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jeminy3 · 4 years

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old archie x maxie (hardenshipping) doodles i never posted, from 2017 or 2018. they were related to some of the doodles in this post.

I have a lot of unpublished drawings of these guys, and i never did elaborate on my headcanons for them. The truth is, I was (and still kinda am) very anxious and embarrassed about this fixation, probably because it centers around villains and “woobifies” them, but also because after playing and researching more into ORAS, i discovered that my personal canon was contradicted by actual canon and i felt invalidated.

For the sake of posterity, I’ll summarize my old headcanons below. (It’s still pretty long, ugh)

A grunt in Team Magma’s hideout says that Archie and Maxie “used to be on the same team.” In canon, this probably implies that they worked together on New Mauville, Sea Mauville, or another unnamed project, depending on how old they are and how long ago those projects started and ended.

However, like many other fans, I thought this meant they used to be in Team Rocket together, and I elaborated an entire backstory based on that:

+ Maxie and Archie were part of a group of Rocket recruits attempting to start a branch of Team Rocket in the Hoenn Region. The project failed because soon after they arrived, Giovanni was defeated in Kanto and officially dissolved Team Rocket, causing a schism to form within the Hoenn team over whether to give up the project or not. This eventually lead to the team splintering into two factions, one lead by Maxie and the other lead by Archie, which eventually grew and rebranded themselves into Team Magma and Team Aqua.

-Maxie and Archie met and connected enough to start dating, though they were emotionally dysfunctional. As problems arose and the Team began to splinter, their relationship also broke down and their separation was very messy.

Maxie clung to the ambition of staying in Hoenn and building up the Team as a paragon of human industry, pushing away Archie and anyone else he deemed as “not useful.”

Archie also wanted to make the Team work, but not in the way Maxie and his side wanted, at the expense of nature. Archie felt hurt and betrayed as Maxie pushed him away and disagreed with him, making him contradict and lash out at Maxie even more.

This all culminated in a huge fight between Archie and Maxie and their respective sides, involving both Pokemon battling and actual fist-fighting. Local authorities were called in, causing the teams to scatter, but not before Archie and Maxie promised to face each other again, reforging themselves as bitter rivals.

-- Maxie

+ Maxie is (the pokemon equivalent of) German/Japanese, and was born on Cinnabar Island. His birth name was Maximillian Matsubasa Von Brandt, but he prefers simply “Maxie”. He IDs as bigender, asexual and demi-homoromantic.

His father is a Kanto businessman named Masaru Matsubasa. His mother is from somewhere in or near Kalos, named Melissa Von Brandt. They were both wealthy and successful business people who frequently left on business trips, Masaru travelling between Kanto and Johto and Melissa to her home country.

Maxie was often left alone or with a nanny at home. He was well-provided for and self-sufficient, but he was lonely and emotionally stunted. He had a passion for geology and engineering, and showed interest in contributing to helping Cinnabar’s local issues, which were often tense because of the limited land space. Homelessness and unemployment were high, and development plans to alleviate these were stymied by parties who lobbied for the preservation of the local Pokemon wildlife by any means.

Maxie’s parents were skeptical of his choice in career but still supported him, if only half-heartedly. This lead Maxie to study Cinnabar’s volcano, which he found to be very much active and possibly dangerous. He developed a plan to build in and around the volcano in such a way that it would utilize extra space inside the mountain for housing/businesses and its magma for natural energy to power the city, possibly circumventing its eventual eruption.

He presented this plan to Cinnabar’s city council, but was practically laughed out of the meeting for such an ambitious and dangerous idea, especially by the wildlife parties. This damaged his reputation and caused him to be fired/demoted from his job. His parents reprimanded him, regretting their decision to support him.

Lost and disgusted with his life, Maxie found recruitment with Team Rocket and left Cinnabar to join their efforts on the mainland. When he presented his research to their higher-ups, they were impressed enough to pass it along to Giovanni himself, and Maxie ended up contributing to the construction of some of their underground lairs, like in Celadon City.

This also made him a prime candidate for the Rocket Hoenn project as a lead engineer and scientist, and he joined the project with high hopes.

+ His interest in Pokemon was soured by his past and usually only extends are far as his ambitions, which means he views Pokemon only as things that can be useful to whatever projects he’s working on, otherwise they are a nuisance. After becoming the leader of Team Magma and having to train a personal team to defend himself with, he warms up to Pokemon a bit more.

+ Maxie plays up his confidence and genius, but does have moments of crippling self-doubt and anxiety. Deep down, he’s socially awkward and has trouble expressing his feelings, tending to bottle things up until they spill out in moments of anger.

+ Maxie used to be a semi-heavy smoker in his youth to cope with his anxiety. After becoming the leader of Team Magma, his health was suffering and his grunts were visibly uncomfortable around him, so for the sake of his own health and that of his team, he quit, with help and advice from Courtney and Tabitha.

+ Maxie hates his parents and hasn’t contacted them since he left Cinnabar, which was over ten years ago by the end of ORAS events. He avoids them to the point that he uses a forged identity in Hoenn, named “Maxie Stormfront.” ‘Stormfront’ is a reference from one of his favorite metal bands, the Doom Hounds, because he is a nerd.

+ Years later, Cinnabar’s volcano did erupt and destroy the town, displacing its human population. Maxie has mixed feelings about this – he’s not sure if it’s righteous karma for the City Council rejecting his plans, or a sign that his old plans were doomed to failure and he was better off leaving Cinnabar after all.

-- Archie

+ Archie is (the pokemon equivalent of) Black/Hispanic and a Hoenn native. His birth name is Archibald Rodriguez. He IDs as a cis man (or trans?), pansexual and panromantic.

He was born to his father, Alexander Rodriguez and his mother, Alicia Fuentes (Rodriguez after marriage) in a small fishing town on one of Hoenn’s coasts, with its fishery being its only major industry. Most of its residents are middle-class or poor, and few members pursue an education after high school, usually joining the local fishing industry.

In his youth, Archie didn’t care much for school or work, preferring to spend his days playing with the local water Pokemon and his friends, Matt and Shelly. However, this exposed him to the effects that overfishing and pollution had on the local wildlife, and he eventually grew to want to pursue a career as a Veterinarian, specifically for water pokemon.

His parents didn’t believe he would be successful and his town had few resources to help him. The most he could do was research at the local library and a then-primitive internet.

Worse, his town was outright apathetic to the damage their industry was causing to the local wildlife because they depended on its capital to survive.

+A possible traumatic memory involves a young Archie nursing a sick Magikarp back to health for weeks, only to later discover it trapped in the nets of the fishery his father worked at, doomed to become food/products. When he attempted to cut the nets and save the Magikarp, his father restrained him and reprimanded him, claiming “it’s just a fish, boy! They’re all just stupid fish!”

Eventually, Archie was a depressed drifter in his 20s, unable to hold onto work and unable to afford to leave to a larger city. He often fought with his abrasive father and his mother was coddling, but unsupportive. This made Archie a prime candidate for Team Rocket recruiters as they arrived on Hoenn, promising a way out of his backwater town, decent pay, and a career where he’d be appreciated and be able to work with Pokemon to change the world. He joined as a lowly Grunt, but was talented and well-respected within the Team.

-Archie has limited contact with his parents since he left home, only calling them once a year or so.

-Archie doesn’t like being referred to as his full name, it feels pretentious and brings back uncomfortable memories of his family.

+I used to headcanon Archie and Matt as biological brothers because of the “bro” thing, but I’m not sure about keeping that. If so, Matt’s name would be short for Matthias Rodriguez, because their parents liked pretentious names.

-Like some of his dialog implies, Archie is kind of depressed, pessimistic and cynical deep down, but hides it behind his boisterous, reckless attitude. At his worst, he’s downright bitter, uncaring of his own life or the lives of humanity in general, in favor of Pokemon.

#hardenshipping #aqua leader archie #magma leader maxie #rocket hardenshipping #pokemon oras #jeminy3 art #jeminy writes #long post #headcanons

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serenedash · 3 years

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I started rambling about my experience with kh and then it turned into khux and then it just turned into me rambling about Ryou and my art journey????? enjoy I guess,

it’s very long but there’s art in there :)

It’s funny to think about my kh journey as a whole tbh, I grew up watching my mom play video games, which included kh1 and 2. I wasn’t allowed to play the playstation2 we owned BUT I did have a gameboy so the first game I played was CoM (after my mom finished it ofc,) so I guess you could say I’ve always been passionate about kh “””side games””” lmao but I did fall off of kh very quickly bc again, I wasn’t allowed to play our PS2 and also I Am A Terrible Gamer I’ve Never Finished CoM I’m sorry you all had to find out like this, but then 358/2 came out when I was in middle school and!!! I didn’t care and I didn’t play idk why lol

Anyway, fast forward to high school I’m like 15 and my older sister, who HAS been keeping up with kh, has a wallpaper on her phone of roxas and ventus. And bc I haven’t kept up I say “nice roxas wallpaper” and she says “thanks but it’s roxas and ventus” and I proceeded to get so mad that I was determined to prove to her that her wallpaper was just roxas twice and then I fell down the BBS rabbit hole and suddenly I was reading about vanitas and then I’m reading the fan translations of the BBS novel and I’m crying??? I am sobbing???? and that’s how I actually got into kh for real lol we are vanitas stans before we are people,

It’s so funny how I thought I was some kh super fan, knowing all this stuff that I spent so long reading and rewatching cutscene movies, but I never once, SOMEHOW NEVER ever came across khx. It’s so absurd and bizarre I seriously have no idea how I never once encountered khx prior to khux. I suppose that has to do with the fact I wasn’t involved in the fandom? In early high school I had stepped away from fandoms as a whole and I didn’t have any interest in really posting content or interacting with fans anymore bc of how burnt out I was from a previous fandom,

but khux released! and I was so hype and excited for it! on launch day I was a senior in high school, I had ran around to every “nerd” and weeb I could find in school to ask them to join my party and fun fact about me is I have crippling social anxiety I literally refuse to start conversations irl so holy shit I was OUT HERE doing the MOST

My player just originally had my name (Matt) but everyone in my party had fun names so Ryou was born! High school was one big yugioh phase for me and ryou bakura is one of my favorite characters ever so it was just the logical name choice lol I quickly started creating Ryou, the character, as well. I was also leaving my homestuck phase and that + vanitas obsession made This character design (art circa 2016)

If y’all are familiar with my kh oc’s you might notice that keyblade now belongs to my kid Monty LOL

Anyway that got scrapped quickly for the chip and dale outfit (which is where Ryou’s trademark goggles are from <3) Goggles have been a staple of my character designs for a LONG TIME so like, it had to be done, (that’s a separate ramble about a separate oc tho)

OG Ryou was an interesting guy; he was a young party leader with this overwhelming responsibility on his shoulders bc of his status as a party leader. In his original story, he also struggled heavily with darkness, much like Terra but for Ryou it was more that the darkness was controlling him and not like a source of power like it was for Terra

A big part of early Ryou I kept, however, was the crushing awareness of loss. One of my party members (the strongest one at the time,) had left without saying a word and I was very confused and hurt. This was around the time the ephemera plot was happening so I decided to incorporate it into Ryou’s story; having him experience losing a friend to darkness since it’s so normal for wielders in Daybreak Town to just disappear, and this would unintentionally become a theme for both me and Ryou as khux friends would just randomly disappear.

I was desperate for khux at this point and I decided to watch the fan translations for khx and GOD, god, was I obsessed. I couldn’t stop thinking about the foretellers. And I’m not going off about that here bc I already did that, but I actually started entering fandom again! I did it slowly, I started on tumblr before this blog was made altho it was me sending anons to the few khux related blogs I could have lol a friend convinced me to get twitter where I got involved with the ffxv fandom, which led me to the kh fandom and eventually the khux fandom there which is what REALLY got me going on khux.

I joined discord servers, most of the servers I’m in are khux related, and from there I joined the khux oc rp (shout out to anyone there who might be reading this lol here’s some art from the beginning of the rp,)

It’s SO FUNNY how the RP influenced me so heavily. I hadn’t RP’d in YEARS, I used to have a strict no oc rp policy, but here I was? And the funny part is, I had barely developed Ryou. I had scrapped his original story and all I had was POST WAR Ryou so I literally had to reverse write him; I had only ever written him as a depressed, guilt ridden adult, but it was a fucking blast and I have such fond memories of this rp when it was active,

But anyway, this encouraged me to get more serious about art! I started drawing, writing, cosplaying, and roleplaying when I hadn’t done any of that stuff in a very long time. The first time I ever drew a background was for a deviant art khux competition actually LOL

also! I always think extremely fondly of the drawing I did of Aced in the keyblade war. It was also one of the first backgrounds I ever drew and it felt like my real starting point in the khux fandom. It got a ton of notes on here and someone wrote a tiny fic in a reblog which just made me SO HAPPY like it really felt like people were noticing me :) I was going to draw a matching Ira but!! I just never did!! One day tho, it’s on my art bucket list to redraw this along with Ira,

Aside from my personal growth, khux was great for my social life ngl, I made SO MANY friends online and got to meet a ton of people irl over the years! It’s crazy to think about all the people I now know and talk to? It honestly makes me really emotional. I’ll never forget taking the train into NYC and meeting up with discord friends. Going to conventions and talking with people about the latest khux update? Absolutely insane and those were some GOOD TIMES, if I thanked every khux friend or even just person who made an impact on me then we’d be here for a LONG TIME,

Fun fact, for my Lauriam cosplay all I needed to buy was the wig I just owned his outfit LOL also? Probably retiring that cosplay ngl people treated me like absolute garbage when I wore him and it led to a lot of confidence issues for awhile ngl. That’s probably one of the only memorable negative experiences I have with khux; it was great when khux people recognized me but for kh fans that weren’t in khux? They were FUCKING MEAN??? fuck kh fandom at large, I only care about khux fandom,

This leads me to another huge part of my experience in khux fandom: THEORIES!! I used to write SO MANY and oh my god my brain was so full all the time. It was a huge appeal for me in the fandom; I had been previously writing theory posts in the RWBY fandom and it just migrated over to khux for me lol I had done a ton of theorizing around Lauriam tbh, it was really the only reason I liked his character at all bc initially I did not care about the dandelions, anyone who wasn’t Skuld I was like “please leave Now thanks”

A funny part of khux fandom I never intended to be apart of is the MEMES, I really only started doing memes as stress relief bc college had me so busy all I had time/energy for was these quick little shit post drawings.

The first meme I made, file name “invi despair” LOL we need to get her a girlfriend smh anyway, I think in my senior year of college I did a bunch of rapid fire memes all in one month bc the stress of finals was getting so bad afdgfhdgf as far as I know my impact on this fandom will be my memes bc all I do now is enter a kh/khux server and introduce myself and I go “yeah I draw art. here’s a meme” and everyone goes OH YOU, honestly I am nothing if not a clown

I’ve talked so much idk where I’m going with this. Khux is just a good game even if the gameplay actually kind of really sucks yknow lol but it was the first game I played where I like, REALLY got into the meta and the mechanics. I used to read so much on the mechanics and watch youtube videos on which medals were worth pulling for. I was never a whale or a top player exactly, but I could rank well if I tried lol I’ve made it to the top 100 for solo rankings, my party has made it to top 10, and in pvp I’ve made top 300. I’m not the highest level in my party but FUCK do I know how to manipulate this game LOL

And with all that hard work, the strategies, the theorizing, the content I’ve made-- it’s been my life for 5 years. I’ve logged into khux almost every single day. At the end, I have logged 1820 days in khux out of 1910 days. Kinda crazy. Crazier I’ve never spent money on khux either lol the only “money” gone into it was one time my mom gave me a google play store gift card and I used it on my birthday for a VIP xemnas medal which eventually made it to regular pulls anyway but it was nice and a little treat :)

I’m not a gacha fan, I don’t care for it, so I don’t think I’ll be touching another gacha again. But for kh? This was pretty fucking awesome, even if it sucked a lot sometimes LOL It was worth it for the people I’ve met most of all I think. I would honestly be a completely different person without khux and that’s REALLY insane to think about.

#the khux hyperfixation is REAL #but yall knew this about me #there's so much more I could say but it's 2am and this is long enough already #im rambling

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baby-grayson · 4 years

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Sweet Engima

Words: 5.3k Tags: @wheezeatmedolans @styles-dolan @prettyboydolan @evergreendolan @baby-turtles @dolanstacoma @kombuchagray @not-gbd @graysavant @someonetogray @dolansficsandpics @batgirl009 @voguekristens @letsgoget-high @crossedbone-kat @graysonsdollface

tw: hospitals, injuries, anxiety, police, mental health, bullying, alike topics

“It’s been paid for,” the airport garage attendant said, “By a Mr. Dolan.” Kate stood in front of a plump man, wearing the frizzy hair and red eyes that come with a cross country flight. “Oh,” she stuttered, “So I can just go—go to my car?” When the man nodded, Kate picked up her backpacks from the floor of the airport garage and walked aimlessly, trying to find a clue in her memory as to where she and Grayson had left her car.

