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annamusewrites · 4 years

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Family isnt all about blood.

She finally was happy and felt safe, she shouldve known you cant stop running from your past and not have it catch up on you, but she doesnt want to lose her brother or her loved even if it meant she suffered.....she really shouldve expected this after all, she was a Taylor and no one walks away from that family.

It didnt really bother her that her brother never settled down with a partner, he had his reasons and trust issues that Ana knew, as long as he was safe, that's all that would matter for now. Granted, she would love for him to find someone but she wasnt going to force that on him either. They were both there for one another and he had accepted Ransom as well. Truthfully, she couldnt be happier and maybe that was the problem. Her happiness had blinded her to what was to come.

"Dads in town" those words made her drop her fork and look wide eyed at her brother but then she picked up her fork "guess he found out about my new job" her tone was flat, their Dad could go to Hell for all she cared right now. He abandoned them so he didnt exist and she wasnt going to let him play the Daddy role just because he found out his so called daughter now had money.

She felt Marty's eyes on her but she carried on with her meal "if he calls you, dont answer" she looked at him "I'm not that stupid" "i wasnt saying you were, I'm just....protective" his words made her smile, she had two protective men in her life, her brother and the love of her life and she loved them both for it "I know" she reached out for his arm "but that man isnt going to walk into our lives again after everything. He had his chances"

No more was said about that man for a couple of days, she got several missed calls from an unknown number and after checking it wasn't anything to do with her work, Ransom or his family, she blocked and ignored any more. She shouldve known ignoring him wouldnt make him go away.

"I'll be over later, just need a shower....an actual shower " she smirked into the phone "give me half an hour and I'll be there. I love you" she hing up the phone to Ransom as she walked into her house. A shower and a change of clothes was a must, she wanted to get rid of work more than anything right now.

Closing the door, she gasped as a hand went across her mouth and dragged her back, her heels falling off her feet as she tried to stay upright. She felt the coldness of the gun resting on her temple, god she wished she hadnt known that feeling and she tried not to panic but then she saw her brother on his knees, all bloodied up from what looked like beatings.

Was this to do with sleeping with the wrong gal? It couldnt of been, Ransom had made sure he knew to only go after single women and Marty wasnt that stupid anymore. She swallowed against the hand as she tried to take in the dark setting, any detail to use against the people not allowed here. Her eyes begging for any sign that he was alright.

"You always were an ignorant brat" that voice made her blood run cold, how did he find her? As if to confirm who he was a tall man now came into view, taking her in and she knew it was the bastard father that abandoned them for money. The hand slid from her mouth and she spat at her father making him slap her hard and grab her throat. She heard Marty try and struggle to help her but then her father laughed "I see you've finally got your mothers fiesty side in you. Shame it didnt help her or you now"

Before she knew it she was tossed onto the floor, her head hitting the corner of the coffee table making her groan out. "Rich little Princess doesnt share with her family" Ana looked up at him "you're not my family, you walked out on us"

Her father grabbed her by the hair, pulling it with no remorse as he made her kneel infront of her brother "no I kicked your good for nothing brother out, you just followed like a weak little puppy" she chewed her inner cheek refusing to whimper at the pain he was causing her by pulling her hair. She looked at her brother, tears stinging her eye with the pain "you're not even half the man Marty is" again that earned her a toss to the ground and a kick to her back.

Biting back the groan, she exhaled harshly as she heard her brother beg for him to stop hurting her and turn back to him "no" she went to push up on her arms only for them to wobble but she didnt care "let him be the monster he always was"

This time when she was dragged by up to her feet she could feel the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, but as she was pinned back to the wall, she felt the suffocating pressure of a hand tightly over her mouth and nose as she grabbed his arm and dug her nails in his arm as he watched her try not to fight for breath.

"Be a good girl and I'll let you breath" there was only one perfect to ever call her that and it certainly wasnt him. It made her feel sick hearing it from those lips. She felt his other hand grip her throat as tears streamed down her cheeks, her lungs begging for breath but she wasnt gling to fight for it either. Half an hour, she just had to last half an hour and then Ransom would call her and wouldnt get any answer and knew something was wrong but then he would walk straight into this and she couldnt bare the thought of him getting hurt. What was she going to do?

Finally he was allowed to breathe as she fell to her knees gasping her breath. Maybe he saw her not struggling as compliance, right now she could care less. Blinking she tried to focus clearly then she heard her brother scream. Looking up she noticed the knife wound "no" "no" she was grabbed again and pinned to someones body as she growled out but she couldnt move.

"I'm going to fucking kill you" her brother growled out and Ana didnt have any complaints there. She hears her cell ring, fuck, it couldnt of been half an hour already. Her father got her phone and showed her the caller ID, Linda was calling her and as her father tossed her phone out into the hallway, she felt a dreaded feeling that having not been able to reach Ana, Linda would phone Ransom. She was in two minds if that was a good idea or not.

"Havent changed at all, still the low life whore than ever, Martin" her father sounded displeased but when was he happy "your sister achieves alot more than you but still needs teaching on how to act properly. What? You both thought I'd let you walk away, embarrass me and I'd never punish you both for it? Thanks to Ana taking on that job and a very helpful assistant I found exactly where you loved"

Her mind whizzed trying to think who wouldve given out her address, she was going to fire that person....if they ever got out "What do you want?" Her words seemed to echo around the room making all eyes appear on her "what inwant is respect and I'm going to get it from you both one way or another. You're both coming back home, whether it's in a body bag or three back of the car is up to you"

"Go to hell" both her brother and her seemed to say at the same time, she kicked back making the man holding her back off and groan "fucking bitch" he grabbed her by the hair "going to teach you a fucking lesson" he dragged her by her hair up the stairs, each step hitting her body like a punch as she tried to struggle and groaned out. Hearing her brother try and get free and call for her made her suddenly want to panic but she wasnt going to show the bastard dragging her she was now scared.

She heard commotion downstairs and her cell phone ringing, now she did want Ransom to come in and somehow not get hurt. Being rescued wasnt such a bad idea. She whimpered as she was thrown onto her bed, trying to get her mind focused on anything but the pain. As her legs were dragged she reached out ontop of the bedside table remembering she had opened a letter with her mothers old fashioned letter opener and managed to grab it. "Going to make you behave bitch" she rose her hand and plunged the letter opener into the side of her neck "go fuck yourself" blood splattered from his neck as she turned her head away and managed to crawl under and away from him as she panted sat on the floor out of his reach as she watched the man who worked for her father bleed to death. She didnt dare think what he was going to do to her as she desperately tried to control her breathing.

Her phone rang again and maybe she shouldve tried to make a run for it. Maybe by some miracle whoever was ringing, more likely ransom, would hear the struggle as she was captured again but she also knew that would cost her brothers life and she couldnt lose him. Swallowing, she blinked , she had killed a man, but it was in self defence but that thought tried to over take her.

Her hands was shaking, as far as she knew there was this dead guy and her father left. Crawling slowly to the body she yanked the letter opener off his neck, trying not to get too much blood on her. She gripped the letter opener tightly and looked under her bed. Didnt Ransom leave a cell under here and said he would collect it later? God she hoped he hadnt collected it already. She smiled as she felt the cell in her hand as she looked through the contact until she reached Ransoms main cell number, but as she dialed his number, she screamed as she was yanked back. She hadnt seen the other man in the room downstairs, another person with her father. She threw the vocal under the bed enough not to be seen as she kept screaming in hopes if Ransom picked up he could tell she was in danger.but not enough that the man grabbed her would know she had another cell.

Against the stairs left their marks and neither touch of the other man was gentle. She was covered in blood and likely to have bruises now too "the fucking bitch killed Roma" he threw her onto the other chair and tied her up.and gagged her. She struggled under the harsh slap of her father stung her face so much she felt like he had taken her skin off, even if it was impossible. She had to save her brother as he was bleeding, god knows to death but now tied down she was trying to think how. "Guess we're going to play this the hard way then. Bring it in" Ana swallowed, it could be anything knowing him and she couldnt quite see what it was as inwas dragged behind her.

"Marty all will.be forgiven, are you going to come.back.home?" Marty knew what that really meant for them both "fuck you" he moaned through his pain and before Ana could realise what was happening her chair was thrown back into.something ice cold. She realised it was a large tub of ice cold.water behind her as she struggled to not breathe in. There was noise.coming from above the surface but she couldnt make it out as her lungs fought for air then she was sat back up coughing for breath.

"Ana come home" Ana looked through her wet eyes "I'd rather die" again she was fallen back into the ice water. A father who tortured his children was no father at all but what was new for her? She gasped for air as she was pulled back up hearing her brother begging for her tonbe let go and he'll go back if she wasnt hurt anymore. They had broken her brother and she couldnt blame him really "no...no. I wont let you go back there" her throat was grabbed, she needed more air and then she heard someokenwalk up her steps "go check it out"

The other man left as her father looked back at her "if youd rather die then so be it" he whispered against her ear "you're not worth the rescue" with that he pushed her chair back into the water and let go, raising the gun he pressed it against her brother forehead.....

@flamingshieldwrites

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eryiss · 4 years

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Chapter Eight - The Smile

Summary: Freed and Laxus live incredibly different lives. Freed is a corporate lawyer in the capital city, and Laxus works as a handyman in a countryside hotel. Despite their differences, their lives collide when Freed inherits a house in Laxus’ village, and hires him to make the derelict building liveable. But the closer they get, the more they seem to offer each other. [Fraxus Multi-Chapter]

This was written as my admission for Fraxus Day 2020, hosted by @fuckyeahfraxus. This is lighter than last chapter. Hope you enjoy it.

You can read this under the cut, on Fanfiction, or on Archive of Our Own. You can find the chapter masterpost here.

Chapter Eight – The Smile

"I get that this is your weird revenge," Bickslow grunted, arms flexing slightly. "But why isn't it just aimed at Freed?"

He grunted with a glare on his face, trying and failing to manoeuvre a double bed through a door far too small for it to fit. Holding the other end of the bed was Laxus, who was also glaring at the furniture while attempting to adjust the angle to get it through the doorway. Sitting atop the windowsill of the bedroom, was Evergreen, who was clearly doing nothing to help with the moving of furniture. In fact, she was absently applying lipstick.

"I made it very clear that I'm not helping move anything," She said as she glared at the reflection in her compact mirror. "Just here for the free pizza."

"We're not having pizza," Freed said from inside the bedroom, where he was placing his clothes in the wardrobe.

"What!" Both Bickslow and Evergreen exclaimed almost simultaneously.

"It's Sunday. Italian place closes on Sundays, and nowhere else serves it in town," Laxus explained, tilting the bed slightly and pulling at it. It slipped through the gap of the doorframe, and allowed the two men to get it into the bedroom. "The only other place is like an hour away, and it tastes like ass anyway."

"As opposed to the Magnolia's pizza," Freed said under his breath. "Which is award winning."

"You act like they poisoned you," Laxus grunted, turning to Freed. "It was a little greasy, that was all. It tasted good."

"There was more grease than there was dough, and it tasted like vomit," Freed met Laxus' eye, a challenging smirk on his face. "And we can't be sure that they didn't poison me, I have a high constitution and may have not noticed it. But I won't risk it again, which is why I chose to move in today, where there wasn't a chance of eating from the hellish place."

And thus, Freed and Laxus engaged into a playful argument between one another about the taste of a pizza they had apparently shared together at some point. Too engrossed in an intense discussion about the merits of thin crust vs deep pan, they missed the silent conversation of expressions between Evergreen and Bickslow. Looks of disbelief and a shocked shake of the head from Bickslow clearly showed just how exhausted with the two men they both were.

Because, although Evergreen had told Bickslow about their clear flirtation, he hadn't believed just how obvious it was. Somehow their argument had gotten to the point where Freed had invited Laxus to have a home cooked pizza Freed would make, on the pretence that he should know what quality food tastes like.

"Weren't kidding, were ya?" Bickslow laughed, and Evergreen shook her head.

"About what?" Freed asked, looking to Bickslow from the wardrobe while frowning. Laxus had a similar expression.

"What are we eating then?" Evergreen deflected, snapping her compact shut.

"Well, Laxus, Bickslow and I will be whatever we feel like from Fairy Tail's restaurant," Free informed her, closing the wardrobe, and walking to the bed, helping the other two men position it correctly. "You will get yourself your own food, and pay for it yourself, given that you haven't helped with moving at all."

"You are paying for my food because you insulted me-"

"I didn't insult you, I kicked you out of my house," Freed smiled. "Something I'm willing to do right now."

"You're awful at grovelling," Evergreen mumbled, jumping off from windowsill and looking around the bedroom which Freed would be staying in. "You really did make this place look great; I didn't think you could do it honestly."

Laxus grinned proudly at the compliment, chuckling quietly when he heard Freed claim he wouldn't have taken on the house as a project if he didn't believe he could make it a sound, high quality home. It was interesting for the blonde to watch as Freed spoke with his friends, as he acted quite similar to the way he acted with Laxus. It was a nice feeling, to be assured that Freed treated him with the same level of affection that he did with the only other people important in his life. Laxus liked knowing that Freed undoubtedly saw him as one of his friends.

Though of course it was perhaps more than that. Because, upon playing and replaying their last moments together in the fairground, Laxus had been sure of one thing. Freed had leant in, possibly to kiss him.

And Laxus had essentially run away.

He found himself pissed off every time he thought back to it, because that was perhaps the worse response to the situation he could have done. He couldn't explain why he'd done it, not even to himself, but he could be sure that it was a mistake. Freed's reaction had made that clear.

Even though Evergreen had assured him it wasn't Laxus' fault, and that Freed was going through a lot and didn't know how to deal with it, Laxus still felt guilty.

Because he really wanted to give Freed that kiss.

But now, all he could do was beat himself up over the fact he hadnt seized the moment when it had been there. He really didn't know why he hadn't. He'd kissed men before, taken a few of them to bed. He'd long since gotten over his internalised homophobia – as Porlyusica had called it – so it wasn't the fact that it was with a man. He'd thought about the fact that Freed was his boss, and found that it didn't bother him; a dark recess of his mind was slightly attracted to the fact. There was only one thing that separated Freed from all the other men he'd been interested in, and Laxus was slightly scared by it.

Freed didn't feel like he'd be a fling, to Laxus. Laxus hadn't ever had a long-term relationship, be it because he only wanted something casual or that he didn't like the guy enough. But with Freed, there was this feeling of… solidity with him. As if he had kissed Freed, the next part of his life would begin. A more adult part of his life.

That was a thought that Laxus pushed to the back of his mind. He didn't like dwelling on the fact he was in his early thirties, and still felt like a kid.

"Yo blondie, come back to us," A loid voice interrupted his thoughts, and he looked at the grinning face of Bickslow.

"Yeah?" He asked, blinking away the thoughts to focus on the other man.

"Freed and Ever went downstairs," Bickslow explained, and Laxus scanned the room to see that it was just him and Bickslow in there now. "We finished putting everything away, so they're ordering the food."

"We're done already?" Laxus frowned.

Freed hadn't brought a lot of his things to Magnolia, given that moving there wasn't a permanent thing. After talking for a while, he and Laxus had decided it would be best if Freed only really moved into the kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom. That way not only would moving in and out be less of a chore, but it also meant they could move the furniture from room to room when they needed to decorate it. But still, even with the small amount of furniture – and shockingly large number of books – Laxus had expected it to take longer.

"Well, I guess it feels pretty quick when you're mooning after the handsome homeowner," Bickslow taunted, grinning. Laxus snapped his eyes to the man. "Oh relax, he can't see it. He's the only one though. But, now we're alone, I kinda wanna have a chat with ya about that."

"This ain't gonna be some 'hurt him I hurt you' crap, is it?" Laxus sighed, perhaps unwisely.

"Nah. If Freed wanted to hurt ya, he could do it himself. He used to fence, might have mentioned it," Bickslow shrugged, sitting on Freed's bed. Laxus joined him, anticipating this was going to be a long conversation.

"Once or twice," Laxus laughed.

"Shocked he didn't bring the trophy with him," Bickslow laughed, before his mood seemed to turn into something more serious. "Look, don't tell him I said any of this, but Freed… he's not the best when it comes to his emotions. He can sometimes kinda bottle his feelings up, not knowing he's doing it. And we kinda think that maybe that's what he's been doing, and me and Ever kinda wanted to ask if you can… keep an eye on him."

Laxus frowned. Freed not being in tune with his emotions wasn't a shock, really. It was why Laxus hadn't brought up what had nearly happened between them. Still, to have it confirmed wasn't the best feeling.

"I guess I can do that," He nodded slowly.

"Don't worry about him, though. It's not like he's gonna burst into tears if you say something wrong or anything," Bickslow hurriedly said. "When he says he's fine, he probably means it. He's not fragile, so don't worry about him. It was just… just make sure he's okay for tonight. He's a city boy, even if he won't admit it. He likes the loudness and the bright lights, and this is kinda the opposite of that. Whenever we stayed at hotels for work that weren't in cities, he used to bring this white noise machine thing with him. I'm sure he's gotten used to it with how many times he's been here, but can you maybe, I dunno, just make sure he ain't too closed off when we're gone. He'll probably be fine, but I can't help worrying."

"Of course," Laxus nodded, feeling a little better at Bickslow's assurances. "If it helps, he seems pretty strong willed. He should be fine."

"He probably will be," Bickslow laughed. "I just get a little worried about him sometimes, I get the same with Ever. They say I'm like their mother," Then he grinned, almost manically. "But he doesn't need his mother anymore, not when he's got his daddy."

Laxus spluttered, turning redder than he had been in quite some time.

Bickslow nudged him, cackling loudly.

"Fucking hell," Laxus muttered under his breath.

"Not that Freed's the type of have a daddy kink," Bickslow continued, as if he hadn't just given Laxus emotion whiplash to the point of speechlessness. "Well, he might like it if you called him daddy. You should try it out some time. Lay the seed, y'know."

"I don't think we're close enough for you to make these jokes," Laxus said, flushing harder now.

"Probably not," Bickslow grinned. "But Freed likes ya, and that means we're friends. And you ain't my friend if I'm not making fun of you at least once a week. Oh, and speaking of that, apparently Freed's gonna ask some hot guy that Ever likes to bring the food, so I wanna make sure I see him. Think the guy's name is Elf… something. I've got a lot of jokes about the elf giving her his package for package for Christmas. Real A-grade material."

He practically jumped off the bed, leaving Laxus alone. The blonde now had a clear understanding of what Freed meant when he said all his friends were forces of nature. He took a few moments to collect himself, both from Bickslow's teasing comments, and the request that Laxus make sure Freed was okay.

Bickslow really did know how to control and steer a conversation. Him being a lawyer made sense.

When Laxus walked to the lower floor of Albion House, he found that the food order had been placed – with Evergreen also getting a meal – and that Freed had been organising the kitchen. Laxus found himself shocked when he saw the number of spices that Freed bad brought with him. He hadn't taken Freed for a chef.

True to his word, Bickslow had quite a few comments prepared for when Elfman arrived to deliver their food. Freed too seemed to enjoy the situation, offering Elfman a tour of the house to extend his time around Evergreen. The poor man had no idea that he was being used to antagonise the woman.

The woman who very clearly had a crush on Elfman. Laxus would have to store than information for later, giving Elfman just as much crap as Evergreen had gotten.

As they ate, Laxus watched as the three friends interacted with one another, often bringing Laxus into the conversation as well. Laxus also began noticing the differences in how Freed treated the two of them compared to how he treated Laxus. With Laxus, in their most relaxed moments, there was always this spark behind Freed's eyes. Often it either led to a stupid competition, playful argument or even a request to learn a new skill. This spark wasn't absent with his other friends, but it seemed different.

With Evergreen, it led to teasing comments and these odd arguments that sounded like they were on trial. With Bickslow, he seemed to have this joyous sense of fun and an entire back catalogue of inside jokes.

It was nice to see him interact with them.

It was nicer knowing that he had his own special relationship with Freed.

Eventually, the two of them needed to leave before the last train left for Era without them. Freed had decided to drive them to the station, leaving Laxus to clean up the take-out containers that remained in the kitchen. As he did, he thought back to Bickslow's request of him and wondered how he would be able to fulfil it.

The obvious answer was that he should have a conversation with Freed, asking if he's okay and seeing if he needed anything from Laxus. But, with Laxus' experience with Freed, he expected that the conversation wouldn't go well. Freed was more of a man of action, and Laxus would respect that.

