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muchtohope · 4 years ago

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Now that it’s like two weeks after I said I might do it, FINALLY sitting down to talk about Subcutaneously, My Dear Watson by Jack Tracy and I’m just gonna head it off with a read more because I ALREADY KNOW it’s gonna be excessively long ✌ KIND OF half review half summary, all infodump, u know how it is.

content warnings, of course, for drug use and needle mentions

So if you’re unfamiliar, Subcutaneously is a nonfiction writeup on Sherlock Holmes’s cocaine usage in the context of the time period. It takes into consideration everything that was known and/or believed about coke in the 70s (because this was published in 1978) and applies it to Holmes’s behavior throughout the stories to try and understand exactly how affected he might have been by his addiction.

Along with prefacing this by noting the year it was published, it’s ALSO worth pointing out that Jack Tracy is part of the Baker Street Irregulars, so there are points in this book where he refers to Sherlock Holmes and Doyle as if they were BOTH actual people who might have met in person at one point or another, also bearing in mind that the BSIs have some notoriously hot garbage takes.

Coke in Victorian London

So first, the stuff that’s already pretty commonly understood: drugs in 19th century England were not terribly regulated, dangerous addictive substances like opium and morphine and cocaine were legal and readily available. Cocaine first entered the general public’s sphere of awareness around 1884, popularized by our favorite deeply fucked up psychology dad Sigmund Freud. Medical professionals pretty immediately recognized it as a toxic substance and warned against it, but he insisted it was Totally Fine and Not Addictive At All until 1887, when he Stopped That for reasons Tracy does not specify but One Can Guess. Still, same as cigarettes and junk food, just because the doctor says it’s bad for you doesn’t mean you’re not gonna do it, so cocaine wasn’t terribly frowned upon by the average person.

It was only in 1916 that cocaine was restricted to prescriptions. This was, in part, a reaction to events in the US; in 1914, we put up the Harrison Narcotics Act which effectively criminalized addiction (that’s like, another post, I won’t get into it here) and over time, that had a pretty significant impact on the public’s perception of drug users. In the early 1920s, the UK passed the Dangerous Drugs Act which was a similar idea, allowing the government greater control over illicit substances and attempting to advise doctors when not to prescribe them, although overall that act wasn’t quite as invasive as Harrison. Up to THAT point though, cocaine was commonly prescribed to wean addicts off their other vices -- opium and morphine namely, but also cigarettes and alcohol. GENERALLY SPEAKING, doctors really didn’t know much more about these substances than their patients.

Cocaine itself was available in multiple formats: snuff, edibles, cigarettes, ointments, Coca-Cola as we know, and of course, injectable solutions, as was our boy’s preference. Since Victorians didn’t really have much in the way of germ theory, hypodermic needles were treated NOT QUITE as cautiously as they should have been, and a lot of morphine users ended up with really bad bacterial infections at the puncture sites -- Tracy suggests Holmes avoided this SORT OF through dumb luck, as it was likely his cocaine solution was some part boracic acid, added to slow the cocaine’s deterioration in the water and which acted as an antibacterial agent.

Watson describes Holmes’s coke intake at one point as somewhere around three times daily for months, which Tracy points out is pretty moderate. He does some interesting math based on Holmes’s supposed height and weight, along with the solution cap at 7%, to determine he was probably using 20mg with each dose in order to achieve any sort of satisfying high. Like, it’s Not Great, but Tracy writes that a severe addiction would probably not have that sort of cap on either solution percentage, dosage amount or frequency of dosage. This also makes it believable that Holmes would be able to put the needle down long enough to work a case without getting high. Another fun fact: Holmes’s annual cocaine budget was PROBABLY roughly what you might spend on a year’s Netflix subscription today.

SO. That’s the gist of the factual shit, the rest of it revolves mostly around the chronological timeline of the canon stories and Holmes’s changing relationship with the drug over time. Tracy uses the Baring-Gould timeline as a base, which afaik is the most widely accepted chronology.

This is where things become LARGELY subjective, and we’re reminded that the author is chronically heterosexual. I HAVE TO preface this by saying that while a lot of his suggestions are interesting to me purely for the sake of Angst, a lot of them are also A LITTLE upsetting to consider. So like, take it all with an entire rock of salt -- this guy does not know that the series ends with them retired together keeping bees in Sussex, he can’t help it.

The Coke Chronology

The first point Tracy makes that immediately threw me was the suggestion that when Watson and Holmes first meet, Holmes has not ever used cocaine before, but rather he picks it up somewhere around the time of Sign of Four. From 1878 (the year Musgrave Ritual takes place) to 1886 (two years before Sign of Four), Holmes is clean, if SUPER depressed. There are a few points here he uses to support this -- first, in Study in Scarlet, Watson describes Holmes as a pleasant roommate. He’s orderly, quiet, mostly keeps to himself despite laying out on the sofa for days at a time. This is in pretty stark contrast to the Holmes popular culture is familiar with, the manic disaster detective he came to be recognized as, and Tracy attributes the change to Holmes taking up coke.

Another is that Holmes’s opinion of himself and his career was SORT OF lower than dirt when he met Watson. He was convinced he’d already peaked and would never achieve more success than the SPARINGLY little amount he’d already tasted. Watson’s publications undeniably boosted his career, but Tracy looks at the frankly insane amount of stories published which take place between 1887 and 1891 as a result of the energy Holmes got from using coke. The idea, I think, is that rather than spending his down time relegated to a days-long depressive episode on the couch, cocaine offered him the energy and motivation to look for more work. This time period, according to Baring-Gould, encompasses TWENTY-SIX cases (out of the like 60 stories that exist!!) and ends with Final Problem. Watson either directly mentions or alludes to Holmes’s coke usage in six of these stories, most blatantly maybe in Sign of Four, where Watson leaves for married life and ends with Holmes’s alarmingly cavalier comment that I’m good, you got a wife and I got this here cocaine 👌

Tracy’s next take is that Holmes was absolutely clean during his entire post-Reichenbach hiatus. He feels like Holmes’s travels paired with his mission to eliminate Moriarty’s empire was sufficient distraction, and when he returns to London in 1894, he stays clean until the end of 1895. That’s 8 cases he works clean, and his sobriety could easily have played a part in convincing Watson to move in with him again in Empty House. Tracy frames those 8 cases as exemplary work, at least in comparison with some of the cases later on in the timeline, because he works them totally sober. This is kind of a hilarious way to @ Doyle that his later work wasn’t as good, but okay, we’ll work with it.

From late ‘95 to late ‘96, Holmes does not work a single case, at least not any which Watson deemed worth publishing. Tracy refers to this hiatus as Holmes’s first relapse, and suggests that Watson spends this entire year caring for Holmes and helping him recover. Tracy calls back to Watson’s comment in the Missing Three-Quarter that Holmes’s drug use “threatened to check his remarkable career”, which up to that point had not really been true, assuming his usage was as moderate as it sounded pre-Reichenbach. So that KIND OF implies it must have gotten worse at some point, probably here during this relapse.

From this point to spring of ‘97, Holmes works at least 5 cases (including Missing Three-Quarter). This stretch of time ends with Devil’s Foot and goes immediately into another year-long hiatus -- another relapse, maybe, but given that Devil’s Foot has Watson bringing Holmes to Cornwall for some Convalescence™, he had probably already relapsed and the rest of this empty time is spent in Cornwall, away from the stressors of the city, helping him recover again. The implication here is that, despite what Watson says about having already weaned him off the drug, Holmes is still dealing with his addiction and Watson is trying to get a handle on it in the face of changing public attitudes toward addicts. Basically, there’s nothing to see here, he’s all better, please just let us work through this privately.

The last bit here is honestly, in my opinion, the hardest to think about. Tracy writes about the stretch of 9 cases from mid-1898 to mid-1902 as some of Holmes’s worst work, and there’s two parts to why I really hate this.

First, like, it is of course painful to think of Holmes suffering any irreversible consequences of drug abuse. It’s harder, maybe, to think of it as affecting his cognitive abilities, but that’s exactly what Tracy says is happening: Holmes displays symptoms of “cocaine psychosis” (I’m not sure that’s still a relevant medical term, but that’s what he uses here). He specifically points out the too-close-for-comfort resolution in Lady Carfax and calls it a totally avoidable error, had Holmes been as mentally present as he should have been. He also points to the later case, Mazarin Stone, as evidence of Holmes’s love of practical jokes morphing into something “tasteless” and, as Lord Cantlemere says, “perverted”, and attributes all of it to said psychosis.

So that’s rough, and I high key hate it, but the second part is really the knife in my heart, and it has more to do with the relationship between Holmes and Watson at the end of Holmes’s career. Those 9 cases up to 1902, Tracy describes as alternating between near failures, showcases of Holmes erring sometimes GRIEVOUSLY, and impressive examples of what he was still capable of. This, he says, speaks a lot to Watson’s opinion of him during that time, that throwing in those unflattering cases was done A LITTLE BIT out of spite, suggesting that they weren’t really on great terms anymore.

There is a small reprieve in the otherwise totally depressing notion that Holmes and Watson became estranged in part due to Holmes’s addiction, and that is that Tracy believes in that summer of 1902, Holmes quit cocaine for the final time, and the very next case is Three Garridebs. Yes, the great heart beyond that cold mask was 100% sober and that shared moment of deep affection was just that and nothing else.

Around this time though, according to Baring-Gould, Watson has left Holmes, also for the final time, to remarry. Finding himself alone, with no support should he relapse again, Holmes retires at the ripe old age of 49 so as to remove himself again from the stressors and triggers of London and detective work. This doesn’t account for the work he does post-retirement, but it’s assumed he remains sober for the rest of his life.

SO ANYWAY

OVERALL, this is an interesting read, but the further in you get, the bleaker the picture becomes, and I kind of fundamentally disagree with this guy’s view of the relationship Holmes and Watson have. I’ve sort of intentionally skirted a romantic take on it because in the end I’m not sure that would necessarily impact how Watson felt about the entire thing -- romantically involved or not, I completely believe Watson would give years of his life to helping Holmes through his addiction. It’s a cold, sort of utilitarian perspective, but if nothing else, even if he otherwise totally resented Holmes, I still believe he would do what he could to keep him in working order, if only as an act of public service. Like I KNOW. I know. But that’s kind of my point: they were absolutely more to each other than that.

I have a really hard time reading Watson as intentionally publishing stories to tarnish Holmes’s reputation; not that he’s never spiteful, like, we know our boy is fully capable of being a bitch when he wants to, but I just can’t see him being that kind of malicious about what he HAS to recognize (because it was recognized then, and even today in the UK WAY MORE than in the US) as a disease. Like there’s a huge difference between expressing disappointment or disapproval and publicly dragging him. That is Not My John Watson.

I don’t like the idea that some of the most recognizable aspects of Holmes’s personality are because of his coke usage, not just because it sucks to think about but also because a lot of those same attributes are ones I’d more likely chalk up to neurodivergency. There’s too much overlap in the traits Tracy believes are a product of drugs and the traits I recognize as ADHD, manic depression, autism, any number of ND flavors that are a lot more meaningful in a character like Holmes than ascribing all of it to a coke addiction.

And there is of course the otherwise canon disappointment of the notion that Holmes and Watson become estranged after Holmes’s retirement, which for my own sanity I wholly reject, and I reject even harder when it’s paired with the implication that it had anything to do with Watson just trying to close that chapter of his life.

tl;dr, Subcutaneously, My Dear Watson -- interesting, depressing, terminally hetero, as probably expected, you can find copies relatively cheap on Amazon, not sure if it’s available digitally though. It is at the very least something to chew on, especially if you’re out there writing ACD Holmes fics.

Anyway if you made it this far I’m VERY SORRY but I’d love to hear your takes anyway, reactions, questions, whatever SORRY AGAIN HOPE YOU’RE HAVING A GREAT EVENING 💖

#acd holmes #subcutaneously my dear watson #sherlock holmes #this is too much #it's a lot

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dmgdstar · 5 years ago

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Warning: slightly Nsfw, implied sexual content. Mobile cannot add read more.

Jotaro sat on the hotel bed with his back pressed to the wall, one knee raised and his hand dangling from the top of his kneecap. A cigarette dangled from his lips as he reclined back, relaxing. It had been a little while since they had been able to stop at a hotel. The air outside was hot, dry and wearing all that black in the heat had proved to be a little much. But he had refused to change out of his clothes. He didn’t care if it made sense to dress better for a trip going to Egypt. This was what he was comfortable with wearing and besides he wasn’t one that was keen on getting much sunlight in the way of tanning or anything like that. It just wasn’t his style. Call it pure stubbornness or whatever, it didn’t matter to him he was determined to keep it that way. But damn, if it wasn’t so hot outside. Even inside the hotel room it was warm. Sweat was falling down the side of his face from underneath his hat. His hair felt damp under it. He was doing his best to try and ignore the warmth of the room and relax while he had the chance. The thermostat on the wall opposite of him told him that it was the coolest it could be in the room. How annoying could this be? It wasn’t going to be easy to try and relax and rest if he was too damn hot to actually do it. He sighed, swinging his legs over to the edge of the bed. Reaching up, he took the cigarette from between his lips, pausing for a moment to snuff out the lit stick. He had to do something about this.

He reached up to remove his hat. Setting free the black hair that was always kept hidden under it. The single strand that usually hung down from the front of his hair was stuck to his forehead. A sheen layer of sweat beaded along his hairline. He set his hat down on the nightstand next to the bed, sighing at the little bit of relief that taking it off had given him. Although the comfort was only temporary. Still feeling warm, he stood from the bed the covers over it not exactly helping in keeping cool at the moment. With a little reluctance then, he shrugged off the long heavy coat that he wore, letting it slide slowly from his shoulders before he caught it with his hands. Jotaro laid his coat along the bed, staring at it for a moment as he did. It felt strange to have his arms bare since he always wore it but having removed it had relieved some of the heat from his body. Finally, he had gotten some relief that was better than suffocating himself. Jotaro had a mind to make sure that nobody knew that he had to break down this way and remove some of his clothing just so he could cool off. The smug expressions he would get from Polnareff or his grandfather alone were annoying to think about. Just thinking about it made him regret now having already put out his cigarette. Sometimes being around those people just stressed him out to the point where his only solace was the nicotine. Honestly, the whole damn trip had been nothing but a pain in his ass. Part of him couldn’t wait to get the whole thing over with. At least back in Japan they didn’t have to deal with this damned heat. At least, not like this—it never got this hot back home.

His shirt was sticking to his skin now. Although it wasn’t completely soaked through, it was enough to be uncomfortable. Good grief, could this get any worse? If he was going to strip down that far, he might as well just go take a cool shower to try and bring his temperature down, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to wash away some of the sweat either. With that thought in mind, he took hold of the bottom of his shirt, pulling it up and over his head, exposing his upper half to the room. Just as he had done with his jacket, he tossed the tank onto the bed, taking a moment to just take in the way the air felt now that it was able to freely touch his skin. The clothing removal had helped a little bit, but he still thought it might be a good idea to rinse off. He didn’t get that far though before he heard something behind him. Jotaro hadn’t heard the door click open a moment ago. The room he was staying in was a double, but he shared it with someone else. It was the usual for their travels and as per usual the person he was sharing it with was Noriaki Kakyoin. Probably the only other person who might be able to relate to how disgustingly hot it had gotten as they drew closer to the desert. At the time he had started removing his garments, Kakyoin had stepped out and not yet returned. He hadn’t been gone that long, so he figured he probably had the time to himself. However, it seemed he had misjudged how much time he had. Either that or he had just taken too long to do anything about it.

Turning to look over his shoulder at Kakyoin, the red head had paused in the doorway, his hand was pressed to his mouth and lavender eyes had widened just a little bit. His gaze didn’t quite meet Jotaro’s though and he knew why. It was because he was standing there without a shirt on, not necessarily something that he had ever done around him. They were both guys though, so that shouldn’t have been too big a deal. It shouldn’t have been but Jotaro noticed the change in Kakyoin’s body language. He was tense and his face had become flushed. It wasn’t too dark of a blush, but enough to lightly dust across his cheeks. Jotaro also noticed that as soon as he realized that he was looking at him, his eyes had darted towards the floor. This was interesting, he couldn’t say he had ever seen Kakyoin react this way to anything that he did. It had Jotaro tilting his head slightly, his way of expressing a slight bit of curiosity and interest. Now the fact that they were both men meant that his being shirtless shouldn’t really be a problem, it wasn’t anything special or different. But it seemed that it had stirred something for Kakyoin, this reaction was only something that Jotaro usually saw in the annoying clan of girls that would follow at his heels. How they would swoon and blush over him even if he paid the slightest bit of attention to them. The only difference was that Kakyoin seemed to be reserved in this reaction, closing in on himself and withdrawing from Jotaro. They had been traveling together a good while and shared a room every time. He would have said that they were decent friends by now, even if their beginning had been a little strained. In all the nights he shared a room with Kakyoin he had never seen this reaction out of him, never noticed that something was different. But maybe this was something he would do when he wasn’t looking. Maybe… Kakyoin had something he wasn’t telling him.

“Am I bothering you?” Jotaro asked finally, keeping his eyes fixed on the red head.

Kakyoin shook his head, though he still wouldn’t make eye contact and he kept his hand close to his face in an attempt to shield some of his blush from his stare. “N-no of course not! I didn’t realize you were… forgive me Jotaro, I’ll just come back a little later.”

