#always based solely off what they have seen on the side of the road the ppl who have this opinion are always idiots who dont know any of the

[jvzebel-x]

🦋

[dollarstoreartsupplies]

STICKING A MICROPHONE IN UR FACE RN:: DIRECTORS COMMENTARY ON THE LOML, FAMILY ROAD TRIP? SPECIFICALLY HOW THE DYNAMICS CAME TO BE AND WHATEVER ELSE YOU WISH TO SPEAK ABOUT

MY GIRLS!!! MY PERFECT GIRLS!!!! @normal-cactus1221 omg let me delve back into my neibolt gals mind palace---

(Family Road Trip Link!!)

GALS

Tbh they mostly Exist in the first place because I wanted to draw the neibolt kids as Gals and then my brain rotted into a million tiny maggots that still refuse to leave because they became the Peak of what I like to write when gender swapping (which is delving college thesis level deep into how a character would change when they were raised with the pre-existing bullshit of Being A Woman and Being A Dyke)

So, honestly?? It kind of started exclusively with Richie?? Which is insane because it’s truly so Eddies centric,,, but the whole scene in the Goodwill when Eddie realizes WHY neibolt!richie is Like That was the ENTIRE precursor to the fic 

((EX. “She was a doll, no free will, always forced to do as she’s told (too timid to disobey even when she was sentient). Her mouth was stitched shut, always seen and not heard because her trashmouth is permanently closed. She was just pretty and perfect from the neat little pink bow in her hair to the pair of shiny black buckle shoes real Richie had shoved in the back of her closet, shoe box still unopened from when she claimed she had ‘lost them’.

(But she was rotting, she was abandoned, she was everything people wanted her to be and they still left her alone to break and rot and fill with maggots, because no one cared. She was the problem).”))

like… N!Eddie is p straight forward in terms of Gross and Sick and Rude and Very Opposite Of Real Eddie While Being Similar Enough To Piss Each Other Off, which was very fun, but Neibolt!Richie makes me SO SAD!! And I HAD to explore that IMMEDIATLEY!! 

(Also, fun fact! I had a very specific and unnecessary map of their route and going through Connecticut instead of New York would take longer, so I specifically wrote in the whole part of Eddie not wanting to go into New York SO they could go to a Connecticut goodwill,,,, as I,,,, at the time,,,, worked at a Connecticut goodwill)

DYNAMICS

The dynamics of specifically Neibolt!Reddie was very fun for the sole reason of There Is Nothing On This Planet I Love More Than Feral Eddie Kaspbrak Being Aggressively Down Bad For Richie Tozier-- and it’s ALWAYS the case in ALL iterations of reddie but based on the nature of Neddie never having interacted with ANYONE but n!richie and pennywise, n!richie is ONLY person she really knows positively or cares about which is so fucked up and I’m obsessed with it.

And then, on the flip side, you have n!richie is who is EQUALLY down bad and codependent, but she’s a lot more polite about it and less blatant then neddie who is objectively very mean!! love her but neddie is MEAN!!

((Like,, for example ,,, a couple protective N!Richie moments:

'Richie is signing something, looking terribly hopeless despite how angrily her brows furrow and how pointed her hands clink together, Eddie just wishes she knew sign language.' .... '“She said that we haven’t...She also called you a bitch.”'

'“You know that’s probably why she doesn’t want to cut them right? Because the last time she did you got hurt?”'

VS

only a few, there are so many more, Protective neddie moments:

'Short girl yelps, shoulders squaring up to her ears as she shoves the tall one behind her'

'“She’s not your Richie. She doesn’t like looking like a fucking idiot.”'

'“We need to go after her!” ... “You’re just fucking leaving? You fucking ASSHOLE!”'))

So my three sort of key points for writing their vibe was:

They both care about each other DEEPLY and AGGRESSIVELY more than ANYONE ELSE and at ENTIRELY EQUAL LEVELS

Neddie shows it more outwardly aggressively and constantly vs n!richie dealing with it in a subtle sort of way that’s only blatant when it really needs to be

They’re still KIDS they’re just little GUYS

And then the dynamic between Eddie and the neibolt gals was tricky because Eddie is so fucked up at the start of chapter 2?? She’s SO repressed and also Eddie so I sort of just started with the fact that she’s unfortunately got an Aggressive soft spot of all iterations of Richie Tozier (including a fucked up sad little monster version) and would FUCKING HATE evil baby Eddie and evil baby Eddie would hate her RIGHT back and it devolved from there??

Eddie is physically incapable of Not Caring Too Hard, so what starts as general annoyance devolves rapidly into actual care for these kids (because they’re still KIDS!!! They’re traumatized KIDS!!!!) that she’s DESPERATELY trying to hide (and, because they are technically the same exact person, that’s also exactly what n!Eddie ends up doing)

And n!richie just loves her girlfriend and is generally uncomfortable but okay with this weird, bigger, cleaner version of her girlfriend and would like slightly less yelling please,,,, rip girlie,,,

OTHER RANDOM STUFF

The first scene I actually wrote was the one where the neibolt gals realize Eddie is married to a man because I still think that’s ABSURDLY funny in concept for these two girls to be the Physical Existence Of These Grown Ass Woman’s Internalized Homophobia

((“We’re the embodiment of everything you guys were terrified of when you were kids, we’re lesbians dipshit.” -- that’s it that’s the entire fic))

Also the scene at the big gnome is one of my favorites but DID almost kill me like objectively I almost passed away writing it I DID NOT know how to write it it took FAR TOO LONG

Also also I AM gonna take this opportunity to say that I am WELL AWARE that NONE OF THIS IS HOW CAR SELLING AND GETTING GAS WORKS I promise I KNOW!!! But theres simply NO OTHER WAY FOR EDDIE KASPBRAK AND TWO CHILDREN TO GET FROM MAINE TO LA REASONABLY but I do know that I doesn’t make ANY ACTUAL SENSE

Okay and here’s a fun little bonus very broke, only a couple disconnected scenes of a one shot I was trying to write a whileeeee ago about N!richie finding out about the two years she was unconscious,,, because that’s still one of THE most fucked up things I’ve ever done to two characters (both having N!Eddie be alone for that long and having n!richie NEVER FIND OUT LIKE…):

(N!Eddie POV)

Richie was never supposed to find out. She didn’t need to know about the two years that Eddie was alone and she was just a doll, it’d only upset her and Eddie tried to avoid that when possible because that’s when she would shut down and that really would have just made things worse for both parties involved.

But sometimes, especially in the Kaspbrak-Tozier household, things don’t go how they're supposed to. Actually, very, very rarely do they go as they’re supposed to.

---

2 years?

Human Eddie swallows, thickly. Thicker than she should, considering the lack of fucking slime, “Richie–” 

She snaps her head to Human Eddie so fast her neck makes a grinding noise where it connects to the bottom of her head. Ever since they cut her stitches (it’d taken weeks of building up to it and they’d needed to stop halfway through because she’d had such a bad panic attack she’d almost gone entirely unresponsive-- and after they’d had to painstaking explain that, while they had hurt her sometimes, they were entirely preformative and she literally had no vocal chords which seemed to upset their human counterparts more than it had ever upset them) she’d been more expressive, but now her face is impossibly hard to read. 

You know? Her signing had always been a little stilted, sort of like watching particularly well made stop motion, but she’s moving her hands just as choppily as she needs to after she’s dolled out and needs to reorient her mind to her body. 

“I–”

You. Know. How long.

It’s not a question. 

(N!richie POV)

Running had always come easy, in terms of fight or flight she’d always been the flier while Eddie had preferred to stand her ground, useless fists and loud, angry words that more often than not ended with one of them hurt. But she’d always wished she’d been able to do the same, maybe if she’d been stronger the two of them could have won more of the fights Eddie had lost. 

But there was the particular issue of how easily Richie shattered and how easily Pennywise could knot invisible strings around her wrists and use her against her girlfriend; sometimes she wonders if he made her quite so not-human on purpose. 

So, she got good at running. There was something reassuring about having a place to hide, knowing, trapped inside a house made up of broken floorboards and four walled rooms, that you’ve crammed yourself in the furthest corner, you’ve done everything you can to get away and now it's out of your hands. It’s nothing substantial, not when, more often than not, she’d wake up still tilted around her knees inside a kitchen cabinet or with Eddie kneeling over her in an upstairs closet and know she’d lost time and Eddie’d lost the fight, but it was something. 

The real world, as it turns out, is much much bigger than four walls. It’s something she’d known, in the abstract way you know that there is blood pumping through people you care about, it’s always there, drifting in the back of your mind, but once you actually see a substantial amount of it you wish you had never known about it at all. 

It’s a dodgy metaphor at best, especially for Richie, whose favorite person in the world does not, in fact, have blood pumping inside of her but instead a lot of fucking black slime, but all that to say, her world is bigger now and sometimes, even though all of this is much better than before had ever been, she sometimes finds herself wishing it was small again.

All that living in a big, wide world really does is make her feel like she can’t possibly run far enough when she needed to escape something.

---

Ben and Mike had fixed her cheeks, flushed out the maggots and sealed the cracks with something that dried slightly chalky when she prodded it with her tongue, thicker than glass but close enough in color and consistency that she thinks she’s the only one who could really notice. It was, overall, a good thing; she could go out without the dumb fucking masks, she hated the masks, the way the ear straps clung itchy inside the small crack segmenting her ears from the rest of her head, how it felt like a second barrier, a second line of stitches, keeping her out of conversations. Without the cracks more people looked her in the eyes, which was nice in its own way, even though Human Eddie had seemed incredibly upset that they hadn’t in the first place when she’d told her that.

All the perks of not having cheek holes were great, but she missed the maggots sometimes. She didn’t have any sentimental connection to them, not like her Eddie who’d said her cheeks were much less fun to kiss now, but having something wriggling and alive inside of her she could focus on helped reassure her that she’s alive. They helped reassure her that she’s awake. 

(Woah, random Stan POV)

Stan loves her friends, really, getting the Losers back in her life had been one of the best things that had ever happened to her, and Richie and Eddie’s kids just made everything that much better. That being said, when she had exactly zero friends with exactly zero children she had to drive half an hour out at three in the morning far less often.

AND BONUS here's the first Gals Sighting on my tumblr with my silly lil pandemic art:

AND!! My most recent them!! (or welllll most recent n!richie, I need to draw neddie again desperately)

That's all for now but I am SURE I will have more thoughts on it later!! I care about these kids SO MUCH!!!! I LOVE them!!! If you've got any specific scenes you've got questions on too I would LOVE to elaborate!! but my brain has become soup!!

[caveatscriptor]

Prompt: Write a piece based on a photograph. (Thank you @inkspellangel for the photo inspo ;) )

Time brainstorming: 10 minutes

Time writing: 30 minutes

This is a piece in response to one of the prompts in our book club, Little Red Writing Hoods (@joinourbookclub).

tl;dr: Do I beta read my stuff? Is the earth flat?

I have always loved the sea, there has always been a call of the water to my very essence, that is how I had become a professional diver. I lie. I have become a diver to fulfill the stupid caprice of getting my late father’s approval. He is dead, has been so since I was seventeen, didn’t even send me to college. He couldn’t.

I swam nimbly under the old wreckage of an old ship. That wasn’t what I was here for; here, the same place where I had had an accident four months ago. There it was, my car, the lights… still on? It didn’t matter.

My flashlight caught an old familiar face. The lone wooden statue of a cellist, perpetually playing even after it had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Somehow it was terribly beautiful, between the wooden crevices and the slats created by its inexorable erosion there was new life, corals of every and each color, made for a beautiful net up to the musician’s knee, over the green algae that painted most of his suit and half of his face, and finding purchase on the cello’s base it confidently extended the colorful network up to the pegbox of the instrument. This very same statue had somehow been a personal god for me. Stupid, but so is most of hope, just a stupid little thought.

That fateful night the rain was unforgivable and unavoidable, such inclement weather had been my demise, that and sending the car over the guard rails and straight into the ocean. I couldn’t even process the moment, it just happened, one moment I was driving slowly through the road, the next I was underwater, no air inside the car, just water everywhere. Trying to remain calm and rational is a perfectly sound saying, but no one is either under the loom of death itself. I tried to take my seatbelt off, I couldn’t. I tried to break any of the windows next to me, I also couldn’t. I stupidly cried, or tried to, underwater. I remember looking at the only surviving photo of me and my dad together, it hung under the rearview mirror inside a keychain. We were smiling for the camera, ugly Christmas sweaters could be seen, we looked genuinely happy. The rest of the photos I had destroyed, childishly. Off in the distance, that was when I first made out another face, but as my brain was quickly being deprived of oxygen, I had actually thought it was a person, I had thought that I was dying and my dad was coming to get me.

A shimmer caught my eye, the keychain. Instead of going to my poor old car, I neared the statue. Hope was stupid, and yet… My hand hovered over the uncovered side of it. A gentle expression could be seen, where the algae hadn’t reached yet. Playing until the end, and even beyond, how fitting. I pulled my hand down. No need to touch it, wouldn’t feel a thing with all the gear that weighed me down as it was, at most I would disturb the little animals that hid in the coral, and even the ones that had managed to sneak inside of it and create a new home.

I finally approached the car and took the keychain out. That had been the sole reason to comeback here, even so, somehow, this had been far more than that. That statue was more than a hallucination now. It felt like a sign. Just like hope is idiotic, signs are the most illogical of nonfactual data. In my brain all of this felt like a reaffirmation, it felt like…

“All storms will pass, and there is beauty to be had everywhere.”

I tried to hold back the tears. Had my father ever said something like that? Yes, I believe so. He loved self help mottos, this sounded just like it. It was stupidly perfect.

[cybermeep]

who knew trying to talk to a buried corpse was so much harder than simply talking to yourself?

visited the cemetery nearby, on that long winding road i talk about sometimes. wanted to speak to a shared group of graves, one i visited a few summers ago; couldn’t since a certain person was sitting in their car in their driveway & smoking a cigarette. i don’t know why i say certain, like the person is my oath sworn enemy or a man who has done me wrong in some way… they are not; i merely get shy at being overheard during the silly things in which i do.

i chat with a lovely companion whose grave is faded (hah, faded? haha? like the weed? weed thing? okay, thats enough) & worn over these long years. cemetery made in the 1700s… i can make out the words ‘in memory’ and the sole letter e from a name. because of this, i will refer to them as e.

i merely hoped their afterlife was doing well, whether or not that exists. i don’t really believe it, but i play into said fallacy by talking with graves which (realistically) are mere architectural archives of dead corpses which hold no meaning to this earthly realm anymore. however, they do hold meaning; i know that based on my findings, and from all the love poured into the flowers left over & care taken for some.

i walk past several, although i don’t speak to any of them. dogs pester & bark at my existence, which is still ironic considering dogs aren’t allowed on cemetery grounds but there are some right there. how insane would it be to be a person grieving, in this place…. madness. (i say this because i find it jarring to imagine mourning the loss of a loved one only to have two dogs bark & shout at you to go away)

the last grave i visit & talk to is one adorned with fake sunflowers & two bushes beside the headstone. i put my belongings down carefully, situated far enough to not accidentally make contact with the headstone but not too far as to be simply sitting randomly.

many of my thoughts are internal, and having to say these aloud is nothing short of distressing. its much easier to mumble to yourself & simply be seen as insane; having to talk to a headstone with a body underneath feels like having a conversation, even if the other party cannot speak. a conversation of this nature is nauseating to me

despite this, i prevail. i murmur & talk sheepishly to a headstone named o about my own personal circumstances as a means to make the person feel as if they are not alone, wherever they may be.

i say the word infectious more than i ever have, and say the words smile & laughter as if they are suddenly a new part of my vocabulary. my words are filtered in the sense i have so many internal thoughts but am far too nervous to say them aloud, even to the open air

alcohol is a fun semblance of escape, although it is merely a semblance; you aren’t truly escaping anything.

the air is humid & reeks of pollen. it isnt green day playing & the night surrounding you, nor is it the act of squeezing a stuffed animal amidst a feeling of warmth throughout your entire body. its sobriety, in its purest form

“[ADMISSION].”

…i force myself to cough up the word thats apart of this phrase, one i still don’t quite comprehend. i say it in a deep voice, then flat, then a mere squeak. i say it again, hesitantly. the grass is rather rigid, harsh

i realize leading up to this moment i have never said what i mean in its entirety, always by assumptions based on topic or conversation matter. i haven’t said what i’ve meant outright, and by proxy that means i still have something to say

i look at the headstone

“[FULL ADMISSION, IN ITS VISCERAL FORM, SAID ONLY TO A DEAD CORPSE.]”

i take my backpack, gently grab my things, and turn to go.

the walk home is silent. i see 8 american robins whilst on the way. grackles littered about.

i see the pair of mallards on my road, walking side by side before they fly off after seeing my presence; as always, right by one another

i find this so sweet it could make me cry; however, i do not.

i am simply, wholeheartedly, happy.

[chronicleofleo]

From Equestrian Champion to World Traveler: Leonidas Liu-Watterson.

Disclaimer: This character is entirely a work of fiction and created solely for the purpose of MajorityFeed Agency

Leo is a retired show-jumping athlete from China who has garnered recognition as a Travel Blogger. His recent escapades include a camping adventure in the extreme weather and frosty-yet-ethereal Ulan Butong, as well as a bike journey to Xinjiang where he cycles for 90km.

Through his travel stories, Leo not only shared the beauty of these lesser-known places but also played a significant role in attracting tourists to these hidden gems.

His travel VLOG and posts on social media are what earned him numerous upvotes, especially with his background as a retired athlete. People are naturally curious about the private lives of others, but there isn’t much about him that he keeps a secret from others.

Leo is an open book by nature. And while he doesn’t reveal his full name to the public, it’s no secret that he’s the eldest of the Liu-Watterson family, renowned for their prominent presence in the real estate industry in China and America. The Lius are lavish, that much he knew.

On his father’s side, the Wattersons have a more traditional and humble British background. Leo’s father was actually adopted and is the sole child and breadwinner of the family. He played a crucial role in helping the Lius establish a real estate agency in London.

Leo’s passion for horse riding began at the age of five, thanks to his grandfather, who owns several stables in rural England, conveniently located near the family’s retreats. This early introduction to the equestrian world set the stage for his future endeavors in the sport.

No one in his family thought he would take horse riding seriously, but by the time he turned ten, he had started riding at the Beijing Shijingshan Equestrian Club and took his first steps into the competitive world of equestrian sports.

The intense nature of the competition circuit prompted him to make the decision to live separately from his parents, fully focusing on his riding career to represent China. The hard work and dedication he put in paid off remarkably by the age of sixteen back then.

Leo placed number one in the small junior hunter division. He became one of the pioneering faces of equestrian sport in China. However, Leo made the decision to retire from competitive riding at the age of 20, even though he had qualified to compete at the Summer Olympics.

The true reason behind his retirement was that he suffered a serious knee dislocation after a fall, coupled with the overwhelming pressure from the competitiveness of the sport in general. (“You see 15,000 athletes, and suddenly you realize you’re just a drop in the ocean.”)

His grandparents from Shanghai were elated with the news of his retirement (they had always wanted him to take over the Liu Real Estate holdings among the relatives), Leo just wanted to enjoy life on his own terms.

Months after he announced his retirement—right after he recovered from his injury, he set out on a backpacking journey, traveling across different countries and documenting them in a book just for fun. Although it wasn't exactly a best-seller, it garnered interest from people.

While he maintains a quaint apartment in America as his base, Leo is mostly seen traveling from one country to another, seeking new experiences and immersing himself in diverse cultures.

Unlike his relatives who live lavishly, Leo prefers a more down-to-earth lifestyle. He cherishes spending time with his girlfriend and dog, cycling around the city, jogging every morning, and going on road trips with his friends, embracing the simple joys of life.

