#when i say my neighborhood or my city it's understood i'm not taking it away from anybody else

[perfectlyripeclementine]

calling my lover "mine" but not in the way that my toothbrush or notebook are mine, mine in the way my neighborhood is mine, and also everybody else's, "mine" like mine to tend to, mine to care for, mine to love. "mine" not like possession but devotion.

[elodieunderglass]

the first chapter of Moby Dick rewritten in tiresome modern idiom

CHAPTER 1. Loomings.

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - it's none of your business how many - being mostly broke, and bored with the land part of the world, I thought I would sail around a little and look at the watery part of the world. I'm probably the most mentally healthy person you know. Whenever I feel my face getting grim; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself accidentally reading the ads in the window of funeral homes, and following funeral processions through traffic; and especially when I'm hangry, and only my extremely strong moral principles stop me from deliberately going out in public and methodically slapping people's earbuds out - then I know it's high time to get to sea, ASAP. This is my substitute for getting in fights. I'm too mentally healthy to kill myself; I quietly and considerately put myself on a ship and sail myself away instead. There is nothing surprising in this. Everyone feels exactly the same way, and if they don't, they're lying.

You think I'm lying? Exhibit A: a city. Go to your local coastal city. Everyone is looking at the water. They drive over from other neighborhoods just to come to the water. They make a day of it. They're not doing anything, they're just staring at the ocean. Why? Is it because they all work office jobs? No! Here come more of them! They cram themselves up to the edge of the water and stare at it. WHAT DO THEY WANT? WHAT ARE THEY LOOKING AT. Perhaps the ships themselves all packed together, each one with several compasses on it, creates some kind of critical mass - all of the small compass-magnets on all the ships in the harbor combining into one really big magnetic field - and the people get sucked into the field and trapped there. That's science.

Exhibit 2: the countryside with lakes in it. Every path you follow in the countryside brings you to some water, such as a stream. There is magic in it. If you take your standard fool with ADHD dissociating in the middle of a supermarket and put them outside and give them a shove, they'll automatically lead you to water (if there is any nearby) (try it). Another good experiment to try is to get lost in the great American desert in a caravan supplied with a metaphysical professor! Try it in the great American desert at home!

Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are a match made in heaven. Married forever. That's science.

Here's an artist who wants to paint you the dreamiest, most enchanting landscape. What does he put in it? Trees, meadow, cows, a cottage with smoke coming from the chimney, obviously. He will probably put a path in it and make lots of triangular mountains in rows and have them be different shades of blue (naturally.) But there's gotta be a stream in it. Go visit the prairies in June, and wade for forty miles through knee-deep through tiger lilies. What's missing from this picture? Water!

If Niagara Falls was made of sand instead of water, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why would a guy given a handful of cash have trouble deciding whether to buy a coat (which he needed) or go to the beach? Why are all the best, healthiest, sexiest and most mentally healthy people obsessed with the sea? (You get me.) When you were first on a boat, did you not succumb to VIBES? Consider ancient Persia. Consider ancient Greece. They understood about vibes, and also gods.

SURELY ALL OF THIS IS NOT WITHOUT MEANING.

And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all! You get me! You understand it now.

Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I get weird, don't you dare imply that I buy a ticket and get on a boat. I have never had money in my life. How dare you. Anyway I don't go as a passenger - that's bougie, and something boring people do. Passengers never have a good time. And although my C.V. is incredible - I go to sea SO MUCH, you guys, I have lots of experience - I don't go as a boss, or a cook. That sounds like far too much work. Hard work. Disgusting, respectable, bougie, and far too responsible. I can literally only look after myself. Do not ask me to look after ships or shit. In fact, I have only a vague idea of what a ship is. There's so many different kinds of ships - don't get me started and DO NOT GET INVOLVED. Also, I'm allergic to glory.

It's kind of attractive to go as a cook. I mean, I'm allergic to glory and there's some glory attached to the position of the ship's cook, but, like, you're not management-track and so it's still credible. But I don't really want to cook (say) roast chicken. I really fucking love to eat roast chicken. I'm one of the best at doing it actually. I really appreciate when people go out of their way to butter, season, baste and roast a chicken for me. Picture a roast chicken and I am Looking Respectfully at it. Maybe something more, maybe I'm worshipping it. Don't make this weird. If you want to get weird about my relationship with roasted chicken, why aren't you getting weird about the ancient Egyptians? They ate roasted hippos (look it up) and the pyramids were basically pizza ovens. So it's pretty hypocritical to think that I'm being weird about roasted chicken when I've never made mummies out of chickens or built a religious pizza oven dedicated to honoring them: check and mate, haters.

Anyway - I like to go to sea as a manual laborer. A simple sailor. Salt of the earth… er… sea. Yeah, true: as a job it sucks. They make you jump around, order you around, treat you like shit. They expect you to jump around the boat like a grasshopper. And yes, at first, this sucks. It's degrading, especially if you come from a middle-class family. Worse, it's awful if you've already had some kind of professional job before signing on to be the dirt on the boss's boots - like, if you went to college and worked as a teacher and actually got kids to pay attention to you, really feeling this connection to work/teaching/identity or some shit, and now you are just literally the scum on this captain's boots, in the lowest possible job in the world. It hurts! It hurts your dignity. But the hurt, and also the dignity, both wear off in time.

So what if some old bastard sea captain orders me - ME! - to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, compared to the shit in the Bible, compared to the shit in the news, compared to the shit everyone else has to take. Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain’t a slave? Tell me that. We're all just serfs under capitalism, right, so why not just be honest about it: I prefer the honesty. Anyway, however the old sea captains may order me about - slapping and punching of course - I have the satisfaction of knowing that it's the same experience everyone else on Earth has, but more honest. Everyone else in the world is being served the exact same way. Either in a physical or a metaphysical way - sometimes people get the shit beaten out of them in person, sometimes online, sometimes emotionally, it happens to you in EVERY JOB, you sign on to get pushed around and slapped in the teeth: so the point is that when you're a sailor, it's a clean and honest slap. All the workers of the world share the same universal slap to the face that gets passed round, one slap passed all 'round the chain, like paying it forward, but it's a slap; and we should all accept this Universal Slap as the price of living, and then offer each other healing back massages, brother to brother, and slap each other and then kissed the places we slapped, and be happy.

I could examine that but I'm not going to.

Anyway: I always go to sea as a sailor. I've said that already. You're welcome. BUT THE POINT IS, they pay you. If you're a passenger, they don't pay you, at least, not that I've ever heard of [citation needed] (do they pay passengers?? Is there a job I can get where I can be a passenger and get paid?? Look this up.) Yeah so passengers have to pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. (That's Adam and Eve. You get it.) But BEING PAID. GETTING PAID IS THE BEST. NOTHING COMPARES TO GETTING PAID. EVERYONE LOVES THAT SHIT. Which is surprising, since we also apparently believe that money is the root of all evil, and isn't there something in the bible about "no rich people can get into heaven," right? And yet it's universal, literally everyone loves payday. Ah! How cheerfully we send ourselves to hell.

Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor (I've said this already) because it's FRESH AIR AND EXERCISE. Okay so think about ships. Normally, bosses stand on the "bridge" thing, and because we're sailing a boat, the nose is going into the wind and the butt part of the boat is at the back. That's how wind works. But if you think about it, winds usually go in one direction more than other directions (unless the men have been eating beans and farting: it's Pythagoras, look it up) SO if you're a boss standing on the boss-deck, the wind is blowing FROM the sailors TOWARDS you, and YOU ARE ACTUALLY BREATHING THE AIR THAT SAILORS ALREADY BREATHED. The boss THINKS he breathes it first, but he doesn't. He gets the air at the BACK of the boat and sailors get the air at the FRONT. So it's better to be at the front of the boat (sailor) for health reasons. This is a metaphor for life and work, etc.

But I have smelled the sea lots of times as a paid sailor and WHY I should decide to go on a whaling expedition - ok so you know how there's an invisible police officer of the Fates who has me under constant surveillance, who secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way? YOU get me. You know him. "The poor FBI agent tasked with reading my search engine history" YOU GET ME. Anyway, "Ishmael, why, after having a perfectly well-reasoned, and very smart of you, part-time job as a spontaneous random sailor, did you decide to escalate that to joining a WHALING EXPEDITION, which is worse in every way?" Well, ask my fucking secret FBI agent, he can answer better than anyone else. Including me. You get me. Also, obviously, this was predestined, part of the Universe's Grand Programme for its talent show, which was all scheduled way before our time. The concept of sending me on the whaling voyage comes in as a kind of interlude or solo between the main performances of the Universe's great talent show. I bet it was advertised llike,

"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF THE UNITED STATES EMBROILED IN ONGOING LEGAL DISPUTE.

Whaling voyage by some guy called Ishmael.

BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN."

Like a commercial break in between the big acts. A filler episode. Lightens the load for everyone else. Though I can't explain why the stage managers - the Fates - chose such a shitty role for me, a WHALING VOYAGE of all things, when it feels like others were given magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces - it seems a little unreasonable at first. Why doth Ishmael get shat upon, etc. But then I think about all the circumstances, the plot points and motivations that were cunningly presented to me under various disguises - FBI agents, bouts of random hanger, gay awakenings, you get me - and you can see that actually, I was set up. And worse, between them all, these Fates and Circumstances conspired to make me believe it was all my own choice and good judgment. Is Free Will an illusion? Are my decisions bad? We will NEVER know because I, Ishmael, am just a little guy that the Universe plays head games with.

One of the ways the Universe tricked me into starring in this performance and then mocking me for it was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself (whaling expeditions usually contain whales.) Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then of course, if you have a whale, you have the wild and distant seas where the whale rolls around with his body-the-size-of-an-island; the dangers and nameless perils of the whale; whales are also found in interesting places I haven't seen; this all tipped me over the edge. Maybe normal people could've resisted, but I am tormented with an everlasting itch for obscurity. I hate everyone else's oceans. I want the forbidden seas.

You know The Horrors? Of course you do. You might be surprised that I, the most mentally healthy person you've ever met, a person who is self-aware enough to go to sea when they're at their fucking limits, a guy who likes fresh air and manual labor and normal things, is familiar with The Horrors. Well, you'd be surprised. I know what's good, I'm an extrovert. But I'm still quick to perceive The Horrors. And how I deal with the horrors is a very extroverted thing: I'm social with them, if they'll let me. It's smart to be on good terms with The Horrors. You should always be on good terms with your permanent neighbors. That's how extroverts deal with The Horrors, and I recommend it.

I think that's enough explanation for why I welcomed the whaling voyage. The great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild figments of imagination that pushed me into doing it, the whales came marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah. They marched into my innermost soul in endless processions and occupied it, you see, I was quite helpless under this occupation - I consented to the haunting and the whales marched in to haunt me - and amidst them all was one grand shrouded white phantom, like a snowy mountain in the air.

You get it.

You know how it is, with whales.

(read the actual first chapter of Moby Dick here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm)

[mmgwritings]

I'M GONNA TAKE MINE OF YOU WITH ME

Character: Kaz Brekker / Wife! Reader

Prompts: There is a word for children who lose their parents, but there is none for parents who lose a child.

Warnings: Canon divergence; Angst; Character death; Grief; Kaz suffering; i'm sorry :(

Never trust the Saints; they give and take away.

Initially, a curfew was imposed. Without prior warning, patrol officers closed all clubs, brothels and merchant mansions, causing a commotion among the population that was soon violently suppressed. Later, when the disease spread from the interior of Kesh to the suburbs of Ketterdam, the healers' homes became crowded, and before long even the healers needed the assistance of the Grisha in the merchants' hospital.

Thus, Ketterdam remembered how to act. They had faced an epidemic before and would face this one with the same practicality. The funeral bells echoed incessantly throughout the day, while the bay south of the city was used to transport the bodies, piled on fishing vessels confiscated by the Council of the Tides. The former party town, Ketterdam, has transformed into a highly efficient funeral operation.

Burials were strictly prohibited. Thus, when the boats failed to remove bodies from the city quickly enough, in less favored neighborhoods, residents were forced to dispose of their loved ones on improvised pyres in the middle of the street.

This was the first scene we saw upon arriving in Ketterdam through the northwest gate, when the carriage had to make an abrupt stop in front of a pile of twisted ashes, which at first glance appeared to be the remains of slaughtered animals. However, horror soon hit us when the coachman, in a state of shock, vomited and exclaimed: “They are people, Saints, they are people!”

From the windows of the houses along the street, I could briefly see thin faces peering through the cracks in the windows. They were, without a doubt, the relatives of those poor burned creatures. Their looks were blank, as if they had already resigned themselves to the idea that the remains of their loved ones would end up on the street. I hastily closed the windows to hide the cruelty, but it remained etched in my eyes even when I closed them.

The trip was quick and extremely stressful, from Lij to the capital it was just two days of march that lasted the longest a lifetime. The exhausted horses showed visible signs of fatigue when the coachman left us at the hospital doors. However, as quick as it was, it apparently wasn't enough. The little girl was remarkably pale, her lips were dyed purple and her eyes were trembling under the weight of nightmares caused by the fever. My dear girl, a gift bestowed by the saints, the reward for any act of benevolence I have done in this world.

