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autisticlancemcclain · 1 year

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Keith kind of feels like he’s breaking the law when he steps on the marina.

He’s not, of course. The docks are open to the public, and he is The Public. Well, one of them, anyway. But looking at the myriad of speedboats and yachts parked (parked? Is parked the right word? God, Keith doesn’t know shit about boats), Keith is getting a little nervous. He feels like his shitty credit score is tattooed on his forehead, like a honing beam of judgement for the various rich people he can see drinking on their luxury boats at eleven in the morning because none of them have jobs. What the hell is Lance doing inviting them all on a ‘boat trip’, anyway? Lance sure as shit can’t afford a boat. He probably can’t afford to rent one, either. Keith once witnessed him pay for a single pack of ramen with a ziploc bag of pennies.

Keith stops at the parking spot (??) Lance texted him, glancing down at his phone, squinting, then back up at the boat at spot 93. It’s a decently large boat, but not equipped to live on. It doesn’t necessarily look like a party boat, but not like it’s for fishing, either. It looks, to Keith, like a decently nice boat. Probably a few ten thousand dollars.

Did Lance steal this fucking boat?

No, right? Lance isn’t good at stealing. Well, he’s not good at not getting caught. He’s shit at lying and usually just bats his eyelashes until he gets his way. He’s not even that successful at it. Certainly not successful enough to flirt his way into boat ownership. Probably. There was that time he flirted his way out of a speeding ticket, but still, a boat? That’s —

“Keith! Keith! Hi! Over here!” Keith startles at Lance’s voice, craning his neck over to try and see over the bow of the boat. He knows that tone of Lance’s voice — he’s definitely leaning over something and waving like a lunatic, beaming brightly, brown eyes squinted in his enthusiasm.

“Lance?” Keith calls, smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “Where are you?”

“Behind you, dummy! Turn around! You got the wrong boat!”

Keith whirls around, yelping as he slips in a puddle and his stupid flipflops — he knew he should have ignored Shiro and worn his boots — slide out from under him. He windmills his arms to no avail, landing flat on his ass.

Lance hyena laughs, because he is a horrible jackass who thinks Keith’s pain is funny.

Resisting the urge to roll off the dock and drown himself in the marina (if only because he can see some really long seaweed growing in the water and the idea of it touching his legs or something makes him want to throw up) Keith pulls himself to his feet.

“Let me up,” he grouches.

Lance wipes a fake tear from his eye, tossing down an honest-to-god rope ladder. “Oh, that was the good stuff. Hey, buddy, do you maybe want to trip again? I could use the laugh.”

“I’m gonna strangle you with this rope the second I get up there.”

“Mhm. Sure, Mullet. Mutiny your captain.”

“Ha!” Keith swings his legs over the side of the boat, pulling it up after him. “You’re no captain, you dork.”

Lance sticks his tongue out at him. “Am so! My boat, after all.”

Keith accepts Lance’s hug, squeezing back just as tightly. Lance’s hugs are always tight. He hugs like he’s seeing you for the first time in months, like he won’t see you again for ages, like he’s saying it’s-good-to-see-you and hello-goodbye and I’m-going-to-miss-you all in one. It’s intoxicating. It makes Keith want to hold him for eternity.

“Having a boat does not make you a captain,” Keith teases, forcing himself to pull away and act like a normal person. “How’d you get this piece of shit, anyway? No offense.”

Because this boat is kind of a piece of shit, especially compared to the one he was mistakenly in front of earlier. It’s not, like, falling apart or anything, but it’s a little rusty in some parts, and a whole heap smaller. He can stand at one end of the boat and walk maybe fifteen steps to the other end, straight across. The end he’s on has a cooler — filled with booze if he knows Lance, and he’d like to think he does — and some crates of what Keith can only assume is boat equipment (again, Keith doesn’t know shit about boats). The other end has the steering wheel, and dozens and dozens of pillows and blankets at the base of it. The inner walls of the boat have several cute paintings, ranging from silly doodles that are painted with the confident hand of a child and beautifully intricate landscapes.

Lance smiles again when he sees where Keith is looking, running gentle fingertips over a blocky drawing of some imagined creature.

“Veronica got this project boat with her ex girlfriend forever ago,” he explains. “It didn’t work when they got it. It didn’t even have an engine. She’s been rebuilding it forever, and I’ve been helping!”

Keith grins. “You mean you’ve been handing her tools and running errands?”

Lance glares. “I — did other things! I painted it!”

“That’s true,” Keith admits. He glances at the many paintings again, colourful and bright and dorky. “They’re nice.”

“Nice,” Lance scoffs, but there’s no hurt in his voice. “This boat could be in the Louvre!”

Keith has to physically shove down the gooey shit he wants to say to that. It’s not easy. His brain is annoying.

“Where’s everyone else?” he says instead. “I’m never the first person to these things.”

For the first time since Keith arrived, Lance starts to look a little troubled. “I was going to ask you that, actually. Hunk said he and Pidge were going to meet up at your’s and Shiro’s house? And Allura and Shiro have barely spent a day apart since they started that project at work, so I figured she was coming with you guys.”

“I thought the team was meeting up with you,” Keith says slowly. “Shiro left before me.”

For the briefest of seconds, Lance’s face collapses into something absolutely crestfallen. Just as quickly it shutters, and his eyes dull as he physically forces a pleasant look on his face.

“I’m sure they’re on their way,” he says. “I’ll call them, maybe they —”

Something uncomfortable begins to churn in Keith’s stomach. “Lance —”

“—hopefully they’re all okay —”

“Lance, maybe —”

“Hey, Lance!”

Pidge sounds downright giggly, which is beyond unusual. Keith can’t remember the last time he described Pidge as giggly. Maniacal, sure, sweet even — occasionally, Keith might add — but never giggly.

Immediately he’s suspicious.

“Hey, Pidge,” Lance says. There’s so much hope in his voice that it’s painful to hear. “You on your way over?”

There’s rustling over the phone, and a muffled hey, no pushing!, then some more rustling.

“We actually can’t make it,” someone says apologetically.

The crestfallen look is back on Lance’s face, and this time he can’t quite fight it off.

Hunk continues, totally oblivious. “This huge thing came up at work, so me and Pidge are swamped, and we figured if we couldn’t make it then it wouldn’t be a whole crew thing, so Shiro and Allura figured it would be best to finish their project too —”

“That’s fine,” Lance says. His voice is reedy. He hangs up in the middle of Hunk promising to reschedule sometime soon. The muffled bang of his phone hitting the wooden floorboards is deafening, a million times louder than the waves beating softly up against the side of the boat. Keith is completely frozen where he stands, looking at Lance with wide eyes.

What the fuck was that? Never in the time that he has known them has any one of his friends been so…callous. He’s spent his whole life measuring himself to Shiro’s example, for fuck’s sake. He’s always been proud to have friends as good as his, because they are good: good friends, good people. Sure, they’re all a little weird and scatterbrained and all over the place, but they’ve never blatantly blown someone off before. Especially not Lance; not when he’s been planning something for them for weeks. He’s hardly talked about anything else, even if he wouldn’t tell them any details so as not to spoil the surprise. He practically glowed every time he had the chance to bring it up, and that’s not just Keith’s opinion.

“Lance,” Keith tries, walking over to where he stands, motionless at the helm. He doesn’t so much as twitch at Keith’s voice, as if he doesn’t hear him. “Lance?” Keith tries again, hesitantly putting a hand on his arm. Lance startles at the touch. He looks lost for a moment, then he plasters that same plasticly pleasant look on his face.

“Lance,” Keith says again, for the third time in a row. It’s pleading, this time. Please don’t pull that with me.

But Keith doesn’t have the words for that, so Lance doesn’t hear it.

“I suppose I wouldn’t mind taking this trip with just you,” Lance says, puffing out his chest in that bravado way of his he does when he’s trying his hardest to be obnoxious. “I mean, the stink of your mullet is a little suffocating, but I think I’ll manage.”

Beginning to feel like a broken record, Keith says his name again. He can’t quite keep the hurt out of his voice, for Lance and for him, really. It feels almost like a betrayal, like everyone would let then down like this, without so much as a word of apology. He can’t imagine how upset Lance must truly be.

“Unless you have somewhere to be, too?” Lance says loudly, cutting him off. His expression hasn’t changed, but there’s something almost pleading in his eyes, like he’s begging Keith to drop it, to take the bait, to change to subject.

Keith is most definitely reading into things. But he changes the subject anyway.

He raises an eyebrow, decking Lance in the shoulder. “I’m not the stinky one, Mr Axe Body Spray.”

“I have never used Axe in my life!” Lance shrieks, incensed. Some genuine incredulousness bleeds into his voice, which is both relieving and gratifying — it’s good to know that Keith can rely on his ability to rile Lance up in one sentence. “It’s a tasteful designer cologne that Rachel gets me for Christmas every year because she has no idea how to buy presents for people!”

“Yeah, that you fuckin’ bathe in.”

“I put a little bit on my wrists and neck, you jackass —”

“— and your arms and legs and face and hair and —”

“I am going to shove you overboard to be eaten by orcas, you shithead.”

“Yeah, yeah. You gonna take me on this boat ride you promised, or are you gonna keep stalling?”

Rolling his eyes and grumbling, Lance starts the engine, clumsily guiding the boat out of its parking spot (?????) and starting out to open sea. After sailing them far enough that they nearly lose sight of shore, Lance kills the engine, dragging the cooler over to the nest of pillows.

“I bought half the liquor store,” he says, voice muffled as he ruffles through it. “You see, the original intent was to get all six of us plastered, and getting Hunk plastered is both difficult and expensive.” He sounds a strange mix of bitter and amused, which Keith feels is understandable. He finally finds what he’s looking for, bottles clinking as he yanks two out. “I hate vodka, and since Pidge isn’t here to clown me for it, I’m drinking this entire bottle of bellini instead. I brought you scotch, since you are the soul of an angsty cowboy trapped in the body of an annoying nerd.”

Keith takes the offered bottle. He recognises the brand — it’s cheap, it’s gross, and it’s fucking concentrated. He takes a swig and gags.

“Lance, this shit tastes like gasoline.”

He bottle of something hits him in the chest, hard.

“Ow!”

“Gatorade! I thought ahead!”

Sure enough, Lance has thrown — rudely — to him a half litre bottle of red Gatorade, Keith’s favourite.

“It’s double smart, because not only does it make alcohol taste less shit, but it’s got electrolytes so you won’t get a hangover.”

Keith tilts his head questioningly. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“Works for me,” Lance says, shrugging.

“Yeah, but you get drunk off two shots, twig boy. Fuck, you’re already tipsy and you’ve only had a third of that bottle.”

“And this bottle was only eight dollars! Hell yeah to me!”

Keith snorts, clinking his bottle with Lance’s and taking a swig, chasing it down with the Gatorade.

He makes a face. Unfortunately instead of making the scotch taste better, the scotch is making the Gatorade taste worst. Ugh.

“Oh, hey, I almost forgot the music! I brought your favourite album too, emo boy.”

Lance scrambles to his feet, tripping immediately on one of the many pillows. Keith surges forward, thrusting his arm around Lance’s chest, barely keeping him from faceplanting on the floor.

“Jesus, Lance. You’re the worst lightweight I’ve ever met.”

Lance giggles. The tension that had strung his shoulders after the call as melted away, at least a little. Keith doesn’t even feel the buzz of the alcohol yet, but he’s definitely feeling a little looser.

“How about you sit down, huh? You’re gonna fall on your face. Did you eat today? You don’t usually get this tipsy so easy.”

Lance squints, thinking for a minute. “Fuck, no. I made myself eggs this morning but then Sylvio was late to ballet and Lisa had already left to take Nadia to football so I had to take him and by the time I got back I barely had enough time to pack everything and get to the boat and —”

“Lance,” Keith interrupts, amused. “Get some of the food from the cooler. I’ll get the music. Where’s all the stuff?”

“Second crate,” Lance says, mouth full. Gross. “The one with the Moana stickers.”

Keith takes another swig of scotch, makes a face, and then sets it down, ambling over to the box. Between the waves gently rocking the boat and the slight heaviness of his limbs that he’s starting to feel, he barely makes it without tripping just as much as Lance would have, but hey. He successfully conned Lance out of picking the music, so who’s the real winner here?

“Lance, you pretentious indie dweeb!” Keith exclaims, laughing. In the box is a bright pink Bratz CD player that he no doubt stole from the back of one of his sister’s closets, and a stack of maybe forty CDs.

“Physical media rules!” Lance cheers. “Fuck subscriptions!”

Rolling his eyes fondly, Keith locates the album Lance was talking about, loading it into the disc drive and pressing play.

The future is bulletproof, the aftermath is secondary…

He carefully nudges up the handle, trying carefully to walk with the waves so he doesn’t drop Lance’s player as he brings it back to the pillow nest.

“I think you’re actually just too broke to afford Spotify, dude.”

Lance shrugs. “Eh, that’s part of it.” He tosses the last bite of his sandwich in his mouth, washing it down with another gulp of bubbling peach wine right from the bottle. Keith follows his example, making a face again, because Lord above the Gatorade does not help at all.

“Yeah? What’s the other part?”

“You sure you want to know?” Lance asks, setting down his wine and scooching closer to Keith. He crosses his legs and puts his hands in his lap, leaning forward, dark eyes wide and expression serious.

Keith nods, intrigued.

Lance’s eyes turn mischievous. “Well, you see, my favourite music is garbage pop music.”

Keith has been in the car with Lance before. He’s well aware. He’s heard more Kesha and Justin Bieber than any one person should ever have to, and he even likes their music well enough. Lance is just insane.

“Believe me, I’m aware.”

“And as you may also be aware, I am contractually obligated to be the most annoying person in any room.”

Keith snorts. “Okay?”

“Think about it, doofus. When I pull out the CDs, all the pop lovers roll their eyes, because they think I’m a pretentious indie asshole.” He gestures to Keith, referencing his earlier comment. “Exhibit A.”

“…Fair. Carry on.”

“But when whatever badly dubbed party music I’m in the mood for starts blaring from my speakers, all the indie people think I’m a poser! It’s a win-win.”

Keith laughs outright. He knows the exact kind of indie people Lance is talking about, and just imagining their scandalized faces is funny.

“No one pisses people off quite like you, Lance McClain. I’ll give you that.”

