#And I WAS SO CLOSE TO BEING ACCEPTED DESPITE THE FACT THAT IM 16 AND DONT HAVE A HIGHSCHOOL DEGREE

[doueverwonder]

Looking enviously at all the people on here who are in college hits on a different level when I dropped out of highschool and SHOULD have my GED by now but the lady at the place never called us back

[autumnshighlady]

I’ve Always Liked to Play With Fire (part 14)

NESTA ARCHERON X ERIS VANSERRA X FEMALE!READER

summary: Reader and Azriel have a talk, Nesta discovers Eris’ secret

warnings: Night Court slander, semi graphic torture, Rhysand is horrible

word count: 7.1k

DO NOT REPOST ANYWHERE

a/n: IM BACKKKKKK!!!!!! SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG!!! This is some of my worst writing but I love the concept so here ya go, I hope this was worth the wait! More action coming soon, chapter 16/17 are gonna be HUGE!!!!!! x

feedback is appreciated, just no hate pls! these are just my opinions, i’m more curious to see how you all like the writing and characterization and storylines!

part 1 // part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / part 5 / part 6 / part 7 / part 8 / part 9 / part 10 / part 11 / part 12 / part 13 / part 14 / part 15 /

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READER POV

You didn’t know how long it had been since Rhysand left you bloody and strung up in the cell. In some ways, you were grateful that the past while had been a blur. Your memory was a haze of flashes of searing pain, Rhysand’s voice in the background demanding you reveal the bond to him and admit the details of your conspiracy against his court. Yet you did not break, even as those tendrils of dark power carved into your already open wounds.

Despite not being able to feel her on the other side of the bond, Nesta was what got you through it. The thought of her in Autumn, far away from the Night Court’s reach, made you grit your teeth and fight the urge to crumble in front of the High Lord. You closed your eyes and pictured the eldest Archeron sister wandering through the paths of the woods, brilliant leaves of red and gold falling around her and landing on the soft grass. Her creamy skin adorned in a soft emerald dress, that golden-brown hair trailing down her back, finally free. You pictured her happy, content in her new environment. With Eris.

Even in your half-conscious state, you wondered how well the two were getting along. While the Inner Circle thought the Autumn heir was a cruel, sadistic bastard, you always knew Eris as your best friend’s older brother… the aloof, sarcastic male who would attempt to charm you to piss off Lucien. You never told Lucien, but every wink Eris had sent your way made butterflies swarm in your stomach. Eris was clever, a good intellectual match for Nesta at least. You had faith in her to be able to navigate the Autumn Court politics. After all, she had been raised to be a perfect courtier. Why the Inner Circle wanted to ignore that and make her into a warrior instead was mind-blowing. Even Lucien, who was incredibly skilled at negotiating and getting along with other courts, was treated like trash by the Inner Circle.

You missed him terribly. It had been months since you had seen Lucien, who was reportedly dwelling in the human lands now. You suspected he was being fed lies by Feyre and Rhys about your involvement in their court. No doubt their version of the story told a tale that painted you as the obedient female who eagerly immersed herself into the Night Court, grateful to be given this chance.

The eerie quiet of the cell was broken by the rush of air in the corner, the soft sound itself deafening against your pounding head. You couldn’t recall the last time you drank water, your throat dry as sandpaper. You didn’t lift your head up, for the weight of it was too much for your neck to bear. You did nothing, just accept the fact that Rhysand had returned for another crack at you.

But it was not Rhysand’s sneering voice that muttered, “Mother above.”

“Az…” Your voice was raspy and almost unrecognisable as you lifted your chin up. The spymaster stood before you, eyes widened slightly. His jaw was tense, and there was something about his expression you couldn’t decipher.

When he didn’t say anything, you tried again. “Please… help….”

“What happened?” He asked coldly, his shadows swirling around him. You flinched as they approached, drifting towards you like Rhysand’s mist had. The action didn’t go unnoticed. Azriel blinked, the only indication of surprise he was likely to give. Still, you could see it in his eyes as he put the pieces together. Not once had you ever flinched from the shadows that hovered around him. Until Rhysand’s own likened darkness had cut through your skin like butter.

“Water…” You mumbled. For a moment, you thought Azriel was going to ignore your request and continue to just stand there staring at you. But after what appeared to be a moment of contemplation, the spymaster pulled out a small canteen and unscrewed the lid. With his scarred hands he lifted it up to your lips. Your entire body sagged in relief as you eagerly drank the water, taking as much as he would give you. After downing about half of the liquid, Azriel stepped back.

“Thank you.” You said, voice clearer this time now that your dry throat had vanished.

“Rhysand did this to you.” Azriel said more as a statement than a question. After training with the spymaster for months, you could read him a bit easier than before. There was something behind his expression, revealed by the widened eyes and tensed jaw, that made you think whatever Azriel had expected his High Lord to do in his interrogation of you, this was not it.

So you nodded, and the tears that had been pooling in your eyes finally spilled down your cheeks. You hated crying in front of Azriel, or anyone really. But you were too tired to hold your tears back. Days in this cell, tortured without food or water… It was too much.

“Gods,” Azriel muttered, running a hand through his tousled locks. “When Rhysand told me he wanted to interrogate you himself, I didn’t expect…. this.”

You choked out a laugh. “Why does it matter to you anyways, Azriel? You were willing to send me to die on an impossible mission. My fate here is really no different.”

Azriel stiffened visibly, brows narrowing. “How did you–”

“Does it matter?” You interrupted bitterly, twisting your wrist around in the chain to try and relax the stiff muscles.

“You know if you want any shot of getting out of here, you’re going to have to tell the truth.” Azriel growled, his voice dropping. “You’ve been hiding things from me this entire time, and I’d like to know what. And why, starting with how you knew about the confidential mission to the continent before I even told you.”

You laughed again, a hollow, bitter sound echoing throughout the cell chamber. You were beyond caring at this point. No matter how you answered their questions, or if you answered them at all, there was no escaping the fact that telling the truth or not, you would not make it out of these dungeons. “You don't understand,” You retorted. “It doesn’t matter how I know. Telling you how will not change the fact that neither you nor Rhys will let me out of here anytime soon.”

The shadowsinger folded his arms, his cold gaze unblinking. “You do realise that if you want me to help, you’re going to have to be straight with me.”

It killed you that you couldn’t tell Azriel what was really going on. Some part of you yearned to, hoping that he’d finally get his head out of his High Lord’s ass. But you couldn’t shake how he just left you in here with Rhysand. Rhys apparently has his claws so deep in every member of the Inner Circle, it would take a lot more than a few months of training one on one with the spymaster for him to change.

“Please, just…” Your voice was barely above a whisper as you hung your head, ashamed. “Kill me. Get it over with.”

You heard him scoff. “I am not going to kill you.”

“You basically were by letting me be sent to die on the continent.”

“Damnit, (Y/N) I was trying to help you!” Azriel snapped, his tone rising.

You froze as you were lifting your head up. “What?”

Azriel rubbed his face with a scarred hand, leaning against one of the rocks that jutted out from the wall. He looked exasperated, the weariness on his face visible even in the dim lighting of the cell. “I was trying to find a way to get you out of the mission.” He said. “I told Rhys it would take months, years even to get you ready for that level of assignment. He did not listen. I spent those four weeks trying to find a way for you to escape, to get out of here.”

Your mind reeled from more than just exhaustion. Azriel had been trying to help you this whole time? He may not be brave enough to put his foot down to Rhysand, but had enough sense to try and get you out of this mess.

He continued. “I was trying to set up refuge for you, in a village far south on the continent. You’d have been safe there, if you laid low. I would have told Rhys that my spies reported you were killed.”

“Why?” You couldn’t help but ask. “Why lie to him for me? He’s your high lord.”

“Yes. And he always will be. But that does not mean I am not allowed to have my opinions on the way he handles some matters. It is unfair to drag someone into this line of work who does not want it, and it is even more unfair to send them on assignments they are not ready for.”

You chose your next words carefully. “You know why he did it, right?”

Azriel only stared at you, saying nothing.

“He wants me dead,” You whispered. “He wants me dead and you know it. That’s why he arranged the mission-”

“No,” Azriel cut you off, his voice sharp. “He was desperate for another spy, and could not send me. Braillyn would have expected that. You were the best one for the job, because they don’t know you. He just didn’t understand that you weren’t ready.”

You shook your head, heart sinking at Azriel’s denial. He wasn’t stupid, some part of him had to know the truth – that Rhysand wanted you dead because your defiance of him could cause unrest, even more so if you were plotting against him. Which you were. The first big step had been a success, getting Nesta out of the Night Court in a way that, by the law, prevented them from coming after her.

There was much more you had in store for the Inner Circle, but only time would tell if you would be able to pull it off. None of which would happen if you did not escape this cell.

“That’s not true, Azriel.” You said. “I wish you would see it. He knew I wasn’t ready, but if I died then he wouldn’t have to worry about me anymore. But if I somehow survived then he’d get the intel he wanted.”

The spymaster’s glare hardened. You shrank back slightly as he propped himself upright once again and stalked towards you. Large wings flared slightly, a menacing sight as he asked you firmly, “I will ask you this one more time. How did you find out about the mission?”

You didn’t answer, wondering if he was going to try and carve answers out of you like Rhysand had. Azriel had likely done such a thing countless times, perhaps in this very cell. Your wounds were crusted over and raw, fae healing abilities diminished in the darkness of the prison.

“It was Eris, wasn’t it?” Azriel said after a few minutes, bitterness and disappointment lacing his voice. “That’s why he proposed to Nesta, and why she insisted on you coming with them. It was part of a plan, wasn’t it? A plan for you and Nesta to escape.”

You did not bother confirming nor denying it, any defiance you had long ago wilted. Half your body had gone numb, and the other half ached beyond belief. You could feel yourself slipping further and further away, a discouragingly slow descent towards death. It was almost worse than the torture itself, being so close to death’s arms embracing you and carrying you to freedom, yet not quite there yet.

“Why?” Azriel asked sternly, taking your silence as an answer in and of itself. “Why would you want so badly to leave? To take Nesta away from her family?”

Bitterness coursed through you, igniting a fire in your voice. “If that is truly how you see it then you won’t even try to understand.” You hissed at him.

Azriel perched himself atop one of the rocks in the corner, those massive wings folding in. He shrugged, arms folded. “Humour me.” He challenged dryly.

These moments were crucial, you knew. It was your chance to either convince Azriel to help you, or to seal your fate and be locked in here forever. The choice weighed upon your already heavy shoulders like a rock. Rhysand would likely return soon and Azriel would disappear again, along with this one chance. And so you chose.

“Nesta will never be part of the Inner Circle, and you know it.” You said. “All you guys have done is try and muzzle her, control her, make her docile enough to sit quietly alongside you at the table but never truly be a part of everything.”

“We were trying to help her–” Azriel interrupted, but you quickly cut him off.

“By forcing her to train? Do something she never wanted? There are many ways to help someone, Azriel. This method may have worked for you and Cassian, but it is not for everyone. Nesta was hurting after the war, and all she received was judgement. You lot consume a bottle of wine every Friday night at Rita’s, but when Nesta does it, suddenly it’s a bad thing? You’ve all slept around, but when Nesta does it, she should be shamed? You have all held her to an impossible standard and refused to give her time to heal. But none of you ever cared about her healing, only how she made you look. You’ve done exactly to her what Tamlin did to your High Lady.”

You expected Azriel to argue, to fight back in defence of his found family. But he merely stared at you, eyes unreadable. You took it as a sign to continue.

“Nesta is drowning in the Night Court.” You said, locking eyes with the shadowsinger. “She will never be accepted here, and being a warrior is not what she wants. You are not stupid, Azriel. You know this. Feyre has found her new family, and that is fine. Let Nesta find her own. Please, just let her go.”

The eerie echoes throughout the cell were the only sound for the next few minutes. Your gut churned at Azriel’s reaction to your rant. He had said nothing, made no defence nor an agreement. That was almost more nerve-wracking to you.

“You see much of yourself in Nesta, do you not?” Azriel finally spoke, unfolding his arms. “That’s why you resorted to involving Eris to help get Nesta out. You have known him for as long as you’ve known his little brother, so you went to him for aid, did you not?”

“Yes.” You muttered. You didn’t have it in you to deny anything anymore. With what you had already admitted, Azriel would figure everything out on his own. You just hoped that Nesta had solidified her position in the Autumn Court quickly enough to prevent a war from breaking out.

“And he was at the meeting where Rhysand discussed sending you to the continent,” The spymaster continued, hazel eyes gleaming in the darkness. “So that’s how you knew. And you came up with the idea of marriage to get Nesta out, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Azriel stood up, once again looking down at your withered form. “That plan involved a clean way out for everyone except you. Why? Were you wanting to get sent to the continent to die?”

“It is because she loves Nesta.”

The arrogant voice of the High Lord filled the room, chilling your bones. Your entire body went stiff with panic, and even Azriel’s eyes widened as Rhysand appeared from behind you. Clearly, he hadn’t expected his brother back so soon.

The sound of footsteps and a dark presence was all your senses noted as you closed your eyes, feeling Rhysand walk around you to stand next to Azriel. You couldn’t bring yourself to open them, to look into the face that had sneered as tendrils of dark mist tortured you for hours.

“Good job, Az, you got her to talk!” Rhys clapped Azriel’s stiff shoulder, shock still evident on the spymaster’s face. “She said a hell of a lot more to you than she did to me. But I don’t recall ordering you to interrogate her. Unless my excellent memory is wrong, of course.”

Azriel straightened his spine, glaring at the High Lord. “You didn’t,” He said plainly. “But seeing the results of your last meeting with her and how little information you gathered, I believe it best you leave the rest of it to me.”

You finally opened your eyes, greeted by the practically feline smile of the High Lord. He bore a triumphant look on his face, one that made your body shake with nerves. Somehow, he had heard almost everything – Azriel’s shadows not even detecting his presence. Deep down, you knew that you were never getting out of here now.

“No.” Rhysand said. “You’ve done enough. You can carve her up all you want and nothing will make the magic mark appear, so I don’t need you for this next part. You are dismissed, Azriel.”

Unlike before, Azriel stood his ground. “No,” He growled. “As your spymaster, it is my job to be involved in these things. I am staying.”

Rhysand merely shrugged, showing no signs that he cared about his brother defying him. “Suit yourself. But you are not to intervene, do you understand?”

“Intervene with what?”

Rhysand hummed, taking a step towards you. You flinched as he brought his hand up, taking one of your tangled locks and pushing it behind your ear. An act so seemingly gentle, filling you with more fear than you had ever known.

“You look famished, darling.” He crooned, stroking your ice cold cheek. “If you show me the mark that allows you to communicate with Nesta, we can get you a nice hot plate of food and some water.”

With your mouth no longer dry, you gathered up as much saliva as you could manage and spat in the High Lord’s face. From the corner of your eye, you noticed Azriel’s jaw drop open slightly at the action, and you almost laughed.

But Rhysand only chuckled, wiping your spit off his face before standing back up to his full height. “I may not have been able to get into your head before,” He said. “But now that you are weakened, I will be able to break through your shields.”

Searing pain shot through your skull and you screamed. Those dark tendrils that had sliced your flesh before were now in your head, scraping down your shields like nails on a chalkboard. The pain was unlike anything you had experienced, the worst migraine of your life times a hundred.

Through the screaming, which you weren’t sure if it was in your head or out loud, you could hear Azriel’s muffled voice in the background. “Stop it, Rhys,” He was protesting. “You’ll kill her.”

Rhysand ignored him, continuing to try and force his way into your head. It felt like the entire force of the sea had come crashing down on your skull, pushing and pounding in every direction in search of a crack. Your entire body shook, the pain from your physical wounds nonexistent in comparison.

“This isn’t right.” Azriel was saying. “I will get her to talk, just stop this. She’ll never trust us if you keep doing this.”

“I don’t care about her trust.” You heard Rhysand say, his voice both in your head and echoing throughout the room. “Once I get into her head and get what I need, she will be of no more use to us. Then she’ll be your problem.”

The sensation of white hot needles pricking into your head took over, and you let out a wail. It was a thousand times worse than before, especially in your starved state.

Please, You begged the Mother, or any gods out there. Please kill me. Grant me this mercy and end it.

Amidst the pain and your screams, a warm sensation brushed your shoulder, like someone’s hand was grasping it in reassurance. You can do this. It seemed to say, in a voice so familiar yet like nothing you had ever heard before.

“What are you saying?” Azriel growled.

The High Lord’s next sentence was all you heard before darkness overtook your vision. “When I am done, I need you to kill her, Azriel.”

NESTA POV

The smell of a freshly made breakfast sandwich and tea roused Nesta from her sleep. As her eyes crept open to meet the golden glow of the sunrise, she became rapidly aware of the presence lounging beside her. Nesta’s vision focused after a few blinks, a male with red hair coming into focus.

Instantly, she shot up, wincing as the pounding headache she apparently woke up with protested. “What the fuck, Eris?” She practically yelled, bunching up the bedsheets to cover her nightgown.

“Ah, finally you’re awake!” The prince said casually, as if he was not laying next to her sleeping form with his head propped up against the bed frame. “Half the day has gone by already while you slept.”

“It’s sunrise, asshole.” Nesta hissed furiously, wishing she had a dagger nearby to stab him with. “Were you watching me sleep?”

“Exactly,” Eris quipped, turning to the next page in the book that he was currently reading. “And no, watching you sleep is rather boring. Especially when you snore. Besides, this novel is way more interesting.”

Growling, Nesta snatched the book from him after noting it was a smutty romance one she had snuck from the library and was currently reading. Eris smirked knowingly, making Nesta’s cheeks burn. “I did not take you for a romance novel type of female,” He purred, arrogantly reaching up his arm to rest behind his head. “Especially ones with such erotica.”

Nesta gave him a hard shove, unbalancing him. “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

Eris chuckled, raising his hands in mock defenselessness. “But I brought you breakfast! Am I really not allowed to bring my loving fiancé breakfast in bed?”

She shot daggers at him with her eyes. “Your loving fiancé is going to murder you before the wedding if you don’t get out within the next fifteen seconds.”

Eris sighed in defeat. “I do not know what I did to deserve this type of treatment from my future wife.” He muttered in obvious sarcastic pity, but climbing off the bed nonetheless. Nesta crossed her arms over her chest, cursing inwardly at the headache that plagued her. If she had better control of her magic, she’d send a stream of silver fire after Eris’ ass on his way out.

It had been one week since the dinner with Beron where she was granted one month to train her powers, and every day had been the same routine. Get woken up before the sun has even risen, ride Diadoro and Calypso to a remote clearing in the forest about an hour away, try over and over again to follow Eris’ instructions only for either nothing to happen or absolute catastrophe. The day usually ended in an argument, either about training, Eris’ progress in finding you, or where he was on his plan to dispose of his father. And then followed by a very silent ride back to the manor.

“Meet me by the lake in 10 minutes.” Eris called out as he shut the door, leaving Nesta to eat the breakfast laid across the tray. She groaned, rubbing her eyes and wishing for just an hour of rest.

Sleep hadn’t been coming easily lately. Every night was the same dream – Nesta running around a dark maze with walls of stone, trying to get to you. She could hear your screams as if they were real, echoing throughout her head whenever she was left alone with her own thoughts. Eris insisted he was doing everything he could to find you, but the more time passed the more worried she got. Every day Nesta woke up, she was plagued by the aching in her chest.

In record time, she managed to consume half of her breakfast and get herself dressed. The outfits Eris had always prepared for her were admittedly perfect, and today was no different. A forest green gown with gold buttons up the front, and a subtle dark pink trim. Nesta had no idea where Eris was pulling these gowns from, but she didn’t complain as she slipped on the comfortable material.

Eris was waiting with Calypso and Diadoro, the creatures tacked up and ready to go. Calypso was pawing at the ground impatiently, as if she had been waiting a while.

“At last she graces us with her presence.” Eris called out as Nesta approached hurriedly. It had taken her an extra few minutes to get ready, as her hair did not cooperate in its usual cornet. For the first time in Autumn, Nesta had simply pulled her golden brown locks back into a simple braid before hurrying out the door.

“You said ten minutes, I took fifteen, get over it.” She snapped, taking Diadoro’s reins from Eris’ outstretched hand. “Besides, I needed a few minutes to recover from the fright of looking at your face the first thing waking up.”

Eris chuckled. “A sight to look forward to after our wedding day, my dear.”

Nesta rolled her eyes, climbing into the saddle as Eris held the stirrup in place for her. He had insisted Nesta get used to riding, something she had protested at first. But admittedly, it was fun, not that she’d ever admit that in front of Eris. As the Prince got on Calypso’s back, the pair and their horses headed off through the path they had taken every day for the last week.

It was a scenic route, the Autumn hues throughout the forest bringing Nesta a sense of calm that she had never quite found at the Night Court. She was no longer always cold, bones chilled by the crisp night air that seemed to somehow be present during the day, even though none of the Inner Circle seemed to feel it. She only wished she could share this stroll with you.

After about twenty minutes of riding, Nesta decided to change things up and break the usual silence that they rode in. “Where are you with your search for her?” She said quietly.

“Well, my spies are convinced she is still somewhere in the Night Court.” Eris responded cautiously, his voice flat.

“So why can’t we go back and get her?” Nesta pressed as they continued to ride through the trees.

“Many, many reasons,” Eris said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Firstly, you know that the High Lord and the brute would snatch you up immediately. You would never get out after that. Secondly, neither of us knows the terrain. The Night Court is large, and she could be anywhere. It is not easy to pinpoint exactly where she is out of the dozens of places she could be.”

“Eris, every night I have the same dream. I’m running through an underground maze of stone, with walls of black rock. And I hear her voice. And you’re saying this doesn’t help at all?”

The Autumn princeling sighed, halting the horses. “Correct. Because the Night Court has hundreds of mountains, all of which could be harbouring some underground dungeon. So no, it doesn’t help.”

Deep down, Nesta knew he was right. She tangled her fingers in Diadoro’s mane to soothe the sea of worry churning within her. “Why did we stop?” She asked after a few moments.

Eris turned to face her, his eyes serious for once. “Nesta, I know how badly you want to find her. I do too. But with how well hidden and warded the Night Court is, not to mention remoteness, it is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. And if the magic from your bond can’t reach her, I’m afraid I’ve done everything I can.”

“No.” Nesta refused to believe it. You had been her anchor to this earth for months, her reason for keeping her chin up and moving through the relentless stormy sea it seemed she was destined to wade through.

Eris’ voice was gentle. “Nesta, you are immortal now. You have a long life ahead of you. Clinging onto this will only hold you back.”

“Easy for you to say,” Nesta shot back, not caring how deep her words cut. “You don’t care about anyone. Must be no problem for you to just drop people once you’ve gotten what you want.”

For the first time since she had known him, Eris’ face fell slightly. Regret washed over Nesta immediately at the hurt flickering in his amber eyes. Insults were part of Nesta and Eris’ routine now, but this…. She knew she had gone too far.

“Do you truly think so little of me?” Eris asked, his voice uncharacteristically quiet. There was no trace of the arrogant prince she had grown used to.

“I just…” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t know what to think anymore. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”

“I know. And I’m doing my best to get things back on track, but it’s proving almost impossible.”

Nesta swallowed the familiar lump in her throat that indicated tears were going to begin welling up soon. “I know.” She said before coughing and regaining her composure. “Anywho, you were the one insisting we were late. Let’s get going.”

Before she could move Diadoro forward, Eris turned Calypso to the right and headed off the path. “We’re doing something else today,” He called out. “Follow me.”

Nesta didn’t have to do anything, as Diadoro was already following the white horse off the path, expertly stepping over roots and branches in his way. “Where are we going?” She demanded.

“It’s a surprise.”

“Tell me.”

“That would ruin the surprise.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do. Keep moving.”

Nesta huffed, but didn’t protest. She had never been on this route before, and the further they got the rockier it was. Trees grew sparser, and the soil became harder. The journey reminded Nesta of something from one of the fantasy books in the library at the House of Wind, and with a pang she thought about Gwyn and Emerie.

She wondered how her disappearance had been explained. Most likely, they had been told that Nesta was kidnapped by Eris or something. Nesta missed them terribly – Emerie’s snorting laughter, the way Gwyn’s eyes would light up as she explained something in her research, how they both took an instant liking to you.

“Eris?” Nesta asked about thirty minutes into their trek.

“Yes, my fearsome goddess?” Eris singsonged over his shoulder in response.

“Can I bring my two friends to Autumn?”

