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cryonme · 4 years

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fallingforyou- calum hood.

word count- 1.5k

tw- drinking, smoking, cursing, a couple of tears. other than that just calum being sexy and also cute.

mentions- calum, fiona, luke, michael

a/n- hi! sooooo, this is the first part in my “series” of Calum and Fiona. this series will not have to be read in any order, just a bunch of one shots of Cal and Fi been cute. BUT this ons should be read first, as its the start of their relationship. im very excited abt this and I hope you all are too!!! also, i know a lot of my followers are from the HP fandom but I've been really wanting to branch out with my writing so here's this little number. I still write for HP, btw! not to worry. anyway, I hope u all enjoy this. I love it a lot and I worked very hard!!!! inspired by fallingforyou by the 1975. I recommend listening to the song for dramatic affect.

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Calum sipped on his drink as his eyes danced around the kitchen that was filled with drunk and high 20-30 somethings, unimpressed until his deep brown eyes landed on her. Dressed in a little halter top and flared jeans, head thrown back in laughter at God knows what, she laughed at just about anything, especially when intoxicated. Her dark hair cascaded down her back and her lovely brown eyes squeezed shut, she looked like a goddamn angel.

He told Luke a million times that he wasn’t coming to this party, just like he had done with every party that rolled around in LA, but once Luke promised her attendance, he still declined.

But snuck in anyway 3 hours in, trying to go unnoticed by his 3 idiot friends.

His plan failed, of course. Why wouldn’t it? Michael had caught him at the worst time, 4 jack and cokes in, grinning at her like an idiot from across the kitchen island.

“She’s your friend, mate. You know you can like, talk to her.” He had said, nudging his best friend with his elbow.

Calum rolled his eyes, “I’m not 7, Mike. I’ll talk to her when I want.”

“You’re never gonna land a girl like Fiona if you don’t say anything.”

“Who says I’m trying to land her?”

Michael nearly choked on his drink, “Good one, Cal.” He patted his friend's shoulder and pretended to wipe a fake tear. “Hey, Fi!”

Calum had known Fiona since 2013 when 5 Seconds of Summer first toured with One Direction, when she was an assistant to their tour manager. She was the same age as the guys and they all bonded quickly, and to this day she still tours with them. She’s still just an assistant, says she doesn’t want to take on the responsibility of manager, she mostly just makes sure the guys are all where they’re supposed to be at all times.

Fiona turned away from her friends and smiled at the two Australian goofs, excusing herself from the group of girls and making her way over.

“Calum Hood? Enjoying himself? At a party? Insanity!” She smiled that radiant smile of hers and took Calum’s cup from his hands, treating herself to a sip.

“3 of those things are true, and I’ll give you a hint, I’m not enjoying myself.” Calum retaliated and Fiona raised her eyebrows at Michael.

“Hi, Fi.” Calum smiled and slung his arm over her shoulder.

She playfully rolled her eyes and leaned into Calum, “Hey Mr. Buzzkill.”

“I’m gonna go play pong with Luke, you know how he gets when I’m not his partner. Bye Fifi!” Michael rushed out and ran out of the kitchen, no doubt going to gush to Luke and Ashton about Calum and Fiona being cozied up in the kitchen.

“You look pretty tonight.” Calum said flatly, not making eye contact.

He could say those kinds of things to her, they had been friends for 7 years, but the drinks definitely helped him get it out.

“Don’t look too bad yourself, Hood.”

Calum brought her small frame around in front of him so he could look at her. She rested her chin on his chest and looked up at him with her doe eyes, and he made a vow right then and there that he would absolutely get to call her his one day.

This happened often. Calum and Fiona would cozy up to each other when drunk, hugging and touching, never once kissing, and nothing ever came of it.

“Like, you look really pretty.”

Fiona threw her head back again and laughed, “You, Mr. Hood, are drunk.”

“Yeah,” Calum took her hand and spun her around so her back was to his chest and rested his chin on her shoulder, “And you’re really pretty. Look at us stating facts together.”

Fiona giggled again and grabbed Calum’s cup from him, taking another sip.

Calum slowly snaked his arms around her waist and she held onto his arms with her hands, Calum swore he would have melted on her right there.

Fiona spun again and looked up at her friend of 7 years. She wanted to know what went on behind those intense eyes of his. Ashton, Michael and Luke confided in her with almost everything, she knew all about what went on in their heads, but Calum had never told her a thing. Not one detail. She had no idea that Calum was falling for her, on that night, in that shitty lighting, and he was falling for her hard.

“Beer pong?”

The two had been waiting for their turn in beer pong for 20 minutes and finally decided to sit down on a nearby bench and just watch. Calum pulled her onto his lap and she hummed happily, with her arms around her once more.

The brown eyed boy took his arms off of her for one second while he dug through his pockets, then put them back in their rightful place, holding a joint up to her lips. She gladly took the weed into her mouth and allowed Calum to light the end for her while she took in a drag.

She held the joint between her fingers and blew out. “You’re a good friend, Cal.”

Calum frowned at that. He had been drinking a little bit more than usual and the word “friend” made his heart drop.

“Don’t wanna be friends.”

Fiona snorted, “Shut up.”

“M’serious.” Calum mumbled against her shoulder. “I don’t wanna be your friend.” He turned his head so he could place her lips on her neck, “I wanna kiss your neck.”

“Calum…”

“I’m falling for you, Fi.”

“You’re drunk.”

“So?”

“So you don’t get to do that!” Fiona suddenly jumped up off of Calum’s lap and faced him, catching the attention of a few people, but no one seemed to care enough.

“Fiona-” Calum started and reached to grab hold of her thigh but she slapped him away.

“Fuck you.” She spat and stormed away. She was probably just going to sit on the front steps. She was too drunk to drive and she left her phone with Calum.

The dark haired boy sighed and hoisted himself up off of the bench to follow after her, at least to give her her phone. He made his way through the crowd of people and was stopped by Luke right before he made it to the door.

“I don’t know what you did, but fucking fix it.” The blond poked his finger into his chest so hard he stumbled back.

“Wha-” He started but by the time he could he finish the one syllable word Luke was long gone.

Calum shook his head and pushed the door open, finding his favorite girl slumped over on the steps with her shoulders shaking. He hurried so he could crouch in front of her and rest his hands on her knees, and refused to move when she tried to push him away.

“I know you’re mad at me but you’re crying and nothing hurts me more than that.” He said softly, trying his best to get the girl in front of him to stop shaking.

After a couple minutes of letting Calum stroke her knee gently with the pad of his thumb, Fiona finally brought her head up and Calum wanted to kick himself for making her cry like that.

“I have loved you” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, “For 7 fucking years Calum.”

Calum felt like he just got all of the wind kicked out of his lungs, but he didn’t move a muscle.

“I’ve watched girls who treat you like shit come and go and I don’t even get to pick up the fucking pieces because you don’t fucking talk to me, then one night you have a little bit too much to drink and suddenly you’re falling for me?”

“I love you.”

Fiona froze.

“Fuck, Fiona I’ve loved you for 7 years. Every girl who’s come and gone has been a distraction from you because in my head, you’d never feel the same way. I never opened up to you or talked to you because I was scared that if I did I’d let it slip that I love you and I’d lose you. Every time I see you my chest feels tight and I feel like I can’t breathe, every time you laugh I can’t help but smile to myself like a fool and whenever you cry I can’t look at you because I’m afraid I’ll cry too. Screw falling for you, Fiona. I fell for you.”

Fiona didn’t move, she felt like she couldn’t move. Calum had just shared more with her in 30 seconds than he had in 7 years, she was shocked.

“What the fuck took you so long.” Her question came out as more of a statement.

“I’m an idiot.” Calum breathed out before finally leaning in and kissing the girl he had loved for so long.

//pls remember to leave a comment or reblog if you enjoyed it, kind words mean a lot🖤and so begins the life of cal and fi, i can’t wait! hope u all are excited too. xx roxie

#calum hood imagine #calum hood #5sos imagine #5sos fic #calum hood one shot #calum hood fanfiction #5 seconds of summer #calum hood blurb #ashton irwin imagine #luke hemmings imagine #michael clifford imagine #5sos fanfic #5sos fanfiction #luke hemmings fanfic #5sos #luke hemmings #michael clifford #ashton irwin

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whumpingcrow · 3 years

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Ink Poisoning - Chapter 10

"Garbage Person"

CW: bbu and everything in relation to that, drugs/alcohol (explicit), injury description, blood, sick whumpee, anxiety attack, amputation mention (vague), noncon mention, conditioned whumpee, food mention (let me know if I missed anything!)

Nicko had been working on a tattoo when Ben called him. The skin underneath him belonged to a slightly older woman, a blonde with pink lipstick on her teeth that he could see every time she smiled at him. She was annoying, and she was flirting with him, which made her even more annoying. The first time his phone rang, he ignored it completely, too consumed in his work to even look up. Secretly, he was wishing that he was tattooing Gio instead. It had been a little over a week since Nicko made him sick by icing him out, and Nicko hadn't allowed himself to bring him back to the shop. Instead, it became his mission to make him better. He made him soup, he let him sleep in his bed, he even helped him take a bath the first day he was sick.

That had been difficult. Nicko had never been "nice", he knew that about himself. He was notoriously an asshole, famously short tempered and foul mouthed. He knew what empathy was, he could feel it, but it was just...rare. The knowledge that others had emotions and feelings didn't matter to him, most of the time. But when he gave Gio a bath, he'd never felt worse for someone in his entire life. Gio could hardly keep himself upright, couldn't even keep his eyes open, when Nicko undressed him and helped him into the water. Nicko hadn't washed the blood off of his face the night before, hadn't wanted to move him around and hurt him more than he was, so when he wet a rag and tried to gently wipe the dried blood off, he wanted to cry right along with Gio. He held his head still with one hand on his jaw as he ran the towel over the bridge of his nose, over his cheekbones, very carefully under his eyes, wiping away some of his tears along with the blood. Nicko couldn't believe he'd hurt him so badly. He felt even worse when Gio's face was clean and he could see the bruises he'd left there. Then Nicko washed his hair, there was blood there, too, somehow, and then he just sat outside of the bathtub and let Gio warm up in the water for a few more minutes. He couldn't stop crying.

"I'm sorry, sir," he whimpered out, using his wrists to push away the tears, directing his huge, teary eyes at Nicko. He looked hopeless, his chocolate brown eyes dulled down with fear and sadness. Nicko reached out and traced his thumb down Gio's face tenderly. He looked so young, with his hair slicked back out of his face and his huge eyes and his cheeks and nose flushed red from crying and his fever. His file didn't include an age when Nicko got him, but he couldn't have been more than 20.

"You shouldn't be sorry, Gio. Really, I'm the one who messed up. I'm..." He paused, frowning to himself. The words didn't sound right in his head, he hadn't used them earnestly enough all that often, so it was sort of alien to him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you."

Gio looked positively perplexed, like he was just as much as used to hearing apologies as Nicko was at giving them. "S...Sir?" He squeaked.

"When I came back out and saw you outside like that, all bloody and fucking tied up...God, Gio, I was just disgusted." He could see Gio's face fall even more, and his heart sank. "No! No, not of you! I was disgusted in myself. I was disgusted that I did something so awful to you. And I'm sorry."

After that, Nicko made him rest, and he nursed him back to health. It was the least he could do, after putting him in that condition in the first place. That morning, he was up with Nicko, asking if he could go with him to work, if he would finish his tattoo. Nicko thought it was adorable, but he still had bruises and still seemed a little out of it, so Nicko made him stay home. He was regretting it now, as the blonde bimbo told him "Don't be afraid to hurt me, I don't mind a little pain" with a wink.

The second time his phone rang, he told the blonde to give him a moment, pulling off his gloves as he stood up and walked into the next room to answer the phone.

"What Ben? I'm working."

"Hey, uh...you didn't take Gio with you to work, did you?" Ben's voice was a little nervous, and Nicko was instantly worried.

"No, I left him there. Is he not there?"

"Um..."

"Ben is he there or not?!"

"I thought I saw him earlier, but I can't find him now. I think he jumped ship, dude."

Nicko had never had an anxiety attack before. Nervous, sure. Fits of rage, all the time. But he'd never felt the tight rubber bands around his lungs feeling that took his breath away when Ben said that. So he hung up the phone and left through the back, all but sprinting to his car. It was a miracle he got home in one piece, with how fast he was driving and how badly his hands were shaking. Gio jumped ship. Gio hates you because of how badly you hurt him. You scared him so bad he ran away. You awful person. You horrible, garbage person. The anxiety only worsened when he got home and Gio really was gone, he wasn't just hiding out somewhere like he sometimes did. Nicko pictured him, his huge, horrified eyes, how small he was, how he was probably out there scared and alone and someone might hurt him and Nicko wasn't there to protect him. You should have just taken him to work with you. This wouldn't have happened if he came with you. This is all your fault. Garbage person.

It wasn't until after he had calmed down and hours after Salem was home that Nicko even realized any of his things were missing. He was exhausted, the second he explained to Salem what had happened there was a fight, with rightfully placed blame on Nicko that he was wrongfully defensive about, as always. With his nerves shot and beyond tired from his incessant anger, he got drunk. It was a bad habit, his drinking in an attempt to mute his anger. But it was better than picking another fight with Salem to blow of some steam, and it felt better than the newfound anxiety every time he thought about Gio.

It was when he was drunk that he decided to paint, to make a mess with some red without actually hurting anyone again, and he noticed a few of his paintbrushes were gone. No one ever touched his art supplies (especially not Gio, and especially not after Nicko once made a joke about cutting off his fingers if he decided to be a thief and take his things), and he was very particular about how it was all organized. So when he realized they weren't where he'd left them, even in his drunken stupor, he could tell that something was wrong. So he looked around more, and he was missing more than just his brushes. His room had basically been ransacked, and he didn't know how he hadn't noticed before just then. So he rushed back out to the kitchen, where Ben and Salem were both standing around talking.

When he opened the liquor cabinet (for the second time in the last hour, and he wondered again how he had failed to notice something so important) he was missing a bottle of vodka and the jar of cash he and Rory secretly added to for party funds was empty. There was only one other person who knew about it, and then it clicked.

"Nicko," Ben started in careful disdain, "shouldn't we be doing something besides...you know...drinking?"

"Gio didn't run away."

Salem scoffed at him. "Right. Why would he want to run away from you?"

Nicko shook his head, trying to rub some of the stress out of his face. "No, you idiot. Rory was here. She took my stuff. She took my art shit, she took my cash, she took Gio."

Ben was instantly pale, and Salem stood from his chair and began pacing. It was unspoken, but they were all thinking the same thing, more or less. Rory had a problem, she had ever since they all met sophomore year at a party, and she had never downplayed it or try to make it less obvious. Sober Rory was a rare occasion, despite at some point everyone telling her she should at least talk to someone, go to a meeting, go to rehab. So at some point, their persistence fizzled out and they stopped trying so hard, and she was happier that way, anyway. Nicko had tried a few times to give her somewhat of an intervention, but in the end he decided the only thing he had the power to do was be there with her, whatever she decided to do. Yeah, because you could be all the help she needed? You, the garbage person? Right.

Nicko spent the rest of that night, all the way through morning, driving to places she might be. Her friends hadn't heard from her in days, they'd said, and the dealer that they had been going to together said she'd stopped by the night Nicko kicked her out and bought some weed. After that, he drove up and down neighborhoods all over the city looking for her car. But he had no luck, and he returned home the next morning without Gio or any idea where he was.

Over the course of the next two weeks, Nicko starting failing his classes. He couldn't bring himself to care much about his assignments when Gio was still missing, somewhere with Rory, probably being pumped with whatever she was using. Don't forget that it's your fault. He's gone because of you're shitty decisions.

He also got fired from his apprentice at the tattoo shop, the blonde he was working on didn't particularly like him running out on her and not finishing her piece, and his boss didn't like it either. He couldn't really bring himself to care that much about it. His job, his school, none of that was important to him anymore. Not as important as Giovanni, who was his responsibility and was probably miserable and scared because of him.

So he mostly stayed hidden in his room, starting paintings but never finishing them, tattooing senseless things on himself out of boredom, laying in bed doing nothing. He drove around a lot, too, looking for anything that would tell him where Rory was. He got pulled over three times, he spent a ridiculous amount of money on gas, and he never found Gio.

The guilt was suffocating. Every morning when he woke up alone in his bed he was reminded that Gio was missing, and then again when he got up and saw his empty beanbag, and knowing that he wasn't there because Nicko hadn't kept a good enough eye on him was crushing.

At some point, even Salem noticed how much Gio being gone was eating Nicko up, because he grudgingly came into his room one night, hovering in the doorway, asking Nicko if he was ok. Nicko was sitting on his bed, eyes droopy from however much booze he'd had that day, and for the first time since Salem had known him, he looked painfully human.

"I was responsible for him," Nicko admitted, "if Rory hurts him...if something bad happens to him..." He didn't finish his thought, but Salem had an idea of what he was going to say: that it would be his fault.

"Nicko, whatever Rory does is not up to you. You've done everything you can to find him, that's all that you can do." It was strange for him to be comforting Nicko, of all people, especially after he had found out that he'd assaulted Gio and left him outside in the cold until he got sick. After that, whatever little respect Salem had for Nicko was gone, and now it was being replaced by pity.

But Nicko didn't want his pity, he didn't want to be comforted by anyone. He didn't deserve that. So he told Salem to get out, to just leave him alone. Only Salem, stupid, relentlessly nice Salem refused to leave, and instead he crossed the room and sat down next to him on his bed.

"He likes you a lot, Nicko. Did you know that?"

Nicko did know, unfortunately. He vividly remembered one of the nights when Gio was sick, when he turned over in bed and pressed himself close to Nicko and told him he was his favorite, that it hurt him when he couldn't be around him all the time. And now he was gone. And it was Nicko's fault. "Yeah, I know. He's sort of dumb in that way, isn't he?"

Salem laughed at him, mostly because he didn't know when Nicko became so self aware. "No, I don't think so. I think he's just miraculously good at seeing the best parts of people. He likes Rory, too. Even after...you know, even though she got him high all the time." Nicko let out a long, heavy sigh, and Salem followed suit. "I'm telling you that because he knows that none of this is your fault. I mean, to him, you fucking walk on water. You couldn't ever do anything wrong. So, wherever he is, he isn't blaming you. No one here is blaming you either."

Nicko didn't believe him, but he didn't have the energy to argue against him. So instead, he just said "ok", and then Salem left. Nicko spent the next twenty or so minutes drinking and sketching lazily, dragging pencils across a paper only as a means to distract himself. Everything he drew was ugly, every drink tasted awful, life was miserable. He thought back to what Salem had said, that Gio liked him a lot, and then he thought again of Gio whispering in the dark, "you're my favorite person, Nicko," and his heart broke all over again. He trusted you and you put him in danger. He liked you and you didn't even fucking care, you god awful garbage person.

He was pulled out of his spiraling, self hating thoughts by a knock at the front door. He almost wanted to ignore it, didn't want to ever see or speak to anyone ever again, knowing he would probably end up hurting whoever it was in the end anyway, like he did to everyone he'd ever been around. But then he decided against it, and he stumbled down the hallway with his beer still in hand.

Giovanni sank to his knees in the same instant that Nicko opened the door, so fast that Nicko didn't even realize it was him at first. Only when Gio looked up at him from his place on the snowy porch and started to choke out a familiar sounding apology did it click that it was him. He looked awful, his pale skin peppered with small scrapes and his neck littered with what looked like hickeys, the usual bags under his eyes were an even darker shade of purple, his lips were cracked and bloody, and his face had hollowed out dramatically.

"I'm so s-s-sorry that I left, Nicko," he was rushing out, tears threatening to fall from his frightened round eyes, "ple...please forgive me, sir, please take m-me back-"

Then, Nicko was on his knees too, reaching out to take Gio's face in his hands, frowning at him when he flinched away just a little. Once Nicko's hands were on him, he really couldn't hold back the tears anymore, staring at Nicko as they slipped down his face and onto Nicko's hands. He was afraid at Nicko's silence, he would prefer for him to just start yelling already so that they could get the punishment over with and Gio could maybe be allowed to sleep after. He was exhausted. But Nicko only kept staring at him, almost in disbelief.

Then, as if he remembered that Gio was still outside, kneeling in a pile of snow, he stood up and pulled Gio carefully to his feet, helping him across the threshold so he could shut the door and keep the cold out. Once he was inside, and upright, Nicko got a better look at him, and he was physically upset at how rough he looked. Then he noticed how badly Gio was shaking, and how he was fidgeting with the hem of his shirt nervously as he stared at Nicko. He realized then that he hadn't said anything, and Gio had apologized because he thought he was in trouble, so Nicko being completely silent was probably freaking him out. Gio let out a soft whine when Nicko stepped closer and pulled him against his chest.

"I was so worried about you, Gio," he whispered, swaying side to side, "I looked all over...I'm so sorry I let her get you. I'm so sorry."

Before Gio could even begin to protest the apology, Salem came down the hallway and gasped when he saw Gio all wrapped up in Nicko's arms. "You came back?" He breathed. Gio nodded as much as he could in Nicko's snug embrace. Nicko pulled away then, brushing Gio's hair out of his face and looking at him with a frown.

"Come on, let's get you some food. Anything you want." He pulled Gio behind him into the kitchen, forcing him to sit in a chair. Gio was confused, wasn't sure why he wasn't being berated with pain and cruel words for running off and being gone for so long. He watched as Nicko looked through the fridge, then jumped when the chair next to him screeched against the hardwood floor as Salem sat down.

"Are you ok?" He asked Gio softly, a concerned frown on his face. Gio was happy to see his kind face, but the question made his heart lurch uncomfortably in his chest. He wasn't ok, his body ached all over, everything felt uncomfortably fuzzy and far away from the drugs that hadn't worn off yet, his fatigue was so bad he felt like sobbing every time he had to move his tired muscles. More than anything he was confused, like always, and it was much too difficult to try and figure out why Nicko was being nice to him and trying to give him food like a reward when he had run away and been gone for so long.

"You want pizza, Gio?" Nicko called from the freezer, already pulling out a frozen pizza and setting it on the counter. Gio didn't answer either of their questions, it felt like his any words that he wanted to say were shards of broken glass on his tongue, and it would only hurt him and everyone around him if he started to talk. It was mostly because his mind was a mess of racing thoughts about Rory and Oscar and all the awful things they did to him and how badly it hurt and how scared he was and how horrible he felt for worrying Nicko.

His silence made them both uneasy, and Nicko set the pizza box down with a thud on the table in front of Gio, then he crouched down next to him, placing his hand on his thigh. Giovanni squeezed his eyes shut in response, Nicko noticed his shoulders began to rise and fall quicker in his uneven breathing.

"What's wrong, darling?" Nicko tried, keeping his voice soft and level. Gio cringed, turning his face away from him. "Talk to me, Gio. Please."

Giovanni let out a tiny whimper, shaking his head. Salem and Nicko shared a nervous glance. Salem shrugged his shoulders hopelessly, not sure how to comfort Gio or make him talk anymore than Nicko did.

So, without any other idea of what to do, Nicko reached up and tilted Gio's face towards him, even though he didn't open his eyes. "Gio, I can't help you feel better if you don't tell me what's wrong. I want to help you but you have to tell me how."

Now, Gio opened his eyes, his frown deepening when he looked at Nicko. Within half a second his eyes were overflowing with tears and his shaking went from a tiny shiver to violent tremors up and down his body. "I...I don't know what's wrong." He admitted. His voice was a hoarse whisper, and Nicko pulled his hand away from his face after he spoke. Gio burst into tears just then, tilting his head down as he sobbed out weakly. "I'm s-sorry, I'm so so stupid I'm so f-fucking stupid I'm-"

Nicko shut him up by standing up and wrapping his arms around him again, pulling his head against his stomach and petting through his hair softly. Salem watched them with his hand over his mouth, obviously troubled at Gio's hysteria. "It's ok, Gio," Nicko soothed him, "you're not stupid. I'm not upset with you. I just want to help."

Gio wasn't really listening, couldn't hear anything over his ragged breathing and his sobs that were muffled by Nicko's clothes. When Nicko realized he wasn't going to calm down like that, he pulled off of him, looking down at his tears stained face. It's all your fault he's crying right now. Look at how broken he is because of you.

"You're not stupid, Giovanni. You hear me?"

The sternness to Nicko's voice snapped Gio out of it a little, he forced his mouth closed and nodded up at him reflexively. Then, Nicko sighed softly and turned away from him altogether. He grabbed the pizza, busying himself with that instead of having to look at how ruined he made Gio. He was only turned away for a minute or two before Salem cleared his throat.

"Um, Nicko?" He said. "I don't think he's really hungry."

When Nicko turned to see what Salem was talking about, and Gio had his head rested against the table, passed out cold. Nicko hadn't thought that he might be tired, and he felt like an asshole for not even checking with him. With a huff, he turned off the oven and threw the pizza carelessly back into the freezer. When Nicko picked Gio up he didn't even stir, completely limp when Nicko scooped him out of the chair and pulled him against his chest.

Seeing Gio back in his bed was more relieving than Nicko had anticipated, and once he was curled up under the covers all Nicko could do was stare at him. He was broken and banged up and looked seconds away from death in a lot of ways, but Nicko felt like he'd never seen anything as beautiful as Gio passed out under his covers. Suddenly, the art block he'd had since Gio had been gone dissipated, and Nicko was as quiet as he could be as he got out a canvas and what little art supplies Rory left him with.

Hours later, Gio woke up to find Nicko asleep next to him, covered in splotches of paint on his face and hands and all over his clothes. He sat up just a little, and then noticed the huge painting across the room. Through the dark he couldn't tell what it was, but it made him smile nonetheless. With a yawn, he layed back down, a little closer to Nicko than he was when he woke up. When Nicko reached out and grabbed onto his hand, Gio tensed up just a little, only until he laced his fingers in between Gio's and held onto his hand gently. Gio looked up at him only to see him still peacefully sleeping, and he realized he probably thought he was someone else, maybe Rory. Still, Gio happily pushed himself closer, resting his head against Nicko's shoulder and keeping his grip on his hand tight.

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plaidbooks · 4 years

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Dating Pains

A/N: So! I was looking through some old files and found this Sonny Carisi x reader story I wrote in September that I had completely forgotten about! After reading through it, I figured “this is actually pretty good, I can post that” so here’s part one of four(?).

