#i want to stop feeling like it's the end of the world whenever i minorly inconvenience someone

[dont-offend-the-bees]

ugh

[flareish]

Anxiety

kuroo x reader

summary: you hide your anxiety from basically everyone including your boyfriend, until he finds out for himself

genre: hurt/comfort

warnings: Emetophobia Warning! description of nausea/vomit, anxiety, bit of angst but ends in fluff

word count: 2.0k

a/n: I tried to make this as close to my anxiety since I hadn’t known anyone with my kind of anxiety(symptom wise) until I was seventeen, which was a good ways into when I realized I had anxiety. So here is some nausea anxiety representation!

masterlist

You tap your fingers in a mindless rhythm. Alternating the fingers and repeating them back and forth, trying to make it a game, a challenge. You did this over and over again to distract yourself from that all too familiar sinking feeling. That feeling like your stomach has managed to twist and knot itself a million times. Each bump of the bus made acid crawl up your throat. You crunched a mint in your mouth hoping the peppermint would soothe some of the nausea. It didn’t, but the thought was there. You just will yourself not to throw up on the bus, anything but that. The thought in itself makes you even more nervous, and in turn even sicker.

You don’t even know why you are anxious. Today is Kuroo’s big game, but it isn’t yours. You’ve been to a hundred of his games before but never before did you feel like this. Normally you get cute little butterflies, not an angry swarm of bees. The worst part is, there is Kuroo sat next to you happy as can be, completely oblivious. He keeps trying to drag you into conversations but you fear if you open your mouth for too long, all that will come up is vomit. So you keep your mouth firmly closed only smiling tightly or shaking your head at his prompts.

It's not exactly his fault though. He doesn’t actually know you have anxiety. It’s not something you really like to talk about. You are all for promoting the acceptance of mental health but you just find every time you tell someone the dynamic changes. Either they flat out don’t believe you since you “don’t seem like the type with anxiety”. Well duh, I don’t have social anxiety, I have situational anxiety. Like here in this situation. That or they suddenly treat me like I am incapable of handling myself. That whenever a slightly stressful event comes up, I am going to melt into a puddle of pure anxiety. Sorry but I’ve made it this far, I may have to throw up a few times on the way but I am still making it. 

So you just haven’t told Kuroo. You're just nervous that it will change the dynamic. You also don’t want to steal his spotlight. Today is supposed to be all about him. It's his big game. To suddenly speak up and tell him that his game is giving you anxiety would be selfish. So like you always have, you put a brave face on and face it head-on.

“Hey, are you okay?” Kuroo asks you, now facing you, “You look a little pale.”

“Hmm?,” You also turn to look at him, “Oh I am just a bit tired that’s all. I will be fine in an hour or so.” You hope at least. He nods relieved it's not something worse. 

You finally pull into the stadium and everyone is pushing their way off the bus. Luckily Kuroo is right by you to make sure you don't get accidentally pushed down the bus stairs and trampled. The team makes it’s to the bulletin board where they are given their matchups. Nekoma is paired with a pretty hard team. Suddenly, out of nowhere, you dry heave. You knew at the point you were going to throw up and within the next few minutes. 

“Hey I think I left something in the bus I’ll be right back.” You say to Kuroo before dashing off. He goes to reply but you are already gone. 

You make it around the back of the building before you throw up. At this point you’re kinda out of it, your mind is occupied on emptying your already empty stomach. Then you feel someone pull your hair back and gently rub your back. You don’t even have to look up to know it’s Kuroo. When you finish he hands you his water bottle.  You waterfall it and rinse your mouth out of that acidic taste. 

“What’s going on are you okay?” Kuroo asks full of concern. You hesitate for a moment, thinking of telling the truth. Then you remember this is supposed to be his day. 

“Sorry I must have caught a stomach bug.” He doesn’t completely buy it so you quickly add to it.

“I didn't feel great on the bus but I just thought it was because I was tired.” You feel bad lying, “I also don’t want to distract you before your game.” At that Kuroo quickly pulls you into a hug, “Your not a distraction, I just want to make sure you’re okay.” Your cheek is pressed against his chest and your hands grip the front of his shirt. 

“We should probably head back.” You mumble.

“Yeah.” He leans down to kiss you but you duck away. He looks incredibly offended and hurt at this.

“Dude I just threw up I don’t know if you want to do that.” 

“…Point.”

The two of you head back inside to the team, you feeling much better after throwing up. Before you know it, the competition has begun and Nekoma has won. You run down and celebrate with the team and it’s a happy day.

On the bus ride home Kuroo has a strange energy about him. Not like he’s mad more just like he’s just realized something. You nudge him and smile hoping to break him out of his little funk. He immediately smiles back and goes back to celebrating with the team. His reaction was almost like putting a mask on. You watch him for a moment before slipping into a conversation of your own.

When you make it back to school you go your separate ways. Him going to shower, and you to get home before it gets too late. A big hug before pushing away. You still refusing to kiss him after throwing up earlier in the day. 

You are laying on your bed, exhausted. Anxiety really takes a toll on your energy. Your thoughts are broken when your phone chimes with a text.  Leaning over to grab your phone off your bedside table you see it is from Kuroo. 

“Can you come over? I want to talk.”

No cute pet names. No slowly easing into it. Actually using proper grammar. Nothing in that message was a good sign. Just “I want to talk” was enough to make the acid begin to crawl again. You knew it had to be about today. Especially after you saw him zoning out on the bus. It had to be your anxiety episode. You knew he wouldn’t be happy you lied but going to this extent. Like he just found out you have anxiety and this is what he hits you with? The world’s most nerve-wracking text message. The only worse place than this would be “we need to talk”. That’s when you have really screwed up. So maybe you’ve only minorly screwed up since he said want not need. Does that mean you have the choice to say no? That was kind of tempting but you knew you would be tossing and turning all night thinking about what might be wrong. 

“Okay.” You reply to the text. Short and sweet. Putting on some shoes and grabbing a hoodie, you quietly slip out of your house. Kuroo’s house wasn’t too far but it was far enough. Enough to continue to stir in your intrusive and unstoppable thoughts. You eventually make it to his house and head in going straight for his room. Before you reach the door you hesitate and gather yourself. Preparing for whatever was about to come. 

When you go in you find Kuroo sat on the floor of his bedroom, back pressed against the bed. He jerkily looks up and you and gives you a tight smile. None of this is giving good signs. Something is very heavy on his mind. You sit down across from him, your back against the wall your feet almost touching. 

“So what was it you wanting to talk about.” You break the silence. He doesn’t respond for a moment. Just as you are about to try again he speaks up.

“Do you still love me?” Your face drops into confusion.

“Why wouldn’t I love you anymore?” You ask, suddenly realizing this wasn’t the conversation you were prepping yourself for. 

“You’ve been distant lately. You don’t tell me things like when you don’t feel good. I thought about it when I got home and I was wondering if you weren’t actually sick but just making the excuse because you got caught.” He’s very serious at the moment and his words hold a cold edge. 

“What do you mean get caught?” You match his tone. You weren’t planning on fighting but something about how he said it just set something off in you.

“You didn’t want to be there. Ever since this morning you were quiet and reserved. Even after the game, you wouldn’t even kiss me-”

“Yeah, cause I threw up! And how could I be faking it when I literally threw up.” You snap.

“You’ve been like this before though! Like last year’s big tournament you would barely talk to me.”

“That’s not true!” Although it kind of was just not the reason he thought.

“Oh yeah? What about at training camp you wouldn’t talk to me then either, you didn’t even eat with us you just sat on your own.” He threw back.

“Yeah, cause I have anxiety!” The words left your mouth before you knew it. Kuroo looked taken back.

“What?” His brow furrows, “Since when?” He’s not sure what to believe. You’re not surprised since you have worked very hard to hide it from everyone, accidentally sabotaging your own relationship without even knowing it. 

“Since forever. I just never told anyone.” You quietly say, ducking your head down.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” You didn’t even need to look up to see the hurt on his face, it was apparent in his voice. You start playing with your finger, tapping them in rhythms.

“I wanted to,” You mumble, “But whenever I do stuff changes and I didn’t want anything to change.” He shifts forward and you think he’s going to leave. Instead, he grabs your hands, stopping the pattern you had going. You look up.

“Did you think I would judge you?” He was staring straight into you, willing the truth to come out.

“Whenever I tell people they either don’t believe me and brush it off or treat me like I’m incapable of handling any amount of stress. I’ve never seen anyone react any differently so I was scared you would fall into one of those reactions and I didn’t know how I could handle that. I didn’t want my anxiety to be the thing to tear us apart. But I guess it still was.” By the end of your speech, your gaze has returned back to the floor, unable to hold eye contact for that long with him staring at you so strongly. You hear him sigh then you are pulled forward and into his arms. 

“I want to be your pillar of support. I want to be that third reaction that is one of acceptance, one that doesn’t drive you crazy.” He strokes your hair soothingly, his words making you tear up, “When you are ready I want you to tell me everything. From when you first noticed it, to where it is now, to how you deal with it, everything.” By now you are fully crying, absolutely collapsed into his chest. “I love you so much.” It gets muffled in his shirt but he hears it.

“I know, and I love you.”

It would take some time for Kuroo to get used to this change but slowly but surely he will be different from the rest and he will support you no matter what. Although he also respects your strength and knows you can handle your anxiety on your own, he is always there when you need it. He becomes the third unexpected and unheard-of reaction; acceptance.

[clenastia]

I wrote a different thing! 1100 word short story prompt, so nothing special!

I wanna expand the concept out and turn it into a full novel, so maybe after I finish Girl’s Mind...

Prompt: Write a short story where the MC wants to be a hero, but is destined to be the villain. Whenever they do something to help, everything goes anywhere from minorly to majorly wrong and backfires.

Story can be fiction or nonfiction. This is a first draft short story.

Requirements: POV must be 3rd person, tense must be present. No word count limit.

Fic below the cut!

Solyi isn’t even ten years old when she learns about the Prophecy.

No one tells her, oh no, not when they aren’t sure which child is which.

That night, she climbs into her twin’s bed, hugging him desperately all through the night.

Twins, born to the secret line of kings, echoes through her head as she clenches back tears.

One a hero, one a villain, and the world will tremble as they fight.

There’s a lot of ‘secret royalty’, she knows, she’s heard mummy talk about it before. Everyone’s talked about it lately.

Bastards and trueborns and kings-in-hiding.

Mummy’s a princess, who always used to tell stories about how she was kidnapped by a witch and kept as a cleaning girl like Cinderella, and how she used to always pray to the gods that some evil would strike the witch down.

Solyi knows the stories.

She also knows, that when she and her brother got into a fight the other day, the ground beneath their feet trembled.

She doesn’t know which of them did it.

One a hero, one a villain, echoes, echoes, echoes.

Solyi wants to be good.

She wants to be good so bad, she wants to make her mummy proud, she wants to see dada smile and scoop her up and call her his little flower-princess-

But she doesn’t want her brother to be bad.

She loves Nunya. He’s her twin, her other half, he understands her so much even when dada and mummy don’t-

She can’t let him be a villain.

She doesn’t really know what that word means, only that it’s a really really REALLY bad person, but Nunya isn’t a bad person.

She won’t let him be!

Her brother-

Her brother will be the best hero ever, she swears quietly, sobbing without sound into his shirt.

He sleeps through it all.

It’s better that way, because he can’t ask questions if he doesn’t wake up, but.

Solyi wants a hug from her brother. 

Just one.

So she carefully moves his arms, tucking herself into them, and when his bodyweight squishes her, she pretends it’s a big bear hug like daddy sometimes gives them.

She wants to be a good girl.

But there’s a prophecy, and one of them has to be bad, so-

So it’s better if it’s her.

Nunya’s always been her hero.

Now he can just be everyone else’s too.

***

The pain is an old friend, by this point. That sour twisting in her breast, in her heart, as her precious brother snaps and snarls and curses her very existence, calls her all manner of monster and abomination-

Solyi ignores the pain with the aid of long practice.

“Oh Nunya,” she sighs, lips quirked in a cruel smirk, “whatever is the matter?”

She asks as though Illyna isn’t dead at her feet, as though he didn’t spend an age crying over her before he cursed Solyi’s name.

She can’t tell him that Illyna was poisoning his mind, twisting him into something he isn’t - she realized years ago that Nunya was meant to be the villain of the prophecy, but by that point she’d already been trying so hard-

Fate, it seems, fights her at every turn, trying to twist and corrupt her precious brother, to make him the villain of the story.

Solyi will not allow that.

So she can’t tell him his lover was destroying him, she can only kill the woman and take her brother’s fury, his pain-

She can’t be the hero to her brother’s villain.

She can’t.

It’s so hard though, sometimes, when all his friends try to drive him to corruption, when she-

Sometimes, she feels like Destiny will take him anyway.

It hurts, but she can’t give up.

Her brother has to become the hero.

He must.