“I did not realise you had friends other than (Y/N) in the Night Court.”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, I do. I met them at my training, and…” Her voice trailed off, unsure of how to phrase it without seeming weak. Nesta had never needed anyone before, but the lack of Gwyn and Emerie’s presence in her life lately was beginning to weigh on her.

“You miss them.” Eris finished her sentence for her. “Once I am High Lord, we can invite them to come here.”

“For a visit?”

He shrugged. “Or to stay permanently, if that is what they wish.”

Nesta’s heart fluttered with excitement at the idea. She knew Gwyn would love it here certainly, once she got used to it. Emerie too, who would be relieved at being miles away from her vile family. “I’ll hold you to that, Eris.” She said sternly.

“Consider it one of the many wedding gifts I shall spoil you with.”

Nearly two hours later, Eris finally halted Calypso and got off. It was the longest ride Nesta had been on thus far, and her inner thighs ached. Luckily, the prince was already reaching up to grab her waist, lifting her out of the saddle with an impressive amount of strength.

“Thanks.” She mumbled, cheeks red with embarrassment before asking, “Where are we?”

There was nothing notable in her surroundings, save for a rocky cliff that loomed above them a few metres ahead. Calypso and Diadoro had pressed their noses to the ground in search of grass amidst the sparsity.

“All will be revealed.” Eris winked, then extended his hand. He glanced up at the cliff, and Nesta crossed her arms.

“I am not scaling that cliff.” She said sternly, causing Eris to chuckle.

“I would not make you, certainly in those skirts,” He said. “We’re winnowing up there.”

“You know I hate winnowing.”

“Fine, if you’d like to climb it then I’ll see you in a few hours–”

Nesta quickly grabbed Eris’ hand, cutting him off. It tingled against her own, like electricity in her veins was jumping out to meet his own. She ignored his smirk as the world went askew and the ground fell away underneath her feet.

A split second later, they stood atop the cliff. The wind immediately whipped across Nesta’s cheeks, but it was not cold. Oddly enough, it was warmer up here, like the very rocks they stood on were heated. The colourful forest spanned across the horizon, bright with the now late morning sun. Nesta’s braid whipped in the wind, coming undone within seconds.

“I’ve been keeping this from my father,” Eris said, turning away from the edge of the cliff and walking away, leaving Nesta to follow. “A secret weapon, if you will.”

Nesta hurried to catch up, her long strides matching his own. “A weapon to kill him with? Up here?”

Eris chuckled, shaking his head. “No, between you and me we are perfectly capable of doing it ourselves. This weapon will help solidify me as the High Lord and prevent other courts from going to war with us. And I think it will help you with your magic.”

Nesta halted, dread forming in her stomach as she thought of the last few magical weapons she encountered. The mask, that took away everything she felt and made her raise an army of the dead. The Cauldron, that stole her humanity away from her and turned her into a creature she had grown up learning to hate and fear. The thought of something else like that made her knees go weak.

“It’s nothing like the Cauldron, I swear to you.” Eris said calmly, as if reading her thoughts. “Come, I promise it’s something entirely different.”

After a second of hesitation, Nesta resumed following Eris. They walked further and further, approaching a large mountain with a cave entrance that was bigger than anything she had ever seen.

“Are we seriously going down there?” Nesta gaped. The closer she got, the warmer the air was. It sang to the silver flames within her, and she felt them dance.

“Yes.” Eris said, igniting a flame in his hand in place of a torch before entering the darkness. Not wanting to lose the light and be stranded in the dark, Nesta followed. They walked down the large cavern, and the further they went the more her power begged to be let out.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” Eris asked, pausing at the bottom of the slope they had just crawled down. “Like calls to like, Nesta.”

Eris’ flame didn’t illuminate much, but by the way their footsteps echoed, Nesta could tell whatever chamber they were in was large enough for a small city. “What is this place?” She asked.

As usual, Eris continued his lecture and neglected to answer her question. “You fear your power too much, Nesta, because you haven’t seen anything like it. You are letting your fear control you, and you need confidence if you are to wield your powers in a manner that impresses my father. There are many fire-wielders in this world, Nesta Archeron. Yours may be different, but you can learn from others. And not just me.”

Nesta took in a sharp breath, the taste of smoke and ash on her tongue. “This secret weapon…” She said slowly. “It’s not a ‘what’.... it’s a ‘who’.”

Eris nodded, his pale face a striking gold in the light of the flames. “Do not be afraid.”

Before she could ask what he meant, a low but fierce growl vibrated throughout the chasm. It quaked her bones, and the floor began to tremble with what felt like the footsteps of a large creature. And then another, and another.

Nesta trembled as they grew louder, but refused to shrink back. She would not be a coward, not in front of Eris, even as whatever weapons Eris had approached them. The prince stepped forward, lifting up his flaming hand and illuminating the dark space a bit more to reveal not one, but three massive, scaling heads.

The heads of dragons.

The one in the middle had onyx scales, barely visible within the darkness. Its head was only illuminated by its glowing amber eyes. The one on the right was almost as big, but it had golden scales and larger horns on its head. And the one on the left crawled opposite from Nesta, a shining shade of silver with a longer neck. Each beast exuded sheer power and might, the space in the enormous cavern almost too small for their bodies.

Time seemed to slow down and stop as the three dragons approached, the orange glow from their mouths and bellies lighting the chasm. They were a thousand times bigger than a horse, almost the size of an entire palace.Nesta gawked, and her magic began to thrum excitedly at the beasts. Realistically, her instincts should have screamed at her to run before she was burned to ash, but she felt none. No, Nesta was rooted to the stone in fascination and awe.

Eris approached the black dragon, who lowered its head and growled. For a second, Nesta thought it would simply devour Eris whole. But instead, it let out a crooning noise and pushed its nose into Eris’ flaming palm. He began murmuring to the dragon in a language Nesta didn’t recognize, and the beast purred in response.

Her fixation on Eris with the dragon was broken by a low growl, and she flinched as the silver dragon snaked its head towards her.

“Summon a flame.” Eris instructed, still stroking the snout of the black dragon, despite its head being twenty times his size.

“What?” Nesta said, still frozen in place as the dragon crept towards her.

“Just do it.”

She raised a shaky hand, taking a deep breath. She tried not to think about the size of the dragon’s teeth approaching her as she reached down and grabbed a hold of a silver tendril of her power.

Yes please! It seemed to cry. Let me out to play. Let me make new friends.

Just as Eris had taught her, a ball of silver fire began to dance in the palm of Nesta’s hand. The dragon paused, lowering its head even further towards her hand. Nesta tensed up, but her flames had other plans – they flickered in the direction of the dragon, almost as if they were excited to greet it.

The silver beast made a low rumbling noise in response, and pressed its nose into Nesta’s hand, just as the black dragon did with Eris. She gasped, expecting her flames to burn the creature’s nose and cause a wake of destruction, yet it did not flinch from her fire. Its eyes met Nesta’s, and she felt as if her very soul was being gazed into, as if the dragon could see every raw, vulnerable part of her. The scales were smooth against Nesta’s slightly shaky hand, hotter than the warmest coals yet they did not burn her. Her flames danced along the scales, exploring the dips and horns of the dragons’ head. But it did not seem to mind, only continuing to gaze into Nesta’s eyes.

For a moment, she was overcome with emotion. The sensation of touching a creature so mighty, so powerful, one that she thought only existed in the stories she read. But then she, too, was now a creature that existed in storybooks. One that was admired for its beauty yet feared for its power, much like the very beast before her. It looked at her with such understanding, such intensity Nesta felt like she could both crumble on the spot and conquer the world at the same time.

“Her name is Athariel,” Eris’ voice broke her out of her trance. “I figured you’d like her. The one with me is Morgoth, and the golden one is Zorzimril.”

“I…” Nesta swallowed her emotion, tentatively stroking the dragon’s scales. It made a purring sound, the silver flames dancing around it excitedly.

“I found their eggs here just over a century ago.” Eris explained, his voice echoing in the chamber. “I thought they were rocks. There were rumours of dragons existing at the beginning of the world, but the last rumour comes from the wild hunt. No proof of them existed, until I found the eggs. No amount of research helped me figure out how to un-petrify them, until I felt them call to me. I used my magic and lit the hottest fire I could manage, placing the eggs inside them. A few hours later, they hatched. I’ve been raising them in secret for almost 150 years, training them. They are my secret weapon.”

“Like calls to like…” Nesta murmured, observing how her silver flames played with the dragon, who remained unscathed.

Eris smirked, patting Morgoth on the cheek. “Exactly. I have bonded with Morgoth, and I figured you and Athariel would be a good match. You can learn a lot from her, and she can help you conquer your fear. From everything I’ve learned over the past century, they’re loyal beasts. If you bond with her, she will defend you fiercer than anyone in this realm.”

The thought of this powerful creature looking out for Nesta made her overwhelmed with emotion. Maybe they were both seen as monsters by the rest of the world, but they could face it together, if Athariel let her. Nesta thought back to all the times she felt true fear – at the Hewn City, Illyria, the battlefield, there was no trace of that now. Somehow, she felt safer with this dragon than she had in the Night Court.

Nesta glanced at Zorzimril, the golden beast. “What about her?”

Eris sighed, resting his shoulder against Morgoth’s head. “I had hoped that with (Y/N) here, she would bond with her. It seems like fate, does it not, Nesta Archeron? Three of us, three dragons. I am not particularly religious, but it seems the Mother has set this out for us. Zorzimril is the reason I still have hope that we will find (Y/N).”

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[darklinaforever]

GRRM mentioning Daemyra as his fav thing, is not cause he ships them he said is the way to see his grey shades switching between light and darkness and not to be pessimist but this sounds like the abusive side won't stop. He also said that cause Daemon literally have no significant bonds despite her, after Viserys is dead. Let's see what he will say when Nettles enters in the game. Again im not hating im just saying whatever you think about the book, show is different and Ryan made Daemon a predator. Come on, stop being blind and accept the facts like, “i spared you you were a child” and then marry Laena who's younger, meanwhile none blink an eye when Viserys married Alicent cause he's the king so who give a fuck?, none blink an eye when Criston sleeps with Rhaenyra and he's older but his look is younger, Ryan chose on purpose. None blink an eye when Harwin literally put children in Rhaenyra's belly when she was supposed to be the so called “child” right cause we don't see that so let's pretend it's ok lol S2 Alys saying “a girl child you once bounched on your knee” girl, don't get me wrong i love Daemon but it's a fact the show is BIAS on him and labeled him as predator and shitty father which make impossible the idea of Daemon loving Nettles as daughter. It's just common sense, putting aside the book. Im pissing off cause Ryan keep pointing out Daemon doesn't love Rhaenyra, he groomed her despite we didn't even see that happening on screen. Ryan said he loves Rhaenyra in ep 4 when she was younger. Ryan said he's growing apart from her when she's adult. Emma said the relationship is toxic and suggested it's grooming. It's hard to support something when your opponent is the showrunner and Emma don't understand Rhaenyra and her love for Daemon, constantly supporting Rhaenycent make it worse. Daemyra is doomed from the beginning.

I will answer something very, very simple. The producers may have wanted to write Daemon as a predator, or a groomer, but they did not succeed. They have no idea what these words really mean. So they are really stupid. Or they simply don't accept having written a romance, after seeing some shitty comments full of morality. I would obviously prefer the second, but since they look really stupid I would say that the first is the most realistic. They have no idea what they are writing. Seriously, these people have no consistency between what they write and what they say. I mean... They write Aegon II as a complete rapist and find a way to defend him in an interview, while at the same time trying to say that Daemon has nothing good about him... These people have a very serious problem. Or talk about this whole non-existent Rhaenicent romance on screen. Honestly, this series is astounding stupid. Beyond that, I've always said that the series was crap compared to the book, that's nothing new. Yes, Daemyra has toxic aspects in the series. But once again the series is not the book. But even in the show, Daemon isn't a predator or a groomer. Rhaenyra is literally 19 years old in episode 4. Even Daemon marrying Laena is nothing shocking. There is supposed to have been 4 years between episodes 2 and 4. Laena was 12 when she appeared in episode 2, so she is supposed to be 16, or close to it, in the 5th. 16 is the age of majority in Westeros and girls may marry before that anyway. Also... the writers created a non-existent problem with Rhaena. But in itself, there is no problem with Baela. He is seen teaching her High Valyrian. She kisses him. When Laena dies, he is between his two daughters and seems not to know what to do to comfort them and he has a hand gesture that conveys his uneasiness. He looks at Baela. Then he told Viserys that Pentos and his house and that of his daughters. We also see that Baela kept a correspondence with Daemon. He toasts the children's engagement. There is also the cut scene of Baela where she says she is a dragon rider like her father, considered canon by Ryan. Brief. Daemon doesn't seem like a super bad father in the series, especially compared to everyone else. Even in that they failed (even though they had additional positive scenes between Daemon and his daughters at that). I would say that Laena's sentence sums up the situation on Daemon and fatherhood pretty well. He's doing his best. In itself, the only real parental problem he has is with Rhaena. and it's ridiculous when we look at the character of Daemon and the workings of House Targaryen. These people have no idea what they are adapting. But in any case, the series is not canon. So relatively, I don't care what's going on in there. Also, if I mentioned GRRM talking about Daemyra it's simply because he never talks about Daemon with the other supposed women in his life. Which... coming from the creator himself must necessarily mean something.

[sparrow-after-dark]

I posted 871 times in 2022

That's 871 more posts than 2021!

110 posts created (13%)

761 posts reblogged (87%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@internalizedkryptophobia

@im-traumatised

@inneskeeper

@reallyverynormal

@feral-ballad

I tagged 859 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#reblog - 748 posts

#q - 566 posts

#mine - 110 posts

#yeah - 7 posts

#oh - 4 posts

#fuck - 4 posts

#so true - 4 posts

#me - 3 posts

#that's what hearth did - 2 posts

#nodsnodsnods - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 80 characters

#me trying to explain to my mom why i can't cook when anyone else is in the house

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

i take the lord's name in vain (i am the only holy one here)

3 notes - Posted August 24, 2022

#4

ok gn everyone suck dick ✌

5 notes - Posted September 16, 2022

#3

i relate to marc punching steven over kissing layla because i too get jealous when my guys get involved in my blogs despite the fact that we're one person

7 notes - Posted September 22, 2022

#2

i love you making out i love you slow sticky kisses in the sun i love you holding hands i love you neck kisses i love you sunshine i love you slowly undressing i love you being too excited to undress fully i love you needing to be close to someone i love you slow moments i love you

8 notes - Posted July 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

i hate the whole "you have to love yourself before anyone can love you" thing.

actually no, i'm still learning how to love myself (i'm still learning how to like myself), but i'm still worthy of love. before i can accept that i can love myself, before i can accept that i am loveable, i am allowed to be loved.

i am loved, and i am learning how to believe and accept it all. i get to have love before i am ready.

9 notes - Posted September 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[ravysu]

Sannin headcanons and thoughts

The last thing I would like to post for the sannin week. It is still 24.04 here! :D @sannin-central

This is long. Spoiler alert. Mostly Orochimaru, some Tsunade, a little of Jiraiya (because his story is pretty clear and spoken and idk what I can add). Also I recommend to read this meta about Orochimaru, it has influenced me a lot and has some good points. Sorry for any posible grammar mistakes. Also I really should put here a lot of references to the manga or anime but it was something that was piling up for a year and I'm soooooooo lazy. After all, those are just headcanons. Also: Im not excusing Oro's bad stuff here, Im trying to understand the reasons.

Ive already posted some hcs, here, here and here.

1. First if all, the chronology pic of sannin lifetime based on the info i found on naruto wiki and also some statements about wars from this post. It was tough considering what a mess naruto’s chronology is.

2. Sannin story shows what it cost to be a legend. They're like Team 7 but more realistic. Tsunade literally carried the war but left with nothing and developed a ptsd and have problems to just live on. Also anger control issues. I think she can be pretty bossy and stubborn which is not always nice. Jiraiya is the hero of the day but also very idealistic and can ignore some important details in the real word whether its the fight (he always injured during flashbacks maybe because each time he took too much to handle and on the one hand it's heroistic but on the other is a mistake that can lead your team to situations like in that Iwa cave) or your friends issues (I bet he saw what's going on but thought it's fine until Oro actually got red handed and left). He lives in his world and may have problems to get out to see it through someone else's shoes. As for Orochimaru, it seems like he was a normal guy for 20+ years (I mean, he didn't do crazy criminal shit and had something good in him and it was stated somewhere that it was his teammates influence. It is obvious they considered him as a friend, I don't thinks it was for nothing) but we mostly know his darkest side. Despite being a moster he is a human that have empathy and some ordinary human traits (man just decorates every bit of an environment he is in lol).

3. Tsunade was the leader of team Hiruzen.

4. Tsunade sometimes hit Jiraiya for some stupid things he did or said but never touches Orochimaru even if he did something same. Jiraiya complained about it once and almost got another hit.

5. Jiraiya had problematic parents that didn't care about him much and a lot of time he was wandering in the streets.

6. Judging by the look of Oro bangs and hair, he sometimes cut it off. A stress relief huh? And the fact that he doesn't do it now in Boruto..

7. It was shown that Tsunade and Orochimaru was acknowledged before they become a team. Maybe they did just before, or maybe some longer time before. I prefer the second option and hc that they met because both had no real friends - Orochimaru seemed weird and scary for everyone and Tsunade was Senju so everyone wanted to hang out with her but didn't really care. They weren't seen as what they were - people put the labels on them. But they didn't care about each other's labels and actually saw each other in true lights.

8. Tsunade knew it was an accident and it's not right but still she blamed Orochimaru for Nawaki's death for some time. It was something that seriously damaged their friendship and the team. Orochimaru was mad but also guilty, after all, he was responsible at least as a shinobi since Nawaki was under his watch. So he started to act cold and emotionless and was trying to distance himself from his teammates.

9. Jiraiya was in Ame while Dan died.

10. The whole his orphans mission was a bit irresponsible tbh. They already fought Hanzo and as he stated the conflict between Konoha and Ame is going to an end with Konoha's win. It's weird to stay here for three years in the middle of the war while there were other lands to fight. He left his teammates for some idea. Maybe that caused another crack in their team friendship.

11. If Tsunade would have find a way to live on with her trauma and follow the will of fire and stuff it would affect Orochimaru as well just as her grief affected him. It's like he would get an example that you can live on with this pain. So death isn't above human capability and we are not just the slaves of mortality (sounds stupid but i dont know how else to describe sorry). But as we know what he actually saw is that it broke her crucially to the point she couldnt be herself again. And so the death is above everything.

12. Oro wasn’t just acting as a cold pragmatic bitch in that cave but also tried to save Tsunade. Jiraiya knew it and that’s why he showed this sign to him like "I see what youre doing here" and that stunned Oro because he would prefer to look rather like a cold pragmatic bitch hehe

13. Just a thought. People in the village probably treated Oro as a foreigner or just wouldnt accept him because he looked so differently and had a weird attitude. That's why he sometimes didn't feel that Konoha is his home. After the wars where people were treated as means and tools, even the children, he himself developed this view on people - he dehumanized them and used as the means to his goals, just as his village did. Funny thing some people were straightly dehumanizing him too like Ibiki thought that he was a demon (tho he was a child). And he probably weren't the only one. Anyways the point is that it's logical that Orochimaru don't care about anybody but some few people, he's the product of his era. He's like Naruto that would chose the hatred way. But naruto had some good and understanding people around him and.. Orochimaru had them too, but match how Iruka treated Naruto and this Hiruzen's "I sAw tHe mAliCe in This cHiLd fRoM tHe BegGinNinG". And oro didn't even have a big ass evil fox in him. sry i hate hiruzen

ANYWAYS the moral of the story is not "go criminal if they hurt you" but always treat people like people. Waving my hand to Kant.

14. The reason why Orochimaru didn't pick some good morals to stick with through the hard times no matter what (like, idk, Jiraiya or Naruto) is because 1) I think he is/was pretty depending on people around him 2) the war fucked him and his friends up too much (Nawaki incident + Tsunade) 3) twisted addictions (though I don't think he's that sadistic, we never saw him torturing randoms just for fun, it was always some science experimental shit. He tends to get fun out of cruelty only when it's personal) that maybe developed as a way to sublimate anger and sadness caused by his parents loss (that's what they share with sasuke - unlicke naruto, they knew their parents and it's other kind of pain. Sasuke developed a revenge issue and Orochimaru - cruelty pleasure which... is kinda the same but less epic and more occasional lol).

15. Speaking of that, Orochimaru cared for Sasuke because he saw himself in him.

16. Oro hold grudges against Hiruzen for not choosing him to be Hokage not only because he was ambitious and/or egoistic, but also because Hiruzen was some kind of a father figure for him and his approval was important tho i doubt he was aware of that. He also probably could tell that Hiruzen was suspicios about him when he was a child and that led to many conflicts and was hurting as well.

17. Tsunade knew things weren't pretty with Orochimaru after the wars but she never expected them to be this bad. During the week that she was given in her arc she thought not only about how much she wants to see Nawaki and Dan again despite how wrong would it be but also was trying to bury all the good memories she had left of Orochimaru so it would be easier to kill him.

18. She poisoned Jiraiya exactly because she knew he would not let her do it. Jiraiya was always hesitant to kill and inclined to forgiveness, while Tsunade, as mentioned by Orochimaru, could be merciless (so much so that he was not surprised when Kabuto suggested that she wanted to use Jira for Edo Tensei).

19. That was one of her traits that scared Jiraiya and fascinated Orochimaru.

20. Remember how Oro grabbed Jiraiya's neck when the latter was trying to cover with hair jutsu? On the snake, in Tsnade's arc. Orochimaru could have easily kill Jiraiya by pulling the sword out of the mouth (arteries are right there) but he didn't. As well as he could kill Tsunade when she was still shaking - just aim for the neck or the heart. Instead, he just injured her lung and kicked her which is not a big deal for the kind of shinoby like her at all.. Also he helped Anko not accidentally kill herself but it would be way much profitable to let her do it. "Orochimaru has no feelings".

21. The reason he suddenly wanted to kill Tsunade instead of forcing her to heal his arms as it was planned (which is weird since it will not going to get him heals and he kinda said that he wouldn't want to kill her just minutes ago) is that not only she refused to help him (he thought he could work it out) but she also prefered the village over him (from his point of view). Out if everyone she was the closest to being able to understand him since the village caused her painful losses too but nevertheless she agreed to be on it's side.

22. He wasn't fighting her back in the end partly because he thought he deserved that. Somewhere deep inside hahah.

23. Tsunade got a fear to develop deep bonds so they probably weren't very close with Shizune (also the way she knocked her down in this hotel.. oh).

24. Orochimaru will be here when she'll die.

25. Orochimaru's eng dub to Tsunade: "I often wondered what it would be like to ring that pretty neck yours". No comments.

26. Orochimaru is either bi/pan or ace. Anything or nothing lmao

27. Hiruzen knew about at least some of the Oro’s illegal experiments and was okay just as he was okay with the Foundation all the time. Because it’s useful. Then he has discovered he went too far OR he knew everything and oro just became too inconvenient because of his methods. The way Orochimaru tells Sasuke about reasons they are well treated as the criminals is based on in his experience with Hiruzen.

28. As you may know the lyrics in Orochimaru’s music theme goes “don’t talk with the silence of the heart”. It was taken from one Indian song that also had lines like “don’t question life too much”, ”pain arose somewhere in the chest”, “don’t speak to the wounds of the heart”. Though I’m not sure 100% because I was translating it with some hindi dictionary with like zero knowledge of hindi

29. I like to think that this “silence of the heart” theme and the fact that he called his village a hidden sound village are somehow connected. The hidden sound is the possible explanation of all things waiting to be listened to but the truth is silent and you know it deep in your heart and it bothers you. The world is silent just like the life is meaningless but people can only hear. *Sigh* anyways

30. Orochimaru’s journey is the one about accepting death. When he saw Karin released her chains while was trying to get to Sasuke he understood that the death is a part of human’s strength.

Can’t wait to feel that everything I wrote is wrong or not enough or stupid and obvious lol. Anyways, it’s something that I wanted to share until I move to some other fandom.

