#this counts as vent art but i refuse to call it that

[love-3-crimes]

‼️cw eyestrain, dissociation‼️

...what do you do when the Mind can't remember who it was, or when the Heart goes numb?

...?

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

So, controversial topic. taking in count that in a month, the webcomic "scarlet lady" is gonna end ¿what are your feelings about it?

I know that there's people out there that don't like it for the chloe salt, but i have to admit that the damnation that chloe went through, at least for me, gave her more agency than canon, for the fact that it wasn't manipulated by outside forces like canon did, it gave her the right to choose to be better or worse.

Another great element is that it does what canon refused to do: five back Adrian his agency by letting him vent his frustrations AND let him realize that his father is a bastard.

If you don't agree, that's more than excellent, i want to know your take in this topic, that being positive or negative 😄👍

My friend, you are talking to a big Scarlet Lady fan, so I'm happy to give my thoughts! Get ready for some gushing and in-depth discussion of the adaptation process. That's really what all fanfiction is, but Scarlet Lady is more of an adaptation than most since it's a true canon rewrite that often requires you to know canon to fully appreciate its jokes and meta commentary.

Before we get into it, I want to give a link to the comic for those who haven't read it. The artist/writer is @zoe-oneesama and this is page one of the comic. I'd follow the comic link if you haven't read it as the comic is nearing its end, so going straight to Zoe's page will spoil you on elements of ending.

General Thoughts on Adaptation

Adaptation is an art, not a science. There are things that are objective elements of a story. Things you really cannot change if you want people to feel like you're telling an adaptation of a given tale. But there are also plenty of elements that are more subjective. Things some people might consider vital, but that aren't truly necessary to stay true to the story's core. (Yes, the character core thing applies to stories too!)

For example, to be a Cinderella adaptation, you need to have some sort of big reveal moment where "the prince" finds Cinderella, but that moment doesn't need to involve a slipper and the prince doesn't need to be an actual prince. My favorite modern Cinderella adaptation is A Cinderella Story: Once Upon a Song and it twists both of those elements while keeping the major story beats in place, making it fully deserving of the Cinderella label while also being its own unique story that isn't a straight retelling, it's an adaptation.

I bring all this up because, as readers of this blog may have already guessed, Scarlet Lady does a lot of things that I personally would not do when adapting Miraculous. A big one being that I prefer a more complex take on Gabriel, but that's simply a matter of preference. A complex Gabriel is not a requirement for adapting Miraculous. Complex Gabriel vs comedic villain Gabriel is just a choice you have to make when it comes to adapting canon because canon is such a mess that both options have straight up backing in the source text. Even if they didn't, Gabriel's core role - villain - is one that leaves you a lot of room for interpretation based on other factors that we'll talk about in a second.

I'll close off this section with this: having read all of Scarlet Lady, I'll be so bold as to say that Zoe and I almost perfectly align when it comes to identifying the flaws in Miraculous because I've agreed with pretty much every change she's made. She did a fantastic job staying true to the core of canon while also telling the story she wanted to tell. It's not the way I'd redo canon, but it doesn't need to be for me to call it a fantastic story. Plus a lot of the different choices I'd make come down to narrative style and tone.

Narrative Style and Tone

I'm a novelist at heart, which means that I favor serialized storytelling. For those who don't know that word, it means stories that are one coherent whole just broken into chunks. Stories where the order matters. You can't start watching at a random episode, you have to start at the beginning. And skipping an episode usually means that you'll have no idea what's going on.

Miraculous is not a serialized show. It's primarily an episodic show, a word that means that episode order doesn't matter. Every installment stands alone.

Obviously Miraculous isn't completely episodic, but that's fine. Purely episodic narratives are rare these days. Most stories have at least minor serialized elements even if those elements are often ignored for multiple episodes at a time. This is where both Miraculous and Scarlet Lady fall. They're mostly episodic stories with serialized elements popping up every now and then.

Miraculous does this element poorly because it acts like it's a purely episodic show and then takes that to an absurd extreme. Rules, characters, and lore can never be counted on to stay the same from episode to episode even though that's not actually how episodic stories work. Scarlet Lady doesn't make this mistake. It understands that episodic narratives should have STORIES that stand alone, but that the WORLD the stories take place in must stay consistent.

Now that we've gone over the basic format stuff, let's talk about tone.

Generally speaking, tone is the vibe of your story. It can be serious, silly, dramatic, and so on. One of Miraculous' biggest flaws is that its tone is all over the place. It's a silly romcom that brings in serious topics in serious ways and then handles them with all the grace of a hippo performing ballet in a china shop because of course it does! Those topics are horribly suited to the show's overall tone so it has no way to properly address them.

This is one of the many things I love about Scarlet Lady. It takes the show's absurdist tone and honors it. That's why Zoe's version of Gabriel works so well! He's a silly cartoony villain in a silly cartoony comic as he should be. It's also why my versions of Gabriel tend to be more complex. More serious serialized narratives are where more serious complex villains thrive. Neither option is better than the other, it all comes down to how you're adapting the original work. Zoe's choices are perfect for her version's style and tone. If mine are even close to that good for my preferred style and tone, then I'll be a happy author.

Narrative Weight & The Chloe Thing

This is getting long, so I'll end with a note on Chloe since you brought her up as it's another great example of the fact that there are very few choices that are inherently right or wrong when it comes to adaptation.

I don't know if I'd say that I'm a Chloe fan, but I certainly don't hate her. I also love what Zoe did with the character! It's a prime example of a thing that I've talked about before: the issue with Chloe is not a lack of redemption. The issue is that Chloe was given too much narrative weight to be what canon made her.

Quick definition: narrative weight is the importance a narrative places on a person, event, thing, etc. The more time you dedicate to an element of your narrative, the more weight that element has in the eyes of your audience. The more they expect the element to matter. The way that you develop the element will also shape audience expectations.

In the context of canon, Chloe has more development than almost any other side character. We know more about her family, her childhood, her personality, and so on. This was an absurd choice for canon to make because Chloe is not actually important to the story they told. You could pull her out of canon and almost nothing would change. Gabriel can make akumas do whatever he wants so, lore wise, he didn't need Miracle Queen. In fact, he arguably shouldn't have made Miracle Queen. He could have just taken the miracle box and jumped right into the plot of season five. Similarly, Chloe being mayor was an absurd one-note moment that's easily replaced with something more logical.

Because of this, there are a lot of things you can do when adapting Chloe. Everything from turning her back into a one-dimensional mean girl to redeeming her to what Zoe did: take Chloe's narrative weight and petty brat behavior and lean into both to make Chloe a main antagonist while also acknowledging the fact that Chloe is a messed up teenage girl who needs some serious help. I'm super excited to see the end of Chloe's arc in Scarlet Lady as I think it's going to be one of my favorites in the fandom. That is admittedly not a high bar as I'm very picky when it comes to Chloe content. I think most of it falls flat because most of it fails to let Chloe hit some sort of rock bottom when she absolutely needs to if you want to do anything interesting with her. She's not the kind of person who will easily change or see the error of her ways.

Conclusion

Scarlet Lady is a fantastic adaption of Miraculous and Zoe is a fantastic and funny adapter. The comic might not be to your tastes - and that's fine, nothing has universal appeal - but it's still a great example of how to honor source material while doing your own thing with it, which is a true skill. One of the problems with many modern retellings and reboots is that the people running the show don't understand how to adapt a narrative. They take far too much creative freedom and end up with something that doesn't feel anything like the source.

If I found out that Zoe somehow got hired to adapt something I love, then I wouldn't have any concerns. I'd have no idea what she'd do with it, but I'd be confident that it wouldn't spit in the face of the thing I love. I'd personally read a hundred Miraculous re-imaginings with her at the helm.

[bomberqueen17]

the home stretch

Went over to the house yesterday morning and Jim was there sawing a hole in the exterior wall.

Not alarming at all once I remembered part of this remodel that i'm really excited about is that we're getting an actual exhaust hood for over the stove. Not one of those ones that goes through a microwave either, a real exhaust hood that goes to the outdoors. (The real ones are mounted 30" above the stove top. Microwave ones have to be lower so you can reach the microwave. i can't stand cooking in such a constrained space like that. No thank you. Keep my microwave separate!)

He had sawed out a big chunk of drywall on the interior too, and replaced it with plywood, which is much sturdier to screw mounting hardware into. At my request, he'd extended the plywood down a couple more inches (it'll be covered by the tile backsplash so it won't even show!) so I can screw a couple of heavy-duty mounting hooks in there and have a place I can hang both my cast-iron skillets when they're not in use. I don't like leaving them on the stove (my mother's approach) or stacking them on a shelf (dude's approach) because one is untidy and the other requires me to lift every piece of cast iron i own at once to access any of them. (I also have a square griddle and a Dutch oven and also a tiny skillet which Dude uses all the time when I'm not around and neither of us uses at all when I am around, because it is very much a Cooking For One mini skillet LOL.)

He paused to show me the deer hunting hut he'd meticulously constructed for himself while he was on Christmas break and then artistically had painted camoflage. ("My friends were like omg how long did that take you? I dunno, I wasn't counting, I had a blast. Had a beer in one hand, spray paint can in the other, I just let it take as long as it took. It's like arts and crafts! Who's keeping track of the time?") It did look great. As he was swiping his finger accidentally slid onto the later bits of the camera roll and it showed me the deer he'd gotten on the last day of hunting season. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you look at that," he said, and then looked at me and laughed, remembering I had told him I work in a slaughterhouse. "Right, you don't mind that kind of thing, but still." It was a nice big doe, cleanly felled, nothing to object to there.

I went and called the appliance company, who'd said they'd deliver my dishwasher and vent hood on new year's eve probably. They seemed confused that I'd called, and then were confused when they discovered that indeed both my items were in stock and should have been delivered. I said I figured the holiday had confused things (genuinely, probably the vent hood had come in on NYE like the salesman had thought it might, but I bet somebody had the day off and they weren't on the ball about calling people) so I just wanted to call and find out if anything needed sorting. They told me they'll call me today to tell me the two-hour delivery window. So I'm getting my dishwasher today! Pumped. It's gonna go into the living room to start with but like, y'know, that's fine.

The counters are going in on Thursday. Hopefully, Jim said, the counter people could do it in the morning, because then he could start on the tile that afternoon.

Ah they've just called, my delivery window for the appliances is 11-1. OK cool.

The plumber can't come until Monday. But then once he's been there I'll have my stove and sink and dishwasher. And, Jim says, that means the final, last little button-up details will be done on Tuesday.

"And then," he said, amused, "I can go back to the regular schedule, because the people who refused to have their houses torn up over the holidays will be clamoring to get the work done now. It's good you didn't mind." Which is precisely why we thought we'd gotten bumped up by two months, but it's funny to hear him so directly confirm it.

"I'm the luckiest person in the world," I said, "with my mother-in-law's house vacant walking distance away for this whole time, so it's been genuinely no trouble at all." And I am. She's coming back on Tuesday, so I figure we'll move back into our house over the weekend, and I'll deep-clean her house and (sighhh) put all the beautiful sewing equipment back where I found it. I won't really miss her fancy modern sewing machine (which she just got and is third-hand and I don't think she knows how to use either) but her old workhorse straight-stitch machine is a beautiful, unfussy beast I've really enjoyed spending time with.

OK i gotta get off my ass and go get the grocery shopping done so I can go sit in my house for the delivery window. I saved plenty of things to do, don't worry. I'm starting to put stuff into the cupboards, made Dude come sit with me over the weekend and give his opinion-- he's been busy at work and has had no attention span but I refuse to take his "idk just put stuff wherever" at face value, he spends more time in this house than me and i will NOT have him after the fact annoyed with how I chose to organize things. So he did give opinions, finally. And I need a few more lazy susans and storage baskets and half-shelf-rack kinda thingies here and there but I'm getting there.

[peridyke]

fun child support story. my mom didn't make my dad pay child support for a long time because he would see me on sundays and get stuff for me and that "counted" UNTIL in 6th grade when I fainted and broke my teeth and she wanted him to help pay for the ambulance bill and he refused and was bitching about how it wasn't necessary for her to call one for me and that made her mad enough for her to take him to court about giving child support anyways he was really angry about this obviously and one day I had to wait at his job before I went to an art thing (I was like 12 I think) and he was bitching about my mom making him pay child support and I told him I wasn't comfortable talking about it which pissed him off because he said he was allowed to vent to me (reiterating I was his 12 year old daughter) anyways I had to sit in the music practice room at his job while I tried to contact my mom so she could pick me up and at one point he came in to talk to me about it and I told him that he could quote "vent to a stick" anyways then my mom picked me up and I didn't see him again for a few months. also later after the child support started being paid my mom and dad found out that his employer was funneling the money away and keeping it which I think about everytime I see it in town. people will mention shopping their and ill be like oh yeah funny story they embezzled my dads child support payments. well anyways thats the end

[kiribaku-queen]

His Hidden Desire [1]

Romance, adventure, drama, angst

Bakugou x reader, Todoroki x reader

Word Count: 4.1K

A/N: WELCOME TO YET ANOTHER SERIES! It's been a long time coming but we made it. In the beginning, it's gonna be slow updates because I'm still writing of some WIP that needs to be uploaded ASAP but once those are over with, we will go back to having weekly updates. I also need to get into the groove of writing...

So I'm not particularly proud of this title piece but I paid lots of money for it so I have to use it at least once! Please don't bash the artist in the comments.

Like always I AM SO EXCITED TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS AND PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANTED TO BE ADDED TO THE TAG LIST! Happy reading my loves!

Summary: Being engaged to a Prince that doesn’t want you was such a classic move, but it was your duty to do so. But that didn’t mean you could be your own personality. You wanted something outside of the palace walls, something that would excite your world, something more. The only solution to that was to… travel with pirates?!

[next]

“I refuse.” Todoroki’s words pierced your heart like an open wound. Although you didn’t show it, your jaw hung open in disbelief. You had to bite the inside of your cheek to hide how disappointed you were in his answer.

“Son, I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” his father’s booming voice was loud and clear. You looked down at the floor in utter embarrassment as Todoroki continues to vent his frustration over his father’s decision.

“Whatever happened to my feelings, what I want?” Todoroki argued.

“It’s for the better of the kingdom. Besides, (y/n) is a pretty girl. You’ve known each other since you were babies, so why can’t she be your wife?” your ears grew hot with more embarrassment, and it was safe to say Todoroki was feeling the same. Totally off guard, Todoroki didn’t know how to respond.

“That’s not the point dad,” he muttered under his breath. His hands were crossed against his chest and he tucked his head inwards to try to hid his face and the blush that was evident on his face.

“Then what is the point?” his father challenged, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

“I… don’t love her,” he softly spoke. You were standing right next to him and even you were having a hard time hearing him.

“Speak up boy,” his father commanded. Then, with closed eyes and all his might, he yelled.

“I don’t love her and I will never love her!”

Ah, young love. That was 10 years ago. His words hurt like a bitch to say the least. Does he love you now? No. But at least that gave you a wake up call to get over your childish crush on him. Despite his hurtful words on how he never wants to marry you, you still remain the best of friends. Still did everything together, just no romantic feelings. Even though later down the road, this special event was still going to happen, you decided to address it when the time comes.

His parents kept you around the palace to try to force a relationship between you two. You thought it would work and that he would eventually fall for you, but Todoroki was so adamant in falling in love with his own person that heartache wasn’t worth it. Don’t get it wrong, you two were still close as friends, but now that you weren’t trying to win his heart every second of the day, you were able to enjoy your own hobbies.

You fell in love with the art of dance. How they move to the rhythm and watching the pure joy on their face as the danced captivated you. You started to practice with a dance teacher, them teaching you the very basic of basic steps.

“Posture, Lady (y/n),” the teacher lightly wacked you on the back with a stick, causing you to jolt up with your back straight.

“Sorry,” you apologized for your forgetfulness. Did you mention that dance has very strict rules to follow? A little too strict.

While you were busy learning how to dance, Todoroki was busy digging his nose into books upon books. That was evident when he passed the ballroom, unable to look up from the book he was reading.

“Prince Todoroki! Just in time!” your teacher called over to him. You looked up to see his confused face, rolling your eyes when you see that he still hadn’t put his book down.

“You’d be the perfect partner for the Lady,” the teacher insisted, pulling on his arm to come join you. Still not putting his book down, your dance teacher took his book and threw it who knows where.

“Partner for what?” Todoroki asked, eyes never leaving the flying book, mentally taking note of where it flew so that he could pick it up later.

“Dance. Of course,” the instructor gave a knowing smile to you. If you could face palm yourself, you would. You knew exactly what that smile entails. Thankfully, Todoroki hadn’t quite caught on yet. You’d think Mr. Smarts would catch on, but his head was too filled with those too hard to understand words.

Todoroki didn’t look too fond of having his studies be interrupted to dance silly-willy all over the room.

“I don’t see why this is necessary,” he complained, but nevertheless took your hand in his and assumed the correct position.

“It’s practice for when you do the real thing at your wedding,” your dance teacher said.

“Again with this stupid wedding…” he angrily said under his breath. You couldn’t help but look down at the ground again in shame. It’s not like you asked to marry him either. But it couldn’t hurt him to not be so upset about it. Were you that unappealing that he didn’t even want to consider you as a potential wife?

“Can’t you just help me practice, as a friend,” you emphasized, making it known that marriage was not on your mind. Todoroki gave you one look and finally obliged.

Practice was set in motion. You had been dancing by yourself for quite some time, but you had never danced with a partner before. And this session was a complete mess. The look on the dance teachers face showed all. She was mortified, looking like she was about to give up completely. You and Todoroki didn’t have chemistry at all. Both of you were looking straight at the ground due to both of you stepping on each other’s toes, making none of you look gracious and lovely.

“Ow, that’s my toe!” you shrieked in pain.

“You’re supposed to follow my lead!” Todoroki argued back.

“You’re not even following the right steps!” you pushed him a little to get him back on track, but that caused both of you to mess up even more.

“It’s not my fault you can’t follow instructions,” Todoroki teased.

“Oh yeah? Well at least I’m not a naturally bad dancer,” you teased back. Your friendly banter turned into something a little more flirtatious. More stepping on toes just to bug each other and insults were being thrown every which way to get on your nerves. Little did you know, your dance teacher had already given up for the day and was long gone. But you still were dancing your way around the ballroom.

Dancing wasn’t the only thing you found joy in. You found even more joy escaping the palace walls and blending in with the people around you. But it was only at night when you decided to be a little adventurous.

Being kept within the walls was so restrictive. You felt like you couldn’t find your true self because you were always pretending to be the perfect bride for the prince. Even if you showed any of your true colors, you were disciplined into hiding those away to show the most perfect princess-to-be. It wasn’t until one night when you were roaming the sides of the castle did you find a secret passage way that led you right to the busy streets of the town. Luckily for you, there were no guards posted in that area so you were able to sneak in and out as much as you pleased without getting caught.

You spent many night exploring the cheerful and lively neighborhood. It was so different compared to the dull and uptight upbringing you had in the palace. Everyone was friendly towards you, they welcomed you into their traditions. You were able to discover hot snacks and foods that you thought you’d never try, you bought clothes that were colorful and fun, not neutral or boring. You even bough small antics back from. For memories sake.

“What’s that?” Todoroki asked, stopping in his tracks when he was passing your room and saw you with unusual looking toy that he’s never seen before. You were too mesmerized with the toy in front of you that you didn’t have enough time to hide it away.

“Oh…” you stopped to pause and think of a quick excuse. Only, you were bad at lying.

“Nothing?” you even questioned yourself. You didn’t know how to lie but you didn’t anyway. Way to look suspicious.

“That doesn’t look like something we’d get from the toymaker,” the prince pointed out.

“It’s not,” you say, now hurrying to put it away.

“So, where did you get it?” he came closer to you, getting close to your face as if to intimidate you into telling him your secret information. But you were quick to lock it away safe and away from nosy people like the boy in front of you.

“Looks like that’s my little secret,” you teased, sticking your tongue out at him and strutting away like a boss princess-to-be you are.

Now it’s been a handful of years since you started your living a double life in and outside the palace. The average day consisted of you playing the perfect princess while your night life is where you brought out your true desires and dreams. But your days of sneaking out at night were about to come to an end. You and Prince Todoroki are now adults. Which means… marriage was right around the corner. And the Prince still had no intention of marrying you. At least, from what you could tell.

Aside from studying his days away and physically and mentally dodging the topic of marriage, Todoroki also took up the hobby of mastering sword fighting in order to become a sufficient King. And you could vouch for him, after spying on his practices, that he was becoming a fine swordsman.

Todoroki was taking up fencing, another style of combat fighting to have a more diverse fighting style. Who knows? Maybe it would come in handy someday. The swords were clashing and Todoroki’s head was already filled with frustration. His mind was in the gutter that entire morning that he just can’t seem to fully focus on what he was doing.

“Again!” Todoroki demanded, quickly taking form to strike his opponent back. But his partner was quick on their feet today, never giving the Prince a chance to breath.

“What’s wrong Princey? Can’t keep up with me?” his opponent teased. And usually, Todoroki wouldn’t mind the trash talking. Hell, it only brought more fire to the flame. But this time, it was irking him real bad. But the more annoyed and in his head he was, the more he was messing up. He was about to call it a day until he saw a glimpse of you. Now normally, he would look at you and look away, thinking nothing of it. But in that moment, he didn’t know. Something about how you looked that day was… something different.

You were sitting on a thick tree branch that just so happened to be aligned with their practice window. A pencil and paper were in your hands, a twisted and frustrated expression contorted on your face as you were practicing on how to draw. And your drawing looked horrid. You didn’t know what you were doing wrong, but it certainly wasn’t right and you didn’t know how to fix it. But the look of concentration, how the orange rays of sunlight were perfectly hitting your face and how the loose strands of hair fell down the sides of your face stunned the Prince. And the first thought that came to his mind was wow. Have you always looked like that? Why did you look so pretty? It was such a perfect picture that his breath got taken away.

That moment of distraction made Todoroki lose his practice match. His opponent saw the distracted look on his face and took no time in poking him in the chest, earning him yet another winning point.

“Gotcha,” the opponent taunted the Prince but you know what? Todoroki didn’t care about his match anymore. All previous defeats and annoyances went to the back of his mind, probably never to come up again.

“Good game,” Todoroki dismissed himself.

“That’s it? Come on, one more game!” his partner tried to keep him there but Todoroki was already trotting away towards you.

“(y/n)!” he greeted you at the window. Now looking at you up close, his mind wasn’t playing tricks. You looked so different from how he remembered you as a kid. You looked older, your features had matured. He saw you everyday but how come he never noticed how much of a woman you’ve become. Was he seeing you as a woman now?

“Oh, Shouto,” you were surprised to hear his voice coming from the window.

“What are you doing?” he asks. You showed him your failed drawing of a bird with a defeated look on your face.

“Doodling,” you simply respond.

“In a tree?” he raises an eyebrow.

“Inspiration,” you shrugged.

“Looks like your place of inspiration isn’t translating on the page,” he laughed, taking a closer look at your drawing. Your proportions are all over the place. The head was too big for it’s body, it didn’t have wings yet and there wasn’t a single good line. Abstract art if you will.

“No? But it’s so pretty up here. And you can see the village from here,” you pointed out, looking out into the distance were lights were starting to shine as the sky became darker and darker.

“But it’s safer inside,” Todoroki said, sticking his hand out to help you down. You stared at his hand, tucked your paper and pencil under your arm, and carefully stepped down onto the window ledge while using the other branches to hold your balance. When your balance became stable, you jumped down onto the palace floors and brushed off any debris off you. Todoroki was still there, holding his hand out and in no time, you were already next to him without his help.

“Thanks!” you turned to him, cheerfully and went on your way, disregarding the look of pure amazement and intrigue on his face.

It was in that moment where Prince Todoroki started looking in your direction a little more than usual. He caught himself stealing glances at you during meals, would always look for you to see where you were, caught himself daydreaming about you as you were always in his mind. All because he saw you out that damn window. There’s no way…

He thought it was a one day infatuation. He thought his thoughts of you would disappear as fast as they came, but he didn’t know how to get you out of his head.

It was a rather late night. Todoroki didn’t know what he was doing up so late. By this time, he would have already been fast asleep but a certain someone kept him from dream land. So he roamed the castle until his eyes became heavy enough for him to go back to bed. But an unusual sight became of him. You were still awake. And it didn’t look like you were going to bed anytime soon, judging by what you were wearing.

He saw you creeping down the long hallways with a black cloak on, its hood covering most of your face. Sensing how secretive you were being, he hid behind the wall and only glanced out when he saw you were far enough so you couldn’t sense him. He kept following you down each and every hallway until you got to a dead end. The only think left was… an open window. No way. He rushed to the window and leaned out. Sure enough, you were still making your way to whatever you were doing. But if he didn’t catch up now, he was sure going to lose you. Not taking any chances, he jumped out the window, just as you had done and chased after you, still putting some distance between you two. He saw you glancing from each side of you and you suddenly disappeared through a secret passageway. Were there no guards around? Where were you going? And does he follow you? Curiosity got the best of him and he warily passed through the tunnel only to find himself in the midst of shining lights, loud music, chatter everywhere. He made it outside the palace walls and into the village.

Todoroki’s jaw was dropped and the stunning image in front of him. The sight he sucked in was new and overwhelming. Thank god he was still in his pajamas so he sort of blended in with everybody else. The new environment almost made him forget why he was even here in the first place: he had to go find you. Shit. Because he got distracted, you had completely vanished from his sight.

“Sorry I’m late!” you huffed and puffed, entering the backstage of the performance area where all the other performers were already dressed and ready to go. The leader of the dance was making their way to you in haste.

“Where the hell have you been?” she asked, not happy with how you showed up. “We were about to perform without you!”

“I know, I know! I had problems with my skirt,” you said with an apologetic look. “But I’m here and I’m ready to go!” you said determined.

“Well you better be because we are up next! Let’s go ladies!” your dance leader shouted and all the girls who were performing next were in line. You were the last in line, making sure your skirt, your mask and everything was in place. You didn’t want to get scolded later for not having the proper uniform on. And cue the music, it was show time.

Todoroki stopped to look around this huge crowd that was formed. In front were tables that surrounded the invisible, circle-like stage and everyone else who couldn’t find a seat was standing behind those tables. After a quick glance, Todoroki could tell that those people seated were probably important. Who cares about them though? He was here to find you and there was a good possibility that you were here within the crowd. All he had to do was find you.

Music suddenly started to play from the band next to the circle and from out behind the curtain, several dancers came out to perform. Had he not noticed your unique way of movement, he would have never imagined you dancing in front of a large crowd and especially with these provocative moves. It was hard to pinpoint who you were from all the other girls because of their similar outfits: red, silky skirts with bells handing around the waist with a matching top and a red, silky mask that covered your face except your eyes. You had a way of moving that made you so recognizable to him. And when he watched your further, your unique eyes that made you stand out from everybody else captured his attention and he was left mesmerized.

You were seductive and confident in your movements, swaying your kips and moving like he’s never seen you move before. Sure, you’ve mastered how to dance with a partner and dance on your own, but that was formal dancing. This? Now this was on a whole new level of dance. He could watch you move elegantly across the stage all day if he wanted to.

This. This was the life you wanted. You wanted to be able to move freely to the music playing. You wanted to not worry about anything or have to live up to anyone’s standards. You were able to be yourself here. You weren’t meant to be stuck inside a palace. Here, you were able to escape all your worries, all your fears and just live.

You followed the routing to a T, swaying and moving your body the way it was meant to be moved. You knew you were a crowd favorite. You knew many eyes were on you and that’s why they always put you in the front. This was part of the routine where you separated from the group to do your own thing and pose for the end of the song. You always loved this part because you got creative freedom to do whatever you pleased without a say from anyone.

You spun and spun, letting your red skirt flare out to create a captivating imagine of a flower. By the end of the routine, you had purposely sat on one of the tables, seducing whoever the customer was at the table. But you came face to face with a gorgeous stranger, his crimson eyes drawing you in, actually making you freeze and forget where you were. Your eyes went from trying to seduce and captive the crowd to being seduced and captivated by this stranger instead. It could be the same for this stranger because his eyes seemed to tell all too. He was laid back in his chair, feeling nonchalant about the performance. But when he made eye contact with you, he sat up in his seat, leaning forward on the table to get closer to you.

