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doctorstethoscope · 3 years

Text

The Right Chapter 27 || Aaron Hotchner x Fem Reader

Hello my loves! Just a reminder that this chapter is posting from the queue as I am on vacation--- I will be checking in periodically but less active than usual and not updating the tag list! Hope y’all enjoy this one :)

Read previous chapters of this fic here!

contains: food mention, hangover mention, discussion of parenting, canon-typical mentions of violence

wordcount: 2k

When you woke up the next morning, you’re somewhere between completely refreshed and wickedly hungover. You need a bacon egg and cheese on an everything bagel and a big cup of coffee stat if you are going to get anything at all done today. Aaron, of course, must have gotten up hours ago, and has long past left the bedroom by the time you rise at nearly 11. When you roll to get out of bed, you notice that he’s left you advil, water, and a sleeve of saltines just in case you were feeling nauseous. You smiled, sitting up gingerly to sip at the water and take the pills. Once you were sure your stomach was fine, you slid out of bed and found Jack and Aaron in the kitchen, cooking up bacon and frying eggs while The Beatles played in the background. The boys hadn’t noticed you yet, and you decided not to call attention to yourself-- taking the moment to commit this mental image to memory, of Jack on his father’s hip, Aaron rocking back and forth as he pushed scrambled eggs around a frying pan, smiling and giggling and not thinking about work or serial killers or the next time he’d be pulled away.

When the song fades out, Aaron looks up, seeing you leaning against the doorway to the hall.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty. How are you feeling?” He asks, looking you up and down for signs of a hangover.

“I’m okay. I’ll be better after breakfast,” you tell him. “And a big hug from my favorite Hotchner!” You add, crossing the kitchen and taking Jack from his father, shooting Aaron a knowing glance that said “I’m pretty sure physical therapy didn’t clear you for that. Especially not after last night.”

“I cracked the eggs. There’s no shells in them, Mom.” Jack says, and the world stops. He doesn’t even seem to notice that he’s slipped up, but Aaron and you both freeze, whipping your heads to look at each other with equally bewildered glances.

“I’m sure you did a great job, buddy!” You tell Jack, after a moment that feels like hours, not wanting to ignore him but not quite sure how to address what had happened, and Aaron wasn’t being much help.

“Breakfast is ready,” Aaron says, handing you exactly what you needed-- a bacon and egg sandwich, along with a hashbrown, some fruit, and a big cup of coffee.

“You might be the perfect man.” You tell him gratefully, and he smirks at you as the three of you sit down at the table and eat.

You and Aaron make casual conversation for a little while before Jack poses a question. “Dad, can we take my kite out today?” Jack asks as he spears a sausage link on his fork.

“It’s not really windy enough to fly a kite today, buddy, but we can go for a bike ride or play some soccer if you want,” Aaron responds before taking a sip of coffee.

“And we’ll all go?” Jack asks, looking across the table at you.

“Of course,” you tell him. “We’ll all go to the park with you.”

“Okay. Can I be excused?” He asks, and Aaron nods.

“Go ahead, just make sure you wash your hands and your face. You’ve got syrup everywhere,” He chuckles, and Jack scoots out his chair and leaves the table.

As soon as Jack is out of eyesight, you speak up. “So, are we gonna talk about that, or what?” You say in a hushed tone, not wanting Jack to overhear.

“I didn’t tell him to do that,” Aaron says.

“Neither did I,” you assure him.

“Are you upset?” Aaron asks, a furrow in his brow that just about broke your heart. Silly, silly man.

“No, of course not. Not if you aren’t.” You assure him.

“I just… he can’t forget Haley. He’s all that is left of her.” Aaron says with a deep sigh, and your eyes well up in tears.

“No, Aaron, he hasn’t and he won’t. We won’t let him.” You say, reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. “And if you don’t want him to call me Mom, I understand.”

“That’s not it. It’s just… bringing a lot up for me, is all.” He says.

“That’s normal, honey. You should think about it for a while, maybe talk about it just with him. No matter what you decide, you’re not going to disappoint me or him. But it’s okay to need some time with this.” You say, standing up to wrap your arms around his shoulders from behind, pressing a kiss to the junction of his shoulder and his neck.

“Thank you, for understanding me and for respecting her.” he tells you, raising one hand to cover yours where they met over his heart, craning his neck to leave a kiss on your wrist.

“Baby, have you seen my phone?” You asked, realizing that you haven’t checked it all morning.

“It’s charging next to mine on the bedside table. You were having a little trouble with the charger when we got in last night,” he chuckles at the memory of your drunken antics from the night before.

You go into the other room to grab your phones, noticing that you have two missed calls from Penelope--- you only just missed her. You dial her back as you head back towards the kitchen to help Aaron clean up.

“Where are you right now?” Garcia asks you as soon as the line connects, and your face twists up in confusion as you put your plate in the dishwasher.

“I’m at Aaron’s place, where are you?” You ask, not understanding her line of questioning.

“Is Jack in the room with you?”

“Garcia, what’s going on?” You ask, starting to get nervous. Aaron turns to face you, sensing your anxiety and you place a hand on his forearm for support.

“Last night, when we were all at the bar, a girl was kidnapped, who based on the description, looks a hell of a lot like you. A neighbor saw the guy, and based on the he neighbor’s description--

“It looks like Josh,” you finished Garcia’s sentence, and you felt Aaron tense under your fingers. He puts his palm out, silently asking for your phone, and you pass it to him without even telling Garcia that you were putting him on.

You were scared, terrified even, but you knew that the best thing you could do right then was be a profiler. You left Aaron to settle the details, and went into his bedroom to find something work-appropriate to wear. By the time you came back out, Aaron was off the phone.

“I called the rest of the team in, they’re going to meet us at the office. We’re going to get this loser, and we’re going to get him today,” Aaron lets out, and you nod.

“I’ll take Jack over to Jess’s,” you say, turning back towards Jack’s room, and he stopped you.

“No. You stay with me. Jess is on her way,” Aaron says, and she knocks at the door at the next moment. “I just told her that we got called in,” he tells you as he answers the door.

“Morning, guys,” she says as she steps in, entirely too chipper for the terror that’s rolling through your stomach in waves. “Duty calls, right?” She smiles at you, and you use all the power you have to muster a smile back.

“Yeah, even at the worst times,” you’re impressed that you strung that many words together.

“Any idea when you’ll be back?” She asks, and you shake your head.

“We’ve really got to go,” Aaron says, coming back into the room with Jack, who gives you and his father both hugs before you have to leave. You squeeze him extra tight before Aaron ushers you out of the apartment and towards the car.

“I am not going to let anything happen to you.” Aaron tells you after a few moments of tense, silent driving.

“I know,” you say noncommittally, and it’s back to silence.

“You can’t go in the field.” You both say after a moment.

“Darling, you have to understand--”

“No, Aaron, it’s not even up for debate. You’re out because of your leg, and JJ is pregnant. The team needs me, and I can’t sit this one out because either one of us is emotional about it,” You argue, and Aaron heaves a sigh.

“I wish Elle were here. Josh wouldn’t even still be a problem.” Aaron grumbles out, and despite yourself, you burst out laughing. Aaron’s shocked at first by your reaction, but after a moment, he lets out a laugh, too.

“Aaron, that’s awful. You were upset with Elle for months, even after she left. You’re better than that.” You say, still smiling even though it really wasn’t funny at all.

“Yeah, well, when you hobbled out to my car with a black eye, I think I began to understand Elle a little bit better than I did at the time.” Aaron tells you.

You think of the girl Josh has taken now-- being punished only for the sin of resembling you. No doubt she had her own black eye to match yours, plus god only knows what else at this point, nearly twelve hours after being taken. You swallowed thickly. After a moment, you speak up again.

“You knew that this was going to happen, didn’t you?” You ask quietly-- it’s a genuine question, not an accusation, but it still breaks Aaron’s heart. “That’s why you weren’t excited or relieved like I was when he got arrested.”

“I knew it was a possibility,” he confirms. “I didn’t want to say anything to you, because there was no way to know-- and I didn’t want you to have to keep living in fear,” he explains.

“I’m gonna get this son of a bitch,” you whispered, more to yourself than to Aaron.

The team is already waiting for the two of you in the roundtable room while you arrive, although there’s really no need to brief, so you all launch into a profile while Garcia digs for more information.

“What do we know about the unsub?” Aaron asks the team.

“He’s a power-seeker. He uses physical force as a method of coercion.” Morgan says, and Reid scribbles his statement onto a whiteboard.

“He doesn’t react well when challenged--- his demeanor completely changed when he came here and Hotch went after him.” Emily adds.

“True, but he had no problem going toe-to-toe with Morgan.” JJ contradicts.

“Based on the message he left with the flowers, he’s displaying early indicators of stalking behavior. If that’s escalated far enough, it’s possible that Josh might really believe that the woman that he’s taken is Y/N.” Spencer says, and you nod. For her sake, you hoped not. He had a hell of a lot of pent up anger towards you, and you didn’t want this poor girl to take the brunt of it.

“What’s her name?” You asked, quietly, and with everyone talking over you, you almost think no one hears you, until Aaron leans in a little closer.

“What’s that, darling?” He asks.

“What’s her name?” You say again, and his brow furrows in confusion.

“Who’s name?”

“The girl who’s taking the beating with my name on it right now,” you spit out, and the rest of the team stops talking over you. “The least I can do is learn her name and go talk to her parents.” You say, packing your stuff up.

“Her name is Anna Reardon. We’ll send the address to your phone,” Emily tells you, and you turn on your heel and walk out.

tagging: @romanogersendgame @wanniiieeee @zheezs14 @greeneyedblondie44 @angelic-kisses13 @baumarvel @ssamorganhotchner @ijustwannaread2k19 @rexit-mo @shmaptainhotchnersmain @qtip-blog @averyhotchner @the-modernmary @itsmytimetoodream @choppa-style @hotforhotchner11 @infinite-tides @isthatme-thatsme @g-l-pierce @bakugouswh0r3 @ssahotchie @sleepyreaderreads @rousethemouse

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fic #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x y/n #aaron hotchner x you #hotch x reader #hotch x y/n #hotch x you #criminal minds #criminal minds fic

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out-of-this-dimension · 3 years

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Hypothetically Rewriting Assault’s Story + Some General Assault Opinions

There’s a game my husband and I like to play when we watch a movie, play a game, or read a book that has a story that we don’t really enjoy or we enjoy certain parts of but not others. We look at things we’d keep and things we’d change and we build a story from there-- sort of like an AU but we don’t really go into the writing part, we just stick to theorizing and mapping a general story.

I decided to play that game with Star Fox. Not because I think Star Fox has a bad story but because sometimes I think the stories could have been handled better. Note: for the rewrite game, I only really look at story, even for video games, I don’t really look at gameplay mechanics, but I do understand those have a lot to do with story potential so I do take it in as a factor... I just don’t bother to “rewrite” the mechanics, if that makes any sense at all. Some of my list today will include boss encounters but I wouldn’t necessarily say those are mechanic-related... more like “event-related”.

I’ve mused a bit in the past about rewriting Adventures and Command and I do have plans to do a mock up of an Adventures remake eventually. However, today I was thinking about how I would go about handling an Assault re-write in particular. Much like Command and Adventures, I don’t have any beef with the core story but I do think there’s a few things that could’ve been better about Assault’s storyline-- like they had good ideas rolling but they didn’t quite refine them.

Under the cut because SUPER long.

My basic feelings on Assault are pretty positive. I think the game is generally just fun and I like that it feels like the natural progression from SF64. I liked getting to see planets we haven’t seen since the N64 era in better graphics and I liked seeing Star Wolf return. I also just thought the aparoids were neat enemies.

Generally speaking, though, when it comes to Assault, I think it suffers from the thing it tries to push the most-- the story. I think a lot of people get caught up in thinking the story is better than it is because it’s the first game since SF64 that really follows the same Star Fox vibe without retelling the Lylat Wars. Don’t get me wrong, the overall plot is great but the execution and pacing are... wonky. Certain characterizations also take a hit in some regards but no one really talks about that when Command exists. That’s something we’ll talk about later on with this post.

That being said, Assault really does have a lot good going for it. An absolute banger of a soundtrack, some great dialogue, a neat story synopsis, the introduction of cool characters like Panther and Beltino (who existed but was always off-screen), and just good levels.

So, here’s what I would add, I suppose, if I were to somehow have the ability to rewrite Assault. Originally I had this in paragraph form, but I’ve made it into more of a list under topic segments with main points bolded for your viewing pleasure. Some of these points might be considered nitpicky and while I do understand that yes, this is a game about space animals, I do hold the developers in high enough regard to make a game with a continuity that makes sense.

The Story Changes

- Reduce Pigma’s storyline in Assault. This is the biggest one for me because a bulk of the plotline feels like a giant chase to just get at Pigma and it feels like it derails from the actual plot with the aparoids. We only go to Sargasso because of Pigma. We only go to Fichina and then back to Meteo again, because of Pigma. That’s 3 levels in a 10 level game devoted to just tracking down Pigma and chasing him. While it makes the build up to fighting Pigma kind of nice, I personally feel like the plot could be reduced to 2 levels. If Assault overall was a longer game, I could see them making it 3 levels. Overall, though, in its current state, I feel like the side plot overstays its welcome and the aparoids promptly get shoved to the side in favor of “Oh no, we gotta get to Pigma!” And I get the main motive here is to show how the aparoids affect people and because of the build up, it does a good job at showing how utterly terrifying the aparoids are. But it’s still too long given the length of Assault’s story. The only alternative to this is make Assault longer, which... honestly, it should be.

- Revise the scene with Tricky. I’m obviously not well-versed in dinosaur biology but I’m pretty sure dinos didn’t grow that fast from what studying I HAVE done. And why is he suddenly king now? Did his parents die? He seems not affected by this at all? Like it’s a funny scene with him, Fox, and Krystal, but it’s odd if you really look at it. Give us, as players, more context because I’m still not even sure what happened to make Tricky suddenly the leader and... big. As a note, you’re gonna hear me gripe a lot about the Sauria level in this post.

- The Star Wolf + Peppy sacrifice is a low effort way to raise tension/stakes and then cop out. Oldest trick in the book, imo, is to act like you’re going to kill off important characters only for them to be alive miraculously. And let’s face it, as an audience we all know they aren’t going to kill those characters because it’s Nintendo and those characters are too beloved. I would’ve forgiven them for only doing this with Peppy or Star Wolf, but when you tack them both together and throw in the fact they make it seem like you’re going to have to kill General Pepper too... yeah, it’s just a bit much of the same trope over and over again. I wanted to put a note in here about how I’m fine with the Great Fox being “sacrificed” but overall, it needed to return to the series because of it’s icon status, but I think that’s more of a gripe at Command instead of Assault.

- Keep Pigma alive. This will conflict with a point I have later on about the game consistently having characters cheat death for easy drama points but with Pigma, I would’ve kept him fully alive... but maybe with some physical damage from the aparoids. I understand he’s semi-alive in Command and tbh I don’t know where I stand on that. Why keep Pigma alive, you might ask? I feel like his character has a lot more potential than being “just the greedy guy”. Like he’s got good potential future villain material for future games and... if I’m honest? I just don’t see Nintendo wanting to keep Pigma dead so why even bother killing him off? They couldn’t even commit to him being dead in Command anyways so it seems very moot.

- Bring Bill and Katt back. Assault is acts a bit like a big reunion of all of our SF64 favorites but our two favorite side characters are suspiciously missing. Wouldn’t Bill be out on the front lines fighting against Andrew in the beginning? Or maybe back in Katina? And wouldn’t Katt inevitably show up in the midst of the invasion, maybe to pointedly check in on Falco?

- Bring Andrew back for the final fight. I think Andrew being defeated early into the game is fine overall but I think bringing him back in for a reunion final fight against the aparoids would serve to really solidify that it’s really everyone vs the invading aparoid force. It would show that not only is Star Wolf willing to put aside their differences but so is basically everyone in the Lylat System in the name of survival. Imagine the Venomians and Cornerians working together against an aparoid fleet, giving Star Fox and Star Wolf time to attack the queen? I just think it’d be neat and it’d open up the potential for some fun banter mid-mission. I do understand that quite a few people consider Andrew canonically dead after Assault but personally, I feel that his defeat left his fate questionable (I’m a staunch believer that unless there’s a body, they’re probably alive, especially for Nintendo games because, again, they never like to kill people off) so him returning in Command never really bothered me.

- In general, reconsider some of the character portrayals. Unfortunately, when a series has a different studio for each game, character portrayals will inevitably have inconsistencies. While I give Namco a lot of credit for putting in oodles and oodles of detail into the game (particularly the levels), I think they failed in their portrayal of Fox, at the least, and Wolf is a considerable offender as well. While it’s obvious that Fox in Adventures was effectively modeled off of Sabre even in terms of personality, Rareware was at least able to justify Fox’s newfound jaded attitude with the passing of many years and a distinct lack of steady income, resulting in the team being in disarray. Assault’s Fox is a stark contrast to his cynical interpretation with seemingly no explanation other than maybe “Oh, I have more money and a gf, maybe I should behave myself”. As if the sudden change in personality wasn’t random, Fox also just seems very blah, like a blank slate stereotypical shooter game protagonist dude with little to no emotion. Wolf is less obvious but gets slated into a mentor-like role midway through the game and ends up in a respectful rivalry with Fox... which there’s nothing inherently wrong with that except for it happening abruptly (and, I mean, Peppy is right there). But I take less issue with this and more of an issue with the fact that there’s an entire level establishing that Wolf now runs a crime den with effectively what seems to be an army and no one bats an eye at this. He doesn’t even call on them to help with the aparoids. Did they all die when the aparoids attacked Meteo? Are they safe somewhere else? Where do they go? How was Sargasso able to operate without the CDF being on their doorstep with warrants for arrests?

- Don’t kill all the dinosaurs. A bit of a dramatic statement but the ending screen that showed all the damage to Sauria really bothered me. While I understand that the dinosaurs had less of a chance against the aparoids than a more technology-focused society like Corneria, I was a bit disappointed that the decision was made to just state that a lot of tribes had been wiped out. I know this could easily be retconned in a future game and I feel like it should be. “But why, Amalia? Why are you disappointed by that?” 1) It’s a little too grimdark for my tastes. 2) The fact it all happened off-screen felt very hand-wavy. And 3) It brings into question the entire point of Adventures. Why did we bother to save this planet if it was going to be reduced to rubble and ash 1 year later? Where were the Krazoa in all of this? Why did they not make an appearance at all to try to stop the invasion with their alleged powers? It just raises too many weird questions and I feel like Namco didn’t think it through too much. Which I mean, sure. Family, kiddo game. I’m not asking for bigbrain plot and lore but I’m squinting at this bit because it does feel very contrary to the lore from the previous game.

- Make the aparoids more relevant. As nice as it is to have a random bad guy from another galaxy, I feel like there was more that could be done with the aparoids in terms of their origins. Tiny things, mind you, not huge revelations. Off the top of my head, they could have been tied into Krystal’s backstory to help alleviate some of the complaints that she was too random to be added to the series’ main cast. Alternatively, they could have been a product of Andross or even a weapon prototype from Corneria that fled the lab (I actually thought the game was leaning in that direction for a bit then just Nothing Happened). I get that the vagueness of their origins leaves room for people to speculate and speculation is nice but... when you leave too many things unknown, it starts to feel less like giving fans room to interpret and more like just doing random things for the sake of it. I think a lore tidbit here or there would work wonders for the aparoids instead of leaving them as just borg/zerg clones.

Level-Based Changes

- Add either Aparoid RedEye or Aparoid General Scales as a boss to Sauria. Given that this level mysteriously lacks a boss, which is just weird compared to the other levels, I think that they had the opportunity to add something cool to go along with the cinematic feel they were going for with Assault. Assault’s cutscenes do play in a movie-like fashion and it’s clear they’re trying to make the game as epic as possible. It’s a shame they had so much fodder for a great boss here but they failed to go through with it. Alternatively: Add a Krazoa-Aparoid fusion. Why? Because Star Fox is about cool epic sci-fi and that would be cool epic sci-fi incarnate.

- Add a boss to the Aparoid Homeworld Level, aka the penultimate level. Another one I felt was personally weird that there was no “final defense system” to challenge the team. Would be cool to do an aerial battle over the aparoid planet with some giant flying aparoid.

- Be kinder to Sauria. The level had some good homages but overall was incredibly small and incredibly short. It felt like a bone tossed to Adventures fans but was not entirely true to the setting built by Rareware. I’m... not even sure where the Sauria level is supposed to take place? I presume it’s Walled City but it doesn’t really have the same color scheme or aesthetic? Also where is my revised Adventures music? Why do all the other levels get it but Sauria doesn’t?

- Put some of those funky items from the multiplayer into the main campaign. I don’t know why some of these things, items especially, were omitted unless it was purely due to time constraints. I remember having missile launchers and jetpacks in the multiplayer and was a bit sad that they were not in the main campaign. Retuning the levels and adding those in would be a nice breath of fresh air for the more tedious on-foot missions.

- More levels. Self-explanatory. Still sad we didn’t get the Zoness or Titania levels in the single-player mode.

I think all of the above changes would improve the game, though I recognize all of this is being said 16 years later after lots of time to contemplate Assault’s weaker points. I’m not entirely certain how long Star Fox Assault took to develop but given that there’s obviously quite a bit scrapped from the game (an entire arcade mode was scrapped as well), I’m going to assume that the studio felt pressured to shove the game out the door and into the hands of customers. It’s a shame, really, because I think a little bit longer in the oven would have done a lot of good. Still, the product we got was good in its own right and a game that many people look back on fondly. I haven’t gotten to replay it in years but I hope to quite soon.

You might wonder why I bothered typing this all out and I guess my point was this-- Assault was great but it wasn’t perfect, and while a lot of other games fall under a crushing amount of scrutiny, Assault seems to dodge it. And don’t get me wrong-- I adore Assault. But given that not many takes exist out there about rewriting it, I decided to give it a shot. For variety’s sake.

I do want to a mock up of a revised Assault story, which I think I will get to work on after completing this while all my ideas are still fresh in mind. So stay tuned for that sometime in the near future. I will also be doing my Adventures mock up at some point but probably not for a little bit as I do wanna focus some of my free time on actual fic-writing.

Anyways, if you stuck around this long, thank you for reading! Have any changes you’d like to see to Assault if you could time machine your way back to the early 2000s? Feel free to post in the comments, I’d love to read your ideas!

#star fox assault #starfox assault #super long #queue'd

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ohnobjyx · 4 years

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What are some of the biggest moments/clues/hints that bjyx have something going on?

Part 1

Hi, anon! I have three asks from different anons with related questions, and I think it’s something many are curious about, so let’s get into it! I’m going to make this into a three-post series, with the next two answers linked to this one. I think they are all necessary to get the full picture.

Links:

Part 2 here

Part 3 here

It’s gonna get long (and I’m just starting), so sit tight and get a cup of coffee. Nothing to see under the cut unless b/jyxszd.

Disclaimer: everything is fake fake fake, don’t take it seriously.

Wow. Where to start? There are many things in the bxg group that are going to be counted as “moments” (or candies), but here are the ones I believe the most. Of course, other bxg will offer other “hints” but these are all quite acepted in the fandom from my point of view.

Asking for “the biggest” is quite subjected to personal interpretation, since there’s no regulated consensus of which moments are true and which are not. That’s why I can offer what I think it’s widely accepted among bxg and that, of course, I think are “true”.

1) Interviews + bts videos

In almost any interview, since they started filming CQL, be it solo interviews or interviews they both participated in, you’ll be able to find “candies”. These of course, are much more subjected to personal interpretation and your views on their relationship.

To me, the interviews show that they are much closer to each other (even when they were just filming cql!) than they are to other people. They also gave a strong deja vu, but that’s for a following post.

Some of the best moments from their interviews:

In a solo interview (160 minute special, from 30:08-46:37, here with eng subs), in questions completely unrelated to dd, gg brought up dd in his answers at least six times (I think I lost count somewhere in the middle). If you compare them, when gg is asked about dd or prompted to add more details to his answer about dd, he’d end up rambling on and on, whereas in other questions he’s more concise. In his 16-minute interview, more than half the time (questions actually related to dd + questions unrelated to dd) gg is talking about dd.

There are several instances where both, when asked about “the most beautiful/handsome/looks good in costumes” person of the cast, they answered with lightning speed the name of the other.

“Wear kneepads”. The 9 minute boat video is also a treasure. Candies aside, I think it’s quite telling that they can have a conversation about everything and anything without stopping (especially dd, who was known for only talking about his interests). About the “wear kneepads” phrase, I talked in this post about how Chinese people express their love “differently” (love is love). It doesn’t imply romantic love per se, but... gg cares.

In the sina interview (190714, here with eng subs): they lied so much in this interview that even when I was just watching this interview for the first time I thought their answers were strange.

“Is she clingy?”, dd asks. “She’s not, you are”, gg mumbles (but it has been picked up by the mic). Dd’s face goes blank, but then he brokes into a small smile and says “I am...” (here the post with the video).

There’s a moment in an interview however, that belongs to a whole another category that’s the second greatest hint for me:

2) The “you have a bf” moment

For those who don’t know what happened: in an interview from one of their fanmeetings, the interviewer asked about one of gg’s old phrases (”if I enter in a relationship now, I’ll lose my job”). However, he didn’t remember it and both react very strongly to it. Here is a post with an analysis and a link to the video.

