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k0k0naty · 9 days

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📌attention 📌

the characters in this story have the opposite sex from the original game, and are not 100% identical to the original work, I hope you understand and enjoy.

Charles: Charlotte

Arthur: Agatha

Jonh: Jane

Dutch: Dina

Hose: Rose

Micah: Misa

Abigail: Benjamin

Lenny: Linda

Tilly: Tito

Jack: Joyce

Javier: Frida (whoever understood, understood).

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When Agatha left the barn, she realized that the others had not yet entered the house, so she approached to find out what was happening?

Agatha: It's freezing out here! Why don't you come in?

Linda: Misa and Dina are fighting with a crazy guy inside!

Agatha: What??

Agatha quickly goes in to see what's going on and finds Misa threatening a man who has an axe in his hands.

Dina: Misa! Put that gun down!

Misa: So this cutie can stick that axe in my face? No way!

The man cried and threatened them, but didn't get any closer. Man: This house is mine and my wife's!

Misa: Your wife is dead!

Dina: Misa!

The angry man uses all his anger to kick the table towards Misa, making her fall with the impact and letting the gun fly from her hands. The man approaches ready to cut Misa in half, but Dina shoots him in the hand, making him drop the axe.

Dina: Sir! Calm down! The man looks at her with pure sadness and hatred in his eyes.

Arthur: Sir, we are so sorry for your wife, we can't even imagine the pain you must be feeling, but you need to understand that we are not here to hurt you, so please calm down.

Dina approaches the man to try to calm him down, and it seems to work, he seems to be calmer, so Dina takes him to the chair and makes him sit down, offering him some water from the metal bottle that always stayed in his coat. Agatha helps Misa get up from the floor and slaps her on the head.

Misa: AA!.. what's your problem?

Agatha: What's YOUR problem? Using such a low blow against a widower.

Agatha really wanted the man to stick the axe in Misa, but unfortunately “she was family”, after that, Agatha goes outside and calls the others inside, Benjamin was still a little reluctant to go in for the safety of his daughter, but it was too cold to demand certain luxuries. Dina takes the firewood that was already cut and piled in the corner of the house and throws it into the fireplace, uses the fire from the lamp to light the fireplace and takes the opportunity to light her cigarette.

Dina: The situation this poor man is going through is horrible.

Agatha: They made him a widower, bastard animals.

Dina: Sir, what's your name?

Man:... Sandro, Sandro Adler.

Dina: Very well, Mr. Adler, you're safe now.

Man: They... They abused and... They killed... my wife, we were fine until they... they.

Dina:... We're sorry about your wife, but it's great that at least you're okay.

Everyone huddles in the house, even though there isn't much space. Misa takes advantage of Sandro's indisposition and grabs some blankets from the closet and gives them to the others. Agatha looks at her judgingly, but doesn't do anything. It turns out that all the supplies and medicines they put in their bags for the trip were taken out and placed on the table to have a fair separation for everyone.

Dina: Let's be fair, okay?

Benjamin: My daughter is hungry, she can have mine.

Agatha looks at Benjamin with a look of pity, and even though she's still hungry, she made a small sacrifice.

Agatha: There's no need for that, Benjamin, you can eat mine, I'm not hungry.

Benjamin: Are you sure?

Agatha: Sure, and another thing, I already ate a can of beans a few minutes ago.

Benjamin:.... Thank you Agatha.

Agatha: Don't thank me.

Dina: Okay, now we need the others.

After separating the food for everyone, Dina goes to rest a little, since she hadn't slept in 3 days. Misa sits near the fireplace with one of Sandro's blankets and Agatha sits near the window drawing in her diary, her train of thought is interrupted when a can of beans is offered in front of her.

Charlotte: We can share it.

Agatha: What? No need for that Charlotte, you can eat it.

Charlotte: You're hungry Agatha, let's at least share the can, okay?

Agatha tries to resist, but she knows that Charlotte was too good to see a poor outlaw pass by and do nothing, so she gives in.

Agatha: Okay, but only a little.

Charlotte sits next to Agatha and shares the spoon to eat.

Charlotte: Are you tired?

Agatha: Very tired, I haven't slept well in 2 days.

Charlotte: I'm tired too, but if you want, I can offer you my shoulder to sleep on.

Agatha: No need, besides, I need to keep watch.

Charlotte: Hm, then I'll stay awake with you.

Agatha: Charlotte, no need-

Charlotte: Two minds are better than one, don't you agree, Miss Morgan?

Agatha thought about resisting, but it wouldn't do any good, in the end, the one who would come out on top would be Charlotte, so she just accepted.

Agatha: Okay... you win, but just this once.

Charlotte: Sure, just this once.

They both stayed up all night enjoying each other's company, Agatha drawing in her notebook and Charlotte just watching the fire in the fireplace dance. It had been 2 days since Jane disappeared, Benjamin was getting worried and making it clear to everyone, complaining, trying to convince someone to go after her and staying at the door or window waiting for him to return. Agatha was in the barn feeding the horses until Benjamin showed up.

Benjamin: Agatha.

Agatha: Hm? Benjamin

Benjamin: How's your day going?

Agatha:... Don't play this mind game with me, tell me what you want.

Benjamin lets out a long sigh.

Benjamin: Please, go after Jane.

Agatha: You worry too much, she must be fine.

Benjamin: Damn Agatha, she hasn't shown up in 2 days

Agatha: She's a strong and very intelligent woman, she shows up.

Benjamin: It's been 2 days.

It seems like someone was eavesdropping on their conversation. Misa appeared by surprise, paying attention.

Benjamin: Agatha, please.

Misa: Oh, no need to waste your breath, Mr. Marston, me and... Charlotte are going to look for your dear Jane.

Agatha: Are you really going to have the courage to face all this snow?

Misa: Of course, all to help our friend.

Agatha: And why are you taking Charlotte?

Misa: She's good at hunting, maybe she's also good at tracking.

Agatha was silent, the answer made sense, but something about her bothered her a little, what was her real intention?

Benjamin: Wow, thank you very much, I owe you.

Misa: Oh, you definitely owe me, Agatha, set aside 2 horses please

Misa left, maybe to inform the others that she and Charlotte were going to do a super rescue and wanted to win praise, maybe that's it, Agatha didn't think much about it, she just took the horses and prepared them for the big mission. Charlotte looked around carefully for clues, but all this snow made things difficult.

Misa: Frida said that the last time she saw her, she had gone north.

Charlotte: Let's hope she hasn't run away again.

Charlotte and Misa headed north, and luckily found some clues, and one of them was the scarf Benjamin made for Jane hanging from one of the tree branches and footprints.

Charlotte: horse footprints.

Misa: how are you sure they're from a horse?

Charlotte: they're big and round.

Misa: it could be a deer.

Charlotte: no, deer have triangular footprints and they're smaller than a horse's.

Misa: it's incredible how you can see footprints so well in this snow, is it some kind of black skill?

Charlotte fell silent at this comment, clearly offended, but chose to swallow her answer. They continued their search in the silence and the howling winds, until Misa spoke again.

Misa: grr it's a hard wind.

Charlotte: We have to be quick if we don't want to lose the tracks.

They both sped up a bit, but the wind was getting stronger, it was almost impossible to see, Charlotte almost fell from a monstrous height because she couldn't see what was in front of her.

Misa: Are you okay?

Charlotte: It was nothing, I almost fell.

Misa: Be careful.

Her answer sounded a bit mocking, almost as if she wanted Charlotte to have fallen. Walking further ahead, they found a trail of blood that stood out in the snow, and ended up finding a frozen horse's corpse.

Charlotte: Poor animal

Misa: That horse was weak, if it died it must have been no good.

Charlotte ignored Misa's comments and stared at the horse with pity, but then her mind returned to its place and she continued to find more blood trails.

Charlotte: The path we're going to follow now is narrow, we can't take the horses.

Charlotte spoke as she got off Taima and slapped her on the butt to make her run away, Misa did the same thing.

Misa: Are you sure you know what you're doing?

Charlotte: Shoot in the air, maybe Jane will hear.

Misa grabs her gun and shoots in the air making a loud noise, but at least they hear someone calling for help.

Charlotte: It's her! Let's go

Charlotte was in front, the path was very narrow and full of holes, if your foot steps in the wrong place it's a death certificate. They were going down a small snowy hill when Charlotte felt pressure on her shoulder making her slide down the hill, by reflex, she put pressure on her shins on the ground to slow down and she saved herself by staying on the edge of the cliff.

Misa: Are you okay?

Charlotte: I am! Yes I am! But come down here quickly and help me!

Misa takes a while to get down and pulls Charlotte up, Charlotte's coat now covered in snow.

Misa: Be careful where you step, hunter. Charlotte didn't like the nickname, but she appreciates the concern. Walking further ahead, the calls for help become clearer, it was Jane, and she didn't look very well.

Misa: You have a big scar on your face.

Jane: I noticed. Charlotte gets down to help Jane.

Jane: It's so good to see you Charlotte.

Charlotte: It's good to see you too, friend. Charlotte picks up Jane and carries her on her shoulders, Jane wasn't as heavy as she thought. Misa informed them that they couldn't go the same way, so they had to be creative and find another way out.

Jane: I'm freezing.

Charlotte: You'll be fine, hang in there.

They managed to find a way out, and luckily the horses weren't that far away, but all good things come to an end quickly, when Charlotte put Jane on Taima, they heard wolf howls.

Misa: shit.

Charlotte: protect Jane, I'll keep them busy.

Misa: no, YOU protect Jane, let me keep them busy.

Charlotte: whatever you want.

Misa grabs her gun and calls the wolves' attention, in a few bullets she kills them all, but gets deep bites as a gift.

Charlotte: let's get out of here quickly before more of the "family of joy" show up.

Misa: that joke was good.

Charlotte and Misa ran away with their horses.

Jane: Those fleas killed my horse.

Charlotte: And how did you survive?

Jane: Unfortunately, I had to put my horse down and run away.

Misa: At least they didn't take your head to the puppies.

Jane: But maybe I'll die from the bites.

Misa: Don't exaggerate, it's like being bitten by a dog.

Jane: I knew a family whose uncle was bitten by a dog and died.

Charlotte: You're not going to die, not yet.

Jane: Not yet?

Charlotte gives a light laugh, but her happiness is erased when more wolves run towards them. Misa aims at them and tries to kill them while Charlotte runs away on her horse.

Charlotte: Don't get too close to them!

Misa: I know!

Misa shot each one, leaving a trail of blood in the snow.

Misa: Can you see any more?

Charlotte: No, none.

Misa: Holy shit, that was really bad. I guess it's Jane bringing me bad luck.

Jane: Agatha once told me I'm very lucky.

Misa: But luck isn't on our side today.

Charlotte: Benjamin will probably want an explanation for those scars.

Jane: I think being eaten alive was the best option.

After walking around in the snowstorm for a while, Misa asks for help to take Jane inside and Benjamin appears, picking her up and carrying her inside.

Benjamin: You're alive!

Jane: But I'm on the verge of death, honey.

Benjamin: Don't talk nonsense, you'll be fine.

Benjamin took her inside while scolding her for her stupid behavior. Charlotte offers to guard the horses while Misa goes inside to warm up.

Rose: Are you guys okay?

Misa: Yeah, just a few dog bites, nothing hard.

Rose: Let's go in and take care of this.

Agatha: Where's Charlotte?

Misa: She's guarding the horses.

Agatha: It's good to see you two okay.

Misa went inside with her arms bleeding and Agatha stood at the door waiting for Charlotte to return.

Misa: Is there any other maiden to be saved?

Dina: No, not yet

Misa: Hehe not yet

Dina: Good job, you two.

Charlotte comes inside shivering from the cold, she doesn't talk to anyone, she just grabs a blanket and lies down on the floor near the fireplace. Agatha approaches.

Agatha: Are you okay?

Charlotte: I am, I just need some warmth.

Agatha understands that Charlotte isn't very well, so she leaves a can of beans nearby in case she gets hungry later.

Agatha: Better rest then.

Charlotte: Thank you.

#red dead redemption community #red dead fandom #red dead redemption two #red dead online #red dead redemption 2 #charles smith #micah bell #arthur morgan #dutch van der linde #john marston #abigail marston #snow #horse #fanfic #womans fashion #woman

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ripley95 · 6 months

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Igniting the Fire

Chapter 3

Pairing: f!Shepard/Kaidan Alenko

Rating: T

Chapter Length: 3K

Summary:

After defeating Saren, Shepard and Kaidan are left with a big decision about the trajectory of their relationship. With the regs looming over their heads, it’s time to consider what they want. What better way to figure that out than some shore leave?

Read the full chapter on AO3

Sample:

As Jane walked back into the prefab, she still felt a lingering chill from outside despite wearing her N7 hoodie. As scorching as the days were, the evenings cooled off dramatically. She paused quickly to look back out the window, checking on Kaidan’s progress on their plans for the evening. Night had already fallen over them, and the stars were out and sparkling in the sky, casting him in a dark glow, but she could clearly see he was hard at work.