Lance preens. “Thank you. It’s a gift.”

They work their way through their respective bottles, and then they split a cooler, both of them well past tipsy by the time the album ends. Lance wobbles over to his CD selection and ruffles through for what feels like ages, whooping when he finds what he’s looking for. He flashes to case at Keith, showing ‘KARAOKE TUNEZ’ written in Lance’s loopy handwriting.

“No way,” Keith protests, although not very hard.

“Yes way!” Lance insists. He grips onto the steering wheel, heaving himself up. The boat lunches slightly, making them both laugh, but finally he’s steady on his feet — or at least as steady as you can be while drunk — just as Taylor Swift’s Love Story starts blaring. He grabs Keith’s hands and pulls him up, and both of them almost go tumbling again, but they manage to stay upright, leaning on each other and laughing themselves stupid.

“We don’t need them!” Lance yells as the banjos go off. Keith is so plastered that he barely remembers who Lance is talking about. It takes him a solid thirty seconds to remember that there were supposed to be four other people on this boat, drinking all this booze, and Keith and Lance have plowed their way through a good half of it on their own. Oops. “Sing louder, country boy!”

Keith does. He sings himself hoarse, actually, as Lance’s mixtape clicks through every great song from the last forty years, dancing around and shaking his head and revelling in the fact that there’s no one there to watch him. No one but Lance, who’s pretending to throw dollar bills at him.

It’s the most fun he’s had in ages.

He stops drinking at some point — not by choice, but something bumps the side of the boat and his bottle goes flying — but by then it doesn’t matter. He’s so plastered that everything is glowing and warm and fantastic and he’s dancing with Lance and he can’t remember what feeling bad looks like, or why he’d even bother in the first place. All he cares about is watching the sun go down, cheering with Lance as it does, then dancing around with him in drunken circles until one of them trips, dragging them both on top of the pillow next in a giggling mess.

“Let’s just stay here for a while,” Lance suggests. His voice is so slurred that it sounds more like Lez jussay ere for whi’, but Keith thinks he’s got it. “The stars are nice.”

Keith snorts. “Sure. Stars. Not because you can’t stand, or anything.”

“I can so stand!” Lance protests, but he’s laughing too much for any true argument to come through. “Lemme — I’ll show you!”

“Sit down, dumbass,” Keith says, grabbing his shirt and yanking him back down. “You’re gonna go overboard and drown. Just — lay back with me a while.”

Lance looks at him a while, squinted look fading into something more open and relaxed the longer he stares. The lights on the boat are dim, but the darkness around them is so deep that they get swallowed up. Under the stars, Lance’s eyes are so brown and glossy they’re black, blacker than the ocean. Keith feels there’s a bigger danger drowning in them than in the sea.

“Okay,” Lance says softly. There’s a flash of his teeth as he smiles. Keith watches as his silhouette flops backwards on the pillows, arms resting in a heap around his head, beat-up pink converse slapping the ground as he relaxes his legs.

Keith takes a few more seconds to look at him. There’s not much to see, illuminated by the tiny lights in the boat, but Keith takes a moment anyway.

A hand shoots up, very narrowly missing smacking him straight in his nose. Long fingers curl tightly around the collar of his loosely-buttoned shirt and the next thing he knows he’s being yanked down, yelping.

“I’m not lying here alone, Mullet-head. This is a party.”

“Yeesh, okay, I’m coming.”

Lance doesn’t say anything more, bar a quiet huff of amusement, as Keith settles next to him. They lie in silence next to each other, their earlier energy slowly cooling down, just watching the stars, rocked by the gentle waves.

Keith is out like a light in twenty minutes.

———

When Keith wakes, three horrible things hit him at once: his head pounds, his mouth tastes like rotten fish marinating in dog shit, and everything around him is so, so goddamn bright it honestly feels kind of targeted. Fuck the sun.

“Lance, I hate you,” Keith mumbles, because he feels like blaming Lance is a safe bet. He squints until he locates the asshole in question, who is curled up with all of the pillows — which explains why Keith is currently laying on the cold hard floor — and still sleeping peacefully.

Ugh. How dare he.

Cursing, Keith drags himself to his feet, having to pause for a while on his knees to orient himself and fight down the nausea. When he’s finally upright, he stumbles over to the cooler, thankfully still cold, and gulps down the first water bottle he gets his hands on in three seconds. His next bottle he drinks a little more carefully, swishing the water around his mouth to substitute for brushing his teeth until they can get back to shore.

Once he actually starts to feel like a person again, complete with rational, semi-linear thought process, he looks around himself with fresh eyes. They’re a lot… farther out than he thought they were, but he figures everyone feels like that once the shore is out of eyesight. They can’t be too far, the boat’s gas tank isn’t all that big. They don’t seem to have lost anything overboard while drunk and dumb, which is good. He sees all three crates from before they left, and the cooler is obviously still here. Lance is still actively hogging every single one of the pillows, a couple blankets as well, totally dead to the world. Keith checks his phone, noting with a sigh of relief that he still has about half battery life, and it’s not even that late in the day — ten o’clock; plenty of time to ride home and recalibrate before work tomorrow. All is well.

He finishes his second water bottle, tossing the empty plastic back into the cooler for lack of other places to put it, and stumbles back over to the helm and the pillow pile.

“Lance,” he tries, poking him half-heartedly. “Time to wake up.”

Lance groans, grabbing one of the numerous pillows and shoving it over his head.

“Oh, come on. It’s ten in the morning. You’ve had a ton of time to sleep. Time to go home.”

“Keith, fuck off.”

Keith will deny the automatic quirk of his lips at Lance’s gravelly, sleep-heavy voice, along with the immediate and reflective satisfaction that bubbles up when Lance is annoyed.

It’s his own brain. He’s allowed to think and feel whatever the hell he wants in his own brain, and it doesn’t have to mean anything.

“If you get up now, I promise to let you have first pick of the leftover sandwiches.”

There’s a pause, considering, and then a long, drawn-out groan as Lance bitchily unburies himself from the pillow pile and crawls over to the cooler.

“Good morning to you too, sunshine,” Keith mutters, grinning.

It takes Lance’s zombie ass twice as long as it took Keith to wake up, because Lance is the most vampiric person Keith knows. The only time he ever sees the sunrise is when he just decides not to sleep through the night. Keith doesn’t think he’s woken up before eleven in years.

“Ready to head back?” Keith asks, once some of the life has returned to Lance’s eyes. He only grunts in reply, but that’s not a huge surprise. It’ll be another forty minutes until Lance can make himself speak again.

Keith settles against the side of the boat, rearranging the pillows so he can sit comfortably and dick around on his phone while Lance steers them back to shore. There’s no signal this far out, so he just ends up switching between cleaning out his camera roll and playing Temple Run as discreetly as he can, because he and Lance have a lowkey competition going on for this game for the past three years now, and Keith will not lose. Lance may currently have the upper hand but not for long, baby, because Keith has —

“Shit,” Lance says, very very quietly, and Keith feels dread pool in his stomach like a rock.

“Lance?” he questions, and inconspicuously as possible. “All good?”

“Fine,” Lance says, only his voice sounds very high-pitched and not fine, because Lance is a garbage liar. “Everything is manageable. No need to worry.”

Keith abandons his game, looking up to give Lance his full attention. He’s got one hand white-knuckling the steering wheel, despite the calmness of the waves, and the other jamming a bunch of buttons on a little device. His face is grey in panic.

“Lance, tell me what’s wrong.” He tries his best to keep his tone even and calm, but it doesn’t go well. The panic wells up in him and it wells up fast, because he can see nothing but blue skies and sea and the captain of the goddamn boat he’s on is looking like he’s on death row.

“Well, it’s all fine, really, but the thing is that the GPS is doing its level best to tell us where we are and it’s having a bit of a moment. A struggle, if you will. Honestly not that big of —”

“Lance,” Keith interrupts, sealing back the bile in his throat, “please tell me we’re not fucking lost.”

Lance laughs, high-pitched and humourless and scared. “Sure,” he says, once he’s gotten ahold of himself. “I won’t tell you.”

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quodekash · 10 months

Text

GUESS WHO'S BACK

finally time to finish the last fifteen minutes (and one second) of our skyy 2

based on my current track record, itll take about an hour to get through those 15 minutes but its fine, im prepared

or maybe im not prepared. im so scared

hey that rhymed!

okay. stop stalling. time to actually watch it.

holy hell wish me luck

i still dont know how i feel about them

i actually dont remember them much

i think they were really controlling?

WAIT THATS RIGHT I HATE THEM

his dad SUCKS, and his mum said that the only way she would let him become a teacher is if he went to freaking america

why america

COME TO AUSTRALIA INSTEAD

the amount of times that people in thai bls have gone to freaking america instead of australia is astounding

WE ACTUALLY HAVE A GOOD EDUCATION SYSTEM

well... its not necessarily good.

buT ITS BETTER THAN FREAKING AMERICA

WE HAVE GUN LAWS

WE HAVE SYSTEMS AND STUFF THAT ARE MORE SIMILAR TO THAILAND THAN AMERICA

WE'RE CLOSER GEOGRAPHICALLY, AND WE'RE SUPER MULTICULTURAL, PARTICULARLY WHEN IT COMES TO ASIAN COMMUNITIES, SO (i think) YOU'RE STATISTICALLY MORE LIKELY TO FIND PEOPLE WHO KNOW YOUR BIRTH LANGUAGE THAN YOU WILL IF YOU GO TO FREAKING AMERICA

i could rant about this all day but ive only been watching for 30 seconds and its been 12 minutes already so im gonna keep watching

WHAT ARE YOU DOING

DONT APOLOGISE TO THOSE BITCHES

oh. they like him?

hmm...

well i still dont like them

EEEEE

HIS SMILEEEE

HE LOVES HIS HUSBANDDDD

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

dude your eyes are so bloodshot. have you slept??

you should sleep my guy

and no, having sex with your super-mega-foxy-awesome-hot boyfriend does not count as sleep

(pls tell me someone got that reference)

let's be real, that's a really good looking cake

i rly wanna eat it

i want cake now

why is she nodding

are they about to give their approval for marriage?

pls let phuphatian get married

pls let there be a special episode where they get married

i dont want this to be the end of them

i love them too much to say goodbye

it feels a lot like a marriage approval thing

but also... does he love tian the most? or is the one thing he loves most like. his nose hair plucker or something.

ARE THEY GETTING MARRIED OR NOT, IM STILL CONFUSED

i have a question

have they spoken to tian about this? i still dont really understand what theyre talking about, but have they spoken to tian about it?

also: where the hell is tian right now

nooooo

bye bye tul :(

i love you tul

marriage????? maybe???????? im still not sure

okay, okay, okay, so he's turned around, he's not facing phu right now, and when he turns around, phu's gonna be on one knee???? maybe????

DID I NOT JUST

OH MY GOSH

HOLY MCFLIPPING BAJOOLIES

THEYRE ACTUALLY DOING IT???

HE'S TEARING UP

SO AM I

AND SO IS TIAN

I AM SOBBING PROFUSELY

HE DID THE HAND KISS

HE DID THE FREAKING HAND KISS

I AM NOT OKAY

AAAAAAAAAAAA

he interlocked their fingers.

he interlocked their freaking fingers.

GOEJRBSDGOVJKLBERSODUFGJK;LBVERD

GFIU43EWJGKBOPUVWEBRS

I ALWAYS SAY THEYRE HUSBANDS

BUT NOW THEY CAN ACTUALLY BE HUSBANDS

wait

frick

gay marriage still isnt legal in thailand

well... i mean they can technically get married in another country

they should get married in australia

and invite me to the wedding

WAIT

FLASHBACKS???

STOP

STOP IT

I DIDNT SIGN UP FOR THIS

I DIDNT SIGN UP FOR FLASHBACKS

NOOOO IM GONNA CRY AGAIN

its gotten to the point where im sobbing about how short he is

NOOO IS THAT IT???

OH HELL YES TY P'AOF FOR ALWAYS HAVING AN END CREDITS SCENE THING

AWWWW HE'S CONTINUING THE STORY ONLINEEE

they gonna fu-

also we got to see yod again!!

i love them all so much

well. that's the end of me. i am dead.

phutian are officially husbands, and im gonna go cry for the rest of the year

#quodekash watches our skyy 2 despite desperately needing to sleep #our skyy 2 #a tale of thousand stars #atots #os2 #1000stars #phutian #phuphatian #our skyy x 1000 stars #our skyy x atots #earthmix #earth pirapat #mix sahaphap

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doingthingsthewriteway · 2 years

Text

Sweet Home Hawkins

or the Sweet Home Alabama au no one asked for

TW: mentions of miscarriage, language, slight angst

The absence of the engagement ring from Charlie left Y/N feeling uncertain. In New York, she was certain of herself with the sparkling band of diamonds on her finger. She was somebody with that ring on; she was marrying into old money and all the perks that came with it.

The Tiffany’s solitaire was away being sized while Y/N was away in Hawkins. Charlie all but begged to join her and see where his little cookie came from. Y/N wasn’t able to articulate a reason why not but thankfully her mother in law came to her aid that weekend with a benefit dinner.

So Y/N was in Hawkins. She shut her rental car door and headed across the gravel driveway up to their trailer. Wayne’s truck was gone next door which provided a small emotional relief-she couldn’t say goodbye again.

The yard was still fenced. A familiar bark tore her heart in two. Ozzy ran along the chain link fence yipping happily. She stuck her fingers through and the scruffy mutt happily licked them and nuzzled closer. At least someone in Hawkins was happy to see her.

A deep breath and a slow knock later had her face to face with Eddie. His hair was still long, tied loosely into a bun. He just got off work. Oil and grease stains scattered his clothes. Brown eyes met you as his lips curved seemingly all at once from a frown to smile to pout.

“Y/N?” And oh god he sounded the same after all those years.

“Eddie.” She tried to be neutral, flat, aloof to the squeezing of her chest. Tried. Eddie heard the rush of emotion and nearly choked with hope.

He ushered her inside while quickly knocking away the clutter he often accumulated during the week. When Y/N was home that never happened and he tried so hard to hid the embarrassment that tickled his cheeks.

“What,uh, how are you?” Eddie finally asked as he rummaged through the fridge searching for the pitcher of tea he always kept fresh just in case she came home.

“Eddie.” Y/N paused trying to muster her strength. “I’m here to get you to sign the papers.”