Some more tidbits about Leo: he rarely mentions his full name to people because he thinks it's too long (most of the time, he just introduces himself as Leo) and leads a highly active lifestyle; often seen jogging in the morning and cycling in the afternoon, or vice versa.

Check him out on MajorityFeed: @leogendary and click here to witness his daily chronicles.

[nightingaelic]

Fallout 4 companions react to meeting Arcade Gannon?

Ever the curious neighbor, as soon as the sole survivor spotted the blonde, bespectacled man at the bar in the Dugout Inn, they drifted over and struck up a conversation. A drink or two later, the two were swapping tales about wasteland encounters, pointing at various holes in their travel clothes and pairing them up with fantastic backstories. When the sole survivor's companion finally swung open the door, they were given an inviting wave.

"Sit down!" the sole survivor encouraged them. "First round's on me. I'd like you to meet Arcade."

Cait: "Hiya handsome." Cait winked at the man in the lab coat and leaned on the bar. "I'm Cait. Never seen you around before. Where is it you're comin' from?"

"I, uh..." Arcade adjusted his glasses and ran a hand through his wavy hair. "West of here. Nowhere in particular."

"A free spirit, then? Just passin' through?" Cait looked him up and down. "Think the Science! Center might be lookin' for a new egghead, if those clothes aren't just for show."

Arcade tugged on his outfit self-consciously. "I thought it might keep Commonwealth raiders from shooting me on sight, if they thought I was a doctor."

Cait bobbed her head in a noncommittal way. "Or they might see you as an easy target. That is, if they don't spot that plasma pistol you've got in your back pocket."

Codsworth: "Hello to you, sir!" Codsworth exclaimed, bobbing excitedly. "Codsworth, at your service. Might I say, it is a fine occasion to meet someone nowadays who appreciates the importance of good hygience and care for one's appearance."

"Thank you," Arcade said, with a somewhat quizzical glance at the sole survivor. "And you belong to..."

"Well, I belong to him just as much as he belongs to me," the sole survivor jumped in to explain.

Codsworth waved them off. "Not to worry, the conventional assumptions are not unwarranted. I am happy to accompany and assist in wasteland adventures as necessary. When not necessary, I typically clean the house."

Curie: "Monsieur Arcade," Curie purred, with the special enthusiasm she reserved for introductions. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance. You can call me Curie. Have you been in Diamond City long?"

"Not long at all," Arcade replied, clearly intrigued by Curie's accent. “Parlez-vous français?"

"Oui, Monsieur!" Curie exclaimed. "Le français est si rare de nos jours. Où avez-vous appris?"

"Oh, um... des... des livres, principalement," Arcade stammered. "Books. It's not as good as my Latin, I'm sorry."

"Latin?" Curie switched gears instantly. "Etiam magis rara."

Arcade laughed. "Well, not where I'm from. Who are you? Linguists are practically unicorns, nowadays."

Curie sighed. "It is a long story. Perhaps we wait until Vadim brings the drinks, and we can compare notes?"

Danse: "Ad victoriam, Arcade." Paladin Danse shook the newcomer's hand with gusto. "Paladin Danse, with the Brotherhood of Steel."

Arcade's eyes narrowed. "Brotherhood of Steel?"

"That's correct, citizen," Danse replied proudly.

"Uh-huh." Arcade looked back to the sole survivor. "I had no idea they were in the area. Are you stationed in Diamond City?"

"Brotherhood operations are a strictly classified matter," Danse answered, furrowing his brow. "But our main base of operations is at the Boston airport, where the Prydwen is docked. You can't miss it."

"Well, that explains it." Arcade examined his drink, avoiding eye contact with the Paladin. "I didn't come in from the north. I'm sure it's a sight to see."

Deacon: "Nice to meet you." Deacon declined the handshake, instead crossing his arms and cocking his head to the side. "Nice tan. Been on the road long?"

"Too long," Arcade replied, retracting his hand and returning the calculated look.

Deacon grinned. "Alright, I won't pry. Welcome to Diamond City. Did Vadim try to poison you yet?"

"You watch it, John Doe!" Vadim shot back from halfway down the bar. "Or I call the guards, see if you actually do work the midnight shift, ya?"

"You can walk down to Danny's sign-up sheet for shifts and check yourself!" Deacon's grin grew wider. "And I'll tend bar. We'll see who can do a better job of it."

Dogmeat: Dogmeat approached the man's open hand, which he gave a good sniff. Soap, hot dust, a whiff of plasma cartridges: Nothing out of the ordinary. Satisfied, the dog opened his mouth to pant, tongue lolling, and accepted the scratch behind the ears.

Hancock: "Arcade, huh?" Hancock gave the man a winning smile and took one of the open stools. "I'm Hancock. First time in Diamond City? You're gonna love it here. Vadim and his brother really know how to knock you on the floor."

As if to demonstrate, Vadim delivered three shots of Bobrov's Best to the little group. "On the house," he offered. "Celebrating Mayor Hancock's newest business deal with yours truly."

Hancock threw his back, and when Arcade hesitated, he threw that shot back too. "Next one, buddy."

"Did he say Mayor Hancock?" Arcade asked. "Mayor of Diamond City?"

"Nah, nah." Hancock laughed. "God, wouldn't that be a riot. Ever hear of a town called Goodneighbor?"

MacCready: "Arcade." MacCready shook the man's hand warily. "Like the pre-war places that have a whole bunch of games inside them?"

"Actually, like the..." Arcade made a face. "You know what, never mind. Like the pre-war arcades, yeah."

"Oh, man." MacCready grinned. "There was this one I found once in the Capital Wasteland, mostly broken down of course, but it had one working machine in it. The Red Menace Whac-a-Commie. Someone took the whackers ages ago, but the little Red Menace guys still popped up and down. Duncan- my son- loved it."

Arcade chuckled. "Yeah, they're... they're fun. I found a Hoop Shot once, but the basketballs were all dried-up and flat."

"Gotta get yourself a Pip-Boy," MacCready replied, nudging the sole survivor's shoulder affectionately. "This one has a collection of mini-games for theirs. Atomic Command, Grognak & the Ruby Ruins, Pipfall... all the greats. Oh, I'm MacCready, by the way."

Valentine: "Nick Valentine. Pleased to meet you." Nick shook the man's extended hand with practiced warmth, giving him time to realize the metal grasp he offered was not a cybernetic, and the scar around his jawline was actually just where his synthetic skin ended.

True to form, the stranger's eyebrows shot up, his grip slackened and his mouth dropped open. "You're a... what are you?"

Nick gave him the standard line. "I'm a detective. But, if you're referring to the plastic and platinum bits, I'm also a synthetic man. All the parts, minus a few red blood cells."

"Whoa." Instead of the typical scramble to put some distance between the two of them, Nick was surprised to find Arcade's handshake tighten again at this explanation. "I've heard of people like you, but never thought I'd actually meet one. Er, well, one that was obviously living as a synth. Though I guess you don't have much of a choice, huh?"

Piper: "Arcade? Piper Wright." The reporter shook the newcomer's hand firmly. "So, what's your story? What brings you to the Great Green Jewel of the Commonwealth?"

"I uh..." Arcade looked flustered, despite Piper's encouraging smile.

The sole survivor came to his defense. "Leave him be, Piper, he just got into town," they scolded playfully.

"What?" Piper asked innocently. "Can't the town reporter ask questions around here without everyone telling me I'm being too nosy?"

"No."

"Town reporter?" Arcade perked up. "Is that your newspaper, on the way in? Public... something?"

"Publick Occurrences," Piper answered with pride. "Covering anything and everything worth hearing about that happens in the Commonwealth."

Preston: "Welcome to Diamond City, Arcade." Preston shook the man's hand warmly. "I'm Preston Garvey with the Commonwealth Minutemen."

"Minutemen?" Arcade asked, clearly unfamiliar with the term.

"We're citizen soldiers," Preston explained. "The people of the Commonwealth banding together to protect ourselves and decide our own future."

"So sort of like a free state?" Arcade straightened up. "Or do you have some kind of command structure?"

"Command structure." Preston chuckled and glanced at the sole survivor. "You're looking at it."

Strong: "Strong need to get moving," the super mutant replied, rubbing his big hands together. "Milk of human kindness not here."

Arcade took the mutant in with the air of someone who had dealt with somewhat-friendly specimens before. "I can ask the bartender if they have brahmin milk."

The sole survivor waved him off. "No, that's not what he-"

"Puny humans do not have milk!" Strong cut in.

"Wait, milk of human kindness?" Arcade looked confused. "Is that... Macbeth?"

The sole survivor sighed. "It's a long story."

X6-88: "Good afternoon." Rather than sit down, X6-88 adopted a protective stance of the sole survivor, completely ignoring the hand Arcade was offering. "I hope you know that if harm comes to this individual, your life will come to a swift end."

"Uh-huh." Arcade retracted his hand. "Bodyguard?"

"Of a sort."

Arcade turned to the sole survivor instead. "Is he always this much of a stick in the mud?"

They shrugged. "He's protective and slow to trust. Give him a bit and keep your hands where he can see them, you'll be fine."

X6-88 nodded. "Affirmative."

BONUS!

Ada: "Hello sir." Ada nodded her head in greeting. "I am Ada. I hope you are enjoying your stay in Diamond City. Did you experience any trouble getting to the stadium?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary," Arcade replied. "Sorry, you're an amalgamation I haven't seen before. Sentry bot and protectron parts for sure, but your head is..."

"An assaultron," Ada filled in helpfully. "I take it your region does not have many of these bots?"

"No, they seem to be more of an East Coast thing."

"Just don't get on her bad side," the sole survivor joked. "You don't want to be on the receiving end of an assaultron laser."

Gage: "Well hi there!" Porter shook Arcade's hand forcefully. "Porter Gage. Talked you into trying some of this swill, did they? Brave soul."

"It's not so bad," Arcade replied with a smirk.

"Oh sure, if you're lucky enough to have Scarlett bring it to you." Porter winked at the waitress, who paused in her service to flip him the bird.

"Mmm, not my type," Arcade admitted.

"Not your ty-" Porter blurted before putting two and two together. "Oh, gotcha. Well, there's always Hawthorne."

The raider waved to the adventurer in the corner, who waved back. Arcade sank as deeply into his stool as he could and blushed.

Longfellow: "Mmm." Old Longfellow rejected Arcade's handshake and took the offered seat, swinging around to face the bar. "Storm's comin' soon. Can smell it."

"Then it's a good thing we're inside," Arcade replied, his tone unsure.

Longfellow grunted his agreement and accepted the drink Vadim slid to him, downing it quickly.

The sole survivor scowled at him. "Guess he's not in a talkative mood today."

Maxson: "Elder Arthur Maxson of the East Coast Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel." Maxson shook Arcade's hand confidently.

Arcade, on the other hand, looked like he was being violently pulled between an instinct to flee and an intense curiosity. Curiosity won out. "Maxson? Of the line of Captain Roger Maxson?"

"High Elder Roger Maxson," the Elder corrected him. "You know of him?"

"Well sure, everybody on the West Co-" Arcade stopped himself. "Never mind. What's an Elder doing in a dive like this?"

Maxson studied him intently, clearly sizing him up. "Shore leave," he finally answered, sliding into the offered seat.

Desdemona: Desdemona smiled coolly. "I know."

The answer took Arcade aback, but the sole survivor just rolled their eyes. "Dispense with the power plays for once, Dez. We're just trying to have a drink."

The Railroad leader raised an eyebrow, but she sat down. "Suit yourself. When did you arrive in town, Mr. Gannon?"

"Oh, for the love of..."

Arcade eyed her suspiciously. "I don't remember telling you my full name."

Desdemona lit up a cigarette. "You didn't. But I'm by far the friendliest person in the Commonwealth who's wondering why a Follower of the Apocalypse is all the way out here, across the continent."

[zeldaelmo]

Read Day 2 here or start here

Day 3

As usual, it was the heavenly smell of fresh bread that let Zelda's feet find their way into 'Link's Bakery'. It had been this way when she discovered the little bakehouse months ago, and it was the same now.

She glanced at her phone, mainly to check the time. Three messages from her father, but she would deal with that later. It was still relatively early, maybe she was lucky enough that the baker was still there. Ahem. Not that she had memorized when he usually left, this was solely based on the one time she happened to see him leaving for his apartment on the other side of the street.

She wiped the snow off her feet before she entered the bakery, and caught his blue gaze straight away, with the door still in her hand.

Her mouthed "Hi!" was rewarded with a wink that, he shot her while his current customer was gesticulating towards the shelves with loaves of bread behind him. She inhaled and her head lolled back. Nothing shot relaxation into her veins like the special mixture of smelling brewed coffee and fresh bread. The dark wood of the shelves, the hand-written tags, and the warmth that radiated from the oven in the back room added up to the bakery being one of her feel-good places in Castle Town.

"Hi." Well, and of course, the baker with the quiet voice and the bluest eyes she had ever seen played a role in that, too. Link, if the name of the bakery was any indication. "Coffee with whipped cream?"

"Yes, please." Her coffee taste was a crime and she knew it, but something about the first coffee her grandmother had served her with that knowing wink, saying "I’ve decided you are old enough now, don't tell your parents" stuck with her. And maybe the little quirk in Link's lips, when she ordered it the first time months ago, drew her back to the bakery, too.

"Something to eat, too? I still have… uh... wild berry cupcakes and…" he disappeared under the counter, "apple pie with cinnamon."

"I was just asked if I'm pregnant." She rolled her eyes. "So maybe no sweets today."

"Ouch." He grimaced and had the decency to hold her gaze instead of ogling her stomach. 

"Do you still have bagels? I skipped lunch because I quit work early today to get some Hylia's Day gifts from my list."

"Ah, no." His eyes flickered through the bakery. "But I can make you something else, Mipha can deal with the rest of the customers."

"It's alright, I can just—"

"I don't mind," he interrupted her. Halfway through her blush, her stupid phone buzzed again. "Sorry." She sighed and pulled it out. "My Papa always thinks his matters are so important that they require an immediate answer and—," she muttered while her finger hovered over the answer button. "I already ignored three of his messages."

"Go ahead," he said and laughed, "I don't want you to get in trouble. Coffee is ready in a second, food will take me a few minutes."

After her father had complained about the first two messages she hadn't answered and began with the third, Link nudged her a mug over the counter, and for a moment she drowned in the way his bangs fell in his eyes instead of listening to the complaints. Did he wear a chef's hat in the back room? That would look more funny than cute.

"... Are you listening, Zelda?"

Uh…

"Excuse me, Papa, I'm on the road, it's rather loud here."

He tutted. "I praise you and you don't even listen. What I meant to ask is if you can make the traditional Loftwing's nests for Hylia's Day? Since the bread you baked was so wonderful your mother and I thought that would be a walk in the park for you. It would be nice if we didn't have to drive to the bakery on top of all the preparations."

Zelda closed her eyes. No matter what she did, her parents always expected more of her.

"Well, the bread was one thing…" Most importantly, the bread had—unknown to her parents—not been made by her, but by the very baker who was currently preparing her a sandwich. "I have never tried Loftwing's nests. I think it's safer to just buy them, Papa."

His laughter boomed through the speaker. "Nonsense. They will be perfect like everything you touch with your golden hands."

"Alright… I… Let me see what I can do. No promises, though."

"Ah, no need to play it off, little bird. I knew we could count on you. Your mother will be delighted! She is always so proud of you. That's all I had, I don't want to bother you."

Too late, Zelda thought after she had ended the call. With a weary sigh, she rubbed her face, remembering at the last second not to smear her eye makeup. 

Her parents… was there such a thing as over-supportiveness? From her childhood, she remembered the other kids whose parents scolded them when they didn't achieve the role of the prima ballerina or came in second in sports. Her parents were not like this. They had always supported her and Zelda had overachieved in a lot of ways. But then, silently, support turned into well-meant, yet, excessive encouragement. And expectation. It reached a stage when they didn't listen anymore when she said, I can't do this. At some point, she was too tired to even argue with them, so she began to take advantage of Castle Town's urban scene and give their expectations a helping hand. And now it seemed like Link's bakery was in for another 'assistance'.

Dipping her spoon in the cream and licking it clean, she waited for the other customers to go and Link to come back. What was he doing, a three-course menu? 

His co-worker—Misa? Mika?—gave her a professional smile, and since no one was around, she figured, she could just as well ask her instead.

"Say, do you take preorders for Hylia's Day?"

"Yes, of course." She took a Slate from under the counter, waiting for Zelda to start.

"Oh, excellent. Well, I need Loftwing's nests. Uhm… 20 should be enough."

"Sure. You can pick them up on Hylia's Day from eight o'clock to ten. But," she said and tipped her head in the direction of the back room, "Link won't be here. Sorry."

Zelda narrowed her eyes at her. What in Hylia's name… Was… was she that obvious with her flirting?

"Oh!" Zelda startled when she forced her thoughts back to her schedule for the holidays. "Oh, I can't pick them up on Hylia's Day. I'm already with my family then and I can't…"

"Preorder them there, then."

No… that would blow everything up. She could hardly tell her family on Hylia's Day of all days that she had been only pretending to do everything herself. 

"Ah, unfortunately, the only bakery in the village has long closed and the next is an hour away. It's alright, I'll think of something. Thank you."

"Try it yourself?"

Zelda tried to decipher her expression. Was she mocking her? Or did she mean it? But… baking bread—how hard could that be? With the best recipe?

"Ok? Maybe that's a good idea. Would you give me a recipe? Your bakery products are the best."

"Oh." She gave Zelda a sweet smile. "Link doesn't give out his recipes. But on the Sheikah Net, some people have claimed to have solved the mystery."

"Oh, well, I'll take a look." 

Zelda lowered her gaze again and scraped the rest of the cream out of her cold mug. She wondered if this conversation would have been different with Link who now rushed to her with a plate of sandwiches, muttering something about bread that needed to be taken out of the oven. 

Well, she could always come back and ask him for help, couldn’t she?

[creativeashproductions]

We Wouldn’t Be Us // Charlie Gillespie

IN WHICH: We get a look into the timeline of the reader and Charlie’s relationship from the first date that wasn’t so perfect to the news they get. The relationship has its ups and downs like all relationships do but this one brings the birth of a song. They know in their relationship that anything less just wouldn’t be them

Warnings: Swearing, an argument, allusion to sex (NO SMUT), pure fluff

Words: 3.1k

A/N: I suppose this is an entry for @cherrymaybank​’s Valentine’s Day Fic Challenge. 

Based on the song We Wouldn’t Be Us by Alexandra Kay

TO BE TAGGED SEND AN INBOX/ASK PLEASE!

Masterlist

Every dress didn’t seem to fit properly no matter what mirror with different light in your apartment you tried. The spare bathroom’s bulb was dying, so that made the colour appear off, and the best mirror was dirty, which would dampen the romantic goal. Nothing made you feel that oomph that you desired for this date. 

You could wear the standby little black dress of which you had two options, the clubbing one or the work appropriate one. It didn’t seem right to choose a standard black and no colour for this insanely sweet guy that had this insane energy. With that thought in mind, you dug deeper in your closet for that special dress that you’d never found someone worthy of it. It was your best dress and your most expensive with the tags still on. You would have gone for the maroon dress but it was Valentine’s Day and that seemed like over kill.

Somehow it still fit perfectly despite the length of time from purchase, it was a vibrant green satin with lace matching the colour. The dress's satin ended just below the knee with the matching lace falling an additional six inches past. The A-line skirt was loose flowing contrasting to the form-fitting material across your bust and midsection. 

One of your favourite parts of the dress was the off-shoulder bateau neckline that gave a tasteful sneak of your cleavage. The bottom of the thick straps came to make a perfectly straight horizontal line. Across your waist was a one-inch wide satin ribbon attached to the dress that formed a perfect bow that tied the outfit together, no pun intended.