Even if every choice he makes seems to fall apart under his fingers.

***

The Cursed Hero, they call him.

A hero, at least, which Solyi will settle for if she must, but a cursed one.

Thankfully, most people blame her. That by way of being twins, she corrupts him with her evil, leaving him to struggle for heroism in a way most prophesied do not.

Solyi wishes it were that simple, but he’s still a hero.

And while it may have taken a fair amount of manipulation on her part, he finally has friends who aren’t trying to corrupt him, who he can trust.

He knows the full prophecy now.

Papa told him, on his deathbed, and oh how Solyi wishes she could have gone, could have at least said goodbye-

Nunya, thankfully, took the prophecy to mean that he was meant to save her, that the gods had driven her mad and that he could bring her back.

Better than him raging and challenging the gods.

For all her power, Solyi can only do so much.

She wonders if this is another choice that will crumble to dust beneath his fingers, if the gods will find a way to turn even this into something designed to villainize him.

Even if they do, Solyi is nearly a god herself by now.

She hopes it will be enough to fight them.

Her brother will not fall. 

Not as long as she lives and breathes.

She burns a town to ash, sacrificing every man, woman, and child within it, sending their souls up to her own dark god.

She spends the next week, locked in her room, puking every time she thinks of it, every time she wakes from the nightmares.

Surely, surely, this is enough to get the gods to accept her as the villain.

To stop trying to twist her Nunya.

A few days later, spies inform her that he tried to save a village from a flood, and instead caused a drought that will have half the province die of starvation and thirst, if nothing is done to fix it.

Solyi calls upon her dark patron and bathes the entire nation in a rain of blood, soaking the earth and feeding the plants.

They poison the blood, and it kills any human whose lips it touches.

Solyi will not let her brother fall.

***

Solyi is old when the answer finally comes to her.

She feels her age in her bones, in her magic, in her heart.

She never thought she would live long enough to see grey in her hair, but with age brings wisdom, and she knows the answer now.

Her brother can do nothing right.

He wants to save her.

He will never save her.

But.

But if she does everything just right.

Maybe she can save him. For good.

Her slaves make no sound as she sweeps out of her rooms, long since trained to silent obedience.

Each and every one someone who tried to betray her brother.

She’ll protect him.

No matter what.

Until the very end.

[dreamcatcherfication]

Dreamers in Fantasyland - Part 1

*SCREECHES IN UNADULTERATED PAIN*

Ahem, anyway. Hello! Why am I starting a new series you say? Well because this was requested by the woderful @theatergirl06, who requested Parrlyn and KatAnna with lots of romantic rescuing. You have no idea what you’re in for with this series. Anyway, this is going to be four parts long and I’ve already written everything, so parts will come out whenever I have no other content to post. Sorry for any spelling/grammatical errors, I wrote this at 4 AM.

(You’re all about to be very confused with this series. Even I don’t know why this exists....)

Writing Masterpost

If you want to send a request or a prompt, my inbox is always open! I publish a story at 8:00 AM PST everyday, so I’m always in need of new ideas. If you want to be tagged in my works, just let me know and I’ll be sure to tag you!

Prompts | More Prompts | The Trifecta of Prompts | Original Prompts

Trigger Warnings: Descriptions of nausea and feeling sick

When Cathy Parr woke up, she expected to be in bed with her girlfriend Anne Boleyn. Instead, when she opened her eyes, she was immediately greeted with unfamiliar surroundings and unfamiliar sounds. Primarily, the heavy snoring of her girlfriend was gone, replaced with the quiet inhales of whoever was in bed next to her. 

Rolling over, Cathy was even further surprised when she almost fell off the bed and onto the floor. Apparently this was a single bed, unlike the one she and Anne shared, and her companion was on a separate bed on the opposite side of the room. The sheets of her bed were coarse and rough, the bed itself barely held a foot off the ground. “What is this?” Cathy mumbled to herself, taking in the room. It was frightening how similar it looked to the peasant houses during Henry’s reign. 

With the pottery along shelves and brown walls, this was either a really good model for a renaissance fair or - “Cathy, you’re awake!” Came the voice of the other person in the room.

Although her English accent was thicker than Cathy remembered, she instantly recognized Kat’s voice. “Kat?” she rubbed her eyes, hoping that the peasant home would fade away and she would wake up in Kat’s room. When nothing changed, Cathy asked, “Where are we?”

Giggling, Kat threw the blankets off her bed and made her way over to Cathy. Kat still retained the childish glint in her eyes, but she was more refined than Cathy remembered her. She no longer slouched when moving, but kept a perfect posture and a dazzling smile. “Well I’d hoped you would recognize your own house, but you did take quite a fall last night.” Cathy’s mind was spinning, unable to grasp what Kat was telling her.

“This is my house?” Cathy couldn’t help but feel slightly embarrassed at how dirty and beat up it looked. “What’s going on?” A dull headache had begun to throb in the back of Cathy’s skull, distracting her from her new world.

Without any real concern, Kat titled her head to the side. “You snuck me out of the palace last night, remember? I was hoping no one would notice a noble girl and her servant missing, so we escaped right under their noses!” she grew excited from just telling the story. “While we were running through the docks, you were tripped up by a drunk sailor and you hit your head in a nasty way. You said you were fine, but maybe something got knocked around up there,” she pointed to Cathy’s skull. 

“Wait wait wait,” Cathy put her hand up. “I’m your servant?” This was a lot to handle, and Cathy needed a basic idea of how things worked in this strange, foreign world.

Playfully punching Cathy’s arm, Kat replied, “Only by official terms. We’ve been friends for so long, I can’t even remember a time when I considered you a servant and not a friend. Father doesn’t approve of our friendship, but he doesn’t have control over us.” Flipping her hands, Cathy stared at her dark skin. Was that why Kat’s father didn’t like her? This body she was in was similar (although minorly different) to her modern body and felt distinctly different from her Tudor body. This was clearly wrong. 

A sickening feeling overcame Cathy and she put her hands against her stomach. Gagging, she leaned over as if she was going to vomit. “Cathy?” Kat frantically leaned next to her. “Are you sick? Should I fetch a doctor?”

“No Kat,” Cathy stayed hunched over, waiting for the pain to pass. It took a few moments, but the feeling faded. It must’ve been something to do with adjusting to her body and this new reality. 

The noble girl bit her lip but didn’t move from beside her friend. “I hope you aren’t too unwell. We have to be back to the palace soon for the banquet celebrating Princess Mary’s return to court.”

Freezing, Cathy lifted her head to stare at Kat. “Princess Mary? Kat… who are the Queen and King?”

Kat must have assumed Cathy’s fall was causing her to act so confused, because she didn’t comment on the absurdity of the question. “King Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth! Their beautiful daughter Mary is set to inherit the throne. The King thinks she’ll make a wonderful ruler one day.”

This… was not the history Cathy remembered. In fact, King Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth had died long before Cathy and Kat were even born. And Edward V was supposed to succeed Edward IV, not Mary. What did this mean? “Kat, what year is it?”

Without missing a beat, Kat answered, “1465.”

This couldn’t be real. Cathy couldn’t accept that this was reality. She and Kat were alive in the past - as impossible as it sounded - but they weren’t their past selves. Kat was only a couple years younger than Cathy herself, not the early teens queen that she had been in the past. She had all her memories of the present - future? Cathy didn’t know, but she remembered the 21st century and her newfound family. Cathy remembered her girlfriend, Kat’s cousin, who she wanted nothing more than to be with right now.

But instead, Cathy was walking beside Kat as they made their way to the banquet hall where Princess Mary would be arriving. She and Kat shouldn’t even be alive during this time period, and it felt wrong to be in these halls. But Cathy kept her mouth shut and stayed beside Kat as they passed nobles she could not name. “Jane!” Kat called, running past Cathy to the woman in question.

Jane was strikingly different yet exactly as Cathy knew her as. Her blonde hair was the gone, now a wavy brown, but her loving eyes still sparkled whenever she saw Kat. The way she walked and held herself was identical to her future self, Cathy noted silently. Kat hurled herself into the woman’s arms, practically toppling her in place. “Hello Kat,” she ran a hand through the girl’s hair. “Awfully excited today?”

Pulling away, Kat bounced on her feet. “Yes! I have a wonderful gift for Mary, and I can’t wait to surprise her with it.”

“I’m sure it’s wonderful dear,” Jane replied, smoothing out Kat’s rumpled dress. Cathy put a hand to her forehead, the throbbing momentarily returning. Something about what Kat had said didn’t feel right, but she couldn’t place it, not with the pain in her skull. “Cathy, are you alright?” Jane reached a hand out but didn’t touch Cathy.

“She hit her head last night,” Kat explained. “Cathy can barely remember anything.”

It was strange how Jane didn’t seem bothered by this information at all. “Well, I’m Jane, one of the Queen’s maids of honor. I used to work at a famous pub on the Isle of Wights before I was lifted into court. I look after Kat while her father is away on business.”

Taking in the information, Cathy tried to hide her utmost confusion. This wasn’t the past. This was the future but… they were in the past? All of it was making Cathy’s head spin. “I remember you, Jane,” Cathy said as vaguely as possible. She wasn’t lying, and this way she could convince the two other queens - could she call them that? - that she was okay.

“That’s progress!” Kat cheered as if Cathy was a complete amnesiac. 

Listening to the drunk calls of courtiers in the banquet hall, Jane sighed. “I’m going to have to leave you two and check up on the kitchens. The queen instructed me to keep an eye out for anyone stealing food. Things have been disappearing all over the palace recently, and she fears the thief will head for the food stores next.”

“While Princess Mary is visiting?” Kat questioned. “Wouldn’t they try to steal her jewels instead? It’s a much bigger prize than some bread.”

Jane shook her head. “It’s not my place to question the Queen.”

Her answer seemed to satisfy Kat who waved at Jane as she left the pair to go find the kitchens. Cathy watched her go, suddenly feeling empty without the third queen with them. Jane had always provided stability, something she still retained in this world, and it was something Cathy needed to latch onto as the world spun around her.

Kat grabbed her arm and pulled Cathy past the banquet hall and through the palace. “Kat, where are we going?” Cathy asked, noticing how guards became fewer and far between as they traversed the halls.

“Ssh,” Kat shushed her friend. Stopping in front of a door, Kat pushed it open and stumbled inside. “This is the common room for servants. You won’t remember, but we discovered a hidden panel that leads directly to the royal chambers!”

Frowning, Cathy observed the plain room. “So we’re the thieves Jane was talking about?”

“What? No,” Kat seemed horrified at the idea. “I would never steal from the royal family. And you never liked using the passage, so I don’t think you’re the thief.”

Balancing herself on the wall, Cathy felt another dizzy spell come on. This one was shorter, a sign that she was adjusting, and it passed quickly. “So why are we down here Kat?”

“Oh.” Kat moved across the room to the far end of one of the walls. She started fidgeting with a loose panel of the wall until it came off, revealing a dark hall. “Remember when I said I have a surprise gift for Princess Mary?”

“I might not remember much but that was five minutes ago, Kat,” Cathy rolled her eyes.

Clearing her throat awkwardly, Kat gestured to the passage. “Well I’m going to hide it in her room. We sneak into her bedchambers and hide the gift with a letter from you. With my stealth and your writing skills, it will be the best thing she’s ever seen!”

Kat seemed far too enthusiastic for breaking and entering, but Cathy let it go. What was the worst that could happen?

“Have you finished with the letter?” Kat was pacing around Mary’s room, poking at all the different antiques and riches spread about.

Glancing down at the blank page in front of her, Cathy nervously replied, “Uh, almost done.” Kat made a grunt of acknowledgement and continued to pace. “What did you get Mary?” Cathy asked in order to distract herself from her inability to write. Part of Cathy knew she could write the letter easily, but something was stalling her from actually putting her quill against the paper. It only served to keep them in the room for longer than was necessary as Cathy’s frustration grew. 

Pulling out a small satchel, Kat revealed the gift to Cathy. It was a beautiful glass swan with a black pearl that served as the eye of the swan. “It’s beautiful,” Cathy murmured, staring at the miniature sculpture.

Smiling fondly, Kat nodded. “It was my mother’s. I hope Mary will enjoy it as much as I did.”

Recoiling from the swan in surprise, Cathy watched Kat with an open mouth. “This was your mother’s and you’re just going to give it away to the princess?”

“She needs a gift,” Kat scuffed her foot against the flooring. “The King requests jewels, and this is the only thing of value I have.”

Hatred filled Cathy’s chest as she was reminded of the ways of the English Court. How subjects of the King were forced to give up their greatest possessions only for the royal family to discard them amongst countless other ‘worthless’ items. But Kat didn’t know any better. So Cathy didn’t say anything. She returned to her letter, forcing her hand to put a small splotch of ink on the parchment. A gasp from Kat pulled her attention away once again. The girl had opened Mary’s trunk and was admiring the princess’s many gowns. When Kat started to reach into the trunk, Cathy stood up. “Kat,” she warned.