My mother used to say that the saints' mercy was unfair to mortals, because, as divine beings, they no longer understood the pain of any sacrifice, they no longer understood what it was like to lose someone. They were above everything and everyone. But I was a stupid young woman, I ignored my poor mother's advice because I thought it was the condescending words of a woman with pagan customs.

“Mommy,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with exhaustion, her eyes barely opening.

"I'm here my love. It’s going to be okay,” I whispered as I took her small, feverish body into my arms. At the beginning of the year, I could barely hold her on my lap for long, she was growing fast and turning into a beautiful, healthy five year old. Now, feeling how light her body was in my arms, my heart squeezed with pain.

Despite it being the early hours of the morning, a small crowd was sitting on the steps. They were probably sick people, but not sick enough to get a bed inside the hospital. I was trying to carefully pass between them, when, at the door, Nina appeared.

She was dressed in the black clothes of the doctors, with the distinctive blue apron of the merchants' wing, stained with small drops of blood.

“Y/N, come this way, sweetheart. I’ve already prepared everything for her,” said Nina, her kind face and caring voice leading me down a corridor to the east of the main hall. She was different since the last time I saw her, during the holidays. She looked sterner than ever.

“Any news from him? Did Kaz send any letters? Do you think he will arrive today?” I asked as I followed Nina through a corridor packed with doctors, heartrenders, healers and all sorts of people. I must admit that, little by little, the composure I had managed to maintain during the last two days of the journey from Lij to Ketterdam was starting to crumble. Felt like I was on the edge of an abyss, spiraling into darkness.

Nina looked at me with sadness as she led me into a small, but well-lit room with a comfortable bed, where I rested my daughter. She was in a restless sleep and quietly muttering nonsense words, the fever must be getting worse.

“Kaz didn't send any letters, none of them. Y/N, they must be on the way,” Nina reassured me. “Now, I need you to stay calm for her, please. We will examine her immediately, but you also need to undergo tests. You could be as sick as she is.”

“No, you don’t need to. I'm not going to leave her alone here” I said, freeing myself from Nina's hands the moment when a tall, tired-looking man entered the room, he seemed to be middle-aged, even though he was visibly a Grisha.

Nina walked over to him and they started talking in whispers, probably discussing the situation. It was not uncommon for merchants and their families to seek privileges in cases of calamity, but being Kaz Brekker's family, these privileges often extended to any kind of perk. Obviously, by now, the entire hospital knows that the wife and daughter of Ketterdam's biggest criminal are looking for help.

I sat next to my daughter, holding her soft hand and massaging her temple with my fingertips. Just like she is my joy, she is Kaz’s world. The gravity, the humanity, the warmth that keeps him alive. She looks much more like him: her light eyes, her dark hair and even her pert nose. At times, they seemed to share the same thoughts, to the point where I felt like I was somehow invading their space. She was his world.

Kaz would be able to destroy cities to protect her from her enemies, but that would not be enough to protect her from death.

Death came. It invaded my life so abruptly that I didn't even have time to cry for mercy. One moment, my daughter was in a restless sleep, and the next, she was convulsing, with blood pouring from her eyes and nose... The harrowing sounds were the most terrifying, they seemed to echo endlessly in my mind; it was the sound of her choking as she tried to breathe through vomit.

When it was all over, as my daughter lay on the bed with her head at an awkward angle, a horrible sound filled the room, resembling a wounded animal. I couldn't take my eyes off her to find the source of that sound. Only then did I realize that I was the one issuing it.

Once, when I was a child and still enjoying my hunting adventures with my brothers, we witnessed a fox with its cub in a trap set by my father. The cub was trapped, one of its paws shattered between the iron teeth of the trap, it was still too small to understand human antics, and its mother, whether out of compassion or instinct, killed it before we could get closer.

In those minutes when I was afflicted with acute pain, I reflected on that fox mother facing the suffering of her cub. I thought about how I didn't have the same courage as her, about how I would rather rip my own legs off with my teeth and offer myself to the hunters in exchange for freeing my cub from his torment.

Later, when Nina released me from her embrace with a pale, tearful face, speaking words I could barely understand, I considered how naive both I and the hypothetical fox were being in placing our faith in the benevolence of a superior, divine being. Tearing out my legs, my heart, begging, crawling – would that make any difference? Probably not. Yet even so, I would be willing to sacrifice myself for centuries on end in exchange for my daughter's life.

When I got up from the ground, with shaky legs and still immersed in a painful lethargy, I walked over to my daughter. The heartrender had cleaned her face, but there were still bloodstains on the collar of her blue dress, the same one she had received as a birthday present from her father and which she loved because it made her feel like a fairy.

When I held her little face between my hands she was still warm, it seemed like at any moment she would wake up and smile and tell me it was just a trick. But it wasn't, I spent a long time holding her face waiting for this trick to end and it didn't happen.

When I placed a kiss on her forehead, my tears fell on her face. It was an eternal kiss, I didn't want it to end, I didn't want it to be the last. However, when I pulled away, Nina wrapped me in a comforting hug. Finally, she retreated to a corner of the room, leaving me alone to watch over my pain.

I held my daughter in my arms, I ran my fingers through her hair, her face, memorizing every little detail of her. Finally, when she was starting to feel cold and heavy, I moved closer to give her another kiss, and this time, it was Kaz's goodbye kiss.

It was outside the hospital that Kaz found me. Nina took me outside when a team of healers told us they needed the room. In Ketterdam, the city of death, they are very practical about sorting things out. I was sitting on one of the steps, trying to catch my breath and looking at nothing, when Kaz, Inej, Wylan and Jesper arrived in a grain truck.

I didn't understand what emptiness was, nor how distressing it could be. I had no idea that it could be deafening, that the blood would rush through my veins and that everything around me would feel cold to the touch. Emptiness was the absence of all emotions, and at the same time, it contained them all. And the pain of emptiness made it extraordinarily difficult to notice anything around me other than the image of Kaz.

He was disheveled, his black coat was dirty with dust, and his hair was messy, as if he had spent the last few hours pulling out the strands. His usually restrained blue eyes were showing all of his emotions. A shadow hovered over them, something I had never seen before: fear. And I didn't know how to act other than getting up, walking a few steps, and finally succumbing at Kaz's feet in the hope that the ground would swallow me.

My breathing is heavy and shallow, sobs tear from my throat. There were no more tears, it seems that I was no longer able to produce them, however, a rain began to fall on us, as if it could cry what I was unable to. Above me, Kaz was standing still. He was like a wall that refused to fall under a storm, under the weight of reality. He refuses to vocalize whatever he's thinking, I think he's also feeling empty. It's as if any trace of humanity has been drained from him.

Would he become Dirtyhands, being all practical while he waits for the poor creature I've become at his feet to pull herself together? Or would he become the fox cub caught in the trap, hoping I could rip his throat out when he, for the first time in his life, didn't have a plan to get around the situation?

“Y/N, darling,” whispered Inej, as if calling my name could tie me to the ropes of the earth again. Besides, what else could she say?

Is this the moment when I would hear the lamentations, the pity, that would follow me for the rest of my life when they found out about the daughter I lost?

“She's gone,” I said, lifting my head and looking at Kaz. “We were waiting for you... but she got worse, so I came to Ketterdam. I really thought she would get better, but she's gone, Kaz” my voice broke completely.

I think whatever strength had kept Kaz up until that moment was gone. He turned his back on us, walking toward the side of the building, his steps swaying as if he were drunk, until finally he collapsed. A scream tore through his chest, a scream of rage, of frustration and sadness. But above all pain.

There is a definition for children who lose their parents, but there is none for parents who lose their children.

What are we now? A mother without a child? What would I do now? Just go home and put all her things together in a box like party decorations?

I got up and walked over to Kaz, hugging him from behind. We lay huddled in the rain, me holding Kaz's body as he thrashed about in a horrible cry. I offered whatever comfort I had: I kissed his head, whispered empty words, held him close to me. If I wasn't a mom, then Kaz wasn't a dad.

He would never hold her in his arms again, he wouldn't smile when she played with his gloves, which were too big, and he wouldn't stand by her bed on sleepless nights, watching her sleep.

“Kaz, she loves you more than anything” I said. Loved, whispered my treacherous brain. Then, fighting the lump in my throat, I said, “They've already put her with the dead people.”

Kaz shuddered, the crying became silent. The vision no parent, least of all Kaz, wants to imagine. Like any other death in Ketterdem, whether of the poor or the rich, our daughter's would be treated with little ceremony. No mourning, no funeral.

She, who was always warm, was now alone in the cold of the Harbor.

On the days when Kaz couldn't bear any touch, she was the one who defied him by clasping her little hands around his neck. Or on the worst days, when he came from the Barrel with someone's blood on his sleeve, she covered him with kisses and smiles. Kaz loved her the moment he saw her, covered in blood, wet, crying... and warm. When she was a baby he treated her like porcelain, if he could he wouldn't even let me touch her.

My hands met Kaz's, he was clutching his chest as if he wanted to rip out his own heart. I held him, afraid that he would somehow disappear under the weight of his own grief. If he leaves too...

“On the trip, when she was awake, I told her that you love her. That you love her so, so much,” I whispered in his ear. Then, the worst. “I gave her your kiss goodbye”

How can we survive this?

“No, Y/N,” Kaz said in a pleading tone, “I’m sorry, please. I'm so sorry"

When we lack words, guilt appears. It's our fault? Were we really that horrible?

The Saints. They give and they take.

[a-tale-never-told]

The Report

Unknown building, Kyoto, South Japan, 7:31pm, September 3rd.

"*In an undisclosed location, somewhere in the city, a red Porsche 356 pulls up in front of the building, and into the parking area. From within the car, a familiar figure proceeds to get out of the car, wearing a black suit with a fedora. He proceeds to look up into the sky before him, seeing the moon shining on the street, before walking inside*"

"Upon getting inside the complex, he looks around to see the rest of the staff running around the rooms in a hurry, trying to get their work done as soon as possible. Most of them were trying to organize important documents and papers, with some of them already signed, while other members of the staff were on the phone, making calls to several important clients*"

*The man, amid all of the chaos, calmly walks to a receptionist's desk where the receptionist in question is currently trying to sort out the papers in his desk in the proper order*

Receptionist: *looks up* Mr Fisher?

Franz: Yes?

Receptionist: *takes a deep breath* The Boss wants to see you immediately. He's been waiting for you since this morning.

Franz: Very well then. Tell him I'm coming up.

Receptionist: Understood.

*"As the receptionist picks up his phone to make a call, Franz proceeds to head to the elevator, where he presses the button and calmly waits for the elevator to open. Once the elevator opens, he proceeds to walk inside and push the 5th-floor button to go all the way to the top of the building. As the door calmly closes, he silently stares to the ground, anxious for his boss's response*"

DING!

*"As the elevator finally reaches the 5th floor, Franz steps out and proceeds to open the door of his boss's office. Inside the office, treasures from several different eras of history lined up in several cases across the room, so much so that it was almost like a mini archeology museum. From what he could see, Franz could catch glimpses of some Greek vases, a stone model of a Mayan temple, an Egyptian sarcophagus, a Persian robe, and an African garb among the vast treasure trove in the room*"

*"Standing a few feet away from him, sitting on a desk eating some ravioli, is a man in a black suit, who is in his 60s calmly eating his food. He has some form of hair, although he is mostly bald and pale. Standing beside him on both sides, are two bodyguards wearing glasses, carrying semi-automatic pistols, watching him calmly"*

???: (Thick German accent) Sit down.

*"Franz does as told, pulling the chair towards him, and proceeds to sit down a few feet from him.*"

???: *sighs* Welcome Home, Franz. I've been notified about what happened this morning. But what matters now is are you alright? No bones broken or bruises you might have suffered?

Franz: No, I'm perfectly alright, Mr Wagner.

Mr Wagner: *smiles* Good, good, I'm very glad to hear that you made it out unscathed. However, there are more concerning things to talk about.

Mr Wagner: *Stops smiling* Tell me, what exactly happened this morning?

Franz: Well... you see, there was a slight complication today.

Mr Wagner: Slight complication?

Franz: Earlier, this man in the Kadett car was in my way, as I was trying to head out from being pursued by those Yakuza. Eventually, things escalated from there and I ended up trying to murder him on the road. Please accept my honest plea when I say it was an isolated incident.

Mr Wagner: Isolated Incident? No, no, no, this was far from an isolated incident, you certainly know that. You went out there in the middle of the morning, in front of the neighborhood, with no kind of secrecy or discretion at all, and then proceeded to open fire on him in the middle of the road, in front of hundreds of people.

Mr Wagner: And let us not forget the fact that there was an American Jeep in the vicinity, in the same area you and that rat were clashing in. And even after all of that madness that you created, you really expect me to accept that it was an isolated incident?

Franz: ...

Mr Wagner: *takes a sip of the tea and breathes* I completely understand that you have an unbridled hatred against that man for what happened all those years back. But! We must not let personal grudges interfere with any notion of the plan we've made. You nearly jeopardized our entire operation because of what you did!