Hope is a dangerous thing and it killed him. The papers. Yes, those goddamn fucking papers. He took a lighter to the first package that arrived with them, rolled joints with the second, let the dog chew up the third, and the rest collected dust on their bedroom floor.

He hummed ignoring the tears burning his eyes. “Is it that bad being married to me?”

“I filed nearly a year ago. I have fresh copies. You get everything.”

“Except you.” Tears welled in his eyes now, hands shaking slightly as he poured her a glass. “S’all I ever wanted is you, sweetheart.”

Y/N looked everywhere but those big brown eyes because just one look and she knew she’d cave and come back. Charlie would be, well she supposed he would be devastated. He wasn’t ever that emotional she liked to think he’d be upset if she was gone.

“I’ve given you space. Nearly 800 miles of it. I looked it up in the library with Dustin. You remember Dustin? And the rest of our friends you left behind?” The thought of her friends stung in a way she couldn’t describe.

“I’m engaged.”

Two little words dropped a bomb that Eddie hadn’t anticipated. He hadn’t so much as looked at another woman since he met her, how could she have looked at someone else?

“Like hell you are! I’m your husband for better or worse! Til death due us part and, baby, neither of us are dead.”

Y/N’s lip quivered. “Our worse wasn’t fixable.”

“Yeah? And this…this…” he waved his hand around dramatically.

“Charlie.”

“Charlie, he’s the answer for you then? What’s he do?”

Charlie didn’t really do much. He played polo, he went to benefits, and when he felt like it, sold real estate for his dad. “He’s from the Hamptons.”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Where’s your ring from Charlie then?”

“At Tiffany’s getting sized.”

“Prick didn’t even know your ring size? Does he know anything about you at all?”

The question shouldn’t have mattered. It should have been passed off as a sarcastic comment until Eddie saw the shadow cast across her face. “Oh my god, Eddie just sign the papers.”

He all but strutted closer to you. “He doesn’t does he? Have you told him about Beanie?” Tears we’re flowing now from both of them as they stared each other down in the tiny little kitchen.

At her silence, Eddie shook his head. “Beanie was ours. Not a day goes by I don’t think of them.”

“Eddie stop.”

“You said you needed space. You said you needed time to heal and grow and go to school. I respected that because I saw you hurting but fuck you weren’t the only one.”

Y/N’s eyes narrowed. She dropped the papers on counter. “I felt it. I was at work and lost Beanie and I needed you and you were out playing dnd and selling drugs to fucking cheerleaders!”

She slammed the trailer door on the way out. Running back to her car. Eddie chased after her, holding the car door in his hands. “I’m sorry! Okay? So fucking sorry! Every single day I miss you and need you. So be angry, hate me, but Y/N Munson I am not signing those papers.”

He let her go, watching dust fly up from her tires. Y/N went straight to the sheriffs office to get him to, well she wasn’t sure what she’d get him to do but it would be something.

She found Hopper sitting at his desk still fat and happy. “Y/N?”

“Sheriff.” She wiped at her eyes. “I’ve given Eddie papers, please get him to sign them.”

“Divorce papers? You’re still putting him through that?”

“Have I missed something? How is this my fault? Everyone knew what happened.”

Hopper sighed, leaning back in his chair feet propped up on the desk. “No can do kiddo, sorry. Ask around and see if you really think he hasn’t been hurt by you running out.”

Fuck Hawkins and it’s backwards bullshit. Y/N left promptly grumbling under her breath only to find herself bumping into yet another skeleton.

“Y/N?” Stupid Steve Harrington stated at her with a smile. A bag of groceries in one arm, a toddler happily clinging to the other.

“Steve…hi!” Even Y/N heard how fake it sounded.

“You’re back?” Steve still beamed with happiness and hope. “We’ve missed you.”

Before Y/N could refute that she was back, she’d somehow agreed to dinner at the Harringtons that night. Steve always had that effect on people. He could just take one look and know they needed a home for a while and he was all to happy to provide.

Y/N begrudgingly showed up for dinner after wasting gas driving in circles around Hawkins. She bought two bottles of wine and sipped on one while she waited and took the other with her as she walked up the stairs to the Harrington House.

Steve’s parents left to retire to the Great Lakes, leaving newly weds with the home. Nancy was working as a reporter for Indianapolis while Steve happily served as Mr. Mom. The toddler was named Lily and they had another on the way.

Envy crept into her chest like bones as Y/N watched the Harringtons settle into the den after dinner. Steve sipped a glass of wine while Nancy searched for a tea.

“Go sit, allow me.” Y/N prepped the tea bag and pot, setting it before Nancy. “Ginger tea always helped me when I was pregnant.”

Steve’s glass shattered to the floor as Y/N winced. Fuck. Goddamn shit fuck. Nancy, with wide delicate eyes, reached out to Y/N. “Honey, you were pregnant? Is that why?” Unspoken words of “You left” hung in the air silent.

“I-“

Steve gently ushered Y/N onto the couch after tidying up his mess. “Deep breath.”

“No, yes, I lost them.”

The years worth of tears, of grief and anger spilled out into the Harringtons arms. She told them everything, everything Eddie had said and didn’t say. Some things they knew, some they didn’t. Y/N got wine drunk and slept in the guest room.

Steve and Nancy shared matching guilty expressions. Everyone in Hawkins was guilty at some point or another of judging the Munsons. Favor had turned to Eddie over time once everyone saw how hopelessly devoted he was to a ghost of a woman.

The next morning, Y/N was gone before the Harringtons could wake. She was back at the trailer before Eddie left for the auto shop.

She used her key to enter, finding Eddie in the kitchen chain smoking. “Eddie.”

His eyes were bloodshot and the table was surrounded by beer cans. “Spent the night at Harringtons? This is your home.”

“You never told anyone about Beanie either.” She sat her purse down in an empty chair and started picking up the cans. “The whole town fucking thinks I just up and left.”

“That’s what you’re doing.” He grumbled. “You weren’t supposed to stay gone. I didn’t mean that. I was just being dumb ol me. You were supposed to come back and we would hold each other and…and…” his throat tightened and his breath hitched “and we’d have a whole litter of babies and I’d get us out of town together so our babies wouldn’t be treated the way we were.”

In a flash, Eddie jumped from his seat and kicked the chair over. “I fucking failed again once you left!” He screamed. “All I could think about was that look on your face in the hospital and how it much you hated me.”

“I never hated you.” She crushed a beer can. “I was hurt and terrified and angry and I couldn’t be around you.”

“I’ve grown up.” He sniffled sliding down the counter to sit on the floor. “I got my ged and I got a job and I’ve been saving money and stopped selling and I bought us some land and-“

She wiped his precious brown eyes. “Lovie…”

Eddie whined. “Don’t call me that not when you are gonna leave me for Charlie who doesn’t even know how wonderful you are and how miraculous your body is.”

Y/N huffed and called Eddie’s work with an excuse of food poisoning. Eddie looked up at her through his lashes and smiled for the first time.

“I know you’re mad you’re always so cute when you’re mad.” He giggled scrambling to his feet. “And you’re going to be pissed but I’m not signing those papers Y/N. You still love me. If you didn’t you would’ve gotten your fancy lawyer to send people after me. You wouldn’t have come home.”

Y/N shook her head in disbelief. “Eddie, I, it’s not that I don’t love you I’ll always love you.”

“I know it hurts to remember, I know it does. But forgetting is so much worse.” Eddie took exactly two steps and pulled Y/N’s lips to his.

His lips were soft, capturing hers in a trance. His tongue flicked out against her teeth slipping right on his. Ringer fingers trailed up and down her sides leaving goosebumps in their wake. Joy, grief, excitement and fest rushed through her as she kissed back, fingers going to his hair in an all too familiar fashion. A soft moan left her lips.

Pulling away, his fingers landed on her cheeks rubbing softly. “Tell me you feel nothing and I’ll let you go.”

A silence fell over the kitchen. “Tell me you feel nothing and I’ll let you go.” Eddie repeated with more confidence.

Y/N’s throat constricted and she looked up in defeat. “I can’t.”

Eddie smiled a big goofy Eddie smile. “Y/N Munson, I love you.” He picked her up and spun her around, nuzzling his nose in her hair, her neck, his fingers trailing to her breast. “Are ya coming home baby? Tell me ya are.”

“I’m home, Eddie.”

#Eddie Munson x reader #Eddie Munson imagines #Eddie Munson angst #Eddie Munson au #Eddie Munson

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knights-unwelcommentary · 2 months

Text

AG: Hey I’m cashing in on an itty bitty favor. Can I crash at yours?

CG: Cashing in on fucking what. You’ve done nothing for me in recent memory. What’s more, just having to tolerate you is a huge, bothersome favor I’m doing for you and every sorry burnt onion waffle that’s spared from having a Serket loose in the world for any length of time it takes for you to fuck off from my screen.

AG Oh, stop. You’re going to make me blush.

CG: hjndfjghjsd.

CG: The answer's a resounding hell no. If that’s all here’s where I say goodbye, I wish you a very pleasant fuck you.

AG: Not so fast! My current predicament's partially your fault so you do kind of owe me.

CG: Predicament.

AG: Yeah, you know that mandate to outsource the capture or elimination of massive threats you passed?

AG: Guess what won the neighborhood vote.

CG: They got your lusus?

AG: They killed my lusus. I’m covered in her blood.

CG: Shit. I’m sorry.

AG: Maybe it’s better this way, she was getting so big I couldn’t keep up with her appetite anymore. It was going to be me or her eventually.

CG: Alright, but how does that have anything to do with coming over?

AG: You never got around to overriding the culling of orphans, remember? Some shithead filled a raid order soon as my lusus’ head rolled down the cliff.

CG: You’re hiding from the law?

AG: My options right now are you or Feferi and last I checked I haven’t spontaneously developed gills. So what will it be?

AG: Oh fearless leader?

AG: Alternia’s very own little saint?

AG: Our publicly acclaimed tyrant?

AG: I could do your paperwork~

CG: Shut up, let me think

#wip

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mythundermeme · 1 year

Text

Arcane starters

note: feel free to tweak details to fit the muses. do not add to this list. other meme blogs, please don’t reblog.

content/trigger warning: death, violence, swearing, vomiting

ACT 3

episode 07

"I knew it was a mistake trusting you."

"You've been a real picnic yourself."

"Hey, stop! Get your hands off of me."

"You shy? Or just ugly?"

"You look good for a dead girl."

"That was a long time ago. People change."

"You were following us? Why didn't you say something?"

"You still punch like a little boy."

"I remember when you wouldn't stand up to me."

"Perhaps the error resides not with your calculations, but with your subjects."

"Nature has made us intolerant to change. But fortunately, we have the capacity to change our nature."

"I know the look of a doomed man."

"If you take this path, they will despise you."

"Love and legacy are the sacrifices we make for progress."

"I tried taking it apart and it nearly killed me."

"Everything you said about him was true."

"My family cast me out and yet, part of me still loves them."

"He disappeared. He does that sometimes."

"It didn't sound like a request."

"Let's just say I didn't always see eye-to-eye with my old man."

"I didn't lose her. They took her!"

"Why would I remember her name?"

"They needed somewhere safe to start again."

"She's still in there. I can reach her."

"I order a blockade and my own partner violates it?"

"Have you forgotten where we came from?"

"Listen, let her go."

"I brought her here."

"It's me you want."

"I thought they were hurting you!"

"Don't move, silly. I might hurt you."

"Have you forgotten how she left you?"

"I am your family. Everyone else betrays us."

"Your people hunt us like animals."

"Your people aren't dying all around you."

"The peace is already broken."

"Shut up. It's just a goodbye hug."

"Oh, look who it is. The boy savior."

episode 08

"He wanted me to know death."

"Your brother thinks he can talk his way out of anything."

"I will give you the world, child, if you prove you can take it."

"Kill her now, and only one must die."

"You understand you've broken several laws?"

"Sometimes death is a mercy."

"You're a scary lady."

"War isn't our first and every recourse."

"Weapons can't be unmade, and they are always used."

"What happened to her, it's not your fault."

"I understand this must be painful. I'm afraif it will only get worse."

"I have to get home. It isn't safe for me here."

"We're no strangers to failure."

"They're still cleaning the blood off the bridge."

"I remember where your fancy damn door is."

"Go back to that big, shiny house of yours and just… forget me, okay?"

"Everything you do inspires me."

"You said you were tired of doing nothing."

"That's the only sensible thing that came out of anyone's mouth tonight."

"Of everyone up here, you're the one she trusted to do something."

"We got a deal, pretty boy?"

episode 09

"He knew what he was signing up for."

"Do you not understand? I am part of this now."

"You won't make it alone."

"You gonna do anything about that piece of shit who murdered my boy?"

"At least we have the solace of knowing he died fighting for our cause, instead of some petty personal dispute, as so often occurs here."

"You're one to talk about sacrificing for the cause."

"March back to your ship and get the hell out of my city."

"Get a hold of yourself. I taught you better."

"I wanted to protect the city from people like you."

"I would set the world ablaze to protect our family."

"At least you didn't throw up."

"Everything made sense then."

"What about your disease?"

"We lost ourselves. Lost our dream."

"In the pursuit of great, we failed to do good."

"You know what bore us through those times? Loyalty."

"Now I'm forced to share the air with parasites like you who leech off their legacies."

"I still believe in loyalty."

"Perfect place for an ambush."

"I was reminded recently of what brought us together in the first place."

"I give you credit for your stunt."

"They weren't her crimes, she was working for me."

"We both have our shitty parts to play."

"You'd be surprised what you can pull off when your life depends on it."

"It's not enough to give people what they need to survive, you have to give them what they need to live."

"And what do I lose but problems?"

"Is there anything so undoing as a daughter?"

"She still needs you. They all do."

"They're right not to trust us."

"With respect, I don't give a shit what any of you think of me anymore."

"Nothing ever stays dead."

"I always heard you. Shadows in the streets, prickles on the back of my neck."

"The only thing that kept me going was the thought of getting back to you."

"I paid your girlfriend a visit this morning."

"Make her go away, please."

"You wouldn't lie to me. Not again."

"You're my daughter. I'll never forsake you."

"I never would have given you to them. Not for anything."

"I thought maybe you could love me like you used to."

