#and didn’t like Stina because she’s being mean again

[bookwyrminspiration]

dad finished reading Stellarlune! he said “this book was *checks random page* all talking.” and “if this was what she was building to—which she said in the acknowledgements—why didn’t we do this like. four books ago.” and “this was an information dump, telling us everything to get us caught up. and where’s Ro?? she’s the next problem.” just thought I’d let you know.

[wososcripts]

Tell Me of Your Grief

Stina Blackstenius x Reader

Summary: The fourteenth of March brings back some rather difficult memories, and you don't always make the healthiest decisions. Stina intervenes.

Word count: 4.4k

A/N: sorry it's been a while, I've started uni again which means my writing is somewhat slower! With some luck I'll be able to get things up once a week? But that remains to be seen... I promise this is hurt/comfort and not just pain btw.

Warnings ⚠️: discussion of death, self harm behaviors (mild), angst angst angst

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You woke up that morning to a text from Jonas saying you didn’t have to come to training. 

It felt weak to admit it, but part of you was relieved. You knew Katie must’ve talked to him, which was mortifying if you let yourself think about it too much, but she knew you needed this day to yourself. 

It was the anniversary of your best friend’s passing—five years in the making. You hadn’t told many of your teammates what happened, or why you became so withdrawn and somber the week around the 14th of March. It was too difficult to explain. All of the dramatics that surrounded the event, the pain, what you had done wrong, what she had too, it was all still too delicate for eyes you didn’t completely trust. 

You hadn’t even told your girlfriend Stina yet. You’d meant to, really, you had, but the days slipped by and there never seemed like a good time to do it. You knew it would ruin any good mood you were in, and honestly you enjoyed having Stina as your respite when the rest of the world seemed to be knocking against your skull. But it felt wrong that she didn’t know. It felt as though you were hiding something from her, even if it wasn’t intentional.

“Hi baby, I’m not feeling well today so I won’t be at practice. Don’t worry your head when I’m not there. It’s nothing too serious, though, so I’ll be back tomorrow.” You spoke into your phone, recording a voice note to send to her so she wouldn’t be left in the dark about where you were. 

Stina was a worrier, something you yourself could understand, so you always made the effort to let her know if you were running late or not going to something. Otherwise you’d inevitably get a call with her anxious voice on the other line. 

It was early, too early for even Stina to be up. The sun had barely begun cresting over the horizon, casting a slight glow to everything. You wanted to go back to sleep, particularly since you hadn't slept all that well to begin with. Your back hurt from being tensed all night as you were plagued with anxious dreams. On your palms were the remnants of nail indentations—some of them bloody from how hard you had been pressing.

You turned on a podcast and closed your eyes, hoping the sound of human voices would lull you to sleep. It must've worked for a little while, because the next time you opened your eyes it was truly morning, and the podcast had switched to another episode. 

The dreams had continued, unsurprisingly considering your waking mental state, and the extra hour of sleep you might be able to get if you closed your eyes wasn't worth it. So you got out of bed, throwing on a pair of leggings and a sweatshirt to go for a run. 

You weren't typically a runner—in fact you were practically ethically against doing it as a hobby—but it was useful for clearing your head. And with no training today, it would feel good to get out for at least a little while. So you blasted your music and took off into the streets of London, completely lost in your own world. Nobody spoke to you, nobody looked at you. 

By the time you had finished, you were sweaty, red-faced, and exhausted. The endorphins began to flood your system as you stripped and started the shower. You turned it almost as high as it could go, hoping for the burn against your skin. You hissed, stepping under the spray, and tears sprung to your eyes. Your skin immediately began to redden. But you didn’t move to lower the heat, instead grabbing your shampoo, gritting your teeth, and bearing it. 

—

“Morning, Blackstenius.” Beth called, clapping her on the back soundly as she wandered into the locker room. 

Stina expected to find you there, sitting by your locker getting changed into your kit and reading your book as you always did, each morning. But you weren’t there. Your locker hadn’t even been touched. She furrowed her brow, then remembered that you had sent her a message earlier. Maybe you had asked her for a ride and she hadn’t seen? Maybe you were going to be late today? Maybe you had some kind of appointment you’d forgotten about until the last minute—you were notorious for that. 

“Morning,” Katie said, sitting down next to Stina on the bench and pulling her kit out of her bag. 

“Morning, Katie.” She replied, opening her phone to look at her message. 

She brought the phone to her ear, confusion and concern filling her chest as she listened to your voice. Though your words weren’t all that worrying, she could hear in your voice that things weren’t right. 

“How’s she doing?” Katie asked, having heard your voice coming from the phone. Her voice was cautious, something unusual for the Irish captain.

“Did you know she wouldn’t be here today?” Stina asked, confused as to why Katie seemed to be clued in to your mood before her. Maybe you had sent her a similar message? She was your best friend, after all. The two of you made a ridiculous pair—her loud and aggressive, you nearly silent and composed—but you’d known each other longer than anyone else on the team, and everyone knew Katie would do practically anything for you. 

Katie was quiet, glancing around at the other girls in the room. Now Stina was worried. Even though you had told her not to be, that it wasn’t anything serious, she couldn’t help it now that Katie was acting so strangely. 

Once it was just Stina and Katie in the locker room, Katie answered her question. 

“Listen, it isn’t my place to tell you anything. You know how private she is…” Katie sighed, rubbing her temples. “I can’t believe she didn’t tell you, probably didn’t want to worry you, the idiot,” she mumbled under her breath to an increasingly concerned Stina. 

“Katie.” Stina said firmly, “What the fuck is going on?” 

She wasn’t usually one to swear. But where you were concerned, the possibility that you were hurting, and had hidden it from her, that warranted much more than cursing. 

“Today is difficult for her, very difficult. That’s all I feel comfortable saying. But if you want to go, Jonas is going to understand.” 

Stina’s heart was in her stomach. Images flashed through her mind, a thousand different horrible things this could mean. 

"Difficult?" She questioned, "Katie, is she safe? Do I have to be prepared for—"

"It's not like that, she isn't in physical danger." 

The answer wasn't reassuring to Stina, who now felt a little ill at the thought of you home alone today. She should be there with you. Someone should be there, if you didn't want her (God, she hoped you wanted her, trusted her). The urge to press more information out of Katie was strong, but Stina held herself back. Katie was right—you needed to tell Stina yourself. Otherwise any insight into your head would be forced entry, a violation of the trust you had both with Katie and with her.

So Stina simply nodded and looked back at her phone to reply to your message. 

Okay, I hope you're feeling all right. Can I swing by later and bring you something? I'd love to see you <3

She wanted to give you an option to say no to her visit—though she would prefer to just go over there now. At least now if you didn't answer before she showed up she could say she had reached out.

—

You waited until the water ran cold to get out of the shower. Your skin was raw to the touch, and still a subtle red color after you had dried yourself off and began braiding your hair. You could hardly stand to look at yourself.  

You threw on the only clothes you could stand on your skin—a pair of soft sweatpants and fuzzy socks—along with Stina's old Häcken hoodie she left at your place a few days ago. It smelled of her which comforted you even if she wasn't here. 

Your phone dinged with a message. Upon opening it, you saw Stina and Katie had messaged, and that you had two missed calls. 

"Eat something." Was all your message from Katie said. 

She knew you, and knew you wouldn't want to eat today. But you had to.

You went to open Stina's text when your phone lit up with another incoming call. It was from Sandra, the mother of your friend. She did this every year, and every year you told yourself you wouldn't pick up. It wasn't healthy for either of you—it reopened wounds that were barely scabbing over as it was. She inevitably cried, and asked why you had left her daughter alone that night, and you bit your lip raw trying to keep quiet and apologize.

But even though you knew the script, you picked up the phone. 

"Hi," you said, your voice noticeably smaller.

You heard a sigh of relief on the other end.

"How are you, Sandra?" You continued, your fingers picking at your lip anxiously. You felt it start to bleed and did nothing.

"Are you still in Limerick?" You continued your flood of questions, waiting for her onslaught to begin.

A few minutes later, once you were on your tenth question and you'd switched from your lip to pressing your nails into your bloodied palm, you heard her begin to cry.

You weren't sure how you managed this every year. Memories of the funeral flashed behind your eyes, and how you hadn't been allowed to stand near the front with the rest of the friends and family. How Sandra had wailed, and smacked you across the face in the parking lot. You stared at your kitchen backsplash and just listened.

"Why, why did you do it?" She cried, and you bit the inside of your cheek.

"I'm sorry." You whispered. 

"You left her alone, you killed her, you always brought her home expect that one fucking night and look what happened. It should've been you, it should've been you, you don't deserve this—" 

And so it continued. Tears streamed down your face as your brain began to shut down as a defense mechanism. You just felt numb. Nobody else existed in the world except for you and this woman whose life you had ruined. No Katie, No Stina, Nobody that gave you their love and wanted you here. You didn't deserve what you had, not your success where it should've been your friend's, not your team, not your girlfriend. You were an imposter on this planet, a thief.

—

It turned out that going over to your place wasn't as simple as it seemed. Stina tried asking Jonas if she could be excused from practice, but he insisted that she stay just for an hour. Arsenal had a match with the Spurs in four days and Jonas wanted to go over strategies with the forwards. No skipping. 

So Stina stayed—looking at her phone every thirty seconds for a text from you. There was nothing, and it freaked her out even more.

Whatever Jonas was saying, none of it was registering. She would ride the bench if she had to, it didn't matter to her now. Her leg bounced nervously, and Viv looked at her with concern on her face every couple of minutes. When Jonas went outside to take a quick call, she turned to Stina and immediately asked after her.

"What's wrong, is it something with Odi?" 

Stina nodded, her tight lipped expression telling Viv all she needed to know. She gave Stina a look of sympathy and glanced at her watch, clearly wondering when the meeting would be over as well.

"Odi, something's wrong with her?" Beth butted in unabashedly.

You'd gotten the nickname for a few reasons: you'd danced for years as a child as a ballerina, which showed in your play. You were showy, and graceful, not the aggressive type. Like a swan, someone had once said to you—and the swan lake association stuck: Odette, or Odi for short. Arsenal's dancer.

Jonas re-entered the room before Beth could ask any more questions, saving Stina the struggle.

"For Christ's sake, let the poor girl go," Beth called out as Stina checked her phone for the hundredth time.

Jonas sent a look Beth's way, but decided to be merciful.

"Alright, Blackstenius, you're excused. But I'll be seeing you tomorrow."

Stina practically ran back to the locker room, throwing her kit into her bag and getting changed as fast as she could. A steady sense of dread was building in her. She decided to call you as she left the training grounds and walked to her car, hoping she could catch you and tell you she was coming. It would soothe her mind just to hear your voice.

But instead of your voice on the other end, Stina was met with the busy signal. That confused her even more—you weren't a fan of phone calls necessarily, and she knew your parents would be working now, so it was unlikely they would have called you.

She tried once more, hoping she had just happened to catch you at the tail end of a call, but you still didn't answer.

—

You had barely hung up the phone with Sandra before the tears began to pour from your eyes. It was as though time had made no difference and you were hearing of your friend's death for the first time. All the pain, all the self loathing that had fallen down upon you then still crushed your shoulders with its weight.

Your phone dinged again—a message from Katie.

Respond to me or I'm coming over there myself.

You didn't want Katie here. She had been there in years past, and for her to see you no better despite the time and therapy you put in, well you couldn't handle the shame.

I'm alive and well - see you tomorrow at training

You replied, knowing if you told her you were fine and left it at that she might kill you herself. 

You giggled at the thought of her huffing and puffing at you, demanding you take better care of yourself like a surrogate mother. When your mother wasn’t around, Katie did a damn good impression of her. You never got away with anything if Katie had a say. You laughed through your tears, feeling like every nerve of yours was on a razor's edge. 

A knock at the door barely registered in your mind as you wandered over to the couch, wanting nothing more than to curl up in a ball and waste away for the next twelve hours. Your head was beginning to hurt from all the crying, which only soured your mood further. For the first time you had the thought: I don't want to be alone.

You thought it must’ve been a hallucination, the way Stina appeared in front of you. 

—

Stina wasn’t sure what to expect when she knocked on the door of your apartment. She had spent the entire drive over worrying about how she could find you, partially cursing Katie for giving her just enough info to get her mind going in a million unhelpful directions. The fact that you weren’t texting her back hadn’t helped either. The road before her blurred as she drove without thinking, her body getting her to your apartment building on instinct. 

The elevator dinged at each floor and with it her heartbeat increased. 

When you didn’t answer the door it dropped. 

“Hello?” Stina called out, having opened the door with the spare key you had given her a few months ago. She cursed herself for not staying with you last night when you looked so weighed down, so tired. She’d let you convince her you were fine—something she wouldn’t do again anytime soon.  

When she turned the corner from your kitchen into the open space of your living room she spotted you. There you were, curled up on the couch in a small ball, silent. 

“Did you hear me knock?” She asked softly, approaching you.

You didn’t reply, didn’t even look at her. 

She slowly reached out a hand to place it on your head gently, when you turned and looked at her. It frightened her—the look in your eyes. She hadn’t ever seen them so empty. 

“Stina?” you whispered, confusion present in your tone. 

“Yes, min kärlek, jag är här.”

She put a hand softly on your face, cupping your cheek.

“You’re really here?” 

There were tears beginning to gather in your already red eyes. Stina felt her throat constrict. You’d been crying, clearly a lot by how swollen your face was. 

Stina pulled you up and into her arms easily, shifting you so she could sit on the couch with you in her lap. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked gently, remembering that you had said once that hearing her speak her native Swedish calmed you down. 

You wiped your eyes, lip still trembling slightly. 

“Did Katie say something? Or Jonas?” 

Stina wiped your cheeks with the pad of her thumb, brow creased with worry. 

“Katie said today was hard for you, that’s it. Promise.” 

You went silent, thinking. 

“I was going to tell you. I promise, I meant to. But it just never seemed like a good time, or I just wanted to avoid it as long as possible…you see, Katie met me not long after it happened, she was there, it’s different. I didn’t trust her with this and not you on purpose. She can’t help but know.” You shifted off of Stina’s lap, curling in on yourself next to her so your skin wasn’t touching.

“I hate myself for it. I do, really. And every time I tell someone, they might hate me too, I know that. And I just couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t give you the chance to hate me.”

Stina put a hand on your shoulder, biting her lip to contain a small sob when you flinched away from her. It was as if you weren’t even there in front of her. All of the grace and kindness and light that had been there just a few days ago seemed to have been swallowed by darkness. To hear you say the words ‘I hate myself’? Stina could cry at the thought of it. Those were words that should never come from your mouth. It was like a knife in her ribcage. 

“Min söta… älskling”

“Don’t call me that,” you sobbed, putting your hands over your eyes and hiding your face from her. 

"Snälla, låt mig hjälpa dig, please, I want to help.” 

You shook your head, face still obscured from Stina’s view. 

This was horrible. Stina felt as though she’d eaten something rotten the way her stomach churned. She was helpless, completely in the dark. Here she was, the person who was supposed to take care of you and love you, and she could hardly do anything. All she could think to do as you cried quietly was pull you into her side and rock you slowly. A melody popped into her head—one her mother had sang to her as a child when she was ill. 

Stina softly sang, trying not to feel embarrassed by her voice. You were beginning to calm, your hands dropping from your face to her shirt, holding it close. By the time she was finished, the room was quiet, empty of your cries. You were clinging to her, your face buried in the crook of her neck as if you were ashamed of the comfort you needed. 

“What was that song?” you asked, voice hoarse. 

“It’s a lullaby. I can’t remember the name.” 

Stina felt you nod against her skin. 

She opted not to say anything further. You were exhausted, she could tell. Anything you wanted to say, you needed to volunteer. 

After a few moments, she felt your grip on her shirt tighten. 

“When I was nineteen, my best friend died.” 

Whatever Stina had been expecting to come out of your mouth, that wasn’t it. She sucked in a breath, trying to remain unaffected. You needed her strength. 

“We had been friends for years, since we were kids. And we’d gotten in this huge fight over something… uni I think. I had an offer to play professionally. I had been drinking, so had she. And I always walked her home, always, when she had been drinking. The way to her house was a bit sketchy, you know? So I figured two people were better than one if anything happened. But the things she said to me that night… I’d never been so upset in my life.” 

You took a breath, 

“So I refused to walk her. She didn’t press, just turned up her nose and walked away, didn’t even say goodbye. And I waited for my bus. The next morning I get a call from her mum—she’s been killed.”

Stina could barely trust herself to breathe. 

“I let it happen, I’m the reason she died.” 

“No—” Stina began, but you cut her off. 

“When they held the funeral, I wasn’t allowed to say anything. I wasn’t allowed anywhere but the very back of the church, because they all knew it was my fault. And still, they know it, they remind me of what happened, what I’ve done. I stole her life!” 

“Stop!” Stina demanded, her face flushed with anger. You were taken aback by her passion, and quieted. “You did not steal anything, you didn’t kill her, it isn’t your fault!” She grabbed your hand as you pulled back from her. 

“You lost your best friend in such a horrible way, and nobody checked in? Nobody held you?” 

You opened your mouth to speak, but this time Stina silenced you.

“I want you to tell me what you mean by ‘they remind you’ of what happened.” 

You refused to meet her eyes. 

“It’s not good. Not for me or her… she calls me, my friend’s mom, to talk.” You hesitated, but explained the routine to your girlfriend when she fixed you with a look. 

“That’s…” Stina seemed at a loss for words, “you are the strongest person I know. And you rake yourself across hot coals for a crime that isn’t even yours. For a woman who wants to see you suffer, who can’t accept your healing. That isn’t right. You did not kill her. That is someone else’s burden to carry.” 

You burst into tears again. 

—

You must’ve fallen asleep at some point, because the next time you wake up you’re in bed, and Stina is wrapped protectively around you. Her warmth encases you; she holds you more protectively than usual, her arms shielding you from the world. 

Eventually the two of you get back up, though not before Stina wraps you in a crushing embrace and lets you know she’s staying for a couple of days. No negotiating. 

She makes dinner, you clean. It’s the first time you’ve eaten all day, and you think she can tell by the way she watches you intently. You feel cared for, and it’s a little overwhelming. Stina doesn’t let you out of her sight save a few trips to the bathroom and one brief call from her sister that she has to take.

You didn’t expect things to shake her up so much. 

She helps you clean the wounds on your palms, grimacing at the sight of them once you unfurl your fingers for her. You try to tell her you can deal with them yourself—especially with how much it seems to upset her—but she isn't having it. You see her set her brow and concentrate on cleaning and bandaging the damaged skin, tears only glazing her eyes as you hiss in pain. 

Eventually you convince her that you're fine enough to settle down on the couch and watch a movie. She insists on having you in her lap—something that you find equally as comforting. Stina isn't typically all that tactile, but now each moment apart from you seems to worry her.

You're about halfway into the film and slowly drifting off into her chest when you feel her whisper something into your skin. You think she assumes you're asleep (and you nearly are) but you make out her voice slightly.