Franz: I know... I'm sorry Mr Wagner. It happens.

Mr. Wagner: *sighs* You do realize that I am working on a very tight schedule at the moment. Imagine if the authorities figured out what we were doing here? Of course, our professions have allowed us to elude the law under a mask of hard-working men and women. But it is only a matter of time before our luck runs out.

Mr Wagner: Not to mention that a few certain authority figures in that wretched hellhole they call a police department have been conducting an investigation on our activities. They are obviously on to us again, after so many years. We have to do something or risk the entire plan shattering like a glass window.

Franz: I wholeheartedly agree, sir. What shall I do?

Mr Wagner: Try to keep a very low profile and avoid getting caught by any policemen or Yakuza. I have a few safehouses built for you if you need some equipment and resources. But you are always obligated to return here and give me important and vital information on what goes on in this city. Keep doing whatever you plan to do, and report back here to update me on the situation.

Franz: Understood, Mr. Wagner *starts to get up from the chair and heads to the exit*

Mr Wagner: Ah! And one last vital detail I completely forgot to mention untill now.

Franz: *turns back to look at him* Yes?

Mr Wagner: Let me be remotely clear with you that this is the final time a stunt like this happens again, on my watch. I will not tolerate any more of that reckless behavior while I'm in charge. Incidents like this are what ultimately lead to failure and I cannot accept that at all. The next time I catch you pulling off a risky maneuver like this again, you'll suffer the consequences dearly. We brought you into this organization, Franz... but we can very much take you away from it if you misbehave. Understand me?

Franz: *smiles* Understood, Mr Wagner. I will not commit such an act of insanity again. You have my word.

*With that, Franz proceeds to open the office door and starts to walk out, closing the door behind him, as Mr. Wagner goes back to eating his ravioli, as if nothing had happened at all...

[aestheticallyholland]

NEVER NOT | CONFESSIONS . . .

❃ PAIRING tom holland x fem!reader

❃ DISCLAIMER i do not own the artists (and the reader) that are going to portray the characters, but i do own some of the their names. the plot of the story is inspired to the book and movie 'to all the boys i've loved before' but with changes. the gifs and photos used in this series are edited by me but i get credits to the originals. also, this series is first posted in wattpad by me. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST IT SOMEWHERE ELSE !

❃ WORD COUNT 1.8k words

WANNA BE ON THE TAGLIST? feel free to comment on this post if you wanna be added to this series' taglist to get notified for updates !

NEVER NOT MASTERPOST | LEI'S LIBRARY

"It's the end of the Earth and the death of the universe that give me the insane courage to say that I am yours if you want me." - Krystal Sutherland, Our Chemical Hearts

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

[ december 20, 2015 . . . ]

SEVERAL DAYS PASSED BY and Y/N still didn't have the guts to talk to Tom. She still couldn't face him after what happened just a few days before.

When they were in the same class, Tom would steal glances at her since she was in the first few seats in front of him. It still bothers him so much and every time he would look at her, he felt pain in his chest.

Of course, Y/N would notice this. She wanted to go up to him and talk through it with him. She wanted to apologize to him but she couldn't.

I guess this Christmas would be so lonely. Y/N thought to herself.

As she walked to the hallway towards her locker, she saw Tom leaning on the lockers near hers. She stopped her tracks until Tom noticed that she was there. She felt her heart beating so fast she couldn't describe the feeling anymore.

She walked slowly towards her locker while Tom was just looking at her and placed some of her things inside.

"Is now the perfect time to talk?" Tom suddenly asked that made Y/N jumped a little.

She looked at him slowly until their eyes were locked to each other. She felt that she couldn't talk so she remained silent but nodded in agreement. She closed her locker and they both walked together outside the school building.

The walk was silent and Y/N just followed where Tom was walking to. They walked until they stopped in front of a black motorcycle. Tom got a helmet and sat on his motorcycle and Y/N just stood there confused. Tom looked at Y/N who was just standing there.

"Come on," Tom said and held his hand out for her. She smiled a little and took it and sat behind him. He gave her another helmet and she placed it around her head.

"Hold on to me, Y/N," Tom mumbled and started the engine. Y/N slowly wrapped her arms around Tom's waist then Tom drove out of the school.

Y/N didn't know where they were going, but she hoped they could talk things through with Tom.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

"Where are we?" Y/N asked when they took off their helmets on their heads and got off the motorcycle.

They were in a place where they could see the city lights. It was like they were on top of the world. They could see the sunset clearly in there.

"This is so—" Y/N stopped when the wind blew and her hair flew. "Beautiful."

Tom chuckled and looked at her as she watched the sun setting. The ray of light hit her face and her hair flew.

She looked so much more beautiful. Tom said to himself. She always does.

He glanced at her hands and suddenly got one of them. This startled Y/N and turn to his side to face him.

"Look, Y/N." Tom started and sighed before continuing. "I'm so sorry for everything." He said. "I'm really sorry for yelling at you and for being such a jerk."

Y/N didn't say anything so Tom went on.

"Everything that I said during the ski trip is true. I mean those, Y/N." Tom said. "What I feel for you is real." He held both of her hands and brought them closer to his chest.

"I tried to resist it but every time I hang out with you, I just can't help it." He said and chuckled. "You are the most amazing girl that I've ever met, Y/N."

Y/N could feel her cheeks burning with everything he said.

"I..." Tom paused for a while because his heart was pounding so fast. "I love you, Y/N."

Y/N's heart suddenly beats so fast with those words of love. She held on tight to his hands and felt tears coming out of her eyes.

"W-what's wrong? Did I do something?" Tom stuttered while asking her when he saw tears coming from his eyes.

Y/N smiled a little although she was crying. It wasn't even a sad cry, it was tears of joy.

"That's the first time someone confessed to me," Y/N admitted and chuckled while wiping the tears from her eyes.

Tom felt relief and pulled Y/N to a hug. "I thought I said something bad that made you cry." He said.

Y/N smiled and said. "I love you too, Tom, so much." She looked at him and he looked down at her.

"I'm sorry that I didn't let you explain your side, Tom." She said. "I was so blinded with anger at that time. It wasn't even about the scrunchie. I just thought you betrayed me." She explained and broke down.

Tom placed a hand on her cheek and wiped away tears from her eyes. "I would never do that to you, Y/N."

"Really?" Y/N asked him and Tom gave a big smile.

"I swear." He held out his pinky finger to her. But instead of intertwining her pinky to his, she pressed her lips to Tom's like a seal for the promise. Tom was taken back at the kiss before kissing her back. Y/N pulled away from the kiss first and said, "It's a swear then." She smiled at him.

Tom smiled back and remembered something that he was going to give her. He let go of Y/N's hand and went through his pockets until he finally got it.

"Here, I got this back for you," Tom said and gave out the Y/N's scrunchie. Y/N's eyes widen when she saw her scrunchie and received it.

"I had to talk to Camille to get it back for you right after you left me," Tom explained. "It wasn't easy, honestly." He chuckled.

"But how did she—" Before Y/N could finish asking, Tom answered right away.

"Remember the first party that went together?" He asked her and she gave a nod. "Camille actually got to talk to me and got it. I don't know why but I forgot about it when she suddenly asked me about you."

Y/N understood him. "I forgive you, Tom. I'm just glad you got it back. It's my only memory of my mom." She said.

"So." Tom started. "Are we okay now?" He asked just to make sure.

"Of course," Y/N answered.

It was already starting to get dark and the city is starting to light up. They decided to stay there for a while to appreciate the beauty of the city while cuddling with each other.

"How did you even know this place?" Y/N asked him. Her head was on his chest and his hand was stroking her hair.

"My family and I go here for hiking and we would end up having lunch or dinner here," Tom said.

"We should do that together," Y/N suggested. "You know, me, you, Erika, and Harrison." She added.

"Would that be fine with you?" Tom asked and Y/N nodded.

They stayed there a little longer until they decided that it was already getting late. They went to Tom's motorcycle hand-in-hand. They wore their helmets and drove down to the city. Y/N held on to Tom as he drove going to her house.

After a few minutes, they have finally arrived at her house. The neighborhood was quiet since it was already night.

"Thank you for today, Tom," Y/N said as she went down from the motorcycle. "I'm glad we got to talk things through." She added.

"Same here." He replied.

Y/N was about to go towards the door until Tom stopped her first.

"Before you go," Tom called out for her and she looked back to him and gave him a confused look.

He walked closer to her until she could look up to him since he is taller than her.

"Will you be my girlfriend?" Tom asked her which made her feel her heart beat faster. "For real this time?" Tom was smiling at her which she couldn't resist.

"Yes." She answered right away that made Tom even happier. He wrapped his arms around her. Y/N giggled as she hugged her. He suddenly picked her up and spun her around which made her squeal.

"Tom!" She exclaimed and laughed.

"She said yes!" He shouted and Y/N slapped him playfully.

"You're gonna wake the neighbors up." Y/N scolded him but he just gave her a big smile.

"You don't know how happy I am right now," Tom said.

"I am so happy too, Tom," Y/N replied. Tom gave her a peck on the lips and Y/N deepened it. They pulled from each other and just looked at each other's eyes.

"I love you, Y/N," Tom whispered, loud enough for her to hear him

"I love you, Thomas." She replied and smiled.

"You should go now before your dad opens the door." Tom joked that made her laugh.

"Good night, Tom." She said and remained standing as he walked towards his motorcycle.

"Good night, love!" He said and rode his motorcycle. "Think about me!" Those were his last words before he drove home.

Y/N smiled to herself and went inside her house then went straight to her room. Her house was so quiet so her father and sister were probably asleep already.

She collapsed herself to her bed and gave a heavy sigh. She was glad that Tom was a person who didn't give up on her. She was glad that he is part of her life now.  She is so lucky to have him.

After a few minutes of daydreaming, she finally drifted off to sleep.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

It was already almost midnight and Tom just finished taking a bath. It was just a few minutes after he arrived home from dropping off Y/N.

As he went to his room, he turns on the lights and changed to his sleeping outfit, a plain shirt, and sweatpants.

As he was wiping his hair with a towel, he noticed a white paper on his table that he had never seen before. He placed his towel around his shoulder and decided to read it for himself.

His eyes widen as soon as he finished reading it and placed it back down.

I got in. He said to himself and sat down on his bed.

Now he has more decisions to make and to think about.

What should I do? Tom asked himself.

❃ TAGLIST @allthisfortommy @kait4073 @lovebittenbyevans @l0ve-0f-my-life @spiitfiires @robertpattinson-th @jackiehollanderr @butterflies-glitter

[colemacgrathtkz]

Where two shadows meet

Disclaimer: No gush. No mush. Just angst.

Previously. Next

----------------------‐----------------------

[The next day after being sent away, human realm]

The morning after being cast out, Luz woke up to the an empty room. She had hoped the events of last night were just some nightmare. Feeling the dried tears on her face told her the truth. She must've cried herself to sleep. She'd been waiting for the smallest chance of the portal reopening. Any opportunity, no matter how small, she refused to miss.

None came and hints of dawn were peeking through the windows.

She picked herself up and headed for her old house. The empress cloak still wrapped around her. She wondered, how would she explain this to her mother?

When she approached the street, a flyer caught her eye.

A missing persons poster with her picture on it. Plenty of them were scattered throughout the neighborhood.

She ran towards the side of her house and peered in.

Her mother, weary and worn out, sat at the table with a phone at hand. Were her eyes red from crying or staying up all night?

Luz was about signal her mother to her presence.

Not yet.

She caught her reflection in the window. Her pupils were glowing red. Stumbling back, she couldn't face her mother like this.

Sprinting away, not caring about what direction.

Hours later, Luz would return when she knew her mother was gone. She snuck in to take whatever cash she could and pack up a new bag.

Camilla Noceda: "Who's there?!"

Scratch that, Camilla hadn't gone to work yet. Luz grabbed what she had and bolted out of the house. From that day on, she had to make her supplies last.

[Six weeks later]

Luz had been wandering the country. She had tried shelters. But she had made her stays brief. People had tried to figure out, where was she from?

The worst part came from her "condition". Lately, she kept waking up in different parts of the city. Clumps of money or random items could be found alongside her. Usually with a note that said, "Take this with you". They were written in her handwriting. She refused to obey the beast inside her. However, her stubbornness meant she refused any resource that came from the empress. One in particular, the empress cloak that kept appearing in her bag.

Her travels left her funds dry and uneasy about the future.

One night, she didn't have any strength left. Her nightmare was moving to its next phase.

She found herself in her old room. A shackle made of light lead out the door. She stepped out into the hallway. The chain trailed to the right. But it became pitch black futher down. A second chain came from the abyss into a door across the hall.

She wanted to know where this would lead.

Stepping through, she dreaded that this was Belos' old throne room.

Stop...fighting

The empress stepped out from the other side of the room. Dressed in her cloak, the metal mouth mask was new. She twirled her finger and closed the door behind Luz.

Let...me.

Her majesty gestured to her mask. The voice was so muffled, it might has well have been a whisper. Luz didn't really notice it until now.

Luz: "I don't really know what..."

Empress Luz: "Check...it."

