#group therapy but it’s just 2 freaks in love staring at each other

[deadhivecodex]

good end amon

[topsytervy]

The Right Time ~ JJ Maybank

Blurb: JJ finds the right time to tell you how he feels in his own JJ way.

This is Part 2 of Not The Right Time so if you haven't read Part 1, you can read it here.

Word Count: 2,819

Warnings: mentions of drinking, cheating, a non-descriptive fight, teensy bit of blood, small nod towards suicidal thoughts at the end, cliche and cheesy writing, swearing, poorly proofread so probably spelling and grammar mistakes, I think that's it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ever since your breakup with Brett, JJ had been doing everything in his power to make sure you knew it had nothing to do with you and Brett just couldn't keep his dick in his pants.

It was hard for him to see you like that, all heart broken and sad, but at least he was able to see you. Kie, Pope, Sarah and John B had tried visiting multiple times during your post breakup hermit phase with little to no success.

A knock on the door sounded throughout the house as JJ finished preparing lunch for you two. 

"Hold on!" He hollered, finishing up your sandwich before heading over to the door.

He opened it to reveal the other four members of your group. 

"Hey." JJ greeted his friends.

"Can we see her today?" John B asked. 

"I can ask but her 'social battery's low'. Her words, not mine." JJ sighed. 

"It's just that it's hard for us to not see her, J." 

JJ looked at Sarah. " At least you don't have to see her completely shattered everyday and have to sit and watch her eat three times a day to make sure she actually does eat."

Pope looked past JJ and saw the sandwiches on the table. "Can I sit with her today?"

JJ looked at Pope before nodding and gesturing towards your sandwich. "That one right there."

Pope smiled before grabbing the sandwich and knocking on your door, hearing a faint come in afterwards.

You looked to see Pope entering, a small smile on his face. "Hey. Heard about your low battery and I figured you'd want to see someone who's not JJ but not the whole peanut gallery."

You smiled lightly as you sat up. "Thanks, Pope. I love JJ but he can be a bit...overbearing sometimes."

"And this is one of those times." Pope nodded.

You sighed as Pope gave you your sandwich.

"He's just concerned about you. We all are." 

"l know."

"How about I tell you about some books I've been reading?"

"I'd like that Pope." You smiled as you bit into your food.

It's not that JJ was bad at comforting or anything like that. In fact, ever since you were a kid, you always went to him for comfort when you were upset. It's just that JJ always seemed to want to rush your mourning period. 

JJ didn't like seeing you sad so the less time you spent crying and moping, the better for him.

"Morning, Y/N/N." JJ smiled lightly as he drew back your curtains.

"J, get out." You mumbled into your pillow.

"You gotta get up, sweetheart." JJ practically sang, walking over to your bed and grabbing the comforter.

Your grip immediately tightened. "Don't J." 

"I know it's only been a week but come on Y/N. Let in some sun. If not for you, do it for your children." He nodded towards your plants as he laid down next to you.

"I can't get up." You told him.

"Sure you can. You're a bad bitch who isn't going to let this break her. I'm not going to allow you to bury yourself in work and hole yourself up in your room forever just because some dumbass doesn't realize when he's got the greatest girl to ever walk the earth."

You stared at the blonde next to you. "JJ. I can't get up cause you're in here and I'm only in my underwear.

JJ rolled his eyes. "Y/N, all due respect, that's no excuse cause I've seen you naked many times before. the time you broke your ankle in the shower being the main one cause I had to help you in and out of the shower multiple times."

You blushed at his words before shoving him. "Just get out."

JJ did as you requested but not before tossing you some clothes.

So when a few months had passed and you seemed to be back to pre-breakup Y/N, JJ was happy to hear Kie mention a party.

Everyone looked at you and you shrugged. "Why the hell not?"

JJ, John B and Pope all exchanged smiles as Sarah and Kie pulled you up from your seat, saying something about making you so hot that the sun would quit and you'd have to take over the job of keeping the earth warm.

JJ watched as you left, sighing as he let his head fall against the back of the couch.

John B looked at his best friend. "Don't be a helicopter JJ tonight."

A look of confusion found its way onto JJ's face. "Helicopter JJ? What the fuck does that mean?"

Pope sighed. "It's like a helicopter parent except you. You tend to hover over Y/N/N at parties and get a bit...protective at times."

"I do that with Kie and Sarah too." JJ scoffed.

"Not really." The boys responded.

"You don't follow Kie's movements as much as Y/N's." Pope started.

"You certainly don't freak out as much when you lose Sarah or Kie but you almost had a panic attack when you lost Y/N that one time at the store and literally had someone page her." John B added.

"You hide some of Y/N/N's clothes when we're going out because you don't like the chance of her wearing something that could cause a guy to like her and cause you to lose your chance with her."

"I once saw you shield her eyes at prom when people started grinding on each other."

"Okay! So I'm a bit more protective of Y/N than the other two. Sue me." JJ cut the two off.

"Point is that this is her first party in months. Let her get a bit too drunk and make out with some hotshot Kook against a tree." 

"Hell, let her get some dick tonight." John B shrugged.

Pope and JJ looked at their curly haired friend before JJ shook his head.

"Fine but she's not getting dick from just anybody. I have to approve of him." JJ said as he stood up and left the room,

The two other boys sat in silence before Pope spoke.

"You know what? I count that as progress and when we make progress with JJ…"

"We have a beer." John B finished, getting up to go get each of them a can.

*****

You and the rest of the pogues made it to the party and found yourselves a home by the bonfire. Rafe, Topper and Kelce had stopped by to say that they were happy to see you again and Kelce was happy that his beer pong partner was back because Rafe and Topper just didn't compare to you. 

JJ stared at you, the fire illuminating your features as you laughed at something Kie had said, red cup in his hand that was half-empty. He brought the cup to his lips and finished his beer before turning to you.

"Refill, Y/N/N?"

You nodded before turning to the rest of the group. "JJ and I are making a refill trip. Who else needs one? Speak now or get it yourself." You announced as you stood up.

JJ smiled at your words before also getting up, ready to grab some cups. Pope and Sarah held out their cups while Kie and John B shook their heads.

You took the cups that needed a refill before you and JJ made your way through the crowd of people towards the keg. JJ cracked some jokes with some of the others around the keg and you rolled your eyes, a small smile on your face before you nudged him with your shoulder.

You two started refilling the cups you had before you were interrupted.

"Haven't see you at a party in awhile, Y/N." 

You and JJ turned your heads to see Brett standing there, two cups in his hand.

JJ rolled his eyes before looking at you, seeing you avert your gaze back to the keg.

"Why don't you go back to your whore over there Brett." JJ deadpanned. 

You smacked JJ's wrist. "Don't call her a whore, JJ. It's rude."

"I'm just stating my opinion."

"Oh so she does still talk. I was just confused when she didn't say hi to me when I greeted her." Brett said.

"Can you get the fuck away from us? She clearly doesn't want to have a conversation with you." JJ snapped. 

"I would love to know what you have to say, Y/N, or are you gonna let JJ over here keep talking for you." Brett aimed at you, ignoring the blonde who was getting more agitated by Brett's presence. 

"I have nothing to say to you." You shrugged, going to grab the cup. 

"We should talk." Brett went to grab you but JJ grabbed his wrist.

"Don't touch her." 

"What are you gonna do about it, Maybank?"

"I've got two fists that have been itching to meet your face for months now and tonight might be their lucky night if you keep it up."

"JJ, lets just go." You whispered, placing a hand on his forearm.

JJ looked at you before grabbing his and Pope's cup before following you back to the group.

"Hey, JJ!" Brett called causing JJ to look back.

You gasped as a fist made contact with JJ's face. JJs hand immediately flew to his eye, gingerly touching his eyebrow. He pulled his fingers away to see blood and he chuckled before swinging his own fist.

It wasn't long before JJ had Brett on the ground, pissed beyond belief. Brett managed to get a few more punches in but JJ definitely got way more in by the time you managed to pull him off of Brett with Kelce's help.

"JJ! Calm down, man! He's not worth your time!" Kelce hollered, pinning his arms to his side. 

"JJ, look at me. It's done. It's over. You're good now." You told him.

Brett stood up with a scoff. "He could have fucking killed me." 

"I fucking should, you cheating son of a bitch!" JJ spat, Kelce's grip tightening on the blonde boy when JJ attempted to lunge forward.

"J, let's just go home. We've had our fun."  

JJ looked at you before relaxing causing Kelce to release his hold on him slowly. You grabbed JJ's hand and pulled him away from the small crowd that had formed around him and Brett.

You two said goodbye to your friends and walked back to JJ's truck, you climbing into the passenger seat and him into the drivers.

It was a quiet ride home, Twenty One Pilots playing softly through the speakers the entire time. JJ referred to them as his therapy band, often putting them on after a hard day at work or after a fight so it wasn't really a surprise that he had one of their CDs in. 

Once you got home and inside, JJ locked the door before turning towards his bedroom.

"Um, excuse me. Where are you going, JJ?" You asked, grabbing his wrist.

"Bed."

You shook your head. "We gotta clean you up. Bed can wait."

You tugged him into the bathroom and grabbed the first aid kit as you instructed JJ to sit on the toilet lid. He complied, bouncing his leg up and down as you put a little hydrogen peroxide on a cotton ball.

"That's your first fight in a while." You commented, grabbing his chin lightly and forcing him to look at you.

He grunted in response as you started cleaning the few small cuts on his face. "The prick deserved it for what he did to you. You'd have to be fucking nuts to cheat on someone like you."

You felt my heart flutter at his words and I sighed. "I just hate seeing you like this, JJ. All scratched up." 

JJ chuckled as he shook his head lightly. "Oh, Y/N, sweetheart. This is nothing compared to the beat down Brett just got and what my dad used to dish out when I was living with him."

JJ saw your face drop at his words and your eyes begin to water.

"Hey, Y/N. It was just a small joke." He told you gently as he grabbed your hands with his. 

You shook your head and went to pull away from him but he just pulled you back, looking up at you as if he was a parent trying to comfort their child.

It weirdly looked like all those Super Nanny time out scenes where the kid looks down in shame as they apologize and the parent is dipping their head down to make eye contact with the kid. You know what I'm talking about?

"I don't like it when you do the whole 'my dad hit me harder thing', J, whenever you try to play off your pain and injuries." You mumbled, a tear slipping out.

JJ wiped away the single tear, mad at himself for upsetting you. "I'm sorry but maybe the waterworks are a bit much. Hmm?"

"I'm sorry. It's just that you shouldn't fight my battles for me. I was going to just walk away from him."

"I'm sorry, are we ignoring the fact that I was walking away? He threw the first punch and I made sure he would think twice before doing that again."

"I just don't like you getting hurt because of me." You sighed. 

"Hey, I'd rather get hurt than have you get hurt."

You wrapped your arms around his neck and his went around your waist. 

"I always liked your hugs better." You hummed.

JJ felt himself smile. "Yeah?"

You nodded. "You wanna know something, J?"

"Yeah."

"I always felt like you paid more attention to me than Brett. After a year of dating him, he still didn't know my favorite flowers or that I was allergic to bees. Those are the two simplest things to learn about your significant other. You know that I can't even stand the smell of fish sticks anymore or that I can't watch the Freaky Fred episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog or I'll have nightmares." 

"That's because I care about you a lot." JJ whispered, kissing your temple.

You ran a hand through JJs blonde locks and sighed. "I wish I dated you instead."

You froze. You could not believe that you had just told your best friend that. You also could not believe how easily those words left your mouth and how much truth there was to them. You did wish you dated JJ instead and not just because of how attractive he was. He always treated you way better than Brett and was more intune -and concerned- about how you were feeling.

JJ also froze, praying that he heard those words correctly and that it wasn't his mind playing a sick joke. He had been waiting for the right time for months and his gut had been telling him all day that today was the day but he fought the urge, afraid his gut was lying. But this...this must be the sign.

"Do you really mean that?" He asked, fighting a smile in case you meant a guy like him and not actually him.

You paused before nodding. "Yeah, I do."

You felt his arms tighten around you and his face bury itself in the crook of your neck.

"You remember all those months ago when you made a big deal about me liking someone and you asked me why I hadn't made a move yet and I told you it wasn't the right time?" JJ words were muffled by your skin.

"Mhmm."

He pulled away to look at you. "I think now's the right time." 

And then he pressed his lips against yours. You were quick to kiss back and it held the adoration you felt was missing long before you and Brett broke up.

You pulled away, placing a hand on his cheek which caused JJ to close his eyes and lean into your touch.

"Thank you for being in my life." You whispered, taking the forgotten cotton ball in your hand and pressing it to the scratch above his eyebrow.

JJ smiled. "No. Thank you for being in mine. You helped me through the toughest times and gave me a reason to stay."

"I wouldn't have objected to leaving the Outer Banks with you."

"I meant like stay here, like on Earth." He mumbled.

You stared at him before kissing his cheek. "Thank you for staying here with me."

JJ opened his eyes and grinned as some hair fell in front of his eyes. "As much as I love our little moment, can we move the cleaning process along cause I kind of want to climb into bed with you in my arms tonight."