[sweetstpies]

*  OMG  HIII  !!!  i’m  kenny  (  20  ,  she  +  her  )  and  i’m  so so  excited  to  bring  nova  to  willow  !  i’ve  had  this  lil  baker  girl  character  brain  rot  for  quite  some  time  now  but  i  haven't  really  had  the  chance  to  iron  it  out  until  now  —i’ll  admit  ,  the  bio  is  a  little  bit  rough  but  it’s  got  all  the  ideas  i  can  think  of  for  now . 

my  ims  are  always  open  if  you  want  to  plot  or  just  chat  about  literally  anything  and  i’m  more  than  happy  to  do  that  on  discord  too  if  it’s  easier  for  you  :)

quick stats : 

name : nova castillo 

age : twenty - three  

height : 5′5″

birthplace : seattle , washington

occupation : baker / social media personality 

living : juniper drive 

backstory : 

nova is the first and only child born to her two loving parents after years and years of trying for their miracle baby .

her parents owned a bakery , the blue box , where they sold a bunch of colombian & mexican inspired treats and assorted goods ( which , you guessed it , were always packaged in blue boxes ) .

she was their perfect little girl : sweet , curious , kind , and most importantly always in the kitchen . nova practically played with rolling pins and wooden spoons more than her actual toys , always pretending to be a little baker just like her parents were . 

from a young age she learned her way around the kitchen , her parents were very hands on with her because not only was baking a way that they made a living but it was a way that they expressed pride in their culture , which eventually rubbed off onto their daughter . 

the earlier parts of her life seemed straight out of a hallmark movie . to anyone else it may seem too good to be true , but despite all their efforts , her parents weren’t able to always give nova the perfect life they wanted her to have. 

CONTENT WARNING : parental death , cancer , suicide , orphaned 

when nova was 16 , her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer . her family did everything in their power to allow her to recover : chemotherapy , surgeries , buying whatever medication the doctor’s so much as recommended , but unfortunately it wasn’t enough. by the time she was 17 , she had lost her mother . 

the loss of her mother wasn’t easy on her rest of her family — with his wife gone , her father spiraled into a deep depression for about a year and would eventually take his life after losing what felt like all his purpose. 

END CONTENT WARNING 

she spent the next handful of years being angry — thinking that the universe was trying to curse her for not being a good enough daughter ( definitely not true ) . she was hard on herself , barely scraping by the get her high school diploma , shutting out all of her friends and quitting on baking all together .

nova skipped out on college , getting a job at a target close by only to make enough money to buy herself groceries and keep up with the bills as she lived in the house that her parents left behind .

accepting that this was her life now , she continued to work only to survive but eventually decided that maybe it was time for her to start truly processing the fact that both of her parents had passed on — so , she finally began to sort through their things. 

in the midsts of the months long project , she was sifting through a bunch of old mail and other assorted papers when she found a letter addressed to her , which of course she opened. 

to make a long story short , the letter was from her mother seemingly written during the time she was battling cancer which stated in the event of her passing , the bakery was to be left to nova. 

even just seeing the word bakery catapulted her back into so many happy memories she shared with her parents while they were alive — and though it may have taken her a couple of weeks she ultimately decided that the only true way to honor her parents and the life they built  was to open the bakery back up , the only question was how . 

it seemed like an act of the universe ( the same one she had spent so many years being so angry at ) that the show cupcake wars was auditioning in seattle for their upcoming season , and the prize money of $10,000 was more than what she needed to get the bakery up and running again . 

so , she spent the next month getting back into the swing of baking — spending all of her time in between shifts preparing all the various sweet treats that had been ingrained into her memory ever since she was a child , and after all of her hard work landed herself a spot as a baker on the next season of the show. 

it was a stressful journey , but the sugar paved road led her to not only the grand prize , but a massive social media presence after her concha cupcakes turned into an overnight viral sensation. 

for the next year after that , she took time to re-open the bakery    that eventually became one of the must-visit restaurants in seattle . 

her stardom has only continued to grow from there. :getting interviewed on various different talk shows and news outlets who all wanted to cover her bakery and her story. at this point , she spends most of her time working on growing her ( and the bakery’s ) social media following , posting videos and pictures on various platforms of her baking and even doing some live-baking twitch streams every now and then . 

personality : 

truly she is just a sweetie pie ( lol ) , no but serious nova is literally just such a sweetheart — she’s a lover before all else and even though that doesn’t always work out the best for her she doesn’t plan on changing any time soon . 

she’s one of those people who just like … doesn’t know how to say no which makes it really easy for her kindess to get taken advantage of . it’s happened to her before and though she can pick up when it’s happening she’s more likely to turn a blind eye and put a smile on her face than to actually call anyone out for it . 

speaking of calling out , she’s absolutely never heard the word confrontation in her life . as you can very well predict she’s just very much like :) can’t we all just be friends ! and even though she knows the answer is no sometimes she’s gonna try anyways . 

despite being obnoxiously kind she’s not like … stupid LIKE DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN LIEJFLSDFOUHF — she just …like she knows what it’s like to hurt and she knows that she hates feeling like that so she tries to avoid putting herself in those situations and she tries to like tell if someone’s like taking advantage of her but i can promise you she will only realize it when it’s too late and then will not say a word about it . 

she has a very like comforting and welcoming energy about her — like someone you feel like you can go to about anything and everything and they won’t judge you like someone could probably tell her they cheated on their boyfriend and she’d just be like :( those things happen it’s okay!! you could call her anywhere any time and she’ll try her best to be there for you with baked goods in hand 

extroverted introvert is the best way to describer her socially  , she loves talking to people and just making conversation with literally anyone that will engage her but after being out for so long she’ll need to go home and curl up with a nice cup of tea and a book for a while just to be by herself and recharge. 

extras : 

she has a lil dog ! a mini aussie named apples ( i found the name on pet finder don’t judge ) and that’s just her little baby ! 

her house and the surrounding area probably always smells like something sweet because she’s always baking so hopefully her neighbors like dessert 

[georgiafm]

            big  boobs  ?  what  ??  ummm,  chile,  anyway...  soo.  hey  angels  !  xD  fun  fact  ?  positions  has  been  on  repeat  for  like  4  days  straight  <3  i’m  c / cely  (  she  +  her  ),  whatever  floats  ur  boat,  i’m  a  23  yr  old  from  the  eastern  tz  who’s  110%  struggling  to  adult  properly,  and  i’m  rlly  not  all  tht  interesting,  so  let’s  move  on  to  The  real  star  here

p.s.  i  promise  i’ll  try  but  9/10  i  am  terrible  at  ims  😔  so  feel  free  to  hmu  on  the  disco  @simp 4 shawn 5ever#1305

chicago’s  very  own  georgia  ‘gigi’  madigan  has  been  spotted  on  madison  avenue  ,  with  a  striking  semblance  to  madelyn  cline  !  you  may  know  them  as  @gigipuffs  or  hitting  the  front  page  of  tmz  as  shamed  child  star  gigi  goes  gaga  on  pedestrian  on  broadway  street  .  according  to  tmz  ,  you  just  had  your  twenty-third  birthday  bash  .  your  chance  of  surviving  new  york  is  uncertain  because  you’re  irascible  ,  but  being  congenial  might  help  you  .  things  that  would  paint  a  better  picture  of  you  would  be  head  held  high  despite  the  sooty  markings  of  a  dirty  neck  ,  deafening  music  blaring  from  a  convertible  speeding  down  residential  streets  ,  cherry  chapstick  on  a  pouting  mouth  .  (  cisfemale  +  she/her    )

stats.

full  name  :  georgia  stormy  madigan.

nickname(s)  :  gigi.

birthdate  :  sometime  in  october  during  ‘97.  

zodiac  :   libra. 

sexuality  :  bisexual / biromantic.

hometown  :  born  in  dallas,  texas  but  moved  to  chicago  at  age  5  when  her  mother  remarried,  then  eventually,  nyc  at  16  after  her  step-father  received  a  huge  job  offer.

father  :  sullivan  “sully”  madigan--  retired  soccer  player  &  hall  of  famer.  now,  currently  lives  in  honolulu,  hawaii.  gigi’s  best  friend.  she  goes  to  him  often  to  either  whine  about  her  family,  or  laze  in  the  sun.  leads  a  normal,  modest  life  with  a  new  family.  mellow  &  altruistic. 

mother  :  gwendolyn  mayfair--  talk  show  co-host  (  the  view  reimagined  ).  was  miss  texas  in  ‘84,  then  miss  america  in  ‘86.  ambitious,  but  superficial  &  overbearing.

step-father  :  michael  mayfair--  sports  commentator.  basically,  sukie’s  second  father  as  he  married  gwendolyn  while  gigi  was  still  young,  therefore,  was  instrumental  in  raising  her.  was  once  sully’s  biggest  fan,  then  stole  sully’s  wife.  funny,  but  flighty  &  unreliable.

siblings  :  riley  mayfair--  half-sister.  4  years  old.  if  it  was  still  a  thing,  you’d  without  a  doubt  catch  her  on  a  toddlers  &  tiaras  episode.  keith  madigan--  brother.  27  years  old.  currently  serving  life  in  prison  for  3  counts  of  manslaughter.  a  painful  detail  the  family  doesn’t  talk  about.  it  always  makes  gwendolyn  cry.  it  makes  georgia’s  blood  boil.

occupation  :  host  of  one  of  the  most  popular  podcasts  in  america.

traits  :  -  irascible,  sardonic,  skeptical,  flippant,  scatterbrained,  tactless,  insubordinate.      +  congenial,  benevolent,  resilient,  individualistic,  waggish,  uninhibited,  candid.

character  inspo  :  pinterest.  viola  hastings  (  she’s  the  man  ),  maeve  wiley  (  sex  education  ),  miley  cyrus / ashley  o  (  black  mirror  ),  alyssa  (  end  of  the  fucking  world  ).

* 𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐞  :  georgia  madigan’s  most  scandalous  articles

sully  madigan’s  problem  child  throws  tantrum  on  set.

“  i  know  madigan.  nice  guy.  but  that  daughter  of  his  is  out  of  control  !  ”  director  leopold  lincoln  recounts  georgia  madigan’s  horrific  attitude.

racy  photos  of  nearly  nude  georgia  madigan  leaked  !

mental  breakdown  ?  georgia  madigan  attacks  paparazzi  !

meltdown  madigan  at  it  again  !  georgia’s  meltdown  with  boyfriend  caught  on  tape  !

disney  axes  contract  with  georgia  madigan.  is  this  the  end  for  the  child  star ?

ex  disney  star’s  fall  from  grace  *  tmz  image  of  a  19  year  old  georgia  on  her  hands  &  knees  vomiting  outside  of  a  nightclub  * 

why  no  one  in  hollywood  wants  to  work  with  georgia  madigan.

* 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭   𝐢.

when  gwendolyn  first  learned  she  was  with  child,  she  was  ecstatic.  she  prayed  &  prayed  for  a  girl.  she  daydreamed  often  about  what  it  would  be  like  having  a  mini  her;  pictured  her  in  pageants  (  dominating  the  competition  if  she  was  anything  like  mommy  ),  in  ballet,  getting  their  nails  &  hair  done  together  like  close  mommies  &  daughters  do.  

when  she  found  out  she  was  having  a  boy,  she  begrudgingly  accepted  it  as  her  fate,  but  vowed  to  try  again,  already  planning  her  next  pregnancy  while  still  pregnant  with  her  first;  a  child  she'd  name  keith,  &...  she  liked  him  okay.  the  first  born  always  occupies  a  special  place  in  the  heart;  but  she  wanted  a  girl.  keith  would  grow  up  knowing  a  subtle  kind  of  rejection.  the  second  time  gwendolyn  learned  she  was  with  child,  she  was  over  the  moon.  this  time  she  knew  it'd  be  a  girl--  a  psychic  had  told  her  so.  she  didn't  listen  to  anything  else  the  psychic  had  to  say.

* 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭   𝐢𝐢.

georgia  was  her  mother's  perfect  little  doll...  until  she  wasn't.  but  until  then,  she  dressed  her  up,  ensuring  she  only  adorned  pastels,  bought  her  lots  &  lots  of  barbies--  replacing  the  ones  that'd  turn  up  with  their  heads  missing  with  dozens  more--  forced  her  into  hosiery  &  leotards  while  the  child  cried  &  cried  &  cried,  smiled  through  the  embarrassment  when  she'd  sabotage  her  own  performances  at  pageants,  smiled  in  polite  agony,  face  colored  crimson,  when  she'd  pick  georgia  up  from  school  with  her  dresses  covered  in  dirt,  pigtails  lopsided  &  drooping  sadly.  this  wasn't  what  she  pictured  having  a  daughter  would  be  like.  

but  instead  of  letting  up,  letting  georgia  explore  her  own  interests,  she  pressed  on.  her  sights  eventually  set  on  the  silver  screen.  by  6,  georgia  was  crying  on  disney  sets.  by  10,  she  had  no  more  tears  left  to  cry;  &  what  would  be  the  use  anyway  ?  they  never  worked.  by  15,  georgia  was  acting  out  in  a  very  different  way.  her  father  was  gone,  driven  away  across  the  country  &  an  ocean  by  gwendolyn,  her  step-father  mostly  looked  the  other  way,  complicit,  her  brother,  in  prison--  gwendolyn’s  biggest  disappointment  &  heartache.  georgia  was  alone.

* 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭   𝐢𝐢𝐢.

by  16,  georgia  had  been  dropped  by  disney,  &  a  deep  depression  would  befall  her.  when  she  was  younger,  friday  night  lights  used  to  glint  off  of  warm  starry  eyes.  her  father  &  step-father  would  take  her  to  all  the  games  &  teach  her  all  the  happenings  on  the  field  until  they  made  up  their  own  little  game  of  guessing  plays--  up  until  there  came  a  time  when  georgia  would  always  emerge  victorious.  she  dreamed  of  following  in  her  father’s  footsteps  when  she  was  young,  but  now,  it  was  too  late.  her  youth  had  been  wasted,  &  she  felt  utterly  drained.  she  used  to  think  she  had  all  the  time  in  the  world,  but  adulthood  was  rapidly  approaching,  &  all  she  could  do  was  lament  over  all  that  wasted  time.

she  eventually  dug  herself  out,  some  time  an  ocean  away  from  her  mother  doing  her  good,  but  when  she  returned  home,  gwendolyn  had  replaced  her.  this  time,  this  baby  would  be  a  mini  her.  like  her  brother,  georgia  would  come  to  know  a  subtle  kind  of  rejection.

generally  easygoing  &  big-hearted,  over  the  years,  georgia’s  earned  a  bad  reputation  she’s  undeserving  of.  while  she  has  difficulty  controlling  spurs  of  anger,  said  anger  is  never  without  reason,  it’s  simply  exacerbated.  she  doesn’t  take  too  kindly  to  aggressive  authority  figures  or  injustice.  after  she  established  a  podcast  on  youtube  &  spotify  when  she  was  20,  however  (  the  subject  matter  is  some  of  everything;  football,  soccer,  pop  culture,  racy  content,  politics,  think  pieces,  philosophy,  she  even  hosts  people  on  occasion  to  keep  things  fresh  &  exciting  ),  people  were  finally  able  to  get  to  know  the  real  her.

[horansqueen]

You & Me : chapter 18

A Niall Horan fanfiction ; rated MA

Sequel to AM CONVERSATIONS

CHAPTER 1 || CHAPTER 2 || CHAPTER 3 || CHAPTER 4 || CHAPTER 5 || CHAPTER 6 || CHAPTER 7 || CHAPTER 8 || CHAPTER 9 || CHAPTER 10 || CHAPTER 11 || CHAPTER 12 || CHAPTER 13 || CHAPTER 14 || CHAPTER 15 || CHAPTER 16 || CHAPTER 17

NOTES:

-one chapter is her pov, the next is his. -4.2k -im sorry, i never proofread, i hate it. -there WILL be smut. but not only smut. -this is a romance, comedy, smut story. -for the summary, check my MASTERLIST.

- notes: i feel like its a really bad chapter. sooo yea, im sorry :X

if you want to be on the list of blogs i notify when this is updated, just message me :)

requests! : so i kept a few requests for later, and i didn’t write the chapter exactly like the requests, but its close enough haha!

Chapter 18 : Her chapter

OLIVIA

I was not mad at Louis for spilling out the fact that we had sex to Niall, but somehow, I wished I could have told him myself. I felt like Niall wouldn't be as pissed as he was if he had heard it from me. On the other hand, I knew Louis well enough to guess that he hadn't been quite gentle with him. Louis has had my back for the past year and more, and although I knew he'd accept it if I decided to go back with Niall, I was also aware that he would be suspicious of him for a while. The problem was that I was not sure I could trust Niall either and I didn't want to start this relationship again on fear. I wanted to find my trust back in him before I gave him my heart again.

But it was not easy. I gripped his fingers tighter and he answered my squeeze, looking in my eyes as I asked him to kiss me. I could feel myself tear up again but this time, I didn't do anything to stop the tears from falling on my cheeks. He said he only made love to me and somehow, that awakened something inside me.. some burning desire, or more like an intense craving for him. Like my heart needed him and my body was desperate for his.

"Should I turn the light off again?" he asked in a low voice, making me lick my lips.

"Yes. And lock the door."

The house was full of our friends and I knew it was not ideal but something inside me screamed that I had to do it and that I would regret not doing it. Niall turned around and locked the door before turning the light off without letting go of my hand. I expected the kiss to be sweet and gentle but instead, he crushed his mouth against mine and let out a short groan, letting go of my hand to reach the bottom of my shirt, pulling it quickly over my head. His warm fingers quickly found my breasts and he groaned again in my mouth.

"Why are you not wearing a bra, petal?" he asked in a whimper, making me chuckle.

"I was wearing a t-shirt, I didn't need one."

"You're something else." he let out as I smiled more. "I missed your tits so much."

I felt his hands grip my breasts tight and he ran his thumbs on my nipples. I could feel them get harder with every flick of his finger and moaned as I nibbled on his bottom lip. I wanted him so bad I felt like my heart was going to explode.

"Mm fuck, remember what I told you the other day in the bathroom? I need to fuck you so hard before I can do anything else." he admitted in a whisper. “I just can't help myself."

Both his hands traveled on my stomach and I sucked it in by habit before exhaling again. I didn't think he really noticed but for me, it was a very big deal. I was allowing myself to be vulnerable in front of him again. I accepted to be vulnerable for him. He played with the buttons of my jeans and pulled on them, bringing my panties down with them too. With difficulty, I stepped out of them exactly when his lips left mine.

"You have no idea how bad I want you." he whispered, his fingertips running quickly on my chest until my neck. He wrapped his hand around my throat and my heart jumped. "So fucking bad."

The more he pressed his fingers on my neck, the more my eyes seemed to flutter as a throbbing sensation invaded my whole body. When was the last time I felt Niall's fingers on my throat? It had been way too long. He made me step back slowly and when I felt my legs hit the side of the bed, I fell and sat on the side. He didn't waste time and got on his knees on the bed, gripping my neck again and roughly laying me down. I pushed myself with my legs and leaned my head on the pillow, his fingers still on my throat.

"Mm, look at you, all naked and fucked because of me." he said in a low tone, bending down closer to me. "Apparently, everyone knows you like being choked and it really pissed me off."

He ran his free hand down my chest and pushed on my thighs to spread them apart before his fingers quickly slipped inside me. My back arched at the feeling and his lips reached mine to kiss me fiercely. He kept his lips against mine as his fingers slipped in and out of me quickly and whenever he was knuckled deep, I felt my eyes flutter and my body tense.

"You're mine." he let out firmly. "You're all mine."

My whole body started throbbing and I opened my eyes to meet his. I had never seen Niall so possessive with me and I had no idea where it was coming from. Harry had mentioned to me a few times when he thought Niall was possessive with me before we dated but besides the tantrum he had thrown when he had found Harry and I in bed at the lodge, I couldn't really think of any other moment, and even that time, it was probably just him looking after me and not jealousy.

"Say it, say you're mine." he ordered as he applied a little more pressure on my throat before loosening it.

He took his fingers out of me and I squirmed, feeling suddenly empty. I knew I had missed him and I was also aware that I missed the way he touched me but I never thought it could be that bad.

"Please, please Niall, don't stop." I stammered, squirming some more.

"Say you're mine."

I felt his thumb brush against my clit and let out a moan despite myself, making him smirk. He did it a second time and I let out a curse word before licking my lips. He was driving me insane and I wanted nothing more than to feel him inside me.

"I'm yours Niall, i'm all yours." I whispered quickly.

As soon as he heard my words, he pushed two of his fingers back inside me and curled them a bit. I couldn't believe how close to an orgasm I already was and I reached for his shirt, gripping it tight as I cursed again. I felt his thumb rub quickly my clit and my back arched again.

"N-Niall, i'm gonna cum."

The feeling of his hand still around my neck was only adding to the pleasure but I tried to postpone the orgasm to feel him a little longer. He moved closer again, his face right in front of mine, and I just wanted to kiss him.

"Scream my name. I want everyone here to know you're mine."

It should have surprised me to hear those words coming from his mouth, or maybe even trouble me, but instead, it made me reach my peak immediately and I started shaking as he finger fucked me harder. I felt myself gush on his fingers as I moaned his name louder than intended and it took me a while to get down from my high. He placed himself over me, letting go of my neck and grinding between my legs as he held himself on his elbows. The fingers of one of his hands slipped in my hair and he sent me a smirk. My lips curled too and I quickly reached for his pants, unzipping them quickly and taking his cock out. My smile faltered for a second when I realized how hard he was and pulled on his pants and boxers as much as I could.

"Please, please fuck me."

He didn't waste any time and pushed himself inside me, making my eyes close and my lips part. I didn't think our first time in over a year would be this intense and fast but it didn't matter. We both built up the tension and lust so high that we literally just fell in each other's arms. It was good, it made my whole body throb, and even after my orgasm, I was enjoying feeling him inside me more than I even remembered.

"Jesus christ, you feel so fucking good." he let out, remaining still inside me. He brought his face closer and let his lips run on my jaw and down my neck, buring his face there and making a shiver run up my spine. I squirmed a bit and noticed him gripping the sheets of the bed tighter. "Don't move petal, please don't move. You have no idea how horny watching you cum made me."

I bit my bottom lip and tried to remain still, bringing my hand in his hair and pulling on it gently.

"Just do what you said you'd do." I whispered, waiting until he moved his head up to look in my eyes to continue. I stared at him, still nibbling on my bottom lip as my whole body seemed on fire. I could feel him throb inside me and it was tough not to move. "Fuck me until you cum inside me. You can use me."

His mouth pressed against mine again and he kissed me deeply. I started pulling on his hair more when he started pounding in me harder than he ever had. It felt so amazing I thought I was going to cum again but after a few minutes, I felt him tense on top of me and he groaned near my ear, making my heart skip a beat.

"I'm yours, Niall." I whispered as he came. "I belong to you, no one else."

"Fuck!"

He pushed himself as deep as he could inside me and I moved against him to help him ride his orgasm until he went limp on top of me. I heard him pant and I let out a short whimper, letting one of my fingers slide gently on his spine. He shivered on top of me from my touch and when I heard him talk again, I felt myself tear up.

"I'm in love with you."

I couldn't talk and held my breath until our eyes met again. He raised his eyebrows and my lips parted. We were locked in my room, in the dark, and I felt like it was just the two of us in the world, the exact same way it used to feel when we were close. Were we as close as we used to be? Did that whole trust and strong bond come back now that we actually fucked?

"I'm in love with you too."

It seemed to satisfy him and he rolled to lie down next to me, his pants and boxers still around his knees and I turned my head his way to let my eyes travel on him for a few seconds. I could see very well in the dark now that my eyes were used to it and we remained silent until he finally turned his head to me too and smiled.

"You want to know something?" he asked in a low tone as I nodded. "I always cum harder with you. I can't cum that hard by myself, or with an other girl. I've tried, but it's impossible."

My lips curled at his confession and I tried not to look too happy. The truth was, it felt amazing to know that, but I felt very selfish for enjoying the fact that he didn't have good orgasms without me.

"Well then, you know where to go when you're horny."

He chuckled and I did too before he squirmed to get his pants off but moved his boxers up and turned my way, holding his head with his hand as his eyes ran on my face. He brought his fingers to my neck and caressed it gently before sighing.

"Did I hurt you?"

My smiled turned into a fond one and then a sad one.

"Not this time, no."

I saw his smile fall again and he moved closer, pressing his lips gently against mine, kissing me gently and slowly a few times as I brought my hand in his hair, playing with it softly.

"I want to be with you, Olivia." he whispered in-between two kisses. "Be mine."

I opened my lips to answer as my heart thumped hard in my chest. I was not ready for that step and deep down, I knew he knew that. He could read me like an open book, and I could read him too. It was scary but also, it felt better than I could explain. I was about to tell him when I heard a knock at the door and jumped slightly as I remembered we were not alone in the world.