You knew he was getting closer but for some reason, you didn’t want to back away. You stayed in your ending pose, breathing heavily from the performance while completely spellbound. You couldn’t look away from his eyes no matter how hard you tried.

Whistle. Whistle. Whistle.

The blow of several whistles rang throughout the crowd, finally snapping you out of the trance. You looked back to see a look of panic on everyone’s faces. Soon, a man pushed everyone out the way and screamed at the top of his lungs.

“Pirates!” he shouted. An uproar began and everyone started running in all sorts of directions. Pushing and shoving, everyone was trying to fend for themselves. You, being one of them. You immediately cursed under your breath and leapt off the table to run and grab your things. You were about to run away but you decided to look back at that stranger one last time and he was sitting in the same place, gazing in your direction as if no one was panicking around him. His friends looked panicked though, trying to get his attention and forcing him to get up so they could leave too.

Todoroki didn’t know what was going on. All he knew was that he had to find you fast. He yelled your name and tried making his way to you, but the sea of people made it too hard for him to reach you and eventually, he had lost any sight of you.

You got lost in the crowd, running wherever your feet decided to take you. You managed to grab your belongings despite how rough everyone was being and how little time you had to actually grab it. You grabbed your change of clothes, it being commoner’s clothing, and you changed as you went. You turned a corner, you took your top off and quickly replaced it with your shirt. Same goes with the mask, randomly discarding it somewhere within the village, as well as your pants. It was a shame to throw your outfit away hastily like that, but you couldn’t afford to get caught. Plus, you could always make a new one. Entertainment, like the performance you just put on, was illegal. Whether the cops were looking for pirates or not, if you got caught, there was no going back to the palace without revealing your true identity. And you’d rather keep that for as long as you can.

You heard the cops getting closer, the sound of the whistle was making your heart start to race. There’s no way you were going to get caught now. Panic in full rise, you looked at your surroundings to find some sort of hiding place. You were by the coast and the only decent hiding place was this abandoned ship docked right in front of you. Taking no chances, you climbed aboard the ship, going as deep and as low as you could in hopes you don’t get caught. Once you settled for a good hiding spot in a room in the lower deck, you finally relaxed and let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. Once as the guards pass, you’d get off as soon as possible and head home. This was too much for one night. You glanced out the small window and saw the guards split ways, making you relieve a sigh of relief. About time. Time to go home.

You stood up and all of a sudden, you felt movement. You held your hands out as if to try to balance yourself. Had you just imagined that or were you going crazy? Another big movement and you fell to the floor this time.

What is happening? Your eyes made it to the window and the deck was suddenly getting further and further away. Panic ensuing in your again, you ran to the window and sure enough, the ship that you had snuck onto was indeed moving.

Shit, you were on the pirate’s ship.

Tagged: @superblyspeedydragon

[washidashi]

can't process

long personal vent under the cut because I'm currently tired of twitter word counts on my private account and that I have now been isolated in my room lmao! ((feel free to ignore I just needed some kind of space to throw at during this time))

oh golly where do I begin? let me try to make this understandable so that I can let whatever I can, out--the beginning of this year hasn't been kind to a good number of us including yours truly and it sucks balls !!!!!! there's just so much that's happened here that all of a sudden... I wouldn't let myself process or even feel what I want to feel in response to all of it...

there's just so much that I fear, so much that I am anxious of, so much that I'm angry at, and yet I find it so hard to explain it all, to try and compartmentalize it, because my mind just refuses to let me feel and process it

ok for the sake of being neat and tidy for my very messy brain I'm going to list it down in bullet form <333

my older brother tested positive for signs of having covid and so he's been isolated and quarantined since last week

cases are rising here in the country (I MEAN. it is everywhere but still, kind of Big Downer of a news)

I am having problems with....reproductive health and all and I am slowly losing iron and so cuz of it, meaning I get dizzy and tired very easily <3

It's been difficult having to schedule appointments for my health concern above

My mom who has been fighting her breast cancer for years now has to go through chemotherapy starting next week and it just wrenches my heart because I'm scared of facing this new process and for her health overall

And recently, I too have been tested positive! and have just been isolated a few hours ago

There's also me graduating from uni soon and the fear of having to find a good, stable, and secure job to help keep my family alive, and I suppose some impostor syndrome to go with it too

idk maybe some think it's a lot and i want to think so too but the stupid! part of my brain! is saying that it isn't and it's just been this weird but tough fight with myself nowadays, telling myself that so much is happening and a good chunk of it isn't good.

and I just hate how it's coinciding with me trying to get out of this depressing feeling...I met great friends in a new community, I'm trying to get better at my art, I try to keep in touch with both IRL and internet friends, but no matter how hard I try I just don't feel happy or positive and I'm just stuck in this mental limbo thinking to myself, "When is this horrible madness going to end?"

and it doesn't help that now, I've been isolated and quarantined in my room and am not allowed to go out that I have EVEN MORE time to myself and my stupid horrible brain that doesn't want me to think or get better or be competitive. Now I'm just scared that I'm lying here in my bed sick and useless and incompetent and I'm just crying as I type this and I'm just going to keep crying in the next few days because I just don't know-I just don't know when this is going to end. My mind is so murky and has been so murky for the past few days that I can't think right, and now I don't know what to do now that I'm gonna be stuck in my room for the next 10 or so days.

I don't even know if I'm calling out for help or just need someone to listen to whatever I'm rambling on and not say a thing. I don't know what my mind even wants and I don't know what to do at this point.

to all my friends and colleagues who have reached out to me in the past few days: I love you. I love you I love you so much. Know that your words and well wishes are always with me. I'm just so sorry if I can't seem to operate well right now and if I can't reply right away. I don't know if my mind needs some more time to think and get better but we shall see.

if you bothered to read this far know that I love you so so very much and I hope that your meals are always yummy 💗

- washi

[miraculousmarifan]

Felinette Month 2020 - Day 19: Fallen Angel

Happy @felinettenovember! Can you guys guess what prompts I spend more than one day writing? I almost decided to try drawing the akumatized Felix before remembering that I haven’t drawn in nearly 10 years (maybe I would be better off painting it?) and wasn’t really good at people before that point... So I did this instead!

Almost 1900 words and if requested, this could have a continuation for some resolution later this year or early next year and/or potentially a piece of art to try showing Felix as an akuma and/or the object that inspired his form

Felix was close to flipping tables. Marinette had to be an angel from above with how she was handling being bullied by this Lila girl. How was it that even after the school was notified that Lila supposedly had a disease that made her compulsively lie but wasn’t antisocial personality disorder (?), the teacher refused to step in and help one of her star pupils? He shouldn’t be surprised. This was the same teacher that condoned Chloe’s defacing of Marinette’s present to count as them working together on it, even though Marinette had put actual effort into it. This was the same teacher that tried to convince Marinette to be a doormat, in the name of “setting a good example,” as though that has truly changed people that benefit from wronging others.

What he really couldn’t understand was how her friends weren’t more cautious about the liar. She had temporarily gotten Marinette expelled by claiming that she had not only cheated on a mock test, but also stolen the liar’s necklace, AND pushing the witch down the stairs. The class didn’t believe that it sounded like Marinette and YET after Marinette is returned due to the supposed uncontrollable lying diagnosis, they don’t question Lila's integrity? He couldn’t quite fathom why they wouldn’t take the things she said with a grain of salt after that very public and obvious set of lies, especially about Marinette.

And yet, here he was. Standing outside the classroom, waiting for a phone call from his driver, when he overhears the liar whispering to a few girls from the class. Marinette had been gone for an appointment the last period of school and apparently that wasn’t enough for Lila. He heard Alya exclaim, “That doesn’t really sound like Marinette…” and then a sad reply along the lines of how she knew Marinette was friends with all them but she couldn’t believe Marinette said that to her and just wanted to understand why by asking their closest friends. So on so on. Even with her verbalized doubt, it was clear from the tone she used that Alya believed it possible that Marinette had something to Lila, even if it wasn’t as severe as the liar had made it out to be. Felix didn’t need to be any closer to smell the fake crap Lila was spreading. He was sure it would have smelled over a mile away.

Rose exclaimed how she couldn’t believe how much Marinette was starting to act like Chloe and how they really needed to shake Marinette out of this. Alya volunteered to talk to her about it and encouraged them not to do anything crazy before then. It was the first time Felix felt a decent amount of respect towards Alya. Apparently she is starting to learn not to jump immediately to conclusions when it comes to Lila and Marinette. Unfortunately their other friends hadn’t gotten that much insight from the previous incidents and believed that Lila wouldn’t possibly exaggerate or make up anything and cause drama unnecessarily. Alya told the group that she had texted the girl and was going to head over to their place to hang out later that night.

Alya left, muttering how it sounded too extreme to be what Marinette had actually said. Felix had to give it to her, even if she had too much faith in the Italian, it was nice to see she wouldn’t fully discount her friend without any true evidence. Unfortunately with Alya’s departure, the voice of reason had left these girls and they were left with a snake. Felix decided to move slightly closer, just to keep an ear out for danger.

“I don’t think having a talk with her is really going to change Marinette’s mind. I mean she already knows about my health conditions and she’d rather discriminate against me than admit that I’m just trying to be friends. I reached out in good faith, painting her a picture, and she destroyed it and told me we could never be friends. It was just shockingly mean! She’s so nice to you guys so I thought this would help, especially since we like so much of the same stuff! I can’t help it if Adrien rejected her for me!”

Felix wanted to gag at that reasoning again. Marinette had worked to move on from Adrien long ago and especially hard when he had started dating Kagami over a year ago. She even started having tea and snacks with his girlfriend at least once a month, since Kagami didn’t get out much and Marinette didn’t want her to feel left out. As far as Felix knew, Marinette had long since given up on Adrien and was more focused on her personal projects than on boys, something her friends should have known by now.

“We know it’s not your fault and she should realize that too!” Rose tried to cheer up Lila.

“It’s so hard to imagine her destroying someone else’s art when she preaches about how people shouldn’t touch other’s work! Plus she has to know how much that sucks, after Chloe ruined her present for Ms. Bustier a few years ago…” Alix sounded angry enough to act impulsively and it didn’t sit well with Felix.

“To me, it just doesn’t seem like talking to her is going to be enough for her to really think about her actions, but you guys know her the best!” Lila managed to get a small amount of wavering into her voice, to convey hesitant worry and unsuccessfully attempted optimism through her small shrug. Felix may have thought that some of her lies should be relatively easy to dismiss but he had to admit that sometimes she could be a good actress.

“If we left her a message along with doing something, she wouldn’t ignore it right? Especially if she knows that if she ever does something like that again, we won’t stay friends with her…” Alix suggested. Felix felt his stomach sink. This was going bad but he couldn’t just walk in there right? He waited a moment longer to hear them start planning how they were going to ruin Marinette’s personal art project that she had been working on during her study hall, as it was sitting in a drying area of the art room. He had enough information to go talk to Damocles about what he had heard.

After hearing Felix’s concerns and hearing his stern insistence that this was actually at risk of happening, not just girl’s venting, Damocles accompanied him to the art room to check into the security of the projects inside. By the time the pair arrived though, they were too late. Nobody was in the room anymore, however Marinette’s project was beyond repair. 

She had sculpted a human-like angel with arms raised with peace and joy captured remarkably on its face, an orb in its hands being presented to the sky like a holy gift. The wings had been formed into individual feathers and Marinette had just put the first layer of paint on it that day. The base color of the wings was a lovely shade of light pink, her dress had the first layer of white, the skin left a gray tone, with a small amount of darker gray and lighter gray added to certain areas to imitate how light would fall if emitted from the orb. The orb had a strange tone of light blue-green for the base. He had been enthusiastically anticipating her final painting work since she had finished the sculpting step.

Now the angel was missing a wing, the orb that had barely rested on the carved palms was separated from the hands, and the arms were no longer connected. He picked up the body of the statue gently before looking up at Damocles sadly.

“It’s too bad we didn’t get here sooner. I guess we will just have to check the school’s cameras to figure out who did this.” Damocles took a step towards the stand that the statue had previously been set on, picked up the note left on it, and read it out loud.

“‘This is for ruining Lila’s painting. You should’ve accepted her peace offering rather than blaming her for Adrien’s rejection and if you keep acting like this, you won’t have any more friends here.’--” he cleared his throat in displeased surprise, “-- I will need to take this note as evidence in this. Also, we should probably take some pictures of the damages before getting this cleaned up.”

Felix helped set the pieces of the statue on the table next to each other before the principal took out his cell phone and snapped a quick picture of that and of the note. Before the man could leave, Felix volunteered to clean up the classroom as he was sure Marinette would still want the pieces. He was also sure that Damocles would actually proceed with this investigation due to his involvement and firmness regarding the need to supply a punishment. While the punishment would not be sufficient, there would at least be some record of this incident.

Before sweeping up the tiny pieces that he didn’t expect her to care about, he sat down in a chair and held the body of the statue. His fingers ran over the one remaining wing despite the paint smearing on his skin, feeling the texture his classmate had managed for the feathers. It was an amazing work that would be difficult to replicate, if Marinette even decided it was worth doing again. Part of him hoped she would redo the remarkable piece. He felt anger bubbling just below the surface of his sadness, anger that the girls that were supposedly her friends would do this. Anger that their school was not secure for her. Anger that he wasn’t able to protect her, even having heard the plans. Grief over being too slow to protect her. Crushing sadness that she couldn’t trust her classmates, her supposed friends, to even ask her about a situation before trusting another’s words about her. Someone that had very publicly lied to get her suspended just the last school year. He was so busy with his thoughts and the statue that he missed the purple butterfly coming towards him until it settled into the statue.

“Hello Ange Déchu. I am Hawk Moth. The people around you pass judgement on the innocent and work on behalf of the wicked. It must be frustrating to watch them work to break the people you care about. I will give you the power to understand people’s intentions and apply your chosen consequences on them so you can protect the ones you love. In exchange you would give me Ladybug and Chat Noir’s miraculous.”

In this akumatized form, he could not only protect Marinette but also help her get revenge on the manipulative witch. She would be his queen, his direction, and she would be able to decide how she wanted to apply justice.

“Yes Hawk Moth. I will deal out Marinette’s justice and get the miraculous for you.” The akumatized Felix, called Fallen Angel, unfurled his black wings and pushed off the ground to fly to Marinette’s side. He would protect her first and foremost. Then they would deal with the witch and her flying monkeys however she saw fit.

[queen-scribbles]

Acceptable Risk

Art trade fic for the extremely patient @theheroofoakvale, exploring if Shepard’s recruiting Thane had gone a little.... differently.

-----

The door opened with a quiet hiss, and Shepard’s entry was greeted with the raised barrels of several assault rifles. The mercenaries, however, paused before opening fire, despite being confronted by three heavily armed individuals pointing guns back at them.

The asari in the middle of the cluster--clad for business rather than combat--spun to face them, her eyes widening. “Shepard?!”

Shepard smirked, centered his pistol on her. “Nassana.”

There was a muffled clatter in the ceiling that had the mercenaries’ attention swiveling upward. Her posture shifted defensive. “You’re dead.”

“I got better,” he retorted, and shot her in the throat.

Her bodyguards zeroed back in on him and his team, torn between them and the threat above, and that was their undoing. A dark figure dropped from one of the ceiling vents, and Shepard used that moment of distraction to take out two of them. When the remaining mercs focused in on him, the dark figure punched one in the throat and shot the other center mass. The few that were left went down quickly.

Massani and Vakarian kept their guns up, leveled at the late arrival, a drell, as he stood in the middle of the carnage, eyes fixed in an unblinking, regretful stare at Nassana Dantius’ body.

“Sorry if I stole your kill,” Shepard said after letting the silence go as long as he could tolerate. His pistol hung at his side in a loose grip, ready if he needed it. He didn’t think he would.

“I was not here for her, though the galaxy is no less for her removal,” the drell said softly, finally looking up from the dead woman and blinking just before he met Shepard’s gaze. “I am here for you.”

Behind him, Massani muttered a quiet curse and Vakarian tightened his grip on his gun, but Shepard didn’t even flinch. “I did wonder. Dantius hardly seems worth the time for someone of your... reputation.”

“And yet you still came,” the drell said, clasping his hands behind him and looking in no rush to kill anyone.

“She used me.” He let the barest edge of a snarl color the words. “I can go along with a likely trap if it gives me an excuse for payback. Also,” he took half a step forward, “seemed the best way to meet you, Krios. We need to talk.”

Thane Krios did not look at all perturbed that his target knew who he was. His expression remained impassive as he studied Shepard’s face. “Do we? What about?”

“I need your help on a mission. You can feel free to continue trying to kill me after we’re done.”

“Why?” Krios asked, still studying Shepard’s face.

“Why, what?”

“Why do you need me? Why should I help instead of killing you now?”

Shepard laughed darkly. “The fucking galaxy is at stake, I need the best of the best, even if they are out for my blood.” Another half step forward, Vakarian and Massani following this time until he waved them back. “As for the second question.... I know some things about you, Krios. I know you’re dying, and I know you have a son.” His pistol folded in on its clip as he crossed his arms and stared hard at the assassin. “And where he is. I imagine you’d hate for something to happen to him before you had a chance to mend fences.”

Three rapid blinks, a sharp breath, posture unchanged, but it was the most reaction Krios had shown in this conversation. “And would you make this...   something happen if I say no, Shepard?”

His calm was impressive. Shepard wondered if it was an easier illusion to maintain with eyes that had neither pupils nor iris to betray strong emotion. “If I have to. I need the best, Krios, which is you. Don’t really care how I get your cooperation.”

Krios was silent for a long moment. “This threat must be grave indeed for you to employ such measures.”

He was nigh impossible to read, but the slight shift of his clasped hands was hint enough. “I’m hunting an enemy who’s abducting human colonies and has ties to the Reapers, I’d call that pretty damn grave. Like I said, you can resume trying to kill me if we survive. What’s it gonna be?”

Another heavy pause, though shorter. “You have left me only one viable option if I care about my son.”

Shepard arched a brow.

“I will assist. Consider this a pause in the contract on your life.”

“Good enough for me.” Shepard cast a smug glance at Dantius’ corpse, then turned to exit the room. “We’re done here, so you can either come with us or meet us at the ship.”

“I will meet you shortly. I have a few personal effects to gather,” Krios said.

“Alright. We’re on a clock, so don’t dilly dally,” Shepard replied, and motioned their departure to Vakarian and Massani.

“What’s to stop him from shooting you on our way down?” Vakarian muttered as they headed for the elevator. “He’s already planning to kill you and you threatened his kid.”

Massani beat Shepard to the answer. “Doesn’t know if there’s a dead man’s switch on that something happenin’ to his boy if Shepard bites it.” He chuckled darkly and smirked at Shepard. “What the hell’d you do to earn a death mark, anyway?” 

Shepard shrugged, watching the blur of downward travel out the elevator’s glass-paned wall. “Hell if I know, Massani. Certainly pissed off enough people for there to be some options.”

The mercenary gave a rough laugh and slapped him on the shoulder. “Wear like a badge of fucking honor, kid. Means you got someone real riled up.”

---

Krios was, as promised, aboard the Normandy well within an hour. His personal effects he’d gone to collect were few enough to fit in a small shoulder satchel that he politely refused to let anyone inspect. (Lawson was not happy when Shepard told her to drop it, clearly suspicious of allowing an assassin on board without first vetting his gear.) He settled in life support at EDI’s suggestion, and ruffled no feathers with the rest of the crew, unless you counted Taylor’s mistrust of his career in general.

“What will be expected of me, Commander?” Krios asked, in that same modulated tone he’d used on Illium.

“No shipboard duties, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Shepard said. He leaned against the wall by the door and studied Krios. “You can do as you like here. When we have missions, I may want you to come watch my six, if your skillset seems a good fit.”

“I see.” He folded his hands, elbows braced against the small worktable at which he sat. There was a hesitation under the words that almost rang in the air.

“If there’s something else you wanna say, now’s the time,” Shepard prodded. He didn’t have time to be gentle prying out secrets or whatever.

“My son,” Krios said, words measured and careful. “You say you know where he is. Would you be willing to share that knowledge?”

Shepard mulled it over, weighing the value of his options. “In time,” he finally said. “We have a couple pressing assignments that are more important than family reunions. But if we hit a point with some free time I’ll let you know.”

Krios nodded, his expression unreadable as ever. “Very well, Shepard.”

“One thing I need to know from you,” Shepard began, pushing away from the wall, “is if whatever’s killing you will affect your abilities in a fight.”

“It shouldn’t, not yet.” He paused for the space of a few blinks. “I should have several months at least before the symptoms become noticeable even to myself. More than enough time to complete your mission, if it is as urgent as you make you sound.”

“Is that something you doubt, Krios?” 

“Not at all.” Krios pushed to his feet and crossed the room to examine a rack of spare rifle parts. “Even someone of your reputation would have to be on a mission of urgency to blackmail an assassin sent to kill you into helping your cause. I simply mean this threat seems the type where a decisive outcome will be reached swiftly; whether in victory or destruction. Well within the time I have before functionality is... affected.”

“Good.” Shepard nodded. “Not sure when I’ll need you, but I want to be sure you’ll be worth it when the times comes.” He left the room, noting Krios’ undertone murmur as he did, and from the cadence wondered what the assassin was praying for.

---

Shepard first tested him on something that seemed of no consequence; a mercenary base on a backwater planet trafficking stolen eezo. Thane did his job, no more no less, all the while making note of how the man fought. The risks he thought worth taking, the sacrifices that were acceptable cost, the balance of recklessness and cunning. It was not a complete picture, not off one mission, and Thane wouldn’t act on what he’d gleaned even if it were.

Not with the blade the commander had hung over Kolyat. Not with the hope of learning where his son might be. Patience was the hallmark of an assassin, after all; knowing when to strike as well as how. And Thane had been an assassin a very long time. He could wait.

Especially as conversations with others aboard the ship painted a clearer and clearer picture of the mission’s scope. A trip through the Omega 4 relay was very likely to be suicidal just on its own. Destroying whatever these Collectors used as a base doubly so. When Shepard made ‘if we survive’ comments, he wasn’t joking. Thane could wait. He could help with the mission--it was a worthy goal after all, one he would have assisted in accomplishing without the threats--and then resume his contract.

After the mercenary base was eliminated, and easily, Shepard made use of Thane’s skills a few more times. Usually on missions with plentiful shadow coverage and good sight lines.

“How’re you holding up?” Garrus asked on one such mission, the two of them picking off targets from a bit of a distance while Shepard made viciously short work of the battlefield.

“I’ve had worse assignments.” Thane’s rifle kicked against his shoulder and the krogan he’d been targeting dropped. He fired another shot, just to be safe, and watched the body jerk then lay still, before searching out another target. “What of you?”

Garrus snorted, took down his own target. “I’m  here because he’s my... friend” --there was a brief hesitation, as if the turian wasn’t completely sure that was the right word--”and I trust that whatever he’s doing is worth whatever it costs to accomplish.”

“You’ve fought alongside him before.”

“Against Sovereign, yeah.” Garrus’ mandible twitched as he focused on sighting in another shot. “This feels different.”

He didn’t elaborate, and it was only a few moments more for them the claim victory and press further on with their mission.

Thane watched Shepard, and wondered what had changed in the eyes of his friend.

---

It was after the derelict Reaper, after adding a geth to their mix, that Thane’s patience paid off. At least in part.

“Your kid’s on the Citadel,” Shepard informed him out of the blue. “Lucky for you, Vakarian has some unfinished business there as well, and the techs need some time to integrate the IFF to the Normandy’s systems. I can spare a side trip for personal issues while they get that squared away. Be ready to go in an hour.”

Thane didn’t protest. Didn’t question. He could ask for details on approach to the Citadel.

They set a cold knot in his gut when he learned them. “He’s here to kill someone,” Shepard said bluntly, and all Thane could think was Like father, like son. That was not a path he’d ever wanted for Kolyat. Shepard didn’t have a lot of details, just that Kolyat was there. Apparently even Cerberus’ resources had limits.

They spoke to a C-Sec officer, then to Mouse at his suggestion--Thane was surprised but pleased he was still alive--both conversations Shepard kept as short as possible. Clearly he was not in the mood to waste time. Thane wished that hadn’t involved the commander breaking Mouse’s nose, but couldn’t muster much sympathy when the same proved true of Kelham once they got his name and interrogated him.

“We have some time, not a lot of it,” Shepard growled. “And we still need to find Sidonis when we’re done with your shit, Krios.” He turned to Captain Bailey.  “What can you tell me about this Talid Kelham wants dead?”

The picture Bailey painted--up and coming turian politician, vocally anti-human and gaining support--made it obvious why Kelham would want Talid gone. He had to be very bad for business. He was also in a very vulnerable position currently; pressing flesh on a walk through the Wards with only one or two bodyguards along for protection.

Thane had to admit surprise when Shepard was alright with them splitting up to track Talid and (hopefully) find Kolyat.

“You can’t find him alone any more than I can,” Shepard commented with a sharp smile s he and Garrus headed for the catwalks. “Stay sharp, Krios.”

As if he would do otherwise. Still, he bowed his head and asked Amonkira for strength and guidance before he vanished into the shadows, hoping they weren’t too late to save his son from a very familiar dark path.

Are you really surprised? a voice inside him mocked as Thane picked his route along catwalks and ducts, through shadows and crowds. Even if he hates you, that’s the example you left.

He shook it off. He didn’t have the luxury of internal debate right now. He had to pick out his route on the fly, keep in touch with Shepard and Garrus, plot out several ways to handle the situation that all depended on Kolyat’s behavior. And he didn’t know his own son well enough to predict that, so his solutions were all loosely structured ideas at best. Some plan was better than none.

It was a close thing, despite their best efforts. Kolyat spooked, shot the bodyguards and dragged Talid into his apartment with a gun to his head.

Shepard was only a step behind once Kolyat broke cover and very quickly had a gun pointed at him.

Thane went very still, watching this standoff. He didn’t know Shepard well enough to know what the man would do, but he knew what C-Sec protocols would be, and he could hear their approach. Shepard had been very clear about the limited time they had for this side trip, the fastest resolution--which would also fulfill C-Sec’s mandate to keep Talid alive--would end with his son dead, and Shepard was not a patient man.

Kolyat’s anger blazed, even from across the room, and he was far from willing to cooperate, his pistol pressed to the back of Talid’s head.

The loud crack of a pistol shot nearly made Thane flinch, his chest squeezing in protest at the thought of his failure. Just this one thing, I wanted to fix just this.

But Shepard’s shot snapped Talid’s head back, not Kolyat’s. The turian collapsed in a spray of dark blood and Kolyat recoiled. In that moment of distraction, Thane surged forward and twisted the pistol out of Kolyat’s hands, unsure if the tremor was adrenaline or rage.

Shepard was talking to an incensed Bailey; “No one will miss a racist asshole, I did you a favor”, but Thane’s focus was all on his son. 

“This was not the best way,” he said softly.

“What do you know?” Kolyat hissed back, struggling against Thane’s unrelenting grip.

“More than you might think.”

Kolyat yanked away as if the contact had burned him. Fury simmered in his eyes, and resentment, but he was alive. C-Sec would still have to take him in for what he’d been ready to do(attempted murder? That would likely be the charge), there would be consequences for what he tried to do, and Thane didn’t know if they even could “mend fences” as Shepard had put it. But he was alive. And hopefully could be deterred from a path Thane wouldn’t wish anyone to tread.

“Krios,” Shepard barked and Thane pulled himself out of his reverie watching C-Sec lead Kolyat away. But rather than Time to go, the commander nodded after the arresting officers. “Massani can help with tracking down Fade. You have until we’re done. I wouldn’t count on more than an hour or two.”

Thane blinked, thrown off kilter by the gesture, but recovered quickly.  “Understood.” He’d taken three steps after the C-Sec officers before he stopped and turned. “...Thank you, Shepard.”

The man waved him off, already walking away with Garrus in his wake.

---

An hour and a half didn’t go very far working through a decade of distance, but it was a start.