You smiled, pushing his hair out of his face. "Sure thing, Jay-Bird. That sounds amazing."

~~~~~~~~

[remedialpotions]

An Artistic Rendering, part 2

I couldn’t stop myself. (But also, I had a lot of fun writing this so... here. Have it.)

Wednesday night art classes were typically followed by a casual dinner at a nearby restaurant. Usually, Hermione enjoyed this post-class debrief session with her mum, but that had been under normal circumstances, when they’d been working on drawings of flowers or cats or bowls of fruit. Tonight, Hermione was not totally sure how she would tolerate sitting across from her mother for an entire meal, nor if she would ever be able to look her in the eye again.

“So, what do you think you want to order?” asked Mum cheerfully, opening up her menu. “I’m rather hungry, aren’t you? Maybe we ought to order a starter - the bruschetta here is supposed to be excellent.”

“Sure,” Hermione said, staring blankly into her own menu. Words like ‘carbonara’ and ‘pomodoro’ and ‘rigatoni’ floated meaninglessly in front of her. “Whatever you want.”

“Ooh, let’s get some wine, too,” Mum added. Had Hermione possessed the wherewithal to look at her, she would have been goggling in disbelief. How on earth was she so cheerful after what had just transpired? How was she, too, not completely disturbed? “How about Chianti? I never know what’s supposed to ‘pair well’ with something else, I just always get what I like-”

“Great,” interjected Hermione, eyes fixed on a description for chicken marsala. “Sure. Whatever.”

Mum set down her menu; in her periphery, Hermione sensed her leaning curiously toward her. “What’s going on, dear? Are you all right?”

“‘What’s going on?’” Hermione repeated back, incredulous. “‘Am I all right?’”

“Well-” Mum blinked, taken aback. “I know there were a couple other drawings that the instructor liked better, but she still thought yours was rather good - and you’ve always been better at things like science and maths anyway-”

“It’s not that.”

Just as Mum opened her mouth to inquire further, a young woman in a crisp white blouse and black pants arrived at their table. “Good evening, ladies,” she greeted them. “My name is Nicola and I’ll be your server this evening. May I get you started with something to drink?”

Mum ordered the bottle of Chianti (Hermione privately thought they might need more than one by the time the night was over) and the bruschetta, and Nicola flounced away.

“Mum,” Hermione said, once she was sure that their server was out of earshot. “You drew a picture of Dad.”

“Well, of course I did.” Her voice was infuriatingly casual. “He was the obvious subject, wasn’t he?”

“So you don’t think that was awkward for me at all?”

“Yours was of Ron,” Mum pointed out, leaving Hermione to briefly wonder how she was possibly related to someone so level-headed. “I’m certainly not interested in seeing my future son-in-law like that.”

The discomfort of the evening was dulled, at least momentarily, by this implication that she would be marrying Ron. While they were not yet engaged - Hermione was in no rush, and perfectly happy to cohabitate - she was also quite certain that she would be spending her life with Ron, and it was nice to know that her mum was so certain of it too.

Though, perhaps that made the events of the evening even more bizarre.

“That’s different,” replied Hermione finally.

“How, exactly?”

“He’s not in his fifties, for one-”

“One day he will be,” said Mum, “and I’m sure when that day comes, you’ll find him just as attractive as you do now-”

“Oh my God,” groaned Hermione, squeezing her eyes shut against the barrage of unwelcome mental images that her mum had just conjured up for her.

“Well, really.” Hermione forced herself to open her eyes, only to see a knowing, almost smug sort of look on her mum’s face (perhaps they had more in common than she thought). “Am I meant to believe that this was the first and only time you’ve ever seen it?”

“Please stop-”

“And don’t think we don’t know what happened in Australia.”

Before Hermione could inquire further about this - Australia was a topic that almost never arose between her and her parents, for obvious reasons - Nicola returned with a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in the other. The instant the wine was poured, Hermione seized upon her glass and drank deeply from it.

“What were you saying about Australia?” Hermione asked, once she had stopped to catch her breath.

“Just that it was clear what had… transpired between the two of you.”

Hermione paused, considering this, hoping her face was not giving anything away. It was true that she and Ron had had sex for the first time in Australia, just days before locating her parents and restoring their memories. And she did not expect her mum to be under any illusions about the nature of her relationship with Ron; they lived together, and before that, she had been quite unabashed about spending the night at his. But it was one thing to know, and quite another to discuss it.

“You could tell?”

“A mother always knows,” said Mum blithely around her own, more reserved sip of wine. “And really, it was just a matter of time. I always knew that.”

“You did?”

“It was always clear to me, and to your dad, that you had a certain connection with him,” said Mum. She had grown thoughtful now, introspective. “Actually, I imagine it was clear to everyone but the pair of you at times.”

“You’re right about that.”

“It’s why we were always happy to let you spend summers with his family, or spend your Christmas at Hog - at school,” she finished lamely, eyes darting around the restaurant. “You had such trouble fitting in when you were younger, and we were so happy that you found someone who… who understands you, the way he does.”

Hermione nodded, thankful that Nicola had swept over to them with a plate of bruschetta, because she was at a rare loss for words. She always knew her parents had liked Ron, and they’d made no secret of their gratefulness that she had found friends at last in him and Harry. But she hadn’t known that they had seen the depth of their relationship, or understood its uniqueness. Most people questioned what she and Ron saw in each other… but her parents had always known.

“And he really must love you,” Mum went on, helping herself to a piece of toasted bread piled high with chopped tomato, fresh basil, and grated parmesan. “To have done what he did for you.”

Myriad events flashed through Hermione’s mind: Ron, at twelve, vomiting up slugs; at thirteen, telling off Professor Snape; at fourteen, begrudgingly pinning an SPEW badge to his robes; at eighteen, offering himself up for torture in exchange for her. Posing starkers for a figure drawing ranked rather low on his running list of self-sacrifices, and yet it was not lost on Hermione how lucky they were that this was now their biggest concern.

“You’re right,” replied Hermione, taking her own slice of bruschetta. “He really does.”

***

Ron was at the sink, scrubbing a sponge over a dinner plate, when Hermione walked through the door of their flat. “Hi,” Hermione greeted him brightly, approaching him in search of a quick kiss hello. “I’ve brought leftover spag bol if you want it.”

“You know I do.” Ron shut off the faucet and picked up a small towel to dry his hands, then bent to touch his lips to Hermione’s. “A departure from your usual, innit?”

“I didn’t want anything too fancy,” replied Hermione, handing the styrofoam box to Ron, who immediately opened it to peer inside. “I was a bit put off my appetite to be honest with you.”

“Uh oh.” Ron fished a fork out of a drawer. “Dare I ask how it went?”

“You were very well-received,” Hermione assured him, making him grin as he twisted strands of pasta around his fork. “But erm…”

“Yes?”

“My mum… she, er…”

“Oh, no.” Ron paused with his fork in mid-air. “She didn’t have… comments, did she?”

“She did, actually, but that’s not the problem. She…” Hermione waited while Ron chewed his mouthful of pasta. Unlike her, his appetite only increased during times of distress. “She drew my dad.”

To her surprise, Ron burst into raucous laughter. “Yeah, I expected that she would have done.”

“You could have warned me!”

“And you could have warned me that a group of twenty people were going to see my todger before you had me starkers in the sitting room,” Ron grinned, “but you didn’t, did you?”

Though she was outwardly scowling at him, Hermione had to work to keep a smile off her face. “Again, it’s not like I took photos-”

“Merlin’s pants, I bet that’ll be next-”

“And really, it’s quite different when it’s your own father - I didn’t look at it or anything,” Hermione was quick to state, “but even just knowing…”

She broke off with a shudder. Ron set down the container of pasta and folded her into his arms, where she laid her cheek automatically against his chest.

“That sounds traumatic,” said Ron, gently kissing the top of Hermione’s head.

“It really was.”

“Should we sign you up for therapy?”

“Yes, please.”

With another little chuckle, he kissed the top of her head again, and she settled in against him. Her mum had been right: she did have a connection with him that was unlike anything else. She had always known that they would end up exactly as they were now, even when they hadn’t been able to see it themselves.

“So you said your mum had some comments?” asked Ron after a few minutes’ easy silence. “I’m a little scared to ask.”

“Not about the picture,” Hermione said. “Mostly about how… how good you are for me.”

“Yeah?”

“She referred to you as her future son-in-law.”

Ron loosened his grip on Hermione just enough to look down at her with surprise. “Did she really?”

Hermione nodded again. “Does that… freak you out?”

It was not a question of whether he loved her, or was wholeheartedly committed to her; she knew without a shadow of a doubt how he felt. But with marriage came things like babies and home loans and joint vaults at Gringotts, and it was not unreasonable to think that at nineteen, he simply might not be ready for it.

But he just shook his head, and moved in to kiss her again - this one soft, warm, lingering. “Nope. Not at all.”

Happily, Hermione resumed hugging him.

“Maybe next time,” said Ron, his hand rubbing idly up and down her spine, “you lot could do something a little more… you could join a book club, maybe. Something like that.”

“That could be fun,” responded Hermione. “Only, my mum’s got a bit of a penchant for romance novels.”

“Oh. Perhaps not, then…”

[dawniebb]

CANON IS AN ILLUSION PT. 2

If it doesn’t spark joy, throw it away.- Marie Kondo

So now that @healing-winston-pratt and I have explained how we got rid of ¼ of Supernova, let me tell you that it doesn’t stop here because you don’t mess with the type As when something gets into their heads.

For background, you can use this post as a masterlist because we don’t have one yet: https://healing-winston-pratt.tumblr.com/post/624723862884696064/well-this-is-the-last-piece-of-our-marathon

This is our post-Supernova canon divergence :) which, btw, it’s the one we’ll use from now on to create our content (actually, @healing-winston-pratt  already used it for her birthday drawings and I just stood there playing dumb pretending I didn’t have anything to do with it jssjjs). So, if you see that Callum and Winston are suddenly alive in our content or you find some of the things established in this list it’s because...yeah :)

Sooooo @novadreamer95438 and @idkimbadwithusernamesandstuff you asked to be tagged if we uploaded more content about the canon divergence (Which we appreciate very much! thank you!) so here you go <3!

As mentioned before , Leroy starts living with his daughter Nova and Winston, in a house provided by the State (The Council hee hee).

Callum and Winston are (evidently) alive, but Genissa is dead.

Ace, Evander and Honey remain dead.

And this is where our canon continues uwu.

Leroy has to do community service for like...indefinite time :)

Winston, on the other hand, has two jobs. He works in an animal shelter, where he adopts a dog named Carnival bc wE CAN and also we want to quote this post :https://chiyuki-hiro.tumblr.com/post/621159663188180992/oh-no-a-head-canon  by @chiyuki-hiro (AFGSHFVDGB THAT HEADCANON IS G R E A T WE LOVE YOU) because we had come to an agreement that Winston would have an art therapy group for children but this addition is honestly so freaking wholesome :’))))))) <3

Nova has a temporary resignation from patrolling and starts going to therapy, where she is diagnosed with PTSD.

Nova also helps with the establishment of a new system, modifies the recruitment system and that stuff.

She’s not in the Team Sketch full time. Sometimes she’s in the offices, and at night she works with Callum.

And just like Narcissa, she digs her own grave :)

Thing is: Nova suggested that every time a new recruit arrived, the Council had DNA samples taken from them so they could check if they had any crime attached to them.

Now, by the end of Supernova in the canon universe we elected to ignore it is mentioned that Maggie sees Leroy staring at her in the distance, in a very suspicious way. Now, we don’t know about y’all, but we interpreted this as Leroy noticing Maggie looks like young Nova XD. So, this does happen in our canon, when Leroy is already out of prison.

By this time, DNA samples from Maggie and Nova have already been taken and uploaded to the system; and let’s say that Leroy gets very...concerned about the lookalike and decides to tell Winston, who confirms Maggie looks a lot like Nova X’DDD and so, they reach out to the Council to ask them to pls compare Maggie’s samples to Nova’s. U know, like angry mothers at the principal’s office :)

And so they do it just because they have nothing to lose.

And when the results arrive, everyone’s like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r92hykpvZRw

SO MAYBE, TO DOUBLE-CHECK, they compare Maggie’s DNA to DNA found in the crime scene (from David and Tala or maybe baby Maggie herself) and the results are still the same :).

Then, Winston and Leroy have to tell Nova and she reacts in the worst way possible for reasons I’ll explain in a fic I’ll be uploading soon cause’ I wrote it MONTHS ago.

Maggie doesn’t react much better tbh :)

But after a while, since this is, like, the right thing to do, Maggie starts living with them , but changes her name to Margaret Artino until she feels part of the family and is comfortable living there.

Because at first, Nova and her don’t get along and Maggie claims she fucking hates this house even though she knows is better than living in the streets.

They basically have a very chaotic home during the adaptation period until the girls start tolerating each other :) and even then, they’re still very chaotic bc it’s Winston, Leroy, Nova and Maggie we’re talking about :) :) :)

Not long after Maggie starts living with her big sis, Simon and Hugh ask Nova to join a family vacation and bring Maggie w/her.

Maggie doesn’t want to go, so Leroy and Winston go to Nova all like “If your sister doesn’t go, then you’re not going either” and Nova fucking loses it so she ends up begging/forcing Maggie to go :)

They go to the beach in MATCHING OUTFITS bc Simon said so (LIKE IN THE WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE MOVIE) :) they take a lot of embarrassing pictures and Nova and Adrian are forced to go in the banana boat with Max and Maggie.

They fall and Nova and Adrian are acting as if they were in the Titanic while Max and Maggie are having the time of their lives lmao

BC NOVA ALSO NEEDS BONDING WITH THE IN-LAWS

At some point, too, Maggie adopts a stray cat whom she names Tofu, and he fucking hates Carnival even though Carnival is the cutest thing :’)

Winston, Leroy, Nova and Maggie celebrate birthdays every year bc they’re trying to compensate years of trauma.

And for that same reason (compensating years of trauma), Nova and Maggie take their sweet time to move out.

Actually, Adrian meticulously plans the date when he’s gonna propose to Nova, so he asks her to move with him exactly a year before that.

They live in an apartment for that whole year, he proposes and they start planning the wedding uwu.

Nova and Adrian have a non-religious ceremony, and since they’re fucking extra, Nova gets married in a black dress and Adrian in a white tuxedo bc miss Artino wanted a dress the same color as her soul :)

Leroy walks Nova down the aisle.

Ruby is Nova’s Maid of Honor and Oscar is Adrian’s Best Man.

Max and Maggie have the rings.

Tamaya’s youngest son is the flower child.

Which, talking about Tamaya, she fucking hates Leroy and Nova bc, honestly, we would hate them too. Leroy fucked up her face and Nova was part of the terrorist attack lmao

SO, YOU CAN IMAGINE HOW CHAOTIC THAT WEDDING WAS, bc they had to avoid leaving Tamaya and Leroy alone at all costs :)

She hugged Nova so violently when congratulating her, that she left a bruise in her shoulder :)

Basically she was there just because she loves Adrian even though she doesn’t approve his decision to marry Nova

Nova and Maggie maintain a close relationship even after Nova marries Adrian. Maggie and Max are included in every family vacation after the honeymoon ofc.

Nova and Maggie get matching tattoos uwu

Nova has the Big Dipper and Maggie has the Little Dipper.

As for the others. The ones who...are no longer there :’)

  @healing-winston-pratt and I have this headcanon that Evander’s wife (we named her Sandra) was expecting a baby at the time of the battle. They had already chosen a first name (Arthur), so she used Evander as his middle name, as the baby didn’t get to meet his dad.

Arthur Evander Wade.

Winston finally gives Evander his DS back.

The Council, thanks to Nova’s suggestion once again, limited a specific area around Georgia’s spot and called it The Aisle of The Fallen.

Genissa, Honey and the victims of the attack to the Arena,  the lift of the city and the battle of the Cathedral are there.

 Evander, however, is resting in Georgia’s mausoleum, next to her, because we think  that mausoleum was constructed in the first place so all the members of the Council could rest together once they left, meaning that they’ll all be there at some point in time. Unfortunately, Evander was the first one to join Georgia despite being the youngest.

Ace is not in the cemetery.

Nova left his helmet in the cathedral, but asked for his body to be cremated.

When she was a child, David used to tell her stories about how Ace seemed to be really happy back in Italy; how he had revolutionary ideas and wanted prodigies to be free; how he used to be a good brother that helped him survive.

So, a few months after Leroy was released from prison, she, Leroy, Winston, Hugh, Simon, Max and Adrian went to Italy with her, to spread Ace’s ashes so he could find peace in the only place he was ever sane and happy.

Ace Anarchy rests in his cathedral.

But what was left of Alec James Artino rests in Italy. (I have a fic about this too)

Yes we’re crying as we write this

[hermitreunited]

Hi, I love your fics so much! Could you do 2, 6 and 10 for Everyone Gets Here Eventually? I have such a soft spot for it :)

Thank youuuu!! I have a soft spot for it, too, which is why, oh boy, I went overboard on this reply. So I am definitely putting in a read more and venture forward at your own cluttered risk!

2. Which scene was your favorite to write in eghe?

Some of them I really liked writing because I they were centerpiece scenes that I basically had all the dialogue laid out for ahead of time, so it was easier to sort of just fill in the rest, like the meeting Dave’s family dinner, or when Klaus and Dave have their big fight.

Some I really liked because I didn’t anticipate them existing and then, hello! there they were! and cute and fun, like Rachel teasing Dave about Klaus, and the two of them baking and talking about homophobic dads after, and Diego meeting Dave. Dave going off on Reg was also not a way I thought things would go there and ‘cute and fun’ is not how I would describe it but oh MAN was it satisfying to write.

6. Which scenes did you cut, and which were added in eghe?

ooohh it stayed surprisingly intact, actually! One of the curses that plagues me as a writer is I basically have to write each scene in order, and then things sort of settle in, with scenes leading one to the next in ways I don’t tend to mess around with.

But I pulled out the docs and looked at notes for it, which honestly is where this all went wrong because I have A Lot Of Notes for it. The scene that probably got the biggest changes is in chapter two, where Dave shares about how the afterlife works and that the ghosts Klaus sees on earth are the bad bits that get left out of the afterlife.

So it never made it onto the page, but this was the scene where they decided that they needed a name for this afterlife and they settle on Peace, as in the spirits there are at peace.

And anyway, I always need to know everything that everyone on the page is thinking when I write, so when Klaus learns about the spirits on earth mainly being the worst parts of people’s souls, I have a note about what’s on his mind:  “not only is this a ‘here is why your life is so fucking shitty - solved it’ moment, which sucks, but also I think he’s conflating things a bit and possibly over the top self-pityingly toying with the idea that he keeps getting kicked out because allll of him is the worst of humanity. it’s not an entirely consistent idea, but when he wants to feel really shitty, he dabbles in the notion.”

ALSO in that scene, I have the only chunk of properly written stuff I found that was cut but still saved. I took it out because it seemed like it dipped into too much confusing plot stuff and made the timing weird and it just didn’t work there but - Klaus realizes that with ghosts basically able to time travel, a person or organization could quite effectively change timelines, as long as they had Klaus around to talk to said ghosts for them. (and maybe it was a backdoor idea for a fic that could exist, I don’t know) But anyway here’s a version of what that conversation looked like:

Then the magnitude of this new angle hits him. “This is a lot, Dave. Holy shit. This is turning out to be a lot.” “Too big to mess with.” Dave has had plenty of time to think this over already, and that’s the conclusion he came to as well. “Did you know, there’s a whole group of time-traveling cops who make sure that nothing changes the timeline too much?” Obviously Dave did not know about that. ‘The world got weird’ is turning out to be a greater understatement than he could ever have imagined. “Whatever that even means,” Klaus goes on. “‘Cops’ is actually too sanitized a word, probably. There’s no way they know about this. If they knew that I - I don’t know what they would do. Jesus.” Klaus is slipping into that long distance stare that means he is circling in on a freak-out. “That’s got to stay a state secret, Dave, that can’t be a thing people find out. I can come up with too many ways to exploit that just off the top of my head and I’m the world’s biggest idiot; I’m not half as devious as some of these motherfuckers.” Dave steadies Klaus’ knee as it starts to bounce compulsively. “I’m not going to tell anyone.” The question is unsaid, because they both know the answer, but Klaus flicks his eyes to Dave’s to check anyway before he says it out loud. “Because we’re not going to do anything to save you.”

There’s a part of me that wants to share a little not really written moment from the fic I probably won’t ever write where we get to see Klaus’ side of what happened through all of the fic, but this post is already so stupid long. (maybe I’ll make another post just to spill on that? because I really don’t think the fic is ever going to be written)

10. What are some facts readers may not know about eghe?

So since I went combing through notes, I’m just going to paste in some of the maybe interesting ones here. Most are like, half sketches of a dialogue that never found a spot, but there’s a headcanon and a Thought in there, too.

When Klaus finds out that they just can kind of see each other/be seen as however he wants, he’s appalled with modern religion. “How did modern religion get so hung up on sex? This place is kinky as hell!” (Hm word choice ha)

it cracks him up that he is having this ‘who is older’ argument with his bf and it’s just as nonsensical as it always is with his siblings and that shouldn’t be possible

an unwritten piece of Vanya’s book: “sometimes she wonders if maybe he doesn’t even have powers either, if he’s like her but managed to lie about it early enough to get included. You cant ever see his powers and he never did anything useful with them and he always lied, even about big things like Ben. Maybe he lied about this all this time”

Klaus leaves doors open because a closed door can’t stop a ghost anyway, and he at least likes to know when they are coming.

So anyway just so we’re clear, the subtext story of this whooole thing is about how Dave is carrying around this fear of being unlovable because of gay reasons, which are ridiculous and he learns to set himself free partially due to the ways Klaus shows him that there isn’t nothing wrong with that. Klaus is carrying around this fear of being unlovable because of personality reasons, which are also unfounded and he’s going to learn to set himself free due to the ways Dave shows him that there’s nothing wrong with him. Basically they have the same anxieties, but Dave’s are tied to sexuality and Klaus’ are not. Still about feeling like inherently bad people because of outside influences telling them that they are.