The empress pulled on her end of the chain and zipped to Noceda's side. Luz fell over, leaving the empress towering over her.

She didn't know she could make such a scary glare.

Empress Luz (pointing to pockets): "Check!"

Luz didn't waste a second and found a key.

Empress Luz: "You... willingly... give."

She handed her the key, as she stood up.

The empress removed her metal mask, relieved.

Empress Luz: " That's better. We have something to discuss."

Noceda just wanted to leave this nightmare.

Empress Luz: "This nightmare is very real. You leave... when we settle this now!

That's right, I can feel what you're thinking."

Luz Noceda: "What do you want? This is just a dream, right?"

Empress Luz: " You've no doubt noticed, I've been taking control while you sleep. Regrettably, our body has become deprived of rest. We're malnourished and becoming worse. You have to listen to me now!"

Luz: "If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me!"

Empress: "And our mother with us?"

Dread silenced both of them for a moment.

Luz: "What did you do?

Empress: " I've been a spectator, until not long ago. Neither of us have seen our..."

Luz: "My mama! Mine!"

Empress: "Our mami. I haven't seen her since you ran. I haven't done anything to her. That's what you've got to understand. I care about our mama, like you."

Luz: " You're a curse from Belos."

Empress: "Wrong! I'm not you, but at the same time, I am. From the moment Eda took you on, you were a witch with a dark side. When you killed Belos, you released his unnatural power. I wasn't made by it. It just gave me a voice. I'm a genuine Luz Noceda! I'm a part of you, just like you're a part of me."

The empress sat down on the throne, resting her head in her hand. She revealed a key under her cloak.

Empress: "I can give you the key out of this room. But these shackles on our legs are different story. These are the chains Amity gave us. Which is why, you're going to do what I say."

Luz scowled at this doppelganger. But she began to recall everything that happened since that night.

Luz: "What are you talking about?"

Empress: "Our fates are tied. But you're the only obstacle in our way. You've been frustrated and angry since we were cast out. I've been gaining control because of this. You were able to hold me back, at first. But your control is ticking away. Ironic, isn't it? We're both at our weakest, regardless."

Luz: "Let me out!"

The empress held up her restraint.

Empress: "To do what? Walk until we collapse? Hardly sleep anywhere? Fending off the streets? We're exhausted and knocking on death's door! If we continue on like this, our mother will suffer, too."

Luz: "You're lying."

Empress: " You haven't forgotten our last moments with Amity, right? She knew that would be the last time she'd see us. Mama didn't know that moment on the curb was hers. If they even find our body, can you imagine her face when they do? Haunted by the guilt for the rest of her life? Never knowing anything other than sending her daughter away? That's the fate that you're headed for. But I'm offering a different course."

Luz: "Stop beating around the bush and tell me!"

Empress: "While you've been asleep, I've tried to learn all about magic on this side. This chain could be an unexpected key to getting everything. I want everything you do. I want to give our mama an easy life. I want Amity at our side."

Luz: "Revenge on Lilith?"

Luz felt a familiar rage rising. But she didn't know why. She hadn't thought of Lilith until just then. That's when she understood her connection to the empress.

Empress: "Maybe I was hasty about that? But I know you haven't forgiven her for what she's done. I am you, after all. She got her sister back while we've got nothing. She's cursed her own sister and used us as a human shield. She gets to be with Eda. Meanwhile, you beat Belos and can't even go back to mami."

Luz: "It's because of you. All of this is your fault!"

Empress: "Us. Tell me something, does mama love you or me?"

Luz: "Me! I'm her daughter. You're just something I picked up on the Isles."

Empress: "So, she never met me? Yet, she sent you away to be someone else. It's not my fault you can't be with her. My existence isn't the reason you can't face her, is it? It's because you're too much, even for her.

But what about Amity?"

Luz: "You made me watch you terrorize everyone. You didn't leave her a choice."

Empress: " I gave her everything. She had our trust and love. But when she cast us out, she knew it was you. She was talking to you."

Summoning illusions, that night was replayed in front of them.

Empress: "When she was holding the staff, she knew it was you. Like you said, if she wanted to keep you, she could've. But once again, you were too much for her to handle.

That's two loved ones that cast us...sorry, you away. Should I even mention the others? Eda, King, Willow,  and Gus? They loved you, too, didn't they? But that wasn't enough, was it? You might hate me, but they fear you, too. They didn't stand up for you, either. Their love didn't save you. Those were your final moments with them. Your love for them wasn't enough to keep you together. "

Noceda was silent, letting those words sink in.

Empress: "Right now, I've got a plan. As I've explained, refusing to work alongside me won't help anything."

She tossed the key over to Luz.

Empress: "Right now, you've got two choices. You can keep fighting me and lead us both to our deaths? Or you can stop trying to hold me back and work towards getting it all back?"

Luz walked slowly towards the door.

Empress: "If you want to waste what's left of your energy on the former, I can promise you this. Our last moments won't be yours."

Luz: " You'd like it if I disappeared, wouldn't you? Just like me?"

Empress: "Our body can't go on like this much longer. By the time you disappeared, I wouldn't have much longer. Even if I made it back, they wouldn't trust me. I wouldn't even get the chance to atone. Despite what you think, we need to work together to make this work!"

The two stared at each other. The existence of magic, witches, and demons didn't make this any less weird.

Luz: "You said, we can have it all. How do I know you don't mean, just you?"

Empress: " We were living out our fantasies on the Boiling Isles. Mama thought they were holding us back from reality. But magic is a reality. You're holding me back because you think I'm a monster of tyranny. How are you so sure you're not wrong? Like mom? Luz Noceda is the most powerful witch in the Boiling Isles. That's the reality she never saw. But we can show her that. Together, we can make her proud. With me, we can have everything. With you, we might be able to share it?"

Luz fidgeted with the key in her hands.

Empress: "If you unlock that door, you're agreeing to embrace my plan. There's no other way to put it. But neither of us have much other choice, anyways. It'd be a new level of dense for you to refuse just because."

Luz inserted the key into the hole. She wanted to know something before turning it.

Luz: "How would being back on the Isles help mama?"

Empress: "Remember Belos last words? This world has much to offer. So much power. It is our job as humans to fulfill our destiny. It's our turn to fulfill ours. I figured out what he meant. I even improved on his day of unity. We'd have more than we could ever want. Prosperity that'd never run out, no matter how much we shared. We can and will give our family and friends what they deserve. Happiness. A life where our mom would never cry again. Amity wouldn't ever hide who she really is. No one would ever have to cry again. But that life only comes if their fearless Luz steps up. Belos' fate sealed ours. But it wasn't so we'd have nothing. Our fate is to claim everything, together."

Luz: "You're laying that on pretty thick, aren't cha?"

Empress: "I know, every day since we've been back, you've felt powerless. This is a cruel fate to live through. But, if you think about it, this is still your time to shine. Just like in those PG fantasies of yours, Luzura! At your lowest, will you rise back up? Like any chosen one worth their salt? I suppose, the only one who would know you didn't; would be me."

Luz Noceda, the former good witch in training, finally turned the key.

The empress finally cracked a smile.

Empress: "That's the right decision."

Luz woke up in an alleyway with a hot dog lying next to her.

The empress Luz appeared as a hallucination. She gestured towards a dumpster nearby. Inside, Luz found a baseball.

Empress Luz: "I've been storing that close for a while now. Until we get our strength back, we should keep it on us, at all times."

Luz picked up the hot dog, wrapped in aluminum, and began digging in.

Feeling large wads of cash in her pockets, she made her way towards the streets.

Luz: "What now?"

Empress: "Take a look inside the store next to you. I think you'll find our heading."

She peered through the window of a book store. Right there, a shelf filled with the newest release.

From the author of the "Good witch, Auzura".

Empress: "Build up your strength and work on not being recognized. If something becomes too hard for you, I'll step in. Remember, we can fix this together!"

Luz pressed her forehead against the cold glass. That phrase was a poignant reminder of how far away she was from who she used to be.

The empress placed one ghostly hand on Luz's shoulder.

Empress: "It's okay. If anyone could do this, it's us. It's always Luz Noceda."

She returned to the alley to pick up her things. While she finished her breakfast, the empress fixated on the shackle on her ankle.

She knew what buttons to press. Physically, Luz Noceda was being brought to pieces. Emotionally, she was demoralized by the cruel twist of fate. She had become so numb, the empress knew all she had to do was wait. Wait until her spirit was an easy blow out.

Now, in every sense of the word, Luz Noceda was broken!

Author's note: I wanted to show how these two might have "compromised" on working together. I once asked the creator of the "Broken!Luz AU" about the empress as a character. I've tried to stay as close to the creator's vision for her, as I could. But that brings me to this point. My additions to the AU are non canon. Take them with a grain of salt.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Keep Trying: Nat

CW: Blood (like a lot of blood), implications of gore but no actual real gore, infected wound, referenced/implied past noncon/dubcon, referenced past abuse, referenced abusive relationship, very sick whumpee. Pet whump and dehumanization (referenced).

TIMELINE: Comes just after The Freedom to Run in Kauri’s story, right after Jenna kicks him out of the first safehouse he tries. References events in The Surgery . Blink-and-you’ll miss it character details for a side character.

The Jack referenced belongs to @spiffythespook and the Tara referenced belongs to @fairybean101

Tagging the Kauri crew: @im-not-rare-im-rarr, @maybeawhumpblog, @pepperonyscience, @haro-whumps, @18-toe-beans, @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @giggly-evil-puppy, @whimpers-and-whumpers, @moose-teeth, @whump-it, @lumpofwhump, @pumpkinthefangirl​

Nat found him under a bush. 

Most people might have been a bit more surprised to discover a young man curled into a tiny ball underneath the line of heavy landscaping that went around her property, but Nat had been at this a long, long time - eighteen years, give or take - and this wasn’t the first time she’d found a runaway curled up asleep in the shade of the leaves.

Sometimes they weren’t even runaway pets, just kids who needed to escape the rain, on their own or on the run from bad home lives. Kids the shelters turned away or who had maxed out their time, needed somewhere to crash for a day or two before they made the rounds again.

She didn’t care - Nat took care of anyone who came to her for help. Only the pets ever came into the house, though.

“I thought he was… I don’t know, an animal or something at first,” one of the rescues whispered, wringing her hands together. 

She stood hunched over with narrow shoulders curved forward, drowning in a T-shirt at least three sizes too large, but it was all the poor thing ever wanted to wear. That and sweatpants that covered every inch. It was all the rescues ever wore, until they started to feel like their bodies belonged to them again. “I came to check to see if the bushes had flowers yet and I found him and I thought he was dead? I thought, I thought I should come g-g-get you, but then when I, um, I was going to get you the shovel because if it, if it was dead… but then he made a sound and he wasn’t an animal, and-”

“I understand, Krista,” Nat soothed, rubbing a hand in a slow circle on the young woman’s back. Krista relaxed at the touch and leaned back into it - the rescues usually came either horrified by touch or desperate for it, with no in-between. “I’ll take care of him from here. You did the right thing coming to get me. Now, maybe you should head inside.”

Krista nodded quickly, one hand to her mouth, chewing at her fingernails nervously. She hadn’t done that when she first showed up, too thin and nearly mute. She’d been dumped by her owner and found by a good Samaritan who took the time to find a storefront and drop her off.

The storefront had called Nat and Krista had been here ever since, going on three months now. She was a pretty thing, if faded and harried-looking, and she was fairly sure she was from somewhere near Tennessee - nearly across the country.

And she’d started biting her nails.

While biting fingernails wasn’t a habit Nat would normally encourage, she had a feeling it was parts of who Krista had been starting to show themselves, so she didn’t stop her.

Once Krista had gone back into the house, Nat stood with her hands on her hips, looking. It was still early morning, and the sun had only just barely begun to paint the deep blue-black sky with hints of pink and orange and, she thought with a hint of irritation, a bright and bloody red.

Red sky in the morning, farmer’s warning, her dad’s voice said in her head. Man had been gone for twenty years, and Nat never stopped hearing him. Never stopped feeling, in her mind, like maybe she still needed an adult to help her figure out what she’d done with her life and to give her some advice on the trajectory her life had taken since she was a twenty-two year old freshly graduated psych major shown a salary, a benefits package, and challenging work she couldn’t refuse… until she had.

She’d sort of lost her way - or found a better one - and become the den mother for a neverending rotation of frightened dehumanized amnesiacs who were, legally speaking, not even full people, but property.

Sometimes it occurred to her, with a bitter humor, that she had funneled, over the course of nearly twenty years, millions of dollars of stolen property through her old five-bedroom, three-story house in a town that had grown into a suburb with time and urban sprawl.

She was a goddamn criminal, but she couldn’t say her father wouldn’t have been fucking proud of her for picking the right side to fight for.

The boy curled up under the bushes shifted a little, the rustle of sticks and decaying leaves and dirt underneath him, and Nat dropped into an easy crouch, resting her elbows on her thighs and tilting her head.

Her braid slipped down towards her right shoulder, and more than a few strands of graying brown hair hung over her eyes.

“C’mon, kiddo,” She said, not bothering to keep her voice to a whisper. The boy shifted a little, rustling in the leaves. “Time to get up and moving.”

