#this isn’t directed at anyone in particular I just needed to vent because a couple of people in my life have been acting like this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

clouds-rambles · 3 years

Note

hey bestie i was hoping to request xiao, venti, childe and zhongli where the the reader and the character have just had an argument + the reader needs time to calm down from the argument. omg maybe the reader comes back with a gift to apologise

Ask and ye shall receive <3. I’m the kind of person who needs time to relax and process the situation after an argument. I’m always too worked up (read angry) to kiss and make up straight after an argument.

Pairings; (Separate) Xiao, Venti, Childe, Zhongli x reader

Warning(s); breif mention of a wound, alcoholism, swearing

Keep reading under the cut!

Xiao

You’re probably being too harsh on the guy

You had just come back from a tough mission with a few more scrapes than you normally come back, a nasty cut in particular situated on your shoulder was what caused the argument to kick off in the first place

In hindsight the argument started from Xiao’s concern of you getting hurt worse but you were too tired from the commission to really read it as concern

But boy now do you feel bad. You both went your separate ways for the evening and in the morning you still haven’t caught sight of your partner. You eventually go around Wangshu Inn and ask if they’ve seen Xiao.

You get told that he’s out for the day, apparently he caught wind of something manifesting in the mountains. So, you suppose that it’s high time to make an apology gift

And what’s a better apology gift than your partners favourite food? Because your arguments are often few and far between you don’t mind making Xiao almond tofu since it’s not something you’ve associated with apologising

Though you’re aware that the sweet snack means nothing if you’re not sincere with your apology.

So what’s more sincere than sitting at the highest balcony of Wangshu Inn and wait for Xiao. You don’t mind how long it takes for him to come back just as long as you get to apologise

He comes back just after dusk and you pour your apologise profusely and tell him you understand that he was coming from a place of concern

Xiao is a little distant a short while after the apology but soon you’re reassured that he accepts it when he places his hand on the table for you to take hold of

The two of you sit in silence sat hand in hand while Xiao eats his tofu

You watch him eat with a grin on your face, sometimes just watching the Yaksha sit still and do his thing is enough to keep you in a trance for the evening

Venti

Maybe you got into an argument because you’re concerned over Venti’s drinking habits, sure he’s an immortal god but doesn’t he worry about his liver?

Sure the argument started because you’re worried about the archon but boy does he make you angry with his non-sensical thought processes

Venti is the kind of guy who wouldn’t let you leave without settling the argument

Even if the happy medium isn’t actually going to bring any change into the questionable drinking habits

But this argument just feels a little different, you’ve had the same conversation form months but nothing seems to change

You’re not even sure if Venti has actually listened to anything you have said to him about it

So you tell him “Do what you want, but you’re sleeping on the sofa tonight” yeah you just resigned him to sofa treatment. As much as you hate it you’re far too heated to just kiss and make up right now

So the night passes and you wake up with the cold space beside you, you’re confused until you remember the previous nights events

Though your unusual silence in the room doesn’t last long, you presume Venti sensed that you’re awake because you hear a knock at your bedroom door, you’re surprised that Venti is actually here and that he hadn’t sulked off to Windrise where you had originally planned to apologise to him

As you open the door you notice your partner stood before you with a bunch of hand picked cecelia's and dandelions and an apologetic look on his face

You’ve never known Venti to speak so fast he apologises profusely for causing you such worry and promises that he’ll try to drink less, he mentions that he doesn’t wish to give up his Friday and Saturday drinking nights but he’s willing to tone it down during the week if it stops you worrying

You thank him sincerely and find a vase to put the flowers in

You hug Venti and apologise yourself for being such a worry wart and causing such a big argument

“I’m glad I have someone to worry about me, I don’t know what I’d do without you” You can’t help but swoon at his flowery words and grin at him before the two of you start off the day

Childe

It’s a bad habit he has, when you try and talk about something serious with him he constantly cracks jokes at the situation. Which in its self isn’t the worse thing in the world, even you crack jokes to lighten the situation but at some points it goes too far

And today is too far, what started off as a disagreement about where you were going to eat lunch ended up in a full scale (mostly one sided) argument in Childes office about how he can’t take things seriously

You, of course, know this to be false. You’ve seen him in action against his foes and bank business but just in this moment when you are so angry about the situation those rational thoughts go out the window

And what does the bastard do? He cracks another fucking joke

“Is this what I am?” you ask finally reaching the catalyst of your temper “A fucking joke?”

And boy does the exclamation comes to a surprise to him. No matter how frequent your use of curse words you’ve never directed them at him so it catches Childe by even more surprise

“[name] I’m sorry I didn’-” he tries to apologise

“You didn’t fucking what Tartaglia? Want to make me feel like a joke? Cause you’ve been going down that road at every fucking disagreement we have” you cut him off in a fit of rage “Sleep in your own fucking bed tonight” you add before storming out his office

He tried to follow you out the bank before he was stopped by a fatui agent about some urgent debt collection, so he never got to apologise immediately

And that’s how the next couple of days go, you’ve taken most of the time to cool off and avoid anywhere Childe might be hanging about, your plan works better considering said harbinger was out of Liyue Harbour for a couple of days

Though on the third night Childe appears at your door, he doesn’t bring any gifts, just himself. Childe enjoys gifting things to you so he doesn’t want you or him to associate gift giving with apologies. You’re more than thankful for this

Childe apologises before you even have the chance to invite him in and takes your hand and wholeheartedly promises to try and not make jokes when you have a disagreement

You also apologise and agree that, in hindsight, you blew things out of proportion. You reassure him that he’s a hardworking man and that a few out of place jests make everything more bearable to him.

You invite him inside for some tea, your bed isn’t as cold as it was tonight

Zhongli

Disagreements with Zhongli never seem to get any further than that. The archon likes to listen to you vent your frustrations over a cup of herbal tea and usually that calms you down and everything is settled before supper

But every once in a while you’re a little high strung. For instance this time you’re running on a total of 5 hours sleep over the last 4 days. Sleep deprivation could possibly be your middle name at this point

The only thing you want to do when you get back from your restless trip from Mondstat back home is to just sleep the next few years

But the sweetie that Zhongli is he quizzes you about your great to horrific trip

Zhongli pulls all the stops he readys some dinner for you and draws a bath when you get back. He even gives you a small lecture about how you’ll feel terrible not washing before going to bed

But with your tired ears, eyes and brain it feels like a personal attack in your entire self “I’ve had it up to here with bloody hillichurls for 4 horrific days, all I want to do is pass the living hell out thank you”

Replace the bloodys with fucks and that’s probably more accurate to what you said

Zhongli is taken a little aback, being an older traditional man it’s unbecoming of anyone to use such sailor language. And thus the male lectures you about it

You take that as about as well as you expect, you don’t respond to him and favour walking out the room, barely getting undressed and collapsing on your shared bed

You wake up the next morning (though when you peek outside it seems like it’s after noon) disorientated. You don’t actually remember coming home the previous day

Then the memory resurfaces of you yelling at your spouse and regret washes over you

Surely the gift you had prepared for Zhongli would be good enough as repercussions of yesterdays outburst

You see Zhongli in the dining room, to the untrained eye he looks like he’s in a normal mood but to you, you can see his brooding emanating off of him. If you dare point it out Zhongli will deny that he even broods in the first place

He’s the first to greet you without turning around. Rightfully so, he’s still in a mood. So you just profusely apologise for your outburst

You explain that you were running on next to no sleep and while that doesn’t excuse your outburst it certainly explains it. If your spouse so wishes to ask how your trip was you would comply much more now since you’ve had a good sleep behind you.

You then change the subject to the gift in your hands, some rose tea. Something Zhongli had mentioned when you were courting all that time ago.

The man sits you on his lap and explains to you about how it was out of place of him to assume you’d be in a talking mood immediately after your travels. You reassure him that under normal circumstances you wouldn’t mind talking about it, you promise that you will do everything in your power to not let the previous night repeat

You then bring out his gift, rose tea, which he had mentioned wanting to taste a little while back, and before long you’re back in the cycle of Zhongli profusely explaining to you some random subject (in this instance rose tea) before you go off to make dinner where you finally share the details of your travels

Hope this is okay! <3 I kind of went a little ham with the Childe and Zhongli one in comparison to the other two hope you don’t mind lmao <3

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #reader insert #xiao x reader #genshin xiao x reader #genshin xiao #venti x reader #genshin venti x reader #genshin venti #childe x reader #tartaglia x reader #genshin childe x reader #genshin childe #zhongli x reader #genshin zhongli x reader #genshin zhongli

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willadisastercry · 3 years

Text

Pidge is less okay than everyone thought... and that’s okay

Tw: detailed description of a panic attack, unintentional self harm (not intense or graphic)

Shiro and Lance are the only one’s who seem to be able to help when Pidge has an anxiety attack, they’re also the only people who know she even actively has them. But Pidge has overworked herself all week, not getting enough sleep or even bothering to eat much before today’s mission. So when she faces a hitch in an attempt to acquire possibly crucial intel that could put her family back together, she can’t steal her nerves quick enough before this one comes on and nothing seems to be working to calm her down this time.

“Really good work out there today, guys. Relax and rest a bit before we regroup later to discuss.”

Pidge had barely noticed Shiro was even speaking, too enthralled in the prospect of what could possibly be contained on the drive she’d secured with galra intel from today’s mission.

“Awh, come onnn Shiro. Can’t we just call it a night? I’m so wiped.”

Flight plans, prisoner logs, cargo shipment details, the possibilities were really endless and anything could get her one step closer to finding her father and brother. She couldn’t get complacent now.

“Would you rather wake up early tomorrow morning—“

“NO! No, forget I asked. Ugh,” Lance urged before huffing in frustration as he sprawled himself across the couch in the common room, everyone else already following suit and nearly entirely atop of one another.

They all seemed content to remain like that, but Pidge felt like there were bugs crawling under her skin. She didn’t want to relax, she didn’t know if she could.

Her heart pumped erratically in her chest as she felt more and more useless sitting on a couch relaxing when she could be analyzing the data that just might help her find her family.

“Anyone else have—“

“I’m going to go ‘relax’ in my lab,” Pidge announced resolutely.

“Uh, Pidge, you know the whole point of relaxing is ya know, not doing anything, right?”Hunk asked as Keith shifted to allow him to release her from under the weight of his arm where it fell in their semi dog pile onto the couch.

“I need to start my diagnostics on the encrypted files I retrieved before they corrupt,” Pidge’s words were pointed and direct.

“Lone galra cruisers don’t usually have tech guys, it’ll take some time to relay the news of the attack over to hq and even more time for them to properly investigate and figure out what we got away with... you’ve got plenty of time Pidge—“

“Well, we weren’t exactly stealthy and they could have failsafes already initiated ready to go at any moment! It’s crucial that I review and decrypt as much as I can before all of our work goes to hell—“

“I thought we were sorta clean with it...” Keith muttered deep in thought as he reviewed their performance over in his head.

“Woah, slow down,” Lance interjected everyone, “if you’re still mad at me about not catching that last sentry before you were done cleaning out all of the files from the server then, I get that, but you don’t need to be so—“

“Guys, guys! We’ll discuss it later, for now everyone’s only job is to chill out, and Pidge, you can go work in your lab as long as you promise to come to the meeting later with a cooler head, deal?”

“Yeah, whatever. Deal,” she gruffed before taking off towards Green’s hangar to retrieve the usb from today’s mission.

“Jeez,” Hunk sighed as he fixed his headband back into place from where it had slipped down.

“And I thought I could be hot-headed...” Keith mused almost in awe but also worry because why was Pidge this worked up over some data that may or may not even be helpful?

“I was still down from a blast during hand to hand with the second wave of sentries...” Lance stared at the floor, his face full of hurt as he recalled his moment of error in battle that he was certain causing Pidge’s mood.

“...I didn’t see the last one come up and when I did he’d already blasted the control panel to shit.”

“It’s not your fault Lance, the mission couldn’t have gone smoother. We did what we set out to and that’s all we can focus on for now, let’s just give her some space to cool off and wait for the meeting to dole the rest out.”

The boys agreed and stayed in the common room for several more minutes talking about how weird Pidge was being before finally heading off to get cleaned up.

Pidge wished she could get washed up, but she had so much work left to do. She was typing away furiously as she produced line of code after code, determined to not let up before she was done.

Her legs pumped restlessly against the floor while she worked, her entire body practically vibrating with nervous energy.

She just needed to configure a base for her decryption software according to the firewalls in this particular ship’s files so she could finally let it run and—fuck.

The altean computer screen wavered and then sputtered as it began rebooting.

“Nononono, no, NO! You’ve got to be kidding me...”

She could throw up.

The processor had overheated before she could get the last few lines of code typed to initialize her software which meant when it cooled off she would have to start from the beginning and by then... by then there could be nothing left to decrypt.

Panic swelled in her chest, the heat spreading as quickly as it appeared.

This could have been what leads her to her father, to her brother. And if she failed she could be what breaks her family... for good.

She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until the strain in her chest brought her out of her staring competition with the blaring red across the screen in front of her.

Inhaling sharply, she clutched her chest. The initial breath hurt and so she breathed again to see if it would hurt again, and it did.

Shit, why does it hurt? Slower. Breathe slower.

But she couldn’t. She took another. And then another. And then she was breathing so fast none of her heaves seemed to alleviate the tightness that wrapped around her lungs and crawled up into her throat.

“Aha, fuck.”

The panic came on so quickly it almost made her nauseous.

The harder she tried to return her breathing to normal the deeper she seemed to plunge. But she still had work to do. And she had to be cooled off for the meeting or Shiro wouldn’t let her return to her lab.

She needed to, in her own words, calm the fuck down.

She’d done it before, managed to bring herself down from this point. But that was with Lance by her side to gently guide her breathing to something steadier and with Shiro holding her so tightly it was hard to find a good enough reason to remain so tightly wound.

And she was just very rude to both of them so she couldn’t ask for their help after that. Pidge had never done it by herself before, but she would have to at least try to now.

So she closed her eyes and forced herself to take in a large enough breath so she could count her inhale, hold it, and then exhale, but even doing that had hurt and seemed to just make deepen the ache.

“No... why... why isn’t it... working?!”

Her chest felt too heavy to do it, too tight and she couldn’t seem to manage the counts without making it worse. Her lungs would tighten up and ache before she reached the end of the time she was supposed to hold her breath which caused her exhale to be several rapid inhales instead.

Oh god.

She pushed herself away from her desk, in the process pulling the keyboard out as well as knocking over a pile of electronics that fell to the floor with a clank that jarred her now insanely sensitive ears.

There was too much input. Too many things making it impossible to do this on her own.

She scrambled to shut the radio off, but her eyes were blurry with tears and she couldn’t find the correct buttons, increasing the volume and switching it to a station of static instead.

She let out a scream she didn’t know she was holding back as she sank to her knees, clamping hands over her ears to try and block out all the noise that was now overloading her senses.

It was like everything had been dialed to 10.

The whirring of the computer processor as it worked, the cool air being pushed into the room from a vent over her head, the steady beeps and ticks of several different machines and... and the door of the lab opening followed by footsteps.

“Pidge?”

Keith.

“Pidge, hey... what happened?”

His voice was so loud.

“What’s wro—“

“Shh,” she begged, voice barely a whisper over her ragged breathing.

“Okay, okay,” he placated as he closed the distance between them.

“I can be quieter... and maybe if I turn this off, how’s that? Better?”

She nodded, removing her hands from her ears once he’d gotten the radio off. She hadn’t noticed when she’d started shaking but her hands were trembling so badly she had to hold them to keep them remotely still.

“I’m gonna sit with you, is that okay? Alright, do you think you can tell me what’s happening right now?”

She thought about it for a second and concluded that even she didn’t know.

She’d had anxiety attacks before, Shiro had been the first to name it for what it was. They were mostly inattentive ones where she’d dissociate, sometimes she would get worked up and hyperventilate, but it was only ever fleeting, short, over in a couple minutes. And other than that she’d always had some sort of an answer to nearly everything anxiety related. Except now.

Because right now she did not know what was happening, only that even her own heart pumping was so loud it made her want to disappear into a blissful cloud of nothing. She didn’t like not knowing what this was and why she was feeling it, and that realization seemed to break what little progress she had made in containing it.

“Wait no, it’s okay, you’re okay!”

But she wasn’t. She was so far from okay.

“Pidge, you’re safe. You just need to breathe.”

She knew that already and she’s been trying, but the more she tried and failed the more she became aware that there was nothing she could do on her own to stop it.

“This happens to me too sometimes, I know it seems impossible but you can do it. We can do it together, yeah? Okay, I need you to take a really deep breath for me, I’ll go first.”

And he did. He inhaled audibly and urged her to follow. And she tried, but her chest hitched and she choked on the air she tried to bring in.

Keith wanted to soothe her and placed his hand on her arm but she jolted so violently at the touch that he tore his hand away as if he was afraid he’d burned her. She met him with desperate eyes, sincere with frustration and impatience.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m helping much.... do you want me to get someone else? Hunk? Or maybe—“

“Sh-Shiro or Lance, p-please...”

Her hands were in fists on her lap and they were beginning to go numb, a tingle spreading from her wrists up to her shoulders and a similar one moving up her legs. She hated when that happened.

She hated feeling so much emotion when her body felt so stuck, so not there. Because she was there and she was struggling and now was not the time to go ghost on herself.

“I can’t-I can’t stop it, I just want it... to stop.”

“This feeling isn’t permanent, it’s just your body reacting—it’ll stop,” he moved his hand from the floor to her knee and she flinched again but let it remain there.

“I’m going to be right back with someone, is that okay? You’ll be alone for only a minute...”

She nodded through a strangled sob. Her mouth was starting to go dry and so she didn’t feel much like talking anymore.

Keith squeezed her bouncing knee before taking off in a dead sprint. Pidge surrendered to the heaviness of her eyelids and closed them for a moment as she vaguely wondered how he would describe the predicament to their friends and how exactly he’d realized something was awry at all, relishing in the prospect of focusing on something other than her own panic for a moment.

But the relief didn’t last long because when she pried her eyes open to see if someone, anyone was back yet, the world tilted.

She watched in horror as objects seemed to wane out of focus while others seem pulled into hyper detail, the floor stretching out in front of her in an unrelenting wave of movement, the little dots of static that you usually see when you blur your vision or just before you pass out were now moving so quickly she could cry. Correction: she was already crying, but she couldn’t stop full on hysterics now.

She didn’t know when she had scooted herself against the leg of the desk but was thankful for the support, thankful for something to remind her that she was on the ground, in her lab, in... space.

The way her chest contracted as her mind continued to do its own whirring, continued to think about all of the things she couldn’t possibly control but felt compelled to try to caused her a whole new type of distress.

It was too much.

She squirmed as she tried to get away from herself, from this feeling, throwing her head back hard enough to hurt as she wailed, but it didn’t because she couldn’t feel anything. It was like her entire body had shut off an entire sense and the others were thrown completely out of wack because of it.

And she didn’t know why she was crying exactly, there seemed to be too many reasons and not any all at once, but she gathered that it was one of those instances where now that she’d started it was going to be really hard to stop.

Those were really the only circumstances under which she cried, especially now that she was in space with a ship full of teenage-ish males and two very parent-like aliens, after going so long without crying at all only to lose it over absolutely nothing and somehow end up crying about everything.

But this was sort of different. Because she felt so much more wrong than just an overdue cry.

She didn’t have much more time to deliberate this because there were voices pulling her out of her daze. Shiro was knelt in front of her and Keith was back.

“There you are.”

Shiro moved one hand to her shoulder and she shrunk under it, her eyes wild and fearful as she could feel the weight of it, but nothing more.

“Hey, it’s alright. It’s just me,” he said as he moved to sit beside her against the drawers of the desk.

“Keith said you were getting really overwhelmed, so I’m here if you want—oh!” Pidge had rushed forward to bury her head in Shiro’s chest and his arms closed around her securely.

“I’ve got you, i’ve got you...” he gushed as he held her trembling frame, the tears still flowing freely and her chest still struggling under the immense pressure that had built in it.

She tried to ignore how trapped she felt, yearning for the usual ease that his tight embrace brought instead of this suffocating strain. She felt another scream bubble at the back of her throat as she let the weight of his arms take her somewhere almost worse, somewhere she wasn’t just struggling to breathe anymore, but now felt like she had absolutely no air to even try.

“Pidge?! Hey, talk to me, where you at?”

She pulled away from Shiro, his voice piercing her ears like a small explosion. He immediately retracted and searched her face for an explanation but it was just filled with fear as she drew her knees up to her chest, clutched her hands over her ears and tried not to give into the sobs until she had enough air to support such heavy crying.

But it soon became blatantly clear that she couldn’t get enough air in when her face had gone slack and her sobs had all but stopped except for the croak of her tired throat as she desperately tried to pull in air, the strong arms around her releasing completely now, more hands finding her back and tapping her shoulder.