“Kakyoin.” His name had left his lips in almost a demanding tone. His name being enough to have the other stop where he had turned on his heel to leave the room.

In the silence that fell between them, Jotaro crossed the space between them coming to stand in front of him. Kakyoin didn’t move from where he was standing, but he kept his back to him. His stance was still tense, his back rigid and by the way he hung his head, he knew that he was still staring down at the floor. What was bothering him so much that he felt like he needed to rush out? The answer seemed obvious to Jotaro, it was clear that his appearance had done a little more than startle him. Jotaro stood staring at him for a moment, just letting that sink in. The fact that he was bothered by this, it didn’t look like he was mad about it or even upset. His body language had left him flustered, which could only tell Jotaro that he was disturbed in the way that someone might be if they were attracted to someone. His only reference were the girls that annoyed the shit out of him and whereas that was similar, it was also very different to the way that Kakyoin was acting right now. Did Kakyoin like him? He had to wonder if that was the case with his reaction now. There was only one way to find out for sure and that was to stop him from trying to retreat or withdraw any further. As if to reinforce this idea, he reached out and took the wrist closest to him. Finding that the other was resisting his tug slightly, his shoulders only becoming more tense. Did he not want him to even touch him? Maybe he was reading his reaction wrong—perhaps instead this scene had a negative impact on him after all.

“Please, don’t…!” Kakyoin said frantically. His voice was shaking as he spoke. Finally, he lifted his head to glance over at Jotaro over his shoulder. His face was still red and lavender eyes were wide, but tears had pricked the corners of them. “Jotaro I… I can’t lie to you. So, if you don’t—if you can’t feel what I’m feeling then please, don’t ask me about it.”

“Who said I didn’t?” Came the response. Jotaro’s expression hadn’t changed despite his words which had Kakyoin staring at him, a few stray tears falling down his cheeks. With some gentle urging then, he was able to get him to turn to face him, keeping a hold on his wrist. As soon as he had turned to face him though, his gaze had averted once again looking towards the floor, his face as red as his hair.

Jotaro raised his free hand up to wipe away the tears that had fallen down his cheeks. So, he was right in his assumption then. Without even asking, he had picked up on what he might be thinking and feeling. All because he was able to catch the small changes in his behavior. Kakyoin did have feelings for him and the reason he had froze up when he walked in the room to find him like this was because of that fact. It was still uncomfortably hot in the room, but he couldn’t just leave him like this. And he couldn’t just let him walk out of there looking the way he did. Besides to say that he had no interest in him would be a lie. An unspoken interest on Jotaro’s part, he didn’t hate the idea of seeing how things could play out. That’s why after he had wiped his tears away, he carefully placed his fingers under his chin to lift his face up towards him. Finally, lavender eyes moved back meet his blues and even though his expression didn’t change—he could feel his heart skip a beat whenever he met his eyes. Wordlessly then, Jotaro leaned down to press his mouth to his, capturing his lips fully with his own. As he kissed him, he released his wrist to instead meet his other hand while both came to cup the sides of his face, keeping the other from pulling away from him while he kept his lips connected to his. Tiers moving just a little aggressively against his, which were unresponsive at first until his shock had faded and he was kissing him back.

Jotaro didn’t pull away until he felt Kakyoin’s palms touch his chest. His hands felt cool against his skin. It wasn’t getting any cooler in the room now. Maybe this was nerves. Breaking the kiss, he looked over his reddened face once more, his breathing coming in quiet huffs. He watched him for a moment before picking up the cues to continue, placing another brief kiss to his lips, as his hands made quick work to unbutton the high collar of the uniform he wore, so he could trail his lips down his neck. The only way either of them were going to cool off now was with a shower. But he figured if they were just going to get sweaty anyway—they might as well indulge in the unspoken feelings that existed between them. The mutual attraction that had been picked up on by Jotaro, even if Kakyoin had yet to admit it. This kind of heat was different than the blazing warmth of the sun outside. He could probably get used to how hot Kakyoin made his body feel whenever he touched him like this. And besides… removing clothing had helped.

//Drabble inspired by main jotakak storyline: @gdbyenstalgia

#jootdrabble #jotakak #inspired by my kakyoin #gdbyenstalgia

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xbunnybunz · 4 years ago

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stay here with me [underswap!papyrus x reader]

Summary: You and papyrus enjoy the quieter moments of life together.

Genre: Fluff, Friendship or Lovers

Date: April 26, 2017

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Streaks of the sunset painted the city before you in a palette of orange, red, and pink. As the sun dipped lazily behind the curve of the outstretched horizon, both monsters and humans alike made their journey back home, mothers calling to their children for supper, and soulmates reuniting after a long day apart.

The calm prelude of night draped over the city and bled into your skin, the cool twilight air tranquil and slightly damp, hypnotizing you into a peaceful trance.

From this spot on the roof, time seemed to slow down. Life passed by slowly, leisurely, before your eyes in the form of a hazy sunset accompanied by the dull hum of conversation from below.

You allowed your eyes to slip shut, your ears picking up on a bypassing conversation involving the weather, and pieces of prattle speaking of a lightbulb in need of replacing. Basking in the fading light of dusk had always exposed you to the gentler parts of life, the life that was larger than anyone could ever fathom, but appeared to be so delicate that even the slightest whisper could disturb it’s serene lull.

It was humbling, you had decided a while ago, during one of your first visits to this roof. Life was abstract and immense, uncontainable and ever-spontaneous. In the groggy haze of the morning and the tumultuous noise of the late afternoon, it was hard to focus on anything but yourself. It was difficult to stop and admire the risen sun, bold, blazing, and beautiful, and even moreso to find pleasure in the smiles of those around you after a long day. But here, underneath a sky stained with the colors of yet another day coming to a close, you could finally allow your tense shoulders to fall and wholeheartedly enjoy the murmurs of a town readying for slumber.

Even in moments like these, where the seconds seem to dawdle, and then drip slowly like wax off of a candle, you could feel the steady beat of your strident heart - the rush of blood under your skin. The reminder that being alive was no longer a question for you, but an unwavering fact that you grew to accept; even become grateful for.

The monochrome coloring of daily life had jaded the brilliance of your existence, people who surrounded you always cold, always aloof and always detached. Your world, like many others, had changed when news of monsters came about.

The surface world was just as new to them as the concept of living alongside monsters was to you, and although you had remained hard-hearted and stoic in the face of impending change, fate had drawn your path to cross with those that would soon change your perspectives- and alter your reality.

Upon contact with them, your colorless world had exploded into a beautiful lilac sky- like a red-hot passion flower blooming in high speed- and just like that, you were overwhelmed.

Years of indifference bled into empathy, bled into compassion, and suddenly these beings that you thought nonexistent just months prior had morphed you into someone who could simultaneously be alive, and be living.

In the midst of thought, a breeze passed over you, bringing with it a chill that raised goosebumps along your skin. Your hands reach up and cradle your arms, an earnest attempt at preserving heat that seemed all but in vain.

A low and rumbling voice that reminded you of a rolling wave greeted you, a long-phalanged hand resting atop the crown of your head. You leaned into the touch, his bones warmer than you, who had been exposed to the evening chill for a longer duration of time.

After a bit of muffled shifting, a warm orange hoodie is strewn across your shoulders. You accept it gratefully, pulling the thick, wooly material over your head and allowing the excess sleeve pool around your fingertips. It’s scent was thick and comforting, a melty blend of cigarettes and intoxicatingly sweet honey. You burrow yourself deeper into it, enjoying it’s deep contrast with the thin and cool night air.

“hey, kid. admiring the view?”

You did not answer, but the silence did not seem to sway him.

He clicked and his joints groaned as he took a seat next to you, bone against shingles making a strange scraping noise. But that did not deter you from moving closer to him. With shoulders barely touching, you both look up at the sky, which had faded from it’s pastel tinted hues to a crisp and refreshing midnight blue.

“so, what’s on your mind? you usually don’t look so a-roof.”

You spared a few quiet chuckles at his bad pun, keeping your voice light and airy for fear of tainting the gentle silent spell.

“Just thinking about life, as usual.”

The click of a cigarette lighter echoes in your ears before the scent of freshly lit, earthy tobacco brushes past your nose. You wondered if you would also be able to smell the smoke from the embers, if only you leaned a bit closer.

“ah. anything new?”

Bones rattled softly against each other as he spoke in baritone, then exhaled. Smoke drifted off of his freshly-lit cigarette and formed swirls that danced about in the air; slight, wispy, and curling at the ends, beckoning and nearly seductive in their ascent to nothingness.

“No,”

You say, after a long stretch of still silence.

“But I’m glad that I’m here.”

Your eyes turn to him, and you are not surprised to find that he is already looking at you. The bone that composed his skull was dull, like eggshell, but pure and rich, much like porcelain. In the backlight of the new moon, you could trace the etches of his cheekbones- constantly turned up because of his grin- with your eyes. Gentle shadows fell over the slight chips and dents in the surface of his periosteum and continued down his vertebra, which disappeared into a thin black tank-top that was usually worn with a fleece hoodie.

Looking at him, you knew you two had never cared for someone quite as much as you did for each other. But, despite all this, he was not the reason you decided to stay, no. You had your own reasons, but he had made the decision seem so much easier.

“here?” he questioned, but it seemed more like a conclusion than an inquiry.

You drew your eyes back to the moon, not quite complete, but very much present and very much beautiful.

“With both of you. At home.”

You hear him shift and take another drag of the cigarette, this time allowing it to dangle between two of his long fingers. The burning amber color of the embers captures your eye for a split second before Papyrus lets out another throaty exhale, smoke wrapping around his head in exquisite patterns you learned was mostly magic.

“heh. am i competin’ with blueberry, now?”

He nudges you with his elbow softly, teasingly, though you can tell he is thankful you included his brother in your proclamation of happiness.

“Might just be.” You teased back, a smile playing at your lips. “He’s a real sweetheart, that one.”

Papyrus takes one last, long inhale before he snuffs the embers of his dying cigarette on the roof tiles. The smoke has yet to dissipate from the air entirely, leaving it warm and musty. He reclines onto his back, arms behind his head. He reminds you of a leisurely chesire cat: slinky, grinning, and witty.

You close your eyes again, basking in the bliss of this simple night and his presence. You can still sense the light of the moon and the stars above you through your eyelids, and you can still feel the fleece lining of the honey and tobacco-scented hoodie on your skin. You can still feel him lying beside you, and hear his easy breathing, a habit he told you was not necessary, but routine.

“i am too.” he says, his voice not breaking the silence, but sliding along with it. “glad that you’re here. with us.”

You hum, socked feet brushing against his sneakers. “Here?” You ask, more of a conclusion than an inquiry.

You can nearly hear the smile in his voice, and you match it with your own as he answers “here. with us, at home.”

#undertale #papyrus #undertale papyrus #underswap #underswap papyrus #reader insert #fanfiction #papyrus x reader #underswap!papyrus x reader #old work

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mhandmore · 5 years ago

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The Reason

Tim sat on a wall smoking outside. Toby approached silently watching from above him. Tim didn’t look over.

TIM

What do you want?

TOBY

To bug you.

Tim puffed his cigarette.

TIM

Why?

Toby jumped down onto the wall with Tim. Turned to him and Bummed a cigarette.

TOBY

Got a light?

Tim hands Toby his lighter.

TIM

You smoke?

TOBY

Maybe.

Toby lights up and takes a puff. Only to break out in a coughing fit. He wheases.

TOBY

What was that?!

Tim chuckles

TIM

That was a cigarette without a filter.

Toby continues coughing

TOBY

No filter?!

Toby turns over the carton to read the back.

TOBY

Jeez, no wonder you’re always In a bad mood! How can you stand that stuff!

TIM

The same way I stand you. Practice.

Tim takes another puff as Toby glares at him.

Tim turns to Toby.

TIM

Seriously why are you out here?

Toby stares at the cigarette silently, before tossing aside with disgust.

TOBY

I don’t know, just felt like it.

Tim raises an eyebrow before turning back.

TIM

Bull.

TOBY

What?!

TIM

Tobias, you’re a terrible liar.

Toby gets flustered as Tim takes another puff. Eventually Toby huffs and turns back.

TOBY

I told you to call me Toby.

Something in his jacket beeps. He takes out his phone and pushes the alarm to stop. He takes a pill bottle out of his jacket and takes a couple.He offers it to Tim who snuffs out his cigarette and takes a couple pills before handing back the bottle.

TIM

Thanks

TOBY

Yeah…

He stares at the sky for a bit before sighing.

TOBY

I came out to see someone.

Tim looks confused and Toby points up at a star.

TOBY

That’s her.

TIM

You really believe in that stuff?

Toby shrugs.

TOBY

I don’t know, but it’s fun. Why not?

Tim nods lighting another cigarette.

TOBY

So what about you?

TIM

Hu?

TOBY

Why are you out here?

TIM

For a smoke.

TOBY

Why?

TIM

Why do you think?

Toby looked at him for a bit

TOBY

Because you're addicted.

Tim shrugs.

TIM

That’s part of it.

TOBY

How many have you had?

TIM

Not enough.

TOBY

Why?

TIM

Because I’m still here.

Toby blinks staring at Tim as he smokes.

TOBY

You really mean that hu?

TIM

Yeah. Wouldn’t you?

Toby shifts uncomfortably in place.

TOBY

Well I don’t so…

Toby shrugs as Tim nods.

TIM

That’s good, keep it that way.

TOBY

Do you ever miss them?

Tim looks sadly at his cigarette.

TIM

Of course I miss them.

TOBY

Even Alex?

TIM

Yeah...

TOBY

Is that why?

Tim looks at him confused and Toby gestures at the cigarette.

Tim shrugs

TIM

I guess that’s part of it too.

#Tim wright #masky #Marble Hornets #creepypasta #Ticci toby #toby erin rogers #toby masky and brian #headcanon #fanfiction

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keelywolfe · 6 years ago

Text

FIC: Joint Effort (baon)

Summary: Jeff is getting back on his feet and that’s pretty nice. He’s not so sure about Red and Sans’s version of helping, though.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Kustard, Established Relationship, Humor, Marijuana Usage

Notes: I’m getting my timeline a little scattered, but man did I need something funny and cute.

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

~~*~~

Read it on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

Staying in New New Home was nice.

Honestly, one of the nicest places Jeff ever lived and there was something about knowing that if he went outside for a walk at least one person was bound to wave at him, and if it was a skeleton or a Bun or even a Moldsmal, it was, well. It was nice.

Not that Jeff was walking that much, he was only just back on his feet. Blue spent a decent amount of time this morning scolding him not to overdo it, doublechecked that he had his phone and that he’d call if he needed to, and gave him a sack lunch before shooing him out the door.

Maybe it was a little overkill for a walk over to Stretch’s house, but the kindness of it made a warm glow settle in Jeff’s middle and that was a nice change from the itch of his healing stitches. It reminded him a bit of how it felt for Stretch to pull his soul out, but that memory was blurred through pain medicine. Maybe someday he could persuade Stretch to do it again, just to compare his memory to reality. But not today.

Today they were hanging out to celebrate Jeff’s return to being upright. Stretch seemed all for the bag lunch anyway, promptly stealing it and now they were sitting in the backyard together sharing the chocolate chip cookies while the nice, healthy sandwich on wheat sat wilting in the heat, sad and ignored.

The chickens wandered around the yard, occasionally inspecting their feet for possible goodies. This was nice, too, sitting in comfortable silence with a friend, sharing snacks and company.

“hey, you two.”

Swallowing back a yelp, Jeff whipped around to see Sans and Red standing behind them, lounging back against the large tree. He didn’t really know either of them well, Sans a bit better of the two since he’d helped out with the lab work that one time. But the matching grins on their faces filled him with a sense of foreboding.

Stretch seemed to agree. He slouched even more in his chair, rolling his eye lights as he reached out lazily to snuff his cigarette out in the nearby ashtray. “hey, you two back. what do you want?”

“aww, that ain’t nice, honey bun,” Red shook his head sadly. “maybe we just came to visit you and your little feathery dinosaurs for andy’s first real outing.”

“maybe. except every time you come over you have an agenda, short stack, and it better not be trying to sneak in more of your spy shit.”

“i’m here, too,” Sans pointed out. “what’s the agenda, do i need to take notes? got a pen i can borrow?”

“like you’d do anything he says? i know you, you have your own shit planned. better not let him be rubbing off on you and you can skip all the puns around that, i’ve already thought of all the good ones and the statute of limitations isn’t up.”

“rubbing ‘em out as we speak,” Sans said solemnly. “now, if you’re through your daily quota of paranoia, we brought you both a gift.”

“you can’t have any cookies.”

“we ain’t after the fucking cookies. besides the blueberry would hand some over himself if we asked and you know it.” Red nudged Sans ungently and got a sharp elbow to the ribs for his trouble. “show ‘em.”

With theatrical flare, Sans reached into his hoodie pocket and withdrew what to Jeff’s inexperienced eye looked like a joint. “ta fucking da.”

From Stretch’s brutally unimpressed expression, he probably wasn’t very excited. “seriously?”

“c’mon, please?” Sans wheedled, hands clasped together in a pantomime of pleading. “we haven’t smoked since you hooked your anchor to the edgelord.”

“yeah, because the last time my brother was ready to commit a couple murders over what we did to his sofa.”

“he got a new one! besides, can’t burn any of the good furniture if we stay out here. it’ll be fun! andy, talk to him.”

