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#I wanted to talk with her so bad I’ve never seen someone else info dump about dolls before I want to be her best friend 😭
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Mutuals!!! Beasties!!!
We went to an antique mall today for my birthday and look at what I found!!
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The whole top floor was full of vintage toys and dolls/Barbie’s, I wanted to buy everything 😭
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leefi · 3 years
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ORV Liveblog 23 - Abandoned World (II)
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Late...30's?!!!!!! KDJ is 28 this must be a mistranslation
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His mother's already been released from prison for a while, then. Who was this person she was meeting?
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oh kim dokja.....
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oh kim dokja.........
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TSP wanted to know about KDJ's mother when he had the memory recall as a ghost species too, but here I think they're reacting specifically to "that novel was all I had". (again, because i think they're the author)
Kdj's mom is the strongest reminder of the past "reality", and therefore interferes with the Fourth Wall the most strongly. Any sort of trauma can resurface it for him, but hers is the worst. Connections with the original reality hurt Kim Dokja...connections with the original reality break his immersion. We see the word "immersed" used a lot and I don't remember the contexts it is used in exactly, BUT an interesting thing to note is that it was used to describe TSP in the meeting with Persephone (though that can just be translation shenanigans so I'm not putting a heavy weight on that piece of info - also, 4W is a skill exclusive to him).
I don't really have anything conclusive to say, but "immersion" as a phenomena is interesting. My mind jumps to VR.
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KDJ's views on life-taking are not this puritanical. Even for his mother to defend herself and her child against an abuser...there must be something else he's not telling us.
At this point, it already wasn’t a normal conversation between mother and son. This was why I didn’t want to talk to her. I knew what would happen when we talked. We knew too much about how to hurt each other.
I am going to go lie on the floor
There was an awkward silence before I spoke again. “Do you know the book called the Underground Killer? It was previously on the Kyobo bestsellers list.”
Talk about a book emerged all of a sudden. Yoo Sangah thought the previous topic was closed and replied awkwardly, “I think I’ve heard of it. Wasn’t it an amazing bestseller?”
“It was an essay written by an abused woman in prison after she killed her husband. It was praised by critics at the time. They said that a Korean version of Notes from Underground had come out. Of course, it was completely overrated.”
Yoo Sangah’s face suddenly darkened. She had noticed. I hadn’t changed the topic at all.
“That’s right. My mother wrote it.”
This...explains so much.
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having his own life and trauma put up as a spectacle for others to see...no wonder he considered a story that only he could read so precious to him. oh kim dokja......
but does he not consider that maybe putting it down on paper was cathartic for his mother as well? there's the consuming of a story as catharsis, yes, but it isn't just borne out of nowhere. somebody labored to write that all down, and that can be healing within itself as well. though from what little I've seen, his mother doesn't seem to really care, and is a cold enough person that sharing her story was just opportunistic. though that could be a trauma response within itself too. you get trauma and you get trauma and you get trauma
anyway, moving back to the present - to have had spectators cheering him on and showering him with currency for this past month while people are being slaughtered around him? holy shit. i cannot imagine the rage and violation that kdj is feeling right now.
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on twitter we call this "trauma dumping".
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not gonna get emotional over this. not gonna get emotional over this not gonnaaaaaWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I am so glad that we have YSA here. Because everyone has good hearts. but they are also so cagey and guarded and and angry and quick to retaliate but ysa is so kind. and she lets herself be vulnerable and it makes me cry T_T (in a good way!) she hasn't lost that vulnerability yet and I truly hope she never does. I'm so happy that kdj has her around!! not for moral reasons - like I said he already has a good heart - but just to establish some kind of sense of normalcy? an affirmation that it's okay to scream and cry and feel sorry for yourself and find it all unfair. tl;dr i need ysa to host a group crying session. please. y'all are gonna start biting other people if you don't get that out. see kdj this is why you're saying insane shit all the time 😒 you're invested in repression and a god complex when you should be investing in collapsing in your friends' arms and letting it all out 🙄🤧
And I'm really glad that YSA has KDJ here!! not just because she may not have been able to live without him, but because she's mmmmfjdueushsh. wjdhhsheehhshsfjshshs YSA...😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔 it helps that she's around someone who always has a plan/solution. everyone's suffering but this is such a shell shock for her and the kids (Jihye included) the most. When she cried by the fire...*makes grabby hands at her* give her to me. give her to me let me give her a hug 😭😭😭😭😭
God!!!! Everyone is so repressed!!!!!!!!!! *Points to KDJ and HSY* ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY YOU TWO. YJH IS JUST AS BAD BUT I FEEL LIKE HE AT LEAST HAS SOME DEGREE OF SELF AWARENESS ABOUT IT. You two are like 👩🏻‍🦯🧑🏻‍🦯
One more thing I want to talk about. The parallel ways that KDJ compares himself to YJH (the "character") and YSA (the "person") are so interesting to me. "I can't do this, I'm not the protagonist...I'm not a protagonist...I'm not Yoo Jonghyuk". vs. "Yoo Sangah is a real life protagonist. She always knows just what to do. The world seems to turn towards her..." etc. etc. Kim Dokja is constantly telling himself that "I can't do that, I can't be that" when he is already doing that, and more. He's this story's savior.
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snowdice · 3 years
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Big Bang (Sort of) Editing Story [Day 29]
I started writing this fic while editing my Big Bang story, but am going to continue doing it for other things now that Kill Dear is out. I will write and publish 100 words of the story every time I finish doing whatever task I’m doing. If you’d like to block these proceedings, please feel free to block the tag proofread stories. I will reblog this post with the parts of the story I do today. Edited chapters are linked; everything else I’ve done so far is under the cut.
My Master Post Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
I’m giving myself the night off schoolwork and going to catch up on some editing and other stuff. So, let’s have fun with the babies!
Over the course of the next three days of Virgil’s captivity, Virgil would come to the conclusion that his captors were idiots.
This thought flickered to life once again as Logan leaned into the closet to point out another constellation on the ceiling, tottering unstably on his knees as his weight shifted forward and distracted by his enthusiasm.
They were alone in the prince’s room. Patton had left only a few minutes before to help his mother in the kitchen (less because she needed help and more to not make her suspicious about why he’d spent so much time away in the last few days).
He wouldn’t be back for a while and Virgil had full mobility in the closet. With Logan leaning over the threshold like that, it would be easy to kill him or even just incapacitate him. One rough yank on his arm would have him completely in the closet. Virgil had no question that he could pin him down so he couldn’t activate the restraints, and even if he managed to do so, he’d have been drawn close enough that Virgil could use his legs. He could either force him to take off the cuffs or, since they automatically went to the second setting when he left the closet, just deal with it until he managed to get away.
It would just be so easy. Yet, he did not. He just watched Logan as he leaned stupidly over an assassin while info dumping about stars.
This was the first day that he hadn’t felt at all tired when he’d drank the provided nutrition and healing potion, though it had never affected him quite as much as it had the first day. Logan said that meant that his injuries must be healed. It was a weird feeling. He didn’t remember when the last time was that he wasn’t damaged in some way. Even before his grueling training, there’d always been bullies at the orphanage and he’d been the youngest and smallest in his age group.
He was also more well rested and fed than he had been in as long as he could remember. He felt better then he knew was possible today, and he suspected that he would only feel better after a bit more time under their care.
He told himself that is why he didn’t lash out now. He was waiting until he was as strong as possible to make sure his escape went as well as it could, even if it was a risk. They’d mentioned that the king would be gone for three weeks. After he returned, Virgil would surely be turned over to people much more capable of actually keeping him well trapped and less likely to feed him well, give him a nice place to sleep, and leave him without injury. It was a gamble to stay, because it was possible that he wouldn’t find another opportunity in time and would get handed over to his fate. Really, if he was being reasonable, he should get out now while he felt good and had a secured opportunity.
Still, he did not. He had not any of the times they’d given him the opportunity in the last few days. Logan finished his sentence and leaned back out of the closet to safety. He still was speaking though in that soft happy tone. Logan liked the stars. He liked to talk about the stars, and Virgil found he liked to listen to him. They tended to end up in this position whenever Patton was away, just talking as Virgil laid in his closet.
Eventually, Logan’s latest story tapered out. There was silence then for a few moments. Virgil stared up at the fake stars on the ceiling. The stars that Logan had made for him when he really did not have to. Virgil had not been expecting lights in the closet, let alone ones so beautiful and thoughtful. Not ones with stories behind them. Just days ago, if someone had told Virgil the prince would be keeping him in his closet for the next few weeks, Virgil wouldn’t have expected a blanket let alone all of this.
He turned his head to look at Logan. “What?” Logan asked.
“Your magic’s very beautiful,” Virgil said.
Logan seemed pleased by the complement, lighting up almost as much as the stars he made. “Well, it’s just a basic light spell,” he said, “though I did make some adjustments to them and the dimmer was a bit more difficult. Anyone could do it with practice.”
Virgil shook his head. “They’re special, I think,” he said. “Your magic’s different than most people.”
“How so?” Logan asked curiously.
“It’s gentle,” he said. “Gentle and warm, like eating the warm soup you fed me a couple of days ago.”
“And other people’s magic feels different?” he asked.
Virgil nodded. “I’ve met a lot of magic users, but it always felt bad. Usually it hurts or makes you feel sick or just makes you uncomfortable. Even healing magic always felt like bugs nibbling at my skin, but the potion you’ve been having me drink in the morning feels… safe. It doesn’t hurt or make me want to cry. It’s just good.”
“Magic often has much to do with the caster’s intentions,” Logan said.
“I think you could poison me gently.”
Logan made an odd expression. “That…” he said, nose scrunched. “That is a strange thing to say.”
Virgil cocked his head. “Is it?”
“Yes!” Logan said, shaking his head. “You are far too comfortable with the concept of death for your age.”
“I’m fourteen,” Virgil argued. “That’s old enough to be sent on missions without a blood compulsion!”
“…A what?” Logan asked.
“A blood compulsion,” Virgil said. “You know, with a multrum.” Logan was frowning at him. “One works in your gardens and you’re a prince. You had to at least have seen one or two. They take a bit of blood and multrums process it into a little bead. Then you’ve got to do what your told or it hurts a lot.”
“I know what a blood compulsion is,” Logan said. “I am simply wondering who would put one on a fourteen-year-old.”
“They don’t,” Virgil said. “They stop putting them on people when they turn fourteen.”
“And exactly what is the age range for it?” Logan asked. Virgil was almost startled by the way his tone was quickly hardening. He’d never heard him be that harsh even when he’d first woken up in his custody. It made Virgil tense up.
“They take kids usually when they’re about 8 and it’s a year of training before your sent on a mission so 9-13,” he said.
“That’s horrible,” Logan spat so violently that Virgil flinched. Logan didn’t seem to notice. “They force children to kill under a blood compulsion?”
“Well, no one really wants to do it without one when they’re that little. They get scared, and usually try to chicken out so…”
“So, they torture them unless they kill someone.”
“I mean… it’s not. They have to agree to the deal.”
“And if they don’t agree to it?” Logan asked.
Virgil thought back to the second time they’d made him get a blood compulsion. It had been with the multrum before Janus, a girl by the name of Alina. He’d made the mistake of hesitating on his first kill and faced the consequences before finally giving in and doing the job. When the second mission had come around, Virgil hadn’t wanted to accept the blood compulsion.
That had been the first time they’d made him drink a binding potion. Logan seemed to be able to get an idea about it by the look on his face.
“So, your options were to be tortured, be tortured in a different way, or murder someone.” Logan looked at him. “You said your fourteen. Have you ever even killed of your own volition?”
“I… no,” he admitted, but quickly added, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t. I know what I’m doing.”
“That explains a lot about your personality and reactions so far.”
Virgil rankled at that for some reason. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Logan just stared at him for a long moment. “What they did, what they are doing isn’t right you know?” he said.
Virgil blinked at him but said nothing. He became more and more uncomfortable in the silence that ensued.
“Would you like to learn more about magic?” he asked. “There are many uses other then to hurt. I can teach you a few basics if you like.”
Virgil was confused about the topic change but was relieved about it. “Uh,” he thought. “Sure. That would be… interesting.”
Logan smiled at him. “I’ll set up something and we can work with it in the next few days. What would you like to learn?”
“Um, I have no idea. What is there?”
Logan considered it for a moment. “We could do a hair color changing potion. Or perhaps a small protection charm or I can teach you to make fire shapes.”
“Protection charm,” Virgil said without hesitation.
Logan gave him a sad smile. “Of course. I’ll start showing you how to make them tomorrow and we can actually make some the next day.”
“Okay,” Virgil agreed.
“Would you like to hear more about the stars?” he asked. Virgil nodded. He once again leaned into the closet to point and Virgil once again did not move to attack. Nor did he attack when that afternoon Patton turned his back on Virgil for far too long when they were alone. Nor did he when they settled him to bed once again in the closet. He told himself it was strategic, but he knew it wasn’t.
Chapter 12
Logan had needed to spend some time performing royal duties today which left Patton and Virgil alone after breakfast. Patton had started out trying to teach Virgil different board games. He’d seemed intrigued at first, but after a few games of checkers seemed to grow bored. Patton had gotten a blank stare when he’d asked if Virgil had any ideas about what to do for fun, so now he was trying to figure out something else they could do. He cast his eyes around at what Logan had in his bedroom.
“How about I read you a book?” he suggested.
Virgil seemed very intrigued by that idea. “Sure,” he said.
“Okay!” Patton said cheerfully. “He popped to his feet and glanced through the small shelf of fiction books Logan kept in his room. He decided to choose one of the lighter ones that Logan and he had liked to read when they were younger. “This one is called The Never-ending Garden,” Patton said. “It’s about a group of four children and their adventures in a garden. It’s full of magic and adventure and friendship! Is that alright with you?”
“It sounds good,” Virgil answered.
Patton happily walked back over to sit next to him. “It is!” he said.
First, he showed Virgil the picture on the cover of a wild looking garden with four kids roaming through it. One of the children was in a little red wagon being pulled by another one wearing a fancy hat. One of the others was walking, looking at a map while the last had a wooden sword. After giving Virgil a couple of moments too look at the picture, Patton cracked it open.
“We start with Lydia’s perspective,” Patton said. “She’s one of my favorites!” He pointed to a picture of a girl in a raincoat at the beginning of the chapter and Virgil leaned slightly closer to see. Then, Patton cleared his voice.
“It had been raining that day,” Patton began, “but Lydia had been so bored that she still begged her father to go out and play when the storm lightened into a sprinkle. He made her change from the yellow dress she had been wearing into the one she often used to help him garden because he knew she was certain to get herself muddy. Her younger brother Marcus asked if he could come too and though part of her wanted to say no because she wanted to explore on her own without her baby brother slowing her down, her father had taught her to be a good big sister, so she agreed to let him come.”
Patton watched Virgil out of the corner of his eye as he read about Lydia meeting up with the neighbor boy, Al, and the three children started to explore the garden in Lydia’s backyard. Virgil leaned in slightly to look at the pictures and listen to the story intently as the three children traveled deeper and deeper into the garden, but never made it to the back fence. They’d just made it to the part where they heard rustling behind the blackberry bush which Patton knew was the last main character, Melly, when Patton felt the need to adjust his posture a bit. Virgil moved in kind and ended up leaning further into Patton.
Without even really thinking about it, Patton brought his arm around to touch the top of his head. Virgil flinched the second Patton made content and Patton drew the hand away immediately. “Sorry,” he said with a wince. Patton was a naturally touching person and he’d been having trouble battling his instincts to cuddle everyone and everything while around Virgil, but he knew most touch was not welcome. The poor thing startled every time Patton went to touch him unannounced and even sometimes when he’d said something before doing it.
“I-it’s okay,” Virgil said.
Patton gave him a tight lipped smiled and turned back to the book.
He stilled a second later when Virgil leaned back in and their shoulders brushed. He blinked over at him. “Oh,” he said softly. “Do… do you want me to touch your hair?”
Virgil curled up into himself a little bit but then nodded.
“Okay,” Patton said. “I’m going to put my arm around you and do that then, okay?” He drew upon his years and years of convincing easily startled cats to allow him to give them pats as he slowly moved his arm back to where it had been before and gently touched the side of his head. He tensed, but didn’t startle this time, and so Patton gently ran his fingers through the hair a couple of times. Eventually, the tension bled out of him and he sort of slumped against Patton’s shoulder. Patton just barely restrained a coo before going back to reading. He continued to stroke the side of Virgil’s hair as he described the gang meeting up with Melly and them being told she was a fairy that lived in the garden.
He'd only gotten to the part about them finding the wagon when Virgil started to shift a bit uncomfortably, his neck craned in an awkward angle. Patton kept reading as he brought the hand in his hair down to his shoulder and pushed lightly. There was the slightest bit of resistance as Virgil didn’t know what he was trying to do, but then he allowed Patton to move him. Patton leaned back a bit and picked the book up off his lap before continuing to push him down. Virgil did not help at all, seeming confused about what was going on.
Patton had to poke him around until he was on his back laying across Patton’s lap. He grinned down at the boy who was looking at him in blatant bewilderment and propped the book up on his chest. He held it there with one of his hands and stretched the other out to resume messing with his hair. Virgil relaxed into the new position after a few minutes of reading, eyes shutting as he enjoyed the attention. His eyes would flicker open every time Patton moved to show him a picture, but other than that, he seemed content to not move.
Eventually, he stopped responding when Patton moved to show him the pictures.
“Are you asleep?” he asked quietly. When he didn’t get a response, he bookmarked the last picture Virgil had responded to, and then continued reading to himself.
Eventually, there was a knock at the door. It was the one he and Logan had decided on to tell the other one that it was just them and not to panic when the door opened. The door opened to Logan a moment later.
He paused, taking in the sight of the assassin sprawled across Patton’s lap like a sleepy kitten. He shook his head fondly and walked over to them on silent feet. He bent and pressed a hand to the top of Virgil’s hand. Virgil stirred just barely, but didn’t open his eyes, pressing into the touch a bit.
Logan smiled. “He wanted to learn how to make protection charms today. I assume you’d like to join us?” Patton perked up and nodded happily, making Logan chuckle softly. “I will go set it up then. Would you like another book for the time being?”
“Just the one I was reading last night would be nice,” Patton said.
“Of course.” Logan stepped away to grab it and handed it to him. Then, he disappeared into his potion’s lab. Patton smiled down at Virgil’s sleeping face and settled the new book onto his chest to replace the children’s book. He didn’t even stir.
Chapter 13
Logan was able to quickly set up the station for making protection charms. Patton had always liked making them, though he often used his more as fun accessories than for protection. The one he was going to show Virgil how to make was a very simple low level one used for little more than to keep bugs off of yourself and, in the event of a well made one, alert one to imminent danger by changing temperature. It was a nice thing to hold in the middle of the night if one was frightened by real or imagined threats. It would be warm to the touch when your environment was safe; he thought Virgil might appreciate it.
He and Patton decided to wait until Virgil woke up naturally which only took about 30 minutes. Then, Logan brought him to his set up supplies. He explained briefly the process for making a protection charm. “I will be the one performing the enchantment for today,” he told Virgil. “I will show you how to make your own later, but I thought seeing how to make them would help with the learning process.”
“Plus, it’s fun!” Patton said.
Logan flashed a smile at him. “And that as well. I’ve prepared a small number of possible pendants for you to choose from. You can choose the shape and color, then we will put on a custom engraving, as well as decorations.”
“Glitter! Glitter! Glitter! Glitter!”
“Yes, Patton, everyone knows you’re going to choose glitter,” Logan said, amused, “but why don’t we let Virgil decide for his own pendant?”
“Fine,” Patton said, “but mine will be glitter.”
Logan grabbed the box of blank pendants and offered it to Virgil. “Choose whichever one feels right,” he suggested. Virgil moved forward and looked over the box. “You can touch them,” Logan said. “In fact, I would suggest it as it is meant to be held when it’s done and you may as well get a feel for it.”
At his prompting, Virgil did. He reached into the box and shifted a few to the side. Eventually, he started picking a few up. “I like the crescent shape for holding the most he said,” holding a blue one up, but I don’t know.”
“What’s your favorite color?” Patton asked.
“Oh, um,” he mumbled. “I dunno.”
“Well here,” Patton said, reaching for the box. He dug through it and pulled out every single crescent moon shaped pendant and lined them up. “What do you fancy?”
Virgil considered them all for a long moment and then tentatively pointed the purple one out.
“Great!” Patton said. “Then, we’ll use that one.”
Virgil nodded and Patton picked up the pendant to drop it into his hands. His fingers curled over the shape and he seemed satisfied by the choice, so Logan turned to Patton. “Your turn,” he said.
Patton happily grabbed out a heart shaped blue one, but then paused and exchanged it for a purple one. “We match!” he said.
Virgil smiled slightly at his enthusiasm, and Logan dug out a blue crescent moon shape for himself. “Now that you have your base, you get to choose the engraving.” He opened up the instruction book to the correct page and showed it to him.
Virgil looked over the two pages of designs with carful focus. He wavered between the spiral sun and the flames for a moment, but eventually settled on the flames. Patton chose the interlocking hearts design as anticipated; it was his favorite, and Logan chose the spiral sun design for himself.
“Now, I’m going to engrave this design onto yours,” Logan said getting out the thin pen like instrument and dipping it into the slightly glowing bottle of potion he’d set out. “In the meantime, Patton will show you what we have for decorations.”
He was careful to get the symbol as perfect as he could and then started on Patton’s. Patton apparently managed to corrupt the boy because both of them came back with brushes and glitter to add as decoration.
Logan shook his head and handed them their freshly engraved pendants. “Apply the glitter how you like,” Logan said, moving on to his own engraving. Once he was finished, he selected some glow in the dark paint to decorate his own.
Once he’d finished decorating his own pendant, Logan looked up. “Are you finished?” he asked.
“Yep!” Patton said, shoving his pendant at Logan while Virgil nodded. Virgil had been far less enthusiastic than Patton, having carefully brushed glitter into the flame design only whereas Patton had haphazardly covered his own all over with glitter. Logan took both pendants.
“This,” Logan said, bringing over a different potion, “is used to make sure the decorations never fall off. It basically allows the other substances to become a part of the stone. “It isn’t too dangerous, but I’d suggest you stand back for the moment.”
Virgil stepped back farther back than was strictly necessary and gave the potion bottle a wary look. Logan moved all three pendants to the prepared surface (else they ran the risk of also getting stuck to the table) and put on gloves, having learned that magically gluing rocks to ones hands was not fun years ago. Then, he carefully drizzled a bit of the potion onto each rock. The rocks fizzled loudly, and Virgil gave off a startled yelp before toppling over flat on his face with his wrist glued to his sides.
“Oh no, honey,” Patton said immediately crouching next to him. “I’m sorry. We should have warned you about the noise.”
Logan wasn’t sure what type of action he’d tried to take when the sound started up, but whatever it was, it had caused him to move his arms fast enough that he’d activated the binding potion and it snapped his wrists to his side, overbalancing him.
Patton’s hands hovered over the startled boy, but he didn’t touch. After a few moments, it was clear that the magic keeping Virgil’s hands at his side released because his hands slowly crept forward to push himself up, so his face wasn’t planted against the ground. His eyes still looked incredibly startled.
“Are you alright?” Patton asked.
Virgil blinked. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said.
Logan took his words as permission to move without risking startling him more. Virgil’s eyes bopped back and forth between him and Patton a few times as he crossed to his wall of potions and grabbed one.
He also selected a clean cloth from a basket on his way over to them. “A light healing potion,” Logan explained as he knelt in front of Virgil. He uncorked it. “May I?”
“I’m fine,” Virgil said with a frown. “I’m not even bleeding. It’s barely anything.”
“Which is why it’s a light healing potion,” Logan said. “You are sure to bruise with the way you hit. This will prevent it and make it stop hurting.”
“Okay,” Virgil agreed after a moment. Logan dribbled a bit out onto the rag. After a moment of thought, he touched the damp part of the cloth with his own finger, just to quash any fears that it would harm him.
“It will tingle slightly,” Logan warned. Virgil tilted his face to let him dab it onto his nose and the light scrape on his face. His nose scrunched up and he moved to rub the sensation away quickly only to have his arms slam back to his sides.
Patton caught him so the sudden involuntary movement didn’t cause him to fall back, and then giggled when Virgil titled his head to what could only be described as pout back at him.
“Aw, poor thing,” Patton cooed, reaching forward to rub a hand across the top of his nose and then his forehead where the potion had been applied for him.
“Better?” Patton asked.
“You’re really bad at this being captors thing,” Virgil commenting, willingly leaning back into Patton. Patton just smiled happily.
Logan took the bottle and got to his feet, before returning it, and then glanced at the pendants as Patton helped Virgil to his feet. The pendants had stopped fizzing, so Logan felt okay reaching in and grabbing them all.
He handed both Patton and Virgil their pendants when they walked closer to the table.
“And now for the actual enchantment,” Logan said. “For today, I already prepared the potion up to the last step as it has to sit for a few hours, but I will show you the last step and eventually teach you everything if you are still interested.”
Virgil nodded, but said. “No more noises?”
Logan smiled. “No more noises,” he confirmed. Then he pushed forward all of the ingredients he was about to put in the pot for Virgil to study one by one before putting them each in it in the correct order. Then he demonstrated how to stir it correctly and told him how many times, though he doubted he’d be able to retain all of the information from this one demonstration. “There,” he said, setting down his spoon. “Now we just all put our pendants into the pot, and they should be ready in 25 minutes.”
Logan showed Virgil around his potion’s lab while they waited, explaining what certain pieces of equipment did and a bit about his organization system. Virgil followed him around, looking at the things he pointed out curiously. He, however, got very distracted when Logan showed him one of the experiments he’d concocted. It was a thick liquid that was super attracted to itself and would form a small ball that could be disturbed by touching it. He seemed to like the sensation of squishing it down onto a table… over and over and over again.
“We should get him a ball of yarn,” Patton said out of the corner of his mouth. He may have been enjoying watching Virgil play with the substance more than Virgil was enjoying playing with it himself. And that was saying something.
21984
Eventually, however, the pendants were finished, and he dragged Virgil away from his new toy to show him the finished product.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“Is it supposed to be warm?” Virgil inquired.
“Yes,” Logan replied. “It’s temperature changes based on if the magic on it senses a threat or not. Warmer temperatures mean you are safe.
“Oh,” Virgil said softly, hand squeezing around it. “I like it.”
Logan found himself smiling. “I’m glad. It’s yours.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“If you would like, I’m sure Patton has some suggestions if you’d desire a way to keep it attached to your person. He in particular likes to make them into necklaces or clip them to his clothing.”
Virgil looked over at Patton and nodded shyly. Patton immediately perked up. “I’ll go get some supplies!” he said.
Chapter 14
“So then,” Patton was saying. “We ran to the stables.”
“We went to gazebo first,” Logan cut in.
“Right, we tried to go to the gazebo first,” Patton corrected, “but Mr. Deknis was over there tending to the tomatoes, and we knew he’d tell Mama the second he saw us. So, then we turned around and went to the stables.”
Virgil tilted his head, listening to the story Patton was telling. Patton was not the best storyteller. He tended to get lost in the middle and embellish, though Logan always corrected him. It was still very entertaining to watch though because he got incredibly animated. He’d even toppled himself over in excitement a couple of times.
Virgil squeezed the small pillow he had in his lap. He… wasn’t 100% sure what was going on. Logan and Patton had settled him on the blanket covered ground near Logan’s bed and proceeded to feed him snacks and talk about a lot of different things. It had started with them talking about what they’d done that day, and when Patton had made reference to something Virgil hadn’t understood, the two of them ended up talking about things from their childhood.
Virgil found himself entranced by their stories about playing in and running around the castle. It was all so different from what Virgil had experienced.
“…but, right as we were about to get to the ladder to climb up into the hay loft, Logan tripped!” Patton said, arms whipping around him. “He fell into a container of grain for the horses and it spilled all over the place. He tried to get up but grabbed the edge of the water trough and apparently it wasn’t very secure because it fell over and soaked him. So, then he was wet and covered in grain. He looked hilarious.”
“I did not!” Logan protested, but it did not sound like all of the other times he’d corrected Patton’s stories that night.
Patton looked over at him. “You did! You woke up the cute stable hand and he laughed himself silly at you, and by the time we got you even partially cleaned up, your dad had already found us. That’s how we got caught.”
“I have no recollection of these events,” Logan clearly lied, his cheeks a bit flushed.
“Liar,” Patton claimed. “You complained about picking grain out of your sheets for weeks.”
“No,” Logan growled.
“Yes! It’s okay. It was a good laugh.”
Logan’s eyes narrowed on him, and he looked pissed, but a second later, his expression lightened up. “You know what else was a ‘good laugh’?” he asked.
There was a second of silence before…
“Don’t you dare Logan.”
Logan looked him directly in the eye. “Patton was thirteen,” Logan started, but was interrupted the next moment when Patton lobbed a pillow at his head. Logan grabbed the pillow and leaned forward to smack Patton back with it. “He was thirteen and had just ‘discovered boys’ as his mother and my father called it when they attempted to explain his behavior to me. The focus of said ‘discovering’ at the time was the son of an ambassador from Lamir” who was staying for the summer, a seventeen-year-old boy by the name Bernardo.”
Virgil flinched back as Patton suddenly threw himself across the semicircle they’d made with their bodies to tackle Logan to the ground. He watched as they ineffectually wrestled on the ground for a few seconds before Logan, voice strained continued to speak, while battling Patton’s hands away from his mouth.
“Patton’s only knowledge about flirting… ow… at that point was laughing at everything someone said and touching their arms and shoulders.” Logan managed to flip himself onto his stomach which was a horrible move as far as Virgil was concerned. It put him at a disadvantage to get out of the pin. However, Patton just kept reaching for his mouth and didn’t bare down on his neck to try to cut off his oxygen like Virgil expected. So, perhaps it was a rational move. “Our parents were speaking leaving Patton, Bernardo, and I in the garden,” Logan mumbled into the ground. “Bernardo said something ‘funny’ and Patton went to slap his shoulder while laughing, but shoved too hard… Patton did you just lick my face?!”