“Pidge, you need to take a breath, the air is there. You’re—damnit it, you’re going to pass out if you don’t try. Is Lance on his way over? Okay, can you go get water and a...”

The rest was lost on her as black continued to impede her vision, Shiro’s usually warm and calming voice now just as sharp as the sting in her lungs and cut with worry. Tears still flowed down her cheeks to meet under her chin and continue down her neck, but they came silently, the hollow rasp from her throat as she struggled through irregular and rapid breaths barely audible anymore. She almost wished that she would just pass out already, let her body’s self preservation instincts break the unbearable cycle of panic it tortured her with.

But Shiro wouldn’t let her, he was just about ready to administer rescue breaths with how pale she had gotten before Lance arrived.

“Shit, Pidge, what the hell? You usually do so well with the breathing excercise I showed you... but it’s okay, this happens.”

Lance settled himself next to Pidge on the other side of Shiro and began to work one of her fists open, her hand was now lax for the most part, so it wasn’t hard and did the same with the other before putting his hand on her back while the other corded through her hair.

“I’m going to stretch your arm out so you can— damnit you’re really tensed up, do you think you can relax your arm a bit?” He questioned tenderly as he began gently easing her arm away from her chest, holding her hand while rubbing at the clenched up muscles as they released their tension.

“Yeah, just like that... you’re doing so good,” he murmured as he took her shaking hand up to his chest and pressed her pliant fingers down. After a minute she looked around lazily, her body still racked with trembling sobs before soft fingers were tipping her chin to meet a warm smile mouthing ‘hey’.

Shiro watched in a mix of awe and confusion as Lance handled Pidge’s crisis, ignoring the hesitation in his eyes because his voice was so steady and his so hands sure that it didn’t matter that he didn’t know in the slightest of what he was doing. He was just being him, this was his nature, to be able to read someone so well and provide them with such tenderness.

“Want to try and listen to how I breathe?”

She parted her lips as if to speak but a particularly pointed sob prevented it, Lance seemed to get the point though and shifted his legs around.

“I’ll let you settle in and you tell me when you’re ready for me to return the hug...”

Lance tugged on her other sleeve and guided into a cautionary embrace, his touch light and his hands remaining on her arms as she found the spot on his chest where she could practically hear his heart moving against his ribs, but... not quite.

Everything sounded muffled now, like she was under water but wasn’t prepared to take a deep enough breath before being shoved beneath the surface.

Except she was comepltely aware that she wasn’t actually under water. Like it was all a cruel joke where she was tortured while she watched everyone else around her breathe easily. Her mind still able to rationalize that even though she felt like she was, she wasn’t actually dying.

But Lance wasn’t flaunting the fact that he could breathe, he was trying to remind her how she could too. He squeezed her arms each time her hands tightened around the material of his sweatshirt, reminding her that she should be thinking about how his chest was working, pushing all the other junk in her mind away for now.

“Feel how my voice carries when I talk... how controlled each breath is... think about what you can feel and hear and touch... they’re things you can perceive... things you can control, don’t focus on what you can’t...”

Okay, he’s right. I can do that. Try to do that.

She shuddered through a round of hitches in her sobbing and pressed her face further into Lance’s chest, not even having the mind to worry about how wet it was getting with her tears.

Think about what you can feel...

She could feel the thumping of his heart even if she wasn’t quite hearing it at that moment, her mind making up the difference and leading her to imagine the sound it must be making each time it does... and how the air being pushed out through his nose must be whistling... and how the constant reverberations must mean he was... humming.

But then it stopped as he took a big breath and let Pidge rise with his chest as it expanded, sure to let it out just as steadily.

Her chest seemed to loosen then, her body rushing to take in as much air as it could before the panic spiked again.

“I’m going to hug back now, you let me know if you—oh, okay, I’m here, Shiro’s here too. You’re okay,” he ran his hands through her hair and pressed her tightly to his chest, his legs coming up to plant his feet firmly on either side of her as he began slowly rocking them back and forth.

It felt nice. He moved them carefully, slow enough that she could have been asleep in his arms and she wouldn’t have been disturbed, but also so securely that her mind couldn’t disappear the presence of his hands bracing her back and circling through her hair.

But the lull didn’t last long.

It wasn’t his fault, this is just how it went. When she got bad like this, the panic came and went in waves. If her body still had nervous energy left, it didn’t matter how much she managed to calm down, she would have to start from square one until there was nothing left in her to continue.

No!

Shiro was just as surprised as Lance when her voice cracked, the soothing sounds she was murmuring to herself as she worked her breaths closer and closer to normal broken by a wail.

Fuck!

Fuck you, fuck this, fuck—everything.

“-dge? Pidge?!”

“We’re still here, you’re still alright.”

“Give me a sec... there ya go, better?”

He’d turned her around so that her back was against his stomach and then held his hand up in front of her to show her before he closed it and lowered it to her chest, she knew what he was going to do and melted into him further as he began to rub gentle but firm circles over her sternum.

“Ahh... ahah, f-fuck,” she sobbed beneath him, she shuddered under the touch, her hands searching for something else, anything else to ground her and stumbling upon Shiro’s on one side and her thigh on the other.

She squeezed tight on both as she fought desperately not to slip again, feeling the way her body wanted to become light again.

Nope, we are just not doing that shit again.

She was so mentally done with this, but her body seemed to be losing energy too. She could feel it tiring, losing the warewithal to continue its draining overreaction. Turns out not having rested at all after their mission just to drop like this was a blessing in way, she was scared of how long she’d have been able to go if she wasn’t already worn out.

She forced her eyes shut and focused on Lance’s fingers, his knuckles pressing hard, but not hard enough to hurt. She’d almost wish he was. The rhythmic motion was heavenly because she couldnt ignore it as he kept the pressure there above her heart.

She gasped when she started coming back to herself, feeling the sudden shift when she seemed to be given the reigns back on her own breathing, sucking in huge gulps when she finally could control it.

“That’s it, you’re doing so good... listen to how I do it.”

Shiro was massaging the residual tremors out of her hand as he held it, the additional release of tension aiding in grounding her further.

She was faintly aware of the lab door opening but was too focused on not losing her pace, her breaths still manual and unsteady but a hell of a lot better than before.

“Oh...” it was Keith, he sounded worried.

She was confused for a moment before a hand was on her thigh.

“Hey,” Lance’s hand was at her wrist now. “Oh Pidge, don’t-don’t do that.”

Keith was trying to lift her fingers up but stopped when he saw that pearls of blood were starting to form beneath them and didn’t want his struggle with her to make it worse.

“Crap.”

“Pidge let—Pidge you gotta let go.”

The hurt in Lance’s voice stung. She wasn’t even aware she’d been doing that, but she couldn’t bring herself to break the iron grip, this peace was so tenuous and she couldn’t afford fucking it up.

When she didn’t respond Lance exchanged a knowing look with Keith who moved his hand under the palm of hers before both boys wrenched her hand up, surpressing how sharply he breathed when he saw the trail of red with sheaths of skin uprooted and purple crescents dotted about.

They sort of just stared, lost for a second, neither of them quite sure how to proceed.

“I got it,” Shiro offered as he took the offending hand from them, Pidge’s gaze still somewhere else.

There was a moment of silence before anyone talked or moved again.

“Pidge, hey. Keith brought water for when you feel up to it.”

Keith was kneeling next to them now, pouring cold water onto a rag and wringing it out before showing it to Lance.

“He’s got something cold to put on your face, maybe over your eyes? They must hurt...”

She blinked absently, silent tears making their way down her cheeks.

“This should help, ready?”

It took a second but she finally nodded and then the rag was descending on her swollen and bloodshot eyes. She jumped at first but he continued and once it was fully laid on it was bliss. The coolness calmed the angry puffiness and the pressure kept new tears from falling.

“I’m... gonna put something on your leg. It might sting, but it’s also cold so it’ll feel nice,” Keith said wiping up the small drops of blood that escaped the scratch wounds before pressing whatever it was down on top for a beat.

They weren’t bleeding much, the skin torn literally just enough to bleed. She also couldn’t really feel it, the area just felt numb and stiff. She hadn’t meant to draw blood, she just needed something that felt real to bring her back.

A spark of shame lit deep in her gut as realization dawned on her, she had hurt herself. Sure it was subconscious, but she still did, literally with Lance and Shiro right there trying to help. But she pushed those thoughts away.

She was far from perfectly fine, still working through the after shocks and residual anxiousness that followed. She sort of felt sick to her stomach and couldn’t stop swaying her leg back and forth as she lay against Lance, his grip as tight as ever, with Shiro still caging her unsteady hands in his.

Keith had gotten a blanket at some point to drape over her and kept removing the rag to re wet it with the cold water that she didn’t quite trust herself to drink yet.

“How ya feeling?” Lance murmured into her hair.

She hummed in response.

“Gonna take that as better, right?”

She nodded and then grimaced when Keith took the rag away once more and opened her eyes only to realize how much pressure had built behind them.

“What’s up?” Shiro asked when he noticed her face twisting up.

“My head hurts.”

“Hm, Coran has some sort of aspirin equivalent somewhere and... you could lie down, try going to sleep until dinner—oh! Hunk is making your favorite, he figured everyone needs a good meal after today.”

“Sounds nice,” she almost slurred, her head snuggling into the crook of Lance’s arm. She still shook as if she were cold, even with the blanket.

The three of them discussed something for several minutes but she tuned the conversation out, too busy relishing in how she could breathe again, only a small part of her worried about relapsing back into hysteria as the waves of panic returned smaller and smaller.

“Pidge? You awake?” Lance asked, trying not to eat her hair.

“Soooo, we were thinking of having dinner in the common room tonight, we think you should eat something before you turn in and we don’t want you to be alone just yet, also so you can be snuggled at all times... what do ya think?”

She smiled and scrunched her nose up with and enthusiastic ‘sure’.

“How bout I give you a lift?” Shiro smirked fondly as he squatted down and motioned for her to hop on his back.

They all had a good laugh at that, Keith and Lance joking about how they’ll never receive the same star treatment.

“I think it’s safe to say the meeting is rescheduled for the morning, sorry Lance!”

“Whateverrrr! The things I do for you, Pidge,” he laughed as they settled in on the couch, Hunk almost suffocating her when he was done serving their meal.

“I’m never letting go, I hope you are aware of that.”

“Not complaining, just... can I have my arm back? Thanks.”

“What was even on the drive—“

“We do not speak of... of that, Princess.”

“Pidge can run her diagnostics again before tomorrow’s meeting and then after that she’s on an electronic hiatus. Also everyone’s going to their rooms at curfew from now on, no exceptions. You people are humans and you need sleep!”

“But Shiro!”

“At curfew? Like at exactly curfew?”

“Yes Keith.”

“Space...“

“Lance. Lance, do not say it.”

“✨Space dad✨ has entered the chat.”

#pidge whump #voltron pidge #pidge gunderson #vld #vld anxiety #vld headcanons #vld fanfic #voltron whump #voltron fic #space dad #i am SORRY i had to #pidge angst #vld lance #soft comfort here #intense emotions #relatable anxiety #panic attack #could be triggering #voltron fandom

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maevemarethyu · 3 years

Text

Unexpected (3/?)

(Not my GIF)

You weren’t expecting it. Neither of you were.

That didn’t mean you weren’t happy with how it ended.

Bucky Barnes x Reader Fic.

You were a whole new level of anxious as you wait outside the diner for James. Matt and Foggy were already inside and you could tell how worried they were by the looks on their faces. On the bright side, they didn’t seem murderous so you would have to thank Karen later.

Then, you see him. Well, not so much him as the crowd parting for him like the red sea to avoid him; doing nothing to hide their fear and disgust. You roll your eyes at the ridiculousness of it. It would seem that no matter how much good the man did; people would still look at him like the Winter Soldier.

It really pissed you off and did nothing to help the migraine that had taken residence in the back of your head; crying all night would do that to a person. You probably looked as bad as you felt and you feel self-conscious despite your best efforts. You weren’t here to look good. You were here to get started on your divorce and get home to Laysa. If you were feeling generous, you’d try to talk Matt down from hunting Patrick.

Speak of the devil. Your phone goes off in your pocket for the tenth time this morning, another good morning/have a great day text from your loving husband. You used to think that him finding the time to send you a text was a sweet little gesture, now it made you sick to your stomach. How could he just lie to you like this?

A warm hand on your shoulder jolts you out of your thoughts and your phone slips from you hand and onto the concrete.

“S-shit sorry. I didn’t mean-“ You wave James’ apology off with a tight laugh.

“It’s not your fault.” You mumble as you pick up the phone. By some miracle, the screen had yet to shatter. “See? No harm no foul. This phones been through a lot.”

Up close, he looked good. His blue eyes seemed brighter and the stubble on his face brought out how sharp his jawline was. Seriously how could anyone take a man like James Barnes for granted?

From the corner of your eye, you see Foggy notice you and the man you were with and his face twists into an amusing mixture of shock and worry. “Are you ready?” You ask, flashing him the papers in your hand like a child showing off a good grade and he shows you his.

“As I’ll ever be.” He radiates discomfort so you lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“I know this is gonna be hard but, I know this is what’s best for me. I’ve been with Patrick for nearly fifteen years, he’s basically all I’ve ever known. And yet, I know I’ll never be able to forgive him for this. Divorce isn’t for everyone; some couples manage to be happy after working through these situations. Today is just to see whether or not you think this is the right path to take.” Once your spiel is complete, a small smile graces his face before he nods his head towards the door.

“I needed that. Thank you… for all of this.”

“No need to thank me.” You shrug, plastering a smirk on your face. “We’re basically best friends by circumstance. If you ever need to talk, I’m here.”

You meant it because, even though the way you met was awful, you didn’t want to go your separate ways after today. You needed a friend to vent to too.

“Me too. I mean you too- I just... I’m here for you too” Once again, he’s stumbling over his words and, in the morning light, you can see a blush take over his cheeks. It drags a genuine laugh from the deepest part of your stomach; James Buchannan Barnes, the ex-Winter Soldier, was a shy giant. A teddy bear.

A teddy bear that reaches over you to hold open the door. “After you.”

Matt and Foggy are out of their chairs and flagging you down as soon as you step into the building. God, you loved these two.

You unconsciously grab James’ metal hand to drag him towards your friends and, much to his surprise, you don’t flinch or recoil. Claire always complained that his hand was too cold.

“James, these are my friends Matt Murdock and Franklin Nelson. Guys, this is James Barnes.” You introduce and purposefully ignore Foggy’s wide eyes. You were sure Matt’s eyes were wide as well but, they were hidden behind his dark glasses. You could see they had a hundred question but, ever the professionals, they stay quiet.

“It’s good to meet you” James greets awkwardly.

The waitress comes to take the drink orders and you’re thankful for the momentary distraction. This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation.

“I guess you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you all here today.” You start and Foggy snorts.

“We are actually.” Matt nods, whilst elbowing Foggy’s side. “Is everything okay?”

“Uh. No. Not really.” You stall, throat closing at the mere thought of explaining what happened to two of your dearest friends. The last thing you wanted to do was release the Devil of Hell’s kitchen in front of an Avenger. Your hand ball into fists subconsciously and you only notice when your hand is engulfed by James’.

“You’re bleeding.” He whispers, probably thinking it was quiet enough to go unheard by Matt and Foggy but, you knew better. A quick glance at you palms show he was right; your nails had managed to cut through the flesh of you palm.

You know you should pull away but, the warmth of his hand relaxes your tense shoulders and allows you to unclench your jaw.

With a deep breath, you turn to face your friends once more.

“Patrick is cheating on me with James’ wife. I want a divorce but, I want the papers in my hand before I confront him.”

Just as you expected, Matt’s face twists into something terrifying and a shiver runs down your spine at the sight but, to your surprise, its Foggy that starts.

“That fucking piece of shit! I always told you he wasn’t good enough for you.” He growls, pulling out his phone. It took a lot to get Franklin Nelson to the point of belligerent rage. “I’ve had those forms ready for the past six years.”

That had you choking on your water. You knew they didn’t particularly like Patrick but, having your divorce planned out since the day of your marriage?

“You what?! Who are you calling?” You ask and he waves off your question.

“Hey Marci? Can you print the file on my computer labeled When Y/N finally wises up? Thanks hon.”

Next to you, James chuckles and it’s enough to warm your face. This was not how you expected breakfast to go. You look towards an unusually quiet Matt for answers but, his eyes are on the man next to you.

“What about you?” He asks, directing the question at James. “The papers in your hand tell me you and Y/N have the same plan.”

If James is shocked by Matt’s intuitiveness despite his handicap, he doesn’t show it and you give his hand a thankful squeeze.

You interject. “Actually, he just came here for information on-“

“Yeah. I want a divorce too.” He nods, leaving you dumbstruck. “It’s what’s best for me.”

Hearing your words on his lips made your traitorous heart skip a beat and the way Matt shifts in his seat tell you he noticed. Damn him.

He hands Foggy the small stack of papers and the lawyer in him wastes no time; skimming through the pages with a pensive face. The waitress returns to take everyone’s orders and your face scrunches up when James asks for tomato juice with his omlette.

“Seriously? You drink that stuff?” You tease, a welcome reprieve from the seriousness and the man physically relaxes for the first time since you’ve sat down.

“Yeah actually. It’s good for you.” You open your mouth to retort when Matt cuts you off.

“Don’t act like you don’t eat tomatoes like apples. You literally ate enough cherry tomatoes in one sitting to send you to the hospital.” He reminds you of the time when you were in college and ended up in the ER because you’d managed to burn a hole into your stomach lining because of the amount of tomatoes you ingested. Who’d have thought you could throw off your stomach acid’s pH by eating four cartons of cherry tomatoes?

“You did what?” James grins. “And you don’t like tomato juice?”

“It’s the texture.” You defend while adding a shiver of disgust for good measure.

“This is an air-tight contract. Whoever wrote it up was good.” Foggy hums. “One of Stark’s lawyers I’m guessing. Is there any particular reason you aren’t using one of them?”

James didn’t actually have a reason. He supposes he could have used one of Tony’s multiple lawyers but, when you had asked him to come with you today, he had agreed without putting too much thought into it. Coming here with you just seemed like the right thing to do.

It was a good call too. Claire worked in the compound, and secrets never seemed to stay secret there for long. If word got out that he was talking to a lawyer, she’d track him down and he didn’t think he was strong enough to confront her. Not yet.

“Uh- Claire works with me. This was the easiest way to go about it without her finding out.” He explains, suddenly aware of your eyes on him and the fact that his hand was still wrapped around yours. Neither of you make a move to break the contact.

The answer seems to satisfy Foggy but, Matt doesn’t give anything away and you have half a mind to kick his shin under the table. He wasn’t here to intimidate Barnes. Thankfully, it was clear James wasn’t so easily discouraged.

“We could probably have yours done the day after tomorrow.” In reality, two days is extremely fast for things of this nature but, this meant that the two of you have to keep this to yourselves for two more days. You had to pretend to be loving spouses for the next thirty-six hours. It would be torture.

Foggy starts going through what the process was for filing a divorce and you’re so engrossed in it that you don’t notice Matt pull out his phone until you hear him

“Hey Siri; call Frank.” Matt orders and all the blood drains from your face. No.

“Matt please don’t-“ You beg, tightening your grip on James’ hand. “He can’t find out.”

“He has to know Y/N.” Foggy affirms in a much gentler voice and you can feel James’ eyes burning into the side of your head. Panic had gripped your voice and he wanted to know why.

“Can we please wait until after I confront him?” You plead. “I’m not six anymore. I can handle this.”

“Yeah Murdock?” A gruff voice speaks from the device and your breath catches.

You hold Matt’s blank gaze firmly, neither of you yielding until-

“Sorry; meant to call Hank. You know how Siri never gets it right.” He lies and you exhale in relief.

“Whatever.” The phone murmurs before disconnecting just in time for the waitress to set down your table’s food.

“If you don’t tell Frank, I will.” Matt warns once the waitress is out of earshot and, with a roll of your eyes, you unlink your hand from James’ to pull your plate of Belgian waffles towards you.

Your friends begin discussing how to handle both yours and James’ divorces when the latter leans in towards you.

“I’m guessing Frank is that scary friend you warned us about?” He asks, once again keeping his voice low, not realizing just how futile it was.

The answer to his question was yes and no. Frank was scary but, he wasn’t the only one. Unbeknownst to the Avenger, one of your scariest friends was sat across from him, white cane folded on his lap, discussing the legality of your situation.

Matt Murdock played the perfect civilian but, you were one of the few people who knew who he really was.

“That’s putting it lightly.” You mutter, loading your plate with enough syrup to have James’ teeth rotting by just looking at it.

“You really like your sugar, huh?” He chuckles as he watches each pocket of your waffle fill up with the golden brown delicacy and you hum.

“Need it to keep me awake. Can’t stand the taste of coffee and energy drinks just keep me exhausted with an accelerated heartbeat.” Once you’re satisfied, you hand Foggy the syrup out of habit without looking up from your plate and he takes it with a quiet thank you.