“Why do you stay with him?” Kolyat asked when Thane’s comms crackled with a heads-up Shepard and the others were on their way back and he stood. “If... this” --a quick gesture, more a flick of the wrist than anything, between the two of them-- “is so important?”

For you. In more ways than one. “Shepard’s mission is... critical. And there is, unfortunately, a time limit on saving the galaxy.”

Kolyat snorted at his father’s dry humor. “Right.”

“I will keep in touch,” Thane promised. “Perhaps we can meet again once this is finished. If you would like.” If I survive.

“...We’ll see.” Kolyat was staring at the table rather than him, but Thane would take it.

He nodded and headed for the door. “Very well.”

“Does he have something on you?” Kolyat asked abruptly. “With the reputation Shepard’s made, he doesn’t seem the type honorable people would be following.”

“I have made no claims of honor,” Thane said quietly, hand on the door frame.  “And with  the stakes of mission, some sacrifices may prove necessary.”

“Sounds familiar,” Kolyat muttered.

Thane made no reply, and didn’t look back as he left the room with a cold weight in his chest.

---

It ha been the right call letting Krios reconnect with his son. He seemed more centered, more focused, for having dealt with his baggage. Probably that whole ‘something to live for’ schtick. Shepard only cared that Krios did his job and the mending bond made the kid an even more effective pressure point.

Not that Krios had ever protested. Ever balked. But everyone had their limit, and if he happened to find the assassin’s, it never hurt to have a brute force solution in your arsenal. Especially as they were very close to actually pursuing the Collectors through the Omega 4 relay.

“Just a few more tests,” Lawson assured him. They wanted it to work right, after all. It’d be a real short trip otherwise.

“So,” he asked Krios, “out of morbid curiosity, who wants me dead?” There were plenty of options, he wanted to know who wanted it badly enough to hire an assassin. And it wasn’t like he currently had anything better to do with his time. 

Krios cocked his head, a flicker of what might have been amusement crossing his face. “I cannot tell you, Shepard.”

Shepard snorted and arched a brow. “Client confidentiality?”

“Client anonymity,” the drell corrected.

“You let some faceless coward point you at a target with my body count?”

“As you know, I am dying,” Krios said in that implacable tone of his. “Odds of survival were... far from troubling, as a factor.”

“And odds of success?” Shepard retorted.

This time there was definitely a small smile before Krios schooled his expression neutral. Not mocking or cocky, just... amused. “There is a first time for everything.” The faint amusement was gone when he locked eyes with Shepard. “How will we handle this, commander? When we are finished our mission, assuming we both survive, and I resume my contract to kill you?”

“Feel like giving me a day’s lead?” Shepard grinned sardonically.

“I could be persuaded,” Krios said. He shifted in his chair. “Let us see how things progress, shall we?”

You’d never know to look at the man he’d been... convinced to help with this by threat of harm to his son. He seemed perfectly at home, posture easy. He didn’t talk to the crew much, Shepard knew from EDI, but it was hardly surprising an assassin was accustom to solitude.

As if summoned by his brief thought of her, a glowing sphere materialized on the AI kiosk. “Shepard, Miss Lawson wished you informed that the IFF installation is in its final stage. For the shakedown we will need complete access to the Normandy’s systems, so it is recommended you use the shuttle for whatever you plan to undertake next.”

“Got it,: Shepard tossed in vaguely the direction of the AI. “That’ll make things tight,” he muttered to himself. He had something in mind that would likely need the whole team. They’d fit in the shuttle, but it would be tight. Last thing he needed was Lawson and Jack killing each other before they even hit the Collector base.

Krios was eyeing him with curiosity. “Commander?”

“Gear up,” Shepard said, heading for the door. “Got a search and recover that might take all hands.”

The assassin nodded and pushed to his feet, heading for his locker. “Very well.”

---

Their mission went well. Things on the Normandy in their absence, not so much. Shepard left a fully-staffed state of the art warship an returned to a picked-clean husk manned only by his pilot and the now-unshackled AI.

The Collectors had bloodied his nose, cost him his crew. Again. He’d had it.  “Ship’s not getting any more ready than it is. Joker, head for the Omega 4 relay.”

“Aye, aye,” came the determined, hungry reply.The pilot was probably even more eager than Shepard to punch back at the bug-eyed bastards.

Unlike Joker--and probably the others--Shepard viewed getting the crew back as a secondary objective to taking out the Collectors. The threat they posed to humanity ended now.

Get us there was his order, and that didn’t change when they came out of the relay having to dodge starship wreckage, or when they were harried by drones, or even when a fucking occulus busted into the hold.

“Krios, Massani, with me!” he barked, rifle in hand, listening to the scrape and thud of wreckage and lasers ricocheting off the upgraded hull on the way to the bowels of the ship. By the time they had trashed the occulus, Joker had them past the debris field and the drones, and a new problem had arisen.

New, but familiar--the same Collector vessel that he had encountered numerous times before. But this time, the Normandy had sharper teeth. “Let ‘em have it!” he ordered, a command Joker follow with alacrity Darting, looping, dodging, the pilot had them dancing around the larger ship, deftly avoiding the beam that had been their destruction before.

The surge of satisfaction at destroying the vessel was short lived, as it erupted in a fireball more than large enough to knock the Normandy into a crazy, barely controlled descent that could more bluntly be called a crash.

“Everyone alive?” Shepard checked over comms. When that was affirmative, he followed with, “Assemble in the CIC.”

This was it. A quick rundown of schematics pulled from the vessel and what he expected to find inside, a victory whatever it takes reminder, and it was time to go.

---

Than prayed silently to Amonkira as they disembarked from the Normandy. Let our hands strike true, and victory be worth the cost. There would be a cost, of this he was sure. He was familiar enough with Shepard’s methods by now there was little room for doubt. If I am among that cost, please guide my son, that his steps may trace a better path.

He wondered, if he should fall, whether his client would hire someone else to complete the task of killing Shepard or if they would let it go. He hoped it wouldn’t come  to that. He wanted to survive, to speak more with Kolyat before the end, but it would be what it was.

They split into groups, Shepard leading Thane and Zaeed, Garrus the rest of them, to serve as distractions while Tali crawled through the vents to let them pass. It was a good call; the Collectors swarmed thick enough any other plan would likely have been overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. They were not given the luxury of time for sighting in targets, so Thane stuck with his pistol--and occasionally biotics--firing, reloading, firing, with the odd interruption to scrounge more thermal clips because he’d run out.

Shepard’s back and forth with Garrus and Tali was just background noise, like the beating wings of their foes, as Thane gave his focus to the task at hand.

Tali stumbled out of the vent just as they finally reached the heavy doors barring the end of the hall. She beelined for the access panel, teetered as a couple shots ricocheted off her shields.

“Get it open!” Shepard barked as the three of them wheeled to give her cover fire. “Vakarian, where the hell are you?!”

“Almost there, a group of the bastards ambushed us!”

A Collector dove toward Tali and Thane shot it--rushed, imperfect, but the grazing shot knocked it off course long enough for him to try again. This time, it fell and did not rise again.

---

The sense of urgency, pounding Hurry, hurry, hurry through Shepard’s veins thrummed louder as the door beeped and started to hiss open. A muffled burst of gunfire reached his ears a handful of seconds before Vakarian and the others came into view, hauling ass down the passageway toward them.

“Massani, Krios! Through the door!” He rattled off a stream of cover fire, driving the Collectors to hang back for a second. Just a second. But it was enough time for the second fire team to reach the end of the passage and dart through the door.

Krios and Massani maintained some cover fire from the far side of the door, buying breathing room for the others as one by one they darted through the door. Lawson brought up the rear, her barrier shimmering out as the doors groaned on closing.

“They’re stuck!” Tali bit out, shoving one door with scraping, grinding protest along its track. Shepard and Lawson ducked through the narrowing gap just as a final shot slammed into Lawson’s shoulder and sent her stumbling.

“I’m fine,” she ground out, slapping medigel on the injury as the group of them shook off the adrenaline to register what the room held.

The walls were lined with dozens, hundreds, thousands, of the Collectors’ pods. The dingy yellow glow throughout the room spoke to them all being occupied.

Movement caught Shepard’s eye and he swung his rifle toward the potential threat. it was just one of the nearby pods; the dark-skinned, dark-haired woman inside stirred, pounding against the transparent canopy in a futile attempt to escape. Even as Tali and Krios rushed forward to try and free her, the pod hummed and the woman only had time for a single terrified scream before she simply... liquefied into a sludgy brown paste which drained away almost before his crew had time to recoil in horror.

“Commander! Over here!” Taylor fumbled with a nearby pod until a very disoriented figure tumbled out. “It’s the crew!”

That broke the horror that had frozen them, and the group surged forward to free their comrades before the same fate could befall them.

Chambers. Daniels. Donnelly. Gardner. All of them were here, as Shepard ran a mental roster, but Chakwas was the one to explain. Near as she could tell, the humans in the pods were being reduced to genetic material and ...piped elsewhere in the base through tubes, though she wasn’t sure where or why. That sounded like where they needed to go.

“We need to get them out of here,” Taylor said, hovering near a few of the engineers as they stumbled to their feet.

We don’t have time for this. “You wanna take them back, be my guest,” Shepard returned brusquely. “We need to destroy this base, but we can mange without you if it’s that important to you.”

“It is.” Taylor’s voice was firm as he tugged Chambers’ arm around his shoulders and herded the crew back toward the Normandy. “See you on the other side, Commander.”

---

Thane almost offered to accompany them; it was a lot of people for one man to safeguard. But Shepard was already snapping orders for the next stage of their infiltration. He’d be taking Garrus and Zaeed, sheltered from the overabundance of Seeker swarms by Jack, down the shortest route that followed the tubes. “The rest of you follow Lawson on the other route EDI indicated, draw some of the flying bastards off.”

Forward, then. Thane checked his reserve of thermal clips, made sure his pistol was undamaged, and fell in with the others as the door hissed open and they pressed on.

They hadn’t advanced far when the first Collectors appeared, drones and a small number of husks that were easy enough tot pick off. Their numbers only increased as time wore on, but that was the point wasn’t it? Draw them here, so Shepard could get through. Thane stood shoulder to shoulder with Tali as their squad advanced, shared his thermal clips when hers ran out first, lent what strength he could to the biotic barrier Samara had summoned to protect their backs.

“There’s a lot of them, Shepard!” Miranda hollered into comms when they were forced to take cover from a particularly large group, dotted with abominations and led by a scion.

“Good!” his reply crackled back underscored by gunfire. “Keep them the hell off us! We’re almost there!”

She hissed a quiet curse, then, “Yes, Commander!” Her fist flared blue and a pair of husks flew off the edge of the path. “Samara, push them back on three!”

The justicar nodded and the rest of them by unspoken agreement turned their focus to give the women cover fire.

“One!”

Strafing fire raked Grunt’s armor and he bellowed a laugh as he shot back. Thane admired his defiance.

“Two!”

The barrier Samar had been maintaining shrank inward in preparation. Amonkira, guide their strength.

“Three!”

The combined power of two gifted biotics exploded outward in a wash over overwhelming ozone-scented blue. Just as it slammed into the descending Collector horde, a heavy, white hot pain tore into Thane’s arm and side. 

He was dimly aware of Miranda yelling for them to move, of a hand closing around his bicep to drag him with them, of his legs moving to keep up until the gave out and he was hauled over someone’s shoulder instead. There was  rushing sound in his ears and it wasn’t until it was it was punctuated by gunfire and Miranda hollering at Shepard they were under heavy attack Thane realized it was Collector wings and not the lure of unconsciousness.

“Give us a minute, Lawson!”

“We don’t have a minute!”

Shepard’s curse was broken by static. “Vakarian, get that door open! Now!”

Time was fuzzy with the pain that swirled fresh at each jolted step of whoever (probably Grunt) was carrying him, but it still seemed an eternity before, muffled, he could hear someone calling an encouragement.

He slammed against something and the pain flared so white, for a moment he saw Irikah’s face. There was a dull murmur of voices, then a spike of numb shot through the pain and spread, blanketing, pushing back until he was aware again.

Tali knelt beside him, her omnitool just closing down as he became conscious of her presence. “Good, you’re still with us.”

“Thanks to you,” Thane rasped. He passed one hand gingerly over his injured side. The healing wound was large, like from a plasma- or other energy-based weapon rather than bullets. He could cope much better with bullets.

“You are welcome,” Tali said, pushing to her feet and offering him a hand up.

Thane accepted, but leaned against a wall once he’d gained his feet. It would take a few minutes for the medigel to truly do its work. He cast a surveying glance about as he waited. Mordin was limping heavily, Grunt, Garrus, and Zaeed all had significant battle damage to their armor....

And Miranda lay still, half-slumped against a wall, pistol resting in her limp grasp. Shepard knelt next to her, blood streaked in his stark white hair, but stood even as Thane’s gaze landed on them. “She’s gone,” he confirmed, as if there was any doubt. He half-turned, hand rising to his ear, expression flint-hard. “Got it, Joker.”

Garrus’ mandibles clicked. “The crew?”

“They made it back.” Shepard shoved a new clip into his rifle. “Taylor died getting them there.”

Thane grimaced. He should have gone along. 

“It happens,” Shepard said, as if he’d caught the self-reproof without even looking. “According to EDI, this next room’s the core. Vakarian, Massani, you stick with me, the rest of you cover our asses.”

He didn’t wait for agreement or confirmation, just strode to the console for the necessary door and and punched in the command to open it. Garrus and Zaeed followed silently, the former briefly locking eyes with Tali before the three of them disappeared down the hallway.

---

The rest of them hastily arranged themselves in a defensive perimeter, gazes and weapons trained on the two doors that separated them from the Collector forces.

Thane said a rushed but heartfelt prayer to Kalahira for their fallen, working the fingers of his injured arm to test the medigel’s progress. It would do.

The sheer number of Collectors made the task a difficult one--more than once Thane feared running out of clips for his pistol until a brief pause between waves allowed them to scavenge and share from the fallen. This sort of sustained firefight was far from his normal milieu, but this close to the end he was still determined to do his best.

They held as battle chatter from Shepard’s squad broke through the static. They held even though Mordin fell and Legion fell and Jack nearly followed, snarling and spitting curses as she struggled back to her feet. They held until Shepard’s order came over comms, “Move if you don’t want to go up with this place!”

Then they ran, Samara and Jack shielding them from as much as they could, the rest picking off the bolder Collectors even as they ran. They reached the Normandy, adrenaline surging as they gave Shepard’s squad cover fire until they were aboard as well. Joker had them rocketing toward the relay before the doors had fully closed, and the whole ship seemed to hold its breath until they were safely through.

---

As the adrenaline wore off, all Shepard wanted to do was sleep. But he couldn’t. Not yet. There were things that needed to be settled first.

Krios was in the medbay, sitting serenely still as Dr. Chakwas more thoroughly treated the nasty, half-healed burns on his side and forearm. (In sharp contrast to Jack, who was glowering and cursing about both having to sit still to let her injuries heal and being around so many people.)

“Looks like we both survived,” Shepard said without preamble. Chakwas took the unspoken cue and moved off to see to Jack.

“Indeed.” Krios didn’t move, hands folded in his lap as he sat on the edge of a bed.

“You make up your mind about that head start?”

Krios chuckled. “I believe my recuperation will be a bit more than a day, Shepard. A good time for me to visit my son, I think, and a good head start for you as the contract resumes.” His lips twitched to a small smile. “Perhaps my client will reconsider in light of your actions.”

“Doubt it,” Shepard snorted. “I get the sense their beef with me is personal. Doesn’t lend itself to rational decision making. We’ll see, I guess.” Stranger things had happened, but he wouldn’t be holding his breath.”I’m not going anywhere near the Citadel, in case the Council gets any bright ideas about me or my ship, but we can drop you on Omega before we head off.”

Krios nodded solemnly. “A fair arrangement.”

A less intelligent person might have wondered--hoped--leaving him on Omega injured was as good as a death warrant, but Shepard had seen him fight. It would take more than a set of already-healing electrical burns to put Krios at a disadvantage against the thugs on Omega. (And if they did happen to prove too much for him, one thing less for Shepard to worry about.)

“We can have you there in an hour or so,” he said. “once the doc’s done with you go get your things together.”

Krios inclined his head. “I shall.”

---

It had been a while since he was last on Omega and Thane hadn’t missed it in the slightest. Fortunately he wouldn’t be here long. Passage elsewhere was easy enough to  procure, and from there he could work his way to the Citadel. He could take some time to mend more fences with Kolyat before he resumed his hunt.

That was one thing about Shepard; he was never a hard man to find.

[will-noble-owns-my-ass]

BALLUM BIG BANG 2020 ENTRY

Title: Of Cops and Mob Bosses

Word Count: 9260

Rating: safe

Summary: Phil Mitchell. Mob boss of Walford. He was the hard man of Walford but it was time to pass on his legacy. There were few people he could bestow this honour onto,  one of which was his son Ben  Mitchell. Now Ben was… Well Ben, he’d been in trouble a few times, for a few  big things but he hadn’t meant any of them, not really. Ben had searched all his life for his dad’s approval and he would get it if it killed him until something, or should I say someone, changed that.  Callum ‘Halfway’ Highway. New to Walford and a new policeman to the area. He’d heard of the Mitchell’s, they were famous all over London for the crimes that they had committed. Now one Mitchell in particular intrigued Callum. Ben Mitchell. Ben intrigued Callum because, even though he had two serious charges on his record- from his childhood - he seemed to now be on the straight and narrow.   

Artist: @lucres - Find the art here: https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/lucres/622878582499328000 and 

 here: https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/lucres/622878354864013312

Beta: @benxcallumx

Thank you very much for all your help❤❤❤

Chapter 1

“Ben Mitchell! Get down here. I’ve got a job for you!” Ben sighed as he walked down the stairs “What do you want dad? Look whatever you need me to do, I can’t. I’ve got the car lot to look after. You're gonna have to find someone else to do your dirty work.”

“Ben you are my son you will do as I tell you!”

“I am an adult! I have a job! I have a child! You cannot rule my life and I refuse to do your dirty work, do you understand?” “You will do as I tell you, I run Walford!”

“Sure dad whatever, but I ain’t doing whatever job this is, you’ll have to find someone else to do it”  Phil stepped toward him and pushed him against the wall “YOU DO AS I SAY!”

Ben pushed his dad off of him and into the table “I AM NOT EVER DOING A JOB FOR YOU AGAIN! AND I AM NEVER GOING TO PUT LEXI THROUGH WHAT YOU PUT ME THROUGH!” Phil  looked at him in shock “Why does it matter about Lexi, this won’t affect her!” Ben growled and saw red as he felt his fist connect with his dad’s face “What does she matter?” he hissed “Are you kidding me? She is your granddaughter. Everything we do affects her, how would you not know that? SO NO! I’M NOT DOING ANYMORE JOBS FOR YOU! Because Lexi needs me and I’m not going to put our relationship in danger just so you can get your job done. I AM NOT GOING TO PRISON because you can’t be bothered  to do this job by yourself, or are too lazy to  find someone actually STUPID enough, to not think for themselves and do as you tell them!” 

He pushed his dad into the table again, walking out of the front door and slamming the door behind him, seething  he stormed into the Queen Vic. “Y'all right Ben? What can I get you?”  

“Pint please Mick” He sighed as he locked eyes with a handsome bloke with  bright blue eyes “ £5.19 please Ben” Ben took the drink from him , handing him the money “Thanks Mick” He  walked toward the new man who he’d never seen in the Vic before. He leaned against the bar and locked eyes with him. “Hi, I’m Ben Mitchell.. I haven’t seen you around here before.” The other man looked at him with slightly wide eyes “Hey I’m Callum Highway. It’s nice to meet you Ben”

Callum’s Point of View

Callum sat in the Queen Victoria in Albert Square, his new home, after his first shift at the Walford Police Department. He sat against the bar, sipping his drink and thinking about his day. He looked very pensive but was brought out of his thoughts by “Hi, I’m Ben Mitchell, I haven’t seen you around here before” he looked up to see one of the most handsome man he had ever seen, he felt his face heat up slightly as he smiled a little “Hey, I’m Callum Highway, it’s nice to meet you Ben”

  Unbeknownst to Ben, Callum already knew who he was. The Mitchell dynasty was a big part of the reason he had requested a transfer to Walford, and why he’d moved into Albert Square. The Mitchells fascinated him, and he’d been quite excited at the possibility of meeting the Mitchell who intrigued him most. The one standing in front of him.   Ben smiled slightly and slipped into the stool next to him “So you're new to Walford right?” he asked softly. “Yeah, I was transferred for work, I needed a change of scenery” he told him . Ben looked at him.  “Transferred?” he asked. “Oh yeah I moved to Walford to join this police station” Ben smiled lightly “that’s cool, so how are you liking Walford so far?” Callum looked at him and thought for a second “Well from what I’ve already seen in the last week.. It’s interesting” Ben laughed lightly “Interesting is one word for it… There’s a lot that goes on in Walford… and surprisingly a lot of it happens in Albert Square” Callum chuckled “That’s kind of what drew me to wanting the transfer here… More exciting, in fact I was in here just thinking about how busy my first day at the Police Station was … What brings you here tonight?” he asked, genuinely interested. 

Ben thought for a second and said “Well, seeing as you're from the police.. I’m not 100% sure I should tell you.” Callum analysed him for a second “Ben, I’m not on duty. Listen, I know I’m new around Walford but I know about your family.. I know you’ve got a history of your own. I know YOU haven’t done anything illegal in a long time. Ben what I’m trying to say is that you can vent at me.. It’s your dad isn’t it?” 

Just at that moment Linda walked up to Callum. “Halfway, Mick’s busy and no one else is here, would you be a gem and help me change a barrel?” Callum looked at Linda and nodded. He looked at Ben as he stood up “Halfway?” Ben mouthed, Callum shook his head and whispered “I’ll tell you later if you tell me about what’s going on with your dad, Ben, you're talking to me as a friend not a police officer.. It might help to talk about what’s going on” Ben smiled softly “Alright ‘Halfway’” he mocked slightly “Go help with that barrel” Callum laughed softly and shook his head following Linda into the barrel store. 

Linda looked at him knowingly, “You watch yourself with that one.. He’s trouble.” Callum looked at her “Linda, it’s fine.. I’ve known him an hour and a half. I know what he’s family is like.. But he’s not like that… at least not anymore I don't think so. It seems to me like he’s trying to change, from his record anyway, he hasn’t been in trouble for a long time, he was sixteen when he last committed a major crime.” Linda looked at him as they worked together to change the barrel “You're an adult and  a police  officer Callum, trust your own judgement it’s up to you” Callum smiled slightly at his mother figure “I appreciate that Linda, and I promise I’ll be careful about it. Although I have only known him for the last hour and a half, there’s no guarantee it’ll go that way, but I’d be happy with his friendship right now, considering I’m new to Walford and need friends” Linda laughed “Your very loveable Callum you’ll be fine” 

Callum smiled softly and looked at Linda “Oh by the way, Thanks for calling me Halfway in front of him” she laughed again “Oh sorry, he wants to know why?” Callum nodded as they finished changing the barrel and left the barrel store. “Yeah, he wants to know” he glared at her playfully   Linda laughed “Just go back to your new friend Callum” He smiled softly “I think I will” 

CHAPTER TWO 

Callum smiled as he sat back down next to Ben against the bar. “So Mr. Mitchell… What brought you here today.” Ben looked at him and grinned “Nice try ‘Halfway’, Why do they call you that?” Callum laughed softly “THAT was a nice try Ben but if I remember rightly, which I’m 99% sure I do, I said I would only tell you why they call me Halfway if you tell me why you're here and what’s bothering you.”

Ben sighed softly with a slight laugh, he shrugged his shoulders “right well it was worth a try… okay I’ll tell you” he took a deep breath as Callum locked eyes with him, giving him his full attention “Okay.. so you know about my past.. I’ve paid for my mistakes.. I’ve paid for it all and I am incredibly remorseful for everything I did.” Callum nodded “I see that.. Now what happened today?”

“My dad.. He wants me to do a job for him.. I refused. He started yelling at me.. We got into  a fight.. And I came here to escape.. Because I don’t want to do whatever job he has for me.. I want him to find somebody else to  do this job” he looked at Callum “Before you say anything I know I should just want him to not do the job at all.. But this is Phil Mitchell we’re talking about.. He does what he wants and everyone else has to deal with the consequences, because we’re the ones who have to do the jobs for him, and we’re the ones who have to pick up the pieces when it all goes to crap! Even his 7 year old granddaughter. He’s willing to put her future at risk. He’s willing to make her feel as if I abandoned her! And I refuse to put up with it any longer. She is a child she doesn’t need all of this, she  doesn’t deserve to be put through this. I am her father, I’m supposed to protect her from all of these things!”  he took a deep breath “I’m  sorry I didn’t mean to rant… it’s just I have a lot on my mind.”

Callum smiled and flagged down Mick and ordered another two beers “Ben it’s okay… you’re  allowed to feel this way”  Ben sighed “But it’s my dad.. I should respect him.. Right?” Callum sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “No, Ben you don’t have to respect  him at all or do as he tells you, especially if he’s trying to get you to do his dirty work, this is completely allowed and I am 100% sure you are justified in what you said to him” Ben looked at him and smiled slightly “Thank you Callum.” The other male raised an eyebrow at him “What for?” They both smiled at each other and picked up the drinks Mick had just placed onto  the bar “Giving me someone to vent to… I know we haven’t known each other long, like at all it’s been what? Two hours” Callum smiled softly “Yeah okay it’s been two hours.. But sometimes we can all use a friend” Ben raised an eyebrow “A friend? You see me as a  friend already?” he smiled softly and locked eyes with him “yeah.. Sure I do, only god knows we both need a friend right now, and I’m new around here I need all the friends I can get”

Ben grinned “Alright I can go for that, now I think YOU have something to tell me don’t you?” Callum feigned ignorance “Do I?” Ben laughed lightly “You know you do.. Why do they call you Halfway Callum?” Callum sighed softly “Why do they call me Halfway?” he thought for a second “They call me Halfway, sort of to make fun of me… Well because, I knew their son Lee at school and I was in the army with him.. And I was never very smart at school, I wasn’t ‘all there’ according to my some of my family” he gestured to himself “hence Halfway”

Ben smiled softly “That’s actually quite sweet” Callum blushed softly “yeah I guess so..” Ben chuckled and clapped him on the back “It’s not that bad Callum, or can I call you Halfway?” Callum glared at him playfully “Yes.. I think we’re friends enough that you are able to call me Halfway” Ben smiled softly and checked the time “Oh god.. Is that the time, sorry Callum I’ve gotta go get Lex from school..” He pulled out his card “This might be weird but here’s my number… you know if you ever wanna meet up here and have me return the favour, and have a rant at me?” Callum smiled and took the card “That’s not weird.. I’ll text you” Ben stood up “Okay sounds good, I’ll see you later okay?” he smiled as he walked toward the door and left. Callum grinned and looked down at the card in his hand with a slight blush. He took his pint from the bar and smiled slightly with a glint in his eye.

Yes, he’d only known Ben Mitchell for two hours, but he could see them as friends, possibly even more than that, he’d wait to see where the friendship took them. He didn’t know what the future held for him but he did know that he was excited about being in Walford. He had a family, and a home in the Carter’s and in the Queen Victoria. He also hoped he had a new friend in Ben Mitchell, although he felt a nagging feeling in the back of his mind telling him that it may lead to more with the other man who he already seemed to be very close to. He knew a lot about his new friends' past, but he could also see quite clearly, that the young Mitchell was changing, for the better and he shouldn’t let his father get in the way of the happiness he was clearly trying to find.. Callum resolved to try his best to help him to get out of the situation that he found himself in. 

Ben grinned lightly as he left the Vic, walking towards the primary school to pick up Lexi. Callum was really really kind and he'd found it incredibly helpful to be able to vent to someone. Sure he had Jay and Lola, but he found that sometimes it was easier to talk to someone that he wasn't attached to, although he did think there was a possibility he may become attached to Callum in the future, he had felt a connection almost instantly, and he could see them becoming close. He couldn’t wait to see where his future would take him, and he hoped Callum would be there in some capacity. 

