person you Facebook messaged? No, she’s just a good friend of mine.

Do you care about anyone that doesn’t care about you? I guess I don’t, because I’m not even aware of them.

Was your last Facebook friend requests from a male or female? Guy. It was another reporter, so I just ignored it and luckily he didn’t PM me just to ask to add him back, which others have already done. I really hate when work people try to make their way into my personal accounts.

Which one of your relatives is most likely to embarrass you? My parents, especially when they are rude to service crew. Gen X-ers are impeccably talented at that, apparently.

When was the last time you ate a bar of chocolate? Around two or three weeks ago when I had dinner at Angela’s. Her dad gave me a bar of Crunch so I can have something sweet after our meal.

Do you play any games on Facebook? No, I never did hop on that trend.

What would you like to get a degree in? I wanted a degree in journalism, and graduated with such. At the end of my college stint I didn’t want to pursue it anymore, but I pushed through with it anyway because it was too much of a hassle to shift and start all over.

Do you wake up a lot in the middle of the night? Technically not, because I stay up until the middle of the night anyway. It’s been a while since I fell asleep anywhere between 8 to 10 PM.

Would you prefer to read a book, watch a movie or TV show, or play a video game? Watch a show.

Do you usually get popcorn or soda at the movie theater? I don’t like either; I get fries instead.

What genre of films do you like the best? Drama.

How many bank accounts do you have? Two but I haven’t been using the other one in months. That was the bank account I initially opened when I first started ~adulting~ but when I got employed I was required to enroll in this other specific bank, so that’s what I mainly use now.

Have you ever had the flu? Not really. I just get the occasional fever that pop out of nowhere.

What is your goal for the next few months? Start saving FOR REAL, and also prioritizing furniture over merch for a while so I can finally fix up my room, which is quickly starting to look and feel like just a warehouse and not very homey at all.

Have you ever had some kind of sleep-disorder? How did it affect your life? Nope.

Have you ever had food poisoning before? Describe the experience. Yeah, it was from barbecue that apparently went bad, even though it tasted nothing of the sort. I woke up at 3 AM sweating profusely and with the most excruciating stomachache; I was feeling hot, cold, and nauseous all at the same time, and it probably lasted for like an hour or so.

What are two things that you have no problem paying full price for? Sealed albums and my pets’ vet expenses.

Funny, charming, cute, romantic, smart - choose only 2 for the opposite sex. Charming and smart.

Have you ever let somebody use you? Why did you do it? It felt nice to help people.

You can go back in time & change something in your mom’s past - what is it? Good question; I’ve never encountered this before. I would let her live a more comfortable, privileged life, where she didn’t have to staple her shoes to keep them closed or have to choose between eating at a fast food restaurant or being able to commute back home.

Do you know anybody who is around the exact same size as you? Who? I’m not sure, actually. Everyone’s always slightly taller than me.

Ever been to a haunted house? How scared were you? I haven’t.

Been on any websites today you wouldn’t want your parents to see? Tumblr, I guess? My survey blog isn’t for any irls to see.

Which is worse: dusting or mopping? I don’t really do either often, but I’ll go with mopping.

Would you marry somebody who was intensely religious? Not for me.

Did you pull a senior prank? No, that’s not a thing here. Did you graduate? Yeah, elementary, high school, and college.

Have you ever been unfaithful in a serious relationship? Nope.

What was the last song you listened to? It’s a song called Epiphany.

Are you one of those lucky people with 20/20 vision? Not ever since I was like 9 lol.

Is fashion one of your interests? I’m way more interested in it now for sure, mostly because the celebrities I’m into these days put a lot of effort when it comes to their style; so it makes me more aware of the trends that come and go, as well.

Do you think you’ll eventually find that special someone? I’m keeping it as a possibility, but it’s not a priority for me now.

Do you care what people think? To an extent, I would say. My life doesn’t depend on it, though.

Is acting something you enjoy? Never been.

What was the last thing you broke/sprained? Do you mean a thing or a body part? Anyway, I’ll answer both. The last thing I broke was my BTS Mic Drop pen of V looooooooooool the figurine came off the pen :(( It was pretty cheap though so I’m fine with it; I can always get another one. Last body part I sprained was my ankle, when I had a bad fall a couple of years ago.

Have you ever fought with a friend because of their boyfriend/girlfriend? Because of yours? Either hasn’t happened.

Has a stranger ever yelled at you for your language? I don’t think so.

Whose house, other than yours and your families', are you most comfortable at? Angela’s. Also JM’s, just because their family doesn’t hover and that vibe can sometimes be nice whenever I’m at someone else’s place.

Has any of your friends’ family ever yelled at you? Never.

Did you ever play a sport as a little kid? Did you enjoy it? Not as a very young kid, but I took up table tennis starting when I was 12. Did you ever watch the show Full House? Nope.

Is there a celebrity you are just DETERMINED to marry? Now that’s just delusional haha. I’m pretty obsessed with some celebrities, that much I can admit; but thinking of them in the context of marriage is so many steps overboard.

Have you ever burned someone’s picture? No. I could, but I am scared of fire and will probably just think of other ways to express my anger, like tearing up the photograph. What’s the longest hike you’ve ever been on? Total length was probably like 3 hours. I haven’t gone too far when it comes to hiking.

Would you ever get a lip tattoo? Not interested.

Who is the first person of the opposite sex that pops into your head? Hans.

Do your parents smoke cigarettes? My mom tried it once in her life, I think. My dad has never smoked.

What does one of your T-shirts have written on it? “Hope right here!”

Name a pet you definitely wouldn’t want. Anything that’s supposed to roam freely in the wild, like squirrels.

Would you prefer your partner smaller or taller? Taller, since I’m already quite pint-sized to begin with lol.

Do you enjoy going through old pictures? Sometimes. Other times, it's too painful. It also depends on the era of the pictures. < Agree, especially with the eras. Childhood photos are always fun to look at, but I have had to delete a CHUNK of photos from years ranging from 2014 to 2020 because I’ve lost a handful of friends from that period.

Do you believe people when they say they don’t judge people? It’s hard to for the most part, but I’ve noticed very few people people really don’t. Most of the time it’s bullshit though.

What did you love the most about the town you grew up in? That it’s pretty close to the metro.

What’s a movie that you laughed the hardest during? Hmm, I prefer TV shows if I’m craving comedy.

What’s a movie you cried the hardest during? Life Is Beautiful.

What’s your favorite restaurant? Omakase for my sushi fix; School Tteokbokki if I want Korean; Yabu if I’m looking for a generous rice meal.

Is there a dessert you don’t like? Anything with fruits.

Favorite album? After Laughter by Paramore.

What’s a book that you read because everyone else was reading it? I can name authors instead of books – John Green and Haruki Murakami.

Underwater or outer space? Outer space.

Dogs or cats? Dogs.

Kittens or puppies? Puppies.

Bird watching or whale watching? Whale watching. I don’t get to be in the water as much, so I would jump at the opportunity.

What is your spirit animal? I dunno if I have one but let’s just go with dog and elephant, I guess? They’re my favorites.

What was your best subject in school? History.

What was your worst subject in school? Chemistry.

What is one thing you wish you knew in high school? Don’t waste your time.

Who is your fashion icon? Audrey Hepburn.

Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds.

What color dress did you wear to prom? For my own prom it was cream-colored/beige. When I went to Mike’s ball, I went with a royal blue gown.

What’s your favorite plot-twist? I don’t think I’ve found my favorite yet.

Honestly, are you jealous of someone right now? Not actively.

Honestly, what’s the worst thing you’ve done when you were mad? I dunno...road rage, maybe?

Honestly, ever made anyone cry when you were mad? It’s very likely.

Honestly, when was the last time you REALLY cried your heart out? Sometime in the last week.

Ever pop someone else’s pimple? No thanks.

Do you need to return anyone’s phone call? Nope.

Who are you closest to? Angela.

Have you ever had a bad concert experience? No, all the ones I’ve been to have been amazing experiences.

Are you currently sad about anything? Not really. I can’t complain.

Have you had any form of exercise today? Nah.

Can you handle blood? Nope, I will feel faint if I see it 100%.

Has any place hired you underage for a job? No.

Have you ever carried a concealed weapon? I haven’t.

Are you currently searching for a job? No, I like the one I have.

Does eating breakfast make you sick? No?

#survey #surveys

2 notes · View notes

eueden · 4 years

Photo

⟨ MAUDE APATOW. CIS FEMALE. SHE/HER. ⟩ though the mist might prevent some from seeing it, EDEN KOPPELMAN is actually a descendent of H E S T I A. it’s still a question of whether or not the TWENTY-THREE year old VETERINARY from CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA has taken after their godly parent completely, but the demigod is still known to be quite THOUGHTFUL & QUIXOTIC.

hi, hello, allô, hola, ciao, ella here again with another character. okay so there’s not much to say about me that most of you don’t already know, i have no life and i’m always lurking even if i never do replies (don’t tell the admins) hgsghssghs anyway, this is eden and in a shocking turn of events i actually have a good idea of who she is and look i even made a graphic, if that’s ain’t dedication then i don’t what it is.

basic information.

NAME: eden atara koppelman

PRONUNCIATION: EE - d uh n

NICKNAME: E?? idk

GENDER: cis female

PLACE OF BIRTH: brisbane, queensland, australia

HOMETOWN: cape town, south africa

DATE OF BIRTH: june 26, 1997

AGE: twenty-three

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: heterosexual so far but secretly curious

MAJOR: veterinary

EXTRACURRICULARS: president of the jewish student association, vice president of the herpetology club, president of the volunteer service, women in leadership member, student government member

SPORTS: captain of the climbing team and co-captain of the track & field team

character inspo.

Jessica Day (New Girl) ✖ ✖ ✖ ✖

Elliott Reid (Scrubs) ✖ ✖ ✖ ✖ ✖ ✖

Amy Santiago (Brooklyn 99) ✖ ✖ ✖ ✖

background.

tw: death, infant death, car accident, fire

Eden was born in Brisbane, Australia. She comes from an animal lover family. Her grandparents are very popular down under because they had an animal TV show à la Steve Irwin. Her dad followed their footsteps and it’s a well-known zoologist who also had some TV shows (think of Bear Grylls).

TW: death, infant death, car accident. Matthias Koppelman (her dad) had been previously married but lost his wife and child in a car accident and after that he isolated himself from the public eye and moved to Namibia.

At twenty-eight, he felt the need to climb Mount Everest as one does, ya know? But ofc this man hadn’t climbed in years (he had experience but he’d been too sad to climb mountains. I mean he could barely leave bed, let alone climb Everest). That didn’t stop him and he did.

He almost d worded there bc as I said he was not ready but that’s when Hestia queen of fire showed up and warmed him (in a non sexual way bc she’s pure okay) and he was like oh that was a near dead experience and didn’t think much.

After he conquered the Everest with the help of Hestia, he moved back to Australia and oh surprise a few months later he opened his door and voilá a bebé was there with a note that said “you deserve to have a family, love hestia”

He was shocked like “did i just impregnate a fantasy?” but then Hestia was kind enough to send another and explain everything.

Anyway, Eden lived in Brisbane for four years before her dad took a job in South Africa. They moved to Cape Town (and her grandparents came with them) and pretty much had a happy life surrounded by animals.

TW: fire. When she was nine, her dad took her to a game reserve in Limpopo and by some reason a fire started endangering animals and flora. Everyone was panicking bc I mean wouldn’t u? But Eden was attracted to the flames like a pyro (the good kind tho) and since everyone had better things to do than taking care of a child, they left her unsupervised and she delved into the fire.

Ofc nothing happened to her because ✨immunity✨ but guess who showed up again? Hestia!!!! Being a great goddess and mom, she taught Eden how to use her powers so she could absorb the fire and save all the animals and people.

Everyone was like holy shit a miracle and the firefighters were like “the fuck? we did shit but we gonna take the credit lol”

Eden was like “did that just happen?” and yes, it did but she was like “meh that was imagination” and her dad was like *nervous chuckle* “yeah…” because he didn’t want to tell her the truth since that could put her in danger.

At 13, she had her bat mitzvah and it was all fun and games until fire lady showed up aka Hestia. Her dad and Hestia explained everything and Eden was like:

Hestia claimed her and off to camp she went. For the next few years she went to camps all over the world as a treat.

She never went on a quest bc she was afraid and also because she couldn’t put herself in danger and risk losing her life bc her dad already had lost a child… so yeah

Her dad remarried when she was seventeen and a year later she welcomed a new baby brother and that’s why she decided to take a gap year to be with her bro and also work with her dad in the reserves.

She moved to Athens when she was nineteen and decided to go into veterinary school. So yes Ella will get her dog one way or another idc what the admins say :chaos:

Ahhhh that’s all folks!!! We did it!

FULL BIO (yes, i completed it this time)

personality.

Eden never loses her sense of curiosity. You could say that she sees life through rose colored glasses as if she lived on the edge of a mirror country where worldly objects come to life, where flora and fauna assume almost human qualities.

She has the ability to see the good in almost anyone or anything and tends to sympathize with even the most unfriendly person. She often hides the extreme depth of feelings from her, even from herself, until circumstances elicit a passionate response.

She has a deep sense of idealism that comes from a strong personal sense of right and wrong. She sees the world as a place full of possibilities and potentials and is governed by her intuition. She is quite reserved and is not easily manipulated.

She is a good listener and considerate, they try to care for and understand others in a deep way. She can be very calm and intuitive with the people around her, being able to search for hidden meanings in the actions and words of others.

Of course, all of life is not rosy and Eden is not exempt from suffering the same disappointments and frustrations that are common to others. She tends to be a perfectionist and often strives for personal ideals that can be exhausting or very difficult to obtain.

She also struggles with time management, always leaving everything to the last minute claiming she “works better under pressure” but the truth is she’s just a procrastinator.

Very sensible, she cries almost every day either because of a commercial or a sweet story she read on Facebook. It doesn’t matter, if it’s slightly emotional she will shed some tears.

powers.

pyrokinesis: This power first manifested when she was nine years old and she helped to save an animal reserve from the flames with the help of Hestia. Since she was claimed when she was thirteen, she’s learned how to use this power. Now she can summon fire without any problem and put it out just as fast. This is very helpful because she loves baking but she’s a bit clumsy so she often burns herself, but thankfully, she’s immune, so no pain. However, Eden has never been able to create a hot wall of flames nor she has ever asked how to do that, she just hopes she never has to use it.

serenity inducement: Eden avoids conflict at all cost, not only it makes her cry but also makes her very uncomfortable and anxious which is why this was the first power she manifested. She was just a child but from what she remembers it was during a class in preschool that a kid started hitting another one. Eden panicked at such an act of violence she went there and touched the bully’s shoulder which immediately calmed him. Back then she didn’t know it was a power but after finding out about her true identity, many other events like this started to make sense. This is the power she uses the most, also with animals which is why she makes such a good veterinarian because she can calm an animal's nerves.

bond manipulation: She wouldn’t say this is one of her weakest powers but it’s one she didn’t use often growing up because she came from such a stable family that it didn’t seem necessary, however, she sometimes catches herself using it in group projects or at her workplace, you know, to keep things healthy and positive.

ability to summon food: By far the one she uses the least (personally speaking), she likes cooking and baking, so she doesn’t see the point but she does use it to feed stray animals.

headcanons.

Eden speaks fluent English, she has a mixed South African and Australian accent but she can switch. At school, half of her classes were in Afrikaans, so she also speaks it fluently. Greek comes from her demigod side, but she also took some classes back in school upon her father’s request. Growing up in a very Jewish family, her grandparents believed it was pretty important that Eden learned Yiddish and Hebrew, she can read it perfectly but struggles speaking it, especially Yiddish because she also attended Hebrew school. As for French, she learned in high school and she still takes lessons at Eonia but she hates it.

Her father started taking her to a climbing gym when she was five and by the time she was ten she was already climbing 6a routes which is pretty much an intermediate level and very impressive for her age.

She had her own TV show on Discover Kids titled “Eden’s Wildlife Adventure” in which she explained the importance of different types of animals. The first seasons were shot between Australia and South Africa, but in later seasons she traveled across Africa and South America. The show ran from 2005-2011 (which was when she was claimed).

Dreams of climbing Mount Everest before her 30th birthday.

Her father is a classic rock band and so is she. Her animals have been named after influential musicians. Right now she has a cat named Hendrix, a horse named Cobain, a dog named Mick. Growing up her father took care of a baby lion which they named Little Richard because he was smaller than most lion cubs. Over the years, his father and grandparents have fostered several wild animals while they recover or before they are sent to a reserve. Among the animals they have fostered are elephants, giraffes, zebras, cheetahs, leopards, hippos and more.

While she loves rock, she’s also a sucker for 2000s pop. Please don’t ask her about modern artists because she’s clueless.

She’s fed up with the Mean Girl jokes, we get it she grew up in Africa and she’s white.

She is a proud Jewish girl and follows many traditions. She does attend the local synagogue during Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. And of course, Hanukkah is her favorite holiday. Her family practices Reform Judaism, so she doesn’t follow a kosher diet.

Eden was raised as a vegan and her whole family is vegan. In the past years, she has been in the process of becoming vegetarian.