“So, how’s Laysa?” He asks and a bright smile crawls onto your face despite your full cheeks.

“She’s doing a lot better.” You say after swallowing. “It was touch and go for a while but, she’s on the way to being a normal, healthy, baby.”

“Good! Because Marci and Karen want to fawn her with gifts and attention. Even Elle admitted to wanting to see her.” Matt grins, finally dropping his glare and conversing like a normal person.

“Elle?!” You snort in disbelief, turning to James to explain why you were shocked, words catching in your throat when you catch him staring at you. There was a look on his face you couldn’t quite describe; the best you could come up with was awed. You felt heat creep up your neck at the sight of it and you quickly focus your attention back to your food.

It was a ridiculous thought. Why the hell would James Buchannan Barnes be in awe of you? You were just you.

“I’ve gotta ask.” Foggy flashes a sardonic smirk. “How are you gonna do it? I’m partial to you setting all of his shit on fire and tossing it off the GW.”

You knew he meant well but, all his words did was make your skin crawl with the realization that you were going to have to confront Patrick and it wasn’t going to be pretty. There would probably be yelling and crying. God, you hated crying.

“I’m… not sure.” You say quietly. “I’ve never had to do anything like this before. I almost want to leave his stuff at the station and text him but, I know that’s cowardly.”

“And you are anything but a coward.” Matt reminds tenderly. You sometimes forgot how well your friends knew you but, you were always grateful they did. He was right. You were not a coward.

That didn’t make this any less terrifying.

“Steve had to talk me out of leaving a letter on Claire’s desk and moving back to Romania.” James admits and the ridiculousness of it lightens the weight on your heart. You weren’t sure if it was true or if he said it to make you feel better but, you decide it doesn’t matter.

“Why don’t you guys do it together? Two birds one stone and all that.” Foggy suggests through a mouth full of hash brown. You and James share a look.

It wasn’t a bad idea. You two could be a united front against your soon to be exes and, having him there wouldn’t allow you to back out, or worse, take Patrick back. Your husband always had a way with words and you always fell for it.

“Are you-?” James begins.

“Yeah… you?” You interject.

“Yeah. I mean yes- I-“

“Okay its settled, you’ll do it together.” Matt finalizes with a slight frown. It was obvious he wasn’t fully behind it but, knew better than you fight you on it. You were stubborn. “I want a call as soon as it’s over.”

Foggy chokes on his food when he garbles Live Stream It and you can’t stop the roll of your eyes. It’s been like this since you met them while studying at Columbia. You could practically picture Foggy’s long hair and hear Matt’s shy voice. A voice you hadn’t heard since you graduated.

Even when you continued your education at a more specialized school, you hadn’t grown apart and it irked Patrick to no end. You were glad that who you hung out with was the one thing you never compromised with him.

“So…” You turn to James. “How are we going to do this?”

#bucky x reader #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes #bucky #bucky x y/n

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cuinawen · 3 years

Text

Being Obvious

A Clint Barton/Bella Swan one shot

3175 words

Bella has a crush, Natasha thinks it’s a little obvious but Clint needs a nudge in the right direction before he’ll make a move

Warnings: language, suggestive themes

~*~0~*~

The chime of the elevator sounded, echoing just slightly across the open space and Clint froze for a split second before something akin to panic hit. Not that he would ever admit that he panicked about anything… ever.

He’d been in the middle of setting up for his latest prank, which would be ruined if he was caught in the act, so without a thought he hopped up onto the counter and pulled himself up into a large air vent, carefully closing the grate behind him.

It took only a few seconds, so by the time he could hear a familiar laugh he was out of sight, no trace left that he’d been there.

It wasn’t the first time he’d used these vents as a means of traversing the tower (which was how he’d known this particular grate was unscrewed already), so shifting as quietly as he could, he settled in to wait and watch until the room was empty again, a small grin forming as he saw his two favourite women enter the room.

“I mean really,” Natasha bemoaned, a wry grin on her face as she referenced a recent incident with a former S.H.I.E.L.D agent, “Is it really so hard to find a guy that won’t damn near wet himself just because he accidentally saw me nude, all I was doing was having a quick shower. Honestly, he reacted worse than Steve did that one time.”

“Steve? You mean Cap? Nooo,” Bella gaped, her eyes shining with amusement.

“Yep, he got all red and did that ‘looking anywhere but you’ thing that he does. I wasn’t even completely bare,” Natasha smirked, “I told him that was the only time he’d ever get away with calling me ma’am.”

Clint watched silently from the vent as Bella descended into laughter, suddenly feeling like he maybe shouldn’t be listening in to this conversation. As much as he loved that Natasha had unusually taken a liking to the shy woman since she’d started with the team as their medic, and unofficial lab manager under Bruce, her attempts to draw Bella out of her shell sometimes made him a little unsettled.

He had a hard enough time keeping Bella from straying into his thoughts at the best of times.

She was tiny and cute, adorably awkward, made him laugh, and had the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen. She made his inner Neanderthal want to just drag her off to his room so he could keep her all to himself while he did things with her that you didn’t discuss in polite company.

Of course, he wasn’t about to actually tell her that. Rejection would be one thing, but there was no way he wanted to make things awkward for the team if she didn’t feel anything for him; and as good as he usually was at reading people, he just didn’t know when it came to her.

Bella snickered as she snapped a fresh pod into the coffee machine and hit the button waiting for it to start up.

“So, what about you?” Natasha asked suddenly, making her blink in surprise.

“Me? No, no one’s been seeing me naked.” Bella grinned, making Natasha snort inelegantly.

“I think that’s the problem,” She cackled, bumping Bella lightly with her elbow, “What about finding you a guy?”

The sudden rosy blush that spread from Bella’s cheeks right down her chest took Clint by surprise, and he was surprised neither of the women appeared to have heard him fidgeting uncomfortably in the metal vent as he wondered just how far down that blush actually went.

If he’d been paying closer attention he might have seen the tiny spark of awareness that flickered across Natasha’s face.

“So… there is a guy you want then,” She pressed, giving Bella her best faux intimidating stare.

Bella’s face felt like it was absolutely flaming as she looked at the older woman, trying to think of any way to get out of this line of questioning.

“It’s Clint isn’t it?” Natasha asked bluntly, already knowing the answer and grinning when Bella twitched, “Don’t even try to deny it, you know you want him as your own personal Cupid.”

The dry amused tone plus the bizarre imagery had Bella laughing in spite of herself.

“Okay, okay,” She finally admitted sheepishly, “Yeah… I mean, it’s just his smile, and the way his eyes crinkle when he laughs…and oh god, those arms.”

“Not to mention he’s got a really fine ass.” Natasha leaned forward with a grin her voice low and conspiratorial, and then chuckled when Bella’s eyes widened comically, “What? Just because I don’t see him that way, doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes.”

Clint honestly wasn’t sure whether to blush or preen like a peacock at their words as he vaguely heard Bella humming in agreement while Nat laughed delightedly.

Well, now I know. A slow grin spread across his face, though it quickly creased into a frown as the conversation below him continued.

“Doesn’t matter,” Bella was smiling, though to a trained ear the sadness was clear in her voice, “I’m not sure he even notices I exist half the time.”

“Oh pfft, he notices,” Natasha disputed with a smirk, “And if he doesn’t make a move then he’s an idiot.”

Their travel mugs now filled with steaming coffee, both women turned to leave the kitchen, but not before Natasha turned slightly and looked right at the cover disguising the vent where Clint was perched, raising her eyebrows.

Of course, she knew I was here the whole time, Clint thought with a flash of wry amusement, damn woman knows everything.

His prank completely forgotten for the time being, he slid from his hiding place and scratched his head thoughtfully, frowning slightly at the stray cobweb that clung to the strands of hair under his fingers.

He needed a shower, and then he needed to think about seducing a tiny medic.

~*~0~*~

Bella had been completely serious when she’d admitted to Nat that she had a bit of a thing for the dirty-blond archer. In fact, she’d had a crush on him since she’d first met him, and it had made patching him up post-mission just a little awkward for her the few times he’d needed her to.

He’d put her at ease just by being himself though, cracking jokes and making her smile as she tended to him and whoever else might need it.

Natasha had been the first member of the team to invite Bella for coffee, taking a liking to the shy medic who had nerves of steel when it came to her job. Not many people could stand their ground against Tony, or be around Bruce without giving him fearful looks.

Then gradually she’d spent more and more time with the rest of the team, eventually being able to call them all friends. Even Thor, who’d intimidated the hell out of her the first time she’d been there for one of his visits until she realised he was a big softy when it came to the people he cared about.

The only person who was able to make her nervous now was Clint, though she wasn’t planning on admitting that. It didn’t help that something had changed recently, he was acting differently around her.

She had even asked Natasha if she’d mentioned anything to Clint about their conversation in the kitchen a couple of weeks before, but the former spy had just smirked and sworn up and down that she hadn’t said a word.

He just kept going sending panty dropping smiles her way, leaving her with a tingly warm feeling that made her heart stutter and her thighs clench each time it happened. It was getting harder to act normally around him.

Glancing across the room, Bella’s eyes automatically found him, and she inhaled sharply watching him tilt a beer bottle to his lips, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed. Oh god, he’s hot.

The team had come back that day from successfully clearing a Hydra base with no injuries, and while Jarvis was sifting through the mountains of files they had acquired Tony had decided they should have a small celebration.

Unusually for Tony, he’d kept it small and not too extravagant. It was mostly just the team and any of their partners, plus a few people from the tower that they were close to, so it was pretty casual, especially now it was getting quite late. Everyone was there just letting their hair down and relaxing for a while.

“Watch it; you’ve got a little drool.”

Bella jumped and turned to half-heartedly swat at the laughing redhead who easily dodged her.

“You’re getting a bit obvious girl,” Natasha grinned, “And for that matter, so is he.”

“Huh? No way, he just likes to flirt a little,” Bella protested, trying not to get her hopes up despite the warm feeling Natasha’s words were giving her.

“I swear, you’re an idiot, a loveable idiot,” She rolled her eyes fondly, deciding to give her friends a helping hand, “Do you see him looking at anyone else like he’s wishing he could strip them naked with his eyes? He wants you. Trust me, I know Clint.”

“But…” Bella faltered, her wide eyes showing her vulnerability. There’s no way.

Somehow understanding what she was thinking, Natasha sighed and patted Bella’s arm lightly before turning to walk away, tossing one last comment over her shoulder.

“Trust me… and just so you know, he’s not a one night kind of guy.”

Bella swallowed heavily then took a sip of the beer she was holding to combat her suddenly dry mouth.

Somehow Clint had picked that exact moment to catch her eye, giving her the exact ‘naked wishes’ look Nat had described, and though she knew there was no way he could have heard what Nat had been saying Bella couldn’t help the blush that spread across her cheeks.

Clint’s lips quirked into a half smile, his eyebrows rising slightly as he looked across the room at the short brunette who was blushing prettily. Not for the first time, he wondered where that blush would spread to and he couldn’t resist a wink and a slow smirk around the top of the bottle as he drank.

Bella was glad Nat had gone to flirt with Bruce, who was endearingly oblivious as usual. At least she wasn’t there to witness Bella faltering as she tried not to give any outward signs of the effect he was having on her.

~*~0~*~

She was dying. She really was going to spontaneously combust and die.

All because of the man currently sat with his arm around her, his thumb lightly tracing back and forth over a small strip of exposed skin near her hip where her shirt had ridden up slightly.

The party had wound down and the core team were grouped together on the sofas off to the side of the room, drinking and laughing. Bella had switched to soda after a couple of beers, knowing she was a lightweight but was still enjoying herself.

Somehow she’d ended up squashed next to Clint on the sofa, and she wasn’t sure which was worse; the heated looks across the room or the tingling warmth down her side where she was pressed against him.

Then he had shifted suddenly, moving his arm so that it rested behind her instead of in between them, making Bella’s eyes shoot to his face. To her surprise, she’d found him looking down at her with an easy grin, his arm curling around her.

Somehow he was reducing her to a gooey mess, doing something that could still be considered innocent, while being able to appear completely focused on the conversation around them. Damn secret super assassin training.

She was terrible at hiding her emotions. In fact, right now she was sure it was written all over her face that she wanted nothing more than to be utterly ruined in all the best ways by the man next to her.

Judging by the slightly smug grin on Natasha’s face it appeared that assumption was correct, and Bella wondered if the only reason Tony hadn’t said anything was because he currently appeared to be very distracted by a tipsy Pepper.

Finally reaching her breaking point and feeling in desperate need of either a cold shower or some serious alone time, Bella carefully got up and excused herself, quickly saying goodnight to the group and completely missing the significant look Nat gave Clint.

Clint smirked at the look Nat gave him as she mouthed the words go get your girl. Her meddling was as amusing as it was beneficial. Few people would ever guess just how soft-hearted she was deep down when it came to the people she cared about.

Giving her a subtle mock-salute, he got up and followed behind Bella ignoring the curious glances he got from a few of the others.

She was leaning against the wall waiting for the elevator when he caught up to her, and the look somewhere between startled and shy and hopeful that crossed her face absolutely melted him.

Before he could second guess himself, he was standing right in front of her. Their bodies close enough that each inhale of breath made her chest push up against his almost teasingly.

Bracing one hand against the wall next to her head, Clint lightly cupped her neck with the other, his thumb resting on her cheek. He could feel her heart thumping, racing under his fingertips and it made him grin slightly.

“Am I making you nervous, little swan?”

His voice was low and sultry, stirring up a wave of desire that crashed through her as he stroked his thumb across her cheek, his body pressing deliciously against hers.

The small needy sound that bubbled up from her throat would have embarrassed her, if Clint wasn’t now pressing her tighter to the wall, his hands running almost possessively down her sides and over her hips.

“Feels like we’ve been dancing around each other, but if you don’t want this, say the word now,” He murmured, his lips brushing her ear as he leaned down to speak.

A literal shiver ran from her head to her feet at the look he was giving her and Bella had to shake her head slightly to clear enough to give him the reply he was clearly waiting for.

“What word would that be?” She breathed meeting his gaze steadily, a slightly cheeky smile lighting up her face, “I don’t want to say it by accident.”

“Fuck woman,” Clint groaned, “What you do to me.”

The sudden kiss was gentle but no less intense for it, and Bella’s eyes nearly rolled in her head at the feel and taste of him.

A small squeak escaped her as one of his hands tangled in her hair and cupped the back of her head while the other landed far less innocuously on her ass.

“Too much?” Clint murmured against her lips.

“No… definitely no,” Bella replied, a faint blush lighting her cheeks even as she fisted her small hand in the front of his shirt in an effort to prevent him from moving away.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere,” Clint grinned teasingly, backing away and sliding a hand down her arm to entangle his fingers with hers.

“Where we’re going, though, is away from this corridor. Unless you particularly want Tony to find us here, nosy bastard that he is.”

Bella giggled, squeezing his fingers lightly and reverting to his last name like they usually did when they were joking with each other.

“You trying to get me alone, Barton?”

“I’ve already managed to get you alone sweetheart, what I’m trying to do now is stop myself from just throwing you over my shoulder and taking you to my bed caveman style.”

Another one of those head to foot shivers. She was certain that Clint had noticed it this time too, judging by the amused glint in his eyes.

The slight strained tremor of his hand belied his teasing humour though, and Bella realised he hadn’t exactly been joking.

The small soft sound that left her throat was the last straw for Clint and the tension finally snapped when he turned and headed for the lift without another word, gently tugging Bella along with him.

Bella was quiet while he requested Jarvis to take them to his floor, his husky voice doing things to her insides.

Neither of them said anything else as the doors opened and he led her a little way down the corridor. Feeling sure her heart was pounding loudly enough for Clint to hear it, Bella watched him open his door, her heart actually stuttering then at the smile he gave her.

The room was neat unsurprisingly, with a large TV and a comfy looking couch with a thick blanket folded over the back of it. One wall held several bows, quivers full of arrows and a wide array of other weapons and just to the side of it there was a short workbench nearby, a bow and several tools resting on top of it.

On the other side of the room there was a small kitchenette area and in the wall between that and his work area them there were two doors leading to a bathroom and bedroom. The door to the latter was slightly open and a warm glow came from a lamp, illuminating the room softly.

Her gaze fell on his large neatly made bed and that light dusting of red spread across her cheeks again, prompting Clint to gently brush his knuckles down the flushed skin, enjoying the way her breathing hitched at his touch.

“Blushing again?” He grinned, “What exactly were you thinking to blush like that just from looking at my bed?”

“As if you don’t know Barton,” Bella snorted softly.

“You really need to go back to calling me Clint,” He murmured in reply, “Because it’s just gonna just sound really odd if you scream Barton once I’m between your thighs.”

“Oh,” Bella didn’t have time to gape at him for long.

It took little more than a second for him to pull her against his chest, his head ducking to kiss her thoroughly while she was dimly aware of moving backwards until her legs hit the edge of his bed.

“Don’t forget, just say the word little swan.” Clint broke the kiss and looked at her seriously.

“If you’re planning on being between my thighs shouldn’t you be calling me by my name?” She was aiming for teasing, but the words came out more breathless sounding than anything.

“Okay, Bella.”

The way he said her name should be illegal Bella thought, and she pushed up on her toes to kiss him again, moaning softly when his hand twisted in her hair, holding her against his lips.

Her last coherent thought was that she really was going to spontaneously combust.

~*~Fin~*~

Notes:

My first attempt at Marvel, so be gentle please lol

Big thanks to Harley (Harleen Frances Quinzel) this probably wouldn’t have been finished without you

I don’t have a beta so any mistakes are my own

I may add a second part to this, depending on interest and whether I can get my nerve up to actually write a lemon again lol

Have previously published this fic & others under the name Cuinawen on FFnet & AO3, as well as on Wordpress

#fanfic #marvel fanfiction #clint barton fanfiction #bella swan #clint barton/bella swan #marvel/twilight #avengers fluff #avengers fanfiction #clint barton needs love

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citrinekay · 4 years

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I've had a prompt rolling around in my brain the past couple of days, I keep thinking of Holden's car breaking down in the rain, and he has to make his way to a payphone, and he calls Bill, because he doesn't know who else to call. I keep thinking about Bill being worried he'll get sick because he's soaking wet. Sorry if this is disjointed sending asks gives me anxiety >>

Nothing to worry about at all, hon. This makes perfect sense to me! Here you go, hope you enjoy 💕

Holden’s father had instilled a healthy respect for car maintenance in him from a young age, and he considers himself a responsible person when it comes to his possessions; but some things just can’t be foreseen. There were no warning signs, no little lights popping up on his dash to tell him that something was wrong, but still, as his car sputters out on the side of the road, he figures this is somehow his fault.

It’s late evening on a Friday, the ragged conclusion of a long week out of state on consult. It’s no more than a thirty minute drive between the airport and his apartment, but his little Nova, which up until this very moment had been trustworthy and faithful, couldn’t make it that far. On top of everything else, it’s raining. Not a mist or a drizzle, but a deluge that rolls from the rumbling sky in unrelenting gusts that don’t appear to be stopping anytime soon.

As the engine clicks and dies on the gravel shoulder of the road, Holden leans his forehead against the steering wheel to brace back a wave of tearful dismay. Not only does he usually leave car repair up to knowledgeable professionals, but he’d also been looking forward to crawling into his own bed after an arduous week spent tracking down a pedophile and murderer.

A rift of anger rises up from his sudden despair, and he leans back to strike the wheel with the heel of his hand.

“Fuck!” The curse chokes from his throat, punctuating the steady drum of rain against the metal exterior of the car.

He breathes heavily into the silence for a long moment until the initial rush of panic and alarm fades. He tries to think clearly about his options. He should call someone. But who? It’s much too late for shops to be open, and he doesn’t want to call the police department and create a scene. He could call a cab, but that might take awhile. And before he can pursue any of those options, he has to find a phone to even call from first.

Holden rubs his tired eyes, and scans the street.

He knows where he is. Just think … Payphone. The corner of Mission Street and Jackson Road. Two blocks away.

“Fuck.” Holden says, aloud, again.

He’s exhausted, and he doesn’t want to walk two blocks in the pouring down rain; but what other choice does he have?

Gathering his collar up around his neck, Holden draws in a deep breath, and shoulders his way out of the vehicle. The rain is coming down so hard that he’s almost instantly soaked, his hair drenched and plastered to his head, his trench coat barely concealing his shivering body from the biting gust of cold wind and stinging droplets.

For a moment, he thinks about climbing back into his car and waiting it out, but he doesn’t want to face the possibility of the rainstorm persisting through the night. Putting his head down, he trudges away from his car in the direction of Jackson Road.

The shoulder of the street is washed out in the rain, creating a treacherous obstacle course of sliding gravel, loosened rocks, miry sludge, and muddy puddles, two of which he manages to step directly into. It’s difficult to see with his eyes squinting shut against the driving rain and the scarce streetlamps lining this particular strip of deserted asphalt.