“Whoa.” You breathed stepping in front of the floor-length mirror kept in the spare bedroom, it had once been your roommates’ room before she moved.

You had to admit the dress was magical with it, bringing out all your curves and went with your skin tone. It was a pure shock to see how you managed to make the dress come to life with just a makeup look that was easy to do. All you did next was your favourite beige heels that went with everything. You had just slid on the left heel when the buzzer sounded and slid the right on as you hit the button unlocking the apartment building door.

“This is going to be perfect.” You breathed leaning into the mirror beside the front door. You inspected your lipstick as a knock sounded on the dark brown wood of your door. 

“You look gorgeous.” Your date breathed, widening those colour changing irises as he took in your outfit, “You take my breath away. Happy Valentine’s Day”

Your cheeks flushed, “Thank you, Charlie.”

He stepped into the apartment as you quickly went to the kitchen to grab your coat and purse with your essentials. He had gently retrieved the coat from your arms to help you into the cold jacket. 

“I know traditionally I would have brought you flowers, but I also know you love books.” Charlie breathed grasping the items in his hands, “So I got these flowers.”

His warm hands held three books. The top one was The Orchid House by Lucinda Riley with a cover that had the background blurry with only the back of a girl in clarity. The girl’s pink dress matching the flower in the upper corner of the book. The next cover proudly displayed The Rose Garden by Susanna Kearsley with red flowers growing down on a stone building. The third one was a light pink book with an anatomically correct heart with flowers growing out of the arteries, veins and valves; a collection of poetry I Saw You As a Flower by Ellen Everett. Lastly, you held Rupi Kaur’s second collection of poetry The Sun and her Flowers that had come out a couple years ago.

“Charlie, this is so thoughtful. You even has a rose one!” You breathlessly spoke gently touching the covers, “Thank you so much for these.”

“I thought we could read them together?” Charlie was bashful as he quietly asked with flushed cheeks. He didn’t know why he felt like this was his very first date all over again.

“I’d love that.” You softly told the Canadian with the manners a mother would be jealous to have in her home. Charlie’s fingers linked with yours as he tugged you out of the apartment into the hallway.

Your hands swung during the short walk from the apartment building to his bright orange Subaru across the street. The sound of the light wind rustling the trees lining the sidewalk mixed with the humming from Charlie was a perfect film score. He was the ideal gentleman even before he asked you out.

You couldn’t wait to tell your close loved ones about Charlie. You could really see this going somewhere. The relationship that is, as you were now on the side of a road with the Subaru’s hazard lights flashing.

“I forgot to fill the tank.” Charlie moaned, pressing his forehead against the steering wheel. His eyes clenched just as tight as his fists.

The Canadian was so embarrassed to have had what he thought was the best date of his life. He’d played music from the playlist he had patiently curated specifically for this date, and he held your hand to the restaurant. He’d already made plans for another date when his car’s warning beeped.

In Charlie’s haste, he’d forgotten to fuel up his car, so here he was with the prettiest person he’d ever seen in his passenger seat. His confidence in a second date had greatly diminished.

“Char, you said Owen was on his way. There isn’t anyone else I’d prefer to be stranded with. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I wanted this date to go perfect. This is my first Valentine’s Day with someone.” Charlie admitted turning his head to stare into warm pools of your e/y colours. His eyes scanned the soft smile that appeared on your face as his confession, “I had this whole thing planned out, and now you definitely won’t want a second-”

“I’m gonna kiss you. If you don’t want that, let me know.” You murmured before pulling him in for what would be the best kiss of your life thus far.

Sure his car broke down, but you kissed him anyway. He tasted of the complimentary chocolate dessert from dinner.

A Year Later

A young, admittedly broke couple sat on the cold floor of the unpacked kitchen eating SpaghettiOs. You had only just moved into the studio apartment with Charlie that had drained most of your savings. Had it not been in a decently safe area in the city and a close commute you would have said no.

But it was the perfect starting place for you two as you both were unfamiliar with living with an SO. It sucked on each of your ends to not have a better situation, Charlie wanted nothing more than to spoil you on the first day living together. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible but sitting on the floor with a cheap candle was imperfectly perfect.

“I’m sorry we’re eating out of cans.” Charlie whispered pointedly, keeping his eyes on the spoon, stirring the red sauce with the beige circles.

“Char this is perfect. As long as it’s you and I then anything is perfect. Besides we didn’t label the boxes, I have no idea which box has our kitchenware.” You admitted glancing at the boxes boarding the edge of the room. 

You ate out of cans for at least a week before you had unpacked the kitchen and had the means to buy actual groceries. Living together thus far had been going super smooth until wasn’t.

It was a bad day on both your parts, your entire work was deleted after a computer glitch. Charlie had auditioned for a role he had been really really wanting since he heard about it. Your father came down with the flu axing the plans to meet for dinner; it would have been the first time in six months you saw him in person.

The apartment's atmosphere had been rising and very volatile by mid-afternoon when Charlie blatantly forgot a deal. If he was going to play music, it had to be in the study so you could focus on your work. 

Today he’d decided to be in close vicinity to have a virtual jam session with both Owen and Jeremy. He’d chosen the room you were in solely because it had the best wifi reception which you needed as well.

“Charlie, please can you go to the study? I’m trying to finish this!” You cried out as he struck a chord on the electric. His eyebrows came other in the glare he sent you, “I lost all my work last night.”

“The guys and I are working on songs-”

“-Charlie, this is due tonight. I can’t concentrate with-”

“It’s not my fault you have a shitty attention span!” Charlie angrily snapped contradicting the gentle touch on his guitar. He placed it back on the stand to not accidentally damage it, “The wifi is best in this room.”

“I’m very much aware of that Charlie. Out of the two of us, I use it the most. Can you please either move to the study or at least wait an hour so I can finish?” You pleaded with the Canadian actor ignoring the two guys on the computer silently waiting for the fight to be over.

“Why can't you mov-”

“Fine. I will.” You fully stared down your boyfriend for a full five seconds before you harshly closed the top of your computer. It took seconds to gather your work stuff into the leather satchel you stored the computer in, “You didn’t even mute the call.”

Charlie watched as you swiftly pulled on your jacket, “Babe-”

The sound of the door slamming shut cut his sentence before he even had a chance to speak his thoughts. The apartment was eerily silent compared to the sounds of music that always played through the Bluetooth speaker.

The inspiration to play evaporated with the aftermath of a stupid argument permeated the apartment typically filled with love. All three actors quietly said their goodbyes before they ended the video call.

You spent an hour uncomfortably sitting in a cafe finishing up what you’d needed to finish with the argument replaying. Your finger barely hit the button to send the email before you had already stepped outside the business. You spent the walk struggling to draft a text to your boyfriend. 

It didn’t matter because when you walked into the apartment, you heard the soft song you’d both deemed yours. It was cheesy, but that was part of Charlie’s charm. Speaking of your boyfriend, he was sat on the floor of your kitchen with matching mugs of brownies.

“I’m sorry. I was insensitive.” Charlie started as soon as your jacket was draped over one of the kitchen chairs. His usually wide smile was as bashful as the one he’d worn on the night of your first date.

“No I’m sorry, Charlie. I could have easily put on my headphones or moved to the bedroom for a bit. The fight was stupid, and I love you so much that sometimes I think I take you for granted. I mean, look at you! You made the brownie cups-”

“Even sitting on the cold floor like when we moved in.” Charlie cheekily inserted, reaching over to hold your hands in his, “I like our tradition. I definitely like how we upgraded from SpaghettiOs to brownies.”

“Me too.” You breathed leaning over to press a lingering kiss on his lips. His hands delving into your hair to keep you close.

The butterflies stormed your stomach as the heat slowly inflated from your toes until it reached your flushing cheeks. Raw emotion pouring into the passionate kiss that only closed down as you broke for air. But you also went back in as that warmth slowly built in your tummies. Charlie’s eyes marginally opened to ensure he wasn’t imagining the Angel he got to kiss.

Finally, with heavy breathing, you pulled apart, but only a fleeting moment froze the time in the apartment. For, as soon as Charlie caught your dilated pupils, his one hand cupped the back of your hand, fingers tangled in your h/c tresses. 

Soon enough, you were making up on the kitchen floor with each article of clothing tossed in the vicinity. A shirt landed on the kitchen sink spout. The brownie mugs forgotten as you gave into the passion with your boyfriend. Your lovemaking had you missing supper.

Charlie’s solution was a trip to the local authentic English pub founded by a nice guy from London. You never failed to stop him for a dance in the empty street as his smooth voice gave music for smooth motions. Dancing was a common thing from pulling off the road in Dieppe to dance. You drank and danced at the pub until Jack cut you off at 2am as his pub rules had.

You and Charlie just laughed in a love bubble as the real-world worries faded because you always came together in the rough times.

Months later you returned to Dieppe with Charlie to spend the holidays with them. The entire family together creating such a welcoming atmosphere.

“I’m gonna grab a glass of water.” You informed the group of gals ad non-binary pals who had gathered in Meghan’s bedroom. The group had decided to sleep over Meg’s childhood room with face masks, nail polish and lovely wine.

Meg and Jeannette both nodded to acknowledge your announcement before they returned to their respective conversations. You took a moment to take in the great group of Gillespie and Co you had the honour to be part of. The thirst was only temporarily forgotten in the happy bubble you found yourself in.

You practically skipped to the kitchen, barely noticing the two people in the living room, but their words stopped you in your tracks. Your boyfriend, Charlie Gillespie, stood close to his older brothers Ryan, Patrick and Michael.

“I’m gonna ask her to marry-” Charlie caught himself from finishing the sentence when he saw you standing pale-faced at the opening into the living room.

His entire body was encapsulated by the lights casting in the living room from the Christmas tree. The tree couldn’t hold a candle to the ring of your dreams that promptly had you bursting into tears.

“I RUINED THE SURPRISE!” You sobbed dropping your face into your cold hands, avoiding the gaze of the Gillespie brothers. Had you not been hiding in your hands you would have known the older three had vacated the room.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Charlie cooed with the ring safely put away in the box he had shoved back in his pocket, “You didn’t ruin the surprise. I shouldn’t have been telling my brothers in the middle of the living room.”

Charlie’s warm hands slowly pulled your hands from your soft post-mask skin with such a pretty healthy glow. He could see the remnants of the mask on the edge of your scalp, but it didn’t take away from your beauty.

“I’m sorry.” You whispered, staring up at him from underneath your eyelashes. The soft hazel eyes not upset in the least, things often didn’t go the way you wanted to together.

Take the first date from over two years ago where you and Charlie had waited for Owen to meet you with a jug of gas. You’d shared childhood stories and future dreams. Or the time you hadn’t marked the boxes creating an entire week of eating out of cans and cartons.

Ruining the proposal was almost expected at this rate.

“I knew from the moment I saw you in that emerald dress I knew that you were the One for me. I’ve adored each moment I’ve gotten with you from the spontaneous dances on the side of the road. To bursting into song in the middle of the street.” Charlie shakily started with sweating bands but an open heart, “When your best friend told me the emerald dress was the special one, it melted my heart.”

“Charlie.”

“Other than my belief that this relationship will last, I was only ever sure of one thing in my life. I was sure I would be an actor, but now I’m more sure that my favourite role will be supporting you, loving you and evolving with you as your husband.” Charlie sniffled, taking one hand from yours to wipe the tears flooding his cheeks, “Will you marry me?”

“Yes.” You breathed lunging on your tiptoes to kiss him with as much passion as you could. Your hands caressed the skin of his cheeks; his long tresses tickling your wrists.

“God I love you.” Charlie gushed with a gentle shake of his head. His hazel pinned to your e/c eyes as if you were the most precious gem in the world.

A voice cut the bubble enveloping you, “Well are you gonna put the ring on her finger or what?”

Charlie’s head moved to meet the teary eyes of his mother surrounded by his siblings as they bounced on their feet. You laughed as your now fiance clumsily rushed to slide the absolutely gorgeous ring on your finger. 

“Welcome to the family officially.” Jeannette cheered along with the celebratory whistles and yells as the crowd of the family grew more and more. Soon enough, the entire room was overflowing with people congratulating your new engagement.

Months later, you stood in front of that same group holding the hands of your handsome fiance. Both dressed to the nines in front of the officiant.

“I wasn’t looking for a fairytale, because they all end the same. The princess has a conflict that she revolves with the help of the prince. They get married and live happily ever after. I adore how we’re writing our own story that fits our relationship. Charlie Gillespie, I wouldn’t change a thing about our lives. I wouldn’t have it any other way even with the fighting and slamming doors, but we always end up on our kitchen floor making up with two brownies in mugs.” Your vows brought tears among the onlookers along with the Canadian barely keeping it together.

The vows would later be eloquently transformed into lyrics from you with the accompanying melody provided by Charlie. On Valentine’s Day, you played the song on the kitchen floor with a plate of brownies. Three brownies waiting to be devoured.

“Three for each of us.” You wept as you watched as Charlie melted into a puddle of joyful tears. He took no time in placing his hand over your flat stomach.

Yeah, you wouldn’t have it any other way. Especially when Valentine’s Day become more to the Gillespie family; a new little love taking up the day.

(Reader’s Dress In Beginning)

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[kirain]

Hazbin Hotel and VivziePop Drama

I've been hearing/seeing a lot of drama concerning Hazbin Hotel and it's creator VivziePop, and while I don't know her personally or really care what people think, I do hate slander and the spread of misinformation. Truly nothing in this world upsets me more than when people believe rumours while making no effort to fact check, and that's exactly what's happening right now. That said, I wanted to try and clear up some of the rumours going around about Vivzie and the show, because I think some of them are absolutely outrageous and need to be addressed.

1. Vivzie hired an abuser onto the show.

Now, I’m not here to burn anyone at the stake, especially since I don’t know anything about Chris Niosi (the alleged abuser), who I believe openly admitted to the allegations? Regardless, this is a moot point. He’s not credited anywhere at the end of the episode. So either he was booted before production wrapped up or he had nothing to do with the show in the first place.

2. Vivzie supports bestiality.

Admittedly I thought this one might be true, since she draws so many anthropomorphic animals. In the very least, I figured she was probably a furry, but I haven't seen any evidence supporting this accusation either. Near as I can tell, this rumour started for two reasons. One, because of her famous Zoophobia comic, which revolves around a therapist named Cameron who gets assigned to work with human-like animals. Ironically, poor Cameron suffers from crippling zoophobia, which makes for some pretty decent comedy. I didn't read the whole comic because, quite frankly, it’s not my cup of tea and I just don’t have the time. But from what I saw there are no examples of bestiality anywhere in its contents.

Two, this message, which blew up all over social media:

To me, this just proves that people are more interested in virtue signalling than checking to see if their claims are actually true. Everything about this message is 100% false, which I’ll touch on in my next point.

3. Vivzie is a pedophile and she’s drawn child porn.

This is hands down the worst allegation and holy shit, I really wish people would stop using it to defame someone when they don't have any proof. This is a life-ruining accusation and you're disgusting if you believe it based solely on hearsay. This rumour began to spread when Vivzie allegedly shipped the two underage characters in the above photo and drew them NSFW-style. At the time, one character was 19 while the other was 14, and the relationship was a very illegal student-teacher relationship.

This is WRONG! The characters were not 14 and 19, they were actually 18 and 19, the legal age of consent! Additionally, the relationship wasn't student-teacher. One character is a student and the other is Alumni (a student teacher). This one pisses me off the most because it’s obvious the person who sent that message didn’t even bother to conduct any research. They said, “He’s a teacher, she’s a child.” Both characters are MALE!

Since then, Vivzie has apologised for any NSFW art she drew in the past and stated that it's not a reflection of her art today, and I'm inclined to believe her. Almost every artist has drawn NSFW content at some point in their career, and hers wasn't even distasteful. Other than this one example, there is no evidence anywhere that suggests she’s drawn “child porn”. In fact, she’s never even drawn explicit NSFW.

Please stop spreading this rumour. It’s dangerous and completely incorrect.

4. Vivzie said the "N" word!

No, she didn’t. It was a fabricated tweet. That is all.

5. Vivzie is copyright striking every video that criticises her!

No she isn't. YouTube’s DMCA is automatically striking people who are using full clips without permission. Vivzie has gone public several times, telling people exactly how to avoid getting a copy strike from the algorithm, which is something she absolutely does not have to do. At this point, she doesn't owe you anything. In my opinion, she should just sit back and watch these channels burn.

6. Vivzie copies and traces other artists’ work.

This is another one I’ve seen going around, but I looked into it as thoroughly as I could and failed to find any concrete evidence to support the allegations. As of right now, there are only two examples of Vivzie “copying” or “tracing” other artists’ work, and both of them can be explained. The first is a gif she made with a character from her Zoophobia comic, which looked a lot like the girl from ME!ME!ME!:

Damn, that’s pretty incriminating. She obviously stole-- oh, wait. This gif was part of a ME!ME!ME! MEP (multi editor’s project) and Vivzie didn’t take full credit, despite the fact that it’s not even a direct trace. It’s supposed to look like the original, which she fully cited. The second example comes from a short dance sequence from her Timber video, which seems to have been inspired by several Disney movies. As Vivzie herself stated, that was an homage to the original animations. Lots of artists and shows do this, including the beloved Stephen Universe series.

Regardless, this doesn’t count as stealing character designs or plagiarising someone’s work. It’s meant to be respectful, an admiration of other projects. Other than these two instances, however, there is no evidence of her tracing or stealing other people’s art. From what I’ve discovered, all other designs she’s been accused of “stealing” are characters she bought and paid for. They’re quite literally HER characters.

7. Vivzie supports problematic creators.

I’m getting really tired of guilt by association. Vivzie follows and enjoys some controversial figures, but who cares? We can argue all day about whether or not the accusations against them are true, but it ultimately has nothing to do with the show or Vivzie as a person. I do the exact same thing, to be honest-- follow and listen to people on all sides so I can learn, understand, and form my own opinions. The fact that some people think this is bad, to me, is absolutely mesmerising. Vivzie doesn’t control what the people she follows post, and if they do something overly questionable she publicly criticises and denounces it.

From Vivzie:

Now that that’s been dealt with, I’d like to address some complaints/claims about the actual show.

8. Vaggie is an angry Latina stereotype and a lesbian stereotype. Vivzie is appropriating Hispanic culture and misrepresenting the gay for profit.

First off, I see a lot of people passing around yet more misinformation regarding Vivzie's race. So many people seem to think she's white? Well, I'm here to tell you they're wrong. Very incorrect. Vivzie is in fact Latina, and Vaggie is meant to mirror some of her own personality traits.

Second, who is Vaggie mad at? Context matters, and if we take a look at the episode, we see that Vaggie is literally only mad at two specific people: Angel Dust and Alastor. Why? Well, for starters, it's her girlfriend's dream to run a rehab hotel for sinners, and Angel Dust nearly demolishes that dream single-handedly. Vaggie has every right to be over-the-top vitriolic. Then there's Alastor, a known sadist, narcissist, and murderer who loves trapping people in his nefarious schemes. He invites himself in, effectively takes over the hotel, and pushes both her and Charlie aside. At one point he even sexually assaults her by slapping her butt during his musical number. So yeah, I think her seething ire is totally justified. Keep in mind, however, that when she's around Charlie she's calm, collected, and happy. I wouldn't call that a stereotype.

Thirdly, the lesbian stereotypes. I keep hearing this argument but I really don't see it. Both Vaggie and Charlie have so much personality and trust for each other. Maybe I'm wrong, but the stereotype I know always totes a more butch, tomboyish woman with a ditsy, innocent, naive woman. Charlie is optimistic, but she isn't stupid. She refuses to shake Alastor’s hand because she knows he’s likely trying to screw her over. She’s also not entirely innocent herself and uses words like “fuck” and “shit”. I also wouldn’t call Vaggie butch or tomboyish. She has a cute, girly presentation, complete with a pink ribbon in her hair, lace stockings, and a dress. She's protective of her girlfriend, as I think we all are with our partners, and there's nothing wrong with that. They're flawed characters, as every character is meant to be. This isn't a problem.