"Olivia? I'm so sorry but I really need you right now."

I bit my bottom lip again, still staring at Nial and finally sat up, searching through my drawer for a pair of sweatpants and a shirt.

"I won't be long." I just told Niall before leaving and closing the door behind myself.

Eleanor raised her nose up and I could read guilt on her face but I just sent her a small smile.

"Is it Louis?"

She nodded and I followed her to the living room where Louis was, laying on a couch and clearly drunk. My lips curled a bit and I sighed again, glancing at El before going to my best friend and crouching down to talk to him. His eyes opened and he groaned, blinking a few times as I smiled more.

"You need help to your bed?"

"I'm sorry for telling him." he mumbled with a strong beer breath before I tilted my head. "That was stupid, he asked and I didn't wanna lie. I'm sorry I told him but i'm not sorry about the other things I said. He needed... he needed to hear that."

"Okay, I'll help you to your room," I just said, reaching for his arm and helping him sit up. "Come on, pet."

"Don't you call me that." he grunted as I laughed. "I hate it."

I helped him up and he stumbled as we walked. I caught him every time before he fell and finally helped him in bed, tucking him in as he stared at me with a smirk. It was not the first time I took care of Louis when he was drunk but I was not sure why Eleanor asked me to do it when I knew she's done it before, too.

"Good now?"

"Good now." he muttered with a satisfied sigh but when I was about to leave, he grabbed my wrist. "Hey, wait. Did you let him fuck you?"

He was still holding my wrist and I stared at him, losing my smile before nodding slightly. It made his lips curl more and he chuckled, his fingers slipping from my arm as it fell back on my side. I felt like I could sit with Louis and talk about what happened with Niall all night but he was too drunk to discuss and anyway, Eleanor was the one he wanted to be with.

"Good girl." he just said, making me chuckle and roll my eyes as he smirked again.

I sent a smile to Eleanor as I walked out of the room and she sighed, smiling back at me.

"He had to apologize to you, or else he would have had a bad night."

I smiled more and nodded, realizing that Louis and his girlfriend knew each other very well, probably better than they knew themselves, and after she entered his room and closed the door, I noticed Niall waiting for me by my room. His head was leaned on the frame and he sent me a small smile as something twisted in my stomach. I was looking at him only wearing a shirt and a white pair of boxers and something inside me exploded. I loved him so much it was barely bearable and my lips parted at his sight. It was so weird to love someone so much that you physically hurt inside. I could feel something stir in my stomach, something that was actually pulling me towards him, something that made me believe that he was never close enough, that I would never stop feeling this way, that my love would never fade. It was so strong, sort of like gravity, something I had no control on, and I knew I would never recover from it. It made me want to fall on my knees and cry. It made me want to literally die, not because it was painful, but because I knew that nothing else would ever feel that way. And the worst of all is that there were no words to explain how I felt.

"You okay, petal?"

What would be worse, to be with him again and lose him, or to never be with him ever again? I couldn't answer my own question and suddenly felt nauseous. It probably showed because he frowned and took a few steps to get closer to me.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"Are you... A-Are you gonna stay with me?" I stammered, feeling my bottom lip shake a bit.

"Yea, of course i'm staying." he promised in a soft and comforting voice. "I'll hold you all night okay? What's wrong?"

"N-No, I mean... are you gonna stay with me?" I just repeated.

I knew he understood because his traits softened but his eyes never left mine. He wrapped his large hands on my face, his fingers apart and touching my neck, cheeks and jaw, before he moved closer. His lips were so close to mine I could feel his warm breath hitting gently against my mouth.

"Forever, Olivia. Until I die."

It was a big promise to make and I was not sure I believed it, but I fucking wanted to. I wanted it more than anything else in the world. I remained about a minute just looking in his eyes as the sharp pain in my chest was becoming harder and harder to hide and finally, he just shook his head a bit before letting go of my face to take my hand. He pulled me to my room and I followed him, letting him take the lead like I always have since the first day I met him, and when we were both laying down together in the dark again, I stared at him as I remained laying down on my stomach. Gently, he ran his fingers on the side of my face to push my hair away before he moved them on my nape and shoulders slowly, making goosebumps appear all over my body. He pulled the covers off my back to let his fingers travel on it again as I quivered in silence. I loved him. I loved him so much. Even these words seemed extremely weak and didn't do justice to the real feelings inside me.

"I love you." he whispered as he lied down next to me, facing me and staring at me, his fingers still brushing on my skin. "I'm not leaving again. It was the biggest mistake of my life. I'll never make it again. I'll die first."

I don't know when I fell asleep but when I woke up, Nial was still sleeping peacefully next to me. I looked at him for a few minutes before closing my eyes again, trying to stop the tears from falling. I was in deep shit and I didn't know what to do. I loved Niall and the feeling I had the night before was still there, making me realize it would probably always be there, no matter what I did or how long I waited. My heart jumped in my chest when he talked but I was not sure if it was because I was surprised he was awake or because of the words he spoke.

"Leave him." my eyes fluttered open and they met his tired ones. "Be with me. I want to wake up with you, like this, every single morning."

"You're... you're being unfair, Niall." I pointed out in a whisper, knowing that if I talked louder, my voice would crack. "You can't ask me that."

"I have to. I have to because I can't be without you."

"Niall-"

"I can't." he cut me.

"You realize I'm cheating on my husband, Niall, do you?" I expressed in a normal voice as he closed his eyes, swallowed hard and opened them again.

"I'm cheating on my girlfriend, too."

"Not the first time." I replied quickly without thinking, regretting it immediately after.

He sat up and frowned at me and it made me realize that even when I was mad at him, or that he was mad at me, I still felt just as strongly for him as I always did.

"That's fucking unfair. Every time I cheat on a girlfriend it's with you, Olivia, do you even see that?" he asked as I sat up too. "It's always you, it's always been you!"

"Don't say 'always'." I quickly replied. "No I can say that for me, it's always been you but you? No, you can't say that."

"Well now it's clearly not me anymore." he replied, getting a bit defensive. "You're marrying someone else."

"And cheating on him! With someone who broke my heart!" I shook my head. "And what for? To 'live his life' and 'shag all the women he wants'? I've never been a confident person back then, Niall, but here, right now, it's me telling you I deserve better than that."

"Better than what? Better than ME?"

"Better than the way you treated me."

His eyes roamed on my face and I thought he was going to yell at me but instead, his eyes filled with tears and he closed them, swallowing hard. He was beautiful and I could swear my heart stopped. All I could think about was get closer to him, cup his face and kiss him. It was not even sexual, I just wanted to feel him close. I was so pathetic. We were having an argument and even then, I just wanted to be in his arms.

"You're right." he just let out, making my heart jump in my chest. "I treated you like shit and there's no excuse. But Olivia I swear, I didn't mean to break you heart."

"You didn't just break my heart, Niall, you broke me. I was in pieces when you left me." I let out, tearing up too. "I knew I'd never be over it, I thought I'd never be happy again, and just as i feel like my life could turn good you reappear, ready to break me again. Why? Why are you doing that?"

His eyes opened and a tear slid on his cheek. It shocked me so much that I moved my upper body back a bit. He didn't wipe it, he just let it run on his cheek and my eyes followed it until it slipped on his neck.

"Because I love you, Olivia. Because that year without you was not only the worst year of my life, but also the most pathetic I've ever been. Because nothing is worth it if it's not with you, and because if I don't try anything I can to get you back, I will regret it all my life."

My heart sunk in my chest and he moved closer, cupping my face again and bending so close to me I could feel his lips brush against mine as he spoke.

"I'm sorry. I'll give you more time, I shouldn't have asked you to be mine, not yet, you're not ready. Take the time you need, just don't push me away yet."

Without thinking, I quickly moved on my knees and straddled him, pressing my lips against his. He relaxed under me and his arms wrapped around me, pulling my upper body closer and pressing it against his as he deepened the kiss. It was slow but hard and I never wanted it to end.

I knew I should tell him about the discussion I had with Dylan. I knew I should have a real discussion with him, and I promised myself I would, but finally being able to be physically close with Niall was something I had been waiting for, and there was no way I wanted to ruin it again. If I listened to my heart, I wanted to be with him. I wanted to allow him in again, and give him all my trust and love. I wanted to be happy with him the way we had been for a while when we were together, but it was not easy. Every single time I told myself I was going to give him an other chance, I thought about all the nights I cried, all the therapy sessions I had to go to, all the times I got drunk and fucked to forget. I knew life was about taking chances and following your heart, but I was not done mending all the pieces of it yet, and secretly, I hoped Niall would help me with the puzzle.

[sadsapphicslut]

chapter one - original story (i havent come up with a title yet lol)

okay so here it is!! if anyone actually reads this i love u :) please leave feedback if u have any!! 

TWs:

death, drugs, medication, mental illness, references to sex, swearing, alcohol

wordcount: 8.2k

(also i dont think anyone will but im paranoid of people stealing my writing so obligatory dont copy/post to another site or steal my work in any other ways etc)

There were five of us; 4 boys and me. In hindsight I realize from the outside our group probably seemed a little predatory, but it was never really like that. For the most part they were like brothers to me. Of course, being the only girl in a small and isolated club of mainly older boys, things were bound to happen. We were in high school and it was summer, can you blame me? Regardless, however much I loved them, it was not quite in the way my father always assumed or my mother always warned (during our uncomfortable monthly visitations before I managed to get rid of her for good).

The months everything went down, which I often referred to only as ‘The Worst Summer of My Life’, (quite melodramatically but not without reason) were somehow still full of the best moments of my life. Moments I often find myself wishing I could repeat, as nothing has or will ever come close to the way I felt, sitting amongst my boys day after day, somehow light as the warm July breeze that blew past us. My entire body weightless, as non-existent as the time that passed us by. Despite the depression I’d found myself plunged into during the days after my only brother’s death, I truly believe I will never again be as happy as I was then. Laughter seemed to flow freely from our mouths, smiles plastered onto our faces no matter the circumstances, content to just exist. I don’t think I can ever forget the day it was raining so hard the entire city was flooded, but we walked around uptown well past the point of being absolutely drenched, our clothes dripping so heavily the security guard denied us entry into the public library. Something about that day made me feel so free, like we were invisible. Completely apathetic to the whims of the real world, somehow existing only in our twisted minds and intertwined fantasies.

Maybe if I’d had my head screwed on a little tighter, or if we’d met under different circumstances, it wouldn’t have ended the way it did. I used to go down that line of thought every night before succumbing to a fitful but heavy sleep (under the direct affect of 25mg of Quetiapine, working to counteract my Concerta and Lexapro). Those types of irrational thoughts were ones my therapist deemed as my habit for rumination. In regard to the death of my brother she called it ‘bargaining’, one of the stages of grief. I never liked it when she spoke about those stages as I’ve always felt them to be wrong. Maybe because I never quite moved on to the final one, no matter how many years pass. ‘Acceptance’, coined as the “Re-entrance to reality”. Maybe it’s different since I was never really grounded to reality in the first place. I still wake up some mornings, thinking I’ve heard his voice in the other room, ready to beguile me with tales from his day of retail work. Other times I swear I’ve walked past him on the street. Some people may relate to my experiences, with reasonings of ghosts, angels, apparitions, or insanity, among many other causes for the apparent viewing of a loved one long gone to the other side. I never shared these beliefs, but I am not one to deny. Rather, I always take these instances as an omen. A warning. I have come to this conclusion not without evidence, at least circumstantial, given the many occasions over the years – and especially that summer – where I found my hypothesis to be true. All I can say is that I am glad I’ve never been met with the same chimerical visions of my mother; one can only hope that is because she ended up where she belonged. Maybe I’ll see her there, though I hope at the very least they could keep us in separate rooms of Hell if the situation does arise.

From what I know of the others now, which is admittedly not much – majorly due to my own neglect, as opposed to theirs – they share the same prescription for rose-coloured glasses as I. We always were too engrossed with our own romanticization of nostalgia and sentiment that it clouded our view. I often think this was one of the reasons we seemed to fit so well together. Not quite like puzzle pieces, too self-absorbed to hold a candle to that analogy, more like complimentary colours. I wish it could’ve stayed the way it was. We did try, and I never found myself able to fully disentangle myself from James, nor he could to I, but for most of us we could recognize an ending when one arises. I used to find myself using the word tragedy a lot while reminiscing, but I no longer think that word is appropriate. Fate is a more fitting term in my opinion, regardless of if one believes in it or not. “(A)n inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end,” as reported by Merriam Webster. I don’t think there’s a word in the entire English language more accurate in describing how everything ended up; and if there is, I am yet to find it.

  Chapter One

A Dead Brother

          I have tried to erase the day my brother died from my memory so many times I lost count decades ago. I still find the image seeping into my unconsciousness quite dreadfully on the nights I neglect to take my pills and catch myself waking up with a steady flow of tears that dampen my pillow along with the drool that always seems to pour from my sleeping mouth. The dread that pools in my stomach sometimes being heavy enough for me to lose my lunch. I frequently wonder how people managed to reassure me that it wasn’t my fault; the most painful lie I’ve ever been told and one that seemed to stream from people’s mouths as easily as the mini sandwiches laid in the living room of my brother’s wake were stuffed in. The worst part about being told it wasn’t my fault was how obviously one could tell they didn’t believe what they were saying either. His death was my fault; a fact so uncontestable I wanted to kill myself every time I was reminded of it.

           My therapist often tried to remind me that even if his death was “partially” (she always used the word partially, refusing to acknowledge the truth that his death was entirely my fault) my fault, there was nothing I could’ve done to prevent it. This was another lie I despised being told. There were a million ways I could have prevented his death or saved his life and yet, here we are, with him dead and me wishing everyday that I won’t wake up tomorrow. “Begonia,” she’d tell me – she was the only person who called me by my full name, I usually went by Nia, but a nickname felt too personal and I didn’t like her very much – “You mustn’t keep torturing yourself with these scenarios. He’s dead, and there is nothing you can do to change that. I am starting to wonder if you are going to let yourself move on. This isn’t healthy.” That was a line she liked to use a lot, “this isn’t healthy”. As if anything I do is.

           Barb, my therapist that is, liked to go over the details of my brother’s death a lot. She often called it a ‘trigger’, which is why she always seemed to want me to talk about it. “Trauma is a horrible thing, Begonia, and you must learn to move past it, process it. I can see you still haven’t managed to do that on your own, and that’s what I’m here for, to help you move on.” Barb was big on the idea of  “moving past trauma” and “learning to cope”, she often sounded like a broken record of a motivational speech. I found myself comparing her to school guidance councillors without realizing it, they were about equally as helpful (read: not helpful) in my opinion.

           Sometimes I blame my inability to forget and “move past” my brother’s death on the way Barb constantly brought it up and made me go through it. I never quite understood how that part of my therapy was supposed to help me. I asked her once, what good was it doing rehashing the worst day of my life?

           “Well, Begonia,” I hated the way she said my name, always so condescending and sour, like even the idea of me questioning her in any way was as impolite as shitting on her desk.

“You have to understand that I only want to help you. You seem to be unable to process your traumas on your own, which is why we need to go through these things. As you are aware, this PTSD,” she always left strange pauses after each letter, her slow tone grinding on my ears, “you have acquired has left you unable to function normally in daily life. I want you to get to a place where you can have a normal life (Ha!) and cope without these meetings. It’s what your brother would’ve wanted.” Barb liked to tell me what my brother would have wanted at least once every session. Putting aside the fact she knew next to nothing about him aside from the intimate details on how he died, I always thought it was an inappropriate thing to say as a psychologist specializing in grief counselling. It never particularly bothered me, I was reasonable enough to realize she was just trying to comfort me, but I never liked the phrase. “What your brother would’ve wanted.” What he would’ve wanted was to not die but we’re past that, aren’t we Barb, as you so often enjoyed telling me.  

I have always been quite averse to my diagnoses, ADHD at 14, Persistent Depressive Disorder at 15, PTSD at 16, issues with alcohol and drugs that landed me in rehab more than once. I’ve been on a concoction of different medications since I was 13, even before I was diagnosed with anything officially. Sertraline, Lexapro, Prozac, Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall, Quetiapine, Ambien, Zopiclone, a healthy mix of off brand and branded medications. Sleeping pills, antidepressants, stimulants. I can’t remember a time before monthly trips to the drug store and side effect surveys that I’m not sure if I ever told the truth on. It’s a wonder that people didn’t see a slew of addiction issues coming from a mile away.

I think I’ve always had the most contention with my PTSD diagnosis though, I hate it because I know it’s undeniably true. I wish it wasn’t because maybe that’d mean my brother was still alive, but he isn’t. And I’m left traumatized and bereaved. Sometimes it feels like it hurt me more than it ever did my mother or father. Maybe it did. I should feel selfish for saying that, but I can’t, because they didn’t have to look at him while the life left his body, praying to God for the ability to turn back time. See the moment his eyes glazed over, knowing I’d never get to hear his obnoxious laugh, or make fun of his dumb face ever again.

  ❈

             “Ray, hey listen I need you to come pick me up.”

It was a cool evening in May, the end of spring brought with it the promise of summer and the air had the familiar aroma of daffodils and petrichor. I had decided to go to a party with my friend Faun, my dad having been out at his girlfriend’s place for the weekend and me having nothing better to do. I wasn’t one for partying, but I did like to get high, so I usually just hung around with the rest of the potheads and pill junkies until someone dragged me home or I fell asleep. That night Don, a friend of a friend of a friend, had brought coke and E and we were all determined to get as fucked up as possible. Faun only ended up doing one line before running into a bedroom with some guy whose name started with an M – was it Martin or Marvin? Maybe it was Mickey – and left me sitting on the couch beside a girl who was about 1 more shot of vodka away from passing out.

I had fully intended on doing some coke, but the E seemed to be hitting harder than I was used to. I was sure my Ritalin had worn off by then but maybe I was wrong. As I stood up to get a glass of water I nearly fell over and decided to sit back down. Turning to face Don, I tapped him on the shoulder trying to get his attention.

“What was in that molly?” I was vaguely aware of the way my words were slurring, but I felt weirdly energized. I was aware my heart was beating a little too fast, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I knew what ecstasy felt like, this was not nearly my first time doing it, but I felt really wrong.

           “Don!” He turned to look at me and I felt uneasy. His eyes looked a little crazed – not that out of the ordinary but given the circumstances I was worried – “What the fuck did you give me?” It felt like I’d done 5 lines of coke in the last 2 minutes and I knew that E had been spiked.

           Don’s face had an unmistakable expression of guilt written on it as he leaned down and whispered in my ear, his voice shaking, “I think it was cut with meth.” Fuck. My stomach dropped. I have to get out of here. I quickly shot up from the musty couch I was sat on, carefully holding onto Don’s shoulder so I didn’t fall, my legs still feeling unsteady. I opened my phone; the screen was too bright, and I had a hard time maneuvering it as I attempted to exit the house. Clicking the green Messages icon, I sent a text to Faun – e ws cut w meth im lesving – with shaky hands and burst out the door into the fresh air. I clicked my brother’s contact and pressed call.

           It rang four times before he picked up.

           “Nia? Why are you calling me it’s like 1am?” I could tell from the smooth tone of his voice he’d been drinking. He didn’t very often but he had an appreciation for cocktails and enjoyed getting buzzed now and then. He still was a year from being legal to drink but his friends we’re all 19 and 20 and bought alcohol for him. I found him fun when he got drunk, becoming talkative and giggly, but right now I wished so badly for him to be sober.

           “Ray, hey listen I need you to come pick me up.” I was slurring, my voice a bit too pitchy to pass as anything but high. I knew he didn’t like it when I did this, but he never ratted me out. Sometimes I wish he did, maybe I never would’ve been able to go to that party in the first place.

           I could hear a door shutting on his end, I assumed he was going into a different room. “What’s wrong?” My skin was bubbling with anxiety at the prospect of having to tell him what I did.

           “Fuck, uh… I did something stupid. I’m at Emily Goguen’s, y’know up in Champlain Heights. Please pick me up.” I rarely used the word please.

“Nia, what the fuck did you do?” I almost started crying but I found my eyes to be bone dry.

“Please don’t yell.”

“Okay, really, tell me what is going on or I won’t come get you.”

“I accidentally took meth.”

“You what? What the fuck, Nia! Fuck this I’m on my way and I’m fucking telling Dad.” I cringed but I knew he was going to before I even called. The pit in my stomach grew deeper as the buzzing of my skin grew stronger. I could feel myself getting higher, everything was so clear and standing around was making me grow restless. Ray huffed on the phone and I heard him entering his car.

His tone was softer the next time he spoke. “I’ll be there in 5, just stay put, please. Do you want me to stay on the call or can I hang up?”

I felt like a child, which I was really, only 16 at the time, a whole life ahead of me. Still, I was grateful for the way he spoke to me, reminiscent of being 6 and getting a scrapped knee after falling off my pink Razor scooter. The high made me edgy, and my voice was sharp to my ears, “No, you can hang up.” I heard the click to indicate he’d done just that, and started pushing my cuticles as I waited, the task somehow greatly interesting me, and I did not realize until later I had managed to pick off all of the skin around my pointer and middle fingernails during the five-minute wait.

 Ray pulled up exactly five minutes later in his ugly, blue 2011 Ford Fiesta he’d gotten the year prior after passing his driving test. What I wouldn’t do now to smell the inside of that car once again, a distinct attar of pineapple car freshener and Old Spice deodorant mixed with stale black tea, faintly present due to his ever-growing collection of empty paper cups from various different fast foods and coffee shops.

I stumbled into the car, feeling the strong impulse to clean the space, but attempting to push it down. From the passenger side overhead mirror I could see my blown pupils and sweaty forehead, pieces of my copper red hair sticking to my face. My freckles were showing through my concealer that had mostly worn off and I wanted to cover them back up. My skin was pale from winter (and probably the drugs in my system) but my cheeks were flushed like I was drunk. My high cheekbones made my face look gaunt in the lighting, but my face was wide which balanced it out, so I didn’t look completely skeletal. Ray was looking at me, the worry apparent in his eyes, but his face was flushed as well, and I could tell he’d been drinking a bit too much to drive. I had my license as well, but it was clear I was in no condition to take over on that front, so I didn’t bother saying anything. I wish I had. There’s a lot of things I wish. I wish I hadn’t gone to that party; I wish I hadn’t taken that E; I wish I called someone else; I wish I waited it out at Emily’s; I wish I walked home; I wish I took a cab; I wish I waited for Faun; I wish I wish I wish I wish I wish.

“Are you okay?” He didn’t take his eyes off me as I shut the mirror in front of me.

“Yeah, yeah I’ll be fine. Please just take me home.”

“Is Dad there?”

“No.”

“Maybe I should take you to Mom’s.”

“No!” I’d moved out of my mom’s completely just over 6 months ago, barely seeing her once a month. It was one of the best decisions I’d ever made. She never liked me much anyways, the feeling was entirely mutual. Ray seemed to have a close bond with her for some reason despite how she treated him like shit. I never called him out though, he no longer lived with her, so I didn’t really care what their relationship was as long as she wasn’t hurting him. She did treat him significantly better than me, however, so I figured maybe he managed to forgive her the way I never could.

“Okay, but I’m staying with you until Dad gets home. I’m not gonna lie to him about this shit. Fucking meth, Nia? Seriously?”

“It was in the molly.” He sighed and started driving.

 My brain felt like it was filled with butterflies, or ants, some kind of movement that was itching at my skull. The paper cups scattered around were making me anxious and I needed to clean his car. I began picking at my nails again, but I needed to pick up those cups, you see. I turned around and started gathering the ones Ray had discarded in the back, filling up an empty plastic bag from Best Buy. I was fully switched around in my seat, nearly crawling into the backseat to reach the trash my brother had left. I felt him tap my side, I looked over at him and he started to scold me.

“Nia, stop that will you, you’re distracting me.” But I needed to finish gathering the cups. The car was dirty, and my skin was itching, the traffic lights burning my skin. I was elated and I didn’t want to listen to him, he was just trying to get in my way. I continued to lean over, not registering the swerve of the car as he looked over at me.

“Nia – ”

He turned over to push me back into my seat, his eyes leaving the road for no more than a few seconds. This time I felt the swerve as we broke into the next lane.