Favorites: Anything written by Agatha Christie(book); Say Anything (1989) (movie); Everybody Wants to Rule the World by Tears for Fear (song);

Again, no one asked me but I will reply: “Ella, does Eden hate Iker?” “Well, thanks for asking. In a shocking turn of events, no she doesn’t. How come you might ask? Well, she doesn’t hate anyone but if she ever did then yes, she would hate him.”

pinterest | wanted connections

#euintro

8 notes · View notes

surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

Text

Survey #398

“freedom is just man’s invention, & a soldier is just a slave”

What do you do the most when you’re online? Watch/listen to YouTube. Do you have a bobblehead? No. Have you ever spent your birthday alone? No, that sure would suck. Were you afraid of heights as a child? Actually no, but NOW I kinda am. Have you ever had a lead role in a play? No. Would you ever take a solo road trip? No, that sounds super depressing and lonely. Do the mountains fascinate you? Of course! So much history built into a magnificent, awe-inspiring piece of nature. Have you ever been insulted or called names by a significant other? Wow, no. I wouldn't tolerate that for a second. What’s your favorite movie battle scene? The fight between Simba and Scar is very powerful imo. Have you ever been to a same-sex wedding? No, but not because I'm opposed. I'd love to go to one and be the photographer. What’s your favorite Marvel movie? Probably one of the Spider-Man films. I don't remember which it is, and I don't want to spoil it by explaining what I do recall. Did you have a Walkman when you were a kid? No. What’s the most difficult experience you and a significant other have gone through together? Being long-distance when we really wanted each other's physical comfort. Have you ever attempted to pick a lock? Did you succeed? Yes, because Ashley locked her keys in the car. I don't remember if it worked, actually. Have you done the Bratz doll challenge for YouTube? No. I've seen a couple people do it, though, and it's both cool and creepy. Does the hospital in your town have a good reputation? NOOOOOOOOOOOO. What is your favorite nickname that you’ve had? "Bee" from Megan. Have you ever gotten a professional massage? No. I would be SO uncomfortable. If you had braces, do you wear your retainers still? No. :/ Well, the one you put in, anyone. I have a metal one behind the front row of my bottom teeth. If you had braces, have your teeth moved since you got them off? Yes. Do you know anyone personally who’s lost a child? I know way too many people who have suffered miscarriages. Do you take your medications regularly? Yes. What’s one luxury item you wish you could afford? An actually nice house. What’s your favorite thing to do in a swimming pool? Just kinda casually swim around. Have you ever been abused by a cop? No. What is one thing that you took to show-and-tell as a kid? My Snorlax plushy. Do you remember losing your first tooth? No. In the summer would you rather have the windows down or the A/C on in the car? I strongly prefer A/C. Have you ever been addicted to a game? What game? I had a long-time addiction to World of Warcraft for a couple years or so. I still play it now, but I'm not addicted to it anymore. As a matter of fact I get bored of it easily now. Which was better: the original The Lion King or the sequel? The original, but I love both very much. Do any of your grandparents have a tattoo? I don't know if any did. Do you believe that your pets feel love towards you? Roman, 120%. It is so obvious. Venus, no, as reptiles are literally incapable of experiencing that emotion. I do, however, know she trusts me. Are you proud of your body? FUCK no. Have you ever been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance? No. How do YOU believe the world & universe started? I don't know. I feel like MAYBE there is some sort of ultimate intelligence that formed the universe (maybe prompted the Big Bang, though I've always been dubious of that occurring naturally), but I don't think of this topic frequently at all. Does it really matter, after all? We're here, so just focus on that and live in the now. Have you ever stuck gum under a desk/chair? NO, that shit grosses me the hell out. When shopping at a grocery store, do you return your cart or just leave it? Return your fucking cart, please. It is NOT that difficult. What is one thing you’d never want your parents to find out? Certain places I've, uh, "done" things. When you were little, did you like Dr. Suess books? Yep. I seriously loved Green Eggs and Ham. What would you consider unforgivable? Rape is #1. Would you rather give your food to a homeless shelter or money to charity? Food to a homeless shelter, but I'd love to do both. What was your least favorite year of your life so far? 2016 was a fucking NIGHTMARE. Have you spent money on a game online? On one occasion, I asked if Mom would reactivate my WoW account, and when two expansions came out, I asked if she could buy them. I HATED asking. Thankfully, now, I'm rich enough in the game to pay for the "token" currency, which renews your subscription for a month, so I essentially play for free now. Have you been called a bad influence? Yes. Have any self-done piercings? Noooo. I only trust professionals. Ever pierced someone else? Again, no. Leave it to professionals, as well as someone without tremors. If you had a child with down’s syndrome, would you keep him/her? IF I wanted kids, of course I would. It really, REALLY bothers me when DS is the reason behind abortion. Mind you, I am pro-choice, but come on... Don't treat down's syndrome children as a curse. If someone tried to murder your child, do you think it would be wrong to expose them publicly and talk about it on social media? Of fucking course I would. I'd damn that person to hell myself. Is there a toxic person that you miss? I sometimes miss Colleen. Are you still contemplating going back to someone you shouldn’t? With Jason, yes. If he actually wanted me back (that will never happen, but anyway), I fear I'd say yes and probably would, realistically. When was the last time you had a new crush? When I realized I was bisexual. Do you want Jesus to come back soon? Back when I was a Christian, I was terrified of Judgment Day. I don't believe in it now. What is something you can’t wear because of your body type? I COULD wear whatever the hell I wanted, but I refuse to wear crop tops or strapless tops (or strapless bras). Oh, and thongs. No thanks. If you have curves, do you like them? I'm not curvy naturally, I'm just fat. Have you ever worn matching pajamas with someone? No, but that'd be cute. Has anyone ever mistaken you for being anorexic? No way. What fast food place do you avoid at all costs? Arby's, to name one. Are you afraid of deep sea creatures? Yes, especially giant squid. Have you ever agreed to purchase something on Ebay and got scammed somehow? Ugh, I got Ico THREE TIMES and they were ALL broken; they'd freeze in the first few minutes. Has anybody ever given you a promise ring? No. What is your favorite kind of cake? Red velvet. Honestly, have you ever eaten raw cookie dough? Yeah, multiple times. Were you outdoors or indoors more as a kid? I'd say it was a split down the middle. Have you ever had a relationship that began via text? Jason, Tyler, Juan, and Sara all began over text. Girt asked me out over Facebook Messenger. Do you think sloths are cute or ugly? They're cuties! What eyeshadow suits you best? I only wear black eyeshadow. Do you watch the show Wizards of Waverly Place? I did as a kid and really liked it. Have you ever been to the rainforest? No. I don't think I could handle the humidity, though I'd love to see all the beautiful wonders. Are you a member of any clubs? No. Would you shave your head with a friend who had cancer? If it was someone I was very close to and they were extremely self-conscious about it, I'd probably be willing to get very short hair, but I don't think I could handle no hair at all. How did you meet your pet? Roman was one of the kittens of Ashley's mother-in-law's cats. She has way too many cats and needed to get rid of the kittens, and I'd been wanting one like mad. I found Venus via the online reptile-selling hub called Morph Market, and I became VERY interested in the many, many ball python morphs, and when I saw her, I immediately knew that was my baby. Did/Do you have any PEZ dispensers? I did as a kiddo. What are some of the phrases in your personal ‘bingo’ card? "Mood," "can't relate," "hi, how are ya," "jinkies," "yikes," "oof," shit like that. Have you ever been through a trap door? No. Do/did you have to wear a uniform to your high school? No, only middle school. How many video games do you own? A whole lot. Have you ever visited a sex shop? No. Have you ever ridden a bicycle through a busy city? No, I'd be very scared to. Do you use Instagram? How often do you post there? I have two for my varying photography subjects. I post very rarely on both. Have you ever had a scary encounter with a wild animal? I have not.

#survey #surveys #random questions #lyrics: ''civilize the universe'' by ozzy osbourne

4 notes · View notes

arisu-artnfics · 5 years

Text

A Date Before Christmas

Summary: On Christmas Eve most people spend the holiday with friends others with family or with lovers but for Marinette and Adrien they were all three. They were cherished friends, they were caring lovers and most importantly they were family and no matter what happened that day they would not let anyone separate them or disrupt there happiness. (Thank you @deadvampire32 for suggesting it ^^ ^^) Beta by: @spider-momo (& a bit @deadvampire32). Also on: DA/FF/AO3/FB Original published date: December 25, 2019 For: @galahadwilder as to say Merry Christmas, I’m your secret santa!! I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy creating it for you ^^ ^^ This is a gift as part of the @mlsecretsanta interchange.

Spanish version of this story

Art done by me: *Tumblr/DeviantArt/Facebook (December 26, 2019).

It was the 24th of December, in the late morning. Marinette and Adrien were sitting in a coffee shop close to the Dupain-Cheng bakery. It has been roughly six months since they started dating and since they revealed their identities. The reveal had been accidentally actually, they weren’t supposed to know. It all changed since Ladybug aka Marinette Dupain-Cheng officially became the new guardian. The rules said that if they knew each other’s identities for their own sake, they should stop being the heroes that everyone loves. Even when both of them knew this rule, it changed just after they revealed.

Marinette knew that she couldn’t confide those miraculous to any of their friends because Hawk Moth knew already about them and couldn’t put them again in danger like that. Also, it was the fact that even when they knew the truth about the person behind the mask, not much had changed. They still had to keep making excuses and act like they didn’t know as well as keep trying to fight the akumas and of course, win. Hawk Moth and Mayura always keep them on edge and with too little time to rest. Considering all that and more, Adrien helped Marinette to decide that the correct course of action in that case was just to keep being Ladybug and Chat Noir.There wasn’t really any time to get new heroes to be Ladybug and Chat Noir, or well to become the new holders of the Ladybug and Black Cat miraculous.

When the reveal happened not that long after Master Fu lost his memories and Ladybug became the new guardian, in that precise moment was a lot of panicking from both of them. After a couple of seconds both teens had their own different reactions, between some laughter and ‘can’t believe I didn’t notice before’ to ‘can’t believe that Alya was always right’ and reactions like some sobbing and more. Then they had a big conversation between them, explaining some of the misunderstandings, more laughter and some tension in between them as well had freed itself. In conclusion, after they actually discovered and confessed some feelings from both sides, they decide to give them a chance. Adrien actually was the one that had to bring the question and suggestion. They had to also confess that they were in a way of ‘moving on’ but not entirely as they seem to be falling again for the same person without them knowing.

Now, six months later, - on the day of Christmas Eve - they are trying to have a not interrupted date. Marinette and Adrien were wearing their winter clothes, sitting inside of the coffee shop enjoying some hot chocolate. Their Kwamis were with them, hidden from everyone but them.

“So, Mari,” said Adrien “after here, are we supposed to go and get Alya and Nino’s gifts?”

Marinette made a face unsure, “Mmmm… I suppose so, but I thought that you already have the vinyl disk that Nino wants so much?”

“Yeah, I do,” he replied while reaching to a bag that he also had and pulling it out. “Just thought that maybe you wanted to find something else?” passing it to her.

“This is the same as the one you have at your house, the one that he used to DJ in the party, right?” Marinette asked while admiring the disk, she would never understand DJing but was happy their friend did and enjoy it so much.

“It’s the same,” Adrien replied with a smile.

“Good, because actually I don’t really want to go shopping today. I mean, c’mon Adrien it is Christmas Eve after all.” With that she returned the disk to Adrien so he could put it away.

He chuckles a bit ,“True,” Adrien smile.

“Phew, you got me worried for a bit, Kitty,” Marinette returned the smile.

“Ahhh, poor Bugaboo,” he said with joy in his tone.

Marinette roll her eyes but also was failing to hide her amused smile. “All right, then we don’t need to worry about it. I got Alya the super special microphone that she dreamt and talked about having so much,” said Marinette.

“She definitely will love it. You are indeed a great friend Marinette,” Adrien said with a huge smile that goes from ear to ear.

“Why are you so happy about it?” asked curious Marinette knowing that Adrien maybe had something ‘funny’ in mind, well something that was probably ‘funny’ for him like a pun or so.

“Heh, nothing special… just a friend” he said and then laughs a bit.

“Oh my...” Marinette said “it was you - as I learned thanks to Plagg, - ” she looked to Plagg very fast.

“Anytime, kid,” Plagg said from one of the bags next to them who was eating a piece of cheese.

“That was calling me,” Marinette continued, “‘just a friend’” she said while making quotation marks with her fingers.

“I know,” Adrien said once he stop laughing “but still makes me laugh,” he shrugged.

“Of what?” said Plagg again, “How stupid you could be?” “Plagg!” said Tikki from Marinette’s bags, who was eating a cookie. “Hey!” said Adrien at the same time as Tikki spoke.

Marinette just laughed a bit.

After a second or so Adrien also laughed at himself again. They needed that, they need all the fun and good moments that they could get. They really didn’t get much free time even at this time of the year. Anyone else would have thought that thanks to the winter break it should be less stress or trouble and so less akumas but it was quite the opposite, sadly, for the heroes.

Sadly, it didn’t take too much longer until what they had been avoiding to happen so far during the day was happening. An akuma was once again at the door of their school. That’s how the accidental reveal happened in the first place. Since Hawk Moth learned that almost all the previous heroes as part of the now not existent team, were indeed from there; that had been his target. Once he learned that information, even though that could mean putting Adrien in danger, Gabriel had insisted that the school was the perfer target for the akumas, it had to be there or close to it that the civilians of the heroes are. Gabriel had thought that the heroes must go to that school, it couldn’t be a coincidence for so many former heroes to be there. Even Chloe was from there, although the whole of Paris did learned that she found the Bee miraculous, didn’t mean that she didn’t find it in the school. The heroes this time, after hearing the screaming and destruction caused by the akuma, decided to ‘hide’ in the respective toilets. They did as always, even with the knowledge that they obtained all this months ago, the superheroes were acting as just partners and nothing else. Even though Adrien and Marinette were dating, it was like a silent agreement that happened so long ago between the two. Without really a verbal agreement, they synced their replies and kept telling anyone who managed to ask them about that, they are just good friends and partners like nothing had really changed. That’s how everything seemed to everyone outside their knowledge that is technically all of Paris. Ladybug and Chat Noir were more sync than ever, they had been defeating the akumas even faster than before. It was like the knowledge of their identities only helped them grow as heroes rather than something else.

Once the battle finished and all returned to normal, they got out from their ‘hiding’ spot. They decided that maybe was time to go to Marinette’s place. They planned to go to the coffee shop and then just have a relaxing day enjoying the company of each other. They also wanted to make sure they had their friends’ presents for the present exchange that was going to happen the next day in the late afternoon. Then they would part as Adrien was promised by Gabriel to have a Christmas dinner together and Marinette was going to have hers with her family as well.

The Dupain-Chengs had invited the Agrestes as a family (basically just Gabriel as Adrien were supposed to be there already) however Gabriel denied the invitation, but said thank you anyways, Gabriel had insisted that he be the one that gives his son the Christmas dinner and traditions that the Dupain-Chengs mentioned during the invitation.

That’s how Marinette and Adrien were back to the bakery a few hours before the big celebration started. They didn’t want to be apart, but they knew that sooner or later the ‘Gorilla’ was going to pick Adrien up from there. Marinette and Adrien decided that even when they weren’t about to spend Christmas together, they were going to enjoy as much as they could. Even when an akuma had interrupted yet again another date. They did spend their time together as they were just one happy family. Tom and Sabine were with the kids as well, as they play some video games and have some Christmas like activities that could be done before dinner time was due and Adrien had to leave.

“Oh, sorry,” said Adrien in the middle of another round of Mecha IV once his phone sounded with a notification of a text message, that he decided to ignore, he knew well enough that it should be the Gorilla waiting from him to take him home.

“Oh no, now?” asked Marinette with a small pout, even though she knew that it was about time that his bodyguard had to come.

“Sadly, yes, but hey bugaboo, don’t be sad...” he hugged her with just one arm, they were sitting one next to the other anyway, and just like them, Marinette’s parents were also sitting next to each other.

“Mmm...” said Marinette with a big pout and very exaggerated expression of sadness that Adrien knew well by now as the little trick to conform to her or in this case as ‘don’t want you to go, not yet’

“I’ll see you tomorrow in the afternoon, you know,” said Adrien trying to ease the feeling. He didn’t like it either.

That’s when the door bell sounded, and Sabine stood up to open the door. After a very short while, Sabine called everyone down saying that it would be a change of plans. That took Tom by surprise, who had also gotten down the stairs to leave the kids for a moment alone, but was in the back of the bakery rather than at the door. Once Adrien and Marinette got down the stairs hand-in-hand, they actually got very surprised seeing who was at the door. “Good evening,” greeted Gabriel Agreste who was standing there in from of all at the door of the bakery.

“Father?” asked Adrien very surprised to see his father outside. “Wh-?” said confused with the fact.

“Adrien” said Gabriel after a moment.

When Sabine opened the door she never thought that she would see him outside of his mansion, less at the door of their house. To be surprised was an understatement. That’s why before Gabriel could say anything at all, she turned to see inside and called everyone else to the door. Gabriel knew to expect some kind of reaction but never thought that Sabine would get his intentions so fast. When Tom appears a couple of seconds later as he was just in the next room, he only managed to agreed in silence with Sabine when the mentioned of change of plans were done. They did wait for the kids before they opened the door completely and allow Gabriel to get inside with the Gorilla that had been driving him and Nathalie. “That’s your father...” whispered Marinette to Adrien very surprise or more so than Adrien was in that moment. She also squeezed Adrien’s hand a bit and he did the same back to her.

“Adrien,” Gabriel repeated again.

“Hey, let’s get comfortable, c'mon Gabriel, let’s get inside,” said Tom after a while before it gets weird between the Agreste - well more weird than now.

“Right...” said Gabriel after a moment and got inside.

“Father,” said Adrien with a smile understanding the intentions of why he was here personally.

“I got this,” said Nathalie given a bunch of presents to Sabine so she could put those under the Christmas tree.

“Right,” said Gabriel and then he indicated the Gorilla to help Nathalie to move the gifts inside.

“You know, you didn’t should have, but thank you,” said Sabine as she also grabbed all the gifts and made sure that everything was under the tree in order.

“Thank you Father,” said Adrien with a huge smile without letting Marinette’s hand go.

“I...” Gabriel sighed “I keep thinking on what the Dupain-Chengs said when they invited us...” That made Adrien smile even more. That had been a conversation that he wasn’t supposed to hear but he did and couldn't negate that some nice traditions are better with whole families or some very close friends.

“Oh” was the only replied that he said happily.