He spent the rest of his time alone thinking of how he would deal with the situation.

~~~

"I think I should spend the night here."

Laxus had to almost force the words out, having been thinking them over for a good forty minutes now. It was the only thing he could think of that would let him be in a position to be there for Freed, even if the idea itself seemed ridiculous without the context. That was proven concretely when Freed, who had been sitting at the kitchen table, watching the TV they'd installed on one of the counters, looked at him with furrowed eyebrows.

"You what?"

"I think that I should spend the night here," Laxus repeated. "For my own sake, y'know. If I managed to fuck something up with the place that we can only see by being here, I should be around to fix it. Even if it would be kind of funny to see you pissed off in the morning because a window wouldn't shut."

Freed, rather than laughing at Laxus' attempt at a joke, frowned. It worried Laxus.

The other man had been down since dropping Evergreen and Bickslow at the train station. Or at least Laxus was pretty sure that he was, it was entirely possible that Bickslow had gotten into Laxus' head and now Laxus was seeing things that weren't there. It wasn't helpful that, with Freed's habit of being insular with his emotions, Laxus had to look for smaller signs to see how he was feeling. Quirks in his expressions, a change in how he held himself, or differences in how he reacted to things.

But it made sense that Freed would be feeling down. For the whole day he'd been caught up in the whirlwind of moving, and with his friends being there to distract him he wouldn't have had time to think. But being alone on the ride back from the station would have taken any distraction away, possibly making him regret his choice.

"The house is fine," Freed spoke before Laxus could think further. "You've done a good job working on it, and I wouldn't have moved in if I thought otherwise."

"We don't know how it'll work long term though," Laxus continued, acting more nonchalant than he felt. "The heating, for example. We've tested it for like an hour, but never for longer. What if it goes off in the night? It's getting colder, I don't wanna come back here and find a Freed shapes ice sculpture."

"The heating has been on since half two and it's not broken," Freed rebutted, looking at Laxus with confusion. "And there's a fireplace in the bedroom I could use if needs be."

"Okay, but what about the shower," Laxus suggested. "Bet you wash yer hair every morning, right? What if the shower just doesn't work and you look like crap, and that's how the town sees you for the first time? The crazy weird looking guy living in the haunted cottage."

"They have seen me many times," Freed deadpanned. "And it's not haunted."

"There's rumours."

"You started them," Freed exclaimed, though he was fighting a smile now. "What's the real reason you want to stay? And if you make up a hypothetical situation wherein the roof falls in on me and kills me, I will run you over."

"That's a bit of a disproportionate reaction," Laxus mumbled, a grin pulling at his lips.

"You're deflecting," Freed stated.

Laxus sighed. It was perhaps naïve to hope that Freed would just accept that Laxus was going to be staying the night without any questions, but there had been a chance that it would work out. But of course Freed wouldn't just allow Laxus to invade his home, and would have one or two questions about the situation. Which meant that they were going to have a conversation about emotions, something that neither man would particularly be good at.

"Bickslow talked to me while you were ordering food," Laxus confessed, almost laughing at the narrowing of Freed's eyes. "He just wanted me to make sure you ain't too down about not being in Era. So I just thought the best way to do that is actually being here."

"For goodness sake," Freed snapped, rising, and taking out his phone. "Why are they so insistent-"

"Would've done it anyway," Laxus interrupted, thankfully stopping Freed from scrolling to Bickslow's phone number.

"Why?" Freed asked, his tone a mix of anger and confusion.

"Because I care about ya, fuckwit," Laxus said, laughing slightly. "And this ain't some patronising shit where I think you're vulnerable, 'cause I don't. But moving away is a big deal, and you might have been… lost. I mean I remember when I moved to my college dorms and I felt sick not knowing what to do. Era's a lot further away than that place, and a lot more of a culture shift."

"I'm not a college kid, Laxus," Freed sighed, sitting down again. "I'm a grown man."

"Yeah, and one who ain't letting anybody help them," Laxus rebutted, crossing his arms. "You ain't less of a man, and you ain't less independent if you let people look out for ya. Something I'm pretty damn sure you already know."

Freed looked as though he was going to say something, but the stern expression on Laxus' face must have stopped him. He sighed and looked at the table.

"Before my mother died, people were intimidated by me," He began, his tone suggesting this was going to be somewhat confessional. "I was at the top of my field, and that garnered me respect. And then, somehow, it became common knowledge that my mother died, and suddenly the reputation I had changed. I was the person who lost their mother, and I got sympathy. People I didn't know started to treat me as though I would shatter if they said the wrong word. It was infuriating. No, it was degrading."

Laxus could understand that, to an extent. He remembered that, after his mother had died, all the teachers who used to yell at him, give him detention and hated him started to treat him differently. Now their after-class talks weren't about him hurling spit balls and starting fights, they were suddenly inviting him to talk if he needed it. It was a jarring change.

"It feels as though, suddenly who I am isn't important. People would rather I be the victim so they can look after me," Freed leant back in his chair. "I suppose I might be guilty of lashing out at people with the best intentions."

Laxus could understand that too.

"You're allowed to lash out, Freed," Laxus assured him. "And as for people not seeing who you are, you don't gotta worry about that with me. You're the guy who swindled me outta dropping your ass into ice water."

Freed laughed a little at that, and Laxus grinned.

"I'm gonna get you back for that, by the way," The blonde continued, smirking. "But what I'm trying to say is, there are gonna be people who wanna get close because they're patronising assholes who wanna make themselves feel better. And then there's people who care about ya and wanna make sure you're doing alright. You need to figure out who's who, and not push away the good people."

"I know," Freed admitted, voice soft. "And I know you're in the latter group."

"Ah, not really," Laxus laughed. "You wouldn't be so charitable if you knew some of the other ways I was gonna get you outta your funk if I had to."

"Like what?"

"I put a lot of thought into wondering how mad you'd be if I was waiting for you to get back and took the hosepipe to ya the second you were close enough," Laxus grinned.

"How on earth would that have helped my mood?"

"How could you have been all sad and crap if you were standing in the cold, dripping wet, shocked because you don't know why it's happening?" Laxus shrugged, then smirked at his friend's amused expression. "If you do start feeling down at some point I'd be more than happy to take you outside and see how well it works."

"And your obsession with getting me back has nothing to do with that plan?"

"Didn't even entre my mind," Laxus lied with a wide grin.

"You're incorrigible," Freed chuckled, almost to himself. He looked contemplative for a moment before speaking again. "You don't need to stay here, Laxus. I understand why you think you do, and I'm fully prepared to admit that over the last few weeks I haven't been the best version of myself, but I really am fine."

"I know you are," Laxus said with a nod.

And he did. Because, as he looked into Freed's eyes, he saw a level of honesty that Freed usually hid through sarcasm and a quick wit. Laxus thought that, although it was only a small sentence and barely an admission of him not being in the best place, this was Freed's equivalent to a long and heartfelt conversation. And while Laxus hoped that, at some point, he could get more out of Freed, he knew that this was a good step. And Freed wasn't going to lie about that.

The mood seemed to relax after that, and after finishing the remaining food from Fairy Tail's restaurant, Laxus confessed he was getting tired and – as Freed was an awful host who wouldn't allow his friends to stay with him, something which Freed laughed at – would the lawyer mind giving him a ride home.

Freed agreed, and they were outside Laxus' and Makarov's home within the hour.

"You were genuinely going to stay with me, weren't you?" Freed asked, just as Laxus was reaching for the car's door. The blonde stopped, looking to his friends with furrowed brows. Freed's voice was almost… wistful. "If I needed it, you were actually going to give up your night just to make sure that I'm okay. That's a very kind thing to do, Laxus."

"It ain't that kind," Laxus laughed, sitting back in the chair. "Just decent."

"We perhaps have different definitions of decent then," Freed smiled slightly. "I don't know if I can say I'd do the same. Admittedly that's because I refuse to sleep on anything other than a bed, which wouldn't have been available for you."

"I lugged the fucking thing into the house, I would have been in that bed whether you were there or not," Laxus laughed, talking again before he could process what he just said. "You'd have been there for me, even if you don't know it."

"You seem very sure of that," Freed sounded amused. "I'm afraid I'd disappoint you in that situation."

"I know you better than ya think, Freed," Laxus shrugged, opening the door to the car and beginning to climb out. "You're a good person, and a kind person. You're just a dick a lot of the time so it doesn't shine through."

Freed laughed at that.

"I suppose that's fair," He chuckled, leaning slightly so he could look at Laxus as he left the car. Laxus lingered with the door open, resting on it. "Thank you, though. Both for offering to be there and for what you said. It means a lot to me."

"Don't think too much of it," Laxus smiled. "I'm only getting closer to you so that my revenge is that much sweeter."

"I'm sure," Freed grinned. "Goodbye Laxus."

"Bye Freed."

Laxus closed the door, giving him a short wave through the window. As he did, he saw a soft smile of contentment flash across Freed's face, something that he no doubt wasn't meant to see. He looked serein, relaxed, and so beautiful.

In retrospect, that was the moment he fell in love with Freed.

#Fraxus Day 2020 #Fraxus Day #Fraxus #Freed Justine #Laxus Dreyar #Fairy Tail #Fanfic #Writing #Event #Multichapter #Word Count 4.3k #Fuckyeahfraxus

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dadzawa-adopt-dabi · 4 years

Text

secret baby ch11

Dabi never plans on actually using the number. He has no need to go and get involved with crime. Him and Kiyoko are doing fine with his small business, or they will be, eventually. He doesn't want to use his quirk at all, much less to harm anyone else. Besides being an excellent way to get Enji’s attention, it's painful for him to use. His body just isn’t meant for his quirk, that’s what happens when you try to mix fire and ice but Enji had just kept forcing him to use it and trying to make a perfect ‘legacy’. Kiyoko at 4 months hasn’t shown signs of having the same issues yet, something Dabi is beyond grateful for, along with the fact that she can’t fly yet.

He had been horrified at first. Horrified at the fact he could kill someone. If he hadn’t been so exhausted he would have had trouble sleeping for sure, as it was Dabi could barely keep his eyes open at the end of the day.

It had been a momentary decision and the man had been about to slap his girlfriend for leaving him. It doesn't take Dabi long as he thinks it should to stop thinking about the crime he commited. He worried at first that there might be something wrong with his emotional responses but one look at Kiyoko had fixed that,overwhelming him with limitless love for her. The world is down one more abusing asshole and Dabi may be okay with being the cause for it but he doesn't know if he can do that again, or whatever else someone who calls themselves ‘the broker’ can think up. The extra income that he and Kiyoko need is tempting, however the whole thing is sketchy as fuck so it’s not worth the risk.

He’s got Kiyoko to raise and villains don’t exactly have babysitting in their secret evil layers.

Kiyoko’s first feathers, the soft ones she was born with ,that were more fluff than actual feathers, are coming out and Kiyoko has taken to shaking her wings to watch the feathers fall while she gums on her fist. The small twitches Kiyoko can manage with her wings shake feathers out of her wings and she smiles up at him as they litter the floor of their apartment.

Dabi had been worried when they had started falling out but it had turned out to be just a molt. The baby feathers coming in had looked almost bloody and Dabi feared that Kiyoko had inherited a quirk disorder from him, a quirk that didn’t fit her, and would cause her nothing but pain. He had been plauged by thoughts of how stupid and useless him and Hawks had been. Fire and feathers didn’t mix what if she started burning up from the inside out or had wings that could never fly, they hadnt thought things through at all having sex without protection and expecting there not to be a consequence.

“I've got something better than your hand for you to eat. Come here.” Gently tugging Kiyoko’s fist out of her mouth and replacing it with a bottle. Dabi swayed with her while standing in the kitchen and typing furiously on his phone.

One of his clients was dropping him, due to an earring having disappeared. Dabi hadn’t even set foot in her house that day and had text messages from her detailing when he had been in and out of the house. The client didn’t believe him and said they had no idea when the earring went missing, Dabi had no idea how this client was even coming up with this.

What would someone even want only a single earring for? It's not like you could sell it, the bitch had probably just lost it and was blaming him because it was convenient. Still no matter whether she blamed him for her missing jewelry or not he needed to keep this client. Rent was due in a few days and he had been counting on her payment to make it, that wasn’t even thinking about utilities or his empty fridge. All that his cupboards have is a pitiful amount of rice, a nearly empty box of cereal and baby formula. The visit to Kiyoko’s doctor to look into her first molting had pushed him over his very thin budget and there just wasn’t a way for him to make it up this month. Backing out of the conversation for the moment Dabi hit the contact labeled ‘broker’ and held his breath as the phone dialed then rang.

“Hello, you’ve reached the broker, what can I do for you today?” an older man's voice drawls from the other end of the line.

“...” Dabi is already regretting this. What is he even going to do for this man? Is this going to be safe for him or Kiyoko? Dabi takes strength from Kiyoko’s chubby smile as he struggles to get his voice to work properly, or at all because it feels like someone stole his ability to make sound and his chest is so tight it hurts to breath.

“Hey, you okay? Do you need help or someone to come get you, sweetie?” The man's voice is suddenly very gentle. Although he calls Dabi sweetie it's so affectionate that it's obvious he’s not hitting on Dabi, the genuine concern bleeding through the phone.

“Um, I'm not going to make rent this month and- sorry- this is ridicu-” Dabi took a deep breath to steady himself. “Look, I was given this number after I murdered a man in a parking lot and told you could give me a job. Which i need. Can you help me? I'll do whatever you’ve got.” Kiyoko whimpers in discomfort with how tight he’s holding her to his chest.

“Take a breath, kid. Let's talk some limits first, find out what you are comfortable with before we start throwing words like ‘whatever or anything’ around, alright? I've got several options.” There’s some shuffling around on the other end. “I'm going to send this number a text with a place and time. Then you're going to send me your bank information or whatever so I can send you the payment, okay? There’s a starter wage and I'm just going to forward you a couple days worth of work so you can pay whatever shit landlord you've got. We can work out the details later.”

“I- thank you. Thank-” ‘The broker’ hangs up on Dabi’s sobbing thanks and seconds later a ping follows signifying he did indeed get a text. Dabi sends back his paypal with his fingers crossed. Kiyoko starts crying as well, not sure what she is upset about but upset all the same. When Dabi has both himself and Kiyoko calmed down and fed he checks his phone again and nearly starts sobbing all over again. Taking large hiccuping breaths as Kiyoko sleeps and he stares at the very generous amount forwarded to his paypal. He can afford rent and groceries, even some new toys for Kiyoko with this much. The babysitting cost will aberly put a dent in the amount sent and Dabi had been expecting babysitting to take almost all of it. The stress from the past few months leaves Dabi almost all at once and he sleeps better than he ever has. Whatever this costs him will be worth it, he can even pick how much he’s willing to dirty his hands and ‘the broker’ sounds kind. Fuck, he wishes he had called sooner but at least he’s called now, the other option isn’t one he wants to think about.

@ruelukas22 @i-like-to-shruggy @xxsnowchildxx

#omegaverse #omegadabi #alphakeigo #dabihawks #hotwings as dads #hotwings #secretbabyfic #thedarkonewrites #im so happy to be writing this #early peak

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ninzied · 6 years

Text

another kind of goodbye

for @carry-the-sky. happy birthday, my friend! have a little post-cancellation kastle fic.

It’s three months, give or take, when Frank lets himself think about her again. Really think about her. Not in the passing kind of way, where he’s walking down some street and sees a bouquet of gardenias, like the kind he’d almost gotten her instead of the roses that day. Or when he’s sipping on coffee, and Karen’s face flashes like a mirage at him across the cheap Formica table – blonde hair almost white under the shit diner lighting, but those eyes still so blue as she told him he would never lie to her.

So – okay, so he thinks about her. He thinks about her.

(He wonders if she—)

Frank eventually makes his way back to the city again, after. Another day, another job. Madani thinks he’s meant for something greater than this – than picking off these scum-of-the-earth kinds of assholes that litter the streets of a place like New York.

He can’t believe that he was meant for greater, but. Sometimes, he does wonder. If a part of him – whatever part of him that’s not still buried deep down in the ground with his family – was meant to come back here. To walk these streets and feel the pull of her, always, even when that’s all he can afford to feel.

He tells himself that has to be enough.

He’s been laying low, since his return. Coughed up some cash for a three-hundred-square-footer in Brooklyn, but he crosses the bridge to the city most days, maybe even finds his way to Hell’s Kitchen from time to time too. It’s risky, he knows. If Murdock catches wind of him, they’d be lucky to walk away from each other in one piece. And Karen…

There’d be a different kind of hell to pay, if Karen ever found out.

His phone gives a single buzz in his pocket as he’s hunkering his way down 47th, and he stops in his tracks, nearly colliding with an elderly woman in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Excuse me!” she says in a shrill voice, bag clutched tight to her chest.

“Apologies, ma’am,” he nods as she makes a show of putting as much distance between them as possible, and then he fishes his phone out, hesitating for one absurd moment before glancing down at the screen.

Back in town yet, Castle?

He barks out a laugh. Chrissakes, Madani.

His phone buzzes again.

I have a job for you, if you’re still interested.

“Still,” mutters Frank, with a scoffing shake of his head. He thinks he admires her perseverance, but Madani’s gotta know she’s only wasting her breath.

He cuts south down 10th, toward Lincoln Tunnel. It’s a brisk day, and the wind on his face feels sharper than usual, considering he hasn’t bled much there in a while. He jams his hands deeper into his pockets, ignoring the insistent drone of Madani’s follow-up call.

He’s got a date with a park bench on the wrong side of town, and if he closes his eyes, he can pretend it’s the same bridge overlooking the water, and when he opens them again Karen’ll be there, waiting for him.

…

His closest call comes with, of all people, the lawyer. Not Red – the other one. Franklin Nelson.

Frank’s emerging with coffee two storefronts down just as another door opens, and he’s cursing himself for not seeing the signs when out tumbles Nelson with his back turned, adjusting his tie against the wind.

“Foggy bear, wait!” someone else is laughing, and a blonde lady steps out to chase after him, slinging a purse over her shoulder and reaching with her other hand to link around his elbow.

“I told him this was gonna make me late for work,” grumbles Nelson, but without any heat to the words. “Dad’s surprise party isn’t until tomorrow, don’t know why this couldn’t have waited – oh, crap, I forgot I told Karen I’d pick up some coffee—”

Nelson’s about-facing sharply, girlfriend following closely behind. He doesn’t appear to notice Frank crouched down in a corner by the 7-Eleven, hood obscuring half his face as he trains his eyes on the ground by their feet. The girl unearths some coins from her bag as they pass, clinking them onto the lid of Frank’s coffee cup without seeming to hear his low mutter of thanks.

He’s leapt up the moment he hears the door latch shut, brushing the coins into his palm as he goes.

He leaves them with a guy camped out by the train stop, a dog lifting her head from their blankets to blink sleepy eyes up at Frank, and he walks away harder, takes the steps two at a time and wishes – God he wishes—

…

Another text from Madani.

He shuts his phone off. Goes back to retrieve it ten seconds later from the trash can that he’d dumped it in, wiping it down and scowling as her message pops up on the screen.

Castle – offer still stands, FYI.

“You should call her back,” advises a man huddled down by the newsstands next to him. His face is like leather, worn down and weathered with age, with living. “Apologize for whatever it is that you did, so you don’t end up out here like me.”

“Already there,” Frank tells him, turning the phone over and over in his hand. Madani’s message lights up again each time, flashing and flashing until he sees it like a burn through his retinas even when the phone’s no longer facing him.

“Damn. That’s a damn shame.” The guy shifts, scratching at a spot on his back. “Maybe shouldn’t’ve stayed away from her for so long.”

Frank shakes his head, uttering a short, incredulous laugh. “Well, maybe I got my reasons, yeah? You think about that?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think,” shrugs the guy. “Does she think they’re any good? These reasons of yours?”

Frank turns away, jaw working furiously.

“Yeah.” The guy shouldn’t have any right to sound as smug as he does, and yet. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

…

He’s got no place in coming here. He knows it. He knows it, but he thinks it was always meant to be this way, him circling back around to her, even after everything that he’s done to push her away. Maybe a part of him had never left. And the rest is just – there, hovering right at the edge of some sharp realization, that he could try to be whole again if he simply took that first step. And a part of Karen must at least sense that. It’s why she’d never really given up on him, before.

It doesn’t change how I feel about you.

Frank wonders if she’d forgive him this time. If he’d even want her to.

It wouldn’t be anything close to what he deserves, that’s for goddamn sure.

He gazes up at her fire escape, counts the number of steps it would take just to be able to reach that bottom rung from his vantage point across the street. Her shades are drawn, the lines of them blurred out in the dim orange light. On one corner of the windowsill, wedged up against the glass, there’s a small stack of books. On the other, a vase. From this angle, the shadows folded into the fabric of her curtains look almost like flower stems.

Frank squints, and the stems disappear.

…

There’s about a week in between, where he feels himself inching closer to something, each time he drops by her block. He never goes farther than the patch of sidewalk across from her building, but it’s getting harder not to just careen over the ledge.

More than anything, he wishes he knew, in those moments obscured in half-darkness, whether he’s come to look for that after she’d spoke of, or if he’s come to say goodbye.

Then, one day he spots flowers in her window, for the first time since—

(They’re pale white against the cream of her curtains, their stems dark slivers of green, and he imagines them pricking the pad of his thumb, drawing up a spot of blood.)

Frank takes a deep breath.

…

She doesn’t look surprised to see him when she opens the door, swinging it back two-thirds of the way before stopping. Her lips are pressed tightly together, like there’s too much to say, or maybe there’s things that she can’t, either way he can’t read her and he thinks she’s never terrified him more.

Frank drops his gaze, mouth moving soundlessly until the words grind their way out. “How’d you know I was here, Karen?”

He’s not sure what kind of answer he’s expecting. That Nelson had grown a real pair of eyes, or that Red had managed to ferret him out of his lurking somehow. Or maybe Karen really just hadn’t known at all, and those flowers were never for him.

What Karen says instead is, “Dinah and I grab a beer together, sometimes.”

“That right?” he asks, trying to lay out an image of this in his mind. It sits strangely there, stumping him for a moment, and some of his bewilderment must show on his face because Karen’s mouth almost turns up in a smile before flattening again.

She leans away from the doorjamb, waving her hand in a worn-looking gesture before letting it drop to her side. “Besides, you…haven’t exactly been subtle, in your haunting of Hell’s Kitchen.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, other than a gruff, “’S’what dead men do, Karen,” as she folds her arms and sighs at him.

“You sure you’re not just losing your touch, Frank?” She steps into the doorway, whether to move closer to him or to block him out of her apartment, he can’t tell. “Or was it because you wanted me to know but couldn’t tell me to my face?”

His eyes snap up to hers, twitching slightly under the sharp weight of her gaze. He shakes his head, wishing he could just ask her, What do you want from me, Karen? but they’re long past that now, and if he can’t find his own way to answer her, then.

God, he really doesn’t deserve this woman.

“I think I—” He shifts his body and tries again. “I think I needed to figure some things out. Karen. I was waiting 'til I felt like I was ready, and I don’t think I’ll ever be that.” But I’m here, he wants to say, but I’m here.

“Yeah.” Karen’s nodding, hair falling into her face, and she brushes it back, resting her chin in her palm for a moment. “I know that, Frank.” All of the fight in her seems to have ebbed slowly back, and he resists the urge to reach out and shake the storm back into motion, to make her understand she doesn’t get to let him off the hook so easy.

The look she gives him now is softer, but he knows. Fight’s not done. May never be done. And he knows this because he knows he’ll never stop fighting for her.

She’s stepped back into the door, letting it swing open further. She doesn’t invite him in, but she’s quirked an eyebrow up at him, biting her lip with another deep sigh and a shake of her head.