As much as this trip was meant to be for fun and to relax and to get to know each other more, somehow, today ended up being all about chores. Since this was her home now, she figured she might as well start trying to make it her own and a month alone together on a planet with not much else to do granted them a lot of time for that, along with relaxing.

They ended up spending most of the day cleaning out the storage space beneath the prefab. As much stuff that Ahern had left behind in the apartment itself, there was probably an equal amount of stuff crammed into storage. They worked through the entire space, sorting all of his belongings into things she wanted to keep or move up to the house or things she wanted to donate or throw away. There was so much to look through that it made the day pass by far more quickly than she ever expected it to, and it had completely gotten away from them.

There just so happened to be a nice patio set amidst the plethora of other belongings down there and Kaidan was setting up the lounge chairs at this very moment. Not only that, but there was some firewood piled in the back corner. As the night was setting in and she realised they hadn’t eaten dinner yet, she proposed the idea of a meal by the fire under the stars. It would be just like camping, but with the benefit of returning to their own bed whenever they wanted to retire for the evening. The best of both worlds as far as she was concerned.

#f!Shenko #shenko #f!Shepard #kaidan alenko #mass effect fanfiction #intai'sei #defining the relationship #vacation #fluff #romance #my writing

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idv-brainrot-go-brr · 2 years

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Safe haven

Chapter 1: Damage assessment

Pairing: Andrew x reader (m or nb)

Additional Info: Reader is a librarian trying to fix the manor's library

Content: fluff, (slightly) awkward conversation, Andrew having a terrible habit of hovering over people's shoulder

Chapter 1/?

Word count: 3k

Libraries have a certain scent to them. Entering one of those magical rooms filled to the brim with knowledge will make you think of wood and dust and chimney fire and a cup of excellently brewed tea with just the right amount of milk and sugar added. Or perhaps it will remind you of times spent with with friends at school, university perhaps if you ever made it that far. Many of the survivors could be found in the manor’s library room when they were in search of a quiet place to calm their fears and anxieties. Very few people were actually interested in the wide array of books stored in the massive shelves reaching all the way to the ceiling. One would certainly need a ladder or at least a chair if they were to aspire reading one of the higher stored ones. But again, most people didn’t quite care. Of course the manor’s library section wasn’t quite as large as the libraries belonging to the high class universities or private academies, but you still thought it was rather nice.

The games, the anticipation, the fear would drive everyone mad sooner or later. Everyone needed a spot to hide and calm their thoughts when they were starting to feel like world was collapsing around them. Some people chose the garden, others chose the dining area. One time you’d walked past the stairs and saw someone just sitting there by themselves staring off into the distance. It was a little odd, but if it helped then you weren’t one to judge. Your choice, naturally, was the library.

Although perfectly capable of reading and understanding the vast majority of the literature there, most of the time the mind would be too scattered to focus on the events detailed on the pages. Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein and many more. The manor had an assortment of reasonably popular and reasonably recent literature. Yet still, one had to question how these books got here even though the manor seemed to have been abandoned quite some time ago. Furthermore, if they were not all that old, why were the pages rotting? You had discovered the moisture in the library on accident, pulled a book out of the shelf out of curiosity and discovered the horrible state it was in. So your place of refuge had given you the job to save its books. Well, not like you had much else to do here.

But how do you fast-dry out a library? Especially if you’re all by yourself?

Your first instinct was to open the windows, of course. However, this had cooled the room and the connecting hallway down to such a degree that the others had began complaining about the cold. So the windows were closed again. Instead, your attention turned to the fireplace. It was hardly ever in use, mostly because no one knew for certain that it was safe. When was the last time it had been cleaned? No one here felt like dying of smoke poisoning. Still, in terms of eliminating the moisture it was probably your best bet, and so you began your noble quest to find some firewood.

The grave keeper, although he came here to make friends, didn’t always dare to interact with others. In fact, he hardly dared to do so at all. Some of the other players seemed scared of him, others seemed thoroughly uninterested in interacting with anyone else, so this left him with a very small handful of individuals he might potentially talk to. It also left him with an abundance of free time, which he mostly spent outside. The manor, despite its enormous size, felt much too claustrophobic.

That’s how he ended up watching one of his fellow players spend hours chopping wood. The person in question, obviously, was you, his probably favourite person here, entirely oblivious to the fact that someone had been observing you the whole time. You didn’t notice him approaching either, did not notice him standing close to you for quite a while until he could muster the courage to speak:

“Do you need help?”

In surprise, you lowered your axe and turned to him. He was taller than you, though not by much, and his posture was horrible. He stood slouched over, as if he was uncomfortable with his own height.

“I’ll need help carrying it inside later, if you’re eager to find something to do,” you responded.

“You’ll bring it to the storage room first, right?” he inquired.

“To let it dry, yes. I’ll take some of the dry wood up to the library with me later, so I figured I’d need to restock if I don’t want to invoke the wrath of everyone living here,” you explained.

Andrew nodded, then began picking up the wood you’d already chopped to begin carrying it inside. Now that you were looking up, you realized how much it actually was. How long had you been doing this? Goodness gracious, no wonder he’d come over to ask. You must have looked absolutely mental. A glance up to the sky told you that the sun had wandered quite far since you’d come out here. Indeed, you must have looked crazy. Well, it was nice of him to help. Your attention returned to the unchopped logs you still planned to take care of, and while you were working on stocking up enough to survive the entirety of winter in seclusion, Andrew busied himself by carrying pile by pile inside. Once you were finished, you returned the axe to its place in the shed and joined him. Your paths didn’t allign immediately, they were polar opposites at the beginning of it all, but bit by pit they synced up, until both of you were walking quietly side by side.

“It’s very nice of you to help me,” you remarked.

“Why do you want to heat up the library?” he asked suddenly, then blinked harshly, as if he was surprised at himself for changing the subject so quickly.

You raised an eyebrow at that, but made no further comment.

“I noticed that the room is too moist to store books in there. I want to dry it out before anything starts growing mold and we loose all of the books. It’d be a shame, don’t you think?” you responded.

“A shame, yes,” he replied before you both grew silent again.

The man’s thought process was a mystery to you, but once you’d brought all of the freshly chopped and still slightly wet logs inside, he began picking up some of the already-dried wood and made his way to the library. Andrew alone, being used to a physically demanding job, could carry much more than you would be able to even if you took several tours. Honestly, it was pretty impressive. In the end, the library's fireplace was stocked and you began starting a fire. It was silent between the two of you still, no words exchanged and no noise being made other than the cracking and occasional sizzling of the burning wood. Right, maybe it hadn't been that dry after all then. You stood with your arms crossed, watching the fire with an expression of intense focus. Would this be enough? Would this get the job done?

"You said the-" Andrew finally began speaking but was interrupted quite immediately by how you jumped when he did so. When had he moved from standing in the door frame to standing right behind you? Good God, this man was so tall and so strong, how was he so quiet? Why did he feel the need to sneak up on people?! While you were trying to calm your racing heart and slow your rapid breath, Andrew was tripping over his own tongue in trying to apologize. Eventually, you had to intervene.

"It's fine, Andrew. I just didn't expect you to be so close," you stated. "Please, what were you going to say?" you asked with the customer service smile that had ruled your expression during every day of your work.

Yet instead of answering, he remarked that: "You know my name?" as if it was the most remarkable achievement in human history.

You raised an eyebrow again. "Of course I know your name. So, what did you want to say?"

"If the library is moist, the water needs to come from somewhere," he finally shared his thought.

You tilted your head slightly. "Go on?"

"We're two floors above the basement and three below the roof if we count the attic. The moisture needs to come from somewhere," he said.

This was true, actually. A thought you hadn't considered yet. Where was the moisture coming from? It was one thing to dry out the room to the best of your abilities, but at the end of the day, it wouldn't do much if the root problem wouldn't be fixed. It was impossible for the moisture to come up from the floor, so your next course of action was naturally to look up. No, there was no visible water damage anywhere on the ceiling, you began walking around the room just to be sure. No visible water damage. So if it wasn't the floor or the ceiling, that left the windows and the walls. Somehow, you were hoping to find the fault with the windows, because fixing those would be much easier. You felt around them, felt the walls and eventually stepped on the window sill to reach as high as possible. While there was some condensation around the glass and frame, the wall was dry. So it wasn't the windows. That left the walls. Great.

"I'm going to have to move all of the shelves now," you sighed loudly, complaining to no one but yourself. Unfortunately, you seemed to have forgotten that Andrew was still in the room with you, and once again jumped when his voice answered you from right behind you.

"I can help-" he paused "Sorry."

"No it's alright, don't apologize. I'd appreciate it if you would help me. You don't have to though" you responded, trying once again to calm down from your third Andrew-induced heart attack that day.

"The books are in pretty bad shape over here," you explained as you began walking "so if the moisture is coming from the wall we'll probably have to move the shelves to see what's going on."

Once again in silence, you began. Both of you started taking the books out of one of the shelves that covered the wall on the right side. He reached for the higher ones instinctively and you weren't sure if this was him being genuinely helpful or if this was a quiet demonstration of "look I'm taller than you". Either way, it saved you from having to go up on that dreadful chair that threatened to break under you every single time. Even with Andrew's height though, you decided to leave in the upper two rows of books, figuring that between the two of you, you'd be strong enough to move it anyway.

"You're in here a lot," remarked Andrew eventually while you were both clearing out the books. The comment surprised you a bit. Many people came in here, all the time. How did he pay attention to you specifically? Especially if he never seemed to be around.

"I suppose? Maybe? Most people come here at some point. Some more often than others. But you're right, I spend most of my time in this room. I used to be a librarian before I came to this manor, so I suppose it makes sense. Libraries feel very comforting to me. It's like my safe haven. What about you? I rarely see you anywhere"

"I'm not good at reading"

"Most people don't read, they just enjoy the space and the silence."

"I don't like the manor. It's" he paused in both his words as well as his movement as he tried to find the correct phrases to express what he was feeling. "I fell like if I stay in here too long, the walls will collapse. I can't breathe in here"

"Oh" Well that was terrifying. "You don't have to help me you know? If it makes you uncomfortable to be in here you can go, you already helped enough I'll be fine on my own," you responded, offering a reassuring smile so he wouldn't feel guilt-tripped into staying.

He looked at you quietly for a moment.

"No, I want to stay. I want to help"

"Alright then. Thank you. It's appreciated."

Once everything was out of the way, you could see that there was some discolouration in the wallpaper pretty high up. You reached up to touch it, but found that there was a depressing distance between the tip of your fingers and the assumably moist spot. Andrew wouldn't be tall enough to reach it either, with the amount of distance there was left.

Right. So. wobbly chair it was then. You dragged it over to the now exposed wall, but before you could step on it to reach up, Andrew reached out and applied minimal pressure on one end of the backrest. Immediately, the chair tipped slightly to the side. He then slightly pulled it, making the chair cave again immediately, shifting to the other side. Apparently, not all four of the chair legs were even.

"You can't stand on that" he concluded.

"But I need to see it up close. I need to know how bad it is," you retorted.

"I'll lift you up." he decided.

"What" It wasn't a question asking him to repeat himself. You had heard him very clearly. You were just absolutely flabbergasted at the suggestion.

"I'd rather hold you up than let you stand on that chair."

"I don't think that will be necessary."

"You used to be a librarian. I used to be a grave keeper. We're returning you to your occupation, not mine"

That.... was a fair point. Alright then.

Andrew lifted you up by your waist, then leaned you against his shoulder to instead hold onto your thighs. You, who had been digging your nails into the wall for stability this whole time, could really not see how this was any safer or more stable than the chair you had initially wanted to use, but alright then. You were significantly higher up, after all, so you supposed that it had worked. But also, how come he could just lift a grown person this high up? He'd basically thrown you against the ceiling and was now casually supporting your entire body weight with his arms. He had a physically demanding job, yes, but still. This was just ridiculous.

"You're lucky that I'm not a woman," you commented, attempting to make a joke to make the conversation less awkward for yourself mostly, but unfortunately it backfired. Thanks to your words he realised not only that you were awfully close, but also realised where exactly he was touching. Andrew then proceeded to nearly drop you in shock.

How.was.this.any.safer.than.the.chair.

Anyway, he muttered a quiet apology and you told him it was fine, before straightening up again to inspect the wall. The wallpaper was so soggy that you could easily rip it and tear a bit off. There was a horizontal streak of soggy wall. It was basically impossible for this to be caused by a leak in the roof or anything. The water wasn't coming from above or below, it seemed to go through the wall from left to right. you peeled back the wallpaper until you were faced with what you had been expecting: wet stone.

"I think there's a leaking pipe behind this wall," you shared your thoughts, then placed an ear against the stone. Yeah, running water. Quiet dripping noises too.