 This is where I have a hard time piecing together what happened. From what I was told, we ended up running directly into a 2015 Dodge Ram 2500. In case you understandably have a lack of knowledge when it comes to cars, that is a very large, sturdy, and expensive pickup truck which I would probably consider the last vehicle you’d want to charge headfirst into while going 70km per hour. I don’t recall the actual incident of hitting the truck, whether that be from the drugs, the position I was in, or hitting my head on the roof of the car, I don’t know. What I do know is that when I woke up, we were in a ditch on the side of the road, with the car flipped upside down, and my entire body was screaming at me to Get Out!

I felt blood oozing sluggishly from my head and noted some indistinct pain in my right wrist where it had scraped something pretty badly and gotten twisted, but I otherwise felt alright. I couldn’t tell if the cloudiness in my head was from a concussion or the earlier events of the night, but I figured it was probably good I was awake, regardless of how dazed I seemed.

I turned my head to the left and was greeted by a view I will never be able to forget, it having been branded to the insides of my eyelids, scorched in my mind. Ray, with his left arm twisted in spectacular fashion, reminding me of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, after Lockhart spells away Harry’s bones. My brother had always been squeamish with broken bones and I hoped he wasn’t aware of how his limb looked at the moment. His head was bleeding quite profusely, and I was alarmed despite how many times I’d heard in movies that headwounds bleed a lot. His eyelids were fluttering, irises appearing glassy and unfocussed. And then I saw it. A piece of glass was stuck in the left side of his neck. The windshield apparently had broken with the impact and my brother was lucky enough to get a piece lodged right in his trachea. It was thick, bright red blood –  that I could’ve sworn was sparkling in my current inebriated perspective – was gushing out the side, so heavy I could smell it, taste it, in the air. I was frozen once I realized.

Do something, do something! Put pressure on it! Call 9-1-1! My mind was screaming at me, but it was all I could do to sit and watch the blood stain his clothes. He was wearing the corduroy jacket I’d gotten him for his birthday and a white button up, the red seeped into them until it was as if they’d always been that colour. My voice was caught in my throat, but I managed to push some sound past.

“Ray?” It was weaker than a whisper but in the silence that seemed to envelope us in that car, completely independent of the outside world and sirens that could surely be heard from blocks away, I knew he would be able to hear me.

He looked up, eyes focussing slightly on me, and a tear slipped down his face, only it went the wrong way since we were still upside down. He mouthed the words “I love you”. We never said that to each other. As close as we were, our relationship had always been more comparable to that of a best friend than sibling. We weren’t overly affectionate, never hugged or said I love you, hung out for enjoyment rather than as a punishment. Most people didn’t know we were brother and sister until we pointed it out, we never really looked alike and were absent of the traditional distaste and rivalry usually present between siblings. I knew, as he looked me in the eyes and said those words, this would be the last time I’d ever see him outside of a morgue.

I sat in my seat next to him with dry eyes, wishing desperately I could cry, needing to express the feeling of utter horror and despondency that completely overtook my body and mind, but I couldn’t. Barb told me time and time again that I was in shock, there was nothing I could’ve done, but I will never be able to believe that. I still remember the moment the final tear slipped down his face. He smiled at me, pain evident in his eyes. His entire body was covered in the metallic smelling red, and I wanted to vomit. I wish I could say the crash had sobered me, but it didn’t, not really. I was still entirely in a daze as I saw his muscles relax, smiling falling from his face, eyes not quite rolling back all the way but enough to give me nightmares for the next 20 years. The life had been absorbed from his body, leaving a heavy shell. I was told afterwards this all happened within the span of 10 minutes, but it felt like years. By the time the first responders had appeared I was an old woman. Grayed hair, and arthritic bones. Mourning for the brother I’d lost oh so many years ago, when I was just a girl. I think in a way I died in that car with him, I never was really the same. But who would be? Best friend and confidant, older brother, idol, dying in front of your eyes as you do nothing, knowing for the rest of your life that his death is – was – your fault. Knowing you could’ve done something, anything really, to prevent his untimely loss of life before the paramedics arrived. If I’d been the same after that night I would have to be much more disturbed than I ever thought.

I sat in that car beside Ray’s corpse for 3 more minutes before I heard the sirens closing in around us – me. I thought I might pass out, either from the toll of what I’d just witnessed or from my concussion, but I remained upright, probably from the adrenaline. I couldn��t move so I just waited, and hoped I’d die too before anyone reached the scene. It would be much preferrable to any other outcome I could think of at the time. I could vaguely register the pain in my wrist, but I felt so numb I’m sure you could’ve shot me in the foot and I wouldn’t have blinked.

A young fireman named Walter ended up getting me out of the car. The door was smashed and stuck which meant I’d been trapped in there either way. I was happy I hadn’t bothered trying to escape as I'm terribly claustrophobic and finding out I couldn’t would have thrown me into a proper panic attack. The fireman was incredibly nice, saying reassuring things the entire time they were opening the door with the “Jaws of Life”. I ended up seeing him again in the hospital actually, or at least that’s what my father told me. He wanted to check in on me and left me some hydrangeas in a vase. I always preferred chrysanthemums but I'm not that picky when it comes to a floral arrangement.

After the door was busted open I was carried out by Walter. I was shaking and apparently babbling nonsense but in my head I was trying to tell them to save Ray. I wasn’t really aware of all that much, completely blind to the crowd of spectators that had rudely gathered to witness the violence – wasn’t it supposed to be taboo to stop at a car crash? Wondering vaguely about what happened and wishing you could get a better look as you drive past the scene.  My head wound had made me a bit incompetent and the meth in my system was really not helping the entire situation.

I was laid on a gurney and rolled onto an ambulance. I don’t remember much about the ride; the sirens, the bright lights, a paramedic named Alice who spoke softly, smoothing out my hair while the other put an oxygen mask on my face (which I wasn’t entirely cognizant enough to question though now I'm not really sure why they did it) and splinted my wrist. Alice asked me if I was on drugs and I nodded but was unable to speak when she asked me what ( I would find this a common occurrence after the accident, my voice seemingly stolen alongside Ray’s). She just nodded and said something to the other ME that I didn’t quite pick up. She asked if I could tell her my name and I shook my head. She must’ve noticed the iPhone in my pocket and grabbed it, turning to the medical ID page.

“Is your name Begonia?” I nodded, though the name sounded foreign on my ears. I liked the way Alice said it though, she had a light Spanish accent and a matronly tone that made me feel safe. I wondered if she had kids of her own; she looked young, but my own mother had me at 19 so who could say? She told me her name after complimenting mine. “Begonia is a beautiful name; I love the flowers. I’m Alice, okay? We’re gonna make sure you’re alright and take you to the hospital.” Her voice was sweet like syrup and I became sleepy as she spoke.

“No honey, you can’t fall asleep yet. Just stay awake a little bit longer and I promise you they’ll let you sleep at the hospital.”

  I don’t remember anything of the rest of the ride to the hospital. I was dropped off at the Emergency Room at the Regional, head still too foggy to allow me to recall anything before I was sitting in a white bed, in a white room, with white sheets and a light blue hospital gown on. It was morning and my father was sitting at the end of my bed in an uncomfortable plastic chair, his eyes bloodshot and moist. He’d very obviously been crying for a long time and my chest panged with guilt. I reached up to feel my head and realized there was a cast on my wrist. With my other hand I touched the cotton that covered my forehead, wincing when I felt the sting of what had to be stitches in a nasty gash. I would spend the next 5 years of my life with a variety of diverse haircuts that attempted to hide the ugly scar that served as a reminder of the worst night of my life. Even now it is still extremely obvious, but I can’t be bothered to try and hide it, I so rarely look in the mirror that it wouldn’t matter if my skin turned blue.

My dad hadn’t looked up, so I attempted to gain his attention but once again found my voice failing me. I tapped on the bed a few times before he seemed to realize and face me.

“Nia… how are you feeling?” His voice was raspy and thin. He reeked of cigarettes and stale coffee, though this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I remained silent as he looked at me, searching my face for something I'm not sure he found.

“Nia, I, I'm not sure how to say this to you.” Here it comes. Almost worse than watching my brother die, the confirmation. “Ray, he’s, well dead.” I saw my father’s eyes begin to tear up again as I stared straight ahead. I couldn’t feel the sobs that racked my body, nor the hot tears streaming from my eyes. I saw my dad start to move closer but sit back down when I flinched. Of course, I knew my brother was dead; I had front row seats to watching the event happen, but somehow I still didn’t believe it until the words left my father’s mouth. According to my dad, who many years later described to me how eery the whole event was, my sobs were completely silent, and I was entirely unaware of everything happening around me. This dissociation lasted the first few days after the accident, and the entirety of my hospital stay. Leaving the blissful gap in my memory I have now.

Barb told me this was my mind’s way of coping with the tragedy and stress of what happened. I was honestly just happy I had an excuse to skip some of the dreadful retelling she forced upon me.

 ❈

             The funeral was of course a depressing and solemn event. I was still yet to speak and found myself thankful for the way people gave up on trying to get me to communicate. I dressed in a black skirt with a black short sleeved button up. A dark coat thrown around my shoulders as the cast on my right hand was too big to fit through the sleeve. I looked terrible, barely a week out of hospital before I watched Ray sink into the ground. The wound on my forehead was still quite nasty, though it looked better than it did before. I tried to cover it up with my hair but was unsuccessful. I got bangs soon after.

           The matter was very traditional, taking place in a church even though none of our family was really religious. It was only the second time I'd ever been in a church, the first having been for my cousin Julie’s wedding when I was four years old. I don’t remember anything of it aside from the material of my dress itching at my neck and making me rather miserable. Of course, not nearly as miserable as I was the day of the funeral, sitting in a pew at the front of the church, listening to a priest claiming Ray would’ve wanted us to celebrate his life. I knew this not to be true; Ray was extremely dramatic and would’ve cherished the thought of everyone he’d ever spoken to moping around for weeks after his death, beside themselves with grief. He sometimes referred to himself as “Romeo” after having been broken up with by another girl he was supposedly in love with, stating he better just stab himself in the heart now if he couldn’t have her. On the rare occasion he broke up with a girlfriend, he’d lounge around, eating ice cream, pretending to not be upset and comparing his cold heart to that of Richard VIII. The concept of him being any different over his death was almost comical; Ray was nothing if not predictable.

           I sat beside my father, who sat beside my mother (it was an extremely awkward arrangement that neither I nor my father cared for) and seemed to have the idea that I could evaporate if I thought hard enough about it. Unfortunately, I did not evaporate, or even come close to it, instead finding myself exactly where I'd been the whole time. I mostly tuned out the service, only really paying attention when my father and Ray’s best friend, Jake spoke. I managed to escape the duty of having to speak that day thanks to my fragile mental state and mutism. Though I'm sure I would’ve been forced all the same if I had been able to talk in any capacity, regardless of where my head was at.

           Faun was sitting in the pew behind me, feeling quite guilty about the whole ordeal. Or friendship dissolved soon after, I think she blamed herself for taking me to the party. It didn’t bother me too much though; we were never the closest and I sometimes thought her to be extremely annoying. An endless stream of shitty boyfriends that she only acquired so she could further repress her sexuality. When we were 14 we kissed at a sleepover and she admitted she was in love with me. I felt bad for not returning the feeling and our relationship had been on rocky territory ever since. I don’t understand how she thought she was in love with me since she barely knew anything about me, but either way she never brought it up again and soon after the monsoon of boytoys had begun.

           My brother’s friends and ex-girlfriends also attended the event. I didn’t approach any of them, far too scared they’d blame me for the death of their friend. One of them, Alex, went up to me to say how sorry he was about everything that happened. He was crying quite heavily (I later found out he was the friend Ray had been drinking with and the second last person to see him alive) and I could smell alcohol on his breath. I stood there while he spoke, telling me about how great my brother was as if I was wholly unaware. Body waving side to side as he stood with his hand on the wall beside me. He offered me some bronze liquid in a flask, and I obliged, savouring the burning sensation that followed in my throat. Alex’s voice was steady and deep, reminding me of my father’s. I’m not sure how long we stood there, him spinning a fantastic web of anecdotes and stories about my brother, some entirely new to my ears. We passed the beverage back and fourth until it was empty. My head felt lighter and heavier somehow simultaneously, and I found it much easier to listen to Alex talk. Later he tried to kiss me in my bedroom during the wake. His mouth was sour, and his tongue seemed too big for his mouth. I wondered how he was able to talk so much without it getting in the way.

             We moved in procession to the cemetery after the service. The grass was a vibrant green colour, and I didn’t understand how the world kept turning after Ray’s death, for mine stopped the moment his heart failed to beat. The sky was a lovely shade of cyan-blue, with clouds so perfect they seemed animated. Pink carnations were planted near the outskirts of the yard and I could smell spring in the air; a heavy, floral aroma that never failed to comfort me. I thought it should be raining, it felt inappropriate that the weather refused to match my despair. My mind wandered as we approached the empty grave and I considered what it would be like if Ray was here beside me. He’d probably be making jokes, telling me to lighten up for a minute or my face would get stuck that way. He’d mock my silence, saying how I never managed to shut up for a minute before but suddenly I'm as proper as a nun. I'd smile, ruffling his hair to piss him off and try to refrain from laughing aloud. The absence of him only felt stronger as I imagined this scenario, so I shoved it out of my head.

           The casket was lowered into the ground, my father was a pallbearer and I often think about how he must’ve felt carrying his son’s body before watching him being buried. My mother sobbed loudly which annoyed me, it felt a bit exaggerated. I had a few tears falling from my eyes but mostly, I just felt numb. Incredibly and absolutely empty inside. To onlookers it may have seemed as though we weren’t very close, my reaction being similar to that of his ex-girlfriends’. However, this didn’t account for the loss of my voice, or the broken state I was in mentally. Maybe it was better that my reaction was rather dulled. It meant people didn’t feel the need to approach me as they did my mother. Less concerned given she was the one playing up her emotions to the point of embarrassment. My father cried, more than I but far less than my mother. He didn’t cry very often – I'd actually only seen it once prior to the whole event – and I figured he probably needed it. At this point I felt as though I'd shed enough tears to last a lifetime so Ray wouldn’t mind if I was a bit subdued in comparison. He never was a crier anyways.

           As I sprinkled soil onto his casket I imagined he was right beside me, watching, ready to criticize as usual. The dirt stained my hand, clutching the sweat and turning my skin a muddy brown colour. As I wiped the dirt on my jacket I could hear him nagging about how I better go wash my hands, what was I, a six-year-old? He was in denial about me growing up and took every chance to remind me I was still just a kid. Not that he had much on me, but I enjoyed it. I never was one to shy away from attention; at least not before. Little quirks and inside jokes between us were always some of my favourite things, the type of humour you could only get from living with someone your whole life. No matter how much his memory will fade there are some things I can’t let myself forget. His mocking tone when he’d make fun of me is one of those things. If I ever managed to let go of that sound then I must be dead as well.

           The sun beat down on my back, my skin burning in my black clothes. I wasn’t sweating yet, but most of the men around were – suit jackets aren’t exactly known for their breathability. My nose was dry and aching red, sore from how much I'd been wiping it the last couple days. Still the sweet seeping tinge of flowers and spring managed to crawl into my nose, settling underneath my skin, the buzzing from before had returned, I could feel my heartbeat loudly in my throat and had the desperate urge to just run. Instead, I just followed the rest of the party, sitting down in the passenger seat of my dad’s car. The silence that settled over us was uncomfortable and stale. He turned on the radio, Led Zeppelin filled the air around us, thankfully relieving some of the tension. I felt in my left pocket for one of the carnations I’d picked from a nearby grave earlier. The flower had begun to wilt, heat taking effect on its delicate composition. When I got home I put it in between the pages of my oldest copy of Romeo and Juliet. Ray would have found it funny if he was around to see.

The drive to my mother’s house was short and minimally awkward. We sat in silence – aside from the music – only because there was no alternative. My hand remained clutched around the dying flower in my pocket as we left the car and entered the home. Other people had already arrived, clustered in the living room, picking at tiny ham sandwiches and various desserts my mother had undoubtedly stress-baked the day before. I wasn’t hungry so I sat as far away from the food and people as humanely possible while staying in the living room, not wishing to hear my mother’s scolding about how I need to socialize more. Eventually I managed to slip away into my old bedroom, where Alex was sitting on my bed drinking a mickey of Smirnoff I assumed he swiped from my mother’s freezer. He offered it to me, and I accepted, the weird repetitive déjà vu like act, mirroring earlier and making the whole day feel like somewhat of a dream.

When I went over this part with Barb she always felt the need to emphasize that it wasn’t a dream. I knew this, obviously, which I told her every time, but she was inclined to disbelief when it came to my denial over my brother’s death. “Begonia, you must realize he’s gone. Dwelling is helping nobody, especially not you. This isn’t a healthy mindset for you to have. Always comparing living to your dreams. I want you to tell me you understand this isn’t just some dream you can wake up from.” The first time she said that to me I was thrust into a bout of wordlessness, as it struck a bit too close to home. The next time she brought it up I just told her of course, though even now I still cannot say I fully understand. How can I when all of my assumptions have been constantly disproven time and time again. How can I ever say this isn’t a dream when I'm not even sure I'm real? James always tries to reassure me, “Bee, I'm telling you, if you can feel this beat, the pulse in your wrist, your neck, your chest, you are alive,” he’ll say while pressing my hand to my wrist, but we both know it isn’t that simple.

Me and Alex made out for a few minutes until I managed to excuse myself. He was a bad kisser and tasted disgusting. I left him sitting on my old bed while I went downstairs to find my dad. He was sitting at the counter with a can of root beer, blank expression sat upon his face. When his eyes met mine he sighed, grabbing his keys out of his pocket. It was obvious neither of us wanted to be here, for numerous reasons, so we left. And if the radio stayed off as we drove home we didn’t acknowledge the silence that time. In my hand was the crumpled carnation, and for some reason it made my chest hurt. A deep ache of dread. I could feel my heartbeat, hear it over the drum of the car engine, and I crushed the flower further. I was careful not to rip it though, as if that was crossing some kind of invisible line my mind had set for me. My fingers felt waxy when I finally let go.

Back home, I opened the copy of Romeo and Juliet. I retrieved the deteriorating plant from my pocket and placed it in the center. Closing the book, I stacked it under a few dictionaries, a magazine under it so it was trapped on either side. I sat down in front of it and cried. Not the huge gasping sobs my mother seemed to fancy, nor the quiet weeping of my father. No, I cried the tears of a child who just found out their grandparents died, the soft uncomprehending grief that overcame them as they first learned what death really meant. How long forever was. My legs pulled up to my chest, hands loosely hung around knees, unable to clasp together because of my cast. I closed my eyes and I swear I could hear the sound of Ray sighing behind me, but when I opened my eyes I was alone. I went to bed, earlier than I ever had in my life, still believing it was a dream and I'd wake up like Alice after her adventures in Wonderland. But when I awoke, I was met with the slow, oozing perdure of my reality. The one which I could not wake up from, and the one where my brother was dead.

[gottlem]

you belong with me (gigi x crystal)

a/n - some of this isnt proofread so im SORRY if it gets messy at the end it is literally 3am. also this is my first fic so pls be kind i dont know what im doing like at all. (also keep a look at for slight jackie x jan) this was inspired by someone wanting a fanfic based off of you belong with me by taylor swift and i loved the idea so here we are and i am sorry.

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Gigi and Crystal are best friends. Growing up living so close to each other made them an absolute power-duo, for years on end they have been inseparable at all times. When they were younger, Gigi would sleep over at Crystals every single weekend and neither of them would ever get sick of eachother. They spent their nights giggling at nothing and making pinky promises “to never ever not be friends” and that they would be each other's “favourite person” forever, because they didn’t know that life can get a tad bit more… complicated when you start to get a little older. Living in ignorant bliss of the impending doom of high school, they would spend their time in their own little bubble, making the most of each other's company. In their minds, it wasn’t a question whether or not they loved each other. The answer was there without even having to ask the question, but of course they were too young to fully understand anyway.

In her early teens, Crystal would slowly realise that if young Gigi and Crystal were a boy and a girl, everyone would have joked about them being together with them being so close, but since they had been two little girls, they were just best friends in everyone’s eyes. Crystal would also slowly realise that ‘just best friends’ isn’t really where she wanted to stay with Gigi, but that truth wouldn’t come for another few years. She learned about the term ‘lesbian’ when there was a rumour in the 7th grade that she was one. It hadn’t fully occurred to her that girls could like girls in that way, but when she did google what it meant on a random wednesday night, it seemed so obvious. Natural. Of COURSE girls can like girls, they’re so pretty! Needless to say, it didn’t take her very long to understand that maybe the rumour was actually true- but nobody needed to know that. Not even Gigi. Definitely not Gigi. To be honest, she didn’t know where her friend even stood on topics like this, but they had never even talked about boys, so she absolutely didn’t want to risk bringing up girls. 

In 7th grade, Gigi already knew what a lesbian was. She heard talks about her best friend being into girls, but she paid it no mind. If Crystal was gay, she’d tell her, right? Gigi could be trusted with that kind of stuff. Either way, she wouldn’t bring it up. Maybe Crystal hadn’t even heard about it, maybe she was completely oblivious. Yeah. That must be it. It was around this time Gigi realised she herself might like girls. But it had nothing to do with Crystal. Nothing at all. In fact, the topic of relationships had never even come up between them. In 8th grade, Gigi started to get little crushes, exclusively on girls. This was the year she decided she was a lesbian. By then, the rumours about Crystal were long forgotten, but her friend’s sexuality was almost always in the back of Gigi’s mind. Crystal had never expressed interest in boys (or girls for that matter), but then again neither had Gigi. She knew she would have to come out to Crystal at some point - there was no WAY she was hiding a future girlfriend from her best friend. 

One night in the summer before 9th grade, Gigi slept over at Crystal’s house. Just like old times, except now both girls had quite a big secret they were hiding from each other, completely unbeknownst to the fact that it was the exact same secret. Gigi was going to tell her by the end of the night. She was SURE of it. The hours passed like minutes and before the girls knew it, the sun had completely set outside and the moon shone down into Crystal’s brightly coloured bedroom (some would think it’s decor is all over the place, but Gigi would describe it as being perfectly Crystal). The pair had settled into a slow, but somehow not very sleepy conversation despite the time, by around 1am. If Gigi was going to tell her, it was now or never. Before she could change her mind, Gigi had looked Crystal in the eye and started with “I really need to tell you something”. She had rambled on about how much she trusted Crystal, and how much she wanted her to accept this. Crystal didn’t have any idea what Gigi could possibly be leading up to, but she did absoluetly not expect to hear “I’m gay, Crys” coming from her friend’s mouth at 1 in the morning. 

The confession left Crystal speechless. Of course she didn’t judge Gigi, she was gay too! She was just shocked. How long had Gigi known? How long have they both known and didn’t tell eachother? It took Gigi’s tearful eyes and furrowed brows to tear Crystal out of her overthinking. Shit. She hadn’t even responded. 

“Crystal. Are you mad? Oh my god you’re mad aren’t you? Or like weirded out? I can go if you want. I get if you’re like uncomfortable with me staying over now-”

“Gi”

“-I don’t have to sleep in  your room. I’m sorry I told you. We never talk about this kind of stuff why did I think telling you would be ok? I-”

“Gigi!” Crystal shook Gigi’s shoulders to get her attention. Her eyes were bloodshot and Crystal cursed her brain for short circuiting when it did. She knew she had to tell Gigi now. 

“Me too” her voice came out as a whisper, but it cut through the silence of the room with ease. It was Gigi’s turn to be stunned into silence. Neither of the girls said anything. Crystal just hugged her friend. She didn’t stop until they woke up in the morning. That week, Crystal let her eyes linger on her friend a little longer than normal every time they passed each other at school. She found herself re-typing text messages and doing anything to speak to Gigi. She knew what all this meant, but she would not tell Gigi. It was  just a little crush. Everybody gets little crushes.

10th grade rolls around far too quickly than anyone would like to accept. Gigi and Crystal are as close as ever. Well, as close as ‘just friends’ can be, much to Crystal’s (hidden) dismay. Jan and Jackie, who had become very good friends with the pair in 9th grade, would constantly tease Crystal about her not-so-small-anymore crush on Gigi when the other girl wasn’t looking. Of course, Crystal hadn’t told them, but it wasn’t necessarily difficult for the couple to figure it out when she would stare at Gigi every chance she got. The teasing only got more painful about a month into 10th grade, when Gigi started dating the new student, Nicky. Suddenly, Crystal felt herself become awkward around her best friend - someone she used to feel so free with. It was easier to pretend she wasn’t falling in love with her when she was single. But now, now she had someone to be jealous of. Someone to remind her that clearly she’s just not good enough for Gigi. Every now and again, Gigi wouldn’t show up to their usual lunch table, leaving Crystal to third wheel with Jan and Jackie. On these days, Crystal didn’t bother looking for Gigi, she knew who she was with, and frankly she couldn’t bear to see them together. When she first saw the couple kiss, it made her stomach drop. Gigi was waiting for the bus when her friend sat next to her and made easy conversation. They were smiling and laughing until Nicky’s car (because of course she could drive) came to pick Gigi up. When she got in the car, the couple shared a moment far too intimate for Crystal’s liking. She pried her eyes away until she heard the car leave.