Tags: mentions of rape, mentions of murder, attempted drugging

Words: 3026

Taglist: @the-baby-bookworm @beccabarba @thatesqcrush @itsjustmyfantasyroom @stardust-fray @permanentlydizzy @infiniteoddball @ben-c-group-therapy @glowingmess @whimsicallymad @reading--mermaid @averyhotchner @mrsrafaelbarba @detective-giggles

You puckered your lips, painting them with the bright red lipstick that you loved. You smacked your lips a couple times, smiling at your own reflection. You were in comfortable jeans that hugged your ass perfectly, and a loose shirt, the sleeves draped around your upper arms rather than your shoulders, bright red and orange flowers on the black material. Your makeup was simple, neutral, except for the lipstick—but you couldn’t help yourself, you loved the color.

It was a first date, and you didn’t want to over-do it by over-dressing. Besides, it was a first date with this guy, and you were running out of cute, clean clothes. But it was your third “first date” in two weeks; your friends had set up a Tinder account for you and had been forcing you to go out on these dates. At first, you were reluctant, unwilling to stoop so low as to use an app to find love. But, after about a month of trying it the “old fashioned way,”—you at bars and clubs, striking out over and over again—you gave in to their insistence. Though, most of the guys on Tinder only wanted hookups, and you wanted something, well, more. You were looking for love, as cliché as that was, and that was something your friends loved to tease you about.

“You can wait around and find love whenever, but why pass up a chance to get laid?” one of your friends asked. You had blushed and tried to fumble through an excuse about why you didn’t want a hookup, why you wanted a real relationship. It wasn’t like you were necessarily against having a one-night stand, but it just wasn’t what you were looking for.

It took weeks and a lot of weeding through shitty profiles and messages until you found at least someone that seemed interesting. Your first date was alright; he seemed nice, polite but there just wasn’t a connection there. You both agreed that there shouldn’t be a second date. The second man was a real estate agent. He was once divorced, from his high school sweetheart, lived on Staten Island, had finished paying off his college debt, and was debating going back for a BS in Computer Science since that’s where the real money was. You knew all about his family life, too, because never once did he stop talking about himself. When he asked for a second date, you politely declined. Then again, and again, until you finally had to block him. If you didn’t already have this third “first date” set up, you would’ve given up on Tinder entirely.

Looking yourself over once more, you headed out the door and towards the bar that you were meeting the man at, nervous butterflies fluttering in your stomach. You had made sure you took screenshots of the man’s profile and messages, sent a picture of his profile picture to your friends, and told them where you were going. You were positive that serial killers didn’t use Tinder, but it was always better to be safe.

You made it to the bar and scanned the faces in the cramped space. Your date, Jerry, had said that he would be wearing a navy-blue polo shirt and black slacks, not that the dim lighting in the bar would help you tell the difference between the two colors. Your eyes did a full scan, not seeing anyone that looked familiar; maybe he was running late? Sure enough, you felt your phone vibrate, a message from Jerry saying that he was running behind and would be there in 5 minutes. Shrugging to yourself, you made your way to the bar, ordering a sprite and finding an open table. Being late wasn’t a deal-breaker for you, and at least he had messaged you.

You let your eyes wander through the crowd, people watching, and, if you were being honest with yourself, looking for anyone that looked attractive and hopefully alone…just in case this Jerry-guy didn’t work out. There were a couple of cute guys in the bar, but all of them seemed to be with someone, whether friends or with a girlfriend. Your eyes did settle on one man, though; he was tall, even when sitting, his hair carefully slicked back. In the dim bar lighting, it was impossible to tell if his hair was grey, blonde, or a light brown. He was in a blue, button-up shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a black striped tie, and a suit jacket was on the back of his chair. He had a beer in his hand, his long fingers wrapped around the dark bottle, with his head thrown back in laughter at something that one of the two women he was with said. One of the women was older, with long brown hair, who exuded command, even though she was also chuckling. The other woman was younger, closer to your age, with blonde hair that was tied back, beer in her hand and obviously the one cracking the jokes.

You looked away as you saw someone approaching your table out of the corner of your eye, smiling as you saw that it was Jerry—at least he matched his profile picture. You stood, giving him a polite hug, before you both sat. A waitress came up and took Jerry’s order, in which he also insisted you got a drink, too, to help loosen you both up. Not wanting to appear rude, you agreed; one drink wouldn’t make you drunk.

It took you about 5 minutes to realize that Jerry was the same, if not worse, than your last date was. He was incredibly full of himself, talking about how women just “didn’t get him” and how he was only on Tinder because he was “too busy” to actually go out and meet people. You were about to excuse yourself to the bathroom, planning to have a friend come save you, when he got up himself to go. While he was gone, you seriously contemplated leaving, but you couldn’t—you weren’t that mean. But you did instantly forget about texting a friend for help. Instead, your eyes travelled back over to the cute man with the slicked-back hair. You were shocked when you saw his bright blue eyes watching you. He quickly turned away, as did you, your cheeks flushing hot. You were too afraid to look back over, your face still feeling warm…warmer than a normal blush. You were looking hard at the table in front of you when you noticed that it was moving. Confused, you put your hand out to rest on it; it definitely wasn’t moving, but now the room looked like it was moving, shifting, and you felt like your skin was on fire now.

You stood suddenly, and almost went right back down. There was no way you were drunk, so what the hell was happening? You took a couple of stuttering steps before you felt hands on you, an arm wrapping around your waist, a hand on your shoulder, helping you up.

“You okay, honey?” Jerry asked, his fake, honey-covered voice concerned.

Your mouth moved, but you couldn’t form words. It was becoming hard to keep your eyes open, and you felt sweat forming on your forehead. You vaguely noticed him guiding you towards the door, out of the bar. Suddenly, a shadow was looming over you. You looked up, squinting at the figure above you. All you saw was slicked-back hair, and bright blue eyes, full of concern and a quiet rage.

“Sorry, man. My girlfriend just had a few too many,” Jerry was saying, trying to laugh it off. Something clicked in your sluggish brain. This is wrong, you thought, but your body wasn’t reacting to your mind. Without knowing what you were doing, you reached towards the tall, lanky man in front of you, who was now speaking harshly to Jerry. But you couldn’t understand the words. Your mind was fading fast, darkness coming to meet you.

You gathered all the strength you had left, and whispered into the loud, over-packed bar, “help me,” before the darkness overtook you.

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

You woke up in a soft bed, sheets pulled up to your chest, the soft whirring of machinery around you. You squinted against the harsh light as you opened your eyes, the fluorescent lights blinding you slightly. You groaned and pushed yourself up, your head pounding and your throat dry. You froze; you were obviously in the hospital, but you had no memory of getting there, or why you were there in the first place. You took mental stock of your body; besides a splitting headache, you felt fine. So why were you there?

“Oh, you’re awake! How are you feeling?” a soft voice asked. You looked over and saw a nurse coming into your room, clipboard in hand. She didn’t wait for you to answer as she started playing with the machinery you were hooked up to.

“I-I’m alright,” you rasped, throat completely dry. She wordlessly poured you a glass of water on your side table and handed it to you. You gratefully took a sip, wetting your throat. “Head hurts, though.”

The nurse nodded as she took the glass back. “That’s normal.”

You cocked an eyebrow in confusion. “Normal for what? Why am I here?”

The nurse seemed surprised for a moment before she realized. “Oh, of course you don’t remember. You were drugged last night; roofied.” Your heart sunk. You were roofied? How? You never left your drink unattended; how did someone sneak it in? And does that mean…? The nurse had continued talking, but you tuned out, mind and heart racing. She concluded with a little cup of pills for you to take, and now your heart really sunk. You knew that doctors gave women the morning after pill, as well as anti-STD pills after being assaulted. So, that must have happened to you, too, right? And you remembered none of it. Was it better that way?

“Are you alright, Ms. [Y/L/N]?” the nurse asked, looking at how you regarded the cup of pills. “It’s just eletriptan…for your headache?”

“Just—just headache pills?” you asked. The nurse smiled, nodding.

“Yes, just headache pills.” As she was heading out the door, she added, “oh! There were two SVU detectives here to see you. Can I let them in?”

Confused as to why two detectives wanted to talk to you, you nodded absentmindedly, taking the pills and downing them with a gulp of water. You had only a moment to think about it—SVU? Were you a Special Victim, even if you weren’t assaulted?—before they entered. The first detective that came in looked vaguely familiar; a young woman with her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. The second detective, though, made you pause. You had definitely seen him before, but you couldn’t place him. Tall, lanky, slicked-back, dirty blonde hair, and bright blue eyes that pierced into yours with some sort of…guilt? Pity? It was hard to tell what was there.

“Have we met before?” you blurted, unable to stop yourself. The expression in the man’s face intensified for the briefest moment before it was replaced with a cool professionalism.

“Uh, kinda,” the woman replied. “I’m Detective Rollins, and this is Detective Carisi. We met at the bar last night.” You thought about this, trying to will your still-aching mind to remember the events from the past night, but there was nothing there.

“Do you happen to remember anything from last night?” Carisi asked. “I mean, if you remember meeting us, maybe you remember more?”

You tried to go back through what you did remember from yesterday; getting lunch with friends, getting dressed for a date, putting on your favorite lipstick, then…nothing. Flashes of music and lights from the bar, but nothing more.

“I…don’t really remember much…. Do—do you know what happened to me? I—I remember leaving my house to meet a date, but then it’s all fuzzy—” you scrunched your eyes closed, trying to force your mind to work correctly.

“Hey, don’t hurt yourself. It’s normal to not remember after being roofied,” Rollins explained. “It may come back to you in the next couple days, and it may not. Do you remember who you were going on a date with?”

You sat for a moment before you remembered. “Oh! Where’s my phone? It was some dude on Tinder—I saved screenshots of his profile.” You found your purse on the side table next to you and dug until you found your phone. You ignored the texts and missed calls from your friends, probably freaking out since you haven’t contacted them yet, and pulled up the pictures. “I went on a date with Jerry last night,” you said, showing the pictures to the detectives.

“This is perfect, definitely enough for a warrant,” Carisi replied, smirking and giving you an impressed glance. You felt the blush crossing your cheeks and fidgeted uncomfortably. “Can you text me those pictures?”

You agreed and he gave you his number. You tried to ignore the fact that you now had his personal cell phone number as you sent the photos to him, your stomach flip-flopping.

“Is it alright if we talk to you in a couple days? See if you remember anything?” Rollins asked, already making her way to the door.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” you said, watching them leave. Carisi gave you a small smile before he made it to the door. “Wait!” you called out, making him stop. Carisi stood in the doorway, brow furrowed as he looked at you. “Can you please tell me what the hell happened last night? Even if you only found me somewhere—I just, I need to know something. Was I…was I attacked--?”

Carisi’s eyes filled with a sadness; he was obviously upset that you couldn’t remember anything. He turned to look out the door. “You go on to Barba’s, get the warrant. I’ll meet up with you,” he said to his partner before coming back into the room. He pulled over the visitor chair and sat down next to your bed.

“I’ll tell you all I know; I was at the bar with my Lieutenant and Rollins after work when I looked over and saw you sitting there with Jerry. Now, Jerry looked like a suspect from a case I was working a couple months back. So, I was keeping an eye on ya, just in case.” He paused for a moment, looking slightly embarrassed that he admitted watching you, but all you were feeling right now was appreciation that someone had your back. Thank god he was there, had noticed something. “When you stood up, I knew something was wrong; you were swaying and looking like you were about to pass out. I told my Lieu, and we were coming over to make sure you were alright when Jerry came back. He was trying to tell us you were drunk, and he was going take you home. Right then, you collapsed, asking for help. My Lieu arrested Jerry right there, and Rollins and I brought ya here. But we couldn’t hold him, and we couldn’t prove he was the one to drug you. But, with your screenshots, hopefully we can check his place, find roofies in his possession.”

You sat there, dumbfounded with how incredibly lucky you had been that three NYPD detectives were there when you were drugged, and how bad it could’ve ended for you if they weren’t.

“Thank you, so much, Detective Carisi,” you managed, trying to think of something else to say.

“Please, call me Sonny,” he replied, smiling. You felt yourself melting at that smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling, though, concern was still deep in his expression. Then, a thought struck you.

“That case you were working on a month ago, that Jerry matched the description for. What did he do?”

Sonny suddenly seemed uncomfortable, unwilling to talk, considering how lengthy of a description he just gave you from the previous night. That wasn’t a good sign.

“We, uh, we were investigatin’ a man who would roofie a woman, then rape her and leave her…dead body in her own bed. The only connection he had to the victims were that they used Tinder. But he would delete his account before we could find it. All we had was security footage and some eyewitness accounts of the man.”

Your heart started beating faster at the words “dead body.” If Jerry was indeed this man, then you almost died last night. You didn’t quite know how to process that.

You were staring at the bright white of your bedsheets when you heard Sonny ask, “[Y/N], are you alright?” He dipped his head down, trying to get in your line of sight. You snapped out of your thoughts, looking up to him.

“I—yeah, I just…I almost died?” your throat constricted on the last word. You felt hot tears in your eyes, and you blinked fast, trying to not let them fall. You really didn’t want to cry in front of this man, and not just because he was cute; you didn’t want to have a full breakdown in front of someone you didn’t know.

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re safe now. ‘Sides, we don’t know for sure if Jerry’s our guy, or just some predator. Either way, we’ll get him, I promise you.” Sonny gave you another heart melting smile, before he stood up. “You have my number if ya need to talk, okay? Don’t be afraid to shoot me a text.”

You smiled as he left, shutting the door softly behind him. You already wanted to text him, but to ask him out to coffee, not to help you through your shock. But you also didn’t think that that was very appropriate, asking an SVU detective out after he saved you from being assaulted. Besides, your mind was reeling from the past 24 hours. First thing’s first, better text all your friends and let them know you were alive and unharmed. And then you were definitely deleting Tinder.

#sonny carisi x reader #law and order svu #law and order svu fanfic #fanfic #my writing #it's like a gift from past me

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flowercrown-bard · 4 years

Text

Birds Still Sing When They Fall From The Sky

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9 part 10 part 11 part 12 part 13 part 14 part 15 part 16 belongs to this

content warnings: memory loss due to old age

about 7k whoops

Yellow petals brushed Geralt’s cheek as the biting wind ripped them off the flowers. Since the sharp sting of autumn had chased away the suffocatingly thick air of summer more and more flowers had fallen victim to the harsher weather. Not many were left fighting defiantly against the approaching frost.

Amongst the strongest were the leaves of the dandelions that came back no matter what. Geralt had stopped trying to get rid of the stubborn little weed shortly after it had appeared. It seemed it still outbraved the wilting flowers.

Still, Geralt had done his best to save them. He missed his chance last year when Jaskier had beaten the cold to it and scattered the petals himself. Geralt had tried to put up a tarp around the flowers to shield them, but the wind had teared it down not soon after, along with more flowers.

Geralt sighed and threw a glance back at the cottage. He couldn’t see Jaskier through the well-lit window, but he knew he was in there, safe and warm and probably cosy under some blankets. It had gotten too cold for him to regularly come into their garden. Maybe it was better this way. At least he didn’t get to see the sorry state it was in, even if it meant missing out on the last blooms of the year.

Without much thinking, Geralt turned back to the flowers, cutting some of them – not all, always in the hope that there would be some that were strong enough to resist the cold a while longer – and held them gently in his hand, before turning back and seeking shelter inside their home.

He shut the door behind him, not quite blocking the howling of the wind or the sound of the furious waves. He wasn’t greeted by the customary ‘Geralt, you’re back’ that he now half expected any time he left Jaskier’s sight for more than a few minutes.

Instead, soft snores drifted through the air. A smile danced around Geralt’s lips as he shrugged of his coat and watched the rise and fall of Jaskier’s chest. He had slumped over in his armchair, a blanket pooling around his waist and the book he had been reading hanging limply from his hand.

Trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake Jaskier, Geralt put some water on the stove. Surely, Jaskier would appreciate a nice warm cup of tea once he woke up, cranky and aching from the cold weather.

Geralt must not have succeeded, the clanging of the kettle enough to stir the sleeping man. Jaskier gave a little whine and snuggled more into the armchair.

With a fond warmth in his chest, Geralt walked over to him, crouching down in front of the armchair. He took a moment to admire Jaskier’s sleeping form, the way his silver hair fell into his forehead and his nose crinkled adorably. Like this, his wrinkles almost seem to be fewer than they were. Geralt reached out and smoothed the lines on Jaskier’s forehead, brushing his hair away.

Grumbling quietly, Jaskier curled tighter around himself, before letting out a long and content breath, his eyes opening slowly. The moment his eyes landed on Geralt, his breath hitched.

For a heartbeat, Jaskier didn’t move a muscle, then his brows drew together and his eyes flickered over Geralt. There was something frantic about his searching gaze and the sour tang of fear mingled with the smell of the brewing tea.

“You don’t have to worry,” Geralt said in the soft voice he always used, when Jaskier scanned him for injuries. The spike of Jaskier’s anxiety tugged uncomfortably at Geralt’s chest, but it didn’t fail to make his heart flutter, knowing that even after all this time, Jaskier was still concerned for his safety.

Geralt’s words did nothing to soothe Jaskier. If anything, the hard lines between his brows got deeper.

“What are you doing here?” Jaskier asked, a barely concealed tremor in his voice.

Geralt frowned and threw a glance over at the hearth, where a fire was gleefully dancing. Maybe it was still too cold for Jaskier. It was no wonder, with the way the blanket had fallen off his shoulders. Geralt reached out and pulled it back up, noticing how Jaskier’s heartbeat picked up at the tender action.

“Believe it or not, but you’re not the only one who gets cold,” Geralt said with a teasing smirk. “The wind got too strong, ruined all my work.”

A small “Oh” escaped Jaskier’s lips, his eyes softening a bit, though they didn’t stop searching his face, for what Geralt knew not. “Sorry to hear that. Are you… do you need help? I could make you tea or something to warm you up.” There was a bit of a strain in his voice, and Geralt noticed with quiet disappointment that Jaskier didn’t offer to take Geralt into his arms for warmth. Whatever else could be said about Jaskier, he had always known when to make serious suggestions for help, especially when he was worried about Geralt.

Something melted in Geralt’s chest and moved lazily through his body. “I already made some tea. But thank you.”

Jaskier stiffened at his words. “You made…well, that’s a bit presumptuous, don’t you think?” His tone was piqued and his frown came back.

Geralt sighed and couldn’t help the way his smile got wider. He didn’t think he could ever tire of Jaskier wanting to do something nice for him, even if it was quite unnecessary. It was almost adorable how sometimes Jaskier still insisted on doing things himself.

It was important that Geralt didn’t coddle him too much, of course. Taking Jaskier’s autonomy away from him was the last thing he wanted, but there was nothing wrong with letting others take care of you. That, after all, was a lesson Jaskier had spent years upon years drilling into Geralt.

Instead of dignifying Jaskier’s accusation with a response, Geralt stood back up.

“I brought you flowers.” Geralt turned to the cabinet, searching for an appropriate vase.

“Oh…thanks.” The uncomfortable tone was accompanied by shuffling as Jaskier got up as well, his bones popping.

Geralt didn’t need to look to know that Jaskier’s face was contorted into a grimace.

“They were among the last flowers out there,” Geralt said. Maybe if he kept talking it would distract Jaskier from his aches. “I figured they might be of better use in here, looking all pretty than out there where they wouldn’t last much longer anyway.”

Jaskier was quiet for a moment. The only sound coming from him was the sound of him nervously shifting his weight around. Then he spoke up again. “That’s… well, yeah that makes sense. But you really didn’t have to give me the last of your flowers. It’s… quite unnecessary, really.”

“Our flowers,” Geralt corrected him without missing a beat. They’ve had this conversation too many times already. Just because Geralt was doing the physical labour didn’t mean the flowers were any more his than Jaskier’s. Especially when Geralt was struggling to arrange them in a simple vase, while Jaskier knew how to create artful bouquets.

No reply came. When Geralt turned around, unnerved by Jaskier’s unnatural silence, he found Jaskier looking at him with a strange expression, as though he didn’t know what to make of Geralt.

“Jaskier?”

At the sound of his name, Jaskier startled. It was as if he was being shaken awake. But instead of coming closer and smelling the flowers, giving Geralt a radiant smile, he backed away.

“How do you know my name?” Jaskier’s voice was even, but the tightness of it betrayed him.

Geralt frowned. He took a step closer, halting immediately when Jaskier took another step back. “What? Jask, of course I know your name. What are you talking about?”

Jaskier’s tongue darted out, nervously wetting his lips, his unblinking eyes only leaving Geralt for a split second, dashing over to the door behind Geralt. He held the blanket up in front of him like a shield.

“I…I suppose a lot of people know my name. But just because I am a famous bard doesn’t give you the right to come into my house like this.” The look in his eyes bordered on panicked. “Thank you for the flowers, but I think you should leave.”

Geralt froze, his heart dropping like a stone. “Leave? Jaskier, what’s going on? You’re worrying me.”

Jaskier’s eyes grew hard. It had been years since Geralt had seen this look on him. It was the same expression he got when people had cornered him in some dark corner of a tavern or alleyway, thinking him an easy victim. He only ever got the look when he was truly scared, thinking no one would come to his aid and hoping that being stern would make him appear more able to hold his own in a fight than he was.

Jaskier was afraid of him.

The thought hit Geralt like waves of ice water pulling a drowning man under. He staggered back.

Geralt knew his own expression had closed off, only revealing how stricken he was to those who knew him inside out. Like Jaskier was supposed to.

But he was staring at Geralt as though he was a stranger.

“What is going on is that you, for some reason, thought it would be alright to break into my house and behave like you owned the place.”

Geralt’s mind was racing, unable to comprehend what was going on, why Jaskier kept looking at him like that. He huffed out a disbelieving laugh. “Like I owned – I didn’t break in.”

“No?” Jaskier’s eyes were blazing, but his shaking grip on the blanket was knuckle-white. “What do you call it then, when you come into another person’s home without knocking?”

Geralt was quiet for a long time, his eyes never leaving Jaskier. Jaskier, who just this morning had smiled when Geralt had kissed him awake. Jaskier, who stood in front of him, trembling in fear of him.

With a voice that was as small as if it belonged to the abandoned child Geralt had once been, he said, “I call it coming home.” A lump formed in Geralt’s throat, making it hard to breathe. His heart screamed at him not to say the next words, begging him, telling him he didn’t want to know the answer. And yet. “Jaskier… do you know who I am?”

“No.” The word cut through the air like a knife, knocking all air out of Geralt’s lungs. “And I don’t want to find out. Leave my home this instance.”

Geralt wished the distant roaring of the sea was loud enough to drown out Jaskier’s words, but instead he heard his heart break with the waves.

Be prepared for the worst. Yennefer’s words had been his constant companion since she had uttered them. Geralt had thought he knew what the worst was. He had shut his eyes to that quiet, venomous fear that had slithered in his mind like a viper. He hadn’t dared give that fear a shape and yet it had broken forth, winding itself around Geralt, suffocating him, as it plunged its teeth into Geralt’s heart in tandem with Jaskier’s cold words.

Without anther word, Geralt turned around. He pushed the door open, letting in a gust of wind that Geralt might see tearing at the flowers he had brought, if he had had enough strength to turn to look at them.

He didn’t linger in the door. Once again, like the coward he was, Geralt fled.

He didn’t go far, didn’t even leave the sight of the house. He couldn’t. A hole gaped inside his chest, growing deeper and darker with every step that took him further away from Jaskier.

He couldn’t lose him. He already has.

Geralt squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his fists against them, as if it could erase the memory of Jaskier trembling before him, but the images kept coming, crashing into him like an avalanche. Jaskier’s fearful look, his trembling hands, his tight voice, Jaskier lying on the ground with Geralt unable to help and Jaskier forgetting, always forgetting.

He was tempted to never go back inside, if it meant never having to see Jaskier like that again.

But this has happened before, hasn’t it? Geralt had stormed away in anger when flower petals had fallen to the ground. Had it really been only a year ago? It felt like so much longer than that. It felt like a lifetime.

Still, the words he had said when he had come back to Jaskier were as clear in his mind as they had been when he had first spoken them, fighting their way to the forefront of Geralt’s mind, growing louder until he could no longer ignore them.

Jaskier had said he wouldn’t leave him. And yet here Geralt was, alone, with the wind pushing against him, as if attempting to drag him further away from Jaskier.

Maybe he should let it do so. Maybe he should just leave as Jaskier had told him to, become a witcher again, as he was always meant to be. He shouldn’t even get back to the cottage to retrieve his swords. He would be able to get new ones. His old weapons could rust away, forgotten and collecting dust for all Geralt cared. Then at least one part of him would stay with Jaskier, now that Geralt had no longer a place in his memory.

I won’t leave you either. I promise.

Geralt’s hand clenched tighter, his nails digging into his skin as his own words came back to him unbidden.

All thoughts of abandoning Jaskier left him, carried off with the wind. Geralt had never held onto them strongly anyway.

Still, he stayed outside unable to go back just yet. Unable to face Jaskier’s fear.

As if it would do him any good, Geralt listened to Jaskier rummaging around the cottage. Did he try to barricade the doors to protect himself from the stranger that had broken in earlier? Or had he already forgotten about that and gone back to mundane tasks? A treacherous glimmer of hope threatened to alight in Geralt, as much as he fought against it. Maybe when he saw him again, Jaskier would recognise him once more.

Geralt wasn’t able to face to inevitable disappointment just yet.

When he finally did push the door open again, his breath held and his heart beating rapidly in his chest, he didn’t find Jaskier cowering at the sight of him, but he wasn’t welcomed by arms being thrown around his neck either.

It took Geralt a moment to spy Jaskier. He sat hunched over in a corner of the room, seemingly not noticing Geralt, focussed as he was on the thing he held in his hands.

It was one of Geralt’s swords.

When Jaskier turned it in his hand, his head tilted to the side in contemplation like a bird, the steel caught the gleam of the fire.

Geralt’s heart skipped a beat when Jaskier lifted a hand to trace the sharp edge of the still deadly weapon.