And so, the Agrestes had a nice Christmas Eve, with the Dupain-Chengs. Marinette and Adrien couldn’t be more happy. Gabriel who had refused at the beginning to spend the celebrations with someone else, had changed his mind after meeting the family of the girl that had stolen his son’s heart, and who knows, maybe had softened even a tiny bit of his cold heart. The family had been cheerful even after he denied the invitation saying that their proposed activities were strictly to be just for family members and nobody else.

What Adrien had heard that he shouldn’t have was the fact that the Dupain-Chengs had explained that family does not always mean blood, but closeness. That fact, after all the months that Gabriel had known the family was what had gotten him off guard. He is Hawk Moth and he was doing it for his family, but right now, he wasn’t so sure. Because who knew, maybe one day in a very far future, this always happy family - even when there were akumas attacking them or such things happened close by - would be his as well.

The end :D :D ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note: This was wrote before the episodes of Chat Blanc or Blanche and Felix air but after the finale of season 3. As it aired.

83 notes · View notes

jimlingss · 5 years

Text

Jungle Park [16]

Chapter 15 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 17

➜ Words: 5.4k

➜ Genres: Fluff, Light Humour (?), Slice of Life, Workplace Romance!AU

➜ Summary: The equation is simple. Hoseok needs to hire someone. You need a job. Except like any actual equation, it’s not fucking simple at all! Not when you have to add the fact that he was forced to hire someone he doesn’t want in his office, he has little respect for your job in general, and oh yeah...once upon a time you might have—*CENSORED*.

The invitation came by email. Your first thought was to refuse and you had even begun typing up an apology. But before you could write the second line, someone else had sent you a message. It was like she had a sixth sense and maybe she did because she asked if you were going to come. Then she guilt tripped you that it’s been so long, tried to convince you that it would be fun, do everything in her power to persuade you otherwise, as if she was part of a pyramid scheme and was trying to get you to join. Hani has always been fearfully persuasive and that’s how you find yourself dragging your feet towards Hoseok’s office. You knock three times and there’s a muffled— “What.” “It’s me.” The door cracks open and at the sound of your voice, Hoseok puts down his pen and looks up at you. The corner of his lips pull into a smile, scowl disappearing. “Oh, Y/N.” “Are you busy? I can come back…” “No, it’s fine.” His smile widens while you step into his office. “What do you need?” “No, um, it’s just, I know we’re supposed to come in this weekend.” “Oh, that doesn’t really apply to you.” Hoseok’s hands are clasped and you begin to break a sweat by how he gives you his full attention and his stare is more intense than usual. “You don’t need to come in.” “Oh...okay…” “Why? What was the matter?” “No...” It’s excruciating how much you’re beating around the bush, but you don’t really want to spill what’s going on. Still, you decide to say it rather than making it sound more suspicious. “There’s this stupid reunion thing I was invited to. It’s on the weekend and I was thinking of going.” “A reunion?” “Yeah, to celebrate eleven years.” Your head lolls to your shoulder and you ramble on, not making a big deal out of it. “Apparently, they were supposed to have one for ten years, but it got delayed. It’s kind of dumb but…” “I don’t think I received an invitation,” Hoseok suddenly comments, quirking his head to one side as well. His brows knit together and he inhales a sharp breath. “We went to the same university for our undergraduate, right?” “Yeah, uh, everyone sort of lost contact with you after you left for law school. No one knows how to contact you even if they wanted to…” Like you, many of the others had no clue that he opened up his own firm. “Huh.” He nods and then resumes his work, typing on his computer and casting you a mere glance when you’re still standing there. “Well, have fun and make sure you’re back on Monday.” “Sounds good.” Your feet linger for a moment, body not listening to your brain. But eventually, you get a grip on yourself and step out of his office. A school reunion trip would be expensive — luckily, your efforts of driving the taxi for twenty nights in a month was paying off….literally. You had quite a bit of savings, enough to pack your bags for a weekend trip. In all honesty, as nervous as you were to be seeing old faces again, you were also excited. It’s been a long time since you’ve seen Taeyeon, Hani, and the others. They would argue it’s been too long. Everyone has gone their separate ways, abroad for work or busy in their families and with their children. You were especially distant from them after you moved all those years ago. But it would be nice to see them again, to mend back old friendships and remind yourself that you aren’t alone. And it turns out that it only takes two buses and one train ride, a total of six hours and twenty minutes, to reconnect with old friends. It’s not as difficult as you thought it would be. You’re out of the city in the blink of an eye, at the one next door, waiting at the station for your ride. As you check your phone for the fifth time, you’re startled when there’s a loud honk. Someone’s pulling in with their maroon car and you immediately recognize the girl in the driver seat. She rolls down the window and tugs her sunglasses to the bridge of her nose, peering above the frames at you. “Hey, loser! Get in! We’re going shopping!” You grin at her reference, dragging your luggage over and throwing it in the backseat. “Some things never change, do they?” “Get over here.” Before you can even fully situate yourself in the passenger seat, she’s already leaning over the console to hug you, making laughter bubble from your chest. She really hasn’t changed one bit, from being extroverted and charming. Her long black hair is unchanging, features that seem sharper than they did years ago, cat-like eyes that are intimidating and cute when she smiles. She’s in shorts and a simple tee-shirt, summer-like attire in the chilly weather. “Ugh, I missed your ass so much.” You squeeze her back, savouring the hug that reminds you too much of another embrace that felt like eons ago. “Missed you too.” “Taeyeon’s staying with us in the hotel.” Hani shifts the gear and pulls away from the curb. “She’s there, still freaking out about leaving the kids with her husband.” You smile at the thought and look at her. “How are you?” “Good. Same old, pretty much. Work is tiring, but I really like it. I’ve been working on a project for the later half of this year and it’s almost finished, so I got that going for me. How are you?” “Things are good for me too.” “Where have you been working?” “Oh, I’m an HR rep for a law firm,” you explain in a boring tone, not wanting to discuss it too much. “I like it a lot.” “Oh my god! That’s so great, Y/N!” There’s a red light and Hani glances at you with a beaming smile, remembering you telling her that you were having trouble finding a job a few months ago. “I’m so glad you found a good place.” “Thanks.” “Have you been seeing anyone?” “No, not really. Just...haven’t found the time.” You move on, changing the subject. “How’s Daehwi?” A long sigh leaves from her pink lips. “An idiot as usual, but what’s new?” Your cheeks ache from your grin. “Has he popped the question yet?” “He said he was going to do it before my birthday, so I guess we’ll see what happens.” “That’s amazing.” And you really mean it. Rather than feeling envious, you feel happy and proud for your friends. Most of them have their lives together and it’s nice to see them progress, even when you feel like you’ve been stagnant, stuck at a standstill for so long. “You guys are great together.” “Yeah...I really do love that idiot.” A soft smile appears on her visage as she admits it. “If we get married, we’ll probably have kids soon after. We already talked about it and my eggs are dying, you know? And my nieces are just too cute. They always give me baby fever. But Daehwi wants it more than I do.” She laughs and you notice how her skin is practically glowing in bliss. “He wants five kids and a set of twins or something and I told him there was no way I was going to give birth to an entire football team for him.” Another laugh streams from your chest. “Sounds like Daehwi.” Hani hums and nods. “But things have been okay for you?” “Yeah. I’m pretty happy these days and I really enjoy my work.” Hani takes a glance at you. “I’m glad, Y/N.” Once you arrive at the hotel room, you can already hear Taeyeon face-timing her husband. She gives you the biggest bear hug imaginable and you say hello to her toddler and five-year old, making you a bit sad when they don’t remember you at all. But it’s good to be back and even better to meet up with friends that make you feel as if time created no distance at all. “Do you know who else is coming?” “I think most people are.” Hani momentary pauses scrolling through her phone and shrugs. “I checked the facebook page and a lot of them said yes. Probably because the university’s paying for a lot of the expenses.” Daehwi, who’s cuddling your best friend, smiles. “Our alumni is so nice.” Taeyeon scoffs. “More like we’re their backdrop so they can take a thousand photos and post them to their website and promote their institution. They’ve been pushing to reel in younger, naive kids and rob them of their money before giving them a piece of paper that says good job.” You grin as another thought flickers in your mind. “Is Changsub coming?” “He’s coming tomorrow morning.” The strawberry blonde female falls down onto the soft sofa, lounging on it. “He booked it last minute. I think he’s still on the plane right now.” “I can’t remember the last time we all met up,” Daehwi notes, looking out the glass window towards the city and feeling sentimental about the moment. “We’re only missing one person now.” Hani shoulder checks him and the male lets out a painful, “Ow! What! Can I not talk about Hoseok?” “It’s fine, you guys,” you placate both Hani and Taeyeon when they look at you in concern. “It’s not a big deal...I actually….talked to him recently.” Hani blinks with her wide eyes. “You did?!” “You did?!” Taeyeon repeats after her like a parrot, both of friends stunned. “Yeah...it’s...uh..complicated, but we’re good.” There’s a long silence, all three people staring at you, and you divert your eyes out the window. “So, what time is the official reunion tomorrow?” // The rest of the day is spent eating and catching up. Taeyeon talks about her kids, what giving birth is like and simultaneously putting the fear into Hani and Daehwi as they listen and you laugh at their expressions. The pair of them also talk about their traveling adventures, what countries they’ve visited recently and are planning to visit in the future. There’s not much that’s changed for you, so you only discuss your job and what you kind of do day to day. All four of you play uno like back then, gossiping about acquaintances while having a few drinks in the hotel room but nothing to get wasted on, only slightly tipsy. You can’t remember the last time you had such a good time. By morning, everybody wakes up a bit later in the day, grabbing brunch before getting ready to go. You pick out a dark blue modest dress to wear, sharing the bathroom alongside Hani who worries about her makeup and Taeyeon who does her hair. It reminds you of years ago when you used to dress up to go clubbing or out to the bar. It’s nostalgic and you feel young again, even when you’re sure age has made its mark on you. “You know, it would’ve made a lot more sense to have our reunion on campus and not at a hotel conference hall,” Hani points out while sipping on a glass of champagne, looking around at the place lit by chandeliers. You smile. “Now that I think about it, you’re right.” Taeyeon shakes her head, staring at the intricate patterns of the velvet carpet. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be at a fancy hotel than a shitty gymnasium on our shitty campus.” “Okay, touché.” “They have an after-party there,” Daehwi pipes up. “It’s pretty close. We should go.” “I don’t understand why there’s an after-party for the reunion.” “Different backgrounds create different pictures to put on their website,” Taeyeon tells Hani while she rolls her eyes in disapproval. You quip to the both of them while lingering at the back of the hall, “That’s a crazy conspiracy.” “Oh my god. Jiyong! Jiyong!” Daehwi puts down his drink, running off towards another man who yells out his name as well without looking back. They fist bump each other before going on a talking barrage to catch up and Hani appears even more exhausted than before, letting out a huge sigh. “Dear lord, if I have to talk to all of his frat members, I’m going to need another five hundred drinks.” The blonde beside her laughs. “Well, you should get ready because I think I see Seungri.” “Taeyeon.” Another female has stopped in front of you three. She’s staring straight at your friend, ogling at her from head to toe. “Is that you?!” “Oh my gosh. Minzy?” Taeyeon hands her glass of champagne to you, walking off. “It’s been forever!” “I know!” she shrieks in excitement. In the giant hall, you recognize many and once in a while, they stop to make small talk with you. It’s easy to get whiplash at all the familiar faces. You’re brought back to a decade ago, and an odd feeling begins to plague you. It’s as if all the regrets you had in the past fix themselves into place again, that the people you had forgotten about and that were so far away, are now in your reach. Eventually, you become overwhelmed and fade into the background. You hang around in the back, taking in all the decorations, the old photos, the surrounding people. Hani tells you that she’s going to the washroom and you nod, keeping an eye on her drink while sipping on yours. It awakens your memories of house parties where you were more of a wallflower than the life of the party, where you spent your time observing behaviour and actions, where it was much quieter. “Man...how do I not recognize anyone?” You nearly spit out your drink, but you end up choking instead. You’re hacking your lungs out unattractively, coughing and beating your chest like a wild gorilla. Maybe you’re so delusional that you’re beginning to hear and see things because you swear to god…..Jung Hoseok is standing right beside you. His head is tipped to one side, black hair left natural and unstyled, full bangs covering his forehead. He’s wearing sneakers, black jeans and a grey hoodie, too casual for an event like this. More importantly, he’s staring at you in amusement. It’s probably your imagination. You just miss him and your mind is coping…. But then he opens his mouth and talks. “Y/N?” “What are you doing here?!” Your mouth falls open comically, words spilling out in the harshest manner and you’re suddenly very, very worried. There are a million things that can go wrong in your life, but this situation was definitely in your current top ten. The corner of his mouth pulls and the lawyer rolls his shoulders. “Well, turns out you don’t need to be directly invited by someone. I checked the website and sure enough, I just had to sign up with my old student identification number to come.” “Wh-wh...but why?” Hoseok’s smile stays on his lips, but his brows furrow in confusion. “What do you mean why? I can’t come to my own school reunion?” “Th-th-that’s not what I mean.” Your head shakes and your eyes do a quick sweep of your surroundings before settling on him again. “You told me I lost contact with everyone when I went to law school, so I figured this would be a good time to reconnect with people. I didn’t expect to run into you so soon, though.” Jung Hoseok flashes the brightest of beaming grins, looking like the epitome of sunshine or someone from pleasantville. You begin envisioning throwing yourself against the wall hard enough where you could pass out and perhaps the ambulance would be called and you could escape this insanity. You might be a little over-dramatic at the moment…..but the logical part of your brain disagrees. This is perfectly rational. “I—” “Oh my god.” The interruption comes from your former best friend, Hani. Alongside her is Taeyeon who almost spills her new drink when she abruptly halts and her eyes grow wide at the sight beside you. Your worst nightmare is beginning to unfold right in front of your eyes. “Jung Hoseok?!” The lawyer frowns, staring at both women and he takes a long second before recognition begins to settle in. “Uh...Heeyeon and...Kim Taeyeon...right?” He glances at you for approval, and you don’t say anything nor do you even cast a single glance of approval. Taeyeon marches over and in five strides, she’s giving him a humongous hug. “Where have you been, bastard? I never thought I’d see you again.” In the meanwhile, Hani is boring her eyes into you as if asking if you’re okay, and you give a slight nod. “I’ve been busy.” Hoseok’s memory starts to jog again. He only has a handful of memories, all of them vague and blurry like they’re from an old tape he’s watching back, but he feels at ease for at least remembering them….even if he doesn’t have a single memory of you. “You didn’t even think to call, bitch?” His lips tug into a slight heart shape, eyes crinkling. “...Sorry?” Hani offers a more reserved and meek smile. She stands at a distance away, beside you. Her arms are crossed defensively, and she doesn’t spare any embraces or even a handshake. “It’s good to see you again, Jung.” “Thanks, Heeyeon.” Hani’s brow raises, wondering why he’s calling her by her legal name and not the nickname she goes by, but she brushes it off. “I see you’ve become acquainted with Y/N here. Maybe a bit too comfortable?” “Well, I’m sure this is fine.” His smile becomes lopsided as he peeks at you. “It’s not during working hours.” The female doesn’t quite understand, but she never once backs down. “Working hours or not, I think you should back off a bit. Have some human decency, Jung.” “Hani!” You’re cringing to death, ready to be lowered into your grave with your toes curling. Your mind races, though you’re rendered too speechless to know what to say or know how to address the situation. If you wished you were invisible enough, maybe it’ll actually work. “Is there a problem?” Hoseok is genuinely bewildered and baffled by her bizarre attitude, deciding to challenge the rude woman. “Or are you her boss too?” Taeyeon repeats him, equally confused. “Too?” “You didn’t tell them?” Hoseok shifts to you, trying to be caught up to speed. His head is already swirling with old memories slowly coming back to life. He wonders if you didn’t say you worked for him because it was somehow embarrassing to be working for someone you went to school with. But he knows you’re not the type to be shameful about such a trivial thing, especially when you loved your job so much. “Tell us what?” Taeyeon asks, spinning around to soak in your exchange of expressions. Then, her eyes almost fall out from their sockets and her jaw drops to the carpet. “Wait. Don’t tell me. Holy shit. Oh my god. You’re back together?!” “NO!” You shout, startling other folks and people turn around to shoot dirty looks. But you pay no mind, too preoccupied with nipping the crazy thought in the bud. “I work for Hoseok! At his firm!” “You…” Hani gives you a skeptical look. “...you’re working for him?” “Holy shit! Are my eyes seeing what they’re really seeing, right now? Or am I high?” From the noise, Daehwi had pulled away from the crowd of frat guys to see what the commotion was. Of course, now he was running towards you again, eyes pinned on Hoseok. “Dude! How’s it going?!” Their handshake morphs into a fist bump. “Why are you talking like you’re a nineteen year old dumbass again?” Hani rolls her eyes, but doesn’t dwell when she’s more upset at the current situation. She informs her partner of the news, “Y/N’s working for Hoseok at his firm.” “Wait. Really?” “Why is that so surprising?” Hoseok inquires, still perplexed at all their reactions. “There’s nothing wrong with Y/N working for me. That doesn’t make her job any less important. She actually runs her own department as HR manager. And she’s exceptionally good at her job.” “No, that’s not the issue. I’m just surprised, because—” “Hoseok doesn’t remember!” The shout echoes, straining your vocal cords, shocking your old friends. Everyone turns, necks craning over slowly like their bones are made from old mechanical rods. “What?” The situation is getting out of control. You’re losing your grasp on what you want Hoseok to know. The mess is beginning to unravel and you’re doing everything in your power to spool it back together, keep it hidden, in the dark, where only you know, where you can feign ignorance and live your little happy life without having to confront the past. Daehwi frowns. “What do you mean?” Your heart cracks for the hundredth time. And it’s because of Hoseok. Again. “He just….doesn't remember.” “Is there something going on here?” He asks right when Taeyeon was about to speak the same question, wholly puzzled at the circumstances. Their gazes are too intense for you to hold up by yourself. You’re barely holding it together and you’re too afraid you’ll begin to crack from the outside as well, let them see what you really feel, how damaged you are on the inside. “Hoseok has memory problems,” you calmly say, spilling secrets even when it’s not your place to, “he was in a car accident.” All three shift, waiting for his confirmation. He gives a single nod. “Oh shit.” Daehwi’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. “That’s horrible.” The blonde female steps closer to him. “What happened?” “Hit a lamppost. Like seven years ago. But I don’t have any ‘memory issues’.” Hoseok quotes you before laying his eyes on your visage. He cocks an eyebrow before looking at everyone else. “Just have some spots where I can’t quite remember. Am I missing something here?” “Nope.” You force a smile, talking past the lump in your throat. The urge to distance yourself from this is too overwhelming and you’re suddenly reminded of why you avoided reuniting yourself with old friends. It’s too painful, too messy to remember. Once again, you wish you were in Hoseok’s position where you didn’t know a thing. “The past is the past. Best to leave it behind. Anyways, you should probably get a drink. I can get you one.” “I can get it myself.” “No.” Your hands fly out, wanting him to stay where he is, wanting to get yourself away. At any moment now, you were going to break. “I insist, I insist.” “Let me come with you,” Hani asserts and you decide having a good friend beside you would be the least of your troubles, so you let out an ‘alright’. The two of you march through the crowd. The dark-haired female stares at your profile, her mouth opening, ready to fire out her many questions. But when you give a glance, she sighs and decides not to press on or pry. Hani doesn’t say anything, granting you mercy for the time being. In the meanwhile, Daehwi and Hoseok catch up with one another. As time goes by and more small talk is made, the latter’s memory jogs, though it seems as if your existence has been deleted from his recollection completely. But he doesn’t dwell when his focus is on socializing. “So, you’re a hot shot lawyer now?” The brunette grins. “Your sister always said that.” “I don’t think I’m a hot shot or anything, far from it, but yeah, I run my own firm. It’s kind of small and it’s nothing much yet. Still a work in progress.” “Damn, still, you’re probably filthy rich, dude. I’m jealous. Do you have a yacht?” “No.” Hoseok laughs. “I don’t have a yacht.” Taeyeon has an indignant expression. “Hoseok’s afraid of the ocean, remember?” “Rightttt.” The lawyer in question sulks slightly, not enjoying how his fears are being broadcasted aloud. “I’m only afraid when I can’t see the bottom.” “So he’s afraid of the entire ocean then,” Taeyeon reiterates with a laugh. “Guess so.” Daehwi teases the man and smiles with his teeth. He pats his friend on the shoulder. “It’s good to have you back, Hope. Now we’re just waiting for one more person before we have the whole gang back together.” “Speaking of the devil…” Taeyeon motions with her chin and both males whirl around. “Yeon! Dae!” Changsub is walking towards them, dragging his feet over as he exhales in exhaustion. “God, my plane got delayed and I literally just got here and threw my luggage upstairs. I’m so tired! My sleeping schedule is going to be so fucked. It’s supposed to be midnight right now. I swear—….” “Hey.” Hoseok gives a polite wave, smiling, and the guy has his eyes plastered all over him, starstruck, like he’s looking at a celebrity. Changsub blinks hard, appearing comical as he does so. “Jung fucking Hoseok?!” Daehwi chuckles. “Trust me, I didn’t believe it either.” “Dude!” Changsub gives him the most gripping hug, arms cradling his entire frame. “What the fucking hell are you actually doing here?! What the fuck.” “I’m here for the reunion,” he quips. “You?” “Same. God.” His hand runs into his hair, shock firing into his body. Changsub quickly looks around. “Does Y/N know you’re here?” Once more, Hoseok’s confusion returns. “Yes…?” At the reminder, Taeyeon glances around the premise, standing on the tips of her toes. She inhales a sharp breath, humming a note. “Let me go get Hani and Y/N. They’ve been gone for a while. We should get a picture together before things get more hectic around here.” The female dismisses herself, going into the crowd of people to grab you both, disappearing from sight. Changsub shakes his head, still staring at Hoseok and unable to trust his eyes even when he blinks hard. “Dude, man, it’s been so goddamn long.” “I know.” “How have you been? What have you been up to?” “I’m good. Just working as a lawyer these days at a divorce firm. You?” “Awesome. God, wow. Yeah, I’ve been travelling for work.” Changsub is at a loss for words. “You look great.” “Thanks.” Hoseok grins at him. “You too.” The male shakes his head, mouth drawing open. “And Y/N knows you’re here and shit?” “Yeah.” He wonders why he’s being mentioned with you so much, why people are so confused that he’s made a reappearance. It can’t be that weird. “Why?” Daehwi pipes up, interrupting the conversation, “They actually work together.” “No shit! Really?” Changsub is noisy, nosy, and a tad obnoxious. He’s slow to pick on things and a bit hyperactive, gathering attention from the surrounding people, but he’s still good natured and warm hearted enough not to cause real trouble. Yet. “So, you came with Y/N today?” “....uh...kind of? Not really.” “Are you guys back together?” “No.” Daehwi’s smile at once becomes stiff. He looks around as if searching for help, but when no one comes to the rescue, he pokes him and mumbles, “uh...Changsub...you might want to cool it.” He doesn’t hear him. “Yeah, I didn't think so. When it’s that bad of a split, it’s usually not good to get back together. I know I tried to get back with Sooyoung and it turned out even worse. She took the kids and all and that fucking sucked ass.” “Oh.” Hoseok quirks his head to the side, frowning. The lawyer is both perceptive and smart enough to catch on. Everyone knew something — what it was Hoseok was unsure of. But while they decided not to divulge any information and continue to speak in code, Changsub was his opportunity, the person to spill whatever was going on. “Was it a bad split? I mean, we only had two dates…..?” “What are you talking about? Two dates?!” A bark of laughter comes from the pits of his stomach, streaming out from his mouth in disbelief. Daehwi’s teeth grit. “Chang...shut up..” “You guys dated for like four years.” There’s silence. Hoseok stares at him. His smile immediately falls. “....Excuse me…..what?” Daehwi sighs his entire lungs out. He shuts his eyes tight and pinches the bridge of his nose. At this rate, his head was going to be shaved bald by his precious girlfriend, just because this dumbass was straight out ignoring him. Despite not being aware of what your relationship is with Hoseok, Daehwi’s sure he won’t be able to look at you in the eye after this. Guilt would eat him alive since you were obviously keeping Hoseok in the dark for a reason. “Chang...dude…” “You guys even got engaged.” Hoseok is lost. “....What?” Without you even knowing, your entire world collapses. It’s ironic that your feigned ignorance of history turned to real ignorance of the present situation. You can’t even mourn for your loss when you don’t even know that it occurred. “Changsub!” Daehwi steps on his foot and the male cries out in pain. “Ow! What the hell, dude?! I’m trying to talk to Hope!” “Yeah, well you need to fucking stop. Shut up. Seriously.” The man rolls his eyes. “I get that no one wants to talk about bad breakups, but it was like, what, eight years ago? It’s not that big of a deal. The past is the past. We can’t just keep beating around the bush or skirting around the issue and pretend it never happened.” Daehwi groans like it physically pains him to interact with his old friend. “You...are the biggest dumbass I have ever met.” “Hani! Y/N!” When the pair of you come into sight, Changsub grins and walks over like nothing had just happened. In a way, nothing really did happen. He was just talking about old memories, things that have no meaning anymore...or at least that’s what he thought. “Hey, Chang. Oh, I got your drink.” You pass it to Hoseok and he takes it lifelessly. His expression is strangely blank, glossed over, neither bright and energetic or serious and stern. Jung Hoseok is unreadable. “Did something happen?” Taeyeon asks with pouty lips, glancing at the three male individuals. “No…” Daehwi sighs and glances at Hoseok. “Not really.” Changsub shrugs. “My flight got delayed and I rushed over here from the airport, threw my luggage in the room upstairs and ran here. Barely made it too. Also, I’m super tired and my whole body is delayed like twelve hours. So, I might be a bit slower. Anyways, I’m glad you’re finally here, Y/N.” “Happy to be here,” you answer with a smile. “Took you long enough,” he playfully quips back and it’s true. You were avoiding them since they brought back memories you didn’t want to remember. But now that you were standing here with all your friends again, it wasn’t so bad….. “Yeah.” You give another smile. “We need a picture of this.” Hani digs into the small purse slung across her body. “I don’t know the next time we’re going to be all together again.” The small crowd gathers to take the photo. Hani has her arm around you, Taeyeon right in front with Daehwi and Changsub huddling on Hoseok’s side. You and Hoseok stand beside each other in the center, posing with cracking smiles as the camera snaps the shot, capturing the moment in time forever. There’s more meaningless small talk, more catching up. When the music plays, the official reunion begins and everyone finds their seats as the speaker takes the center stage and the slideshow at the back begins. You steal a glimpse of Hoseok when you feel the pressure of his eyes on you. “Hey...are you okay?” His gaze softens, eyes full of confusion. You don’t know what’s going on. And your fixation on denial blinds you silly, never once giving you an inkling at the potential possibilities. His turmoil is a tsunami, crashing down inside his chest, rushing into his stomach and drowning the butterflies that have migrated there, making him uncomfortable and sick. He is conflicted. Confused. Angry. Petrified. Sad. He doesn’t know why you would hide it from him. He doesn’t know what happened. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know who you are. Hoseok gives you the most honest answer he can muster— “I don’t know.”

