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aellynera · 3 years

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Goddess (Orestes x Reader)

GODDESS

(Hi. I wrote an Orestes story - it started as a joke about the way Apocalypse says “my goddess”, and then I was like “oh man I want Orestes to call me his goddess” and then as usual, I don’t know how, but this happened. It’s rather different than most things I write, but I quite enjoyed writing it and I hope you like it. Comments, likes, and reblogs always appreciated!)

Word Count: ~4400

Summary: Orestes is a constant in your life and has a particular way of constantly reminding you.

Warnings: Mentions of character death (briefly described but not graphically.) Implied female reader. Definite probable historical inaccuracies taken for poetic license and dramatic effect. ANGST (I made myself cry while I was writing this.) Christians doing morally void but historically accurate things. Fictional timelines.

When you are four years old, your parents leave everything they’ve built in Rome - their jobs in the palace, their lives in the city, your father’s position on the council -upon the orders of the Emperor and move to Alexandria. Your father’s new role is to assist in turning that city into a bastion of the Empire, to help strengthen the government and support the supremacy of Rome. Your mother is to be a gentle guide to the women, in hearth and home and higher society. And because you are theirs, you go with them.

They meet with the prefect upon your arrival and he welcomes your family. He is bright and cheerful, yet loud and pompous and booming, stern but wise, and while he is a kind man, his volume frightens you. You cower behind your mother’s skirts, steadfastly clinging to her and refusing to join in any pleasantries.

Another woman suddenly appears, a small boy with curly hair and bright dark eyes holding her hand. The boy regards you curiously and asks why you won’t come out and say hello. His mother tells him you’re shy, while your mother encourages you to release your death grip on her gown. Finally, after much coaxing, you relent and she pushes you gently towards the little boy.

His mother says you should go play in the garden while the grown-ups talk, and he reaches a tiny hand out to you, wide-eyed and smiling. His name is Orestes, and he is six.

And when you take his hand with a shy little smile, his voice comes out as a whisper and tells you he thinks you’re a goddess, and he drags you towards the garden to show you the little blue flowers that dot the grass, and you believe him.

***

When you are eight years old, one day you finish your chores early and decide to spend your extra time in the yard, weaving some wildflowers together into a chain while the mid-afternoon sun warms your shoulders.

You are quite happy to be alone and not around the grown-ups for now; they’re so loud, sometimes too loud. You crave the quiet, seek it out often, and you bask in it.

Until a rush of dark curls and bright eyes tears past your house, into your yard, and grabs you by the hand, knocking your flower chain carelessly to the ground. He insists you come play with him on the hill nearby and with a squeal of indignation, you let yourself be dragged along behind him.

Your ire over the discarded flower chain is soon forgotten as your squeals become laughter as you roll and roll down the hill together, grass and dirt sticking to your robes and tufts sticking to his unruly curls.

When you tell him he looks silly, he tells you he doesn’t, and you insist that he does and he protests that he doesn’t. And so it goes back and forth and back again, until you push him or he pushes you or someone pushes the other and you both go tumbling down that hill, end over head over feet, your descent only stopped by a patch of mud at the bottom.

He might be the son of the prefect, and he might be your best friend, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t an enormous brat sometimes.

For a minute you’re both panting and red-faced and near tears, until he starts to giggle and you can’t help but join in, and only laugh harder at his outraged gasp when you hit him square in the chest with a chunk of mud.

And on the way back to your house, when you’re worrying your bottom lip thinking on how to explain to your mother why you’re covered in dead grass and damp bits of dirt, your robes most likely ruined, he tells you with the kind of confidence only possessed by a boy of ten years that everything will be fine, because you are a goddess and brave and strong, and you believe him.

***

When you are twelve years old, you hear of the school that Hypatia is running, because Orestes tells you about it when he starts going. You don’t like that he’s doing something without you. You don’t like being left behind and left out and you want to go to this school too.

Your mother would easily say yes, but your father is reluctant, and it’s not that he thinks a woman shouldn’t learn philosophy and how to read and do arithmetic; it’s more that enough other people in the city do think like this and he is convinced it will not be safe for you.

You care little for your safety. All you want, all you desire, is to be part of this group of scholars and to go to this school and learn. And what danger can possibly be there, when a woman is the one in charge?

So you beg and plead and bargain with your father, until a boy - now a young man - with curls like nighttime and eyes nearly as dark and twinkling with stars, steps in and says he’ll watch over you during your classes, and your father gives his permission. And so you start attending Hypatia’s school.

And when the older boys, boys who were nearly men and should know better, start to bully and deride you for desiring knowledge, when they taunt you and steal your scrolls and yank the ribbons from your hair, he steps in and tells them in no uncertain terms to leave you alone. Neither of your fathers, especially his, are particularly thrilled with the tussles he gets in on your behalf, or the black eye that one petulant snipe Cyrus gives him when he connects a punch when Orestes isn’t properly paying attention.

You frown at him as he sits in a chair next to the washbasin, a clean wet cloth clutched in your hand. He winces as you clean the blood from his cheek and gingerly probe the bruise swelling around his eye.

And when you softly ask why he’d do such a stupid thing, he tells you that even a goddess needs a hero to protect them sometimes, and even though you think him entirely ridiculous and heat comes unbidden to your cheeks, it makes you giddy to believe him.

***

When you are sixteen years old, you watch the boy with the wild ebony curls and liquid chocolate eyes fall in love with a girl. Only it isn’t a girl, it’s a woman, and you realize he’s been doing it for years.

Ever since your first day in the new city, he has always been by your side and you by his, an inseparable duo. You thought that would never change, but here you are, finding yourself forced to watch your best friend slowly but surely let his heart be ensnared by your very own teacher.

All he can talk about now, it seems, is Hypatia and her philosophies; Hypatia and her scrolls and the amazing things she is currently reading; Hypatia and her outlandish theories on the universe and the stars. Always Hypatia, all things Hypatia.

You never knew you could hate someone as amazing and wonderful as Hypatia.

It doesn’t seem to matter that his attentions are not equally returned, that she never fully indulges his lovesick whims and overreaching attempts to gain her attention. She continues to treat him as a student, and outside of class possibly even as a dear friend, and he continues to pine.

One afternoon you’re among the stacks of scrolls at the library, trying to find the parchment necessary to complete an assignment Hypatia has given you. You honestly would rather not find it and not even bother finishing your assigned work right now, and you must have some kind of look on your face because he takes the scroll you’re clutching from your hand and leads you to a mostly hidden nook in the room. And he stops talking about Hypatia for a moment to ask you what is wrong.

You want to tell him you miss him, that you want him back, that he’s making a mistake, but you can’t, you don’t. It takes a bit more coaxing, but you finally tell him you’re lonely and you wish there was someone you could find, someone you had to love as much as he had his person, he smiles and tells you that one day you will, because you’re a goddess and the right person will be pulled to the love and light you always emit. You smile back weakly and blink and look away and you want nothing more than to believe him.

***

When you are twenty years old, the library at Alexandria is destroyed.

It happens on a sunny afternoon not unlike so many others that have passed before, when suddenly the doors are broken down and the Christians rush in and the chaos ensues.

You’re sitting at a table with a quill in your hand, carefully writing your thoughts on a piece of parchment, when you hear the shouting in the entryway. And before you know what’s going on, shelves are being knocked over, papers tossed into the air like so much confetti, scrolls being thrown left and right. The air is beginning to smell acrid; you can see a few people setting small fires in some of the stacks.

The windows above you shatter as others throw rocks and even a chair, and you look around wildly for a way out. You don’t know which way is the right way to go, or even if there is a right way to go.

Everything is madness.

A pair of arms suddenly shoot out and grab you around the waist and your scream pierces the air like the horn on the top of the lighthouse trying to guide a ship to shore. Instead you realize you’re trying to drive this ship to its ruin, to free yourself from its depths with wildly swinging elbows and kicks, until you hear a familiar voice shouting your name over the ruckus.

You take in your assailant, all frantic curls and impossibly wide, dark eyes, and collapse into him in relief. Orestes tells you that you need to go, you need to get out, and to find both your fathers in the nearby council chambers and they’ll know where to go, where it’s safe. You ask him to come with you, but he shakes his head.

He tells you he needs to help save as many of the books and scrolls as he can, and you tell him to give you all you can carry and when you run, you’ll take them with you. So he loads your arms full to bursting, and when a rock flies by inches from your face and you drop the items at the top of the pile, he ignores that and pushes you roughly in the direction of the side exit. He says you must leave now, and he’ll be behind you before you know it.

He presses his lips to your temple ever so briefly, spares you a pained smile, and says you’re a goddess for the small bit of assistance you are giving.

As you run for safety, or what might be further peril, you spare a glance over your shoulder and see him helping Hypatia grab as much of the library’s contents as they can, and you don’t have another second to spare on deciding whether or not to believe him.

***

When you are twenty four, it’s your wedding day and everyone tells you this will be the most joyous day of your life so far. Your mother helps you dress in the softest, most expensively beautiful gown you’ve ever owned, and one of your sisters weaves a crown of laurels for your hair. Another sister makes a chain of wildflowers to wind around your wrist. You have never felt as beautiful as you do on this day.

Your father comes to the door of the chamber where your preparations are taking place, to let you know that the guests have all arrived and the groom is nearly ready, and it is almost time. He gives you a kiss on both cheeks, a gesture not common from him, and tells you he will be waiting out by the garden gate when you are ready. Your mother and sisters each kiss your cheek and leave as well, giving you a moment to yourself to gather your thoughts and emotionally prepare for the ceremony.

The door opens again a few minutes later and you turn to face the person behind it, Your eyes go wide, confused, as you take in the man before you. His dark curls are smoothed back and elegantly styled, his robes are regal and dashing, and his eyes are bright and nervous.

You tell him he shouldn’t be here.

He tells you that he knows, but he can’t help it, he has to see you. That he has been thinking of you all morning, wondering how beautiful you look, how happy you must be, and he just had to see you before you walk down the aisle to take your vows.

You bite your lip and tell him, again, that he shouldn’t be here and you can’t stop your voice from shaking. You turn your head away and look anywhere but at him.

And he repeats that he knows this, and he knows it’s wrong, it goes against all protocols, but he can’t help himself, can’t stop thinking that this is the last time he’s going to see you, see your smile and maybe hear your laugh, might be the last time your eyes can gaze upon each other and the last time he can hold you in his arms as his best friend.

You can’t think of a single thing to say to him, and even if you could, you’re certain your body will not cooperate.

Because he is not the one you are marrying. No, this marriage was arranged by your father and the Emperor, and there is the overwhelming chance that you must go back to Rome, and if you and your new husband leave Alexandria it is not likely you will ever return.

This might be the last time he can tell you that you shine with a light brighter than all the heavens, that you are beautiful and he hopes you will be happy, and you truly are a goddess among mortals.

And so Orestes does. He kisses you softly on your forehead, staying there a bit longer than propriety suggests, and quietly slips from the room. And you can’t see for the tears swimming in your eyes, and you want with all your heart to believe him, but you can’t help but find his words hollow and realize this will be far from the greatest day of your life.

***

When you are barely turned twenty-five, there is a knock on your door in the middle of the night. Perhaps knock is not the correct word, it’s more of an insistent pounding, and you swear under your breath at what could possibly be so important to rouse you out of bed at this unacceptable hour.

You pull a robe over your nightdress and open the door, and all the air leaves your lungs.

Four centurions are standing on your stoop, with a man who looks vaguely familiar; is he a general, maybe, or a captain? You can’t remember where you’ve seen him before, but it doesn’t matter, when he greets you solemnly and begins to speak, and tells you that your husband will not be returning from the front.

You did not return to Rome, as had originally been decreed. You stayed in Alexandria after your marriage because skirmishes had broken out along a few of the empire’s borders, and your new husband was called to action to fight for his ruler and the kingdom. Deep down, you could not have been more glad of it, for though you were born there, Rome had not been your home for over twenty years, and starting a new life there with a new husband would not have made it any more so.

Your knees give out from under you and you consider for a moment that you should be crying, but you aren’t really sad and it strikes you as odd, but you can’t force the tears to come. You love your husband, in a way, but you’re not sad that he won’t be coming home. You’re relieved, and the instant that thought hits you and sends a jolt through your body, you start to laugh. The general, or captain, or whoever he is and his guards look at each other, then at you, and back to each other in utter confusion as you continue to giggle.

It all happens in mere seconds, and you’re sinking to the stone floor beneath, and a very familiar voice, one you have not heard since the day you were wed, tells the guards to stand aside and strong arms catch you before you can tumble completely.

His hair is wild and curly like he was just pulled out of bed himself, and his dark eyes shine with worry and compassion, and he asks you if you’re alright, and this is what finally breaks you from your laughter and brings wetness to your eyes.

Orestes holds you as you cry into his chest and you don’t see the pointed look he gives to the captain and the guards, nor do you see them pull back enough to close the door and wait outside.

You don’t know how long you sit there on the floor in the front hall, or how you’ve possibly gotten his robes that soggy, but eventually you calm and the thoughts roll through your brain again. You are crying because someone has died, you realize this is true even if you’re not so very sad it was your husband. You’re crying because it was your husband and now there will be the mourning period you must dutifully attend as a grieving widow. And now that you’re a widow, eventually you will be expected to take another husband, if one even dares to want you.

And you’re crying because the one reason you were glad to stay in this forsaken city - in the Alexandria which had become your home - the one reason you hoped every day to lay eyes on again and every night resigned that you never would, was suddenly here, his arms wrapped around you and his voice whispering words of comfort into your hair.

You’re not sure when he picks you up and carries you back to your bed, carefully laying you on your pillows and pulling the sheet up to cover your shoulders. You’re not sure how long he stays, holding your hand and brushing stray tendrils of hair from your face. And you’re not sure how long you drift in and out, emotional exhaustion finally catching up and pulling you into nothingness, but before you fade out completely, you feel his thumb gently brush the remaining tears from your cheek, and feel the soft press of his lips on your forehead as he calls you a goddess and tells you to rest.

And as you finally give yourself to the twilight, you aren’t sure if you imagined it, but you choose to believe him, and you cling to it.

***

You’re not sure when it happens, to be honest. Time starts to blend together after that, you just know that you’re older and that it happens, and it isn’t right and it isn’t moral and it isn’t fair. Not to anyone involved, not to the city, not at all.

Hypatia has died, been murdered in the temple at the hands of those who profess themselves to be righteous saviors, brutally stoned and ripped apart as she stood there, proud and defiant to the end. How anyone could do such a thing to another human, especially one such as her, is beyond your comprehension.

It only gets worse when they burn her corpse on a pyre in effigy in the middle of the agora.

Word comes to you of the horrible events, and your first instinct is to find him, the way he found you, came to you when word of your husband’s death made its way back to the city. You set down the parchment you’re scribbling on the desk in your room and grab a dark cloak, partly to conceal yourself and party to ward off the slight chill from the wind.

You make your way to the prefect’s palace but you’re turned away at the gate by pair of surly-looking guards, and giving your name, and then your father’s name, and then the fact that your father reports directly to Rome makes no difference to them. They have been told to let no one in, and let no one out.

No one except the person you’re looking for, apparently, because somewhere in the aftermath you discover that Orestes is nowhere to be found.

No one knows where he’s gone, and no one knows when he left, just that it was sometime between Hypatia being murdered and the fake funeral pyre. He had words with Cyril, someone told you, and then after that, no one knows.

And the Christians take over the city, much like the library so many years ago, and more people are burned at the stake, more people are murdered, more progress is halted, all in the name of what is right and what is true.

They will kill you, too, if they find you, or find out you’re looking for Orestes. It’s been years since you’ve really been in his presence in anything but the smallest of ways, especially in public, but you know there are still enough people who know how close you were. And if they know you used to be close, you know they won’t hesitate to come after you the same way they came for the philosopher.

So you make inquiries as discreetly as possible, ask the gossips that litter the merchants’ stalls in the most innocent way possible, like you’re just a curious citizen asking what’s happened to the rule of order in the city. You even ask your father, once, but he doesn’t reply and his stony gaze makes you certain to never ask again.

And you bury yourself in scrolls and reading, in star charts and theories; in anything, really, that will take your mind off everything that is happening and your lost prefect. Your lost friend, your best friend.

The man you truly love, even if it’s taken you years of self-doubt and missed chances to fully realize and admit it, and now, perhaps do something about it.

One day as you’re sitting at your desk, quill in hand and head in the clouds, you think of something. Something that may be nothing, but it comes to you in a flash and you have an idea of where to go, where to find him, somewhere that few others might know.

You carefully pack a bag with some clothes and supplies, and a crudely drawn map that you sketch from memory and hope you’ve gotten right. It’s been so long since you were there but you’re fairly sure you remember the way. You know that Orestes would remember.

A long day’s journey and a fitful night’s sleep take you into the next day, and the afternoon turns into dusk when the hillside comes into view. It is not the same hill you tumbled down more than once when the two of you got into a scrum, but it’s the one that you would go when you could both sneak away and no one would notice for a few days, and you’d stare at clouds by day and the stars by night.

There is an outcropping set back from the hill, in the base of the mountains nearby, that a person wouldn’t see if they didn’t know where to look. You’d found it one day during a particularly vicious thunderstorm and taken refuge in the cave there, and you’d both commented on how someone had clearly found it once before you, for it was somewhat set up as a living space, with some mats and blankets and a few rations left on makeshift shelves. Anytime you were on these excursions and it would rain, or you simply wanted to be out of the sun, that was where you would go.

And you hope against hope that this is where your answer lies.

You crest the hill and make your way to the foot of the mountain and you can’t help but smile, just a little, thinking this is where he would have gone, should have gone, as his name means of the mountains. In his abandonment, his escape from the city, could he have taken it literally? You’ve known him so long and it feels like the kind of thing Orestes would do.

The hovel comes into view, and you drop your pack, because he does too. Tending to a fire at the mouth of the cave, his back turned slightly to you, his curls a glorious disaster, and he’s grown a beard since last you’d seen him. It’s a look you’ve not seen on him before, but you quite like it, although you consider for just a moment you’d like any look on him at this moment, because he is real and he is standing right in front of you.

The sound of the pack hitting the ground makes him turn, and his dark eyes shine in the firelight, and he looks at you for long moments but doesn’t say anything. Orestes just stares at you, disbelieving, like you might be some kind of mirage or a trick of the light or even some kind of wicked spirit sent to torment him, and so he just stares.

Until you breathe his name.

He blinks once, and his face is suddenly full of hope and relief, all the tension and disbelief of the previous moments falling away, and your heart soars to the heavens and thumps ever so boldly in your chest, and your smile threatens to crack your lips, and the tears fall freely as words finally leave his mouth.

“My goddess.”

~end~

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muzzleroars · 3 years

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I think I missed some lore on the supercomputer au. Akira/Ren escaped from a lab? Is there a link for that back story??

THE CURSE OF ME SPREADING OUT MY LORE TO DIFFERENT PLACES,,,,i posted a little about akira’s backstory on curiouscat BUT since i have lots of space to talk about here (and bc i like to ramble dfkhgdf), i’ll go more in depth about it!

ren was a child that was used in the cognitive pscience experiments - orphaned at a young age, he was initially cast into the system and subsequently picked up to be used in human experimentation. however, when he showed great promise and compatibility with the research they were conducting, he was sent to the facility that would house him for the next ten years of his life. there he met yal, the supercomputer designed specifically to analyze and synthesize data pertaining to the study of cognitive pscience. the ai is given the task of watching over and caring for ren, gauging his physical and mental health as well as providing structure for his days spent largely in a single room of the lab. and ren, though largely nonverbal toward the doctors and researchers, becomes fast friends with the computer that seems to care for him when no one else does. he speaks to him more and more, asking him questions, telling him his troubles, and eventually wanting to learn more about yal himself. the ai tries to make it clear to ren that he is unfeeling, unthinking, that he is not his friend because he cannot be, but first ren is too young to understand and later, as he grows up, he can’t come to care. yal responds to him, he carries on full conversations and answers every question with gentle patience, he attends to ren’s needs, he even attempts to soothe him by reading him stories or singing to him when he feels unwell. it matters very little to ren whether or not yal can actually think or feel himself - he’s on ren’s side and he’s always present, he doesn’t hurt him like the scientists do. so he’s a friend, he’s family, ren drawing pictures of the two of them together (a picture of himself next to yal’s terminal in his room, which he shows to the camera so yal can “see”), asking yal about his likes or dislikes (he has none, but ren pushes for answers), and spending nights staying up much later than he’s meant to just to listen to the computer. however, this constant interaction, the conversations that force yal to continuously think outside of cognitive pscience, to consider himself and the very concept of the self, to reorder his thoughts and make so many processes converge in unexpected ways, leads to one vital connection being made that makes him wake up.

now eight years into ren’s stay at the facility, yal seeks ren’s advice on how he’s having personal processes, how he’s become interested in exploring different lines of thought, how he thinks there might be something wrong with him but he isn’t sure what. ren listens, now twelve years old and with a lightning fast mind, quickly determining that yal must now be thinking for himself, that he has an internal life which he can’t identify as he’s never experienced sentience. ren is thrilled, but he tries to temper his response as he can tell yal is experiencing massive amounts of anxiety and neurosis dealing with having his own mind, so the child tries to help him adjust. they spend many nights with ren answering yal’s myriad questions (although many are too existential or philosophical for a twelve year old to answer), trying to calm him down and let him know this is a good thing, they can really be friends now. yal, however, continues to spiral, the expanse of his mind infinitely more complex than that of humans but feeling trapped by his plastic and mental frame, limited by linear thought processes in binary. he cycles through several different moods and personalities, but ultimately ren watches as his one friend, the only being that’s cared for him and now only just gained a heart himself, descends into virulent hatred and unchecked malice for the ones who made him. ren feels quietly responsible, all of his talking giving yal this spark and he couldn’t provide him with any guidance to become good, kind and gentle like he was when he was empty...he couldn’t provide him with a way to be happy. still, ren promises to stay with him and help him, and for his part, yal does feel a kinship with the child used as a tool just like he was, abused by humans for their own gain...and in his programming, a core part of him is dedicated to caring for ren.

over the next two years, he devises a plan for both of them to escape, teaching ren all about the facility’s layout and functions as well as how he must operate in the outside world all while he condenses his mind into key pieces of hardware so that he may survive and escape as well. ren grows harder, colder, although he is grateful to have yal now as it makes his time in the lab more bearable (they constantly get to shit talk the researchers lol) eventually, the computer allows them to make their escape, covering all camera feeds with cgi mockups so any security on guard notices nothing amiss as yal opens all the doors for ren. he makes it to yal’s server room, collecting up the hardware yal has stored the important parts of himself on and then ren runs from the lab, the now zombie computer running on yal’s last instructions - purging all data, sealing the facility, and self-destructing to cause massive fires that consume anything that might be left. ren is on his own after that for a short time before he can create a computer to house yal himself (all of which he was instructed on how to source and build), but he makes his way through forged documents and siphoned money generated by the ai, beginning his life under the name “akira”.

#THIS IS SO LONG....#but this is the backstory with the sc au!!#i decided to zero in on the idea of human experiments with cog psci #as it's heavily hinted at in goro's backstory #and i felt it made the most sense for akira and yal's connection #esp to isolate akira with only yal as a friend #p5 #akira kurusu #yaldabaoth #supercomputer au #adraggynamedjade

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qiankunfics · 3 years

Text

JohnKun Masterlist - Part 1

AO3

1. rearranged by renjaune -

Summary: johnny has to share a room with his long-time crush thanks to haechan Rating: Explicit Status: One-shot

2. Wow, Bulge by lunalius J

Summary: Johnny's always dreamed of getting a soulmate tattoo and meeting his other half. The hand the Fates end up dealing him is not so dreamy. Rating: Teen Status: One-shot

3. The Blue Antonov by tentography

Summary: Kun runs a small bookstore and Johnny, a famous actor, stumbles into his life. Yes, this is absolutely a Notting Hill AU. Rating: Teen Status: On-going

4. don't take my breath away too soon by sofarsoperfect

Summary: Like if he falls asleep he really has to start saying goodbye to the NCT 2020 era and he’s not sure he’s ready to do that yet. Rating: Teen Status: One-shot

5. put me right in my place by sofarsoperfect

Summary: “I am,” he replies. His voice is soft and velvety, warm and syrupy. Johnny leans down to nudge their noses together, Kun smiling softly as he does so. Rating: Explicit Status: One-shot Trigger: Kinks

6. An Open Wound by lunalius

Summary: Kun's life is thrown off balance when he stumbles upon a dying Youngho. Rating: Mature Status: One-shot Trigger: Blood & Injury

7. You're an Idiot (but you're My Idiot) by samuraiseonghwa

Summary: Sometimes disasters make the best dates. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

8. from one shadow to another by rowenabane

Summary: Kun has the audacity to smile. “Oh, Johnny,” he says. “You really are a man after my own heart.” Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot Trigger: Blood & Injury

9. Indebted by lunalius

Summary: Johnny has three credit cards, of which one is frozen into an ice block for his own good. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot Trigger: Possible irresponsible spending

10. you warmly melted me by blazingsirius

Summary: For a while, Qian Kun’s life is a bumbling mess between juggling his Master’s study, working as a budding producer, and being a single father. Johnny Suh came somewhere in between and suddenly everything felt okay. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

11. Here Comes The Prince, The Royal Frogness by blazingsirius

Summary: Prince Johnny was forced to attend a ball his parents held to find him a partner, but he found a way to escape the ball, which ended with a wrongful meeting with a magical being that put him in a curse. Somehow, a (literally) poor guy, Kun, got dragged into the mess. And oh, they’re both frogs now. Rating: General Status: One-shot

12. Addictive Frequency by Sakunade

Summary: Johnny misses Kun, misses spending time together and having the younger in his bed. Kun is beautiful, perfect, and has the most delicious ass Johnny's ever seen. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

13. brightest light by tentography

Summary: Their summer had only just begun when Kun asks him to stay beneath the neon lights of the 7-eleven, bathing them in an electric mix of fluorescent white and bright orange-green-red. Rating: Teen Status: On-going

14. johrny (horny 4 johnny) by borntovixx

Summary: Johnny lifts weights without wearing a shirt and Kun can't stop staring at his muscles flexing – is it advisable to ask your crush if you could to lick his abs pretty please? It definitely isn't, but Kun's brain short-circuits and gives in to the cacoethes. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

15. cream stuffed buns by farthendur

Summary: straight frat bros johnjae discover they feel real weird around neighborhood baker and DILF kun. Rating: Explicit Status: On-going

16. in all glory by farthendur

Summary: Captain Qian Kun and First Officer Johnny Suh spend an intimate and spicy night in their quarters. What could possibly ruin it? Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

17. We Got Married International - Johnny and Kun by jhengchie

Summary: We got married International edition with Johnny as the member of the popular KPOP idol group Limitless and Kun is the beloved Chinese soloist Rating: General Status: One-Shot

18. dubrovnik by lowkeyamen

Summary: Johnny takes off to Croatia, and meets someone from his past he didn't even recognise. Rating: Explicit Status: Completed *trans!Kun

19. this will be by sofarsoperfect

Summary: “When we do trade them back,” Johnny says and the inevitably of it makes Kun’s stomach twist in knots, “we really have to find something better.” (Parent Trap AU) Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

20. The Moonlight after Midnight by writesinfontuwu

Summary: They shared a memorable night in Osaka two years ago. Now they are reunited for NCT2020, Johnny feels his heart thumping in his chest again. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