“You, uh.” Frank glances back and forth at their surroundings, doesn’t quite meet her eye. Tries to lighten his tone through the gruffness as he asks her, “So, you wanted to see me?”

Her voice is soft, forbearing, with a hint of gentle knowing behind it. “You didn’t?”

She’s holding back the clear start of a smile from him this time, and Frank. Christ. It’s taking everything in him not to step toward her, to—

Karen tilts her chin at him, the motion loosening another wave of blonde hair, and he can’t remember anymore why he was trying so hard to stand back from all this. He’s moving, swaying forward until she’s just an arm’s length away, and there’s something almost teasing about the way she relaxes her shoulder into the door as she watches him.

“You back to kill some people, Frank?”

He feels a corner of his mouth turn up. This girl. He licks his lips, lets out a quiet sort of laugh. “That was the plan, yeah.”

Karen gazes up at him, unblinking. “Have you?”

“I was—” Frank has to look away for a moment, finally turning back when he can. His eyes are steady, boring into hers, voice low and full with meaning. “I was. Working on it.”

Karen nods. Doesn’t speak for long seconds, and he measures them out in heartbeats, chest tightening hard enough it feels like it might break when she asks him, very carefully, “Still?”

Frank steps closer, close enough to feel the way her breath shakes with a small sigh, how her body moves away from the door to meet him.

His hand is inches from hers, but he doesn’t reach for her. Not yet.

She waits, gaze searching. He gives the barest shake of his head, and a single word, gravel-filled, a promise. “No.”

Something cracks open in her expression, and it means everything to him, her head ducking away as though she can’t have him looking too closely at the way she's biting back that smile of hers, and he thinks – he thinks he wants to make her do it again, and again, for as long as she will have him.

“Would you like to come in, Frank?”

He takes her hand in his this time, feeling the pull of her as he steps across the threshold, door shutting firmly behind them, and it feels like coming home.

#kastle #kastleff #kastle ff #kastlenetwork #kastledaily #happy belated birthday haley!!!!!!#sorry for the unpolishedness #i may go back and edit it up a bit later lol #but i wanted to have something for you because you've been so lovely and welcoming!#i can't thank you enough!

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i4z-0892-il · 6 years

Text

Monster House 3

Summary: Posing as Newlyweds Sam and Y/n set out to investigate what’s killing the visitors of a secluded Inn, and attempt to keep their working relationship professional.

Pairing: Sam x Reader

Word count: 6100 Oops, my keyboard slipped

Warnings: NSFW, 18+ Only, suggestive themes, language

A/N: TROPES.

Buy Sam’s Scent Here from @scentsfromthebunker (And damn does it smell goooooood)

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Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4

After following the main trail for nearly half a mile it was quickly decided that the most effective course of action would be to get off the path. Neither of you were exactly sure what you were looking for, but you could both agree that whatever it was you weren’t going to find it sitting like a silver platter on a main path. However, actually stepping off of it and wandering aimlessly through the dense forest surrounding you was another matter. There shouldn’t have been a reason to worry, after all you were in the company of Sam Winchester, one of the deadliest hunters alive. If anyone should have been worried it should be whatever you were hunting. Even still the chill that slid up your spine earlier never really faded away.

Realistically that unsettled feeling could have been a number of things. You were nervous. Even though you wanted to find the thing that was snatching bodies, you also really didn’t want to find the thing that was snatching bodies. The classic double-edged sword! If you find it you could stop it and kill it, or it could stop and kill you- always a gamble. And you did not like that shit at all. Dense wilderness also put you on edge, but that was from growing up in West Virginia where there was more forest than not, and from knowing exactly what was out there.

Certain parts of the wild should not be visited. Of that you were sure, beyond shadow of a doubt.

Since you could remember you were told to stay away from specific parts of the forests surrounding the tiny town tucked in the mountains where you grew up in. Everyone knew. No one talked about it, but everyone knew. The Wilderness to the North-West was home to something far older and more dangerous than any gun in that town.

There were rules everyone knew to abide by. And only the very stupid or very foolish chose not to listen.

Don’t go into the woods at night.

Never give out your real name- or anyone’s.

If you feel you’re being watched stay calm and get out without a fuss.

Take nothing from the forest because it will want it back.

When you see the fog, leave.

Don’t listen to the whispers, ignore the strange knockings.

Close the doors and windows, and don’t look outside.

If something is following you don’t ever turn around.

In your youth you were both stupid and foolish.

The rules your father tried to drill into your thick skull never stopped you from playing in the forbidden woods. When you were little you’d run through those trees like it was your own personal playground, it was magical and enchanted and it was all yours. Everywhere you stepped in those woods was warm and inviting, like a little bubble of safety all around you. You talked to the trees, and though they never talked back you felt loved and safe.

Until you got older. Sometimes it was inviting like it was when you were just a kid, other times it was warning you to stay away.

It was September and you were fifteen when it happened- when it turned on you. Walking home from school you cut through the trees. You knew that forest like the back of your hand and the idea of shaving nearly twenty minutes off of your walk was just a little too tempting. It was still warm, and everything was golden with that afternoon hue, just before the sun starts to set, and you weren’t afraid. You were just over half way home when the shift happened. That sudden change in the air that made you stop, body frozen on the spot. The air around you dropping to a temperature so cold you could see the puffs of air coming from your mouth. Everything darkened like the sun had disappeared, but dusk wasn’t for another two hours, and it seemed like the treetops had closed the holes in the canopy trapping you and claustrophobic.

Something felt wrong, terribly, terribly wrong.

Heeding the words of your father you forced your legs to move, to carry on your way. Don’t run, don’t panic, don’t be afraid. So you kept your head down, looked straight ahead, and kept going. It wasn’t long before you felt like you weren’t the only one in the woods. And up slithered that cold, creeping hand of fear gripping the back of your neck at the base of your skull, wrapping around your chest like a spider-web making your whole body vibrate in alarm. Your pace sped up as you tried to keep your breath from shaking; as you tried to keep the panic and dread that filled you from your head to your toes at bay.

The thudding of your heart all but stopped when you glanced up and realized you had no idea where you were. It was like you had run straight into a wall of Evergreen or the trees had uprooted themselves and moved just to throw you off. You knew those woods, there was no way you could have gotten lost on a path you had walked more than a thousand times.Yet there you were, standing somewhere that seemed foreign and hostile. Swallowing down the blooming anxiety stuck in your throat you willed yourself to keep moving remembering not to stay still for too long.

Thick rolling fog slid in along the sides of your vision appearing from nowhere and suddenly everywhere. It reached for you with wispy smoke-like tendrils threatening to snag your ankles if you weren’t quick enough. It whispered your name, your name which you had so ignorantly given in your youth. Your heart raced in your chest, blood pumping furiously with adrenaline. Lungs sucked in short, sharp shocks of air as you tried to remain calm to the best of your ability, but you were only holding on by a thread.

When you felt eyes on you it was your undoing. Overcome with dread and fright you took off as fast as your feet could carry you. And the wilderness did not like that. Tearing through the trees they tried to reach out with sharp branches snagging your clothes, and slicing fine lines in your face. But you didn’t slow down, you couldn’t slow down.

It was coming.

It was gaining on you.

The Thing in the Woods.

Your heavy backpack full of school books, binders and papers slowed you down. Without second thought you dropped the dead weight, praying to God or whatever was out there that you made it out alive.

The forest moved, uplifting a root and grabbing your foot taking you to the ground tearing holes in the knees of your jeans, scraping up your hands and splitting your cheek open on a rock beneath you. It didn’t give you pause though, in full flight or fight mode you scrambled to your feet kicking up a flurry of dead leaves as you did. The snapping of branches and footsteps behind you dropped your heart into the pit of your stomach, your nervous system short circuiting as every fiber of your being turned to stone.

Everything fell deathly silent, no rustling of leaves, no wind, no birds or insects. Just the sound of blood pumping in your ears and your ragged breath coming out in wisps of cold mist.

Every limb trembled, quaking with terror as you did what you could to swallow down your panic and turn your head in slow trepidation knowing you had broken nearly every cardinal rule. Dragging your eyes along the forest floor you turned them up and a silent scream caught in your throat.

“Hey, Earth to Y/n-” Sam said waving a hand in front of your face, snapping you from your trance. Like a deer in the headlights your attention was on him, he was looking at you curious and concerned. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” You answered shrugging off your discomfort. Shifting your weight from foot to foot, flustered under the scrutiny of his unsatisfied gaze, you turned your eyes anywhere but his face. Those damn hazel eyes would be the end of you, and you couldn’t stand him staring at you like he genuinely cared for too long. Only after you took a long look around did you realize that you had no idea where you were or for how long you’d been following behind Sam. You blamed it on the woods, they played tricks and you hadn’t been much of a hiker since your youth.

“So I think I saw a house or something just up ahead.” He continued, dropping the fact that you were so very obviously not good. That you hadn’t cracked a joke or made a comment you surely thought was witty for nearly fifteen minutes was clue enough but the spaced out, thousand yard stare plastered on your face sealed the deal. He wasn’t one to push, and you weren’t one to tell, you’d come around when and if you were ready. Even still it was a look he hadn’t seen before.

“Okay, lets go do a B and E.” You agreed with a clap before sweeping your arms to the side in a grand gesture. “After you good Sir.”

Sam scoffed and shook his head walking past you with an eye roll.

“You better be careful rolling them things that hard Sam.” You warned as you followed behind him. He turned his head, confusion creasing his brow. “You’re gonna roll ‘em so far into your head they’ll get stuck like that.”

That pulled a laugh from him, and those dimples you loved so much. You always liked to see him smile, and his laugh seemed to happen so rarely. So when he did it was like looking at the sun, radiant and warm, bringing life to all things.

He wasn’t kidding when he said he saw a house. Although “house” was a rather gracious term for what it was. It looked more like an old hunting cabin that had seen better days, held together by antique nails and the grace of god.

“Wow, this place is a dump.” You said stepping around him and into the small clearing to take in the sight fully, the fact that it was still standing on its own was impressive.

“Really? You don’t want to honeymoon here?” Sam asked as he dropped the strap of his backpack to his hand and knelt to unzip it. You stood with your hands at your hips studying the building that would surely crumble if someone looked at it the wrong way. After a short pause you turned your attention back to him.

“I thought about it, and no. I do not want to honeymoon here. As much fun as tetanus is- I think I’d rather not.” You stated. The corner of his lips pulled up as he grinned at you while extending a handful of silver bullets and a holster. He and Dean might have been content with tucking a loaded gun in the waistband of their jeans- but you were not. You knew how getting shot felt and you were not exactly the most graceful person on the planet either. The combination of the two was a recipe for disaster, and you were not trying to shoot yourself in the ass. It was a nice ass, you had full intention on keeping it that way. Strapping the holster around your thigh and snagging a silver blade from his small arsenal almost instantly made you feel better. Sam geared up and slung the bag over his shoulder again before standing and sweeping hair from his face.

“I don’t know. Clean it up a little, could be nice.”

“I somehow doubt that.”

“Yout sure? Hang some curtains over the boarded up windows there,” he said pointing to different areas on the house. “A porch swing there. And one of those little welcome mat’s that says ‘Leave’ at the door.”

Hand over your heart you turned charmed eyes up to him, sighing dreamily. “You’re right, it’s like a dream.”

“I knew you’d come around.”

“Oh, yeah Sam, let's build a summer home out of the cabin that’s at the epicenter of every single 80’s horror movie.” You snarked, nudging his arm with your elbow. “Maybe if we’re lucky a portal to hell will open in the basement on nights when the stars align.”

“You know that is exactly how lucky we are.” Sam stated with another laugh, and it cured your depression, acne, and alcoholism all at once.

“Alright, call the realtor. Make ‘em an offer they can’t refuse.”

From about a hundred feet back the place certainly looked abandoned enough. Boards covered nearly every window, most of which were missing entire panes of glass either broken in or fallen out. And it was in serious need of a new paint job, and probably an exterminator- there was no way termites hadn’t taken up residence. Thinking about bugs slowly eating away the foundation of an entire house might not have been the best way to calm your nerves, but it was a better alternative to what you were most assuredly going to find.

The heavy duty padlock and iron chain around the front door did nothing but confirm your suspicions. It was never as easy an explanation as say- a tool shed! No. It was never a fucking tool shed. It was always a house of horrors. Body parts stuffed into jars. Body parts sans the jars. Always body parts. You should have picked a better- less morbid profession.

“Think you can crack it?” You asked, obviously he could. It was dumb to even ask, but Sam gave pause to ponder anyway. He scanned the area, then back to the lock, weighing options.

“Maybe. You go left, I’ll go right, see if we can find a more subtle way in.” He answered finally. Nodding in agreement you walked along the wall looking for a point of access that wouldn’t be so obvious that someone had gone inside. Because that’s exactly what you needed, pick the lock, go in, monster-person-thing comes back to find the chain missing right off the front door. Good point Sam.

More boarded up windows, and fragile wall you might have been able to put a fist clean through if you were curious enough. And jesus fuck if you were not curious. Putting a hand on the wall you gave a little push, and there was enough give that it only granted credibility to your theory, and a little more excitement than maybe was healthy. But who didn’t want to just full on kick in a fucking wall? Crazy people. That’s who. Though that would have been arguably way less subtle than just cracking open the padlock. The argument being the cabin was falling apart anyway. The human foot sized hole would have been slightly more difficult to explain, so you tucked the urge away in the back of your mind. Begrudgingly.

Carrying on you reached a cellar door, and a set of tiny windows lining the bottom of the cabin, one of them was busted nearly completely open. Yahtzee. With a quick chirping whistle you drew Sam’s attention who rounded the corner of the house to meet you. A casual toss of your head to the side let his eyes trail to the window you were looking at.

“There’s no way I’ll fit in that, I’m way too big.” He commented without missing a beat. You snorted a laugh, biting the inside of your lips into a flat line, closing your eyes and shaking your head. How many times had he said that in his life? When you regained more control of your face and opened your eyes again he was looking at you with that perfected bitch-face, which while oh-so-judgy was still pretty damn hot. You shrugged, proclaiming your innocence.

“What? I didn’t say anything!”

He didn’t have to respond, it was clear as day what you were thinking. He moved to the cellar doors, like a normal thinking person and pulled to no avail.

“Guess it’s locked from the inside there Buckaroo.” You said peering over his shoulder, his eyes cut to you, there was that bitch-face again. With a huff he stood upright, you always liked standing close enough to him to really let his height sink in. Sam always made you feel so tiny and small, and little, like his huge frame could just swallow you whole. Not that you ever spent entirely too much time thinking about how easily he could crush you in his toned, muscular, perfectly sunkissed arms or anything. Or how he could lift you off your feet and over his head like you weighed absolutely nothing. Focus!

The cellar doors wouldn’t open which meant your plan was the most viable one on the table. And if Sam couldn’t fit through that little window it left one option. You were going to have to do it. A shudder of distaste and resentment snaked up your back. You were going to have to crawl through some busted ass window, in some creepy ass basement of a creepy ass cabin in the middle of some creepy ass woods. And god only knew what you might find inside- human jars, jars made from humans, blood paint. Eyeball soup. Buffalo Bill. Who the fuck knew. Suddenly your plan seemed a lot less fun than it did a minute ago.

“Okay, welp. Guess I’m going in.” You said shaking the jitters out of your body through your hands. Sam would never tell you that he enjoyed watching you screw your courage to the sticking place, but it was absolutely entertaining. You were kind of like a kid in a play getting ready to go deliver a monologue at the crux of the plot, who had stage fright and were bouncing up and down offstage with nervous energy. He had to hand it to you, you never backed down, and there was no denying he admired your bravery. In another life you probably would have been a Teacher or Optometrist, or some kind of niche artist. Definitely something softer, much less gritty and gory. Not that you couldn’t handle yourself, he had no doubts about you and your iron will. But if the life hadn’t found you and made the decision for you, he simply couldn’t see you as the dirt-under-the-fingernails, willingly-crawling-into-a-dingy-hole-towards-almost-certain-peril kind of gal. The sarcasm and your unabashed weirdness though? That would stay. No matter what life you wound up in, most assuredly, those two staples of you would remain. He wouldn’t have you any other way though, he loved your odd sense of humor, and eccentricities.

Crouching at the window you tilted your head at a near painful angle trying to get a better view of what you were getting yourself in to. Without asking Sam handed you a flashlight, tucking it into your hand unannounced bringing your eyes to scan him over quizzically.

“Where were you hiding that?” You certainly hadn’t seen it earlier.

“Backpack?”

“Boy scout.” You teased, because of course he would have packed for everything, he probably had a compass tucked away in there somewhere too. Sam rolled his eyes, a dimple creasing his cheek as he turned his attention back to the window.

No obvious dead bodies, so that was a plus. After shining the light around you set your mind in stone and handed it back to him so you could shimmy in through the narrow pane. There was a pretty steep drop from the window to the floor in the basement so you laid on your back, squeezing your head and shoulders through first, giving yourself a chance to grab a long wooden beam above you to hold onto for leverage, and so you didn’t drop like a rock to the floor. With a final huff you pulled the rest of your body through the open window, acutely aware of the sharp pieces of jagged glass that jabbed you with every movement. Don’t think about the spider web you just stuck your hand in. Or the other creepy crawlies lurking in the shadows just waiting to scurry over your fingers or up the leg of your jeans. And do not think about the inevitable squishing sound the floor is going to make when you step into a pile of human organs. Once in your dropped your hold and landed on your feet, kicking up a thousand years worth of dust as you did. With a hacking cough and a wave of your hand you brushed the dirt out of your face to little avail.

“Anything interesting?” Sam asked from the window, shining the flashlight directly in your eyes. Scrunching up your face you tried to block it with your hand.

“I don’t know Sam. I’m blind now, so it’s a little hard to tell.”

“Right.” He realized and reached an arm through the window handing off the light to you. Shining it around you were pleasantly surprised to find it more or less empty. Old dusty shelves lined the walls full of boxes, and tools. No mason jars full of eyeballs. Yet. Lighting up the doors to the cellar from your side you were relieved that it was just barricaded by a simple wooden beam.

Setting the light on a shelf, aiming it at the doors you went and freed the plank of wood from its slot. Sam pulled the doors open from the other side, and closed them silently behind him, taking a moment to replace the wooden board, ever careful to cover his tracks.

“Mind the dust.” You said, grabbing the flashlight from its perch. “Hey, Sam.” The second you gained his attention you flashed the beam of light in his face. “See anything?”

“Ha, ha. I get it.” He snarked snatching the torch from you hand as you stifled a giggle.

Following his lead you continued to search the basement, turning up bupkis. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a bunch of old shit that no one had probably used since the Inn was built. Save for the nice little stash of Moonshine tucked under one of the shelves.

“Yeehaw.” You said popping open the lid to the mason jar and taking a whiff, quickly turning into a sputtered cough as your eyes and throat immediately started to burn. “Good god, you could strip paint with this.”

“Yeah? Go ahead and try it, tell me what gasoline tastes like.” Sam replied with a chuckle.

“I’m not gonna drink it. You drink it.”

“No way.”

“I’ll give you five bucks if you drink it.” You insisted, there was that perfect bitch-face again.

“You’d don’t have five bucks.”

“Wow, rude. You don’t have to rub it in.” You said with a pout, screwing the lid back on the jar and tucking it back into it’s spot. Once the basement was clear you headed upstairs which was unsettling. Nothing but ratty old furnishings, more than apparent that a family had in fact lived there, but just up and left one day. Antique dolls on an old rickety shelf, children’s toys on the floor, deer heads mounted on the walls. There were still untouched plates sitting on the side table, and a book left open for place keeping. Easily the most alarming thing was the back corner which had a mess of iron chains and cuffs, and a few giant meat hooks hanging.

“Still wanna turn this place into a summer home?” He asked, the light glinting off the iron chains.

“Just remember my safeword.” You quipped, biting back a gag from the rancid smell coming from what you could only assume was at one point a kitchen. A large black mass situated in the center of the floor where the odor was coming from caught your attention, forming a pit in your stomach, and you grabbed Sam by the wrist directing the light to where you needed it.

A voice from outside distracted you from making out the shape in the floor, someone was outside. Sam cut out the light, which helped neither of you to figure out where to go from there. Hand on the grip of your gun at your thigh you waited for the inevitable stand-off as the chain on the outside of the front door rattled, lock falling away. Sam’s large hands covered your mouth and snaked around your waist as he pulled you backwards and into the crawl-space beneath the staircase. With a free hand you hooked your fingers around the frame of the slatted closet door and pulled it closed silently.

The storage area he pulled you into had to be the world’s tiniest storage space, if it were just you in there it might have been fine. But with Sam’s huge form crowding what little space was available it was awkward to say the least. The sharp incline of the stairs had his broad shoulders pressed against the flat of the ceiling, and the rest of him hunched over you practically bending you in half backwards. One hand pressed against the wall above your head, and legs at a crooked and unstable angle below you you were banking on him to keep you upright. With his arm tucked firmly at your back and his other arm outstretched to keep himself steady, hand flat against the wall behind your head it was all he could do to fit into the space with you. You were flexible enough, generally speaking, but you were not a contortionist and the Cirque du Soleil act he just crammed you into was… less than comfortable.

The front door opened and you could no longer lament about your tight quarters.

“No, I heard you.” Came a man’s voice, you tugged a finger on the slats of the door trying your damndest to sneak a peek through them, which was near impossible with Sam’s forearm against your jaw. Not that you minded so much, he was warm, and he smelled so nice it was distracting, like coffee, and vanilla, and cinnamon. He held you flush against him in a hard line down the length of his chest and abdomen, tucked between his solid thighs. Made you all tingly in the nether region, but there was no time for you to focus on his firm he was. Or the feel of his breath hot against your neck forming goosebumps on your skin. Or how the long strands of his hair tickled your cheek, and how you’d always wanted to know how soft it would feel knotted in your fingers. Or how hard your heart was pounding in your chest a little too excited to be so close to him.

“I said I heard you. It’ll be taken care of.” The Man said again, irritated. It was so dark in the cabin you couldn’t make out a thing, and you were trusting your instincts to tell you relatively where he was based on where his voice was coming from. “You just worry about your damn self, and let me do my fucking job. Or you can deal with it, but something tells me you don’t like getting your hands dirty...Yeah. That’s what I thought you’d say.”

Then there was silence, followed by a series of footsteps, heavy boots, going from the spot in the center of the room towards the kitchen. The sounds of rustling plastic, and a slow choppy drag of something weighty across the floor.

Your arm above your head was starting to cramp, and the way he had you bent backwards was already painful. Bracing yourself against the wall you twisted your body until your back was flush against his chest, careful to remain as silent as you could. Sam shifted to try to give you some room but, the poor man had nowhere to go. Under different circumstances he would not have minded your ass pressing against him in all the right places. But this was neither the time nor the place to get caught up in the scent of your shampoo, or the soft curves of your body moving against the hard lines of his. You shifted again, just trying to get a better view of what little there was to be seen through the slats in the door, but the friction of your movements was impossible to ignore. One large hand splayed out flat, low on your stomach between your hip bones keeping you still enough for him to keep his mind focused on anything other than the growing tension pooling in his core.

