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clueless-content-creator · 3 years

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Lee Jaehyun x Kim Younghoon: Mistakes, Mistakes, and More Mistakes

Genre: Pure angst, The Slightest Fluff

Word Count: 3.4k

⚠️Warnings⚠️: Mentions of a Car Accident, Cheating, Manipulation, Slight Harassment, Swearing, (A lot of it) Happy ending!

5/28/2016

"Dear Lee Jaehyun, I'm heartbroken that I have to tell you this but... I already know that you are cheating on me. It was no secret.. At the very least not well kept. Unfortunately, I also know that it's been going on for some time now. Why would you hide something like this from me? We promised to always be honest with each other but I guess that was another blatant lie. I'm going to try to make this short and sweet and not to pour my feelings out but I hope you live a good long life with your new girlfriend. As much as I want to hate you for what you've done to me, I will continue to root for you and be happy for you because I still care... and love you. I wish you the best of luck with the rest of your life, without me. Whenever you find this, whether it's years later, an hour later (after I've written this), or before you pass away. Just know I'll always be by your side.. Even if I'm not actually there. This is my last goodbye, I love you Hyunjae. Never forget me." - Jung Y/N

It has been five years since you've last seen Hyunjae. And a lot has changed, you and Younghoon have gotten together after you left Hyunjae. Plus The Boyz disbanded, but they all still hang out every once in a while when they all have a chance. You heard that Hyunjae is still with his girlfriend, and they are planning on getting married soon. He also has 2 kids with her already. (Which you heard he regrets too) But one night, he had enough of her whining about wanting more kids so he took a walk around the park hoping to get some fresh air. Instead, he got heartache at the sight of you on the swing with Kevin, Jacob, and Eric surrounding you. 'She looks sad.' Hyunjae thought. "Please guys, just- just go away! I'm sorry but I'm not in the mood to talk about my situation with Younghoon." Right as Jacob went to reply, the rest of the group came running out trying to stop Younghoon from going near you. "Sorry Y/n," Sangyeon panted. "We tried to stop him but he ran really fast to get to you." You shook your head, "It's okay. Just please give me some time alone." Younghoon disagreed, "Listen, it's not over for me." A warm sensation that rolled down your face distracted you. You didn't know you were actually crying until Younghoon softly wiped the tears away, bringing you into his embrace. "I'm so sorry baby, I really do love you." He whispered under his breath. He's right, he does love you but he's not in love with you, and that's the problem. "Please just get away from me!" You shouted at him as you yanked your wrist back, freeing yourself from his grip. "Seriously Younghoon, don't say something you know you don't mean." You sighed heavily. The rest of the group was quiet, not saying anything nor moving an inch. You pointed your index finger at them, "I knew you all were cowards but I didn't know you were all idiots. Did you really think you could hide him cheating on me with who I thought was my best friend?.. Did you!?" You screamed the last part, your hands gripping your hair in frustration. "I can't believe you all... I can't believe all of you actually covered up his lie." Sangyeon sighed deeply, "Y/n.. I promise it was a mistake we dared him to ask her out, it wasn't-" You felt the anger rise to an unbearable point. "A MISTAKE? A FUCKING MISTAKE!? A DARE ISN'T A MISTAKE YOU-! IT'S ALL YOUR GUY'S FAULT!" You yelled before, stopping to take a deep breath. Then collapsing on the ground, tears brimming your eyes. "I'm so fucking done. I've said enough." You sniffed before getting up, ignoring your scratched-up hands and knees. "Will you at least spend the night at our place? I-It's really late! If you won't let us do that at least let us or one of us take you home." Jacob pleaded, looking extremely guilty. "No. I don't want anything from you guys anymore, you've done enough damage as it is." He sighed heavily, his hands running through his hair. Trying to rack his brain to think of excuses to get you to stay. Hyunjae felt like he was watching a drama, he felt as though he could do nothing to help. So he decided to leave you and the boys alone, being the same coward you left years ago.

You roamed the streets searching for a place to sit. Finally, you reached a closed restaurant with seats outside. You let out a deep sigh, feeling tears in your eyes as you remembered the night's events.

Flashback

It was just a normal movie night that you were having with the boys. You were enjoying it but something felt...wrong. It wasn't until Younghoon's phone rang several times and refused to tell you who it was that you started feeling unsettled. When you saw the boys exchange eye contact multiple times in a row, that also made you suspect them. You tried to relax and tell yourself that you were making things up in your head but as soon as he went to the bathroom, you grabbed his phone straight away. The boys weren't paying attention otherwise they probably would've taken it from you. But right as you picked it up you saw a text from 'Minju.' My best friend? He surely isn't cheating on me with her, right? But when you actually read the text, that thought changed almost instantly.

Minju💕💌: Hey sexy, why aren't picking up my calls? Poor thing, your shit girlfriend is probably making the worst love to you right now, so I'll leave you be and call later 💞

You remember feeling sick to your stomach when reading that message. Thousands of awful thoughts went through your head. You knew that Younghoon was aware of your insecurity about him hanging around pretty girls all the time (or so you thought) but even with that, you still trusted Minju because she was your best friend and had a fiancée of her own. Wonder what happened to that... But you remember wanting to yell at Younghoon when he got out of the bathroom, instead you calmly handed him his phone and then texted him on your phone. Saying this..

My One And Only🥰: "I trusted you. And you, plus Minju both broke my trust. Please don't contact me ever again."

He suddenly looked up at you in shock, trying to grab your wrist but couldn't. You quickly got up from your seat, grabbing your keys, phone, and bag. Rushing to get out the door, stuffing the others thing inside your bag. "Hey, Y/n!" Was the last thing you heard before running out of the apartment.

Suddenly a cold presence beside you brought you out of your thoughts. "Hey there, pretty lady. Wanna come back to my home with me?" Your face scrunched up in dismay. "No thank you." He smiled before caressing your cheek, making you cringe even more. "Aw sweetie, don't be shy. Come on!" The stranger grabbed your wrist, then pulled you closer inches away from your face. You tried to push him away but he wouldn't budge. "Ugh, I said no-" He then fell to the ground. An unknown figure punching him until he was unconscious. "She said no... asshole." Your eyebrows furrowed when you heard the familiar voice. You gasped when you looked up, "Sunwoo?" He nodded, patting your head gently, then quietly asking if you were okay. "I-I'm fine, thank you.. What made you come back to look for me? I thought you guys didn't care whether I was okay or not." You spoke quietly, slouching back in the chair. "The rest might not, but I certainly do.. A-anyways Y/n, look, even though we all messed up in one way or another, you shouldn't hold a grudge for too long because before you know it something bad might happen and you won't be able to say a proper goodbye." You nodded quietly, taking in what he just told you. But, Minju and Younghoon don't deserve to have their apologies accepted. Before you could thank him for his wise advice, he got a sudden phone call. "Hello?" Sunwoo's face dropped, "They're where!? I-In the hospital?.. A-alright, I'll be there as soon as possible, thank you." He bit his lip before rapidly explaining the situation. "Come on, we need to go now!"

The sounds of shoes squeaking against the tile flooring made you wince a bit but you ignored it. Sunwoo quickly went up to the front desk in a hurry. "Excuse me, I was the guy you were talking to early on the phone, do you mind telling us where rooms 126 and 127 are, please?" The front desk staff nodded and got up from her seat as we followed her steps to the rooms. 'Rooms'? I thought to myself. 'There's more than one person hurt'? I chewed on my bottom lip nervously, suddenly remembering my own cuts and scrapes from earlier. "Here's the first room, the second room is right next door." Sunwoo bowed to the woman and thanked her before hurriedly opening it, revealing Sangyeon in the hospital bed with cuts and bruises, as well as more than a few casts on his body making you physically and mentally hurt. "Y-Y/n!" He panted out, as I ran to him. "Don't force it, just relax!" I spoke softly while stroking his head. "I-I'm so sorry." You tilted your head, "F-for what?" You were shaking until he grasped your hands gently. "Younghoon's situation... I promise we didn't mean to do it on purpose- well, we did but we didn't think he'd actually make the move on her, but-" You sat there absentmindedly listening, blinking slowly. "You know, you're just making it worse for yourself.." He sighed heavily, "I'm aware, I'd just like to apologize for all of it," He placed his right hand on your cheek, making some tears fall down your face. "Oh gosh no, please don't cry! You are too pretty to cry." You both laughed at his comment. "I forgive you Sangyeon... Just don't even do this again! By the way, what actually did happen for you to get into this shape-" The door suddenly burst open making you jump which made Sangyeon laugh, "Y/n! Someone wants to see you." You didn't even notice Sunwoo left the room so you were puzzled to see him at the door. "Who?" You faintly asked. Sunwoo shrugged, "You'll have to see for yourself." He smirked slightly, walking out of the room to somewhere else. You looked back at Sangyeon, asking him permission to go with your eyes, him nodding in response. "You are free to go and come back." He smiles wholeheartedly. You thanked him and quickly sprinted out the door, seeing Sunwoo go into another room, but it wasn't room 127. You furrowed your eyebrows for a quick moment before shrugging it off, speed-walking into the next room. Before you went into the room you peeked in the little hole at the top of the door. You saw a few of the boys in the room surrounding the unknown person. You sighed dejectedly before opening the door as quietly as possible, except the creaking of the door gave it away as everyone turned to you. "Heh- Hi guys..." You cleared your throat as you awkwardly waved at them. Jacob jumped up and ran to you, "Oh thank Irene your okay!" He beamed at you making you smile back at him in return. "So, who brought you here then?" Kevin questioned. You turned toward the door expecting to see Sunwoo but he wasn't there. "Um.. Sunwoo did. He said it was an emergency so we rushed here." You looked down at the ground, feeling slightly unsettled. As you were looking down you saw a note on the ground that had "Dear Y/n," written on it. You heard some shuffling in the room so you quickly stepped on the note, preventing anyone else from seeing and taking it since it had your name on it. "Y/n-ah, are you okay?" Juyeon asked gently, placing his hand on your shoulder. You nodded, looking back up at him. Before you could register everything, you saw Younghoon lying in the hospital bed. You gasped and covered your mouth, moving closer towards the door, completely forgetting about the note. "You look like you've seen a ghost, are you sure you're alright?" Juyeon’s hand that was on your shoulder was now on your waist. "Yes, I'm great! I, uh- will be right back!" You reassured them before quickly running out of the room. You searched for the room that Sunwoo went in earlier. Finally reaching room 103, you slowly crept into the room seeing Hyunjae this time. But before any anger could fill you up, you paused seeing him also covered in cuts and bruises just the same as Sangyeon (if not, worse) as well as stuck in casts and wrapped up with bandages too. He was fast asleep so you didn't want to wake him up but you walked closer, still being intrigued by him as you always were. With the door suddenly opening plus the sound of a group of voices you knew sounded familiar, you quickly ran and hid in the closet. "Do you know where Y/n went? I can't seem to find her anywhere." Whoever he was talking to must've shaken their head judging by the fact they weren't talking. "I don't know either Sunwoo, just let her be. She doesn't deserve to see any of them anyway but Jacob said that she visited them and then ran off." I gasped slightly, which almost gave away my position, except right when I gasped the door flung open. "GUYS COME ON LET'S EAT!" Eric came bursting through the door, his loud voice making me jump a little. But while they were busy talking and deciding what to eat, I was trying to figure out what to do. Visit Younghoon and set the record straight, ask Sangyeon what happened for them to all end up in the hospital, or confront Hyunjae about all of the circumstances. Since you were in Hyunjae's room at this very moment you decided on the latter. You slowly opened the closet as soon as you heard the door close. Seeing the boys right outside the room made the adrenaline rush in you. Once again you quickly made your way back to the chair that was by his bed. You sighed heavily, taking his hand in your own. "I'm sorry Hyunjae for this mess. You should've never dated me... I caused this accident, didn't I?" You looked up to see him still asleep before sighing heavily once again. You started to feel yourself getting sleepy, and the next thing you know you are passed out while laying your head on the bed. Little did you know, Hyunjae was fully awake just pretending to be asleep and as soon as you closed your eyes he started stroking your hair softly, eventually making him sleepy and then falling asleep too.

Once you woke up, you went to get up from your seat, but you felt the warmth of his hand around your wrist. "Don't go." His voice was faint, hoarse, and barely audible, but it was just enough for you to be able to hear it. You quickly turned around to see him struggling to sit up. You quickly helped him, not wanting him to struggle "H-Hyunjae..." You choked out, not being able to say much. "I'm okay Y/n. I know this came as a shock but it's alright." He softly stroked your cheek as the tears that were previously being built up finally fell down. Before either of you could say another word the door opened, revealing Chanhee, Sunwoo, Kevin, and Changmin. You quickly stood up, trying to excuse yourself from the room except none of the boys would let you. You looked down in shame, "Listen, I know-" Changmin shoved you as he was walking toward Hyunjae's hospital bed. "Oh sorry, didn't see you there." You could sense the sarcasm of his voice from a mile away. "Changmin! Apologize, right now! I didn't become the leader only for you to treat other people like human trash." Sangyeon was now in a wheelchair with Jacob wheeling him. Jacob was shaking his head in disapproval. "He's right Changmin, apologize to Y/n she did nothing wrong." Changmin was furious, "Nothing wrong?!? She was the one that put you in that god-damn wheelchair Hyung!" Sangyeon sighed, "That was my fault for not looking before crossing a busy road, Changmin. It's far from her fault, now let's just go eat-'' You quickly stood up in shock, "You got hit by a car!?" Kevin stopped you, "Well, not exactly. He was hit by a truck, a cargo truck to be exact." Your jaw dropped to the ground. Then turning to face Sangyeon. "Did you really?" Changmin inhaled sharply, "Are you fucking serious! Y/n, you left years ago with Younghoon without telling us a single word. Then you suddenly showed up saying you had a week in Korea to come to visit us rather than finding out that he was cheating on you only to be left by yourself... Sunwoo should have left you on the street." Sangyeon got up from his wheelchair, making Jacob panic. "CHANGMIN! THIS BEHAVIOR IS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. LEAVE THE ROOM NOW!" You had covered your mouth in shock from everything that had just happened. Jacob brought Sangyeon back into his wheelchair, then took him and Changmin out of the room. Kevin and Chanhee called for the doctor to check on Hyunjae, and finally Sunwoo. He helped you stand up again after you fell down to your knees. "Are you okay?" He asked softly. You shook your head, "I don't know.. I think I should just go. Changmin just proved my point anyways, Hyunjae is better off without me and so is Younghoon plus Sangyeon won't have to worry about this kind of thing happening again at least!" Your broken voice gave away the fact that you were pretending to be okay. “Y/n, you don’t have to pretend in front of me, and you’re all wrong..” You tilted your head at him in confusion, “What do you mean?” He smiled softly at you, “We all care for you and Changmin is just speaking out of frustration. You know that he is never like this but either way just know, that we will support any decision you make.” You nodded, “I know what I’m gonna do.”

Epilogue: You so clearly remember hearing the wedding bells as the small children scream with joy and the clapping of everyone else at the ceremony made your heart swell with happiness. As well as vividly remembering when Hyunjae proposed to you with your mom’s ring, it was a very emotional time not knowing how his kids would feel but he said ‘they’ll love you, I’m sure.’ You knew you made the right decision, even though Hyunjae cheated and had kids with another woman we both knew she was far from the one. Minju was the one that played both Younghoon and Hyunjae at the same time. When she was getting arrested for multiple charges, she confessed that she purposely broke us up just to get me to hate him and get his money. The funny thing is, she was getting Younghoon to be her fucktoy while Hyunjae was her source of income. It all made sense, the note that you found back at the hospital was Younghoon explaining everything he knew. It said that Hyunjae still loved you and was unhappy in his relationship, Minju was playing them both but Hyunjae was so stubborn he couldn’t believe it and also that you deserved to be happy with who you choose to end up with. So even though you managed to choose Hyunjae over Younghoon he was equally as supportive as the rest of the boys saying that we belonged together. His kids were so happy to have me as their new mother, it made me so ecstatic that they were just as happy as Hyunjae to have me back, saying that Minju was just ‘plain evil’ which always made you laugh. You knew that everything fit in place now, after all these years. You were the missing puzzle piece.

#the boyz hyunjae #the boyz angst #the boyz fluff #the boyz younghoon #the boyz stories #tbz scenarios #the boyz scenarios #tbz angst #tbz fluff #tbz hyunjae #tbz younghoon

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nataliedanovelist · 4 years

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Meet the Pines

When ten-year-old Stanford Pines accidentally stumbles across a time machine, he then finds himself in the middle of a forest and somewhere he finally feels ta home.