Being back in California felt surreal. When she made it to her car, throwing her bags in the trunk and sitting in the driver’s seat. She took, what felt like, her first breath in weeks. She looked to the passenger’s side, seeing the image of the 200-lb heartthrob that once sat next to her. She felt older: aged by the stress, inconsistency, and weight of what she would claim was the past few weeks, but deep down she knew it was the gravity of the past year.

Arriving at the apartment, she felt half asleep as she slugged herself up the steps and to her front door. She stopped, staring at her front door. It was ajar and not locked. She asked herself if she forgot to lock it but then remembered that it was actually Wesley who was last here. She rolled her eyes and made a mental note to give him his stuff back when she wrapped her fingers around the doorknob and pushed it open.

She stood in the door frame, wide eyed and dry mouthed.

It was a wreck.

Her entire place was a wreck.

Her Ikea couches had been shredded, bits of cushion and fluff spilling out onto her rug that also wore broken shards of her coffee table. Her wall of pictures was covered in shreds, while confetti ,made from the faces of her loved ones, decorated the floor. Her kitchen cabinets were open, spilling over with things. Her house plants had been broken and dirt stained the floor of her apartment. She froze, not knowing how to move. She slumped one backpack down, hearing it hit the floor. She licked her top lip, trying to wet her heavy mouth. Her bottom jaw clattered as she took a step forward, her eyes still struggling to fully draw in the details of the moment.

She stepped over the threshold and noticed them. A thousand little notes written on posts its, receipts, the edges of notebook paper, newspapers, and napkins. She saw the first one and drew back. She swung her head around and read a second, hissing in a breath. Her breath turned shaky as her eyes darted between them: not feeling safe in her own home.

Slut.

Whore.

Homewrecker.

Fat Hoe.

Big nosed side hoe.

Clout Chaser.

He was Sherry’s.

He was going to be married.

Snake.

Cripple.

She took a step, nearly falling over on a large piece of a broken shoe stand. In a swift motion, she lunged herself over the threshold and slammed the door behind her. She fell against the wall next to her door. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and debated who to call first: Grayson or the police.

Grayson got there a few minutes after the first officer. When he parked his Tesla, Kate was slumped against the front door to her building looking up at the officer with a note pad, her back packs were thrown against the asphalt. Her eyes were puffy and red as she wiped a hand across her face and up through her hair. Grayson remained seated in the car, feeling helpless until another cop car pulled up. He waited until the officer by Kate walked away to greet the other car before climbing out of the Tesla and heading over to her.

She held her hands on her elbows while she leaned against the door, shaking slightly. She looked up at him through heavy lashes. Her words got stuck when they caught in her throat. She was ripped at every edge, scared small and quivering, but she was a masterpiece, her golden flecks shining in a thin layer of wet with her lips red from biting them and her petite frame accentuated in her slump.

Grayson lost all words. He wrapped both arms around her in a warm, snug embrace. He brought her head into his shoulder and gently placed a loving hand on the back of her hair. He felt a few tears soak into the sleeve of his shirt. He kissed the top of her head and mumbled, “bunny…”

When Kate looked up from her place on his shoulder, Grayson’s face was turned down. He had no words to give her, no advice to share, and no action to take. Instead, he settled on pulling her tighter and not leaving her side for the next two hours: while police officers came and went, taking shards of pots, broken plates, and notes away in sealable bags.

While she retold her story again and again and stuttered through the list of people who might do such a thing, all of which fueled by the latest development of Grayson in her life, Grayson never left her side. He held her close in their private moments, as if cuddling her head into his chest would protect her beautiful mind from the toxic chaos of the moment; when he couldn’t manage that, he reached down and took her delicate hand in his large one, squeezing it occasionally. Was it so she could feel his presence, or he could feel hers? He felt like crying, his eyes ached with soreness from holding back tears of anger. He shook, physically tremoring with the knowledge that he might have influenced someone to do such a wretched thing to his angel: one of the only good things about his life.

Grayson’s psyche was scarred with the paranoia of his stalker episode a few years prior: not even the skillful approach of an expert therapist could not permanently remove the edge he felt when it came to the public. Sometimes at night, he would lay awake and replay that night: being in the backyard with Ethan and Cameron. Ethan’s face dropping at the sight of a body in their kitchen, a body that wasn’t Ryan or Kristina or Kyle; Cameron’s assertive resolve as she marched out of the pool and nearly broke the sliding door when she stomped into the kitchen; the echo of her voice as she demanded people; the image of Ethan calling the police next to him.

Some memories aren’t memories: their primordial haunts that only exist to remind us that we are human.

But Kate was more than a human to him. To Grayson, Kate was angelic, representing something happy and right in his ever so mixed up world. He dreamed of the day he could take her away from this place: not just that scene, but all the worst parts of his life, and make a life with her. Grayson had longed believed there was someone, or something, watching out for him, he was far too stupid to have made it this far on luck, and he was convinced, feeling it deep in his bones, that celestial being handpicked Kate to remind Grayson of the best things in life.

When Kate looked up at him from her place in his chest, while the last of the squad cars rolled away, her voice choked on her words “What am I supposed to do?”

Grayson’s bones shook. His brain felt so saturated with dark clouds, it pressed against his skull and panged in his head. His heart wanted to rip through his chest, searching for air in a breathless fog. He gritted his jaw, on the verge of his own breakdown he tightened his arms around her, causing her lips to curl from where he pressed her against his chest.

Thank God his Tesla could drive itself: Grayson could barely keep his foot on the gas pedal as his body shook. Despite his best efforts, tears started to roll down his face. Kate pulled her sweatshirt around her body, comforted by the warm feeling of being engulfed in something.

Kate silently made a quick run to the shower when the Tesla parked at Grayson’s house. She made quick work of tearing off her clothes, turning on the jets, and sitting on his bench as the water rolled off her skin: praying that the water could wash her inside of the memories of that afternoon.

Grayson’s face was red and puffy. His knuckles were white as he grabbed a bottle of water from the counter. He held it above his head and chugged, droplets spilling off the corners of his mouth. He crushed it in his fist and forcibly threw it into the trashcan. A concerned Ethan tentatively stepped out of his room and lingered in the kitchen doorway. Grayson hadn’t told him he left; Ethan only noticed Gray’s Tesla gone from the driveway. If it wasn’t for the thud of the water bottle in the trashcan, Ethan wouldn’t have known Grayson was home.

“What’s going on?” Ethan’s voice was shaky as his looked down at his brother’s feet and then back up. Grayson reminded Ethan of the last time he saw his favorite childhood teddy bear. The teddy bear was covered in stains of dirt, food, and bodily fluids from traveling everywhere with Ethan. Besides Gray, that teddy was a young Ethan’s best friend. The last time Ethan saw teddy was when their father carried its remains into a shoebox after accidentally running over it in the driveway, where Ethan had left it one afternoon when it started raining. The teddy that was once shiny, cuddly, and soft was crushed to the point of bare threads, overflowing stuffing, and rocks embedded in its surface: that was what Grayson looked like to Ethan in that moment.

Grayson nearly tore the refrigerator door off of its hinges, searching for something to pile into his mouth, “Someone got into her place,” he went to open a drawer but instead took it off of its tracks. He grunted, nearly growling at the plastic bin and trying to shove it back into its place in the fridge, “They broke—they ransacked the fucking place Ethan—not even her house—notes” He slammed the door shut and put his hands on his hips, his bottom lip curled into his mouth as he stared at the refrigerator drawer that was passively sitting on the kitchen counter. His eyes stalked up to meet Ethan’s, “You want to know what they were fucking saying about her?”

Ethan didn’t need to ask who the “her” was in the situation. He put a familiar hand on Grayson’s back, feeling his relax every so slightly at his touch. Ethan sucked in a breath and played with his mouth. Grayson sighed, putting his hands on the counter and bending forward for support. “We’re gonna get through this man,” Ethan mumbled, “like we always do.”

“I don’t know how man,” Grayson raised his thumbs from where they held the edge of the counter, “You weren’t there—you didn’t see—”

“Gray,” Ethan’s tone was paternal, “there is no other choice, this is gonna work out. But it’s not gonna work itself out by you standing here and assaulting our kitchen.”

Grayson stood up, pushing Ethan back as he let go of the counter, “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”

“Go to her,” Ethan raised his voice slightly, he gestured an arm outward in the direction of Grayson’s bedroom, “Be there for her.”

Grayson stalked into his bedroom and sat on the edge of his bed. He heard the drum of the shower hitting the tile in his bathroom, deciding now was not the time to replay their rendezvous from a few weeks ago. He fell back, his comforter fluffing up around his head. His spine decompressed but his soul remained tense.

He picked his head up when the door to his bathroom opened to reveal Kate’s figure surrounded in a ginormous fluffy towel, as some steam filtered in behind her. Grayson sat up as she moved to sit on his lap, adjusting her towel around her. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he brought her closer to him. She thumbed his shoulder, her hair dripping water in his lap.

“I’m so sorry,” his voice was low and heavy with regret.

She didn’t meet his eyes. “You didn’t do anything Grayson.” “Yes, I did,” he sighed, “I did so much.” He winced, as if he was in pain, “I should have never—I should have never done it like this.” He bit his lip, “If I was unhappy—I should’ve—I should’ve—dealt with my relationship first and found you second. I fucked it up. I fucked it all up and now I—” “Shh,” she was calm, pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek. “Yeah,” she talked with her lips millimeters away from his skin, “You could have done a lot better. But there’s no changing the past, only doing better tomorrow.”

She pulled back, meeting his eyes now, “And Grayson—don’t apologize for—that, back there. That wasn’t you, you didn’t—you didn’t do that.” Her fingers interlocked with his, she squeezed his hand, “Once upon a time, you gave me this big apology about how you didn’t handle bringing me into your life correctly. Well-“ she sighed, “I wasn’t perfect back then either.” She flicked her teeth against her bottom lip, “I had a problem—separating you from, from your fans. But I get it now, at least I think I get it better, what I’m trying to say is,” she took a breath, “You didn’t do that to my apartment, you didn’t cause that. If someone was—if someone was that unstable and that irrational—they would have done that, whether to me, or to someone else. Am I explaining myself right here? I just—You didn’t do that to me, but you can—you can help me heal from it.” For nearly the hundredth time that afternoon, she pressed her head to his shoulder, her hair soaked a circle into his shirt.

Grayson took in a deep breath, trying to let Kate’s words absolve his guilt but feeling worse when no internal resolution came. “I just—” he wanted to say he loved her, he wanted desperately to say he loved her but everything about the moment betrayed him, “I—I want you back in my life, you are back in my life, and I want to do everything I can to keep you safe, to see you happy.” Kate lifted her head from his shoulder to meet his eyes. He found serenity in her features, in seeing those big brown eyes look up at him. Grayson thumbed her skin, feeling it soft and supple under his torn-up thumb. Her words penetrated his heart, “You do make me happy.”

Grayson’s features melted into a sad image of relief, “I do? Do I really?” His lion heart gave way to a series of insecurities and inner turmoil.

Kate nodded softly, she squeezed his hand and brought it up, between their chests, “You do make me happy. And I want to—I want you to keep making me happy. I want this,” she squeezed his hand again, “To be normal. I want us to—to---to---to go on dates and to watch movies and to—to be normal. Because I think that you and I can be something, something real. But you can’t expect this to be perfect until its balanced.” “Balanced,” Grayson repeated the word: one of the only things’ money couldn’t buy him. He sighed. “Yeah, balance,” Kate kissed his cheek, “It’ll come with time, once our lives get settled,” she squeezed his hand, “once we get settled together.”

“Are you saying that you’re giving me a chance? Because I swear, if you are,” Grayson’s eyes turned down at the corners, “I won’t screw it up, I promise. You’re too good for me as it is, and if normal is what you want, normal is what you get. I’ll give you the best normal that anyone ever knew. I want you to be happy, I want to give you everything I absolutely can because after everything I’ve brought into your life, I feel like I’ll never stop saying I’m sorry.” He bit his tongue from exposing his feelings once again.

Kate shook her head, “Don’t ever say you’re sorry. At least, not to me for what you did.” She sighed and eyed the way he slouched and the wrinkled forming in the corners of his eyes, “If you didn’t do what you did,” she shrugged, “Maybe we never would have met again. So maybe we’re the silver lining in…everything.”

***

The night and next day floated by with Kate on the phone with the LA County Sheriff’s Department, her grandmother, and her boss and the twins running around in preparation for their bathbomb launch, despite the chatter on twitter than the launch was perfectly timed amid Grayson’s scandal. Grayson stopped at Monty’s to pick up burgers and shakes for Kate, driving home in the middle of the day for lunch. If it was anyone else, he would have been grossed out, but he thought the way she dipped her fries into her vanilla shake was adorable.

“How’s work going?” she licked the shake off the side of a fry before using a finger to push it in her mouth.

Grayson shrugged while chewing a bite of his vegan burger, “It’s hectic. Everything is ready for the sale, but last-minute details about the boat.” “The boat?” Kate sucked on her shake through a straw, her lips puckering around the edge of the tube. Grayson shifted his gaze away from her mouth and wiggled in his seat, “The launch party, remember I told you about how Kevin wanted to do a little celebration with us and the team? Some good promo but also a team dinner?” Kate shook her head, “You never told me about that.” She knitted her brow, “How long have you been working on that?” “Like six months, you sure I never told you?”

Kate shrugged, “Maybe we were too busy nearly committing bigamy.”

Grayson chortled so loud he spit out a piece of his vegan burger, he coughed and brought a napkin to his mouth. He wagged a finger in her direction, “That was—that was funny.” Kate responded with a proud smile.

Grayson used a napkin to wipe food from his chest, “Well I put you on the guest list, kinda assumed you’d be my plus one,” he took a sip, “You know, my little arm candy.” His wink elicited a giggle from Kate.

“Me? A party?” She placed the sandwich down on the counter. “I’m a socially awkward little nerd.”

“You’re my socially awkward little nerd.” Grayson leaned over to place a kiss on her cheek, smiling onto her skin.

Kate shook her head, “What am I supposed to wear?” Her tone was slightly incredulous: parties, truly, were never her scene. Something about large groups of people intimidated her, there was something so anonymous and nothing intimate about large gatherings. Grayson swallowed a bite of sandwich, “Something pretty, whatever you have is fine I’m sure.” He washed it down with more shake, “You’re always beautiful anyway,” he leaned across to kiss her cheek again. “Hey,” her tone held warning, “You’re not allowed to do that all the time,” she held out a finger and Grayson gave her a cheeky grin. “Besides,” she continued, “I don’t have anything to wear. Grayson, I’ve been living off the same three pairs of pants and two sweatshirts since we left for Jersey.”

“I can have something delivered, “Grayson wiped his face with a napkin, “I’ll order something.”

Parties made Kate uncomfortable. She was further reminded by this fact when made it to the boat in the LA harbor. Grayson’s assistant had driven her because the twins were bouncing across sides of the boat, trying to get everything ready to set sail. She smoothed out the edges of her black dress, that clung a little tighter than she would like—probably chosen purposely on Grayson’s part—and tentatively walked into the main room.

Everyone was in heels, even some of the men. Big heels. Chunky heels. Tall heels. Wide heels. Kate sighed and brought her toes together in her ballet flats. Her condition made walking in flats hard. To her, heels were an obtainable elegance. A signal that she was not physically built for the world she was about to enter with Grayson.

She found a chair at the side of the room and sat quietly, eyeing different faces she didn’t recognize. Something paranoid buzzed inside of her, when she began to wonder if the polite chatter people were whispering around her was about her and Grayson. She swallowed hard and sat back in her seat.

The boat lurched as it left the harbor, bobbing everyone with it. A catering team put out finger foods as the night was ready to begin. Kate stayed in her seat, searching faces in the archways for signs of Grayson.

On the other end of the boat, Ethan was turning a corner as they set sail. He rocked, “woah,” and held out a hand to steady himself. “I’m so sorry,” he looked up at the person his hand landed on, “Sherry?” Ethan’s mouth hung open. In front of him was none other than Sherry Maddox: dressed in a form fitting teal number with shiny, dangling earrings, and strappy blue shoes. Her blonde hair wore a perfect, effortless blow out. He searched her up and down, as if she was going to phase into the ocean mist around him. “What are you doing here?”

“I was invited,” her words were sure. She blinked her eyes quickly, her fake lashes dancing like feathers. Ethan looked around, wondering if he was so stressed that he was seeing things. In the frenzy of the past few weeks, no one thought to disinvite Sherry from the night. Ethan stammered for words, “Oh”

Sherry gave him a sickeningly sweet smile, “Good to see you again Ethan.” As if on cue, Sherry stepped away from their exchange at the exact moment Ethan’s assistant called out to him to come to the main room. Ethan shuffled away, dizzied from what just happened.

He landed in a seat next to his brother, who sat next to Kate at their table. Kate went pale and dry to see Sherry slink against the back wall of the room. Until that moment, Sherry was nothing but a face in the tabloids to Kate. Seeing her in person, sent knots into her stomach and soul. Kate’s bottom jaw stammered as a chill went through her spine. “What’s wrong?” Grayson knitted his brow together when he saw the color leave her face. When Kate didn’t answer, he followed her gaze to the other side of the room and immediately shot out with, “What’s she doing there?” From next to him, Ethan piped up, “We never took her off the list.” His voice was grim, “Don’t worry about it Gray, she probably just wants to be photographed her peacock costume,” Kate chuckled at his last remark.