Jeff froze, looking between the twin earnestly pleading expressions (it was oddly disturbing on Red’s face) and Stretch’s skeptical one. “Um. I don’t mind if you guys want to?”

“don’t go into infomercials, kid, you ain’t so good at the ringing endorsements,” Red said dryly. “c’mon, i doubledchecked, it won’t interact bad with your meds.”

“ixnay,” Sans hissed. Stretch only sighed.

“of course you did, you shit. you know, i need to stop bitching about my brother being controlling because you’re valedictorian with an advanced degree in meddling.”

“yeah, yeah, me and those kids with the dog,” Red waved that away. ”c’mon, we could all use some chill. either smoke with us, or sansy and i’ll go back to my place and do it there.”

“give me that,” Stretch said irritably, reaching for the roll. Sans let him pluck it away. He flicked his lighter and held it to the end until it kindled, inhaling deeply. Breathed out a cloud of smoke with a faint cough, “at least if you’re here i can keep an eye on you.”

“oh, yeah, you’re great as adult supervision. i feel safer already.” Sans took it back when Stretch held it out, taking a hit of his own. He held it out to Jeff, “give this a try, andy.”

“Um, that’s okay?” Jeff said meekly. “I tried it in college, it doesn’t do much for me. I don’t want to waste it.”

“can’t hurt to take a hit then,” Red said reasonably. “give it a try. what could wrong?”

~~*~~

“He is hot as hell, though, right?” Jeff slurred out, blinking up dazedly at the bright blue of the sky.

The path of his descent to laying on the grass was only a little convoluted. Starting with his feet being suddenly too hot, so he kicked off his shoes and the grass felt so good on his bare feet he decided that laying on it would feel even better. It did, all cool, faintly prickly glory and that mingled with sweet relaxation lapping over him was a hell of a lot better than simply nice.

He was pretty sure one of the chickens was trying to preen his hair. He damn well hoped it was a chicken.

“the edgelord?” Came from next to him where Sans had joined in on his magnificent quest to the grass. Red and Stretch were occupying their own section of the lawn, solidifying it as a common goal. Sans didn’t wait for Jeff to reply, only added with lazy fervor, “fuck, yeah, he is.”

Okay, so, all of them ending up on the grass was a path Jeff could chart. This topic of conversation, not so much.

After passing the joint a couple times, —and Jeff was pretty sure he hadn’t meant to take more than one hit— the rest of the cookies had fallen quickly to their ravenous appetite. So had the sandwich and the little baggie of chisps, and somewhere in there Stretch was lamenting that Edge wasn’t home to bring them more snacks. Sans made some comment about Edge being a snack, and then—

Jeff wasn’t entirely sure what qualified as attractive to Monsters, but from his own observations of others around them, he was pretty sure when they were handing out the sexy, Edge went back for a second helping. Didn’t hurt to ask though, right?

From somewhere around his bare feet, Jeff felt the grass stir, then a bony finger poked the sole of his foot hard enough to make him yelp. “are you two discussing how hot my husband is without me?”

“nah, you’re sitting right there.”

“i didn’t think so,” Stretch sniffed. “yeah, he’s really hot, isn’t he. fuck, when he wears those jeans—“

“yeah, and those boots of his—“

“And that belt? Kind of, you know, draws the eyes down, yeah?”

The sound that came from Jeff’s left made him frown, trying to turn his wobbly head that way to see how a wounded animal managed to get into Stretch’s backyard. But the only thing there was Red and rather than enjoying the feel of the grass, he looked like he might be attempting to bite out a chunk of the ground.

“can we please not talk about how hot my baby bro is?” Red said, and wow. Jeff never took him for the begging type. “let’s talk about how hot someone else’s honey is. you!”

Jeff froze when Red pointed at him accusingly.

“Me? Oh! Oh, yeah, Antwan is hot,” Jeff agreed eagerly, sighing happily as his mental picture of Edge was overlaid with Antwan. Both of them obviously took far more than their fair share of sexy on their buffet plates, letting it spill over onto everything else like salad dressing seeping into the mac and cheese. Hmmm, maybe he could keep them on his thought player side by side, Edge and Antwan—

His introspection was interrupted by a loud scoff from Red. “we know he’s hot, we can see. how is he in the sack, now, that’s a real question.”

“Um.” There were many answers to that question in varying stages of pornographic, each battling with his dwindling common sense to be said first.

“you can’t ask him that!” Stretch scolded and gave Red a rough shove with his own bony bare foot. Jeff’s swelling relief at being rescued was immediately punctured as he went on. “i’m his best friend, i get to ask. how is he in the sack?”

“Uhmm…he’s…good?” Jeff tried but as answers went, no one seemed very satisfied with it. ”Really good?”

“that’s how you describe a mediocre summer action flick, not getting laid,” Red complained.

“don’t pick on him!” Stretch said, loyal even in his disappointment. “don’t feel bad, andy, edge is good in the sack, too.”

“doesn’t anyone want to know how good my boyfriend is in the sack?” Sans asked.

“no!”

“you ain’t even got a boyfriend, you shit.”

“Yeah, okay. Is he hot?”

Before Sans could answer, a pair of boots came up beside Jeff’s head. He stared in awe at the glory of them. They were nice boots, familiar boots, and Jeff reached out to rub a thumb over the dark, shiny leather. To his disappointment, they moved out of his reach and Jeff sighed sadly, absently looking up the long, long legs, up, up…oh.

Edge was looking down at them, arms crossed over his chest and that look should be patented under Severely Disappointed.

“What are you idiots doing?” It was a question, but Jeff had his suspicions that Edge already knew.

“babe!” Stretch said gleefully and made an attempt to sit up. It failed somewhere around the point of pushing up on his elbows and he sank back to the grass. “you’re home! we’re just…uh…” That laser of disapproval looked like it cut through the cloud of his high and dawning realization washed over Stretch’s face. He made a hasty attempt to change tactics. “hey. uh. love you?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“which one will make you less mad?”

“Neither, brat.” But he moved to kneel next to him, a gloved hand gently smoothing over Stretch’s skull. He made a happy little sound, not unlike the chickens, and leaned into that touch. “I’m not angry. You seem relaxed.”

“yeah,” Stretch sighed. The way he tipped his head into Edge’s petting made Jeff unsuccessfully stifle a giggle. “and we kept it outside!”

“Smoking anything in my house is unwise,” Edge agreed.

Sans leaned up with marginally more success than Stretch, holding up the joint. “you want a hit?”

“No, thank you,” Edge said dryly. “Try not to light anything on fire this time. Do you all want a snack?”

From his wince, they were maybe a little too enthusiastic with their response. But Edge only nodded, his thumb skirting over the curve of Stretch‘s skull a last time before he climbed back to his feet, and Jeff watched in bemusement as both Stretch and Sans lifted their heads to watch Edge walk away.

Or at least Sans tried. For some reason his head dropped back to the grass with a muttered, “ouch! stop it asshole, i ain’t lookin’!”

The door closed and Jeff whispered as softly as he could to Stretch. “I thought he’d be mad.”

Apparently, his whispers were currently set to high. Stretch only flapped a hand vaguely at the house. “nah, he’s cool. also, he can hear you, he opened the kitchen window. gotta be a mamma bear.”

Sans’s voice managed to be somehow vague and still rich with his own brand of disappointment. “aww, so we have to stop talking about how hot he is?”

The loud sound of dishes crashing made a round of wincing go through them all.

Stretch waited for the last of the clatter to fade. “only if you want something to eat.”

“i’ll think about it…ouch! okay, okay, i’m done!”

Jeff shook his head when Sans held out the joint to him again. Whatever snack Edge was making, he wanted some, too, and if the price was ending any chatter about how hot Edge was, eh.

Better to not take the chance.

-finis-

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #by any other name #kustard

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abzilp · 6 years ago

Text

The Delicate is pale, limbs pipe-cleaner thin, with a head as shiny hard as beetle-back. Violent, in utero skull tectonics have led to a precipice of brow, a compression of matter past the point of truth. His eyes are crow eyes, and his ear holes winding tunnels to nowhere.

He comes in the latter days of afternoon, through blowing snow, dressed in black, while Schubert’s ‘Eighth’ plays magically in the background. He comes to suck the breath out of passing fancies and to treat the infirm of mind, the particularly annoying, to a long sleep.

‘In order to take the waters,’ as he explains it, he comes to a resort town on the edge of reason. Beyond it, the wilderness stretches north to the frozen pole. God has never drawn breath there – the domain of bat-winged demons whose skin is the ringed wood of oak trees. These creatures fly out of the forest at night to snatch up children, their little legs kicking to the moon. To live in Absentia is to live with a soul that is liquid lead.

Perhaps it is the manner in which he holds his cigarette or maybe his distinguished apparel that immediately ingratiates him to both the guests and staff of the Hotel Providence. At his request, they call him Harding Jarvis and marvel at his grace and facility with foreign language. Though his face is more a cow skull than a thing of flesh, no one seems to notice except the woman who cleans his rooms. She knows him by his aroma – roses over bad meat. When he knows she knows, he wheezes into his wine glass.

No matter who Carlotta confesses her fears to, they brush her off, saying, ‘Herr Jarvis? Not possible. My dear, you are disturbed.’ She makes it a point never to enter his rooms when they are occupied. Sleep to her is death, say the toothpicks holding open her eyes. She lasts only three days before she sits down and closes them. To sleep is warm and beautiful, but the chair she sits in is at the foot of Herr Jarvis’s bed. There is so much dirt on the floor – four ounces of fly meat on every windowsill.

He returns unexpectedly from an afternoon of playing whist with Madame Fesh of the colorful muff, Barlin the local logomancer, and Meme Haspin, taxidermist to the landed gentry, and discovers Carlotta asleep in the chair. With little pomp and less circumstance, he sucks the life out of her. The process is long and painful, and he doesn’t spare her a minute of it. After hanging her withered corpse, like a wrinkled garment bag of flesh, on a peg in the closet, he sits down to smoke his clay pipe. Before long, he moves to the writing desk, where he takes up his pen and records the essence of the maid he has just ingested. The first phrase to crawl out onto paper is, ‘Insouciance is the engine of regret,’ and from there it is a smooth plunge into lyrical facility.

At first he thought it was the crab soufflé he had had for lunch, but then realized, too late, that something in Carlotta’s blood was causing a strange transformation in him. With a popping of bone, a stretch of incisors, a whisper growth of fur and the shrinking of skin, he stoops to become a dog. His last oath is excremental before his words give way to growling.

The inhabitants of Absentia mention to each other the clever little hound that now wanders the streets looking for scraps. One boy tells how he heard it cry human, and the men who mine Mount Alfarabi are amused when the beast tries to have its way with a lady’s shinbone outside the beer hall. Meanwhile, everybody who is anybody is seeking out Harding Jarvis for a ride in the car, a game of tennis, a cocktail party.

Pharsalus, the hunter, comes in from the wilderness with furs to sell and wild turkey feathers in his hat. With the money he makes, he goes directly to the beer hall and drinks many mugs. He tells those he hasn’t seen in three seasons about the demon he shot and about the beautiful paradise surrounded by hundreds of miles of ice. For proof of the demon, he displays a pair of gnarled horns which he pulled like teeth, with a pair of pliers, from the forehead of the creature. As for paradise, he offers only a shrug.

The days of Night fall while Pharsalus is drinking. When he steps out of the beer hall, there is a brisk wind and winter chill. He stares up at the ice-bright stars and remembers tracking white apes at twilight. They moved like ghosts among the giant pines. They died with a cough of steam and a trickle of blood.

When his memory clears, Pharsalus notices a dog sitting in the street in front of him. Because the first hours of Night each year give him a desire to speak to something other than only the earth and wind, he decides to adopt the mutt as a hunting dog. Using scraps of dried caribou, he lures his new companion out of town and into the uncharted wilderness.

Night in the forest is either stone silence and falling snow or the sound of something dying. Demons fly out of the trees without warning, and Pharsalus is always ready with his gun. When they jump him from behind, he uses his long, curved knife and engages them in hand-to-hand combat. The dog helps in the kill. As the demons’ mauled bodies expire at his feet, he questions them about the path to the Earthly Paradise. Some of the dying offer clues, but most go quietly, their barbed tails thrashing the snow. Pharsalus writes whatever they tell him in a little notebook and then pulls their horns out with a pair of pliers.

In spring, the hunter and dog traverse a pass that leads over the mountains. The sudden return of the days of Morning brings light that blinds. In those mountains there exist hundreds of small caves formed long ago in the Ice Age. Each year, he hunts them for snapping yellow back and artifacts left behind by the ancients who had once inhabited them.

In one cave, the hunter discovers the frozen corpse of a man, sitting on a large stone at a table hewn from rock. Icicles hang from the man’s nose and frost glazes his eyes. From the worm-eaten journal laying open in front of the dead man, Pharsalus learns of his father’s search for him. The hunter puts his arms around the dog and cries.

In one entry in his father’s journal, the old man describes his love affair with a woman who lives at the bottom of a lake. Her skin is blue and her hair so long it turns into sea grass and trailing vines. He descends from his mountain perch every night to meet her on the shore of her lake.

They sit beneath a tall dune, the wind blowing around them. Above, stars smash into stars. He tells her how fifteen years earlier he left home to search for his son who had become a hunter in the wilderness. As he kisses her, he hears the immensity of paradise singing across the water to him.

Pharsalus dreams every night of the only beast he has any desire to hunt. It is a creature he has never actually seen, with many jumbled attributes – scales, fur, talons, fangs, feathers beneath and around the hide and hair. Every night it comes vividly to him and fills him with longing to hunt it. In the dream, he always hears it flying. There is a struggle and it bites him, like a snake, in the heel. He always awakens wondering if the bird part is rooster. But since he has gotten the dog, it has become more and more difficult to envision the dream kill.

In their wandering, the hunter and companion stumble upon a beautiful garden locked in ice. At the last second the Delicate steps out of the sloughed skin of the mutt to take the hunter by the throat. Lips meet lips and breath begins leaving, begins arriving. When the hunter is blind in one eye and his left rib cage shattered by the internal pressure, he summons those years of the kill and thrusts his hunting knife into the thorax of the Delicate. Streams of agony intermingle and separate out into fields of bright color. With a simple cracking noise the monster pushes a bony finger through the hunter’s chest and turns off his heart.

But the Delicate is dying from his wound. He stumbles through the wilderness clutching his oozing side with a slim, sharp hand. He kneels and prays to heaven but nothing happens. The memories of other lifetimes swirl in his memory with an anguished forgetting of paradise. He cries for the loss of his delicate form, his exo-skeleton now a crystal meteor. If only he could change into a dog, he thinks, as life leaves him in a cascade of steam. With little conviction, he sucks it back up as it goes. In no time, he’s good as new.

Back in the town of Absentia, in the very room of the Hotel Providence where he took Carlotta, he’s now taking them two at a time. The empty husks of life pile up like fresh-cut bales of tobacco in his closet. Men catch their wives sneaking to his door. Wives catch their husbands at some shadowy rendezvous with him, and he takes them both as quick as you please. He takes the contessa from behind as she leans over to adjust her corset. Her piles of hair almost save her, but, in the end, she is as easy to draw the life out of as is Master Cley, or the mayor, or Madam Silwort, or the Grossdig Twins.

Someone notices the population of the town dwindling at an alarming rate and wires for the government to send troops, before the Delicate can snip the telegraph line with his incisors. When the army arrives and surrounds the town, he is huffing, as if taking snuff, the last few morsels of Mrs. Fleacox. He realizes too late that she has long since gone bad as a soft melon even though she keeps right on talking till the end. Her pointless words infect him with flexis midocarsis, and he slowly begins to disintegrate. In his final hour, he stands upon the balcony of the mayor’s house, staring out over the wilderness, playing the violin until his fingers turn to salt and the instrument falls to the floor.

The soldiers break into Absentia, machine guns blurting out death, air cover dropping flames as if the clouds were on fire. They find the Delicate – a sorry, prodigious pile of cigarette ash. Mrs. Fleacox is lost between life and death, and they call for a specialist to administer the needle to the base of her spine. They collect the creature into a plastic bag and freeze-dry him. His remains are taken to Spire City in the Sunbelt where they are stored for the edification of future generations. The funding never comes through to study the crumbs of the Delicate, so he lies in a bag on a shelf and waits.

#jeffrey ford #the delicate #weird fiction

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kissykiwi · 7 years ago

Text

money, money, money (pt. 2)

(part one)

wherein things progress, and harry makes a bit of an ass of himself. (mamma mia au, 4700 words)

Y/N got to sleep in the next day by just a bit. Her Big Ben alarm clock, a gift her grandmother had picked up in a thrift store somewhere in Cheshire, rang furiously as soon as eight o’clock rolled around. The day was to begin.

“Good morning dear. Mr. Styles has asked for breakfast at 9 o’clock -- a pot of tea with the fixings, some toast, and a bit of fruit, if you please -- so you’ve got a bit of time to get ready and have your shower before I need you going,” her mother said, opening the creaky, light blue door to her room. Y/N paused, frozen in her morning stretch, to stare at her mother.

“Mr. Styles? You mean Harry Styles? The travel writer?”

Dee sighed, and suddenly Y/N understood why this information had been so carefully hidden from her. Harry Styles was her favorite author. He’d been around half the world and had quite a knack for colorful descriptions and vivid storytelling alongside a cutting humor. Though she’d never gone farther than a bit into the mainland, his work made her feel like a proper globetrotter.