For @persimmonpollywog, who inspired me to bring an idea to life.

~~~~~~~~~~

January 1960-something

Stanford held his jacket a little tighter around himself. It was chilly here in the wintry late-afternoon, but it was better being cold on the Stan O’ War than being warm at home. Here, no one called him a wimp. Here, no one saw him as a freak or a loser. Here, he was free to be as upset as he wanted to be. He didn’t want to cry, but if he couldn’t hold it in any longer than at least no one was around to see it.

Yesterday had been a bad day. Crampelter had cornered Stanford after school, while Stanley was busy talking to some girl, and eventually had the ten-year-old pinned to the cold concrete with a knee to his back, pulling his arm back and almost dislocating his shoulder until Stanley came and shoved the bully off his brother. All of the boxing lessons were starting to pay off as Stanley walked away with less scrapes and bruises than normal, but he still had to serve after-school detention today. The twins tried to hide their injuries on the way to the bathroom, but Ma saw them and knelt to look them over. Before Stanley and Stanford could convince their mother they were okay, Pa showed up and snapped, demanding if the boys had lost another fight and when they were going to quit getting their butts handed to them. Ma then stood and shouted at Pa and the two screamed at each other for what felt like forever while they fixed each other up with their first aid kit and spent the rest of the night in their room to avoid the fighting. No kid likes hearing their parents yell.

Stanford’s shoulder didn’t hurt as much anymore and the bruise on his back was still big and purple and black, but at least he could hide it. As much as Stanford tried to ignore it, even reading a book he normally would have enjoyed, the voices in his head kept on shouting at him.

“Dorks and losers!”

“FREAK!”

“When are you gonna stand up for yourself like a man?!”

“DON’T TOUCH ME!”

“Watch it, Six-Finger’s got the plague!”

“You’ll NEVER make any friends!”

Stanford closed his book, shut his eyes, took off his glasses, and scrubbed at his eyes with a fist and pinched the bridge of his button nose to try to compose himself. Stanford then used his blurry vision to look down at his birth defect. His vision became even worse when more tears formed, eventually making the boy buried his head in his arms and he quietly cried. Crampelter was right. Stanford was never going to make any friends. No one would ever want him around.

Okay, maybe Stanley did, but he wasn’t here right now, and how long it would be until Stanley decided he was tired of being made fun of? Stanford truly believed that Stanley was cool enough to make it on his own. He’d bet his chemistry set that if Stanley had never defended Stanford, never been his brother, he wouldn’t be made fun of as much as he was now. Sure, Stanley Pines messed up a bunch, but he was funny and smart in a way you can’t teach to somebody and girls seemed to like him. What was stopping him from getting any gal he wanted and being an all star boxer or a superhero? His freak of a twin. The mistake.

These thoughts plagued and poisoned Stanford, who let them flow and then leave him. While he didn’t disbelieve these bad thoughts anymore, they were no longer screaming at him, so he had the strength to go home. Maybe he’d feel better in his warm bed instead of the cold unfinished ship.

Stanford stood and smiled hopefully at the Stan O’ War. Last summer, right after the boys had turned ten, they had found the shipwreck sailboat in a cave and took it as their anchor for a better future.

“One of these days, you and me are gonna sail away from this dumb town. We’ll hunt for treasure, get all the girls, and be an unstoppable team of adventurers.”

Stanford carried that message with him nearly every day, and he doubted the day would come when he stopped. He picked up his backpack and started on the walk for home. The wind howled, making Stanford shiver, and he picked up the pace. He wished summer would get here, he didn’t like the cold. Something on the sidewalk in town nearly made Stanford trip, but he caught himself in time and turned to see what it was.

The boy raised an eyebrow to find a tape measure. It was black and yellow and had two weird triangles on it. “Huh. I don’t recognize that company.” He muttered to himself as he picked up the measurer. He pulled on the tape, as children will with these types of tape measures, and he realized too late that it didn’t read inches and centimetres; it read years, but Stanford had already released the tape and then he was gone with a flash.

~~~~~~~~~~

May 2016

After the flash was gone, one of the first things Stanford noticed was that he was warm. Really warm. And something was crackling behind him and smelled like burning fabric. Stanford threw off his backpack and stomped on it until the little fire went out. Once that panic was gone, new panic came as he realized he was in the middle of some woods. He had never been in the forest before, except for the little patches by the ravine, but the ravine was dangerous and only for stupid teenagers, so Stanford didn’t go there if he could help it.

Once he knew he was safe, he looked down at the tape measure. “What the heck is this thing?” He asked himself as he cautiously pulled out the tape. It read measurements of time instead of measurements of space. He slowly let the tape back in the machine and put it in his jacket’s pocket, deciding it would be best to try to figure this weird tape measure out later. More importantly, when was he?

Stanford looked around the fellow pines he was surrounded by and he smiled at the peaceful smell. It reminded him of the holidays and when Christmas trees would be up for sale at the park. Stanford understood his family didn’t celebrate Christmas, and he was fine with instead celebrating a holiday that lasted seven days, but he wished just once they would bring a pinetree into their house just to make all the rooms smell nice. Stanford could hear birds, for once not choking on glass or honking. They either tweeted or knocked on wood. Here, in the quiet and in the warmth, Stanford felt much better than he did five minutes ago, despite being in a strange setting and far away from home.

Stanford thought he could hear the vague sound of a car, and so the boy hurriedly followed him to it. Where there was a vehicle there was probably a town. Stanford saw a dirt road and watched as a car drove one way. He could follow it, but when he looked toward where the car had come from, he could have sworn he saw a wooden structure of some sort through the trees. Stanford emerged from the woods and walked alongside the road.

“Okay, the tape measure had been set to forward.” Stanford thought out-loud to himself to try to think clearly. “And if there’s cars, I’m definitely in the future, but how far? I didn’t see how many years ahead it sent me. Maybe I’ll finally meet a robot!”

As Stanford walked along the old road, it became clear to him that either he hadn’t time traveled that far into the future or he was somewhere considered “old” by this time’s standards. Stanford awed happily at an old cabin with a triangular roof with a big sign that read “Mystery Shack”, but the S was on the grass. There was a goat munching on a tin can and it looked at Stanford with it’s weird yellow eyes, but Stanford grinned at the goat and carried on his way.

“What is this place?” He asked himself. “Some kind of haunted house?” The word “Mystery” was enough to lure him towards the building and he saw a door with a sign that read “gift shop,” so Stanford decided to check that place out first.

A bell greeted him and Stanford smiled at the little shop. A pretty lady with a hat and a green question-mark t-shirt was at the cash register, helping an old lady buy a keychain with a spaceship on it. Stanford grinned as more and more things were his taste. There were baseball caps with pinetrees, question marks everywhere, some kind of Aztec wheel in the back, a monkey-fish - no! A Mer-key! - in a tank, and newspapers and magazines full of supernatural evidence. Stanford grinned and took a newspaper with a UFO on the front and opened it.

Before Stanford was too sucked into the story of the alien-sighting in Wyoming, he could hear the lady at the cash register groan and say to the old woman, “I’m sorry, ma’am, this drawer is always getting stuck. Here, let’s see if my husband has any change for you.” And they walked through a door with red curtains.

Stanford looked at the register. It looks pretty close to the one at Pa’s shop. Curious, Stanford sat the paper down and went over to the drawer. There was a toolbox open by the vending machine, so he borrowed a red screwdriver and pulled a flashlight out from his jacket and got to work to try to fix the cash register.

He found the clip that wasn’t releasing and managed to temporarily open the drawer, but the issue was, for the time being, you needed the screwdriver every time you wanted to open the drawer, so Stanford unscrewed some screws to look at the drawer’s workings and he patiently fixed the clip so it was hooked the way it should be. Stanford smiled proudly at himself, happy to help that lady, and he put the drawer back together and closed it with a little ding.

“Whatcha doin’, dawg?”

Stanford jumped a foot in the air and looked up to find the lady back with a big man beside her, the big man standing in Stanford’s way of leaving the counter. He was a chubby guy and reminded Ford of a gopher. He had a red fez with a golden crescent (kinda like Pa’s if Stanford was being honest) and he wore a suit and an eyepatch.

Stanford was shaking as he realized how bad it looked to have some kid standing by the cash; if this was Pa’s store he would have called the police. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I just wanted to fix your drawer, I’m sorry!” Stanford yelped and sat the screwdriver down on the counter and shoved his hands in his pockets; he didn’t want this big man to think he was stealing anything, cash or tools.

“Whoa, whoa,” The big guy said and with his hands up to stop him. He was smiling nicely at Stanford and he slowly began to calm down. “It’s okay, dude, I get it. You’re not in trouble. Now let’s see if you fixed this old girl.”

The big guy reached over to the register and pressed a button. The drawer slid open gracefully, making the lady and the big guy grin. “Wow. I’ve never seen that thing work so well.” The lady said.

“Me neither, and I’ve been here for fifteen years!” The big guy patted Stanford’s shoulder. “You did a good job, dude. I’m impressed.”

Stanford’s face suddenly felt really hot, like the kind of hot it gets when someone points out his six fingers, but his gut wasn’t squirming around in the usual bad way. And Stanford found it hard not to smile. “Th-Thank you.”

“Thank you,” The big guy said with a grin. “What do I owe you for a job well done?”

Stanford stared at the big guy, wondering if he was joking, but the big guy and the lady just smiled at him and suddenly he noticed how empty his stomach felt. “Can I have a snack?” And he pointed to the vending machine.

The big guy grinned and nodded. “Sure, dude! Hungry?” Right on cue, Stanford’s stomach growled. He held his jacket tighter around himself and blushed, but the big guy and lady just chucked.

“No wonder, it’s almost lunchtime.” The lady pointed out as her watch told her it was almost one.

“Well, hey, Abuelita would love some more mouths to feed.” The big guy said and asked Stanford, “Why don’t you ask your folks if you can join us for lunch?”

“My parents aren’t here.” Stanford said, unable to believe what was happening in front of him. “It’s just me.”

“Oh. Well, wanna stay for lunch?” The big guy offered nicely. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but we’d love to have you…”

“Yes, please!” Stanford answered happily. “Sounds like fun!”

“Sweet!” The big guy dipped his fez to the boy and said, “Mr. Mystery at your service, little dude! But you can call me Soos! This here my wife, Melody. Want a tour of the Mystery Shack before lunch?”

“Sure!” Stanford even pulled out his notepad and pencil from his jacket and held it ready for note taking.

Soos laughed, grabbed an eight-ball cane, and led the way through the doorway with red curtains. Stanford was amazed to find a little museum full of odd stuff! Left and right there were strange anomalies and attractions that were just the coolest! Stanford had only seen stuff like this in his dreams, and now it was all here in front of him.

Soos cleared his throat and declared, “Dear gentleman! Looking around my Mystery Shack, you’ll see many wondrous befuddlement, unlike anything you have ever seen before! Feast your eyes, on the dangerously adorable Unicat!” And he gestured to a fluffy orange tabby with a unicorn’s corn tied to it’s head. The kitty was sleeping on a fluffy cat’s bed and Stanford grinned and began to sketch it.

“Now beware, tourist, not only could this guy make you sneeze, Mr. Wiggles is so adorable he can literally bend you to his will.” Mr. Mystery warned with wiggling fingers. “One minute he’s purring in your hand and the next he’s biting your hand, but don’t worry, just give him a treat and he’ll be putty in your hands, dawg.” Soos pulled out a bag from his suit and asked, “Wanna give the Unicat a treat?”

Stanford grinned and happily let Soos shake a treat onto his palm. Mr. Wiggles woke up and sat patiently on the bed. Stanford gave it to him and scratched Mr. Wiggles under his chin while the kitty munch on his treat and purred. Then he was ready for his nap again.

“Up next, I give you a rare picture of a horse riding another horse!”

The whole thirty-minute tour Soos amazed Stanford with the Rock That Looks Like a Face, London Bridge made out of popsicle sticks, other strange photos and articles framed on the walls, and finally the good ole Sascrotch. Stanford attentively asked questions and Soos happily answered all of them.

This little guy was reminding Soos of a younger version of himself more and more. He was helpful and nice and kinda shy and quiet, but Soos could tell this dude was special. Soos wondered if Mr. Pines felt this way about him when he first came to the Mystery Shack.

Melody eventually called Soos and Stanford in for lunch and Stanford let Soos put a hand on his shoulder and led him through the “Employees Only” door. Stanford was surprised to find what appeared to be a house. Not that he was too surprised, Stanford’s family lived above their shop, but still. It looked like a really nice place to live. He had always wanted to live in a cabin! “Wow, you have a really nice house.”

“Thanks, dawg.” Soos patted his shoulder and pointed towards the kitchen. “Mm. Smells like Abuelita made tamales!”

Melody was fixing glasses of water while Abuelita stirred a pot. Stanford smiled at the old lady in an apron with soft old-lady skin. She smiled and shuffled over to the boy. “Aye! ¡Qué niño tan dulce! Hola, niño! Look at you! So thin! You must be hungry.” She cooed and made Stanford sit at the table so she could pile his plate high with rice, beans, and tamales. “Here, eat up.”

Stanford didn’t know much Spanish, but he did know one phrase. “Muchas gracias, señora!”

Ma was a great cook, but she didn’t look much Mexican. There was a taco place that was okay, but this was real Mexican food and it tasted so good! Stanford, who hadn’t eaten since lunch, was starving and happily cleaned his plate while he listened to Melody and Soos talk about work and their plan for the day. They occasionally asked Stanford something and let him talk, but Stanford was happy to quietly eat and the grown-ups respected that.

“Oh, you’re a twig, niño,” Abuelita commented as she carried the plate full of tamales over to him and gave him another. “Here, have some more.”

“No, gracias.” Stanford said politely, making sure to say thank you.

“I asked if you would like more tamales.” Abuelita said with a bit of a scary voice and a stern look. One glance at Soos and Stanford saw him smile and nod his head, advising to accept the food.

“Uh… si?”

“That’s what I thought you said.” Abuelita said happily and gladly piled four more tamales on poor Stanford’s plate.

A few minutes later, a door opened in the distance and a voice called teasingly, “‘Sup, Mr. Ramierez!”

“In the kitchen, Wendy!” Soos called back.

“Aw man, Dipper and Mabel not here yet?”

“No, bus doesn’t get here for a few more hours.”

“Dang it.”

Stanford looked at the doorway and his jaw dropped. A very pretty red-headed girl with freckles, a blue flannel, and one of those pinetree hats, stood with jeans and hiking boots. Stanford was kinda reminded of Stanley; they both gave off an atmosphere of confidence and bigger-than-what-you-expect attitude. Wendy looked at the new guy and smiled. “Great, did you two kidnap some kid?”

Soos laughed and ruffled his fluffy brown hair. “Nope! This little dude helped fix the cash register.”

“Oh, new handyman, huh?” Wendy asked as she stole a tamale off his plate and leaned against his chair.

“Well,” Soos shrugged and smiled at Stanford. “If he wants the job, sure.”

“Wait, really?” Stanford asked. “You want me as a handyman?”

“Sure! Why not? You know how to fix a golf cart?”

“Well, I don’t know if I…”

“Boom!” Soos threw a random question-mark staff t-shirt at his face and announced happily, “You’re hired! One size fits all, dawg! The golf cart’s okay for the most part, but it’s not quite charging right. Think you can look at the battery or the charger?”

“Oh,” Stanford was having a hard time taking this in. First these guys actually liked him, and now they wanted him to stay and work?! He grinned from ear-to-ear with shiny brown eyes, hopped off his chair, slipped off his jacket, and changed shirts as quickly as possible so he could put his jacket back on over his staff t-shirt. “Okay!”

“What’s your name, anyway?” Wendy asked as he patted his hard enough on the back that he went “oof.”

Stanford opened his mouth, but hesitated. If he was going to stay here, some time-cops might come looking for him. Or he might mess up the time-space continuum more than he has. But what if it was always supposed to be this way? What if Stanford Pines went missing and was never found again? What if somewhere there was an unsolved report of a missing boy that no one missed? What if Stanford had found that tape measure for a reason? Deciding to play it safe and making up his mind to start over and stay, Stanford quickly answered with, “Phil.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The golf cart was easy to find. Stanford popped the hood and saw the battery. It was a bit too advanced, not because of the technology, but because Stanford is only ten and had never fiddled with a car battery before, but he knew enough about batteries as a whole to teach himself what to do. It turned out the goat had chewed on the cord so sometimes the battery would receive charge, sometimes it wouldn’t, so all Stanford had to do was fix it with special black tape.