"You can put me down now, thank you," you said and the grave keeper slowly lowered you to the ground once more. He didn't seem like this had been a physically demanding task at all. Makes one wonder how much muscle he was hiding under that awfully big coat of his. Not like you'd ever find out. Though really, you were curious about it.

A leaking pipe was an issue though. Technically, to fix it you'd have to tear open the wall, and even then there was probably no one here who had the necessary knowledge to fix this. The mechanic maybe? But then again she was the mechanic and not the plumber. You'd have to go upstairs later and check which room the pipe was coming from. Most likely one of the bathrooms. Maybe you could negotiate with the others not to use it anymore so that you wouldn't have to relocate the entire library. But that was a thought for then. Thought for later, because for today you were done with this.

So for now, you turned to Andrew.

"Right, well, thank you again"

"You're welcome," he responded. He hesitated for a few moments before he continued speaking, seemingly wanting to say more. "It's good that you have a place you like. A... safe haven, you called it."

You just nodded, unsure of what to say in response to that. So now there was silence between you, a silence that got increasingly awkward as time went on. Eventually, he decided that he had to do something about it so he turned to leave. Just as he was about to reach the door, your brain suddenly made a very impulsive decision, and so you called out to him:

"Andrew?"

He turned to look at you again.

"You said you don't come here often because you can't read well. I could teach you if you want. I mean, I could practise with you. You know?"

Both of you were stunned at this suggestion. You were surprised that you actually said that out loud and Andrew was surprised that people would willingly spend time with him.

"I would like that, I think," he responded, although somewhat hesitantly.

You nodded. "Right, then, how about tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow is good," he agreed. If you looked closely, you could spot the tiniest smile on his features. For some reason, this made you very happy.

"I'll see you tomorrow then"

And with that he disappeared.

Right. Until tomorrow then.

#idv #identity v #idv fanfic #identity v fanfic #idv x reader #identity v x reader #andrew kreiss x reader

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honeyweaselcandles · 1 year

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Candle Catalogue

Here you can find a list of all the candles I have on offer, with a link to the page to buy them and a description of the scent of said candle. It will also contain my commission information, all under the read more.

Commissions

Linked above is my commission form, once submitted I will look it over and contact you when I am ready to begin discussing it with you. Depending on other orders/commissions/my own schedule, I may not get back to you right away. Commissioned candles are, of course, more customizable than my premade variety. If you want a specific kind of vessel for your candle, for example, provided you have the funds I can make something different than my usual metal tins.

Commissioned candles do not have to be fandom related. You're welcome to commission a candle with a specific scent you like and can't find elsewhere, for religious purposes, or just about any reason you can think of. You could also commission a candle I make already, with modifications, in a different container or subbing out a scent. You could make your own blend for a character I already offer, anything at all is on the table.

If you do get a commission in my standard 4 oz tin as many people do, however, here are my prices:

To clarify: if I already own the scents necessary for what you want, there will be no extra charge. If I need to purchase new ones because I don't own them yet, that is what would cost extra.

Pre-made Candles

Here I will list all of my currently available candles and their scents, with links attached.

Egbert: Fresh air, light florals, white musk, coconut, zingy lime, bright blue razzberry gushers. (Tealight Link)

Julian Devorak: Orchid, rosemary, seasalt, black coffee, and a hint of leather. (Tealight Link)

Asra Alnazar: A mix of bright citruses, green tea, sage, with a pop of blue raspberry. (Tealight Link)

Rose Lalonde: Roses, lilac, fresh rain, and old books. (Tealight Link)

Jade Harley: Green leaves, fresh fallen snow, turned earth, and light musk. (Tealight Link)

Dave Strider: Juicy apple, thyme, sandalwood, jasmine, and vinyl. (Tealight Link)

Jane Crocker: French vanilla, almond cupcakes, and tobacco smoke. (Tealight Link)

Roxy Lalonde: Sweet cotton candy, orchids, and sea spray. (Tealight Link)

Jake English: Caramel popcorn, pine, cut wood, cedar, and woodsmoke. (Tealight Link)

Dirk Strider: Orange soda, teakwood, amber, hints of motor oil and steel. (Tealight link)

Aradia Megido: Graveyard dirt, black cherry, and petrichor. (Tealight Link)

Tavros Nitram: Worn playing cards, rock sea cliffs, warm caramel, and coconut. (Tealight Link)

Sollux Captor: Honey, apple, sage, lemon and citrus. (Tealight Link)

Karkat Vantas: Warm cotton sweaters, coffee, and maraschino cherry. (Tealight Link)

Nepeta Leijon: Dry leaves, dirt, chamo-meow-ile, mint, and a touch of patchouli. (Tealight Link)

Kanaya Mayram: Rosemary, blackberries, pepper, clean linens, and steel. (Tealight Link)

Terezi Pyrope: Dragon's blood and fruity red kool-aid. (Tealight Link)

Vriska Serket: Blood orange, grapefruit, lemon, ginger, and steel. (Tealight Link)

Gamzee Makara: Baked goods, lime, cannabis, and sea salt. (Tealight Link)

Eridan Ampora: Violets, cashmere scarves, crackling ozone, and sea spray. (Tealight Link)

Feferi Peixes: Ocean air, teakwood, fresh strawberries, and sakura blossoms. (Tealight Link)

Calliope: Brown sugar, linen, books, and lime. (Tealight Link)

Pink Frog: Bubble gum

Frog Candles

Bi Pride Frog: Rose, cashmere, black cherry, firewood, and amber.

Green Frog: Vetiver, green moss, rain water, and violets.

Gay Pride Frog: Fruity grapefruit, lemon, and raspberry.

Trans Pride Frog: Daisy, cotton candy, and honey.

Nonbinary Pride Frog: Honey, frankincense and myrrh, turned earth, and a drop of motor oil.

Lesbian Pride Frog: Cinnamon, honeysuckle blossoms, and strawberry.

#homestuck #candle #candles #fandom #small business #fan creator #nepeta leijon #dirk strider #rose lalonde #dave strider #julian devorak #jake english #sollux captor #eridan ampora #gamzee makara #calliope #the arcana

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mountain-in-springtime · 2 years

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thank so much to katie for tagging me! @safety-sam

no pressure tags: @myfriendtheghost @shutupdevvie @takenbythelightfantastic (apologies if you’ve been tagged before)

nickname: mal! my full name is mallorie but all my close friends and family call me mal

sign: pisces

height: 5’3”

last thing i googled: if lemon juice is flammable (i was trying to cure some firewood for termites)

song stuck in my head: she’s my baby by wings

number of followers: 59 (and i love all of you)

amount of sleep: eight hours unless i’m staying up doing schoolwork

dream job: film director or artist (anything in the creative field/arts really)

wearing: black athletic shorts and an orange t-shirt that says “together y’all”

books that summarize you: romancing mister bridgerton by julia quinn and dreaming the beatles by rob sheffield. i chose the first one because i just feel so connected to the female lead, and i chose the latter because it’s one man describing his love of the beatles, which i love but it really just reminds me of how deeply i love all media that’s important to me

fav song: somethin stupid by frank sinatra but it changes on a daily basis (dear yoko by john lennon is also a contender)

fav instrument: probably the guitar, piano, or clarinet (i played clarinet in middle/high school)

aesthetic: it changes, but it’s almost always vintage-inspired (normally somewhere between 50s and 80s fashion)

fav author: this is really hard bc i don’t typically read a lot of works by the same author, but a few that i do really enjoy are jane austen, grady hendrix, julia quinn, and stephen king

random fun fact: i couldn’t decide so i have two: i can’t ride a bike, and as a baby i ate so many carrots my skin turned orange

#this was so fun!!#thanks again for tagging me katie <3

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josiebelladonna · 2 years

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*puff of smoke* blizzards.

this. fucking. thing. that just hit us.

first off, it wasn’t nearly as bad (or as cold, for that matter) as they were expecting—then again, that’s california for you. if this was in nevada, they’d just tell us to put chains on and go very slowly. on wednesday, they were forecasting 9 inches and we got like 3 inches here at the house (really, i went out to the front porch with a ruler and stuck it down once the snow stopped). the snow was like powder, too, i picked some up and it crumbled immediately.

thursday, we got a quarter of an inch, and that was when our internet went out: the week before, it went out on us because we had a lot of high winds up here, and the internet guys actually showed me the data cables, how the winds completely busted and frayed them. it was over valentine’s day and the two days after so… you know. no skin off my nose. but i went out there on thursday to get a bunch of firewood while there was a break in the weather and i looked up at the power pole at the end of the driveway, and the cables and the transformer were just caked in ice, like the aftermath of an ice storm (ice storm… powdery snow… i feel like i’m in carson city again, minus all of the fun of course—you can’t hop in the car and drive down to the golden nugget for a hot meal on a day like that here 😒). figure it was a combination of that plus improper fixing of the cables.

friday mid-morning was when the blizzard actually hit, and the internet company chickened out on us at literally the last minute: and yeah, it wasn’t nearly as bad as they were expecting, especially considering the places here in california that got snow like fucking santa cruz and venice beach.

it was breezy, but not like… hurricane force winds like what they were expecting. nothing to sneeze at, it was right under the realm of your standard santa ana wind event. my mom and i had to stay in the bedroom where it was warm (“i ain’t going out there!”) though, because regardless if it wasn’t that cold as it was on its own, it was the wind chill we were concerned about.

yes, it snowed. did it ever. on saturday. friday, we got next to nada (like half an inch), but when i woke up on saturday morning, i was greeted by snow, over my knees. once it stopped, i got out there and started shoveling. my mom had a migraine all day so i spent all day saturday by myself, drawing, writing on my tablet, and when the snow finally did stop on sunday, i went out there and shoveled some more—when i came back in, because it’s a lot more strenuous than it looks, i took my top off and walked around shirtless, and i ate a bunch of hearty food to keep my strength up—i felt like a female john henry (jane henry?)

i’m no meteorologist—not yet, anyway, i want to study it at some point in the future—but i wasn’t going to make the same mistake they made back east during the “snowzilla” event of seven years ago, and waited until the snow actually stopped to measure again (they were apparently measuring every hour when it should have been like every six hours).

it actually wasn’t nearly as cold as they were forecasting, either: on wednesday, the snow that fell down below us never reached the passes and it was gone by the evening hours (i could actually see it on the hillsides across the way from my living room window). thursday, it never got down that low, even though they closed the freeway. and then friday, i’d say the only really cold part of it all was the wind: i’m looking at the wind chill factor reported at the airport then, and… yeah, no exaggeration there. even looking through the window, i could tell it was that immense.

it was my first blizzard since i lived in oregon, about ten years. that’s more than what it’s worth for something that left snow on the california beaches, the floor of the central valley, even out by victorville, and made l.a. issue their first blizzard warning since the 80s (and first time ever for san diego). but it was pretty pathetic, though, and pathetic in a sense that it was not worth the loss of the internet, either. because of this, i’m thinking of starting up a weather journal again: not sure why i gave it up a couple of years ago, but this event has weirdly renewed my desire for it. i’ll share it here if anyone’s interested.

as for the internet silence… not gonna lie, looking at ig posts and the news app on my laptop of the stories of the last few days, it seems to me that i wasn’t missing out on anything. tumblr has been getting so fucking juvenile lately that it’s boring to talk about and getting angry about it feels incredibly pointless because y’all really are that emotionally dim—hell, i’m bored just putting this on here (your precious girliness, this fucking weird trend in femininity that’s inescapable now… it’s all for the birds. pick up a shovel and move your body). instagram, for what it’s worth, has been very kind to me, but there are times in which it feels rather dry—from valentine’s onward, this has been one of those times. aside from the friends i’ve made on there, and i was thinking of alex all weekend, it’s been pretty meh lately. i don’t give a shit about twitter anymore, and facebook… show of hands, who here actually unironically still uses facebook. most people who are my age or younger who use it anymore are either borderline psychotic or painfully uninteresting, such that they’re boring to talk to.

but i couldn’t listen to music, and i couldn’t watch tv. i could write, though, i could write on my tablet: nevertheless, it was probably the one pitfall of being offline. oh! and my mom was supposed to start a new at-home job on thursday, too—it was temporary, only lasting for about a month, but… you know. we thought for sure the damned thing was going to hold up especially since there was no wind on thursday morning and it was completely fine on wednesday.

i also associate the internet company hold music with the smell of my own shit now (literally, whenever my mom called them, i was on the toilet).

so, what did i do? besides write on my tablet, the worst at what i do best: make art. mostly illustrations for as the seasons grey, but also the art that’s on my to-do list.

speaking of as the seasons grey, i have it slated for the 7th but even then, i might change the date because shit could happen again. it’s really weird how the outages have coincided with my bringing this one to fruition: i don’t have anything to post right away and so, the internet falls away for a bit so i can get my ducks in a row. there’s just something weirdly coincidental about that.