#bts fanfic #bts scenario #hoseok fluff #hoseok angst #hoseok fanfic #shit is hitting the fan folks

636 notes · View notes

nexstage · 4 years

Text

Starless Connie: Two seagulls on the shore

To be honest, Connie didn't know what she was expecting when she decided to give Steven and the Crystal Gems a visit.

Maybe a new adventure, shenanigans coming from Little Homeworld, new gem students getting their schedules, anything. However, what she didn't want to expect and got, in the end, was the shocking news that Steven had disappeared in the night with his car, going somewhere else.

Her mind was in the blank after that.

Her first thoughts were that maybe there was a fight between him and his family that led to this. Her suspicions turned to be half-right and half-wrong. There did was a fight, but it was against a plant-like creation of Steven. A CactusSteven who repeated his words.

He had told Connie once, years ago, how he gave life to some watermelons who resembled his appearance. It just took a bit of his spit and some seeds to make it true. The difference between Steven Watermelons and CactusSteven was that the first ones were kind and peaceful as long as you didn't provoke them, but the second one, despite being cute from the start, became a horrible monster.

A monster who repeated words filled with anxiety, fear, anger, and bitterness. And all those feelings came from Steven.

The phrases Connie was informed about were even more concerning: he felt like his life wasn't anything if he wasn't useful as if everyone was growing up without him, getting better, being better, having a great time while he struggled without control. The Gems were also targets of those issues. Pearl deemed to be emotionally fragile which made Steven pick up the pieces, Amethyst not getting how he felt because she was so mature, Garnet's advice being useless with his problems.

It went over and over again in a vicious cycle of sadness.

Why didn't Steven say anything?

A part inside Connie told her that it was typical of him to not bother anyone with his feelings -whether he needed help or not; the other part of her, though, wanted to smack him in the head.

This kind of rage was pretty familiar in a nasty way. It was the same rage she felt when he turned himself to Aquamarine and Topaz to save them. The anger born from pain and helplessness.

At least this time nor Aquamarine or Topaz or any other gem were trying to kidnap people but...

No! This was much worse!

The bitter familiarity of Steven's issues brought her back to those times when Connie was young and naive, being Pearl's apprentice, training nonstop to protect Steven.

All for him.

Always for him.

DO IT FOR HIM.

'Remember, Connie. In the heat of battle, Steven is the only thing that matters. You. Don't. Matter'

'I. Don't. Matter'

Did Steven was thinking that way about himself? It may be a possibility. One that her mind played treacherously.

Steven hearing a mind projection of himself telling him the same things that Pearl put in her brain so Connie could be a 'perfect knight'.

'Remember, Steven. Every whim, every wish they want to make true you MUST fulfill. That's the only thing that matters. You. Don't. Matter'

'I. Don't. Matter'

Connie shivered. The sole idea of Steven acting as a servant or a tool was too disturbing for her to find a solution for. Now the question was, what would be the solution to this mess?

Obviously, first of all, she needed to find Steven and talk to him, so asking Lion for a portal-roar ride was step number one.

"Lion, let's go. We need to find Steven"

Much to her surprise and confusion, the magical, pink beast didn't move an inch. He just yawned as if Steven's disappearance wasn't a big deal.

"Lion, this isn't the time for naps! We NEED to find Steven! He could be hurt or something!"

The same reaction, a big yawn, and even Lion stretched to relax and continue sleeping.

She could feel one of her eyes twitching. What the hell was wrong with Lion that day to be this disobedient? Didn't he care about Steven? Had Lion given up on him? There should be a reason for this behavior.

So, Lion is Steven’s magical pet, but he can do his own thing whether he listened to Steven or her. And Steven was gone and must be found, though Lion wasn't cooperating at all. The question is why.

"You won’t help me find Steven not because you don't want to but because you feel it is not the right time to find him, right?"

The big cat purred and Connie took it as a yes.

"Did Steven tell you when would be the time?"

Lion grumbled a bit. That was no.

So, it meant that Lion was using his intuition to know when they could finally start looking for Steven.

Connie kneeled in front of the magical beast and pet him. She thought she had a better connection with Lion whenever she needed him, but this reaction surprised her. It seemed he was more perceptive and thoughtful than she thought.

However, was Lion protecting Steven because of the intuition of something bad happening to the boy if they found him? Or because she was deemed as not ready to deal with Steven?

Whatever it was, it didn't help with her anxiety at all.

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

It was the first time she decided to do this and even her mental representation of Steven would have been against the idea, but she didn't give a crap about her studies when someone she deeply cared about was missing and possibly hurting.

Reflection, despite taking most of her time, was the best way for Connie to piece everything together and find out the reasons of Steven’s departure.

According to the Gems, Steven had quit his job of running Little Homeschool and while the teenager could understand that taking a break was important, there was a sense of off-ness in Steven when he began gardening.

That activity at first seemed like a good hobby in their eyes, but the boy's guardians then saw how it was turning a bit unhealthy when Steven began talking with his plants and flower as if they were humans. His human friends. Saddie, Lars, the Cool Kids, even Connie. Saying things like it was good to have them back and they wouldn't leave him. Never leave him. No wonder Garnet said it was unhealthy.

Later, things went worse when CactusSteven was born. Pearl told her that it was cute and could even talk, repeating Steven’s words. The Gems were happy about that accomplishment until CactusSteven spit out harsh truths. How Steven felt so lost now that no one needs him, how he couldn't change while others grew up more and more, feeling left behind, stuck without something to fix or someone to save.

Nothing for him to do to show that he was useful and worth keeping around.

Some bitter memories from the past came to her mind while analyzing this, memories from before she met Steven.

Going to school wasn’t as difficult for her because of the studies, Connie was pretty smart after all; however, what she couldn't get was why she couldn't make friends. It was more of moving from a place to another due to her father's job, there was something missing that she couldn't grasp to have a lasting friendship.

She remembered that some months before traveling again and going to the beach that fateful day, Connie had met a girl from her same classes, Samantha.

She was cheerful and exuberant, both had such a good time and helped each other with homework. Though Connie always was the one doing all the job than Samantha, she hadn't minded. Then, when it was time to move again, Samantha said that it would be ok. There were phones, the Internet, it would take time but they'd keep in contact. Connie was hopeful and happy. Yeah, it would work!

Now that she remembered the end of that story, Connie questioned herself like how many Pinks and how many Spinels there are in the world, because days and weeks passed and Samantha never called, never sent a message, never responded to her messages and even when Connie called her once the number was deemed as nonexistent.

What went wrong? Did she have an accident or something? Was she too busy that the promise was forgotten?

During a day, while searching some topic on Google for a project, Connie accidentally made click to a Facebook advertisement and when she was going to get out, she saw Samantha's picture beneath the advertisement. It was a photo of her and other kids their age. She looked happy and having fun like always, which was strange for Connie. Curiosity got the best of her and with a single click, she could enter Samantha's Facebook profile wondering how a kid could be let to do something like that. Shouldn't there be an age restriction or something?

Whatever. That didn't matter.

Connie clicked to the personal data, Samantha's new phone was displayed on the screen of the computer. She thought that maybe, just maybe, talking with her again would be a good idea. Finding out why her friend didn't contact her, catching up. So she memorized the number and grabbed the not-umbilical phone. Two rings later, Samantha's voice was heard.

"Who?"

"H-Hey, Sam. It's me, Connie. Missed me?" she said a bit hopeful and nervous.

"Ahhh, it's you" Connie's mind froze at the annoyance and boredom coming out from her friend's mouth. "What do you want? I'm busy"

Then she heard something breaking, but no plate, glass, or object of porcelain in the house had fallen from its place. Suddenly and without notice, Connie hung up and went back to her room while tears streamed her face.

Later that night, a bit before sleeping, she went again to Samantha's Facebook profile while wondering why. Whether it was to find an answer after the treatment she received or to give her former friend a piece of her mind via inbox, Connie wasn't so sure until she entered the section of photos.

The answer came after some time of thinking.

What all the pictures of Samantha had in common wasn't only that she was there but also that the girl was surrounded by kids who looked meek, shy, kind of bookish and nerdy. Not that Connie was the one to stereotype others anyway. And then, with all that information and reminiscing her time with her former friend, Connie came to a very bitter conclusion: Samantha never wanted a friend, was never looking for one, just some brainiac to use to get good grades without moving a finger!

How could she let that moron played with her?!

That day she stopped making efforts to befriend others despite her desire to get to know other kids.

Though, every time she wanted to get close she questioned herself: what if he/she/they are like Samantha? What if they don't like me? What if I get hurt again? However, Steven saved her from that hole.