After that, Stanford went inside to see if anything needed to be fixed or to ask Soos what he wanted him to do, when he caught a glimpse of someone climbing up a ladder. Curious, Stanford climbed up and opened a little door to find Wendy up on the roof and sitting in a lawn chair.

“Whoa, what is this place?” He asked.

Wendy smiled with a soda in her hand and said, “Just my hang-out. Great place to come to hide from work. Wanna a soda, bud?”

“Sure, thanks.” Stanford smiled to see that familiar Pitt soda now in a can. Really weird, considering he was used to bottles, but he knew how to open a can and found he didn’t mind the change in containers for his drink.

“So, Phil,” Wendy said casually. “If you could go anywhere in the world, where and why?”

Stanford sat on the roof with his feet dangling off the edge. “I don’t know. I want to travel the world. I want to see it all.”

“An adventurer, I like your moxie, kid.” Wendy said. “Gravity Falls is alright, but I wanna go see a big city, like New York or even just San Francisco.”

“I’ve been to New York.” Stanford shared. It was true; the Big Apple was only an hour drive (two if there was bad traffic) from Glass Shard. “I wouldn’t want to live there, but it’s a nice place to visit. Lots of museums and historical records…”

Wendy laughed and shook her head. “You’d like my friend Dipper. He’s a nerd, too.”

Stanford’s cheeks turned red, happy that this pretty girl seemed to like him. Not that he ever had a chance with her! She was eighteen and he was ten. “Who’s Dipper?”

“My best friend.” Wendy said proudly. “He might be a nerd, but he’s also, like, the coolest guy I’ve ever met. A good friend, too. Hey, you’ll actually get to meet him today! He and his sister Mabel are coming to spend the summer and they’re supposed to get here some point today.”

“Cool! I’m excited to meet them. I don’t have any friends back home.” Stanford let slip.

“Well, you’ve got some now.” Wendy reassured the kid and lightly punched his shoulder.

Stanford punched back as he laughed and he then asked, “So, what’s your favorite type of snack food?”

“Oh man, I can’t just pick one. Popcorn’s a big one. Really, anything salty. You?”

“Does jelly beans count or is that a candy?”

“Naw, man, that’s a snack food.”

“Jelly beans it is, then!”

“Phil! The portable toilets are clogged!” Soos called from inside the shack.

Stanford took a minute to register who his new boss was talking to and then sighed and stood up. “Back to work.”

“Later, dork.” Wendy said with a wink and Stanford climbed down with a dorky smile.

The red head sighed happily as a breeze drifted by, free from having to make-up an excuse as to why she can’t attend to the bathrooms, and she sipped her soda and watched the sun slowly sink. A little while after Phil left, Wendy heard the familiar roar of a bus and saw it pull up to the tourist trap, but instead of a small group of tourists spilling out, two teenagers walked out with their arms full of luggage and a pig at their feet.

“YES!” Wendy stomped her boots on the roof and yelled, “THEY’RE HERE! DIPPER! MABEL!” Using her trusty pinetrees, Wendy climbed down and ran to her favorite pair of twins and hugged them. “I’ve missed you, you weirdos!”

“Aw, Wendy!” Mabel cooed.

“We’ve missed you, too.” Dipper assured her and the hug ended so they could look at each other properly.

Dipper had hit a growth spurt since last summer and was now an inch or two taller than Mabel. He wore an opened blue flannel over his orange t-shirt with his jeans and Wendy’s borrowed hat. As tradition, Wendy swapped Dipper’s pinetree hat for her fur cap back and they high-fived when Dipper fixed his cap so it didn’t cover his eyes. Mabel still wore her sweaters and skirts, but now her hair was only shoulder-length and her braces were long-gone. Today she wore her yellow “Hug Me” sweater with a pink skirt and headband to match.

“Wow, you guys look great!” Wendy complimented. She noticed Waddles making his way to Gompers and them falling asleep on the porch with the goat.

“Thanks,” Dipper said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Can you believe we’re the same age as you when we met?”

“I know, right?! It’s so weird!”

“DUDES!” Mabel and Dipper braced themselves as a heavy man swept them up into his arms and squeezed so hard their faces turned blue. “I missed you two so much! I’ve got a bunch of new attractions to show you and fun stuff to do this summer! This’ll be the best one yet!”

“Soos, can’t breathe.” Dipper wheezed.

“Who cares?” Mabel said hoarsely. “Anything for a Soos-hug.”

Soos finally managed to let them go and he grabbed their suitcases for them. “Here, let me help you dawgs get settled in your room. You’re still cool with sharing with your grunkles, right?”

“Always are.” Mabel reassured him. With Melody and Soos in Ford’s old room and Abuelita in Stan’s old room, that only left the attic for guests, so every summer when the Pines family came home they had to share, but with two pairs of bunk beds and plants of woods for some alone time during the day, it was comfortable enough for the summer. Besides, it was a good way to make up for lost time during the fall, winter, and spring.

As Soos, Wendy, Dipper and Mabel went into the house by the back door, Mr. Mystery called out, “Hey, Phil! C’mere, there’s some dudes I want you to meet!”

“Who’s Phil?” Dipper asked.

“My new handyman!” Soos said proudly as he sat the suitcases on the stairs for a few minutes. “Really smart dude, fixed the cash register and the golf cart already!”

“Aw, you have your own wittle Soos!” Mabel exclaimed with rosy cheeks and bright eyes. “Well I can’t wait to meet him.”

“Yeah, he’s kind of a nerd like you, Dip-Dip.” Wendy added as she elbowed him.

“Well how long has he been working here?” Dipper asked.

“Just today.” Soos answered. “I really like him. I think he’ll end up being a member of the family soon enough.”

“Sorry, Mr. Mystery,” A voice called from outside. “I only got one toilet unclogged, but I’ll clean the others!”

“It’s okay, dawg,” Soos hollered back.

The door opened and the ten-year-old looked around. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

Dipper and Mabel dumbfounded. It was like seeing a cartoon character come to life. That little sunburnt boy in all those childhood photos Ma Pines and their grunkles had shown them was now right here in front of them in a Mystery Shack staff t-shirt and brown jacket, smiling at the little gang. He cocked his head and looked curiously at the teenagers, who were looking at him like he had lobsters crawling out of his ears. Embarrassed, Stanford’s face turned red and he hid his hands behind his back.

“Yeah, Phil, this here is Dipper and Mabel!” Soos introduced, writing off the twins’ reaction as shocked by the boy’s cuteness and Phil’s quietness as shyness from meeting new people. “Dudes, this here Phil! If you need something that needs fixin’, just go to this guy right here.” And Soos ruffled his hair playfully, making Stanford feel better and smile with his blush still intact.

“Uh… nice to meet you.” Dipper muttered.

“OH MY GOSH!” Mabel ran up to Stanford and scooped him up into a hug. “You’re SO CUTE! Who’s a wittle guy, who’s a wittle guy?! Is it you, is it you?” She cooed and hugged him tightly and combed his hair with her fingers.

“Whoa, hey!” Stanford squirmed a little bit but slowly stopped fighting. He had never been swallowed with so much hugs before and kinda liked it. “N-Nice to meet you. I like you. You’re weird.”

“Great,” Dipper said slowly and moved towards his sister to grab her arm. “So why don’t we get to know Phil somewhere else.” And he dragged them off somewhere else.

Wendy looked at Soos curiously and asked, “What was that all about?”

Soos shrugged and picked up the suitcases to take them upstairs. “Teens are crazy.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Stanford was engulfed in darkness until a bright light was turned on by a pull of a metal string. The boy blinked his eyes to adjust to the light and found he was in some sort of small, dark, cramped space with the two teenagers in front of him, side by side. The girl, Mabel, was grinning really big, but the boy, Dipper, had his arms crossed over his chest and looked both stern and worried. They both somewhat looked familiar to Stanford, but he couldn’t figure out why.

“Alright, what are you doing?!” Dipper hissed at Stanford. “How did you even get here? And where’s the time machine?!”

The idea of playing dumb wasn’t going to work, Stanford realized, as he paled a sheet and swallowed nervously. “You… You know I’m from the past?”

“Yes, we do, Stanford Pines.” Dipper said firmly, making Stanford shiver.

Mabel noticed this and thought her brother was being too harsh, so she slipped in, “But we’re really happy to see you, Ford!”

“But what you’re doing is really dangerous.” Dipper warned in a calmer tone. “By missing in the past you’re jeopardizing the future.”

“You don’t understand.” Stanford insisted. “No one back home will miss me. I’m a nobody in the past, but here people actually like me. Why can’t I stay?”

“Now wait a minute,” Mabel said gently and put a hand on one of his shoulders. “You really think Stan won’t miss you?”

Stanford froze at that. The idea of Stanley all alone made his chest ache, but he shook his head and looked away from the teenagers before him. “He’s better off without me.” He mumbled.

“No he’s not.”

“Yes…”

“No, he’s not.” Dipper insisted and sat on a box to be eye-level with Stanford. “Listen to me, I don’t know if you noticed this or not, kid, but we’re twins, too. We understand more than you think we do. Sometimes you think you’re not good enough and sometimes you think it’ll be better for both of you if you went your separate ways, but… but family sticks together, no matter what. It doesn’t matter if it’s a twin or a parent or just a really good friend, one day you’re gonna realize how much you need your family and I really really hope for you it’s not before it’s too late.”

Stanford, frustrated that he didn’t have a good comeback, decided to turn the tables. “Now, wait a minute, how did you even know I was from the past? And how did you know about Stanley?”

Dipper and Mabel exchanged uneasy facial expressions and Mabel then said to Stanford, “Look, Ford, please. You have to trust us. I know things are hard for you right now, but things will get better…”

Stanford scowled at that. They weren’t listening! They just didn’t understand! “You don’t know that! You don’t know what I’ve been through! I’m a nobody in the past, I’m a freak in the past!” And he even held a hand out to their faces so they could see his six fingers. With tears in his eyes, the boy yelled, “This is the one place I feel at home, and I won’t let you take that away from me!” And with that, Stanford pulled the time machine out of his pocket, threw it on the floor, and smashed it with his sneakered foot.

“Stanford!” Mabel scolded.

“What did you do?!” Dipper yelled as he got on his knees and began to scoop up the broken pieces.

Stanford spun around, opened the closet, and left without another word.

“We should’ve told him we were family.” Mabel said quietly.

“No,” Dipper snapped as he stood up and exited the closest with his sister. “If he found out it could mess up our present. We need to try to get him to go back to Glass Shard.”

“All while keeping it a secret that we’re Pines, too, and also keeping it a secret that Phil is baby Ford?” Mabel clarified and rubbed her forehead. “And you do realize we’ve got until tonight when Grunkle Stan and Ford come home and will definitely recognize him?”

“I know.” Dipper sighed. “I’ll work on fixing the time machine. You’re better with people, you try to convince Ford to go back to his own time.”

“You got it, Dippin’ Sauce.” Mabel said and went off to try to find her wittle uncle.

Stanford was true to his word and went straight to finish unclogging the toilets, so that kept Mabel away from the most part and she got distracted catching up with Wendy. As the sun got lower into the sky, Dipper sat on his bottom bunk and fixed the time machine, meanwhile Mabel had to try to earn Stanford’s trust, but the little guy was doing a good job of avoiding her.

Time was running out, and after Stanford raked the yard, cleaned the gutters, washed Soos’ truck, and a bunch of probably unnecessary chores just to keep him busy, Soos proudly patted Stanford’s back and said, “Good job, little dude! You can go home now.”

“Oh,” Stanford rubbed the back of his neck bashfully. “Uh, are you sure there’s nothing else I can do, sir. M-Maybe I can sweep or…”

Soos raised an eyebrow, picking up how sweaty and nervous the kid was about going home, and he smiled gently. “Hey, I get it. I’m not kicking you out or anything. If you wanna stay, stay as long as you want. Heck, you can spend the night if you want to. The couch is always here.”

Stanford smiled up at his new boss. “Thank you so much, Mr. Mystery.”

“Hey, you can just call me Soos.” He offered. “And if you need to talk, I’m here for you, dude.”

Stanford nodded. “Okay.”

Mabel pulled out all the stops. She laid a bunch of arts n’ crafts stuff laid out on the card table and she stopped Stanford as he passed the living room. “Hey, S-Phil! Wanna make some puppets with me?”

“Oh boy, you’re not hungover some puppet-boy again, are you?” Wendy asked as she entered the room, oblivious to Stanford’s scowl.

“Haha! Nope!” Mabel said as Wendy sat with her. “Just felt like setting the arts n’ crafts master free tonight! Whaddya say, Phil? Wanna get in on this? We could make hand-turkeys, or finger-puppets, or paint our nails?”

“No, thanks.” The boy said coldly.

“Aw, come on.” Wendy teased and laid her hands out on the table. “Here, Mabel, I’ve been meaning to do my nails, mind fixing me up?”

“You bet, sister!”

Stanford stomped off angrily, but Mabel somehow managed to stay focused and she left Wendy, confused and alone at the table, so she could go after him. “St… Phil, wait! Let’s just talk.”

“Talk about what?” Stanford snapped and turned back to look at her angrily. “You’re trying to get rid of me! Why would you wanna talk to me if you don’t like me?”

Mabel gasped and covered her mouth. Stanford was so confused, having no idea why she suddenly looked so sad and hurt, and she sunk to her knees and put a hand on each of his shoulders. “That’s not true, Ford.” She whispered quietly. “Not only do I like you, but I love you. We all do. Which is why you have to go back to the past.”

Stanford blinked with surprise at finding Mabel looking so sad. It hurt more than he thought it would. And there it was again, that feeling like they had met before. She just looked so familiar… “But I don’t wanna go back.” Ford tried to explain yet again. “Why should I go back?”

“Cuz if you don’t the entire timeline could change.” Mabel stressed as calmly as she could, but she was failing, her arms trembling. “I can’t tell you too much, but… but by being here instead of your own time, you’re not doing things that’ll shape today. You have no idea what could happen, none of us do, but that’s what’s so scary.”

“Oh, come on, what could I do that’s so important it messes with time?” Stanford dared to ask.

Mabel opened her mouth and closed a few times, like a fish out of water, but with no explanation, Stanford shrugged her hands off of him and turned to the door. He tried to slam it to make it clear to Mabel he wanted to be alone, but in his fury he had stupidly closed the door with his right hand still on it, crushing his fingers.

“OW!”

It was a painful door jam, the kind that made your eyes water and made you wonder for a second if your hand was broken. Stanford held his hand by the wrist as his hand immediately swelled and looked red. Mabel covered her mouth again and got on one knee in front of him. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Let me see…”

“Whao, what happened?” Soos asked as he and Melody emerged from the kitchen and Wendy came out of the living room.

“S-Phil closed the door on his hand.” Mabel said as Stanford held his hand close to his chest and hid it with his uninjured hand.

“Aw, poor dude.” Soos went up to him and held out a sweet hand. “Here, lemme see it.”

“N-No!” Stanford stuttered. And took a step back, now being on the porch with everyone else inside. “It’s fine, I’m okay.”

“Don’t be afraid, Phil, just lemme take a look at it.” Soos said as he fixed his eyes, trying to see past the uninjured hand at the hurt hand, but then his eyes widened. No, he must have miss counted. No, he didn’t have… “Phil, lemme see.” He said firmly.

“No!” But Stanford was too slow and Soos had grabbed his hands as gently as he could and held the hurt hand, not only to check if it was broken, but to count his fingers. Suddenly a lot of things were clicking in Soos’ head and he felt like a big dummy dumb for not noticing who this little dude was sooner.

Soos, Melody, and Wendy gasped, making Stanford’s eyes sting. He blinked to make the stinging go away; he should be used to that kind of reaction. He yanked his hand out of Soos’ grasp and shoved both hands in his pockets.

“Dude!” Soos gasped, looking horrified. “Wh-Why didn’t you tell me?! I can’t believe…”

“Who cares?” Stanford asked, not looking at any of them. “It’s just a stupid birth defect.”

“No, I mean why didn’t you tell me you were Stanford Pines?!”

That got him to look up, terrified, and he saw the three shocked faces and the sad one Mabel wore. “But… But…”

“Sweet Paul Bunyan.” Wendy gasped. “It’s really him…”

“I thought you seemed familiar, but I just thought you were a lot like me!” Soos yelled in shock as he held his head. “But it turns out you were a lot like Dr. Pines?! MY MIND! It’S EXPLODED!”

It was slowly sinking in that these guys didn’t care that he had polydactyly; they cared that he was from the past, and apparently his older-self knew everyone here. Was that why Mabel and Dipper freaked out so much? “Wait, you… do you know me?”