“And I’ll do it again if you don’t shut up!” Patton threatened. That was a… weird fighting strategy.
Logan paused to consider his options. “He shoved Bernardo into the fountain and when Bernardo asked him why he did that, he ran away and wouldn’t talk to him the rest of the summer!” Logan rushed out.
Patton reached over and grabbed the nearest pillow, proceeding to whack him viciously in the back of the head. Logan was lucky the nearest object was a pillow and not something any sturdier. “It’s not funny!” Patton yelled, smacking him even more, which was when Virgil realized Logan was laughing despite the pinning and pillow pummeling. “It’s not!” Patton said. “I really liked him!!”
“He was seventeen!” Logan said. “It was never going to happen!”
Patton groaned and rolled off of Logan to lay on his back and stare at the ceiling. “But he had so many muscles,” Patton said. “He probably could have thrown me 10 yards.”
“And that is… a benefit?” Logan asked, rolling over onto his side to face him.
“You don’t. Get me.” Patton tilted his head to look at Virgil. “Anyway,” he said. “That is the story of how I died at 13.”
Virgil stared at him, and Patton’s forehead crinkled looking at him.
“Is something wrong, honey?” he asked.
“What was that?” Virgil asked.
“What was what?”
Virgil just blinked at him. Patton seemed to think for a moment.
“Oh, did you think we were fighting?” Patton asked. “Like, really fighting?”
“You weren’t fighting?” Virgil asked.
“No, sweetie,” Patton said. “We were just playing.” He popped up into a sitting position. “Well, play fighting, but emphasis on play!”
Virgil looked over at Logan for confirmation. “No one is harmed nor was there any intention to harm each other,” he assured.
Patton grabbed the pillow he’d been smacking Logan with. “Like this!” he said. “Bap.” Unlike how he’d smacked Logan ruthlessly, he basically just touched Virgil’s shoulder with it.
Virgil squinted at him.
“Bap!” Patton said again, smacking him again, this time with a little bit more force and on the cheek. Virgil’s nose scrunched up. “Pillow fight!”
“Pillow fight?”
“You try,” he said, pointing to the pillow in Virgil’s lap.
Virgil glanced down at the bands around his wrist. “Um…” he said. “I don’t think I can?”
“Oh, right,” Patton said with a frown. He bit his lip and glanced over at Logan. “Maybe…”
“Ill-advisable,” Logan said.
“But…” Patton said. “Pillow fight.”
“We would have to be very cautious and make sure there were no weapons in the area.”
“No weapons but pillows!”
“Fine,” Logan relented to whatever was going on. “Let’s clear the area.” Virgil watched them with mounting confusion as they removed everything within a few meters radius of him except for pillows and blankets.
“There!” Patton said after a minute. “All done!”
“What are you doing?” Virgil said.
“We’re going to have a pillow fight,” Patton said.
“But I…”
“We’ll temporarily allow your restraints to be in the third setting like when you’re in the closet.”
Were they serious? Were they stupid? Virgil could have killed them dozens of times with the second setting and now they were giving him even more range of motion?
“You have to promise not to try to hurt anyone though,” Patton said. Virgil stared at him dumbly, as Patton held out his pinky finger. “Pinky promise.”
“Pinky promise?”
Patton nodded solemnly. “We lock pinky fingers and make a promise. It’s the most binding promise in the universe.”
Virgil looked at his finger, confused. He’d never heard of that type of deal. “What kind of magic is it?”
“No magic,” Patton said. “Just friendship.” Virgil tilted his head but brought his hand up so Patton could twine their fingers together. “Now, promise you won’t hurt anyone.”
“I promise I won’t hurt anyone,” he said.
“It’s a deal!” said Patton, squeezing Virgil’s finger with his own briefly before drawing away. “I trust you.” Virgil felt a rush of something that was no type of magic he’d ever come into contact before but was definitely far more powerful.
Logan came over to them and waved his hand over the restraints on Virgil. They buzzed slightly and Virgil looked between them. “So, I just hit you with pillows?”
“Try not to hit too hard near the face, and Lo and I should probably take off our glasses before we start, but yeah,” Patton said, taking his glasses off as he said it. It was yet another foolish move on his part. “It’s fun, and it doesn’t hurt.”
“Okay…” Virgil said.
“I will demonstrate,” Logan said as he took a pillow and smacked Patton in the stomach.
“Hey! No fair!” Patton giggled. “We haven’t started yet!” This did not deter Logan however, as he continued to smack Patton with a pillow.
“On the contrary,” he said. “It has started, and we’re getting you first.”
“No,” Patton whined, but the way he crumpled to the ground under the onslaught seemed far too staged to make Virgil worry. He didn’t even try to curl up into a ball or to protect his head, just taking the hits and giggling.
Logan looked up at Virgil and motioned with his head. Virgil inched over and looked down at Patton. Logan slowed for a few moments. “Go on,” he urged.
Virgil bit his lip and reached forward to smack Patton lightly with his pillow which seemed to do nothing to him but renew his peels of giggles. From there, it was easy to continue. Logan picked up the pace of his strikes and he and Virgil proceeded to ‘fight’ Patton until he couldn’t breath through his laughter and pushed the pillows away, curling up on his side to recover.
23897
“No what?” Virgil asked when Patton sat up.
“Now I get vengeance!” Patton said, popping to his feet and smacking Logan in the face. “Help me Virgil!” So, Virgil turned on Logan and he and Patton gave the prince the same treatment. Then, because it was only fair, it was Virgil’s turn, though they were a lot more careful with him then they’d been with each other, and really Patton spent more of the time checking in on Virgil then actually hitting him with the pillow. It was nice. Fun. And when Virgil pushed them away, they pulled back. Then, it was Patton’s turn again and they went around teaming up on each other and sometimes just smacking at each other at random.
Eventually, they slowed, and all ended up laying near each other on the floor.
“Well, that made me hungry,” Patton said, sitting up and stretching. “I asked Mama to make us a bunch of mini sandwiches with different flavors. I’ll go get them.”
He hopped to his feet to walk over to where they’d stored the food earlier in those little glowing magical balls Logan had for food preservation.
Logan and Virgil sat up too, and Virgil offered him his wrists.
“Right,” Logan said with a blink. He made a motion and Virgil could feel the magic weighing down his hands once again. He’d almost forgotten, Virgil thought with an internal sigh. They’d given an assassin free range of motion, had a pillow fight with him, and almost forgotten to restrain him again. What was Virgil going to do with these idiots?
Chapter 15
Patton strolled up to the doors to the royal wing, his arms crossed casually around his middle.
Kalani raised an eyebrow as he approached and gave her the most innocent expression he could. “Whatcha got there, Pat?” she asked.
“Hmm?” he asked, as his sweater squirmed. “What do you mean?”
She considered him for a moment. “Well, I see nothing suspicious here,” she said. “Do you Owen?”
“Nothing,” he replied without hesitation.
Patton grinned at them both.
Kalani leaned in like she was going to tell him a secret. “Who is it?”
Patton made a show of glanced around like he was hiding it from anyone passing by. Then he shifted around to pull up just the bottom of his sweater.
A small black paw reached out from the depths of his sweater and swatted at the air.
“Ah, I see,” Kalani said, reaching out to touch the little paw. “Hello, Mittens.”
Patton giggled as Owen poked the cat’s stomach gently through the sweater, making her wiggle a bit and try to bite him.
“Well,” Patton said. “I better be off with my totally normal sweater.”
Kalani nodded and stepped to the side, and Patton was free to head down the hallway to Logan’s room. Patton knocked on the door with their new extra secret knock and Logan all but ripped open the door. “I’m late. I have to go,” he said, darting past Patton.
Patton smiled, happy that his plan to be running a little late to come watch Virgil had worked so well, even though he felt a little bit guilty about it. He hoped Logan wasn’t late to his meeting, but he also knew that if Logan had noticed Mittens, he wouldn’t have let her into the room.
Virgil was already out of the closet, sitting on one of the chairs. Patton came in and smiled at him. Unlike Logan, Virgil’s attention was immediately drawn to the oddly shaped lump in Patton’s sweater.
“You’re not very good at hiding things,” Virgil said.
“It worked on Logan,” Patton defended himself.
“Logan was about to rocket into space if you didn’t show up in 5 seconds,” Virgil pointed out. Patton just shrugged, and Virgil tilted his head. “What do you have?”
Patton grinned wide and carefully pulled Mittens out of his sweater. She did not resist this maneuver at all, simply purring. He held her up for Virgil to see. “Ta da!”
“A cat?” Virgil said.
“This is Mittens,” Patton said. He then turned to Mittens. “Mittens, this is Virgil. I thought I’d introduce the two of you!”
Virgil blinked at the cat. Mittens blinked back. Patton thought maybe he should have let them sniff each other from under a door before doing this.
He didn’t need to worry though, as Mittens started purring after a moment. “You can pet her,” Patton offered. Virgil looked up at him. “Just…” he said.
“She likes chin scratchies!” Patton prompted.
Virgil reached out a hand to scratch under her chin and that was the end of it. Mittens stretched out her chin happy to get the attention and Virgil’s eyes widened at how soft her fur was. It was a work of minutes before Virgil was sitting down on the floor and Mittens was happily kneading his thighs and spinning around in circles to make sure he pet every inch of her.
“I did not understand why people like cats,” Virgil commented. “All I’ve seen of cats is people coming back with bloody scratches from trying to pet them, so I never even tried.”
“Well,” Patton said. “Cats are just like people. If you’re nice to them, they’re more likely to be nice to you.”
Virgil’s hand paused briefly on the cat’s head, but then continued with the petting a moment later. Patton wondered what he was thinking about, but didn’t press.
“She seems to like you,” Patton said.
“Don’t know why.”
“Hey, don’t be mean.” Patton scolded.
Virgil hands jerked away from the cat he’d been petting and then were forced abruptly to his side in reaction. Mittens meowed, seemed very unhappy with the jostling as well as the sudden lack of petting.
“Sorry,” Virgil said, eyes wide. “What did I do wrong. I didn’t mean to be mean to her.”
It took Patton a moment to sus out what he was talking about and felt a pang in his chest when he did. “Oh, no honey. You didn’t do anything wrong. I meant don’t be mean to yourself.”
Virgil gave him a confused look. Mittens bumped her head against his chin and with a blink, he cautiously went back to petting her.
“Of course, she likes you sweetie, you’re a good boy.”
“I came here to kill the king. I’ve killed before.”
Patton smiled sadly. “I don’t think you ever wanted to,” he said. Virgil seemed to grow very interested in mitten’s ears. Patton scooted over so he was sitting beside him and carefully brought a hand up to touch the top of his head. Virgil sort of curled into him, pressing his face against Patton’s shoulder, but continuing to pet the cat.
“It’s fine. You’re going to be okay now,” Patton said softly.
Virgil shook his head against Patton’s shoulder.
“Yes,” Patton insisted. “You’ll be okay. You won’t have to go back.”
Virgil didn’t respond for a long moment. “You can’t keep me in Logan’s closet forever,” he said softly. “When his dad comes back, you’re going to have to turn me in.”
Well, that was true, but… “It’ll be okay. No one will hurt you.”
“The kings would be assassin?” Virgil asked skeptically.
“Thomas is nice. He’ll understand.”
“He’s nice to you. He’s nice to Logan. Maybe he’s even nice to the people he rules over, but what am I? An enemy assassin who would have slit his throat if I hadn’t gotten the wrong room.”
It…it did sound bad when he put it like that, but, but… “Thomas will understand,” he promised, hugging him tight. “He will, and we’ll keep you safe and I’ll introduce you to every single cat in the castle. In fact, we’ll get you a cat to keep as a pet if you want and he or she can snuggle you as much as you want. I’ll show you all around the gardens and introduce you to Mama and help you figure out what your favorite type of cookie is. You’ll never have to hurt anyone again and no one will ever hurt you again.”
Virgil drew away a bit and shot him a half smile. He clearly didn’t believe him, and it made Patton’s stomach twist a bit. Patton knew. He knew Thomas would be nice. There was no way he’d hurt Virgil. Virgil was just a kid and with Logan and Patton on his side, there was no way anything bad would happen to him. He could see it from Virgil’s perspective though.
“I like her feet,” Virgil said, touching Mittens’ little black paw that contrasted her otherwise white coat. Mittens purred and began kneading his legs again with those paws. “I’m guessing that’s why she’s named Mittens?”
“Yeah,” said Patton softly. “‘Cause she looks like she’s wearing mittens.” Virgil leaned forward to kiss her little head and that little action made Patton’s heart ache for him. He deserved so many kitten kisses. So many.
Patton was determined to make sure he got them.
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Hi Elle! I used to follow you on your old mega-popular tumblr. I really love your new one. :) I know that you've lived in a "super spiritual" community for several years now (not sure if you want me to publicly say the place). What is the community like? Is it more bad than good? What are some strengths and weaknesses of the place/people? Thank you! I've heard mixed things and really respect your insights.
Haha I knew I would get this question one day! If I could title my response, it would be, "Why I've Chosen to Keep My Distance from the New Age Community in the American Southwest." I info-dump and write novels, so get ready! =)
I think there is something to be said for defining things neutrally for yourself overall. Fortunately, I've been able to easily do that in this instance due to: 1. Being introverted and not "needing" a big community experience and 2. Having wonderful friends all over the globe that I am able to interact with all throughout my year. With that being said, if I am being 100% honest and real with you, I truly believe that the new age community where I am is more toxic than good. Here is why. I will have a positive note at the end.
A quick preface: I am not calling out any particular individual(s) and will not be naming names.... quite frankly, there are just too many and I'm not here to humiliate people. Secondly, these traits can take place in ANY community, spiritual or otherwise. But these are things that I feel a spiritual community should be more self-aware of... and sadly right now, they are not.
********ATTENTION: There is a big content and trigger warning here: There will be mentions of sui****, sexual *******, and gaslighting/narcissism, terfs, eating disorders, and other things that could be very upsetting. Proceed with caution and stop reading if you find yourself getting stressed, triggered, or deeply upset.*********
1. Malignant narcissism and community insulation from constructive criticism. I have never seen such a ubiquitous display of malignant narcissism in all my life in a collective, save for some conservative Christian environments in my growing up years. Go onto almost any youtube channel for the Sedona community and you will see very few negative comments… why? (And I have watched this for a long time) Almost ANY criticism of anyone’s channel or blog is instantly removed. There was a time when people who simply noted that some of these small “influencers” were saying toxic things were sent cease and desist letters. The community is very tight knit and displays many marks of a cult. One of these indicators is that they all protect each other and hype each other up on their channels and blogs, while labeling ANY criticism (healthy or not) as someone who is being “triggered.” The younger part of the community cares about looking perfect and having everyone worship them, but has very little spiritual substance. It’s always about who did the alien thing “before it was cool” or “who can do a backflip off of a steep cliff without breaking their neck because their synchronicity is on point.” One youtuber said once that she only wanted to hang out with “pretty” people because they were purer expressions of the divine. The older generation expresses narcissism by assuming they know more than everyone else. Good luck having a conversation on controversial topics with any of them. They are right, you are wrong. If you argue, you are “triggered” and “seeking for truth.” If you don't believe that there are reptilians on the moon with a secret base, you've drunk the kool-aid. Not a good environment to foster open sharing and knowledge. The men have a particular problem with this when it comes to topics of sex and intimacy. If you are a woman and don’t want to “surrender” to your partner (in a lot of vague and unclear ways), you are out of alignment with the divine feminine. Most of the men believe that they should be allowed to "hunt" (look for sexual partners/spiritual twin flames) and that women should do everything in their power to be softly feminine so that they can sync up and recognize each other's souls.
2. A full denial of science and medicine. Look, I get it. We all want to solve our own medical dilemmas and use herbs to cure all ills. I try to solve any (non life threatening) health issues I have the “natural” way first too… often, I have great success! The problem comes when the community rejects all western medicine, most science (that doesn’t affirm their beliefs) and any medical opinion that has… actually been to a real medical school. There is a strong anti-vaccination movement coupled with the belief in using yoni eggs religiously and doing colonics every week (though science tells us this isn’t a great idea overall). I used a different type of yoni egg for awhile to see what would happen, but trust me, your pelvic health is going to be better without them. You will be judged harshly for going to a “mainstream” doctor to get antibiotics for a serious infection and will most likely be gaslit into oblivion regarding “what you did to attract” your infection etc.
I have midwifed for many years now and have extensive “mainstream” training to be able to do this legally. Once, I was working with another midwife on a mother who was having her first baby. The laboring woman had an ideal birth in mind like most people do. Long story short, I discerned while she was laboring that the baby was in intense distress and that the mother was displaying very concerning signs of a life-threatening condition. When I insisted on calling an ambulance and getting the woman to the hospital, the other midwife said that I was interfering with nature. I explained simply that if we didn’t get said woman to a hospital, the baby would most certainly die and the mother’s life would hang in the balance. Her response was that: “Some babies don’t deserve to live and I shouldn’t invite karma by interfering with nature’s course.” I called an ambulance anyway and the mother was taken for an emergency c-section. The mother was very disappointed about not being able to follow her birth plan. However, after the birth (she and baby ended up being okay thank goodness) she sat down with me personally and thanked me for making the decision I did. She said that one of the doctors explained that if I had waited another hour, both she and the baby would be dead. Apparently, this other “midwife” had also had her license revoked a year before for endangering a different laboring person and child. This sounds like a stand-alone freak incident, but I can cite 15-20 other situations just like this one where life-threatening emergencies were viewed as opportunities for good karma and growth… and that western medical intervention would invite bad karma.
Regarding science, if you point to the fact that jade yoni eggs are likely to cause an infection, most of the new age community will scoff and say that they don’t trust science (the logic being that science once explained volcanos as angry gods or something and now cannot be trusted overall). If you don't wear blue-blocking glasses anytime you look at a screen, apparently you've already succumbed to mind control. You get my point… It’s so bad that the new age community is willing to endanger people’s lives and place the blame on the victims for being out of alignment with synchronicity. This one bullet point could be talked about for hours.
3. A lack of discernment and victim blaming. Many have heard about Bentinho Massaro and his crew from that time when they swept through Sedona a couple years ago. The core of the Sedona community started blindly following him… some of them wanted to boost their online platforms by being associated with a well-known figure. Others wanted a guru… and others were just curious and got sucked in by his charisma. All one had to do was google him. He has allegations of physically beating his followers, gaslighting people, torturing animals in his childhood, and ignoring the fact that an alarming number of his followers commit suicide. With all of this knowledge at our fingertips, the popular new age “influencers” went so far as to get in polyamorous relationships with him, validate his platform, and gaslight people who, sadly, committed sui**** because of certain things he said in his teachings. It was insane. Now, many of the people who followed him try to pretend it never happened or that they had no part in it. Many of them claim to have “gifts of the spirit” and to have stellar discernment.
One of the people who got into a polyamorous relationship with this person did an Instagram post where she basically said that if someone is being r*ped they should show their attacker love and surrender to what is happening so that they could experience unconditional love and come back to the "light." I honestly couldn’t believe what I was reading at first when I saw it. The part that was heartbreaking was when I read the comments and watched people (not just women and men) berate themselves for “fighting” while something terrible happened to them in the past. A few of them were teenagers. I made it a point to personally message the ones I was able to, and thankfully, a good number did respond positively. This exact issue has occurred on youtube channels, blogs, and in-person encounters. I’m just citing ONE online instance of this horrible, misaligned belief. Keep in mind that the person who did this post abandoned her disabled child with a family she barely knew to pursue a sexual relationship with Bentinho.
4. TERFS/anti-LGBTQ/anti-feminism. This falls under the categories of relationships, sex, autonomy, and social issues, but expands into much more overall.
A chain of videos came out a couple years ago where about 5 women in the new age community each did a presentation on what was wrong with the “divine feminine” these days. They were saying that women had been erased because they were not conforming to gender roles or seeking out conscious relationships. They all referenced that “women are angry” and basically said it was wrong for women to feel this way and that angry female energy was throwing our whole environment out of balance and even contributing to global warming somehow. They empathized with toxic people/men/known violent incels and said that women needed to get over their traumas and be more available for the divine masculine to show up. They dehumanized women by saying they shouldn’t be expressing anger, glossed over sexual a******, and blocked everyone in the comments who took a stand against what they were saying. The general consensus is that feminists are just angry women who need to get over their trauma.
Many people in the new age community also believe that if you incarnate in a particular body with certain biological parts, you incarnated that way for a reason. Changing it extensively is to erase “the spiritual lessons you were supposed to learn.” Basically, they stand against trans people, nonbinary people, gender nonconforming people… etc. I can go deeper with this if you want, but that is the gist of it without writing a novel within a novel.
Most of them take an active stance against intersectional feminism and use exclusive language to shut out anyone who doesn’t conform to the binary. A few of them are more passive-aggressive about how they do this: refusing to show any support for the LGBTQUIA+ community or mention social issues at all, even when someone is pointing out that they did something hurtful or offensive.
5. Appropriating Indigenous cultures and using past lives as an excuse. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard a white new age person say that something is their “spirit animal” or seen one wear Native American/indigenous headdresses to tight-knit community events, citing that they were “Native American” in their past life and that they are entitled to use these symbols, items, and cultural lexicons because of it. (Not that this is the main point… but they tell trans people that they shouldn’t be trans or insinuate that people should conform to the gender binary because they incarnated in a body type for a reason… but make an exception for themselves culturally? Super hypocritical.)
A couple of “woke” guys from the new age community walked around for awhile saying that the Hopi had adopted them into their “tribe” and that the were given Hopi names. I spoke to a few Hopi people about what was happening and they were shell-shocked. That is not something that they do for one thing, and for another, they had never even heard of these people! Thankfully, the behavior stopped after the two men were confronted about it, but this kind of thing happens all the time in various ways. There is a new age store here with a racial slur in the title… bring it up to the owner and she’ll kick you out and launch a smear campaign. Tell one of the white new age women that just because she studies “different traditions” doesn’t mean it’s okay to do rain dances or perform indigenous rituals (Native American, Australian, and others) without permission and they’ll blacklist you. I think many of the new agers operate within this Trojan horse of “I want to accept and validate all cultures”, but do not actually care at all about indigenous voices, feelings, or opinions. Many of them talked a lot about collective trauma in our nation during Black Lives Matter, but wouldn’t actively support it in any way themselves.
6. Let’s talk about mental health. This could go under the science and medicine label, but I think it deserves its own paragraph. Boy is mental health stigmatized in the new age Sedona community…. Real mental health professionals are painted as people who just want to “drug” you and keep you controlled. People with mental health struggles are instantly blamed. “Hell is just a state of mind, you need to change your mind,” is a phrase I have heard more often than not. Ancestral healing, umbilical healing, and random reiki sessions are somehow supposed to take the place of a licensed counselor.
A huge chunk of the “spiritual” community supported a pseudo-therapist who (without any scientific basis) was preaching that any woman who wasn’t sure if she wanted to have children or not by the age of 25 was toxic and needed to be ostracized because “something is wrong there.” A bunch of people believed it and re-posted/shared the teaching.
Another instance occurred where an unlicensed “hypnotherapist” without so much as a bachelor’s degree in anything was using questionable methods to hypnotize clients. During one session a person experienced a severe PTSD flashback and panic attack. She was not brought out of the hypnotherapy session properly or cared for. She ended up having a mental breakdown and having to spend time in the hospital. The charlatan who was treating her said that the client was willfully unresponsive to treatment and refused to confront her demons…
Anyone who is on anxiety medication, anti-depressants or anything else to support their well-being and mental health will be judged aggressively and most likely verbally confronted at some point if they are open about being on medication. The charlatans will throw essential oils into your space saying that they can cure anything. Others will try to get someone to talk to a new age leader in the “inner circle” and attempt to persuade the client that western therapists/psychologists just want to drug people and ignore the spiritual cause of unrest. They’ll cite earthing, crystals, vaginal wands, special teas, dietary habits, and color therapy as causes and answers to everything…. All while regarding victims of sui**** as unfortunate souls and lost causes etc.
7. A summary. I need to sum up other issues here quite quickly or I’ll be typing all day. XD Many of the women here are terrified of gaining weight or looking older. They hide behind the thinning veil of “health and veganism” to justify their worrisome habits to feel sexually appealing to supposedly “woke” men. Disordered eating and terror of eating one granule of processed sugar permeates the consciousness. You can be judged for anything from buying pokemon cards to eating legumes…. of all things. Most of the men are sexual predators who prey on younger women, rely on narcissism as a personality type, and don’t let anyone get a word in edgewise when their opinions are challenged. Many of the women validate these behaviors and blame themselves when they get hurt citing “spiritual growth” as a silver lining to cure all traumas. I would say that 95%+ of the people in the community present a perfect picture of themselves online while having crumbling relationships and failing inner lives. You might see a post or video about “conscious uncoupling” of a spiritual "power couple" and then find out later that someone was in a relationship with a narcissistic predator or was experiencing physical abuse. Sadly, many of the victims gaslight themselves in the uncoupling announcement. Many people here are predators in other ways… they might launch a health business that uses essential oils to replace therapy. There are con artists all over the place who can range from simply overpricing their wares in alarming ways to trying to entrap people in “business contracts” that devastate their lives. I have had personal UFO experiences here and do personally think that extraterrestrial life exists, but I would NEVER try to manufacture a fake experience… One of the UFO tour guides was having people hide out in the desert and flash lights into the sky while people on the tour wore special glasses. Then she was charging an arm and a leg to channel “spiritual messages” from the e.t.s for her clients and saying that if they didn’t receive the message, something bad would happen to them. This is the fluffiest and lightest post I could possibly do to communicate how bad it is in the “spiritual community” here. This is only the tip of the iceberg.
The good news? Sedona is so much more than a toxic new age community. It is GORGEOUS and it does have many good, healthy/normal people here. =) I have had such a beautiful experience in this place and can’t say enough good things about it. I have easy access to healthy foods, endless nature to explore and bask in, and a growing community of people who call the new age community out on its toxicity. I read what I want, play Animal Crossing without blue-blocker glasses, regularly enjoy going to listen to goth music at my preferred venue (I’ve been demonized for this lol), and eat what makes me feel good. My partner and I have had a beautiful and successful relationship for nearly a decade now and create amazing memories every day. We have good friends all around the world… and I have a solid, BIG group of academic colleagues/friends locally who DO ethically cite their sources and contribute positively to science and higher learning. If you’re into paleontology like me, you are in fossil heaven! =D If you love astronomy or astrophysics, we’re in a dark sky city! There are so many cool things to do from playing in LOTR-worthy waterfalls, to sampling delicious vegan creations, to playing DnD on red rocks with your friends while a *real* UFO passes by overhead. Get yourself a smoothie and organic wrap from one of our incredible food trucks and drive out into the desert while listening to Nightvale with your love or your friends. =)
If you ever want a list of must-do’s while visiting, let me know. I’ve got your back! The point is that I just harped on the negative above, but the good news is that you can completely avoid all of the junk. Keep it or scrap it when it comes to the Sedona new age community? I say scrap it. But you can still pursue your spiritual interests in healthy ways here while enjoying all the yummy creature comforts that the Verde Valley has to offer. I hope this helps and if just one person comes here and has a safe experience because of my thoughts, then every moment I’ve spent writing this was worth it. =) <3
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imaginesmai · 4 years
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Mob!Tom Holland - Fawn (8)
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Shout out for the anon who asked me about college reader x Tom, please answer my question!
This is inspired by  Don’t play with fire , @peaceisadirtyword​. It’s an amazing Ivar fic, take a look if you have time! Previous parts  in the general summary. Click here to read the previous parts!
Plot: The options are clear now; you either tell Tom the truth and risk him hating you, or you don’t and you keep putting him in danger. And more than ever, you’re sure you want what’s best for Tom.
“Lisa, I know you’re staring” you broke the silence, not bothering to turn around and watch her pretend she hadn’t been looking. “Quit it already, please”
The photocopier beeped in the background, finishing another round of blueprints for your last project. You were still looking at them in the computer, and had been doing so for at least an hour. It was hard to focus when half of your face was throbbing constantly and you were afraid that the slightest movement would tear the stiches on your forehead. The emergency doctor said that you might find some difficulties in focusing with the concussion, and he hadn’t been wrong.
“I’m not staring” Lisa scoffed from her spot behind you. “I was just – looking over there”
“To the wall or to the empty desks?” you scoffed. “I can feel you staring. Stop”
“Well, if I was staring, which I’m not, it wouldn’t be my fault” you heard the wheeled chair moving, and Lisa appeared on your right. “You’ve cracked your head open, half of your face is black and purple, and you won’t tell me why. I have reasons”
“And I have already told you that I fell down the stairs yesterday”
The lie felt sour on your tongue, the same way as when you had said it in front of the doctor last night. The middle aged man that had been in charge of the emergency room had given you a pointed glare, but hadn’t argued when stitching your head or applying some sticky cream on your cheek.
He had ignored the tear tracks on your face and you guessed it had to do with Richard specifically asking for him when you walked past the hospital’s door. Your boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend, had sat with you out of pure fear of you saying anything, and then had left you on your house without an apology.
You had spent the whole night awake staring at the ceiling, too hurt to cry and too shocked to do anything else. You tried to say to yourself that it hadn’t been Richard’s intention, that he had only wanted to slap you – your head hitting the counter and needing ten stitches wasn’t his fault. But not even your naïve self could believe it anymore.
“I just want to help, if I can” Lisa propped up against your table, leaning her head on her elbows and looking at you. “I’m not – good at friends, and stuff. But you’re my friend, and friends help each other, right?”
“Of course we’re friends” you turned to look at her and chose to ignore the side glance she gave to the other side of your face. “But really, it was just an accident. Nothing more”
“But if you were having any problems, you would tell me, right?”