3) The informality

This is a pretty tricky one... but once you watch a few videos of gg with dd and gg with other people, it becames apparent very quickly. They’re so comfortable with each other that hitting and swearing (”are you sick/insane?”) is never taken with offense.

I think there’s an analysis somewhere, about gg and dd hitting each other. Gg hits, but with no real force behind them, and dd either hit him with his long sleeves (when filming) or with great force and speed, but not landing the blows. The few times he actually hit gg by accident, he always apologized profusely, pouring over gg (”where have I hit?”). It left no room to mistake about the good nature of their teasing and hitting.

4) The necklace

There are rivers of ink written about this one. I’ll leave a link to the best analysis I’ve seen here (both the OP and the response make a lot of sense to me).

In summary: mtjj and cp fans started to argue about the origins of the necklace. The company stated that dd had bought the necklace himself (this is the version most of the solo fans believe), but of course cp fans wouldn’t be appeased with such a weak denial, so mtjj started to say that dd should either stop wearing it or explain how he got the necklace.

It’s curious how dd escaped this situation by choosing a third option: he wears it hidden under his clothes. He wears it almost every time he appears anywhere. He even wears it to the sea.

So he can’t explain where the necklace came from, but he won’t stop wearing it either. That, at the very least, points to a romantic gift (from my point of view).

Once you start seeing the necklace, you can’t unsee it. The picture on the left is an older one, when he still wore the necklace openly, but he was still wearing the necklace in a recent photo (yes, both gg and dd has been nominated to the TOP 100 most handsome faces of 2020).

5) The kadian

I was introduced to this concept in tumblr, to be honest. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but when you see a bulk of posts next to each other... there’s a reasonable limit to these kind of things being coincidental.

But then, dd’s post on the 200529, the one about the smile with the colgate ad... that was very much on purpose. And his post on the 200521. Or gg’s posts in recent June: 200605 13:28 and 200612 13:45.

I have an ask about kadian sitting in my inbox, I’ll explain it in more detail in that one.

6) The clothes

Again, I thought at first that this was a coincidence. But then, there’s a limit for coincidences. They have a lot of clothes they either plan to buy the same one in different colours or it’s just the 23rd coincidence that with all of the clothes available in the world, they chose the same one in different colours or just plainly the same. (Here’s a good post with a compilation).

Another fact that convinced me is that many of them are “private” clothes they own, not clothes that stylists choose for them (in which case it’s most likely to be a coincidence, I don’t think they choose the clothes for a photoshoot, for instance). For example, the two sets down below were from photoshoots, so I think they were coincidences.

Going back to clothes they do share, it’s also the fact that gg wouldn’t have access or interest in certain brands and clothes, unless someone with certain interests recommended them to him or got them for him. So coincidental (again) that the only person around him like that is dd.

Or the fact that if one of them is wearing a certain piece the other has worn before (ie the coat), the other one doesn’t appear with it again. Moreover, the coat (left pictures) has been confirmed by the fans to be the same one. They asked the brand about it, and both gg and dd are wearing the same one (since it was discontinued) unless gg bought it 2 years ago and has just decided to wear it (unlikely).

Or the fact that when they appear with the same shirt/trousers, they fit them differently. Trousers are longer on dd, and the line for the shoulders are lower on gg.

Or the fact that sometimes they each wear the upper piece or the trousers of a set respectively (left). Another coincidence, I’m sure.

(Credit of the pictures in the picture).

7) Gg’s songs and his drawings

Gg hides it better, but he still has this kind of gestures. He never fails to remember the lyrics (I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but at the far back of every stage there’s a gigantic screen displaying the lyrics), but if he does “mix them up” it’s just another coincidence that it can get interpreted as a message for dd.

And last, but not least, we have this drawing:

Gg drew this in a program last year. It’s his “ideal life”. So, let’s see what’s in it:

Gg is the figure on the left, with his cat at his feet.

For someone who doesn’t know how to ride a bike, he included one at the right. Curiously, if you observe the shadow it leaves on the sand, the shadow doesn’t match the bike, resembling a motorbike instead.

So, why is a motorbike in his ideal life? It’s maybe related to the person who approaches from the other end of the beach? Does it look familiar?

He could have drawn a clear, tranquil sea. But instead, there are quite a few waves, which resemble greatly something bxg see written quite often (the last one is the first radical that forms the “bo” character in dd’s name).

So many coincidences in this post.

#ask #my post #bjyszd #coincidences #coincidences everywhere

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shinidamachu · 4 years

Note

What are some of your favorite InuYasha fanfiction stories? 😙

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE THE VERY FIRST PERSON TO ASK ME THIS QUESTION! PLEASE, CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINKS TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE:

Light Me a Lantern by @inuyashasforest: a lot of feelings for this one. It was the first Inukag multichapter fanfic I have ever read and boy am I glad I did. It’s a must read. I don’t know how Hanyo no Yashahime will fall into the Inuyasha universe, but if it turns out to be garbage, I’m more than happy to accept Light Me a Lantern as canon instead. Send tweet.

Little by Little by @little-known-artist: cutest post-canon fanfic in all land! It will make you smile. It will make you laugh. It will make you a little horny. That being said, it will also make you cry, but trust me: you’re gonna be grateful for it.

You Rescued Me by @keichanz: this fic it’s a party and I’m the piñata, there’s no other way to put it. Heather is a storytelling master, like... she could post her grocery shopping list and I’d be reading the hell out of it!

The Captain and the Hanyo by @goshinote: I love the whole premise of this fic and how much effort Jane puts in every detail. It’s like I’m living in it and I wish I was. It’s the story I’m currently reading and it’s so, so sweet and exciting!

Cruel Summer by @akitokihojo: you know shit is about to go down when Angie drops a Taylor Swift song titled fic. Now that Folklore is out I’m honestly scared for my life.

Pennies and Dimes by @witchygirl99: SOMEONE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TURN THIS INTO A MOVIE PLEASE AND THANK YOU! (part one)

Delicate by @akitokihojo: SOMEONE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TURN THIS INTO A MOVIE PLEASE AND THANK YOU! (part two)

A Night to Remember by @angelhartsblog: I want you to close your eyes. Now I want you to think about the perfect Inukag first time. Open your eyes. Did you think about A Night To Remember? No? That’s because you haven’t read it yet, pal. What are you waiting for?

The Gorgon and the Dog Demon by @cstormsinukagblog: I’m in too deep HELP!

Mating Fever by @clearwillow: let’s face it, this one is a classic already! The concept of this story was executed so well. Nothing was held back. You can tell Carra had as much fun writing it as we had reading it.

Pretending To Pretend by splendentgoddess: IF BOTH THE LAST HARD COPY OF THIS FIC AND MY COUSIN WERE ON FIRE... I’d still save my cousin but only because I reread Pretending to Pretend so many times I could probably write it down again myself, word for word. Also, my mom would never let me hear the end of it. But, like... it’s still a close one.

Bakin’ Cakes/Patty-Cake by @artistefish: if I had two lives to give to Bloodhound and Kitten then two lives I’d give them.

Risks by @stoatsandweasels: THE CHARACTERIZATION, THE DIALOGUES, THE SMUT... Definition of *chef’s kiss*. The stars really aligned for this one, let me tell ya. Good. Fucking. Food.

Cam You See Me? by @keichanz: Smut Queen at her best. LONG LIVE!

Inuyasha: Prince of Thieves by @starlingchildgazingatthestars: I feel like this fic should be written on a very big, very old, hard covered book. And someone should read it to me every night before I go to sleep. Every new chapter deepens the plot and the character so much. I’m hooked.

Belief/Resist by @dangerouspompadour: my first thought on it was “man, I wish I could leave a thousand kudos” because it’s one of my favorite tropes ever and the story was told with such delicacy and honesty. Nailed their personalities to their cores.

Freak Attraction/Freak Attraction: Seven-Man Circus by @artistefish: this fic is the epitome of galaxy brain. How do someone eve come up with something so incredible? The world building is so fucking good, are you kidding me?

Oblivion by @meggz0rz: this one needs no comments... But I’m gonna comment anyway: talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show-stopping, spetacular, never-the-same, totally unique.

Beautiful Stranger by splendentgoddess: WHAT A RIDE, MY FRIENDS! BUCKLE THE FUCK UP!

Missing by @ajoy3fanfics: it’s called ‘missing’ because after you finish the whole thing you just miss it so fucking much! I remember how obsessed with it I became, refreshing the page for updates. I was a woman possessed. I spent about 80% of my time talking about this fic, and the other 20% of the time, I was praying for someone else to bring it up so I could talk about it more.

The Delinquent Boyfriend by @artistefish: book one of Inukag Holy Bible.

Out Of The Woods by @dyaz-stories: okay so there are only two chapters so far but the plot it’s captivating as hell! And the writing it’s flawless. If you haven’t read it yet, please do and tell Dya I sent you and I miss her ass.

Guardian by @ruddcatha: my nerdy ass feels seen and represented.

Knit and Lace by @doginabirdcage: if you’re part of the Inukag fandom you’re legally obligated to read this fanfic. This is not even a joke. Do you know someone who hasn’t read it? No! And you shouldn’t because it’s fucking awesome.

Call You Mine by @lavendertwilight89: every word on this is a drop of dopamine I swear.

Enchanted by @akitokihojo: I was in the middle of studying for one of the most important tests of my life when Enchanted came around. Was it insane of me to drop everything to read it? Yes. Would I do it again? Yes.

The Half Breed’s Wife by @gypsin: I’m gonna be honest here, this better update before I die otherwise I’m simply not going. RIP to everyone who will pass away without knowing how The Half Breed’s Wife ends but I’m different.

The It Couple by @meggz0rz: OH, YEAH,THE COOL KID OF FANFICS! *Vogue by Madonna starts playing*

It's About Time by @akitokihojo: first fic by Angie I have ever read! Flashback to two-years-ago me picking her chin off the floor. I still can believe I could read this for free? It feels wrong that I could, but also, like: thank God!

The Maid and the Bodyguard by @dyaz-stories: this is the fic you want to take home to your mama. You’d get on one knee for this fic. You’d buy it a diamond ring. You’d profess my undying love for it and you’d spend the rest of your life trying to prove to this fic I’m worthy of it.

Something Real by Angelica Pierce: so this is one of the best oneshots I have ever read in my entire life. It is also the one and only work signed by this author known to mankind. Which I take as a personal offense. To me. Personally.

Mars and Venus by @doginabirdcage: have you ever read something so clever you’re mad about it? Like HOW DARE YOU BE SO SMART? Genius, really. I read it so long ago and it blows me away to this day.

I Knew You Before I Met You by @keichanz: book two of Inukag Holy Bible.

House Mates by honeybee31: “and they were roommates.” “OH MY GOD, THEY WERE ROOMMATES!” Domestic Inukag? In my fic rec? It’s more likely than you think.

The Language He Speaks by @akitokihojo: if I was half as beautiful as this fic... I’d be kissing so many mouths... The possibilities...

Fingertips by @shinjiteflorana: this is the level of writing I aspire to achieve someday.

PS: I could never, in a billion years, rank these fanfiction, so please keep in mind they are in no way ordered by personal preference. I just love them all. Also, I’m messy.

PS²: believe it or not, I really tried to narrow this down. If I were to tag every Inuyasha fanfiction I love ever, it would get insane huge. This is a not exhaustive, very humble list of my favorites as requested above and I had to draw the line somewhere, otherwise I’d just keep going forever.

PS³: I’ll never get tired of saying that this fandom is crazy talented! Making this fic rec was so hard because there are so many awesome creators out there putting out new content for us every single day. I would like you to know that, even if I had to leave some works out, I appreciate and support each one of them. Thank you so much for keeping the Inuyasha fandom alive!

PS⁴: if you’re reading this, feel free to recommend or tag me in Inuyasha fanfics. Add some of your favorites to this post. Give the authors some love!

#There are SO MANY fanfics I want to start reading but didn’t have the time yet #That’s a topic for another ask tho so if any of you are interested in finding out which ones I have on my to-read list come to my inbox #I’ll be happy to tell you #Anyway I hope I have satisfied your curiosity anon #Thank you for asking now come fangirl about these absolute jams with me #Gosh this took a while #Fic rec

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kazcosmo · 3 years

Text

not a double date

oikawa tooru x reader

❥- mutual pining though the both of you don’t know, idiots to lovers (still idiots though), pure fluff

❥- word count; 2,028 words

!not proofread!

(g/n means ‘girl’s name’ because i have literally zero idea what i was gonna do there)

“It’s not a double date,” you tell him, fluffing the pillow behind you to make your seating much more comfortable on the couch inside your best friend’s dorm, “we’re just third and fourth wheeling.” You flash him a grin, “And while we do that we might get to fuck around and mess with him and his date a little.” You add, a mischievous glimmer in your eyes.

The brunette can’t help but huff out a laugh, leaning against his own set of pillows as he remembered the last time Iwaizumi had trusted the both of you enough to let you two go with him to meet with the girl he’s been going on dates for a while.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t actually that Iwa had trusted you both not to act like idiots, Iwa just knew that the whining from the you and his best friend would never stop until he’s allowed you both to go with him and his girl. Ex-girl, actually.

“Yeah, because that went so well last time.” Oikawa tells you in a singsong voice that would’ve sounded like saccharine if there wasn’t sarcasm dripping off it. You smack his arm, satisfied when he winces.

“Hey! It did!” You protest, pouting at him slightly. “Without us, Iwa would have never found out how incompatible they were, it was kind of obvious, but you know he’s way too polite to pay attention to how bad it was gonna go from there.” You said, beginning to feel a little sulky and grabbing the bowl of popcorn from him and stuffing a few into your mouth. Your reaction only makes him grin wider.

“Sure it was,” he muses, trying to fight the smile forming on his lips as you glared at him you’re your (stolen) bowl of popcorn. “She thought so too, didn’t she? Poor girl just gaped at you when you started questioning her like she committed a crime or something.” Oikawa knew you were telling the truth, of course. You had helped. He was there when everything went downhill. He might’ve helped a little bit, though his little prodding weren’t nearly as obvious or as embarrassing as yours. Heat creeps onto your cheeks and you send a pillow straight to his face.

He’s laughing now, the sound light and airy, maybe attractive if you weren’t so pissed off by his teasing. “God, shut up. And hey! You helped me.” you nearly whine, shutting your eyes and burying your face behind the blankets covering you both as if it would shield you from the onslaught of memories at just how bad (and embarrassing, on your part) it had gotten last time.

You knew that subtlety wasn’t your best suit, and you definitely weren’t subtle when you started throwing questions at the Iwa’s last date. But it helped prevent your friend from landing into a relationship that would have ended badly anyway, you just saved him the trouble of experiencing that.

He smiles at the sight of you hunched over the bowl of popcorn, muttering incoherently, face half-hidden by the blankets. He tugs your arm and you greet his beaming face with a scowl. Still, you scoot closer towards him, careful not to spill any of the popcorn and letting him hold you in a way that’s far too close for two people who are definitely not dating.

You both don’t seem to realize that this proximity towards each other tiptoed over the boundaries of being best friends, after all, you’ve subconsciously went over that line way too many times before.

“Maybe this time I’ll be the one to ask questions, hm?” He asks, the teasing edge still there in the way he spoke.

You scrunched your face in distaste but still agree anyways, “Yeah, yeah, whatever, just don’t make a fool of yourself.”

“Is this you telling me not to follow your footsteps? Trust me, pretty baby, I won’t.” He says it with mock sincerity that has you setting the bowl on the coffee table in front of you two and turning towards him to attack him with a pillow.

Soon enough, you both were whacking pillows against each other. Whatever was playing on the TV was quickly forgotten, just a faint sound fading into the background as your shrieks and laughter came. Just two best friends about to go on a not-date the day after this, having a pillow fight.

the not-date;

The four of you find yourselves in an arcade, you and Tooru buzzing with excitement, completely forgetting the existence of Iwaizumi and his date, the former watching you both with and exasperated look and the latter smiling at the childish antics that you two have been displaying ever since you guys met at the cafe.

Pleasantries jad turned into comfortable conversations over a cup of coffee. You nearly forget the fact that you were there to check if Iwa’s new girl has no intentions of hurting him, luckily, Oikawa didn’t. And every careful question was answered with every bit of honesty you two looked for. And soon enough, the brunette was spilling childhood stories about him, you and Iwa-chan. Giving more detail to Iwaizumi, of course.

Now you were in an arcade, per Tooru’s suggestion.

Your gaze lands at one particular prize; an alien plushy that has you locking eyes with Oikawa, communicating without words. And then you both were off, buying tokens to use, playing games to get the highest amount of tickets to see who could get the cute little alien first. Iwa sighs upon seeing the both of you take off, g/n’s hand tugging at the sleeves of his hoodie and pulling him somewhere to play a couple of games.

A while has passed since that, and here you were, glaring at the brunette, willing him to flinch a little so he’d miss his shot. He’s been going at the basketball game for a few minutes and what ticked you off was that he never missed. Your gaze travels down to where the machine was dispensing a ridiculous amount of tickets. The beginnings of a frown started forming on your lips.

You cross your arms over your chest, still glaring. He sighs, throwing his final winning shot, and this time you really frown a when more tickets starts getting dispensed from the machine. “That’s cheating.” You huff. He only chuckles in response.

“Sore loser.” He sticks his tongue out at you as he kneels to collect everything.

“I want the plushy.” You told him.

“Better luck next time then, y/n-chan.” He tuts and you resist the urge to kick him.

“Tooru,” He stills when you call him, head turning towards you slowly, hands cupping the tickets as he was knelt down. “I want the plushy.” You repeat, pouting slightly.

He looks at you, blinking once to break his stare, before he turns away, sighing again, “Alright, I’ll be kind. I can’t have you being all sad during the ride back home.” As you beam and thank him, getting on your knees as well just to give him a brief hug from behind, his heartbeat speeds up and he silently prays for you not to notice the red tinge on his ears that gave away how affected he was by you.

But you notice, you always do. But you stayed quiet, never giving him trouble for it. After all, who were you to talk? Saying he doesn’t have an effect on you would be lying anyway.

The day ends with you clutching a green plushy to your chest and Tooru’s hand slung on your shoulders as you, him, Iwaizumi and g/n walk outside and towards Iwa’s car, already having agreed to send them off and his date before going home as well.

“I had so much fun today with all of you guys!” she grinned and you can’t help but smile back. She was different, you knew it, and you knew you didn’t have to tell Iwaizumi that. With the way he looks at her, you know that he knows she’s really special too.

“Haji talks about you guys a lot, and now that I was able to witness it, I can really tell why you guys are such great friends.”

Tooru’s lips form into a pout. You don’t miss the look of mischief in his brown orbs, and you prepare yourself to smack his head for whatever nonsense he was gonna say, “She’s so nice Iwa-chan! You should try being more like her!” He mutters an ‘ow’ under his breath as your palm comes in contact with the back of his head.

“That really hurt y/n-chan!” He whines and you roll your eyes. You hear Iwa say something along the lines of ‘Well deserved, shittykawa.’ that has a pouty Tooru arguing with him. You take the time for your hand to reach up to where you hit him, hands softly tracing soothing circles on his head, fingers tangled in brown locks. G/n notices this and comments about it,

“You guys look so cute together!”

You nearly choke as you hear those words, eyes blown wide as you stare at Iwa’s date. Tooru rubs soothing circles on your back as you try to process her words. He doesn’t miss a beat, flashing a smile to g/n, “We do, don’t we, pretty?” The nickname brings a weird fluttering to your stomach and causes heat to spread on your cheeks, both feelings you were used to whenever the unusually sweet endearment comes up although you’ve never bothered to know why.

You shake off the odd feeling that has you giddy, and you decide to play along, “I guess we do.” You grin sheepishly. When Tooru’s hand reaches for yours, you make no effort to pull away, instead intertwining your fingers with his.

“It’s been really fun guys, I wanna do this again sometime.” She says, bidding you goodbye and seating herself on the front passenger’s seat. Iwa shuts the door behind g/n and you let go of Tooru’s hand, not noticing the frown on his face as you did so.

Iwaizumi moves towards the door leading to the driver’s seat. He had his hand ready to open the car door when he pauses, “This is your cue to stop being idiots and start dating, it’s really unbearable with all the pining you seem to have no clue you’re doing.” he sighs, opens he door and shuts it again as soon as he was inside.

Iwaizumi had driven off by the time you stop gaping and have finally regained your ability to speak, “I- What?” You ask, dazed by Iwa’s words.

Dating your best friend? The Oikawa Tooru who you grew up with? The same brunette who’s been with you through thick and thin, teasing you and whining along the way. The very guy who’s house you practically considered home. The guy who you shared your problems with and shared his too. Date that guy?

You’ve never really thought of it before, and now that you have, it had your head spinning.

Because it was also that boy who had made you smile no matter what. It was him that caused butterflies in your stomach and heat rushing to your face.

You remember all the times you’ve whined about him to Iwaizumi, complaining about how annoying Oikawa was and how you can’t do anything else but put up with him. Iwa had laughed then, for a reason you didn’t know, and he’d told you, “You know, shittykawa tells me the same thing and I always ask him the same question. Why are you so willing to put up with each other then?”

You weren’t able to answer Iwa’s question.

Maybe you can now.

Your head whips towards Oikawa who just smiles a sickeningly genuine smile that seemed so sweet, an arrow aimed straight to your heart, “Well, you heard him, pretty.” He holds your hand again this time, looking into your eyes as you stared in his brown orbs, ever as soft and sweet as the smile he’s has now.

“So, when can I take you on a real date? I prefer one where we’re no longer third or fourth wheeling, by the way.”

#haikyuu x reader #oikawa tooru #oikawa x reader #oikawa fluff #haikyuu oikawa

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cosmiccomma · 3 years

Text

wowzers, face tutorial!!!

honestly i'm only doing this because my friends asked me to, but yeah! here's a little rundown of how i do little doodles of faces in class when i'm bored! the example drawing kind of turned into keiji from your turn to die, but we're just gonna ignore that.

also, before we start, this is a tutorial for front-facing faces! the steps i, personally, use are slightly different for 3/4-view and side profiles.

this is gonna be sort of long, so i put it under the cut!

step 1:

so here, you can see that i'm doing this on lined paper, which kind of helps me get the proportions better. you don't have to do it like that, though!! it's just really helpful to have a guide.

basically how i start is with a circle. then, i add a straight line down the center. this is where having the guide helps me, because if you don't get this line straight, it can look a little wonky.

then, you add the jaw. this is super important when you're deciding what face shape to give your drawing. this one has sort of a squarish jaw, but you can make the face longer or shorter, you can make it rounder, you can really do tons! try to make this as symmetrical as possible, but it doesn't have to be perfect, because human faces aren't all perfectly symmetrical.

step 2:

(sorry this photo is kind of bad, took all of these very quickly during my ap euro class without the teacher noticing)

this next step is kinda small, but it really helps get the proportioning right. the horizontal guidelines! i use four guidelines, evenly spaced. the top two should be situated around the middle of the circle from step 1.

step 3:

ok, here is where the guidelines really come into play!

the nose should be located on the center line, and somewhere in between the bottom two horizontal guidelines.

for the eyes, i put one circle on the center line and somewhere in between the top three horizontal lines. then, add a circle of the same size right on either side of the first circle. these are gonna become the eyes. the middle circle is to make sure the spacing is correct.

i place the ears on the bottom horizontal line, and the one second from the top.

step 4:

this step actually kind of applies a little bit of knowledge of human anatomy!

the neck is very simple. it's just a slightly tapered cylinder, basically. you can go into more detail, but for my little doodles, i don't.

now, this next part is where the anatomy comes in. you might be tempted to draw a line straight across the bottom of the neck for the shoulders, but! there actually is a big muscle called the trapezius there! it creates those little triangles next to the neck, and leaves it looking a whole lot more anatomically accurate.

next thing i do is add little curved bits for the biceps.

step 5:

this step is where i add the basic facial features. not really much to say about this stuff, you can draw the nose, eyes, and mouth however you like! just make sure that you use the guidelines we made earlier.

bonus step: details!

i just finished out the drawing with hair and clothes, along with some shadows. this is pretty much where i realized "oh! i just drew keiji. whoops."

and that's it! that's basically how i draw characters when i'm bored. hope this was a cool little tutorial!

#traditional art #drawing #drawing tutorial #keiji shinogi

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popatochisssp · 3 years

Note

Hello! I know you're doing skele and right now but I just wanted to ask how you outline your fics, personally, I can't outline my stuff if my life depended on it and I was wondering if you had any tips or advice on how beginners should outline their stories. Love your stuff <3

Disclaimer, I don’t know how useful any of this will be, for a beginner or otherwise, because every creative brain works a little differently and there’s always at least some trial and error while you figure out what works for you, specifically...

But that said!

My outlining process boils down to throwing everything on the page and refine from there until it’s polished.

I start by writing down everything, all the ideas and concepts and daydream fodder that was previously just floating around in my brain needs to go down somewhere, usually in a word doc but in a pinch, I’ve definitely used the Notes app on my phone--because let’s face it, in the middle of the night when you’re supposed to be sleeping is one of those times that inspiration and cool ideas sometimes run rampant and I’m not gonna get all the way up to get my laptop but the phone is right here and this needs to get written out.