The wonderment in Kat’s eyes almost won the writer over. She was pleading with her gaze, and it was working on Cathy without her permission. “One dress? Please?”

Relenting, Cathy nodded. “You can try on one dress. Then we leave and return to the banquet hall.”

“Thank you!” Kat beamed. Cathy turned away so she could offer Kat a small form of privacy. She stared at the letter and continued to procrastinate actually putting something on the page. Why wouldn’t her hand just write the words? Quicker than she would’ve liked, Kat spoke up, “Cathy, do I look like a princess?”

Spinning around in her chair, Cathy couldn’t help herself from going slack-jawed. Her friend looked exactly as Cathy remembered her during her reign as Queen of England. It was a horrible sense of nostalgia, and Cathy felt pains in her heart from seeing Kat dressed up. “Cathy, are you alright?” Kat stepped forward, concerned with her friend’s silence.

“I’m fine, just,” Cathy steadied her voice, “change back into your clothes before someone finds you.” 

Kat’s youthful glee was gone, replaced with worry for Cathy. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, thank you,” Cathy murmured. Kat stepped away, but before she could change out of her clothes, there was a knocking on the door. The two girls shared a terrified glance before Cathy started to improvise. “Pretend you’re the princess,” she ordered Kat.

“What?” Kat was against the idea.

“You’re dressed up as the Princess, you pretend to be her!”

Panicking when another knock came, Kat lowered her voice and spoke haughtily. “I’m indecent, come back another time.” Then she turned to Cathy and asked, “Did that sound like Mary?”

Without any actual way of knowing, Cathy gave her two thumbs up and whispered, “Couldn’t even tell you two apart.”

And then the door came crashing open, a woman in britches running in sword first. Kat screamed and launched herself at Cathy, grabbing her friend and holding her tight. The two of them backed up against the wall as the swordswoman approached them. The door swung shut behind her, shutting them in.

Cathy’s head darted to the side when she heard the window click open and another swordswoman climb through it. Once the woman was inside, she turned her back to Cathy and locked the window, obscuring her face. But when she turned around, Cathy cursed herself for not recognizing either of the women earlier. “Anne? Anna?” she asked, holding Kat against her chest.

Anne Squared, like Jane and Kat, were creepily akin to their 21st century selves. The biggest difference for Anna was that she was younger than her modern self. Barely twenty one, Cathy guessed, but she had the hardened eyes of someone who had been doing this for a long time. Anna’s skin was thick and dark, matched with the familiar air of self confidence she always had. Her outfit was a mismatch of a cheap red tunic and black slacks that complimented her fierce eyes. Her sword was sharp and threatening, but Cathy couldn’t picture her actually hurting someone with it.

“How do you know our names?” demanded Anne, stalking forward and pulling out the second sword on Anna’s belt. She pointed it at Cathy’s throat and spit at the ground. Anne’s voice was huskier than Cathy was used to, and it sent her for a loop. Her not-girlfriend was wearing a mostly black outfit, her belt and hat colored with her signature green. It was unnerving how similar yet different this Anne was to the Anne that Cathy was used to. “Eh?” Anne pushed, taking a step closer.

Hugging Kat closer, Cathy struggled for an answer. “You remind me of someone I know,” she offered lamely, hoping they would buy it.

For whatever reason, Anne chose not to push it. “Well it doesn’t matter, you’re coming with us.”

“What?” Kat poked her head out from under Cathy’s arm. “Are you kidnapping us?”

“That’s indeed what we’re doing,” Anna smirked at Kat, causing the girl to once again bury her head in Cathy’s chest. Holding her friend, Cathy tried to offer her a feeling of safety. She knew Anne and Anna would never hurt them, but Kat didn’t know that. 

“Princess Mary,” Anne addressed Kat, “and her…” Anne looked Cathy up and down in a way that made her want to slap the girl that was supposed to be her girlfriend, “strange, yet beautiful servant.” Anne winked, “You’ll do quite well for ransom.”

By the way Kat froze in Cathy’s arms, she could tell they both realized their mistake. “I’m not Prince-” Kat started, but Anna cut her off.

“Please don’t make me hurt that pretty mouth of yours,” Anna waved her sword in a circle. “You two come quietly and no one gets hurt.”

Glancing down at Kat and then at the two swords pointing at her face, Cathy made the decision for them. “Okay.”

-----------------------------------------

Tag List:

@radcowboyalmondtree @boleynhowards @annabanana2401 @babeebobo @dont-lose-your-queerhead @everything-insanity @mindless-pidgeon @i-wanna-dance-and-sing-six @thedemidisaster

[tinypenguincheesemachine]

Vexing Hexes

Summary: MC, Nik and The Graveyard Shift regulars discuss curses after a few too many drinks. When it’s clear MC has had enough, Nik comes to her rescue.

Pairing: Nik x MC (Klara)

Length: 2,229

Note: Slightly random, but the idea popped into my head after seeing a Reddit thread, and I couldn’t resist. It was a slow day at work, so I spent a while thinking up various ‘minorly inconvenient curses’ to amuse myself (most of which haven’t made the fic as they were, ironically, a bit NSFW). It’s set early on in the book; around chapter two-ish.

                                                   Vexing Hexes

The Graveyard Shift was starting to quieten down. The customers leaving in dribs and drabs until only Klara and her new friends were left. Nik was alone at one end of the bar, nursing a drink, while Ivy and Krom sat together a few seats away. Garrus bustled around them all, cleaning up the now empty tables.

Klara was in a booth on the opposite side of the bar. Just moments before, it had been filled with laughter and conversation from a group of girls out for a night on the town. Klara had noticed them the moment they arrived. Their brashness and carefree attitude drawing her in as they moved confidentially into the bar.

Approaching the table, the round of shots she’d offered had earned her a place in their group. She’d hoped to get lost in their party atmosphere. To pretend there wasn’t a cursed entity out to kill her. That ghosts and goblins and whatever else weren’t real. That she was normal. And it had worked, for a while. Their fast-paced banter and acceptance grounding Klara, allowing her to stay in the moment with them. Until they left, Leaving Klara in a bar with a nighthunter, an undead goth, a member of the fae and a troll.

It was like the beginning of a bad joke, she thought mirthlessly. Knocking back the last of her drink, Klara sets the empty tumbler on the table, wincing at the loud bang. Looking up, she can see Krom and Ivy glance over at her and feels her gut clench uncomfortably. She has nothing against them – quite the opposite, in fact – but they were a visual reminder of her recent upheaval. As he meets her eyes, Krom turns away, but Ivy smiles at her, beckoning her over.

Klara hesitates, her eyes briefly sweeping over the empty seats around her. Shaking her head, she hauls herself up from her seat, only to trip over the table leg. She only just catches herself – her hand gripping a nearby chair as her vision swims in front of her. Maybe that last round was a mistake, Klara thinks, smiling wryly even as she feels her ears grow hot. Fidgeting, she straightens her clothes, running her suddenly sweaty hands over the thighs of her jeans before she feels steady enough to move.

Thankfully, she makes it to the bar without further incident and falls into the seat beside Ivy. There’s a sudden silence and a shifting in seats as she sits, an atmosphere that speaks of a swift end to a conversation that Klara hopes was not about her. Feeling hot, Klara clenches her hands against her legs. She doesn’t think she could take anyone asking after her right now. Quickly, before Ivy can ask how she’s feeling, Klara spits out the first thing that comes to her.

“If you were going to curse someone, what would you curse them with? Not a big curse. It would be more of a mild inconvenience. Like…” casting her eyes around the room, Klara snorts as sees the booth she’s just came from. “Always tripping over when you stand up!”

She knows she’s rambling; and worse yet, slurring her words. Knows it’s probably inappropriate to discuss curses with someone who gave up most of her life to save the world only to end up ‘undead’. It’s why she can’t quite meet Ivy’s eyes and faces the bar instead.

Thankfully, Ivy doesn’t take offence. When she laughs, Klara’s head snaps up to look at her, a small smile on her face. “That’s a hard one,” Ivy muses. “What do you think?” She asks Krom, her purple eyes shining with amusement.

Krom tilts his head, his gaze moving from Ivy to Klara as he mulls it over. “What if, their hands were always sticky?”

“Hand sanitizer would fix that!” Garrus interjects, winking at Krom. “What about this: they always take the wrong information down. Phone numbers, orders…that type of thing. No matter how much they check and double-check, it’s always just a little wrong.”

“Oooh, that’s evil!” Klara crows, delightedly. Garrus grins at her, clearly pleased.

“Getting an itch, just when you get comfortable,” Ivy adds, her head nodding in emphasis. “I used to hate that.”

“Road works or a flat tire whenever you really need to be somewhere,” Klara suggests, laughing.

“Or the bus or train breaking down if you don’t drive,” Krom adds, smiling.

“And it’s raining!” Garrus calls out.

“What about,” Nik declares loudly. “What about, an eye floater that never goes away.”

“They’d always be twitching,” Klara says, her tone thoughtful.

Titling his glass in her direction, Nik grins, crookedly. “Exactly, rookie.”

“Hmm,” Ivy muses. “People always mistaking them for someone else, but not in a good way.”

“Or mistaking other people for someone they know. They’d always end up being embarrassed.” Krom adds.

“Oh, I know!” Klara exclaims, almost bouncing in her seat in excitement. “No matter how much you straighten your hair; it’s always frizzy!” Sitting back, she grins at all of them, clearly pleased with herself, until a small frown creases her forehead. “And vice-versa, of course.”

Laughing, Ivy raises an eyebrow at Klara. “That’s your ultimate mild inconvenience?”

“You have to admit it’s frustrating?” Klara defends, and she can’t help but run a hand through her hair distractedly.

“Yeah, I go through that every day.” Nik deadpans.

“We can tell,” Garrus says, looking pointedly at Nik’s hair. Nik merely rolls his eyes, refusing to take the bait.

“These curses,” Nik starts, turning to Klara. “Are they petty on principle?”

Opening her eyes wide, Klara gasps. “You think our ideas are petty?” She asks, using her hand to cover her mouth with an audible slap. At seeing Nik’s shocked expression, Klara has to bite her lip to stop herself from laughing. Not being much of an actress. However, the look of shock is short-lived, quickly turning into a scowl.

Grinning cheekily, Klara winks at him. “Less petty, more of a vexing hex.” Klara giggles at this, delighted at her attempt at a pun.

“A vexing hex?” Nik repeats. His jaw works a moment as if sounding the phrase out. “You drunk, rook?”

Taken aback, Klara momentarily tries to catalogue what she’s drunk, quickly losing count. The group of girls she had sat with were big on shots, she knows that much.

Seeing her confusion, Garrus smirks at her. “I’d be surprised if you weren’t. Your friends seemed to be making their way through the drinks menu.”

“Eh,” Klara shrugs. Placing her hands on the bar, she pushes herself to her feet. Or at least, tries to. The sudden motion makes her stagger, her hip banging against her stool, making it rattle against the floor. Looking up to see the others staring, Klara’s hands twitch at her side as she fights the urge to bury her face in her hands. “Ok, maybe I’m a little drunk.” She concedes, her ears burning once more, and she knows her face has gone blotchy in embarrassment.

Ivy smiles at her reassuringly while Garrus chuckles. Hearing a snort, Klara glances at Nik to see him shaking his head. Downing the last of his drink, he stands up. “It’s getting late,” Nik states, beckoning for Klara to follow him.

He doesn’t even look, just expects her to follow. Feeling her mouth go dry, Klara scowls. Was she at his beck and call now? They’d only just met. He had no right to tell her what to do. She wasn’t the one who hired him, after all. If that story was even true.

“It’s not that late,” Klara challenges. Wincing as her words come out more petulant than she’d hoped for.

Nik raises his eyebrow, his lip twitching into a small smirk, and Klara can hear a rushing in her ears as her pulse races. Is she a joke to him? She thinks. Her fists clenching at her sides as she envisions slapping the smirk from his face.

It’s then Klara notices that Ivy, Krom and Garrus have averted their eyes, busying themselves with other things and avoiding her gaze. Relaxing her hands, Klara sighs as she runs a hand over her face, her anger quickly fading. She can’t remember the last time she felt so worn out. Looking up at Nik, she sees him watching her, his face unreadable. “You’re right,” she says, smiling ruefully. “It is late.”

Face still passive, Nik holds his hand out to her once more, watching her carefully. ‘C’mon, rook.” His tone is almost pleading, and it makes Klara’s decision for her.

Walking towards him, Klara stumbles a little; her ankle turning over and sending her lurching to one side. She’s stopped from falling by Krom’s quick reflexes as he grabs her arm. He holds onto her, making sure she has her footing before letting go.

She can barely meet Krom’s eyes as she stutters through her ‘thank you,’ and it amazes her that she can go from never wanting to leave the bar from wanting the whole building to disappear around her in such a short space of time.