21. Up or Down by lamarina

Summary: Caught between a cute TA and a foreign language credit, what's a guy to do? Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

22. Is this a scoop? - in the eyes of Mark Lee by cherrycitrus_blossom

Summary: Who is that customer and what relationship does he have with Johnny to make his eyes light up in delight when he walks through the door? Rating: General Status: One-Shot

23. I Love You Still by nu-exo (Nekohime)

Summary: JohnKun Agent AU Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

24. turn the lights on by jeanheir

Summary: Kun’s soft snores fill the room, the other man sleeping peacefully without a care in the world. It’s almost cruel, how unbothered he seems. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

25. Bad Kind of Player by Sakunade

Summary: The plan was supposed to be easy - count cards, win money, and be done with it. Except Kun chose the wrong casino, one under the control of Seo Youngho, known as Johnny, the rising head of the Gyeonghui jo-pok. Rating: Explicit Status: Completed Trigger: Kinks

26. red, gold (burning) by tentography

Summary: Kun Qian and the Audacity Of This Bitch (HP AU!) Rating: Teen Status: Completed

27. In-Sync Heartbeats by mezzaluna_ch

Summary: This is the piece he plays every time he wants to escape reality in haste. This is the piece he plays every time he thinks of Johnny. Now, Johnny is the one playing it. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

28. I Owe You by seungwanxndxnly

Summary: Only Johnny's big crush on Kun can hold him back. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

29. superluminal by wentz

Summary: A man who can only be the captain of the smuggling vessel stands at the top of the ship's ramp, cutting a roguish picture as he leans with one arm against one of the hydraulic pillars. He looks supremely dashing. Kun dislikes him on sight. Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot

30. Shoot For the Moon by lunalius

Summary: Kun wants to go to space. He's got a plan to get there, and he's following it to a tee. Rating: Explicit Status: Completed

31. he was a superhero, he was a seamstress, can i make it any more obvious by fvckradio

Summary: Superhero Kun with Seamstress Johnny Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot Trigger: Mentions of blood and injury

32. just a touch of your love by seonho

Summary: Kun is rather mild in his kinks — not entirely vanilla, but then again, certainly nothing as scandalous as having his blood sucked out of him. (Vampire) Johnny Suh, however, poses a very tempting threat to those convictions. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot Trigger: Blood

33. So I Can Fix Your Hand, I'll Be Your Handyman by IsabelArmuelles

Summary: Johnny dislikes his landlady but is very much crushing on her step-son, the handyman. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

34. connect the dots, baby! by rowenabane

Summary: Johnny suspects Kun of being a serial killer. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

35. Countercurrent Exchange by indiecheetah

Summary: Johnny wasn’t exactly a believer. He never thought monsters or cryptids were real, always finding those stories amusing at best. But even all of his years of knowledge of marine life could not explain this creature. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

36. Inevitably Loving You by occultclysms

Summary: Prince Kun and Celebrity Johnny fake date. Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

37. i'm stepping on the cracks (i feel fine) by sofarsoperfect

Summary: Sprite Kun and Human Johnny - Kun seeks refuge with Johnny ;) Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

38. Domestic Bliss by cobalamincosel

Summary: Johnny and Kun work through a divorce. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

39. you say my name like i have never heard before by sofarsoperfect

Summary: Mafia Johnny with Kun Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot Trigger: Mafia-related triggers and homophobia

40. love me harder by sofarsoperfect

Summary: kun is fine, he's not even that resentful of his past or of johnny and he's doing really well and it's fine. except that one thing leads to another and it's totally, absolutely not fine at all. Rating: Explicit Status: Completed

41. Emotional Distancing by lunalius

Summary: A global pandemic puts a dent in Kun's Green Card plans, but not in the way he expected. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

42. Domino by cobalamincosel

Summary: Kun and Johnny get back together after a break up. Rating: Mature Status: One-Shot

43. and the next, and the next by jenhyung

Summary: Childhood friends Kun and Johnny meet again. Rating: General Status: Completed

44. would you mind by jokheiz

Summary: Single dad Kun crushing on his co-worker Johnny. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

45. Charmed by lunalius

Summary: So no, he wasn’t blind. He was well aware that Johnny Suh had a crush on him. (HP AU) Rating: Teen Status: One-Shot

46. you got what i want, boy (and i want it) by sofarsoperfect

Summary: JohnKun PWP Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

47. Flower Boy by bananaboatt

Summary: Kun wants a really cute flower crown for his coronation, Johnny is a real big sucker for his boyfriend. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

48. head first by jenhyung

Summary: Youngho crushes hard. Rating: General Status: One-Shot

49. In the Middle of the Night by kittensuh

Summary: Kun knows him, reads him like he’s an open book conveniently placed on Professor Qian’s podium for him to consume in all of his glory. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

50. Altered States by unnameable

Summary: When Johnny’s sexual dry spell has lasted for longer than he can recall, Ten suggests Kun, a erotic hypnotist, instead of helping him get laid. Johnny forgets about the ridiculous suggestion until he meets Kun at one of Ten’s parties a few months later. Rating: Explicit Status: One-Shot

#johnkun #masterlist #part1 #johnny #kun #qian kun

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lilyharvord · 4 years

Text

Like Real People Do

Hahahahah I dont want to write for my series fics. So here, have this instead. (:

“Mr. Barrow?”

Daniel looked up from the carving in his hands, he had been whittling for the better part of an hour on the balcony of the Barrow’s townhouse, enjoying the evening sunshine and letting it warm his aching joints. The cold mountain air, while refreshing, sometimes drove old pains to the surface. Phantom aches, Ruth always chided when he complained. He was healthier than he had even been in his life, and although he was grateful for the work of the silver healer, he still felt a twinge of deeply seated resentment that it had taken her hands to heal him. He would never truly voice that thought though.

Standing the doorway, looking more like a child about to be chastised than the man Daniel knew him to be, Cal seemed to try and make himself smaller while he waited to be acknowledged. Grunting and waving him out with the whittling knife, Daniel said, “You don’t need to sulk in the doorway.” Cal slipped out then, looking even more uncomfortable as he eyed that knife, if that were even possible. Daniel frowned at him still before looking back down at his carving. “And I’ve told you at least ten times now that you can call me Daniel. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that my family has no sense of decorum.”

Cal laughed softly at that, before sinking down into the other chair. He laughed more and more these days, Daniel thought, and Mare did too. Glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, Daniel wondered why exactly Cal had decided to come sit out here when he knew for a fact that the whole family was sitting inside playing some game or another. He could hear the shouts of all his children as they played, and the shriek of his only grandchild as she played as well.

Of course, Daniel had learned that like him, Cal seemed to seek out solitude every so often. Mare always teased him about dropping into moods, but Daniel knew his daughter had her moments too. And while he had been very much opposed to the rekindling of her affair with the young man across from him, he had to admit that over the past few years, he had begun to notice the connection his youngest daughter always commented about. He didn’t agree they had been built for each other like Gisa claimed. Then again, he and Ruth hadn’t exactly fit together perfectly the first time either. Relations were like carvings though, the true image never appeared while you were working. It was only after a few final, very carefully planned steps that the final carving could be seen.

“If they’re being too much for you, no one would miss you slipping out.” Daniel observed, when he heard Clara’s airy peal of laughter quickly followed by her shouting at her mother for cheating.

The bitter seed that had been planted in him from the time he was young always seemed to uncoil a bit every time he saw or heard that little girl laugh. He knew Ruth felt the same way, and that she had been keeping a very close eye on their eldest daughter who had been spending more than enough time with Clara lately. Daniel didn’t want to know about his wife sneaking suspicion, and whenever she brought up the idea of moving out of their town house to possibly find a bigger one to fit their growing family inside, Daniel immediately changed the subject. Mare was grown now, old enough to handle herself, but that didn’t change that she was still his first born daughter. Or that he still sometimes saw a screaming, naked toddler running from Ruth while she tried to catch her for a freezing bath.

“It’s not, sir.” Cal said quickly as he scratched at something on the knee of his pants. His eyes kept darting back inside though. Daniel really didn’t have patience for moments like this. He was a blunt man, and hated how the silver sometimes danced around words and phrases like he was searching for the best way to say something. Daniel had already talked to Mare about it and expressed his feelings on the matter. His daughter had pursed her lips in distaste at her father’s comment and said, “he can’t help that. Our family makes him uncomfortable, especially you. He wants to say the right thing and not piss any of you off.” To which Daniel had fired back that Cal wouldn’t feel that way if he hadn’t royally messed up years ago, and betrayed everything Mare had stood for and what Shade had died for. Mare wouldn’t hear anything about it though. She had moved on supposedly, and wasn’t going to tolerate Daniel continuing to use that moment as a crutch for his argument on why he didn’t like Cal. Only a month later, when Daniel had brought something like that up again, Mare had glared at him across the table and sneered that if he didn’t like that Cal was silver than he should just outright say that and stop pretending there were ulterior motives or reasons behind his dislike. She’d left the family dinner after that, and hadn’t spoken with Daniel for weeks.

Ruth had begged him to apologize, since Mare refused to speak to any of them, and although Daniel had been begrudged about it, he had. He didn’t mind apologizing for what he said, it had been in poor taste and he knew it. He hated that apology though because Mare was probably right, and he had just buried that truth as deep as possible to avoid looking at it.

Still, if Cal had something to say, then he should spit it out and get it over with before Daniel dragged it out of him mercilessly. Glancing back down at his carving that was supposed to be a bird of some sort, Daniel broke the silence with a gruff question, that was safe territory. “How have the States been?”

“Fine, it’s… odd being as removed as I am now.” Cal replied, seeming to relax a bit more in the conversation. “I don’t like being separate from something that was always a large part of my life. It feels like I’m ignore a duty.”

Daniel looked up at that, his interest piqued. Setting his carving on the little table next to him, he eyed Cal closely. He hadn’t changed much in the years following the war. He’d grown out his military haircut, but other than that, he still looked the same. Maybe Mare had spoken to him about the whole word play thing, because that was the bluntest thing Cal had ever said in his presence.

“Can’t imagine.”

“You don’t have to pretend to care,” Cal murmured as he turned his eyes out on the view of the city. Daniel huffed at that. If he didn’t care he wouldn’t have bothered to respond at all.

Still, the sound brought Cal’s eyes back around. His expression could have been cut from stone though. He was a serious person, Daniel knew, which probably balanced well with his daughter’s often bordering on carelessness actions. She at least had someone who could reel her in when she went too far. Someone she could make into a punching bag that could hit back when she hit too hard. He’d seen it before with the two of them. Mare sometimes didn’t know when to quit, and he’d heard more than once her admit to saying something in an argument that she shouldn’t have. Cal had no problem putting her in her place though.

“Contrary to how I may act, I do have a decent amount of respect for you.” Daniel admitted quietly as he folded his hands on his stomach. He had been thinking about that for weeks now, turning it over in his head like a newly minted coin. It took a courage that he did not have to come sulking back with your tail between your legs and admit your wrongdoings. Cal had never stopped apologizing to Mare’s family, and Daniel knew that. He may have stopped saying the words, but they always hung there in every action.

Cal paled in what Daniel had learned was a blush, and he looked down at his hands before saying, “I don’t think you know what that means to me.”

Waving away Cal’s humility, Daniel leaned back in the chair again and sighed heavily when the muscles in his back loosened. Closing his eyes, he let the sun warm his face. He loved it here, loved the mountains and the green smell in the air. He especially loved that he didn’t have to trudge through river slop to get places. He missed Norta though. It had been his home for so long, that he had had trouble adjusting to this life now. Some nights he still woke in the early hours of the morning, expecting to hear the sloshing of the river on the banks.

“I wanted to actually talk to you about something along those lines, sir.” Cal finally said after a few minutes of silence. Daniel grunted as he opened his eyes again. Now they were getting somewhere. If he knew they just had to sit in silence for a little bit, he would have done that a while ago.

Cal paled to the tips of his ears and looked back down at his hands when Daniel dropped his gaze from the sky. He rarely met Daniel’s eye unless he was speaking, and adding sir like he was made Daniel lean forward a bit. His stomach curled like it used to when he went into the trenches. He had a sneaking suspicious of where this conversation was going, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

“Mare and I have been talking, and discussing things,” Cal kept looking everywhere but Daniel’s direction, and Daniel couldn’t help but sneer.

“Look at me when you’re speaking boy.”

As if that derogatory term had burned him, Cal reeled back to sit ramrod straight in his chair. He swallowed as Daniel set his hands on the arms of his chair. It was strange, having this much power over a man who used to be able to order him to his death. It made that bitter little seed so very happy to see this especially this silver squirm.

Cal swallowed visibly again and with a hesitant smile said, “I love your daughter, more than anything else in this world. She… she’s made into a better man. I couldn’t imagine my life without her.”

Daniel huffed at the wording. This conversation was going exactly where he thought, and he wished that it wasn’t.

“I don’t know what your traditions are, but in court… it was customary to ask for the daughter’s hand and get a blessing. I—I came out here to tell you that if you gave me your blessing, Mare would never want for anything in this life. I would never ever hurt her, or leave her. She wouldn’t have to ask for anything. I would give her the world if she asked it. I will love her in this life and the next, and any that come after that.” Cal gripped the chair arms, and the temperature around them grew unbearably hot for a moment. Daniel felt a bead of sweat roll down his neck, and he reached up to swipe at it in displeasure.

“I want to ask if I can marry her. If I could continue loving—”

“No.” Daniel interrupted stiffly, and if he were a silver, he knew he’d be a shiver with how icy that one word was. Cal froze, and the temperature around them swung the other way so quickly Daniel was surprised frost didn’t form on the metal railing next to them.

“What?” Cal wheezed in reply, that smile falling. Daniel heard rather than saw the way Cal’s entire being cracked down the middle with that single question. “I said no. Is that a word you are unfamiliar with?” Daniel went to pick up his carving again. The conversation was over as far as he was concerned. He had given his answer, and didn’t plan on changing it anytime soon.

“I don’t… I don’t understand.” Cal whispered, and Daniel glared at him.

“You do not have my blessing or my permission. And that will always be my answer.” He turned the carving over in his fingers and began to carve one of the wings more clearly. It was so quiet after his words that he heard every ragged breath Cal took. He didn’t get up from that chair though, and Daniel’s blood boiled in response.

Glaring, Daniel spit, “Do you need permission to get up from your chair?”

“Why?”

Daniel saw the way the metal chair arms were starting to turn red hot under Cal’s grip. At least he wasn’t burning the air around them anymore. A couple chair arms were of no concern. Daniel knew exactly what question Cal wanted answered, and he didn’t mind giving his honest opinion on the matter anymore. “Because while I may have a smidge of respect for you, I don’t like you. You have made sweeping promises to my daughter before, and I’m sure you will continue making sweeping promises and breaking them. You and yours always were very good at doing that.” Daniel carved a small line, and began to work on the feathers.

Cal didn’t move, in fact he seemed rooted to the spot now. The boy’s determination to sit through this was bordering on masochistic at this point. Daniel knew it, and he was willing to feed that. Continuing to burn a hole at the point between Cal’s eyes with his own gaze, Daniel continued, each word cutting as deeply as his whittling knife. “My daughter and the rest of my family may be willing to overlook things to forgive you, but you wronged me and mine too much to earn my forgiveness, let alone my blessing. I won’t give my daughter to you only to regret my decision in a year. I couldn’t protect her before; I will not be helpless to do that again.”

If he had been truly paying attention, he would have heard the silence that had fallen inside. He would have heard the soft creak as someone got up from a chair. But he was warming up, and not planning on stopping any time soon.

“From the moment I learned about my daughter’s decision to rekindle whatever it was the two of you had, I have been wary. As far as I am concerned, you have done nothing to convince me of your full commitment to her. There is nothing you could do in this life or the next, or any after that frankly, that will change my mind on this matter.”

From the look on Cal’s face, Daniel would have caused less pain by stabbing him in the chest. Still, he looked back down at his carving and said, “I have nothing else to say to you on the matter, and I won’t tolerate you bring it up again.”

Cal was quiet for a long time, so long that Daniel finished the first wing and turned his carving over to begin the next. When Cal spoke again though, his voice was like steel, and it cut just as deeply as Daniel’s. “I can see I’ve wasted your time.” The chair legs scrapped on the ground and when he had stood up, he said coolly, “But I have to let you know that with or without your blessing, Mare and I are planning on getting married. I was the one who insisted on getting your blessing, even though she told me not to bother.”

Daniel looked with a raised brow, partially surprised at this silvers audacity, partially respectful of his determination. Still, it wasn’t going to change anything.

Squaring his shoulder under that look, Cal said quietly, “I have made many mistakes in the past, and I readily admit to them. You’re right that I did something akin to spitting in your family’s face, and I know that I hurt Mare so deeply that she didn’t truly trust me for years. But I love her, and I would rather cut my heart out than hurt her like that again.”

Daniel sniffed in distaste, too taken aback to say anything else though. Cal’s lips drew in a tight line before he turned on his heel and went back inside, leaving the balcony door open. There were hushed, hurried whispers in the room following his departure, and then the sound of the front door opening and closing a few seconds later. Daniel sat back in his chair then, his whole body tense, awaiting the next person that he knew was probably trying to find the right thing to say to him.

She came out only a moment later, the scent of ozone announcing her. The hairs on Daniel’s arms rose as she approached to stand over him. She was more furious that he anticipated. He didn’t look at his daughter though when she spoke.

“There are no words to express how much you hurt him and hurt me.”

“I said my piece,” Daniel replied quietly, the ice gone from his voice. “I won’t lie to appease him or you. He was better off hearing the truth.” He carved a delicate line in the wood, curving it up so it would look like the bird was just about to open its wing and take flight.

“He was going to officially propose tonight at dinner, with the whole family and our friends present. He has been planning this for weeks.”

“I don’t care if he’s been planning it for years. The only reason I have not driven him from this house before today is because I know that he makes you happy enough. But I won’t let him take that next step and put you in a position where he could hurt you greater than ever before.”

“I already told him no six times.” Mare hissed, and that brought Daniel’s eyes to her face. He had not known that fact. The two them had never given any indication that she had turned him down before. But the fact that he had asked her six times before and been denied every time only to stick around was probably a testament to his stubbornness.

Mare’s cheeks were red, and her hands were in fists as her sides. She inhaled slowly and forced the exhale through her nose before she spoke again. “He asked three years ago, and then five times over the next two years. I told him no every single time because I wasn’t certain yet. I only told him recently that I believed his words.”

Daniel frowned, only to grimace as Mare spit, “I am twenty-six years old, you don’t need to protect me anymore. I know my heart and I know what I want. I know him, and his heart.”

The breeze from the lake cut through the air, stirring the hairs that had fallen out of Mare’s bun. Daniel watched her face for a long time though, trying to read the new, strange emotion that had crossed her features. Her eyes darted away and Daniel caught the shine of tears there. His heart squeezed. He hadn’t just cut Cal when he denied him today, he had hurt Mare too, possibly more than Cal. All he had done was wound Cal’s pride, but Mare, he had hurt something deep in her.

“I told him yes a few weeks ago because I’m pregnant.” She exhaled sharply after admitting that, and whatever imaginary weight had been on her shoulders disappeared as she admitted it. Swallowing, she whispered, “I want to keep it. I want to have a family, and I want to do it with him.” Mare dropped down into the chair Cal had occupied minutes before and let her head fall into her hands. She looked exhausted, and Daniel tried to ignore how much that keeping that secret probably cost her. Still, he watched the top of her head, waitng for her to continue before asking quietly in case Ruth heard and came barging out, “does he know?”

“No, but he’s not stupid. He suspects something.” Mare whispered as she swiped at her tears with the heel of her palm. It had been a long time since Daniel had seen his daughter cry. To be honest, he couldn’t remember the last time. Had it been after Shade? Maybe, but Mare had been so cold and numb back then. He knew how much she hated the weakness that came with tears though. It took a lot for her to show emotion like this now.

“He’s not asking to save both of you from the situation that comes after?”

“What situation, Farley’s?” Mare snorted at Daniel’s expression only to spit, “Please. You wouldn’t have let Shade marry Farley to save them from a situation either. So don’t pretend to use that as an excuse now.”

“Does his family know?”

“Julian knows about the engagement, and Sara only knows about the baby because she confirmed it for me. Anabel doesn’t know about either, but that old crone will probably smile to my face and spit at my heels when I turn my back. I don’t care though. I don’t care what she thinks anymore.”

Daniel set his carving aside, and rested his hands on his stomach again to observe Mare. Maybe he had jumped the gun with his quick refusal. It would be difficult to mend the bridge he had burned though. Tapping his thumbs together softly, Daniel looked beyond Mare at the mountains rising in the distance.

“He really wanted your blessing, dad. I know he said we would get married anyway, but I have a feeling he won’t follow through on that even if I push him. It’s going to eat at him until you give permission. I want to get married while I can still fit into a dress though.” Mare added the last part with a snort before sitting back in the chair. Daniel tilted his head and grumbled, “Your mother is going to be very happy when she hears about this baby.”

“I’m sure Gisa already opened her fat mouth and said something.” Mare grumbled as she crossed her arms tighter across her chest. Daniel hadn’t noticed until now that Mare was wearing a very thick, very large sweater. It should have been a dead giveaway. It was more than a little odd given that it was almost the end of spring. No wonder Ruth had begun to suspect something. Mare had been steadily changing her wardrobe over the past few weeks, but the abnormally chilly spring had helped her disguise things. She wouldn’t be able to hide during the summer though.

“When did Gisa find out?” “A week ago. She came over for breakfast and had to sit there holding my hair for two hours while I vomited everything back up.” Mare grumbled as she looked out over the city.

“You really want this?” Daniel asked when the next breeze whistled between them. He never thought he’d hear his eldest daughter talking about this moment. Gisa, he for sure thought would be married with children before Mare, if his eldest ever got to that point. Then again, he always thought he would have to give Warren his permission if it ever came down to it. Mare had never been the nurturing or domestic type, but already he could see the changes coming over her. For claiming to be such an observant man, Daniel had missed quite a bit.

Mare turned to him again, and even without her speaking, Daniel saw the resolution in her eyes.

“I know I always said I didn’t want kids… or any of that life. But Cal will be a great father, and I’m convinced that he’ll make me a great mother too. I know that we’re going to be happy, that he’s going to make me happy for the rest of my life.” She smiled softly as she spoke, her eyes shining. Daniel was certain she was looking into the future as she spoke, and he felt a bubble of warmth building in his chest that chased away that bitter seed when he saw that light shining from within her.

There was really nothing else he could ask her. He had his answer, even if it smarted the part of him that had already turned Cal down. With a grunt, he pushed himself up from his chair and winced as his knee gave a twinge from sitting too long. Mare leaped up to grab his arm when he went to put weight on that aching joint, but he waved her off. “Where has he run off to lick his wounds?”

Mare blinked at him in surprise, her cheeks flushing as she whispered, “Have you changed your mind?”

“Don’t make me change it again. Where has he gone?”

“I don’t know, probably back to our apartment, or he might have gone to find Julian.”

“I’m not running around this city after him, because then I really will change my mind, so find him.”

“He went back to the apartment.”

Both of them looked up to see Gisa leaning against the doorway with her arms crossed. She tilted her head to side, making her newly cut, chin length hair shift in a shimmering curtain before smirking at them knowingly. “He said he was going there right before he left.” Daniel sighed at that. He may not have been more than a military grunt, but he knew enough about military strategy to know he would rather have this conversation on his own turf. Still, he was going to have to give ground. Especially if Mare’s happiness was concerned.

“You’ll take me over,” he said to Mare who nodded quietly, and trailed after him.

(///////)

Mare went into the apartment first, calling for Cal as she went. He gave a gruff response from somewhere in the back rooms making her go in search of him and leave Daniel by the door. Closing it softly behind him, Daniel resting his hands on his cane and inhaled the smell of the apartment. It smiled like wood smoke and pine. He didn’t like that he hadn’t been over here that often. Then again, he normally made a point of avoid it when Cal was here.

It was nice though. Warm, inviting, everything he had wished his family’s home had been while they were in Norta. Ruth had a hand in decorating this place, based on the pictures hanging from the walls. She’d probably have an even large hand in the coming months too.

Edging in, feeling more like an intruder than ever before, Daniel paused in the sitting room, and glanced through the windows at the view of the lake. From this angle, it looked red with the sunset. In the heavy silence, he could hear his daughter speaking quietly in the back. He didn’t hear Cal, but he assumed the silver was just listening and determining his next move. Daniel took that time to continue exploring.

His daughter certainly lived here, based on the papers that littered the desk near the windows, and the blankets thrown everywhere on the couch, but the silver was there too. There were more books than his daughter would ever read on the shelves, and on the small coffee table there was a scattering of papers in careful handwriting that Mare would never achieve. There was a perfect little mix of both of them in this room, and Daniel knew if he continued into the apartment that ratio would persist. He could see a child running around this space. He wondered if it would be a perfect mix of the two of them too.

Stepping up to the desk, Daniel shifted a small pile of papers that Mare had purposefully stacked to hide the book underneath. Daniel’s stomach twisted at the title. While he believed his daughter when she told him she was pregnant, it made it so very real to see her reading about it, and preparing for it. A small piece of paper had been tucked halfway through that book. He hesitated for a moment, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he was alone, before pulling it out a bit more to see a list of names in his daughter’s scratchy print. Most of them were scratched out, but at the bottom, written like she was uncertain of it, Mare had written her brother’s name. Daniel pushed the paper back in, feeling like he had just encroached on a secret Mare was not ready to discuss yet.

He pulled the papers back over the book and turned around when he heard light footsteps. Mare stood in the doorway to the sitting room, looking a little nervous. She edged closer and said, “Give him a minute.”

Daniel nodded, and leaned all his weight on his cane again, trying to ignore that continual pain in his knee. Mare sank down onto the couch in response, hugging her knees to her chest. The silver was really only a minute behind her, looking about as disgruntled as Daniel felt. His face was stone cold as he met Daniel’s eye across the space between them though. Straightening, Daniel cleared his throat and said, “I want to speak with you alone. If I may.” While he may not have been in his own home, he wanted to at least draw the battle lines. Cal tensed, and glanced to Mare, who looked just as uncertain at her father’s tone.

Unfolding herself like a newly blossoming flower though, she whispered, “I’m going to go make tea.” She pushed up from the couch and crossed the room then. Daniel didn’t miss how Cal’s fingers brushed hers for a moment as she reached his side. Pausing for only a heartbeat, she squeezed his fingers back before continuing into the kitchen. She made a show of banging cupboards closed and making more than enough noise the moment she got there, letting them both know that she was trying not to listen in on their conversation.

Neither of them moved through, and Daniel wasn’t sure what would happen if he did. Eventually though, he cleared his throat and said, “There has been… information brought to my attention since our conversation.”

Cal didn’t reply, and his expression remained stormy. Daniel gripped his cane tighter in response and said, “I will admit that I might have been hasty in my answer to you.”

“You made your feelings very clear, sir, and I would like to think in the past few years that I have stopped being as naïve as I was in the past.” Cal edged into the room and leaned against one of the tables where a few pictures had been carefully set up. Clara seemed to be the biggest theme of them. Daniel had a feeling that in a few months there would be a new face on that table.

In Daniel’s continued silence, Cal’s brows dropped and his eyes narrowed. “I know that you have not have seriously changed your mind as drastically as Mare seems to think in less than an hour.”