“Why do you say that?” you frowned. Lisa shuddered and looked behind you, to the big window that lead to the street. She was quiet for a while, and you remembered that Lisa was much more intelligent that people gave her credit for. “Lisa”
“I just – I’ve met guys like Richard before, and they are all the same” she shrugged again, not meeting your eyes. “They are all fancy smiles and sweet kisses until you do something they don’t like and they become, you know, who they really are”
You looked at the girl in front of you and wondered what had happened in her life to make her say that. It occurred to you that you were mildly lucky – after all, it had only been Richard. But she talked as if she had met a lot of ‘Richard’s in her life. You were dying to ask her what she meant by that, but with a quick squeeze on your shoulder and a sad smile, she wheeled the chair back to her place and started typing in the computer. There were other two girls and a boy on the studio, all of them unaware of your conversation; just two people who had started hanging out together lately.
None of them had asked for your face, and that meant that Lisa was far away from the idea you first had of her. You turned back to your work with a small, painful smile. If something good had come out of Richard, it was your friendship with her.
Your mind went on her own accord to the other good thing, to Tom. You hadn’t talked to him since yesterday, and you really hoped not running into him any times soon. One thing was the small bruise you had had on your cheek because of the incident with Claudio, and the other was your face because of Richard. And if he had shot coldblooded to those men, you didn’t want to know what would happen to Richard.
Or more like, you didn’t want to know what would happen to you once he found out the whole truth. The poor excuse about not really doing it willingly or not giving information was becoming old, and the more time it went by, the more guilty you felt.
You were brought out of your thoughts when your phone vibrated in your desk, the screen lighted up. Your breath picked up when a message appeared, afraid it was Richard. But then you picked up the phone and saw the message.
Tom H  [10:13]: Hey fawn
Your mouth fell open when you opened the conversation and saw Tom’s contact staring back at you. His photo was some weird selfie with that blonde bartender, Harrison, you had met the first night, although you couldn’t see them right. Still in a haze, you clicked on the contact info and started at the photo. Tom Holland wasn’t the scary mobster that had shot men without blinking, but a boy with squeezed eyes, a big smile and with a cap backwards, leaning on Harrison’s shoulder.
You went back to the conversation and saw that Tom had sent himself a message when you had given him your phone; not that you had had time to think about it.
Tom H [10:13]: Hope you’re not mad? Cause I’m freaking like a teenager whose crush hasn’t texted him after a fight
You snorted a laugh and quickly covered it with your hand, not wanting anyone in your business. Lisa had gone to the other side of the room to make a phone call, and one of the girls was attending someone. Not seeing any risks, you made yourself comfortable and took the phone with both of your hands.
Y/N [10:13]: should I be?
Tom H [10:14]: Is that a tricky question? I’m not good at this things
Y/N [10:14]: no, I’m not mad 😂
Y/N [10:14]: shouldn’t you be doing something mobsty? Like stealing candies from little kids
Tom H [10:14]: I’m the type of guy who gives them, sorry to disappoint
Tom H  [10:14]: omg that sounded so bad
Tom H [10:14]: How do you delete a message
Y/N [10:14]: too late, I’m reporting it to the police
Y/N [10:14]: if any FBI agent is reading this pls arrest him
Tom H [10:15]: Wouldn’t you like to see me in handcuffs, fawn
You bit your lip as you thought of an answer, momentarily forgetting the throbbing of your face. It was easy, when all that occupied your mind was Tom. Tom, and his cheeky smile that you could almost see through the phone. Tom, and his intoxicating smell that you could never get tired of. Tom, and the warm fuzzy feeling you got whenever you were with him.
Conversation flowed quickly easily between the two of you, with lots of teasing, jokes and smiles. It helped you to forget about Richard, as it always happened when you were with him. Each message that Tom sent you made you reaffirm in your decision of the previous night; you had to cut off any kind of contact with Richard, had to keep him as far away as you could from you, and maybe ask Tom if he would like to catch coffee with you.
The last part, in some way, made your whole day.
-
Lisa had made her way to you once more, that time much more less discreet. On your lunch break, which you had almost missed talking to Tom and not doing any work at all, she had occupied your desk at the café on the other side of the street. It had been the only free desk, so with a resigned sigh that showed that you didn’t want to, you sat by her side. Immediately, and not even looking a bit ashamed, she folded everything she had been ‘working’ on and put her laptop away on her bag. Which was an horrible bright yellow colour, and was hard to ignore from the other side of the desk.
You ordered your usual lunch package; a sandwich, an apple and a water bottle, using the discount people on your business had from proximity. She kept quiet as Rosie, the young girl who served you, asked you about your life in general. She gave your bruise a discreet glance, and you dismissed her by saying it had been your clumsy self. Rosie didn’t say anything else, and left to serve other tables after a few minutes.
Just as you were about to take the first bite of your sandwich, Lisa opened her mouth of non-ending comments.
“Who have you been texting all morning?” Lisa propped her elbows on the desk, and raised a brow. “Because I’ve never seen you so distracted before. Was it a lover I should know about? Finally dumped Richard and you didn’t tell me?”
If anything, what she said only made you feel worse. It wasn’t as if she was just telling you that she knew Richard had done it, but it still hit close home. You weren’t talking to a new lover, but to Tom. Although you didn’t know where did you stand with him, because what you felt when you were with him wasn’t the same as when you were with a friend.
You wondered what was the answer to the last question. Technically, the last words you had said to him were that you wanted to break up, and you still held your ground – you doubted you were going to change it. But that inner voice that had been your loyal friend since you met Tom told you that things with Richard weren’t over yet.
“Uh, I was just texting Tom” you shrugged. Lisa already knew that you talked with him, and that you knew she wouldn’t judge you for it.
“Which question are you answering?” she chuckled, grabbing a piece of her own pasta plate.
“You know which one, Lisa” you said, not really in the mood of her teasing.
Your relationship with Lisa had changed drastically, and one thing that you had improved was in communicating. She had adapted to your way of living and you had adapted to her outgoing behaviour. So she didn’t say anything else about it, choosing only to nod and take another bite. The café wasn’t silent at all, but all you could think were your thoughts.
You were more than aware of the gravity of the situation with Richard, and you knew that he shouldn’t have done it. That, not even counting what he made you do by going to the club, his behaviour was inexcusable. You ate your sandwich in silence, while Lisa made her occasional remark, as if she was afraid of peace. Even if you wanted to think about something else, it was hard when every bite you took made your face ache.
After you had eaten half of your sandwich and had decided that you wouldn’t have any other bite without throwing up, you made your decision. You left it on the trail and used the napkin. Lisa turned to look at you, as if she knew you were going to say something important. You looked at her briefly and then went back to tear the piece of paper in small pieces, wanting to have something in your hands while you said it.
“It was Richard” you muttered, even knowing no one could hear you. You heard Lisa leaving her fork and moving her chair closer. Her hand rested against your shoulder and she squeezed it, but you didn’t look. “I wanted to break up with him yesterday, and he got – it was as if he had gone mad. Shouting, a-and denying it. We had just had an argument. I told him that… he had gone too far, and he just, uh, backhanded me. I fell, hit my head open and he drove to the hospital in silence. Made sure I didn’t say anything and left. And… he still hasn’t said anything, has keys to my house and – I don’t know what to do”
The confession felt like a rush of fresh air, as if you had taken a weight off your chest. Lisa’s hand was still on your shoulder, probably thinking about the possibilities you had thought about the previous night. No calling the police because Richard was the chief, not running away because you had nowhere to go so that he wouldn’t find you, and no telling anyone in town because he would know. Her finger adorned with a long fake nail brushed against your skin, and you almost broke down right there.
Saying it out loud made you feel much more hopeless. Richard could be waiting for you in your living room with his slippers and pyjamas, and you couldn’t do anything. Lisa seemed to reach the same conclusion anyone without the rest of the story would have reached.
“You have to tell Tom” Lisa moved the chain again until there was no physical space between the two of you. “He’s really fond of you, and Richard can’t really do anything with the mob. He’ll –“
“I can’t, Lisa” you hitched a breath and swallowed a sob. “I can’t”
“Why? Tom will know what to do. And he hates Richard as much as I do”
You raised your eyes from the trail and looked at her. Lisa held so much hope and compassion in her eyes that you felt horrible. You felt dirty, knowing that in a way you had used her too; or Richard had. What you two had was pure, because you had seen more of what Richard wanted you to see in Lisa. You thought about the pros and cons of telling her the whole story, and you decided you had to start somewhere if you really wanted Richard out of your life.
Pushing your trail away, you started by telling her how he had talked you about the Holland’s about two months ago, the first important file he shared with you. You told her about your ‘mission’ on the club the first night, how you chickened out and Richard left. How he wasn’t afraid of screaming at you that you didn’t love him, and how you didn’t really do anything against Tom. You also told Lisa about Dom, Claudio, and the origin of the argument with Richard about the micros.
“I can’t tell him, Lisa. Even if I didn’t mean to, I basically sold him to the police” you finished, the napkin dissolved in paper dust.
“You didn’t, Y/N” Lisa talked for the first time. “That asshole played with you without you knowing, it’s no one’s fault by him. Tom will understand”
“Yeah, so I go like ‘Hey Tom, I’m sorry to ask, but could you take care of my boyfriend? Yeah, the police’s chief who beat your friend last week and who told me to spy on you’” you scoffed, your eyes stinging. “I can’t tell him, Lisa”
“Richard has slapped your head open, you have to do something” Lisa insisted. “He can’t – oh my god”
The situation was an alley without exits, and both of you knew it. Richard had made sure that your relationship was perfect from the outside, to isolate you from everyone so that if the conflict came, he was always trusted. You were about to ask Lisa if she had any other solution when you were shook violently from your right side, Lisa moving you as if you were a wool doll. It made dark spots appear on your vision, and you actually felt like throwing up the other half of the sandwich. With the emotions and the concussion, it all felt a little dizzy, but you heard Lisa talking again.
“Tom is here. Tom is – Tom is going to enter. Tom Holland – oh my god, Y/N!”
Indeed, you turned around forgetting the dizziness and you saw him scanning the café. He was receiving some weird glances from the people who walked by and recognized them, but he was focused on finding someone. And judging by the conversation you had just remembered, when he asked to get lunch with him and you joked that only if he paid, that someone was you.
The thing was that you hadn’t thought he was serious, since his question was introduced by a ‘what if’ and ended with a ‘what would you say’. But there he was, wearing a black tee with dark blue jeans, hands hidden on its pockets. You didn’t bother in staring anymore and turned around, placing a hand on your bruised face and looking to the other side. You swallowed the hiss and pretended to be leaning against it and looking to the other side.
“Don’t stare. Don’t fucking stare, Lisa” you hissed to her. “He can’t see me. Lisa, please, just look –“
“He has seen me” she whispered, barely moving her lips. “He’s wondering if he knows me from somewhere, if I look away now – hey, Tom!”
You saw her waving behind you, and then heard the bells on the door ringing. The noise at the café, that had stopped when he had been outside, came back. It sounded a little forced, and probably at least 50% percent of the tables were pretending to talk while sneaking glances at him. Panic rose to your throat because there was no way Tom believed it was just a hard hit from falling down the stairs, but you couldn’t think of anything better.
You heard every single ‘he’s coming now, he’s looking at you’ Lisa mumbled until a shadow covered what you were looking at, the corner of the desk. Tom still couldn’t see you, since you weren’t looking at him and your face was hidden in your hand. But as soon as he talked you would have to move, which was too soon for you liking.
“Hey f – Y/N” Tom greeted you as usual, although your name felt weird on his lips. Your eyes filled with tears involuntarily when you heard his voice, knowing what you had done to him without wanting to. “Lisa, right?”
“Yeah!” Lisa chuckled. “I’m – I’m Lisa. Y/N’s friend”
“And Harry’s” Tom chuckled, and you heard another chair moving. The shadow shifted and you knew he had sat beside you. “I’ve seen you with him a few times”
Lisa and Harry’s relationship was something that you didn’t talk about, by any means. You knew the girl was catching some unknown feelings for the twin, even if most of the times he was getting on her nerves. He was volatile, a prankster and didn’t take anything seriously, but Lisa liked him that way. She chuckled awkwardly and shifted on her chair. So Tom looked to the next person on the table, you, and you felt his kind eyes on your shoulder.
“Not gonna look at –“
Tom cut himself when you turned around, being done with prolonging things that were inevitable. If you had broken up with Richard before or had refused to do the stupid thing in the club, you wouldn’t be there then. So you dropped your hand to your lap and turned around to look at Tom, an attempt of a smile on your face that didn’t match the redness around your eyes.
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@delicately-important-trash​​
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here’s why Thieves in Time is a bad game
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before y’all try it, i just want to say that i’ll be as unapologetically petty and sarcastic as i want and fucking rip this game to shreds. yes, this is how i’ve spent my days since Thieves in Time came out. sitting alone in my room, staring at the wall, crying and complaining. because it has since been my life’s aim and dream to think about it every day, state the negative things about it, and become an evil essay witch on this half-dead website. *evil laugh*
Story:
References: i want to start with the smallest problem, but one that annoys me to this day. in the original trilogy, there weren’t a lot of references but the ones that were included were meticulously researched and well thought-out (i’m specifically referring to that Neil Diamond Carmelita vinyl gag, but can’t find the original post). the references in Thieves in Time however, were obviously just the creators’ interests. Turning Japanese, Clan of the Cave Bear and Bentley’s “hacksona” presented as Rambo just scream 1980s (which i’m assuming is the decade the creators grew up in), and Of Mice and Men is classic literature about the Great Depression, which subsequently started being taught in school in the US during the 1980s. it feels like the creators just went ‘let’s discuss what our lives had in common during our teen years and put that in’ instead of researching it first. and, here’s the thing: when you’re adding references, in order to make them funny or interesting, they have to fit in with the property or the character that’s connected to them in some way. Don Octavio was an opera aficionado so his episode’s title card pays homage to the Phantom of the Opera, young Muggshot was influenced by the movie “The Dogfather” because he’s a gangster, etc. these were funny because they were so spot-on with these characters. if every character in the Sly Cooper universe references the same type of stuff (from the 1980s) and shares the same interests, it’s just claustrophobic and uninteresting. i’m pretty sure i’m not the only one who had to look up these ultra-hetero, scrotum references when the game came out. that’s because they were specifically tailored to be funny to them, and not their target demographic which were kids in 2013.
Narrative: now that we got that out of the way, let’s look at the narrative. at the end of Sly 3, Bentley says he’s building a time machine. Sanzaru took that joke and decided to run with it as the premise for their game. ok, not the best idea, but i get it - you’re literally picking up where the last game left off. since all the storylines were wrapped up, they could’ve done something different like Sly’s kids or Bentley and Murray’s families, but this isn’t an essay about suggestions so...... time travel (i want to say that it’s, again, an 80s reference but whatever) was pretty ‘out there’ in 2013. i mean, even Plants vs Zombies 2, which was released that year, had to do with time travel (yes, i’m referencing an app). but Sanzaru had the advantage of applying this premise onto already established mythos and lore. the story had definite potential: someone is threatening Sly’s lineage so he has to travel back in time to save the day. the player would get to explore new locations and iconic eras in history, and, of course, the main selling point: playable ancestors. how could you screw that up? welp.... let’s think about the plot holes here for a sec. Bentley’s device would take the gang back in time when given an item from the specific era. stop. this right here is called ‘over-complicating’. how did they know the items would take them directly to the point where the specific ancestor was in danger? the Feudal Japan period lasted for 700 years: how did the machine know when and where to drop them off? and if the gang could return to the present at any time, why didn’t they do so when they were in trouble? oh right, the machine was broken. so how did they return the baddies to the present after they defeated them? i mean, why did they use the Grizz’s crown to travel to Medieval England if they went back to the present to drop him off to Interpol first? and on that note, how did they drop the baddies off to jail without getting caught and without Carmelita being around? i can already hear you thinking but these are total details that aren’t important, you jerk! well, yea, they truly are details and i truly am overthinking it. and yes, i truly am a jerk. but let me tell you something: when Sanzaru chose to make a new Sly game, did they not think ‘oh we’ll have to follow up Sly 2 and Sly 3′s stories’ which were well thought-out narratives with depth and various themes and didn’t have huge plot holes (as seen by my analysis through the episode project) ???? and did they also not think that their game would come out eight years after the last one, having expectations at an all-time high???? yea, that’s what i thought.
Characters: i’ll make a different section for Sucker Punch’s characters, so this is for Sanzaru’s original ones. name one iconic original character from Thieves in Time. i’ll wait... nope. not one. that’s because all of them were absolute shit. and here’s where i want to touch upon Sanzaru’s over-reliance on the trilogy. Ms Decibel (perhaps the most obvious copy) is a mix between Don Octavio, Miz Ruby, and the Contessa. El Jefe is Rajan if he went to the gym. Toothpick has Sir Raleigh’s temper and tendency to grow in size. and the Grizz is... whatever the fuck he is. (don’t worry i didn’t forget Le Paradox and Bob). there’s a difference between studying & creating similar characters and blatantly plagiarizing older characters because you lack the creativity. oh, boo-hoo this evil jerk’s telling it how it is. this set of villains is so lacklustre, i don’t even know where to begin. El Jefe is a tiger, even though we’ve already had two major tiger villains and one tiger flashlight guard. ok. Rajan could summon lightning because of the Clockwerk heart but El Jefe can do the same, how exactly? Toothpick is an armadillo (good) from Russia (better) with an obsession with the West (excellent) who can also grow huge (very bad). it’s never explained how or why. why?????? just tell me why. i want to know. i really want to know. Ms Decibel is an elephant who got into a tragic accident which left her with the power of hypnosis. music and hypnosis have already been done, but ok, i’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. so how do we use this character? spend the entirety of her screen time making jokes about... wait for it... her weight !!! this is top-notch comedy... really? like... really? the creators’ humor is a crime, at best. fart jokes and fat jokes all around. oh, and then there’s the Grizz. what the fuck where they thinking? just, what the fuck. i guess the guys at Sanzaru thought black people speak in rap? is that it? apart from it being extremely offensive, it’s also a blatant copy of Dimitri’s backstory. like, his introductory cutscene even has his paintings thrown at him and into the trash, like the intro cutscene for The Black Chateau. honestly, all of these villains caused me several types of pain, but not as much as...
Bob & Le Paradox: the absolute worst. i can just imagine the meeting going something like this: Sly’s ancestors are awesome! i wish we could fit them all in the game... here’s an amazing idea! what if we use one of the game’s few levels to introduce a brand new ancestor! yea! let’s make him dumb as fuck, strip him of any athletic prowess, and retcon the entire lineage by having him be the first Cooper ever! the kids will love a prehistoric level! ..... could you kindly point out where and when did ANYONE ask for this? i remember @ironicsnap​ saying something like the game is good until Bob. no, it was already bad - Bob just lowered the standard. like, a lot. people love Murray and his gameplay is neat, but no one ever thought ‘oh i wish we had a Cooper character with Murray’s game style’. why would they waste the opportunity to bring in Henriette, Thaddeus, Otto, literally any ancestor? why??? but they went ahead and created their own Cooper, and that wasn’t even the end of it. they had to make him dumb. they had to make him unbearable. they had to ruin the Cooper ancestry by adding this mess to the lineage. Sucker Punch made sure that all the ancestors were unique, but at the same time made all of them suave and funny and slick and you wish you could be them! well, fuck that. also, his name is Bob. Bob Cooper. it’s been 7 fucking years and i still can’t wrap my head around it.... so now, let’s talk about Le Paradox. i don’t have to mention the previous main villains, but i will. Clockwerk killed Sly’s ancestors and father, and was seemingly an eternal threat. Neyla was a psychopath who fooled everyone on her journey to becoming immortal by resurrecting Clockwerk. Dr M opened up the possibility for Sly’s dad to be a jerk instead of a hero, and died trying to unlock the Coopers’ legacy. how does Le Paradox compare? well, he’s a sleazebag skunk who was mad because of his dad’s downfall to the Coopers. that’s it. no twist, no depth, no clever dialogue. nothing. there’s nothing there. this is a new character, unfamiliar to everyone, who was hyped up for 5 levels and defeated in the conclusion. why was he a match for Sly? i don’t know. how did he fight for his life and ultimately tricked Sly into helping him? i don’t know. how the hell did he kidnap Carmelita? i don’t know. was it the power of persuasion? no, he’s revolting. so i literally don’t know. there’s no backstory, no fleshing-out the character, nothing. all we’re given to work with is a brief info-dump about his dad and how he escaped prison. i don’t know what else to say apart from how big a humiliation this was for Sanzaru and their team of writers. you had 8 years to work on something and this is what you came up with? anything would be better. anything would best this utter cliché of a villain, a distasteful misogynist, crybaby, idiot with an accent. literally anything.
Arcs & Themes: let’s take a look at the formulaic subplots for the gang’s members. apart from dealing with Le Paradox, everyone had a small arc. Sly had to deal with his break-up with Carmelita. Bentley had to deal with his break-up with Penelope. Murray had to deal with playing second fiddle to Bob. Carmelita was a damsel in distress and sex bait for the ancestors. the ancestors had their own mini storylines along with reacting to Sly’s presence. there you have it. i summarised it all for you, nice and neatly. are there any themes like in the previous games? nope. i promise you i’m not lying when i say that i tried hard to come up with something, even some speck of a detail i could use to over-analyse the story and come up with some ideas on themes. nothing. there are no themes. the subplots are character-driven and the player gives it 0 emotional investment. there is nothing to analyse, nothing to talk about. maybe even a theme for each level, like a spooky level or something? nope. the levels are dependent on eras and historical periods. the variation here is ok. Feudal Japan, Wild West, Prehistoric Australia, Medieval England and Ancient Arabia  - pretty good selection. i’ll give them credit for it. but that’s it. due to the absence of themes, the hubs feel empty. there’s no replayability factor. after you collect the bottles and masks and treasures, there’s nothing. i would spend hours revisiting the trilogy’s hubs, just roaming around. the hubs here are huge and empty. there’s nothing to reminisce about. nothing to recall. oh that’s where this mission went down. no, nothing like that. the aforementioned subplots are resolved during mission cutscenes and then they’re gone. you don’t have to explore spooky Prague alone as Bentley to have him overcome his fears, you don’t have to find out miners abducted Murray’s beloved Guru and search the Australian outback for him, you don’t have to hold back your tears when you’ve reached the end of the Cooper Vault and Sly asks his dad for help. nothing.
Gameplay:
Controls: as soon as i laid my hands on the controller the first time i played the game, that fateful afternoon, i knew something was up. Sly would respond 1 second late after you pushed something on the controller. it felt clunky, is what i’m trying to say or, as my sister put it, it felt heavy. and she was right. the controls were clunky and heavy and didn’t feel light, like playing as a thief should feel. i don’t know shit about game mechanics but this definitely didn’t feel right. the hubs are also chunky in design, the cliffs are huge and so cyclical or hexagonal, that when you parachute your way to them and are just an inch close, Sly will automatically just drop because he can’t grab onto them. running as Sly doesn’t feel fast, silently obliterating guards from behind feels slow, and swinging, grabbing, pickpocketting, and hanging aren’t fun anymore. presentation-wise, @designraccoon​ goes into detail here, in an absolute gem of a post. in short, the gameplay animations make Sly look less sneaky. Sanzaru didn’t even consider a thief’s movements.
Missions: why the fuck would you remove the player’s option to choose between which mission to do first? why would you do that? the game lays out what goes first, sometimes having only one mission available in the hub. and the missions aren’t even enjoyable. firstly, the loading screens take up to 5 minutes, maybe even 7-8. secondly, there’s hacking every 2 missions. the missions don’t have any dialogue to make them fun, lack in interesting puzzles, what more can i say? they’re overly easy and lack any challenge whatsoever. at least there’s variation in gameplay (hacking, RC car, fishing, costumes, ancestors, turret etc.) but because of the controls, even these get tiresome. the missions are solely there to progress the story and that’s why the operations are merely ‘storm the main baddie’. the trilogy had some pretty interesting missions which made sure to complete jobs required to take down the big bad. e.g. kidnap General Clawfoot to take down the security, hack Contessa’s computer to make sure Carmelita will be freed, steal voices to tempt Neyla, and then take down the Contessa. the missions in Thieves in Time lack substance and variety. and the hacking (all three styles) sucks.
Collectibles: here’s another fantastic idea: have players collect costumes in order to collect bottles in order to collect treasures in order to collect masks in order to unlock funky Sanzaru logo-themed merch! what was the reason for the collectibles? in previous games, collecting all bottles would unlock special abilities. that was it. it’s the same thing here too, but there’s less incentive? i mean when you have to collect 1000 things, what’s the point? the treasures are random and very few are references to the trilogy, so whatever. and the masks unlock... superhero costumes for what reason exactly? oh, and then there’s also the achievements for your Playstation account, like ‘open the map in every single location you visit’. what fun! if the reason for collecting the treasures is to play godawful hacking minigames in order to get masks, what’s the point? decorate your paraglider with the Sanzaru logo? or have Bentley dress up as discount Robocop? i mean including masks in the interior locations was cool, but the bottles were always supposed to be something you could do whenever your soul desired. sometimes i left them last before the operation, sometimes i collected them before the first mission. so i was pissed when i found out that, in some cases, you had to unlock the episode’s costume in order to get the all the bottles. so, fuck off.
Animation: i’ll keep this short. the animation was terrible. do you remember that tumblr blog from a while back, where she dedicated the posts to pointing out the mistakes in the animated cutscenes? yeah. point is, there were lots of them. the animation style was bad, the character design was ugly, the characters’ movements were unnatural. everything about it was shit. looking past the bad decision to drop the trilogy’s comicbook-style animated cutscenes, couldn’t they have hired someone better? someone with more experience? their concept art was awesome. couldn’t they hire that guy and have it be comicbook style if he wasn’t trained in animation?
Legacy:
The Players: let me ask a genuine question: who was this game made for? kids growing up in 2013? maybe so. because it feels like Sanzaru didn’t even consider the fans of the trilogy. actually, it felt like a huge fuck you. Sucker Punch made their trilogy for whoever. there were great stuff for kids, but adults would pick up and appreciate the references, the real-life setting (e.g. tobacco use, existence of nightclubs, spice instead of drugs, etc.). that’s why all three games are timeless classics. judging by Thieves in Time’s humor, the game wasn’t targeted for adults. so, it doesn’t make sense to use an already established property, beloved by its fans, to attract a new audience consisting of nine year-olds who’d laugh at Murray dressing up as a woman. if they really wanted to appeal to the fans of the original, why retcon everything? why change who the first Cooper was? when the gang’s stranded in Saudi Arabia, why have Sly say ‘i couldn't remember a time since we've teamed up that we felt so defeated’? the gang’s been in way deeper shit before. why the ‘Sly’s dad vs Le Paradox’s dad’ deus ex machina? Sly’s dad wasn’t famous because of stealing the world’s largest diamond, what the fuck are you even talking about? do the guys at Sanzaru have such big egos and bravado that they needed to change the original games’ lore? were they so preoccupied with leaving their signature on a property which was never their own? i don’t know who needs to read this, but i’m stating FACTS.
Characters: now let’s talk about Sanzaru’s treatment of the Cooper gang and the ancestors (female characters will get their own section). why would you change the characters like that? if it wasn’t for the voice acting, i’d say this is a completely different Cooper gang. there’s no wise-cracking band of best friends, going on heists and being proud of their brotherhood and bond. all that is replaced with the formulaic story arcs for each member. the trilogy’s cutscenes and dialogues made sure to establish how Sly, Bentley and Murray have lived together since they met at the orphanage, play videogames all day and order chinese food and pizza and whatever. through missions and their adventures, they face obstacles they have to overcome as a gang, and when Sly 3 came around, their friendship was put to the ultimate test when they almost disbanded. Thieves in Time was too lazy to add to this. Sanzaru thought ‘oh the trilogy showed how they’re best friends so we might as well have them focus on their own stories separately’ and if this is truly the case then i ask again: who was this game made for? because new fans would never know how tight the gang was just by playing Thieves in Time. there’s a lack of genuine friendship moments. like, what happened when Sly came back after faking his amnesia? that’s completely ignored. where’s the witty banter? the ‘wizard & sitting duck’ type of jokes? nothing of the sort. what we get is fart jokes and Murray wanting to dress up as a woman. on that note, what was that all about? ok, have him dress up as a geisha to get in. fine. have El Jefe slap his ass, have him perform in a painfully lengthy dance sequence, have him dress like that during the rest of the episode, and then have him be persistent about getting the belly-dancing gig? the hell? Murray was always kinda goofy but this just feels kinda homophobic? it feels dragged out and unfunny. and then there’s the ancestors. i said it once before and i’ll say it again, Sanzaru deprived me of a buff Arab daddy Salim Al Kupar and gave us that elderly shit instead. all jokes aside, the redesigns were uninteresting. why take away Tennessee Kid’s facial hair and give it to Galleth? i legitimately think all the ancestors were boring. i mean, their gameplay was cool, especially Tennessee Kid’s guns, but in terms of character, they were just some dudes. did they believe that Sly was their descendant from the future? maybe. did they care? nope. they all had the same storyline of dealing with Sly’s arrival, flirting with Carmelita and getting their canes stolen. that was it. the fans waited for so long to get even a glimpse of the ancestors in action, and Sanzaru downplayed all of them. they reduced them to useless idiots too occupied with women and food, incapable of getting their canes back from stupid Le Paradox. and they didn’t even stick to the lore. no ma’am. let’s make Rioichi the inventor of sushi !! because that makes total sense and would defo fit in with the character and the property! why. just, why. you were handed the lore !!! you were given all this rich backstory and you threw it all away to replace it with trash !!! complete trash.