By Winter break, Gigi and Nicky had been dating for three months. Crystal wasn’t very familiar with how their relationship was going - she knew it would only hurt her if she always asked Gigi about it. If Gigi wanted to talk to her about it, she would bring it up, and apparently Gigi really didn’t want to talk to her about it. Crystal was fine with this. Well, Crystal was fine with this until there was a knock on her door at 11:58pm on a December night coming from the one and only Gigi Goode. Who was crying. Like, really crying. Crystal took the girl's hand and rushed her to her room, sitting her on the bed they had shared (platonically!!!!) many times before. She let her cry. Crystal had learned in her 16 years of life that sometimes, you just gotta cry. Still, the sight of her friend sobbing so much wasn’t an easy one to digest, nor was it one she had seen often. 

After god only knows how long, Gigi’s cries had died down, she was in Crystal’s pyjamas (which Crystal thought was too much for her brain to handle right now, but considering the situation she pushed these thoughts the the back of her mind, as if she hadn’t tried that for the past year anyway) and she was holding a glass of ice water between both hands. It was Crystal who broke the silence. 

“What’s up?” She was quiet, scared that speaking too loudly would cause the fragile girl infront of her to break down again. But she didn’t. Her brows furrowed and she had a look on her face that Crystal couldn’t quite place, something she wasn’t used to by any means after being friends for a good ten years now. 

“It’s nothing. Me and Nicky just had an argument”

“And this is why you came to my house in hysterics in the middle of the night in Winter. Ok, sure.” She deadpans. Gigi gave her a look as if to say ‘you bitch’ but there’s a fondness behind it nonetheless. 

“Ok fine. It’s more than nothing. It feels like all we ever do is argue anymore. We do like, two things; we argue or we mess around, yknow? And I’m kind of sick of it! It’s like I’m here for her to make out with and that’s all that we have going for us. That’s the only good thing. And shouldn’t there be more? Shouldn’t there be romance, and dates and shouldn’t we be able to be stupid in front of eachother and-” She started to cry again, though not as intense as before, definitely enough to stop her little rant. Crystal thought it was for the better, if she heard anymore of that she might start crying herself. She could give Gigi all of that. Hell, she already did for the most part.

Crystal was torn. She wanted to tell Gigi she should break up with Nicky. She knew it would be for the better, for both of them, but she still felt like it would be selfish of her to give that advice. She didn’t want to accidentally take advantage of Gigi, with her being in such a vulnerable space. So she tells Gigi the facts - well, she didn’t really have much (or any) experience so they could be completely false, but to her they seemed quite solid.

“Couples have honeymoon phases. They can’t keep their hands off each other because they’re so obsessed with this new person they have all to themselves and people get carried away. It’s human nature. But that dies down, or it should. Eventually. Couples argue. It’s healthy to disagree and make up every now and again but there comes a point where it’s just too much. I think you know where that point is. I can’t make it up for you, it’s not my relationship, babe” Crystal let the pet name slip without thinking too much about it. She was tired and it was a school night, and her friend was upset. She told herself it meant nothing. Gigi hugged her and fell asleep quite quickly, exhausted from her emotions having taken over.

Nicky was beautiful. Drop dead gorgeous. Painfully stunning. This was a fact, this was understood by boys and girls alike, gay straight or bi. Gigi was lucky to have her, or maybe she wasn’t. Crystal didn’t know anymore. She could see why Gigi had clearly fallen so hard for the french girl, with her fashion forward style and her thick accent that Crystal had no option to admit was just plain sexy. Again, this was all fact. Gigi was also beautiful. That’s why everyone loved them together. Aesthetically, their relationship just worked. But Crystal had a tear stained pillow and a broken girl to prove that aesthetics mean nothing unless there’s love there too. And Crystal loves Gigi. She always has, and probably always will. Crystal didn’t like Nicky. She didn’t like the knowing glares she would get as they passed each other in the hall. It was as if the french girl could read her damn mind and she didn’t like it one bit. It wound her up to no end. She also didn’t like how she would argue with Gigi until she would cry and cry and run to Crystal’s house, sobbing into her pillow. It became routine. The pillow was pushed to the side, specifically for when Gigi came to cry her mascara onto it. Nicky would always apologise the next day. Gigi would always accept it. Crystal felt more and more hopeless.

A few months later, the routine continues. Gigi sends Crystal a text one night in February at around midnight, to say she’s coming over (a new-ish development in the all too familiar routine) and Crystal prepares the signature glass of water and the tear-soaked pillow for her friend. When she opens the door after Gigi’s knocking, she is met with no tears. Actually, she is met with a smile. Crystal just stands there. Gigi walks casually up the staircase and into Crystal’s bedroom, taking the glass of water and sitting cross-legged on her bed, hugging the pillow, but not for emotional support - because it's just comfier. Crystal follows her, a million questions on the tip of her tongue. She sits opposite to Gigi.

“I broke up with Nicky”

Oh.

OH.

“Just now? Oh my god, are you ok?” Crystal hears herself replying before she even knows what to say, she’s glad she didn’t say something stupid.

“No actually, I broke up with her this morning. I was talking to Jan and Jackie about it earlier, but you weren’t there. Plus, I wanted to tell you like this anyways. Here. Feels like tradition. Like it’s come full circle.”

“Are you sure you’re ok though?” It’s honestly creepy to see Gigi so calm over Nicky, after all the tears she had spilled before.

“Yeah. I think it truly ended a long time ago.”

“Oh.”

It’s silent. Crystal feels tense. Like there’s something else to be said, like something else is going to happen. And she’s right. Because when she looks up, Gigi is staring at her, pupils wide and ears red. Crystal feels like she’s under a microscope. A breath gets stuck in her throat. Gigi giggles at it. She giggles and she inches forward. She inches forward and lifts her hands. She lifts her hands to Crystal’s face. And they’re kissing. They’re kissing and Crystal is smiling. When they pull away, Gigi has plump lips and a dumb smile on her face. Crystal loves it. They sit there for a minute, just staring at each other. Letting each other give the moment a second to sink in. When it does, they laugh. And then they talk about it. And then they kiss some more. And then they fall asleep. So what if it took Gigi a bad relationship to see what was standing right infront of her? Now they have each other, and that isn’t going to change.

[crystalis]

i kmow that im not anywhere near ready for a relationship bc i cant talk to people and im bad at communicating but i think about love all the time, like being intimate with someone and telling thm i love them and it feels really sweet ..

even if like i had feelings for someone and they like wanted me to be their boyfriend or whatever i think i would decline bscauase i know im not ready for that because it would probably end up not working because i struggle too much with communicating .. and i wouldnt want to hurt them by being distant or seeming cold when i dont mean to .. but also like i dont know when i'll be ready for a relationship, if ever. i usually feel like its my fate or something to live my life alone like my brain is just wired like this and im meant to be by myself. but i still long for it and its one of the things that makes me happy to be alive, thinking one day there will be someone i love and they will love me too and we'll be happy together and i wont be alone. its weird to me whrn i see people suffering in loneliness becsuse im so used to it, ive been single since i was 19 which was like a 2 month long-distance relationship i had. and before that it was when i was 16 whrre my boyfriend was horrible to me and our relationship ended terribly and we never spoke to eachother again ..... ive spent so much time by myself that its like.. do i reslly need someone? its been so long i accepted solitude. i mean i still yearn for love, but not in a way thats as painful or makes me cry like i used to.. i cried so much as an 18/19 yo because i felt like i would never be loved again and i grieved for that, i hadnt yet accepted solitude despite the fact that i was the one pushing everhone away. i wanted to be loved, i pleaded and begged to be loved and i wanted my love to be accepted by others. all the while turning away and closing the door, closing my eyes and covering my ears .. i would not answer the phone, i wohld not even speak to the person i had feelings for. and its that second self that lives inside me tht wont let go of me, saying that i must be alone. for years i was smotherrd and i couldnt get away, and its like im trying to make up for it or something, like no one can have me. no one will ever get ahold of me ahain, because i was once suffocated. i refuse to ever be smothered again i will never be guilt tripped or manipulated again, i will mever be trapped in 14 hour daily skype calls again and i learned to love solitude because i believed that solitude was freedom, and it still feels that way, 6 years later even when it may become painful

so im trapped with my self now. i pushed eberyone away and locked myself inside my own skull so i can die in bliss alone. i dont know how to escape the cycle of self isolation and wanting to heal and grow, it flips constantly .. i know its judt the fear of stepping out of a comfort zone, like im safe alone, and i dont ever want to feel pain like i did. the pain of a dysfunctional relationship is far worse than the pain of loneliness but i can never heal by isolatimg myself forever.... like whst am i even supposed to do .. i mesn i know what im supposed to do its just hard and i feel like i cant

[dragonstoravens]

Babylon Vol. 1: I’m an Idiot but At Least I’m Fun

[ID: a blue patterned banner with text reading “BABYLON.” End ID.]

BIG CW for this one: Blood, mild body horror.

(Totally ran out of time to post this yesterday, so here we are a day late again! For the 2/3 people that actually see this on tumblr lol. Just one chapter, and not a mega long one, but be safe while reading and feel free to message me for a summary or sections to skip if you’re worried about the content warnings. Hope you enjoy!)

Taglist (ask to be added or removed!): @charlottedotexe @glitterandstarshine @rainbowcoloreddays @the-starlight-chills @erased-in-stone

General: @elywritesbydarkness @residentofthedisc @humour-and-hyperfocus @skyfirewrites @viawrites-andacts

16. I’m An Idiot But At Least I’m Fun 

    There was a steady dripping from the edge of the table she sat on. Azure sighed and then held her breath, digging the scalpel into her arm once more. She’d missed the intended node once already, and this was getting a little dicey. It crossed her mind that she really should consider an assistant for when she did her more complex updates, but then she’d have to deal with their concern for her wellbeing and that really only ever did more harm than good for her efficiency. A twinge of pain shot up from her elbow, and she reached behind her to carelessly flip a switch on a box wired to her ankle by about four yards of copper wire. The pain subsided, and she set the scalpel down in exchange for a pair of forceps. Time to dig. The dripping continued, blood running onto the ground and towards her workshop drain. She paid it no mind. She’d eat a cookie later. 

    But still, something burned at the back of her mind. She looked at the clock on her monitor, brow furrowed as she wiped a bloody gloved hand on her shirt. She was forgetting something. The faulty node was still blinking beneath all the blood, taunting her. Suddenly, a spurt of blood crossed the room, and some wiring escaped her arm, snaking slowly out of her open incision. She grit her teeth. That was never a fun feeling, blood-warmed metal exiting her body. “Fuck, oh, goddamn it-” Another spurt of blood, this one dripping down her arm and to the ground even though she had her free hand clamped around it. She grumbled low in her throat, words coming through the forceps she now held between her teeth. “Sonofabitch, I swear everytime I try-”

    “Bluemom, You have a visitor.” Her floating personal assistant bot, Bean, hovered over to her, his front display reading out her current rate of blood loss and the time. “He had an appointment.”

    “I don’t recall my brother or Turq or even Smalls needin’ appointments to see me. Just send ‘im in, whoever he is he’s seen worse I’m sure.” She waved the bot off and he hovered away, whistling his customary exit tune. She used the hand on her currently bleeding arm to open a drawer and rummage through its contents. “Gauze, gauze, gauze….”

    The door slid open, and a voice, not that of any of her shipmates and yet all too familiar, said, “Jesus.” 

    “Your Three O’Clock is here!” Chirped Bean. “Trinity Jericho has arrived.”

    She looked up to see Trinity standing in the doorway, hands on his hips. She could practically see the loading screen behind his eyes as his brain searched its databanks for an appropriate reaction or facial expression in response to the bizarre scene in front of him.

    She was a mess, blood running down her arm and all over her white tank top, a spare coil of fine wire hanging around the shell of her ear. A strange contraption was slithering its way out of her wound, the inside of her elbow flayed open. She’d have blushed in embarrassment, but she couldn’t really spare the blood, so she settled on smiling sheepishly. “Oh, uh, hey?”  More blood, this time escaping her fingers and splattering weakly at her feet. “...I’ve got gloves in that drawer right there behind you, would you mind helpin’ me for a quick sec? My hands are occupied right now.” Her tone was conversational, as though she was asking him to grab something from a fridge as opposed to putting on gloves to shove wires back up into her bicep. She continued using her lacerated arm to dig for gauze, blood dripping from her elbow and onto her bare feet.

Rather than figure out how to react, it looked like Trinity had decided not to react at all. His face was exceedingly casual, save for his slightly raised eyebrows, as he went over to the desk and removed the gloves, pulling them on. “Should I even ask?”

Something between a human laugh and a pig snort left her mouth. “Only if it’s necessary. I think I just nicked a vein. I’m more concerned with these connectors, they’re not supposed to be connected this loosely, which means they really shouldn’t be hangin’ out my arm like a hound dog out a pickup truck window.”

“Just nicked a vein,” Trinity mimicked, affecting a higher pitched southern drawl that combined with the slight disbelieving tone to his voice. “Ok. Ok, you’re completely insane, and probably only partially from blood loss. Now, tell me what to do.” He turned his attention to the wires, examining them closely with an expression that rivaled his focus when looking at a particularly interesting problem in one of his own production lines. “I think I see the basics of what’s going on here, but you’d know best.”

“It’s just the coolin’ lines, they kinda just gotta be-Oh!” She pulled a roll of gauze and some medigel from the drawer she’d been digging in. “Found ‘em.” She looked back up at him, arm stretched out, still applying pressure. “I’m not insane until I lose a full liter, by the way. We’re not even a quarter of the way there. They’re just coolin’ lines, you can just shove ‘em back in. I’d have done it already if I didn’t need to keep my blood in my body.” The cooling lines glowed a faint purple and continued to slowly snake their way out. She beheld her own mess with interest for a moment, puzzling something out. “Wonder if I could…”

“Let’s save that little curiosity journey for later, yes?” he interrupted, just the slightest hint of panic creeping into his tone that stopped short whatever she’d been about to come up with. “Maybe best to explore all the other experiments you could run on yourself when you’re not already bleeding all over the floor.” He started pushing the wires back into her arm, probably more gently than she would have done herself. “And, for the record, you’re insane with all your blood in your body. But I’m sure you know that already.”

“It’s what makes me fun!” Her irreverence for her own safety could almost be seen as endearing, if it wasn’t so dangerous. She grabbed a spray bottle marked ‘alcohol’ in big red letters, a roll of duct tape on her wrist. “Here, put pressure on it once it’s all in there, I’ll secure it back down later. Musculature will hold it for now.” She put the spray top of the bottle of alcohol between her teeth and bit down, twisting to remove it and dumping some of the contents over the open wound, no sign of a grimace. “Quickly dude, or we’re gonna be covered in blood. My heart’s still beatin’. God this would be so much easier if my limbs were detachable.”

Trinity almost said wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been covered in blood, or detachable limbs are another thing we don’t want to explore right now, but he was a little too busy to worry about snappy comebacks. He got some disinfectant a little more directly to the wound by covering a bandage in medigel, and set to work sealing the edges together temporarily with glue that he knew should work like stitches. The alcohol had luckily done the double job of cleaning away the excess blood, so all he had to do was swipe away the fresh blood that had just welled from it with a piece of gauze and apply the bandage. On top of it he folded a few more pieces of gauze for extra pressure, and he secured the whole thing with medical tape. It was quick, but rather well done for a rush job nonetheless. Azzy blinked at the result.

“Oh, I was gonna slam some gauze and medigel in there and throw some duct tape over it but that works too.”

“I know that’s what you were going to do, which is exactly why I didn’t do it. Might as well make use of an extra pair of hands.” Said hands, though gloved, were a bit of a bloody mess now, and he walked over to a sink with a bin for biohazard disposal to clean up. “Luckily I know something about cybernetics and first aid. I know you do too.” Unspoken was the implication that not everyone did-- that most people would probably freeze up or panic at such a sight. Beneath even that lay certainty that she did this often. Despite his jokes about her being insane, she’d been perfectly calm. This maybe wasn’t how all her repairs went, with the blood and all, but it wasn’t a surprise, either. He thought maybe that should scare him, but instead he simply accepted it as fact. What else could he do?

“Can’t see how it matters too much, can’t avoid the scarrin’ anyway. Thanks, though.” she looked up at him with that same lopsided smile before bending her arm a couple times. “I forgot you were comin’, lemme get this shit cleaned up and we’ll get that maintenance outta the way.”

He shrugged as he finished washing his own hands and disposing of the gloves, and started to help her clean up. “Scars, those don’t matter. Everyone has them, visible or not, you don’t make it far in life without them. But in this kind of world… I think you might as well save yourself a little pain and danger any time you have the chance.” There was an honesty in his voice that drew her attention, but he was facing away from her. He cleared his throat awkwardly and turned with a crooked grin. “So, what nefarious plans do you have for my eye today?”

She was already across the room in front of a pair of doors, arms crossed over her front to pull her shirt up and over her head. She was facing away from him, her back tan and striped with thin white scars all the way up her spine, ending in one final splintering burst at the base of her neck. Barely visible at this distance was the white ink tattooed across her back to make the whole mess look like a dandelion puff. The shirt fell to the ground with a wet flop as she hit a button to open a closet full of more white tank tops, these ones pristine. Her hands were clean already. “S’not like I feel it anyway, that’s what the ankle wire’s for.” She grabbed a shirt and tugged it over her head, fixing her beanie as she turned to face him again and grabbed a mop from the corner. 

“Ankle wire?” He glanced down, mechanical pieces fitting together behind his eyes. “Of course. You electrocute your nerve endings to suppress pain. Makes perfect sense.” Was she imagining the tiny edge to his voice? “And to think you lectured me before about the external charging I was doing. Don’t you ever worry you’ll fry them, go numb permanently? Although…” He shook his head, the joking tone back to his voice. “Never mind, you could probably fix that if it happened, anyway.” 

Azzy began cleaning, ignoring the edge to his voice. This was why she never let anyone assist with her cybernetic self experimentation. This, and the process of the reset. She let herself sound cocky. "Of course I could fix it. Anyway, I have an update for the cooler, so it'll adjust with your body temp, like a real eye. Good for if someone's lookin' atcha with thermal imagin'." She hit a button and hopped onto a counter, the edges of the floor beginning to flood slightly with water. "I also thought maybe I'd upload this real spicy book I read last week to it, in case you get bored. You’ll love it." She snorted, unable to keep a straight face.

He laughed quietly along as he lifted himself onto the counter next to her. It was odd-- even through genuine humor he was looking at her like he was considering something, searching her for the answer to some unspoken puzzle. He let his gaze wander again just before the point where consideration became outright staring. “Feel free. That thermal imaging sounds like a great idea.”

The floor was done flooding, washing the remaining blood down a drain in the center of the room. She hopped back down, crossing the room and grabbing her boots off a shelf. Can't mess with people's eyes with your bare feet just out and around. She looked up from her feet with a curious expression, like he'd given her a brain teaser. "What was that look? You were thinkin' about somethin', and it's almost definitely not the alien erotica I'm puttin' in your peeper as soon as the standard tune up is done."

He shrugged. “I’ll tell you later. There’s some research I want to do first.” He slid off the counter. “First things first, heat regulation and alien erotica.”

"Don't have to tell me twice. Get on the table, I'll get the hookups. Pop that sucker out too, I need to check the retina." She pulled a clean pair of gloves on, snapping the cuff against her wrist. The sensation ricocheted up her arm. Her elbow and wound sparked. Her freshly patched arm swung out of its own volition, landing squarely on Trinity’s backside. Azure blinked, tips of her ears turning bright scarlet as her mouth twitched. “Oops.”

Trinity turned to look at her and blinked bemusedly. “...Getting an early start on the erotica part?” he quipped, but his already pink cheeks flushed darker as he spoke.

Azure giggled in response, pulling her arm back the moment she realized she’d left it there in shock. “Sorry. The node’s been misfirin’, if I hadn’t missed the incision point I’d have replaced and calibrated it by now, my bad.” Her eyes flickered briefly downwards and then immediately to her desk, smirking as she rolled her shoulder and shook her hand to get out any further bursts. “...Glad to know you don’t skip your squats. It’s a nice ass, now that I’m lookin’ at it instead of the wires in my arm.”

“A misfire, sure.” Trinity smirked back. It was easy to tell she was being serious about the misfire-- a lie would have come with a lot more stammering and awkward pauses-- but it was a prime opportunity to tease his friend that he wasn’t about to miss. “Your powers of observation are astonishing. Here.” He popped out the cybernetic eye, deceptively simple looking detached from its complex inner workings. He grinned, and tossed it lightly in one hand, waiting for her to turn back to face him. “Catch.”

She held a jar of fluid for his eye in her hand already as she turned, brow raised. As she faced him, he smirked and tossed the eye towards her, an easy to intercept underhand throw. “Ohfuck-” Snatching it out of the air and setting it gently in the jar, she pouted at him. “Dude, I’m not makin’ you another one if that one breaks.”

“You didn’t make the first one.” He smiled. “It’s fine, I knew you’d catch my eye.”

She stared at him blankly for a moment, then set the jar down and cracked a smile, some small hint of a blush on her cheeks. “Very funny Hotshot, well done. Don’t throw your fuckin’ organs.” Digging out a small monitor and some wires, she glanced over her shoulder with a smirk. “I’m sure all the girls tell you that though, right?”

He scoffed, amused at the idea of the women at the events he attended saying anything about organs out loud. “Just you. It’s a bit of an honor, really.” 

“Flatterer. Don’t think I don’t know about your eight illicit rendezvous with five women in the last two days. Sara Mitchell told me all about them last time.” She rolled her eyes and stood, handing him the bundle of tech and tugging at his shirt collar to plug something into his port. “They’re tryin’ harder every time, I swear. I can see why you wanted the backup more ‘n more, I can’t imagine how you got anythin’ done at those things.”

“Mostly by ignoring anyone I didn’t want something from,” Trinity replied casually, opening his shirt a few more buttons to let her access his port more easily. The motion revealed those tattoos she’d already noticed a few times before when doing repairs-- the birds in flight, the trinity knot, the wall, the crumbling tower. Again she considered that their placement, so close to bone in most places and with so many heavy black lines and detailed patterns, must’ve really hurt. A phantom pain shot down her own spine in sympathy at the thought.

“Well, I guess that explains it just fine.” She flipped a few switches, monitors whirring to life. “Not very nice, but then again neither is listenin’ to them gripin’ because I won’t tell ‘em your-” She stopped herself, face reddening as she dropped a heartbeat sensor in his lap. A nasal feminine voice replayed in her ear, begging the question how big is it, really? She picked her sentence back up with a rambling vigor, trying her absolute best to drown her own thoughts out. “-current plans. Nasty, all of ‘em. Super nosy. Can’t blame you for ignorin’ it. Wanna put that on your finger? Don’t matter which, any of ‘em are fine, I gotta make sure the readin’s are accurate.” 

He gave her a look like he wanted to question her about the hesitation, though she was certain he had a pretty good idea what the ladies had actually been asking her about. However, he simply quirked an eyebrow in her direction as he slipped the sensor onto his pointer finger.

Face still red, she hooked the eye up to a different wire. Something hummed and buzzed, and she heaved a dramatic sigh. “Sorry, you don’t have enough space for the porn. You have all of it allocated for images and text files made by the unit itself.” She made a few keystrokes and turned, looking at everything but him. “Okay, that’s updatin’. Lemme see your empty eye socket, your nerve is registerin’ some weird readings.”

Trinity turned his face up to hers, exposing the scarred inner socket of his eye. He’d never said what had happened to it, but it didn’t look pleasant. “The optic nerve? It should be fine, it’s totally cybernetic. It’s not degrading again, is it?” There was a hint of nervousness in his voice at the thought.

“It’s probably just one busted cell. It’s still machinery, sometimes parts need to be replaced.” She grabbed a pair of foreceps and clicked them together where he could see with his good eye. “Tell me if you feel this, because you’re definitely not supposed to.” She poked around at the back of his socket. “Anythin’?”