Steven who took care of her neon bracelet so he could give it back to her, even if it was in his weird/adventurous way.

Steven who liked her for who she was despite her flaws, her family issues, her fears, and anything else.

Steven who never labeled her as a tool and treasured her dearly.

Steven who always thought about her and cared deeply for her.

Her whole Universe.

And she was his whole universe too. Two birds flying together. Or that's what she imagined it could happen till now.

And yeah, they would go to different places, meet different kinds of people, experience so many things, figure out themselves and what they wanted to do... Until the moment came to reunite again and live their lives together, happily remembering the good and learning from the bad, having their friends and families with them, celebrating a new page of their lives.

But was that what fate had stored for them or what Connie naively portrayed for her and Steven’s future?

Did she think for a second that it would be that simple and fanciful?

Of course not! She knew very well that the path would be long and sometimes hard, confusing even. Though, at this moment, Connie wondered if that is what her narrow-minded imagination had conjured and not what the big picture showed.

Another question came to her mind then. How did the big picture look like for Steven? Did it have a future with love and achievements in his hands? Or was it still something he needed to figure out?

However, if Steven really wanted that, then he could have told the others about him leaving instead of doing it without no one noticing.

This picture was bigger and messier than just trying to find your place in the world. Steven has been struggling silently, his mind planning to take another path like many of his friends have as if his future was waiting for him somewhere else.

No, not his future. His purpose. Because that's equivalent to his future, to what he believed everyone wanted for him, and if there is no purpose in Beach City or Little Homeworld anymore, then what's the point in staying?

With all of this happening and no idea of what to do, Connie had a new perspective about growing up.

Before meeting Steven, it was all about her studies, making her parents proud, being lonely, and not knowing how far she could go. After meeting him and being on his side, she learned new things about the world and herself and witnessed more than she asked. Without Steven, and that wasn’t related at all to the fact that he was missing, she had a separate life from all the gem issues he constantly dealt with.

She knew what she wanted and what she was doing (or that is what her workaholic mind kept telling her), but did she imagine the same for Steven? Did he give himself that chance with so much time to spare and many options?

It didn't seem so. For Connie the alternatives were numerous, for Steven, they were reduced to 2: stay to waste away or find something to do to still be useful. They were going to take different routes until they felt ready to start a life together. Though the one who stayed wasn't Steven at all, even when he felt this way...

It was Connie.

Two seagulls on the shore

One is filled with excitement

The other always feels lost

Smiles fake, strained laughs,

Says he is ready to taste the world

But only burns like Icarus against the sun

#Steven Universe Future #Connie Maheswaran #Post-Prickly Pair episode #angst #self-worth issues #Title inspired in Two birds on a wire song

9 notes · View notes

mymelodyheart · 4 years

Text

Forget Me Not Chapter 10 ~Friend Request~

Willie glanced at his watch. It had been a hectic morning at The Fraser Manor Inn kitchen waiting for the arrival of the new kitchen appliances and making sure they were all according to order specifications. With the job done and with two hours to spare, he had time to install fixtures and fittings for Claire and Geillis in their newly rented house before heading back to Lallybroch to take his mother shopping. Instead of using the car, Willie jogged to the girls' residence. It was a brisk run as it was only fifteen minutes walk away.

He was about to knock on the door when something caught his periphery. What the...? Turning sideways, he saw Claire lying very still on her front on a patch of grass, head tilted and shoulders bunched. He wanted to say something to grab her attention and asked what the hell she was doing, but something made him stop. iPhone held with both hands, she was poised to take a picture. Biting her lower lip in concentration, a thumb hovered on the screen button ready to tap. Combing the vicinity for the object of her inspiration, his gaze landed on an immobile grey cat looking directly at her with alert eyes, already prepared to pounce or to scamper away at the slightest movement. Seemingly entranced with Claire's soft voice, the feral animal tipped and dipped its head at the sound she was making.

"Here's a good kitty...that's it, sweety, keep looking this way. I have a dish of milk waiting for you," she hummed softly.

Willie held his breath, mentally urging her to capture the perfect shot. A few heartbeats went past, but the opportunity went flying out the window, when the ping sound of her phone spooked the cat, causing it to scurry into the fields. Still unaware he was stood there, Claire groaned loudly, letting her head fall on the ground in frustration for a few seconds. When she finally raised her head to look at her phone screen, Willie saw her body stiffen, and her hands shook.

Alarmed, he immediately went to her. "Hey Claire, ye alright?"

Startled, Claire's head spun in Willie's direction, hurriedly scrambling into sitting position and composing her face. "Oh...hey. I was taking a daft photo," she explained feebly, her cheeks flaming bright pink. "I didn't hear you coming. Where did you come from?"

"I jogged from the hotel. Ye were so engrossed with what ye were doing, I didn't want to interrupt." Willie kneeled down, concern carved on his face. He could see her knuckles were white from clutching her mobile. "What's this?" He pried the phone off her hand with little resistance as it renewed its consecutive pinging sounds. His face went white as he looked down on the device's screen and read the vile messages. There was no avoiding it. "Jesus, Claire, who is sending ye these? And who is Lee Dee?"

Claire brushed off Willie's sharp question, refusing to look at him. "I don't know...I keep blocking them on Facebook, but they keep coming back with different names," she whispered hoarsely. She visibly shook herself, smoothing away the grass and damp from her jeans and summoning a smile. "C'mon, let's go inside, it's cold. It's probably just some sick person who has nothing better to do. Let's forget about it, ok?" She tried to grab her phone back from Willie's hand, but he held it away from her.

Not bothering to ask her permission, Willie continued to swipe up the phone screen to reveal more sickening and shocking lines. "Hell, no, Claire. This is serious. How long has this been going on?" he asked in a low voice, a line forming between his eyebrows.

She shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. "Four or five months, give or take."

"For fuck sake, Claire, that long? Does Jamie know?" Willie dragged down a hand on his face, trying to comprehend why anyone would send such messages to her.

"No!" The word emerged as a shout, laced in annoyance. "It's not important. Willie, please, just forget about it. Don't make a mountain out of a mole. Jamie's plate is overcrowded as it is, and the last thing he needs is worrying about something as silly as random stupid messages from the internet. I can handle this on my own. I'm an adult now in case you've forgotten...and you...you can stop acting like I need protection." She knew he wouldn't listen to reason, so she continued firmly. "I don't want to make a big deal out of it. So, drop it."

It was difficult for him to believe her when he could see flickers of pain in her eyes. He wanted to take her into his arms and hold her there, but in doing so, he would be allowing himself to feel more than he should. This is Jamie's girl, reminding himself, and Jamie had asked him to look out for her. Respecting that wish was something Willie didn't take lightly, and it was a responsibility he took seriously. With incredible will power, he quickly kissed her on the forehead, instead of giving her the usual brotherly hug, and turned towards the entrance door. "Aye, ye're probably right. It's probably nothing. Let's go inside then and put up those new curtain rails."

Appeased, Claire let them into the house with Willie close behind. Once inside, he watched her make a beeline to the kitchen cupboard, and with shaking hands, she retrieved two tumblers and poured a generous measure of whisky in each glass. It was then and there he realised her drinking could have something to do with the messages she had been receiving.

..........

Lying on the bed, Jamie stared at the ceiling of his hotel room. The plan had been to track down Annalise's adoptive family, but she was so damn elusive of their whereabouts, he had no choice but to drop the subject and the idea of attempting to find them. He knew she had severed their ties because of her abusive past suffered in their hands, but surely there must be somebody else in her life who cares about her. Friends? Long distant relatives? Acquaintances? Where are they? She couldn't have lived all her life not having anyone.

His mind drifted back to four days ago to their initial conversation. So, Jamie Fraser, for my second wish...I want to ask you...will you be my husband, until death takes hold of me? I don't want to die alone. Of all the things he thought Annalise would ask of him, he had definitely not foreseen that. Speechless and unsure how to proceed, all he could do was bury his face in his hands, giving himself time to formulate his next words...or action. It didn't help that his attention was divided continuously by his constant thoughts of Claire. There was no help. He wanted her so badly, in all sorts of ways that it made him ache all over. Christ, I miss her.

Mistaking his silence as contemplation, Annalise had walked over to him, reaching out to lay his head on her burgeoning belly.

Her touch had made him jump with a start. "No Annalise...no." His abruptness had startled both of them, but he was determined to keep her at arm's length. He didn't want to hurt her feelings, especially not in her condition. Studying her as he grappled for the right words, he thought he saw a flash of anger in her eyes. Or was it jealousy? Before he could read more into it, that damn mask was back on again. "Christ, Annalise...I'm truly sorry. Bloody hell, ye're dying, but I cannae grant ye this." He paused, releasing his pent up breaths. "No. I am here to help ye, but that is one wish I can't deliver. No, I cannae marry ye. I have someone... a-and I love her."

As expected, she had retreated back to her seat and to that impregnable veil, only shaking her head in response, maybe as a self-reproof for her own forwardness or embarrassment for being denied. "Of course..oh God. How could I ask you for such a thing? No... please don't be sorry. It's me who should be apologising. What was I thinking?" she sputtered, managing a self-conscious laugh at herself. "I had to ask because I'm desperate, it was the only way. I've never minded being on my own, but the idea of dying with no one in my life to speak of is terrifying. But I have to be content with the knowledge you'll make sure my baby will go to a loving home."

Looking at Annalise sat on the single armchair that seemed to swallow her, she had looked fragile, small, and so lost. She lived in a city that never sleeps, and it's thronged with people, jostling and going about their business without a care, and every day, she viewed the street below, like watching life go by in her absence from a fishbowl. Suddenly the small apartment had seemed suffocating, and Jamie knew he couldn't stay. He needed to get out of there to think clearly. Despite the silent plea in her eyes begging him to stay, he didn't, but he promised he would come back.

Came back, he did. They talked as he poured over papers upon papers of printed doctors' diagnosis and examinations that Annalise handed to him. It may as well had been written in Chinese as Jamie's thoughts bounced to and fro, her words going in one ear and out the other, and the medical documents were nothing but a blur. Nothing was registering when his mind kept wandering to Claire and the dialogue he had with his brother. Claire has a drinking problem.

Although trust had been verbally established between them, he didn't want to give her any reasons to doubt; hence, he had checked himself into a hotel and regularly updated Claire with news, omitting the part on Annalise's final wish. And after Willie's admission of his deep-seated fondness for Claire, he didn't want anyone thinking that she was available for dates especially now that her arrival back in Lallybroch had piqued interest. Thus, he had posted the picture he took of them on Facebook, tagging her and updating his status, in a relationship. She wasn't impressed as she was never one to post a photo of herself on any social media platforms, but she gave in eventually, knowing his counterargument would be unreasonable. Now that it's out there loud and clear, there should be no more misunderstanding.

Jamie held no illusions that his mere presence by Annalise would solve everything, nor was he arrogant enough to believe that every second of the five days he had spent with Claire, would guarantee a happily ever after. The crack of jagged daylight on Claire's wall was just beginning to show, and no longer did she have that worry in her eyes that their relationship would be met with disapproval. The deeply etched line between the two of them had been brushed away... for now, and he intended to continue to break that crack of light wide open.

He had made up his mind. Jamie was taking Annalise to Lallybroch with him, and that decision was based on selfish reasons. He missed Claire. Jamie needed her now. Even before Willie had confessed Claire's possible drinking problem, he already knew she was still fighting a lot of insecurities. How often, over the years, had he seen Claire vibrating with suppressed emotions? The thought made everything masculine inside him react. A bolt of heat had hit its mark, spreading throughout his loins. He was aching for her desperately if the outrageously full erection was any indication. She's mine to fix, and she's mine to balance. Love provides that balance.

With shaking hands, he reached out for his iPhone on the bedside table and facetime Claire. She answered on the first ring, draped in a bathrobe, a mug of tea poised at her lips. He could see she was in her bedroom. "Jaime!"

"Sassenach..." His voice sounded hoarse to his ears. Christ, she's beautiful...Sorcha. "What are ye doing? Are ye alone in the house?"

"Umm, Willie and Geillis are in the kitchen. Willie stopped by for dinner earlier. It was the least we could do for him after he did a few jobs for us around the house. I've excused myself, and I was just about to read a book." Claire disappeared from the screen as she twisted to her side to set the mug by the bedside table. "Are you alright, Jamie? You have that funny look on your face." She paused for a few seconds. "Uh-oh, I know that look."

"Lock yer door, Sassenach."

Claire didn't need telling twice as if she could read his mind and quickly scrambled from the bed. When she came back on the screen, excitement flashed in her eyes. "Now what?" she whispered, in anticipation.

"Take off yer robe. I want to see all yer naked body," Jaime demanded in a thick voice, as he slid down his sweatpants and boxer shorts, and wrapped his hand around his cock. "I want to see ye touch yersel'. I want to watch ye."

"Oh!" A heartbeat passed." Are you touching yourself?" she asked, her voice cracking and eyes doubling in size. Without waiting for him to answer, she went out of focus while she set her phone upon a stack of cushions, fussing and fiddling to place it at a right angle. He could almost see her blushing and smell her scent when he shut his eyes, envisioning her before him.

"Aye, I've been thinking of ye the whole day, and it's given me a painful cock-stand. I need ye so badly...please let me watch ye, Sassenach." His fist squeezed up and down his erection as he watched Claire sank back against a pile of pillows and slowly unknotted the tie to her bathrobe.

"Jamie, I've never done this before..." She looked painfully shy but at the same time, so damn sexy. He swallowed hard as his eyes focused on her hands, parting her bathrobe, ever slowly, revealing inch by inch the smooth white skin. So beautiful, my lass, love, love her.

"Christ, ye're the most beautiful woman I've ever laid eyes on...look at what ye do to me. The thought of ye makes me so hard and seeing ye like that in bed is enough to drive me crazy," he rasped, tightening his hold on his aching throb. "Touch yersel', Sassenach, and pretend it's my hands touching ye."

The need in his voice must have coaxed her to slipped off her panties, her glazed eyes boring into him. Her chest and cheeks were flushed, and her tits were larger than usual. She must be having her period soon, he thought

Her head fell backwards, shaking hands sliding up her stomach to cup her swollen breasts. As fingers rubbed over her nipples, her breath caught in her throat. "Oh God, Jamie..."

"I got ye Sassenach, I see ye...fuck, ye're so gorgeous," he gritted, his hand moving faster along his length. "Think of me sucking those beautiful tits."

The sound of his shallow breathing and the hitch of his breath encouraged her more. Staring into the screen on the phone, she spread her legs apart, his darkening eyes following every movement of her hands. She slid one hand down her stomach and dipped closer between her thighs. Slipping her fingers between the folds of her mound, she thrust them into her centre. "Oh, God, yes..." She moaned as she swiped the moisture from her sex, rubbing her finger over her sensitive spot.

"Look at me Sassenach...keep looking at me. I love ye, ye understand," His accent was becoming thicker by every word as he watched her finger movement grow erratic, his own hips rocking hard beneath the motion of his hands. "I love every fucking inch of ye. There's only been ye...ye hear me. Ye're mine. Mine. Say it."

"I'm yours, Jamie...always," she sobbed, working her finger in a circle between her thighs. "Oh, God, oh, God...Jamie..." Claire's gaze stayed on his, her eyelids weighed down with lust. "I'm nearly there..." Panting, she reached and pinched her nipple, her fingers repeatedly rubbing between her wet folds.

"So beautiful...so beautiful. Aye, that's it, don't stop. I'm with ye...love ye so much. So sweet..." Her body arched and convulsed in response, as his head buzzed and spun with urgency. "Jesus, Jesus Christ," Jamie gritted out, his own body racked with shudders, as his release came shooting out his hand, gripping him with near-paralysing bliss.

They both went silent as they allowed the waves of pleasure to subside, content to simply be and gaze at each other. As Claire curled up to hug a pillow, Jamie made a move to get up from his bed. "How are ye feeling?"

She nodded and smiled. "Sleepy..."

"Don't switch off the phone yet. I want to watch ye sleep. I'll be in the bathroom to clean mysel'" Jamie whispered, his chest expanding with love as he watched her body relax and her eyes strived to remain open.

"Good night, Jamie," she mumbled, pulling the covers over her shoulder and placing the phone next to her.

"Sassenach? I have something to tell ye...before you go to sleep."

"Mmm?"

"I'm coming home in two days."

Her eyes fluttered open for a few seconds, but he knew she was too tired to ask questions. It was just as well as he didn't feel like talking about Annalise after what they just shared. "I can't wait..." were her last words before Claire nodded to sleep.

..........

By the time Willie reached Lallybroch, his parents were already asleep. He wanted to speak to Claire before leaving her, but he heard her bedroom locking as he was about to knock. Sitting alone, by the fire, in the family room, he took out his phone and read the message from Jamie letting him know he was coming home with Annalise.

Having never met Jamie's ex-girlfriend, he decided to reserve his judgement when he meets her. There were other pressing matters that concerned him as he browsed through his picture gallery. Earlier, Willie made a few screenshots of the messages Claire received on Facebook and had it sent to his own phone. The date on one particular message disturbed him as it was sent way before Claire arrived Lallybroch and before she and Jamie became a couple.

You fucking whore, do you know it's incest to sleep with your brother? You're nothing but an ugly cunt.

He browsed through Claire's Facebook profile, knowing already she never posted a picture of herself. The images she posted were more of a hobby photography kind. There was only one photo of herself which Jamie posted and tagged her in, and this was from a few days ago. Swiping up further, he searched for a post nearer to the date when the vile messages started landing in Claire's inbox. They began on the day when she announced on Facebook she was coming home to Lallybroch to stay for good.

#melodyheart #forgetmenot #Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser #outlanderfanfic

1 note · View note

statementends · 5 years

Text

Characters: Jon and Helen

Pairings: Gen, past Melanie/Helen and Jon/Martin hinted at.

Rating: G

Warnings: Jon and Helen being monsters, but not much actual monstering happening in the fic

Summary: Jon puts his hand on the doorknob. Helen gets a roommate. It's simple. Jon could use simple right now.