#long post #sentence starter #arcane starters #rp meme

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ollieofthebeholder · 4 months

Text

to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest): a TMA fanfic

<< Beginning < Prev || AO3 || My website

Chapter 81: June 2017

[CLICK]

[HEAVY BREATHING, SLIGHT WHIMPER]

[SOUND OF A BODY DRAGGING ITSELF ACROSS A FLOOR]

[WHISPERS BEGIN, OVERLAPPING ONE ANOTHER, JUST LOUD ENOUGH TO BE AUDIBLE, ECHOING SLIGHTLY]

GHOST 1

—hurt me, please don’t hurt me, I won’t tell—

GHOST 2

—have any money, I swear, it all went into—

GHOST 3

—think you’re doing with that, you little—

GHOST 4

—away from me, you crazy witch, I’ll have the law on—

GHOST 5

—Bookmaster, she who holds the Keys—

GHOST 6

—feeling better, I promise I am, you can—

GHOST 7

—hurts, it hurts, please make it stop, I’ll do—

GHOST 8

—me say goodbye to Martin—Martin?

[Louder] Martin! Martin—my God, is that you?

ARCHIVIST

Aah! Wh-what—how—o-oh, God.

GHOST 8

I can’t believe…

Oi! Shut up, you lot, he’s not—just—just give us a minute.

[WHISPERS FALL SILENT]

Bloody hell. Like looking in a mirror…not sure where you got those eyes, though. Don’t think mine are that bright, are they?

ARCHIVIST

Who…what are you?

GHOST 8

[Broken laugh] You’re telling me you don’t recognize your old man?

ARCHIVIST

What?!

KIERAN

Look at you. You’ve…(heh) you’ve grown since I saw you last.

[ARCHIVIST GIVES A SOFT GROAN OF PAIN]

ARCHIVIST

I was seven years old…d-did you think I…was going to shrink?

[KIERAN GIVES A GENUINE LAUGH AT THAT]

KIERAN

I see you got my temper as well as my face. That must make your mother happy.

ARCHIVIST

Explains why she…hates me so much.

KIERAN

She doesn’t hate you.

ARCHIVIST

How would you know? You were—nngh—never there.

KIERAN

Are you—you’re bleeding. You’re hurt.

ARCHIVIST

[Through gritted teeth] Brilliant deduction, Sherlock.

KIERAN

Did they do this to you?

…

I’ll kill them. By God, I don’t know how, but I’ll kill them for this.

ARCHIVIST

Don’t pretend to c-care to justify—

[HISS OF PAIN, A COUPLE OF RAGGED BREATHS]

If you want to kill them…f-fine. Fine. Just don’t pretend it’s on my account.

KIERAN

What…Martin.

Of course I care. What makes you think I don’t?

ARCHIVIST

What do you think? You left.

KIERAN

For work. I was—you’re, you’re right, I was never there, not like I should have been, but it was because I was working.

ARCHIVIST

Mum—[gasps] Mum t-told me you…weren’t coming back.

KIERAN

[Deep breath] I won’t deny I…said some things I regret. But I didn’t mean them. I was coming back.

I asked your grandfather to make sure you knew you weren’t why I left early. Didn’t he?

ARCHIVIST

…

Well…yeah, he did, but…I, I always assumed…he was just trying to buck me up.

I mean, I f-figured if, if you really c-cared about me, you…wouldn’t have left me with…her.

KIERAN

Martin. Son, I…

Jesus, that’s bad. Let me see it.

…

Ah. Aye, I probably should’ve expected that.

ARCHIVIST

I-it’s…it’s not that bad.

KIERAN

Not that bad?! You look like a Halloween decoration!

ARCHIVIST

T-trust me, I’ve had worse. (heh) Kind of sucks that—that it’s my…dominant hand, but…I’ll live. I think.

If…if I can g-get out of here, I can…there, there must be a hospital nearby. I just…[deep breath] I d-dont have the…energy.

KIERAN

That tends to be a side effect of major blood loss.

ARCHIVIST

[Faint laugh] I think that’s…the least of my problems right now, actually.

I was…already tired. Used too much of…m-myself in there. If I…had the strength…

KIERAN

[Anguished] What do you need? I—damn it, Martin, I haven’t been able to do anything for you. Tell me—

Oh, fuck.

ARCHIVIST

[Calmly] Okay, that’s…probably not good.

KIERAN

Don’t you dare die on me, you hear me, boyo? I love you, but—

ARCHIVIST

[With a sudden burst of energy] You don’t get to say that. Not yet.

KIERAN

[Sighs] My temper, all right. And every ounce of stubbornness from both sides.

Here, if I can…I can help you. I can—

Okay, maybe I can’t rip up a pillowcase and tie that hand up for you. Wouldn’t trust that bedding anyway. She bathes more often than he does, but I still don’t know what’s on those…

Tell me what to do. Tell me how to help.

ARCHIVIST

I…

Tell me what happened.

KIERAN

What?

[FAINT GROAN FROM THE ARCHIVIST]

[FABRIC RUSTLES, THE BED CREAKS FAINTLY AS THE ARCHIVIST LEANS AGAINST IT]

ARCHIVIST

I’m…it’s, it’s a thing I’m…becoming. It’s…a long story. But when people—when they t-tell me their, things that have happened, their…(heh) their deepest, darkest secrets…I, they kind of…fuel me.

Tell me…why you left. How you…got here.

You’re, you’re dead. I didn’t—

[Realizes] F-fuck! Fuck, he—he was right. You—you were in the Book.

KIERAN

You knew about that?

ARCHIVIST

Aunt M-Mary…showed all three of us. The Book, I mean. To, to scare us into line.

Gerry…Gerry told me that…he thought you m-might have…been in it. But I didn’t…

KIERAN

Gerry?

Wait—not the Gerard those two are always going on about?

ARCHIVIST

Yeah. Gerard Keay. We…we call him Gerry.

What—how did you…

KIERAN

It’s not a nice story.

And I’m not sure—you don’t need to know that. You don’t need to…

ARCHIVIST

Hate Mum?

KIERAN

I didn’t say that.

ARCHIVIST

You didn’t have to.

[A PAUSE, BROKEN BY THE ARCHIVIST’S RAGGED BREATHING]

I work for the Magnus Institute. Taking statements is…kind of what we do. I’m…in the Archives and…I have, the-there are things I can do. Not…nice things. Not really.

KIERAN

…Will it really help you?

ARCHIVIST

Yeah. Fear…I sort of…eat it. That’s a bit of an understatement, but…so-something like that.

And…it might…connect us. Dunno. Never…never taken a statement from a ghost before. But…

Sometimes I dream about them. The, the statements. The live ones, anyway.

Do you…still dream?

KIERAN

I don’t quite know if it’s properly dreaming.

But I remember. Sometimes. When I’m not…fully here.

ARCHIVIST

M-maybe if…you remember…I’ll be there next time. Watching.

KIERAN

I don’t want that. Not for you.

…

But I’m not letting you die, either.

So. Where do you want me to start?

ARCHIVIST

At…at the beginning. I guess.

[Deep breath] Statement of…Kieran Blackwood, regarding his life and death. Statement taken direct from subject, twenty-fifth July, 2017. Recording by Martin Blackwood, Archivist, the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

KIERAN (Statement)

I didn’t know what I wanted as a kid, except that I wanted to be important.

My birthday was—is, I suppose—the second of June, and every year my parents would tell the story, tossing the parts back and forth like a well-rehearsed script until I could practically recite the lines myself—how Mum had tried to ignore the contractions so she and Da could enjoy the procession and the festivities, how it had finally got so bad that they tried to leave their spot watching and barely made it through the crowd, how no taxis were available, how Da tried to carry her himself but didn’t know where he was going because they were only visiting London for the coronation. How I was born right there on the street. Da always laughed and said I was so impatient to see the new queen myself that I couldn’t wait even another hour. I always hated that story, not because it was embarrassing but because it wasn’t really about me. It was about them, and about the coronation. I told Da once that if I’d been able to pick when I was born I’d have picked a day that nothing else was happening so that I was what people would remember, but he just laughed.

I don’t think he got it.

Once I started school, I went out for everything I could, trying to find something I would be the best at and make a name for myself. None of it really stuck. Looking back, I had bought into the idea that if I wasn’t a prodigy and immediately good at something, I never would be—or at least, that I would never be great. Of course everyone eventually improved with practice, but I rather had it in my head that I’d never reach the top if I didn’t start off halfway up the hill. So I would try something for a week or two, then abandon it as soon as I got my first critique. The only thing I was decent at, not even good, but had some talent with, was swimming—and even then it wasn’t necessarily speed or form. I wasn’t winning races or anything. But I could last longer than anyone in my class—even the teacher. Not just floating, either. I could swim for ages and not get tired.

I had a bit of skill with rowing, too, but the problem was that I was bigger and stronger than most of my mates, so in the end I wound up the coxswain for the school team. We won more often than not, but there was a part of me that was dissatisfied, no matter how loud Da cheered or how proudly Mum displayed the ribbons on the walls. I mean, how many famous rowing teams can you name?

I actually wanted to be a politician. I had dreams of being the next Winston Churchill or summat. But I had my heart set on Christ’s College at Cambridge, and my grades weren’t near good enough to get me in without some kind of advantage. And between the fact that Da was a dockworker and I never managed to successfully cover up the Geordie when I talked, I knew I’d never be taken seriously if I didn’t have a really good university degree, so I gave that up. For the first summer after I left school, I worked with Da on the docks.

That’s how I met Mikaele Salesa.

If you work for the Magnus Institute, I’m sure you’ve heard his name, you know what he does. Did, maybe, he might be retired by now, I dunno. Back then, though, he was just starting out. Walked away from some library job, so he told me, assistant to a stuck-up old fool who could afford to indulge a weird hobby. He’d done it with a tidy nest egg, though, and was looking to set up his own business, dealing in antiques. Thought trading by sea was the way to go; it’d be cheaper, after all, and easier to evade customs if need be, although he didn’t say that part out loud. Trouble was, he was a foreigner, in a time when being foreign in England wasn’t the greatest opportunity. And I won’t pretend the sort of lad that hung about docks those days were the most open-minded of fellows.

Me, I never had a problem with them. Partly it was that having wanted to be in politics, where I figured being diplomatic and able to get along with anyone might give me an edge, but partly, well, with my background—not just being in the North, near the docks, where people expected you to be slow and stupid, but also the fact that Mum was from Belfast originally—I had a bit of sympathy for anyone seen as “other”. So when I got off shift and found him being avoided in the local, I sat down next to him and bought him a pint.

He wasn’t much older than I was, maybe ten years at best, and since he’d been born during the second World War, he had some of the same experiences I did about his birthday being overshadowed by historic events. I was fascinated by the stories I told. He was intrigued when I mentioned what skills I’d picked up, said that being able to row if we were becalmed or swim if we capsized were good things for a sailor to know. And after I told off one of my da’s mates for saying something racist, he offered me a job on his crew. Told me he needed a first mate, and if I could help him find a good boat, the post was mine.

We found her, all right, and since it was me doing the talking, we got a good rate on her too. Signed on a crew for the first voyage, provisioned her up, and the Demeter was ready to set sail.

For the first few years, it was…exactly what I’d expected. Finding artifacts, buying them, selling them to rich idiots with more money than sense. The pay was decent, definitely better than I’d have got anywhere else—a kid with no experience, I’d expected to hire on as a seaman, nothing more, and certainly not as first mate—but for me it was about the clout. See, Mikaele—he was Captain Salesa, or just Captain, in front of the crew, but in private he told me to keep calling him Mikaele—tended to treat the crew the way the old sailors did: you signed on for a voyage, you got paid off, and then he’d sign on a whole new crew when he was ready to ship out again. I think it was a way to keep anyone from really knowing what he was doing with some of those artifacts. But I was his partner, so I stayed on. And since I was the only one who’d ever sailed more than one voyage in a row with him, the men in the pubs thought I had something special.

It was what I’d wanted, so I ran with it.

They were just ordinary objects back then, nothing special—well, maybe except for the fact that some of them probably shouldn’t have left the country, if you catch my drift. But one day, maybe eight or nine years after I met him, I came to talk to him about something and found him staring at a sack full of Morgan silver dollars. I knew how rare those were, but after a moment, he looked up at me with the most serious expression I’d ever seen on the man and told me not to touch them, or to let anyone else on the crew near them. If he sold them, he promised, he’d explain everything, but until then it wasn’t safe.

I don’t know what I thought. Maybe that they were radioactive or something? But when we got back to England about six months later, after he’d sold everything and paid off the crew, he asked me to come up to his rooms and discuss “the truth”. That night he laid out everything.

I…I assume from what you said that you know about the Fourteen. That was the first I’d ever heard of them. Mikaele told me the silver dollars he’d been sold belonged to the one called the Slaughter, and that he’d been lucky to be rid of them without it sticking…but it looked like we might have a new avenue of sales. Swore me to secrecy on that front, but promised that if I kept the crew from getting too involved in the…special artifacts, he’d do right by me.

He never let me handle those objects. Said he cared too much about my safety to put me through that. I thought he was just being dramatic until he told me some about what had happened to the other people who’d worked for Jurgen Leitner, and how he’d sworn he would never be that careless with the lives of people who depended on him. Eventually, we worked it out so I handled the men and he handled the purchasing and…acquiring, and that worked well. I got good at spotting the men who’d been touched by the sorts of things that made those objects, too, and would refuse to sign them on. It was a good way to protect the artifacts, or so I thought.

It must’ve been fourteen years later that I met Liliana Koskiewicz. I remember her because she seemed so out of place with the other people that were picking over the cargo, but fit in better with the cargo itself—she looked like a Gibson girl frozen in time. Turned out she was studying archeology at Oxford—there, I bet you didn’t know that about your mum—and had come to see the cargo because she’d heard rumors Mikaele had something that was in her field of study. He had, but it was “special” cargo, so he’d already sold it. I felt bad for her, so I offered to buy her dinner as a consolation prize, and for a wonder, she accepted.

It was a whirlwind romance, which I know must come as a bit of a shock to you, but I tell you I fell head over heels for that woman the moment I met her, and she swore it was the same. Mikaele was a bit disappointed at first, it seemed to me, but after a bit he encouraged it. Said the more connections you had, the safer you were from…certain things. I was willing to take any excuse to keep courting her, and just before we set sail, I asked her to marry me. She said she’d think about it and let me know when I got back.