“Yes, that Mr. Styles. And you are absolutely forbidden from badgering him about his travels. He’s come here for a respite from all that, and I won’t have you stressing him out and running him off the island,” Dee said warningly, shaking one beringed finger. Y/N tried not to pout.

“Okay, heard. Toast, tea, and fruit, and absolutely no mention of the fact that he’s been to every place I’ve always wanted to go.”

“Exactly. Now, up!”

Y/N watched her mother go, and then rolled out of bed. Today wouldn’t be too much of a day, overall -- a few check-ins who would probably fall straight into bed from jetlag and Harry fucking Styles were her only priority. She might even have time to read on the stairs or make it down to the beach in the slow moments. A pair of old cutoffs and one of her tee shirts should do the day. One quick shower later, and her neroli scented soap had her feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day.

“Gooood morning, Helena!” she sang, throwing herself around the doorframe into the kitchen of their main guest building. At the stove, the lady who did the cooking for the Muse turned to grant her a smile.

“Can you believe this new guest, huh? Toast and fruit! Is he a traveler or a hummingbird?” she said, half to Y/N and half to herself. Helena believed strongly in meals that would stick to the ribs, and clearly their new guest was already not quite up to snuff.

“We’re only here to provide what they ask, Len.”

“Well he had better start asking for a proper breakfast before he wastes right away.”

Y/N laughed and picked up the tray of food. Helena had been careful to set out cream and sugar alongside the teapot, and they’d even gotten out the nice jadeite tea set that grandma had sent her mom from Myanmar (it had still been Burma at the time). She’d also sliced apricots nectarines and thrown a few cherries onto the plate, even added a little pot of lemons in case that was how he preferred his tea. A few slices of Mr. Alexandrou’s local whole grain bread had been toasted to a perfect golden brown and were placed delicately to the side with a small pot of local butter. Despite it not being Helena’s preferred fare, it really seemed to represent the best of Kalokairi and her environs.

“You’re an artist Len. I’ll be back for my coffee!”

Y/N trotted away as quickly as she could with a tray full of food (and alright, so maybe it was a bit more of a slow walk), headed to the stairs that carried the kitchen up to the dining balcony.

The dining balcony. That was number two out of Y/N’s eleven favorite spots on the island, with a view that could almost rival the staircase. Though it was just a little rectangle sticking out from the second level of the cliffside building, it had always made Y/N feel like a princess staring over her ocean kingdom. The far left side of the building, facing the north of the island, peeked out upon Calliope’s Beach where this side of the island went to swim. If you faced the building on that side, you could see just past into the citrus orchards where Y/N had spent her childhood munching on oranges and reading fantasy books, and even further in, the houses of some of the locals. Though almost no one who ate up there knew it, the entrance to Euterpe’s Grotto was hidden at the very end of the beach where the island curved northeast. The west view, looking straight off the cliffside, was more of the dazzling blue of the Aegean Sea, and the east peeked into the docks and the little markets that sat behind them. It felt as though all of Kalokairi was encapsulated in a single turn.

“Good morning Mr. Styles,” she said cheerfully as she came up upon the curls she had seen the night before.

He looked up, eyes even greener than they had looked on his book jackets and framed by angirly furrowed brows and purple bags.

“I was told my privacy would be respected when I came here,” he all but snarled.

Y/N tried not to visibly recoil as she set his tray down, though she heard the clink as the tea set jerked slightly.

“Well of course, I mean-- we’re not going to go about on social media screaming that you’re here. But all the same, I’m the daughter of the woman who checked you in last night, and we make a point of greeting our guests by name.”

He stared at her a moment more, gaze both analytical and totally disinterested, and she wondered for a moment if she was actually a ghost. She took a deep breath. He grunted dismissively.

“I did want to ask, Mr. Styles, if you had any questions about the island or what we have to offer here. If you don’t mind me saying so --”

“I do mind, actually,” he started, cutting her off. “Can’t a bloke get some bloody peace around here?”

Y/N’s jaw snapped shut so hard that the canals of her ears hurt faintly.

“Of course.”

She was not ashamed to say that she fled the space after that, taking the stairs in a sprint with cheeks burning like the cherry of a cigarette from sheer fury. It was only the telltale cadence of Georgie’s footfalls at the bottom of the stairs that kept Y/N from running face first into her.

“Who pissed in your coffee?” Georgie asked, grabbing her by the elbows to steady her. Y/N rolled her neck.

“Haven’t had it yet. Did you know we have Harry Styles gracing our humble establishment?” Y/N laughed, clenching her fist.

“You mean your favorite author? The guy whose books I’ve bought you for the past three out of five Christmases?” Georgie asked. Y/N could tell she was confused.

“The guy’s an asshole. Steer carefully around him,” Y/N scoffed. Georgie was frowning at her, face clearly sympathetic, and Y/N wanted to scream.

“I’m so sorry rosie,” Georgie said, stroking her hand softly down Y/N’s arm. Y/N frowned.

“I’m only warning you George. We’ve got him for three months, and whatever his books were like, he is not.”

There was more Georgie wanted to say, that was certainly visible on her face, but she nodded instead.

“Wanna talk about this over coffee?” she asked softly. Y/N didn’t, not really, but it might be easier if she did, so she turned to the worn wooden table and chairs for employees set up in the kitchen. A steaming cup of coffee was set in her usual place, alongside a plate of Helena’s breakfast hash.

“So Harry Styles sucks?” Georgie prompted, taking a mouthful of potatoes. Y/N took a bracing drink.

“Of course he does. He’s massively rich and has met a million interesting people and seen half the world. What time does he has for us small folk?”

Georgie’s eyebrows raised high.

“Not that she’s bitter.”

Y/N glared.

“For the past six years I have lived the rest of the world through him and how funny he is. Now he’s here to stay with us and I find out it’s all an act. Forgive me for my sour grapes.”

Georgie waited for the next shoe to fall.

“It just feels like...” Y/N scrubbed her hands through her hair. “I don’t know. It just feels like everything happens outside of Kalokairi. And when it happens here, it can never be the same.”

“Oh c’mon Y/N. I’d bet you half my paycheck that he’s like that everywhere. You know how rich people are, they forget what it’s like to be ordinary like us. The ants can’t help but bother him,” Georgie pointed out. She poked Y/N’s plate, trying to remind her to eat for the rest of the day, and Y/N managed a morose forkful.

“It’s to be expected. Here I am working my ass off just to keep the walls of this place upright and he’s too high on the fumes of a few euros to be nice to people around him.”

“Never meet your heroes. By the way, he’s already sent down some laundry to be done,” Georgie replied. Y/N groaned and laid her head next to the plate on the table.

---

So Harry may have been a little mean to the cute girl who brought round his brekkie. In his defense, he certainly felt bad about it. He was just feeling so rotten between how tired he was and the start of the morning. There’d been this stunning sunrise he saw lighting up his balcony, and when he went out to watch it he felt so young and inspired and ready again. He’d grabbed his typewriter (which was a bitch to lug around, but always worth it) and set up on the little wrought iron table, and-- nothing.

It was like a million different words were pounding on his chest, begging to be let out of a door that his fingers could no longer be. It was infuriating.

So he’d gone to lay in bed and stare at the ceiling again, and by the time he’d marked down for breakfast, he was properly full to the brim with ire. And then the girl had known his name and he was just so bloody sick of being Harry Styles, Travel Writer that he’d snapped at her. He’d been even angrier when she’d had a reason for knowing it and he realized how rude he’d been.

He rather wished he’d let her speak too, because he didn’t know a stitch of Greek or where he ought to go now the day had begun, and he was a bit too afraid to risk running across her in the registration house. For now, he thought, he’d explore the resort.

It was a precious place, he had to say. The hotel complex itself was basically a square of buildings around a divided courtyard. The structures themselves were all very Greek, covered over with a pale stucco and roofed in with terracotta tiles. All of the doors were a soft shade of blue that matched the walls of the rooms. He was in the building to the north, the longest one, which connected to a dining balcony with one of the most breathtaking sea views he’d ever seen -- and he’d seen a few. The north building turned an L, so that it covered a half of the east side. There was a wide gate heading out of the courtyard that led onto a small, red dust lot, and that was where he’d entered the night before. The other east building on the lot had a spillover of more rooms (the least expensive ones, he assumed, since they looked out on trees and the road down to the markets and the docks). What must have at one time been a goat house was now a bit of storage for food and miscellany, according to the owner, Dee.

Beautiful though the buildings were, Harry could see the wear. In some places the stucco was chipped, and it was more of an off white than the pure, bright white that most Greek tourism brochures tended to picture. On the registration house he’d started in the evening before, on the very south side of the square of buildings, he could see tiles missing in the roof and how nearly all of the blue paint had peeled off the attic window shutters. Nevertheless, every worn patch had a cheerful flower to match it, and the food and comfort of his surroundings was undeniable.

Harry had already gone to inspect the flowers crawling the walls (he was almost fitfully delighted to see that it was an old, lovingly cared for bougainvillea plant), and noted with joy that the little box under the attic window was decorated with a carving of all of the muses and bursting with brightly colored blooms.

The courtyard had a slope to it, and it split like a step in the middle. Dee had explained to him in the ride up to the place that people had kept tripping over the damn thing, so she’d built a wall to make it safer because she wasn’t about to be liable. Then she’d found out that if you closed the gate and it made a suitable dance floor that went well with the courtyard’s outdoor bar, and it had kind of gone from there.

Though there was something almost magical about sitting under the clotheslines heavy with laundry on the east side of the gate, he’d seen stairs on the cliffside as the ferry came sailing in, and he thought that the gate on the southwest side of the courtyard may lead to it. It’d been closed all day, but he didn’t think that meant it would be locked. Those stairs, he thought, would probably be a good place to crack open the book of Ginsberg poems he’d grabbed as he was leaving New York.

To his surprise, the door of the gate he had seen was now open. His hunch had been totally right, he saw. There were the stone steps, and he could smell the faint aroma of cypress on the otherwise salty sea breeze.

He started down them, already thrilled by the view expanding in front of him, but froze when he noticed a head of familiar hair. It was the girl. She had a book in her lap and another stack to her side, and he noticed with a start that one of his was atop the stack.

It was a paperback version of Haggled History: Viewing Europe’s Past on a Budget, one of his prouder works. It was rather dense since it covered quite a few countries, chapter by by chapter, and how best to learn their histories with only a few euros in pocket. It was also less trendy, he supposed, than much of his other work. Apparently, his usual reader wasn’t much for history reference based jokes. He very rarely found himself signing it on his book tours-- and yet there was her version, tattered and well loved. Pages were marked with washi tape, seemingly in the place of a dog ear, and just about a whole pad of post it notes had found their way into the four hundred odd pages. As the gentle wind coming off the water blew her copy open, he could see it was highlighted and marked with a heart next to whatever city it was open to, margins crammed with notes.

Feeling suddenly vaguely ill, Harry turned around and decided that maybe sleeping off his jetlag would be the best use of his afternoon.

---

Georgie, the traitor, had told Dee how Y/N’s meeting with Mr. Styles had gone. Y/N tried not to be too irritated by the fact that her mother was largely unsympathetic -- “he’s just another guest, my rose, and his euros have the same value as anyone else’s. I don’t care what his personality is like.” Still, Dee knew how much his books meant to her (even now, having met the asshole), and Y/N would have liked a smidgen of understanding. Unfortunately, her mother was right. Harry Styles’ money was metaphorically green and all that, and he was giving them quite a bit of it. So Y/N could be nice. Or polite, at the very least.

Alright, she could prevent herself from being openly hostile. Y/N really thought, though, that that should count for something! It wasn’t as though he was being a peach. He’d been here two weeks, and the entire time he’d been surly and frowning. He’d even had the audacity to ask Dee to switch his mattress, as though that was the reason he was sleeping poorly. It hadn’t helped, either, because every time Y/N brought his breakfast (or any other meal. Or an extra pillow. Or had the nerve to even look in his direction), he was still as nasty and short as he’d been that first day.

The worst part though, easily, was the fact that she seemed to be the only person gifted with his special attentions. Her mother had insisted that he’d been a total sweetheart about asking about his bed, Helena declared that she liked him, despite whatever his breakfast choices might be, and even Georgie said that he really wasn’t all that bad.

Y/N was reeling with enough betrayal that this Thursday already felt pretty sour. But then the morning had started unpleasantly, moreso than usual. Big Ben had decided to take a day off (looked like she would have to bring it round to Mr. Hatzidakis to fix, again), so she’d awoken to her mother yelling through her door that she had 15 minutes before Mr. Clark would like his breakfast at 7:30. The food had been ready since Helena worked like an atomic clock, but Y/N’s hastily dealt with hair and puffy eyes were still a dead give to her own tardiness, and Mr. Clark was kind enough to let her know as much as she set down his cuppa and two eggs, scrambled, with sliced tomato and cottage cheese to the side. From there she’d been dashing up and down the service stairs to fill every ridiculous request from the latest batch of uni kids (and who on earth could drink three frappe’s in the space of an hour without their heart beating itself out?), never having time to eat or even get a sip of coffee in, until suddenly it was nine. The worst part of her day.

“Good morning Mr. Styles,” she said breathlessly, setting down his usual plate in front of him. She didn’t have his paper yet (they tended to get a variety of english options sent in for the guests, but this morning’s ferry was running late), but it would be on the way just as soon as she got that damn uni student his fucking Lucky Charms.

Styles grunted in response. “You forget I asked for the Guardian?” he asked mulishly, picking up the container of cream. Y/N sighed, feeling the simmer of anger in her chest roar to a boil.

“No, I-”

“Oi! Miss Waitress! I asked for that cereal,” called one of the Chads from the next table over. His friends snickered, and Y/N felt her fingers twitch at her side.

“-have to do that. I’ll bring the paper with his cereal,” she ground out, wiping an errant piece of hair from her forehead.

“Don’t see why it would have been so hard to do now, but alright,” Harry muttered, and Y/N felt the angry blood in her stomach crawl up her neck. She turned and left. Georgie grabbed her on the stairs.

“Listen, I know you don’t like Styles, but if you’re going to push any of them over the cliffside, pick the frat boys. They keep talking to me as if I don’t know english, and they say it’s because I ‘have an accent’. So do they! It’s just one of those English ones!”

“Duly noted. Have the papers come in yet?”

“Nik is running them up now, should be within five minutes,” Georgie answered as she jogged away. Well, Mr. Styles wasn’t going to love that. Now that the school groups were coming and going, Y/N found that he made a concerted effort not to linger over his breakfast. Helena, with her usual artful arrangement, had set out the cereal and milk alongside a bowl on a tray for Y/N to take, but Nik was nowhere in sight. Unfortunately, the food really couldn’t wait. The university boys seemed to get a kick out of complaining to her about every little thing, so the less room the better. Y/N turned and hauled herself back up the stairs.

“Cereal for you boys,” she said, voice distinctly more cheerful than she was feeling. She set the tray down and was ready to head back to see if Nik was around, but one of them grabbed her wrist.

“Pour the milk, won’t you?” he said, grinning, and Y/N heard her own knuckles crack.

“Of course.”

She poured the milk, trying to ignore the fact that her hands were now literally shaking with suppressed rage, and was once again ready to leave the balcony and maybe punch a wall, when she heard her name being called. It wa by Mr. Styles, who had a face like a thundercloud.

“Thought you said you were bringing my bloody newspaper up. I’ve been waiting all morning, and I understand that you might be busy flirting with England’s finest over there, but I would think you’d still be able to do your job,” he hissed as she drew up near him.

Oh, that was it.

“Listen. I know that in your tenure as one of the unnecessarily rich and stupidly famous airheads that wander this earth of ours, you’ve forgotten that the sun does not, in fact, revolve around your inflated head. Let me remind you though, that you are a guest here, just as they are -- in fact, very much like them since you’re in the running for ‘who treats the service workers worst’ -- and I am only one person running about to help just under eleven of you, all making rapid fire requests. So you’ll forgive me for not pulling the newspaper out of my own asshole just because you request it, but I’d just like to let you know that even if I could, I wouldn’t, because I’ve never had a guest who was less pleasant to be around and a greater disappointment of a person.”

By the end of her monologue, she knew, she was yelling. She just couldn’t help it. Two weeks of berating at the hands of someone she’d admired, someone who was regularly listed as one of the kindest celebrities in his tax bracket, and three days of those fucking university students (which, frankly, was enough). She was just so sick of being kind and amiable and patient with people who treated her like shit. From behind her, a throat cleared.

“Brought the paper up, Y/N. Nik rushed it since the boat was late, but I that didn’t really help,” Georgie said, voice torn between laughter and concern. Y/N turned around, snatched the paper out of her hands, and slapped it in front of Harry Styles so hard that the table shook.

“The Guardian, as per your request,” she snarled, and then she was gone.

---

Harry may have deserved it. “It” being the dressing down he got in front of two amused couples, four first year frat boys, and two lone guests at full volume at 9:10 in the morning. He knew he’d been pushing her, he supposed. But wow, had she gone off. Harry couldn’t help but be angry that she even looked good when she was screaming at him.

Still, it was a pretty shit way to start the day. He’d been unfair to her the entire time he was here, but again, Y/N could have let him know the ferry was running let. She didn’t have to make an ass of him. Although he supposed, again, that he hadn’t really given her the room to let him know. Whatever. Whatever, it had happened, and he planned to relax on the beach to soak it all off, since writing seemed as though it still wasn’t an option. (It was possible, he thought, that the persistent writer’s block was probably a big part of his shit attitude.)