Obviously, if I just left it all like that, I’d have a very messy list of Random Stuff and no idea what to do with any of it, so from there I try to organize. Move things around into an order that kinda makes sense, like Thing X happens before Thing Y, and Thing Z actually can’t happen until at least Thing Y has happened, stuff like that.

I find that step also helps for figuring out the bits you might be lacking in the early stages. You can see all the points laid out in some approximate order and if it looks something like ‘Point A, Point B, Point D,’ your brain will often be able pick out that there’s a gap there that doesn’t work, and that you need to come up with a Point C to bridge it.

“I’ve connected the two dots.” “You didn’t connect shit.” “I’ve connected them.”

But once you’ve got that, you’ve got at least a bare bones outline, and that’s really the framework for everything!

At that point, for me, it’s just a matter of coming back to it a few times and expanding it, so in the super-basic outline, you might just have something like ‘first date, bonding & flirting.’ When you come back to it to add more, you might decide what kind of date they’ll be having, what they might talk about or how they might flirt with each other, maybe a few actual lines of dialogue if you happen to think of anything good.

I do this with every chapter I think a fic is going to have before I post any of it, because by then I feel like I have a solid enough basis to follow through on the whole idea with, and there’s only two steps left for the outline after that: pre-writing and writing.

The pre-writing step, I try to tackle within a week of when I know (or hope to know) that I’ll have time to write, so everything’s fresh. Basically, though, pre-writing is just taking one of the already semi-fleshed out chunks of outline and making it even more detailed. You’re more or less making an outline of this one bullet point on your outline, taking the basic concept (‘first date, bonding & flirting’) and all the extra details you added on (where they’re going, what they’re saying, etc) and arranging them/filling in any blanks you can find until it’s pretty much a rough cut of what the chapter will look like.

I think about a lot of framing stuff in this step, like how the chapter is going to open and how to segue it into the stuff that’s supposed to happen, body language and facial expressions, more dialogue/banter, setting up so that you’re on track for flowing into what the next chapter is supposed to be.

Right around here is also sometimes where you might realize you can’t do that effectively and there might’ve been a transition chapter left out of your original outline because you hadn’t yet realized you need it-- not a big deal, it’s happened for both of my longer fics at least once (FGTC was supposed to be 10 chapters, DL was supposed to be 20, oops)--but you can sort that out with a brainstorming session or two at some point and just doing what you did for all the other chapter outlines to add one or a few more.

But then, once you’ve done all that, the only thing left is the writing step! Which is to find a time (or a few times) that work for you in terms of energy and other RL obligations to just sit down and write it. By then, you probably have a very detailed outline going on, so it’s just a matter of refining all those notes you made about how everything happens, in what order, who says what, etc, etc into actual sentences in your narrative.

Read over it again once you’re finished, maybe run it by a beta if that’s how you roll (I’m the worst combination of impatient and sensitive, so I just read it over twice instead! XD), and then it should be ready to post wherever you so happen to post.

...But like I said, that’s just my method and General Process, it’s totally possible that you might find a different way that works for you better.

I hope some of that rambling mess was helpful to you, and good luck with any future projects! <3

#ralathekira #crinkling #resources #for reference #behind the scenes #et cetera

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moonknightly · 4 years

Text

and you keep me holding on : santiago “pope” garcia x reader (five)

Word Count: 2.9k

Excerpt: “Around the four minute mark, he watched as Nathan’s hand moved into frame to stroke her cheek. Santi was just about to turn away, hating the way he touched her so tenderly when he was using her as nothing more than the sick focus in this game he was playing...”

Warnings: Mentions of past sexual assault, blood, gun violence, mentions of death — it’s a lot folks. Read cautiously.

[SERIES MASTERLIST]

OCTOBER 22ND — DAY SIX

Santi isn’t the one to break the news to her parents. He still has no idea what to say to them, or if he even can say anything to them without making himself sick, without breaking down completely. He isn’t used to feeling emotion like this, doesn’t know what he can handle and what will send him spiraling. The last of his mental stability isn’t something he is willing to risk losing right now.

He is, however, sitting in Cameron’s office when she makes the dreaded phone call, and he can hear her mother sob on the other line, and all he can do is watch, numbly so, as tears flood Cameron’s own eyes. Santi knows that she hasn’t had the time to process it for herself — her complete and utter focus has been on both him and this case, and on top of that she still has a department to run and her own family waiting for her at home.

She has to be tired.

Santi is so, so tired.

The night before is a blur. He remembers Jay telling him about the video, and then there’s nothing until this morning, when Jay shook him awake to tell him Cameron needed him down at the precinct. He still doesn’t know what for. There was no way she was expecting him to do any work for the case, that much he knew, and so he hadn’t bothered fixing his hair or changing out of his sweats.

He sits quietly on the small sofa in Cameron’s office with Jay sitting to his left, both staring at nothing in particular. Santi’s leg is bouncing again, his elbow perched on it and knuckles resting against his bottom lip. He still refuses to believe that she's gone. Santi is so, so sure that she's still alive, but no one else seems to think so. He can’t even begin to put into words how enraged it makes him, how much it makes him want to scream and break anything he can get his hands on.

But then again, he hasn’t seen the video. He hasn’t seen what everyone else had seen, and though he really doesn’t want to, he knows that he needs to, if only for some sense of twisted, morbid closure. To put it all to rest.

And besides that, he can’t just take their word for it when there’s a gnawing, pulling feeling in his stomach telling him that they’re all wrong. It isn’t hope, and it sure as hell isn’t faith, because Santi doesn’t have any faith left to give, not in the squad, not in himself, not even in the boys — they’d offered their help, but he has nothing to give them, no leads to go off of and he knows that’s his fault because he’s not trying hard enough but it’s easier to just blame everyone else.

But that’s something he would deal with later, because all he can focus on is that damn feeling in the pit of his stomach. It’s more than faith or hope, and he honestly doesn’t have a word for it — personal assurance, maybe? All he knows is that he’s so completely positive that she’s somewhere, still breathing, still living.

“Garcia,” Cameron gently begins, causing Santi’s eyes to immediately flicker over to her. She hesitates for a moment as she looks him over, taking in his hunched appearance that was so un-Santi like it doesn’t even look like him for a moment. “I’m so sorry, but I had to-”

“I wanna see the video,” Santi mumbles, not caring about what she had to say, his words slurring together as if he had been drowning himself in liquor the night before instead of lying passed out on the couch.

His words catch Cameron off guard, and her eyes widen, only slightly but enough for Santi to notice. She quickly averts her gaze to Jay as she searches for the right thing to say, but she doesn’t know how to answer him. When almost a full thirty seconds pass in silence, Jay decides that he has to be the one to break it, not able to stand it.

“Santi, I really don’t think that’s a good-”

“Look, I’m just gonna guess that you called me down here because the feds want to talk to me, right? And you know, they’re probably going to show it to me while they’re accusing me of murdering my wife again-”

Both Jay and Cameron flinch, but Santi doesn’t stop talking.

“-and I’d say that’s a pretty shitty way to see it for the first time, don’t you?”

Now it’s Jay’s turn to be stunned into silence. He tries his best to put himself into Santi’s shoes, tries to figure out what he would personally want if he ever found himself in a similar situation.

But he has no idea what he would want in this instance, because he doesn’t know how to even begin imagining something so awful. He would never wish this on his worst enemy, which he knows is a terrible cliche, and it's hard enough as her friend, he just can’t imagine this from her lover’s standpoint.

But he knows that Santi is right, and that his first time seeing the video shouldn’t be when he’s being interrogated by Barnes and Graves. He sighs gently, and closes his eyes slowly before nodding his head.

“Fine. But you’re not watching it alone.”

Santi only nods in return, knowing better than to argue. He knows he won’t be able to watch it on his own anyways.

He stands, somewhat shakily, and inhales deeply, trying to calm the nerves that seem to have made a permanent home in his stomach over the last six days. Cameron offers her seat to him, and he sits without question, already feeling like his knees will give out at any second. Jay comes to stand behind him, and he takes one last look at Santi before clicking on the correct file, regretting it the moment he watches Santi suck in a sharp breath, a small gasp falling from his lips at the image that’s now displayed on the screen.

Just like the photo from a few days before, she’s tied up and gagged and she looks so utterly terrified it makes Santi’s head spin. She looks weaker than before too, and she’s only wearing her underwear. A wave of nausea hits and Santi swallows hard, and Cameron just wants to get it over with, so she hits play.

Immediately, Nathan grabs her jaw, pushing her cheeks together, forcing her lips to purse. It makes Santi’s skin burn, seeing his hands on her like that. His first thought is that he wants to break the fucker’s fingers, one by one.

The longer the camera focuses on her face, the harder and harder her glare becomes, and Santi feels that disgusting pride swell in his chest at the brutal fire in her eyes. That's his girl, so stubborn, never the one to go down without a fight.

She violently shakes her head once before attempting to thrash her arms, but she doesn't get very far with that, the ropes not allowing her to move hardly at all.

“Say hi to your husband, baby,” Nathan snickers, his voice dripping with venom that only adds to the fire moving through Santi’s veins. Maybe it was also due to the fact that he called her “baby”, but he knows he shouldn’t be focusing on that.

Nathan pulls the gag from her lips, and she gasps for air, gritting her teeth together but otherwise staying silent. When she fails to speak, Nathan laughs again.

“Is someone nervous?”

“Fuck you.”

“Again? We just finished not too long ago, sweetheart.”

She stays quiet again. Santi feels like he’s going to vomit, but he pushes the feeling down. He’s gotten really good at doing that in the last six days — at pushing all of his feelings down and away and locking them behind thick walls where he wouldn’t have to face them.

He can feel Cameron’s worried eyes on him, but he ignores them, refusing to pull his attention away from the screen in front of him.

“You wanna tell him about that, huh baby? You wanna tell your husband what I did to you? What you let me do to you?”

This time, she flinches when Nathan says the word “husband”, almost subtle enough to where Santi wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t paying such close attention.

“I didn’t let you do anything.”

“Mm, you did put up a pretty good fight sweetheart. You really know how to tighten my pants, don’t you?”

Santi doesn’t want to see anymore, doesn't want to hear anymore, but he can’t stop watching. He has to see it for himself, he has to. He needs to.

The video continues on for a few minutes, Nathan going into sick detail with every heinous act he performed or otherwise forced her into, because he knew Santi would see the video and he knew what it would do to him. Santi feels closer to faint with each passing second.

Around the four minute mark, he watches as Nathan’s hand moves into frame to stroke her cheek. Santi is just about to turn away, hating the way he touched her so tenderly when he watches her snap her head to the right and in one swift, solid motion, she has Nathan’s hand in her mouth and she’s biting down. Hard.

Nathan’s screams echo through the speakers, and Santi finds himself smirking at the sound. She has a good grip on him for several seconds before he manages to pull away, a bloody bite mark on the back of his hand. His screaming continues, and Santi actually lets out a chuckle that only increases Cameron’s concern.

But then suddenly, Santi isn’t laughing anymore, because Nathan brings the end of a gun down onto her head and the wound in her eyebrow splits open again. She groans, only briefly before she regains her composure, refusing to show how much pain she’s actually in. She’s grinning, and Nathan’s cursing.

“You’re going to pay for that,” Nathan says, a sadistic edge to his voice that puts Santi on complete alert, sets him on edge.

She chuckles, her grin quickly turning into a smirk that Santiago instantly recognizes. It was the same smirk she wore when she was being stubborn or when she was challenging something.

Or in this case, someone.

“Goddammit,” Santi mutters the second he catches it, because he knows her well enough to know that she was about to open her mouth when she should have just kept it shut.

“Bring it. Can’t get any worse than having you on top of me, can it?”

Not a moment later, a single shot rings through the speakers, causing Santi to jump in his chair, though he knows he should have been prepared for it.

He can see her eyes widen, but she doesn’t scream. She doesn't make a single noise whatsoever. She only stares at some faraway spot, her eyes watering and her jaw falling slack as she fades away into a state of shock while Nathan laughs maliciously. He grabs her cheeks again and holds them tightly while he forces her to look into the camera.

“You have anything you want to say to Santiago now? Huh?” he yells, and before she can answer, Cameron bends down and clicks out of the video.

Santi’s head jerks to the side, eyebrows furrowing as he looks up at the lieutenant. “What are you-”

“That’s enough. She didn’t say anything.”

“But-”

“Santi,” Jay murmurs, shaking his head slowly. “It only had a few seconds left. You didn’t need to see anymore of it.”

Santi sits there for several seconds, staring at the computer screen as he tries to decipher the emotions running through his brain. He can’t figure out how to feel or how to even make himself feel it — he’s just numb. He can admit that his chest feels a little bit emptier than it had before he walked into the office, and there’s a hint of anger, but nothing compared to what he’s been feeling all week.

If the movies and the books were right, he should be screaming, crying. Begging and pleading. He should be going through the same emotions he’d experienced on the phone with his mother, he should be inconsolable. Losing his mind and throwing things.

But he doesn’t have the urge to do any of that. At the very least he thinks he should have been having a similar reaction Jay’s from the night before, but there’s just nothing.

There is, however, two things that he’s absolutely certain of.

“She didn’t need to speak to say it,” Santi mumbles quietly. “She said that she’s sorry. That she loves me.”

Cameron raises an eyebrow, her head tilting to the side. “What do you-”

“I could see it in her eyes. You’re with a person long enough and words just kind of become redundant.”

Cameron hesitates as tears spring to her eyes. It’s hard enough losing a friend, but she almost believes it’s even harder watching a friend deal with losing his wife. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone love someone like you two loved each othe-”

“Don’t,” he snaps, effectively cutting her off. “Not past tense. Don’t do that shit to me.”

She sighs. “You know what I mean.”

“She’s still alive.”

“Santi-”

“She is.”

Cameron stays silent, again at a loss for words. Santi’s been forced to grieve for his wife once already, through the hope of finding her alive, and just when he was getting to a place where he was able to find just a little bit of light in the sorrow, he has to grieve her death. He has to go through the five stages of grief all over again, though he had never really finished the cycle the first time around, hadn’t allowed himself to.

Denial was the first. It was textbook—

“We didn’t see where it hit,” he says, interrupting her thought process.

She hesitates, considering his words for a moment. “No, we didn’t. But-”

“So he could have shot her in the fuckin’ foot for all we know. She could still-”

“If she had been shot in the foot, it would hurt more than it would have immediately thrown her into shock-”

“Not necessarily-”

“-and even so, the infection’s gonna kill her. Nathan can’t take her to a hospital.”

Santi only scoffs, leaning back in the chair, trying his hardest to keep his anger at bay. Screaming, arguing won’t get him anywhere.

Jay licks his lips, bracing himself against the desk, leaning forward so he can get a better look at Santiago. “You know the odds are definitely not in her favor.”

“But the odds aren’t completely zero, are they?”

“It’s…” Jay starts, pausing, sighing, knowing Cameron isn’t going to like what he has to say. “It’s possible. We’ve certainly seen people survive worse than a gunshot to the foot.”

“But like Garcia said,” Cameron adds, clearly agitated as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “We didn’t see where the bullet hit. It could have hit anywhere from the chest down.”

“So we should stop searching for my wife because of a possibility rather than take the probability and run with it?”

Cameron again doesn’t have anything to say. She doesn’t know what to say. As a friend, she wants to say no, they shouldn’t stop looking. They should never stop looking.

But as a cop, she wants to say that there’s nothing else they can do, not until they have a substantial lead, something else to go off of. They can’t even trace the video and the email back to an IP address, for some reason that they still can’t quite figure out.

“Cameron,” Santi mumbles, voice gentle, calmer than it had been just seconds before. He blinks, and Cameron can’t tell if it’s to hold back his tears or if it’s to give himself a moment to breathe, to work up the courage to speak again.

“I’m not going to stop looking until there’s a body.”

Cameron’s breath hitches, and she forces herself to swallow the lump in her throat, to not show how his words hit her right in the gut and knocked the air from her lungs completely.

“I know,” she sighs finally, shaking her head slowly and averting her gaze. “But I still think you need to stay away from this. You’re going to drive yourself mad, Santiago. You’re loyal to a fault and it’s going to cost you your own health.”

“It’s not even about loyalty at this point.”

Cameron shifts her eyes back to Santi.

“It’s just about knowing.”

Santi hesitates, running a hand through his disheveled curls, down his face, the pressure in his chest growing the longer he sits there with his thoughts running wildly through his head.

“She’s still alive because I don’t know that she’s dead.”

#santiago pope garcia x reader #santiago pope garcia #triple frontier #triple frontier x reader #triple frontier fic

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ziracona · 3 years

Text

[FGO AU -- The Kid (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ?)

“…Still nothing?” Her hands are perfectly still, muscles tensed and brow furrowed with all the concentration I ever seen on any mage, but, I think she can tell the answer before I give her a sympathetic smile. “AUGH,” she exclaims, flinging herself back unhappily into her seat, “Why! I’m trying my hardest! I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong!”

The mage folds over like a camp chair and deflates with unhappy sounds, sliding back against her own seat.

“Hey, come on now,” I try reassuringly, “It’s not so bad. I don’t know any magic at all, but pretty much all skills take more than an hour to come together.”

She lets out another long sigh and blows some hair out of her face, then straightens up a little. “Yeah, I know,” she admits, “But it’s not like I only tried today. Actually, I’ve…been trying to practice it like all week. So I’d be ready…”

Whoa.

I…guess I shouldn’t be surprised—I keep underestimating her, and her level of plannin’. She strikes me as impulsive, and she is—to the core—but, she’s smart too, and reasonable. Knows how it works, and thinks, just, goes for the long shots anyway. It’s a combination of traits I both like and can relate to.

“Still,” I offer, “You ain’t got a teacher, ‘n mage stuff’s complicated to learn.” She still looks incredibly down, but she nods as she stares vacantly through the bed past me. “…’Sides,” I add, “That medicine you gave me’s helpin’ a lot already—I’m feelin quite a bit better. And you don’t need to worry about havin’ to heal me, sooner or later. I’m getting’ a steady supply of mana from you, even if it’s slow, so my spirit core’s rebuildin’. It’s just gonna take it a little time. It won’t be like a real—human—bullet wound would be to heal.”

“Really?” she asks, perking up immediately.

“…Yeah.” I’m kinda surprised she didn’t know that. Girl seems to have a roulette-wheel of a library about my kind in her head. “At this pace, I should be back on my feet by mornin’.” Crap, it is morning. I forgot. I give the blinds a glance. “Or, --I mean a few hours.”

“That fast?” she asks, eyes widening.

I shrug, which hurts. Ow. Why…do I keep doing that? OW. DAMN it, Bill. When I’m not moving, I forget how much the entire left side of my chest is in agony when I do. “Not back to normal, but, on my feet,” I manage with my teeth clenched, trying not to let on how much that hurt.

She nods, thinking that over. “Can I do anything to help speed it up?”

I still can’t get used to that.

Kid’s so….fervent, and sincere. And nice to me. I’ve been awake for maybe an hour with her now, and I’m still not remotely used to it.

I refocus quick, and give her a smile. “Not more than you already have.”

“I could get you more food,” she suggests eagerly.

That’s probably true, actually, and I could use it. Just. “…Well, if you got some,” I stutter out. I am not used to feeling flustered, but I am realizing quick I am even less used to people bein nice to me. The odd heroic spirit maybe, but humans? Feels totally off now. Like I’ve snuck in somewhere I’m not supposed to be.

Happy, the kid snags her tray, but before she can leave I say, “—Actually though, uh, --before you go—I’m realizin spectacularly late here you still haven’t told me your name.”

She freezes with her hand on the tray and her face turns red. “CRAP, YOU’RE RIGHT!” the mage whips around to face me and gives a distressed bow. “I’m so sorry—I can’t believe—”

“—I-It’s fine, really,” I assure her, “Just you got me at a little bit of a disadvantage right now-”

“—Right! I-I’m sorry. I totally forgot! I’m Ritsuka Fujimaru,” she says, offering me a hand. It takes me a second to get she wants me to shake it, and I awkwardly do.

“Ritsuka Fujimaru,” I echo, “Well, you already know my name, but seein’ as I got several to pick from, Billy’s good. –Oh, uhm—you got a name you prefer me to call you?”

“Uh.” She gives me a glazed stare like someone looking at an oncoming train. “My…friends in high school called me ‘Gudako’ sometimes.”

I stare right back and forget to take back my hand from our handshake. Damn!! “…Your friends weren’t too nice, huh?” I offer sympathetically.

Her face turns crimson and she gives me a look saying she was praying and expecting that I wouldn’t know what that meant and is crying on the inside that I do, and I feel real bad for her that we spirits get such decent language translation built into us on summon. “No,” she offers in a tiny, beaten voice, staring past me.

It’s real hard not to grin, but I beat the impulse down internally with a shovel and give a sympathetic smile instead. “Well, I really just meant ‘do you prefer ‘Ritsuka’ or ‘Fujimaru’,’” She turns a deeper shade and I see her wish for death a little. “But if it’s any consolation, I would definitely not describe you as boring.”

The kid finally looks me in the eye again, a bit like a kicked dog, but she smiles back after a second and seems to bounce back with it. We both remember we’re still holding hands then and let go.

“Well, thank you,” she says like she means that, “I guess I’m not this week anyway.”

“Hardly,” I agree with a smile.

She returns it and takes the tray and goes back into the kitchenette I gotta assume is back there somewhere, and I get another second to think alone.

I’m doin’ better—a lot, I think. So far I think I’ve been up something close to an hour. All this is very strange to me, and it’s not been a great couple of months, but I’m feelin’ less and less dead by the minute, and the answer to ‘does pain medication work on Heroic Spirits’ seems to be a solid ‘yes’—which—considerin alcohol still does and I knew that, in retrospect shouldn’t be such a surprise to me. A glad one though, for sure. Still.

What now? That’s the real question.

Kid says she just wants to help, and at this point I mostly believe that. There’s usually a catch somewhere down the line, but maybe not. I do think at the least she thinks she means it right now. …And…and. I wish that was all I had to worry about. But, the less pain I feel, the clearer I’m starting to think, and either way, she’s right; I can’t just go back to the throne, or I’ll get resummoned. I’m stuck here like this, tied to her right now. But I can’t stay here indefinitely, and neither can she—actually, come to think of it, if they got any kind of security at that workshop, she might be in danger now, for breaking me out. Mages are…known for their ruthlessness. There could be people already on the way to deal with her. Okay. Better find that out, and fast.

Then, third and last on the list of things for me to figure out and deal with is those mages themselves. And that’s the big one. I’m not the only one of us that’s gonna happen to, if it ain’t already happened to more of us, and I can’t leave the place like that. If they have more spirits already, I need to break them out. And either way, I need to destroy that research and probably the people in charge, so they don’t just rebuild, or they absolutely will. And fast. Not sure this new master is just gonna let me go on a wild murder tear either, though, no matter my motives. Which is a problem…

She’s back then, though, so I’m out of time to focus.

“More okayu, plus some chocolate, if you’re feeling good enough,” she offers hopefully, setting her tray back down, “and I brought you some tea too.”

See that’s the problem, I think mournfully at the sight, I can’t do nothin’, but I can’t just betray her after this either, even if I got a good reason! No one’s ever been this good to me—I can’t just go lie to her and then pull a bunch of bloodshed on her dime—even if she don’t sign off on it, she’ll find out, and she’ll feel responsible, and she’s a kid, I’ll have done that to her! I don’t wanna give some kid who saved me a bunch of guilt trauma! After all this? …Hell. I… But I can’t do nothin’ –I can’t. I got friends in the Throne, and even if I didn’t, I ain’t about to allow that to keep on goin’. We don’t deserve that; it ain’t right. But if I tell her what I got in mind, she might use a command spell and bind me, so. …But still. I can’t… I can’t…do either, but. …Maybe I could convince her to absolve the contract, and get it done after that and before I vanish, just, once I got more strength? I got my Independent Action that could keep me goin’ for a little—even Gunner, I got a lot of my Archer traits, so, once I’m healed, it might be enough to get- …No. Ain’t enough. She’d still see what happened, and know the only reason I got it done was her. Same problem as before. Shit. Shit, this sucks… I’ll be doing somethin terrible no matter what, then…

And I know myself. And that the thing I’m eventually gonna do is not leave that place standin’ with people like me trapped dyin’ inside it. As much regret and guilt as that’s gonna buy me too…

“What?”

I glance up, and she’s got her head cocked. I gotta stop bein’ an open book here. Let me think…

“About Ur-shanabi,” I start hesitantly, “Master, did—”

Her expression changes drastically to distress and she immediately cuts me off. “—Oh, please don’t call me that.”

I forgot I even said it, so it takes me a second to get what she means. “’Master’?”

“Please?” she says again, “I know you’re supposed to, and I’m supposed to call you my servant, but I really hate that.”

Everything else I’ve been thinkin’ about just kinda shuts off and I stare at her, blink. … Y…yeah, me too. Always…

“You’re all heroes, or famous artists, or explorers, or fighters, and we’re just mages. –I mean, even if it was different, I’m pretty sure I’d still hate it,” she continues with a sigh, somewhere deep in thought in her own head, but she comes back and meets my gaze, “But please don’t. I don’t want you to have to think of me that way either. I guess I don’t know how this all usually works in a lot of detail, and I know you’re stuck bound to me right now, but I don’t want you to worry I’m gonna try to make you obey me. I won’t! That’s not why I helped you!” She looks so intense. Leaned forward, one palm on the bed, look on her face that makes me believe she means it. “I want you to know I’m never gonna do that; I mean it. I won’t ever use a command spell on you to make you do something you don’t want to do, I promise.”