The feel of his hand sitting dangerously low over your jeans made heat bloom in your cheeks and elsewhere and at the moment you were grateful for the pitch black. The front door creaked open and the rustling plastic stopped long enough for it to shut again and be replaced by the sound of jingling chains and a padlock being reattached. Waiting until you were in the clear enough to make an exit from the tiny crawl-space was seemed to take forever, but at the same time it wasn’t like you were in much of a huge rush to move. After all you were a little more than content to stay exactly where you were. Sam let out a sigh, his forehead dropping to rest against the back of your neck, his warm breath sending a tingle down your spine.

“See anything?” His tone low and smooth, as if he was unbothered by the cramped quarters.

“Nothing.” There was no hiding your disappointment. The conversation you’d overheard was certainly of interest however. Pushing the door open you slipped out of the crawl-space. The drag of his long fingers over the bare skin peeking between the rise of your jeans and hem of your t-shirt sending sparks of electricity directly to your center. Sam stepped out behind you, having to adjust himself in his jeans, he could think more about the feel of holding you that close later, and he would be.

The flashlight clicked on and both of you moved directly to the kitchen which yielded- nothing.

Swatting your hands against your thighs in frustration you let out an irritated groan. The sink was backed up with blackwater, and the floor was mushy from water damage sourced from a hole in the ceiling. But there were no body parts. The lack thereof was starting to bother you, which was not a feeling you’d thought to anticipate. No one wanted to find human remains, but more than anything you just wanted to find some fucking human remains! Gank the bad guy, stop the killings, go home, take a hot bath and boom. You would be on your way to Netflix and sleep. But no! Of course it wasn’t that simple.

Upstairs was equally unfruitful. Although an unmade and dingy bed, along with some foul smelling clothes was more proof than needed that someone was living there still. Your money was on the guy you’d just heard downstairs.

The only problem left was how to get back out of the house without letting it be known they had been there. Someone would have to put the wooden board back in the cellar door-you. But you also weren’t quite tall enough to climb back through the window in the basement. There was, however, a wide open window in the bedroom, and Sam beat you to it.

“Ever thought about jumping out a window?”

“You read my mind.” You answered unenthusiastically. He pressed his forearm against the frame gauging just how far down the drop would be, deciding it was plenty safe. But you did not agree. “You’re kidding right?”

“It’s not that far.” He justified, but you were not having it. A twenty foot drop might not have seemed like much for him, but that extra foot he had on you made a hell of a difference. Not to mention the fact that he was a large wall of solid muscle, while you were small, soft and had squishy insides.

“Okay, sure- for you maybe, Gigantor. I jump down there I’m looking at a broken leg, or worse.”

“You’re not going to break your leg.” Sam reassured you, but the flat and unamused expression on your face was not something he’d be able to cut through that easily. A large hand slid along your jawline, warm and comforting. “I’ll catch you.”

You could have melted into a puddle on the spot. It really wouldn’t have taken anything more than a slight breeze to make your knees crumple beneath you. The genuine sweetness in his eyes made you forget how to breathe. Trying to get a handle on yourself, unless you drowned in those kaleidoscope eyes you scoffed. “Yeah right.”

“I promise.” He said, gaze intense and confident. Beyond shadow of a doubt you trusted him, you were sure you were also going to regret it, but you were about to find out.

“Okay.” You agreed, a little baffled that you were just going to jump out a window and trust him to break your fall. He turned to go out first, but you grabbed his arm, bringing his attention back to you, all nerves again. “Sam. You drop me and I swear once I’m out of the hospital you’re in for a world of hurt.”

Sam flashed you a dimpled smile and dropped out the window, landing on his feet, making it look easy. Of course, he always made it look easy. He was graceful and agile, like a cat. You on the other hand- not so much. You sucked in a breath and leaned out the window waiting for him to ready himself. It wasn’t the first window you’d jumped out of, not by a long shot. But any other time you were escaping with zero hesitation about what was on the other side, no time to think about it. Quick thinking jump, or die, so there was little room to question the best alternative. But you kind of just wanted to try to boost yourself through the window in the basement right about then.

“This is so stupid.” You hushed, rocking on your heels. He turned up to you, arms outstretched. Sucking in a breath you hoped you aimed right, and stepped out the window, slamming your eyes shut and bracing yourself for impact.

Impact came but it wasn’t you busting your ass on solid ground. Sam made good on his word and caught you, but you had a little thing called momentum and just kept going, practically tackling him to the floor below. He hit the dirt on his back, his arms wrapped firm around you. Eyes wide you sat up immediately, waiting for the inevitable ‘Oh god, I think you broke my rib!’ to come but he just laid out for a moment, and brought two thumbs up, head tipped back to catch the breath you surely knocked out of him.

“Hey, this was your idea.” You defended. He nodded with an exasperated grin, hands falling to rest high on your thighs where you straddled his waist. It didn’t take but a split second for you to relish the position you’d found yourself in, and took only another split second more for the wave of embarrassment to flood, as you scrambled to your feet. Not that you wouldn’t have minded staying perched on his hips a little longer, or much longer. But it was Sam, and you already shouldn’t have been thinking about him like that, and you were also a professional with a job to do, which meant you didn’t have time to wrap your brain in fantasies. No matter how mouth-wateringly tantalizing they were.

He took your outstretched hand to help him to his feet, and dusted off the foliage he picked up. When you turned away to look at your surroundings he took a moment to adjust himself once again. That was twice now he’d had you exactly where he’d wanted you, at exactly the wrong times.

Heavy fog began to roll in through the trees, and with it that sickening cold chill rolled up your spine, and you found yourself edging just a little closer to him.

“It’ll be dark soon. We should get back to the Inn.” You suggested, but it was more of a warning. The woods were telling you to get out, and you weren’t one to ignore the signs anymore.

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#sam x reader #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester fic #sam winchester fanfiction #sam winchester fanfic #sam fic #sam fanfic #sam fanfiction #monster house #jena writes

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incoherentbabblings · 5 years

Note

As someone who loves the timsteph relationship i hate what new 52 robbed us of. Tim had previously been a dick to Steph by telling her to never be a hero again and Steph had been a dick to Tim by faking her death and lying to him but they still obviously cared about each other and i feel like they would have gotten back together if new 52 hadnt happened

Oh for sure!

I’ve always been on the fence with their interactions when Steph came back because on the one hand it’s just plain bad writing in that, Steph had no reason to follow through on Batman’s bizarre plan to make Tim a better Robin. She had nothing to prove to Bruce since she’d survived being tortured for god know’s how long and still came back to help people once she’d healed. She even asks Bruce if she’s welcome back and Bruce affirms yes ‘if you want it’. And then she notices straight away that Tim is acting and behaving far more coldly and assigns herself her the mission of basically bringing joy back into his life.

So even though ‘she was hiding in Africa and lied to everyone about it’ there were ways round it where you could address it but also remember that the poor girl had been through a lot and I wouldn’t blame her for wanting to disappear. The fact that she realised she wouldn’t ever be able to stop helping people and she needed to go back to Gotham I feel is really important to her character and something her and Tim (and the batfam in general) have in common, like a chronic need to protect people. It’s an important part of her character which people tend to ignore for wanting to spite her dad or Bruce or any of the people who doubted her.

Tim’s behaviour is also really cold and annoying to read but I think it’s just showing that he was shutting down emotionally and just that he was terrified for Steph. I wish they’d more of a big deal of why Tim was a bit shifty around Bruce after War Games, after all Bruce didn’t let Stephanie and Tim talk to each other while she was Robin, he hid that Stephanie had been kidnapped as long as he could and he stopped Tim from being with her when she was dying (EVEN THOUGH she was asking after him. She was terrified he hated her and yes Bruce reassures her that Tim adores her always has always will she should have had a moment with Tim, to hear it from him. She just deserved better. Every part of those arcs. She deserved better). Bruce massively bungled how much the two were reliant on each other but dead dad and dead best friend meant she got lost in the shuffle and was just one of many dead loved ones. Which is bad writing and bad editorial for a character that was fridged to make Bruce and Tim sad. But we all know that.

Moving to when she came back, their conversation on the rooftop after Battle for the Cowl has Tim inform Steph that a) he’s leaving Gotham b) he wants her to stop wearing the costume because c) he’s scared for her and of her actions. So it’s pretty ‘this is us done for real’. And yet they are drawn doing this

Which is part of why they had such an interesting dynamic because their body language is always having them stand close together with lots of hand holding and face smushing. Which you normally don’t do with an ex or someone you don’t trust. One of the first posts I made about these two was showing how often they are drawn with their hands reaching out to the other during their batgirl and red robin run. It’s near constant in the batgirl issue and crops up a few times in red robin too.

Also all throughout his RR solo Tim’s gutted that he feels like he can’t trust her anymore until he grows up a little and is like yeah I was wrong actually she’s doing so well and meanwhile she’s doing her own thing trying to cement down why she can’t ever stop doing what she does and it’s not to spite her dad anymore and it’s not so she can maybe on the off chance run across Tim anymore. At the same time, I think Miller wrote during their crossover that Tim and Steph’s relationship is one which he describes as “comfort and familiarity” hence why Steph stopped them getting back together at that moment. She was in a transition stage in her life and needed to focus on grounding herself before she could ‘fall back in’ with Tim, and I think Tim understood that. Also he was dating Tam so he shouldn’t have tried it in the first place but Tim is forever dating Ariana/Zo/Tam/Cassie and then smooching Steph and realising oh no that one that one I like that one more and usually Steph is like lol ok sure I like you too.

By the end of their respective runs you have Steph in a very good place whereas Tim’s work at building himself back from the ground up is shaken in that final issue with him essentially trying to murder his father’s murderer, and Bruce’s response to his actions makes Tim sort of… shut down again, after everything he put himself through to convince others that Bruce wasn’t dead. Tim’s growth came mostly from re-connecting with Dick and Cass, Stephanie, and the Titans.

So I guess if I’d had my way what would have been the best way for these two to find their way back to each other would have been post Bat Inc when Steph gets back from England and Tim has a proper sit down with Bruce and Dick and is like ‘the past two years have been really hard and I think I’m getting there but need a bit more help’ and like… put himself together first. I kinda like to read Steph and Tim’s final interactions during their crossover as a sort of ‘wait for me a bit longer okay?’ line of thought. Steph doesn’t say ‘I’m not doing this with you anymore’, she says ‘This isn’t good for me right now’ which just goes to show how emotionally intelligent she is, especially regarding herself by the mid point of her batgirl run. Tim needed to work on his own crap first before they could meet halfway.

Anyway I really recommend Sorry I Bruced You by quipquipquip which is how I headcanon them growing back together. Steph did a lot of hard work looking at why and how she was going to be a hero after being physically and emotionally wrecked by her torture. Tim had started to do so but stumbled at the end of Red Robin, and I think he needed to do a bit more work on himself. Ultimately it wasn’t Stephanie’s job to make him a lighter person. It would have been nice for them reuniting to be a ‘look how far we’ve come apart and yet I still at the end of the day want to sit and talk with you on your mum’s old couch because you’re warm, safe, gentle and alive’.

But HEY thanks reboot for dropping all that and wiping Steph from existence and breaking Tim away from what made him that gentle boy in the first place. Don’t get me wrong I actually really love the way Tynion wrote them together but to like properly love it you have to read it with all of their pre-War Games interactions in mind which is an understandable but still not great cut off point. I’ve always wanted Tim and Stephanie to be the one couple of the batfam who just kind of do their own thing and live in their own bubble and get on with their own lives whilst the rest of the batfam romantic relationships are more than welcome to be full blown melodrama any given day of the week. And I think DC sees it that way? The number of hints in other universes where Tim pops up in the future tend to imply Steph is a presence too (Batman Beyond, Nightwing New Order, Tom King’s Batman Annual… the exception is the original Batman of Tomorrow Arcs, where Steph was dead and LOOK HOW THAT TURNED OUT FOR EVERYONE and in even in Tynion’s run where she isn’t dead in the future BatTim is like…haunted by her disapproval, she really is his anchor when given the chance to be) and this has gone on long enough look what you’ve done anon(!!!)

#anonymous #ask and i'll babble #timsteph #tim drake #stephanie brown #timsteph meta

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drchrismurray · 5 years

Text

|| I’m A Mess ||

who: Chris Murray and Dr. Marietta Winslow with mentions of Brittany Pierce, Santana Lopez, Sam Evans, Mercedes Jones and Noah Puckerman

when: Friday Morning

why: Chris has therapy

“Chris… Chris are you with me?” Chris blinked a few times, his mind completely elsewhere other than in the small room he was seated in. He looked around at the blank walls, painted what he could only assume was supposed to be a calming grey. It looked much like his own office where he met his clients. Comfy seats, walls that made his patients feel safe. And pictures of him and his family that made him relatable so his patients felt that they could talk to him. He knew the tricks were just that. Tricks. Which was why he was having such a hard time in this particular session. “What?” he finally replied. “I asked if you were okay,” Dr. Winslow leaned foward. “We started talking about your family and you sorta blanked out.” Christ adjusted in his seat and shrugged. “What do you want me to say Doc?” The older woman sighed and leaned back. “Chris… this isnt new for you. Not only do you do this for a living but we’ve been meeting each other for nearly two months and you’ve made progress but today it’s like you dont actually want to be here. So why are you here?” “Because I’m paying you $100 an hour,” he quipped, not earning a response from her. He sighed deeply and rubbed his now sweating hands on his pants before clearing his throat. “I’ve just been having a hard time.” “Chris,” she said again. “You were diagnosed with depression, something that millions of people deal with. And on top of that, your life hasnt exactly been a walk in the park. Your mother died when you were a child, and your father shipped you off to live with relatives when you were 16. You became a father at 17, and eventually married a woman who tried to kill your cousin. You have had more than a hard time…I just want to help you. Or we can sit here for the rest of the hour and not talk at all.” He tried to ignore the ripping in his chest and stared out the window. “Today was hard,” he started. “I didnt wanna get out of bed this morning. I felt pretty empty and I know you said these new meds would kick in soon but I feel like I’m drowning…. Last night I couldnt sleep and I just stared at Brittany… I just kept wondering why the hell she was with me.: “Why do you think she’s with you?” Dr. Winslow asked. “Do you want the real answer or what I tell myself?” “Both.” Chris swallowed and looked down at the ground, knowing that honesty was actually the best policy. He wasnt dumb, he knew that if he was going to be able to manage the storm that was his brain, he needed to lay all his shit bare. Even if it made him feel gross. “Most days I tell myself it’s because she loves me. Because she realized that she wanted to be with me. Other days I think it’s just because we have Ari. Because I’m convenient. Because... Puck isnt here.” He hated thinking it. That he was second best and that he didnt deserve to be with Brittany. Most days he was okay. Most days he knew he deserved to be happy. But those days were overshadowed by the days when he felt completely and utterly useless and unwanted. Dr. Winslow nodded. “Have you always felt like that?” “I dont know,” he shrugged. “Maybe? I always wondered what if we hadnt gotten pregnant? What if she’d had an abortion or if we just hadnt dated at all… would we be together right now?” “And?” “And… the answer scares me.” “Why?” “Because I knew that had we not had Ari. Had we not dated at all, I’d still have been with Santana and I would’ve married her…And she’d still be with Puck. He mightve still cheated but it wouldnt’ve been with Steph and maybe just maybe he’d still be alive.” “That’s a lot to put on yourself Chris. How does that make you feel?” “I dont know. I know that I love Brittany. So much. And I dont regret a single bit of our life together. And I want to be with her forever. But had she and Puck not broken up, she wouldnt have given me the time of day.” She nodded. “Does that make you feel insecure? Or unworthy?” Chris shrugged with a small nod.. “Look I know I’m good looking. I know I’m charming. I can turn it on whenever I want but the people who I fall in love with rarely love me back. Shawn was too deep in the closet to admit ever feeling anything for me. And Santana well I cant blame her because she barely loved herself when we dated as kids. And Stephanie was insane and cheated on me repeatedly. What makes me so sure Brittany is different?” “Is this why you have such a hard time thinking of marrying her?” Chris licked his lips and frowned. “Maybe? I wanna give her the world but marriage just sounds like something I never wanna do again. I mean everyone’s marriage has fallen apart. Charice and Dylan are divorced, Sam and Cedes never even made it down the aisle even though they’ve tried a combined number of three times. Why would I be the exception?” Dr. Winslow sighed softly and leaned forward. “Chris… I think when it comes to dating you’ve faced a lot of rejection. With Shawn, he rejected not only his sexuality but you as well. With Santana, she hid a lot of things from you and while I dont believe you were perfect, I think that’s added to your current mindset. With Stephanie, she cheated on you and then hurt someone you care about. I think it’s totally valid that you feel like marriage isnt something you want because you are yet to feel stable in any romantic relationship you’ve been in. But I think right now is a chance for you to try creating your own stability.” “How so?” he questioned. “Chris, have you told Brittany you’ve been meeting with me yet?” He started to shake his head. “Doc, I told you I cant. Look we’ve all been through so much shit the last year, I cant add this on. She’s already having a hard time with Cedes being gone and these new damn friends of hers that frankly suck. If I add depressed boyfriend to that, I dont know what she’ll do.” “Perhaps you arent giving her the chance to react. You’re basically taking her option away because you’re afraid she’ll reject you… maybe this even plays into the fact that you feel like you need to be the shoulder for everyone else. It’s a coping mechanism. You deal with other’s problems because maybe if they see you have a use for them they wont reject you much like your romantic partners and even your own family did as a youth.” Chris winced and clutched his chest due to the honesty in her words. “Ouch… Jesus Doc.” She shrugged a shoulder. “You dont pay me to lie to you,” she said. “Next week, I want to hear that you’ve not only told Brittany but that you’ve given her a chance to prove that you are in a stable, healthy relationship. One that wont end in rejection. Allow her to prove you wrong Chris.” Chris nodded, not wanting to do what she said but knowing that it would be helpful. “What if she proves me right?” he whispered. “Then you two made a beautiful little girl. And being with her taught you a lot. But she isnt the one you’re gonna end up with and that’s okay too. Stability starts in you first. Not in someone else.” Chris sighed loudly and rubbed the back of his head before standing. “Wow Doc, I feel like they need to pay you the big bucks.” “Aw Chris,” she grinned. “They already do. See you next week?” “Next week it is.”

#para: I'm A Mess

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larriefails · 5 years

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+ seasurfacefullofclouds*tumblr*com/post/183771544610/sea-sometimes-i-just-think-what-if-they-hadnt

I really shouldn’t be wasting my time addressing this mess, but I just… can’t help it. I’m gonna take the shortest possible break from studying to drag this. If I fail it’s your fault for sending this link and you’ll be the one explaining it to my mom!

“I think the boys lost a huge opportunity.”

None of the following text addresses how she starts it. What huge opportunity did they lose? If this is the first sentence you write on a long ass text, I at least expect an explanation s for why you said it. What opportunity?

“They were signed and worked as employees, initially, without creative or financial power.”

Yeah, no brainer, since they were 16/18 with zero musical experience other than performing at weddings and their high school musicals and were all from middle class families. Imagine if these guys had been given the creative reins of Up All Night

“It seems that Sony/ Syco had no confidence in their longterm potential as artists (whether individually or as a group), so the corporate tactic was to wring as much out of them as possible within the time frame of their contract.”

That’s a whole lot of assumption, what’s it based on? Why does it “seem” that way? What part of Syco’s strategy hinted at them not seeing long term potential? With boybands, labels tend to be more focused on the financial gain they can squeeze off them in the immediate, sure, but that doesn’t mean that they see no long term potential. In fact, I would argue that these corporate people would have to be terrible at their jobs for that to be the case. Name one boyband with even mild success, ever, that’s not still giving bucks, whether as a group or as individuals. One. Just one. New Kids On The Block? Westlife? Backtreet Boys? Justin Timberlake? Take That? The Jonas Brothers? Seriously… one. This is a ridiculous statement that isn’t backed up by reality. Of course most boybands have a shell life and their initial success fizzles out. Most of them won’t even bring a fraction of the cash 10 years in, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still money to be made. It’s not that Syco didn’t have confidence in their long term potential as artists, it’s that they knew that boybands are usually like fireworks, and they were right..

Current numbers for all their albums according to Wikipedia (because I cannot be bothered looking for music specific sources, send them if you want)

Up All Night 4,754,434 X

Take Me Home 4,966,424 X (UP!)

Midnight Memories 4,607,667 X (DOWN!)

Four 2,698,500 X (DOWN!)

Made In The AM 1,935,300 X (DOWN!)

They went from almost 5 million albums certified to under 2 million. Touring went from theaters with Up All Night, to arenas with Take Me Home, to stadiums with Where We Are, but by that point, it started to decline as well:

Where We Are total attendance 3,439,560 people in 69 shows, about 50K average X

On The Road Again total attendance 2,337,938people in 80 shows, less than 30K average X

Boyband audiences grow out of them and move on to different artists. A label squeezing all the money they can get out of the first few years is just the smart thing to do, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no money to be made afterwards or that there are no long term plans. This statement is simply idiotic, not surprising given who it comes from

“In the meantime, both Irving Azoff and Sony recognized Harry’s potential as the traditional boyband breakout star, as well as his relative youth, vulnerability and ambition. They knew he had the star quality, if motivated in the right way.”

I’m convinced she doesn’t reread what she types because here she contradicts her statement from before

It seems that Sony/ Syco had no confidence in their longterm potential as artists (whether individually or as a group)

and

In the meantime, both Irving Azoff and Sony recognized Harry’s potential as the traditional boyband breakout star

So which one is it, Sea? Did Sony not see individual potential or did they see it? You can’t use “in the meantime” for a sentence that contradicts the one that comes right before

Syco is owned by both Simon Cowell and Sony Music. If Sony saw potential, then so did Syco, because Syco is part of Sony

Also this had me cackling “as well as his relative youth” .. what was “relative” about Harry’s youth when he met Jeff Azoff? He was nineteen. That’s not “relative youth” that’s just youth. Otherwise you should be mummified, Sea. I’m not pointing this out for any other reason than the fact that she clearly tries to embellish her sentences with pompous adjectives without care for what they actually mean

“On the other hand, Louis had a differing view of what the band could accomplish within the framework of what they’d signed. He wanted the boys to learn about the creative aspects of music-making (songwriting, recording, performing, producing) as well as the business aspect. They all knew they were being used as money machines— but Louis wanted to look behind the machine.”

Don’t get me wrong, I adore Louis, but… what evidence is there of this? That he wanted to write more? That’s not what he said over and over. Louis explained that he didn’t feel he had a place in the band, that he felt like he wasn’t paying his due, so to speak, so he wanted to make himself important by writing. This whole “Louis was the brains of 1D” is nothing more than Larrie Lore. There’s absolutely nothing to back this up at all. This backstory to his songwriting isn’t backed up by Louis himself