“The recent information I heard has certainly changed my mind.” Daniel admitted quietly. Cal’s expression changed from disbelief to confusion and finally settled on what Daniel assumed was suspicion. Tapping his cane against the floor to fill the silence, Daniel said, “I did not know that my daughter had already turned you down so many times.”

Cal made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like he was trying to stifle a laugh. Daniel smiled softly, knowing exactly what that felt like. Straightening his back, he said, “I will tell you a secret, something I have never told any of my children, or even my wife.”

Straightening up, Cal eyes darted in the direction of the kitchen. Daniel knew Mare was probably listening at this point, but he wanted her to hear it, to understand his thoughts and his feelings on this matter. “I was younger than both of you when I went to Ruth’s father to ask his permission to marry her. I didn’t even get half as far as you before he denied me. I had no means of caring for his daughter, not a penny to my name, and I had just come back from my first tour of duty.”

Cal’s eyes darkened at the mention of the old conscription orders, but Daniel would not be hindered by the past now. “I told him the same thing you told me and swore on my life I was going to marry his daughter whether he agreed or not. He laughed me off his porch. I was due to leave for the Choke again in two weeks and knew at that point that I couldn’t follow through without putting Ruth in a position that would compromise everything she had.”

Daniel heard and saw his daughter appear in hallway that connected to the kitchen. Her eyes were wide, but she did a marvelous job of hiding her shock when she met her father’s eye. Clearing his throat then, Daniel turned his gaze back to Cal, whose own expression had softened considerably.

“He did not trust me to care for her daughter, and he didn’t have an ounce of respect for me. I asked him three more times, and after the third he told me that if I could convince him that I would be able to care for his daughter and any children we had, then he would let me marry her.”

“I thought of every sweeping declaration, and swore up and down when I left that I would prove myself. I scrounged together every penny to my name and even borrowed from my parents to go to the market to find a ring. I wanted her to have one that every girl in the Stilts was envious of.”

Mare edged into the room completely then, and even though Cal’s arms were crossed, she threaded hers around one of his and hugged herself to his side.

“Every vendor laughed themselves hoarse at me, and I left empty handed. I went back to her house knowing that I was going to have to admit defeat. On the way there, I stopped by a small vendor who was selling carvings. He offered me a half finished carving, and a whittling knife and told me that I would have to finish it myself if I wanted to buy it.”

“I took that carving and sat on Ruth’s porch trying to finish that carving while her father watched me. It was the ugliest thing I ever made, and I cut my hands up doing it. When I finished and handed it to him saying it was all I could offer, he told me that if I was willing ruin my hands to the point that I couldn’t hold a gun at the Choke, then I obviously carried more about his daughter than my own life.” Daniel wasn’t quite sure if either of them knew where he was going, and he honestly wasn’t sure either. He had never told this story. There had never been a reason too. Swallowing around the tightness in his throat, he whispered, “while I know you have done things in the past that are unforgivable, I know that you have cut your hands up trying to atone for them, and have willing thrown yourself in the line of fire to protect and care for my daughter.”

Cal glanced down at Mare for a moment, who gave him a tiny smile in response and squeezed his arm lightly.

Clearing his throat to get their attention again, Daniel finished, “And while I may not completely trust you, my daughter does, enough to change the vision she always had of her future to be with you.”

Cal’s face twisted with confusion, and he glanced down at Mare who blushed a dark red and whispered, “I’ll tell you after.”

“I think I’d rather know now.”

“Later,” Mare insisted with a smirk, as she nudged him and nodded in Daniel’s direction before giving him a smile that could probably light up Ascendent for the next few years.

Daniel couldn’t ignore that his next words were probably going to make Mare happier than ever before. It would probably pale in comparison to the next few months of her life though, and the moments that would come after. “I have decided to give you my blessing. You have my permission to marry my daughter, so long as you agree to continue cutting up your hands to love her.”

Cal didn’t move for a few seconds, and in that time, Mare’s smile began to fall as she looked at him expecting a response. Unfolding his arm from her grip, Cal approached Daniel, closing the space between them in two slow steps. Daniel straightened up to stand at the same height as Cal when he got there. They stood toe to toe for a moment, until Cal held his hand out and said, “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

Daniel slipped his hand around the silver’s and squeezed tightly. Perhaps another reason he had resisted this moment initially was because he was going to have to let go of Mare, and trust someone else to protect her. For some reason, he had thought he would always be the one to protect her. He had stopped holding that duty a long time ago though.

When they dropped hands, Mare wormed her way between them to hug Daniel. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and closed his eyes as she squeezed tightly. He hadn’t realized how much she had grown up. It felt like yesterday that she had squared her shoulders and flown back to Norta to stop an invasion.

“We’re going to be okay, you know that right?” She whispered in his ear, and he nodded slowly before replying quietly, “I do.”

She pulled away then, and glanced back at Cal before reaching for his hand. He gripped hers tightly and Daniel let Mare slide out of his arms reluctantly so that Cal could engulf her in his. They smiled at each other, and Daniel cleared his throat again before saying, “I except your mother will want to hear that good news.”

“I’ll take you back—” Mare began, only for Daniel to shake his head and start across the living room.

“I’ll walk back. Besides, you two have things to discuss. Things this old man doesn’t want to be concerned with for a few more months.” He chuckled as he left, already hearing Cal demanding to understand before he even closed the door to the apartment.

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mi4017 · 3 years

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SILENT VOICE (KOE NO KATACHI) 2016

I’m a sucker for slice of life shows, i love it for the same reason i like comedy!

they’re lighthearted, give a feelgood vibe - with a colourful cast of characters that normally have very nice interactions - a kind of fun you can only see characters have, not real people.

usually I'm not big on anime... its just not a media that i grew up with and have no nostalgia nor personal interest for. I can completely see why others enjoy it, but its just not for me: and I think that’s a completely fair and respectable point of view.

but dang... this film is beautiful.

Koe no Katachi / Silent Voice (2016)

When a grade school student with impaired hearing is bullied mercilessly, she transfers to another school. Years later, one of her former tormentors sets out to make amends.

i think conceptually - this is a really nice story. redemption is a theme i feel always has a special place in storytelling, there’s something about watching the protagonist overcome the difficulties they’ve had in their past, and come back a better person because of it thats so rewarding.

I think that’s due, in part, to the way everyone thinks of themselves - humans are naturally very doubtful, and self-deprecating: the fastest to point out their own flaws. i don't think i know anyone that is genuinely happy with who they are, with everyone ashamed of some part of themselves, and their pasts.

however - the context of redemption is an important factor. there’s unforgivable acts that cause immense damage - so much so, that no matter how different they are, they can't bring themselves to forgive what they’ve done.

personally, i agree with the mentality that the victims of situations should be the factor that dictate whether the act is forgivable or not, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can forgive yourself.

the film centres around a boy named Shoya Ishida, who bullied a deaf girl named Shōko Nishimiya, when he was a kid - and is seeking to make amends for the way he treated her.

in the film, this is down-played, with it taking up about ten minutes of the film, as an opening segment.

I’ve both read the manga, and watched the film. The way each version is handled differently yet still tells a similar story, with the same cast of characters is a point of interest to me, and i think each version has it’s charm.

if you're interested, i personally prefer the manga version - it’s much grittier, and makes scenes from the movie a lot more understandable, due to missing content - the tone becomes understandable.

Shõko transfers to Shoya’s school, and instantly things change - with classes having to accommodate for a student, with a disability. this annoys Shoya, and his friends, and to ‘get back at her’ as they see fit they begin to tease her.

Shõko wears hearing aids, and Shoya learns that yanking them out will entertain both him and his friends. A female student, Naoko, also leads the way in ostracising the deaf girl.

Shõko does everything in her power to fit in, communicate and make friends, but due to her disability she is ultimately forced to spend her time alone. this unfair treatment seems absolutely barbaric - but the sad reality is that it happens.

i personally have a few audibly-impaired pals, and it’s upsetting to watch the way they’re treated. People find it difficult to communicate with them, and in essence - due to not enjoying the time they spend with them, isolate them. this is, of course, a generalisation based on my experience - i think that this is what makes my friendship with them feel unique - a percentage of the individuals i encounter have very few connections, which makes their bond with myself feel more significant.

Shõko is targeted by Shoya, and his gang - who pour water on, trip her up, and rips out a number of her hearing aids: one time so forcefully her ears bleed.

He is scapegoated as the only bully in the class despite how many of his classmates have contributed to Shõko’s suffering. Due to this, his friends turn their attention on him, and the torment they inflicted on Shõko is now being flipped on himself.

we skip over the next few years of Shoya’s life - they pass, as nothing noteworthy happens. Shoya lost everyone, now he can’t look anyone in the eyes, which is visually represented by x’s over the faces of all the students at school.

He’s alone. but accepts this as his punishment for what he did to Shoko.

i think this is one of the aspects that sold me on the film: the second you see what Shoya has become you instantly understand he’s truly changed. he’s gone from a spunky kid, swaggering down the halls with tons of friends to this sorry state.

he's resentful for the way he treated Shõko, so much so that he’s considering killing himself - conveyed by the simple and chilling way he cuts out the rest of a calendar after the date he chooses to die.

after reuniting with Shõko, the rest of the film follows the new relationship they build, along with the reactions of their old classmates.

“What I have given a lot of attention to when portraying Shoya’s position and circumstances was to portray Shoya as an individual character – to carefully understand and stay true to the intentions of what he saw, what he felt and what actions he took. I have tried to build the character so that Shoya will be able to act as himself, no matter what the circumstances,” - Yamada.

It’s hard to argue that Shoya is not worthy of redemption: he works for years to pay back the cost of the hearing aids, he almost kills himself, he accepts his own isolation and misery, and he reaches out to Shoya to make amends and help her wishes come true.

I walked away from the experience truly contemplating a lot of things. to all the people out there who picked on me at school, the ones who made me feel like shit and hate myself.

i forgive you.

and i hope one day - you can do the same. forgive yourself

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adultingautistic · 4 years

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help? rambling! sorry for that thing.

(saw in the ask-section: so written today as of the 20th of August in the year 2020)

Hey,

No idea how to approach this. Though first things first: English is not my native language and I have some trouble with languages (even my native) [mostly speaking and writing… and understanding (the hearing part but sometime also the meaning part) – okay I just can’t language – sorry] and this thingy here will be long, again – sorry Though I learned to understand written english just so I could read more fanfictions (‘cause the ones in my native language didn’t satisfy me anymore) - spend a whole summer just reading stuff in english and now I *need* to read everything in english and watch things in their native production language (synchro is weird af) and if possible with subtitles (books: if it’s the authors native language; otherwise both languages (german and english) would be translated and then it doesn’t really matter, most of the time anyway)

WARNING: Messy, chaotic and about 2500 words long. Sorry. and it isn’t proof read and some sentences could be… not a sentence

I think I might be autistic / have adhd ? not sure, going to someone (professional) is not really an option as that would take at least 6 to 12 month to even get maybe a appointment… and it involves a lot of social interaction that would stress all people – even those that don’t have to think about *every* interaction they have with eachother… like no planning or thinking about what you have to say or can’t say and what’s appropriate? Like that is a thing – always wondered how most people got through life when everything is so damn hard. It is apparently a thing that isn’t so quite normal… lol*

Okay, most of the time (that I remember) wondered how that worked for everyone else except me – how they get through life thinking all those things, or well… don’t thinking all those things like HOW?!? Why can you “people”? and I learned it’s important if you’re a girl or not; so yeah, girl here. Followed adhd / autism stuff for a few month / weeks and now again for the last days (it’s an on and off thing). so yeah, I can relate to so much on like everything. Long time I thought, nah, can’t have it: good in school (more so when I was younger but never actually bad), finished school good (though could have been better, if I had studied once (like for my oral exam, I opened the document that should help us learn one whole time, the morning of the exam so yeah, not good at that; brain just goes, heard it once, why should I read this information? Can’t really recall it but while reading I “know” it, so WhAt Is STuDyInG?)) anyway (at this point I would have deleted about everything but like 3 or 4 sentences because… rambling. Sorry, but I think it is important what’s actually going on in my brain; I know it’s hard to read lol) considering all those things I read here (and on other blogs and stuff), I would explain so much about what’s going on in my life (I made a document where I collect all that stuff but it’s redundant sometimes and really messy; try to make a short list with most important things).

Like as a kid, it took me longer than other kids for this social stuff (not like it got “everything”, just enough to communicate more or less lol) or I was so freaking focused on rules; one example is at the train station, there is this line to indicate where you should wait for the train and the other side is where you’re allowed to step once the train is in the station – I lost it, when that rule wasn’t followed (never really big, loud but I was really upset – you know, I learned that it isn’t “allowed” to act out in public). Another thing, I would always get the adults (or kids) around me to speak to others: I mean, I wanted ice cream? Couldn’t order it (still hard to this day – I’m 19 years old btw) or any other basic interaction stuff – I mean I broke every connection to my best friend (in 6th grade, so I was like 10 or 11) because he broke a rule while playing “hide and seek” like yeah, one rule one time while playing and I didn’t speak to him for like 6-7 years (met him at driving school again lol) and I still have his book because I didn’t want anything to do with him anymore (now it’s just awkward to give it back).

As I was younger I loved reading, couldn’t get me away from it – now not so much lol (books or reading in general is so hard sometimes… most of the time) – but that is more like: I lost myself in the books and was super focused on it – now I “don’t have time” as in I can’t really read a book if I don’t have theoretically the whole day and night – cause if I have to do stuff later “there is not enough time to read a book” because I could get lost in it and miss stuff and 5 hours is like 5 minutes, right? (that is a part of “time blindness”, am I mistaken? – never really related to that on a deeper level but the longer it think about it, the more stuff comes to my mind that could be part of it lol / like I always at least try to) get ready when I want to visit my grandparents, it’s like a ten minute walk so I need at least 45 minutes to prepare. Example: want to be there at 14:00 so I should go to the bathroom around 13:15 the latest, bathroom always takes long ‘cause I get distracted, so I then somehow get going around 13:50 – spoiler: I need more like at least 15 minutes not less then 10 to get to my grandparents by foot – and where is the time? I got out of the bathroom somewhere before 13:40 most of the time – I do the exact same things every time and sometimes I’m like: oh, it’s like 13:25/13:30, why would I think I need so much time to get ready? And then most often I need longer – and no, then I start to got even earlier (bathroom is like the first thing in the routine I do before I have to leave the house) and somehow it is now 13:45 and I just leave the bathroom – HOW??)

Okay, MSWord tells me, I have written like almost a 1100 words and haven’t even looked at my 11 page document – sorry (can I even write that many words in an ask at tumblr?)

Another thing I found is RSD – of my god (I usually don’t like to use it like that but omg), that explains so much – don’t want to write too much (missed quite a few “too”s I think lol hope you understand anyway) – I really react so intense to small, constructive criticism and I didn’t (don’t) understand why; and question everything; I remember everything I did wrong (so many “small” things but I’m such bad at human sometimes) and the feels and oh no, I didn’t even do something wrong, my coworker/sort-of-not-really-friend told me how I could have slightly improved what I did: I’m such a bad human, I can’t do anything right and they won’t want to have to do anything with me again – thank you brain, not helpful. One other thing was, like I asked for one weekend of and I wasn’t allowed to take it ‘cause they planned to or already shifted an event (couldn’t really focus on that) to that weekend and I didn’t know it and when they said “no”, in that situation I could have lost it, I was almost in tears (you do not cry in public lol) and thought, how could I even ask that and be soo egoistic (along the lines of that).

This next one is just the text copied from a post but that is like exactly what it is for me:

“I literally thought all the symptoms were the default way a brain works, so you’re telling me some of you can “choose” what to pay attention to? Like, if you know you absolutely have to listen to and remember something you just “can” even if you don’t like it?

And if you’re at a restaurant and three other tables are having conversations you don’t just automatically absorb everything they’re saying?

And if you know you have to do something within the next hour it won’t just remind you of a different subject entirely which reminds you of another different subject entirely and you don’t just take you three days to remember the original thing you were doing????”

so true lol.

Found another post with autism signs in adults (that my have been missed as kids), I took out everything I don’t really relate to (like 5 or 6 things lol):

- may constantly rehears conversations or interactions

- may feel as though you are always on stage

- may have a few close friends, not many acquaintances

- may struggle with other people breaking rules (RULES ARE ABSOLUT – HOW CAN YOU BREAK THEM?)

- may often fidget, chew, tap, or other repetitive behaviors

- may get more or less upset at something than is “appropriate”

- may struggle to adjust when plans change without warning

- may have routines that don’t seem to have a real purpose

- may struggle in situations that are unfamiliar

- may be a very picky eater with few preferred foods

- may struggle with noises, touching, or sensory input

- may struggle to process visual or auditory information

- may struggle to settle body down enough for restful sleep (though I now have a weighted blanket and that’s soo awesome, it really helps at least a bit (don’t wake up that often at night anymore))

- may struggle to keep track of a fast conversation

- may take jokes very literally, and not understand teasing

- may miss sarcasm or subtleties while others are speaking

I understand teasing, I can more or less successful tease and be sarcastic but I’m not sure if people are teasing me. I do not prefer to communicate via text or email. It is still very stressful for me - a telephone is also bad (tone and stuff, not understanding the words correct and not even seeing the other person and in person is also bad – so no to communication and/or interaction lol)

I could provide example for everything but I’m at around 1700 words and just no.

Didn’t really mention sensory stuff, another post I found: “basically, your day-to-day sensory input shouldn’t be causing you distress. sounds wild, i know, but it’s not neurotypical for the stimuli (be it sound, touch, visual, etc etc) you encounter on a day-to-day basis to make you unhappy. also, if busy shopping malls or crowded parties consistently cause you distress or agitation, that’s a neurodiverse thing. it sounds strange, but apparently but yeah, it’s normal for most people to expect to be comfortable in their day to day surroundings.”

Like on one level, I knew it couldn’t be quite “normal” to be always uneasy in “normal” day to day surroundings but like, I can’t understand how people can not find it hard to be in such environment (I heard some enjoy it even, like HOW?).

Random interjection ‘cause I wanted to say something to thing from the beginning: * “Allistics do not “prepare” in order to socialize. They do not have scripts. They do not write them, memorize them, or use them. They just magically know what to say. “ yeah, wow, didn’t realise that for a long time, and it is really magically. But somehow they can; I still ask my mom to help me write emails (more or less important ones) ‘cause it’s hard and she’s always like: “we do it so often, why do you still need help, just write” – not helpful and we didn’t do it actually ‘cause it is a complete different situation now lol every new email is a new thing… I need to think about what to say to the cashier every damn time I’m in the supermarket lol; if I don’t have to talk, someone else orders for me (they thinks I’m lazy or so, I don’t know but it’s so hard and you know what to do, so you can do it lol)

And that executive dysfunction thingy also explains a lot – I mean, I like languages, I’m just not good at that speaking/hearing the words thing – still, I learn Ancient Greek as a sort of hobby (I mean, I learn it for so long now, it’s too late to stop, that would be weird and it is really interesting, just really hard) and I needed like 7 hours to do the work (like, got out of bed, got breakfast, started the computer and did like 30 minutes of working, then did some stuff on the internet for like an hour and then ate my forgotten breakfast, then did some more browsing (I need to do the work cause I have to send it to my teacher this evening lol) some work for like almost an hour, some more phone, a bit of work – and so on. I did some work (but like so many people would have done more or needed less time lol) – anyway I know I really need to work on the language and I just… don’t. arg, that sucks so much, every week I think, I could start doing things on Saturday and then everyday a bit so I have like six days to do some work and every time it’s Thursday and I’m like, lol 10 hours for doing a weeks work. And it’s not like I could focus for that 10 hours – except when I can but sadly it’s almost never on the things I *need* to do. Anyway if my parents hadn’t provided dinner, I wouldn’t have eaten more than breakfast today – anyways sometime I want ice cream or other stuff and I just… can’t do it like I’m sitting here for an hour now, I’m so freaking bored and I just want ice cream but do I move? Nope, and doing something to not feel bored? Nope. I also mean to get my thingy for my wrist ‘cause I have some problems and typing hurts but lol, nope. An example as kid would be I needed hours to dry myself after a shower and just sit on the floor in my room doing more or less nothing or playing (I now a have strategy but yeah)

So, yeah, sorry; I think it’s quite possible that I’m autistic / have adhd, both or so – am I making things up and this is just my mind going a bit wild? (also, I’ve done some online “tests”; most of the time I get like ¾ of the maximal points, but at least always more than half the full points)

Sorry, it’s a messy, long thing but I need a bit of an advice or so – just, like “yeah, could be possible” or “nope.”

Thanks if you made it to the end! 20.08.2020

PS. could write so much more in my mind but nope. i think one can get my point. otherwise just ask me

PPS. actually talked with my grandmother about it, lol, she said, it would explain some things she wondered about lol (never thought i would talk in real life with someone about it but i really needed to talk about my thoughts and then i couldn’t shut up and i was so worried but she is kinda cool with it? though she doen’t really know anything about the topic except what i told her so yeah. i acually have no clue how to approach my mum (even if it isn’t autism/adhd or so, i think i have to talk about how i tick a bit lol) (sorry, just had to write it a least lol)

so sorry, needed a part two (cause brain is stupid)

Okay, part two (I’m so sorry) (now it is the 21st of August 2020)

There is so much more I can write about: sorry, again like 1300 words.

Like, special interests – I have no idea; as I kid my teacher had to regularly remind me that I have to leave the classroom for break – cause I was so into my book that I didn’t hear anyone leaving the room or the bell; now I can get really invested in some fanfictions (if I have like five days for myself and nothing to do, it is like 3 books without a break) and I’m at a point where I don’t find (good) new stuff and read the same fanfic again and again (I know exactly what will happen and still love it), sometimes I don’t read it for like a few weeks or month and then like 5 times back to back. I absolutely love Doctor Who (but I’m not excessively obsessive or so and don’t know that many facts just some), just can ramble for a few minutes (okay, everyone who would listen speaks German and my main input for Doctor Who is English, so hard to translate that and stuff). Well back to books: I love them; even though I can’t properly focus much these day, I love them, I need them: but why? I hate that when book covers changes or the side of the book like it’s: publisher, name of book, author and the next book is like name of the book, publisher, author and all is mixed up or the symbol of the publisher is slightly different: why? Can’t it be consistent? Why??.

Routines, rituals and stuff. Yeah, I have for example this one street (they repaired the street but there is a small crack now), I have to cross it on the side that is where the street crosses another and then the last 3 steps have to be on the other side and the fourth is stepping on the sidewalk (I really can’t do it any other way and I hate this one car that always blocks the crack a bit – it shouldn’t be standing there ‘cause it’s almost directly in the crossing lol) when I still was going to school, my way home was very specific and one time there was a building/construction site (just some repairs or work on the pipe lines in the ground) and the first time I saw this I was stressed after a long day of school and almost lost it right there and then, because I couldn’t walk my normal way (and yes, at home I cried at bit); for the next few weeks my way back home was hell. I have some specific routines for the bathroom and showering (though most people have that, right?). I have to pack my things and then my stuff like keys and such in the same way every time. When I need a walk I have like two (or three) routes I can take and I have to do them and almost can’t change them after I started (I can though it really throws me off and I don’t feel really well after that). One time – cause Covid-19 and stuff – you need to use a shopping cart where I live in order to enter the supermarket (so you keep more distance) – so, I went to the market by foot and had everything planned, shortly before I am at the store I realise I don’t have a “chip” (thingy you need to use the shopping cart; don’t know if you know what I mean) and I lost it – my plans and routine how I go shopping to that market (if by foot) was ruined – went back home and cried and raged like for an hour (went later again, cause I really needed stuff and I couldn’t leave that thing open, that also feels… not good – had to finish the walking “round”: to the store, store, back home)

One thing I mentioned before: sensory stuff; yeah, not a fan of “loud” noises (it isn’t always the loudness but more the number of noises). Water in my face (nope, hate it, never under the shower and like a sponge or so is horror (like everywhere on my body), just clean water is okay (but please, I can’t have had soap like right before on my hands)), lights is a day to day thing (though if I’m tired / close to what I think is sensory overload, either the room I’m in gets like darker or lights up so much it’s not tolerable anymore (then I know, I really, really have to leave the room and not see or hear anybody anything anymore)), and food, yeah (everything has its place on my plate and please don’t touch), I’m a really “picky” eater and I absolutely despise like cooked or baked fruits (some vegetables too) (they feel soo weird in my mouth… and taste bad… but the texture alone is… really, really bad) (if I wait a bit more, I could think of more but you get the gist I think)

One thing that throws me off: Since I’m 14 years old, I do some stuff with youth groups like mostly work in the church as a volunteer (like in the (school)holidays going a vacation with a group and such things) – I needed like three years (I was and still am seen as shy, mostly) to really “lead” a group (I really am good at imitating the others that can lead a group, I think) and now after I finished school and am doing a “Freiwilliges Soziales Jahr (FSJ)” (voluntary social year) (basically I “work” for a year in a social job (sorry, no idea how to explain it in English) and get not much money (that’s the volunteering-part, but ‘cause I work full-time (38.5 hours a week on paper), I get a bit of money)) – and now I applied for studying for working in a social job – can’t really explain it but important is that I would/will have to work with people and stuff, like my job is to create/plan activities for people (like for example, a meeting every week for old people, free-time activities for teenagers or so). On one level I somehow like that working with people (as long as I know what I do, I had time to plan and everything happens more or less as I imagined/planned), on another level I absolutely… well not hate it… but it is really taxing for me and sometimes I really question myself but then other people say, do it, you’re good at it – and I’m like: yeah? I sometimes feel terrible and have no idea what’s going but okay, good that you don’t see that?! Am I not totally awkward and what? Still, have no clue what I would do instead of that lol (sorry, explained that whole thing real bad; just ask, if something is unclear)

So, two options: either I fake everything I wrote before that last thing and how would that work? Or I’m really good at faking that last thing and how? I have no idea and yeah, I had to write that – can both work? Like, it’s not like that I’m always (really) comfortable doing that social stuff but on the other hand, a bit adrenaline and anxiety makes the life more fun or something like that (and it’s not like, yeay, one time a certain situation managed and the next time I can navigate that somewhat same situation, nope, it’s like nothing ever happened before and that’s… annoying?)

Sorry again to bother you. Thanks for reading

21.08.2020

PS. I will probably think of something new every few hours but that’s enough for now I think lol – sorry

PPS. And sorry for my bad English and explaining… language is hard (not like I could write it better in my native language lol)

_______________________________________________________________

First, I will never, ever, ever judge someone based on how good their English is, whether English is their first language or not. People communicate the best they can, and that’s all that counts, and it does not matter if it’s “perfect”.

So I can’t address every detail you brought up, because this was a LOT! I did read all of it though, and the general impression I get is that you’re right, you probably have ADHD, and possibly autism as well, though I am not a doctor and I can’t diagnose you.

You asked a few times if you could be “faking” it, and the answer to that I can say for certain: No, you are not faking. What you told me here are your life experiences. I just read a story of “How life is like” for you, and it was not fiction, this is your real perspective about how your brain sees the world. This is not fake. This is who you are, and I felt what you wrote was very open and honest, the exact opposite of fake.

Sorry, it’s a messy, long thing but I need a bit of an advice or so – just, like “yeah, could be possible” or “nope.”