At exactly 9PM, Ethan stood up, taking to the front of the room to grab a microphone, “Hello? Is this on? Hello! I just wanted to thank everyone for coming, and for everything you do for our team. I couldn’t ask for better—” he continued his speech thanking his team. From across the room, his assistant snapped pictures of him at the microphone.

While Ethan talked, Grayson shifted in his seat, trying to find some level of comfort with Sherry in the room. He looked at Kate, “You look beautiful.” He placed his hand in her lap to hold her delicate fingers. She smiled up at him, “Thanks.” He leaned over to kiss the top of her head, “There is no one else I’d rather have next to me.” She smiled brightly under his lips. She moved to say something but was interrupted by Grayson standing up to switch places with Ethan at the microphone. As Ethan sat down, Kate leaned, “you think I can go,” she pointed to the back of the room, “back there to take some pictures of him.” Ethan gave her a sure nod.

Grayson started his remarks while Kate quickly floated to the back of the room to start snapping proud pictures of him. His voice filled the room, “And I think the choices we made to include in this launch are special, they mean something to all of us,” he listed their scents, “Compassion, Creativity, Energy, Family, and Love. Funny thing about Love, I designed it after someone who means so much to me, I wanted it to always remind me of the person who taught me what love is. Because before her, I met a lot of girls and I thought I was ready to be serious about them: but she taught me what it’s like to know someone belongs in your life and put the energy into making them the center of your life. Kathleen Walker, I don’t know what I would do with you.”

Tears welled up in Kate’s eyes, who had given up on taking blurry pictures and resolved on taking a video. As unperfect as Grayson and her were, there was something between them that only the lucky ones get to feel.

Grayson continued his speech, moving to thank every member of their team individually.

From Ethan’s seat, he looked for Kate in the crowd but couldn’t find her. An instinct ringing inside of him, he quietly stood up from his seat and sauntered to the back of the room.

At the edge of the boat, a loud foghorn sounded as the bow cut through ocean waves like butter. Kate struggled, screaming and questioning and crying out. But Sherry Maddox was white with anger. As if being publicly embarrassed by the love of her life wasn’t enough, she was forced to sit and listen to her ex-fiancé flaunt the fact that his “love” product was formulated in the image of another woman.

Kate didn’t feel Sherry push her.

She didn’t feel her feet leave the ground.

She screamed into the night until her scream was muffled by the splash of her body hitting the water.

Her black dress floated around her, blending her in the nighttime water. She was never a very strong swimmer: but what she could do was reduced to nearly nothing after the accident. Despite her best pushes, she could barely keep her head above water.

She was started to lose consciousness as she bobbed, a victim of the rough waves.

Ethan didn’t understand what he saw. He didn’t have time to process what he saw. He threw off his jacket and shoes and swan dived down into the water. With his pants and shirt soaked, he pulled Kate’s limp body toward him and, with the help of a deckhand, pulled himself back onto the boat.

As soon as the pair were back on a solid surface, the deckhand and Ethan’s assistant were surrounding them with towels and blankets. Their lips turned purple as they shivered, two wet trembling bodies in the night. On the other side of the deck, a radio rang out that the boat was returning to harbor for an emergency.

It was Grayson who insisted Kate be brought to the emergency room. He angrily rambled about her swallowing water or getting hypothermia. If it wasn’t for her exhaustion, she could have calmed him, but instead she laid as a limp body on a triage table with Grayson sitting in the corner of the room.

Kate was still wearing her soaking wet dress; her flats had been lost to the Pacific Ocean. Her hair had been messily pinned up by a borrowed clip from Grayson’s assistant. On the boat, Grayson gave her his suit jacket to help with the shivering. She gave blood, peed in a cup, and took a concussion test upon arriving at the hospital.

“Hi Miss Walker,” a peppy nurse stepped through the door, “I’m Tammy. I’m a nurse here.” She shot Kate a warm smile, “I’m just going to ask you a few questions and then check you out and hopefully we can send you right home.”

Kate nodded weakly in response, having met no less than four other Tammy’s that night.

Tammy perched on a stool with wheels and opened a folder. “Any chance you could be pregnant?”

“No.”

“Any family history of cancer?”

“Yes- my mother.”

“Any issues breathing-shortness of breath?”

“No.”

“Have you been out of the country recently?”

“No.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“No.”

“Okay, I’m just going to take your blood pressure and then check your throat, just in case you swallowed any water, and you two should be good to go.”

Tammy was almost too happy to Velcro a blood pressure cuff around Kate’s arm and pump the balloon. Kate leaned against the wall and stared at Grayson, who had bags forming under his eyes. Neither of them said it, but they both longed for the warm, comfortable, familiar cuddle of Grayson’s bed.

“Say ahh,” Kate opened her mouth for Tammy to put her tongue compression in and shine a light in the back of her throat, “Good news, doesn’t seem to be any salt damage.” Tammy removed the compressor and went to write in her chart, “But I would still recommend some tea with honey, just in case you get uncomfortable.” Tammy closed the manilla folder, “Alright folks, I’ll check with the doctor on your other tests Ms. Walker but I think you should be good to go.” “We can leave?” Grayson didn’t mean to sound brusque or rude, but he was too tired, angry, and anxious to try and be polite.

“Let me check with Dr. Ocasio and I’ll be right back to let you know,” Tammy shot Grayson a customer-service smile before shutting the door behind them.

The fluorescent lights flickered as an LA siren sounded in the distance. Grayson’s heart broke to look at her like that: wet, sad, and hurt. Everything in him wanted to do something but found no action. He wondered if the best thing for Kate, was for him to leave her life—to leave her in peace. He shook that thought away, telling himself he was just tired, before closing his eyes and thinking about holding her in his bed later that night.

Before the thought could sweetly settle in his mind, Tammy popped her head in the door, “Oh-uh—Mr.Dolan, could you come with me for a moment? There is some—uh—paperwork, that you need to sign as her attendant.”

Grayson reluctantly stood up and followed Tammy, the first time he was leaving Kate’s side since running across the boat to be with her a few hours earlier.

Nearly seconds after Grayson departed, a wrinkly Hispanic man with salt and pepper hair gently opened the door to Kate’s triage room, “Miss Walker,” his voice was warm, comforting to her, “I’m Dr. Ocasio, pleased to meet you.” He shook her hand.

“Am I okay to go home doctor?” Under normal circumstances, Kate knew to not rush doctors, but the urgency of the night and the call of Grayson’s bed overwhelmed her. The doctor sat on the same stood Tammy took early. He nodded, “You are fine. You didn’t sustain any injuries from your little fall tonight.”

Kate stood up, “Thank you.” She stepped back when the doctor continued to talk. “However,” his elderly voice quivered, “I am afraid that your answers to some of our questions didn’t align with our test results for you.” Kate furrowed her brow, too exhausted and overwhelmed to try to put together any puzzle pieces.

“Miss Walker,” the doctor’s tone was light, as if addressing a child, “I feel obliged to tell you that—you’re pregnant.”

#grayson dolan #fanfic #ethan dolan #grayson dolan x oc #sweet enigma #kind stranger #smut #fluff #angst #long story #multi part fic #romance #youtuber #influencer #blurb #concept

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mamaskillerqueen · 4 years

Note

Maybe a song fic with Ben Hardy to the song "Paper Rings" by Taylor Swift?

A/N: Hi anon!! So, I’m firstly going to apologise for how long this took me to get out. I just haven’t been loving it. I think I started over at least three times. I still don’t think that it’s my best but I do hope that you enjoy it!!

Four Years Ago:

Is there anything worse than house parties?

If there was, it was house parties where you didn't know anyone. Your anxiety had already gotten the best of you, but to top it off with the only person you knew having left to be a host... this was not your ideal night.

You'd met Joe the day you moved in next door. Having come a long way from your hometown to take up residency in New York, you were alone to unpack. That included all the furniture you had brought along to furnish your new townhouse just outside of the city limits. You were contemplating just sleeping on the hardwood floor because carrying your mattress up by yourself didn't sound appealing, when Joe came to your rescue.

Since struggling to get the furniture up the stairs, and yelling very loudly "Pivot!" at each other, you'd become pretty close friends. He was sitting on your couch during a FRIENDS marathon one day when he mentioned that his Borhap family was getting together at his later that week. Ben and Gwilym were supposed to be coming into town, and they were all going to be having dinner at Joe's. He extended an invitation and you immediately declined.

The thing about your friendship with Joe was that he never let you turn down things that you'd later beat yourself up for. He insisted you be at his house, promising it was just a small get together. Somehow you didn't believe him... and here you were, standing in his foyer ready to bolt because this was not what you signed up for. As a good friend though, you elbowed your way further into the house, hunting for the kitchen. If you were going to stay, you were definitely going to need a drink.

"Y/N!"

If it was possible to slur just a name, Joe was definitely doing it. Despite yourself, you smiled as your friend pulled you into a hug. He was drunkenly telling you how happy he was that you were here, vaguely pointed to his friend beside him but didn't actually introduce you two. Before you could even say anything else Ben, as you recognised him from all the Instagram posts, was pulling Joe away from you.

"Nice to meet you, love."

He called it over his shoulder, even though you weren't actually introduced. How rude.

Deciding that he wouldn't notice if you didn't stay, you quickly slipped out the way you came. The house reeked of smoke and sweat and booze, the combination of smells turning your stomach. It was good you were leaving, you wouldn't be missed because everyone was so out of their mind they wouldn't notice. Not to mention, you literally knew one person. He saw you, that was all that mattered.

The next day you woke up earlier than usual, having gotten to sleep far earlier than you had anticipated. After your morning coffee, yoga, and a shower it was time to adult and go to the grocery. If you could get by just eating food delivered to your door step, you would. That would be the life, however, you couldn't. What even is a delivery expense if the driver doesn't actually see that extra money?

The day was nice, far too warm for being so early but you weren't going to complain. Much. With your purse over your shoulder, you locked the front door and started down the steps. Movement caught your eye on the steps next to you and that was when you got a really good look at Ben. Photos didn’t do him justice.

Despite the direct eye contact, you completely ignored him as he started to wave. You came to the sidewalk as he was calling your name, trying to catch your attention. Without a word you looked up at him, a brow raised in question.

“Hope we didn’t keep you up too late last night.”

There was a smugness to his tone that made you roll your eyes. It was a playfulness you hadn’t felt in a long time.

“Slept like a baby.”

You yelled over your shoulder at him, and went on your way. Most of your interactions went like this. A playful banter, and he often left you rolling your eyes. You didn’t see him too often though, only when he was out for a smoke at the same time you were passing by. Joe mentioned that Ben was crashing at his for a while, something to do with work. Anytime you were invited to hang out, you quickly declined.

There was no way you were getting caught up in that party scene again.

At least that was what you thought. Joe came by your place, insisting on squeezing in a few episodes of FRIENDS because it had been far too long. There was no refusing that but, that was your first mistake.

He swore it wasn’t going to be a huge gathering. Ben was wrapping up the project he’d been working on the last few months and Lucy and Rami wanted to say congratulations and goodbye before he hopped a flight back to England. You’d already missed your chance to meet Gwilym, and you weren’t going to lie, meeting Lucy sounded like a blast.

One could always use more girlfriends. Or just a girlfriend, as you hadn’t made any since moving to the city.

“Fiiiineee...”

The dramatics made him laugh, and despite yourself you laughed too. When the day finally came, you couldn’t help but feel kind of nervous. Even as you knocked on the door, it felt more like the first day of school than anything. You’d been playing this game with Ben for weeks now, almost like a cat and mouse. There was no denying you were interested though.

If you were being completely honest, you may have completely stalked him on the internet. Probably more than once.... okay, definitely more than once. Something about the playful banter made you want to know him more. The only problem was, you didn't want to lose the light fun you always had when you interacted. We'll just pretend anxiety didn't play a part.

In very Joe fashion, the party started out just the five of you but quickly developed into quite a bit of people. It was like every friend any of them had ever made ended up at Joe's house. The music was loud, because how else can one dance? They all just wanted to have fun, and sure after a few drinks that was definitely what you were having. You still barely knew anyone but it was a lot more than just one person now.

Even with all the fun, you felt the need for some fresh air. The backdoor was much closer than the front, with far fewer people between you and it. You'd been back there a few times, loving the fact that your neighbour had a pool. Summer days were always great by the pool but as autumn was giving way to winter, the pool was the last thing on your mind. Or so you'd thought.

"Hey."

Ben's deep voice startled you as you closed the door behind you. You were probably a sight as you jumped, clutching your chest as your heart tried to jump out of it. After a moment you caught your breath and took a seat on the lounge chair beside him.

"What are you doing lurking out here?"

You were responded to with a laugh as he held up a cigarette. You nodded your head in answer and then turned to look over the pool. Joe hadn't closed it up, saying he was going to have a heater installed so that it was usable all year round. That was something you'd have to see to believe.

Silence stretched out for a while but it was surprisingly comfortable. Until Ben finished his smoke, that is. He was over the silence, apparently, and ready to annoy you again. He quickly shed his jacket and pulled the beanie off his head.

"What are you doing?"

"We are going swimming, get up."

"Are you insane?"

"Maybe. Let's go love."

He had already taken off his shirt and shoes and was working on his belt by the time you gave up arguing. You just sat there and watched him as he dropped his pants. He looked over his shoulder at you once and then offered a wink before jumping into the pool. Clearly, he'd lost his mind.

"What are you waiting for?"

"Summer, like a sane person."

"You're so boring."

The chuckle made your roll your eyes, a comeback wasn't going to help you. You slid from the seat, quickly removed your sweater and pants before quickly jumping into the pool. It was far more freezing than you had anticipated and when you surfaced again you couldn't help but gasp.

"This was a stupid idea!"

You were shivering but you weren't alone, no matter how much he tried to hide it.

"I didn't think you'd actually do it."

"You thought wrong."

Three Years Ago:

You were more than surprised to see how quickly your friendship with Ben grew from that night on. He left only two days after the pool night but you didn't go a day without talking. It was weird for you but somehow through the distance you'd grown closer. So much closer that you found yourself hopping a flight to London and crashing on his couch.

It was that trip to London that ended in a relationship.

Trips back and forth weren't a rare occasion. You often found yourself in London, and if you weren't there, it was a guarantee to find Ben in your bed in New York.

"I know you were planning on coming back to London with me this week but I've had a change of plans."

You were laying in bed, the chill of winter crippling your little town house. It was late, the midnight sky leaving just a soft moon light coming through the blinds. You were wrapped up in Ben's arms, your head resting on his bare chest. It had been nearly a year since the party at Joe's house. Nearly a year of being together.

"And, what kind of change are we talking?"

"I've gotta get a flight home to see my brother. He and his wife are expecting a daughter any day now."

A smile pulled the corners of your lips up, your eyes transfixed on the finger that was drawing mindless patterns on his chest. He always spoke so fondly of his brother, and he'd been so excited to become an uncle. It was all he'd spoke about since he found out.

"I promised to help paint the nursery."

You hadn't realised how long the silence had stretched on until he'd spoken again.

"Sounds like a lot of fun."

He hummed and silence stretched again. It was so long this time you'd nearly fallen asleep.

"Come with me."

You were surprised, the thought of meeting his family was crazy. It was probably way over due but it still made you quite nervous. You still agreed to go, and you both got there with perfect timing. The day you landed his sister-in-law went into labour, leaving the two of you to get the finishing touches done on the nursery.

It was so much fun, getting to paint the walls and move all the furniture back in. You'd gotten to meet his parents when they dropped by before going to the hospital to meet the baby. It was a great time, and you weren't sure what you had been worried about before. Ben insisted on staying behind and waiting to meet his new niece until she made it home.

Something about him seemed off after his parents left. He wasn't as excited, it seemed like something was bothering him. You waited until you had everything in its rightful place before you even attempted broach the subject.

"You wanna talk about it?"

He looked up with a raised eyebrow, as if he didn't know that he was completely obvious about his feelings. For someone who often wanted to hide the way he was feeling, and for being an actor, he was terribly unconvincing.

"It's nothing."

Normally, you weren't one to push. When you uttered the same words you wanted enough respect from someone to be left alone for you to deal until you were ready to talk. Today seemed to be an exception.

"It's not nothing. This should be a happy occasion right?"

It was after the words left your mouth that you felt maybe you were the problem. Maybe he felt as though he wished he hadn't brought you along?

"Do... is it... I mean, is it me? Do you not want me here?"

You stuttered as you got the words out and when you finally managed a coherent sentence you were immediately soothed with a 'NO! Of course, I want you here'. He sighed and then motioned for you to follow him. You made your way down the stairs to the kitchen where coffee was immediate set to make.

"I just look at all of this, and you deserve this one day."

He motioned around the house and as you looked around your brow furrowed. This was just stuff, and with how well his career was taking off, he could more than afford to give you stuff. Not that you wanted any of it. For you, all that mattered was that you had him.

"You're going to have to elaborate, darling."

He chuckled at you before explaining further what was bothering him.

"One day, when it's time for you to have a baby.. if that's what you choose, you should know that your husband is going to be there with you."