Soos stared at Stanford in complete shock. “Of course we know you, dude! You’re…”

“Our friend!” Mabel interrupted. “A really good friend!”

“Yeah, man.” Wendy backed up. “Look, you’re a really great kid, but…”

“But you need to go back home.” Melody finished for her.

Stanford’s whole world was shaking. “Wh-What?! But you…”

“I know,” Soos said and got on one knee to be closer to his eye-level. “But… Dr… F-F-Ford, you’re… you’re a great kid, and we’d never do anything to hurt you, but you have to go back.”

The poor boy’s chest was suddenly feeling really heavy. His eyes were stinging again. He scowled angrily. He desperately didn’t want to go back home, but what was the point of staying here if no one wanted him around? “I thought you guys were my friends.” He croaked, unable to keep his emotions out of his voice.

“Stanford,” Mabel took a step forward, desperately wanting to hug him but she was treating him like a scared animal who would run off at the sight of too much movement. “We are your friends, but you have to trust us…”

Stanford squeezed his eyes shut and darted around for the woods, planning to just run and run until no one could find him, but something he didn’t see stood in his way and made Stanford fall flat on the grass, barely a foot away from the porch. Mabel, Wendy, Melody and Soos all hurried onto the porch and simultaneously gasped. Dipper came out with the fixed tape measure in hand and announced proudly, “Okay, I’ve fixed the time machine and - what the HECK is going on here?!”

Stanford had bumped into whatever he had hit so hard his glasses were skewed, but when he fixed them he marveled at who stood before him. A tall guy with a round gut, a brown coat over a t-shirt and worn jeans with boots, and a red beanie looked down at him. His gray hair passed his shoulders by an inch and he looked so much like Pa, but the sparkle in his brown eyes and the way he looked completely confused but took everything with a grain of salt was something Stanford could recognize anywhere. He didn’t even question it.

He hadn’t realized how much he had missed his twin until he was standing right in front of him. Who cares if he was old? With a trembling lip and wet matching eyes, Stanford lunged into Stan’s legs and hugged him tightly, burying his face in his jeans, the top of his head just barely reaching his hip.

“Whoa there,” Stan’s gravelly voice was strange to Stanford, but his strong hands still hugged him in return and rubbed circles into his back. “It’s alright there, Sixer. You’re okay. You care to explain what’s going on here, Poindexter?”

It sounded like Stan was no longer talking to Stanford. He wiped his button nose and eyes and barely let Stan go, just enough to look up at someone who was standing next to Stan. Stanford almost screamed, but he bit his lip in time. He didn’t need to look at this man’s hand to know who he was. He had Stanford’s fluffy hair, though gray with a light streak around it, he had Stanford’s cleft chin, and while this man also looked like Pa, there was only one person who could resemble Stan that much.

“Incredible,” Ford awed and pulled out a green journal from his blue coat and opened it. Like Stan, he also wore blue jeans and boots, but he had a red turtleneck under his blue coat from the looks of it. “I thought I had another year or two…”

“Did you clone yourself, you weirdo?” Stan asked.

“What, no! Of course not!” Ford laughed.

“Oh, this is that shapeshifter dude you were telling me about.”

“No, Stanley, it’s really me.” Ford knelt as he looked at Stanford, who still clung onto Stan’s leg tightly like it was a life preserver in the middle of an ocean. “Over fifty years ago I came across a tape measure while you were serving detention that transported me from Glass Shard to this place. Is that what happened to you?” He asked his younger self.

Stanford nodded. Ford smiled at him kindly and Stanford managed to smile back. He looked up at Stan and squeaked as timid as a mouse, “Is… Is that really you, Stanley?”

Stan chuckled and patted his shoulder. Did his brother always used to be so cute? “Yeah, kid, it’s me. Holy Moses, would you look at this little guy. You look just as I remember you, Stanford. Except not nearly as puny.”

“Hey, I’m not that small!” Stanford defended.

“Yup, that’s the stubborn brainiac I know!” Stan laughed.

Stanford smiled at him and then got an idea. Stanley would always have his back! He’ll help him! “Stanley, they’re gonna make me go away! Tell them I don’t have to go!”

“Make you go away?” Stan repeated and then looked up at the crowd and saw the time machine in Dipper’s hand. “Oh, don’t wanna go back to New Jersey, huh?”

“But G…” But Wendy covered Mabel’s hand before she could say anything else.

Stanford ignored the meanies behind him and gave Stan the saddest puppy-dog eyes he could muster. He could practically see his brother crumble. “I mean, I could never tell you no, Sixer…”

“Stanley,” Ford said as he put a hand on his shoulder. “I would like to speak to myself in private.”

Stanford didn’t know how to feel about that. His little fingers tightened ever so slightly on Stan’s jeans.

“Oh, sure.” Stan then snorted and added, “If you can let go of my leg.”

Ford chuckled and held out a hand to his younger self. “Come on. I want to show you something.”

Stanford still wasn’t sure. He looked into those deep brown eyes that matched his own, the same brown eyes he saw when he looked in the mirror. Or looked at his brother. Or his mother. Or Dipper or Mabel. Stanford glanced back at the other pair of twins, having a hunch, but he knew that there was only one person that was going to tell him what he needed to hear and wanted to hear in a certain way, so Stanford slowly let his brother go and took his own polydactyl hand.

Ford smiled and walked with the ten-year-old into the house alone. Stanford looked up at his older self and smiled. Ford caught this and chuckled. “Do I look as you had hoped?” He asked.

Stanford felt his cheeks get warm again, but he ignored it to talk to himself. Who else gets a chance to talk to themselves like this? “Did you get better at boxing?”

Ford laughed, knowing why Stanford asked that; the child was clearly happy he would grow up to be somewhat fit. “I did, actually. I’m still not as good as Stanley, but that’s okay. I actually kept fit from field research and travelling.”

“You’re an explorer?!” Stanford gasped.

“We’re an explorer.” Ford corrected. “We are with Stanley.”

“So,” Stanford felt more comfortable with Ford as they entered the gift shop, so he asked, “Where exactly are we?”

“This is our home. We built this place when we first moved here.” Ford explained as he stood in front of the vending machine. “It’s changed a lot, but so have we. Excuse me.” He let go of Stanford’s hand to click a button on his watch, making the vending machine open. Stanford gasped and Ford took his hand again.

“So robots don’t take over the world?”

“Not yet, anyways.”

“Do we ever get better at talking to girls?”

“Better? Yes. As good as we want to be? No.”

Stanford giggled at that. Maybe there was hope for him, after all. The odd pair went to the elevator, Ford typed in the code, and then they travelled down to the third floor.

Stanford gasped to find a bright, colorful lab. What used to be dark and dingy and dusty was now loud and bright and full of projects ready to be resumed now that Ford was home for the summer. Twinkle lights hung from the ceiling, pictures and books littered the desk, and a big window displayed a big work-room full of projects. The Electron Carpet was rolled up and on a wooden shelf, a motorcycle in the works was in the work-room, and the big machines were fizzing and blinking on either side of Stanford.

“This place is amazing!” He cheered with pure delight.

“Yeah, beats working in a boring office every day.” Ford chuckled. “The lights were Mabel’s idea. Says a workspace needs to be fun. Do you want to see what I’m most proud of?”

“Yes!” Stanford took off for the work-room, thinking Ford was going to show him a microprocessor, or a machine that would benefit all of man-kind, but inside the giant room he could hear Ford chuckling and he found his older self still in the lab.

“No no,” Ford patted his ribs. “It’s right here.”

Stanford raised an eyebrow, confused and hoping it wasn’t going to be a stupid metaphore (he never enjoyed poetry), but Ford pulled out a photograph and Stanford gently took it, thinking it was going to be an award ceremony or a monster or an invention that wasn’t in the lab anymore.

The boy was beyond surprised to find himself in the picture, standing on the broken Stan O’ War with Stanley. Stanford could remember when this picture was taken, it had only been last summer, and from what the boy could tell, this copy was very old and worn. Stanford looked up at Ford to find him smiling peacefully.

“It was our first real achievement, our first big project, and it will always be the one I’m most proud of because we did it with our brother.” Ford explained.

Stanford smiled at himself, but then it went away as he thought about it. He was really willing to leave Stanley behind for all of this. Sure, mostly because he believed Stanley would be better off without him, but how much of it really was just Stanford trying to hide the guilt of leaving his twin alone. “Is… Is Stanley mad at me?”

“Oh, no.” Ford quickly reassured. “When we send you back, it’ll be like you never left.”

Stanford looked back up at himself and saw the picture of someone who looked really similar by his shoulder. Ford noticed Stanford’s averted eyes and he moved to the side so Stanford could look at the picture on the desk. A boy that looked a lot like Stanford had two fingers up by a girl who also looked like him with braces and long hair. The boy was wearing Dipper’s hat.

Stanford took the framed photo and Ford chuckled. “Stanley’s right. The resemblance is uncanny.”

With the pictures of ten and twelve-year-old Dipper, Mabel, Stan and Ford all in front of Stanford, he swallowed and asked, “Dipper and Mabel aren’t just friends, huh?”

Ford chuckled and shook his head. “No. All those people upstairs are your family.”

“So… if I go back now, then all of this will be my future?” Stanford asked, his eyes moving around the room and staying up at the ceiling for a few moments.

“Well,” Ford put a hand on Stanford’s shoulder and said, “That depends on you, you got to make the right choices. But I know you will. Remember, I’m you. I was once a ten-year-old kid looking up at an older version of myself, being told the same thing. Time travel is confusing, but you’ll find what goes around comes around, so if I experienced this,” And Ford gestured to the boy in front of him. ”Then it’s extremely plausible you will experience this,” And Ford gestured to the old man he was.

Stanford grinned and gave himself the picture back and sat the framed photo on the desk. There was still one last thing on his mind. Stanford hesitated, took in a deep breath, and dared to ask, “Does that mean Stanley and I will always be best friends?”

Ford held his cleft chin, hummed to himself, and then said slowly to himself, “I think you better get back to your own time and find out for yourself.”

Stanford sinked in stature and admitted, “I knew you were gonna say that.”

Ford chuckled and offered his hand again. “That’s because we are one smart kid, Sixer.”

~~~~~~~~~~

When back up to face the family, Dipper gave Stanford the time machine and said, “Now, it’s already set to backwards, so just go back fifty-two years and you should land right at the second you came from.”

“Thanks.” Stanford accepted the tape measure and looked at Dipper and Mabel. “I’m… I’m really sorry I got mad…”

“Hey, that’s what family’s all about.” Mabel said, waving the apology away.

Stanford smiled and nodded, then figured he owed them a hug and gave them one. Dipper was surprised, but hugged back, meanwhile Mabel was tearing up and sniffing as she hugged Stanford back tightly.

“Are you crying, pumpkin?” Stan asked.

“I’m… I’m gonna miss him…”

“I’m right here!”

Everyone laughed as Stanford let the teenagers go. Wendy ruffled his hair and said, “Had fun with you today, Stan Two. Feel free to get yourself a pet dinosaur on the way home.”

Stanford snorted and saw Wendy hold out a hand to him, wanting a high-five. He hesitated, then smiled and gave her a well-earned high-six. He then turned to Soos and Melody and said, “Thanks for hiring me, Soos, and giving me a tour.”

“Aw, you’re welcome, Little Dr. Pines.” Soos said.

“Just be careful going home.” Melody advised. “Don’t let the time-cops catch you, don’t go anywhere else, don’t do anything you wouldn’t do…”

“Yeesh, you’re worse than Ma.” Stan teased.

“Yeah, about that…” But Soos was interrupted by his adoptive father.

“Now move it, you knucklehead.” Stan said as it was almost dark outside. “Quit moping around too, it’s not like you're never gonna see us again. We’re your family!”

Stanford smiled and nodded. “Thanks, Stanley. See you earlier.”

“Love you, little brother.” And Stan punched Ford’s shoulder as he laughed.

“Yes, yes, enjoy it while you can.” Ford commented as he rolled his eyes, and Stanford pulled back the tape and released.

The second his ten-year-old self was gone, Ford held out a hand to Stan and clenched it a few times until his twin grumpily forked over some cash.

~~~~~~~~~~

January 1960-something

Just like Dipper said, Stanford was right where he was before he disappeared. He checked the clock in the window of a bakery and saw that no time had passed. He sat the time machine down for the owner to find and raced home, excited to tell Stanley everything.

But when bedtime came and Stanford was above Stanley and sharing his adventure, Stanley only said, “Wow, great story, Sixer!”

“It’s not just a story, Stanley, it’s real!” Stanford insisted. “It actually happened! Don’t you believe me?”

“A future in which you’re more fit than me?” Stanley clarified and blew a raspberry. “I bet you five bucks it never happens.”

Stanford grinned, knowing he was destined to win. “You’re on.”

#GF #fanfiction #meet the pines #meet the robinsons #gift #thank you so much for reading!#remember that bitches love comments

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only-here-for-jatp · 4 years

Text

The Secret Chord pt 3

I am very thrilled with my poetic serious title and my chaotic mess of chapter titles that don’t do the title justice.

Anyway this entire chapter is Nick-centric and contains some negative self-talk so if you have difficulty with that (like I do) proceed with caution and stay safe and okay pretty please.

Also, we stan Carrie in this house thanks.

Read it on Ao3 here

And also below! ~2100 words

Nick was pretty sure this was a terrible idea.

It’d seemed like a great idea last night when he was watching Julie and the Phantoms at the Orpheum. The music was loud, and the crowd was electric. The bass kept up a steady rhythm pounding in sync with his heartbeat and it joined the audience into one body perfectly in sync. He’d felt so alive as if all of his nerve endings were firing at once. His joy came out as an endless ache while he watched Julie perform her heart out, her own enthusiasm evident in every note and movement.

She shone so bright on that stage, more so than anyone he’d ever seen. He’d long since known of her grit and determination, the perks of being in school together since elementary school. Over the years he watched as the little girl with the big voice and no fear stood up to bullies, teachers, and during what came to be known as Fallout 2016 her (ex)friend Carrie.

Julie held her head up so high as she walked through the hallways and he was in awe of her even then. There were still some things he was still working out about himself and she was so unapologetically herself. He’d often wished for her bravery to be that strong.

At the same time, he watched Carrie struggle to keep her head above water. Her dad loved her, but he was absentminded and often off on the road or some tour or party or something, leaving Carrie alone in that big empty house. Before there’d been the joy and laughter of Julie and Flynn echoing in the hallways, but now she sat alone in her thoughts.

It was almost imperceptible to anyone who didn’t know Carrie, after all she’d always been a little rough around the edges, but Nick watched her harsh mask develop. He watched her use deflection and bravado to hide her fraying internal state. Nobody seemed to notice her growing intensity and focus on Dirty Candi, but it seemed like someone needed to do something.

Admittedly his feelings crept up on him. At first, he’d started small interactions as a friendly gesture. Little things like a smile or a wave so he could try to communicate somebody saw her. While she seemed a little confused at first, she soon started flashing him a smirk and a friendly sarcastic comment. Rather quickly their friendship grew, it turned into long conversations at lunch or studying together in the library. What started out as concern turned to pride and warmth as he watched this girl who hurt so much use her unwavering force of will (and a little pink glitter) to get up and meet each day with a take no prisoners attitude.

Once he saw her perform for the first time, he was a goner. That little smirk just did something to his insides. He asked her out and he was happy. They were happy.

Until Julie’s mom died. Whatever fallout might have happened between her and Julie, Carrie loved Rose. She’d been the closest thing Carrie ever had to a mother, and the loss hit her hard. Nick knew Julie would’ve granted her a temporary truce and welcomed Carrie with open arms to grieve. He was even pretty sure Carrie knew deep inside herself somewhere too, but the walls she’d built were too high and too wide to bring them down.

Nick did his best to be there for Carrie, but he knew he wasn’t what she needed. She needed Julie and the Molinas, but it wasn’t going to happen. Not yet. Instead her unresolved feelings ate at her morphing into jealousy and anger and acid. He watched this beautiful typhoon of a girl let the acid and anger consume her. Defenses and walls started going up against him too, until she treated him as little more than an accessory or a chess piece in her one-sided match against Julie Molina.

Beautiful burning Julie Molina who after a year of retreating into a cocoon, hiding from the world and her pain burst onto the stage like a firework. She maintained her grace and inner fortitude whatever the world, or Carrie, threw her way. Above all else though, she was kind. After months of being treated like a doormat, he craved the kindness and gentle protective ferocity that was Julie Molina.

He knew he followed her around like a lost puppy, but even if he couldn’t be with her just being around her made him feel like he could do anything. Be anything, even himself. Her music lived and breathed inside him, the words filling him up and offering him a lifeline when he didn’t even know how close he was to drowning.