"Tack Gud att du är här." She repeats it, and soon you can feel the drops of her tears hitting your shoulder. 

"Stina…" you whisper, repositioning yourself to face her.

"förlåt" she says, wiping her eyes.

"You don't have to be sorry… It was an intense day." You press a kiss to her cheek.

"I was so worried," Stina starts, and you figure it's best not to interrupt her, "when Katie said that you might be struggling, I couldn't think of anything else. You can't hurt yourself anymore, please." Stina takes your bandaged hand.

"If you were gone one day, I don't know how I'd cope." 

"You don't have to worry about that, ever."

"You are the most important thing in my life." Stina's lip trembles, and you wonder how you're managing to keep it together.

You pull her into another kiss, lips sore from how you had abused them earlier. The pain reminds you of the struggle of the day, but Stina's hand holds the depths in front of you at bay.

"I'll always be here." She promises.

You begin to think of something lighter. Of an ounce of forgiveness. Of a year that does not revolve around the rising and setting of the sun on this one day. A moment of peace afforded to yourself. The thought passes your mind—you do not deserve this. You instead think of love.

[frizzle-mcshizzle]

Copper mares (Stinex) to me

they wouldn’t get together until they’re young adults, they both have a lot pf growing a maturing to do

Stina is a head taller than Dex not because hes short, shes just that tall

Dex fell first and was head over heels, he realized she didn’t like him back but didn’t care. he would press her buttons just to get her attention. so she would get into his face or make him back into a corner. because hes an angler fish with an intense step on me complex

and he loved her attention, he loved being close enough to count her eyelashes, and if pressing her buttons was the only way to do that, then he would press her buttons every chance he got.

he discovered an easy way to make her blush was to call her darling and he did it whenever he got the chance, it caught her off guard, her retaliation was to call him Dexter which made him jump just as much as it would make him blush

it went on for months their squabbling that sounded more and more like flirting the more time went on

then Stina fell so hard she tripped over her emotions leaving a hole in the floor loony toons style, sitting at the bottom crying with her feelings because how dare she fall in love with him

how dare she fall in love with that stupid boy and his stupid hair, with those stupid freckles that formed constellations on his face, and his periwinkle eyes with dark blue flecks that she could get lost in for hours- oh no she was staring again

Stina didn’t think she deserved to be loved especially by him, not after how she treated him all those years, no she deserved to be miserable, she deserved to be hated, why would he ever love her

so she confessed to him in french during their arguments making it sound like she was insulting him, he thought she was, called a coward for insulting him in languages he didn’t understand, he was half right she was a coward.

Dex would fight back angry he had to love the girl (who he thought) hated him back

when they’re not fighting Dex is over on the other side of the room, staring at her thinking how beautiful she is, and how much he wants to kiss her. he forgives her because she’s grown as a person he knows she capable of being more than that mean girl from foxfire. shes passionate, and loves her friends, loves her parents.

he can see how soft she is underneath the shell she uses to protect herself from a world that hates her for things she can’t control, the same world that hates him for the same things.

she starts to get softer around him without meaning too, going from making fun of him for how he tied his cape to pushing Biana out of the way to fix it herself. she just wanted to be close to him, without the bickering without the fighting, even if it was only long enough to adjust his cape, or his pins.

Dex started intentionally putting his cape on out of place, and pins on crooked, just so she would adjust his pins for him, as she stood over him and schooled him for putting his pins and cape on wrong he would find his gaze linger oh the crinkle between her eyebrows, the curved tip of her eyebrows, the way she bit her lips when she was focusing, the way her lipgloss sparkled in the chandelier light.

once Stina caught him staring at her lips, he had been distracted, thinking of what it would be like to kiss her, he had never seen turn so red, she was probably redder than he was, she tried to find a insult but stumbled over her words before rushing away. every time he looked at her during the Gala that team Valiant was forced to go to she would look at the floor. it made him wondering if she was staring at her to

Stina seemed to be trying to insult him more during their next team Valiant meeting, but none of her insults had as much heart as usual, it was like she was trying to prove a point she didn’t believe in. she kept muttering things in french and Sophie was staring at her wide eyed. Dex couldn’t tell if it was because Stina was saying some nasty insults or was saying something different. he hoped the second guess was right, or she would at least stand over him again while she insulted him.

Stina couldn’t handle the thought of Dex liking her. why was he looking at her lips like that? he couldn’t like her, he had to have been hit in the head, or used himself as a test subject for some new exiler. he would have to be sick in the head to love her of all people. she didn’t deserve it, why would he love her.

but Dex was persistent, she could have sworn he was trying to make her flustered in their fights (he was), she did her best to ignore it (she was horrible at it)

when they where in the middle of the neutral territories on a mission for the black swan, they where attacked by some leftover members of the neverseen, Stina was horrible in fights, she acted tough but when her life was on the line all she wanted to do was cry. that was until she saw a black cloaked figure sneak up behind Dex with a massive dagger when he was riffing through his bag for another bomb

without thinking she tackled the figure getting the knife plunged deep into her sidem it bruned the throgh her veins, as she passed out she swore there was something on the knife to make it hurt more, to make it hard to move, before the neverseen member could strangle her, Dex stuck a melder into their head, making then crumble to the ground ticking.

Stina had never seen him act like that, she had never seen him so angry, except for maybe when some kids beat up Rex at foxfire, the worried look in his periwinkle eye made the butterflies in her stomach do a dance. but it just had to be because she was bleeding, blood was terrifiying on anyone, it had nothing to do with the fact that it was her.

Stina had to get stitches because of something that the knife was coated in kept the wound from healing with ant amount of Exilers, even when Dex made special doeses just for her, he would have done that for anyone though it wasn’t because it was her.

he looked at her differently afterwards, she was trying and failing to convince herself it was just because it was because she got stabbed on his behalf. Dex was constantly trying to sit next to her, even glaring down anyone who took the last seat available next to her, she waited for his appreciation for saving his life to wear off but it just seemed to get worse

and the way he looked at her made her like she hung the stars in the sky just for him to see made her stupid brain wonder otherwise, maybe, just maybe, he loved her back.

@doodle-do-wop i promised to tag you when i was done

[dreaming-of-the-end]

2: a lesson in forgetting, and being forgotten

A/N: Second chapter of “the art of running away (the disaster of returning)“ Fitz pov time!! Comments and reblogs are better than Fitz crying!

Warnings: swearing

Links: [ao3] [wattpad] [masterpost] [prev chapter] [next chapter]

Tags: @an-ungraceful-swan @seulgibabes @gay-otlc @fruity-fintan-fortythree @synonymroll648 @bookwyrminspiration @skylilac @song-tam @gaslight-gaetkeep-gayboss @abubble125 @rainy-nights-and-fairy-lights @kamikothe1and0lny @arsonistblue @daphneisntreal @lemon-girl-in-devil-town @istanrandomfandoms

Keefe ran away.

To a place he can not follow.

Fitz isn't exactly sure what they expect his reaction to be. Sophie stares at him like she's waiting for a bomb to explode. Biana worries her lip with her teeth, a habit she'd broken years ago, and Dex twists his fingers into knots until the knuckles turn white.

"He's gone?" Tam leaves out the word they are all thinking. Fitz hates him for it: he wants to tell him to say it. Remind everyone that this happens all too often. He is rewarded with a dull glance up, eyes widening in mock surprise. "Typical."

This is the part where he becomes a tea kettle and starts screaming.

But Fitz just says, "Let him stay there." His insides twist tighter than Dex's hands. He doesn't think he remembers how to breathe.

"I think he doesn't want to be found this time," Sophie admits. "Last time, we only knew where he was because I hitched a ride. This time, there's no way to know."

"Good. Let him stay there," Fitz repeats. His throat chokes on itself, but Biana's giving him the look that means his face has gone into a mask again, cold and stony, poster child of sculpted stone. "The Forbidden Cities? God, I've told him about being there enough. Alvar's told him enough. He knows plenty. He'll be fine without us."

Without me.

But they've been without each other for a long time, haven't they? Fitz thinks they've been playing hide and seek, lost and found, ever since Keefe left the first time and took a chunk of his heart with him. They've never had the conversation about its safe return, and so he continues with a hole in his heart and the missing piece too close and too far away.

"Fitz—"

"I agree," Wylie says, hands folded behind his back, eyes stormy. "He can always light leap away at any danger." He's perhaps the one who knows Keefe least, and maybe this is why Fitz feels a sudden surge of anger. Who is Wylie to decide Keefe's not worth saving? Agreement feels laced with poison to him, every word an insult and his saving grace.

Maybe he didn't mean it.

But there are nods now. So Fitz nods, forces a smile on his ice-cold face. "He doesn't need us." He's trying so hard not to let his bitterness leak through.

Sophie, he knows, isn't fooled. Not Biana, either. Tam meets his eyes and shakes his head like he knows the push and pull of the maelstrom whisking his lungs around his body, the nausea rising in his throat. But no one says anything. They can't find anything that doesn't call him a liar.

He ran away from you.

"How do you know where he is?" Stina is the one to ask the question, fingers twisting in the loose curls past her shoulders.

Sophie hesitates. "He... he left me a letter."

Another sting, another fire in his head.

He is a liar. Perhaps to himself, because he knows that this time, the cowardice had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the danger of newness and the violence of terror. All of Keefe's worst fears.

I know you, Fitz will say when he sees him again. So why does it feel like you've forgotten everything I ever was?

...

Fitz digs through his bedsheets, under his pillow, under the mattress, inside his pillowcase, fingers flying desperately across gold-trimmed navy blue.

His desk sits in disarray, every drawer spilled out across the carpet he's checked under, every pocket of every item of clothing turned inside out to check for anything, any acknowledgment of his existence. Of his importance.

His bathroom is spotlessly clean, as always. There is no space to hide an envelope. No place to hide a letter.

The fire builds with every moment. Nothing, nothing— Fitz rips the sheets from his bed in vain, the mattress empty—nothing.

He left him with nothing.

Fitz lets himself erupt, punching the wall hard enough to make him leap back, cradling his fist. He needs something broken that isn't him. He needs to be fixed. He needs to be fixed. Keefe needs to be fixed. Everything is broken.

His pillow explodes behind him with a pop, sending brightly colored feathers fluttering all through the air, and Fitz whirls to face it.

He hadn't realized he was outward channeling. His hands shake a little, and he's not sure whether it's from the effort or from all the feelings forced down his throat. He swallows hard.

Fitz sits carefully on his bare mattress. Keefe used to sprawl out on it like he owned it, fingers barely brushing the headboard as he flung them back past his head and mussed his hair a little more—but that doesn't matter anymore. The bed is empty.

He doesn't know why he thought Keefe would care enough to leave him a letter. He would have taken a note like the ones he remembers reading about in human books during younger library visits: Gone fishing. Be back in a few hours, maybe a century. When the world has moved on without me. Moved on from me.

What a fucking coward.

[dizzythegreat]

KOTLC Reread: Book 1

obviously spoilers for book 1, a few spoilers for future books below

IM FALLING BACK INTO THE FANDOM

haven’t read the books in over a year but they never get any less good

thats a lie. it was slightly less good than when i first read it, probably because im older now and noticing the little things that i dont like, but its still bringing back all my childhood happiness from reading the series and its still amazing

first of all. i dont know how i didnt notice this until now but prentice and tiergan for sure had something going on 

they def had some side fling happening (if its confirmed they didn’t in later books and i just forgot, dont tell me)

like tiergan is so bitter over him being broken?? he hates everyone who played even a small role in prentice’s exile?? come ON this is not a regular bromance-type relationship 

i wish the kidnapping scene was more... realistic? idk i really loved how the drug hazes were described and a lot of it was super good but i felt like it was kind of short and the kidnappers really didn’t... do much?

like they kinda just threatened to kill dex and half-heartedly questioned sophie for only like 2 pages

also why would they not just kill dex immediately they have 0 use for him

but anyways

sophie truly is a mary sue but somehow she’s not insufferable?

the obliviousness hasn’t fully set in yet but oh boy will it

the good old days when dexphie was the most popular ship and no one shipped keephie

and when biana was a bitch for half the book

and fitz was actually tolerable

alvar is just a little bit suspicious in this book (just the tiniest touch of foreshadowing)

grady and edaline really named their daughter the french word for “pretty” huh

jensi and marella 😭 i dont remember if jensi plays a larger role in the future but i hope he does

stina is such a cliché “mean girl” lmfao like she really bumped sophie into a locker and called her a loser

some of the abilities are so much more op than others tbh. like imagine other people are literally teleporting whatever they need to them at any time, reading minds, inflicting pain on others, and you’re. elsa.

grady and edaline un-adopting sophie was a dick move. like i guess i get the reasoning but come on.

iggy sounds like a terrible pet im sorry

smells like shit 100% of the time and just causes havoc

the worldbuilding is so 😍

i remember i had a huge crush on keefe when i was reading these when i was younger. he is 12 or 13 in this book so i will not get into that until later lol

this book i mostly remembered but i dont remember a thing from book 2 so that will be interesting

overall it brought back so many childhood memories, i loved it and im so excited to start book 2 and SO EXCITED FOR STELLARLUNE AHHHHHH

also excited for more character development bc we love trauma 🥰

again, please no spoilers for future books (even though ive already read them lol) (but forgot most of it) and no stellarlune spoilers/asks until i post that i’ve read it!

[you-have-been-frizzled]

Ooh maybe some Maruca headcannons cuz she hasn’t gotten much page time so far?

Biana was her first friend at Foxfire, Biana didn’t care about how “pushy”, the fact that she was related to Prentice, the where best friends and they did everything together, but then Sophie came…and Biana left her

she was mad and confused why was this random girl more important than her. they had been friends first why was Biana ignoring her? she had been her best friend and she left her. for some girl that she had hated, just because her dad told her too be nice.

so went to Stina, because she knew that Stina hated Biana and wouldn’t tell her to stop talking bad about a Vacker, she went on for a hour telling Stina all of Biana’s secrets, she wanted her to hurt as much as she was hurting right now

she didn’t care that Stina told Sophie the real reason she started being nice, and all of her other secrets, she had wanted to hurt her, so Biana would feel the way she was feeling

as mad as she was at Biana she hoped just a little that Sophie would stop being friends with her and thing could go back to the way it was before. but it didn’t Biana told her she never wanted to speak to her again because she had betrayed her trust.

that day after school she locked herself in her closet and cried, she betray Biana’s trust?like Biana didn’t tell her that she was only hanging out with Sophie because her dad told her too. only to ditch her over a dozen times, start to avoid her, then straight up ignore her hails.

no Biana betrayed her trust, she had said they where best friends, that they would do everything together forever, just to abandon her for some girl, who was named after a weird bird. Maruca told her secrets as revenge, she wasn’t the bad person Biana was.

Stina may be the school mean girl but at least if she hung out with her no one would want to betray her because Stina could and would make their lives miserable if they did. she sat in her closet until she heard and knock on the door

“are you oaky Rue? are you crying? it’s sounds like you’re crying” a little voice asked, she sniffled “i’m fine, Kai just go away” he was eight and didn’t need to know about her stupid girl drama, he just needed to go play with his stuffies or something.

she heard his feet pound on the on the floor as he ran away slamming the door behind him. she sighed, at least he was gone, she unlocked the the door to her room and went and sat on her window seat, within five minutes she could hear him coming back he slammed the door back open and yelled

“See Wylie, See she’s not oaky!” she looked up to see her cousin standing in doorway her little brother was pointing at her “she said that she was fine, but she was crying i heard her” she rolled her eyes “i said i’m fine” Kai put his hand on his hip “then why are your eyes all puffy?” she blinked a few times trying to figure out how to get them to leave.

“He’s got a point Rue” Wylie said before telling Kai to go downstairs and ask Tiergan for the good snacks. Wylie shut the door behind him and sat down next to her. “do you wanna talk about it?” he asked “you don’t-“ but Maruca interrupted she told him everything.

How Biana went from hating Sophie to ignoring her hails just to hang out with Sophie. How angry she was that Biana had just up and abandoned her. How she tried to get back at Biana. How Biana had the audacity to say that she had betrayed her trust and acted like she did nothing wrong.

Wylie sat and listened to her. he didn’t tell her that it wasn’t a big deal, that it was to be expected, that she was only twelve and she would have bigger problems in the future. no he hugged her and let her cry and morn the friend she thought she had

when she had gotten it all out, he gave her a squeeze and asked “do you want to come downstairs and eat? or at least sit a the table with us?” Maruca nodded, “i just want to wash up first, i don’t want to worry Kai…or my parents” Wyile smiled “meet you, down stairs oaky?”

as he was about to leave her room he made a little heart out of light, and she made one with her hands, he smiled at her and walk down the hall. Maruca went to her bathroom and washed her face. Stina hailed her and invited to go to Atlantis with her, but Maruca turned to down telling her that it was family night, which was the truth.

but that wasn’t the only reason she turned Stina down, she wasn’t ready for a new friend yet. friends could find someone knew and hang out with them instead, but she knew that her family wouldn’t do that especially Wylie and Kai, they loved her more than anything and she knew they would never abandon her.

[squishmallow36]

Keeper of the Lost Prepositions - Nine

Word count: 1.3k

Tw: Keefe is still in a coma

Taglist (lmk if you want to be added / removed): @stellar-lune @ichor-on-my-hands @kamikothe1and0lny @nyxpixels @snowflakewolves @poppinspop @crystallinewalker @uni-seahorse-572 @tiergan-andrin-alenefar  @books-over-boys @florida-llama-46 @when-wax-wings-melt @k00laidcrush @bowlcut-boyfriends @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizznee

On Ao3 or below the cut! Other chapters can be found here

    The next day, all my doubts and worries swirl around my head, hitting the sides and gaining momentum, unlike an ideal gas. Keefe has been in a coma for three days now and even though Elwin has assured me he is going to be fine, it doesn’t stop the worrying. 

    If Alden comes and tells me that there’s no reason to worry, let’s just say I wear my Sucker Punch at all times.

    Not like I’m important enough to be attacked personally, but if I get a signal through my panic switch, it helps to be prepared. 

    With school cancelled, I’m just staying in my room all day, not like that isn’t normal for me or anything like that, but it feels different this time. All of the problems we have been facing are getting worse, and even in the break between Neverseen attacks, it isn’t really a break. 

    Everything is becoming more real and you can feel the change. 

    Eventually I can’t handle the walls around me, but I’m not really sure where to go; it would be weird to go sit under the Panakes tree.

    Side note: stop mentally calling it the pancakes tree. 

    And I don’t really want to go to Wigetmoor, then I will actually have to use my brain and that doesn’t sound fun. 

    After a bit of wandering around Foxfire—I’ve always enjoyed going there, especially when I don’t have to deal with Stina—I make my way to the Healing Centre. I must be hanging around Sophie too much. One time she actually mentioned that it’s the only place at school that she feels confident in finding. 

    And then, Keefe, being Keefe, made a joke that she has a compass in her head always leading her back there, like a pigeon. And, of course, that made him wonder if the reason Project Moonlark was named that because if pigeons have homing devices in their heads, Moonlarks might too. 