"And you can't provide that?"

The confusion was clear in your voice as well as on your face. Ben always told you that you were such an open book, and easy to read. You never took that as a compliment until times like these when you wanted to convey your genuine feelings.

"Not if I'm on a set thousands of miles away from you."

He seemed so genuinely upset but all you could do was scuff at this. When he heard your reaction his head shot up to look at you. Now it was his turn to be confused.

"I don't need any of this. I need you. It doesn't matter if your thousands of miles away or not. I would marry you with paper rings. All of the ex's, the fights, the flaws, we wouldn't be here. I adore you, if that hasn't been abundantly clear the last year or so. As for the rest of it... we can figure it out as we go. You and me. We got this."

Your shoulder bumped against his, and he couldn't help but break out into a smile. You could tell almost immediately that he felt much better. In return a smile lit up your own face, your head falling to his shoulder as you hugged his arm.

"I think you're pretty great too, just so you know."

Present Day:

The mosh pit that was happening in your stomach was becoming rather annoying. You just wished your baby knew what night and day time were. The clock on the bed side table flashed a ridiculously early time at you, informing you that sleep wasn't happening any longer.

Nights like this was when you found yourself reminiscing. It hadn't been very long after sitting in Ben's brother's kitchen that you ended up engaged. Even shorter time frame from that you were married. The shotgun wedding was only six months ago, and here you were five months pregnant. Sometimes it all felt so fast but then you looked at the snoring butt head beside you and you didn't mind one bit.

You found yourself marveling at the fact that when you first met, you kind of hated him, and then you stalked him on the internet, and now you watch him breathe. Kind of crazy how life works out. Who knew moving into that small little townhouse in New York was gonna change your life so drastically, so quickly. Not that you were complaining.

"You're staring darling, and quite frankly it's a bit creepy."

His thick and sleepy voice startled you, making you jump before chuckling. Normally, he would have been laughing with you but he was clearly too tired for that.

"Can't sleep?"

"I'll get there eventually, go back to bed. I love you."

His hand reached over, finding your growing stomach and rubbing soothing circles. They were slow and lazy, but they seemed to do that trick as the summer salts that were happening came to a slow and then a halt all together.

"I love you too. Both of you."

#ben hardy x reader #ben hardy imagine #ben hardy fanfiction #ben hardy fluff #banana writes #banana answers

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nightwideeyes · 4 years

Text

2020 review

do we really wanna do this? I’m not sure but god knows I need it.

shout out to 2016 me for starting this. I’ll compare it afterwards and see how many steps I’ve taken back

okay okay all jokes aside

all the bad shit that happened, all my thoughts, all my feelings

this is 2020 in retrospect, so buckle up and join me on the ride

see, I was pretty hopeful for this year because I spent half of 2019 in a toxic relationship which I deeply and passionately regret with all my heart because it took a toll on my mental health. The rest of 2019 I spent recovering from self hate and anxiety

so I went into 2020 with a fresh start fever thinking this is the year that will change things

but the anxiety didn’t really leave. throughout january i was rather okay, euphoric about the new year. at the end of february my anxiety got worse and i was overthinking a lot, started being tense a lot etc etc

then march the absolute avalanche introduced herself. miss rona. i don’t want to whine about how shit the pandemic is, how terrible it hit us all because it certainly hit people a lot harder than me but still, it’s not nice, its annoying and frustrating and can mess with someones head enough

so during march and april my anxiety was on peak levels. i was constantly mad, upset or nervous and had to spent my time in homeschool, having no distraction whatsoever

i spent a lot of time outside in the forest and discovered new magical places where I could find some peace and thats where I’ve been hiding away during may, becoming part of nature, finding back to my old self somehow

on my birthday the 11th I was feeling well, I was content and happy and thought shit would be alright again

but the day after I came home from school and received the message that my fathers cancer was back after 10 years. although I’ve pretended like it wasn’t all hopeless and things would be alright again I think it hit me the hardest this year. it’s been the starting point of me confronting myself once again with the thought of him dying, of leaving us behind, of me having all the responsibility of what he would leave us. of going through the struggle again, of going to hospitals again, of seeing him vanish again. it was devastating.

in may I attended an assessment center for a job I wanted to do with all my heart and felt so confident and strong that I could do it

but in june I received a letter of rejection and had to write myself in for another year of school because i didn’t really have an alternative

meanwhile my dads treatment got rescheduled again and again until june and he had his operation on the day I wrote my second final

so unknowingly and unnoticeably i was put under so much pressure of one unfortunate event following the next and it felt like I was just supposed to function when I didn’t want to function anymore

but these times ended and I wrote my fucking finals, passed them, celebrated a bit and my father recovered too, like we all had hoped anyway but didn’t know for sure

so summer had been the best time. although there were still restrictions on public life me and my friends had so much fun together and did amazing things and I think we just grew closer from the creativity of coming with ways to spent time with each other without having to go out much

i was doing a lot of yoga, a lot of mental self care during summer, watching atla, spending time trying to get in touch with my body and soul and I discovered some good music that helped me find myself and develop myself

at this point I would like to thank

5 seconds of summer; for making me realize that deep in my heart I will forever be teenage me stuck in my emo phase and that’s how I feel most comfortable

Upsahl; for reminding me that I’m a bad bitch who doesn’t need anyone or anything to be happy with herself

Yungblud, for reminding me its okay not to be okay and that broken people stand up for themselves and are strong together

and Blackpink, mostly for giving me more reasons to simp for cute girls

in august i was working for two weeks at a factory to earn some money and although I’ve been there before this time it’s just been hard. I felt really stupid and not taken seriously by the staff and I think that’s when I was getting anxious again, feeling very stupid and very unable to do anything right

from the anxiety starting in august it went into september with me. I started a new school year, gave this weird boy a ride to school two times before I scared him off for some reason (maybe because I was giving him badass lesbian vibes as I was playing Use Me by PVRIS in my car constantly) and was quarantined on the second day of school bc of our english teacher

in september my dad was submitted into the hospital a second time and we thought he had gotten worse again but this time it was a result of too much mental pressure. i was stressing into that again, thinking of ways I could help him with his responsibilities and worries.

the rest of september I spent in this weird state of perpetual tension and kind of continued it into october

on the fourth of october I went to Lehesten all by myself and I felt so proud and accomplished and I realized that I don’t need anyone to feel better but myself. so I went on some more field trips in october, enjoying some me time and some peace of mind, getting back into the bands I was listening to as a teen, recalling the times I felt free with myself

in november I was living off post human survival horror and felt so careless yet free of all of my worries, feeling numb but content

so until december there have been pecks of anxiety here and there but I’ve spent the fall months rather well, mentally

now december started well but the anxiety has increased again and now it’s been on moderate levels

but nonetheless I’m getting through day by day and I hope I will reach the state of carelessness again in order to collect my thoughts

so although 2020 has been a year of disappointment, hurt, fear and way too many thoughts and worries I would like to move onto the point of this list which might help me move on further

2020 positivity

a collection of things I've learned, I am grateful for and what I've experienced and done all year which I am proud of

- I've been more open and confident about my sexuality than ever before

- I've been spending so much time outside getting inspired

- I've been creative

- I've been writing the most honest and uplifting poetry ever since I started

- I've self printed and binded a poetry collection of my past and the sorrows that came with it to help overcome it

- I've started drawing again, started yoga and meditation and enhanced my spirituality, I've picked up the guitar again

- I've graduated 12th grade with an average of 1.6

- I've started 13th grade with crippling fear of failing and got used to it after a month and appreciated the challenge

- I've dealt with a big disappointment and learned that when one door closes a new one opens somewhere else

- I've learned what it means to support each other as a family but also when it's time to step back and distance yourself to protect yourself when you can't help anymore

- I've been getting in touch with the most free and careless version of myself

- I've rediscovered my love for old music I used to listen to

- I've learned that I don't need anyone to do what makes me happy

- I've learned to appreciate my friends more than ever for being my light and support

so although this year was full of disappointment and hurt and fear and worries it helped me grow

throughout this year I have been the bravest, strongest, most honest and authentic version of myself

I do not have any hopes for 2021. I just want to continue growing the roots I have dug for myself now. I want to continue blooming into the person I've strived to become all these years

I want to grow and continue blooming. I want to continue becoming the version of myself that makes me feel content about myself. But I also want to know I am valuable and whole at any time.

I want to overcome this anxiety and I want to be free of fear again.

so this is me manifesting it.

I will grow and I will continue blooming. I will continue becoming the version of myself that makes me feel content about myself. I am valuable and whole at any time. And I will overcome this anxiety and I will be free of fear again. I will not be afraid anymore. I will be clear again.

Ich werde keine Angst mehr haben, ich werde wieder klar sein.

#personal #2020 review #2020 positivity #growth #i guess

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vintagediavolo · 6 years

Text

The Firewhisky Incident

After the positive feedback from the oneshot I posted yesterday, I’ve decided I’ll be uploading more of the ones I write 😊

I’ll also be open to any prompt requests!

The interior of the Graves’ estate was silent; a silence that some might’ve found discomforting, but Newt sat on the living room couch in one of Percival’s sweaters that was too big on him, hanging off his shoulder in a way that his boyfriend loved. Niffler sat in his lap, soft snores emanating from his little snout as Newt absentmindedly stroked a hand over its dark fur, and Pickett was using his limbs as a jungle-gym, climbing up his long legs and using Newt’s hair as a rope to help him to the top of his head. He nearly succeeded in his hatched plan of waking Niffler up on his way to Newt’s head, but the man caught on to his antics and quickly squashed them. “Now Pickett, what are you doing?” He had asked, catching sight of the bowtruckle with its arms outstretched toward Niffler’s nose. “None of that. Along you go,” he ordered, ushering him along with the back of his hand. “He’s just sleeping.”

Newt, with the two of his creatures, had a book propped open with his right hand and read through the pages. It was something about creatures in North America, for his newfound relationship rendered him stationed in New York and he didn’t think Percy would like if he embarked on a trip away from him for too long. He couldn’t blame him; the anxiety the man developed after being held captive by Grindelwald for months on end was nearly crippling at times, and Newt was one of the only things that could make him feel like himself. Oftentimes, after the man would come home from a long day at the Congress, he’d crawl on top of Newt whether he was on the couch or the king-sized bed in their shared bedroom—after making sure there no creatures on top of him, of course—and cuddle into his chest with a big huff. This is when Newt would ask how his day was and the man would usually go into a tangent or two before seeing how Newt was listening intently and melt under his eyes, continuing to press a small kiss on his lips before taking back his place on his chest, usually falling asleep after about an hour if Newt couldn’t coax him back to consciousness with dinner.

This night wasn’t going to be any different, Newt thought as he glanced at the magical clock on the wall, checking the time to see if his boyfriend would be coming home soon. The time was in fact near that time, confirmed by the sound of the front door opening and closing. He nearly stood to greet Percy, but something told him something was off as he listened to the man’s footsteps against the hardwood floor. They were staggered. Immediately thinking that the man had been injured, for his line of work wasn’t exactly the safest, Newt scooted Niffler off his lap and Pickett buckled down into his hair as he shot off the couch and down the hallway, nearly running into the wall due to his speed but not daring to slow down. “Percy?” He called out, voice near-frantic as he came to the man who was struggling to take off his jacket. “Are you alright?”

Percy staggered as he turned too fast to greet him and the jacket that was half off his shoulders was forgotten as he darted forward, engulfing Newt in a hug so tight that he nearly had to gasp to draw in a breath. “I’m jus- fine, darlin’,” he lilted, and Newt figured out the man’s problem as his breath hit him, smelling of some acohol.

“Are you drunk?” He asked, not mad but not particularly joyful about the situation either.

“Drunk off you,” Percy slurred, sloppily kissing Newt’s neck. Newt turned red at his words, but he brushed them off and forced the man to take a step back.

“Okay. Let’s get you ready for bed. Does that sound good?” He offered, moving behind Percy so he could help the man get out of the jacket he trapped himself in.

“Only if you come with.” It was like dealing with a child, Newt humoured to himself as Percy tried to turn to him with his arms held together at his back by his jacket sleeves.

“Of course I’ll come with you, but you need to get out of your jacket first. Stop struggling.” With a grunt, Percy complied and he was finally able to get the jacket off him to hang it on one of the hooks just inside the front door. “So how did you get drunk?”

“One of my jackass Aurors spelled some firewhisky to taste like coffee.” As soon as his arms were free, he had turned and wrapped himself around Newt again, much like the way Dougal did when the demiguise hadn’t seen him for a while. He now understood why the man was so intoxicated; Percy ingested coffee at what had to be inhuman rates. He could only fear what this Auror had in store for himself tomorrow, because not only will he have to deal with Percival Graves, but he’d have to deal with an angry, hungover Percival Graves.

“Okay, Percy. I can’t get you to the bedroom with you wrapped around me like this.”

“Just carry meeeeeee,” he whined, rubbing his nose against Newt’s and looking at him pleadingly. He didn’t know what the man was getting at, because even though he was taller than him, Percy definitely weighed more.

“It’s not that I don’t want to carry you, Percy. I just don’t think I have the strength for that.”

“Are you calling me fat?” The funny situation mixed with the affronted expression on Percy’s face reduced him to a laughing mess and he slowly sank to the floor, bringing the man with him as he could feel his eyes well up from the exertion. “Newwwwwt,” Percy complained as he straddled Newt’s lap in the middle of the entrance hallway. If someone were to walk into the house right now, what a sight they would receive. Some of the workers at MACUSA had caught them in questionable positions in Percy’s office, but they’d always been able to play it off; only the Goldstein sisters and Jacob knew of their relationship, so for the whole department to find out they were dating and living together, it would be the gossip of the year.

“O-okay, sorry,” he was able to say once he caught his breath. Percy leaned forward and kissed the tears that still lingered on his cheeks before moving back to see him properly.

“You’re beautiful. Like... really. And freckly,” he spoke like someone appreciating a piece of artwork, which he definitely wasn’t.

“And you’re still drunk, so let’s go.” Newt grabbed Percy’s hands that were on his face and dragged him up to a standing position. He nearly leaned too far to his left, but Newt prevented him from falling with a hand around his shoulders. “Woah there. Steady.” It reminded him of the time he helped deliver a baby hippogriff with his mother and had to help the baby walk for the first time. Percy didn’t speak again, too focused on his footing to form words in his inebriated state.

When Newt finally had the older man on their bed and away from the many hazards the house could pose for someone drunk, he sighed with relief and moved to the base of Percy’s neck to untie the Windsor knot in the black tie so he could remove it from under his collar. The man looked nearly unconscious now, but he guessed this would make his job a little easier as he began to unbutton his white dress shirt from top to bottom, revealing the toned body underneath. Percival Graves was definitely not fat. “Percy, can you sit up for me for a moment.” The man just grunted and heaved himself up, allowing Newt to slide the shirt off his arms and leave his top completely bare. Face now dusted with a light pink, he pushed Percy back down before moving to the foot of the bed to take of the man’s black dress shoes so he wouldn’t be too uncomfortable, placing the shoes in their space within the closet on the left side of the bedroom. He pondered on whether he should take Percy’s pants off too, but that was a little too much for him to do and so decided against it, instead drawing the blankets out from underneath the man and crawling under the blankets with him.

“Nox,” he whispered, the magical lamp on the bedside table turning out and leaving the room dark. Closing his eyes, he relaxed in the silence before he felt the mattress shift from Percy moving.

“Newt?”

“Yes, Percy?” He answered as he felt something sift through his hair (probably Pickett moving to the little bed Newt fashioned for him out of a tea cosy on the table next to the lamp).

“Can you hold me? I don’t like the dark. It makes me think of when I was in...” The man didn’t need to finish his explanation because Newt had already moved over and drew him into his chest, kissing the top of his head.

“Of course.” As they drifted off, Niffler jumped up onto the bed and situated himself at the top of Percy’s head. “I will always be here to hold you. And so will Niffler.”

Already half gone, the man managed a chuckle before falling silent, a content smile blessing his features.

“I love you,” Newt spoke even though the man had fallen asleep, or so he thought before a quiet response was spoken into his chest that nearly made him cry.

“I love you, too.”