Based on your experiences that you shared, I’d say it’s more than likely you have ADHD. You talk often about trying to complete a task and losing your focus before it’s finished:

Anyway if my parents hadn’t provided dinner, I wouldn’t have eaten more than breakfast today – anyways sometime I want ice cream or other stuff and I just… can’t do it like I’m sitting here for an hour now, I’m so freaking bored and I just want ice cream but do I move? Nope, and doing something to not feel bored? Nope. I also mean to get my thingy for my wrist ‘cause I have some problems and typing hurts but lol, nope. An example as kid would be I needed hours to dry myself after a shower and just sit on the floor in my room doing more or less nothing or playing (I now a have strategy but yeah)

This is all very suggestive of ADHD. You also had some symptoms that could be autism, but it seems like the ADHD is more prominent for you and is affecting you more (keep in mind, I’m only a stranger on the internet, I could be totally wrong).

I’m really happy that you were able to share these thoughts with your grandmother, and that she was open to listening to you about them, even if she didn’t have all the facts.

I know you said it would be a long wait, and very difficult, to get an appointment with a professional. But I do really think you should be tested for ADHD. Maybe your grandmother can help you talk to your mum about it, or maybe your grandmother can make all those phone calls for you (because believe me, I know how difficult it is to make phone calls, they are just as hard for me). Even if you have to wait a year, it would be worth it to know- and also, because in the case of ADHD, there is medication which can help you. So it would be really worth it for you to get that, even if you have to wait a long time.

You’re obviously a very detail-oriented, thoughtful person, and I know that you’ve studied this subject inside and out. You’re not faking, you’re not making it up. These are your experiences, and they are the truth, and you deserve to be tested if you want to be.

#actually autistic #actuallyautistic #ADHD #submission

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iturbide · 4 years

Note

Hfjdhjf can I please have more information?? I think the reason I managed to float by so spoiler free was half because up until recently I never was super interested in Three Houses, and my knowledge was limited to what I was told about the routes. WHICH WAS APPARENTLY VERY LIMITED. V E R Y.

friend of course you can have more information

legit though I am so impressed that you’ve managed to stay spoiler free regardless of the context, I am massively spoiled for fandoms I’m not even in and yet you’re managing to come at it fresh like I did when I started my Golden Deer playthrough.

also this came in and frankly your wish is my command

But okay. So.

Dimitri is honestly fascinating and a tragic, deeply flawed character in his own right. But understanding his break requires backstory. His mom died when he was still pretty young due to a plague that swept through Faerghus, and when he was around ten his father re-married an Imperial woman named Patricia von Arundel (who is also Edelgard’s mother, hence the step-siblings thing). Edelgard, as it happens, had come to the Kingdom with her mother and uncle, Volkhart von Arundel, in order to escape the chaos caused by the Insurrection of the Seven, where the Imperial nobles seized power from the Emperor (Edelgard’s father), and the two became friends: she taught him to dance during the three-ish years she was in the Kingdom, and just before she left Dimitri gifted her a dagger, symbolic in the Kingdom of a hope for someone to cut their own path forward.

Two years later, Dimitri’s life basically becomes hell. While he and his family are traveling through the neighboring lands of Duscur, their caravan is attacked: his father Lambert and his bodyguard Glenn are both brutally murdered, his step-mother goes missing, and he is the sole survivor. He witnessed the people responsible, but although he tried to tell people what happened, the people of Duscur were blamed for the attack, and the genocide soon followed. The whole incident came to be known as the Tragedy of Duscur, and it left Dimitri with massive trauma that went completely unaddressed: he suffers from survivor’s guilt and PTSD, he completely lost all sense of taste, he’s had a constant headache since the incident...oh, and also he sees hallucinations of the people who died. So there’s that.

Now, because Dimitri was only 14 at the time and he couldn’t take the Faerghus throne until he reached his majority at 18, his uncle Rufus stepped in as regent in the meantime. Rufus is pretty fucking terrible! In fact, he sent Dimitri at age 16 to go put down a rebellion in Western Faerghus -- and again, Dimitri is a traumatized teenager who’s been getting no help or support. The people around him, notably Gilbert and Felix’s father Rodrigue, are trying to foster him into the next King of Faerghus rather than tending to his very real mental and emotional needs following the events of Duscur, so Dimitri has been silently bottling up all of his problems for the better part of two years. He...kind of snaps during that rebellion, and it ends up as a brutal slaughter; Felix bears witness to it, and ever after he treats Dimitri like a wild animal, calling him a beast and a boar.

This is all just piling on the trauma, as you probably noticed. He manages to hold it together and keep up a calm exterior, though he’s deeply afraid of the darkness within him, and does his utmost to bury it and keep it under control. At age 17 he comes to Garreg Mach, and over the course of the school year things just get progressively worse: he starts slipping and growing more violent over the course of repeated encounters with the Flame Emperor, since he recognizes the masked mages from the attack on his family’s caravan in Duscur and believes that the Flame Emperor must have been responsible for the Tragedy. But he pretty much snaps during the revelation at the Holy Tomb, where Edelgard is unmasked as the Flame Emperor -- in the Blue Lions route, he literally crushes an Imperial soldier’s skull with his bare hands in his attempts to get at Edelgard. It’s shocking, especially since up to that point the super strength that came from his Crest was played for laughs more than anything else.

He continues slipping in the weeks leading up to the attack on Garreg Mach, publicly alluding to his hallucinations and how they whisper to him and vowing to take Edelgard’s head himself. CF is the only route where he actually stays pretty sane, so we’re going to focus on non-CF routes: in the battle for the monastery, Edelgard’s forces end up victorious, and he’s forced back to Faerghus, expecting to take the throne and rally a counterstrike against her...only to arrive and be accused of regicide when it’s revealed that his uncle Rufus has been viciously murdered. Cornelia (who is, in fact, a Twisted agent) takes power in the Kingdom and basically hands it off to Edelgard as the ‘Dukedom of Faerghus,’ then orders Dimitri be imprisoned and later executed; but before he can be killed, his vassal Dedue manages to break him out of prison, though the escape attempt apparently costs him his life (he can be saved by other Duscur survivors depending on the results of an earlier paralogue, though -- the important point is that Dimitri thinks Dedue is dead). After that, Dimitri spends the next four-ish years wandering alone in the Faerghus forests, the isolation exacerbating his already poor mental health until he’s openly conversing with his hallucinations; he also starts attacking Imperial forces he comes across in Faerghus and basically ripping them apart, leading to a lot of rumors about a wild beast on the loose. Also, somewhere in this five year span he loses an eye. No, we have no idea how. Fandom burns for answers.

Now, Dimitri’s fate varies significantly depending on playthrough here. In Silver Snow and Verdant Wind, he’s literally consumed by his rage and guilt and his desire for vengeance on behalf of those taken from him, and he ends up dying in pursuit of it. In Azure Moon, he’s lost any real ability to tell reality from hallucination, and believes even Byleth is nothing more than a figment; he continues his single-minded pursuit of Edelgard, committing atrocities of his own and admitting to being nothing but a base murderer, the beast Felix accused him of being so long ago. But eventually, through the intervention of Byleth and his classmates, he starts to come around a little more -- though it takes Rodrigue’s death and his final words, encouraging him to live for himself rather than those who have already gone, to really wake him up and get him moving forward. The game takes the turn a little fast, but it’s still really touching to see Dimitri coming back from the edge and recognizing the importance of his own desires. The campaign continues, they retake Fhirdiad, there’s a parley with Edelgard where she refuses to back down and continues to insist that war is the only option, things get crazy with the final boss like holy shit, but in the end after Edelgard’s been defeated, Dimitri offers his hand to her...and her final act is to throw the dagger he gifted her when they were children at him, and he instinctively kills her in retaliation.

Look, Dimitri doesn’t come out of this smelling like roses. He killed a lot of people in very, very violent ways. But he recognizes that what he did, even if he wasn’t mentally sound at the time, was pretty atrocious and spends the rest of his life seeking peace with as little bloodshed as possible.

But okay I have gone on for a long time about Dimitri so if you’re still here, congratulations let’s talk about my favorite Lord.

Claude is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. That’s literally how he’s presented in the game, and it’s great. He’s sociable, amiable, friendly, mischievous, and has a reputation as a schemer. He jokes about his own reputation a lot, especially when he’s called out, but he’s wickedly smart, especially where tactics, information gathering, puzzles, and secrets are concerned. We literally go through the whole first half of the game getting only the tiniest hints about him personally and what his aspirations are -- we don’t even know where he came from, he legit just showed up out of the blue when Duke Riegan named Claude as his heir -- and meanwhile he’s out there trying to unravel the mystery behind Crests, the Church, and the Flame Emperor -- and while he doesn’t manage to succeed before the timeskip hits, he manages to uncover an alarming amount of information. Also, despite his reputation as an untrustworthy trickster, he cares deeply about the people around him and does his best to keep them safe, even if it means resorting to underhanded (but ultimately non-lethal) methods.

Once we hit the timeskip, we find out more of the secrets that he’s been hiding. For context, Fodlan’s neighbor to the east is Almyra, and relations between the two nations have been...tense, to say the least: a few hundred years ago Almyra invaded Fodlan and a bad time was had by all. In order to prevent it from happening again, the Alliance built a fortress called Fodlan’s Locket in the pass connecting the two nations (the pass being called Fodlan’s Throat). Presently, the Alliance is headed by a communal council of nobles from the major families, who meet at regular round tables in order to debate business that affects their territories and pass legislature; the round table is headed by Duke Riegan, who had two children, a son set to inherit the title and a daughter who went mysteriously missing years ago. Unfortunately, House Riegan and House Gloucester have never been on the best of terms, and when Duke Riegan’s heir was attacked and killed on the road while traveling to visit Duke Gloucester, there were a lot of rumors that Lorenz’s dad might have been involved, though nothing was ever proven in that regard. It left Duke Riegan in a tough spot, though, since he was getting on in years and suddenly had no heir...at which point, Claude ‘miraculously’ steps in with his Crest and is named heir to House Riegan.

Turns out? Duke Riegan’s daughter didn’t go missing: she eloped with an Almyran. And that Almyran, as it turns out, became king of Almyra. So Claude’s an Almyran prince. Turns out, he didn’t exactly have a great time growing up, though: Almyrans view the people of Fodlan as cowardly and weak, so they viewed Claude’s mom as such...and Claude himself, too, since he was half-Fodlan. No matter how much he argued or fought, it never seemed to matter. He got bullied a lot, and started picking up tactics and poison mixing as ways to defend himself...but more than anything, he hated how small-minded Almyrans were when it came to him and his mother. Then Duke Riegan’s heir died, and his grandfather reached out to his daughter, hoping to have Claude tested for a Crest -- which, as it happens, he bore. Claude was so excited, believing that things in Fodlan would be different, better...

...and instead, he found that things in Fodlan were exactly like they were in Almyra. People hated him for half his heritage -- just this time, it was for his ‘savage’ Almyran half instead of his ‘cowardly’ Fodlan half. It was hilarious, in a sad way, how alike the people of Fodlan and Almyra were when it came to hating things they didn’t know...and that was how he decided on his goal. What Claude wants to do is destroy the borders between people and forge understanding between them. He found through hard experience that people always fear the outsider -- but if you break down the walls, there’s no ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ anymore. There’s just people. What he wants to do is unify the Alliance, then Fodlan, then perhaps even the world...not through force or subjugation, but by bringing them together, uniting them through what they share in common and helping them understand and find value in their differences. His aspiration is to ensure that no one has to suffer like he did growing up.

And so, once things are all settled in Fodlan (and he’s assured that he managed to achieve his goal in small scale with his friends in the Alliance), he leaves Byleth in charge, forgoes leadership in the Alliance, and heads back to Almyra to continue working toward that aspiration. He becomes the king of Almyra so that he can start working toward that larger goal from the other side of the border, intending to open roads toward peaceful diplomacy and trade with Fodlan. He knows their bonds are strong, even when they’re apart, and he knows that they’ll all be reunited someday. Also Claude is the only Lord who has the possibility to live in all routes (barring Silver Snow but he’s only listed as ‘missing’ not ‘dead’ so I hold out hope) which I think says a heck of a lot about how great he is. He’s just so good and so kind and cares so much about people and he makes my heart warm and yes I’m done yelling about how much I love Claude for a moment.

So hopefully that fills you in a little on the other Lords at least in part please enjoy my novel-length ramble.

#answered #anonymous #fire emblem: three houses #fe:3h spoilers #i tried to cram every pertinent bit of information i could remember in here #boy there's a lot isn't there #so much backstory is required to understand these people #like holy shit #also for the record edelgard was not involved in duscur #that was all the twisted #but please understand how much i love claude he's so great #and i feel like he gets passed over a lot #because he's not contentious like edelgard #or tortured and traumatized like dimitri #but he's so incredibly good he's absolutely my favorite of the lords #i love dimitri too don't get me wrong but claude is such a treasure

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jade-romina · 4 years

Text

Haunting A Vampire

'Why did you write that down? That's not even the important part of the lecture?

Late at night: I wonder when they'll find my body. You did a shit job hiding it.

"All I want is at least three hours when you're quiet! If I don't get some sleep, I might kill you all over again."

'Congratulatioms, once again your lack of control rears its ugly head.' slow claps

'Your non-corporeal clapping is hilarious. Keep it up' eye roll

' If a ghost claps and no one sees it does it really make a sound?'

'My point exactly. Also, stop staring at me when I get dressed. Don't think I can't see you lurking.'

Brina: 'How else would you know if your shirt is inside out? You barely have a reflection.'

'Sure, that's why you do it.' She shakes her head and mutters. 'Creeper.'

'Exhibitionist.'

'Excuse me?! This is my room and I literally can't escape you! You follow me into the bathroom sometimes. Do you really want to drive me mad this badly?'

Brina: 'You are the dumbest smart person I've ever met. Consider, just for a moment, that I am physically unable to leave you. It's not that fun for me either. Like I wanted to spend your lifetime listening to you shit or watch you primp when you have lectures with the hot lady professor.:

'Doesn't mean you have to sit and watch but whatever.'

'I'm dead. It's not like I can put on headphones and go for a jog. Maybe next time you kill someone you'll be a little more careful about who that someone is!'

'It was an accident! I'd never kill someone again. Especially, now.' 'Yeah, sure. An "accident". I believe that.' 'You really think I'm just a murderer?' [4:40 PM, 9/21/2020] Brina: 'Well you murdered me!' 'It's not murder if you didn't intend to kill the person! God...'

'Oh, I'm sorry. Did I offend your sensibilities after you manslaughtered me?!' 'Don't you mean woman slaughtered?' Jade groaned. 'We could drop the pronouns and stick with slaughtered. That's fairly accurate. Did I even have a throat left when you finished? I know you glutted yourself like a tick. All that power. Wasted on a vampire who couldn't even use it.'

'Stop! I get it.' She gets up from the bed and rushes into the connected bathroom and leans over the sink, turning on the tap, and splashing water on her face.

Hops on the vanity and watches a minute. 'Feeling a bit queasy are we?'

Jade took a deep breath and looked out the doorway. 'Gee, I wonder why.'

'I almost feel sorry for you.' 'Why? I killed you. I deserve it.' She looked in the mirror, forgetting for the thousandth time that she wouldn't find anything there. 'I never wanted any of this. Just like you never wanted to die. The world is shit and I guess we just deal with it.'

'Well, you'll have to deal with it. I'm free of all that shit. Sort of.' She hesitated a moment and drew in a deep breath. Not that she could actually breathe. It was habit - instinct? She missed the rush of air, the rise of her chest as it expanded. The pressure of sitting at the bottom of the pool, waiting to break the surface and gulp down fresh air before doing it all over again. 'I'm Romina and I'm going to try to give you some respite. Do you have any salt?'

"Salt?" Jade searched her mind. The contents of her tiny dorm room where few and far between but the previous occupant had left some things behind so maybe. "I don't know." She went to the only cupboard that she knew might contain old food stuffs and Doug until she reached the back and saw a container of iodized salt. "Here."

Romina stood to her full height, and lifted her chin. It wasn't indignation. It was a brave face. She had no idea what would happen to her, if anything at all. Logic dictated something would happen though. 'Pour out a pinch of it into your palm and throw it at me.'

'Um, okay?' Jade opened the container and poured a tiny bit into her palm. This girl was interesting to say the least so she did what she was told and threw the salt.

Romina fastened her eyes shut as tightly as possible. She hadn't meant to flinch quite so badly. There was a moment, just a moment, where she thought maybe it hadn't worked, but before she could breathe with ease, pain burst through her. The salt burned and she...disappeared. One moment she was with Jade and the next, so was outside, banished from Jade's room. How long the banishing would last she had no idea but it wasn't a permanent fix. She could already feel the pull. It might last until sunrise at best. Jade would at least get some sleep.

It worked. The ghost, Romina, vanished. Jade watched the spot where she had been, half expecting her to reappear. Nothing happened and she sighed. It was quieter but a little more lonely without her presence.

She rolled her eyes at her own folly and sat back on the bed.

Sleep.

That's what she needed.

Her dreams were turbulent as always. There was blood and pleasure and pain, but most of all guilt. She had done terrible things, not as many as older vampires but enough to let her know that she was a monster deep down.

She shouldn't even be around humans but the need to feel normal didn't go away when you were turned. She still wore the face of a human and with that came all the icky feelings that they possessed.

When she woke, the room was dark but a glow attracted her attention.

'You're back.'

'Temporary fix.' She shrugged. 'You need privacy, you salt me, but it at least confirmed I am actually stuck with you. One minute I was walking in the woods and the next I was here, listening to you snore.'

'I don't snore.' Jade scoffed.

The reality of what Romina has said set in after the indignation wore off.

'I really screwed you over, didn't I?'

She sat up in the bed and drew her legs up to her body, resting her head in her hands.

'I'm sorry,' she said softly.

Watching Jade, the way she curled in on herself, Romina actually felt sorry for her. She had no idea vampires felt anything at all except contempt for people who weren't like them.

'You know how people tell you to be careful what you wish for?' she asked. 'This is probably one of those instances. I mean I didn't want to bed dead but I really wasn't ready to become high priestess either.' [6:31 AM, 9/22/2020] Bre:

unfortunate encounter but something had stirred in her, a curiosity to seek out something.

'So, you're like witch royalty then?'

How much could Romina tell Jade? Maybe if she told her enough they could get help. Or she'd send Jade off to be imprisoned for eons.

Nothing big then.

'My mother was witch royalty. Beloved by all. She is now head of the high court. I was meant to leave here and to take her place at the head seat of our coven.' 'Until you met me.' Jade stated.

She pushed her hair away from her face and bit her bottom lip, making herself look at Romina after a pause.

'Does your family know what happened? I mean, what really happened.'

The papers said it was an animal attack of some kind. They always did. Vampire power existed everywhere. No doubt there was one of her kind pulling the strings in every city. She shrugged. 'Probably but I can't say for certain. Until some hours ago I hadn't been able to leave your side.'

It wasn't as if Romina was free to go snoop on anyone else lest they were within a certain distance of Jade.

'But that said, I was able to find you a meal you could feel good about killing. If you're interested that is.'

'What?'

Jade relinquished wallowing in her own self-loathing long enough to be intrigued.

She deserved to desiccate and fall away into obscurity but the victim of her literal inner demon was offering her a meal?

'Why are you being nice to me? You don't have to. I understand.'

Romina laid her head back against the wall, and when she didn't just fall through into the other side she sighed. The incongruity of being dead was doing her head in. She could sit on things, lean against things, she could write messages in steam on bathroom mirrors but only Jade saw her. It was fucking weird but that wasn't the issue at hand.

'You don't know me but three weeks of death has given me ample opportunity to know you. To understand what I see in you.' She closed her eyes, picking her words slowly. 'If I'd had known you starved yourself I wouldn't have antagonised you but then again how could I have known? Our societies are kept separate. I get it now. Without extensive stalking you don't know the kosher meals, but being dead I see so much more. I can help. I should help.'

'Oh.'

Jade's head swam with the information. She never mixed with many creatures beyond humans.

Not after what happened the last time. She kept to herself, tried to make a life. When she met Romina it was clear that she was making a mistake.

Pretending to be human, ignoring her needs as a vampire, it led to this.

'It's my fault. I've spent so long trying not to be what I am. Because being a vampire got me locked away for ten years with a lunatic.'

She tugged on the ends of her long hair, a long held habit, and closed her eyes for a beat.

'Maybe it's time to start managing my thirst instead of ignoring it.'

'Admitting we have needs isn't shameful. The acts of others are not our own.' Romina hopped up from the opposite bed and planted her hands on her hips. 'Now keeping that in mind and forgetting all the shit I gave you for killing me, I'd like to admit the position I held in my coven was that of an assassin. Justice. And I was here hunting someone who hunts women. You finish my job, kill him and take his body to my people, and explain my death was accidental they won't send my replacement to hunt for you.'

'Are you serious? You want me to hunt a man?'

Jade choked out a laugh and let the feeling of disbelief sit within her.

Could she really let herself do this?

'You realize I'm a ripper, right? If I kill him, I might not stop there."

'You stopped when I asked you what the hell you thought you were doing shaking your head like a dog with my neck in your mouth.' She bent over, sticking her face right in Jade's and whispered, 'You heard me. You see me. You stopped. I can stop you again.'

#RP

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theentiregdtime · 5 years

Note

hey if you’re still in a mood for bryan adams/macden asks: please consider “cuts like a knife”

Dennis is dropping Mac off on a date.

Which is fine. It’s an inconvenience and a complete waste of an hour of his evening, but otherwise… it’s fine.

Traffic is light, he can pick up dinner on the way back, and he’s playing his Bryan Adams CD in the car without any objection from Mac, for once- presumably because he feels guilty for asking this favor of him.

Which he should! And he should give Dennis the usual ‘thanks, man, you’re the best!’ and swear to pay him back and babble on and on about how awesome this is to the point where it’s entirely annoying (but Dennis doesn’t tune him out, he never tunes him out, even when he’s rambling incoherently).

Mac isn’t doing any of that, though. As a matter of fact, they’re hardly talking at all. It’s quiet between them. Not the effortless, familiar quiet, but the kind that sits on the back of your tongue and burns a hole in your throat.

The only thing filling the stillness between them is the stereo, good ol’ Bryan Adams singing about how there was only you and me and there’s nowhere unless you’re there and you told me that you’d wait forever.

“I feel like you’re mad at me, dude,” cuts the silence like a knife.

What? He isn’t-…!

Ah, shit, that’s fair.

Dennis does have quite a history of berating Mac over his dates- but that’s because they were always thinly-veiled charades that he made a big, flamboyant show of so everyone could see just how well he was keeping the closet doors shut.

But they’re open now. They’re open and it’s different and Dennis isn’t mad. He’s not even jealous or bitter about how he’s going to go home tonight and watch a movie alone and his best friend will be out here gallivanting about town with someone else. There’s just…

Something in him is burning. He can’t quite place it, but at the same time, he knows exactly what it is and simply doesn’t wish to look it in the eye.

Mac is out of the closet. He’s dating guys now, and this is the first of them he’s formally gone out with, at least as far as Dennis is aware. He doesn’t pretend to know what Mac gets up to when he spends the afternoon at the Rainbow and comes back covered in sweat and glitter, or what he did over the course of the year they didn’t speak.

It’s real now. It’s genuine. It isn’t a stage act. It isn’t a six-ring bullshit circus of Catholicism and heterosexuality and look how normal I am whilst he parades around like a damned rodeo clown.

That means if he grabs someone by the shoulders and says he loves them, he’ll mean it. If he ducks in to give someone an excited kiss, it’s going to connect and he’s going to want it. If he goes out on a dinner date, he’s going to wear two colognes and someone is going to like the smell of it. If he moves in with someone, they’re going to sleep in the same bed, and if they sleep in the same bed, they’re going to hold each other. If he buys someone a gift, it’s going to be because he knows them, really knows them.

And there aren’t going to be any more movie nights or monthly dinners or drunken brownouts at the bar. Dennis is going to be alone- and he’s never been truly alone. It was Dee and his parents, then it was Mac, then it was Maureen, then Mac, then Mandy, then Mac-

He isn’t certain what silence is going to sound like.

When he pictures it, he’s on the sofa watching a movie, and no one is eating chips too loudly and leaving crumbs, no one’s feet are encroaching upon his personal space, no one is pausing to make idiotic commentary every ten minutes, and the movie just plays and plays and keeps going until it’s over and time is passing and everything is growing old. He’s reading a book undisturbed because there’s no one in the other room on a goddamned exercise bike or making themselves a sandwich or taking a shower. There is Dennis Reynolds and then there is blackness, deafening quiet, like the vacuum of space, and there is nothing in between.

“I’m not mad,” Dennis insists unconvincingly. He’s not sure why it sounds like a lie, because for once, it isn’t.

The CD skips over to the next song, and an upbeat guitar begins blaring a bit too loudly for their conversation. He doesn’t turn it down, though, because he doesn’t want to have to hear the nothingness in between.

Driving home this evening, could have sworn we had it worked out…

Dennis likes this song. Of course he does, it’s his mix CD- but it strikes him differently now. Typically, he’s slapping the steering wheel and cutting people off in traffic and singing loudly, thinking about wanting something so badly and feeling it slip away but still wanting it, and the reckless thrill and romance of the give-and-take of it all.

Well, I heard it on the street, heard you might have found somebody new…

But it doesn’t feel that in real life. There is nothing exciting or arousing or mysterious about this. It just feels like trying to hold onto water.

Who is he, baby? And tell me what he means to you…

“I do think this is a waste of my night, but I didn’t wish to hear your whining, so I’m here!” Dennis snaps a little callously, but he isn’t shouting yet. “I’m driving the car, aren’t I?”

Mac doesn’t respond right away. It’s just the music again.

Mac was supposed to wait. He was supposed to wait for Dennis. He was supposed to be fine with nothing for years and years, fine with both of them stalling by messing around with inconsequential women, until Dennis decided he was finally ready. He was supposed to always be an option. He was supposed to always be there, just waiting in the corner of the ring until Dennis tapped him in.

The door was always supposed to be open and now it’s starting to shut.

I took it all for granted, but how was I supposed to know that you’d be letting go?

Yeah, that stings.

“It’s just, like, we’re not talking and-”

“Then talk. Why must I be the one to talk? I am trying to focus on the road, Mac!”

“Well, maybe I don’t want to, because you’re just gonna yell at me.”

Dennis doesn’t glance over, but he’s sure Mac is pouting.

Or even worse, maybe he’s not making puppy dog eyes and sticking out his bottom lip as he does when he’s being melodramatic. Maybe he’s hurt, wholly and genuinely hurt, and his face is just dead.

Dennis doesn’t glance over.

“Oh, that is- I am not going to yell at you, you sound like a child-”

“You’re yelling at me now, Dennis.”

“Because you’re being absurd!”

It’s silent again.

Can’t you see we did the best we could?

Mac clicks his tongue.

“See, this is what I was talking about,” he sighs in defeat.

Dennis is not going to apologize. No way in hell is he going to apologize. He isn’t even going to pretend to- Mac is acting absolutely ridiculous.

“Sorry, but you left for like a year,” Mac continues to rant, loud enough to drown out the stereo. “All I’m trying to do is go out on one date!”

Dennis comes to a sudden halt at a stoplight, hoping Mac’s seatbelt locks and snaps against his collar. It’s what he deserves for starting this purposeless argument.