“Don’t!” The word left Geralt before he could think about it. Jaskier’s head snapped up. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

Jaskier put his hand down again, but otherwise didn’t react. His eyes that just moments before had been glued to the sword as if figuring out a riddle now raked over Geralt’s body. None of the heat from before was in it, but neither was there the warmth of recognition. Jaskier just looked startled, uncertain of how to make sense of who and what he was seeing. Of course he would. Geralt had once again entered Jaskier’s home without announcing himself.

His heart clenched painfully at the thought. Jaskier’s home. Not theirs anymore. Not for Jaskier.

Geralt cleared his throat, lifted his hand and knocked awkwardly against the doorframe he was standing in.

Any moment now, Jaskier would throw him out again, would see in him the man who had broken in earlier and reek once more of fear.

Geralt tried to brace himself against what surely was to come, knowing no amount of preparation would spare him the shattering of his heart.

The sharp words never came. Instead a twinkle of amusement appeared in Jaskier’s eyes.

“I’d say you could come in,” he said dryly, his lips twitching “but it might be a bit too late for that.”

Heat rose in Geralt’s neck as he cracked a sheepish smile, his tongue too heavy to form words. Was this… was this his Jaskier? He didn’t dare ask the question out loud. Geralt didn’t think he could bear seeing the glint leave Jaskier’s eyes again to be replaced by that damned fear when he realised the man in front of him was a stranger to him.

Something of his thoughts must have shown on Geralt’s face –whatever else Jaskier might have forgotten, it seemed he still knew how to read Geralt like a children’s book – for Jaskier’s grin grew a bit bigger and he lifted the sword a bit higher.

“Before you get any stupid ideas, I have a sword and I know how to use it.” There was no malice in his tone, only a mixture of confusion and a hint of the playfulness that Geralt yearned for.

Geralt couldn’t supress a snort. “You couldn’t use a sword if it came with a manual.”

He watched like a hawk as Jaskier’s arm shook from the effort of holding the sword up, the point of it coming dangerously close to Jaskier’s own flesh.

Instinctively, Geralt took a step forward, but before he could reach Jaskier he let the sword sink again. He leaned it back against the wall next to its silver twin.

“No, I suppose I don’t.” He shrugged and rested against the wall himself, seemingly uncaring that he had no way to flee like this. Despite Jaskier’s casual stance, Geralt shifted until he wasn’t blocking the exit for Jaskier anymore, as he had before. Jaskier’s eyes followed him. “To be frank with you, I don’t really know why I have a sword in here at all. It’s not really…I don’t think it’s quite my style.”

“It’s mine.” The words stung on Geralt’s tongue.

Jaskier’s eyes widened, a renewed beginning of wonder taking the place of the confusion. Geralt’s heart clenched painfully. His whole being shook from the hope he couldn’t keep at bay.

Recognise me, he begged silently. Please, know me.

Jaskier tilted his head again, beaming with something akin to joy. Geralt’s breath stilled as Jaskier came ever closer until Geralt would have to just reach out to touch him.

There was something in the way Jaskier looked at him, something so painfully familiar –

“Your eyes…” Jaskier’s own eyes darted between the swords in the corner back to Geralt’s eyes, swept over his wind-tossed hair and his imposing frame. Something shifted in Jaskier’s expression, an eager excitement took hold of him. “I know who you are.”

Geralt’s heart was hammering in his chest, about to burst out.

“Jask…” he breathed out, unable to give his voice more strength.

“You’re the witcher, Geralt of Rivia.” Jaskier spread his arms as if presenting something to behold. “The Butcher of Blaviken.”

Geralt’s world crumbled around him. All air was punched out of his lungs. Jaskier’s words cut him open like venomous claws. Never had Jaskier called him that, never except for that first and last time. Ever since then, he had made it his life’s work to erase the hated moniker from the memory of the world.

Yet here he stood, saying the name as he had back then, with excitement, almost in awe, as if it was something glorious to announce to the world. The name on Jaskier’s lips sounded worse than the cruellest insults people had spat at him.

Was this all, Geralt was to Jaskier now?

Witcher. Butcher. Monster!

Geralt staggered backwards. As though through a thick fog, Geralt felt himself shaking his head frantically and staggering back. He couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be happening.

Hands reached out to touch him, burn him. Push him away, hit him.

But instead they wrapped around his arm gently, steadying him clumsily.

“Are you alright?” Jaskier sounded so concerned, his tone sweet and poisonous. “Are you hurt?”

Geralt would have laughed if he hadn’t been so close to screaming.

He was once again nothing more than a witcher to Jaskier. Heartbreak and Death. The thought of the words Jaskier had said to him on their first day left a bitter taste in his mouth. If only he had known how close he had been to the truth.

Geralt let himself be ushered into a chair. On the edge of his conscious thought he saw Jaskier flutter about, trying to get him comfortable.

A cup was placed in his hands.

“Here, I made some tea.”

It was the tea Geralt had made. It was cold and had steeped far too long, left abandoned and forgotten until it was barely recognisable as tea anymore.

Geralt must have stared at the cup unmovingly for too long, for Jaskier made a disappointed noise.

“You don’t like it? I can make something else.” He sounded so eager, so desperate to keep Geralt here with him for as long as possible.

Geralt gave him a tight smile and lifted the cup to his lips. His face must have shown some of the disgust on his face at the cold and distasteful tea, for Jaskier’s face fell and his shoulders slumped.

“You hate it.”

Geralt’s heart clenched at the defeated sound. A familiar sting shot through his chest, one that had been his constant companion for the first years of knowing Jaskier.

Don’t make him hate you. Don’t disappoint him. Don’t make him leave!

He huffed and schooled his face into a pleased expression.

“No, no, it’s…it’s good. I just-“ He didn’t think about it, didn’t even realise he was doing it, until Jaskier let out a small gasp when Geralt used the tiniest burst of igni to warm the cup.

Geralt froze, his eyes snapping to Jaskier who was in turn staring at the now steaming cup in Geralt’s hand.

“I’m sorry,” Geralt blurted out, his grip on the cup tightening, as if that would somehow shield it from sight.

He shouldn’t have done it. The action had come so naturally to him and usually, Jaskier wouldn’t have batted an eye, but now…. who knew how Jaskier would react to seeing Geralt use signs. Who knew if he would feel threatened by how unnatural Geralt was.

Before Geralt could stammer out any other excuses or completely clam down, Jaskier moved. He rushed forward, grasping the hand that had made the sign in his, turning it around carefully, all the while studying it intently.

“What was that?” Jaskier asked, tracing one finger along a line on Geralt’s palm. “I didn’t know you could do magic. Show me again!”

Geralt’s brows furrowed, hesitant to move a single muscle, but Jaskier lifted his head to look at him, his eyes bright and eager. Goosebumps were erupting from where Jaskier was still tracing patterns on his skin.

Geralt chanced a glance away from Jaskier, towards the hearth where the fire was almost burned down. Jaskier followed his gaze and his face lit up in obvious expectation. He almost shook with anticipation.

Geralt took a deep breath, pulled his hand free of Jaskier’s grip though the loss of contact left him cold and empty and stretched his fingers towards the hearth, forming igni.

Immediately, the kindling flames burst back to light. The roar of the fire was only overshadowed by the sound of Jaskier’s delight. He threw his head back with a barking laugh.

“Oh this is brilliant!” His smile was almost too big to fit onto Jaskier’s face.

Seeing Jaskier like this loosened the tightness in Geralt’s chest bit by bit.

He didn’t hate him, wasn’t afraid of him. Meeting him again, like this, as a stranger coming unannounced into his home, he still wasn’t afraid of witchers. How could Geralt have ever doubted him? Brilliant, loving Jaskier whose first instinct was to reach out and befriend.

“Please tell me you will stay for a while.” Jaskier scooted closer with his chair. “I need to know everything about you. You must have so many incredible stories to tell.”

A tiny smile lifted Geralt’s lips. This was Jaskier. His Jaskier. Not the one who lived with him in a cottage, but the same one who had approached him a lifetime ago. He had more wrinkles and his voice was throaty, but he was Jaskier. He still looked at Geralt’s miniscule smile as though it was the most breathtaking sight. The small quirk of his lips was enough to get Jaskier to lean forward as if he didn’t want to miss any of it.

Just to see more of Jaskier’s reaction, Geralt widened his smile a bit and was rewarded by Jaskier’s eyes softening.

“I believe telling incredible stories would be more of your specialty,” Geralt said with the tiniest hint of humour that he allowed himself in spite of everything.

“So you will stay? Indulge me a bit?”

Geralt shifted in his chair, his heart beating uncomfortably strong. “If you’ll have me.”

“If I’ll have you!” Jaskier threw his hands up. “My dear Geralt of Rivia, it is a bard’s highest pleasure to meet someone like you.” He didn’t seem to notice Geralt choking at the endearment. “It would seem all those years of praising Melitele’s bosom and buttocks have finally paid off. Oh! The songs someone like you could inspire!”

The words send Geralt’s heart into his throat. Jaskier wanted to sing and compose again after years of barely doing either.

“You would sing for me?” Geralt’s voice was tight.

A sly smirk spread over Jaskier’s face. “How about a trade? You tell me all about your heroics and valiant deeds and I will sing for you. Oh – or I could become your barker. You could be the – the…”

“The White Wolf?”

“Yes!” Jaskier clapped his hands together, brimming with newfound energy he hadn’t in far too long. “That is marvellous! We are going to get along wonderfully, I tell you.”

Geralt’s eyes softened. “I’m sure we will.”

The storm inside him was still raging, but as they sat together and talked the time away, it calmed with every smile, gasp and laugh he managed to elicit from Jaskier. Greedily, Geralt soaked in each shift in Jaskier’s equally hungry expression.

He could almost pretend it was like it had always been, that they were sitting in some tavern with Jaskier nagging Geralt for details about a hunt, instead of a home at the coast which to Jaskier wasn’t Geralt’s anymore.

It was almost like a second chance he had never wanted. He still didn’t want it. If he could, Geralt would throw away this second chance at a first meeting in a heartbeat, if it meant getting back what they had.

But until Jaskier came back on his own, Geralt could do nothing but offer Jaskier everything that he was and have faith that it would be enough and wouldn’t chase Jaskier away.

Within hours, Jaskier was talking about Geralt as if he was a grand hero, with not an ounce of doubt in his voice. As if the knowledge that witchers weren’t fundamentally monstrous was a truth seared into his heart, unwavering even now.

At some point, Jaskier got up and produced a quill and a notebook from the shelf. He didn’t question why it was already half-full with verses about monsters and golden eyes.

Geralt watched him in silent admiration, as he scrawled down pages and pages of unreadable notes. It didn’t matter that Jaskier’s letters weren’t recognisable as such any longer. The scrawly lines, though in the middle of the book, marked a new beginning of sorts.

In his enthusiasm, Jaskier’s elbow got caught in the vase with the flowers that Geralt had brought in mere hours earlier, when the world had been a different one.

Before the vase could topple over Geralt reached out, catching it without much thought, but when Jaskier looked up from his notes, his face held nothing but easily given affection and admiration.

“Already saving me, are you? My hero, truly.”

Geralt huffed, but his lips curled.

“I’m sorry, my dear witcher,” Jaskier said with a sigh that dripped with false regret. “I’m afraid that if you just wanted a short rest, you have come to the wrong house. You won’t get rid of me for quite a while now, I fear.”

Something unfurled in Geralt’s chest. “Promise me?”

Throughout the day, Geralt’s hopeless hope kept flaring up again and again at the smallest hint that Jaskier might remember.

Every smile that Geralt received, every affectionate pat on the shoulder, every teasing comment made Geralt’s breath hitch, though with every passing minute, Geralt’s hope dwindled.

But it was fine. It was alright. As long as Jaskier wasn’t afraid of Geralt, he could deal with this, even if it meant breaking his heart over and over again when Jaskier looked at him with curiosity instead of love.

Against all of Geralt’s fears, it was companionable in a bittersweet way to watch Jaskier doing his best to get to know him, all the while being able to appreciate Jaskier for everything he was, unlike Geralt had done the first time around.

Then nightfall came, the reality of the situation hit Geralt again, with unexpected force.

As every evening, Geralt went through the motions. Jaskier didn’t complain, didn’t even give any sign that it was strange that he was being tucked into bed by someone he had just met.

As he had done for years now, Geralt brushed his hand over Jaskier’s hair – and faltered. His stomach dropped and he pulled his hand back as if he had been burned.

Jaskier didn’t remember him. To him, he was just a stranger; Fascinating, for sure, but a stranger nonetheless. Geralt forced himself to step away from the bed he wouldn’t lie in today. Maybe never again. There would be no more kisses on temples being returned by ones on Geralt’s knuckles. There would be no more listening to the sound of Jaskier’s breathing as he lay next to him, being comforted by his heat and his arms around him as he drifted to sleep.

“I’m going to sleep in the living room,” Geralt announced.

He half-hoped that Jaskier would protest, pull him closer by the hand and tell him that Geralt should continue to sleep next to him and that he loved him.

None of that happened. It had been a foolish wish.

Jaskier only mumbled something in the affirmative, already halfway to drowsing.

With one last lingering look on Jaskier, Geralt turned away, shutting the door behind him.

For a long moment, Geralt just stood there, letting his eyes sweep over the room with a hollow feeling until eventually, he grabbed the thin blanket Jaskier had dropped earlier and went over to the armchair Jaskier had fallen asleep in just hours before.

A crack split Geralt’s heart and he had to close his eyes trying to shake the memory of the look on Jaskier’s face when he had awoken and found Geralt in the room with him.

He shifted in a vain attempt to get comfortable, a feat he knew he would not succeed in. The armchair was too small. Too hard for sleeping.

It had been too long since he last had to sleep on a cold forest floor. If Vesemir was here, he would say Geralt had gone too soft.

In moments like these, Geralt almost wished that his heart truly was as hardened as people used to say. A soft snore from the bedroom followed by nonsense mumblings made him reconsider. He couldn’t wish his heart to be any other than the one that had fallen in love with Jaskier and somehow earned his love in return.

And therein lay the problem. Geralt could sleep in spaces that were hard, uncomfortable or small. But he knew he wouldn’t find a minute of rest with the space next to him being empty, without Jaskier there with him.

Geralt couldn’t just reach out and hold Jaskier close like this. They might as well be a world apart instead of just in different rooms.

Maybe they truly were in different worlds.

Jaskier’s sleeping sounds were muffled by the door Geralt dared not open without Jaskier’s permission. It wasn’t the only door standing between them. The other, invisible door was finally locked and though it felt like ice seeping into his chest to admit, Geralt knew that there was no key for him to find. Jaskier might as well be locked away for good.

It had been hours since the sun had risen when Jaskier finally emerged from the bedroom, probably lured out by the smell of Geralt making breakfast.

Geralt looked at him with held breath, awaiting a reaction, any reaction, whether it would save or doom him. But Jaskier just looked sleepy as though he hadn’t closed his eyes to sleep at all. Geralt knew that to be untrue. He had been up all night, straining to hear anything from the bedroom, hoping to hear Jaskier’s confused voice call out for him, asking why he wasn’t in bed with him.

No such call had come. But neither had there been any screams or panicked breathing caused by nightmares. Though he had tossed and turned in bed, Jaskier had slept through, not once waking and wandering about, not knowing where he was going.

That, at least was a small blessing. And Geralt would be grateful for any bit of peace he and Jaskier would get.

When Jaskier’s eyes finally landed on him, he merely startled slightly, before a smile graced his lips. Was it big enough to be one of recognition? Geralt couldn’t tell. He didn’t dare ask.

They ate breakfast, Geralt in tense silence, waiting for the axe to fall, Jaskier chattering away as if nothing was wrong. But not once did he move to stroke Geralt lovingly or call him by an endearment again.

The anxious anticipation slowly faded into the sinking feeling in Geralt’s chest that almost felt like coming home with how painfully familiar it was becoming.

Over the next hours, days, weeks, the hollow filled again, slowly but steadily. Though it seemed impossible, this warped reality they lived became the new normal.

Some days Geralt could almost convince himself that Jaskier remembered him. Maybe he truly did. It got hard to tell whether the cheerful smiles and the soft way Jaskier spoke Geralt’s name were meant for the shiny new muse or the broken old lover.

At least he still knew his name, recognised it as something not to be feared or to scoff at.

Most days, Geralt was sure he was just someone who just so happened to live in Jaskier’s house and whom Jaskier enjoyed talking to. Hopefully, someone he felt safe with. The days when Jaskier recognised him as someone he loved became few and far between.

People had always said Jaskier’s affections were fleeting: easily given and gone just as quickly. Jaskier had never bothered to correct those rumours. They were true, for the most part, after all. Geralt was the only one Jaskier ever confided in, telling him that though his affections would leave his heart, they would never be forgotten.

Jaskier’s heart was a fickle thing, but it beat strongly and constantly for the things he truly loved. Music. A piece of beautiful poetry able to capture feelings normal words couldn’t describe. The first blossoms of spring when his step would gain a new skip at the promise of more adventures. Closing his eyes and smelling the breeze, insisting it smelled of the heroics to come.

Enough time spent together had passed for Geralt to grow certain that he was one of those things for which Jaskier’s affections would be lasting.

The soft smiles Jaskier still gave him when Geralt told him of the things he had seen in his life made Geralt hope that maybe he could be such a beloved thing once again.

Jaskier loved freely and quickly. Maybe it was foolish to hope that Jaskier could rekindle or remember even a glimmer of what he had felt for Geralt. But Geralt had the suspicion that he had given up on trying to be sensible as soon as he had allowed the bard to attach himself to him back in Posada anyway.

The little noises Jaskier often made when contemplating a new rhyme brought Geralt out of his thoughts.

“Do you think I should try a different rhyme scheme? This one is mostly used for love songs, but I don’t think it would do well for one about adventures, don’t you think?”

“Why can’t it be both?” Geralt asked, unheeding of the ache to come. It had been so long since Jaskier’s creations about him had been anything but love songs, whatever else they might be as well. He knew whatever Jaskier would now come up with would be far from such a thing. Jaskier’s love for the tales of adventure that Geralt could give him weren’t enough.

Jaskier made a dismissive sound, not knowing what it did to Geralt’s heart. “Eh, I don’t know. If I use that rhyme scheme, it will always remind me of a love song. And that’s just not right.”

Don’t ever let me forget I love you.

The memory of Jaskier begging him for this one thing, this tiny plea that weighed on Geralt as if he were carrying the world on his shoulders, echoed through his mind, mocking him with how impossible a feat it was.

How many fragile promises had Geralt made thinking he would keep them? How many more would be broken along with his heart?

He had promised Jaskier that he would do his best to help him remember what they had. It was a task that would only end in heartbreak, but Geralt would gladly sacrifice his heart, shatter it into a million pieces over and over again, if it granted him even a chance of getting Jaskier back.

So Geralt did everything he could think of. He spent hours reading Jaskier’s notebooks to him, as far as he could decipher his crooked letters. He told him about his brothers and Kaer Morhen, about Yennefer and Ciri and even Valdo Marx. Not even a muscle twitched at the mention of the troubadour’s name. But something seemed to stir in Jaskier when Geralt talked about their family. Nothing but a hesitant smile, a miniscule shift in his eyes. Sometimes Jaskier would repeat the names, as if he knew they held a meaning that he couldn’t find. Then he would look at Geralt and whisper his name as if it were something precious, something he had lost. Seldom did he find it in Geralt’s face.

Jaskier still called him his dear witcher. The endearment was bittersweet balm. Like rubbing salve on a tumour. It wasn’t enough. And yet, the small acknowledgement made Geralt’s heart soar, made him redouble his efforts.

Geralt started playing the lute, if it could be called so. He never learned any chords, much to Jaskier’s dismay, so he just plucked the empty strings. He played despite them being out of tune. Geralt didn’t know how to get them back the way they were supposed to be and Jaskier didn’t move to help. He just sat there, looking at the lute, stroking over the wood that Geralt kept polished still.

Taking care of Jaskier’s beloved instrument gave him a sense of calm and it clearly made Jaskier happy, though he never said so anymore.

It had taken Geralt a while to notice, but once he saw it, it was hard to miss. Jaskier’s signs of affection had changed. Whereas he used to give his affections a voice, he now showed them with happy hums and an expression as if he had so much to say, if only he could find the words.

Geralt still understood, or so he hoped.

He continued bringing Jaskier flowers until the last ones succumbed to the rapidly approaching cold. When Geralt apologised, saying that there were no more flowers left, Jaskier had hugged him, whether as thanks or to comfort Geralt, he couldn’t tell.

It was only a short embrace, but it felt like coming home. He belonged in Jaskier’s arms. Too long had be gone without feeling them around him.

He hoped Jaskier didn’t feel Geralt’s body wreck with a cut-off sob. If he did, he didn’t show it. It took all of Geralt’s will power to let go again, when all he wanted to do was hold Jaskier impossibly close and be held in turn, feel Jaskier gently rub circles on his back while Geralt pressed his face into the crock of Jaskier’s neck, safe from all the world and the cruelty of Jaskier’s broken memory.

But the world carried on and bits and pieces of Jaskier’s memory continued to crumble - once a palace, now an overgrown ruin.

And yet, glimpses of the old Jaskier continued to shine through. Whenever Geralt’s rough and broken voice attempted to sing one of Jaskier’s old songs, Jaskier would without fail join in, though some lines escaped him, they were still unmistakably his. Jaskier always seemed to light up, when he sang about the beauty of the world, of love and adventure with words that Geralt could have never come up with to describe any of it. No one could speak of those wonders quite like Jaskier’s songs. No one could see the world how he had.

Jaskier never questioned how those songs came into existence. Geralt tried explaining to him sometimes, telling him that Jaskier was the genius behind the lyrics and the melody.

Sometimes Jaskier would get a spark in his eyes, pride and a hint of a buried memory, when Geralt told him so. Other times, he would just nod along to whatever Geralt was saying, just to appease him.

Those vacant expressions, the apathy at being told of his own accomplishments drove a knife into Geralt’s chest.

Those songs, meant to remind the world of Jaskier, were now one of the only things reminding Jaskier that the world around him existed, that it always had existed and that he had lived a wonderful life in it.

His mind had become as fickle as people always accused his heart to be. And yet, he still recognised part of Geralt in his songs, still saw him as someone he could embrace and sing to. He still looked at Geralt as if he was beautiful. As if he was worth looking at. Even if he didn’t remember the times he had looked at him before. Even if sometimes he saw Geralt for the first time again.

Geralt had always thought that out of the two of them, Jaskier was the one so full of love that he could give it with abundance. Now, Geralt was the one who would have to love enough for it to suffice for them both.

He looked at Jaskier, humming to himself while doing his best to draw a kikimora based on a description Geralt had given him earlier. He looked back up at Geralt, so proud of himself, looking for Geralt’s approval as if it meant the world.

Geralt didn’t think it would be hard to have enough love for them both. The hard part was knowing that when he dared to whisper a soft “I love you” all he would receive in reply would be silence.

#geraskier #geralt #witcher #jaskier #memory loss #old!jaskier #old Jaskier #geratl x jaskier #my writing #fic #Birds still sing when they fall from the sky #the witcher #witcher fic #hey remember when i was able to write short chapters?#like two weeks ago?#i long for those good old times #this...this was not meant to be this long #sorry #accidental multichapter

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flying-nightwing · 5 years

Text

Dark Fox (2/7)

Wow twice in a day, I’m on fire uh. So this one is quite short, but I had to lay the ground for what’s to come. Also we get to know our character’s relations a bit better so yeah. Enjoy!

Previous - Next

Pairing: Jason Todd x League!Reader

Word count: 2559

Warnings: same as last one

You always sat up straight.

With your legs folded under you and your back in a perfect line, you tended to the small fire and the teapot over it. Jason was observing you, his ever present scowl still judging you. He sat with his legs crossed in front of him, slouching. You had decided you wouldn't waste time in correcting his posture, because you doubted he would ever apply this in his lifetime.

With a cloth, you removed the teapot from the heat and carefully poured it in the two cups in front of you. It had been hard to even get him to the tea part, only when fall had gotten colder he had begrudgingly agreed to drink the hot beverage with you. He was still shaking from being in the rain so long without any form of waterproof suit. You handed him his cup, catching the very subtle thank you nod sent in your direction.

You didn't comment on it, although you were surprised he even did thank you. Gratitude wasn't part of Jason's range of emotion, not since he got out of the pit anyway. You sipped your tea in silence, with only the sound of the rain crashing down on the trees around you. That until…

"How old are you?"

You raised an eyebrow at the question, both surprised by the fact that he talked to you and the content itself of the question.

"Age is just a milestone of the physical body. It does not matter" You answered and he frowned in frustration. You sighed, figuring out you could entertain this one question, if it could make him less disagreeable.

"But if you must know, I was born twenty one years ago"

His eyes widened, then annoyance settled in.

"So they sent a kid to teach me?" He scoffed. "You're barely older than me"

"Yet I've been training with the league for 13 years" You replied sternly. You did not like the challenge. "Age is meaningless. Experience makes what you are"

Jason did not expect that. If you had been training with the league for 13 years… It meant you had begun at 8. His scowl disappeared for an instant as he realized he could respect your experience. But nothing more.

You thought he was done with the question, but apparently that first opened the door. His curiosity about you had been stirred, as he didn't understand how an eight years old ended up in the league. He had had this idea that people seeking the league were trying to run from a problem, and by putting the mask on, they asked Ra's Al Ghul to make it disappear in exchange of their lives and soul. They were cowards, in his eyes. But an eight years old didn't have that kind of problem yet. But he wouldn't ask that straight away, because he couldn't gauge your reaction to the question. He could gauge anything about you.

"Did the league teach you survival skills?" He asked instead, pointing at the hut. You had built the shelter, you took care of the fire, you hunted for food and prepared it. Jason wasn't helpless either, but he wouldn't have been able to do it that efficiently.

"No" You replied simply. "I had to teach myself. The League merely released us in different environments, sometimes for months, and we had to find a way to survive"

Arabian desert, russian tundra in winter, chinese forests in rainy season, you had done it all.

"And what if you couldn't?" He asked the question he already knew the answer to.

"You died" You shrugged as you poured the rest of the tea equally in both cups. "Many did, actually. The League seeks the strongest amongst us. This exercise had the double purpose of giving us useful skills and weed out the weak"

"That's fucked up"

You didn't answer that. You only watched as he drank the rest of his tea and retired to the rope hammock suspended a few feet further. You didn't go to sleep right away, staying by the fire and staring at the weak flames, thinking.