- BelovedBey 💖

#fantastic beasts and where to find them #newt scamander #newt #scamander #percival graves #percival #graves #oneshot #fic #gay #gay ships #gramander

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adventures-in-progress · 5 years

Text

i’ve been thinking a lot about this little lady. how she lived, how she felt, what the world looked like through her eyes. rifling through my baby box and seeing what i’d written as a 4 or 5 year old, reading about how much i loved rainbows and animals and most of all, myself. it really is a novel thing to look back at your little self and read about how you thought you were so overwhelmingly intelligent that you could be anything as long as it was conceivable. [and i thought, how wonderful, most of us must find ourselves so smart before we are taught that intelligence can be measured and gauged, and that one is inherently better and more valuable than the other.] or how you were so overwhelmingly beautiful, so much so that you should have been a ballerina. [and i tried to recall any time i spent any time looking in the mirror as a little girl and thinking of myself as beautiful, and then realized that i must have inherently found myself beautiful as the only time i ever looked in the mirror was to make sure i was brushing my teeth correctly.] or how you thought you were wicked fast and athletic and could do whatever sport you wanted. [and all i could recall was the crippling anxiety i had in gym my whole life, wondering when it changed and what had happened to crush my inherent self certainty.]

i kept looking through my baby box and was in awe of the creative confidence i often used to complete my worksheets. fill in the blank exercises were clearly my absolute favorite; there was no answer too ridiculous to be excluded. my favorite answer was in a thanksgiving packet, discussing the life of pilgrims. when asked what pilgrims did before eating their thanksgiving dinner, my answer was:

bowling.

accompanied by the best drawing you have ever seen of a family of pilgrims going bowling.

no notes from the teacher were on this page. just my drawing and fill in the blank answer: bowling.

now i'm not even going to try to guess what my train of thought was leading up to this rather abnormal answer, but how amazing that i must have had some sort of a mental conversation about how if i were a pilgrim, what would be the best thing to do before dinner? and at some point i landed on the answer bowling. and with ecstatic certainty i filled in my answer and proceeded to draw a stunningly accurate portrayal of my family as pilgrims going bowling. honestly, how wonderful is that? but this quickly leads to an uncomfortable question: am i even capable of something like that right now? being able to turn off the logical, analytical, processing, systematic part of my brain to even answer that creatively? and not in a forced way, but genuinely??? simply contemplating this as i type makes me flat out grimace. this part of my brain is so hidden behind boxes and new software and processing systems that it feels like the equivalent to walking into walgreens and asking them if they can develop my film. "well, we still have the machine but it hasn't been used in years... we'll turn it on and see if it even works, so why don't you come back tomorrow since it'll probably take it a day to even start running again." [this is a real conversation i had with a walgreens employee several years ago.]

how do we lose that magical sense of wonder? it feels like thick velvety fog; incandescent, evasive, yet bursting with mystery. but when we are young, it feels so familiar, like your favorite stuffed animal or the soft corner of your prized blanket.

i am on a search for wonder.

maybe magic.

but probably both.

#my four year old self #magic #wonder #rachel's rambles

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stormquill · 6 years

Text

Misconduct, Ch. 11 [Soldier 76/Reader]

You have an extremely inappropriate crush on your commanding officer. Maybe if you work hard enough, you’ll stop having feelings.

[ AO3 Link ]

Author's Notes: Collaboration with @antiloquist. Follow the blog @ http://miss-conduct.tumblr.com/

Chapter Notes: look man it's been a solid year and a half i don't really have anything to say for myself lmao

The dead of night gave you plenty of cover as you kept perched atop your roof, overlooking the harbour.

Several days of recon had pointed to the indication that Amélie would be prepped for transport tonight, smuggled aboard one of the many ships bound for the Atlantic the following morning. However, some last-minute digging had uncovered Amélie herself—safe and sound in suspended animation—hidden away in a repair dock on the opposite side of the harbour.

You and 76 had the upper hand for three simple reasons: first, you were aware of the trap waiting for you at the harbour; second, you knew the real location of your target; and third, they weren’t expecting your Commander to be approaching the situation with backup.

76 was advancing towards the repair docks at that very moment. All you had to do was sit tight and pay attention to their presence at the harbour, in case there were any additional circumstances you hadn’t accounted for.

Surprisingly, getting out was the easy part.

The dropship was already in-range. Your handheld evacuation devices—the ones you’d developed with Winston to make your technology more portable—would transport its wearers to the main evac apparatus, installed safely on-board. One of the major flaws of the new tech was that, like its outdated, bulkier version, all nodes had to be activated at once, and once they were activated, it took several hours for them to recharge.

There were three devices in total—one with you, two with 76—and as soon as he confirmed that he’d affixed one to Amélie, you would activate the devices and transport all three of you onto the dropship.

Wait for 76’s confirmation. Hit a button.

“Easy,” you reassured yourself.

You were so tired.

Maybe it was a good thing, you thought. The unholy mess of stress and exhaustion numbed your fear and steadied the grasp on your rifle. At the same time, however, it dulled your senses, making you feel unreactive, and slow. As much as you didn’t want to dwell on the idea, you couldn’t wait to be rid of this mission.

You didn’t tell him that, of course.

Your Commander had glanced down at you before you parted ways, the glaring light of his visor back to the familiar cherry red that suited him most. When you held his gaze, a sinking feeling dropped heavy in your gut, with the inescapable anxiety of absolutely everything going wrong. You’d completed enough training and gone on enough missions throughout your lifetime to be able to control these last-minute fears, but within that moment, you couldn’t shake them off as easily as normal.

“Nothing reckless,” was all you said, “we promised.”

He nodded.

You felt stupid for thinking it at a moment like this, but you wanted to nestle against him again until your raging nerves ebbed to a crawl, until his scent was all you needed as reassurance that everything would be alright.

A few moments of awkward silence passed before you realized you were holding your breath.

“Good luck out there,” you settled on.

“You, too.”

And that was the last you saw of him.

Sudden noises drew you from the memory.

A box truck pulled into the streets below, near one of the boats docked along the harbour. Once they killed the engine, four men rushed out of the vehicle and rounded towards the back of it, hoisting the rear door and prepping to transport something out.

“Athena,” you whispered, voice still feeling too loud in the chill of the early morning. “How many heat signatures in the back of the truck?”

“Calculating...” The female tone was cool and even in your ear. “Detecting six additional heat signatures in the back of the vehicle.”

Four in sight, six in hiding.

Hissing urgent commands at one another, the four visible agents worked together to ease a massive crate from the truck onto a large metal dolly.

“And how many signatures that crate?” you asked.

“Zero.”

As expected, you thought. The crate was a decoy. They were expecting 76 to muscle his way in—and maybe, if you weren’t here, that’s exactly what he would’ve done, only to be met with an empty container and an ambush.

...you both should’ve been gone by now.

You touched the communication device clipped to your ear. “Commander, do you read me? Do we have an ETA on evac? Over.”

The silence sent your mind racing.

“Athena, can I get a status report on the Commander?”

“Vital signs: stable. Communications online. Evacuation node two is prepared for activation. Evacuation node three is prepared for activation.”

Then why the hell wasn’t he responding?

The answer was obvious—he must have encountered enemy interference, either en route or at site. However, the agents below were still maneuvering the decoy cargo towards their ship docked at the harbour, meaning neither them nor the ambush in hiding had been notified of the compromise.

That meant you could still buy him time.

“Commander,” you started, “assume contingency 32B. If I do not receive orders within five minutes, we abort without payload. Athena?”

“Understood. Initiating contingency 32B.”

A split-second later, several cracks shattered the air like fireworks, as every hidden camera your Commander had planted in the immediate area self-destructed.

Neighborhood dogs began barking. Windows of nearby apartment complexes lit with newly woken civilians. The agents below surrounded the dolly, drawing their own guns in response.

Amidst the sudden confusion, you balanced your rifle along the edge of the rooftop, charged your shot to maximum power, and fired at the ship—another crash echoed through the harbour as you blew a hole in the ship’s main hull. The damage wasn’t enough to sink it, but it was enough to keep it from disembarking—more importantly, it was enough to get their attention.

The hidden agents were already piling out of the back of the box truck, while those guarding the dolly shouted and pointed towards your rooftop. Though the shot had given away your position, you immediately lined up another, this time aiming for the vehicle’s engine. The explosion tore through the air louder than any disruption that had come before it. You ducked for cover just before automatic fire began spraying in your direction.

The self-destructing cameras had woken up half the neighborhood, so French authorities would be on their way. You made yourself out to be someone making a play for the fake cargo, which would buy 76 a few extra minutes. And you’d crippled the agents’ ground transportation, meaning they couldn’t fall back to your Commander’s current position, even if they were called to retreat.

Rifle slung around your shoulder, you fell back. You could already hear the heavy footfalls of enemy agents scrambling up your fire escape; you headed for the opposite side, instead, using your grappling equipment to hook onto the roof’s edge and scale down the side of the building.

Three agents were standing guard at the bottom of the fire escape.

You hit the ground running.

Enemy fire sent your heart rattling inside your chest like a bell in a cage, but you kept focused. You’d studied the layouts of these alleys a hundred times over, and outmaneuvering the enemy was child’s play—but the knowledge of what was behind every corner did nothing to ease the sound of their bullets ricocheting as they missed, blasting off bits of brick and concrete around you.

Behind this dumpster. Through this door. Right turn. Left turn. Right turn. Right.

You couldn’t let yourself get hurt again. Not after last time.

“Payload secured,” came the voice you were waiting for, like music to your ears. “Requesting evac.”

“Copy.”

And you hit the button.

Teleportation felt like being yanked by a set of wires tied to your ribcage—it always left you feeling disoriented and unsteady on your feet, even as you made solid contact with the floor of the dropship.

The sight of the unconscious woman jarred you to your senses. Though she was unarmed and barely out of stasis, you weren’t about to underestimate the lethality of a known Talon agent held in such high regard.

Falling over yourself with urgency, you rushed over to the side of her unmoving form. You lifted her body, bridal-style, to the small holding chamber in the back of the dropship, and sat her upright.

You sealed the door shut, and stumbled backwards with the shock of what you’d just done.

You did it.

You rescued her.

As your adrenaline-fueled haste died down, the electric excitement vibrating within your chest replaced itself with a cold, harrowing realization—that the dropship was far too quiet, far too empty around you.

You knew what was behind you before you bothered turning around.

A spent evacuation node sat on the floor where your Commander should have been standing.

“Athena,” you near-whispered, voice weak, “status report?”

“Vital signs: unstable. Communications offline. Evacuation node two, offline. Evacuation node three, offline.”

You took a deep, shaky breath.

You knew what you had to do.

To say you hadn’t planned for this was a lie.

Of course you’d planned for it—you’d planned every iteration of every possibility of any combination of the three of you becoming compromised. The contingency of this scenario was clear: neither one of you would leave without the other. Surely, he’d know that.

Surely, he knew you were coming.

All three of your evacuation nodes were spent, which meant you would have to get him out the good old-fashioned way. The question gnawing at you remained: what could have happened that necessitated him removing the transportation device from himself? The node was an instant get-out-of-jail-free card, one which hadn’t been damaged or malfunctioning at time of transport, so why would he ever take it off?

You didn’t have much time to wonder.

Athena dropped you off as close as she could to your Commander’s last known coordinates on the dry docks.

If your positions were switched, you had little doubt 76 would’ve come after you, guns blazing, regardless of enemy numbers or positioning, but you couldn’t afford the same bravado. If you were too heavily outnumbered, trying to get him out on your own would be nothing short of suicide. For 76 to have been taken down, you expected to be faced with an army.

But the dry docks were barren when you arrived. Almost serene.

There were no signs of recent activity in the area, let alone of a recent fight. Aside from 76’s signal pinging you from across the docks, Athena confirmed there were no other heat signatures in the immediate area.

Had he been abducted, maybe? Taken to a secondary location without his tech?

You shook your head, doing your best to parse contingency from paranoia. You were approaching the cargo ship where Amélie’s body was being held mere minutes earlier—unfamiliar enemy territory—and you needed to pay attention.

Readying your weapon, you ascended the set of metal stairs along the side of the ship; already, your footsteps sounded far too loud.

The large, open deck of the cargo vessel was crowded with storage units—massive, rectangular metal boxes of identical shapes and sizes stacked on top of each other like multi-coloured building blocks. As you approached 76’s signal, you kept your steps light and your wits about you, checking your corners while keeping your back pressed to solid surfaces. The deck was dark, claustrophobic, terrible grounds for a fight—if it weren’t for Athena’s confirmation there were no other living souls on-board, you wouldn’t have stepped foot in here without backup.

The pinging in your ear grew more rapid as 76’s signal became stronger on your radar.

To your right, an open storage unit containing the now-empty stasis machine, still running, casting an ice-blue light across the deck and illuminating the scene before you.

Several toppled cargo units crowded the area, all of which were heavily damaged with massive dents and bullet holes. The path of destruction led to the rear-most area of the deck.

A splash of blood was illuminated brilliantly against the dark surface of the ship, awash in the stasis machine’s ice-blue glow, as if it were under blacklight. Another spatter, smeared along the side of a storage container. Several drips along the metal flooring, rounding the corner of another open unit nearby...

You checked your corners before checking inside.

Inside the open storage container sat the form of a man in the glow of his own cherry red visor, hunched over with a hand pressed to his thigh, a pool of his own blood seeping beneath him.

“Don’t,” 76 croaked, sounding weaker than you’d ever heard him, “it’s a trap—”

Reflexes kicking in, you raised your weapon and did a swift 180, aim landing on the head of the other man standing behind you.

And you fired.

You thought you missed, at first—your laser burned a hole in the storage unit behind him—but you realized your shot had gone through him, as the man’s entire body morphed into a cloud of black vapour before your charge made contact.

This didn’t make any sense. There wasn’t anyone else alive on this ship.

You’d checked.

“Athena?” you whispered.

“Target possesses no heat signature. Target possesses no pulse.”

The insinuation of her words sent your mind reeling.

You had no contingencies for this.

The swirling cloud solidified into being once more. Hooded and broad-shouldered, the man towered before you, the sharp edges of his bone-white mask glinting in the blue light. His gloved hands—every finger clawed with a sharp silver talon—carried a mammoth pair of black shotguns you could’ve easily mistaken for cinder blocks. He was black leather and red adornments. He was dread and absolute foreboding.

The partner in more ways than one.

The one he cared about finding.

And Gabriel Reyes laughed at you, his voice as ethereal as the rest of him. “You’re late.”

You blurted out the only words that came to mind. “What the fuck?”

“...eloquent.”

As much as you were trembling, you didn’t lower your gun. “You’re here to kill us, then?”

“And if I am?”

“Anything happens to either us, Amélie is dead,” you snapped. Your voice was much steadier than you were. “The dropship is already en route to headquarters—if we don’t both check in within the hour, it’s set to self-destruct.”

“That so?” His claws readjusted their grip on his shotguns. “How were you planning on getting out of here?”

“Dunno.” You swallowed, hard. “Didn’t think that far ahead.”

He made an amused noise, low in his throat. “It’s been a while since you’ve had someone so willing to die for you, Jack.”

...Jack?

Attention faltering, your blood turned to ice beneath your skin. Pieces of the puzzle were jamming themselves into place, violently, all at once, and as the big picture revealed itself to you, you felt more and more like a complete fucking idiot for not having seen it earlier.

As if reading your mind, Gabriel tilted his head to the side.

“Oh my god,” he chuckled, darkly. “You didn’t know.”

You stood there, facing each other—his guns still at his side, yours still pointed at his head. If your Commander was Jack Morrison, that meant the Gabriel Reyes in front of you wasn’t just any Gabriel Reyes—this was the Gabriel Reyes, ex-commander of Blackwatch, public scapegoat for the first fall.

You suddenly found yourself in the company of men who were killed in an explosion nearly a decade ago and you no longer knew what was real.

“Congratulations, Jack,” said Gabriel. “You managed to find the one person on the planet who bought into the world’s worst-kept secret.”

“Leave them out of this,” snarled the voice behind you. “Your fight is with me.”

“Oh, but this is so much bigger than you and I. Why shouldn’t your new lackey come along for the ride?”

Your desire for an explanation outweighed your caution. “I thought you died, Commander Reyes.”

You could tell the use of his name gave him pause.

“He did,” he replied. “It’s ‘Reaper,’ now. Or did he leave that part out, too?”

Your breath caught in your chest. So not only was Gabriel Reyes still alive, but it was the true identity of the infamous terrorist you’d only ever heard rumours of. The ghost of the battlefield, the shadow of death, the one rumoured to steal the very souls of his victims until their bodies were nothing but dried husks—here he was, standing before you, dismantling your worldview one word at a time.

And yet, you didn’t want him to stop talking.

You lowered your rifle by an inch or two, just enough to better meet his gaze. “What did Commander Morrison do to you?”

He sneered beneath his mask. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I would.”

Though you continued aiming at him, Reaper still had not yet raised his weapons against you. He seemed to consider you for a moment—your quivering hands, your unblinking gaze, your steadfast positioning in the face of common instinct screaming at you to run. The sounds of your Commander’s laboured breathing seemed to do little to break your resolve.

Were you really so curious?

Reaper took a few steps forward, his footfalls heavy against the ship deck.

“War is a game,” he said. “A game you can’t win if you’re the only side playing by the rules. But Jack was never one to get his hands dirty. That’s where I came in.”

He continued his approach. The closer he came, the less you could move.

“You’ll do what they ask. You’ll do what is needed. Then they’ll orchestrate your downfall, and deny they had anything to do with you.”

He was inches away from you, now.

He smelled like a battlefield—like death and decay, like earth and gunfire.

“There will always be war,” he continued, “and there will always be people they need to do their dirty work. People just like you.”

“I haven’t—”

“You’ve taken Lacroix. You already are.”

Though you managed to keep your rifle raised, your subconscious had already surrendered, knowing full well you posed no semblance of a threat to this anomaly of an undead man who could dissipate at will.

Slowly, carefully, he pushed the aim of your rifle off to the side, as if he were drawing a curtain in his way.