Ducking her head, Klara watches her feet in concentration as she closes the distance between herself and Nik, each step feeling like she’s wading through mud. Thankfully, she makes it there without further incident, Nik’s calloused hand coming up to clasp her arm tightly.

Klara tenses momentarily but relaxes as Nik squeezes her arm in reassurance. She murmurs her goodbyes as Nik calls out his goodnights, and then they’re heading out, Nik leading her gently beside him, keeping her steady and upright. With his guidance, Klara’s steps feel a little less cumbersome, but she still stumbles as they come to the stairs, her toes jarring painfully as they hit the riser, forcing her to lurch forward.

How many times can I trip in one night? Klara thinks, as Nik’s arm snakes, it’s way around her waist to pull her close. She allows herself to lean against him, her head on his shoulder as he hauls them up the rest of the stairs. Her eyes start to close half-way up, their heaviness getting harder to fight as everything seems to blur around her.

They come to a halt in front of the door to Nik’s apartment, and Klara can hear Nik curse under his breath as he struggles to get the keys and open the door. Taking in a breath through her nose, Klara hums a little as she lifts her head. “Do you need a hand?” It comes out mumbled, masked heavily with sleep and Klara clears her throat to try again.

Nik chuckles dryly, his arm tightening against her. “I think I’ve got it.”

Humming happily as the door opens, Klara settles back against Nik, her hand coming up to grasp at his jacket as she nuzzles into his neck.

“Klara!” Strangely, Nik’s voice comes out strangled, and Klara’s head snaps up, her eyes wide as she scans the room.

“What’s wrong?” Klara asks as she turns from the empty room to face Nik.

His eyes are on her, his gaze travelling over her face, searching…but for what? The thought makes Klara frown as her mind races, struggling to clear the drunken fog that’s settled over her. They’re close, close enough for Klara to smell the alcohol on his breath and as the moment drags on, it builds with an intensity that Klara knows is important but can’t quite grasp.

“Nothin’,” he smiles, breaking eye contact with a small sigh. “It doesn’t matter.”

Although she smiles back, Klara feels a sense of loss fill her. Her confusion making her hold tighten on Nik’s jacket.

“You can have the bed,” he announces, smiling crookedly at her. “The couch ain’t good to wake up on if you have a hangover.”

Klara opens her mouth to argue, but the thought of sleeping in an actual bed, with a mattress and pillows soon takes its hold, stilling her tongue. “You sure?” She asks.

Raising an eyebrow, Nik chuckles as he guides her into the bedroom, squeezing her waist once more. “What kinda gentleman would I be if I let you sleep on the couch…again.”

Klara merely snorts, allowing herself to be led through the apartment as her mind focuses on thoughts of sheets and covers and sweet, sweet sleep. When they get to the bedroom, Klara detaches herself from Nik to throw herself onto the bed, snuggling into the pillow and groaning in delight.

“Dammit, Klara. At least take your boots off!”

Klara hears Nik’s scolding, but it sounds too far away to bother with, so she turns her face further into the pillow, hoping to block him out completely. Her breathing soon evens out, and she can feel herself tottering on the edge of sleep. When she feels the bed dipping, she thinks it’s the effects of the alcohol, making the room feel spinny and out of place. But dizziness doesn’t usually take the boots off her feet, handling her legs with care and placing them back on the bed. It doesn’t normally brush the hair tenderly from her face and cover her with a spare blanket before placing a warm kiss on her forehead.

The stubble scratching lightly against her skin and the lingering smell of alcohol and Nikness gives the game away. Leaving a happy smile on Klara’s face as Nik leaves the room.

[aro-aizawa]

Tell us about your AUs!! I’m curious!!

!!!!! an interested person???? hi anon i love you know that i would die for you without hesitation. bless you for letting me gush over my aus. this might be a lil messy (and long holy shit) considering im answering from my phone but from memory here are my aus (which i aint gonna lie are mostly either angst, hurt/comfort or canon divergent, or a mix of the three) in no particular order:

edit: now that im on computer it’s all under the cut but here’s a quick table of contents:

the one where hisashi is a pro hero

the one where hisashi is a villain

underground gladiator arena kidnap fic

the one where aizawa is inko’s brother

MUTE TODOROKI

izuku is related to all for one

gamer au

the one where uraraka is the protag instead

hp au

disney aus galore

the Spite™️ fic

the one where hisashi is a pro hero

heads up in literally none of my aus is midoriya hisashi a good parent. i mean in canon we know exactly three details about him being his name, his quirk and that he works abroad. that’s it. so, i don’t really like “good parent hisashi”. this au is basically ‘hey what if izuku got a fire quirk from his dad’ combined with my own personal views on fire, and then also deciding ‘wait what if hisashi and endevor did the same shit’. so it’s basically an au where izuku is in the same situation as todoroki.

it’s….kind of complicated now that it’s written down. in my head its p straight forwards?? anyways, basically my view on fire is that it absolutely shouldn’t be demonized as much as it is. because without fire, life couldn’t exist. it’s warmth and life and beauty. i just…think that view of it is perfect for izuku, and i always wanted to try my hand at fire quirk izuku.

also one of my few aus that’s actually gonna have a ship focus?? in that it’s tododeku but honestly knowing me i might end up accidentally dropping that aspect of it like i tend to do a LOT bc of my inability to write crushes (im an aro who’s never had a crush so me writing romance is…awkward at best lol)

the one where hisashi is a villain

i have……admittedly a lot of versions of this au. it’s by far one of my favourites to think about, for several reasons actually, mostly bc of angst but also because the hurt/comfort potential there is incredible.

my most current version of this au though plays with the idea that in the mha society those with ‘villainous’ quirks get discrimated against and pushed so the only chance they do have to survive is to turn to villainy. in this au i play with hisashi and inko’s quirks a little to make them more villainous and easier to discriminate against, for example hisashi can cremate anything he touches into ashes at will, and inko can minorly manipulate the limbs of other people although she’s mainly limited to pulling them towards her or pushing them back.

in this version, izuku is quirkless and still goes through ua determined to change the way that society works and right the wrongs in how it’s set up while also proving that quirkless people aren’t useless. a lot of dadzawa in this one because it is my w e a k n e s s. there’s a few other elements thrown in there, but overall that’s the basic jist of it.

underground gladiator arena kidnap fic

one of my darker aus where a group of villains kidnap kids who took the ua exam to create an “everything goes” fight club that customers can watch and occasionally participate in.

my general idea for this was “the sports festival is pretty brutal when you think about it. it’s almost like everything but killing goes” and then i thought that in a superpowered society there is no way there isn’t any kind of underground fight club where people can go full out w their quirks.

hence this au was born! the kids who’re kidnapped w izuku have been constantly changing over the ladt year or so that i’ve had this idea but rn i decided on having shinsou, kaminari, mina, tokoyami and yaoyorozu w him. the rest would be filled w ocs bc the villains weren’t dumb enough to kidnap all of the heroics students, just a handful.

bearing in mind the kids are all taken a couple days after the entrance exam so they’re not familiar with each other and izuku is the only one familiar w a pro hero and that’s a secret. not to mention he’s only used his quirk once at this point, and he has no access to recovery girl’s quirk so he has to figure smth out IMMEDIATELY or he’s completely fucked.

the one where aizawa is inko’s brother

look if you inspect my aus carefully you’ll see a theme and that theme is i fucking love aizawa. anyways, in this one izuku has a pretty powerful nullification quirk and is trained by aizawa. aizawa and inko have like an eight or ten year age difference, so they weren’t all that close until inko reached out when izuku was eight.

i’ll admit this is one of my lesser developed aus but it’s canon divergent with a focus on izuku hoping to be an underground hero. and due to his quirk and that aspect of his personality, it kind of changes a lot of things??? potentially a short(ish) au if i ever got round to writing it out. maybs about 20k-30k words idk.

(this is mostly born bc i feel like people forget that there’s only a fifteen year age difference between aizawa and izuku for a number of reasons. also bc inko/aizawa….is kind of weird in my mind. definitely not a fan :///)

MUTE TODOROKI

look i fucking love mute aus okay, but when i was trying to apply it to the mha universe i started thinking “holy shit todoroki could definitely be mute” or smth and ever since this au is close to my heart.

basically when poor rei burned lil shouto, she mentally scarred him into mutism. ever since the kettle incident, shouto can’t speak a word. endeavor is told by the doctor that although nothing physically is wrong, shouto is mute. endeavor is a DICK and p much decides he’ll just wait it out for shouto to finally talk bc he’s just being childish (basically he’s ablist and doesn’t let todoroki learn sign. which is bullshit but doesn’t majorly effect him bc he’s homeschooled until high school anyway).

it’s sort of canon divergent but also maybe a complete au??? in that there’s no league of villains. when all might fought afo the first time he succeeded in putting a stop to the villain and killing him. izuku still gets ofa, but he’s not the protag of the story, this time it’s todoroki.

anyways, ua sees that todoroki is mute (which isn’t registered and completely unknown to the general public) and doesn’t know sign language (resorting to notes and/or charades if he needs to communicate something), and decides to investigate that shit.

endeavor eventually gets what he deserves bc the trash bag can go rot in hell, and that’s p much all i got aside from the class realising FAST they need to adopt and love todoroki so there’s a lot of wholesome bonding there.

izuku is related to all for one

admittedly this one is one of my most underdeveloped aus but i still love it all the same. basically my take on it bc the whole ‘afo is hisashi’ thing kinda weirds me out considering afo is at least 200 years old. in this au he’s izuku’s grandfather and inko is his daugther who escaped him and lives in hiding.

i haven’t decided whether i want this au to be my take on izuku having afo or if it’s another quirkless izuku au. i haven’t gotten very far into it, all i know is that afo has no emotions and he’s a heartless bastard (me hating the dad for one trope w a passion) so there’s sort of MAJOR angst potential if i decide to go down that route.

gamer au

izuku’s quirk is that his life is a game. that’s….that’s it. if you’re familiar with sword art online, it has a lot of influence from that w/o the characters or plot or pervertedness or incest because what the fuck sao was so bad with all those. still pissed bc outside that it had potential and i think abt that a lot.

anyways, so y’know how in a lot of rpgs there’s the hud w stats and an inventory system and abilities?? well apply that to izuku and he’s p much that. the world “autosaves” whenever he sleeps, but he can’t manually load a save. if he dies he starts over from his last autosave.

bc of his access to abilities and stuff, he has the potential to be powerful bc hey he can basically do magic, but at the same time he just healed his body completely by drinking this drink he made w herbs and shit last night. also he can carry a ludicrous amount of shit that couldn’t possible fit in his backpack but apparently he’s got seventeen cheese wheels in there and room for half the classroom furniture too.

izuku sees the world w a hud which would be annoying but it’s normal for izuku. in fact, he sort of hates watching tv because the hud doesn’t appear on the screen and it’s so weird and bizarre he doesn’t really like it.

i haven’t planned anything but details of the quirk bc it can get waaaay too overpowered too quickly and hhhh i sort of burnt out of different ways this would effect canon, so i didn’t think abt it. but i did figure out that izuku would have so many gaming analogies for his friends and be into like a thousand different games.

the one where uraraka is the protag instead

born when i was complaining about how shitty horikoshi is at writing his female characters i brainstormed this au in a discord server where i overhauled canon w a more badass uraraka. (and she doesn’t even get ofa!!! she’s just badass on her own!!!)

basically bc she’s a lot more confident and determined in this au she influences a lot of her classmates. the other girls are a lot more active in their actions and are more than just the background characters. uraraka’s full strength is explored and i think i planned for her to win the sports festival bc she deserved it.

also inspired by the idea i had of pro hero uraraka kicking a lamp post down on her own strength and using it to put a comet home run on a villain like she did in the battle trial. bc holy shit that’s a fantastic mental image.

basically my “mha girls fucking rule and fuck horikoshi’s shitty writing” au

hp au

ah yes, finally we get to my take on the most generic of aus. basically i just wanted todoroki in hufflepuff to piss off endeavor and basically loving it bc he befriends izuku in it. i definitely haven’t developed this au outside of worldbuilding in how i’d combine the two universes whilst fixing both jkr and horikoshi’s bad writing.

i actually wrote a snippet that’s somewhere on my blog that i can’t link to now but you could probs for search it. but this was basically born from me getting angry at people putting the kids in the wrong houses. im a firm believer that izuku fits in nearly every house but hufflepuff and slytherin suits him the most while todoroki is ABSOLUTELY a hufflepuff. i wanted some platonic tododeku bonding so i put izuku in hufflepuff. uraraka is slytherin, iida is gryffindor, and it’d be too messy to list all the kids so i won’t.