Chapter Three 

 It had been a few weeks since Callum had arrived in Walford and met Ben, and most nights if he wasn’t working he was spending time with Ben, whether it be in the Vic or juist, spending time around at his house with him. A week after he had met Ben the other man had introduced him to Jay and Lola, and they had, all three clicked instantly, Callum had found some new friends, he just seemed to slot into their lives, like he was always supposed to be there, he’d even met Lexi. He smiled softly as he thought of all the people he’d met since moving to Walford. He finally felt like he would be able to be who he had always felt he was, He felt liberated now, secretly this was another reason he had moved away from Watford, from his father, from his brother. Now that they weren’t around him, he felt more able to be who he was without worry of being ridiculed for being different. Part of the reason behind this was watching Ben be completely open and honest about who he was. He didn’t know it, but Ben was teaching Callum not to be afraid, that it would be okay, that nothing would change, if he was open about who he was. He got ready for his night off, which as with most of his time off of late, he was spending with Ben, Jay and Lola. When he finished getting ready he went over to the Mitchell household and knocked on the door.

Ben’s Point of View.  

Ben smiled softly as he chased Lexi around her bedroom “Hey missy come on it’s bedtime” she let out a high-pitched squeal “No! I want to say hello to Callum” he laughed softly as he caught her and began tickling her “Get ready for bed and we’ll see okay?” she nodded “okay okay fine” she said laughing as he placed her down, she went to put on her pajamas as he left to the kitchin to flick the kettle on. He rolled his eyes as he noticed Jay and Lola sat at the table “Soo” Lola smiled “What do you want?” he asked, slightly irritated. Jay laughed softly “You’ve spent a lot of time with Callum lately, he’s a nice lad, and we like having him around, but you seem to like him. A lot”

“Alright and? I do like him, but it can’t happen” he sighed softly “We’ve only known each other a few weeks” Lola smiled with a slight squeal  “Oh Ben I’m so happy for you”  Ben looked at her and then at Jay and rolled his eyes  “Alright Lo calm down, we not getting married I haven’t even asked him out yet, and I’m not going to” Lola frowned “Why not? You like him, and I’m pretty sure he likes you too” Ben shook his head slightly “Lo, you can’t know that” She sighed softly “Alright if you're happy with that” Ben sighed “I think you know I’m not but I can't do anything about it. Look Lola we’ll see what happens in the future but he’s only been here a few weeks” Jay looked at him and laughed softly “But doesn’t he know you?” Ben rolled his eyes “You're on her side with this? I can’t believe you! And what could you possibly mean?”

Jay shook his head and laughed “Sorry bro, she will always win out on you, and I think you know exactly what I mean, he knows exactly who you are. He knows all about your past, and he still wants to be friends with you! Even if he is a police officer” Ben frowned at this and Lola slapped him upside the head “Jay!” she muttered as he rubbed the back of his head “I’m sorry okay?” Ben sighed and turned around taking four mugs out of the cupboard and set about making tea. He shook his head “Thank you for that one Jay, I appreciate it” Jay sighed “I’m sorry… Callum joining us again is he?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at the fourth mug on the counter “He should be… is that a problem?” Jay and Lola both shook their heads “No Ben of course we don’t… Callum is a decent lad. He fits in with us, he  needs the friends anyway from what he’s told me… I just noticed that he spends a lot of his free time here..”

“Yes I suppose he does, but he seems to be happy with that and it’s not like I’m forcing him to spend time with me Jay” Lola sighed “Ben that’s not what he’s saying.. What he means is, he doesn’t think the way you feel about him-” Ben opened his mouth to protest “Don’t you even try to deny it Ben Mitchell we know you. We can both read you like a book.. As I was saying Jay was just saying that he doesn't think the way you feel about Callum is one sided” Ben sighed and rolled his eyes, as the doorbell rang he walked backward toward the door so he could see them as he went to open it “Alright, whatever, just don’t say anything while he’s here I beg you” Lola chuckled  “Alright alright just answer the door”

Ben rolled his eyes and answered the door “Hey Halfway!” Callum glared at him playfully as he laughed “Hello Ben” he said as he entered the house and walked into the kitchen “Hey Lo, Jay, cheers Ben” he said as he was handed his mug “Oh no problem” he smiled and rolled his eyes Lola as she looked at him with a smile. They chatted for a while and smiled as they heard a thundering from upstairs “She waited up to see me again huh?” Lola laughed “You know she loves you Callum”  As Lexi barrelled into the kitchen and into Callum’s legs. “Callum!” she squealed softly “Hey missy,  have you had a good day” he asked as he bent down to pick her up. The little girl hugged him tightly as she launched into a rant about her day and how much fun she had had at school during the day. Callum listened  with a smile “Sounds like you did have a good day” he smiled softly as he placed her down on the floor. Lola chuckled “Come on then missy it’s time for bed, you’re already half an hour late, that’s not gonna be fun in the morning” she whispered the last bit. Lexi nodded with a soft yawn.

Ben smiled softly and picked her up “Let’s get you upstairs” he said as he left the kitchen and climbed the stairs toward her bedroom and put her to bed. Callum smiled into his mug as he watched Ben go. Lola and Jay looked at each other “So, Cal, How was your day?” Jay asked as he took a sip from his tea. “Well you know, busy but not too bad, how was yours?” he smiled softly and leaned against the kitchen counter. “Oh you know.. Ben’s been doing my nut in at the funeral home” Callum laughed softly “Doesn't he have the car lot to run?” Jay grinned with a nod “Yeah, he has the car lot and the Archers.. But I think he gets lonely.. He works at both on his own so…”  Lola smiled “He’s very busy in his own work and he does very well but.. He does get very lonely.. I usually spend his lunch hour with him” 

Callum nodded very pensive “I might join him some time, I should have the time.. I’ll give him some company at the car lot for the day too” Jay and Lola grinned at each other  “You don’t have to do that Callum.” He smiled softly “No no it’s not a problem, I want to he’s been one of my best friends since I moved into Walford, If he’s lonely I wanna help, I might even be able to be of some help at the car lot, or the Archers.. And it would mean that he’s not at the funeral home as much.” Lola laughed softly “I think he’d like that Callum” he nodded “Okay then”

Upstairs Ben was putting Lexi to bed, telling her a story. “Daddy?” he looked at her and sat on her bed next to her “Yes Princess?” she looked at him “I like Callum” she said with a sweet voice. Ben chuckled “I like Callum too baby” she smiled softly and gave him what Ben thought was a knowing look which was funny seeing as she was 7 years old. “Alright Princess I’ll see you in the morning okay?” he kissed her forehead as she cuddled into her bedsheets and her stuffed bunny rabbit. “Night dad” he grinned softly and joined  the others back in the kitchen. He grinned lightly as they were discussing what they were going to do for the evening. He sat down, joining them. He was with his family and he finally had the kind of life he’d wanted for so long and he was going to make sure it stayed that way.

Chapter 4

Phil Mitchell was angry. His son had been ignoring him for around a month now and he was getting sick of it. He needed his son to do exactly as he wanted him to do. He was going to retire soon and he needed to know he was leaving his empire to someone he could trust.  He let his fist hit the desk as he let out his anger. How dare his son not do as he told him? He was his father and he should be respected. Phil decided that if Ben wasn’t willingly going to do the job for him then he would just have to trick him into it. The only problem was, he wasn’t quite sure how to make this happen. Phil thought a while and snapped his fingers, he dialled Ben’s number and waited for him to answer it “What can I do for you Dad? If it’s that job I don’t want to know, okay?” Phil sighed softly “No Ben it’s not about the job, I was just wondering if you’d want to go for a drink? I’ll send you the address” Bwn laughed a little sarcastically “You wanna go for a drink with me? Really dad? If that’s true why don’t we just go to the Vic?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at his dad’s sudden interest in spending time with him. “I just figured we could try somewhere new” Ben gave a sigh of defeat “yeah alright dad we can go for a drink, where and when?” Phil smiled “I’ll send the address and time?” Ben snorted slightly “Alright then dad, I’ve gotta go I’ve got a meeting” he said as he hung up. Phil laughed a little as he put down the phone. He had finally found a way to get Ben to do as he needed him to do. He sent him the address of the warehouse that the job would be happening in and a time to go. Phil was rather annoyed because although Ben had finally given into him, (even if he didn’t know he was going to be doing it) Phil had had to lie to him to get him to do what was required of him.   

The next day Ben got ready to go and see his dad he travelled to the address that his dad had sent him. When he arrived he looked around the warehouse and sighed “Dad!” he growled and leaned against the wall scrubbing a hand down his face. He looked around “Right.. What do I do now?” he walked through the warehouse trying to work out what he was to do. He sighed, he wasn't going to do this job, he had Lexi to think about now, he couldn’t deal with the consequences.. Lexi needed him and he was definitely going to be there for her, he wasn’t going to be anything that could possibly damage his chances of seeing her grow up. 

In the warehouse he found it to be packed with a lot of things that probably didn’t belong there. He also found a note from his dad that said ~FIND SOMETHING TO DO WITH ALL THIS~

  He sighed softly, he was going to have to talk to his dad about this. He couldn’t believe that he would do this, he had forced him to get involved in this, he couldn’t believe his dad could be this selfish. He ran his hand down his face again. Of course he would have to do this, his dad wouldn’t stop until he did. Phil Mitchell always got what he wanted. But not this time.

His eyes widened as he heard sirens close to the warehouse.   “Oh crap” he ran around the warehouse trying to find a way out, as the sirens got louder, Ben stopped running, he decided that this was going to stop now. He decided it was time to make sure that his dad couldn’t get away with these jobs anymore. The police car stopped in front of him, and Ben walked over. The car door opened and Jack got out “Well, well, well if it isn’t Ben Mitchell” Ben sighed “Hi Jack, how did you know I was here?” Jack smiled softly, happy that he had finally caught a Mitchell doing something they shouldn’t be. 

“We’ve got this place under surveillance.” he pulled out a pair of handcuffs as Ben turned around “Ben Mitchell, I’m arresting you on suspicion of breaking and entering and intent to sell stolen goods, You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Do you understand?” Ben sighed and nodded as he was placed into the back of the car.  Jack got back into the car and drove towards the police station “Wait until Callum hears about this” he said, just loud enough for Ben to hear. He sighed “Why does what Callum thinks about this matter. Jack raised an eyebrow and looked at Ben “Nothing.” The rest of the ride to Walford police station was silent. When they arrived at the police station Jack pulled Ben out of the car and led him into the police station. 

Walking into the building Jack stopped at the desk to book him in. Ben looked up and locked eyes with the officer behind the desk. “PC Highway, I’ve got Ben Mitchell here, I arrested him in a warehouse by the Thames, for breaking and entering and intent to sell stolen goods. Can you book him in please?” Callum nodded looking at Ben and quickly put him into the system. Ben was then placed into an interview room and questioned. “So Ben.” Jack said quietly “What were you doing in that warehouse?” Ben looked Jack straight in the face “I was just going for a walk” Jack raised an eyebrow “Down by the Thames? A little far away from the Square don’t you think?” Ben shrugged slightly “Maybe.. But then again Jack, maybe I just wanted to get away for a bit, Maybe I had been called to fix a car down there”

“Down by a warehouse? That doesn’t tell me why you were IN  the warehouse Ben. Look I want to help you.. Tell me why you were there, be responsive, answer my questions and I can try to help you, I’m not the bad guy here Ben” Ben shook his head refusing to answer any more questions. Jack sighed, after about an hour and a half  he said “Interview suspended at 18:45.” Jack sighed softly and left the room. Ben sighed he knew his dad needed to be stopped and he knew that this was probably the only way this was going to happen, but he also couldn’t bring himself to implicate his dad, even if his dad didn’t have a problem with implicating him. It was his dad, could he really do that to his dad? He shook his head. He would never talk to him again. 

Callum’s point of view 

Callum watched as Jack left the interview room and walked toward him with a sigh. “Jack..” Jack looked at him “What  is it Callum, your friend in there isn’t cooperating at all”

“Can I talk to him Jack?” Jack looked at him and sighed “I don’t know Callum…” He sighed “Listen Jack I know it’s a bit weird but I might be able to convince him to cooperate, he listens to me… he trusts me” Jack sighed and ran a hand down his face “Yes, alright you can have 15 minutes with him, see what you can get out of him okay” Callum nodded “I can get him to tell me what happened.. He won’t tell me on the record though.. But I should be able to persuade him to tell you, I can’t promise you anything you know what he’s like.” Jack looked at him “I do know… but Callum I really need to know what happened, we can’t just leave it.. And we do need a record of what happened.” Callum sighed and walked towards the interview room “I’ll do what I can.”

Chapter Five 

Callum walked into the interview room and looked at the man sat in the chair he sighed with a soft smile “Hi Callum” he shook his head and sat down “Ben, what happened?” Ben placed his head down on the desk “I don’t want to say” Callum sighed “Look at me Ben.. What happened, I can help.” Ben sighed and looked up at him “How can you always do this?” Callum laughed softly “I’m just that good, now come on tell me what happened.” Ben sighed and looked at his hands, suddenly finding them to be the most interesting thing in the room. “It was my dad, he uh, he told me he wanted to go for a drink and he sent me an address and a time… I should have known something was wrong Callum… He’s Phil Mitchell, he’s always got ulterior motives” he placed his head in his hands. Callum sighed “Look at me, this is absolutely not your fault and your dad needs to learn he can’t do this” Ben looked at him, “I know Callum I know, but I can’t he’s still my dad”  Callum leaned back against the chair he was sat in “Listen Ben I get it some dad’s aren’t great… I understand that.. I’ve experienced it… Ben this is important.. Please… you can help us corner him if you tell Jack what you just told me” Ben sighed and looked at him “okay… okay yeah” he bit his lip “Your right he needs to learn.. It’s just not going to be fun at home” 

“No, I know and I fully understand, but you’ve got Jay, Lola and Lexi around you” he locked eyes with him “You’ve got me” he said quietly. Ben smiled softly as Callum said “Can I go get Jack?” Ben nodded. Callum stood up and left the room going back to desk “He’ll tell you now” Jack smiled “What did you do Callum? He was completely locked up there was no way he was going to tell us what’s going on” Callum shrugged “You may have lived on the square with him for years Jack, but I’ve spent time with him, I’m friends with him. He trusts me, I talk to him, I understand where he’s coming from” he sighed softly “Jack there’s something you need to know about this before you go back in there and talk to him.” He looked at him “What is it Callum?” he asked leaning against the desk. Callum ran a hand through his hair “Jack.. it was Phil, he tricked him into it.. But, Ben’s got a little bit of a complex with Phil.. It might take him awhile for him to tell you what happened, because of his loyalty complex with his dad, so could you please do me a favour and be patient with him. I’m guessing you know about Phil Mitchell’s past?” Jack nodded “Yes and I’m also aware of Ben’s past too, but I’ll listen to what he’s got to say because you seem very confident in him.” Callum looked towards the interview room. He shook his head and looked up at Jack “I do, I do trust him and I do have a lot of confidence in him… I didn’t know him when he did all the things on his record.. But I know him now and I can tell you he’s not like that anymore… he’s got Lexi now, he wouldn’t do anything to affect her.”

Jack sighed and walked toward the room “Okay” Callum nodded and leaned against the desk as Jack walked back into the room “Okay Ben, I’ve been talking to Callum, he tells me there’s more of a story behind you being at the warehouse, that you want to tell me.” Ben looked up at him “Uh, yeah… But listen.. I wanna ask before I tell you.. If it comes to anything I’d like to stay anonymous.. At least to start with” Jack nodded “Of course I can do that… I’m going to go back on the record okay?” Ben nodded quickly as he sat down and pulled his chair into the desk. “Alright then” he nodded and pressed the button “Interview recomenced at 19:10 … Ben what led you to being at that warehouse?” Ben sat up slightly in his chair “My dad… he uh, he told me we were gonna go for a drink, he sent me the address of this place… I should have known something was wrong… Not only does he never want to actually spend time with me, He never actually does anything unless he can get something out of it.”

Jack sighed “Right okay, and you had no idea that this was going on beforehand?” Ben shook his head “Not at all, he’d said he wanted me to do a job for him… and I knew that, but I’d told him that I wouldn’t do it because I have Lex now. He uh.. Wasn’t all too happy about it and he’s been trying to persuade me to do the job for him.. I just. I don’t know how to fix it” Jack looked at him “Okay, right well what do you know about his workings” Ben sighed “He’s… Uh he’s trying to make it so that I can take over from him in the ‘Family business’” he put into air quotes “But I really can’t do this… well that, and all his jobs need to stop and I know that…”

Jack leaned back in his chair “Anything else we need to know about?” Ben snorted slightly “There’s quite a lot”  Jack looked at him “We’ve got time” Ben took a deep breath “Alright so..” Ben then spent the next hour or so telling Jack everything he remembered about his dad’s past and all the different crimes that had happened that he knew about or thought that his dad may have been involved in. 

Chapter Six 

A few months after he had been arrested, and told Jack all about his dad’s past and his possible plans for future jobs that he had overheard, Jack had arrested Phil and charged him with all the crimes. They were able to prove some and his trial was in a few days. Ben sighed and sat down on the sofa and Lexi walked in”Daddy are you okay?” Ben looked up at her and pulled her into a hug “Of course I am Princess, I’ve got you” she smiled and hugged him. There was a knock at the door “I’ll get it” she chirped, Ben chuckled and put her down as she ran toward the door. “Callum!” he laughed softly and heard a “Hey Lex!” he heard her giggle as Callum walked into the living room with her on his shoulders “I’ll go ask mummy to put the kettle on for you” she said as Callum put her down.  “Alright”

 Callum smiled as he sat down on the sofa next to Ben “How’re you doing Ben?” Ben sighed and looked up at him “I’m doing okay but he still hasn't spoken to me” Callum sighed “Ben.. It’s okay, honestly maybe you just need to leave him to stew for a little while” Ben rolled his eyes “Callum it’s been six months… he just won’t talk to me”  Callum looked at him and grabbed his hand “Ben look at me.. You don’t need him, you’ve got me, you’ve got Jay, Lexi, Lola.. and this might not fill you with the most confidence but you have Ian too.” Ben laughed softly “Your right that doesn’t really help at all” Callum laughed softly “Yeah alright” Ben sighed softly “Hey… do you think you could come with me to court to watch the trial” Callum nodded “Yes I’ve got the day off that day, of course I’ll come with you” Ben smiled and hugged him “Thank you Callum honestly” Callum hugged him back a little surprised “of course Ben, you need me, I’m right here okay?” Lola  and Jay walked in and put the mugs they were carrying down on the coffee table. “We all are..” Lola smiled as they joined the hug. “I really appreciate you all” he grinned “Of course Ben, we’re your family.” He smiled softly. He suddenly felt as if he was finally in a safe space. He felt that he was finally away from his dad, which was something he never thought would happen. 

The next day,  Lola, Jay, Ben and Callum left Lexi with Ian and made their way to the court where the trial was taking place. When they arrived at the court, Ben stopped outside and leaned against the wall. Callum noticed that he wasn’t beside him anymore and backtracked out of the building  “Ben?” the shorter man looked at him “I’m  okay” Callum raised his eyebrows. Ben sighed “Okay so  I’m not okay, my dad’s about to be sent down and it’s my fault… so he won’t talk to me again… but he deserves it” Callum nodded with a slight smile and pulled him into a hug and led him inside .”It’s okay Ben, we’re all right here… we’ve got you” Ben followed with a smile “I know, I appreciate it Callum I really do… You don’t have to be here…” Callum shook his head and led him toward their friends  “But I want to be here for you Ben your my friend” Ben nodded as they walked into the courtroom and sat down. They sat through the trial waiting to hear the verdict. After they were called back in when the jury had come to a conclusion Ben sat next to Lola and Callum nervously. Lola pulled him into a side hug and Callum looked at him with  a slightly sad smile. The judge asked the foreman of the jury to stand  and asked what the verdict was. The foreman of the jury stood and Ben took a deep breath as they waited for the answer. “Guilty” Ben took another shaky breath and grabbed Callum’s hand. Callum looked at their hands a little surprised, he smiled softly and squeezed his hand as the judge then asked Phil to stand. “I have heard and taken into consideration all of the evidence heard and the fact that the jury has found you guilty. I believe that the only fair sentence I can give you is 10 years. You may take him down.”

As they watched him being taken down the four of them grinned at each other and stood up and Jay and Lola hugged Ben tightly., Callum smiled and looked down at their hands, which neither of them had realised they were still holding he blushed lightly and tried to pull away but Ben just held onto his hand tighter “Let’s go to the Vic and celebrate” Jay said  “ooh yes I’m down for that” Lola laughed. Ben nodded “I need a drink after that” They walked out of the court and got into a cab “Albert Square, thanks” Jay said quickly. When they arrived back on the square, Ben finally let go of Callum’s hand. Callum felt a little odd at the sudden loss of contact and it confused him. He knew he liked Ben, but he wasn’t sure if he should tell him because he didn’t know if Ben liked him in that way, and he didn’t want to ruin the friendship he had built up with Ben since he had moved to Walford. 

They walked into the Vic and, as Jay ordered the 4 of them drinks, Callum Ben and Lola sat down in a booth. Callum smiled softly watching Jay Lola and Ben have fun, and be who they are, he was incredibly happy that now that Phil was gone, Ben felt as though he could be who he was, and that he could pursue a future that he WANTED to.  

The four friends celebrated in the Vic for a few hours and eventually Ben and Callum ended up outside on the square, Ben leaning against the side of the Vic, pulled Callum toward him “Ben- Ben what are you doing?” he asked, pushing him away  and looking at him. Callum locked eyes with Ben, he connected their lips again. 

Chapter Seven 

Lola sighed softly, leaning against Jay as she looked at Ben “What’s going on with you Ben? I spoke to Callum earlier because he’s gonna go and get Lexi from school for me.. He said you haven’t properly spoken to him in a week..?” Ben looked at her “You remember last week when we went to the Vic, and at the end of the night we were standing outside.. And well we kissed.” Lola squealed “NO WAY” Ben nodded “Alright  Lo calm down” Lola smiled “Okay… So what’s the issue? He kissed you back right?” Ben shrugged and looked at her “I mean… he did yeah… But what’s to say it wasn’t just a spur on the moment thing? Oh my god… Lo I’ve ruined it” he buried his head in his hands

Jay sighed “Ben, Ben listen to me” he sat down at the table next to him “ Listen… You haven’t ruined anything at all.. You have no idea at all what he was feeling when he kissed you because you didn’t ask on the night did you?” Ben shook his head and Lola sighed “And you haven’t spoken to him all week to talk about what happened have you?” she asked, taking a hold of his hand. 

He ran a hand through his hair “No, no I haven’t because if I don’t talk to him then I haven’t ruined anything” Jay sighed “Ben, this is Callum you’d have to do something really awful  to get rid of Callum… and look at it this way, you’ve done some really bad stuff in the past and he’s still here to be your friend. So I genuinely don’t think that you have to worry about that.” Lola smiled “You’ll be fine Ben honestly.” Ben sighed softly “I don’t know… It’s me isn’t it? I’m really not lucky like this” Lola sighed and looked at him “Ben, Ben  you deserve so much happiness. Don’t let your past get you down . Be happy if it’s not with Callum then it’s not with Callum, but you deserve to try Ben” 

Ben smiled a little “What would I do without you two hey?” Lola and Jay laughed lightly “I don’t know” Ben grinned and sat back “Wait did you say Callum was picking Lex?” Lola nodded with a soft smile “She wanted him to so I said I would ask. She’s really happy about it, he’ll probably take her to the park or something, that’s always her favourite” Ben nodded “She’ll have fun then” Lola grinned “That she will”

Callum’s Point of View

Callum smiled as he arrived at the school to pick up Lexi and his smile only got bigger as she ran out of the building toward him “Uncle Callum!” she called as she ran at him, he knelt down to her height “Hello little monkey, how are you doing? You have a good day?” she nodded with a soft smile. “We did art and Maths and Music” she chirped telling him about her day. He smiled softly “That sounds fun” he replied with just as much enthusiasm “Do you wanna go to the park Lex?” he asked softly as he stood up to his full height and held out his hand to her so that they could safely walk across the road “YES!” she giggled he laughed “Alright missy”

As they arrived at the park Callum stopped at the kiosk and bought himself a cup of tea and a hot chocolate for Lexi “Uncle Callum?” she asked softly as they sat down at the picnic table. “Yes Lexi?” he replied handing her the hot chocolate “Do you like my dad?” he smiled “Sure I do Lex, he’s one of my best friends” she looked at him “That’s not what I meant Uncle Callum. Do you like him the same way my mum likes Uncle Jay?” 

Callum coughed  as his face went red “Lexi!” she looked at him innocently “What? I’m just interested”  Callum sighed softly. For 7 years old this girl was incredibly smart and perspective, there  was no point lying to her “I don’t know Lex.. I’m his friend right now that’s all I can tell you” she nodded taking a sip of her hot chocolate “Callum?” she asked softly. He leaned forward a little  “Yes Lex?”

 “My dad’s really happy when you're around” Lexi grinned “You make him happy I think” Callum smiled softly as she finished off her hot chocolate and ran off to play with a friend who had just arrived at the park. He sat there with a smile on his face as he sipped his tea. He had a lot to think about. 

Chapter Eight 

Lexi sat in her room smiling. Lately her dad and Uncle Callum hadn’t really spent as much time together, and SHE hadn’t really seen Callum since the day he picked her up from school and took her to the park for the hot chocolate and she’d asked him how he felt about her dad. She was very smart for a 7 year old and she knew what he meant.. She was very mature for her age and she knew when her dad and Callum were happiest and that was when they were together. She had a plan, but she needed some help. She hopped off her bed and ran down to the living room where her mum and Uncle Jay were sitting “Mum… Can you help me with something?”

Lola looked at her and smiled softly “Sure Lex what do you need?” Lexi smiled and sat in her lap “I want Uncle Callum and Daddy to spend time together, do you think you can ask Uncle Ian if they can have a table at his restaurant?” Lola smiled and hugged her little girl knowing exactly what she was doing. “I’m sure we can do something like that..” Lexi grinned “Uncle Jay will you talk to Daddy?” His eyes widened as he looked over the little girl’s head at her mother. He sighed and smiled at her lightly “Sure Lex I’ll get him there.” Lexi smiled softly as her mother pulled out her phone to call her uncle Ian. 

Callum was on his break at the Police Station as his phone rang. He answered it with a smile “Hey Lola, what’s up?” he could hear the smile in her voice “Callum if you’ve got plans tonight  cancel them. I’ve booked you and Ben a table at Walford East for 8:00 .” Callum sighed “Lola, I don’t…” He could hear her rolling her eyes as she cut him off “No Cal! It’s been a month.. This is getting ridiculous now. Neither of you are happy. And don’t tell me you are because I know you both and I can tell. So can Lexi” Callum thought for a minute “Okay, Okay I’ll go  but I’m not promising anything. Ben Mitchell is really stubborn” Lola squealed softly as he laughed “Okay, I’ve gotta go. I’m on duty now.”

Later on that night Callum walked to Walford East and went over to the table, where Ben was already sitting with food “Hi.. We’ve got food already?” Ben laughed “Yeah.. I think Lola tipped Ian to make sure we had food almost as soon as we arrived” Callum smiled as he sat down “I think we need to talk Ben..”  The shorter man sighed “Yeah we do… Listen I’m sorry.. I was a little drunk” Callum held his hand out across the table “Ben Mitchell will you listen to me for a minute before launching into an apology that isn’t actually needed” Ben sighed with a quick nod, taking ahold of his hand “Sorry” Callum smiled softly asd he made him look at him “Ben listen.., Might have pushed you away but that’;s because I was trying to work out my feelings.. But did I not kiss you back?” he asked quietly “You did” Ben laughed “I’m sorry I panicked.. I really really like you Callum and I don’t know… I didn’t wanna ruin the friendship we have” Callum leaned over the table and captured Ben’s lips in his “You won’t.. Do you want to go on a date with me?” Ben chuckled between kisses “Is that not what this is?” Callum pulled away with a soft smile “I meant one that we’d set up rather than your best friend and your 7 year old daughter.” Ben laughed and picked up his fork taking a bite of his food “What about Lexi?” Callum smiled taking a bite of his own food “Oh she definitely had a hand in this.. She asked me the last time I picked her up from school, how I felt about you” Ben laughed softly and shook his head. “I’d love to go on an actual date with you, I’ll text you” Callum smiled  “I’ll look forward to it.”