----

You had to give it to Talia, she knew how to pick her meeting spots. The museum was grandiose, and conveniently, closed for private business; that business being yours and Talia’s. But then again, it was an unnecessary luxury. You nodded at the guard that opened the door for you and made your way inside, your footsteps echoing on the marble floor. You were more than aware of the league members hidden in the corners, moving out of your vision field as you walked forward. Talia was probably already made aware of your arrival, which is why you didn’t bother announcing your presence when you finally found her in front of painting. She was looking at the huge frame when you halted beside her.

“I heard what happened yesterday”

You glanced at her. Her eyes were still on the picture in front of her.

“Everything’s been taken care of” You said, dodging the implication of her words. “The order was fulfilled despite the interruption”

She remained silent, her breath even. She looked down, then up at the painting again, then at you. “I’m not talking about my father’s task for you”

She would know, obviously. She knew you inside out, and she knew Jason as well. She was aware of your dynamic, how you worked. It didn’t come as a surprise that somehow she found out of his second visit to you. Now it was a matter of time before she asked the question.

“Did he ask you again?”

There it was.

“Yes” You nodded, casting your glance forward. “I told him I couldn’t”

You felt her stare turn sad. Talia loved you like a younger sister, one that she chose and that she could love. She was a teenager when you had been taken in by the League, and instantly she had known she would protect you. She understood why you refused Jason again, because you were as attached as her as she was to you. But there was something in between her two protégés that she couldn’t ignore either, a bond forged with time and patience and shared pain that resulted in a devotion to the other she had rarely seen. But you were holding back, and she knew all too well why.

She reached in her bag and handed you a folder, which you took carefully.

“This is what I could find about the project from my contacts” She explained. “I can’t do more I’m afraid, the League cannot be found to be involved”

You opened the folder to see photographs and files of people; lab techs and businessmen alike. Job descriptions, previous experiences, ties to each other. And finally, at the bottom, a blueprint of a LexCorps prototype, a small biotech machine you doubted would be used for good reasons. But nevertheless, it finally gave traction to your chase. You could work with that, you only needed to track it to…

“Gotham” You muttered as you read where the prototype was stored.

“You’ll need help for this” She added, and you knew who she was referencing to, specifically. You took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m serious, you can’t do this alone. He has enough resources to help you, and he will. You know he will”

“Yeah” You agreed, your voice suddenly distant. You had never thought you’d have to involve Jason in your quest, he had enough on his shoulders. But at the same time, who else could you ever trust with it?

“But?” She could always call out your reluctance.

“But I’m afraid that if I go…” You trailed off, meeting her eyes once again. “I won’t want to come back”

She smiled warmly at you. You were afraid to break your loyalty to her, to let her down. You were afraid of what you would find there.

“Then if the path you take leads you away, it will be what’s meant to be” She reassured with a hand on your shoulder. “Don’t worry about this. I’ll take care of it if it comes to that”

You returned her smile. “Thank you, Talia” You bowed you head slightly. “For everything”

With that, you turned around and left. Talia returned to her observation of the painting, sighing.

------

The clearing was still. There was no wind, no cloud, no wildlife running around. Only the sound of metal clashing under the first ray of sun of the day, and the grunts of effort coming from Jason. He was focused, more than usual. You had more trouble catching him off guard and forcing him on the defensive, or even finding an opening to sweep his feet. You saw he was struggling to restrain his anger, which was honestly an improvement. It wasn’t perfect, he had still a lot to learn about controlling the inhumane force he had been given. But it wasn’t pathetic, and you wondered what made him change idea about your methods.

You had also stopped wearing your mask when you trained, in an attempt to make an effort to meet him in the middle. It had always bothered him, angered him even more. Ra’s never let him men remove their mask when you began training, saying it would make the whole thing personal if they did. Attachment was never good as a member of the League, but you weren’t there right now. He wasn’t training for Ra’s, but to control himself. And you understood soon enough he’d never let you teach him if you kept fueling his anger for nothing.

But he was getting frustrated again at your strategy. You went from occasionally attacking to a passive defense, knowing it would rile him up. You still knew how to push his buttons, and you would do it all over again until the day he understood. His jaw clenched and unclenched, his nostrils flared up as he picked up the pace.

It wasn’t the day.

In his haste to beat you, his restraint evaporated, leaving his movements once again sloppy and uncalculated. It wasn’t hard to knock the sword out of his hand, sending it flying backward. But he didn’t stop, he only grabbed yours by the blade and threw it aside as well. Before you knew it, his fist collided with your cheek. You blinked as your body registered the pain, wiping the wetness dripping down your nose. It was bright red on your glove. Your eyes trailed up his tense form to settle on his face, then his eyes. Your fingers flexed in restraint against engaging in close combat with him, even though you wished nothing more than to beat his attitude down. But you wouldn’t win this one. So you waited for the explosion that would come, and come it did.

In a flash, you jumped back to avoid his hook punch, then his uppercut. You rolled to avoid his kick, but you didn’t see his hand coming up to grab your throat and slam you back into a tree trunk. His hand was tight on your throat, but his rage blinded him to the knife you drew out from your belt. In a quick motion, you slashed his forearm. He retracted it, and released your throat at the same time. You jumped out of the way and stopped out of his range in a guarded position. You saw the defiance in his eyes, as well as the satisfaction.

“Next time you pull that shit, the blade goes through” You warned, sheathing your blade in your belt once again.

“Are you angry?” He taunted, and you realized what he was doing. You were pissed and he knew it. Well, he’d get what he ask for.

You crouched and picked both swords that had been discarded, then threw one at him. “I showed you what restraint looked like. Lesson over” You wiped the blood from your face once again, carefully watching his reaction. “Now you get to learn what’s channeled anger”

Whatever he expected, it hadn’t prepared him for the beating he was about to receive.

------

Jason didn’t need Batman.

Or Dick, or anyone for that matter. His ego had won the best of him when Bruce admitted he needed his help on the sting operation he was building, so he agreed. Of course, that meant his adoptive father would have to respect his terms, since he asked for him first. But the matter was so important, such a priority to neutralize that it didn’t matter to the Bat. Red Hood could go awol when the time came, as long as he didn’t make an attention attractive mess before they could get to the final phase of their master plan. It didn’t please Bruce that was for sure, but they were already short handed and it was a miracle Jason even agreed to work again with his adoptive family.

Still, it didn’t change the fact that he would get back into his old habits and gleefully jump from rooftop to rooftop like a happy family. He was still hell bent on working solo, and no truce would come mess that up. So that’s how he ended up all alone with his own ego on a recon mission to LexCorps. A partner would have only been in his way, slowing him down and pissing him off. He had his own way of doing things and he liked it like that.

But Jason being Jason, he often acted before thinking, which never paired well in delicate operations like this one. He was getting intel on a project lead by one of the most paranoid control freak with a knack for sparing no expenses to make sure punks like him didn’t get their hands on his stuff.

But he was proud of himself this time. He had sneaked in like a master spy and bypassed all the security like a goddamn pro to get to the lab. Although, he hadn’t expected it to find it very much occupied by more than forty lab techs and a shit ton of armed guards. There was supposed to be no one but the regular night shift and this one harmless tech, said the intel.

Well, the intel was dead wrong apparently.

He crouched, still in the shadows of the second floor. He watched through the rail the buzzing of the staff around what he recognized to be the very thing the whole operation was put in place to stop. He noticed with half frustration and half horror that it seemed very functional, again, to contradict the documents that said it was still in developing phase. Which meant, he and his jolly bunch of vigilante were on the clock.

“Fuck” He muttered to himself. “Fuck fuck fuck--”

He felt the barrel of a gun being pressed to the back of his neck, interrupting his string of curse.

“Don’t move”

He could take him, he knew. He would just have to be quicker and… Ah, fuck. A spotlight was pointed his way, quite literally, as everyone in the lab turned toward him with gasps. Shortly after, three red dots appeared on his chest, and he had no idea where they came from.

Because he was fucking blinded.

And surrounded apparently, as he heard boots running toward him.

“We got him, boss”

Great. Just great.

163 notes · View notes

beebleboosuwu · 4 years

Text

Fic: Took My Days With You

I originally posted this on AO3 but wanted to share this with y’all:

There’s one thing that she hated the most about herself:

The fact that she grew up.

Lydia didn’t want to, but that was a part of life. She left fifteen years ago to pursue her dream career of becoming a photographer. Her success with that led to her becoming an author and multiple of her publications became New York Times hits. Her autobiography came soon after, and people were enthralled by her life story. Obviously she had to leave out the... interesting bits of her teenage years other than telling her audience that she lived in a house where the previous tenants died and telling them that she could feel their presence everywhere she went in that house. And she told her story to all who would listen, they seemed to enjoy it claiming that it was all in the name of fiction but to her it was real. When she left, all five of her family members waved farewell and wished her the best of luck. Delia and Charles helped her pack, Adam and Barbara made provisions and supplies for her trip and Beetlejuice, the sentimental bastard, waited and bid farewell to her on the roof where they met. But one devastating phone call from Skye sent Lydia into a panicked frenzy, she hurriedly left her home of Salem, Massachusetts to Winter River, Connecticut. With her car supplied for only a week's worth of clothes, and now 40 years old, she returned to her home. She was always nearby, and never too far from her family, she didn’t have the heart to go that far.

Lydia drove past the sign of Winter River with a somber look on her face, her black convertible rolling down the familiar town. The town didn’t change much, it was still a small town and the nostalgia factor was striking a hard chord in her. She couldn’t stop the wetness running down her cheeks though.. This is where she grew up and now…. it’s gone..

Not like gone, but in the more ‘this no longer feels like home’ vibe. She had a home and lost that one with the death of her mother, but she rebuilt a new one with a second set of (ghost) parents and a strange and unusual best friend. Lydia could see it in the distance, a raggedy looking building faded with age. The surrounding hill hasn’t changed, other than the fact that her dad actually pulled through with that gated community deal with a different partner other than that snob Maxie Dean. It was a nice area though, multiple houses lined the way to her house, or rather the ‘flagship model home’ her dad nicknamed it so long ago.

She pulled up to the driveway, taking note of the dead vegetation around the property. She hasn’t been back in years, and it certainly has seen better days. The paint was chipping off from the wind, and there wasn’t even a strong breeze blowing. No one has lived here for a couple years either. Her father and stepmother died 3 years ago and she never got the chance to return to Winter River. She was always so busy, and whatever time she had to herself, she would throw herself into her work. Always working on the next big thing that her fans would enjoy.

The windows had been covered with wood and the door was left wide open. Multiple cans of bear and graffiti littered the front porch and the front door. Lydia was afraid to enter in, not because of the ghosts that she hoped were still in there, but how empty it looks from the outside.

She left her things in a hotel already and chose to come straight here rather than getting some rest. The hotel manager so it seem, was a big fan of Lydia’s and asked if she was going to return to her house that she used to live in. Rather than disclose that information, she said no. He said it was a shame what happened to her old house, it fell out of repair and no matter how many times realtors wanted to sell it, no one would buy it. According to the locals, no one would buy and live In a house that is haunted by its old occupants. It also became a place that was frequented by juveniles to get a good scare from this place. Which did work cause they claimed that some monster always chased them out. She knew who it was and the reason for Skye’s call:

The monster sightings and other weird stuff happening in her old house suddenly ceased.

The porch creaked beneath her feet, as if the wood would snap at any moment. Normally the Maitlands would come rushing out and greet her at the door and Beetlejuice would be in the living room watching whatever he wanted to, but there was nothing, and that definitely made Lydia pause her advancement towards the rickety old house. Her nose wrinkled from the old, wet, wood smell emanating from the house.

Lydia trudged on anyway and went past through the threshold, and what she saw saddened her. The roof had given out at one point and that pile of wood was tucked away to the side. The living room was a mess, riddled with dust and more garbage thrown around. And call her crazy for keeping it, but the sculpture that she used to stab Beetlejuice with was knocked over. The stand was crushed to smithereens and the pole and the adorning head piece laid far away. The pole was resting by the fireplace and the spiky headpiece was near the base of the stairs. Multiple photos of herself and her family were callously left on the floor, leaving the glass frame shattered and the photos caked with grime.

“Adam? Barbara?” Lydia called out to the empty house, “Lawrence?” her demon adopted brother would usually hiss at her for using his first name, and she got no response from her ghost parents or Beetlejuice. “Anyone home? It’ me, Lydia!” She called again, but only the echoing tones of her voice reached her.

She entered the kitchen next, leaving her just as devastated. The stove had been ripped out of the wall and the table was smashed to pieces, knives, pots and other cooking utensils were scattered on the island, sink and counter tops. the backdoor to the garden was no better. The door hung off its hinges and the backyard was full of dead grass and weeds, like the entire life of the house just disappeared.

Scared of what that entailed, she rushed towards the staircase and climbed up it without disregard. The hand rail fell off the moment she touched it but ran up, ignoring the protesting groans of the wood. She had to know.

She had to.

The hallway was filled with odd bits and bobs of the rooms, a smashed mirror was on the floor, a mattress was laid against the wall, pieces of metal stuck out from the mattress too. Making it seem that someone repeatedly stabbed the thing multiple times. Lydia cautiously stepped around the debris to head towards the door to the attic and out of all things that were destroyed, the door was the only one that looked like it hadn't been touched.

With hope rejuvenating her system, she busted down the door only to find no one inside. The attic was an absolute mess, the room was torn inside and out. Barbara and Adam’s bed was ripped to shreds, the love seat’s ripped and the fluff from inside the cushions were strewn along the floor, Adam’s model town was no longer here and Barbara’s clay pots lay shattered on the shelves. The window opening to the roof is left wide open causing a draft into the room. There was a small pile of clothes in the middle of the room, all looking like it was haphazardly thrown there.

“Adam? Barbara? Beej?” Lydia pleaded to the open air that one of them are still around. “Please, I’m here!” Now she couldn’t stop the tears from forming, “Beetlejuice? Ghost-mom? Ghost-dad? Where are you?!” Lydia started to feel the adrenaline and panic flood into her system, she frantically went to every nook and cranny of the attic throwing anything that might have obscured a hiding ghost, but no luck. There was no trace of the ghost couple and the green haired demon here. Her tearful gaze turned towards the roof, she checked every room of the house and no one responded to her calls.

The cold, crisp autumn air embraced her once more.. The weathervane rusted beyond recognition and the barriers between the edge of the roof and the solid ground she stood on were missing, most likely they were the things stabbed into the mattress. A hoarse scream left her throat and Lydia sunk onto her knees clutching her chest.

They were gone… She was alone, again. Forsaken. Invisible.

Her family has been scattered to the winds, Dad and Delia have expired, only days apart the doctor said. Lydia alone paid for the funeral and their gravesites to be dug, she didn’t return to Winter River. Instead she went straight into her work and wrote a hit, “The Demon Among Us.” It was about her experience with a literal demon, but over analytical professors and English majors chalked up her demon character (Beetlejuice) and said it was a personification of depression. Which would have been awesome… if that was what she wrote about.

Adam and Barbara were nowhere to be found, and the house they loved so much was falling apart. Their precious items, littering the lawn to the backyard to the front yard. If they could see what had happened, they would be surely hopeful and ready to fix it.

Beetlejuice didn’t appear instantly when she called his name, and since Juno was eaten by that Sandworm… Beetlejuice never had a problem with saying his name or getting anyone to say it. He did mention there was a slight tug from the after effects of the curse being lifted, but other than that he said it was manageable.

Lydia cried onto the roof tiles, the family she had built… vanished.

She pounded the ground, cursing herself for not making time, screaming that her life was taken away from her hands again. This was worse than when Emily died, back then she had her father to talk to about things like this. Delia would give insight of finding distractions to move past grief.. While Barbara and Adam gave Lydia a shoulder to cry one whenever she was upset. Beetlejuice made her laugh again and even though he was dead, or born-dead, he made her see that life is worth living. That even if it is a struggle, she could pull through.

Now they were not here, her decaying memories and odd photos of the family were the only things that helped remind her that they existed and were real to her.

“Lydia?”

Lydia turned around to find the familiar stench and sight of her black and white striped demon best friend. She gasped, got up and ran towards her friend. The demon had his arms wide open for her to collide into which she crashed into wholeheartedly.

“Beetlejuice…” she cried into his lapel.

“Heya scarecrow.. nice to see ya. You’ve changed.” Beetlejuice shakily rubbed her back.

“And you haven’t,” she let go to take a good look at him, “Oh Beej, your hair.”

Beetlejuice sadly smiled, his hair being a deep purple with even darker blue tips, his dress shirt was tinged purple too. She now got a better look at him, his face, stained with tears and wrinkle lines dominated his forehead. His eye bags were heavy as if he didn’t sleep for a long time. “I know.” He replied, “Things happened when you were away.”

“What happened?”

“The Maitlands…” His breath hitched. “They’re gone.”

Lydia stared at Beetlejuice and waited for the punchline. This was Beetlejuice, he was a prankster. Lydia laughed a little.

“You’re joking right?” She playfully shoved him, “They probably moved to the Netherworld, did you check there?”

“I checked… They aren’t.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m serious. They’re gone… Adam, Barbara… They vanished.” Beetlejuice rubbed his shoulder, “I’ve searched the Netherworld top and bottom, they aren’t there.”

Lydia stood dumbfounded, staring at Beetlejuice with wide-eyes.

“Here, I’ll tell ya what happened.”

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

2 years ago

The couple scared off its next batch of kids that thought it was cool to party when the Maitlands were around still, haunting their now decaying house. Beetlejuice hung around giving the ghastly couple tips on what could be scary for these new kids coming in and trashing their house. Delia and Charles passed peacefully during a trip at their vacation spot in Lake Tahoe. They never got to go to the funeral, but letters addressed to Lydia were mailed here. Offering condolences to her and informing any other occupants that the Deetz couple have passed away.

The house quickly fell in disarray, Barbara and Adam couldn’t step outside the house in fear of being teleported to Saturn and being eaten by a Sandworm, so the plant life outside died. Beetlejuice tried to revitalize the plants by gardening, but nothing he did made the grass green again and the plants to grow. Barbara and Adam tried their best to coach Beetlejuice but the pants wouldn’t grow. Nothing was growing in the house.

At one point, during a cold winter, the three had become a throuple. Barbara initially asked Beetlejuice if he was interested, and with Adam’s happy smile, the three became a relationship. They slept on the same bed, kept each other company, and scared everyone who dared enter their territory. They kept the house unoccupied in hopes of Lydia returning one day.

But she never did.

One day when Beetlejuice was finishing scaring off a particular group of kids who seemed impervious to his usual tactics, returned to the attic to celebrate another successful spook, only to find no one there. Thinking it was a joke, Beetlejuice playfully rummaged through the attic to find his partners. Nothing. The roof was next and still: nothing. He checked all points of the house and each empty room he entered, he got more worried and scared that they have been abducted into the Netherworld by one of Beetlejuice’s enemies. After Juno, a lot of Netherlings seemed to come after Beetlejuice. He easily deflected them off but now if they came after the people he loved then there would be hell to pay.

He investigated the attic once more to see if there was any sign of struggle but there was nothing. Not even evidence of a door being open to the Netherworld. He checked anyway, he drew his passageway to the Netherworld and entered. Beetlejuice asked multiple people if they have seen the couple anywhere, and all of them have said they haven’t. Even Miss Argentina said she never saw them, and they were decades past their date of death. If they came through to the Netherworld, she would’ve seen them.

Beetlejuice returned to the house with a broken heart, and fearing the worst, he thought they were done with life. Done with him, and teleported themselves to Saturn for suicide. But that didn’t sit right with him, Adam and Barbara said they loved him. That they cared for him, was that all a lie?

Beetlejuice transported himself to Saturn to search for his partners, and when a Sandworm started following him and nudging at his palm, he concluded that Sandy was the one who followed him and consumed the Maitlands. At first he was furious, hair flushed a deep red and yelled at the Sandworm to spit out the couple, if he was there early enough they could be still alive within the Sandworm. Sandy tilted her head to the side like a dog, confused why Beetlejuice was yelling at her.

He continued to berate the worm into telling him where they are, but Sandy only stared with puzzlement.

Beetlejuice cried and begged Sandy to show him where they at least ended up so he could say goodbye on top of their graves, she agreed and took both Beetlejuice and herself back to the attic. She shrunk and dragged herself to the middle of the attic and curled around herself.

Beetlejuice finally understood.

The Maitlands have… died, again.

After some time, if they don’t go to the Netherworld, ghosts usually fade into nothingness. He has seen it a couple times, and all of them writhed and squealed with pain. It was sudden too, you never know when it will happen. Beetlejuice had gotten enthralled with the prospect of being loved for the first time that he forgot about this and he paid the price.

He then let an anguished cry, and laid on top of the floor. He was unable to hold them as they reduced to ash and disappeared into the void. He scratched the floor and roared. The entire house shook, and he left the attic in a flurry of rage and grief. Beetlejuice tore through each room, tearing it asunder and plowing it of all memory of a happy family within each wall. He grabbed the metal spikes from the roof and stabbed them into a mattress, he tore the oven out of the kitchen wall and threw it out the door. He brought his fist through the table and slit his arms with the knives over and over again. Causing them to bleed over and over again. He smashed Delia’s sculpture next, throwing each piece to the opposite ends of the room. He returned to the attic and smashed Barbara’s pottery and set Adam’s model ablaze.

He blamed them, he blamed himself for falling in love, he blamed their stupidity for not heading to the Netherworld when they had a chance, he blamed the universe. Cursing it. It took away his happiness and he would burn down the world to force people to feel how he felt.

But he couldn’t, it would dishonour their names. It would dishonour his love to them, he won’t hurt anyone. He’ll scare off anyone who comes nearby the grieving demon.

People started coming in troves everyday, and it was fulfilling at first… But without them, it meant nothing. Beetlejuice became defeated, each scream never satisfied him as much anymore. Not without them.

He collected a pile of Adam and Barbara’s clothing and placed them in the middle of the attic floor and he would sleep on it, and he would dream the sweetest dreams. Adam and Barbara cuddling him and making him feel loved. He would dream of everyone, Barbara, Charles, Delia, Adam and Lydia having a great time. He would dream of Christmas parties and softer moments with his partners. Sometimes he dreamt of memories, a kiss there, a fleeting touch, a smell from Barbara’s perfume and Adam’s cologne would linger in the air when he suddenly woke.

He always woke up crying, knowing that he’ll never have them again.

And one day, he wrote a note:

To the Maitlands,

For the past couple of months I haven’t been able to sleep much or if not, not sleeping at all. I mean, I already had problems sleeping but with your disappearance, it got worse. By all means, this does not seem like I am pointing fingers or blaming anyone… Although it is easy to blame someone for something.. I loved and still love you guys. I still do… I mean it, one hundred percent. All those little kisses we shared, stay with me everyday. Any place I want to be, I want you guys here with me. With you guys, my whole undead life found meaning again. My world, my days, my nights, my hopes, my dreams, was there in front of me and I didn’t do anything about it. This place fills me sorrow, and I can’t bear being here without you two.

Thinking back, you had grand ideas and many stories that the world should’ve heard. All the things you’ve told me were fascinating. All those conversations we’ve had will always be in my memories. Even forgotten, they will be there.

Each day it is depressing to know that I’ll never get to see you two ever again. You guys had so many things to do, and I was left with those broken hopes and dreams. I’ll never get to see your happy faces and feel the same happiness you two gave me, this hurts beyond human and even demon comprehension.

You know, all the time I ever smile and laugh, I instantaneously frown and have a huge wave of sadness run over me. The thought of: “why are you happy? You don’t deserve to be happy.” shut me down. Even with the sweaters and photos left behind, it has both given me great relief and immense sadness. Cause it is a constant reminder that you’re not here with me.. Selfish as it is, I just wished I would’ve spent one more day with you. And I would do anything to have that one last day.

I am haunted with each day that passes. Most, if not all, of my dreams always have you in them. I see you, I hear you, I feel you. When I wake, I loathe to get out of bed. Cause I want to be with you, even if it was just a dream.

Countless memories flood my mind each night before I sleep. From the time I harassed you two, and to the time where we three fell in love. I am overcome with joy and sadness when thinking with those memories. And I’m sad I can’t make more with you. I don’t sleep until 3 or even 5 AM because the thought of seeing you in my dreams puts me in great agony and some nights I lay in anticipation for you to come barreling to my room saying that more breathers have entered the house.

I’m sorry that I’m saying all of this now that you’re gone. I’m sorry I think about you every night. I’m sorry for my brash and lewd nature. I’m sorry that I didn’t make enough time for you two. I’m sorry that I didn’t try hard enough. And I know I am apologizing for nothing but it hurts. Everything hurts. Everyday I’m putting on a mask to hide my emotions because I’m afraid.

I will never stop looking for you in this house. I will never stop hearing your booming laughter in these hallowed halls. I will never take down your photos. I will never stop being your friend and lover.

Everyone knew that there was something wrong with all three of us being dead and all… You two knew what was wrong with me, and I to you. We comforted each other at times, You guys were smart. Funny. Talented and beautiful. And undeniably sexy. A couple with hearts of gold.

I love and miss you guys,

Beetlejuice wrote multiple letters that he left scattered to the winds, and everyday he thought it was all a nightmare and he would wake up to find them on top of him smiling their bright smiles at him. But no, he would wake up to empty air and breathers rummaging around the house. Beetlejuice kept the door to the attic shut and would lock each time a breather would try to pick the lock.

He hoped that they would walk in through a portal from the Netherworld and make him feel better but it never happened. Days passed, weeks, months and eventually a year.

He laid unmoving from the pile of clothes, until a voice called out to the empty house.

“Adam? Barbara? Lawrence? Anyone home? It’s me-“

It was Lydia.

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

At one point during his retelling, Lydia and Beetlejuice went to the roof and sat on the edge just like they used to do. They cried together, comforted each other. Lydia hugged Beetlejuice when he stopped to catch his panicking breath, and returned it to Lydia when she curled into herself. They stayed like that for minutes and finally moved when Lydia stood.

She wiped her eyes, “Beej we have to leave. It’s not healthy for us to stay here,” she looked over to the setting sun. “I rented a place here for a week, it would be nice if I had a friend with me,” Beetlejuice opened his mouth but was cut off by Lydia, “I know, I want to stay here too, grab a picture of them and grab a piece of their clothing and maybe find their perfume and cologne”

“But what if they come back?” Beetlejuice asked her, with desperate hope in his eyes.