regarding the Diego meeting Dave scene: “Which, good job talking about your feelings, Diego! Klaus might (semi-)jokingly tell him this. Because they are both in therapy. Klaus wasn’t going to go unless Diego did, too.Also, his reaction at first when his doc was like, ‘yeah you’re depressed’ was “if that’s depression than I’ve been depressed for years. Longer than I haven’t” and the response is just 😬😬”

Holy moly I can apparently talk about my own stuff for a while huh?? I hope you didn’t regret asking! I had a fun time looking back at it, so thanks again very much! 💜💜

[callioope]

Good Things in 2019

@theputterer and @the-strongest-stars tagged me in the awesome annual end-of-year Good Things meme! I’ve done this in 2018 & 2017 and always think it’s a fun exercise of both reflection and looking forward.

Oh boy, though, my first thought was, what even happened in 2019? (Looking at a calendar helped! It reminded me of a few things I forgot)

It’s been a Rough Year, friends. Between OCD and basically travelling almost every weekend in the latter half of 2019, I am very much ready for a new year and hopefully a new slate.

But this is about the positives!

Personal

Played a lot of Dungeons and Dragons! I am now officially in two campaigns. This year, I endeavored to recruit more women to play, including the wonderful @allatariel. I play both my beloved cleric, Maritsa (who I’ve been playing her years now) and my new character, Noara, a ranger elf with a red panda familiar (yeah, my DM let me do that for funsies, so I could get an animal sidekick but also still try out the Horizon Walker subclass). 

Speaking of red pandas, I accomplished my LIFE GOAL of meeting a red panda face-to-face. I got to feed Harriet at the Cincinnati Zoo for 30 minutes. She was adorable. 

Completed all my dental work and had a clean bill of dental health two cleanings in a row! 

Attended DC’s Around the World Embassy Day event, always fun

Attended Star Wars night at a local library, where I got to participate in a short demo/lesson on how to fence with a lightsaber!

Attended 50th Anniversary Celebration of Apollo 11 / landing on the moon (dude they projected the rocket on the Washington Monument and it looked so cool)

Returned to the NY Ren Faire and upgraded my ren faire garb

Celebrated at THREE friends’ weddings and got to catch up with old friends I hadn’t seen in awhile

Ate ice cream at the Ben & Jerry’s Factory in Vermont

Went to NYCC for the third year in a row. Got to wear 2 costumes this year: a 1920s flapper interpretation of an occamy and my Endor!Leia costume (repeat of 2017). Learned the True Pain of sewing. Created feather shawl for my occamy costume. Learned the True Pain of crafting.

Celebrated one year anniversary with hubbie down where we got married: visited the museum we got married in and actually got a chance to enjoy the exhibits, went to our favorite brunch place down there, got to check out Fleet Week and tour an aircraft carrier and uh... I think it was a missile cruiser? 

Went up to PSU for a women’s hockey game for sister’s birthday (made embarrassing HAPPY BIRTHDAY sign for the cameras); also it was an absolutely wonderful fall drive on the way up there

Got to see The Rise of Skywalker in IMAX at the Smithsonian Air & Space Center with the awesome @allatariel! (thank goodness we had each other to get through that movie lol) also got to reuse my Endor!Leia costume. I did my own braids for the first time ever! (usually my talented sister does them) They looked like braids done by a n00b, but I didn’t care because they were passable and I did them myself and that was a Big Thing for Perfectionist Me (to not just... say screw it and undo it and just. give up. but to just let them be as is)

Worked hard at therapy and self care

Got a Sleep Number bed and holy shit let me tell you. i can actually sleep now.

OH! I almost forgot!!! Started playing Assassin’s Creed! I’ve only ever really played the LEGO Star Wars and Harry Potter video games so like. This was big for me. 

Writing

Finally finished Learning Curve. TBH I was a bit shocked that this was in fact the only fic I published in 2019. What a travesty.

However! I have been writing

@allatariel & I sat down, overanalyzed You’ve Got Mail, and drafted up the outline for my in-universe AU, something I’ve been dreaming of starting for years. Have about 4300 words so far.

Just under the wire, I did manage to start my NatGeo AU, which I’ve been dreaming of since my honeymoon in Nov 2018

Started editing/revising my original young adult fantasy novel

Poked a little at my epic fantasy pirate travel novel idea

Books

I read exactly one book, Among the Red Stars, which I enjoyed. It’s about women fighter pilots in Russia in WW2. Inspired by real people.

Music

Saw Panic at the Disco! in concert. I went along with my sister. Not like a huge fan, but they put on a pretty fun show!

Saw Waitress on Broadway!! OH MY GOD. And Sara Bareilles was starring in it. Amazing. I freaking love her music (”How does she know / what a heart sounds like?” gahhh). She was so good, and the show was so good. I literally cried all the way through it just because I was so happy to be there, but also because of the content. Man.

Saw Sara Bareilles again, in concert, in Philly. I love her so much.

Television

Finished Critical Role Campaign 1! Oh man, what a ride. Gosh, I love that show. I really need to catch up in C2 now. I’ve started it but I’m only on episode 26 or 27.

I’m not sure whether I finished The Clone Wars in 2018 or 2019. I think it was early 2019. This show was amazing and this was the character development that Anakin Skywalker needed. I love Ahsoka Tano. I cannot wait for the last season.  

Finished Rebels!!! AGAIN, what a ride!!! I still love Ahsoka Tano. I also love Hera Syndulla and Sabine Wren. Sabine’s Darksaber arc was fantastic.

The Mandalorian OMG BABY YODA!!! Yes, I have succumbed to the adorableness of Baby Yoda. Most adorable SW character forever. But also just an enjoyable story in general. This, this is how you craft a story. still NOT over the darksaber omg. 

The Good Place is continuing to be good. Not as crazy about season 4, but I’m so glad they decided to limit the seasons.

Got my sister to watch Rebels!! And then even a few episodes of The Clone Wars!!! Mwahaha >) 

Finally got around to watching The Great British Bake Off, what a sweet show!

OMG I ALMOST FORGOT Anne With an E!!! Gosh what a wonderful wholesome delightful show. No I haven’t watched S3 yet because I am Lawful Good to a fault and just patiently waiting for it to come on Netflix

Film

So, I woefully neglected to mention The Aeronauts in this post about my favorite movies in the 2010s and that was a Mistake. Because I really enjoyed this one

But otherwise probably check out that list. Because I don’t go to the movies that often, actually, and anything I really loved from 2019 is most definitely listed there.

Did I meet my 2019 Goals?

Writing: Fandom

Finish Learning Curve YES

...and How to Lose a Spy in 10 Days Uh, no, not so much

Begin and complete the in-canon universe You’ve Got Mail AU YES, it is begun but no it is not complete

Try to knock out a few other projects on my 30+ SW ideas Umm, I did start / poke at a few things in addition to the YGM and NatGeo AUs, but nothing really “knocked out”

Try my hand at creating more visual fan works (like moodboards/photosets, step 1, learn proper terminology) ahahahah, no. 

Writing: Original

Query more agents for my completed original novel YIKES, No. But I wasn’t anticipating that I’d decide to heavily edit/revise my manuscript.

Actually get around to deciding which idea I want to work on next and work on it Yeah, sure, I decided. How nice of past!Liz to make this goal so reachable as “deciding” lol

Reading

Be more supportive in helping my friend run Book Club so that it can actually meet more regularly HA, oops. Book Club died, but kind of in favor of being able to start a second D&D campaign. At least that’s the trade off I’m looking at. I had some OCD-related glasses issues this year that inhibited reading a lot.

Try to read at least one book for myself outside of Book Club lol WELL the one book I read this year was not part of Book Club sooo

Goals for 2020

Writing

I’m not going to make this a completion goal, but instead...

...I’d like to just focus on creating a regular writing schedule/habit. Whatever the project, I just want to make sure I carve out significant time each week just to write. I don’t want to set a specific goal like “x hours a week” for now, but I want to make sure that I am writing each week.

To achieve that (because what are goals without maps):

If the words don’t immediately jump onto the page, then I’m going to try outlining or summarizing. I’m going to let go of overthinking how sentences are phrased, and just pretend I’m describing the story idea to a friend.

That blank page is staring at me and I’m just going to fill it with words no matter what I might think of them!

And I’m going to let everything else expand from there. And see how that works.

Edit my original manuscript

Query more agents re: original manuscript

Look into the idea of perhaps forming or joining a writer’s group for original writing oh gosh that is so scary

Other

Get back into reading

Develop a routine for working out

Eat healthier

Continue focusing on therapy goals

Get around to watching: Black Sails, Mad Max: Fury Road, Arrival

Get better at responding to things in general

Tagging: @allatariel, @magalis, @mythologicalmango, @skitzofreak, @threadsketchier, @brynnmclean, @ruby-red-inky-blue, @siachti and anyone else who sees this and wants to do it!

Happy New Year y’all!

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Retrograde (Pieces of the People We Love, Part 2.)

Description: Not many people had the chance to see a vault or to mean anything in the world of Pandora. Will a hardly built relationship in the loneliness of the desert have the potential to change anything in the world of anarchy and chaos - or will the friends try to murder each other?

A/N: One time, my friend asked me if I would like to drink Dr. Bob or classic Coke when she was making an analogy for a random movie. So Dr. Bob is sort of a long running jokw when comparing a bad movie.

Warnings: A lot of guns, violence, reader is a tough badass - not a vault hunter tho. They’re badass and don’t give a fuck. And Scooter is a dumb bitch, as always. All Psychos and Fanatics are various Vine references - oh, what luck that reader can understand them since she is friends with Bandits.

Word count: 3.6K

Tagging: @notaliteraltoad​, @nemodoren​

Series master list:  H E R E

You were looking straight into the man's face for what seemed to be infinity, it was almost half an hour, while your entwined fingers supported your resting chin. You sat there like that for the past hour while Scooterboy was eating like crazy. He was sure hungry like a wolf.

That was pretty acceptable and reasonable, as far as you could judge - he was pronounced DEAD several years ago. The worst part was that the whole Pandora probably mourned for the best-known, and basically only, mechanic in the business. And now, he was just looking at Pintley and ate almost everything from his plate, looking like a hamster. Scooter literally stuffed his faces with homemade fried Skag bacon and Pintley's bread - definitely one of the best combinations in the entirety of Pandora.

"Are you done with the food?" - A mumbled cold as ice filled the room when Scooter finally finished the fourth plate of food and his last can of the Dr. Bob cola. The drink was sure as hell not healthy and barely nutritious, but it was the only soda Pintley had in Hell's Cauldron's pub.

"Now, you're going to explain to me how the hell are you alive and why, for the fuck's sake, have you respawned here." - The rhythm of your words was slow, your tongue rolled every syllable on its top - as if Scooter had some brain damage. Each of you was staring at the mechanic with hidden curiosity; this was a miracle, to say the least. Was he inside the database the whole time? If he wasn't there, could it be that the systems had some hard time figuring where should it respawn him? It didn't matter how you approached the problem - any of the solutions was making sense to you.

"Ye man, I'm done for now. Thanks for payin' for me, anyway. I don't have any cash on me since..." - Scooter zoned out for a second, watching a small spot next to your head. He was doing that quite a lot throughout his eat-all-you-can episode. His eyes fixed on a precise point somewhere inside the room. It was unnerving.

Without wanting, your eyebrows had risen on their own after a minute of complete silence. You've counted every second of Scooter spacing out before deciding to drag him out of the trance. Slowly, you rose both your hands and clapped. The metallic one could clap pretty loud, so it made Scooterboy freak out, looking around with genuine fear on his face. You've given him another ten seconds to get it all together before you leaned a bit closer, still staring at him without any clear emotion on your face.

Scooter, at first, was staring back at you. Then, he chuckled and leaned his back into the chair. - "How can I know, man? I'm only Scooter, I do cars. Ye, I could repair you a network or stations when ya would like me to, but nobody except those Hyperion robots doesn't know how does New-U work. Can I have another Dr. Bob? I'm really thirsty." - Scooterboy asked you politely, raising the empty can to your eye-level. Oh, he was negotiating, that was what he was doing. He wasn't going to tell you anything without another can of the naughty mysterious cola, right? Well, if this was the case...

Slowly, you closed your eyelids so much that they became two small lines, thinking about murdering Scooterboy just for the fun of it; it wouldn't be that bad, since he would respawn at the station again. It would be maybe morally incorrect, but who were you to care about such bullshit? Being the responsible adult you pretended to be, you managed to overcome your sour feelings against Scooter and calmed down, leaning your back into the chair as well.

"Listen up, young man. You'll tell me everything you remember from the last time you were alive and I, as a little show-off of my gratitude, will buy you another cheap and disgusting cola. Are we on the same page?" - Another few seconds passed until Scooter nodded in agreement before you stretched your arm to Pintley; the old man basically tore the money out of your palm, making you shoot a furrow in his direction. With the speed of literal lighting, he fetched another red can of the soda; everyone was eager to hear Scooter's tale so they could piece the story together on their own.

That didn't mean you would completely wipe the thoughts regarding Scooterboy's sudden and unexpected death in your head. For a reason, when you managed to wrap yourself in some rather unpleasant bullshit, murder scenarios were your usual go-to tactic to calm down once more. Like most things on Pandora, this tendency couldn't be simply explained or treated by walking straight to a therapist's office. If you'd believe what Blindy told you here and there, another psycho named Jay had a small psychologist office on his own - but let's be serious, what good could a therapy by a psycho do? Your situation wasn't that bad for now; until you'd randomly go on a rampage, you weren't planning on booking an appointment.

The staring contest was going on for a few seconds, yet when neither of you cut the staring off, your normal arm slowly rose another two dollars, as you kept on watching Scooter intensely. Anticipation was in the air as the mechanic leaned closer to Pintley, catching the soda between his fingers. After that, he just gave you an innocent gaze. - "I blew up." - Scooter said simply, shrugging his shoulders. That made Billy, who was sitting two tables away from you, laugh out loud.

"BITCH DISGUSTING!" - Rayray yelled and every single one of you, including Scooter, looked at the bandit boy. Scooter was the only person in the room who certainly didn't know what Rayray just told him; given Blindy gasped for air, it couldn't be nice. "Dude, there's no need to be this harsh. Calm your tits and apologize!" - You yelled in Scooter's defense and so did Billy.

Not that you were a master psycho-to-normal translator, yet you could at least roughly understand what Rayray just said. Each of you had your mouth opened as you stared at the bandit boy. You could rarely hear him say something so outrageously accusing. What he said was so damn rude; he was accusing Scooter of lying just like that.

"There's no need to be so fuckin' aggressive, you deadbrain! You don't know if he's lying or not! Say that you're sorry. Do you even realize that enough people already think that we're nothin' but stupid idiots?!" - Billy said in a firm voice and stared Rayray down, almost smacking him like a bitch. Rayray and Billy had a father-son relationship which could simply be described as ridiculous. Yet, since they both lived in the same bandit colony, somebody had to lead Rayray to behave as well as he could.

“I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'VE DONE THIS.” - Rayray said in a low voice with his head hung low. Everyone shook their heads and looked at Rayray with disappointment just before shifting their looks back on Scooterboy. Each one of you was wondering about the story Scooter had to tell; as you looked over to him and observed the face his face was looking, he surely wasn't done with the story just yet.

“There was a group of weird people travelin' with my friends and one day they came to me and ask “Hey, Scoot, ya willin' to make us a rocket? Need to go to Helios ASAP.” and I was like “Yea”. So I and my pal Janey built them a rocket, but there was a small mechanical problem and my hand was stuck in the rocket... And it needed to blow up, so they could continue their journey to reach Helios, alrite? And it took me to hell and back, man, I tell ya.” - Scooter smiled a bit at that thought. - “I remember it blowin' up. Me bein' on it. And now I'm sitting here with new friends, sippin' some good old Dr. Bob. How is Helios hangin'?”

The silence that had suddenly surrounded you all was uncomfortable, to say the least. Quickly, you glanced over Pintley to look out of the window. Until that day, you could still pinpoint the exact location where Helios was hovering in the sky. Never in those long years since it had blown up, you'd look in the sky and think "Man, it's strange to not see an ugly-ass space station there". But, somehow, that was precisely what you've been thinking about at that moment. Obviously, if Scooter was dead for the past seven years, his first instinct wouldn't be to look up and search for the most hideous view you've ever had encountered. But not that you realized he wasn't fucking with any of you, it felt strange not to see the station there. As if it was your personal guilt that some jackasses had blown it up.

It was you, again, who decided to speak the first. With a gulp, you've leaned forward to lean your elbows to your thighs, trying to say it in the most natural way possible. - “Scooter... Helios was blown up by a group of pretty weird guys.” - It was nothing but a mere whisper. - “Five years or so ago.”

For a moment, Scooter didn't seem to be connecting the information. It didn't click until a few minutes later. - “Wait, what? And... Sanctuary?” - Scooter leaned even deeper into his chair with his gaze directed into the oblivion. Why did you have to be the one who had to tell the deadman all the news? Why wasn't anyone else speaking? But as you looked over to the men around, their gazes only answered "Well, you've started with it, don't be a pussy now and finish what you were saying". Did Scooter even know that Handsome Jack was dead now? That there were rumors about discovering about four or five new vaults on the sister planets of Pandora? Did he know that the Children of the Vault had risen all over Pandora? And if he didn't know... How much were you supposed to tell him if you didn't want him to have a hysterical seizure?

“Okay, we might have to trace what you know, get your timeline matching ours and we will have to tell you... So many new things that you may shit your pants.” - You mumbled and opened another Dr. Bob. It took quite some time before you managed to somehow connect your memories with his. It was almost ten p.m. when you ended. Occasionally, you managed to line-up his memories until the moment when the original Sanctuary was attacked by the flower-army or who (don't act so surprised - anything was pretty much possible on Pandora). As the tales said, the town was now blown up into millions of tiny rocks and the VHs had constructed a literal spaceship (which was Scooter's sister Ellie). Again, you couldn't tell how much of it was true. You couldn't be quite sure that anything on the planet Pandora you heard had actually happened.

But mostly, it all seemed to true - that Helios has fallen, that Sanctuary was teleported by the legendary siren Lilith, known as the Firehawk, or that Handsome Jack was posting a job wanted posts for Vault Hunters wanted just so he could easily kill them off. Carefully, you told Scooter about the chaos that started when Sanctuary was blown up and the vault key had been lost in the desert. Back then, it was hard to notice the entire Pandora changing since you've been living in a literal desert, but you could tell that something wasn't adding up. When you told him about the siren-powered Calypso twins, you couldn't leave out their cringy streaming career.

You told him all about how the COV had recruited most of the bandit and psycho clans all over Wastelands, starting their big suicidal cult somewhere in an old base, growing bigger with each month. They weren't a serious threat, serious pain in the pain at their best, but they could be quite something to deal with at times. Of course, were now including all the women that were insane enough to join them, which was among the first questions Scooter was wondering about. Now, there was a small amount of free-psycho-bandit-whatever clans remaining in the deserts and wastelands. Most of the bandits joined the COV; the places they've been living in before were now empty, lifeless and Pandora was a bit less fun without the random encounters.

“So, you aren't in contact with Lilith? Or Moxxi? Or Ellie? Or basically anyone?” - The man asked suddenly after being quiet for a moment. You weren't thinking of yourself as the most empathetic person in the whole of the desert; you've told Scooter all about the reality you've been living in for the past couple of years. For you, it was natural to take it all as the matter of fact - but you couldn't forget about Scooter being a man-out-of-time. It could take him some time to understand the rules of today's Pandora and you had to be patient with him for now. Until you'd get rid of him and get back to your old life.

The question about the VHs and Crimson raiders made you surprised. How could you be in contact with them when you never met them before? - “I don't even know them personally, dude. Hey... You okay, Scooterboy?” - The can with the nasty cola was laying on the table as if Scooter didn't even want it anymore. His face went two shades paler and the grin on his face had faded away. - “You look like you're about to puke.”

Now, he lowered his head and played with his fingers, fidgeting them around. Yeah. It was tough to get accustomed to. So many things had changed since his days on Pandora and even though, it all remained almost the same. It must've been feeling pretty surreal. - “Nah, man. I'm not about to puke, don't ya worry. It's just too much to take in. That's all. I'll be alrite.” - He answered. You could tell something's off. He was an exploding ball of energy and happiness just two hours ago; now, you managed to destroy his confidence, positivity, and to murder his good mood. Wow. Good job, you.

“I'm sorry if you think that your friends abandoned you here..." - At that point, Pintley looked on the back of your head. Was he dreaming or were you being... Nice to someone? What happened to you? Were you trying to calm Scooter down? Did you finally grow as a person? Oh, but then the rest came, destroying the nice-person aura you had for a bit. "But that's true, man. They left you here because they thought you were dead-dead... And that's kinda fair if you ask me. I both know it, you know it, Rayray knows it. We all do. Keep it together, yeah? You were fucking dead for the past couple of years. There are so many new things to get accustomed to. But if you'll chicken out of that, you're a pussy." - The tone of your voice was empty and emotionless.

Pintley, for a minute, saw some kind of humanity shining through the aura of I-don't-give-a-diddly-damn you've been keeping ever since he met you. The truth was - you simply didn't care enough to "do emotions", as you called it. You weren't good at it at all, so you didn't bother with trying. Maybe that's was why you were living on your own in the middle of a desert. That was a pretty plausible explanation.