9. The show is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, blah, blah, blah.

I’m amazed this is even an argument. The show is supposed to be a dark comedy that takes place in HELL. You know, the place the worst of the worst end up after they die? What were you expecting? Everyone gets a shot or two fired at them, but that doesn't make them bad characters nor does it make the show itself horrible. Take, for example, Katie Killjoy, the news reporter so many people are up in arms about. She says she doesn’t “touch the gays” because she has “standards”. Well, here’s a newsflash of my own: we’re not supposed to like her! She’s an antagonist. Not to mention ten seconds later Charlie insults her and isn’t the least bit slighted by her pretentious attitude. The characters are strong and don’t take shit from anyone, because to some degree they’re all terrible people who can throw down when it’s called for.

Obviously if you don’t like the show or think it’s offensive, I’m probably not going to change your mind. That’s perfectly fine. You’re entitled to your opinions and you don’t have to watch the show. Just stop lying and stop trying to take it away from everybody else. Stop attacking Vivzie and spreading misinformation without checking the facts. I realise a lot of people probably aren’t trying to be vindictive and only want to do something good, but just remember this: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[drabbles-mc]

Protective Detail (1/?)

Nestor Oceteva x Reader

Shout-out to @masterlistforimagines ​ for encouraging me, and helping me brainstorm to write this fic based on This Post from @my-rosegold-soul ​ 😂👀😍 

Warnings: language, mentions of kidnapping, bruises

Word Count: 2.8k

A/N: This is my first time writing for Nestor, so hopefully I do alright with that lol.  This is gonna be a multi-chap fic. So like??? Semi-slow burn in that regard. Stay tuned 👀👀 Also, Happy Thanksgiving if you celebrate. This year I'm thankful for Gino's braids 😂

Chapter Index

Taglist?? I’ve never written for Nestor so I don’t really have a list lol. But if you wanna get tagged in future chapters of this fic totally comment or message me or something and I’ll make sure it happens.

You huffed, rolling your eyes, “I don’t need a fucking babysitter, Papi,” you were standing on the opposite side of the table from your father, who was not looking amused at all with the attitude you were giving him.

“And I told you that you don’t get to make that call, mija,” his tone was level but you could see it in his eyes that he was not going to let you win this argument.

“You don’t need to do this,” you leaned forward onto the table, palms flat, “I’m fine.”

He eyed the bruise on your cheek, knowing that that was the only one he could see, but it was far from the only mark on you. It had been just short of a week since a group of men had tried to kidnap you. It came with the territory of being the daughter of a cartel leader, but it had never really hit that close to home before. Your father was shaken up, and understandably so. But every time he had brought up either getting you out of town for a little while, or setting you up with your own personal security, you forcefully shot down the idea.

“What was the point of teaching me how to defend myself if you’re just going to pack me up and ship me off the second things get a little rough?”

He raised one eyebrow, “A little rough? Mija, they tried to kidnap you.”

“And they failed.”

“I don’t want to push our luck. Why is that such a problem for you?”

“Because I’m too old to have a babysitter. And I sure as hell don’t want to owe any favors to Miguel fucking Galindo,” you rolled your eyes at the mere thought of it.

Your father sighed, knowing that you didn’t have much use for his business counterpart. He had never done or said anything directly to you to make you dislike him so much, but whatever vibe he put off in your direction wasn’t one that you liked, and you had never been good at pretending to like people if you didn’t. You could suck it up just enough to be civil, but nothing more. The fact that he would be the one supplying your security didn’t sit right with you.

“Why can’t one of your guys just stake out my house or something?” you tried to meet him halfway.

“They’re all busy dealing with everything that led to you getting kidnapped.”

“Almost,” you corrected.

He sighed, “Almost kidnapped. I know you aren’t happy about it, but my mind is made up. Besides, he said that he’s sending one of his best men.”

“If he’s one of the best why doesn’t Miguel want to keep him?” you finally collapsed in the chair across from your father, putting you both on the same level.

Your father smirked slightly, “Because he owes me a favor.”

You chuckled, shaking your head. You appreciated that as you got older, your father was more honest with you about everything within reason. It helped both of you for you not to be completely in the dark. For a long time, he worried it was going to make you more worried, but if anything, you appreciated knowing what kinds of things you were up against. You hated feeling unprepared more than anything else in the world.

“So, who is this mysterious, top-of-the-line babysitter that you have found for me?” you finally asked, conceding to what your father wanted.

Your father laughed and shook his head for a moment before calling out, “Nestor, come in here please.”

You turned your body in your chair so you could get a better look at the door. The door opened slowly and you couldn’t help but to raise your eyebrows as you took in the sight of the man who had just entered the room. You mentally went back through the few memories you had of Miguel and you realized that you had definitely seen this man before. He was never far if the Galindos were around. You’d never heard him speak, though—he had always been a silent presence. You definitely weren’t expecting him to be the person who got loaned out to you for the foreseeable future.

“I don’t think you two have ever officially met,” your father waved him over, “Nestor, this is my daughter, Y/N. Y/N, this is Nestor. He’s going to be keeping you safe for a while.”

You politely shook Nestor’s hand, understanding that this situation wasn’t his doing. You gave your father a pointed look, “I keep myself safe.”

He sighed, knowing that you got your stubbornness from him, “He’s going to help you, then.”

You could tell that Nestor was trying not to smile watching the two of you interact. He kept a fairly straight face but his eyebrows raised slightly as he took in how blunt you were with a man that he had grown to respect, and also fear.

“Do I at least get to stay in my own house?” you looked at your father.

He nodded, “Unless something else happens that makes that a bad idea, yes, you can stay in your house.”

“Thank you,” you nodded as you stood up out of your seat. You walked around the table and gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, “Te quiero, Papi. I’ll talk to you later.”

He smiled, “Te quiero. Be safe.”

You laughed as you followed Nestor to the door, “How could I not at this point?” you nodded in Nestor’s direction.

The two of you exited your father’s house. Your face took on a confused expression as you looked for your car. It had been parked right outside your father’s front door and now it was nowhere to be found. You looked over at Nestor.

“Is my car being gone your doing?”

He shook his head, “Your father’s. He asked me to drive you so he had some of his men take the car back to your house.”

You sighed but didn’t say anything more as the two of you walked over to Nestor’s SUV. Granted, his car was much nicer than yours but that wasn’t the point. You wanted this to intrude on your life as little as possible and having him driving you around everywhere in his big flashy car wasn’t exactly in any of your plans.

Most of the drive passed in silence. You wanted to reach and turn the radio on but something in you said that Nestor wasn’t the kind of man who would be caught singing on the job. You looked out the window as you settled back into your seat more, fighting the urge to put your feet up on the dashboard.

“So, what’d you do to piss of Miguel and get put on babysitting duty?” you finally asked.

You looked over and saw his body tense up, “I’m not your babysitter.”

You chuckled, “Would you prefer that I tell people you’re my bodyguard?”

He took his eyes off the road for a moment so he could look over at you, “You don’t have to tell people anything about me.”

The sternness in his tone made you feel small and it caught you a little off-guard. It was going to be interesting to have him be a constant pair of eyes on you. You didn’t know how to feel about having someone who was essentially a stranger being stuck to you like glue.

Silence took over the car again and it stayed that way until he pulled into your driveway. You hopped out of the car, not bothering to wait for him to come and open the door for you. You caught a quick glimpse of his expression and there was the smallest of smiles on his lips for a moment before he went back to his stoic expression.

“I have no idea how this is supposed to work, Nestor,” you admitted honestly as you unlocked the front door, “Are you, like, living here with me now?”

He shrugged, “Would you prefer that?”

You swallowed hard as you crossed the threshold of your home. The impulsive hormonal part of your brain was screaming that you would most definitely prefer that. But you tried very hard not to let that part of you win out.

“I wouldn’t be sleeping in your bed with you, don’t worry,” he offered up with a chuckle.

You felt your face get hot and you tried to play it off, “I figured as much. Besides,” you smirked, “my dad would slaughter you.”

“I don’t doubt that at all.”

“I mean,” you awkwardly stood in your living room, feeling like you should be offering him something, “I have a guest room if you’d want to stay here. Not like it’s getting much use otherwise. Makes more sense than you constantly going back and forth.”

He nodded, not really giving off much emotion either way, “That’s fine. I can have someone bring some of my things by.”

You were about to tell him that he might as well go and pick his things up himself, but leaving you alone on day one would not look good for the whole “personal security” thing. Instead, you offered to give him a quick tour of the house. If he was going to have to protect you, he might as well know where everything was.

“You can hang out here while you’re waiting for your stuff,” you gestured to the living room, “I have every streaming service under the sun,” you grabbed two beers out of the fridge, “You allowed to drink on the job?”

He shook his head as he sat down on the couch, “I am, but I’m good. Thank you.”

You shrugged, tossing one bottle back into the fridge before opening one for yourself. You sat down on the opposite end of the couch from him and waited. You wanted him to choose something to watch, solely so you could try to figure out more of what kind of person you were dealing with. He picked up that you had started a game of chicken, and with a heavy sigh he reached forward and picked up your controller.

“You actually game with this or do you just use it to watch stuff?” he asked as he scrolled through your apps.

You laughed, “Not gaming like you’re thinking.”

The two of you were a few episodes deep into Community when Nestor’s phone started ringing. He looked down and stood up, heading towards the door without bothering to answer the call. When he came back inside, he had a bag in each hand and walked past you to the guest room without a word. You sat on the couch, fidgeting slightly with your hands. All you could think about was the fact that you had no idea how this was supposed to work. It wasn’t like the two of you were friends and he was going to be crashing with you for a while. You knew nothing about him and now he was living at your house. You had no idea how to have a full conversation with him, which was rare. You didn’t know what it was about him that made all of your words get caught in your throat.

A few minutes later he came back out and sat down on the couch again. Silence filled the space between you outside the noise from the television. You glanced down at the time on your phone and right as you did, your stomach growled.

“So, do you eat?” you asked.

He looked over at you, one eyebrow raised, “I’m only allowed one meal a week.”

You laughed, face heating up over the entire interaction, “Am I allowed to order off Grubhub? Or is that a security no-no?”

“If you want to order something we can go pick it up,” it was his nice way of saying that delivery wasn’t an option for the time being.

“The whole point of ordering in, is not having to leave the house. Aren’t I safer if I’m here anyway?”

“And having strangers come here all the time?”

“Why don’t you just tell me all the things I can and can’t do?” you rolled your eyes.

“It’s not my decision,” he was firm, but his voice didn’t get loud, “It’s your father’s. I get you don’t like this but there’s no getting out of it now.”

“I’m sorry,” you offered up honestly, “I’m just…not used to being on a leash.”

He chuckled, “I see that.”

You stood up with a sigh and made your way over to the kitchen, “I’ll pull something together.”

“You really don’t want to leave the house that much?” you could hear the amusement in his voice.

“I really don’t,” you perused your cabinets, not making eye contact as you asked him, “Which reminds me, can we use my car when we leave here from now on? I feel like it’s a little more discreet.”

He sighed, “Let me guess, you want to drive?”

That made you look over at him, “Would you let me?”

“I’ll answer that more definitively after I survive one ride with you behind the wheel.”

Throughout the evening you could feel that both of you were trying to figure each other out. Nestor seemed like he was a very tightly closed book, though. You couldn’t get much of a read on him and you weren’t sure how you felt about it. You felt like he had caught you a few too many times just staring at him, trying to pull information out of his brain just by looking at him.

After you put all of the dishes in the sink, you went and took a shower and changed into a baggy t-shirt and shorts to go to bed in. You said goodnight to Nestor, who was still on the couch, scrolling on his phone. You said to let you know if you had any questions or anything but other than that you would see him in the morning. You felt weird just leaving him out in the living room like that, but you supposed that that was what he was there to do.

You woke up in the middle of the night, dying for a piece of chocolate and a glass of water. You quietly opened your door and tip-toed down the hall to get to your kitchen. You knew your house like the back of your hand so there was no need to turn the lights on and risk waking Nestor up. You were rooting through your cabinets when you heard the unmistakable click of a gun.

Instinctively, you turn around and pushed the person’s arms hard, attempting to knock the gun out of the person’s hand but at the very least have it not pointed at you anymore. You were centimeters away from kicking in their kneecap when you heard Nestor’s voice through the silence.

“It’s me,” he sounded exhausted but he was still alert enough to not let you try to beat him up.

“Jesus Christ,” you sighed as you reached over and flipped the light on, “What the fuck?”

“Why are you shuffling around in the dark?” he put the safety back on his gun and set it down before reaching and wiping his face, attempting to wake up a little more, “I thought someone broke in.”

“I was trying not to wake you up.”

“You didn’t succeed,” he leaned against the counter.

“I see that,” you returned your attention to the cupboard and pulled out two small wrapped candy, “Chocolate?” you offered him a piece.

He huffed but he still took it from you and ate it. You chuckled to yourself as you lifted yourself up to sit on the countertop. While you were sitting you leaned over and filled a cup with water, taking a long drink from it before returning your attention to Nestor. You stared at him for a moment, realizing that this was the first time you had ever seen him in anything besides the nice clothes that he wore for work. He was in a baggy, white long-sleeve shirt and a pair of black sweatpants. You had a feeling that that image was going to be burned into your mind forever, but you shook your head to dispel the thoughts.

“From now on I will make as much obvious noise as possible when I get up in the middle of the night.”

He chuckled, shaking his head, “Goodnight, Y/N.”

You smiled, lightly swinging your legs back and forth, “Goodnight.”

You watched him disappear down the hall before returning your attention to the kitchen. You hopped down off the counter and noticed that all of the dishes that had been in the sink were washed and sitting in the drying board. You smiled to yourself as you looked at the spot where Nestor had just been.

[bordeleaubeau]

my ex’s best friend - trevor zegras

wc: 4212

trigger warning: talks about the loss of a parent and being walked out on.

based on my ex’s best friend by blackbear and mgk:)

-

“god i cannot wait for jack to be here!” jordan gushes as she runs her hand through her hair, messing up her curls just enough. “it’s been so long, and i know he’s definitely gone to parties back in michigan, but college parties are so much more better. not that he’d know that though.”

you laugh louder than you mean to, but you can’t help but agree with your best friend. jack and you had grown up together in michigan and you were so close that you were basically ellen’s honorary daughter. it also helped you had played for little caesars girl’s team, so you’d occasionally see the youngest hughes every now and then. with that, you got a scholarship offer from harvard and the rest was history.

now, this is where things get more interesting. you introduced jordan and jack, instantly thinking that jordan would be nothing other than a hookup. but jack had taken a serious liking to her and vice versa, which eventually led to them dating after just two months of them knowing each other.

and now here you were, standing in your best friend’s boston university dorm room waiting for your childhood best friend to arrive for the start of his road trip. “he should be here any minute now, jo. newark isn’t that far and-”

you’re cut off by a squeal coming from the brunette, and she’s popping up from her bed. “he’s here!” and just like that, she’s gone and leaving you to sprint after her down the hall to let jack into the building.

you’re laughing following after, no doubt driving the people on the floor below you insane by the sounds of your feet thudding against the carpeted floor. the two of you race down the stairwell until jordan throws open the side door where the first overall stood, a glowing smile on his face at the sight of his two girls.

you stand back, allowing jack and jordan a moment. the two exchange a few words followed by a brief peck to the lips before they release each other from their hold. then it’s your turn, and you’re smiling as you wrap your arms around jack.

“hi jacky,” you mumble into his chest, feeling him quickly kiss the top of your head.

“hey kid, how’ve you been holding up?” god, you wish you didn’t know what he was referring to. but you knew right away.

behind you, jordan is frantically shaking her head with wide eyes trying to take away from the topic. you draw away from jack, trying to find the words. “it still, it still hurts, i guess. but i’m okay, promise.” you give jack a weak smile, one you know he sees right through seeing as he knew you for almost all your life. “are we gonna go or what?”

“yeah jacky, i think it’s time you experience a real party, not one of those dumb little high school parties.” jordan teases her boyfriend and you smile, watching as she links her arm with his. “plus, y/n goes to that smart person school that like, no one has ever heard of before and i heard they don’t know how to have a proper party.” she throws you a smile over her shoulder and you roll your eyes with a smile on your face. if anyone could poke fun at you like that, it was jordan. jordan and jack. and that’s why they made such a perfect couple - jordan was just like jack, so when you didn’t have jack you pretty much had the girl version of him right at your own disposal.

the three of you walk towards where the party of the night is at, letting jordan lead the way seeing as she was the only one that knew where she was going. you knew you’d definitely have a few friends there, and some old ones as well.

“is uh, is you know who going to be there?” you hear jack quietly ask and you swallow hard. you knew he was just trying to be nice by not saying his name, but not saying it only made it feel more real.

“um, i don’t know. i don’t think so. i talked to dom in econ today, they had a big game tonight so they’re probably tired. but i’m not sure, i haven’t talked to him in the past few days.” you cross your arms over your chest, looking to the right towards the street to try and blink the building tears in your eyes away. you shouldn’t feel this way. it was your fault anyway. right?

you keep quiet, trying to distract yourself in any way you possibly could. what you had said was true - you did prefer bu’s parties to harvard’s. there was something about going to a party and being that mysterious girl that could hook up with any guy and him not know anything about you. he couldn’t find you in classes if he was that interested. you couldn’t exactly do that at harvard, being so well known on both campus and the ice.

maybe that was what you needed. a distraction for the night. you were certainly dressed to earn some turned heads, and you were sure you were going to end up using that to your advantage at some point that night.

the three of you walk into the party a few minutes later and right away you have a bad feeling. at that moment you feel like you should trust your gut and just walk away, but you know you can’t just ditch your best friends like that.

jordan turns, yelling over the music. “what do you want to drink? whiteclaw good? me and jack will grab it and then we can all meet up by the living room?”

you nod, giving her a thumbs up not exactly feeling up to yelling over the music. you already felt sick to your stomach, and you weren’t sure the effects of the alcohol would help with this one.

“y/n!” you hear your name being yelled and you quickly turn to see a familiar blonde, and a smile graces your face.

“hey ry!” you move in to hug her, your arms wrapping around her quickly. you met ryley through jordan, of course, and she had to be one of the sweetest girls you had ever met. she was always willing to go the extra mile if necessary. “how’ve you been, babe?”

she shrugs, followed by an exaggerated eye roll. “same old same old. you know how it is. but how are you? you look hot by the way! i’ve already seen like, five guys that can’t keep their eyes off you!”

“i’m doing alright, just waiting for jack and jo. jack’s in town to play the bruins, so he came up for the night to see jo.” ryley nods along with your words, and before she can respond you see jack and jordan walking up from behind, two white cans in jordan’s hands and a giddy smile on her face.

“ryley!” jordan squeals, throwing her arms around the blonde. “ryley you’ve met jack before. don’t have to worry about that one.” you let out a laugh and jordan hands you the mango flavored seltzer and you thank her. “i think jack and i are gonna go play beer pong if you wanna find a partner and play us?”

you purse your lips, trying to think for a second before you ultimately decide to shake your head. “nah, i’m all good. i might play later though.”

“come dance with me and some of the girls then!” ryley smiles, gesturing her head towards the living room where there are plenty of sweaty bodies dancing on one another. you nod your head, accepting her offer.

“i’ll find you in a bit jo! go have fun you two.” jordan smiles at you, blowing you a fake kiss before she pulls jack towards one of the back rooms where you’re sure she’s already scoped out a beer pong table.

you know pretty much all the girls that are all dancing together - there’s amber, then there’s hayden, bella, and then maddie. all fairly sweet girls that you had had multiple encounters with and they were friendly each and every time.