It was only much later that evening, as Harry went to sit on the steps in the dying summer sun and read with ouzo and two small glasses (Helena had insisted, saying it would keep him from looking like an alcoholic), that he realized how different Y/N’s life really was.

There was a little landing in the stairs, just a storey below the resort itself, that had a pathway to the cellars. Harry knew from the chats he’d had with Helena in the courtyard that the little door on the side was rarely used thanks to the stairs from the kitchen, but now he could hear voices from where it was hanging ajar.

“... cannot believe you would ever speak to a customer that way! As a hotelier, you know better than that!” was the first thing Harry heard, Dee’s voice angrier than he had ever heard it. There were muffled sniffles in the background, and not for the first time, Harry felt like a proper asshole.

“I’m not a hotelier mom. I live in a hotel and I help, but I’m not a hotelier. That’s what you do. I’m just here. And I’m sick of being treated like it.” That was Y/N talking, so lowly that he could only barely hear it above the sound of the waves on the rocks below.

“Well while you’re here, a hotelier is what you will act like,” Dee responded, tone unforgiving.

“And how long is that mom?” Y/N was yelling back now, and Harry realized quietly that she had quite the temper on her. “How long am I here? Because I have begged until I was blue in the face to go to college, or Italy, or even Athens, and you’ve never let me! How long do I have to pretend like Kalokairi is all I’ll ever want when we both know it’s not?”

Harry held his breath. There was a long moment of silence.

“Y/N, you know that I don’t have the money for that --”

“I will take out loans for school. I will hitchhike, I will stay in hostels or camp illegally, I will sell everything I own, I don’t care. I just want to see -- fuck, something!” Y/N gasped, begging now. Another long moment.

“Y/N, I need you here. And I need you to do your job, the way I know you can. I’ve told you so many stories, dear. It’s not that much different out there compared to those,” Dee tried to be light in telling her story, but the tone was obviously clipped.

“Mom, I want to explore. I want to meet people, and see things. I want to make my own stories,” Y/N pleaded. Dee sighed.

“And you’ll have them, my rose. One day.”

“When?”

This time Dee didn’t respond. After another long period of quiet, Harry heard the sound of steps walking away, followed by harsh sobs.

Harry felt really, really awful. Here he’d been, so trapped by the weight of his job, that he’d forgotten how much it was that he got to do. Just like Y/N had said. So lost in his own thoughts, Harry didn’t realize that the door was opening on a tearful Y/N until they’d looked up and made eye contact. The anger he’d become so used to settled in on her face. Oh boy.

#harry styles writing #harry styles x reader #harry styles imagine #harry styles blurb #himagine

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0xa00001 · 6 years ago

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re: a creature of contradictions. I talk pretty much constantly about how james is hypocrisy and contradicting viewpoints all the way down to his core, more a series of beliefs hastily piled on top of each other as a result of trauma than a deliberate, continuous human being. it leads to inconsistency: oscillations that don't make sense under observation, a wave and a particle at once— trying to satisfy both sides of his beliefs and swinging wildly between wholly contradictory ideals because he cannot— will not— resolve them in his mind. because resolving them means acknowledging a certain death, processing a certain grief he's been ignoring for eight years and counting, and he's not going to start doing that, is he?

these are the forms james' contradictions take:

A ROMANTIC TRYING TO BE A CYNIC A CYNIC TRYING TO BE A ROMANTIC

certainly the cynicism came first. james grew up with a family that was merciful in little more than its absence, and negligent and disdainful when it was full. even with an older brother who parented him when his parents would not, that brother was still the golden child, and james— brooding, obstinate, off-kilter james— learned very quickly that the authority in your life will not help you. there is no benevolent force out there to save you. those people who are supposed to love you unconditionally will be the ones who break you in the worst ways over and over and over again, and nobody will lift a single finger to help you. they hate you for who you are, and you cannot change, so this will not change. and authorities beyond his parents, in school and beyond deferred to their own greed and self-benefit, favouring the materialist now over the sustainable later. we destroy for what, money?

romanticism came covered in tattoos and smelling of stale cigarettes, with nightmares earned serving overseas that made living near an airport impossible because planes overhead remind him of bombed-out armoured cars. and despite being someone who had seen the worst humanity had to offer, he insisted time and time again to james that people are good despite the atrocities— you only have to look. goodness is soft, goodness is quiet. goodness does not ask to be noticed because goodness only wishes to be good. and james, head over heels at 22, falls in love with this man who sees all the warmth james was denied, and begins to see it, too. forget the systems who leave people to rot— pay attention to those who lift others up when they fall. forget about the people who circumvent laws for profit— focus on those who hook you over their shoulder when you stumble. those who offer money and time to total strangers for no reason other than they care. focus on the protests, those who try to hold other accountable.

the cynic in him still asks, where was goodness when I needed it?

goodness puffs on a cigarette and tells him, I'm right here.

PEOPLE ARE GOOD AND MUST BE PROTECTED PEOPLE ARE EVIL AND MUST BE DESTROYED

romance dies in james when goodness is shot dead.

he burns his grief and wails against empty, cold walls for eight months, a creature consisting entirely of ragged, slicing edges roughly pulled into the shape of a human being, rage and loss leaking where each protruding shard pierces his skin. a garbage bag full of broken glass. the remnants of a bar fight, the only victor: misery. he unlearns every bit of hope and re-learns every alienating, vicious defense mechanism ground into him by years of mistreatment and injustice. focus on the systems that have left the world to rot. focus on the people who circumvent laws for profit. they're the problem. they're the monsters. the good still needs to be protected, this is true. but for all of goodness' relentless optimism, it was— passive. weak. weak enough that the monsters of the world could still shoot him down if needed.

and so james becomes so tremendous a monster that no other monster can hope to harm him.

I AM A MONSTER, UNWORTHY OF LOVE AND AFFECTION I AM A MONSTER, WORTHY OF FEAR AND ADMIRATION

fact: james park is a killing thing.

he first hacks at eight, circumventing the parental controls of their TV and watch batman. he learns how to use that to coerce, how to dig up the darkest and most precious parts of someone's life in his twenties, learns how to make them bend and snap to his will.

he first kills at twenty-four. it wracks him with revulsion, nausea, like his whole body rejects the act of ending life like it would reject a poison. he sits in a dark room and watches as it takes three days for the shaking in his hands to dissipate.

he learns after you do it enough, the shaking stops.

the nightmares don't.

james cultivates a reputation of unmaking people. anyone who crosses that threshold of badness comes under fire, life dismantled in a matter of weeks at best, disappeared off the face of the earth at worst. there are rumours: sold into slavery, killed, dropped into the wilderness, tortured and left to rot in a black site for months on end. affiliations are attributed to him he would laugh about if asked point-blank— governments, criminals, something in-between. everybody knows him, but nobody knows him.

and when people start trying to know him, when he shares a bed and they ask what makes him twitch and yelp, he lies. and they call him again, are you free tonight?

I'm busy. I can't.

weeks pass. eventually they stop. no kindness can be afforded to a monster, because a monster chose to live its life as such.

GETTING CLOSE TO PEOPLE IS DANGEROUS BECAUSE I'LL ENDANGER THEM GETTING CLOSE TO PEOPLE IS DANGEROUS BECAUSE THEY'LL ENDANGER ME

people are weakness.

people are weakness, but tools are acceptable. that's what dedsec new york starts as— that's what he tells himself. amr and grace, they're useful. like clara and jay were useful. like those kids he sat in IRCs with in high school were useful. he's not attached to them anymore than he'd be attached to his favourite processor or graphics card. (james should know better, because james knows he's very attached to his parts.)

and when the two grows to four grows to six and he finds himself toiling in imagined, shadowy enemies and worst-case scenarios it's because they're vulnerabilities. because james has six gaping weak points in six brilliant hackers with hopes and dreams and fragile bones and james knows best of all of them how easy it is to snuff a life out— to snuff them out. so when he's overprotective, it's because he's protecting himself. because james cannot suffer weakness, weaknesses means a place where something can slither inside of him and destroy his life again. he loves no one, but no one loves him.

remember: you did this to you.

he knows, though, that he loves six people, and he will burn down the world for them.

#[ — DRABBLE; ]#this sort of got away from me /#sounded better in my head but dlkhsfgkhsdfg /#take it /#[ — HEADCANONS; ]

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deathbyvalentine · 7 years ago

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LARP Prompts (TW for drug mentions, suicide ideation.)

Blue Lights

She sat cross-legged, night dress pooling around her, blanket wrapped around her shoulders like a cloak protecting her from the biting cold. A candle flickered beside her, jumping and flickering. On her lap was a leather bound book, spread open, pages worn from years of use. She stared, fascinated, trailing a finger along the winding words.

The book was her grandfather’s, who had been married to a priest. It was the only book that wasn’t about flowers or animals in the entire household. It was about saints. They were illustrated in bright colours, shining yellows and deep blues. They either looked serene, eyes closed, smiles painted on or in agony, being licked by flames or eaten by dogs. Scarcely any had long lives. The darkness in the world always wanted to snuff them out.

They kept coming back to one illustration. A woman lying in her soon-to-be-tomb, auburn hair spread across a pillow, eyes peacefully shut. A blue glow surrounded her, banishing the shadows into corners. It looked like the safest place in the world. Temperance had never even heard of blue light appearing anywhere near here. Nowhere was holy enough.

She wondered if she looked a little like her, though truth be told her hair was a shade darker than auburn, her lips too full, her skin too sickly looking. And she wasn’t destined to have any great adventures or grand deeds. She was stuck here, in this bed, too weak to do anything at all. Her illness didn’t just rob her health, it robbed her potential, her ability to serve the Church. Saints didn’t just pray. They did other things too.

With a huff of frustration, she blew out the candle and shut the book with a sharp snap. She would dream of sunrises that night.

Astrid + Syn Row

Astrid stood in the centre of the room, clasping her hands to her chest, eyes filling up with tears. She always looked so small like this, her shoulders sloping inwards, trembling just a little. Who knew if she did it on purpose or not. She always managed to work herself up so easily, it scarcely mattered if it was intentional. Whatever she felt, she felt deeply. Even if it was irrational.

The drugs probably didn’t help.

With shaking hands, she lit a cigarette, managing to look utterly plaintive. Always the innocent victim, never the aggravator. It was a skill really. She sat down on the edge of the battered sofa, flicking a strand of pink hair over her shoulder. “I just don’t understand.” “How can you not understand? You cheated on me!” “Yes, but I didn’t mean to.” The mind truly fucking boggled at that, and it was impressive that Syn didn’t leave right there. “How even - “ “I was drunk! And you know what I’m like - “ Flirty. Flaky. Forgetful. Ditsy. Innocent. Completely absent minded. And utterly impossible to reason with. She would never understand why people were angry at her, or how actions had consequences. She drifted through life, utterly surprised when bad things happened to her. Never learning. Syn looked at her, shaking her head. Astrid stood, putting out her cigarette on a plate and wrapping her arms around Syn. They weren’t shrugged off. “I’m sorry. I’ll be better. I promise.” Syn almost believed her.

Sanctum - Sacrifice

Axis had nothing to give.

All he had were the clothes on his back and himself. And neither of those things were worth much in particular. His blood had been spilt on too many city corners, his spit on too many beer bottles, his hair tugged out in more than one fight. And his mind? In pieces. Memories lost in a haze of drugs, childhood mostly repressed, fractured morality... You name it, Axis had lost it or broke it.

Maybe that’s why all he had left to sacrifice was his life. In every ritual he gave away a day, a week, a year. It didn’t matter particularly. When you didn’t know or care exactly when you would die, it was easy. Like giving away an abstract concept rather than anything to do with you.

Then, now he supposed, he was giving away chunks of himself. His personality, his compass, his feelings. He never had the strongest sense of self anyway, and when he did, rarely liked himself. Let’s see who he could be with bits of him missing. Maybe he’d be happier. Maybe he wouldn’t. Either way it’s a new type of bullshit. And even that seemed appealing after twenty years of his own.

Empire - Lullaby

The first death he had watched over in his Nation. Deaths happened all the time of course, every second he could feel someone somewhere perish, but this was different. This was real and brutal and right in front of him. Mattias had thus far lived quite a sheltered life. His parador had moved whenever conflict came to the region his family were staying in. And he had never had to fight. Or starve. Or struggle. Everything had been so easy.

Safiye had been one of the first friends he had made in Anvil, and now she was dying in his arms.

The curse of being the Brass Coast was the intensity. He felt every paper cut as if it was a sword blow. Joy and sorrow in equal measure, each as debilitating. He loved like an ocean, wild and expansive. His grief consumed him as much as his desire to celebrate everything she had done.

He kept his voice steady as he stroked her hair, letting the flame inside him burn bright but low. He joked with her, wanting her final moments to be joyful, not mournful. He poured liao to her lips and to her own, making sure her testimony and her spirit would be carried with her. She needed something.

He didn’t want to let her go, but when her lover came, it was time to. He didn’t want to intrude - Dawn were one of the few nations he understood in that way. The display was likely to be unsubtle and proud. He touched her forehead, said goodbye, and got to his feet, furious at the orcs that took her.

He didn’t let anyone see his tears as he walked away, knowing she would be gone by the time he got back.

Sam + Alexei Adventures

“I’m tired.” Sam looked back over his shoulder, widening his eyes. “You can’t possibly be.” “But I am.” Alexei’s voice wasn’t quite there yet, but it was dangerously close to a whine. “We’ve been walking less than an hour.” “But my feet hurt.” Alexei looked down at his feet that were in heeled boots. Not walking boots. Just like his fur coat wasn’t waterproof and his braces didn’t actually keep his trousers up. “I know what you’re trying to do.” “Then why don’t you just do it.” “Because then you’ll win!” “I always win.” Alexei said, flatly.

Ten minutes later, Sam rounded a corner, carrying the smaller man on his back. Alexei, for his part, seemed perfectly content with this development and looked around the forest with an inquisitive eye. A little oddly for someone that looked so ill prepared for hike, he didn’t show an ounce of fear. In fact, he seemed more relaxed here than he had done in court. Like he had stopped worried about being observed. Like he had actually taken a breath. He was less of a little shit too, marginally.

He started talking, idly at first. About his favourite flowers. About his favourite animals (wolves, if Sam was wondering, which he wasn’t). As the evening drew in, and sleep started creeping into his voice, it got more pensive, almost dreamy. Wondering what the point of this part of his tale was. Wondering what fatal flaw he might have running through him like a fault line. Wondering wondering wondering and coming up with no answers. Eventually, he fell silent and Sam realised he had fallen asleep on him. A sign of trust, he knew - Alexei generally found it incredibly hard to sleep. He would stay up to the early hours, reading or walking, anything but being alone with his thoughts.

When the tavern appeared in the small clearing, Sam almost hated to wake him up. He seemed to be having such a peaceful dream.

#larp #prompts #prose #drabbles

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winetae · 8 years ago

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⇾ city of stars | 01

⇁ female reader x yoongi ; female reader x taehyung

⇁ drama, slight angst || hollywood!au, actor!bts, enemies to lovers

⇁ 5.1k

. . .

When your childhood sweetheart packs his bags to pursue his dreams in the big city, the two of you promise to meet again once you’ve both become successful. Years later, you find yourself running to and fro auditions, desperately trying to make ends meet, while his face is plastered on every giant sized billboard in town.

↳ or; no one ever said the road to success was easy

a/n; OR a new short series literally no one asked for

+ inspired by the movie la la land (2016) and the anime skip beat (2002) “mama didn’t raise no weak hoe, you gonna push it” – sassi’s words of wisdom and also the reason i finally finished this;; ily !!!! this is for u

A beginning and an end—these moments bookend all your shelved romances.

Although the denouement may often vary—tears, a broken picture frame, a kiss—the origin story remains, for the most part, the same. But contrary to any of your previous encounters, Min Yoongi disrupts the familiar formula of exchanged hellos and awkward pleasantries.

Maybe it starts like this:

an ugly brown stain on your new white blouse, one iced caramel macchiato wasted.

In the movies, the guy offers his number and a free lunch to make up for his clumsiness, or gives up his hoodie to cover his mistake. The lead finds his efforts to earn forgiveness endearing, and soon enough, one date becomes two, two eventually turns to six. Somewhere along the way—between date number nine and eleven—he musters the courage to profess his love with a kiss, under the sleek blanket of a starry sky.

But this is not the movies, you are reminded, as the cold beverage clings to your skin and shirt unpleasantly.

“Motherfucker!”

It is not the most eloquent start, either.

You hope the sheer force of your glare has the power to pull an apology from his lips, but he stays still—completely indifferent to your plight.

“You should pay attention to your surroundings,” he drawls, unmoved.

Your immediate reaction is to scowl, brow creasing with indignation. If this had been any other day, you would have attempted to laugh it off because you’re no stranger to accidents. But today is D-Day: the start of pilot season and also your chance at finally landing a substantial role, something with more visibility and depth than the cheerleader #3 background character you’ve always been relegated to in the past. Today is supposed to be your ticket to stardom—the prized opportunity for your talent to finally bloom on center stage.