There were some people you'd call friends, yeah. You even liked to joke around with them. You could do sarcasm, irony, and arse-biting jokes that were sometimes really offensive. But every other emotion was a literal mystery to you. You couldn't quite show them off even if your heart was warm and full of love. And it was even worse when somebody pissed you off. As soon as you turned on the killing-machine mode, as Pintley called it, you didn't care about being as subtle as possible. Nothing in this world couldn't stop you from shooting someone, killing them, or simply throwing them through the window? Oh, how many times did you have to pay Pintley a new window? He wouldn't be able to count it even if he'd like to.

Yet, even though your dead stare and emotionless expression, the man smiled and patted your shoulder. With a furrow, you watched Scooter slowly backing his hand back to his lap, since you seemed to be thinking about biting the said arm off. "At least I respawned here, where ya people are actually pretty friendly under playin' that "I'm a badass and cold" facade." - At that, Pintley grinned; since you didn't know what you should respond, you just nodded and made a weird sound. You didn't know what to answer - you never met anyone that would see you as a... Friendly person? Ugh. Sure, pretty friendly persons live in a cabin hidden far, far away from any signs of society and they have actually fun when they hunt Skags. Right... That was a description of your normal local weirdo, not a description of a damn nice person. As you finished your internal monologue, you snickered under your breath, shaking your head as you unconsciously sat in a defensive position; your knee was thrown over your knee, your arms were covering your torso.

"And where you're planning to sleep, Scooterboy?" - Pintley asked. Since he was done with all the cleaning, he lightened up a cigarette, leaning his shoulder into a near doorframe. - "You know. Just wondering."

Scooter seemed to realize it at the same time you did; where will the poor guy sleep? Pintley had a guest room, sure, but you could already tell something fishy was going on since Pintley himself was the one calling the shots. You knew a spot or two in the forest where Scooter could make a small campsite; you've been sleeping there when the hunt took too long. - "I hadn't thought of somethin' like that. Wow. I am a homeless person, isn't that quite funny?" - Scooter said, clearly being more saddened than before. Damn, were you and Pintley trying to outdo each other in bringing Scooter's mood lower than before? Clearly, you had more points for the entire Calypso mascarade, but this was an impressive move, to say the least.

Of all people inside the room, it was Blindy who answered. - "Y'all know we can't take him to Ham's Creek. Guys would eat Scooter alive, Cowboy." - Blindy shrugged his shoulders and you just nodded. It was clear Blindy wasn't joking around - every time you had to visit Ham's Creed, you had goosebumps all over your body. Even if you didn't think of yourself as an emphatic person, you surely thought you're courageous. Damn, your day-to-day job was to hunt Skags down. But Ham's Creek? That was a whole another universe of horror and things that were unseen until you stepped inside the psycho territory. They would grill him like a pig and you didn't second-guess that they would even manage to find an apple which would they stuff into Scooter's mouth. That wasn't a nice image.

Pintley, the traitor, sighed too. - "I would give him a room if Jocelyn wasn't over right now." - Pintley said in a low voice, which was merely indicating how deeply in love your friend was. That mothersucker. Oh, you knew her. You precisely knew who Jocelyn was. With a confused face, you've been the one to answer Pintley's confession. "Listen, man, love's nice and all... But... Just theoretically... If you have your girlfriend over, and you have sex with her... Why don't you guys sleep in one bed? As far as I know, it's kinda considered to be normal." - It was a frown on your face that made Pintley realize you didn't buy his bullshit at all.

The old man only reddened before mumbling an answer. - "Jocelyn and I aren't ready for such a commitment to sleep in one bed." - At that, you had enough. The next sentence kind of... Slipped out of your mouth before you could stop it. "Pintley, do you realize that Jocelyn is a figurine? You can literally put her anywhere else and let Scooter have a sleepover at your place before we figure out what to do with him." - The tone of your voice was so incredulous that your voice just slipped an octave higher. For a moment, you've been looking at each other; but it didn't make Pintley say "okay".

It was at that second when you realized what was going on. No, Pintley and Blindy didn't agree on this beforehand, yet both of them were sure it wasn't to be them who would have the boy in their home that night. The truth was that you had an ultra-old couch at your place that was just... There. - "Ah, you sons of a bitch." Right after that, you stood and expected Scooter to do the same; as he remained sitting there, you just snapped your fingers in front of his face, which freaked him out. As he was picking himself up from the ground, you walked through the pub while putting your significant hat back on.

"Looks like you'll be at my place, boy. Get up, Blindy will drive us home.” - And right before you left, you've shown Pintley your middle finger, making the man chuckle under his breath.

[madelinecoffee]

Is This Seat Taken? Ch. 3

Summary: Rucas Senior Year AU. Riley’s a loner who doesn’t really have any friends, besides her twin brother Josh but she keeps to herself in school. Something happened the year before where she missed the 2nd half of the year but she’s back for senior year and Lucas’ heart is ready. He’s had a crush on her since he moved to Philly in 3rd grade and he’s convinced this is the year they’ll move up from the class-friends label and into something more. This is not a completely fluffy fic, I’m going to be diving into some deep shit so if that’s not your cup of tea please leave *this does  include some serious depression if it goes beyond that I will trigger warn it*

A/N: Hi friends! New chapter! Let me know your thoughts on it all! Things are moving fast, because as I told Feli I cannot write slow-burn. This is leading into something big going down so prepare yourselves.  Tagging:  @iwantyoutochooseme @celluloiddreams @imaginarybird Words: 1879 Previous: Ch. 1 Ch. 2

Lucas stares at her shocked for a moment before he can do anything other than breathe but once it settles in that Riley is asking him on a date all he can do is frantically nod as he figures out how to use his voice.  She’s smiling softly at him as he nods and when he does get his voice to work it cracks as he manages a “Yes”, before he clears his throat and tries again

“I would love to go on a date with you Riley.” Riley beams up at him they decide on 11 am at Blue Max’s they’re walking out of school before it dawns on Lucas that they never decided on transportation or if they were going to meet there. This entire time Riley’s been back he’s never seen her drive, Josh always does. But he thinks he remembers her having a white Toyota, but all he’s seen was Josh driving and it wasn’t the Toyota.

“Do you want me to pick you up for our date?” Lucas can’t help but smile as he says date but his nervousness shows through as he rubs his neck

Riley looks at him for a moment and he sees panic flash through her before she shoves it down.

“I would love it if you would pick me up” Josh is giving her a look from the car and Maya is giving Lucas his own look as well, so before Lucas has time to fully react she hugs him tight and jogs away to Josh

 When Lucas gets over to the car Maya’s giving him a weird look, “What’s wrong with your face?”

“What?”

“Your face, you look like someone injected you with happy serum or something I don’t know. But you’re smiling way to much”

“Oh well Riley just asked me out” He states with glee as he starts up the car

“WHAT!” Maya shrieks as he pulls out of the parking lot

--

It’s the next day and Topanga is helping Riley get ready for her date by offering her support

“You’ve liked Lucas forever, and he was always such a nice boy, I’m sure it will go well” Topanga smiles warmly at her daughter while he daughter gives her a look

“Mom I’m sure it will, Lucas has always been the nicest and from what Josh, Maya and Zay say he likes me a lot.  I’m not worried about it being a nice time. I just, it’s our first date. And I want it to be perfect.”

Topanga nods, “You know what Joanne says about building things up to be perfect in your head sweetie.”

Riley nods, “And that’s the other thing! I have told him about any of that! Or The Thing. And I don’t think I’m ready to fully but I want him to know some and god Mom now I’m stressed out! Maybe I should just cancel!” Riley makes a move to grab her phone, but Topanga grabs her instead

With a fierce look in her eye Topanga talks to her daughter, “Riley this could really be the start of something beautiful but that means you have to give it a chance. You don’t have to tell him about The Thing, but you could tell him about some things that are a result of The Thing or some things that caused it. But whatever you decide is up to.” Before Riley can respond the doorbell rings, Riley jumps up smooths out her dress and runs down the stairs, but when she opens her door it’s only her Uncles.

“Uncle Eric! Uncle Jack! What are you doing here?” Riley deflates

Both of her Uncles smile, “We’re here to meet Lover-Boy” Eric states proudly

“We’re also here to offer our favorite niece support as she goes on her first date.” Jack stated as he nudged his husband while Eric nodded,

“Yeah that too”

Before Riley could say anymore the doorbell rang again, “That had better not be Aunt Morgan and Aunt Morgan.” She stated as he gave them a look. But standing on the other side of the door was Lucas holding a bouquet of flowers wearing blue jeans, his boots, and the flannel she had complimented him on before. He completely lost his breath as she opened the door. She had a bun on top of her head but most of her hair was down, and she was wearing a purple dress that flared above her knees out with a pair of converse.

He handed her the flowers while he tried to close his jaw, “You look wow”

Riley giggled prettily at him, “Thank you, and come in for a second so I can put these in water”

Lucas nodded as he stepped in not expecting the three Matthews men to be staring him down.

Jack started, “If you hurt that little bean so help us god-“

“We will end you and hide your body so no one can find it-“ Eric continued

“And make your disappearance look like an accident, but that won’t be a problem will it Lucas.” Cory finished

“No sirs” Lucas answered confidently

Riley shot daggers at her family as she walked back in, “You guys stop.”

Lucas chuckled as he grabbed her hand, “Don’t worry they’re only looking out for you. You ready to go?”

Riley nodded, ”Yeah all my stuffs in my pockets! Look this dress has pockets!” As if to prove her point she put her hand that wasn’t holding his in her pocket and smiled at him as he beamed down at her.

--

Riley was having a wonderful time, he had opened the door to his car for her and helped her in, he bought her coffee even though she argued, and he was holding her hand occasionally running his thumb over her knuckles. They had been talking about everything and nothing for the past couple of hours and Riley couldn’t stop smiling. The coffee shop was small but cozy, there weren’t too many people around and the noise wasn’t overwhelming.

They had talked about some important topics, like how Pluto was still a planet and how they both loved animals but Riley wanted to fill Lucas in on some things. She drew at the same courage she used when she asked him out,

“Lucas there’s something I want to tell you, it’s kind of serious” Lucas gestured for her to continue, “So I really like you and I really want whatever this is to continue-“

“Me too” Lucas butted in for reassurance

“But there’s a few things you should know about me before that. Um for one I hate large crowds and loud noises.” Lucas nodded he knew things just from watching her,

“And um. I’m really really really insecure, I don’t mean to be and my family tells me there’s no reason to be but I often feel out of place and inadequate.”

“Oh Riley” Lucas comforted squeezing her hand but letting her continue

“That’s why I don’t always eat with you guys, it’s overwhelming. And why I’m so glad you’re my automatic partner because the idea of choosing someone freaks me out. Though I’d choose you anytime, over anyone.”

“Me too, thanks for telling me Riley. But I had already kinda figured out the first two.”

Riley gave him a curious look, “How?”

Lucas turned bashful, “Well you’ve been like that since we were kids, and uh I watched you a lot. Not in like a creepy way but in like a---I liked you way. And as for you being insecure, it’s okay. If I have to remind you everyday how perfect you are, I will”

The two smiled at each other with their hands on the table as Lucas spoke again,

“Since we’re sharing secrets, um I kind of have a temper. When I was younger pre-moving here I had some serious anger stuff and um at the start of high school it came back and I went to therapy for it. Which has helped a lot, and I box on the sides now to work off some of the anger. But I just wanted you to know.”

“Thanks for telling me that Lucas, and if you ever need to talk about it. You know I’m your girl right?”

Lucas nodded, “I do” There was a pause where Lucas debated with himself if he was really going to do it but before he could fully process it, it was out of his mouth. “I know it’s our first date and everything, but would you be my girl all the time?”

Riley cocked her head to the side, “Like your-your?”

“Girlfriend” Lucas finished smiling

“YES!” Riley shouted as she launched herself across the table to hug him

--

On Monday none of their friends were surprised that the two were officially dating after only one date. They’d been pinning a lot. But the girls of their high school did not seem to like the idea, and Riley noticed. All sorts of girls had been trying to date Lucas since middle school and nothing, Riley Matthews goes on one date with him and they end up dating?

Riley brought it up with the group as they ate lunch that Monday, “All these girls won’t stop giving me the death glare and it’s giving me the heebie jeebies.”

Maya nodded, ���Yeah I heard a bunch of them talking in the bathroom about it, I told them to mind their own damn business. You two make each other happy, it’s that simple.” Riley gave her a grateful smile

Lucas piped in before Riley could respond, “No one’s said anything, mostly because I doubt they would say anything to you and we’re always together. But I can feel their daggers” Lunch continued on as normal and as did their school days.

Riley and Lucas would go on dates and outings on Saturdays; sometimes they’d go with the group sometimes Riley would ditch Lucas just to hang out with Maya. But after a few weeks things settled down in their personal lives and things seemed good.

--

It was early October now and school had really picked up, it seemed to the gang that their teachers had all gotten together and assigned projects and papers. Lucas knew it was stressing Riley out because she had made a few comments on it, and he could tell she was drawing into herself. But mostly she seemed fine, she came to school went to class they held hands and sometimes they kissed at her locker. She seemed mostly fine if not a little more tense than usual that are why it surprised Lucas when she wasn’t at school on Friday.

She had texted him, “Hey Blue” which was her pet-name for him considering how much blue he wore, “I won’t be at school today, I’m not feeling right. Could you take good notes for me and get my work?” Complete with three purple hearts

Lucas went over on Friday after school with Josh to drop it off.  Her door sign said she was taking a nap so he and Josh went to play video games downstairs as he waited for his girlfriend to wake up. They were having a good time until they heard a crash from upstairs.  

[linhkcao]

The moment I realize I can move on

As someone who is not naturally articulate and thus take the comfort (sometimes misery) of holding back thoughts and emotions, I’ve forced myself to record this time, no matter how broken it may end up sounding. What a transitive moment I’m in now, a mental milestone. A deep, great sadness of realization as it may be, I know it’ll help me reach the next level of freedom and self-acceptance. After a chain of exhausting days, I’ve allowed myself to be “officially sick” today. I’m gonna slow down. Thinking about what I’m thinking. Before throwing myself back into the madness of life.

I’m a wallflower to the core. The one that always watch, but never get involved, they say. Or am I? There are many moments where I was absolutely expressive and cheerful, like I’m living the time of my life. And I share that positive vibe to everyone I interact with. But there is no expected pattern of how and when that more attractive version of me show up. Recent recall was a couple weeks ago when “she” came to the rescue at an interview and secured me a job offer, I walked out of the building with an impression of “what the heck just happened? Was that me?!”. The thrilled joy, though, is short-lived. As I quickly realize that the worse-in-nearly-all-aspects version now will have to figure out how to meet high expectations from both myself and other people, built by “her”. It’s like “BOOM!!! Surprise biatch~ just saved you clumsy nerd from an awkward situation, congratulations we made it and now YOU take care of the rest! buh byeee~” every time.

Among expectations built, many I’m still fighting for, and for some I realized it’s time to give up for good. And you guess right, the tone is set up for the latter. The record of yesterday events in sequence, though not and end-to-end story, is the straw that broke the camel’s back. Here it goes...

I woke up with an annoying headache from a shortage of sleep as usual, rushed to the Turtle lake and took the school bus to Binh Duong, the place I would only travel to when I have to. It was kinda my favorite moment of a day though. I would always end up at the most front seat on the the right. Settled down. Eyes half-closed. The squeezing feeling all over my head and in the back of my eyes starts to soften thanks to the blend of gentle air-con wind and early morning sunlight, a cleanliness of smell, and my chill love song playlist aka the sleeping therapy. It is opposed to travelling by bike or taxi, now I actually hope the distance was longer! Normally that could be enough extra energy charged for me to survive a normal day at school. But yesterday was no ordinary day. I had no lectures but instead a group project in which we were struggling with an unfamiliar software. I was in charge of running the software while the other two did the writings. Just the night before I felt like a loser and almost gave up, but as the next morning, sitting down with the team, we gradually figured out everything. I felt so relieved. Perhaps it was not difficult after all. Maybe I was just freaked out with something I’m not used to and assume it's unsolvable.

Midday time, accompanied by the brutal sun, is when my tension headache gets at its worse. I skipped lunch and walked some heavy steps to the first-aid office, only to find it was being locked. Right, the lady must've been having lunch. Lying down at the feather chair in front, I pretended to get absorbed into my Iphone like a normal youngster nowadays instead of staring into nowhere and letting out my fatigue like a depressed person. Crazy how I still cared about what other people think even when it felt like my body was about to give out! And there she came from afar, the first aid staff lady; I turned my head and gave her the “I was waiting for you” smile (most honest smile ever), and she returned the “You’ll be okay now kiddo” smile. The first aid office is where I often come to take a nap after a test, or anytime I’m about the “shut down”. I call it VGU 5 star hotel.

The nap didn’t go well as I hoped, still I had to get up for the mini concert rehearsal, and apparently there are other people like me who are waiting to get their battery charged too (there are only 2 beds). The rehearsal was smooth, was no stress, and eventually better than the actual performance (what a shock). But then came the freaking rain. I blamed it for my bad mood, for my guitarist’s bike’s breakdown. And as we was just starting to come back to Saigon, his bike even had a flat tire. This is it, I thought, can’t get any worse!

I appreciate that my friend was very patient handling the situation, he was searching for mobile repairers and called each one of them. So I was resolved not to show any impatience although I was burning inside, the unfinished project still awaits me at home and seriously I was so desperate for some real sleep so I could make it to class for the presentation. I told him that I’d wait on the pavement to relieve the weight so he could go fixe his bike then come back afterwards. 30 minutes passed by... It was dark and remote as hell, and the last open restaurant which I sat nearby may close very soon. I made up my mind that I couldn't take a taxi or grab bike alone with such a far distance at this time of the day, so my only hope was that the guitarist friend woud have no further trouble and come back pick me up soon. My bestie even asked for the location details, in case I get kidnapped she could know how to report to the police lmao. And my professor was very worrying; she asked why I didn’t just simply stay in the dorm overnight...

Then it strike me how much I wanted to go back to Saigon, nearly at all costs. Even just for another 4-hour sleep then going to Binh Duong again, even when it’s super late and rainy. Am I crazy? I didn't care about rationality. I just wanted to go back.

But the actual turning point goes back to the concert, held at BD Conference & Exhibition center. It was prepared with dedication, passion, hard work, and joy, by tons of members from 2 biggest clubs in VGU. I’m thankful to be a small link in the whole chain.

The vocal quality as well as songs selection this year was really amazing. I sang “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran with anh Nguyen, the guitarist mentioned above. And although the performance was far from being perfect, I heard from several friends that they enjoyed it “beautiful singing”, “u still lit”, “it made me happy”, they even recorded and sent me... And trust me, I’m only glad because I could make some of the audiences happy, it was the only consolation at the end of the day. I personally and honestly didn’t understand those compliments, nor did I feel anything about the song, about the fact that I was a part of this concert. I came onto the stage, the extreme light beamed at us and all I could see are black-colored audiences. I didn’t see their faces, I didn’t have a clue how they were feeling. Were they bored or satisfied? It’s not about what the answer is, it’s about me having absolutely no belief in my performance. It was all acting, no emotions. Why can I say so, because I know what is like to “have belief” while singing. it’s when you just sing your hearts out and don’t give a damn on how the audience look like because you know they’re feeling with you, you don’t need to make sure by checking their facial expression and guessing if they’re satisfied or not.

I always talk to myself, no matter what bad things happen during the day, if at the end of the day when I lie down and about to sleep, I feel good, then it means I’ve had a good day. It was the same expectation towards the concert. I was hoping it could be a happy, memorable ending to my 4 boring years at VGU.

I know for sure there are many students like me at VGU who don’t feel any connection to the school nor other people at the campus. I’m not alone. But instead of being cool about it like many could do (you just simple seek another environment where you fit in), I was freak out. I was longing for the sense of belonging to this university, after I made a tough choice to leave home, leaving a mess behind me and move forward, I was an excited fresh who wanted VGU to be a happy, inspiring part of my youth. At the same time, I was all by myself. My brother was at the time struggling with his own marriage. Vi Anh is in Hanoi and we only chatted once in a while. My is in Japan, for years we nearly had no contact and I thought at some point I must let her go... Doug and Nhi went to BYU and I thought I might lose them as well... Other close friends were also away. I was lonely, i was desperate, i was ashamed.

For the record, there was an only truly happy and long lasting moment relating to VGU. It was the trip to Binh Lap with anh Quan, anh Huy, and Thien Tam. If you guys ever come across this note, I wanna thank you. It was the best thing happened to me during my VGU years.