Her eyes are amber and bright like coals and full of intent. I find it impossible to look away.

“Not ever. I don’t want to try to use you or control you; I. …I’m…really just trying to help…” She finishes, pulling back once she’s made her statement and looking just a little embarrassed only now it’s done.

“…Well, good,” I finally find my voice, “Because I’ve never been much for the Master-Servant thing anyway. Can’t ever seem to stick to it, and it tends to cause problems down the road.”

She smiles back, happy with my answer and that I’ve accepted her proposal.

Some kind of a mage... This is…almost too much to really even understand right now, but I think she…meant it. She thinks she did. I’m beginin to think calling her a mage at all was plain off. She’s somethin’ else. I always think the kid’s thrown me for about as many loops as she can, and then I get knocked down again, and it’s been less than a day. Don’t bode well and really does for me at the same time.

“’Boss’ then?” I suggest, but I can instantly sense her dislike.

“’Partner?’” she counters hopefully.

That does have a much better ring to it, I gotta say. “Partner,” I concede with a wink, “If you’re sure that’s what you want.”

Never had a master that wanted me to un-know my place before.

“Well, you could also call me ‘Ritsuka’,” she says hopefully and then immediately becomes embarrassed. “Uhm,” she hurries, glancing away when I grin at her, “A-And you’re sure you prefer ‘Billy’? Not Henry?”

Lord it’s been a while since anyone called me that. Sends me a long, long way back. And not really in a good way. I appreciate the thought though.

“No,” I reply.

She seems surprised a little, but I can tell she’s not gonna press me, so, there’s really no reason to say this, but for some reason I want to tell her.

“That’s my middle name, actually,” I say.

“Huh?” says the girl.

“Henry,” I clarify, “Middle name. It’s William Henry McCarty, actually.”

Her brow furrows. “…But I thought…?”

“Step-dad had the same name, and it was too many for one household, so mine got shortened,” I gloss over, “Took it back when I picked my own name on the lamb.”

“So. …You outlaw-named yourself … ‘Your Name The Hot One’?”

It’s my turn to suffer nickname shame, though I’m not too ashamed of that, because it’s pretty funny. Does suckerpunch me a little to get called on it more than 100 years later.

“…I-I don’t know…” I answer automatically before thinking of what to say, “Maybe. …yeah.”

She almost chokes on a laugh. I grin.

“I mean, if you got the opportunity—wouldn’t you? I’m just sayin,” I say casually, past the slight amount of embarrassment I felt and pretty proud of myself again. It was a slick name.

“It’s got flair,” she says approvingly.

“Thank you,” I reply.

“So, what were you gonna ask—before I interrupted you?” she asks, picking up the cup of tea and offering it to me. I take it, feeling immense guilt as our hands touch for a second and I’m stuck thinkin about all the things she’s done for me for no reason other than bein’ kind, and the fact I’m definitely going to turn on that and her, and how awful that is.

I…wonder if it would make things some kind of right if I came back and let her kill me after? No. No, that’d make it worse. Mage or not, I don’t think this kid’s ever hurt anyone. I don’t know what I can do to soften taking this kind of kindness and drawing blood with it, but…

“Ur-shanabi,” I say quietly, working hard to pass off my internal distress as distraction as I hold the little clay cup and feel the warmth. It smells good. I know I have to drink it, and I’ll feel physically better, but everything nice I accept is piling on guilt.

…I wish. I wish I had a choice here, but I can’t let them keep this goin’. I wish I knew a way to make that right, or at least explain to you I’m sorry. And everything she says and does just makes this worse! I don’t want to hurt her. I really don’t. In any other situation, I wouldn’t, but I have to, and I hate it. I don’t want to betray her. I don’t want to make her regret showing me kindness. I don’t want her to feel the way it feels to not do something cold but safe, and then get shot for it.

Hot water slips over the top of my hand and I jerk back and just spill more of the tea, sucking in a sharp breath at the unexpected pain.

“Whoa! –Are you okay?” she asks worriedly, passing me a napkin and leaning over to catch onto my hand and help steady the cup and what’s left inside it, “What happened? Are you feeling worse again?”

Hell! My hands are shaking and I can’t quite get them to stop. Calm down. You don’t gotta do anything right now. You can feel bad later. Just think a second.

“Nah—s-sorry,” I manage, trying to smile at her and not quite sure how well I do, “I uh—I guess I’m just still a little weaker than I thought. I’m fine now.”

“Here,” she says, brow all scrunched up in concern, taking back the tea and passing me the ice pack to set on my hand.

I hate this. I’m terrible. It ain’t fair—it ain’t wrong for me to go back, I gotta, but. I hate this. I hate it.

I take the pack and try to look grateful. “Thanks.”

“Sorry about your hand,” she says.

I wave it off. “It’s already done hurting.”

“…” She waits a second, leaned a little forward expectantly, and I forget what for until she prompts me again. “What? About Ur-shanabi?”

“Oh,” I say. Right. “I was gonna ask how much you know about their operation. –How you even ended up in the right place at all.”

“Oh,” she says, and she loses some color.

Huh?

“Uhm,” she glances away, then back, and seems more herself, but I’m not sure I buy it this time. I don’t think she’s lyin’, per-se, but there’s something else she’s not saying. “Well. I’m from a mage family, but, not a ‘mage’ family—we know about magic, I did—growing up. But, I didn’t ever get any formal training, or anything. So I guess it was more like mage-adjacent in a lot of ways. There was this test I heard about from a friend—a research project on magical circuits, and I was curious.” She glances down at her legs again, but this time she looks far away and almost happy, like she’s revisiting a better moment in her head. “I’d always been curious about myself and magic, and I was excited, because if you participated in the research project, you got to know stuff they found out about your magical circuits—stuff you might be good at.” She glances up at me and gives me an embarrassed smile. “It sounded really cool. I had wanted to know for so long, and I thought—I still think—it would be really great to learn how to do more magic. So, I went.”

The girl—nope—Ritsuka, thinks for a second, then holds out her hand and looks at it. “Apparently I’ve got really unusual circuits.”

“Unusual?” I echo, kind of intrigued. I know jack-all about magic, but I am curious.

She glances over and nods. “Yeah. I thought I did really badly in the study, because I didn’t know any real spells at all, and everyone else did. They pulled me aside after and I thought they were just going to kick me out before we even got results, but, apparently my circuits were so unusual they wanted to do a case study. I’ve got ‘Almost no practical control or ability to utilize them, but possess a nearly inhuman amount of mana.’”

“Really?” I ask. I can’t feel that at all. I’m getting enough to keep me sustained, sure, but that’s it.

“I know, right?” she agrees, nodding and leaning forward, “That’s what I said! But apparently I do. They asked me if I’d come in to do more studies, and I said yes, because I was also curious. And that was Ur-shanabi. I’ve been going there for a while now,” she adds, then stops, gives me a guilty look, then looks away and keeps going in an almost dejected tone. “Uh. But I worked, or, was allowed in, I guess, a totally different part of the building. You were up on the 12th floor. I was on the 4th, R&D testing labs.”

“Oh,” I say, very confused by this reaction from her, and a little concerned by it too if I’m honest, “What brought you up to the 12th?”

“The mage I met with the most was named Nakata. He worked in a lot of projects more important than mine too. I think that was maybe the only time I was ever on the 12th floor,” she answers, “That day, I showed up and waited for a couple hours, and he never showed up in R&D. There were other people who wanted to use the room we usually used for another test, so I asked if I should go home, and the secretary said yes, but I bumped into Dr. Nakata in the elevator on my way out. He said he’d been swamped by a last-minute schedule change, and still wanted to do our test, but he’d be maybe another hour, and that I should just wait for him by his office. Which, is on the 12th floor. I was just standing there, and this big group of mages went into a large room at the end of the hall, so I was curious and watched them, and.” She shrugs.

Yeah, I can fill in the rest.

“I guess you don’t know a lot about what they were doing with me, then,” I say, a little disappointed. Any new information would have been useful. I don’t know that I expected another answer, though.

“…Actually, yes,” says Ritsuka, looking uncomfortable. I glance at her in surprise and she looks flustered and guilty and glances away again. “Uhm. After I saw you, I asked Dr. Nakata what was going on up here, and who you were.”

You coulda been killed, I think in a frozen kind of horror. What were you thinking?

“He told me,” she says simply, “You were a heroic spirit, and they were doing tests on things you could do using them. He even told me what the test was.”

I don’t know what to think or how to feel about that, so I just listen. I wonder why on earth he’d tell her?

She glances up and holds my gaze this time, an undercurrent of almost…incensed feeling somewhere deep in her eyes. “He said they had found a way to keep a summoned spirit away from the throne for a long time at low mana cost, and instead use the connection to their Saint Graph and essence as a fixed unit outside of time now, to generate a potentially limitless source of energy. To…make a heroic spirit into a battery.” I can tell while the rest of it was her echoing, the last statement is her own, and she’s bitter. “I asked how, and he told me,” she continues, “He said you had to trap one right between life and death, so they would give as little presence as possible to anything looking, and wouldn’t find a way to escape or retaliate on their own, but couldn’t actually vanish either. ‘An art and a science, to find the perfect thread to stop at, and keep them in place on the edge of death.’ Stuck. In pain, and too weak to fight back, but here.”

She lets out a long sigh and glances at me and says, “I said that sounded awful, and what about the spirits, and he told me a lot of stuff about heroic spirits being familiars that are meant to serve mankind in whatever way they’re summoned for, no matter how painful, and aren’t people anymore and that’s their intended use.”

Ow. I mean, it’s not new; I hear this from mages all the time, but it’s never fun to hear one say it right to your face. Fuckin mages…

“But, I think he could tell I didn’t like it, even though I was a little scared by then and trying not to seem as much like it,” she continues, glancing down at her hands, “And he told me ‘Don’t trouble yourself. You’re new to this, but it’s a normal part of being a mage. If it helps you rest easier, the one we summoned was Billy the Kid, an outlaw and a murderer from the old American west,’ a-and. That…” her voice gets quieter, like suddenly she thinks maybe she shouldn’t have said any of this, “…I could think of it as divine punishment, in a way. And not have to feel bad.”

…

That. It really shouldn’t bother me to hear. People always act like that to me. Even when I was alive. I think about being sent to hang for a murder I didn’t commit for a moment. I had so many murders on my record by the end of it, but I’ve never pulled a trigger that wasn’t in self-defense or a last resort. But it’s never mattered. You are what people make of you, in the public eye, and in history I guess, no matter what the truth is. And eventually that tends to push you to an ending written about the person you’re described as. I never thought of any of the fights I was in as murder. I guess it’s been a long time since I could even pretend that mattered to anyone but me, though.

…I still hate it.

It hurts. Not so much people sayin’ that—don’t care too much what people think; I know who I am. But, the fact that it just straight up don’t matter what’s true, at all. Even a little… I could have lived a completely different life and not been remembered as any worse at all.

“He thought I’d agree with that.” Her voice is angry. I glance back up, train of thought broken, and Ritsuka looks as mad as she sounded, somewhere else in her head too. It’s a quiet, deep anger. “I didn’t.”

There’s something about how she looks, like she’s an embodiment of what she’s saying, and again it becomes hard to look away if I’d wanted.

“He was wrong. I guess there are some people who deserve to die,” she continues, “I’ve thought about that. About if I think if…if someone killed my family or something, I’d want them to have to die too for it. If I think that’s fair, and right. But. …Even if some people probably deserve to die, nobody deserves to be just kept in pain forever. Even the worst people. I don’t know how anyone could think after more than a day anybody at all could possibly know it’s right to go on hurting someone. Not even the worst person.” She looks distressed by that for a moment, then glances back at me and smiles a little. “I decided that, and that I was going to try to do something, and then I went home and looked you up, and you didn’t even sound that bad.” Her eyes go big immediately and she looks mortified. “—Wait—That sounded bad! I’m sorry! I-I said that wrong. I—I meant—I didn’t—I just mean—he’d said—uh—a-and you didn’t sound like—it seemed like you weren’t so—like stuff went wrong for you more than you were a bad person actually, a-and you didn’t seem like you were really a murderer—"

The poor kid is sweating buckets now. I think she thinks she’ll have offended me sayin’ that, but it’s very much the opposite.

“—I should stop talking. I’m sorry. I-I just—uhm. You were different sounding than I thought before I looked you up is the only thing I was trying to say—I’m so sorry I don’t know why I said any of it at all!” She gives up and hunches over apologetically in shame.

“…I ain’t mad,” I try to assure her after a second.

Ritsuka glances up between her bangs and gives me a sorrowful, worried look.

“…I…think I actually appreciate that,” I continue after a second, figuring it out as I go and then giving her a smile, “I ain’t sure what you read about me, or how true it was, but I’ll take what goodwill I can get.” She raises her head a little more, but still looks worried, so I keep going. “Ain’t offended me—I get it. You were already thinkin of doin’ something dangerous. Gotta know what you’re in for best you can, with a heroic spirit. Only smart to try’n be prepared.”

Looking a little better, she cautiously un-hunches. “Yeah. …I really didn’t mean to say it how I did, though. I don’t think you’re bad! I mean, I know I don’t know you, but I-”

I hold up a hand. I feel like after all this, I really oughta let her off the hook.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say with a sure smile, “You don’t gotta explain yourself, or tell me what you thought, or what you think now. I don’t have to know. I’m aware you’re takin’ a risk on me, especially with my kind of record, and I appreciate it. Probably ain’t easy for you.”

Shit, haven’t thought about that before, but it’s true. Kid might have command seals, but I’m quick, and she’s not experienced. Pretty much any heroic spirit she summoned that wanted to could kill her easy. She didn’t think to use one immediately to order me to not. I’ve been so strung out and nervous of her, I haven’t thought for a second about the fact she’s probably scared of me.

“…Uhm. In light of that, Ma- Partner,” I correct, “I’d like to set a few things straight for you, if you don’t mind?”

She seems to recover a little, straightens up and gives me a very serious nod.

“If you’re worried about me, don’t be. Whatever you heard, truth is I never killed anybody except when it was them or me, or I was defendin’ someone else. I never was a fan of it, either. Only crimes I ever set out to commit were thefts, mostly outa need,” I say, “Where I grew up, once you had a reputation, that was all you had left. I stole food when I was on my own at sixteen, and there weren’t no turning back after that. ‘Bout that simple.”

The gal’s listening attentively, head cocked. Takin this serious. And I’m still thinkin over how this has probably been for her. Angering a group of powerful mages is scary enough. Now she’s contracted to an outlaw spirit, and she’s apparently a mage who’s got no real practice usin spells. She’s basically just a civilian. She’s all alone here too, and somethin like sixteen or seventeen, and she’s got no real idea what I’m gonna be like, or want, or do. I’m not in great shape, but I’m still a heroic spirit, and a lot more powerful than her, and I’ve killed people. That’s a pretty good reason to be scared. I don’t want her to be, though. At all.

“I know all you got’s my word on this,” I say, working hard to convey my sincerity, “But it is the truth. More importantly, you saved my life, and I owe you. I really am grateful. I got no plans to try and hurt you; I promise—you got nothing to worry about.”

FUCK. What I’ve just said hits me like a ton of bricks. Fuck, I should’ve phrased that differently!—no no no—damn it damn it; I should have thought about it first! Hell! I am gonna hurt her! Probably. Not physically, which is what I was thinkin’ about when I said that, and meant, but it’s not technically what I said, shit shit shit, I just promised her something I’m gonna break—oh great, and I must have some amount of that showin’ on my face because she actually does look nervous now. I lied and I actually made her more afraid of me. Great job! Damn it damn it damn it.

“I’m really not the kind of person to do that,” I add quickly, trying hard to save it. This is bad this is bad. “I wouldn’t have a reason to anyway, but you definitely don’t gotta worry about me—” Everything I am thinking to say is wrong. All of it. ‘turning on you’ – a lie. ‘repaying that by making you sorry’ – a bigger lie. Shit. And I feel like it now too, more than before. I’m the worst—I’m terrible. I know I don’t have an alternative, and I have to go back, but this is awful, and I feel very appropriate amounts of guilt about it. I deserve this. “attacking you or something,” I go with, even though it sounds weird in my ears, because I don’t want to outright lie again, and even this much is making me feel miserable. “after you’ve been good to me.”

I hate this. I hate myself. Maybe. …Maybe there’s another way, maybe I can… Can…

She smiles for a moment, happy I said that I think, then slowly looks worried. “You look worried.”

Oh. I guess I’m the one who looks worried.

I…

I can’t. There’s nothing I can do to work this out better than it’s gonna be. I just. …I just…

…Fuck it.

“I am,” I say honestly, turning my head to look at her. She’s so sincere, and so worried. She’s been so good to me. I just. … I just… “I’m worried about Ur-shanabi,” I say, so sure I’m going to regret this in seconds, but doing it anyway because of some deep inherent flaw in who I am, “I’m okay right now, but I figure with me gone, they’ll just take another one of us and do the same thing. If they haven’t already.”

I watch slow horror creep over her face as that clicks. “…I. Would…? Oh. They will. And it’ll be my fault.” she says, glazed-over expression on her face.

What? “No!” I say immediately, “That it’s someone else and not me? It ain’t your fault. It’s theirs—they’re the only ones doin’ it, aren’t they?”

She comes back to herself a little and looks at me, but her face is still drained of color.

“It won’t be your fault,” I say again, “That’s ridiculous, and you know it. …They will keep doin’ it, though. Probably to more and more of us, if they can. Probably they’ll sell the idea to other mages too.” I hesitate, give myself one last solid chance to reconsider this, and don’t. Just pray for luck. I’ve gotten a lot of it the last 24 hours—maybe I have a pinch left. “…Unless I find a way to go back and stop them pretty fast. It’s that, or this is gonna keep happening to us. And it’s only gonna get worse. …I got friends, in the throne. …I don’t want that to happen to any of them. Even for the ones I don’t know, even the ones I don’t like, it’s like you said: nobody deserves that. So. I think. …I gotta go back.”

Her eyes are huge and I can see her running what this means, trying to process it all. I’m praying she’ll agree with me, but it’s such a long shot to get from an idealistic teen.

“Please!” I try, going for the best pitch I can before she decides to force me not to, “I-I know you’ve met those people, and I’m askin’ a lot, but at least think about it. You helped me because you knew what they were doing was wrong—I know it too, and I’m the only one in a position to shut it down. I can’t do nothing, and this is the only way to end it. You don’t know what it’s like. We-“ I’m getting to desperate, and I know it, but I hold up a hand and plow on because so long as I keep talking, she isn’t, and I don’t know what else to try. “—Our bodies are pretty close to what they were before; we feel pain the same, we can just survive more of it. I-I’m lucky, I got shot—I’ve known spirits who were bled to death, or hung, or burned, or decapitated—you can’t imagine what it would be like to be stuck chained down forever with your head just not quite severed all the way enough to kill you. I know it’s not your fight, and it’s not fair for me to ask this, but I have to try and stop them. And I—can’t. Without an anchor. Please...”

Maybe this won’t be a terrible idea. Maybe it won’t backfire on me immediately. Maybe she’ll let me go. Maybe she’ll understand. Maybe I won’t have to—

For a moment, she stares at me, motionless. Then her eyes well up.

Damn it. Damn it; I knew! I knew she’d feel like she had to stop me, and I showed her my hand because I felt bad, and now promise or no, she—

“I’m so sorry…” she whispers, and I’m fully expecting the threat of a command spell to follow that, but instead she tucks her knees up to her chest and folds over into a little ball and starts crying again.

I don’t…rightly know what to do about that, so for a second I just stare at her like an idiot.

“I know it was bad,” I hear muffled and choked up from the little bundle she’s made herself into, “I. I don’t—don’t know how awful it was, I know, but I know it was—I know it was so bad. And it’s my fault it was you.”

What?

“You have to go back?” she asks pleadingly, looking up at me for a second from over her knees, like she’s asking me if I gotta go die in a war, “What if they catch you and put you back where you were? O-or kill you and just summon you into a trap again? I’ll never get back in if—”

“Wait, what do you mean ‘your fault’?” I ask, still stuck on that and very lost again. So much so she’s halfway through her next paragraph before I even clock that me potentially getting trapped again is the only thing she has immediately objected to.

Ritsuka looks at me with her big, tearful eyes, then looks defeatedly at her knees. “…I. One day, several months ago, I showed up for a research day and Doctor Nakata had these boxes on the table, and a bunch of papers.” The kid looks and sounds completely miserable, and exhausted. “I didn’t know what any of it was, so I asked him. He said it was for another project, and to just wait a few minutes while he packed it up. …And then he changed his mind, and said actually, would I come over? He told me they were deciding between a few candidates for a project, and at this point it didn’t really matter which one they started with, and would I like to pick one. I asked what the project was, and he said it was a secret. But, it looked so important, and cool, and I wanted to be involved, so I said yes please, and I went up and picked. I didn’t know what they were.”

Ritsuka grimaces and looks sadder, rests her chin on her knees and exhales slowly. “No, I think I did. I just didn’t know what they were for. I could sense they were all magical, and they were all odd, and specific. An old little clay vase. A shuriken. An earring. A coin. A letter. And a photograph.”

I stare. She makes herself look up at me, and I can see how sorry she feels. “I picked the photograph.”

Ah.

“He even told me later,” she adds quietly, all the spunk gone, “That I picked you. When I asked, after seeing—”

“Good.”

She looks up quickly, surprised.

“I appreciate you feelin’ bad for me,” I continue sympathetically, “But it ain’t your fault, what happened to me. You didn’t know what was goin’ on, and if it hadn’t been me, it’d have just been someone else. Luck of the draw; just how life happens. On top of that, they’d have gone after every one of us on that list eventually, and if I hadn’t been here and now with you, I might not have ever gotten out.” It’s true, and I give her a smile. “Also, this whole thing is a pretty big relief.”

“A relief?” she echoes, confused.

I nod. “You get summoned with a catalyst, ain’t much you can do but show up, like it or not, but I wanted to answer the call when I got it. Up till now I thought my sixth sense had plain stopped workin’ or something. I guess it was actually just because I thought I was answerin’ your call.”

She looks confused for a moment, then smiles slowly. “…Really?”

I give a little head tilt. “Best I can guess.” I honestly don’t know if a summon can work that way at all, but I’d like to think so, and why not? Makes us both feel better.

I meet her gaze and try and get her to smile back, and this time it works.

“I really am sorry,” she says, “even if you’re not mad.”

“Well thank you,” I say, accepting the apology, “But consider it behind us.”

Something she said earlier that I had running in the back of my head comes through hard, and I feel the bottom of my stomach drop out.

“…You said a coin?” I ask, really, really, really hoping my gut feeling is wrong for once.

She nods, catching my expression and getting sympathetically worried along with me.

“…Was it kinda silver, with a face on one side, and a short cross and some words on the back?” I ask.

“Uh. I only saw one side, but it did have a face,” she says nervously.

“Was there a scratch across it? Deep? Diagonal on the face?”

“Yeah,” she says, surprised, “How did you know? What is it?”

Oh no. Oh shit that’s bad. Okay. Okay, this is gonna be okay. I can figure this out. He might not even be here yet, and I can snag the coin and he’ll be fine. All this means for sure is that I have to figure this out, more than before now.

“A friend,” I answer when I remember I need to, “—a catalyst to summon one, I mean.”

“Oh,” she says in a voice like I feel.

For a moment, we look at each other in silence. I got no idea what she’s thinking, but my mind’s far away and frantic, trying to piece together some kind of plan.

“…What do we do?” she asks.

“Huh?”

“You said you gotta go back in,” says Ritsuka as I refocus on her, and I can see she’s come to some kind of decision, “And need me to help, and now you know they’re gonna hurt your friend unless we can stop them. I’ll help you, but I don’t know how. How do we go back and stop them?”

I gape.

“…You…want to help me?”

She gives a nod, looking confused that I’d ask her.

“You-? I mean—it might. …I might have to…shoot someone,” I say. Wow. Great job Billy you sure did sugar coat that and make it sound real fine. Nicely done.

Her eyes widen, and she glances away, hesitates. Then says slowly, “…But if we don’t, they’ll keep torturing heroic spirits for energy.” Working through it herself.

“That’s about it,” I agree sympathetically. It…can’t be easy for her. She’s a civilian, a kid. And she seems like a bleedin’ heart who doesn’t want to hurt anyone. She’s already been a lot more understanding towards my perspective than I expected.

“…So it’ll be bad either way,” she says finally, looking back and meeting my gaze.

I’m kind of taken aback that she’s put it into almost the same words I did to myself, but I nod.

“…That sucks,” she says to herself sadly.

“Yeah,” I agree quietly, looking at my own knees and thinking it over.

“…Is there a way to do it without killing anyone?” she asks after a second, hopeful.

Probably not. Even if I destroyed the whole building, there’s the people in charge who know how to do it, and can and will rebuild. I think she can see that on my face, because her expression falls.

“I…don’t know for sure,” I answer, “But. I think…probably not. … They’d rebuild. –Not all of them—not all of them would know how, but, at least a few will.”

She stares off at nothing, thinking.

I feel worse, somehow. Thought I was doing the nicer thing, basically giving her a chance to stop me, and risking my success. But. Now I think maybe I’ve accidentally been more heartless.