but!! what im most happy w in this au is how i incoporate mha stuff into it. like how hagakure isn’t actually invisible she just got permanently hexed by her brother to always be unnoticed so you can never know what she looks like or where she is. tokoyami has a bird head due to a failed attempt at becoming an animagi. its permanent and although he could get it fixed, theres actually a number of wizards w the same thing do there’s a lot of animal like wizards. shinhou comes from a pureblood family thats been known for their dark magic, even though the last four generations haven’t been dark wizards the wizardinv world is convinced he’ll be a dark wizard too but shinsou wants to prove them wrong. amajiki being a metamorphmagus who shifts his limbs into animals when he’s nervous. etc etc. i have too much worldbuilding and no plot lmao.

disney aus galore

one day i thought up abt three different disney aus for the mha universe but my first idea was a little mermaid au for momojirou w momo being the princess and jirou being the mermaid.

except besides the basic premise i p much scrapped the whole movie in that jirou learns sign language to talk to momo and the two play music together. jirou plays piano or w/e whilst momo sings. it’s v gay. theres a ball and they dance and then kiss. i never wrote it out bc i didn’t wanna add conflict in it but never got round to actually writing it lmao.

but i thought up a tododeku tangled au, kiribaku cinderella au, tsuocha princess and the frog au, and a couple others that i didn’t plan out fully. still close to my heart if i ever manage to get round to writing them out. each would probs either be a long shot at 7k-15k words or a short multichapter fic at 25k-30k words.

the Spite™️ fic

the fic where i get pissed at every shitty thing about horikoshi’s writing. izuku gets mad at all might for his views on quirkless people and gets into ua on his first try. izuku rightfully does not take bakugou’s shit and calls him out at every opportunity. bakugou’s actions have repercussions. all might gets punished for almost letting bakugou kill izuku in an exercise.

izuku gets pissed over a lot of shit basically. also at one point he either punts mineta into the sun or loudly and publicly makes the argument that mineta should be expelled from ua including evidence and testimonies from the girls. and he encourages nearly all of them to get better costumes.

i haven’t actually written much abt it but if there’s smth i got pissed @ horikoshi for smth in canon it’d be address in this fic bc oh boy am i never spiteful so it’s kind of theraputic to write even tho i haven’t done it in a while.

uh….i have a lot more but man i think i’ve been writing this for like an hour or two idk im gonna finish this before the app crashes or smth. thank you for letting me ramble this got long oops sorry.

[thetravellingvagrant]

Day 8- Lviv: In Which I Am The Man In The High Castle

I spent the vast majority of my morning catching up on blog business, various pieces of travel admin and sleeping for longer than I should have done; consequentially (and shamefully), it was veering close to one in the afternoon by the time I removed myself from bed.

I walked, bleary eyed to the bathroom. The toilet was still running from the last time I had pressed the flusher. It was, I had learned through experimentation, possible to fix this problem, though each time I did, it would relapse at the next push of the plunger and require ever so slightly more drastic action for its next repair. Not willing to eventually have to dismantle the entire cistern, I had begun to just let it run in between uses; a barely acceptable, though mildly infuriating solution at best.

Barely acceptable, though mildly infuriating is actually not a bad way to describe this apartment in general. It hadn't taken long for the shiny white veneer of the place to crack apart, revealing the poo-brown mankiness that lay underneath (Not literally, though give me time...). The constantly howling toilet and genuinely stomach-turning décor of the place were among the steadily more and more irksome irritations which had begun to surface at this point and in no area was this more apparent than in the kitchen.

The kitchen had been stocked in a genuinely mind-boggling manner, boasting far, far too many of certain items- something like 20 plates, 15 shot glasses, a single pastry brush, because even one of those is too many in an AirBNB kitchen- and far, far too little of others. Zero bowls being the most egregious offender, though an utter lack of any kind of bread or butter knife also ranked fairly high on that list. Two types of spoon were available; teaspoons and giant-ass serving ones. Nothing in-between that you might, say, want to eat cereal with. Also whenever you turned the hob on, touching any of its corners would immediately result in a mild electric shock, which. You know,. Not great.

And so I found myself on my first morning in this apartment, in a bad mood, pouring cereal into a mug. I cracked open the milk I had bought the previous night, gave it a customary whiff to check its freshness and immediately wretched.

“Thaaaat is not milk” I spluttered to myself.

I took the time that I should have taken in the supermarket to translate the Cyrillic on the carton.

“Yuh...ooooh...guh...urt...” For fucks sake.

I tipped the contents of my mug back into the packet from whence it came and decided to have a sandwich instead.

Five minutes later, I was rewarded for my effort with a piece of mangled bread, torn up initially in the cutting and later in the butter spreading process- given that, as I mentioned, I was sans bread and butter knives respectively- topped hastily with clumps of butter, a couple of slices of plasticy Emmental cheese and a few bits of some thinly sliced, cured sausage. It wasn't the prettiest sandwich ever made, but begrudgingly I will admit that I still enjoyed it. Somehow. Nyerr.

And so I left my apartment, full of starch and rage, close to two in the afternoon, with only a few hours before darkness and the freezing cold of eastern winter set in. Unlike Brest, Lviv boasted a great number of worthwhile attractions and museums and whatnot, so I had had rich pickings for the day's plans. A great number of the things I really wanted to do were positioned in the area immediately adjacent to the city's Russian consulate, though, and so I decided to perhaps postpone them for a day or so, pending a check up on that whole pesky martial law thing. Instead I had opted to have a little walking tour of the city, taking me past some of the cooler statues (and this city has some very cool statues...), around High Castle park- which, as the name suggests, is a park, on the top of a hill with...a castle. I think, at least, I didn't see a castle, but I bet there is one- and finally to the arsenal museum, positioned right next to my flat, to gawp at all old weaponry and that for a bit.

I decided to head to the park, first and foremost, as time was getting on and I didn't fancy climbing a big hill in the dark. It was located around half an hour's walk outside the core of the city, so I had hoped the walk would give me an opportunity to take the city in, properly, this time after straight up forgetting nearly everything I had seen and done, the previous day.

I wasn't disappointed; Lviv is a nice city, seemingly walking a line in its aesthetics between its eastern neighbours and something altogether more...Scandinavian. The best of both worlds, really. Particularly, if like me, you enjoy wide open, freezing cold, borderline dystopian spaces. Mmmm.

Anyway, I progressed through its relatively lovely streets, freezing away- it is still routinely around -5/6 every day- and soon found myself at at the base of the High Castle.

The park was as pleasant as the city, itself and, save for a weird greenish, mustardy colour that the well trodden snow had somehow taken on, was an altogether lovely experience. I clambered my way to the highest peak, which was, I dunno, pretty high, I guess?

...I guess?

snapped a few pictures, as I am wont to do, before, after around twenty minutes, finding myself becoming just a little too cold to justify hanging around any further and unclambering my way back down. Despite the feeling in my fingers fading alarmingly quickly, I decided to continue around the rest of the park, having seen a sign pointing to a thing called a “grot” and having very little idea what that could have been but knowing that I absolutely needed to find out.

TELL ME YOUR SECRETS.

The rest of the park was equally lovely, save for the grot- which was actually a bit rubbish in the end-

Genuinely thought a troll would live here. Beyond disappointed.

though did, by the time I found myself leaving, strike me as being all a bit samey thanks in no small part, I imagine, to the snow covering everything, like the big white bastard blanket that it is.

After another half hour walk back to the city, time was marching on and I knew I needed to move quickly, if I was to make it to the arsenal museum with enough time to ooh and ahh at its pointy wares. My stomach, however, was growling with hunger and my core temperature dropping to genuinely uncomfortable levels and so I took a calculated risk to drop into a cafe quickly to refuel and warm up.

By the time I had made it to the museum, there remained only around half an hour before it was due to close. Perhaps just enough time for a whirlwind tour of the place (which, realistically was all I had really anticipated in the first place). Even this blitzkrieg visit was not to be, however, as I watched in (admittedly minor) dismay as the couple entering the museum ahead of me, were immediately turned away, presumably as they wouldn't have enough time to make it around the entire exhibit before the staff effed off home. I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that the minorly awkward bit of social interaction had fallen on these other people rather than me and vowed to come back tomorrow, instead. All that was left to do, then, was pick up some food for the night and go home. My next stop was to be the supermarket.

I went to a different supermarket than I had the previous night; a necessity, given that I couldn't find the last one I had gone to and had since entirely forgotten its name. This new supermaket was the fucking worst. Tiny enclosed aisles, bustling with genuinely quite rude people who had seemingly very little in the way of awareness of the space their body occupied or how the way in which they used that space may come off as slightly antisocial; this coupled with the shop's bizarre, almost one way circular circuit of a layout and mind-boggling insistence to not stack like products together, saw me spending the better part of half an hour, walking round and round, being knocked into, tutted at and side-eyed in the pursuit of three paltry items, by, to put it as kindly as I can, wankers; a phenomenon not entirely localised to Lviv's supermarkets, by the way- there appears to be a general culture of being just honestly a bit rude and refusing to get out of other people's ways, here.

Audibly grumbling to myself, like a nutter might, I returned home to warm up and continue my desperate efforts to chip away at the mountain of vagrant admin.

My dinner for the evening was to be a hearty bowl of tuna-pasta. I boiled my fuisilli, diligently for as long as I could be bothered waiting and set about mixing two new additions to the vagrant larder- tuna and mayo- into some kind of grim, almost edible paste. I cracked the top off of the little pouch of mayonnaise I had just bought and, for some weird reason, thought it prudent to give it a taste before I let it touch my precious tuna. Be it due to some kind of weird psychic vagrant-sense, or because the packet, on closer inspection looked like it might not actually be mayonnaise in the strictest sense, I slurped a glob of it into my mouth. For the second time today, I wretched. I wretched hard. I wretched so hard that I was nearly immediately sick as my very nice and also total bastard of a girlfriend with whom I was skyping at the time, laughed herself feral at my obvious discomfort. My mouth was filled with a weird, putrid sweetness that immediately hit the back of the throat. It was like drinking a death milkshake.

[REDACTED]

“...are you sure its in date?” she queried, except more Geordie than that.

Again, I was fairly sure that it wa-ah, no. There it is. Mystery solved. It was more than one month past its sell-by date. I had just eaten a mouthful of rotten mayonnaise, with an audience. Perfect. What a perfect day this was. I put the mayonnaise in the bin, right next to that fucking yoghurt and the Arsenal museum. Fuck this.

Thinking on my feet, I ended up mixing the remnants of my sandwich fillings into the pasta, creating a sort of cheesy, meaty brick of carbohydrates, which I grimly and dilligently munched my way through, on the verge of tears before, almost immediately afterwards heading to bed, with an ominous churning beginning in my guts...

[keenregine]