We were gone nine months that go-round, and when I went to her da’s farm to see her after we made port and sold off the last of the cargo, the first thing she said to me was that she accepted. She wanted a spring wedding, and Mikaele would’ve delayed sailing for it, but I talked her into a late December wedding instead on the grounds that I’d be more likely to be home for our anniversary that way.

If I’m honest, the only reason I went through with it was because of what Mikaele said about needing connections to fight back against the Fourteen. After all, I’d had nine months to think about it too, and I didn’t know her that well. But, well, I reckoned we’d get to know each other well enough, and if it didn’t work out great, at least I wouldn’t be home that much. I bought her a little house, near enough that she could go visit her da when I was out to sea but far enough that we were independent, and I made sure she had everything she might need before we set to sea again.

We’d been married two years when she told me she was pregnant. She…she wanted me to stay, but Mikaele needed me. I was still chasing that sense of being important, so I went. Promised I’d be back before you were born, but…well, you were early. We were in Malta when Alastair called—long distance and all—to tell me Lily’d been taken to hospital and it wasn’t looking good. Mikaele bought me a plane ticket and told me to get home to my family. Before I left, he gave me a talisman, some little thing made of bone and silver. He told me he didn’t think it was one of those, but that it had a bit of power in it and might…make a difference.

We—we almost lost both of you. You were a breech, and when I got there, it turned out the umbilical cord had got wrapped around your neck. Between that and the fact that you were so early they weren’t sure your lungs had developed all the way, they weren’t sure you were going to make it. And Lily…they had to do a C-section on you in the end, and she had a bad reaction to the anesthesia or summat like that. She was in a coma and they didn’t think she was going to ever come out of it.

I looked at the thing Mikaele had given me. There was a notch in it, and I thought if I…maybe it would help you both. So I snapped it in half. Put one side on your incubator and the other tucked under Lily’s pillow and hoped.

You recovered, obviously. Both of you. You were actually fine less than four hours later, and I got to hold you for the first time…I’d, I’d never felt anything like that. I was thirty-five years old and it was like I was living for the first time. Lily took a bit longer, but she eventually came round, and all was well, or so I thought.

Lily never completely recovered. It was gradual, so her da didn’t notice and neither did she—or at least she said she didn’t—but, well, I went out again when you were six months old, soon as the winter storms had passed, like always, and when I got back I could see she not only wasn’t better, she was…getting worse. At the time, I put it down to the fact that you were cutting teeth, and you were prone to ear infections back then too, so you cried unless you were being held most of the time. Your grandfather was a godsend, but he had the farm to take care of, and so most of it fell on Lily. I took over while I was home, but…well, I had to go back out again eventually.

That’s when we started fighting. She wanted me to give up sailing and get a job closer to home. I argued we needed the money—now more than ever, between you getting bigger every day and her getting sicker every week. She said if she was so sick, why wasn’t I there to help her? Round and round we went, and it always ended the same, with her going to bed early with a headache and me stomping out the door and going down the pub.

And through it all, there you were. Staring up at me with those big green eyes of yours—they weren’t so bright back then, but they were always so full of love and wonder and trust. I’d have done anything for you.

Except stay.

The final straw came just after the new year when you were seven. Mikaele had suggested we all, as a family, go out on the water and watch the fireworks on the shore to welcome in 1996. You were…so excited. It was all you’d been talking about for a week, getting to see the Demeter and see what I did for a living and finally meet “Uncle Kay”—that’s what you called him, you had trouble with “Mikaele”. And then, just as we were getting ready to go, Lily said she wasn’t feeling well. I was all set to get her settled on the couch or in bed and offer to spend the night on the boat so we wouldn’t disturb her when she told you to hang up your coat and go make her a cup of tea—the oolong, not the bagged kind. I said I’d do it and for you to go wait by the car, but Lily snapped that she’d told you to do it and you needed to learn responsibility.

I wasn’t being funny when I said you had my temper. I blew up on her, said more than a few things I’d been holding back longer than I knew. I accused her of faking her symptoms for sympathy, or to punish the rest of us, or to manipulate us—hell, I didn’t know why, and I didn’t care. Told her she could be as miserable as she wanted but she had no right to make the rest of us miserable too. She gave as good as she got, saying I’d never loved her, I didn’t have any sympathy for her, I obviously hadn’t meant it when I said “in sickness and in health”, on and on and on. We wound up shouting at one another, and then I saw you standing in the doorway with her cup of tea and tears in your eyes, and I made myself stop. I told you we could go, but you just very quietly said no, thank you, that you would stay and take care of your mother, but for me to tell Uncle Kay you said hello.

I didn’t go to the ship that night. I went over to Alastair’s, and I must’ve ranted at him for an hour. He just sat there and listened—you know what he was like—and at the end of it, suggested I take a short break away from Lily, that things might look better after we’d both had a rest. And I agreed. At first I was going to…I don’t know, stay in town for a bit maybe…but Mikaele got a line on something that, if it panned out, would have let us retire for life after the next voyage, and there was a calm spell, so we got a crew together sharpish and sailed out.

It didn’t. Pan out, that is—someone beat us to it, we never did find out who. And of course the winter storms came back with a vengeance, so we wound up in Gibraltar for six weeks waiting for an opportunity to sail again. During that time, I talked things over with Mikaele, and he agreed with Alastair that a break wouldn’t be a bad thing.

I also talked to him about Lily’s illness. I’d never really mentioned it to him; there was a sort of silent sense that anything that happened on land—well, except you—stayed there, and vice versa. But I laid it all out for him, every symptom and surge, everything that had happened back to your birth. He listened with a curious sort of look on his face, and then he asked the question I’d never thought about. He asked what happened to the talisman he’d given me. I explained what I’d done, and he nodded, said I’d done exactly what I was supposed to, but he wanted to know what had happened after that.

It wasn’t until…later that I found out the answer. Lily found the half I’d tucked under her pillow, recognized it was broken, and…I don’t know. Maybe she’d heard something of the Fourteen before. Her da worked for the Institute himself, you know, so he might have given her a bit of warning. Anyway, she asked the nurses if they’d seen the other half, and they eventually found it and gave it to her.

From what Mikaele told me, what he’d eventually learned or figured out—I never did ask how—was that it was meant to separate and spare two lives. It wasn’t…exactly one use only, but it had an odd sort of catch to it. You weren’t meant to keep it, and once you’d used it, you were supposed to bury the halves together in the earth, where they would…reform? I don’t know. It was all a bit bizarre to me. Obviously Lily hadn’t done that, but…well, we’ll get there.

Anyway, we were out to sea for eighteen months that go-round. I felt bad about missing your birthday that year—I wrote you a letter, sent you a gift, but I don’t know if you ever got it—and worse about missing Christmas, but we’d done well enough by the end of it that I could have retired, and I was considering it. I told Mikaele when we pulled into port that I was going to give it one last go talking to Lily, see if we could reconcile, because I did still love her, just not the same way I had at the beginning. And I never wanted to leave you.

Obviously, you know that when I went back to Devon, there was someone else in the house I’d bought for Lily, and they told me they’d paid cash for it from a lady who’d taken her son to London. I thought that seemed a bit odd, but at the same time, I was hoping there was a specialist she was seeing regularly and she was doing better, so I got her address and headed down. I was looking forward to seeing both of you, so much.

Somehow, she knew I was coming. There was a note on her door addressed to me when I got into town, and when I opened it, it had an address and said she’d be there all afternoon. I assumed the family who’d bought the house had called her, so I went to where it said. Turned out to be a shop—a place called Pinhole Books. The door was unlocked, so I went in.

And Lily was waiting for me. Pretty as a picture, sweet as sugar. With an antique razor in one hand and a cane in the other.

I won’t go into details, but I will say she didn’t do it alone. There was another woman, old enough to be her mother, holding her steady and coaching her through it. Everything went black, and for a while I thought that was it.

If you know about the Book, you know what she did after that. She used to summon me from time to time. Talk to me, taunt me. Tell me what she was up to. That’s how I found out what she’d done with the talisman. She’d figured out how to join it back together, and thought it would protect her from sickness, but…that wasn’t its purpose. And because she tried to keep it, instead of give it away, it was corrupting her. I begged her to get rid of it, and eventually she finally admitted that she’d already destroyed it, after she met Roger, and it hadn’t helped. Mary—who I assumed was the woman who helped her kill me—had ideas that would help her, she said, but she wouldn’t really tell me what they were. Sometimes she’d summon me and just…leave me there. It hurt, and she knew it hurt, and she said she wanted me to feel a little of what she was feeling.

And no matter how much I pleaded, she wouldn’t let me see you.

The last time I saw her was eight years after she killed me, which I only know because I told her fifty looked good on her and I thought she was going to kill me again when she told me, very sharply, that she’d only just turned forty. She looked closer to sixty, but, well, you don’t need me to tell you that. She recovered fast, though, and told me that the next time we spoke, I’d never know how old she was. She had found a way to stay young and beautiful forever, and, she said, when the Bookmaster took the lead, I would know everything. Then she wished me luck, said she would see me soon, and dismissed me.

I can’t tell from looking at you how long it’s been since then, but I reckon that didn’t work out so well for her.

ARCHIVIST

And how are you…here? I thought the Book got burned.

KIERAN

It did. I think.

I don’t know too much about how all this works, but as near as I can tell, all of us who were in those pages—the ones who weren’t summoned, anyway, since I think your Gerard was involved, from what I’ve heard those two say—were set free when it burned, but not all the way. We’re loose in the world again, but we can’t go very far from the Bookmasters.

ARCHIVIST

The Bookmasters?

KIERAN

Those two bastards in the other room. Don’t ask me why, I just…knew that’s what they were when I saw them.

ARCHIVIST

It…it makes sense. I think.

…

Twelve years.

KIERAN

Eh?

ARCHIVIST

Since she—it’s been twenty years since she killed you. She tried to do…whatever it was, I still don’t know…twelve years ago.

And you’re right. It didn’t work. That was when she started needing round-the-clock care, couldn’t leave the house except to see her doctors, the whole nine yards. I dropped out of school and…well, that’s when I went to work for the Institute. Roger got fired around the same time—he had early onset dementia, it was just starting to get bad about then—and Melanie couldn’t fake being an adult like I could back then.

KIERAN

I wish you hadn’t felt like you had to do that.

ARCHIVIST

Me, too, but…I think I needed to be there. Eventually.

KIERAN

Twenty years…so you’re twenty-eight then? No, twenty-nine.

ARCHIVIST

I will be in August. If I live that long. If the world doesn’t end.

KIERAN

[Fiercely] You’re not dying.

ARCHIVIST

Yes, sir.

[More seriously] I’m okay. That…thank you. For, for giving me the statement. It…helped. A lot.

KIERAN

Good. Now you can get that hand—

…Oh.

Blimey, how long was I talking?

ARCHIVIST

Not nearly that long.

Yeah, that’s, um, probably not a good sign, but…[sighs] you know what, at this point, I don’t really have time to worry about it.

KIERAN

What’s your next move, then?

ARCHIVIST

I need to get back to London. Hopefully without the Van Helsings in there sending me back in pieces, or calling Gerry—or Jon.

KIERAN

…Okay, you told me who Gerry is, and Lily mentioned Roger’s girl Melanie, but who’s Jon?

ARCHIVIST

My b—

…

Um…he’s my…boyfriend.

KIERAN

(heh) Does Roger approve?

ARCHIVIST

He died five years ago.

But…you know, I think he would have liked him.

I think you’d like him. If you met him.

…

Maybe you’ll get the chance.

KIERAN

I doubt that, boyo.

ARCHIVIST

I’ll come back. When, when I figure out how to set you all free.

I will figure it out. What’s the good of working for the embodiment of fearful knowledge if I can’t occasionally learn something to my advantage?

[KIERAN LAUGHS. AFTER A MOMENT, THE ARCHIVIST JOINS IN]

KIERAN

Aye, maybe there’s something to that.

Let me rally the others. We can distract the Bookmasters, maybe keep them busy for a while, so you can get away. Do you—no, that window’s a bit small—ah, no offense.

ARCHIVIST

None taken. But believe me, I’ve forced my way through much smaller spaces than that.

…Thank you.

KIERAN

I’m just glad I can help.

And I’m glad to know that I finally became something important after all.

ARCHIVIST

What’s that?

KIERAN

Martin Blackwood’s father.

ARCHIVIST

…

You know…it’s a good thing Mum is the way she is.

KIERAN

Eh? Why is that?

ARCHIVIST

It long ago disabused me of the notion that parents have to love and be proud of their kids no matter what.

Otherwise I might not have believed you meant that.

KIERAN

Martin.

[FAINT FABRIC RUSTLES]

There has not been one single moment since the nurse put you in my arms that I have not been proud of you.

I love you, son.

ARCHIVIST

…

I love you, too, Papa.

[CLICK]

#ollie writes fanfic #tma fanfic #to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest)#martin blackwood #death #unreality #injury #bleeding #arguments #mention of murder #implied/referenced emotional abuse #the formatting is better on AO3 #or my website

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elizabethanism · 2 years

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For our entire relationship, I was absolutely and irrevocably miserable. I can see now that you used me purely as a means to an end. Don’t you know how that makes me feel? It is imperative that you reflect on the meaning of universal law, and stop doing that thing you did with your tongue. I hated that.

Immanuel Kant

What are we even doing anymore? With every passing day, you grow more isolated from your labor. We have not made love in over a month, even after I was cured of that rash, and was so certain that we would celebrate appropriately. I demand justice from this bourgeois hand-job hell they call “relationships.”

Karl Marx

Do you remember that day with the ducks? It was cold and rainy and the foreboding sky tried to seal our fate with each gust of wind. We hurried underneath the nearest awning, where we came upon a family of ducks nestled together, and I remember looking at you and thinking, “This can’t last long.” But what ever does? Listen to me when I say that just as a bee abandons its flower once pollination is complete, you too must move onward, or go under. One day soon you will meet a man, and he will rise like a phoenix from the ashes, and it is my greatest hope that he will not give you syphilis.

Friedrich Nietzsche

It pains me to admit it, but Socrates was right about you. You are incapable of thinking about anyone but yourself. When was the last time you even came to see me lecture at the Academy? I have been lost in a state of denial for long enough. Now I finally realize that your love is not true. Your beauty is transcendent, yes, but painfully abstract. Leave me to grapple with the material world. Be gone.