    Let’s just say it hasn’t been allowed to come up again since. 

    I walk into the Healing Centre and wave to Elwin, sitting in his office. My gaze falls upon Sophie and, even without her looking at me, I can tell she hasn’t slept in days. 

    I glance at Keefe and...it’s not as bad as I have been expecting. The way he looked back down in Loamnore—I have to shut down that memory before even letting it take form. I don’t have a photographic memory, and not a great one at that, but it’s still...there are no words. 

    I know I should have, considering that he’s one of my better friends in the Foster Squad—the term that is proof in itself that I have been spending too much time with Keefe—and I know excuses won’t cut it but I didn’t want to spiral into guilt. 

    Which is completely irrational, the logical part of my brain tries to tell me, but since when does anyone actually listen to the logical part of their brain?

    That was a rhetorical question. 

    “Hey, Foster.”

    I’ve started picking up on Lord Hunkyhair’s habit of calling her Foster and, honestly, it’s kinda fun. I mean, Lady Fos-boss is a brilliant creation, but it’s best reserved for when she’s bossing everyone around, eh? The more you use it, the less meaning it has. 

    She didn’t notice that I walked into the Healing Centre, so she’s approximately just as surprised that I’m there as I was that Wonderboy was in my room yesterday. 

    “Hey, Dex. What are you doing here?” she replies a split second later, when she can form words again. 

    I plop on the bed next to Sophie and say, “I’m not allowed to check on my best friend?”

    She replies, without missing a beat, “Keefe’s the same as yesterday. And the day before that.”

    “And what about you?” I ask, just as fast. 

    I can tell I caught her a bit off guard when she mentions, quietly, “I didn’t know you were still my best friend…”

    “I meant what I said back in Alluveterre a year ago. Nothing can ever change the fact that we’re best friends. I mean, back then it wasn’t totally meant, ‘cause, you know, the whole crush thing and I thought I might have a tiny chance at getting out of the friendzone back then—I’m gonna stop now before this gets worse.”

    She smiles at my rambling and the worry and stress in the room lessens. I realise then that when Wonderboy calls me Keefe, it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. If Keefe insists on making absolutely idiotic decisions, then I’m going to take away his Keefe privileges.

     Not sure how exactly I’ll do that, but if there’s a will, there’s a way. 

    “I just wish I could do something…” Sophie whispers, looking back at Keefe. 

    “You already have. I wasn’t there when Gisela activated the transformation or whatever she wants to call it, but you literally figured out how to teleport sideways to make sure he would get to Elwin in time—“

     She cuts me off before I can finish my speech—with which I am kind of on a roll by my standards—by saying, “But it didn’t even matter. Elwin can’t do anything and I left all of you down in Loamnore. What if something had happened? What if—“

    It’s my turn to cut her off, and I say, “You made the best decision with the information you had in the moment, which is the best you can do, and yes I’m pretty sure someone said that at some point to you but a) I don’t care and b) honestly it still works. And if you go down into the what ifs then you will start blaming yourself for everything and I think you know where that leads.”

    “And Keefe,” I continue, shifting my focus to the pale, unconscious boy in the narrow cot, “if you make Foster worry like this ever again, I will give the triplets free reign to prank you however they choose. Got it? Good.”

    My Imparter buzzes in my pocket and I answer a hail from Biana. 

    I do the universal sign language to Sophie of “I’m going to go take this outside.”

    “Hey, Biana,” I say tentatively. I might be a little afraid of her…Don’t judge me. I saw how Della could fight when we were heading to Alluveterre, and it’s not hard to believe that she’d have similar skills. 

    “Dex, will you please come and fix Fitz?” She shakes her head. “Try saying that ten times fast. Anyway, I know he went over to your house yesterday and he was doing better and now he’s locked himself in his room again and he’s refusing to talk to anyone or eat anything and just let me be worried, okay?”

    “Yeah, just give me like five minutes. I have to go tell Foster where I’m going because randomly disappearing probably won’t be a good idea, and then I’ll have to run over to the Leapmaster. And by run, I mean walk. And I’m rambling. Why am I not surprised?”

    I wave goodbye, and Biana ends the hail. I walk back into the Healing Centre and sit next to Sophie again. 

    She looks at me, waiting for an update. 

    “Biana wants my help with something so I’m going to run over to Everglen and I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I say, not wanting to mention Wonderboy’s current state of mind, especially since it is mostly due to the breakup as far as I can tell. I don’t want to be the cause of Fitzphie drama. 

    That’d be an interesting conversation if there ever was one. 

    Sophie nods, and says, “See you later.”

    Apparently it was time for more walking because I walk to the Leapmaster, which is farther from the Healing Centre than I remembered. 

    “Everglen,” I announce, a bit louder than I probably should have. Fun. 

    And so Lovise and I leap away to deal with Wonderboy. That’ll be fun for Foster to find out, I thought sarcastically.

[tomhiddlestonfanfic]

A Step Too Far? Chapter Twelve What a Hardass

Ch. 1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6 - Ch. 7 - Ch. 8 - Ch. 9 - Ch. 10 - Ch. 11 - Ch. 12

TITLE: A Step Too Far? NUMBER OF CHAPTERS/ONE SHOT: 12/?? WHICH TOM CHARACTER: Stepfather Tom OTHER CHARACTERS: Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott PAIRING: Tom/OFC, Benedict Cumberbatch/OFC GENRE: Drama, Hurt/Comfort

CHAPTER TWELVE What a Hardass

“No, it wasn’t Ben,” Nina assured him, but she could tell by the skepticism on his face that he didn’t believe her. “It actually wasn’t Ben,” Nina insisted. “I asked a friend to do it because I felt really guilty about something,” she said truthfully.

“What do you have to feel so guilty about that you ask someone to hit you so badly that you can’t sit straight?” Tom questioned seriously.

“I promised my friend that I would talk to my therapist about it,” Nina told him.

“You better talk to your therapist about it,” Tom told her firmly. “You should probably bring up how you asked your friend for a beating too, because that’s hardly a healthy way to cope with guilt.”

“I thought you would be able to understand,” Nina muttered irritably.

“Because of what you saw on my computer?” Tom questioned. Nina nodded at him and he sighed heavily. “Okay, let me tell you something, Nina. I fantasised about it once when I was particularly upset with you. I fantasised about spanking you, because you had been away for two days straight without as much as a word of assurance to your mother. We were worried sick about you, but you didn’t even seem to care when you got back home like nothing happened. What you found on my computer was research. I considered spanking you to teach you a lesson, and I wanted to get it right, but I didn’t go through with it.”

“Mom would have killed you if you did,” Nina snorted, feeling a bit disappointed but mostly relieved that it hadn’t been a sexual fantasy of his to spank her. She had had enough of fulfilling sexual fantasies with married men. “Why didn’t you just tell me that to begin with?” she questioned confusedly.

“Because I didn’t think you would believe me. I was mortified and wanted nothing more than to forget about the whole ordeal,” Tom told her, his cheeks growing slightly red. He glanced over at Nina as she kept squirming in her seat. “Should we stop by the pharmacy to get you some ointment or something?”

“No thanks,” Nina told him embarrassedly. “I just want to go home.”

They spent the rest of the drive home in silence and once they got inside the house, Nina rushed straight to her room before anyone had the time to ask her to help with something. She needed to be alone.

While it was sweet that Tom cared about her, Nina thought that it had gone a bit too far this time. He had embarrassed her and treated her like she wasn’t capable of making her own decisions regarding her own body. She sighed heavily as she locked the bedroom door and removed her clothes to inspect her body in the full length mirror. She grimaced in pain as she looked at her red and bruised bottom. There were red marks and bruises across her upper thighs and lower bottom. She touched the heated area gently and winced slightly at the soreness. Andrew really hadn't gone easy on her. She smiled to herself as she thought about Andrew, he seemed to understand her without passing any judgement. For the first time, Tom had disappointed her in that aspect; he had passed judgement on her desire to be spanked in order to deal with her guilt by referring to it as unhealthy. What did he know about that? It would be more unhealthy to get high or drunk to escape the guilt, or to hurt herself more severely than a spanking did. For a moment, Nina seriously considered getting drunk to get a point across to him, but decided against it.

There was a knock on her bedroom door. It was her mother saying that dinner was ready. Nina sullenly declined and laid down in bed to look on her laptop for a series to watch with Stina. She texted her suggestions to Josef and smiled as he replied almost right away, strongly recommending one of the series she had suggested.

“Nina,” it was her mother’s voice again. “I brought you some food.” 

Nina got up and unlocked the door for her mother who walked in with a tray of food, a glass of water and a cup of tea. “Thank you, mom,” Nina said appreciatively as she watched her mother put the tray down on the desk.

“You’re welcome, darling,” Helena replied and kissed her daughter on the forehead. “Try to eat something even if you’re not in the mood for it. And if you need to talk, I’m here for you.”

“Thanks, mom,” Nina replied with a smile as she sat down by the desk to eat. She bit her lip hard to not let on that she was in pain. She took a bite of the food while her mother was still in the room, to assure her that she was indeed eating something. As she chewed the food, Nina realised how hungry she really was and finished her portion.

She grabbed the plate and went downstairs with it to put in the dishwasher. In the kitchen was Tom, cleaning up after dinner. She glared at him as she rinsed off her plate and put it in the dishwasher, but didn’t say anything.

“Nina,” he said regretfully. “I’m sor-”

“No,” Nina interrupted him and abruptly headed back upstairs before he had the time to utter another word. She stayed in her room for most of the evening, and headed downstairs when she felt like going for a walk.

“Where are you going?” Tom wondered, walking up to her from the living room as she put her shoes on.

“I’m going out for a walk,” Nina told him with a shrug.

“Now?” Tom questioned and glanced at his watch. “It’s half past eleven.”

“I know,” Nina replied. “And I feel like going for a walk, so I’m going for a walk.”

“Where to?” Tom asked, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed. He had his shirt sleeves rolled up in a way that made her think about how Andrew had rolled up his sleeves right before spanking her. Nina bit her lip and swallowed as she felt a thrill of excitement run through her body at the sight of Tom’s bare forearms. She grimaced as she mentally cursed herself for thinking such a forbidden thought and tried to focus on the conversation.

“I don’t know yet. Maybe one of the lakes,” she replied with a shrug and Tom sighed soundly.

“I’d rather you didn’t, considering what happened last time you did that,” he objected concernedly. Now it was Nina’s turn to sigh. His worry about her was kind of called for this time, seeing as she had jumped into the ice cold water last time she went to one of the lakes late at night.

“I won’t do it again,” Nina assured him and then got angry with herself for being so compliant. Then she got angry with Tom for not minding his own business. “Not that it’s any of your business what I decide to do with my own body,” she added irritably. “If I want to go for a swim, I’ll go for a swim. If I want to ask someone to hit me, I ask someone to hit me. It’s none of your damn business, Thomas.”

“You could drown,” Tom told her seriously. “I would never forgive myself if-”

“If I drowned, it would hardly be your fault,” Nina interjected.

“It would feel like it,” Tom told her. “Look, I’m sorry about how I expressed myself before. Of course it’s your body and you decide what you do with it, but if you put yourself in any danger, I’m bound to worry about you.”

“Getting hit by someone is one of the least dangerous options of what I feel like doing to myself,” Nina informed him. She internally curself again. Why the hell would she tell him something like that?

“You’re making me really worried now, Nina,” Tom said and insistently blocked the way for her when she tried to walk out on him.

“Let me leave. I really need to go out for a walk,” Nina told him stubbornly.

“You’ve got work tomorrow,” Tom objected.

“I’m a grown up and I can make my own damn decisions,” Nina argued.

“Could I come with you then?” Tom wondered.

“If you keep quiet,” Nina told him, realising that he might not let her go out otherwise. Or he would worry and wait up for her until she got back. “I like to listen to music while I walk.”

“Good, I’ll listen to music too then,” Tom replied as he put on his shoes. He grabbed his jacket and called into the living room. “Helena. Nina and I are going out for a walk.”

“At this hour?” she questioned in a tired voice.

“Yeah, don’t wait up,” Tom replied before they walked outside.

The night air was cold and felt good in Nina’s lungs. She put her headphones in her ears and turned on some music before Tom had the time to try to start a new conversation. She led the way and decided to walk to one of her favourite lakes. It was so beautiful and peaceful at this time of day. As they stood there by the dark lake, Nina sat down on the rocks and looked at the moon reflected in the water surface. They were close to the spot where she had jumped in the last time she was there. She walked up to the spot and bent down to touch the water surface. The water was very cold and felt good against her hand. She touched her face with her wet hand and smiled slightly as she recalled how awake and alive she had felt when she had jumped into the lake. She noticed Tom walking up to her and smiled to herself in the dark. There were no lights by the lake other than that from the moon. She bent down again to touch the water and splashed some water on Tom. To her surprise, he bent down and returned the action. Nina gasped in shock at how much water he had managed to splash on her and unplugged her ears.

“What the hell, Tom,” she told him amusedly.

“Sorry, did you get wet?” he asked.

“Just a tad,” Nina laughed, her shirt was soaking wet, but it was too dark for Tom to see.

“Perhaps we should head back home,” he suggested. Nina agreed. She was getting cold.

Once they got out into an illuminated path, Tom breathed in sharply once he saw how much water he had splashed on Nina.

“Oh dear, Nina, I’m so sorry,” Tom said and removed his own jacket to put it on her. “I didn’t mean to splash so much water on you. It was dark and I didn’t see you properly.”

Nina pulled the jacket tightly around her cold body and smiled reassuringly at him. “I know you didn’t mean to.”

When they got home, Nina returned the jacket to Tom and removed her wet shirt.

“I never realised that you didn’t wear any jacket,” Tom told her and respectfully looked away from Nina once he noticed that she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath her low-necked top. Nina crossed her arms over her breasts to cover herself up as she looked at Tom.

“Good night then,” she said before heading upstairs.

“Good night,” Tom replied.

Nina had a hard time sleeping that night. There was too much on her mind, and she had a soreness in her bottom that wouldn’t go away. Neither would the feelings of guilt that crept up on her at five in the morning. She gave up sleeping and put on her laptop to watch some series on it. Her bedroom door was slightly ajar from her last toilet visit and she hadn’t been bothered to shut it again. To her surprise Tom appeared in the door opening and looked at her concernedly.

“Are you alright, Nina?” he asked. “What are you doing up?”

“I couldn’t sleep. What are you doing up?” Nina questioned and raised an eyebrow at him as he motioned to his training clothes.

“I’m going out for a run. I enjoy getting up early in the morning, I like to get the most out of the day,” he told her briskly.

“Oh my God, are you insane? Do you ever rest?” Nina questioned frowningly as she realised how long his days were if he regularly got up at this hour. She felt bad for keeping him up so late the preceding day.

“Of course I rest,” Tom smiled at her. “About that, you should probably try to get some more rest before work.”

“But I can’t sleep,” Nina objected.

“If you say so. Want to join me for a run?” Tom offered. Nina stared him dead in the eye and threw a pillow at him. Tom laughed in response before throwing it back at her.

As soon as Tom was out of sight, Nina got up and locked the door. She turned the lights on and searched her closet for a jar of her old medications that she had hidden away the moment her doctor stopped prescribing them. There were still a couple of pills left. She took one and put it in her wallet, thinking she could use it to get through the working day.

Nina yawned largely as she sat down in the car to go to work, she grimaced slightly as her butt came in contact with the carseat and cursed herself for thinking a spanking would rid her off the guilt. Now she was burdened by guilt and a sore ass instead of just the former of the two.

She sighed as she caught Tom throwing her a concerned look. She didn’t want him to be so concerned about her, at least not about this. Why couldn’t he just trust her when she said she was fine? Maybe because she wasn’t fine. He seemed good at noticing when there was something weighing her down.

The day at the office went by excruciatingly slowly at first and Nina had a really hard time focusing. That’s when she remembered the pill she had put in her wallet and swallowed it down with some energy drink. A while after that, she began to feel the effects of the medication. She was able to sit still in her seat, despite the pain in her backside, and she was able to work more effectively than usual. She wasn’t as distracted by the people around her anymore and hardly even noticed when Andrew walked up to her desk.

“Hey, Nina. I decided to give you and your colleagues new desks, mostly because of your argument about the importance of ergonomics in order to provide a good working environment,” Andrew told her cheerfully. Nina rubbed her eyes, they felt a bit dry from staring so concentratedly on the computer screen for hours, and smiled widely at her boss.

“That’s great! Thank you, Mister Scott,” she said gleefully.

“You’ve been unusually still today, haven’t you? Is something up?” Andrew asked her.

“No, I’m just focusing on my work,” Nina said with a frown. “Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?”

“Of course that’s great,” Andrew said and leaned in to talk to her in a lower voice so he wouldn’t be overheard. “But you’re usually more up and about, and chattier than you’ve been today. You’re not getting depressed, are you?” he asked concernedly. Nina smiled reassuringly at him.

“I’m okay, Mister Scott. I promise,” she told him.

“Good. If you need someone to talk to about anything at all, my door is always open,” he reminded her with a gentle smile.

“Thank you,” Nina said appreciatively.

Saturday arrived and it was finally time for Nina’s carefully planned date with Stina. They went for a walk to her favourite lake and had a picnic there with a bunch of blankets on top of them to stay warm. Nina had brought her laptop and while drinking hot chocolate, they began to watch the series she had found for them. They stayed there for hours, watching several episodes of the captivating series.

After the date, they went to Stina’s place. Stina was shocked when she saw Nina’s red and bruised bottom when they were about to have sex and just had to ask about how she got them. Nina blushed and lied, telling Stina that she had done it to herself. Stina was intrigued to find out about Nina’s spanking fetish and asked if she could touch her sore bottom. Nina moaned and shut her eyes as Stina gently caressed her ass. It felt so good. Then Stina’s hand traveled in between her legs to touch her wet pussy.

“Such a naughty girl,” Stina said playfully and smiled. “Perhaps I should spank you next time,” she suggested.

“Please do,” Nina said lustfully where she laid on her stomach on the bed. “In fact, you could spank me right now.”

“If you say so,” Stina replied and gave her bottom a sound smack. Nina moaned in response.

“More,” Nina encouraged and Stina obliged. After a couple of more smacks, Nina panted and moaned. She orgasmed from the spanking alone.

“Did you come?” Stina asked with a smile and Nina nodded smilingly at her.

“Thank you,” Nina said and sat up in bed. She kissed Stina passionately and began tugging at her panties. “Now it’s your turn to come,” Nina said and looked lustfully at Stina. “I’ve never gone down on a girl before.”

Nina stayed the weekends over at Stina’s place, and they had a great time together. Not only because of all the sex, but because of their conversations, the watching series together and playing boardgames. It turned out that Stina was quite the board game geek with an impressive collection of different games. Nina loved getting to know Stina better.