AO3: Link

He puts his hand on the handle of the door. The door that has been a permanent fixture in the Archives since he had woken up.

He remembers Michael. The Distortion. A promise for a kind death. At least in comparison to the Stranger.

It didn’t feel like very long ago, and yet so much had happened. So much had changed. Would Michael be able to devour him now? Probably not.

Jon opened the door. Helen is there, her odd broken smile greeting him.

“It is polite to knock,” She pointed out.

He shuddered. Wondered if somehow she knew. She didn’t.

“Sorry,” He apologised. His senses buzzed. A twisting maze that couldn’t--shouldn’t be known laid out before his feet.

“Why are you here Archivist?” Helen asked.

“Jon.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t call you the Distortion, do I?”

“Names,” Helen shrugged. “Are they important to you still?”

“What if I called you Michael?”

Helen frowned. “I don’t think I’d like that. Very well, Jon. What can I do for you? You only visit when you’re sad.” She rolled her eyes at him. “Are you sad, Jon?”

“I’m tired,” He answered.

“Yes, you’re that an awful lot too.”

“Not--well, yes physically but… I’m tired of being everyone’s pawn. Elias, Annabelle Cane, Peter Lukas, even Martin--” He cut himself off. It hurt to say. Like a self inflicted wound. “I. I’m... hungry.”

Helen’s head twisted at an odd angle in curiosity. “Are you?”

“Yes. Very. Do you… want to go out to … dinner? Uh. As colleagues … I mean.” Jon stuttered. Maybe he should feel bad using such harmless metaphors for the pain they were about to inflict on living breathing people. He didn’t.

Helen’s smile could shatter glass, but that wasn’t unusual.

The need was easy to keep up with like this. It reminded him of his childhood. The endless books. The need for a brand new story that was nothing like the last. The Spiral was never the same thing twice. Helen hunted in new and mind dizzying ways. People wandered her corridors. Shattered from sleep deprivation. From unsolvable riddles. From shapes that shouldn’t exist and patterns that weren’t patterns. Colourful fractals, and madness.

It was beautiful. He could appreciate it now.

He didn’t lose his empathy. He felt the terror of every single person she lured through her threshold. Lived through it endlessly and he couldn’t get enough. Sometimes they would have other stories to share, still fresh to their maze. Helen liked hunting for Statement Givers. The ones that had already been marked. When she found Martin’s first victim she had been particularly pleased.

“Like home, Archivist.”

He wished he could be more surprised. That even Martin Blackwood could be twisted and corrupted. He just felt sad, recognizing his… friend in an unrecognizable story.

“Do you miss them Archivist?” Helen asked. She listened sometimes, especially when she was pleased with her catch of the day.

Jon watched the man run in the opposite direction. Running from the monsters.

“Yes,” He admitted. “They didn’t really like me much though. I… I don’t know. It never mattered before, being liked. I guess it was because I really did care about them, but they hated me, for what I did to them. So this is better. I’m freeing them. No more need to worry about the monster. He’s gone away. Proving everyone right. Never should have trusted him.”

“They never did trust you.” Helen pointed out.

“Oh. Right.”

“I trust you.” She offered.

“You’re the embodiment of lies.”

Her laughter hurt his ears.

“I trust you too.” He added.

She laughed louder.

They would go out. Do people things. Get ice cream by a pier somewhere in Canada. Helen would dance in Russia. Jon would get lost in a library in Iran. They would have chips in London. See a movie. They didn’t go to London too often anymore. They were looking for him after all. Elias Knew as soon as they left the corridors. The Archives were searching for him, everyone in their own way.

If it was because they wanted to see him he wondered if he’d go back, but really it was because of usefulness or fear. Emotions he didn’t want to deal with anymore. Couldn’t they just be pleased he was away and wouldn’t be enacting the ritual anytime soon--even when he burned with curiosity wondering about it. Wondering if he could…

He was dipping his feet in the ocean. Helen was beside him fishing with nothing but some string tied to a stick. She had caught eight fish already and thrown all of them back.

“Is there--” he stopped. Started again. “I was wondering if there’s anyone you missed.” Jon said making it a statement instead of a question.

Helen splashed her feet in the water.

“I never asked. I … probably should have.”

“No one that matters now, Jon.” She answered. “Not to who I am. In the archives… I liked Melanie. She was fun… until she wasn’t.”

Jon didn’t press, the question buzzing unpleasantly on his tongue.

Helen smiled, knowing what he wondered. “When you fixed her leg, she started … putting her mind in order. Seeing me for what I am. I took it a lot better than you did. Helen never had time for people that didn’t accept her. Her father didn’t believe in Lesbians. She didn’t believe in her father. I have fonder feelings towards Melanie though, despite her feelings towards me… us.”

Helen stood. Stretched out letting the impromptu fishing pole fall to one side. “Shall we go home, Jon?”

When had a hellscape of endless nonsensical corridors become home he wondered. When it had become his shelter he supposed.

“Yes,” He stood, shaking the water off his feet. “Let’s go home.”

Sometimes he remembered just how old the Distortion was. Helen was it’s primary… personality? Host? A part of it… is it, but also not sometimes. It was probably best not to think about it too much. Sometimes she would talk about old victims during ancient times that she had never lived in. Sometimes she laughed with Michael’s laugh and spoke with Michael’s speech patterns, and called him Archivist.

She was interesting and there was always more to Know.

He wondered if she… the part of her that was the Distortion was as fascinated with him as he was of it. They were opposite ends of the spectrum. Knowing and Lies. Curiosity and deceit. But they fed each other. Jon trying to solve tangled puzzles. Helen trying to confound an all knowing mind. A healthy challenge. A comfortable balance.

It was October. There wasn’t much of 2018 left. He wondered if he’d make it.

“What are we, Jon?”

“What do you mean?”

“Our relationship status.”

Jon blinked. He went and looked over her shoulders. On his phone he had lost three months ago she was slowly updating her profile on Facebook. He could see the edges of her newest posts had fractals, cat memes, and something about it being wine o’clock.

“Ah… well… we’re friends.” He admitted.

Helen nodded. Dutifully added him. He had forgotten he even had a profile. Sasha maybe had set it up… or Tim? Such an unimportant thing… he wished he remembered. The picture of him looked strangely young although it was only taken four years ago. Less gray. A serious look, but not so tired. He wasn’t tired much anymore though. Now that he was… taking care of himself.

She set their relationship to “It’s complicated.”

Jon laughed.

#tma #the magnus archives #the archivist #helen richardson #the distortion #jon&helen #fanfiction

108 notes · View notes

blakelywintersfield · 5 years

Note

what do you think about cancel culture?

So it took me a while to answer this ask ‘cause I have... a lot to say about the subject.

There’s a lot to unpack when it comes to cancel culture. Its roots I like to believe are well intended -- a means to alert vulnerable groups about individuals that have a history of hurting them. But people have taken it... way too far.

I think it’s important to hold people accountable for their actions. There’s a lot of people who get away with horrible things, simply because they produce likeable material (makeup, music, movies, entertainment, etc.). People like Jeffree Star, PewDiePie, and Kat Von D have gotten away with their horrific treatment of others for years because people enjoy their content -- and two out of three of them still are wildly successful. What pushes people over the limit? Often times it’s a matter of what white people take major issue in. In Kat’s case, being anti-vax. Is being anti-vax bad? Hell yeah it is. As someone who’s immuno-compromised it literally could lead to an early, painful, slow death for me. And don’t get me wrong, I wanna die, but not from something that takes months of suffering. But people blatantly ignored her other awful acts -- such as her antisemitic actions (telling her former boss to “burn in hell jewbag” (sic) in the form of writing on a photo she left for him and drawing a Nazi symbol on it), complacency in victim blaming (her neo-Nazi husband blames his daughter’s rape on his daughter), denying and viciously responding to criticisms about her pedophilic makeup names (”Underage Red”, “Lolita”, second not in reference to the Japanese style but the book), and actively killing her pets (she killed one cat by leaving a house full of burning candles -- cat knocked down the candles, house went up in flames, cat died; she also was found forcing a vegan diet onto her cats -- I’m unsure if this has continued but I believe one of her cats died from it). All of these are huge reasons to “cancel” her -- to boycott her products. But people didn’t actively hate her until she came out as anti-vax, something that effects the majority. And that’s part of the issue with cancel culture: people pick and choose what’s acceptable depending on how badly it effects them personally.

Let’s focus on the other two mentioned: Jeffree and Felix. Jeffree has a very, very, veryyyyy long past of being a racist piece of shit. Not even lowkey ignorant white person racist (i.e. ”I didn’t know making fun of AAE and viewing dreadlocks as trashy was racist”). I’m talking straight up using the n-slur, with the hard -er too, towards a black woman. And this was recent, too. There just haven’t been any physical references beforehand, only personal accounts. But people have defended him -- and still defend him -- on these actions, because he apologized. But then he’ll do it again a month later. And there’ll be definitive proof of it. He’ll keep doing it over, and over, and over again. And people will continue to excuse him because he keeps apologizing! That’s not how apologies work! As someone who’s been abused, apologies mean nothing if you don’t actively work on fixing what you’re apologizing for!! My abusers would apologize and then do the exact same thing again so many times that I lost count long ago! And of course, Shane Dawson hasn’t helped because he’s head over heels for the guy, so he’s been using his popularity to try and clear his name -- which is ironic, considering he’s been under fire for being racist in the past too. The only difference is he actually cleaned his act up, until now, of course. Because now, instead of creating racist content himself, he’s defending a chronically racist shitbag. And people continue to defend him, because his shitty actions effects mainly black women -- a minority in comparison to the amount of white people in the states. Jeffree continues to be wildly successful because his problematic behavior only effects a minority, and that’s... not okay.

Felix has a very similar history to Jeffree, but with antisemitism, and in my opinion he’s even worse because he’ll apologize then do something nice like donate to a charity. And that would be fantastic if he wouldn’t continue to do antisemitic things like actively support white supremacists. People continue to defend him because he does charitable things, but I constantly remind people that abusive people aren’t abusive 24/7 -- that’s literally how they get away with abuse. They abuse, then take you out for a fancy date, kiss you gently and tell you how beautiful you are. Then they do something abusive. It’s an endless cycle. And that’s honestly what Felix does. Apologize, do something really fucking nice, and then repeat his shitty action. And he has other extremely influential people defend him -- it’s why I had to stop following JackSepticEye and Markiplier. They continuously vouched for him. They continuously defended him. And they did it in the form of saying “he’s a really good person, I know him personally, he’s really fucking sweet and nice”. That’s what people say about the partner of someone really close to me! Their friends defend them all the time, but they’ve never seen how they treat my friend. They don’t know about how they are in a relationship. And that’s all we ever hear about abusers. No one wants to accept that their longtime friend is shitty. But Mark and Sean contribute to the toxic ideology of “defend your friends to the end”. And it disenfranchises those effected because 1) they’re not Jewish, they have absolutely no say in the matter, and 2) they’re abusing their popularity to keep their friend from being properly criticized. I don’t think either of them are shitty people, per se, but they’re being extremely toxic by not letting their friend see that they’re a repeat offender and need to either work on their shit or face the music. Mark and Sean both have the power to make Felix change if they just give him the ultimatum of “us or this”.

But I digress. The main issue highlighted here is that people who actually do bad things and continue to do bad things aren’t being held accountable because people don’t care to acknowledge what doesn’t directly effect them. This is the first main issue with cancel culture.

Let’s focus on another man under scrutiny: John Lennon. Now, let me put out there for disclaimer purposes that this man is far from perfect and has problematic parts to him as well. He’s done some shitty things. But cancel culture looooooooves to dig at this man. To put it crudely, they really enjoy beating this dead... man. And mainly over one really bad thing he did, which was hit his wife. However, people love to 1) over-exaggerate it, and 2) completely ignore how he handled the aftermath. Cancel culture often refers to him as a “wife beater”, as though this were a chronic habit or that he severely brutalized his wife. But they conveniently ignore that he apologized, both to her and publicly, taught himself about domestic abuse and spoke up for women’s rights, and even wrote multiple songs about how he fucked up and he shouldn’t be excuse for what he did. And, most importantly, his wife forgave him. The victim in this situation forgave him, and people still dig into this one thing and use it as their reason to hate him and his band to this day. Genuine criticism of him and what he’s done have gone to the wayside because of this one fact with no context, and it’s a huge phenomena because people, for whatever reason, love to hate popular things. Like I said, he’s done shitty things! He wasn’t perfect! But to use one issue that was literally resolved to hate him is just a lazy excuse to hate what’s popular, and that comes to our second issue with cancel culture: people want to hate what’s popular and will go to any lengths to excuse their hatred, even if issues that have been resolved.

The last main issue I have is that cancel culture is often set up in very black and white terms. Person does bad thing, they’re bad, end of discussion. But that’s... not how life works. Not at all. I know religion isn’t universal, especially Christianity, but there’s one point in Christianity that is universal: humans are flawed. No human being to have ever existed is perfect. And with the rise of technology and social media, a lot of mistakes have a permanent proof out there. Be it through tweets, tumblr or Facebook posts, Instagram or Snapchat stories, whatever it is, there is proof. And people like to take it way too far.

For example... well, I’ll use myself. There’s good things to not being tumblr famous, and I’m blessed with that, because I used to be a major shithead. Well. Okay, I still am, but I was bigoted, uninformed, and had a lot of internalized issues. For anyone that doesn’t know, I was raised in a conservative Christian household where my father was Southern Baptist and my mother had been raised Catholic (her personal religious views are much more lax though, thankfully). Both came from small towns in Illinois and Missouri respectively, and their parents, the same. I was aggressively homophobic and transphobic (ironic, eh?), covertly racist and sexist, and just overall a really shitty person. And while I didn’t join tumblr until after I’d finally started to grow, a lot of people on here are younger -- some even lying about their age and joining before they’re 13. And like me, many of these kids are in close-minded households. And for the longest time I refused to listen to other people because of the good ol’ backfire effect, but once I began to accept I was wrong, I learned. Of course I still have learning to do -- I always do. I always will. And that’s okay. But if I were 12 year old me on tumblr today, I would, well. I would’ve probably killed myself by now, because of all the bullying and hate for being a shithead child. A shithead, yes. But a child. Someone that’s going to be ignorant to a lot of things because they haven’t been alive for as long. And not everyone has informed parents that make it a point to teach them. Adults are a little harder to forgive, I’ll admit, but children have a lot more potential to learn and grow, and we often treat them just like adults.

The final issue with cancel culture is that it gives no room for improvement and no assumption of someone’s innocence. While it hurts to be on the victim end, we as a whole are obligated to correct the issue. I personally would like it to be those not effected doing that (i.e. someone making a transphobic comment having other cis people explain why it’s transphobic and isn’t okay), but regardless, we need to assume innocent until guilty with these kinds of things. It’s not easy, sure, but if I had been on tumblr while I was a shitty kid parroting my dad’s awful world views, cancel culture would’ve labeled me a piece of shit with no chance of redemption, and if I didn’t kill myself there’s no fucking way in hell I would’ve learned, because that kind of treatment would’ve stuck with me and made it harder for me to listen to the other side’s reasoning, even if they were right. We need to approach people in a manner of calm education, instead of ready to kill. In no way am I saying this is an easy thing to do, but unless they’ve refused to open themselves up in any way whatsoever, immediately chalking someone up as a lost cause is just... counter-productive. We have to acknowledge that people are flawed, and can learn and grow. We need to give people space to improve. It’s not all or nothing.

All in all, cancel culture has a good base, but its execution has become irrational and a means to justify hating those that really don’t deserve it, while turning a blind eye to those that actually are problematic. There’s a lot to be improved on.

#ask #long post #cancel culture #this is not an invite for discouse on anyone mentioned in this post #seriously i don't want to hear it #especially felix stans #Anonymous

5 notes · View notes

theoreocat · 6 years

Note

Is there a story behind oreo? Hes beautiful and im so proud of him and would love to know his beginnings

Hi there!

Yes! There is a story! It goes like this:

In August of 2013, Oreo was found along with his sister Patches by my sister and brother-in-law in his parent’s back yard. Alone with no Mom, my brother-in-law waited around all day watching to see if the kittens mother would return for them. Unfortunately, after many hours of waiting, no mother came for them and so my brother-in-law decided to bring the kittens home and care for them. The kittens were both quite small and needed to be bottle fed and helped to go to the bathroom.

Both my sister and brother-in-law cared for them for three days time up until my sister’s allergies became too severe. The moment that I had seen the pictures posted of the two kittens on my sister’s Facebook page, I told her that if they needed a place to stay they could stay with me. I worked from home as a Children’s Book Illustrator and was available to be around to take care of the kittens. After putting up with her allergies for three days, my sister was no longer able to keep the kittens. She called me and I immediately accepted to take them and my brother-in-law brought them over. I checked them for fleas upon entering the house and had already arranged to bring them to my local animal shelter. However, once meeting them and confirming that they did not have fleas, I decided to keep them and care for them while I tried to get them both adopted. Inquiries about the two kittens came almost instantly after posting pictures and a video of each one on Facebook. Patches, Oreo’s sister, was immediately adopted by one of my childhood family friends. I agreed to keep Patches up until she no longer needed to be bottle fed. Oreo was half the size of Patches and Patches herself was quite small. Both kittens were able to fit into the palm of your hand. Patches was quite feisty and strong and in the weeks to come she became very protective of her brother Oreo. Oreo on the other hand was extremely weak, didn’t meow at all and had trouble feeding. If anyone were to adopt Oreo, they would have to have the time and know-how to care for him adequately. A couple of days passed and I received an inquiry from a girl who’s sister’s cat had just lost her litter of kittens. The mother cat was still full of milk. This seemed to be a Godsend and was the perfect solution for Oreo. Being with a mother cat who could properly care for him would be the best thing.