in fact, i’m starting to see staying offline as an act of self-love: that’s certainly how i treated it in late 2016 when election stuff was ramping up and family was on my case about everything.

i was offline during valentine’s day and i shit you not, about 20 minutes before it happened, i said, “i’m already fed up with this nonsense” out loud. 10 o’clock in the morning, everywhere i looked, online, and on tv, was valentine’s nonsense. i already hate valentine’s day, it’s just dumb, a saccharine, stomach-churning, nauseatingly over-commercialized “holiday” that puts material value on a perfectly natural feeling to the point of sucking all the life and sincerity out of it (the utter onslaught of shitty, capricious, obnoxiously ubiquitous posts about mutuals do anything but help, either). of course, i was fed up.

i’m not going to be an “infrequent ____ checker” and—😂😂😂😂😂 i’m not going to finish that 🤣

but when i made more art for as the seasons grey, at one point, i thought to myself, “tumblr could not be more incorrect. hell, all these sites could not be further away from the truth. it’s imperative to have a friend group, sure, absolutely. but sometimes, you do need to stand on your own. you have to be your own friend, your own source of inspiration, your own help, especially when said help from the outside annoyingly chickens out on you at the very last minute and suddenly, winter weather becomes incredibly tiresome.”

nevertheless, this had to have been the longest february ever, from the internet outages to my love of meteorology to finding out my mail was stolen to my outburst to fuckuary feeling like a complete fever dream: never has this 28 day month felt like 28 weeks before. i don’t think february 2018 even went by that slowly. was it worth it? …yeah, i believe so. it was all about me stepping into my own.

something of interest did happen on friday, though: i was coming out of the bathroom and i happened to look out the window right as the sun was coming out of the clouds. it was 5 o’clock so it hung low over the horizon; all the while the snow was coming in at a low angle (blizzards give us sideways snow moving at high speeds: this snow was moving at a snail’s pace in comparison to some of the blizzards i’ve experienced in oregon and nevada). there was a break in the clouds and i closed my eyes as the sun washed over me. it was like a meditative state: my mind went blank and all i could fixate on was the sun.

then alex burst into my mind, those deep, rich blue eyes, as if they came on the back of the sunlight. i opened my eyes and gazed out to the snow, and it seemed to slow down even more. i looked up at the clouds, this big one moving along at a fast clip, and joey and krista entered my mind right then. i watched the cloud move over the sun, and it literally took the shape of a dragon’s head. it was like something out of a dream, it was surreal.

#text #california blizzard

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starlingsrps · 4 months

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no way to say goodbye.

“sidney, darling, thank god you’re here.” mum kisses him in each cheek and starts to steer him towards the sitting room, as casually as she’s capable of doing anything. “the-“

“heat pump?”

“heat pump,” she responds gravely.

“i got it, kitty,” he says, hanging his hat on the newel post and his coat on the rack. dorey catches this conversation as she’s coming down the stairs and he gives her a broad wink and mouths “favorite” at her.

dorey wants to roll her eyes but knows it’s likely the truth. it’s december and he’s been coming around long enough to slip easily into her parents affections. she’s learned that it’s very easy to like sid- he has the easy disposition of a friendly labrador and mum adores him. he eats whatever she comes up with when she improvises from the rationing cookbook without comment and can fix the frequently broken heat pump seemingly by magic. they had even presented him with a wrench on his birthday a few weeks ago, the kind of recklessly thoughtful gesture that they’re prone to.

“you tried, didn’t you?” he asks when she joins him on the rug.

“maybe.” she had yesterday, a bit too cocky after the last time when she’d fixed it herself with only minimal input from him. they’ve yet to be able to find a replacement gasket but if keeps sid coming over, her parents seem all too willing to tolerate it. they were slightly less enthused when she’d made it worse but perked up after promised he would be there to fix it soon.

he clicks his tongue and shakes his head. “you stripped the screw, dore.”

“i don’t even know what that means.”

he laughs. “exactly. you’re back to assistant duty.”

she tugs his earlobe and then kisses the back of his neck. “prat.” her mother calls from the kitchen, likely to witness the triumph of her newly created vegetable loaf emerging from the oven. “you’ve just lost your assistant.”

it’s just the four of them for lunch today and mum cheerfully encourages seconds of the vegetable loaf. it’s been quiet since jane left to study in new york and jessa is visiting cas in galway with the intention of hauling him back for christmas. the loaf has a similar appearance to a bit of firewood and is about as dry but with enough brown sauce, it’s not the worst thing to emerge from the depths of her mother’s imagination. sid takes thirds and doesn’t seem at all disturbed by the fact that it bears a striking resemblance to something from the forest.

she draws the line at bringing the idea to the ministry of food. it’s hardly her department and anyway, haven’t the people of britain suffered enough creative use of turnips?

after they finish, dorey and sid are m wrapping up to go for a walk, maybe go to a movie (and make out in the back row of the movie) when the news interrupts the mahler symphony playing in the sitting room. the words wouldn’t have mattered much to her before sid but when she hears the words about an attack on an american base in hawaii, her attention turns to him. he’s frozen, half in and half out of his coat and she realizes that she’s never seen someone at the exact moment their life changes.

“shit.”

“sid-“

“i have to go, excuse me. i need to - fuck, my hat?”

she picks it up from the newel post and silently offers it. he takes it, trying to kiss her cheek as he does. he misses, bumps the bridge of her nose instead. he swears and grips her chin to kiss her hard. “i’ll-“

“when you can,” she interrupts. “be safe.”

by mid january, she’s fairly certain she’s been dumped by a man she wasn’t even technically dating.

she hasn’t heard a word and the note she sends him at base come back return post. when she finally gets brave enough to call, she’s told he’s no longer there and no, they won’t say where. she arbitrarily sets her birthday as a deadline and then resets it for february - they met then and it seems only fair to wait at least that long.

still nothing.

she lets herself stew on it another few days (making a list of things she could have possibly done wrong before burning it) and then throws herself into work. foolish to let herself forget it. there will be time for romance, time for a life when the war ends, if that ever comes. she thinks in code and spends her time with the other codebreakers, all of whom are blessedly uninterested in anything but codes. her free time dwindles and her life becomes a triangle between her room, hut six, and the occasional visit to jessa to sit on her sofa and drink wine. she can’t quite bring herself to cross the river and have to explain sid’s suddenly very conspicuous absence to their parents, nor can she bring herself to cut out jessa.

“have you talked to sid lately?” jessa calls from the kitchen.

it’s april and she hasn’t said a peep about him in weeks but dorey should have known she was simply biding her time. she feels a deeply unwelcome pang in her stomach. it’s been at least four days since she thought about him and she’d been so proud of herself, as though she was trying to win a one woman contest. “no,” she calls in response. “i haven’t.”

jessa makes a sad little sound that only pisses dorey off. “i’m sure he’s just busy,” she says, handing her a glass of wine. “nothing to do with you.”

“no, of course. but it’s been three months.” she frowns at the wine. “four. it’s hard to not take that a bit personally.”

“do you want to talk-“

“absolutely not, thank you.” she takes a deep gulp. “i’ve been dumped before. i’ll survive.”

jessa pats her leg and gives her a look that makes her want to jump out of a window. “you should talk about it, love. you’ll feel better.”

“i will not. i feel fine,” dorey lies. “he’s very busy and i’m very busy and it was never all that serious. jessa, there’s a war. please be reasonable.”

“everyone needs someone to love them, dorey, war or not.”

she sips and thinks of sid’s sweet, sleepy smile against her skin and the way she felt herself bloom under his attention. it wasn’t as though she’d never dated before or been in a relationship but unlike half the cambridge dons she’s been with, she never felt like he was humoring her until she took her top off. he listened and she couldn’t have imagined how quick she could get used to that. she misses his easy laugh and feeling wanted. she feels a spark of tears and blinks them away quickly. “i wouldn’t call it that.”

jessa rolls her eyes and settles back against the sofa. “of course not. what are we calling it then? for future reference.”

“very good sex and conversation,” she says, returning to caustic. it feels safer this way.

“and that’s half the battle, isn’t it?” she sighs. “i don’t know, i thought-“

dorey kicks at her. “don’t think anything.”

#type: writing #s: dorey x sidney #verse: at the end of the world

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anomalous-mother3 · 1 year

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Jane: But enough about unrelated topics, it feels like I’m being taken back to when it all began. Like a movie you’d rewind.

Jane: And if that’s the case… I wonder what I’ll find. At least till I can get back to my home.

#mother 3 #act 0; prologue #anomalivity au #char. jane firewood #mother 3 au

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mycharacterdump · 10 months

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𝐋𝐘𝐎𝐍𝐄𝐓 '𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐄' 𝐌𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐄𝐑 a three - part symphony .

there's a blue light in my best friend's room there's a blue light in his eye i wanna see it shine there's a ship that sails by my window there's a ship that sails on by there's a world under it i think i see it sailing away i think it's sailing miles crashing me by crashing me by.

PART I. BLOOD

Things weren’t always this way.

When I was a kid the clouds didn’t hang like gallows, the summers were swelteringly hot and the winters bitterly cold in the throes of the Mojave but I found salvation in river water and the crackling of firewood in the den, there were bubblegum scented secrets and promises sworn with dirt stained fingers, adventures every corner I turned, I could hear a melody in everything — even the windstorms that battered on our window shutters, even in the arguments my parents had that echoed off the kitchen tiles, even in the deafening silence of night. Music was imbued in every sound and the whole world was a lengthy love ballad that I had the divine pleasure of dissecting.

The day that music died, I was on my bedroom floor trying to decipher my pre-algebra homework and snacking on a pre-assembled food platter that Mom always bought on her way home from work. She could never be bothered to make them herself like other moms at my school did. Every other week there was a food related fundraiser where all the normal mothers in their Suburbans and perfectly ironed collared shirts would strut up the front steps of The Meadows with fresh baked brownies and gingersnaps or some obscure casserole recipe for Thanksgiving, and I would arrive alone to my classroom with a plastic container of sugar cookies.

As much as I resented her for it, the sugar cookies were always a hit with the other kids. Still I wished she would put in more effort. Even if I wasn’t technically hers. I could’ve been, though, I realized early on. If she wanted to, she could’ve claimed me.

Dad was put in the driver’s seat when I turned three. That’s when Mom wanted to go back to work after spending the last nine years raising my older half-brother George and I. Dad tried his best but he seemed damned by the universe in nearly everything he did when it came to homemaking.

I overheard him once tell Mom jokingly that Mercers were cursed. Then I heard her agree.

Anyway, I was rail thin and still had a head full of dark brown hair that I always had pinned up in braids I learned myself, I walked through the front door and bright hazel eyes that hadn’t witnessed a shred of conflict. I was still dressed in my pressed blouse and navy blue skirt that had been my school uniform since I was five years old. I was kicking my legs around, colorful socks adorning my feet after I discarded my Mary Janes, the poster child for well-off, cautiously rebellious children everywhere.

My ears were plugged with a pair of earbuds that I had connected to my iPod. Dad let me buy whatever album I wanted off of our account for my birthday that year, so I wisely chose Avril Lavigne’s Goodbye Lullaby. While What the Hell reverberated against my eardrums I could faintly pick out the sound of the front door opening and slamming shut. That was a tell tale sign that George had gotten home from his study group — he and I had a terrible habit of being too rough with everything we touched.

He must’ve noticed I’d stolen the platter, because instead of ducking into his room so he could continue studying (The Meadows was brutal when it came to homework, I realized as soon as I gradated elementary), he barged into my room. I let out a theatric scream with my mouth full of broccoli and scowled at him.

“I could have been naked!” I cried out.

“God forbid I see you in a Hello Kitty training bra,” George snorted dismissively as he went to steal the platter. I held it away from him. “Don’t start, Lyo.”

“I’m still eating,” I hissed at him.

George and I never did get along. He was six years my elder and I think kind of resented me for being born. I took all the attention away from him and, since Dad took the reins, had less of a strict upbringing than he did with Mom. Plus I was just as smart as he was and it didn’t even take me hours of studying to get where I was already. That really pissed him off, despite the fact he had just gotten accepted to NYU Grossman and had taped the acceptance letter over my straight-A report card on the fridge so no one forgot.

Most people didn’t even register that we were siblings, as while we both possessed gangly limbs and a face painted in freckles and the same green-brown hue in our irises, we couldn’t have been more different otherwise. He had a head full of ginger hair that I always weirdly envied as I was given my birth mother’s dark tresses, and he had a paler complexion, skin ghostly white while mine was more sun kissed — which I thought looked better anyway, considering we lived in Nevada. His nose jutted out from the middle of his face and mine was flat in a way that my first grade teacher described as puggy and his eyes were round and puffy and mine were angular with a distinct curve.

We both considered this a blessing, even if I used to pray at night that I would wake up and we’d look more alike so the kids and teachers at school would see me as a real Mercer.