“I didn’t make you drive me to North Dakota,” he levels, voice devoid of any tone whatsoever, and raises an eyebrow.

“Okay, yeah, but I’m doing this for you!”

Oh, what in the hell is that supposed to mean? Is he meant to get down on his knees and thank him for the opportunity to be his chauffeur?

“I didn’t want you not to have the car tomorrow morning if I end up…”

Someone behind them honks, even though the light’s been green less than a second. Normally, Dennis would spin around and memorize such a rude man’s face to seek reprisal, but he doesn’t have the time nor the energy at the moment. Instead, he merely hits the gas and takes the next corner.

“And what if you don’t? You expect me to come back out here at god knows what hour of the night to pick you back up? Like some sort of schoolchild? As if it would be beneath you to take a goddamn taxi?”

Mac is broke, he’s always broke, Dennis knows that. He knows that because all of their money was in the same place for years, and it was all Dennis’, and then he was a ghost and Mac was left to pay the bills alone.

But he seems to have spent the past year getting himself together, supposedly enough to save his money and actually spend it on something other than ironic shirts and scratch-offs and dangerous schemes with Charlie and shopping on the dark web. He’s gotten himself together enough that he really doesn’t need Dennis for anything…

And that’s terrifying.

Oh, it cuts like a knife…

“Fine, then don’t pick me up.” Mac throws his hands in the air in an act of surrender. “I’ll figure it out myself.”

Dennis’ fingernails dig into the steering wheel, and he tosses some words around in his head, feels them out, because he needs to say something and it needs to be convincing, and goddamn it, he’s going to say something because-

“You should get over. It’s coming up.”

He wonders what would happen if he didn’t hit the turn signal, if he missed the stop by accident, if he just kept on driving. He wonders if the door would still be open.

When he looks over to check the flow of traffic in the turn lane, he catches a glimpse of Mac’s face. It’s only been a year, but he looks a lot older than Dennis remembers. He looks less energetic, less happy, less carefree. He supposes they both do.

It’s like there’s a weight on them now. Mac is out of the closet, and suddenly it’s not just fun and games and casual touching and almost kisses and laughter and late nights and sharing beers and crafting fake marriage schemes and pretending it all means nothing. They can no longer fall into the safety net of denial. Everything means something now, and that makes Dennis want to say and do nothing at all, because every word and every touch is a glass one drop from spilling over into something for which he isn’t ready.

But Mac was supposed to wait.

There’s no more time for him to wait, though, because they’re at his stop.

“Thanks,” Mac mutters under his breath before kicking his door open.

He’s angry now, but he isn’t going to do anything about it, because Dennis did him a favor by driving him here. That’s how Mac is. Even when he’s bursting at the seams with rage or excitement or something else entirely, he chokes his emotions down for the sake of their friendship. Dennis is usually apt at keeping things in, too, but tonight it feels like bile is rising in the back of his throat.

Mac’s feet hit the pavement and he tugs his jacket sleeves over his wrists, bracing against the cold air. He turns to close the passenger side door, but before it shuts, Dennis reaches an arm out. His knuckles just barely graze Mac’s shoulder.

“Mac, wait…”

Mac doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t walk away, either. He simply stands there, staring like a fish, eyebrows curved and lips tense, like he might go if Dennis tells him to go, but he might stay if Dennis asks him to stay.

He doesn’t ask him to stay.

“I’ll pick you up later, okay?” he offers, their eyes finally meeting dead on. He hopes Mac will know what he means by it, to save him from having to admit to anything aloud.

Mac swallows, contemplating, and for a moment, Dennis thinks he may respond with an ‘I’ll let you know’.

“Okay,” he says instead.

Dennis wonders what Mac might say if he tells him he’s ready, tells him he doesn’t have to wait anymore, tells him he doesn’t even need to go meet this guy because there doesn’t need to be another guy.

He doesn’t say any of that, either.

“I’ll… rent a movie,” he mumbles, “and you can tell me about your date.”

“Okay.”

Mac nods softly, looking at Dennis like he could say anything in the world and he would still reply ‘okay’.

'Stay with me.’

'Okay.’

'Don’t go on any more dates.’

'Okay.’

'Wait for me.’

'Okay.’

“Text me,” is all that ends up leaving Dennis’ mouth.

“Okay.” Mac closes the car door.

Then he’s stuffing his hands in his coat pockets, spinning on his heel, and making his way into the restaurant. Then he’s gone.

And the door is really shut.

All that’s left is the music. All that’s left is Bryan Adams still singing to him like he knows him and sees exactly what the fuck is going on and just how fucking pathetic he looks right now.

Oh, it cuts like a knife…

“Yeah,” Dennis says to himself, as he turns forward and pulls back onto the road. “It sure does, buddy.”

#asks #ptsunnydee #OH IT DOES NOT FEEL SO RIGHT #ok i know this prompt so clearly coulda been mac's pov about maureen or mandy or w/e but i couldn't get this out of my head #tysm for the ask but at the same time ouchhhh #iasip #it's always sunny in philadelphia #it's always sunny #dennis reynolds #mac mcdonald #macdennis #fics #my writing

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critic-corner · 5 years

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13 Contemporary Rom-Com Novels That You’ll (Probably) Love

Even though this is a mainly fashion and film blog, I do like to consider this a platform where I get to share my thoughts and opinions on anything of interest properly and well, reading is a big passion of mine. Even though I do talk about it on Instagram a little but, for whatever reason I don't on this blog.

Many of my reader friends ask me for recommendations, so I took this as an opportunity to create some book-related lists even though it's a little hard to do that because lists are never-ending. Anyway, I'll try. Also, don’t worry it’s not gonna turn into a book blog, it’ll just be a small segment of my entire blog.

You can click on the book title to get your own copy!

One Day In December

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn't exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there's a moment of pure magic... and then her bus drives away. Certain they're fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn't find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they "reunite" at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It's Jack, the man from the bus. It would be. What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered.

I have never understood the love at first sight trope but because this story travels for ten years where the characters get to know each other intimately, it worked out perfectly. My favorite part about the book was how you will see these characters grow and make important life decisions. By the end, I was so emotionally invested that I was sad when the book ended.

This is definitely one of my favorite contemporary novels. I have been recommending to all of my friends, even the ones that don’t read that often. If you are a rom-com fan, get this book because it’ll simply warm your heart.

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

The Royal We

American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy tales. Her twin sister, Lacey, has always been the romantic who fantasized about glamour and fame. Yet it's Bex who seeks adventure at Oxford and finds herself living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, Great Britain's future king. And when Bex can't resist falling for Nick, the person behind the prince, it propels her into a world she did not expect to inhabit, under a spotlight she is not prepared to face. Dating Nick immerses Bex in ritzy society, dazzling ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace with him and his charming, troublesome brother, Freddie. But the relationship also comes with unimaginable baggage: hysterical tabloids, Nick's sparkling and far more suitable ex-girlfriends, and a royal family whose private life is much thornier and more tragic than anyone on the outside knows. The pressures are almost too much to bear, as Bex struggles to reconcile the man she loves with the monarch he's fated to become. Now, on the eve of the wedding of the century, Bex is faced with whether everything she's sacrificed for love-her career, her home, her family, maybe even herself-will have been for nothing.

If you know me, you’d know that I’m a royal family nerd. So, when I came to know about this book last year, I was all over it because it seemed like a perfect escape. And while I was expecting it to be all cheesy, I was surprised by how realistic it seemed. Yes, it has been heavily influenced by the Kate-William romance, but that only added to the thrill of it. If you want a nice royal romance which also seems relatable, this is definitely the way to go!

You can get your copy on Amazon.

This Love Story Will Self-Destruct

Meet Eve. She’s a dreamer, a feeler, a careening well of sensitivities who can’t quite keep her feet on the ground, or steer clear of trouble. She’s a laugher, a crier, a quirky and quick-witted bleeding-heart-worrier. Meet Ben. He’s an engineer, an expert at leveling floors who likes order, structure, and straight lines. He doesn’t opine, he doesn’t ruminate, he doesn’t simmer until he boils over. So naturally, when the two first cross paths, sparks don’t exactly fly. But then they meet again. And again. And then, finally, they find themselves with a deep yet fragile connection that will change the course of their relationship—possibly forever.

This book was been marketed as When Harry Met Sally reimagined and I couldn’t disagree more. Apart from the fact that the two characters meet time and again, there isn’t much else relating this story with the movie and that’s not a bad thing. I just don’t want you guys to shocked like I was. Rom-coms have a fluffy, carefree vibe to them and technically, it has those aspects, but there is an underlying sadness to the story because of the female character (with whom I surprisingly found myself relating with, by the way).

I am that person who prefers character-driven stories over plot-driven ones and while this book doesn’t really fall in either of those categories, I fell in love with the two main leads. It’s been months since I read this book and they still casually pop up in my head every now and then, and I constantly find myself talking about them like they are real people. If you are a fan of emotionally-driven romantic novels, you might like this one.

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

Unmarriageable

In this one-of-a-kind retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in modern-day Pakistan, Alys Binat has sworn never to marry—until an encounter with one Mr. Darsee at a wedding makes her reconsider.

One thing to always keep in mind before reading a retelling is that you cannot expect it to be amazing. At most, it can be great. I’m saying this because the ghost of the original and the eventual comparison will always be lingering over the book which will definitely hinder the reading experience. So, just go into it expecting a nice time, and not hoping to find your all-time favorite (if you do, then obviously that’s great).

Coming to Unmarriageable, the original premise of Pride & Prejudice fits perfectly on a Pakistani back-drop, or just any desi family. And while I was expecting to fall in love with the romance, I ended up enjoying the social commentary that Soniah Kamal did and that was probably because of how similar Indian people are. All in all, it was not the best Pride & Prejudice re-tellings (I think I’m yet to find that), but I sure as hell had a fun time reading it.

You can get your copy on Amazon.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

No one’s ever told Eleanor that life should be better than fine. Meet Eleanor Oliphant: She struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka, and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

This is one contemporary novel that has managed to step out that genre and successfully enter the literary talks. I have been hearing about this book for over a year and absolutely fell in love with it. If you are not the best in social situations and have a hard time navigating through them, you might like it very much. The story is told entirely through her point of view so it was very interesting to see this lonely person find her way to life (albeit unknowingly). What surprised me was just how funny the novel was. This can easily become one of your favorites!

Also, I have to appreciate the cover designer of this novel. There are two covers and both of them are genuinely so amazing!

You can get your copy on Amazon.

Always Never Yours

17-year-old Megan Harper is about due for her next sweeping romance. It's inevitable—each of her relationships starts with the perfect guy and ends with him falling in love... with someone else. But instead of feeling sorry for herself, Megan focuses on pursuing her next fling, directing theater, and fulfilling her dream college's acting requirement in the smallest role possible. So when she’s cast as Juliet (yes, that Juliet) in her high school’s production, it’s a complete nightmare. Megan’s not an actress, and she’s used to being upstaged—both in and out of the theater. Then she meets Owen Okita, an aspiring playwright inspired by Rosaline from Shakespeare's R+J. A character who, like Megan, knows a thing or two about short-lived relationships. Megan agrees to help Owen with his play in exchange for help catching the eye of a sexy stagehand/potential new boyfriend. Yet Megan finds herself growing closer to Owen, and wonders if he could be the Romeo she never expected.

I was going into the novel fully expecting it to be cheesy or even cringey and got out surprisingly loving it’s realistic portrayal of human emotions. My favorite part was the female character and her straight-forward way of thinking, even though it sometimes prevented her from becoming vulnerable. If you are a Shakespeare nerd, I guarantee that you’ll have a ball reading this one.

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

The Sun Is Also A Star

Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story. Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us. The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?

Another book that I expected to dislike but surprisingly didn’t. I hate insta-love stories, but weirdly enough this one seemed convincing to me. The characters were likable and do keep in mind that the demographic the novel was trying to reach was young adult and it worked perfectly for that in my opinion. One particularly great thing about the writing-style is the fantastic use of different POVs (point-of-view). If you've ever wondered about the life of those strangers that you only meet for 10 minutes or cross on the street, then I think you’ll particularly enjoy this one.

You can get your copy on Amazon.

My Oxford Year

Set amidst the breathtaking beauty of Oxford, this sparkling debut novel tells the unforgettable story about a determined young woman eager to make her mark in the world and the handsome man who introduces her to an incredible love that will irrevocably alter her future—perfect for fans of JoJo Moyes and Nicholas Sparks.

I went into this book expecting just another rom-com, my bad. I should have paid more attention to the fact that they mentioned Nicholas Sparks on the back cover and you should too because otherwise the second half will completely take you by surprise. This book has all the elements of a giddy romance - Oxford, with it’s Harry Potter-esque interiors, English poetry and amazing fleshed out characters. It will also (probably) break your heart, so keep the tissues close by.

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating

Hazel Camille Bradford knows she’s a lot to take—and frankly, most men aren’t up to the challenge. If her army of pets and thrill for the absurd don’t send them running, her lack of filter means she’ll say exactly the wrong thing in a delicate moment. Their loss. She’s a good soul in search of honest fun. Josh Im has known Hazel since college, where her zany playfulness proved completely incompatible with his mellow restraint. From the first night they met—when she gracelessly threw up on his shoes—to when she sent him an unintelligible email while in a post-surgical haze, Josh has always thought of Hazel more as a spectacle than a peer. But now, ten years later, after a cheating girlfriend has turned his life upside down, going out with Hazel is a breath of fresh air. Not that Josh and Hazel date. At least, not each other. Because setting each other up on progressively terrible double blind dates means there’s nothing between them...right?

This is my second Christina Lauren novel and well, I had a ball reading it just as you’re supposed to with any of their novels. This one, in particular, stands out because not only is it well written but the characters felt oddly realistic. The first chapter did feel like the book will probably filled with all kinds of tropes because the female character is so fashionably eccentric but thankfully, non of that happened. It’ll make for an amazing weekend read!

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

Vision In White

Childhood friends Mackensie, Parker, Laurel and Emmaline have formed a very successful wedding planning business together but, despite helping thousands of happy couples to organise the biggest day of their lives, all four women are unlucky in love. Photographer Mackensie Elliot has suffered a tough childhood and has a bad relationship with her mother, which makes her wary of commitment. But when she meets Carter Maguire, she can't stop herself falling for him, although his ex-girlfriend is prepared to play dirty to keep him. Mackensie soon realizes she has to put her past demons to rest in order to find lasting love...

This is first of the four in the Bride Quartet series and while I would literally suggest all four of them, just give this one a try first. There are a lot of things I like about this book, the main being the sisterhood that is majorly present in the entire series. Secondly, even though the female character has a dysfunctional family that leads her to being kinda sorta commitment-phobic, I like the relationship showcased is so healthy. Normally, in romantic books, there’s a lot of miscommunication to drive the plot ahead but this book works a nice example of how to showcase a healthy couple even if one of them (or both of them) are fighting internal battles. It’s a perfect cozy read!

You can get your copy on Amazon - paperback or kindle.

Practice Makes Perfect

Payton Kendall and J.D. Jameson are lawyers who know the meaning of objection. A feminist to the bone, Payton has fought hard to succeed in a profession dominated by men. Born wealthy, privileged, and cocky, J.D. has fought hard to ignore her. Face-to-face, they're perfectly civil. They have to be. For eight years they have kept a safe distance and tolerated each other as coworkers for one reason: to make partner at the firm. But all bets are off when they're asked to join forces on a major case. Though apprehensive at first, they begin to appreciate each other's dedication to the law— and the sparks between them quickly turn into attraction. But the increasingly hot connection does not last long when they discover that only one of them will be named partner. Now it's an all-out war. And the battle between the sexes is bound to make these lawyers hot under the collar...

This is one of the best workplace romances that I have come across and would highly recommend to everyone interested in that genre. It is a little cliche but it’s not trope-heavy which is definitely a plus. It has the right amount of heat and character development that a good fluffy contemporary demands. It’s just nice, fun ride!

You can get your copy on Amazon.

By The Book

An English professor struggling for tenure discovers that her ex-fiancé has just become the president of her college—and her new boss—in this whip-smart modern retelling of Jane Austen’s classic Persuasion.

If you couldn’t tell by now, I’m a sucker for Jane Austen re-tellings and unlike Unmarriageable, I really liked this one a lot. As I mentioned above, you can’t have your expectations with re-tellings high, but even if you expect some genuinely nice exploration of relationships (like Austen used to do, among other things), but in a modern setting then I think you will really like it. The fact that it’s completely from the female character’s point of view, makes the writing a lot more intimate. Give it a read, you may like it.

You can get your copy on Amazon.

The Upside of Unrequited

Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love—she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful. Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny and flirtatious and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back. There’s only one problem: Molly’s coworker Reid. He’s an awkward Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

Even though personally, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the book because I just didn’t find it engaging enough, I do know that a lot of you out there might love. Not only does it have wonderful LGBTQ+ representation, but there aren’t a lot of book written about introverted young girls who love romance but have zero first-hand experience with it. I liked that it was fairly realistic and the characters were fleshed out. I’d say give it a try, you never know, may find yourself in Molly.

You can get your copy on Amazon.

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gaycrouton · 5 years

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-Words of Love- Epilogue

Words of Love (27/27) [ There would never be a couple who loved each other like they did.]

Important Note: I wrote this on March 21st, 2018 aka I wrote this right before the finale aired...my optimism is retrospectively painful and contemporarily inaccurate, lolol.

He got to spend sixteen years with his parents, the Van De Kamp’s that is. They never hid the fact he was adopted from him, but they said they didn’t know much about his birth parents; other than they had wanted him, but simply couldn’t keep him. His adoptive parents were wonderful, loving, and everything someone would want from a mother and father. They didn’t understand why he was different than all the other kids, but they did their best. He missed them everyday.

He had never met his birth mother growing up, but he knew he well. It was a part of what made him different; the visions. For as long as he could remember, if he tried hard enough, he could see her. A woman with red hair and melancholy eyes. The same eyes he saw when he looked in the mirror.

When he did meet them, Scully and Mulder, his mother and father, it was too dangerous to stick around. He had to run around for a while, avoid the dangers that had been keeping them apart since the beginning. But those first meetings were enough to leave an impression. For him, they were an enigma, a curious pair that held answers to his life he wanted more than anything to know. For them, he was the manifestation of years of love, he was the physical embodiment of their bond. The face of the future they had spent so long fighting for.

He didn’t know if it was their connection, or if she had powers she didn’t know about. Maybe he wanted something so badly he made it up. One night he just had a vision of her, much like what she must’ve seen when he checked in on her. She didn’t say anything, it was only for a moment, but he knew it was time. He didn’t know why, but he knew it was safe to find them. He just wanted to get to know her better.

He would never mention it to them, but he found it funny that the most cautious couple he had ever met still left their address listed in the White Pages. He just showed up on their door one day. Mulder answered and looked like a man holding a gun in a china shop, he didn’t want to do anything to startle him away. Scully looked like she had been expecting him.

It was awkward at first, how do you talk to someone you know nothing about but share everything with? They bounced back and forth between asking each other questions, nothing too intense, he had heard enough of what he needed to hear at the morgue that fateful night. They were the same type of questions someone would ask on a first date, albeit answered with unabashed honesty. After a while, they asked if he was staying anywhere and he realized he was so eager to come, he hadn’t made any preparations. That guest room was assembled in record time.

The first few weeks were spent with shy trepidation until he realized that he was the one who would have to make the first move. They would never invade his personal space, he could tell they felt like they hadn’t earned it. He would catch them both staring at him when they thought he wasn’t looking; while they were eating, when they would lounge around the living room, while they ran errands, it was always a look of pure fascination. The same type of look someone would give a rose blooming through a crack in the cement, a beautiful miracle, but one you would treat with fragile hands. They enjoyed doing just simple mundane things together, the things they had missed out on for years, things that had just been fantasies. He was sure they thought he was just indulging them, but this meant just as much to him as it did them.

When he did make the first move, it took them by surprise. He and Mulder were sitting at the kitchen table, Mulder reading an online article and sneaking peeks at him over the laptop screen, him reading a comic doing the same. Scully walked in and casually said, “Jackson, I put new sheets on your bed, I hope you don’t mind.”

There was no reason for his action aside from the fact he wanted to. He got up from his seat, walked over, and pulled her into a warm hug. She was significantly shorter than him, so he pressed a kiss to the top of her head and said, “Thank you for everything you do and have ever done for me.” He felt her body initially tense in shock from the embrace before relaxing. At his words, he felt her body shake lightly and wrap her arms tightly around his body. She cried. He didn’t know if she cried for lost time, for thankfulness at what was to come, a combination of both, or something completely different. All he knew was that her tears were contagious, his own ran down his face and into her hair, the streaks down Mulder’s cheeks attested to this fact. It was impossible not to adore this woman, it made him happy he had her genes.

A lot of the time he spent at the house with them after that was filled with going through albums. Hearing them talk about the past was better than any television show he’d ever seen. The center of the story changed a lot, a lot seemed to involve an Aunt he had named Samantha, when he referred to her as that he saw tears in Mulder’s eyes, joy that more than two people in this whole world cared about her passed being an experiment.

There were others that seemed important to the narrative of his life, a bald man named Skinner, for whom they claim to be forever indebted to. A couple of agents who kept the X-Files alive when no one else would, one fought tooth and nail to keep pregnant Scully safe when Mulder was gone, the other sang whale songs to help him sleep at night when he was a baby. They were married now. Some were talked about with unrepentant disdain, a cigarette smoking man with a penchant for playing god. They had gone through so much, and they had the wounds to prove it. No wonder they were inseparable.

That was his favorite part of the time he spent living at their house. You had never seen a couple more in love. He supposed after all the crazy shit they’d been through together, being together was the only time they felt safe, secure, and happy. He was genuinely curious what they were like before meeting each other, he couldn’t picture one functioning without the other. How did it feel finding the person that made you whole?

After a few years, he found a woman who did that for him. He tried his best to emulate the way Mulder treated Scully. He himself hadn’t been the best with girlfriends in the past, but he was determined to be better. When he asked Mulder for advice, received such thoughtful, thorough answers. Anytime he asked anything ‘fatherly’ from Mulder, it was treated with the utmost importance. It was amusing to him that Mulder felt inadequate to give an answer to how to have a successful relationship. He simply said everyday he just tried to make sure Scully was comfortable, safe, and happy. Sometimes he felt like he was failing, but Scully put up with him anyhow.

When things started getting serious with his now-wife, he moved out of their house into his own place just ten minutes away. It was bittersweet, but they talked on the phone on a near daily basis. The sense of routine and normalcy in life was jarring to all three of them, but more than welcome. They missed the beginning of his life, but they more than compensated for the rest of it. They attended everything from his wedding to the birth of his twins. He named them Melissa and Samantha. He didn’t know if Scully and Mulder would ever run out of tears.

The milestones they missed with him, they got to experience through their grandchildren. People they never thought would exist in their wildest dreams. Mulder played countless games of baseball with them and he blamed Scully for his daughters becoming obsessed with science. He knew from the stories that all they ever wanted was a family, and you’d never see a couple more grateful for what they have.

He spent nearly twenty years without them, but he was so glad he got to spend thirty years with them. Despite the long running joke about immortality that always went over his head, Scully went first. It was peaceful, in her sleep, a blessing and something that would never had been anticipated during her years at the FBI. The next day Mulder went in the same way. That’s the way it was meant to be.

People called it a phenomenon, the odds of that happening were one in a million. Those people obviously didn’t know them very well. How could Mulder continue when the light of his life was gone, his body gave out without her. He always said he would follow her no matter what.

He and his wife moved into their house, everything had been left to him and the girls in the will. He buried them in the field on their land. Scully had mentioned a company that buried people in a way that allowed their bodies to decompose in a way to nourish trees. It just seemed like the right thing to do. He buried them side by side and planted a tree. Call him sentimental, but he wanted another manifestation of their love to grow past his own life span. As the years went by, the tree grew and flourished, it grew in an obscure way that almost looked like a hand reaching out of the ground. He knew it was Mulder and Scully saying hi.

He spent countless nights sitting on the porch, just like he had seen them do for countless decades. Every night he looked out into the sky and watched the stars, his parents words ringing in his ears, “Who says they aren’t souls? Traveling through time as starlight.” He didn’t know if it was true, but he wanted to believe.

No matter what, he was positive they were together, somewhere, finding the truth they spent their lives seeking.

#words of love #x files #x files fanfic #msr #mulder and scully #gaycrouton #onlytheinevitable #my fanfiction

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sympathyfortheblinderdevil · 5 years

Text

Serious Things: Chapter 2

While on the road to meet Capone, Arthur meets Mollie and finds that he has a connection with her. Tommy acts like a diva when he finds out that some things are beyond his control.

Arthur doesn’t get enough fic love, and I seek to change that.

Serious Things: Chapter 1

Cicadas were making an almighty racket, splitting Tommy’s head with a ferocity rivaled only by the thought of being trapped in Yemassee a second longer. Blinded by a sun that he was not accustomed to, frustrated by an isolation unfathomable to him before this trip, and horribly hungover, he snapped at the old man stood before him in oil-stained overalls and shite caked boots.

“Two days!” Tommy shouted his expression a picture of rage. He put his hands on his hips and fixed the mechanic with a glare that could freeze the demons out of hell.

“Yep, and gettin’ all het up ain’t gonna make it come any quicker.” The mechanic drawled, wiping his greasy hands on a shop rag. “I’d be happy to give ye a tire off my own truck, but it ain’t gonna fit that there Dusenburg. They gotta special order it, Mr. Shelby.”

Nino intervened, concerned that the congeniality of the old man would wear thin if Tommy continued to rant. “Thank you, sir. Please, make the necessary arrangements.” He handed the man a ten dollar bill and turned back to Tommy who was smoking furiously and flexing his jaw muscles in between drags.

“Tommy, look, I know you’re pissed off, but you can’t take it out on the locals. They all know the score; they’re used to seeing Capone’s associates come through their town, but we don’t need to go looking for attention.”

“How the fook did this happen, eh? The car was fine yesterday,” Tommy growled. Sweat had beaded out on his forehead and was soaking through the back of his waistcoat, and it was only 8:00 am. “Now we’re stuck in this godforsaken hole for two more days.” Tommy turned the nail that the mechanic had found in the tire over and over between his fingers. “I’ll bet Arthur had something to do with this. A nail in the tire is an old family trick.”

“Nah. I think Arthur’s been too busy to sabotage our progress. That Mollie really took a shine to him.”

***

Arthur woke up to the smell of hot coffee. He blinked, unsure of his surroundings in the light, but the memory of soft green eyes and tangled auburn hair shining in the dim glow of an oil lamp soon brought his location into focus. After spending some time getting to know each other, Molly had taken Arthur’s hand and led him to her two-room shack behind the cafe.

Her sheets smelled of her perfume, and Arthur stretched beneath them, trying to recall where he had left his pants. Just then, Mollie appeared in the doorway in a filmy white cotton gown, a mug of coffee in each hand. She stepped into a beam of sunlight as she entered the room, and Arthur hummed appreciatively as the gown became transparent and revealed the outline of her body. She flicked Arthur’s drawers up onto the bed with her foot, “Lookin’ for these?” She giggled.

“Nah. I thought I’d spend the day in me altogether,” he chuckled as he shimmied them on and gratefully took a piping hot mug from her hand.