“I… wouldn’t bet on it Beej,” she sadly replied, “Here I’ll help you grab some stuff.”

Lydia headed back towards the house with Beetlejuice following. They grabbed one of Adam’s green flannels and one of Barbara’s oversized coats. During her time in this house, she found a way to take a picture of the ghost couple, and Beetlejuice took the family photo and stuffed it within his suit pocket. Barbara’s perfume and Adam’s cologne was stuffed in a closet that was full of their junk, Lydia quickly did a search on her phone. Luckily enough, the companies that made the perfume and cologne still made them.

Their treasures in hand, they headed towards Lydia's car in silence. They both got in and headed towards the hotel.

“Wait, before night falls, I have to show you something.” Lydia quickly made a detour, and reared towards the graveyard.

“Lyds, the graveyard?” He asked incredulously.

“Just wait, I came here once and discovered something. Got that letter with you still?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You’ll see.” Lydia smiled at her demon best friend.

They pulled into the parking lot and Lydia frantically left her vehicle, yakking at Beetlejuice to come after her. She has been here before and quickly went down the path. During the ride, Beetlejuice had changed into Adam’s flannel and donned Barbara’s coral coat. It was warm underneath, and he could still smell them.

“M….” Lydia scanned through the multiple rows. “Here! Lawrence come on!”

Beetlejuice slowly trudged down the path, meeting Lydia at two gravestones. Two gravestones, engraved with the Maitland’s names. A little poem alternating between the two headstones:

Warm summer sun,

Shine kindly here,

Warm southern wind,

Blow softly here.

Green sod above,

Lie light, lie light.

Good night, dear heart,

Good night, good night.

Beetlejuice immediately seized and collapsed to his knees, hugging the two marbled stones.

“I’ll be in the car if you need anything,” Lydia rubbed his shoulder and left Beetlejuice there crying.

“Thank you Lydia.” Beetlejuice looked at her with sad eyes.

Lydia nodded and walked away, her boots digging into the gravel path, the sound retreating as she got further and further away.

Beetlejuice rubbed the gravestones longingly, hoping that wherever they ended up that they might feel his soothing touch. Lydia brought him here to say goodbye and to leave the letter he wrote.

He couldn’t do It right away, but opted to sit there a little while longer. It seemed like ages went by but he knew that Lydia would be in the car and she had to go to bed and eat sometime. He’d hate to leave but he could always teleport here anytime. Beetlejuice bit down on his thumb, biting down hard enough to make it bleed. Knowing a rune that he had learned as a child, smeared his blood on Adam and Barbara’s grave. A triangle and three circles on each point and then a small inverted heart in the middle. He’s going to come here often.

Beetlejuice summoned a bouquet of flowers for each of them.

For Adam:

Rosemary

A Crimson Rose

Purple Hyacinth

Red Carnation

For Barbara:

Pink Carnation

Primrose

Sweet Pea

Forget-me-nots

He placed them and stood up, but before he would forget, he dug a little hole where he stuffed his letter in. They wouldn’t read it, but having it nearby their graves made it feel like that would.

He returned to the car soon after, and let himself in. Lydia had it running and was ready to go when he got in.

“Thanks again,” Beetlejuice said softly.

“You needed closure and you can always come back,” Lydia leaned over her seat and hugged her best friend again. “I’ll miss them everyday.” She sighed. Beetlejuice nodded his head in agreement, it was a small movement but nonetheless it was seen. His hair throughout this entire interaction has never reverted to its usual green, staying on that deep purple and blue. Lydia let go and drove to her hotel.

It will never be the same for Beetlejuice ever again, he loved them and knows he’ll never see them again and will never feel that same love again. Sure, Lydia is his best friend, but nothing would fill that void left in his unbeating heart after today. Lydia reassured him that time heals all wounds and even she missed her dead mom, dad and step-mom but it got easier when she met people like Beetlejuice to make her feel better. He had a little flutter in his chest but paid no mind to it. He wished that he didn’t have to live this cursed world, but having good company made it worth the while.

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

They watched the car drive past the graveyard gates from up above, tears flowing down their faces. They didn’t want to fade away but that’s the next progression of their after life. They initially believed that the Netherworld was definitely the end, but here? The Aether was just as everyone imagined it to be, like the Netherworld, they were forbidden to interact with the realms but they could watch whenever and whom ever they pleased.

This made Adam and Barbara so happy. They loved Beetlejuice and it broke their hearts seeing him mope for months until Lydia stopped by. They wanted to hug them but it was not allowed.

“Thank you Beetlejuice, we love you.” Barbara whispered.

“Lawrence, I’ll never forget you.” Adam wiped away a tear from his face.

#beetlejuice #betelgeuse #beetlejuice broadway #beetlejuice the musical #lydia deetz #charles deetz #delia deetz #adam maitland #barbara maitland #goldenbeetle #beetlelands #fanfic #fanfiction

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angelofthequeers · 5 years

Text

Hold Me By Both Hands: Chapter 37

Disclaimer: I don’t own ML.

Why yes, as much as I love Lady Noire with all my heart, I’m slightly creeped out by the fact that her outfit is a leather suit that’s so skin-tight that it makes her boobs pop and her belly button visible. When she’s FIFTEEN. (Or 14. I don’t even know their ages anymore).

Chapter 36 | Chapter 38 | AO3 link

His lady. Marinette. His lady is Marinette. How had Misterbug never seen it before? The same pigtails, dark as night; the same angular eyes that shine with a determined ferocity that’s always struck him as familiar, even if he’d never quite figured out why. Even though those eyes are now the cat-like green of his when he’s Chat Noir and her black hair falls down her back in a loose braid, she’s still recognisably Ladybug. And she looks utterly incredible in her suit: a cropped, long-sleeved black qipao top with bright green lining and two small slits up both sides at the bottom, over what looks like black gloves and a tight black suit with thin green lines down her sides and outer thighs. She’s also got a thin black belt with a green paw print on one side around her waist, along with knee-high black boots with green trim around the top and soles that appear to be green with black paw pads if Misterbug looks closely as they run.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng is stunning, no matter what guise she’s in. How did he get so lucky as to fall for the same girl twice? All his feelings for Ladybug, died down to background noise since being with Marinette, are rushing back to him in full force, filling his veins with jittery little ladybugs instead of blood and warming him better than any expensive heating system ever could.

Of course, it’s not a hundred percent certain. But honestly, who else could it be? Marinette trips down the stairs and hurts her left arm (although he’s got doubts about that being an accident, after her recent run of bad luck), and Ladybug’s left arm is hurt so badly that she can’t be Ladybug? And every single time Marinette’s been around, Ladybug hasn’t been, and vice versa? The way she’s been odd every time he’s brought up Marinette? How she was conveniently out on a secret mission when Evillustrator was targeting Marinette? No; now that Misterbug’s mind has connected the two girls, there’s no way he can see Marinette and Ladybug as two different people.

But what’s he supposed to do? He can’t just up and tell her. She’d flip out if she knew. And…maybe he’s just a bit scared. Maybe, after Marinette’s confession about the ways in which she used to pursue Adrien, there’s that fear that she’ll not want to be with Chat Noir if she learns that they’re the same people, especially since she’s confided in him without the knowledge that he’s the boy she was talking about. And considering that Marinette is one of Misterbug’s best friends and he’d kill everyone in the room and then himself if anything happened to her, there’s no way in hell he’s going to do anything to risk losing her.

“Um, excuse me, what the hell?” says a familiar voice, cutting through Misterbug’s thoughts. He and Lady Noire have finally made it outside, where there are vines and tendrils covering almost every inch of the place, plunging the courtyard into the quiet, breath-holding atmosphere of the heart of a forest. What the hell is this akuma annoyed about?

“Oh, hi, Honeybee!” Lady Noire says. “Chat and I decided to try switching our Miraculouses for a bit, to get accustomed to each other’s powers.”

“We – did! Yeah!” Misterbug says. “Misterbug and Lady Noire, at your service!”

Honeybee wrinkles her nose. “Eww. Ladybug looks way better in spots than as a mangy alley cat.”

“Luckily for her, she doesn’t have to give a fuck about what you think!” Rena Rouge says brightly as she lands beside Honeybee, while Carapace skids to a halt next to Lady Noire. Honeybee flips Rena Rouge off in response.

“Guys, focus!” Lady Noire easily slips into her role as the team leader. Another sign that Misterbug had missed! Marinette is class president; she’s a natural leader! “What are we up against?”

“A hacked-off gardener, I think?” Rena Rouge says. “Called himself Tangleweed before he ran and got his plants to try and strangle the hell out of us.”

“How do we find him, then?” Misterbug says. “With all these plants, he could be anywhere.”

“Just follow the leafy green road, dude,” Carapace says. Huh. Now that Misterbug looks closer, the vines and other plants do seem to be trailing from a common source outside what he assumes is the school gates, not that he can make sense of what’s up and down in this place.

“Well,” Misterbug says, “everything will be just vine once – ow!”

“Leave the puns to the clown, bugaboy,” Lady Noire says with a charming little smile, retracting her baton after bopping him over the head with it.

“Okay, I take it back,” Honeybee blurts out. “Lady Noire is just as hot as Ladybug, and feel free to stomp my head into the ground whenever you want. I’ll totally thank you for it.”

Lady Noire snorts at that. “I’ll remember your offer. But let’s take down Tangleweed before I go stomping on heads.”

Following the road of plants leads them out of the school and into the streets of Paris, which have also been overrun and choked just like the courtyard. Once they’re out of the school, however, following the plants is unnecessary to find Tangleweed. Unless Misterbug’s sorely mistaken, the massive flower bud on the tip of the Eiffel Tower is most certainly the location of this akuma.

“If this is another Horrificator pod person thing, he better not be slimy,” Honeybee says with another nose wrinkle. “Ick.”

“I’d comment on that, but I’m afraid Lady Noire would hit me next,” Rena Rouge says dryly.

“Damn right,” Lady Noire says with a shit-eating grin. Fantastic. Is Plagg’s bastard energy rubbing off on her? “Well, bugaboy, what’s the plan?”

Misterbug blinks when his teammates turn to stare at him expectantly. “M-Me?” he stammers. “Aren’t you the brains, milady?”

“Sure, when I’m Ladybug,” Lady Noire says, twisting the tip of her boot on the ground coyly. Misterbug’s heart nearly gives out at the sight because this is his gorgeous girlfriend Marinette he’s talking to. “Come on, milord, I’m sure you can think of something.”

“I’m gonna be sick,” Rena Rouge mutters.

“Payback’s a bitch,” Lady Noire grins.

“Well, you don’t have to watch me make out with my boyfriend! And ew, Ladybug watches me lock lips. I’m gonna make myself sick now.”

“Guys, focus!” Misterbug whines. Lady Noire falls silent, though her green cat eyes continue to glitter with mischief. “D’you think we can get to Tangleweed ourselves? Or should I Charm it?”

“Not this early,” Lady Noire says. “At least get closer and gather information. The Lucky Charm doesn’t just give you what you want. You have to make do with what you get and figure out how to win the battle!”

“May I just repeat,” Honeybee says, “please crush me into the ground.”

“Come on!” Lady Noire spins her baton. “Let’s go yank some weeds!”

“Hey, that’s my line!” Misterbug complains as he leaps after her, followed by Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Honeybee. It’s easy enough to make it to the Tower; the problems start when they try to scale it and a thick root appears out of nowhere and literally slaps Honeybee out of the air.

“Ah,” Misterbug says. “Yes. Because this was going to be easy, just for me.”

“You know, putting on this suit is probably the best thing I’ve ever done,” Lady Noire says cheerfully and bats a massive tendril of grass away from Rena Rouge with her good arm, wincing as she does so.

“Stop being a bastard and help me figure this out!”

“Fine, fine. Let’s try a distraction! Rena, Honey, keep him occupied. Misterbug, Carapace, and I will try and sneak around.”

“I grow gayer every time you call me Honey,” Honeybee says, then spins her trompo and leaps out onto a massive pink flower. “Hey! Planthead!”

“Look at Honeybee in her natural habitat!” Rena Rouge grins, stabbing a tendril with her flute. Honeybee shoots her a death glare.

“Come on!” Misterbug says. He, Lady Noire, and Carapace take off up the Tower, although Lady Noire noticeably winces every time she’s forced to put weight on her injured arm. Oh. Shit. Misterbug had forgotten about that!

“I’m fine,” Lady Noire huffs when she catches him staring. “Seriously.”

“Forgive me if I don’t believe that,” Misterbug says. “Look, you can stay on the ground and –”

“Like hell! I can still fight, bugaboy!”

“Uh, am I missing something, dudes?” Carapace says.

“I just don’t want you to hurt yourself even more!” Misterbug says.

“I don’t need you to coddle me! I can – ah!”

Tangleweed seems to have finally clued in that he’s getting a surprise visit from the rear. A vine lashes out and Lady Noire’s forced to dodge with the reflexes of, well…a cat. But she’s unprepared for the follow-up attack, especially as she hisses and cradles her arm to her chest, and she’s knocked off the beam that she’s clutching, hurtling towards the ground with a shrill scream as her staff clatters just out of reach.

“I got her!” Carapace says and dives after her before Misterbug can devolve into a panic attack at the sight of his lady plummeting off the Eiffel Tower. “Shellter!”

No. Focus! She can take care of herself. That’s why you love her. Focus, Misterbug!

Right. New plan. He drops to scoop up Lady Noire’s baton from the stray beam and then continues scaling the Tower, until he’s at the tip and right next to the massive pink flower bud. This close, it looks like it’s pulsating…wait, no, it is. Ew. Good thing Honeybee’s not up here or she’d be pitching a fit.

“Right,” Misterbug says, and takes advantage of Lady Noire not having her baton to add, “Time to nip this in the bud!” He shakes the baton to lengthen it, then jabs at the bud with a bellow…only to be grabbed by the ankles by a vine and hoisted into the air.

“Misterbug!” Lady Noire cries from on the ground as another tendril starts snaking towards his ears. “Use your Lucky Charm!”

Right! “Lucky Charm!” Warm power rushes through Misterbug as he bends up to toss his yo-yo, so unlike the cold energy of Cataclysm, and he’s so preoccupied with this warmth that he almost misses the summoned item that floats back towards him. It’s – “A feather? What am I supposed to do with this?”

Before he can start to think of a plan, though, there’s a low groaning sound that splits the air. The tendril around his ankles loosens, almost as though in shock, and he drops off the creaking, leaning Tower like a stone and is forced to whip his yo-yo off and toss it back at one of the beams to arrest his fall.

“Well? What did it give you?” Lady Noire says once he’s on the ground and can see the reason for his release: the bottom of the toppled Tower is corroded, just like whenever he uses his Cataclysm as Chat Noir. In response to her question, Misterbug holds out his hand to reveal the feather.

“I don’t know what to do with it!” he says. “I mean, I thought of tickling it, but you’d do something totally different! It can’t be that easy!”

Lady Noire hums and looks back at the collapsed Tower. “Well, I’d come up with some convoluted plan, but you’re a simple, straightforward guy,” she says. “Maybe it is that easy. But you can’t just get up there and tickle the akuma without coming up with a plan, which is the whole point of the Lucky Charm.”

“And we have to do it fast, dude,” Carapace says. “I’m gonna change back in a few minutes. And so’ll Lady Noire.”

“Well, the obvious thing would be to have Rena keep it occupied with Mirage while I tickle the flower and Honeybee paralyses Tangleweed,” Misterbug says slowly. “But it can’t be that simple…right?”

“Why not?” Lady Noire says with a small grin. “It’s still a plan. Carapace and I can help Rena Rouge keep him busy until our timers run out. Nice thinking, milord.”

“Alright, let’s freakin’ do this.” Rena Rouge twirls her flute and raises it to her lips to play a little tune. “Mirage!”

Birds. Her illusion is birds. Hundreds of them, flapping around Tangleweed’s vines and vanishing in orange light when the vines touch them, but they seem to do the trick of keeping his attention focused away from the superheroes, as his vines start to lash out at them.

“Let’s go!” Misterbug takes off running for the fallen Eiffel Tower with Honeybee, ducking and weaving through vines and flowers and leaves, batting them away when they react to his presence and try to grab him once again.

“Ew,” Honeybee grimaces when she and Misterbug finally make it to the pulsating pink bud. “Gross.”

“That’s what I said,” Misterbug says. “You ready?”

Honeybee steels herself and nods. “Venom!” she says and catches her throbbing trompo. Then she wrinkles her nose. “Ugh. I’m never gonna be able to look at my weapon the same way again.”

“Get ready to pollinate this plant,” Misterbug grins. Honeybee gives him such a venomous look that he’s surprised he doesn’t drop dead on the spot. “Fine, fine, I’ll lay off the jokes.”

“Just tickle the damn thing already!” Honeybee says. Sticking out his tongue – because okay, Adrien’s technically not yet friends with Chloe again and she doesn’t know he’s Misterbug slash Chat Noir, but it’s so much fun to mess with her – he steps up to the bud and starts to tickle it with the little red feather. The bud quivers, then shivers, then thrashes wildly and falls open to reveal the green-skinned man inside. Honeybee’s on the case straight away, jabbing her trompo into Tangleweed’s arm to freeze him on the spot.

“Nice,” Misterbug says. “Where d’you think the akuma is?”

Honeybee raises an eyebrow. “Probably the shears he’s very obviously holding in his left hand?” she says. Misterbug squints at Tangleweed. Oh. Right. That…would make sense. Biting down on a scathing retort, he grabs the shears and snaps them over his knee to release the evil purple and black butterfly.

“Don’t forget to capture the akuma!” Lady Noire calls over from the base of the ruined Eiffel Tower.

“Hey, I’ve always wanted to do this!” Misterbug swipes open his yo-yo and tosses it at the akuma, capturing it and reeling it back in. “No more evildoing for you, little akuma! Time to de-evilise!”

“You are a massive dork and I hate that I’m in your presence,” Honeybee says. Misterbug grins at her as he releases the now-white butterfly.

“Bye-bye, little butterfly!”

“Nope. Ladybug does it better. Don’t even try.”

“You could be just a little more encouraging, you know,” Misterbug says.

“That would imply that I approve of you being a gigantic loser.”

“Hmph. Don’t be such a hater.” Misterbug throws the feather into the air before Honeybee can retort, and when he calls, “Miraculous Misterbug!” the ladybug swarm surges around Paris, restoring the Eiffel Tower and other damaged buildings and vanishing any trace of Tangleweed’s plants.

“Did you seriously just –?”

“Hey, you told me not to try and be like Ladybug,” Misterbug grins. Honeybee’s eye twitches.

“Not bad for your first time as Ladybug, milord,” Lady Noire says as she bounds over with Rena Rouge and Carapace. She holds out her good fist, and Misterbug, Rena Rouge, Carapace, and Honeybee follow suit and the five of them cry, “Pound it!”

[8:33 pm] miraculass

ladyBIrd: nice job today, guys

what does the fox say: wait why is your name still that

what does the fox say: you’re lady noire now right

ladyBIrd: only temp

catitude: yeah we thought it’d be good to try each other’s powers

catitude: in case we ever have to swap and realise we’re fucked bc we don’t know how to use the other

mess w turt u get hurt: makes sense

honeybeetch: just pls hurry up and switch back

honeybeetch: i can’t stand to see ladybug like this

honeybeetch: i mean

honeybeetch: she’s hot but i can’t handle misterbug

honeybeetch: he’s a giant loser

catitude: :(

mess w turt u get hurt: omg chloe????

honeybeetch: !!!!!!!

ladyBIrd: caRAPACE NO

honeybeetch: FUCK IVE BEEN EXPOSED

what does the fox say: welp

catitude: f

airhead: Plot twist

airhead: Did I get that saying right?

mess w turt u get hurt: SRY

mess w turt u get hurt: i just

mess w turt u get hurt: the timing of honeybee esp after queen bee

mess w turt u get hurt: and how she’s a bitch here but like

mess w turt u get hurt: not nasty

mess w turt u get hurt: and chloe’s been better since mal

mess w turt u get hurt: even said congrats to marinette n adrien at school that day

mess w turt u get hurt: idk how chloe and honey were together after mal but prob rena

honeybeetch: only ladybug can call me honey shellhead

mess w turt u get hurt: only rena can call me shellhead fuzzhead

what does the fox say: aww i didn’t know we were at that stage in our relationship

mess w turt u get hurt: stfu don’t make a big deal of it or anythin

what does the fox say: 0:)

catitude: dw honey we’re not taking the miraculous

honeybeetch: good bc like fuck i’ll give it

ladyBIrd: Honeybee

honeybeetch: ugh fine

honeybeetch: only for u lb

honeybeetch: but thanks for not taking it

ladyBIrd: just

ladyBIrd: stop figuring each other out

catitude: pls

catitude: idk who milady is

catitude: now i feel sad :(

ladyBIrd: ugh

ladyBIrd: you’re a dork

catitude: eat me ;)

honeybeetch: ew get your kink away from me

airhead: Is it too late to give back my Miraculous?

ladyBIrd: yes

catitude: yes

mess w turt u get hurt: yes

what does the fox say: yes

honeybeetch: yes

honeybeetch: anyway later losers

honeybeetch: late night massage calling my name

airhead: My mother will be expecting me

honeybeetch: mine won’t

honeybeetch: not since i told her to gtfo back to new york

honeybeetch: don’t think she wants to talk to me for the next century

what does the fox say: yeah i should start on my homework

mess w turt u get hurt: SHIT FORGOT STUDY DATE WITH GF

what does the fox say: loooool

catitude: f

catitude: let’s take this to dms milady

ladyBIrd: such a gentleman

[8:39 pm] direct messages

Chat Noir: so um

Chat Noir: how’s the arm

Ladybug: sore as hell

Ladybug: freakin broke it

Chat Noir: oof

Ladybug: yep

Ladybug: prob gonna be out of commission for a few weeks

Ladybug: least the cure fixed any damage I did to it when I was transformed

Chat Noir: just treat plagg well

Ladybug: same with Tikki

Ladybug: I miss her already

Chat Noir: same with plagg

Chat Noir: even if he’s a gremlin

Ladybug: he told me to tell you he’s super offended

Chat Noir: let him be

Ladybug: um

Ladybug: ty

Ladybug: for having my back like that

Ladybug: don’t know how I would’ve managed with my arm

Chat Noir: of course bugaboo

Chat Noir: we’re a team

Ladybug: <3

Chat Noir: <3

Chat Noir: hate that i can’t go and see mari

Chat Noir: even if she’s out of the hospital she prob needs rest time

Ladybug: Chat

Ladybug: you’re her boyfriend

Ladybug: why the heck wouldn’t she want to see you

Chat Noir: i mean

Chat Noir: true

Chat Noir: i’m gonna go see her now

Ladybug: good

Ladybug: I’ll have fun with this homework

Chat Noir: ew

Ladybug: yep

Ladybug: thank god it wasn’t my right arm

“It’s really nice of you to do this, Adrien!” Tikki says as Adrien double checks his schoolbag the next morning to make sure that he’s got everything.

“Well, why wouldn’t I give Marinette a lift to school?” he says. “Someone’s got it in for her. They broke her arm! I mean, it was an “accident” that someone tripped and caused a domino effect just as Marinette happened to be on the stairs but come on. I’m going to stick by her and be her ‘lucky charm’.”

“Mhm.” Tikki’s mouth droops. “She doesn’t deserve what’s been happening to her. Uh, from what I’ve seen of her…”

“You don’t have to pretend.” After a night of tossing and turning, Adrien’s realised that this is the right thing to do. He can’t just sit back and pretend that he doesn’t know, especially since he’s got Ladybug’s kwami for the time being. “I know Marinette is Ladybug.”

“Eep!” Tikki claps her little paws over her mouth. “I didn’t mean to –”

“No, no, it wasn’t anything you said!” Adrien hurries to say. “I figured it out yesterday. Ladybug just happening to have the same injury as Marinette? And then everything clicked.”

Tikki sighs and lowers her arms. “I’m just surprised that none of the others figured it out,” she says. “You are one of the least observant lot we’ve had.”

“Hey,” Adrien protests, though he can’t find it in himself to take offence at something that true.

“When are you going to tell her that you know?”

“I don’t know. I want to but…I’m afraid, Tikki.”

“Adrien –”

“She likes me, right? Adrien? Even though she’s choosing to focus on Chat Noir?”

Tikki slowly nods.

“I know I’m just being silly but, like…part of me is terrified that she won’t want me anymore if she knows I’m Chat Noir. What if she decides that she likes Chat Noir better than Adrien and she wishes I’d never told her? That she’ll lose interest because it’s been me all this time and – and I’ll lose her.”

“That won’t happen, Adrien,” Tikki says firmly. “Marinette most definitely will still want you even if she knows you’re Chat Noir.”

“But –”

“Adrien, I’m her kwami. Trust me when I say that she won’t be disappointed at all. Knowing you’re Adrien would probably make her happier because then her heart won’t belong to two different boys when they’re the same person.”

“Right. Right. Just…give me some time? I still have to wrap my head around the fact that I fell for the same girl twice. Of course she’s Marinette! Who else is as brave and funny and gorgeous as Ladybug?”

Tikki giggles. “How about telling her when you give me back? That should give you enough time to sort yourself out.”

“This isn’t fair,” Adrien complains. “I got stuck with the gremlin kwami. Of course Marinette would get the sugary sweet one.”

Tikki laughs again. But at the sound of footsteps outside Adrien’s bedroom, she dives into the pocket of his green hoodie, just in time to avoid being seen as Nathalie opens the door.

“If you’re insistent on giving this Marinette girl a ride to school, you have to leave now, Adrien,” Nathalie says.

“Right.” Adrien grabs his bag and follows her. “Thanks, Nathalie.”