And he only talked about songwriting, he never talked about producing, or recording, or performing. I just really wanna know why the real Louis isn’t enough and why they have to fabricate this entire new persona for him. He opens himself up and tells the world what his insecurities are and you just erase them and replace HIS STORY with your new version. For no reason other than because it suits your conspiracy better. It’s sick

“I’m sure they all independently wanted this, but as we learned from Savan’s interview, Louis was the instigator, and he was willing to make himself the bad guy in order to get what the band wanted, to stir up bad feelings.”

No, you completely stripped Savan Kotecha’s interview from context. Savan doesn’t say that they’ll never have any creative input. He specifically says “in the beginning” LINK to Savan’s podcast

“Yeah, I think, like, it was a lot in the very beginning. And I’ll take a lot of blame for some of the stuff in the very beginning. They were a manufactured boyband. That’s what it was. They weren’t all hustling musicians trying to make it. They were on a TV show and, and we purposefully, and I was open about that. Like ‘you’re gonna hate hate the music that you do in the beginning.’ Like, I was open about that. You’re 17, 18 year old boys, you’re not supposed to like what a boyband does.”

I’m not going to transcribe the whole podcast here, you should listen to it, it’s not that long. But basically, he explains that, because he met them during the X Factor days, it was harder for him to go from seeing them as those reality show kids to people that actually knew a thing or two about music. He says that he directed them to Julian Bunetta (who took over as the overall creative director of the albums) and that it was easier for Julian to work with them rather than being authoritative because Julian didn’t have that bias of meeting them so young and inexperienced

He admits he was wrong for seeing them that way because he thinks they’re all incredibly talented now and doing amazing things. What Sea here fails to point out is that for this same album that Savan talks about, he wrote with Harry, and he had this to say about it, in the same podcast that’s used as proof of the opposite

“So, with Harry, it was really interesting. Harry always, especially since album two, you really saw he’s a really fucking good writer. Like, we did a song together, like for the third album, the only thing we did for the third album, and the song “Happily” which I’m really proud of, and I think he is, as well. He was, it wasn’t like that thing, where like, writing down for the artist, he was like fucking great, like bringing ideas. So that was cool to see.”

So how does this go with Louis being the instigator? Savan doesn’t say that at all. He doesn’t imply that. What he plainly says is that he didn’t see Louis in that role

But I think, especially, with like one of the particular members, it was hard to see that person, and like take that person the way he wanted to be seen, and he became, like, the loudest voice of the group. And at that point, I just told the label, it became kind of like unhappy for me to feel like, ‘why’s he doing that?’

There’s a lot of projection and a lot of reading between the lines of this podcast. And this is used as fodder for a lot of the Lore in the conspiracy of Louis being sabotaged (it’s the basis of most Rads theories). Louis didn’t sacrifice himself like a lamb so the others could get creative input. Read the quote from Louis himself that I pasted before. Louis wanted to make himself important because he wasn’t getting many solos and he was insecure as to what his place in the band was. It’s not only stripping Louis away from his own words, but it’s also stripping all the other four from their artistic wants and needs. You think Niall, the Niall that scrapped a whole album and started from scratch didn’t want creative input? You think Zayn didn’t want it? You think Harry didn’t want it? Liam who wrote almost as many songs as Louis? Of course they wanted it, they just went about it differently. Louis has said several times that he has trouble holding his tongue, I think he’d be the first one to admit he probably could’ve handled things differently here. He has that personality, and as a fan, you don’t get to take that away and replace it with something that you find more palatable. You don’t get to make him Jesus, crucifying himself so the others can be free of sin. You don’t get to silence him when he admits to his own faults and takes ownership of his flaws. And you don’t get to change history

Savan’s mistake was not loosening the reins and for having a prejudice about Louis. And he admits to it. No part of this podcast and no quote from Louis indicates that Louis sacrificed himself for the creative input of the band. these are the facts

Savan had a hard time giving up control, true, but he was also willing to work with Harry

Savan had a (wrong) prejudice against Louis

Louis wanted more writing freedom because he (wrongly) believed that he wasn’t earning his keep in the band

All your other conclusions are nothing more than bullshitting from reading wrongly between the lines

And I’m gonna say something controversial.. they were still green in Midnight Memories. Look at this

That’s the aggregated score of the main music critics all over the world, it isn’t just one biased review. As fans, we love the album because we love the band and that’s that, but it was the worst received by critics. Five points difference with Up All Night, that is a lot by Metacritic standards. A steep decline of nine points from Take Me Home. I think Midnight Memories could’ve been better if they had more of a companionship when writing because most of its flaws come from poor lyrics, at least in my subjective opinion

“Louis thought the contract would end at some point, and then they could use what they had learned— the industry contacts they had made, their new knowledge— to either continue with 1D on their own terms, or to do whatever they wanted individually.”

Bullshit. What do you even say to contradict something that’s a complete fabrication? There’s not a shred of proof of any of this. Louis has never talked about any of this. No one else has ever talked about any of this. These words put together have no meaning other than them sounding cool in Sea’s head

“Challenging the industry’s endgame isn’t something that industry tolerates lightly.”

And see, this is where we completely lose track of reality. Savan was talking about them wanting to write more and divide the voices in tracks and that sort of stuff. Louis was talking about wanting more songwriting credits. Neither of them (nor anyone else) talked about contracts and beyond 1D and terms and challenging the industry’s endgame

This is why I went into so much detail and was so nitpicky on what Savan said and what Louis said, because Larries/rads take “Louis wanted to write more and Savan didn’t have faith in him so Louis cuss him out” to “Louis pushed the whole band and made them open their eyes to the malice of the industry and it’s because of that he had to be PUNISHED”

“Sony knows One Direction was lightning in a bottle. They’ve tried numerous times to duplicate the boyband formula, but have failed. No one else is One Direction.”

Bullshit. I mean, One Direction was unique, and many (all labels, not just Sony) have tried to replicate the boyband success since them and failed (I’d argue that BTS is not that far off, selling out Wembley and all that), but Sony has seen success in a lot of other artists from a lot of other genres since 1D, they’re not bleeding without it

“Instead, Sony’s best bet (if they were going to lose 1D) was to shift the lightning to Harry Styles, with the help of Irving Azoff— an industry titan. It seems foolproof.”

Another conspiracy. Irving and Sony came together to push Harry. Bullshit. Harry nearly signed with UMG just before signing with Columbia. He had a major offer from Apple that pushed Columbia’s offer to be higher. What would Sony gain from partnering with Irving and pushing Harry as a solo mega star when they weren’t guaranteed to have him sign with them? More so, Columbia’s CEO was another guy when Harry met Jeff. Sony’s CEO was a different guy. There were shifts all over their boards. A label doesn’t take one of their biggest current acts (One Direction in 2013) and risk their current profit, making moves they wouldn’t otherwise make, in order to potentially get profit four years down the line

What Sea is saying here is that Harry was pushed as the front man of 1D in 2013 in order to have him as the breakout for Sony later. That’s not a strategy anyone with a brain would agree on. One Direction was selling FIVE MILLION ALBUMS A YEAR. Why would they mess around with that just to get a breakout star that they had no idea they’d even sign in the future?

Was Harry the frontman? Yes. Was there a push for it from within? Sure. But that’s not how this works. You know who was the frontman when 1D was formed? Liam

Look at the amount of solo shots he has, even a shirtless one..

These snapshots were taken on the same day, October 6th 2010

Liam had 5 thousand more followers than Harry, that’s 30% more. The reason is that Liam had already auditioned for the X Factor in 2009, and he’d made it through until bootcamp, where he was eliminated. When he came back in 2010, he was already sort of known, especially for the X Factor audience. The X Factor pushed him as the face of the band because of that

THAT is how it works. They pushed a frontman because it was convenient for the band AS IT WAS HAPPENING, not in an unknown potential future. For whatever reason, Harry took more with the public, and because the people running the show (and the labels) aren’t stupid, they went with it. Harry became the center of more photoshoots, and he started sitting next to the host in talk shows, and stuff like that. In that sense he was “pushed” but not because of some weird “he’ll be the breakout star” conspiracy

This is what you sound like

Every single band has that one more popular member with fans. Every label pushes that member more to the forefront when they notice. This has the effect of making that member even more popular, and on the circle goes. It has nothing to do with “future breakout star” conspiracies

“And it still may be. The way that Louis’ personal life has been slowly degraded over time, with negative media coverage, their portrayal of him as a cussing, drinking, fighting, partying, dissolute has-been who pines for his glory days, is an image that even the fandom now believes. He’s required to constantly relive this image and bring up in interviews, the son he helped conceive in a moment of hard partying (whereas he’s been with Eleanor for seven years with 100% effective birth control).”

The fact that you believe you’re a fan of Louis’ is frankly, the worst insult you could hurl at him. We don’t see Louis like that, the world doesn’t see Louis like that. YOU may see him like that, but that’s where it ends. Niall cusses and drinks more than Louis. Liam parties more than Louis. I don’t think anyone particularly sees any of the 1D guys as beefers. No one sees him as a “has been” he’s twenty seven for fuck’s sake. He’s not pining for his glory days, he just liked being in One Direction

Who “in the fandom” believes that? And don’t bring up random haters because random haters believe Zayn is a meth addict and Liam is an idiot who can’t read. Random haters don’t represent “the fandom”, if you can even call 1D stans that anymore

What part of what you said is Louis “required to constantly relive” in interviews? What regurgitated version of his interviews did you consume? I could start guessing that you mean what he said during promo for Miss You about how he was partying to mask the pain of missing Eleanor, but that’s giving you too much credit, trying to decode the absolute bullshit that spouts off your fingers. Obviously that’s not what Louis said in Miss You promo, but I’m not even gonna try and guess, you decided already that Louis is being sabotaged, so you’re looking for it, and you’re gonna see it in the most innocuous of his interviews

“Sony couldn’t have done a better job if they tried. Harry, the star of their choosing, has fans rushing to defend him whenever the disparity in image and opportunity is even hinted at. Louies usually go quiet— because even pointing out this fact earns one the moniker of being a “Radical.””

All members have former 1D members have “fans rushing to defend” their faves when someone says one word seemingly negative about them. It’s called stan culture. You personally just receive more from Harries because he’s the only one you pick on, you absolute moron

And the words immediately after are proof of that “the disparity in image and opportunity is even hinted at” what disparity? There’s “disparity” among all of them, they all had different sets of opportunities because they have different goals and strategies. Harry’s goal wasn’t radio and chart single success, it was album and touring, so he and his team went for that (but you judged his success throuh radio and chart single success anyway, skewing his results, of course). Niall and Liam went for the former. Louis had an incredibly difficult time because his mother passed away right as he was starting his solo career, and he has the added difficulty of being the eldest of many siblings and having a child in a different country. Reducing his personal life issues as nothing but noise and pretending that Louis’ actual problems were, instead, artificially created by TPTB is incredibly demeaning for the strength of character Louis has shown and it pains me that he has “fans” like you

You’re called Radical because you believe in the conspiracy that Louis’ life has been manipulated and his opportunities cut short so Harry could have his chance. Aside from the fact that it’s an insulting thing to say because of all the reasons I described, how would it even make sense? Louis is Harry’s competition? If Louis is put down then Harry thrives? How? How does that work? Are they the only two people in the music industry? Is this Apple Music vs Spotify? If Irving and Sony quash Louis, Harry rises because he’s the only competitor left? Do you not think that if the music industry truly worked that way (putting one artist down to lift another up), which, let’s be very clear here it doesn’t and it never has, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles were both super successful at the same time… do you think that Louis would be Harry’s only rival to defeat? Or even just the other members of 1D? Where does that put fucking Ed Sheeran or Justin Bieber or Shawn Mendes or Charlie Puth or The Chainsmokers or Halsey or Ariana Grande or..

Harry, Louis, Niall, they’re white men. They’re not black women going into a business ruled by males. They’re not Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, having to dispute the entire audience for a black female rapper. White men make it in the industry all the time. The media will pit them against each other and so will fans because it’s fascinating to watch a rivalry, but more than one, two, three, ten, white males can make it at the same time. Go back to the Rolling Stones and Beatles example

“If there’s any doubt that Louis has been singled out, just look at who Simon Cowell keeps by his side, despite the fact that Louis was specifically mentioned by Savan as the pain in corporate’s ass.”

Back to this conspiracy. Savan didn’t “specifically mention” Louis as “a pain in corpirate’s ass”. Savan complained TO corporate that Louis was being a pain in HIS ass. His own specific ass. And “corporate” told Savan “kay then leave?”, then they hired someone else to do Savan’s job, and allowed Louis to write as much as his heart desired. How is this making any points for you? It’s actually the opposite! Yeah, Louis is Simon’s protege, which is a great position to have…??? And Louis has spoken plenty about how much he likes Simon??

“Who got to do America’s Got Talent? Who started an imprint under Syco?”

This is such a self drag. “Who got opportunities!!!” Uh, Louis..

“Who got Rusty Eslamifar and Simon Jones as a package?”

Louis hired them. His family is still close to Russell, and he still chooses Simon Jones, so.. another self drag

“Who had to do TXF for six months? Who sent out an email to fans about his girlfriend?”

Who has lots of siblings? Who has blue eyes? Who’s from Doncaster? Who doesn’t like avocado? Who - oh, sorry, I thought we were just naming random facts about Louis, yanno given the fact that none of what you’re describing is a problem for anyone other than fucking Larries

“Incidentally, the interaction between Simon and Louis on TXF was weird as hell, as were the interactions between Louis, Rob Stringer, and Simon at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. You could cut the strain with a knife, like two cats with the mouse they’re torturing while making it look like play.”

Are you like, okay? I mean, that’s a rhetorical question cuz I know you’re not but I mean… wow

“I think the band lost its chance when Sony executed its plan.”

Here you go back to the first sentence that you never explain, and you still… don’t explain it. What chance did they lose? They made five records that sold millions worldwide and they did two stadium tours. Zayn didn’t wanna continue, neither did Harry, so they stopped. Once again, I’m not even gonna try and guess what you’re implying here… Zayn leaving was a stunt? Harry wanting a break was Sony’s plan? God, who cares about anything you say? You’re a certified nutjob. You’re making conspiracies out of EVERYTHING. Why am I wasting my time?

“I don’t know what choice Harry had, but we are made to think that he’s hsppy with all of it. I think the way that his image rolled out shows us what they planned to do and what they promised him— with comparisons to The Beatles, Bowie, Prince, Freddie Mercury, Elvis— not lightweights lol.”

You’re doing that thing conspiracy theorists do where you act like what the media says about an artist or celebrity is all concocted by the “team”. Harry was not compared to any of those people by anyone in his team. That was the media

Like, this is my problem with everything Sea says, she just says it as if it’s a forgone conclusion but she doesn’t back any of it up with anything. She doesn’t elaborate her conspiracy theories, she just jumps to the conclusion as if it’s obvious, treats everyone that realizes how ridiculous what she’s saying is like an idiot (and patronizes anyone that dares question her thought process), but never actually explains why she’s reaching such conclusions

“The band lost its chance when Sony executed its plan” What chance? What plan? How did they execute it? You didn’t talk about any of that or define any of those terms in any part of the long ass text I just posted, and I would know because I’m reading it bit by bit. You vaguely said that Louis fought for more creative control (debunked), that Harry was pushed as the frontman so in the future he could be the breakout star (debunked), that Louis got punished (debunked), but you never connected any of those dots, so I’m left here having to debunk a theory that you didn’t present. I can debunk the individual dots that you presented, but since you don’t actually connect them I’m left scratching my head as to what you really mean, and I find myself in this position of saying “do you mean that…”

With this part in particular, I’m left asking myself, do you think Harry decided to leave 1D because he wanted to be compared to Bowie by NME magazine? Like, how… what?

“His sound is relatively unique in the market right now, and they are spending lots of money building Harry’s career, connecting him to Fleetwood Mac and so on.“

Because Niall’s sound is so mainstream, right? Because there’s no money being put into his or Liam’s careers, right? What’s “and so on”? What are they spending all this money you’re claiming on Harry’s career on? Are they bribing Fleetwood Mac? Did they buy him a spot inducting Stevie in the Hall Of Fame? Or maybe they bribed the Recording Academy to have Harry perform with them at Musicares last year (too bad they couldn’t use that money for an actual Grammy, I guess). You don’t ellaborate further, so what’s this “and so on”? Of course there’s money invested in Harry’s career.. That’s generally how it works. Labels put money upfront so the artists can get them more money back in return. How is Harry such an anomaly? What does Fleetwood Mac have to do with it? Gah, I hate you so much

“I think it’s complicated. Azoff and Stringer are people who hold all the power. I’m not sure if Harry turned them down, the boys would be any better off.”

If Harrry turned what down? Having a solo career? Because that’s what he has with “Azoff and Stringer”. So no, of course “the boys” wouldn’t be “better off” if he had turned a solo career down. His career has nothing to do with Liam or Niall Louis’. Once again, I’m here having to guess if I have to debunk something you didn’t (have the guts to) say

I have a feeling that in this long ass text, what you leave between the lines is that Harry was told “we’re gonna make you the breakout star” and he said “sure”. And something something 1D is over something something Louis is punished something something. But that’s impossible to debunk because you don’t present it. You don’t even say it in as many words, let alone explain how you think Sony pushed Harry to be the breakout star or how it affected 1D. You kind of just vaguely hint at a few things

Just so we’re clear, I could absolutely destroy every single one of those arguments if you presented them, it’s just that I can’t do that if you don’t even spell them out. And you don’t spell them out because this way you get to live in a limbo between Larrie and Rad, when you’re, in reality, just fully rad. As long as you don’t spell out your bullshit arguments, you can pass off as being a “critical Larrie” (which isn’t actually any better than being a rad in the real world non-conspiracists live in, but it’s slightly more popular in conspiracy land, and gets you less hate from your peers). If you spelled out these bullshit theories, you’d get a lot of hate from the cult you’re still a part of, so you just vaguely hint at them. You’re able to garner support from the Rad group (just look at the people reblogging this specific post), while not being subject of attacks from the Larrie group. I’d call you smart if I didn’t have evidence to your incredible lack of intelligence all spelled out in this very text

“TPTB are going to do what they want anyway— and find their next Harry Styles, or Shawn Mendes. It’s difficult. Trying to understand it, even if it threatens prevailing head canons and a happy ending, is valid— not radical. Being curious about the truth is the least one could do to speak up for Louis”

This conclusion has nothing to do with any part of this text. It is very, very radical to believe that Louis is being sabotaged in order for Harry to have a bigger career. You’re not curious about the truth, you’re absolutely twisting it to fit your conspiracies. And I can GUARANTEE YOU that Louis wants you far, far away from him and his music

#seasurfacefullofclouds #larrie fails

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misssophiachase · 6 years

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Set It Up – A kinda but not really Klaroline Fusion (like all my different fusions)

Caroline Forbes and Klaus Mikaeslon are working as assistants to the most demanding, rival NBA bosses in New York. From Macy’s to Madison Square Garden to the MGM Grand in Las Vegas can they stop bickering long enough to come together to make their lives easier?

All I do is Win

151 W 34th Street, New York, NY

"Before you say anything,” he offered, holding his hand up to silence her. “He actually tried to fire a mailman today.”

He being Mason Lockwood, the Brooklyn Nets owner. He was also notorious for being an arrogant, demanding bastard and then some.

“And?”

“Mailmen work for the U.S. government!"

“Oh boo hoo, I don’t care, Mikaelson,” she replied gruffly, equally not caring but also knowing it was true and his boss was an ass.

“Says the girl whose boss could give Cruella De Ville a run for her money.” He wasn’t wrong. New York Knicks boss Katherine Pierce was fierce, feisty and a real bitch at the best and worst of times.

“Exactly why I’m here to claim my blender that you have your grubby paws all over. I called earlier and put it on hold,” Caroline demanded, exhausted from the trek to Macy’s Department Store noticing he was already clutching it possessively.

She took a few seconds to admire that his thieving ass was sort of attractive in that fitted, grey suit even if he didn’t know his proper place.

Five days ago she didn’t even know him but Klaus Mikaelson had made both an immediate and lasting impression on her, and it wasn’t a good one. She had always welcomed competition but his good looks were kind of messing with her resolve.

Bastard.

She had no intention of letting him win.

Ever.

“But your name isn’t on it,” he shot back, refusing to relinquish her property.

“Now, that’s extremely mature,” she scowled. “If I don’t get this exact gift for the Warner wedding my boss is going to kill me.”

Yes, to some it was just your run-of-the-mill gadget that mixed ingredients together. But this wasn’t just any blender. This was the newest, state of the art Vitamix Blender that retailed at a jaw dropping $1198.

It also happened to be the last one left in Manhattan, Caroline knew given just how many stores she’d called in vain. She just hoped the Warners were grateful, if she managed to steal it from his greedy clutches of course.

“My boss will too given it’s a gift for his only sister’s birthday,” he shot back. “If you think I’m going to give up this blender without a fight you’re sorely mistaken.”

Okay, maybe she had forgotten in her haste to put it on hold, oops, but Klaus didn’t have to know that.

“Only because you got caught out breaking the rules because I already put this on hold,” she bluffed, refusing to let him win.

“Okay fine, what do you want?”

“I thought I made myself pretty clear, Mikaelson,” she growled, gesturing towards the blender.

“What else do you want besides this blender?”

They both held each other’s gaze for a full thirty seconds before each finally responded their resolve unflinching.

“Disney on Ice tickets. I hear that the Under the Sea Christmas Spectacular is a huge hit in your borough.” Brooklyn was most definitely a bad word she could never utter.

“Seriously? That’s really what you want?”

“Deathly,” she hit back, rolling her eyes as she did it. “Surely you would have some contacts, you know if you’re actually a good assistant.”

“Because I’m sure Katherine Pierce would love to watch a singing crab and one memory-less fish,” he scoffed.

“She may be the Ice Queen but she also has thirteen impossible and incessant nieces and nephews. And last time I checked all fish were memory-less.”

“Well, then you’ve never met my Marvin.” Caroline was trying to ignore just how adorable he looked defending his goldfish one dimple at a time. “Even so those tickets will cost me more than this blender.”

“Okay, so how about I sweeten the deal with some boxing tickets?”

“Not sure the local boxing round robin is his speed, love, so that’s a definite no.”

“Well, I suppose it’s your loss,” she drawled. “Hand over my blender then, Mikaelson.”

“You’re going to have to make me,” he replied jokingly.

“Real mature,” Caroline reiterated, surprising him and plucking it from his grasp. She couldn’t miss the way his hand felt brushing against hers as she did. “I hope I never have to see your smug ass again.” She stalked away, hips swaying in her wake.

“Until I have to explain the missing blender,” he called out in frustration by way of response.

“Because I’m sure a missing blender is going to be your biggest problem given you turned down Pacquiao vs Broner ringside seats in Vegas.”

She made a mental note in her head. Caroline Forbes 1 - Klaus Mikaelson 0. Suddenly her hellish life as an assistant wasn't so bad if he was suffering too.

4 Pennsylvania Plaza, New York, NY