He closed the distance between you by pressing the tip of his shotgun beneath your chin, tilting your head up until you were gazing into the black sockets of his mask.

You hear your Commander’s voice call out one of your names. You can’t tell which one.

“Remember, when you leave this place.” His gravelled voice was low and deliberate. “Every breath you take is air I’ve let you swallow. Your every heartbeat is a gift from me. From this moment on, you are living on time I’ve allowed you to borrow. And I will be back to collect my dues.”

You barely registered the next words that left you. “I’ll be waiting.”

To your surprise, Reaper laughed. “You don’t deserve them, Jack.”

To your surprise, 76 responded. “I know.”

And Reaper was gone, dark plumes of smoke vanishing into thin air.

Once again, you didn’t have time to wonder.

You immediately unslung your rifle and yanked your jacket off, rushing to 76’s side, the floor of the storage unit scraping hard against your knees.

“...Reader.”

You reached for the side of his belt and pulled out the Biotic Field canister yourself, slamming it onto the ground and activating it. Reaper had prevented him from using it, you figured, in order to have 76’s unstable vital readings lure you here faster.

“Reader.”

You bundled your jacket and helped him apply more pressure to his thigh to stop the shotgun wound’s bleeding. The blood loss had made him several shades too pale, you noticed, but the flow already seemed to be easing as the biotic yellow glow knit his insides back together. It wasn’t going to be a complete recovery, but it would be enough to keep him stable until you reached headquarters.

A gloved hand brushed your bangs out of your face and tucked your hair behind your ear.

You looked up to meet the light of his visor.

“Hey,” he offered, sounding almost playful.

“Hi,” you said back, still feeling numb.

“I know asking if you’re okay is a stupid question, but I’m asking it anyway.”

“I’m...compartmentalizing.” You took a sharp breath. “We’re not safe, yet. We need to get out of here.”

“Mm. How are we getting out of here?”

“Dropship’s on standby. Should be here in a few minutes.”

“I thought you said the dropship left.”

“I lied.”

With your jacket soaked through with blood, the fabric as a whole became easier to twist around; you wrapped the wet jacket firmly around his thigh, tying the sleeves into a tight knot to keep the makeshift tourniquet in place. He reacted little to the pain—he must have been exhausted.

“You took off the evac node,” you said, dully. “You took off the evac node to go after Reaper.”

You didn’t need to see the look on his face when his silence already spoke volumes.

“We promised.”

“...I’m sorry.”

“Nothing reckless.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You promised.”

“I know.”

As hard as you willed against it, tears stung the corners of your eyes as you tried to look down to hide them, down at the rapidly blurring vision of your hands covered in his blood. The memory of you turning the corner and finding him sitting here, bleeding to death, rewound and replayed in your mind’s eye. What if he was hurt just a little worse?

What if you got here just a little too late?

“You promised.” Your cracking voice gave your tears away. “But you don’t give a shit about dying, do you?”

“Not until I met you.”

“Don’t give me that.” Your chest felt tight. “Not after what you just pulled. We could’ve gotten killed—Commander, I almost lost you—”

His hands reached for you, moving up to hold the sides of your face, and your words died in your throat. You could feel the blood in his gloves pressing against your cheeks—everything around you smelled like it now, smelled like him now, like regen and blood and leather—but he leaned his forehead to yours, and the warmth of his skin steadied you.

You’d never felt him tremble, before.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he breathed, and the way his voice broke on the words shook you to your core. “I’m sorry.”

The sound of his faltering only made you break worse. Your shoulders shaking, tears still streaming down your face, you held your hands against his, keeping them pressed against you—he was holding onto you as if he needed you to anchor him in place, as if you were the only thing on this earth keeping him tethered to it.

For the briefest of moments, he touches your lips to where his would be.

He passes out against your shoulder before you can register what happened.

And your dropship arrives.

#soldier 76 #soldier 76 x reader #overwatch oc #overwatch fic #misconduct

103 notes · View notes

beyondconfessor · 5 years

Text

Visceral

[13/20]

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Psychological Torture, implied/referenced tortured, violence

Pairing: Sara Lance/Alex Danvers

Summary: There's nothing Alex wouldn't do for her sister

N.B.: Also posted on AO3

She was on the Waverider. There was the familiar hum beneath her feet. As always the ship was quiet and clean. So clean that catching a glimpse of her hands or the material of her clothes made them feel all the more disgusting. Alex took a breath and looked away to find where Sara was.

There, Sara was slumped in a chair as if she had fallen asleep mid-thought. Her head lifted as she awoke to Alex. “Are you free?” she asked, stretching as she unfolded her legs and eased herself onto her feet.

“Free? It’s only been an hour,” Alex said. Perhaps if she had been able to unlock those cuffs within that hour, she might be free. As it were, she had taken a power nap instead.

But Sara was frowning at her. “Alex, it's been a day.”

A whole-day didn’t fit in with Alex’s timeline, “No, I woke up, I went to the fake-Russian guy who asked me a few questions and then I came back to the room I’m chained up in and spent maybe half an hour on that lock before I decided to, um, take a nap.”

“It’s been a full day here. Spent the whole day getting ready for the big takedown.”

“Maybe it’s a time difference?” she asked, but it didn’t seem right. Both her and Sara had been meeting in chronological order. It didn’t make sense for a sudden shift in time differences.

“Maybe,” Sara agreed. “I don’t think so, but who knows.”

As much as she tried to think of options, she was distracted by how dirty she felt. On the clean ship, it was easy to see the soot and grime that streaked over her clothes. “Do you think your shower works here?”

Sara grinned at her. “Let’s find out.”

She was lead through the Waverider, which held a sizeable amount of bedrooms, to what seemed to be the only bathroom. The sink was awash with different products, but there were a toilet and a shower, two separate rooms side-by-side. Both of which looked like something you expected from a ship like this.

“How hot do you like your shower?” Sara asked.

“At this point, you could give me a bucket of cold water and a sponge, and I'd be grateful for it.”

Sara nodded, looking thoughtful as she adjusted the water temperature and turned the water on. Water came out of the showerhead, and Alex nearly dove for it. She could see the steam rising and already imagine the feeling of hot water raining down on her back — the ability to wash her self.

“I’ll leave you to it,” Sara said.

“Wait could you…” Sara paused, open to whatever she was going to ask, but it seemed ridiculous. Sara wasn’t running away. “Never mind, it’s okay.”

“I’ll stay,” Sara said. “Do you need help?”

“Please.”

Sara helped her out of her clothes, gently removing it over the broken arm that Alex cradled against herself, now free of any restraints. She could see the marks around her wrist that would take a while to heal — if ever — and bruises that ran over her shoulders and down her legs.

Sara gave her privacy in the shower, leaning against the sink as Alex took the time to wash, removing the layer of grime on her body. It was only for the dream, and she knew that when she awoke, it would all be there. But there was still a comfort to the shower. It gave her time to think over her lost time.

Lots of medication caused memory loss. Local anaesthesia was the most common one, that also had the side effect of paralysis. Alex didn’t find herself changing positions or anything that seemed invasive. If anything, the only difference seemed to be how exhausted she felt by the end.

But that hadn’t happened until –– “He’s a fucking telepath!”

“What?”

Alex opened the shower door, looking at Sara. “The man, the man who asks all the strange questions. That’s why they seem of no consequence. He’s a telepath.”

“Why doesn’t he just read your mind, straight out then?”

“Maybe he has low-level telepathy, or he doesn’t know how to read minds properly, or maybe he’s just new to telepathy, there’s lots of devices off-world in the trading market that we just haven’t developed yet. Not to mention that humans don’t think in strings of words and sentences all of the time, most of our thoughts are just a mixture of concepts, images and emotions.”

Sara blinked at her. “So he’s trying to trigger specific thought responses? Lead you into giving away answers.”

“All of this time I was treating it like a human one, but even in thinking of an answer in some way I was giving him something.” Alex began to feel the panic set in from the revelation. “Oh my god, I don’t know what I’ve shown him, he might know everything and is just trying to piece any other valuable bits of information together. Roulette might already know. Kara ––“

“Hey,” Sara said, pulling her eyes to hers. “Breathe. You can’t think of that now. You need to escape before you can worry about that.”

Alex nodded. Drawing in her breath, “Right, so I pick the lock and then… But what do I do if they come for me first? I don’t know how to guard my thoughts that well. It wasn’t something J’onn ever taught me outside of, you know, quietening my thoughts.”

“So, quieten your thoughts.”

“But that doesn’t hide them,” Alex said. “It just makes them…not-loud.”

Sara looked at her, raising her brow. “Well, you’re good at keeping your mind on a single topic in a battle. So keep your thoughts on a single subject, one that’s not going to give him any information.”

Alex drew a breath, slipping back until she leant against the shower wall. “Easier said than done.”

“Just focus on shampooing your hair, maybe you could learn how to do it one-handed since you’ve ––“ and then Sara pushed off from the sink and came to stand right before her. “Do you mind?” she asked, gesturing to her head. Alex nodded, watching as Sara rolled up the three-quarter sleeves of the white shirt before bringing her hands to her hair, massaging the shampoo over Alex’s scalp.

Alex shut her eyes, melting into the touch as she felt the shower continue to rain down on her shoulders and back. There was creeping anxiety in the different states of undress she had between herself and Sara, but the feeling of being clean and out of those clothes, and the way Sara’s hands massaged over her scalp far outweighed her modesty. Besides, this was a woman who had seen her with her clothes off before.

Alex tilted her head forward, washing the lathered shampoo out of her hair.

Alex felt her mind going back to the drunken night. She remembered flashes of moments in the travel between the dinner and the hotel room. She remembered Sara's laughter in her ear as they stumbled out of the elevator, onto the wrong floor. The way Sara's cheesy one-liners had honestly sounded so hilarious to her between drunken kisses.

That night had been freeing at the time before the morning came. She woke up with a headache, nausea and strong arms around her waist that weren't Maggie's.

It was funny because despite everything had gone through, she hadn't even thought of Maggie until now.

Alex felt Sara’s hand begin to condition her hair. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Well, I want to,” Sara shrugged, tilting Alex’s head back to wash the conditioner off. Her thumbs brushed behind Alex’s ears, down to the base of her skull, though her eyes fixated on what Alex presumed was the bump on her forehead.

“It’s fine,” Alex said.

“It’s going to scar.”

“Then it’ll scar, it won’t be my last.”

To that, Sara smiled at her, her hands still in Alex’s hair. And then she seemed to remember that Alex was undressed and stepped away, closing the door as she muttered about getting her a towel.

Alex didn’t know what to take from that. A part of her thought of how Sara had looked at her, and another part of her reminded that the last time she felt that way, crippling rejection had followed. She was not going to be leaping on women she thought was giving off vibes. No matter how much their eyes looked like an ocean amid an electrical storm.

Turning the shower off, she stepped out, wrapping herself in the towel left by the door. Sara then proceeded to drop another one on her head, leaving Alex feeling like she was five years old again.

“I found the metal you’re using,” Sara said, holding up the piece of metal. It looked like it had once been a loose steel wire. It was thin. Enough so that if she twisted it tighter and tighter, it would eventually snap.

“You’ll want to bend it further up, so it slips in smoother. I should show you how to make a rake, so it’d be easier to unlock.”

“It’s fine. doing it one handed is difficult enough.”

“You’re using the other the twist it then, so the pegs lock into place when you tap them?”

“What?”

Sara smiled at her and then proceeded to go into a lecture about how to pick a lock while drawing a somewhat decent picture with her finger on steam. She eventually had to get a pen and paper to make her point, but Alex was fascinated by it, nonetheless. It took her back to her studies back when she had first begun working for the DEO.

Most of it, she knew well enough. She had remembered to turn the pin slightly but had somehow forgotten to do that part while having a broken arm.

“Okay, I think I’ve got it.”

“Good, then it’s time to wake-up,” Sara said. “The sooner you get out of there, before you’re exhausted again, the faster you can get to Kara.”

Alex agreed. Although she was unsure in how to admit that waking up, after moments of cleanliness, comfort and friendship, made her feel nauseous.

Alex didn’t know what to expect. She didn’t know if she could make it out of there, or if that guy would creep his way into her head and somehow erase all memories of what transpired. Or worse.

The very thought of someone crawling through her brain made her feel violated. J’onn had always given her the utmost privacy that he could provide with his ability. To feel it used against her, felt…slimy. Like there was greasy slug trail all over brain from where he’d been.

She couldn’t wait to punch him in the face.

“Time to wake up,” she agreed.

Sara smiled at her, and then, what had to be pushing up on her tiptoes, kissed Alex's forehead. "You've got this, Danvers."

Alex woke up. It was dark in the room, and all at once she felt the cold against her. There were layers of dirt and grit on her skin, heavy coating of oils in her hair. If possible, she felt even dirtier than before she had fallen asleep. Dirtier and colder. And yet, she could still feel the imprint of Sara's lips on her forehead.

Alex sat up. She was going to escape.

Alex pulled the metal from where she’d hidden it on her person and bent it as Sara had instructed her to.

She jiggled with the lock, feeling her right arm complain at being misused. Without really thinking about it, she found herself promising it that she would see the best doctor to fix it, and would do all the physiotherapy exercises she would be asked to complete. Even that stupid stress ball one, if it would just hold out for a little bit longer.

The lock clicked.

Slowly, and then quickly, Alex drew the chains away from the lock. They were hefty, awkward, but she was able to carry them against her chest. She felt a bubbling laugh rise in her chest before she remembered that getting out of the chains didn’t mean that she was out of here yet.

Drawing a deep breath, she attempted to quell rising nausea. One step at a time.

Alex listed for the sound of running footfalls. There was nothing — just the sound of a draft outside of the door in the room.

Alex crept closer to the door that barred her from the hallway. She held onto the chains, bringing the weight against her chest as she eased the door open to the hall. It creaked into the darkness, but no one seemed to be there to hear it. Perhaps she had a chance.

Alex crept in the dark. She knew how to get to the break room, but how far would that have been from a door?

Was it a factory and this was the upper-level office section? A warehouse and she just needed to find the loading docks?

She crept along with the shadows, listening for any sounds. The walls all seemed to be those temporary ones that didn’t quite meet the ceiling. The ground was hard, concrete.

Alex went through a few open doors, jiggling a few locked ones that were probably leading to the exit, but more likely to nowhere. It seemed strange not to come across another person. Where the hell was everyone? She opened a few more doors, coming to dark, empty storage rooms. There were marks on the walls where signage had probably once been, but so far, the place seemed to have been stripped of everything aside from rubbish.

She couldn’t see cameras, but she could see fire alarms that had been pulled out, the batteries taken from inside of the plastic containers.

It seemed to be a long since abandoned building for something.

Alex found a door that led her into a small room, with a broken window. It was the first window she'd seen, and it looked out to the night sky.

Graffiti covered the room. Black and red spray paint that was just a bunch of kids random tags against some aimless slurs but none of that held anything aside from moments of Alex's attention as she looked at the door.

Could it be that easy?

It was a tall, heavy double door made of wood. She turned the handle, and it opened out into the night air.

Drawing in a breath of the air, she felt like she could almost laugh as she looked up to the moon. It was three-quarters full, and the stars were brighter and more brilliant than she’d ever seen before. How beautiful, how wonderful.

She drew in another breath and felt a giddy bubble rise into her chest as her broken shoes stepped out onto the loose gravel. There were no lights nearby, but in the moonlight, she could see hills sparsely covered in trees.

She'll have to walk up the hill to see if there was a town nearby to go to, but it was something at least. She was out. She could get to the next place. She just had to avoid being caught again.

And then she caught sight of headlights coming between the silhouette of trees. No, it wasn't going to be easy.

Taking her chains, she ducked behind the side of the building, to where industrial garbage was, and watched as the car pulled up into the large open gravel area.

The building's internal contents were strange, but on the outside, it looked to be an abandoned industrial site. Wherever she was, it seemed to be a loading bay for trucks.

The engine cut off, and the man stepped out, followed by the minion woman. They closed the doors of the car, the distant sound of chatter coming from them as the woman carried what looked to be a grocery bag and take away.

The man was holding a takeaway coffee. He took a sip and then he paused, looking over at Alex’s direction. There was no way he should have been able to see her, and yet Alex watched as he nudged at the woman and pointed towards her direction.

Fucking telepath. Alex tried to shut down the thoughts before she looked around her. There were a few waste containers — old, filled with rubbish like parts of the building that had been gutted out. There was no way she could sneak into one of them without being seen.

Beyond the bins were the trees. Holding the chains against her chest, Alex made a low run for the trees in the shadows, ducking into the scrub.

The tree was tall and smooth, a whisper running through its leave in the wind. Alex drew a breath and looked behind her where the woman stood at the waste containers, looking around.

She was a large, stocky woman and Alex already knew she was dangerous. As she watched the woman head around the bins, opening them up to peek inside, Alex made a move to the next tree.

“Come out, come out,” the man said in the distance. “I know that you know, Alex.”

Alex bristled at the mention of her name. How long had he known that and withheld it? Alex pulled away from the anger, quietening her thoughts. She didn’t know if he could locate her through her telepathy, or if he'd just been aware that she was outside.