Monday morning came and it was time for the workweek to begin again. Nina sighed heavily as she sat down by her desk. She wasn’t really feeling up to working. She felt unusually unmotivated and just sat there and stared blankly at the computer screen for a couple of minutes. She really wished she had some ephedrine left that would help her get through the day and even considered calling Jim over to give her a couple of pills. After all, she had given them to him for occasions such as these.

She went outside to the area where people usually would go for a smoke and picked up her phone.

“Hey, Jim. Remember those pills I gave you? I could really use a couple of them right now, if you have time to stop by between your jobs,” Nina requested into the receiver. “Yeah, lunch break is great. Sure we can have lunch together. Do you mind if a friend of mine joins us? Not? Great! See you then!”

“What was that all about?” a voice came, causing her to jump with surprise. She could have sworn she had been all alone when she made the call, but apparently there had been someone standing around the corner. It was Benedict. “What kind of pills are we talking about? Are you doing drugs, Nina?” he asked as he put out his cigarette against the ground.

“No, of course not!” Nina replied, trying to act as though the mere thought offended her greatly.

“Then what kind of pills? It’s hardly birth control pills if you could use a couple of them right now,” Benedict pointed out.

“It’s caffeine pills,” Nina lied. “Tom has forbidden me to take them because he thinks I get too much caffeine through the energy drinks and coffee as it is. But I’m still tired all the time. So I need them.”

“Is that so?” Benedict asked skeptically. “I don’t believe you, young lady.”

“Then join us for lunch and see for yourself,” Nina argued. “Don’t tell Tom about it though.”

“Alright then,” Benedict said with a smirk. “And I would like a drug test from you first thing in the morning.”

“But I have therapy then,” Nina argued.

“Then after your therapy,” Benedict replied. What a hardass.

“Fine!” Nina agreed and thought briefly about the ADD pill she had taken last week when she hadn’t been able to sleep. For how long would that stay within her system?

As soon as Benedict had left to go back inside, Nina picked up her phone and searched for information about methylphenidate. She was relieved to find out that she would likely pass the drug test as long as she didn’t take anything else. She then proceeded to tell Jim to buy her a bottle of caffeine pills and bring her those instead of the ephedrine. Thanks to her precautions, lunch went well, though it felt a bit odd for Nina to be surrounded by three people, all of which she had had sex with. None of them knew that they all had that in common.

Tuesday morning came, and it was time for Nina’s third therapy session with Henry. She felt nervous as she thought about her promise to Andrew to talk about her guilt with someone. She had promised Tom the same thing.

Initially, they went through her list of things she looked forward to on a daily basis, and then Henry asked her about her date with Stina. They spoke about her and Stina’s relationship for a bit. Then Nina hesitantly brought up the subject of guilt.

“I’ve felt really guilty about something lately,” she said cryptically.

“I’ve noticed that there seems to be something weighing you down. Do you feel ready to talk to me about it?” Henry asked.

“It’s hard to talk about. I feel like such a horrible person,” Nina told him.

“And why is that?” he questioned.

"Because I am a horrible person," she said dejectedly.

"Thinking you're a horrible person doesn't make you a horrible person, Nina," Henry pointed out and leaned slightly forward in his seat as he looked thoughtfully at her. "I firmly believe we need to talk about what it is that makes you feel this way."

“I’ve done something really bad. Something terribly wrong,” Nina confessed.

“What did you do?” Henry asked.

“I… I can’t say,” Nina replied. She felt so ashamed.

“Alright then, Nina. If you’re not ready to talk about what’s going on, let’s try to talk more about guilt in general,” Henry suggested. Nina nodded, feeling grateful that he didn’t keep pushing her to tell him about it. “Guilt and shame are difficult feelings to face, but they are an essential part of the human experience. They help you grow as a person, and often guide you not to repeat the same mistakes. We all make mistakes, it’s part of being human. And sometimes we have to repeat the same mistake several times before we learn from it.” Nina nodded agreeingly as she listened to him speak. It all made sense.

“So how do I get rid of the guilt?” she asked.

“You don’t just get rid of it, Nina. You experience it and you learn from it,” Henry told her. “Ultimately, you’re the one who decides for how long you feel guilty about something. Perhaps you need to be more compassionate towards yourself and forgive yourself.”

“But I can’t forgive myself, how could I possibly when I keep repeating the same mistakes? It’s like I’m unable to learn from my mistakes. Afterwards I feel like I should have known better, I feel so guilty. But when I’m in the middle of it, I just don’t care about anything other than f-” Nina interrupted herself and blushed. She had almost said fucking my boss.

“That sounds like a dilemma. I really wish you would feel comfortable enough to tell me more about this in detail. That would make it easier for me to help you. But I’ll try my best with what little information I have,” Henry said. “From what you just said, I presume the mistakes you keep making involve something that feels really good in the moment. Good enough to make you care less about the long-term consequences of your actions. So what I propose is that you start applying a cognitive behavioural model to your behaviour. It’s called A-B-C functional analysis,” he said and went to his desk where he picked up a binder from which he grabbed a paper.

Nina glanced down at the worksheet and read it. Its whole purpose was for her to analyse what came before the behaviour (antecedent), the behaviour itself and the consequences of the behaviour.

“What I want you to do, Nina, is to practice doing the analysis. It doesn’t have to be big problematic behaviours that you start with, but simpler ones, such as drinking too much coffee or swearing too much,” Henry suggested. “I want you to show your analysis to me during our next meeting.”

“Okay, I suppose I could do that,” Nina replied. It didn’t seem too hard as long as she didn’t apply the model to her behaviour of being intimate with people who were off limits.

For a change, Benedict picked up Nina at the therapist’s office.

“How did it go?” Benedict asked her once she had hesitantly entered his car.

“It went well,” Nina mumbled as she put her seatbelt on.

“Good,” Benedict said. “Are you ready for your drug test at doctor Freeman’s office?”

“I suppose I am,” Nina replied and sighed. She didn’t have any energy drink in Benedict’s car to drink, and she was feeling tired. “Could we stop somewhere for a coffee? I’m feeling really tired,” she requested.

“Fine,” Benedict agreed and they went to buy coffee before driving to doctor Freeman’s office.

At the office, Nina was requested to leave a urine sample as well as a blood sample. Luckily, no one watched her pee into the plastic cup and the blood test was rather smoothly administered. It hurt a little bit, but not too bad.

“We’ll have the results in a couple of days,” doctor Freeman said when she got out of the blood testing chair.

“Good,” Nina replied and made herself ready to leave the office.

“Wait. Let me check your weight first,” doctor Freeman said. Nina’s heart sank. She hadn’t been eating too well lately. She reluctantly stepped on the scale and sighed when the weight was not any closer to the weight doctor Freeman wanted her to reach before he gave her medicine for her ADD. The doctor frowned as he looked at her. “You need to eat properly, Nina. There really is no wonder you’re tired all the time if you don’t eat enough.”

“I do eat enough,” Nina insisted stubbornly.

“No, you don’t,” doctor Freeman argued. “The scale doesn’t lie. If you lose more weight, I’ll get really worried about you.”

“Fuck,” Nina muttered under her breath.

“Fuck indeed,” doctor Freeman replied. “Get your shit together and take proper care of yourself like the grown up person you are. You shouldn’t need others to nag you about something as basic as eating.”

“You’re right,” Nina agreed with a sigh.

Previous Chapter

[cadence-talle]

Lavender-Inked Silence

Pairing: Fitz Vacker/Keefe Sencen

Wordcount: 1,883

Summary: Peer grading isn’t fun by any measure, but they can trust each other not to judge. And it’s nice, having a little note to look at before he goes home and has to explain to his father why he only got a 95 on the science test. 

(Keefe keeps all these notes in a box under his bed, ripping them out of tests and rereading them when he can’t sleep. He’s not quite sure why, but they help.)

(There are quite a lot of notes, over the years.)

Notes: Thanks to @loverofallthingssmart for the prompt and @vibing-in-the-void for betaing! (Also for coming up with the title “a for effort, g for gay”, which is the best thing i’ve ever heard. 

Taglist: @everyonehasthoughts, @clearlykeefitz, @loverofallthingssmart, @a-lonely-tatertot, @enbies-and-felonies, @molly-sencen, @lemontarto, @appalyneinstitute1, @ruewen-and-rising, @silver-snow, @linhamon-roll, @hyperlollypop, @never-ever-too-many-fandoms, @keeper-of-the-lost-queers, @impostertamsong, @vibing-in-the-void, @yeetersofthelostcities, @mistythegirlfluxmess, @diamond-dreamerr, @we-have-no-bananas-today, @an-absolute-travesty

(Sometimes, there are words that can’t be understood.)

Spelling tests are, in Keefe’s opinion, the worst thing in the world. 

Some words are easy; “fan”, for example, or “kitten”. They’re written exactly how they sound, so Keefe has no problem with them. It’s only with others that he gets tripped up, the extra vowels and unnecessary consonants, combined with Keefe’s terrible spelling, twisting words into unrecognizable shapes. 

The worst part is, he knows most of these words- he’s seen them in books his father has made him read. He can see the letters in his mind, can see the definition of the word. When he tries to write them down, though, it turns into something completely different. 

“Neither,” the teacher says, walking slowly around the room. “Neither. ‘Not the one nor the other of two people or things; not either’. Neither.”

Niether, Keefe writes, then scribbles it out and changes it to netheir. That doesn’t look right either, but the teacher has already moved on. 

“All right, last one,” she calls as Keefe adds a bill and tiny feet to the duck he’s doodled earlier. “Beer. ‘An alcoholic drink made from yeast-fermented malt flavored with hops.’ Beer.”

To be quite honest, Keefe is pretty sure he knows how to spell beer. Although, with everything he’s learned about spelling, it’s very possible there’s another vowel in there somewhere. Maybe an a? 

But that would be bear, and time’s running out. 

Baer, he scribbles down just as the teacher comes to collect his paper. She gives it a cursory glance, raising an eyebrow in an expression that reminds Keefe of his father. “We’ll be partner-grading these,” she says cooly. “So when you get someone else’s test, I’ll put the answers on the board and you can mark which ones are wrong.”

Keefe sighs a little, tapping the edge of his desk with his pencil. He’s positive he got almost everything wrong, and now one of his classmates will know too. 

Figures. 

He corrects the (few) errors on the test he’s given angrily, not even glancing at the name on the top until he’s done. When he does, his stomach drops a little. 

Fitzroy A. Vacker, the signature at the top reads. Fitz; one of the best students in their class, so well known he can’t walk down the hall without being high-fived. And if Keefe has his test, that means-

“Here you go.” Keefe’s test drops back onto his desk, the other boy appearing next to him. Wordlessly, Keefe hands him his test. Fitz nods and walks back to his seat, and Keefe picks up the paper. 

It’s not as bad as he was expecting. He made a lot of mistakes, true- apparently beer is not, in fact, spelled with an a- but there are no rude comments. Just corrections made in light purple pen. 

And in the corner, next to Keefe’s halfhearted doodle of a duck, is a little note. 

I like your drawing, it says, and then, you’re a really good artist. 

You’re a really good artist. 

No one’s ever said that to Keefe. Art isn’t a thing he’s good at, because it’s not a thing he does for fun- it’s not a thing he’s allowed to do for fun. 

But here, out of the blue, this compliment from someone he barely knows because he drew a stupid duck.

Keefe stares at the paper and smiles. 

(He doesn’t know, not yet. But this, in the form of a lavender-inked note on a spelling test, is the start of something amazing.)

-/-

He doesn’t talk to Fitz, of course. That would be stupid. They’re not friends, so no matter how much he’d like to thank the other boy, he doesn’t. He stays silent, keeps to himself, doesn’t ask his father to arrange a playdate. (Father would be overjoyed if he asked. That’s probably why Keefe doesn't.)  

No, he doesn’t do anything until they have a math quiz.

Keefe is actually pretty good at math. Addition and subtraction have always come easy to him, so he breezes through the questions and is done with time to spare. When Fitz’s quiz lands on his desk again, he’s barely even surprised; they’ll probably just be partnered up for the rest of the year. 

He is surprised, though, when the grade comes out to an 85/100. Not bad, but not good either; certainly not what Keefe would have expected for everyone’s favorite Golden Boy.

But then he remembers the way his father had sneered when he’d come home with his spelling test. The hours he’d had to study on a subject he didn’t understand, words swimming in front of his eyes.

Everyone’s bound to have one bad subject. Maybe this is Fitz’s. 

So Keefe puts a little :) next to the grade, writing great job! before standing up and handing it off to Fitz. The other boy looks at the paper, his face scrunching up as he reads the grade then melting into surprise when he sees the note. 

“Thanks,” he says, looking up at Keefe. “You too.”

(Sometimes, there are words that can’t be understood. Things that can’t be said out loud for fear of breaking them.) 

(But Fitz’s smile, right then, speaks volumes.)

-/-

By third grade, Fitz has switched to using a sky blue pen, and by fifth, he’s writing with green. One thing never changes, though- he and Keefe are always in the same class, and they always grade each other’s work. 

It’s more a decision than a teacher-mandated thing. Peer grading isn’t fun by any measure, but they can trust each other not to judge. And it’s nice, having a little note to look at before he goes home and has to explain to his father why he only got a 95 on the science test. 

(Keefe keeps all these notes in a box under his bed, ripping them out of tests and rereading them when he can’t sleep. He’s not quite sure why, but they help.)

(There are quite a lot of notes, over the years.)

CHEMICAL CHANGES QUIZ: Fitzroy A. Vacker, Class 302

98/100. Pretty sure a flame test isn’t setting something on fire, but good job anyway! I drew you a flower in compinsashun so you would feel better. -Keefe

Basic Fractions Worksheet: Keefe S, Class 401 

100/100! You’re so good at math. -Fitz

Exports & Taxation in the American Revolution: Fitz Vacker, Class 503

100/100. This was really good! I couldn’t stop laughing at the sentence “the colonists rebelled by throwing tea in the ocean”, though. -Keefe

(And there are others, too, not written on schoolwork; tiny messages scrawled in the margin of a sheet of paper and folded into a tight square.)

(Blue ones.)

I passed the principal on my way to class. She’s… not happy. Did you really cover her office in paint? -F

They have no proof. -K

(Green ones.)

Hey, can you come over this afternoon? -K

Yeah, sure. What’s up? -F

I just… I don't want to be alone with my parents. They’re always… nicer. When you’re around. -K

Ok. -F

(And in eighth grade, when Fitz has run out of different colors of pens and is back to purple, there are purple ones.)

Are you going to Stina’s party next weekend? -F

I might. If you’re there. -K

(Sometimes, there are words that can’t be understood. Things that can’t be said out loud for fear of breaking them. Of breaking yourself.) 

(There are a lot of messages. None of them mean much.)

(Keefe keeps them anyway.)

-/-

The house is packed, people laughing and whooping over the loud music. The lights are flashing, there’s something suspiciously bitter in the punch, and almost everyone here is a stranger. 

Keefe’s been at this party for five minutes. He already regrets coming. 

In the crowd, someone lets out a high shout. Fitz flinches slightly at Keefe’s side, taking a step closer to the other boy. 

“You want to get out of here?” Keefe murmurs in his ear. Fitz nods and they turn towards the door. 

The diner they stop at on the way home is bright, but the lights are constant and the slowly rotating cheesecake in the display case is as familiar as it is inedible. Keefe breathes a sigh of relief. “That was terrible,” he says, taking a seat at the counter. Fitz laughs. 

“It really was, wasn’t it? I think most of the people there were highschoolers.”

Keefe nods, thanking the man behind the bar who’s handed him a burger. Fitz is drinking a strawberry milkshake.

“Honestly, I don’t want to go to high school if that’s what people are like.”

Fitz raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think you have much of a choice there, unfortunately.”

“Eh, I don’t know.” Keefe takes a bite of his burger, chewing thoughtfully. “I could always just get held back a year. Wouldn’t be too hard, with my track record.”

Fitz laughs again, bright and happy under the fluorescent lights. Keefe watches him, watches the way his eyes crinkle at the corners, the way his nose scrunches up. He’s beautiful. 

Beautiful. Where did that come from? 

(Sometimes, there are words that can’t be understood. Things that can’t be said out loud for fear of breaking them. Of breaking yourself. Sometimes there are realizations under bright-bright lights that you can never say.)

Beautiful.

Hmm. 

Shit. 

-/-

As it turns out, being in love with your best friend isn’t as hard as it sounds. 

Keefe hasn’t managed to get rid of his feelings, by tenth grade, but he’s managed to ignore them. Ignore the way his gut clenches whenever Fitz grins at him, ignore the flush that appears on his cheeks whenever their hands brush. Ignore, ignore, and hope Fitz ignores too. 

There’s less peer-grading in high school. Tests and projects are more important now, so the teachers grade them in most of his classes. 

Except in Spanish, because apparently the teacher just doesn’t care.

Keefe marks the last incorrect verb conjugation on Fitz’s test, doodling a tiny heart in the paper’s margin and handing the paper to the boy sitting across the aisle from him. Fitz glances at it, eyes narrowing slightly. Keefe knows that look- that’s his determined look. 

He’s not quite sure why Fitz would have something to prove right now, though. He scored a solid 97. Unless-

Shaking his head, Keefe forcefully directs that train of thought.

It comes crashing back in just a second, though, when Fitz hands him his graded test. 

100! It says at the top in purple pen. Do you want to get dinner with me? 

Keefe glances up and towards the other boy, who’s staring at the board as if it contains the secrets of the universe instead of the quiz answers. With shaking fingers, he writes a single word and passes the paper back. 

(Sometimes, there are words that can’t be understood. Things that can’t be said out loud for fear of breaking them. Of breaking yourself. Sometimes there are realizations under bright-bright lights that you can never say.)

(And sometimes, there are notes written in multicolored pens, years and years of silent conversations. A message on top of a Spanish quiz that promises something amazing. Sometimes, there is a word, unspoken but still heard.)

Yes. 

(Sometimes, a lavender-inked note is all you need.)

[everysongineverykey]

alright! no putting this off any longer! @fanartofthelostcities , i was your secret santa! sorry this is so late, i had a hectic day, but it’s here now! it’s a rather short stina study concerning acceptance and feeling inadequate. i sincerely hope you like it! it’ll be under the cut.

Acceptance

Stina should’ve been happy.

Really, she had no reason not to be. The war was over. The Neverseen were long gone. Everyone was back together again. All over the Lost Cities there were weddings, parties, huge celebrations of the kind that lit up the night sky, like the one Stina was at right now.

But somehow, somehow, she wasn’t happy. And it killed her.

She was standing in a corner of the Ruewen’s big, beautiful house, trying to make herself as small and as uninvasive as possible, watching everyone mingle and laugh and celebrate their victory. And it was a victory. Of course she was happy the Neverseen were gone.

But… how much happier was she now than when she’d started? How had she changed at all? How many more friends did she have?

The answer was none. And there was the problem.

She watched as Sophie and her friends talked animatedly a few feet away, reminiscing about all the battles they’d fought, the ones they’d won and lost, and she thought about how few of them she’d been there for.

“Stina?” asked a voice, breaking her out of her reverie.