This fourth year has been mind-blowing to me. I skipped the first semester to stay in Saigon for a part time job. And in the second semester I travel between 2 places. And suddenly I’m not a wallflower here in Saigon. For the first time in so many years, I don’t just watch, I am actively involved. For the first time in many years, the better version I talked about in the beginning and I, become one. I plan out my life, learn new things by my choice, meet new people and, many of them I make great friends, we exchange information and experiences, we help each other growth professionally and as a person. And above all things, My has decided to come back to Vietnam, and I realized after all the lost years, we still get each other's back. We reunited the gang along with Vi Anh and it was full of laughter. Many other friends have also recontacted and so it happened that we still exist in each other's life.

I love Saigon, for that it has been sweet and healing to me. I feel a sense of belonging, of living not just surviving. I guess the only reason for me to insist not staying overnight in Binh Duong was that after so many troubles, the fact that I could be back to the city for just a few hours sleeping, makes me feel safe, like “I’m at home at last”.

Of course, I didn’t get over VGU or Binh Duong easily. I wept out like a little girl but knew it was a “letting go” kind of crying. You know when you wish so much that things would work out between you and that person, it takes a while for you to accept that you’re not meant to be and you can move on and still live happily. Last night was the end to all my unrealistic hope. I felt absolutely nothing. No fun, no connection with the people, the atmosphere there. As soon as I finished the performance, I sneaked out into a dark conference room, playing with my phone while waiting for my friend to drive me back to Saigon.

I’m happy for those young and fun people I saw yesterday who has found themselves there, congrats to you, you will be like a close friend of mine who left VGU and his friends with tears of farewell. It’s also nice for me to be assured that people like me could still build beautiful memories elsewhere and be happy. In the end, we’re the only negative force of ourselves, no one can force us to do things we don’t want to.

[limitededitionsanderssidesblog]

Speech Impediment - Chapter 2

Sympathetic Deceit Week- Day 7: famILY

Ships: Logicality, still pining-Prinxiety, platonic DLAMP  

Summary: A little over two months have passed since Deceit has arrived at college and he still has no idea how to handle the people he calls friends. In fact he doesn’t even know how to handle his classes as he’s constantly pulled out of the shadows.

AO3 - Here

Chapter 1 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6

“Now midterms are coming up in a couple weeks so you’ll all have a project due the first week of November. Each of you will write a short story on any topic of your choosing from the provided prompt list. A minimum of ten thousand words is required-” A chorus of annoyed groans followed, but were quickly talked over, “-your fault for picking the advanced class. You have one month!”

The campus bell then rang, signaling the end of third hour, Dexter’s last class for the day. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays Dexter had morning classes, and on Tuesdays and Thursdays he had afternoon classes. Today was a Thursday.

Most every student had submitted to receiving their new project, grabbed the prompt sheet, and left. Dexter and a few other were still shocked in their seats. Moving on autopilot, the snake-loving man stood from his seat and grabbed the paper before walking out. He didn't pay much attention to where his feet was taking him, but just walked in a daze of shock and dread. Eventually he wound back up in his room, Patton already there knitting a Halloween themed scarf, and collapsed face first on his mattress, letting out a loud groan.

“Heya there kiddo, you alright?” Patton questioned from his side of the room, putting down his nearly completed garment.

“Everything is wonderful!” Dexter cried.

“Oh? What happened?” The fatherly student asked and got up from his bed, sitting down by Dexter to comfort him.

“My amazing creative writing professor isn’t having us write a ten thousand word story in just a month!” He exclaimed and curled around his pillow like a danger noodle. “The best part is that I don’t have to choose from a list of prompts!” 

“Well that can’t be too bad, right? At least you have options.” Patton pointed out, being optimistic. Dexter only continued to pout and stare at his knees, still intent on seeing this as a bad thing. The art student sighed and picked up the prompt paper, reading over the different ideas.

“There’s ‘a hundred years after the apocalypse’.” He offered.

“Original and totally my style.” Dexter whined.

“How about ‘collapse of the technological age’?”

“I love dystopias.”

“’Summer vacation in a foreign land’?”

“I know everything about other countries.”

This went on for a while more as Patton listed off all of his options, but none of the sat well with him; they just weren’t his style. Dexter lived for horror and mystery, and none of these prompts gave him what he needed to do his thing. What was the point anyways? When Dexter became an author he’d write whatever he felt like, why was his teacher limiting him? 

Dexter’s complaining, and Patton’s attempts at helping, were then interrupted before they could drag on as a familiar knocking at the door told them that the rest of the gang was there. Let in by Patton, Logan, Roman, and Virgil came bustling in, rambunctious as usual.

“Hello Patton, Dexter.” Logan greeted, giving his boyfriend a kiss on the nose and Dexter a nod. The moping writer only groaned in response, his face pushed into a pillow of sorrow, and also cotton.

“Whoa, what’s up with Dee?” Virge asked, walking in last. The closest any of them had ever gotten to calling him by his preferred nickname of Deceit, was Virgil calling him Dee.

“He’s having a bit of creative block for his knew writing project.” The fatherly student replied, closing the door and sitting on his bean bag chair. Roman, being the flamboyant weirdo he is, ran and jumped on Dexter’s bed, making the troubled boy fly up in the air due to his light, and rather small, body. 

“Well why don’t you write about a quest full of magic and homosexual princes? That’s what I’d do.” He proposed, shooting Virgil a seductive grin at the last part. Basically everyone in the room rolled their eyes. 

Dexter had only been in this group for about two months and it was already obvious to him that Roman was in love with Virgil, but the smol emo bean never took him seriously. The rest of them wanted to pull their hair out watching these two do circles around each other.

“That’s what you’d do, Princey. I doubt Dee would be interested in that stuff.” Virgil brushed him off with a sarcastic wave of his hand before turning his attention back to Dexter. “What is it you like to write? You’ve never told us.”

No, not good, he’s not ready to tell them about what he writes, he never likes telling anyone anymore. All his teachers were concerned that he was a sociopath, and his writing only gave his parents another reason to send him to therapy. Everyone just thinks it’s creepy and disgusting, Dexter doesn’t want them to think that too.

“It’s uh... totally not normal and definitely should cause concern.” Shit. Dexter paled and started sweating. The others looked at him unconvinced and suspicious.

“Dude, for someone who’s always lying, you suck at it.” Virgil smirked, clearly amused by his shit ability to purposefully lie.

“Indeed, if you fear our judgement you needn’t worry.” Logan said with the most feeling he could muster, which wasn’t much on the outside but Dexter could tell he was trying. From one socially inept person to another, he knew if was difficult for Logan to properly convey his emotions, so it meant a lot.

“Yeah,” Patton agreed, moving seats to plant himself in Logan’s lap, “No matter what were famILY, we won’t shoot you down, only bring you up.”

“It’s just that, others never labeled me as a freak because of my writing so-”

Again, only Dexter was taken by surprise when Patton suddenly jumped from his boyfriend’s lap to pull him into another one of his signature papa bear hugs.

“They did?! Who are they?! Do I need to passive aggresively lecture someone disapprovingly? Because I swear, if anybody hurts one of my sons I will-”

“Whoa whoa, it’s fine, it wasn’t just the grown-ups from my youth. It’s in the future now.” Dexter told him, removing himself fro the death grip hug.

“But Dex, if it’s holding you back it’s gotta be serious.” Roman spoke up from the end of his bed.

“Quite right, adults are the most influential part of our upbringing. If the ones from your childhood were discouraging then it would be beneficial for you to talk it out in order to receive positive words from close companions.” Logan agreed, offering nerdy, helpful advice.

“Can’t let that shit build up, trust me.” Virge affirmed.

Dexter sighed and pinched his glabella together. He knew that they only wanted to help and meant well, but he had heard this speech a thousand times before. His parents wanted him to open up and be himself, but regretted it when he did; his teacher did the same but still didn’t trust him; even his therapist thought he was a hazard. He- he just didn’t want these guys to see him differently.

“Look, how about we don’t go to a cafe and get a drink. Some tea may not help.” He urged instead, taking his leave and walking out of the dorm. If he was going to talk to them, he had to have a cup of Earl Grey first.

The others looked at each other unsure, but had no choice but to follow after him. They all got the sense that this wasn’t going to be easy. By the time all four of them exited the room as well Dexter had already reached the staircase and started descending the steps. The air around them was tense and unfavorable, so Patton, being the little helper he was, launched into a one man conversation about his day, to which Roman soon joined in with the occasional comment from Virgil and Logan. However, Dexter stayed quiet and stayed off to the side of the group as they all walked, excluding himself. Logan monitored his behavior, but said nothing.

Dexter hadn’t told the others much about him in these short few months, not wanting to scare them away. He’s never been good at making friends so he’s gotten used to not caring; but this is the first time Dexter’s ever cared so much about opinion, he didn’t want to lose this circle because of something he can’t help like his personality. That’s why he’s stayed quiet all along as to his interest, to keep them from running, but now he was afraid that his silence was driving them away faster.

The moment Dexter had been dreading arrived as soon as the coffee shop arrived in sight. A quaint little shop just three blocks from the campus, named Sugar & Spice. Taking a seat at a corner booth, Dexter was sat in between Roman and Virgil, with Logan and Patton across from them.

“Hey Dex, can we switch seats?” Roman asked shyly, eyeballing Virge.

“Why? you know Dee feels safer when he’s in an enclosed area, and I feel safer when I have an escape route.” Virgil argued, still not getting the hint that was clearly being thrown in his face. 

“I’m not fine with it.” Dexter said quietly and slid under the table, allowing Roman to move over before sliding back up. next to the window. Ro gave Virge a small smile, but the purple haired musician just looked away. Although, he may be hallucinating, but Dexter could have sworn that he saw a small blush rise on his cheeks before he covered them with a hand. A shit eating grin manifested on Dexter’s face and he almost forgot why he was nervous, until the waitress came to take their orders and reminded him why they were there.

A black coffee for Logan, pumpkin spice latte for Patton, green tea latte for Virgil, a white chocolate mocha with caramel for Roman, and an Earl Grey for Dexter. After their order was done and taken, the young waitress gathered their drink menus and left them to the inevitable awkward silence that Dexter had been loathing.

He didn’t speak right away, still not mentally prepared for the reveal. The rest didn’t speak either, giving him the time he needed to gather his bearings. Several agonizing minutes passed in silence as Dexter twiddled his thumbs and debated whether he should bail or not. There didn’t seem to be anyone behind them in the next booth, he could quickly hop over and make a dash for the exit, run to the forest, dig a hole, and live there the rest of his life with his stories. No. He had to do this, they promised they wouldn’t judge.

Kicking himself to take the initiative, Dexter reached into his Letterman bag and pulled out a worn down notebook and handed it to Logan. “Don’t turn to page sixteen.” He instructed. The physics major gave him a wary look, but opened the book to the specified page, and began to read the words Dexter had poured his soul into. Once he had finished he looked at Dexter with a look of understanding, not a hint of disgust or fear on his face. Without a word he handed it to Patton for him to read. The emotions were plain on his face, fear, but not at him and rather at the story, and a keen interest at the narrative before him. When he was done he handed the story to Virgil, and so on until the little notebook made its way back to its owner. By that time their drinks had been completed and served to them. Dexter took a long sip of his tea before addressing the words he’d written in ink.

“I’ve never had a fascination with mystery and horror, but all it’s ever given me wasn’t fear from my parents, and concern from my teachers.” Dexter then proceeded to tell them about the numerous therapists he’d been sent to, the trips to the counselor's office, and the hushed voices behind his back. He told them about how he was labeled as a problem child because of his stories. By the end of his monologue he was shaking in his seat, and tears threaten to spill from his eyes. “I wasn’t called toxic by everyone around me, and I wanted you guys to think the same.”

“Oh, Dexter, we would never call you anything of the sort.” Patton said kindly, reaching his hand out to hold Dexter’s shaking one.

“Yes, while your story is unique, there is a specific genre for it. Many great authors have been praised for their works in horror and mystery.” Logan concurred. “It would be ill-minded of us to take dislike to you because of your interests.”

“Yeah man, besides, I like the same genre, well not horror because it triggers my anxiety, but I love murder mystery.” Virgil joined in, giving him a nudge on the shoulder.

Dexter looked between all of their smiling faces, still a bit cautious. “You are scared of me?” He asked melancholy. 

“Son, you’re part of a family that know what it feels like to be different, you’re a Sanders now, and that means that you’re loved unconditionally here.” Patton said squeezing his hand comfortingly.

“Yeah little brother-”

“Please push it.”

“-there’s no shaming here. And if it’ll help, we’ll all stay up with you tonight to help you think of an idea.” Roman said, wrapping his arm around Dexter’s smaller shoulders.

“I think that’s excessive Roman-”

“Silence science slut!”

“You’d all really not help me?” Dee asked surprised.

“Of course!” Patton grinned, “as I said, we’re famILY.”

.

.

Hoped y’all enjoyed the two-shot story! This is the end, unless you want me to continue, but thank you for all the support you’ve given. Also, sorry the taglist for some reason didn’t work for everyone.

Taglist:

@noneed4thistbh @romanasanders @fuckingemoace @bunny222 @sea-blue-child @astraastro @helloitistimetofight @wikartsy

[cafephan]

meeting dan and phil - the full experience (7/5/18)

firstly, i’ll put this under a read more bc it could be a long old post

before we get into things i’d just like to thank @phangirlingforphan for being my rock throughout the entire day and coping with my many meltdowns, but here we go:

so i won’t bore you with the pre-build up (though if you follow me on twitter you’ll have seen it lmao), i’ll cut to when we arrive at the venue - dead on 2:30 which is the earliest we should’ve arrived, and the queue is already huge, so we were near the back, namely because i couldn’t get my makeup right and made us late leaving my friend’s flat – fifteen minutes than I ideally wanted to leave, because i wanted to be early, that’s a thing that happens a lot but anyway

we queue for a good ten minutes – during which time marianne is stood in the window just staring at us all and we’re just staring back like what’s good are you going to tell us why we’re not allowed in yet or

eventually we start being allowed in and all get wristbands (the attendant saw my wristband I bought when I saw the vamps last month and was like “ah I love the vamps I saw them the other day in birmingham!” which actually did wonders for my nerves for a while which were already in overdrive despite lily’s many many attempts to calm me down

so then we go down about eight flights of stairs and get directed into a big room (you saw it on dan and phil’s insta stories, the room with the dancefloor) and the tables that are set out are all already filled (because we were at the back of the queue) and the sweets that were set out were all on this one table that had about nine people around it and I’m 99% sure they stole them all which was sad bc sweets would’ve actually really helped me, but alas they were all gone so I was like fine whatever and we went and stood near the back of the room and I was tweeting like mad trying to calm myself down and distract myself because not only was it the hottest fucking day of the year I was also about to meet my absolute favourite people, the people that were, for a long time, the only source of happiness I had, and I was freaking the fuck out, and my face was practically glowing bc I was so warm, and the bottle of cooling spray I bought that morning was doing fucking nothing to help me and the room itself was boiling bc it had no windows.

about fifteen minutes passed and marianne came back around the screen and explained that dan and phil were about two minutes away, and we’d need to queue along the side of the dancefloor and we were allowed a selfie (“that don’t worry, dan will take with his long arms”) and one thing for them to sign, and basically to just have fun with it all – which, I was still freaking the fuck out and could barely stand up (but of course there were no free chairs so I was just stood there on my shaky legs) so literally couldn’t just have fun. 

and then they arrived.

everyone lost their shit, obviously (i filmed their entrance on my twitter, which I’m going to be promoting a fuckton in this post bc it’s where all my content is, and I’m ridiculously active on there and you should follow me @bloggerhowell) and they said something that I couldn’t hear because a) I was at the very back of the room b) my heart was pounding in my ears c) I was still overwhelmingly warm and was so uncomfortable I couldn’t focus on anything and then they disappear behind the screen and 90% of people swarm to queue.

I took advantage of the now empty chairs and went to sit down before I collapsed – whether it’d be from my own anxiety or the heat, I didn’t know, still don’t – and was just dousing myself in this cooling spray and fanning myself but nothing was working, meanwhile lily is holding our place at the back of the queue and keeps looking over to check I’m okay – which I’m not, I could feel my anxiety getting worse with every passing second, but I didn’t want to ruin her experience so waved it off as being generally fine.

Eventually I accept that my face just isn’t going to calm down and my first and only pic with dan and phil I’ll ever have will have me being a glowing tomato face and my self-hatred will intensify every fucking time I look at it, but I joined the queue again nonetheless.

Whilst we were queueing I kept spraying the cooling spray which is doing fucking nothing, and I kept tweeting to distract myself, when it comes to a point where I feel something I haven’t felt in a good few weeks, and immediately my mind starts spiralling and running away with itself because on top of everything else, I can feel myself beginning to have a fucking panic attack. So I immediately start going through all the exercises I learned at therapy (none of which work, but they’re all I had) and start rationalising with myself about the fight and flight response and all that shit, and then I remind myself which two people are now only like twenty or so steps away from me. So I took another step forward and firmly plant my feet on the ground and do more breathing exercises and rationalise with myself that it’ll all be worth it when I get around that screen, despite my glowing tomato face and the fact I’m sweating like a pig (which happens normally, just so much worse in hot weather), and somehow that helps a little. I took another deep breath and tried to focus on something else that’s present in the moment, to ground me.

So I start watching people coming back around the screen that have just met dan and phil, and every single person is fucking bawling their eyes out, which makes me significantly worse. I’ve always known that if I were ever lucky enough to have the chance to meet them, I’d break down in front of them because you know, it’s them (along with many reasons I won’t go into) and somehow seeing everyone else crying makes me like yeah okay so it’s definitely going to happen great

At this point the guy who works at city hall walks down the line and tells us to get our cameras and what we want them to sign out ready for when we meet them, so I get out my tweet collage from the plastic wallet it was in and cling to it for dear life, and it crinkles under my grip which makes me angrier at myself because I wanted to print it out on card but didn’t have time to go and buy any because I’ve been swarmed with uni work and just had no time. So by this point, I’m still borderline panic attack, now hating myself more than usual, and still warm beyond belief.

Lily keeps asking me if I’m okay, which evidently I’m not, but I don’t want to ruin her experience so I nod, until one time I just say “no I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack.”

It’s at this exact second that I hear actual dan howell laugh, because I’m that close to the screen now.

I take a deep breath and grip my paper tighter (then swear under my breath at myself for it) and pin my fringe back – since I don’t need another reason to make myself warmer – and start tweeting again, and this time it’s more of a distraction than it has been before.

I tell lily again that I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack, she tells me I won’t and I’ll surprise myself with how well I’ll do, and that if she can meet them once before and be absolutely fine, then I will be too. I don’t believe her, considering lily is infinitely cooler and more put-together than I am in every way, but I nod and focus on my breathing (and tweeting again)

Now it’s just one group of friends in front of us in the queue, and we’ve been hearing their conversation the whole time, and they’re all so excited, and I watch as one by one they all come back around the other side bawling their eyes out, which makes me take another deep breath and tell myself that now in about a minute, that’ll be me

Then the last person in front of us turns the corner.

Now we’re standing beside Marianne who makes awkward small talk with us:

“are you ready?”

(lily replies for the both of us because I’m genuinely too panicked to speak) “yeah, I think so, it’s just a bit surreal”

“you’ll be fine, don’t worry!”

Lily asks if it’s okay for us to film each other’s experiences and Marianne says yeah of course, and then she turns to me and says “are there any bags you want me to hold for you?”

So I hand her my backpack and tatinof tote bag, and she says “ah, someone was here before then?” and I laugh awkwardly, because my throat has closed up entirely – I can hear dan and phil talking literally three steps away from me – and then Marianne takes a step to the left, nods and then looks back to me

“ready?” she asks, and I don’t even respond, because I’m not, literally not in the slightest. I didn’t have time to rehearse what I wanted to say to dan and phil, I only have a tiny piece of paper for them to sign, I still look like a glowing tomato (despite lily telling me I looked fine) and I just could never prepare for it

“off you go” she holds out her hand to gesture me to go, and so I do.

And there are dan and phil, already smiling at me.

Phil immediately stretches out his arms and says “hello, nice to see you!” and hugs me. By this time, I’ve cracked. I’ve started crying though tears haven’t fell yet, but my voice has gone.

Whilst this is happening, dan leans over to look at me and smiles too – which, as I’m watching the video back right now, he’s got his sweater paws which is making me more emotional – and I hug phil for like two seconds – during which time dan is smiling so widely, I don’t know if he could already sense how nervous and close to crying I was – and then I move in to hug him, and he says “hi there, thank you for coming to see us” and I take a step back genuinely just to stare at them for a second because holy fuck dan and phil have their sole attention on me right now