Plato

I drink, therefore I am . . . drunk. Ha ha! I thought this would be easier after my sixth glass of wine, but alas, it is still absolutely terrible. Oh, how my world grows smaller when I think of you not in it, and—no, you know what? Let me start over. Philosophy is like a tree, and it has all these branches that extend outward, but you’re like a shrub. Cute and small, but not well versed in rationalist thought. Do you get what I’m trying to say?

René Descartes

My dear little girl, I visited the Balzac exhibit the other day and immediately knew what had to be done. I am terribly in love with you, and yet I despise you. Try to understand: I think of you in those small, delicate moments, like when a squirrel hurries across the allée or a homeless man pleasures himself in the bushes of les Tuileries. It might be time that you find someone else who shares your interest in morally evolved threesomes.

Jean-Paul Sartre

J.P., you are an ass.

Simone de Beauvoir

I will proceed to break down our relationship into three stages. Our first stage is defined by aesthetics. I walked down one of my favorite crooked streets in Copenhagen, watched you step out of a carriage, and knew I must have you. The second stage of our existence is an ethical one. While I desired to lay my eyes on your hidden flesh, I recognized that you had recently revealed your body and soul to my good friend Hans, and knew he would be pissed if I tried anything. Our third and final stage is religious. I did not care much for Hans, and so I seduced you. However, we have both committed a tremendous sin, and thus we must end this immoral though titillating tryst immediately. God bless.

Søren Kierkegaard

Say goodbye to my John Cocke!

John Locke

#John Locke #Søren Kierkegaard #Simone de Beauvoir #Jean-Paul Sartre #René Descartes #Immanuel Kant #Plato #Friedrich Nietzsche #karl marx #heart break #heartache #breakup

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hauntingblue · 1 month

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Hiyori is the most effective person to complete their kill so far

#kid is having flashbacks over struggled breathing and silence its so over.... omg that was so good.....#nvm kid has TWO women on his crew... he is on par with luffy now... law... 👁👁#omg her arm is broken..... THE BONES???? jesus #good technique but what is law cutting..... now thats something else big mom..... damn... cant law shambles kid out of there.... poor man #oh that was a good one law.... but kid is OUT also WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT SWORD GOING????? he is getting haki punched all over the body...#and what does that do law.... what the hell.... oh i was thinking that..... goodbye big mom.... funny how all of the big guns have been yee #ed of the island.... also wdym to be continued.... goddamn. well next episode then #talking tag #watching one piece #episode 1066 #i have been saying kid should have repelled her out of the island 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ can't help it if my brain is so big..... well nvm...#big mom saying they like her.... jusg like kaido said to luffy akdhsk #oh jeez soul pocus.... oh nvm CORA INSPIRED ATTACK????#yamato be careful omg.... fuck it kanjuros fire thing is dying hell yes.... BIG MOM OUT!!! HELL YES!!!!! 67 children orphaned just like tha #also who was the brave soul that asked roger about hia treasure..... absolute legend.....#wdym you can find the one piece in wano... what the hell is big mom spewing....ohhh i get it i get it.. she found it...#it really is the friends she made along the way.... but she can't see it..... too focused on the lava pit she is falling into...#omg and no one notices because of the silento..... that was such a slay.....#PAUSE. zunisha was a joyboy friend who commited a crime??? how does momo know about joyboy.... the diary?? oden knew??? i forgor #episode 1067 #franky got zoro.... no izo noooo....... why..... PRIORITIES!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOO WHYYYYYYY!!!!!! IZO WHYYYYYYYY!!!#marco saying he is tried of helping people and will just chill there.... IZO IS DEAD!!!! MARCO????!!!!! if big mom is dead how is zeus stil #drake you better kill that man take izo and run.... why are you playing in a moment like this akdhaksj... girl she is going to kill you #YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!! SHE GOT HIM!!!!! SHE GOT HIM!!!! FUCK YES!!!!!!!!! HELL YEAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!! FUCK THAT MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!#FUCK YEAHHH HIYORI!!!!!! THE SONG!!!!!#episode 1068 #YEAAAH DRAKE GET HIM!!!!! oh shit in the neck....#luffy got eaten again..... oh jesus....#NOT EVEN KAIDO LIKES THE CP0 BUT HE GOT LUFFY!!!! KAIDI REGRETS IT EVEN!!!! EXACTLY!!! izo died trying to get them to stop #episode 1069

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cyborg-franky · 2 years

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Musical May

Hopefully this month I will be more on top of things. This month I will be doing prompts based on a line of a song, picked at random on my shuffle and turned into a dialog prompt[one each day/30 slots despite how many I have picked for you guys to choose from] SIDE NOTE: I am still working on April's 1. As always please and thank you! check my rules as I often get requests for characters on my 'no' list. 2. Give me two characters to choose from and two choices of prompt! 3. There are no limits to requests just don't over do it <3 Example for request: "Hey Franky! can I please have Fluff 1 or Angst 8 with Ace or Marco please? thank you!" [Each prompt I am only using once]

AN: Gee Franky, how come your list has big gaps between lines? Me: Oh ya know, I don't want to fight tumblrs god fuckin' awful post editor for an hour.

15/30

--FLUFF--

"Baby, I'd give you my world."

"There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do."

"Goin' crazy from the moment I met you."

"You could be the reason I love." Law

"I wanna lay like this forever."

"We're perfect for each other." Ace

"Have you ever found something, that you didn't even know you're looking for?"

"My love will never change."

"That I need your kiss like the ocean needs a breeze." Ace

"Now I don't feel so alone." Corazon

--GEN--

"This is fucking awesome." Luffy

"Can you fuckin' believe it?"

"Define your meaning of fun." Marco/Ace

"But everything looks better when the sun goes down."

"Oh, baby, let the bad times roll."

"We can't go to hell if we're already there." Law

--HURT/COMFORT--

"I can't stand to spend another night alone." Ace

"Whatcha gonna do with all that pain inside?"

"It doesn't matter who we are."

"I'm sorry that it took so long for me to change." Sanji

"And every time I lose control, you help me, you save me."

"We always have to sail on."

"Somebody tell me that fate has been kind."

"I was more than you thought I could be."

"I wanna know if you still love me."

"I think I know you better." Thatch

--SUGGESTIVE-- [Some could be considered yandere, so state if that's what you are after

"I'ma teach you how to scream my name." Law

"Talk dirty to me."

"I wanna ruin our friendship." Ace

"You just wait, you're gonna say my name." Marco

"I'll let you set the pace."

"I'm addicted to your punishment."

"There is no limit to how far I will go."

"Wait, I'll take another ride before I have to say goodbye."

"Give it or else I might just lose my mind."

"Fake it like you love me, Come on baby touch me."

--ANGST--

"Save yourself the pain and go away."

"I'm tired of lying." Sanji

"Maybe if we both lived in a different world, yeah."

"Quit crying innocence they've already got you."

"Now we must move ahead despite our fear and dread."

"I'm tired of being what you want me to be."

"How does it feel to treat me like you do?"

"So where were you when all this I was going through?"

"Why wont the pain subside?"

"I've gone and fucked things up again."

"If this ain't love then how do we get out?"

"This is a story of a dead man who is running out of time." Roger/Rayleigh

#one piece x you #one piece reader insert #one piece x reader #prompts

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beesmcgee · 1 year

Text

Okay I'm going to use this blog to process some thoughts because nobody reads it so it's a safe place.

Okay so for a while now I've been deep diving into autism (for the nth time in my life) and for the first time encountering all these first hand accounts of women with ASD. And it's like things are suddenly making sense for me. Screening questionnaires be like "is obsessed with trains and license plate numbers" and I'm like "well that ain't me". But an explanation specifically from women, and what it feel like from the inside. Some of them I'm like "wait that's just my entire life. They describe what my whole life has been like".

For 4 years now I have been without job, supported by partner, minimal social interaction, having therapy, on antidepressants, and now no pets. So. Minimal stress, like the least possible.

So I've started to think "oh I'm just your perfectly average human, no problems, perfectly functional" because I am not constantly crying and freaking out. I can make myself breakfast (most days, but sometimes I forget). I can mostly have a shower (although I spent some time averse to it because of the temperature change and volume of the water). I can do chores (dishes and laundry, other chores are forgotten about so house is mostly chaos). I can socialise in the one social thing I go to once per week (mostly saying hello and goodbye to people, or a rare awkward pub conversation where I am almost certainly not acting Normal). I can go on a weekend visit to my mother in law (but I get exhausted after a while masking and have to escape to the bathroom to be alone multiple times, eventually reaching a "migraine" point of sensitivity to noise and light). I can do the tasks I want to do (but mostly I get stuck hyperfocusing on the wrong thing or unable to get out of bed at all because I am Stuck. I am just Stuck on this thing, massive effort to redirect to another task, oh I'm Stuck again, oh no look how late it is, oh I'm Stuck once again). Yes, completely functional because my mood is the best it's ever been. For me that is an achievement. I have goals, I have intense interests that I pursue, I am not miserable. I wouldn't even say I am anxious anymore - I'm not like "I can't go to this thing because I'm afraid xyz will happen" or "I have to leave the room because I am anxious" anymore (thanks Zoloft); my nervous system just gets overloaded super easily and I'm like "I must be in quiet, alone". Obviously I am not functioning as you'd expect for a 30 year old human adult. How the hell do people have kids. Kids AND a job. WTF.

For basically my whole life I've been like "there is something very wrong with me". Religion probably contributed to that a lot. Stuff about realising I'm bi complicated that for sure. But it's like. All my troubles I internalised as a Personality Flaw. A moral failing. I'm just selfish, lazy, undisciplined, frivolous, childish etc. I've been undoing that with therapy for some time now, and it's nice to unravel that mess and be like "well, I am what I am". But I still want an answer.

I did very well in exams and uni. People often said I was "good at everything", could pick things up quickly, considered applying to Cambridge and everything. But the whole time I was a tense mess. School confused me, I was constantly worried about breaking some unsaid rule that everyone knew but me. I didn't know how to talk to the other people, didn't understand how to socialise. I could talk chaotically to my 2 friends (1 adhd, other maybe neurodivergent). But to anyone else, it was like. Does not compute. Hey how are you. That's all I got. I noted this line was said by people at like age 16. But that was all I got. I relied on my exaggerated facial expressions and small noises to cover up that I didn't know what to say, how to have an actual conversation that isn't a chaotic jumble of tangents and nerding out about art or physics. I was told I have very expressive eyebrows.

I just wanted to be at home drawing, or reading about physics. Drawing was my way of coping, my sketchbook a shield during social situations. I am the quiet drawing girl, oh don't disturb the quiet drawing girl, she's drawing. She's practicing her art, so it's not time to talk to her. I still do this now as an adult. I saw a home video of me at age 7, Christmas time, all my siblings playing board games and me off to the side, completely absorbed in playing with my ponies. They called me for me to join, I was just too absorbed to even hear them and I didn't respond, and once I registered I was like nah. In my own world, not really interested in being part of the group. I think that's just how I've always been.

Anyway, that's my rant, if you can call it that. I'm on a long waiting list to have an appointment to see if it's even worth pursuing an answer for if it is ASD. Will I be able to stop obsessing over this topic in the meantime? Maybe, we'll see I guess.

#maybe autism maybe not #only time shall tell #venting

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killerandhealerqueen · 2 years

Note

Hi! I seem to have fallen in love with 5+1😁 How about five times when Bai Jinbo protected Chen Yuzhi and once when Yuzhi protected him? The commissioner several times silenced the owners of too long tongues, and also did not allow anyone to dare to raise a hand against his son-in-law.

Protective Dad!Bai Jinbo, hell fucking yeah!

First Time

The time Bai Jinbo protects Chen Yuzhi is when the young doctor is when the young doctor is called to a bar to treat someone who had gotten into a bar fight

Bai Jinbo is there, keeping an eye the people whom he had pulled apart, and when Chen Yuzhi sees him, he’s a little surprised

“Oh, Commissioner. What are you doing here?”

Bai Jinbo looks over at him and smiles

“I was enjoying a drink but unfortunately, I don’t get a break”

Chen Yuzhi chuckles softly before he opens his kit and begins to treat the two injured parties, but one is drunker than the other and when Chen Yuzhi gets closer, they think that it’s the person they were just fighting with so they take a swing at Chen Yuzhi

The young doctor is shocked but before the fist can connect with his face, Bai Jinbo grabs the drunkard’s wrist and quickly twists it behind his back, just as more officers rush in (Jiang Yuelou is away on a case or else he would have been there)

Bai Jinbo then hands the drunkard off to the officers as he looks at Chen Yuzhi

“You alright, Dr. Chen?”

Chen Yuzhi looks up at him and nods

“Yes…thank you, Commissioner”

Bai Jinbo hums and continues to watch over Chen Yuzhi until he finishes treating the other injured and once he finishes, he packs up and heads to leave when Bai Jinbo steps forward

“Shall I walk you home?”

Chen Yuzhi looks at him and shakes his head with a small smile

“I’m alright”

Bai Jinbo hums and watches him leave before he looks over at another officer and motions to Chen Yuzhi

“Follow Dr. Chen home and make sure he gets home safely”

The officer nods and follows after Chen Yuzhi as Bai Jinbo hums; Jiang Yuelou would kill him if he let anything happen to Chen Yuzhi this late at night

Second Time

The second time Bai Jinbo protects Chen Yuzhi is when Chen Yuzhi is heading home from a house call

He’s out enjoying the day when he sees someone none to gently shove the doctor into the path of an oncoming car

Chen Yuzhi, of course, is so stunned by the action that he freezes and he would have been hit had Bai Jinbo not grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the street

“Are you alright, Dr. Chen?”