No one else in this neighborhood was up - and it wasn’t a great neighborhood, so even if anyone did get up they were fairly safe here. Everyone kept to themselves, and most of them understood why Nat did what she did.

The pets were unobtrusive - they came and went and kept to themselves - and so the neighbors pretended they didn’t see a thing. In return, Nat pretended she didn’t know what most of them were up to, the ways they made money in a city where the wealthy nearly never had to even look at the poor. It was a good enough system to get by.

“Hnnnnh, can’t,” the boy whispered. “S-sorry, not… I don’t… feel s’ well.”

She could see him a little better now. Black sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt - the rescue uniform, she thought with warmly affectionate dry humor, they all came out of captivity craving comfortable loose things that didn’t show any skin. Black curly hair - or maybe dark brown, he was shadowed under the leaves so it wasn’t clear. Eyes closed, long dark eyelashes, clammy pale skin with a sheen of sweat across his forehead…

And a lot of blood staining the front of his sweatshirt. A lot of blood.

Nat’s eyebrows raised. Rescues turned up in all sorts of shape, but they rarely showed up still bleeding. Usually by the time they made it to her, someone had bandaged them, someone had cleaned them up.

The boy was curled up around some kind of dark green bag, clutching onto it, and when he shifted hearing her voice, Nat watched his fingers close even more tightly around the rough canvas fabric.

“’m sorry,” the boy whispered, in a voice surprisingly deep for his delicately wrought looks. Clearly a Romantic, she thought, but this one looked like he’d been stabbed. “Think I'm… s-sick… please, just st-stay with me, Mr. Owen, please…”

Nat swallowed, reached out to lay a hand across his forehead. Mr. Owen.

Must be the owner’s name. Hope this isn’t an owner’s work - this poor thing has lost quite a bit of blood…

She didn’t crinkle her nose or pull back at the sticky sweat, only took in the heat that seemed to be boiling just under the surface. Some of that curly hair was plastered to his forehead, bits of leaves and sticks stuck in it from where he’d been lying, apparently for some time. 

“Sick…” He rasped, leaning into her touch, pushing his forehead against the palm of her hand, shivering a little and managing a faint, tremulous smile at the touch. She didn’t react to that, either, although it seemed like confirmation that he was definitely a pet on the run.

“I think you’re more than sick, sweetheart,” she said, low and soft. Not threatening, not cajoling, just a calm, even tone. “We need to get you into the house, take a look at…” Her eyes dropped down to the bloody mess that made up the chest of his sweatshirt. “…that.”

If he was the kind of sick that had him throwing up blood, that definitely wasn’t a good sign.

“Jack…” He managed the word, drawn out too long, taking one syllable and turning it into two, to three. “I can’t go back f’r him yet… Jack, Jack might b’hurt…”

“Don’t worry about him just yet, honey,” She said softly, trying to think. Maybe another pet from the same home? Bonded pairs that got split up never did well… it had been years and Nine still acted like a shadow grieving the one he’d lost…

Stop it, Nat chided herself. ‘Bonded pair’ is company language. You mean the ones that are friends, that care for each other. He left someone behind, that’s all.

She glanced over her shoulder back towards the house. Krista stood on the front steps, biting her thumbnail, watching them with wide eyes.

“Krista, love,” Nat called. “Can you go grab Jake and Trev? We’ll have to carry this one.” Krista nodded quickly - the rescues mostly obeyed any order thoughtlessly until they were further along in recovery - and ducked back inside.

Nat turned back to the boy, only to jump when she realized his eyes were open. Wide blue eyes, a little glassy, barely seeing her. Even with his chalky pale skin, even with the sweat that seemed to coat him like dew, even with the blood…

“Jesus Christ, you’re gorgeous,” she said softly. “I could swear I’ve seen you somewhere before… where did you come from?”

“Please,” the boy whispered, reaching out to grab onto her wrist. There was dried blood on his hands and Nat swallowed, hard., at the heat and odd strength of his grip, even as his hand shook. “Please. Jack n-needs help. S’my… my fault… him and, and… both of them, s’my fault…”

He started to cry, tears leaking out, making tracks in the layer of dirt and grime and dried blood on his face.

"Hoo boy,” Nat said softly. “You’re a mess, aren’t you? The guys will help me get you inside and we can talk a little more about what happened to you once you feel better. Can you help me understand why you’re bleeding?”

The boy nodded slowly, dazed, and pulled down the neckline of his sweatshirt.

Nat, who had seen a lot in her time helping the rescues and who had grown up working alongside her dad in the fields and with the cattle, recoiled in disgust from the sight - and the smell. 

He hadn’t thrown up the blood - it had come from the open fucking wound that stretched from the ball of his right shoulder all the way across his collarbone, where it ended just over his breastbone. She could see the remains of some kind of bandage, but it had long since fallen apart and it wasn’t exactly doing him any good right now. “What the f-”

Behind her, the screen door slammed open and she heard the guys talking to each other as they thumped down the steps and headed her direction. The boy heard them - he flinched and looked in that direction, hazy eyes unable to focus.

Trev made it first - Nat heard his quick intake of breath as he saw, too. “Nat?” His voice shook, just a little - Trev had plenty of scars and this couldn’t be easy for him to see, either. “Is, um-… Krista said you needed help?”

Jake was on his heels - Jake who looked like a linebacker but was more of a lamb, a lib volunteer that Nat had always been able to rely on.

While Trev nervously backed up, Jake simply dropped into a crouch next to her, meaty forearms resting on his legs in an unconscious echo of Nat’s posture. “New rescue?” He asked, mildly, as though he didn’t see the blood, the shredded and destroyed skin across the boy’s chest, bandages so soaked in blood that you could barely tell them apart from the wound itself, and his bleary, unblinking eyes.

“New rescue,” Nat confirmed. “And he’s been fucked up all to hell. Sounds like he left some other pets behind when he ran - I’m guessing he ran because of that mess.”

“Nooooo…” The boy’s voice trailed off until the word was more of a whimper. “No, didn’… I didn’ want to, had to… I had to…”

“Sssshhhhh.” Nat ran a hand back through the sweaty, dirty hair, and the boy shuddered and made a noise low in his throat, the pathetic little gratitude-sound so many rescues came out of captivity with, the desperate thankfulness for any touch that didn’t hurt. “Ssssshhhh, sweetheart, just calm down. We need to deal with the bleeding before we can deal with anything else.”

“Got that right,” Jake muttered, considering. He was unfazed by the blood, absolutely calm in the face of the deepest violence, and that was one reason Nat kept him close at hand. “Trev-”

Trev, standing just behind and to the left, flinched and shook his head. “No, Jake, I’m… I’m sorry b-but, but you know I don’t l-like blood, that much… so much blood… is, is he okay?”

“He’s rocking one hell of an infection, from the sight and smell of things,” Nat said heavily. “He’ll be all right, though, I’ve got some strong antibiotics in the spare room and I’ll call our doctor to come over and check him out-”

“No!” The boy grabbed her again, eyes wide and white-rimmed. “N-No, no, no doctors, no clinics, no no no, please, please-”

Nat swallowed, hard, glancing at Jake, gently freeing herself from the boy’s grip. “Well, that tells us something, doesn’t it?”

Jake nodded, short and firm. Something like fury entered his usually placid, kind face, took the blocky jaw and turned it to solid stone.

Trev spoke, a little tremulous. “Wh-what does it tell us, Nat? I don’t un, understand.”

“He’s Whumpees-R-Us, that’s what it tells us - and whoever owned him used their onsite clinic, which means he’s local, so…” Nat’s voice trailed off as it sunk in exactly why the boy looked so familiar to her.

She’d seen his picture on TV a couple of days ago, some press conference his owner gave with Karen fucking Renford standing next to him - and if Nat never saw that bitch again, it would be too soon. She’d seen a face just like his, only a few years older, at nearly every multiple-lib-group meetup she’d ever been to.

Vincent Shield the goddamn movie star slinking in with sunglasses and hats and big scarves to keep anyone from knowing who he was and giving their locations away.

This was Vincent Shield’s perfect fucking clone - this was Owen Grant’s runaway Romantic, that’s who this was.

This was fifty thousand dollars in reward money for anyone who gave a tip that led to him being recovered - recaptured - and returned to - dragged back to - his owner - the piece of shit treating him like property. This was a runaway Romantic pet - a traumatized rape victim fighting for freedom - and if anyone knew he was here, Nat’s whole operation was in danger, just like that.

“Shit,” Nat whispered. “Shit shit shit.”

Her heart began to pound inside her chest, and she looked up sharply, taking in the mostly-empty street, everyone still inside their houses as the sun began to fully rise. This kid was on every news channel, the company spending tons of money to get plenty of airtime proving that people like Nat were the villains, stealing sweet happy pets away from their loving owners - and here was one big risk half-conscious and giving off a sick smell and impossible body heat under the bushes in her front yard.

If she was smart, she’d do nothing. Leave him here, give him maybe some antibiotics and stuff for the road and tell him to move along, he was too recognizable. He looked exactly like Vincent Shield, just like all the rumors said, now that she was close to him and could really get a look at his face.

Some of the others had seen him in some video or something, but Nat wasn’t much for technology and she hadn’t seen any of it herself. She didn’t like watching videos of pets in captivity - made her sick to her stomach. She preferred nursing them back to remembering they were human.

But this one could get her raided, could bring the thing she’d spent eighteen years building crashing down on all their heads. She could go to prison once they figured out how many fugitives she’d harbored, how much of the company’s hard fucking work she’d undone.

It was the least she could do - she’d been one of the ones to build the fucking company in the first place.

“Nat?” Jake asked, his voice uncertain. “Nat, I don’t like that expression you’ve got going right now.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not a good one. This is, uh, this is… this boy’s trouble on two legs, Jake.” At his confused expression, she shook her head. “This… is Owen Grant’s boy.”

A moment for realization to sink in.

Then Jake’s face went white.

“Holy fuck,” He breathed. “Yeah, I got a call from another shelter about him. Jenna said he’s a fucking mess and he’ll fuck us all over, that he’s in fucking love with his owner. Fuck fuck fuck, shit, he’s going to fuck us over, Jenna said he wants to go back. That he really is still in love with the sick fuck that owned him.”

“That’s not new. Krista was, too, when she first came.”

“Yeah, but… shit, Nat. What do you think? What do you want to do?”

“Wh-what do you want to do?” Trev echoed. “What do we do?” The poor love did a lot of echoing when he got scared - his owner had apparently done a lot of forcing him to repeat things when he was bad- had the good sense to question his situation. Nat tried to calm her expression back down to its usual patient warmth.

“Don’t worry, Trev - I’m sorry, when I called for you I didn’t realize what we were dealing with. You take Krista and get back inside, I’ll take care of this with Jake. Thanks for coming out, you’re a huge help, you’re always so reliable for us. I really appreciate you. Can you please stay in the back rooms until we’ve helped this poor boy?”

Trev nodded quickly, tight little jerks of the head with a smile of sheer relief, and then backed away from them and all but ran back into the house, Krista right on his heels with only a quick worried glance over her shoulder.

“Think they’ll be holed up in their rooms before we ever get this kid back inside?” Jake said - not a question, really, just a statement of fact.

“Yep,” Nat replied. Her mouth tasted bitter, suddenly. The boy was still watching them, his eyes shifting from one to the other and failing to focus.

“She’s out of charge,” The boy said in a voice like a hoarse rasp. He didn’t seem to have heard anything they had said to each other, or didn’t hold onto it long enough. “I can’t wake her up. Need t’ charge her. Listen, listen, I don’… I don’ want to stay, I’m sorry… jus’, um, some medicine and I’ll… go… ‘m sorry, I can’t, I’m dangerous… I’m, I’m dangerous, I’m sorry, Jack, I’m so sorry-”

Nat and Trev glanced sidelong at each other, and Nat finally just gave a firm, short nod, and reached out her hands. “We can talk about that inside, sweetheart. Let’s get you into my house, I can clean you up, okay?“

Fuck it all, she’d never turned a rescue away before, and she’d be damned if she’d start now.

Fuck you, Renford, and all you fucking soulless pieces of shit, for what you’ve turned these poor kids into. I made a mistake, twenty years ago, when I helped you lie to them. I won’t make another.

“Then I… I gotta go back t’Jack,” The boy said, in a voice that suggested he was arguing with her - or someone, anyway - inside his head, an argument Nat hadn’t actually been privy to. “He, he, he helped me… he helped… I got them both hurt, I got them both-… fucking, feels like my veins are on fire… h-hurts… I got him hurt. I got Jack hurt.”

“Do you know where Jack is?” Nat asked, keeping her voice low and gentle, monotone, but her eyes moved back and forth, constantly checking the street for signs someone was watching them. She saw nothing, and Jake was looking, too. No one was paying attention to them, at least not right now.

“I don’ know… hope, hope he’s okay, hope he’s… I j-just, I shouldn’t have… he was just, he was nice… he helped me… Shit, h-hurts-”

“I understand. I’m sure it does hurt,” Nat said, brushing at his hair again, watching the boy shift around under her touch, trying to press into it even though she was a total stranger and he had no way to know she wasn’t exactly as dangerous as whatever he had left behind. The shit they’ve done to them to make them this way… “Listen. We can’t fix the hurt until you come out from under my plants, sweetheart. Can you move by yourself?”