“You’re gonna need to start packing soon,” he chose to say while popping a carrot into his mouth. I narrowed my eyes at him. He didn’t falter. Why would he, after all? I was seventy-five pounds of attitude and a bit of arrogance.

“Why would I do that?” I asked in return. “Are we going to Disney Land or something?”

George chewed his carrot loudly. I flinched but tried my best to focus on the equation in front of me when he didn’t answer me immediately. “No,” he eventually said. “New York.”

“New York?” I echoed. He nodded. “Why are we going there? To see your stupid college?”

“Because Mom’s moving there,” he informed me.

I seemed caught off guard by this. I didn’t believe him at first, naturally. “Bullshit.” I denied.

“Not bullshit,” he said. “Don’t act surprised. You know her and Dad have been fighting since forever.”

I swallowed when he said this. I knew that much was true — Mom and Dad couldn’t seem to last a day without divulging into a petty argument over the most menial things. I had learned a long time ago how to drown it out and immerse myself in my own world. When I was really little I would try and intervene, thinking I could somehow save them from each other, but of course I was too small and my voice didn’t carry and I was always overlooked.

“I’m not going to New York,” I immediately denied.

“... Okay,” George said as he shrugged and left my room with the platter, kicking the door shut behind him.

And that was that. No one was putting up a fight for me. Not like they ever did.

I guess they thought I would feel grateful. It would be Dad and I, how Mom thought it should’ve been since the day I was left on their doorstep. And I wasn’t that upset over it being the two of us, more so that I had every gnawing doubt confirmed that she held no maternal instinct when it concerned me. Not even deep in the crevices of her psyche. Not even in her DNA, like they said most mothers did.

I was holding out hope she would take me in as her young.

In truth, she would’ve eaten me alive.

Dad encouraged me to help George pack — a symbol of good faith, I once thought, before I walked in on Dad collapsed in a puddle of his own tears and I realized that he himself couldn’t stomach seeing his first born and only son off. This time I felt this immeasurable guilt. Somehow, I’d convinced myself that this was all my doing. If I hadn’t been born or if my birth mother had wanted me, none of this would be happening. I had destroyed a family. The one thing my father ever wanted, I singlehandedly dismantled with my hands still too small to fit a human heart in them. How was I meant to fix him? I couldn’t even take his burdens for him, if just for a moment.

We watched Mom and George climb into her sleek Porsche and cruise out of Jadeleaf Court where we had spent my entire life as a family, or else a crude resemblance to one.

The silence between Dad and I was deafening.

Life, as always, carried on. I went to school the next day without pestering George in the kitchen over breakfast. We were territorial about our shared love of Cap’n Crunch Berries. Now the family size box was all mine. It felt odd, sitting alone at the kitchen isle and scooping up the greasy cereal and shoveling it into my mouth without worrying about my older brother creeping up behind me so he could dump the bowl onto my uniform. Dad and I didn’t know what to talk about during the car ride to school. Normally there were interjecting voices complaining at each other that made us laugh to ourselves, because how couldn’t they see how wonderful the world was outside of their material worries? And when I came home at the end of the day, the house was silent. The peace was disturbing.

Kids at school weren’t shy to gossip. Some of them who lived in my neighborhood had witnessed Mom’s car leave and never come back, others heard whispers from their parents who worked with her at the dinner table and soon enough it was public knowledge that we were on our own. I tried not feeling ashamed; I tried embracing it, that we were taking on the world ourselves, but it was difficult when an invisible weight was placed on my shoulders every time I passed a group of people in the hallway and they’d side-eye me like I was some circus freak for not having a mother anymore.

One day, after I’d stepped off the bus (Dad went back to work full-time about a month after they left, so no more pick-ups), I was dragging myself home through the thick heat of the desert and drowning out my surroundings with music when I noticed a car pull up beside me. It was slim and black and there was a Chevrolet emblem reflecting the sunlight off the hood. I was never that interested in cars, but I did recognize this one. It was Mr. Echols’. He taught pre-calc, a class I had undertaken that year ahead of all my peers. I always thought he was handsome; he had short-cut black hair that began sprouting a few shakes of salt on the sides, these piercing blue eyes, and a cocksure demeanor that catered well to an audience of hormonal girls on the edge of seventeen. I also liked the way he would untuck his shirt at the end of lessons on long days and I could catch a glimpse of his lower stomach and happy trail. The boys said it was intentional. I thought they were all stupid.

“Lyonet?” Mr. Echols spoke up as he rolled down his window. I tucked some flyways behind my ear, wondering if he meant me and not some other Lyonet that happened to be walking down the same street as me. But he kept looking at me with his dreamy eyes and I almost sunk into the scathing concrete. Almost. I managed to swallow my quickly forming doubts about my appearance and nodded at him.

“That’s me,” I replied, my whole disposition a bit maladroit.

“What are you doing walking in this heat?” he asked, his mouth slanted as he flashed me a grin and jerked his head toward the empty passenger seat. “Get in, I can drive you home.”

I didn’t have the stomach to tell him that most doctors would conclude I was still too small to be allowed in the passenger seat, obediently rounding the front of the car and climbing inside. I fumbled around for the seatbelt before I could hear Mr. Echols chuckle and reach over, pulling the leather strap over me and buckling me in. I glanced up at him, my hazel eyes, the only thing I inherited from Dad, it seemed sometimes, crossing gazes with his own that I thought had more backlight whereas every time I saw myself in the mirror it looked like my soul had been carved out and I was some uncanny valley replicant of who once was Lyonet Mercer.

“What’s your address?” he then inquired. I gave him the answer in a too quiet voice. “What was that?”

“9236 Jadeleaf Court,” I repeated, a little louder this time.

Mr. Echols nodded and pulled away from the curb. I glanced through the rearview mirror and watched the stop sign I was at shrinking in the distance, the words warping from behind the heat waves.

It didn’t occur to me until he began talking that I still had music playing faintly in my ears. I quickly yanked my earbuds out and crumpled the wires up in my hands and he chuckled in a way that made me feel warm and my guts twist inside out.

“You couldn’t tear me away from my Walk-Man when I was a kid,” he said, giving a fond sigh as he cruised along the streets of Cherry Creek. “I’d rather have died than sit on the bus without any music. Of course, well, I listened to old shit. The Police, Van Halen, R.E.M, etc.”

I smiled at him. I liked hearing people talk about music — it was one of the few things Dad and I had left that wasn’t tainted by Mom and George’s leaving. “I love those,” I told him. He seemed caught off guard.

“Wasn’t aware kids knew them,” Mr. Echols said. He sounded earnest about it rather than condescending, which I appreciated. “Everyone in my classes is listening to Kanye and Jay Z and, uh, Nicki Mirage?”

“Minaj,” I corrected with a laugh that left my lips before I could stifle it. “I — I like them, too. But my Dad only listened to old rock when I was little. Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and Sonic Youth and Def Leppard… Some Blondie, too. We would dance around the kitchen to More Than A Woman.”

Mr. Echols sported that charming grin again that made me sink further into my seat. “Wow, a man of taste. Or maybe just an old man like me,”

“I don’t think you’re that old,” I decided to return. Who knew I could be so playful? Nowadays I felt too drained to give anyone the time of day, let alone the sprite I used to possess.

He laughed, then leaned in closer and my eyes widened before he grabbed onto the glove box and opened it. A binder of CDs was revealed and his eyebrows perked up at me encouragingly. I reached my hands forward and slid it out of the compartment, immediately starting to browse his collection. I must’ve been smiling hard because he stuck his hand out to poke at my cheek.

“How’s that for old? Pop one in, we’ll drive a few circles around the neighborhood.”

In the end, we wound up doing three loops around the subdivision while jamming out to Ghost in the Machine. I would headbang and he would laugh and then join in when we came to a full stop. During the songs I did recognize, we would turn them into duets, and it wasn’t until the sun was cresting the horizon that he finally pulled up in front of my house and ejected the CD from the mouth of the player.

I grabbed my backpack up off the floor after unbuckling myself, not needing any help this time, and smiled brightly at Mr. Echols. I couldn’t remember the last time I had so much fun or felt so carefree. Not even my friends could coax laughter out of me most days where as once my voice was my most prized instrument.

“... Thanks, Mr. Echols,” I said at last.

“Rory,” he corrected me. I could feel my heart flutter. We had graduated to a first name basis already? I felt compelled to return the gesture.

“Lyo,” I returned and stuck my hand out cheekily. He rolled his eyes as if we’d been friends for decades and needed no introduction, but he eventually caved and accepted it, shaking my hand gently.

As I pulled my hand away and began to push myself out of the passenger seat, he grasped my shoulder in an attempt to stall me. It worked. Of course it worked. I looked back at him and cocked my head sideways curiously.

He pressed his lips into a thin line before bringing his cell phone out his pocket. “Put your number in,” he said. “For emergencies. I know it’s just you and your Dad now. I wouldn’t want you to feel alone if anything happened to him.”

I blinked in surprise. I wasn’t sure it was allowed, but then again, I couldn’t find it in me to care. I accepted his phone and typed in my number and saved it under the initial L. I didn’t add any emojis. That seemed too risky, at least in my opinion. So did giving him a name that was easily identifiable. I didn’t want him getting in any trouble over a good deed.

I finally left the car and trotted up to the front door, a grin forming on my lips.

From then on out, I was beginning to feel like myself again. Maybe even a little better. I woke up early in the mornings like I used to and made breakfast for Dad and I — even if it was just bowls of cereal — and I would take my time in the shower so I could condition my hair twice to make it look extra shiny and smooth for when I got to school, plus I started paying for my uniforms to be dry cleaned like Mom used to have them done before and I convinced Dad to take me out driving. I wanted to learn as to not have that dependence on the bus anymore, since the kids were still ruthless and took pleasure in tugging on the braids that took me the better half of each morning perfecting and snatching my phone out of my hands to see what I was using as a means of ignoring them all. For private school snobs, they acted like fucking animals.

I was looking forward to the holidays. The entire summer and half of autumn had been the worst time of my life and I knew that with my invigorated spirit Dad and I could make something worthwhile out of what we were given. I didn’t even care if George planned on making time to fly out for Thanksgiving or Hanukkah; I had it covered from here on out. I was ahead of the curve. Acing all my tests, avoiding half the curbs upon rounding street corners, and keeping up with my appearance more than I ever had before.

I was nearly full grown.

PART II. FLESH

The first day of Hanukkah I had received a text message from Rory. We were communicating daily at that point, even on the weekends. He would ask me about school and my homework at first, then it unraveled into him divulging all the gory details about the affairs rampant in the teacher’s lounge, and eventually I would clue him in on the day to day student theatrics that took place in my other classes.

R: Think you can meet me at the end of the street?

I glanced away from my Korean coursework (Dad insisted that I take extra classes after Mom and George left) when I noticed my phone light up and I could feel a smile being woven on my lips.

L: be there in a sec

I rifled through my drawers for some after school clothes and settled on a shorter cut sundress and one of Dad’s hand-me-down cable knits, pulling my hair up into two messy space buns that sat square on the back of my head before tugging on my sneakers and rushing out of my bedroom, practically tumbling downstairs. When Dad called out asking what the fuss was about, I dismissed it with a simple Diggy’s outside. Diggy, or Diego, was a kid I’d befriended in the fifth grade and the only thing that kept us in the same circle was our shared adoration for Dungeons & Dragons. He was a cleric. I was a fighter. We worked well together, I thought. We always had each other’s back.

And it’s not like I didn’t want Dad to know about Rory — okay, maybe I didn’t, because I had enough wits to understand that we’d struck up an unusual sort of relationship but I didn’t know if I had the vocabulary available to explain to Dad that it wasn’t like what met the eye. I was an old soul after all, like he’d said from the time I was a toddler, and that meant mine and Rory’s were the same.

I wrote somewhere it was like we were forged from the same star. The more we got to know each other the brighter we burned together.

I spotted his car from my driveway and sped walk down the street. I kept readjusting my sundress and sweater, hoping one wouldn’t detract from the other as I approached the passenger side and ducked into the seat. Rory was watching me the entire time with a grin I could only describe as fond. It made my heart flutter, admittedly.

“That’s cute,” Rory said at first. My eyebrows leaned inward and he gave a chuckle. “What you’re wearing. You know you don’t have to dress up for me.”

Instinctively my face flushed and I touched my cheek which felt like it was burning. “I was just changing. School makes me sweat.” I blurted, then flinched at my wording. He was amused by it, at least. I kept cursing myself in my head until he reached out and brushed his fingertips across the back of my neck.

“I meant it as a compliment,” he reassured. “I like your hair this way. Let me guess, you appreciate old cinema as well as music?”

“... Is Star Wars that old?” I asked in return with a crooked smile. It took every ounce of confidence for me to summon anything more than awkward, disjointed laughter that I felt bubbling up in my chest.

“Guess not. It’s not technically cinema either.” he joked as he leaned back casually against his seat, his arm still slung over the head rest of my seat.