If his car had broken down just two blocks later, he would have been in a much better position. There’s a tavern and gas station at the intersection along with the payphone, some sign of civilization that this forested stretch of road where he’s abandoned is absent of.

Holden clenches his jaw and drags his coat more tightly around himself as a fresh clench of frustration seizes his chest. Part of him wants to sit down on the side of the road just to rest his trembling legs, but he pushes on, determined to get to the payphone in as little time as possible.

Eventually, he approaches Jackson Road, a darkened street of shops with only the neon blow of the tavern sign smudged against the black sky in rain-drizzled reds and greens to light the way. Across the street, the gas station with two sad pumps is illuminated by a few overhead lights that attract more insects than people at this time of night. The phone booth stands like a beacon at the corner of the intersection, interior lit by a single, bare bulb.

Holden rushes to the payphone, relief washing through his chest. The sliding door protests on rusty, jammed hinges as he grabs the handle, and it takes a few forceful pulls to get it open far enough for him to slip inside.

The steady, cold patter of rain on his cheeks cuts off abruptly as he stumbles into the glass enclosure. Bracing a hand against one wall, he draws in a shuddering breath and tries to subdue the bone-deep, chilled shiver running through his body.

His relief lasts bare seconds. Now what?

Turning to the pay phone, Holden tucks his hand in his pocket to search for coins. As he sorts out the quarters, he bites anxiously at his lower lip. The booth has no telephone book, and he doesn’t know any numbers for a cab off the top of his head. Nervously jostling the quarters in his hand, he glances down at his watch.

10:35. Christ, it’s late.

Holden presses his eyes shut as a solution rises in the back of his mind. He can feel rain dripping from his hair and sluicing down his cheeks, absorbing through his clothes to chill his skin. His belly shudders from deep inside and his feet hurt, cold and miserable from the long walk in the storm. He’s stranded, and he doesn’t have any other choice.

Shoving aside his nerves, Holden feeds the quarters into the narrow slot and listens to them fall to the bottom with a metallic clatter. He picks up the phone, and slowly dials the number he knows by heart.

As he listens to the shrill ring of the phone, he feels a sudden wave of emotion crawl up the back of his throat. He’s thinking rapidly and all at once: Please pick up. Please don’t be mad. Please help me. And finally: Well, this is just fucking pathetic, isn’t it?

The phone rings six times, and he thinks about hanging up. He could call the operator and get a cab service. He could call the police and they would be more than happy to send someone out - it’s their job after all. His anxiety is about to overwhelm him when the repetitive tone cuts off, and the line rustles with movement.

“Hello?” Bill’s voice is muted and raspy with confusion.

“Bill.” Holden says, pressing his eyes shut. His cheeks flush with heat that competes with the chill of the rain.

“Holden?” Bill’s sleepy confusion quickly breaks out into concern. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m sorry it’s late. I didn’t know who else to call.”

“What’s going on?”

“I, um … I just got back into town, and my car broke down, if you can believe it.” Holden says, a nervous chuckle rising from the back of his throat.

“Oh, man, talk about shit luck. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just …”

“Where are you?”

“Well, my car broke down back on Ellis, but I’m at the payphone at Mission and Jackson.”

“Shit, it’s raining cats and dogs. I hope you didn’t walk all that way.”

“How else would I have gotten here?”

“Jesus, you must be freezing.” Bill says, his tone taking on a note of worry. “Stay inside. I’m on my way.”

“Thanks. And I’m really sorry about this. I know it’s late and it’s an inconvenience and-”

“Don’t worry about it. Now the sooner we get off here the sooner I can come pick you up.”

“Right.”

“Okay, stay put. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

“Okay. Thanks, Bill.”

“Yep.” Bill says, quickly, before hanging up.

Holden puts the phone down, and leans back against the cold glass partition. Relief surges through his chest at the prospect of not having to walk one more foot in the rain, but despite Bill’s eagerness to help, he’s still anxious. Ever since Atlanta, they’ve been walking around on egg-shells with each other. Holden doesn’t want to intrude on Bill’s privacy as he goes through his divorce, and Bill seems too focused on his own problems and work to regard Holden’s tenuous grasp on his panic disorder. He’d never wanted to be a nuisance or create problems he couldn’t solve on his own. He’d never wanted to be babysat, or for anyone to think he needed supervision - but apparently he had; and now he’s facilitating yet another situation that Bill is required to pull him out of. He wants to pick the phone back up and call just to say “You’re not mad about this, are you?” But Bill has probably already left the house.

Drenched and shivering, Holden cowers in the phone booth for the next fifteen minutes until he sees Bill’s car through the smudged pane of glass.

Bill pulls up at the curb, and climbs out of the car. Rain dampens his hair and the shoulders of his trench coat as he pulls a blanket out of the passenger’s seat and carries it across the sidewalk to where Holden is slipping out of the booth.

“Thanks for coming.” Holden says, blinking against the surge of rain. “You brought me a blanket?”

“Yeah. Jesus, look at you.” Bill says, his brow pinching with worry as he unfurls the blanket.

Lowering his head, Holden revels in quiet disbelief as Bill drapes the blanket around his shoulders, and draws it closed at his chest.

“Come on, you’re going to catch a cold.” Bill says, his hand bracing against the middle of Holden’s back to lead him towards the car.

Holden quietly lets Bill guide him to the passenger’s side and hold the door open for him. Slipping into the vehicle, Holden lets out a shuddering sigh of relief at the warm air blasting from the dashboard vents.

Bill jogs around the hood of the car, and climbs behind the wheel. When he pulls the door shut behind him, the interior falls into silence except for their muted, heavy breathing, and the quiet sound of Holden’s teeth shivering against one another.

“You okay?” Bill asks.

“Yeah.” Holden whispers, his voice unsteady with a chilled tremor.

He slips his eyelids open to peek across the car at Bill. His face is illuminated in the pale light from the dashboard, rain-slick lips pursed into a grim line of worry, his usually perfectly combed hair flattened with the rain. He doesn’t look angry.

“I’m really sorry about this.” Holden whispers, drawing the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “It’s so late-”

“I said not to worry about it.” Bill says, firmly but gently. “Frankly, I’d be more upset if I found out later that this happened and you didn’t call me.”

Holden glances back down at his lap where his numb fingers are white-knuckled around the blanket. It has that foreign smell of someone else’s house lightly concealed by the ashy sting of cigarettes. Abruptly, he feels like crying again.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Bill asks.

Holden nods, pressing his eyes shut. “I’m just really tired.”

“Okay, let’s get you home.”

Holden turns his face toward the window where the storm outside continues to rage. The car softly lurches into motion as a tear stings the corner of his eye. He lifts his chin against his cheek to let the emotion absorb into the soft microfiber of the blanket along with the rain. It takes him just as long the drive back to his apartment for him to realize that he isn’t just overwrought or extremely tired, but relieved - as if he’s been holding his breath since Atlanta, waiting for everything to spill over between them, waiting for Bill’s disapproval to come crashing down on his fragile shoulders. It hasn’t come, and apparently it never will; he’s been shadowboxing with lying ghosts.

At his apartment, Bill shuts off the engine, and climbs out of the car. Holden steps out onto the street on the other side, letting the blanket slide from his shoulders.

“I’ll walk you in.” Bill says.

“You don’t have to do that.”

Bill circles around the car, his expression determined and unwavering. He waves a finger at the drooping blanket. “Come on, put that back on.”

“It’s yours, I don’t want to take it.”

“You know how long that thing has been sitting in my closet for?” Bill asks, pulling the blanket back up around Holden’s neck. He nods toward the building. “Come on, the blanket is the least of my worries. I don’t want you getting sick.”

Holden doesn’t protest again as Bill leads them across the street to the lobby. He punches in the door code with cold, shivering fingers that he quickly sticks back underneath the blanket when the door unlocks.

In the elevator, neither of them say a word, but Bill’s hand is tucked loosely against Holden’s lower back. It’s not grabbing or forceful, just resting there almost protectively. When Holden closes his eyes, he can feel the weight of it more than the bone-chilled shivers running all the way to the core of his body.

Holden leads the way to his door, and drags his keys out of pocket with numb fingers.

“You should get out of those wet clothes right away.” Bill says, quietly.

Holden nods. “I will.”

“Good. The last thing we need is you catching a cold or pneumonia.”

“Yeah.” Holden mutters, jiggling his key in the lock.

“Hey,” Bill says, touching his elbow.

Holden glances up from the lock, and Bill’s eyes are soft in the low light of the corridor, worried and unaccusing.

“We need you.” He says, “So take care of yourself, okay?”

Holden’s throat tightens, and he nods. Shrugging his shoulders to indicate the blanket, he says, “I’ll get this back to you on Monday.”

“Sure. Keep it if you want.”

Holden frowns softly as Bill gives him a pat on the back, and moves past him back in the direction of the elevator.

“Let me know if you need a ride to work on Monday.” He says.

“Thanks, I will.”

“Okay, see you then.”

Holden stands with his key in the lock as he watches Bill amble down the hall back towards the elevator. A slight smile tugs at his mouth.

When Bill is out of sight, he gets the door open, and slips into his apartment with a sigh of relief.

First, he drapes the blanket over the arm of the couch, and takes off his wet clothes. When he’s in clean, dry pajamas, he goes into the kitchen to boil water for tea, and as the kettle warms, shuffles into the living room where the discarded blanket is lying. Picking it up, momentarily holds it to his nose, and closes his eyes as he inhales the lingering, warm smell underneath the rain. If he washes it, that scent will be gone.

Carrying the blanket into his bedroom, Holden uses clothespins to hang it from the curtain rod to dry. Faint light from the streetlamp filters through the microfiber, casting a soft, pinkish glow across his room. The cold in his bones is almost entirely melted away, and he feels warm again.

#bill x holden #mindhunter #my writing #I also realized this may be the first fic i've written where bill doesn't smoke at all #groundbreaking!!!#ashtheironbat

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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Ok, but how would you writte a court of owls and a dick grayson fanfic, focusing on the abduction too, after all the traumas that being destained to be a talon could carry with?, just imagine dick noticing his family could have known this, and then boom, someway the court makes his way to dick core, bat fam have to fighthim, but focusing in all those conflicts and not only the fights

LOL I have a few different Court of Owls’ ideas running through my head at any given time, but for various reasons, some of which I can’t even identify, they almost always tend to be AUs of some kind, where I also play around with different takes on the family dynamics or how the family comes together in the first place. I have no clue why that particular plot point, the Court, tends to pair itself with unorthodox Batfam takes in my head, tbh. It just does.

As an example, the one I’ve come back to the most often and most recently when fiddling around with various WIPs when the chaos of my life these days allows for it, lol.....its called “Where Last We Left Off” and it goes AU from general pre Flashpoint comic book continuity when Dick is still Robin, around fourteen or so. Long enough into his time living with Bruce that they’ve reached a point of considering each other father and son, even if neither is saying as such yet, and past the point where the Titans first formed and and even after Kory first came to Earth, so Dick has well established friendships with Garth, Roy, Wally, Donna, Lilith and Kory at least.

So in it, I set up an initial prelude and then there’s a time skip to five years later, where all the actual fic takes place. My premise is basically that Batman has been operating in Gotham for about seven years by the prelude, Batman and Robin about four or five, and its only in the last couple of years that Batman’s started coordinating more consistently and officially with other heroes as a member of the Justice League. And the point of departure happens when the Court uncovers Batman and Robin’s secret identities while trying to rid themselves of Batman’s interference in their operations even though he’s not aware of them just yet. When they realize that Robin is none other than their intended Gray Son, they decide to try and kill two birds with one stone.

Cue Dick’s abduction, but with a twist. Rather than make him a Talon and subject him to the Talonization process or whatever that’s called, and employ brainwashing or mind control techniques to control him, they make themselves known to Bruce as the ones who took Dick, give him a taste of what the Talons are capable of and make sure he gets a good look at the changes to their physiologies and mental states, and then they make their demands. They won’t subject Dick to any of that.....so long as Bruce agrees to hang up his cape and cowl, and cease all vigilantism and contact with other heroes. They give him forty eight hours to make his decision, and leave him with the body of one of their Talons to ‘study’...in essence, making both an example of how little they care for their tools and think nothing of disposing of one, and to give Bruce more information than he really wants at the moment of all the kinds of things that Talon was subjected to in the ‘making’ of him.

Unable to find a hint of where they took Dick before the deadline, even when Bruce calls in Clark, Barry and a few others for help searching, Bruce ultimately agrees to their demands and ceases all activity as Batman in exchange for the occasional proof of life demonstrating that the Court are holding up their end of the bargain. If they see even a hint of vigilantism or working with other heroes, they warn, they’ll have no further use for Dick except as just another of their Talons.

Heartsick and with no real idea how to spend his days at first, or inclination to put much thought into coming up with ideas for that, as well as refusing to even speak with Clark and the others, let alone Dick’s friends, at the risk of that being overseen or heard and deemed ‘working with other heroes,’ Bruce ultimately funnels most of his time and energy into charity works and projects mostly born of idle ideas he remembers Dick mentioning every now and then, when complaining about how stupid the way certain things worked or skewering various flaws in the typical upper class reasonings of people he was expected to converse with at various galas....and then venting to Bruce all the way home.

Eventually, Bruce meets Jason in a different way than in canon, but still takes him in. Not to replace Dick of course, or because he’s given up on him (if he ever did that, after all, there’d be no reason for him not to go back out as Batman). But rather just because he has to do something, and the thought of caring for Jason and trying to be for him what he was for Dick, or at least hoped he’d been, it sparks the first real motivation he’s had since the abduction. The one thing he can’t bring himself to regret is taking Dick in, even as he blames himself for thinking so selfishly, since if he hadn’t done that, this would never have happened to Dick (not knowing yet that the Court was always intent on getting their hooks into Dick whether he was in the equation or not). But the point is, he can’t honestly say he wishes he’d never taken Dick in, even as selfish as he feels for that, so he doesn’t let his misgivings keep him from following his instincts with Jason, telling himself it’ll be different since he’s not Batman anymore. (Bottom line being his choice with Jason is still about Jason, not just as a proxy for Dick or anything).

Not all that long after, different events than canon result in him taking Tim in as well (with Tim not aware of his past as Batman at this point in this AU, since I’m positing that Dick was abducted before Tim happened to see Robin doing the flip that let him connect the necessary dots there). And not long after that, Bruce takes in Duke as well, and then finally, about a year before the five year time skip to present day, he takes in Cassandra, due to Barbara’s influence.

Babs has one of the bigger divergences in this AU, as I’m switching things around a little specifically to set Dick’s abduction at just before Babs becomes Batgirl. So she’s not really one of his friends at this point in life, and she sets out to become Batgirl pretty much right after Bruce hangs up the cape. Unable to even confront Batgirl as himself, lest the Court see that as an attempted return to vigilantism, but paranoid that they might view Batgirl as his attempt to work via a proxy, Bruce does a most un-Brucely thing....he anonymously tips off the Commissioner about his daughter’s vigilantism, and Jim Gordon puts a stop to that by unapologetically even playing the guilt trip card to keep his daughter from risking her life night after night. So Batgirl retires almost as soon as she begins, but that doesn’t mean Babs is out of the game by a longshot.

A big part of the reason for that divergence is I’ve always felt that Babs was going to become Oracle one way or another, no matter what road she took there, and although I love her as Batgirl, I don’t view it as fundamentally essential to her overall character as other early personas of other superheroes are. And despite the Bat theme, Barbara has never been dependent on Bruce either for guidance or resources, let alone validation......so I wanted to play around with what happens if you cut the Batgirl portion of Barbara’s life out of the picture completely.

So basically, she just starts becoming Oracle even earlier. She promised her dad she wouldn’t risk her life on the streets in a cape and a mask. She made no such promises about putting her computer skills to use for the greater good, in whatever ways she deems most efficient. Which ultimately leads to her working as a superhero information broker for a growing number of vigilantes who have no idea their cyber eyes and ears isn’t even quite of legal drinking age just yet, and from there, forming the Birds of Prey as satellite agents for missions she directs them towards in a Charlie’s Angels kind of way, where she’s just the voice on the radio so to speak. One of those missions results in Dinah, Helena and a couple others crossing paths with Cassandra, who returns with them to the States. She’s still just a teenager though, younger than when she first crossed paths with the Batfam in canon, only about thirteen here. And the Birds don’t think any of them themselves have the kind of home and stability they all agree she deserves, so they ask the ever mysterious Oracle if she knows of anyone....not realizing just yet that said Oracle is barely a decade older than Cassandra herself at this point. But the Oracle knows all...so she has an idea.

Bruce, being the Walking Guilt Complex that he is, felt shitty about interfering in her attempts at vigilantism even as much as he believes he made the right choice there. So after he adopts Jason, he contrived an excuse to hire Barbara in specific to be Jason’s tutor and catch him up to speed before he went back to school, so he’d have reason to allow Babs to become a regular presence at the Manor, and an excuse for him to help her out any way she might need or want. Not that she ever took him up on this, which frustrates him to no end, cuz can’t a billionaire just assuage his guilt complex in peace already, damn. But regardless, between Jason, Tim and Duke, she’s become a regular fixture at Wayne Manor over the years, even though for the opposite reasons as Bruce initially ‘hired’ her. After all, all three boys are basically geniuses in their own respective fashions, so its not like they need tutoring in the conventional sense once they caught up to speed in whatever ways they needed.

Rather, Babs is their tutor specifically in the areas of ‘making sure they don’t get so bored with their schooling, they turn to blowing things up and/or world domination as a hobby’. Basically, an overachieving perfectionist know-it-all hired to help three overachieving perfectionist know-it-all kids reach their full academic potential unhindered by their conventional schooling, which at this point is basically just something that Bruce insists on so the boys get regular social interaction, while Babs concocts their actual curriculums that actually interest them and they do on their own time.

Anyway, so while seeking a placement for Cass that Babs thinks is deserving of her, she ultimately thinks of Bruce, and calls in that favor, albeit in a most unconventional sense. Babs doesn’t know Bruce was Batman at this point either, given how effectively he covered his tracks when he hung up the cape and how pointedly he’s kept away from all vigilantism since....but she knows each of his three boys have very different backgrounds and had trouble adjusting at first because of various issues...all of which Bruce spared no expense in addressing, more in terms of his own direct focus and parenting rather than fiscally. He’s a good dad, here, a great dad, since he’s basically poured all the energy and drive he once devoted to vigilantism to what he now feels he should have focused it on instead....being the father he wished he’d been to Dick and wasn’t going to make the mistake of not being now.

All of which makes Babs think that he might not only be willing to take in Cassandra, but that he might be the best one for her. And so after a lot of cloak and dagger obscurity that would be completely unnecessary if all the parties in question knew all the relevant information about each other, Cassandra ends up at Wayne Manor too.

All of this is essentially backstory for the in between time between the prelude and the actual fic, unveiled and doled out via information conveyed in the present day. But where the actual fic begins, Bruce is committed to being Superdad to Jason, Tim, Duke and Cass, none of whom know he was Batman or the true nature of what happened to their mysterious elder brother who according to the news and what little Bruce and Alfred are willing to say, was abducted years ago with no attempt made to seek a ransom and no idea who did it or why.

Meanwhile, the kids have their own secrets, as Cass has been sneaking out into the city at night and stopping petty crimes and running into some girl in a purple hoodie who calls herself Spoiler. Tim’s preoccupied with a longtime personal quest of his....figure out who the elusive Oracle, all-knowing master of the cyberways is, and in doing so perhaps win their approval and mentorship. And Duke’s metahuman abilities have recently begun manifesting, and Jason ends up helping him test them and figure out what all he can do (after Jason catches Duke in the act of practicing his ghost vision and Duke has to convince him he’s not crazy and nobody needs to tell Bruce).

And that in turn leads to Duke exploring the house with aid of his powers, trying to learn more about the mysterious missing eldest, and Jason distracting him every five seconds by whispering “what do you see now,” because Jason has also long been endlessly entranced by the mystery of Dick Grayson, and also, Jason has no chill.

With all of the above being the dynamic in existence in ‘present day’....when Dick escapes the Court and returns home.

So the story itself is all about Dick trying to deal with the aftermath of everything that happened to him while the Court’s hostage, and everything that didn’t happen to him and that he missed out on, coming in at the eleventh hour to a family that’s now almost fully formed all in his absence....with a seat at the table that’s been reserved for him the whole time, but with him uncertain as to where and how he fits in all of this.

All while being as cryptic about things as possible, because the one and only thing he and Bruce seem able to agree on, after their bittersweet reunion that doesn’t go how either of them ever imagined it....is to keep the other kids out of all this by any means necessary. Upon learning that Bruce hasn’t been Batman in years and the others know nothing about any of this, Dick’s firm on believing they should keep it that way as he doesn’t even know them yet, but he does know he isn’t willing to risk anything like what happened to him happening to any other child, related to him or not. And Bruce is perhaps too willing to accommodate Dick on this because he still feels this is all his fault, and telling the others everything would mean admitting to them what a terrible father he once was.