But one glance down at your worn-in wristwatch and panic grips you, dousing you in a sheen of cold sweat, much more unbearable than the spray of caffeine that’s still dripping down your shirt.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out this blunder will affect the rest of your day. You have two casting calls to attend from noon to four and there is absolutely no way you have any time to grab a change of clothes, especially if you factor in the perpetual traffic that clogs up the city streets. Your stress level is already at an all time high, nerves taut; the stain does nothing but add on to the overwhelming queasy feeling that swells in your gut like a balloon ready to burst. How are you supposed to impress the casting directors when you look like a slob? You can already imagine the offended expressions judging you before you even have time to open your mouth and deliver your well prepared monologue. A sense of utter failure stabs you in the chest and the high hopes you had for the day come crashing down in an instant.

You’re well aware at how much your future depends on how well you do today and the thought that one stranger and a cup of coffee could compromise this opportunity is enough to frustrate you to the point of tears. Maybe if your life was a romantic comedy, the scene unfolding in front of you would take a turn for the better. In such a clichéd scenario, you would expect the heroine to experience the Love at First Sight story archetype and throw away her dreams to chase after her soulmate.

But Min Yoongi is not your knight in shining armor. On the contrary, he is the furthest thing from the Humphrey Bogarts and the Cary Grants that grace the silver screens with their imposing presence and charming smiles. Instead of igniting your insides with desire, the mere sight of him and his lazy smirk makes your blood boil in anger. If you weren’t so attached to your daily dose of caffeine, you would have made sure to drench him in your gluten free pumpkin spice latte.

“Aren’t you going to apologize?” you snap, gesturing at the stain bleeding through the thin fabric of your shirt like a physical wound.

“Aren’t you? The coffee around this part of town is more expensive than a pack of cigarettes, y’know.” His derisive tone infuriates you further; it takes a herculean effort to not shove his empty cup of coffee up his ass.

Neither of you budge.

He stares you down and, had you been a lesser woman, you would have caved under the intensity of his glare. Maybe even cried a little. Still, you hold your ground, refusing to let yourself be intimidated by his scowl.

“You realize you owe me a coffee, sweetheart.”

If anyone else had delivered the line, you would have thought it to be a poor attempt at flirting. However, he utters the phrase with so much contempt, you almost reel back, struck down by the look he pairs with it.

“What?!”

In retrospect, you should have been more mindful of your surroundings but your mind had been occupied, too focused on revising lines that you already knew by heart. You’re aware the blame can’t be entirely shifted onto you, not when he had been so brusque in his movements, and distantly it registers that you’re both getting heated over nothing. Be the bigger person and let it go, your conscious urges you.

Pursing your lips into a grimace, you adamantly refuse to compromise. The only way your day can go from bad to worse, is if you let a short man with a mean looking face push you around like his plaything. Your aversion is justified, you argue internally.

“I have an audition,” you insist, tone clipped, waving around your script, penned and colored in pink highlighter, as if to prove your point. “I don’t have time for this.”

“Well aren’t you special.” The man sneers, eyes narrowing into slits. “We all have places to be, princess.”

“An apology would be nice,” you grit out, still refusing to back down. The use of pet-names by this stranger only irritates your further, itching at your skin like a insect bite you’re unable to soothe over. “But you’re so uncouth, I won’t waste my breath asking for one.”

“Ouch.” His lips curl into a mocking smirk, “well, maybe if you ask nicely, I’ll give the princess what she wants…”

You want to deck him. But your already limited time is running short, and another peek at the clock makes your fingers twitch around the cup of your drink, contents sloshing around, threatening to spill.

First impressions easily make or break a career. First impressions can also ruin relationships before they have the chance to begin.

Any other day, at any other time, you might have admired the slight glow of his peachy skin, or taken the time to appreciate how the lilt in his speech reminds you of home.

Instead, you flip him the bird and slide your sunglasses up the bridge of your nose so as to signal the end of the conversation. You feel extremely childish, like the star of a young adult drama series, but that doesn’t stop satisfaction from settling onto your features, only partly hidden by your knock-off Gucci shades. But your pleasure is short-lived; his disgruntled expression stays imprinted in your mind long after your argument ends, to your biggest dismay.

It’s funny how a mere stranger is able to single-handedly ruin your day.

Something heavy and uncomfortable sits in your chest, like a ball of lead, and your script trembles in your hand.

You’ve barely made it to your first audition, copies of your resumé neatly tucked under your arm and script clenched tight in your fist, but the memory of the morning’s incident makes it impossible to concentrate on your forthcoming task. This, of course, only infuriates you further, because the last thing you need is for that asshole to distract you from the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. You inhale slowly, counting eight beats before exhaling, trying your best to clear your mind and focus on your day’s objective.

6… 7… 8

You repeat the process until your clenched muscles slowly relax and your breathing evens out.

The role you’re auditioning for is a secondary character in a new TV series, set to debut in the fall on one of the main public channels. The scriptwriter has won half a dozen Emmys in the span of their short career, and from what you’ve been able to read of the script so far, the ratings will probably do well. There’s a good balance between the drama and the romance and to top it off, the dialogue is witty and gives you enough material to work with. For weeks, you’ve been preparing your role, even going as far as to memorize the other characters’ lines just in case they ask you to read for someone else at the audition.

Up until yesterday you were still buzzing with excitement, confident that this job was the one that would finally jumpstart your career. But now, your thoughts are flooded with incessant “what if’s…” that are slowly poisoning your morale. You can already picture yourself announcing to your parents that once again, you didn’t get the part you were pining for…

You hold in a sigh, not looking forward to that phone call. It’s hard to snuff out the smidgen of shame that grows with a pang in your chest whenever you speak to your parents over the phone. You know they patiently await news of your success, so you can’t help but feel like you’ve let them down when their inquiries are met with silence on your end. “The road to success is paved with sacrifices and failure,” your father reminds you often, as if sensing the heaviness that weighs down on your shoulders.

When asked if you have adjusted to the bustling city life, you will always answer in the affirmative. Although the reply is mostly meant to reassure your concerned parents, separated from you by miles upon miles, you can’t help but believe the words you reiterate every weekend over the phone. After all, you’ve been here long enough for the sun to dust your skin gold, freckles blooming on your exposed shoulders. You’ve long since memorized the street names and adjusted your schedule to take into account the constant traffic jams caused by the heavy congestion.

But it’s during times like these, when you’re sandwiched in an elevator with seven other girls your age, all with highlighted hair, professionally blow-dried to glossy perfection, that you realize how out of place you really are. You hug your handbag to your chest in an poor attempt at concealing the obvious brown splatter down your front. From the corner of your eye, you see someone raising their eyebrows in disdain, their expression visible in the elevator wall’s reflection.

She coughs, the sound catching everyone else’s attention.

“You’re auditioning dressed like that?” her voice drips with faux sympathy and immediately embarrassment colors your cheeks.

Remarks like this are to be expected, you suppose, but that doesn’t mean you’re insensitive to the comment.

But before you have time to formulate a retort, a musical chime alerts you that you’ve arrived at the audition scene. Everyone files out and you shuffle after the rest, handbag still clutched to your chest like a physical shield.

You’re told that the auditions will be one-on-one and that your name will be called up when the casting directors are ready. Sitting down in the waiting room only ramps up the angst that threatens to swallow you whole.

The clock ticks by slowly, every measure of time filled with mounting dread. What if you blank out and forget your lines? You run through every possible worst case scenario, despite trying to distract yourself by playing piano tiles on your phone. It obviously doesn’t work and you’re just about to turn off your phone in a fit of frustration, when it buzzes in your hand, alerting you of an incoming message.

A smile pulls at your lips when you realize your best friend, Tina, had sent you a text to cheer you on. You can almost hear her voice as you read out the text, her accent bleeding through the words that light up your screen.

tina [01:23 pm] Smile like fucking Julia Roberts even if they shit on you. If they see you sweat, it means they win, k?

tina [01:23 pm] You got this, bitch :)

Somehow the aggressive motivation encourages you more than any bouquet of expensive white lilies you could have received. She knows how much today means to you and how much you’re worked up over it. You tell each other everything, so she’s well aware that the desire for this job isn’t solely for monetary reasons.

Your dream of being an actress constantly surprises people when you tell them. The word actress evokes images of glamorous movie stars and fearless individuals who aren’t afraid to push their limits in order to create art. Your far from fearless. In fact, it’s taken years before you finally gathered your courage and left behind your family to pursue your dreams.

It’s not easy to lend your body over to your character, but it’s something you study relentlessly—pen stuck between your teeth to practice your elocution, spending your hard earned money to attend acting workshops on the weekends after your shifts end. You devote yourself to the craft, studying everything from Lee Strasberg’s method acting to the Chekhov acting technique. But all of it never seems like it’s enough. It feels like you’re stuck in a swamp, and no matter how much effort you put in, it’ll never be enough to move forward.

Suddenly, your name is called and you jump to your feet, adrenaline making your spine stand straight. You’re quickly ushered into the small room where the casting director and his assistant sit, hands clasped on the wooden table in front of them. Piles of papers are scattered in front of them, and you can spot headshots and crossed out names on a list.

At once, you can feel their serious gazes settle on the coffee stain that adorns the front of your shirt. You ignore the slight raise of their eyebrows and instead shoot them your best smile, the one you’ve long since perfected in front of the mirror in your room.

You present yourself, words tumbling out through your strained smile.

As you start to relax, muscles in your neck loosening, it’s easier to slip back into the role you had worked hard to perfect. Everything from your posture to the tone of your voice changes, and it’s as if you morph into an entirely new person.

At least, that’s what you let yourself think. You’re so into the part you don’t notice they’ve signaled for you to finish prematurely.

“Very well.” A hand comes up in the air à la Simon Cowell, effectively putting a stop to your dramatic speech. You resist the urge to check if he has protruding nipples to match.

You halt mid-sentence, mouth slightly parted, the rest of your prepared phrase stuck in your throat. Aware that you must look like a poor imitation of a goldfish, your jaw closes shut with an audible snap. You glance at his name place card, squinting at the small embossed lettering, before he commands your attention with a cough.

“So, tell me,” Neil continues, crossing his arms and leaning forward to stare you straight in the eyes. “What do you think love is?”

“What love is?” you parrot back, trying to mask your confusion. Is this a trick question of some kind? You fail to understand what answer he expects of you, so instead of answering verbally, you shift around on your feet. It’s hard to think properly when your entire career is on the line; one wrong answer and you can say goodbye to the role you prepared so much for.

“Yes. What is love to you?” He flips through your meager résumé, nodding in what could be either acknowledgement or dismal.

Sweat beads at your hairline while your entire body freezes up. What does he mean by “you”? You wonder if he expects you to answer in character or not… What would your character answer? According to the script, she’s a little airheaded, with no other purpose than comic relief.

“Love is…” you trail off, suddenly overcome with a memory you believed to be buried in the recesses of your mind. The words trigger something within you, and for a second you falter, the rest of the room becoming but a faint buzz of static in your ears.

“I have loved you.”

His words settle into your lungs like a cloud of smoke, making it difficult to breathe. You’re not sure what hurts the most—his apologetic expression or the way he delivers his confession with the utmost sincerity. The use of the past tense only finalizes the blow; the skin of your lips almost bleed from the force of your bite.

“Do you not anymore?” you croak, voice catching in your throat.

You hate crying in front of him. Years ago, whenever you scraped your knees after falling from your bike, you had always refused to shed any tears in his presence. It all flashes through your mind right then like a film stuck on loop— the packs of band-aids you carefully wrap around his blisters and the way his calloused fingers strum your exposed skin like his guitar in gratitude.

“Of course I do.” For the first time since your argument, he loses his composure, the harsh creases between his furrowed brows giving away how much the goodbye is affecting him.

A warm palm encloses your own and with a nudge at your chin, he forces you to meet his own gaze.

You wish he would release you from his hold—only because it would be easier to conceal the trembling in your jaw. He must feel the minute movements beneath the pads of his fingers; for a split second his mask falls, features stricken with grief.

“I’ll always love you,” he finally admits, the quiet confession ringing loudly in your ears.

The sentence echoes in the silence of the room, seemingly amplified by the memories of all the previous times he had whispered the same words, intertwined with soft kisses and familiar caresses. There’s nothing comforting about the admission now—not when it veils the finality of a goodbye.

“But?” you ask tentatively, readying yourself for another blow.

Your reaction, for some reason, seems to anger him, because his expression stiffens—muscles on his face crisping up, wall falling back into place. It’s always been difficult to read him when he closes himself off from you, but it never stops you from trying. You search his features, hoping to find some kind of sign that would clue you in.

“Please don’t make this harder than it is. I thought you, out of everyone in this godforsaken town, would understand me.” You blink, eyelashes damp with unshed tears.

“There’s nothing for me here,” he continues, softer now, glassy eyes not noticing the way you flinch at his words. “If I stay, I’ll never get anywhere. They say there’s more for me out there in the big city. And I know— I know it’s crazy and the competition is tough, but—”

There’s a pause as he gathers breath, your face still cradled in the warmth of his palm. From where you’re standing you can spot the beauty marks and scars that are sprinkled over his skin like tiny constellations. You think back to the time he was twelve and had nicked the skin right above his eyebrow during one of his baseball games. It all seems like a lifetime ago—before puberty had filled his gangling body with hard muscle—but you can still recall with vivid clarity the front he had tried to put up, his brow furrowed and jaw clenched. Much like now, you think.

“But I’ll never know if I don’t at least give it a try. I’ll regret it if I stay cooped up here, wondering every day why I didn’t swallow down my fear and pack my shit up. I know I’ll be miserable if I give up on my dream. You know that, right? It’s the only thing I have going for me. I’m not like you—I suck ass at math and science. I don’t have a future here so I’m going to where I actually have a chance.”

And maybe now is not the time, but it’s impossible to stop the envy from coursing through your veins. How lucky it must be to know what you’re good at and what you want, to be brave enough to leave everything you’ve known behind because you have something to chase after. Unlike him, you’re stuck at a standstill, with nowhere to run forward to and now the only thing grounding you home—gone.

“I have to leave, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, you’re right.”

The last thing you want to hear from his lips is an apology. It’s a painful reminder that there’s a world outside the bubble you’ve built for yourself, that everything around you is changing and you’re the only one stuck in place, unmoving.

In the end, you opt for honesty.

“Love is a promise. It’s waiting for the right person, no matter how long it takes.” Your voice is resolute, even as you twiddle with a ring on your index finger nervously.

“Ah, I see… I don’t suppose you believe in love at first sight? Or soulmates?”

You run your tongue against the inside of your cheek, still unsure what sort of answer they’re looking for. It feels like a test but Neil’s voice and expression give nothing away. Either way, you must have taken too long to answer because he clears his throat and rearranges the papers on the table in front of him, his assistant writing something in red ink across your résumé.

“That’ll be enough, then. Thank you for your time.”

Maybe today just isn’t your day, you think grimly, gathering your things. The ring that sits on your finger catches the overhead light, shine momentarily blinding you. When will you be able to fulfill your end of the promise? Perhaps childhood promises are meant to stay in the past. You’re not sure why you stubbornly hold onto such words, anyway.

The fight that usually lights up within you deflates. Most days, you’re optimistic, but today for some reason, things just haven’t gone your way. Ever since the damned coffee cup this morning, things have only been going downhill. Of course, it’s not fair to blame everything on what was evidently an accident, but it’s easier that way.

“On a scale from one to ten, how bad did it go?” Tina asks, pouring you a generous shot of vodka. Since you don’t own any shot glasses, you have to pry the bottle out of her hand because any more and you would think she wants you dead. “One being they occasionally zoned out during your monologue…”

She scratches her chin, trying to recall the worst audition story. “Ten being told you’re too ugly to read for the part. Although I have heard some disturbing ass stories that are definitely a fifteen or higher. You know Drew Barrymore? Heard she was asked to give herself the finger during an audition.”

“What?” you splutter, frown marring your features.

“Dunno, it was supposed to be a sexy scene but there was no one to read with her, so she had to act it out herself. Pretty w-weird. So she sucked her own finger while she acted out the blowjob. Or maybe I’m not remembering this correctly?” Her words are slightly slurred together, shoulders raising up into a shrug.

“Um,” you choke out, after knocking back your drink in one gulp. “Okay, well, it didn’t get weird. I thought it was going well but he cut me off before I finished and then asked me questions. I guess I kind of blanked out? I didn’t know what to say, so he must have ended up thinking I’m too daft.”

“Isn’t your character supposed to be a little empty up there?” she points at her head, one manicured finger only slightly missing her eyeball.

You’re not sure she notices the look you shoot her way, but if she does, she promptly ignores it in favor of reaching for the vodka bottle.

“Slow down or you’ll puke all over the carpet. Do you really want to add to our stain collection?”

She huffs, pouting pathetically up at you.

“Spoilsport. Fine, let’s get drunk at a bar instead.” You’re convinced pretty easily because anything seems like a better alternative to spending the night cleaning up your friend’s vomit.

You almost regret your decision because grungy bars aren’t your thing. Empty plastic cups litter the ground and faded graffiti paints the walls in squiggly streaks, and, yeah—grungy bars are definitely not your type of scene.

It’s nearing the one o’clock mark and you repress the urge to (kindly) throttle Tina and her group of friends who have dragged you along with them. Instead of sitting on your couch re-watching one of your favorite movies, you find yourself squirming your way through a crowd of sweaty bodies, balancing four cups in your hands and doing your best to prevent the cheap beer from spilling.