Epilogue 

Phil had asked Ben to visit him. Ben decided that he would visit him one last time. He had a better life now. He didn’t know where he’d be in life if he had followed the path his father had set out for him, or what he’d do in the family he had built up with Callum, Jay, Lola and especially Lexi. He was really only going to visit his dad to say goodbye. As he arrived at the prison he sighed softly. 

Phil sat down “Ben” he nodded toward him “Hi Dad how are you?” Phil looked at him “As good as I could be” he leaned forward “Listen, I’ve set up a job for you, someone in here needs something…” Ben sighed “Dad, no we’ve had this conversation” Phil growled slightly “Ben you owe me this, you are the reason I’m in here” 

Ben locked eyes with him “No dad the reason you're in here is because of your activity, I said last time that I wasn’t going to do a job for you because “I have a child and I have a job, I have Lex to think about. And that still stands but now I have Callum to think about too” Phil looked confused “Whose Callum?” Ben sighed as he stood up “Someone I really care about and I’m sure as hell not going to let you ruin in” Phil sighed “Sit down Ben” Ben snorted “No, I just came to say goodbye.. Don’t contact me again and enjoy your stay” he walked away ignoring his dad’s shouts of “Ben get back here I'm not finished talking to you!” Because even if Phil Mitchel wasn't done with him, he was done with Phil Mitchell and their ‘family business’. Ben Mitchell was on the straight and narrow now and it was all because Callum Highway had crashed into his life and convinced him to do the right thing and rid himself of his negative influence. It was time for him to go and be happy with his found family, and he was never going to let anyone ruin that.

[ssixa]

Feel Special //Narachan x OC (BW)

Description: Nala realizes that nice guys can make more than just great friends.

Genre: fluff, SMUT!!!

Pairing: Narachan (from M.O.N.T) x OC (BW)

Word count: 5.4k

Content warning: switch, mommy kink, daddy kink, profanity, language

A/N: shit I wish I did this art, but I found this black girl pic on the internet and I just had to use it! it’s absolutely beautiful. So full on S/O to the Pinterest profile Jess Create. Idk this person, but the artwork is just absolutely too beautiful not to share<3. This was technically my first time writing smut and I suck at it, so...sorry.

*All pic collages are made by me unless I state otherwise. Individual pictures in the collage are not mine and I give credit to where credit is due.

Nala found herself in one of those unique circumstances where she ended up living with 2 other men. The only difference was that she knew one of them by the name of Bitsaeon since childhood. While growing up she made another friend by the name of Roda and it didn’t take long for all of them to get close and be each others closest friend. At some time during high school, Roda ended up moving away and it wasn’t until later in their 20s that Roda decided to move back, but instead it would be better and financially easier if all three of them lived together. That’s how Nala came to live with these two men who conveniently were her already good friends. 

Nothing honestly became awkward between them. They survived each others hook up moments they had in the apartment (both the warned and not warned moments). Others around them knew that they were close and wondered if Nala ever had any feelings for either at any point in time and her answer was always no. She knew majority of the females, whereever they were, always tried flirting with the boys, but she always helped them out when they had no interest in doing anything with those girls by pretending to be in a relationship with them. That’s how close she was to these boys. 

A new friend by the name of Narachan popped up around the time they all moved in together. He knew Roda and Bit from their work at the record label where the staff at the company gathered them to work on a project for the debut group under the company. During the project, they became close so when it eventually came to an end they kept in contact with each other. Eventually, Roda and Bit invited Narachan over to the apartment to be able to finally meet Nala in person and to hangout altogether. Nala was only ever acquainted with him through pictures and few brief exchanges over the phone. She was curious as to what kind of person he was.

The day Narachan finally came over, the two hit it off instantly. He was honestly just like Bit and Roda so it wasn’t hard trying to figure him out. They spent a whole evening together playing games, drinking, and just vibing. Nara spent the night on the couch since he had a little too much to drink and wouldn’t be able to drive back to his place. She gathered blankets and a pillow for him and wished him a goodnight. The next morning she woke up early (since for some reason she wakes up earlier after a night of drinking) and decided to grab hangover food for everyone. The smell of food eventually woke everyone up and they all enjoyed a nice breakfast. Nara evetually left after she convinced him to not worry about paying her back for the food. 

“So~” Bit speaks up while they (they as in Roda, Bit, and Nala) were having a lazy Saturday evening.

“So what?” Nala replied as she was taking down her hair that was long overdue. She always had a love hate relationship with her hair since it tended to be the 4c type. Her hair looked beautifully filled out when the cornrows are taken out, but once water touched it the shrinkage is real. 

“Narachan, y’all seem to have hit it off a lot better than Roda and I predicted” he replied.

“Honestly he’s adorable. He seriously reminds me of you two idiots so it’s probably why we got along so well” She answers focused a section of a row that refused to come out.

“oooohhhh does our Nala have a crush on our new friend?” Roda speaks up mockingly

“Oh shut up and no, he’s just chill and there for the vibe so I appreciate it” She replies smacking him on the shoulder. The room filled with laughter and the evening continued on as everyone did absolutely nothing worthwhile. 

Months passed by and eveyone were just as close as ever. One particular day, Nala had a date with a guy she had been talking to online and was beyond excited. Roda and Bit knew about her date and in order for them not to die of boredom without her, they planned a boys night out with Narachan. While getting ready in her room, she could hear Narachan walk in the front door, he really just wasn’t a very quiet human being. She felt proud of her outfit for the night. It was a cute, body shaping, off the shoulder black dress and black heels with a little silver jewelry to match. Her makeup was simple as well since she wasn’t one to wear a lot in the first place. Her date and her were going to an art gallery event since they both shared a love for those types of artistic events.  

After giving herself a look over, Nala grabs her purse and leaves her room. She walks into the kitchen to grab a glass of water before heading out. 

“WOOOWWWW” Nala hears Roda exclaim followed by a whistle

“Oh shut up” she rolls her eyes in response

“But honestly, does it look like too much? I mean we are going to an art show at a gallery” she start giving herself a once over having second thoughts.

“You look amazing” she hears Nara speak up. She looks up and sees him quickly avoid eye contact with her. Odd.

“Thanks boo” she replies back like she always does. Nala was one of those nickname girls who calls everyone boo, dude, or bruh so this didn’t phase anyone...well that’s what she assumed at least. She gave herself a once over when she gets a message from her date saying that he was outside. She tells the boys to have a fun night and not be too reckless without her around. They wished her a good night and she left the house ready for an amazing night.

That date was absolutely terrible. The whole night was a mess and it was because of him messing up left to right. They got to the event and turns out he bought faulty tickets for the event on some sketchy website so he pretty much got scammed. Nala let that pass since the night was still young so she decided they should go in anyways. She ended up paying for her own ticket which she found quite irritating because she really was only planning to spend very little if nothing at all tonight. They get into the event which was absolutely amazing. The ambiance of the whole place was set nicely and matched very well with the different art pieces posted around the small building. They had little snacks and drinks to offer guests since they came with the ticket purchase so she ate only a little expecting them to go to dinner like he had planned. 

During the whole event though, he drank and ate to his hearts content and when she reminded me him about dinner after he said this was it. That had her fuming because the last thing he can do to piss her off is mess with the relationship between food and her. He walked around flirting with other women at the event and fully neglected the art that they came here for. Even when they walked around, he stayed on his phone and only looked up to say “that’s cool” or “I don’t get it”. At least she could understand now that he lied about being an arts lover. They left the event and at that point she was ready to go home. He tried making a move on her which is what she realized was his whole motive for the night. He wasn’t too pleased at her rejecting him and called her a bitch and a dumb slut. So she called herself an uber and blocked his number. 

Honestly, they had talked for a few weeks so Nala thought it would work out, but she guessed it wasn’t in the stars. This always happened though. She could never find herself a decent guy because they either become a friend or end up being an asshole. You may ask “why not date the friend that’s decent then?” well it’s because once they hit it off, she finds it hard to see them any other way. Nala can acknowledge that they’re attractive, but that’s it. Another failed date for the books, hopefully the boys bought some alcohol so she could drown her sorrows.

Nala unlocks the front door to the apartment and kicks off her shoes once inside. She throws her stuff on the kitchen table and heads for the fridge. She opens it grateful there’s a new case of ales stocked and ready to be consumed. She cracks open the bottle and chugs half of it down.

“Um, Nala, you good?” She heard Narachan speak up from the darkness of the living room. This nearly causes her to choke not having realized he was there. She spends a few minutes coughing her lungs out before trying to say anything.

“Oh my god I’m sorry, did I scare you?!” he exclaims standing up from the sofa

“I’m fine, and yes you literally just scared the shit out of me” she laughs after finally coming down. 

“Oh sorry” he says scratching the back of his neck

“You’re fine and to answer the first question before I just almost died, no I’m not good. Tonight was terrible” she sighs grabbing herself another drink from the fridge and heading to the sofa. 

“You wanna talk about it” he asks sitting down beside her. She agreed and began telling him all that happened. Thoughtlessly laying her head on his shoulder and linking her arms around his. This tended to be her comfort mechanism whenever she vented her feelings. Bit and Roda were used to it by now, but very comforting to her as she poured out her feelings to them. So it didn’t seem weird to her to do it with Nara since she now considered him one of her good friends. They sat there in the darkness staring at the blank tv at the front of the room.

“I swear is it that guys think I’m ugly or take me as a joke? I seriously don’t know what’s wrong with me” 

“Nala you’re an absolutely amazing person. I do admit that your taste in men is pretty bad though” he replies with a laugh.

“Yeah I guess it is” she replies back with a sad laugh.

“If you don’t mind me asking, but Roda and Bit are actually amazing guys. Why is it you’ve never thought of a relationship with one of them” he comments

“Lol you wouldn’t be the first to ask that. I do admit that they’re amazing and not actually ugly. It just happens that guys that are amazing I end up becoming friends with them. There ends up being no feelings to them and I don’t know why that is, but it is” she states with an acknowledging sigh.

“So you can’t date decent guys because you end up becoming good friends with them?” he repeats back

“Pretty much” she sighs for the nth time tonight.

“So I guess there’s no hope for me huh?” he adds with a slight laugh. It took a moment for his words to register in her brain. 

“Wait...Nara, what d-did you just say” she stutters out

“Honestly, I’ve liked you ever since I first came to your place” he replies

“Nara that was months ago. Why didn’t you tell me?” she replies back still in shock

“I know and it would’ve been weird since we had just met. You are an absolutely amazing person and I didn’t want to ruin our friendship that had barely just started” 

“I- Nara” 

“It’s ok that you don’t feel the same way, I just thought you should know. I hope this doesn’t affect our friendship” he says finally looking down at her. She finally turns her head to look up from his shoulder. He just has a soft smile on his face. Nala doesn’t know what came over her, but she leaned in and kissed him. She could feel him freeze for a second, but finally lean into it. It was a soft and innocent kiss. They separated after what felt like forever.

“Nala, y-you don’t have to force yourself to like me back I promise I’ll be fine” he says still in shock

“You idiot, I’ve liked you for a little while now” she comments back laughing

“W-what did you...”

“I haven’t like you as long as you’ve liked me, but I think I realized my feelings not that long ago. I think you have been one of my first friends I’ve actually fell for” she replies back shyly looking away. They sat in silence over the confessions that have just been admitted. Next thing she realizes is a hand grabbing her chin up and lips back on hers. The kiss was intense and saw no end. Nara slowly laid her down on the sofa without the kiss having any sort of break. She wrapped her arms around his neck trying to bring him closer to her. The kiss, which really turned out to be a make out session finally reached it’s breaking point and they both needed to catch their breaths.

They starred into each others eyes catching their breath,

“Nala, please let me show you how amazing and worth it you really are” he says with almost pleading eyes

“O-okay” she reply back. He leaned back down connecting their lips once again in another heated kiss. Shs could feel his hands roaming her frame which only sent shivers down her spine and having her get butterflies in her stomach. His lips made his way to her chin then down to her neck and shoulder. The feeling of his lips were light and yet deadly like an addictive poison. Sbs felt him nip at her shoulder which caused slight pain to turn into immense pleasure. 

Nala felt his hands that were still left roaming go towards the back of her thighs. Before she knew it, he had picked her up to straddle him. He proceeded to stand up and she instinctively wrapped her legs around him. She paid no mind to what was happening because she could tell they were walking towards her room. He opened the door and once inside kicked it closed with his foot. He carried her to her bed where he laid her down and hovered not ceasing to leave leave alone for even a second. After what felt like another eternity, she felt him fully disappear. She let out a moan from the sudden lack of him and opened her eyes to see what was happening.

“Now sweetheart, can you take off that pretty little black dress for me” he said with a dark lusd filled voice. She starred at him completely amazed by the man who looks like Nara, but doesn’t sound like the one she know.

“Don’t make me ask you twice” he said slightly threateningly. She pulled her dress off over her head as fast as she could. She realized that apart from her lace underwear the only other thing she had on was the pasties covering her nipples so they wouldn’t poke out through the dress. At this realization, she covered herself up, but also realized that his dark gaze added an extra shiver up her spine.

“Nala, you’re beautiful. Don’t hide yourself from me” he says as he reaches out to put her arms by her side.

“C-can you at least take your shirt off...” she asks softly.

“Not yet. First I’m going to make you feel good” Nara utters with a smirk. He kneels and centers himself between her legs making himself at eye level to her. He goes in for another intense kiss to her lips. He pushes her down slowly onto the bed while he leads the trail of kisses down her neck then to the center of her chest. He reaches up and carefully removes the pasties from her right nipple. He then reaches towards her left nipple and removes the other pasty from there.

He start rolling the right nipple with his fingers and attacks the left one with his mouth. The sucking, tugging, and small licks he delivered out her in a state of near ecstasy. She felt the heat between her legs growing the more it was left neglected. She wanted him, needed him.

“P-please Nara, I need you” she begged. He released his right hand and glided it down her stomach to her inner thigh. She was going crazy, she craved the touch that was so close yet time made it seem so far away. Nara, slowly glided his fingers up to her heat and on to her sensitive nub. He didn’t do anything, but place his finger on her nub but that little gesture had her floating.

“F-fuck please, do something Nara” she begged

“Baby you’re so needy. Trust me this will all be worth it” he says softly. As she was about to respond he shoved one finger into her heat with no chance of warning

“F-FUCK FUCK OH MY G—OHHHH” she blurted out. He started moving his fingers in and out as he continued sucking on her now very sensitive nipple.

“A-another p-please” she begged. The one wasn’t giving her the feeling she wanted only the bare build up. He adds in a second finger and pumps faster. He curves his fingers which ended up hitting the spot that would send sparks flying.

“Found it” he whispers seducingly when he heard her let out a big moan. His pumps were constant, but fast and he could tell she was close to her release with her heat being like a vacuum to his fingers and removing them became increasingly difficult. To really push her over the edge, he placed his thumb on her clit and started circling motions causing more arousal than she even knew she could get.

“F-fuck N-Nara I’m so fucking close fuck” she squeaks out. He went faster and faster and her climax hit,

“F-FUCK DADDY” she exclaims as she pushes her orgasm with the help of his fingers. She started seeing sparks and felt like this could have only been a dream.

“So...daddy. I love the sound of that coming from your lips” he leans down to whisper in her ear once he finishes her

“I-I...” she had no words to say. She always knew this was one of her kinks, but never had she imagined calling this sweet “innocent” man daddy.

“So what do you want daddy to do for you princess?” He says in a deeper tone

“I need you Nara” she says softly with eyes looking in all directions but his

“That isn’t my name now is it” he glares

“Please d-daddy, I need you” she begged once again

“Now that’s my good girl” he replies. He stands up ripping off his shirt in a way that was a lot more sexy than needed. She never realized how fit Nara actually was and she could’ve honestly never guessed either. He continues on removing his pants leg by leg as their eye contact never broke from his. He tossed his pants to the side and grabbed the rim to his maroon boxer-briefs. All she could do was swallow at what would be occurring in just a few moments.

Nara agonizingly slow removed the clothing finally letting his hard member spring free. He wasn’t big, but he definitely wasn’t small either; he was just right. She could feel drool pool up and risk escaping her mouth. She just wanted to wrap her mouth around his member and suck him dry, but as soon as she sat up making her way towards himl, he stops her. 

“Baby girl, what do you think you’re doing” he asks with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

“I-I just want to make daddy feel good” she replied without breaking eye contact with his hard member.

“As much as I appreciate the thought, I already told you I would make you realize how amazing you are” he says softly pushing her back on the bed.

“B-but I-” 

“No. Now answer me. Are you on birth control?” he asks in a demanding tone 

“Y-yes” she replies softly. She still wasn’t used to this side of Narachan.

“Good” is all he replies. He bends and spreads her legs and then pulls her bent legs forward to shift her whole body to the edge of the bed.

“You ready?” He asks almost as to make sure this is what she actually wants.

“Na- daddy, please” she looks at him with pleading eyes. At the very end of her statement he leans forward slowing filling up her hungry and deprived core. He pauses for a minute giving her time to adjust and once she said she was fine and he could move, he pulled out part way and pushed back in slowly.

His few slow strokes had her feeling like you were on cloud nine, but after a little while she hated to say it but she needed more.

“D-daddy please faster” she pleaded. On command, he started moving faster snapping his hips like he had been waiting for those words his whole life. He just as quickly got over this one position. He pulled out and she let out a sigh at the sudden emptiness.

“Hands and knees, now” he commands. Nala flips quick needing to be filled once more. She was expecting him to be gentle in the beginning until she told him it was ok to go faster, but she was wrong. Nara thrusted his hard member without warning cause her to let out a moan that she knew her poor neighbors would be able to hear. He was in pulling and pushing in and out at a constant yet fast speed.

Nala could feel her stomach tension build up and she knew she wouldn’t be able to last very much longer.

“I’m so close” she whaled out not caring who could hear her. Her moans became increasingly louder which encouraged Nara to go faster and deeper and one particular thrust hit her spot at just the right angle. She let out the biggest moan she had ever heard herself let out. He knew what he had done and made it a point to hit the exact spot back to back. He added the circling of her clit giving her an extra push to her splendid end.

She never realized sex could feel this amazing. Her past hookups were good for the moment but easily forgettable. With Nara, she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to forget this. She always said that “having a big dick doesn’t always mean men always know how to use it” (a/n: I’ve heard this so many times so I can’t really give credit to a specific person...so credit to social media lol). As her moans persisted, he never let up until the very end. The tension finally peaked and she was hit with her climax.

Nara kept thrusting and circling her clit helping her ride out her high for a little while longer. Nala’s limbs gave out and she couldn’t bare her own weight anymore. She fell on her side trying to catch her breath and stopping the convulsions running through her body almost like they were trying to milk out as much of her climax as possible. Nara makes his way to the side of the bed, picking her up and moving her up the the head of the bed and covering her with the bed sheets.

“W-wait Nara...you didn’t cum did you?” She asks as she sits up slowly.

“It’s ok, this was for you...all for you” he finishes with a soft shy voice. He for the nth time threw her off tonight. Maybe this guy is bipolar because this wasn’t the same boy that was just ramming his cock into her only a moment ago.

“No. It’s not ok.” Nala deadpans

“Sit.” She commands. Out of nowhere, Nara found himself obeying and sitting on the bed. She climbs out of the bed with whatever new found strength she got out of nowhere and made her way between his legs. Her lips became at level with his still painfully erected member that was slightly oozing with precum.

“So you’re saying that you were going to deal with this yourself? Nara, you made me feel special, more than a lot of people who have been in my life so let me do the same for you” she says without hesitation, but a lot of confidence.

“But, Nala” he tried to interject

“That wasn’t a statement open for an opinion” she cuts him off before he could finish his statement.

“Now, tell me what I can do for you baby” she cooed lightly kissing his tip. He let out a small moan to only try and repress the others that would follow. She slapped her hands on his thighs using them as a way to propel herself towards him. Her lips slightly grazing his ear,

“No holding back. I want to hear you” she says with an evil whisper while placing her hand on his member and stroking it dreadfully slow. She pulls back to make eye contact with the now frazzled man who tries his best to keep as much composure as possible. That failed. He let out a small string of grunts and moans that he gave up trying to suppress. So with a smile, Nala commands,

“So tell me what you want mommy to do”

“P-please suck me off...m-mommy” he says with a breathless tone.

“Anything for my baby” she replies with a smirk. She gets back on her knees and licks a strip from base to tip. She then wraps her lips around his member and begins to bob her head, hallowing her cheeks out. Nara continues on with his moans and grunts.

“Mommy please faster...deeper” he says barely able to get his words out. Nala did as requested making him moan out “yeses” and “fucks”. Just like Nala, Nara felt the tension of his climax building up.

“Fuck I’m so close...mommy....please...inside you” was all he was able to muster out. She releases his member with a pop that echoed through the room. She stands a little ways in front of him,

“So what position baby do you want me” she says with a lustful gaze. His boldness takes over as he grabs her arm and bends her over the edge of the bed. He pushes his member in and starts thrusting a a decently quick pace. The room is filled with slaps of skin to skin and strings of moans and profanity.

Nara brought Nala’s body up to a standing position with his member still deep in her, but the skin on her back molding with his chest. He continued with his last few thrusts before meeting his ultimate bliss. He thrusted a few more times to let out whatever seed he felt like he left in him. He pulled out causing Nala to feel emptiness once again while she laid back in the bed and he goes to the bathroom to grab a towel.

He comes back and cleans both of them up and tosses the used towel into the laundry basket. He gets back into bed and pulls her in so they’re chest to chest.

“Hey Nala” he speaks up

“Mhmm” was all she was able to get out.

“You know I like you right?” He asks

“Dumbass...I really like you too” she replies back with a light hit to his chest. He laughs as he pulls her in for a closer hug. Not too long later, they both were fast asleep in each other’s arms.

The next morning, the sun beamed through the window of Nala’s bedroom. Nara was the first to open his eyes and he couldn’t be more at peace looking at Nala’s sleeping form. He couldn’t believe that the girl he’s pretty much been in love with for the past months is finally in his arms. He must’ve not realized he zoned out because when he finally snapped back to reality, Nala was staring back at him with her beautiful brown eyes.

“G-good morning” he stutters out

“Good morning” Nala replies in a sleepy voice

“So...breakfast?” He quirks up

“Pancakes sound amazing right now ” Nala laughs

“Definitely, let me go make some” Nara snaps up as he begins to get out of bed. Nala suddenly reaches out for his arm,

“What’s wrong?” Nara looks back kind of concerned

“Nara, let’s make them together...for a commemoration...” she shyly speaks up.

“Commemoration for what?” He laughs

“Our first day” she says with a warm smile. This reply startles Nara because he realized that he never actually asked Nala out.

“I’m a dumbass, I don’t normally hook up with someone I like before hooking up with them” he hangs his head in embarrassment.

“It’s ok, honestly. Last night was really great” Nala replies lovingly

“It was, wasn’t it” Nara smiles to himself

“But you know what’s even better?”

“What?” Nara questions with a laugh of confusion

“PANCAKES!” Nala replies as she jumps out of the bed and runs to the door. Nara catches her as soon as they reach the kitchen and holds her in his embrace. Nala turns around and reaches up on her tippy toes to give him a quick peck.

“EEEHHHEEEMMMM” a voice comes out of nowhere. Nara and Nala both snap their heads to the mysterious voice and grow a look of embarrassment when they see Bit and Roda sitting in the living room watching tv

“How are you guys like this this early in the morning?” Roda speaks up with a grossed out face

“Ummmm” Nala speaks up

“Ah nevermind, I don’t wanna know. I’m just glad y’all are finally together, Roda you owe me 20 bucks” Bit laughs sticking out his hand. Roda reaches for his wallet and retrieves the 20 to give to Bit.

“What the hell kind of bet did you guys even place?” Nala aks getting increasingly angry.

“Oh just that lover boy over there would confess to you before the end of the month. I was getting nervous that I would lose, but thanks Nara” Bit laughs waving the 20 in the air. Nara’s face got red not realizing that his feelings for you were that obvious to eveyone but you.

“Y’all are assholes” Nala tried to rush them, but stops herself to turn around.

“Wait...Nara...were you in on this?!” She says looking a little heart broken. Nara starts to realize what she means,

“Nala I promise I knew nothing about this. If I did...that wouldn’t make much sense now would it” he replied hastily with his hands up and back.

“Don’t worry Nala, Nara knows nothing of this” Roda replies back with a nonchalant smile.

“Fine, I would’ve ended all of you if it was true” she say with clenched teeth. Nara comes behind her giving her another back hug and she visibly melts into his touch.

“Wait...where were y’all last night. I got home from the freak show of a date and Nara was chilling on the couch by himself”

“Oh we had a last minute edit to make for one of the album tracks we’re making for that new debut group. We were trying to finish up quickly, but when we did...let’s just say we heard and saw more than we wanted to” Roda replies with a shiver.

“Oh my g- wait, don’t tell me y’all stayed in the house the whole night” Nala says in a panic.

“Why the fuck would we want to stay and listen to all of that. As soon as y’all went to the bedroom we dipped and went to the bar with Beomhan” Roda spoke up.

“Wait isn’t he the kid in the debut group you’re working with? Isn’t it risky for him to be out like that?” Nala speaks up and Nara nods in agreement behind her,

“He was bored so what the company doesn’t know won’t kill them” Bit laughs.

“Oh whatever, y’alls career funerals” Nara speaks up laughingly.

“Oh shut up lover boy. On a different note I hear we’re having pancakes” Roda smiles.

[nyrator]

another long vent post about depression/anxiety

extremely depressed tonight

first made the mistake of driving myself to the grocery store at 6pm, first I had to try scraping the ice off the windshield with nothing but a broom and bare hands, then driving itself was nightmareish, the car feels like a death trap to me, very loose and sloppy compared to my last car, so loud and uncomfortable with no audible music to calm my nerves. My eyes have worsened to the point where I can’t see anything at night- glare takes up my whole vision, even with anti-glare shades. I was driving well below the speed limit the entire time and still almost hit three pedestrians who were all recklessly out on the roads in all black for whatever reason. My nerves are completely shot from it, my chest feels like I’m in a vice and can’t breathe, my eyes are wide open and hunched over the steering wheel, and my body feels both like I’m about to wet myself at any moment and that I’m too stiff/tense/frozen to function as a human at all, it’s that fight-or-flight response at its extreme. Meanwhile, my skin must be weak- my knuckles bleed when driving, and my wrists bled just from carrying in bags of groceries.

then getting home and just dealing with personal drama of someone I know who is so depressed and self destructive and too smart to reason with, who refuses/is unable to seek professional help, who just doesn’t understand or just can’t help venting to me nonstop, no matter how much I beg them not to over and over- their life is so terrible that suicide seems like the only option to them, and I don’t want them to do so, but I can’t keep suffering like this either and I feel like the only thing preventing them from doing so, as poor a job as I do as a human being anyway. But I can’t help them if they can’t help themselves, even if they were just ate a bit better, or just had a journal or someone anonymous they could talk to, but it seems inescapable and impossible to change anything and all we do is argue over it until I snap at them to leave me alone. That person is probably reading this right now and probably hating it, but I doubt anyone on this site even knows who they are.

Tuesday morning, I couldn’t sleep at all from anxiety- it was so severe and inescapable, I laid in bed for four hours feeling like I was dying until I was finally able to sleep for two hours. I can’t seem to stay asleep longer than two hours anymore. Was supposed to hang out with friends that day, but between lack of sleep, depression, and my absolute terror at driving in a snowstorm, I ended up just staying home.

Anxiety has gotten so bad again. I know a lot of how the mechanics work behind it, I know a lot of pains are from tension and lack of breathing. But my old coping mechanisms don’t work anymore. I can focus on breathing for several minutes straight and then fall right back into suffocating. Music, counting things, meditating, none of it helps anymore.