He ached to return the favor of her steady reassurance and unconditional acceptance and support. She was incredible and she deserved to know. If he could emulate her even just a little bit, he wanted to try, wanted to practice being like Julie Molina.

Of course, this was how he found himself pacing the sidewalk for twenty minutes, gathering the courage to bring her these flowers. It shouldn’t be this hard. Flowers were a regular post-performance kind of gift. I mean, he did have a crush on her, but she seemed to be into her guitarist? Would she think he was creepy or weird or persistent? He didn’t want to scare her off. Maybe this was a bad idea. He probably didn’t have a shot with someone as incredible as her anyway. He’d like to think he stood a chance since her guitarist was a hologram, but the way they looked at each other….

What did it matter? These flowers were not crush flowers. He would’ve gotten her Dahlias for that. These were simply good job flowers. They’d performed at the Orpheum! That was a big deal. This is fine. This is normal.

A small burst of confidence propelled him forward while he gave himself a mental pep talk in his head. Later he would kick himself for not being more aware of his surroundings, but to be fair no one really expects a tall, mysterious demon man to sneak up behind them.

Yet here he was staring at this man in some steam punk adjacent costume, a smug plastic grin on his face and a mildly threatening atmosphere. He’d rang the doorbell, but he hoped Julie didn’t walk out here while this creep was still around.

“How sweet. The brokenhearted teenager fighting for his girl.”

Nick was taken aback. For one thing, brokenhearted was not the right word. He was hopeful. For another- “Do I know you?”

“No, but you will.”

Nick didn’t even have a chance to react before Caleb’s hands were around his neck. It felt like fire was racing through his veins, consuming him. He couldn’t move, his arms spread wide, but his insides struggled against the invasion. Thrashing and shrieking he screamed inside his mind.

It started in his fingertips and toes, his body feeling like it was too crowded. Like something was growing and pushing him out. He fought so hard trying to stretch and stand up to the purple smoke that was blinding and dividing him. Yet he was losing the battle with every moment. Feeling himself getting shoved and squeezed until he couldn’t feel his arms or his legs or the breaths he took or the beating of his own heart. Until he couldn’t feel the weight of his own tongue.

The world went quiet first. Then it went dark.

Nick came to in a room of boundless dark. He thought about being afraid, but it wasn’t a place where things lurked. He could tell it was just empty. A brief glance showed that he could see himself, slightly translucent maybe, but still there. The space seemed to go on forever and the longer he looked the more anxious he became. His eyes darted from space to space, but it was a never-ending sea of nothingness.

A voice echoed around him, making the world rumble and shake. “Now now, Nicholas. My name is Caleb and it’s nice to meet you.”

“Who are you!? What do you want!? Where am I!?” Nick shouted at the disembodied voice, hearing the fear and trembling in his tone and wishing desperately for the confidence and bravado typically attributed to jocks. What he wasn’t prepared for was the jolt that through him.

The pain stabbed in his gut and it felt like it was ripping him open, piece by piece. He fell to his knees with a scream, doing his best not to sob as the feeling lingered. Caleb laughed before continuing. “tsk tsk tsk. I am speaking, you just need to listen. I am… borrowing your body for the time being. This little lifer girl and her trio of ghostly boy band made a fool of me. And NOBODY defies my will and gets away with it.”

“What does that have to do with- aghhhh” Nick couldn’t hide the sobs as another jolt shot through him.

“Yeah, I’m going to need you to be a fast learner Nicky-poo. I’m in charge and there’s literally nothing you can do about it. Just sit there and be quiet and maybe I’ll return your body back in one piece. Besides you may not know what I’m talking about, but you’re close with that lifer brat Julie. Her ghosties would never let me get close, you on the other hand, well they can’t stop you.”

Nick felt icy terror roll through him. Julie? This madman demon was after Julie? “No” he wheezed. He kept repeating the word as if it would give him power as he progressively got louder until he was standing and screaming it into the void, damn the consequences. “NO. I won’t let you hurt her.”

Another jolt ripped through him as an invisible force knocked him back. The laughter seemed to echo around the space reverberating into an endless mocking loop. “You? You won’t let me? What exactly are you going to do Nicholas? After all, you couldn’t even defend yourself against me. What makes you think you’re capable of doing anything at this point to stop my plans?”

Nick sagged against the ground. There wasn’t anything he could do. His insides felt hollowed out as hopelessness descended upon him. Useless. He was absolutely useless.

“There you go! Now you’re getting it. Anyway, this is the inside of your head and it can be manipulated into whatever I want. Behave and I’ll make sure it’s somewhat comfortable, continue to fight and defy me and I’ll make sure you relive your worst nightmares. Got it?”

Nick nodded, curling up on himself in defeat. If only he’d stayed home today.

“Good, now I just need to borrow your memories real quick and we can get this show on the road. After all, I have a fight too.”

It felt like someone was slicing his brain into pages and flipping through it like you would a book or a deck of cards. He’d grabbed his head at the pain and briefly resisted before giving into the feeling. It was almost like he could feel the fingers turning through the pages. Flipping through his life as if it were nothing. As if he were nothing. He hoped Caleb got a cosmic papercut.

And then for a brief shining moment there was nothing. No Caleb, no jolts, no rummaging through his psyche, no noise. No world. Unfortunately, what looked like a big screen popped up in front of him. Was that the Molina’s house? Were these his eyes? He almost couldn’t watch as Julie opened the door. Then there he was again. Alone in the dark vastness of nothing. He let out an empty laugh. Of course, he was. That was him, always alone. Always hiding. Unable to make any true impact on the lives of the people around him. He’d failed to help Carrie battle her darkness and Julie certainly never needed him.

He wondered briefly if anyone would even notice if he was gone. If anyone would even realize this thing that occupied his body was using him like a puppet. He doubted it. No one ever managed to make it past his walls. No one ever viewed him as more than as that blonde lacrosse player, or Carrie’s boyfriend.

He was as unseen and unheard in here as he was for every other moment of his life.

The disembodied voice never said anything, but Nick was sure he could feel Caleb roll his eyes and mutter “teenagers”. Suddenly a couch poofed into existence and Nick settled into it, finding it oddly comforting. He curled himself around a pillow that he’d dragged into his lap, ready to watch his life spin out of his control.

#jatp #Julie and the Phantoms #Jatp fanfic #The Secret Chord #Nickaleb

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haberdashing · 4 years

Text

i want you to straighten out my tomorrow (1/?)

The last thing Jon remembers is working into the night in the Archives in early 2016. Now he’s in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, Scotland, with Martin Blackwood as his only companion. Obviously Jon’s missed something along the way here...

Inspired by beloved of jon, though it can be read separately.

on AO3

The first thing Jon noticed when he woke up was how soft the surface he was laying on was. The last thing he remembered was wrapping up some research on the Moira Kelly case while working at his desk, so if he’d conked out from lack of sleep, as seemed the most logical conclusion given that he was clearly waking up despite not remembering having fallen asleep in the first place, he should have still been at his desk, which he knew from experience to be a hard and uncomfortable sleeping surface, but obviously that wasn’t the case.

Jon wondered, briefly, if Martin--or somebody else, perhaps, but it seemed like the sort of thing that Martin specifically would do--had noticed that he’d fallen asleep at his desk and brought him to the break room couch, which would explain how he’d ended up laying horizontally on a surface significantly softer than his desk, but no, that wasn’t right either. The light in the area around him was dim as he opened his eyes, but even without seeing his surroundings Jon could tell that this wasn’t the break room couch, with its lumpy cushions and that one broken spring that seemed to always be in the most inconvenient position possible.

No, he was in a bed, a proper bed at that, with a mattress that was only slightly too firm for his tastes and half-tucked sheets covering it, the sheets thin but clearly there as he idly ran his hand up and down the surface, and a thick, warm blanket on top of him, slightly scratchy but still soft to the touch. The blanket wasn’t a familiar one, and the mattress and sheets didn’t ring any bells either, so clearly it wasn’t his bed.

How the hell had he gone from working in the Archives to sleeping in a bed that wasn’t his own?

Jon pushed the blanket off of him and sat up, shaking his head as though doing so would help clear his mind enough to make any of this make sense, and only then did he see the lump on the other side of the bed that was too big to be anything other than another person.

As the lump that must be a person shifted positions slightly, Jon considered the implications of this, and his stomach sank. It didn’t make sense, not based on burning the midnight oil in the Archives being the last thing he could remember, but despite appearances, Jon was not entirely unaware of pop culture and media tropes, and he knew from that if from nothing else what waking up in somebody else’s bed generally meant.

The thought of it made Jon want to gargle a bottle of mouthwash and shower for hours just to feel clean again.

He knew those impulses weren’t entirely logical, but he had swung his feet onto the side of the bed, determined to find the nearest bathroom so he could at least wash his hands or splash water onto his face or, or do something, anything, when he heard a voice calling out from behind him.

“Jon?”

The voice sounded familiar, but Jon couldn’t quite place it, though he did catch a note of confusion or care or perhaps both in the speaker’s tone, something that didn’t quite fit the mental picture he’d started to develop for how the night must have unfolded past what he could remember.

Jon didn’t turn around. He didn’t want to look the other occupant of this bed in the eye; right now, all he wanted to do was get his feet firmly planted on the ground.

It took a moment of trial and error, given that he still couldn’t see the room around him clearly, but soon enough Jon’s feet went from hovering above the bed to gently brushing the floor to pressed against a smooth cold surface, with him preparing to stand up when the voice called out again.

“Where are you going, Jon? Is everything alright?”

Jon recognized the voice this time, and everything in him froze as quickly and certainly as if his blood had instantaneously been replaced with ice water.

He wasn’t in bed with some stranger who he’d likely never see again after sneaking out of their place and doing the walk of shame back to his flat. He was in bed with Martin fucking Blackwood.

(Bad choice of words there. Shouldn’t think about fucking. Shouldn’t think about what the night he couldn’t remember must have been like, how radically things must have changed overnight for him to end up here. Shouldn’t think about how his desire to break out every cleaning supply he could find and use it on himself had diminished slightly upon realizing who, exactly, he was sharing a bed with. Shouldn’t think about how awkward the rest of their time in the Archives was inevitably going to be after this.

...too late.)

The words came out of Jon’s mouth before he’d entirely thought them through, in a desperate attempt to divert his train of thought, to break the silence that had fallen after he froze in place.

“What the hell?”

“J-jon?” Martin’s voice was softer now. “Are you- did you have a nightmare or...?” Martin let out a long breath before adding, “S-sorry, stupid question, I know...”

Jon considered this for a moment--not that he was waking up from a nightmare, although sorting through Gertrude’s mess in the Archives did seem like a waking nightmare sometimes, but that he was currently within one, that this was all a bad dream that would fade away any minute now. He wasn’t usually this lucid in dreams, true, but there was always a first time for everything, wasn’t there?

Jon pinched himself, and it hurt, which didn’t really come as a surprise, much as he would have liked to believe otherwise. What did come as a surprise was that some of the pain came not from the area pinched, but from the hand that did the pinching.

“It’s alright, Jon. I don’t know what you... what all this is about, but it’s going to be alright, I promise.”

Jon just let out a sharp, bitter laugh in response, because if Martin was seriously saying that all of this was “alright,” either Martin hadn’t realized the ramifications this was going to have yet, or...

Or somehow he’d orchestrated all of this.

Which didn’t seem like the Martin Jon knew, true, but what was the old Sherlock Holmes quote about ruling out the impossible and then believing the improbable that remained? Jon didn’t remember drinking at all that night, certainly not to the point of memory loss, but it was possible that Martin had slipped something in the tea he insisted on making Jon--improbable, yes, but possible. That or he’d somehow been coaxed into drinking so much that he’d forgotten the drinking itself, let alone the aftermath.

Jon shook his head again, partially in the rapidly-dwindling hopes of clearing it and making the world make sense again, partially as a response to what Martin had said, because no, it was not alright, thank you very much.

“Jon, talk to me, will you?”

A cool hand brushed against Jon’s shoulder, and Jon flinched, instinctively retreating where Martin’s skin had touched his own.

“Don’t touch me!” Jon considered the relative merits of curling up into a ball (less surface area, body language clearly showing his displeasure) and standing up (more grounding, able to walk away from the scene of the crime) before settling on combining the two by hugging his knees as his feet remained firmly on the ground. “Don’t... just don’t.”

Jon wondered idly if this was the first time he’d ever brushed against Martin--he hadn’t expected the man to feel so cold to the touch. Jon felt his face heat up as he realized that he could in fact distinctly recall several other times in which everyday work in the Archives had led to Martin brushing against him, and no, he definitely hadn’t felt so cold before. Jon realized that his mental inventory of times Martin had touched him was clearly missing some rather important entries at the moment.

“Fine, fine, no touching. Is talking still on the table, at least?”

Jon considered it for a moment before answering. If this were some random stranger, perhaps he’d be content to slip out without discussing the matter further, but he’d have to talk to Martin about this one way or another, so might as well get it over with.

“...sure.”

“Here, let me turn the light on. If- if that’s alright. Let me know if it’s not.”

The soft sound of a lamp’s chain being pulled, and the room lit up with light. Jon wasn’t sure what he’d have expected Martin’s bedroom to look like, but this wasn’t quite it. The size of it perhaps he’d have guessed--it was on the cozy side, and that much at least seemed accurate, from what little Jon knew of Martin’s personal life. The decorations, such as they were, were a bit gaudy, a bit thrown-together, but perhaps that was just what Martin’s taste was like; it wasn’t as if they’d had much of a chance to discuss their respective tastes in interior design. Even the piles of clothes on the floor could be explained away, except that there were two distinct piles, one closer to Martin and one closer to Jon, and the one closer to Jon looked to be filled with clothes he himself would wear in a pinch...

Either Martin had been preparing for this, though whether the preparation came before it happened or while Jon was asleep he didn’t know, or... or the full picture was even stranger than what Jon had already surmised.

Jon didn’t beat around the bush.

“What happened last night?”

Martin blinked a few times and stifled a yawn, his face contorted in confusion, or else a convincing facade thereof. “Nothing that unusual. I beat you at gin rummy, we made some progress on that jigsaw puzzle, went to bed a bit on the early side... why?”

Nothing that unusual. Nothing that unusual.

Jon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or scream.

(Some distant part of Jon’s brain noted that, in addition to the obvious, apparently Martin considered gin rummy and puzzles activities that counted as “nothing that unusual,” even when it was Jon of all people he was doing them with.)

Jon took a deep breath in and let it out slowly, and as he did he noticed that there was a white streak in Martin’s hair--thick, prominent, and definitely just the one streak, unless others were hiding on the back of Martin’s head where Jon couldn’t see them. Jon was no stranger from prematurely graying hair himself, far from it, but that pattern looked... unnatural.

Out of the millions of questions that were fighting in Jon’s mind, the one he ended up actually asking, with a shaky laugh sneaking into his voice, was, “What happened to your hair? Just a bad dye job, or...?”

Jon hadn’t noticed the weight of Martin’s gaze upon him until it was suddenly lifted, until Martin suddenly found the sheets (which were light and floral-patterned) the most interesting thing in the world and focused his gaze on them and them alone.

“You- you don’t remember, then?”

Jon blinked in confusion. Surely he hadn’t played a part in whatever debacle had done that to Martin’s hair, had he? “Remember what?”

Martin let out a long breath before responding, one hand clutching those flowery sheets as if holding on for dear life. “Is- is that what this is about? Some sort of, of memory thing?”

Jon’s first instinct was to argue, but-

But he was clearly missing some chunk of memory, at least, if as far as he could remember he’d gone from working in the Archives to apparently sleeping in Martin’s bed, with Martin having a thick white streak in his hair that definitely hadn’t been there before.

But the Archives were strange, Jon knew that, much as he liked to play the skeptic when at work there, and it wasn’t impossible that something there had messed with his memories. Some sort of supernatural accident made more sense than Martin purposely making Jon forget a night out, really.

But when Jon thought about it, really thought about it, he felt like he was missing something, though he didn’t know the details and trying to mentally investigate further just made his head hurt.

Jon didn’t answer Martin’s question in words, but his silence and decision to curl his legs back onto the bed while also closely examining those floral sheets (were those supposed to be lilies?) was something of an answer in and of itself.

“What do you remember, then? Do- do you remember me?” Martin sounded so concerned when he asked that last question, and Jon couldn’t help but think that he probably wouldn’t have nearly as much emotion apparent in his voice if the tables were turned. Jon wasn’t sure which was better given the circumstances, the open book of sentiment that was Martin Blackwood or the calm rationality he himself would have tried to provide.