Don't ask me for movie recommendations if you hate war related contents I can't promise but I will try, and I hope that's good enough to keep this pointless blog.   It has been what? Half a year? I'm in a situation where the internet is not accessible at the moment, the reason why I'm assuming the last time I've written something. Anyways, what could be an interesting tale to tell.   That took me couple of  minutes. . . I moved! And I'm loving single moment of it.  Call me weird all you want but I love the feeling of solitude especially in the comfort of having my own home. Because compared to where I previously lived, I have always felt like I'm occupying a rented room. Common areas for me, such as the living room and kitchen are somewhat restricted, this is based on my choice not due to any certain implications. Now I have all the freedom to decorate any part of the house. (as if I'm good at it, I'm trying to learn though) Never thought plants can be visually stimulating, whether they're plastic or real ones. If you ask me, I prefer the plastic ones. Low maintenance, no need to water, sing or talk to them. Plus my floor would not get wet every time I excessively and unintentionally drown them. I got quite frustrated with my cutie ass bonsai, even with my purest dedication to water it everyday, it still loses its leaves one after another. I initially thought, perhaps new leaves are growing; but it never did. It just went on from being thin to almost bald. You might suggest, the internet is there to provide some proper caring techniques for a silly little plant. I guess, I'm not really interested after all. Away we go to with the plastic ones! I meant plant, not person. Lol ohhhh.   Living alone is fun, rest assured. There are two options for me where to hang and slumber, that would be my bedroom and the receiving area. I never get to enjoy the living room in my previous home, why you ask? It's full of garbage. No kidding, maybe things that can't occupy much of the space in their room (which is already the masters'), the living room is the second option (kitchen is full, stock room is full, living room upstairs is full, even my own single space in the fridge has something that is theirs. So, instead of me enjoying other scenery apart from my four-cornered bedroom, it will be my stress triggered. Lol. And of course, I have no right or whatsoever to rearrange them or even complain about it. Sounds pitiful of me for saying this but before, my meals are always held on my bed or in a table beside it. Now it became the opposite, I have the privilege to eat in a freaking decent dining table, where I can properly sit down and where meals are suppose to be eaten. I might have previously mentioned, I may not be that kind of person who's into home arranging and stuff or if that's what it's called. I couldn't even say I've developed a sense of some Mom-like characteristics in terms of home keeping aspect, (child-bearing, not close enough lol), I believe this is only the starting phase because certainly there are tons of other areas I need to improve or showcase hopefully in the future.   Can't elaborate enough how much I felt the moment I moved out. If I was not pursued by a certain person I would not even have the courage to do it. Maybe there's a small part of me afraid of change, yet here I am. Big thanks.   Second half of this was written at home meaning I have an access to the internet, totally irrelevant but I just like to point that out. I woke up this morning with a jolt. For the first time ever, my laptop fell on the floor. If it was the old me it would ruin my entire day; present me would ignore it and move on. Why? What’s the point, it already happened. No matter how much energy I summon into thinking it was my fault (which it is), I’d rather spend that energy somewhere else meaningful. But fuck it fell, no scratches though. My life, my baby, my only source of entertainment, because it provides all the stuff that I need, Youtube, watching movies, writing. Can I be more careless than this? Yes, and also a bit melo dramatic. jinx! Hope I got you there. It’s wonderful how huge my bed now is. It could effortlessly occupy three average sized people, happened once when I had a sleepover few weeks ago, freaking works! I got excited when. I had to buy new sheets, I initially though it was a Queen size, but it was King. Valid reason I had to purchase extra pillows, it was never a big deal for me but then I figured why not. I had a this big size of a bed, but I’m pretty sure I always stay in one spot. So is my laptop desk along with the reachable charging cables; hence, I get to be more lazier than ever; top of the game. I discarded most of my old unused clothes, I have no intentions at all in sending back to the Philippines for charity purposes. I’d rather send them things they could actually use for their own and not some silly hand me downs. Once I send them a big package, . . whenever I say the phrase ‘big package’ I instantly think of Marshal Eriksen from How I Met Your Mother. Lily his wife told him, “You’re father sent us a big package”, then Marshal would reply, “yeah he did”. Wait, so I sent my family back home a big package containing things their requested, most are simple, and some that I’m sure they would like. Filled it up in a matter of days, but sent them in extensive delays. This was way before I decided to move. The moving thing was actually just a rush decision, I didn’t have the slightest consideration of ever leaving that wretched place. Oh now you called it wretched, that’s really mature of you Regine. You spend nearly half a decade of your life in there, no depth of gratitude and all. I don’t know if it’s a gift or a tragedy, you know me moving on so quickly not looking back from where I came from, whether those place gave me both good memories and bad. Typical me, leap of ideas. But anyways, this new house I moved in was on the third floor, no elevator. So by the time I reach my house, my pre existing tiredness would become double. I developed a certain breathing technique from my mountain climbing activities back then that is useful half the time right now. I should teach that to anyone who’s visiting me. 100% of people has the same out of breath faces when I open the door, can’t blame them. Some advantage of it is the proximity to the bus stop, but compared to the time frame I had before versus now is that I had to leave five minutes early as opposed to two. The stairs takes time even if it’s downwards; I can’t afford having a stupid unnecessary injury due to what? Hurrying up? Although that would give me several weeks of paid sick leave. Hmm, now we’re being a masochist. Apart from the bus stop is the grocery which I haven’t gone to many times since I moved, the gym where I only went once after several months, the park where I don’t have to physically visit because I can see it fully on my window which is awesome by the way. Before I end this boring entry in the hopes when I make a comeback I should’ve written something fun meaningful, disappointments is where I’m actually good at, so I’m gonna keep it perfectly that way. Okay, one more thing. Biggest shock of the day. I watched Rebel in the Rye movie for two major reasons; One, J.D. Salinger is one of my favorite classic writers and Catcher in the Rye book ultimately earned my gold stamp. Two, freaking Nicholas Hoult portrayed 'the' J.D. Salinger in that movie. Is he a prince of biopics or what, because he also did J.R.R Tolkien which was quite good. Same vibes if you ask me. The biggest shock that I'm talking about was Oona O'Neill. halfway the movie she showed up as Jerry's (J.D.freaking Salinger) girlfriend. And I thought, oh Oona was a pretty popular name back in the 40s huh, because to my knowledge Charlie Chaplin's last wife was also named Oona. Only to find out it was the same person. LOL jokes was on me. Spoilers ahead. They we're introduced briefly in a party, Oona rejected him initially, because she was self-absorbed at the time and only has the hots for successful men. Kidding (true story) Eventually when JD became minorly published, he finally got her approval, they dated, 1941 Pearl Harbor happened, he had to serve during WWII, D-Day in Normandy, news came out 18y/o Oona married world renowned 40 years her senior, successful * let's focus on the word succesful* Charlie Chaplin (whom I also loved). It's like connecting the dots. Fun game. But how come she was not mentioned in any of daddy Jerry's written biography. Should be none of my worries. Shocker huh.

[fourteenacross]

I NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THE SHARING A BED STORY. I NEED ALL THE BACKGROUND ON THAT ALEXANDER AND lAURENS. pLEASE SHARE.

Haha, thanks, buddy! :D

I don’t plan on expanding that rn as my docket is currently ghosthunters shitty summer, fem4ham, ghosthunters fall term, ghosthunters mirrors, so here’s what was going on in my head while I was working on that.

(as a refresher, here’s the original ficlet)

So, John and Alex grew up together, at least for the bulk of their adolescence. Something something Alex came to the US as a child and ended up in South Carolina, I guess, and they met and became instantly inseparable. There were probably a lot of sleepovers contingent on whose parents were annoying them at the moment, lots of exploring and secrets and crushes and finally, maybe their sophomore year of high school, they started dating.

This John’s depression and anxiety are a little amped up from how I read him historically and how I write him in ghosthunters (…for the most part. Uh. To be continued, there.), but he’s more or less coping, sometimes much less, and Alex has made it His Job to be there constantly, whenever John needs him, to do whatever it takes to de-escalate him, an unfortunate symptom of Alex’s own issues. His problems stay kind of below his father’s and teachers’ radar because a) when he goes on an anxiety spiral, unlike every other aspect of his life, instead of lashing out in anger, he turns his pain inward and gets quiet and hurts himself (minorly. Not so much self-harm as looking down after a panic attack and realizing that he was trying so hard to be quiet that he chewed his nails down to the quick or stabbed his nails into his palms hard enough to draw blood or picked a scab open or, not infrequently, yanked his hair so hard that his scalp is red and throbbing and he tore some out) and b) John is ashamed and goes out of his way to cover it up and Alex believes that He Can Handle Everything, so he sort of facilitates that.

Anyway, they do dumb high school sweetheart shit, they go to dances, they lose their virginity, they have huge fights and tearful make-ups, they talk about the future, etc. When the time comes, they both apply to a bunch of different colleges and promise that neither of them will throw their future away for the other. If they both get into the same place, great, but if not, they can handle long distance. Alex secretly fears that John won’t be able to handle long distance, but it doesn’t matter because they both get into Columbia and Alex gets enough financial aid that he doesn’t have to worry about going into debt for the rest of his life.

And John is sure that things will get better in New York, away from his hometown and expectations and terrible memories of things in his past. Alex is, again, doubtful, but he hopes as much as well. And, tragically, Alex is the one who’s right in this case. The stress of trying so hard to leave his anxiety behind just makes him more anxious. He’s overwhelmed and depressed and doesn’t know what to do or how to be a person and eventually Alex gets a call at three o’clock in the morning and it’s John, sounding drunk, saying, “Alex, I did something stupid” and then dropping the phone. And Alex gets the pleasure of running to John’s room and making the RA unlock the door and discovering that John drank quite a bit of vodka and chased it with all of his ativan.

So John–unconscious–and Alex–hysterical–are transported to the hospital, where John’s stomach is pumped and his system is flushed and all that good stuff. Someone at the hospital calls John’s dad when Alex discovers he’s shaking too much to use the phone and, thank god, he’s listed as John’s emergency contact, so at least he gets updates from the doctors as he waits to see how John’s doing.

The long and short of it is that they have John admitted for a mandatory psych eval and, though at first he’s insistent that he’s not crazy and he should be allowed to leave, by about twenty-four hours into his seventy-two hour stay he starts to realize how messed up he’s let himself become, so he agrees to be admitted for a slightly longer stay.

It ends up being a few weeks, I think, and Alex visits him religiously,  every single chance he’s able. His dad stays in New York for the length of his admission and he starts to put his life back together and begins the search for more helpful medication and starts therapy for the first time and mostly just has a few weeks when the world stops. Which is all he’s wanted for years and years, since his mother and brother died. A few days when everything just stops and he has time to breathe and think and make decisions.

Alex comes up a lot in his therapy, obviously, and one of the things that’s been making him extra anxious is his desire to please Alex, his desperation to be good enough for him, to be someone he deserves. And no matter how many times Alex tells him he has nothing to live up to, he’s perfect the way he is, it’s something that John struggles with. So his therapist suggests that maybe he and Alex should take a little break so John can focus on being good for himself instead of being good for his boyfriend. And it is the last fucking thing that John wants to do, but it makes sense. And, in family therapy, Alex very earnestly tells John that John is his best friend and he will always be there for him, and if he needs some time to himself to get his shit together, Alex understands. Just because they’re not together doesn’t mean Alex is going anywhere.

Which kind of seals it for John. He likes the idea of being able to spend a few weeks breathing and existing without losing Alex’s emotional support. As long as he still has Alex as a friend, he’ll be okay.

And it’s just a few weeks to start, but by then the new semester is starting and John is severely behind due to his leave of absence the year before, so he needs more time to focus on that. He figures they’ll stay apart as long as it takes him to catch up on classes. But then spring semester ends and John’s got a summer class to make up a class he had to drop in the fall and Alex has a job and he doesn’t want to distract either of them. And then it’s fall and John starts to backslide, so he takes more time and then, before he knows it, it’s spring of their sophomore year and Alex is awkwardly asking him if it would be okay if he went on a couple dates with someone else.

“Just, like, messing around,” Alex says quickly. “Not–just until you’re ready. I love you. But I want you to be ready and I don’t want to rush you and–nevermind, this was stupid, I can’t believe I asked–”

“No,” John says quietly. “No, that’s…that’s a good idea. I think you should do it.”

It’s feels like the hardest and worst thing John’s ever had to do, even though he knows, objectively, that’s not true. But he doesn’t know when he’ll be ready for a relationship again and he doesn’t want Alex to wait forever. That will just brew resentment, eventually, and he wants Alex to be happy. If that means he’s gonna go out and fuck some other guy…then so be it.

Alex is simultaneously surprised, relieved, and disappointed. He didn’t expect John to give him a straight answer and certainly not immediately. And he’s interested in a guy and kind of wants to explore the world outside of his relationship with John before they settle down forever. He’s only ever been with one other person–John hasn’t been with anyone outside of Alex. But at the same time, it feels like something is ending. Part of him had hoped that John would say, You know what, let’s try being a real couple again, and that they’d pick up where they left off and everything would be okay again. And things are good now–he still has John in all the important ways, John is still his world, but there’s a part of him that misses kissing him and being kissed and touching him and the fragile intimacy of having sex with someone he loves so wholly.

But John has to move at his own pace. So Alex asks out this guy and John hates him. He pretends, for Alex’s sake, to tolerate him, but he thinks he’s vain and selfish and stupid and not nearly as hot as Alex thinks he is. He knows that most of the reason he hates him so much is because he’s kissing Alex and John isn’t, but he figures as long as he doesn’t say any of that to his or Alex’s face, he’s okay.

And after that guy, Alex has a couple more flings, guys and girls alike. And by the time they’re getting ready to graduate and John feels like he’s maybe ready to be Alex’s boyfriend again, Alex has been accepted to law school and John finds out he’s short a couple credits, so he has to take some summer classes and they’re just so busy. And Alex has this friends-with-benefits thing with their buddy Angelica and he actually seems like he’s taking it kind of seriously? And John doesn’t want to fuck that up, especially when Alex says, sheepishly, that he’s been invited to spend the summer with Angelica’s family. John tells him to go and have fun and, based on the pictures on social media, he totally does. And John is alone and bored in New York, trying not to be resentful of Alex’s summer with Angelica and her sisters, and there’s this cute guy in his building who keeps bumping into him in the halls and one night he’s drunk and lonely and they bump into each other and John let’s the guy take him back to his apartment.

And, two days later, he’s trying to figure out how to tell Alex that he slept with someone else when Alex calls him and starts the conversation with, “You can say no.”

John says, “What?”

And Alex says, “Um, I met this girl.”

And John says, “I thought you were there with Angelica and her sisters.”

And Alex says, “I am. Uh, it’s one of her sisters. You know me and Angelica were always just casual. But. I kind of like her sister.”

And John says, “Then you should ask her out.”

So Alex does and John waits a couple weeks and then casually says, “There’s this guy in my building who’s really hot.” 

And Alex pauses for just a second too long and then says, “Then you should ask him out.”

And John is a little sad, a little wistful at giving up his first love, but he figures that’s just the way it was supposed to be. He feels better about it when Alex comes home from the shore and is still everything he was before–John’s inseperable best friend, always there for him at a drop of a hat, eager to spend as much time together as they can manage. Alex was, before anything else, his best friend and as long as he has that, he thinks he’ll be okay.