Klaus Mikaelson was the type to hold grudges. It started when he was six years-old and his younger brother Kol stole his favourite toy and it had only grown stronger and more spiteful in the years afterward.

Caroline Forbes was going to pay. Mainly because his boss hadn’t let him forget how pathetic he was to lose the blender he wanted to ‘a girl’ as he emphasised in air quotes. Klaus was far from chauvinistic and his boss was obviously still living in the dark ages.

Caroline wasn’t just ‘a girl’ she was a pain in his ass and Klaus planned to bring her down and it didn’t hurt that it was her home game either.

Rivals the Knicks and Nets were squaring off at Madison Square Garden and he’d been plotting his revenge ever since their last meeting. Sure, she was kind of gorgeous with those blonde waves and crystal, blue eyes but she was also his devious competition. And she was unrelenting. He had to beat her at her own game and he’d found the perfect way to do it.

“Glutton for punishment hey?”

“Excuse me?” He shot back from their neighbouring, courtside seats. The pre-game arrangements were well underway. “Last time I checked the Nets and their staff have every right to be here, even if it is on enemy territory.”

“Unfortunately, yes,” she growled. “But it’s nice to know you are going down tonight.”

“Have you seen the ladder, Forbes?”

“You are one game ahead, after tonight that won’t be the case,” she scoffed. Klaus took a moment to peruse her outfit before arguing back. Even in her hideous blue and orange jersey she couldn’t help but look stunning. He decided to put it down to the fact her floral perfume was infiltrating his nostrils and messing with his composure.

“Wanna make a bet?”

“I’m pretty good at those but if you’re game.”

“Oh I’m game,” he smirked. “The Nets win you get me those ringside seats in Vegas. And by seats, I’m going to need eight.”

“Wow, someone is wishful thinking, but yeah sure, not that you’re going to win,” she scoffed. “I cannot wait to witness the annihilation, Mikaelson.”

Klaus didn’t even respond, just sent her a teasing glance and made his way to the changerooms to finalise everything. He had a good feeling that his team were going to take the win and Klaus would be on the way to Vegas for the big fight at the MGM Grand. His boss would forget that bloody blender ever existed.

“In your face, Forbes,” Klaus celebrated hours later as the Nets crowd at Madison Square Garden continued to chant well after the final buzzer. She was shocked to say the least, still cute in defeat but he’d never admit it aloud.

“This is all your fault,” she snarled. “You cheated.”

“Last time I checked I wasn’t on the court.”

“Yeah probably a good thing, you’d never actually keep up, lazy bones,” she snorted. “How about that whole surprise pre-game show where number one Nets fans Beyonce and Jay-Z just decided to belt out the Star Spangled Banner from their seats?”

“I had nothing to do with that,” he lied.

“You are the worst liar,” she huffed. “You know just how well it would be received and in turn boost team morale.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he bluffed. “The best team on the day won.”

“You are unbelievable,” she scowled. “Must really be desperate given just how much your job depends on it.”

“Is that what you say to make your situation better?” He shot back. “Didn’t think you’d stoop that low, oh hang on that whole blender situation was exactly that.”

“I guess I’m desperate,” she murmured, Klaus couldn’t miss the way her expression seemed so defeated all of a sudden. “My college loans are looming and I may have been a little dishonest under pressure because my boss wants to fire me all the time.”

“Story of my life too believe it or not,” he offered. “If only they could get on with their lives and not focus on every little thing that we do.”

“Hang on,” she murmured. “That might not be the worst idea you ever had, Mikaelson. How about we set them up together?”

“Mason and Katherine? That’s just a recipe for disaster. That much combined combustible energy cannot be safe.”

“Exactly why we have to do it,” she murmured, raising her eyebrows.

“So, I suppose I’ll see you in Vegas then?”

“If you’re lucky,” she chuckled, but given her tone Klaus knew she’d be there no matter what.

MGM Grand, 3799 S Las Vegas Blvd Las Vegas, NV

“Okay, I sent the fruit basket to her room.”

“Aren’t you a romantic,” she drawled teasingly, barely looking up from her magazine on the bed as he entered. Klaus Mikaelson was the last person she expected to organise that. As much as she was attracted to him, Caroline was seeing no similar interests besides setting up their bosses.

“Please don’t ever call me that. But, last time I checked you’d done absolutely nothing,” Klaus shot back. “And I won the last bet and everything. Time to show you care, Forbes.”

“Like sending an identical one hour massage voucher to both his and her rooms for the same time in the hotel spa?”

“I suppose that’s okay,” he mumbled.

“Why do I get the impression that you don’t like ideas coming from anyone but yourself?”

“Well...”

“It must be all that ego,” she groaned.

“You really do hate me,” he asked incredulously, it was unusual for any female to think badly of him let alone abuse him incessantly.

“For the most part.”

“Wow, aren’t you sweet,” he drawled. “So what are we supposed to do to pass the time?”

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Caroline shot back. “How about something more intellectual?”

“Wow. Finally something we have in common,” he smirked triumphantly, as she produced a chess board.

“I happened to be chess champion five years running in High School.”

“Well, don’t want all those potential but ignorant suitors knowing that fact,” he chuckled, sending a stray dimple her way. Caroline tried to pretend that it didn’t affect her but everything inside was telling her that it did.

And she was scared of the foreign feelings it had caused.

But in true Caroline fashion she decided to push it aside so she could beat him at chess then deal with the consequences that were threatening to derail her feelings later. She didn’t get that chance though. In fact she was in a more vulnerable position than expected.

“Check Mate,” he murmured, sweeping his queen across the board to take her king.

She was stunned at first mainly because she never lost. Ever. But he seemed to know her and rather than unsettling her it was weirdly okay.

Bastard.

“We have a boxing match to get to,” she responded mechanically. His hand grabbed hers immediately, the warmth spreading through her body. “Need to keep an eye on our bosses after all.”

“Or we could do something else?” He offered, squeezing her hand affectionately. “My siblings are in town tonight but I’m going to warn you they are...”

“Nick’s Fans?” She asked. “I’ve certainly experienced them and worse.”

“You have no idea, in fact I think they’d be perfect company for Katherine and Mason.”

“Why do I get the feeling you don’t care if you lose your job right now?”

“Well, if you knew my brother Kol and his big mouth,” he teased. “But if you’d rather...”

“No, I’m starting to really like your brother Kol.”

“Well. then you’re really going to like my sister Rebekah,” he chuckled. “How about we explore Vegas some more? See what fun we can get up to?”

“I suppose it can’t hurt, right?” Caroline replied.

Famous last words.

#set it up #fusion #klaroline #klaroline drabbles #misssophiachase #crossover #all i do is win #hope you like it

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sasuhinasno1fan · 6 years

Text

Interesting flight

And here it is, the end of Klance AU Month. I actually did it, I did a story for every day, well except day 10 but I've done a whole series on YouTuber, I think I was allowed to skip an AU I knew I wasn't good at. A big thanks to @monthlyklance for moding this event of sorts and being very nice as I sent them link after link of my fics because tumblr wouldn't show my stories in the tag search. Don't know if I'll do this again, maybe when I know time won't be taken up by classes. Wasn't my best fic I think but it's been a long day. Free Day (Single Parent AU)

“Are we going to see granny?” Sylvio asked, watching his uncle feed his little sister.

“Yeah, are you excited?” Lance asked, pulling the empty bottle away from Nadia’s mouth and then handing it to the young boy.

“Yeah, I can’t wait to spend my birthday with them. Uncle Lance?”

“Hmm, what’s wrong?”

“Can we go see mommy and papi?”

Lance’s smile faded a little. Sylvio’s parents, his own older brother and sister-in-law, died in a car crash. Lance had been babysitting his niece and nephew, being the only family member living in L.A like Marco, while everyone was in Florida. He’d just put the kids to sleep, wondering where his brother even was when he got a call. Everything had changed in that night. Being the only one of age that was in the area, Lance had gone from an uncle who was going to start working at the local kindergarten to being a stand in parent. It was hard, having to readjust, having to explain to his nephew that his parents weren’t coming back, to try and calm his niece who’d cry for her parents’ way of calming her. Sylvio had finally understood that his uncle was going to take care of him and his sister from then on, he seemed to grow up. He was only 4, Lance hated that he felt like he should be the one help take care of Nadia when all he should be concerned with was living as a 4 year old. Lance had sent the ashes of Marco and his wife Lisa to Florida to live with his parents after he’d find Sylvio staring at the urn for hours.

“Sure buddy. You need to tell them about all you’ve been up to.”

“We’re about to start boarding for Flight 239 from Los Angles to Florida. Please look at your ticket for your boarding group number. We’d like to invite our first class flyers and membership flyers to start boarding.”

“Grab our tickets buddy.” Lance instructed as he fitted Nadia into the front carrier, feeling her little breaths against his chest. “What number we got?”

“1!” Sylvio called, showing off the tickets to his uncle.

“That’s right. You hold on tight to that ok? I’ll hold our bag alright?”

“We now invite group 1 to board.”

“That’s us! Let’s go Uncle Lance.” Sylvio said, jumping from his seat and running to the line. Lance smiled apologetically to the people who’d been cut off by Sylvio. The flight attendants smiled down at Sylvio as they took the tickets and scanned them before pointing then in the right direction.

“Whoa, buddy, not so fast.” Lance said as Sylvio ran down the corridor to the plane.

“Hello little one.” The flight attendant at the entrance said, helping Sylvio onto the plane. “What’s your name?”

“Sylvio. That’s my sister Nadia and my Uncle Lance.”

“Is it your first time on a plane?”

“Yeah! I’m going to see my granny.”

“Oh, well when you go see her, you’ll have to show her this.” The flight attendant pulled out a pin of wings and attached it to Sylvio’s shirt.

“Uncle Lance, look!”

“Looking good buddy. Can you ask her where our seat is?”

“Oh, where are we sitting?” Sylvio asked, letting the flight attendant look at the ticket.

“You’re number 12 B which means you’re on the left. Do you know where your left hand is?”

“Yes!” he relied holding up his left hand.

“Let’s go buddy. Thank you.”

Using his left hand, Sylvio counted the chairs they passed slowly, Lance reminding him which numbers came next. They reached their seats and Lance had Sylvio climb into the seat by the window when he realised he had a problem. Nadia was still on his chest and he had to lift the carry on suitcase into the overhead bin. He could take her off and lay her down in the seats, but he could feel her start to squirm and he didn’t trust Sylvio to keep her still.

“Do you need help?” Lance looked to see the person standing behind him. he only had a backpack on, his sweatshirt drowning him.

“Um, if you could? I don’t want to risk hitting her.”

“Of course, back up a bit.” Like the suitcase weighed nothing, he picked it up and slid it into the overhead bin. Once it was set, he gestured for Lance to sit down. He waited for Lance the sit in his seat next to Sylvio before pulling his bag off and sitting next to him.

Their seat was the one right after the last first class seat so in no time, Sylvio climbed off his seat and sat on the floor. Lance didn’t say anything as it would still be some time until he had to sit his nephew down again and focused on making sure Nadia’s baby bag, that also held his laptop and tablet he’d given to Sylvio for the trip was under his seat. He didn’t want to have to shove it in the overhead bin. He saw that their aisle mate was the same, shoving his bookbag under his seat.

“Excuse me,” one of the flight attendants asked, “we have basinets if you want one for your daughter?”

“Niece and thank you.” Lance said, patting Nadia as she started to whine a little.

“You probably have time to feed her before we take off.” Their aisle mate said.

Lance looked over at him. he’d stripped his sweatshirt, not bothering to fix his shirt, which even its mess showed his fit figure. He also noticed how long his hair was. It was past his shoulders and looked really soft. He hoped Nadia didn’t spot it. Lisa had long hair so Nadia was used to long hair being near her when she was being held.

“She already ate. Thankfully she got hungry before we had to board.”

The guy looked down at Sylvio who was looking under the seats. “You having fun down there?”

“Uh huh!”

He let out a small laugh, smiling at Sylvio. Thank god, he seemed to like kids. “Cute kid.”

“It’s in his genes. We McClains are adorable.”

“I’m sure.”

Everyone was seated and Lance had coaxed Sylvio up to his seat for take-off. Their aisle mate offered him gum to help with the pressure build-up, letting Sylvio take an extra one. Nadia had dozed off and Lance hoped she’d stay like that for a while. Sylvio’s eyes were glued to the open window as the plane went down the runway and started to pick up speed.

“We’re going fast!”

“Keep chewing buddy, it’ll help your ears.” Lance said.

Soon the plane tipped up and they took off. Sylvio’s chewing slowed as he watched the world below the plane grow smaller. Lance glanced down as Nadia’s face scrunched up. He gently shushed her, hoping she stayed asleep. As they got higher though, she moved around more and woke up crying. Lance groaned in his head. Crying baby and they weren’t allowed to move around yet, just his luck.

Sylvio, thank god, turned away from the window and started asking his sister what was wrong. Usually it would calm her down slightly but Lance guessed the pressure was hurting her too much for her to pay attention to her brother.

“Is it the pressure bothering her?” His aisle mate asked.

“Yeah, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine, really. I know people get annoyed by it but babies can’t really control these things.”

Lance was extremely grateful of the understanding man. Finally the seatbelt sign turned off and Lance blocked out what the head flight attendant was saying as he undid his seatbelt and was let out by the still slightly ruffled man. “Sylvio, stay here ok?”

“Ok.”

Lance tried to ignore the looks he got as Nadia continued to cry. He hadn’t gotten the chance to grab her pacifier though he doubted she’d keep it in her mouth. He gently shushed her, bouncing as he tried to calm her down. Thankfully her cries lessened but she still whined loudly.

“Shh, shh, you’re ok.” He whispered when he saw the same man coming towards him. he moved away from the bathroom thinking he was heading there.

“Your, um, nephew, asked me check on you?”

“Sylvio yeah. He knows he can’t do it himself. You don’t have to.”

“I don’t mind. What’s her name?”

“Nadia.”

“Nadia.” He called, standing next to Lance. “Nadia.”

Hearing a new voice, Nadia tired looking for it, her whining quieting some.

“Do you want to try holding her?”

“If it’s ok.”

“Sure. Help me?” he asked, pointing to the buckle on his back.

It was unclipped and Lance slipped the handles off, keeping Nadia close to him. he let the other man take her, easily taking her into his arms.

“You’re pretty good.”

“My brother has a kid, I volunteered at their day-care.”

Nadia’s whining stopped as she stared up at the new face. She blinked and reached out her hand.

“Wait, Nadia, no!” Lance said as she gripped his hair, holding it firm in her grip. Her gaze was completely fixed on the long black strands in her fist. “I am so sorry. She has a thing with hair, she doesn’t let – no don’t put it in your mouth! Oh god, Nadia.”

“It’s ok. I mean there are worse ways to spend a flight. I never did introduce myself, I’m Keith.” He said, his hand pulling Nadia’s fist away from her mouth.

“Lance, hi. Um, she’s not going to let go.”

“It’s ok, I don’t mind holding her. Besides, you still have your nephew to worry about.”

“Um, right. Thanks.” Lance pulled off the carrier entirely and lead them back to there seats where Sylvio stared at his sister in Keith’s arms.

“She liked his hair?”

“You know your sister. Do you want your tablet?”

“Yes please.”

“How old is he?” Keith asked letting Nadia stand on his lap so he wouldn’t risk her pulling out his hair.

“4.”

“He talks a lot for a 4 year old.”

“Another gene of McClains, we don’t have an off switch.” Lance said, opening the armrest to pull out the try for Sylvio, letting him navigate the tablet on his own. “So you volunteer at your um?”

“Nephew. I picked him up one day and was asked to stick around to help with something and the next thing I knew, I kept going back. I work in security so kids except my nephew I never thought were my forte. Turns out I’m not bad with them.”

“I can tell. I work at a kindergarten and I don’t think I’ve managed to calm a fussy kid down the quickly.”

“I guess you’d be good with kids. You got Sylvio very worried about you.”

Lance gained a pain smile on his face, “it for a different reason. Their parents died a while back. I went from babysitting uncle to new dad in a night.” Looking over at Sylvio who focused on the tablet. “Sylvio had to understand that so young. When I dropped him off to school on the first day back, he wouldn’t stop crying for hours and of course seeing her brother cry made Nadia sad.”

“That must have been a lot.”

Lance nodded. “It was. Parenting is terrifying enough. It’s hard but a smile from either of these two makes it feel worth it.”

“I know they must apr-Ow!” Keith was cut off when Nadia pulled on his hair.

“No Nadia.” Lance said, pulling her fist open, even though she whined. Keith sat her on his lap and gave her his hand to play with. “Again, really sorry.” He said, pushing Keith’s hair off his shoulders.

“Here’s that bassinet.” The flight attendant came and attached the carrier onto the wall in front of them, pressing down on it to make sure it was stable. “Let’s give your boyfriend’s lap a break.

“Oh, uh, he’s not my boyfriend.” Lance corrected, feeling his cheeks getting hot.

“What’s a boyfriend?” Sylvio asked, Lance frowning at him.

“Now you pull your attention from the tablet. Don’t worry about that silly.”

“Sorry, it’s just she seems so comfortable on his lap and he seemed so nice to you as you were boarding. My apologies. We’ll start the drink service soon.”

“Thank you.” Once the flight attendant left, Lance turned to Keith. “I honestly feel like all I’m doing is apologizing.”

Keith lifted Nadia off his lap and placed her in the basinet, watching her look around. “It’s ok. I can certainly say this is one of the most interesting flights I’ve been on.”

#klance au month #lance adopted sylvio and nadia

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idreamofwolves · 6 years

Text

Old Times -Part One

Summary: Negan stumbles upon a familiar face from life before the end of the world.

Pairing: Negan (The Walking Dead) x OC

The dead walk the earth, the living survive on nothing but fuel in the form of safe houses and scraps of food they find or hunt. It wasn’t the way Emily ever thought things would be, or anyone for that matter, but there she was, hiding out in some old, abandoned cottage in the middle of the woods. She thought this would be her safe place, somewhere she could feel comfortable sleeping without the fear of being eaten by walkers in her sleep. She was wrong.

Emily had woken in the middle of the night to the sound of pounding on her front door that she’d hardly reinforced given her false sense of safety. That was mistake number one. Mistake number two came when fear started to override rational thought. Instead of running for weapons when the door cracked open, she attempted to hide herself in a small closet.

As the dead drug their feet in, they became frantic, or as frantic as the dead could be, in search for the living flesh they smelled and craved. Her hands shook and tears ran down her face. “This is it. This is how it’s going to end.” She thought, feeling more hopeless than ever.

Just when she had given up all hope, she heard something that would change the course of her awful night. The croaking sounds of walkers dying tang through the cottage, making her perk up and wonder what on earth was going on out there.

When the sounds of smashing and crushing finally came to a close, foot steps could be heard around the area. It seemed like only one person, but Emily couldn’t imagine a scenario where one person could kill so many walkers. And although it was against her better judgement, she slowly and quietly crawled out of the closet. She gasped as she was quickly met with the rotting face in hers. She threw herself into her back and took in the bloody scene around her.

Just as she started to get overwhelmed, a figure in the doorway took her attention. “Ho-ly shit!” The man exclaimed, oddly amused somehow. A barbed wire covered bat was sling over his shoulder, dripping with blood. He seemed unfazed by this. “We got a live one.”

“You did this?” She asked, not sure what she was more horrified by, the graveyard around her or the man above her that caused it without a flinch.

“Yeah and saved your ass in doing so.” He chuckled as he rest back on his heel. “What’s your name, doll?” The room was dark and she couldn’t see much, but she recognized that voice from somewhere.

“Emily.” She answered without thought, his demeanor and authoritative stance made her feel afraid, but he’d just saved her life. She couldn’t be anything less than grateful. “Thank you, for this.”

“Emily.. Have we met?” She was taken aback by the question, but upon really looking at him, she realized he was right. They’d met before, long before the outbreak.

“Negan?” She answered, trying to hold back a smile. She stood up and brushed herself off quickly before going back to the conversation. “You’re alive? What are you doing here?” She hurried to him and hugged him out of a rush of relief and joy.

“I could ask you the same thing.” He hugged her back, almost dropping his beloved bar in the process. His smile was still there, but it wasn’t the normal, cocky grin he often wore. He was shocked to find someone from his old life, relieved even. It suddenly made him miss the old days.

They’d met long before the outbreak, looking at her was like looking into the past, into a place he dearly missed when he let himself think about it.

He pulled away from him to look him in the eyes. He looked almost just as he did the last time he saw her, except maybe more muscular now. “I haven’t seen you since..” she trailed off, remembering exactly when she saw him last but didn’t want to say.

“Since the bar.” He finished, and in the back of both of their minds they remembered their first and last meetings.

Negan’s wife, Lucille, was harsh and demanding and every part of him felt his marriage had failed. They fought so often that he barely knew what it was like to laugh with a woman anymore, until he met Emily. He’d often go to the bar to get out for a while and let things cool off at home. That’s where he met her.

She was shy and new to bar tending, she wasn’t cut out for it but she was pretty and men tipped well. It wasn’t what she really wanted to do in life, but it paid the bills.

It was a slow night when Emily came into work. It was the last shift, and a short one at that. She was ready to go home as soon as she came, until she noticed the tired looking man at the end of the bar. A few others lingered as they sipped their drinks, but it was him she was interested in. “Hey.” She smiled as she gained his attention. “You okay?”

“Doin’ great doll.” It seemed like he’d actually meant to sound more honest, but it came out sarcastic. “Mind filling this up?” He slid his glass over to her, and motioned toward the nearby bottle of whiskey.

She lowly watched him as she poured the whiskey. She slid his glass back and checked on the other bar dwellers. After a few moments of contemplation, she went back to him. “Want to talk about it?” She pried, making him chuckle.

“That obvious, huh?” He rubbed his eyes with his hand and took a deep breath. “Think I’m here for the same reason most of these lonely, alcoholic bastards are here for. Angry wife.”

“Ooh. That bad, huh?” She rested her elbows on the bar and sipped on her soda. “By the look on your face, I’m guessing it’s one of two things. This is your first big fight with a wife you’re crazy in love with, which I’m going to doubt since I’ve seen you here once or twice, or this is becoming so common that you don’t know what to do anymore. Am I close?” She found it easy to talk with him, despite her normal reserved nature.

“Spot on, sweetheart.” He chuckled and sipped his drink, looking confident but deep down she knew he was feeling down.

“It’s Emily.” She smiled and lightly tapped her name tag. She got a smile out of him, which was really all she wanted.

“Negan.”

From that moment on, they bonded over broken relationships and their off sense of humor. It was an unexpected friendship laced with some kind of flirtatious nature, as time went on.

Negan quickly became attached to Emily, as he was able to use her as therapist and friend. She reminded him how to laugh, and she helped him forget about the rest of the world outside of the bar. And although the friendship was innocent enough, he knew himself enough to know he had feelings for her.

Emily, on the other hand, was incredibly oblivious to Negan’s flirting. She saw it as a joke most of the time, just friends kidding around, even if it did make her heart beat out of her chest. He wasn’t someone she ever imagined she’d want to be with, but she couldn’t help but imagine it at times. She found safety in him, as he was always there to ward off the seemingly sexual predators that frequented the bar now and then who always wanted more than a drink from her. She found solace in him, knowing she could vent if she needed to and ask for his opinion. He was honest and caring, something rare, she thought.

The last time Negan saw Emily, he knew it would be the last. The news of Lucille’s cancer made things hard for him, and he knew he couldn’t keep seeing this girl anymore. As much as it hurt him, he knew he had to let her go.

He walked into the bar, his composure slightly different than normal. His confident stride and cocky smirk had completely vanished. “Hey you.” Emily greeted him as he took his normal seat. He mumbles out some sort of greeting, but it was incomprehensible. “What’s up buttercup? Bad day?” She asked, thinking he and Lucille must have gotten into some kind of major fight.

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Definitely a bad day.”

Emily frowned, she hated seeing him upset. “Whiskey kind of day, huh?” She poured him a drink but he put his hand out to stop her.

“Look sweetheart, I’m not staying today. I just wanted to drop in and give ya this.” He dropped a folder note down on the bar for her to read. He didn’t have the courage to tell her what he desperately needed to say, especially knowing it wouldn’t get him anywhere anyway.

Emily picked up the letter and looked him in his sad eyes, somehow knowing she wouldn’t see him again. “What’s this?” She asked, not really wanting to open it.

He sighed and looked away for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. “Read it later, okay? Lucille’s got cancer so I won’t be around much anymore. Just thought I’d say ‘bye’ to my favorite bar tender.” He tried to make it light, but this didn’t feel good for him, it felt like a break up.