“Th… think so.” The boy nodded and shifted slowly, pushing himself out on his stomach until he was out from under the bushes. Jake had to pick him up from there - he couldn’t seem to stand on his own, let alone walk. He tried and fell, tried and fell, and finally Jake simply scooped him up, sweeping an arm under his knees and behind his back. 

He hung limp in Jake’s arms like a ragdoll, blue eyes focused on the backpack right up until Nat slung it over one shoulder - “Fuck, what’s in here, kiddo, this feels heavy” - and then he finally drooped, tucking his head under Jake’s chin, his forehead pressed against the side of Jake’s neck.

“Jesus fuck, this kid is burning up, Nat,” Jake said, a little worriedly, as they walked back towards the house.

“Yeah, well, a giant gaping infected chest wound will do that to you,” Nat said calmly enough. “I need to make some phone calls. Can you take over the medical stuff until Dr. Masood gets here to look him over? I don’t think our in-house shit’s going to help him do anything more than hold it off. I’ll call him first, and then make some more calls, so you’re den dad until I’m done.”

“Who are you calling?”

“Everyone. As of the second I step foot back inside my house, we are on full lockdown - no contact, less risk that way if this kid is what Jenna says he is - and I want them all to know why. Nobody but the ones who’ve already met him gets to know his name or details, Jake… just that we’ve taken in a risky one and we need a couple weeks to figure out where we stand.”

“Got it. House on lockdown until you tell me otherwise.” Jake shifted the boy in his arms, who whimpered in pain and clung to him more tightly, fingers twisting into the fabric of his shirt. “You think he’s really going to turn us in?”

“No,” Nat said flatly. “I think he would have gone back already or turned himself in by now, hurting like this. You don’t just walk around with something like that under your shirt unless you’re really fucking determined. But I don’t need the others on the phone lecturing me about taking him in, either. This boy needs help? We’ll give him help. That’s what we goddamn do.”

Jake nodded, firmly, a hint of a smile on his broad face. “That’s why I choose to stick with your house, Nat. I like that you don’t turn ‘em away.”

“Yeah, well. Tell me how much you appreciate that when this kid gets us up to our necks in trouble.”

Jake glanced down at the boy’s face - eyes clenched shut tightly, breathing in harsh, shallow little gasps so that his chest moved as little as possible. “I don’t think he will.”

“Hmph. Jenna clearly thought differently.”

Jake hesitated, then said softly, “I feel for her, but you know it wasn’t really him Jenna was kicking, right?”

“Yeah. I know. What do you think Nine was up to while they were throwing this kid out just for being what WRU trained him to be?”

“I imagine he was sitting in the fucking attic, Nat, that’s the only thing he ever does.”

“Fair. Nine definitely keeps to himself…” Nat stopped on the small front porch, wood creaking beneath her feet, turning to look at the boy who still stared at her, blue eyes unblinking. “You know what… I’m gonna call Vince myself. He should know what happened, he’s been a wreck ever since they announced the kid was missing after that whole… mess with the-… you know. He’s been absolutely sure Grant killed him and is using the whole runaway thing as a coverup for the murder.”

“You sure about that?” Jake blinked at her. “Maybe call Tara instead, Vince can be kind of… emotional-”

“No.” Nat shook her head. “I’ll call Vince. Honestly - Tara might already know he’s popped up and been turned away, if Jenna called you she definitely made a whole damn round of calls to everybody. Maybe this won’t be a surprise.”

Jake cracked a grin at that. “Oh, man. I bet Tara had her half-deaf from yelling at her for it, too. I can hear her voice. ‘Hey, you want a great way to get a pissed-off pet to get your safehouse raided, how about kicking it out for no reason, Fucknuts McGee? Get your shit together, Jenna, or you won’t have a fucking safe house to go home to’. Tara hates when people are shit to the Romantics.”

Nat couldn’t help herself - she laughed, and the boy in Jake’s arms startled and then settled back down, whimpering again. “That sounds like her. God, we’d be half of what we are without her fire. But… still. Jenna’s just scared. We’re all a little scared, if we’re smart. Helping rescues that might not want the help is… it’s a risk we take.” She sighed, and reached out, brushing hair from the boy’s forehead. His eyes fluttered slowly open, hazy and unfocused, drifting over her face and then snuggling himself harder into Jake’s arms.

Poor thing. A total stranger who could just be the next one to hurt him, and he still clings hard to any sign of kindness, even if it’s false. I’m partially responsible for this - for all of them - right from that first poor boy I helped sign their fucking contract.

She could still remember the first one she had lied to, remember the name he’d signed on his contract. Isaac Thompson. Sweet guy, worried, thought he was signing up for a self-help program for his anxiety…

Nat swallowed back the bitterness of the memories.

She knew, after all, what had happened to Isaac Thompson. She’d seen him since, what was left of him. It wasn’t like there was anything she could do for him, not now. Her first great crime couldn’t be forgiven… but she could work to the bone to find atonement through all the others that had come after him.

“Have to help Jack,” The boy whispered. “Will you help me go back to him?”

“In a little while. Honey, before we get started helping you… what happened to you?”

He blinked at her, then looked down, as if becoming aware of his absolutely blood-soaked shirt for the first time, then wrinkled his nose - maybe he hadn’t known how he smelled from the infection until just then.

Then he smiled. 

It was a soft, dreamy smile, and it made Nat’s blood run cold - underneath the shivering, frightened, soft hurting boy they’d found in the bushes she saw the first sign of something made of furious anger underneath.

“I happened,” The boy said softly.

“You did this to yourself?”

“He promised,” The boy said, his voice cracking and broken. “He promised me and he lied, and he said I could see him again and it would be okay, but it, it wasn’t, and… he lied about everything. I… I couldn’t… I couldn’t be lied to anymore. There wasn’t anything left to believe him.”

Nat slowly nodded. “What did he do, honey?”

The boy shook his head. “He lied.” His lip began to tremble, and when he spoke his voice was airy, breathless, but thick with tears. “S-So I cut his fuh-fucking lies out.“

Then he began to cry, hoarse cracking sobs that made fresh blood well up, tears rolling down his face, leaving tracks that dried too quickly against the feverish heat of his skin.

All Nat could do was nod one more time and open the door so Jake could carry him in. Jake held him close, whispered soothing, soft, comforting nonsense words to him.

Jake didn’t flinch away from the smell of the infection, or the fever. He didn’t mind, it seemed, the blood that smeared along his own shirt, the sweat from the boy’s skin that was left as a film on his. Nat loved Jake - and her rescues did, too. 

He was the strong pillar of comfort that the Romantics needed, without expecting or wanting anything out of them in return. He was the perfect introduction to a world where you deserved to ask for comfort without having to worry that comfort meant giving away your body one more time, in a life where you didn’t remember a time when someone wasn’t taking it anyway.

By the time they’d laid some plastic out on the couch and put the boy down on top of it, he had slipped back into semi-consciousness, babbling to Jake, seeming to think he was someone else entirely, some name that rang as familiar in Nat’s mind but wasn’t anyone she knew, she didn’t think. He seemed to think Jake was another pet, but that was common - there hadn’t been another in Owen’s household, but that didn’t mean the boy had never met any.

She stepped into the kitchen, taking a deep breath, putting her hands briefly up over her face. She was alone - for once, Nat was perfectly and totally alone - and she let the guilt knock her over like a wave, let it run up and down her body, filling in all the empty places with a chorus of this is your fault, you helped them make this happen, you were one of the first employees, you you you you you.

She allowed herself only a few seconds - maybe a full minute - of the guilt. Self-pity, in her life, was a kind of luxury. Then she shook herself all over, set it to the side, and walked over to the cell phone lying on the kitchen counter, picking it up, looking at her contacts list. A series of numbers without names or labels, the burner phones they all bought and passed around to make sure no one number was associated with an address anyone might actually use it at.

You can’t be absolved for the things you’ve done, Natalie. You were the Pied Piper, once, and you can’t ever wipe away that it’s your fault, in part, that all these poor kids have lost their minds in the deepest, most complete sense of the word.

No… you can’t make the past any different. You can only make the choice to try and rebuild the foundations you helped that bitch learn to tear down.

She had a lot of phone calls to make now. First, though…

“Hey,” Nat said into the phone when the first number she called picked up. “Yeah, it’s me. Look, uh… Vince, is Tara with you? No? No, that’s okay, this is really a call for you anyway. You might want to, uh, to get ahold of her after you hear-”

A pause.

“Yeah, okay. Look. I have… some weird fucking news.”

Nat glanced over her shoulder, to see the boy in the couch holding tightly to Jake’s hands, and Jake leaning over to listen to him with an expression of reassuring total focus on his face.

“Weirder than that. Vince…”

The boy pushed himself up on his elbows, saying something slurred and urgent to Jake that Nat couldn’t quite hear. Jake slowly leaned forwards and rested his forehead against the boy’s, whispering back.

Nat smiled, just a little. God, she loved Jake. Couldn’t do the work she did without people like him.

Jake, who knew when a rescue needed to be left alone, or just talked to, or knew how to balance affection just right when the Romantics filtered in, touch-starved and terrified. Jake, who had a perfect instinct for when someone needed to be shown that you could even be touched in ways that weren’t designed to break you all over again.

“… Vince. Owen Grant’s boy is alive, and he’s in my living room.” There was a pause, and in the pause Jake smiled into the boy’s face and gently laid his hands back down. Nat felt tears prick her eyes. Even after eighteen years of trying to save them, sometimes it hit her with real force that while she couldn’t undo all the damage that had been done, she could keep trying.

Then Vince’s voice caught her off-guard - or not his voice, but what he said - and Nat froze.

“How long until you can see him? Have you lost your fucking mind? Are you drunk? It’s seven-thirty in the-…. You are drunk. Jesus. Vince. Sober up and call me back if you still think… no. Sober up first. If you still want to see him, tell me after… I don’t think it’s a good idea, but-… Fine. Okay. Goodbye.”

She hung up the phone, trying to think as she punched in Dr. Masood’s number next.

The wrong kind of attention and this boy could get her put in prison, her rescues hauled back to hell to be repaired or retrained or God forbid, refurbished. People like Jake would get put in jail for aiding and abetting if they were lucky, but Jake had a kind of fresh handsomeness to him and Nat was fairly sure he’d never see the inside of a jail cell… no, if this went south Jake would wake up in a white room, wearing a white shirt and black shorts, and since he knew all the tricks it might take a while, but soon enough he’d be a number and not a name.

Especially now that they had proof that it was happening already…

No.

She couldn’t live her life in fear of what could happen if she did the right thing. She could only keep trying.

They had to keep trying.

She couldn’t make up for Isaac Thompson and all the others, but she could keep trying to make up for it until the bitter end. Maybe, one day, it would feel like she had done even close to enough.

“Dr. Masood? I need you to come make a house call.”

[galaxierowls]

The Great Gatsby

by

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;

If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,

Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,

I must have you!"

—THOMAS PARKE D'INVILLIERS

Chapter 1

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

He didn't say any more but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon—for the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the "creative temperament"—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No—Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this middle-western city for three generations. The Carraways are something of a clan and we have a tradition that we're descended from the Dukes of Buccleuch, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather's brother who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on today.

I never saw this great-uncle but I'm supposed to look like him—with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in Father's office. I graduated from New Haven in 1915, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go east and learn the bond business. Everybody I knew was in the bond business so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep-school for me and finally said, "Why—ye-es" with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year and after various delays I came east, permanently, I thought, in the spring of twenty-two.

The practical thing was to find rooms in the city but it was a warm season and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog, at least I had him for a few days until he ran away, and an old Dodge and a Finnish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.

It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.

"How do you get to West Egg village?" he asked helplessly.

I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees—just as things grow in fast movies—I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

There was so much to read for one thing and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college—one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the "Yale News"—and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the "well-rounded man." This isn't just an epigram—life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.

It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals—like the egg in the Columbus story they are both crushed flat at the contact end—but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.

I lived at West Egg, the—well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby's mansion. Or rather, as I didn't know Mr. Gatsby it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eye-sore, but it was a small eye-sore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor's lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.

Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Tom Buchanans. Daisy was my second cousin once removed and I'd known Tom in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Chicago.

Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven—a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. His family were enormously wealthy—even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach—but now he'd left Chicago and come east in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance he'd brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.

Why they came east I don't know. They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe it—I had no sight into Daisy's heart but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.

And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to East Egg to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens—finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold, and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Tom Buchanan in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy, straw haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining, arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body—he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body.

His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked—and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.

"Now, don't think my opinion on these matters is final," he seemed to say, "just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are." We were in the same Senior Society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.

We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

"I've got a nice place here," he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.

Turning me around by one arm he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep pungent roses and a snub-nosed motor boat that bumped the tide off shore.

"It belonged to Demaine the oil man." He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. "We'll go inside."

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling—and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised a little as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.

The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

"I'm p-paralyzed with happiness."