Alex, meanwhile, panicked the moment he felt that first pull towards Eliza, sitting up around the bonfire with her, talking about everything, hours after Angelica and Peggy went to bed. He tells her all about John and she listens and nods and he realizes he wants to kiss her and realizes she’s not the kind of girl you kiss and few times and fuck for a couple weeks and then move on. When he calls John, he almost wants him to say no, but he doesn’t, so he goes ahead and asks her out.

“What about John?” she asks.

“I talked to him,” Alex admits. “And he told me to ask you out.”

“I’m not going to be a distraction while you’re waiting for him to want you again,” she warns him. “If we’re together, you’re with me. You’re not biding your time.”

“I know,” Alex says. “And I love him more than anything. And I always will. But I get to have a life too. And at this point, I don’t think we’ll ever be on the same page, so I might as well go out and make one.”

When he hears about Francis a couple weeks later, his heart freezes in his chest. He feels like he wants to throw up, which is selfish–he has Eliza, now, he doesn’t get to have a say in who John fucks. And maybe it’s just fucking. Maybe they’re not even going to date. So he sucks it up, only a second or two too long for polite conversation, and tells John to ask him out.

He drinks a lot that night and Eliza doesn’t ask why, but she does hold his hair back when he pukes the next morning and hold onto him while he cries.

And after that, life just…goes on. Alex gets caught up in law school. John gets a job as a freelance illustrator as he tries to figure out what he wants to do with his life. Alex and Eliza stay together, then break up for a few months after Alex cheats on her (and John never has to know about how she shouted, I always knew you’d do this, but I just assumed it would be John you fucked! in a moment of petty weakness that Eliza is too ashamed to mention again and Alex is too guilty to mention again, because he thinks if John asked, he would have), and then get back together. John breaks up with Francis and dates a few other guys, a couple he even thinks he might be able to love one day. John starts his own photography business and manages to do pretty well for himself. Alex graduates law school and accepts a position at his mentor’s law firm. John and Francis get back together. Alex gets offered substantially more money to move out to Philly and work in the office out there. Eliza moves with him and John’s a little surprised they haven’t gotten engaged yet, but doesn’t like to think about it too hard, though he doesn’t examine why. After six months, Eliza gets offered a job in California and, after a long conversation with Alex, decides to take it, even though Alex won’t leave his job to come with her. A few weeks after that, Francis and John have one last shouting match that ends with Francis shoving all of his stuff in John’s apartment into a garbage bag and storming out.

And then, about a month later, after the holidays, Alex calls John at two in the morning and says, I think I made as mistake.

And then, here we are.

[angletic]

{11} questions

Tagged by @voldy-in-my-turban

Rules: (1) Answer the questions given to you by the tagger (2) Write 11 questions of your own. (3) Tag 11 people.

1. What’s the most cruel thing you’ve ever said/done to someone else?hmm, I cant pinpoint an actual event?? multiple times people say i go “too far” when i dish back the kind of things they say to me, but i dont consider that bad? if i did, it would go against one of my basic principals. I guess the time i really feel guilty for was in 4th grade i’d kick this one kid, jacob in the balls whenever he pissed me off. its okay we’re still friends, but that was pretty dickish of me

2. Do you believe in karma?  not in a religious sense, but yeah. if you do something bad somethings else bad is bound to come back and get you.

3. Do you consider yourself to be an independent person? oh yeah big time. i loathe depending on other people for anything, and im entirely self-motivated. my parents aren’t very supportive in their own way so i dont have them to fall back on for help. i kinda have to be independent or else i wont be able to do anything ever haha

4. How do you think the world will end and when? ironically? the world will end by the end of this year damn trump gonna ruin everything, even the quaint little country in canada. unironically? global warming is a big issue and if we continue at this rate, statistics give us a max of 100 years to live due to deadly heat, so id place my bets on that if not a nuclear war between superpowers.

5. What do you do when listening to music and on your own? dude when i listen to music i cant just. sit there. either im not actually listening to the music and daydreaming, or im doing literally anything with my hands (usually drawing bc im an art weeb). its the same the other way. i cant just draw with no background noise.

6. Is there a dark part of your past/present self that you keep hidden from absolutely everyone you know (no need to state what that is)? LMAO YES if i told yall or anyone else about my Hidden Angst™ no one would talk to me. some things are best kept personal, ya dig?

7. How far are you willing to go to see your greatest wish come true? What would you sacrifice? i dont really have a greatest wish, and if i did it would depend on what it is. but for basic outlines, the majority of my wish would have to take a toll on me, and it would just have to minorly inconvenience other people, no matter who they are. if i wanted something that bad id find a way to take the butt end of the stick always.

8. What do you hope your legacy will be and who will it be left to? jesus i just want to be remembered by the world. its one of my biggest goals to do something important enough that my name makes it into a textbook, even for a paragraph. i think this is why im such a tryhard? “lmao i needa legacy let me just fuckinnuuuuuuuhhhh be great at everything. thats a good plan.”

9. Weirdest pet peeve? i have so many obscure weird ones, so ill say 2. when i walk anywhere by feet have to touch the shaded part of the ground an even number of times and the light parts even and the half-shadowed parts even and the weird discoloured parts even. i even slow my walking pace or stop as a whole just so my feet are balanced, and im actively counting my steps. also, when i wash my hands i get super annoyed if i have like a bandaid on one finger/something that cant get wet and when i go to dry them, all my fingers are actively losing water on them except that one dry finger. i have to drip a couple drops of water on it and then dry it or else im uncomfortable the whole day.

10. If you had the chance to talk to somebody (be it a deceased acquaintance, an idol, a long lost friend… anyone really) for an hour, who would it be?   iiii uuhhhhh id want to talk to future me!! i wanna know if that bitch is still angsty and hopeless and i have to fix it or if i actually do cool things and i can narcissistically praise myself

11. Nap under the shade of a tree, or dancing in summer rain? hmm... i dont like sleeping on the ground outdoors due to paranoia (i have to be in a branch or a tent or something lmao what a pansy), so id have to go with summer rain. especially a thunder storm? at night? that sounds fucking awesome sign me up

questions and tags under the cut (Idiot Angletic decided itd be a good idea to NOT cut the questions she answered but leave? the tags cut? moron. boo)

QUestions:

1. What’s the funniest/dumbest thing you’ve ever done?

2. What’s your opinions on “cringey” fandoms? (ie. FNaF, undertale, cuphead, MLP, hetalia, etc.)

3. Do you consider yourself to be on optimist or a pessimist?

4. what youtubers/instagram comedians/other social media people are you subscribed to and actively watch?

5. What are some red flags you watch out for when making friends?

6. What’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever lost/broken/stolen?

7. If anything, what would you change super mario’s catchphrase to?

8. Got any secret/hidden talents you want to share? if so, can you tell what they are?

9. what jokes/phrases have you seen online that you now incorporate into your daily speech?

10. If you could change one (1) thing in the world with the click of a button and have no consequences, what would it be? (you can do anything. want your fav fictional character to exist? there they are. being your fav. solve world hunger? bang. there it is. goth gf? there she is, crying in a bathroom stall)

11. What’s a movie/picture/quote etc. that never fails to make you laugh? Post the link!

I tag: (fuck i dont think i have 11 friends/know if those people would mind being tagged) @princess-of-anons @opalcat2004 @ghosty-flavoured @ask-queen-bowsette @mimillion @softest-orbs @almostsane-things @spacedimentio @damion1060 @nooonstop @mwg-7 oh, and @voldy-in-my-turban, my guy, if you wanna answer my questions feel free to lmao

[ingridgovaninsights]

The Charlotte Chapters- Part 7

Part Four: The Aftermath

Just like that, I was back to living with my parents, without a clue of what I’d do next. I would probably never see Ross and his family again. What did I think about that? I don’t know. There wasn’t much I did know then.

My parents did not say “I told you so”... rather, they were fairly quiet until I was ready to talk. They didn’t pry, but my mother did give me several concerned looks which made me feel a bit self-conscious. Did I look like a giant train wreck? What did they see when they looked at me?

I spent a few weeks not working at all, taking time to relax and reflect. I reunited with a lot of my old friends that I hadn’t seen in so long. It was great to be able to do whatever I wanted without someone looming over me, getting jealous or suspicious or angry. I wanted to contact Elliott, I really did. I thought about it every day, and every day I got a little bit closer to doing so. But I tried to think about it from his perspective- two years ago, I dropped him like it was no big deal because my manipulative ex boyfriend came running back for more. I simply told him I wouldn’t be contacting him anymore, after everything we’d been through and all that he’d helped me with. I should have been more grateful, but instead I pushed him away because I was blinded.

And besides, he probably moved on- we were older now, and most people don’t have time for silly games like that anymore. I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t want to see me again, if he finally moved on and decided to keep things the way they had been for two years. Maybe life was better for him that way. Maybe he was living on his own, maybe he found a great career. Maybe he went off to school. Maybe he moved far, far away.

I could see Elliott doing that- moving way up north to live out in the country, where the closest people to him were a twenty minute drive away. I could also picture him road tripping across the country, packing maybe a few items of clothing and a few cans of beans, with no particular destination in mind. I knew Elliott would do these things whether he had a special person by his side or not, and that’s something I could admire and appreciate.

After week two of living at home, my parents started to hassle me about finding a job. It didn’t have to be permanent, just something to keep me busy and something to slap on my resume. I was hesitant to pick up another minimum wage job; I didn’t want to settle on anything anymore. I felt very defensive after what I’d been through.

But I decided life wasn’t always going to give you what you wanted, so I sometimes had to settle on certain things to get what I wanted in the long-term. The fact of the matter was, I needed money. You need money to do things that make you happy- go back to school, travel, and so on. So I’d have to start with the money problem and work from there.

I quickly found a part-time job waiting tables at a family restaurant. It was okay, mostly because I could also people-watch at this job, similar to my barista job. Thanks to my past experience working with food and customers, I hardly had an interview- just a few basic, background questions to get a sense of who I was. I dressed nicely, put on a smile, and everything went surprisingly well.

As this was only part-time- maybe fifteen hours a week- I obviously had a lot more free time than I knew what to do with. Sure, I spent time with friends, but at some point they had to go on with their busy lives- most worked full-time, had two jobs, or had a heavy course load at school. I didn’t want to intrude on that. I had to find ways to be happy by myself.

This was a struggle for me, because for two years whenever I was bored, I had someone immediately there. I had a person, a physical being, to fulfil that loneliness and boredom. All I had to do was turn around, and Ross was there, smiling that artificial, handsome smile I knew so well.

It wasn’t so easy anymore- what did I do with all of this free time, with all of this energy and sadness and loneliness? I had to do some soul searching. I had to think about what I did before Ross, which seemed so long ago.

Surprisingly, the “call of the void” wasn’t as strong this time around… maybe I’d learned from past mistakes. But I did do a minorly silly thing- I joined an online dating site. It’s pretty obvious that this isn’t a wise move to make if you’re still feeling vulnerable after a fresh breakup, or if your head just isn’t in the right place. I’d say the wounds were still fairly fresh, and my head wasn’t even screwed on right for God’s sake. But people do these things anyways.

When you’re feeling vulnerable, a lot of the time all you want is for someone to be close to you, maybe not even saying a word. Sometimes you really itch to tell your story, and you just need someone to listen without judgement. Whatever the reason is, it can’t end wonderfully- because the fact of the matter is, you’re just not ready.

If someone were to ask me what I wanted to get out of the online dating scene, I’d say “I don’t know”. It was true. I was really wishy washy about everything.

So, impulsively, this is something I decided to do. And I told myself that whatever happened out of it, I’d accept it, and I wouldn’t set any expectations too high, because that was just a recipe for disaster.

The very same day, I made my second risky decision. I called Elliott.

It was late- probably eleven thirty or so. I stepped out into the backyard to get some air. It was a cool summer evening, really refreshing after so many gruelingly hot days. With shaky fingers I dialed Elliott’s cell number; hopefully it was still the same. All was still except for the low ringing, searching for Elliott wherever he was.

“Hello?”

It was certainly him; I recognized his voice right away. I was frozen for what seemed like ages; I couldn’t come up with the words. Then, I finally found the courage I needed.

“Is your door still open?” I asked.

I could almost feel him processing all of this. He too recognized who it was. No, it wasn’t a prank call similar to “is your refrigerator running?”, though maybe if we hadn’t been so close in the past, he would have hung up. Elliott was definitely thinking about it, and he probably had a million questions. The silence brought me so much anxiety.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, it is.”

More silence, then I hear someone shout “Elliott, who the hell is that?!”

“Victoria, relax, it’s one of my friends,” Elliott said. Then to me, “Sorry about that.”

“Oh it’s fine,” I said. “If you’re busy, I can let you go.”

“Nah, that’s just my girlfriend,” he said casually.