She shouldn’t have to carry a choice like this. Life ain’t fair, and I know that, but I’m finding I like being on the giving end of that even less than the receiving.

“…How old are you?”

The mage turns and looks at me, surprised, and flushes a little. “…I. S-seventeen?”

“Yeah?” I ask.

She nods.

Seventeen. She’s about the age I was when my life started really fallin apart. I hate being a part of that for someone else. I don’t want to.

“You don’t have to have anything to do with it,” I offer quietly, “You could dissolve our contract. Fifty-fifty chance I get the job done before I vanish, fifty—”

“—No!” she cuts in adamantly before I’m even halfway through my pitch, “No way! You’d get trapped there again! That’d be even worse! I made a deal with you to protect you if you trusted me! I’m not just gonna abandon you now.”

I blink. Tilt my head, taken aback by her fervor.

Did you? Is that what the contract was to her? I try to recall her words. ‘My soul becomes your will; your spirit becomes my destiny.’ Right, she said that wrong. But what I want to remember is before that. I try hard. “Please—If you die, they’ll summon you back! I-I can ground you! I can keep you here!” I can’t see much in the image in my head, but I can hear it, I can feel it—the pain and her hand on mine.

…I guess she did.

I don’t know how to respond to that. Look down at my own hand, playing it again in my head.

The kid is thinking still, her brow furrowed with worry. Taps the edge of the little bedside table agitatedly with a finger. “…So. Either we find a way to destroy their research, and get any other spirits they have out, and…maybe fight some of the people in charge,” she says finally, “…or they keep on doing this to you all, forever. There’s no other way things can go? You’re sure?”

I’ve already thought about it, but she’s so sincere and sad I think again, and then nod.

She sees that and glances at her hands and then back at me. “Then. …I guess we have to go back and stop them. You’re right.”

I stare at her. A-are you serious? Even as such a bleeding heart, you really—?

“But nobody gets hurt that doesn’t have to, okay?” she adds fervently, “And. I-I want to try to talk to the people in charge first! I know they won’t change their minds and it’s probably a waste, but.”

“—We can try,” I agree readily, overcome with relief, “Are you sure, though? You don’t have to stay contracted to me, and you sure as hell don’t have to come. You—you’ve already taken a lot of risks for me, big ones, and I know I’m basically returnin that favor by involving you in bloodshed. I don’t want to do that.”

It’s her turn to look surprised, and she blinks and tilts her head right back at me, and for some reason it makes me feel a whole lot better and a whole lot worse at the same time. But also more like I understand her.

“You’re not doing anything to me,” she says simply, “They’re the ones doing something that has to be stopped. It’s not your fault you’re the one who knows about it.”

I…guess that’s true. Feel like I’m getting my own words thrown back at me; maybe I am.

“It sucks,” she adds, “And I’m scared. I don’t want to hurt anybody, or get anyone else hurt. But. Mom and Dad always said it’s just as bad to stand by and let somebody be hurt as it is to hurt them yourself, if you could have done something about it. So. I want to help you, and I will.”

“You’re sure?” I ask again, “It’s…it’s a whole lot, and it ain’t gonna be easy, or safe, and you’re—” If I say ‘a kid’ I think she’s gonna get offended because I would have when I was seventeen. “Young. It shouldn’t be on you to fix.”

“Well, you’re young too,” she says.

Ow. I’m twenty-one. I know I’m short, but at least I’m an adult.

“And you’re mostly dead, so let’s just agree it’s unfair for both of us, but we’re partners, and someone has to do it, and we’re here, so that’s us,” she says very diplomatically.

I give up and sigh, then offer her a hand. “If you’re sure, Partner.”

She takes my hand and shakes it.

“So, what can I do?” she asks as she lets go.

“Well, anything you know about the building’s layout’ll help, and what defenses they might have. Mostly, I just need to get back to fighting shape,” I answer.

She nods. “Food, then?”

I give in again and smile. “Thanks.”

#fate grand order AU #fate series #fate fic #writing #billy the kid #ritsuka fujimaru #fate go #The Kid #The Kid (fic)#I wish I had as much time as my heart wants for writing :'-]#'Gudako' basically means 'boring girl'. and Billy called himself William Bonney which is Irish for 'William Attractive' more or less so they #deserve to both be roasted but in the most loving way possible also Ritsuka my dear I'm so sorry your friends suck

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pxedpiper · 4 years

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Horizon (13)

Plot Summary: Once a princess of a kingdom you loathed to call yours, you have somehow found yourself aboard a pirate ship, stuck on the ocean waves. Now you try to figure out how to escape them, but as you continue to journey with them, you find yourself wondering if you even want to.

Pairings: Ateez x Reader

Content Warnings: Mentions of death and sexual implications throughout the fic, nothing ever specified in detail

Previous / Masterlist / Next

A/N: henlo it’s been a minute but i am back once again with a new chapter!! not much to add to this one but some more backstory on some of the boys which is always fun :3c i hope you enjoy it !!

“You mean to tell me, someone out there knows about us?” Jongho’s father demanded, a stern expression on his face, “How could that happen?”

“I’m not sure,” Jongho frowned, “We’re been careful to make sure that no one ever finds out you exist, but somehow, Sweet got word of it.”

Jongho’s mother gasped just then, her hands flying to her mouth, “The letters! What if he caught someone who was sending one of our letters and found out that way? If he let them go as long as he forced them not to tell, we’d never have known.”

“Unfortunately, that sounds like him,” Yeosang sighed, leaning his back against the wall, “He’s not exactly one to leave people alive unless it benefits him, and knowing where the family of one of the Pirate King’s crew members are would definitely do so.”

“But that doesn’t explain Seonghwa, Mingi, and I,” Yunho argued, “We don’t talk with our families, there’s no way Sweet would know where they were.”

“Unless he’s bluffing,” Hongjoong spoke up lowly, “He might only know about Jongho, and he only implied he knew the others to make us nervous. Damn, and my reaction would’ve proved him right!” You could feel the anger emanating from him, frustrated that he gave away a possible weakness for his crew members.

“It’s fine, Hongjoong,” Seonghwa softly replied, “He only knows they exist, not where they are. And he can’t afford to go looking for them when he’s got a battle to prepare, so it’s just as likely he was never going to come here to begin with, he just wanted to scare us.”

“Still, the thought that I gave away something that could hurt any of you… I can’t stand it, what kind of a captain does that make me?” Hongjoong balled his hands into fists, his frustration at himself evident.

“The kind that we chose,” Wooyoung said, for once his voice not lighthearted, “You saved us, remember? It’s because of you our lives are better. So don’t start doubting yourself just because you let something slip that won’t even matter to begin with. Besides, Sweet’s too dumb to realize you revealed something, he’s too busy trying to figure out how the hell he’s gonna manage to get out of this battle.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Hongjoong sighed, “Not like anything can be done about it now, anyway, we just have to make sure Jongho’s family stays safe.”

“Jongho,” Chunhei turned to her brother, speaking quietly even though you could still hear her just fine, “What if you… just stayed? You could protect us, and now that I’m old enough I could work whenever the money we have saved runs out. You wouldn’t have to be a pirate anymore, and you could stay, with us.” For a second, you were afraid that Jongho was about to agree to his sister’s request, but he quickly shook his head.

“No, I won’t have you working if you don’t need to for as long as I can help it,” Jongho affirmed, making you sigh in relief, “Besides, I can’t leave the crew now. Not just because there’s a fight gearing up, but also…. It just wouldn’t feel right to leave. I’m not really sure how to explain it, but… being with the crew just feels right.”

Chunhei was clearly disappointed, but nevertheless she nodded, “I understand. It wouldn’t be right to force you away from somewhere you want to be, anyway. But, then what should we do? Is there anything we can do?”

Seonghwa answered, “Just live like normal, so as to not cause suspicion, but be careful, just in case. I doubt Sweet will actually show his face around here, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. We’ll be staying around for a few days before leaving, anyway, so you’ll at least be safe for that amount of time.” She nodded, glad to at least hear that.

“Well, then, for now, you all can make yourselves at home,” Jongho’s mother stood up, brushing nonexistent dust off her skirt, “Chunhei, (Y/N)? Could the two of you help me make dinner?”

“Yes, Mother,” Chunhei instantly responded, but you stayed silent, not sure how to answer or explain the fact you didn’t know how to cook.

“Actually, she can’t,” Jongho stepped in, “She’s, well… (Y/N), do you want to explain it?” So much for helping me explain.

Shooting him a look, you softly spoke up, “I’m… a princess, ma’am. Or, at least, I was. I don’t know how to cook.”

While she definitely showed surprise at your words, she quickly shoved it aside, “Well, that’s all the more reason to come with us, then. No time like now to learn, Seonghwa can’t do all the cooking himself forever.”

“Um, alright,” You answered plainly, letting yourself be dragged away.

You could still hear Jongho speak up for a bit before you were too far to hear the rest, “Meanwhile, Dad, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about…”

Sometime later, you were walking to where you’d be staying for the time being, when you noticed Mingi standing outside the house, looking at the moon. Curious, you joined him, walking up next to him while he nodded in greeting.

“What are you doing out here?” You asked, “It’s getting late.”

Mingi took a deep breath before answering, “Seonghwa explained, right? About how most of us aren’t on speaking terms with our families?”

“Yeah, he didn’t say why, though.”

“Well, it’s not my place to speak for him or Yunho, but I can speak for myself,” He said, sitting down at a small bench, gesturing you to follow suit, “See, I’m sure Jongho’s explained how Hongjoong has saved everyone here. Well, he saved me from the gallows. I was about to be hung on false charges when Hongjoong came in and saved me by causing a scene, allowing me to escape. He offered me to join his crew and I accepted. Been with him ever sense.”

“False charges? What were they? Who framed you?” You questioned, confusion on your face.

“My family did,” He answered, hatred filling his voice, “Or, at least, my parents. They accused me of piracy and tried to have me killed so that way they would only have to spend money on my sister, not the both of us. Once Hongjoong saved me, he said I might as well join him because everyone already thought I was a pirate anyway, so I should just become one. I went with him and never once looked back, except…”

“Except?” You prompted him to continue.

“Except I had to leave my little sister behind,” He responded, “Jiae. She was only all of eleven at the time, there was no possible way she’d have known what they were planning. I can still hear her begging them not to take me away… I worry about her a lot, if my parents were willing to do that to me, I hate to think of what they’d do to her, and I can’t be there to protect her.”

“You’re just like Jongho,” You said, and instantly continued on with your statement as his confused look, “You both care so much for your siblings, it’s heartwarming. Though, unlike with Jongho, your parents are disgusting human beings that don’t deserve any of the good you gave them. I can’t say for sure whether your sister is safe, but I’m sure that whatever she’s doing, she’s trying to find you. Because from the sound of it, it seemed the two of you had a true bond between siblings.”

“What about you? You’ve mentioned a brother,” Mingi asked, a curious look on his face, but you shook your head.

“My brother and I… we got along as children, but somewhere along the line, that just… stopped,” You answered, shrugging your shoulders, “Now, we can’t really stand each other. Not much more to say there, really. I just never had a good family like Jongho, or a loving sibling like you. I’ve long since come to terms with it.”

“Well, clearly, they do seem to care about you somewhat, considering they’re looking for you,” Mingi pointed out, making you frown.

“Right,” You stated, your voice flat as you remembered that fact.

“I’m sorry, should I not have mentioned-!” You cut him off as you stood up, giving him a smile.

“It’s alright, but it’s getting late, don’t you think? I’ll be off to bed now. Goodnight.” You walked away so quickly you didn’t hear him manage to say goodnight in return.

“Alright, now try to stab me with the dagger,” San instructed, continuing your training outside Jongho’s house, his words making you stop in your tracks.

“What?!”

“Try to stab me.”

“B-But, what if I hurt you?”

“Do you really think you could hurt me when I’m the one teaching you?” You tried to find an argument against that, but couldn’t come up with anything, “Exactly. Now, try to stab me as if you were going to kill me.” Left with no other option, you rushed at him, trying to do what he asked, but he quickly moved out the way and grabbed you, putting you in a lock and leaving you unable to move. “See? Told you I would be fine. But, you didn’t listen.”

“What do you mean, I didn’t listen?!” You almost shouted, trying to get out of his hold to no avail, “I did what you said, I tried to stab you!”

“You did,” He agreed, “But I told you to stab me as if you were trying to kill me. I could tell, you were holding back.” He let you go, watching as you dropped down and turned to him.

“Well, how am I supposed to just try to kill you? You’re my friend, and it’s not like I can just… kill someone!” You argued, moving your hair out of your face.

He replied, “I know, it’ll take time to get the hand of it. But, you know, you are a pirate now. Sooner or later you’re going to have to kill someone. It’s inevitable.”

“I know, I just… want to put it off as long as possible,” You muttered, looking at the ground, “Look, let’s just try again, alright? I’ll try not to hold back this time.”

“Very well,” He nodded, “Again.” You rushed at him again, and this time, when he moved aside, you quickly swung the dagger and managed to graze him slightly. It was nothing to truly damage him, and it barely drew blood, but suddenly you could feel the change in atmosphere switch. Looking at San, his eyes had narrowed, and the energy radiating from him was almost smothering, it was so frightening. He didn’t look like the normal, mischievous San you were used to dealing with; this San was more dangerous, you could tell. And you weren’t the only one, because as soon as he took a step towards you, Wooyoung was in front of him, holding onto him so he didn’t get any closer.

“Alright, San, that’s enough,” He said, a serious tone in his voice, “You need to calm down, okay? It’s just (Y/N), she’s not a threat. Let’s put the demon away, shall we? Don’t want to cause a scene in front of Jongho’s family, after all.”

“(Y/N),” Seonghwa came up from behind you, leading you away, “Let’s go, your training’s done for today. Wooyoung can handle this.” You nodded, letting him lead you away back inside the house and into the kitchen, where Yeosang was sitting.

He took one look at you and Seonghwa and automatically said, “Which one?”

“San. Wooyoung’s got him handled, it’s not one of the bad ones,” Seonghwa replied, sitting you down at the table.

“Probably should’ve seen it happening eventually,” Yeosang sighed, “But that’s why Hongjoong has you watch over them, after all.”

“What was that?” You finally spoke up, wondering what the hell they were talking about, “What do you mean, should’ve seen it happening?”

“San and Wooyoung are… special,” Yeosang chose his words carefully, “There’s nothing wrong with them, not really, but sometimes… They lose control a little, in different ways. Wooyoung is goes gun crazy and San… well, he just sort of… loses it. It’s still the same San, it’s not like he becomes a whole different person, he just… goes wild, so to speak. It’s San at his most dangerous, but also his most powerful. We try to keep the both of them under control, hence why Wooyoung can’t be around guns unless in a fight or why neither of them are allowed alcohol. Usually, though, they can calm each other down, or I can, and it really isn’t that much of an issue.”

“Were they always like this?” You asked, wanting to know more.

“Well, no, but…” Yeosang trailed off, biting his lip, “It’s not my story to tell, not alone, anyway. San, Wooyoung, and I all joined the crew together, you see, but I don’t think the time’s come to tell you everything just yet. Please, don’t treat them any differently, however. That’s the one thing I can ask of you.”

“Why would I treat them any different?” You replied, “It’s like you said, it’s still San and Wooyoung, I just… learned a bit more about them, is all. They’re still both my friends, and nothing could ever possibly change that.”

Yeosang smiled in relief, saying, “Thank you so much for saying that. The entire crew is important to me, but those two… they’re my closest friends. I’m sure you can understand.”

“I do,” You answered, returning his smile, “Though, I hope this won’t become too much of an issue while training…”

“I doubt it,” Yeosang waved the thought off, “He probably only became that way because you grazed him when he wasn’t expecting it. You really can’t catch him by surprise, that’ll be what does it. From now on, he knows now to underestimate you, so he’ll likely prepare for that.”

“That’s good to hear,” You nodded, then stood up, “Well, since training is over early, I’ll be out back if you need me.” Jongho’s house was sat on a cliff, far enough from the town to be safe from anyone trying to look for them but close enough that they could easily reach it when necessary, and it had a spectacular view of the ocean from the back of the house. The kids weren’t really allowed to play out there because of how steep the cliff was, but the adults were able to go out and look without issue, so you found yourself spending a lot of time out there. Sitting near the edge, which was secure enough that it wouldn’t go crumbling under your weight, you stared out into the sea, watching as the waves hit the rocks below.

“I thought I might find you out here,” A voice appeared after a bit, making you turn to see Hongjoong, “You really do like to stare at the ocean no matter where you are, don’t you?” You smiled as he took a seat next to you.

“What can I say, I guess the sea just calms me,” You answered, playfulness filling your voice as looked back out into the distance, “Maybe that’s what Maddox meant when he said I was meant to be on your ship.”

“Or maybe he knew how good you’d be for us,” Hongjoong replied, staring out with you, “Or how good we’d be for you. He wasn’t lying when he said you were meant to be with us, that much is clear.”

“Oh, so now you believe in what he says?”

“What can I say, he has a fairly good track record.” The both of you burst out laughing at that, the mood between you light as you fell into a calm silence. But soon, the smile on Hongjoong’s face faded as he spoke up again, “We still haven’t talked about your parents looking for you. I know it must be weighing heavily on you, and that you probably don’t even want to think about it, but we have to, (Y/N). I don’t like the thought of this bothering you.”

You sighed, “I know. I just… don’t know where to start.”

“How about how you’re feeling about all this?” He prompted, “What can you tell me about that?”

“I’m just… confused, mostly,” You answered, pulling your knees up to your chest, “I really, truly don’t understand why they’re looking for me. They’ve made it clear from the very beginning, that my brother was going to be the one in power, that I was practically nothing compared to him, that I was worthless to them, so I don’t know why they bother to care about me now. They were ready to get rid of me, I know it, they were probably planning to marry me off once my brother became king, but then this should be a relief to them. They no longer have to deal with me, so then why… I just don’t get it. Nothing adds up, unless they want to act like they truly did care about me all along.” You let out a sarcastic laugh, “That couldn’t possibly be the case, but yet…. Why… why?” The stress was starting to get to you, and Hongjoong quickly pulled you to him before you could start crying, “I hate them so much, Hongjoong! I don’t want to go back to them, I want to stay with you, and the crew! I don’t want to leave you all!”

Hongjoong rubbed your back, letting your tears fall as he held you, answering in a low voice, “I know. I won’t let them take you back, I promise. They don’t deserve you, they treated you terribly, but you’re here now. We’re your new family, and we won’t let you go without a fight. You’re no longer their princess that they can ignore and mistreat; you’re a precious member of my crew, and I will do anything possible to keep you safe. I promise, on my title as Pirate King, no one will ever take you away from us.”

Taking deep breaths to calm yourself down, you nodded, “Right…. Right. Thank you, Hongjoong. How is it you always know what to say?”

“Who knows, maybe that’s another question for Maddox to answer,” He replied, making you chuckle softly. You pulled away from him, feeling much better, much to his relief. “There’s that smile. You’re always much prettier with a smile, you know.” It took approximately three seconds for his words to sink into both your heads, the panic ensuing immediately, “I-I mean, it’s better to see you smiling than crying, that’s what I meant!”

“I know,” You quickly replied, just as flustered as he seemed to be, “I-I appreciate the compliment, truly!”

“That’s good, then,” He responded, his face still bright red at his previous comment. The two of you fell into a slightly awkward silence, then took one look at each other and burst out laughing again. “Alright then, shall we go back inside?” He stood up, offering you a hand to help you up as well.

You took it, rising to your feet, “Yes, I’m sure the others are wondering where we are right now. Let’s go.” With that, the two of you went back into the house, joining the others for dinner before going to bed for the night.

#ateez fanfic #ateez fanfiction #ateez scenarios #ateez imagines #ateez pirate au #hongjoong fanfic #seonghwa fanfic #yunho fanfic #yeosang fanfic #san fanfic #mingi fanfic #wooyoung fanfic #Jongho fanfic

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hayjeon · 4 years

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Tips on creating fun fanfic headers!

i had so much fun writing the fanfic writing tips yesterday and i got a few more questions about header-making, and so i decided to make one more of these! i hope these tips help somebody out there! hope you enjoy :)

p.s. these tips won’t require any hard editing skills or photoshop skills, nor any expensive tablets/apps!

typically i spend around ~5-10 min creating one header, and that’s either after i think of/finish a fic. i have so much fun doing it and sharing it with you that i figured i’d share how i do it!

why headers?

as I talked about in my fic tips, one of the most eye-catching things about fics are headers. when i’m scrolling through a rec page, my home page, a tag, or even someone’s masterlist, i’m immediately drawn to well-made headers. that’s what captures my attention, and then i’m more drawn in by the content. so, you can say that headers is your own version of an ad for your own fic, or an extension of it (like the cover of a novel!)

if you were writing your own book, imagine how much time you’d spend figuring out what you wanted your cover to look like. i try to have as much fun and invest as much time making my own headers because it’s just the cherry on top to my finished product :)

disclaimer: BUT HEADERS ARE NOT NECESSARY/DO OR DIE! if you don’t feel like you want to do this, then keep writing! its ok! this is just a suggestion. i’ve seen plenty of well-written fics without headers at all, so don’t beat yourself up over not having one/not wanting to do one. this is truly just a fun, extra kind of thing, and only keep reading if you want to learn how i do it! :)

tips for people who don’t want to make headers: if you still want something to make your fic stand out, use gifs! i use them in my drabbles a lot! this will at least give ur fic a lil boost!

how to find pictures

I typically use unsplash, which is a free website in which photographers upload their HQ pics for free use. the pics are really high quality, typically stock photos, and don’t have any logos on them like other ones on google. unfortunately, you won’t find any pics of the members or anything, but you’ll find beautiful stock photos of typical scenes like “ocean scene” or “desert scene.” I found the stock photo for cut me open (shown below) on that site by just looking up “medical” or “doctor”.

i used to use google a lot and just use keywords like “desert scene HQ” and edit the search settings to deliver HQ pics, and a minimum # of pixels, but unplash is definitely better in terms of quality, more aesthetic photos, and no logos/watermarks.

on some occasions, i will screenshot some scenes of youtube videos, turning up the quality to 1080p or 4k and zooming in so that the pixelation is as crisp as possible, and then editing it later to look good (which i’ll explain in a second!)

the above photo was a scene from the specific characters from the drama, “100 Days My Prince” that I screenshotted from a youtube video that TvN uploaded, recapping the drama. I cropped it just right so that their faces were left out, which i’ll also mention soon!

things to look for when picking pictures:

you want the picture to reflect a specific motif/theme from your fic! if its a moody fic, then try to find a moody scene that you can edit with filters/lighting to look even moodier; or if the characters’ jobs are a big portion of the fic (like cut me open/doctor theme) try to look for stock photos with that shown very clearly!

make sure its high quality: tumblr really dumbs down the quality of the photo when uploading it, so try your best to find something with a lot of pixels in it so that when you start editing, you don’t sacrifice too much of the quality already

try to look for something simple/clean: a picture with too much subject (ie. people in the background, or too much detail) may end up taking away from the main point of your header, which is your title. so find pics without too much clutter!

try to make sure its landscape: which will help during editing to save some of the quality better.

editing your pictures

now that you have a specific photo you want to use, now its time to edit! I use VSCO CAM (free app) and my own apple photos cropping tool for faster crops.

crop/adjust: if your picture is too large/wide, crop it to at least a 16:9 ratio. i’d say aim for skinnier if you can, so that you don’t take up too much space (especially if you’re planning to add headers to your masterlist). also crop out any faces, any clutter, any unnecessary details, so you have a nice, clean slate to work on when adding text.

contrast/sharpen/clarity/white balance/etc.: i’m not gonna give you a lesson on photography, but i’ll tell you I learned like 80% of everything that i know just by fiddling with it on VSCO! So just try it out and play with the app, see what you can make of it. i’d say a rule of thumb to follow is that you want happier fics with a brighter tone, and moodier/angsty fics with a darker tone so that it can reflect the nature of the fic further, without saying anything!

if you wanna be extra af like me, then go a step further and photoshop your pics. this one is a good example; when i screenshotted this scene from another youtube video for my fic One Year My Love part 2, i was specifically looking for a scene that would showcase the ornate/regal details of their clothing/environment in contrast to part 1′s modest clothing/scene (the first header in this post).

i found this scene, but actually, this scene portrays the Crown Prince and the Princess, not y/n. So, the actors weren’t smiling at all! They were actually frowning at eachother in this scene, to portray the tension between the two characters and their marriage.

So, I took the extra step, adjusting the pic with VSCO so that their shoulders/chins were at the same level, cropped off their faces up until their lips, and then used the adobe photoshop free app to photoshop their lips to be SMILING at eachother!!!! subtle, but important!

call me crazy for taking that much time but i’m so proud of how it turned out and i loved every second of making this one. that way, this scene makes it portray the happy ending for Jungkook and y/n!

adding text to your header

you can use any app out there, but i really like Font Candy! I actually ended up buying the 2$ version of this and never regretted it, but you can actually find a lot of their basic fonts on the free version; I tend to use the fonts: OSTRICH SANS, BEBAS, TREND, and INTRO the most! these are pretty clean-looking, block letters that look good whenever i put them as my titles.

I love this app too cause you can easily control the spacing between letters to make them take up more space, add shadows, or even make them contrast their background using the overlay feature; like this one i made for wildest dreams (see how the text changes depending on what part of the photo its on? amazing! it’s literally with a click of a button!!)