Maruca stood there near her, a concerned look on her face as her violet eyes seemed to search Stina’s for answers. Stina blinked, and realized with embarrassment that she’d been crying. She looked at Maruca, suddenly envying her ability to put up walls so easily.

Stina had always tried to put walls of a more metaphorical kind up between her and anyone who tried to be her friend, but she knew her own heart. Deep down, she wanted to be loved.

Maruca was nudging her arm now. “Hey,” she said quietly. “What’s wrong? Just tell me. I know we haven’t known each other for that long, but I wanna help-”

“That’s the problem,” Stina managed, her voice cracking a little. She swallowed a sob and forced herself to look at her. “I- we really haven’t been friends for that long. I haven’t been friends with- with anyone for very long and I- Ugh.” She put her head in her hands, finding herself unable to meet Maruca’s eyes. The tears were getting harder to fight. She needed to leave-

“Hey, Stina, what’s wrong?”

Great. Now Sophie was rushing to her side, with Fitz, Biana, and the rest following, all so concerned.

“I-”

Stina’s brain was slowly being overwhelmed. The lump in her throat kept rising. Oh, God, she thought, I’m not gonna cry. I’m not gonna cry. I’m not gonna cry.

Linh put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Stina,” she said quietly, “Just tell us what’s wrong. We can talk about it- I know we’re not super close, but-”

There it was. She wasn’t close with anyone. She never was. Stina was alone. And she’d been so crude to these sweet people for no reason. She didn’t deserve friends. She shook her head violently, tears making their way down her cheeks, and turned and ran out the door, her face buried in her shawl.

The clock had long struck twelve by then, and the night sky was speckled with stars, but Stina’s vision was too blurry for her to see them, so she just fished her Pathfinder out of her jacket and turned the setting to Sterling Gables.

As she held up the shiny stick, though, she stiffened, suddenly thinking of the day Sophie had leaped harriedly to her house, pregnant alicorn behind her, and begged her and her mom to help Silveny as she went into early labor.

Stina remembered the panic in Sophie’s voice, the hesitant looks they had shared, and the way Sophie and Fitz had rejoiced when the babies were reported to be healthy, Fitz scooping Sophie up into his arms and spinning her around so gleefully, like she was always meant to revolve around him, and how Stina hadn’t been a part of it.

She’d saved those babies. She’d helped reset the Timeline To Extinction. And she’d gotten a Regency for it. But that didn’t mean she and Sophie had gotten any closer. No. They never had.

Was Stina ever going to be important to anyone?

Her eyes were squeezed shut as she tried to make herself feel nothing instead of the crushing pain that was quickly consuming her.

It wasn’t until Wylie’s soft, deep voice breached her senses that she realized she’d slunk down against the Panakes, huddled in a heap against the strong trunk.

“Stina,” he said gently, “You just left. Don’t scare us like that. What is it?”

She opened her eyes, then immediately closed them again, finding herself unable to look him in the eye. She shook her head quickly and hid her head in her lap. A selection of voices all filled with concern piped up, surrounding her, filling her brain.

She eventually managed a soft, meek “I don’t belong here.”

Silence.

Then, Sophie.

“Stina, what do you mean you don’t belong here? I invited you. I want you here.”

Stina shook her head again. It had become a knee-jerk reaction to anyone telling her they appreciated her.

“I- No. No. I just-”

She looked up again at everyone’s worried faces and forced herself to explain, “We- We’re not- close. Not like all of you are with each other. I’m just- I’m not important enough.”

She didn’t have any trouble saying that. It was what she had always believed. She smiled sadly, took a deep breath and continued.

“I’m not really a part of your group. I- I’d love to be- I really like all of you- but… I always feel like people only ever include me because they feel sorry for me. I don’t want to make you feel like you have to spend time with me.”

She said nothing, then grabbed her Pathfinder. “I’ll leave now.” What else was there to say?

“Stina, no,” said Biana suddenly, taking her hand. “That’s never been the case. You know that, right? We spend time with you because we like you, and we think you’re a really good person.”

Stina looked at her earnest face and tried to make herself believe those words. She shook her head again, instinctively, a little slower this time.

Sophie stepped closer to her. “Yeah, Stina, why would you think that?”

“Yeah, c’mon,”, “Don’t say that,”, “That’s not true,” they all started, surrounding her.

“You helped reset the Timeline to Extinction!” Fitz jumped in. “You’ve never been worthless! I mean, sure, we got off on the wrong foot, but…” He looked around. “No one here hates you. No one here’s pitying you.”

“We want you here, Stina,” Linh insisted, wrapping an arm around Stina’s shoulder. “Never forget that. We love you, and you’re our friend.”

Stina short-circuited. I’m their friend, she thought, hardly believing it. She looked from face to caring face, and couldn’t feel any pity or annoyance from Linh’s arm or Biana’s hand.

Interesting. She was an Empath, and yet this whole time she’d been blind to her own friends’ feelings. Perhaps because…

“...I’ve- never really had… a real friend,” she finished out loud, speaking softly so as not to jinx it.

Sophie smiled. “Well, now you have…”

She looked around and did a rapid headcount.

“...Nine,” she finished. “And we’re not the only people who care about you, Stina. You’d better believe that.”

Then, something happened that made Stina break down in tears again.

Sophie grabbed her and hugged her tight, as if she’d never let her go, and just as Stina wrapped her arms around Sophie in return, Keefe joined in the hug, then Fitz, then Linh- even short, fiery Marella who Stina had been so cruel to in their early school years- and before she knew it, she was wrapped in a cocoon of warmth, surrounded completely by love that she could feel coming off of them in waves.

Her friends.

She began to sob again, directly into Sophie’s shoulder. Stina had never been this warm, not even on the sunniest days back home.

The stars shone so brightly that night, Stina forgot about the darkness.

[cowboypossume]

so i reread keeper of the lost cities and here’s my fresh input:

a note before we begin: you know how people fake throw up at things on tik tok? this book is the reason i now unironically do that.

dex and fitz really have the enemies to lovers troupe going for them and i’m ok with it. i really am.

so do sophie and biana at the beginning but it fizzes out so a better description is enimies to friends to lovers

marhella and stina give me such power top energy i cannot express how much i think that contributes to people not liking them

speaking of stina i wish sophie didn’t just immediately hop onto the bandwagon of “oh she’s evil” without investing further, especially with how much she is written as a ‘good’ person (which i can and will defend to the day i die that good people don’t exist but that’s for a different day).

there’s way too much heteronormativity and Patriarchical Ideas mushed into the book. like three hole pages of a 488 page book of teenagers being like “oooooo girls like guys and guys like girls” only for della to join in. not to mention the amount of times keefe is the reason for those ideas because he’s teasing like “oh fitz has a girlfriend”

keefe and fitz didn’t have as many bonding moments™️ in this book as i remember, but they stil know each other really well, have comfortability around each other, and would make a 10/10 best friends to lovers troupe.

oh my god s o many crushes i swear. like two teenagers of the opposite gender really can’t not like each other apperantly

i miss read a line and really thought there was cannon sexism for me to do a whole ass rant about in the notes part of my analyzation but n o p e

but we do have classism, sexist stereotypes, and the fact that there’s been SO many characters who’ve spoken and ✨🌺far too many of them are white🌺✨

oh also: no ones disabled. which annoys me because their society is described as ‘euptopic’ almost implying that it’s something that makes people problematic, which,,,, no

ok a side note on the society, i understand that the story’s message (kinda) is that things that seem perfect are probably deeply flawed, but something tergan said stuck with me. on a page i can’t remember at the moment he says something like “[the black swan exists] in a society that doesn’t have rebels”, which it suck with me bc that’s boarderline dystopic if it’s not there already. it’s one thing for laws not to be broken, but when you think your society is so perfect despite it having obvious flaws and you think that no one rebels, then i really hate to break it to you, you have a massive rebellion about to occur; it’s just scented as foul under your resplendent nose.

please stop flirting. i get its part of teenagers being teens but i swear if i read “s/he realeased a breath” or “their heart fluttered” or literally ANYTHING like that god no.

yall. i missed dex. he actually has more role in this book than ‘you can gadget and we need one’ and oh boy i really missed him. he’s a BEAN and deserves better.

hole’s said everyone deserves better and i absolutely agree so we’re adding that note here.

if you do what i did and read this book out loud to one of your best friends who has no clue anything about this weird fandom and give fitz a really deep voice for no reason it’s comdy GOLD.

i really think i’m reading too much into this point but iggy seems,,,, symbolic to me?

like ok with humans, sophie didn’t ‘fit in’, right? like she grew up hearing things like “why can’t you be normal like your sister” (which i can do a whole other rant about how that will affect her for the rest of her life just a s k)

not to mention looking really different from her family and graduating high school at age twelve 

but you know who never judged her?

m a r t y

so anyway sophie meets this teal-eyed, movie star smiled wonder boy who takes away her entire knowledge of everything she’s known while taking away her family too

and it turns out even in a place of weirdos she still manages to be the exception to everything

and she doesn’t have the comfort to hear what people are really thinking about her anymore (which as i said before say the word and i’ll deadass write a whole speech about how everything she heard will completely fuck up every relationship she has) which unfortunately means that she grew used to confirming people didn’t like her but now she doesn’t have that

she has to adapt to this new space and feel like she’s always felt, like an outcast in a place that was accepting, but yet again, she the exception to everything

but about halfway through the book she starts to become more comfortable around grady and edaline and that’s when iggy comes in

she finds him while cleaning garbage, and grady compliments her. they have a bonding moment and it’s because of this t h i n g. and then sophie actually feels proud not only does she take up a room, but she did something

and her new parents are proud of her

so she finally feels like she BELONGS because she helped out at the place where she lives/they work

to me it seems iggy is kinda a manifesto of the world building and character development that happens in this book

i think the plot/character arc is fixated a little too much on how different sophie is. like, i get it, she’s exception to everything, but the plot really didn’t need her to be that quirky. yes, she’s different, but there’s a lot more to the plot and her character than how different she is.

also, i had to reread pages a lot bc i needed an exact paragraph number and,,,, it’s really paced like a fanfic

some questions i have about the society is:

it’s established that they use books, physical papers, etc., and the only thing i remember about trees is the speech alden gave her about how she doesn’t know the name of their most popular tree, and the fact that people become trees when they die. even then i don’t think the second one is in this book. never o n c e do i remember something about planting trees that aren’t dead elf’s, so do they feel the affects of deforestation and that jazz?? like if they use trees, will they run out of them? can they??? and do they use the coffins of elf’s for paper??

this is more of a rant than a question, but here it goes anyway. in foxfire, students have a testing system very similar to the one in america: a huge test at the end of the year determines the future of a student. that in of itself doesn’t sound too drastic, right? well,,,,, not necessarily. several studies have shown that tests in general, but especially these types, don’t work. despite how good or bad of a teacher i think my past and current teachers have been, every single one of them hates this system that we have in place. they know it’s an unfair assessment that does it’s damnist to make you fail, and they’re trying so hard to denounce it. however, that doesn’t happen at all in the lost cities. in fact, most of the teachers pride themselves on failing students. so if elf’s are in such an advanced society, why do tests still exist? especially in an environment where the consequences are far greater than just staying back a grade. 

so sophie’s figuring out that major problems exist in the world the elf’s created, right? i wonder if more society structured problems exist more than ‘oh bad people do things and the law justifies which is what’. like, as i’ve previously stated, there’s sexist stereotypes presented (like girls like dresses and guys don’t), but does sexism still exist? does racism exist? it’s established that poverty isn’t a thing because of the fund elf’s have at birth and their limited usage of money (which if you understand please explain bc i don’t really get how they buy stuff but still don’t use money) but if someone gets shipped off to exile, do they lose their money? is it possible for elf’s to starve to death because they can’t afford food? do they pay for food?? if they did starve who would they call? because someone on this website, who’s post i tried to find but i couldn’t so if y’all know what i’m talking about please link it, brought up a good point that elwin is a school physician, he shouldn’t be dealing with the near-death experiences sophie has, so who would they turn to? especially if they don’t have access to foxfire because they got exciled??

is therapy a thing in this world? sophie and dex could really benefit from it, yet mental health has only been brought up when someone went insane, which REALLY shows how little they think about it.

that perfectly transitions into my next point: sophie and dex’s trauma. i really don’t get the vibe that there was much thought going into their kidnapping, other than sophie needed something to trigger her inflecting ability and establish the black swan are on the good side, which really sucks because wow trauma doesn’t happen lightly. and the fact that it happened seems rushed to me, but i’ll come back to that. but anyway, their trauma doesn’t get developed that deeply in this book because it wasn’t given the space to. they were beaten, tortured, starved, gagged, and who even knows what else for t e n d a y s, only for them to find them again, repeat the process, but someone saves them and dumps them into an illegal city and they both nearly die from dehydration, coldness, and lack of concentration, and you’re telling me after three days of conscious of bed rest sophie wants to get her failing out of school over with? ma’am, it takes more time than that to adjust to THAT alone, not to mention the realization that “hey your entire life is fake because people genetically altered you to be their weapon in a war so much bigger than yourself” that was recently dumped on her. like,,,, you really expect me to think that three days is what made her feel prepared and CONFIDENT? no sir. i don’t buy it.

coming back to it being rushed: the book starts out slow and then really hits the ground running and doesn’t stop. so much more stuff happens in the second half of the book than the first and it never gets fully developed it feels like. in the first half sophie moves away but gets a new family and struggles a bit but adapts, fires maybe but hey don’t worry about it, dex hates fitz, fitz is ✨d r e a m y ✨ but our main girl doesn’t like him like that, right?, stina’s a bitch, and sophie is a quirky girl and telepath but can’t tell anyone. pretty basic stuff, not too plot intensive. the second half though: sophie almost fails her midterms but doesn’t, grady and elaine want to unadopt her (which that’s never really explained as to why they do that but ok) fires exist in san degio but they’re fine but they’re actually a rebel elf so..., sophie accidentally breaks a law but it was an accident so it’s fine, update on the fires: sophie burns herself trying to get the evidence that it’s a rebel elf and it works, she’s the moon lark and basically a weapon bc no one knows her well enough to evaluate her safety, sophie and dex get kidnapped but fitz can now transmit to her and she has two new abilities so it’s all good, trauma doesn’t exist except for nightmare you can fix with sedatives, sophie doesn’t fail out of school, and yayyy her family doesn’t want her remove their adoption. there’s probably a lot more that i missed, it’s just that’s a LOT of stuff crammed into a little bit further than the second half of the book that really could have been devolped or explore further instead of forcing into less than 244 pages, ya know?

fitz’s eyes are mentioned seven times, the first time being on page TWO of the novel

his smile is mentioned three times

alden says “no reason to worry” five times, he writes it once, and sophie points out he says it a lot so he chances it slightly to something like ‘don’t stress about it’ so i didn’t count those though i should have

speaking of alden, in this book he’s absolutely creepy, but something that stands out to me is how much he calls sophie girl. i didn’t count it, but he said “that’s a good girl” to sophie too many times for it to be normal especially when you consider how he doesn’t do it to anyone else.

i kinda forgot i was annotating for sophie’s anxious habit of pulling out her eyelashes so i got she did it twice, but i highly doubt that number

but i will keep adding to this when i actually do the words with my annotations.

[stina-is-a-punk-rocker]

disney’s ‘the hunchback of notre dame’, early 2000s kid nostalgia, and other midnight musings

“What the fuck, Stina? I thought this was a blog for book reviews!” you say.

“Books, amongst other things. Hence the -ish suffix,” I say. “And all my mediocre ‘reviews’ are hit-or-miss in terms of engagement, so I’m pretty much free to post whatever the fuck I want.”

I toss my head. My hair whacks me in the face.

The first time I watched Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame was been circa 2006, in the ‘movie room’ of my preschool, huddled around a CRT TV with the rest of my five-year-old classmates. Not much about the film particularly stood out to me at the age.

Fast-forward fifteen years later; I’m cooped up in quarantine, hundreds of thousands of miles away from that first viewing. I’m living my best life, rejoicing in my introverted tendencies and having a laugh at the expense of all the suffering extroverts. I haven’t moved from my bed all day, except for the bare necessities, and I’m bingeing YouTube videos. All is well.

I discovered Lindsay Ellis’s channel quite recently- embarrassingly enough, through her videos on Omegaverse and the whole Addison Cain fiasco. I stumbled down the rabbit-hole of her channel, and here I am, a few dozen videos later, and I find her one on this film.

Which, of course, led me to want to re-watch the film, with the eyes and mind (supposedly) of an adult. And it went far beyond and above my expectations.

The film is dark, much darker than the average Disney film of today- not just thematically, but the graphics too. Except for the first parts with the Festival of Fools and the last scene, the rest seems to have a dark filter put over it all. Obviously, given its themes (I’m pulling these out of my arse; I’m a STEM major and I have zero to no knowledge about film) of freedom and equality, acceptance of those different from us, corruption and lust- all that good shit, in other words- you can’t exactly have sunshine and rainbows. But it’s such a stark contrast from what I’ve been accustomed to from Disney; Frozen has Hans about to decapitate Elsa, but the background remains bright and light; Simba sobbing next to Mufasa’s body in The Lion King is heart-wrenching, but a few scenes later, we have an anthropomorphic meerkat-boar duo singing about eating bugs and farting and all that classy stuff, so it’s not as traumatizing.

The themes are a lot more on-the-nose than a lot of other kids’ movies (forgive me if I err, I am aged and forgetful)- cue la Esmeralda saying, “What do they have against people who are different, anyway?”- you get what’s essentially the same ‘accept others regardless of their differences’, ‘prejudice is bad’ morals from, say, Zootopia, but having given the main characters fursuits makes it less obvious than in this movie.

(Or maybe I’m just a dumbass. I have no elaborate notes for this; I’m high on sugar and deprived of sleep so I might be spewing bullshit.)

Admittedly, the resolution is a bit… unrealistic. The citizens of Paris = sheep, essentially; they go from throwing fruit in Quasimodo’s face because the guards started it, to helping defeat them. Maybe there’s something about mob mentality in there, but I find it hard to believe that people who showed up to watch Esmeralda burn to death were suddenly totally cool with not getting what they didn’t pay for. But then again, this is a Disney movie, and you can’t make kids too cynical too early on. Let them have their innocence and ‘people will be with the heroes in times of peril because humanity is inherently good!’ before they realize that humanity kinda fuckin’ sucks.

The characters are some of the most human from those I’ve seen in Disney (other honorable mentions: the main characters of The Emperor’s New Groove, Moana, Tangled, Anna from Frozen). Quasimodo’s the main character (lol DUH, will I ever say anything not obvious?), and he’s so lovable, but not without flaws- he’s biased against gypsies in the beginning because Frollo’s the literal scum of the earth. To borrow from the K-pop fans’ dictionary: UwU he’s so pure!

Esmeralda sparks a bit of controversy because she’s another POC leading lady from a Disney film of the 90’s (a list including Jasmine, and, sigh- Pocahontas) who’s markedly more sexualized than the white Disney princesses. It’s not something I particularly noticed nor cared about until I saw it being brought up- I mean, the woman shows a bit of cleavage and then dances for a couple of seconds- but. I’m just putting that out there.