“hi y/n!” bella grins, grabbing your hand and pulling you right into their little group. she glances down at your hand and she gives you a look. “honey you haven’t even-” she stops herself, grabbing your whiteclaw right out of your hand and she cracks it open. “just for that you’ve gotta chug, babe. sorry i don’t make the rules. you’re already slacking.”

“bella!” you laugh, most of it being drowned out by whatever soundcloud remix was being played, but nonetheless you still take the can from her and lift it to your lips, tilting your head back as you drink as much of it as you possibly can.

“that’s our girl!” ryley cheers you on, along with the other girls, and as soon as you empty the contents of your can you’re in a fit of giggles, shaking your head at the girls in front of you.

“you guys are too much, i swear.” you say, setting the empty can on a table behind you that was already littered with plenty of cans. one extra wouldn’t hurt. “you guys are so much better than my harvard friends.”

“which is exactly why you should transfer!” maddie exclaims, her hands going up to emphasize her statement along with a smile.

you jut your bottom lip out, and before you can say anything ryley beats you to it. “she plays a sport, mads. it’s not exactly that easy.”

“nu uh! wait a damn minute, but didn’t you have an offer from bu?” bella puts her hands on her hips, raising one of her eyebrows at you, and you can’t help but laugh at the feeling of being interrogated. if only they knew the whole story.

“i go to harvard solely for hockey. i can’t help that i liked harvard’s staff and coaches better than bu’s!” you defend yourself, but bella isn’t having any of it as she raises one of her hands to your face. “bella, come on.”

“no, no, i don’t wanna hear it. wanted to go to school with snobby rich kids instead of snobby cool kids! i get it!” all four of you are laughing, but it’s probably the alcohol making the situation funnier than it actually was.

you give bella a quick look, “if i wanted to go to school with snobby cool kids then i would’ve gone to bc.” your fit of laughter only intensifies at the look of pure betrayal. bella raises her hand, finger pointing behind your shoulder.

“the door is that way. i think you got lost. don’t let the door hit you on the way out, y/n. actually, i hope it hits you. maybe it’ll knock some sense into your head.” you can only giggle, and it only takes a few seconds before bella’s mean facade falls and she’s laughing as well.

“bel, come with me to grab another drink.” you gesture for her to follow you and she does, singing loudly - and poorly - to ucla. you only join in with her, laughing as the two of you make your way into the backyard where the coolers were. “god, it feels so much better out here.” you grumble, opening one and grabbing a whiteclaw for bella before grabbing one for yourself.

“we can stay out here for a bit, i don’t mind.” bella says, cracking the top of her can and taking a quick sip. “how have you been? after the whole… yeah. and with jack being here, i wasn’t sure if-“

you cut her off and shake her head. “i’m okay. everyone thinks i’m not okay but i, i am. we weren’t together long anyway.”

bella’s eyebrows raise, “y/n. you and trevor were together for over a year, it’s okay if you’re upset! no one would blame you, not one bit. besides, you were really happy with him. everyone wanted to be you two.” you purse your lips, eyes glued to the ground. you met bella the week of the break up, when everything went down, and you had spilled practically everything to her, maddie, hayden, and ryley. and of course jordan.

“i promise bel, i’m doing good. never been better, actually. might just go and hook up with one of his teammates if one’s here, honestly.” bella laughs, nodding her head to agree with your statement. “let's go back in. we’re probably missing, honestly god knows what.”

you go to walk in the house, but bella grabs your wrist to pull you back. “seriously, y/n/n. if you ever need to talk, and you can’t tell jordan because of jack being friends with him, please just know i’m here. right across the river, quite literally, too.” she gives you a soft smile, one that you return.

“thank you bel, i appreciate it.” with one last smile the two of you walk back into the house. “i’m gonna use the bathroom, but i’ll be right back, okay?”

bella nods and the two of you disperse, you heading one way and her the other towards the living room. you end up in the back room, walking towards where you’re assuming the bathroom is, but get stopped by jordan who’s hanging off jack’s arm. “oh y/n/n!” your best friend sings. “dom needs a beer pong partner and i think that you’re the perfect candidate!” she slurs ever so slightly, leaning more into jack. part of you wants to decline, but dom is giving you a cute smile that you just can’t ignore.

“fine.” you sigh, walking over to the table, “long time no see, dom. thought you guys had a game tonight?”

dom shrugs, “we won, so some of us decided to come out and celebrate. probably won’t stay out for too long, you know?” you nod along with him, taking a sip of your drink.

“i get it. and i don’t blame you. i’m dead after games, so kudos to you.” dom chuckles, motioning towards the table.

“we’ve got to come see a game some time. heard you guys aren’t half bad.” you nearly choke on your drink from trying to hold your laugh in, which just makes dom laugh. “what! i’m telling the truth!”

“not as good as bu, that’s for sure. so you’re funny, fensore.” you smile into your drink, eyes glancing behind jordan’s shoulder, and that’s where your entire world comes crashing down.

the second dom said some of the guys were here, you should’ve automatically assumed he’d be here. that’s just the type of guy trevor was - big win? celebrate with a party and end up getting laid by the end of the night. you weren’t surprised.

your initial glance turns into a full on stare, and trevor must feel it. he looks over the shoulder of whoever he’s talking to and his eyes meet yours - and the words you never spoke? he could see them in your eyes. everything you never said was practically laid right out on the table.

-

“i swear to god, i never fall in love, but, but then you showed up and i can’t get enough of it.” trevor’s words make you freeze, and upon feeling your body go stiff on top of him his hand that’s running up and down your side freezes as well. “y/n?”

“what did, what did you say, trevor?” you ask, picking your head up to look down at the brunette, a look of pure confusion on his face. the poor boy had no idea what he had done wrong - he didn’t think he had done anything wrong in fact.

trevor swallows hard, sitting up more so his back is resting against the wall of your dorm room. “i said that i love you, y/n.” he lets out a soft chuckle. “i thought that was obvious by now, i mean, we’ve been together all this time and i just-”

“we weren’t official for a few good months, trev,” you shake your head as you speak. “and that was because of you. you didn’t want to be official for like, five months.”

“which is -” he cuts himself off. “i don’t even know what’s going on. do you not believe me? what’s the deal here? because the fact we’ve been together this long and this is the first time i’m saying it, the first girl i’m ever saying it to, that should just support everything.”

you just couldn’t get yourself to say it. internally, you knew that every single bone in your body was desperately in love with trevor zegras. dozens of journal pages had ink scrawled on them, gushing in detail about all the lovely things he had done for you that day. but mentally? mentally you couldn’t let yourself believe you loved him. you couldn’t give him the willpower to absolutely destroy you if he ever so pleased. not after your family had come crashing down, and especially not after your mother had walked out. how could a mother walk out on her own blood that easily? her own child, that she claimed that she loved with all her heart.

“y/n do you not, do you not love me?” the pain in his eyes absolutely shattered you and had your heart aching. you wanted to tell him. but you couldn’t form the words. your silence, however, spoke volumes and trevor nods. “i can’t be with you, then.” he scoffs, shaking his head. “i can’t be with someone that doesn’t love me. not when i’ve put all my energy and love into them, and i’m, and i’m not getting any of that in return.”

“trevor i’m sorry.” those weren’t the three words he wanted to hear. they were three words, of course. but they weren’t the right ones. it’s a miracle you can even apologize to him, voice cracking as the tears form in your eyes.

trevor shakes his head, pushing himself up from your bed. “i’m done. i’ll see you around, y/n.”

-

you stumble backwards a few steps before completely turning around and leaving the room quickly, the sounds of all three of your friends calling after you drowned out by the ringing in your ears.

you see bella and ryley start after you, but you make a b-line for the backyard in an effort to try and ditch some of your friends that you knew were most likely trying to follow you out. but you weren’t sure if you could handle that, and you sure as hell were sure you wouldn’t be able to handle the breakdown that was about to happen.

as soon as you’re outside you lose it. you’re bawling right away, and you’re sure those around you thought you may be absolutely insane for breaking down in tears that quickly. your vision is blurred, but you see a figure walking towards you. you may not be able to make the figure out, but as soon as they pull you into their chest you know who it is.

“shh, you’re okay, y/n. i’ve got you, okay?” jack coos quietly, his hand combing through your hair trying desperately to calm you down. “i’ve got you, i promise. god i’m, i’m so sorry. we didn’t know trevor would be here. jo didn’t realize he was right there either, y/n/n.”

you can’t get any words out, sobs wrecking your entire body as you cry into jack’s chest. all he can do is run his hand down your back and try to reassure you that you’re okay, but it would take a lot more than that.

“y/n can we talk?” your whole body goes rigid and jack’s hand on your back freezes. you pull away from him, looking over his shoulder to see trevor. when he sees your tear stricken face, his eyes soften. “please. can we talk.”

jack looks down at you, a questioning look on his face asking if it’s okay. you nod, and jack presses a kiss to your head. “i’ll be right inside if you need me.” once again, you nod, and jack gives you one last squeeze before he’s walking inside. right away you cross your arms over your stomach, suddenly feeling chilly and more exposed than you had inside. your cropped cami and ripped jeans weren’t doing it anymore.

trevor hesitates, his lips pursing for a second as he steps a few feet forward. he’s trying to find the words to say, and finally, he lets them out. “jordan told me.” you take in a sharp breath, feeling your bottom lip start to tremble, trevor takes a few steps forward, and you let him wrap his arms around you. “i’m so sorry, god i am so, so sorry, y/n. i was a dick, i should have talked to you about it before just breaking up with you, i just, god i’m so sorry.”

you melt into him, arms slowly wrapping around his torso as you cry against him. his voice is genuine and sincere. you nod against him, letting him know that you’re okay - as good as you can be - and to let him know it’s okay.

“can we go talk? somewhere in private? i was just about to go back to my dorm if you’d wanna come.” you were lying if you’d say you weren’t hesitant. because you were. it was probably going to be a bad idea, but nonetheless you go against your better judgement.

“yeah. yeah that’s okay.” you manager to croak out and pull away from trevor’s chest. you don’t get very far however, his hands go to your cheeks and his thumbs run underneath your eyes to catch any tears.

trevor then lets his hand fall to yours, intertwining your fingers and pulling you into the house. “we’re gonna go back to my dorm, to talk.” trevor says, looking at jack. his eyes move over to yours, silently asking you if it’s okay with you.

“it’s okay, j,” you reassure him. “we’ll see you guys tomorrow or something, okay?” jordan and jack both nod, and trevor is leading you out of the house towards the street.

it’s quiet for a few moments, and you don’t blame him. it’s the first time other than social media that you’ve seen him in four months and it wasn’t necessarily under the best conditions. you would’ve liked it to not be at a party - but it is what it is.

“i understand why you didn’t tell me, y/n.” trevor breaks the silence, and you glance over at him to see him staring straight ahead. “and i don’t blame you for it, either. i knew your mom wasn’t in your life, and of course i didn’t want to ask why. but i wish you had told me. god i just, i want to show you the love you deserve, y/n. i want to love you. i do love you. i just, i need to prove that to you and i’ll take as long as it takes.”

you squeeze trevor’s hand, and you’re thankful that trevor’s dorm is only right down the street. the night is chillier than it was when you first left for the party and you were cursing yourself for not bringing a jacket. “i know you do. i just, i panicked. you’re the first boy i was ever serious with, and no one other than my parents and friends of course told me they loved me. i never felt like i was capable of love, because, how could my own mom claim that she loved me, but then one day just disappeared from my life? her own child. that she gave birth to. she never loved me, trev. not if she did that.

“then it’s her loss, isn’t it? wherever she is, she’s gonna see your name, y/n m/n. she’s gonna see the amazing, incredible, phenomenal girl that you’ve become. the same girl that’s going to change the world some day. and i hope she’s kicking herself everyday for walking out on you and your dad, but god you guys are so much better without her in your lives. i love you, y/n. i never stopped.” trevor halts in his tracks, making you come to a stop as well. “and i want you. i want all of you. your good days, your bad days, the days you don’t feel lovable. and it is perfectly okay if you don’t say you love me back, because we can work on that. i’ll stay. i promise. you have my word.

you practically throw yourself into his chest, arms wrapping around his neck and your fingers curling in his hair. “i’m gonna hold you to this, z.”

“do you wanna stay the night?” he asks quietly, his hand running through your hair. “we can do more talking, if you’d like. i’ll listen to anything you have to say.”

“i’d like that, trev. i’d like that a lot.” you answer quietly, looking up at the boy that’s already looking down at you.

the boy that you love.

[headcanonsandmore]

“Fell In Love With A Girl”, Chapter Four

Summary:  After Luna's shocking kidnap at the hotel, Ginny is desperate to save her girlfriend. But how will they find Luna in a place as large as the Amazon Delta?

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Tagging: @cheeseanonioncrisps @lytefoot

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                   Read on FFN.                                             Read on AO3.

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Ginny was gently led downstairs by Tonks, and sank into a chair.

Her eyes were all red and irritated from the tears she had cried. She felt exhausted, but she couldn’t focus on it. All she felt was terror for Luna.

Kidnapped. In the clutches of the crime syndicate they had been trying to stop.

‘Kid?’

Ginny turned. Sam had placed a hand on her shoulder.

‘Y-yeah?’

‘We’re gonna get her back,’ he said, gruffly. She could tell he wasn’t good with handling emotions, but she appreciated the effort. ‘Those bastards aren’t gonna know what hit them.’

Ginny smiled, despite her tears.

‘T-thanks, Sam.’

The scarred man shrugged.

‘We’ve got a DNA match.’

Ginny’s head whipped round to the side. Remus was stood by a computer across the room.

‘From the bedroom upstairs, you mean?’ Sam asked.

‘Yeah; forensics just got back to us,’ Remus replied, tapping the computer screen. ‘A fragment of skin was left on the windowsill. It matches a low-level criminal who we suspected of being a member of the crime syndicate. Now we’ve got proof.’

At that moment, Tonks burst into the room.

‘Found this in Luna and Ginny’s room,’ she said, holding a book aloft. ‘Thought it might be of use.’

‘T-that’s… that’s Luna’s journal’ Ginny mumbled. ‘It’s…’

She trailed off, before grabbing the book from Tonks and slamming in down on the table and riffling through the pages.

‘Ginny?’ Tonks asked. ‘What is it?’

‘The newest pages are missing,’ Ginny said, pointing at the frayed bits of paper sticking out at odd angles. ‘Luna must have been writing ideas down.’

‘Ideas like…’

‘Amazonian Octarine-Flame,’ Ginny said, her mind connecting the dots. ‘It has variations that grow both above ground and in underground cave systems. The syndicate were obsessed with it, which means that they couldn’t find it in the rainforest. But Luna must have known where it grows; why else would they wait until I left before grabbing her? They need her knowledge.’

‘And kill two birds with one stone,’ Tonks finished. ‘Try to scare us off, and get the Octarine-Flame.’

Sam smiled.

‘You’re good, kid. So, where do we go?’

Ginny’s enthusiasm suddenly vanished; she didn’t know. Luna hadn’t told her where the plant was.

However, her eyes then landed on the map.

‘Oh, it’s where all those reports were coming from!’ She exclaimed. ‘No wonder the locals noticed something was up; the syndicate have been combing that area the whole time! They just need an expert to pinpoint the exact location of that plant!’

Remus nodded.

‘That would also explain why this area seems to be such a target; the network of underground caves stretch out for miles underneath the rainforest. I’m surprised they didn’t just force one of the locals to show them where the plant was.’

Sam chuckled, darkly.

‘Knowing this lot, I imagine they probably didn’t think the locals knew. Typical colonialist nonsense.’

Tonks nodded.

‘The syndicates base must be in that area too,’ Remus said, typing frantically into the computer. ‘They’ve likely got a base of operations close to where the plants are. Somewhere far away from the government authorities.’

‘That’s the problem with these syndicates,’ Sam said, giving a wry grin. ‘They always think that setting up operations in the middle of nowhere will keep them out of attention. But all it does is send up a flare of exactly where they are!’

‘You can hide a bee in a beehive easily,’ Ginny continued. ‘But stick it in a library and it’s impossible to ignore.’

Sam slapped Ginny supportively on the shoulder.

‘Damn, you’re good, kid!’

Ginny smiled.

Evil organisation or not, no-one messed with her girlfriend.

 *

  Luna stumbled forward. The members of the crime syndicate glowered at her. She had been blindfolded ever since she had been kidnapped from the hotel in Rio. They had only removed the blindfold when they had wanted her to inspect a plant.

Amazonian Octarine-Flame. It was the only one they seemed to be desperate to find. Luna wasn’t sure why they hadn’t just forced one of the locals to do it, but she wasn’t about to argue with the rifles the syndicate members were all carrying.

Gritting her teeth, Luna bent down and inspected the plant.

‘Tell us,’ instructed one of them, tapping his rifle in warning. ‘Is that the plant?’

Luna sighed.

‘Yes, it is. It’s the variant that grows above ground.’

‘Good.’

Luna stood back up. The members of the syndicate moved around her, and promptly dug up the plant, placing it and the earth around its roots into a special container they had brought with them.

‘Now, we head back to HQ.’

One of the syndicate members stepped forward, and pulled a mask roughly over Luna’s face.

‘For goodness sake; how am I supposed to walk if I can’t see?’ Luna asked, becoming very aware of how uneven the forest floor was beneath her feet.

‘We’re directing you where you should walk,’ said the syndicate member nearest to her. ‘We can’t have you knowing where our base is.’

‘I’m a florist, not a spy!’ Luna snapped. ‘You’ve got what you want; let me go!’

The syndicate members ignored her, and began to nudge her forward, using the butt of the rifles to do so. They weren’t quite as rough as Luna had been expecting, but it didn’t make the situation any better.

Don’t worry, Luna told herself, Ginny will find me.

As she stumbled forward, Luna’s mind began to work. The syndicate clearly didn’t want anyone to know where their base was, but they’d kept her mask off until she’d identified the plant. That mean… the base was nearby.

They walked on for a good distance. Luna wasn’t sure for how long but, given how many steps she was taking, it couldn’t have been for more than a few miles. That meant that they were still within the area that Remus and Tonks had discussed with Sam the other day.

There was a crackle in front of her. One of the syndicate members had pulled their walkie-talkie out of their pocket.

‘Viper company at section omega with person-of-interest 49?’

They were here. The base entrance must be nearby. Oh, if only she could see!

Luna was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she wasn’t prepared for the push behind her. She crashed to the ground, awkwardly landing on her hands and knees.

‘Get her up,’ grumbled the syndicate member in front. ‘That’s the sixth time she’s fallen over. We should have carried her the way; the last thing we want is the locals noticing the weird foot-prints.’

As Luna was pulled to her feet and pushed forward, she was vaguely aware of her hair swinging into a low-hanging tree branch. Thinking fast, she bit her lip, and gave her head a quick jerk in the opposite direction. There was a sharp shot of pain in her scalp.

The syndicate members didn’t seem to notice this as they bustled her forwards. Before she knew quite what was happening, she could feel herself being led down a steep passageway, out of the sunlight reaching through the rainforest trees.

 *

  Ginny climbed out of the jeep.

They had driving for… she honestly couldn’t remember how long. It could have been ten minutes or ten hours. Ginny hadn’t noticed; she had been focusing too much on Luna. On finding her and getting her out of harms way.

Tonks and Remus climbed out of the jeep. Sam was already standing a few feet ahead, and they all walked to where he was stood.

The rainforest completely surrounded the long dirt road they had travelled along to this spot. Ginny’s t-shirt was already soaked through with sweat due to the humidity, but she didn’t care; she was used to sweat.

Nearby the trees were stood several Amazonian tribespeople. One of them walked over, an elderly woman with kind eyes. She was clearly a local leader of some kind.