And i’ll always add “written by HAYJEON” or “by HAYEJON”, space it out, and add it somewhere underneath as my own branding.

orrrrrr

if you want to be more creative, you can even go a step further and use whatever you have on hand to enhance whatever you’re trying to portray.

for this one, i ended up finding this amazing photo on unsplash and i thought it would do a create job of portraying the “movie-set” quality of what wildest dreams is going to be about. this stock photo had someone else’s names on it, so i used my ipad, and used instagram to just erase the existing writing with the color of the background, and then wrote in my own title and url with my own handwriting/apple pen!!!

i thought this was pretty cool because it’s like wildest dreams is its own movie/has its own movie set, which, once it’s out, you guys will see that it’s supposed to be!

saving/uploading

this is pretty easy/obvious, but i figured i’d mention it. all the apps i mentioned are available on the appstore, and they will save directly to your photos. after doing that, i’ll just upload them into a special folder i have on my google drive so that when i’m finished writing a fic on tumblr using my laptop, i can easily download the photos without sacrificing quality. easy!

and that way, i can save them forever; even if i have to delete them from my computer, i can always redownload them!

side note: making text separators

i just recently started doing this, but ever since tumblr took down their text separators, i’ve just been cropping the bottom like 5-10 pixels of the header to use as my text separators! (with my laptop)

i saw some other writer doing it and thought that it looked better than what i had used previously (a cropped photo of a random line i found on google); i found that doing this tied my fics together a little better and just looked better aesthetically;

so there it is! hope you enjoyed! :) i would love to see what other tips you guys have been using, feel free to send me an ask or reply to this post; and if you end up using any of my tips, please let me know! I love to hear from you guys all the time <3

lots of love, especially during these times,

hay <3

#writing tips #story talk

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professional-benaddict · 4 years

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♥️ Red Heart, White Box ⬜️ l

A collab between myself and @questionablewritings xx

Mafia AU, boss Tony, pet/plaything +18 Peter, bodyguard Steve, bodyguard Bucky, underground doctor Stephen, gun violence, shootings, GSW, blood, injury, surgery, 2.5k

Or Peter is shot and they cannot go to the hospital.

part two - part three - part four

Part l - The Blood Stained Silk Shirt

It was quite common in their field of work, but still Tony was caught entirely off guard when a friend of his, well- now an enemy, pulled out the gun in the middle of their deal making and Peter dropped the lollipop he had been toying with all night. But, it was not until a shot was actually fired that the mafia boss realised how badly he had miscalculated the situation. It had been a risky deal from the start, but money was tight, very tight, so Tony had taken a risk, which he would regret for the rest of his life.

Usually, Tony is hyper sensitive to these things, the slight raises in tone of voice, the tensing of someone’s jaw, how their fists clench or how fingers inch closer to a hidden weapon. But... tonight he had brought Peter along, and even worse, allowed him to go out in a low cut silk shirt that showed off his collarbones. The idea was that it would distract the ones Tony was dealing with, but instead it had backfired, and now the silk shirt was stained with blood.

Peter had been taken quite literally, off guard. The gunshot echoed around the room, ringing in Peter’s ears until that, along with the deafening silence, were the only things registered. The pain had hit him slow, creeping down his arm and across his chest, forcing the older teen’s eyes downward towards the source of discomfort. His eyes widened, seeing first the crimson red stains that soaked the collar and sleeve of his shirt, and then… Well, Peter was not quite sure what came after that. After realising that he was bleeding, profusely, it did not take long to put two and two together. He had been shot in the shoulder, and the bullet currently resided deep in the meat of his muscle.

“T-Tony-“ Peter whimpered, shocked and pale as he stumbled forward, his uninjured arm reaching for his lover, his Daddy. Oh God, it hurt. It hurt so bad. Peter wanted to scream and sob, but he knew better. His weakness would be a sign to the rivalry members in the room, all eyes on him in utter surprise. Peter fought back the hot tears, dropping his hand to grab at his blood soaked shoulder just in time for him to collapse forward and to the floor. Peter was gonna faint... Fuck, it hurt so bad.

“Peter... Fuck, Jesus, FUCK! PETER!” Tony bellowed in utter fright and took Peter into his arms, gently lowering the boy to the floor when he didn’t have the strength to stand on his own. “Wha- I- Peter, fuck, please... Just- stay with me...” Tony stuttered out, having no clue what to say or do. Thankfully, Steve, one of his bodyguards stepped forward, yanking the silk scarf from around Tony’s neck. He bawled up the expensive fabric and then pressed it to Peter’s wound that was oozing with blood.

“He needs medical treatment.” Steve stated simply and surprisingly calmly. At first, Tony was furious at his employee for being so cold and heartless when his precious boy had been hurt, but then he realised that someone had to be calm. The boss was sort of glad he did not have to be the calm and rational one.

“We can’t fucking go the hospital, you idiot!” Tony shouted. By now, the rivalry gang had fled the scene, but none of Tony’s gang really paid any attention to that.

Peter’s line of sight was fading. He could see Tony, he could feel him even, but everything came back muffled to his brain. The boy grimaced as an unknown figure, Peter was too out of it to comprehend it was Steve, pressed something against the wound, shifting the bullet, but slowing the blood. He hated how he could feel the panic radiating off from Tony, and whimpered as he lifted his bloodied hand to his Daddy’s face, and forced weak eye contact.

“No...They’ll recognize you..” Peter groaned at the mention of hospital. The boy knew he needs medical attention, but he would rather die than risk Tony’s freedom.

“Baby, it’s okay, it’s okay...” Tony practically whimpered when Peter lifted a bloody hand to his face. He cradled the hand in his own, kissing it quickly and passionately.

It was Bucky, Tony’s left hand man and equal status as Steve who stepped up to the plate. His voice was less calm compared to Rogers, but the guy had seen his fair share of blood and gunshot wounds.

“There’s that guy- the uh Doctor that runs the underground clinic off 34th street. Strange, wasn’t it? Yeah...Stephen Strange.” Bucky suggests, quick to hand out the alternative option. It seemed their best bet. “Boss, If we’re gonna do it, we need to move now. Kid’s gonna bleed out in under an hour with a wound like that.” Bucky adds, his tone light and full of respect. No one disrespected the boss’ play thing.

Peter thought that the pain could not possibly get anymore worse. There was a shooting discomfort, searing up the left side of his body. It was too much. If it were not for Tony kissing at his fingers and breathily speaking to him, Peter might have let go and succumbed to unconsciousness already. Perhaps given up all together, but he would hold on for Tony.

“Well, call him right fucking now! Let’s move!” Tony barked and with Steve’s help, he picked up Peter. They all headed out of the building and to their cars. When Bucky bolted into action, pulling out his ‘work’ phone, Peter realised what was going to happen.

“No- NO! Don’t mov-“ But, his words were quickly swallowed as he is shifted from off the ground. Peter tried so hard to be strong, but nothing could hold back the shrill scream that flew from his lips. It eventually simmered down to a continuous whimper, and soft gasps of “a-ah!” whenever he was slid into lying in the backseat. Peter could only grasp on to Tony, breathing out in the tiniest of voices- “It hurts Daddy, it hurts so much.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...” Tony apologised, which he never does, but he did now when he moved Peter to the backseat, causing him pain in the process. “Stay with me, baby, stay with me.” The man pleaded.

Bucky had taken the initiative to give this Doctor Strange a call, informing him of their impending arrival. He spoke into the phone loudly and clearly.

“You better save this kid’s life, because yours just got hung on the line.” Then, Bucky hung up and slid into the driver’s seat. He waited just long enough for Peter, Tony and Steve to get settled before he slammed on the gas, and sped his way to their destination.

“Shh, it’s okay, I’m here, baby.” Tony comforted while keeping pressure on Peter’s still bleeding wound. How is there so much blood in his sweet little baby? Sure, the boss has seen ugly injuries and corpses plenty during his career, but this... This he could never have been prepared for. With his free hand, Tony stroked back Peter’s sweaty curls, trying to reassure and comfort him. But, it had little effect against the blinding pain that each little movement of the speeding car shot up Peter’s arm. “Peter, Peter- shhh... I’m here.” Tony tried to comfort and raised his voice to actually be heard over the boy’s screams. “How fucking far away is it?” Tony growled to his bodyguards in the front.

“Ten minutes, sir.”

“Make that five.” The boss threatened lowly, and Bucky sped up without asking any questions.

Five minutes? Peter was not sure he could last more than two at this rate. He could feel the warmth of his blood run down his body, and all over Tony. His poor car, it would definitely need detailing after this. Peter should not be thinking about something as stupid as leather, but it was all he could do to cling on to his awakened state.

“Two minutes out, boss. Doc said he’d be ready.” Bucky ran through all red lights with a breeze, flying through the streets and taking short cuts. For a split moment, on a particular harsh jerk of the vehicle, Peter wondered if he was going to die. He sobbed at the thought, shaking his head to grab at Tony’s attention.

“Kill them.” Peter managed through clenched teeth. “When I-“ He paused to groan, throwing his head back. “- I die, kill them.”

“Peter- Peter! Listen, you- you’re not gonna die on me. You hear me? I won’t fucking allow it!” Tony shouted angrily, tears prickling at his eyes, but he did not let them fall. Not knowing what else to do, the older man leaned down to kiss his boy, his precious little thing. “You know what? You’re gonna kill them yourself. You’re gonna kill them dead.” He added after pulling back, stroking at the boy’s cheek and spreading blood all over his cheek in the process.

When they finally reached the destination, Steve double checked that it was the right place they had come to. He doubted Peter’s chances of making it would be good if they had to drive somewhere else. The place looked shady, and that said a lot with the standards that Steve was used to in this field. But, then a familiar looking figure exited through the back door and Steve knew they had come to the right place. Hopping out of the car, Steve greeted the doctor quickly before opening the back door.

“It’s good to see you, Doc.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s just get him inside.” Stephen said.

Bucky was the second out of the car, overhearing Stephens orders. He was not usually one to jump at anyone’s commands, besides Tony’s, but this was dire circumstances. He helped Steve slide Peter out of the car, who now after being kissed and ready to give in to the pain, had passed out. The boy was pliant, practically lifeless and dead weight as they moved to get him inside. There was so much blood, and Peter was such a small thing. Even Bucky was on the latter when it came to the boy’s life expectancy. He lifted his eyes off from the boss’ babe, to lock on to Steve’s eyes in hope they shared a common thought. Peter better survive.

Tony wondered if he could ever get over the sight of Peter’s eyes closing like that after kissing him. The boy looked dead already, but he knew based on the hurry that Stephen urged after feeling the boy’s pulse that he was not. While Steve carried Peter bridal style, Stephen went ahead and opened the doors as he led the way inside. In his state of shock, Tony stumbled after them while Bucky took long, confident strides. It felt like an eternity, walking through the dark and damp hallways, but finally they reached a well light crossway that looked like a clinic. There was an exam table and an overhead lamp surrounded by equipment, machines and supplies. But, what looked the most odd in the underground place was the area sectioned off by plastic in one corner. Tony would later find out that it doubled as an OR in the underground clinic.

“So, what happened?” Stephen asked, gesturing for Steve to lay Peter down on the exam table.

At the hinted gesture, Steve carefully placed Peter down on the table, careful not to make any sudden movements that would rouse the boy from his ‘sleep’. Bucky on the other hand, was not so nice. Steve was the muscle, and Bucky… Well he was there to get points across. With the boss mentally checking out for the evening, it looked like the explanation landed in his hands.

“The hell does it look like? He got shot.” Bucky snapped, motioning his hand towards the bullet hole in Peter’s soaked shirt. “Don’t matter how it got there, point is, get it out.” He continued, harshly saying whatever was on his mind. Maybe Bucky was being a little too blunt, but he could not help it. If Peter did not pull through, both Steve and Bucky would be going through weeks, if not months of pain.

At Bucky’s harsh snap, Stephen briefly glanced up at him before focusing on examining Peter. After snapping on a pair of gloves, the doctor motioned for Steve to step aside to get a look at the wound. It was still bleeding, but not as heavily, so Stephen pressed some gauze to it.

“I’ll get it out, but you guys will have to leave in the meantime. I can’t work if you’re buzzing around me.” Stephen said, his tone almost as matter of factly as Bucky’s.

Bucky pulled a face at the doctor’s words, his jaw clenching tightly with mild irritation. Now was not the time. Down from one of the three hallways, two other medical professionals emerged, dressed in the same scrubs as Stephen. Bucky made room for the approaching medical staff, standing by the entrance to wait for further instruction from their boss.

“Gun shot wound, prep him and the OR.” The doctor told the two others, who promptly snapped into action. “Which blood type is he? And any allergies to medication?” Stephen asked, turning to the three gang members. Tony did not hesitate to answer, giving his baby boy one last lingering look.

“He’s A+.” The boss stated, sounding more present now that they had gotten his boy to the medical help he required. He wanted to stay, to watch and make sure not a single finger harmed a hair on Peter’s head, but Steve was placing a comforting, albeit suggestive hand on his shoulder.

“Sir, I think we should wait outside. They can’t focus with us all here… and I know you want them to be paying attention to Peter.” Steve spoke, soft and careful. Tony roughly shoved his shoulder free, but gave a curt nod. If it was for Peter, Tony would do anything. He turned, and abruptly made his exit without so much as a word to anyone. The boss had put up his emotional wall, preparing himself for the worst outcome should it happen. Bucky followed, and Steve, he was the last to leave.

“Okay, let’s get a unit of the O+.” Stephen ordered and the taller of the two others, Mordo, went to fetch it while Wong remained behind to help transport Peter to the section behind the plastic covers that doubled as an OR.

Two hours or so later, Peter was stable, but still unconscious with all the morphine and anaesthetics in his system. Stephen had removed the bullet successfully, and stopped the bleeding and repaired as much of the damage to the surrounding tissue as possible. Luckily, no bones nor nerves seemed to be affected, which would make for a speedier recovery. The surgery was quite successful, but that was not all that the doctor did.

“Peter started bleeding internally into his abdominal cavity, so I had to go in to stop the bleeding. He must have fallen when he was shot, or the stress was just too much on his body. But, the bleeding has stopped now and he is stable. You can go in and see him, but he will be asleep for quite a while. He needs the rest.”

Tony shot up from his char like a fired bullet and headed to where Stephen was pointing, leaving Bucky and Steve to jog after him to catch up.

Tag list: @buckettbarnes @prettyboy-parker @starkerplusstrange @sugar-and-spice-parker @xsmallplum @starkerdreams @mynerdrage @kyattogaaru

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#RHWB #my fics #my prompts #mafia!tony #starker #tony stark x peter parker #peter parker #tony stark #stephen strange #steve rogers #james bucky barnes

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aertifas · 3 years

Text

Broken Mirror - Chapter 3

iii. a lot of catching up to do

Stargazer Heights is a tiny block of apartments on the east side of Sector 7 that Tifa calls home. For a while after she first arrived in Midgar, Tifa lived exclusively on the streets, huddled near train stations at night to keep safe, taking every possible odd job she could find to scrounge up enough money to afford a real place. Zangan had helped her as much as he could--her medical bills had put her in debt, not that she could remember much from her hospital visit--but eventually she had to fend for herself. And at fifteen, fending for herself was a daunting task.

But Tifa held on to something. She had to hold on. She was the only one left who remembered them--the village, her friends, her neighbors, her father. If she didn’t survive, who would tell the story? Who would ever know what happened?

Certainly not the public--Shinra was quick to deal with that. Tifa starved in those early days, but she always managed to buy the paper. She’d sit and read it at the station, cover to cover, just to find one single word about Nibelheim. About her home. About Sephiroth. Sephiroth appeared on the front page for weeks: “War Hero dies in freak accident”. No location, no date, no details. But Nibelheim only got a footnote; something about a reactor malfunction that Shinra had under control, nothing that the public should worry about.

Tifa’s entire life was erased from history.

And so, Tifa didn’t allow herself to get low. She doesn’t allow herself to get low. She survived before, and she survives now. Not long after she’d arrived in Midgar and she met Barret, a new resident himself, and his little baby Marlene. He’d bought the abandoned warehouse on the west side of Sector 7 and needed help moving construction supplies. Tifa was no stranger to heavy lifting, and the two began to develop a friendship. Eventually, Tifa suggested opening a bar--and the rest of the story wrote itself.

Shortly after, Tifa rented a room at Stargazer heights, owned by Marle. Marle and Tifa have grown close over the years; whenever she gets exhausted at work, or tired of Avalanche’s antics, she goes to Marle for advice. Marle’s older and she’s lived in Sector 7 for a long time, and she knows everything about living in the slums. She never turns Tifa away from her door, even in the dead of night.

Tifa feels a little guilty that she hasn’t told Marle about her overnight guest--but now’s not the time. There’s a lot that Tifa needs to figure out first.

************************************************************************

Tifa doesn’t tell Cloud her story--at least, not yet. She wants to hear his. She wants to know what he’s been through, what he was doing all these long years. Where he’d gone.

Why he doesn’t seem like himself.

Tifa and Cloud sit across from each other in the dimly-lit Stargazer Heights laundry room. Marle keeps three washing machines and three dryers in two neat lines in the basement of the apartment building. Cloud sits on a chair that’s up against the wall--now clad in a white t-shirt that’s much too big for him and even baggier pants--while Tifa sits atop a washing machine. They talk over the hum of the machines whirring around them.

“So did you end up fighting in the war?” asks Tifa. When Cloud looks down at his hands, she quickly adds, “Uh, don’t worry if it’s a sore subject--forget I asked--”

“No, it’s fine,” says Cloud, looking back up at her. “I… did go to Wutai. Just once.”

“That all?”

Cloud nods. “By the time I made it into SOLDIER, the war was almost over.”

“So what’d ya’ do after that?” asks Tifa, swinging her legs back and forth as they dangle from the ledge.

Cloud sighs. “Boring shit, really. They didn’t have enough for us to do as SOLDIERs, so we went around silencing Shinra defectors, mostly.”

Tifa purses her lips. “That’s really all you did?”

“If I had more to tell you, I would,” says Cloud.

“Why’d you quit?” Tifa leans on her elbows, eyes looking intently into Cloud’s. Initially, he looks away from her, unable or unwilling to hold her gaze. “Sounds like an easy gig--right?”

“Yeah, that was the problem,” says Cloud. “No risk, no reward. Couldn’t be a hero that way.”

Tifa thinks back on that night under the stars. Cloud’s words echo in her head. I’m gonna be a SOLDIER. The best of the best--like Sephiroth. It seemed like such an impossible dream back then, but Tifa always thought that, if anyone could do it, it would be Cloud. The boy that held the world in his sea-blue eyes.

Tifa thinks to herself, Maybe it’s better he didn’t end up like Sephiroth. Even before the fire, I never even liked the guy.

But saying this to Cloud would only add insult to injury. Instead, she says, “I’m sure you were someone’s hero.”

When she says this, Cloud finally looks up from his clasped hands and looks directly into Tifa’s eyes. He has the power to hold her gaze, to freeze her in her place, though he seems to not even realize it. Tifa finally has a chance to study his eyes--intensely blue, with a faint green glow from beneath. Even in this dimly lit space, his eyes seem to light up like blue flame. There’s something endlessly captivating about them--haunting, even--and they trap Tifa into their grip, shackling her to him.

Tifa hates to say it, but she misses his old blue eyes.

But this held gaze doesn’t last nearly as long as it feels. Cloud’s eyes eventually drop back down to his hands--now, clenched into two separate fists on his lap. “Yeah. Maybe.” After a long pause, he looks back up at Tifa, though not with that same wistful look as before, and says, “I’ve said enough about me. What about you?”

“Me?” Tifa asks.

“Yeah. You. Who else?”

Tifa taps her fingers against the metal washing machine beneath her. “After I left Nibelheim, I came to Sector 7. I eventually got a job bartending from my friend Barret.”

“Barret, huh?” asks Cloud. “Do I get to meet this Barret?”

“Someday soon,” Tifa says. “He’s a really nice guy.” She takes a deep breath, purses her lips, and says, “You ever heard about Avalanche?”

“Avalanche?” Cloud rests one hand on his pensive face. “Can’t say I have.”

Tifa furrows her brows, but just for a second. A thought pops into her head. Funny that he went to Wutai but doesn’t know about Avalanche. Barret talked enough about it for Tifa to know; Shinra had tried to snuff Avalanche out in Wutai, at the tail end of the war. That’s where Avalanche had set up their base of operations. In fact, Avalanche didn’t start gaining traction in Midgar until after the war was over.

But she doesn’t want to question Cloud. Maybe that just isn’t his area of expertise.

“Uh, it’s a group,” Tifa says, shaking her head. “How should I put this?... Avalanche doesn’t like Shinra very much.”

“Who does?” Cloud responds, leaning back in his chair.

“They want to protect the Planet,” Tifa explains, “and to do that, they have to take down Shinra. Shinra’s been labeling them as eco-terrorists in the news...”

Cloud squints his eyes at Tifa, perhaps unable to discern her expression. She hides her face a little from him. “What about Avalanche? You involved?”

“Sort of,” Tifa responds. “More like… I help them out from time to time.”

“Help how?” asks Cloud. Now he’s sitting upright in his seat, listening attentively. A look of displeasure washes across his face.

“Barret--he owns the bar,” explains Tifa, flustered. “Or, his name’s on the paperwork. He’s a part of them. Of Avalanche. And so every now and then, I overhear things. And I guess sometimes I cover for them.”

Cloud looks Tifa up and down, that intense gaze returning, trapping Tifa yet again. He scowls. “You shouldn’t be involved in a group like that. You’re putting yourself in danger.”

“Yeah. I guess I am.”

Cloud leans on his elbows, moving his eyes to the floor. “Guess I can’t blame you, though. Shinra… well, fuck Shinra. They don’t give a damn about anything. I’d probably have joined Avalanche, too, if I lived in the slums.”

Tifa nods. Her hands tightly grip the edge of the machine, turning her knuckles white beneath her gloves. “Yeah. I… Shinra just makes me so mad...” Tifa catches herself getting overwhelmed with this. This anger. It washes over Tifa in waves, pulling her under, drowning her. But she always catches herself before that fire in her heart brings tears to her eyes. She composes herself and continues. “Avalanche does good for the Planet, too. I’m… I’m glad I met them.”

Cloud’s eyes are trained on her hands, which have relaxed their grip. When he looks up at Tifa, she swears that he appears gentler, for just a moment in time. That harsh, constricting gaze he holds her in, replaced with softness that is uncharacteristic of him. That permanent scowl gone, tight jaw loosened, eyebrows turned downward. He says, “Tifa...” and Tifa looks at him, catching this expression only briefly. But once she does, he turns away and reverts to his normal self. The scowl returns, and the eyes glow severely, more now than before. “I trust you to handle yourself out there. You’re pretty strong.”

Tifa smiles. “Thanks.”

The rest of the time spent in that basement room is punctuated by small conversations, cheeky comments (all from Cloud), and the occasional lull back into silence. But even in these silent moments, Tifa looks at Cloud and feels a fullness in her chest. She worries for him--God, does she worry for him--but there’s something else in her heart. Something warm. Something familiar. She never admitted it before, but now she can’t deny it: she missed Cloud Strife. That starving girl who read the paper wouldn’t just look for Nibelheim--she’d look for Cloud Strife, hoping to catch even a glimpse of his name somewhere. She remembers even a few times where, with a heaviness in her chest that weighed her down like bricks tied to her ankle, she looked to the obituaries, and prayed softly not to find him there.

But now, he’s back. And she missed him while he was gone.

She’s happy to have him back.

************************************************************************

“I promise you, we’ll find you something better in the morning.”

Tifa pulls out a sleeping bag from her small closet and rolls it out on the floor, a few feet away from her bed. She insisted to Cloud when they returned to the apartment that she be the one sleeping on the floor--but Cloud wouldn’t have it. “You’re the one doing me the favor, here,” he reminded her sternly. “What kind of guest would I be making you sleep on the floor?” Tifa pleaded with him once more, but that seemed to be the end of the discussion.

Now, setting up Cloud’s accommodations, she feels a tinge of guilt. He’s gone through a lot--though Tifa can’t know exactly--and she wants him to sleep in a real bed. But the sleeping bag will have to do for the night. In the morning, she can find him something better.

“God, I’m exhausted,” Cloud says, slipping into the sleeping bag.

“Me, too.” Tifa found her way to her bed and covered herself with her thick sheets. Tifa turns so her back faces Cloud and keeps her eyes trained on the wall. She doesn’t want Cloud to notice her sheepishness--Tifa’s always been a private person, and normally she would never share her room like this. But this is different--this is Cloud. So she fights her shyness and her nerves. Even though thinking about how close he’s sleeping paints her face in a rosy hue.

“Hey, Tifa?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks again,” Cloud says, quietly. “For everything.”

Tifa laughs lightly. “You don’t have to thank me.”

Tifa doesn’t hear if Cloud responds to her. She’s already drifted off into a deep sleep.

************************************************************************

Summers in Nibelheim were particularly hot and brutal--especially after Shinra built the reactor at the top of Mt. Nibel. The Mako hung over the town in a thin blanket, trapping in heat, making the air sweltering and unbearable. But Tifa didn’t care. Not when she was a kid, and she had the whole summer to play, to run barefoot through the fields just beyond the town gate, to climb the water tower and watch those red and orange summer sunsets.