Which, he wasn’t, is the thing. One of the many things Dick’s struggling to reconcile now, because just like in the comics, Dick’s early years with Bruce were good more often than they were bad. He realizes upon seeing how easily the other kids interact with Bruce in a parent and child way that this is something he’s envious of, and in hindsight wanted even before he was kidnapped, but now he doesn’t know how to voice that or his fear that that Bruce would only be willing to offer that to him now out of guilt, that if he’d really wanted that kind of relationship with Dick, they would have had it before he disappeared.

Add to that the fact that Dick can’t make up his mind whether he’s grateful and touched that Bruce gave up being Batman just for the chance it might keep him safe from the fate of the Court’s Talons.....because sometimes, Dick resents it deeply...or not resents, per se, but more that he didn’t know the specifics of what was going on in the outside world beyond where the Court kept him, or that they’d made Bruce give up being Batman....so finding that out upon escaping is messing with his head more than he expected, and now he can’t help but feel aware of all the people over the years that could have been helped by Batman but weren’t, because of Dick. Basically, the Son of the Walking Guilt Complex, aka Walking Guilt Complex Jr., is blaming himself and his getting kidnapped, for being the reason Bruce isn’t a superhero anymore.

Meanwhile, it was not a good idea to keep all of this hush hush, if for no other reason than that its impossible to recover from a life-changing ordeal like this at home, when that home is filled with four other people you and two others are all committed to keeping the full details of what happened a secret from. Its not at all the homecoming Dick was picturing and had dreamed of, and he catches himself at times feeling resentful of the others for being there at all, before feeling guilty because the truth is he really is glad that Bruce took them all in and has been good for them, that he still found a way to help people and be true to himself even without being Batman.

There’s other stuff involved too, like the fact that Dick is still keeping things from even Bruce, like everything that happened to him in the Court, because a) he doesn’t want to talk about it, b) he’s afraid of the guilt spiral it’ll send Bruce into, to know that all this time he’d done everything he could to keep Dick safe by giving the Court no reason to break their word....when they never actually made any promise not to try and break Dick by methods not part of their usual Talon process, and c) he doesn’t want to talk about it.

And of course, all his old friends and teammates desperately want to see him and reconnect with him, which he fluctuates between wishing it was easier to explain who they were and have them around without risking their own identities with his new siblings.....and being grateful that keeping the Big Secret from said siblings meant they could only be around so much (like Clark and Diana, etc, who now simply would not be kept away period)....because like with Bruce, Dick is having trouble coming to terms with how much they’ve all changed while he was gone and how much he’s changed, and what this means for them all and how they even FIT now, if they even do at all.

All of which ultimately builds to Dick sneaking out at night to return to vigilantism himself, which makes Bruce throw an epic freakout when he finds out because he only just got Dick back and is not about to risk losing him again. And with Dick trying to convey that he NEEDS this, now perhaps even more than he ever did before, because its the only thing he knows, the only thing that feels familiar, feels right at this point, while everything else is confusing as hell. And even more than that, he needs it in order to feel like the last five years haven’t cost him everything, that they haven’t...’ruined’ him, because what’s the point of him even being home if he’s just as lost and confused as ever and he can’t even save people, do the one thing that’s always made all the shit he’s ever been through feel worthwhile, like it means something?

He needs it, he can’t give this up forever just because something terrible happened one time, that probably would have happened in some form even if he hadn’t been a hero, given what he found out from the Court about his family line. And he’s not wrong to feel that way, is the problem, much like its a problem that Bruce isn’t wrong to feel that if nothing else, its too soon for Dick to be doing this again, and he hasn’t remotely handled any of the many issues weighing on him and the trauma he’s still unwilling to address.

And it doesn’t help that all the while, Bruce has been wrestling with his own uncertainty as to whether to go back to being Batman now that Dick’s safe again and the combined might of the Justice League and Titans have followed his escape route back to the Court and come down on it with extreme zeal. Or whether he even wants to, anymore, if he can justify the risks it includes while now a father in truth not just to Dick but four other kids too (and yes, Damian exists in this AU, he’s just not here yet). He doesn’t want to leave any of his kids without a father, and even more than that, he doesn’t want any of the others following in his and Dick’s footsteps, which also plays a factor in freaking out at Dick’s quick return to a mask.

But he can’t deny that he does miss it too, and more importantly, he misses the way he and Dick used to understand each other without a word, in perfect sync as they swung over the city together. He can’t help but feel like it would be so much easier for him and Dick to understand each other, communicate with each other, if they were back on the same page even if just for one night for old time’s sake. And also he worries about Dick maybe growing to resent his siblings if he feels like they’re the only reason he won’t go back to being Batman, he won’t let there ever be a Batman and Robin again....which then startles him into worrying that on some level he’s afraid of growing to resent his other kids for being the reason not to do that. And around and around and around it goes.

And then the other kids figure it out in their own ways and everything really blows up.

And its hard and messy and painful and nothing short or easily fixed. And there are no good choices or easy choices or right choices. Just a lot of good people trying to make the most good come out of the most bad, and not a clue what that actually means or looks like, let alone how to go about it.

Ultimately, its Dick at age 19, coming of age in the most unconventional of ways, trying to figure out who he is and who he wants to be after everything that’s happened, and dragging his whole family along for the ride as they’re all forced to ask the same question and then compare notes and hope that even if they’re not all on the same page, they’re all at least somewhere to be found in the same book.

Its about how you can’t go home again....even when home is exactly where you left it, and everything looks exactly the same but everything is different and nothing and no one will ever be the same ever again.

But that doesn’t mean the trek isn’t worth making, because sometimes the only way to make it forward to who you want to be now....is to first go back to where you last were when last you trusted who you were and what you wanted. So you can make your peace with leaving that road untraveled before finding your new direction and setting forth on that road instead.

*Shrugs* So yeah, that’s my ideal Court of Owls related fic. “Where Last We Left Off.”

Not quite the kind of fic you were describing, lol, but I do seem to insist on being unconventional with my takes, lmao.

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besmirchthis · 5 years

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this was a couple years ago, i guess.

i think about this a lot. partly maybe because it’s a kind of representation slash particular manifestation of a bunch of things that’ve fucked with me. partly because i guess i haven’t talked it out enough. partly because… well. there’s a path for thinking there, but we’ll put it aside for now.

first off, i’m sure the place i’m going to grouse about works for some people, has served some people well or at least all right, etc. i don’t know for sure; i’m not going to go seeking that right now.

but like.

god. so the gist of it is that during my final semester of creative writing grad times, i agreed to go to this ed recovery center place. i didn’t WANT to - i deeply didn’t want to leave kristine or laramie - but the timing worked as well as any, i did wanted to get some of my act together, and i had the insurance to cover most of the cost, so. so okay. so i went.

and the gist is that it was fucking wretched, or i found it wretched.

the gist is that i found myself unheard or/and misunderstood or/and ignored.

the gist is that everything in me reacted against that place, left me feeling fucked in that place, and that over and again i was told to endure it. left to feel like it didn’t wound me the goddamn way it did.

i fucking. hate it. i hate that fucking place; i hate the people who kept me in there.

it isn’t that i didn’t try to give the place a chance. like yeah negative goddamn reaction from day one, but i fucking tried. and kept trying. and let myself be talked into staying longer, then longer, every goddamn day rending me.

i didn’t feel okay there. i rarely felt anywhere close to okay there.

i disagreed with… so fucking much about their philosophy? also about the ways certain aspects of eating and eating particular foods were framed like. i’m not going to talk about that here but just. there were some insidious messages woven in here and there and many, many places.

this may have been just me with people, but as far as i can recall, i rarely felt comfortable in group therapy sessions; there was always i think more performance in it than i liked. (i mean on my part. i mean partly because i couldn’t just keep talking about how Wrong the place felt to me, how fucking badly i wanted to needed to leave because 1) nobody in treatment needs to hear much of that probably 2) i absolutely didn’t need to hear more of my peers telling me ‘oh u just need to keep waiting you’ll see’ and 3) idk just like… i don’t know i had a three, it’s gone, whatever.) i don’t. feel like going into that further, so whatever, here i go, move along.

related: i was fucking. frustrated and at times nearly infuriated with myself, because it was easy to frame myself as someone Who Was Willfully Resisting Treatment or Who Didn’t Want To Get Better or Who Was Being A Bad Patient (which hahahaha is fuckinggg bullshit anyway heY). like ‘oh no why can’t i just focus on RECOVERY and do what i’m here to do?’ OH YOU KNOW WHAT? IF YOU’R FOCUSING ON HOW TERRIBLE THIS PLACE MAKES YOU FEEL, THERE’S PROBABLY A GOOD REASON!!!

and again, and again: ‘you need to focus on other things.’ ‘it’s fine.’ ‘sometimes treatment is uncomfortable.’ ‘you’ll see.’

like look fellas, pals, i am and i was real sick of this eating disorder bullshit, all right? i’m sure some part of me is clinging to some parts of it, but like. i wanted to improve my shitty relationship with myself and whatever with food. i want to connect to me, and i was fucking looking for ways to do it, ASKING for goddamn help in finding those ways.

and the aid provided was just. not enough. not nearly enough.

like ‘oh you can go sit in your room for an hour at x time (never mind the loud fucking fan in there that fucks with your comprehension) but really this is going to count against you even though we won’t TELL you that until you return to group and we’re like OH YOU ARE IMPROVING LOOK AT YOU BEING AROUND PEOPLE’ like hi fuck you but i don’t need to. socialize the ways you want or participate in all of these fucking groups i feel little belonging in to goddamn be ‘improving’ or whatever.

like ‘here have some earplugs’ okay i’ll try okay guess what THIS IS STILL NOT HELPING.

like mostly, like primarily ‘journal about it! give it another week! you’ll feel more at home!! you just need to give it time!!!’

at no point (i don’t think? i know i forget a lot of things but also if it did happen it was fleeting) did anyone on my treatment team seem to seriously entertain like. the idea that maYBE THIS PLACE WAS JUST NOT GREAT FOR ME. probably it would’ve helped for me to like. set myself up to enter some other program, but the entire Being There thing shook me enough and tbh tbf did set me up with some strategies so that i felt capable of going the fuck back home. (also lmfao like i had money to enter another program, hm.) and also? and also. i wasn’t near like. an actual danger point.

oh and by the way i loved, really super loveD the way my therapist kept questioning my relationship with kristine like. yes i know i talked about her a lot BECAUSE I WAS FUCKING WORRIED ABOUT HER and because i’m a sentimental shithead and like look we’ve had our whatever bumps of figuring things out but she’s super fucking supportive of me and in general i think we do a lot of good for each other? and this therapist was just. clearly super doubtful, hinted and hinted in a ‘this is unhealthy’ way that ours was a codependent relationship and my dudes, i do NOT care for the directions she seemed to be heading in.

also just. therapy sessions - individual as well as group - weren’t helpful to me, and from the sounds of it i had one of the less objectionable therapists. i tried to express this a few times, but she’d be like ‘oh we’ll get to that eventually.’ ‘oh, there’s no rush.’ like excuse me wait are you like?? just kind of pacing out your time according to a certain schedule like what the fuck this isn’t helping so i’m supposed to?? wait another three weeks and maybe, MAYBE then we’ll get to something moderately useful?

like holy shit every session felt useless felt like i was being pulled in directions i didn’t care for felt like i was being scarcely tolerated and you know what i get that it was probably tiresome listening to me talking over and again about how terrible i felt just being in that place, but mayyybe you could have listened to what and why i was saying, rather than continuing to brush it off as ‘deal with it’ and ‘oh sometimes people feel that way at first’ and ‘no i don’t think you know what you want.’ also hi that wasn’t the only thing i tried talking about but you were helpful ummm literally never bye.

and like. thinking on said therapist, there were certain… malevolences, subtle but working their way through her and a would-be ig quirky persona and like. it did not feel great. i did not feel great, anyway.

rarely did i feel even remotely okay in that place. and i know treatment centers aren’t fuckin. famous for being comfortable or whatever but like the alienation i felt was just… it wasn’t entirely related to like. my relationship to myself generally or to my relationship to my body or. i mean. shit and shit and shit, i have a hard time getting at the core of this, or anywhere close to it. my alienation felt very specific to that place, and most everything left me feeling further fractured, fragmented. like i was being taken into pieces and not in ways that worked toward rebuilding. like i was being or allowing myself to be erased with a glance.

i have a history of, i guess, being quietly devastated by other people. particularly people who are supposed to being providing some kind of care.

and it feels strange to me, hearing in a place of supposed recovery that what i’m asking is too much, that i’m just not trying the right way, that my instincts are wrong.

can i fucking. tell you something about my gut instinct, trauma-honed as it’s been for decades? IT TENDS TO BE REAL FUCKING ACCURATE. especially when i meet someone face-to-face or am physically in a place. like. look, i doubt myself about a lot of things, but my reactions are usually pretty solid.

and every impulse in me. every goddamn instinct was telling me GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. fucking shouting it within the first hour of being there, and yes i told myself give it a few days, give it a week, because yes sometimes you can get used to things or i can. but this? the shouting continued. it was like. a constant fucking battle to muffle this impulse almost the entire time i was there.

like yes, once in a while i was able to convince myself that things were getting a little better and maybe it would be all right to stay after all. but most of that?? i think was like. trying to cling to the stasis of ‘oh this is life now why shake it up?’ because you know what else i’m real good at??? enduring shitty situations in which i feel like i’m being ignored slash my needs aren’t being met, ayyYYYYYYyy.

i’m sure there are things i’m mis-speaking here, misrecalling. but the overall of it feels right. i am… angry. and i am not angry often.

okay also this feels and felt like a minor gripe but also it… really wasn’t? and maybe it simply wasn’t possible to change but like. look it fucked with me, whatever. point being that there was a very large, very loud air vent in my room. and like. i have a hard time concentrating slash functioning slash processing anything where there are constant loud noises happening. (cold’s nearly as bad; no amount of layering keeps me from shutting down in chill.) it wears me out and i cannot, 100% cannot relax. and like I FEEL SO SHITTY BITCHING ABOUT OH NO A LOUD VENT IN MY ROOM but it amped my anxiety up, made talking on the phone real fucking difficult, made writing reading thinking pretty much impossible. every time i told them they were like ‘what can ya do’ or ‘try the earplugs’ but like. whatever. anyway.

something else: i was thirsty all. the fucking. time. which 100% happened the first time i was in treatment, and after like two months of hospitalization they were like OH HUH I GUESS YOU DID NEED MORE WATER ALL ALONG like thanks guys okay. but yeah this treatment center was round two for thaT. i brought it up multiple times, spaced out over days or weeks or fuck if i know. and it was brushed off like ‘no you’re not.’ or ‘live with it.’ or ‘your urine looks fine in the morning so there’s nothing to worry about.’ like cool story fuckos and i get that maybe you think you have reasons for caution but it doesn’t change the fact that i am always thirsty and thirsty in that like painful way? i am just asking for like?? one small extra water drink even once a day? …no? cool. thanks.

i did my shitty journaling, you assholes. i tried to communicate. and do you know what i heard? nothing, nothing, fucking nothing week after week.

and ha. HA. when i did finally screw myself up to leave? when i reached the ‘you know what i can’t keep living like this i have other places to fucking be where i can be me and work on healing with the people i was working with before this’? my treatment team dove hard and heavy into a campaign of ‘oh but if you leave against medical advice, your insurance might make you pay for everything!!’

over. and over. and over.

what i should have done was call my insurance. i’d say i don’t know why i didn’t, only lbr, i’m terrible at phone calls, terrible often at doing what needs to be done, and i was fucking scared like. i don’t know. i don’t fucking know. but i also don’t think anyone suggested that i contact my insurance? which?? is weird, in retrospect (or not weird at all). and like every goddamn day once i’d declared my intention to leave, they just kept hammering it in, and in, and in. and like, really?

i don’t know what the were told. what they might have heard, what they might have known, to what extent this might have been a scare tactic. but i eventually found out from my insurance that it was never going to be an issue. and like. i have some heavy fucking doubts about their intentions in taking that route so very, very hard.

i think there are other things i maybe meant to say.

mostly, i’m just tired. and angry. but too tired to write any more of the angry.

like hey, to be dismissed time and again. to be told my instincts are awry, when i goddamn know they’re telling truth. just.

thanks, fuckers. thanks for the terrible fucking trip.

#cw eating disorders #this is me #semi-rambling about this fucking #treatment center recovery center whatEVER #that fucked with me #so like #keep that in mind if you take a look #should also probably #cw emotional abuse #for brief references to it i guess

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sasuhinasno1fan · 6 years

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Controlled Emotions- Klance Month Book Week

Week 3. So as a bookworm, you’d think I could come up with tons of books to go with this couple, but I was blanking on all the books I’ve read. Then I remembered that Percy Jackson is a book series (still need to finish the Heroes of Olympus, I’ll get there eventually) and I’ve actually wanted to try this au out for a long time. Lance’s choice in godly parent came from this au I reblogged and Keith’s was from my friends over at the Bonding over Klance that’s mod by @forsakenangel88 and @winter-and-little-brunettes and especially @profoundprincessface for giving me the idea of what to do. I really hope I give it justice. Enjoy!

He was doing it again. Keith tightened his grip on his sword and glanced over to the archery field. Everyone was giving it a wide berth and that was because of a certain demi-god. What they weren’t realising was they were the reason Keith was feeling a bit off balance. Well not them in particular, though the feelings of distrust and unease were helping. It was all the negative emotions being carried around by one person.

Lance McClain, son of Hades.

Most people, like their god parents, were untrusting of Hades and in connection, his children as well. Lance was the only known child and while at first, people would think he could be either the child of Aphrodite or Apollo, they were pretty quick to turn their backs on him. Which lead to a lot of negative emotion that Lance seemed to carry around him.

Which for a child of Aphrodite and someone who could read emotions pretty easily, was off putting to Keith.

“He’s doing it again.” He muttered as he turned back to his duelling partner but Shiro heard him.

“Who?”

“Who do you think? Lance is a walking bubble of angst and he keeps throwing me off balance.”

“I’m actually surprised he’s out here now. I usually see him come down here in the morning.” Shiro said looking over in Lance’s direction. Shiro didn’t dislike Lance, he never disliked anyone, but after an altercation with a fury that Lance had been too late to stop, Shiro didn’t go out of his way to approach Lance unless they happened to cross paths.

“Well he’s throwing me off.” Keith complained again, not able to focus with the nagging emotions floating around him.

“Keith, I’ve seen you avoid him like the plague.”

“Look who’s talking.” Keith snapped back

“I know I avoid him and my reasoning might not be the best, but Keith, you’ve gone out of your way to avoid him the most. Is it really because of the emotion reading?” Shiro asked

Emotion reading was a trait for Aphrodite kids. It was a trait Keith could do without. He had issues sorting through his own emotions, having everyone else’s dropped on him because of his mom wasn’t his idea of fun. While his siblings were all loud and having fun being happy, Keith was happy to sit in a corner and ignore everyone. He still didn’t understand how the goddess of love was his mom when someone like the god of war fit him better. He liked getting dirty and fighting and would punch anyone who pissed him off enough.

“It’s hard not to read his emotions when he projects them so easily.” Keith said, looking over to see Lance walking away from the archery field, glares from the other training demi-gods still sent his way. Keith would send his for carrying around all those emotions but avoiding Lance was easier. He didn’t do well with people with tons of emotions.

“Who does that death kid think he is? He goes around like he’s the hottest shit.” A son of Ares vented, loudly enough that Lance had stopped walking and glance over at him. The next thing they knew, the earth under the Ares child broke, causing him to stumble and fall over. Lance continued walking

“Wow. He’s as petty as you are.” Shiro said, smiling at the glare Keith shot him. “look, I know I avoid him, but I can’t help but think he’d do some good with a few friends. I hear that one of the cyclops who work in Hephaestus’ cabin is the only one who will approach him.” Shiro said, sheathing his sword.

Keith did the same, seeing how training was obviously over. “are you telling me to make friends with him?”

“No. I get why you avoid him. I just wished he had a few more friends here. He hides out in his room most of the time. I think Coran is the one who makes him come to dinner since no one in the kitchen will make him separate meals.” Shiro said, walking over to Keith

“You’re such a gossip.” Keith said, leading them off the training field to put their weapons away.

“When your boyfriend is the son of Hermes, you hear a few things.” Shiro said shrugging. “Adam worries about him, since you know, Lance stayed in the Hermes Cabin when he first came here. He was there for almost a month and then he was claimed and everyone he’d been friends with had turned their backs on him.”

Keith understood why all the emotion hung around Lance, but it was getting to be an issue. Someone needed to deal with it and get him to calm the hell down.