‘Hello, Sam.’

The grizzled agent shook hands with the woman.

‘Thank you for agreeing to help us,’ he said. ‘I know the last thing you want is more Westerners intruding.’

‘True,’ she replied. ‘But, by the sounds of it, the redheaded girl has an idea of what the syndicate is after. Which means we know where they’ll be.’

Ginny nodded.

‘Don’t worry,’ the woman said, placing a hand on Ginny’s shoulder. ‘We’ll find your Luna.’

Ginny blinked, quickly.

‘T-thank you,’ Ginny said. ‘Er, what did you say your name was?’

‘I’m afraid you probably couldn’t pronounce it in my language,’ the elderly woman replied, smiling. ‘But, in English, I go by Sky.’

‘Thank you, Sky.’

Sam laid out a map on the bonnet of one of the jeeps. They had marked the area of syndicate activity in red ink; sure enough, it was laid out in a twenty mile perimeter. The end of the dirt track was tantalisingly close to it.

‘Ginny, we don’t blame you if you want to stay here with the jeep,’ Remus said, kindly. ‘We can keep some agents back here with you until it’s safe.’

‘No,’ Ginny replied, her mind set. ‘I promised Luna I’d keep her safe, and I’m not letting a criminal gang hurt her.’

Remus smiled.

‘Okay.’

Leaving the jeeps behind on the track with a few agents, they ventured into the rainforest, using an old well-worn path. Sky and the local activists with her were leading the way, making sure that the MI6 agents avoided any dangerous plants or bugs.

The Amazon was unlike anything Ginny had ever seen before, and it honestly took her breath away. Trees and foliage spread out in all directions, and she could hear the calls of various birds and animals in the canopies above them. If she hadn’t been so worried about Luna, she would have been transfixed.

‘Footprints.’

Sky was crouched down on the ground a few feet ahead.

‘Someone came this way very recently,’ she said, ‘A group of them, and wearing deep-soled boots. Except one, who was just wearing shoes.’

Tonks and Sky nodded at each other.

They continued along the path.

Eventually, they rounded a corner, and came across a large tree. And Ginny’s eyes immediately zeroed in on something.

Hair.

Blond hair.

Luna’s hair.

It was snagged on the low-hanging branch.

Ginny locked eyes with Tonks, who nodded.

The agent exchanged looks with Remus and Sky, and the agents around them began to move into position. Sky mouthed the phrase ‘underground cave network’. The base was below where they were standing.

Gotcha. Ginny thought. Don’t worry, Lu; I’m coming.

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Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope you enjoyed it!

[red-jaebyrd]

Somebody That I Used to Know

Here is the long awaited sequel to “My Brother’s Keeper”. Sorry it took so long I was in in the process of moving out of state. Thank you to @brokenhearted-queen for your awesome beta work! I really appreciated it.

This wasn’t part of the plan, but since Jason and his brothers had arrived in Bludhaven nothing had happened according to their plan. They weren’t supposed to make contact with Ric this soon, this fast, but it happened. They had agreed in the beginning to simply sit back, watch him, and make sure he was safe from The Court of Owls.

As far as Jason knew The Court had been trying for years to acquire Dick to their cause to become their Talon. In each encounter they were not successful. Opportunity struck when Dick had been shot in the head. What better opening did an evil organization need to swoop in and take advantage of an asset with amnesia? Jason, Tim and Damian could not allow that to happen, which meant they had to get to Ric first.

The plan eventually was for Jason or Tim to insert themselves into Ric’s life and keep him safe away from the Court.  Acquire the intel they needed to further implicate The Court and figure out a way to reverse the damage they had done to Dick and hopefully fix it.

But then Ric’s cab broke down and Jason had a crisis of conscience. He couldn’t in good faith just leave Ric with a busted cab on the side of the road, so Jason helped and then got invited to have a beer. It was only supposed to be one night; one beer and Jason would disappear and “run into” Ric again at a later time.

Except Jason’s curiosity had got the better of him and he had allowed himself to get attached. All those nights talking with Ric, Jason came away learning new things about himself and  his long lost brother, or rather, a man that looked a lot like his brother, but wasn’t his brother. Jason found that Ric was very easy to talk to. Not that talking to Dick was difficult, but sometimes conversations with Dick would turn into the older man telling Jason what he should have done, rather than just letting Jason talk.

Jason had discovered that he could truly talk to Ric about everything, especially all the shit that had happened to him lately like losing Roy and the fallout with Bruce. To his surprise there was no judgment from Ric, just empathy; no unsolicited advice, just commiseration. It was unsettling yet welcoming as Jason began to realize that this was the exact brotherly relationship he had always wanted with Dick. How fucked up was it that it had to take a bullet to the brain and amnesia to make this happen for both of them.

Before Jason knew it, he and Ric were becoming fast friends. Ric didn’t suspect a thing and everything was going back to the original plan. Only this time, they had an active eye on Ric instead of solely relying on CCTV footage.

All of it was going great until that fucking Talon had attacked them, Jason and Ric had moved together, fought together in sync like no time between them had passed. Like a bullet to the brain hadn’t changed anything between them. Muscle memory had taken over and Ric was not letting up. It had been just like old times all those years ago out in the field as Robin and Nightwing fighting and kicking ass. The victory had shattered when Ric called him ‘Little Wing’.

All the air had left Jason’s lungs as the familiar nickname reached his ears. Ric saw it too as his smile faltered realizing the strange name that had come out of his mouth.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Ric stared wide eyed at Jason, his breaths coming in ragged as the fight had ended. “What just happened? I don’t know why I called you that. Why did I call you that?”

Jason looked around. They were out in the open standing over an unconscious assassin in plain sight. This was not the place to have that conversation.

“Later, not here. It isn’t safe,” Jason said in clipped tones. He grabbed Ric by the shoulder and steered him toward his car. “I promise I’ll explain everything. Get in the car.”

Ric was quiet the whole ride to Jason’s apartment while Jason told him everything; how Jason knew him; how long they had known each other and their connection to Bruce Wayne. But once they got inside, Ric didn’t hold back and Jason couldn’t blame him.

“All that time pretending to be my friend, was it all an act?” Ric snapped.

“No, I wasn’t pretending,” Jason confessed. “I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“Was I just another case to solve, another problem to fix?” Ric shouted, gesturing wildly at Jason and pacing the small space of the living room. “Or was it all just… just a means to an end…to get what you wanted; to get him back.”

The accusation sucked, but it wasn’t that far from the truth. Jason glanced over and saw Tim eavesdropping near the hallway. Jason motioned for Tim to come into the room. Tim hesitantly inched his way slowly next to Jason waving nervously at Ric. Ric ignored him.

“No, it wasn’t like that, Ric. I swear,” Jason sighed, putting his hands out in a calming gesture. He looked over at Tim for help.

“He didn’t lie about his name, only about who he was to you, or used to be to you, to Dick,” Tim rambled talking with his hands and almost hitting Jason in the face. He quickly shoved them in his pockets. “Not everything was a lie; he just didn’t provide specific details about how he knew you.”

Ric glared at Tim causing the teenager to look away in shame. Tim quickly shuffled way from Ric and Jason and sat on the couch.

“Really not helping, Tim,” Jason sighed, running his hand down his face in exasperation.

Ric looked up and finally noticed Damian who was edging into the room from the hallway. Ric’s jaw clenched in anger. “You’re working for him!” he shouted, pointing accusingly at Damian. “Did he…did Wayne hire you to find me?”

Damian shrunk under the accusation. He looked close to tears even with a scowl on his face. This was getting worse by the minute. The boy stomped off to the kitchen out of sight from Ric.

“Bruce didn’t send us. We’re not doing this for him,” Jason scoffed. “Fuck that. We’re doing this for us, for you. You belong with us, not here on your own.”

Ric crossed his arms in defiance. “I’ve been doing just fine on my own before you guys came along and fucked things up.”

“Bullshit!” Jason argued, leveling a look at Ric. “You’re waking up in strange houses, drinking all the time to numb the pain and dull your memory from all the nightmares. I’ve seen it. I’ve heard it from your own mouth what those nightmares do to you. Your memories are coming back and you're scared shitless.”

“Fuck off!” Ric bellowed, stalking away from Jason toward the dining room table. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Jason had hit a nerve. He glanced at Tim and hoped he saw it too. Tim nodded and headed to the desk grabbing a thick file folder from the top drawer.

“You have to believe us when we tell you that you’ve been played by the Court of Owls this whole time,” Tim interjected, handing Ric a thick file folder. “They took your memories of us with a regimen of drugs and deep hypnosis. They knew that taking away your memories of us would make it easier to groom you into their Talon. So if anyone lied to you, it was them, starting with Dr Haas.”

Ric haphazardly flipped through the documents in the file and then set it down on the table in front of him. He jammed the heels of his hands in his eyes. “I can’t. I can’t do this right now.” He crossed his arms angrily and turned to Jason, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “I thought you were my friend, but you lied to me.”

“I -” Jason started, but shook his head in frustration.

But that was just it; Jason had never lied to him at least not about anything they had talked about at The Prodigal. He may have omitted names in their discussions as well as certain details concerning their shared history, but Jason was truthful about everything else. All of their conversations were based in truth. Jason made sure he had never lied to him, not like Dick had done all those years ago while he was ‘dead’. It still pissed Jason off whenever he had thought about it.

“You know, I didn’t have to say yes to that beer, but I did and let’s just say a part of me was curious to see you.” Jason shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe I wanted to see if you remembered me, but I didn’t need you to remember. In all honesty I didn’t want you to remember so imagine my immense relief when I met you and you didn’t have a clue who I was. I was just a random stranger to you.”

Jason walked over to the table positioning himself next to Ric who was still standing in front of the table staring daggers at the folder. Jason leaned against the table and tilted his head to get Ric to look at him.

“And every time we sat down and had a beer, all the baggage and history of all the horrible shit I had done in the past was not rubbed back in my face by the guy who had my brother’s face,” Jason continued. “The ‘Golden boy’ was gone and in his place was this guy, my friend who never offered a lick of advice to me but instead just listened to my bullshit without judgment. I got to do the same in return for him with no agenda of jogging memories. It was perfect.

“So yeah, I’ll admit that I took advantage of a bad situation. I bent the truth a bit and left out certain details. But, I never lied to you, not like you lied to us all those years ago.”

Ric’s head snapped up at Jason’s last sentence. His brows furrowed in confusion.

“Jason, low blow. Now’s not the time for this discussion!” Tim cut in standing between Jason and Ric.

Jason narrowed his eyes at Tim and crossed his arms. Tim opened his mouth to protest, but decided against it. Instead he shook his head and walked away leaning against the wall. Jason took a deep breath and refocused his attention back onto Ric.

“Once upon time you faked your own death and didn’t even let us in on the secret.” Jason said coldly. “For months we thought you were dead. Don’t remember that do you, Dickie? Well it sucked.”

Ric rubbed his right cheek and returned his focus to the contents on the table.

“You said your lie was to protect us, but it was really to protect you, to protect Bruce, to protect the mission. You put the mission ahead of us, because that was what we had been taught. It’s how he raised us in this life.”

Jason slumped in the chair next to Ric and caught a quick glimpse of him biting his lip. Jason closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he continued.

“And you know what, as much as it sucked, being lied to by you and believing that you were dead, I get it now. I get why you had to lie and carry that secret. So yeah, I kept who I was from you and I put ‘this mission’ ahead of your feelings, but I did it because you’re a Rob-.” Jason stopped to clear his throat. “…because you’re our brother. I did it because that’s exactly what Dick did for us.”

“I’m not him anymore. I-I don’t…” Ric shook his head, gesturing at an old picture of Dick from the file folder. “I –I really don’t know who I am right now.”

Jason closed the file folder and pushed it out from Ric’s reach.

“I know who you are. You’re my friend, Ric and like I told you at the bar, you’re still the same guy I met on the side of the road with a broken down cab,” Jason reaffirmed. “You’re still the same guy I have beers with and play pool. And you’re right. You’re not Dick Grayson, but that’s not gonna stop us from trying to protect you from yourself and every other motherfucker lining up to take advantage of an amnesic former vigilante.”

“How do I know I can trust you guys?” Ric challenged, crossing his arms and leveling a look at Jason.

“You don’t, but just hear us out,” Jason said, getting up and pulling out a chair for Ric. “If you don’t like what you hear you can leave. We won’t stop you.”

Ric furrowed his brow at Jason for a split second but sat in the chair keeping his arms crossed.

“Excuse us for a second,” Tim said as he steered Jason by his sleeve into the kitchen out of earshot from Ric.

“What are you doing?” Tim whispered loudly as he kept his grip on Jason’s sleeve.” We can’t just let him leave.”

“We can’t force him to stay.” Jason retorted, yanking his arm out of Tim’s grip.

“The hell we can’t.” Tim argued. “Damian and I worked too hard on this to give up now.”

“Do you think I want to let him leave? You don’t think I want to tie him to a chair and make him stay? We can’t force him to stay, otherwise he’ll take off and then what?” Jason snapped. “Once he hears everything we have to tell him, he isn’t going anywhere.”

“You better know what you’re doing, Todd.” Damian said, glaring at Jason as he opened the cupboard to retrieve the box of tea bags.

“I do. Stay in the kitchen, understood.” Jason instructed, putting his hand on Damian’s shoulder. “Tim and I will handle this.”

Damian nodded, placing a teabag into the mug and pouring hot water into it.  

Jason and Tim made their way back into the living room to talk to Ric. Jason’s palms started to sweat at the thought of getting this all wrong and Ric storming out of the apartment in anger. Jason was already taking a risk by giving Ric permission to leave if he didn’t like what they had to say. But Jason had to remember that they weren’t showing Ric video footage of his shooting, nor were they force-feeding him memories of Dick Grayson and his old life. They were simply explaining their presence in Bludhaven and showing Ric evidence of him being duped by The Court.

Tim kept wringing his hands despite the determined look on his face.

“This is gonna work, Tim,” Jason reassured squeezing Tim’s shoulder. “Like you said, you and Damian worked too damn hard collecting evidence and research. He’ll believe us.”

Tim nodded, swallowing thickly.

He watched as Ric fought to sit still in the chair. Ric uncrossed his arms and leaned forward resting his elbows on his thighs. He ran a hand up and down his neck in exhaustion before massaging his temples. He then straightened up, crossed his arms again, and started bouncing his knee up and down so fast Jason was surprised Ric’s calf wasn’t burning. He looked like a spring ready to snap and hightail it out of the apartment. Finally Ric got up from the chair to pace the space of the living room. Jason knew he wouldn’t last long sitting still.

“We were only going to keep an eye on you and not interact until absolutely necessary,” Jason explained entering the living room from the kitchen.

Ric continued to walk around the apartment. He looked like he was listening, the tension in his shoulders was still present, and Jason could also see the muscles working in Ric’s jaw. Jason glanced at Tim to take over.

“We hadn’t planned on ever really talking to you…” Tim continued clearing his throat. “…not this soon at least. Our main intention was just keeping you safe, because you’re important to us.”

Ric finally stopped pacing and turned around to face Tim.

“I don’t know you,” Ric said flatly. “I barely know Jason.”

Tim’s shoulders sagged in defeat at Ric’s words and Jason could see the muscles in Tim’s jaw clenching. Jason knew the kid was fighting back tears. Jason walked over to Tim blocking his view of Ric and gave him a one armed hug. It wasn’t a Dick Grayson hug, but it would do in a pinch.

“Kid, you alright?” Jason quietly asked crouching at Tim’s level to get him to look at him.

“I will be,” Tim sniffed and took a deep breath. He plastered on a fake smile that did not reach his eyes and returned his attention to Ric.

“I know you don’t know me, but you trust Jason and I know a part of you wants to trust me too,” Tim reasoned, leveling a look at Ric. “Deep down your gut is telling you that we are important to you too, isn’t it?”

Jason watched as Ric’s shoulders slumped and his anger deflating as Tim’s words sunk in.

Ric stalked over to the table toward the file folder and opened it. He thumbed through it slowly and thoroughly.  Jason and Tim watched as Ric took in all the evidence Tim and Damian had collected over the last few weeks. Photos, notes, detailed documents of his past medications and prescriptions and their intended effects on the nervous system, particularly his. Ric sunk into the nearest chair as he held aloft a sketch of his neurologist, Dr Haas.

“This is all so fucked up,” Ric turned to give them both his full attention still holding the picture of Dr Haas. “So what you’re saying here, what these documents are saying is that I was drugged and hypnotized with suggestive thoughts to alter my memories so that I could be lured into an old secret society called “The Court of Owls’?”

“Sounds far-fetched but it’s on par with their reputation,” Jason added.

“Yes, you are the key to them continuing their work,” Tim clarified, pointing out certain photos of the Court to Ric. “You are who they refer to as the ‘The Gray Son of Gotham’. Their intention was to raise you into taking over your great-grandfather’s position, to be their Talon, basically their enforcer.

Tim pulled out a chair and sat next to Ric.

“We wanted to get close, but not so close that we would give ourselves away to you.” Tim continued, talking nervously with his hands. “That all backfired when Jason ‘met’ you sooner than we had intended. Still, the meet proved to have been beneficial because now we had an active eye on you.”

“So you were spying on me?” Ric quipped. “Were you also wearing an earpiece?”

“No,” Jason retorted, appalled that Ric would even suggest such a thing.

“Jason wouldn’t wear one,” Tim replied nonchalantly.

“Shut up, Tim.” Jason said through gritted teeth.

Jason turned to Ric. “Everything I ever said to you was never made up or fabricated. Again, I never lied to you. I swear. I just omitted names and certain details. Everything you told me, I never shared outside the bar. I promise.”

“Ric, are your memories coming back?” Tim asked.

Ric cringed at the question, his shoulders inching toward his ears. He swallowed thickly and looked over at Jason. Jason gave him an encouraging nod to answer the question.

“Yes, I think so,” Ric answered, looking down at the file folder and thumbing through the photos. “Mostly in dreams, but tonight was the first time I remembered something while I was awake. I think the muscle memory of fighting that Talon with Jason triggered something.”

“How so?” Tim probed.

“I called Jason ‘Little Wing’. At the time I didn’t know why I said it,” Ric explained. “It just came out as the most natural thing to say to him, but in the car I remembered that I used to call you that when you were younger?”

“When we had fought together as Robin and Nightwing,” Jason finished. “I hated the nickname at first, but I learned to like it later on. You still call me that now even if I’m not so ‘little’ anymore.”

Ric nodded and rested his chin in his hand and slowly scrutinized every piece of paper in the file folder with his free hand. He didn’t say a word the whole time. His brow furrowed in thought as he read page after page of notes. Ric’s silence was starting to unnerve Jason. He was still always so used to Dick being chatty regardless of his emotions. It was what made him annoying and endearing all at the same time. Jason had to remind himself that Ric wasn’t Dick. Maybe silence was how Ric liked to process things.

“I don’t want to go back to Gotham,” Ric said breaking the silence. “I’m not ready to see – I don’t want to see Bruce just yet.”

“Don’t worry, we’re not going back there for a while,” Tim assured. “It really isn’t safe to go there. We’re going to lay low here for the time being. You can stay here until we clear this mess with The Court.”

“It’s just that everyone who says that they know me keeps wanting me to be someone I can’t remember and I can’t handle it right now if he…”

“You don’t need to be anyone other than yourself, Ric. It’s okay. No one here is going to tell you how you should or shouldn’t be living your life.” Jason said the last sentence louder so it carried over to the kitchen. “Right?”

“Correct,” Damian answered from the kitchen.

“We’re still interested in getting to know you. Will you give us a second chance, please?” Tim asked. “We won’t push an old life you can’t remember down your throat.”

Just as Ric was going to answer Tim he stopped and sniffed the air. “What’s that smell? Is the old man here?”