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smokeycemetery · 4 years

Text

JA ONE XTC

JA • • •

KEVIN HELDMAN lives in New York. This is his first piece for "Rolling Stone." (ROLLING STONE,FEB 9,1995)

THE FIRST TIME I meet JA, he skates up to me wearing Rollerblades, his cap played backward, on a street corner in Manhattan at around midnight. He's white, 24 years old, with a short, muscular build and a blond crew cut. He has been writing graffiti off and on in New York for almost 10 years and is the founder of a loosely affiliated crew called XTC. His hands, arms, legs and scalp show a variety of scars from nightsticks, razor wire, fists and sharp, jagged things he has climbed up, on or over. He has been beaten by the police -- a "wood shampoo," he calls it -- has been shot at, has fallen off a highway sign into moving traffic, has run naked through train yards tagging, has been chased down highways by rival writers wielding golf clubs and has risked his life innumerable times writing graffiti -- bombing, getting up.

JA lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment. There's graffiti on a wall-length mirror, a weight bench, a Lava lamp to bug out on, cans of paint stacked in the corner, a large Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) sticker on the side of the refrigerator. The buzzer to his apartment lists a false name; his phone number is unlisted to avoid law-enforcement representatives as well as conflicts with other writers. While JA and one of his writing partners, JD, and I are discussing their apprehension about this story, JD, offering up a maxim from the graffiti life, tells me matter-of-factly, "You wouldn't fuck us over, we know where you live."

At JA's apartment we look through photos. There are hundreds of pictures of writers inside out-of-service subway cars that they've just covered completely with their tags, pictures of writers wearing orange safety vests -- to impersonate transit workers -- and walking subway tracks, pictures of detectives and transit workers inspecting graffiti that JA and crew put up the previous night, pictures of stylized JA 'throw-ups' large, bubble-lettered logos written 15 feet up and 50 times across a highway retaining wall. Picture after picture of JA's on trains, JA's on trucks, on store gates, bridges, rooftops, billboards -- all labeled, claimed and recorded on film.

JA comes from a well-to-do family; his parents are divorced; his father holds a high-profile position in the entertainment industry. JA is aware that in some people's minds this last fact calls into question his street legitimacy, and he has put a great deal of effort into resisting the correlation between privileged and soft. He estimates he has been arrested 15 times for various crimes. He doesn't have a job, and it's unclear how he supports himself. Every time we've been together, he's been high or going to get high. Once he called me from Rikers Island prison, where he was serving a couple of months for disorderly conduct and a probation violation. He said some of the inmates saw him tagging in a notebook and asked him to do tattoos for them.

It sounds right. Wherever he is, JA dominates his surroundings. With his crew, he picks the spots to hit, the stores to rack from; he controls the mission. He gives directions in the car, plans the activities, sets the mood. And he takes everything a step further than the people he's with. He climbs higher, stays awake longer, sucks deepest on the blunt, writes the most graffiti. And though he's respected by other writers for testing the limits -- he has been described to me by other writers as a king and, by way of compliment, as "the sickest guy I ever met" -- that same recklessness sometimes alienates him from the majority who don't have such a huge appetite for chaos, adrenaline, self-destruction.

When I ask a city detective who specializes in combating graffiti if there are any particularly well-known writers, he immediately mentions JA and adds with a bit of pride in his voice, "We know each other." He calls JA the "biggest graffiti writer of all time" (though the detective would prefer that I didn't mention that, because it'll only encourage JA). "He's probably got the most throw-ups in the city, in the country, in the world," the detective says. "If the average big-time graffiti vandal has 10,000 tags, JA's got 100,000. He's probably done -- in New York City alone -- at least $5 million worth of damage."

AT ABOUT 3 A.M., JA AND TWO OTHER WRITERS go out to hit a billboard off the West Side Highway in Harlem. Tonight there are SET, a 21-year-old white writer from Queens, N.Y., and JD, a black Latino writer the same age, also from Queens. They load their backpacks with racked cans of Rustoleum, fat cap nozzles, heavy 2-foot industrial bolt cutters and surgical gloves. We pile into a car and start driving, Schooly D blasting on the radio. First a stop at a deli where JA and SET go in and steal beer. Then we drive around Harlem trying a number of different dope spots, keeping an eye out for "berries" -- police cars. JA tosses a finished 40-ounce out the window in a high arc, and it smashes on the street.

At different points, JA gets out of the car and casually walks the streets and into buildings, looking for dealers. A good part of the graffiti life involves walking anywhere in the city, at any time, and not being afraid -- or being afraid and doing it anyway.

We arrive at a spot where JA has tagged the dealer's name on a wall in his territory. The three writers buy a vial of crack and a vial of angel dust and combine them ("spacebase") in a hollowed-out Phillies blunt. JD tells me that "certain drugs will enhance your bombing," citing dust for courage and strength ("bionics"). They've also bombed on mescaline, Valium, marijuana, crack and malt liquor. SET tells a story of climbing highway poles with a spray can at 6 a.m., "all Xanaxed out."

While JD is preparing the blunt, JA walks across the street with a spray can and throws up all three of their tags in 4-foot-high bubbled, connected letters. In the corner, he writes my name.

We then drive to a waterfront area at the edge of the city -- a deserted site with warehouses, railroad tracks and patches of urban wilderness dotted with high-rise billboards. All three writers are now high, and we sit on a curb outside the car smoking cigarettes. From a distance we can see a group of men milling around a parked car near a loading dock that we have to pass. This provokes 30 minutes of obsessive speculation, a stoned stakeout with play by play:

"Dude, they're writers," says SET. "Let's go down and check them out," says JD. "Wait, let's see what they write," says JA. "Yo -- they're going into the trunk," says SET. "Cans, dude, they're going for their cans. Dude, they're writers. "There could be beef, possible beef," says JA. "Can we confirm cans, do we see cans?" SET wants to know. Yes, they do have cans," SET answers for himself. "There are cans. They are writers." It turns out that the men are thieves, part of a group robbing a nearby truck. In a few moments guards appear with flashlights and at least one drawn gun. The thieves scatter as guard dogs fan out around the area, barking crazily.

We wait this out a bit until JA announces, "It's on." Hood pulled up on his head, he leads us creeping through the woods (which for JA has become the cinematic jungles of Nam). It's stop and go, JA crawling on his stomach, unnecessarily close to one of the guards who's searching nearby. We pass through graffiti-covered tunnels (with the requisite cinematic drip drip), over crumbling stairs overgrown with weeds and brush, along dark, heavily littered trails used by crackheads.

We get near the billboard, and JA uses the bolt cutters to cut holes in two chain-link fences. We crawl through and walk along the railroad tracks until we get to the base of the sign. JA, with his backpack on, climbs about 40 feet on a thin piece of metal pipe attached to the main pillar. JD, after a few failed attempts, follows with the bolt cutters shoved down his pants and passes them to JA. Hanging in midair, his legs wrapped around a small piece of ladder, JA cuts the padlock and opens up the hatch to the catwalk. He then lowers his arm to JD, who is wrapped around the pole just below him, struggling. "J, give me your hand, "I'll pull you up," JA tells him. JD hesitates. He is reluctant to let go and continues treadmilling on the pole, trying to make it up. JD, give me your hand." JD doesn't want to refuse, but he's uncomfortable entrusting his life to JA. He won't let go of the pole. JA says it again, firmly, calmly, utterly confident: "J give me your hand." JD's arm reaches up, and JA pulls JD up onto the catwalk. Next, SET, the frailest of the three, follows unsteadily. They've called down and offered to put up his tag, but he insists on going up. "Dude, fuck that, I'm down," he says. I look away while he makes his way up, sure that he's going to fall (he almost does twice). The three have developed a set pattern for dividing the labor when they're "blowing up," one writer outlining, another working behind him, filling in. For 40 minutes I watch them working furiously, throwing shadows as they cover ads for Parliament and Amtrak with large multicolored throw-ups SET and JD bickering about space, JA scolding them, tossing down empty cans.

They risk their lives again climbing down. Parts of their faces are covered in paint, and their eyes beam as all three stare at the billboard, asking, "Isn't it beautiful?' And there is something intoxicating about seeing such an inaccessible, clean object gotten to and made gaudy. We get in the car and drive the West Side Highway northbound and then southbound so they can critique their work. "Damn, I should've used the white," JD says.

The next day both billboards are newly re-covered, all the graffiti gone. JA tells me the three went back earlier to get pictures and made small talk with the workers who were cleaning it off.

GRAFFITI HAS BEEN THROUGH A NUMBER OF incarnations since it surfaced in New York in the early 70s with a Greek teen-ager named Taki 183. It developed from the straightforward writing of a name to highly stylized, seemingly illegible tags (a kind of penmanship slang) to wild-style throw-ups and elaborate (master) "pieces" and character art. There has been racist graffiti political writing, drug advertising, gang graffiti. There is an art-graf scene from which Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiac, LEE, Futura 2000, Lady Pink and others emerged; aerosol advertising; techno graffiti written into computer programs; anti-billboard graffiti; stickers; and stencil writing. There are art students doing street work in San Francisco ("nonpermissional public art"); mural work in underground tunnels in New York; gallery shows from Colorado to New Jersey; all-day Graffiti-a-Thons; and there are graffiti artists lecturing art classes at universities. Graffiti has become part of urban culture, hip-hop culture and commercial culture, has spread to the suburbs and can be found in the backwoods of California's national forests. There are graffiti magazines, graffiti stores, commissioned walls, walls of fame and a video series available (Out to bomb) documenting writers going out on graffiti missions, complete with soundtrack. Graffiti was celebrated as a metaphor in the 70s (Norman Mailer's "The Faith of Graffiti"); it went Hollywood in the '80s (Beat Street, Turk 182!, Wild Style); and in the '90s it has been increasingly used to memorialize the inner-city dead.

But as much as graffiti has found acceptance, it has been vilified a hundred times more. Writers are now being charged with felonies and given lengthy jail terms -- a 15-year-old in California was recently sentenced to eight years in a juvenile detention center. Writers have been given up to 1000 hours of community service and forced to undergo years of psychological counseling; their parents have been hit with civil suits. In California a graffiti writer's driver's license can be revoked for a year; high-school diplomas and transcripts can also be withheld until parents make restitution. In some cities property owners who fail to remove graffiti from their property are subject to fines and possible jail time. Last spring in St. Louis, Cincinnati, San Antonio and Sacramento, Calif., politicians proposed legislation to cane graffiti writers (four to 10 hits with a wooden paddle, administered by parents or by a bailiff in a public courtroom). Across the nation, legislation has been passed making it illegal to sell spray paint and wide-tipped markers to anyone under 18, and often the materials must be kept locked up in the stores. Several cities have tried to ban the sales altogether, license sellers of spray paint and require customers to give their name and address when purchasing paint. In New York some hardware-store owners will give a surveillance photo of anyone buying a large quantity of spray cans to the police. In Chicago people have been charged with possession of paint. In San Jose, Calif., undercover police officers ran a sting operation -- posing as filmmakers working on a graffiti documentary -- and arrested 31 writers.

Hidden cameras, motion detectors, laser removal, specially developed chemical coatings, night goggles, razor wire, guard dogs, a National Graffiti Information Network, graffiti hot lines, bounties paid to informers -- one estimate is that it costs $4 billion a year nationally to clean graffiti -- all in an effort to stop those who "visually laugh in the face of communities," as a Wall Street Journal editorial raged.

The popular perception is that since the late 1980s when New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority adopted a zero tolerance toward subway graffiti (the MTA either cleaned or destroyed more than 6,000 graffiti-covered subway cars, immediately pulling a train out of service if any graffiti appeared on it), graffiti culture had died in the place of its birth. According to many graffiti writers, however, the MTA, in its attempt to kill graffiti, only succeeded in bringing it out of the tunnels and train yards and making it angry. Or as Jeff Ferrell, a criminologist who has chronicled the Denver graffiti scene, theorizes, the authorities' crackdown moved graffiti writing from subculture to counterculture. The work on the trains no longer ran, so writers started hitting the streets. Out in the open they had to work faster and more often. The artistry started to matter less and less. Throw-ups, small cryptic tags done in marker and even the straightforward writing of a name became the dominant imagery. What mattered was quantity ("making noise"), whether the writer had heart, was true to the game, was "real." And the graffiti world started to attract more and more people who weren't looking for an alternative art canvas but simply wanted to be connected to an outlaw community, to a venerable street tradition that allowed the opportunity to advertise their defiance. "It's that I'm doing it that I get my rush, not by everyone seeing it," says JA. "Yeah, that's nice, but if that's all that's gonna motivate you to do it, you're gonna stop writing. That's what happened to a lot of writers." JD tells me: "We're just putting it in their faces; it's like 'Yo, you gotta put up with it.'"

Newspapers have now settled on the term "graffiti vandal" rather than "artist" or "writer." Graffiti writers casually refer to their work as doing destruction." In recent years graffiti has become more and more about beefs and wars, about "fucking up the MTA," "fucking up the city."

Writers started taking a jock attitude toward getting up frequently and tagging in hard-to-reach places, adopting a machismo toward going over other writers' work and defending their own ("If you can write, you can fight"). Whereas graffiti writing was once considered an alternative to the street, now it imports drugs, violence, weapons and theft from that world -- the romance of the criminal deviant rather than the artistic deviant. In New York today, one police source estimates there are approximately 100,000 people involved in a variety of types of graffiti writing. The police have caught writers as young as 8 and as old as 42. And there's a small group of hard-core writers who are getting older who either wrote when graffiti was in its prime or long for the days when it was, those who write out of compulsion, for each other and for the authorities who try to combat graffiti, writers who haven't found anything in their lives substantial or hype enough to replace graffiti writing.

The writers in their 20s come mostly from working-class families and have limited prospects and ambitions for the future. SET works in a drugstore and has taken lithium and Prozac for occasional depression; JD dropped out of high school and is unemployed, last working as a messenger, where he met JA. They spend their nights driving 80 miles an hour down city highways, balancing 40-ounce bottles of Old English 800 between their legs, smoking blunts and crack-laced cigarettes called coolies, always playing with the radio. They reminisce endlessly about the past, when graf was real, when graf ran on the trains, and they swap stories about who's doing what on the scene. The talk is a combo platter of Spicoli, homeboy, New Age jock and eighth grade: The dude is a fuckin' total turd. . . . I definitely would've gotten waxed. . . . It's like some bogus job. . . . I'm amped, I'm Audi, you buggin . . . You gotta be there fully, go all out, focus. . . . Dudes have bitten off SET, he's got toys jockin' him. . . .

They carry beepers, sometimes guns, go upstate or to Long Island to "prey on the hicks" and to rack cans of spray paint. They talk about upcoming court cases and probation, about quitting, getting their lives together, even as they plan new spots to hit, practice their style by writing on the walls of their apartments, on boxes of food, on any stray piece of paper (younger writers practice on school notebooks that teachers have been known to confiscate and turn over to the police). They call graffiti a "social tool" and "some kind of ill form of communication," refer to every writer no matter his age as "kid." Talk in the graffiti life vacillates between banality and mythology, much like the activity itself: hours of drudgery, hanging out, waiting, interrupted by brief episodes of exhilaration. JD, echoing a common refrain, says, "Graffiti writers are like bitches: a lot of lying, a lot of talking, a lot of gossip." They don't like tagging with girls ("cuties," or if they use drugs, "zooties") around because all they say is (in a whiny voice), You're crazy. . . . Write my name."

WHEN JA TALKS ABOUT GRAFFITI, HE'S reluctant to offer up any of the media-ready cliches about the culture (and he knows most of them). He's more inclined to say, "Fuck the graffiti world," and scoff at graf shops, videos, conventions and 'zines. But he can be sentimental about how he began -- riding the No. 1, 2 and 3 trains when he was young, bugging out on the graffiti-covered cars, asking himself, "How did they do that? Who are they?" And he'll respectfully invoke the names of long-gone writers he admired when he was just starting out: SKEME, ZEPHYR, REVOLT, MIN.

JA, typical of the new school, primarily bombs, covering wide areas with throw-ups. He treats graffiti less as an art form than as an athletic competition, concentrating on getting his tag in difficult-to-reach places, focusing on quantity and working in defiance of an aesthetic that demands that public property be kept clean. (Writers almost exclusively hit public or commercial property.)

And when JA is not being cynical, he can talk for hours about the technique, the plotting, the logistics of the game like "motion bombing" by clockwork a carefully scoped subway train that he knows has to stop for a set time, at a set place, when it gets a certain signal in the tunnels. He says, "To me, the challenge that graffiti poses, there's something very invigorating and freeing about it, something almost spiritual. There's a kind of euphoria, more than any kind of drug or sex can give you, give me . . . for real."

JA says he wants to quit, and he talks about doing it as if he were in a 12-step program. "How a person in recovery takes it one day a time, that's how I gotta take it," he says. You get burnt out. There's pretty much nothing more the city can throw at me; it's all been done." But then he'll hear about a yard full of clean sanitation trucks, the upcoming Puerto Rican Day Parade (a reason to bomb Fifth Avenue) or a billboard in an isolated area; or it'll be 3 a.m., he'll be stoned, driving around or sitting in the living room, playing NBA Jam, and someone will say it: "Yo, I got a couple of cans in the trunk. . . ." REAS, an old-school writer of 12 years who, after a struggle and a number of relapses, eventually quit the life, says, "Graffiti can become like a hole you're stuck in; it can just keep on going and going, there's always another spot to write on."

SAST is in his late 20s and calls himself semiretired after 13 years in the graf scene. He still carries around a marker with him wherever he goes and cops little STONE tags (when he's high, he writes, STONED). He's driving JA and me around the city one night, showing me different objects they've tagged, returning again and again to drug spots to buy dust and crack, smoking, with the radio blasting; he's telling war stories about JA jumping onto moving trains, JA hanging off the outside of a speeding four-wheel drive. SAST is driving at top speed, cutting in between cars, tailgating, swerving. A number of times as we're racing down the highway, I ask him if he could slow down. He smiles, asks if I'm scared, tells me not to worry, that he's a more cautious driver when he's dusted. At one point on the FDR, a car cuts in front of us. JA decides to have some fun.

"Yo, he burnt you, SAST," JA says. We start to pick up speed. Yo, SAST, he dissed you, he cold dissed you, SAST." SAST is buying it, the look on his face becoming more determined as we go 70, 80, 90 miles an hour, hugging the divider, flying between cars. I turn to JA, who's in the back seat, and I try to get him to stop. JA ignores me, sitting back perfectly relaxed, smiling, urging SAST to go faster and faster, getting off, my fear adding to his rush.

At around 4 a.m., SAST drops us off on the middle of the Manhattan Bridge and leaves. JA wants to show me a throw-up he did the week before. We climb over the divider from the roadway to the subway tracks. JA explains that we have to cross the north and the southbound tracks to get to the outer part of the bridge. In between there are a number of large gaps and two electrified third rails, and we're 135 feet above the East River. As we're standing on the tracks, we hear the sound of an oncoming train. JA tells me to hide, to crouch down in the V where two diagonal braces meet just beside the tracks.

I climb into position, holding on to the metal beams, head down, looking at the water as the train slams by the side of my body. This happens twice more. Eventually, I cross over to the outer edge of the bridge, which is under construction, and JA points out his tag about 40 feet above on what looks like a crow's-nest on a support pillar. After a few moments of admiring the view, stepping carefully around the many opportunities to fall, JA hands me his cigarettes and keys. He starts crawling up one of the braces on the side of the bridge, disappears within the structure for a moment, emerges and makes his way to an electrical box on a pillar. Then he snakes his way up the piping and grabs on to a curved support. Using only his hands he starts to shimmy up; at one point he's hanging almost completely upside down. If he falls now, he'll land backward onto one of the tiers and drop into the river below. He continues to pull himself up, the old paint breaking off in his hands, and finally he flips his body over a railing to get to the spot where he tagged. He doesn't have a can or a marker with him, and at this point graffiti seems incidental. He comes down and tells me that when he did the original tag he was with two writers; one he half carried up, the other stopped at a certain point and later told JA that watching him do that tag made him appreciate life, being alive.

We walk for 10 minutes along a narrow, grooved catwalk on the side of the tracks; a thin wire cable prevents a fall into the river. A few times, looking down through the grooves, I have to stop, force myself to take the next step straight ahead, shake off the vertigo. JA is practically jogging ahead of me. We exit the bridge into Chinatown as the sun comes up and go to eat breakfast. JA tells me he's a vegetarian.

IF YOU TALK TO SERIOUS GRAFFITI writers, most of them will echo the same themes; they decry the commercialization of graf, condemn the toys and poseurs and alternately hate and feel attached to the authorities who try to stop them. They say with equal parts bravado and self-deprecation that a graffiti writer is a bum, a criminal, a vandal, slick, sick, obsessed, sneaky, street-smart, living on edges figurative and literal. They show and catalog cuts and scars on their bodies from razor wire, pieces of metal, knives, box cutters. I once casually asked a writer named GHOST if he knew another writer whose work I had seen in a graf'zine. "Yeah, I know him, he stabbed me," GHOST replies matter-of-factly. "We've still got beef." SET tells me he was caught by two DTs (detectives) who assaulted him, took his cans of paint and sprayed his body and face. JA tells similar stories of police beatings for his making officers run after him, of cops making him empty his spray cans on his sneakers or on the back of a fellow writer's jacket. JD has had 48 stitches in his back and 18 in his head over "graffiti-related beef." JA's best friend and writing partner, SANE SMITH, a legendary all-city writer who was sued by the city and the MTA for graffiti, was found dead, floating in Jamaica Bay. There's endless speculation in the grafworld as to whether he was pushed, fell or jumped off a bridge. SANE is so respected, there are some writers today who spend time in public libraries reading and rereading the newspaper microfilm about his death, his arrests, his career. According to JA, after SANE's death, his brother, SMiTH, also a respected graffiti artist, found a piece of paper on which SANE had written his and JA's tag and off to the side, FLYING HIGH THE XTC WAY. It now hangs on JA's apartment wall.

One morning, JA and I jump off the end of a subway platform and head into the tunnels. He shows me hidden rooms, emergency hatches that open to the sidewalk, where to stand when the trains come by. He tells me about the time SANE lay face down in a shallow drainage ditch on the tracks as an express train ran inches above him. JA says anytime he was being chased by the police he would run into a nearby subway station, jump off the platform and run into the tunnels. The police would never follow. KET, a veteran graffiti writer, tells me how in the tunnels he would accidentally step on homeless people sleeping. They'd see him tagging and would occasionally ask that he "throw them up," write their names on the wall. He usually would. Walking in the darkness between the electrified rails as trains race by, JA tells me the story of two writers he had beef with who came into the tunnels to cross out his tags. Where the cross-outs stop is where they were killed by an approaching train.

The last time I go out with JA, SET and JD, they pick me up at around 2 am. We drive down to the Lower East Side to hit a yard where about 60 trucks and vans are parked next to one another. Every vehicle is already covered with throw-ups and tags, but the three start to write anyway, JA in a near frenzy. They're running in between the rows, crawling under trucks, jumping from roof to roof, wedged down in between the trailers, engulfed in nauseating clouds of paint fumes (the writers sometimes blow multicolored mucous out of their noses), going over some writers' tags, respecting others, JA throwing up SANE's name, searching for any little piece of clean space to write on. JA, who had once again been talking about retirement, is now hungry to write and wants to hit another spot. But JD doesn't have any paint, SET needs gas money for his car, and they have to drive upstate the next morning to appear in court for a paint-theft charge.

During the ride back uptown the car is mostly quiet, the mood depressed. And even when the three were in the truck yard, even when JA was at his most intense, it seemed closer to work, routine, habit. There are moments like this when they seem genuinely worn out by the constant stress, the danger, the legal problems, the drugging, the fighting, the obligation to always hit another spot. And it's usually when the day is starting.

About a week later I get a call from another writer whom JA had told I was writing an article on graffiti. He tells me he has never been king, never gone all city, but now he is making a comeback, coming out of retirement with a new tag. He says he could do it easily today because there is no real competition. He says he was thinking about trying to make some money off of graffiti -- galleries. canvases, whatever . . . to get paid.

"I gotta do something," the writer says. "I can't rap, I can't dance, I got this silly little job." We talk more, and he tells me he appreciates that I'm writing about writers, trying to get inside the head of a vandal, telling the real deal. He also tells me that graffiti is dying, that the city is buffing it, that new writers are all toys and are letting it die, but it's still worth it to write.

I ask why, and then comes the inevitable justification that every writer has to believe and take pleasure in, the idea that order will always have to play catch-up with them. "It takes me seconds to do a quick throw-up; it takes them like 10 minutes to clean it," he says. "Who's coming out on top?"

#graffiti #ja #ja one #ja nyc #ja one nyc #new york graffiti #xtc crew #xtc #graff nyc #ja graffiti #ja one graffiti

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psychicscavenger · 5 years

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Sea Witch (Shance MerMay 2019)

another drabble for my series Making Waves and Turning Tides. Series was inspired by @justshance‘s Mermay prompts for 2019, written for @shancemermay and fellow shance and mermaid fans in general.

Tags: Tooth-Rotting Fluff, some plot, conspiracy, pining, fairy tale elements, little mermaid elements, AU

After having to watch that disgusting display of emotions, Lotor sank into the depths of the abyss, welcoming the feeling of darkness as well as the increasing pressure allowing his gills to breathe in and out gently. The wonderful air flowing through and cleaning out the salty air from above surface left him feeling more relaxed but he was still on edge hoping his plan would work.

Lotor continued to swim down, the light from the surface fading away until he was swallowed up by the void, circling around him with only his senses to guide him past other mers who lingered around the abyss, usually nowhere to go with other unsavory creatures who liked to lurk in the deep. Lotor located his cave quickly, quietly slipping into the vast cavern, easily avoiding the fluttering cuttlefish his mother liked to experiment on. He cool called out a greeting towards the witch, sliding against a rock and parking himself there, unfurling his tentacles to stretch as the witch, his mother Honerva, approached.

"Lotor have you spoken with the fish noble's son?" A raspy voice called from behind the seaweed curtain. Lotor hummed, meticulously cleaning a tentacle sucker, making sure no remnants of fish scales were stuck underneath before casually replying, "Yes I have. The silly little brat took the deal and he's now off frolicking on the dry lands with the king. We'll be ruling this pathetic ocean soon Mother. That damned Queen Allura was a fool to reject me as a potential mate and to cast you from her palace with your talents! A true disgrace for a monarch in my opinion." Lotor huffed as his mother oozed from the shadows, pulling back the weeds to expose her curling tentacles floating around her as she glided over to her son.

"Just remember the plan. Once that noble gets a taste of what he wants, you'll draw him back and make him hold up his part of the deal. We need that trident if we want to take over the ocean." She spoke, every word punctuated harshly through the murky water Lotor would twitch every time she spoke.