One way to describe the feeling of anxiety- it’s kind of like when you fall asleep on your arm, and you feel all the blood rushing back into it and that tingling sensation. Imagine that, maybe a bit less, but throughout your entire body (especially chest), your body is stiff and not numb, and your entire body is vibrating or shivering/shaking or something.

I still spend 16+ hours laying in bed every single day. When I got home from shopping, the walking around (and the stress of driving) was enough to send me straight to bed, I was so tired and weak. It’s probably why I don’t sleep properly, I’m half awake in bed all the time, what need is there for sleep

I have mail I haven’t opened, taxes I still have to do, messes to clean, and don’t care for any of it. Can’t even talk about some things I’ve been doing to myself out of spite or general depression, the way I’ve been abusing. I promise to try not to do anything too crazy or directly harmful, but even then I worry about slipping up- I tried one thing I shouldn’t talk about, which wasn’t too serious, but still seriously concerning how easy it was to try doing

still haven’t contacted a therapist, my fear of calling someone is so strong I can’t overcome it, especially not after just waking up. Talked to some friends, some agree that I should, at least one thinks it’s a waste of time and money- up to $125 per session to just get a glorified phone call thanks to covid restrictions. I just don’t see the point if I’m still stuck in my apartment at my computer, especially if I have an internet addiction already.

The lack of doing anything is driving me insane, I think. I’ve played four single player games in 2020- ACNH, KH MoM, Panel de Pon, and Picross. In terms of things watched on my own, probably just Japan Sinks and whatever else was on Netflix the few months I had it. Don’t feel motivated to play or watch anything anymore, nothing seems interesting, and mostly just do things with friends if at all

Even ACNH, the game I play the most, I barely do anything in it- mostly just get new items from stores, that’s it. My island decorating has come to a hard halt, mostly because I barely have any furniture I’d like to embellish it with, and mainly because I have no ideas to layout most of it

I want to create, but don’t have the energy to make anything at all. Rotten Nyan is still my current goal, but anxiety has made it next to impossible to work on. I’ve tried several times the past few weeks, all met with failure- the anxiety’s too much, half the time I don’t even know what’s causing it, but my body just gets too tense and cramped without even doing anything, and I just can’t breathe at all while working on it.

Thought about making an omake comic for it, then realized what a terrible idea it was, and how hard it is to draw comics in general. Or anything in general. Wrote down the entire comic while laying in bed one day, went to draw it, was unable to, tried making it a yonkoma, gave up, and felt sick thinking of all the gross things in it that I just made a vent description of Middle Lave and just posted that to the RN tumblr instead.

I can’t think of any ideas, I feel like my art has regressed- I’ve taken more shortcuts for the sake of my hands tensing so fast from anxiety, and I’ve gotten decent at drawing middle Lave I feel, but anything besides a character standing is impossible for me- any environments or character interactions that I’d love to do just feel impossible, let alone my inability to write good ones. Anything I try to think of writing-wise always ends up the same gross content that burned into my memories that I just can’t feel comfortable talking about much at all, nor do I think it’s content people want to see at all.

There’s a lot of detailed kind of art I’d like to do. I kind of want to loosen my restrictions on myself and just draw whatever suffering I feel like, maybe once I use the RN twitter more I might get a little more courage to do so. I see many artists draw detailed scenes in single images, and no matter how hard I try, I just can’t capture that feeling.

Part of me feels torn about it being an autobiography for people to relate to, and being a suffering experience for people to find some weird enjoyment out of. I feel like I’ve lost sight of what it was originally meant to be and now just enjoy “bullying” Middle Lave half the time I guess, but unfortunately for me, bullying makes me feel like vomiting and is hard to draw consistently- maybe I’m too nice. I don’t know, I’m just rambling at this point. The comic is still laid out and just meant to explore the life of Lave, but it’s just so hard to work on.

In terms of other things, I have no idea what to do

Vtuber/streaming? Hate my voice, can’t focus on learning what I need for it in terms of rigging and texturing models. I only know the basics of making 3D things and nothing else.

Console art? I already designed all the ones I’m mainly interested in, but like I mentioned before, can’t think of any character interactions at all that I feel like drawing.

Making a game? I know 2k3 well enough to make anything in it event-wise, though never got over my map failings, and I can’t commit to anything long-term. Godot or another program, or programming in general? Good luck.

I just want to make something, work on a project without losing steam or letting anxiety prevent me from learning. Can’t focus on anything long enough to learn it- Japanese, making a game, programming, a new hobby, anything. I just don’t have the drive to do anything and will give up anything I even try to start, so what’s the point in even trying anything. I have books I haven’t read that I’ve been meaning to read for years, and still don’t have an ounce of energy to want to even organize them on their shelf, let alone open it

At the very least, I got my first big commission (second one ever), designing an OC for someone, and it’s going well, though tonight I’ve lost steam to finish it, and I hope I can get it back tomorrow to try to finalize it.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I really wish I just had someone guide me with art- I miss doing those 30 day challenge kind of things, or “send a number/emoji” kind of asks for OCs, but tumblr’s so inactive that I don’t see them on my dash anymore, and don’t know how to even look for them, especially not on sites like twitter these days. Though, the problem is, no one knows exactly what I like, and I feel awful letting people down if they ask for something I don’t want to draw

I can’t focus on exercise long term, and I’m so out of practice that exhaustion is too strong to beat. I’ve been trying to walk up and down on a step stool for exercise to get me back into basic movement, but even that’s too tiring. Want to do it while watching something, then I realize, I don’t watch anything at all, not even youtube, just an occasional artist stream that I mainly chat with rather than watch

I feel like I’m going to collapse if I turn or move too suddenly, and my eyes are absolutely terrible- glasses are okay, but without them I’m completely blind now- not just blind, but it’s like my eyes see at two different angles sometimes, like one is slanted or something, very disorientating.

It’s 7:30AM, and no desire to sleep at all. Terrified of laying in bed and letting anxiety take over me again. Part of me wants to become completely nocturnal and just avoid everyone during the day and just respond to messages in the AM hours, just wake up at midnight each day and avoid dealing with people. Go to sleep when everyone starts to get active and just isolate myself entirely from society.

I feel like I exist with no purpose whatsoever, and it’s driving me insane- not that life is meant to have a purpose, but I could at least be doing something more than laying in bed all day every day for a year

[blackkudos]

Josephine Baker

Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald, naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French entertainer, French Resistance agent, and civil rights activist. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. Baker was the first African-American to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant.

During her early career Baker was renowned as a dancer, and was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in the revue Un vent de folie in 1927 caused a sensation in Paris. Her costume, consisting of only a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol of the Jazz Age and the 1920s.

Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the “Black Venus”, the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess". Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a French national after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. She raised her children in France. "I have two loves, my country and Paris", Baker once said, and she sang: « J'ai deux amours, mon pays et Paris ».

She was known for aiding the French Resistance during World War II. After the war, she was awarded the Croix de guerre by the French military, and was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle.

Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and is noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. In 1968, she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King, following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. After thinking it over, Baker declined the offer out of concern for the welfare of her children.

Early life

Freda Josephine McDonald was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother, Carrie, was adopted in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1886 by Richard and Elvira McDonald, both of whom were former slaves of African and Native American descent. Josephine Baker's estate identifies vaudeville drummer Eddie Carson as her natural father despite evidence to the contrary. Baker's foster son Jean-Claude Baker wrote a biography, published in 1993, titled Josephine: The Hungry Heart. Jean-Claude Baker did an exhaustive amount of research into the life of Josephine Baker, including the identity of her biological father. In the book, he discusses at length the circumstances surrounding Josephine Baker's birth:

The records of the city of St. Louis tell an almost unbelievable story. They show that (Josephine Baker's mother) Carrie McDonald ... was admitted to the (exclusively white) Female Hospital on May 3, 1906, diagnosed as pregnant. She was discharged on June 17, her baby, Freda J. McDonald having been born two weeks earlier. Why six weeks in the hospital? Especially for a black woman (of that time) who would customarily have had her baby at home with the help of a midwife? Obviously, there had been complications with the pregnancy, but Carrie's chart reveals no details. The father was identified (on the birth certificate) simply as "Edw"... I think Josephine's father was white – so did Josephine, so did her family ... people in St. Louis say that (Baker's mother) had worked for a German family (around the time she became pregnant). He's the one who must have got her into that hospital and paid to keep her there all those weeks. Also, her baby's birth was registered by the head of the hospital at a time when most black births were not. I have unraveled many mysteries associated with Josephine Baker, but the most painful mystery of her life, the mystery of her father's identity, I could not solve. The secret died with Carrie, who refused to the end to talk about it. She let people think Eddie Carson was the father, and Carson played along, (but) Josephine knew better.

Josephine spent her early life at 212 Targee Street (known by some St. Louis residents as Johnson Street) in the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood of St. Louis, a racially mixed low-income neighborhood near Union Station, consisting mainly of rooming houses, brothels, and apartments without indoor plumbing. Josephine was always poorly dressed and hungry as a child, and developed street smarts playing in the railroad yards of Union Station.

Josephine's mother married a kind but perpetually unemployed man, Arthur Martin, with whom she had son Arthur and two more daughters, Marguerite and Willie. She took in laundry to wash to make ends meet, and at eight years old, Josephine began working as a live-in domestic for white families in St. Louis. One woman abused her, burning Josephine's hands when the young girl put too much soap in the laundry. By age 12, she had dropped out of school.

At 13 she worked as a waitress at the Old Chauffeur's Club at 3133 Pine Street. She also lived as a street child in the slums of St. Louis, sleeping in cardboard shelters, scavenging for food in garbage cans, making a living with street-corner dancing. It was at the Old Chauffeur's Club where Josephine met Willie Wells and married him the same year. However, the marriage lasted less than a year. Following her divorce from Wells, she found work with a street performance group called the Jones Family Band.

In Baker's teen years she struggled to have a healthy relationship with her mother, Carrie McDonald, who did not want Josephine to become an entertainer, and scolded her for not tending to her second husband Willie Baker, whom she had married in 1921 at 15. Although she left Willie Baker when her vaudeville troupe was booked into a New York City venue and divorced him in 1925, it was during this time she began to see significant career success, and she continued to use his last name professionally for the rest of her life.

Though Baker traveled, then returned with gifts and money for her mother and younger half-sister, the turmoil with her mother pushed her to make a trip to France.

Career

Early years

Baker's consistent badgering of a show manager in her hometown led to her being recruited for the St. Louis Chorus vaudeville show. At the age of 15, she headed to New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, performing at the Plantation Club, Florence Mills’ old stomping ground, and in the chorus lines of the groundbreaking and hugely successful Broadway revues Shuffle Along (1921) with Adelaide Hall and The Chocolate Dandies (1924).

Baker performed as the last dancer on the end of the chorus line, where her act was to perform in a comic manner, as if she were unable to remember the dance, until the encore, at which point she would perform it not only correctly but with additional complexity. A term of the time describes this part of the cast as "The Pony". Baker was billed at the time as "the highest-paid chorus girl in vaudeville".

Her career began with blackface comedy at local clubs; this was the "entertainment" of which her mother had disapproved; however, these performances landed Baker an opportunity to tour in Paris, which would become the place she called home until her final days.

Paris and rise to fame

Baker sailed to Paris for a new venture, and opened in La Revue Nègre on 2 October 1925, aged 19, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées.

In a 1974 interview with The Guardian, Baker explained that she obtained her first big break in the bustling city. "No, I didn't get my first break on Broadway. I was only in the chorus in 'Shuffle Along' and 'Chocolate Dandies'. I became famous first in France in the twenties. I just couldn't stand America and I was one of the first coloured Americans to move to Paris. Oh yes, Bricktop was there as well. Me and her were the only two, and we had a marvellous time. Of course, everyone who was anyone knew Bricky. And they got to know Miss Baker as well."

In Paris, she became an instant success for her erotic dancing, and for appearing practically nude onstage. After a successful tour of Europe, she broke her contract and returned to France to star at the Folies Bergère, setting the standard for her future acts.

Baker performed the "Danse Sauvage" wearing a costume consisting of a skirt made of a string of artificial bananas. Her success coincided (1925) with the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, which gave birth to the term "Art Deco", and also with a renewal of interest in non-Western forms of art, including African. Baker represented one aspect of this fashion. In later shows in Paris, she was often accompanied on stage by her pet cheetah, "Chiquita", who was adorned with a diamond collar. The cheetah frequently escaped into the orchestra pit, where it terrorized the musicians, adding another element of excitement to the show.

After a while, Baker was the most successful American entertainer working in France. Ernest Hemingway called her "the most sensational woman anyone ever saw." The author spent hours talking with her in Paris bars. Picasso drew paintings depicting her alluring beauty. Jean Cocteau became friendly with her and helped vault her to international stardom.

Baker starred in three films which found success only in Europe: the silent film Siren of the Tropics (1927), Zouzou (1934) and Princesse Tam Tam (1935). She starred in Fausse Alerte in 1940.

At this time she scored her most successful song, "J'ai deux amours" (1931). At the start of her career in France, Baker met a Sicilian former stonemason who passed himself off as a count, who persuaded her to let him manage her. Giuseppe Pepito Abatino was not only Baker's management, but her lover as well. The two could not marry because Baker was still married to her second husband, Willie Baker.

Under the management of Abatino, Baker's stage and public persona, as well as her singing voice, were transformed. In 1934, she took the lead in a revival of Jacques Offenbach's opera La créole, which premiered in December of that year for a six-month run at the Théâtre Marigny on the Champs-Élysées of Paris. In preparation for her performances, she went through months of training with a vocal coach. In the words of Shirley Bassey, who has cited Baker as her primary influence, "... she went from a 'petite danseuse sauvage' with a decent voice to 'la grande diva magnifique' ... I swear in all my life I have never seen, and probably never shall see again, such a spectacular singer and performer."Despite her popularity in France, Baker never attained the equivalent reputation in America. Her star turn in a 1936 revival of Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway generated less than impressive box office numbers, and later in the run, she was replaced by Gypsy Rose Lee. Time magazine referred to her as a "Negro wench ... whose dancing and singing might be topped anywhere outside of Paris", while other critics said her voice was "too thin" and "dwarf-like" to fill the Winter Garden Theatre. She returned to Europe heartbroken. This contributed to Baker's becoming a legal citizen of France and giving up her American citizenship.

Baker returned to Paris in 1937, married the French industrialist Jean Lion, and became a French citizen. They were married in the French town of Crèvecœur-le-Grand, in a wedding presided over by the mayor, Jammy Schmidt.

Work during World War II

In September 1939, when France declared war on Germany in response to the invasion of Poland, Baker was recruited by the Deuxième Bureau, French military intelligence, as an "honorable correspondent". Baker collected what information she could about German troop locations from officials she met at parties. She specialized in gatherings at embassies and ministries, charming people as she had always done, while gathering information. Her café-society fame enabled her to rub shoulders with those in the know, from high-ranking Japanese officials to Italian bureaucrats, and to report back what she heard. She attended parties and gathered information at the Italian embassy without raising suspicion.

When the Germans invaded France, Baker left Paris and went to the Château des Milandes, her home in the Dordogne département in the south of France. She housed people who were eager to help the Free French effort led by Charles de Gaulle and supplied them with visas. As an entertainer, Baker had an excuse for moving around Europe, visiting neutral nations such as Portugal, as well as some in South America. She carried information for transmission to England, about airfields, harbors, and German troop concentrations in the West of France. Notes were written in invisible ink on Baker's sheet music.

Later in 1941, she and her entourage went to the French colonies in North Africa. The stated reason was Baker's health (since she was recovering from another case of pneumonia) but the real reason was to continue helping the Resistance. From a base in Morocco, she made tours of Spain. She pinned notes with the information she gathered inside her underwear (counting on her celebrity to avoid a strip search). She met the Pasha of Marrakech, whose support helped her through a miscarriage (the last of several). After the miscarriage, she developed an infection so severe it required a hysterectomy. The infection spread and she developed peritonitis and then sepsis. After her recovery (which she continued to fall in and out of), she started touring to entertain British, French, and American soldiers in North Africa. The Free French had no organized entertainment network for their troops, so Baker and her entourage managed for the most part on their own. They allowed no civilians and charged no admission.

After the war, Baker received the Croix de guerre and the Rosette de la Résistance. She was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle.

Baker's last marriage, to French composer and conductor Jo Bouillon, ended around the time Baker opted to adopt her 11th child.

Later career

In 1949, a reinvented Baker returned in triumph to the Folies Bergere. Bolstered by recognition of her wartime heroics, Baker the performer assumed a new gravitas, unafraid to take on serious music or subject matter. The engagement was a rousing success and reestablished Baker as one of Paris' preeminent entertainers. In 1951 Baker was invited back to the United States for a nightclub engagement in Miami. After winning a public battle over desegregating the club's audience, Baker followed up her sold-out run at the club with a national tour. Rave reviews and enthusiastic audiences accompanied her everywhere, climaxed by a parade in front of 100,000 people in Harlem in honor of her new title: NAACP's "Woman of the Year". Her future looked bright, with six months of bookings and promises of many more to come.

In 1952 Baker was hired to crown the Queen of the Cavalcade of Jazz for the famed eighth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles which was produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on June 1. Also featured to perform that day were Roy Brown and His Mighty Men, Anna Mae Winburn and Her Sweethearts, Toni Harper, Louis Jordan, Jimmy Witherspoon and Jerry Wallace.

An incident at the Stork Club interrupted and overturned her plans. Baker criticized the club's unwritten policy of discouraging black patrons, then scolded columnist Walter Winchell, an old ally, for not rising to her defense. Winchell responded swiftly with a series of harsh public rebukes, including accusations of Communist sympathies (a serious charge at the time). The ensuing publicity resulted in the termination of Baker's work visa, forcing her to cancel all her engagements and return to France. It was almost a decade before U.S. officials allowed her back into the country.

In January 1966, Fidel Castro invited Baker to perform at the Teatro Musical de La Habana in Havana, Cuba, at the 7th-anniversary celebrations of his revolution. Her spectacular show in April broke attendance records. In 1968, Baker visited Yugoslavia and made appearances in Belgrade and in Skopje. In her later career, Baker faced financial troubles. She commented, "Nobody wants me, they've forgotten me"; but family members encouraged her to continue performing. In 1973 she performed at Carnegie Hall to a standing ovation.

The following year, she appeared in a Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium, and then at the Monacan Red Cross Gala, celebrating her 50 years in French show business. Advancing years and exhaustion began to take their toll; she sometimes had trouble remembering lyrics, and her speeches between songs tended to ramble. She still continued to captivate audiences of all ages.

Civil rights activism

Although based in France, Baker supported the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s. When she arrived in New York with her husband Jo, they were refused reservations at 36 hotels because of racial discrimination. She was so upset by this treatment that she wrote articles about the segregation in the United States. She also began traveling into the South. She gave a talk at Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee, on "France, North Africa And The Equality Of The Races In France".

She refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States, although she was offered $10,000 by a Miami club. (The club eventually met her demands). Her insistence on mixed audiences helped to integrate live entertainment shows in Las Vegas, Nevada. After this incident, she began receiving threatening phone calls from people claiming to be from the Ku Klux Klan but said publicly that she was not afraid of them.

In 1951, Baker made charges of racism against Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club in Manhattan, where she had been refused service.Actress Grace Kelly, who was at the club at the time, rushed over to Baker, took her by the arm and stormed out with her entire party, vowing never to return (although she returned on 3 January 1956 with Prince Rainier of Monaco). The two women became close friends after the incident.

When Baker was near bankruptcy, Kelly offered her a villa and financial assistance (Kelly by then was princess consort of Rainier III of Monaco). (However, during his work on the Stork Club book, author and New York Times reporter Ralph Blumenthal was contacted by Jean-Claude Baker, one of Baker's sons. Having read a Blumenthal-written story about Leonard Bernstein's FBI file, he indicated that he had read his mother's FBI file and, using comparison of the file to the tapes, said he thought the Stork Club incident was overblown.))

Baker worked with the NAACP. Her reputation as a crusader grew to such an extent that the NAACP had Sunday, 20 May 1951 declared "Josephine Baker Day". She was presented with life membership with the NAACP by Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Ralph Bunche. The honor she was paid spurred her to further her crusading efforts with the "Save Willie McGee" rally after he was convicted of the 1948 beating death of a furniture shop owner in Trenton, New Jersey. As the decorated war hero who was bolstered by the racial equality she experienced in Europe, Baker became increasingly regarded as controversial; some black people even began to shun her, fearing that her outspokenness and racy reputation from her earlier years would hurt the cause.

In 1963, she spoke at the March on Washington at the side of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Baker was the only official female speaker. While wearing her Free French uniform emblazoned with her medal of the Légion d'honneur, she introduced the "Negro Women for Civil Rights." Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates were among those she acknowledged, and both gave brief speeches. Not everyone involved wanted Baker present at the March; some thought her time overseas had made her a woman of France, one who was disconnected from the Civil Rights issues going on in America. In her powerful speech, one of the things Baker notably said was:

I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad. And when I get mad, you know that I open my big mouth. And then look out, 'cause when Josephine opens her mouth, they hear it all over the world ...

After King's assassination, his widow Coretta Scott King approached Baker in the Netherlands to ask if she would take her husband's place as leader of the Civil Rights Movement. After many days of thinking it over, Baker declined, saying her children were "too young to lose their mother".

Personal life

Relationships

Josephine Baker was bisexual. Her first marriage was to American Pullman porter Willie Wells when she was only 13 years old. The marriage was reportedly very unhappy and the couple divorced a short time later. Another short-lived marriage followed to Willie Baker in 1921; she retained Baker's last name because her career began taking off during that time, and it was the name by which she became best known. While she had four marriages to men, Jean-Claude Baker writes that Josephine also had several relationships with women.

During her time in the Harlem Renaissance arts community, one of her relationships was with Blues singer Clara Smith. In 1925, she began an extramarital relationship with the Belgian novelist Georges Simenon. In 1937, Baker married Frenchman Jean Lion. She and Lion separated in 1940. She married French composer and conductor Jo Bouillon in 1947, and their union also ended in divorce but lasted 14 years. She was later involved for a time with the artist Robert Brady, but they never married.

Children

During Baker's work with the Civil Rights Movement, she began adopting children, forming a family she often referred to as "The Rainbow Tribe". Baker wanted to prove that "children of different ethnicities and religions could still be brothers." She often took the children with her cross-country, and when they were at Château des Milandes, she arranged tours so visitors could walk the grounds and see how natural and happy the children in "The Rainbow Tribe" were. Her estate featured hotels, a farm, rides, and the children singing and dancing for the audience. She'd charge admission for visitors to enter and partake in the activities, which included watching the children play. Baker used her children as metaphors: living examples of what humanity should look like, and her diverse children were used in a sort of attack against racism. She created dramatic backstories for them, picking with clear intent in mind: at one point she wanted and planned to get a Jewish baby, but settled for a French one instead. She also raised them as different religions to further her model for the world, taking two children from Algeria and raising one Muslim and the other Catholic. One member of the Tribe, Jean-Claude Baker, said:

She wanted a doll.

Another, Akio who was adopted from Japan, said

She was a great artist, and she was our mother. Mothers make mistakes. Nobody's perfect.

Baker raised two daughters, French-born Marianne and Moroccan-born Stellina, and 10 sons, Korean-born Jeannot (or Janot), Japanese-born Akio, Colombian-born Luis, Finnish-born Jari (now Jarry), French-born Jean-Claude and Noël, Israeli-born Moïse, Algerian-born Brahim, Ivorian-born Koffi, and Venezuelan-born Mara. For some time, Baker lived with her children and an enormous staff in the château in Dordogne, France, with her fourth husband, Jo Bouillon.

Later years and death

In her later years, Baker converted to Roman Catholicism. In 1968, Baker lost her castle owing to unpaid debts; afterwards Princess Grace offered her an apartment in Roquebrune, near Monaco.

Baker was back on stage at the Olympia in Paris in 1968, in Belgrade and at Carnegie Hall in 1973, and at the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium and at the Gala du Cirque in Paris in 1974. On 8 April 1975, Baker starred in a retrospective revue at the Bobino in Paris, Joséphine à Bobino 1975, celebrating her 50 years in show business. The revue, financed notably by Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, opened to rave reviews. Demand for seating was such that fold-out chairs had to be added to accommodate spectators. The opening night audience included Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Shirley Bassey, Diana Ross, and Liza Minnelli.

Four days later, Baker was found lying peacefully in her bed surrounded by newspapers with glowing reviews of her performance. She was in a coma after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. She was taken to Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, where she died, aged 68, on 12 April 1975.

She received a full Roman Catholic funeral that was held at L'Église de la Madeleine. The only American-born woman to receive full French military honors at her funeral, Baker's funeral was the occasion of a huge procession. After a family service at Saint-Charles Church in Monte Carlo, Baker was interred at Monaco's Cimetière de Monaco.

Legacy

Place Joséphine Baker (48°50′29″N 2°19′26″E) in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris was named in her honor. She has also been inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and on 29 March 1995, into the Hall of Famous Missourians. St. Louis's Channing Avenue was renamed Josephine Baker Boulevard and a wax sculpture of Baker is on permanent display at The Griot Museum of Black History.

In 2015 she was inducted into the Legacy Walk in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The Piscine Joséphine Baker is a swimming pool along the banks of the Seine in Paris named after her.

Writing in the on-line BBC magazine in late 2014, Darren Royston, historical dance teacher at RADA credited Baker with being the Beyoncé of her day, and bringing the Charleston to Britain. Two of Baker's sons, Jean-Claude and Jarry (Jari), grew up to go into business together, running the restaurant Chez Josephine on Theatre Row, 42nd Street, New York City. It celebrates Baker's life and works.

Château des Milandes, a castle near Sarlat in the Dordogne, was Baker's home where she raised her twelve children. It is open to the public and displays her stage outfits including her banana skirt (of which there are apparently several). It also displays many family photographs and documents as well as her Legion of Honour medal. Most rooms are open for the public to walk through including bedrooms with the cots where her children slept, a huge kitchen, and a dining room where she often entertained large groups. The bathrooms were designed in art deco style but most rooms retained the French chateau style.

Baker continued to influence celebrities more than a century after her birth. In a 2003 interview with USA Today, Angelina Jolie cited Baker as "a model for the multiracial, multinational family she was beginning to create through adoption". Beyoncé performed Baker's banana dance at the Fashion Rocks concert at Radio City Music Hall in September 2006.

Writing on the 110th anniversary of her birth, Vogue described how her 1926 "danse sauvage" in her famous banana skirt "brilliantly manipulated the white male imagination" and "radically redefined notions of race and gender through style and performance in a way that continues to echo throughout fashion and music today, from Prada to Beyoncé."

On 3 June 2017, the 111th anniversary of her birth, Google released an animated Google Doodle, which consists of a slideshow chronicling her life and achievements.

On Thursday 22 November 2018, a documentary titled Josephine Baker: The Story of an Awakening, directed by Ilana Navaro, premiered at the Beirut Art Film Festival. It contains rarely seen archival footage, including some never before discovered, with music and narration.

In August 2019, Baker was one of the honorees inducted in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields."

Portrayals

Baker appears in her role as a member of the French Resistance in Johannes Mario Simmel's 1960 novel, Es muss nicht immer Kaviar sein (C'est pas toujours du caviar).

A character loosely based on Baker is featured in an episode of Hogan's Heroes titled "Is General Hammerschlag Burning?", which originally aired on 18 November 1967. The character Kumasa (played by Barbara McNair) is a chanteuse based in Paris. She later reveals herself to be Carol Dukes, a high-school classmate of Sergeant James Kinchloe (Ivan Dixon), on whom she had a secret crush.

The Italian-Belgian francophone singer composer Salvatore Adamo pays tribute to Baker with the song "Noël Sur Les Milandes" (album Petit Bonheur – EMI 1970).

Diana Ross portrayed Baker in both her Tony Award-winning Broadway and television show An Evening with Diana Ross. When the show was made into an NBC television special entitled The Big Event: An Evening with Diana Ross, Ross again portrayed Baker.

A German submariner mimics Baker's Danse banane in the 1981 film Das Boot.

In 1986, Helen Gelzer portrayed Baker on the London stage for a limited run in the musical Josephine – "a musical version of the life and times of Josephine Baker" with book, lyrics and music by Michael Wild. The show was produced by Baker's longtime friend Jack Hocket in conjunction with Premier Box-Office, and the musical director was Paul Maguire. Gelzer also recorded a studio cast album titled Josephine.