I glanced around for a moment, then cleared my throat. “So, um… What’s up?” I asked eventually. The tension between us was palpable. I nearly choked on it.

“Oh, that’s right,” Rory said, reaching behind me and pulling out a sloppily wrapped gift box from the backseat. My eyes widened, caught off guard by the sudden gesture. We were giving each other presents now? But it wasn’t even Christmas yet, so maybe I had time— “Happy Hanukkah, Lyo.”

I lit up. He had gotten me something for a holiday he didn’t even celebrate? I beamed down at the present before he coughed into his fist, prompting me to begin opening it. When I tore away the crinkled wrapping paper and slid off the lid, I was taken aback by the sight of his binder of CDs decorated with a bright red bow.

“Holy shit,” I breathed out as I reached to take it out of the box. “Is this—?”

“My personal collection,” Rory confirmed with a chuckle.

I started shaking my head. Manners dictated I did so. “I can’t have this,” I insisted first while still taking a peek at all of the CDs kept in their individual sleeves.

“Of course you can. It’s already yours. Plus, it’ll get much more use out of you these days than it will me,” he said, extending a hand to place upon mine. I could feel every nerve in my body being struck by pulses of adrenaline.

“... Thank you,” I said quietly. I didn’t think it through when I looked up at Rory and saw his blue-blue eyes and stupidly alluring grin and leaned in so I could leave a soft kiss on his pinkened cheek. I froze in place, knowing I must have crossed some invisible boundary that had been set up from the moment we became friends off campus, but while he didn’t respond at first eventually he placed a hand under my chin and tilted my head so our lips could meet.

It was gentle and tentative and everything I could’ve ever asked for out of a first kiss. All the other boys that showed interest in me before were too eager, too obnoxious and not to mention too grimy. Rory was none of those things — he was their diametric opposite, really. He was calm, he paced himself in everything he did, he was mellow and he had this intoxicating scent of cologne that he must’ve knew would drive all the girls in his class insane. It certainly had that effect on me.

He pulled away before I did. Personally, I could’ve kept kissing him until I lost my breath, but then I reminded myself we were still in plain sight and anyone passing by could’ve seen us and been thrown off. The last thing I wanted was some middle-aged mother witnessing us together and crying wolf over a situation I felt I had total control over, so I sunk back into my seat with the binder still in my lap.

“I should go,” Rory said at last. I eyed him for a long time, still feeling the compulsion to bring him into another kiss. I couldn’t help it. I hadn’t felt so aware of my surroundings until that very moment. Life had felt like I was wading through a pool of old memories and remnants of what could’ve been ever since Dad and I were left on our own.

“I — I liked it,” I said suddenly. He glanced over at me, seeming more wary than before, and it made me feel guilty. I had instigated it. I might’ve just ruined it, too. “And I like you. A lot. I know it’s strange because of our ages but — but no one’s really cared to try and, y’know, talk to me and even care about my life, like, ever. Ever ever. But I don’t wanna ruin this, either, so if I should stop just tell me—”

“Lyo,” he let out.

“No, really, it’s fine, I’ll go,” I decided as I held the box close to me and went to open the door. Before I could step out, Rory took a hold of my upper arm and kept me seated. I looked back at him. He seemed conflicted; not sure whether letting me go or having me stay would be the right choice. I knew it must’ve been difficult and I wished that burden hadn’t been plaguing whatever relationship we had.

His eyes met mine. Time stilled. “North Shore Inn,” he said. “it’s in Overton. Meet me there on Saturday. Ten o’clock.”

I’d never been to Overton nor heard of the North Shore Inn, but I wasn’t going to reject his offer. It might’ve been the last night of Hanukkah, however I knew that Dad would likely be asleep by then and I could sneak out with relative ease, and I was right. I didn’t know how I was supposed to dress — casual or showy? I lacked any of the tool to put on a face of makeup; Mom had given me the products she wasn’t bringing with her to New York, but those had long since expired and I feared the repercussion would be a horrendous outbreak, so I decided to make up for it by wearing one of my form-fitting tees and the most expensive cargo pants I owned. I covered myself up with an oversized hoodie after assembling my hair into buns and crept downstairs.

I was right. Dad was passed out in the recliner. Unlike most fathers, one glass of wine incapacitated him rather than a pack of beers, which was kind of ironic considering he was born and bred in France. He used to tell George and I he quit drinking for us. George never really believed him, mostly because Mom was hypervigilant every time he held a glass of whiskey at backyard gatherings that he would at best sip at to be polite before pouring it into the bushes. That was the Dad I remember. My Dad. I wondered often if George felt betrayed by him when I was born. Maybe that was why he refused to see him as anything but a pretentious wannabe philosopher — I just saw a man trying desperately to mend the wounds he created in his youth through the only means he knew how: not through hard logic but sensibility.

Not so many men in the world were that gentle and thoughtful. No one, I thought, except for Rory.

I biked across town, my calves straining by the time I had crossed the limit into Overton. After a while of aimlessly cruising around I spotted the glowing sign for the North Shore Inn. I could feel a pit form in my stomach which disconcerted me at first before I pushed it aside and pedaled forward. I ditched my bike near the fence and hoped no one on this side of town would feel compelled to grab it, sauntering around the premises until I stumbled across Room 44.

Holding my breath I stared at the metal numbers. Could this be real? It had to be, as I was more aware of every extremity I possessed not to mention all the organs that pulsed deep within the cavity of my chest. Finally, I raised my fist and left three quick raps on the door. A part of me didn’t expect anyone to answer. Maybe he’d changed his mind. Maybe he thought it was too risky, that I wasn’t worth losing everything for. I would’ve understood. It wouldn’t be the first time someone left me behind.

Then, the door came open, and I saw his smile and the whole world began spinning faster on its axis.

He told me I looked comfortable. I felt a blush encroach upon my cheeks so I reached down and tugged my hoodie over my head, revealing the tunic I had on underneath. His expression softened as he examined me; I felt like I was being picked apart surgically, all methodical and calculated. I was still a skinny thing. I found it difficult to eat the past few months, even more so than before. Hanukkah was supposed to have helped, but I felt too nauseous half the time thinking about Rory and the time we’d spent together. It was a good sick, I think. A lovesick.

After scrutinizing me for a while, he invited me to sit beside him on the edge of the motel bed. It was stiff and the duvet was noticeably cheap but I didn’t mind. All I could focus on was him. He reached out and placed his palm against my burning cheek. I swallowed hard. I didn’t know what to do, how to perform best for him — he’d surely had plenty of women, how was I meant to compete?

You can relax, he said, all breathy and full of tension. I obeyed as best I could. I let my shoulders go slack and I could feel my breathing slow, though it was more of an intentional thought than a natural response. Our eyes met for just an instant before his gaze drifted to where my lips were. I’d smothered them in lipgloss as I was heading out the door, so they shimmered and would taste like strawberries. Instead of engulfing me in a heated kiss, he moved his thumb over my mouth to smear away the lipgloss and then pressed his lips against mine.

My eyebrows furrowed but I didn’t protest. How could I? I figured I’d wanted this for longer than even I had realized in that one paralyzing moment. And I was paralyzed. For some reason it felt like I was no longer in control of the situation as he lowered me onto the lumpy pillows and groped parts of me that hadn’t yet been explored by anyone and left dry kisses on my face and neck. I squirmed around at some point, which must’ve upset him somehow as he grasped my wrists and pinned them above my head. My breathing quickened. I felt my heart rebel against me as it rattled in my chest. He must’ve felt it somehow, because he kept saying Relax, relax, relax, but I couldn’t.

I don’t know what happened. I thought I was ready for this. I felt ready until the moment I dreamt of had come to fruition and I could feel his hands all over me and his lips reaching places I had only ever touched in the dark. When I lowered my arms so I could place them on his shoulders in an attempt to ground myself it only seemed to irritate him as he held tightly onto my wrists and pinned them back above my head.

I tried to like it. I wanted to so badly. More than anything I wanted to find the beauty and pleasure in the act. The raw passion and the aching desire. But I just… Laid there. Almost entirely motionless, I stared up vacantly at the ceiling and counted each thrust he made, tears stinging my eyes as I hadn’t anticipated the intense panging below my stomach to radiate throughout my lower half. The room was eerily quiet apart from his grunts and curses he’d say under his breath.

Then, at some point, he lifted himself up from where he’d splayed atop me and he reached for the nightstand. I wondered if he was searching for a condom — everything felt so bare when he shoved himself into me. Instead of any protection he held up what looked to be a vintage Polaroid camera. His fingers unfurled and he pressed his palm against my cheek and whispered some words of encouragement before pressing down on the button. A flash blinded me. I grimaced and turned away. He forced me to look back up at him as he set the camera aside again.

When he finished all that I had left to immortalize it was a deep hollow made in my gut and a soreness between my legs. My vision was still bleary from the blinding flash of the camera. When I could focus on my surroundings again, he had lifted himself off of the bed and began pulling on his shirt and pants. Before I was able to reconcile with the disorienting shift in my emotions he’d asked me if I needed a ride home.

I shook my head. I may have felt weak and unraveled, but I didn’t want to leave my bike behind, nor did I really want to share any space with him alone again.

I biked all the way across Summerlin so I could get home. When I opened the door and snuck in through the kitchen, the time on the stove read 3:03 A.M. Somehow, it’d felt like longer. Exhausted but restless, I trudged upstairs and kicked off my shoes and entered my bathroom. I didn’t switch on the lights as I started the shower. I undressed in the dark. I didn’t want to face myself or see any of the damage inflicted upon me.

I stepped underneath the hot water and let it consume me.

PART III. PULP

I had deleted Rory’s number from my phone. He didn’t seem bothered, as I received no virtual or verbal complaint whenever I’d turn in my assignments at the end of class. Nor did he ever call on me, staunchly ignoring my very existence if it didn’t have to do with grading my work. I was still the best performer in his class. At the end of the semester he awarded me with a certificate, like the kind you’d receive in elementary school for participation or attendance, and told me to have a good summer. I felt the primal urge to beat him until his blood coated my fists and his face was unrecognizable. A puddle of bone and cartilage.

Not everything was so grim. Over Christmas, which I wasn’t certain we’d celebrate as we were missing Mom who was the only Christian (non-practicing, but still) in our household, Dad had surprised me by placing a large box in front of me after I’d opened the rest of my gifts. When I undid the ribbon and looked inside, a wide-eyed, bushy tailed sheepdog pup looked up at me like I’d hung the moon. I started crying. I didn’t stop. Dad came to console me, holding me against his chest as the puppy tumbled out of the box and joined us.

We named him Homer, because he looked wise and all-knowing underneath all his grey and white tufts and also because he ate the donuts that Dad had ordered the day before for Christmas breakfast.

On New Year’s, my Dungeons & Dragons party group chat lit up my phone with notifications about a small get together at Kira’s. She was our monk and also the first girl I had a devestatingly pathetic crush on when we met in the eighth grade. I told Dad I didn’t feel like going because I didn’t want to leave him alone, but he insisted I go since I’d spent the last few weeks locked up in our house.

“See you next year, kiddo,” he said as he pressed a kiss atop my head.

Despite wanting to have a good time, I mostly felt spaced out — just like I had since Hanukkah. I felt like a spectator more than a participant in the festivities my friends had arranged for us; there was a wide variety of food available that I felt no inclination to eat, music blaring from the surround sound system Kira’s parents installed in the basement where we dwelled for our weekly campaigns, and warm conversation about their collective years. I just sipped on the cocktail Kira gave me and sat on the couch, occasionally pitching in when it’d been a while since I spoke.

Eventually, Diego came to sit beside me. I offered him a halfhearted smile and nudged him.

“Everything okay, Lyo?” Diego asked in a way that I know he wanted to sound innocent but was made painstakingly clear he was genuinely concerned. “You’re kinda quiet tonight.”

“... Long day, you know?” I chose to excuse.

“Really? On New Year’s Eve?” he denied with a shake of his head. “You can be honest with me. I’m not gonna go telling everyone like Kira or Bo.”

I swallowed, unsure whether I should be honest or save him the trouble of having to try and mend the permanent wounds that were etched into my very being. “This year just sucked,” I said. “I wanna forget all about it.”

Diego’s lips pressed together into a thin line and he began nodding along. “Well. I get that,” he finally surrendered. “But you know we’ll always be here. Right? We’re a party.”

I forced a brighter smile. “Yeah,” I said quietly and clinked my cup against his.

When walking home after the clock struck midnight, not wanting Dad to wake up alone on New Year’s Day, I thought a lot about the past year of my life. I had lost everything; my family, my pride, my dignity, any hope of a semi-normal life going forward. I was stripped of my humanity and made to be a plaything. A porcelain doll with cracks where my red hot veins once resided under what used to be my living flesh. Maybe even worse — a ghost, whose words spoken could only be deciphered through the methodical sliding of a planchette across a board and whose presence had diminished from a bright spark to a softly flickering candle flame. I didn’t know who I had become. I certainly didn’t recognize who looked back at me in the mirror. My face was sunken in and devoid of color. I’d lose more weight, so all of my clothes hung off me like I was a stiff mannequin. I might as well have been. I had shown no real signs of life since that night at the motel.