“Alfred? No, it’s just the kid making tea,” Jason replied, his mouth going suddenly dry.

The smell wasn’t just from any ordinary tea. The scent was of home and comfort that brought with it memories of simpler times when a cup of tea fixed everything. The rich aroma of Earl Grey tea filled the living room and flooded Jason with memories of sad times turned to happiness with a simple cup of tea with Alfred. Jason almost couldn’t take it. Tim stared at him with wide eyes. Ric looked lost in a memory triggered by the strong scent of bergamot. It was Alfred’s comfort tea. At least that is what Dick had named it all those years ago when they had tried to coax Jason out of a bad mood. It was the type of tea Alfred had made on bad days that contained just enough caffeine to counteract anything from crying jags to bad moods. It was the tea he’d make in the special Robin’s Egg blue teapot with matching cups. It was Alfred’s way of comforting them the only way he knew how, with a cup of tea and a listening ear.

Jason didn’t even know he had Earl Grey tea in the apartment. Alfred must have stocked his pantry with it the last time he was here and now Damian had found it.

Damian walked into the room handing a steaming mug to Ric. “Drink this. It –.”

“–will make you feel better,” Ric finished. “He – he used to say that to me on bad days while he handed me a cup of Earl Grey tea.”

Damian sat in the empty chair next to Ric, cradling his own cup of tea. “He said it to all of us, Richard.”

Silence filled the apartment as Ric and Damian drank their tea. Tim gathered the scattered contents of the file and placed them back into the folder. Jason made his way into the kitchen to collect himself. He slumped against the kitchen counter and took a deep breath.

The evening’s events replayed themselves in his mind’s eye. Jason shook his head as he thought about what they could have lost tonight. They got lucky that Ric hadn’t bolted out of the apartment and disappeared. Tim had known that playing to Ric’s instincts would pay off. Jason had known that if he stated his case and showed the evidence, the detective buried inside of Ric would wake up and believe them. It had been a gamble, but it paid off. Jason rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Exhaustion was starting to settle into his bones.

“Hey, you okay, you’ve been in here a while,” Tim asked, poking his head into the kitchen.

“I’m fine. What are they doing now?” Jason asked, changing the subject.

“They finished their tea and now Damian is trying to get Ric to play ‘Cheese Vikings’.”

“Is it working?”

“I think Ric is warming up to him. They’re no longer scowling at each other, so that’s progress.”

Jason nodded.

“What’s wrong, Jason?” Tim asked, squeezing Jason’s shoulder. “You did it. You brought him back to us.”

He knew he should be happy, relieved that all four of them were finally under the same roof. But Jason couldn’t help but feel like he was slowly losing his friend. He didn’t go into this to just get Dick back, even if that is what he had told Tim and Damian at the start. He went into this to also keep Dick safe. But then he met Ric and they had gotten to know each other, which is when everything got complicated. There was always the possibility of Ric getting his memories back, that was a given; and with getting those memories back there was the possibility of Jason losing his friend. Jason just thought he’d have more time, but then that Talon fucker attacked them and Ric had called him ‘Little Wing’, and all bets were off.

Was it even possible at this point to have his brother back and still keep his friend? Jason didn’t know.

Jason grabbed two beers from the fridge. He opened one and took a swig.

“I’m happy he’s safe now. It’s just been a long night.”

Jason wasn’t going to bother explaining his apprehension to Tim. The kid was finally smiling after months of wearing a perpetual scowl to match Damian. There was no doubt Tim was happy that Ric decided to stay with them, and he should be happy. He and Damian worked damn hard collecting and curating all that evidence just to prove to their brother that he had been duped by the very people that were supposed to be helping him.

“You’re lying.”

Jason glared at him. “Just drop it.”

Both of them made it out of the kitchen and into the living room with Ric and Damian. Ric now had a controller and seemed to be doing an okay job navigating the game.

Jason handed the unopened beer to Ric and sat in the armchair next to the couch.

Ric handed the controller back to Damian to open his beer and took a drink.

“You know, I’m still a little mad at you,” Ric groused with no heat in his voice.

Jason smirked. “I know, but you’ll get over it.”

[gasolineghuleh]

ODC Chapter 1

I never put chapter one separately on Tumblr, oops.

Below the cut is the first chapter of my currently on going long fic, featuring my OC. The entirety is available on ao3. 

The wind whipped and whirled through my hair, billowing my skirts around my feet as I clung desperately to my umbrella, hoping against hope that the rain lashing down around me hadn’t soiled the books under my arm. I clutched my small bundle tighter and leaned into the wind, struggling up the sleet slicked hill under my feet. The cobblestones were soaked, and traction is hard to come by, especially on these older roads. One of the street lamps softly illuminating the road blinked twice before extinguishing, plunging me into a darkness that’s only permeated by the occasional flashes of lightning and the moon, shrouded in clouds.

A soft whimper left me as I attempted to tuck my hair back behind my ear, the wind having torn it loose of my already loose ponytail. I’ve seen it storm before, but never this badly… and never with this oppressive feeling behind it. Certainly, my small convent had weathered its fair amount of storms, and I didn’t feel any worry for the stone walls. The air felt thick and heavy, as though I was breathing through a soaked rag. It was suffocating and almost panic inducing. I stopped for a moment, looking down the street from whence I came. A small tickle in the back of my mind told me that something was off. Something was wrong.

The bookstore I had just left had turned its sign off, leaving that area of the street in darkness save for one single light, an uncomfortable shade of scarlet just outside of a café. I’ve never eaten there personally, but I’ve certainly heard the rumours of… unusual clientele. Images of hooded and masked figures flashed through my mind and I cringed into myself, clutching my books tighter. Almost on instinct my gaze turned to the cliff that loomed above the town as a flash of lightning illuminated the outline of a large ruined castle, stark against the blackened and angry sky. With a yelp, I scurried down the alleyway nearest to me in an attempt to dodge the worst of the rain. I may be straying from the Church of Our Lady, but I believed in consequences at heart.

Spotting an awning in the alleyway, I took a moment to duck underneath it to take a respite from the rain. I was finally able to relax somewhat now that the rain was no longer pelting me, and I took some deep breaths, leaning against the brick wall that I had found myself beside. With a furtive glance to the side, I took the time to unwrap my newly gotten books from their linen wrappings and smiled to myself when I noticed that they’ve managed to remain dry. The smell of the leather greeted me warmly as I ran my fingers over it, feeling the bumps and ridges on the cover. Whorls of shadow coursed their way up the front of the book before dipping around to the inside, causing the cover to be lifted slightly off of the first page.

I sighed deeply and placed my hand on the cover, the warm leather thrumming with barely contained life under my fingers. The moment passed, and I rewrapped my parcel and stepped back into the rain as my umbrella shielded me once more. Steeling my resolve, I made my way back up the street as the cobblestones slipped and slid under my thick soled heeled boots. My convent wasn’t too far away now, but it’s up a steep hill and I knew I would need all of my strength to climb it, especially in the now-approaching-hurricane type rains.

The wind tugged and pulled at my umbrella but I pressed on, my long skirt whipping back and forth under the gale onslaught. The sidewalk was empty save for myself, and I startled slightly when a large, white limousine car passed me by. It passed slowly, and I got the feeling along the back of my neck that something wasn’t quite right. Regardless, I could see the large gate of the convent looming in the distance and I ducked my head down, powering through the last of the steep hill.

I swung open the large, barred door to the convent and cursed inwardly. Ahead of me was one of my fellow Sisters, bounding towards me with her habit flying behind her as she practically skipped. She was beaming a smile right at me, and I felt compelled to smile back, even uneager as I was to see her. Sister Marta has always been a rightful ray of sunshine throughout the convent, and it’s hard not to return one of her sunny smiles, no matter how drenched to the bone I was.

“Sister Marta, hello,” I said, putting on some false cheeriness. Happy as she was, she was never particularly bright in the area of intellect or societal clues, something I had grown quite willing to manipulate recently.

“Sister Lunaria! Where have you been on this awful night? It’s raining fit for Revelation!” She smiled at her own joke and I groaned inwardly to myself, closing my eyes for a brief moment before responding.

“I had some errands to run. Mother Superior gave me the day, once I finished with my translations. Some pocket change later, and I’ve got a nice new book. I thought it sounded nice, on a night like tonight.” I looked out the window just as a flash of lightning sparked across the sky in a low, concerning arc. A brief thought of the trees in the orange grove being struck crossed my mind before I saw the face in the window and I gasped, all thought of the trees gone.

“Sister?” Marta moved to me and took my umbrella gently, leaning it against the stone wall to the side of me with a tenderness I’d come to expect from her. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost!”

“Must um.. Must just be a chill, from the rain. I think I should retire, Marta.” I went to move towards the dormitory but stopped when she put her hand up, ticking one finger from side to side.

“Not quite yet! I need to see what book you got! Maybe I’ll want to borrow it when you’re done, silly.” A small spark of fear shot through me at the thought of her touching my new book-- my precious book that I spent six months of my earnings on, and that made my finger tips warm when I brushed against it, even through gloves. Even simply seeing it in that book store was enough for me to become beholden to it.

“Of course,” I said, gritting my teeth into a widened smile. Carefully I managed to unwrap the books, sliding the larger one forward so that it covered My book completely, showing her the cover. “It’s Anne of The Green Gables. I remember the matron at the orphanage reading it to me.” I managed, with some difficulty, to contort my face into something resembling nostalgic loss as I caressed the cover of it, keeping a tight grip on the other book underneath.

“Oh, Lunaria, that’s wonderful! What a grand idea!” Marta clapped her hands together in joy, gifting me with yet another beaming and sunny smile. “You should get that habit and wimple off, you’re probably bone cold!” It’s only now that she frets, shooing me towards the dorms. I supposed she’s on hallway duty tonight.

“Yes. Good night, Marta.” I started to leave before remembering to toss behind my shoulder a final farewell, “Go with God, Sister.”

Her own voice is muffled as she turns to leave, but I was sure that she gave the same farewell. She’s as to-the-letter as Novitiates can get within the Clergy. Finally alone I moved quickly to your private dorm, a gift now that I’m finally among the senior Sister’s in the convent. The door shut quietly behind me and once more, I ached desperately for a lock. Hedging my bets on solitude I moved towards my window, opening it and placing my hand below the pane. When I felt no water on my hand, I sat down in front of it and carefully unwrapped my parcel.

The book tumbled out of the linen wrapping and I grabbed it greedily, holding it to my chest like a lost child for a moment before settling it on my crossed legs. I brushed a hand over the cover again, snatching my hand back when it practically burnt me. Determination reignited, I brought both hands to my wimple and snatched it off of my head, my long lilac and white streaked hair falling around my face as you leaned back over the book.

This time when I touched it the cover was cooler. I opened the book delicately, running a finger down the first page as the black text seemed to leap out at me. In delicate, malicious lettering it spelled:

Malleus Lexicana

A chill ran up the base of my spine to tickle at my neck as I brushed my finger over the words. They were slightly raised, as if inked over and over again. When I turned the page, a single name was inscribed there in jagged, neat handwriting. Emeritus. I frowned to myself, recalling my past lessons in Latin. Was I correct in assuming that the owner of this book was a deceased Pope? My hand twitched with the urge to cross myself and I quelled it easily. The desire to step away from my faith has gotten only stronger since I first brushed against the book all those months ago, and even my nightly prayers have gone unsaid for weeks now. Taking a deep breath, I spoke the words aloud.

“Malleus lexicana,” I breathed. The words felt both foreign and natural on my tongue as they rolled past my lips and my breath caught in your chest as the book seemed to warm again in my grasp. I turned the page once more and stopped at a beautiful illustration of a cross. Fingers fumbling for my own crucifix at your neck, I studied the detailed drawing before realizing that it's shaped incorrectly.

A new child… Birthed into sin.

“My Lord?!” I gasped, dropping the book as I rose up onto my knees, gripping my crucifix tightly in the palm of my hand. A cold finger trailed up my spine once more, twirling some of the hair at the nape of my neck and leaving me shivering in fear and frigidity.

Of sorts… But not your Lord, little Sister.

“Who are you? Where are you?” I asked, whirling around onto one foot and knee to look behind me into the darkest depths of my small room. It was empty, although the pitch blackness seemed to writhe and curl inward on itself-- it felt sentient and ominous, watching me. Another deep breath to steel myself once more and I picked up the book again, settling back down in front of the window as a small gust of air moved my hair from my pale face. I squinted slightly, the vision in my white eye better for text than my other.

Turning the page revealed more words, again in some bastardization of Latin. It wasn’t the high form of Latin that I’d been taught, although some of the words are recognisable to me at first glance. It seemed to be a prayer of some sort, I thought to myself as my finger glided down the thick page. It ended on the word “nemA” and my felt my heart catch in my chest before beating rapidly. The sacrilegious undertones of the text were quickly becoming apparent and I found myself excited by the prospect.

Come to me, Sister. Renounce this coven.

“It’s not a coven, it’s a convent,” I mumbled out loud, no longer questioning the odd dialogue that I had going with the disembodied voice. Perhaps it was the book speaking to me, and perhaps it was my God questioning the strength of my waning faith. I deserved to have it questioned, did I not? So many nights spent in quiet contemplation of my life and the years I have left to live… likely stuck in the same black habit and small convent that I served already, at nineteen years.

Are they not the same thing, when serving a Lord that one cannot see, nor touch, nor feel? Do you feel His presence inside of you, Sister?

I paused, my finger still on the ending of the prayer as I contemplated the voice’s words to me. Thinking back over the past months, I realized as my heart dropped into my stomach that I hadn’t felt the presence of anything that I would consider myself particularly beholden to. Every waking moment had been spent doing my chores for a meager amount of money so that I could purchase the book. My book.

Ahh, there we are Sister. Come to me.

“I don’t even know where you are!” I closed the book, setting it gently to the side before standing and looking out the window as if to see where the voice is coming from. The darkness yielded no answers to me, and I felt childish for seeking them there. The storm beat down harsher than ever and the genuine fear of a flood breezed past my thoughts. A flash of lightning arced across the skies once more, lighting up the vineyard bright as day. A small part of me hoped to see someone or something in the distance, but the light revealed nothing out of the ordinary.

I am not out there, Sister. Your naivety is showing. I cannot wait to urge it out of you.

“Well if you’re not out there, then where are you?” I whirled around to face my room again, the shadows in the farthest reaches of the room seemingly darker. Impenetrable. Answerless, cold, and quiet. I would find no answers there, either.

I can see what you see not, Sister. Your vision milky, then eyes rot…

I squinted slightly as I looked deeper into the shadows, leaning towards them in an attempt to pierce the darkness. Something was moving in the darkness, wriggling and pulsating as I stared at it. At a sudden movement towards me, I took a half step back in shock, gasping as I collided with my wall. Tendrils of shadow writhed at the corners of my vision and I gripped onto the side of my bed as a wave of dizziness overtook me.

Now you can see what cannot be… Shadows move where the light should be. Out of darkness, and out of mind.

“What are you doing to me?” I whispered, my voice tearing with fear as my eyes refused to leave the spot that the shadows danced. A gust of wind through my open window disturbed the smoky shadow and it scattered quickly, only to reform in the basic shape of a man. I briefly recognized it at the silhouette of the hunched man who worked in the book store.

Pressing myself farther against the wall, my hand flew on instinct to the crucifix around my neck. My heart beat pounded in my ears as the sharp corner of the cross pressed painfully into my palm. The shadow figure staggered closer to me, one arm raised slightly as it approached. It was all I could do to remain silent in my fear as it made its way shambling towards me. Its jaw dropped open as it spoke in old Latin, and it took me a moment to realize that the thing’s mouth wasn’t moving as it spoke.

Its hand came to my forehead, and I felt the touch of old and weathered skin against mine as it pressed gently against me. More Latin fell from its desiccated lips as I watched in horror. My body felt unbearably cold, and then blisteringly hot. I broke into a feverish sweat as the thing finished speaking, pressing harder on my head before pulling back altogether.

I felt my vision beginning to swim as my eyes rolled back into my head from dizziness and managed to get my back against my bed as I fell. I blinked twice, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

“Sister?” I awoke to a pounding on my door, and my head pounding with it. Struggling to sit upright, I looked over at my clock on the wall. 9 am, and I was due for chores. I called something unintelligible out to the person in the hallway as I swung my legs over the side of my bed and attempted to stand. Almost instantly a wave of nausea and dizziness overtook me and I shot out a hand to brace myself on the wall. Bile rose in my throat and I swallowed hard before calling to the person again.

“Enter, please. I need assistance.” My stomach roiled as I sat, closing my eyes to attempt to ebb the waves of nausea coursing through me. I heard the door creak as it opened, and cracked open one eye to see Sister Marta entering. Of course. “Sister Marta, good morning.”

“You don’t look well, Sister…” Marta came to stand before me as she rested the back of her hand gently against my forehead. As much as I hated to admit it to myself, her hand was cool against my skin and the gesture was welcomed. She brushed back a strand of my hair as she cupped my face, lifting my head slightly to look at me. “I’ll tell the Mother Superior that you’re ill. Perhaps you should lie down.” Almost as an afterthought she added, “I’m sorry to see you without your headdress, Sister, but your hair is beautiful. As striking as your eyes.” I cracked open my left eye and regarded her lightly before drifting it closed again.

“Thank you. Would you help me lie down before you leave?” I’d never felt this weak before, and I was becoming concerned for my own health. Sister Marta put her hand gently around my upper arm and lifted my woolen blankets with the other as she assisted me under them. My heart warmed for a moment as I felt her tuck me in and adjust my pillow.

“Would you like me to bring you some broth in a while?” she asked, moving towards my window and drawing the curtains. I heard her pause, and I tensed in apprehension. Had she seen the book? “No wonder you’re feeling ill, Sister Lunaria! You let your window open all night.” She tutted to herself and slid the glass pane shut, locking it into place and securing the curtains tightly so that the morning sun was dimmed.

“Oh, how silly of me. Of course. I must just have some type of flu,” I said, pulling the covers over my head as I hunkered down into my pillow. In truth, my head was pounding fit to burst and I felt dangerously close to vomiting. I heard Sister Marta make her way back to my door and pull it open.

“I’ll let the rest know that you’re unwell today, and tell them to give you some space while you recover. Would you like the broth for lunch?” she queried. I snaked an arm out from under my comforter and gave her a thumbs up, which seemed to satisfy her. A moment later and the door clicked shut once more, leaving me in silence.

I fell into an uneasy seep, tinged with dreams of reaching darkness and a single white eye to match my own.

When I awoke, my room was lit by the afternoon sun and the curtains had been drawn back from my window. A mug rested on my nightstand with a covering on top, and I placed my hand hesitantly against the ceramic. Still warm. Sister Marta must have kept to her word and brought me some broth for lunch. I struggled to sit up in my bed and drew the mug close to myself, inhaling the steam before taking a sip.

The broth was welcome as I sat and rested, taking deep and steadying breaths. The nausea had abated almost entirely, though I was still dizzy. I drained the mug and placed it back onto my nightstamp, wiping the back of my mouth on my bicep as I stood and moved towards the window. I swore quietly to myself when I kicked something heavy, and looked down to see the book.

“Shit,” I mumbled as I picked it up. Sister Marta must have seen it, as it was laying in plain sight. Almost instantly the warm from the book invaded my senses again and I felt myself growing stronger, throwing off the cold that seemed to have gripped me when I woke up. My crucifix hung heavy and cold against my chest, and I eyed it for a moment before looking at the book once more. “Tell me how to reach you,” I said, hoping that the book would respond… That I wasn’t insane.

Your mind will guide the way. Come to me, Sister.

“If I come to you… I won’t be a Sister anymore, will I?” It was a stupid question, but the answer surprised me.

Si, of a different sort. Come. Come.