Phil says “do you want us to sign anything?” to which I say “yes please” – my voice has cracked, keep in mind, there’s no mistaking they know I’m at breaking point tears-wise, but they don’t comment on it, and phil says “of course!”

It’s then that I hand them the tweet collage, and they spend a second or so looking at it before moving in to sign it, during which time I explain:

“It’s basically a tweet collage saying how I was never going to meet you and then I am”

And phil glances at me and smiles – whilst dan is signing it – and says “aw, well look where you are now!” which, honest to god, might be the most meaningful thing I’ve ever heard. It’s obviously me overthinking and making connections that aren’t there because obviously he’s talking about being at the meet and greet when I said I never would, but without going into detail (this is about dnp not me) I’ve gone through a lot of shit in life and have been forced to overcome some really difficult stuff, and to hear those words come from one of the two people that were basically the only constant I had during all of those times just meant the absolute fucking world to me and I really am in such a different place to where I was when I first found them, a better place than I was, and it just meant so much to me

** insert a genuine half an hour break where I just had to go and cry after writing that last paragraph sorry if the tone is different from here on out **

And dan sings “things come true!” whilst phil signs his name

Then I say “can I possibly get a message or… something, I don’t know what, whatever you feel” and phil nods and smiles then sets to writing something at the bottom of the page, and whilst he’s doing that dan says “do you want me to take the selfie for us?” to which I nod and phil takes a step to the side so I can fit in between them

And I say “can you, please?”

And dan looks down at me (keep in mind, I never have people looking down at me, in 95% of situations I’m the tallest person there), smiles and says “of course I can!”

Then – I only just heard this now despite it being my seventy seventh (approximate) time watching the video – dan says “alrighty” in that way he does and flips the camera around

I say “can we take loads in burst, so one might be decent?”

And dan laughs and says “oh yeah, in case I don’t blink in all of them” and phil says “let’s burst it up!”

Then I ask for a hand-holding picture and they’re like yeah of course and so I take their hands – which, by the way, are huge and warm and so soft, like unbelievably soft – then we get into position and dan snaps ten pictures in the space of like three seconds, during which he tries to wink but it happens too fast and in the end I just have about three half-squish-half-derp pictures of dan, and phil goes from smiling to a kind of duckface then smiles again, and I just progressively move my head further to the left – and consequently closer to dan’s shoulder which wasn’t the intention, I just could see out of my peripheral vision they were changing their expressions but I didn’t know what to do so I just moved my head more to the side apparently

And dan giggles – yes, giggles, cutest fucking sound I swear – and holds my phone down (this is on my screen record video, by the way, so I have some amazing shots of like dan’s chin) and he says “awesome! Well thank you so much for watching our videos, we really appreciate it, and phil says “yeah, thank you!” and dan hands me my phone back

At which point I tell myself, Kirsten you’re never going to get this opportunity again, go in for another motherfucking bear hug, which I do

Which is when dan lets out a soft little ‘oof’ sound and then chuckles and says “aw”, and hugs me back a lot tighter than the first time

And whilst I’m moving over to hug phil, dan says “well I hope you have a lovely time at the show tonight”

Phil also hugs me back a lot tighter than the first time, and dan again is smiling whilst I’m hugging phil

And then I say “thank you so much, seriously” and dan says “thank you!”

And as I’m turning to walk away – v v v regrettably, may I add – I’m already cursing myself for not saying any of the things I wanted to say, needed to say to them because I know I’ll never get another chance, lily shouts “Kirsten you need to take my phone!” because I need to film her meeting them so I dash over to get it and dan and phil both laugh and phil says “oh do you need to take her phone?” and then I dash back over to the other side, waving to them as I do, and say “bye then!” more cheerfully then I expected I’d be able to muster, and they smile for a second before turning their attention onto lily and I spend the next minute stood in front of them filming for her

Then we have to unfortunately leave them and get our wristbands cut off and get given our VIP tote bags and the security guard hands me my bags back, and the guy struggles to cut off my wristband because I have the vamps wristband and the standard ii wristband on already and nearly cuts me as he eventually gets it off, and then lily and I walk over to one of the back tables and she starts excitedly texting and calling people and tweeting her pictures and I just… break down.

I’d held it in – somehow – in front of them with the exception of my voice cracking, for all that time, and then was when I let it all out. Lily stopped her phonecall to comfort me, but I was inconsolable for a good two minutes at least, during which time I’d tweeted ‘well… that happened’ and people that knew I was meeting them were tweeting me back asking how it went and asking to see the pictures and the few friends I have were dming me demanding to know how it went and it was all just too much for me so I just kind of collapsed and rested my head on my arms and just let myself weep however much I wanted, I was letting out my anger at the weather, the anxiety that thankfully wasn’t at panic attack level anymore, and the overwhelming sadness that I’d fucked it all up for myself, the one chance I’ll ever have to meet them, and I didn’t fucking say anything or do anything, my mind just went blank and I was too busy putting all my self-will into not crying that I couldn’t make myself remember anything I’d told myself I needed to say

So I tweeted the pictures, people were being really really sweet and kind (thank you if you were one of these people, if you weren’t but you liked my post about it on here then thank you too), but I just couldn’t let myself believe any of it, and I couldn’t bring myself to respond to people’s questions of how it went yet, so I got the tweet collage back out and just wanted to look at their signatures, and then I noticed what phil had written in the bottom corner:

smile :) 

now I don’t know if it was because I put him on the spot to think of something to write or if it’s because he knew how obviously nervous and close to crying I was so left me a message for the future, probably the former but hopefully the latter, it still brought on a fresh wave of tears that I knew I couldn’t have held back if I tried

so once I’d cried over that, I tweeted a picture of it and immediately people started being really sweet once again and people started quote tweeting it saying how soft it was – which it is, obviously – but it will always have that deeper meaning for me, just like aw, well look where you are now! will (hence it being my twitter bio – that @ name again is bloggerhowell *clicks tongue*)

a favourable mention of a tweet reply I got to the collage was someone saying ‘lol you can tell dan wrote it bc of the scrawly writing’ when it was actually phil, he was just resting the paper on my arms whilst he wrote and I was just shaking like a leaf, which I still find p funny

then I realised that I still had my letter, nobody had come around to collect it, so I wiped my eyes (and grimaced when I saw how much of my eyeshadow came off as I did, I didn’t dare to even think of the state of my makeup) and walked up to one of the staff and asked her, and she said she’d go and check, and walked off

so naturally I took the time to take a couple of steps to the left so I could see dan and phil again, and I smiled when I saw the huge smile on the fan they were meeting at that point, deep in conversation, but there was that inevitable chest pang that that could have been me if I hadn’t frozen in place and forgotten how to fucking speak

the staff member came back and said “I can take it for you?” so I handed it to her and walked back over to the table – I don’t know where she took my letter, I didn’t think to look, so she literally could’ve thrown it away right there and then for all I know, even though the letter does have a lot of stuff in I wanted to say but knew I wouldn’t, so if they do someday read it I’ll have fucked up a little less – and took a deep breath and started replying to tweets to pass the time until everyone else met them

when the last person came out from meeting them, everyone kind of stopped talking, and everyone just turned their attention to the screen, and we all waited for dan and phil to step out, which they eventually did (and I filmed it and tweeted it, you know the drill by now) and then they waved at us, said they’d see us later and then left, at which point the staff members immediately started walking over and trying to usher us out but I was like hahahaha no mate not until my ugly ass handwriting is in the guestbook

so I fought my way to the guestbook and picked up the only remaining free pen and waited for someone to give me some room to write my own message – I ended up having to wait nearly three minutes until someone finished writing their essay long message so we could turn the page – and then wrote the most basic thing, but my hand was still shaking and I was still ridiculously warm – then we left and went to get a drink because I needed to rehydrate after crying out everything I had and then we waited until the show

which, by the way, if anyone wants me to do a post about the show (with or without spoilers, but if there are spoilers I’ll make sure to make it really clear don’t worry) then let me know, because I’d be more than happy to!

but yeah that about concludes my meeting with dan and phil, I do regret parts of it massively, I completely choked up and didn’t get to say anything I wanted to, I didn’t get full length individual pictures like I wanted, but it could also have gone a lot lot worse

at the end of the day, for all those two guys have done for me, I owe them my life, and meeting them was wholly indescribable. Should I ever have the opportunity, which I don’t think I ever will, I’ll do it again in a heartbeat, just hopefully as a more put-together, less-panicky and anxious person, less constantly on the brink of tears.

I didn’t get to thank them for the past eight years, I didn’t get to thank them for all they’ve done and continue to do for me, but I got to hug (twice) the people that have kept me going when nothing and nobody else could, and all in all that’s enough.  

[olivia-crains]

Sharp Objects

Episodes: Vanish, Dirt, Fix, Ripe

Content below may be triggering for some, please read with discretion.

Examining tiny hairs became my daily hobby. I would always attempt to remove the tiny white bulb from each eyebrow or eyelash I pulled.

I had two groups of friends in middle school, one set who did nothing but make fun of me and really appealed to my critic voice, and the other group who were kind and loving and adored me. I am sure you can guess which group I hung out with more often. Christ, you’d think I would have learned by now. These girls would write notes to me in class threatening to kill my cat, they would go into gruesome detail about how they would do it and where they would bury him. My boy was only about a year old and he was my world, this ‘friend’ befriended me because I was the new kid at this school and had a photo of my cat in the front pocket of my binder. She used the very thing I loved so much to hurt me. This would grow to be a frequent occurrence with all the toxic individuals who have entered my life. The picking began that year, while taking our end of grade tests, the note passing session fell around the same time as well. I hate seeming like I was an easy target and like a pitiful little baby, I had no problem sticking up for myself and becoming defensive, but it is as if they and everyone else knew I would take their insults and words to heart and lash out at myself in the process, it is as if no one took me seriously. My vulnerability has always been used against me though it is my favorite attribute that I embody. So, following the threatening cat letter, I told my Mom and she in turn told my teacher, though I told her not to. The girls were obviously scolded and were told to apologize to me and they did and I forgave them and all was dandy! Me teacher took a liking to me after that happened, she stopped me in the hallway and said to me one afternoon “You know that saying, sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me? Well, words are worse.” I have never forgotten that, and thinking back on that now, I would much rather someone shatter my skull than harm my heart with words; the most powerful weapon of all.

My palm is still pulsating from my grip on my favorite pair of scissors. I used to use them to cut out photos of the cast of LOST and carefully pin them on my wall, they are children’s scissors, a rather hideous blue color, I once was detained at the Colorado airport for having them in my backpack. These scissors have traveled with me for well over a decade now, always handy, for whatever need may arise.

Is there anything more vulnerable and heartbreaking than hearing an adult refer to their Mom as ‘Mama’? It is the southern staple, it is what I call my own Mama, a spark of my inner child latching on to this tiny, yet, oh so powerful word.

Everything is a sharp object, a person who self harms spends time scanning rooms. When you vow to not keep the ‘normal’ tools in your home, you sometimes have to get creative when you are desperate. Using the end of a tube of lotion, safety pins, knives, caps from various household items (toothpaste, prescription bottles, etc), the blades of your blender screaming your name, end of a lightbulb, end of an iPhone charger, etc. Anything can work as long as you press hard enough. The thoughts and perceptions are the ammunition; the cutting itself is the therapy.

I chipped my front tooth on a glass bottle a few months ago, it is sharp and jagged, but barely noticeable. As an anxious habit, I tend to rub my thumb nail against the sharp part of the tooth and drag my thumb up and down repeatedly throughout the day, my cuticles are worn and bruised, my nail has white lines, jagged and uneven all over. I wish I picked up skills as quickly as I pick up gross habits. I always must be doing something, whether it is biting my nails, digging my car key into my stomach while socializing, cutting words like ‘fat’ and ‘never’ on the inside of my thighs, purging until my throat is stinging and raw, picking and picking, punishing me for being me.

I am always particularly drawn to destructive characters, not their behaviors or habits, but their strength. It takes a brave person to keep living when everything inside of them is frothing with hate. The damage is outside of ourselves, though we take it out on ourselves, no matter the issue, no matter the severity, we take it out on ourselves. Amy Adams perfectly conveys what it is like to have destructive thoughts and painful memories rumbling inside of your skull at all times, instead of taking it out on other people, which tends to be the more common practice, she takes it out on herself. Why is it that I can care for such characters so deeply but cannot care about myself? I think it is because my issues are weak comparatively, that is what the message on the jumbotron flashing across my insides reads.

I recently turned in my apartment key to my former leasing agent, my first thought when I left the building was about that key; a sense of mourning trailing behind me. It is dull and smells of nickel, but I have always preferred it due to its specific ridges. I trace my finger across the grooves, it is ritualistic in nature, that’s always how it begins, I feel the object, allow guilt over past issues/what people think of me take hold of me, and carve. It is an instant euphoria, it’s hard to describe it, it feels like my guilt or my self-loathing is silenced for the night. My thoughts quiet, bleeding through, I always promise this will be the last time, only issue is my guilt and self-loathing are like rabbits; rapidly procreating.

Camille hides her indulgences like a child, her stunted adolescence is showcased through the candy bars and tiny alcohol bottles she continues to sneak into her Mother’s home. Addicts and individuals who partake in harmful activities tend to minimize everything and/or make excuses for themselves. Camille buys small bottles of vodka instead of a full handle. Camille softens experiences, her rape, cutting, alcoholism, she is never the victim, ever, she thinks she deserves all of this. Placing the sewing needles against the pad of a finger, no blood, no incision, just a press. It isn’t real if the dose of the destruction is untraceable.

Camille is so real, so dark, familiar. Unlovable. The only way to stop ones destructive habit(s) is to graduate to a new one. For Camille, that is alcohol. There is almost a self destructive meter that each person has. For me, alcoholism and sex addiction are the 10s, I made a promise to myself years ago that I will never get there, ever. I tend to teeter on the line at a 5/6. 1-Pulling (trichotillomania) 2- weak cuts, no depth 3-anorexia 4-heavier cutting 5-bulimia 6-bulimia and cutting. I know this makes no sense and seems appalling, but these are examples of my own personal excuses. “Well, ill never make it to a ten, well I never use razors, well ill never be a sex addict because no one will have sex with me, etc.” I am trying my hardest to level down, the only issue is there is so much darkness I have yet to punish myself for, so many memories living at the forefront, things I will never forget. Our ability to remember everything is our everlasting curse, no prince will ever break it, in a way, our worst memories are what keep our destruction alive. A buffet for the critic living inside of us.

Adora’s words slither. Whispers coated with poison, suffocating all those around her, yet her love and approval feel like antidotes. Camille will never fully heal.

Amma wraps her lollipop around Camille’s waves in her hair, the ultimate childish act. Teens are just so freaking scary, that scene is just deeply troubling and it is tough to see a grown woman sucked into a gaslighting reality. Its all about power dynamics in that toxic town. Camille seems fearful, her tone shifts to defensive, but it never works, not even on her sister who is more than a decade younger than her, people can just sense that she is an adult child. The empath. The watcher. The ultimate reactor.

Camille is timid, but she asserts such dominance when her secret is threatened to be exposed.

There is an acid stain on my porcelain tub, it sits two inches from the drain and features a light orange tint, I remember that specific night that stain was born. Its the spot I always aim for when purging; a home, a landing strip for my innards, you’re not alone here; no one is alone here. I shave sitting down in the shower because I am a weak individual who just prefers to sit or lay at all times, I notice the stain, I stick only one finger in my throat to gag, but stop myself from taking it further than that, it isn’t good, but I have to do something. Usually I will stare in the general direction of the stain and blindly shave while staring at it, my eyes shift to the drain and memories shoot out and I wish to turn the small top off of the drain and cut myself again, I ignore that and continue to shave, if only I had shorter legs.

I bet you’re sensitive, writers are sensitive. You can make people understand.

Camille is a person of senses, she is so easily triggered by her environment. She feeds off of energies; clocking everyone.

There is a moment in Vanish where Camille is driving in Wind Gap, she sees one of the town’s many murals and says quietly, but with a shake of comfort, “Hi Betty.” She later greets the mural outside of the tire store and says with a sarcastic (she finds the funny and its one of so many things I so deeply love about her, her wit is incredibly strong) tone, “What do ya know, Joe?” I have this ritual to ease my anxiety that I have been doing since I was a teenager, whenever I am feeling overwhelmed or like I wish to purge or cut, I say hello to every object in the room I am in. Hello sink, hello rug, hello shampoo, hello conditioner. I have never really given much thought to this little coping mechanism of mine, but Camille saying hello to these little pieces of her town, it made me feel less like a freak.

The yellow innards of the lemons printed on my sheets stared back at me. A perfect set of sheets for the summer, lemons have always made me happy, I tend to give fruits and other inanimate objects personalities, and lemons are just so very kind and nurturing. Mother fruit. As a child, I would constantly take the lemons from my parent’s waters at restaurants and suck on them until my tongue was numb. The blood is traceable, not much, a familiar yet distant sight to behold. The warmth of the blood slowly dripping down my inner thigh landing on one of the many lemons printed on my sheets; silencing its kindness.

There is always a sting of pain hidden beneath the shadow of empathy in the eyes of the damaged. Weighted looks, like magnets, that draw you in.

In the words of the masterful Gillian Flynn,

Camille is a ballerina with a steel spine.

[tuellertrails]

It’s hard to put into words what our first week on trail has been like, but I’ll try.

Tiring. Hot. Cold. Amazing. Beautiful. Adventure. Ouch. Hungry. Thirsty. Dirty. Smelly.

There you have it!

Starting out the PCT was an emotional experience. It was surreal hiking those first few miles, and then it just sinks in “oh right, this is just hiking. And hiking is just walking. And walking is tiring. Wow it’s hot. Wait, how am I already this dirty?” We only made it about .3 miles when we came upon a little campground with some trail angels that we talked to briefly. One of them was an older man with long white silver hair and blue eyes named Legend who apparently is a triple crowner (has hiked the PCT, AT and CDT). He told us to put our hands towards the trail and then grab some air and cup it into a ball in our hands. He said we had grabbed a little piece of magic from the PCT and it is carried in all the hikers who had gone before us and that we were all connected. He told us to hold it up to our hearts to absorb, but being the brilliant nurse that I am, I held it to the right side of my chest instead of the left, so I guess that means the magic went into my rib cage instead. I’m not an expert in PCT magic 🤷🏻‍♀️ so who knows how it will affect me. Magic ribs? Time will tell. He also told us to take another piece of PCT magic and put it in our pocket to give to a friend. I will sell mine to the highest bidder. Authentic PCT magic, hard to come by, Bitcoin will be accepted as a trade.

Hiking has been very physically exhausting for me, more than I expected to be honest. We’re going about 2-2.3 miles per hour at this point, and have done 10-16 miles per day. We wake up between 6-7 AM, pack up our stuff and head out. Generally we eat breakfast at our first break of the day after 3-4 miles, and I’ve found that I need a break about every 3 miles. If we can get to a great spot for lunch, we will generally take at least an hour and sometimes more if it’s in the heat of the day. We try to stop hiking between 5-6 pm, so we can have time to set up camp, make dinner, roll out our feet and sore muscles, and write in our journals before bed. We are very tired every night, but sometimes we don’t sleep very well if it’s windy or very cold. I always take my trusty Benadryl and sleep better with it!

The hardest part for me so far has been the wear and tear on my feet. The biggest mistake I made at the start was not putting inserts in my shoes. My feet have been in a lot of pain and I’ve had to take more breaks to roll them out to continue hiking. No matter how tired I am, I have to roll out my feet at the end of the day or they fee pretty rough the next day. I’ve also been dealing with some blisters and some chafing, so basically everything hurts! Doing miles on miles every single day is a lot of work, and we are sore every day. Other hikers that we’ve met who have done other thru hikes assure us that we will get our trail legs (eventually) but it’s going to take about 3 weeks

Ok, enough complaining!! We have met some amazing people. Landon’s cousin Justin hiked out with us the first day and it was fun to give him a taste of the trail. There was a small group of people that we started with who have been a bit faster than us and are now ahead of us on the trail, but maybe we’ll run into them again!