She’s an empowering heroine without having to belt in in your face (not me making a dig at Naomi Scott’s Jasmine from the Aladdin live action film), and I also love how her role in taking down the Big Bad doesn’t have to do with her ‘power of seduction’ (the scene in the animated Aladdin film where Jasmine kissed Jafar truly traumatized me as a kid).

Phoebus is… well, he exists. Kind of a Regulus Black archetype, but not exactly. The guy on the bad side who turns good and all is forgiven. Well, at least it’s not the ‘her love made him a better man’ trope. And he is a good guy. Even if he did spend a considerable amount of his adult years on the side of the bad guys.

Systemic oppression? Nah, it’s one or two corrupt baddies. But again, it’s a Disney film, we need everything to work out for the good guys in the end.

Let’s get the gargoyles out of the way. To reference Lindsay Ellis’s video (she’s a lot smarter than I am and breaks this down better than I ever could): yes, the comedy’s oft ill-timed and inappropriate… for an adult audience. And the primary demographic of Disney films, especially princess ones (obviously Esmeralda isn’t a princess, nor does she marry into royalty, nor is she included in the group of princesses in the dumpster fire that is Ralph Breaks the Internet, but I had a book imaginatively titled ‘Disney Princess Stories’ as a kid that included Esmeralda’s story alongside Belle’s and Ariel’s, so I’m calling her a princess), are kids. And kids love fart jokes.

Additionally, I have a theory-that-is-not-really-a-theory-but-a-pretty-obvious-thing-that-happens that the gargoyles are figments of Quasimodo’s imagination, and the, at times crass and ridiculous things they say are just the voices in Quasimodo’s head (THIS IS OBVIOUS, STINA, YOU HAVEN’T STUMBLED ACROSS A STARTLING NEW REVELATION); maybe what he imagines normal townspeople to act like.

And then we have Judge Judy Chrissy Teigen Frollo. This dude is the embodiment of pure evil. He’s bigoted and rapey and abusive and one of Disney’s most successful villains- even better than Mother Gothel, who previously held the crown. It’s rare that a villain genuinely terrifies me, especially a cartoon one. Frollo, unlike your typical fairytale antagonist who wants power/fame/fortune/to overthrow Olympus, is far more sinister; driven from deep-rooted hatred instead of plain greed. He’s so much closer to people in positions of power and authority even in the modern world, and that element of reality makes him so much better as an antagonist instead of a literal sheep who hates carnivores (seriously, Disney, enough with the twist villains- they’re not working out).

Also, Hellfire slaps. In fact, the entire soundtrack does.

Speaking about Hellfire, I love the contrast between that and Heaven’s Light; how Esmeralda is viewed by Frollo (an object to possess, “Destroy Esmeralda, and let her taste the fires of hell; or else, let her be mine and mine alone”) as opposed to Quasimodo (someone with free will, “I dare to dream that she might even care for me”).

Another argument brought up, and admittedly one I had as a child was, ‘but if the whole point of the movie is acceptance and love as opposed to lust, why didn’t Quasimodo get the girl?’ Which, years later, I realize is an extremely misogynistic way to look at it. As Princess Jasmine said four years before The Hunchback was released, she is not a prize to be won. Quasimodo is Frollo’s antithesis; he lets Esmeralda choose, and she chose Phoebus. And Quasimodo accepted that, because he is good and kind and sweet and loving. Severus Snape, take note.

On a sidenote, I’m always kind of caught out of left field when the plot in films moves really fast- I’m really not a movie-watching type; I prefer to read, and books usually indicate how much time passes from one main plot point to another, and there are little slice-of-life, filler parts that tie in to character development and moving the plot forward, but at a snail’s pace. So, whenever I’m watching a movie and it’s one important event after another, I usually haven’t had enough of a refractory period to process it.

Let’s pretend that I segued smoothly into the next part of this (already tedious and long drawn out) review.

The Hunchback is the darkest film I’ve ever seen come out from Disney. Re-watching it as an adult made me pause every so often and wonder why the hell I wasn’t traumatized by it as a kid. I mean, the whole movie kicks off with Frollo about to throw an infant down a well. And then there’s that horrifying shot of the stone renditions of the Israelite kings on the church walls. Frollo falls to his death into fire. I mean, good riddance, but still. I guess it’s because the kids’ shows of today are awfully censored and polished so kids don’t have nightmares forevermore.

Update: tried to watch The Hunchback of Notre Dame 2. Exited just as fast as I clicked on it. Disney sequels really ain’t shit (yes, I’m looking at you, Frozen 2).

[maybankiara]

jiara + jane austen? YES PLEASE 🙏🏻🥰

ok stina i know eXACTLY which quote you’re talking about however!! i shall be doing a full fic based on it and for now you get another jane austen quote with an entirely different concept!! (this one is partly inspired by the jiara gc’s talk of there being a debutante ball whoop)

this also ended up being basically a mini fic of its own but just!! ignore the length!! i adore the concept too much to let it go!!

to be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.

‘i can teach you.’

the moment these four words fall off kiara’s lips, jj’s brain does a recap of everything that lead to this particular one. 

someone pranking him by putting his name up for the school’s talent show. as a dancer.

jj absolutely freaking out, losing it, because he’s in it and he can’t take his name off the list. 

jj deciding to use the situation to his advantage, grabbing that two thousand bucks, hopefully. 

jj telling the pogues about needing a dance teacher, in that case. 

and now, kiara offering to be one. 

jj clears his throat, dragging himself out of the momentary state of shock that all the other pogues seem to be in, too. ‘i’m sorry, you can dance?’

‘yeah! it’s been a while but...’ kiara stretches and raises her leg above her head, feeling all too smug with herself. ‘i’ve still got it, i think.’

‘why?’ 

‘why what?’

‘why do you know how to dance.’

kiara laughs, going back to sit next to him on the couch. ‘i had to learn ballroom dancing for the debutante ball, but i learnt it for years. to get it my way, i would only go if my mum paid for some contemporary dance classes, too, and i ended up going for years.’

jj finds himself too shocked to react. years of knowing kiara are currently being rewritten in his brain, every little thing that he just thought she was naturally stretchy and bendy being a product of years of training. 

in front of them, pope’s jaw is nearly on the floor. ‘how come we didn’t know it?’

she shrugs. ‘you never asked.’

‘well,’ says john b, ‘that’s just unfair!’

kiara shrugs again, then glances at jj. ‘so, maybank? we got a deal?’

jj nods. 

‘we’re entering the competition together.’

--

‘jj, you’ve gotta feel the music!’

‘i’m trying!’

kiara huffs, shakes her arms. ‘this is making me feel like jenna dewan and you’re channing tatum before he lets himself dance.’

‘i have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘step up.’ at his blank stare, she gasps, not even faking it. ‘you’ve never seen step up?’

long story short, they end up watching step up that night. jj finally understands how he is like channing -- and before he realises it’s a romantic movie, and not just about two people dancing, he thinks how much the main characters remind him of kiara and himself. 

neither of them comment on the main characters kissing, even though they usually do. 

when they go back into the studio (the one in kiara’s house), jj tries to be a little more like channing at the end instead of channing at the beginning. 

kiara tells him he’s doing good. (jj ignores how that makes him feel.)

--

‘i hate dancing,’ jj says. ‘i can’t follow the music, i can’t find my own rhythm, i can’t do anything without you.’

kiara sits down on the floor next to him, gentle fingers exploring his throbbing ankle. ‘it’s okay to mess up, jj. it doesn’t mean you’re a bad dancer.’

jj himself doesn’t know what he says, but the smile kiara gives him makes the ache lessen. her fingers don’t leave his ankle, but he tries not to think about it. 

‘you have rhythm. and you’re a lot better at dancing that i would’ve expected you to be.’

‘because of you.’

she shakes her head. ‘we just make a really good team.’

the statement lingers, and goes beyond just dancing -- they both know it. they both feel it. 

when he lifts her in the air, it’s as if she’s floating. when her back is pressed against his chest, nothing in the world matters. when her body is arched and she’s in his arms, he wants to kiss her. 

like, a lot. 

‘okay,’ he says, ‘maybe i don’t hate dancing.’

--

the night before the show, things are different. neither of them feel like training, so they sit in kiara’s studio instead, munching on homemade fries her dad brought them. 

‘i’ll miss this,’ jj says. his voice is quiet and wavering, and he evades her eyes. ‘our little training sessions.’

‘dancing,’ she corrects him. ‘we don’t have to stop, if you don’t want to.’

‘isn’t that embarrassing?’

‘what?’

‘that i like dancing.’

she laughs, and jj notices she laughs with her whole body -- her head rolls back and she leands back, too, elbows going out like she’s about to fly (and maybe she is). ‘that’s dumb, jj. anyone can like dancing.’

‘but i like the stupid shit. like lifting you up. making you look like flying.’

‘that’s not stupid,’ she tells him, almost shy. ‘it’s lovely.’

she never says things like “lovely”. she never looks at him like this. 

jj looks away, back at his fries. when they’re finished, and he should leave because it’s getting late, their song starts to play. he turns around to see kiara standing in the middle of the studio, waiting for him to place his hand on her waist and pull her close to the rhythm of the music, same as they’ve practiced hundreds of times. 

he does that. but it’s night and the clouds are hiding the stars, lights dimmed because they turned half of them off thinking they weren’t going to dance, and when jj looks into kiara’s eyes as he dips her, he sees where all the stars have gone.

something changes that night. it’s changed long ago, but it solidifies right then and there.

--

they don’t win, but they place second, and the reward for that is five hundred bucks. 

enough. enough to rub it on the noses of those who signed him up for this. he does it by wrapping his arms around kiara’s middle, pulling her up into a twirl with ease, because things like that aren’t a lot of effort anymore. 

they’re on the stage. and jj looks into her eyes, sees those same stars, and decides to say fuck it to everyone around. 

he kisses her. 

she kisses him back. 

jj fell in love with dancing because he fell in love with her.

[kotlc-oneshots]

Believing (Blind!Keefe AU pt 2)

Word count - 3551

A lot of soliditary between keefe and my other bbys

God I can’t wait to write from Tams perspective, next chapter y’all!

Anyways I hope you like it and that it’s not Bad™️ considering how tired I am

~*~*~*

Pt two

Keefe

The next morning, I wake up and go through my simplistic routine again. Get dressed, brush teeth, message Fitz, eat. When I hear the honking of Fitz car outside, I carefully grab my cane and walk out the doors, tapping my way yard and to the street.

“How goes it?” Fitz’ voice calls, and a smile splits across my face at the inside joke.

“I don’t know,” I reply, laughing at the memory it brings. “I can’t see.” Fitz laughs in response.

“You’re sitting up front today; Biana took Sophie to get coffee early, so it’s just us boys.”

“Dex sat in the back?” I questioned, as he normally was quick to jump on shotgun. I reach the car and pop the door open, and am greeted by the familiar smell of Fitz’s car.

“More like laid in the back,” Dex pipes up, while I thud my bag to the ground and shut the door. I shake my head.

“You’re supposed to be the responsible one, Dex. Shame on you.” I chide, and Fitz peels away from the house. I roll my eyes and laugh; they’re so dumb. We’re so dumb. And I’m grateful for it.

“We're here—part two!” Fitz exclaims in the seat next to me. “Well, for half of my classes this’ll be my first day. I missed a lot yesterday—freshman presentations are ass,” he grumbles as he parks the car. I chuckle and shake my head.

“Your fault, man,” I taunt him, and he scoffs as a response. “Hey Dexxxxx… wanna walk me to class?” I say, fumbling around in the back, trying to hit him.

“Hmrrghh. Yeah.” I hear him shift around, and we step out of the car together.

As soon as we're both out, Fitz locks the car. “See y’all later!” he calls, jogging off- likely to some lifting or meeting or something. I chuckle; whenever I think of Fitz, I imagine he’s either very ugly, or really attractive. From what I heard, it’s the latter—he's the epitome of perfection to the entire school, and many other schools as well. I, however, know better—he’s a complete and utter dumbass. He once chugged half a gallon of milk on a dare, and another time got himself locked in a dog kennel—and that list can go on. I don’t quite understand how he keeps the guise of perfection and stability when he’s oh-so-clearly not. Him running off to a meeting or club isn’t a surprise, but it’s hard to imagine, knowing what he’s actually like.

“How the hell does that man manage all that shit?” Dex grumbles, also acknowledging that Fitz is definitely insane. I shake my head.

“A very, very large amount of crack,” I state solemnly, as if this is a sad, but true fact. Dex laughs loudly.

“I don’t doubt it. Better not let his coach find out,” He replies, just as sincerely. “What room number are you in, by the way?” He asks, just as I detect the curb with my cane. Gently stepping up, I tell him. “Nice—we aren’t that far from each other- you’re going straight there, right?” he asks, and I nod.

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask you—is there anything new with the Stina situation?” I bring up the topic gently—Stina Heks was Dex’s early on bully. Before Sophie brought Dex into the group halfway through their Freshman year, she would nag on him relentlessly—he was attending the school on a partial scholarship, and his family has a bit of bad history of being… odd. His dad runs a small pharmacy, and it’s mostly alternative medicine. She used to take any opportunity she could to point out anything about him that wasn’t strictly ‘normal’. I absolutely love it there with Dex. Mr. Dizznee is the kindest, most loving person ever—a huge contrast to my barely around, statue of a father. Plus, it always smells really nice in the store.

“Oh… well, we have precalc together, but she hasn’t said anything to me. She hasn’t said anything all summer—I feel like she's matured, a bit. Probably.” He sounds fairly put down, and I use his voice to guide me in the direction to wrap him in a one armed hug.

“Sorry I brought it up. But let me know if anything happens,” I say and he chuckles and pushes me away. From those few moments, I can tell he’s almost taller than me—which doesn’t feel right.

“No worries. Let's get you to class,” he says, and I can tell he’s being honest—it doesn’t bother him. Which is good, in my opinion. He’s growing up. Sometimes I feel like such a dad.

We walk into the main doors of the building and make our way down a few hallways. I use my photographic (ha) memory to make my way, but Dex still stays close to me, not letting me bump into kids or trip. I appreciate it, because I don’t have to use my cane—I might not be able to see them, but I can feel the people staring at me when I have it out.

“Well, we're here. We have, like, 15 minutes before class starts, though,” Dex states.

“I know- I always show up early,” I reply. “I mean, the other option is sitting in the cafeteria.” I shrug.

“Well, I might as well go to my class then. Brech told me yesterday I should come in if I had questions- and she assigned a couple starter worksheets. I gotta deal with that.” Even though I can’t see it, I can practically hear his frown.

“No worries,” I tell him, and he gently pats my shoulder before walking off. I pull out my cane, letting it guide me into the still unfamiliar classroom. The milky blobs of color offer little help as to finding a seat, so unfortunately this tends to be necessary.

“Hey! You should sit here.” A familiar voice says from the back corner. I rack my brain—Linh!

“Oh! Hey,” I reply. “Umm, where are you, exactly?” I ask, sounding really cool, I’m sure. I hate needing help.

“Just back here- this chair would be great.” She knocks on what I presume is the chair next to her. I use the sound to guide me, as well as the cane.

“Thank you,” I say, smiling. “You know, it's really hard to find a seat around here. Like, I literally can't see any! Must be budget cuts,” I say, grinning. There's a pause, then a small laugh.

“Some private school. They can't even afford chairs.” I chuckle.

“I mean- where’s the proof that there's even a building. Or classrooms! You gotta see to believe, and I certainly don't see, so…” I trail off and nod seriously. She laughs- I’m grateful. Blind jokes don’t go well with everyone. “Anyways, how are you?” I change the topic with a grin. “Long time no see.” This pulls out another laugh.

“Well, I’m ok. My schedule has been pretty stressful—but other than that, good. I’m still trying to make friends. I didn’t mention it yesterday, but this is my first year at Foxfire,” she says. I nod in acknowledgment.

“So, kinda on your own then? That’s not easy,” I reply, wondering if I should introduce her to the group. She seems nice enough, and, I hate to admit it, but half of being a part of our group is not being a piece of crap about me being blind. And all of us secretly being idiots.

“Well, there’s my brother—we’re twins. But other than that, yeah.” She sighs softly.

“Oh! You have a brother. That’s always nice,” I say.

“Well, yeah. He’s super over-protected. We got sucked into the foster care system, because… of some things, and there was a lot of bad things, which he always felt he had to keep me from. But we found a really great family now! They’re very nice, and actually acknowledge me and Tam’s ability. We’ve always been considered smart, but nobody really cared. They we're just in it for the money. Our new parents, however, have money, which is nice. So when they found out our test scores, they sent us here.” I nod in acknowledgement—Sophie went through some similar things before she got adopted by Grady and Edaline.

“Oh. Well, I’m sorry you’ve been through that,” I say, trying to find the right words. “It’s really good that you’re here now. Even though I’m pretty convinced there isn’t an actual school, I’ve been told that it’s nice.” She laughs at this.

“Yeah, so have I. Oh! I almost forgot. I’m in your stats class. Frer was just being rude the whole period, so I didn’t have a chance to say anything,” Linh says. I grin.

“Nice! Now that I know, you officially have to help me prank him at least once this year.” I tell her, very seriously.

“Oh…I don’t know about that.” she sounds apprehensive.

“I mean, you don’t have to. But I’m going to do it, so you may as well help.”

“I’ll think about it.” She says, and the door opens.

“Oh! Hello, you two. Early again?” A feminine voice—our teacher’s—says.

“You know it,” I tell her, smiling.

“Alright, well. You have a little bit less than five minutes before class starts, so go ahead and continue what you we’re doing.” Based on her tone—the bright, too cheery one that I hear a lot- I can tell she’s a little annoyed. I try not to let that affect me.

“Hey—I’m gonna work on some AP physics stuff,” Linh says, and I can tell she doesn’t really want to talk with the teacher there- even if its casual conversation. I nod, and let my thoughts be my own for the moment.

At least I’m used to it.

*****

Not much happens the next couple of periods—Fitz and I work on English together, and Dex and I use morse code to ‘pass notes’ in AP physics. He’s really good at science (like, really good), so he skipped a year and is in APP2 as a junior. I appreciate it- he’ll be a help for when I actually feel like studying. During Lunch, Dex and I sit at our table and Linh came to sit with us, introducing herself to Dex. In Government, I sit on my own and listened to the online assignments. In Stats, Linh manages to find a spot next to me and helps me out with the worksheet.

I find myself needing to go to the bathroom, so I ask to be excused. On my way there, a familiar voice calls my name.

“Keefe! Hey. Um.”

“Foster! Uh… what’s up?” I ask.

“Oh! Nothing. But, hey, do you think that you could come over tonight? There’s… there’s something I really want to talk to you about.” Just from her voice, I hear she’s slightly frazzled. Nervous.

“Are you ok, Sophie? Is someone bothering you again?” My mind jumps back to when she was first adopted by Grady and Edaline, and all the crap other kids gave her.