“No. I think your mother poked around in there enough when she was installing it that it won’t feel much ever again.”

“Then your actual nerve past the cybernetic and into your brain is fine, its just a couple of cones tryin’ to be data transmitters.” She poked at something else and made a small noise of triumph. “I’ll have it replaced, shouldn’t be hard. I think I made a couple extras when I was up all night last week.” The foreceps went back to the table and her face reappeared in his line of sight, beaming. “Your whole business is just as busted, but it’s no worse than when you came the first time. Matter of fact, some of the burns from when your eye wasn’t cooled properly have healed pretty well, like they weren’t even there.”

“Oh,” Trinity responded, pleasantly surprised. “Yes, I tried to do some first aid to keep it from scarring the way my leg did when I used to charge my taser externally.” He didn’t meet her eyes, even though he’d only done it a half dozen times, and all long before he’d met her. The second reminder of his own carelessness with his remaining nerves made him feel a bit guilty for sniping at her about her own. “I took the eye out when I could, used some burn creams and medigel, that kind of thing. Anyway, I’m glad to hear that there’s nothing wrong with the organic nerves.”

“Yep, if nerves had feelin’s they’d be happy as hell. Strong impulses, not too much overtime. Whatever took ‘em out the first time, you’re recoverin’ pretty well given that you lost your whole ass eye.” She returned to her computers, hands flying deftly across the keys and screens as she looked for more anomalies. 

“Well, it’s been a couple years at this point. I let it degrade for a while before I sought out your mom, but… it’s good to hear that damage didn’t last.” At least those nerves had recovered. Others hadn’t, but that was going to be the subject of his research for the next few days. Despite what he’d seen earlier when Azzy had been working on her own cybernetics, he trusted her implicitly with his. If anyone could fix his problem, she could.

“It makes sense, the brain doesn’t like leavin’ things so close to it busted. Optic nerve is pretty close.” Her tongue poked out at the corner of her mouth and she squinted at her screen. “....Hey, want a wider zoom on your sensor?”

“Why not? Whatever you think, I trust your judgement.” He leaned back slightly, relaxing, and let her work. She stood quietly for some minutes, occasionally humming a quiet tune that was almost familiar. 

Eventually, she was satisfied with her work. She unhooked his eye from its wires, passing him the jar. “There you go, go ahead ‘n smack that back into its place and you’re all set. Recalibrated it’s temperature sensin’ and the coolin’ system to be a little more sensitive to ambient heat. Don’t go swimmin’ in super cold water, though. Might be a little too ambient for it for now.” She had that same smug look she always did when she was done doing maintenance, eyes bright.

“Of course. Thanks, doc.” He said the last bit with a slight smirk, and popped the eye back into place. It rolled around for a few seconds before settling. “See you at the next event?”

“Only if that guy with the braid’s there, I hear he’s kinda fun.” She took her gloves off and waved him off the table. “Get outta here, I gotta reset my arm.”

“Alright.” He stood, a quick pat on her non-injured shoulder his goodbye. “Be careful of that wound. I bandaged it so well, it would be a shame if you messed up my handiwork.”

“I have three doctorates, of course I’m gonna mess it up.” She gave him a quick pat as well, her smile genuine. “I’ll go easy on it. Bean’ll take you back, careful none of my scary vigilante’s eat ya on the way out.” The small bot hovered over his shoulder, beeping a hello tune.

He grinned, and nodded. “I’ll try to steer clear. Let’s go, Bean.” He followed the little bot from the lab, with one last wave towards Azzy, not looking back. She heaved a sigh and grabbed a wire, connecting it to one of her ports once the door closed behind him. She had a limb to test and reset.

[annafm]

(MEDALION RAHIMI, NONBINARY) - Have you seen ANNABEL MAJIDI? ANNA is in HER/THEIR JUNIOR year. The LITERATURE + INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM MAJOR is 22 years old & is a SCORPIO. People say SHE/THEY are DILIGENT, ADROIT, CYNICAL and AUSTERE. Rumors say they’re a member of WINTHROP. I heard from the gossip blog that THEY ARE FAKING BEING A PSYCHIC. (JAMES. 21. EST. THEY/THEM.)

hllo this is anna i hvnt .. played her in a while <3 bt thts okay i think she is very fun 2 play bt like in the way tht she is <3 serious n mean a bit ... bt its okay .. LHKDSGFHLKSDHLKG im sorry this is long this is. an old intro i hvnt rly changed much >.>

CAR ACCIDENT, INJURY TW

aesthetic.

falling feathers darkened at the tips, tweed and pinstripes, red trenchcoats and plaid skirts, worn ballet shoes covered in dust, smudged eyeliner and unruly hair, boxing gloves, ornate canes and pain medication, bandaged hands, classical music floating throughout an empty ballroom, worn jackets and awkwardly cut t-shirts, spilled ink and stained hands, glasses skewed, sneers and jabs, constant fighting, smog in a city, spotlights and encores, piles of books and a long line, backless dresses and sitting alone at a bar, wariness.

basic.

full name: annabel odeda majidi

nickname(s): anna, annie (father only), anna-banana (father only)

b.o.d. - october 31st, 1997

label(s): the catalyst, the charlatan, the minefield, etc.

height: 5′6″

hometown: nyc, ny

sexuality: bisexual

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favorite song: you’re dead, norma tanega / now, your hope and compassion is gone / you’ve sold out your dream to the world / stay dead, stay dead, stay dead / you’re dead and outta this world

background.

born to two high schoolers who never married, firoj majidi and parvana banai. they were head over heels for each other - when firoj graduated he took up two jobs alongside community college to support their family, until parvana graduated and took on the arts.

growing up was tough - living in the city wasn’t cheap, parvana’s art rarely sold and the two often went without eating in order to provide for annabel. as a child she’d often wear hand-me-downs from extended family.

was taught to be a hard worker and it was reflected in her schoolwork - anna excelled in all her classes but especially english. her love for writing grew at a young age, and as a child she saved up enough money to buy herself proper journals.

the only thing that she grew more passionate towards than writing was ballet - she caught the image of girls flying through the air and landing on their toes in the window of a dance studio on a walk home from school one day and that was it - something clicked inside of her.

that same day she would spend hours prancing about their tiny apartment, trying to mimic what she’d seen. it was easy to spot the passion anna had for the dance - and within a few months they had saved up enough money for a month’s worth of lessons.

anna was ecstatic - her slippers were old and found in the back of a thrift store by an odd miracle, but she put her all into the lessons regardless. she was quick to pick up on each move, and by the end of the month it was clear that anna had a natural talent.

parvana picked up a job in order for them to keep affording the lessons, month after month - they weighed down on their pockets, but it kept anna happy.

flash forward a few years - life was good. money was still a struggle but they were tight knit.

or rather, anna thought they were tight knit.

firoj and parvana split up when anna was twelve - an event that rocked the young girl’s world, something that she couldn’t understand. they had kept up a front of love when anna was home from school or ballet - but behind doors, they had been growing apart.

anna viewed their separation as parvana running off with another man - an art collector who had a fascination with paravana’s paintings. she viewed this as the end of the world. she viewed this as the death of love.

when anna was twelve, she swore she would never fall in love - refused to believe in its existence. she couldn’t wrap her mind around the simple separation.

her father got a third job in order to keep up with payments, and anna pushed herself in both ballet and school - not being able to handle an empty apartment. she decided to get a job - to help ease her father, but was too young.

so anna decided to do what any average 12 year old would do. she started scamming people.

she’d sell store-bought lemonade as if it were homemade, stole ceramics from art class and sold them to neighbors. she found an old girl scouts uniform in the back of a goodwill and for the next month, she sold knock-off girl scout cookies from the dollar store - going door to door.

her personality had changed drastically - anna went from a sweet, optimistic girl with warm brown eyes and an infectious laugh to cold, calculated, and downright cruel. she knew what she wanted and how to get it.

she got an invitation to a prestigious private school, full scholarship, before she hit high school - originally wanted to reject it as the thought of being surrounded by new york’s richest teens was appalling, but their ballet program was a one-way ticket into the american ballet theatre. anna ultimately accepted the scholarship.

high school was immediately hell for her - pretentious rich kids who all shared a collective brain cell and her secondhand uniform being a prime target for them.

ballet got extremely competitive - anna was a threat to every dancer in their program, bullying and sabotage became standard - but anna retaliated when possible.

this all, however, suddenly stopped when anna picked up her latest scam: faking psychic. through a small network of ‘bees’ she’d pay to gather information (gossip, rumors, etc. etc.) she was able to accurately ~see~ into students’ past, present, and potentially future affairs. the money was very worth it.

from that point forward, people were intimidated by her.

when anna was 16 she was handpicked to join the american ballet theatre’s studio company, alongside 11 other lucky individuals. her dream from that point forward was to become the youngest principal ballerina for abt - and she was going to start by winning over the role of clara in their production of the nutcracker.

she was 17 when she was chosen, much to the dismay of the other girls. she had momentarily quit her ‘psychic’ business in order to dedicate the entirety of her time towards rehearsals & practice.

the final week before her first performance as clara, anna got into a car accident heading home after another tiresome rehearsal. knocked unconscious, anna woke up three days later with no recollection of the accident - and her leg freshly operated on.

it was a devastating event that should had killed her - maybe she would had been better off if it had - but instead, it had effectively destroyed any chances of her dancing professionally.

it took two months of extensive physical therapy for anna to walk again - now relying heavily on a cane.

with ptsd and depression weighing heavily on her shoulders, anna turned back to writing - mostly as a coping mechanism, but it soon became the fierce passion it once was when she was younger.

for the remainder of her high school life, anna dedicated the majority of her time towards recovery, her writing, and directing her school’s theatre productions. oh - and claiming that almost dying had given her the gift of mediumship. it wasn’t too far off from her psychic claims - her peers believed it well enough to either stay away, or pay her for a small amount of comfort.

decided to attend yates for their reputation despite her hatred for pretentious schools (very ironic because she herself is pretentious) & also. she had a scholarship <3 so. 

in the midst of writing her first book that’s based heavily on her experiences as a low income student at a private school but like. she’s side-eying all these societies and seeing a Big Money Grab if she were to. write abt them instead

still can’t dance any longer, but she works as a ballet assistant for one of the dance instructors & still tends to barge her way into theatre rehearsals to <3 give her unwarranted opinion

personality & facts.

she’s not the friendliest person. knows what she wants and how to get it, and will not hesitate to use people or push them out of her way in order to achieve her goals.

her cutthroat nature was the reason for her success in academics and dance - tends to intimidate the students in the ballet classes she helps out in.

horribly stubborn - if she’s got an idea of you already in her mind, then it’s hard to convince her otherwise.

still uses a cane - in fact, she can’t really walk without it - unless she wants to be in pain.

it’s sturdy, ornate, and pretty fucking solid. doubles as a weapon if need be - has definitely … hit people with it before, though she’s calmed down now that she’s a little older.

used to be very angry, very defensive as a teenager - is still the same, just … less intense. will not hesitate to speak her mind and let her opinions known - especially in the face of injustice.

doesn’t really have the best … relationship with authority, mainly because of where she was raised and her con-artist businesses. tends to be snarky and sarcastic to anybody in charge - or really, anybody in general.

pretty distrusting, pretty emotionless on the outside, doesn’t like to be seen as weak or somebody to be pitied. keeps herself closely guarded and doesn’t really let others ‘inside’ due to her own comfort levels.

she’ll sleep around but dating is out of the question, for the most part - she’s been on a few blind dates, a few casual get-togethers - but she’s always the one to break things off. is more of a careful hook-up kind of gal.

still does her psychic medium business !! sometimes she wonders if she’s a bad person because of it - but ultimately, it’s on her customers for believing in all that nonsense anyway. anna herself is a skeptic - doesn’t believe in anything unless she can see it and feel it.

is actually … a pretty sentimental person, doesn’t take anything she’s got for granted, and is hugely appreciative of her father. sends him money when she can. hasn’t spoken to her mother in years - pretty sure she’s got a step / half-sibling or two but she’s never met them.

a lone wolf and likes it that way, but she isn’t super opposed to friendship - even if she won’t necessarily call anybody a friend. appreciates others who are similar to her - got their head on right, and knows what they want in life.

has a pretty bad fear of driving - will uber if she needs to go anywhere - even then, being in cars makes her pretty anxious. still has ptsd-induced panic attacks, though she’s managed them pretty well.

doesn’t really do drugs! will smoke weed to ease the ache and her nerves, but otherwise she only takes what is prescribed for her. doesn’t drink anything hard, either. big fan of beer and wine. probably gets wine drunk home alone late at night … like … two times a week.

goes between being high strung and uncaring - she’s not especially moody ( rather, is just consistently angry for whatever reasons ) but she definitely tries to bottle everything up.

probably keeps pepper spray on her at all times, even though she’s got her cane. has cat ear brass knuckles on her keychain - took advantage of the archery club at her private school. she’s not paranoid, she just likes being prepared.

has a soft spot for children, animals, and soft women. kind of person who will put herself in the line of danger in order to protect others - even if she doesn’t necessarily know them too well.

also the kind of person who’ll set something on fire - or do something because you’ve told her not to. incredibly spiteful when wronged. will raise hell if need be.

morally ambiguous tbh.

wanted connections.

who do u think i am ;; either uh. people who have seen her around campus being a bit of a freak like <3 kick someone’s tire in a small fit of rage <3 or spend 20 minutes trying to coax a cat near her so she could pet it <3 or having a that’s so raven moment <3 or someone who tried to help her out with something and she was like. excuse me. what the fuck. get away from me freak loser. maybe threatened them.

slowburn but make it evil ;; uh. when i played her as older she hd a plot where she <3 ws engaged n then broke it off bcos her fiance cheated <3 so i wld like another. plot where she actually <3 tries to enjoy someone else’s company and presence and it just ends up hurting her n reaffirming her idea tht love is? fake n dumb n stupid. thank u.

ykno ... a little dash of spice ... ;; uh. yknow just hookups. hateships <3 or they never talk abt what happened <3 or an awkward drunk one night stand <3 maybe a pregnancy scare and shes like Ah. motherhood Scares me. because she <3 hates her own mother <3 LDSLKFHLGSHLK. it leaves their relationship rly weird the whole ordeal ... maybe even just a blind date <3 or someone she ghosted

read my future ;; customers very classic uh. just people who come to her for her psychic readings <3 and her uh. talking to the dead <3 but also alternately. skeptics ?? people suspicious of her ?? very epic. 

like actually Die? ;; enemies. she hates them so bad. maybe its one-sided. maybe theyre an annoyance. maybe she annoys them? very bad not very good. 

and we dance dance dance, dance dance dance <3 ;; this is just. fr ballet students. or, hold up, consider this: someone who recognizes her frm this. very tragic event where she cld no longer b a ballerina bc i think it ws. like not the Biggest deal bt if ur muse ran in private school circles ykno ??

pet the feral cat ;; these r the soft <3 normal connections <3 someone she’s soft for / protective of. friends that she doesn’t completely hate. 

i Do Not Know ;; i will. take anything. please. weed dealers, people she’s totally sus about for no reason. she steals and reads their mail. they have been rivals for years. they hv a special bond. they r strangers but they get stuck in an elevator. she’s tutoring them bt she wont let them take a break n she keeps making them recite fucking. shakespeare. anything is sexy and fun n cool

[lanamemories2]

rides onto the dash nude n on horseback like this pic of sam way. oh fancy seeing u here.......... im impeccably tensed our entire exchange. buns like steel cld crack a nut open between them. i’m nai n it’s so nice to meet u all!!!! i’m one of the admins here (josefine frida pettersen on the main) n i’m so Excited 2 get things going........... some facts abt me r i sometimes hv a witch’s cackle, i once drunkenly swung frm a tree branch pretending to b tarzan n fell n grass stained my fav jeans at 4 in the morning n i lov spicy food despite the fact it mkes me sweat like a hog in the sun. more abt lana under the cut!!! also like this or hmu if u wna plot n her pinterest is here n playlist is here 👺🌚

「kristine froseth & cis-female」⇾ jameson , lana, the junior radcliffe student’s records show that she is a gemini and 22 years old. she is studying dance, living in off campus and can be vivacious, passionate, childish & impulsive. when i see her i am reminded of stepping out in the cold wearing just a red slip, lipstick on a stranger’s throat, a bumper sticker on the back of a convertible cadillac that says ‘SCRAPPY DOO IS A FILTHY SLUT’. ⇽「nai & 23 & gmt & she/her.」

AESTHETICS:

scalding your fingers in shower water until they glow like rudolph’s nose, cherry red gym socks tugged high and nothing else, stepping out in the cold wearing just a red slip, an origami swan made from an old receipt, tickling a stranger’s chin with the end of a feather boa, crowning each finger with a miniature raspberry, hugging a knee close to lick a stripe of fruit juice off a bruise there, doodling penises in the condensation of a car window, a water pistol topped with rum and covered in glittery pin-up stickers, believable smiles that feel more like baring teeth, a bumper sticker on the back of a convertible cadillac that says ‘SCRAPPY DOO IS A FILTHY SLUT’, prancing around in your underwear to a vinyl record with the curtains open.

HISTORY:

lana grew up in a big house in albany, NY. albums framed on the walls. mayb some rolling stone covers too frm way bk when of the bands her dad’s label signed. kind of like… a rock star palace w no evidence of children at all. i think i summarised it best in one of lana’s self paras once when i said the garden ws “as big as it was unloved”, not that u wld know from all of the gardener’s pruning

lana’s mum victoria (vic) ws a music journalist w a pretty fruitful career ahead of her when she met lana’s dad richard (rich). his record label ws jst starting out, founded on the coattails of his rich best friend’s (jensen peters) investment w his other best friend (who he jst calls knoxville). it rocketed to success when they signed poppy injects, a rock band w an electric stage presence, n victoria ws drawn to the glitz n glamour of a man tht ws at the helm of his aspiring industry. their love ws very impulsive, all or nothing right frm the start, n it ws almost like she ws mre in love w his accomplishments n what he represented than him

anyway so jameson records repped a few big rock bands bk in the eighties, altho poppy injects r who they’re mostly known fr, namely bc of hw brightly they crashed n burned. (drugs/addiction tw) they were a big chart success bt the lead singer hd quite an intense struggle w heroin (wsnt rly subtle abt it either while he ws in the public eye as u cn probably imagine frm such an on-the-nose band name) n he ws always in n out of the papers. it eventually brought down his career n it ws a big publicity nightmare

lana pretty much… grew up around figures like this throughout childhood. rly troubled characters who wld kind of… b extremely volatile n destructive abt their troubles. the jameson house was kind of an open one as welcoming clients went n a lot of parties took place there. a lot of the time musicians wld b snorting lines in the kitchen when she wnted to grab a bowl of cereal fr breakfast. very strange environment fr a child to grow up in

her parents always kind of jst… didn’t like her much. her older brother caleb ws unplanned bt they sort of welcomed the surprise more bt… quickly realised they weren’t cut out fr parenthood n then when lana came as another surprise 3 yrs later they didn’t even try to hide their resentment abt the situation. her mum ws actually booked in to have an abortion bt cldnt go through with it at the last minute. once when lana asked her why shes so cold towards her she jst turned her head frm her dresser, looked at her, told her abt this n said “idk why i didn’t go”. lana didn’t kno wht to say to tht so she jst left her room n closed the door

(dissociation/delusion tw) bc of this growing up lana adopted this weird like…. she didn’t rly kno what it ws bt it ws a delusion of sorts where she thought she ws a ghost. she’d jst sort of… drift around the halls w noone acknowledging her n sometimes she ws jst convinced she wsnt actually there or they cldnt see her n she ws jst haunting the house frm a previous family

the one saving grace tho tht sort of?? gt her thru this n made her feel Seen ws caleb. lana quite genuinely hs always thought the sun shines out of her older brothers ass like she jst thinks. hes the best person in the entire world. wld b rly bewildered if anyone questioned tht. he wld always look out for her in the zoo they called a home n cut the crusts off her PBJs so they lkd like teddy bears (he’d cook fr them most of the time bc their parents were too busy/didn’t care to) n sometimes wld even sleep at the bottom of her bed curled up like a guard dog. it ws always lana n caleb n his best friend tommy against the world in tht house (tommy lived next door n was always over bc he had very strict parents / a military father tht he found suffocating)

SO when caleb n tommy announced tht they’d signed up to the army lana ws understandably…….. blindsided. she ws rly upset tht they were leaving like pretty besides herself bt she tried not to b mad at them n made them promise theyd b safe n back as soon as possible. she even asked if they cld somehow take her w them n they were jst like :/ it doesn’t work that way luv x

(death tw, ptsd tw, grief tw, trauma tw, hospitalisation tw, drugs tw) anyway caleb ended up getting discharged under grounds of severe ptsd when he witnessed tommy die in an explosion tht took place in a shock raid. caleb returned home sans tommy bt he was never the same after tht. he’s been in n out of hospital n he turned to using as a way to cope so it’s been a rly bumpy road since. lana kind of felt like two of her brothers died out there in a way n jst like tht it wasn’t them vs the world any mre, it was jst her

ANYWAY whew tht rly…. took a dark turn there….. chuckles nervously at hw sad lana’s life is bt it’s fine it’s all fINE!!!!!!! ok. so on a mre lighthearted note the jameson family r pretty well off n bc of her relation to such a big music industry figure she’s hung out w a fair few relatively high rep ppl thru her teens. mostly kids of celebrities n stuff like tht. she amassed kind of an instagram following mainly fr her style (penny lane-esque in some aspects aka lots of fur cuff trimmed jackets bt then also jst…. a wild combination of everything honestly. pastel faux fur coats, seventies style platforms, flame red cowboy boots, pink fishnet tights n glitter used like highlight Everywhere) n bc she’s undeniably Pretty Gorl

(trauma tw) after caleb got back he was rly withdrawn n depressed. he shut lana out n was kind of harsh to her a lot of the time, always telling her to leave him alone or pushing her away. it didnt help either tht lana had a rly traumatic experience w some of her dad’s colleagues at the label when she ws 16 n he was away n she cldnt even tell him abt it once he was bk bc of his own traumas. she kind of jst shut it all in n kept it to herself

(hypersexuality tw) this obviously?? made her spiral a lot. she was already a girl tht loved sex but since her trauma it got…. completely out of hand. it got to a point where she couldnt rly go 2 days without it, probably not even 1. her lowest point has probably been scrolling thru craiglist for anonymous encounters n meeting up w strangers on there fr hookups even tho it’s insanely dangerous n she cld wind up getting herself killed. the risk is honestly part of the appeal to her sometimes she’s :////// quite self destructive n jst likes a thrill to mke her feel Alive. it’s v clear at this point tht she has a sex addiction whether she’s ever admitted it or not. it kind of… almost mingled w tht same feeling she used to get when she ws younger of being a ghost?? like she jst. only rly feels Real when she’s being touched

(violence tw) she’s had.................... SCH a bad history dating wise. she almost always dates fking.... actual beasts like i jst wna gently shake her by the shoulders sometimes bt :////////////// one of her recent exes is in prison aftr he beat up someone she’d slept w in front of her like she jst. has had a very Not Sexy time w romance...... she hd to b a witness in the trial abt it n he ws found guilty n sent down so it ws like Intense n a gd example of the kinds of disastrous relationships she gets herself into. perks of being a wallflower voice: We Accept The Love We Think We Deserve.

this past summer she gt a job at a burlesque club in downtown lovell!!! it honestly is her dream job like. dancing? being sexy? fav hobbies................. most delicious pastimes... 10/10 ideal fr her............... she almost started working at a coyote ugly bar bt this one won her over. she usually jets off to some foreign country n has a rly exotic n action packed summer bt i think she wldv just been working local there fr this one to b close to her brother (the rehab he’s at is close like a 40 min drive so!). she’s also moved into a big lofty apartment w 3 roommates tht’s above a chinese take out w lots of lanterns hung outside. the street? scott street......................... tribute to mizz phoebe bridgers hunger games salutes to the sky so it travels 2 her............. she gt a red heart shaped bath tub installed which hs always been her dream so honestly the summer hs been pretty gd to her....... five stars on yelp she deserves Some happiness once in a while

PERSONALITY:

always smells vaguely of wild cherries or strawberry starburst or jst the candy aisle in general. if she ws a vinyl record she’d b this one n she’d only play good vibrations by the beach boys, dancing on my own by robyn, play that funky music by wild cherry, femme fatale by the velvet underground n (i can’t get no) satisfaction by the rolling stones

growing up lana was always a HUGE social butterfly. knew everyone n everyone knew her. she ws one of those girls tht ws kind of impossible to ignore or forget (cld b a gd or bad thing depends on ur Stance...... she can be a lot tho frankly). very animated, always made u feel like u were the centre of the universe whenever she spoke to u, always made it feel like u were best friends even if ud only spoken to her once.

deliberately puts on tht kind of Magnetic Alluring act tht femme fatales wear in movies sometimes. kind of…. is always playing A Role of the person tht she wants to b seen as or the person she feels ppl want her to be. chameleons to situations. feels like she’s performed as the vivacious n fun loving Lana Jameson fr so long tht she doesn’t rly kno who she is beneath tht bt she isn’t too keen to find out

always the last one awake at the party. jst doesn’t seem to hv.... an off switch. every1 else cld b passed out at 6am n she’d still b swaying around to sunday morning by the velvet underground in her underwear drinking frm a bottle of merlot

she’s always been rly spontaneous n adventurous. always doing something weird n wild every weekend. she has ten thousand ridiculously absurd n chaotic stories

uncontrollably flirty. she’s tht tumblr post tht’s like flirting will b ur hubris n the reply is like kind of sexy of u to say so................ SO confident cld talk to anyone. makes a joke out of anything. tends to laugh when she feels like crying. even if she DOES cry she’ll smile thru it like it isn’t happening she jst.... doesn’t like to b negative ever if she cn help it

she’s amassed a weird collection of like... Things various ppl she’s known hv made abt her. this guy she ws friends w wrote a song abt her n performed it at a gig she went to without telling her in advance. it ws rly dramatic he sang it n looked at her the whole time n she ws jst a bit like.... omg.... lmfao............... she’s also hd various paintings done of her. i honestly dnt even rly kno hw it happens she jst has a personality where she..... leaves an impression like a lipstick print on a white shirt w some ppl.................. she’s like tht tumblr post where someone arrives at a poetry reading n is like hi yes........ where do the muses sit? except she isn’t rly.... obnoxious abt it she jst shrugs n is like.......... oh that........... KJHSFKHGSFKGHSFKGSFHGK. it’s a charmed life fr some

always dapples her fingers thru the breeze when she’s driving in a car w the window down. she almost always has some sort of sweet on her, whether it’s sour haribo cherries or strawberry lollipops.