Homer greeted me at the door. He was waiting for me. He was always waiting for someone. I suppose we all were; me, my Dad and this dog.

I turned sixteen that February. I was gifted more presents than I anticipated from my friends; a new set of die from Bo, a silver ring in the shape of a star from Kira, and a copy of the Atlas Obscura from Diego with a note that read: FOR WHEN YOU WANT YOUR OWN ADVENTURE.

Mom sent George with a card and a box of chocolates I hadn’t eaten or liked in years. I felt somewhat lucky that my brother was there, even if we didn’t always get along. It was nice knowing they hadn’t forgotten all about me. He picked up my birthday cake (strawberries and cream) and held up a disposable camera to take a snapshot of me blowing out the candles. I tried not to flinch when the flash went off.

George had gotten me a picture frame of our first day attending The Meadows. I was five and he was eleven, and despite the fact I knew he must have held some contempt for me even then he had an arm slung around my shoulders and he held me close to his side. We wore matching white polos and khakis, though we couldn’t have looked more different otherwise. Still, in the certain light we were captured in, I could see our eyes lit up the same kind of greenish-brown.

Then, he handed me a photo of an ultra sound. I glanced up at him in confusion. He was smiling. I hardly ever saw him smile.

“Rosie’s pregnant,” he announced. He sounded more happy than he ever had before, however I could still pick out the tremor in his voice. He must’ve been nervous as hell. “She’s due in September.”

Dad was overjoyed. So was I. I hadn’t expected Dad’s reaction to be so… Intense, though. He couldn’t stop crying. He hugged George so tight that he nearly turned purple. It was in that moment I knew that something was wrong. While Dad was naturally a very emotional being, there was a hint of sorrow in his expression when he pulled away and stroked his only son’s cheek, tear stains evident underneath his tired eyes.

In bed that night I couldn’t find sleep. I tossed and turned underneath my blankets as I thought about Dad and George and even Mom. What had become of us all this past year? Mom was living in New York, the life she had always wanted yet couldn’t quite achieve entirely because there would always be a tether through George to Dad, and at the end of that tether was me, someone she couldn’t escape no matter how far she fled. Then there was George, a budding med student whose future had shifted drastically in an instant, all thanks to a bright pink line. And finally there was Dad, who was himself but not at the same time. Almost like an exaggerated iteration of himself; someone putting on a performance. It was unsettling, if I’m being honest. I wanted him to be happy because it had been so long since I’d seen a genuine spark in his eyes — but I’m not sure I wanted it to happen like this.

I scooted out of bed eventually and trodded halfway down the stairs before I heard muffled conversation. My eyebrows knitted together as I sunk onto the steps, resting my head against the railing as echoing voices chorused throughout the first floor. I could hear distress emitted from George’s lips, and a solemn silence was held for a couple beats before a sob broke out. I could hear it then: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, my baby boy, I’m so sorry.

I knew it. I knew something was wrong. What had Dad done?

I crept back up to my room. It felt intrusive to try and insert myself into their conversation and I didn’t want anyone pissed off at me. So I forced my eyes closed and willed for sleep to come, even if I had an endless cacophony of thoughts ringing in my head.

Morning light filtered in through my blinds, bleaching my walls and carpet a soft yellow. I grimaced as the sunbeams struck my eyes and I rubbed the last of sleep out of my vision before pushing myself up onto my elbows. The house was quiet. I wondered if I was the first awake, if my body didn’t let me sleep for as long as I wished it would’ve, but then I heard rummaging and I figured it was the sound of Dad helping George gather his things so he could depart to the airport.

I pulled a cardigan I’d tossed over my desk chair over my head and went to assess whatever damage had been wrought the night before. I braced myself for what was coming. My breath was stifled in my throat as I walked downstairs and glanced around for any sight of Dad or George. Eventually, I wandered into the living room and saw them both sat on the couch. Cups of steaming coffee were left untouched on the center table.

“... Morning,” I spoke up.

“Lyo,” Dad assumed a smile as soon as he noticed me. It wasn’t his natural smile, though. There was a shadow of melancholy encompassing his expression.

George glanced up at me. He looked thinned out. Defeated. More so than he usually did when he’d come home with pages upon pages of notes to study for school. Light didn’t reach his eyes and it made me feel sick.

“What’s wrong?” I immediately asked. I didn’t want to engage in small talk — if something bad had happened, I deserved to know without anything impeding it.

Dad visibly swallowed and motioned for me to sit in the empty spot beside him. I eyed him and George warily as I walked ahead, advancing until I was seated between the two of them. As soon as I sat I could hear my brother inhale shakily.

I can’t remember exactly what happened next. All I can recall is hearing Dad say I’m sick, and then take a breath before elaborating while my world spun out of orbit. Something about cancer. Renal cell, I later discovered. Eight months to live with treatment, give or take. As a result, I couldn’t stay in Summerlin. He couldn’t take care of me anymore. So George would. He and Rosalie, in their new rental in Avalon — I guess that’s where they’d been that whole time. I never cared enough to ask.

I rejected the idea at first, of course. I wasn’t going to let my dad rot while I pretended I could live a normal life across the country. How could I? He had done everything for me. Maybe it was my turn to do the same for him. No, it was definitely my turn. I didn’t care how much I’d endured since Mom and George left. They left. And it was up to me to pick up the pieces of the life we had that they shattered with little remorse.

But then Dad was guiding me upstairs as I fought back and cried. George kept asking me the same questions about what I wanted to take with me and what I could stand to live without until Dad could pack it up properly and send it to New York. I didn’t answer; so he opened up my dresser drawers and tossed whatever he could into my suitcase. I hadn’t used it in years. It still had Hello Kitty stickers plastered on the shell.

I was forced out the front door still in my pajamas when the taxi pulled up to our driveway. I kept reaching out for Dad, expecting him to reach back, but he just watched from a distance as George forcibly placed me in the backseat and tossed my suitcase into the trunk. As the house I had grown up in shrunk in the distance, so did the image of my father, distorted by the waves of heat that encompassed the atmosphere.

I felt worse than I ever had. Worse than when I found out my own blood came from a stranger, or when my flesh was desecrated. I felt like I’d been ground to a pulp.

EPILOGUE

After enduring a hellish four months in Avalon, trying and failing miserably to integrate into the teenage social scene at my new public school, I received a phone call from my Uncle Remy. He was Dad’s older brother who had moved from Chicago to Summerlin so he could watch after him as he got sicker. And he did. He could hardly manage a conversation when I called. Normally the line went quiet and I assumed his drug cocktail had caught up to him and made him drowsy, so I always hung up first. At some point George told me it’d be easier if I gave him space — I almost rung his neck for even suggesting that. Rosalie was the mitigator in our household. I’m sure I would’ve been cast out onto the streets if it weren’t for her.

Uncle Remy said that Dad was deteriorating by the day and that we should all take time out of our schedules to visit. I gulped down the fear and the anger I felt forming in the base of my throat that made me want to cry out and I carried on the message to Mom and George. Of course, Mom made some excuse that Dad wouldn’t like to see her anyway. I tried my best to talk reason with her. He still loves you, I said. He loved the idea of me, Lyonet. He needs his real family. Not someone who pretended to be a part of it. she replied.

She thought she was being the bigger person. I knew she was a coward.

George made up an excuse as well. His daughter, my niece Maia, had been born a few weeks prior and med school was royally kicking his ass. He would try and catch one of the last flights out at the end of the year. Make a holiday of it for himself, the baby and Rosalie. He was being willfully ignorant. He knew that Dad wouldn’t survive until the winter.

I boarded the plane by myself. I watched as we cut through the cloud cover and ascended high enough to where you could pick out faint speckles that were meant to be stars. If I were raised any differently, I’d had held out hope that if we lifted ourselves high enough we would somehow reach heaven — but I didn’t. No one in the faith I once shared with Dad postulated about fancy castles erected in gold and white or some eternal gathering of loved ones around a dinner table full of food and wine. It was about a oneness with God. I felt no such thing on earth, so I didn’t count on it for the afterlife, either.

Uncle Remy picked me up from the airport. We didn’t talk much because in reality we didn’t know each other very well. I could only pick out faint, bleary memories spent at a cabin in Illinois that my mémé and grand-père had bought when they first immigrated to the States, where he would toss me over his shoulder and sprint down the boardwalk before launching me into the stifling cold lake.

He didn’t seem as lively now. Then again, I doubt I did either.

My house didn’t feel like my house when we arrived. I stepped in through the front door for the first time and months and everything felt changed. I was brought up to my old bedroom first since Uncle Remy said Dad was still asleep. When I entered I could feel my stomach bottom out. Old posters still hung crookedly on the pink painted walls and my shaggy rug I got for my eleventh birthday was splayed out underneath an empty desk and chair. There was even a small family of stuffed animals that resided on newly installed shelves.

I sat on the edge of my old bed and put my head in my hands. How was this happening? What had become of my life? I lost everything and I was only sixteen.

Half an hour later Uncle Remy knocked on my door and told me that he’d woken up. It was like I was moving through a pool with how slow each movement I made was, wading endlessly through a vast body of water that could’ve sunk me at any given moment. I eventually made it across the hall to where the master bedroom was. I could hear the soft humming of medical equipment and canned laughter emanating from the TV. When I opened the door, I saw Dad in bed, but it didn’t look like him, not really.

He was deathly pale. There was no more glow in his skin and no light reached his eyes. The beard he had prided himself on growing out for the first time in his life had been shaven, so his face was clean but it didn’t make him look any more like himself. His chest lifted and fell in uneven pants as he tried to catch his breath. It felt wrong looking at him. There was no dignity in this kind of death.

“Lyo?” Dad rasped out. A weak smile twitched in the corner of his mouth and tears began accumulating on my waterline as I saw him. “C’mere, my wild girl.”

I walked across the room obediently and went to sit at his side. “... Hi,” I said, the word strained.

“Good to see you,” he replied — I could tell it took half his energy just to conjure up a sentence when at one point in time you could never get him to stop talking.

“You too,” I returned. I forced a smile. I had no other choice, even if it was evident I was on the brink of falling apart.

Dad lifted his hand up and wiped away the stray tears that escaped. “So grown up,” he noted. There was a sense of awe in his words, like he hadn’t watched me grow from the time I was left on his doorstep. “Just like your mother, I think.”

“... Yeah?” I said as my eyebrows pinched together. I didn’t know what to think of that assessment, as I never knew her. I hadn’t even seen a picture of her. I wasn’t sure Dad had one, anyway. She was an elusive creature from what I had heard.

“Always have been,” he hummed. “I… I wanted to tell you about her. Before. But… I didn’t know how.”

I shook my head at this. “You don’t have to say anything,” I assured him. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” he insisted, pressing his lips into a frown. “You deserved answers. You deserved more.”

“So did you,” I returned as I leaned my cheek into his open palm. A saddened smile pulled on the corner of my mouth while we gazed at each other, drinking one another in for what I knew in my blood and in my bones would be the last time.

Dad stroked my cheek gently. Always gentle, always kind. Always an angel, never a God. “I got everything I wanted.” he said, and he sounded very decided on that matter, so I didn’t argue.

We sat in silence for a while. I couldn’t resist reflecting on my life in Summerlin that was coming to a close. With Dad gone, I would have no reason to be there anymore. All of my friends were planning on spreading out across the country to attend different schools and soon enough we’d fall out of contact and never see each other again. No other family lived there. What I had left would be returned to ashes and dust.

As Dad began waning in and out of consciousness, he mustered up the strength to ask me one last thing. “Sing,” he said, losing his breath after.

I swallowed and nodded, looking down at our touching hands as I beckoned the words out of my throat.

She wore faded jeans and soft black leather She had eyes so blue they looked like weather When she needed me I wasn't around That's the way it goes, it'll all work out There were times apart and times together I was pledged to her for worse or better When it mattered most I let her down That's the way it goes, it'll all work out It'll all work out eventually Better off with Him than here with me Now the wind is high and the rain is heavy The water's rising in the levee Still I think of her when the sun goes down Never goes away, but it all works out.

He died two days after I left.

Rosalie told me to go to homecoming after the funeral, which was a horrid affair I’d rather not detail. I wanted to scream at her: I don’t want to dance and make friends. I want to be in the ground. I want to be dead. But I knew she’d just tell my psychiatrist what I said, and I was convinced in my rampant paranoia he was out to get me, so I stayed quiet and let her dress me up in her old sheer red dress she never got to wear to prom and decorate me in a thin layer of makeup so I wasn’t too overwhelmed.