The woman had stopped looking at the containers and had moved to the trees. She had a stick in her hand, or maybe a baton, long and thin for a better beating. Alex eyed her. She would need to get the advantage of the woman and overpower her first.

Alex went to move, but a chain jingled. The woman's head whipped to her direction before a slow smirk pulled over her face, and she began stalking over to her.

Alex dropped the chains, taking hold of the end in her hand as the woman came towards her. Alex drew in several deep breaths, feeling the race of her heart. She couldn’t let the adrenaline give her the shakes. She had to be fast and smart about it.

And then Alex ran forward, using a fallen bough to leap up and land onto the woman's torso.

With the end of the chain in hand, she cast a loop around the woman’s neck, her legs catching onto the broad torso and clasping onto her as she drew the shackles tight, wrapping another and then another loop around the minion's neck, before tugging her arms up sharply. The woman grasped as the chain, and Alex felt her broken arm wrench at the movement.

But she clenched her jaw, holding firm despite the pain.

The woman struggled to run sideways, shoving the side of the body Alex had clutched to against the tree, but as the seconds past, her movements weakened. The woman clawed, her nails dragging against her skin. She rammed against the tree and Alex’s head knocked –– hard –– against it, but she held onto the chains, listening to her splutter as the oxygen was cut off to her head.

She didn’t know where the man was, but he wasn’t here and even as the woman dropped to her knees. Even as her hands slacked and slumped in the dirt, Alex didn’t slacker her grip until she was sure.

She counted the seconds, and then she removed the chains.

Alex’s legs shook. Her whole body shook from the exertion of the attack. She stopped, waiting for her head to cease pounding as she drew her breaths, and then she rose again, looking over to where the car reained stationary. Its lights were still on, but the man wasn’t there.

Alex looked around, she didn’t know if he or the woman had keys, but she did know that the man knew her name, and if he knew that then what little he knew about Kara was dangerous. There was no way she was leaving yet.

Looking around, Alex tried to see where he may have gone. The loose gravel on compact dirt made it hard to see any signs of him.

Until a gun pressed against her temple as he came out from behind her in the shadows. She took a breath, quietening her thoughts as she looked out the corner of her eye, trying to catch a glimpse of him. “If you stayed in the cell, we could have gone through a few more sessions and be done with it,” he told her. Gone was the Russian voice, replaced by...an Australian one?

“For what?" She asked, "Information on Supergirl?”

“On you…or your sister,” he shrugged. “There’s something there, some connection between your sister and Supergirl. It's all too much of a coincidence.”

Alex hissed out a breath, feeling her thoughts edge towards that truth before they snapped back to Sara; Sara’s eyes, her smile, the freckles across her skin.

“See, who is that woman? You’re always thinking of her. Every thought is layered with that woman. I spent hours in your brain, going over every memory, every connection to find something, and every time you would draw back to her, but I looked. And there's no Sara Lance. There’s a Laurel Lance, but she doesn’t look like that woman, whoever she is.”

Laurel… A flood of thoughts came, and she could feel the man immerse himself in them. Alex struck, pushing his wrist away from her head –– the gun fired into the night’s air –– before she turned around to face him. She had the chains on his arm before he could pull back.

He reached for the hand with the gun, raising his leg to make a kick at shins, but Alex kicked at his chest first. She held her grip in the chains, keeping him suspended between falling and standing.

She kicked him again, unwound the arm and watched him fall with the momentum as he dropped the gun onto the ground.

Alex grabbed the weapon before he could and aimed it at him, stepping back out of distance from him. “You move, I fire,” she promised.

He didn’t move, remaining crouched on the ground, halfway between reaching out to grab at the chain.

“The way I see it, you have two options,” she said. “I kill you, or you tell me what Roulette knows about my sister, and I drag your ass back to the DEO. Maybe you live.”

“Why would I tell you anything.”

“Read my mind.”

Now that she was aware, she could feel the cold shiver as something seeped over her, pulling at the electricity in the brain to read how she promised to draw out a slow, painful death if he refused, or drag his ass back to the DEO if he helped. Maybe there was a future for him, and he could find redemption in their group of misfits, it wouldn't be the first time.

“She knows about your sister,” he said. “She knows who you are, and she knows to use Maggie Sawyer and Kara Danvers against you. That’s everything I gave her. She doesn’t know about Supergirl’s weakness to Kryptonite yet. I haven’t had a chance to speak to her since last week, and I won't tell her, just...just take me to the DEO.”

Alex nodded, “Then that secret dies with you,” was all she said, watching as his face turned from disbelief into terror as she fired the rounds into his head.

His body crumpled, dragging at the chains and Alex sighed, feeling the broken arm throb bad enough to make her almost vomit.

She needed a hospital.

Alex let out a breath and shut her eyes, waiting for the guilt, the self-pity to come. But it didn’t — not this time.

It’d been a long time since she’d killed an unarmed person, maybe she was just in shock.

Crouching down, she unwrapped the chains and began digging around the man’s pockets, removing his jacket and placing it over her cold body. She then walked over to the corpse of the minion woman, dug around her pockets until she found the keys to the car and went back to where it remained parked, headlights still alight.

She climbed into the driver’s seat and blinked. There was no steering wheel in front of her.

Then she noticed the other seat. It was on the right-hand side.

Alex moved to the driver’s side of the car.

Turning the ignition, she put the car into drive and drove out down the loose gravel road. She doubted that the two worked by themselves for Roulette. They’d have to have someone above them, someone to report to whilst Roulette spun her web.

The road was quiet. Alex didn’t know where she was, but it was a backroad, going by the gravel. The drive went for a while, and then it turned onto a bitumen road. And then Alex had some idea of where she was. There was a green sign telling her how many miles it was to the next town. 120 to Tarcutta. Well, the lettering seemed to indicate English so far, which ruled out both Russia and China.

It wasn’t until the next sign said ’50 - Tarcutta' (which was a lot faster than it should have been, Alex felt) that she saw another car, driving on her side of the road. It honked at her and Alex realised that perhaps she was driving on the wrong side of the road, the driver’s seat was on the wrong side, so it made sense.

Which she should have known, but Alex had just escaped and was still feeling heart palpitations from the event, expecting a car to run her off the road at any moment. So she was giving herself some slack.

The car and road narrowed it down further. Maybe she was in Britain? The English drove on the left, didn't they?

“What the actual fuck,” she whispered under her breath. Why had she been taken to England of all places? Why in that building? Why anything?

Was it all for Supergirl?

Alex continued to drive, eyeing the speedometer that was a little touchier than she was used to, it wasn’t as though the answers would appear in the cold of the night.

Tarcutta seemed to be a small town, though no-one was around. The police station was a little house, the lights dark, and she had no idea where anything was, like a hospital. There was a couple of truck pulled up in what seemed to be a truck parking area in the middle of two roads, but they were all in their cabs, deep asleep.

At the gas station, there was a sign out for cherries that seemed to be a rather steep price for cherries, though it was asking it for by the kilogram so maybe her math was off.

Besides, she still had manacles on her arms, and 120 miles wasn’t that far from where she’d been. The further she got from that place, the safer she would feel.

Alex navigated through the central part of town, down what seemed to be labelled the Old Hume Highway — then continued for what felt like maybe another hour. It was a relatively straight strip, and her mind was getting a little fuzzy as she drove. Eventually, she came to a place called Albury-Wodonga.

For a few miles, it seemed to be nothing but empty land, void of anything but what appeared to be farmland, going by their fence lines.

Eventually, sign's began to advise her to pull off the highway to get into the industrial side of the town.

Blue signs were leading to the hospital as Alex made her way through the quiet streets. There were a few drunk kids were walking around McDonald's, there were even a few cars around, but no one minded her. As much as she wanted to get out and shout for help, she knew the best support would be at either a police station or a hospital. Given that there were no signs to the police station that she could find yet, but plenty to the hospital, she continued on her path there.

It seemed to be a far way out of what she had presumed to be the town. Whatever the place was, most buildings didn’t go beyond two stories, and even that was being generous. Everything seemed to be single storied blocks. Only the new development seemed to rise above that.

The hospital was easy to see once she arrived, and the emergency room was clearly labelled.

Alex went there. She went inside and watched heads watch her strangely as she went to the section that read ‘see Nurse first’ and then she stood there as a nurse came to the window.

“I need your help,” she said, her voice was hoarse. It felt sore, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d drunk any water.

Whether it was her appearance, the chains or the way she cradled her broken arm, the woman brought her from the waiting room of the ER, into her section despite the ten or so people waiting their turn.

The Nurse asked her a few questions which Alex found her self restrictively answering.

The woman was middle-aged with dark hair and crinkles around her eyes and face. She didn’t smile much, but she listened to what Alex said.

Alex told her she'd been kidnapped that she had escaped not far out from a town that seemed to be about fifty or so miles (kilometres?) north. She said she had a broken arm, that she wasn’t sure how long the bone had been fractured.

In response, the woman explained to where she was. (Australia! Australia had the same wall sockets as China, of course. How had she forgotten that?)

The woman gave her a bottle of water and Alex downed it fast. The nurse's eyes widened before softening in sympathy as she offered her another bottle.

"Thank you," Alex said, trying not to cry at the gesture.

"We have a few more questions for you if you're ready?"

"Okay," Alex said.

After the nurse had finished the triage part of the questioning, Alex asked for the American Embassy number, "and a phone line. I have no access to money, but once I can get in contact with the embassy, I'll be able to access all of that."

"I'll see what I can do. Our priority is your health first."

A nurse lead her into intensive care where a different nursing staff took over, asking her a few questions. There was a doctor in turquoise scrubs that was awkwardly danced around topics that Alex cut through. "I wasn't sexually assaulted. I was hit a few times, and I have an avulsion fracture to my radius. As you can I've also been chained," she said lifting the manacles. "All I want is a good shower if that's possible? I want to feel clean. At least cleaner."

"I can have that arranged."

A nurse in blue helped to shower her, and it was as good as her dream had been, despite the way the room smelt of chemicals.

She’d helped wash her hair, reach her back and didn't once ask questions about any of the scars or marks, though Alex saw her fearfully curious eyes dancing from new injuries to old.

Once Alex was clean, the nurse provided her with a hospital gown with, unfortunately, an adult diaper as it was all they had on that floor. "Look, I'll take anything clean at this stage," she said, moving into it.

It was a little embarrassing, she thought, but at the same time, it was clean cotton against her clean skin and Alex wanted nothing to do with the ruined clothes -- though she noticed the nurse bag it with her gloves. It probably to supply as evidence for the police.

Once Alex was back on the emergency department's pseudo beds, she began talking about things to expect in the hospital, future medical investigations, what treatment to expect, what the procedures in the hospital were around crisis, the rhythm of words felt soothing like she knew what was going to happen, so it was all going to be okay.

The nurse didn’t talk about the mangles except to make sure to clean her wrists as best she could with the obstruction.

Twice she checked with her emotionally. Twice Alex brushed the answer off tiredly.

And then Alex was hooked up to an IV for fluids, given some drugs fand an x-ray for her arm. Two doctors spoke to her briefly, examined her injuries so far. They were blunter with their questions, although they asked them gently. They looked at her manacles, moving them around and considered options of removal. Someone brought up that a “tradie” might be able to do it.

Then there was more muttering as if they'd forgotten Alex existed as a person in the conversation. It began to piss her off until she saw the nurse roll her eyes and chuck her a wink.

Alex liked the nurse a lot.

After the staff left and the curtains were pulled back around her, she closed her eyes against and leant back against the bed and found herself opening her eyes every time footsteps came near her.

And then the police came around, introducing themselves with titles that Alex faded over. All of her words were muddled by this stage. She kept tiredly correcting herself or stumbling to find the exact word she needed for the situation.

The nurses were taking her blood pressure and heart rate by the hour.

“So do you know the perpetrators who kidnapped you?”

“There was a man, and a woman,” Alex explained. “I never got their name.”

A nurse appeared then with two trays of food. “Ham and cheese okay?” she asked. There were three sandwiches, two bottles of water and even some ice cream that had been scrounged up for her. Honestly, it was the sweetest thing that had happened outside of her shower.

“Thank you,” Alex said. And then she took the sandwich, not caring if it was impolite as she removed it from its plastic container and bit into it. Without a doubt, there would never be a sandwich taste as good in her life as that. Nothing would ever beat that moment as she felt the food hit her tongue. Whatever they had been feeding her in that place hadn't been bland in comparison to ham, cheese and tomato sandwiches.

The officers were polite, allowing her to finish the meal.

“The man spoke with a European accent. A, ah, Russian accent, but it didn’t sound authentic. He was six foot one maybe and had a light face, er, beard. He was ah, caucasian descent with grey-blue eyes. There was an edge of a tattoo on his neck I couldn’t see. Just a black smudge here,” she showed on her neck. “But it was hidden by his shirt collar. His hairline was...was going back. Receding. He also had a big, thin nose, teeth seemed to be straight, there was nothing that stood out about him,” she explained.

Alex gave a briefer description with the woman, having seen her through lamp light and the dim lights of the hallway. "She broke my arm, was tall, strong. Really strong."

“Did they ever explain to you why they may have kidnapped you. Did the people mentioning if they were taking you somewhere…?”

Alex knew what they were asking. But it wasn’t relevant. “I believe it was for revenge,” was all she said. She respected the police here, but she knew where the matter would go.

When the police left, they gave her a card. One of them wrote the American embassy number on it, above the local police number for her.

She was still waiting for the nurses to give her phone access.

She slept for a few hours, dreaming but not of Sara. The lights were low, but it was still loud. People were crying and sometimes yelling. Nursing staff were trying to help a few boys involved in a punch-up, some drunken girl kept shuffling the toilet when the nurses weren't looking and then being barked at to return to where she was. There was a pair of about-to-be young parents checking the status of stomach pains after a night of binge drinking.

And between those moments, the nurses were coming together, giggling with each other about their day-to-day lives outside of work, about their shift the night before, or even bad-mouthing staff on different sections.

A tradesman came around the morning, after breakfast. He looked at the manacles, took a few photos and spoke to his apprentice. Then he pulled out a few tools and removed them the manacles from around her wrists. The weight was gone.

“Thank you.”

“Not a problem. Have a good one,” the tradesman nodded and then seemed to catch himself, giving an awkward smile.

The nursing staff took the manacles, and Alex listened as they completed their ops. Her arm was placed into a sling, and she was told that they were just waiting on her being more stable before they operated on her.

She stayed until midday in the intensive care ward before she was placed into a wheelchair and taken to an actual hospital room with three other women. One was an elderly woman with respiratory problems. Another was about twenty years older than Alex and sat knitting across from her, offering her a smile. And the third was young, in her twenties and fast asleep.

“You’re booked in for some more tests today,” the new nursing staff, Alison, said as she took her ops for the report. “They’ll come round in a few hours. Have you had breakfast?”

“Yes,” Alex said. “Will I be able to call the American embassy soon?”

Alison blinked at her, then frowned. “I’ll ask if I can arrange that for you once I finish this, okay?” She smiled at Alex and Alex tried to smile back. It came out stiff. She’d been in the hospital for twelve hours, and the anxiety was only growing the longer she stayed.

None of the nursing staff knew anything about what had been going in America with Supergirl.

The whole day felt dizzy. A blur of people’s faces and she only felt more and more agitated. She turned and asked the residents in the room for anything about Supergirl. The older middle-aged woman hummed something about her grandson. The woman who looked to be twenty years her senior murmured back in broken English a few positive things about Supergirl, but nothing of news.

Alison did eventually come back, with a wheelchair in tow after lunch. “Let’s get you to the phone.”

Alex would have preferred privacy, but she understood that specific protocols were in place for her. The nurse wheeled her down a hall to the general phone, and the woman took it off its receiver and handed it to her. “Do you know the number?” she asked.

Alex gestured to the card she had, giving a mild comment about the police officers before she dialled in the number. It seemed to take her to a general call-centre queue.

After five minutes of waiting, Alison advised she would be back in a moment and headed back to her floor.

A few more minutes past before she spoke to someone, who transferred her across to a different line where she waiting in queue and then transferred again. Alex knew her procedure well enough. She went through it with the third individual who was finally able to direct her to someone of authority. Alex explained her situation carefully, advising that she did not intend to operate on Australian soil, but that she'd been kidnapped and brought over against her will.

“Mm. I see. I’ll take this through the official channels. Given the circumstances, I will be escalating it higher, but you can understand that due to the nature of this issue, it may take some time to return you to the United States.”

“I do. My primary concern is stopping this from being a big political issue,” Alex lied. Her primary concern was getting news to J'onn and seeing Kara. At least hearing from her.

“Thank you for your time. We’ll send someone down to Albury, if necessary. Otherwise, we’ll be in touch.” Don’t call us, we’ll call you. Great.

Well, that was one thing that was completed. Although Alex still felt nauseous, and her heart rate felt like it was higher than it should be, she was at a state where there was nothing further to do, except wait.

Alex hated waiting.

The nurse returned not shortly after she hung up her phone. “All go well?”

Alex pressed her lips. “As well as it can,” she responded.

“Let us know if you need anything. I believe your surgery should be booked in for tomorrow, but I’ll read through the doctor’s notes for you.”

"Thank you, I appreciate that. And look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude before."