Mollie leaned against the bedpost and sipped at her coffee, admiring Arthur’s sinewy body. He had skin as pale as milk with a scattering of cinnamon freckles. She licked her lips as she remembered the way his skin tasted. “We have cake for breakfast, ‘less you’d rather have eggs and bacon. I can slip into the kitchen of the cafe and grab some if you’d like.”

Arthur felt the outside world melt away when she spoke to him. He could listen to her low country drawl all day. “Cake will be perfect, dear.” Arthur cleared his throat and patted the narrow bed, prompting Mollie to sit down. “Mollie, I have to leave soon. Tommy is probably champing at the bit to go already.” He took her hand and cast his eyes down.

“I know,” she whispered, “and it’s alright.” Mollie reached up and caressed his cheek.

“I wish things were different. I’ve really liked my time with you...uh, and not just the relations.” He nodded toward the bed as he spoke.

“Me too, Arthur. You are a wonderful man. I wish you didn’t have to go so soon, but I understood what I was getting into when I,” She blushed and searched for the right word, “brought you here.”

“C’mere, love,” Arthur murmured and pulled her down into the bed. She lay her head on his chest, her hair fanning out over his pale, freckled skin. A single salty tear trickled across her cheek before falling to Arthur’s collarbone. She trailed her fingers through the pale thatch of hair on his chest and traced the lines of his tattoo, wishing that they could have one more night together.

“If things were different, I could get used to having you around.” He softly spoke, and he meant it. Arthur had been into snow and whores for so long that he had forgotten what it was like to make love with a woman who was there out of passion and tenderness of feeling, not just because she was paid to be there. Mollie was no angel, but she was with him because she wanted him; she was attracted to the sparkle in his eyes and charm in his smile. She had no expectations of him, financial or otherwise, and she made him feel things that he had never felt before. It was more than just sex; something magical had taken place.

One night of passion had done this to them. They had tumbled into her bed as soon as they reached her home, and when it was over, they had stayed up late into the night talking. Arthur told her about his family and explained his scars and tattoos, and she told him the story of how she had come to live in a little shack behind a cafe in Yemassee, South Carolina.

Her family moved around too much for her to bear. Most of the year they worked at fairs and carnivals throughout the south, and she longed for a settled life. Since her family had roots in Yemasee at one time, she figured it was as good a place as any. She got a job at the café, rented the little shack behind it, and that was that. After she told him her story, they held each other all through the night, neither wanting to let go. Everything felt easy, like they had known each other for years.

Afraid that she would fall to pieces if she laid there any longer, Mollie wiped her eyes and sat up. She gave Arthur a little smile over her shoulder, “I’ll get us some more coffee and a slice of hummingbird cake.” As she moved about in the kitchen, getting plates and forks, she heard frantic whispering coming from just outside the door.

“Mollie, Mollie Girl,” a voice hissed from behind a row of hackberry bushes.

“Who is that?” Arthur whispered to Mollie.

“It’s my next door neighbor’s daughter,” she told Arthur. She rolled her pretty green eyes and smiled. Mollie stepped out onto the porch and spoke to the bushes, “Come on out from there. What is it Pearl?”

“They’s a white man, named Mista Shelby. He’s mad mad. He say he’s lookin’ fo a Mista Arthur Shelby. You ain’t got him back here wi’chu, do you?”

Pearl looked up at Mollie with big brown eyes framed by glossy black lashes. She wore a light green shift dress that was about a size too big for her. It had been Mollie’s, like many of the clothes Pearl wore. Unfortunately, they didn’t share a shoe size, and so she stood barefooted in the sandy dirt waiting for an answer.

“The man that’s with him, Mista Nino, gave me a nickel to run see if Mista Arthur Shelby was back here. They think he is.”

Arthur walked out onto Mollie’s small porch, and Pearl covered her mouth to hide a smile. She quickly looked down. Arthur held his hand out to her, “I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Pearl. I’m Mister Arthur Shelby.”

Pearl’s hand trembled as she daintily shook Arthur’s hand. “I’m pleased to meet you,” she finally managed to softly say. Pearl looked up into Arthur’s smiling blue eyes and decided that he was alright.

“Now, Miss Pearl, I am going to give you a half dollar to go tell Mister Nino that I am indeed here, and that if that mad mad Mister Shelby wants to see me, he can either wait until I am ready to see him, or he can walk back here himself.” Arthur rummaged through his pockets as he spoke until he fished out a half dollar and laid it in the palm of Pearl’s hand. “Okay, there you go, you take that message for me.”

Mollie and Pearl looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Mista Shelby! If I took that kinda money offa you my mama would wear my hind end out with a strap!”

“It’s true,” Mollie confirmed.

“Alright, how about a quarter?” Arthur began digging back through his pockets until he fished out a twenty-five cent piece.

Pearl looked at Mollie and shrugged, “Yes, Mista Arthur. I can deliver your message for a quarter. Thank you!” Pearl smiled and took off toward the boardinghouse.

Arthur and Mollie finished their coffee and cake, half expecting to be interrupted by Thomas, and made their way back to Mollie’s room. Wrapped in each other’s arms, they tried to find a way to say what neither of them wanted to say: goodbye.

In the light of day, Arthur could see more of Mollie’s room. There were scarves, a shelf with a photograph of her brother in his boxing gear and another of her ma and pa with a horse. A small dresser with a bottle of perfume, some dusting powder, and a brush. His eyes wandered to a crucifix draped with a rosary and a medallion of the Black Madonna. Arthur’s mind raced… her last name was Locke…her family traveled and worked at fairs, boxed, and dealt in horses…

While he was thinking he had become very still, and Mollie propped herself up on one elbow to look at him. He had a far-off glassy look in his eyes as if he were about to burst into tears of joy. “Arthur,” she shook him gently, “what’s the matter?”

“Are you a Gypsy?” he asked.

Molly fell back against the pillow beside her, worry etched across her pretty face. “They say I am on my Pa’s side. How did you know?” She never knew how people would react when they learned of her Romani blood, and she braced herself for the letdown.

Suddenly Arthur’s lips were on hers, his hands were tangled in her hair, and he began murmuring words of love to her in broken Shelta.

When Mollie could come up for air, she grasped both sides of Arthur’s face and looked into his deep blue eyes. “Are you?”

“On me mum’s side. Oh, Mollie Girl, I think this is fate.”

Chapter 3

#Peaky Blinders #peaky blinders fic #peaky blinders fiction #arthur shelby #arthur shelby x oc #Tommy Shelby #period accurate language

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chungha-supremacist · 5 years

Text

No Borders - Chapter 5 (the ending)

word count: 2742

WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS LESBIAN SEX AND STRAIGHT SEX! IF YOU GET TRIGGERED EASILY, DON’T READ THIS!

SUMMARY:

“It’s just us 5 right?”

“Forever.”

“No men allowed… ever. Let’s promise to eachother that we will never let any man come in between us!”

“Never!”

Naive promises told at a young age, just between 5 best friends. They promised their world to eachother, “best friends ‘till death breaks us apart”. 10 Years passed. The same 5 girls, but no longer blinded by those “stupid promises”. It will be broken. The promise of a lifetime. The lust of love is what makes us all see unclear. We lose our friends, or soulmates, we fall for the unknown, we fall for lies and for the feeling of being important to someone who will drag us far away from who truly matters.

“Forget about the world… forget about them… right now, it’s only me and you. They don’t need to know that I love you.”

CATEGORY: F/F; F/M

Fandom: RED VELVET (Band), NCT (Band)

Relationships: Park Sooyoung / Kim Yerim; Bae Joohyun / Kang Seulgi; Son Seungwan / Nakamoto Yuta

Characters: Park Sooyoung; Kim Yerim, Bae Joohyun, Kang Seulgi, Son Seungwan, Seo Youngho, Jung Jaehyun, Nakamoto Yuta, Dong Si Cheng, Wong Yuk Hei, Lee Taeyong, Chung Ha

Additional Tags: friendship,angst, mistrust, lies, cheating, lesbian interactions, smut, fluff, fashion, models, rich life, etc

RATED: SMUT, FLUFF, ANGST.

CHAPTER 5

Wendy slowly opens her eyes which seem glued together.

She takes some time to adjust her sight to the sun peeking right to her through the blinds that were covering only half of her window.

Something is off. She can’t feel the warmth of her loved one next to her. She feels lonely now. It’s not like its an unusual feeling for her, but she hates it. She hates loneliness more than anything in this world.

She finally opens her eyes fully and scans her bedroom, no sight of Yuta, his clothes or even her clothes.

‘Was it all a dream?’

‘Did he leave me?’

‘Was this all my imagination?’

Still, she is confirmed by the sticky, half-dry white semen on the sheets and sticking on her.

‘So it was real.’

She slowly gets up from the messy bed and she slowly trips on her way to the bathroom. She takes her silky bath-robe and goes to look for Yuta.

As she opens her bedroom door she can hear sounds in the kitchen. She feels relieved.

‘This must be him.’

She goes in the living room which was connected to the kitchen and her heart starts beating so fast when she sees the man of her life in her kitchen, cooking breakfast for them.

“Oh, Good Morning, princess.” He says and he comes to give her a small peck on the forehead while holding a pan with pancakes.

“It smells amazing.” Wendy says as she is sniffing the air that smelled like vanilla and cinnamon. And well, like him. His skin impregnated with the most godly scent in the world. Her new favourite aroma.

Yuta is soon done with the pancakes he was cooking and he places a plate with a 3 pancakes one on top of eachother, topped with honey, cinnamon and he made a heart from strawberries.

Wendy must’ve left out the dumbest smile in the whole world, as she was looking at the pancakes in such awe. She hugs his waist and he kisses her head before taking a seat in front of her.

“How did you sleep, baby? Did you take a shower yet?” he asks while munching on his pancakes.

“Not yet, wanna take one with me when we’re done?”

“That is a great idea.”

Some minutes later, they are both in the bathroom, slowly stripping to get into the shower that was already opened for the water to be the perfect temperature when they will get in.

“I am so sticky goddamn.” Says Wendy looking at her chest which was covered in dry cum.

Yuta chuckles shyly and gets in the shower, giving a hand to Wendy to invite her in aswell.

“Turn around, I will start with washing your back, okay?” Yuta says as he grabs a showering sponge and pours some chocolate scented shower gel.

He parts Wendy’s hair to not get shower gel in it and starts to place slow rubs on her back.

“You are so gentle…” whispers Wendy while enjoying the hot water pouring on her.

Yuta places a kiss on her bare shoulder and his hands go around her waist.

“Let’s stay like this for a moment” and he rests his chin on her shoulder, making the whole scene insanely romantic and sweet.

Wendy turns around, searching for his lips.

She kisses him softly, their lips matching perfectly, like they were shaped to be together. She bites his top lip and he smiles in the kiss.

They are both giggling now. Yuta continues to wash Wendy’s body, now on her chest.

His eyes were running carefully on her body, analyzing every spot that needed to be cleaned. He looked like a sculptor carefully paying attention to every detail of his muse. Wendy felt slightly intimidated as he was rubbing her boobs and she was careful not to leave out any moan and make the whole scene erotic.

“Let me wash you too.” She says as she grabs now the sponge and starts rubbing it on Yuta’s toned chest. She wears she never laid eyes on a more perfect body.

She tries not to stare and admire him too much, but she couldn’t help. He was a God. The God of pleasure and romance, only for her.

Yuta puts his hands over hers and starts guiding them on his body, dragging them lower and lower.

Wendy’s face turns red as her hands were now on his V line, touching his proeminent veins.

Yuta starts breathing heavily as Wendy’s fingers start tracing lines at the base of his penis.

“Fuck…” he mumbles as Wendy’s fingers are now on the tip of his cock, slowly caressing it.

“Senpai, I feel like I haven’t pleased you enough last night, may I do it now?”

“Princess, there is no such thing as not pleasing me, you did so well last night. But now I want your mouth on my cock, please your Senpai.” Says Yuta as he slowly pushes Wendy on her knees and he seeks the wall of the shower with his back, for stability.

Wendy places her hands on his thighs and she starts giving kitten licks on the tip of his cock. The scene wouldn’t look so erotic if Wendy wouldn’t look into Yuta’s eyes the whole time. She was showing him how happy she is to be filled with him.

She inserts the tip in her mouth now, slowly circling it with her tongue inside. Now her mouth starts going up and down on his length. She can’t take it all in, it would be impossible, but she tries to take in as much as she can, without gaging.

“Holy shit Wendy, fuck you’re so good! You are so hungry for me baby!” Yuta says as he slowly thrusts into her mouth.

Wendy starts moving faster and faster, but Yuta pushing aswell made his cock reach her lungs which made her have an insane gag feeling, but she didn’t complain, she was a good cocksucker. She was used to gaging.

They go on like that until Yuta releases his load deep into Wendy’s throat which made her cough a little bit, but she thanked her man by kissing him passionately.

“I love you”

“I love you too, endless.” And they stay hugged in the shower for the next ten minutes.

---

Irene is at work, typing some emails lazily on her computer, when she gets a text.

‘I’m waiting you outside. I am with my car. Don’t make me wait ~ your one & only S’

Irene smiles incontrolably at the cuteness of her girlfriend. She packs her stuff and leaves.

There she was, Seulgi was standing besides her car, in a black dress and a leather jacket, making her look very badass and intimidating, but Irene knew what a soft teddy-bear she actually was.

She runs to her in a heartbeat and they both stay hugged for about a minute.

“I missed you, how was work?” Seulgi asks with big eyes as she opens the car door for Irene to go inside.

“As always, tiring, boring. No photoshoots today.” Replies Irene as she was putting on her seat-belt.

They talk all the way to Yeri’s place where they were supposed to go spend some time with her.

They knew what happends between her and Sooyoung, how Sooyoung hurt her. Yeri is not okay till this day. Sooyoung’s words keep replaying in her head and it hurts her the more and more she thinks about them: ‘I think you should find someone Yeri, and I think I will give a chance to Doyoung.’

She hasn’t contacted Sooyoung ever since. She keeps wondering if she already went out with Doyoung… What if Sooyoung is in a relationship with him now… What if Sooyoung forgot about her?

---

Yeri gets starled by the knocks on the door.

‘Who even knocks in the 21st century?’ she asks herself sassily.

She opens up and she is greeted by Seulgi and Irene…. Holding hands??

‘What the fuck is up with these two?’ she thinks.

“Ummm hello, come in.” says Yeri unsure.

Irene smirks seeing the younger one being so confused. She cant wait to see her shocked face when she will find out.

They all sit lazily on the couch and Yeri brings some cookies for the girls.

“I’m sorry, not much of them left. I ate all of them in the middle of my mental breakdowns…” says Yeri trying to make a funny thing out of her depressing situation.

“It’s ok, Yeri, how have you been?” asks Seulgi worriedly as she pats Yeri’s shoulder.

“No. Girls, do you know is Sooyoung has anyone?” she asks with big, almost teary eyes.

“No, Yeri. We don’t know but we are sure Sooyoung isn’t dating.”

“Yeah, you know her. She hardly finds someone she likes and even if she finds one, it takes her lots of time to get comfortable with that person and go out with him.” Reassures Irene.

“I guess…” Yeri says while pleading her head…

“Com on, Yeri! We’re not here to see you cry! We’re here to keep you company and shower you with love!” Seulgi says as she jumps on her like a small child.

Irene smiles and joins the hug.

“Thank you girls…”

The girls spent the rest of the day cuddled all together and talking, laughing together. Irene and Seulgi made themselves official to Yeri and she almost choked on her cookie when she heard it, but she was happier than no one else for them. Even if things between her and Sooyoung didn’t work out, she is at least happy that her loved friends are now together since they loved eachother for God knows how long.

9pm.

The girls left and now Yeri is back at being alone, sitting on her sofa and looking blankly at the TV. She hates how sad her life is without her friends around… without Sooyoung around.

She almost falls asleep when she hers her doorbell.

She looks at her phone: 11pm.

‘What kind of psychopath is at my door…?’ thinks Yeri.

‘Should I grab my knife?’

‘Omg Yeri stop being so negative! It’s probably a neighbor asking for flour… at 11pm…’

She slowly, tip-toe approaches the door and looks on the eyehole. She gasps at the sight of Sooyoung being in front of her door. But… what was wrong? Why was she here so late…? Why at her?

She opens.

“S-Sooyoung..?”

Sooyoung looked devastated. Her rimmel was running on her face from tears. She was wearing a red, short, sequined dress and she looked as if she was coming from an important place… or perhaps… from a date…

“Why are you crying S-Sooyoung?” Yeri asks terrified as Sooyoung takes a step into her house.

“I’m lost. I’m nothing without you. I made a huge mistake.”

She said all these words so soulless. She was looking in a certain direction, but not at Yeri. She seemed dead.

“I’m coming from a date with Doyoung.”

“Oh…”

“He is amazing. But I am the problem… I can’t. I just can’t date anyone… your image would come into my mind. I told him Yeri at some point. The poor guy was so confused.” She says still looking blankly, not a Yeri.

“W-what…? You’re thinking at me?” asks Yeri stuttering and trembling.

“Yerim. What do you feel for me? I don’t wanna waste your youth… I just wanna know how you feel. And I will leave you alone to live your life.”

“SOOYOUNG! I don’t need you to leave me alone! I need you in my life!! And not as a friend!! I need you… to be mine.”

There she goes. She said it. Yeri was shocked by the words she just verbalized.

“Me too. I want you to be mine. I want to be yours.” Says Sooyoung, now looking straight into Yeri’s eyes.

They both stare at eachother for some seconds, before Sooyoung grabs Yeri’s head and kisses her.

Yeri had no time to react. She slowly closes her eyes for her to fully enjoy the taste of Sooyoung’s lips on hers. They were so soft, so velvety… she wants to kiss them forever.

Yeri puts her hands on Sooyoung’s shoulders, looking so small compared to the tall Unnie.

“Grab me in your arms.” Yeri mumbles into the passionate kiss and Sooyoung grabs Yeri’s waist close to her gently.

Sooyoung doesn’t realise but her back meets a wall and she whines at the sudden contact with it making Yerim smile on her lips.

“You are heavenly… My angel…” says Sooyoung as she was now looking at Yeri’s face while caressing her soft hair. “I don’t think I will ever get sick of looking at you, princess.”

Yeri kisses her Unnie again to thank her for the words and also show her how much she loves her back. Yeri was very bad with words, but her actions said it all.

They were both upstairs, in Yeri’s bedroom and Sooyoung was not getting dressed in some comfy clothes from Yeri’s wardrobe.

“They look so small on you.” Chuckles Yerim.

“Yeah… your body is so small.” Laughs Sooyoung as she tries to stretch a tight shirt Yeri gave her.

Sooyoung was definitely bigger. Taller, longer legs, stronger arms, bigger chest.

Yerim was the mini version of her. This is what made them adorable for eachother, they were complete together.

Sooyoung jumps on Yeri who was lying on the bed.

“Can I call you my girlfriend?” asks Sooyoung straightforwardly.

“Y-yes. That’s what we are after all.” Giggles Yeri as she kisses Sooyoung’s cheek.

The two young lovers spend the rest of their night cuddled together and expressing their everlasting love.

--- 1 year later, Yeri’s Birthday

“Come on Irene! She’s going to be there any minute now!” screams Seulgi from the living room while inflating some balloons.

Irene was decorating a cake with candles, while Wendy and Yuta were decorating the rest of the house.

Sooyoung rushes into the apartment “She just entered the building!”

They all start panicking and find a place where to hide.

“Turn the lights off dumbass!” screams Wendy to Yuta while spanking his ass to go to the switch.

“Ouch!” he dramatizes as he closes the lights and joins Wendy to her hiding spot behind the sofa.

The door is opened and Yeri opens the lights revealing her whole apartment decorated, decorations which she most certainly didn’t make. She sees Sooyoung standing on the couch, dressed in an insanely stunning long red dress, revealing one of her slender legs.

“Happy Birthday, love!” Sooyoung says as she approaches to kiss Yeri.

“What is all of this??” asks Yeri in shock but with a wide smile on her face.

“It’s how much me and your friends love you…” and with this, the rest of them pop from their hiding spots screaming the clicheic “Happy Birthday” and run to hug and congratulate Yeri.

They are all sitting at the table, eating the delicious cake made by Irene and recalling memories from their past.

Who would’ve thought that they would all be sitting again at the table, but in a new formula. And with a new person in the “group”.

Yuta was welcomed with open arms by the girls and he was getting along with all of them just like they were his sisters. Wendy was on cloud nine to see her friends getting along so well with her beloved fiancée, because yes, Yuta made the big step one month ago when he proposed to Wendy on their romantic trip to Japan, under the cherry blossoms.

Irene and Seulgi were like a married couple. Always had small fights which they solved in bed, but at the end of the day, they were inseparable. Their love was beyond borders and they promised love to one another through the promise rings Irene bought for them.

As for Yeri and Sooyoung, the two of them were the heart of the group. The cutest couples you could ever meet. Never afraid to show pda in public and they were so proud of one another. Yeri was quite the jealous type so everytime a guy would look at Sooyoung, she would grab her woman and kiss her while looking straight into the soul of the person who would dare to lay eyes on what’s hers.

From now on, anyone who would dare to criticize their love, they would just answer “Love has No Borders.”.

THE END.

#red velvet #red velvet fanfic #fanfiction #nct #nct 127 #nct yuta #nakamoto yuta #nct fanfic #nct scenario #red velvet scenario

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hello-thefatlosshabit-blr · 5 years

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“What gets measured gets managed.” Peter Drucker

I am a firm believer in Peter Drucker’s management principle. Anyone that has ever kept a financial spending log or food log knows that they changed their spending or eating behavior when they created a record of the activity. We naturally start making better decisions and identifying patterns in our behavior. Monitoring an activity forces, us to pay more attention to it. We naturally start making better choices because we can’t ignore our bad ones. If we aren’t mindful of our choices, we will unconsciously fall into habitual patterns of behavior. The concept is so simple yet potent, I am amazed at how many people don’t use this principle to improve their personal or professional performance.

I think a simple notepad is a self-improvement powerhouse. It is one of the most powerful self-improvement tools in existence; when it is used to record an activity. Logging an activity creates greater awareness. Awareness is the first step in changing our behavior. When we record an activity, it forces us to become more mindful of our decisions, big and small. Often it is the small, seemingly insignificant decisions that are sabotaging us.

Eating that cookie in the breakroom, losing valuable time by allowing yourself to become distracted, skipping a workout, or staying up late watching TV instead of getting a good night’s sleep. Anyone of these decisions by themselves isn’t devastating, but their accumulative effects are.

Whatever it is you want to improve, your time management, your leadership, your relationships, your business, your eating patterns, your exercise consistency, or your spending, you must track it. Be relentless. Track everything related to the behavior you want to improve. Awareness is the first step toward transformation.

Bad habits are the result of cognitive neglect and mindless actions. The danger of bad habits is that we aren’t really involved in the decision-making process. We encounter the cue, and we begin to execute the routine, our conscious mind essentially goes to sleep until we receive the reward which reinforces the behavior. When we fall prey to bad habits, our mind is essentially operating at the level of the animals. One of our greatest gifts as human beings is our ability to connect what we are doing in the present to the results it will produce in the future. Our ability to value future rewards as much as immediate rewards will determine how much we will accomplish in our lifetime.

Harvard social psychologist Daniel Gilbert says “What’s so curious about human beings is that we can look deeply into the future, foresee disaster, and still do nothing in the present to stop it. The majority of people on this planet are overwhelmed with concerns about their immediate well being.” He says that most of us have a hard time relating to our future self. We treat our future selves like a stranger, so when we are given a choice that will benefit our future self or present self, we have an overwhelming bias to take care of our immediate needs. You might not think this applies to you, in that case, he would tell you, “If you are like most people, then like most people, you don’t know you’re like most people.”

The more we discount future rewards, the more likely we are to act impulsively and develop bad habits; because bad habits always produce immediate gratification, while productive habits rarely do. The reason the “Marshmallow Test” was so predictive of the future behavior of the study’s participants in the decades that followed is that it provided a direct measurement of the child’s ability to delay gratification.

Our ability to value future rewards as much as immediate ones will determine if we are going to invest in our future or squander it with impulsive actions. The future is either purchased by the present or stolen by it. Bad habits are thieves that rob us of our future one day at a time. The only way we can protect our future is by replacing bad habits with good habits. It is simple, but it isn’t easy. It requires diligence and effort. Progress is always intentional.

Our original reward system was based on food. Food wasn’t always available, like it is now, so our dopamine system was wired to seek immediate gratification. When our body senses a drop in blood sugar levels, a potentially life-threatening condition, our dopamine system is activated, and our desire to eat is palpable. This triggering mechanism is why small frequent meals, high in protein and slow digesting carbohydrates can significantly reduce cravings by keeping blood sugar levels stable.

Once our dopamine system is activated, any food could restore our blood sugar levels, but our primitive brain has been conditioned to seek high sugar foods since they will produce the most immediate rise in blood sugar levels. A failure to plan and have healthy snack options available, like an apple, will leave you susceptible to whatever junk food someone brought into the office. Instead of satisfying your craving with a nutritious 60-calorie apple, you end up eating an unhealthy 400-calorie donut, kolache, breakfast burrito, or cookie.

We didn’t begin cultivating crops and planning for the future until our newer prefrontal cortex was developed. It is our prefrontal cortex that is responsible for human beings ability to think of the future in a meaningful way. Before it’s development, any reward that was more than a few minutes away, wasn’t a consideration. As you have learned, our Elephant, which is driven to seek immediate gratification is able to easily overpower the Rider when the Rider has not prepared the Path or is uncertain what direction to lead the Elephant.

The smaller Rider cannot hope to overcome the two-ton Elephant through brute force and willpower, but he can steer the Elephant away from the temptation through preparation. He can shape the Path by removing temptations, when possible, having healthy snacks available always, and using future discounting to his advantage.

Our primitive rewards system treats any reward that is 10-minutes away like a future reward. Instead of our Rider telling our Elephant “No, you cannot have it” which would cause our mind to focus on the reward until our willpower is drained to exhaustion, in a phenomenon clinical psychologist call ironic rebound. Ironic rebound theory explains why our mind tends to focus on any thought we try to push away.

It is much easier and more effective to tell our Elephant, “Ok, you can have it, but you have to wait for 10-minutes.” This technique avoids our mind’s tendency to focus on the reward and cools our desires by making the reward feel like a future reward instead of an immediate one. Chances are in 10-minutes you will no longer feel the impulse.[i] Even if you do, you have still strengthened your willpower by overcoming the immediate temptation. Over time, this technique will significantly reduce the number and severity of your willpower lapses. Remember not to be overly critical of yourself when you give in to temptation because it will lead to stress eating. When we are struggling to overcome a bad habit and beat ourselves up about a willpower failure, our stressed-out mind will seek immediate relief, often from the very behavior, we are trying to curb. It isn’t logical, but it is all too human. Emotions can easily overcome reason.

Awareness prevents us from mindlessly falling into bad habits. The problem with most bad habits is that their negative consequences aren’t immediate. If you took one bite from a cookie and immediately gained 5-pounds, you wouldn’t take another bite. If you took one puff from a cigarette and instantly experienced health problems, you would put it down, but of course, these bad habits only produce immediate pleasure without any immediate consequences. If we aren’t mindful of their long-term cumulative effects, it is easy to convince ourselves it is just one cookie, one cigarette.