Changes & Inconsistency: i want to briefly mention some changes that pissed me off. where’s the laser glide move? it was an important turning point at the end of Sly 3, so why did they get rid of it? Sly is a master thief who’s traveling back in time, so you’d think they’d actually make him a master thief. also, the changes in the binocucom and Bentley’s slideshows in order to modernise them. if Sucker Punch managed to place the mission starting points at locations where the binocucom would show the objective clearly, so could Sanzaru. instead, they chose to have it be a moving camera, floating around the hub. and Bentley’s slideshows were absolute classics, opportunities to include gags and have Bentley show off in his own way. you just had to change it into a tablet, didn’t you. omg you’re still looking at small details like these? yes sweetie, i consider the details because i think they shape the game more than anything. if i didn’t consider the details, then my opinion on the game would be incomplete. when i praise the trilogy i don’t only look at story and gameplay. because i’m unbiased like that. here, i’d also like the mention Dimitri. what a fucking waste. you either include him in the game or you don’t. but don’t give me some half-baked shit on how he’s working for the gang back in present day. Dimitri staying home, waiting on the gang to call him in order for him to give them details on the villains. how does that even slightly resemble anything about Dimitri’s character? they didn’t even include his voice, some greasy sweet Raccoonus Doodus dialogue.
Female Characters: you know it’s all been leading up to this. this is the crux of the Thieves in Time hate. i don’t want to say the game is misogynistic so i’ll call it anti-feminist. why? just answer me. why? why did you have to disrespect Carmelita like that? right off the bat, they swapped the pants for the skirt. in what world does an active inspector who’s always on the scene wear a skirt? Carmelita now wears a skirt because her only role in the game is to be the love interest. Carmelita now wears bright red lipstick and has a new hairstyle, which would be ok if only it wasn’t Carmelita. Carmelita now plays up her inner sassy Latina because she’s pigeonholed into the ‘angry ex girlfriend’ role. they compartmentalised her, tried to sexualise her because she couldn’t possibly be one of the boys. nope. let’s take a respected woman, high in rank and as physically able as Sly, and turn her into a cliché, an angry ex girlfriend for comedic relief, strip her of her abilities and have her be kidnapped twice, have every exchange with her be about how attractive she is, have almost every male character in the game flirt with her, have her boyfriend be jealous of his own ancestors because they’re flirting with her in order to create purposeless love triangles, and then, after all that, dress her up as a belly dancer and distract some guards while the rest of the gang do the heavy lifting. that last one was really the nail on the coffin. did Bentley have other ways to enter that door? absolutely. so, what the fuck? why did i come back for a good Sly game 8 years later and receive a game where you have to shake your controller to have Carmelita shake her ass? why did they have the guards’ eyes pop like that? why did no one stop them? and it isn’t just Carmelita. it’s Penelope too. god forbid we have a female character who doesn’t have a waist smaller than my finger, and a voluptuous physique. why was the redesign so drastic? the story stuff is also nonsensical. why did she leave? wasn’t she happy with Bentley? i watched her speech about turning on the gang about a thousand times and it still doesn’t make any sense. like, i literally don’t understand. what was her motive? and why reverse her story of overcoming the Black Baron persona and the connotations of a meek woman hiding behind a man’s disguise? why repeat it, shamelessly? do the guys at Sanzaru only know women who have recently broken up? why does Carmelita, Penelope and Ms Decibel all go through break-ups during the game? why does Penelope go against Bentley before they even break up? why waste the opportunity to introduce a new, well-written villain and use it to repeat something already done? why???? no woman is safe from Sanzaru because Ms Decibel... boy, did i feel bad for her. apart from continuously reminding us that she’s haha fat!! she’s also presented as a blind lovefool. love? what a silly concept only women believe in! Ms Decibel had a crush on Le Paradox (for some reason i can’t even fathom) and for that she must pay by being utterly humiliated. and what do ALL women do when a guy breaks up with them? they get so angry! yikes, stay clear guys! ....why does Sanzaru hate female characters? i’m genuinely curious. i mean, what forced them to depict women like this? i’m sorry, i can’t take much more of this.
Ending: and how do you end a disappointment that came 8 years late and didn’t even have a sequel guaranteed? yeap, you guessed it! a cliffhanger. but not just any cliffhanger - a total fuck you to anyone and everyone. with a single move Sanzaru instantly screwed over the franchise. the fans, the creators, the characters, anyone looking to continue the series. everyone. WHY would you trap the protagonist in the past? WHY? did you feel defensive about something that wasn’t even yours and went ‘well you can continue the series but the sequel will have to do with time travel’. why did you think it was a good idea? how does it even slightly resemble a good ending? someone fill me in please. because i don’t think i’m being unreasonable, i’m just telling it how it is.
Conclusion:
i did it. i fucking wrote it in all its motherfucking glory. the idiots at Sanzaru could’ve given us an amazing game but instead of working on how to make it better or including extra levels, they wasted their time on deciding what killable baby animal to include in each hub or what the backstory for each treasure should be. how fucking distasteful. and to think i’m an idiot myself for trying to force myself to like it because i was so in denial about how bad it was. i’ve just outlined everything wrong with that cursed game. i’m exhausted.
138 notes · View notes
itsclydebitches · 4 years
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You know, if we’re throwing blame around, why isn’t Clover himself responsible for his own death? He isn’t Ironwood’s brainless puppet, he made his own choices that night. And honestly he’s the one who kept STOPPING QROW FROM ATTACKING TYRIAN. Like, Qrow and Robyn played their part in this mess, too. That’s for sure. But Clover set himself up in the end
I’m going to answer this one in as much detail as I can and then save it to my meta page so I can actually return to it when needed, because I think the fandom as a whole has really misinterpreted that fight based on the circulation of leading statements like “stopped Qrow from attacking Tyrian” and “set himself up.” Which isn’t a knock against you, anon. These are claims I’ve seen circulated for months now but (like everything!) they can’t be removed from their context. 
So what actually happens during that fight? 
What happens is that Qrow starts out in a level-headed and mature place. Despite being pissed at Ironwood and having no desire to be arrested, he verbally tries to keep a fight from starting. 
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Clover, to my mind, also starts out in a level-headed and mature place. I get that the fandom doesn’t like the arrest warrant... but it is justifiable. Team RWBY was given official huntsmen licenses. They were working under Ironwood. They did lie to him and betray him. They did stand against and threaten to attack their general. Clover is a leader responsible for following the orders he’s given. Which I get is another hot-button phrase on tumblr. Only “bootlickers” just “follow orders,” but the fact remains that Clover doesn’t even know about any of the ethically complex details of this situation. All he knows is that his general and kingdom leader has ordered the arrest of the teens he was helping to train, along with their uncle. He doesn’t understand how that may or may not fit into the five second info dump said teen gave over their comms. Something something martial law and Salem’s coming. There’s no reason why he would forsake his loyalty to Ironwood as well as his duties here. Clover has no reason to prioritize Qrow’s ‘But I don’t want to be arrested’ over years of trust in Ironwood and his pride as leader of the Ace Ops. Besides, who wants to be arrested? His job isn’t to listen to every potential criminal who says they’re innocent because, you know, they’d all say that. His job is to bring them in and let the justice system decide that for him. 
In terms of “setting himself up,” all Clover did was begin a legal process that he was justified and responsible for starting. That’s it. 
Qrow, at the start, recognizes this to an extent. He’s hurt that Clover wouldn’t drop all these other parts of his identity to just let him go, but he’s not willing to physically fight him over it at first. 
As said though, “at first.” The second Robyn attacks Clover? Qrow is on board. 
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So does he go after the seething bandit who shot an arrow at Clover’s face despite him insisting that there was no reason to fight? Maybe so that once the powder-keg that is Robyn Hill is out of the way he and Clover might talk like Qrow had originally hoped? 
Nope. He attacks Clover. 
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That’s really, really important because from here on out Qrow has established himself as Clover’s enemy. As far as Clover knows he can’t trust Qrow as an ally anymore. Robyn attacked him. Qrow assisted her. Tyrian is a crazy serial killer. Clover is on his own here. 
Despite this, twice Clover tries to talk to Qrow. Twice Qrow refuses to back down. The first time is on the ship right after Qrow slashes at Clover.
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Qrow might say it doesn’t have to come to this but his words are absolutely meaningless because he’s still attacking. What is Clover supposed to do here? Not defend himself? Qrow doesn’t get to say a version of ‘We don’t have to fight’ seconds after he attacked Clover entirely unprompted. For the record, this is the exact same thing Ruby did to Harriet. She insisted they didn’t have to fight immediately after slamming through two steel doors to start a fight with Harriet. The way RT writes its heroes is by having them say a fight isn’t necessary while simultaneously having them instigate that fight themselves. And of course, it’s only unnecessary provided the other party does exactly what they want. Ruby will only back off if the Ace Ops let them go. Same here: Qrow will only stop attacking if Clover agrees to forsake his orders and let Qrow go, on top of ignoring Robyn’s attacks against him. 
The team-up between Robyn and Qrow is re-emphasized with her line, “You can hug it out once we’ve taken him down!” 
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Again, Qrow is Clover’s enemy here. He attacked him first. He continued that attack. He stood beside Robyn and allowed her to speak for them both about “taking him down.” When it comes to the fight against Tyrian, Clover is attacking both of them because both have proven themselves to be threats. He’s not stopping Qrow from attacking Tyrian because he wants to save the serial killer or something equally ridiculous. He’s making use of openings in a fight where he’s outmatched two to one. 
Before that though, we see the second time that Clover tries to diffuse the situation. After Tyrian gets free and crashes the ship, Clover approaches and tells Qrow that they can get Robyn help if he surrenders. That’s a fact. If you stop attacking me we can get her the medical attention she needs that much faster. Qrow interprets this as “manipulation.” 
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His immovable stance that he cannot and will not be arrested has justified everything else in his mind (despite arrest being the easiest and currently only way to talk to Ironwood like he wants...) To Qrow, a potential arrest is so horrific that it warrants him attacking Clover. Clover wants to peacefully take Qrow back to Atlas and hold him somewhere until they can work out whatever is going on. Qrow wants to attack Clover until he is defenseless and then he can... what? Leave him in the deadly cold? Take on the serial killer alone that he couldn’t handle less than a year ago? Somehow get medical attention for Robyn even though he’s a wanted man? Their motivations here are in no way equal. Clover is being fair within the bounds of his laws. Qrow is being a chaotic mess that’s (shock) going to get someone killed. 
This is reinforced when Clover insists that they don’t have to fight. Here, unlike when Qrow says it, his words mean something because Clover is not attacking him. He’s actually giving Qrow the chance to lower his own weapon and end this. Qrow responds emotionally, insisting that they’re not friends and “this is how it always ends.” Qrow has allowed his self-hatred, pessimism, and depression to blind him here. He literally has someone going, ‘There’s a better option where we both come out happier’ and he goes, ‘NOPE it can only end in tragedy.’ That’s been his experience and thus that’s what he insists on. 
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Qrow rejects the possibility of peace between them even though it’s being offered, right here, right now. He established himself as Clover’s enemy by attacking him first and he then re-affirms that position by insisting that they can only cross weapons. Qrow is Clover’s bad guy now. He insists on trying to hurt him. So Clover is going to defend himself any way he can. That means that when Tyrian arrives and Qrow turns to attack him, Clover makes use of his unguarded back and snags him with his hook. Why wouldn’t he? Why would he suddenly think, ‘Oh, Qrow is on my side again and we’re teaming up to take out Tyrian’? Qrow has given no indication of that. It would be an entirely different situation if, after Tyrian shows up, Qrow growls out something like, ‘Fine, let’s deal with him together and we’ll settle our problems later.’ But he doesn’t. All Clover knows is that now Qrow and Tyrian are both fighters he has to take out somehow... so yeah, use whatever advantage you can get.  
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We get a shot of Tyrian’s gleeful expression when he sees Clover attack Qrow. He knows now that they’re still fighting each other like they were on the airship and he’s already planning how to use this to his advantage. 
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When Tyrian next re-enters the fray, his moves work to defend Qrow. Eventually he succeeds in pushing Clover away from him entirely. 
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While Clover is out of earshot and picking himself off the ground, Tyrian poses his offer: let’s take him out and then the two of us can finish that unsettled score. 
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Qrow charges and, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, it’s impossible to know who he’s charging at. Tyrian and Clover are both ahead of him. He’s attacked each prior to this moment. Clover is just as likely a target as Tyrian so, again, when he sees his opening he takes it. We can assume this is Clover interrupting an attack against Tyrian, but it would just be that: an assumption. Neither the audience nor Clover knows Qrow’s intentions here but, thus far, his intentions towards Clover have not been good. So he takes advantage of this moment where he can snag Qrow’s weapon and get a hit on Tyrian. 
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At this point in the fight Clover hasn’t a single reason to trust Qrow to have his back. Even if he wanted to still believe in him that hope is obliterated when Tyrian once again gets between them and pushes Clover back. 
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They share their look. This is Qrow agreeing with Tyrian’s proposition to take out Clover together. 
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And they attack. 
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We then know the rest of the fight. Clover is overwhelmed, his aura is broken, and Tyrian slams Qrow’s weapon through his stomach. So to answer your actual question, yes. Clover has agency... but I honestly don’t think he did anything wrong here. He never “set himself up” to be killed. He certainly never “stopped Qrow from attacking Tyrian” in the way most people mean the phrase: foolishly stopping an ally from attacking an enemy. What Clover did do was: 
Adhere to his responsibilities as a huntsmen by trying to arrest Qrow 
Insisted on this happening peacefully and emphasized that they’d work this all out later on 
Was attacked by Robyn
Was attacked by Qrow
Tried to talk Qrow down and get Robyn medical attention and was unambiguously rejected
Defended himself against Qrow and Tyrian both, first under the (correct) assumption that both were his enemies in this fight and then again with them working as a team 
Was ultimately killed by them both 
If we really want to play the ‘You attacked a (former) ally instead of Tyrian’ game then we also need to acknowledge when Clover succeeded in subduing Tyrian and instead of helping him, Qrow a) deliberately left his weapon unattended (you can see him look to it before running off) and b) broke Clover’s aura. Both actions led directly to his death. 
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We even get to see the split second Tyrian realizes that Qrow has chosen to continue attacking Clover instead of helping with his capture. Remember how stupid Robyn’s agreement with Tyrian was? If you’re doing what the crazy, Salem worshiping villain wants you to do, then what you’re doing is wrong. 
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I adore Qrow, but he was entirely in the wrong here. Every decision he made from deciding to help Robyn attack Clover, to breaking his aura after Tyrian was bound, to blaming Ironwood for it all was just a Grade A Stupid Choice. To my mind, the only knock against Clover is the argument that he shouldn’t have tried to arrest anyone in the first place which, as I’ve made clear both here and elsewhere, I find to be entirely unpersuasive. Clover was the victim. He tried to do his job in the most peaceful, empathetic way possible and was murdered for it. That murder was assisted by someone he thought he could trust and who he considered to be a friend. 
No, no one was a “mindless puppet” here. They all made their own choices. The difference is that Clover’s choices were based in responsibility, legality, hope, and compassion. Qrow’s were based in recklessness, illegality, pessimism, and hatred. Those choices simply aren’t equal.  
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captainunderkrupp · 4 years
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ppl were talking abt branch being good with kids on this one discord i’m in and i remembered this unfinished fic that i had!!
(for some reason, they are out on a camping trip or smth. i wrote this before twt came out and just kind of went w what info i had from like the first two trailers lol)
Branch groaned. And kept groaning. It was neverending, like he was just lungs, sighing forever.
"What?" Poppy asked, finally getting tired of waiting for him to finish.
He cut himself off. "The ground's too wet. I can't start a fire."
"Oh, that's not too bad!" Poppy grinned. "We don't need the light, we'll be sleeping!"
Branch glared at her. "We need the heat! We'll freeze to death!"
"Oh..." Poppy felt suddenly lucky that she was totally pink; it was hard to see blush when you were monochrome.
"That's ok!" Satin and Chenille chorused.
"Yeah!" Biggie agreed.
Branch squinted, trying to figure out what they could be talking about. "Oh no," he muttered, not quite sure yet, but he was sure he wouldn't like it.
"We can cu~udle!" Guy Diamond sang, holding Tiny close. Tiny, of course, didn't give him a proper hug back, but enjoyed the contact.
Branch groaned, and went back to try and light the wet wood. When he had fallen into the creek earlier, even his backup wood, in case it did rain like this, had gotten wet.
He was stuck.
"Fine!" he shouted, throwing his flint down at the ground. He hesitated, and then picked it back up. "We'll cuddle. Can't be worse than..." he shuddered. "Hug time."
Everyone cheered, and started moving in.
"Not yet!" he shrieked, and everyone paused. "Just... give me a minute. Jeez."
He started pulling out... weapons. Or, not just weapons, but a lot of stuff. No one looking was really sure where they were coming from, but there were blades from his pockets, roots from his vest, strange contraptions from his hair. It took a moment, but he finally seemed to have removed a lot from his person.
"No wonder hug time is uncomfortable for him," Cooper muttered. Unfortunately, he had no volume control, so Branch heard him anyway.
Branch rolled his eyes, and then rolled out a tarp. "Here. So we're not just sleeping on wet ground."
Everyone complimented him on his forethought, getting comfortable on the tarp. Satin and Chenille were wrapped around Smidge, Cooper settled down on the outside of the pile, and Biggie was underneath Poppy and Guy Diamond, who made sure Tiny wasn't squished by the cuddling but was also cozy.
Branch glanced around, looking for a place he could tuck himself in at the edge. "So, uh... where should I...?"
Poppy looked up, and grinned. She looked conspiratorially at Smidge and Biggie.
"Oh no. That look, I know that, look, what are you-- AAH!" he screamed as Smidge launched her hair at him, lifting him easily and dumping him between Poppy and Guy. Biggie immediately threw an arm over all three of them, and Poppy intertwined her hair with Branch's.
Branch blushed. He tried to struggle, tried to get out, but there were too many people, and this was... really... cozy... actually...
He was asleep before Poppy could tease him about being comfortable.
"Whoa, he went out like a light!" Biggie whispered.
"Aw, he's snoring!" Satin cooed, and Chenille groaned at the idea of sleeping with someone who snores. Luckily it was soft.
"Wow, this is the fastest I've ever seen him go to sleep," Poppy noted.
"You've seen him sleep before?" Cooper asked, lifting his head up and laying it over Guy so he could see better. Guy carefully made sure Tiny wasn't pinned.
"Well, yeah, we've had sleepovers. Sometimes he had to stay at mine and Dad's place before he was old enough to build that bunker of his. And he, uh..." she blushed, grinning. "Invited me over a few nights ago."
A chorus of "aww!"s erupted.
Branch jolted, adjusted, and went right back to sleep. He never even opened his eyes.
Everyone let out a breath they didn't realize they'd been holding.
"Ok," Poppy whispered, "Let's just settle down, and we'll all have a nice night."
Everyone fell asleep pretty soon after that. Except for one troll, who smiled down at Branch's resting face, before settling down herself.
~
Branch jolted awake, barely holding back a scream. He gasped, attempting to stave off a panic attack... and not doing so well.
In the low light, he barely registered it was early morning. Mostly, he noticed that he was tangled up with almost everyone else. Quickly, trying to breathe without hyperventilating, he disentangled himself as best he could from the cuddle pile.
Eventually, Branch had managed to extract himself, without even disturbing anyone. He was pretty proud of that.
But for right now, he needed to breathe.
He took a quick gasp in, 1234, held it, 1234, let it out, 12345678, in, 1234, hold, 1234, out, 123 4 5 6 7 8, in, 1 2 3 4, hold, 1 2 3 4, out, 1 2 3 4 5... 6... 7... 8...
Eventually his breathing finally slowed, and he could close his eyes without seeing the vivid colors of his nightmare behind the lids. He fell onto a nearby rock with a shuddering breath. Should I go back to bed? No, I slept through the night, and it's early in the morning already... He sighed again.
"Branch?"
He nearly screamed again, jumping and flailing. He fell into a practiced pose, ears twitching for a threat.
His eyes fell on Tiny Diamond, blinking innocently from barely more than a few arm lengths away.
Branch paled. "Tiny!" He struggled to relax, not wanting to scare Guy's baby.
Tiny rubbed his eye under his glasses. "You woke me up," he complained.
Branch had to wince. He had tried to be careful... but he supposed kids were easier to disturb. "Sorry, Tiny. I didn't mean to." He shuffled, not sure what to do with himself.
Small, curious eyes stared at him, and Tiny's head tilted. "What woke you up?"
"Just a nightmare."
"What's a nightmare?"
Branch blinked, surprised. Oh, right. As much as younger trolls could learn just from listening from their eggs, there were definitely gaps in their education, depending on what they were exposed to.
He supposed no one in the Snack Pack enjoyed talking about nightmares, so why would Tiny know?
"It's... a very bad dream."
"Oh, yeah, ok," Tiny nodded, seemingly understanding. Branch paused, waiting for Tiny to ask more.
But the trolling didn't seem to have anymore questions about that. "Do you know when my Daddy's going to wake up?"
Branch glanced back over at the pile with Tiny. Guy seemed to be sleep singing, and Branch wondered if someone was going to join in-- yep. Poppy was starting to hum.
"Uh... not sure, actually." He looked up at the sky. The moon waved back, and he could see the sun slowly, slowly coming up. It was a slow dawn, then. "The sun won't be up for a while, and that's when they usually wake up."
Tiny sighed, in that overly honest yet unweary way only little kids can. "Okaaay," he drew out the word, and then started beatboxing under his breath. Branch could hear him muttering ideas, switching around rhymes and verses.
It was catchy, he had to admit. He started humming along, a bit.
Tiny looked delighted. He scrambled to sit on the rock Branch was occupying, and Branch tried to scoot to give the kid the flatter side of it.
They sat there a while, trading rhythms and verses quietly. He could hear some more sleep singing from a distance, just slightly out of sync with their own music.
Eventually, the sun had traded out with the moon in the sky. It was definitely daytime, even if it was a little early.
Branch had an idea. A terrible idea. He grinned. The perfect revenge.
"Hey, Tiny," he whispered, leaning in toward the trolling. The kid perked up, staring wide-eyed at Branch, attentive. "You want to help me wake up the Snack Pack?"
Tiny grinned; of course he did, the Snack Pack included his Daddy! He jumped up, all excited. "Yeah! What'cha wanna do? Cuz I know you've got an idea!"
Branch chuckled at Tiny's enthusiasm. "Yeah. Here..." he whispered into Tiny's ear, and Tiny grinned.
~
The whole Snack Pack was all very deeply asleep. A good cuddle pile will do that to your average troll. Especially on a cold night, surprisingly. Guy was just beginning to twitch, frowning in his sleep as he subconsciously searched for his son, who didn't seem to be...
He jolted up at the sudden noise of a beat being dropped, an expert beatboxing suddenly bursting into the clearing they'd decided to camp out in.
Directly after that, a loud crescendo of "OoooOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH..." went through the air and woke everyone else up.
"Tiny D, break it down!"
Suddenly, Tiny burst into all their lines of sight, rapping his heart out. He sung about the sunrise and missing his dad and how he was glad they were awake, and beatboxing accompanied him all the while.
By the end, everyone had calmed, and most were even clapping. Guy settled for jumping up and picking up his son in delight.
"That was amazing!" he squealed, letting the last word be sung, autotuned. Tiny laughed and leaned back into his dad's face, nearly headbutting him.
"Wait, who gave him that awesome beat?" Cooper wondered sleepily, still rubbing muck out of his eyes.
Tiny pointed, and slowly, everyone turned toward a rock in the clearing that no one had really noticed before. Branch smirked and waved at all of them.
Jaws dropped. "Whoa!" Poppy shrieked, and everyone clamored. "When did you learn to beatbox?!"
Branch flinched, trying not to get trampled this early in the morning, thank you. "Hey, back off," he snapped.
He quickly devolved, though. His lips twitched, and then it was all over. He was laughing, hard and long. Tiny had started laughing long before, and their voices echoed through the clearing.
"Ha ha ha... you... you... your faces!! Ha ha..." he finally petered out, just letting out small giggles. Tiny was still going.
Everyone was staring at Branch. Poppy somehow looked more pink than usual.
(A/N: I have an hc that Tiny is a little bit touch averse. Not much, he loves contact, but he doesn't like hugs or anything else constrictive. And he mostly hangs out with his dad rather than other people. possibly bc glitter trolls have more sensitive skin? i would be too if my skin/entire body could flake off that easily.)
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Edie & Billie
Edie: You’re not at home, are you?
Billie: Why?
Edie: ‘cos Rih has to babysit and you are the last phone a friend that needs to be eliminated 👾
Billie: 💀🔋 if anyone but you is asking
Edie: that’s the 👻
Edie: Even convinced Jun to get the fuck out
Billie: with what 👻? 👽 ?👾 🤡 ?🎃 🤖? madness
Edie: 👻 ish
Edie: there’s some exhibit at some museum, idk, it actually wasn’t my idea so I can’t take cred
Billie: 🦖 🦴 🦕 was next guess
Billie: safe that the 👻 🔮 came through with a plan
Edie: 👽 more like
Edie: that’s the best I can do with emojis anyway
Billie: 💬 💬 💬 💬
Edie: I met the most perfect boy
Billie: Dude not you catching a dose too 🚱
Edie: I’ve gone outside of the gene pool so it is not the same thing at all
Billie: 👍 start
Billie: Go on, what else has he got going for him?
Edie: Only everything
Edie: he’s perfect, I just said
Edie: You know that really tall, ridiculously good-looking boy in Rih’s year
Billie: 🤨 💭 ?
Billie: it’ll come to me
Billie: Aha! The one who [some rave story she’s heard of something wild he did]
Edie: I don’t know how you didn’t just KNOW but yeah
Edie: that sounds like him 🤩
Billie: he’s been working at ⛽️ [the location of said petrol station like whatever road it’s on] nights I’ve gone in
Edie: That’s good to know
Edie: I can go in too now
Edie: 💡
Billie: 👻
Edie: It’s so weird how we met actually
Edie: the thread has 90k people on it, what are the chances, how does that happen
Billie: spooky how many posts you could’ve missed before, weird if he ain’t wrote any til today & then replied to yours 🔮 🛸 🧲
Edie: He’s deffo been on there before, I recognised the username
Edie: but he mentioned somewhere in Dublin so then I knew he was at least from around here
Edie: I’d have never talked to him before, it’s deffo fate
Billie: fated if he agreed the monster was a copout reveal
Edie: He’s not 12, so duh
Edie: He’s so cool
Billie: It’s defs him?
Edie: Come on, like I’m gonna get catfished
Billie: this is wild odds, all I’m saying
Edie: It would be weirder if they worked out where I went to School, and then picked some boy who also went to that School to use
Edie: anyway, he’s sent me stuff today so I know it’s really him
Billie: he does look like someone to use for 🎣 but I can picture him on that thread loads
Edie: 🤤🤤🤤
Edie: Do you think he’ll come see me
Billie: yeah, why not
Edie: Aforementioned hotness, he could get ANY girl
Edie: I don’t know who he has gone out with before
Edie: didn’t he go out with one of Rih’s friends for a while?
Billie: [a pause while she has a convo with her friends about this because she has many and they’re mostly lads so at least some of them must know him or have some info]
Billie: Last seen with Lexie but that was time ago & nobody since
Edie: Hmm
Edie: I’m nothing like Lexie
Billie: he ain’t still with her & wasn’t for long, I’d assume he’s looking for different
Edie: and that’s me 🥴
Edie: charming 😏
Billie: 👽
Billie: She hasn’t said anything ☢️⚠️ I’m hearing now, that’s chill
Edie: she’s a bitch anyway, I wouldn’t trust her
Billie: if Blips is accurate on his timeline, even she couldn’t be that much of a bitch
Edie: ?
Billie: Everything with his sister was fresh then, apparently
Edie: Oh
Edie: I remember her, she had a nice smile
Billie: I don’t think I ever met her, it’s gone out my head if I did
Billie: the memorial he made for her is sicker than anything the teachers would’ve though, we hang there constantly
Billie: Take this info with 🧂 yeah? the source is Blips
Edie: She was a lot older
Edie: would’ve been, your paths probably didn’t cross
Edie: makes sense
Edie: he would’ve wanted someone around
Billie: makes sense he’s not thinking straight to pick Lexie to be that someone, but idk man, you can have your fill of pity quick enough
Edie: Maybe someone in her family died? I can see that and making that connection
Edie: not a sibling obviously or we’d know but she’s pretty dramatic, like all Rih’s friends are
Billie: not above milking a dead nan, bet
Edie: 💭 exactly
Edie: Poor Liam, that’s kinda fucking gross
Billie: bad taste in my mouth from being the messenger
Edie: I won’t say it was ages ago because that’d feel a bit like spitting on her grave but you know
Edie: fuck Lizzie or whatever her name is
Edie: she’s probably had 100 lads since then
Billie: Yeah, fuck Lizzie
Billie: what’s next for you & him?
Edie: I don’t know
Edie: I sort of asked him to come ‘round but not just like that
Edie: so his answer was as open-ended, I guess
Edie: I really hope he does though
Billie: he doesn’t know you’re unshockable & didn’t wanna freak you out by coming through the window on a real dark & stormy night
Billie: tracks if Lexie is his point of ref, she’s known for saying what she don’t mean
Edie: ugh, she’s really fucked that up for me
Edie: I should go cockblock her too
Edie: that’s a good idea actually
Billie: You could roll up if he’s working, let him know you’re not alike
Edie: If I roll up on her, he will 😈
Billie: 😶 cos idk how he rolls
Edie: You think he’ll be 😱 / 🤬
Billie: He could think you’re jealous, which would put you looking like her 🤡
Billie: lads always go to that headspace
Edie: most lads
Edie: like your mates who can’t spell their own names without checking with their ma first
Edie: I don’t think he’s like that
Billie: I’ll bite, what’s he like?
Edie: emojis weren’t covering it but I dunno if I even can with actual words either
Edie: he’s like no one else I’ve ever spoken to, I wasn’t bored, and he wasn’t weirded out
Billie: You weren’t even a bit bored?