The dance sucked. I never attended homecoming or any other school sanctioned events at The Meadows, always forfeiting them in place of a Dungeons & Dragons session at Kira’s. Somehow I got caught up in a crowd that shuttled me to an afterparty. I knew I didn’t have much of a choice in going; Rosalie would be worried if I came home too soon.

So I drank the bad Kool-Aid cocktail made in a punch bowl and swayed my hips to the music that blared overhead. It wasn’t until a taller, broad-shouldered male approached me that I felt dwarfed for the first time since — well, since Rory, who had never even attempted to contact me after the whole town found out about Dad’s cancer and subsequent passing.

He spoke at me with alcohol laced breath and I endured it because I didn’t know any better. Even though I felt a deep urge to knee him in the dick and escape, I let him say whatever he wanted and think I was impressed, which apparently was an easy feat, as soon enough his hands were on my hips and we were dancing together and I was a bit too tipsy to care what happened next.

I half-expected for him to escort me upstairs or even shove me in a bathroom and take me there, but just as he began hitching up my dress I could feel it. The pills I’d taken from the clique of stoners I befriended at the dance had caught up to me and were beginning to trigger the first seizure I’d had in years. I slid out from underneath the stranger’s grip and he started loudly complaining, but I was lucky enough that he didn’t feel the need to trail after me.

I stumbled through the crowds and then the kitchen, the harsh overhead lights momentarily blinding me before I located a closet and tripped inside, praying for some sort of relief. It didn’t last for long, because someone began knocking on the door as soon as it was closed.

“You alive?” the person asked.

“Yes!” I returned, wanting them gone just so I could wither away in peace. “Just — fuck off!”

The door opened then and as I looked up at the person I could feel the size of my heart increase by tenfold. My whole body was lit aflame. I had never felt anything like it.

I could remember striking up a small conversation with him before I lost consciousness, but my final thought had been how, for the first time since Dad and I were left on our own, I could hear a symphony.

there's a world outside my doorstep flames over everyone's heart don't you see them shining? i want to hear them beating for me i think i hear them waves crashing me by.

#lyonet — character study.#self-para #10.2k words

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living400lbs · 1 year

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Post WWI discussion:

"In the great urban centers, the pulse of the factory served as a kind of metronome for the city at large. In the urban workplace, where wages were paid by the hour, efficiency was a measure of success. Factory hands demonstrated their worth by completing the maximum number of standardized motions in a given period. After the factory whistle blew, their time was their own. But even at leisure, city dwellers saw time as a resource, like coal or copper. The fear that time might run out, as every resource will, left them with the dread of time wasted.

On the farm, meanwhile, time was not something you stockpiled like firewood. Farm chores took as long as they took—there was no rushing an ear of corn—and the workday stretched to accommodate the tasks at hand. Time was elastic. The minutes and hours that mattered so much to city folk were irrelevant to the drawn-out biological processes on which the farmer depended. In place of the clock, the farmer’s yardstick for measuring time was the progress of the seasons. As a result, his view of time was expansive, focused on the sweeping cycles of the natural world. For city people, time was fractured into finite segments like boxes on a conveyer belt. On the farm, time was continuous, like a string around a tree, one season flowing inevitably into the next."

From A Square Meal by Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe.

#Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe #a square meal #usa #usa history

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companionwolf · 1 year

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Toy Soldiers Ch 12

The Commander staggers through the door to their house, manages to push it closed before collapsing against it, sliding to the floor. Their gun goes askew, their bag hits the paneling, and something falls out of their pocket-- another toy soldier, a young woman, with realistic black hair pulled into a ponytail.

Central calls out a worried Commander! and they mumble a greeting.

Commander, he calls again, you okay?

“No,” they say, slumping further. Their head droops; briefly, their jacket shifts and the toys can see a nasty gash in their side, loosely stitched up but still oozing blood and looking infected around the edges. Desperate hands reach out, manage to grab the female soldier by the leg, pull her in and clutch her tightly.

Who’s that?

“Shen, Central, this is Jane Kelly,” they say.

Hi, says Kelly. We weren't sure we were gonna make it back to you.

What happened?

“This purple…thing, with a sword and a grudge against the Skirmishers, attacked where the meeting point was, gave chase after me,” the Commander explains. The words are labored, their breaths heavy. “Managed to lose it, I think, but it got me pretty good before that…”

I don’t know any purple aliens, says Central. Something new?

“I don’t know, Central, it was-- it was humanoid but inhumanly tall and fast and it could become invisible,” they answer., fumbling as they force themselves up to grab the medkit next to the door. “Had an incredibly strong Psionic sense to it, too. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Weird, says Shen.

It kept talking to us as it chased us, Kelly said. About how the Commander would be returned to the service of the Elders. How that’s theri place, their purpose…I told it to fuck off but I don’t think it could hear me, anyway.

Good, says Central. I like you already.

The Commander is trying to strip off their snow soaked clothes and drag themselves to the fireplace, medkit in their free hand. They get halfway before they sink back to the floor. “I’m okay,” they say before the toys can. “Give me a second, I just need a second.”

They lie there, panting.

Central transmits some inhuman sense of worry to them. They give him a tired smile. “Hey, hey, don’t worry, I’m in the house at least,” they tell him. “I’ll be okay. It’s all okay, don’t worry.”

You say that a lot, Shen says, but it usually isn’t.

“Last time it was okay,” they answer as they pull themselves forward the last couple paces to the firewood pile by the bricks. They set the medkit down, take a few pieces with their free hand, dump them into the fireplace, and struggle to find a lighter in their pocket. “I’m lucky, remember? I’ll be lucky again.”

You only survived because of the Reapers being nice, says Central. There’s no one here but us this time…no one coming to save you.

“Thanks for the reminder,” they say under their breath..

The fire lights; the Commander sits there next to it, shivering, pawing through the medkit and applying bandages to their wound, popping a few painkillers into their mouth afterwards. They close the medkit and set Kelly on top, letting out an exhale.

“It’s okay,” they say again. “It’s okay.”

You look really pale, says Kelly.

“I don’t go outside,” says the Commander as they fall forward in front of the fireplace.

You do, though, Central says. If it wasn’t winter we’d be in the garden.

“Mmmm, vegetables,” they murmur against the floor.

You should stay awake, Shen says. I’m worried about what might happen if you don’t.

“I think--” The world spins, they squeeze their eyes shut for a second and then open them again, try to fight past the nausea and keep the darkening at the edges of their vision at bay. “I think,” they say again, ”that it can’t hurt.”

I think it definitely can, she answers, and Central’ll go nuts sitting here watching you-- he started getting philosophical with me earlier, while you were gone.

The Commander smiles into the floor at that. “Aw, cute.”

Oh, says Central. They get a sense he might be blushing, which sets them blushing too. Shen gives a transmission of rolling her eyes, but in an amused way: Kelly’s transmission is that of wordless confusion.

“Shen likes to tease us,” the Commander explains. “Thinks we’d make a good couple or something, I don’t know--”

I do and you would, Shen says.

Oh, are you not--?

“No! No, we-- we’re not,” says the Commander. They lick their dry lips, looking for any kind of distraction. “Fuck, is it hot to any of you?” they ask. “It feels really hot, and not just because of the fire.” They can feel beads of sweat running down their neck as they speak.

I don't know, Commander, I wasn’t made to feel temperature, says Kelly. The other two murmur agreement.

They wipe their brow, stare at their sweat streaked hand. “Ok, something-- something’s definitely wrong,” they say. “I think I might have a fever.”

You think?

They answer with a little noise of discomfort, drag themselves away over to the couch, wrapping up in a blanket so that they’re not entirely naked anymore. They sit there, Kelly on the arm of the couch, trembling and sweating.

Eventually they sink to their side, half curled into the back of the couch, breath hot. “Gonna-- gonna rest for a second,” they say. “Maybe sleep…”

The world narrows, and then grays out. The Commander drifts in that void for a while, listening absently to the snippets of transmissions from the toys they can pick up. Kelly introduces herself properly to the others, they introduce themselves back-- Shen’s a little wary, but Central’s surprisingly welcoming to her, and they wish they felt strong enough to comment on that.

As Kelly begins to explain how she got picked up, they let themselves sink into a deeper unconsciousness.

The world blacks out.

It’s the first day of the war.

The Commander is confused, because the war ended years ago, was lost years ago, this base fell two decades ago. But they’re being hurried along by their XO, so they keep up with her pace and try to look interested in her introductions to the team they already know.

They must look excited, as they see Vhalen again, see Raymond again, because someone comments on how their eyes light up, someone asks if they are crying. The Commander steels themselves and turns to tell them no, they’re not crying, thank you very much.

Central stands there instead, tiny against the backdrop of the Hologlobe, miniscule compared to everyone else, but there. The Commander tips their head quizzically at him. “Central?’

They reach down to pick him up--

The Muton is bearing down on them, and they cry out, for anyone, anyone, but everyone’s already dead or evacuated, they’re alone here as the alien lugs them half conscious over its shoulder. They don’t have the energy to struggle when they’re stripped down, poked and prodedd, loaded into a torture chair, into the tank.

At least I know what’s coming, they think tiredly.

The Thin Man holds up the chip--

---and they’re in school again? The Commander glances around bewildered, at their classmates as the professor puts a piece of paper on their desk with a stern look. They don’t bother looking at the grade, at the comments, they’re too busy looking for a calendar, anything, anything to tell the date.

The bell rings, the other students get up. They sit there dumbly, slowly moving to put the paper away, only to find when they open the backpack not school supplies but Kelly and Shen. They frown down at the toys.

“What are you doing here?” they ask.

I think they’re dying, says Kelly. She’s talking to someone they can’t see.

“I’m not dying,” they say.

“Oh, but you are,” says the purple sword carrying thing, them gasping as they’re run through with its blade. “You’re dying and your only friends can do nothing. It’d be sad if you weren’t--”

And they are crying in the bathroom, the night of prom, because their parents have only bought a dress, not anything else, keep asking about a date, won’t listen when they say they don’t have one. They aren’t interested, they’ve explained this a thousand times, but no one listens.

“Pathetic,” they mumble to themselves. “It’d be sad if you weren’t pathetic.”

I don’t think you’re pathetic, says Central.

He’s standing on the sink counter, head tilted up to look at them. They take him in their shaking hands, start crying harder because they’re dying, and no one knows, no one cares, no one except these toys who can do nothing but watch.

This isn’t far, one of them says.

And the Commander is on the hill looking down at the abandoned city near their home for the first time, stomach churning at the thoughts of everyone their failure meant the end for. “It isn’t,” they say. “It isn’t fair. None of this has been fair or good or anything. I wish it was.”

A pause.

“Well, that’s not true. Finding you all was good.”

They’re sitting in the garden in spring, just them and Central. As they weed, they hum a tune from their childhood, and in turn Central tells them about the little boy he was with before they found him. “Thank you,” they say during a lapse in the conversation.

For what?

“Being here, really.” The wind tussles their hair. “I don’t want to die alone.”

You’re never alone, he says.

And they take him up in their hands, and the sun has fallen just right on his face so that when they tilt his head up everything about him glows, and their insides twist like they always do.

“Can I kiss you?”

Yeah, he says after a minute. Yeah, you can.

They lean forward to meet him--

--and reel back, falling over themselves, as they’re running from a zombie hoard. They leap to their feet, bolting around the corner, hoofing it down the cracked sidewalk. They’re almost there, so close to the woods they can see the trees, when a gun goes off--

An ADVENT trooper stares down at them.

They squeeze their eyes shut, wait--

Someone they can’t see rends the trooper in half, before they kneel next to the Commander’s form on the grass, gingerly picking them up and cradling them against their chest. The sweater their face is pressed into is soft, and green, and they swear they know it from somewhere. It smells like their house, and they nuzzle into it.

When they pull their face back finally, are allowed to, they’re waking up from a bad night, head pounding, tripping over a collection of empty bottles as they stand from the couch. The toys fall off their lap-- they apologize as they pick the three back up.

We need a human, says Kelly. I’m not sure how much longer they’ll be like this.

“I don’t need other people,” the Commander retorts. They feel eyes boring into them at that, look away from the toys' collective gaze sheepishly. “Okay, maybe a little bit. I’ll go tomorrow. Don’t I need to take care of that debt to the Reapers?”

You already did that, says Shen.

“Did I?”

They need to sleep, I think, says Central. Actually sleep. Not…whatever this is.

“Can’t sleep without you,” they say, rolling over in the dark to look at where he’s seated on the other pillow. They reach out a hand toward him, and find themselves suddenly on the couch, too weak to commit-- they try, falter, and the hand thumps back to their side.

“Am I really dying?”

“Yes,” hisses the purple thing in their ear.

I don’t know, Central says, and his voice in their head cracks. I don’t know. I hope not.

“Me too. I haven’t gotten to ask you out yet,” they say, and fall into darkness again.

#wolf barking #tailstrokes #toy soldiers fic

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