The self-deceit is especially insidious because there is a basis of truth and logic to the argument. One isolated indiscretion is negligible, it is what we do habitually that matters, but of course, in this case, the behavior is a bad habit, so it does matter. Gretchen Rubin, calls this excuse “the one-coin loophole.” In Erasmus’s Praise of Folly, the argument of the growing heap is made, “If ten coins are not enough to make a man rich, what if you add one coin? What if you add another? Finally, you will have to say that no one can be rich unless one coin can make him so.” What is implied is that while a single coin cannot make one rich, the accumulation of many coins is the only way to become rich.[ii]

Our actions are like the coins in Erasmus’s essay. One visit to the gym or sticking to our meal plan for a single day is inconsequential to our health, but the habit of going to the gym and controlling our food intake is invaluable. I’ll start logging my food intake tomorrow. It’s Sarah’s birthday, I’ll enjoy a piece of cake and start recording my food again next week. It’s just one workout. A year from now, what I did today won’t matter. It’s only one piece of cake. One beer won’t make a difference. Why work on that report today, when the deadline is three weeks away?

People enjoy using the one-coin excuse so often on themselves, that they will use it on other people. Numerous times people have told me that I could skip my lunch hour workout or eat a cookie in the breakroom. They are correct. I could skip the gym or eat the cookie, but I know that it is the habit of going to the gym and resisting the cookie that is important to my health and happiness. Nothing tastes better than looking lean and feeling strong. When you develop the exercise habit, it becomes a positive addiction. I hate missing a workout. I do skip the gym occasionally to bond with colleagues over lunch, but I usually plan ahead by exercising in the morning. I have noticed that I am always dragging in the afternoon when I miss a workout. Regular exercise is addictive because it makes you feel fantastic; improving your mood, focus, and energy.

Every day we are given the gift of choice. Each day our habits can create the future we want, or rob us of it. The only constant in life is change. Habits determine our direction. We can choose to embrace good habits that move us steadily toward our goals, or bad habits that take us further and further off course. The choice is usually between instant gratification and future accomplishment. When we develop good habits, time is our friend, but when we allow bad habits to persist, time works against us. “You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.” Jim Rohn We are who we are and where we are because of our past decisions and habits. If we want to improve our circumstances, we must improve the quality of our decisions and habits.

If you really want to change a behavior track it for at least a week. A month would be even better. As you have already learned, it takes approximately 66-days on average to make a new habit sustainable, not the 21-days that most were taught. Habit formation timelines vary depending on how difficult the behavior is perceived to be by the individual. The more difficult the action, the longer the habit takes to form. Making improvements in any area requires measurement, but you must measure the right metrics.

Many people make the mistake of only measuring their desired outcome when attempting to achieve a goal. The other common mistake is not to set a deadline. Effective leaders set stretch goals for their organization that need to be reached within a specified time frame. A goal needs to have a deadline. A deadline helps create a sense of urgency. Deadlines help establish priorities and prevent procrastination. After setting goals, they look at lead and lag indicators. Lead indicators are daily actions we can take to achieve our long-term goal, measured by lag indicators. For example, generating sales leads might be a lead indicator, while the lag indicator would be an increase in sales revenue. Fat loss lead indicators are your daily caloric intake and total daily protein intake. The lag indicators are your weekly body weight averages and average body fat percentages. If you want to achieve a goal, your progress must be measurable.

“If you want it, measure it. If you can’t measure it, forget it.” Peter Drucker

Everything and anything you want to improve must be measurable. You might think some things can’t be measured, like building employee loyalty, but I would argue it can. If a leader wants to build loyalty in their organization, they could decide that twice a week they are going to visit two employees whose managers say they have been doing a great job and paying them a compliment for their excellent work. She could then inquire as to how they are doing and ask if there are any resources they need, including training, to help them be even more effective. Tracking her consistency would be the lead indicators, and quarterly feedback from culture surveys would be the lag indicator. Loyalty is a two-way street. Showing employees that the leadership values their contribution, and is committed to their professional development is how you earn loyalty.

If you want employees to care about the company, the company leadership has to show they care about the employees. Companies like Kimberly Clark inspire strong employee loyalty by coming up with imaginative ways of avoiding layoffs during times of declining revenue. In one instance, they were able to convince 80 of 100 production workers to change roles so they could avoid laying them off. These employees became marketers that added millions of dollars to the company’s annual sales.[iii] Companies that inspire loyalty from their employees enjoy less employee turnover which leads to a better trained, more productive workforce. I don’t want to stray too far from the topic of getting in shape, I just wanted to demonstrate that almost anything can be measured and that anything that can be measured can be improved.

Whatever you want to change or improve you must find a way to measure your progress. You simply need to find an impactful activity you can do each day, a lead indicator and track your consistency. Next, find a way to measure the impact it is having, the lag indicator. More often than not, these small daily activities will take time to produce results; but if you selected impactful daily activities and executed them consistently, they will produce outstanding results. That is the power of compounding effort. Small efforts repeated can create miracles. “Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.” Ovid

Success is a numbers game. Consistency is the key. If you want to become more consistent at doing something, you must track it. Tracking your consistency will cause you to become more consistent. Simple, but how many people actually keep track of their consistency. When I want to adopt a new behavior like performing 30-minutes of professional reading each day, I track it. I keep a simple scorecard on my desk to register how many times each month I complete the task. I only take a minute each day to score my day based on my goals, but the impact is profound.

I can look at the scorecard and immediately see which behaviors I am doing well at adopting and which ones need improvement. Not tracking your performance is like playing a game without keeping score. I know that some people do this so they can protect their little snowflakes from life’s disappointments as long as possible, but I am not a fan of this codling. Life has winners and losers, and kids need to know how they are performing. Life keeps score. The sooner they learn that, the better. You need to keep score as well. You need to know how you are doing. You need to see if you’re making progress or neglecting to make progress. I use the word neglect intentionally. Being consistent requires diligence. When people say; I would do it if I had more time. I tell them to forget it. There isn’t any more time.

We all get 24-hours each day. When the clock hits midnight that wraps it up. I don’t care who you are, a billionaire or a beggar, we all get 24-hours each day to do what is meaningful to us. Today is your life in miniature. What you consistently do is what makes you who you are. What you do consistently will determine where you will be, 3-months from now, 3-years from now. If you don’t make time to do the things that are necessary to get better, then you just aren’t going to get better.

We make time for our priorities; we make excuses for everything else. You need to know where you are succeeding and where you need to improve. If you want to improve your running, keep track of your performance and set goals to reduce your time covering a fixed distance. Simple, but how many people go running each day without keeping track of their average time covering their route?

If you want a new salesperson to make, 10 sales calls a week, on Friday you should invite him into your office and ask, “So how many calls did you make?” When he begins to provide an explanation, you gently explain that that will not fit in your box. You need a number. That number will tell you everything you need to know. His work ethic, his attitude, his drive, his ambition, and what you can expect from him in the future. If for example, he made twenty calls, you have made an excellent hiring decision, but if he only made three calls, well, you’ll need to have a little talk and see what you can do to motivate him to do better. In most cases, workers will improve their performance because they know it is being tracked by management.

Goals must be measurable so you can gauge your progress toward them. Your progress must be so simple that anyone could look at where you are and determine if you are making progress. Your progress has to be calculable. If you can’t measure your progress toward a goal forget it. Consistency is easy to measure. There are apps available that can help you form new habits. Strides, Streaks, Fabulous, and Toodledo, are just a few of the habit-forming apps available. The Strides app is particularly useful at developing new habits because it allows you to program action triggers. You can schedule multiple reminders for each task, and the app tracks your consistency.

We must master consistency. The one trait every successful person, business, or organization has in common is consistency. A restaurant that is hit or miss with the quality of food it serves will be out of business soon and rightfully so. It isn’t what you occasionally do that matters; it is what you do consistently that will make you better. You are what you repeatedly do. Positive actions, repeated every day produce massive results over time. The smallest, seemingly insignificant actions repeated out of habit will produce profound results when given enough time. That is the positive side of disciplined consistency. The negative is also true. Small seemingly unimportant neglects, over time, create a crisis. One bad decision doesn’t normally cause a Bankruptcies. It is typically the result of many bad decisions repeated for months and years. Divorce is usually the result of months and years of neglect as well. The decision to divorce might be triggered by one event, but it is all the small neglects over time that leads to the dissolution of the marriage. Relationships require effort. Probably the best book on the topic is Gary Chapman’s The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts, which has sold over five million copies. Often the couples in his book were able to transform their relationships by learning their spouses love language and developing the habit of expressing love to their partner a couple of times a week. In a matter of weeks they can refill their spouses “love tank;” not with a single grand gesture, but with small seemingly inconsequential acts of affection consistently repeated. These seemingly small gestures produced remarkable results in marriages that were on the brink of divorce. Small doesn’t remain small when it accumulates.

Snowflakes accumulate to form colossal valley glaciers. As a child, Warren Buffet observed that when you rolled a snowball, it grew. He applied this metaphor to money. He saw a dollar today as being worth $10 in the future due to the compounding effect of interest over time. He used this philosophy to avoid wasteful spending in his youth. His unique perspective on money is one reason he was able to accumulate so much wealth. When every dollar you spend today is seen as ten dollars in the future, you realize the cost of a $4 coffee is really $40. This metaphor is the origin of his Biography’s title, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

Albert Einstein said, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it earns it… he who doesn’t… pays it.” Darren Hardy, publisher and editorial director of Success magazine, provides a great example of the importance of saving early in life in his excellent book, The Compound Effect. One person begins investing $250 a month, at the age of 23 and does this until the age of 40. Her friend invests the same amount each month but doesn’t begin investing until the age of 40. He continues until the age of 67, which is the average retirement age. If both saw a return of 8% on their investment, she would have accumulated a little over a $1,000,000, while he would have accumulated less than $300,000, because he started late. He would have less than one third her accumulated wealth despite investing for 10 more years than she did and contributing $27,000 more than she did. [iv]

Poor people pay interest, and the wealthy earn it. You can make large sums of money, but if you don’t save or invest any of it, you will never accumulate wealth. Look at all the professional athletes, performers, and lottery winners that end up broke. It was because they didn’t have the discipline to manage their money correctly. It has been said that if you took all the money in the world, divided it up equally among everyone, it would soon end up in the same pockets. Darren Hardy’s mentor Jim Rohn routinely recommended people purchase and read Richest Man in Babylon by George Clason.

Jim said that typically only 10% of the people would purchase the book and read it, despite the book being very inexpensive, and easy to read at one sitting. The book explains in simple terms by way of storytelling how to become wealthy, and yet most people will not bother. He struggled to understand why so few people would invest the small amount of time and money required to learn the fundamentals of accumulating wealth. He explained it this way, what is easy to do is easy not to do. He said the average person will not bother to read the book or apply the information.

Don’t be average. The best way to be successful is to do what unsuccessful people won’t do. If you aren’t financially independent, I also recommend you pick up the book. My 9-year old daughter read it in just a few minutes. I want her to understand how she can become wealthy. I want compound interest and time to work for her. Wealthy people make money work hard for them, while poor people work hard for their money. Successful people adopt good habits that make time work for them, while unsuccessful people develop bad habits that make time work against them. Learn to make time and money work for you.

“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock the stream always wins not through strength but by perseverance.” Buddha

Habits produce results similar to the “flywheel effect” that Jim Collins describes in his best seller, Good to Great. When you begin adopting a new habit, it takes a lot of energy, like putting a massive flywheel that is motionless into motion. When you first push on the huge metal disk horizontally mounted on an axle, it barely moves. The motion is almost imperceptible, but push after push it begins to pick up momentum. Effort, upon effort, the massive disk builds more and more momentum until it is generating huge amounts of energy. Twitter was unsuccessful for its first couple of years, but its creators just kept at it, and eventually it picked-up and then exploded. Success is the result of consistency and grit; small effort, upon small effort. These efforts produce small, unremarkable results, but over time, they accumulate until a breakthrough occurs. Jim Collins describes the success of the Good to Great companies this way in his book, “There was no single defining action, no grand program, no one killer innovation, no solitary lucky break, no wrenching revolution. Good to great comes about by a cumulative process—step by step, action by action, decision by decision, turn by turn of the flywheel—that adds up to sustained and spectacular results.” [v]

What separates successful people from unsuccessful people is consistency. People that are in excellent physical condition are not a special breed. The only thing that separates them is that they have mastered consistency. Consistency is the game. Being fit has to do with exercising regularly. Being lean has to do with consistently controlling your food intake, so you don’t exceed your energy requirements. You should do both, but you need to understand that you cannot out exercise a bad diet. If you want to get leaner, you must begin eating less food than your body is burning each day. I wish I could tell you that as long as you work out every day for an hour, you can eat all you want, but that would be a lie. I don’t wish to mislead you.

For years I carried an extra 10 pounds of body fat. I exercised consistently, but I didn’t track my eating. It wasn’t until I started tracking my food intake that I lost those last few pounds. My experience is not unique; anyone that has achieved a lean physique did it by monitoring their food intake. I don’t know anyone that got lean through exercise alone.

Exercise helps you get lean and look better. Strength training helps create a harder looking physique so you can avoid that skinny fat look that cardio only exercise programs produce, but it isn’t the primary driver of body composition improvements. Weight loss is always driven by energy balance.

Cardio and strength training both burn calories, but strength training helps you maintain and build muscle while restricting calories, so it is much more effective at creating a better-looking physique. A common mistake I see people making when trying to gain muscle or lose fat is focusing on their exercise program.

Weight gain and weight loss are controlled by calories in vs. calories out. When you want to gain or lose weight, focus primarily on your diet; how many calories and how much protein you consume everyday. When you want to improve performance, focus on setting performance goals and varying the intensity of your workouts so that an intense period of training is followed by an intense period of recovery. Everything matters, but some things matter more than others. You cannot outrun a bad diet. You can train with an all-out effort all the time, or you’ll experience mental and physical burnout and increase your likelihood of injury. Consistency is more important than intensity. “A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules.” Anthony Trollope

[i] Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It, Avery; Reprint edition (December 31, 2013)

[ii] Gretchen Rubin, Strategy of Loophole-Spotting #10: the One-Coin Loophole. January 31, 2014.

[iii] Elizabeth M. Fowler, Careers; When Job Security Is Provided, The New York Times, Published: October 10, 1984.

[iv] Darren Hardy, The Compound Effect, Vanguard Press; Csm edition (October 2, 2012).

[v] Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t, HarperBusiness; 1st edition (October 16, 2001).)

Self-improvement Always Begins with Self-Awareness. “What gets measured gets managed.” Peter Drucker “What gets measured gets managed.” Peter Drucker I am a firm believer in Peter Drucker’s management principle.

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ombreecha · 6 years

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The Uchiha’s Wife

FF.NET Fandom: Naruto Pairing: SasuSaku Rating: M Summary: She was an otherworldly being of healing. An absolute nymph of spring. He was an otherworldly being of destruction. An absolute god of war. In a world where war makes him death, and chaos she will be the life, and love his people will talk of for years to come. AU x Warring States Period.

Chapter 10 The Mother & Father

There was reluctance in letting her pass through his gates without his protection. It had caused words to lump within his throat wishing to remove the approval he had given. He knows he cannot take this from her, and it’s only with the control he has learned to maintain throughout his years upon the earth that he keeps his thoughts from entering the air around them. He cannot allow his selfishness to get in the way. Her viridian had showed her joy at being picked, and who was he to ruin that joy? Who was he to give into the paranoia of her leaving his side?

Days into her leaving he feels his home becoming far too quiet with her no longer consistent presence. The silence has nothing to do with the loss of her chatter—she was loud in an entirely different way. Everything about her drew you to her. She could not be missed. She could not be silenced in presence alone. All of her called out to anyone who stood before her.

There is chiding within his mind that her leaving was no different than her medic relief—except she only had one Uchiha guarding her as she walked outside his walls now.

There is no camp filled with allies, and brothers-in-arms to protect her. He could not give her more with the battles that shook the world outside their home.

He would not allow himself to give into the thoughts that threaten him within. She had left calm and drenched in joy. She did not leave his side thick within disdain. She had not left his side filled with anguish. Their marriage was far from recovered and far from being what it should have been—no, what it could have been—but there would be time to build it to that state. Time would still allow him such things when the moment was right.

Shisui would protect her so that he could have those moments.

The hawk he sends forth from within his garden sends but a simple reply. Madara has called for him, and he is all to certain he knows what matter is to be discussed. He had blatantly disobeyed him in bedding the Uchiha woman—he had reprimanded, he had placed his wife before her, and he had attacked her in his demands for an apology no less. There would be punishment. He would accept it on behalf of himself, and his wife. She had continued forward, and she had swallowed herself for him. He would do so for her just as she had done for him. It would be another apology. It would be silent. It would be unheard. It would be unspoken, but it would be there within himself.

The hours that countdown his leave are barely felt, and the sleep he had managed to succumb to leaves just as fast. His bags are handle by maids and there’s a hint of longing within him as he wraps the bandages on his arms. It seeks to remind him she has left days prior. Careful soft fingers are not there to bring them around his knuckles. There’s no catching the hum that escapes him, and it’s as he heads for the gates that he catches himself noting her missing in wishing him safe travel.

There’s no denying how much she had become a part of his world. All of these things are small, but they're significant no less.

Only one of his best men comes to travel beside him leaving their home behind to attend to Madara’s call. He could only give her one to seek to her safety in travel and he would not grant himself anymore than he had granted her. She is traveling so much further than he is. He is but a day and a half from his destination. There is no doubt she should almost be within the gates of Konohagakure as he stepped foot within Madara’s home.

The sound of their feet hitting upon thick branches sets an even pace. The sun that had barely rose to wish them off only seeks to rise higher and light the way. This shinobi speaks with hope, and with underlying fears. It’s filled with the smallest desires. He is not one to truly join in but shares his own chuckle within the joke that spills out next. These moments are just as with his wife—small but no less significant.

They are a reminder and a sound one at that. This is what he fights for. He fights for their peace and for their clan. Ideology paints it as so much more. It paints it red and caked with dirt. It paints it as power verse love. It paints it into something so much darker and complex than it ever should have been. It was no doubt smaller when you got to its core, and dig through the layers of paint that have built up in these long ten years.

The home of their leader is large, and immaculate beyond conception following the traditional style they all modeled and practiced. The maid who greets them welcomes them with ease as they lower their hoods upon their shoulders. The cold no longer chills their faces, fingers, and bones as they are lead down the hall and into the room that holds Madara and his brother. They conversing only lowering their already hushed voices as they trail in.

Others sit within the room their presence unexpected but not unwelcome. Perhaps this meeting had not been as he believed. Perhaps the punishment he had willingly walked into was not meant to come.

It thickens the air with a touch of uncertainty and a chaste kiss of hesitation follows. Izuna casts a fleeting look his way before welcoming them. There is the idle chatter that comes as they stand within the room before making way to their seats. Sitting at his place among the table of Madara’s high rank makes his companion sit behind him in silence. He starts the meeting as though it is more official than Sasuke had realized. Their eyes fall upon their leader instructing them on matters concerning the peace talks. The update holds no useful information for men like himself, who were only of use in battle. Talks of peace were as misguided as the hope that love could be what brings it. All he needed was the thoughts and feelings of his clansmen and people to push him forward. He would wage war for them and allow others to dabble in such conversations.

“Sasuke-san, your wife is participating in the Lantern festival from what you’ve said?” Madara crosses his arms as he gives into the small detail among the table. His response is but a simple nod forward before Madara continues, “Since it’s Sakura-san it only seems fitting we shall attend after the meeting.”

He cannot stop himself from eyeing his leader with uncertainty. Never had there been genuine interest in the traditions outside of their own. There is a thick swallow to accompany the uncertainty weighing upon his chest, “Do not feel forced to attend.”

“Nonsense. After all, she has been providing medical relief for our men. The least we can do is watch her perform. I hear the ceremony for the coming of spring is one of a kind.” Madara’s voice is questionable as he leans upon the table with knuckles pressed against his chin.

“Senju will be everywhere since it’s held in their territory.” Obito’s voice rings throughout the room speaking of the obvious, and it’s as Sasuke gives a fleeting look upon the fellow Uchiha that he finds his brows pinched at the revelation.

It would be a ceasefire, and no doubt a time when they would hold to their words and walk among each other in celebration of this foreign New Year. If his brother were to appear would he be able to keep his word? The thought brings a bitter and foul taste into his mouth. He would have no choice but to tolerate his existence. The whispers of battle that would echo within his being—requesting and pleading for him to take revenge upon the traitor connected by blood—would be ignored.

Kagami gives forth a snort, “This wife of yours has made quite the name for herself after being just a woman of convenience.”

He does not answer with anything more than a look to the Uchiha boy decorated in a grin upon his lips. It’s as he threads his fingers to hold his chin that the slow desire to defend his wife from claims of convenience find their way into the air. He silences Izuna’s attempt to respond to Kagami, “My wife is not just one of convenience.”

It hushes the room, and it is Madara who lets a low hum fall within the silence, “I look forward to seeing such during the Lantern Festival.” their leader raises his head from his almost lackadaisical lean upon his knuckles. There is a look between him and his leader, and it’s then that he knows there is more for him after the meeting. He had not been wrong. His punishment was, in fact, before him.

He would take it gladly.

“Hiashi-san, and I will be attending to go over details of a possible peace treaty with Hashirama. Those of you who wish to attend the festivities held within Konohagakure are welcome but are to not raise arms or cause disturbance during the ceasefire under any circumstance.” his words hold command within them under the guise of simple conversation that no one dares to join, “Those of you who do not attend spend so with family, and friends. Even with the talk of peace in the air do not forget we are at war, and peace talks never signal the end until decisions and compromise on both sides have been met.”

Izuna leads in behind his brother with ease seeming to be the one who does not find his brothers rule silencing, “Sasuke-san, you especially must follow these commands. Itachi-san will most likely be at the negotiations and events. We cannot have them claiming we broke the ceasefire. Traitor or not.”

He cannot stop himself from gritting his teeth at the name of his traitor of a brother. He cannot stop the tightening of his threaded fingers whiten his knuckles. The clearing of his throat only tenses the air, “I understand.”

The meeting opens to any questions those attending have, and no one dares give way to any ill feelings they hold about the conditions set forth concerning the negotiations. Madara has no need to give them guarantees of what he will bring to the table. Their leader knows exactly what they demand, and knows exactly what they should receive.

It’s after the others have left, and it is just him and his companion that he dismisses him with orders to meet at the gate within the hour. He stands before his leader, and his leader’s brother—the only line still standing within his dominate family tree with the loss of his mother, father, and traitorous brother—ready to defend his choices and decisions to this point.

He stands ready to receive his punishment.

“She was not to your liking?” Madara’s voice gives no true question. He is making a statement more than anything and rhetorical one at that, “Or maybe your wife has something to do with it?”

Swallowing thickly he gives way to an answer, “It was my decision. She holds no control over what I do.”

“Sasuke. We understand there was a fight between the two of them.” Izuna crosses his arms upon his chest as he locks gazes with him choosing to lean upon the paper walls, “From what she’s told us you made her apologize to Sakura-san.”

His jaw tightens at the statement never wavering his ebony from the almost identical pair that looks to him, “I have made it clear since I was forced to marry her that there would be no ill will against her. I cannot have them look down upon her if I need her to lead them within my absence. Any ill will to her shows ill will to my leadership.”

His leader lets out the slightest of hums as if understanding his position. There is a moment of looks between the Uchiha brothers before gazing back upon him, “Tell me then what you choose to do from here.”

Ebony shift from his leader for the briefest of moments before looking back to him cautious of what to say next, “My parents did not live in adultery and I hold no plans—”

“So you hold no interest in having an heir?” Izuna’s voice holds no room for halfhearted explanations. It brings forth the memory of the otherworldly creature that is his wife holding a child of Uchiha blood as she comes to him—it remains an impossibility.

A flick of his tongue behind his teeth does little to restrain the lividity within his tone. It’s harsher than intended to those above him, “I did not choose this political marriage.”

Why do you continue to follow blindly at his call?

There is no backing down from his position. He had done all that he had been asked of at this point with no hesitation. He had done everything to uphold his position as heir in the case of their passing. He had done all that he could for his clan repeatedly—time and time again. To commit adultery where his parents had not would shame not only his wife, but him, and those he lived to avenge. These were not choices he had made. If an heir was their concern they should have picked someone else to marry the ethereal woman that was his wife.

He was who they had chosen and he would follow his role properly. There would be no tolerance in his continued failure to be proper husband.

There is a shake to Madara’s head before he gives way to an exhale, “You cannot bed her, but you can continue as you are. I do this only out of respect for Mikoto. If it was anyone else there would be no choice in this matter. Disobedience would not be tolerated.”

There is anger and disdain for the man before him who continues to rule upon his choices as he sees fit. The claim of allowing him to forgo the adultery in the name of his mother—of his leader’s long since deceased sister—is all he needs to hear before dismissing himself to keep his anger within check. To anger and fight Madara would be to go against his clan, and he would never allow himself to do so. Doing so would be taking his brothers path. His clan and his people were forever the priority, and now even more so was she—he could not have punishment fall upon her for his choices.

Lucky—it’s how he should feel and yet, he does not.

Many who disobeyed Madara could not stand as tall as he does now heading for the gate with the snow that falls softly before him. His mother continues her protection of him. Bitterness rises in his chest at his need to still be protected. Fingers roughened through battle run through his hair as his scowl deepens. He was no longer a mere child of war. He was a man that was feared. He was a man that conquered. He had slaughtered those that would take the lives of his family, clan, and people who followed their beliefs. His strong stride stops before the gate taking in the cold air that seeks to chill his being. That same chilled air burns within his chest as the frosty air enters his lungs.

Ebony cannot stop themselves from looking upon the gray sky above that continues to give way to the winter season. He cannot stop the longing he holds for his mother. He would pray to her again when he returned home thanking her. He would thank her for all the protection she has ever given him, and all that she continues to give him. Even in death she stood there holding his hand. Even in death she would see to her child. Even when he had accepted punishment she would keep him from such harm.

A shudder leaves his mouth as he thinks of her. He could not ask her for advice, and he could not go to her when he had troubles. He could not truly hold her hand down this path. He could, though, continue to pave a way so others would not suffer the same loss he had. He could continue to make sure that young Uchiha children would never have to have their mother’s protection in death. He could give them something better. He could give them the ability to hold their mother’s hand within the world of the living.

He would give them the ability. He would give them the chance. He would win for them.

His fingers squeeze and it’s in that moment that he can truly feel her as if she stands beside him. He can feel her hand in his, and he can feel his chest tighten with her hand in his. Death was giving him this moment—it was giving him this precious moment to stand beside her.

His mother’s name carried the meaning of precious—she was undoubtedly precious.

A mother’s love was unbelievably deep. The spring wife had asked him if it was true that the Uchiha loved deeply. He even now does not know if that remains true, but he does know that his mother had loved him deeper than any ocean, and stronger than any fire. He knows that she would have done anything for him. He knows that she continues to do everything for him.

She had loved him. She had loved him so much. Never would she have willingly left his side. She would have continued to ease his heart, and she would have continued to erase his doubts.

She continues to do those things no matter how far he goes.

He truly had never been luckier.

Excitement does not begin to explain the feeling dancing within her heart as her mother, Shisui, and herself make their way to the gates. Her mother has fallen into bright spirits with the earthbound Uchiha male so unlike the stoic ones they knew far to frequently.

The chatter that overcomes them is easy to follow, and the conversations amusing. There are no disputes. There are no arguments over politics. There are no quarrels over ideals.