Edie: nah
Edie: I felt like I was barely keeping up
Billie: 🤯
Edie: but he wasn’t trying to be impressive how lads do, because that isn’t
Billie: he was waiting for whatever he sent to impress you, which worked
Edie: he sent me lots of stuff
Edie: not 🍆 pics
Billie: he looks like he’d be a fuckboy
Edie: right?
Edie: he’s got too much about him though
Edie: I would’ve gone with it if he wanted, he had the chance
Billie: 🤯🤯
Edie: come on
Edie: you can see him
Billie: & I can hear you, you don’t say this kinda shit about anyone
Edie: I know, I’m deadly serious
Edie: 💀💀💀
Billie: What a day
Edie: Don’t tell anyone else yet though
Edie: I think he feels it too
Edie: but just in case
Billie: 🤐
Billie: he blatantly does, but that’s up to yous two to broadcast if you want, how you want
Billie: I’m just excited for the reveal 🎟 🍿 📺 🕹 📷 💻 📼 💿
Edie: He makes films too
Edie: and I’m writing a song right now
Billie: link me
Edie: [do, at least the ones that are clearly not private or whatever]
Edie: 😍
Billie: Cool, I’m gonna check these while you go 😈 on Lexie
Edie: If you hear her scream, no you didn’t
Edie: 😘✌️
Billie: not her 🩸 🦷 🦴 got it
Edie: only partly
Edie: she’s only 3rd on my shit-list, after-all
Billie: if I give you away with a new tic, no I didn’t & they’ll never convict 🤪✌️
Edie: so lucky you can shout ableism if it comes down to it
Edie: ADHD is an excuse for nothing except maybe being five minutes late 🙄
Billie: I’m not going for that with a free pass to shout out at the law 🐷 🐽 🐖 🥓
Edie: you can brag about your free pass, I only get caught when I want to ☠️✊
Billie: not a humble brag you can throw out to your new man, going off these locations I’m recognising, he’s got skills at never getting caught
Billie: How’d he get into [somewhere he should not be]?!
Edie: that’d be telling 🤫
Edie: I told you, he’s really smart
Billie: How didn’t we have a clue about him pretty much?
Edie: because he looks like a fuckboy, I suppose
Edie: you know Rih is gonna act like he’s a decade older than me because she thinks she’s so mature
Billie: 🙄
Edie: I can’t wait to call her out on her bullshit again with something new to add
Edie: can’t wait for the opposition like she’s got a leg left
Billie: She’ll run out fast, he’s cool
Edie: She’s not
Edie: but whatever, she can’t do anything
Billie: No chill, but he’s barely older, so if that’s her only 🔫
Edie: and he went out with Lexie ages ago, well, basically
Edie: she can’t act like she’s really good friends with him, I KNOW she isn’t
Billie: & she wasn’t in Lexie face not to go out with him, couldn’t cos there’s nothing wrong with him 🤷🏼‍♀️
Edie: you act like she’s rational but yeah
Edie: I don’t care, I know this is right
Edie: and what I want
Billie: She’s not, like, irrational enough to be hating on your happiness
Edie: I hate on hers
Billie: that’s different
Edie: not to her
Billie: Yeah but in terms of you & Liam
Edie: If she tries to be nice that’ll be even worse 😷
Billie: minding her own business isn’t gonna happen
Edie: I wish she’d keep hers to herself
Edie: I can’t stand it when he’s here
Edie: I’ll kill Lizzie and steal her bed
Billie: least you can stay at his soon
Edie: 😋
Billie: [frames of one of the videos cos the location is some end of summer event, why not] & you’ll be there together this year
Edie: You really think?
Billie: I don’t think you’ll be dumped quicker than Lexie
Edie: Damn fucking right
Edie: even if he was after one thing, I could do it better than her
Billie: [deletes that message like I don’t wanna read about your sexcapades thank you]
Billie: 🎧 🔊
Edie: [retypes it more vividly which I won’t subject you to lmao]
Billie: NAH
Edie: 😂😂😂
Edie: you’re alright, I’ve got another level to my mission now
Edie: [deets of the scavenger hunt thing]
Billie: Did he sort it for you?
Edie: Yep 😍
Billie: this lad
Billie: unreal
Edie: I think I’m in love
Billie: Someone offer to make him for you in a lab? getting sus otherwise
Edie: That would make sense
Edie: he’s way too perfect
Edie: not that I’m mad
Billie: 🏩 💕 💐 🧸 💞
Edie: 💍💒👶
Billie: [deletes that like calm down lol]
Edie: 👶👶👶👶👶👶👶 maybe
Billie: When’s the [some meteor shower or comet that’d feel very fated and cosmic and therefore we must]? invite him to that first
Edie: 🛸
Edie: I just need to think of a way to tell him where and when
Billie: You’ll be looking up for it, makes sense if he has to 👀⬆️ to find out
Billie: I’d put something on his roof
Edie: About the only place he’d genuinely have to look up to see
Edie: might be less literal
Edie: 💻
Billie: that’ll work too
Edie: plus if you reckon he’ll think I’m mental for hitting up Linda, finding out where he lives without asking will really tip it
Billie: romantic gestures are mental, less of a public ambush than most are
Edie: Everything fun is
Billie: Yeah, but nothing’s fun about getting asked out in the hallway between lessons or whatever 💩 is meant to pass for 😍
Edie: Well yeah, that’s too American teen drama for words
Edie: are his friends gonna be standing there pissing themselves at you believing it even for a sec
Billie: if it’s me his mates are stood about meowing cos some tics refuse to 💀
Edie: That’s cute
Edie: at least you aren’t saying some embarrassing untrue shit
Billie: my true form is 🐱 🐈 & I’m saying the truest shit since 👶🏼 🧒🏼
Edie: I know enough not to throw out suggestions for your head to grab but I’ve seen people saying wild things that you’d get eaten alive for
Edie: but duh, how else did we end up with you
Billie: I know not to watch that shit & maybe 🐦 it but yeah, love to my non-verbals 😝 😜 🤪 ✌️ 🖕 👍
Billie: & to ma for never meeting a stray she didn’t love
Edie: I’ll wait ‘til you wrong me ‘fore I add you to the shit list and send ‘em your way
Edie: tRIGgeRd ❗️❗️❗️❗️
Edie: 💗
Billie: Well I ain’t gonna develop a convenient new 👊 one OR pull a Lexie & wheel out my dead relative to steal your bf 💚
Edie: Ha, don’t
Billie: wouldn’t know what to do with him after using him as a 🛹 ramp & 🚴🏼‍♀️ jump
Edie: I’m the only one allowed to jump him tah
Billie: 😷
Edie: Okay I need to focus on this last one
Edie: see you at home
Billie: k
Billie: see you soon 🏴‍☠️
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wizardofrozz · 3 years
Text
Put to the Test
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Summary: Bucky and Roz decide to confide in their best friends finally; maybe they’ll have some answers.
Warnings: swearing, violence
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OFC
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Chapter 2: What the hell is going on?
I took the elevator to my room, impatiently watching the floor numbers flashing. I threw on a t-shirt and my pair of cargo pants too. I might as well be ready for the mission instead of changing again later. I took my hair out of the braid it was in but put the ponytail on my wrist, ran to my bathroom, threw some water on my face, and brushed my teeth quickly. I put my boots on then made my way out to the front of the building, looking for Bucky. I saw Bucky sitting on a bench off to the left; his hair was blowing softly in the slight breeze. I smiled and walked over to the bench, stopping behind him, and laid my hand on his shoulder. He gasped a little but placed his hand on top of mine, and I closed my eyes, just enjoying the pure bliss that was washing over me. Bucky and I had been pretty good about our agreement, we’ve kept it to ourselves and kept our distance around everyone else, but more recently, when we’ve been alone, we can’t help but sneak little touches. We’ve managed to stay away from anything like the night we met, but that’s been hard.
           “Come sit and enjoy the morning, doll,” he smiled up at me. I made my way around the bench and took a seat next to him, grabbing my coffee from his outstretched hand. “So, how do you want to start today’s conversation?” he asked before taking a sip of his still steaming coffee.
           “Well, it occurred to me the other day. I never asked you how old you are,” I looked over at him to see his reaction.
           “I knew you’d have to ask at some point,” he said with a sigh before looking back towards to woods in front of us. I waited for an answer; I wasn’t going to back down either, I needed to know, and I needed to tell him how old I was. “Don’t run screaming, but I’m 103. I was born in 1917,” he didn’t look at me when he said it, but I saw his body tense when I didn’t react for a minute.
           “Well, that doesn’t make me feel so bad then. I was born in 1920,” I said in a nonchalant tone. His head snapped towards me then he sat up straighter, boring a hole into the side of my head until I met his gaze.
           “You’re joking, right?” he said with a completely blank expression.
           “Oh, I wish, but no,” I said softly before sipping my coffee. Before Bucky could say anything else, our phones started to ring, we both checked the caller ID, and both our phones read ‘Steve Rogers’. “Shit run over to the entrance and say you were going on a run,” I made a shooing motion at him.
           “Okay, but this conversation is not over,” he jumped up and ran to the front door to the compound to answer his phone.
           “Hey Steve,” I answered my phone, trying to sound like Bucky didn’t just drop a bomb on me.
           “Hey, Roz! Buck, you there?” Steve’s voice came through the phone.
           “Yep, I’m here, bud, hey Roz,” Bucky’s voice sounded far away. “Okay, sorry, I was tying my shoe; whatcha need?” Bucky’s voice was closer now, and he sounded cranky.
           “So I know I said our mission wasn’t until later today, but things changed. We have to leave earlier than I thought,” Steve sounded almost nervous.
           “Okay, Cap, what time do we need to be ready?” I asked, looking over the bench, watching Bucky put his hand under his shirt and rub his chest.
           “Please don’t yell at me; the helicopter will be here in 15 minutes. You guys weren’t doing anything important, right?” Steve said quickly.
           “I’m sitting outside, enjoying the morning, so no,” I said, giggling.
           “I was going to go for a run before the mission, but I haven’t left yet. It’s probably better that I don’t. I want to save my energy,” Bucky was walking in circles as he talked into his phone, his hand still under his shirt.
           “Oh, thank god, okay, so you guys can be ready in the next 10-15 minutes?” Steve asked, breathing a sigh of relief.
           “No problem,” Bucky and I said together. I tried to hide my amusement and glanced at Bucky and saw him doing the same thing.
           “Awesome, I have to go break it to Nat, so wish me luck,” Steve whispered.
           “Good luck, bud,” Bucky mumbled. “Hey Roz, I see you. Let’s go; relaxation is over,” Bucky yelled into his phone loud enough that I could hear him from where I was sitting.
           “Damn Buck, blew out my eardrum, just get moving,” Steve hung up, which left Bucky and me on the phone.
           “Wait for me. I’m coming,” I said before hanging up. I got up and grabbed our coffee cups, dumped them into the grass, and walked over to Bucky.
           “I have a question before we go in,” Bucky stepped into my path. “It’s been over a month now; I haven’t found anything solid. Unless you haven’t told me about anything you found, we aren’t any closer to answer about this,” he motioned back and forth between us. “Would you mind if I talked to Steve about it? He’s my best friend, and maybe he has some idea about this,” he looked at me, almost preparing for me to be upset, but I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding in.
           “Oh, thank god, it’s been killing me keeping it from Nat. She’s been my best friend for years, and not telling her has been almost as hard as keeping our agreement,” I finished my sentence and put my hands on my knees, feeling a weight lifted off me.
           “Oh, I’m so glad you agree. Okay, I feel better,” Bucky smiled at me and moved out of the way so we could walk in together. We walked into the compound, heading for our rooms to grab our bags and go to the landing pad on the roof. I met Bucky in the hallway after I got my things and caught the elevator to the roof. Bucky and I went into stranger mode when we were traveling around the compound, he stood on one side of the elevator, messing around on his phone, and I stood on the other side watching the floor number climb. My phone buzzed in my pocket; I fished it out and looked at the screen.
Bucky bear- You look so sexy in your cargo pants ;)
I looked over towards Bucky, making it seems like I was looking out of the glass elevator, and I saw a smirk spread across his face, but he didn’t meet my eyes. I rolled my eyes, looking back at the floor number and saw we were almost to the roof. I pushed off the handrail and waited for the elevator to stop; the doors opened, and Bucky put his arm out to let me go first.
           “Ladies first,” he said before lowering his voice, “I want to enjoy the view from back here.” I looked over my shoulder and saw a very devilish look cross Bucky’s face; his head was angled away and down from the camera so no one would notice. Butterflies flew around my stomach, and I quickly looked away but heard Bucky’s husky laugh behind me. Well, if he wants a show, I’ll give him one; I saw Nat and Steve standing on the opposite side of the landing pad and started to strut towards them. I glanced over my shoulder, and Bucky followed at a comfortable distance, biting his lower lip. I laughed to myself and waved to Nat as I got closer, and she did not look happy.
           “Jeez Nat, if looks could kill, I’d be dead, probably Bucky too,” I laughed as I set my bag down next to Steve’s. I heard Bucky stumbled over the edge of the landing pad, but he caught himself, then walked over to the edge of the roof and looked out at the woods. Steve raised his eyebrow at Bucky, probably wondering how he managed to trip over nothing; I held back a giggle.
           “Steve could’ve given me more time,” she shot a dirty look at Steve, and he flinched.
           “I said I was sorry, I didn’t get the info from Fury until early this morning,” he gave her a dirty look back.
           “Kids, play nice,” Bucky chuckled from behind me. Before anyone could go after him, the sound of the helicopter above us got closer. We all grabbed our things and hopped on, ready to start our trip to the airport. The trip to the airport was quick, and we were walking onto the huge S.H.I.E.L.D helicarrier, preparing for a long flight.
 ***
           Nat and I set out to find the kitchen after we dropped our bags off. I saw out of the corner of my eyes Bucky and Steve standing in the cargo hold talking; Bucky glanced my way, and I winked before following Nat. We wandered into the kitchen; I went to the fridge and grabbed some fresh strawberries, offering Nat one.
           “Hey, so I need to talk to you about something,” I said, looking at Nat.
           “You okay? What’s wrong?” Nat said through bites of her strawberry.
           “I think, I don’t know, I have to ask you something. Have you ever met someone that whenever you touch them, it’s like every nerve ending in your body is alive, on fire?” I said softly, avoiding eye contact.
           “I can’t say I have; why do you ask?” she sounded concerned, but I still couldn’t look at her.
           “Well, there’s someone I met, and it’s like my entire body is on fire, every nerve ending is alive, but it’s not painful or anything. I’ve never felt anything like it,” I picked at the strawberries as I spoke.
           “No, I’ve never felt anything like that; who are you talking about?” she asked the question. I wasn’t ready to answer, but I knew I had to.
           “…Bucky,” I whispered.
           “I knew it! I had a feeling something was up with you guys. You two avoid each other like the plague, but I’ve seen you guys sneaking off at night,” she was smiling from ear to ear.
           “I just have this feeling that it’s not as innocent as I want it to be,” as I said the words, the weight of them crashed down on me.
           “Okay, try to explain it a little more,” Nat noticed that my mood had changed.
           “It’s like the most intense happiness, pleasure- “
           “Okay, TMI,” Nat swatted at me.
           “No, no, I’m not even talking about sex; we haven’t even had sex. It’s the most intense, innocent pleasure I’ve ever felt. Touching him or even just being near him gives me the feeling of being safe, being home, it’s like- “. I didn’t finish my sentence because the reality of what I was about to say occurred to me. “It’s like I ran into the other half of my soul.”
           “Wow, honestly, I’ve never heard of or experienced anything like that. I’m a little jealous. Actually, I would kill to feel that with another person. What’s worrying you about it so much that you guys are torturing yourselves by stay away?” Nat asked before switching sides of the counter, so she was facing me.
           “I’m just skeptical of everything; I have this nagging feeling there’s something else to it. He’s just as worried,” I said, finally meeting Nat’s eyes, holding back tears.
           “Hey, we’ll figure it out; I’m glad you finally told me. I think you should talk to Bruce; maybe he can run some tests and see if there’s anything that can explain it,” she reached for another strawberry.
           “We talked about that. We decided that if we couldn’t figure it out, we’d have to ask Bruce. But please don’t say anything to anyone else. You and one other person are the only ones that know, and we want to keep it that way until we know what’s going on,” I looked at Nat, and she was smiling and nodding.
           “Of course, I won’t say anything but let me guess, Steve is the other person that knows,” she rolled her eyes but smiled.
           “Yeah, I assume Bucky’s telling him right now,” I hope he is at least.
           “We’ll figure it out, don’t worry,” Nat hugged me, and it did make me feel better about the whole situation. I didn’t feel so anxious anymore.
*** 
(Bucky POV)
           I watched Roz and Nat walk out of the cargo hold as the door closed behind me; I faintly heard the engines starting up, preparing to lift us into the air. Steve was wandering around, checking that we had everything we needed before stopping in front of me.
           “Okay, it looks like we have everything. Hey, you okay?” Steve asked as he touched my shoulder.
           “Huh, yeah, I’m good,” I glanced in the direction the girls went, and I saw Roz wink at me before I turned back to Steve.
           “Nice try; what’s going on?” Steve pushed me to tell him. “Let’s walk around down here. I know I interrupted your run, so let’s get some exercise, and you can tell me what’s bothering you,” Steve turned to start walking.
           “It’s complicated. I don’t even know where to start.” Steve raised an eyebrow but stayed silent and waited for me to keep talking; I sighed but continued. “So I met someone, and she’s amazing, but there’s this thing. Every time I touch her, it’s like every nerve is on fire; she explained it the best. It’s like someone released hundreds of thousands of butterflies loose inside me, but they’re all on fire,” I glanced at Steve, but he was looking straight ahead.
           “That sounds painful,” he said plainly. I almost punched him.
           “No, it’s not painful. It’s the most intense happiness, bliss, pleasure, all of that, that I’ve ever experienced in my life. Have you ever heard of anything like that?” I looked at him again, but he was still looking in front of us.
           “Honestly, no, sorry if I seem like I’m not listening, I’m trying to put it together in my head. I mean, Isn’t sex supposed to feel like that with the right person?” Steve asked; this time, I did punch him. “I’m serious!”
           “I haven’t slept with her; that’s what confuses me. She holds my hand or puts her hand on my shoulder, and it’s like fireworks all over my skin,” I rubbed my face with my right hand, trying to fight off a headache.
           “Wait, you feel that all the time?” I could see his brain reeling, trying to grasp what I said. “Yeah, I’ve never heard anyone feeling like that, has she?” he looked puzzled.
           “No, and we have been sifting through S.H.I.E.L.D files that we may or may not have hacked in to get, but neither of us have found anything useful. I hoped maybe you heard something in S.H.I.E.L.D that isn’t recorded knowledge because I’m running out of patience,” I said while squeezing the bridge of my nose.
           “I’ve never heard of anything like that. Honestly, I’d say to talk to Bruce or Tony; maybe one of them can run some tests because I don’t think that’s normal. But why does it worry you so much? I’d be happy to feel that connected to someone,” I could see the sadness on Steve’s face.
           “I’m worried because what if it’s something horrible? I have this knot in the pit of my stomach about the whole situation; it’s not normal. I mean, I spent all those years stuck under Hydra; what if they had something to do with it? It would crush me, but I don’t want to jeopardize her safety,” sadness seeped into my voice even though I tried to fight it. The more I thought about it, the faster the sadness crashed down on me. “It feels like I lost part of my soul, and I finally found it,” I fought back the tears and waited for Steve to say something. Steve put his arm around my shoulders in an attempt to comfort me like when we were kids; he squeezed my left shoulder, pulling me closer.
           “Please go talk to Banner or Tony. I hate to see you like this. We finally got you to a good place, and you found someone that makes you happier than I’ve ever seen you, even before the war. Please go talk to one of them,” Steve pulled back to look at me with a concerned look but shot me a sad smile.
           “You didn’t even ask who it is,” I managed a smile.
           “Oh wait, I know her?” Steve was taken back for a second, realizing she wasn’t a random person.
           “Yeah, you know her, but promise me you won’t say anything to anyone else. You and Nat are the only ones that know, and we want to keep it that way until we get some answers.”
           “Of course, I’ll keep it between Nat and us. Wait- “. Finally, a realization hit Steve like a ton of bricks. “Roz,” Steve whispered. I shook my head and shot him a guilty smile; Steve rolled his eyes and threw his head back. “You’re a real pain in my ass. I’m glad you’re happy though, Buck, we’ll figure this out. How about we go to the kitchen? I’m starving,” he smiled and headed for the upper deck, and I followed shaking my head.
***
(Roz POV)
           Nat took a step back and smiled at me.
           “I’m grabbing some cereal. Want any?” I asked Nat as she walked around the corner.
           “No, I’m good,” she yelled back. I went to the pantry and opened the door to see what cereal they stocked the ship with; I went to grab a box when I heard footsteps. I closed the pantry and walked through the doorway to meet Nat in the hall.
           “Hey-. “ As I rounded the corner, I slammed into what felt like a wall. Arms wrapped around me to steady me, and almost instantly, sparks instantly exploding all over my skin, and I gasped. I looked up and saw Bucky’s blue eyes looking down at me.
           “Hey, you okay? You slammed into me pretty hard,” he smiled down at me.
           “Y-Yeah,” I shook off the shock. Bucky didn’t let go of me, and if he didn’t soon, our agreement would unravel. I tapped his left arm; he shook his head and let go of me, making sure I was okay to stand.
           “In a rush?” Steve said with a smirk. We turned to walk back to the kitchen together.
           “No, I thought it was Nat walking down the hall,” I made my way to the kitchen. “Want any cereal Bucky?” I opened the pantry and bent down to grab the cereal.
           “What kind is there?” he tried to look over me, but I was blocking his view, so he settled on just looking at me.
           “Ooo, Reese’s Puffs,” I grabbed the box and did a little dance.
           “No way, I don’t remember the last time I had Reese’s,” he looked excited.
           “Grab the bowls and spoons?” I asked him. He nodded and headed for the cabinets as I got the milk. He set the bowls down; I poured the cereal, put the cereal back in the pantry, and then grabbed the milk as Bucky came back with spoons. He put the milk away, and I handed him his bowl; his fingers brushed the back of my hand, and I shivered. We leaned against the counter and ate our cereal as Nat and Steve watched from the small table across the room.
           “Hey, Fury should be landing in about 15 minutes, guys, so hurry up,” Steve smiled, grabbing an apple out of the fridge before walking out of the kitchen. Bucky and I finished our cereal, grabbed Nat on the way out, and made our way to the cargo hold.
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Series Masterlist | Chapter 3
Taglist:
@criminalyetminimal​ @kendallthesimp​ @marvelfansworld​ 
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sunlightdances · 4 years
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Light a Flame (College!Steve Rogers x Reader)
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Author: Katie @sunlightdances​ Title: Light a Flame Pairing: College AU Steve Rogers x Fem Reader Rating: PG-13 (for language) Summary: Big, sweet, blonde idiot Steve and slightly idiot reader. Our faves! You’re paired with Steve Rogers for a project. Captain of the debate team, track and field star, and actual intelligent man… which just made you more furious. It would be one thing if he was an idiot. But he wasn’t, and you needed an A in this class to get through the rest of the year unscathed. Disclaimer: I don’t own Steve Rogers, or Marvel. Please don’t repost my work on any other sites without my permission! Author’s Note: Special thanks to @lipstickandvibranium​ for reading this over for me! If you like this, please reblog and give me some feedback! Also check out my masterlist for other pairings and stories.
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As a general rule, you tried not to dislike people, or hold grudges.
It didn’t do any good, even if at the time your reason for being upset was completely justified. You were considering changing your stance after meeting Steve Rogers, however.
He seemed perfect - perfect hair, perfect eyes, perfect teeth -- but you got a glimpse at the real person under the mask when you were paired together for a politics project.
He was-- you couldn’t even put it into words.
Smug.
Self righteous.
A pain in the ass.
(Also the most attractive person you’ve seen up close, with his sharp jaw and deep blue eyes, and the way he laughed--)
Okay, maybe you could put it into words. Still, it did nothing to help your situation, because you were stuck with him for the semester. Him and his know-it-all attitude.
Steve Rogers. Captain of the debate team, track and field star, and actual intelligent man… which just made you more furious. It would be one thing if he was an idiot. But he wasn’t, and you needed an A in this class to get through the rest of the year unscathed.
You stew silently as you sit in the library and wait for him. He’s almost an hour late, and you’re thinking of a million witty retorts for when he finally shows up, but it all flies right out of your head when he comes jogging into the library, eyes a little wild and hair windswept.
He spots you, and his shoulders slump. He gets to you in a few long strides.
“I’m sorry--”
“I took off work to be here today--” you start, angrily.
“I know, and I didn’t mean to be late, but I got caught up--”
“It’s common decency to be on time! Especially when one person has already rearranged their schedule--”
He almost collapses into the chair across from you, wiping his hand down his face. “I said I was sorry. It won’t happen again.”
He sounds genuinely upset, and for the first time, you’re not sure how to respond. “... Are you okay?”
He waves a hand dismissively. “Fine. Let’s just get to work.”
The two of you debate for what feels like hours. Steve wants to present a moral argument on an issue, you want to present a logical argument on the same issue… honestly, you wonder if Professor Coulson realized what he was doing when he paired you together.
After an especially long yawn from Steve, you feel your patience wearing thin. “You know what? I’m calling it. Don’t want to bore you to death.”
He looks taken aback. “Sorry?”
“You haven’t done anything but act bored and like you’d rather be anywhere else since you got here. So I’ll save you the trouble and finish the rest of the presentation myself.”
Angrily, he stands, mirroring you. “We haven’t decided on anything yet.”
“I don’t need your input.”
“Look, I don’t know what I did to piss you off so much--”
“Besides your general…” You gesture vaguely in his direction, immediately regretting it when his eyes go cold and a bitter smile shows up on his face.
He nods. “Okay. Well, I won’t keep you.”
You had visions of leaving him there, sitting there alone like he had done to you, but instead the door clicks with a kind of finality that you weren’t expecting to feel so guilty about as he leaves, and you’re alone again.
.
.
.
It starts raining while Steve is walking back to his apartment, but he barely notices. He’s surprised there isn’t steam coming off of him with how hot with anger and embarrassment he feels after his encounter with you.
He doesn’t understand why he lets you get under his skin this way.
He wishes you would just see him for once.
You and he have had classes together for years, but have never really been in the same social circles, or been paired up on anything together.
It doesn’t mean he’s never noticed you before.
He remembers the first time he ever saw you vividly. And he kinda hates himself for it, because while he remembers every detail of that moment, he doubts you do.
He sticks his foot in his mouth every time you come within five feet of him, and now you hate him.
He gets to his apartment and is literally dripping wet, Bucky pulling open the door before he can put his key into the lock, eyes widening.
“What the hell happened?”
“She hates me.” He hangs his sodden jacket on a hook by the door, tossing his keys into the bowl on the small table. “I was late, and I tried to apologize—”
“Jesus. How you’ve managed to mess this up so spectacularly, I have no idea.”
“Fuck off,” Steve groans, heading to his bedroom to change out of his wet clothes, seething the entire time.
“All I’m saying,” Bucky’s voice drifts through the closed door, “Is that you finally have the chance to get to know the girl, and now you can’t even get that right?”
Steve grits his teeth. “Remind me why we’re friends again?”
He opens the door to see Bucky’s grinning face.
“Because no one else would put up with your dramatic ass for their entire lives.” He follows Steve to the kitchen, sitting at one of the bar stools while Steve pulls out a bowl and some cereal.
“She wouldn’t even let me explain why I was late, and I apologized straight away… she’s impossible. We’re both going to fail this project because she hates me so much she’d rather take a failing grade than work with me.”
Bucky looks skeptical. “Why were you late?”
Steve sighs, knowing he’s going to get shit for this no matter how hard he defends himself. “I was talking to Sharon—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Bucky exclaims, face twisted in exasperation. “For what? For the final nail in your coffin? Jesus, dude—”
“She asked me to call her! I thought something was wrong.”
Bucky puts a hand on his shoulder, “I say this with the most love a best friend can say this with: you really have to get a grip. You and Sharon broke up months ago.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“It is when you have feelings for someone else!”
Steve groans, letting his forehead hit the counter top. “You know, she wasn’t the nicest person in the world either, but I don’t think she’s getting chewed out by her best friend right now.”
Bucky snorts. “Yeah, well. She doesn’t have me for a best friend, does she?”
.
.
.
MJ and Peter stare at you in disbelief.
“You said what?” Peter asks, eyes wide.
“He was late! By a lot!”
MJ shakes her head. “You told him his general existence is why you don’t like him? Girl.”
You feel your cheeks reddening. “I know, I know. I just— I got so angry, and it just came out.” You bury your face in your hands. “I’m the worst.”
“You’re not the worst,” Peter assures you. “You just suck at having a crush on someone.”
You glare at him.
You have no idea how you let it get this far. You tend to be standoffish when you like someone, because you’re afraid of the inevitable, that they won’t like you back and that you’ll be stuck pining after someone.
But the truth? The truth is that Steve Rogers has a way of pushing your buttons like no one else, while simultaneously being the nicest, most attractive person you know.
“I should apologize.” You mutter, so quiet Peter and MJ actually lean closer to hear you.
“What?”
“I said I should apologize.” You groan. “I’m never going to live this down. He’s just--”
“Super hot?” MJ finishes, eyebrow raised.
You groan again, and try to tune out the laughter of your friends.
Hours later, in the quiet dark of your apartment, glasses perched on your nose, you open a blank email.
To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: Sorry
Steve,
Sorry for bailing on our project planning session today. I’m also sorry I was a huge jerk. I had a bad day and took it out on you.
Can we meet another day this week to finish up?
Sorry again.
You hit send before you can second guess it, and hope that you didn’t screw up as monumentally as you think you might have.