The next morning, my ex-husband woke to get ready for work and before leaving, he checked on the two kittens asleep in their boxes. I got up right afterwards and went to check on the kittens and prepare their morning bottle. To my horror, I found Oreo lying face down in his box. He was not breathing. There was diarrhea all over the box and all over him. I picked him up and quickly checked for a heartbeat. His heart was still beating, but very faintly. Not a breath was coming out of his nose. I tried my best not to panic, it was too early and my veterinary clinic was not yet open. There were no animal hospitals close by either. I had been trained in First Aid and CPR years ago… But for humans, not cats! Then I remembered… I had seen something on TV the week before showing how to perform animal CPR and mouth-to-nose on pets. I put Oreo on his side on the floor, checked for airway obstruction, extended his little teeny neck and began to breathe into his nose while keeping his mouth closed. After what seemed like forever, a small snort and a breath came out of him… he was breathing again! I washed him off in warm water and wrapped him up in a warm blanket. I called my ex-husband crying and told him that I thought Oreo was going to die. He said that when he checked the kittens that morning, Oreo was lying in the litter box. He moved Oreo over and thought the kitten was sleeping, but had a weird feeling. I called my veterinary clinic and left a message asking if I could bring Oreo in as soon as possible. Thankfully, the nurse was there early, she answered and told me to bring him in immediately.

The nurse took Oreo in right away and placed him in a warm blanked that sat on top of pairs of rubber gloves that she had filled with hot water. The nurse did her best to care for Oreo while awaiting the arrival of the veterinarian. The clinic graciously put aside other morning appointments to give Oreo’s situation top priority. Oreo spent the day at the clinic and came back to us that evening. After this whole ordeal, I decided to keep Oreo. My home then became his forever home. It took many of the following weeks to bring Oreo back to full health. He and his sister both had a parasite which caused them both to be ill. However, Oreo’s sister Patches was strong enough to fight everything off quite quickly. For Oreo, the process was quite long and slow. Many weeks were spent giving him intensive care and attention, which included feedings around the clock. This resulted in many nights spent with little to no sleep until Oreo pulled through. I am happy to say that he is now a healthy and happy cat!

Oreo has changed my life forever and brought me endless joy and laughter. My life would not be complete without him. He is a very special cat. Oreo has brought out the best in me and has inspired me to be creative in ways I never thought possible. I hope his story continues for years to come.

Oreo’s story is also available on his website!

305 notes · View notes

lovemesomesurveys · 5 years

Text

Is there a bus stop near your house?: Yeah.

Do you prefer red wine or white wine?: No whine. I don’t drink.

What’s the last airport you were at? Why were you there?: The one close to me to drop someone off.

Who do you live with?: My parents, younger bro, and doggo.

Do you read reddit? If so, how often and what subreddits do you like?: No.

Have you recently broken up with a significant other or even just a friend?: No.

What’s the weather like today? Is it nice enough to go outside?: It’s 86 F right now.

Do you know anyone who’s had a baby recently?: No.

Have you used a pen or pencil today? What did you write down?: Nope.

What does your last text message say and who is it from?: I asked my bro if I could use his Amazon Prime and he replied, “sure.”

Can you count how many times you’ve seen your favourite film?: I have a lot of favorites, many of which I’ve seen countless times. Some of them are shown on TV often and I watch whenever I catch them on.

When was the last time you ate marshmallows?: With hot chocolate sometime earlier this year.

Do you listen to any podcasts? How do you listen to them?: No. There’s a lot that sound interesting, but I’m so lazy. Like for some reason it takes a lot for me to get started on something, even something as simple as a podcast. It’s the same way with TV shows. A few of my favorite TV shows I’ve discovered because someone put it on for me and got me to watch.

How old will you be in the year 2030?: 41. D:

How often does the kettle in your house get used?: We don’t have one.

Does your skin bruise easily? Do you have any bruises right now? What from?: Not really.

What was the last thing you spent $150 or more on?: Bills.

Do you prefer yes or no questions or more open-ended questions?: Open-ended. I tend to avoid surveys that seem to be mostly questions that encourage one-word answers. What’s even the point? <<< Same. They get boring.

What brand of toilet paper do you usually buy?: Charmin.

If I knocked on your door right now, would you be acceptable dressed?: Yeah.

Why did you leave your last job?: I’ve never had one.

What colour were the last socks you wore?: Black.

Are you studying currently? What level of education and what do you study?: Nope. I graduated in 2015 with my BA in psych. I’m not pursuing anything higher.

Have you ever eaten at a restaurant and left without paying?: No.

What was the last thing that made you laugh out loud?: The vlog I was watching earlier.

What’s your favourite scent of air freshener?: Minty, cinnamon, tropical/beachy ones.

How many weddings have you ever been to?: 3.

Do you know anyone named Nora?: No.

Are your hands and feet in good condition or could you do with a mani-pedi? My fingernails are a mess. When was the last time you played a board game? What did you play?: It was some time last year, I think. I think it was The Golden Girls Clue game my cousin brought over.

Have you ever been to a festival for beer or other type of alcohol?: No.

Do you own a record player and/or vinyls?: I have 1 record, no record player.

When was the last time you went out for drinks?: Like 6/7 years ago. Have you ever been to a strip club?: No.

What’s your favourite kind of smoothie?: Strawberry and banana or just banana.

Do you know anyone with a ‘virtue name’? (Google it): Yes.

Would you ever wear real authentic leather?: Nah.

Have you taken out the trash today?: Not me, personally. My dad did, though. How often do you wear make-up?: Very rarely. Not at all this year so far I don’t think. If I did, it was at the beginning sometime.

What’s your opinion on The Simpsons?: Not my thing.

Do you prefer horizontal or vertical stripes?: I don’t care.

What’s your favourite brand of deodorant/antiperspirant?: Secret.

Do you know anyone who has been through a divorce?: Yeah.

If you had the money, would you take taxis everywhere instead of driving?: No.

Have you ever done a juice cleanse?: Nope.

Do you have any friends who you can’t decide if they’re attractive or not?: That’s really shitty. Is the inside of your fridge clean right now or does it need a clean out?: My mom cleaned it out recently.

When was the last time you washed the dishes?: I rinse off whatever I use, but I’m not the one who does the dishes. My mom or dad does.

Are there any magazines that you read on a regular basis?: Nope. I haven’t read a magazine in years.

Do you have to pay for parking in most places in the town/city you live in?: I don’t.

What’s the first thing you tend to do when you have a headache?: Putting a cold wash cloth over my eyes helps a bit and then I just try and sleep it off. That’s all I can do.

Tell me about your responsibilities at work.: No job.

Can you hear lots of traffic from your house? Does it bother you?: I don’t hear any. I actually live near a freeway, but they built a soundproof wall several years ago. Have you ever had proper Canadian poutine with the squeaky cheese?: Nope. I’m intrigued by it, though. I think I’d like it.

Do your parents know how to operate smartphones and/or computers?: My mom uses her phone quite a bit for things like Facebook, Snapchat, and texting, so yeah she’s pretty good. She can use a computer, too. My dad uses his phone for stuff like Facebook, YouTube, and texting, but he’s not as savvy. He’s always asking my brother and I for help doing something. Especially not with a computer.

How old are your parents, anyway?: My mom is in her early 50s and my dad is in his late 50.

Are you allergic to anything? What do you have to do to prevent them?: Tangerines. I just avoid them.

What song is stuck in your head at the moment?: The theme song to Big Little Lies.

Do you hate it when people try really hard, or do you kinda like it?: It depends…? This is vague. <<< Like try really hard to be cool or funny or something like that? Then yes. Just stop. If they’re trying really hard to achieve something or do well on something, then no. Why would I hate that?

What’s your boss’ first name? Do you call him/her by that name?:

When was the last time you wore a uniform of any kind? What colour was it? I only had to wear a uniform for the preschool I went to. It was plaid.

Do you complete a survey before taking this one? Will you take one after?: Yeah I did. I’ll be taking more. Have you ever lost enough weight to drop a dress size?: I probably have.

What’s your favourite kind of bread?: White, wheat, or sourdough.

When was the last time you got pizza? What toppings did you get?: A couple weeks ago. It was a creamy garlic sauce pizza with cheese (including feta), spinach, and meatballs.

Do you own Monopoly? Is it the original or a special version?: We have a special version. It’s a fancy collector’s version.

What was the last thing you said out loud?: My mom just got home from work and we were talking.

You have to choose one: cats or dogs?: Dogs.

Would someone being either a cat or dog person effect you dating them?: No. It would affect me dating them if they didn’t like animals, though.

How do you travel to and from work?:

Do you primarily use cash or card for your purchases? Why?: Card.

Have you ever been to a stadium concert?: Yep, those are the only kind I’ve been to.

#personal #text #survey #surveys

5 notes · View notes

surveys-at-your-service · 4 years

Text

Survey #257

I hope y’all are behaving and staying inside. This’ll blow over, folks.

Have you ever met a guy for coffee? No. How often do you get called on your home phone? We don't have a landline. Do you feed your leftovers to your dogs? We don't have a dog anymore. When we had them, we very rarely did. Mom did so more than me, and I wouldn't give them anything if they were begging. Except chicken nuggets with Teddy. There was no denying him chicken nuggets. Do you like salt on your popcorn? Yes. What tricks does your pet do? Well one is a snake and my cat doesn't know any because since when do cats obey you lmao. Do you believe in psychics? No. When you hear the name “Ginger” what do you think of? Jason's old fatass dog. What is the worst damage that your car has seen? N/A Who is your least favourite character on your favourite television show? In Meerkat Manor, fuck that, I loved them all, lmao. Well, I remember I was bitter towards Rita/Amira for killing Rocket Dog's pups, but even then I knew that was meerkat nature to ensure the survival of their own offspring. That '70s Show, definitely no one. I adore all the characters. For Fullmetal Alchemist, honestly, there are SO many that I don't remember probably even half of them. BUT, from what I do remember, Nina's dad whose name evades me. You watch it and you know why alkdsjf;kaldjw. Have you gotten sick this year? No. When was the last time you got a new ringtone? Eons ago. Where do you put your keys when you get home? They're always in my purse. What’s your phone background picture? Lock screen is a cute as fuck picture of Mark, home screen is two meerkats. If you could move to any country, what would it be? Realistically, Canada. Have you ever seen a snake in the wild? Plenty of times. Do you have any posters, paintings or other artwork on your walls? A LOT. My walls are cramped; it makes it feel homey to me. Would you ever take a trip to space if given the chance? Nah, too long of a journey. How do you cope with anxiety? Watch YouTube more attentively, listen to music, nap, take one of my anxiety meds. Are you expecting any phone calls or emails? No. Who makes you laugh the most? In my "real life," my dad. Out of anyone that includes those I don't actually know, probably Shane Dawson. He's a Mood, constantly. Do you know anyone with the same middle name as you? Oh, plenty. I have like the most common white girl middle name out there. What did you have done the last time you saw a dentist? I had a cavity filled. What does a successful relationship look like to you? Both ends are happy, communication is ideal and easy for the pair, both feel loved and accepted fully, and each has healthy freedom. What do you like to put on your baked potato? The ordinary butter, cheese, and bacon bits. What field of science interests you the most? Genetics. What’s the closest shop or restaurant to your house? A Zaxby's and McDonald's are tied, being right across the street from each other. What was the most memorable birthday you’ve had? My 16th is the one I remember best, but not in a good way. What is the best house you’ve ever lived in? Our last house, aesthetically. Right in the woods and relatively pretty, yet simple. Do you look in the mirror before you leave the house? Yeah. Have you ever seen someone quit their job in a dramatic way? No. Do you know why your parents named you what they did? No. I think Mom just liked the name, though. What do you like to dip your fries in? Ketchup, mostly. Is your house clean or messy right now? It's actually really clean right now. We've had a lot of help around the house recently thanks to family and friends with Mom's cancer, and then I've been much neater and attentive to cleanliness than usual because 1.) it's my responsibility to ensure it is for Mom's health and 2.) I dropped out of school so literally have zero excuses to not be doing at least one productive thing. What was the last email you received? That wasn't trash, it was from my old major's dean in school. She was trying to comfort me and give me options on what to do versus leave, but yeah. I'll 100% give it to the school that they deeply and sincerely care for their students, I just needed to go. Do you know someone who speaks without a filter? lmao me. Well, depends, I guess, actually. I know when to keep my mouth shut in some situations. What’s your favourite kind of museum? Science museums. Especially those with d i n o z. Do you believe in alternate universes? I'm open to it, especially with the mandela effect theories, but I don't think so. Whose house did you last visit? My older sister's. What games do you play on your smart phone? Pokemon GO (if I'm in an area w/ Stops to get balls) and Dragons of Atlantis. What kinds of decorations do you put up at Halloween? We don't really decorate anymore for Halloween, or holidays in general. How many tabs do you have open right now? Two. What’s something you’ve been meaning to do but keep putting off? Try more sites to hopefully get a poem I wrote published, but that crippling fear of rejection tho. :^) What’s the first thing you check on your phone at the start of the day? The time. Have you ever flown a kite? Yeah, I loved that as a kid. I’m guessing you’ve probably been asked this before, but which do you prefer - Coca Cola, or Pepsi? Coke. Pepsi is gross. Has your phone ever gone off in the middle of a class at school? No. Did you go to your school dances? Did you dance with anyone? Just two proms. We didn't dance tho because the music was shit. What’s your relationship with the last person you talked to on the phone? What was your conversation about? Like, talk-talked, no texting? Uhhh who was that. OH YEAH, my sister. My mom didn't answer her phone so she just called me to make sure she was okay. The last time you washed your hair, did you use conditioner?  No, I never do. It just adds oil to your hair, and mine is naturally oily enough. Do you have an item of clothing that reminds you of someone? Tell me about it, and the person it reminds you of. I have a lot, none positive. If the last girl you texted told you that she was pregnant, how would you respond? Ask her who the fuck I need to kill. How would you react if your mother told you that she was pregnant again? Well considering 1.) she's past menopause and 2.) she has serious ovarian and Fallopian cancer, I'd say that's pretty impossible. Who do you have the most text messages from? Sara. The last time you skipped school, what was the reason?  Uhhh if you mean "skip" as in I had seriously no realistic reason not to go, I think I was just really tired. I tried not to skip unless I was having serious mental health issues. When did you last see or speak to someone you dislike? Why do you dislike this person? I actually don't know who that would be. When you listen to music, do you generally sing along, or just listen? I rarely sing. I just listen. Do you have any of your exes as friends on Facebook? Yes. Does more than one person like you? *shrugs* Has your partner ever accused you of cheating, when you actually didn’t? No. Who was your first love? Do you ever miss that person? Jason. Of course I do sometimes. Other times I know it's probably for the better we have nothing to do with each other anymore. Do you like your middle name?  I mean it's pretty, but boy do I wish it was more original. If your hair is long, would you ever think about having it cut short? Or, if it’s short, would you like to grow it long? I doubt it will ever be long again. Would you consider your parents to be strict? Dad never was at all; Mom sorta was when I was little. Do you have a mirror in your room? On the back of my door. Have you ever worked in food service? No, thank God. Do you often stay in your pajamas all day? I almost always do, unless I have to go out somewhere. I pretty much never leave my house ever, forget just quarantine, so like... why make more laundry. What are three YouTube videos you would like to film soon? N/A Do you ever listen to country music? No. What is your most severe allergy? Pollen. What’s the largest library fine you’ve ever had? Oh wow, no clue. I haven't been the library in millennia. Have you ever lost a library card? *shrugs* Name three literary characters you feel resemble you the most. UH yikes. This requires too much thought for me rn. Name three cartoon characters that resemble you, and say why. Ummmm I still don't know. Do you have a good doctor? I haven't seen her enough times yet to honestly say. Mom knows and likes her well, though. She's fine so far. Do you wear a watch every day? If so, what color is your watch? No, I never do. Does your phone alarm ever scare you? No, it's very peaceful. Which department store do you shop at the most? Wal-Mart. How old were you when you got your driver’s license? I'm 24 and am yet to have it. Do you have regrets? A good handful or two. Do you ever curl your hair? It's too short to do so. Do you know anyone who has coronavirus? No, and I pray I never do for my mom's sake. Out of all the big cities you’ve visited, which has/have been your favorite? Chicago is the only big city I've ever been it. Was pretty damn dope, though. Do you like dreamcatchers? I mean, they're cool. I don't believe in them being magical, though. Have you ever made a dreamcatcher, and if not, would you like to learn? No and no. Who was your high school’s biggest bully? I don't remember. What color was your graduation cap and gown? Red. Did you keep your graduation cap? I think I did. Did you decorate your graduation cap? Nope. What is your favorite part of nature? The animals within it. Do you use Photoshop? Yes. Favorite photo editing app on your phone? I don't have an editing app. Did you love or hate college? Well, considering I dropped out three times, guess. Favorite class in high school? Art. Favorite class in college? Idk. Probably Writing. Class you hated the most in high school? Math. Class you hated the most in college? Painting brought me the most stress. Do you know how to write in calligraphy? Not technically. Have you ever had a pen pal? No. Do you prefer brownies or cookies? Brownies. Man I could go for one. Favorite Girl Scout cookie? Those Reeses-ish ones. Did you ever go camping as a kid? No. Do you have hormone issues? No. Have you ever gotten a misdiagnosis because your parent(s) lied about you? Er, no? A shitty doctor has misdiagnosed me, though. Which Barbie doll was your favorite? I didn't even know there were "types"... Do you wake up to an alarm? No. When did you go to bed yesterday? Like, 8-something... I rarely make it past 9:30 nowadays. Do you live in a city, town, or in the country? The country. What color is your toothbrush? White. When was the last time you had a nightmare? Yesterday while I was napping. Woke up shrieking and scared Mom out of her skin. Tainted my mood almost the rest of the day. If you had a terminal illness, would you want to know? No shit I would. What was the last thing someone called you other than your real name? I don't know. If you could meet anyone who lived before your time, who would it be? I have no clue. Is there a candle in the room you are in? No. Are you currently taking any prescribed medication? More than I like. Do you have bad anxiety? If so, do you take any kind of medications for it? Yes and yes. Who was the last person you felt you were wasting your time on? I don't know. One thing you’ve experienced that you thought you never would have? A suicide attempt. What was the last thing someone said to you that kept repeating over & over in your head? Ugh. If a random person were to look through the photos on your phone, is there anything you’d be embarrassed about? No. If you could, would you work from home? Do you think that would make you more or less productive? No no no no. I need a reason to leave the house. I'm way more productive away from home anyway. What were you like in middle school? "The weird kid" describes it pretty well. If you could give one charity a million dollars, what charity would you donate money to? YIKES!!!! Now that's a question. Probably something for suicide prevention/awareness. What is something you’re surprised hasn’t been invented yet? The cure for cancer. It's incredible, just how many "possible" cures have been identified in nature, yet you like... hear NOTHING about it afterwards??? My conspiratory and "the medical industry just cares more about money" ass wonders about that a lot. Most disturbing movie you have ever seen? Paranormal Entity or The Rite. Has a life goal or dream ever come true for you yet? If yes, what is it? If no, do you think you’ll achieve it? No. And probably not. What one thing has always bothered you, but seems to bother no one else? Hm. I'm sure there's something. Do you still own a VCR and VHS tapes? No, pretty sure they've all been sold. Did you ever build furniture forts as a child? Yep. What kind of dog is your favorite? Pretty sure I'm biased towards beagles. Are the majority of your friends male or female? Female, I think? Have you ever considered dropping acid? Noooo sir. Would you consider yourself to be mature? Mostly. Describe your music style: I like unique alternative stuff. Catchy, heavy riffs do me in easily, too. I like well thought out, dark, and impactful lyrics. Are you close to any of your aunts/uncles? Not very. Have you ever had a seizure? No. When was the last time you were in a hospital? For myself, 2017. I think. Do you go on vacations a lot? I never do. Are you self-conscious around other people? Very. At your workplace, are you required to wear a uniform? N/A Have you ever witnessed a physical fight in real life? Huh, good question actually. What was your GPA in high school? 4.2/3 or something. Do you use a lot of hair products? I don't use any. I mean, besides shampoo. What is the most amount of money you’ve spent at one time? My own money, I think $300 on a tattoo. What is the best pizza place out there? Domino's. I'm such a basic bitch. Do you know how to play any odd instruments most people can’t play? Nope. When was the last time you used a disposable camera? I think the zoo visit in 5th grade. What is your favorite book series, if you have one? Can't say I really have one. It definitely used to be Warriors by Erin Hunter, but I haven't read any in maaaaaany years. Do you have any celebrity autographs? Nah. What is your favorite color of clothing to wear? Just black. Admit it – you want a Snuggie. What design/color? I got a black one one Christmas, lol. They're honestly not all that great. Do you prefer movies at home or movies at the theater? THE THEATER. I actually enjoy watching movies in the theater. It's just the vibe, I guess, and the size of the screen so you take in everything. How many songs does your iTunes have? Just over 1k. Its memory is maxed out, oof, so if I want a new song, I have to thin the library out. Do you take a shower in the morning or the night before? I've been taking showers more often in the morning, lately. It's a nice, refreshing start to the day. I'm just too tired and unmotivated to at night. Who’s your youngest teacher? N/A When’s the last time you had a rock, paper, scissors match? Wow, no clue. What’s your favorite anime? Fullmetal Alchemist. Did you cry when Ash let his Butterfree go with the other Butterfrees? Oh I probably did, but THEN AGAIN, the female was FUCKIN PINK so I'm sure I was also happy for Butterfree lmao. Even as a kiddo, I knew pink was The Shit. Skinny, flared, ripped, or faded jeans? Skinny, ripped ones. What are you excited for? Just honestly, nothing in the even remotely near future. Nothing in my life is exciting rn. Are you part of the Farmville cult? Never played. Have you ever stood on a frozen solid body of water? YIKES besides like, small puddles, definitely not. I'd be scared to. Which person from way back when would you love to hang out with? Jenna, an old best friend, came to mind first here. It'd be great to catch up with her. She called me in the hospital after my suicide attempt despite not talking in absolutely forever, and I'm never going to forget that. Does your family use a real pine tree or a plastic one for Christmas? Plastic. Literally the only positive of the real ones is the smell. Otherwise, it's a mess that dies too quickly. Do you have any foreign exchange students at your school? N/A What’s your second language? I'm not fluent in it, definitely not anymore, but the language I took for four semesters was German. Is it uncomfortable for you to take showers in glass stalls w/out curtains? OH MY GOD I would positively hate that. Even IF I had a decent body. Did you understand Shakespeare? I was alright. What was the last shot you got? It was a numbing agent into my gums. They had to do it like... seven times. Apparently, I'm just like. Really hard to numb. Ever gotten cavities? Yeah. Do you use hair ties as bracelets? I don't even wear hair ties. What was the last school project you did that you couldn’t wait to turn in? Uhhh... I don't remember. Have you ever graded papers? I actually have; I was helping a teacher on work day. I used to go back to my elementary school a lot to visit my favorite teachers. What was your favorite year of school up to this point? Maybe like, junior year of high school? Or senior. I don't remember which one of those I enjoyed more. I just remember I loved my art class, I had great grades, my relationship was strong, yada yada. What’s the latest you’ve ever woken up? Like 5-6 PM. Had a busy night and that evening was a complete panic attack because my system was so thrown off. One thing I DON'T miss from high school: how bad my anxiety was. Can you recite the alphabet backwards? NOOOO I cannot. Like, at all. Are you a sucker for foreign accents? Some, yes. Do you do yoga? Not anymore.