An elbow juts out, bony angle jabbing your side, and some of the froth overflows in splatters, coating your fingers in its stickiness. You mutter out a curse that gets lost, drowned out by an off-key acappella rendition of a Britney anthem, while you’re left to salvage the damage. There is a pause for breath onstage, and someone yells “Take the mic away from him!” in the background. Suddenly, it is chaos. Everyone howls out their own two-cents and the performer onstage redoubles his efforts in his attempts to drown out the noise with his song.

For a reason you can’t quite understand, this place seems to be a hot spot for all the young, neighborhood artists; you spot a pair of guys in matching hoodies from the local film university at the bar, trying to pitch their idea to anyone drunk or interested enough to listen.

The cause of its unexpected success seems to be the open mic night event that is hosted once every week. Apparently, talent scouts are known to scour this area from time to time, and the promise of a success story attracts all the young and struggling artists, desperate to make it big. One of your friends has been raving about it for a little over a month, and even you’ve been curious as to see what it looks like. Your expectations fall short, but you won’t let that deter you from having fun.

Well, fun isn’t easily found.

Tonight happens to be open mic night, which means you’ve already had to sit through half an hour of drunken poetry. You’re all for the creation of art through self-expression, but, well…. The intoxicated ramblings are amusing at best (the highlight so far being a short skit involving a plastic hammer and a beach ball) but the night’s entertainment is as gripping as a B-rate movie.

You let out a plaintive sigh, swirling the ice cubes in your cup with your straw, zoning out yet again when the next participant shuffles onto the small makeshift stage. You ready yourself for another five minutes of nonsensical babble, but instead you do a double-take as your gaze falls upon the man adjusting the mic stand, his shaggy hair partly obscuring his face from view.

Instinctively, your blood runs hot—something ugly rears its head as soon as you recognize the same face you’ve been cursing since your failed audition.

You gnaw your straw, working your jaw until it becomes just another useless piece of plastic.

Although you’re not yet familiar with his name, you can’t forget the ugly lines of his face and the cold, dead look in his eyes. You don’t know why you thought he looked slightly attractive this morning because looking at him now only makes your lip curl in disgust. Why is his skin glowing? You’re convinced he must have dabbled glitter over his body to achieve such an effect. Who does he think he is, anyway? Kesha? Edward the vampire?

A nameless stranger—that is all he is to you at this point. And yet somehow he is also more than that.

Hate is a strong word. But as your attention focuses solely on his face, highlighted by the harsh glare of a spotlight, something within you boils to a tipping point.

A hush falls over the packed room as he clears his throat into the mic. Something about the sound bounces off the walls, makes several heads turn, snapping them out of their drunken stupor. As much as you want to tear your gaze from his figure, something about his presence on stage commands your attention. Unbeknownst to you, your breath is caught in your throat—anticipating his performance.

When he finally speaks, you can’t keep the astonished expression off your face. You’re not sure what you expect from him—maybe a dispassionate monologue on the benefits of caffeine or perhaps intoxicated words slurred together—but not this.

Impassioned dialogue falls from his lips, his face scrunched up. Words become bullets he fires into the crowd, his tongue twisting each of them with precision. You don’t know much about rap—only the try-hard images you see on television—but this is nowhere close to that. He quickly creates a story, raw emotion building with each stride he takes across the stage, and you’re unwillingly sucked into it.

“There!” Tina nudges, voice somehow catching your attention. You fight hard to detach your gaze from the stage. It takes a moment to orient yourself, still reeling from the performance that’s still going on, but your stare finally falls on the man your friend is pointing at, huddled in one of the corners of the room, nursing a half empty cup of amber liquid.

“That’s him! The guy from The Agency. He’s the one who comes here sometimes. I swear he was sleeping earlier but look! Whoa, this guy must be good to have gotten his atten—”

You tune her out, the anger that had simmered down now back in full force. Your day has officially gone to shit if the same guy from this morning is now being recruited by one of the best agencies in the world. Nope, this can’t be happening—you refuse to accept this as your reality. The many shots of alcohol blur your better judgement and you lick your lips in preparation for fucking war.

Slamming your cup down on the table with more fervor than needed, you rise to your feet, a single thought coursing through your mind.

Over my dead body, asshat.

#for my sunshine child #!!#bangtanwriters-net #kkreationsnet #kwriterskollection #bts scenarios #yoongi scenarios #taehyung scenarios #bts angst #kpop scenarios #yoongi #taehyung #also s/o to my sister who yelled at me to finish this :")

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mosaicabstract · 8 years ago

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Has anyone answered yet? I love the robins. I especially love Damian. He's such a brat. I adore him being obnoxious while the other Robins try to ignore him. Also that he like him well enough if he would stop being the son of Batman and the son of Talia Al Ghul and the Grandchild of R'ah... so many different reasons to be a bit entitled. But all Batfam is awesome. Batman being himself is amazing too.

(ok, so this is going to be kind of weird, but here’s the thing. i’ve been sitting on this massive unfinished batfam fic for over a year and i’m never going to finish it so instead of writing a new drabble... i’m just gonna post it here. it’s much longer than a drabble and not finished and could either be shippy in the sense of jaydick or seen as just brotherly bonding but there’s some damien and tim in there as well at the end. let me know if you want another drabble and i’ll write you one!!! i just figured that i’m never gonna finish this thing but i like it, so i might as well let it see the light of day....)

Despite the shitty lighting from the single, dying securitylamp at the mouth of the alleyway, Jason knows it’s him. There’s no possibleway to mistake him: the long, sinewy arms, the straight line of his spine, hisimpeccable posture… the “OG” boy wonder himself. He can’t even see the brightblue bird strapped across his chest but he knows it’s there. He doesn’t evenknow how acrobat boy got there; probably some death defying shit, but hedoesn’t have time for this.

Putting out his cigarette and sliding his helmet back on, hewatches as Dick slinks stealthily along the dark alleyway, silent but visible, which is his first mistake.

Did Daddy teach younothing, Dickieboy? Bruce always drilled it into Jason that it was betterto be heard rather than seen. Sound can be distorted. Sight is vulnerability.And here he is, sitting on the roof of a modestly high-roofed bank, watchingthe asshole he used to quietly idolize, his brother of circumstance, crownjewel of their fucked-up little family, make an idiot out of himself in anattempt to stop the hostage situation currently happening right underneathJason’s ass in the bank below.

What pisses him off the most is that he has this under control. Yes it’s technically closer to Blüdhaventhan to Gotham Proper, but on the outskirts. Maybe technically Nightwing’s territory, yes, but Jason got here first, and some childish part of himthinks that’s good enough reason for him to handle this solo.

He’s in the middle of his own variety of trying to fix thesituation: stay on top of things (literally), watch, and wait for the perfectopportunity to shoot off a couple of rounds through the slightly openedskylight beside him into the base of these motherfuckers’ skulls. He has aperfect view of the bank through the propped-up skylight cover, and all three perps,but the time hasn’t been right yet. They’re too busy flirting with the cops,jeering threats from behind ski masks. Besides which, they’re too antsy. He cansee the way they shift around, nervously looking at all of the exits, waitingfor something (or someone, likely with a cape) to jump out and foil theirscheme. They haven’t gotten comfortableyet.

The second any ofthe prickless pieces of shit holed up below him set eyes on a masked vigilanteof any sort (let alone a pretty boy in a leotard), they’ll blow the brains outof the three hostages they currently hands on with guns to their heads. They’vethreatened as much to the police, at least, and maybe they don’t have the ballsto actually do it, but Jason knows that people like himself exist in the world,people who pull the trigger first and find time for guilt later. And there’s always time for guilt.

Dick pauses in front of the back entryway to the bank, mutteringinto his wrist comm too quietly to be heard. Jason assumes he’s calling home toBabs, trying to get an update on the situation or a shred of information thatwill help him carry out his mission.

Jason lifts his pointer and middle finger and his thumb, forminga hand-gun which he aims carefully down at the dark form below him.

“Boom,” he whispers, pulling the imaginary trigger, thinkingof just how easy it would be forsomeone even half as good a shot as him, at his same angle, to splatter Dick’sgenius brains all over the grimy brick and asphalt. Clearly, regardless of allthe bullshit he’s seen in the world, Dick Grayson is far too trusting ofhumanity. Of circumstance. Taking down the bad guys is what Dick lives for,helping people out, but he’d never expect something so random and brutal tohappen as someone watching him, stalking him, taking him out when he’svulnerable.

But that wouldn’t do, would it? Jason imagines that any painBruce felt after he died, he wouldfeel it tenfold more if his precious Richard were to snuff it. But Bruce’sreaction isn’t the one that gnaws at him, makes him shutter. Tim would likelymalfunction like a glitched operating system and implode if his hero were todie. Babs would wreak havoc on the world at large. And then there’s the little shitheadheir apparent. Jason finds it hilarious hearing stories about how Damian usedto despite and mock Dick to no end when now he would likely burn down the worlddefending Dick’s honor, possibly even over his own father’s.

Dick has that effect on people. Always has. Jason, back whenhe still donned the campy ol’ red, yellow and greens, had harbored a borderlineobsessive crush on the older boy, even if he’d only catch glimpses of him.Dick, always a gentleman to strangers (nice strangers that weren’t trying tokill him), had regarded him with a sort of hesitant kindness that Jason didn’tfully understand until Jason saw Tim in costume the first time. The feeling ofbeing replaced cut deep, even if deep down he knows now that he couldn’t haveasked for a better protégé to pass the torch to. He likes Timmy. Knows he’s a good kid. Knows that Dick probably neverfelt that sort of acceptance and appreciation about him as Robin, but he can’tblame him. Tim’s as noble as Dick. Jason’s always been the unstable fuse in thecircuit.

For a while, things seem to calm down from a boil to asimmer, the hostages huddled back in the corner of the bank behind the welcomedesk silent with the robbers staying spread out, sometimes shouting commandsout to one another. One of them shuffles back toward the vault in the back, outof Jason’s sight, and he curses. He glances back down at Dick, and at the samemoment he does, the emergency light goes out with a purposeful buzz.

Now all he can see is the dark, sinister outline ofNightwing traced against the shadowy brick and it sends a thrill down hisspine.

“Jay,” Dick greets darkly.

“Dickhead,” Jason retorts, smirking and leaning forward,“fancy seeing you here.”

“Lay off. This one’s mine.”

“I got here first.”

“Don’t be so childish.”

“I’m not the one in tights.”

He can sense Dick’s scowl rather than see it, and it makeshim laugh.

“Chill out, Grayson. I’ve got this. I have eyes on two ofthem and I know the location of the third… it’ll be as easy as skipping rockswhen the time comes.”

“Sorry Jason,” Dick responds, moving even further into theshadows and out of Jason’s field of vision. “You know I can’t let you do that.”

Jason can’t help but roll his eyes, tugging off his mask sohe can fully glower down into the darkness in hopes that Dick can see howunamused he is.

“Not gonna happen, bird brains. Not interested in fightingyou tonight when three teenage girls have guns to their heads right now andnineteen more hostages are crammed in a corner, waiting to die. I’m gonna dealwith this how it’s supposed to bedealt with.”

“It can be dealtwith,” Dick says in the dangerous voice he usually only reserves for Bruce whenthey’re on bad terms, “in a way that doesn’t involve murder.”

Jason laughs, maybe a bit louder than he intends to, but itforces its way up out of his esophagus like a mocking tune. “This is why we’llnever see eye to eye. You’re too much like him,Dickiebird. Too righteous. Too ‘moral’. Maybe I’ll of let these cocksuckerswalk away with shattered tibias and blunt force trauma if, and only if, theydon’t put a bullet into any of those little girls, or the other hostages. Ifthey do, they’re dead. And you can’t stop me.”

Dick stays silent for a long moment and Jason imagines himwith that look of righteous fury etched onto his pretty face that he used tolong to wear himself but could never quite get it right.

Before Dick can respond, however, Jason can hear the heavysound of gunfire. It shakes the foundation of the building and makes his earsring. With a practiced instinct, he stands and yanks his handguns out of hisbelt in one motion, both pointer fingers resting on triggers. Out of the cornerof his eye he sees a flash of neon blue from below as Dick finally makes a moveto kick down the back door. At the same moment, on top of another chorus ofgunfire, he hears a cop out front yell into a radio:

“No hostages dead, just injured! They just shot at a copbecause he got too close! Hold your fire, goddammit!”

Shit.

The thoughts move through Jason’s mind at the speed of soundas he flies into action. His thought process is as follows:

1. He and Bruce have their issues, this much istrue, but he doesn’t hate him enough to allow him to experience the pain oflosing another kid. Another robin. Heseemed pretty broken up about him after the Joker blew him up, or so he’sheard, and Jason can’t fathom what his reaction would be if his precious Dickwas killed. Possibly apocalyptic.

2. As much as he thinks Dick is a cocky, pompous,over-optimistic fuckhead sometimes who’s too kind for his own good as a masked hero,he doesn’t deserve to die.

3. If Dick does,in fact, end up six feet under because of this little mishap, Jason’s going tomake sure to pump lead into whoever’s responsible. He won’t go unavenged. Notlike Jason did.

In the same second that Dick launches himself through theback door, Jason kicks the latch of the skylight fully open and shatters theglass with his boot, jumping down into the chaos below.

He lands with practice, bouncing off his heels and rollinginto a kneeling position with guns out. Quickly, he assesses what he sees infront of him.

The three perps are spread evenly in a triangular fashionthroughout the store. The first is standing near the front glass swinging doorswith his hostage carefully positioned to be in view of the police with a gun toher head. The second’s back near the teller booths, hostage sitting in a chairin front of them. The third is back near the vault against the wall, his ownhostage seemingly handcuffed to him. He assigns them names in his head: FuckerA, Fucker B, and Fucker C.

Dick’s coming in from the back, closest to Fucker B.

What happens next happens fast.

Jason gets eyes on the robber nearest to him, Fucker A, a builtman with combat boots and tattoos covering his pale arms. He rages like a bullwhen he sees Nightwing and charges, hostage still under his arm, but Jason getsa bullet in his head before he has time to harm her or Dick. After making surethe hostage crawls to safety with the others, out of the corner of his eye,Jason sees Dick pivot to look at him in a fluid motion that he imagines wouldlook like shock on anyone else. But all he sees is a grimace.

“Hood, what the hell are you-”

Jason sees Fucker B fling his hostage aside and pull thetrigger before he can swing his own gun on him, and it’s followed by thedisgusting sound of flesh ripping and bone snapping. Dick’s left shoulder jerksback and the rest of his body goes with it in one fluid motion. He doesn’t godown right away, but manages to take a few steps over to a pillar for support.Jason shoves this information temporarily to the back of his mind, ignoring theanger threatening to force its way out of his chest and into his throat likebile. With gusto, he turns one of his guns on Fucker B, seeing a glimmer offear flash across his shiny eyes from behind the mask before he squeezes thetrigger, watching as his bullet lodges itself in his skull right between hiseyes. With hard eyes, he turns toward the Fucker C, who’s backed up against thewall with his own hostage.

“Don’t fucking move,” Fucker C says from under his mask,reaching behind himself and retrieving a small black device with a shaky hand.“One funny move and I blow this fuckingplace straight to hell!”

It’s rigged to blow. Whyis it always rigged? Jason’s eyes dark back to the slightly askew vaultdoor behind C, imagining that the explosives have likely been set up in there. Somethingakin to panic nags at the back of his mind – some post-traumatic bullshit maybe,sometimes his constant and forceful repression doesn’t always hold up – but heignores it and instead turns to look at the crumpled figure of Dick Graysonslumped against a pillar, a hand pressed to the gushing wound in his claviclearea.

“I won’t touch you,” Jason grunts at him, tossing down hisguns. “Just let me go make sure this idiot isn’t dying.”

“You think I give a shit about your friend dying, man? Youjust killed my brothers!”

Jason glowers at the little shit and looks down at the twocorpses he just made.

“Listen, I get it. ‘Desperate times call for desperatemeasures’. But these hostages? Children? Really,dude?”

“Just… don’t…fucking move.”

Fucker C’s voice cracks and Jason sighs, trying to gaugejust how young he could be. Seventeen, eighteen… poor kid. Maybe he was evenforced into doing this by his brothers, told to stay put in the back with thebomb trigger in case worst came to worst. And now they’re lying on the floormotionless, and it appears that worst has indeed come to worst.

Jason holds up his hands, palms forward.

“Listen, what would you rather? Me walking ten steps in thatdirection to help him stop bleeding, or all of us dying? Because let me tell you, buddy… getting blown upis not an ideal way to go.” Not that I’d know any other ways, butgetting blown up wasn’t exactly pleasant. Or painless. Or quiet.

Fucker C seems to contemplate his offer, falling intosilence and staring over at where Dick is starting to slump forward. He shrugs;a quick, twitchy movement of his shoulder.

“Fine. But put all your weapons on the floor. Now.”

“Already did, kid.”

“All of them.”

Smartass. Jasonpulls the taser out of his jacket and the blade out of its ankle strap andtosses them both on the ground before putting his hands back in the air andmaking his way over to Dick, slowly. The last few steps turn into a sprint ashe slides down beside him, gritting his teeth.

“Dammit, Grayson,” he snarls quietly. “Why couldn’t you havejust left this one for me?”

Dick’s eyes shoot up to look at him like two blue flares,slightly hooded and out of focus.

“Didn’t know you were gonna be here,” he grits out. “But Iwould’ve still come if I did…”

Jason sees Dick look past him at the two bodies on theground and rolls his eyes. Typical Grayson, trying to claim the moral highground even in a situation like this.