An hour later, a ping from your computer wakes you up, and with bleary eyes, you read:
To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: Re: Sorry
I’m sorry too, for being late. And for arguing so much. I’m free tomorrow after 1pm if that works for you.
You’re surprised, but relief takes over you as you finally fall asleep.
.
.
.
Steve is fidgety, and he doesn’t do fidgety. He’s usually calm and collected, but he knows he was a jerk the night before, and it doesn’t sit well with him.
He’s also a little worried that you’re going to yell at him again, which-- fair, but not really what he wants to deal with.
He sees you come into the Starbucks and waves from the table he’s claimed towards the back, hoping that being in a more public place will deter you from any violence. Not that he thinks you’d resort to that. But who knows, at this point.
“Hey.” You say quietly when you get closer, dumping your bag on the empty chair across from him.
“Hi.”
An uncomfortable silence settles over the two of you.
“Look, we already emailed about it, so can we skip the awkward apologies and just get to work?”
Relief floods him. “Yeah. Absolutely.”
“Great. I’m going to order a coffee.”
You’re back in a few minutes, and start digging out notebooks and color-coded spreadsheets, and he has a minute to be impressed before you meet his eyes, arching your eyebrows.
“So this is what I’ve done over the last three weeks. I’ve got all the info here, but we need to make it look presentable. Lucky for us, you’re the art major.”
“Art history--”
You wave a hand, “You can draw. I’ve seen you doodle.”
He snorts. “Okay.”
You look at him again, “If you don’t want to, we can make it digital, but I just thought it would be better--”
Steve runs a hand over his jaw, “No, you’re right. It would look more authentic. It’s the least I can do, too. You know. To make up for yesterday.”
Steve feels you staring at him, and he fidgets again. He has no idea what you’re looking for, but he can imagine what you see. The circles under his eyes, the stubble from the few days he hasn’t shaved… he’s a mess. And you got caught up in it just by the bad luck of being his partner on this project.
“Why were you late yesterday, anyway?” You ask finally.
Steve busies himself tearing the label off the side of his coffee cup. “My ex called.”
He watches you go rigid, and for a horrifying moment, he thinks maybe he got this all wrong. Maybe you do see him the way he sees you, and now he’s just admitted that he was late to meet you because of his ex, and--
“We were together for a long time and she has an aunt that’s sick, when she called I--”
“I get it. You don’t have to explain yourself.” The spark he’s used to seeing in your eyes - especially when bantering with him -- is completely gone. He almost wishes Bucky was here to kick his ass.
You go back to organizing your notes, and the moment is gone.
He can’t help but think he’s managed to fuck this up again.
.
.
You don’t know why you’re acting like this.
So Steve still keeps in touch with his ex, so what. Why do you care so much? He said it himself, she’s got a sick aunt, and maybe the breakup was amicable, because Steve Rogers is totally that type of guy.
It’s impossible not to like him, as you’re slowly discovering.
You’re annoyed that when he admitted why he was late, it felt like getting doused in cold water. But then-- the look on his face when he saw you deflate a little… what was that about? His eyes were pleading… for what? Understanding?
Your head hurts.
You haven’t even been here for a half hour and Steve is already so far under your skin you’ll be amazed if you get out of this project unscathed.
Steve draws up some quick drafts of the posters for your project and you give him some input here and there, but the conversation is minimal and quiet.
Every now and then you can feel his eyes on you. Those big, sad, blue eyes… you’re just so confused by him. He normally seems so put together, so sure of himself, but now it’s the opposite. You can’t believe that you have something to do with it.
Because you’re no one special, or at least that’s what you think.
You have no idea that Steve would disagree.
.
.
.
A few days go by without any word from Steve.
A quick email is sent to check in on his progress, but that’s it. You don’t know why you feel so gloomy about it.
“What are you thinking about? Steve?” MJ asks, tossing a pillow at you from the bed across from yours.
“What?”
“You know. Tall, blonde, handsome?”
You roll your eyes. “I’m not thinking about him.”
She chuckles. “Wow. You suck at lying.”
“He’s probably busy.”
MJ narrows her eyes. “And that doesn’t bother you at all?”
You set your chemistry textbook down with a thump. “Is there a point to this?”
“You like him. You’re both idiots. You should just tell him already and put him out of his misery. Maybe then you can actually get a good grade on this project instead of trying to tiptoe around it.”
“You know what? I’m hungry. I’m going to go to the dining hall.”
You shove on some boots and a jacket and leave before MJ can say anything else that you’re not ready to hear.
On your way, your head is spinning. There’s just no way that Steve likes you. And there’s no way you like him either! You-- you barely tolerate him. You’re from two different worlds… there’s no way it would work.
Besides, it sounds like things are weird with his ex. You have no desire to get in the middle of anything like that.
So lost in your thoughts, you round a corner, and run straight into an absolute brick wall of a man. You almost fall, but your yelp startles him into action and he grabs your arm, yanking you upright.
“Shit,” he curses, “Are you okay?”
“Fine!” You squeak.
“Oh,” He says, “I know you. You’re Steve’s project partner.”
You blink up at him before you recognize him as Steve’s friend, Bucky. “Hi. Sorry about that.”
“No problem.” He frowns. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on that thing with Steve right now?”
It’s your turn to frown. “What are you talking about? I haven’t heard from him all week.” You think the hurt at Steve being basically off the grid after you thought you’d had a breakthrough shows on your face.
Bucky sighs, eyes closing, tipping his head back like the weight of the universe is suddenly on his shoulders. “What an idiot.”
“Excuse me?!”
His eyes fly open. “Not you! Him. Definitely him. Listen, I gotta go.” He takes two steps before turning back to you, his voice suddenly much more serious. “Do me a favor and don’t give up on him, okay?”
“Uh-- okay,” you say, still not really sure what he’s talking about.
He leaves and you go grab some dinner, wondering when the hell your life got this confusing.
.
.
.
The door bursts open and Bucky comes through it, eyes flashing. “You know, I could just strangle you right now.”
Steve glances up from his seat on the couch, thumbing through a paperback he’s already read four times. “What?”
“Tell me why I just, quite literally, ran into your project partner at the dining hall when she’s supposed to be at the library working with you, like you’ve been telling me for the last three days.”
Steve sighs. Bucky continues.
“Also tell me why she looked like someone kicked her puppy when she said she hasn’t heard from you at all this week.”
Steve clenches his jaw. No matter what he does, he keeps fucking this up. He’s not trying to hurt you, or avoid you, it’s the last thing he wants. But he has to get his shit straight before he even thinks about telling you how he feels.
“You’ve been telling me for days that you were going to study with her and finally tell her that you’re crazy about her.” Bucky sits down next to Steve, actually looking a bit angry, and not just amused like he has all the other times before. “Why do you keep doing this to yourself?”
“I had to-- I saw Sharon today.”
Bucky’s eyes darken, “You absolute--”
“I told her I can’t keep seeing her.” When it appears like Bucky is going to hold off on his tirade for now, Steve plows on, “I told her I wanted to be her friend, that I’d be there for her if her Aunt Peggy gets worse, but that’s it. I can’t meet up for coffee, I can’t text her every day like she wants. I ended it, for good this time.”
Bucky still looks suspicious. “She was fine with that?”
“I think she realized that we were still acting like we’re a couple without actually being together.”
“What are you going to do now?”
Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. “I think I have some serious groveling to do. I just didn’t want to say anything without talking to Sharon first. It wouldn’t have been fair to either of them.”
Bucky lays a heavy hand on Steve’s shoulder. “You’re a better person than you give yourself credit for, you know.” A beat. “Sorry for saying I wanted to strangle you.”
Steve laughs.
.
.
.
A knock on the door brings you out of your thoughts, but you make no move to get up. MJ is on her feet anyway, so she pulls open the door and you hear a few murmured words before she turns to you.
“Your friend is here.”
She moves and you see him, looking sheepish as he hovers in the doorway.
“I just remembered I have to meet Peter. To talk about the thing. Be back later.” MJ says, the traitor, and leaves you alone with Steve, who looks a bit lost as he shuts the door behind him and steps inside.
“I can go if you’re busy…” He says quietly.
You shrug. “Didn’t expect to see you tonight.”
Steve’s shoulders slump. “I know. I’m sorry.” He takes a few tentative steps towards you. “Can I sit?”
You shrug again. It figures, now that he’s actually here, you’re unable to string two words together.
“Can I tell you something?” He doesn’t wait for a response. “I was really happy when I saw we were paired together for this project. I-- I thought you hated me, and I like you, so you can imagine how much that sucked.” He hears your quick intake of breath and smiles, but keeps going. “I thought this was my chance. To get to know you, for you to get to know me. But I keep fucking it up.”
You can’t really believe what you’re hearing. Despite yourself, your heart rate picks up.
“I know I-- people think whatever they think about me. That I’m some-- some hero, some perfect person, and I…” he shakes his head, “I’ve never known how to live up to that. But when I actually wanted to be that person around you, I just turned into the biggest asshole on the face of the Earth.”
“Steve, wait.” You interrupt him, unable to handle the look on his face for another second. “We’re both idiots, okay?” Out of instinct, you reach for his hand, your decision solidified when he grips yours right back, no hesitation. “I wasn’t very nice to you either. I didn’t even try to ask if you had something else going on.”
“I’m a control freak and too competitive.” He arches his eyebrows, almost like he’s daring you to contradict him.
“I’m too sarcastic and overreact.”
“I can’t stand the thought of people hating me, so I try to make everyone happy even when it’s impossible.” He says quietly, looking down at your joined hands.
“Your ex?”
“That’s done.” Steve says, and you feel the conviction in his words, giving you the courage you need to meet his eyes again. “It doesn’t make up for the fact that I let my outside stuff influence me enough to be a jerk to you. But it won’t happen again.”
Suddenly, with more confidence than you feel, you stand, tugging Steve to his feet. “Come on, I have an idea.”
.
.
.
Steve follows you in a daze, his brain rapidly trying to process everything that just happened. He apologized, like he should have done weeks ago. He cleared the air with Sharon, like he should have done weeks ago.
He told you he likes you.
You didn’t really respond, but he almost doesn’t care. Because the negative tension that used to be in the air between you is gone, and you’re still holding his hand, tugging him with you to God knows where.
A stop at the coffee cart, and then you’re pulling him into the library. He looks down at you, and you smirk.
“Time to pay up, Rogers. We’re getting an A on this project if it kills us.”
Your voice is decidedly flirty, and Steve sort of feels like he’s been hit over the head with something heavy. That smile aimed at him? Designed to kill.
“Yeah, yeah. Okay.” He agrees, chuckling.
You don’t leave the library until very late.
He holds your hand again on the walk back.
Four days later, you do your presentation with Steve, and even your professor looks amazed at how it goes off without a hitch. The original artwork Steve did to help illustrate your points had people coming up to get a closer look afterwards, and if Steve preens a little at the proud look in your eyes as you glance at him, well who could blame him?
“Let’s get coffee,” he says afterwards, pulling you off to one side. He can’t get over the soft way you’re looking at him, and would do just about anything to spend more time with you today.
He’s still half worried that now that the project is done, you’ll go back to acting like he doesn’t exist.
The coffee shop just off campus is quiet when you get there, and even though you roll your eyes, you agree to let Steve buy your coffee. As he waits for your order, he watches you out of the corner of your eye as you pick a table by the window, the sun hitting your profile, and for a minute he’s totally dumbstruck.
Sitting down across from you, your fingers graze his when he hands you your cup, and he’s about to ask you out, for real this time, when you beat him to the punch.
“I never really responded to what you told me the other night.”
Steve swallows hard, trying to act nonchalant. “Oh?”
You roll your eyes. “I-- god. Stop looking at me like that!”
He can’t help it, he grins. “Like what?”
“Smug. Like you already know what I’m going to say. Do you look at all the girls like that?”
His smile softens. “No. Not all of them.”
Something warm unfurls in Steve’s chest as he watches you take in his words, your entire demeanor turning shy.
“Anyway, like I was saying--” You say, “You told me you liked me.”
Steve feels like his palms are going to start sweating. “I did.”
“I never said anything.”
“No,” he agrees, “You didn’t.”
You shift a little bit, and it sort of makes him hopeful that you seem nervous, even though the last thing he wants is for you to be uncomfortable. “I guess I-- I sort of like you too.”
Steve laughs, “Oh, you guess you sort of like me - my, oh my. How will I ever recover from this romantic confession?” He presses his hand to his heart.
“I take it back - I hate you.” You say, crossing your arms over your chest.
“No, you don’t.” He says, smug. “I think my plan worked.” He leans a little farther over the tabletop so he can grab your hand again.
You snort. “Oh yeah, your plan absolutely worked and definitely didn’t backfire at all.”
“You’re here, aren’t you?” Steve says, absolutely in awe of the feeling coursing through him right now. Is this what being smitten is like? It’s probably an old-fashioned thought, but he doesn’t care.
He tugs a little bit on your hand so you’re leaning forward too, and then he’s pressing the gentlest of kisses to your lips, holding your hand while his other hand reaches up to cradle your jaw. He thinks if he opened his eyes he would see literal sparks, and sighs when you melt into him.
“There.” He says, voice husky, as you pull apart. “Does that convince you?”
“You’re still a pain in the ass, Steve Rogers.”
“Back at you, honey.”
End
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larissa-the-scribe · 3 years
Text
We’ll Make it Out
Whumptober, Day 1
For more info on characters and setting, go here
1780ish words
It didn't take Lenesse’s brain too long to catch her up to speed, even as she was still opening her eyes. Bound, sprawled on an icy stone floor in the Nyrthyl stronghold, still damp, covered head-to-toe in foul-smelling swamp mud, as well as various cuts, scrapes, and bruises that stung like she’d been bathed in lemon juice. Where the bog-walker had bitten off a chunk of her flesh burned and ached, itching fiercely from dried blood, dried mud, and the rough-woven ropes pulled tight just below it. 
And before that: the panicked chase, running from Lanshir and his men. The border of the Nyr Swamp. Her brilliant idea that could maybe have given them a fighting chance — because of course no one would be stupid enough follow a quarry into a cursed swamp.
On the plus side, she had been right. No one had followed them.
On the down side, no one had needed to.
Considering the three different monster attacks in the space of five hours, the fog that got them instantly and hopelessly lost, the three-hour long limp along the bank of the one clear river in the swamp (their desperate thought being that maybe it flowed out of this Melsyth-forsaken hellscape), and the pathetic last stand they’d made against a band of magic-wielding Nyrthyl warriors — well, it was understandable why the Nyr Swamp had the (literally) accursed reputation it did.
And now we’re captured. Lenesse stared up at the faintly glowing stone ceiling. Makes sense. What else should I have been expecting? A way out? Something NOT terrible? At the very least one night of actual sleep? Well, that would be just… too much to ask for, I guess.
Esyin is probably flipping out even more now, what with the demon-spirit-things. I'm going to hear a lot of I-told-you-so's later, from both him and Andren.
Esyin. Andren.
Lenesse tried to push herself up on her elbows, but a spear haft shoved her back down, knocking her head back against the stone.
“Yeah, they're not letting us move around,” Andren's voice said from her left. "Best to stay still for now."
Lenesse turned her head to look at him. That small action seemed permitted by the guard, standing stiffly within spear-striking distance of all three of them. Esyin was closest to her, lying limply as if he had just been dumped off someone's shoulder - he still looked to be out cold, but his face was facing away from her, so she couldn't tell. Andren was slumped against the wall just beyond him, dried blood cracked across his cheek and matting the rough stubble along his jaw. 
She couldn't remember if that injury had been there before. "You alright?"
Andren nodded. The black eye he’d gotten earlier looked worse in the pale, warmthless light; even more dried blood dribbled from his nose. It looked broken. Again.
She smiled. "You look great."
Andren tried to chuckle, but ending up coughing. The Nyrthyl shoved him back against the wall when he tried to shift into a more comfortable position. "You don't look too bad yourself, Less."
Lenesse rolled her eyes. "Come on, we’ve talked about the nickname thing."
Andren snorted. “What are you going to do? Give me a black eye?”
“Sure, that way you can have a matching set.”
"It'd probably be an improvement," Esyin croaked, stirring a bit for the first time. He tried to straighten out a bit, but got a sharp rap across his injured ankle for his trouble. He winced. "I mean," he added through gritted teeth, "you at least can’t make him look worse. Have you seen his face lately?"
"Well, I could help you out, too, if you want," Lenesse replied. “You can probably use it.”
"Eh. Go jump in a river."
“Rude.”
"Take a bath while you're at it," Andren added, "I've seen cleaner mudskippers."
Lenesse smiled. Her whole body shuddered from cold and exhaustion, but if she closed her eyes and listened only to their voices mumbling out familiar banter, maybe - just maybe - she could convince herself they were all back in the barracks. For one second she could be free of this whole dismal nightmare.
"Can you understand us?" Esyin said, breaking the illusion. He had turned to stare up at the Nyrthyl guarding them.
The Nyrthyl curled his lip, flat, glowering face and glowing skin radiating disdain. His mouth moved for a second, then he stopped.
"So, you can," Esyin said, relaxing back against the stone floor, "you just don't like us enough to try and respond."
"He could just be planning a surprise party for us," Lenesse said dully, still watching the Nyrthyl. His face twitched, and, without moving, his eyes shifted their glare towards her. 
Yeah, he can understand us.
"Just doesn't want to risk giving away the secret," Andren agreed.
"That's probably also why he looks like he wants to throw up every time we talk," Lenesse added.
"I mean, he could just be allergic to cake," Andren said.
The Nyrthyl's hands shifted on his spear, tightening, knuckles whitening.
Man, Lenesse thought, he really is about two seconds from killing all of us.
"A very pleasant fellow," she said out loud.
Andren didn't seem to have anything to add. Esyin was still staring at the wall. 
The silence seemed to echo in the small stone chamber, mingling with what sounded like a river just outside the door. Which was odd. But, come to think of it, legends did say that the Nyrthyl castle had a river flowing through it, so maybe there was even more truth to those tales than previously thought.
It’s probably the river we were following, Lenesse thought. The idea nearly sent her into a fit of hysterical laughter. That had been their last hope, to follow the river out of the swamp to safety. Of course it led them to the Nyrthyls. Of course it had.
Our last hope is going to be what kills us. 
Lenesse bit the inside of her lip, strangling the high-pitched giggle she could feel bubbling up in her throat.
Of course. I mean, did we think we were getting OUT of this? ANY of this?
We marched into the heart of Lanshir's territory and we thought we were going to march back OUT?
It was harder now. She could taste blood on her lip as she bit down more, the suppressed laughter adding to her shudders, a manic grin fighting to break out on her face.
She couldn't even give herself the satisfaction of blaming herself for everyone dying. She might be responsible for them dying in the swamp, but they were always going to die - ever since they stepped out of City of Kings, like all the poor fools sent on this fools errand before them.
She thought of her two little brothers, her parents. Wondered when they'd be told that she was "missing in action". Wondered how Tresha and Ayin would take the news back in the city. Wondered what poor soul would be sent after them to meet a similar deadly fate. Maybe Sir Ralben would get the idea and stop sending his soldiers two by two to their deaths.
Yeah. Two by two. Because I was never even supposed to be here.
Another giggle bitten back. The crowning stupidity of it all was that if she had just done as Fylon had told her, she'd be back in the City of Kings — bored out of her skull, yes, but not tied up to be killed by Nyrthyls. Andren and Esyin would be out here dying on their own.
They'd already be dead, actually. Just at Lanshir's hands, not the Nyrthyls. Because, somehow, she had been stupid enough to think they had any sort of a fighting a chance in any version of events, and had given them all enough hope to drag this all out further. If it hadn’t been for her they'd already be corpses back in the forest.
That thought was the first to nearly brought a sob out of her.
She couldn't think about them dying.
She could die, probably with hysteric laughter if past experience was anything to go by. But not them. It couldn’t be them. Not them lying on the ground, blank eyes staring into nothing. Not them with a spear to their throats. Not them — 
"If you don’t mind, why exactly are we still alive?" Esyin said suddenly.
The Nyrthyl stared at him but did not answer.
"We were trespassing on your land, and you apparently hate us. So why are we still alive? For you to kill us slower? Or do you have some other purpose in mind?"
The Nyrthyl jabbed at him sharply, speaking for the first time in broken, heavily-accented Trade. "No questions."
Answers or not, Esyin had a point.
Why were they still alive?
A shiver ran down her spine. It couldn’t be for anything good.
"I mean, thanks, though," Andren said. "This way you’re giving us enough time to escape and make it out of this mudhole."
Lenesse knew his confidence came from bravado and nothing else. She wasn't sure if she wanted to hug him for it or shake him for being an idiot.
The Nyrthyl laughed, the mocking sound bouncing off the stone room hideously. "Keep that thought, orsidtezc. It will make it more enjoying for me when you scream, dying."
Lenesse flinched involuntarily.
"Sure, if the idea makes you feel better." Andren looked down to lock eyes with Lenesse. "We are going to make it anyway. All the way out."
The fear behind that brash assurance, which she knew was an act for her benefit, nearly broke her resolve to keep from crying. She could see the reality in his posture, strung up as if by puppet wires — slumped but too tense, too ready to snap into sudden action to be believable. She could see it in how wide his eyes were, in how strained his mouth was as he tried to smile at her.
Oh Andren, she thought. I know you're just as scared as I am. Maybe even more so. You're terrified that you're going to have to watch your brother die in front of you. You're terrified of failing him and breaking your promise to keep him safe. You may even be scared of breaking that half-cocked promise you made about protecting me. 
She knew it was all a lie. It didn't make it reassuring. But it did, somehow, make it infinitely more comforting.
"Yeah," she said, smiling grimly, trying to ignore the single, silent tear pooling up in the corner of her eye. "All the way out."
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iamnotoriginalphil · 4 years
Text
Family Matters (Zelda Spellman x Reader) - Part 21
Synopsis: Ambrose comes to visit you, demanding answers
Words: 1262
Warnings: mentions of violence
AN: Sorry guys. This one is a bit of an info dump but at least you’re finally going to get some answers. I hope you still enjoy it. If you want to be tagged in future chapters just let me know.
You sat slumped on the dirt floor, ignoring the light that filtered from above. You’d barely slept in the days you’d been trapped, barely eaten the little food you’d been given, hadn’t seen a single Spellman since being locked away. You had no idea where you were, only that it wasn’t the Spellman house.
You’d been blindfolded, dragged through the outside air, forced through the halls of an unknown building, and shoved into this room. You’d offered up no fight, no complaining, no explanation. This was what you deserved from your betrayal. This was what you deserved.
The door creaked as it opened. You rolled your head to look at who entered, aware of your lank hair obstructing your view and the dark circles under your eyes. You’d cried yourself out, no tears left in your body to be had. You felt worn out and empty, like a husk of person.
Ambrose stepped into the room, closing the door behind him with a bang. He stood over you, arms crossed over his chest. He stared down at you, any familiar warmth long since chased away in the face of your actions. You blinked up at him, waiting for him to say something. Maybe to deliver the verdict on what would happen to you. He crouched in front of you, making himself eye level with you.
“Zelda says you’re not to be trusted,” he said, “but she won’t tell us anything. She’s locked away in the study for hours at a time and when she emerges she is in a bad temper. We can’t tell what she’s doing but whatever it is she’s not being successful at it. So I have to know, who is Bella?”
You chuckled, pushing your hair from your face.
“You know, back when this first started she told me that Zelda worked in secrets, that she coated herself in mystery, to be unknowable by anyone. She always assumed Zelda didn’t do that with her own family. I guess she was wrong.”
“Stop talking in riddles,” he snapped, “who is she?”
“I won’t reveal Zelda’s secret,” you said.
“An unfortunate time to begin showing loyalty.”
“But I will reveal my own.”
His eyes bored into yours, looking no less mad but more curious. You gave him a small smile, sitting up with your back against the wall. You’d need it to stay steady as you told your unfortunate tale.
“Last year I was still living with my family. I love them but they knew exactly how to drive me mad. One night, having enough, I left early in the evening, going to my favourite bar. I just needed a break, a short break, to get over whatever it was that had annoyed me. You have no idea how much I regret leaving that night.”
It felt good to talk about it, to let everything out. Finally, finally, someone would know. Someone else would know what Bella was capable of.
“I met a group of people there, shared a few drinks. Among them was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Pale skin and large dark eyes. Black hair that cascaded down her back, shining in the light of the bar. She drew looks from everyone else in the room. I was the lucky one she spoke too. And she convinced me to join them as they went off to a club.”
“You trusted her?” he asked.
“I had no reason not to. She was pretty and I was little tipsy. I had no reason to think she was anything other than what she appeared.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, I went home with her. And then I saw her the next day, and the next. I fell in love with her. Bella has this way about her that makes it easy. She’s charming, sweet, attentive. She makes you feel like you’re the most important person in the world. It was intoxicating.”
“And?”
“And then I found out she was a vampire.”
His sharp intake of breath was enough to let you know that he was not expecting you to say that. You could understand. You hadn’t expected it either. She’d spent days explaining, cajoling you, convincing you that it changed nothing. She opened up your eyes to the world of magic that existed just under the veneer of normality you’d grown up with. You couldn’t lie, you’d wanted to run screaming from what you thought was nothing but insanity, but you had been so in love with her you were willing to overlook it. You would have overlooked anything for her at the time.
“She convinced me Zelda was evil, that she’d done something so horrendous to Bella that it was unspeakable. And so I agreed to help. I would have done anything for her.”
“So what changed?”
“She took my family. I awoke one night at home to find her in the living room, the three of them cowering before her. My brother ran from me and when I saw how scared he was it woke me up from whatever spell I was under. When I lie in bed at night I hear his screams. I never knew where she took them, and I’ve never found out. She made it clear if I stopped helping then she’d hurt them. They might annoy the shit out of me, but they’re still my family, and I love them. So I kept going. Once I found out what it was Zelda did, there was no going back for me. I could never look at Bella the same way again.”
“What did Auntie Zee do?” he asked.
“If she hasn’t told you then I’m not going to but suffice to say it’s not anything like Bella described. But I figured I could still do it. That it would be easy. Because you were just a bunch of strangers and who cares if your lives were ruined if it meant my family was okay?”
“You were willing to sacrifice us?” he asked.
“At first. It seemed a fair trade. One family for another. But then you guys were so nice and kind. I wasn’t meant to start caring about you. But I did. Which is when the problems started.”
He snorted.
“Look, if I hadn’t cared about you I wouldn’t have tried to talk Bella out of her plan and then she never would have sent me my fathers finger, and then I never would have avoided her and then she would have never sent me my mother’s ear. I didn’t want to care because it would have been easier but I did. And now I’m here and I don’t regret caring.”
“Are you still in love with her?” he asked.
“That stopped the moment she threatened my family. I would do anything to get them back. But I sense the only way I’m going to do that is if she’s dead.”
“You want her dead?” He raised his eyebrow at you.
“If it means getting my family back, then yes.”
His head jerked up, turning towards the door. He stood, brushing the dirt from his pants after sitting cross legged in front of you. You watched him. He turned back to you.
“I’ll try and talk to Auntie Zee but you know what she’s like,” he said.
“Thank you.”
You slumped back against the wall, listening to the thunk of the door close. That was all you could do until Zelda came to visit you herself. You wanted her to come visit you.
You couldn’t stop the hope building in your chest.
Tags: @theenglishwizard @eyesofanangeltongueofadevil @hallospaceboyy @alexusonfire @justkeepbreathingnow @ghostsunderstoodmysoul @witching-imagines @praisezeldaspellman @escapetodreamworld @panicnymph @anxiousgoldengirl @theprassebox @witchessticktogether @pizzapyjamas @plooffairy @whos-to-know @spicyrice20 @fallenangelmuse @step-intoyour-power
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snowdice · 3 years
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Big Bang (Sort of) Editing Story [Day 28]
I started writing this fic while editing my Big Bang story, but am going to continue doing it for other things now that Kill Dear is out. I will write and publish 100 words of the story every time I finish doing whatever task I’m doing. If you’d like to block these proceedings, please feel free to block the tag proofread stories. I will reblog this post with the parts of the story I do today. Edited chapters are linked; everything else I’ve done so far is under the cut.
My Master Post Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10
Life is stressful (until Tuesday) and these babies make me happy, so I’m going to work on this and also respond to everyone I haven’t yet today.
Chapter 11
Over the course of the next three days of Virgil’s captivity, Virgil would come to the conclusion that his captors were idiots.
This thought flickered to life once again as Logan leaned into the closet to point out another constellation on the ceiling, tottering unstably on his knees as his weight shifted forward and distracted by his enthusiasm.
They were alone in the prince’s room. Patton had left only a few minutes before to help his mother in the kitchen (less because she needed help and more to not make her suspicious about why he’d spent so much time away in the last few days).
 He wouldn’t be back for a while and Virgil had full mobility in the closet. With Logan leaning over the threshold like that, it would be easy to kill him or even just incapacitate him. One rough yank on his arm would have him completely in the closet. Virgil had no question that he could pin him down so he couldn’t activate the restraints, and even if he managed to do so, he’d have been drawn close enough that Virgil could use his legs. He could either force him to take off the cuffs or, since they automatically went to the second setting when he left the closet, just deal with it until he managed to get away.
 It would just be so easy. Yet, he did not. He just watched Logan as he leaned stupidly over an assassin while info dumping about stars.
This was the first day that he hadn’t felt at all tired when he’d drank the provided nutrition and healing potion, though it had never affected him quite as much as it had the first day. Logan said that meant that his injuries must be healed. It was a weird feeling. He didn’t remember when the last time was that he wasn’t damaged in some way. Even before his grueling training, there’d always been bullies at the orphanage and he’d been the youngest and smallest in his age group.
 He was also more well rested and fed than he had been in as long as he could remember. He felt better then he knew was possible today, and he suspected that he would only feel better after a bit more time under their care.