When Keith had been thinking how someone needed to deal with Keith, he wasn’t asking for that person to be him. He had been walking around the camp grounds, avoiding the spa day that had taken over his cabin. He also didn’t want to bump into Nyma, knowing his sister were turn her charmspeak on him to get him to join. She’d done it before. He heard arguing and his curiosity had gotten the better of him. He found Lance standing outside his cabin arguing with the head camp councillor, Coran.

“What do you mean I can’t go training in the morning anymore? How is this fair?”

“I’m sorry Lance. Some of the campers have been complaining-”

“Bullshit!”

“Language Lance.”

“Screw my language! No one here likes me, I don’t understand why you won’t let me stay home and now you’re taking away the only things I like to do here. Why don’t you just throw me out if you can’t stand me that much!”

Anger, hurt, disgust with self, sadness, frustration, loneliness. Keith could read it from Lance a mile away as he watched Lance stomp back into his cabin, the flowers that sat in pots outside the door starting to brown as the aura of death followed Lance.

“Lance, Lance, open the door. I don’t hate you, you know that. Lance, please.” Coran stopped knocking on the door and sighed. “come talk to me after dinner.” Silence was the only thing he received, making Coran sigh and walked away from the obsidian cabin.

Before he could stop himself, Keith found himself next to Coran. “Coran, what’s going on? Why is Lance upset?”

He could read the confusion on Coran’s face at his question. “well, some of the campers were complaining that Lance isn’t cleaning up the skeletal soldiers from his training he does in the early morning, which I don’t believe, but a few of them are thinking of praying to their godly parents to complain. Most gods wouldn’t care about any problems their kids have but no one seems to love Hades. I wouldn’t put it past them to try and do something because of who Lance’s father is. I told him he’s not allowed to train in the morning anymore and can only train at the same time as everyone else.”

Everyone else? Like it had been today? Keith would never be able to get any training done because of Lance’s emotions and the emotions of everyone else.

“I do wish that I can show Lance his parent doesn’t matter, and he shouldn’t listen to what everyone else says but he holds onto a lot of anger. Almost like you did when Aphrodite claimed you. But look at you now!” Coran threw his arm around Keith’s shoulders, pulling him into a tight side hug. “child of the goddess of erotic love, kicking ass and taking names. You can take on most of the Ares Cabin and send them to the infirmary.”

Keith looked over his shoulder to Cabin 13, the Cabin of Hades. Keith had been claimed into a house where despite how he was different he was still accepted. Lance wanted nothing more than to be accepted but wasn’t just because of who his father was. Lance would probably always hold those negative emotions until he felt accepted.

“I can’t believe I’m gonna do this.” Keith muttered.

“What’s that my boy?”

“Nothing.” Except for the fact, he was going to try and make friends with the most emotion ridden person in the whole camp.

Keith looked over to the lone person sitting at the 13th table as he and his siblings went to go make their offerings to their mother. Lance was picking at his food. Did Lance ever eat? He always looked like he never wanted to be there. He also noticed that his camp necklace was actually around his wrist as a bracelet, the beads looking bright against his tan skin. He was also wearing a canvas jacket, which looked odd with all the other campers wearing their camp shirts and shorts.

“Keith, hurry up.” One of his brothers called, pulling his attention away from Lance. He dropped some of his chicken in the fire, sending his usual greeting to his mom before following his siblings back to their table. He quickly fit himself next to Nyma.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, pushing her blonde hair over her shoulder.

“I need advice about something. You’re like friends with everyone right?”

“Not everyone, but pretty close.” She said, as she started stabbing at her salad.

“Have you ever been able to make friends with someone who no one likes?”

Nyma looked confused. “why are you asking something like that?”

“Just answer the question.” He urged

“Well, I can assure you that if most people don’t like the person, if you try to make friends with them, they’ll definitely be harbouring distrust to you. To be honest, just be yourself so they can see you’re not trying to be someone else. Ok, who are you trying to make friends with? You don’t make friends with anyone.” Nyma begged, her desperation obvious to anyone who looked her.

“No one, bye.” Keith said, getting up and taking his stuff down to his usual spot. So, he had to be himself? That should be fun. Keith hoped Lance didn’t try to unleash a skeletal army in retaliation if this didn’t go well. He wanted to try talking to Lance after dinner when everyone went to the bonfire, but he saw Lance head to the nearest shadow and disappeared. Instead, he told his plan to Shiro and Adam, the head of Hermes Cabin.

“Honestly, Lance is a good kid. I know you’re doing this, so you can lessen the emotions he’s carrying around, but honestly I think the two of you can be great friends.” Adam told Keith. Keith didn’t have many friends, so he really hoped Adam wasn’t expecting a lot of this. If Lance wanted nothing to do with him, he wasn’t going to push. He got enough of that from his siblings.

He got up early the next morning and walked down to wear the Hades Cabin was were Lance was outside, pulling out the flowers he had started to kill yesterday after his argument with Coran. He had always been curious why a child of Hades had perfectly growing flowers. He’d heard rumours that Persephone hated Lance or at least any child of Hades.

“Hey, aren’t you Keith?” Lance seemed to notice him lingering. “your Aphrodite’s kid, right? The one who’s at the training grounds all the time? A little lost, aren’t you?”

Keith couldn’t blame the suspicion. It was around the time most of the campers were down training, where Lance obviously wasn’t no doubt in protest of being forced to train with all the hateful eyes on him. He decided to get him to not focus on that first.

“How did you get the flowers to grow?” he asked, catching Lance off guard. “I’ve only seen flowers look this vibrant down at the Demeter Cabin.

“I would hope so, seeing how it was her daughter who gave them to me.” Lance said

“Wait. Persephone gave you those flowers?”

“You were never here when I got claimed were you?”

Keith shook his head. It was impossible to keep track of all the kids in the Hermes Cabin, with them accepting all the unclaimed children so Keith was sure Lance had just arrived right around the time Keith was sent out on a mission. Keith and his team were gone for a while. It had been near the end of summer by the time they had come back, and Lance had been claimed, greeting Keith with the large bubble of emotions that plagued him today.

“Well then, you’re lucky you missed this blonde, really pretty young woman coming over to my table, asking me if I was Lance and then dragging me back to my cabin. I was sure she was gonna kill me. She didn’t like me for a good part of our conversation, but when I refused to accept Hades as my dad, she got a bit nicer. Then my mom made me go to the Underworld to spend a bit more time with Hades while she explained to my dad why his youngest son was now in control of death, kinda.” Lance put the dead flowers in a bag next to him, getting up to where new ones were waiting I the doorway of his cabin. “I didn’t want anything to do with him, but my world was already being ripped apart back home so I had nowhere to go. Persephone felt a bit sorry for me, so I guess she decided to ignore her jealousy of what Hades did with my mother and talked to me a bit. I know she’s technically my stepmom, but she kinda reminds me of my sister Veronica.”

Keith could see the slightest bit of happiness and peace coming from Lance. All the negative emotions came from knowing Hades was his dad, but he could see that Lance had his happy spots.

“So, she gave you her flowers?”

“My mom likes gardening so when Persephone took me to her garden, I kept pointing out all the flowers I knew. We bonded more because of that. I look forward to being around her more when I have to go to the Underworld.” Lance said, his happiness growing slightly before suspicion came up again. “that still doesn’t tell me what you’re doing here though.”

“It’s hard not to notice you when you carry around all those negative emotions.” Keith said, Lance looking away.

“Right, you guys can read emotions. Sorry.”

“Least I can do is make those emotions stick around less. What’s the Underworld like?”

He could tell Lance was confused with how even after Keith confessed why he was around, he was just sticking around. Keith was putting himself out there, exposing himself to all these emotions. He just hoped Lance would do the same.

“I can go if you want me to. I don’t have charmspeak, so I can’t make you talk to me.”

Lance seemed to relax a bit at that. “it’s cold. I live in Miami so I’m not good with cold. The worst thing is now that I’m claimed, I’ve been feeling colder than usual.” That would explain the jacket. “there isn’t much to do. Whenever I have to go there, I’m either in my room with Kosmo or with Persephone. Gods help me if I’m there when her mother wants to visit.”

“Demeter is pretty bad huh?” Keith asked, crouching down so he was next to Lance as he planted in the new flowers.”

“I think it’s one of the only things Hades and I agree on, that woman is suffocating.”

“Sounds like most of my siblings. You won’t believe how much they yelled at me after I was claimed and still wanted to train. I could care less if we’re expected to sit there and look pretty. I’ve fought most of my life and I’m not going to stop just because I happen to be the kid of a woman who cheats on her husband and constantly changes her appearance.” Keith said

“You know, your eyes have changed colour.” Lance said looking over at Keith. “they’ve been grey, dark blue, grey-blue, blue-purple and now they’re purple. They remind me of Persephone’s favourite flowers.”

Keith could feel his face getting slightly hot. Why though? He’d been complimented before, he was used to it. Why was it something as simple as being compared to a deity’s favourite flowers that made him feel embarrassed?

“Who’s Kosmo?” he asked instead

“Oh, he’s my hellhound.” Lance said, nonchalantly.

“A hellhound? You have a hellhound?”

“It was one of those gifts Hades gave me thinking I’d like him, but like all the stuff he’s given me, I’ll take but still hate him. But Kosmo is a sweetheart.”

“But he’s a hellhound.” Keith thought he should remind Lance

“Oh fine, I’ll show you.” Dusting off the dirt from his hands, Lance picked up the bag of dead flowers and dropped it inside his cabin before closing the door and tugged a cord from under his shirt. There was a dog whistle at the end. It was the same colour as the obsidian of Lance’s cabin with a blue ring around the middle of it. The sound it let out when Lance blew it wasn’t silent or even high pitch. It’s almost haunting sound echoed through the area at least twice before Lance pulled it away from his lips. Then, from the shadows of the cabin, a large mass started to grow. Keith got up, his hand going to his side where his dagger his mother – stepmother to be more correct but she was more of his mother than Aphrodite – had given him was but Lance but his hand on his shoulder stopping him. “Keith, meet Kosmo.”

The mass formed a shape and suddenly the shadows are shaken off by a large wolf? It looked like a wolf with blue markings and a line of blue fur running down it’s back to its tail.

“Hey buddy!” all the negative emotions disappeared as elation and happiness took over as Lance walked over to the large wolf, who at seeing its owner, moved up, trying to tuck it’s face into his stomach. “who’s a good boy? Are you my good boy? Yes you are! Such a good boy, I missed you.”

Keith couldn’t remember when he ever felt this influx of good emotions from Lance, if ever. It reminded him of when he was with his dad and stepmom, the three of them spending time after having to stay within the protective areas of Camp Half-blood.

“Keith, get over here.” Lance said, gesturing for him to come closer, Kosmo staring him down. Keith was cautious as he got closer. “Keith, this is Kosmo. Kosmo, this Keith.” Keith felt himself tense as Kosmo took a step towards him, his large nose sniffing him before Kosmo let out a sneeze, shaking his head. “I guess he’s smelling all that perfume on your clothes.”

“What? Seriously? Uggg, damn it!” Keith complained trying to smell whatever scent his siblings left all over his clothes.

“You do know that his kind hunt down any person who refuses the Fates call and any spirits who refuse to try and cross the River Styx. They have a much better smell than normal dogs. I will say this though, you are the strangest Aphrodite kid I’ve ever met though.”

It seemed like every day, Keith would find a reason to go see Lance. Usually Kosmo was there and he had started to worm his way into Keith’s heart. Lance was still never at the training field and Keith could tell he missed it, so he suggested they just go early in the morning like Lance used to do. Seeing Lance summon the skeletal soldiers to fight against was amazing. He could have been a child of Apollo with his accuracy of his shots. Lance was pretty good with a sword though Keith could still trip Lance onto his back with no problem. The amount of negative emotions seemed to disappear whenever Keith was around Lance, like he didn’t have to think about them.

It was strange spending so much time with a person that wasn’t Shiro or Adam. When Lance first let him into his cabin, he had been drawn to the wall covered in photos. There was a large portion empty that judging from the few photos of the lake there was had to of been from Lance’s time at camp before he had been claimed, but all the other photos showed a side of Lance he only seemed to see when it was just the two of them. Lance was surrounded by different people, most of who looked like him.

“That’s my family.” Lance said, after he finished turning on all the lights in the cabin on. Even though there was a fireplace, Lance filled the whole cabin with as many fairy lights as he could, making the room as bright as possible.

“You never did say what happened with your dad.” Keith said, remembering Lance talk about how his mother sent him to stay at the Underworld to stay with Hades and Persephone.

Lance shrugged, a small smile on his face and a small feeling of relief coming from Lance. “he didn’t care. I was his son and just because the guy who gave me the DNA to be here happened to be a big god, didn’t mean I was any less of his son. After I was claimed, I was really worried that he wouldn’t accept me. I’m glad I was wrong. My family doesn’t care that I’m a demi-god, I’m their kid and that’s all that matters.”

Hearing that made him think of his mother, the woman who raised him. She knew that the boy she was raising wasn’t hers by blood but Korila was more of a mother to him than Aphrodite. She taught him to fight, knowing he’d be faced with any monster trying to attack him and told him that he didn’t have to always look like the best person in the room, that those who mattered would see that no matter what. Keith wasn’t used to sharing those feeling with other people. Shiro and Adam felt proud of who their godly parents were while him and Lance didn’t.

He got to see more of the actual Lance, not the one that hid behind a stony face and no speaking. He was coming down from lunch to see Lance hiding behind a tree, Kosmo sniffing not far from where he was. Lance saw him and gestured to keep quiet and Keith watched Lance look around the tree and call for Kosmo before traveling through the shadows to another spot before Kosmo could reach him, leaving the hellhound sniffing around for his owner. Lance was childish and sneaky and a normal person when he wasn’t hiding his hurt. Keith wanted to see Lance like this more often, which was weird. Not in a bad way, it was just not something he was used to, wanting someone to be happy. Then again, everything was different with Lance.

There had been a time where a couple of Ares kids caught them training early, which got them both banned from training early, though Lance cleaned his messes up with the skeletal soldiers, which lead to the bubble of those negative emotions that hadn’t been around for a while to make a reappearance. They had been sitting in front of Cabin 13, Lance looking down and all that Keith wanted to was just pull him into a hug, like Shiro would do when Adam looked stressed. Keith wasn’t big on physical contact, so that had been just surprising to him, but then he felt the urge at other times. It was a little terrifying and he wanted nothing to do than just run away but the idea of what Lance would feel if Keith just disappeared, that stopped him.

When he was told by Nyma she expected him to be at Cabin bonding, he was a bit happy, so he could have time from Lance to sort through everything, though the idea of spending the whole afternoon inside a sweet smelling cabin instead of the soft lighting of Lance’s cabin was disappointing.

“Stop pouting. Your gonna kill all the flowers.” Nyma said as she stepped over Keith’s legs as she brought in another basket of flowers.

“No need, his new friend can do that just fine.” One of the snootier girls called from her place.

Keith glared over at her. “Lance is better company than you and your gaggle of groupies. Then again, so is a gorgon.” He snapped at her, ignoring her gasp of insult

“Behave!” Nyma ordered, almost on the edge of using charmspeak. “if we can’t stop Keith from going down to the training field every day, we can’t stop him from making a few friends, no matter how odd they are.”

“He’s not odd, it’s not fun when you had friends who turned their back on you because of who your parents are.” Keith said. He also noticed if he heard anyone bad mouthing Lance, he’d be quick to jump to his defence. Lance had to stop him from attacking those Area kids who’d gotten them banned from early morning training when they decided to leave a few comments in Lance’s direction.

“Ok, no more talk of anyone who’s not in this cabin. I’m not stopping him if he decided to kick anyone’s face in.” Nyma said, holding her hands up. Thankfully everyone quieted then, knowing she really wouldn’t stop Keith if he did decide to attack. “thank you. Now, the people from Demeter’s Cabin gave us these flowers so we can make flower crowns – I saw that eye roll Keith – so let’s get to work.”

Keith didn’t move at first, letting his siblings take their pick of flowers first. He found flower crowns an overused idea, but it wasn’t like he could leave. When a basket near him was clear, he pulled it closer to him, looking at the flowers that were left. A few blue blossoms, a few purple and a few red. He pulled them out and rested them in his lap, playing with the leaves a bit until he could get hold of a pair of pruning shears. The purple of the flowers reminded him of how Lance compared to the changing colour of his eyes to Persephone’s favourite flowers in her garden. He controlled himself from blushing this time. Why was it that one comment that made his face want to turn red? The blue flowers looked like the blue fur on Kosmo’s body. The more he pondered over that thought, the more he realised Lance’s eyes were a similar colour. He silently groaned, hiding his face in his hands. What was happening to him?

“I can see the waves of whatever coming off of you. What’s with you?” Nyma asked

“Nothing.” He said, pulling unwanted leaves of the flowers by hand so he’d have something to do.

Nyma moved closer to him and handed him the pair of pruning scissors in her hand. “I’ve never seen you express these types of emotions. It’s like the ones I see on someone who’s got a…oh my gods!” everyone looked over to Nyma who waved them off before leaning closer to Keith, “you’ve got a crush on Hades’ kid?”

“What? No, I don’t.” Keith said, getting everyone attention again.

“Something you want to share with the class?” the same snooty girl asked

“Yeah, you can’t mind your own business. So why don’t you fuck off?”

“Nyma!” she called for the Cabin head

“I warned you now shush.” Nyma said

“I do not have a crush on Lance.” Keith whispered

“Keith, sweetie, my darling little brother. While you don’t fully take use of the amazing powers our mother gave us, I do. I happen to have a much better understand of emotions than you do, and I recognise a person who has a crush, even if they don’t. how do you think I knew Rolo liked me?” she asked, mentioning her child of Dionysus boyfriend.

“Either he got drunk and told you, or your charmspoke it out of him.” Keith answered, knowing all the stories of how the confession went between the two.

“Ok fine, but still. I have never seen you spend so much time with someone who wasn’t Shiro or Adam. Do you actually enjoy hanging out with him?”

“Yeah so?” he asked, as he started twisting the flowers together into a crown.

“So? No one likes hanging out with him.”

“Because you guys don’t like who his dad is. Lance is actually a pretty cool guy to hang out with.” Keith defended. He noticed the look on her face. He could tell it was smug. “what?”

“You’ve been defending him a lot. Just admit it, you feel something for him.”

“No, I don’t. now leave me alone or I’m putting your clothes on the practise dummies.” He threatened, leaving Nyma pouting at him and turning away from him. There was no way it could be true. It couldn’t be. He was just Lance’s friend, right?

Then why did the idea of just being Lance’s friend feel weird in his chest?

He didn’t go see Lance that night. He didn’t even go to dinner. He stayed in his bed, staring at the finished flower crown that sat on his chest that acted as his bedside table. When he had finished weaving the whole thing, the first thing he thought of was to give it to Lance. He didn’t know if it had been Nyma putting ideas into his head, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Lance. Did he like Lance? He didn’t know. Keith never had crushes before. Being Aphrodite’s kid, it was never clear if they liked him for him or if it was the allure of their mother’s passed on beauty that attracted people. Had Lance ever been affected by it? He had noticed his changing eye colour but that was about it. Then again, Keith went out of his way to never look fully put together. He groaned, turning away from the flower crown. This was so stupid. Why was it he was good enough to read emotions to the point of getting affected by it but dealing with his own was the most impossible thing in the world?

“Keith? You up here?” he heard Shiro’s voice call, heading up the stairs to the boys’ level of the Aphrodite Cabin. Keith didn’t answer and let Shiro walk all the way down to the end of the row of beds to find him. “there you are. You weren’t at dinner. Nyma said you weren’t feeling well. Do we need to go to the infirmary?”

Keith sighed, “I’m fine.”

“I brought you an apple. By the way, Lance happened to catch me on my way here. He was asking if you were ok.” Shiro said, handing Keith the apple.

Sitting up, the child of Aphrodite rolled the apple between his hands. “Shiro…how did you know you liked Adam?”

“Huh? Why are you asking?”

“I just want to know.” Keith said, avoiding the question.

“Well, for one, he was the only one to call me by my first name. everyone else always called me Shiro because they could never pronounce my name but when I came here, Adam was part of Hermes’ Cabin and Apollo hadn’t claimed me yet and he asked my name and instead of asking if he could call me Shiro liked everyone else, he said, ‘It’s nice to meet you Takashi.’ It was the first time anyone did that. We started hanging out more and he helped me move over to the Apollo Cabin after I was claimed, and it felt nice to be around him. I remember we were hanging out one day after training practise and I was listening to him tell this story of something one of the Hermes kids got into and I just kept looking at him and thought, ‘I wanna kiss him.’ That pretty much made everything clear for me. Then I got so scared of how to ask him out, so I was taking a bit too long, so Adam comes storming up to me one day and demands to know what’s taking me so long to ask him out, because he knows he isn’t the only one to have feelings in the relationship. Keith, is this about Lance?”

Keith looked away. It was about Lance. He didn’t want to risk losing Lance on something that might not be real.