“Oh. I’m so sorry to hear that.” She nodded, squeezing the paper in her hand. “Well I hope I see you around some time, Negan.” She forced a smile, even though no part of her felt like smiling.

“Me too, princess.” He walked out, feeling more broken than he ever had. It was hard, knowing she was about to find out what he’d been feeling, and not being able to do anything about it. Not to mention the guilt he started to feel about having feelings for another woman while he was married.

It was tough on the both of them, but they never saw each other again. Not before the outbreak, that is.

“Yeah. The bar.” She said, slowly. She didn’t want to remember that night, but she still had his note. She carried it with her the moment she’d been forced to flee her home, knowing it was all she had left of him and the old life she’d lived.

“I’m real sorry about that Em.” He started, but she didn’t want him to finish.

“How’s Lucille? Is she-“

“Dead.” He said, abruptly. “She died while all the shit started hitting the fan. Turned into one of them.” He shrugged, feeling a little defeated. He hadn’t really talked about it before, but he knew he could trust her.

“Oh. I’m so sorry.” She hadn’t expected that answer, somehow.

“Don’t be. I’m glad she didn’t have to deal with this shit show.” He motioned around them, and she knew where he was coming from. Part of her wished she never had to deal with it too, but the other option scared her more.

“Right.” She nodded and looked out the window. She felt nervous, never did she think this opportunity would come. Honestly she figured he was dead. “So what are you doing here? On the run?”

“Never.” He said, confidently. “I run a place called The Sanctuary. It’s an old compound we fenced in. We take in everyone we can, make deals with other communities, you know.”

“Thats sounds amazing. I’ve been on my own since this started. Somehow I’m still not any good at fighting these things.” She laughed, knowing her weaknesses.

“How the hell have you been living in this without fighting?” He asked, semi amused but mostly worried.

“I just go from house to house. I board everything up and live on the food and stuff there until it runs out, then I venture off to a new home.” She wasn’t proud of the way she’d been living, and honestly she had very little contact with anyone since the beginning. It was amazing to her not only seeing someone, but seeing someone she knew.

“Come on, come to The Sanctuary with me. We got food and hot water, even beer.” The offer was enough without the luxuries he’d mentioned. She realized she still had feelings for him, and she wondered if he still felt the way he said he did in the letter. There was only one way for her to find out.

“I’d love to, thank you.”

#negan #twd #the walking dead #twd negan #negans thirst squad #negan fic #negan x oc #the sanctuary

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qethnehzul · 6 years

Text

The Softest Snow

[4233 Words. Version w/Dovahzul can be found on Ao3

Krosis makes a last stand for the remains of his followers, and reminisces on the things past.

Characters: Krosis, Gruthrathlir

Warnings: Character Death, Violence]

The crying of babies was quieter today. While normally Krosis would be relieved, it was a bad sign. There were fewer now, and the realization made his chest grow tighter with each passing day. They couldn’t keep this up.

Krosis trudged through the snow, staff clenched tightly in one hand and the strap of a bag in the other. Around him shuffled the remains of his loyal - men, woman, and children who had followed him in hopes of sanctuary. Somewhere. Anywhere. The Dragon War had taken their homes from them, and the lives of many of their family and friends. The cold, the exposure, starvation… and the hunters took many, many more in the following years.

Who was even left anymore?

Krosis’s eyes wearily scanned their surroundings. They had managed to wander back around to familiar territory, somewhere within the Pale. Mountains stretched up on either side, which thankfully blocked the worst of the winds… for now. A thick forest of pine trees lined the northern front, but for now they avoided it. The forest was dark, dangerous, and hard to navigate. And on top of that, it was a place that Gruthrathlir couldn’t follow.

Their patron dragon darted in and out of the clouds above, his shadow often the only sign that he had yet to abandon them. Every now and then, people dared to glance up, praying to catch just a glimpse of their guardian above. If it hadn’t been for him… many weren’t sure if they would still be there.

Krosis adjusted the bag, feeling an ache in his bones. They’d been walking for weeks now, from dawn to dusk, from one point to another. They had already been chased out of their own home and had fled west in hopes of finding safety - but it hadn’t lasted long. Soon, they were being chased back east, and more and more of their numbers thinned. Each dawn brought a new death toll, and people wept as the bodies of loved ones were left in the snow, unable to be given a proper burial. It made Krosis’s heart ache. He could do nothing for his people - nothing but continuing to herd them to an unknown fate.

He hadn’t heard from any of the other priests in months. The last person he’d reached contact with was Volsung, when they’d been in her old territory - but where she was, how she was doing, and if she was still alive was beyond him. Those who remained clung to every last available threads.

So many were gone. The temple. The dragons. His people. His friends.

Krosis let out a heavy exhale, the condensation seeping through the mouth of his mask. And still, they were hunted. Hounded. Chased. His people had gone from thousands to less than 200 - a feeble stretch of worn and tired faithful trying to walk through the knee-deep snow to the mountain pass ahead. And then what? To where? To what life? A life of hiding? A life of running? He, Krosis, a high-ranking priest of the temple, was walking beside them carrying his own bag. Years ago, when things had been okay, nobody would have believed that. Krosis may not have been as full of himself as his peers, but this… was unheard of. He had been a king. Gruthrathlir had been a god.

And now they were vermin to be exterminated.

Things would never be the same again. The other priests… he would never see them again either. He knew for certain that most of them were dead already. Who was left? Who were the ones he’d at least heard from in the past year or so? Volsung, Rahgot, Vokun, Klo and Zaan. They were still alive, at least a year ago. 6 of them total. And at one point, there had been 25 of them.

Krosis’s face turned bitter behind his mask. Before that day. Before he betrayed them.

The thought still made what little bile his body could manage boil up in the back of his throat. Miraak… his Miraak…

No, not his Miraak. He had not been his Miraak in decades. He’d left that all behind - Or at least, he wanted to think he had. But ultimately, wasn’t this all his fault? All his cause? The rebellion? The dragon’s downfall? Miraak had sparked all of it, when he’d gone and gotten himself tangled up with the Woodland Man and sought to enslave their gods.

What would he have thought, if he could see what he’d done?

Krosis scoffed quietly.

Nothing, no doubt. He stopped caring, as far as Krosis could tell. After all, what was the last thing he’d said to him?

Krosis could remember.

Two… no… maybe even three decades of being together. Of visiting in secret, of planning meetings to see one another, of dodging danger just for a moment to embrace-

And then suddenly, it began to stop. Miraak had changed. The man he knew so deeply, loved so deeply, was not the same anymore. He was paranoid, distant, detached. Faithless. Those meetings, their letters, the long nights - they slowly petered out. The letters felt empty. Embracing him felt like holding a corpse. Miraak stopped visiting him, holding himself up in Solstheim. His letters grew shorter, less interested.

Dukaan, Ahzidal, and Zahkriisos. They were Miraak’s close companions. He remembered that, he saw that. They were the only ones he talked to now. Even at meetings, Miraak pretended like he wasn’t there. After decades of just dancing around interactions until they were in private, Miraak wouldn’t even acknowledge him - in public or in private. And Zahkriisos…

The thought always made his stomach churn. The way she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, talked to him, postured around him…

And did Miraak stop it? No. Never once.

‘Miraak? Do you wish to be with Zahkriisos instead? I have… seen how she acts around you. If I am no longer of interest to you, please tell me.’

That letter had pained him to write. Every stroke of the brush made him feel like it was being carved into his very skin.

‘Zahkriisos? No. I am not. I do not care for her.’

That was it. He hadn’t even answered the second part of the question. He was avoiding it. There was never any answer about what was becoming of them. They, they, just stopped being a thing. Stopped, without any word on the matter. Not why. Not when.

One day, something had happened. And Miraak was not Miraak anymore.

Almost three decades had suddenly stopped meaning anything. Plans, ideas, habits, all of that meant nothing one day.

Krosis had pushed it off, waiting, hoping, praying for any answer, any change. Of course, it never came. He just watched Miraak grow more and more distance. The letters just became shorter and more inconsistent. Empty. Hollow. Pointless. They stopped being about things that mattered, things they cared for, things about their plans. Pointless drabble. Filler just to keep the letters flowing, if only just.

No matter how many times he’d tried to write it, each time brought tears to his face. He could not stop them from warping the paper and splattering the ink. He’d rewritten it over and over again, but each time the result was the same. Why wouldn’t it be? Two and a half decades. And this was how it was going to end.

‘To my dearest Miraak,

This is the last letter I will be sending you. I understand that, for whatever reasons, you have grown tired of me. I do not know what it is that I have done wrong, but I see you show no interest in continuing this. In us. And I cannot bear this any longer.

I wish this could have ended differently. But I wish you luck. In whatever it is you are focused on now.

Farewell, Miraak. Perhaps your future will bring you more happiness then I had.

-Nonvul’

When his hawk returned, there was a scroll of paper attached. It was small, and it took Krosis all his courage to take it and unroll it. And for what?

Just a stamp. Miraak’s stamp. Nothing more. A acknowledgement that he’d received the message.

Two and a half decades.

Krosis remembered holding the paper in his hands. He remembered how badly his hands had shaken, just looking down at the simple symbol stamped onto the page in patchy black ink.

Two and a half decades, and all Miraak had said in ending it was a single stamp.

Krosis had thrown it into the fire. The tiny paper couldn’t even finish shriveling away to ash before Krosis broke down again.

Krosis. Your name is Krosis. You are Krosis.

Nonvul was stripped away from him. Noble. Honorable.

What a sick joke.

‘We have decided, in reflection of the past few years, that it would be proper to reevaluate that in which you are named.’

Krosis.

Not Nonvul.

In the ashes and wake of everything Miraak had done, it was one more insult. One more bitter, painful reminder.

Maybe before everything, others would have disagreed. But they had agreed. Oh, Krosis remembered. They had bitterly agreed. Miraak, Ahzidal, Dukaan, Zahkriisos. They had betrayed them, no matter how close. No mistakes like that would be made again.

There would be no more friendships. No more risks.

Krosis.

Sorrow. Unfortunate. Apologies.

The words stuck to the back of his throat.

He was Krosis.

Sorrow. Krosis’s tired eyes lifted from his thoughts. His people were ragged and thin. They were dying. He herded them forward to a long, slow, hopeless death. He knew that. He and Gruthrathlir had talked about it in length, as they looked down on the ever-shrinking camps of followers. There were few places to go. Many had already fled. Many had already accepted their fates. Krosis had fought to believe that there would be some hope, somewhere, for his people. Now he knew that there would be no such thing.

And in the depths of winter, he could see the end. Each day they marched closer to it. Would it be kinder, to ask the people to lay down and accept death? Was it cruel to promise them hope of salvation and sanctuary, when he knew it did not exist any longer?

Volsung was holding out. She had not disclosed where she and her followers had wound up, and Krosis would not ask her about it. It was too risky. If any message was intercepted, he could put Volsung and her people in danger.

They were a vermin that needed to be exterminated.

Miraak had started a rebellion against the dragons and their worshippers.

Miraak was going to kill him, one way or another.

“Sonaak Krosis!”

Krosis lifted his gaze again, squinting through the snow that drifted downward. A ragged man, panting, exhausted, managed to stumble through the snow towards the dragon priest. People watched him fearfully, women pulling children closer and people exchanging soft chitter of worry.

“Yes? Is something wrong?” Krosis spoke, his voice cracking after so much silence and so little water.

The man stopped just before Krosis, shaking badly as he panted. “They’re just behind us. They’re catching up. A-at least fifty, if not… if not more. Armed. All armed,” the man said, his voice almost sounding hysteric.

Krosis looked back over his shoulder. Their pursuers hadn’t broken the ridge behind them yet, but he did not doubt this man’s words. He knew they were being followed. They all knew. It was just a matter of time before they caught up again. Krosis looked back to the man.

The man stared, brown eyes wide, tired, looking for an answer. Even the strongest, healthiest of them had gaunt cheeks, scabs, frostbite. Nobody here was in any condition to fight. The others who had slowed to listen looked to Krosis for some sort of miracle.

“Gather everyone. Head for the pass as quickly as you can. Once everyone is through, you must collapse it so they will have to reroute,” Krosis ordered, his voice low. He slid his bag off his shoulder, letting it fall into the snow with a heavy, muffled thud. He held out the strap of it to the man, who stared at him with confusion. “...I will stay here. I will hold them off as long as I can. Do not wait for me. If I am to rejoin you, I will find my own way.”

The man took a step back. “Sonaak Krosis, we can’t-”

“You can, and you will,” Krosis ordered, urging the man to take his belongings. “Go. Hurry. You don’t have time to waste.”

Soft murmuring shifted between the few around before one by one they picked up their pace. The scout frowned, eyes full of pain before he nodded and reached out to take Krosis’s bag. “Where shall we go?” He asked quietly.

Krosis straightened himself out. “Keep heading east. Head for the pass at the north end of mountains. There… they may leave you alone then,” Krosis said softly. He knew that he could not guarantee that. He knew they wouldn’t even make it to the mouth of the White River.

The man gave a bow, closing his eyes tightly. “Thank you. Please return to us, Sonaak Krosis,” he said, giving Krosis one more worried look before turning to gather up the others.

Krosis watched the man run through the snow, leaving him alone. People ahead started to pick up their pace, gathering together. Babies began to cry. He could hear the panic. Krosis tilted his head back as a shadow passed overhead.

Gruthrathlir slowly descended down, coming to land in the snow bank a few feet from him. His black spines bristled, looking down the valley in the direction they’d come from. “...You will not run?”

Krosis followed Gruthrathlir’s gaze, seeing the very tops of banners start to speckle the horizon. Slowly, he shook his head. “No. They will not reach the pass if I do.”

The wind picked up, making snow drift sideways for a few moments. Gruthrathlir slowly lumbered over to Krosis, scales bristling. “You do this, even if you know they will die anyways?”

Krosis closed his eyes. No. They would not make it. Even if they made it through the pass, they would slowly die of exposure.

Years ago, he knew his body would have been buried in a tomb as a king, tended to for the rest of time by loyal servants. He snorted to himself. Now he would be lucky if the ravens picked at his corpse before it froze over to be lost in the snow.

“We have to face this fate someday. I am ready.”

The dragon’s white scales rattled as he let out a low rumble. The two stood in silence, watching their pursuers slowly approach on the horizon. Krosis could seem them readying for battle, no doubt only worried because of the dragon. He was one dragon priest. Before, he was feared. But now, alone… he was pitiful.

Krosis turned to look at his patron. “Go. They will fight you if you stay.”

“I know,” Gruthrathlir rumbled, his tail swaying through the snow.

Krosis looked up to the dragon, the shouts of the soldiers ahead echoing now through the air.

Gruthrathlir tilted his head to look down at Krosis. “I will fight beside you until they make the pass. Then… I will bring you to them. Alive, or dead. You will not be left to fight this battle alone.”

“You don’t need to do this, my lord,” Krosis whispered, trying to steel himself. He tightened his fingers around his staff, trying to take a deep breath.

Gruthrathlir chuckled, frost curling from between his sharp teeth. “No, I don’t. Yet, I am. To the end.”

Krosis wanted nothing more then to reach out and brush the scales of his companion one last time, but he didn’t dare. Not before the men only a few dragon’s lengths from them. “May your reign last forever, my lord. It was my honor to serve you,” he said softly, pulling on his magic. He pulled on the fabric of the world around him, calling forth a frost atronach from beyond to aid him. The golem-like creature rumbled, immediately aware of its targets.

Gruthrathlir spread his wings wide, preparing to take to the sky. “I will see you again, Krosis. This I know. I promise you, as my loyal,” he said, slowly taking to the sky. The snow bloomed around him in a great cloud, making it almost impossible for Krosis to see him as he soared upwards.

Krosis exhaled slowly, casting another spell in preparation. Energy flowed through his skin, before making a dense armor of magic over his skin. Krosis’s focus returned to the armed men. Their leader stepped forward in the group, a man in heavy nordic armor. Krosis could tell he wanted to say something, something snide, but the priest didn’t give him the chance.

Krosis hurled a spear of ice out of his hand. The man jerked to the side, saved by a swipe from one of his allie’s blades. The leader gave Krosis a scowl, before commanding his men forward.

Krosis’s atronach charged forward in return, meeting the wall of men in a clash of metal and ice. Krosis took a step back, swinging his staff around. A giant fireball was let loose from the mouth at the end, exploding on the other side of the front line.

Men shrieked between his attack and the atronach’s assault, but more men pressed forward. A arrow shot forward from the crowd, missing Krosis narrowly.

He couldn’t let them get closer. He took another step back, unleashing a ice storm to try to slow the men down so he could back up a bit more. Another arrow shot through the ice, making contact with his shoulder. It bounced off his ebonyflesh, but the impact still made Krosis wince under his armor.

“Give up, dragon worshiper! You aren’t going to win!” Their leader snarled, using his shield to push through the ice storm.

Krosis narrowed his eyes, but made no response. No, he was not going to win. But he had to buy time. He resisted the urge to look back and check at how far his people had gotten. He summoned up more of his magicka, releasing another ice storm. He just needed to bide them time.

Gruthrathlir suddenly descended from the clouds with a roar, sending some of the less seasoned men scattering in a scream of terror. A stream of ice and a downburst of frigid wind followed him, pelting the men below. The arrows, to Krosis’s relief, turned to try to take down the dragon instead. Most bounced harmlessly off of the dragon’s white scales, but a few found the soft skin between plating.

Krosis grimaced, but he could not help his patron. If Gruthrathlir needed, he could just leave. He owned Krosis nothing.

But Gruthrathlir didn’t. The battle would not last long enough anyways, but it would last as long as Krosis needed it to.

The hunter’s numbers had thinned - much more than they’d anticipated. Krosis assumed that he and Gruthrathlir had at least halved how many their were, but too many still remained. Krosis could feel himself pulling at the bottom of his magicka. He didn’t have enough to summon a third atronach, or cast more ebonyflesh. His last atronach had crumbled, and he had a sinking feeling his ebonyflesh wasn’t going to be too far behind.

Gruthrathlir’s strafes had slowed down, and the last time Krosis had seen the dragon the rivers of blood were apparent on his pale scales. A few times he’d been forced to land, and Krosis feared the dragon himself wouldn’t last much longer. And yet, he fought on too.

Krosis looked back over his shoulder. The last of his people were heading up the pass, soon to make it through the break in the rocks where Krosis prayed they could seal it.

His breath hitched. Pain streaked out through his side, digging deep into his gut. His head snapped forward again, eyes wide as his hand instinctively came down to his side. His fingers brushed against the cold shaft of an arrow, and came back with warm, red blood. He looked at his wound, his hand, before looking back to the people before him.

The next arrow hit his pauldron, bouncing off, but it came with enough force to make his shoulder jerk backwards. Krosis hissed in pain, raising his staff weakly to fire another fireball. Nothing. Even his staff was out of juice.

A weak groan of pain was wrought from his lips at the next arrow, feeling it land in his shoulder. The end of the line was finally here. He pulled on the very last strands of his magicka, using everything he had to cast one more ice storm. Just a bit longer…

Krosis looked back over his shoulder. Only a few lingered, paused as he could only assume they looked down at him. They made it. But for what? To die on the other side…?

What difference did it make? Maybe they would make it anyways.

Another arrow dug into his ribcage, making him stagger back. He tried to take a deep breath, but all he got was pain. He coughed, legs shaking before he turned to face the remaining soldiers. Blood rushed in his ears, and the sound of his own breathing in his mask sounded suddenly so much louder. His mouth tasted like iron, and when he coughed he could feel warm liquid spray from his lips and out of the slit of his mask.

Were they saying something? He could see the leader’s mouth moving, but it all sounded muffled.

Krosis tried to keep his staff pointed at them, exhausted. He had to keep going. Keep them back. Keep his people safe. He was a dragon priest. He would lead them to safety, like he always did, like he promised he would. His vision tunneled and blurred a bit as he struggled to stay standing, not moving back even as his enemies grew closer.

So damn tired. So much walking. So much wandering for nothing.

“Do you think they would allow me to move?”

Miraak glanced over at him, brow arched. “Hm?”

Krosis shrugged, looking back out at the ocean. He leaned forward on the balcony. “Our temples are… so far apart. It is such a great distance to travel to see you. I thought, perhaps, that I might be allowed to relocate.”

Miraak chuckled. “To where?”

Krosis shrugged again. “Somewhere closer.”

Miraak hummed, stroking his beard in thought, though Krosis could tell it was more mocking than serious. “You would have to change spots with Nahkriin, or Haldriin. I must assume that Nahkriin would be… less than interested.”

Krosis snorted. “There are mountains in my territory.”

“Yes, but not nearly as many,” Miraak leaned forward as well, watching a gull drift in the breeze. “What about Gruthrathlir?”

Krosis blinked, before looking out at the ocean as well. “...You mean more to me, Miraak.” Krosis slid his hand across the stone, finding Miraak’s. He tangled his fingers slowly with his lover’s, holding his hand tightly.

Miraak looked down, before moving to place a gentle kiss on Krosis’s temple.

“Do you think there will be a day when we can ever be a family, Miraak?” Krosis asked quietly, leaning into Miraak’s shoulder.

Miraak exhaled slowly, leaning back before resting his cheek on Krosis’s head. “I… I will ensure there will be,” Miraak mumbled, his gaze soft.

For nothing.

Krosis spat up another mouthful of blood, crimson dripping out of the mask’s mouth before slowly dripping down into the white snow below. Splatters of blood already left a trail from where he’d been standing to where he’d ended, his legs just holding.

For nothing. Everything. The mask. His loyalty. His love. His life.

Krosis.

It had been for nothing.

The last arrow embedded itself in his chest, to the left of his armor. His legs finally gave out, and he fell backwards into the snow. Powder drifted up around him as he sunk into the snow, seeing some of it creep up in the blurry edges of his vision. His staff remained in a deathly tight grip, refusing to let it go. His other blood-stained hand lay stretched out to his side.

Gruthrathlir’s shadow circled overhead.

His skin was so warm. Soft. Tangled together in the dim candle light.

Krosis’s eyes grew heavy.

Volsung shook her head, turning away as he pulled his mask back down quickly, cheeks scalding red.

“I saw nothing,” she said flatly, though they both heard the teasing tinge to it.

He’d given Krosis’s side a almost playful squeeze in return.

Why?

The necklace felt heavy around his neck, but warm. He’d been keeping it hidden around his own neck until they were alone. How happy he’d felt.

Suffocating. A weak choke, more iron. Pain, cold, numbing. Dark shadows of people looking down at him.

It had felt heavier when he’d hurled it into the ocean. Watching the splash of the waves. The quiet presence of Vokun at his side.

The people backed away quickly as dark blotches speckled his vision.

Quiet. Peaceful.

Gruthrathlir’s shadow grew closer.

Would he be there?

Closer. Darker.

Did it matter?

Darker.

Nothing.

Black.

There was nothing.

Krosis

#skyrim #skyrim fanfiction #tongues verse - drabble #drabble #writing #warnings:#character death #violence #characters:#krosis #gruthrathlir

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kawaiianimeredhead · 6 years

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Oh right I wanted to rant. Im still on my phone so there might be typos but oh well

Edit: this got way longer and rambly than I expected oops. I hope this read more works, i never actually checked yesterday when I used it to see if it still worked on mobile so if it doesnt oops and sorry

Anyways. In september a new company took over our contract and thats a whole rant on its own. The previous lead (my dad but not important) left before the new company came and he left Sam in charge. Sam has been there for like four or five years and he's a pretty good guy. When the new cobtract started he was very quickly overwhelmed with the bs and also with the paper abd computer stuff he had to do so he stepped down. Hes still there and actually was still in charge for a bit after he stepped down because we didnt have a new lead.

And now we do have a new lead. This was apparently a Process from what ive heard. Nobody really wanted the job and im not sure how the Boss from the company even went about hiring but i heard that a couple people he considered weren't interested and then I was told that someone was hired or was going to be hired and quick before she even started. I heard these from two differenr people because one told me she qas being walked around and woukd start soon and another said she wasnt coming a day or so later. Someone was hired though and the first night he was there so was the Boss showing him around kinda. I spoke with him a bit and he seemed nice. Def better than the Boss who I cant stand beinf around for long hes got weird and annoying vibes around him.