He told himself that is why he didn’t lash out now. He was waiting until he was as strong as possible to make sure his escape went as well as it could, even if it was a risk. They’d mentioned that the king would be gone for three weeks. After he returned, Virgil would surely be turned over to people much more capable of actually keeping him well trapped and less likely to feed him well, give him a nice place to sleep, and leave him without injury. It was a gamble to stay, because it was possible that he wouldn’t find another opportunity in time and would get handed over to his fate. Really, if he was being reasonable, he should get out now while he felt good and had a secured opportunity.
 Still, he did not. He had not any of the times they’d given him the opportunity in the last few days. Logan finished his sentence and leaned back out of the closet to safety. He still was speaking though in that soft happy tone. Logan liked the stars. He liked to talk about the stars, and Virgil found he liked to listen to him. They tended to end up in this position whenever Patton was away, just talking as Virgil laid in his closet.
Eventually, Logan’s latest story tapered out. There was silence then for a few moments. Virgil stared up at the fake stars on the ceiling. The stars that Logan had made for him when he really did not have to. Virgil had not been expecting lights in the closet, let alone ones so beautiful and thoughtful. Not ones with stories behind them. Just days ago, if someone had told Virgil the prince would be keeping him in his closet for the next few weeks, Virgil wouldn’t have expected a blanket let alone all of this.
 He turned his head to look at Logan. “What?” Logan asked.
“Your magic’s very beautiful,” Virgil said.
Logan seemed pleased by the complement, lighting up almost as much as the stars he made. “Well, it’s just a basic light spell,” he said, “though I did make some adjustments to them and the dimmer was a bit more difficult. Anyone could do it with practice.”
Virgil shook his head. “They’re special, I think,” he said. “Your magic’s different than most people.”
“How so?” Logan asked curiously.
“It’s gentle,” he said. “Gentle and warm, like eating the warm soup you fed me a couple of days ago.”
 “And other people’s magic feels different?” he asked.
Virgil nodded. “I’ve met a lot of magic users, but it always felt bad. Usually it hurts or makes you feel sick or just makes you uncomfortable. Even healing magic always felt like bugs nibbling at my skin, but the potion you’ve been having me drink in the morning feels… safe. It doesn’t hurt or make me want to cry. It’s just good.”
“Magic often has much to do with the caster’s intentions,” Logan said.
“I think you could poison me gently.”
Logan made an odd expression. “That…” he said, nose scrunched. “That is a strange thing to say.”
Virgil cocked his head. “Is it?”
 “Yes!” Logan said, shaking his head. “You are far too comfortable with the concept of death for your age.”
“I’m fourteen,” Virgil argued. “That’s old enough to be sent on missions without a blood compulsion!”
“…A what?” Logan asked.
“A blood compulsion,” Virgil said. “You know, with a multrum.” Logan was frowning at him. “One works in your gardens and you’re a prince. You had to at least have seen one or two. They take a bit of blood and multrums process it into a little bead. Then you’ve got to do what your told or it hurts a lot.”
 “I know what a blood compulsion is,” Logan said. “I am simply wondering who would put one on a fourteen-year-old.”
“They don’t,” Virgil said. “They stop putting them on people when they turn fourteen.”
“And exactly what is the age range for it?” Logan asked. Virgil was almost startled by the way his tone was quickly hardening. He’d never heard him be that harsh even when he’d first woken up in his custody. It made Virgil tense up.
“They take kids usually when they’re about 8 and it’s a year of training before your sent on a mission so 9-13,” he said.
 “That’s horrible,” Logan spat so violently that Virgil flinched. Logan didn’t seem to notice. “They force children to kill under a blood compulsion?”
“Well, no one really wants to do it without one when they’re that little. They get scared, and usually try to chicken out so…”
“So, they torture them unless they kill someone.”
“I mean… it’s not. They have to agree to the deal.”
“And if they don’t agree to it?” Logan asked.
Virgil thought back to the second time they’d made him get a blood compulsion. It had been with the multrum before Janus, a girl by the name of Alina. He’d made the mistake of hesitating on his first kill and faced the consequences before finally giving in and doing the job. When the second mission had come around, Virgil hadn’t wanted to accept the blood compulsion.
 That had been the first time they’d made him drink a binding potion. Logan seemed to be able to get an idea about it by the look on his face.
“So, your options were to be tortured, be tortured in a different way, or murder someone.” Logan looked at him. “You said your fourteen. Have you ever even killed of your own volition?”
“I… no,” he admitted, but quickly added, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t. I know what I’m doing.”
“That explains a lot about your personality and reactions so far.”
Virgil rankled at that for some reason. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
 Logan just stared at him for a long moment. “What they did, what they are doing isn’t right you know?” he said.
Virgil blinked at him but said nothing. He became more and more uncomfortable in the silence that ensued.
“Would you like to learn more about magic?” he asked. “There are many uses other then to hurt. I can teach you a few basics if you like.”
Virgil was confused about the topic change but was relieved about it. “Uh,” he thought. “Sure. That would be… interesting.”
Logan smiled at him. “I’ll set up something and we can work with it in the next few days. What would you like to learn?”
“Um, I have no idea. What is there?”
Logan considered it for a moment. “We could do a hair color changing potion. Or perhaps a small protection charm or I can teach you to make fire shapes.”
 “Protection charm,” Virgil said without hesitation.
Logan gave him a sad smile. “Of course. I’ll start showing you how to make them tomorrow and we can actually make some the next day.”
“Okay,” Virgil agreed.
“Would you like to hear more about the stars?” he asked. Virgil nodded. He once again leaned into the closet to point and Virgil once again did not move to attack. Nor did he attack when that afternoon Patton turned his back on Virgil for far too long when they were alone. Nor did he when they settled him to bed once again in the closet. He told himself it was strategic, but he knew it wasn’t.
  Chapter 12
Logan had needed to spend some time performing royal duties today which left Patton and Virgil alone after breakfast. Patton had started out trying to teach Virgil different board games. He’d seemed intrigued at first, but after a few games of checkers seemed to grow bored. Patton had gotten a blank stare when he’d asked if Virgil had any ideas about what to do for fun, so now he was trying to figure out something else they could do. He cast his eyes around at what Logan had in his bedroom.
“How about I read you a book?” he suggested.
 Virgil seemed very intrigued by that idea. “Sure,” he said.
“Okay!” Patton said cheerfully. “He popped to his feet and glanced through the small shelf of fiction books Logan kept in his room. He decided to choose one of the lighter ones that Logan and he had liked to read when they were younger. “This one is called The Never-ending Garden,” Patton said. “It’s about a group of four children and their adventures in a garden. It’s full of magic and adventure and friendship! Is that alright with you?”
“It sounds good,” Virgil answered.
Patton happily walked back over to sit next to him. “It is!” he said.
 First, he showed Virgil the picture on the cover of a wild looking garden with four kids roaming through it. One of the children was in a little red wagon being pulled by another one wearing a fancy hat. One of the others was walking, looking at a map while the last had a wooden sword. After giving Virgil a couple of moments too look at the picture, Patton cracked it open.
“We start with Lydia’s perspective,” Patton said. “She’s one of my favorites!” He pointed to a picture of a girl in a raincoat at the beginning of the chapter and Virgil leaned slightly closer to see. Then, Patton cleared his voice.
 “It had been raining that day,” Patton began, “but Lydia had been so bored that she still begged her father to go out and play when the storm lightened into a sprinkle. He made her change from the yellow dress she had been wearing into the one she often used to help him garden because he knew she was certain to get herself muddy. Her younger brother Marcus asked if he could come too and though part of her wanted to say no because she wanted to explore on her own without her baby brother slowing her down, her father had taught her to be a good big sister, so she agreed to let him come.”
 Patton watched Virgil out of the corner of his eye as he read about Lydia meeting up with the neighbor boy, Al, and the three children started to explore the garden in Lydia’s backyard. Virgil leaned in slightly to look at the pictures and listen to the story intently as the three children traveled deeper and deeper into the garden, but never made it to the back fence. They’d just made it to the part where they heard rustling behind the blackberry bush which Patton knew was the last main character, Melly, when Patton felt the need to adjust his posture a bit. Virgil moved in kind and ended up leaning further into Patton.
 Without even really thinking about it, Patton brought his arm around to touch the top of his head. Virgil flinched the second Patton made content and Patton drew the hand away immediately. “Sorry,” he said with a wince. Patton was a naturally touching person and he’d been having trouble battling his instincts to cuddle everyone and everything while around Virgil, but he knew most touch was not welcome. The poor thing startled every time Patton went to touch him unannounced and even sometimes when he’d said something before doing it.
“I-it’s okay,” Virgil said.
Patton gave him a tight lipped smiled and turned back to the book.
 He stilled a second later when Virgil leaned back in and their shoulders brushed. He blinked over at him. “Oh,” he said softly. “Do… do you want me to touch your hair?”
Virgil curled up into himself a little bit but then nodded.
“Okay,” Patton said. “I’m going to put my arm around you and do that then, okay?” He drew upon his years and years of convincing easily startled cats to allow him to give them pats as he slowly moved his arm back to where it had been before and gently touched the side of his head. He tensed, but didn’t startle this time, and so Patton gently ran his fingers through the hair a couple of times. Eventually, the tension bled out of him and he sort of slumped against Patton’s shoulder. Patton just barely restrained a coo before going back to reading. He continued to stroke the side of Virgil’s hair as he described the gang meeting up with Melly and them being told she was a fairy that lived in the garden.
 He'd only gotten to the part about them finding the wagon when Virgil started to shift a bit uncomfortably, his neck craned in an awkward angle. Patton kept reading as he brought the hand in his hair down to his shoulder and pushed lightly. There was the slightest bit of resistance as Virgil didn’t know what he was trying to do, but then he allowed Patton to move him. Patton leaned back a bit and picked the book up off his lap before continuing to push him down. Virgil did not help at all, seeming confused about what was going on.
 Patton had to poke him around until he was on his back laying across Patton’s lap. He grinned down at the boy who was looking at him in blatant bewilderment and propped the book up on his chest. He held it there with one of his hands and stretched the other out to resume messing with his hair. Virgil relaxed into the new position after a few minutes of reading, eyes shutting as he enjoyed the attention. His eyes would flicker open every time Patton moved to show him a picture, but other than that, he seemed content to not move.
 Eventually, he stopped responding when Patton moved to show him the pictures.
“Are you asleep?” he asked quietly. When he didn’t get a response, he bookmarked the last picture Virgil had responded to, and then continued reading to himself.
Eventually, there was a knock at the door. It was the one he and Logan had decided on to tell the other one that it was just them and not to panic when the door opened. The door opened to Logan a moment later.
He paused, taking in the sight of the assassin sprawled across Patton’s lap like a sleepy kitten. He shook his head fondly and walked over to them on silent feet. He bent and pressed a hand to the top of Virgil’s hand. Virgil stirred just barely, but didn’t open his eyes, pressing into the touch a bit.
Logan smiled. “He wanted to learn how to make protection charms today. I assume you’d like to join us?” Patton perked up and nodded happily, making Logan chuckle softly. “I will go set it up then. Would you like another book for the time being?”
“Just the one I was reading last night would be nice,” Patton said.
“Of course.” Logan stepped away to grab it and handed it to him. Then, he disappeared into his potion’s lab. Patton smiled down at Virgil’s sleeping face and settled the new book onto his chest to replace the children’s book. He didn’t even stir.
  Chapter 13
Logan was able to quickly set up the station for making protection charms. Patton had always liked making them, though he often used his more as fun accessories than for protection. The one he was going to show Virgil how to make was a very simple low level one used for little more than to keep bugs off of yourself and, in the event of a well made one, alert one to imminent danger by changing temperature. It was a nice thing to hold in the middle of the night if one was frightened by real or imagined threats. It would be warm to the touch when your environment was safe; he thought Virgil might appreciate it.
 He and Patton decided to wait until Virgil woke up naturally which only took about 30 minutes. Then, Logan brought him to his set up supplies. He explained briefly the process for making a protection charm. “I will be the one performing the enchantment for today,” he told Virgil. “I will show you how to make your own later, but I thought seeing how to make them would help with the learning process.”
“Plus, it’s fun!” Patton said.
Logan flashed a smile at him. “And that as well. I’ve prepared a small number of possible pendants for you to choose from. You can choose the shape and color, then we will put on a custom engraving, as well as decorations.”
 “Glitter! Glitter! Glitter! Glitter!”
“Yes, Patton, everyone knows you’re going to choose glitter,” Logan said, amused, “but why don’t we let Virgil decide for his own pendant?”
“Fine,” Patton said, “but mine will be glitter.”
Logan grabbed the box of blank pendants and offered it to Virgil. “Choose whichever one feels right,” he suggested. Virgil moved forward and looked over the box. “You can touch them,” Logan said. “In fact, I would suggest it as it is meant to be held when it’s done and you may as well get a feel for it.”
At his prompting, Virgil did. He reached into the box and shifted a few to the side. Eventually, he started picking a few up. “I like the crescent shape for holding the most he said,” holding a blue one up, but I don’t know.”
“What’s your favorite color?” Patton asked.
“Oh, um,” he mumbled. “I dunno.”
“Well here,” Patton said, reaching for the box. He dug through it and pulled out every single crescent moon shaped pendant and lined them up. “What do you fancy?”
Virgil considered them all for a long moment and then tentatively pointed the purple one out.
“Great!” Patton said. “Then, we’ll use that one.”
Virgil nodded and Patton picked up the pendant to drop it into his hands. His fingers curled over the shape and he seemed satisfied by the choice, so Logan turned to Patton. “Your turn,” he said.
Patton happily grabbed out a heart shaped blue one, but then paused and exchanged it for a purple one. “We match!” he said.
Virgil smiled slightly at his enthusiasm, and Logan dug out a blue crescent moon shape for himself. “Now that you have your base, you get to choose the engraving.” He opened up the instruction book to the correct page and showed it to him.
Virgil looked over the two pages of designs with carful focus. He wavered between the spiral sun and the flames for a moment, but eventually settled on the flames. Patton chose the interlocking hearts design as anticipated; it was his favorite, and Logan chose the spiral sun design for himself.
“Now, I’m going to engrave this design onto yours,” Logan said getting out the thin pen like instrument and dipping it into the slightly glowing bottle of potion he’d set out. “In the meantime, Patton will show you what we have for decorations.”
He was careful to get the symbol as perfect as he could and then started on Patton’s. Patton apparently managed to corrupt the boy because both of them came back with brushes and glitter to add as decoration.
Logan shook his head and handed them their freshly engraved pendants. “Apply the glitter how you like,” Logan said, moving on to his own engraving. Once he was finished, he selected some glow in the dark paint to decorate his own.
 Once he’d finished decorating his own pendant, Logan looked up. “Are you finished?” he asked.
“Yep!” Patton said, shoving his pendant at Logan while Virgil nodded. Virgil had been far less enthusiastic than Patton, having carefully brushed glitter into the flame design only whereas Patton had haphazardly covered his own all over with glitter. Logan took both pendants.
“This,” Logan said, bringing over a different potion, “is used to make sure the decorations never fall off. It basically allows the other substances to become a part of the stone. “It isn’t too dangerous, but I’d suggest you stand back for the moment.”
 Virgil stepped back farther back than was strictly necessary and gave the potion bottle a wary look. Logan moved all three pendants to the prepared surface (else they ran the risk of also getting stuck to the table) and put on gloves, having learned that magically gluing rocks to ones hands was not fun years ago. Then, he carefully drizzled a bit of the potion onto each rock. The rocks fizzled loudly, and Virgil gave off a startled yelp before toppling over flat on his face with his wrist glued to his sides.
“Oh no, honey,” Patton said immediately crouching next to him. “I’m sorry. We should have warned you about the noise.”
Logan wasn’t sure what type of action he’d tried to take when the sound started up, but whatever it was, it had caused him to move his arms fast enough that he’d activated the binding potion and it snapped his wrists to his side, overbalancing him.
 Patton’s hands hovered over the startled boy, but he didn’t touch. After a few moments, it was clear that the magic keeping Virgil’s hands at his side released because his hands slowly crept forward to push himself up, so his face wasn’t planted against the ground. His eyes still looked incredibly startled.
“Are you alright?” Patton asked.
Virgil blinked. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said.
Logan took his words as permission to move without risking startling him more. Virgil’s eyes bopped back and forth between him and Patton a few times as he crossed to his wall of potions and grabbed one.
 He also selected a clean cloth from a basket on his way over to them. “A light healing potion,” Logan explained as he knelt in front of Virgil. He uncorked it. “May I?”
“I’m fine,” Virgil said with a frown. “I’m not even bleeding. It’s barely anything.”
“Which is why it’s a light healing potion,” Logan said. “You are sure to bruise with the way you hit. This will prevent it and make it stop hurting.”
“Okay,” Virgil agreed after a moment. Logan dribbled a bit out onto the rag. After a moment of thought, he touched the damp part of the cloth with his own finger, just to quash any fears that it would harm him.
 “It will tingle slightly,” Logan warned. Virgil tilted his face to let him dab it onto his nose and the light scrape on his face. His nose scrunched up and he moved to rub the sensation away quickly only to have his arms slam back to his sides.
Patton caught him so the sudden involuntary movement didn’t cause him to fall back, and then giggled when Virgil titled his head to what could only be described as pout back at him.
“Aw, poor thing,” Patton cooed, reaching forward to rub a hand across the top of his nose and then his forehead where the potion had been applied for him.
 “Better?” Patton asked.
“You’re really bad at this being captors thing,” Virgil commenting, willingly leaning back into Patton. Patton just smiled happily.
Logan took the bottle and got to his feet, before returning it, and then glanced at the pendants as Patton helped Virgil to his feet. The pendants had stopped fizzing, so Logan felt okay reaching in and grabbing them all.
He handed both Patton and Virgil their pendants when they walked closer to the table.
“And now for the actual enchantment,” Logan said. “For today, I already prepared the potion up to the last step as it has to sit for a few hours, but I will show you the last step and eventually teach you everything if you are still interested.”
 Virgil nodded, but said. “No more noises?”
Logan smiled. “No more noises,” he confirmed. Then he pushed forward all of the ingredients he was about to put in the pot for Virgil to study one by one before putting them each in it in the correct order. Then he demonstrated how to stir it correctly and told him how many times, though he doubted he’d be able to retain all of the information from this one demonstration. “There,” he said, setting down his spoon. “Now we just all put our pendants into the pot, and they should be ready in 25 minutes.”
 Logan showed Virgil around his potion’s lab while they waited, explaining what certain pieces of equipment did and a bit about his organization system. Virgil followed him around, looking at the things he pointed out curiously. He, however, got very distracted when Logan showed him one of the experiments he’d concocted. It was a thick liquid that was super attracted to itself and would form a small ball that could be disturbed by touching it. He seemed to like the sensation of squishing it down onto a table… over and over and over again.
“We should get him a ball of yarn,” Patton said out of the corner of his mouth. He may have been enjoying watching Virgil play with the substance more than Virgil was enjoying playing with it himself. And that was saying something.
21984
Eventually, however, the pendants were finished, and he dragged Virgil away from his new toy to show him the finished product.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“Is it supposed to be warm?” Virgil inquired.
“Yes,” Logan replied. “It’s temperature changes based on if the magic on it senses a threat or not. Warmer temperatures mean you are safe.
“Oh,” Virgil said softly, hand squeezing around it. “I like it.”
Logan found himself smiling. “I’m glad. It’s yours.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“If you would like, I’m sure Patton has some suggestions if you’d desire a way to keep it attached to your person. He in particular likes to make them into necklaces or clip them to his clothing.”
Virgil looked over at Patton and nodded shyly. Patton immediately perked up. “I’ll go get some supplies!” he said.
  Chapter 14
“So then,” Patton was saying. “We ran to the stables.”
“We went to gazebo first,” Logan cut in.
“Right, we tried to go to the gazebo first,” Patton corrected, “but Mr. Deknis was over there tending to the tomatoes, and we knew he’d tell Mama the second he saw us. So, then we turned around and went to the stables.”
Virgil tilted his head, listening to the story Patton was telling. Patton was not the best storyteller. He tended to get lost in the middle and embellish, though Logan always corrected him. It was still very entertaining to watch though because he got incredibly animated. He’d even toppled himself over in excitement a couple of times.
 Virgil squeezed the small pillow he had in his lap. He… wasn’t 100% sure what was going on. Logan and Patton had settled him on the blanket covered ground near Logan’s bed and proceeded to feed him snacks and talk about a lot of different things. It had started with them talking about what they’d done that day, and when Patton had made reference to something Virgil hadn’t understood, the two of them ended up talking about things from their childhood.
Virgil found himself entranced by their stories about playing in and running around the castle. It was all so different from what Virgil had experienced.
 “…but, right as we were about to get to the ladder to climb up into the hay loft, Logan tripped!” Patton said, arms whipping around him. “He fell into a container of grain for the horses and it spilled all over the place. He tried to get up but grabbed the edge of the water trough and apparently it wasn’t very secure because it fell over and soaked him. So, then he was wet and covered in grain. He looked hilarious.”
“I did not!” Logan protested, but it did not sound like all of the other times he’d corrected Patton’s stories that night.
 Patton looked over at him. “You did! You woke up the cute stable hand and he laughed himself silly at you, and by the time we got you even partially cleaned up, your dad had already found us. That’s how we got caught.”
“I have no recollection of these events,” Logan clearly lied, his cheeks a bit flushed.
“Liar,” Patton claimed. “You complained about picking grain out of your sheets for weeks.”
“No,” Logan growled.
“Yes! It’s okay. It was a good laugh.”
Logan’s eyes narrowed on him, and he looked pissed, but a second later, his expression lightened up. “You know what else was a ‘good laugh’?” he asked.
 There was a second of silence before…
“Don’t you dare Logan.”
Logan looked him directly in the eye. “Patton was thirteen,” Logan started, but was interrupted the next moment when Patton lobbed a pillow at his head. Logan grabbed the pillow and leaned forward to smack Patton back with it. “He was thirteen and had just ‘discovered boys’ as his mother and my father called it when they attempted to explain his behavior to me. The focus of said ‘discovering’ at the time was the son of an ambassador from Lamir” who was staying for the summer, a seventeen-year-old boy by the name Bernardo.”
 Virgil flinched back as Patton suddenly threw himself across the semicircle they’d made with their bodies to tackle Logan to the ground. He watched as they ineffectually wrestled on the ground for a few seconds before Logan, voice strained continued to speak, while battling Patton’s hands away from his mouth.
“Patton’s only knowledge about flirting… ow… at that point was laughing at everything someone said and touching their arms and shoulders.” Logan managed to flip himself onto his stomach which was a horrible move as far as Virgil was concerned. It put him at a disadvantage to get out of the pin. However, Patton just kept reaching for his mouth and didn’t bare down on his neck to try to cut off his oxygen like Virgil expected. So, perhaps it was a rational move. “Our parents were speaking leaving Patton, Bernardo, and I in the garden,” Logan mumbled into the ground. “Bernardo said something ‘funny’ and Patton went to slap his shoulder while laughing, but shoved too hard… Patton did you just lick my face?!”
 “And I’ll do it again if you don’t shut up!” Patton threatened. That was a… weird fighting strategy.
Logan paused to consider his options. “He shoved Bernardo into the fountain and when Bernardo asked him why he did that, he ran away and wouldn’t talk to him the rest of the summer!” Logan rushed out.
Patton reached over and grabbed the nearest pillow, proceeding to whack him viciously in the back of the head. Logan was lucky the nearest object was a pillow and not something any sturdier. “It’s not funny!” Patton yelled, smacking him even more, which was when Virgil realized Logan was laughing despite the pinning and pillow pummeling. “It’s not!” Patton said. “I really liked him!!”
 “He was seventeen!” Logan said. “It was never going to happen!”
Patton groaned and rolled off of Logan to lay on his back and stare at the ceiling. “But he had so many muscles,” Patton said. “He probably could have thrown me 10 yards.”
“And that is… a benefit?” Logan asked, rolling over onto his side to face him.
“You don’t. Get me.” Patton tilted his head to look at Virgil. “Anyway,” he said. “That is the story of how I died at 13.”
Virgil stared at him, and Patton’s forehead crinkled looking at him.
“Is something wrong, honey?” he asked.
 “What was that?” Virgil asked.
“What was what?”
Virgil just blinked at him. Patton seemed to think for a moment.
“Oh, did you think we were fighting?” Patton asked. “Like, really fighting?”
“You weren’t fighting?” Virgil asked.
“No, sweetie,” Patton said. “We were just playing.” He popped up into a sitting position. “Well, play fighting, but emphasis on play!”
Virgil looked over at Logan for confirmation. “No one is harmed nor was there any intention to harm each other,” he assured.
Patton grabbed the pillow he’d been smacking Logan with. “Like this!” he said. “Bap.” Unlike how he’d smacked Logan ruthlessly, he basically just touched Virgil’s shoulder with it.
 Virgil squinted at him.
“Bap!” Patton said again, smacking him again, this time with a little bit more force and on the cheek. Virgil’s nose scrunched up. “Pillow fight!”
“Pillow fight?”
“You try,” he said, pointing to the pillow in Virgil’s lap.
Virgil glanced down at the bands around his wrist. “Um…” he said. “I don’t think I can?”
“Oh, right,” Patton said with a frown. He bit his lip and glanced over at Logan. “Maybe…”
“Ill-advisable,” Logan said.
“But…” Patton said. “Pillow fight.”
“We would have to be very cautious and make sure there were no weapons in the area.”
“No weapons but pillows!”
 “Fine,” Logan relented to whatever was going on. “Let’s clear the area.” Virgil watched them with mounting confusion as they removed everything within a few meters radius of him except for pillows and blankets.
“There!” Patton said after a minute. “All done!”
“What are you doing?” Virgil said.
“We’re going to have a pillow fight,” Patton said.
“But I…”
“We’ll temporarily allow your restraints to be in the third setting like when you’re in the closet.”
Were they serious? Were they stupid? Virgil could have killed them dozens of times with the second setting and now they were giving him even more range of motion?
 “You have to promise not to try to hurt anyone though,” Patton said. Virgil stared at him dumbly, as Patton held out his pinky finger. “Pinky promise.”
“Pinky promise?”
Patton nodded solemnly. “We lock pinky fingers and make a promise. It’s the most binding promise in the universe.”
Virgil looked at his finger, confused. He’d never heard of that type of deal. “What kind of magic is it?”
“No magic,” Patton said. “Just friendship.” Virgil tilted his head but brought his hand up so Patton could twine their fingers together. “Now, promise you won’t hurt anyone.”
“I promise I won’t hurt anyone,” he said.
“It’s a deal!” said Patton, squeezing Virgil’s finger with his own briefly before drawing away. “I trust you.” Virgil felt a rush of something that was no type of magic he’d ever come into contact before but was definitely far more powerful.
 Logan came over to them and waved his hand over the restraints on Virgil. They buzzed slightly and Virgil looked between them. “So, I just hit you with pillows?”
“Try not to hit too hard near the face, and Lo and I should probably take off our glasses before we start, but yeah,” Patton said, taking his glasses off as he said it. It was yet another foolish move on his part. “It’s fun, and it doesn’t hurt.”
“Okay…” Virgil said.
“I will demonstrate,” Logan said as he took a pillow and smacked Patton in the stomach.
“Hey! No fair!” Patton giggled. “We haven’t started yet!” This did not deter Logan however, as he continued to smack Patton with a pillow.
“On the contrary,” he said. “It has started, and we’re getting you first.”
 “No,” Patton whined, but the way he crumpled to the ground under the onslaught seemed far too staged to make Virgil worry. He didn’t even try to curl up into a ball or to protect his head, just taking the hits and giggling.
Logan looked up at Virgil and motioned with his head. Virgil inched over and looked down at Patton. Logan slowed for a few moments. “Go on,” he urged.
Virgil bit his lip and reached forward to smack Patton lightly with his pillow which seemed to do nothing to him but renew his peels of giggles. From there, it was easy to continue. Logan picked up the pace of his strikes and he and Virgil proceeded to ‘fight’ Patton until he couldn’t breath through his laughter and pushed the pillows away, curling up on his side to recover.
23897
“No what?” Virgil asked when Patton sat up.
“Now I get vengeance!” Patton said, popping to his feet and smacking Logan in the face. “Help me Virgil!” So, Virgil turned on Logan and he and Patton gave the prince the same treatment. Then, because it was only fair, it was Virgil’s turn, though they were a lot more careful with him then they’d been with each other, and really Patton spent more of the time checking in on Virgil then actually hitting him with the pillow. It was nice. Fun. And when Virgil pushed them away, they pulled back. Then, it was Patton’s turn again and they went around teaming up on each other and sometimes just smacking at each other at random.
  Eventually, they slowed, and all ended up laying near each other on the floor.
“Well, that made me hungry,” Patton said, sitting up and stretching. “I asked Mama to make us a bunch of mini sandwiches with different flavors. I’ll go get them.”
He hopped to his feet to walk over to where they’d stored the food earlier in those little glowing magical balls Logan had for food preservation.
Logan and Virgil sat up too, and Virgil offered him his wrists.
“Right,” Logan said with a blink. He made a motion and Virgil could feel the magic weighing down his hands once again. He’d almost forgotten, Virgil thought with an internal sigh. They’d given an assassin free range of motion, had a pillow fight with him, and almost forgotten to restrain him again. What was Virgil going to do with these idiots?
 Chapter 15
Patton strolled up to the doors to the royal wing, his arms crossed casually around his middle.
Kalani raised an eyebrow as he approached and gave her the most innocent expression he could. “Whatcha got there, Pat?” she asked.
“Hmm?” he asked, as his sweater squirmed. “What do you mean?”
She considered him for a moment. “Well, I see nothing suspicious here,” she said. “Do you Owen?”
“Nothing,” he replied without hesitation.
Patton grinned at them both.
Kalani leaned in like she was going to tell him a secret. “Who is it?”
Patton made a show of glanced around like he was hiding it from anyone passing by. Then he shifted around to pull up just the bottom of his sweater.
 A small black paw reached out from the depths of his sweater and swatted at the air.