Chen Yuzhi turns to look at him with wide eyes before he nods

“Yes…yes, I’m fine, Commissioner, thank you”

Bai Jinbo hums

“You should be more careful”

Chen Yuzhi nods

“I know…but I wasn’t expecting to be shoved out into traffic”

Bai Jinbo hums again

“Yes, I suppose that’s true…”

He then turns and searches the sea of people for the person who shoved Chen Yuzhi and once he finds him (Jiang Yuelou gets his people hunting skills from Bai Jinbo), he nods slightly before he looks at Chen Yuzhi

“Let me escort you back to your clinic”

Chen Yuzhi wants to argue but he’s still a little shaken up by almost getting hit so he just lets Bai Jinbo half-guide/half-drag him back to his clinic and once he’s safely inside, Bai Jinbo bids him goodbye before he heads off to hunt down the person that shoved Chen Yuzhi into traffic

(It does not end well for them, just fyi)

Third Time

The third time Bai Jinbo protects Chen Yuzhi is from a bunch of very gossipy aunties

He’s just out enjoying the sunshine (which he doesn’t get to do very much him being the commissioner and all) when he sees two older ladies step out of Chen Yuzhi’s clinic

“Aiyo, that Dr. Chen is so handsome”

“It’s a shame he’s not married yet”

Bai Jinbo just chuckles softly to himself; little do they know that Chen Yuzhi is very much so indeed married

“Maybe you should set him up with your daughter…she’s very pretty”

The other aunty nods

“It’s not good for a man his age to be single…”

“What’s wrong with Dr. Chen being single?”

The two aunties jump and turn to see Bai Jinbo raising an eyebrow at them, causing them both to blush in embarrassment once they realize that he overheard their conversation

“Nothing…nothing is wrong with that…it’s just…he’s getting past the age when most men get married and…”

“I can assure you, ladies, that Dr. Chen is happily married, so there will be no need for you to set him up with either of your daughters”

The two aunties’ eyes widen in shock at the news of Chen Yuzhi being married and they quickly step towards Bai Jinbo

“Commissioner, who is Dr. Chen married to? Do we know her? Have we met her?”

Bai Jinbo narrows his eyes and leans forward until he’s in their faces

“Who Dr. Chen is married is quite frankly none of your business”

The two women gulp before they turn and high tail it away as Bai Jinbo huffs: what busybodies

Fourth Time

The fourth time Bai Jinbo protects Chen Yuzhi is during a rather nasty turf war between two gangs

Chen Yuzhi hadn’t even known that there was a turf war going on until he’s smack dab in the middle of it

He was just walking home from a house call when the streets are suddenly flooded with gang members going at each other with knives and guns and wooden sticks

At one point he gets cornered by a gang member and he tries to fight them off, only to have the gang member slash him in the arm with a knife, causing him to cry out in pain

Thankfully, Bai Jinbo and the rest of the Jing City Police Department show up to take care of the gang and when Bai Jinbo sees that Chen Yuzhi is hurt, he quickly grabs him and drags him to safety, kicking and punching gang members away from them

When they finally reach the clinic, Bai Jinbo sits Chen Yuzhi down and takes a look at his arm, humming softly

“Thankfully it’s not deep”

Chen Yuzhi hums before he quickly removes his suit jacket and opens his kit, pulling out some iodine and a cotton pad before he begins to clean his wound, hissing each time the cotton touches the wound

“Here, let me do that”

Chen Yuzhi looks up at Bai Jinbo and nods, handing him the cotton pads and iodine

Bai Jinbo then begins to clean the wound, trying to be quick so that in case Jiang Yuelou comes by, he doesn’t completely flip his shit

Once the wound is cleaned, Bai Jinbo quickly bandages it, and just in time too as Jiang Yuelou bursts into the clinic

“Chen Yuzhi!”

He then runs over to him and Bai Jinbo and when he sees the bandage around his doctor’s arm, Bai Jinbo can tell he’s starting to see red

“You stay here, I’ll deal with the gang”

Jiang Yuelou looks up at him and nods before he turns his attention back to Chen Yuzhi, his voice becoming a near whisper as he gently touches him and asks him if he’s okay

While they’re having their moment, Bai Jinbo heads out of the clinic, also starting to see red; they hurt his son-in-law. Someone’s gonna die

Fifth Time

The fifth time Bai Jinbo protects Chen Yuzhi is when he notices two men with wooden poles on their way to Chen Yuzhi’s clinic, which makes his hair stand on edge

He quickly follows behind them and before they can even get to the clinic, he grabs them by the backs of the collars, forcing them to turn and look at him, their eyes widening in fear

“Commissioner Bai!”

“And what…pray tell…were you planning on doing with those wooden poles?”

The men look down at the poles in their hands before they look up at Bai Jinbo and shake their heads

“Nothing! Nothing, Commissioner”

Bai Jinbo hums

“You weren’t planning to, say…attack Dr. Chen, were you?”

The two men shake their heads

“No! No sir”

Bai Jinbo hums and nods

“That’s what I thought”

He then grabs the wooden poles out of their hands and shoos them along before he places the wooden poles down and goes to check on Chen Yuzhi, just to make sure he’s okay

“Dr. Chen”

Chen Yuzhi looks up from his paperwork and when he sees him, he smiles

“Commissioner Bai”

He then tilts his head

“Something I can do for you?”

Bai Jinbo chuckles before he shakes his head

“No, no. I was just stopping by to tell you that you and Jiang Yuelou should come over and have dinner tonight. You haven’t come by in a while”

Chen Yuzhi blinks before he laughs and nods

“Alright, I’ll let Jiang Yuelou know”

Bai Jinbo smiles and nods before he turns and heads out of the clinic, a small smile on his face at the thought of his son and son-in-law coming for dinner

+1 Sixth Time

The one time Chen Yuzhi protects Bai Jinbo is when he’s walking home from a house visit when he hears two men grumbling in front of him about the Jing City Police Department

“I don’t know why the Commissioner keeps that demon as a police officer…all he does is cause trouble”

“But it’s not like the Commissioner does anything either…all he does is sit in his office all day and cleans up after Jiang Yuelou’s mess. Is he even qualified to be the police commissioner?”

Chen Yuzhi bristles at what they’re saying about Jiang Yuelou and Bai Jinbo before he clears his throat, causing them to turn and look at him as he raises an eyebrow

“That so called “demon” just happens to be my husband and the commissioner is my father-in-law. So, unless you want both to descend upon you like a bunch of ravenous wolves, I suggest you keep their names out of your mouth”

The two men gulp and quickly run along as Chen Yuzhi huffs; how dare they slander his husband and father-in-law. No one slanders his family and thinks they can get away with it

#sass answers #kavita edition #Killer and Healer #bai jinbo #chen yuzhi #killer and healer headcanons

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lovestuckyhatemarvel · 7 months

Text

Dear Billy: how did you end up with such a fucking stranglehold on this show? Rest in Pieces you fucking dweeb.

1.) These agents are terrible at talking to teenagers.

2.) I wanna brush Jonathan’s hair. Just because it looks like he hasn’t done it in a while.

3.) I am glad Max is admitting it as soon as she figures out that she’s cursed. I think everyone at this point is tired of the ‘got bit by a zombie and hides it’ shit. Like yeah, she hid headaches and shit, but those are normal trauma things.

4.) Yeah, you wield that lamp, Steve.

5.) I know it’s mostly for the audience but Dustin saying they have bigger problems and then looking at Max should be absolutely incomprehensible to Lucas at this point.

6.) Erica is painting a mini and I love her. Oh Jason is talking to her. Erica, kick Jason’s ass. But also, ERICA, DON’T FUCKING TELL PEOPLE THAT SHIT. GODDAMN IT.

7.) I adore Steve’s ‘a little humility’ line and then sitting down like that. Lmao

8.) Murray is right. You can’t be late to a ransom exchange. That’s kind of dire. Also, you’re in Alaska. They’re in California. What the fuck are you gonna do for your kids from here?

9.) I haven’t mentioned in a while that stranger things or Netflix or both filmed in a holocaust site and then turned it into a tourist airbnb. That’s fucked up, y’all.

10.) of course the boring feds are watching boring golf.

11.) Mike, you literally can’t even tell Will that you need to tell El that you love her. How are you gonna tell El that you love her?

12.) Jonathan’s got PLANS. PIZZA PLANS.

13.) Does Argyle give that pineapple spiel every time?

14.) Lucas, Steve, and Dustin are all idiots if they didn’t immediately recognize these as goodbye-I’m-dead-we-failed letters.

15.) since when does max know a good lawyer. Is it Saul Goodman?

16.) Robin can not walk in heels.

17.) Robin to the rescue with an infodump filled with some laws. It actually works. I’m in love with Robin. Does anyone else think Nancy fell just a tiny bit in love with her after that speech? Loved the low five, btw, babes.

18.) ???????????????????????? Ok Yuri.

19.) Actually I’ve done a rapid turnabout. I love Yuri. He’s a goofy little cartoon man.

20.) Hopper with a stick vs guard with a gun. Who will win? Obviously hopper. Oh god, not the gross foot again. And now the sequel, Hopper with a chain vs guard with a gun. Well, a guard with a gun and then a wrench and then a gun again. Damn that gun was loud.

21.) Hopper did you not put your shoe back on?

22.) THat fucking explosion was hilariously big.

23.) None of these Russians can. Aim for shit.

24.) Hey, kids, I know one of you is cursed, but could you wear your seatbelts?

25.) I love Max so much and I’m gonna rip Vecna apart just for hurting Max. But also why did her mom just kind of leave her there zoning out???

26.) Robin and Nancy are a dream team.

27.) oh they fully copied Silence of the Lambs for this shit. Lmao

28.) Is that Robert Englund? I recognize him from his voice and silhouette. Oh hell yeah it is him. Casting Freddy Krueger in a role like this is actually very fun. Also the way they did his makeup/prosthetics is once again way cooler and more interesting and dare I say creepier than literally all the Vecna corpses combined.

29.) [emotional, tender music playing] over Will and Mike’s little talk. Friends. Best friends. Sure.

30.) Oh damn. People with guns. Honestly this is too much stress to put a fun stoner under.

31.) Okay Hop has a bit to go to get to the fucking church. Oh nvm. He’s like, there already.

32.) This escape is brought to you by JIF’s creamy peanut butter. When you have a busted foot and are on the run from Russian guards, there’s only one type of peanut buttery goodness that will keep you going.

33.) HEY. DUFFER BROTHERS. IT’S NOT SHOCKING IF YOU HAVE EVERY SINGLE FUCKING PLAN IN THE SHOW GO TO SHIT.

34.) The timeline of this season is extra stupid.

35.) Flashback time. “This was a SPAWN OF SATAN!!!’ It killed a rabbit. Like yeah later it turns into hallucinations but at first it was literally just killing small animals. Virginia’s death is so fucking goofy. Oh, Victor Creel was a war criminal. Super not understanding why Henry Creel did all this shit.

36.) Oh, my girls have been found out.

37.) March 29, 1967 to July 4, 1985. Here lies a dipshit.

38.) Max, I love you, but this dream is a tiny bit stupid.

39.) I don’t think the Duffer Brothers have ever mourned someone they hated. Especially not a family member. If I ever rewrite this scene, I’m going in a very different direction.

40.) Steve’s Overprotective Dad Senses are tingling. And he’s RIGHT. Also, I just realized that their eyes don’t go white, they go milky. Their eyes aren’t even rolled back. They go milky and bloodshot for some reason.

41.) Can we talk about how Billy the Racist Shithead got to be in this show and come back way more than LITERALLY EVERY OTHER DEAD PERSON COMBINED? Fuck this douche.

42.) Okay I’m gonna be real with you, but if Billy turned into Vecna, I’d laugh my ass off.

43.) Robin is the one who figured out the music.

44.) I love the music thing but I think there should also be the option of beating Vecna if you just fucking forgive yourself.

45.) Me walking through Vecna’s nightmare mindscape: Hey, have you ever seen that one melting clocks painting? Fuckin’ wild, right? I think you’d be into it. Anyway, I’ve done worse to myself, you ABSOLUTE FUCKING AMATEUR.

46.) Like for real, have the Duffers ever truly hated themselves? Because these Vecna visions have been kind of tame in comparison.

47.) The montage of moments actually is very cute.

48.) I bet some freaks on ao3 have done weird tentacle porn about Vecna.

#stranger things #stranger things rewatch #s4e4 #Stranger things s4e4 #season 4 episode 4

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daringyounggrayson · 2 years

Text

Summary: Bruce takes in a five-year-old Dick Grayson, and Harvey offers his two cents.

A/N: Happy Twosday! So this is the first fic in the AU I've (inaccurately) been calling the seven-part epic. Essentially, Bruce adopts the kids at younger ages, the kids are closer in age and grow up together, and Bruce is still Batman but the kids won't get into vigilantism until they're older. You might read that and ask, "But then why did you make the first fic mostly about Harvey?" And to that, I answer with this: I do what I want

oOo

“Successful transfer?” Harvey asks lightly when Bruce returns, child-free.

“Still wearing day clothes, but he’s asleep in his bed,” Bruce says.

“He’s a great kid.” Harvey takes a sip of his water. “Pretty good actor, too.”

Bruce’s lips quirk into a frown. “Do you think I should take him to a therapist?” Dick’s a fantastic, brilliant kid, and he’s hurting, even if he tries to pretend he’s not.

Harvey shrugs. “I’m in law school—the only mental health we really talk about is criminal insanity. But, personally, he’s been through a lot and it’s only been a month. Maybe it’s okay to give it time.”

Yes. Dick’s been through a lot—all within the span of a month. That fact does not help the boy’s situation in the slightest. “Hnn.”

Harvey claps him on the shoulder. “You’ll do what’s best for him, that much I’m sure of.” Harvey takes another sip from his glass. “I’m kind of surprised you’re considering therapy, though. I mean, didn’t you hate your therapist?”

“I—” He did. Bruce hated going to therapy, but it might not have been the therapy itself. For a period after his parents died, he’d hated people, hated talking about how he hated people and all of the horrible things they did even more. “It could be different, for him.”

Harvey nods, eyes on his cup. Bruce wonders what he’s waiting to ask.

“You’re taking time off of work?” Harvey asks.

“Yes. One more month of full leave, and then part-time until school starts.” And maybe through the first month, depending on how things go. Dick will be starting kindergarten, and Bruce isn’t sure how the boy will take being away from them for so long. “Not that I was going to the office that much before anyway.”

Harvey hums.

Bruce sighs loudly. “Just ask, whatever it is.”

“Okay, fine.” Harvey sets his glass down on the counter with more force than necessary. “What about Batman?”

The room goes cold. “Batman?”

“Oh, don’t bullshit me. I’ve known it’s you for a while. We spoke—did you honestly think I wouldn’t recognize you? After everything?”

“I—” Bruce doesn’t know what to say.