None of this is actually particularly relevant or necessary for this rant but it came out anyways.

So this new lead has tried all thr different shifts/jobs out and and has been with us for like a month or so now maybe? The first schedule he was properly scheduled on was such a SHIT week/schedule because I went from working 5-4 days a week to 3 and instead of doing bathrooms which is 3 hours or 4 depending on if I'm also doing trash to working 2 hours one day, 2 or 3 the next, and 3 or 4 the last. And it sucks. Then, the first schedule to come out that he made (with the help of the Boss) had ALL of us on less days and hours and HE now working every day but one and working both in the morning AND at night. Now I'm not convinced this was soley his decision because I know he made this schedule with the Boss and i have a suspicion that the Boss encouraged him or persuaded him or some other kind of bull shit to do the schedule like this. And then the week after was the same schedule copied again and this week coming up is the same minus a few small changes.

Now all this is annoying and bull shit on its own but not even the main fuel to this rambling rant. With this schedule, hes scheduled to clean the bathrooms and trash every day except Sunday, which is when I am scheduled on them. Last week was the first week of this and besides the day I'm specificed to do bathrooms im not given a specific job. Imbonly told to do "extras" so ive asked Sam and hes told me to do offices one day and some windows the other. I come in Saturday ready to do the windows which ive been dying to do because they look awful and they used to be my Thing so I get really annoyed about them often but then I notice the trash hadnt been done. So I start doing that thinking maybe that was what I was supposed to be doing. Then while doing this I notice the main breakroom doesnt look particularly clean, breakrooms are a part of the bathroom persons job. This was annoying but because it wasnt Bad I left it. I then go to the next break room which is smaller and always messier because more people stay in it for longer, this one also looked dirtier than it should be. In addition, the bathroom's trash hadnt beeb taken out which is a part of the bathroom job. Bathroom trash is separate from trash trash as far as jobs go, theyre usually done together but if someone is doinf "extras" and someone else bathrooms, bathrooms normally gets bathroom trash abd extras the rest. Something felt really off about the bathroom as well and combined with the breakdowns I had a suspicion that bathrooms hadnt been done. So I decided to check the costumer bathrooms for their trash and their cleanliness. When I got there they absolutely had not been done. Which ! I hadn't planned for. I was taking my time on trash and now I had to do bathroom s.

Nobody had been called or texted about the lead not being at work. And he absolutely has our numbers. We used to sign in on a time sheet and that would have helped us noticed but we recently got a finger print time clock which, as far as I know, we cant check other peoples hours on. So we had no fucking clue he just hadnt been in the previous night.

Then this week comes along. Friday talking with Sam he mentioned something along the lines of not checking the bathrooms. Mentioning that its not really our fault if we dont abd they havent been done because since were not scheduled for them, we have no reason to assume they wouldnt be done. So I hadnt looked in the bathrooms but I did notice the break room looked a bit messy and which had me a bit concerned about a repeat of the previous week. But I didnt wanna do them and I knew Sam didnt either so I left it be but texted nick to ask if hed seen the lead the previous night. Nick confirmed hed been in and was seen cleaning the bathrooms. Yesterday, I briefly looked into the main break room and it looked not great, and then later I went to the bathroom in the smaller breakroom's bathroom (they have really nice soap they buy themselves thats not really importantto this tho) and noticed that one looked AWFUL. It absolutly hadnt been swept and I felt bad but it wasnt what I was scheduled for so I just kinda left it... Their bathroom also had 1ply toilet paper in it, which is what we had when the company first took over it its AWFUL everyone complained so we switched but the unused rolls are still in our closet. Nobody told our new lead this so he had put some of this in the bathrooms. Then later on in the morning, I noticed several trash cans had stuff in it. Not trash but like residue from trash? Like sticky spots of soda oe coffee, some gum, things like that. Basically things that pointed to him only dumping out the trash and not changing the bag. The bags dont always get changed everyday, thats not really an issue, but if theres something still kinda in them they normally are changed because thats gross and why would it just be left like that... I also noticed that up front by the entrance door none of the trash had been got. The busiest area for trash (from customers) and it was still ! There! And I had actually heard Friday or last Friday that this wasnt the first time. Again I left it because I had other things to do.

Now this morning. I worked bathrooms and trash. Trash went ok, I changed a lot of the bags becsuse I prefer to do it regardless and it was just normal overall. Then bathrooms. The bathroom cart is a mess. Which started my mood. The top is all unorganized and theres dirty water in the mop bucket. When I went go get new water, I had set the mop off to the side assuming it had already veen run out and dried because it had been in the part of the bucket where you ring it out and it had been there since yesterday morning. I finished filling the bucket and then look over and notice the puddle forming under the mop because my assumption had been wrong and worse, it smelled like pee. ! Carring on The first two bathrooms were ok, not great but fine. Then I got to the main breakroom and noticed itd clearly been cleaned, Sam worked the day shift Saturday so I assume he swept and mopped. I also swept and mopped. Then, the small break room. Sam didnt clean this one. Which is fair on his part because I think throughout the whole day at least one or more people are sitting in it with no time for someone to clean. So I start and its just the whole thing, even the bathroom floor, was so bad. Aside from the floor the bathroom part was ok, but the floor really didnt seem to have been swept. And the main floor absolutely hadnt been swept. This was obvious from the start but it kept making me madder and madder as I swept and saw how much trash was on the floor. It absolutely put me behind because I wanted to get as much as I could. The cutomer bathrooms also looked pretty bad which is had to tell who thats on, but wheb I got to them it was apparent somethibg else I hadnt fully thought of as a problem until then. Behind all the toilets, like on then but behidb the seat part, there was so much DUST. I had noticed before in the other bathrooms but didnt really think about it because of things plus i see the dust more often collect in the orher bathrooms than that one for some reason and I didnt even realize this but because it was something New in the costumer bathroom it was really noticeable now. Which made ne even madder. Its not hard to clean, were supposed to be cleaning the toilet seats anyways so getting just behind them isnt anything!

And its just so aggrivating. The longer at work i was this morning the more it pissed me off. Especially because in addition to what I was seeing, the things I had heard from others over the last couple of weeks started piling on.

With my own eyes i had seen how bad the cart had been and from sam I heard that the water in the bucket had been in there all week, he suspected that he wasnt changing it. He also commented on the rags all over the cart thinking that he wasnt using paper towels to clean and instead used the rags. I heard about how a couple of times now hed forgotten or ignore the front trash cans and some others. I heard from someone in the meat room that when he cleans it he doesnt do that grear a job and even broke a couple small things. Which is all very concerning to hear since thats a fucking sanitation issue!? And I heard from nick yesterday that he thinks that the lead isnt cleaning all thw bathrooms every day and is instead only cleaning them when they look dirty. Which I'm a bit inclinded to believe because the underside of some of the seats seemed much dirtier than id expected.

And its all infuriating! The Boss is the one who showed him all the jobs, none of us showed him any of what we do it was all the Boss. So like, did HE tell the lead not to do this or that? To do some of it to save time? I dont know but some of it is common sense regardless of what hes beeb told hes still fucking it up and hes our fucking boss. And the main one doing everything!

The store hasnt looked as clean from the start of this new contract and now it's even worse and its awful!

And I dont have a way to end this rant it got really long snd feels like it needs a good closer but I dont have one...

#work tag #hope the read more thing works #this got long #and it doesnt even have the same anger behind it as it should because its all typed #im so mad #dont mind me

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theyrejustbehindtheveil · 7 years

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ML Secret Santa

Merry (belated) Christmas @nayawata it is I, your gifter for the @mlsecretsanta with a fic about the OTP

Paris, France | July

She graduates. One day, she is at université, and the next, she is not. The morning after her final exam, she slips downstairs for breakfast and instead finds an envelope.

Her parents' latest attempt to stop her from being so easily scared is three months in a city she doesn't know with a language she barely speaks. All expenses paid. She leaves in three months. Merde.

Sydney, Australia | October

It’s a jarringly young city. Everywhere Mylène looks she expects to see historic architecture and instead sees nothing beyond the nineteenth century. Her auntie chatters good-naturedly from the drivers seat which is on the wrong side of the car. Everything is strange and it feels a little like she can’t breathe and she cant make a sound and she is so so glad when the car stops and she can get inside the house and play her song and feel like she is still at home.

The first two weeks she only leaves the house with one of her cousins or aunts, too scared to venture outside without some kind of security net. They take her on outings every few days, doing the tourist shtick at what is probably their attempt to make her feel welcome. The multiple trips to the city aren’t too bad, but when they head anywhere else she feels off kilter. The ocean is too big and the countryside is too foreign. The suburbs are too sprawling and quite frankly she doesn’t even know where to start with the birds.

November

She goes for a walk alone the first week of November. Three pictures of the waterfront reflecting the clear blue sky later and she realises she is lost. Very lost. She isn’t even sure which way is home. She would like to say she was brave enough to find her own way home but the truth is that pedestrian’s hassle her along until she crashes into something large and solid with an eep of surprise.

The large and solid something responds with a grunt that shocks her into leaping back. And looks up. And up a little more to find the something’s face shuffled into a terrifyingly grumpy glare. She shrieks and cowers a little before the glare retreats into something a little closer to concern.

She’s fumbling out an apology as best she can manage and trying desperately not to give in to the urge to flee when the man in front of her guides her gently to a bench. “Are you okay?” he asks and she can’t help but suck in a breath at his accent because it is wonderfully, blessedly French.

“T’es Français?” She hopes he understands what she is trying to say.

He starts in surprise. “Oui.” She can’t help the wave of relief that sweeps over her and switches to French for a more coherent apology.

The guy’s name is Ivan and he doesn’t know how to get back to her aunts’ place, but his english is much better than hers and he is brave enough to ask for help and big enough to hide behind when the strangers get to be too much. Mylène thinks she quite likes this arrangement. It takes a full hour to find home, and she is glad for Ivan’s company.

He slips her his phone number moments before she shuts the door. Merde.

Three days pass before she even has the courage to save the string of numbers to her phone. Two more before she sends through a safe, neutral, hi this is mylene :)

Ivan replies twenty-seven anxious minutes later. hey mylene good to hear frm u glad u hadnt lost my no

sorry, she replies

dw i was jst disappted i might not get to see u again

oh i d like that

me too this wknd?

Deep breath. yeah i d like that

sat 1pm we can try tht walk again?

yes please

He arrives at the front door at five minutes to the hour. She’s been ready for the past ten minutes, but she still jumps at the sound of the doorbell.

This second walk is far better than the first, even if there are more people out on the weekend. They find their way to a market near a library and Mylène can’t help but feel a little nervous but Ivan is quietly reassuring. He buys her a little pin for her bandana and his face when she pins it straight to the fabric is something she really wants so see again.

She learns a lot about Ivan that day. He likes heavy metal, hates the heat, tries to be gruff and intimidating but cares too much to pull it off convincingly.

She tells him about Paris, how scared she is of just about everything because so much of it is just too much a lot of the time, that she likes cats better than dogs, about her dad’s job, and that her deepest desire is to be brave.

Ivan returns her confidences with the slightly ashamed admission that he is really not a cat person and Mylène giggles at his despondency before rushing to reassure him that she doesn't hold it against him.

Later, she texts him. the cat thing is mostly because they re quieter also because of the superhero he was kinda sweet

hte who

chat noir the paris superhero a couple years back in the news a lot both him and his partner total badasses in spandex

oh that superhero

i met him a few times he was at our school on superhero business n stuff he was really kind little dorky

that school that was awlays in the papers was urs?francis dupain or smth i almost went there

francois dupont yeah that was a crazy time scary too wait what dieu we might have been classmates thats so weird i was turned into one of the monsters one time

oh no

there was this mean girl she teased me and i ended up a monster

you could never be a monster mylene

no like an actual monster type creature monstrous from a horror movie pink jelly thing horrificater i scared people and kidnapped them i don t remember what happened much but everyone was really nice to me for a while after

wait the first time that was u in there

yeah that was me

wow working through that must have been hard

i had help chat noir came and talked to me a few times my parents really helped im glad u had that

December

There is no snow for Christmas this year. She gets a second summer instead, of the kind that Paris rarely sees. Ivan texts her every other day to complain about the heat. Her aunt takes her to the beach, and Ivan shows up in a pair of stupidly bright shorts that apparently were a gift from his sister. They make her laugh, and he grins.

you re really easy to talk to ivan um thanyk u no really it s really nice i like it

…

sorry if i made it weird i just mean t like we re friends i like talking to you

mylene its fine im sorry i dont take compliments v well it means a lot that u can say that thank u

He hands her a parcel a few days before Christmas. Inside is a pin she recognises from - oh. Its Ivan’s. From his favourite band. “You’re giving me this? Haven’t you had it since you were a teenager?”

“I… I want you to have it, to remind you that you can be brave.”

“Zombie Skull Crushers is going to remind me to be brave?” She hates the plaintive note that her voice holds.

“Yeah, doesn’t it just sound brave and badass, just like I know you can be?”

She hugs him, tight and grateful.

“Thankyou, Ivan,” she chokes out. “It’s the best present anyone’s ever given me.” He hugs her back, gentle and easy as breathing.

She almost forgets the parcel tucked into her bag but presses it into his hands right before she leaves. “Joyeux Noël, Ivan."

Her parents fly in for Christmas itself. She goes to meet them at the airport and the moment she sees them both she runs for them. Her dad catches her as she leaps and her mum folds into the both of them and she burrows in between both of them and doesn't leave their side if she can help it from that point on.

Paris, France | January

She leaves for home with her parents. The plane lands and she gets off and everything is so wonderfully familiar but she feels strangely untethered. Her home is still much as it was when she left, and her room is identical save for more dust than normal.

And she can’t quite work out what is missing until her phone buzzes insistently and she drops her unpacking to fumble for her phone and check the screen.

They’re all from Ivan, and she realises as she reads through them it’s him she’s missing. He’s worked his way under her skin, going form imposing to reassuring too easily.

miss u already mylene

Oh, merde

i rly had a great time with you when i go back home to chatres in abt a month can i see u on the way thru

What?

Two months and it had never come up how close he lived to Paris. To her. And she want’s to see him again and isn't that incredible. Mylène doesnt know what she ever did to deserve such a gift but there’s only one thing she can do

of course i want to see you too i didn t know you lived so close

His response is almost immediate yeah crazy huh

A month of of texting back and forth follows. Ivan is beautifully poetic when he tries, and Mylène learns ever more about her new friend. When Ivan returns to France, he knocks on her door when she’s the only one home.

“Hey,” he says, like. a month of separation hasn't stood between them like anticipation. She stretches her arms around his waist as far as she can and laughs with joy at the tidal wave of affection swamping her chest. He curls his much longer arms carefully, fondly, around her back.

“I missed you. Please don’t ever stay away that long ever again,” she mutters earnestly into his chest. His arms tighten a fraction, before he shifts one hand to tilt her chin up so he can look her straight in the eye.

“Never. I promise, Mylène, I won’t ever stay away from you for very long anymore. I don’t think I could.”

She believes him when he looks at her like that, like he wants to see right through her eyes into her soul and know it intimately. Three days later he asks her on a date.

She says yes

They go for a walk.

She tucks her hand in his and the world feels a little less terrifying when she does.

#myvan #ml #mylene #ivan #fic #bec writes #secret santa #mlsecretsanta

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peterpparkrr · 7 years

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Changing the Tide: An Avengers Fanfic (4/7)

Summary: Wanda Maximoff is the new girl in town and also reconciling with the death of her twin brother, Pietro. As she starts to navigate her new life she manages to stumble into friendship with a group of teens who are surprisingly similar to her

A/N: This is basically just a highschoolAU for the Avengers without powers.

(Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7)

“Wanda? If you have any questions about any of that stuff let me know,” Bruce said softly, about halfway through class. Ms. Hill had just finished showing some examples and Wanda was furiously scribbling down answers on some of the older worksheets that had being at the bottom of the pile Bruce had given her.

“I’m pretty good at math,” Wanda replied, not looking up from what she was writing.

“Well, one of those papers has a list with all of our phone numbers on it. I uh… made it for you incase you ever need help with anything. It also has email addresses, actual addresses, birthdays um...yeah,” he finished lamely.

Wanda thought about saying that she didn’t need it, then she thought that she could just give it back to him, in the end she just said, “Okay.”

After math class Wanda got up and left before Bruce had a chance to finish packing up his stuff. She walked as quickly as possible to her next class, literature, which was hard to find without anyone’s help.

Once she got there she remembered that Clint had planted his friends in each of her classes. Jane and Dacy simultaneously waved her over to them. Unsure of what to do, Wanda figured it would be best to just sit with them and not start any drama.

When she sat down Jane and Darcy started talking almost immediately about all of the work that she needed to catch up on. By the time class started they had already clued her into the two essays she needed to write and the fact that they were already halfway through Hemingway’s book of short stories and Jane told her that they had discussions every week so she’d need to be caught up to where the class was by Friday. The entire time Jane was talking about Hemingway, Darcy pretended to vomit all over her desk.

Jane shot Darcy a look. “You know he was one of the most brilliant writers of the 20th century, he’s key to the understanding of what culture during his lifetime was like,” Jane told her, matter-of-factly.

“Doesn’t change the fact that he was a misogynistic asshole,” Darcy shot back, crossing her arms over her chest.

Their English teacher gave Wanda a copy of the book and told her that all of the assignments were on the website and that she just needed to have them in by the end of the month to get full credit on anything that she had missed.

They spent most of class going over Hemingway’s style and how it shaped later writers. Unfortunately, English wasn’t one of Wanda’s strong suits so she had a hard time following. Luckily, it also meant that she was so focused that she didn’t have time to think about Jane, Darcy, or any of their friends.

When the bell rang at the end of the hour Darcy offered to walk her to the Physics classroom but Wanda shook her head.

“I have some questions about one of the assignments that I missed that I want to ask before I forget them,” Wanda quickly made up, hoping her excuse would stick.

“I can wait for you,” Darcy offered.

“No, I think I saw it earlier today so I’ll find it easily,” Wanda replied.

Darcy nodded and left the classroom with Jane, Wanda could hear them start up their argument about whether or not Hemingway was an asshole.

After a minute or so she figured the coast was clear so she got up and walked out of the room. She actually found the physics classroom pretty easily, it helped that there was a group of guys in superhero t-shirts talking about the merits of different types of circuits heading in the same direction.

When Wanda walked into the classroom Tony was standing near the door and grabbed her hand before she could even register that it was him.

“Just wanted to make sure that you didn’t sit next to the wrong people,” Tony explained as he wove through the lab tables to one near the corner of the room. Clint was already sitting there, Wanda visibly tensed, Tony glanced at her, confused, but didn’t say anything about it. “Bruce texted me,” Clint said, looking up at her, Wanda couldn’t read his tone as she sat down next to him.

Tony looked confused once again but said something this time, “About what? What are you guys talking about?”

“Nothing, we’re not going to talk about it,” Wanda said definitively. She could feel both Clint and Tony looking at her but refused to look back at them. Wanda had decided during her conversation with Bruce that she wasn’t going to argue with them, she had a feeling she would lose. Instead, Wanda figured that her best option was to ignore them until they finally got the message.

Wanda was in this for the long haul.

“Wanda, please,” Clint said, his voice soft as he leaned toward her. Their teacher was already droning on about frequencies. Wanda tried to tune him out, she even shifter her chair away from him at one point, but Clint was persistent.

Wanda sighed, looked up from her notes and into his eyes, “After class.”

Clint nodded at went back to his work. Wanda tried to pay attention for the rest of the hour but she kept getting distracted, she had never been one for conflict. She kept running through scenarios of what was going to happen.

When the bell rang Wanda had a split second of wondering if she could just take off but she spent too long thinking wishfully so when she snapped out of it Clint had already packed up all his stuff and was waiting for her.

Wanda quickly stuffed her notebook and textbook into her bag and stood up.

“Let's go into the hallway,” Clint said, his face filled with concern. Clint led her out the door near their lab table into a part of the hallway that was more quiet than by the main door out of the physics classroom.

Tony followed them out and stood in between the two expectedly, “So why won’t anyone tell me what’s going on?”

Clint shook his head as Wanda nervously played with the zipper of her sweatshirt, “I think it would be best if the two of us talked alone,” Clint replied.

Tony could sense from Clint’s tone that this was serious and didn’t push it, “Okay,” he said before walking away, “See you later.”

“First of all, I didn’t tell my friends to babysit you, I just thought that since you were new it could help if I introduced you to some people,’ Clint said, trying to make eye contact with Wanda, who was staring adamantly at her shoes.

“Which required you making sure you had someone from your group of friends in every class of mine?” Wanda asked.

“I thought it would help if there was someone who could help get you caught up. It’s not like I changed anyones schedule, I just made sure that one of us were in your classes.”

“And how is that not babysitting me?”

“I’m just trying to be nice to you, I don’t see what the problem is.”

“Everyone here, all of your friends, they treat me like a child. They think that I can’t take care of myself.”

“That’s so not true.”

“Yes it is, no one thinks I’m capable of taking care of myself.”

“They’re just trying to be nice to you, is it really a bad thing that they want to help?”

“Yes! No one was ever helped me before, and I was doing just fine.”

“Your brother wouldn’t have wanted you to-”

“You do not get to talk about my brother!” Wanda cried, “Don’t you dare. You didn’t know him.”

“I didn’t mean to-”

“Just leave me alone, okay?” Wanda said, her voice cracking before she turned and walked down the hall.

Wanda made it to her locked and out of the school and down the block before breaking down, Clint hadn’t followed her and once she was far enough away from the school there weren’t students anymore. Wanda cried quietly into her scarf as she walked. When she got home she went to her room and found the shirt of Pietro’s that she kept in her closet and held it close. She didn’t move from that position until her mom called her down for dinner. Wanda didn’t say much about her first day of school, despite the thorough questioning that her parents put her through. No one mentioned Pietro at the dinner table.

After dinner Wanda went back to her room and set in on her schoolwork. She had to make up for the first week of school and was determined to do it before anyone could try and offer their help. Wanda worded late into the night, she hadn’t been sleeping much as it was so she managed to drill through more of the work than she had expected to, it gave her a well needed distraction.

#avengers #avengers fanfic #avengers imagine #wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff fanfic #clint barton #clint barton fanfic #tony stark #tony stark fanfic #steve rogers #steve rogers fanfic #natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff fanfic #bruce banner #bruce banner fanfic

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