British singer-songwriter, Al Stewart wrote song about Josephine Baker. It appears in album "Last days of the century" from 1988.

In 1991, Baker's life story, The Josephine Baker Story, was broadcast on HBO. Lynn Whitfield portrayed Baker, and won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Special – becoming the first Black actress to win the award in this category.

Artist Hassan Musa depicted Baker in a 1994 series of paintings called Who needs Bananas?

In the 1997 animated musical film Anastasia, Baker appears with her cheetah during the musical number "Paris Holds the Key (to Your Heart)".

In 2002, played by Karine Plantadit in Frida.

A character based on Baker (topless, wearing the famous "banana skirt") appears in the opening sequence of the 2003 animated film The Triplets of Belleville (Les Triplettes de Belleville).

The 2004 erotic novel Scandalous by British author Angela Campion uses Baker as its heroine and is inspired by Baker's sexual exploits and later adventures in the French Resistance. In the novel, Baker, working with a fictional black Canadian lover named Drummer Thompson, foils a plot by French fascists in 1936 Paris.

Her influence upon and assistance with the careers of husband and wife dancers Carmen De Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder are discussed and illustrated in rare footage in the 2005 Linda Atkinson/Nick Doob documentary, Carmen and Geoffrey.

Beyoncé has portrayed Baker on various occasions. During the 2006 Fashion Rocks show, Knowles performed "Dejá Vu" in a revised version of the Danse banane costume. In Knowles's video for "Naughty Girl", she is seen dancing in a huge champagne glass à la Baker. In I Am ... Yours: An Intimate Performance at Wynn Las Vegas, Beyonce lists Baker as an influence of a section of her live show.

In 2006, Jérôme Savary produced a musical, A La Recherche de Josephine – New Orleans for Ever (Looking for Josephine), starring Nicolle Rochelle. The story revolved around the history of jazz and Baker's career.

In 2010, Keri Hilson portrayed Baker in her single "Pretty Girl Rock".

In 2011, Sonia Rolland portrayed Baker in the film Midnight in Paris.

Baker was heavily featured in the 2012 book Josephine's Incredible Shoe & The Blackpearls by Peggi Eve Anderson-Randolph.

In July 2012, Cheryl Howard opened in The Sensational Josephine Baker, written and performed by Howard and directed by Ian Streicher at the Beckett Theatre of Theatre Row on 42nd Street in New York City, just a few doors away from Chez Josephine.

In July 2013, Cush Jumbo's debut play Josephine and I premiered at the Bush Theatre, London. It was re-produced in New York City at The Public Theater's Joe's Pub from 27 February to 5 April 2015.

In June 2016, Josephine, a burlesque cabaret dream play starring Tymisha Harris as Josephine Baker premiered at the 2016 San Diego Fringe Festival. The show has since played across North America and had a limited off-Broadway run in January–February 2018 at SoHo Playhouse in New York City.

In February 2017, Tiffany Daniels portrayed Baker in the Timeless television episode "The Lost Generation".

In late February 2017, a new play about Baker's later years, The Last Night of Josephine Baker by playwright Vincent Victoria, opened in Houston, Texas, starring Erica Young.

Baker appears as a recruitable secret agent with French citizenship in the 2020 DLC La Resistance for the WWII grand strategy game Hearts of Iron IV.

Film credits

Siren of the Tropics (1927)

The Woman from the Folies Bergères (1927) short subject

Zouzou (1934)

Princesse Tam Tam (1935)

Fausse alerte (The French Way) (1945)

Moulin Rouge (1941)

An jedem Finger zehn (1954)

Carosello del varietà (1955)

[make-them-laugh]

Code Lyoko Secret Santa

@thedarkflygon @codesecretsanta

"Long time no see, Aelita," Yumi smirked as the pink haired girl entered the library.

"I know! It's been what, since breakfast?" Aelita giggled quietly as she started pulling books from the return bin. Yumi laughed too before she turned to help a patron find something. When she came back, Aelita was frowning at her phone.

"Let me guess. Jer's flaking on date night," Yumi sighed. "But it's important, isn't it?"

"His dad's company had a major data breach and they asked him to find the root of it," Aelita took a deep breath and smiled. "But he's going to take me to breakfast tomorrow and to feed the ducks before he has to go to class."

"Well, we'll have a girls night in after I get home. You want a scary movie or a funny one?" Yumi rubbed her back gently and smiled.

"Surprise me," Aelita grinned. "Oh! Did you find anything out about that cute guy in your martial arts club?"

"Never said he was cute," Yumi corrected. "Just weird that he comes to a club and doesn't talk to anyone. But no. I tried talking to him and I think he said a total of 5 words to me. He's kind of an ass, actually."

Aelita shrugged. "Could just be anxious. You said he just joined two weeks ago, right?"

"There you go, always believing in the best in people," Yumi rolled her eyes with a smile and sighed. "That's true. He does seem pretty tense when anyone approaches him."

"See? Just give him some time to acclimate and he'll probably be more comfortable talking to people," Aelita grinned. "And speaking of comfortable talking to people, I'm meeting my cousin at the Starbucks he works at and he's gonna get me a free drink. Want me to see if I can bring a plus one?”

"I would kill for a white chocolate peppermint mocha right now, so sure," Yumi laughed.

The head librarian came by at that point and gave them a fond look. "Oh, to be young and working with my girlfriends again. I'd scold you for chatting on the clock, but you always go above and beyond, especially when you work together. Keep up the good work!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Both women grinned and continued what they were doing.

☕☕☕☕☕

"Hey, good buddy, best friend, amigo, my greatest of compatriots-"

"What do you want, Odd?" Ulrich rolled his eyes.

"Aelita is coming to get my free drink, but she's bringing a friend and I've only got the one?" Odd pretended to pout and Ulrich sighed.

"Okay, you can use my free drink, but you owe me lunch on payday," Ulrich smirked.

Odd grinned and hugged Ulrich tight and Ulrich patted his back.

They finished their opening duties, and Odd was working drive-through while Ulrich took the counter. He smiled when he saw a shock of pink hair.

"Hey, Princess! The usual on Odd's tab?"

"Yep! And a white chocolate peppermint mocha, extra whip, crushed peppermint on the cream if you can," Aelita grinned as she held the door open. Ulrich froze as Yumi walked in and nodded at the order.

"Coming right up. Odd, I'm putting in your number for your cousin's drink!" Ulrich called to the back.

"Cool! I'll swing by and put yours in for her friend in a second!"

Yumi's eyes widened as she realized who was behind the counter. "So, you work with Aelita's cousin?"

"Yeah. We carpool from our apartment."

Realization dawned on Aelita's face and she grabbed Yumi's arm.

"I'll be back in a second, Ulrich. I need to ask Yumi something privately."

He nodded, confused, as he started on their drinks. Aelita dragged Yumi outside.

"Is that him? The guy from martial arts club?"

"Yes! How do you know him?" Yumi raised an eyebrow.

"He and Odd have been best friends since Middle School!" Aelita nodded. "Yeah, he's really anxious around new people and gets really stressed out in new places. I don't know the whole story, but once you get to know him, he's like the nicest guy ever. It takes him a while to warm up to people, but he is ride or die once he does."

"I'll… Give him another chance. Because you like him," Yumi sighed. Aelita grinned and hugged her tightly.

"All I ask."

Aelita led Yumi back inside and smiled as Ulrich was setting down their drinks. Odd looked around cautiously and Ulrich rolled his eyes.

"I'm manager on duty, Odd. Go hug your cousin."

Odd raced around the counter and grinned as he pulled Aelita in. Ulrich sighed and smiled. "I can see Nicholas just punched in so I have to go do stock now. Thanks for coming in, Aelita. I'll… See you at club tomorrow, Yumi?"

"Yeah. See you then. Thank you… Ulrich."

He nodded and practically ran to the back as Odd squeezed Aelita one last time.

"We still on for cousin lunch Sunday?"

"Always," Aelita nodded. "My treat this time since you covered last time."

"You're an angel," Odd grinned. "I gotta get back behind the counter but I'll see you later."

Aelita and Yumi waved as Odd went back behind the counter. After they were outside, Odd went to the back and grinned. "So. That was Yumi-from-martial-arts?"

Ulrich didn't glance up from his clipboard.

 "I'm not talking to you about this."

"Too late, you already told me about her, so as your best friend, it's my business now," Odd smirked.

"Too bad," Ulrich counted boxes and still refused to look at Odd. "Go back to the drive-through, or I'm putting you on bar."

Odd groaned and rolled his eyes. "I'm not dropping this. I'll figure out everything eventually."

"That's what you think."

🎞️🎞️🎞️🎞️🎞️

Aelita and Yumi looked up when the door opened and Aelita jumped up off the couch. Jeremie shuffled in and she smiled as she kissed him softly.

"There’s a plate of pizza, a glass of water, and your meds on your nightstand. Eat, drink, get some rest. I'll wake you up for breakfast in the morning."

Jeremie smiled tiredly and kissed her cheek. "How did I get so lucky? Sorry I had to cancel tonight, but I couldn't pass up this job."

"I know. And Yumi kept me company," Aelita grinned. "Oh! I meant to tell you! Apparently martial arts guy is Odd's friend!"

"Oh, Ulrich! That makes sense!" Jeremie nodded. "I tutored him in a couple classes, he's a nice guy."

"So Aelita says," Yumi rolled her eyes. "I've yet to see it."

"You will, don't worry," Jeremie chuckled. "Uh, try talking to him about Aiya."

Yumi raised an eyebrow as the Afghan Hound in her lap perked at her name. "Dog lover, huh?"

"As long as it's not Kiwi," Aelita laughed. "But he has a soft spot for dogs, yes. He's actually got a dog too. A Shih Tzu named Mila. She's a spoiled pup, for sure. And doesn't take any nonsense from Kiwi."

"Okay. I'll give it a try. Hey, why did he call you Princess?” Yumi shifted to hold Aiya closer.

Aelita laughed. "Odd started it, but I knew Ulrich and I were really friends when he started calling me that. He doesn't do it all the time, but it's sweet."

"Okay. I'll try to talk about Aiya when I see him next. But for now…" Yumi stood and picked up a leash. "Wanna go for a walk?"

Aiya howled and stood, dancing back and forth on her feet as Yumi clipped the leash on her collar.

🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶

Ulrich coughed as he opened the window and glared at Odd. Smoke billowed out and he waved his hand in front of his face.

"Odd, how many times do I have to tell you to turn the vent fan on when you cook bacon?! You always burn it!"

"Apparently one more time," Odd grinned.

Ulrich sighed and grabbed a leash from his coat hook. "I'm taking Mila for a walk. Text me when the smoke is gone."

He put headphones over his ears and walked out.

🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳

"You've got to be kidding me," Yumi muttered under her breath when she saw Ulrich turn onto the same path as her. She could tell the second he saw her, because he froze up. She paused, Aiya coming to her side as Ulrich walked up.

"Hi, Yumi," Ulrich looked down at his dog and cursed softly. "Sorry, one second. Mimi, you got twigs stuck in your fur. Let me get those."

Yumi watched as he pulled a tiny comb from his pocket and combed out the twigs and leaves from the ponytail over her eyes.

"So… Aelita told me your dog's name is Mila? This is Aiya."

"Yeah," Ulrich nodded as he stood and put the comb and his hands in his pockets. "My dad's ridiculously allergic to dogs, so I got one as soon as I moved out."

Yumi chuckled and nodded. "My dad hates pets, so I did the same thing. What commands does she know?"

"She knows up, down, spin, shake, bed, out, and basket," Ulrich stroked Mila's back and smiled as she turned to kiss his hand.

"Basket?"

"We have a basket for her at the edge of the kitchen so when she's underfoot while I'm cooking, I can send her there."

"Oh, okay. We have a crate for Aiya. We decked it out though so that it's more like a comfy cubby," Yumi smiled and stroked Aiya's fur.

Ulrich fell quiet and Yumi shuffled her feet.

"I'm sorry, Ulrich."

Ulrich looked up at her in confusion and she continued.

"I didn't really give you a chance because I thought you were just antisocial and rude. I know how hard it can be to join a new group, even if you love the core component, and I didn't really make a welcoming clubmate," Yumi sighed. "If you want, we could… Hang out? Sometime this week?”

Ulrich looked back down and shrugged. "Yeah. That sounds fun. What do you wanna do?"

"Lunch and arcade? I haven't done that in a while. Aelita and Jeremie got bored when they finished all the games and I hate going alone," Yumi put her hands in her pockets and shrugged.

"Sure," Ulrich nodded. "It'll be nice to play with someone who isn't Odd for once."

"Cool," Yumi smiled. "How about Saturday after Martial arts?"

"Can't, Saturday I volunteer coach a kids soccer league," Ulrich shook his head. "Monday?"

"Gymnastics club and work," Yumi pursed her lips. "Next Thursday?"

"Thursday is good," Ulrich smiled. "Meet here at about eleven?"

"Eleven on Thursday," Yumi grinned.

"See you then," Ulrich nodded. "I've gotta get back, early classes tomorrow. It was nice talking to you, Yumi. And for what it's worth, sorry I wasn't a little easier to approach earlier."

"Water under the bridge," Yumi stroked Aiya's fur. "See you Thursday."

Ulrich nodded and started walking with Mila. When he turned back to look at Yumi, she was turning back to look at him. He blushed and hurried home.

🕹️🕹️🕹️🕹️🕹️

Yumi looked around the arcade as they walked in. "Oh man, Dance Dance Revolution! Aelita and Jeremie never wanted to play! You… Probably wouldn't want to play that either, huh?"

"No no, let's do it, it's fine," Ulrich chuckled as he climbed onto one of the mats. "Odd always makes me play it when we come."

Yumi smiled as she got onto the other one. "Thanks. So you guys come here a lot?"

"Every two weeks on payday, we play a few games and get lunch," Ulrich scrolled through the songs. "Any of these looking good? I'm indifferent."

"That one looks good," Yumi smiled. "So, I guess if he makes you play that often, you must be pretty good."

"Decent. I don't have as good a sense of rhythm as Odd does, but he's a film major with a minor in musical scoring, so I would honestly hope that's the case," Ulrich shrugged.

"What are you going to school for anyway? I'm a women's studies major."

"Sports therapy and education," Ulrich smiled as he started the game. "My high school gym teacher was really cool and I looked up to him a lot."

The conversation fell quiet as they played and Yumi laughed when Ulrich won by a significant amount.

"For someone who says he's got no rhythm, you're pretty good!" Yumi smiled as she picked the next song. "Though, I suppose sports lends itself well to dance games."

"There you are, Yumi! Jeremie and I have been looking everywhere for you!" Aelita smiled as she came up behind Yumi and Ulrich. Jeremie followed behind her, their fingers laced. "Having fun, you two?"

"As much fun as I can for being a stick in the mud," Ulrich chuckled.

"I never called you that!" Yumi scowled.

"Oh no! That wasn't a dig at you, just everyone I went to high school with," Ulrich held his hands up in surrender.

Aelita sighed. "It's true. High school kids are jerks."

"Ah, yeah, I'm familiar with THAT phenomenon," Yumi sighed. "Anyway, Aelita, why were you looking for me?"

"Oh, I just forgot you were hanging out with Ulrich and thought the three of us could do something," Aelita shrugged.

Ulrich looked around and smiled. "Actually, there's a new game over there we can all play! It looks like there's five headsets, I can call Odd!"

"Hmm, Lyoko. An adventure in a virtual reality world," Jeremie read the description. "It sounds fun!"

Ulrich pulled out his phone as the girls put on their headsets. Soon Odd was there, and the five of them started a game together.

[loca-over-luca]

coup de grâce

lucas taps his foot nervously as he looks at the clock on the kitchen wall. eliott will be home any minute now and lucas has to make sure that everything is set up by the time he arrives. and it has to be perfect.

he rests his head on his arms as he watches the seconds tick by slowly. he'd gotten off work late last night, needing to drop by the grocery store first for that black food coloring he forgot to buy a few days ago which resulted in him coming home at an even later time and then he started to prepare for what he had planned the next day. lucas set the alarm for 4am, even though it would mean just getting a couple of hours of sleep, to get an early start. he had worked tirelessly since then, determined to make the best birthday surprise for his boyfriend.

--

he had the bright idea one morning to make a cake for eliott. but not just an ordinary cake, mind you. that just won't do. lucas decided to make a fondant cake for his boyfriend, complete with fondant decorations on top. oh, and the fondant will be made from scratch.

“wouldn't that be so cute?” he gushed after telling manon his idea. manon looked at him incredulously for a few minutes and after determining that lucas was, indeed, serious about his grand plans for eliott's birthday surprise, a look of concern flashed across her face.

“uhm lucas? why don't you just buy pre-made fondant? it will be much easier and that way, you can concentrate on the actual cake itself and make sure it's actually edible?” she suggested.

“have you no faith in me, mademoiselle demissy? i don't have to worry about the cake itself because i'm sure it is going to be absolutely delicious. with you giving me the recipe and all, right?” lucas said, widening his bright blue eyes comically, in an attempt to wheedle his way into manon's soft heart as well as her closely-guarded recipe book that she refused to let anyone see. 'these are recipes from my grandmother and i refuse to have them besmirched by your so-called attempts at baking', she once said.

“don't look at me like that. those cute puppy dog eyes might work on everyone else but not me. i won't give you my grandmother's recipe for her famous blueberry shortcake,” manon scoffed, avoiding eye contact. lucas widened his eyes some more - he hasn't blinked in more than a minute already and his eyes are most definitely getting drier by the second but hey, he's determined - and even thew in a pout for good measure.

“please?” he whispered softly, a last ditch effort to completely melt manon's already weak defenses.

“fine! i will give you a recipe but it's gonna be one of mine, not my grandmother's. i still don't trust you after you butchered her pot roast the last time you invited us to  dinner.”

lucas hugged her gratefully, ignoring the jibe about his previous cooking attempt, while manon rolled her eyes at his antics.

“okay but seriously, lucas. i think it would be best to just buy the fondant.”

“pre-made fondant tastes like shit. if i do the homemade one, out of marshmallows, it's going to taste so much better. how hard can it be anyway? it’s just sugar,” lucas answered confidently. he proceeded to tell manon about his design plans for the cake, grabbing his notebook and drew what he has in mind, all the while muttering ‘this is going to be so cute’ and ‘eliott’s gonna die when he sees them’.

“there! see? did i mention how cute it’s going to be? oh, he's gonna be so surprised alright. am i the best boyfriend or what?” lucas exclaimed happily, showing her his indecipherable drawing and manon can't help but smile at his enthusiasm.

“whatever you say, lucas.”

fast forward a couple of weeks later and lucas was half-dying and wished he listened to manon.

'why didn’t i just buy a cake from the bakery down the street? they have cute cakes right? why did i think i can do this all by myself?' he thought miserably as he looked at the sticky goop on the countertop.

lucas successfully baked the cake. that was the easy part. he just followed the detailed instructions manon wrote  - along with very specific notes to him like 'lucas, turn off your phone right the fuck now or else the eggs might get overbeaten' and 'don't forget to sift the powdered ingredients, lucas. and by sift i mean "put (a fine, loose, or powdery substance) through a sieve so as to remove lumps or large particles." ' he was very grateful for her help but he couldn't help but scoff at that particular note. 'i am not a child, manon. i know what sift means,' he thought as he googled what a sieve looked like. lucas panicked a little when he saw what it is, unsure if he has one. thankfully, manon also added 'yes you have one, it's in the 2nd drawer to the left of the oven'. really, if he doesn't think of manon as his sister and if he was, you know, not gay, then he would've married her in an instant.

as he closed the oven door and set the timer, the smell of blueberries and vanilla wafting through the air, he set to the task of making the icing on his cake. well, not literally since the frosting he did buy from the store (what? he likes the taste and he knows eliott likes it too based on ...past experiences with it).

lucas followed the instructions he saw online as religiously as he did manon's cake recipe. he melted the marshmallows bit by bit in the microwave until it's a smooth white goo. he added all the powdered sugar he measured earlier to the mixing bowl along with the shortening - ‘not butter!’ - and the melted marshmallows.

he'd been alternating between adding more shortening (if the mixture was becoming too clumpy) and more sugar (when it appeared to be too soft) for the past half an hour already, powdered sugar all over the kitchen and himself but his fondant is still not cooperating. lucas was this close to punching something so he decided that if he needed to vent out his frustrations, might as well do it while being productive.

he sprinkled more powdered sugar on the countertop, greased his hands and poured the marshmallow mixture onto the counter. he proceeded to knead the still-too soft fondant, making sure to incorporate as much sugar as he can with each turn. after another half-hour of wrestling the fondant, he finally tempered it to the right texture and consistency he wanted.

lucas clapped excitedly, coughing as he inhaled a bit as powdered sugar as a result. finally, the fun part can begin. he'd been most excited to making the raccoon and hedgehog pieces he'll put on top of the cake, looking forward to the way eliott will react upon seeing them. knowing his boyfriend, lucas can already see him melting into a puddle of goo at the cuteness.

after a couple of hours of concentrating on making the cake toppers, lucas was beat. his hands were cramped, his neck stiff and his shirt was sticking to his sweaty back. but lucas was happy. he just had to have the eyes of the raccoon just right that’s why it took him longer than necessary in making it, and he was proud to say that it was indeed cute and looked even a little bit like eliott.

lucas smiled as he looked at the works of art he made, satisfied at the way they look. 'they fit together, just like eliott and me,' he thought. 'god, when did i turn into such a sap?'

lucas looked at the time and his smile was immediately wiped off his face. 'it can't be that late already?!'

“fuuuuuck,” lucas muttered in panic as he hastily worked to put the whole cake together - from frosting the whole thing to covering it with the fondant, pasting each letter of 'happy birthday eliott' around the sides up to the final step of placing the raccoon and hedgehog pieces on top. it might not look as perfect as the cakes he saw online but, whatever, it's the thought and the love that lucas put into it that counts anyway.

lucas took a few pictures with his phone, sending one to manon and getting a response immediately.

'holy shit, you actually did it. that looks good lucas! not bad for a first timer <3'

'do you still doubt me, demissy?'

'never again, lallemant. seriously though, great job. :)'

lucas set his phone down and put the cake in the living room table for safekeeping while he cleaned up the kitchen. by the time he was done, lucas had about 20 minutes left before eliott normally arrives home.

"time management skills are on point today," he cheered tiredly, trudging towards the living room to get the cake. he planned to place it on the countertop where eliott can immediately see it upon entering their apartment. just as he did that, a fondant letter fell down to the floor. lucas looked absently at the letter ‘H’ by his foot, the full realization not sinking until a few seconds later. he at his creation and his heart dropped to his feet. the remaining letters of the birthday greeting he painstakingly pasted letter by letter were sliding down and the fondant he covered the cake with looked like it was melting right off. lucas looked at the living room where he left it and saw that there was still a bit of sunlight streaming from the window and with the summer coming in, he did not take into consideration how the temperature in paris right now would affect his cake.

he looked around frantically, trying to find what he can do or use to remedy the situation. his eyes fell on the refrigerator, humming innocently by his left. lucas knew that he was not supposed to place a fully covered fondant cake in the fridge, that much he knew thank you very much, but he doesn’t have any other choice. 

‘just a couple of minutes. just to firm it up a bit,’ he decided. lucas carefully placed the cake inside, breathing a sigh of relief as he diverted yet another crisis.

he slumped onto a kitchen stool, the exhaustion finally catching up to him. lucas looked at the clock again and saw that it's nearly 4pm. he’d been working nonstop for 12 hours straight. ‘wow, i didn’t even do that while i was in uni,’ lucas thought. he pictured eliott walking down their street, humming along with whatever music he's listening to, no idea of the surprise waiting for him at home - and that alone made it all worth it. lucas rested his head on his arms tiredly, watching the seconds tick by slowly. 

‘just a couple of minutes and then i’ll take it out again.’

---

“lucas?”

lucas jolts awake at the sound of his name being called, almost falling off the stool in his surprise. he looks at the clock and saw that 15 minutes had already passed by. 

he runs towards the refrigerator and quickly pulls the cake out.

‘please, please, please don't fall apart. at least let eliott see you first okay?’ lucas pleads as he places it on the counter.

“lucas?” eliott calls for him again while entering the kitchen.

“surprise!”

eliott looks at him, then at the cake and back to lucas again, mouth hanging open in shock.

“is this why you haven't been answering my texts the whole day?” eliott asks, walking slowly towards lucas.

“yeah, i worked on it the whole day. all by myself, i might add,” lucas announces proudly. he turns back towards the cake and sees the letter 'E' slowly sliding off. he casually places himself in front of it and discreetly puts it back in place behind his back.

“you did that for me?” eliott looks at the raccoon and hedgehog on top of the cake and a fond smile graces his lips.

lucas nods as eliott shifts his gaze to him. “i really appreciate what you did, don’t get me wrong, baby. the raccoon and hedgehog on top? they should definitely be placed in the louvre. but lucas, you didn't have to do all this. we could have just bought a cake and you wouldn't have had to tire yourself out the whole day.”

“i wanted to,” lucas replies firmly. he knows eliott what is not saying. ‘you didn’t have to do this for me. i don’t deserve this.’  after all this time, eliott still thinks that he doesn't deserve anything, that he doesn't deserve what they have and lucas has taken it upon himself to always, always, prove eliott wrong on that account. 

“i wanted to do something special for your birthday and what could be more special than a one-of-a-kind lucas lallemant creation?”

eliott laughs delightedly at his response, which is what lucas was hoping for. he laughed with his boyfriend, throwing his arms over eliott's shoulders and hugging him as closely as he could.

“i love you, baby. happy birthday,” he whispers in eliott's ear.

[unpack-my-heart]

Unpack My Heart With Words – Updated

Chapter 5 of my Hamlet/Theatre Reddie AU. The chapter is called When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.

You can read it on AO3 HERE or I’ve pasted it under the cut.

Preview:

“Heh. I suppose,” Eddie responds. “I remember reading King Lear when I was at RADA, when I was convinced that I’d be the one reciting the lines, rather than instructing people how to read the lines. My Lear is based on someone from my past.”

Richie feels sick.

“Oh?” the interviewer probes, “I imagine you don’t think favourably of them, then? They’ve got to be a pretty painful relic, surely?”

Richie watches the on-screen-Eddie pause. Eddie’s eyes close before he responds.

“Quite the opposite, actually. Thank you so much for having me”

Tag List:

@constantreaderfool @xandertheundead @violetreddie

The road Richie lives on is small and unassuming, a forgettable cul-de-sac. He’d moved there with Sandy, as soon as he got the email confirming that he’d ‘read Hamlet’. It hadn’t lasted. They’d broken up less than a year after they’d bought the house. She’d accused him of cheating on her, and he hadn’t denied it. He hadn’t cheated on her, of course, but it had given him a very convenient way of avoiding having a conversation he’d been putting off for several months prior. I’m still in love with the boy (man?) that broke my heart over a decade ago doesn’t roll off the tongue particularly well, nor is it all that believable. So they’d split. Richie had taken on sole tenancy of the small townhouse they rented, and Sandy had left him and moved back in with her parents in Bath, leaving him in Stratford-Upon-Avon on his own.

The road Richie lives on is small and unassuming, a perfectly pleasant and quiet area of a perfectly pleasant and quiet town. That’s why, when Richie was stumbling down the street pissed out of his mind at 3am after trying (and failing) to drink Ben under the table, and singing (or howling) along to Prowlin’ from Grease 2, a large number of people peered around their curtains and glared at him. He paid them no mind. He fumbled with his keys, dropping them six times, before his uncooperative fingers finally managed to shove the key into the lock and turn it. The stuffy, gaping black maw of his hallway stared back at him. Scoffing, and swearing at everything and anything, Richie managed to turn on all the lights in his living room and kitchen, and flop onto the sofa, without breaking anything – limbs and extremities included.