Wow! Elliott had a girlfriend. I was really happy for him. I wanted to know more- what was she like? What did she do for a living? How did they meet? Did they have a lot in common? I always imagined anyone Elliott dated would have to be super into cars, an introvert, relatively smart, and quite driven in their career of choice. But I didn’t want to be too overwhelming with my questions.

“Oh, a girlfriend! That’s great, I’m happy for you,” I simply said instead. Maybe some things were better left unsaid or unasked for now.

I was expecting at least some glee out of Elliott, a “smile” through the phone, or a “yeah, she really is great”... but I got a bundle of silence. I knew something was wrong.

“It’s been a ride,” he said.

***

It’s incredible what the right people will do for you, especially in times of trouble. And a lot of the time we don’t focus our energy on the right people- we waste our time on people that won’t even give us the time of day. Why is this? Maybe we’re too hopeful; maybe we’re too nice. I’ve been guilty of doing this many times, and I sometimes wish I had the strength in me to let go when it wasn’t working out.

But Elliott showed his true colors, and was there as soon as he could be. He was on a trip far up north, which wasn’t unusual for him. He had been camping with Victoria; how he found cell service is beyond me, because I know Elliott would have gone somewhere way off the grid.

Elliott and Victoria packed up their things and made the long drive to come see me. I was flattered, but I was also quite nervous- surely he had changed, but how much he’d changed I don’t know. I’d changed a great deal, as he’d soon see. But I really did fear the unknown- what if he still held that resentment against me for dropping him so easily? What if he was driving all the way down here to chew me out, because he never had a chance to before? Maybe he had all these things he wanted to say but couldn’t. Maybe he would announce him and Victoria were getting married.

Maybe-

No. I had to stop. It was no use to go on and on in my head about the “what if”. I’d simply have to wait and see. I was only torturing myself here.

I sat on the back deck with a cup of earl grey tea, still burning hot from the kettle. I watched the steam rise from the mug, mesmerized by the waves of steam as they floated up towards the night sky.

My family had gone to bed already, so it was just me and the night. In that moment, I felt bitterly alone. It was irrational to think, but it felt like everyone had someone. My mom had my dad, my sister had been steady with her boyfriend for over a year now, my friends were successful in their dating lives, Elliott had Victoria. I felt like such an outlier. If I thought about it logically, I wasn’t the only single person in the world, and I certainly had lots of people I could lean on, but anxiety doesn’t work that way. Anxiety is irrational.

Besides, what good would it do to be with someone for the sole purpose of being with someone? Without truly admiring them as a person, just being with them to fill that loneliness. I didn’t want to be that person, but it sure was tempting. To have that closeness, even if it wasn’t genuine… Just to feel someone’s touch, or to have that attention on you even just for a little while…

But it’s likely better to be alone than be with the wrong person. Right? I’d done my fair share of being with the wrong person, and a lot of the time it felt just as unhappy. So what good did that do? I suppose humans just really crave attention and interaction, even the unhealthy kind… if we’re in a vulnerable enough state…

Suddenly, my phone was going off. I had it on silent but I could easily see it light up in contrast with the starless city sky. Elliott. I picked up almost right away.

“Hey, are you nearby?” I asked.

It wasn’t Elliott. “Don’t you fucking try anything with my boyfriend,” she spat.

I was in shock. Victoria? Okay… I was suddenly skeptical about who Elliott chose to spend his life with. She spoke with pure, vile jealousy, and it reminded me a lot of Ross… my hands were shaking, my heart was racing. I know she was waiting for an answer.

“Charlotte? That’s your name, right?” she went on. Apparently she wasn’t very patient.

“Um… yes,” I said hesitantly.

“Victoria, give me back my phone,” I could hear Elliott saying, sounding quite frustrated.

“Not yet,” Victoria told him. “So, Charlotte, I understand you and Elliott have a bit of a complicated past. I don’t mean to intrude or anything, but I just want to make sure that all of that truly is in the past now, and we won’t be having any issues, right?”

Okay… I can totally understand maybe being a bit wary sometimes, but Victoria sounded a bit nuts. Who just grabs someone’s phone to make subtle threats to another person? It reminded me of a time where Ross grabbed my phone to check my messages because he was “concerned for my safety”. People sometimes pretend to have good intentions to get what they want… humans aren’t always selfless, for sure…

“You don’t have anything to worry about,” I assured her. “I just really need a friend right now.”

Victoria laughed, cheery all of a sudden, which startled me. “Great! Then that’s great! So we’ll see you soon. Elliott and I might stop for gas, but we should be there within the hour.”

“Victoria, can I speak to her please-” Elliott was trying to get a word in.

“Elliott, relax. Charlotte and I are talking,” she said, and like that he was shut down. “Charlotte and I are best friends now, right?” I could almost feel the fake smile through the phone.

“For sure,” I said, “best friends, indeed.”

***

I knew when Elliott had arrived because I could easily hear the rev of his engine, the rumbling of his car as it idled in the driveway. I wouldn’t have been surprised if my family jolted awake from the noise.

As quietly as I could manage, I tiptoed through the house to set down my mug, grab my purse and my keys. I heard my parents stirring in the bedroom, so I sped up a bit so they wouldn’t get up and ask where I was headed. How would I even begin to explain?

I could imagine the conversation:

“Where are you going, Charlotte?”

“Going to go hang out with Elliott.”

“Elliott? You mean that friend you haven’t seen or talked to in years?”

“Um… yes.”

“Weird. Okay, where are you going?”

“I have no idea. Probably just going to drive around the city aimlessly.”

“But it’s almost one in the morning!”

“Yeah, I know…”

That’s the problem living with your parents- sure, you technically could go out and do all these things, but if they’re the type that ask questions, it sounds really strange when it’s explained.

I cautiously cracked open the front door and slipped out, rushing over to the car. Elliott looked about the same. Victoria sat in the passenger seat, sunglasses on even though it was pitch black out. She seemed to be… not totally present.

She was pretty- she had a nice body, she was quite in shape. Wavy blonde hair, just above her shoulders, a freckled face. Of course, I had no idea what color her eyes were with the sunglasses oddly glued to her face in the middle of the night.

“Get in,” was the first thing Elliott said to me.

“Could you not have turned your car off?!” I exclaimed. “Some people in this neighbourhood go to bed at normal times.”

Elliott shrugged. “If I turn it off, there’s a somewhat high risk it’ll never turn back on again. So that’s a fairly valid reason, I suppose.”

Some things hadn’t changed. I chuckled. Before I was even buckled in, we were peeling out of the driveway, off to who knows where. I awkwardly leaned forward in between the two front seats and extended a hand.

“Nice to meet you,” I said to Victoria, who was looking out the window absentmindedly, sunglasses still on.

Elliott gave me a look, as if to say not now, and I was confused but abided, taking my hand back. Elliott seemed to darting down side streets aimlessly. The town was asleep- we only encountered maybe two or three cars throughout our drive.

After about fifteen minutes of awkward silence, Elliott revved his engine almost in an angry way, and seemed to start driving with purpose.

Sure enough, we ended up in the driveway of a modest little bungalow across town. Elliott, of course, left the car running. He turned to stare at Victoria.

Victoria was still as a statue- it kind of freaked me out, she hadn’t even turned her head or fixed her hair or made any sort of movement. Even when Elliott was staring at her, it was as if she didn’t notice. She seemed completely detached from reality.

“Just go inside, okay?” he said softly. “I’ll be home soon. You don’t look well. Get some rest, okay? I won’t be out long.” He reached out and gently put a hand on her lap.

Just like that, she slapped it away. She was “alive” again. She ripped off her sunglasses, her expression full of fury.

“So you get a call late at night from your crazy ex girlfriend, and you drop our plans to come see her after she didn’t bother to even talk to you for a couple years? And now you’re just going to drop me off like a kid at a birthday party so you can go do who knows what with her? Are you kidding me?”

Elliott shrugged. “Sounds about right.”

I almost started laughing at Elliott’s nonchalant response, but decided against it. That would be too inappropriate. Probably.

Victoria was shaking her head, fuming. Then suddenly, she slammed her fists down on the dashboard. “Are you fucking serious?! You’re putting her before me? I’m your girlfriend, goddammit! You can’t make me get out of this car.”

“If you are going to escalate to violence, I will call the police,” Elliott said simply; it scared me because his responses were almost scripted, like he’d used them before.

There I was in the back seat, watching this fight go down, honestly a little bit scared. Why would Elliott sign up for this? There must be more to the story; I must be missing something.

Victoria threw a punch at one of the vents; it seemed to do more damage to her fist than to the car. She shook her hand out a little, then exhaled heavily.

“Elliott, I am only going to say this once,” she said. “Let’s take her home now.”

“Sorry, can’t do that,” Elliott said.

Victoria started yelling and swearing, and Elliott remained straight faced and calm the entire time. I was starting to get more nervous about this- where was the line? Would Elliott really call the cops if things got to be too much?

Elliott leaned across her and opened the passenger door.

“You don’t want the cops to get involved,” he said. “If I don’t do it, the neighbours are going to call about a noise complaint. So I suggest you relax and go inside. Rest. I’ll be back shortly, okay?”

What a strange dynamic. It’s like Elliott was her caretaker or something. I couldn’t begin to understand what was going on… I stayed silent, shocked, as Victoria slowly and defeatedly got out of the car. Finally. She was shaking her head, as if she wanted to shout more obscenities, but thought better of it.

The moment she was out of the car, Elliott tore out of the driveway. He didn’t even offer me the passenger seat. We pulled into a Tim Hortons parking lot, and Elliott let out a sigh.

“So that’s Victoria,” he said, flashing a very sarcastic smile. “Isn’t she lovely?”

“Um… I don’t know what to say,” I said.

“Let’s go grab a coffee.”

It was reminiscent of old times, just the two of us grabbing a coffee to chat about life and its oddities. It was the same but it was also very different. There were so many things in between us this time around.

We took a seat in the far corner with our flimsy paper cups. There was no one else in the store except for two tired looking night workers pretending to clean. They wiped the same spot on the counter over and over again, their eyes glazed over with boredom. Why didn’t they actually do their jobs- that way they wouldn’t be as bored, and they wouldn’t have to stay late scrambling to finish everything? It didn’t make sense to me, but not everyone thought that way.

“I met Victoria maybe four or five months after we stopped talking,” Elliott finally said. He pulled the lid off his coffee like an old man. Old people never used the take out lids for some reason. “We met at a party.”

“A party?” I echoed. “That’s not like you at all.”

He shook his head. “It really isn’t. But we all do things we wouldn’t normally do when we’re having a hard time. You should know that all too well.”

We stared at each other for a moment, until I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye any longer. I looked down at my coffee. I realized it was getting lukewarm by the minute- gross- so I took a long drink out of the cup.

“So anyways,” Elliott went on, “we were both sort of in a vulnerable place that night. Victoria and her boyfriend had just broken up, the guy cheated on her. She was at the party with a couple of other girls, some I knew from high school. I noticed her immediately because she looked so sad. For some reason I wanted to comfort her if I could, so I approached her. The girls that I recognized introduced me, and we started talking.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Uh huh. So how did all of this turn into a relationship?”

“She wasn’t always like this,” Elliott said, as if he had to justify it for himself, “she used to be so much more… vibrant. Hopeful. But there was always something sad about her, and I wanted to help fix that.”

“You can’t fix everybody, you know,” I warned.

“Believe me, I know, Charlotte. I’m at a loss here. I feel trapped. We’ve been together for almost a year and a half now… this is my longest, most serious relationship. But I’m really worried about her… she’s just not the same after she stopped taking her medication.”

“Medication for what?” I asked.

“She has bipolar disorder,” he said. “But that doesn’t define her. I know she’s a good person. I just… it’s hard to see that right now.”

“You still can’t allow someone to treat you that way,” I argued. “She’s an adult, she needs to take action. Talk to a therapist maybe, or take her medication. That might be a good start.”

“I’m not stupid,” Elliott said, “but sometimes emotions get in the way.”

I shrugged; I couldn’t argue with that. There wasn’t anything I could say to change his mind; he’d do what he wanted to do. Besides, Elliott was independent and stubborn by nature.

“So… Charlotte. You and Ross, you done for good now?” Elliott sounded skeptical.

I sighed. “Yes. Is that so hard to believe?”

Elliott raised his eyebrows.

“I just couldn’t take it anymore. I was unhappy. I don’t want to live like that forever. Ross and I had good times, for sure, but deep down there was always that resentment.”

Elliott didn’t seem to have much to say on the matter. Either that, or he had a ton to say and was just choosing not to voice it. Maybe he wanted to say “I told you so”. But he isn’t exactly the expert in relationships, either…

It had already been an hour and a half since we first came into the coffee shop. It was comforting to just have that familiar face across the table from me, the face that had known me now for several years… the face that came back, even when I didn’t necessarily deserve it. How could I have let someone dictate my life for so long?

“I need help, Charlotte,” Elliott said, almost desperately. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re one of the smartest people I know,” I said to him, “but sometimes you can be so fucking stupid.”