Next door lived Cloud Strife. This was before he’d grown his hair out long--actually, it looked a lot like it does now. Cut to just above the shoulders, styled in spikes. Tifa and Cloud were friends. She considered him to be her friend, at least. His bedroom window looked into hers, and they’d often talk across the gap. It would always be short, superficial conversations, “How are you?” or “What did you do today?” But Tifa looked forward to them. She liked talking to Cloud, even if just for a few minutes before she’d fall asleep.

But even though Cloud would talk with Tifa each night, Cloud never played with Tifa and her friends--even when they’d chase each other around in the town plaza, making enough noise for the old shopkeeper to yell at them, Cloud never asked to join. Tifa always figured he had better things to do.

She always wished he would ask, though.

One day--particularly brutally hot, even for summer--the boys suggested playing a game they called “Save the Princess”. One team, dubbed “Wutai”, would “capture” Tifa; the other team, the SOLDIERs, would have to defeat Wutai in order to rescue her. Tifa always thought this was a silly game--and boring. She always got stuck waiting for the boys to finish fighting; and, even when they finished, all she’d get to do was crown the winners as her “heroes”. Whenever the boys suggested this game, Tifa protested. But her alternatives were always vetoed.

This time, the boys had a problem: they didn’t have a third SOLDIER, giving Wutai an unfair advantage.

As they argued about what to do, Tifa peered across the square. Her eyes landed on Cloud, who sat by himself on a bench, eyes to the ground, his own wooden sword resting against the wrought iron armrest. He didn’t notice her looking at him, but watching him there, always a loner, Tifa came up with an idea.

“Let’s ask Cloud to play,” Tifa told the group of boys.

“No way!” one boy exclaimed. “Not Strife. He’s a jerk.”

“You wanna play Save the Princess--don’t you?” Tifa responded. And without hearing the other boys’ answers, she skipped off to the other side of the square.

When Cloud heard footsteps approaching him, he looked up and met eyes with Tifa. In the summer sun, his eyes appeared even deeper. When she looked at them, Tifa couldn’t help but smile.

“Tifa,” Cloud said, as if he were in awe that she’d approach him out of the blue. “What’s up?”

“Do you wanna play a game with us?” asked Tifa. “We need one more person.”

“How do you play?” Cloud asked her in reply, tapping his foot on the pavement rapidly.

Tifa grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. He barely had enough time to grab his wooden sword and sling it on his back. “It’s easy!” she shouted to him. “I’m the princess. You’re a SOLDIER. All you gotta do is beat Wutai and rescue me--got it? Then you’ll be my hero.”

“How do I rescue you?” he replied, eyes wide and starry.

This time, one of the boys chimed in--with an annoyed tone. “You gotta bring Tifa to the old mansion.”

Cloud nodded. Tifa took her place by the base of the water tower. She caught Cloud’s eyes with her own and waved to him, shouting, “You got this, Cloud!” and eliciting a rare, shy smile from the little blond-haired boy next door.

One of the Wutai boys yelled, and they all started fighting. Wooden swords clashing against wooden swords. Shouting over each other, yelling at each other, saying words that Tifa’s dad told her were “unladylike”. Tifa fell to a seated position and watched from the sidelines, arms crossed on her knees. Eventually her eyes travelled upward, bored of the fight, to watch the blue sky, and to follow the fluffy white clouds as they drifted aimlessly above her.

But she didn’t have time to daydream. She felt a tap on her arm, bringing her back to reality. Standing above her was Cloud, hand outstretched to meet hers, all while the other boys were fighting just a few feet from them.

“Cloud?” Tifa asked. “What are you doing?”

Cloud cocked his head, before simply answering, “Rescuing you, of course.”

Tifa gave him her hand and he pulled her to her feet. Hand in hand, Cloud pulled Tifa along behind him, making his way quickly to the mansion at the edge of town. It was only then that the other boys noticed them running, one calling out, “Hey, what the hell, Strife?” and another complaining, “That’s against the rules!”

Tifa barely had a chance to catch her breath. She shouted to Cloud, “What about the fight?”

“Heroes always rescue the princess first,” Cloud said to her. “Then they can deal with the bad guys.”

A red flush washed over Tifa’s face. She looked back to see the other boys right behind them in an angry mob. But she and Cloud were faster, and they reached the mansion first. It’s only after they arrived there that Cloud finally lets go of Tifa’s hand.

The biggest of the group of boys pushed his way to the front. He yelled in Cloud’s face, “Why’d you have to go ruin our game, Strife?” while Cloud stood his ground, scowling back at the boy with an unwavering glare.

Tifa stepped between them. “What are you talking about? Cloud didn’t break any rules!”

“Yeah, he did!” another boy shouted from behind. “He cheated!”

“You guys are being mean!” Tifa said. “Cloud won fair and square!”

“Come on, Tifa, don’t defend him!”

“That’s why we don’t invite him to play with us!”

The boys’ shouts grew louder and more aggressive with each taunt. Tifa was unable to yell over them, drowned out by their petty arguing. She turned to Cloud and watched his face. At first, he appeared angry. But Tifa saw his expression morph, for the tiniest fraction of a moment, into one that hurt her heart. In that second, he looked sad. He looked as if he could break down. He looked shattered.

But he didn’t ever express it, if he was sad. Because the moment Cloud began to feel sad, he replaced it with anger. He pushed the taller boy out of his face, deepening his scowl, and shouted through gritted teeth, “Fine by me. This game is stupid anyway.”

Cloud stormed past the group of boys, stomping off to the other side of the square. Tifa ran toward him, shouting after him, “Cloud, wait!”, but didn’t follow him. She stopped at the fence that lined the perimeter of the old mansion and just watched him walk away, shoulders tense with anger, hands balled into fists. Behind her, the other boys were coming up with a new plan, a new way to play the game. But Tifa barely listened to them. She just kept her eyes on Cloud until the boy disappeared in the distance, most likely finding refuge somewhere in the fields just outside of town.

That was the first time any boy thought to save Tifa first. It was the only time any boy thought to save Tifa first. And eventually, Tifa refused to play that game ever again.

*************************************************************************

Tifa lifts her heavy eyelids and finds herself transported back to her tiny apartment, staring at the piano concerto poster hung on her concrete walls by tape. In a state of stupor, of half-sleep, Tifa groggily rolled to the other side and looked across the room with bleary eyes.

The clock on her bedside table reads 3:35 a.m. She sighs deeply. I really must have needed some sleep.

Tifa thinks it’s a little odd, her dreaming of such a memory. Most of her Nibelheim dreams are tinged in bright red; some are dusted in blue and green. But this one was colored golden--the color of the many summers she spent under that beautiful mountain sky.

And Cloud? Tifa must have had Cloud on her mind when she fell asleep. That’s not such a surprise, though. Usually, Cloud is absent from her Nibelheim dreams, only appearing when she sees that gorgeous star-studded sky above her head. He’s sitting next to her on the edge of the water tower, as he should be. But this was a different memory; it must be because they’ve reunited after so many years.

She turns her gaze to the floor, where Cloud should be, to find an empty sleeping bag.

Wait… empty?

Where’s Cloud?

Tifa jumps from her bed and knocks frantically on the bathroom door, only to get no response. When she throws the door open, the room is empty. The sound of wind whirring against the walls draws her attention to the front door, which is slightly ajar, and every so often moves with the breeze and knocks against the doorframe with a metal bang.

Cloud’s sword, too, is missing from its place on the wall.

Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit.

Tifa doesn’t have time to think. She doesn’t even bother changing out of her pajamas. She throws on a coat and runs outside--not even bothering to lock the door behind her.

Blog Introduction/Chapter Selection | Next Chapter

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chickensarentcheap · 4 years

Text

Sanctuary -Chapter 41

WARNINGS: Dark Tyler. Angsty Tyler, I suppose.

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @thorsbathroomchicken, @alievans007, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @valkyrie-of-the-light

The storage facility lies on the outskirts of town; in the middle of a derelict portion of an industrial complex. Abandoned warehouses flanking it to both the east and west, long abandoned train tracks to the north and a sewage treatment plant to the south. Weeds manage to thrive within the chips and cracks of old concrete, litter caught up in the rusted metal of a chain link fence. There hasn't been true signs of life in these parts for years; the factories that were still thriving were more than a kilometre, and no one aside from those wanting to take belongings out of their lockers ever visited the area. The sense and appearance of abandonment and neglect adding something dark and dreary to an already sinister plan

He's the last to arrive; parking the SUV among the small group of vehicles already gathered by the front gate. The security system for the facility had long ago been vandalized; someone had broken into the security system and stolen all the intricate parts, rendering the keypad useless. All that exists now are loose wires and scattered bits of metal, the gate permanently left open for anyone...whether it be thief or transient...to gain access. He kills the ignition and checks his phone; reading through unopened text messages, the engine softly ticking as is it cools. Letting his wife know that he'd arrived safe and sound at his first destination, but not giving any details.

The less she knows the better; some things are better left unspoken, some plans better left just between the people actually getting their hands dirty. All his resolve is gone. All his patience shredded. Any and all mercy has ceased to exist. He's at peace with his decision; resolved, determined, calm. With not even the slightest bit of hesitation or an inkling of remorse haunting him. And he tells himself that this could have been avoided had McMann not crossed that line. If he'd simply had the balls to go right to the source of his issues instead of taking a coward's way out. This is on him now. Whatever happens...whatever plan begins to unravel...the moment Tyler steps up of the car, it is a fate that the other man has brought onto himself. No one will find him out here. No one will be able to hear the suffering, the begging, the pleading. No one will be able to come to his aid. And in the end, when he finally thinks it's over and he's about to be shown mercy, he'll be handed over to begin another nightmare all in itself.

He sends her a second message. Telling her that he loves her. Reassuring her that everything is going to be okay. That he'll message her once the second part of that day's mission is done and McMann has been taken care up; holed up somewhere under lock and key, where he'll be kept until the IRA has made up their mind. And he adds : 'I'll see you when I see you', the exact words he's used for the past four years every time he abandons her and their children to go and solve someone else's problems.

“What do you think?” Yaz asks, when Tyler joins him at the front gate.

He'd been there for an hour now, arranging things exactly as had been requested. Their own surveillance feed that they can view from their cell phones or their laptops; cameras placed at the front gate, the doorway of the unit Tyler had rented using a fake name and stolen credit card, and three within the actual storage locker itself. There'd be eyes and ears on McMann twenty four hours a day; no one aside from those who knew of the storage locker and the plans for it would be going in or out. The situation would be controlled. Monitored. Right down to the very second. And if he somehow managed to get away and make a run for it, he wouldn't get far; Yaz would be installing an ankle monitor the moment McMann arrived on site.

“I think it's perfect,” he replies, as they fall in step alongside of each other and pass through the gate. Dirt and gravel crackling under the soles of his combat boots; kicking away any wayward rubbish that lies in his path. The storm the night before had brought the humidity; sweat glistens on his brow and trickles down his temples; the back of his t-shirt already damp.

“Esme's okay?”

“She's sick. Can't keep anything down. Not even water.”

“The baby or...?”

“Could be the baby. Could be stress. Could be nerves. She's been sick before; with all the others. But nothing this bad.”

“A sign maybe? That something is wrong? With the baby?”

Tyler frowns. “Why the fuck would you even say that?”

“I'm not saying that there is something wrong. And I'm not wishing or hoping there is. I'm just saying that...fuck...I don't even know what I'm saying.” He's nervous. Despite all the jobs that he's assisted with, all the perilous and high stakes situations he's been in, the nerves have been rubbed raw. This is a first for him. When they'll actually be inflicting the damage instead of trying to end it.

“she's fine,” Tyler says, more an attempt to reassure himself than Yaz. “The baby's fine. She's just freaking out. She's thousands of miles away from home. From her kids. She's worried about them, worried about Ovi and Chloe, worried about me. This fucking sucks, mate. That she has to go through all of this. Especially now. This should be a happy time. We just found out we're having a baby. We should be ecstatic. And instead we're dealing with this bullshit. She deserves better than this. So does that baby.”

“Well at least we can kind of see the finish line now,” Yaz reasons. “We're a hell of a lot closer than we were two days ago, that's for sure. Heard anything from the IRA yet?”

“Flynn said it would be two days at the earliest, four at the latest. I don't expect to hear anything from them for a while.”

The air inside the storage building is stifling; humidity hanging heavily. The air conditioning unit is ancient and had long ago stopped working, and the owners of the facility seemed to be in no hurry to fix it. A foul stench lingers in the air; a mixture of rotting garbage in the bins outside, pollution from the factories and the mills only a kilometre away, and the tell tale odour of mould and mildew. Not the most pleasant, but after wading through that sewer in Dhaka and having to wait there for more than hour for Gaspar to pick them up, smells rarely bother Tyler anymore. But he notices the way Yaz scrunches up his nose; a scowl appearing on his face before he begins to cough and gag.

“What if they don't agree to this?” Yaz asks. “What if this is all for nothing?”

“Even if they do say no, it won't be for nothing. Trust me.”

“How long will you keep him here? If they don't want him. How long does he have before...you know...”

“I'll kill him when I'm good and ready. And I will. Kill him. If they don't.”

He's calm as he says it. Matter of fact. There's no hesitation. He'd made the decision on the drive over. If the IRA didn't want McMann, then he'd take care of the problem himself. But not before the other man was taught a very valuable lesson. It's the first time he hasn't experienced even the slightest bit of remorse or guilt over the thought of taking another life. Killing had never been about satisfaction or pleasure. He's killed because he's had to. Because his own survival came down to it. He's never been proud of the reputation. Or the body count. But this is different.

This is personal.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Yaz asks, as motions towards the last door on the left. Garage style; black aluminum that rolls up into the ceiling. He'd rented the largest one possible; so whoever was in charge of watching McMann during set shifts would have a place to eat and rest. There'd be a team of four, switching out every six hours. And always a set off eyes on either laptop or cell phone.

“It's what I need to do,” Tyler replies. “For my wife. For my kids.”

“Do you think she'd really want this, Tyler? If she knew exactly what you were up to? You think she'd want to know what you're capable of?”

“She already knows that, mate. She saw what I was capable of five and a half years ago in Dhaka. She knows who I am. She knows what I do.”

“But this? This goes above and beyond what she saw. What she knows. Do you really think she'd want to know about this? About what kind of man you can be?”

“No,” he admits. “Probably not. She'd probably hate me. Or be scared of me She'd probably never trust me again. Maybe she'd even leave me and take my kids.”

It's the bitter and hard truth of the situation; in the middle of trying to protect and avenge his family, he could in fact end up losing them. But she'd understand. If she'd listen to him long enough. If she gave him a chance to explain, she would realize that he'd done it for her. For their kids. To protect the only things that truly mattered in his life. She'd saved him. Given him a second chance. And McMann had threatened that. To take away the one person that he had held on for.

And he deserved to pay for it.

“Then why do it?” Yaz asks. “Why risk it? Why risk losing everything over one person?”

“Because,” he replies, and steps over the threshold of the storage unit. “He fucked with the wrong man's family.”

***

“Things are coming together,” Mark says, his hands on his hips as he watches two of his Marines -Nathan and Zak- secure the last two cameras; one above the door, the other in the middle of the room to the left, three inches from the ceiling. The remaining member of his team has been assigned to stay behind at the hotel, ordered to stay glued to Esme's hip at all times until Tyler's returned from the his meeting with McMann. “Not too shabby for a couple of jar heads, huh? They're determined to get shit done, that's for sure.”

“It all gonna be ready for when he gets here?” Tyler asks. He doesn't want to leave any stone unturned. Not even the simplest of details can be overlooked. There is no room for error. And even the smallest mistake could spell disaster.

“Should be. Come check this out...”

There's a crude metal chair in the middle of the room; a sack made from heavy black fabric that will be used to cover McMann's head and a package of zip ties sitting on the seat. But it's meal table pushed against the far wall that Mark leads him too. A wide selection of knives and handguns nearly arranged on top of it, along with the lesser used tools of the trade.

“We've got the usual,” Mark says, as he nods down at the objects on display. “Standard run of the mill shit. But these...” he takes two steps sideways. “...this is where the real nasty stuff is. The ones that can really pack a punch. We've got a couple of tasers, a few box cutters, a ball-peen hammer, crowbar. Even a couple pairs of pliers. You know, for the little jobs and small spaces you need to get into.”

Tyler picks up a handsaw; inspecting the edges, the handle, the sharpness of the blade.

“That was my personal addition,” Mark says. “Right from my own collection. She's seen some dirty jobs, if you know what I mean. Hasn't let me down yet.”

Tyler smirks. “You do this kind of shit often?”

“Things used to get a little wild in Iraq. We used to have to resort to some pretty extreme things when dealing with the terrorists. Especially the ones we caught that were guilty of doing unspeakable shit to women and kids. You know, the kind that needs to meet the karma bus head on. I'm sure you saw some things in the Middle East.”

Tyler nods. His final three tours with the Australian army had been spent in Kandahar. He'd seen first hand what the Taliban had been capable of doing to women and children. He'd been on night patrol when his platoon had managed to capture a man known to be a serial rapist and pedophile. It's where he'd seen and learned the most savage of tricks in his playbook. Committing every act of depravity his commanding officer had inflicted upon that Iraqi to his memory. He had hoped that he'd never have to use any of those things; that a gun, knife, or fist would be the only weapons he'd have to rely on while on the job. But now the inevitable is right there in front of him. And instead of horror and disgust, he feels nothing.

He has nothing left to give. The job has taken it all. Every ounce of compassion and humanity that he'd ever possessed.

“You don't have to do this,” Mark says. “I know why you're doing it. And I get why you feel like it has to be done. But you don't need to do it, Tyler.”

“Yeah...” he picks up one of the box cutters and clicks open the blade. “...I do.”

“Once you cross that line, you can't come back. You realize that, don't you? Once you go from killing out of necessity to killing for sport...for revenge...you'll never be the same. Once we become that monster that's been living inside of us for years...for decades...that monster never goes away. That monster is going to live with you for the rest of your life.”

“If that's the way it has to be...” he shrugs as his voice trails off.

“Kid, listen to me. I've been in this type of situation before. I've had to resort to some pretty sick and twisted shit to get things I needed. To teach someone a lesson. And it fucks with you. It does something to you. Up here...” he taps the tip of his index fingers against his temple. “...it changes you. To the point you won't even recognize yourself. You're going wake up one morning and you're going to look in the mirror and not even know who the fuck you are anymore. Is that really what you want? To become some former version of yourself? And I'm not just talking about what it's going to do to you. I'm talking about what it's going to do to Esme. To see you like that. To not even know who you are anymore. Is that really want you want?”

“I'm not the same man I was when we first met. That man died that day on the Sultana Kamal Bridge. Five and half years ago that man died and this is who was left behind. Do you think that was fair to her? That she had to see that? That she had to sit there while I was dying in her arms? That she stayed behind just to save my life? She gave up everything that day. She was never the same. Neither of us were.”

“She stayed because she wanted to be with you. Because she was in love with you. When Esme loves, she loves hard. With everything she's got. Do you really think she sees you the way you see yourself? You think you died that day. She thinks she saved you. She thinks she's the one that kept you hanging on.”

“She was,” he admits. “She's the only reason I did hang on.”

“She doesn't see you any differently now than she did back then. You're the same Tyler in her eyes. She doesn't look at you and see someone damaged and broken. She just sees you. That's it But this? What you're going to do here? That will change you. You will become a different person. And not a better one. Is that what you really want for her? Do you want her to look at you one day and not know who the fuck you are anymore? Because this is going to haunt you. This is going to eat at you. And she's going to be the one that pays the ultimate price.”

Tyler nods, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth. It's a nervous habit. Or one he resorts to when emotion is beginning to overwhelm him. He won't be able to keep it a secret forever. He knows that. But if he can hold it together just long enough to be victorious over his own monsters and his own demons, he can spare her the knowledge of just who he is and what he's capable of. If he can keep the secret just long enough...to the point where it doesn't eat him alive from the inside out...everything will be okay.

They'd be okay.

“You've got this amazing thing going on,” Mark continues. “You've got a wife, four kids, one on the way. Why would you want to fuck that up?”

“I don't,” he clears his throat noisily. “That's the last thing I want.”

“Think about those kids, Tyler. Your kids. You won't be the person they know right now. You won't be the same dad you are this very second. Is that really what you want? They're just babies still. The oldest is only five. Five! And you're going to go back to those kids and slowly you're going to become a different person. Right in front of them. Think about what that's going to do to them. When daddy suddenly isn't daddy anymore. For fuck sakes. Tyler. You do not have to do this.”

“Yes. I do,” he insists. “They deserve this.”

“The fuck they do. Look, I get it. You're pissed. McMann fucked with the wrong guy. He never should have went after your family. But they're safe. You took care of things. You found out before it got any further. You got your kids out. You got Ovi and the girl out. You protected them. Now they're safe and that's all that matters. What is this going to do? You doing this? Other than fuck you up?”

“He needs to be taught a lesson. I warned him. Before I even got on that plane to come here. I told him that if I found out he was fucking with me and going after my family, I'd make him sorry. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make him sorry. He's going to pay. I'm going to teach him a very valuable lesson. For as long and as painfully as I can.”

“But why? Why the fuck do you need to do that? Jesus Christ, Tyler. Do you realize what you sound like? Do you realize who you sound like? You sound just like those crazy fucks that you have to rescue people from. This is the kind of shit those people do. What guys like Mahajan and Asif did to people. When did you cross that line? When did you stop being the hero and start being one of them?”

“Let's get one thing straight...” Tyler's voice is low, menacing, as he turns to face Mark. “...I've never been a hero. I've never claimed to be one. I never wanted to be one. I help people because it's my job. I go in there, I get shit done, I get paid. That's it. I don't do it to be a fucking hero.”

“But you're still one of the good guys. You still go in and help people. This? This is not helping people. This is far from it. You don't kill because you like it. You kill because you have to. To save yourself. To save your mark. But this is intentional, Tyler. You have this all planned and all thought out and you're acting like it's no big deal. That it's just a normal day for you. This is not normal!”

“He needs to pay,” Tyler growls. “He needs to pay for going anywhere near my kids. For taking me away from them. For bringing my wife into this fucking mess. And I'm going to make him pay. And there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it.”

“I could tell Nik.”

Tyler gives a dry laugh. “What the fuck is she going to do? She has nothing to with this. This all me. I'm in charge here. So go. Run off to her and tell her. I don't give a shit. She can't stop me either.”

“I'll tell Esme, then.”

Tyler's eyes narrowed. “Don't do that. Don't bring her into this. That's fucking low and you know it. Using her against me? Using my own wife as a weapon?”

“She's the only one that can stop you from fucking your whole life up. She saved you once. Let her save you again.”

“I don't need saving. I need revenge. I want him to pay. For what he did to my family. For what he's put them through. What he's put her through. She deserves that. She deserves revenge.”

“She doesn't want revenge, Tyler. She want her husband. She wants the father of her kids. As he is now. Now what he's going to become if he goes through with this. She wants a normal life. With you. And that won't happen if you do this. This has gone far enough. You're going to hand McMann over and he can be the IRA's problem.”

“And if they don't want him? What then?”

“Then you kill him. Nice and clean. None of this shit.”

“No,” Tyler shakes his head. “That's not enough. That's not nearly enough.”

“This is fucking insane and you know it. You're unhinged. You need to get your shit together. You need to get your fucking head on straight. Forget about this. You don't need to do this. Because I will tell her. I'm not bullshitting. I will call her right now. Is that what you want? You want me to call her right now and let her know where you are and what you're up to?”

Tyler's eyes narrow, his nostrils flare. “Don't do this.”

“Fuck this,” Mark removes his cell phone from pocket of his hoodie. “If you're not going to back down and get your shit together, I'll let her handle this. She's pretty good at reining you, right? She's gotten used to having to keep you under control.”

“Don't do this,” Tyler repeats. “Don't fucking do this.”

“You did this. You did this, Rake. And if you're not going to save yourself, maybe she can.”

He only manages to get the screen turned on and the first number pushed, Tyler's elbow slamming into his face and sending him sprawling backwards into the floor. And there's a clamour as chaos erupts within the storage unit; the two Marines quickly bolting to their boss' side; ladders toppling over with a crash.

“Rake... you fucking asshole!” Mark bellows, as he struggles to his feet, a hand clutching his broken and bloody nose. “...what the hell is wrong with you? Are you fucking crazy?!”

“You should have just stayed the fuck away!” Tyler roars. “You should have stayed away from her. You never should have showed up at my house. You have no right. You have no fucking right being anywhere near her!”

“Is that really what this is about? Is that what you just did what you did? Because you're jealous.”

“I'm jealous?! What the fuck do I have to be jealous of. She left you, remember? She got tired of your shit and she left. Do you buddies know what you did? Do they know how you treated her? Huh? Did you tell them any of that? Or did you just make her out to be the bad person?”

“You're going to resort to that? You're going to resort to bringing that shit up? Are you that fucking desperate?”

“Did he tell you?” Tyler asks the Marines. “Did he? Did he tell you that my wife is his ex wife? Did he tell you why she left him? Did he tell you about how he got a blow job from a stewardess coming back from his honeymoon? I bet he didn't tell you that.”

“You're really going to do this?” Mark rages. “You're really going to bring this up? It's none of your fucking business!”