We met a mother and son duo named Chris and Pat. Pat is a psychologist at a University and counsels students. She was the nicest friendliest little lady and I immediately liked her. Chris, her son, works in film media and is trying to become a landscape photographer. They were both lovely but Pat can't go very fast so I'm not sure we'll see them again, but we're following each other on Instagram now.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time with a small group of hikers, hiking and also hanging out with them in Julian (where we are taking our first zero day, no hiking and only lots of resting, eating and socializing). Half of them are not American which is exciting! Florian is from Germany and is a super interesting guy. He works for Google and has lived in Australia, the UK, and most recently in San Francisco. We talked about the differences between Germany and Europe, some about politics (how crazy American politics are compared to relatively boring German ones), gun control, Mental illness and lack of resources in America, our messed up healthcare system, the largeness of Australian huntsman spiders, and a whole bunch of other things. Lauren is from Canada and loves to quiz you about geography and ask fun questions. Today she asked "which animal most represents the place that you live?" Landon and I debated for a while and decided on a big horn sheep 🐑. She and Florian met on the JMT and are hiking together as friends as they both have significant others. She is always scavenging for everyone’s extra food and someone suggested that her trail name be Trash Panda (people give each other “trail names” on thru hikes, and then that’s how people introduce themselves. We haven’t gotten ours yet but it’s only a matter of time). I don’t think she accepted that trail name though 😂


Another woman from the group is from Germany named Silke who is a bit more shy but still friendly, and man is she fit. She just blazed past us on the trail today. We also gave her a piece of pop tart and some skittles to try, and she hated both, which was very funny to watch her disgusted reaction. She hasn’t built up the junk food tolerance that we have I suppose, it takes years to build and I started very young! Carolina is from the Czech Republic, and has a great sense of humor. I can’t imagine the kind of bravery it takes to go to a foreign country where you know no one and the language spoken isn’t your first language, and taking on a monumental task like hiking the PCT. It’s pretty incredible and I have a lot of respect for all the hikers, but especially the foreign ones. We took a picture yesterday before Carolina had showered and she said “I look so dirty and crazy!” 😂 I ask just about everyone “what does your family think of your coming out to do this?” and the most common answers include “they don’t really get it...” and “They think I’m crazy.”

Otter is a 58 year old guy who was in the airforce for 30 years and has spent the last 5 years of his retirement hiking and traveling. He hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2019. Otter said that he decided to hike the AT initially because he read a story of a guy in his town who hiked it when he was 18. The guy had to ask permission from the board of education in Virginia to graduate high school early in order to hike it, and they told him no, so he quit high school and did it anyways. Otter told us that he read that and it stuck with him, and he made it a goal of his to hike the AT someday. He said it took 35 years, but he always remembered that guy and wanted to do it. Just goes to show that you never know what kind of impact you can have on the people around you! He has been very kind to us and let us come to the Airbnb that he had rented to do laundry and shower when we got into Julian, and we have used the Airbnb as a hangout zone for our whole group yesterday and today, which has been great. After showering and having clean clothes, we almost felt like normal people 😂. In Mt Laguna at mile 42, we showered in a campground bathroom and washed our laundry in the shower like the hiker trash we now are. Real food from a restaurant and a cold drink from a trail angel (people that provide food/drinks/rides to hikers) is also incredible. When you’re living so minimally, the little things are a big deal!

Lastly we have Brandon, who I met on Instagram last year and was also supposed to hike the trail but canceled due to Covid. He ended up getting a permit for this year too and started the day after us (coincidentally he is also a travel nurse). Last night, after hanging out at the Airbnb, We camped behind the Julian Market (they allow PCT hikers to camp there) and Brandon came too. At 5:30 in the morning after just settling back down into his sleeping bag after getting up to pee, he hears a voice say “oh good, you’re up. I really need someone to talk to.” He looks over and sees this strange girl that he doesn’t know (and wasn’t there when we went to bed) who is wrapped up in her sleeping bag. He says “Oh, um..are you ok?” And she says “I have no pants”. And proceeds to tell him that she ripped her hiking shorts and didn’t carry any warm sleeping clothes because they were too heavy. He tells her that she needs to have warm base layers if she is going to continue hiking (and not die) and that she can pick some up at the gear store in town. She tells him that she asked the guy she was hiking with if she could come and cuddle with him and he told her no, so she knocked on some random strangers window at 3 AM and asked for a ride from Mt Laguna to Julian, and the stranger gave her a ride (and luckily didn’t murder her). So that’s how she ended up on that back porch in Julian, possibly staring at Brandon for hours and willing him to wake up to tell him this. Apparently she talked to him for about 45 more minutes and at some point said that she was waiting for her meds to arrive. He said “Maybe you should call your family?” And she said “no way! They’ll freak out” 😬. Landon and I were returning from using the bathroom and we walked right past them, I thought that they knew each other somehow and somehow missed the pleading desperation in Brandon’s eyes to help him in this incredibly awkward 5:30 AM conversation with this random girl. Eventually she ended up going to the pie shop across the street and sitting in there to get warm and charge her phone. Long story short, I really hope that girl is ok, because hiking the PCT is hard enough as it is without having any warm pants. Also, hiking is not a replacement for a support system and therapy. Be safe and get mentally healthy before you hike!!

One last funny story. This morning we were eating at a diner when the waitress came over to take our order. She looked at me hesitantly and said “Um...I’m not sure how to handle this...you have a spider on your hat.” I yelped and threw my hat on the table. She grabbed my hat and took it outside and gently shook it off and de-spidered it for me before bringing it back to me 😥. What a good lady!! Please tell people if they are wearing spiders and help them out. I guess I am just becoming one with nature now.

Anyways, this is long enough, but I just want to say that we’ve had lots of great experiences, seen beautiful scenery, and met awesome people. Even though this is incredibly hard, it’s such a cool adventure and I am loving having a great partner to experience it with me. Hoping my feet are doing better in the next section and that none of my blisters get infected! Our friends helped me shake down my pack today and I was able to get rid of at least a pound in weight. When you carry everything on your back, hips and shoulders, every little ounce makes a difference! Much love to everyone and thanks for the support, it’s been a great first week!

- Joscelyn

P.S. - I’ll post our daily mileage for anyone who is interested

Day 1

Start: Mile 0 Mexican Border

Stop: Mile 11.4

Total: 11.4 miles

Day 2

Start: Mile 11.4

Stop: Mile 26 Boulder Creek Campground

Total: 14.6 miles

Went thru Lake Morena

Day 3

Start: Mile 26 Boulder Creek Campground

Stop: Mile 37.1

Total: 11.1 miles

Elevation gain: about 3k feet 🦶

Day 4

Start: Mile 37.1

Stop: Mile 47.7

Total Mileage: 10.6

Went thru Mt Laguna

Day 5

Start: Mile 47.7

Stop: Mile 63.7

Total: 16 Miles

Day 6

Start: Mile 63.7

Stop: Mile 77

Total: 13.3 Miles

Day 7

Zero Day In Julian

[levi-inthesun]

Summer at Camp Duff

Part 3 (2 of 2)

Where Stella Opens Up

A/N: ONE WORD: THERAPY. These pure humans need THERAPY. Everyone needs therapy, but anyways. I AM SO EXCITED TO HEAR WHAT YOU GUYS THINK OF THIS CHAPTER!!!

Part 3 (1 of 2)

Steve wanted to figure out how you were connected to the upside-down and what events lead to your hip being a Demogorgon snack. So, when the sun started going down and the kids were off playing night games, Steve found you decorating the cabins.

“Hey there Scout,” Steve said awkwardly stuffing his hands in his jean pockets.

“Hiya Steve, what is going on?” You set the staple gun down and brushed your hands off on your shorts.

“Well, I was hoping we could talk, and since the groups are off doing night games together and we have a fantastic view of this sunset,” he said motioning to the view with a nod of his head. He motioned for you to come sit down by him on a log overlooking the lake.

“Okay, Steve what did you want to talk about.” You sat down next to him and nudged him with your arm.

“Well, first of all, you cannot blow me off again like you did last night,” he said pointedly. “Second I know you were involved with the upside-down.”

You stared straight ahead trying to keep yourself rooted, ignoring the internal instinct screaming within you to run away and never look back.

“Now, what you also need to know is that I was also involved. I know earlier I told you that Dustin and I go way back and everything, but by way back I mean last year when the Demogorgon’s attacked. Dustin found a baby one and raised it and then found out it was a Demo-dog, that’s what he nicknamed them since they weren’t fully grown, and I had a bat with nails in it, which is currently in my car because ya never know! Anyways, I also know that you know about Eleven. She’s the reason they went away this last time, she closed the gate that Hawkins lab made her open. It’s crazy but it happened.” Steve sighed, looking over at you to gauge how you were reacting to all of this. All he saw was a stone-cold face you were putting on and recognized it. He’d felt empty trying to deal with everything afterward on his own.

“Stella, dealing with this stuff is insane. I tried to cope with everything on my own and I found myself spiraling and I just couldn’t handle it by myself. So, I need you to know I am here for you. When you need someone to talk to about all of it, I will be there for you. I won’t force you, but please. Let me help you.”

You felt like Steve was looking straight into your soul. You felt like he could see all of the hurt you’ve had to deal with on your own. There was a part of you that wanted to just spill everything. You didn’t have access to a support system like this. The closest thing you’d had was a shitty relationship with an abusive boyfriend, and that’s saying something. Yeah, you’d made friends with a lot of the girls you went to school with, even had a few meaningful relationships. But once everything had started last year, you pushed everyone away, trying to protect the ones you loved from the horrible demons that were your reality.

Steve realized he was overstaying his welcome and got up to leave you when you stopped him.

“Steve wait,” he turned to look back at you, worry filling his golden-brown eyes. “I uh…. I don’t have anyone. You’re right, and it’s been really crappy. I uh… I’m not in a good place right now. I’m using camp to distract myself, but I really don’t know what I’m gonna do when I leave for school... Like… It will be so so good to get out of this place. Leave my real-life nightmares, ya know?” You looked up at Steve, your dark brown eyes were filled with sorrow and fear. “I just don’t think I can talk about it yet… But…. I will, I think.” 

You stood up facing Steve, you were only inches away from him. You felt your heart start to race, but wanted to take control of whatever was going on. You leaned forward a little, leaving a soft kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for… well… being here,” you whispered, before you walked off, lighting some of the torches you had set up for when the kids got back from playing camp-wide night games.

As it turned out, a few of your kids ran into some poison ivy and were spending the night in the nurse's cabin, leaving you with what you learned was called the ‘party’. It was you, Steve, and these brave kids who had also faced the horrible things you had faced and you realized that maybe what was needed tonight was a little vulnerability. These kids needed to heal just as much, or maybe more than you did. Steve needed to heal too. You could see it as he had pleaded with you to talk to him, to let him help you, that he needed the same. Even though you wanted to just swallow the events from the past year and pretend it never happened, it was time to open that can of worms.

You knew Max had recurring nightmares. She had woken up in a panic the night before and told you so. She was finally able to fall asleep when you agreed to sleep next to her.

El was struggling. You couldn’t place exactly how, but you could see it. You knew how much she loved Mike, but she was pushing herself away from him.

Dustin was loud, but that was so that the quiet thoughts that kept him up at night didn’t get the best of him when he was around others.

Will…. Will. You weren’t even sure where to begin. When you had met him, he was just a shadow of himself. He had lost so much weight because of the Mind Flayer taking control of him. The second time you saw him, he was even skinnier. He told you what had happened replayed in his mind. How he hurt other people because of the Mind Flayer. It was eating him alive.

Lucas was just trying to stay brave for Max. He was trying to be something solid for her to hold onto when the memories and her home life came to haunt her.

And Mike. Mike had at one point or another lost two of the most important people in his life and was doing everything in his power to protect them and make sure nothing bad ever happened to them.

These six kids were holding on by a single thread, collectively, and were slipping. They tried to have fun with the other kids, but it was hard. The things they had gone through pushed them to grow up too fast. They weren’t actually kids anymore and your heart hurt for them.

The sounds of their footsteps brought you back from your thoughts.

“Hey Scout, you okay?” Dustin asked, sitting next to you by the fire. As soon as he came over, everyone gathered around the flickering flames.

“You know Dustin, I’m not.” Steve’s head shot up to look at you, confused. “Hey, why don’t we all scoot a little closer together, you know, the trees have ears, and I don’t think the trees should hear what we are gonna talk about.”

The rest of the party, Steve included, scooted together.

You started telling your story, and once El and Max realized what was happening, they were on each of your sides holding your hands, Dustin was practically sitting on Steve, although he would never admit it. Mike was next to El, and Lucas next to Max.

“Alright, so you guys know that when I moved to town, I went to an all-girls school. It was great and I made a lot of really great friends there. One of whom got an amazing internship opportunity at Hawkins Lab, which I know you are all well acquainted with.” El squeezed your hand. You send a squeeze back and she rested her head on your shoulder. “Well, my friend found out I was interested in science and helped me apply and get the same internship. One day, when we were helping clean up after some chemical experiments, we were talking and eventually started to wander around the lab. That is when I met Eleven.” Everyone started to perk up. El didn’t like talking much about what had happened at Hawkins lab, except that Papa had done terrible things, the opening of the gate, and her sisters.

“Once I realized they were experimenting on kids, I freaked, and I helped Eleven escape.” you took a deep breath before continuing, “Nothing happened for a while and I ended up quitting. I couldn’t handle being a part of such a terrible place. I kept contact with my friend who promised to keep a lookout for other kids, but she never saw anyone after El.”

You cleared your throat, looking around to see your captive audience, eyes pleading you to continue.

“A year went by, and I continued on. School was good, I was dating a really great girl and I honestly thought it was going to last forever.” You paused for a moment. Allowing yourself to remember the last person to truly have your heart.

“You can do that?” El asked you quietly, while Mike gave El’s hand a supportive squeeze.

“Yeah El, you are allowed to date boys and girls. All of you are.” you saw Will get preoccupied with his hands and Mike blushed a little bit.

Steve smiled at you and urged you to continue.

“Anyways. That’s when I found out about Demogorgons. I had met Will and when he found out I knew about the lab and El, he mentioned something was happening and that they were back, so I went out to investigate.

I was out in the woods, by myself, I know, not the best idea. And I met a boy, my age. He was handsome and charming and decided to keep me company. I didn’t tell him what I was looking for but he didn’t really care. I think the Mind Flayer knew what I was looking for because after the boy and I parted ways, I came face to face with a Demo-dog.” You shuddered for a moment. It’s millions of tiny sharp teeth in your mind as it leaped on you and made contact with your hip.

“It attacked. I know you guys saw the scars on my hip earlier today. The boy hadn’t really left and was able to scar it off, hitting it with his car. He actually helped get me to the hospital. Anyways. After that, I started pushing the people I loved away, including my girlfriend. I couldn’t let her get hurt or be faced with the evils I was then aware of. After that, Billy and I ended up spending a lot of time together.” You gave Max a half-smile, and Steve practically choked on nothing.

“Billy. Billy helped you? And then you... You guys….” Steve trailed off, wide-eyed.

This time Max gave you a squeeze of the hand and returned your little smile sadly.

“Yeah. Billy and I ended up dating. He was the only one who knew what had happened. I knew he wouldn’t think I was crazy because he saw it. Hell, I thought I was crazy….” You paused again trying to get your composure back. Anytime Billy came up, so did a whole new can of horrible worms.

“Billy and I were together for a while. I would help clean him up when Neil took his anger out on him, and Billy would help calm me down when the nightmares started. Pretty soon, the nightmares never stopped, and I started seeing these dark, visions during the day. The Mind Flayer was always there. Always telling me to do these terrible things and controlled me. I ended up going to the new Hawkins Lab trying to find out what was happening to me.” You looked over to Will, who was staring at you wide-eyed. He hadn’t known you had gone through something like he had.

“It got worse once I was back at Hawkins Lab. One time, I found myself waking up in this dark, cold tunnel that connected to the lab. I could hear the Demo-dogs in other tunnels, so I ran. They eventually caught up to me, and one of them got a good bite out of my ribcage. Then they were called away, and I somehow made it to a hospital. I think I had called Billy.

After that night, Billy said I was just looking for all this trouble, and started saying I was insane and pretty soon, we weren’t taking care of each other anymore. He was causing twice the amount of pain, and I was left to pick up the pieces. I uh, was finally able to get out of being with him when I found him kissing someone else. But, that was just a few weeks ago, and he left me with something to remember him by.”

You held out your arm, pulling up your sleeve to show deep scratches on the inside of your arm near your bicep.

“I don’t really sleep at night. When I do, it is filled with either nightmares of the upside-down, or nightmares of Billy.”

You put your arm around Max, who had started crying. After she calmed down a little, she began telling you guys about what was happening at home.

“Neil isn’t letting him leave for another month out of punishment,” she said wiping her eyes, “ and Billy has started taking it out on me, worse than before. Um..” Max started sniffing more and let out a sob, “Billy hit me before we left to come here.”

Max broke down.

You cried with her.

Will spoke up, sniffing, “The Mind Flayer is always in my dreams. I have a notebook full of what happens in them. I keep trying to get it out of my mind, but I don’t think I will ever be able to escape.” While Max was talking, Will had moved to sit next to Mike, who was now holding both of his best friends.

Next, Mike openly wept about how hard it was losing Will and El. And that even though he and El weren’t really ‘together’ together, that they would always be best friends.

After Dustin and Lucas tried to muscle through talking about their own problems they faced because of the events that had taken place, Steve finally spoke up.

“Um… I don’t really sleep either.” He said, adjusting the arm he had around Dustin, who had finally broken down and was shaking slightly. “If I do, all I dream of is what happened at the junkyard, except, in my dreams, the Demo-dogs get you all. I can’t protect you guys. In my dreams, I’m useless, watching from the sidelines as they tear everyone apart.” Steve visibly shudders, images playing behind his eyes.

“I have a nail bat in my car, and one under my bed at all times. I never feel safe. I always feel like danger is around the corner.” He swallowed loudly, and let tears slide down his face. He closed his eyes for a minute and focused on his breathing.

“Guys, I am afraid to leave. I’m afraid that if I leave Hawkins to go to College that I won’t be able to protect you guys anymore. I know you have each other, and Joyce and Hopper, but I feel this responsibility for you guys. I just… I can’t let anything happen again.”

Once Steve finished, everyone sat, staring at the fire. Max and El were whispering to you quietly, and Mike and Will were holding each other when Will spoke up.

“Hey guys, I uh, I actually feel a lot better, having talked about this..”

“I do too,” Dustin said, and the others nodded in agreement.

“Okay then Y'all, I suggest a pact.” You said turning to look at everyone, “That if we ever need to talk to someone, we can 100% go to each other. Are we all in agreement?” you asked.

Once everyone agreed, you pulled those around you closer and motioned for the others to come too.

“We are going to hug this out now, no objections” and without a signal word of dissent, everyone came in close, hugging each other tightly.

After that Steve was able to find lighter things to talk about before everyone went to bed.

“Hey actually, you guys, I don’t know about you, but these stars are amazing. I think we should all sleep outside tonight.” He looked at you, a soft smile on his lips, and wisdom in his eyes. He sure knew these kids and knew they would all need to be close to each other.

They were all so excited that they ran to get into their pj’s and grab their sleeping bags. There was a little field right next to your area that you all set up in. After whispering together for a few minutes, the kids declared that they wanted to be in a little circle with their sleeping bags. They all set theirs out quickly, leaving only two spots open next to each other for you and Steve.

Once everyone was in their bags, you went around to each of them giving them a big hug, and telling each one how proud you were of them for being brave enough to share what was going on with them. You finished with the kids and suddenly realized it was just Steve left, who was wiggling his eyebrows at you.

You smiled and embraced him in a warm hug, which lasted much longer than any of the other hugs, except for maybe Max and El, who kept you there much longer than any of the boys had.

You could feel yourself relaxing as Steve held you, and you felt a rogue tear slip out. You shifted slightly so that your face was in the crook of Steve’s neck, instead of being buried in his chest.

“Hey Steve?” you said quietly.

“Hmm” he breathed out, pulling you closer to him.

“Thank you.” You tighten your grip on him, “None of this would have happened if it weren’t for you talking to me earlier.”

Steve pulled away slightly so he could look at you.

“Well, that and some kids falling into poison ivy,” he said smiling, “It seems everything has worked out as it ought to.”

You nodded, tearing your eyes away from Steve’s to look over at the now sleeping kids. “Steve, their so young. Why did this have to happen to them?”

“I don’t know, Stella. I honestly don’t. But, I doubt any other group of kids would have been able to handle it like they have. Also…” Steve turned back to look at you, grabbing your hands. He closed his eyes for a moment as he continued, “I can’t believe what Billy did to you, and to Max. It just… It makes me so mad!” His voice started to rise in volume as he began to feel a whole new anger towards the town’s resident bad boy.

“Shhh, it’s okay... I mean, it’s not, but it’s already happened. What we need to do is make sure Billy never touches Max again. She doesn’t deserve this.” you shook your head slightly, wanting to protect the girl from what happened to you.