"And what happens if he refuses or doesn't get a hold of it? Lance is divine looks wise but he's not all that brilliant upstairs." Lotor mocked snickering at the image of the mer earlier, acting all flustered and squeamish when the two humans approached him.

"That I'll leave to you dear son. Consider it a gift for helping me this far. It's taken years to find the right someone to help take down the queen but now I have high hopes that we'll be taking over not one but two kingdoms if all goes well." Honerva spoke heading over to a cavern rock that held some valuable objects to her. It was piled with bones, some mers, some regular fish. She even had a collection of shark teeth in a jar as well las several jars of glowing substances, Lotor would rather not ask what those were about.

Honerva pulled out a dusty broken mirror, so old it was rotted in the handle area, bits of algae and mold growing on the reflective portion which Honerva wiped away, repeating a few mumbled phrases unintelligible until the mirror glowed and soon Lotor was watching Lance in the mirror.

"This way we'll keep an eye on the boy, measure his progress with the humans." Honerva stated watching as Lance was currently having a battle with a few humans over the proper way to wear what the humans called pants. Lotor furrowed his brows watching the spectacle as he leaned back, crossing his arms with impatience.

"How long will this take do you think?" He asked getting annoyed upon seeing the human king enter the room and calmly remediating the situation, hands lingering upon Lance's waist with Lance flushing immediately.

"Not long, humans are easily predictable and are often like the very fish they hunt and eat. Place something shiny and new in front of them, and they'll snatch up the bait pretty easily." Honerva explained smirking upon seeing the matching blushing expressions between Lance and the human king.

"Sometimes too easily." She grinned.

****

Lance wasn't normally materialistic, sure he was a mermaid, he hoarded a fair bit of treasure that many humans have dropped into the ocean, and he liked to keep his scales cleaner and shinier than his family or friends in the shoal, but compared to having a big, fluffy cushion all to himself, not having to share with his sisters, brothers, niece and nephew, he knew he could never go back to his old life.

"It's so big and bouncy! Beds are so cool!" He moaned, spreading his arms and legs over and over on the vast space, the long sleep shirt he was given rising up just a tad bit, exposing more and more of his upper thighs that had Shiro coughing and glancing away out of respect for his guest, and to keep himself in check.

"Yeah they are..also I just want you to know that you are welcome to stay here as long as you like even if you're finished recovering, I'm afraid to admit, but living on the far coast we don't see too many visitors." Shiro explained a small smile appearing on his face as Lance sat up tilting his head just so in that adorable curious way he's done all day.

"Do I get to use the bed still?" Lance asked which had Shiro chuckling. "Yes, you can use the bed as long as you want." Lance sighed happily flopping back over much to Shiro's amusement as Lance flipped over and snuggled into the sheets.

"Thank Goddess, I never want to leave ever again. You are my treasure now." Lance reached up patting a pillow as Shiro held back a giggle about to head out into the hall.

"If you need anything, I'm sure any of the kind people working here can attend to your needs, I'll be up as well as I'm not much of a sleeper, my rooms not too far down the hall. If you can't find someone, just come find me." Shiro stated turning to head out when Lance shot up, shouting "Wait!"

Shiro froze, unsure what was wrong until he suddenly found a sturdy presence pressing into his front side, arms wrapped around his middle and nearly hanging off of him(Lance still hadn't been able to get his legs to work properly like the humans, Shiro was currently in the process of finding the man a wheelchair to use in the meantime), his face pressed into Shiro's shirt, inhaling deeply as he spoke.

"Goodnight Shiro. I'm glad I met you, you were definetly worth it." Lance sighed happily unaware of the blushing flustered mess Shiro had become.

At first he wasn't sure what to say to something like that. It was definetly a little odd for a goodnight even if the man was very obviously appreciative of Shiro's hospitality, although it was expressed in such a strange way it had Shiro wanting to seek out answers to this puzzle.

But first, bed time.

Eventually, Shiro hugged him back, a little less tighter than Lance's but happy to return the affection in some way, whispering goodnight to Lance before gently coaxing him back to bed, maybe spending a bit too much time tucking him in but he reminded himself, or rather, tried to convince, that he was simply being extra cautious since the man was injured. They still haven't been able to get any solid information such as who he was or where he came from, but he was ultimately deemed not a threat and welcomed by the castle staff and guards alike.

All except for Keith that is.

Keith was friendly, in his own strange way. He obviously cared for others who mattered to him and Shiro's second-in-command for a reason.

His people skills..need work on the other hand.

Since Lance has been invited to the castle, Shiro had found the two bickering several times and Lance had only been there for four hours. Keith didn't trust strangers so easily and was incredibly suspicious of Lance, Shiro didn't really blame him either because Lance did some..very weird things. Like tonight's dinner fiasco.

As Shiro slipped away from Lance's bedroom, trying to get Lance's soft sleepy smile out of his head, he almost groaned at the memory of Lance's first dinner experience in the castle and how..not great it turned out. Apparently salad was too confusing of a dish to explain to Lance so he didn't eat it. The main course, some kind of lobster bisque, had insulted Lance, and in the end the only thing he liked was bread that he referred to as a beige sea sponge. Then Keith got involved...

"Shiro I need to talk to you." Shiro flinched, finding himself suddenly face to face with the very angry person he was thinking off.

"Good because I think we need to sign you up for more etiquette lessons." Shiro teased amused as Keith's face bloomed in embarrassment before he turned away huffing, with Shiro following.

"Lance started it, he was acting so weird! All I simply said was, the fork isn't to comb your hair and he yelled at me! He got mad because I wouldn't let him comb his hair with a fork Shiro, a fork, thats weird." Shiro sighed in response, understanding somewhat.

"Keith what you said was and I quote; 'Hey idiot, that's not how a fork works,' and glared at him until he stopped. I don't blame him for getting upset to be honest." Shiro shrugged it off, turning away towards his room when Keith jumped in front of him again.

"Still, how does someone his age not know how to use a fork? He looked like he had never seen one before Shiro! He's been looking at everything like that He got excited sitting in a chair Shiro. A chair. Don't you think that's a little suspicious at all? What if he's planning something?" Keith asked urgently to which Shiro sighed, aware that Keith tended to think towards the negative and conspiratorial side of things.

"Well, it's strange but I'm actually starting to guess the poor guy hit his head so hard he may have amnesia. It explain's why he can't remember how to use the most basic of human tasks. That or something really bad happened to him, we'll just have to find out and by doing that, he'll have to stay here, got it?" Shiro asked gently to which Keith nodded, obviously disgruntled with the idea.

"Fine but I don't like this." He griped trodding behind Shiro heading off towards his own room as Shiro just about closed his door, a few guards posted outside in case of any emergency.

"Okay MOM. Goodnight." Shiro held back a giggle when Keith made a face, waving him off as his version of 'goodnight' before Shiro shut his door getting ready for bed and a small part of him excited and intrigued to get to know his blue eyed guest.

#shance #shance mermay 2019 #lance is in love with beds #partcularly big beds he doesnt have to share #unless he wa ssharing with shiro of course

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lostinsantacarla · 5 years

Text

Part two (I can’t take complete credit for this. I threw an idea at my writing partner and she ran with it, creating this part of the chapter that’s simply amazing and completely Paul)

1981

He woke up later than usual. His lady friend, one of his many friends with benefits, or in last night's case, "Make me your bitch, Paul!" had long since left for work, but not before providing him with money on the end table so he could buy some beer and cigarettes. However, he decided that using the money to score some high-quality weed from his favorite dealer sounded better.

Sure, the guy was a hunchback, walked with a lead foot, had one bug-eye, and smelled like garbage, but out of all the shady people Paul had bought pot from over the years, this guy had never steered him wrong. It was too bad the old fart was hardly around. For someone who hobbled about as he did, he was fast with his transactions and as soon as the exchange was finished, he was off like a thief in the night. Lucky for Paul, word on the street was that the weirdo was out and about tonight.

Sweet Mary Jane, here I come! His inner monologue announced as he threw on a pair of denim pants, that is, after he found them behind the bushes outside the apartment complex. He had had to run out buck naked, marathon sprinting, to retrieve them without being spotted. Talk about a wild romp of sex for his pants to get thrown out the window like that.

His look was further completed with a band shirt, seeing as one could never go wrong with Led Zeppelin, and black high tops. Then in the bathroom, in front of the mirror, he spent a good amount of time teasing his hair until it resembled a lion's mane; big, wild, and unkempt.

The girls loved his style and always gave compliments about how he looked like a rock star. His hair and his bigger than life personality had opened many doors of opportunity, which in turn led to free food, booze, and sex. He was exuberant and free spirited. Nothing and nobody could hold him back.

Once he was fixed up, the rock star was out the door with the money and made his way down the block. It was a quiet night and the sun had long since set in the horizon. The streets were lined with rundown apartment buildings and small houses, but visibility was somewhat poor since many of the streetlights had long since burned out, or were flickering their last light as he strolled beneath them. He could hear some of the bulbs buzzing and glanced up to see a couple of moths high above, fluttering around one of the dying lights. Needless to say, this part of the neighborhood wasn't the greatest, but it was an even thirty miles from Santa Carla, where the beaches and amusement park roared with life at all hours of the day and night. That was his destination, though he never complained about where he stayed in the moment, because it was a free roof over his head. It wasn't like his childhood home had been anything remotely close to resembling paradise either, but those were painful memories, pushed deep into the back of his mind. Occasionally they would pop up here and there, rearing their ugly heads, considering he was human after all.

He ventured off the main road and resorted to crossing through some dilapidated backyards, as it was a lot quicker to travel. These homes, while much smaller and closer in connection than the ones he'd passed earlier, were also abandoned with windows boarded up and walls marred with graffiti. He kept both hands in his pockets, one of which had a hold over a switchblade. It served as good protection, considering he was aware of the few guys he'd pissed off by sleeping with their girlfriends and then bragged about it later while high, and or drunk. They'd all wanted to beat the shit out of him, and they weren't shy about threatening out in the open. Fortunately, he was always one step ahead of them and like his favorite dealer, made sure never to stay in the same place for very long. Keeping off the main roads would ensure prying eyes weren't watching him.

Eventually he found himself headed towards the more industrial part of the town in search of the weirdo, where the lighting became scarce and dark alleys closed in on him. It was like he was wandering through a maze of brick walls and wooden fences, with garbage cans and discarded cargo boxes choking the walkways. Not a great place to get jumped, so he kept a steady pace and made sure to keep his eyes open.

As he prepared to go around a corner that led down a narrow channel of a one-way street, a high pitched, fearful sounding, "NO!" made him stop dead in his tracks. Instantly, he flattened against a set of steel bars over a foreign doorway, and peered around the corner with his mouth slightly parted in concern.

Just a few feet away, under the light of an abandoned two story building, he spotted a little blonde girl, probably no older than four years old, bawling her eyes out. Her cheeks were red and stained with tears. A middle-aged man with disheveled gray hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail and wearing a white lab coat towered over the girl. He looked about ready to devour her like a hungry beast. His face was twisted and strained and he reached out to grab her with gnarled, crooked fingers. He barked at her, telling her that if she didn't stop crying any second, he was going to belt her.

"What the...?" Paul muttered under his breath. "hell is this?"

Suddenly the man had a firm grip over the back of the pink overalls the child wore, and was ready to hoist her off the ground. The kid was jerked back, and she let out a painful scream.

Normally, Paul wouldn't have given two shits about other people's problems. Aside from his drug buddies and faceless gal pals, he wasn't close enough with anyone to where he'd stick his neck out for them in a matter of life or death. The only person he looked out for at that point in time was numero uno. Yet the sight of a small, defenseless child about to be harmed by another adult brought one of those painful memories to the surface, no longer buried deep in his sub-consciousness. It reminded him all too much of his past, and of the many nights he'd been beaten black and blue by his step-dad with no one around to help him. Not even his mother, who knew what was happening, would dare lift a finger. Every time it happened, she looked the other way, afraid to interfere—not because she would get hit, but because she would lose the man's attention and he'd end up leaving her. The only way Paul was able to escape the nightmare was by staying out night after night, and only going home when he absolutely needed to. Before he turned sixteen, they kicked him out permanently after learning he had sold all his mother's precious jewelry, including her wedding ring, for quick cash. He was given the boot and ultimately his freedom.

"Fuck that," Paul hissed through clenched teeth as he sprang into action. No one had been there for him, but that didn't mean he couldn't help another little tike out. He bolted away from his hiding spot, and approached the stranger, using his arm to shove the older guy up against the wall. That in turn allowed him to yank the girl away from the weirdo's grasp, and set her down on her feet. She stumbled backwards and continued crying, but Paul ignored her as he became transfixed with the creep in front of him.

"What were you planning on doing with such a small fry, huh?" he asked, his blue eyes full of rage, yet at the same time he was somewhat... grinning? Yes, he was smiling. He liked frightening this asshole. "You don't look like nobody who would care about her. She sure as hell doesn't seem to like you."

"That is NONE of your business," the man hissed as he pushed Paul's arm away from him. "She will be property of—"

"Wrong answer!" Paul exclaimed as he stepped back, drew his switch blade, and stepped forward once more, shoving the tip dangerously close to the man's throat. "The kid wouldn't be screaming like that if she belonged to you or anybody associated with you. And 'property' you say? That ain't gonna be sitting right with the police now, is it?"

The last thing Paul wanted to do was go to the police. He'd already had more than a few run-ins with them for public intoxication, lewd behavior, and disturbing the peace. Assault and possession of a deadly weapon was not something he wanted to add to his record. Still, he wasn't about to let some asshole get away with hurting a defenseless kid. He wasn't that jaded.

The man's eyes bugged out at the sight of the weapon and he swallowed nervously, buying the bluff. He held up his hands, already breaking out into a cold sweat, and started stammering.

"A-A-All right. All right. Just… let me go. Let me go, please. I don't see why they need… need her so much anyhow. S-She doesn't look like anything special to me. I-I could always find another job at my age! I shouldn't be... be treated like this! No job is worth risking my life for!"

They? Paul raised a brow over his ramblings, but a couple things stood out to him. What kind of job was this creep into where the requirements involved wanting their employees to kidnap children? Was it some kind of secret sweat shop in China? Whatever. He moved back and closed the switch blade before sliding it back in his pocket, his eyes never wavering from the man in front of him. The girl had calmed down and was no longer crying, but squatting on the ground, her body pressed up against the building. She was whimpering and hiccupping with her back facing them. Other than looking terrified, she didn't appear hurt, much to Paul's relief.

"Now," Paul said with an upbeat expression, even though his tone betrayed the look, as it was dark and menacing. He slapped the man roughly across the chest with the back of his hand. "You aren't gonna rat on me to the police, are you? Let's face it, I know I'm a punk, but you don't look all too 'normal' yourself, bud. What's a mad scientist doing going after little girls? You some kinda pervert?"

"I am not!" the man blurted out, completely unnerved at this point. His hands trembled, and he swallowed the lump in his throat. "I don't like that sort of thing at all! And no! Can't get the police involved! I was just doing my job… I..."

In a blind panic, he was finally pushed away from Paul and broke free. Fearful for his life, his footsteps echoed across the alley until he disappeared, and silence once again took over.

Now Paul turned to the kid. He wasn't used to dealing with little ones, but he was still determined to make sure this one wasn't getting hurt by the likes of that jerk, or anyone else who could easily break her jaw. He was by no means a saint, but even he had his own code of ethics and morals.

Scratching at the faint stubble on his cheeks, he slowly approached her and carefully picked her up. She was small and weighed very little, and he couldn't help but think about his baby half-brother, as she was probably around the same age as him.

Ah, hell, stop thinking about any of that, he chided inward. You're on your own, Paulie boy. You've been on your own for a long ass time.

By the time he and the girl emerged out into the open, he saw how dark the skies had grown. He didn't wear a watch, but he noticed a small clock tower located on an island in the middle of an intersection that read the time. Not even two hours had passed since he left his friend's pad. There, in that part of town, the street lights were better maintained (as in, they worked), and not only that, but there were people walking around. Businesses were also open and operating, which meant it was a hell of a lot safer than the alleys.

He was surprised at how well behaved and quiet the girl was after saving her. She didn't even know him, but already showed trust in him as if she could read him. Either that or she was just scared out of her wits. The trust factor became more apparent, however, when she leaned against his chest. She was content, sucking her thumb while her eyelids drooped. The problem for Paul was that he wasn't sure where to go from there, so he sat down on the curb and gently placed her down beside him.

He tipped his chin and stared at his shoes, noticing a hole was starting to form near the toe, but the small girl didn't want to detach herself from his side, and ended up resting her small frame against his arm.

Crap, he'd suddenly become an unofficial babysitter for her.

Long as she isn't wailing like she was, I can deal with this, I think.

He rested his arms across his knees and cracked his knuckles as he stared across the street at nothing while his thoughts rolled around. What did that perv say about her being property? Total sicko. People got their rocks off in the nastiest ways. Just hope I didn't miss my dealer by playing hero...

"Serenity? Oh my god, there she is! Serenity!"

Glancing in the direction of the frantic voice, Paul spotted a desperate looking elderly couple hurrying over to where the two of them sat. Their eyes were not focused on him but what was next to him: the kid. No, not kid, Serenity.

Serenity was her name.

Pffft. As if he would retain that information for much longer after he killed his brain cells with some prime weed. Question was, were they just more weirdos coming after her? Just decked out in clever disguises rather than the mad scientist get up? What was so special about her anyway?

Fortunately, unlike with the first guy, Serenity did respond positively to the sound of the elderly female's voice by calling out, "Grandma...!"

She rubbed her eyes with her tiny fists and yawned.

Paul figured he would be tired too after getting kidnapped and harassed by some douchebag, if he were her age.

Not wanting to startle her any more, he collected her into his arms and got to his feet. By that point, the couple was upon them and the woman's arms were outstretched. With a shrug, he automatically surrendered Serenity over to her.

About damn time, he thought as the grandmother cradled Serenity close to her chest and kissed her face affectionately. Serenity responded by cuddling closer to her relative, but she did offer Paul one last look, as if silently wondering if he'd still be around later.

"Thank you so much," the elderly man said as he stood alongside his wife, looking very tired but relieved. The dude was sweating. He had to have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off looking for his granddaughter. He held out a thin hand for Paul to shake. "We don't know how we can ever repay you! We were about to call the police!"

Paul snorted and shoved both of his hands inside his pockets. "Keep a better eye on short stuff there," he admonished rather rudely. "Lil' missy may not be so lucky next time."

Without waiting for a response, he took off in the opposite direction, determined to get back to his own personal affairs. If he ended up meeting with his dealer, soon enough he'd be so damn high that he wouldn't have any memories of playing the hero in the first place.

Little Serenity was young enough to where she wouldn't remember almost being kidnapped. She'd be back to watching Sesame Street and Mister Rogers.

Sides, it's not like I'll ever see her again…

(If you’d like to check out her back story for Paul, you can find it here.)

#the lost boys #lost boys #writing #Paul x Serenity #Sleight of Hand and Twist of Fate #vampires #fan fiction

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daydreaming-nerd · 6 years

Text

Home...(Kylo Ren x Reader)

This was suppoested to be soemthing totally different but as I kept writing it turned into this so I hope you all enjoy it still! Please send in requests!

It was never supposed to end this way. Not at all. It started when The First Order set up a base on the same planet as a rebel base, Endor. I remember being in the control room when I saw tie fighters landing on the other side of the planet. It would take a while for both forces to collect themselves to start a war. Somehow, for the most part, it was safe.

Every day when I needed a break from the cramped control room I would throw my hair on a bun and put on my helmet to hide my face and venture out to explore planet Endor. I had done this so many times, every time nothing new, but today was different. As I trudged through the weeds and over fallen trees I heard a rustling in the distance. I placed my hand on my lightsaber and prepared to strike. I waited in anticipation to see what I would be facing. A black cloaked figure stepped out from behind a bush, when he saw me he froze and my heart stopped beating. It was as if I was staring death in the face. A masked Kylo Ren stood before me.

The shock wore off and my body chose fight over flight. I charged towards him and ignited my lightsaber swinging right for his head. He blocked it with the help of his own lightsaber and from there it was a full-blown battle, one I would never be skilled enough to win. Most of the fight was me defending his blows. I knew if I could graze him enough to hurt I might be able to outrun him. With that, I dove between his legs, stood up and burned his arm with my blade. As he screamed out in pain I started running for all I was worth. I only got about 20 feet away before I felt something lift me in the air and throw me against a tree knocking my helmet off and taking my hair out of its bun allowing it to cascade down my face.

I turned around to see if he was still pursuing me but the second I saw him his whole demeanor changed. He dropped his lightsaber and it automatically turned off.

He reached for his helmet and hit a button. It made a hissing sound before it finally came undone and he took it off. I was expecting a distorted face or at the very least an ugly old guy. Instead, I saw a man about my age maybe a little older, with soft black hair and inviting brown eyes. The most handsome man I had ever seen.

“You’re a woman,” He stated blankly.

“Yes,” I said still afraid for my life.

“You’re close with Leia,”

“Yes,”

“I’ll spare you,”

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I ran for all I was worth back to the rebel base.

All that night I couldn’t get the image of the feared Supreme Leader of the First Order taking his helmet to show a Rebel girl he meant her no harm. I couldn’t get over the beauty that mask hid from the world? What had he to hide?

The next morning I awoke and realized I had left my helmet and lightsaber in the forest and made it my first mission to retrieve them. As I hiked through the forest I began to replay the events of yesterday for the thousandth time. Brown eyes still staring into my soul, an unsaid connection stuck in every fiber of my being.

I finally got to the setting where it all took place. Dusting off my helmet and getting ready to put it on I heard a voice from behind me.

“Don’t put it on,”

I stopped right then and there knowing exactly who it was. I turned to see Kylo Ren without his helmet, this time I wasn’t fear-stricken.

“Why?” I replied.

“If it’s not too much to say I find you too beautiful to be covered up with that dirty thing,” he said walking towards me. “I came to give you this,” He held out my lightsaber.

“Thank you,” I said shyness in my voice. He turned to walk back to his base. “Why were you hear yesterday?” I said breaking out my comfort zone.

He turned to face me again. “The base can be overwhelming at times. I come out here for some fresh air and to think. You?” He said sitting on a log.

“Same here, it gets so cramped and muggy in there I need to step out daily,” I said walking towards him. I was almost there but I tripped on a rock that was stuck in the ground. I thought surely I was going to hit the ground but I felt two strong arms grab me. I looked up to lock eyes with the brown orbs I had dreamed of the night before. “Though I’m not quite sure how my clumsiness hasn’t left me out here for dead yet,” I said trying to lighten the mood.

He smiled first and then a small laugh escaped his lips. All the sudden I was at ease.

“Did the mighty Kylo Ren just laugh?” I asked in shock as I sat beside him on the log.

“I suppose you did,” He said still smiling.

We must’ve sat on that log for an hour talking about anything that came up. He ended by saying that the great Kylo Ren was much more than people take him for, but it was something I had come to find true long before the words left his lips. It was getting late and just before we were about to retreat to our bases I turned around and spoke one last line to him.

“You know if I’m going to be out here every day it might be nice to have some company,”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow,” He said with a smirk and began walking away.

“But what time?” I called out.

“Just come, I’ll know when you’re here,”

I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but I just shook my head and started towards the base.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~

Two or Three months had gone by and the Supreme Leader and I had become closer than I had ever imagined. Over time I began to feel more and more detached from the resistance. Perhaps it was because I had fallen for the young ex Jedi. There was something unsaid between us, but I didn’t dare make the first move.

Today was a little different. I had told Kylo the previous afternoon that I would be arriving much later than I normally do because of the ball that was being held in honor of Princess Leia’s birthday. I told him as soon as it was over I would be heading to our secret area in the woods. I was riding on a speeder through the forest as to not damage my floor length dress that was navy rhinestones from head to toe, which by the way looked amazing reflecting the light of the full moon. Coming to a halt on my speeder I swung my leg over the side and heard the sticks below me. I looked over to see Kylo standing up from his space on the log.

“Hi, sorry I’m late again,” I said walking toward him.

“You’re breathtaking,” He said staring at me with stars in his eye.

“Well thank you Commander, I did the best I could with what I had,” I said referring to my dress doing a twirl.

“I’m sure your feet are tired from having to dance with all those poor excuses for men all night, allow me” And with that, he swooped me up bridal style causing me to giggle.

“Quite the opposite! The ball was an absolute bore! I sat at a table the whole time and watched everyone dance! Not a single man asked me to join him on the dance floor, not that I would’ve accepted. In fact, I left early to come see you,”

“Not one man asked you to dance?” he asked confused.

“Nope,”

“They must be intimidated by your beauty,” He smiled and then stood up in front of me. “I too am intimidated, but I can’t let my favorite girl go through the night looking as amazing as she does without so much as one dance.”

I took his hand and we began dancing. There was no music, just the sound of our feet on the forest floor and the ambiance that came from around us. My head eventually gravitated to his chest and I heard his heart rate pick up.

“I wish you could’ve been there tonight,” I spoke

“You deserve to be danced with y/n,”

I pulled him closer as if it was even possible. I waited a few moments to decide if I really wanted to say what I was about ot say.

“Sometimes I wonder if my place is really with the Resistance,”

“Well you always have a home with The First Order,” He chuckled thinking I was going to stay loyal to my roots.

“Do you mean it?” I asked looking up at him. He was a bit taken back at first but then he replied.

“Yes of course I do, you’ll always have a spot open by my side,”

“And what about in life? Do I get to stand by your side for that too,”

“Y/n what are you try-”

“I love you Ren. I always have ever since that day you handed me back my light saber. I wanna stand by your side in the first order. I want to rule the galaxy with you.”

As I said these things he was in shock, but moments after he took in all I had said he put his hands on my waist and hoisted me up and spun me around.

“I love you y/n,” he said setting me down and bendin his knees so we were eye to eye. “I didn’t want to say anything because I was too scared to lose you.”

I giggled at his child like manner. He put his hands on either side of my face and placed his god like lips on mine. This was a kiss long awaited. To be honest a kiss that turned into a makeout session. We pulled apart and her wrapped his strong arms around me placing kisses on top of my head.

“I love you so much, I can’t beleive you’re actually mine,” he said making me smile into his chest. “Let’s go home,”

“Home... I could get used to the sound of that.”