The voice grew impossible to resist, and before I knew it, I found myself at the small closet in my bedroom. I pulled open the door and found a small bag I had stashed away in the back, and hastily folded my habits into it. I tossed in the rest of my underwear and tights, as well as an extra pair of shoes as well. Finally, I took the book into my hands and stared deeply into the cover for a moment, making the final decision in my mind.

“I’m coming. What do I call you?” The embarrassment of speaking to an inanimate object flares inside of me again as I shake my head and move towards my window, unlocking it and hurling it open. As I stick one leg out the window, the answer comes.

You call me Papa.

“Alright, Papa…” I start, grunting with effort as I duck through the small window and make the short drop to the ground below. The heels of my shoes dig into the softened Earth and I reel slightly, leaning back heavily against the wall of my convent for balance as I yank them free. “Looks like I’m coming.” Without stopping to think or renege on my decision I started off, my feet instinctively moving towards the cliff that bordered my town. The castle loomed high above me, and I swallowed hard as I steeled myself.

The path that led to the base of the cliff was easy enough to find and navigate. The sign posts throughout the town that had bore the name of the castle had all been scoured or burned away, which left me with a convenient trail to follow as I made my way towards it. At the base of the path that wound up the steep, rocky cliff, I found myself stopped by a wrought iron gate. It had the same odd cross design that I had found in the book carved into the metal, as chains held the gate shut. It stretched the expanse of the road and I huffed a sigh.

Let me get that for you, sorella.

I stepped back with a shocked gasp as the chains fell to the old and weathered cobblestones, the gate swinging open towards me on silent hinges. Though the iron was mottled with rust, it made no sounds as it opened, yawning open like a mouth waiting for me to enter. I took another deep breath and moved forward, hardly jumping when it clanged shut behind me, and chains wound back around it like live snakes.

The thick woods welcomed me into the all consuming darkness with a silence that settled on my ears like a blanket. It was dark and still, but I felt no fear. In the distance, a wolf howled alone and I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle at the sound. Besides the wolf, however, there were no sounds within the thicket of trees. The path itself lay clear of any forest debris that I had expected to find after the storm last night, and seemed to be very well maintained.

Before long, I was panting as the slope of the path grew steeper. My legs burned and ached, and my feet protested any movement inside of my heeled shoes. I stopped to consider the drawbacks of removing them for a moment, before deciding that it was a necessity. I unhooked the buckle on either shoe before stepping out of them and carrying them in one hand, continuing up the path slightly slower, as I attempted to dodge the still standing puddles of water in my stocking-clad feet.

Finally, after what felt like hours I arrived at the base of the castle. As I expected from the view down below, it was in ruins. A large bell sat embedded into the cobbles in front of the entrance, a large crack running along the surface of it. It was golden, and embossed with the same sigil I had seen down below on the gates. Weeds grew between the stones unchecked, and pieces of stone lay scattered around the ground in front of me. I bent down and picked one up, weighing it in my hand before tossing it aside.

“Ah, you’ve arrived.” I started, looking up towards the entryway. A tall and poised woman was standing there, leaning slightly against the bell and regarding me with piercing blue eyes. She was dressed in a similar fashion to me, I noted with some surprise. A smart black dress hugged her frame, which she accessorized with a black blazer and a large silver necklace… that same sigil again. On her feet, nearly the same shoes that I had removed not long ago.

“Who are you?” I asked, picking my way carefully across the debris towards her. She held out a hand towards me with a smile, and I took it without thinking. Her hand was warm as she clasped mine, patting the top of my hand fondly with her other. Her smile reached her eyes easily, and I felt instantly calm.

“You may call me the Sister Imperator. I’m glad to see you’ve made it home safely.” My heart squeezed at her words. Home. I’d never had a proper one, being raised as an orphan, and the thought of having a true home was enough to bring tears prickling to my eyes.

“The book said… Papa was the one who called to me. Am I to meet with him?”

“Soon, child. Let’s get you inside and warmed up. We’ll get some food into that belly and a nice warm drink, I think. Then we can go through all of the introductions and explanations that I’m sure you want.” Her eyes left mine and traveled down my body to rest on my crucifix. “You are of the faith? Catholic?”

My own eyes dropped to the necklace hanging between my breasts as my hand came up to grip it. A million thoughts whorled through my mind before it landed on one that I was sure of: this place already felt more like home than anywhere else I’d ever been. I squeezed the cross tightly in my fist before tugging it, snapping the chain from around my neck. The silver chain dangled from my palm for a moment before I tossed it to the ground.

“No longer.”

[august-bleeds-red]

Be A Good Boy, Brahms - Chapter Two

Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four

~

You don’t know how for long you’ve been walking. You don’t even know where you are. The time was 02:47 when your phone died. What time was it when you left the station? You don’t remember. You only had time to grab a handful of things before the crowd started gathering around the body.

 The body you’d left there.

 The rain is starting to come down in earnest now. You’re soaked to the bone and tired to the point of exhaustion, the soles of your shoes feeling ready to peel away at any moment. Part of you wants to simply curl up at the side of the road and sleep, hardly caring if the cold or a passing car takes you once your eyes close. How long would it be until the police found you?

 You’d been as careful as you could on the journey to . . . wherever this was. You’d left your car at home, picked a train almost at random and bought a ticket to the end of the line. The sprawling metropolis of the city faded away to dark countryside, the lights of civilisation becoming more sporadic as you travelled deeper into rural England. You didn’t even recognise the name of the village as it flashed past the window. You pulled the hood of your jacket down further over your face as you left the carriage, but nobody stopped you or even glanced your way. It was nearing midnight – far too late to be paying attention to trainline stragglers. You could have hailed a taxi from the rank outside the station, asked the driver to drop you off as far as the cash in your pocket would allow, but that would be another person to remember your face, so you hitched your rucksack further up your shoulders and headed off into the misty night on foot.

 The distant sound of an approaching engine sets your heart racing and your eyes dart through the drizzly gloom for a place to hide. The road forks not ten metres ahead, a narrower path leading off towards the left. You start to run, rucksack bouncing against your back, shoes slapping against the tarmac. The new path slopes uphill, but you keep running, until the surrounding trees start to thicken, and you feel suitably distanced from anyone who might be passing via the main road. The slim trunks give way to broad pines, casting thick beams of moonlight across the ground ahead of you. Shielded by the overhanging branches, the rain eases from a ceaseless torrent to heavy droplets, splashing down around you. As you were leaving the flat, you had the sense to grab the sleeping-bag you once used to go camping with your dad, but don’t want to stop and set up base just yet. Another mile or so away from the road and you should be good for now. Then, come the light of morning, you can take stock and decide what you’re going to do.

 Maybe you shouldn’t have run. Guilty people always run, right? Maybe if you’d just stayed and explained what happened . . . but no, who would have listened? Who would have believed that an officer so upstanding and respected as your stepfather could be guilty of such a crime as attempted murder? It was what had kept your mother from reporting him for so long. He was clever – never bruising her in places it would easily show – but his rage towards you made him sloppy tonight. But even the bruises you’d seen around your little brother’s neck would not be evidence enough to condemn him, you knew that. The law would never act against one of their own, so you’d had to.

 Which moment had made you a murderer? When you’d crossed the balcony to where he stood, puffing on one of those disgusting cigars like he hadn’t just tried to kill your brother? When your hands had pushed against the broad space of his back, catching him off balance and sending him stumbling over the rail? Or when his flailing body had landed with a sickening crunch on the pavement seventeen stories below?

 Something large begins to loom out of the shadows ahead of you and you slow. It’s a set of huge, wrought-iron gates, supported by two intimidating brick pillars, open wide enough for a car to pass easily through. There’s no name or number, no indication as to what may lie beyond. Curiosity has always been your fatal flaw, so you approach, keeping an ear out for the sound of tires or footsteps. The house that awaits at the end of the long driveway is unlike any you’ve seen in the city or the surrounding boroughs; it’s tall and grand, the liquid light of dawn illuminating what seem to be turrets in the architecture. It’s beautiful, in an American gothic style of build. Certainly not the kind of English manor you’re used to in period dramas. The moment you stop before the front steps, your feet and calves begin screaming in protest, as though sensing the possibility of a place to rest. Even if you could just sit on the porch for a while, at least until the sun rose.

 The moment your butt hits the floor, the weight of the last twenty-four hours’ events settles on you like a heavy blanket. You’re hungry, thirsty, but all you can think of doing right now is getting an hour or two of sleep. You unravel your sleeping bag and crawl inside, resting your shoes atop your folded jacket beside you. Your sodden T-shirt and jeans don’t make for very comfortable sleepwear, but you’re certainly not about to strip to your skivvies on some stranger’s porch, especially if the milkman may be along within the next couple of hours.

 You sleep fitfully, the image of your stepfather’s face floating repeatedly to the surface of your mind like a photograph in water, and you’ll awake scared and sweating, despite the bone-chilling cold. The sun rises milky yellow just beyond the treeline, and you decide it must be late enough for you to risk knocking on the door. With any luck, they might be able to tell you how to reach the nearest village, where you can . . . you don’t know. Gathering your things, you shoulder your pack and approach the heavy wooden door, plucking the dampest patches of your T-shirt from your body.

 You notice the door is open just as you raise your fist to knock. Perhaps they forgot to lock up last night – a huge house like this in the middle of nowhere, probably not much foot traffic to run the risk of burglars. You give a few loud knocks, anyway, but no response comes.

 “Um, hello?” you call, pushing the door open just a little further.

 The inside of the house is as impressive as its exterior, all dark wood and teal blue rugs, and quiet as a graveyard. There is a blanket of stillness everywhere, giving the place an air of abandonment. You walk further into the entrance hall, staring up the grand staircase to where a semi-circular balcony overlooks the lower floor.

 “Hello?”

 Nothing – no movement, no sound; not the grumbling of pipes nor the hum of a heating system. You drop your rucksack on the floor beside a great stone fireplace and take a few tentative steps up the stairs. As you reach the top, you notice a large portrait hanging on the opposite wall of three people – a man, a woman and a small, angelic-looking boy. You wonder if this is the family of the house.

 “Hello?”

 Your third attempt also goes unanswered and, with no cars parked outside and the open door, you’re convinced the place truly is empty, at least for now. Your feet make no sound on the carpet stair-runner as you descend, picking up your pack by one strap and going in search of the kitchen. It’s quite small and surprisingly modern for such a grand mansion and, with only the smallest twinge of guilt, you conceal some packaged foods from the cupboards and fridge in your pack. You pick an apple from the fruit bowl on the table and take a bite, the crunching of your jaw loud in the silent room. You didn’t realise just how hungry you were and tuck a second apple into your coat pocket. Through the window, you can see a rambling garden stretching out across the grounds, the grass and leaves tinted blue in the dawn light.

 Leaving your pack by the front door, you decide to have a look around. A great house like this must have at least twenty rooms, and its unlikely you’ll get another chance to explore anywhere so richly furnished. You briefly wonder how far the behind you the police might be, but try to calm the panic that rises at that particularly thought. You’re no good half-dead on the run, and this might be your last safe space for a while.

 Heading back upstairs, you decide to investigate the nearest bedroom. It looks like it might belong – or at least once belonged – to a child, but there aren’t any toys you’d recognise from a modern child’s nursery. The clockwork figures and wooden mannequins look like objects from the 1950’s, as do the books on the shelves. Some of the toys are scattered over the floor by the bed, in contrast to the almost military neatness of the rest of the room, and one of the frames pictures is hanging askew on the wall. Almost automatically, you reach across and straighten it, and that’s when you see it – on the rug, a small, dark red stain, about the size of a side plate. A ripple of unease passes through you, though you know it could be something as innocuous as cranberry juice or ink.  

 As you’re about to exit the room, you notice something else – one of the doors on the opposite side of the landing has a large hole through it. The edges are rough, as though someone had forced their fist through in an attempt to reach whoever was on the other side. You wonder if there was some kind of a burglary, and you’re ten steps away from discovering the horribly mangled bodies of the man, woman and boy you saw in the portrait. Perhaps the assailant is still here, lurking behind one of these doors. Out of the corner of your eye, you see something a little unusual – on a large wooden trunk at the foot of the child’s bed is a long metal pipe with a curved end, kind of like the head of a harpoon. Picking this up, you venture out into the hall and move, as quietly as you can, towards the broken door. The room beyond is trashed – clothes scattered everywhere, and an old-fashioned telephone lying broken on the floor. The wardrobe door is standing open, and as you move closer, you see a strange panel standing open at the back. Glancing over your shoulder to make sure the room is still deserted, you push open the panel to reveal a passageway, just wide enough for a grown man to move through, built into the inside frame of the house. Part of you knows it would be an incredibly bad idea, but the other part of you that’s holding the makeshift weapon, allows your feet to lead you inside the secret passage.

 The tunnel is dark and dusty, dimly illuminated by the light of the rooms outside and the occasional electric light bracketed to the brick interior. A couple of times, you come across large gaps in the walls, where the wooden slats have been shattered by a great force. By peeping through the slats, you can see exactly whereabouts in the house you are. After ten or so minutes of sneaking, you spy a bright shaft of electric light coming from beneath a door ahead of you. Like Alice venturing further down the rabbit hole, you reach out and push against the wood.

[jeonstellate]

all roads lead to you: collision

it’s dawn when kim mingyu finds his soulmate.

๑༄ kim mingyu x gender neutral!reader

๑༄ soulmate!au, idol!au — kinda fluff, a bit angst

๑༄ bulleted list format — 1.3K words

masterlist | all roads lead to you: diversion

[gif’s full credit belongs solely to its owner]

๑༄ this is the second part of the two-shot all roads lead to you. i highly recommend reading the previous part first, which you can find the link to above :]

unbeknownst to you

considering that you left shortly after you visited pei the sorceress

you didn’t even say a proper goodbye to your friends, smh

thankfully they were too busy with their own lives to even think too much about your abrupt decision to leave

kim mingyu gains the sight of his red string a week after you lost yours

he’s ecstatic but, somehow, it feels wrong

when his string didn’t present itself the year it was supposed to, he knew he wasn’t the blessed one in the soul pair

but then, suddenly, he is???

that doesn’t make any sense

he has a lot of questions, but

ultimately, he trusts fate

if fate decides to bless him out of the blue, he knows there’s a reason

after all, even the game fate plays is well-calculated

so he does he best to live his life like he always has been able to see his string

even if he sometimes feels like the string isn’t his to begin with

specifically, he feels like it isn’t his original one?? he’s not sure

nevertheless

he waits for the perfect time fate sets for him to meet his one

all while fulfilling his dreams

mingyu doesn’t know why, but he finds himself thinking about you often

especially since he somehow always felt content whenever you were around

*cough* *cough*

there was actually a moment when he thought you might be soulmates, but

nevertheless, he’s happy you followed your soulmate to whatever corner of the world they went to

him and your inner circle haven’t actually met you soulmate

they just knew they attended the same school you guys did

considering that you used the word “schoolmate” when you described your soulmate once, the boys just

kinda . . . unconsciously assumed . . . that your soulmate isn’t someone they know

it doesn’t really make sense, but they basically just ran with that assumption

anyway

the boys also know that your soulmate was the reason you moved halfway across the world soon after graduation

and no, you didn’t tell them that, either

they just assumed that’s your reason for leaving abruptly

it’s the only explanation that they can come up with that makes the most sense, so they stuck with that

(alright, moving on . . .)

mingyu wonders when he’ll get to experience all the sensations you described to them when they once bombarded you with questions about how it feels

the feeling of gravity pulling the destined together subtly

the feeling of never wanting to leave each other’s side

the feeling of contentment by just being together

and everything in between

he wonders how he’ll handle having his other half close

years of waiting . . . for their own version of forever

as much as he enjoys the anticipation, the build feels too long

but, nevertheless, he knows it will be worth it so he doesn’t actually mind

mingyu is just really excited to meet his soulmate, okay

although he thinks he’ll definitely faint out of happiness when that moment finally arrives

somehow, he’s confident that his soulmate will catch him — solely based on the fact that they’re his soulmate

*face palm*

it’s been years since he gained the sight of his red string — while three of his same-year friends (97-liners) already found their soulmates, he is yet to find his

he doesn’t find the necessity to hurry, though, partly because no one can rush fate

and also partly because his dream is keeping him well-occupied

when seventeen is allowed to choose a destination for a few episodes of contents

going seventeen and inside seventeen

kim mingyu is the one to suggest hawaii

and is the one to fight his members that suggest somewhere else

it’s a lengthy discussion, even featuring a flying pen, but

somehow, they all ultimately agreed to travel to hawaii

as soon as the plane lands, however, he instantly feels . . . weird

he keeps looking around, as if he’s looking for something

or rather, waiting for someone

the pinky where his red thread is tied feels warm

he thought nothing of it, though, merely associating it with the summer weather

the sensation isn’t entirely bothersome, so he ignored it for an entire day

however, mingyu can’t sleep when nightfall comes

he knows he should be experiencing jetlag, but

his mind and body aren’t agreeing on how he should handle his tiredness

he’s highkey glad he isn’t in charge of any cam tomorrow tbh

it‘s nearing dawn when he decides to walk around the hotel’s block

(dude, you’re in a foreign country— wtf)

hoping to tire his body enough to finally let him sleep

though he doubts someone will, he leaves a note on the bedside just in case someone needs him

he takes in the beauty of his surroundings

then suddenly thinks that wandering to fall asleep isn’t the best idea

especially since he feels even more awake

but that doesn’t necessarily mean his mind is

unbeknownst to him, he unconsciously strays off the block and walks towards the sound of the waves

he only notices that he has, in fact, wandered off when the ground on his feet is no longer concrete

before he can fully comprehend that he is stepping on sand, he finally notices how abnormally tight and searingly hot his thread is

unconsciously, he follows it with his eyes and—

it’s dawn when he finally sees the other end of his red string

tied to a pinky of the figure observing the horizon

*insert an internally panicking mingyu*

kim mingyu doesn’t feel like he’s ready

even if he feels really awake now

*fan* *fan*

alternatively: kim mingyu feels like he’s gonna faint

*fans harder* (you shan’t faint on your soulmate, dude—)

he knows he has to make his move, before he miss his chance

so he quickly stands next to his destined half and—

“i’ve been waiting for you”

he’s too late because those words didn’t come from him

and suddenly the world stops.

. . .

. . .

. . .

no, he didn’t faint, but he’s convinced he must be dreaming

because

“you’re— you’re my soulmate?”

nothing makes sense

upon hearing his voice, his soulmate turns

to reveal your utterly surprised face

“i was— i was your soulmate, but i’m not— i’m not supposed to be—”

you stuttered as you try to figure out what happened: had the sorceress—?

“you knew all this time and you didn’t tell me?”

mingyu said in disbelief — partly because all the assumptions he believed with the rest of your shared friend group were all false

“i knew since i first saw you in high school; but it didn’t feel right to me that you’ll end up with me, so i asked a sorceress to transfer my string to someone more deserving”

sadness then filled his eyes as he takes in your reply

you thought he deserves someone better than you? the literal most perfect match for him??? what—

“do you not believe in us?”

s i l e n c e

mingyu dreads to interpret what your lack of response means

until he finally noticed what caught your attention

the red string that connects you together is glowing, which can only mean—

pei didn’t make a mistake, it was you who did — after all, it was you who believed you can change who your soul is connected with

she never intended to remove your string, she merely transferred its visibility to someone — mingyu — more deserving of its sight; someone who wouldn’t question fate as you had just because you were a tad insecure

the daemon-in-command, after all, as an eternity of experience under her belt ;) you might’ve not seen why mingyu’s your destined half the first time, but you definitely see it now

“i do now”

he doesn’t really need to hear your answer now

because your reply is as hard to miss as the glowing string

it might have taken years and definitely way longer that it should’ve, but at last

you, [full name], accepts kim mingyu as your soulmate