#survey #quiz #questions

2 notes · View notes

catalinda04 · 6 years

Text

Carried Away Chapter 9: Dinner and a Movie

Masterlist

In the cab on the way back to his house, Henry looked very much like the cat that ate the canary. Lucy was about to say something about his smug expression when his phone gave a chirp. He took it out, read the screen and smiled. “My mate Chris is in town, he wants to know if I can meet him for dinner. Would you like to meet him?”

“I suppose, you met Sarah, it's only fair I meet one of your friends. Will he be bringing a female companion along with him?”

“I don’t know, I’ll check,” Henry said, typing away on his phone.

“Because I don’t want to tag along on a boys night. I’ve been a third wheel too many times.”

“He says it’s just him, but he doesn't mind if I bring you.”

“Of course he’s going to say that!” Lucy argued.

“Listen, we’ll go, have 1 drink, you can meet him, he’s a great bloke, and then we, just the 2 of us, can get dinner nearby.”

“How about, I stay at your place, and I’ll make something for dinner, while you go have a drink with your mate, it will give me a chance to catch-up on my emails and texts and blog posts. And I’m exhausted. I’ve been going for almost 3 weeks now non-stop, and I didn’t get much sleep last night.” She gave him an incredulous look. “I think a night in, would be wonderful. I’ll make dinner, we can watch a movie, just the two of us. Just don’t stay out all night and leave me all alone. You’ve opened pandora’s box big boy and I plan on taking full advantage.”

Henry agreed with her plan and sent the plan to Chris before taking Lucy to his local market to get supplies for dinner. She insisted on paying. “You’ve paid for all of my meals since I met you. Let me pay for this dinner.” He grudgingly agreed and took Kal for a walk before leaving to meet Chris.

Lucy set-up her laptop on the coffee table in the living room and got to work slogging through a backlog of emails she had ignored for the last week. Kal curled up next to her, promptly falling asleep. Lucy’s guilt about withholding information from her mother that morning finally overcame her. She called and chatted for a few minutes before dropping the bomb. “Mom, I’m not staying at the hotel I gave you the information for anymore, I’m staying with a….friend. I’ll be here until I leave for Cardiff, like the original itinerary I gave you.”

“A friend? What do you mean a friend? I didn’t know you knew anyone in London. Who is she? Why didn’t you stay with her the whole time?”

“Mom, it’s not a she, it’s a he. His name is Henry.

“How long have you known him? Where did you even meet, did you meet him when you were in Spain?”

I took a deep breath. “Actually mom, I met him a week ago. I was lost and he helped me with directions after his dog tackled me in the street.”

“And now you’re living with him! What do you know about him?”

“I’m not LIVING with him, I’m just staying at his house for the next 3 days until I leave town.”

“What do you know about him! He could be a serial killer or worse!”

“I know enough mom. I’m not going to discuss this with you, I just didn’t feel right lying to you this morning, so I had to clear the air.”

“Lying to me. What did you lie about?”

“It wasn’t a full lie, but the reason I haven’t called or emailed is because I’ve been with Henry.”

“Well can I meet this mystery man, put him on the screen.”

“He went out for a drink with a friend of his. I told him to have fun so I could catch up on emails and phone calls.”

Her mother sighed heavily. “Well at least give me a last name so I can stalk him on Facebook since you’re so tight-lipped about this.”

“He’s not on Facebook, mom”

“Don’t be silly, everyone’s on Facebook. Just give me his last name.”

Lucy sighed in a perfect mirror of her mother, she might have smiled if she hadn’t been so exasperated. “Cavill, Henry Cavill.”

Lucy watched her mother type on her tablet. “Well let’s just see here, I’m not finding anyone other than this actor. Do you have a middle name to try adding to the search.”

“No, mom, that’s...him…” she said trailing off.

“What! You’re dating SUPERMAN!”

“Mom we’re not dating, I don’t know what it is, we haven’t really discussed it, plus I’m leaving in 3 days, which kind of throws a wrench in the works.” Her voice falling with each word.

“Oh honey,” her mother’s voice softened with concern. “Ok, I’m staying out of it, just please be safe, protect yourself, and your heart. You are using protection, aren’t you? ”

“Yes mom, we are.” Lucy rolled her eyes.

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“I’m going to go now, I’ve got a bunch of blog posts to write. I love you, tell dad...well tell dad however much you think he can handle, and tell grandma I’m fine. I’ll call her when I get to Cardiff.”

Lucy spent the next hour updating her blog. Henry was mentioned in her posts, but never with his full name, and none of the pictures she posted had him in them. They hadn’t discussed how public this relationship was, and Lucy was very self-conscious about being in the public eye. She also didn’t want her extended family asking a lot of questions she didn’t know how to answer.

By the time she caught her blog up to the present, and posted pictures to her facebook page, it was about time to start preparing dinner. Lucy loved cooking, but it was hard when she was traveling to prepare her own meals. She just hoped Henry didn’t expect that she’d cook him dinner for the rest of her stay with him.

Henry entered his favorite dimly lit pub and scanned the room looking for Chris. He saw a flash go off at the far end of the bar and saw his friend posing with a pretty brunette. Henry waited a few minutes until the girl had left before approaching him.

“Been waiting long?” Henry asked, settling his hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Long enough.” The other man replied, standing to envelop Henry in a brotherly hug. Chris Evans pulled away and studied his friend’s face. The handsome brit couldn't stop smiling. Chris searched his memory for a time he’d seen his friend of over 8 years this happy and came up blank. The two men had met in their early 20’s on set for a small movie they both had parts in. They had instantly clicked and had been friends ever since.

“You look happy,” Chris commented as they both took seats at the bar.

“I’ve met someone.”

“I guessed that when you asked to bring her along. Tell me about her.”

Henry hadn’t intended to tell his friend the whole story, but it all came spilling out; from Kal in the street to the dance in the park, and now her staying with him.

“So she’s a regular woman. What’s she do?”

“She’s a school teacher.”

“That’s hot, man,” Chris replied, while Henry just laughed.

“I can’t put my finger on it, but she’s gotten under my skin. And I want her to stay there. I mean I’ve known her a week, and she’s alone in my house. I’m either crazy or…” and Henry didn’t finish the statement as he realized he might actually be falling in love with his nerdy American teacher. Chris watched the emotions play over his friend’s face.

“You’re thinking the big one, huh? Love?”

“It’s only been a week. Plus she’s leaving in a few days. We have chemistry, but we don’t really have much in common. Our lives are completely different.”

“Who are you trying to convince? Me or you? I don’t know anything other than what you’ve told me, but she sounds great. Give this one a chance, why don’t you. See if this could be something. You deserve to be happy.”

“Ok, enough about me. What are you doing here?” Henry asked, desperate for the spotlight to be off of himself. Chris allowed the conversation to flow toward himself, though he made a mental note to check in on his friend periodically.

Henry unlocked his door feeling happier than he could remember being in quite a while. He liked the idea of having someone waiting for him when he came home; someone other than Kal to talk to at night. He replayed his conversation with Chris over in his head. He was infatuated with Lucy. It couldn’t be love yet, he almost had himself convinced.

Once the door was open he was met with the New Kids on the Block telling him to Hang Tough. His smile widened. After dropping his keys by the door he made his way to the kitchen to see Lucy dancing with a pair of salad tongs in her hand, singing along. She hadn’t noticed him come in, so he leaned his shoulder against the door jamb, crossed his arms, and watched the show. His resolve of his conviction slipped with each goofy dance move she performed. Once the New Kids were done, Whitney Houston starting singing about wanting someone to dance with.

Periodically Lucy threw a piece of food to Kal who was laying on the floor, which explained why the dog hadn’t greeted him at the door. His smile widened. He watched Lucy chop something green with an impressive amount of skill. When she turned to get something out of the refrigerator, she finally saw him and screamed.

“Henry! I didn’t hear you come in. How long have you been watching me?”

“Long enough to know I should hang tough. You’ve got some moves.” He said pulling her close for a kiss. “I missed you.”

“It’s only been 2 hours.” She kissed him and rolled her eyes. “But I missed you too.” She said giving him one more kiss, before pushing him out of the kitchen. “Dinner will be ready in about 10 minutes. Why don’t you open the wine, and tell me about your drink with Chris.”

Henry did as instructed, and opened the bottle of white wine she’d purchased at the market to accompany the light pasta dish.

“Chris told me to tell you hello.”

“Well, hello back, Chris, though I’m sure we’ve never met.”

“No probably not.” Henry laughed “Though I’m sure you know of him. You said you were a Marvel gal.”

“Chris. Not Hemsworth?” Lucy thought out loud while she sauteed bacon on the stove, and checked on the pasta water.

“No, the other Chris,” he laughed.

“Chris Evans‽ Oh my homeroom girls are going to be so upset with me if they find I had a chance to have a drink with him and bailed. You’re friends with Chris Evans! Isn’t that against the rules or something? Marvel, DC?” She teased while adding the pasta to the water, and taking the pan of bacon off the burner and draining it. “This pasta is going to take a few minutes. Let’s pick out a movie to watch. I want to just veg tonight.” She said wrapping her arms around Henry. He turned her in his arms and walked into the living room still wrapped around her.

“What are you in the mood for?” Henry asked opening a hidden cabinet door to reveal his movie collection.

“That’s where it is! I was trying to find your movies, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Let’s see what do you have.” Lucy rested her hands on his arms which were resting on her clavicles. She scanned the titles. “Ooooh! Man of Steel! I haven’t seen that yet. But no, I don’t want you to see me watch that for the first time. I might embarrass myself. So nothing you’re in.” She turned and lifted her head to kiss the underside of his chin. She ran her fingers over the titles on the shelf. “Oh! I can’t believe you have this movie. I love this movie!” She said sliding a fantasy movie from the shelf.

“You said nothing that I’m in. So that one’s out.”

“You are not in this movie. I’ve seen it probably 20 times.”

“I can assure you, I am in this movie,” he argued.

“What as an extra, maybe one of the lesser pirates?”

“No, I play the character of Humphrey.”

“Humphrey?” Lucy searched her brain for the character in the film. “Oh! Who went ‘all the way to Ipswitch’ to get the ring! Oh, now we have to watch it. I’m going to finish dinner, you pour the wine and pop the movie in.”

Henry just smiled and laughed to himself, but did as instructed. When he returned to the kitchen for the wine he watched Lucy combine ingredients from several bowls to one large bowl, tossing everything constantly. With deft hands, she separated the pasta into two bowls, topped them with grated cheese and the herbs he’d seen her chopping.

She inserted a fork into each bowl and carried them to the living room. Henry had dimmed the lights and lit candles. Kal was curled on the floor by the end of the couch, having lost his spot, next to Henry, to Lucy. Henry started the movie before taking his first bite of pasta.

“This is amazing. You made this? In my kitchen?”

“It’s just a simple carbonara. Really no big deal. Now shhh. I want to watch the movie.” She explained tucking into her own bowl of pasta.

They enjoyed a cozy dinner together, Henry briefly paused the movie to take care of their dishes and Lucy helped him clean the kitchen before returning to the living room to finish the movie. Henry sat on the couch, pulling Lucy down to sit on his lap. She played at pushing his hands away when they started roaming her body, but she couldn’t hold out long. Much of the remaining movie was ignored in favor of exploring hands and some serious snogging.

The following morning, they were awoken early by a pounding on the front door.

“Who could that be? It’s not even 7:00.” Lucy groaned.

“I don’t know, maybe if we ignore it, they’ll go away.” He said nuzzling into her neck. The pounding only increased.

“It’s your door, they won’t be asking for me.” She said pushing him away. “Now go answer the door so I can get back to sleep.” She grumbled.

Henry stalked down the stairs pulling on a t-shirt and cursing whoever happened to be knocking. He opened the door to find his publicist looking annoyed. “Finally! What took you so long?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s 7:00 in the morning, I was sleeping like most normal people. Now tell me what you are doing here so I can go back to sleep.”

“Sleeping alone?” He asked pushing past Henry and handing him a celebrity rag. The front cover had a picture of himself and Lucy kissing, he recognized his clothes from the train station the day she went to Oxford without him, with the headline ‘Who is Superman’s new Lois Lane?’

Chapter 8 Chapter 10

#Henry Cavill #Henry Cavill fanfiction #Henry Cavill Fanfic #Henry Cavill Fan Fiction #Henry Cavill Fan fic #Fanfiction #Fan Fic #Carried Away

6 notes · View notes