“I’m sure you will Empress Ren,”

#kylo x you #kylo ren fanfic #kylo x reader #kylo ren #kylo ren fluff #star wars #the last jedi #the force awakens #ben solo #ben solo x you

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lions-in-hats · 6 years

Note

15 "are you seriously giving me the silent treatment" fluff prompt with Keith and allura please.

Ok so this is like… Ages late, but here ya go!

An Evening of Ruined Stars

Ao3

Word Count: 1,898

Rating: T

Summary: Conversations shine brightest on the open road and in the centre of a deserted ruin.

Her fingers dig into his side, her arms snaked around his waist and the helmet on her head sliding slightly.

But.

She’s unnervingly silent, he doesn’t know what she’s thinking about but this is the first time she’s actually come to him since… Since he left and they got back to Earth, he can feel her internal warmth as she seems to dig her face into his shoulder as the wind whips past his own and he cannot hear a thing but can feel her heartbeat.

So, he does the only thing he can.

He drives across the desert roads, something he’s done a million times, the stars shining up into the night sky and he wonders if she feels it too.

That pull.

That calling sound that echoes from the stars and sings in his ears.

“I hear it.” It’s a whisper next to his ear, “I hear it stronger with every day I’m here.”

He wanted to return to the stars.

“I want to return to the stars.” Allura murmurs, leaning her head back and looking straight up at the sky.

Keith starts to slow his hoverbike, she leans forwards again and her helmet implants itself in the center of his back.

The wind is no longer in his ears.

“Me too.”

He pulls to a full stop, Allura moves and gets off of the bike, hopping down onto the dusty plane in front of them. Her hands reach up and gently pull the helmet from her head, her hair is flying out of her bun in weird directions and he can’t help it.

His fingers close around the hairpin sticking up and he pulls it out, watching her hair tumble down her back like an unfurling ploom of smoke.

Her whole body freezes, she doesn’t move “Why… Why did you…” She’s grasping for words and not looking at him, “Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know…” He admits so quietly that she now does turn to him, “You look nice with your hair down.”

And Allura starts completely, turning towards him with her face red “Stop that.”

“Stop what?” She frowns as she fiddles with the end of her hair, “Talking like you missed me.”

He climbs fully off of his bike and stands in front of her, looking her in the eyes, he’s taller now but with the quiet night shining above him he is reminded of holding her hands in his, how her eyes echoed the stars around them and he’s…

“I missed you Allura.” Her breath hitches slightly, before he can second guess himself he’s reaching up and brushing hair away from her face, “I missed you more than I missed anyone else.”

Her eyes are storming he realises, not sadness… Something deeper, something that can’t decide if it’s rage or relief.

“I left.” Keith says, she hasn’t pushed him away, so he continues to twirl his finger in her hair, being careful not to brush her skin, “I shouldn’t have.”

She says nothing, but her lips twist as if she wants to.

“But… I’m not good at this you know that right?” He moves his full hand through her hair now, “I can’t string emotions together in words like Lance and Hunk, I can’t leave something implied as well as Shiro or Pidge… I just…”

Quiznak, he wished she’d say something.

“We need to talk.” He states it as softly as he can, he moves to remove his hand from her hair but her helmet hangs in her left hand as she reaches up to stop him, there’s wide alarm in her eyes as if she hadn’t meant to do that, “We have… So much to talk about.”

Allura looks at him, she’s just looking at him. Her lips pressed into a line, a line that scares him beyond belief.

“We do.” She agrees finally.

His sigh is of relief and before he can stop himself he’s falling forwards and landing on her shoulder, “It’s probably an argument we’re going to end up having.” “Multiple times.” There’s a note of humour in Allura’s voice he realises, the wind blows somewhere quietly, “…..Can I try driving?”

He laughs, pulling back “Sure, if you really want to.”

Her eyes sparkle, “Really? We used to have bikes like this on Altea, but I wasn’t allowed near them since they were ‘Not appropriate for proper ladies of standing’.” Her tone goes somehow even posher, “….My nanny wasn’t very giving when I was a child.”

“You had a nanny?”

Her blush returns, “…..Only in my younger years when my parents were busy with affairs of court.” She twiddles her thumbs, “When I became a young adult my Father moved her to take care of some other noble’s newborn and I joined him and my Mother in watching the affairs of our kingdom.” Keith blinks, “That must have been a good experience.” “It was so boring I would have preferred an etiquette lesson in cutlery over that.” He laughs, she smiles finally.

“Give me the keys.” Is what she says once his laughter dies down.

He complies.

She’s a natural.

“Put a bit more pressure into the accelerator.” He softly inputs, she follows his direction with ease and shifts back against him as he does, he pulls his arms tighter around her waist and for some reason her shoulders become less tense, “There we go…”

Her hair has been pulled back into a ponytail, she’s tucked it down the collar of the simple t-shirt and jeans she’s borrowed from Nadia.

But what he’s enjoying seeing in the mirrors is the smile on her face as she drives, they still need to talk. He knows that, but he tucks his head in her collarbone as the wind whips around them as she speeds up, helmet in the storage compartment after some mild bickering about safety measures.

(“We’re DEFENDERS OF THE UNIVERSE Keith, we don’t need helmets where we’re going.” “Uh-huh? And where is that?”“…………….I don’t know.”)

Her eyes were wide and sparkling the further she drove, they passed through one of the suburbs that hadn’t been reached by the rebuilding effort yet and she slowed.

“Can we walk for awhile?” She asks so quietly, slipping off the hoverbike before he can answer and just starting to walk through the desolate rubble with foliage starting to climb over the broken pieces of what were once near identical houses.

Her hair glows in the moonlight and he can’t help but follow her, the leather jacket on his shoulders is heavy as the wind blows through the area, waking up dust and rustling weeds on the ground around them in random spots.

Allura runs a hand over some of the grey brick where moss has grown in the darker patches, furniture is strewn around the place, it looks like something out of book about what happens after humanity dies out, he looks around and realises….

“We stopped the end of another planet but not without casualties.” She speaks up, turning towards him with her arms pressed behind her back, “I’m glad we saved Earth, I am but…” “We don’t belong here?”

Her eyes go wide, “We?” There’s a note of disbelief in her tone, “You haven’t said that since we ran away because we thought Zarkon was chasing us.” There’s a little fondness in her voice with the disbelief.

“Best roadtrip ever.”

She laughs, a small twinkling sound that moves with her as she continues to walk through the ruins, “We got stranded in space!”

“I got to see the stars up close.”

“You are impossible.”

He laughs this time and catches up with her, “Have you seen anything of Earth that you actually like?” His question hangs between them as she hums, jumping up in the simple boots she wears onto a stone in the middle of an empty gap.

“The Ocean was nice to see.” She admits, looking around her “….Even if I was sinking into it when I saw most of it, what about you? Anything on Earth you like to look at?”

Keith stands next to her, looking up at her on the rock though she was only an inch taller than him standing on it these days, “The Desert and the Cities.”

“Can I ask why?”

She uses his shoulder as a hand rest as she climbs down, ending up in front of him instead, making it easy for him to look at her properly, her eyes wide at him, curiosity brimming just below the surface and there they were.

The constellations.

“You’re wonderful.”

Allura blushes.

He blushes, “I said that out loud didn’t I?”

“Yes, yes you did.”

She reaches up tentatively, slowly as if she’s expecting him to disappear, her fingertips skim his cheek and back away again as she takes a step back, her eyes are downcast.

“Let’s continue exploring.”

“I think you left because you were trying to find yourself.” She begins, a little in front of him on the trail they’d located, “That and you were worried about rejection as the Leader since Shiro was back.”

He shrugs, “Mostly the latter, but it wasn’t Shiro’s rejection I was afraid of.”

“Then who’s…” Allura stops, she turns to him him her lips in a small ‘O’ expression, “Keith, the team would never reject you, you know that.”

Keith walks towards her, “Allura, it wasn’t the team’s either.”

She blinks, “….Mine?”

“Yours.” He whispers it.

She looks away and continues walking.

“I was hurt because you said Voltron couldn’t go on without me… And then Voltron did.”

Allura laughs, it’s broken slightly and less calm than before following his confession a few minutes ago, “No we did not, Voltron was a mess! We didn’t know who to follow and Shiro was acting strange, then we threw Lotor into the mix! Keith if you’d been there then I probably wouldn’t have ever…” She trails off.

“That wasn’t your fault, I’m sorry I suggested it was back when we were stranded in space.”

“…..I’m sorry it seemed like we replaced you… No, like I replaced you.” Her voice is softer, smoother, “You aren’t replaceable Keith, I was lost without you.”

He can’t breathe when she looks at him this time.

“I would very much like to be found I think.”

Time is passing and he’s not talking and she’s…

“Are you seriously giving me the ‘Silent Treatment’ right now Kogane?”

Keith admittedly does a double take, “How do you know what that is?” She shrugs, “Pidge has been doing it to Lance, she thinks we’re dating and no one’s attempting to tell her otherwise…. It’s ridiculous.”

“Why don’t you tell her?” “Because she won’t listen to me.” Allura huffs, “Pidge doesn’t listen to anyone.”

He takes a step towards her, “So, you and Lance aren’t together?” “I’ve been flirting and pouring my heart out to you for the last hour Keith, no we aren’t together…” She crosses her arms, “Honestly, you and Pidge should just be together you’re both so stubborn.”

They stand there and look at each other, before Allura smiles. She’s smiling like she’s having fun, it was a rare sight at this point.

Keith finds that he’s smiling too.

“So… You’ve been flirting with me for the last hour?”

“Thank you for noticing!” She huffs, before laughing.

Allura grabs his hand.

He never wants her to let go ever again.

#Kallura #Juniblade #My Writing #Keith Kogane #Princess Allura #TAKE THIS THING #WHICH I'M DECENTLY HAPPY WITH

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ontheedgeofrecovery · 6 years

Text

What was different?

Hang tight, this is going to be a long one. I hope it is worth your time to read. Also, I put a hell of a lot of time into writing this, so I really hope it is helpful for someone (anyone!) out there.

So, I was messaging with a friend the other night (and by the other night I mean a few weeks ago because this took me forever to write) who I met a long time ago in treatment (you know who you are and I miss you and love you!). As we were talking about how hard it is to be in treatment, I started thinking about my own last experience in treatment. What made it stick? Why was it that time that I was able to stop the cycle of going in and out of the hospital? I have struggled with anorexia and restrictive eating since about the age of 7. It didn't turn into a full-blown eating disorder until I was 13, but the seeds were there around 7ish when I started to become very rigid about what and when I would eat. Anyway, it's been a long struggle. And then from 13 to 31 I cycled in and out of treatment. I literally have lost count of how many times I have been admitted - I don't say this to brag (I have noticed this is a thing in treatment), but rather to emphasize that clearly something was not clicking for a long time. In the summer of 2014 my treatment recommended palliative care and to stop trying to get better in the hospital. Basically, let nature take its course.

I pretty much accepted that the only thing left to do was die, but then decided to give it one last go and embarked upon one of my longest stays in treatment ever (October 20, 2014 to August 22, 2015). Although to be fair, I "left" many times. Usually for a day or two and then I would come back and resume my stay. I am so lucky I found a place and a treatment team that was willing to put up with my flight impulses and always accepted me back. I went from inpatient to PHP to residential to PHP to inpatient to PHP, and then finally IOP. I really hung in there and allowed myself to get to about 90% of my ideal before I discharged. Which I don't think I had done since being 15 and being at Remuda. While I clearly think this is one of the bigger players in how I got myself stable, there are others.

What was different? How did I allow myself to stay that long in treatment and sit through the discomfort of gaining almost double my body weight?

Well, there is no one simple answer, but I have been mulling it over in my head the past few days and I thought I would jot down my thoughts 1) because I feel stuck where I am at in recovery and maybe this will be motivation and 2) I don't have many readers, but for those of you who are out there maybe this will be helpful? So here they are in somewhat of a particular order (though these have changed over time in how they contribute and maintain my "recovery" (I hate using that word, because I still struggle a lot with food, but I am so much better than where I was and maybe this is what recovery looks like for me?).

Anyway.

1) Cannabis - This is kind of what kick-started the whole journey. I was 31 and had NEVER been high. Not edibles (well, obviously), not smoking. Nothing. I was absolutely terrified of getting high. I had heard so many stories of people getting paranoid and having panic attacks. I am already so anxious that the thought of something making me more anxious was an absolute no go. In addition to that, I am a rule follower and smoking weed was definitely against the rules.

My brother came to visit in March of 2014. I was not in a great space. This gets confusing because my brother and my ex are both named Nick, but we called my brother Nicky growing up so that is what I will call him here in order to differentiate. Nick had been trying to convince me to try smoking for years, pretty much since we started dating in 2008. I was steadfast in saying it was a no-go. However, Nicky made a compelling argument that I had tried everything else and was dying anyway so why not try it as a last-ditch effort to save myself. Or at the very least make the time I had left enjoyable.

I did and it opened my world in so many ways. It made me feel more connected to a greater whole. It made me realize that I am not alone in this world and I felt less isolated. Coming to terms with this made me realize how insignificant I really am in the overall scheme of things. This really helped me put into perspective the amount of time and energy I was putting into something that was not contributing at all to the betterment of society, my relationships, and I was not okay with this.

It also reduced my rigidity. Things just seemed clearer when I smoked. It was kind of like a veil lifted. I had more room for flexibility. Smoking also fills me with a feeling of hope (similar to my feelings of connectedness). Things just don't seem so dire and pointless when I am high. It seems like things could be different, that I can choose a different reality.

And finally (I don't know why this is, but I would LOVE to do research on this someday), I saw myself somewhat accurately when I smoked. For some reason when I am high I am able to see myself more realistically. My distortion doesn't completely go away, but how I see myself is definitely closer to what is real. I would look down and see my body and be like, "oh shit, this is really bad”. This even happened to me tonight when I smoked. All day long I was feeling really uncomfortable in my body and seeing myself way bigger than I actually am. I hate to say "fat," because I don't see myself as fat, I just see myself as a little above average - which everyone tells me is not true. Tonight though, I looked down and was like, yeah, I am at a normal weight, but I am on the low side of normal and I could see it for a little while after I smoked.

I don't know if that makes sense, but basically starting to use cannabis made me see things from an entirely different perspective. Throughout the summer of 2014 I gradually began to believe that things could be different. That maybe the amazing clarity I had when I smoked was how things were supposed to be. Maybe if I could get to a better place I would feel the happiness and hope I felt when I was high. Maybe if I gained weight things would get better. And for the first time in a long time, I believed it.

2) My (now ex) husband drew a hard line in the sand - This was a huge influence as well. I started my treatment journey at Princeton (which I chose because I had never been there before - I also knew they had private rooms and that was a huge draw. Also, to be totally honest, I had been essentially banned from a number of other treatment centers for being a repeat customer and always leaving before I was ready). However, I signed myself out after a month.I had a million reasons - I was the oldest one there, they were making me gain weight too fast, I knew everything they were teaching me, it was depressing, I was sick of being on bedrest, it wasn’t fair, the staff sucked... on and on.

Nick was PISSED. He had finally reached a point where he couldn't do it anymore. He told me I was not allowed to come home. He said if I came home he would either move out or that he would file for divorce.

I was devastated. Nick had never done this before, he was never thrilled when I left treatment, but he also was a little happy to have me home and doing marginally better. I didn't know what to do or where to go, so I knew there was no escape, I had to go back to treatment. I chose a place near my family so I would a) have the support and b) if I stepped down I would have a place to stay. Nick made it clear I was not allowed home until I had put on a significant amount of weight and my treatment was onboard with a discharge from care.

I knew if I was going to save my marriage and get home, I had to at least stay long enough to be appropriately discharged. There was no escaping it. Also, this didn't happen until a little while after, but when Nick did ask for a divorce, it hit me that I had become my dad. My father has a lot of mental health issues and my mom stuck by him through the years. But at some point, he stopped being an active participant in his own care and health. My mom couldn't do it anymore and she left him. The quote, “watching someone drown in a puddle and all they need to do is stand up” comes to mind. She just couldn’t watch him refuse to stand up anymore.

It completely devastated him. I have always been afraid of becoming chronically mentally ill like my father and losing everyone in my life. By continuing to go in and out of treatment and cycle in and out of doing well enough to maintain relationships I was going to follow in the exact footsteps as my father. I see how miserable his life is and I continue to use that image to push to not listen to everything the eating disorder tells me.

3) I wanted my dogs back/needed to get out of where I was living - In May of 2015 (when I was in PHP and living at my mom's boyfriend's - his name is Don - house) Nick asked for a divorce. I was doing pretty well in treatment, still struggling and being non-compliant at times, but continuing to attend every day and slowly weight restore. I still don't know entirely when the scales (no pun intended) tipped, but they did. I don't know if Nick realized how much more peaceful his life was without the eating disorder or if he just didn't believe things would change. Regardless, he said he was going to file for divorce.

I went from "staying at Don's house" to living at Don's house in one phone call. To say I was devastated is an understatement. In fact, I am still devastated. I saw my parent's marriage end because my dad couldn't get sober and now I had done the same thing in my own marriage. I lost the person I was closest with because of the eating disorder. I guess, in a way, this was part of what kept me at treatment as well - the hope that I would get well and Nick would take me back. I still hope this will happen, but I know it won't. Anyhow, I digress.

Living at Don's house sucked. I was living with my mom again at age 32. I felt like such a failure. It wasn't even my mom's house I was staying at, it was her boyfriend's. It was not comfortable living there, it was awkward. It was awkward sharing a space with Don and his son who has a lot of anger issues. My bedroom was uncomfortable. I slept on a twin bed for the first time since I was a teenager and it was lopsided. It was out in rural NH and I hated that all my friends and anything to do was a quite a drive away. Everyone in the house smoked cigarettes and I hate the smell. But what I hated most was I was not allowed to have my dogs.

My dogs are the most important thing in the world to me. I love those little beasts so fucking much it hurts at times. And I hadn't seen them in 7 months. I absolutely needed to get myself out of that house and get my dogs back. However, I could not do this without a job. And I could not get a job while I was still struggling so much with eating and reliant upon the structured schedule PHP was providing for me. I made it my mission to get to a point where I could hold a job and get my own apartment. If I was going to stay well long term and not have to be re-hospitalized, I knew I had to give myself more cushion room in terms of weight gain than I ever have before.

4) Yoga - Yoga has become really trendy lately and with good reason. There are so many benefits to yoga that go far beyond the physical. For me, the primary thing I learned in yoga is that if you stay persistent, the uncomfortable gets more comfortable. And things that seem impossible become possible.

I have a very special relationship with avoidance and perfectionistic behaviors. I tend to avoid things I am not good at or not even try at all. I hate being uncomfortable. Like, no one likes being uncomfortable, but I have a particularly difficult time with it. Not being good at something and building the skills you need to get better is often very uncomfortable. I pretty much have always shied away from things that challenge me to the point of being uncomfortable. This is for a couple of reasons 1) I hate not being good at things 2) It doesn't seem worth my time if I suck 3) Getting better at things requires being uncomfortable at some point and I don't like it.

I often do not stick with things that I am not good at or require discomfort on my part. I will try to pick up a hobby and not be good at it and quit. Or I will try to get myself in better shape by trying to lift weights or run and it makes me feel discomfort, so I quit. Although I go to the gym every day, I will not do anything beyond walking because pushing myself physically is uncomfortable (though I will walk 7 miles in a go, I hate breaking a sweat). I don't like to eat because I have a nauseous stomach and that is uncomfortable. I don't like to try new things because the unknown is scary, so I avoid it. Basically, what I am saying is I never stick with anything long enough to see the discomfort dissipate and the rewards of tolerating the discomfort come through. i.e. weight restoration, facing fear foods, sitting with the feeling of food in my stomach, making choices about what to eat, physical activity, anything I am not immediately good at.

Yoga at first seemed like a thing to get into because I wasn't allowed to really exercise and at least it was some physical movement. I was so desperate to be able to move more that I didn't care that I wasn't very good at it. Also, I went to a gentle yoga studio and everyone there was so accepting and welcoming to people who were just getting into yoga. I kept going to yoga and I actually started to get better at it. I didn't feel any pressure to be getting better, but I began to see it happen anyway.

I started taking harder classes. I started to learn to breathe through the uncomfortable poses. That they would end and that next time I did them they would be easier. A friend of mine sent me a yoga sequence and it was hard. Like, an hour long with a million chaturangas (when you lower yourself like a pushup, into up dog and go back into downward dog). The first couple times I did it I couldn't do all the chaturangas, so I skipped a lot of them. But as I did it everyday, I was able to do more and more. Eventually, I could do the whole sequence and even the jump back from crow into chaturanga!

Committing to doing yoga every day was the first time I really stuck with something through the uncomfortable learning period and allowed myself to see the benefits of my practice. It started t make sense to me that other areas of my life could be similar to yoga - that if I didn't focus so much on the discomfort in the moment and rather on the fact that it would pass and I would be better for tolerating it that I would gain skills. I finally got that part of growing and evolving involves a certain amount of discomfort and acceptance that you won't see results right away. Yoga has taught me so much. To accept my limitations and also to push them, to breathe through discomfort, to not be so hard on myself, and that I am capable of growth and change.

Here is a great little blurb on Reddit about discomfort and yoga: https://www.reddit.com/r/yoga/comments/5hc0b2/yoga_has_taught_me_to_welcome_discomfort_into_my/ 5) I agreed to medications - I have always had a not so great relationship with medications. I have a ton of side effects and I just really don't like taking them. Over the years I have gone on and off medications so many times. I will take them for a while, go off them, fall apart, go back on them, not really get better, have side effects, go off them - you get the idea. Even when I found something that helped I would frequently go off it after a time because I really didn't want to be on meds.

I finally got desperate enough that I thought, hey, it improves my quality of life, fuck it. Even if the medications shorten my lifespan (worst-case scenario) then at least I had some years with decreased mental health issues. I started to really talk to a psychiatrist about finding something that worked. It was trial and error and took a little bit of time to find the right meds that a) helped and b) didn't cause horrible side effects. The two medications I am on certainly do not get rid of the obsessive thoughts or the anxiety, but they certainly make it way more manageable.

I don't feel as much like a prisoner of my brain or that my brain is a prison - either or. And I have remained compliant instead of being like, "oh things are better, I don't need these!" Because I do need them. I have a brain-based illness and I wouldn't turn down medications if I had any other disease of the body, so really this is no different.

6) I went slowly but surely - I stayed in treatment for a loooonnngggg time and took weight restoration pretty slowly. It sucked and I so wanted to get back to life, but every time I have done weight restoration the quick and dirty way in the past, it didn't stick. I would either leave treatment early because it was happening too fast and I was too uncomfortable. Or I would leave treatment and be unable to adjust to my new body and rapidly relapse. I knew I had to do things differently. I was very lucky I had good insurance and a treatment that was willing to work with me. Also, not lucky, but I have comorbid mental health issues (anxiety and OCD) that helped keep insurance covering me.

7) I gave up trying to eat intuitively - This is a big one too. I always thought that recovery looked like eating normally. For me, it doesn't look like what most people would classify as normal. It is very regimented and I eat a lot of very safe foods. And I used to think that meant I wasn't in recovery and why keep trying. I might as well go back to listening to what my brain tells me and not eat. I mean, if I couldn't eat normally, why even bother?

I decided to try something different than what is encouraged in treatment. I began to eat the same thing every day. The same exact thing at the same exact times. No matter how I felt. This helped me for many reasons 1) I got used to the foods I was eating and desensitized myself a little 2) It took the overwhelming choice of what to eat out of the equation. Deciding what to eat is really stressful for me and so I often avoid it. Eating the same thing every day meant I didn't have to make decisions 3) I could stop counting calories. If I eat the same exact thing every day there is no reason to count calories. I did at first but eventually seeing the same number every day seemed like a waste of time and unnecessary. 4) I am super routine, so once I get in the groove of something, I stick with it. Now even when I feel nauseous or I had a rough day and don't feel like eating or I am having an uncomfortable body image day I still eat at my scheduled times, because, well, routine. It is more uncomfortable for me to break my routine at this point than it is just to eat what I have eaten every day for 3 years.

I am not saying this is a great long term solution, but for people with chronic and severe anorexia, it is better than anything else I have found in managing a healthy weight. Like I said, maybe this is what recovery looks like for me right now. I hope it gets better in the future, but I am just happy to be participating in life.

8) I eliminated almost everyone I was in treatment with from my social media - Well, not everyone, but other people who were cycling in and out of treatment like I was. It just wasn’t healthy for me to see their posts. People would post how they were going back into treatment or pictures of them that were incredibly triggering. So, I didn’t want to see that anymore. It made me feel like there was no hope when I would see someone doing well no longer doing well. Or to see the constant treatment posts. Some people glorified being sick or seemed to take pride in how sick they would get or how much weight they had lost. It was just a world I needed to step back from. For me, I experienced a lot of competitive and self-destructive feelings when I would see people thinner/sicker than me. I would feel either a) I wasn’t really sick enough to need help and b) jealous they were thinner than me (I hate this part of the eating disorder and I am kind of ashamed to admit this here).

I also needed to build a community that wasn’t treatment based so I wouldn’t miss it. I grew strong relationships in treatment that I had a hard time finding in the real world. Treatment and the community within it didn’t consciously keep me ill, but when I wasn’t there and I would see group pictures. It made me feel as though I needed to go back to the safety and community of treatment. Again, I just needed to focus on something other than anorexia to escape the cyclical pattern I was in.

I certainly kept in touch with some people who continue to struggle, but these are the people I regularly talk to and have authentic, real friendships with - not people I just followed because we spent time in treatment together. It was sad to unfriend these people, but I just needed to build a life outside of treatment and to focus on my friendships that had nothing to do with eating disorders. It helped me regain an identity outside of anorexia. I needed to be exposed to normalcy around eating after being surrounded by people who struggled with food/weight/body image. I needed to start to have conversations outside of my obsession and dysfunctional relationship with food.

Anyway, that was long, but I hope there were some nuggets in there that helps someone. Thanks for sticking with me through to the end if you read this!

#treatment #anorexia #recovery #cannabis #ocd #anxiety #yoga #divorce #weight restoration #refeeding #distortion #discomfort #cognitive distortions #distress tolerance #eating disorders

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