“No! It’s not like that. Just, something I wanna talk about. I need advice.” I smile.

“Ah. You need the wise old Keefester to help you out. Well, no worries, m’lady, I will do what I can. You want me to come over?”

“Yeah. I’ll just have Fitz drop both of us off at my place, Biana can ride on her own—sound good?”

“As long as you have food, I’m okay with anything.” She laughs softly.

“Of course. See you.” I hear her walk away, and smile to myself—I think back to when I had feelings for her, and can’t help but think about how they’ve changed- she’s like a younger sister to me now. It’s odd.

I go to the restroom and return to class, thinking about what Sophie might have to tell me that made her that nervous.

Stats class ends (for me), and my minds swimming with Frer’s stupidity as I go to Latin. I get there around when the bell rings to dismiss everyone else, and I find a seat close to the door. People filter out and in the classroom, and then someone speaks.

“Dude! Keefe, I forgot you we're in this class.” Fitz says, and a grin spreads across my face.

“Yeah, you had that Freshman help thing yesterday. You know there’s only one AP Latin 2, dumbass.” I respond, and he chuckles. I hear him put his stuff next to me.

“How was this class yesterday?” He asks, and I shrug.

“We barely did anything. Got a list of vocab and grammar to review.” I tell him, pulling up my bag to get my computer.

“That’s valid. Not gonna lie, I’m glad I missed it.” This makes me laugh.

“Oh, no—Wonderboy didn’t want to go to class? That’s a fuckin abomination.” I reply sarcastically, and the bell rings. I can hear Fitz scoff, but our teacher starts talking so he can’t respond. We get a reading prompt, and I have to go into the hall and listen to it. The teacher doesn’t let Fitz come out and help me, which sucks- but I have to consider the situation. Which also sucks. I hate having to be worked around.

One thing that really bothers me about our teacher, Sam, is she never lets me leave early. So Fitz has to help me through the crowd of people. The kids don’t really acknowledge me, but having so many people around that I can’t see, don’t know, that don’t care sends massive spikes of anxiety through me. Fitz does a really good job at helping me, his steady hand on my shoulder the whole time, making sure we both get through the crowd.

I’m so damn grateful for him sometimes.

We finally manage to get out of the building and to Fitz’s car. He unlocks it, and I climb into his car carefully. I can hear as he types on his phone, likely texting someone.

“How’s shit at home been going?” He asks, somewhat startling me.

“Oh. Well, not much has happened, really,” I admit with a shrug. “He’s been out a lot lately- I don’t have to interact with him much.”

“Good. We’re not gonna let him give you shit this year, got it?” I laugh.

“You’re so overprotective, Fitzy. I can handle my dad.”

“I’m serious, Keefe. None of this is your fault. Especially now with your mom gone… we-”

“I get it, Fitz. I know.” While I do love Fitz with my whole heart, he can be… overbearing. I reach out and search for his shoulder. “I’ll be okay.” I give him (what I assume to be) an award winning smile. “Besides, I got this year in the bag. All my pranks? Planned out to the t. I won’t get in trouble all year, I swear.” Fitz scoffs, but it’s lighthearted and followed by a chuckle.

“All right Keefe. I’m sorry.” He sounds genuine and I lean into him, letting my head rest on his shoulder. He can be a stubborn little shit sometimes, but he’s… a good friend.

“Oh my god, that’s fucking adorable.” The door crashes open and Dex steps inside. “You guys are gross, though.” He adds.

“PDA is not the Foxfire way.” Sophie says, jokingly.

“I will kiss him, right here, right now. Fight me,” Fitz says, joking but aggressive. Protective as ever. I laugh and push away, settling back into my normal seat.

“I think once is enough, isn’t it?” Dex laughs, but there’s something in his voice… I ignore it, and grin.

“Not when I’m involved. Trust me, even Fitz Vacker wants a piece of this.” I say, grinning and indicating myself.

“Not that you would know,” Fitz responds, ruffling my hair.

“Dude, I don’t even have to see to know how incredibly attractive I am,” I inform them.

“No need to argue with that.” Dex chuckles.

“Oh!” Sophie popes up. “I forgot to mention. Keefe’s comin over, could you just drop us both off at my place? I can get him back, Edaline normally doesn’t mind.” I’m actually the only one of the group that lives in town- everyone else lives in the country, because their parents needed or liked having the land.

“That makes it easy for me. Let’s go, brethren.” I don’t know when Fitz started referring to us at that, but I still think it’s hilarious. I snort at his idiocy, and we head off.

“Dex, are you doing debate this year?” I pipe up. I’m EXCITED for debate season.

“Yeah. I’m actually writing some stuff right now, on how to not be a little bitch.” Dex says, laughing.

“Dex, PLEASE. You’d do really good,” I argue. “Just write an oratory on veganism or something!”

“Dude, you’ve been trying this for the past two years- the meetings clash with robotics. Besides, why would I want to right an oratory when you’ve placed first twice now.”

“Not that that mattered,” I contest. “Considering my dad didn’t let me go.”

“Pleeeasseee. For me.”

“FINE. I’ll go to one meeting. Only because there’s no robotics and Sophie’s going. No offense Keefe, but you suck.” I stick my tongue out at him, but grin happily. I’ve been trying to do this for YEARS.

“You guys are such nerds,” Fitz inputs, and I hit his shoulder. “Oh, you know it’s true.” I scoff.

“Says the president of the chess club.” Sophie states, laughing.

“We don’t talk about that.” Fits says, and I feel the car pull to a stop. “We’re here, Sophie. Keefe, you too. Dex- get up here you little shit.”

“Hey. Don’t disrespect my son like that.” Sophie tells, and I hear Dex grumble a bit.

“Fitz, if you’re not busy, wanna do something? Like, I dunno, egg some annoying blondes?” I snort. Dex has learned well.

“Um, yes to the first part, no to the second. That’s a lot of work. Also, aren’t you vegan?”

“Oh! Yeah, that.” Dex says casually. I laugh, and step out and away from the car carefully.

“Have fun, nerds!” Sophie calls as they drive off, and I grin in her direction.

“So, Miss F, what was it you wanted to tell me?” I ask, and I can practically feel the shift in her mood.

“Oh. Um. Yeah. Come inside?” I nod, and she guides me to the doors.

“Sounds serious,” I tell her.

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Just… something that’s been on my mind for the past few months. Especially… I dunno.”

“Wanna go to your room first?”

“Yeah. Um…” I can tell she’s nervous, and likely picking at her eyelashes- what many people have told me to be her nervous tick. We walk over to her room in moderate silence.

“What’s the sitch?” I ask, and Sophie laughs- and replies with the Kim Possible beep. “Seriously though, what’s on your mind. Unless you wanted me over just to admire how incredibly handsome I happen to be.”

“Well, um, no… uh.” She sighs. I search around for a chair and sit down.

“Hey. It’s okay. Whatever it is, I’m here for you.

“Well, I. I think. I’m gay, I think. Like, maybe not full gay, but pretty gay. Like, girls are cool gay. Really cool. But maybe not, I don’t? Know If I’m Actually Gay Gay. Maybe I’m just thinking and stuff, but I’m probably gay? I think? I don-”

“Sophie. Hey. It’s okay.” I interrupt, to keep her from going insane. “Take a few deep breaths.” I hear her do so. “You know none of us will judge you. Right?”

“Yeah. Yeah. I guess, I just don’t want to make a big deal of it.”

“I get it. I’m glad you told me, though.” I smile at her warmly.

“Well. That’s all I really wanted to tell you. I guess.”

“Wanna play Smash?”

“Yeah.”

****

That night I get home relatively late- Sophie feeds me and we play video games for quite a while. We didn’t talk about what she told me- I want to respect her space.

“Where have you been?” My father, voice stern, says. I haven’t even closed the door yet.

“Sophie’s.” I respond, automatically pulling on a calm expression and heightening my posture. I shut the door softly.

“And what, may I ask, were you doing?” His voice is condescending.

“We were playing video games and I lost track of time- I’m sorry.” He scoffs.

“I’m sure. Do you have any homework?” There's the implied ‘that you didn’t do’ at the end.

“Not really. I have some reading I can do, though.” I admit. I’ve learned that lying to my father doesn’t work. Ever.

“You better get on that.” He sneers, and I try to keep my expression respectful and blank.

“Of course. I’m sorry.” I say, and walk in the direction of my bedroom. “Debate starts Thursday, by the way.”

“Convenient. The day that I have off.” He scoffs back.

“I’m sorry dad. Do you want me to come home? They won’t mind if I miss the first meeting.” I try not to yell, or say anything that will anger him.

“I don’t care. Go finish your reading.” He says. I can tell that he’s not lying- he doesn’t care.

I bite my tongue and nod. Then I go finish my reading.

[svtellify]

KOTLC: Flashback Review [WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD]

Keeper of the Lost Cities: Flashback by Shannon Messenger ★★☆☆☆

That little blurb/intro in the beginning? Hmmm, intense. Like, way more directly and upfront intense than the rest of the series has been, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad thing.

Alvar’s sentencing was a really interesting choice, but I feel like bringing in all the Vackers was a little unnecessary. There were just too many opinions to follow, and it did make Fallon Vacker a little less of the interesting enigma that he previously was.

Fitz’s outburst wasn’t totally uncalled for, but he could have definitely dialed it back. I mean, he wasn’t as close to Alvar as Biana was, and his younger sister wasn’t reacting as explosively. This does show that Fitz is consistent (his outburst in Exile), but it did feel a little repetitive when he kept yelling out about how much he hated Alvar. We get it dude, Alvar sucks. But so do Lady Gisela, Quan Song, and Mai Song. And let’s not forget that Wylie’s just scarred, after what happened to Prentice and his mom.

Whom the heck is Luzia Vacker? Why bring in another Vacker only to make them relevant for a little bit and then take them out again? We, as a fandom, already went through that with Kenric, and trust be we’re all still sobbing about that. Not to forget Marella, who is suddenly relevant again?

Dex’s technopathic skills. Goodbye everyone else’s abilities, Dex is a genius who is finally, getting some sort of credit, even if it’s from the council, and not his friends, I am desperate and will take it, at this point.

Speaking of Dex, it was nice to see him standing up for himself against Alvar.

And Fitz is mad again, and yelling at Dex and then Keefe, and then Sophie, quiznak, dude, anger management and a therapist will do you wonders.

Also, why didn’t Sophie stand up for Dex? She did *technically* side with Alvar’s sentencing, she spoke with Keefe and Ro about it. Besides, Dex is her best friend, who was there for her when Fitz and Biana definitely were not. Dex was also her first friend and they’ve been through a lot together.

This would’ve also helped with fixing their relationship a little after the events of Nightfall, and would’ve been a stronger argument for women and men being friends without having to make things romantic. (This can *technically* be said for Fitz or Keefe, but they’ve both been hinted as the possible end games.)

“‘Don’t even get me started on Dex,’ Fitz muttered.

‘I know,’ Biana said quietly. ‘I can’t believe he knew for a week and didn’t tell us.’

Sophie opened her mouth to defend Dex but swallowed back the words. She could tell Fitz and Biana weren’t ready to hear them.

Fitz must’ve noticed, though, because he reeled toward her. ‘Don’t tell me you’re okay with this.’”(Shannon Messenger, Flashback).

This just disappointed me so much, because Biana had finally come so far in getting to know Dex and so had Fitz, but they just couldn’t see any other perspectives.

The little Ro and Keefe bet was super cute. It was nice to see Keefe goofing around again, and Ro’s personality is just so fun.

Alden and Della wanting to get to know their son again? Valid, they are completely valid for that, except for the fact that they seem a little too interested in getting to know Alvar and a little less in oh he was a murdered and he kidnapped my son’s girlfriend and her best friend and tortured them, but he doesn’t even remember now, so that’s okay.

Keefe defending Sophie was cute, as always, but what was that whole thing with “Especially Foster” and the look he and Alden shared? I’m calling shenanigans. Let’s break it down:

Theory: Keefe knows about Fitz’s crush on Sophie and doesn’t want him to hurt her. ( See Exile. )

Easily possible, so easily possible. And this is aside from Keefe just generally defending Sophie regularly.

Theory: Fitz knows about Keefe’s crush on Sophie and he knows that Keefe knows about his crush on Sophie.

Also not that far fetched, they’re best friends and probably talked before Keefe joined the Neverseen.

Theory: Alden asked Keefe to back off.

It would explain the whole look thing but Alden’s never really showed particular interest in that kind of thing. My shipper heart wants to agree with this, but realistically? Probably not true.

Theory: Alden and Keefe are both remembering the events of Exile.

This is probably more likely, considering that Fitz threw a huge tantrum there too and both Alden and Keefe tried to calm him down. This is my best bet about what that whole looking thing was.

Quiznak, who actually believed Alvar when he was whining about being innocent? I have to give it to Fitz, he had a good point about Alvar’s acting being intense. As it turned out, Alvar wasn’t acting, but he did join the Neverseen again. No surprise there.

This was a pretty polarizing event. If you ask me, it didn’t make sense for them to capture Alvar and not gain anything from it or for him to claim innocence for an entire book only to regain his memories and rejoin the villains. The two actions cancelled each other out and left it so that it was as if they’d never captured him in the first place.

Weapons? Uh, quick question, what the heck? Sophie’s spent this entire time ( like six books worth of time ) wanting to be different from the Neverseen, Vespera, and Lady Gisela. She’s even concerned, at one point, that Project Moonlark made her a natural killer, but she just throws all of that out the window and starts up an initiative to fight back?

This seemed really out of character. I don’t know what else to say, especially since elves’ minds can’t handle violence? And Sophie proposed an initiative centered around violence?

What was that entire fight scene? Sophie inflicts, but whoops, there go Fitz, Grizelle and Sandor? Sophie’s outnumbered, so she calls Dex and Wylie? I’m sorry, did we miss something? Wylie wasn’t really a main character prior to Flashback, which is fine, but how is hanging out with Dex all of a sudden?

Side note, Wylie was great, he kicked some Neverseen butt and gave it to them, it was probably one of the better moments in the book.

I feel like we had more of Sophie getting all hot and bothered over Fitz rather than actual plot.

The death of Umber was very anticlimactic, but I have a theory that she’s actually Lady Zillah, Tam’s Shade Mentor. Call it a hunch, Shannon Messenger hasn’t introduced characters to Sophie and/or Mr. Forkle and more of the gang unless they’re important to the plot.

Lady Gisela, Marella, Brant, Magnate Leto, Tiergan, Quentin, Physic/Livy, Amy, Vika, Stina, Luzia, Tarina, Cladfael, Wylie, need I go on?

BUT the majority of the book was just Sophie and Fitz flirting while on bed rest. They spent way too long recovering, and I preferred Nightfall’s way of handling an injury in one half of the love triangle, even if  Keefe’s my favorite character. Nothing happened while they were lying there, which is so unreasonable, because when Keefe was out of the picture, they went to Nightfall, but when Fitz got injured, Sophie insisted on being bedside the entire time?

There was also the matter of Fitz choosing Sophie over his family which, yeah, was kind messed up. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Biana was hurting too. Alden and Della were hurting too. Honestly, Sophie was probably the least affected here, especially considering that she pitied Alvar and believed that he shouldn’t be punished for things he didn’t remember doing.

How was Sophie more injured than Fitz when he needed to be on bed rest and sedated constantly? I know she’s the main character and all, but it’s okay to let the other characters develop too. In that sense, Fitz has had the least development, while Biana was injured and got over it, Keefe lost who he was and is still trying to find himself, Linh got over her fear of her powers, Dex acknowledged his crush on Sophie and got over it, and now Tam is starting to get over his hesitance when it comes to using his powers. Even Stina’s getting over her prejudices, but no such development from Fitz.

He’s still focused on being cognates and solely that, but he has so much more potential! He might not be my favorite character, but I know there’s more to him than “I’m in love with Sophie now,” and “I want to be Cognates” and “I hate Alvar, ra-ra, now I’m mad.”

I was hoping to see more development especially since the book seemed to focus on Fitz so much, but I guess not.

Sophie has a bodyguard from every single intelligent species? There was a tumblr post that seemed to describe this perfectly, about how by the end of the series the entire Keeper crew will have at least 98127354392 bodyguards.

Not going to lie, that’s a bit extreme. Five bodyguards? One from each species?

It’s also definitely not helping the idea that all of the species are equal, it makes the elves seem far more superior, and that’s not in Sophie or the Black Swan’s favor. In my opinion, that was unnecessary. ( Especially Bo, but that’s only because he was a huge jerk. )

Whenever Keefe was there, it seemed like everyone was hating on him or he was moping. There’s more to his character than the screw-up troublemaker, hasn’t he proved himself yet?

The monocle pendant was a mistake, and I’ll say that for the people in the back. He didn’t give it to her so they could track her on purpose. The poor boy’s smitten with her, he would never do that. He just didn’t think it through, and it resulted in this.

“...and then I wasn’t even there to help you fight, because I promised Alden . . .’

‘Promised Alden what?’ Sophie asked, glancing between the two of them.

Keefe shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter’”(Shannon Messenger, Flashback).

Guys, I have no idea what’s going on here, but I really don’t like it. They shouldn’t be sidelining the one person who worked with the Neverseen.

Shadowflux. The seemingly unnecessary introduction to an already complex plot. Thoughts:

Unnecessary. The plot was already complex enough, and it didn’t even touch on the Lodesar Initiative that two books spent worrying about. Not to mention it didn’t help connect the title to the plot in any way either.

Not to mention the fact it focused on the echoes way more than the rest of the plot, which has been built up for so long now.

There were barely any interactions with the whole gang, or really any other characters other than Fitz. We didn’t even get much time with Edaline and Grady, who bonded with Sophie in Nightfall and every book prior to Flashback.

“‘Cool. Now how about you try that again with the truth?’”(Shannon Messenger, Flashback). This was really cute, and honestly, I was so glad that they brought Keefe back in. He (and Dex) have a really great way of reducing the stress and tension and just grounding these larger than life characters. I would’ve loved more Dex and Keefe time, but I’m not writing the series so…

“‘Did you let Fitz win?’

‘Psh, like I’d ever do that!’

‘I don’t know . . . ,’ Ro told him—and he sent her a death glare.

‘That’s different,’ he insisted.

‘Not really,’ she grumbled. ‘But it’s your call.”(Shannon Messenger, Flashback). What could this possible mean? ( could you hear the sarcasm? ) I really don’t like the idea of Fitz or Keefe just giving up like that, with zero communication. They were supposed to be best friends, but instead, Keefe’s avoiding Fitz and Fitz is blaming Keefe and just being a total jerk about his mom. Get your act together!

I was disappointed that Silveny asked for Fitz before Keefe, considering that she knew about Keefe first.

Theory: Silveny can pick up on Sophie’s feelings, and with Fitzphie canon now, she probably sensed Sophie’s feelings for Ftiz and responded.

“Keefe flashed the smuggest of smiles. ‘It’s because I make everything better.’