“Ah, I see,” Kalani said, reaching out to touch the little paw. “Hello, Mittens.”
Patton giggled as Owen poked the cat’s stomach gently through the sweater, making her wiggle a bit and try to bite him.
“Well,” Patton said. “I better be off with my totally normal sweater.”
Kalani nodded and stepped to the side, and Patton was free to head down the hallway to Logan’s room. Patton knocked on the door with their new extra secret knock and Logan all but ripped open the door. “I’m late. I have to go,” he said, darting past Patton.
 Patton smiled, happy that his plan to be running a little late to come watch Virgil had worked so well, even though he felt a little bit guilty about it. He hoped Logan wasn’t late to his meeting, but he also knew that if Logan had noticed Mittens, he wouldn’t have let her into the room.
Virgil was already out of the closet, sitting on one of the chairs. Patton came in and smiled at him. Unlike Logan, Virgil’s attention was immediately drawn to the oddly shaped lump in Patton’s sweater.
“You’re not very good at hiding things,” Virgil said.
24500
“It worked on Logan,” Patton defended himself.
“Logan was about to rocket into space if you didn’t show up in 5 seconds,” Virgil pointed out. Patton just shrugged, and Virgil tilted his head. “What do you have?”
Patton grinned wide and carefully pulled Mittens out of his sweater. She did not resist this maneuver at all, simply purring. He held her up for Virgil to see. “Ta da!”
“A cat?” Virgil said.
“This is Mittens,” Patton said. He then turned to Mittens. “Mittens, this is Virgil. I thought I’d introduce the two of you!”
Virgil blinked at the cat. Mittens blinked back. Patton thought maybe he should have let them sniff each other from under a door before doing this.
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Text
JS Compilation post
Another day, another compilation post dedicated to one of the irrelevant women in Chris’s life. Seriously anons, if you want this to become a thing, maybe we should discuss women that actually matter to him like his mom or Octavia Spencer. We would love discussing those! 
These are old asks, so some questions might have already been answered (like the book chapters). All the asks can be found below. 
So now that Jenny has gotten her own post on this blog, I feel like you anons have given her more attention than Chris ever has. Let’s focus back on him and the beautiful Dodger content he blessed us with today. At least we know he treats him like a good boy. 
Red & Ginger
Notice Chris never says anything bad about his ex’s. If the chapter was about him it must of been a punch in the gut. Bet he’s never read the book. 
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Fans disliked JS not because of her book but because she cheated on her husband just to be with Chris. She tweeted horrible things, she deleted those but some blogs still have screenshots just google it. She was trolling Chris fans all the time while they was "dating". In my personal opinion she's a horrible woman. She pretends to be a feminist but she's far far far away from real feminist. 
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In my opinion, JS seems like she is very high maintenance and her mind runs a million miles a minute that would be too overwhelming for me to deal with. And I’m only basing this off of the interviews I seen with her.
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She always refers to Dean (her ex husband) as her husband in the book. She always makes sure to make that distinction between husband and boyfriend. It's obvious that she's talking about Chris. She also mentions Dodger without naming him. Just read between the lines. If you were there for the Chris/Jenny saga since the beginning, it's not very difficult to decipher.
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He eats gross, I mean the man admitted he can not cook really well? Or is there another meaning behind that? 🧐
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"I am tired of sinking down to a lower place to be with men. I am tired of throwing a tarp over some of my personality so that the shape of my identity suits some gross man a little better,for whatever shitty things he needs to do in order to keep his boring identity erect & supreme. I am tired of buying my own flowers. I am tired of having to hold my breath through Val’s Day the way you do when you drive past a graveyard" Sounds like karma to me Maybe stop blaming & take it as her own fault too
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JS comments “What’s the same about us is not just that we’re from Massachusetts, which was such a delight, but Chris is truly one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, to the point where sometimes I would look at him & it would kind of break my heart. He’s really vulnerable, & he’s really straightforward. He’s like primary colors. He has beautiful, big, strong emotions, and he’s really sure of them. It’s just wonderful to be around. His heart is probably golden-colored, if you could paint it.”
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Sorry to bother you again but do you or anyone else know what chapter/s to look for so I don’t read the whole thing?
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The podcast jenny slate talked about slapping chris on was anna ferris’ podcast. It still up, just search for it in podcasts. He was on it too, he was laughing about it. Idk about timing but they were claiming to just friends at the time but i think they may have started hooking up by then.
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Tbh I can't imagine Chris' lifestyle is that unhealthy. I mean, c'mon he looks so damn fine. I think he and especially his body and his skin would show some signs.
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You know when it comes to Hollywood celebrities relationship money bring them attention then they talk about relationship good or bad or even the ugly they don’t care they just want attention and shit And I always hated that cause relationship is supposed to be private that’s why Chris said he wants to be private with his love life
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Unfortunately, celebrity gossip sells even when it comes from the horse's mouth. You take JS talking about CE that’s going to get more eyes simply because CE has such a high profile. It not right, and like you said, it should stay between them. She wanted to sell her book, so who knows how much is true maybe none of it, perhaps all of it, or somewhere in between.
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Thank you for correcting me I got confused but I knew it was before lobby hero started they broke up
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“ The apartment hunting was fake news same as Chris searching for a ring to propose to Jenny. They broke up in early January.” I don’t think the apartment hunting was fake. The way it was framed may have been but she probably did tag along with him while he looked for somewhere to stay while he did Lobby Hero.
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“ Yes. It seemed very odd since CE and JS were both in Atlanta at the time & Chris didn’t have time off then.” Chris was able to fly out to her comedy shows when he was filming so they could have flown to look at apartments in his free time. It’s not that far fetched. I don’t think they were moving in together but this was around the time Lobby Hero was announced so he was probably looking for somewhere to stay since rehearsals for that began right after he wrapped Endgame.
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Anon JS, in her book, said CE eating habits are gross, and he smokes.
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I though JS said she did like his beard in the comedy show?!? That info is not mentioned in her book
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Ewww i nearly threw up that ask about his eating habits why would she ever say something like that 😷
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I think she was like... He dumped me for good, he's not in love, don't want me back at all, so let's be mean in this book
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Aww, man, if that anon story was real, I really, really feel bad for the guy. All the comedy shows I watched, I've never really seen spouses/SOs being the brunt of the joke. Everyone knows who her bf is, everyone knows who the joke is about. Not too nice.
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Did JS bad-mouthed CE?? I have come across certain fans who claim she has but I never got the whole story!
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I wonder if he read that book and even not reading how he must have felt knowing how she described / exposed him that way.
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Was that other anon agreeing with me because I never said someone should change for anybody else, I said the same thing she CHOSE to change for him but it’s all on her (if it was agreeing then ignore this and yes the burn book was very juvenile to do)
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chickensarentcheap · 4 years
Text
Sanctuary - Chapter 20
Warnings: none really
Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @alievans007, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @valkyrie-of-the-light
She stares at the cellphone in her hands; trying desperately to keep back the flood of tears that threaten. Tears of worry. Sadness. Relief. Anger, even. And frustration. So much frustration. That he’s been sent into yet another shitty situation.
 It’s willingly.  Offering himself up for people that don’t even know him, putting himself into harms way like some sort of sacrificial lamb for strangers that…for the most part…don’t understand the choices he has to make on their behalf. The danger he puts himself in. The lives he has to take. The way that he’ll have to escape death just trying to keep them alive.  Most never express thanks: very few of those who are rescued -and even less of their families- ever offer up even the smallest bit of gratitude. He’s being paid, they figure. He’s taking the money. Isn’t that enough gratitude?
“Mommy?” TJ is at her side, looking up at her with those huge blue eyes. One of which is going to be black and blue in a few hours; Millie had caught him square in the face with a right hook.  A knee to the face causing a bloody nose.
“Let me see…” she sets her cell phone down and hooks a finger under his chin, tilting his head backwards. “She got you pretty good, huh?”
He nods, not even flinching when her fingertips press against the swollen orbital bone and the bridge of his nose.
Definitely his father’s son.
“Well nothing’s broken,” she says, a sigh of relief escaping her lips.
She’s tended to many of her husband’s injuries. Seen a lot of bloody noses and black eyes and a hell of a lot worse. Fractured ribs, both stab and gunshot wounds.  She’s pulled shards of glass and other debris out of his skin with a pair of tweezers. In Dhaka she’d stitched up a wound on his right bicep with a needle and run of the mill sewing thread. Without anything to dull the pain.  And she’s seen the aftermath of shoulder and knee replacements; the one that would clean the incisions and apply fresh bandaging when homecare nurses weren’t able to make it.
He holds up a sandwich bag with near melted ice cubes in, and she takes it to the sink and dumps it out before adding fresh cubes from the freezer and tying the bag up tight. “Does she look worse than you?” she asks, as she presses the ice to the bridge of his nose.
“I didn’t hit her back, mommy. She’s a girl.  Daddy said never to hit a girl. No matter what. That it’s wrong. Did daddy ever hit you?”
“Daddy knows better. He knows I’d drop him. But he wouldn’t do that, anyway.  He’d never hit any girl. Especially me.”
“I’d beat him up. If you did. Just so you know.”
She leans down and presses a kiss to his lips.  “You keep the ice on it for a little while longer, okay? Just to keep the swelling down. You’re going to have a hell of a shiner tomorrow. You’ll get to show that off to daddy when he video chats with you guys. He wanted me to tell you that he’s safe and sound in Ireland. And that he loves you and misses you. He misses you so much.”
“I miss him too. Maybe he won’t be gone for very long.”
“Maybe. Hopefully. Here…” she takes his hand and places it against the back of ice against his nose. Then moves to the freezer once again and takes out three popsicles. “One for you and Tanner and one for Ovi. Can you ask him to watch you guys for a little bit longer? There’s something I need to do. Someone I need to call. Can you ask him, please?”
Her son nods, then turns his face up for another kiss.
“You’re my favourite,” she says with a wink, and pecks his lips. “And be careful out there, please. I don’t need you breaking an arm or a leg. Or a neck. Just take it easy, okay?”
“Okay mommy,” he chirps, as he rushes from the kitchen. Nearly colliding with the glass patio door that he’d forgotten he’d shut behind him.
“Tyler…” she sighs. “…really?”
“Ooops,” he giggles, then gives a shrug as he hurries outside.
She stands over the sink and watches him through the window, bounding across the deck in his bare feet, leaping from the top step and hitting the ground running. The landing never even breaking his stride; those long, lanky legs carrying him through the grass to where Ovi is pushing Declan in the baby swing and Tanner in the regular sized one.  TJ begins handing out the popsicles and explains to Ovi what she had asked, and the teenager looks up towards the house and gives her an okay sign.
***
Picking up her cell phone, she flips open the cover of the case and plucks a business card from the inside fold.  She wasn’t planning on hanging onto it; she’d taken their conversation at the park as a one off and was going to just throw the card away and get on with her life. Satisfied that she’d been able to give him the absolution that he’d desperately searching for. Finally able to put that long and dark chapter of her life behind her.
Instead, she finds herself dialling the number, leaning sideways against the counter as it rings on the other end. Nervously drumming her fingertips against the granite, tapping one foot against the floor.
“Are you busy?” she inquires, before he even manages to get a whole greeting out.
“Esme?” Shocked. But pleased.
“I really need to talk to you. Do you have a few minutes? I wouldn’t have called you if this wasn’t important. If I didn’t think you were the right person to go to.”
“I’ve got some time to spare. Anything for you. You know what. What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Tyler’s in Ireland. On a job. And I don’t trust the person that he’s working with. The one that asked him for his help to begin with. I need you to look some things up for me. I’d do it myself, but with four kids to manage on my own…”
“Let me just grab a piece of paper and pen…” there’s a slight rustling noise as he searches for the items in question.  “…go ahead. What is it?”
“I need you to look up the name Michael McCann. M…C…capital C…A…N…N…”
“Got it.”
“He says he’s ex IRA. I’m worried he’s still active IRA. That should be available info, right?”
“Should be. There’s always articles about those guys. They’ve been a little quiet the last couple of years, but there’s bound to be something. You know what his role was? Or might still be?”
“By the sounds of things, he might have been…or still is…some kind of intel. An inside man. He knows a lot of secrets. He’s done a lot of dirty work for them.  He might still be doing dirty work for them. That’s what I need you to find out. I need to know what this guy’s story is. The real story. Not the line that he’s been feeding Tyler.”
“Is he falling for it? The line?”
“No. I think he’s starting to realize that something isn’t quite right.  None of this is sitting right, Mark. It’s leaving a bad taste in my mouth. He is not who he says he is. He came to Tyler for help. He suddenly just showed up in Telluride one day. Said he’d even followed him while he was in Guatemala.”
“How did he know Tyler was in Guatemala?”
“There’s someone giving him information. Someone that works for Nik. I haven’t even started to look into that yet. But I will. This guy says that he tracked Tyler down through me. That he’d heard about what happened in Dhaka and somehow my name got out there as being connected to it. Which is weird, because Nik said she kept that on the downlow. I don’t even have a personal file with her. I was a ghost. I didn’t even exist as far as the outside world was concerned.”
“The worldwide web is vast, Esme. You can find information on anyone. And if he heard your name and somehow connected that to this Nik…”
“He told Tyler that someone I used to work with told him my name. Which makes no sense because how would that person even know I was in Dhaka? And how would they tie me to Tyler? We weren’t married then. I still had my maiden name. So where would they get Esme Rake from? It makes no sense.”
“Well they’ve gotten it somewhere. Information is easy to find if you know the right people. And have the right amount of cash.”
She sighs. “I suppose so.”
“This guy just showed up? In Telluride?”
“He asked Tyler for help. Said that his wife and his kids were taken by the IRA. Had videos of them and everything. All bound up, beaten to shit. I didn’t see them. Tyler watched them. He said they were legit. And Tyler’s instincts are never wrong. He’s being doing this a long time. He knows when something is bullshit. He would have known right away if it was just a game. He doesn’t just jump blindly into things.”
“Could it be some kind of elaborate ruse? It isn’t unlike terrorist organizations to do pull out all the stops. It could be someone that is after Tyler. Someone that feels slighted. Someone he crossed paths with or got the drop on.”
“Tyler says he’s never dealt with the IRA. He’s never even been to Ireland. Until now.”
“Doesn’t mean someone he’s pissed off doesn’t have connections to them. Strong enough connections that they’d do a favour for them. Loyalty runs deep, Esme. And money runs even deeper. I’m sure Tyler’s pissed off a lot of people. Not that I don’t agree with what he does. Because I do. I’m quite fond of vigilantism myself. I admire him for taking on other peoples’ shit and doing the dirty jobs no one else wants to do.”
“So what do you think?” she asks, as she moves to the fridge, opening it and taking out a bottle of water. Fingers briefly lingering on the wine before changing her mind and shutting the door with her hip. “Sounds weird, right?”
“I’ve heard weirder, to be honest. Could be something. Could be nothing. I’ll look into it for you.”
“Off the books, right?”
“What do you mean? What…?”
“Mark, I know what you do. My mom told me. I know you’re FBI.”
He sighs.
“You didn’t have to keep it a secret. It’s no big deal. So you’re a Fed, so what? This means you have connections, right? You have ways of finding out shit that normal people wouldn’t be able to do? And you must know people that know people. People that have even farther reach and deeper connections. Right?”
“Esme…”
“This is between the two of us. I do not want this getting out there. And I especially do not want Tyler finding out. Not yet. Not until you dig something up. If there is anything to dig up. Can you do that for me? Everything off the books? Between us?”
“I can. I probably shouldn’t. But I can.”
She sips her water, glances out the window and watches Ovi and the kids are they feed the chickens and goats. “There’s something else.”
“Go ahead.”
“I know this is a lot to ask of you. So feel free to tell me to fuck off.”
“I’ve gotten myself in this far. Might as well jump right into the deep end. What is it?”
“Do you know anyone in Ireland? And by that I mean people like you. Feds. Ex Feds. Ex Marines even?”
“I know a couple. Why?”
“If I send you Tyler’s info…his cell number, his SAT number, where he’s staying…can you get someone to monitor all that?”
“Doesn’t he have his own people keeping an eye on him?”
“An extra pair of eyes wouldn’t hurt. I just want someone to watch out for him. He’s going into this alone, Mark. With nothing but the word of this McCann guy to go on. If something goes wrong and Tyler’s people can’t reach him or find him…”
“You’re really stirring the shit pot here. I highly doubt he wants you doing all this. What’s going to happen when he finds out? Because he will. Find out.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Please Mark. I need your help. And I know you can do this. This isn’t easy for me. Asking for help. Especially from you. And it can’t be easy for you either. Me asking for help for something that involves my husband.”
“It’s a little…awkward,” he admits.
“He saved me, Mark. In every way a person can be saved. My life was so different after we broke up. I was in a really dark place that I didn’t think I’d ever get out of. That I didn’t know if I really wanted to get out of. I became a completely different person than the one you remember. Tyler came into my life at a time where I needed someone the most.  And it shouldn’t have happened the way it did. It was stupid and it was dangerous, and it never should have gone down like that. But it did. And I don’t regret it. I don’t regret falling in love with him. Or staying in Australia. Or getting married and having kids. His kids. You said you just wanted me to be happy.”
“I do. That’s all I want, Esme.”
“Then help me. Please. Because I can’t lose him, Mark. I almost lost him once. And this time I don’t want to lose him for good. I need your help. And that’s what would make me happy.”
He sighs heavily. “Send me the information. Email. I have an account on a protected server. I’m sending you the address now.”
And with that, he disconnects the call.
 *****
Tyler’s not sure how long how he’d been asleep for. After devouring three orders from room service and opening up another bottle of scotch, he’d stretched on one of the beds to watch the local news. Fully intending on staying up in case Yaz had already gotten to work and was able to dig up some information to send him.  He’s still lying on his stomach in middle of the bed; fully dressed, sheets and blankets not even turned down, his cell phone lying next to him, feet up by the headboard. Jolted awake by a sharp rap of knuckles upon the door.  
His head swims: a mixture of booze and the painkillers he’d taken after he ate.  A dull ache in the base of his neck as he places his chin on the forearm he’d been using as a pillow, eyes blinking against the harsh light of the cell phone screen within the dark room.
12:53.
His time? Colorado time? He doesn’t even know anymore. It couldn’t be the latter. Not if it had already been one in the afternoon when he spoke to Esme. He was tired; but he wasn’t THAT tired. There’s no possible way he’d sleep that long. Even with the help of meds and alcohol. And he’s pretty sure he changed the time on his cellphone. Or maybe it had done it itself.
He clears sleep out of his eyes, rubs at the back of his neck. Internally yells at his muddled and disoriented brain to get shit its shit together.
The knocking continues. Louder. More insistent. And he attempts to ignore it, switching positions on the bed and resting his head back on one of the pillows. The smooth cotton of the pillowcase cool against the back of his head. Eyes closed; hands clasped together at his chest. Knowing if he just stays quiet, whoever it is will just fuck off and leave him alone. Whatever it is, it can wait until the morning.  And he’s just beginning to nod off again when he hears whispering from in the hall; Irish accents, two female, one male.  One of the female’s asking the other two if they’d seen the man that he’d checked into the room. Had he left sometime in the middle of the night? If he did, do they know if he came back? He can’t make out the reply, but there’s a heavy sigh followed by more knocking.
It’s louder. More intense. A different sound than what knuckles make against wood. The dull thud that ensues when you use the toe of a sneaker or a boot.
His eyes snap open and he reaches for the top drawer on the nightstand, quietly pulling it out and then slipping the Glock from the holster. Flicking off the safety as he slips off the bed and silently makes his way towards the door. Pausing with a hand on the deadbolt as he listens; trying to pick up any hints of a conversation or any other noises coming from the hallway. Palm resting against cool, smooth wood as he peers out the peephole.
She’s young. Twenty at the most. A simple grey hoodie and blue jeans. A ball cap pulled over bright red hair. Carrying a purse along her left forearm, cell phone in her hand. A file folder clasped in her right.  She pounds at the door now, slamming her fist against it with all the power she can muster.
He holds the Glock down at his side, opens the deadbolt but leaves the chain across. A foot against the door, preventing her from trying to open it further.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“Are you the Australian?”
“Yeah, I suppose I am. Answer my question now.”
“Can I come in?”
“No.”
 “Why?”
“Because I have no idea who the hell you are.”
“I’m Erin.”
“Erin what?” he presses.
“Ferguson.”
“What the hell do you want, Erin Ferguson? It’s almost one in the morning. How’d you know who I was? Where to find me?”
“A lot of people know who are,” she says. “You’re the Australian. Here to get Michael McMann’s wife and kids back.”
He smirks. “Word travels fast. Who’s they? And how did they find out?”
“They. As in the people who have them. The people who took his wife and his kids. The people who are watching your wife and your kids.”
Tyler’s blood runs cold. Hand tightening around the Glock. “What did you just say?”
She cocks her head to the side, a smirk curving her lips. “Can I come in now?”
“No. Whatever you have to say, you say it right where you’re standing. What do you mean they’re watching my wife and my kids? The IRA?”
She nods.
“Why?”
“Because you’re sticking your nose in other peoples’ business. You don’t belong here, Australian. This isn’t your fight. If you knew what was good for you…for your family…you’d leave. Right now.”
“If you knew what was good for you, you’d stop talking in riddles. And you’d know that I have a loaded gun behind the door and my finger is already on the trigger. So stop the bullshit and tell me who you are and what you want, or I won’t think twice about putting one between your eyes, you hear me?”
That wipes the smirk off her face.
“Who are they” he repeats. “The IRA? You’re working for them?”
“I work for a lot of people,” she says. “They asked me to give you this. As proof.”  She offers the file folder.
“Proof of what?”
“That they aren’t messing around. That you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in something that you never should have wandered into it.  What goes on between them and McCann is their business. Not yours.”
“It became my business when McCann hired me. So you go back to whoever you’re working for and tell that their games won’t work on me. I don’t scare easily. And it’s them that’s gotten mixed up in something they don’t want to be mixed up in. I don’t fuck around. I’ll find his wife. And his kids.”
“And the risk of losing your own?”
“They’ll never get near my wife or my kids. They can try. But it won’t happen. You tell them I said that. And you tell them that if they so as much go near my family, I’ll come after them personally. And they won’t like the results. Tell them that. You tell them exactly what I said. That I’ll bring them within an inch of their lives and then I’ll stop and start all over again. You got that?”
She nods, shoves the folder toward him.
“Put it on the ground,” he orders.  “And then back away. Nice and slow. Keep your hands where I can see them.”
She places the folder on the carpet and does as she’s told, hands up as she slowly steps backwards, until she’s almost pressed against the door across the hall.
Tyler removes the chain from the door and pulls it open, casting a glance down both ends of the hall, keeping the Glock pointed at her. “Now go. Move. To the elevator.”
She walks backwards; hands still up, eyes never wavering from his. She never blinks. Never shows any signs of fear or nervousness with a gun trained on her.
“Press the button,” he orders. “Get on when the elevator gets here. Go back and tell them exactly what I said.”
He waits, gun still focused on her, until the lift finally arrives and she steps on. Not picking up the envelope and backing into his room until he hears the elevator doors slide closed and he knows she gone for good.
***
He hurriedly snaps the deadbolt back in place; refastens the chain and then stalks across the room. Tossing the gun into the middle of the bed and tearing at the envelope; splitting it down the middle as opposed to the flap or the seams. His heart pounds mercilessly in his chest; stomach clenching and brain swimming with a thousand different thoughts. None of them good.  And the frowns when he finds two smaller envelopes inside of the first. Each one marked with the words PROOF OF LIFE.  One dated two days ago, one just this morning.
What the fuck…
He rips into the most recent one first. Photographs. Of McCann’s wife and kids.  The kids are no longer hog tied and restrained on a filthy mattress. Sitting in crude metal chairs, hands and feet bond by what he easily identifies as rock climbing rope. Both kids are naked from the waist up, most likely so whoever views the pictures grasps the extent of what’s been done to them: bruises covering the entire rib cage, finger marks from wrist to shoulder. There’s dried blood on their face: caked under their noses and around the corners of their mouths. And the skin is raw where the duct tape over the eyes had been cruelly ripped off.
He feels sick. Bile rising in his throat.
The wife is in far better condition. But still bears the marks of her ordeal. Her hair has been crudely chopped off; chunks missing, the edges just skimming the bottoms of her ears.  Unlike the children, she’s in a wooden chair that’s in remarkable condition; polished, a clean, like new cushion. Bound only by her wrists. He frowns at that, holding her picture and one of the children side by side. It makes no sense. Why the children would be in such inhumane conditions while she…despite the hacked hair job and her own bruises…is still in pretty damn good shape. Normally the kids are treated better than the adults; it’s easier to beat on and torture adults, as they’re in far better condition and can take a hell of a lot more punishment before death finally takes over.
Photos still in hand, he wanders around to the side of the bed and grabs the SAT out of the drawer of the nightstand. Pressing three on the speed dial.
“Yeah?” Yaz simply greets.   There’s no hint of sleep in his voice.
“Did someone just come to your door?” Tyler asks.
“I was just going to call you. A girl came here. Looking for you. Said her name was…”
“Erin,” he finishes.
“Yeah. I take it she found you? I wasn’t the one who told her. I acted like I had no idea what the hell she was talking about. But she obviously knows me. She talked about Dhaka. About me flying the helicopter that got Ovi out. She kept going on and on about how ‘they’ know all about us being here. About you being the one that killed Asif.”
“Well technically that was your sister. What else did she say?”
“Just kept calling you The Australian. Says that ‘they’ know all about us. All about you, especially. About Esme. And the kids.”
“Fuck…” he mutters. “…what the hell? How’d this get out so quick? How’d they know we were here?”
“I don’t know. I have no clue.  I was going to call Nik after I talked to you. Maybe we’ve got a mole on the team. Someone is feeding them information. What did this girl want with you?”
She gave me pictures. Of McCann’s wife and kids. Proof of life as of six hours ago.”
 “How they look?”
“Kids are fucked up. Wife looks pretty good though. What’s her name? The wife? We have any information on her? Maiden name, anything like that?”
“First and married name. That’s it. Why? What are you thinking?”
“Something isn’t right here. Why are they being held in different spots? When was the last time we ever saw that when we had multiple marks?”
“Never.  Not in the ten years that I’ve been doing this, anyway.”
“The kids have been worked over pretty good. Whoever sent these wanted us to see that. Just how fucked up they are. But the wife? Worst she has is a shitty hair cut and some bruises. The kids are being kept in some shit hole and she looks like she’s just been tied up for shits and giggles in someone’s dining room.”
“You think we’re being played?”
“Yeah. But I’m not sure by who. You find out everything you need to know about the wife. Like right now. Don’t wait.”
“I’m on it,” Yaz says, and hangs up.
Tyler drops the SAT into the middle of the bed, followed by the photographs, then reaches for the second smaller envelope. Pausing before he opens it, stealing himself against what he knows is inside. He’d known as soon he saw the first selection of photos. Hell, he’d known as soon as Erin had brought up his own family.  He also knows that it’s a scare tactic, that whoever is behind their existence is hoping it will cause him to give up the search for McCann’s wife and kids in favour of returning to his own family.  The chances that someone will actually hurt Esme and the kids are slim to none. That’s not what these people want. Their endgame isn’t to hurt him. Just scare him enough to send him running home.
He tears into the paper, dumping a handful of polaroids into his palm. His heart once again pounding ferociously, ever muscle and tendon in his body suddenly tense.  Hands remarkably still despite the trembling travelling through the rest of his body as he flips through the pictures. Ovi and Mille going into the ice cream shop, Esme and Millie while out of their girls day, him and the boys while leaving after their getting their hair cut, the entire family out together for dinner, him and Ovi at the shooting range, Esme and him, alone on that hammock in the backyard.
Fuck…fuck…fuck…
He grabs his SAT once again, this time calling Nik.
“Yaz just called. Talk to me.”
“They know, Nik. Whoever has McCann’s wife and kids. They know who I am and why I’m here. How the fuck do they know?”
“I have no idea. Yaz thinks there’s a mole on the team. Someone who has access to all your files.”
“Just how many people is that?”
“Half a dozen.”
“For fuck sakes, Nik! This was supposed to be kept quiet. McCann knew I was in Guatemala. He said he followed me for the entire week I was there. Now whoever has his wife and his kids know who I am and why I’m here. Explain to me how the fuck this happened?!
“I’m working on that, Tyler. You’ll have answers as soon as I get them.”
“I have pictures, Nik. Pictures of my wife and my kids. Even pictures taken in my backyard. What the fuck is going on?!”
“They’re trying to scare you, Tyler. They’re trying to force your hand. They want you to back out and go home. Don’t give in to them.”
“You get someone to my house,” he demands. “I don’t care if you have to go there personally. You get someone there to keep an eye on my family. I’ll stay here. I’ll see this job through. But you get someone to my place, Nik. Now. Not an hour from now. Not two hours from now. Not six. Now.”
“I’m already on it. What do I tell Esme? Do I tell her about the pictures?”
“No. Just tell her that you think it’s better that way. To have some folks there. That you sent people ‘just in case’. That will be good enough for her. At least for now. Don’t even tell her that I talked to you. None of this ever happened as far as she’s concerned.”
“Do you really think McCann’s wife has something to do with this?”
“I don’t know. Everything is fucked. Right off the hop this time.”
“We should call it off. I should just bring you and Yaz home.”
“The job’s not finished. We haven’t even started it.”
“The job is fucked, Tyler. We’ve lost the element of surprise.”
“Doesn’t mean the job can’t go on. I’ve got this under control, Nik. At least on this end. You just make sure that my family stays safe. Because if anything happens to my wife or my kids…”
“They’ll be fine. I’ll personally make sure of that. Keep your head on straight, Tyler. Don’t let them win.”
“I’ve got shit locked down over here,” he assures you. “You just make sure you do the same thing over there. Take care of my family, Nik.”
“I will,” she promises. And ends the call.
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