“Um… Stella, can I see…” he nodded to where the scratch marks are on your arm. You gave him a slight nod and held your arm out. Steve carefully shifted your sleeve up. He delicately touched the four, still angry and red marks. You closed your eyes at his touch.

Ever since Billy had gotten his hands on you, you forget what it was like to be touched softly, to be truly cared for.

You and Steve stayed up talking a while longer in your respective sleeping bags, eventually drifting off mid-conversation.

Steve was awake a little longer and watched as you peacefully surrendered to sleep. Amazed at the selflessness you possessed. He knew you weren’t ready to talk, and yet, for the sake of those amazing kids, you opened up all the wounds you had been trying to hide, including ones that you didn’t necessarily have too, but did for the sake of Max.

When Steve finally fell asleep, it was with a smile on his face.

The Demo-dogs didn’t attack in his dreams that night.

Part 4

[captainhookcaptainfreedom]

Study Buddies. Just Study Buddies. (a Sherlolly fanfiction)

This was written for @katfevre for the Sherlolly Fic Exchange 2017.

Prompt: Sherlock and Molly at university. They keep running into each other in the library: looking for books in the same section, hiding/studying in the same secret corners. Small polite exchanges develop into longer conversations, which develop into a friendship and eventually into a snogging session in the book stacks.

Molly Hooper was a scholarship student. The only reason she was able to attend the “Doyle School for the Gifted” was her brilliant test scores. That and the abnormal love she had for anatomy at the age of 11 which had intrigued the school board and admissions staff. She had been accepted into the school at age 12 and had been going there for 5 years now. As a senior, Molly Hooper would be expected to complete a final (and impressive) research project before heading off to university. Most Doyle students could choose to go to whatever university they wanted. Molly, however, knew that her family would struggle to fund her future academic ventures and knew that she had to make this last year at Doyle count. In order to do this, Molly found herself studying in the library every day for many long hours.

William “Sherlock” Holmes was from a so called “legacy family” at Doyle. His older brother, Mycroft, had attended the school. As had his mother. His mother’s father had gone to Doyle and his father before him. The Holmes had always been students at Doyle ever since its conception. It was expected that Sherlock would not be the last Holmes to attend Doyle School. Of course, that was the opinion of the school and of the Holmes parents and ancestry. The opinion of Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes was, in fact, that they would be the last two Holmes to attend Doyle. Mycroft was not inclined to procreate anytime soon due to his extreme lack of interest in women and his abundant appreciation for the male form. Sherlock had proclaimed on more than one occasion that he found everyone, no matter their sex, far too dull to even be bothered with and that he had no intention of ever tying himself to one of them permanently. Sherlock preferred to throw himself into the quest for knowledge, useful knowledge. During his senior year at Doyle, unlike most of the teenage boys running rampant on the property, he’d spend most of his time cooped up in the dusty old library.

 Doyle School for the Gifted was attended by students of all sorts. The one thing they all had in common was that they all were “gifted” in some way. Not all were the blatantly intelligent like the Holmes brothers or even Molly Hooper. Many were intelligent in certain areas, but some simply had impressive talent. Doyle employed staff of all sorts to meet every need of their students. Even their stranger needs would be met. Molly’s own small circle of friends displayed this. Molly herself did as well.

She had a therapy cat. His name was Toby. He had been a gift from her father and was the only thing that helped calm her down after a bout of her social anxiety. She was allowed to keep him in her dorm room. There were vets available to her in case he ever needed anything. If needed, she was even granted permission to carry him with her to her classes.

Then there was James Moriarty. Molly was friends with him, or at least she was friends with parts of him. She was friends with what they (their little group of friends) kind heartedly referred to as “techie Jim”, “gay Jim”, and “shy Jim”. There were probably a few other “Jims” she got along with, but those three were what she deemed Jim’s best. Jim Moriarty had a personality disorder. A multiple personality disorder aka dissociative identity disorder. Despite this apparent “setback” to Jim’s learning, he’d instantly been accepted to Doyle. Jim was beyond clever. Somehow, Doyle had gotten ahold of expert therapist and counselors to work with the Moriarty boy and attempt to help him when his darker personalities came out to play. Occasionally, they were unsuccessful and James would attempt arson or suicide, but they always found him before anything went too far.

Then there was Sebastian Moran. He was Jim’s right hand man. Sebastian would stay by Jim’s side through all the personalities. (Molly had noted more than once that “gay Jim” was the most likely to willing and excitedly stick to Sebastian side.) He himself had a few anger issues and had been called a sadist more than once. He’d been accepted to Doyle at 16, far later than most. He’d already been sued twice when caught hunting on private property. Doyle didn’t mind the criminal record.

Of course, there were also Meena and Mike who didn’t seem to have special needs of any kind.

Molly was content with her small and odd group of friends. She had no interest in pursuing new ones. The mere thought made her skin crawl.

 Sherlock Holmes had no need for people. He had no friends. Well, he had one friend at Doyle. John Watson had somehow wormed his way into Sherlock’s nonexistent social circle. He had easily grabbed the title of “best friend”.

 A blur of black and purple rushed into the Doyle library. It was Sherlock Holmes. His sharp, pale features were an extreme contrast from his dark hair. Already there, in a quiet and dusty corner, was Molly Hooper.

Sherlock took a seat at the opposite side of the large library from Molly. The two did not even notice each other’s presence.

The librarian at the Doyle School, a lovely older woman with a spunky attitude by the name of Martha Hudson, knew both Molly and Sherlock very well. She had not been fond of the previous Holmes students, but she thought Sherlock was an absolute dear. She had declared Molly Hooper to be “as sweet as pie” the first time they had met and her opinion of the girl had lasted. When the old grandfather clock in the library rang out that it was already midnight, Mrs.Hudson collected her things and left the library, locking the doors behind her. All the students had been gone for hours. Well, all the students but two, Molly Hooper and Sherlock Holmes. Neither student reacted as Mrs.Hudson left for the night. They had both gone through this before.

 At around 2am, Molly Hooper stretched out her arms, rolling her sore shoulders. She had sat here looking over these endless documents for hours. None of it even seemed to be helpful to her research. She got up and wandered the stacks, knowing that it always helped her think. As she passed the shelves she would occasionally stop and pull out a book she thought might possibly help her project until she reached her destination. She already had five books in her hands, but knew that she must fit one more. Trying not to drop her selected tomes, she reached up, stretching her short body, and barely grasped her fingers around the desired item. A play. A Shakespearean play. Today it would be Much Ado About Nothing . Last night it had been Romeo and Juliet . Tomorrow night it might be -

Molly stopped. It was missing. Richard III was missing. Molly knew she had put it back after she’d pulled it a couple weeks ago. No one else came into the Shakespeare section. No one. At least, she didn’t think so. She had never seen anyone other than her there before.

Molly turned around, her brain preoccupied with what had happened to Richard III , and instantly knocked into something very solid. Something that should not have been there. Something that was actually a someone.

“Holy fucking hell,” Molly shouted. Her breath coming in gasps as she stared shocked at the other body. The body she was sure had no business being here at 2:30 in the morning. “You scared me half to death,” she accused him. The library was only dimly lit at this hour but she could still recognize her companion. Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock freaking Holmes.

He eyed her. “I didn’t realize you were here. The library is closed after all.”

Molly started turning red from anger (but perhaps also a bit from embarrassment. She had shouted so crudely and all her books had fell from her arms onto the ground. It made her look careless and as much as he was a prat, Sherlock Holmes was a gorgeous and frightfully intelligent prat.) She stumbled over her words as she begin, “I have, I mean, Mrs.Hudson she gave me special permission to be here after hours. Not just today. I’m here every night. She gave me a key. It was only because I explained that I needed the extra time and resources for my research. I don’t sleep anyway. She verified my insomnia with the nurse and-” Molly closed her mouth realizing she had already said too much. She was rambling. She didn’t want to ramble in front of Sherlock Holmes! Well, at least Jim had said her rambling was cute. Maybe Sherlock would think so too. Who was she kidding? Of course he wouldn’t. Wait, that’s right. Sherlock was here. What was he doing here? “What are you doing here so late - er, early?”

Sherlock stepped past her. She had not noticed the book he carried in his hand, but he slipped it back on the shelf. “Mrs.Hudson has let me stay here as long as I please since I was thirteen. I can assure you that I as well am here almost every night.”

Sherlock the turned away from her and walked out into the depths of the library, disappearing within the shelves.

“Huh,” Molly sighed. She collected her books from the floor and the turned back to the Shakespeare shelf. Richard III had returned to its rightful place. “Huh,” she repeated to herself.

 The next day, Molly scoped out where Sherlock sat in the library. He spent much of his free time during the day there, just as she did. She only wasted a few hours finding his preferred spot.

That night, when Mrs.Hudson left, Molly collected her belongings and moved across the library to where Sherlock sat. She quietly placed her things down on the table  next to Sherlock and sat.

He didn’t startle, but raised one perfect eyebrow at her. “What are you doing? You can’t sit with me.”

Molly smiled. “I just thought it might be nice if we spent the night together. Um, the nights here. Studying.” She was already flustered.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “Well, you were wrong. It will not be ‘nice’.”

Molly was not about to give up.

Their first few nights together (studying! Only studying!) were filled with poor jokes on Molly’s side and contempt from Sherlock. Eventually, however, he would start to smile just a bit when she laughed at something delightfully morbid. He also began showing her his research on bees. She was instantly enthralled. He found that she made

a good research partner. Molly was more than willing to help out anyway she could. Sherlock even found himself interested in her own work on human tissue. Dead human tissue.

The days turned into weeks turned into months. Then, one night they were both there. Molly had left earlier but come back around 3am, never wanting to miss a night with Sherlock. She had gone to attend the Christmas party that Jim was secretly hosted in the dorms. She knew Sherlock wouldn’t come but had silently hoped that perhaps he would show up. She knew she looked nice. Her hair done up and her makeup a brilliant shade of red. So, when she went to see Sherlock she left herself done up. Hoping to evoke a reaction.

She did.

Sherlock found himself looking at her again and again that night. He wanted to kiss her. He’d never wanted to kiss anyone before. But Molly, Molly Hooper.

It’d just be an experiment. Sherlock said that to himself over and over. It’d just be for science’s sake.

So he kissed her.

Her lips were soft. She tasted like mint and ginger. It was positively brilliant. She was positively brilliant. Molly sighed into the kiss. This. This is what she had wanted. He was what she had wanted. Needed really.

Sherlock would never admit it, but he needed her too.

And since experiments always should have more than one trial, he kissed her again.

I'm fairly certain I hadn't posted this on tumblr yet. If I did - well, lucky tumblr gets it twice!

[coleymari-blog]

A War Fought at Home : Chapter 4

Corporal Natsu Dragneel has been through Hell, and unfortunately for him, the ride isn’t quite over. How will a new Rehab program at the local VA help? And will a certain blonde help make matters better?

Modern Military AU. Warnings for mentions of depression and adult language/situations. Other warnings to come as the story progresses. Cross post on AO3 and FF.net.

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3

"Come on, Dragneel! Be a man and give me ten more!"

Physical Therapy with Elfman eventually became one of Natsu's favorite parts about his day. The chiseled brute was nothing like the cheerleader from Natsu's first day at the VA. After three months of going almost every day, the Marine noticed a definite change in his overall quality of life. Granted his ass was still stuck in his chair but at least his pain had diminished slightly. Although, if he was being honest, his sessions with Elfman usually left him hurting for days.

Natsu growled as he pushed himself further, desperately trying to pull his knees into his rising chest. Beads of sweat were falling to the mat from the tips of his salmon hair, his body shaking as he exerted every ounce of energy he had left. It felt so damn good to maxing himself out again. At the end of the day, if he laid in his bed with his eyes shut, his nerves fired almost like they used to after a fight with Gray. Popsicle Breath wouldn't touch him, though it was probably for the best given his current capacities, but at least he could ride the adrenaline high again.

On the tenth crunch, Natsu collapsed onto the mat, panting as his lungs remembered just how much they actually enjoyed breathing. A lazy grin came to his lips as the buzz flowed through his veins, the familiar fatigue setting in his bones. Flipping himself over onto his stomach, he crawled back to his chair and hoisted himself into it, running his fingers through his damp hair. Next thing he knew, a towel was being thrown at him. "Thanks, Elfman," he mumbled through cotton, "PT was actually work today."

Elfman laughed, clasping Natsu firmly on the shoulder. "Thanks for not being a princess today," he teased, the two men bumping fists. "How are you liking the new schedule? Does it work for you?"

The week prior, Natsu and Elfman had sat down and made the decision to switch the Marine's sessions with his Group Therapy sessions. That way, Natsu could go to PT and shower afterward without having to worry about getting to Group on time. Unfortunately, there had been a few times where he'd had difficulties in the handicapped showers and had rolled into the session late, disrupting whoever was speaking at the time. He felt so terrible about it that it prompted him to ask his Trainer about moving into the Afternoon block.

"This is much better," Natsu remarked casually while gathering his stuff from a nearby bench. The shower room was down the hall from the gym but he didn't keep a locker at the VA like some of the other attendees. "This way Gildarts doesn't bitch me out when I have to choose between getting to Group on time and showering."

Both men laughed together while Natsu made his way to the shower. Rolling into the small antechamber, he threw his gym bag onto the wooden bench before stripping down. Even menial tasks like dressing himself were becoming easier to accomplish, but he still had to make sure he didn't exhaust himself throughout the day. He had a tendency to push his limits and if he wasn't careful, he'd run out of steam by dinner and knock the hell out.

Natsu made his way into the shower stall and lifted himself onto the plastic seat before turning on the water, allowing the scalding liquid to pelt his entire body. Closing his eyes, the pinket tilted his head back against the tile and just sat in the constant stream, the rhythmic pattern lulling him gently. In moments like those, he let his mind wander, following it through whatever rabbit hole it traveled down. Sometimes he relived memories of his days in the Corps, missions with his Fire Team, nights in the barracks with his Rifle Squad telling stories about home. Every now and then he allowed himself some more "private moments" while remembering nights with conquests past, but he rarely was able to finish. Probably because of the whole semi-public shower thing.

Other times Natsu fantasized about what his life would have been like if it weren't for the chair. He dreamed of a day when he'd be back in uniform, playing football with his buddies, kicking Gray's ass, the works. He wished he could walk up to a bar, look the bartender in the eye (preferably a cute one who likes to flirt with the professional line), and stand there feeling the bass fall off the club speakers in waves. Sometimes he even allowed himself to daydream about standing down the aisle in some small Church, standing tall and proud as he waited for the love of his life beside the altar. She used to be a faceless mystery in an ivory gown, just a placeholder for a woman he had yet to find in real life. However, lately, the Marine had surprised himself when in those particular fantasies, when he lifted the veil, instead of nothing he found himself staring into a very familiar set of deep chocolate brown eyes.

For the past few months, Natsu had found himself thinking about Lucy more and more. Every day he went to the VA, he made sure Gray brought him early and picked him up late so he could spend time with his new best friend. They ate lunch together, and she always picked him up from his sessions (even though he now insisted on pushing himself, the other arrangement only lasting about a week). They had even swapped numbers and often texted each other at home.

The pinket wasn't stupid, he knew how dangerous it was to crush on a girl like Lucy. She was a bombshell, a solid 10. Natsu was damaged goods, just barely enough pieces stitched together in order to be considered whole. Lucy was gorgeous, hilarious, gentle, caring, and a million other wonderful things he couldn't even being to name. But Natsu? As long as he was stuck in the wheelchair, he'd never be enough to be more than her friend. She deserved someone who could take her dancing, someone who could take her on beach vacations and skiing trips. She had gone through so much in her life, much like he had, and all he wanted to do was show her how beautiful life could be. Except he couldn't. Natsu was the last possible candidate. A Queen like Lucy needed a King, not the town freak.

Sighing to himself and feeling the hot water run frigid, Natsu turned off the water, toweled off and redressed himself. He knew he could ask one of the staff nurses to come help, but he always felt uncomfortable asking one of the other guys to help him pull up his jeans. He'd taken to wearing actual clothes again over the past couple months, the first time happening by accident because of his family visiting from out of town. Lucy had remarked on how nice he looked and he'd never given his sweatpants a second thought. The downside? Jeans were waaaaay harder to put on when one couldn't even stand on their own.

Natsu plopped himself back into his chair and made his way to the lowered mirror on the wall. His spiked his hair up, adjusted his trademark scarf and grinned wide to check his teeth. Finding nothing wrong apart from his metal tumor, the Marine quickly rolled his way to the front desk, heart racing when his eyes locked on their target.

"Took you long enough, Natsu!" Lucy teased, clicking away at her computer as the pinket parked alongside her desk. Her tea cup was stuck to the tabletop, meaning she hadn't gotten a fresh one in a while and wisps of her golden hair were falling out of her high pony tail. Probably a long day at the office.

"Sorry Mom didn't know you were watching the water bill so closely," he joked back, locking his wheels into place. Didja miss me? Old Natsu was still holding strong in the recesses of New Natsu's mind but the current incarnation had a way better hold of his mouth.

Lucy stuck out her tongue before getting back to work, hurriedly clacking at the keyboard again. Her actions prompted Natsu to take things a bit more seriously.

"Luce, what's wrong?" he asked, his voice laced in genuine concern. Nothing was more important to him than Lucy's happiness, well, maybe a couple things like walking again but that was just by a hair.

The blonde receptionist huffed, pushing the keyboard away before laying her head on the desk facing Natsu. She had opened her mouth to speak before the two of them were rudely interrupted.

The sound of his patent leather shoes coming down the tiled hallway dragged Natsu's gaze away from Lucy. The man wearing them only made the situation worse.

"How ya doin' Salamander?" the blond spat, standing tall and decorated compared to the seated civilians. Natsu immediately recognized him as Laxus Dreyar, a Staff Sergeant he had met while still in Basic. Needless to say, the two had never really seen eye to eye even before the accident. Laxus stood before the desk, eyeing the two of them with a salacious grin. "Nice wheels. Still down for that rematch you were always begging for?"

Natsu growled slightly before dropping his sights, feeling defeated almost immediately. The Staff Sergeant laughed at his quick win and turned his eyes on Lucy, making the hair on the back of Natsu's neck stand on end.

"Hey Blondie, are you free this Saturday?" Laxus asked, his voice cocky and full of assurance like he knew Lucy would say 'yes'. Natsu was sure she would too if he hadn't turned to look at her, flames practically engulfing her eyes.

"First you insult a decorated veteran, then ask me out in the same breath?" Lucy spat, standing up from her seat on the other side of her desk of Laxus. Natsu watched in awe as she held her ground, not budging so much as an inch. "I'd rather spend my free time with stand up Marines like Corporal Dragneel instead of embarrassments to the uniform."

Laxus was fuming. Natsu was beaming.

"Now, if you'll excuse us, Staff Sergeant…" And with that, Lucy dismissed Laxus without batting an eye, shocking the jackass but elating Natsu. It felt like the biggest victory he'd ever accomplished, her choosing him over someone like Dreyar. Granted, he was a complete asshole and those weren't Lucy's particular cup of tea (so she had explained countless times), but it stroked what little ego Natsu had left to know that she preferred his company to Laxus. It wasn't much, but it was something.

Once they were alone again, and the fire in Lucy's eyes had been (unfortunately) extinguished, the two friends settled into their places again, resuming where they had left off.

"That was the last thing I needed today," Lucy sighed, resting her head in her hands as her elbows propped her up against the tabletop. The longer she took to explain, the more worried Natsu became. It took everything in him to keep from interrogating her.

Eventually, she continued on her own. "My father cut me off this morning." Natsu's eyes went wide at the gravity of the situation. They'd spoken about her father in great detail and she had told him that the possibility was always there. But if Natsu was being honest, he never imagined a father actually cutting ties with their own child. Apparently, Lucy's was a breed of his own. "I only have enough money saved up to continue living in my current apartment for a couple more months but I have a year until I graduate. If I can't find something else, I'll have to suspend my degree and move back home until I can save up enough. Which is exactly what he wants."

Natsu's heart broke, but not for the correct reason. Yeah, it would suck if Lucy couldn't finish her degree on time, but her moving away was simply not an option. He couldn't imagine coming to the VA and not seeing her bright shining smile every morning or texting her every night before finally passing out. However, he did have a lot of free time on his hands. Maybe she wouldn't mind his help?

"Well we can't have that now can we?" Natsu replied playfully. "If you have to look for a new place, do you want company? It's not like I have much of a social life."

Smiling, Lucy shook her head. "I appreciate the offer," she answered, looking at her phone for the time. "Let's say we meet here at the same time you'd usually show up for Group?"

Natsu couldn't have contained the boy like grin if he wanted to. "Sounds like a date to me."