Jon nodded numbly, though he couldn’t bring himself to look back up at Martin when he did so. “You’re Martin Blackwood. You, you work in the Archives with me--well, under me, really; I’m the head archivist, and you’re one of my assistants. Elias assigned you to join me there.” Jon barely managed to keep himself from adding “for some reason” to that last sentence; he didn’t need to be cruel, even if Martin had proven to be the least capable of his assistants, had established that much practically the moment they met.

“That’s- that’s good.” Martin let out a soft sigh of relief. “That much you’ve got right, at least.”

“Doesn’t explain how the hell I ended up here, wherever here even is-”

Jon saw movement out of the corner of his eye, looked up just enough to see that Martin was shaking his head gently. “One thing at a time. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was working on the Moira Kelly case in the Archives after everybody else had gone home.” Jon looked up a bit more, saw that Martin looked confused at the reference, so he explained himself, trying not to show his frustration in the meantime. (He had no trouble keeping track of which statement was which, so why should Martin struggle with the same thing?) “That’s the mother of disappeared Robert Kelly, the former skydiver--at least according to her statement, though then again it also claims the sky-”

“-Ate him?” Martin’s face was awfully pale now. “I- I know the case you’re talking about now, but... that’s the last thing you remember?”

“Yes?” That sounded less sure than Jon wanted it to, so he brought his chin up, looked Martin straight in the eye when he repeated it, tried to sound more confident this time. “Yes, that’s the last thing I remember. Why?”

“Jon, that... that was two- two and a half years ago. At least that’s when I remember you working on the Kelly case, back in March of 2016, I think? But it’s October now. October 2018.”

Jon looked into Martin’s eyes, searching for some sign of insincerity, for out-of-place levity. Martin didn’t seem the type to pull pranks like this, but maybe Tim had talked him into it somehow... but no, all Jon saw in those eyes was genuine concern and confusion, not even a hint of laughter at Jon’s expense.

“...no it’s not.” Jon couldn’t even summon up the certainty to make his voice sound filled with conviction, despite the argument apparent in his words.

“It is, though, it... Christ.” Martin dragged one hand across his face. “Do you even know where we are?”

“Your bedroom?” Jon could feel his face heat up as he suddenly realized how much less sure of that conclusion he was now than he had been a few short minutes ago, and how awkward his guess might be if it were to be proven incorrect.

“What? No, it’s not, it’s... it’s Daisy’s safehouse... wait, d’you know who Daisy is?”

Jon shook his head silently.

“Shit. Right.” Martin stopped to rub his eyes before continuing speaking. “Well, Daisy’s... she works at the Institute, she, she’s a friend of ours...” Martin’s voice wavered a bit as he spoke, though whether that was due to uncertainty or emotion Jon couldn’t say. “The Institute’s not safe for us at the moment, so we... borrowed this place from her, to stay until it’s safe to come back.”

“Why isn’t the Institute safe?” Jon asked the question without hesitation, though he could easily have asked a dozen others in its place: How did Daisy end up close enough to lend us a place to stay when I don’t even know who she is? When will it be safe to go back? Where, exactly, is this safehouse I’ve apparently woken up in? Are we the only ones in it, or just the only ones currently in this bedroom? How does some safety issue at the Institute connect to us sleeping in the same bed?

“It’s...” Martin grabbed the sheets in a fist again. “It’s a long story.”

Jon raised an eyebrow. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Jon attempted to emulate Martin’s gesture with his own hand, but when he went to gather the sheets in a fist he found that the gesture hurt for some reason, that he didn’t have quite the strength in his hand that he expected, that the feeling of the blanket against his hand was coarse and strange. Jon abandoned the attempt and instead looked more closely at his hand, saw that it was covered in scars that he definitely didn’t remember being there.

“Is this long story at all connected to whatever did this to my hand, then?” Jon held up the hand in question, brought it closer to the light and to Martin in turn, though if he was telling the truth about all this, he has to know what it looks like already...

Martin scrunched up his nose a little. “I mean, not really? Not unless you start getting into how everything’s connected in the grand scheme of things--I’m sure you could draw some lines between the two if you really tried--but no, that was a different, er, incident, that happened a little over a year ago.”

“What the hell did I do, then, stick my hand in the middle of a burning fireplace?”

“Sort of, actually, yeah.”

“Sort of?”

Jon pressed his good hand, the one that wasn’t scarred--or wasn’t as scarred, anyway, as closer examination revealed that it too was covered in small scars, though they didn’t hurt or impair his movement in the same way--against his temple.

“Can you stop- stop dancing around things and actually give me some straight answers?”

Martin let out a long, deep breath before responding.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fair. Should’ve known, really. I just don’t... don’t know where to start...” The last word was punctuated by Martin covering his mouth as he let out an impressive yawn.

Jon wanted answers, wanted to know what was going on, wanted to know how he had gone from there to here, and the desire for knowledge burned within him, but...

But Martin’s eyelids kept fluttering downwards, and his own felt heavy as well, and Jon soon matched Martin’s yawn with one of his own that was almost as long, and he could feel exhaustion wearing away at his thoughts...

“Perhaps we should start by getting some more sleep. You can think on your explanation, give it to me straight in the morning.” Jon paused, hesitated, before adding, “Does this, this safehouse have another bed, or...?”

Martin shook his head. “No, just the one, does...” His voice trailed off as he looked over Jon’s face, seemed to connect the dots. “Oh, right. I can take the couch if, if you’d prefer.”

“I can take the couch, I’ve slept worse places before-”

Martin held a hand up, a hint of shaky laughter sneaking into his voice as he spoke up. “You’ve lost years of memories, Jon. I think you deserve to take the bed for the night. I imagine spending one night on the couch is nothing compared to that.”

Jon considered this for a moment before nodding. “Alright then. Thank you, Martin.”

Martin’s face turned slightly pink as he turned away. “The least I can do, really.”

Martin turned the lamp off again before leaving the room, apparently familiar enough with the place to navigate without needing the light’s aid.

And then Jon was left alone with his thoughts. His thoughts that kept circling back to the same few questions. What was going on? How had he lost his memory? What had he missed in those two and a half years he couldn’t remember? Was it going to happen again? Was there a way to get those memories back?

The more he thought about it, the more his head ached, but he couldn’t very well not think about it, couldn’t just ignore the fact that he’d been thrown into an unfamiliar environment with no warning, couldn’t just accept that his mind had been manipulated somehow, that he’d lost two and a half years of memories overnight, seemingly with no warning or clear reason...

Sleep didn’t come easily to Jon that night.

#tma #tma au #tma fic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #the magnus archives au #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #personal #my writing #dubcon mention cw #drugging mention cw

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benditlikepress · 4 years

Text

no man is an island

what started out as a heartfelt attempt to write something coherent and meaningful turned into 9000 words of completely unedited mess because I cried a minimum of 17 times while writing it

would recommend reading on ao3 due to length, kudos and comments are always appreciated <3

@coffeedepablo @saraluvstiva @slouchingprovocatively @wanna-be-bold idk anyone else who might wanna read!!

Wednesday 8th June 2016. Cairo.

Ziva had her second panic attack at the terminal waiting for her flight.

It was the first one she actually recognised as a panic attack, though, rather than an impending sign of death or the psychotic break she had probably been dodging for years.

Perhaps it was the loneliness she felt. Perhaps it was the very real possibility Tony wouldn't show up. Perhaps it was memories of the last time she saw Tony in Africa, almost 10 years ago. Perhaps it was even thoughts of the other Tali; the one who would come with her to the opera house and stare up at the lights with such joy and freedom in her eyes. Ziva had her head in her hands as she tried to steady her breathing and a young woman had knelt in front of her to check if she was OK, but she was dismissed with a grateful but stern voice.

Ever since she woke up she hadn’t been able to shake the fear that this was the wrong thing to do. That no matter how many precautions she’d taken, she’d be putting Tony and Tali in danger just by seeing them. The thoughts followed her through her flight, on the bus journey, down streets and alleys, only getting louder. But this was the only way. Tony was going to have found her, one way or another. Best to be one step ahead.

Maybe she had only realised recently just how well she knew him, but there was no doubt in her mind he would come. Just as he thought he knew her all those years ago when he tracked her across the world to Beersheba. He would go there, she was sure of it. Even if he was furious with her, even if he hated her, he would still find out for himself whether she was alive or dead.

And so she used the one thing only they in this world shared, and she had written a letter and buried it in the box in the grove where they had placed her 'I Will' list, marked with a small white stone. If she knew him like she thought she did, he would find it. And he would find her.

She'd written more in the letter than simply a list of dates and locations from which he could pick a meeting place. She'd written three pages of things she thought she'd struggle to say out loud. Apologies probably took up two of them by themselves.

While she was sure he would go there, she didn't know if what he read would be enough to convince him to follow her wishes. She waited each day after Adam took Tali away, and on the 8th day she had got her answer.

"Cairo. We're OK." was all the message to her burn phone said. Ziva checked her diary - the date she had given Tony for Cairo was the upcoming Wednesday, in a hotel she had found online. She called immediately and booked a room under the name Sophie Ranier, and then she got a bus out of the city and dropped the phone in a garbage can on the side of a nondescript street, covering it with newspaper.

She had got into Cairo that morning via a flight that landed in Aswan, a long and distracted mixed-method route paid in cash seeming safer than a short direct flight. Adam arrived via Alexandria; Ziva had asked if he could get to the hotel and stay for the duration of Tony and Tali’s stay, just in case.

She had rented a family room, not really thinking, and it had 3 beds – a double, a single opposite it, and a second single which was tucked away awkwardly behind a partition wall. Ziva paced the room now wringing her hands, walking between the beds, until she couldn’t stand it any longer and pulled the desk chair across the room to the window.

She couldn’t quite see out of the window when sat on the chair so she sat on her knees, elevated a little, and looked out onto the street below.

Hours passed. She didn’t move an inch, aside from getting up for a glass of water after about 2 hours to calm her nerves. It reminded her in a strange way of a stakeout, a bygone activity from a job that seemed like a lifetime ago.

It was late afternoon when she spotted them. She saw them coming from a mile away; a magnetic pull of her eyes towards a man in light trousers and sunglasses carrying a small girl on his hip and a duffel bag over his other shoulder.

She watched them cross the street, and for a second it was like they were moving in slow-motion. This already felt like a bad idea, but seeing them come towards her it took every ounce of strength Ziva had not to open the window and scream at them to run, leave, get as far away from her as possible.

Reception were under instructions to ring her to check the identity of anyone who came to visit her, and even though Ziva had watched until they entered the building via the entrance below the window she somehow still jumped when the phone rang.

The receptionist told her that her husband was here. She didn’t correct him.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Ziva considered it a victory that she didn’t find herself close to another panic attack while she waited the painstaking few minutes for them to get up the stairs. When the door knocked loudly, she was already waiting beside it.

She opened it quickly and barely gave the two of them a glance before she grabbed her daughter’s face, kissing her and hugging her. Tony struggled to put her down on the ground as she did, and Ziva bent down to meet Tali halfway so she could look at her properly. She was wearing a flowery t-shirt Ziva didn’t recognise, and her cheeks were pink from the heat.

“I missed you so much, Tali.” She kissed her again and felt Tali grin into her cheek as she pulled back, her hands tugging playfully at Ziva’s hair.

“Can we come in?”

Tony’s voice shook a fraction as he spoke, and the sound was so familiar that it was almost muscle memory that made Ziva rise back to her feet to look at him. She didn’t really give herself a chance to, though, before she pulled him tightly towards her.

She had expected it to be a little awkward, and maybe it was, but it was apprehensive and nervous rather than disconnected or angry. Tony’s hand instinctively found the back of Ziva’s head and she squeezed his shoulder tightly, moving her head away from his chest look him in the eye. He looked older. More mature. Exhausted. His hair was longer, almost tucked behind his ears, and he had the tan of someone who had once again spent his summer crossing the world looking for her. She pressed the pad of her thumb to his lips, a promise of conversations that needed to come, and he nodded slightly as though he understood before she turned her attention back to Tali.

"Thank you so much for bringing her." Ziva spoke too quickly as she leaned down to gather her in her arms and brought her inside the room, cradling her to her chest in the same way she had done when she had last seen her. She whispered to her quietly, apologies and love and the girl looked at her curiously.

"It's ok, but.. hey," Tony raised his voice a fraction to tear Ziva's attention away from her mutterings. A concerned hand made it’s way to her jaw. "Are you OK?"

"I am fine. Thank you for bringing her." Ziva repeated. "You did not have to."

"Of course I had to. I needed to see you for myself. Plus.. she's your daughter, Ziva."

There was disbelief in Tony's voice as he spoke, as though he was still trying to get his head round the concept. Ziva caught his eye and there was a brief second of silence as though he’d said something shocking.

“My back is on fire,” Tony eventually launched into a too-casual conversation as he dumped his bag onto the floor and looked around the sparse room. "I accidentally left her stroller in the lobby of Mossad headquarters. Don't ask. I think it's going to get mailed to me with a severed torso inside."

"Why were you at Mossad?"

"Apparently some kind of bat signal is alarmed when I cross the Israeli border. Cute, huh?" Tali began tugging at Tony's sleeve for his attention. He brought a hand to her chin. "Ima will play, honey. Abba's back is hurting."

Tony had always been one for pet names, but hearing how naturally they spilled from his lips towards their daughter was something else entirely. Ziva realised she was still stood in the centre of the previously-silent room, watching the two of them drop items and talk at her like a hurricane had just hit.

She sat on the edge of the closest bed and Tali immediately put her hands and arms on her knees, clambering to get onto her. Ziva lowered her own arms to get a hold of her and pull her upwards, settling her down on her lap. She cupped her daughter’s face again, wondering if she really had grown up in the last few weeks or if it was just her imagination.

Tali grabbed for Ziva's necklace - a comforting motion she did often. Ziva's eyes were drawn to the gold around Tali's own neck. She looked up at Tony and he looked embarrassed for a brief second.

"You kept hold of this?"

"Did you think I would throw it away?"

Ziva wasn't sure what to say to that - the weight of the implications in the things that weren't being said. She turned the Star of David over in her fingers a couple of times.

"What's going on, Ziva?" Tony broke the silence first, and there was a sigh in his voice that could've made her smile if it was in a less ridiculous circumstance.

"Honestly, I am not quite sure yet. There is a woman who is after me. Really after me. She is not going to stop. I do not know how I know her or what I have done to her, but that is what I am trying to find out. She does not know about Tali - she does not know about any of this, which is why the best place for her to be is safe with you far away from me, and for everyone else to think I am dead."

Tony took her words in for a moment, exhaling loudly.

"Have you talked to Gibbs?"

"No, and you cannot call him. I do not want anyone else putting themselves in harm's way over this."

"Who knows you're alive?"

"Adam, a woman called Odette, and you. Nobody else. Adam and Odette are helping to keep me safe. I had to tell you because.. I knew you were going to come and find me. The safest way for that to happen was for me to arrange a day to meet with you. I could not bear the thought of the two of you not knowing the truth." Ziva played with the hem of Tali's shirt as she spoke. She was in her own world, talking to herself happily.

Tony eventually offered a "Thanks. For telling me." but it seemed ludicrous and his voice faded a little as he spoke. "I don’t like lying to them, but I won't tell anyone if you don't want me to."

"If I thought there was any other way, I would not ask you to. Is Gibbs looking for me?” Ziva’s voice was steady and perhaps even a little hopeful, in spite of the fact that it was simply another thing to worry about.

The sadness that briefly crossed Tony’s face was not how he expected him to react. “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him since I left, actually.”

“Do you think he will? I need to know what to expect. He could be in danger.”

“I think you’re ok, Ziva.” He said her name quietly, and the little furrow in his brow made her realise he was worried it would upset her. She took a breath.

“That is for the best.”

“I’m sure if he knew..”

“He doesn’t. So it does not matter.” Ziva shut down the conversation before they could get into it. He believed she was dead. That was that.

“Down, ima.” Tali’s voice recaptured Ziva’s attention, and she was straining from Ziva’s lap to get back onto the floor. Ziva dropped her down and Tali made a beeline for Tony’s duffel bag. She moved a few pieces of clothing around in there haphazardly until she emerged victorious with Kelev in her hand and sat down on the floor at Ziva’s feet.

“It is her birthday on Sunday.”

“I know. It was the first thing I checked, knew it would be coming up. Is that why you wanted to come to Cairo now? Like you did for your sister?”

Ziva nodded slightly, and maybe it should’ve surprised her more that he would remember something like that. It didn’t, though. She stopped being surprised by his thoughtfulness a long time ago.