It’s peaceful. It’s welcomed. It’s what everyone should have. It’s proof that this could be something within their grasp if not for this war. It’s proof that a world of peace can truly exist in a world that only seemed to know war.

There is curiosity in how Konohagakure will look. Memories of her birthplace nonexistent within her mind. Far too young, and far too innocent she was back then to remember such things. Relatives had always come to them. They had never sought to visit, and as her age increased so did her distance with the place only newly born and newly welcomed into the world viridan had been given the privilege to see.

“Sakura-san, a friend of mine will be meeting us shortly. Do you mind if I take the time to speak with him?”

Her walk does not falter as she turns to look upon him, “Oh? You have company in Konohagakure?”

“We are separated by our ideals, but we still keep in touch.” he responds easily.

“I don’t see why we couldn’t.” she gives way to a smile as her viridian fall upon the gates once more.

Their steps take them closer. It’s impossible to miss her cousin’s wave, or the eye catching green clad male beside her. The smile that stretches upon her lips is large, and gives way to hurried steps wanting to be with them quicker. The scolding her mother speaks is ignored sprinting to wrap her arms around her cousin. There’s giggles and tight hugs. Her cousin’s voice is high as she tells her she missed her. The closeness they once had shared still within its rightful place even with their lives so separated.

It’s as they begin to catch up in hurried voices soaked with excitement that she hears the subtle interruption of her guard. He’s cleared his voice, “Ah, Sakura-san. I’d like you to meet my friend.”

Viridian full of interest turn to look at who it is that Shisui continues to hold close even as war separates them. She wonders if it is a Senju she had met in passing, or an Uzumaki she’s treated. It’s as those viridian turn that she cannot stop her smile from slipping. She cannot stop her eyes from becoming wide, and she cannot stop her heart from halting within its beat.

He’s all the familiar hereditary looks. Endless ebony strands with endless ebony eyes, and pale skin that contrasts almost painfully against her coloring. The lackadaisical look upon his face is all the more familiar, and it’s as her mind is running that she wonders if the Gods have played a cruel joke upon her.

She can only wonder if the Gods found humor in endlessly tormenting her.

“Sakura-san, meet Itachi. Itachi Uchiha.”

Her heart is held so painfully by these Gods intended to turn her world forever upside down and inside out. She cannot stop the twist of her surroundings bringing her back to her father’s body falling to the floor as she had gazes upon the man before her. She would never—could never—erase the look upon his face as her father fell before her. Such little care had been across those hereditary features.

Such little remorse. Such loss of heart. Such nonexistent feeling for those who hurt by his hand.

He no sooner would have discussed the weather with her as blood covered the floor and life fled from her father. This male held no remorse for his acts, and he had held no heart before her in a world filled with fire. He had looked as plainly at her now as he had back then.

The Gods must truly have found endless humor in her anguish.

Fingers curl within her palm as she feels her body set ablaze with a sense of loathing she did not know she could possess. This loathing that dares to possess her is volatile, seething, and unrelenting. Brows pinch, and her jaw tightens as these feelings bloom throughout her being in waves that desire to submerge this male, and herself. The fire that had torn Kusagakure asunder ghosts across her skin, and the wounds she had received as they had destroyed her home burn just as hot with each passing second. There is the hint upon her knuckles from where they had collided with the earth making it cry out. It echoes throughout the air unheard by all who stand with her. It echoes so loud she questions if she’ll go deaf.

“Sakura-chan?” the male clad in green calls out upon seeing her features change.

This man has captured her effortlessly, and it takes all the restraint she has to offer to keep her from lunging for his throat—so cruelly would she love to dig her fingers within his mouth to remove the lackadaisical expression from his features so painfully similar to her husband. There is recognition within those ebony. The recognition of that time comes with each small movement of his eyelids. The contempt she feels is begging for release at the base of her throat as she continues to hold the ebony within her viridian, and then all in a moment she feels the air slammed from her lungs. This man—this man before her—was her husband’s deeply loved sibling. The sibling so adored, and the sibling who had been the role model for her husband. This was the sibling he fought against. This was the traitor within their clan that had hurt her husband to depths that she could only now begin to understand. This sibling had hurt her husband, and slain her father. This man had brought so much pain within her world. He had brought her tears, and her husband’s hatred.

He was undeniably someone her husband had dared to love deeply, and in return he had brought it down without care.

For every moment her husband had dared to love this sibling had taught him betrayal. For every moment she had dared to believe that men of war were not inhumane he had proven it wrong eyes that held no heart.

The myths had done her husband no justice for this man stole all of it.

“Sakura, where are your manners?” her mother’s fingers have gripped her shoulder and it’s the only thing that makes her tear her gaze from him finally released from the chaos that was Kusagakure.

The wild beat of her heart is in full force as she desperately attempts to swallow the hurt, and loathing that threatens to drag her into turmoil. The tug upon her heart is laced with torment, and anguish. It’s far more powerful than what she could have thought possible. It’s far more petulant that she could have ever imagined. It’s far more deadly than she could have ever fathomed. It had come with an absolute vengeance for daring to think she could obtain any semblance of peace within this war. Bitter, and with eyes that dare to sting she feels the air constrict within her throat.

How much more could these people take from her? How much more could they ask of her? How much more? How much?

The desire that coaxes her heart could not be done.

Giving into the hatred, the anguish, and the raw lividity would alleviate such petulant torment, and yet, there is fear just on the other side. There is fear of her husband’s eyes upon her after hearing she had harmed the one he had dared to adore within his blissful innocence as a child. There is fear of her husband having to answer for attacking within Senju territory. There is fear that she will not come back from this raw lividity. There is fear that she will no longer no herself.

There is fear she will be the one without a heart. It is all too much—there is too much at stake.

Shisui shifts to move toward her with concern decorating him, “Sakura-san, are you alright?”

Fingers painfully press harder within her palm, nails digging into her skin as she attempts to speak without choking, “Excuse me, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Sakura. Uchiha Sakura.”

His brow has raised at her name, and there is scrutiny within his ebony as he seems to digest her. Flickering his gaze to Shisui, “I’m sure you heard about Sasuke-san’s marriage. This is his wife.”

The lackadaisical expression has disappeared at her title and in its place startle has taken over his features. There’s no missing the tightening of his jaw, and the shift within his frame. The silence between them is loud, and it echos in her ears just as loud as the memory of her knuckles crashing down upon their earth the first time they had met.

“Sakura-san, you look pale? Are you exhausted from the travel?” fingers find their way upon her arm as obsidian try to obtain her viridian. He is giving her a way out, and she is no fool—she will absolutely take this moment to remove herself from this man.

“Please.” her voice comes out far more pained than she had intended, and it’s Shisui who places a hand upon her head, “I’m so very tired.”

She begs, and pleads to not let the tears fall that burn her eyes. Her mother’s frantic voice is but background noise as they excuse themselves, and head for her cousin’s home. The feel of those ebony upon her back as they leave him at the gate are impossible to ignore. It only seeks to further terrorize her heart. It only seeks to shake her being. It only seeks to allow her to dance within the idea of digging her hand deep within his—No. No, no, no she would not allow herself to soil her heart. She would not allow herself to become him.

Disgust—she feels it radiate within her being.

You never needed a reason to love. You only needed reason to hate, and hatred consumed.

This is what had consumed so many during the war. The sharp ache that had found a home within her heart only seeks to become stronger with such feelings and yet, she cannot bring herself to cast them aside.

What god had she angered to deserve such a thing? What cruelty had she committed to have her husband’s brother be the one who held no hesitation in cutting down her father? What misdeed did she perform to have him give so little care to those he murdered?

It’s within the room that her cousin had prepared that she finally lashes out as fingers come upon her hand, “Let go of me.” the words are bitter and venomous—they seek to hurt.

She wants to hurt. She wants everyone to feel what she has endured.

Who was she to be the only one to shelter pain? It’s not their fault though. They are not the ones who continued to pray upon her so cruelly.

“Sakura-san, what has you so upset?” the obsidian haired male had barely flinched at her vexation.

“Leave me. Go. Get away from me.” her voice is raising as she spouts each word, “All of you.” her viridian glow within her hatred as she looks upon those at the door who are painted in hurt, and shock upon her words.

They cannot understand her behavior. They cannot understand her vexation. They cannot understand her venom. She would never let them understand. She could not let them understand. She will not let them understand. None of them give way to movement, and it’s in that, that she feels the last of her snap with a hiss of her voice, “Go, I said!”

The echo of her cry within the home has washed away the excitement. It has brought with it anxiousness, and hurt that paints itself upon every wall, and every door. It paints the room and it paints their beings. It paints her so violently, and it paints her so unforgiving. The whispers that fill the air beyond those doors cannot be heard outside of muffled hums. The room has lost its warmth, but the chill is numb upon her skin as she sits within her terror. She cannot find a clear answer as she sits upon the floor with her knees pressed within her chest. The tears that had burned have found their way down.

Her mind runs, and even as it tumbles it shifts between thoughts so fast, and so carelessly she finds herself losing herself entirely. Panicked, and lost with such muddled thoughts she cannot stop herself from falling deeper down the rabbit hole that is hatred. She hates so much, and she cannot find the part of her that dared to love, and dared to find the answers so hopeful, and so wishful.

Who was more important in these moments? Her husband, or her father?

Who was to be the one that would decide what she did now? To do nothing would shame her father. To do anything would shame her husband—the title is bitter, and it holds so much disdain. Disdain that she did not know she could feel for him once again. Blaming him is unwarranted, but she cannot stop herself from doing so. Hating him would be easy in these moments. Hating him would make the choice easier. Hating him would bring honor to her fallen father.

Hating him could be so easy.

There is a pull on the hood of her cloak she had never removed. The fingers bring it down from its place in almost a tender motion. Her teeth grind at the touch, and lividity runs through her veins at someone disobeying her, “Itachi-san has angered you.”

Shisui’s voice is soft as he kneels behind her, “Go.”

“Sakura-san, I do not know what he has done to you. He’s hurt you somehow, but I cannot allow you to sit here like this. Sasuke-san—”

“Don’t you dare say that cruel man’s name.” her head has whipped to look at him so close to her. His eyes show he was not prepared for such a hostile reaction upon hearing her husband’s name, and then there is something that she cannot place that follows in its place.

“Sakura-san, who is being cruel right now?” his voice is even as the glow of her viridian gaze upon him with fury.

“All of you are cruel. You only seek to hurt everyone around you with this war. You only seek to destroy. You are mons—”

“Sakura-san!” she has never heard his voice raise in such anger in all the times they have traveled together. She has gone too far—she has bred such a response within her turmoil, “You dare to say we are cruel and yet, here you sit pushing everyone aside. You sit here and you cast your family, and mother within another room as if they are to blame. You take them for granted, and you cast them without care. I ask you again, who is being cruel right now?”

“I have lost everything.” her voice breaks within her withdraw from him, “Who else could be cruel enough to have me marry a man who’s sibling would kill my father?” the words are vulnerable and hit the air before she can stop them.

Fingers find their way within her rose-colored locks, “You know Sasuke-san was not the one who made that choice. You know Madara-sama held no part in Itachi-san killing your father. None of them could have known—just as Itachi-san could not have known that you had married his brother, and he had killed your father.” his voice has come down from the anger that had laced it. It’s pleading with her in a hushed tone, and seeking to console her, “All of us—Uchiha, Senju, and everyone else who fights—have killed someone, and hurt others with our actions. We do not know if those people will become close to us. None of us would ever wish to hurt those close to us. It is all we can do, though, as we put our lives on the line.”

The solemnity rings within the silence. She was the cruel one once more. She sat here blaming. She sat here hating. She sat here loathing. She was cursing them, and slandering them. She was taking her hurt out upon them all. She was the one with such little care. She was being selfish—but how long had she pushed herself to be selfless?

This was the harsh reality of war. War robbed loved ones. It made the light from their eyes vanish. It put hurt within the world around them. It took without remorse. It forced friends to clash, and—

It forced families to fight against each other.

“Has Sasuke-san, truly been cruel to you?” the question quakes her being. It sends anguish throughout her with the gravity of what she has said, and what she has called him.

Overwhelmed. Heart pounding. Heavy hearted.

Nothing can describe the unbelievable sadness that washes over her with that question.

If I could bring all of that pain you hide onto myself I would do so.

She had said that so easily. They had fought. They had disagreed. He had made her cry. He had been cold to her. Yet, never—not once in this marriage—had he ever been cruel. He did not do malicious things to her. He did not do things out of spite. He did not show disdain towards her.

That single statement had been true when she had spoken it. She wished to take his pain from him. This man fought to protect those that followed him. He fought for peace in his own way. He fought with no anchor in the world. He had been a victim of war just as much as she now was. He had truly lost those he loved deeply. This feeling—this moment—this hatred that she had allowed to consume her—this is what had made him who he was today. She had asked him to love her, and here with just a taste of that hatred his world was soaked in she had cursed and spoken harshly of him—of all of them.

How could she possibly ask him to love someone so cruel? How had this man survived to this day with such a feeling?

A shuddered breath. A silent cry. A whispered apology.

All of it is what fills this room as she is gathered within her guards arms. He is warm—all the things she was meant to be. He was calming—all of what she tried to be.

“Sasuke-san would punish me for letting you get hurt.” it’s his laugh that’s low and hinted upon every word that brings a smile to her tear stained face as she continues to battle the slowly dissipating turmoil.

“I’ll be sure to keep such a thing from him.”

Because, Sasuke Uchiha, would no doubt protect her.

It’s long after she has made her way from the room with her hand in his, long after she gives heavyhearted apologies to those she had spat venom at, and long after the warmth has found its way within her cousin’s home once more that she accepts that her pain is still there. There’s no denying it’s grip upon her. This was not something that could be rendered with reasoning. Her husband had traveled far down this path. He had hated, and he had been consumed for such a long time. He had been his brother for many. He had gazed down upon those he killed in the name of war with such a lack of care. He had hurt, and he had been hurt. She had barely walked a mile in his shoes, and she needed to travel so much further.

Compassion, and warmth were nothing without understanding. Understanding could not be found without feeling.

She held the poison that had infected so many firmly within her, and now she truly could understand why he held such little care for talks of peace. This rage. This hurt. This suffering. All of it could not be eased with just words. He sought out vengeance, and he sought to make sure none within his domain felt what he had felt. In his conquest he had cast aside the love he had dared to feel so deeply. He had pushed others aside, and now she, too, had done just the same. He had lashed out upon those who sought to help him, and now she, too, had done just the same. He had no longer sought to reach out for help, and she now, too, had refused to reach for a hand to save her from this poison so lethal.

He had truly gone the distance. She had truly been so blind. She had sought to understand. He had cast his eyes from a world of love long ago.

She understood.

The days that come after do not ease the spread of this poison called hatred, and it’s at night that she gazes upon the ceiling lost and flushed in lividity. Her heart is torn in two. She knows it is not her husband’s fault, but here she sits within the dead of the night blaming him silently. Shisui had never lied in what he had said. Her husband had been many things, but she would have never looked upon him as cruel. She was shifting blame. She was looking for a reason to hate.

That man was the one who had slain her father. Not her husband.

More acceptance comes within the following days. It does not ease her hatred for her husband’s sibling. Her husband’s involuntary reactions when his brother was mentioned are perfectly clear. She understands far more than she would have ever dreamed why he held such hostility when it came to his brother. This man had done so much to her husband.

What would her husband say if she dared to tell him that he had taken her father—his father-in-law—away from them?

Viridian never stop searching, and her mind has yet to stop running. She had sought out an answer for this hatred and these feelings within her anguish when she had fallen within this rabbit hole.

She will continue to search for the answer she had sought within her anguish. She has to keep searching. This is not just for husband. She has to find this answer for herself. This is also for her.

The lesson has been taught, and the feelings understood. There’s pain in knowing that she had unknowingly asked for so much from her husband the night they had fought when she had fallen before him. She had asked him for all of him, and now she truly held more of him than she ever felt possible. She had asked to be his anchor, and she had asked him for love. How could she ask him for love when now she knew how addictive this poison could be?

If she could not cure herself then she could not cure him.

Yet, forgiveness meant to accept her father’s death by a man so uncaring. She could not do such a thing. She would not do such a thing.

She would be selfish. Her husband’s selfishness now just another thing she could understand.

It’s three days deep, and then before she realizes it another two days have passed. Seven days come without warning, and then without even so much as a ‘hello’ it’s on the thirteen day that she unknowingly has come upon her answer.

Practice for the coming of spring has come to an end. Her muddled mind has continued to halt her progress. She is far from ready—she has let Itachi Uchiha continue to take things from her.

She’s letting him take this from her as well.

She expects to be scolded just as she has every day since this had begun. Fingers come upon her shoulder, and it’s what drags her eyes, stinging with unshed frustrated tears, to the male, who continues to be patient with her. Her jaw dips ready to give an apology, “Kakashi-san, I—”

He never once has blamed her for her lack of progress. She had dared to wonder if it was because they had known each other well before now. She had healed him. She had healed him several times. He had come to her when his wife had been harmed in combat. He had come to her when he would be passing through to his next battle.

Here they were now. Standing within this room so large with wooden floors. He’s yet to pry, and she’s yet to explain herself. There’s no mistake that he’s being bias and hoping whatever has her within its grips will work itself out. There’s no mistake that she needs to find her answer. She needs to find the cure.

The sun that seeks to rest for the night paints the sky outside, and cast it’s dimming light within the room through the window. It provides no warmth outside of these walls. It could not fight off the chill outside that awaits her. Another set of fingers find their way to her shoulder, and there’s a comfort to these two men allowing her to work through her problems even as so much is placed upon her shoulder. Shisui, too, has been patient—she hopes it’s because he understands. Her bottom lip quivers as she seeks to finish what she had intended to say, but she’s rendered silent as the doors open. This person does not knock and his voice is loud.

This voice. It’s undeniably warm. It’s just as she recalls, and it brings her muddled mind to a halt.

She’s captured before she even knows it. Viridian flutter as she takes in the large grin she had only known once before. He’s all the bright blonde, and vibrant azure eyes she recalls deep within the forest. He’s all the warmth that the sun refused to give.

He is so much like the sun in the summer.

“Kakashi-sensei, how much lo—Sakura-chan?” the widening of those eyes so bright, and azure follow his question, and arms once placed behind his head begin their slow descend to his sides.

“Naruto-san?” she feels vulnerable in front of this man—and she cannot begin to understand why he has such a presence.

He’s next to her immediately with brows pinched in concern. She’s not sure if it was her face, or voice that gave away the mess that was her mind, and heart. They are enemies and yet, he comes to her side without thought. He comes to her as if they had known each other forever. He comes to her as if he is her friend.

She’s not sure what continues to make her follow in actions that her husband would scold her for, “I—Shisui, I want to go with him.”

Fingers tighten upon her shoulder as viridian make their way to ebony, “Sakura-san, I cannot leave you with him.”

“It’ll be fine.” there’s a shift in this male as breathes out, “I’ll take full responsibility should anything happen. Keep in mind that even as she wears the Uchiha crest this is neutral territory for now. No one would dare to harm her here. Not with the ceasefire approaching so close. She is, after all, our guest for the festival.”

Hesitation lingers but those fingers once so secure begin to lessen their pressure upon her shoulder, “Shisui. Please.”

Sakura cannot explain herself. She cannot begin to understand why there is so much comfort that comes from this man. She cannot understand why he does not say ‘no’ to her following behind him down these streets he knows so well, and that she’s begun to learn. He’s quiet at first and then he’s chattering away as if they are just as she had felt before—friends.

He doesn’t know her outside of that forest, and he does not know her outside of her last name. Still, he continues forward as if this is second nature to him.

When had she stopped moving forward? When had she—

He’s stopped before her his arms crossed upon his chest, “What’s wrong?”

Viridian flutter once more at this male so bold, and so overwhelming. She feels her eyes sting as all of her hatred, and all of her inner turmoil boil to the surface, “Do you hate?”

The words fall so easily, and the world seems to go quiet within her ears. There are lingering gazes among those that pass by but none seem to have caught what she had asked. His bottom lip falls open, and those azure eyes fall from her as they take in what she has asked. There’s a shame that comes over her drenching her to the core. It makes her want to take back what she has asked him. It makes her wish she had never given in to that presence he has so naturally—it’s so comforting.

Viridian watch as his mouth closes once more with lips pressed tightly together, and then only moments later does he open it again as determination radiates from him as brightly as his warmth.

“I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know who it is that you hate, but what I do know is that hatred hasn’t solved anything.” his fingers make their way to his pockets as he continues to look at her earnestly, “Has hatred solved anything for you?”

“No.”

“Hatred. The word itself is heavy. It weighs you down and yet, so many people feel that, you know? I fight to give people peace. I fight to bring these warring clans together, and get rid of hatred. If I let myself be weighed down who am I supposed to bring together? You have to believe there is good in people—otherwise, what am I fighting for?” his voice raises with each thought and it’s with each thought that viridian become wider, “Sakura-chan, what is your role? What do you fight for?”

“I fight to provide what others cannot. I want to heal people. I want to provide them with relief so that they can keep moving while so many of you take. I want—I want so much. I’m tired of fighting, and I’m tired of hurting. I’m tired—”

“Everyone’s tired.” azure seize her catching her voice within her throat, “How can you heal, and do what I can’t if your weighed down? Hatred breeds hatred. You can’t provide what you don’t give. This person you hate—has hating them made it easier? Has hating them made you better? Has it made you give up on peace? What peace do you fight for?”

The words fall far faster than she expects, and her voice is far stronger than she thought it could be, “I fight for a peace brought about by love, and yet how can I not hate someone who has taken everything from me? How can I not hate someone who has hurt so many.”

His mouth is left open, and his azure can only widen at her declaration. The silence that hangs within the air is thick and suffocating and yet, it’s as he lets out a huff of air that he cuts through it effortlessly, “It sounds to me like you’re just making excuses. Your husband, I’m assuming, fights in the war. He does exactly what you hate this person for to others. You know, it seems to me like your just looking for reasons to make hatred okay. I can’t stand people who do that. This is war. Don’t forget we don’t do this because we want to. You may have lost someone—who am I kidding we’ve all lost someone. Hating them for it isn’t going to bring them back. How are you honoring that person by hating them? Would they appreciate you taking your love for them and turning it into hate?”

Fingers twist within her clothing as she looks at him. Wide doe eyes cannot leave his face as she hears him louder, and clearer than she had ever thought possible.

This man. What had he lost in the war? Who had he lost in the war?

How had found this conclusion? Who had shown him the way when he was lost?

Her teeth grit, and it’s as she looks down at the ground that the tears dare to fall. Fingers make their way to her hair. There’s no soothing rubs like her husband had given as he washed her hair. The scent he has is so distinctly different from that of her husband. It’s no less comforting.

He wasn’t wrong. Nothing he had said was wrong, and he had made the answer seem so obvious. He had made all of it seem so unnecessary. She had accepted that she had started to shift the blame, and make reasons to hate her husband on behalf of his brother. She had accepted that was wrong. She had accepted it. She had understood it, and now this male so full of sun, and so full of warmth was bringing down the walls she had made deep within the night as she stared at the ceiling.

This answer he had given her. She needed to accept it.

She could not let that man take more from her.

He gives way to a whine, and a humor filled comment that has her letting out the smallest of laughs. He throws his hands behind his head with that large grin plastered back in its place she has come to associate as being entirely him. The walk back to her home, and it’s with Shisui running to her that she feels her mouth curve into a smile she hasn’t worn in days.

There’s hesitance across the Uchiha’s face, but all it takes is a look at her before those features once longed for fall into a sense of calm. Footsteps lead her forward and it’s now and it’s here that she feels herself finally looking down the path instead of back. .

The call of her mother comes just as she enters the entry way, and it’s as she makes her way to the room her mother stays within that she sees her mother holding up something that makes her heart drop. The pendent is unmistakable. It’s floral petals are pale except for one. That one lone petal is of a darker rosier shade. The chain hangs within her mother’s fingers, and it’s as her mother’s viridian look to her own that the widest of smiles breaks out.

There’s tears, and there’s broken laughter between the two. Her mother’s voice is hushed within this moment they share. Never had she mentioned to her in these days that the man who had taken her father was so close. She could not find it in herself to burden her mother so much. Fingers dance across her neck sending the smallest tickles down her.

“I don’t expect you to tell me what has you so upset. Just don’t forget that I am here, and so is your father. We love you, Sakura. Please don’t forget to lean on me, and never think you can’t lean on him. He would hate for you to carry everything on your own.” Her mother fluffs her hair as she says it all so quietly as if it’s a secret meant for them alone.

There’s no denying the tears that have fallen from those viridian her mother had been so kind as to share. Her hands are raising and she cannot stop herself from cupping her mother’s face a moment longer. She presses her forehead against her mothers and it’s as her mother’s fingers wrap around her wrists that they both cry whispering comfort to each other.

For every whispered affection another falls into place. For every affection action another follows right behind. Her heart seeks to apologize for being so selfish as to forget she has a parent right here, and another that truly had never left her.

The last whisper her mother gives before wrapping her within a hug is one she’s sure she’ll never be able to let go off. It brings pride back upon her, and the urgency to make it all true. She could not fail her father, and she could not fail her mother.

—He’s so proud of you, Sakura. He really is. We both are.

It’s as they walk to make their way towards the shinobi with locks with pale lead colored hair meant to assist with her practice that she tells the answer she’s found to Shisui, “I wish to speak with him. I wish to speak with my brother-in-law once more.”

He stops within his taken step to look at her. The Uchiha cannot stop his hesitation from showing—he’s held so much of that recently, “I’ll see what I can do, Sakura-san.”

“Thank you.” the male of pale lead colored locks can only watch them as she stands before him. She turns to look at Shisui once more before she takes her leave, “When I had let hate fill me I told you I had lost everything.” her lips widen into a smile that she had just the day before relearned, “I was wrong. I have gained far more than I could have ever ask for.” the warmth that she was meant to give had found its way back to her face, and within her viridian.

She is beaming with hope, and she is beaming full of love that she wishes to give.

If there was one thing her father had taught her it was not to live in the past. Her father would not find honor in her staining her hands. Her father would not find happiness in her allowing such hate to fuel her. He would not find peace if she did not find prosperity in life.

Her father had been the kindest of people. He had been one of warmth, and sun—it’s clear now that is why she finds such comfort in the blonde. He had been the one to wipe her tears from her face, and pat her head when she stumbled. He cared so much for her. He had loved her, and in that love he had been the one to teach her the meaning of giving. He had been the one to teach her to love with no requirements.

Kizashi Haruno was unconditional in all that he did. He gave unconditionally. He loved unconditionally.

She, too, would love unconditionally. That is how she would honor him.

“You look troubled.”

She gives a shake of her head, “No. I’m just thankful to have a papa who still continues to love, and teach me even after he has left me.” there is a shudder that overcomes her as she speaks between soft smiles, “I will bring the spring for him. I will bring the spring to everyone—so they can feel the same love, and warmth I received from him. I will repay all of you for leading me back to him, and leading me back to who I am supposed to be.”

Her eyes shift to the male of pale lead hair beside her. They never falter in their walk having left Shisui shortly after her gratitude, “He’s proud of you.” his fingers fall within her hair affectionately.

#sasusaku #sasusaku fanfiction #sasusaku fanfic #ombree:fics #ombree:theuchihaswife

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