“I think, I might...I think I have a crush on Lance, but I’m not sure. I don’t do crushes Shiro, you know me.”

“I do.” Shiro said, sitting next to Keith on the bed. “you went with the intension of getting Lance’s bad emotions under control right, but knowing you, you could have dealt with it long enough for it not to be an issue anymore and just left him. I think I’ve seen you head down to see him almost every day. I’ve seen you go to training with him, go swimming, I’ve even seen you play fetch with that hellhound of his. Your different when your around him.”

“I don’t like seeing him upset.” Keith said

“Shouldn’t that say something?” Keith shrugged. “Keith, I don’t know Lance very well. Maybe if the idea of getting attacked by Furies again didn’t scare the crap out of me I wouldn’t be so scared to try and make friends with him, but you’ve defended him from anyone who even looks at him wrong. I know he appreciates it and I know he’s lucky to have you.”

“But what if I tell him how I feel, and it turns out he was only attracted to me because of my allure?”

“Again, don’t know him very well, but Keith let’s be honest. You hide that allure very well. If he does have feelings for you, like you do for him, I’m sure it’s from his own decisions. Don’t let the power of your mother hold you back from doing what you want.”

Keith usually never did but this was different. He looked over at the flower crown, the blue, red and purple flowers tugging at his heart. He sighed. He fought Ares’ kids on a daily basis, why was telling a guy you might like him ten times harder?

“Not sure if you need more incentive, but he looked pretty upset when you didn’t come to dinner.”

Keith looked at Shiro. He heard Apollo was a bit of a gossip and obviously the same was with his kids, but it worked. If he didn’t go talk to Lance now, he’d only continue hiding and make Lance think he didn’t want to be around him. It was strange how he didn’t do emotions but when it came to Lance, he wanted him to fully understand how he was feeling.

The whole of camp was quiet as he walked to the black mass of a cabin. He spotted a spot of blue and realised Kosmo was asleep outside the door.

“Hey buddy.” Kosmo stared up at Keith, his ears flicking. “Lance inside?” Kosmo let out a huff before laying his head back down. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He knocked on the door and waited for an answer.

Lance opened the door, looking surprised. He was already dressed for bed, sweat pants and a large knitted sweater

“Keith? What are you doing here? I heard you were sick.”

“I guess spending all that time away from the cabin undid my immunity to all the smells of the perfume.”

Lance laughed at that. Keith read Lance’s emotions. He was peaceful, happy, content. These emotions mostly seemed to be around when Keith was with him, but they weren’t always there. How did Keith not realise just how much those negative emotions that would throw him off just disappeared when he was around Lance?

“Here.” Keith held up the flower crown and put it on Lance’s head. “I thought it would suit you.”

“Aww, thanks. Come in, no point standing outside. Kosmo.” Lance called, the hellhound getting up and slipping inside, going over to the fireplace and flopping in front of it. “are you feeling ok though?” Lance asked, dropping onto a fuzzy blue beanbag.

Sitting on the floor near him, Keith nodded. “um, hey. I was wondering. One of my siblings wouldn’t leave me alone about hanging out with you and they thought my allure made you want to hang out with me, which I know isn’t true because you kinda barely looked at me when I first talked to you.”

“I’m immune to Aphrodite’s allure anyway.” Lance pulled a sleeve back and showed his camp necklace that was wrapped around his wrist. Keith never noticed a small ice pendant with a flower pressed into it. “this is Styxan Ice. Persephone blessed it, so I could never be affected by charmspeak or allure, but I’ve always been immune to it anyway. Nyma tried it on me when I first came here, and I never worked.”

“Oh.” So, the emotions Lance felt were all his own, nothing of Keith’s influence.

“Why, did you think I hung out with you because of your allure? I hang out with you because your nice to me and you seem to care and,” Lance shrugged, “it’s nice being around you. I can tell you’re being truthful.”

“I like hanging out with you too. It’s nice and I like it.” Keith said, looking away

“Yeah, I can tell.” Keith glanced up to see Lance smiling at him with this gentle smile. It reminded him of the ones Adam would give Shiro.

Keith couldn’t say it yet, let alone ask, but knowing Lance could like him for him, Keith was fine taking his time for a while. He was close to Lance now and that’s all that mattered.

#klancemonth2018 #klance #percy jackson au

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so-this-is-my-blog-i-guess · 6 years

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So.

Apparently it is now, this day, my 30th wedding anniversary. Legally. Although, we have been separated for hmm... at least ten years. And we truly struggled through the years before. It was never really good. I got pregnant three months in, and I promise you that family was counting. We had “planned” on starting a family at least two years in the future. Plans don’t always work out the way you’d like them to. Because I wasn’t as upset as he was about my pregnancy, he assumed (and pretty much still does) that I made it happen. I didn’t. But I firmly believe that some things are meant to be. And that child was meant to be. My boy was here for our first anniversary. We decided to divorce years ago, but we stayed together until our son graduated from university. I don’t know if that was the right thing or not. I have a note my boy wrote to us when he was in middle school hoping that someday we’d get along. We tried. I tried. And it still makes me sad that he saw and felt our issues as deeply as he did, and had to take sides.

If you decide to marry, please do it for love. Not because all of your friends are doing it... or because your parents have wondered why you’re not married yet... or because you’re afraid your future spouse will have some sort of breakdown if you call it off... or because you think a witch has put a curse on you if you don’t... or because you think it’s the natural progression of a relationship. Do it because you sincerely love someone and honestly want to spend the rest of your life with that person. Don’t go in to it thinking you can always divorce if it doesn’t work out. Planning your way out before you’re ever really in isn’t the way to go. You’re setting yourself up for trouble. Although, I probably should’ve had a prenup. But I didn’t want to start my marriage off with a document that pretty much says you don’t trust the person you’re marrying to be fair if it doesn’t work out. I trusted his word, but saying that you’ll leave with what you came in with doesn’t work when you’re bitter.

I have known couples who are extremely happy in their marriages. I’ve also known couples where one simply awaits the day their spouse drops dead. Biding their time.

Bitterness is destructive. Revenge is ugly, and it poisons all who are around it. Not only for a relationship, but for your individual physical and mental health. It wears you down.

Be honest with your feelings in the beginning.

Only my opinions. Based on my experience. Please don’t feel the need to tell me how you disagree with me. This is not directed at anyone in particular. Or anyone at all. I’m just venting. Do what’s right for you. Do what’s truly in your heart.

I need to go to sleep. Happy Anniversary to me.

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relationshipsshrink · 1 year

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Self Reflection in Therapeutic Relationship

Most people are inclined to believe that their relationships fail or have problems because they didn’t choose the right partner or because their partner is the source of the stress. It can feel so much better to look for accountability outside of yourself than to understand your own contribution to the problem.

My partner just isn’t there for me.

I can’t find anyone decent. Why bother?

But what if you are the problem? What if you are in a romantic relationship that has landed on a fault line and your own behaviors may be the reason?

Let’s take a look at some of the areas you may unknowingly be eroding or sabotaging and unraveling the love.

When talking to your partner about what is bothering you, how sensitive are you?

Be careful what you say – harmful words can’t be taken back. We say all sorts of things when we are angry that we do not actually mean. Harsh words may be forgiven, consciously forgotten, or dismissed, but they may still linger in your partner’s heart.

Don’t forget that it is very possible to love someone and still want to cause them pain. When you are angry it is easy to forget your partner is more than the person who hurt you and who you wish to hurt back.

No matter how angry you are, try to remember that most of the time you also love your partner.

Do you talk to your partner about difficult subjects when you feel close to them, or when you are angry?

If your partner comes home late when they have promised to be home early, are you one of those people who gets satisfaction venting your anger, especially if you can manage to get an apology and a promise to try harder in the future?

Most people respond to anger by being defensive and are not likely to listen fully to your concerns. When you direct your anger at your partner, emotions will likely be stirred up that interfere with their ability to have empathy for your point of view.

Instead, if you are angry about something, you could say, “You know I’m upset but I think it would be better to talk about the issue at some other time when I’m not so mad.” When reintroducing the uncomfortable issue, ask your partner if it is a good time.

Are you aware of your partner’s hot buttons? If not, you need to be.

Many people feel that the main problem in their relationship is their partner’s emotional hang-ups. Perhaps you think your difficulties stem from you partner’s insecurities, moodiness or temper. Though one of you may have more insecurities than the other, each of you enters into your intimate relationship carrying some emotional baggage.

Perhaps, without knowing it, you may be tapping into your partner’s particular sensitivities. The reaction can be like stepping onto a landmine and getting hit with an explosion.

The first step in avoiding this type of entanglement is to know your partner’s hot spots. Think carefully about what has led to previous troubles. What things are your partner particularly reactive to?Some common hot spots that can lead to arguments include:

Your partner gets annoyed if you ask them what they are feeling.

Your partner can’t stomach “endless” discussions of problems.

Your partner becomes overly sensitive when you tell them they are doing something incorrectly.

Conclusions

Yes, I am an expert in human relationships. I help couples and individuals resolve disputes and cool down hostilities. However, like everyone else I can lose sleep over relationships in conflict.

It took me a long time to realize that the key to resolving interpersonal disputes is not found in getting people to treat me differently. In other words, figuring out what is wrong with others and defining why they aren’t behaving in ways I want them to, is not at all useful.

Once I stopped holding others responsible for my discomfort and moved beyond thinking they should change and be more like me, I felt liberated by the idea that I can look internally and concentrate on putting these insights to work in ways that help me to act differently in the future.

Blaming others is easy. But, the key to resolving conflicts is not what’s wrong with “them.” Once you understand the forces that maintain your self-defeating behaviors you can learn to react differently. Yes, it’s me!

If you have any questions, click here to schedule your initial consult.

#self reflection #Relationships #relationship counseling

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aimeraiwrites · 6 years

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Barz/JULES 10

10: Not said to me

(hi this prompt Destroyed me they’re already the angst couple of the year ash)

(under a cut bc it accidentally got long and turned into a hs au)

They’re not fighting, but they’re not not fighting either. Considering that the entire reason they started fucking was to get over other people, Jules has no idea why Mat freaked out so much, storming away when Jules had asked him if things had been getting anywhere with Chabby. It might be better this way–it’s been six months, and whatever feelings Jules had had for Luc have simmered down, only to be replaced by Mat. Mat, who always kicks up his feet on the coffee table and prefers Chinese to all other takeout. Mat, who let Jules vent about all the things he liked about PL with minimal snarky commentary, stroking Jules’s hair and topping up his drinks, because under the fifty layers of asshole, he’s pretty decent verging on good. Mat, who’s so hung up on Chabs and still gets extra touchy with Jules whenever he’s around, trying to catch his attention by making him jealous. Apparently, Jules is a hopeless sucker for the unavailable kind.

By noon on the first day after whatever had happened, all of their mutual friends are shooting looks at him and Mat, sitting opposite each other at the lunch table and carrying on conversations with completely different people. They aren’t ignoring each other, but all their conversation is cold on Mat’s end, so Jules doesn’t bother, talking the entire lunch period to PL and Jozy about some superhero movie that’s coming out this weekend while Mat and Chabs talk basketball. Nice to see that Mat’s taking this opportunity to at least make progress.

Luc stops him with a hand around his wrist at the end of lunch. “Are you and Mat okay? Like, are you two fighting?”

“There is no me and Mat,” Jules says, voice carefully neutral.

“You two broke up?” Luc asks, disbelieving.

Jules sighs. “We were never dating in the first place. Just fucking around.”

“Does Mat know that?” Luc looks disturbed for some reason.

Jules laughs, even though it’s not that funny. “It was his idea then, and whatever’s going on now is his idea, too.”

“Jules…” Luc starts, looking hellishly uncomfortable.

Jules runs his free hand through his hair. “Just–let it go, Luc. It’ll be fine.” With that, he shakes loose of Luc’s grip and worried eyebrows and makes his way to his next class. ===They’re three days into this new normal and Jules has almost learned to stop turning to tell Mat things. The looks from all of their friends have turned into a weird mix of confusion and pity directed at both of them. Luc, in particular, keeps eyeing Jules like he thinks Jules is going to burst into tears and sob his heart out at any moment. Jules hasn’t told Luc about sitting cuddled with Rosie on his bed, eyes too dry and heart too heavy, but somehow it feels like Luc knows anyway.

Mat’s the opposite, calm and serene. He treats Jules the way he does classmates, casual and friendly, but not inviting further conversation. He spends a lot of time with Chabs, and Jules tries to pretend that he’s okay with it, but judging from the way Luc and Jozy have been watching him, and the sometimes pensive glances he gets from Chabs, he’s not fooling anyone. But the thing is: he tried to apologise to Mat, right afterwards. He’s tried to apologise over and over again even though he’s not sure what he’s fucked up, and Mat’s given it right back to him every time.

This time it’s Jozy, in their trig class, who asks, as the two of them pack their textbooks. “You and Mat…are you guys okay?”

“It’s not–look Jozy we weren’t together, just fucking. Can you and everyone else let it go already?” Jules asks, tired. “You keep acting like it’s one of our grade’s big romances that’s been split up.”

Jozy’s smile is melancholy. “You guys kinda were. Like, I still think he’s an asshole, but he was tolerable with you, and you two were good together. Or, not together, I guess.”

Jules puts on a smirk that he learned from Mat. “Guess I was fucking the asshole out of him.”

Jozy just stares at him in disbelief, so Jules shoulders his backpack and leaves. It would be easier to get over this thing with Mat if people didn’t keep reminding him of it and then forcing him to tell them that they were nothing. Couldn’t they just bother Mat about it instead?===At lunch, it’s Chabs who catches up to him as he’s walking to their table. “So,” Chabs starts.

“If this is about Mat, we’re not together and never were; can you let it go?” Jules snaps. “I’m tired of answering questions about it.”

“Jesus, Gauth, I was just going to ask you to talk to Mat, because whatever else you guys were doing, you’re friends, too, and watching you guys pretend that you’re strangers is stressful. It’s going to start carrying to the ice,” Chabs says.

He has a good point there. Jules still glares at him, on principle. “He’s the one ignoring me, Chabshow, talk to him about it. I’ve already fucking tried.”

“I’m going to,” Chabs says, placid, like Jules isn’t giving him his best glare. Jules kinda wants to strangle him.

“Cool,” Jules says, his voice sulky. “I hope you have more luck than I do.”

Chabs is looking at him with careful pity. “Simmer down, Jules.”

And with that, they’re at their lunch table, where Jules settles in next to Luc, who’s eyeing him and Chabs with a speculative gleam in his eyes, but chooses to ask Jules about their Lit assignment instead. Mat is sitting at the other end of the table, so that’s where Chabs goes, of course. Mat’s expression is thoughtful, glancing at Chabs and then making eye contact with Jules for a long, loaded moment before breaking it with a breathtaking smile directed at Chabs. Jules’s throat feels tight. He takes a sip of water and starts answering Luc’s question.

===

Jules’s blades don’t feel sharp enough, so he tells Luc where he’s going and grabs his skates. He already has his earphones in, which is why he doesn’t hear the voices till it’s too late, furious and cutting around the bend in the hallway. He takes out an earphone, and oh–that’s Mat and Chabs. Looks like Chabs is making good on his promise to talk to Mat, but Mat sounds annoyed and sharp, and Jules wants to know. So yes, he creeps to the corner of the hallway, and peeks just enough to see Mat and Chabs standing, five feet apart, Chabs’ back to Jules, Mat standing with his arms defensively crossed over his chest.

“–just fucking you both up,” Chabs finishes saying.

Mat rolls his eyes. “I told you, and I know Jules told you. We were never anything, Chabs. He likes someone else, anyway.”

“Really? Because he’s been sulking like a wet cat for the last three days. He almost bit my head off today–easygoing as fuck, smiling Jules,” Chabs says, his voice hot with restrained fury. “And you can’t tell me that he didn’t try to apologise to you. So even if he fucked up, you’re the one who made it worse.”

Mat sighs, and now he just looks–tired. “Look. Chabshow, I get it, you have the A and you’re worried, but did you ever think that maybe you shouldn’t stick your nose in our business? All of you. We need time, not you guys shoving your opinions down our throats. And seriously, we’re nothing. I know you’re familiar with the concept of friends-with-benefits, so could you just leave us the fuck alone and stop seeing things that don’t exist.”

Jules swallows. It hurts, to have Mat lay everything down so clinically. Nothing Mat said is wrong, but it hurts anyway, because sometimes Jules thought that he could ask. Could have Mat in all the ways it matters.

Chabs isn’t done. “Talk to him, Mat.”

“I’ll do it on my own time,” Mat replies, and Jules realises too late that Mat’s striding past Thomas, bumping his shoulder meanly, about to come face to face with Jules. He manages to take one step back, back plastered to the wall, and then Mat comes up to the part of the hallway where he has a line of sight to Jules.

Mat’s steps falter slightly, and at first his face when he sees Jules is complicated, too many emotions for Jules to classify. Then it smooths out and he smirks meanly at Jules, holding eye contact as he calls back to Thomas. “By the way, I love you.”

It’s said loud and proud and carelessly, and Mat continues on his way like he didn’t leave Thomas spluttering in the hallway and Jules with his stomach dropping straight to the floor.

#barz/gauth #hi this is 1500 words of angst #gauthboy #asks #ash i have not forgiven you for making me write this #it's a little messy but intentions carry through #anyway they're all high school seniors #the hockey team is...wjc canada i guess???#idk what's going on tbh #aimee writes

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brokenmusicboxwolfe · 7 years

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I saw:

Raw- It’s a familiar tale in a way. A quiet, extremely studious, virginal, “good girl” arrives at school where here wild child older sister pushes her to try to fit in among the cruel peer pressure cooker surroundings. Brutal hazing leads her to do something she does not want to do, and has never done before, which leads to a downward spiral and dire consequences. The thing here is it isn’t sex, drugs, or alcohol that triggers her change but....meat.

See, her family have always been vegetarians. Her sister had until she started school, but now she gleefully partakes. Now our heroine’s first taste causes a reaction that builds. A hunger for flesh, the more raw the better, overwhelms her until one day it goes beyond the meat from a grocery store. In an accident her sister cuts off a finger and, instead of saving it to be reattached, our girl eats it. The sister isn’t too shocked by being stuck without a finger for life. See, she’s got the cannibalism bug too, and she has decided to embrace it. How far will the sisters go in indulging the hunger unleashed in them?

The film takes cannibalisim and uses it to comment on growing up, both in the obvious off to college way but also with the connection to family. I’m not sure that the hazing aspect isn’t more horrifying than the flesh eating, but that’s because my own anxieties are based of social interactions with bullies and not a fear of being eaten/eating people. Still, an excellent little film, a sort of cousin to Ginger Snaps in using horror to deal with the adolescent female experience.

Black Death- In the 1300s the plague ravages the land, but a young monk has a personal problem. He sends his secret lover to hide in a forest, but is then torn whether to join her or stay true to his vows. When Sean Bean rides up to the monastery needing a guide in the direction of his beloved he takes it as a sign. Well, anyone would take Sean Bean riding up as a sign! He discovers that the bishop has sent the group of men he joined to go to a remote village that has not been sickened and so is believed to be involved with demonic forces. They are to uses barbaric forces to take out the leader and get conversions. Funny about that. The vilagers are pagans and just as devote to their religion, and just as willing to use violence. The young monk had discovers his girlfriend had been killed by bandits in the woods, but the village priestess seems to have the ability to raise the dead. Which side will he turn to with he is offered his love returned?

This is not a movie about magic but the horrors of humanity, filmed to try to keep a sense of dirty reality. If anything the pagans have a hint of moral high ground by having simply been keeping to themselves until the christians, out to destroy them, kept arriving. It’s a slim advantage though, because both groups are equally willing to be unmercifully cruel for their faith. For me this is far more chilling than anything that goes bump in the night. Humans have always been the source of my terrors, and fundamentalists of all sorts in particular.

(I went on a bit about my anxiety on the subject, but since it’s about my being an agnostic in the fundamentalist christian bible belt I’m making it so you have to click. I tried not to talk about some of the more upsetting things, but it still ended up a lot of venting. LOL It is NOT about the movie!!!!!!!!)

Alright, to be honest, because I have lived surrounded by them here in the bible belt, christian fundamentalists scare me the most. Sure, many of my family are christians and all the friends I had were christian. I know them, and have first hand experience with how quickly they can turn on you. Not all of them of course! But enough.

See, in first grade I became an agnostic. The exact train of thought at that age I won’t go into here. But yes, yes, go ahead and be disgusted. I joke it’s the one thing every religion and atheists agree on: they believe agnostics are wishy-washy. Nah, it’s about not thinking the unknown is anything other than the unknown. It’s embracing doubt and uncertainty as rational. Basically it’s “can’t prove it? Then I can’t claim certainty”

The point is, also in first grade my teacher would have us recite a prayer before going to lunch. She was NOT supposed to, but it is very likely I was the first non-christian she’s taught and I was not talkinging about my views. Heck, I didn’t have the terminology yet! All I did was simply remain silent while the prayer was said, what with having a lifelong dedication to NEVER say things I do not believe. My silence was noted by the meanest boy in the class, who actually happened to be a preacher’s son. He started shouting how I wasn’t praying. Obviously the teacher couldn’t punish me since she wasn’t supposedto be doing it to begin with. For days afterwards everyone shunned me. This would not be the last time.