“Have you brought her presents?”

“Not yet. Senior has bought the entire department store. I haven’t had the chance, I’ve barely had time to think.” He exhaled.

“How are you?” Ziva asked anxiously, not sure she actually wanted to know the answer.

“I don't know what the hell I'm doing." Tony eventually responded, and when he laughed sarcastically Ziva heard a wetness that made a lump form in her own throat. “I left her stroller at Mossad headquarters, who does that?”

"No parent knows what they are doing at first."

"Yeah, but most parents have a baby and another parent. I've suddenly got a toddler and I've never spent more than a few hours around a kid since I was one myself." Ziva stayed quiet as Tony continued talking, words spilling out as though he’d been holding onto them for weeks. "An hour will pass that will be fine and I'll feel like I'm getting the hang of it. Then a switch flips and she's crying and I'm crying and I'm calling Jimmy Palmer in the middle of the night DC-time asking him how you get kids to eat food."

She couldn’t help but fidget then, guilt and anxiety and self-loathing creating a mix that made her feel like she was about to throw up. Her eyes flitted around the room and she tried to block out the voices in her head, refocusing on Tony’s.

“Senior’s been great, though, if you’d believe that. I’ve decided not to be resentful about it.”

“Maybe it is his way of making up for his past mistakes. It is difficult to be vulnerable about something like that, maybe he wants to show that he is sorry.”

Ziva felt Tony’s eyes burning into her crown as she bent her head down towards Tali on the floor, talking in jumbled sentences about an adventure Kelev was on and hopping him along the carpet. She ran her fingers through Tali’s hair and bent her lips to the top of her head, kissing her and smelling her as though it had been years rather than weeks.

“Yeah.” Ziva still didn’t look at Tony, but his eyes tracked hers down to Tali. “I didn’t realise it was such a short flight. She didn’t sleep at all.”

“Did you come straight from Israel?”

“We stayed there for a little while. I’d bookmarked Cairo on your little itinerary.”

"You cannot stay here. You know that, yes?"

"I know."

She wasn’t sure if he could tell how close she was to falling to apart.

"You need to book the next flight home."

"Paris."

"Sorry?"

"Paris is home now. I've rented an apartment. Just.. so you know where we are."

“You really left for good?”

“It’s just a job.”

Hearing those words from Tony was like a slap in the face. He made it sound so simple. Didn’t seem to understand the impact they had as he pulled his phone from his pocket to look up flight tickets.

For as long as Ziva had known him, his job was everything to him. It was all he had going for him a lot of the time, though Tony was never one to have admitted he was lonely. The idea that he could drop his career like that, drop everything like that, for Tali? She'd been afraid he would do that when she was pregnant, and he'd resent her from pulling him away from what she thought was his home. That his job was his life's purpose. It was obvious now that she hadn't been thinking clearly. She knew him better than that.

His brow was furrowed as he typed on his phone.

"Next flight is 1:55am direct to Paris."

"That will have to do."

Tony nodded, his lips in a tight line as he began to type again. Ziva watched his expression, mostly unreadable, but when Tony's face was unreadable that meant something in itself.

"I'm so sorry for dragging you into this, Tony."

He looked up from his phone after a moment. "This is for mine and Tali's safety, right?"

"Yes."

"Then there's nothing to apologise for."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Surface-level conversations and brief attempts to capture each other’s eyelines followed after Tony confirmed the flight for take-off in several hours’ time. Ziva tried to steady herself. Tony smiled as Tali presented toys to them.

"Ima.. knee." Tali suddenly tugged at the bottom of her leggings.

"Oh yeah," Tony fumbled in his pocket. "She, uh, fell over outside the airport. I stopped to buy some band-aids."

"She hates band-aids. She'll never wear them." Ziva said as she rolled up Tali's leggings. Her knee was grazed, little flecks of blood still present. "Oh no, Tali. Did you hurt yourself?" The girl nodded solemnly, looking down at her leg. “Get a wipe to clean it.” Ziva directed at Tony, but when she looked back at him he was already in his bag retrieving one.

Ziva wiped the cut slowly, making soothing noises as Tali fidgeted and whined.

"Let's see," Tony turned the band-aid in his hand. "Do you have a knife or anything on you?"

The knife she produced from the holster at her waist had jagged edges and a harsh end.

"I don't think that's gonna work."

"Adam is next door, shall I get him?”

"No, it's ok. You stay here, I'll go to the front desk."

Tony began to walk towards the door but a wave of anxiety hit Ziva and she stepped after him, grabbing his arm. He turned at the action, her grip tight on his shirt, and looked at her pleading expression.

"Call down and ask them to bring some up."

Tony looked at her for a long moment, and presumably he could sense the anxiety surrounding her because he didn’t make any effort to argue, dropping his arm as she released his shirt slowly and walking to the phone on the table by the bed. He picked it up and brought the receiver to his ear, before smiling.

"Uh, what's Arabic for scissors?" Tony asked sheepishly, and even though Ziva was sure the receptionist would speak English the smile on his face made her feel 50 pounds lighter. She took the phone from him and asked for a pair of scissors, and the receptionist told her they would be with her momentarily.

“Why do you need scissors?” Ziva asked as an afterthought, realising she hadn’t questioned whatever it was Tony was thinking of.

“Aha,” was his only reply, though he aimed it more at Tali than her and Ziva watched as he poked her on the end of her nose.

Tali climbed back onto Ziva’s lap as they waited, feeling sorry for herself. Ziva rocked her a little, remembering when she was a baby and she’d walk her around the house for hours holding her in her arms trying to get her to sleep.

Tony answered the door (though Ziva would rather have done so herself), and when he came back towards the bed with the scissors he picked up the band-aid and turned his back to them.

"Here, Tali. Look what I have."

Tony held something up in his hands, and Ziva strained her eyes to see what it was. He had used the scissors to carefully cut the band-aid into the shape of a heart. "I have a special sticker for you! Cool, huh? And when you put it on your knee it makes it all better, like magic." He took the paper sealant off the band-aid and lifted the outside to his lips, making a dramatic noise as he kissed it. He held it out in front of Ziva and she copied him in a slight daze, watching as he then placed the band-aid onto Tali’s knee.

Tali didn’t seem to have an adverse reaction but Ziva was fully distracted now, watching Tony’s animated face as he smiled at her daughter. At their daughter, who he hadn’t even known existed until a couple of weeks ago. She’d never seen the light shining in his eyes like it was now; natural and instinctive and innocent. Was it possible to love someone that much so quickly?

Tony’s head eventually lifted upwards to Ziva, and he looked at the watery expression in her eyes with a slight frown. “What?”

“You should stop giving yourself a hard time.”

Tony looked back down at Tali and at the precisely cut heart shape now stuck atop her knee. “It’s nothing.”

“It is not nothing, Tony. I have never once got her to keep a band-aid on.”

“Well, I could’ve taught you.” It was said easily but both of them felt the force as the words hit. “I didn’t mean it like that.” Tony immediately conceded, with a shake of the head.

“I know.” Ziva resisted the urge to allow shutters to come up, ignoring the voices in her head.

"Listen, can we talk? There's some stuff that needs to be said, but.." Tony looked apologetically at Tali, sat on Ziva's lap still admiring the 'special sticker' on her knee.

“She should sleep before you take her back on the plane.”

They managed to get Tali onto the bed behind the partition wall, figuring it might provide a slight noise barrier.

It didn’t take long for her to fall asleep in the end, the excitement and travelling of the day so far catching up with her. She lay curled on her side with Kelev towards her chest. Tony stood up first, watching as Ziva stroked her hair out of her face a few times.

“C’mon, don’t want her to wake up again.” Tony placed his hands lightly on the top of Ziva’s back between her shoulders as he spoke.

She stood up, trying not to feel anxiety rise again as they walked out of the alcove the bed was in and back into the main area of the room.

“If we talk quietly, we should be ok.”

“She’s a heavy sleeper. Not like her mom.”

The word hung between them. Ziva sat back down on the chair she had pulled up to the window earlier. After a second of hesitation, Tony perched himself on the edge of the double bed, facing her.

"So what's Adam's deal? Is he hired help now or what? Bodyguard?"

"No. He is just helping me out. I asked him to stay here today for you and Tali; to keep you safe."

"I called him, y'know. He told me he was in Brussels, hadn't spoke to you in years."

"I hope you understand why he said it now."

"I get it." Tony nodded, his voice quiet and sincere.

"I know that you and Adam have not exactly been best friends, but I understand he helped you a lot that summer." That summer. "And I hope that is enough for you to see that he can be trusted. I can count on one hand the amount of people on this earth I can say I truly trust, and the two of you make the cut."

"If you trust him, I trust him."

Conversation died down again. Tony sighed. Ziva looked around the room, casting a glance at what she could see of the hazy summer sky. He cleared his throat and she turned her head back like it was a cue, but he stayed silent. Their eyes locked and they exchanged a small smile.

"You grew your hair out." Ziva said eventually, and clearly it wasn't what Tony was expecting because it took him a second to reply.

"Yeah, I did." He tucked one of the strands behind his ear. Ziva could see how it was slightly unkempt at the sides - like he'd been doing that a lot recently.

Ziva had cut all of her own hair off a week before finding out she was pregnant. She had wondered at the time if it made her look different, or if Tony would laugh at her for thinking it would. For a brief second she had considered sending him a photo, but that idea died as quickly as it formed.

It had grown back now – another stark reminder of how long it had been since they’d been like this. Able to look each other in the eye, breathe the same air, say the things they really wanted to say.

"So, uh," Tony began, hesitant. "Funny thing happened to me recently. I found out we have daughter.”

"That is funny." Ziva dared to joke, though she knew it was on thin ice. It landed, though, and Tony actually tipped his head back and laughed as though Tali wasn't asleep a few steps away. "I think we could talk around it all night if we do not confront the issue."

"You're right."

"In the interests of disclosure, I have seen a little of you together. Photographs. When you took her to the park when she first went to you."

"Should've known I was being watched."

"She loves the park."

"That's what I figured. Kids love the park, right? I've taken her to a different one every day, pretty much."

"I am sure she loves that. She seems happy."

"I think she is, mostly. She has tantrums but so do all kids. She's started calling out for me during the night which is taking a little getting used to."

Ziva cast the comment aside immediately, refusing to acknowledge who she might have been calling out to before. "She recognised you?"

"Yeah. I wasn't sure if she was just along for the ride at first, but I found the picture from Paris and she pointed me out."

The six years that had passed since that trip were so storied it was hard to believe it had happened to the same people. Memories of Tony's hands round her waist and his breath in her ear fluttered through her mind.

"I told her about you. Everything I could. I wanted her to be able to recognise you and see herself in you from the first time you met. And when she got older I did not want her to have any reason to resent or blame you for not being in her life from the start."

"You always wanted us to meet?"

"Of course I did." Maybe Ziva's voice was a little disbelieving that he would think that, though why wouldn't he?

"Then.." Tony stopped himself. Since he had arrived it was clear he was fighting his kneejerk reactions to try and pose his thoughts in a more productive way. Ziva wished he wouldn't. Wished he would lash out at her, shout and scream like she deserved. “I’m just trying to understand.”

“Did you read the letter?”

“Yeah.”

“All of it?”

“Yeah, I did.” Tony paused like he was expecting another question, but Ziva was waiting for him to talk. “I..” He began, stopping again immediately. “I don’t know where to start.” Ziva nodded, and she felt guilty at the tears she could feel stinging in her eyes. She’d cried more in the past three weeks than she thought she had in her lifetime. “I wish I could somehow show you it from my perspective because that would be easier than me trying to explain what’s been going through my head the last few weeks. The last few years. It’s like everything I thought I was sure of has just been flipped upside down. Hey, I don’t want to upset you..” Tony seemed concerned now as Ziva wiped her eyes and shook her head. “I really just want to get my head around all of this.”

“I know. I am sorry. It is not fair of me to be upset about this.”

“Don’t apologise, feelings aren’t about fairness.” Tony dismissed her quickly, in that no-nonsense way he always did.

“I wish there was a way I could explain it that would make sense, but I do not think I can do that even to myself.”

“You said in your letter you were punishing yourself.”

“I think so. I think I took out my own.. self-pity, on Tali. I did not think I deserved you, and so when I found out I was pregnant I could not bring myself to call you. You had gone back to your life and I thought I would ruin that for you the way I thought I ruined everyone else’s. The longer time went on, the harder it became. I convinced myself you would hate me when you found out, more every day, and you would have been within your rights to be furious that I could keep your child from you. It was selfish of me to put myself above her. That is the best explanation I can give. I was scared, and I was wrong. Wrong about a lot of things.”

Tony nodded slowly. He ran his bottom teeth over his top lip.

“It is ok if it takes you some time. I realise dumping all of this on you does not exactly make it easy to process.”

“No.” Tony chuckled, running a hand through his hair. “I think it’ll take me some time, you’re right. I know you wrote that I should destroy the letter, but can I keep hold of it for a little while?” Ziva hesitated, and Tony watched her eyes dart to where he had tapped his pocket. “Just a couple of days so I can read it a few more times.”

“A few more days.”

Tony kicked his legs out so they were stretched out in front of him. If she wanted, Ziva could have touched them with her own.

“She looks just like you.” It was almost a comment to himself, Ziva thought, spoken down at his shoes on the carpet. He smiled.

“Maybe. Her personality is all you. Ever since she started to move around and talk, it is like there are two of you.”

Ziva’s smile was brighter than Tony’s, nostalgic, and he didn’t meet her eyes until she stopped talking. Common ground passed between them.

“I don’t want us to just sit here in silence while I try and process all of this. I’ll have time to do that when me and Tali go home.”

Ziva checked the time. Just after 7pm – still a couple of hours before they would need to leave. “What do you want to do?”

Tony’s expression changed then, to one of too-bright friendliness. He patted the space beside him on the edge of the bed. Ziva didn’t hesitate to stand up and sit next to him, holding her hands in her lap.

“How are you?”

Ziva actually scoffed at the question in spite of herself. If only he knew. “It is probably not the best time to ask me that question.”

“Right. Um..” Tony looked across the room with his eyes squinted for effect. “Y’know, I’m kinda drawing a blank here.”

“Difficult to know where to start.”

“Yeah, you can say that again.” Their eyes met and both of them smiled, even a little shyly. “3 years, huh?”

“I did not ever think we would go this long without talking.”

“Even when you left?”

“I suppose I was not thinking that far ahead. I am sure it will not surprise you that I was flying by the seat of my hands trying to start again.” Tony’s face broke into a bright smile and he shook his head, lifting a hand and running his fingers over his forehead. “What?”

“Nothing.” Tony cleared his throat as his face became neutral again. “Do you still think it was the right choice?”

Ziva pondered this for a moment, as though it hadn’t been her first thought every morning and her last one before she went to sleep for large periods of the last 3 years.

“I do not regret leaving NCIS. And I certainly do not regret the time we spent together in Israel. But I regret not calling you the second I found out I was pregnant. A lot of the time, I regret leaving you at all. I think I needed some time to find clarity on that. And I don’t say this with any kind of expectation that you might..” Ziva’s words fell away when Tony placed a finger on her nervously clenched fist. She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. “I do not know if it would have changed any of the things that are happening now. Maybe I would have still ended up having to send you and Tali away, I do not know. That is probably not something to dwell on.”

“I’m sorry you had to do that. I know it must’ve been difficult.”

The words would’ve seemed simply polite coming from anyone else, but for Tony to say them considering the circumstances made Ziva’s chest constrict. “After I handed her over, I had a panic attack.” It still felt strange to say out loud, but she was making a concerted effort to be as upfront with Tony as she could afford to be. He deserved that much, at least. “I have never had one before. I thought I was dying.”

“You seem a little nervous today.”

“I am.” Ziva smiled self-deprecatingly. The finger that Tony had placed on her fist became three.

“Has it been like this since Tali came to me?”

“Not always. But a lot of the time, yes.”

“I think it’s natural to worry about her. Especially with everything else’s that’s going on.”

“I wasn’t worried about her being with you.”

“No?”

“No. I was worried about her getting to you safely. About you coming looking for me and putting yourself in harm’s way. What you would think of me. When I would get to see her again. But I wasn’t worried about her being with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know you.” Ziva’s voice was soft and knowing and she smiled looking down at his hand where he had placed it back between them. “I know how seriously you take duty, and I know that you are loyal and caring to a fault. I trusted you. I trust you. And maybe before I trusted you because I knew you would see it as your duty, but now,” Ziva smiled. “You cut a band-aid into a heart for her. That’s not duty. She is a part of you.” She placed her hand on his chest over his heart, and he looked down at it with the slightest of smiles.