PLOTS:

exes tht lana’s fucked over hideously. she’d probably cheat a lot and it’d be a whole…mess. whips her in the town square like gale

mayb someone tht flipped the switch and cheated on her??? chaos. anguish. strife. 

someone tht works at the burlesque club in downtown lovell w her!!!!! as like a bartender or another dancer or security or................... whtvr honestly. hvn’t worked out a name fr the club yet bt i think it cld b a fun setting to write stuff in n there cld b lots to build off there!!

a cousin plot cld b fun too

her n freya nilsen run smthn called Dick Sisters Inc......... they hv a twitter fr it n everything.... n a hq based in one of the abandoned dorms in the leach building.... lots of inflatable furniture disco balls.............. lana even gt replica airplane seats so they cn sit n b served drinks by this guy tht runs errands fr them who they call bucket....... they bsically like. set ppl up n help ppl get laid it’s a matchmaking service of sorts.......... started as a joke bt nw it’s genuinely become quite a profitable business w word spreading all over campus........ ugh entrepreneurial icons... anyway mayb ur chara cld come to lana fr Dick Sisters assistance......... mayb they’v come to them in the past......... 

a friend tht lana fel out w bc she slept w their significant other.

someone tht’s getting lana into drugs?? she’s kind of impressionable/down for anything so tht’s a likely scenario she’d get into tbh

briefly did camgirl stuff on an independent bt up n coming porn site....... titters.......... mayb ur muse used a pseudonym n recognises lana frm it bt is too embarrassed to admit they were subscribed............ mayb they happened upon her on there once n nw r jst like. what do i do w this knowledge. idk cld b fun to work around perhaps

an unrequited crush!! (either way is cool)

someone tht is just hanging out w her/using her bc she has a lot of instagram followers or they want to b signed to her dad’s label

someone in a band!! she’d probably make like penny lane n b their groupie/sleep w them all i won’t lie to u. relentless.....

umm a good influence too mayb?

honestly?? anything is fine i cld ramble for days. mayb even one of the high profile kids she grew up hangin w idk. world’s our oyster fellas!

[got2ghost-archive]

ten ships and why!! I was tagged by @alienfuckeronmain AHH THANK U I LOVE TALKING ABT THIS SHIT

Half of my list is childhood best friends to lovers let's GOOOO

1. drarry

*deep shuddering inhale* I have thought abt draco and harry being foils before I even reached double digits. they could have saved each other and had so much potential to even just be FRIENDS!! if j*r wasn't like that, then she could have actually made a meaningful impact on draco early on. abt how you don't have to be your parents! and how to heal!! anyway I love them any way shape or form. I love reading dark gritty fucked up stories about them just as much as I love reading domestic silly fluffy stuff for them. draco would NOT put up with harry's bullshit and harry would NOT go easy on draco either but they're ultimately just two lonely boys who grew up in fucked up households who have much more in common than they realize!!! LIKE!!

2. wangxian

yes they're a new one but God their love extends so deeply. yes they r basically Chinese fantasy Kirk/spock!!

lan zhan is so in love w wei ying and is so devoted and everything he does is action or acts of service which js very much my love language!! but he also feels a deep sense of obligation to the rules and codes he's learned?? and wei ying loves lan zhan but it takes him a long time to accept it bc he DOESNT BELIEVE HE IS DESERVIG OF LOVE despite being so GOOD. AND THEY NEVER TALK TO EACH OTHER OR COMMUNICATE THEY WAY THEY SHOULD!!!! AND HE DIES and LAN ZHAN IS JUST. REPENTENT FOR 16 YEARS AND RAISES HIS SON AND IS SO INCREDIBLY SAD AND MISERABLE BUT THEN WWX comes BACK TO LIFE and they get to try again AND THEY GET TO BE HAPPY???? ANYWAY ACTS OF DEVOTION I!!!!

3. soriku

I've genuinely thought abt them since I was TEN when the first kingdom hearts game came out but it didn't solidify until KH2 came out when sora has to search for riku the entire game and when he finally does RIKU DOESNT EVEN LOOK LIKE HIMSELF BUT SORA STILL RECOGNIZES HIM ANYWAY AND HOLDS HIS HAND AND CRIES. THAT SHIT MADE ME GAY! I had never witnessed such tenderness and they are so inherently queer and subtle that it's one of the first stories I ever saw myself in. on top of that I also read that doujinshi that I consider Canon and it's so!! childhood best friends! with big complicated feelings of jealousy and betrayal and possessiveness when you start to grow apart from the person you care about the most!! and in game they're slowly... circling to become end game? the entire story revolves around them saving each other and RIKU LITERALLY CALLING SORA HIS MOST PRECIOUS PERSON? AHHHHHH

4. sterek

I will never forgive what the show did but the Fandom and the writing from that fandom is incredibly important to me. they're like my comfort pairing and I just love that Derek is sad and grumpy but it's because he's fucked up and needs to go to therapy and stiles is also kind of fucked up but happier and he's smart and beautiful and!!! they were obviously attracted to each other!! almost all of their stories involve CONSENT or Derek hale getting better slowly. they mean a lot to me bc my mom was dying while I clung to this fandom and wrote my grief fic and I always associate them with that time in my life. I could and did read like 30 stories abt Derek doing laundry and buying wooden spoons and trying to move on and be a healthier happier person.

5. taagnus

rarely have rare pairs but this is one of them and!!! look. I didn't ship them until the last two arcs of the show revealed that instead of only knowing each other for a few years and being idiots they in fact knew each other for 100 years+ and DIED A LOT together and saved each other. BUT COULDN'T REMEMBER IT YET THEY STILL KIND OF... FALL IN LOVE AGAIN? they balance each other so much. magnus is magnus - brave and GOOD. taako is so closed off, careful abt trusting people so when he acted on gut instinct to LITERALLY THROW HIS SOUL OUT OF HIS BODY TO SAVE MAGNUS I was hooked. I know that taako ends up w kravitz but bc we didn't get to see Krav much I couldn't grow attached to him? I love the thought of first love and exploring that - how it never goes away, really but you can still love other people!! plus! I love writing them as lesbians! they're butch/femme to me!

6. ruth/debbie

UGH. UGH!!!!! they're so obsessed with each other and it's so filled with repression and anger and betrayal thst has nothing to do with Ruth fucking her husband and everything to do with the trust of their friendship. it's such a complicated weird fucked up intense 'friendship' that I love to see and like!! sometimes my friendships w women FELT like that. the times I have felt the most hurt is when I lose a friend bc a part of me is in love w them in some way!! Ruth and Debbie are just. in love. though. and Ruth is never gonna admit it and she's gonna... be in a comp het relationship even tho she thinks Debbie is smart and sexy and she idolizes her GOD.

7. gene/finny

YES MOST OF MY PAIRINGS ARE SAD WHAT OF IT? I read this book as a sophomore in hs and I simply could not stop thinking abt how gay and in love they were. FIRST OF ALL THE metaphors!!!!!! gene as winter and finny as summer!! and how codependent and weird they were even tho finny KNEW gene broke his leg. he didn't want to believe it bc he WAS IN LOVE WITH HIM. THEY WENT ON A DATE TO THE BEACH? THE PINK SHIRT? finny being the embodiment of childhood innocence and Gene literally breaking that? and killing it? once again I just love reading abt how complex jealousy is and where it comes from and also REPRESSION!!!

8. forrden

yes I'm including my own OC with @dosalesbian

I wrote abt them for FOUR YEARS. they're childhood best friends who fall in love and marry and are in love no matter what universe and are so soft and tender and healing. forrest goes thru a lot of gender exploration and aiden is just the partner I want to be!! he's goofy and LOVES HER SO MUCH AND SUPPORTS HER SO MUCH GOD!!!!

9. kuroken

they r a new one and yes once again childhood best friends but in a FUN NEW WAY that I want to explore. kenma is like disinterested in most things except gaming and whatever kuroo wants to do and has a hard time socializing bc he's SHY and is too observant! and kuroo is big and dumb and passionate but was also a stupid anxious child. I think they're those friends who are dating but don't even know they're dating or their relationship is so indescribable to themselves and others that it's hard to take any step forward or backward bc theyre SO codependent and yes. I want to explore that and read abt them more.

10. don't look at me yes im putting ryden on here

THEY WERE IN LOVE BUT COULDNT ADMIT IT AND THEN BRENDON WROTE 3 BREAKUP ALBUMS ABT RYAN? AND RYAN RELEASED A SONG THE SAME WEEK BRENDON GOT MARRIED? they're never gonna be friends again bc they can't just be friends

okay!! I tag @scottspack @dosalesbian @pattern-pals hehe

[fantroll-purgatory]

@itoshiki​

hello! im submitting my sort-of-trollsona-but-not-really. I made him I guess more Alternian and he’s highly personal 2 me but that shouldn’t discourage you! I’m stuck at some parts because I just recently got back into homestuck and I’d like advice from someone who knows their stuff. IT’S SO LONG IM SO SORRY… Thank you so much if you do review it tho!

Hey no worries. Thanks for your patience!

Hell yeah hell yeah ceruleanbloods with Eye Stuff.

World: Alternia, maybe an AU? I’m unsure. But he’s Alternian.

Name: Sancti Serpus

“Sancti” comes from “Saint” and his belief that he can do no wrong, as well as how he believes that his experiments benefit troll society. “Serpus” comes from “Serpent” and his personality being sly and manipulative, could be described as a snake by others in the way he is first nice to his friends but backstabs them later, as well as his lusus being a two-headed Titanoboa (prehistoric Boa).

I understand the reasoning behind the first name! If you want something that plays a little more into the archetypal Mad Scientist “I will become a GOD AHAHAHAHA” vibe then I suggest Apoteu from the Greek apotheoun, meaning “to make a god of.” Still fits his beliefs about himself and how he benefits society…but there is such a thing a vengeful, malevolent god.

I like the serpent theme, especially given the Rod of Asclepius/Caduceus confusion, given that the former is about medicine and the latter about commerce. Plus snake oil salesman as duplicitous people claiming they have a cure when they’re really just selling you whatever they could dig up. Serpus is a little too obvious as a snake troll though, so maybe we abstract that a bit. A slightly silly one would be Davdav, since the longest-living two-headed snake is named Double Dave after its discoverer.

Apoteu Davdav. It has the opposite of a nice ring to it, but I like it because it sounds kind of mad sciencey.

Age: 7.5 Sweeps (16 Human Years)

Theme/Story: His theme is sort of Mad Scientist vibes. He dabbles in forensic pathology, chemistry (even though he often explodes things), troll biology/genes and psychology. Those are his main 5 branches because he’s not very good at math so his knowledge of physics is limited.

fugidghiuuaehiu Bad At Math Science Gang RISE UP

He was hatched and went through The Brooding Caverns. He decided to settle on a Hive in the outskirts of a city, in a suburban area with only a few highblooded neighbors. However, his lusus was very, very hard to feed for the two heads would often argue with and attack each other. His lusus would feed on anyone who visited or came too close, by asphyxiating them. It also neglected him and didn’t pay attention to him for it was too busy fighting with itself. He eventually learned to sedate his lusus through aromatherapy, with chemicals he himself created in his lab. He lives on a huge castle-like hive near a forest where he gets the material for his experiments and corpses to analyze. He has a bunch of body parts in flasks and bottles.

He is a very strange troll, but he doesn’t want to be. Due to his upbringing and his lusus eating whoever came over. He often saw culling, death and destruction near him, which caused him to have a morbid fixation on death and a desire to better troll society through science, influenced by his ancestor Discordi Discipla (he’s a WIP). However, he has fallen victim to his own mental deterioration and apathy as he spent more time around the dead (and undead). This mental deterioration was exacerbated when a presumed dead corpse came to life in his lab and attacked him, causing him blindness in his right eye. He’s somewhat afraid of being culled for his blindness, but knows that it’s not likely, due to his highblood status.

This is pretty good and comprehensive!

Due to his childhood where he didn’t have control over what his lusus did, he now wants to have control over everything in his life. This makes him a very controlling and manipulative person, bent on doing anything to get his way even if it means experimenting on his lowblooded friends. He doesn’t necessarily like hurting others and doesn’t mean to, Alternian society and his own visions of violence has just made him apathetic. This apathy as well as his low self-worth stemming from his neglect has made him have tons of unhealthy relationships, as well as has made him a perfectionist and narcissist. Despite his supposed belief that the end justifies the means and he’s going to make troll society better, he doubts himself and has an inferiority complex.

His mental deterioration has made him a very unstable troll to be around. He’s still a good troll at heart, however the odds are in disfavor due to his blood color causing him to look down on others lower on the hemospectrum and his own childhood. He does things mainly on impulse and suffers from strange hallucinations and visions of the future ever since he was blinded on his right eye. He’s learned to cope with them and they don’t necessarily harm him, but they do cause him significant distress.

He also has a lot of scars from laboratory incidents, and his neighbors hate him.

fjiodshfuo yeah if my neighbor kept making ungodly noises and murdering people with abandon I may also have a beef with them.

Review Goals: General Overview please! Strife Specibus:

Chemicalkind. He carries around various noxious chemicals to use as he pleases, but sometimes they irritate his eyes when he uses them. He can handle it almost all of the time though. He throws them in bottles and that’s how he fights.

I know I *just* suggested this for my most recent review but bottlekind fits here too because if he runs out of chemicals he can just break a bottle off on a nearby surface and stab someone with the broken glass it’s fun it’s easy it’s free.

Fetch Modus:  I kind of took the idea from a mspa fetch modus entry, since I’m bad at coming up with fetch moduses. It’s unoriginal I know, but I genuinely couldn’t think of anything.

Periodic Table Modus.

It requires Sancti to remember his elements, as he needs to remember them for when he’s working and therefore it helps him but also inconveniences him as he can forget them.

This is how it works:

When an item is captchalogued, a quick calculation is checked to see the size of that item. If it is lower than 190x190, the size of the item is totalled and placed on a slot on the fetch modus that corresponds to the periodic table number. 

For example, an item that is 4 in by 2 in would total to 6, and be in the position of Carbon on the table.

Sancti would then have to open the periodic table modus, which would open as an actual metaphysical table, and retrieve the item.

It is blank, with 118 spaces.

This fetch modus is a little confusing to me as well, and your poor math challenged troll likely also finds it difficult.

…but I think I have an idea that keeps with the spirit *and* the confusion while generating some good old Modus Shenanigans. What about an ORBITAL MODUS, with items filling in in each new category as an electron shell would? All items in the outermost shell would be immediately accessible, with deeply nested items remaining inaccessible until the outer shells were emptied.

Like this. Which is perfect for your chemist troll.

Blood Color: Ceruleanblood/Cobaltblood.

Lunar Sway: Derse, because he is dissatisfied with himself.

Derse and Prospit assignations don’t necessarily have to do with how one feelings about *themselves!* Karkat is Prospit and Nepeta is Derse, which reflects the fact that Karkat has accepted the hemospectrum as the way things have to be despite the horrors it inflicts on him, while Nepeta is extremely happy to be herself, but constantly snipes Equius for kowtowing to the hemospectrum. Even Equius is a Dersite, since he doesn’t agree with the hemospectrum so much as develop a really disturbing fixation over the following and subversion of it.

Given that your troll actively uses the hemospectrum to his advantage and delights in doing so, I’d argue he’s a Prospitan!  Title: I’m unsure if I want to make them a sylph of light or a sylph of space, I’m actually not sure at all what they should be.

Between forensic pathology and genetics and chemistry and being attacked by a zombie and feeling he knows best he’s actually coming off VERY much as a Life player to me. Since you’re bouncing between two Sylph classpects I’m happy to keep that title as long as we acknowledge he’s not currently very good at it :P.

Symbol and Meaning: The symbol for purification by burning. He’s my first troll in the session I want to make. It kind of has the meaning of spiritual cleansing or purifying something that is not pure. In this case I think it relates to Sancti’s personal growth that will happen through the session, reflecting how he has to better himself through painful events.

If we go by the EZ, his sign would be Scorsci, Sign of the Fixer. Which is certainly what he sees himself as! I’ll see if I can play with the symbol you gave him and incorporate the Scorpio M into it.

Handle: gravesideAnopsia

Anopsia is a defect in the visual field or blindness, and graveside refers to how he got his blindness.

We definitely see trolls with retroactively foreshadowy trolltags, but I can’t think of a reason for him to have picked Anopsia before his blinding. What about gravesideConjunct, since he sees himself as the connective tissue between the dead and the living? Which can become retroactively ironic when his eye putrifies after it comes into contact with necrotic tissue, which is basically an extreme version of conjunctivitis.

Quirk: ~~( he types…. zzz….. taking… his time…. with words… and….types in caps when he…..wants to zzz…. ASSERT HIS POINT….)~~

Love this quirk he’s a sleeby boy.

He either keysmashes to laugh as “eoeoeoe” “sksksks” or simply laughs like “haha” or “hehe”. He also uses the following emoji    :)-< and (－‸ლ)

Special Abilities: None, unless you count his visions of the future. But he wasn’t born with psychic abilities.

Idk that he even needs visions of the future tbh. Injury does not always confer abilities in troll society.

Lusus/Guardian: A 2-headed Titanoboa (think of a huuuuuge prehistoric Boa, even bigger than an Anaconda). He considers himself to have two dads as the two heads have separate brains. He calls them “my snake dads”. Him and his lusus have a better relationship now that his lusus is sedated, and he often cuddles with his lusus in between their two heads and feeds them the corpses after he’s done analyzing them. However, their relationship used to be negative and neglectful, as explained above.

Omg yes I love his dads.

Interests: Apart from the sciences listed on his theme, he also enjoys the arts and painting with blood of the corpses he studies, as well as making artistic murals outside to the annoyance of his neighbors. He likes cosmic horror books, doomsday devices and machinery, bodily modification, philosophers, and in his spare game he will play puzzle and roleplaying games (but not FLARPing, he’s bad at it). He thinks about hunting the undead sometimes, and likes horror movies, making friends regardless of their dead or alive status, scaring his neighbors, horror movies, and mindless antics.

Appearance: His hair is very straight, but it tends to get messy. Also the string on one of his horns is a string that got stuck on his horn and it’s hard to remove now.

usghiuserg good. I’m gonna see what I can do to his sprite to convey the “straight but messy” vibe more.

Personality: 

He’s VERY creative, more than analytical, which is an oddity for a scientist, others may think of him as a “creative genius” but he rejects the title of being a mad scientist. He wants to be positively known. He also always tries to finish things and has a general curious personality. He’s always seeking knowledge, and often tires himself out from working too much on his experiments, which causes him to enter a cycle of all nighters vs heavy sleeping. He’s a very heavy sleeper, often taking naps throughout the day. He procrastinates on mundane tasks that don’t relate to his interests or experiments. However, he drinks a lot of caffeinated beverages when he needs to work in order to keep himself awake essentially starting an all nighter cycle.

Depending on the circumstances, he can be very friendly and charming, or quite the opposite. It all depends. He likes to crack morbid jokes that make nobody laugh, and is quite disorganized as well as silly. He cares for his moirail (wip) and matesprit (wip) the most, and even though he sometimes snaps at them, he never wants to lose them.

Land: Land of Dreams and Angels, but depending on the classpect you assign him I will change it.

*Hopes and Dreams plays in the background*

What if he’s Land of Regrowth and Thaw, with the grass being fed by the remains of former consorts and the rest slowly unfreezing from ice as his journey continues? Works with his work with dead bodies and also gives us the vegetation associated with Life.

I also have his introduction written out but idk if I should include it. Here it is:

Your name is SANCTI SERPUS and you’d rather be sleeping, or dead.

You love everything relating to THE SCIENCES, but you are not very good at MATH, or keeping organized. However, you are still considered a “CREATIVE GENIUS”. You love anything that STIMULATES YOUR GRUBBY BRAIN -  such as PSYCHOLOGY, FORENSICS and TROLL BIOLOGY. You do many EXPERIMENTS, most of which involve using troll parts in jars, to create true ABOMINATIONS; and one which sadly took your right eye’s vision and has had you in fear of being CULLED. However, you reject the idea of being a “MAD SCIENTIST”.

In a weird fashion, you also highly enjoy THE ARTS, and paint the walls of your GINORMOUS HIVE and other places with objectively “pretty good” PICTURES made from the BLOOD of the corpses you work with, to the annoyance of your neighbors. You also have a slight interest in BODILY MODIFICATION, in an effort to withdraw attention from your accident, as well as an interest in COSMIC HORROR BOOKS, as any good scientist should have. Another interest of yours is VIDEO GAMES, especially ROLE PLAYING and PUZZLE games, and when you’re not working, you spend your time playing them. You’ve even attempted to CODE your own game, and FAILED.  However, you are not a very good FLARPER.

Despite this, all your work leaves you tired, which means you are a HEAVY SLEEPER and tend to procrastinate even the most MUNDANE TASKS that are not related to your interests. On the days that you are energized from drinking CAFFEINATED BEVERAGES, you like to go outside at night and collect all sorts of RANDOM KNICK-KNACKS, which may include CORPSES and FOSSILS to analyze. This has attracted the attention of your neighbors and BEST FRIENDS, who call you an UNHINGED TOTAL MANIAC. You don’t understand why, until you take off your lab coat to reveal an alarming amount of new scars from LABORATORY INCIDENTS. You really are kind of an ODDBALL. 

This is such a frickin MOOD. Let’s go to the redesign, though I don’t have much!

Horns - you said he got string tangled in his horns but those horns are shaped in a way that makes it pretty easy to untangle stuff! I gave him horns that are Klein-bottle inspired, though it’s obviously impossible for horns to actually grow into a Klein bottle shape. Now THAT’S a mess I wouldn’t wanna tangle with!

Hair - I absolutely ripped a fan-troll template to shreds and put it back together again for this hair, but I think this conveys “basically straight but mussed up” with a little more shape than the original.

Face - I adjusted the proportions and replaced the eyebrows with just the piercings because it was looking a little busy.

Shirt - Again it looked a little busy with the jacket with symbols on both flaps and the pendant in the middle, so I gave him a mad scientist jacket edited from John’s.

Symbol - I tried to find a happy medium between the radial symmetry of the original symbol and the Scorsci M with the arrows.

That’s pretty much it! Hope this helped!

-TR