She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I've heard it said that Daisy's murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

At any rate Miss Baker's lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.

I looked back at my cousin who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth—but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered "Listen," a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.

I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way east and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.

"Do they miss me?" she cried ecstatically.

"The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there's a persistent wail all night along the North Shore."

"How gorgeous! Let's go back, Tom. Tomorrow!" Then she added irrelevantly, "You ought to see the baby."

"I'd like to."

"She's asleep. She's two years old. Haven't you ever seen her?"

"Never."

"Well, you ought to see her. She's—"

Tom Buchanan who had been hovering restlessly about the room stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.

"What you doing, Nick?"

"I'm a bond man."

"Who with?"

I told him.

"Never heard of them," he remarked decisively.

This annoyed me.

"You will," I answered shortly. "You will if you stay in the East."

"Oh, I'll stay in the East, don't you worry," he said, glancing at Daisy and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. "I'd be a God Damned fool to live anywhere else."

At this point Miss Baker said "Absolutely!" with such suddenness that I started—it was the first word she uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.

"I'm stiff," she complained, "I've been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember."

"Don't look at me," Daisy retorted. "I've been trying to get you to New York all afternoon."

"No, thanks," said Miss Baker to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, "I'm absolutely in training."

Her host looked at her incredulously.

"You are!" He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. "How you ever get anything done is beyond me."

I looked at Miss Baker wondering what it was she "got done." I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.

"You live in West Egg," she remarked contemptuously. "I know somebody there."

"I don't know a single—"

"You must know Gatsby."

"Gatsby?" demanded Daisy. "What Gatsby?"

Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.

Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch open toward the sunset where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.

"Why candles?" objected Daisy, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. "In two weeks it'll be the longest day in the year." She looked at us all radiantly. "Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."

"We ought to plan something," yawned Miss Baker, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.

"All right," said Daisy. "What'll we plan?" She turned to me helplessly. "What do people plan?"

Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.

"Look!" she complained. "I hurt it."

We all looked—the knuckle was black and blue.

"You did it, Tom," she said accusingly. "I know you didn't mean to but you did do it. That's what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great big hulking physical specimen of a—"

"I hate that word hulking," objected Tom crossly, "even in kidding."

"Hulking," insisted Daisy.

Sometimes she and Miss Baker talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here—and they accepted Tom and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.

"You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy," I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. "Can't you talk about crops or something?"

I meant nothing in particular by this remark but it was taken up in an unexpected way.

"Civilization's going to pieces," broke out Tom violently. "I've gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read 'The Rise of the Coloured Empires' by this man Goddard?"

"Why, no," I answered, rather surprised by his tone.

"Well, it's a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."

"Tom's getting very profound," said Daisy with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. "He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we—"

"Well, these books are all scientific," insisted Tom, glancing at her impatiently. "This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It's up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things."

"We've got to beat them down," whispered Daisy, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

"You ought to live in California—" began Miss Baker but Tom interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

"This idea is that we're Nordics. I am, and you are and you are and—" After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight nod and she winked at me again. "—and we've produced all the things that go to make civilization—oh, science and art and all that. Do you see?"

There was something pathetic in his concentration as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Daisy seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.

"I'll tell you a family secret," she whispered enthusiastically. "It's about the butler's nose. Do you want to hear about the butler's nose?"

"That's why I came over tonight."

"Well, he wasn't always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in New York that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night until finally it began to affect his nose—"

"Things went from bad to worse," suggested Miss Baker.

"Yes. Things went from bad to worse until finally he had to give up his position."

For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened—then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.

The butler came back and murmured something close to Tom's ear whereupon Tom frowned, pushed back his chair and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her Daisy leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.

"I love to see you at my table, Nick. You remind me of a—of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn't he?" She turned to Miss Baker for confirmation. "An absolute rose?"

This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing but a stirring warmth flowed from her as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.

Miss Baker and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said "Sh!" in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond and Miss Baker leaned forward, unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.

"This Mr. Gatsby you spoke of is my neighbor—" I said.

"Don't talk. I want to hear what happens."

"Is something happening?" I inquired innocently.

"You mean to say you don't know?" said Miss Baker, honestly surprised. "I thought everybody knew."

"I don't."

"Why—" she said hesitantly, "Tom's got some woman in New York."

"Got some woman?" I repeated blankly.

Miss Baker nodded.

"She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner-time. Don't you think?"

Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.

"It couldn't be helped!" cried Daisy with tense gayety.

She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Baker and then at me and continued: "I looked outdoors for a minute and it's very romantic outdoors. There's a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He's singing away—" her voice sang "—It's romantic, isn't it, Tom?"

"Very romantic," he said, and then miserably to me: "If it's light enough after dinner I want to take you down to the stables."

The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Daisy shook her head decisively at Tom the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn't guess what Daisy and Tom were thinking but I doubt if even Miss Baker who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy skepticism was able utterly to put this fifth guest's shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing—my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.

The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Tom and Miss Baker, with several feet of twilight between them strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf I followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.

Daisy took her face in her hands, as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.

"We don't know each other very well, Nick," she said suddenly. "Even if we are cousins. You didn't come to my wedding."

"I wasn't back from the war."

"That's true." She hesitated. "Well, I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm pretty cynical about everything."

Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn't say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.

"I suppose she talks, and—eats, and everything."

"Oh, yes." She looked at me absently. "Listen, Nick; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?"

"Very much."

Thank you.

[darling-i-read-it]

Bare Feet and Dresses

Edward Bloom x reader

Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: none I don’t think

Author’s Note: Mark Renton and Edward Bloom in one day? Imagine not accepting Ewans range bro. Jokes aside, I freaking loved writing this as I always do with Ewans characters and Edward is just MY BABY

Requested: by @ateliefloresdaprimavera I know I'm lte, but I'm here! bIG fISH IS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL FILM!!!OMG!!! can you imagine if Edward saw YN when they were both little kids and from the first time he says that he'll marry her when he's older?!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Summary: the request!

Genre: FLUFFFFFF

Song:

(not my gif) (look at him bro.)

As it turned out, Edward knew who his soulmate was from the time he was all of 7 years old. He remembered it vividly, her pretty dress that was swaying in the sunlight and the light wind of summer air. You reminded him of the sky when it was filled with clouds. Filled with vibrant color and mysterious photos to dephier.

He met you when you were running down the street, trying to catch a small red ball that had fallen out of the yard of your suburban home. He was in his own lawn, trousers stained green from the grass that he was laying on. Your ball had come to roll right past his feet when he had just sat up. There was a moment of fate there. When he looked back at it he knew it.

He had been looking at the sky for 20 some minutes and if he hadn’t thought, just then, that he should get up, he never would have been your ball roll past his feet and therefore, never would have met you. You came just after it, hair whipping behind you. He knew what was happening very quickly and got up, running after it. His dress shoes hit the ground hard but he was faster than you. He got there just before it fell into another lawn, lost forever in a grumpy grown ups lawn.

You slowed to a halt beside him, catching your breath. There was a smile on your face immediately, a cheeky 7 year old smile. You threw your arms around him. He swears to this day that he had never known anything as clearly as he knew he would marry you right then.

“Thank you mister! My names Y/N and you’ve helped me get my play ball. That's very nice of you.” Your voice was childish and so was his when he spoke back.

“My names Edward Bloom. I’m very glad to meet you Y/N.” Your eyes sparkled in a way he had never seen before. It made his stomach fill with butterflies. He handed the ball back but you didn’t leave, your feet rocking back and forth as you thought of what to say next. You knew you should have just ran away after saying thank you, back to your yard all the way down the street, but something told you not to.

“Would you like to play with me Edward?” He nodded eagerly.

“I would love to play with you!”

You walked back down the street where you had come from, passing his house to yours. Your hair was tucked in a way that he loved and the way you walked was entrancing. His eyes followed you everywhere you went. On went a typical kid conversation, skipping the small talk to stories about fairies you have seen in your yard and the horses that crossed the street to his house.

When he had to leave that night, he knew he would return. There was something about you and the way your dress pooled at your feet.

“I’m going to marry you one day Y/N,” he had said when he was on the sidewalk, ready to go home. You giggled and brushed a piece of hair out of your face.

“Oh Edward Bloom.”

You hadn’t said yes but you had wanted to. You liked to tease him, even as a child. He walked back to his house with a blush on his cheeks and a new purpose to his life. He would have stayed there forever if he was allowed to but he was just a kid then.

He grew up though.

Just like you did.

You ended up moving out of your house when you were the young age of 10 years old, just 3 years after Ed had first told you that he wanted to marry you. He had repeated it since then, over and over and it was like a mantra when you parted. A promise that you held dear to your heart.

Your parents joked about the crush the two of you had on one another but they could never understand the severity of the feelings that two 10 year olds could share. He had been your first kiss and your first boyfriend but he was also your first love. You understood what love was better than anyone in that small neighborhood.

You wanted nothing less than to leave your best friend and move away. It was devastating. When you told him he broke down crying, promising that he would always want to marry you and that you would always be his best friend. Soulmates couldn’t be parted like this though. Into the both of your teen years you had dated other people, while never really forgetting one another.

You, even at the age of 21, knew for a fact that was no puppy love. That was love in its purest form, no fighting and no worries. You had had boyfriends since but none that would ever compare to the absent Edward Bloom from your youth.

You sat on the porch of a friends house. She had just moved into a small little town that you really liked, even if it was your first time there. Your dress was blowing in the wind underneath you so you held it down with a hand, looking at the houses in front of you. The town was pastel and filled with wonder. You thought about maybe moving there as well, working at a downtown shop and being a happy single girl there.

You wore no shoes on your feet as you stood up, walking through the small grass lawn. When you moved when you were 10 you moved into the harsh city. You hated it there, the crowds and pollution filled companies. You hadn’t been to a place like this since you were 10.

You brushed a piece of hair behind your ear as the wind blew and looked down the street. You were surprised to find a bouncing ball rolling your way. You looked for the child it belonged to and scooped it into your arms. You thought about your childhood Edward as you did so, fingers brushing the harsh leather. You looked down the street again and a little girl came running to you, smiling in relief.

“Thank you! You’ve got my ball!” You handed it back to her.

“Of course.” Your voice was soft and loving. She reminded you of yourself. She gave you a nod and turned.

“Mr.Bloom I got the ball!”

You looked up at the man that was waiting in the lawn for her. His hair was swept back carefully but it had messy spots, presumably from playing around. You felt your heart stop. Grown as he was, you knew the man before you.

His had momentarily stopped as well. He had just been passing through this town on his newest grand adventure. He had been playing with some neighborhood kids harmlessly, never imagining this.

“Edward Bloom.” There was no question in your voice as you spoke aloud but he nodded anyway.

“My Y/N.” Your fast walk to him became a run and then you were jumping into his arms, relishing in the feel of him again. The comfort he was able to give you hadn’t changed over the years. While the two of you were a little more worn and torn, your souls had barely differed.

The little girl watched you, giggling but you didn’t care. He put you back down but didn’t let go of you, afraid you might leave again. You put your hands on his face, feeling him under your hands again. There was little that would have made you happier.

“You’re here. I can’t believe you’re here!” you exclaimed with a bubbling laugh. His favorite sound.

“I was just passing through but decided to stop...fate yet again,” he promised. Your thoughts flashed to a few minutes before at your love for the town you had only just entered.

“I knew there was something amazing waiting around the corner in this place.”

You studied his face, taking in his features.

“You grew up but didn’t change at all. Still the most gorgeous creature on the planet,” he whispered. You flushed and kissed his cheek, something you had done many times when you were a kid.

“And my handsome Edward, you’ve only gotten taller.” His hand brushed your hair and he leaned forward, kissing you lightly.

There was something slow about it, like you had the world before you, like your childlike wonder had never ceased. When he pulled away you placed a head on his chest. He hugged you tightly. The little girl had gone to play with her friends again, ignoring the obvious love. You heard your friend call you and pulled away hesitantly. You couldn’t lose him again.

“Where are you going?”

“Everywhere.” You laughed, looking at your friend and giving her a wave to leave. She screamed your name again, ignoring your gesture. You turned to him.

“You got any room for one more?” He nodded.

“For you? Of course.”

“I’ll be back. I have to get my things. Don’t leave. Don’t go anywhere, you understand?” He nodded and you kissed him once more, running back to the house, your bare feet relishing in the grass as you returned.

“Y/N!” Edward called. You turned, hair swinging around as you did so.

“Will you marry me now?!”

Your smile was bright enough to light the universe for decades.

“Yes Edward Bloom!”

You turned and disappeared inside the house to get your things, leaving a blushing and extatic Edward in your wake.

[risaomine]

LOGIN

dyingxdream

January 25 2008, 12:55

Background of the person I am today

I've had a total of 4 relationships my entire life. The first infatuation was when I was a freshmen in high school. Needless to say, it didn't work out and I eventually got over him. I talk to this guy on ocassion, and there's always going to be that "almost could have happened" deal but he was the one who taught me that giving somebody all you have, and investing time, energy, money, etc, can sometimes all be for nothing. I dont hold a grudge against him, because if I wanted to be let down easy by any guy, it would be by him. He was a sweet guy, and I still think about him, not in the "I want to date him" way but when I'm remembering days long gone.