"Don't worry about it," the woman said. "Of all people, you can be a little bit abrasive, and we'll cut you some slack," she said, giving Alex a wink.

Back in the room, she helped Alex back into bed before reading through her note. "Tomorrow, pending any emergencies."

Tomorrow. Alex felt a deep sigh hang in her chest as laid back in her bed. It'd been bed re-made for her in her absence and felt nice to slide onto. The mattress wasn’t too bad either, but it wasn’t as good as her own.

“Oh!” Alison stopped, “Did you want a shower this afternoon?”

“No, the nurse this morning helped me with that.”

Alison nodded, smiling at her unfazed. It was one less job to worry about, Alex supposed.

She appreciated that the nursing staff had given her a gown to wear, and given her some underwear. Clean, she had been assured. Unused, for situations like this. Though they were an ugly grey-brown colour and went all the way up to her waist. She’d take it.

The senior woman, who was on the bed to her left, came over and placed a newspaper down on her table. On the front page, Alex could see a photo of her sister holding a man by his throat, her teeth bared at him in a fit of rage.

It wasn’t a quality photo, taken from the bottom of a building looking up at the scene, the person had zoomed in with a device not designed for keeping the picture in high definition for that length of distance, but there was no denying that that was her sister.

Supergirl's Gone Wild, the headline read. The article followed an opinion piece. Or rather, a thinly veiled anti-immigration, anti-superhero article detailing the dangers of both Superman and Supergirl taking their rage issues out on down-on-their-luck citizens. Alex didn’t know who the man was, but she knew her sister well enough to believe that he wasn’t just “down on his luck”.

There was also, on the top right-hand side, the date. Alex's stomach dropped as she realised how much time had passed. She had been gone for over two months.

At this stage, Alex had a clear, single thought.

Fuck Australia.

#sara lance #alex danvers #agent canary #supergirl fanfic #legends of tomorrow fanfic #supergirl #legends of tomorrow #morgans fics

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twilightvolt · 6 years

Photo

I kinda was saving this for when i had the time to type everything out in one go, so let’s just get this over with before Smash drags me back into the depths of hell. XD

So, like, things happened back in 2017. a lot of things. graduated highschool, felt the winds of freedom as i stepped into the world of adulting and.....fell into a deep abyss of crippling depression as my life took a rather....wild turn to say the least. these feelings would linger and continue to haunt me throughout the majority of 2018. if you’d like to hear them or just need a refresher, my 2017 summary WITH that in depth description is on my DA that i no longer use cuz all i can think of when i go there is that year as a whole.

That’s not to say the year was cruddy, though. it really looked up by the end and it’s been one of the better years of my life as an artist. i’m about to go into that, so sit tight if you wanna actually read everything.

January: Arcus ~Collab with KLou

Things got heated at grandma’s after the holidays and we left in a huff cuz yeah, big fight the night before. it wasn’t something i ever wanna remember, but i gotta acknowledge it happened. thus began the struggles of living life as a nomad basically. From this point on until May, i won’t say much about our situation cuz honestly, time grinded to a halt after hotel life began.

February: Let’s Save the World

Believe it or not, this was a mobile drawing. i still didn’t have my tablet or my computer, so i tried using my phone for awhile. this was, of course, after i got Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth Hacker’s Memory for PS4, so this right here was my Dracomon babu Takumi, named after the former wearer of the goggles i equipped to him.

March: Let’s Kick It!

A brief moment of light as i fINALLY GOT MY TABLET BACK ONLINE! i felt like things were going to be different, we’d finally get somewhere and i felt like i could do anything again! this drawing, while super simple since it was just me around most of my current OCs at the time, was meant to represent me being back in business after around 4 or 5 months of being restricted to traditional work, a medium i, at the time, didn’t have much development in. (although, those months sure did help me learn how to draw that way in more than just sketching. so i’m actually kinda grateful i was stripped of the tools that i realize i may or may not have taken for granted.)

April: Spyro the Dragon

The Reignited Trilogy was announced and that’s why i drew that cuz literally everyone was doing Spyro fanart. i remember also doing a bunch of little doodles of other people’s characters in this same coloring style since some of the drawings i did before like the mobile drawing and my traditional work gave me inspiration on how to go about doing this new watercolor/marker like style that i started to experiment with throughout 2016 and ‘17.

May: Memories in Pieces

Remember how i said time grinded to a halt after hotel life began? yeah, this is where it reeeeaaally started to effect me. the days dragged on and blended together, we STILL could secure a home to house all of us and it just felt like my life was just....over. like, all the important stuff happened and now my story’s just done. it didn’t help that memories from the year before decided to come back and hang over me like an undying demon cloud. my anxiety and depression couldn’t have been higher. and yet i still managed to wake up. in fact, i woke up bright and early every day somehow. it felt like there wasn’t anything to believe in and yet....i still had hope that we could get through this. i knew deep down we weren’t gonna be completely out of luck.....but i still hurt at the same time.

I never uploaded this drawing anywhere, but this was, to put it simply, partly a new direction for a future project but also a vent art of sorts, representing the negative thoughts and regrets that never seemed to leave me alone no matter how much time has passed.

June: Digimon Atlas Adventures Ultima Vocal Collection

My second commission ever made since i opened that month. it was also the first time i really cel shaded along with made a logo since the year before. this day marked the turning point along with the end of my depression for the most part as the parents finally gave up and took...some of us down to Florida. a couple of siblings had jobs to keep up with, so they had to stay back in NY with.....eghh....grandma. to this day, i’m still hearing stories even if some of them eventually found their own place. i swear, the more i hear about what’s going on, the less i wanna go back to NY. >_>’

July: Drake ~Art Fight 2018

Oh yeah, we moved down to FL, but we were still in hotels IN FL, so there was change, but still pretty similar circumstances. we quickly found a place at some point, though. a cozy apartment complex that i’m happy to live in.

This is when Art Fight began....or rather when it was supposed to begin cuz they had technical difficulties for the first week or so. the day i revamped Drake for it was like i was saying hi to an old friend after parting ways years prior. it was a really fun experience that i’d gladly partake in again next year if i’ve got the time.

August: Gathers Under Night...

A very ambitious looking piece i did as an attack against a friend during Art Fight. it was my favorite attack i ever did and could quite easily be my favorite drawing from this year. after leaving hotel life behind me, i rarely, if ever, had war flashbacks or anxiety over the past. i felt like my life was finally getting somewhere again. for real this time. and that it did, thankfully.

September: Lost in Thought

A gift i made for a longtime friend and art senpai to try and cheer them up. i still look back at this and think “yeah....this is the style i’ve been longing to emulate. and i’ve finally achieved it.” granted, it took a lot from Kingdom Hearts II’s title screen, but where do you think i got my love of watercolor from?

At this point, i started to become a new person. i mean i already was considering the summer also involved me trying to become a little less total weeb at least in terms of music taste and also leaving my hoodie lifestyle for a good few months, but yeah. in fact, i think this was the month i buzzed off all my emo hair and really ended up resembling how i looked like back when i was little, anime cowlick and all.

October: The Lethal Protector

Oh yeah, Venom happened. i should’ve disliked that movie with all it’s flaws and unused potential, but instead i wholeheartedly stan it and i luv the portrayal of Eddie and Venom to the point where i forgive where it went wrong.

Yeah, i completely moved on from everything that tied me down at this point. i yeeted the past into the stratosphere and focused solely on what i wanted to do now. what my next move was. and i can thank these two losers for helping me stay focused on my craft. i also kept branching outside of Digimon. i wanted to be more than what i used to be.

November: My Favorite Ninja Frog

Didn’t do much this month, so all i had was a doodle of my starter partner for Pokemon Y. i never evolved him past Frogadier cuz i preferred him over Greninja. it was the tongue scarf, dude.

Why? ehh, it was most likely Warframe. i got into that game at some point cuz a friend persuaded me to do it. i don’t regret anything. i luv this game when i’m playing with friends.

December: Draw Your Roster Ultimate: The Winds of Reunion + Holiday Arcus

The Winds of Reunion cuz Wind Waker and the fact that everyone including Wolf, Young Link and even Pichu returned to Smash Bros. when Ultimate happened. this game cured my depression, cleared my skin and reignited my love for Starfox oddly enough since Starfox Zero AKA 64 with a new coat of paint and motion controls that weren’t as bad as you think didn’t exactly do it for me. i haven’t been so content with the way things are in a long time and i’m happy i finally got my hands on this treasure of a game. now, to wait for Kingdom Hearts III. ;w;

And now we finally get to the end of this long as heck recap. thank god Tumblr gives you unlimited characters, amirite? XD

Overall, this was a year of recovery and rebirth. it was a long and rough winding road, but in the end i think i’ve healed enough to finally get on with my life.

I’m not the same kid i used to be when i graduated highschool, and i’m definitely not the same kid i was when i was first starting out as an artist. my journey has been full of ups, downs and all arounds and it was all a much needed learning experience. even if i felt like i was suffering at times.

My future is mine to decide, and i’m not letting anything stand in my way again.

For the future i want to believe in.

#digital art #summary of art #2018 summary of art #digimon #Spyro the Dragon #venom 2018 #super smash bros ultimate #pokemon #year end reflections

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tragicbeauty1991 · 6 years

Text

In Defense of Disney's Captain Hook: A Not Wholly Unheroic Figure

With the recent popularity of ABC's hit show Once Upon a Time, the classic view of fairytale villains as irredeemable bad guys has been turned on its head, and while some of our favorite baddies like Cruella and Dr. Facilier remain fairly true to their original Disney counterparts in appearance and personality on the show, others have gotten such a complete makeover that they are hardly recognizable as the same character they are supposed to portray. Among those given the latter treatment is fan favorite Killian Jones, a.k.a. Captain Hook. In a day and age when Jack Sparrow is the first fictional pirate who comes to mind, it's no surprise that the show's creators decided to embrace the guy-liner and black leather-wearing sexy bad boy approach to the character, but while this creative choice has had the effect of garnering fans' attention, it has also had the unfortunate effect of turning the original character into something of a joke. While Killian is viewed as a well-developed sympathetic character with the potential for redemption, Disney's original version of the character tends to be seen as little more than a straightforward comical villain with little or no real depth. As a fan of the original Disney version of the character, however, I'd like to argue that from the very beginning, Disney's Hook was always intended to be a complex, likable villain and continues to be portrayed as such in modern Disney media. My argument is as follows:

Hook's original creators, including author J.M. Barrie, producer Walt Disney, and voice actor Hans Conried loved the character.

The original author of Peter Pan, James Matthew Barrie—who significantly gave his own first name to the pirate captain—is quick to remind the audience that despite his flaws, Hook “was not wholly evil; he loved flowers...and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on the harpsichord)....” When Walt Disney decided to approach the character, he quickly realized that a villain with such a soft side would appeal to the viewers and instructed the animators to alter the original ending of the story, having Hook chased off by the crocodile but still clearly alive because “the audience will get to liking Hook and they won't want to see him killed.” Hans Conried, who served as both the voice-actor and the live-action reference model for Hook's character design, also had a fondness for him, stating that “He's a much maligned character. If you read the lines with any sensibility at all, you must have an animus against Peter Pan who could fly, and took outrageous advantage of this one-armed man. Hook was a gentleman. Pan was not. His behavior was very bad form.”

His motivation as a villain departs from the standard and immediately sets him up as a sympathetic character.

Whereas many of the traditional Disney villains are motivated by greed, envy, the desire for power, or revenge for a petty slight, Hook departs significantly from the norm in that his motivation stems from severe physical (and arguably psychological) trauma suffered at the hands of the supposed hero. While we are never told the exact circumstances under which the hand loss occurred, Hook has a legitimate reason to hate Peter Pan that runs much deeper than mere jealousy or megalomania. In fact, in his opening scene with Mr. Smee, Hook concedes that even such a crippling injury alone would not have warranted his hatred; rather, it is the fact that Peter gave the hand to the crocodile, causing him to live in a constant state of fear (and the boy's tendency to exploit that fear), that pushed him over the edge.

He has a multifaceted, well-developed personality which humanizes him for the audience.

In various interviews animator Frank Thomas has discussed the disparity between the personality storyman Ed Penner and director Gerry Geronimi envisioned for the character and the resulting difficulty he had in designing the version of Captain Hook that we see in the finished film. One viewed him as a foppish dandy of a fellow while the other envisioned a much darker, more frightening man who readily used the hook as a weapon against his enemies. This difficulty was further complicated by the fact that action-scene animator Woolie Reitherman—who was responsible for drawing Hook's interactions with the crocodile—wanted to bring a level of comedy to the character which somewhat clashed with his depiction in more serious scenes. The final result was a villain unlike any other Disney had created at the time—a villain who was by turns both fearsome and fragile, dangerous and debonair. Many of Disney's earliest films focused more on the new art of animation than the art of developing well-rounded characters, resulting in very black and white idealized heroes and villains. With Hook, Disney crossed a line into the morally gray territory, resulting in a sympathetic yet sinister character whose moments of weakness would endear him to audiences while his wickedness simultaneously appalled them.

His physical and emotional issues are highly relatable.

Ironically, despite the obvious mention of the prosthetic in his name, we tend to forget that Hook is technically disabled (by our “hero” no less!)...and that physical disability comes with a host of other issues, some of which are trauma-related. In addition to the crippling anxiety we see displayed on-screen, other Disney media indicate that he also suffers from high blood pressure (Kingdom Hearts manga), depression (365 Bedtime Stories), and low self-esteem (Jake and the Neverland Pirates). These are very real everyday issues that we can all relate to on some level either through personal experience or through someone we know.

The dynamic he has with Mr. Smee is unique among Disney villains and sidekicks.

Disney sidekicks—while often providing exceptional comic relief for the audience—are not always necessary for the hero/villain to stand on their own. Many early villain sidekicks, in particular, are given very little personality and some (Diablo in Sleeping Beauty and Gideon in Pinocchio, for example) don't even have any lines. While the sidekick to the primary villain often relies on his/her master as the brains of the operation, the primary villain usually has little need for their companionship. They are expendable resources whom the villain could easily replace or do away with altogether. Hook and Smee's relationship is different in that neither character could properly function alone; Smee relies on Hook for leadership and direction while Hook heavily depends on Smee for emotional support. Further, Smee—unlike many villain sidekicks—seems to genuinely care about his captain's well-being, and Hook recognizes and appreciates this, if only subconsciously. Despite being frequently irritated by his sidekick's apparent incompetence, Hook—a man who doesn't hesitate to shoot his own crewman for singing badly—never legitimately threatens Smee, resorting to raising a fist or giving a smack with the blunt side of his hook to show his frustration rather than taking a swipe at him with the more dangerous side of the claw. The crew, too, recognize Smee's privileged ability to speak his mind plainly to the captain without fear of serious repercussions, showing obvious disdain for him. One character is rarely ever seen without the other, and for good reason—neither one is capable of standing alone, their on-screen chemistry likely a result of the fact that animators Frank Thomas (Hook) and Ollie Johnston (Smee) were real-life best friends.

In the more lighthearted Jake and the Neverland Pirates series for Disney Junior, the characters' relationship is further expanded into actual camaraderie, and the two pirates play off each other extremely well in what voice-actor Corey Burton (current Hook) has described fondly as a “vaudeville comedy routine,” crediting the success of their dynamic in the show to his own friendship with fellow voice-actor Jeff Bennett, who performs as Smee, the relationship of the men behind the characters once again bleeding over into their fictional personas with the best possible results.

He occasionally displays qualities typical of a Disney hero.

While Barrie notes in his book that Hook is a “not wholly unheroic figure,” Disney's original film did little to show this side of the character. However, subsequent portrayals of the captain in various media indicate that this villain has the potential for moral growth. For example, in a deleted song from Return to Neverland, one of the pirates mentions Hook taking him in when he was a child. Another example of such benevolent behavior occurs in Epic Mickey: Castle of Illusion; at the end of the game when the illusion is broken and characters are saying their farewells to Mickey, Hook actually apologizes for his behavior while he was out of sorts, suggesting that although he is quite willing to fight anyone actively siding with Peter, he generally has no qualms with other Disney heroes and is capable of being civil and even polite to them. Additionally, in the Kingdom Hearts manga, Hook actually saves Peter (admittedly because he wants to have the pleasure of taking out Peter himself, but it's something, at least). Furthermore, in the preschool series Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Hook occasionally partners up with the main characters and in most instances, though he's a bit of a bully, ends up doing the right thing when hard-pressed to make a serious decision so long as Peter isn't around. In the episode The Legion of Pirate Villains, he even proudly proclaims to the main cast's common foe, “I am no mere villain. I am a villainous hero!” This concept of Hook as a sort of anti-hero was even hinted at in a line-up of character products known as the Disney Adventurers franchise sold at the Disney Store between 1999 and 2004. This franchise, originally intended to be the more masculine counterpart of the Disney Princess line, featured Hook as the ONLY villain apparently fighting alongside heroes including Tarzan, Aladdin, Hercules, and—astonishingly—Peter Pan.

TL; DR – Captain Hook is a highly complex, relatable character who deserves his place among the most iconic Disney villains. Walt and others who were critical to the development of his character loved him, and you should too.

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