‘Like giving Sophie the pendant that helped the Neverseen find her?’ Fitz snapped back”(Shannon Messenger, Flashback). So no best friend bonding then?

Ro standing up for Keefe slayed me. It was so nice to see her taking Sophie’s place as moral support and being there for him whenever Fitzphie go too intense or Lord Pretentious started acting up.

Not to mention Tinker, who was brought up once and then never really mentioned again, with the exception of the null. I hope she’ll be back, otherwise that entire section/chapter would be unnecessary.

Okay, this is the end of part 1! Wow, that’s a lot longer than I’d planned, guess I just had a lot to say. Let me know what y’all think in the comments below! And remember, there is more to come, this is definitely not over. Also, feel free to tag be in any Flashback posts, I’ll definitely check them out!

-K

[tomhiddlestonfanfic]

A Step Too Far? Chapter Eight Your Cheatin’ Heart

Ch. 1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6 - Ch. 7 - Ch. 8 - Ch. 9

TITLE: A Step Too Far? NUMBER OF CHAPTERS/ONE SHOT: 8/? WHICH TOM CHARACTER: Stepfather Tom OTHER CHARACTERS: Benedict Cumberbatch, Andrew Scott PAIRING: Tom/OFC, Benedict Cumberbatch/OFC GENRE: Drama, Hurt/Comfort

CHAPTER EIGHT

Following day at the office, Nina kept sending Stina to do errands concerning Benedict. She decided that she should try to avoid him as much as possible to prevent any further sexual contact between them. She felt horrible for his sweet, soft-spoken wife and couldn’t get the image of her out of her head. She deserved better.

“Is something up between you and mister Cumberbatch?” Stina asked curiously as they had lunch together. They both had salads and sparkling water, and were dressed similarly with white shirts and black pencil skirts. While Nina was pretty slim built with big breasts, Stina had a very curvy, womanly figure that Nina couldn’t help but envy. While Nina wanted to be thin herself, she did find Stina’s curvy body type to be more attractive than her own. And to judge by the men’s appreciative looks towards Stina, they thought so as well.

“No. Or well...” Nina decided to lie about it, since there obviously was something going on between herself and Benedict. “Please, don’t tell anyone,” she said and leaned slightly forward over the table to speak in a lower voice than before, as though she was to confide Stina with something very private. “But he yelled at me the other day about a bill I forgot to pay. I know it was a big mistake and all, but he didn’t have to lose his temper like that. So I’m trying to avoid him as much as possible.”

“Oh, I see,” Stina replied with a sympathetic smile. “I’m sorry he yelled at you. I’ll help you avoid him if that’s how you want to handle the situation.”

“Thank you,” Nina said appreciatively.

“But I think it would be best if you just talked to him about it. It’s not good if you feel like you need to avoid him. I could come with you, if you like, for moral support,” Stina offered helpfully.

“Thanks, Stina,” Nina said. “Right now I just want to stay away from him for a bit, but I’ll let you know if I change my mind.”

“Okay,” Stina replied with a gentle smile.

Nina looked at her colleague and wondered how she could have disliked her so much before. It must have been the sense of rivalry between them. But Stina had not seemed to be that affected by the fact that Nina had the position she had wanted for herself. Instead, she had in fact been very nice and welcoming towards Nina. And helpful. She was always there to lend a helping hand if Nina should need one. She was very sweet and somehow reminded Nina of Jim. He was also incredibly helpful and understanding. Maybe they would make a good fit?

“Are you single?” Nina asked suddenly.

“Um, at the moment, yes. But I do have two cats,” Stina replied with a smile.

“Would you like to go on a date?” Nina asked.

“With you? Sure, why not,” Stina answered with a shrug. Nina cursed herself internally for not having been more clear that she wanted Stina to go on a date with her friend Jim. She couldn’t exactly tell her that now without turning it awkward.

“How about dinner and a movie?” Nina suggested. She decided that she had to go through with it, otherwise she would embarrass Stina and possibly ruin their new friendship.

“Sounds good to me,” Stina replied with a smile.

“Are you free on Thursday after work?” Nina asked, scrolling through her calendar on the phone. Stina picked up her phone as well and copied the action.

“Thursday’s great,” she replied cheerfully.

“Great,” Nina replied and smiled to herself. A date would be a good way to get to know Stina better, and after all, Nina was kind of interested in her.

The days went by, and Nina only had brief professional interactions with Benedict thanks to Stina’s help. Eventually, Thursday came and it was time for Nina and Stina’s date.

“Are you coming?” Tom asked, like he usually did when the working day was over.

“Actually, I’m going on a date,” Nina told him happily.

“Oh, I see. With whom, if I may ask?” Tom wondered curiously.

“With Stina,” Nina replied as she got up from her seat and grabbed the backpack with an extra change of clothes that she had brought to work that morning.

“Stina Johansson?” Tom asked and his eyes widened slightly with surprise as Nina nodded at him. “Oh, I didn’t know that you were- I mean. I hope you have fun. What are you going to do on your date?”

“Dinner first, and then a movie,” Nina replied gleefully, amused by his reaction to the fact that she was going on a date with another girl.

“Okay, I’ll see you tonight then,” he told her with a smile. “Have fun.”

“I will,” Nina said with a smile before heading to the changing room where she got changed into a turquoise dress. She stood by the mirror and reapplied her makeup as Stina walked in. They seemed to be the only ones left at the office.

“Hi,” Stina greeted her gleefully and proceeded to get changed into a wine red dress.

“Hi,” Nina replied and felt a fluttering sensation in her abdomen as she took in Stina’s beauty.

They got ready together and had a pleasant dinner at a restaurant near the movie theatre. Nina insisted on paying the tab at the restaurant and Stina insisted on paying for the movie tickets and snacks at the cinema. Nina smiled as she thought about how they both had wanted to pay and almost gotten into an argument about it. The movie was a romantic comedy, and none of them paid much attention to the storyline as they were busy making out with each other.

When the movie was finally over and the lights went on, the two women finally parted from each other, earning amused looks from the people who had been sitting closest to them. Nina blushed in embarrassment, whereas Stina just smiled brightly at them.

“So, I suppose this is it,” Nina said reluctantly as they stood outside the movie theatre. She wanted to spend more time in Stina’s company.

“You could always crash at my place,” Stina suggested and Nina felt a big smile spread across her face.

“Sure,” she agreed gleefully.

Stina was living in a small, but nice apartment together with her two cats; Tor and Loke from the norse mythology. Loke was black, small and very energetic, whereas Tor was cream coloured, big and quite calm. Nina had a great time playing with the cats and they seemed to appreciate being at the centre of attention for a little while. Once they grew tired of her, they simply laid down to take a nap.

“Oh, I wish I was a cat,” Nina said excitedly as she watched Tor and Loke sleep.

“Why?” Stina asked her amusedly and handed her another glass of wine.

“Then I could take naps all the time without anyone complaining,” Nina replied dreamingly.

“But you don’t want to sleep away most of your days, do you?” Stina asked as she sat down on the barstool in the kitchen.

“Sometimes I do. Like I’ve already told you, I get tired a lot,” Nina said a bit sadly and took another sip of wine.

“I’ve noticed that you drink a lot of energy drinks,” Stina replied. “Is there any medical reason you feel tired all the time? Have you told doctor Freeman about it?”

“He knows about it,” Nina told her. “I have ADD. It’s like ADHD but without hyperactivity.”

“Ah, I see. My brother has ADHD, so I know a little bit about it. Do you take medications for it?” Stina asked interestedly.

“Not at the moment, but I’m going to start again as soon as doctor Freeman says it’s alright for me to take them again,” Nina explained.

“Ah, I see. Did you lose too much weight taking them? My brother did that,” Stina said understandingly.

“Exactly,” Nina replied and made a slight grimace at the thought of her doctor’s reaction to her rapid weight loss last time she was on the medication. “It sucks, because I do feel like I need them to function properly. No one seems to understand that.”

“I think I have some idea of what you’re going through. My brother says that he feels a lot more calmer on the inside and is able to focus better when he’s on his medications,” Stina told her. “I think it’s admirable that you’re doing such a good job even though you’re not on your medications.”

“Thank you,” Nina said with a smile. She felt glad to finally have found someone who seemed to understand at least a little bit about her struggles.

The next day at work, Tom walked up to Nina’s desk as he arrived in the morning. She felt hungover, but Stina had made sure that they got to work on time, even a bit early.

“I’m guessing your date went well since you didn’t come home last night,” he told her with a smile.

“It went great,” Nina replied and yawned largely. “She has two cats. I wish I was a cat right now, so I could have a nap.”

“Did you stay up late last night?” Tom asked her with a knowing smile.

“Yeah, time just flew by,” Nina told him with a smile.

“Sounds like you had a good time,” Tom told her warmly and then leaned in to whisper to her. “You should probably have some chewing gum or something, because you smell of wine,” he advised her. Nina blushed in response and grabbed a gum from her backpack along with an energy drink. Tom raised an eyebrow at her. “No energy drinks on the desk, pour it into a coffee cup.”

“Ha! You just violated our deal,” Nina told him, playfully raising a warning finger at him. “We said no complaints about my energy drinks for a full month and it’s only been a week.”

“Right. Just pour it into a coffee cup, please,” Tom requested. “It doesn’t look nice with energy drink cans on the desk.”

“How about cola cans?” Nina questioned, pointing towards a desk in the far back where a man named Erik had a can of Coca Cola on his desk.

“You can tell him to pour his cola into a coffee cup as well,” Tom decided, causing Nina to sigh heavily. She didn’t feel like standing up and walking all the way over to Erik’s desk to tell him that. “Are you feeling hungover?” Tom asked her teasingly.

“Mhm,” Nina answered.

“Have one of these,” Tom offered and handed her a tube of fluid replacement pills. “It’s an effervescent tablet, so you put it in a glass of water and let it resolve before you drink it,” he explained, wanting to avoid any preventable incidents.

“I know, I can read,” Nina said sarcastically as she looked at the pipe of pills. “Thank you, Tom,” she added in a nicer tone of voice and gave him an appreciative smile.

"Oh, and before I forget. Here," Tom offered and handed her four of the pills doctor Freeman had prescribed for her. "Don't take them all at once," he warned her. 

"I won't," Nina assured him. 

Nina didn’t feel well at all as she got up from her seat to talk to Erik. She ran to the toilet and threw up all of the breakfast Stina had so kindly made for her that morning. She could feel the sweat run down her forehead and washed her face. Her head was aching and her stomach was turning at the mere thought of food.

She went to the kitchen and grabbed a glass of water, placing one of Tom’s pills in it. While she was there, she grabbed two empty coffee cups. She put the glass of water and one of the cups down on her desk before walking up to Erik.

“Hi Erik. Mister Hiddleston requested that we from now on should not have any cans on our desks, so I need you to pour your cola into this,” Nina informed the man in his mid-twenties and handed him the cup. He glanced over at Nina’s desk, where the can of energy drink was still sitting.

“Hypocrite,” he said shortly, sullenly grabbing his cola can and emptied its contents into the cup before putting the can on the floor underneath his desk.

“I have to do it too,” Nina informed him wearily. “I know it’s a stupid rule, Erik. But I didn’t make the decision, To- mister Hiddleston did.”

“Your life must be so easy,” Erik told her enviously. “You’ve got a rich stepfather who just gives you a great position in his company one day. Everyone else here has actually worked hard to get their jobs, but you just come here one day and think you’re better than all the rest.”

“What?” Nina asked confusedly. “I don’t think I’m better than everyone else,” she told him truthfully. “A lot of the time I actually think that I don’t deserve to be here.”

“Good, because you don’t,” Erik told her irritably. “Your stepfather should have let you work from the bottom up. That way you might have learned to appreciate how lucky you actually are. But instead he lets you remain a spoiled brat.”

Nina didn’t know what to say to that, so she just went back to her desk. She drank some of the fluid replacement and filled her coffee cup with her energy drink before putting the can on the floor like Erik had done. She took a couple of deep breaths to compose herself and stop herself from bursting into tears at Erik’s hurtful comments.

“Are you alright?” Stina asked and stopped by her desk. She put a hand on Nina’s shoulder, while balancing a tray of hot drinks with the other hand, and smiled encouragingly at her.

“I’m just tired, that’s all,” Nina replied and forced herself to smile.

“I’ll bring mister Cumberbatch and mister Hiddleston their coffees now. Perhaps you should bring mister Scott his tea?” Stina suggested helpfully. “You always seem to be in a better mood after you’ve spoken to him.”

“Thanks, I will,” Nina said as she stood up and grabbed the cup of tea from the tray.

She headed into Andrew’s office and was greeted by one of his sunshine smiles.

“Is something wrong?” Andrew wondered concernedly as his smile faded away from his face. Nina put the tea down on his desk and shrugged. “Nina, talk to me,” he encouraged her. Nina sighed before she spoke.

“Do you think I’m a spoiled brat?” she asked, causing him to smile again.

“A little bit, sometimes,” he replied honestly. “But I don’t see anything wrong with that. I think you’ve grown a lot as a person since you first started working here.

“But I’m not so sure that I deserve to be here,” she told him sadly.

“You do deserve to be here,” Andrew assured her as he got out of his seat to put an arm around her shoulders. “You’re doing a great job and I wouldn’t want anyone else as my secretary. Do you hear that? You do deserve to be here. You’ve earned your spot,” he told her keenly.

“Thank you, Andrew,” Nina told him emotionally and smiled as he hugged her. She truly loved his hugs, they made her feel cared for.

Right after lunch break, before Nina had begun to work, the phone rang. It was Josef, Andrew's partner. 

"Hi, Nina, it's Josef. Do you have time to talk?" came the familiar voice at the other end of the line. 

"I suppose I could grant you a couple of minutes of my precious time," Nina replied with a smile. 

"Great. So what's new with you?" Josef asked. 

"Nothing much… well, I went on a date last night," Nina told him as she began sorting the mail on her desk into different piles. 

"A date? Oh, do tell," Josef said excitedly. "Who's the lucky guy?" 

"Girl," Nina corrected. "Her name is Stina and she's a colleague of mine."

"A workplace romance! That's so sweet," Josef said brightly. "How did the date go?" 

"It went well, I suppose. I spent the night," Nina revealed, smiling as she heard Josef gasp into the receiver. 

"Oh, you naughty girl," he commented in exaggerated shock.

"Oh, you have no idea how naughty I can be," Nina whispered playfully into the receiver, causing Josef to gasp again. "Unfortunately, I need to go now, Josef. Would you like me to pass along a message to Andrew?"

"Tell him that I love him and to buy some wine on the way home. The expensive kind," Josef requested. 

"Okay, I'll make sure he receives your message," Nina replied as she scribbled down the message on a post-it. "Have a nice day, Josef."

"You too, Nina."

Nina smiled to herself as she hung up the phone. Josef called nearly every day, asking her about how she was, and to pass on some sweet messages to his partner. She quite enjoyed his calls when she wasn't too busy to stop what she was doing for a chat. She had told him that right after lunch was a good time for him to call, which he seemed to have remembered.

"Andrew," Nina said as he entered the open plan office space she shared with fourteen colleagues. Her desk was at the front, a bit away from the others'. "Josef called. He asked me to tell you he loves you and that you should buy some expensive wine on your way home," she said, passing him the post-it note. 

"Thanks, Nina," Andrew said, grabbing the pink little piece of paper. "He's not disturbing your work, is he?" he added concernedly. 

"Not at all, we only talk for a few minutes. It's kind of nice, actually. I find myself looking forward to his calls," Nina told him honestly. Andrew’s face lit up at her words and he smiled widely. 

"I'm so glad to hear that," he told her and looked genuinely happy as he walked towards his office.

As the working day finally came to an end, Tom walked up to her desk like he usually did. 

"Are you coming home with me today?" he wondered. 

"Sure," Nina said and grabbed her backpack from under the desk.

"How was your day?" Tom asked as they walked to the car. 

"It was brutal," Nina complained. "I'm never drinking the day before work ever again," she told him. 

"Sounds like a good idea," Tom agreed amusedly.

"How was your day?" Nina asked. 

"It was good, thanks for asking," Tom replied with a smile. "It's been a long week."

“Indeed it has,” Nina agreed, and realised that she had managed to avoid being near Benedict for more than a few minutes at a time ever since the incident on Monday. He hadn’t insisted that they would talk either, which was a great relief. He probably got the hint that she wanted nothing more to do with him. She needed to stay away from him as much as possible, because the feelings of guilt were overwhelming, and what they were doing wasn’t right. It was unfair to Benedict’s wife as well as his children. She didn’t want to tear that beautiful family apart.

“You’ve seemed very focused on your work this week,” Tom commended her once they had gotten into the car.

“Thanks. I’ve tried,” Nina replied and smiled as Tom put on some country music. His music taste was very varied to say the least, she never knew what he would put on next. Her smile faded slightly as she listened to the lyrics.

‘Your cheatin’ heart Will make you weep You’ll cry and cry And try to sleep But sleep won’t come The whole night through Your cheatin’ heart Will tell on you’

Nina sometimes had trouble sleeping when she thought about Benedict’s family, and wondered if Benedict was suffering through a similar sense of guilt. She was kind of hoping he was. That way he might stop doing things he shouldn’t be doing. 

Nina went for a walk that evening, making sure to pass by Benedict’s house. She wanted to see what he was doing. Was he spending time with his family? Was he a good father who didn’t neglect his childrenwhen he was at home? She felt like a creep as she sneaked into the garden and glanced through the living room window. The whole family was gathered. Benedict was sitting on the floor in front of the TV playing a videogame with his oldest son, while Sophie was sitting on the sofa reading a book to their youngest son.

Nina was just about to turn around and walk away, when Benedict seemingly by chance looked up right at her. Her eyes widened with horror before she ran across the garden and climbed over the garden fence. She kept running for a bit before finally slowing down and beginning her walk home. After a moment, her phone rang from a number she didn’t recognise and she picked up.

“Seriously, Nina. What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” It was Benedict’s angry voice on the other end of the line. His anger was probably justified, but she was angry too. How could he be so two-faced? “Answer me! Damn it!”

“Do you ever feel so guilty that you can’t sleep at night?” Nina asked him. She could hear Benedict’s heavy sigh.

“You can’t come around my house just to make me feel guilty,” Benedict told her seriously, his voice calmer now. “Do you have trouble sleeping, Nina?”

“Sometimes,” Nina admitted. “Sometimes I wake up crying. Do you feel guilty, Ben?”

“Of course I do,” Benedict replied. “That’s why I get so angry with you when you come to my house like this, or say things to make Sophie suspicious.”

“If you’re feeling so guilty, then why don’t you come clean?” Nina questioned.

“Because that would ruin my marriage. Sophie would leave with the children,” Benedict told her.

“Your cheatin’ heart will tell on you,” Nina told him seriously. “You’re not as bad of a man as you try to convince yourself that you are, Ben. You do have a conscience and this will eat you up, like it does me.” She hung up before Benedict had the time to respond. She thought it was a good way to end their conversation.

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