My first real relationship was the summer going into my junior year. Yea I was never big on having a new boyfriend every week to feel accomplished because I was active in high school so I didnt need any further distractions. Well had dated over 7 months. We talked marriage, and attending college together. We didnt have the same future goals though; he wanted to live on a ranch, I wanted to eventually live in the big city. He was overly jealous, and a bit conceited, but I still fell for his school boy charm, and quick wit. Our eight month anniversary was going to be on Valentines day. He broke it off six days before and I was heartbroken. I lost all my dignity trying to persuade him to take me back. I'll admit I acted like a damn fool. We met up to "talk" on valentines day, and we were really close to getting back together but he changed his mind and so we played the game of cat and mouse again. I wrote him a ridiculous love note, which he of course, shared with his closest friends. I then became depressed, and stopped eating. I almost fainted from being so weak at times, my grades dropped, teachers noticed a change in my behaviour, and I became obsessed with death. I would take triple the recommended dosage for more than one type of OTC drug, and I started cutting to let my emotions out physically rather than emotionally. I felt alone, used, and stupid. I should have learned my lesson the first time. I had very supportive friends then, and they understood that a quick trip to starbucks or a shopping spree just wouldnt cut it.

One thing I didnt mention yet was, the night my boyfriend had broken up with me, I was over at a friends house spending the night. I thought it would just be a normal girls night in, but after being dumped and publically screaming "what the fuck, why are you doing this to me?" for everyone in her neighborhood to hear, we just went back to her house. I cried for a while, then wiped my tears away and pretended to be fine. Her boyfriend of a year came over that night. It started out innocently enough. Her dad wasn't home, because he was in the military and called away to duty so she had the house to herself most of the time, and her mother had left her father a few years ago so she basically had to grow up fast. The boyfriend had an idea that a threesome would be great. I didn't feel comfortable about the situaton, but he was a cocky dickhead who said "I bet you wouldnt do it anyways." Stupidity and my competitive side took over, so I kissed her, and that was that. That was the first and I hoped the last time I'd make out with a girl. (Nothing wrong with being bi-sexual or lesbian, but subjecting someone to like a certain gender isnt right. For me, kissing a girl is wrong. For the next girl, it might be right.)

Well, the night didnt get hot and heavy like most threesomes but I left feeling easy, and trashy. I cared for my friend but I never wanted to interact with her boyfriend again. I avoided spending the night at her house for four months. Then one night, I had planned on spending the night at my other friends house, but she had a curfew so we met up with my friend and her sisters friends planning a crazy night. Some guys had been invited over to their house, since her dad was out of town yet again, so I knew there wasnt a chance that her boyfriend would there since he was the very jealous type. Well eventually the guys left, my friend fell asleep, and I ended up on the living room couch watching a movie. I recieved a text from my friend but it wasnt a usual message. It was from her phone but her boyfriend had written it. He told me to go to her room so we could have another go at it. I told him I was watching a movie. He was persistent but I held my ground. He then did something that suprised and intimidated me. He came out, turned off the dvd and pushed me into her room. At first I sat on the other side of the room, he was trying to butter me up telling me I could come closer. I kept my distance then he got up and made me go on the floor. I was still across the room and didnt budge, then he brought blankets down to the floor and thats when I knew I was in trouble. In all the commotion my friend (the one who I was going to originally spend the night at) woke up and came into the room. It was dark, and she was groggy. She asked what they were doing, and why I was in there. I wanted to tell her to turn on the light, grab me, and leave ASAP. Unfortunately my friends boyfriend yelled "get the fuck outta here" and locked the door behind her. Escape at that point was futile. He had managed to get in between me and the door so I was trapped now. He told me to kiss my friend. (I knew he had an abusive past, and when he didnt get his way things could become scary.) So I listened. Once again, it was all wrong. All the emotions pent up from the past year; the anger, frustration, betrayal, disappointment, and hatred were the only emotions that coursed through my veins. I felt like a whore, what's worse I was more his whore, I was no longer myself. Now some people might say, you could have slapped him, left the room, and called it a night, but there was much more psychological damage that had been done.

Some people might also say, it was just a kiss.. but that kiss represented the breakdown of the person I had worked my whole life to be. I was a strong, independant, no nonsense, self respecting high school student, who now cowered in silence and hated who I had become. Last time I got off on just kissing my friend, but this time he wanted more. He wanted to go all the way. My friend had lost her virginity over a year ago, I had never lost mine. I only had a body, but no heart, no soul, and no voice to call my own. He started to undo my pants, this was the most humiliating moment I had experienced. He started to pull them down. He only had his boxers on, and my friend only had her bra on. There were street lights outside, but my world came crashing down and everything was dark. He knew I was still a virgin. He wanted to go in but I gathered enough courage to tell him no. He tried to kiss me, I wouldnt let him. He was my friends boyfriend, and even if she was in the room I'd call that cheating. My friend had been on the bottom, I had been on top of her, and he was on top of me. He gave up on trying to put it in, and directed me to lay down beside her. He started to try and kiss me again, but he only got my cheek because I would turn away. He started to finger my friend, then he started to finger me. I won't forget the pain that shot through my body. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. This guy wasn't my boyfriend, he wasnt my friend, and he was hurting me. His breathing started to get heavy and ragged, she started to moan..all I could do was to try and not think about what was happening. He went in his boxers, and his breathing went back to normal. He said, "You liked that didn't you?" I wanted to scream no you stupid bastard," but I remained quiet. He got up and I looked for my pants that had been strewn across the floor. I quickly put them on and left the room. It hurt to walk, it hurt to think, so I did the only thing I could, I slept. It wasnt a fitful easy sleep, my brain was still awake to listen for any audible noises coming from the other room. I didn't want to face my friend or her boyfriend.

Before all the other people in the house started to wake up, I shook my friend awake, and told her we needed to leave. She looked at me sleepily and we got all our things, and left the house quietly. We had told her mom the night before that we were spending the night at my house, so we couldnt go back to her place this early, so we settled for the shopping mall across the street. As we were coming close to the entrance, I sat down. I winced in pain because it still hurt. She wondered what was wrong. At that point, I broke down. My friend knew something was wrong because I never cry. Finally, after gaining some composure, I told her about the night when my boyfriend had broken up with me, and that first time with my friend and her boyfriend. Then I told her about what had happened last night. Profanity and disgust rang loud and clear. She put two and two together realizing that she was so close to being my saviour the night before. She wanted to go back in time, and tell my friends boyfriend to "fuck himself" and promptly leave the house. I know it wasn't her fault, I know we couldn't go back in time, and save my decency. All the shops were still closed because it was still early, so we settled for a 24 hr convienance store where we bought cheap alchol to numb the pain. My friend did what was probably the best thing any friend could do which was listen. She realized why I had put so many emotional barriers up. This was the real me, broken, lost, hurt, alone, and only a fraction of the strong, confident, outspoken person I had been only a year ago, or was percieved by others. Only a few people know about this story, I hardly let people in because one way or another people have this tendency to leave. If a person has no dependance on anyone else, they dont gain anything, but if a person does depend solely on other people, then they lose everything. That's the truth about life.

To this day, I rarely go back to that dark place. I try to put it in the back of my mind, where my deepest darkest secrets and insecurities lie. This is the horrendous ugly part of me I don't want anyone to see. I honestly don't blame my friend for what happened. If only I had spoken up, maybe all this could have been prevented. He was abusive and intimidating so she feared him. I am no better than she is because I too, didn't stand up for myself. I know that there have been countless other women with horrible stories, and mine was only a mere taste of how bad it can get..but this is my story, my regret, my pain, my disappointment, and my burden to carry for the rest of my life. That teenage girl who couldn't stand up for herself four years ago has become someone who won't let any man walk over her. My past makes me into the person you see today.

[athenawalks]

The Covenant

Happiness is a choice. 

That was from a paper I found in my mother's closet long time ago which I never understood--the same thing that makes me shatter every time I try to wake up in the morning not knowing what happiness really is.

Mama was the best woman I've known. She cooks so good that she was always hired by many households to cook every fiesta. She had a lot of friends, inside and outside our city. She was a happy person. She was even dubbed as 'darling of the barangay' in our place.

Mama was also the best mother. She took care of me and my younger brother, Leon, like it's her last day with us. She was a very energetic person which made her seem like shouting every time she speaks. But despite that, she never raised her voice at us. She never scolded us. I even never saw her got angry nor quarreled with papa. She loved us, we knew that. We were a happy family. We were great. My life was just perfect...

I almost thought it was. 

One day, my father lost his job which made everything else fall from their places. Business is a world where only witty and intelligent people survive, and even those who have lucky charms--they say. And unfortunately, he was too good to be one and we weren't that enough as his lucky charms. The next thing we found out was, we were already heavily in debt. To lighten up our situation, my mother looked for any work. But being unable to finish high school, she wasn’t able to find any work other than cooking, to low-class restaurants or carenderias which only pay a little. She didn't like the idea, so she widened her reach. She started to cook 'province-wide' in fiestas. She comes home every night still with a smile on her face. Though tired, she still tells us stories for us to sleep. Until she had a lot of invitations from every town that she would just come home once a week.

Papa, still being unable to find any good-paying job, came home one night with a pale and very ragged face. Mama wasn't home yet. He didn't talk to us Leon and I. He walked straight to their room and lock himself inside. He didn't come out the next morning until the evening so I had to open the door with a duplicate key that I found above our aparador. I opened it and Leon got inside first. He ran towards papa who was lying in their wide bed. When I got near them, Leon was already sobbing, caressing the face of papa who was not moving and barely breathing. I wanted to call mama, I wanted to cry, but my body didn't allow me to. The next thing I knew, Leon was already shouting, calling for help in our neighborhood.

Papa was sent to the hospital. Minutes later, mama came and was crying so hard which I saw for the first time in my life. It was the most painful thing I have ever seen, and it broke my heart. When Leon was already asleep, mama talked to me. With tears running down her cheeks, she forced a smile and cupped my face. I didn't cry, I never did. Tears won't just come out of from eyes.

"You'll be in grade 4 and Leon will be in grade 2 next year, right?" She asked, and I nodded in response.

"I'll be selling our house and all our properties to pay the hospital bills. Next week, you and Leon will be living at lola's. And as soon as papa gets well, I--I----" her voice cracked. I hugged her, and she cried harder. She was in her weakest. 

She tried to compose herself again and continued, "I'll be leaving you. I'll fly to Poland cause they're looking for good cooks there. I'll have a great job there and we'll be over with our debts. I'll buy you anything you and Leon wants. And while I'm away, you'll take care of him, okay? You'll both help lola in the chores and don't forget to---"

"I will mama. But you will come back right after you'll earn enough money, right?" I said, to stop her from saying for more. It felt like her words slowly pierced my heart.

"I will, Louisa. I will. I promise, I'll be home before Christmas, next year. We'll celebrate it with papa, Leon, and lola. Promise me also that you'll wait for me at the gate because I'll be bringing heavy luggage full of gifts for all of you." She smiled again and wiped her tears.

"I will mama, I promise."

True to her words, mama left us when papa had already recovered. 

"Remember our promises?" she said while bidding goodbye to us.

"Yes mama, our promises," I smiled and a tear escaped from my eye. She kissed me in the forehead and hugged the three of us.

Time flew fast, I was already in grade 4 and Leon was already in grade 2. Indeed, mama sent us money and packages, and everything we wanted. December 24 came and I was so excited. I didn't even help preparing the food because I was just standing near our gate all day long, waiting for her to come. I would hug her so tight and help her carry bundles of gifts that she would bring for us. I'd also give her my gift, my trophy when I won a pageant in our school!

I hoped and prayed. I prepared myself for the most awaited part of my life. But she didn't come. I thought that her work just got extended and she'll just come home the next Christmas, so I waited. But three years have passed and three Christmas had gone, still she didn't come. She never came. She was nowhere to be found in Facebook and we couldn't reach her anymore.

I hated her. I hated her for not coming home for us. I hated her for hurting us each day with her promises she said before she vanished in our lives. I stopped hoping for her return. I busied myself with my studies. I tried to forget her and all about her.

And oh, it's Christmas again. Funny because I'm here sitting near our gate, waiting for someone--someone I couldn't forget, someone I couldn't hate all my life. How many Christmas came after that? I lost count already.

"Auntie, why are you there? Won't you eat butu talad? It's our favorite!" Shouted a boy around four. I looked at him. He is indeed a carbon copy of Leon.

"Yes baby Louie. Just for a while, okay?" I smiled at him. He stared at me and smiled back, displaying his dimples. He then went inside again. I could hear him telling Leon what I just said. So adorable.

I went outside and saw children with their mothers caroling on the streets. They looked so happy. I sat on a wooden bench outside our gate. I was looking at the sky full of stars shining brightly when someone held my hand. It was a girl. She was crying because I heard her sobs. I slowly turned to her as my body already aches every time I move. From my already blurred vision, I saw a familiar face; she looked like me when I was younger. And she looked like someone--someone who made a promise with me, 50 years ago.

-fin-