Actually the shunning would become almost an annual occurance. In between everyone would seem to forget. I think it was simply I didn’t fit their ideas of atheists (the catagory I was lumped into, which is fine. It’s closer than any actual religion). I was quiet and friendly. I never got into any trouble, never sweared in public, was famously honest (heck, I paid back a kid that had loaned me a dime even though he was out of school for more than six months after an accident). I always tried to help people, including many of them with school work. An atheist (agnostic) was evil, but I wasn’t evil, so they had to reject the label. But something would come up, like my not saying the “under god” part of the pledge of allegience. And there would be the shunning.

Well, one time I did out myself. In high school a couple of girls were talking about non-believers. Apparently we were all devil worshippers pretending to be nice to seduce christians into evil. I turned around and asked if that’s what they thought I was and they were stunned. They had forgotten!!! They actuallylooked embarressed and hurriedly asked for a bathroom pass. One guy did say “Just ignore them.” and it meant the world to me. A bit of kindness from an unexpected corner when most just stared at me in confusion and horror.

Christianity is REALLY big here. I had a junior high teacher, a born again christan, who talked about seeing witches. Witches, satianist, demon possession seemed to start to be believed in seriously in the 1980s. I am not sure how it happened, how it got to the point where a Star of David spray painted by some kid on a street sign could be seen as proof of local satanists, but I argued about just that with a freaked out lady myself.

In the 1970s and early 1980s the school Halloween Carnival was about the bigget event of the year and all the kids went trick or treating, but as the 1980s wore of the local churches got very active in insisting the holiday was satanic and evil. Heck, every October we will get at least one lecture from the person checking us out in stores about Halloween being the devil’s holiday. They tried to relabel the Halloween Carnival as a Harvest Festival to get the churches to stop deliberately doing counter events to keep people away from “sin”. One year a rumor started that satanists were going to kidnap a child to sacrifice, so Halloween was cancelled! Really, Halloween barely exists in this town any more.

I dunno. I could go on about the local views on religion. The point is, I know seemingly perfectly nice people that can turn on you out of fears and religious devotion. They half expect the devil to be mucking about in every shadow and those of us that don’t share their faith are subject to suspicions and misunderstanding. Considering the fact that before I was born my family got shot at and death threats, for being “yankees”, having black friends, and the (untrue, but whatever) rumor they were jewish, I never can feel comfortable with being reminded of how they really feel about non-believers.

Truth is, I expect if they ever started a witch hunt around here I’d be top of the list. First to the gallows......

#movies #raw #black death

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wildcardwriting · 7 years

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Prompt [BNHA]

[Boku no Hero Academia Fanfiction]

To Reject Fate’s Design

While I did read the manga when it first came out, my feelings on the Bnha are lukewarm, and the story and plot has lost me. I’m writing this to mostly work out my frustration with it. Be warned this may or may not be continued, or added on. Anyone may adopt it at any time. Just let me know if you do, I’m interested to see what direction other people go.

Overview Summary: When Izuku’s family discovered his lack of a quirk, a decision was made and a family heirloom was passed down. Izuku receives a set of hairpins and everything changes. Or the fanfiction where Izuku has Orihime Inoue’s hairpins and becomes able to use the powers of rejection and things change drastically. NOT a Bleach crossover.

Izuku’s has more family just his mother and his absent father.

When he’s quirk doesn’t manifest like all the other kids, his mother turns to the rest of her family, and she gets a rather long ear full. Especially when they make her explain his situation in depth.

They remained her rather painfully how quirks didn’t use to exist, and it was normal, rather that quirks are like their name--quirks that pop up.

Izuku and his mother move back home, and Izuku is given the support and freedom to be the best he can be.

He gains skills in multiple forms of defensive, and his ability to analysis quirks is encouraged to the point that even his grandfather is shocked (and his family members will speculate that maybe the doctors are wrong and he does have a quirk).

He gains the Shun Shun Rika hairpins at some point and soon masters using them.

Izuku studies hard, and enters another hero school, graduating early, but finds himself disillusioned with the hero system. He’s 14 years old, and at a crossroads.

Heroes are famous but most end up in debt, and there’s so much damage to public property that the people saved often spiral into poverty trying to recover their livelihood, even though heroes are supposed to pay them back.

80% of people who become heroes are from rich backgrounds, while 70 to 80% of villains are people who lived in poverty, and/or crime-field neighborhoods. People that society has forgotten, or doesn’t care about. But the most damning fact that 30% percent of villains are the direct result of hero intervention.

Thus, Izuku comes to a number of realizations. Most heroes even after they graduate, still don’t fully understand their quirks, and don’t the fine control needed to protect the public, and still, end up hurting people.

Thus, when Izuku returns to his old hometown, he moves into one of the most troubled neighborhoods, and tucks his hero license into a safe deposit box in the back of his closet and starts working. He goes out into the neighborhood and starts helping where he can--fixing old buildings, setting up shelters, setting up soup kitchens, teaching kids to control their quirks, helping children with their homework. He uses his hairpins to heal injuries and becomes a central pillar in the neighborhood, stopping fights and even getting the two yakuza groups in the area to get along.

He becomes so famous, that everyone knows ‘Deku’.

He does so much that the area that once was so dangerous, is changing into a safe place to walk at night, that even rich neighborhood can’t say they are.

But he also starts hearing troubling things. Starts hearing about the League of Villains, and refuses to let such a dangerous group of people destroy the peace.

So, he takes the problem into his own hands. He makes a visit to U.A. Academy. He is not impressed. At all. The students' freak out and the teachers start attacking him before he can even explain anything. Because they assume he is a villain. He is not. Apparently, no one reads the U.A. School Rules or they would know that the U.A. Barrier allows Students, Special Entry, AND all registered Heroes entry. (For the record though even Nedzu doesn’t know think about it because the U.A. Barrier Rules are like three hundred pages long.)

‘Deku’ instantly becomes a famous villain, and he is not happy. He gets a call from his mom (still in the middle of a messy divorce with her husband, worried and he has to explain everything, “I didn’t break into U.A. I walked into U.A. with my hero license on me. I am a registered hero. The U.A. Rules allows registered heroes access.”)

Still, he is so done, so he goes home and wakes up the next morning ready to get this nonsense fixed only to discover that everyone in his area is beyond happy for him. Because obviously being a villain is the only valid job for people like them. Even if ‘Deku’ is the strangest villain they’ve ever met.

“I always thought you were the coolest person ever!” Says yet another kid as he passes by. “Even if you nag me to eat my greens.”

Suffice to say, Izuku is very much not happy, so the next days he returns to U.A. only to get caught in an actual attack on U.A and he ends up having to save all the idiot kids and their teacher. He holds off the villains long enough for all the other heroes to appears, and while they do the fighting he heals Eraserhead.

After the villains finally retreat, about with some pointed threats, they turn their attention on ‘Deku’ and of course try to capture him, thinking he’s hurt Aizawa.

Izuku is annoyed and lectures all of them while he dodges attacks before he leaves.

‘Deku’ becomes even more famous and suddenly there are people talking about him in the highest levels of the hero world when Recovery Girl discovers that not has Aizawa been healed, he’s better than before. Healing Quirks are incredibly rare less than 0.05% have them, and the fact that he is so much more powerful than Recovery Girl’s is dangerous and incredibly useful.

Plans are made and a secret agreement is made by the Japanese Government, the highest levels of the Hero Community to only capture and not kill ‘Deku’ no matter what, because his quirk could be the only thing to restore All Might.

Becomes the most hunted person in Japan almost literally overnight. Sightings of him are now sent to the police and U.A. as they try to capture him and fail. (Because Izuku may not be as experience in fighting as them, he is very resourceful. Sewers, vents, parkour, and when that doesn’t work, flying on his barrier, Izuku knows the terrain and used it to his advantage.)

Both the police and the U.A. are so confused by ‘Deku’, and can’t understand him at all, but they don’t have time to focus on him because the Villian League are getting bolder.

It becomes a habit. The police and the heroes chase Izuku, Izuku runs, but one day it seems like they capture him, and then things get weird when it's discovered not to be Deku, but some morphing villain and eventually it gets solved but not before some pointed questions get asked.

Kacchan remembers Izuku and does some research (but he’s bad at it and thinks his former loser friend becomes a villain) and suddenly the cops go beating down the door of Inko’s house and start demanding answers about whether her son is a villain. She firmly denies this and proceeds to prove her point with pictures from his hero graduation with thoroughly confuses the police because their one lead is wrong. (No one considers the fact that they are the same person because Izuku is in his hero outfit in all the pictures at about the same height, while ‘Deku’s’ hair is more unkempt and he’s not wearing his mask.

It eventually all comes to head in that the villains attempt a massive recruitment and Izuku stops them but not before getting hurt and ends up in the hospital were the U.A. staff and police start interrogating him when another unrelated villains attacks and things get confusing.

Izuku does solve the problem by restoring the hospital and healing the heroes before he runs off because he needs to get groceries.

He returns the next day, and finally, FINALLY explains the problem and shows proof, and All Might is healed.

More Ideas

Yea, there's a lot of thoughts I had for this particular universe but I wasn't quite sure how to add them all in/was to lazy to. Izuku does a good majority of the work by himself, I'd like to think, but I think he has a team of sidekick he might let intern with during the school year from his old school, and eventually it becomes something that the school mandates because it shows a different side of the hero industry that just isn't present or even obvious.

Also, in this universe, I might even go the route and say that maybe Izuku has a super-supportive family that backs him up like 150%, especially when they see how many good Izuku is doing, and the people he's affecting. Maybe local businesses donate food or funds and there's like a ton of charity work going on and so on and so forth. I think maybe somewhere down the line (I can't decide where I think it would be better for this to happen) Izuku's quirk is listed and even though it can heal its not immediately obvious for a couple of reasons.

Reason One: Izuku read up on the rules about Quirk Registration and even though he needs to register his quirk, it can be named anything and in any language. So he names it "Apversti Dalla" in a little obscure language (Lithuanian: reverse fate) and of course, that's vague as fuck but no one can complain because what he did is not illegal and he lists it as being to make barriers, even though it can do so much more. But then again laws don't require he write a comprehensive report on his quirk just that he writes something 'correct' down. Izuku does both, technically and because he knows quirk information is part of open records for both the heroes and the public he know that he's made a good decision.

Reason Two: Unlike U.A. which is all showy and has a televised sports festival, his school is smaller and not as rich. So anything that happens at his school is...not really an open secret and it's not like the people are going to shout about his power from the rooftops so, nothing really comes of it. Maybe word of him will get out but meh. It's all rumors, and everyone is much more interested in the newest kids at U.A.Maybe instead of a different country, Izuku simply goes to the Internation School on the American Military Base and get his certification through them, and receives his American/Japanese duo license and registers the paperwork. I don't know the ideas are endless.

I'll have to think more on this later.

#bnha #izuku midoriya #bamf izuku #prompt

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siliconwebx · 5 years

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The Importance of One-on-Ones

What do we mean by 1:1 (pronounced one-on-one)? This is typically a private conversation between an Engineering Manager/Lead and their Employee. I personally have been a Lead, a Manager, and also an Independent Contributor/Software Engineer, so I’ve sat at each side of the table. I’ve both had great experiences on each side and have made mistakes on each side. That said, I'm going to cover some meditations on the subject because 1:1s open opportunities for personal and professional growth when they're effective.

What I’ve noticed about Software Engineering as a discipline, in particular, is that it has many people sharing posts about technical implementations and very few about engineering management. Management can influence and impact our ability to code efficiently and hone our craft, so it’s worth exploring publicly.

My thoughts on this change a lot and, like all humans, I’m always learning, so please don’t take any of these opinions as gospel. Think of them more like a dialogue where we can bounce ideas off one another.

Establishing baseline rules

I believe that 1:1s are crucial and should not be the kind of meeting anyone takes lightly, whether on the management or employee side. The meetings should have a regular cadence, scheduled either once a week or biweekly and only cancelled for pressing circumstances — and if they have to be cancelled, it's a good practice to let the other person know why rather than simply removing it from the calendar.

It might be tempting to think remote working means fewer 1:1s, but it's quite the opposite. Since each person is in a different space on a day-to-day basis, 1:1s help make up for sporadic contact by meeting regularly.

1:1s should be conducted in a space with the smallest amount of distractions possible. If you are in a room with one other person, shut off your computer and use a notepad so you won’t get notifications. If doing a 1:1 remotely, make sure you’re in a quiet place and that it has stable internet bandwidth. And, please, avoid taking 1:1s in a car or while running errands. It's also worth trying to limit the time you spend in noisy environments, like cafes. Another tip: if you have to be outside, wear headphones. Again, this is all for the benefit of limiting distractions so that everyone's focus is on the meeting itself.

Honestly, I would rather someone cancel on me or push the meeting off until they’re in a quiet place than take a call swarming with distractions. Nothing says, “I don’t value your time,” like multitasking during a 1:1 meeting. The whole purpose of the 1:1 should be to make the other person feel valuable and connected.

📷 Credit: @rawpixel on Unsplash

So, why should we devote time to 1:1s anyway?

1:1s are crucial. If we constantly work on tasks without taking the time to step back and check in with our work, we risk being tactical rather than strategic. We risk working in a silo, which can lead to burnout and anxiety. We risk opportunities to spot errors early and reduce technical debt. At their root, 1:1s should reduce uncertainty by making us feel more connected to the rest of the team while clarifying intent.

For example, on the employee side, you might not be sure whether to invest your time in Task A or Task B and the progress of your commits slows down as a result. Which one is higher priority? On the manager side, you might not be sure what's happening — the employee could be stuck on a problem. They could be burnt out, but it's tough to be sure. It's totally normal for someone to get stuck once in a while, but it's common to not want to announce it in front of others, perhaps out of fear of embarrassment, among other things. A 1:1 is a good, safe, private place to explore concerns before they become tangible problems because they offer privacy that some open floor plans simply do not.

This privacy part is important. Candid exploration of high level topics, like career goals, or even low level topics, like code reviews, are best done and that is easier to do with one person in a private space rather than a full audience out in the open. At their best, 1:1s should create a good environment to resolve some of these issues.

Employees and managers alike should be fully invested in the meeting. This means using active body language that shows attention. This means emphasizing listening and speaking in turn without interrupting the other person.

Connection

Belonging is a core tenant of Maslow's hierarchy of needs because, as humans, we're designed for connectedness and kinship. I know this article is about engineering management, but engineers are no less in need of empathy and human connection than any other person in any other profession.

The reason I include this at all is because connecting with others on a personal level is something I really need to work on myself. I’m awkward. I’m an introvert. I don’t always know how to talk to people. But I do know that there have been plenty of 1:1s where I either felt heard or that I was hearing someone else. In other words, I felt in connected to the other person, be it through shared goals, personal similarities, or even common gripes about something.

A friend of mine mentioned that "people leave managers, not jobs." This is, for the most part, so true! Simply taking the time to develop a connection where a manager and employee both know each other better creates a higher level of comfort that can go a long way towards many benefits, including employee retention.

It might be worth asking the other person what modality works best if you're remote. Some people prefer video chats; some people prefer phone calls. That's all part of fostering a better connection.

1:1s are more for employees than managers

Don't let that headline give you pause. Yes, these meetings are for both parties. They really are. But here’s the thing: in the balance of power, the manager can always speak directly to the employee. The inverse isn’t always true. There are also dynamics between teammates. That means the manager’s job in a 1:1 is to provide a space for the employee to speak clearly and freely about concerns, particularly ones that might impact their performance.

Ideally, a manager will listen more than an employee, but a back and forth dialogue can be healthy, too. A 1:1 where a manager is speaking the most is probably the least productive. This isn't team time; it's time to give an employee the floor because it otherwise might not happen in other venues.

In my experience, it’s best if a manager first learns the an employee's Ultimate Goals™. Where do they see themselves in five years? What kind of work they like to do most? What environments do they work in best and which ones are the most difficult? A manager can’t always facilitate the ideal situation, but having this information is still extremely valuable for cultivating a person’s career trajectory, for the work that needs to be done, and for a general understanding of what will keep people working well together.

Let's say you have two employees: one wants to be a Principal Architect someday and another who tells you that they love refactoring. That actually gives you pretty good insight for a project that requires one person to drive direction and another to clean up the legacy code in preparation for the refactor!

Or, say you have an employee that wants to be Director someday but rarely helps others. You also concurrently get an intern. This is your chance to develop one's mentoring skills and scale the other's engineering skills.

When these meetings are focused on the employee instead of the manager, they help the employee feel heard and motivated, which can bolster their career and also give the manager the ability to make bigger decisions about how everyone works together to accomplish their individual and collective goals.

📷 Credit: @rawpixel on Unsplash

Yes, agendas are required

Yes, even though 1:1s have a tendency to be informal because everyone already knows each other well, they’re way more successful when there's an agenda, at least in my opinion. And no, it’s not important for the agendas to be super formal either. They could be a couple bullet points on a sheet of paper. Or even items added to a private Slack channel. What's most important is that both parties come prepared to talk.

If both the manager and the employee have agendas, my preference is to either defer priority to the employee, or compare lists up front to prioritize items. It might be that the manager has to discuss something pressing and sensitive, like a team reorg that affects the employee's agenda. Regardless, communication is key. In a best-case scenario, you’re both in lock step and that all agenda items actually overlap.

Employees: Sometimes weeks are tough and it's easy to get frustrated. Taking time to write an agenda keeps the meeting from being all, “I hate everything and how could you have done me so wrong,” and more focused on actionable items. Why not just vent? Sure, there's a time and place for venting, but the problem with it is that your manager is a person, and might not know exactly how to help you on an emotional level. Having specific topics and items make it facilitate more actionable feedback for your manager, and therefore, make them better able to support you.

Managers: Let’s face it, you’re probably juggling a million plates. (That metaphor might be wrong, but you catch my drift.) There’s a lot on your mind and most of it is confidential. Agenda give you the context you need to prevent wandering into topics you might not be at liberty to discuss. It also keeps things on track. Are there four more things you need to cover and you’re already 15 minutes into a 30-minute meeting? You’re less likely to pontificate about your early career or foray into irrelevant paths and stay focused on the task and human right in front of you.

Direction and Guidance

One thing that a 1:1 can be useful for is guidance. On a few occasions, I’ve checked in with an employee who's communicated feeling like they’re in over their heads — whether they've overcommitted or have such a tall task in front of them, they’re not sure how to proceed and feel anxious to the point of paralysis.

As mentioned before, this is a great opportunity for a manager to reduce uncertainty. Some ways to do that:

Prioritize. If there’s too much work, spend time talking through the most important pieces, and even perhaps offer yourself as a shield from some of the work.

Make action items. Sometimes a task is too large and the employee needs help breaking it down into organized pieces making it easier to know where to start and how to move forward.

Clarify vision. People might feel overwhelmed because they don’t know why they’re doing something. If you can communicate the necessity of the work at hand, then it can align them with the goal of the project and make the work more rewarding and valuable.

One risk here is passive listening. For example, there's a fine line between knowing when to let an employee vent and when that venting needs actionable solutions. Or both! I have no hard rules about when one is needed over the other, and I sometimes get this wrong myself. This is why eye contact and active listening is important. You’ll receive subtle cues from the person that help reveal what is needed in the situation.

If you’re an employee and your manager isn’t providing the listening mode you need from them, I think it’s OK to gently mention that. Your manager isn’t a mind reader, and in many cases, they haven’t even received management training to develop proper listening skills. It’s perfectly fine to say something along the lines of, "It would be really great if you could sit with me and help me prioritize all these tasks on my to do list,” or “I really need to vent right now, but some of the venting is stuff I think is valuable for you to know about." Personally, I love it when someone tells me what they need. I’m usually trying to figure that out, so it takes out the guesswork.

Meeting adjourned...

You spend many waking hours at work. It’s important that your working relationships — particularly between manager and employee — are healthy and that you're intentionally checking in with purpose, both in the short-term and the long-term.

1:1s may appear to be time hogs on the calendar, but over the long haul, you’ll find they save valuable time. As a manager, having a team of employees who feel valued, aligned and connected is about the best thing you can ask for. So, value them because you'll get solid value in return.

More Resources

A Brief Guide to Better 1:1’s—For Makers and Managers Alike - The HelpScout blog is full of great posts on the topic.

One on One Meetings: The Only Guide Managers Need - Lighthouse is also a pretty good tool for facilitating productive 1:1s.

I Didn’t Want to Be a Manager Anymore — and the World Didn’t End - An honest personal reflection from an engineer's experience in management.

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