Richie smacked his lips. His mouth tasted like someone had been using his tongue as an ash tray for the last four hours, before telling him to gargle with white spirit. In short, it tasted like ass. Not that Richie remembered what ass tasted like. It had been far too long. His laptop sat, screen open and inviting, sat on the coffee table. Richie tugged it towards him, before lifting it over to his lap by the screen. He almost missed Sandy shrieking ‘if you lift it like that, the screen will come off in your hands and you’ll be fucked’. Almost.

The machine booted up, whirs and purrs breaking the silence. Richie’s fingers worked on autopilot, his alcohol-hazed brain taking several seconds to catch up.

Google: Edsss kaspbrK

Did you mean: Eds Kaspbrak?

Did you mean: Edward Kaspbrak?

Yes. Yes he did mean Edward Kaspbrak. Richie supposed he wasn’t allowed to call Eddie Eds anymore.

Edward Kaspbrak, 486,972 results in 0.0003 seconds

Richie’s eyes lazily scanned the first few lines of results. The first page was Eddie’s staff page on the RSC website. The second was Eddie’s twitter. The third was an article from the Edinburgh College of Dramatic Arts student newspaper. Richie clicked on it.

“The ECDA is super stoked to announce that the opening night of the student production of the Phantom of the Opera, directed by our very own Eddie K, …. Blah blah blah blah Eddie blah blah blah successful blah blah blah” Richie mumbled out loud to himself, heart tightening in his chest.

Backspacing out of the page, Richie clicked on the next article. This one was from four years ago, and was a review of a production of King Lear that Eddie had directed. Richie skimmed the article, before clicking on the embedded video interview at the bottom of the page. Eddie’s face fills the screen. He looks younger than the Eddie Richie had seen earlier that day. His face is smoother, and his mouth isn’t set in a harsh line. His eyes are soft. He looks happy. Richie feels sick.

“So,” the interviewer begins, “Tell me about this production. Your Lear is particularly arrogant and unlikable, and unlike other productions that I’ve seen, I actually don’t feel like your Lear had any redeeming features at all. He’s just … consistently unlikable. That’s a pretty bold move for someone’s debut RSC directorial job, right?”

“Heh. I suppose,” Eddie responds. “I remember reading King Lear when I was at RADA, when I was convinced that I’d be the one reciting the lines, rather than instructing people how to read the lines. My Lear is based on someone from my past.”

Richie feels sick.

“Oh?” the interviewer probes, “I imagine you don’t think favourably of them, then? They’ve got to be a pretty painful relic, surely?”

Richie watches the on-screen-Eddie pause. Eddie’s eyes close before he responds.

“Quite the opposite, actually. Thank you so much for having me”

Eddie leaves the frame, and Richie doesn’t listen to the interviewers cursory wrap up. His ears are ringing too loudly.

Richie backspaces, before blindly clicking on one last link. It takes him to the announcement of Eddie’s appointment as Artistic Director in the newsletter of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Richie can feel bile swelling in his throat.

The Royal Shakespeare Company is privileged and pleased to announce that  Edward Frank Kaspbrak has accepted the position of Artistic Director. Edward replaces Claire Van de Camp, who wishes her successor success. Edward joins us at a particularly exciting time, and his first production will the semi-centenary celebration of the Royal Shakespeare Company, a milestone marked with a production of Hamlet. We wish Edward a long and happy tenure with us, and we all look forward to working with him for years to come

A few words from Edward himself: “I’m delighted to join the RSC as Artistic Director to celebrate the momentous semi-centenary anniversary of the company. I am a man of few words, so I’ll leave you with the words of a wordsmith more skilled than I. And so, all yours. I am all yours, RSC, and I will serve you as long as you’ll have me.”

The last words force the bile that had been bubbling in Richie’s throat to surge up his oesophagus. He scrambles to his feet, laptop falling gracelessly to the floor, and scrambles to his bedroom. He pulls an inconspicuous wooden box from under the bed, upending it so white envelopes come tumbling out. He spreads them all out on the carpet, before he grabs the one marked 15th April 2019. He opens the envelope. Two pieces of paper fall out, and he stuffs one back in without looking at it. He unfolds the other piece of paper.

15th April 2019

And so, all yours

E

The paper is fragile – It had been recklessly torn in half, before it has been painstakingly sellotaped back together. Richie couldn’t count how many times he’d stared at those four words.

– X –

When Richie had first started receiving the letters from Eddie, he had become almost incensed with anger. He’d vented to Stan, ugly, venomous ranting.

“I fucking hate him, Stan”

“No you don’t”

“Yes I fucking do. He abandons me to chase some stupid fucking selfish dream in Scotland, and then has the audacity – the fucking NERVE – to write to me, to plead with me to forgive him?”

“That’s not what the letter says, Richie”

“Wow. Fucking Wow. I thought you were supposed to be on my side? You know, your best friends side?”

“You haven’t spoken to me for three months, Rich. I thought you forgot who I was”

“You’re being fucking ridiculous”

“Richard? Can I have a word, s’il vous plaît?"

“Uh, sure, Jacques”

Stan disappeared down the corridor, without so much as glancing over his shoulder. Jacques was stood behind Richie, holding the door to his office open with a gracious arm. Richie walked inside.

“What’s all this ruckus, Richard?”

“Nothing, Jacques. Just – just personal stuff, s’all.”

“Are you arguing with master Stanley about Edward?”

Richie felt himself stiffen.

“How did you know?”

Jacques sits back on his chair, and folds his arms across his chest. His scarf flutters slightly in the breeze coming from the oscillating fan on his desk.

“Did you know that I told Edward to apply for the Edinburgh school?”

“No.”

“Did you know that I convinced him to go when he was reticent to leave you?”

“No.”

“Well, I did. Send some of that rage my way, if you must, but please do leave master Stanley out of it, he really isn’t at fault here”

“He’s been writing to me. I want to burn them.” Richie blurts out, without really meaning to.

“Spoken like a true dramatist”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, you’re being melodramatic”

“With all due respect, Jacques, you have no idea what you’re talking about” Richie snaps, in a tone that he’d probably regret later when he’s being disciplined for being mouthy to a member of staff.

“Perhaps. But perhaps you also have no idea what you’re talking about”

“Now you’re just not making sense”

“You’re nineteen, Richard. Things have a way of working out. Don’t burn the letters. Don’t send your memories of him up in flames. You’ll regret it.”

“Can I go now?”

“But of course”

As soon as he wakes up, Richie decides that he’s not going to rehearsal. This is partly because he’s hungover, but the hangover was nothing worse than he’d ever experienced after getting pissed after the opening night of every other production he’s ever done. It was mostly because he couldn’t bear to look at Eddie’s face. Or, perhaps more accurately, he couldn’t take nearly twelve hours of Eddie refusing to look at him with anything other than scorn. Not today.

He contemplates ringing to tell Eddie that he’s ill, but he doesn’t have Eddie’s number. He thumbs over the ‘Eds <3’ contact in his phone. Eddie’s old number, of course. Richie had a new number, too, in fact, he’d had several new numbers in the fifteen years since he’d last text Eddie. He had, however, copied the ‘Eds <3’ contact into every new phone he’d has since 2019. He assumed that Eddie had probably also had several new numbers since they’d last talked, but that didn’t deter him.

Now, though, the sight of ‘Eds <3’ in his phone turns his stomach more than the whiskey in the tumbler on his nightstand does.

He decides not to ring anyone.

Instead, he clicks on the YouTube app, and types in ‘Edward II’.

He watches other people say the lines that he’d whispered to Eddie until he falls asleep, tear tracks marking his cheeks.

Richie wakes up several hours later. His phone is buzzing furiously on his bedside table like an angry hornet. When he picks it up, the screen reads ‘Unknown Number’. He throws the phone on the floor.

The buzzing stops, but almost immediately starts up again.

He doesn’t answer.

The unknown number calls back again.

He doesn’t pick up.

His phone buzzes again, but this time its three short buzzes.

A Text.

He grabs his phone off the stained carpet.

From: Unknown Number:

Where the fuck are you?

From: Unknown Number:

Today was a fucking disaster. Where are you?

From: Unknown Number:

How dare you make me worry about you.

Richie stares at the last text, shrouded in the dark comfort of his room, for what feels like hours.

[theepitomeofamess]

this isn’t a vent fic this isn’t a vent fic this isn’t-

this might be a vent fic. one that i did on impulse and that turned out way longer than i expected.

Analogical (can be read as platonic or romantic) w/ implied Royality

Trigger warnings: talk of depression, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, some cursing

Word count: 4358

ao3 link

“Hi, do you guys have any walk-ins available?”

“Yeah, but I’ll warn you,” the receptionist turned to a drawer full of clipboards, pulling one out, “there are three people waiting ahead of you.”

“That’s fine. Thank you.” Logan smiled as he took the clipboard, finding a seat in the small waiting room. A barrier stood between the main waiting area and a strip of computers against the wall meant for student sign-ins, but he didn’t know that yet. He’d never done this before. Seeing two chairs situated adjacent to the computers, nestled between the partial wall and an end table with a lamp and pamphlets adorning it, Logan decided it was best to keep himself away from prying eyes. Of course, sitting with the majority of other patients would probably draw less of a gaze, the barrier made him feel safer nonetheless.

He’d wandered in at maybe twelve thirty, just after his second class of the day. He’d been on his way to his dorm to work on the homework for his next class, but he must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. He found himself asking directions to the counseling center from the receptionist downstairs instead of hoping to avoid an interaction with one of his more conversational suitemates. He’d always known where the health center was - he’d made a point of memorizing where it was in relation to his dorm and each of his classes every semester, just in case he got unreasonably sick - but he never thought that he’d go there. Or if he did, he would stay on the first floor.

He thought about leaving more than once. How hard would that be? Just walk out and pretend like nothing had happened. His dorm wasn’t far. Why couldn’t he just leave?

He would have left if there wasn’t a twenty-five dollar no-show fee. He just couldn’t afford that. Not right then.

It was one ten when a soft voice called his name from the space leading back into the hallway of offices. Quicker than he’d expected. There had been plenty of time for his hands to stop shaking, his stomach to stop churning, his shoulders to unwind. Somehow, though, they kept going.

The man was young, probably one of the graduate students that the center had working in order to prepare them practically. He wore a pastel pink button-down under a light brown cardigan, had round-framed glasses, and carried himself with a posture that on anybody else would have come off as cocky, but on him only radiated welcome.

“We’re gonna come right in here,” he gestured to a room, and Logan entered. “If you would take a seat.” Logan did. “My name’s Emile. I want you to know that I am a graduate trainee. These sessions are recorded, and if you would please sign this consent form so that we know that you’re okay with working with a graduate trainee. If you’re not, then you will be transferred to another professional for your following appointments.” Emile held another clipboard with forms to Logan.

At any other moment, Logan would have laughed at the thought of another appointment. He couldn’t bring himself to laugh. He just nodded and signed the form, consenting to working with Emile despite his lack of experience.

“Thank you,” Emile took back the clipboard. “So, why don’t you tell me what brought you in today?”

“I-” Logan cleared his throat, forcing his vocal chords to work. “I need to get screened for depression.” The words still came out as a croak. Emile scribbled something on his clipboard.

“Can you tell me why that is?” Logan looked at the foot of the chair Emile was sitting on. He could feel his throat protesting the thought of speech. He hoped that the brim of his hat he’d worn to keep the rain off his glasses was also working to hide the reddening in his face.

“Do you know the site 7 Cups?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I talked to two listeners on there, and they both said the same thing. It was effectively, ‘yes, you have depression, seek help.’” He could still remember the exact words of one of the listeners, username GreenTeaInsomniac533: “Honey, that’s depression, please talk to someone.”

“And why do you think they said that? I mean, what did you tell them that made them think that?”

“I…” Logan cleared his throat again, determined not to let himself go. Emile didn’t deserve that. Emile was a stranger, just trying to help. Emile didn’t deserve to see him fall apart. “It’s just this… lack… of anything? I’m sorry, I’m not good at explaining things.” Logan lowered his head further, his elbows on his knees and his back hunched. “And I’m always tired - like, in my head, I know that I’m not tired, but then my head and body are so heavy and just screaming ‘Sleeeeeep.’ And… and I’ve started skipping classes in order to just get five more minutes in bed, and my grades are going down because I can’t get up the energy to do work outside of class and…” Logan should have stopped himself there. “And there is a history of mental illness in my family. It’s mainly anxiety, but that and depression tend to go hand-in-hand.”

“Did you come here on their recommendation,” Emile asked after waiting for further explanation, his light scribbling turning frenzied before calming again.

“God, no,” Logan scoffed, finally picking his head up. The look that it got from Emile begged for an explanation that would satisfy him. “Here’s the thing.” Another clear of the throat, another internal plea to not break down. “For so long, I have seemed to be the only somewhat mentally stable person in my family. Like I said, they all have issues of their own, and they’re pretty major. My friends have those kinds of issues, too. Panic attacks, family issues, depression, you name it I probably know somebody who’s got it. I’ve been the only one that nobody’s had to worry about, the only one-” Logan cursed to himself as his voice shattered and a tear fell behind his glasses. “I’m the only one that’s been consistently stable and- and if I’m not… if I’m not stable, then…”

“You feel like if you’re not there to be stable, then everyone will fall apart.” Logan could only nod, taking off his glasses and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, praying that that would stop the crying. “There are tissues next to you if you need them.” Chancing a glance up, Logan took a Kleenex from the box. “That’s a lot to carry on your own.”

“And it’s so hypocritical,” Logan laughed, putting his glasses back on even though he was still actively crying. “I’m the rant receiver for all of my friends and family, and every time they start to apologize for venting to me, I tell them ‘It’s fine. You shouldn’t have to carry all that on your own.’” Logan hated the way his voice kept breaking, refusing to sound normal, but he couldn’t just sit there and cry until it was over, because then he would have to start talking again and it would start over. “I’m- I’m sorry, I don’t… I never do this, I don’t…”

“Never do what?”

“Just,” Logan gestured out with his arms, his hands focusing near his face, “this. It’s just… the fact that I’m admitting this, admitting that I can’t… that I need help, it’s just…”

“Yeah, it’s very overwhelming.” Emile’s voice was hypnotic to say the least, comforting and warm enough to the point that it could be called a sleeping draught. “ And it’s a lot easier to be nice to other people than to be nice to ourselves.”

“Hell of a lot easier,” Logan muttered, leaning back on the couch and crossing his legs so his ankle rested on his knee.

“Can I ask, just to get more of a gauge, about your past thoughts of suicide?” Logan took a deep, trembling breath.

“Define suicidal thoughts.” Emile nodded, writing something down. “Because I don’t actively contemplate killing myself, it just sort of happens. It’s like, those intrusive thoughts where your brain is like ‘You should walk out into traffic and get hit by a car’ and you just think ‘no, why the fuck would I’- I’m sorry, I don’t know how cursing works with the recording, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, you’re fine.” Emile waved his hand, assuring Logan that he was fine.

Logan calmed down eventually. A few more questions and he found himself with a steady voice and relatively dry eyes. He kept his hat low over his eyes, but he knew that Emile could see him, even if he was shadowed. He answered all of Emile’s questions as well as he could given that he couldn’t feel himself thinking. Questions about substance abuse, self-harm, how he’d been dealing with these feelings up to this point (he hadn’t) and who his support system was. For that last question, he wanted to list off his closest friends, the ones that he knew wanted the best for him because they wouldn’t let him forget it, but since none of them knew he couldn’t list any of them. So he said no one.

“I just want you to know,” Emile brought up as the session came to a close, “that you should really be proud of yourself for coming in. It takes a lot of strength to admit to needing help, especially when you’ve gotten so used to carrying yourself and others for so long. I know that this was overwhelming, but I am so proud of you for coming in, and I really hope that you’re proud of yourself.”

Logan was too exhausted to do anything but smile, and the session was coming to a close so he couldn’t bring up how he wasn’t proud and how the positivity didn’t help, however gentle it was. He got positivity in massive doses every day from staying on the right end of Tumblr, and that never helped either. If anything, it made it worse.

“Here’s some information on the events we have going on here. My personal favorite is Thursdays when we have a session of using art as an outlet - a different kind of art pretty much every week, if we can manage it. And,” he took a business card off the end table, writing something on the back of it, “if you’ll take this to the front desk we’ll get you set up for your next appointment.”

Logan felt his brain protesting against the thought of a ‘next appointment.’ He didn’t need a next appointment. He’d hardly needed this walk-in. He was wasting this poor guy’s time, probably not doing anything to help his graduate work. This poor guy with the reassuring smile, voice gentler than any he’d ever heard, and lively eyes that glowed with a wish to make at least one person’s day a little better. This poor guy that didn’t think Logan was wasting his time.

“Okay, your next appointment is in two weeks,” the receptionist wrote a date on the card, “and either nine-thirty or eleven-thirty.”

“Nine thirty,” Logan agreed. The receptionist finished putting in the appointment and handed Logan back the card through the window. Logan thought that he heard someone say his name behind him, but he ignored it. “Thank you. Have a good day.” Just as he was turning away to leave, Logan felt a hand on his shoulder.

“L?”

Logan turned around on instinct, but wished he hadn’t. Now Virgil could see his puffy eyes, his reddened cheeks. That would have been bad enough, but the unadulterated worry pouring from Virgil was enough to make Logan want to break down again. He wouldn’t - he didn’t have it in him to do that again - but he couldn’t stand the concern, the stress for him. Logan bowed his head, the brim of his hat preventing him from seeing Virgil, Virgil from seeing him.

“Please don’t tell anyone.” The words were just barely loud enough for Virgil to catch.

“Virgil?” An older counselor - probably one of the actual professionals - stepped out with a file in hand.

“Just a second, Joan,” Virgil smiled over his shoulder before turning back to Logan, leaning down just enough to see Logan’s face under the brim of his hat. “I promise I won’t tell anyone. If you go back to my place and I meet you there after this, will you tell me anything about it?” Virgil knew Logan already had a key to his apartment - he’d given one to each of his friends just in case they needed a safe space or he needed them and wouldn’t let them in.

“I can’t make any promises,” Logan finally muttered.

“That’s okay. Will you at least go back to my place?” Logan nodded. “Great. I’ll meet you there.” Before turning to his counselor, Virgil wrapped his arms around Logan, squeezing him around the shoulders.

Logan was bigger than Virgil - both taller and broader - but in that moment he felt so small, he was curled so far in on himself that he couldn’t tell that he was the bigger one. He felt even smaller by the face that Virgil still rarely hugged anyone. The only one Logan had ever seen him hug was Patton, and that was because Patton always initiated. Logan allowed himself a deep breath, deflating into Virgil for a moment before they separated.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?” Virgil smiled gently at Logan, reassurance radiating from his features.

Logan nodded in response to Virgil’s promise. Turning over his shoulder, Logan assumed that Virgil had done the same. He didn’t know that Virgil had watched him out the door before going back with Joan. He was too tired to think, had too much of a headache to wonder. He just wandered to the elevator, keeping his shoulders back as best he could so that if he ran into somebody else on the way to Virgil’s apartment, they wouldn’t be suspicious. At least, not as long as they didn’t look at his face.

Virgil asked Joan if they could cut their session shorter than usual. Joan accepted, however reluctantly, letting Virgil go a quarter of an hour earlier than they would have otherwise liked. Virgil got back to his apartment as quickly as he could. He hadn’t been able to get the image of Logan’s face out of his head. Puffy, red-rimmed eyes, flushed cheeks, crumpled in on himself, horrified and desperate. He could still hear Logan practically begging - something that had impossible to imagine Logan doing up until this moment - for him to not tell anyone.

He wasn’t sure what he expected when he got back to his apartment. Maybe he’d expected an immediate explanation, for Logan to have been pacing the entire time he was there just waiting to give Virgil a reason he was there that would ease his nerves. Maybe he’d expected Logan to be sitting at the table with his laptop open, distracting himself with homework or projects or something. Maybe he’d expected a note on the coffee table, telling Virgil that he needed coffee and he went out to get some and would be right back.

Whatever he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been Logan completely unconscious, crashed on his couch.

Of course, that shouldn’t have been surprising. From the looks of it, Logan had been through an emotional ordeal, something that Logan - to say the least - wasn’t used to.

Sighing to himself, Virgil pulled a blanket from the lounger on the other side of the room and tucked it over Logan. He took the skewed glasses from Logan’s face so they wouldn’t bend, folding them and setting them on the coffee table. He noticed how messy Logan’s hair was when he took his glasses off. Messy and filthy, like he hadn’t taken the chance to wash it in days, maybe a week. Virgil swallowed against the thought - Logan, who always preached self-care and basic hygiene, not washing his hair for days. Virgil pulled the blanket further up to Logan’s shoulders. Logan was so out that he didn’t react to the changes. Virgil wasn’t about to change that. He wasn’t about to wake Logan up.

Going to his table where he has his drawing pad was still set up from last night - this morning? - Virgil sat down and set to work. Drawing always helped time go by faster for him, and hopefully he could be productive in some capacity while Logan recovered.

He didn’t know what he was drawing until he’d drawn it. A robot - gears and screws and metal and all - with its head bowed. A shadow fell over its face, but that didn’t hide the human eyes welled with tears, bloodshot, the streaks down its face revealing skin underneath the metal. Its mouth was contorted in a shape it wasn’t meant to take, cracking the metal around it to reveal more skin, its human teeth gritted. He was hugging himself, hands holding the metal plating on his arms in place while they tried to peel away, to reveal the trembling self underneath. Virgil labelled the file “Please don’t tell anyone” and he almost hated himself for it.

Virgil had just finished making himself a pot of coffee when he saw Logan sit up on the couch. He looked around, confused by the blanket that he hadn’t put over himself and the glasses that he hadn’t taken off. It was only after he put on his glasses that he recognized Virgil in the kitchen.

“You want some,” Virgil offered, pouring sugar into his coffee as he watched Logan stand and stretch from the couch.

“No, thank you.” Picking up the blanket, Logan folded it how he knew Virgil liked it. “I should get going. Thank you for letting me crash for a bit, but-”

“L,” Virgil stopped him. “I’m not going to make you tell me what happened. I’m not going to make you stay here. But I don’t want you do be alone right now. And I don’t think that you want to be alone.” Logan bit the inside of his cheek, lowering his eyes to avoid feeling Virgil’s - concern? Caring? Whatever it was - full force.

“In that case,” Logan muttered, setting the folded blanket on the couch and strolling to the kitchen, “I guess a cup wouldn’t hurt.” Virgil offered a smile, getting down a mug for Logan. It was his favorite, the one that he always used, the one that said “I have the vocabulary of a well-educated sailor” on the side.

Logan did end up telling Virgil some of why he’d gone to the counseling center, but not before he made him swear not to tell anyone, especially not Patton or Roman. They would never look at him the same way. Patton would end up thinking that he had to tread lightly until Logan proved to him otherwise, and Roman… well, as far as Logan could tell, Roman would never let him live it down. It would come up in every argument, every pointless spat. He was sure of it.

He didn’t cry again. Maybe because he didn’t go nearly as deep, or maybe because he’d already cried himself into a stupor, or maybe it was because Virgil was probably his best friend and as much as a stranger like Emile didn’t deserve to deal with a sobbing mess, Virgil deserved it even less. Maybe it was the coffee and the familiarity of the space. Maybe it was the calming effect that Virgil managed to have on him - as much as Emile’s was comforting and opening, Virgil’s energy made it where Logan didn’t shake with every thought.

“I’m sorry,” he finally concluded. “I don’t want you to have to carry this with you. Just forget I-”

“Logan,” Virgil set a hand on Logan’s shoulder. “Do you remember what you did when you figured out about my anxiety and tried to tell you to not worry about it? You kept being the stubborn jackass you are and learned everything you could about what sets me off, what to do if I have an attack, everything. You sat with me through I don’t know how many attacks, and you full on screamed at that teacher junior year for trying to make me present while I was having a panic attack.” Logan chuckled at the memory, coaxing a matching smile from Virgil. “You got suspended for that, and you didn’t care because, y’know what? You care about me. And y’know what? I care about you. So if I have to scream someone down for you, I will. I’m here for you no matter what, bud. Whether you like it or not. And I know that that doesn’t feel right right now, I know that it probably doesn’t help. I know that you’re probably thinking that you don’t want to be a burden. You’re not. I can promise you that. You’ve been here for me for years. If you think I haven’t been ready to do the same for you since we met, you’re dumber than I thought.” Virgil heard the huff of a smile before he felt Logan lean to the side, laying his head against Virgil’s.

“Thanks.” The word came out with more breath than voice. There was so much relief that Virgil wanted to apologize for ever making Logan think that he would be anything but supportive of him.

They didn’t move for a while. Virgil heard his phone binging and knew that it would be Patton or Roman or both. They were probably on their way over. After all, it was Friday night. Netflix and pizza night. Logan was in the bathroom washing his face when they arrived.

“Woah, Virge,” Roman gasped. Virgil looked up from the Domino’s app to find Roman gawking at his laptop. Shit. “This is beautiful. When’d you do that?”

“Last night,” Virgil lied. Patton stepped behind Roman, his jaw dropping at the sight of the drawing.

“Kiddo, that’s amazing!”

“Thanks, guys.” Virgil saved the file again before closing it and his laptop.

“Is it an original character, or something?”

“Yeah.” Leave it to Patton to come up with an explanation Virgil could latch on to. “Haven’t fleshed him out completely, though. That’s my first one of him.”

“Well, let me know as soon as you have more,” Roman requested. “I might need to use that for some writing inspiration.”

“Will do. That is, assuming I don’t abandon him like every other one.” Roman chuckled and the conversation dissipated into Logan asking what they wanted to watch this time. Roman reminded them that the new season of Queer Eye was up, so it was a pretty easy choice.

The night went on as easily as ever. Logan had pulled a complete one-eighty from his state earlier that afternoon. He was bickering with Roman, smiling reluctantly at Patton’s jokes, excusing his still puffy eyes as pulling another late night, putting on a perfect act as though he hadn’t completely fallen apart mere hours earlier. Virgil could relate, but he couldn’t quite understand it. Everything was normal, from the way he took the pepperonis off his pizza to give Patton to the way he only replied with “I’m gay” when Roman asked him why he was sitting on the floor, back pressed to the front of the lounger where Virgil was curled up, when there was plenty of space for him on the couch where Roman and Patton were.

Virgil kept an extra close eye on Logan, though not in any way obvious enough for anybody to really take notice. He watched his patterns, trying to piece together his everyday mannerisms with the collapse earlier. He told himself that Logan probably felt like he was just going through the motions. He watched how Roman teased him, only for him to tease back in a way that suddenly sounded half-hearted. He didn’t envy Patton and Roman’s ignorance. Even though it might’ve been easier to be in their shoes, still completely clueless to what was happening with Logan, it wouldn’t have been better for him. He was so glad he knew. So glad that he could understand a bit more why Logan fell asleep again, the side of his face pressed against the leg Virgil let dangle from the lounger, his nose just against Virgil’s knee.

“Must’ve been more than one all-nighter,” Patton theorized through a marble cookie brownie. Virgil nodded in agreement, not taking his eyes off Logan. For the second time that afternoon, Virgil took Logan’s glasses from his face so they wouldn’t bend. Absentmindedly, Virgil tucked his fingers into Logan’s hair, running the strands between his fingers. He was the only one that heard the soft sound of contentment in Logan’s throat, the only one that felt Logan press his face closer into Virgil’s leg. Virgil couldn’t decide whether his heart was breaking or living, but it was doing something.

None of them moved. None of them ever moved. They all fell asleep in their spots, Patton and Roman tangled together on the couch, Virgil a perfect ball in the lounger except for the leg Logan was using as a pillow. Nobody got up until around eight-thirty, when Roman and Patton both stirred. They got up to get Starbucks for all four of them, but not before Roman got a picture of Virgil and Logan, adding the picture in an album called “Proof that these two idiots are in love.”

By the time they got back, Logan was up and moving. They found him cleaning the coffee pot of yesterday’s contents, having already put the leftover pizza and cookie brownies in Ziplocks and in the fridge. Virgil was still curled up in the chair. Patton smiled at the sight.

“You’re real determined to take care of him, huh,” he asked Logan in a whisper. Logan only smiled, grabbing a cloth to dry the coffee pot. He had no intention of telling Patton that compared to how Virgil had taken care of him yesterday, a clean coffee pot was nothing. Not yet, anyway.