“Whatever.” Jason pulls Dick’s hand away from the entrywound and presses his own hands down to it in an attempt to stop the bleeding,but the blood gushes out through his fingers in a slow trickle down over hisfingerless gloves and down his wrists. He shutters thinking about having toscrub it off later, regardless of the outcome. He quickly calculates thatDick’s probably lost about two pints of blood so far, which explains whybeneath his fingers Dick starts to shiver violently, probably slipping intoshock. “Hey,” Jason chides, shaking his shoulder a bit. “Keep your eyes open,Nightwing.”

Dick does as he’s told, but his eyes are glossy and distant,staring upwards past him like something – maybe his life, maybe not – isflashing before his eyes. They seem to be moving in a sweeping motion up anddown, and Jason wonders briefly if he’s having a blood loss-induced vision ofthe night his parents died, something he only knows the vague details of.

Soon, maybe in three, five minutes, Dick will faint, andsoon after that he’ll be dead, leaving Jason with very few options except toact quickly and hazardously. He swears and pats Dick down, trying to find anyof Bruce’s fancy tech that could ignite a flame. He comes up short, cursingDick for having decided to run light tonight.

It’s a huge gamble, but he figures he could out-wit the kidwith the bomb. The only problem is the hostage. He’ll have to be fast enough,take out the kid efficiently without the girl with long black hair gettingcaught in the crossfire. She doesn’t even look twelve. Then again, the kiddoesn’t even look eighteen. If there’s an option to put him down withoutkilling him, Jason would take it without question. He often saw them – young,ignorant juveniles with fear in their eyes – and thought of himself beforeBruce had plucked him off the streets only to put him back out onto them as aweapon.

He needs a gun, though. One of his automatic hand guns, sohe could fire a few rounds into the ceiling and get the barrel hot enough toclose the wound. He’s never done it before… but in theory, it should work. Shockingly,this isn’t something learned from the League of Shadows, but rather the Bathimself. Bruce had taught him a lot of fucked up ways to save a life; ways toclose a wound, ways to get a heart up and started again, ways to reverse theeffects of arsenic poisoning. All things cute little boy wonder Jason hadlistened to eagerly while hoping never to use.

“This might not end well,” Jason mutters to him beforestanding again and slowly turning toward the kid.

“Listen.” He takes a step forward, eyeing his guns layingstrewn on the clean tile. “We need to work something out here. Why don’t youjust give this up and walk out of that door, alive, with your hands up? Thepigs will treat you much better than I will, or whatever bomb you’ve riggedback there. You have a choice, right now, to live. Are you gonna take it?”

Silence. The kid looks like he wants to collapse and cry,his eyes scrunched up and wet. Jason takes another small step forward, one thatputs his toe right up against the butt of one of his guns. The kid flincheshugely and lets go of the girl, pointing his gun at Jason.

“Don’t FUCKING move!” he screams. Jason puts his hands backup in the air, watching as the girl scrambles to safety over to her parents,who envelop her in their arms and sob.

“I’m not. Relax.”

“Move and this place goes sky-high.”

“I’m not moving,kid. Breathe. Set down the trigger, and the gun, and walk away. It’s thatsimple.”

He hopes that behind him, Dick’s still conscious and eatingall this mercy shit up.

But then that just reminds him of Dick. Dick’s dying, anymoment now. He doesn’t have time forthis.

He gives the kid five seconds to make up his mind. Five. He considers it generous.

After quietly counting in his head, Jason moves. He lurchesforward, tipping the gun up with his foot to get a good handle of it and surgesforward, aiming for his head.

In the same second that he squeezes the trigger, the kidsqueezes the button. Jason sees it, the smallest of movements, and he canalmost feel whatever’s in the vault cometo life. When the kid falls, dead, Jason stays perfectly still, waiting for theexplosion, waiting for the all-too-similar searing pain of fire tearing throughflesh and bone, tossing him through the air like he weighs nothing. The fear hewas holding back, pressing below his diaphragm for Dick, rushes up in a floodand makes him dizzy, makes his vision swim. His helmet suddenly feels like it’ssqueezing, closing in on him, and everything’s too hot and too close.

He falls to his knees, dropping his gun to clutch at hishelmet and scream, his throat closing and his heart pounding so hard it feelslike it might burst out of his ribcage to wreak havoc on his other organs. Fora fraction of a second he’s thereagain, bleeding out, watching the electric glow of the timer numbers as theyburn his retinas. But then, there was peace. He accepted it, he let it happen. Thereisn’t peace now. No, now he knows what it feels like to have every bone in yourbody broken, all of your skin charred and peeling off the muscle. He knows whatit’s like to die, to know you’redying, to feel it happen…

Not again. Not fuckingagain.

But the pain never comes. Jason glances up, glances at allthe hostages staring at him, waiting for some kind of cue.

It makes no sense. Werethey lying? No, he wouldn’t have bothered to press the button. And Jason heard it, the hum of circuits coming tolife. He felt the way the air stills before it gets assaulted with energy andfire.

It dawns on him then that they’re likely hanging in adelicate balance of the bomb having been triggered but not detonated. It’s afluke, a glitch, and it could go off at anyminute.

The panic comes back, but this time it has determination tofight with.

Any movement, any vibration of the floor, could detonate theexplosives. The bomb’s both lit and unlit. He’s sitting right the fuck insideof Schrödinger’s Bank.

“No one move,” he says after he’s sure his voice will work. It’s hoarse, and he still feels like he’sfighting his own throat to stay open, but it comes out in a serious enough tonethat the group of hostages, who were starting to get restless to find a way tothe exit, stop dead in their tracks. “The bomb didn’t go off, but that doesn’tmean it won’t.” His mind is swimming. All he wants to do is get the fuck out of there, get Dick the fuck out of there, but he’sstill Batman’s son, no matter how hard he tries not to be. To be better.

He looks back at Dick to find him still awake, watching himwith bleary eyes. There’s some sort of sealed sticker over his wound –something Jason assumes is one of Bruce’s gadgets – and it seems to be haltingthe bleeding. He must’ve gotten Babs on the comm to ask what to do. She alwaysknows what to do.

With Dick stable, he has to find a way to get everyone elseout alive.

“We have a better chance of survival if we go out in pairs.Two bye two, children first. Crawlcarefully toward the exit, on your knees and forearms, sliding. Tell the copswhat’s happening, see if they can get the bomb squad here as fast as they can.”He’s shocked at how calm he sounds compared to what he’s feeling, the way hismind’s reeling and his body feels like it’s shutting down from panic.

He watches as they organize themselves, sending out the girlwith long black hair and a kid that looks like her little brother, obviouslythe youngest in the group. They carefully slide along, but their shufflingbecomes a bit frantic.

“Slower,” he tells them, gesturing to them with his palmdown, “gently. Like you’re on ice.”

They follow his instructions, sliding gingerly across thetile. Jason thanks the stars that it isn’t hardwood. Eventually, they breakthrough the front door slowly. Against the flood of headlines and neon red andblue, he makes out the outline of three cops rushing forward to collect them.

Two down, nine to go.

“Nightwing,” Jason calls behind him without turning hishead, “how’re you doing?”

“I’m fine, Hood,” is Dick’s reply. “A bit woozy, but I’mfine.” He pauses, drawing in a wheezy breath that makes Jason nervous again.“So do you think it’s gonna blow?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Seriously.”

“I don’t know. I mean, I doknow. It’ll go off unless it’s diffused. Which I’m sure I can do, but it’svolatile. Any vibration, any movement, hell, a light breeze could set that thing off. When I set foot in there I need toknow everyone’s out. Including you.”

He glances back again, Dick looking at him with some kind ofshadow over his eyes, his lips pressed into a hard line.

“Jay- Hood. Youneed to get out of this too. There’s no sacrificing yourself this time, okay?You’re not getting blown up again. I won’t allow it. B won’t allow it.”

Jason shutters but lets out a small bark of laughter.

“Shut up. You’re down, I’m fine, I’m going to figure thisout. I’d rather not get blown up again either.”

“I’d have liked not to have gotten shot again, but sometimesthings don’t work out the way we want them to. You get out after them, I’llstay and try and diffuse the bomb.”

“I should shoot you again for even suggesting that,” Jasonall but snarls, feeling his fists clench up by his sides.

He turns his attention back to the hostages, now in theirfinal stages of escape. A middle-aged woman helps an elderly man shuffle hisway across the floor on his stomach. And then, and then, they’re out. And then it’s just Dick, him, and the bodies hemade.

“Go,” Dick urges and Jason turns on him, risking themovement, just to glare venomously.

God, Jason thinks,why does he have to be such a martyr?Jason’s over the sacrifice bullshit. If it meant saving Dick’s life, fine. Butjust because he isn’t afraid of death anymore doesn’t mean he isn’t afraid of dying, no matter how much he’d like todeny or deflect. He realizes then that no, this bomb’s not worth diffusing. Thebomb’s not worth his life. He grins.

“Shut the fuck up,Grayson. You’re gonna live another day to listen to that stupid fucking pop music you love so much, eata thousand pieces of pizza and never gain a goddamn pound, and make Bats so, so proud. And I’m gonna live another dayto torment you for all of it.”

The corner of Dick’s lip quirks as he lifts his head, hiseyes so tired but brimming with somerenewed sense of hope.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.” Jason slides carefullydown to his stomach, slithering across the tile slowly. Dick lets out a weaklaugh.

“How are you gonna get me out, then? Am I gonna ride on yourback like a giant snake with a saddle or something?”

“Where the hell do you think of these things, Grayson?”Jason can’t help but laugh as well. “You’re gonna lay down on top of me andwe’re both gonna slither out of her like a fucking snake, okay?”

Dick looks down at him dubiously when he reaches him, butJason simply gives him a wicked smile.

“Climb aboard, circus boy.”

Dick snorts.

“I’m so never gonna let you live this down, Jaybird.”

The nickname warms Jason from somewhere inside of him hedidn’t know existed anymore. Dick whimpers a bit as he bends over, his bodypressing down into Jason’s back. He starts sliding.

Then he hears it: the tinny, obnoxious beeping of a timerset to go off from somewhere behind them. The glitch fixed itself.

No.

He dumps Dick off of him, who rolls to the ground with asurprised oof and a wince, beforestanding and lifting him, sprinting as fast as his legs will take them withtheir combined weight bearing down. And damn,Dick is lean as hell but he’s all muscle. It’s like carrying the concretelikeness of a normal person, but allhe concentrates on his his feet hitting the tiles at a decent pace, carryingthem forward.

They make it to the door, and for a beat Jason smells thefresh air and hears the screeching sirens and the cops yelling at them before awave of hot air and fire propels them forward violently, and Jason has a momentto think about how he might have made it out on the right side of the explosionthis time before everything goes black.

“Drake, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but staringintently at him will not wake him up.”

“Shut up, Damian. I’m trying to detect eye movement. Ithought I saw his eyes twitching, meaning he’s entering REM sleep, meaning heshould be awake soon.”

“Whatever. I am goingto go make sure Grayson’s not in an indecent amount of pain.”

Jason feels the bed shift from under him, meaning thatlittle shit was sitting on his bed.Unusual behavior, at best. Suspicious behavior at worst. The room falls quietagain.

“Jay,” Tim says softly. “I know you’re awake. Yourbreathing’s changed.”

“You do make it your business to know everything,” Jasonsighs, opening his eyes blearily. He half expects to see the sterile whiteceilings of a hospital, but is instead met with the Green Day poster he oncepinned to his ceiling in his Wayne Manor bedroom. Fuck.

“Twerp.” Jason attempts to sit and winces. Broken ribs. Wonderful.“What the hell am I doing here?”

“Bruce insisted you come here so he and Alfred could lookafter you.”

Jason resists the urge to roll his eyes so hard he snaps hisown neck.

“How’s Dick?”

Tim chuckles.

“Awake, raising hell, trying to do things to the point whereBruce has the physically restrain him… the usual.”

#batfam #jaydick #nightwing #red hood #idk #youcantsaymylastname

21 notes · View notes

elenawickman-blog · 8 years ago

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1, 6, 9, 22, 34, 36 for the writing ask! (lmartinez) 😊

Thank you for the ask!! <3

1. Tell us about your WIP!

Lolly Gray is a thief. She sneaks through the streets of Deinh’em and fills her pockets with money and her shoes with knives. She feeds her younger sister, Giselle, with crumbs of what she can scavenge, and feeds herself with what’s left behind. Navigating a war-torn country, with soldiers on the loose and rifles freely fired, makes survival a challenge. Even more so when Lolly’s very existence breaks Code D1: don’t stand out. Her hair changes color with her emotions.

War kicked Lolly out of Amnalpasia and into poverty. Desperation drove her to thievery. Fear bound her to her safe window well. But when Giselle is taken by the soldiers and a childhood friend dressed in military green hunts her down, she’s forced to make a truly fatal choice.

I’m not the best at summarizing, and this is in no way the official grabber. But, if you’d like to learn more about my WIP, The Color of War, and about my writing in general, feel free to visit my YouTube channel, Elena Wickman!

6. Favorite character you’ve written?

Oh, this is a tough one. I adore all of my characters. They’re my brain children, and it’s like literally having to pick a favorite of actual children. But … I’d have to say, at least out of my current WIP, my favorite character is Fabian. He’s a very close friend of my MC in the novel, and I just love him. He’s brave, devoted to a cause, optimistic, passionate, and stubborn. He’s a dreamer, and it’s his conviction that really helps Lolly have courage in tough parts of the book. He’s someone I’d love for a friend in real life. It’d always be an adventure to hang with Fabian.

9. Favorite/least favorite tropes?

Favorite: –Broken family units (What can I say? It makes for an interesting story for sure, if done right. Like @shaelinwrites story about the twins that I’m totally forgetting the title of. Gahh dang. But that was fire.)–Haters to lovers (but wait wait wait not the mortal enemy to head-over-heels kind. Like … no. But the type of relationship where two characters really don’t like each other at first, but they get to know each other, and eventually find out they have a lot in common and become this unbreakable team of amazingness. Yes please.)–Side character becomes the hero (shoutout to my boy Neville Longbottom in the last HP book. I love when a side character who seems kind of useless and doesn’t do much actually ends up being really significant to the hero’s overall success. That is probably my favorite.)

Least:–Love triangles. Enough said. –Strong, emotionless female protagonist. I mean, why can’t a girl be physically/emotionally strong and also experience real human emotions? Please?–Brooding male love interest. Seriously, so many of these guys end up being really toxic, obsessive, even abusive. I could rant on this for hours, and I have before. I hate this so much. The “mysterious” bad boy? Come on. There’s more than one type of attractive male human out there. –”The Chosen One” (*rage screams internally*)

22. Tell us about the books on your “To Write” list.

I’m not going to go super in-depth on these, because there’s a lot, and I want to develop them more before talking about one. But I’ll talk about one.

I have no idea what I’m going to call it, but it’s going to either be a NA or Adult contemporary novel featuring four viewpoint characters. –Sage, who’s in his 20s and has an older brother who was always the jock, who was cooler, more impressive, was into all the sports, got the best grades, etc. etc. model child. When driving his older brother to an event one night, they got in a car accident. His older brother died, and Sage developed a traumatic brain injury. Sage struggles with feeling as though he should have been the one to go instead. –Winston, who goes by Winn, is also in his 20s. Tbh they’re all in their 20s. Anyhow, Winn uses a wheelchair part-time because of fatigue and neurological issues caused by his chronic illnesses. He trains working dogs for a living, but has been cut off by his family for three years. –Sawyer has major depression and an EDNOS. She puts off this confident front, but is really cracking apart inside. She’s in a very toxic relationship with her fiancé, who only makes her mental illnesses worse. –Finally, there’s Emma. Emma was adopted as a young child from a teen mom who wasn’t ready to raise her. She always felt a little out-of-place growing up with her adopted single mom. They never had a lot of money, she never had any siblings, and she constantly struggles with wondering why she was given up. She reaches out to her birth mom, and discovers she’s married, and has had three children–one with Emma’s birth dad, who she kept.

The book is about these four 20-something college students with four very different backgrounds and struggles finding each other and, through them, finding themselves. I’m so excited to write this.

34. Unpopular writing thoughts/opinions?

A lot of people encourage you to “Break the rules! Follow your own writing rules!” But like … the writing “rules” are there for a reason. They’re going to make your writing better. So … follow them.

I don’t like Sarah J. Maas.

I also don’t like NaNoWriMo. Yeah, getting words on a page are better than a blank page, but if you’re spewing out bad writing just to up a word count, you’re going to have a really hard time fixing that writing. Don’t write for quantity, write for quality.

36. Post a snippet.

I charge the alleyway, hand clamped on the knife snuggled in my bag. A dumpster shudders to the left. Shadows spill on my path, twisting into garish scowls and pointed spears. I stamp on them as I go. The back door of a shop creaks open, and light spills on the alley floor. I duck behind a pile of garbage bags as a woman with pallid skin and bones sticking out of her uniform steps into the alley and lights a cigarette. She mops her forehead with her apron and breathes ash clouds masked like kitchen smoke. I stuff a cough in the neck of my shirt. She stands in the doorway, puffs a frame around her loose honey-brown braids. I brace my crouch on the dumpster and rub the strain from my ankles. Then she snuffs out the cigarette on her apron and steps back inside. The door clicks behind her.

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