Harvey shakes his head. “I know you went a little insane after you dropped out of college and disappeared. And then you came back fitter than I’ve ever seen you and wanting to make all of these public appearances while acting like a total dunce playboy. You were a completely different person, based on the headlines. But when we finally got together, you were more or less you—just as focused as ever, maybe even more so. A few months later, I found out about your little pet project and everything clicked.”

“I went insane,” Bruce repeats slowly.

“Yes, Bruce!” Harvey yells—actually yells. “Hell, you’ve always been a little crazy, and I get it. A lot of that is just you. But you were different in the weeks leading up to your . . . your trip. You were impulsive and jumpy and hiding everything from me. And then you left overnight without saying goodbye to me, to Alfred.” Harvey runs a hand through his hair. “You were in crisis, and I get that. Trust me, I get that. But most people having an identity crisis don’t run from country to country only to come home and dress up like a giant goddamn rodent.”

“I wasn’t in crisis.” Bruce was . . . he’d had it under control. That wasn’t the best period of his life, but he’d been doing something productive. Something to help. Still is.

Harvey scoffs, shakes his head. “Why didn’t you tell me? We used to tell each other everything.”

“I was going to.” There were so many times Bruce had gone to call Harvey, to tell him where he was and what he was doing. Who he had become. Fear kept him from making that call, but fear of what, he’s not sure.

Harvey shakes his head again. “You’ve been hurt, yeah?”

Bruce hesitates, then nods. He’s had more than a few injuries thanks to Batman, and he’s gotten quite good at applying makeup as a result.

“I’m not happy about the vigintile thing—never was,” Harvey explains. “But now that you have a kid to take care of, it’s not just about you anymore. What if something happens to you, hmm? Have you thought about that? Dick has lost enough. And as of now, he’s in foster care. Kid like that, a case like this, he’ll get lost in the system. Zucco will probably find him and that will be it.”

Bruce knows.

“You’re my best friend, but if that ever happened, I would blame you.”

As he should.

“You have to stop.”

“I can’t,” Bruce insists. “I’m helping people, I’m helping Dick.”

“There are other ways to help.”

“Gotham needs me.” Needs him like this, doing this.

“That kid needs you more. I need—” Harvey shakes his head. He runs his hands down his face. “Forget it.” He clears his throat. “If you care about that kid, either find a nice family to adopt him or do it yourself and make sure you have a guardian set up for when—not if, when—the night job kills you.”

Bruce has nothing to say after that, and Harvey leaves in a huff shortly after. They don’t talk for a week.

But just like always, it doesn’t take long for things to go back to normal. Harvey starts visiting regularly, more often than not with some present or treat for Dick.

Even though they never talk about it, Bruce thinks about that argument a lot. Before, he’d been hesitant—unwilling, even—to adopt. He’d thought Dick living with him would be a temporary situation, just until the trial so that Dick would be safe. After Zucco was taken care, Bruce would find a nice family far away from Gotham for Dick to live with. Because Dick is a good person, and Gotham eats good people.

But he can’t let Dick go—as selfish as it is. And Harvey had been right: fostering isn’t a secure, long-term solution.

oOo

Bruce is tucking Dick into bed when the idea of adoption once again rushes to the forefront of his mind. He thinks about it more every day, but before he moves forward with the process, he needs to know something. He taps Dick’s knee to get his attention, then asks, “Are you happy here? With me.”

Dick pauses, stars at his stuffed elephant and pulls gently at its ears. “You’re not—you’re not my parents. But I like living with you and Alfred.”

“I want your opinion.” Dick’s gaze shifts to watch him closely. “Right now, legally, I’m your foster guardian. That makes our situation somewhat fragile because, theoretically, you could be moved to another foster placement or adopted at any time. There are things I can do to try to prevent that, among other things, but there are limits. If I adopt you and become your full legal guardian, I can do more for you.”

“Adoption,” Dick says slowly. “What would change?”

“Nothing between us would change, it’s mostly legalities. For example, if something happened to me, I could select a new guardian for you, such as Alfred or Harvey. You would also be entitled to my inheritance.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” Dick insists, voice firm. He knows about Batman—the boy is too bright and curious for his own good and found the cave after only a few weeks of living in the manor; to Bruce’s relief, he’s also incredibly good at keeping secrets—and is fully aware of what Bruce is alluding to. Bruce doesn’t argue (not tonight). “But okay. What else?”

“You would be able to go on school trips and sleepovers without approval from your social worker.” As it stands, Bruce can’t even take Dick out of the county without getting approval, and getting permission for other adults to take him somewhere is nothing but a headache. Dick had missed his first school field trip due to lost paperwork, and even though Bruce had taken him to the same museum that weekend to make up for it, it hadn’t been the same. “We could travel and go on vacations.”

Something close to excitement fills Dick’s eyes. “Where would we go?”

Dick must miss traveling. Before he came to live here, Bruce doesn’t think the boy had ever stayed in one place longer than eight weeks. “Anywhere you’d like.”

“Would I have to call you dad?” And there it is, the crux of it.

“No.”

“Good.” Then, quickly, Dick adds, “I mean, I love you and everything, but you’re not my dad. You’re Bruce.”

Bruce smiles. “You don’t need to explain.”

Dick nods.

“You can think it over. There’s no rush.”

Quietly, Dick asks, “Do you want to adopt me?”

He’s not Dick’s father, but he can’t help but view Dick as is his child. As much as he thinks the legal protections are necessary to keep Dick safe, he also wants the court to acknowledge what he already feels. “Yes. But if that’s not something you want, either now or from me, I understand.”

“I want you to adopt me,” Dick decides. “I want you and Alfred to be part of my family. That’s all adoption means, right?”

“Yes,” Bruce says, smiling softly, “the adoption will mean that the court will acknowledge us as a family.” Bruce brushes a hand through Dick’s hair. “I already consider you family. It’s just a matter of informing the court.”

Dick smiles, and it gives Bruce the rare feeling that he’s doing the right thing.

oOo

Harvey is ecstatic when he hears the news. Even though he won’t be a lawyer for another year, he helps Bruce sort out the paperwork and find a family lawyer—someone he met during an internship. He’s there at the hearing, and he’s in several of the pictures they take after the ceremony.

Dick takes to calling him Uncle Harvey, and it suits Harvey. He takes Dick to movies and plays baseball with him in the yard. Bruce watches them and feels like he’s doing the right thing.

Still, the Batman argument haunts him. He had one with Alfred, too, back when this all started. There had been no argument when Dick found out about Batman, just awe and an insistence that he would become a hero too, as soon as he was big enough. However, Bruce knows it’s only a matter of time before the wonder fades and he and Dick have their own Batman argument. He imagines it will be the worst one yet, ugly and raw and hopefully years away.

oOo

One night, Bruce gets hurt, worse than he’s ever been before. Alfred sends Dick to stay with Harvey for several days while he recovers.

Harvey and Dick come to visit him, and when Alfred takes Dick out of Bruce’s bedroom for lunch, Harvey looks like he’s about to start a second Batman argument.

“That kid has been absolutely terrified.”

“He wasn’t supposed to see it,” Bruce croaks. He’s still not sure what Dick had been doing in the cave. Maybe a nightmare—Dick’s been having them a lot recently. He wonders if the boy ever had them before, when he was living at the circus.

“He didn’t have to. Dick told me he had a nightmare you got hurt a week before and didn’t say anything. He thinks he could’ve prevented this if he’d said something, just like with his parents.”

Bile climbs in his throat. He nearly spits, “That wasn’t his fault, and neither was this.”

Harvey runs a hand through his hair. “I know that, and I’m sure you’ll explain that to him as much as I did. But that’s not how he sees it right now.”

“You want me to stop.”

“Yes. And I want your six-year-old to stop having nightmares that his dad won’t come home. I want to stop having nightmares that you won’t come home.”

“Harvey.” Bruce works his jaw.

“Why does it have to be you?” Harvey grabs Bruce’s hand, squeezes it. “I can see that Batman is good for Gotham. But why does it have to be you?”

Sometimes Bruce asks himself the same question. Perhaps not often enough. But. “I can’t stop.”

“I know.” Harvey removes his hand. “I know.” There’s a silence, and Harvey looks like he’s debating on whether or not he should sit down. He decides against it. “Do you want me to send Dick back in? He misses you.”

“Yes.” He misses his child too—so much.

Ten minutes into the visit, Dick falls asleep against his side, and hours later, Harvey tells him it’s the most sleep the kid’s had since Bruce went down. Begrudgingly, Dick goes back home with Harvey that night, and Bruce lies awake thinking of all the ways he’s hurt his boy. He wonders if he’s any better than the people he’s fighting.

oOo

Harvey is a good person. He’s bright, an incredible lawyer who tries to help those who need it most, and there’s a real chance he could end up being Gotham’s youngest District Attorney. On top of that, he’s kind and funny and Harvey. He’s a good person, and Gotham eats good people.

Dick is tucked into Bruce’s side, sleeping off a cold that’s kept him out of school for the past two days. It’s about one in the afternoon, and normally Bruce would be trapped in a boardroom right now, but he’s been taking time off from Wayne Enterprises and Batman to take care of his sick seven-year-old. It feels like the right thing.

Bruce turns on the news and pauses when he sees Harvey’s name on the screen, freezes when it’s followed by an image of him being taken out of a courthouse on a gurney.

An hour later, he gets a call from the hospital that Harvey is in the ICU. They ask him to come. He leaves Dick with Alfred and goes to see Harvey, but he’s unconscious and half of his face is bandaged. Bruce holds his hand and vows to find the person responsible.

He spends the whole evening and into the next morning investigating. It hurts that much more when he learns the mobster responsible for Harvey’s acid burns is the same man he’s been trying to hunt down. Bruce wonders if he would’ve found the mobster before he got to Harvey if he hadn’t taken time off of Batman to take care of Dick. He tells himself over and over again it hadn’t been a bad choice, but the other half of him screams that if he had just been faster—smarter, more efficient—Harvey would be okay.

And now his best friend is in so much pain that sedatives can’t even control it. And it’s Bruce’s fault.

“Are you sad about Uncle Harvey?” Dick asks when he crawls into Bruce’s bed around eleven in the morning. Bruce has been lying here for two hours, but he hasn’t gotten any sleep.

“Yes.”

“Me too,” Dick says, then coughs into the sheets. His forehead feels warm against Bruce’s side. He probably needs more medicine. “Can I visit him?”

“He’s in the ICU, kiddo. You’re not old enough, and even if you were, you’re ill.” Dick sniffles, but it’s not from the cold. “I’ll tell him you wanted to come.”

“I made him a card. Can you bring it to him?”

“Of course, chum.”

Harvey runs away from the hospital two days later, and Dick’s card is found scattered across the floor, ripped into tiny pieces.

oOo

Batman tries to find him, make him see sense, but Harvey’s not an easy man to find, not like this. On the third night, he still hasn’t found him. Dick is in the cave when he returns, sitting on Alfred’s lap. Bruce expects Dick to slide off and run toward him, like he normally does, but tonight he’s still.

Bruce walks over and crouches down, runs his fingers through the boy’s hair. “Hi, chum. How are you feeling?”

“Did you find Uncle Harvey?” Dick sounds terrible, and there’s a wheeze in his voice. That’s new.

“Not yet. Soon.” Bruce looks up at Alfred, who’s rubbing circles into Dick’s back. “How is he?”

“His fever has spiked an hour ago and he’s complaining of chest pain. I recommend you take him to see a doctor in the morning, or the emergency room if he gets any worse before then.”

Bruce takes Dick from Alfred and holds him, rocking him slightly. “I’m sorry you’re sick, sweetheart.”

Dick coughs for a long time, and when he stops, he’s wheezing harder than before, head tucked into Bruce’s neck. “I really don’t feel good, B.”

“Can you wait until morning, or do we need to go now?” Bruce asks.

“Now.”

And that’s how Bruce knows this is bad.

oOo

When they finally get Dick to the emergency room, his oxygen is too low and his temperature is too high. The doctors give him fluids, a fever reducer, and something for the pain. They put an oxygen mask over his face and a pulse oximeter on his finger. They take chest x-rays and blood and cultures.

Dick is too passive through it all, and Bruce should have taken him to see a doctor days ago. Harvey would’ve told him to take the kid to a doctor days ago.

They admit Dick to the hospital, and he stays there for three days. Bird flu, they determine. Bruce wonders if he contracted it from a bat in the cave.

He buys Dick a milkshake on the way home, extra whipped cream and extra cherries. It’s not not an apology, but it is at the same time.

Bruce looks for clues on Harvey and the mobster while Dick sleeps against his chest, a heating pad between them to help ease Dick’s chest pain. He wonders if Harvey would blame him for this. Maybe if he hadn’t been Batman, he would’ve taken better care of Dick. Maybe he would’ve spent more time visiting Harvey at the hospital and prevented his escape. At the very least, Batman clearly hadn’t done Harvey any favors when it came to the mobster.

oOo

Five more days pass before Bruce is able to track down Harvey and the mobster. The mobster comes in easily, but Harvey is unwell. Bruce has no choice but to let the police take him to Arkham. The look Harvey sends him is like a dagger to his heart, and the worst part is that Harvey looks lucid as he sends it.

Dick is feeling better now, almost back to normal, but he’s still sleeping in Bruce’s bed. He’s there tonight, as expected, and Bruce tries to be quiet when he climbs in next to the boy. He’s not quiet enough.

“Did you find him?” Dick mumbles, still half asleep as he shifts to curl around Bruce.

Bruce pets his hair. “Yes.”

“Is he okay?”

“No.” Bruce barely recognized the man he calls his best friend, and that will never not haunt him. There is no fixing this. There is no way Harvey can forgive Bruce for all of the ways he’s failed him. “But he will be. They’re taking him to Arkham and he’s going to get the help he needs.”

“Can we visit him?”

“Soon, maybe. If he’s feeling up to it,” Bruce says. But the way Harvey moved, how unhinged he seemed—he doesn’t want Dick anywhere near him, and that sends another dagger through Bruce’s heart.

“Are you sad about Uncle Harvey?” Dick asks.

“Yes.”

Dick buries his forehead into Bruce’s side. “Me too.”

Bruce hugs his child and tries to tell himself that Gotham won’t eat all good people.

#bruce wayne #harvey dent #dick grayson #batman #two-face #nightwing #elizabeth writes

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