“She's my fucking business! She's my wife. That makes her my business. I bet you didn't tell them that you liked to beat on her. That at first you started hitting her where she could hid the bruises with clothes. But then after awhile you just didn't give a fuck anymore and you'd give her black eyes, split lips, bloody noses. How about the two times you put her in the hospital? Do you blokes now about that? Well if you didn't, you sure as fuck do now.”

“Whoa...whoa...” Yaz finally appears from the corridor, having been caught up organizing and setting up any remaining technology. “What the hell is going on here?”

��He's fucking crazy,” Mark nods in Tyler's direction. “That's what's going on here.”

“I'm just letting these guy know what an upstanding citizen their boss is,” Tyler explains. “You know, the kind that likes to beat on women. The kind that likes to cheat on them. The kind that's a narcissistic dick bag that gas lighted her into thinking she was the problem, That she wasn't good enough. That she'd never be good enough. Or how about how he blamed her for losing a baby the doctor said never would have been viable in the first place.”

Mark's eyes narrow. “How'd you...”

“You fucking dumb ass. Did you really think I wouldn't ask her when you told me about the baby she lost? Did you honestly think I wouldn't want to know? Because I knew it couldn't be a problem with her because we have four kids. I've never had a problem getting her pregnant. And all those kids arrived safe and sound. No issues whatsoever. She showed me the pathology report. It was a severe abnormality passed down through the y gene. Meaning you, asshole. It came from you. And you still fucking blamed her. You still made her think it was her goddamn fault. How fucking sick do you have to be to do that your own wife? When she's already upset that she lost a baby in the first place?!”

“Okay...okay...” Yaz claps a hand down on Tyler's shoulder. “...this is private stuff, man. This doesn't need to be brought up. No one needs to hear this.”

“He needs to hear it,” Tyler nods in Mark's direction. “Because he's been playing these fucking games for ten years now. Ten years she's held all that shit inside of her. Thinking she isn't good enough. Being told no one would ever love her because of how messed up she was. Do you remembering telling her that? Don't deny it. Don't stand here and lie to my face. Be a man. For once. Be a man and admit it. Own it. That you fucked with her head. That you made her think she'd never find anyone better than you. That's what you told her, right?”

“I admit it. I said some...things...”

“Yeah, you did. You sure fucking did, mate. You fucking broke her. And you know what, I came along and I helped put her back together. All those things you told her? About how no one would ever love her? I proved you wrong. I came along and I loved her. With everything I fucking have. Everything I am. I made her forget about you and you can't fucking stand it.”

“She's way too good for you.” Mark gives a dry laugh. “And one day she's going to wake up and wonder why the hell she wasted so many years of her life with you.”

“You keep telling yourself that, mate. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Because guess what? While you're sleeping alone? I'm sleeping next to her. With her. And you can't fucking stand the thought of it.”

“Enough!” Yaz snaps. “Both of you! Enough is enough. Now I get there's some issues. Between the two of you. I get shit is messy. Mark, you crossed a fucking line by ever showing up at Tyler's house looking for Esme. You went there to try and cause shit between them and it blew up in your face and you can't handle that. Tyler and Esme are tight. Their bond? You can't break that shit. No one can. Now, we need to all work together here. We need to get this asshole and make him pay. Can't we all agree on that? That McMann needs to go down for all the shit he's pulled? Right?” he stares pointedly at Tyler. “Right?”

Tyler nods.

“Right?” he turns his gaze to Mark and the two marines, all three nodding in confirmation. “For fuck sakes, this is not the time for shit to be falling apart. We're all working towards a common goal here. You three have your reasons for wanting McMann to suffer, and Tyler has his reasons. And it doesn't matter if I agree with how Tyler is going about things. What he does when he's left here with McMann is his business. Just like I won't give a shit what you guys to do him. But this is my boy...” he claps Tyler on the back of his neck. “...this is my brother. This stupid fuck...this ugly face...has been through more shit than the three of you together. And you know what? His stubborn ass just keeps getting back up. I saw this guy near death. Like right on its fucking doorstep. And he made death his bitch. So if you've got a problem with him, you've got a problem with me. And my sister. And our entire team.”

“We have no issues with him,” Nathan speaks up. “With either of you.”

Zak shrugs. “I've got no problems.”

“So it just you,” Yaz smirks at Mark. “Time to let shit go, man. She's not yours anymore. She's his. And he's not letting her go. Deal with.”

Mark gives a snort, then turns on his heel to stomp from the room, purposefully bumping Tyler's shoulder with his on the way out.

“What a drama queen,” Yaz shakes his head. “Why didn't you tell me you were going to knock him the fuck out? You know I wanted to see that. You know I wanted ringside seats! The fuck is wrong with you? Doing me like that?”

“Next time I'll let you know. So we can watch. Hey about what you said...”

“I said what I said. Don't go getting all little wuss bitch baby on me.”

Tyler grins. “Actually, I was going to ask if you really think my face is ugly.”

Yaz smirks. “You know you're my boy crush. Now quit riding my jock and get the fuck out of here. Go and see your wife. Spend some time with her before you go and meet McMann. You both need it. That time.”

“Yeah,” Tyler nods. “We do.”

“And I'd say wrap it before you tap it but you've proven time and time again you don't know what that means, so...”

“You're a real fucking dick, Yaz,” he laughs as he heads for the door.

“Maybe. But you love me. And you'd miss me if I was gone. Admit it, Tyler! You'd miss me!” He frowns when he receives a smirk and the middle finger in response. “Why you do me like that? Why you do your boy like that?”

He receives no answer. Just the sound of the soles of combat boots as they disappear down the hall.

#tyler rake #tyler rake fan fic #tyler rake fan fiction #chris hemsworth character #sanctuary #extraction

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our-time-is-now · 4 years

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May 28,2019: Not just advertising!

(previous play)

You can find more information about the authors, translators, content warning and additional information about the plays in the pinned post on our blog.

Attention! This play includes transgender topics. For more details see our interjection.

Tuesday, 5:38 pm:

David: *he and Matteo realized earlier today that the fridge was empty and as Laura is currently spending a lot of time with her lovesick best friend, it's their turn again to cook today and provide for themselves* *so he went food shopping with Matteo who had announced that he wanted to cook something today (David would have been ok with a frozen pizza or a salad) – and they are now entering through front door downstairs* *lets Matteo pass and informs him* I'll just go check if there's any mail... *opens the mailbox and takes out two letters while Matteo is already climbing the stairs: One bill for Laura and one from the health insurance for him* *feels his heartbeat speed up, but doesn't want to get his hopes up too much – maybe it's not about the cost coverage for his mastectomy, maybe it's only advertising or just some information. And even if it was about the mastectomy, the letter could still tell him that they reject the cost coverage* *takes a deep breath and follows Matteo to the apartment door* *briefly smiles at Matteo when he steps aside so that he can unlock the door and then takes both letters and the groceries into the kitchen* *puts the letters down on the counter for now and puts the groceries on one of the chairs* *sits down on a stool and looks at Matteo questioningly* Umm... do you want to cook now, or later?

Matteo: *checks the time and shrugs* We can wait for another hour, depending on how hungry you are. *points at the bags* But we should still put away all this stuff... *grabs one of the bags and puts it down on the counter to empty it* *didn't pay attention to the letters* *turns on the radio*

David: *laughs quietly* Usually, /you're/ the one who's always hungry... *also checks the time and then nods with a grin* Okay, if you can manage to wait for another hour... *has the letter from the insurance company constantly in his mind, but doesn't feel ready yet to open it* *so takes the things Matteo is pulling out of the bags to put them away in their respective cupboards or the fridge* *grins and holds up a can of spray cream* *can't remember putting that in the bag and looks at Matteo questioningly* Felt like sandwich toast, or what is that for?

Matteo: *laughs* Yes, exactly, that's why it's smarter to eat when you want... I can always eat. *then nods* Yes, I can wait for an hour* *laughs when David shows him the spray cream* No, that was on Laura's list... but I mean, if you want to eat some more cream-cheese-toast again, we can postpone the cooking? *grins*

David: *by now has put away all the things Matteo had handed him and now goes to sit on the stool again* *tilts his head when Matteo mentions the cream-cheese-toast* Let me think for a moment... hmmm... no! *laughs* I trust your cooking skills can whip up something better than cream-and-cheese-toast! *then gets a little more serious and asks* Hmm... and what are we gonna do until we eat? Want to watch a TV-show? Or play some computer game?

Matteo: *laughs slightly* Oh yes, no-one can resist pasta alla Luigi... get ready for something... *then tilts his head to and fro* Hmmmm, a TV-show sounds good... I mean laying around on the sofa... *grins and by chance notices the letter addressed to David* Don't you wanna open that?

David: *laughs quietly at Matteo's answer and summarizes* So, laying around on the sofa, making out and having a TV-show on in the background... *imitates Matteo by also tilting his head to and fro and says* Yes, sounds good... *glances at the letter again and plans on opening it when Matteo cooks and is just about to get up from the stool when Matte mentions the letter* *picks it up without thinking about it and stares at it for a moment* *gets nervous and taps his foot* *is silent for too long* *eventually looks up at Matteo and starts stuttering confusedly several times* Yes, right, I... well... maybe... *feels silly all of a sudden* *it's probably only advertising* *shakes his head, stops and murmurs* Okay, screw it... *holds his breath while he slowly tears open the envelope*

Matteo: *grins and nods* Best plan... *is surprised when David's demeanor changes all of a sudden when he mentions the letter* Well, you don't have to... if it's a bomb threat or something... *peeks at it again but can't see who the letter is from as David is holding it in his hands again* *feels like it might be more important than he thought* Did you already apply anywhere? *right now doesn't have an idea what else it might be* *sees how David opens the letter and suddenly gets nervous himself even though he doesn't even know what it's about* *simply observes David while he slowly takes the letter out of the envelope*

David: *is too nervous to respond to the bomb-threat joke and only slightly shakes his head when Matteo asks if he has already applied somewhere* *realizes that his hands are shaking slightly when he pulls the letter out of the envelope and immediately sees that it's not advertising* *can read the subject line "application for cost coverage for a mastectomy" without having to fold the letter open and feels his heartbeat race and a strange ringing in his ears* *tries to calm down somehow... should the application be rejected he'd simply work to save the money... that would take longer, but he would do the surgery no matter what* *briefly closes his eyes and unfolds the letter* *tries to concentrate and to understand what it says* *reads it again and slowly understands* *exhales shakily and laughs quietly but at the same time feels tears of relieve come to his eyes* *rubs over his face, looks up at Matteo, beams and cries at the same time* *grabs Matteo by the sweater and pulls him toward him* *simply has to hug him now, to share his joy and relief with him and explain to him what happened but realizes that even more tears start to come when he presses his face to Matteo's shoulder* *quickly clears his throat and finally murmurs* The insurance covers of the mastectomy...

Matteo: *watches David as he reads the letter* *immediately has a lump in his throat when David somehow simultaneously laughs and cries and has no idea what's going on* *immediately steps toward David when he pulls him in and wraps his arms around him* *then hears what it's about and realizes how everything tightens in him out of joy and relief for David* *hugs him firmer and then leans back a little to kiss him* *beams at him* Wow, that's... well... congratulations! *laughs and hugs him again* Then we don't have to rob a bank, after all...

David: *tries to wipe away the tears when Matteo leans back to kiss him, but realizes that there are new ones coming and figures that it doesn't matter now* *is simply relieved* *returns Matteo's beaming look and then has to laugh when he talks about robbing a bank* At least not for the surgery... maybe only for a trip to Detroit... *returns his hug and takes a deep breath to somehow calm down* *releases the hug again and wipes the tears out of his face again* *realizes that his hands are shaking and laughs quietly again* *holds them out to Matteo and says* Some booze to calm down wouldn't be bad right now...

Matteo: *simply beams together with him and nods* Yes, for Detroit definitively... *was just about to take David's face in his hands when he holds his hands out to him* *grabs them and holds them firmly* *entwines their fingers and shakes his head* No alcohol, Mister Schreibner... now more than ever... *tilts his head slightly and looks at him* And I know you don’t like it when I say that... but I just want you to be well, okay? Optimal conditions and such...

David: *looks at their entwined fingers but can't really stop the shaking and the turmoil* *looks fake-annoyed when Matteo forbids him the alcohol* *only said that as a joke and knows that Matteo knows it as well* *then nods with a grin at Matteo's correct realization that he doesn't like when he says something on that topic and says* Well observed, Mister Florenzi! *then nods at his next words and briefly pulls Matteo's fingers to his lips to press a kiss onto them* Okay, I know! *smiles lovingly because he really does appreciate the fact that Matteo watches out for him* *still adds an explanation even though he's sure that Matteo knows it* The thing with the booze was only a joke... and a beer every now and then is also okay... *tilts his head and looks at him challengingly* Okay? *really doesn't want to discuss every single beer in the future* I'm only supposed to avoid "excessive alcohol- and drug consumption"...

Matteo: *nods slowly* Okay... from now on, I'll shut up when it's about beer... *slightly tilts his head* But only with beer... everything else I'll comment on... and I'll do research about mastectomy... and if it says anything different anywhere... *looks at him fake-warningly* I still feel bad about you smoking weed because of me, so you have to deal with me being overprotective whether you want to or not...

David: *smilingly and quietly says about the beer-topic* Very good! *then laughs and nods* Okay, do all of that... but about the mastectomy, you can simply ask me... I might have read a few tiny things about it at one point... *shakes his head and corrects him* I didn't smoke because of you, I did it to look cool in front of you... that’s called own stupidity. Just like with my binder - by the way, I have to take it off soon... you didn't know about it, so you don’t have to feel bad about it... period! *looks at him with a slight grin and raised eyebrows, as if he wouldn't accept any objections right now* *lifts one hand to his cheek and looks at him lovingly again* *quietly says* Apart from that, sometimes I gladly endure your overprotectiveness... *adds even quieter* I like it, when you watch out for me...

Matteo: *draws up his eyebrows* *You don't say... I know that you know this stuff... but I also know that you tell me that one beer is okay or that working out is okay or whatever... *laughs slightly incredulous* To be cool in front of me? *shakes his head* And you were much cooler than me to start with... *smiles a little and kisses him briefly* Good, because I won't stop it... and therefore go and get changed, I'll go and turn on the TV in the meantime...

David: *laughs when Matteo accuses him of withholding things and slightly hits him in the chest* It is! *shakes his head with a grin* Umm, no...? You were cooler than me! You were only being you! *smiles and returns the kiss* *nods fake-serious when Matteo says that he won't stop watching out for him* *is quite sure of that* *laughs at his order and gets up to go to the bathroom* *but before he goes he pulls Matteo to him, kisses and hugs him briefly but firmly because now his thoughts are back on the letter and the surgery again* *then jumps up twice from excitement and only says* I'm so happy! *then disappears into the bathroom to take off his binder and gets back into the living room relatively quickly, where Matteo is already lying sprawled on the couch and has turned on the TV* *as there is no space for him to sit, let alone lie, he simply drops down on Matteo and tries to somehow push him aside* *grumbles* Move!

Matteo: *only shakes his head when David says that he was cooler* *knows that this is one of those discussions that could go on forever, so doesn't disagree again* *laughs when he jumps twice and simply looks after him lovingly* Me too! *goes into the living room, turns on the TV and gets comfortable on the couch* *grins when David comes in and makes an umph-sound when he drops down on him* Not like this *wrestles a little with him and tries to use up even more space* *eventually, they find a position in which they can both lie on the sofa: Matteo pressed against the backrest, one arm under David's head and David half on top of him, half on the sofa with his head on Matteo's shoulder* What do you wanna watch? Continue with Friends or something else?

David: *laughs when Matteo tries to use up more space and wrestles with him and is giving his best to get some space on the sofa* *relaxes when they apparently find a position that's comfortable and doesn't actually need a series but nods at the suggestion of Friends and says a little lazily* Friends is always good... *turns the TV to Netflix and puts Friends on and then stretches briefly to put the remote back on the coffee table* *leans back again and immediately feels Matteo's arm wrap around his waist again* *reaches for his hand and intwines their fingers* *relaxes and looks to the TV where there is a scene at the cafe* *both he and Matteo are quiet for quite some time* *at some point says* By the way, I have to get up a little earlier tomorrow. I've got a doctor's appointment at 10 for my hormone injection... *simply assumes that they spend the night here because they're here already and so far, didn't really have a reason to spend their nights separated*

Matteo: *thinks that Friends is a great series to relax to as you don't always have to pay attention because you've already seen it a hundred times, anyway* *therefore, gets pulled out of his thoughts when David starts talking* *also thought that they would sleep here as they are going to eat here* Okay... *only then realizes completely what he had said* Because of the injection? *remembers David telling him about psychologists and injections and that he also read that there are different options of administering testosterone* How often do you have to do that?

David: *nods when Matteo asks about the injection* *never really thought about how much Matteo actually knows about the whole thing but thinks that Matteo will ask or do some research if he wants to know something and in the last two and a half weeks has made the experience that for Matteo a lot of things are okay, simply for the way they are* *then hears his question and starts to draw small circles on the back of Matteo's hand with this thumb* Hmm... every 3 to 4 weeks for the injections... the GP does that... and once a year for a check-up with a specialist. *waits if Matteo has any more questions or if that was all he wanted to know*

Matteo: *hums slightly and thinks about it* Every 3 to 4 weeks? For the rest of your life? *grimaces slightly and squeezes his hand* Could you also do that yourself or do you always have to go to a doctor?

David: *nods at Matteo's questions and returns the squeeze* *turns around to him when he realizes that he has more questions but puts his head back on his chest and wraps an arm around his waist* Theoretically I could do it myself... but... *grins slightly* ... at the doctor's you get the injection in here... *slightly smacks Matteo's bottom and then continues* ... and you have to hit the muscle and you have to be careful not to hit the sciatic nerve which also runs there somewhere... so you probably wouldn't really be able to do that yourself... with the doctor it's faster and probably less painful... he knows the right spot... *presses his lips together for a moment and then adds* Some people also inject it themselves - then it goes into the thigh... but so far... *shrugs slightly* ... so far, I haven't really felt confident enough...

Matteo: *laughs a little when he smacks him on the bottom* *then nods again to show David that he's listening* Okay... yes, I can understand that. *but then thinks about it again and what it means to get injections your entire life* I've read that there's also a gel... wouldn't that be easier? Or is that difficult because of the dosage?

David: *has to smile a little when he realizes that Matteo really did some research but then explains* You have to apply the gel daily. I think it's really inconvenient because you also have to make sure that you always apply it at the same time and that you shouldn't shower for an hour afterwards and stuff like that. And if you're in a relationship you should... *thinks about how to explain it best and starts again* Well, you rub the testosterone directly onto your skin and it takes some time to be absorbed completely. So if you're together with a woman, for example, and you touch her, then there's the danger that she involuntarily also gets some male hormones... *grins slightly* *thinks for a moment and then adds for the sake of completeness* There are also depot injections that you only get every three months. Sometimes I consider switching to them, but it's a bigger dose that you get injected with and you can really only do that at the doctor's.

Matteo: *listens to him attentively* *didn't know about the trouble with the gel* *but then has to laugh a little* Well, luckily that wouldn't be a problem in your case... but gosh, all the things you have to consider... *hums again slightly* Well, as long as the injections aren't a bother you don't have to risk anything, right? How long does such an appointment take? Should I pick you up and we'll go have breakfast or something like that?

David: *nods to the topic of injections* *often feels a little pain the next day but has gotten used to it by now* *thinks at Matteo's question* Hmmm... well, the injection that's a matter of two, three minutes... but afterwards you're supposed to keep lying down for 10 to 15 minutes... and when it's busy I often have to wait a little... I guess I'll be finished by 10:30 or 10:45... *looks up at him and smiles slightly* Breakfast sounds good. But I can also bring back some bread rolls. *grins a little* Then you don't have to force yourself out of bed... *puts his hand on Matteo's cheek and pulls his head down slightly to give him a brief but tender kiss*

Matteo: *nods and grins* Bread rolls also sound good... I can make breakfast... *but then thinks that it will be the first time that he'll be in David's apartment without him* *doesn't know why this causes a weird tug in his stomach* *but then gets kissed and forgets it for now* Tomorrow evening Hans has scheduled flatshare-cooking and I quote "Without David and Alex, they're great, but I've had enough of happy couples”* *laughs slightly* But maybe I can come by afterwards?

David: *nods when Matteo says that he can make breakfast* *thinks it's really nice but also a little exciting and unfamiliar that they are this familiar with each other after such a short time, that being together is so natural* *grumbles when Matteo quotes Hans, but then laughs* He should go look for a partner himself! *immediately nods at Matteo's question* Sure, I'd love to... anytime! *is happy that he wants to come over afterwards* *finds the thought of having to spend the evening without Matteo somehow strange, but rationally thinks that they can't always spend their time together* *thinks briefly of what he could do tomorrow evening and spontaneously decides to do some more research on the surgery and to make some phone calls for a consultation on Friday*

Matteo: *laughs slightly* Hans doesn't want a boyfriend... too much heartache, he says... *shrugs, so as if he couldn't relate to that, at all* *finds it strange that he's not going to see David tomorrow evening and tries to figure out when the last time was that they weren't together and can't really remember* And what are you going to do tomorrow evening? I bet you could hang out with the guys if you want...

David: *also laughs about Hans and shrugs* Then maybe he does something wrong... *grins a little at Matteo's suggestion and softly strokes his cheek* *teases* Are you worried that I'll get bored without you? *smilingly shakes his head and stretches a little* No, it's okay... I mean I guess I could, but I'll just make use of the time and do some research about the surgery. I might have to wait months for an appointment, if I'm unlucky... I already did some research about surgeons, but there are only two here in Berlin. There are a few good ones near Berlin... there's one in Potsdam and I think in Halle, as well... maybe I'll read some more experience reports and call all the surgeons on Friday...

Matteo: *grins slightly and shrugs one shoulder* Maybe... but maybe I'm just projecting from me to you... *nods when he says that he wants to do some research* Doesn't have to be near Berlin, does it? I mean, if you have to stay in the hospital, the travel distance doesn't matter... then we'll just go to Hamburg or Frankfurt or Munich or wherever... the main thing is that you get the best surgeon there is.

David: *laughs quietly and murmurs* Maybe you simply know me really well and know that by now I've gotten so used to you being there that it will somehow be weird... *smiles and says* But we'll manage a few hours! *listens to him and nods at what he says about not having to bee near Berlin and travel distance* *doesn't even hear the cities Matteo lists because his brain and his heart got caught on the word "we"* *straightens a little so he can look at Matteo and clarifies* We? *once again has the feeling that his heart almost overflows with all the love for Matteo and briefly thinks that somehow he's really emotional today and could once again cry from happiness because he never would have thought that he'll find a partner who will be with him on this journey*

Matteo: *smiles and nods* I'll send photos and comments, then you're basically there... well, if Hans doesn't take my phone away. *looks at him surprised when he straightens and clarifies with him* Yes, we... *slightly shakes his head because he thinks that David would rather do this alone* Well, I know that my care is sometimes a little annoying, but I'm definitely coming with you, no matter what you say, sorry...

David: *feels his heart skip a beat when Matteo really confirms that he wants to come with him* *then realizes that Matteo misunderstood his question, briefly closes his eyes and laughs quietly* *looks at him again and shakes his head with a smile* *quietly and with a lump in his throat says* I didn't mean it like that. I’d be happy if you came with me. I just never thought that... *shakes his head, stops and starts again* For years I thought that I would have to do this on my own... *thinks for a moment, shrugs and lowers his gaze* *smiles again and quietly admits* I think that you might have been right, after all... that it's better to not be alone. *blushes slightly and gets sheepish*

Matteo: *looks at David and puts his hand on his cheek* Hey... I told you that I'm here now... *has to swallow down the lump in his throat at David's next words* *kisses him briefly* I won't leave you alone... I love you, ok? No matter what. *looks at him and thinks that it's still true to some extent, that David has no idea how great he is and how much he deserves to not be alone* *kisses him again and then grins at him slightly* *wants to lighten the mood and says* We'll get rid of those stupid tits somehow, okay?

David: *simply smiles when Matteo repeats his promise that he's here now* *back in the pool didn't really know how important that would become to him and even though it scares him a little, it's simply beautiful to know and feel that he's there* *looks at him a little incredulous when Matteo tells him that he loves him, because he finds it incredible that Matteo can tell him that without hesitation and so matter-of-factly and briefly presses his lips together when he realizes that tears start to pool in his eyes, after all* *but thinks that it's true, that he also loves Matteo and that there isn't any doubt about it* *looks at him and responds* I love you, too... everything about you... *thinks that right now it has even more meaning than it did in the pool, but that words almost aren't enough to express what he feels for Matteo* *hopes that one day he can prove it to Matteo just like Matteo is proving it to him right now* *returns his kiss and tenderly pushes the unruly hair off his forehead* *has to laugh at his next words and nods* Oh yes, please! As fast as possible! *scoots a little closer to him and kisses him a little more fiercely* *interrupts the kiss after a while and rights himself* And now I'm hungry!

Matteo: *notices the tears in David's eyes and realizes how everything in him wants to be there for him, always* *then hears for the second time that he also loves him and feels his heart skip a beat* *kisses him and laughs a little when he agrees with him* *grumbles slightly when David interrupts the kiss* *but then laughs when he calls for food* Okay... I'll accept that... *waits for David to get up from the sofa to get up himself and goes into the kitchen with him*

(next play)

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