"How do you know if you're doing a good job?”

"You are doing a good job. Look at her. I could not ask for anything more. And, Tony.." Ziva implored him to look her in the eye. She grabbed his hand between hers tightly. "You will not accept thanks for taking care of your daughter, but I want to say it anyway. From the bottom of my heart. I never had a doubt about you but seeing it is something else entirely. Watching how comfortable and content she is with you.. well, it is one less thing to worry about. It is a lifetime of gratitude I will owe you."

"You're right, I can't accept it. But I'm glad it's helping." Tony squeezed Ziva's hands a little. "So you've seen photos of us?"

"Yes. Sorry if that is uncomfortable, but they have been destroyed. They were just for me."

Tony nodded, mulling over the words. For a terrifying moment he seemed to get suddenly choked up. He cleared his throat.

"I think.. I mean, if it’s safe. If you wanted to watch us sometimes, you should do that."

"Really?"

"It’ll help me too. Knowing you might be there."

The words caught in Ziva's own throat now. She raised her hand to Tony's cheek and he lowered his head a little to deepen the contact. His face looked more vulnerable than she could remember it.

"Whatever you need."

"Ziva, you know what I need."

The timing wasn’t right, but the timing was never going to be right, so she kissed him then while she still had the chance. Barely a second's hesitation between his words hitting her and her leaning in to capture his lips, and in an instant he had a hold of the sides of her face as though this was what he'd been waiting for all along.

They were comforting, and loaded, and Ziva had never felt before how peaceful it could be to kiss someone. For a second, everything in her brain stood still.

All she'd thought about since laying eyes on him again was how it would feel to touch him, to kiss him, but she'd been so desperate to hear him get things off his chest and so unsure of what to expect that she hadn't allowed herself to dare presume it would happen.

She certainly hadn't allowed herself to think about Tony's hand making its way through her hair, the little noise that came from his throat as her tongue made its way into his mouth for the first time.

“I’ve missed you so much.” Tony whispered the words against her lips and Ziva’s chest tightened. “So much.” He repeated, thumbs stroking backwards along her jaw.

Ziva resisted the urge to climb into his lap, or to push him backwards onto the bed. Not when he had to leave soon. Not with their daughter sleeping a few feet away – the reminder almost made her laugh. Her hands were behind his neck and his skin was warm from the heat, comforting her as she nibbled at his lip.

It was Tony that pulled back first, but he sighed as he did. The longer this went on, the harder it was going to be for both of them. He kept a hold of Ziva’s face and pulled it down to kiss her slowly on the forehead before letting her go.

She touched her fingertips to her bottom lip when they pulled apart, feeling the ghostly pressure against her skin.

“We should..” Tony began, looking at Ziva for a cue.

"Let's sleep for a little while. You have a long night ahead."

Tony nodded, and kicked off his shoes without hesitation. He scratched the back of his head, surprisingly self-conscious. “So uh, what about you? Where are you going next?"

"Adam is leaving when you and Tali do, which means I should be able to lie low in Cairo in a different hotel for a couple of days. It is probably best if I do not tell you where I am thinking of going after that."

"Don't trust me not to follow you?"

"I do. I think it is just easier if you know as few details as possible. For all of our sakes. I do not want you thinking about it."

"You know that isn't going to stop me."

When she kissed him this time, it felt like a message. “I know.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Tony sighed as he got into bed, over the covers, and Ziva remembered his back. She watched his facial expression for a moment from her position at the foot of the bed, gauging what he was feeling. He smiled a little as she walked over to the other side and climbed next to him.

If she could do anything right now, she could be there for him, and maybe in turn that could repair some of the sharp raw pain in chest. She wasn’t the only one that was struggling, but she was the only one that could make either of them right. She curled herself around him, attached at every body-part possible.

“Is this all really happening?” Tony mumbled into Ziva’s hair as he placed her head on his shoulder. She chuckled lightly.

“Go to sleep.”

“Hey,” Ziva lifted her head again to look at Tony, and he kissed her slowly. Ziva’s eyes didn’t immediately open when she pulled back, but when she did she found Tony staring at her. “I’m really trying to not make this any more difficult than it’s already going to be. If I start, I’m never going to stop. I have to leave.”

“I know.” She gave him a peck before settling her head back down on his chest. “I know. Just go to sleep.”

Every conversation between them had been a little bit frantic – too much to say in too little a time, and without the ability to filter in any other way than to just stay quiet. It was quiet now, though. Ziva felt his breathing start to steady and she tried to match her own to it. The fan on the ceiling buzzed as it turned. On the other bed, Tali stirred and mumbled in her sleep.

Tony fell asleep eventually. Ziva lay with him for a while, watching his eyelashes flutter and his mouth move and she tried to memorise his face how it was now - take in every new line, every feature that had changed since she last saw him. She drifted in and out of sleep, finding herself powerless to do anything but watch him as though he would disappear if she kept her eyes closed for too long. She ran her hands slowly through his hair in the same way she had always done to Tali when she was sleeping, slowly separating strands between her fingers over and over.

Slowly, carefully, she removed herself from around him and climbed off the bed. When she got to Tali’s bed she sat on the floor alongside it and did the same: memorising her sleeping features, running light fingers over her eyelids and nose and mouth and cheeks, counting the faint freckles on her arms. Her gaze kept catching on the Star of David around her neck, thinking about what must have been going through Tony’s mind when he gave it to her.

Tali was still but it felt like time was moving too quickly, and Ziva resisted the urge to wake her up as she stood up again and got back into bed next to Tony. He hadn’t stirred.

She lay back down on her side, head resting on her hand with her arm bent up at the elbow.

It took a long time for him to register her presence, which was unlike him. She guessed he hadn’t got much sleep in the last couple of weeks. He opened one eye and blinked a couple of times as he saw her watching over him.

“What time is it?”

“9:30.”

“How long have you been awake?”

Ziva smiled a little. “I have not been to sleep.”

“You’ve just been watching me?”

“I watched Tali for a while too.” Ziva defended half-heartedly, her voice barely above a whisper. Tony chuckled while closing his eyes, stretching his arms. He settled down again looking up at her, his eyes tired but a little pleading.

“I don’t think I can leave again, Ziva.”

“You have to.”

“I know I do. I don’t think that I can.”

Ziva sighed slowly as she stroked his cheek, being careful to take notice of how his skin felt against her fingers.

"I realise I have done nothing for a long time to earn your trust, and if you don't believe it for your own sake, please believe me for Tali's. I could not be without her for a second longer than is necessary. When I am done, I will find you."

"If you need me, you call me. We'll figure it out."

"Tony, I am not going to do that. Tali needs you."

"If you NEED me," Tony stressed, "we'll figure it out."

Ziva knew she wouldn't call him but she nodded anyway, a shared pretence neither of them bought. She leaned down and kissed him, capturing his bottom lip between hers.

“Thank you for coming. I am hoping knowing you are both alright will make this easier.”

"We'll be waiting. Both of us."

"It could be years, Tony. It could be never."

"I know that."

"I could not ask you to.."

"You're not asking me to. I'm telling you what's already a foregone conclusion in my eyes. When you get back, when you get back," he repeated, emphasis on the word, "I will still be here. We can have a... well, we probably passed second chance about 10 years ago. Whatever number chance we're on. And we can get a first chance at being a proper family, the three of us."

“I have never really been a part of one before.”

“Neither have I. We could get a dog or something.”

Ziva laughed though the sound was wet with tears, kissing him again hard and quick. His eyes were shining when she lifted her head away, an easy but thoughtful smile on his face.

“I love you.” Somehow the words were the simplest thing in the world to say at that moment, after years and years of not even being able to say them to herself.

“I love you too.”

“Sorry I could not tell you before. Sorry about everything.”

“Shh,” Tony quietened her, tucking her hair behind her ear and encouraging her to place her head back down on the crook under his arm.

They lay there for a while longer, swapping stories about Tali as Tony drew soft patterns on Ziva’s back. He had acquired a remarkable amount in such a short period of time, though Ziva’s favourite was probably the one where Tony had forgotten to strap Tali into her stroller and she had waited until he turned to shut the door to the building, hopped out of her seat, and gone running off down the road laughing at the top of her voice. The thought of the danger should have scared Ziva, but it didn’t. She was with Tony. He’d protect her.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Both of them got quietly fidgety as they watched time pass, knowing they would have to get up.

“We need to get to the airport.” Tony was the first one to break, kissing Ziva’s temple slowly.

“I wish you didn’t have to.”

“Please don’t say that. Not now.”

“Ok. Ok.” Ziva repeated the word as though to reassure herself, and as she sat up Tony’s arm stayed attached to her back. She could see Tali still fast asleep from this vantage point, and climbed down the bed towards hers.

She woke her up with whispers, and Tali wiped her eyes and looked a little dazed.

“Home?”

“Abba is taking you on a plane to go and see your new bedroom.”

“Pop?”

“Yeah, Pop’s going to be there. He’s really excited to show it to you.” Tony appeared over Ziva’s shoulder, stepping into his deck shoes.

The two of them made their way around the room quietly, packing up the things Tali had somehow scattered the room with in just a couple of hours. Ziva took her to the bathroom and caught a sight of her own reflection in the backlit mirror – the bags under her eyes, her unkempt hair. When she ran the tap to get Tali to wash her hands she splashed some of the water onto her face, rubbing it dry with her palms.

They re-entered the main room and Tony was stood near the door, hand over his eyes and head pointed down at the ground. He recovered quickly enough to plaster a smile on his face as Tali ran towards him so he could put on her shoes.

Ziva listened to them talking as she turned her back, taking a few deep breaths. When she felt like she could, she went into the plastic bag she’d left by the foot of the bed and retrieved a stuffed camel. Cheesy, but a reminder.

She placed the toy behind her back as she approached them, waiting until Tali looked up at her before revealing it and holding it out. “Happy birthday, Tali.”

Tali took the camel, delighted, and clutched it to her chest. “Thank you.” She eventually squeezed out.

“You’re welcome, my love. Make sure abba buys you everything you want, yes?”

Tali looked up at Tony, who rolled his eyes with a smile. He took a careful step back when Ziva bent down in front of Tali, holding her small hands with one of hers and running her other over Tali’s hair and cheek.

She knew more big, dramatic goodbyes would only confuse or upset her. She didn’t allow herself to cry, instead smiling as she picked up Kelev from the floor and made sure she had him and her new camel toy in either of her hands.

"Ima has to go away again Tali, OK? And I don't know how long for. But abba told me he's really excited for you two to have fun together. So you and me have to say goodbye now."

Tali leaned forward in expectation of a hug, and Ziva wrapped her arms around her so tightly she thought she might break. She whispered “I love you” into her hair in English and Hebrew, pulling away to kiss her twice and standing up again before it got any harder.

Looking Tony in the eye was harder than she expected. His head was tipped a little and he was giving her half a smile that was betrayed by the water in his eyes.

“I’ll see you soon. Ok? Soon.”

Ziva nodded fiercely, pressing their foreheads together as though she were willing it to be true. Tony raised his hands to hold her face, kissing her slowly and purposefully. Ziva breathed him in, and when he pulled away she followed him, capturing his lips twice, three times, in quick succession.

“See you soon.” She repeated, defiant. She stepped away from him before she couldn’t.

"Walk or carry, Tali?" Tony held his arms open to demonstrate his point and Tali immediately lifted her own so Tony would lift her, settling her on his hip. Ziva noticed the way he grimaced a little as he straightened his back. She picked up his bag from the floor and placed it over his other shoulder, stroking the strap until it lay flat on his shirt.

“Make sure she doesn’t drop Kelev. And remember her stroller next time.”

“I will if I ever want to walk again. Ok, give ima a kiss.” Tony tipped Tali a little towards Ziva, and Ziva grabbed Tali’s head and kissed her on the lips before adding ones on her forehead and cheek for good measure. She lifted her hands to Tony’s cheeks and kissed him again too, rubbing her thumb towards his chin.

“I love you both. Be safe.”

“We love you too. Take care of yourself. Remember, you call me if you need to.”

Ziva nodded again as Tony opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, her hands running over Tali’s arm on his shoulder and along his back until they were both out of reach. Tony knocked Adam’s door twice as they walked past – his own signal to pack up and leave.

She stood watching them as they approached the elevator, and though they were still within talking distance Tony got Tali to wave goodbye. Ziva tried to smile, taking a mental image of the two of them as they got onto the elevator.

As soon as the doors closed she went back into the silent hotel room, taking back her old position sat on her knees by the window. It took them a couple of minutes to appear. Tony’s head flicked up in the general direction of the room, and she watched as he tried to calculate the right window. She held up her palm to the glass and he caught sight of her then, smiling and raising his free hand before looking away and pressing a slow kiss to Tali’s cheek.

She watched them disappear back down the street, lit in the darkness by streetlamps and headlights, and only when they began to blur out of view did she allow the tears to fall.

#ncis #tiva #ziva david #tony dinozzo #tivali #tiva fanfiction #tali #my fanfiction #mine #what's truly mad is how many tags i use that basically mean the same thing #anyway if i didnt post this today it was never going to be posted #if you get to the end i salute you it probably reads really weirdly #the overriding message behind it is i love tony and ziva and i shouldnt write things while crying at 4am

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desiringparadise · 4 years

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Hi, I know this gonna sound weird but I'm here thanks to A03, I read "It's A Terrible Love And I'm Walking With Spiders" again (idk why), Let me tell you something: It's fantastic. But I realized that you haven't update for four or five years, well I'm not gonna ask you to do it, that's in you, but I'd like to ask something, could you tell me what was the plan with tha fic, and how will it end, just a summary because I'm dying in my curiosity, well only few words left, so thanks and be careful

Omgggg thank you!!! It isn’t weird at all, I sometimes re-read old unfinished fics too because they stuck with me for some odd reason. I was at a bad mental space when I wrote this story and I feel like my issues manifested in the atmosphere of the story. Maybe readers can relate to some of it?

As to how the story was supposed to end. I didn’t remember and I actually had to look through my old notebook lol. I actually found the unfinished fifth chapter in my folders, so I’ll post it here.

Keep in mind that I wrote this in November 2016 and I never finished editing it. I didn’t post it because I was unsatisfied with the result. I’d rate it T/M.

Chapter 5

Miserable, Stiles focused on the silhouette of naked feet, his eyes never straying any higher. Luckily, the shower glass was milky, so even if he couldn’t have resisted satisfying his own curiosity, he wouldn’t actually have seen much.

After the Sheriff had left, Theo had asked to take a shower. Stiles had let him under the condition that the door would remain open and Theo under Stiles’ scrutiny. Under no circumstances would he have let the other boy roam around in his house without checking what he was up to. There were meds in the cupboard, something he wouldn’t risk leaving him alone with.

Unsurprisingly, Theo hadn’t objected. “Be my guest,” he’d said instead, an extra smarmy grin on his face.

That’s why Stiles was sitting against the wall, knees drawn to his chest while trying not to fall asleep. The sound of water spraying had become lulling white noise, making it hard to keep his eyes open. Maybe he should take some Adderall to shake off the drowsiness. It wasn’t like he would get any sleep tonight anyway. Not while knowing that Theo Raeken was under the same roof as him.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when the spray of water stopped, the shower door opened, and Theo stepped out without an ounce of hesitation. You’d think he’d at least pretend to be a little embarrassed about showing his naked body.

Not that Theo should be ashamed, Stiles realized. He had known before that the other boy was built, but the naked view of him - well, he couldn’t lie, it was a sight to behold. Perfect, unreal. The shoulders, the arms, the chest – everything about him was broad without being too bulky. His flawless skin only added to the look of a retouched Men’s Health cover shoot. Stiles felt entranced to follow his abs, down to the wonderfully defined V of his hips, before stopping himself. Yeah, he had just seen Theo’s dick, it had been kinda inevitable, but there was no reason to scrutinize it any further. None.

Quickly, he moved his gaze up to look at Theo’s face instead, the usual smirk somehow looking even more smarmy than usual.

“Like what you see?”

The question was so cliché, just like this whole goddamn scenario, that Stiles felt the desperate need to break the spell.

“I prefer chest hair.”

For the first time since Theo had arrived in Beacon Hills, he was dumbfounded. It left Stiles feeling satisfied, before his face froze, his heartbeat quickening. Did he just seriously tell Theo that he was interested in men? He resisted the urge to smack his palm against his face.

Theo did the unexpected and actually came up with an answer.

“I could let it grow, if you wanted me to.”

Stiles squinted. “What the hell would you do that for?”

Theo shrugged his broad shoulder, still unperturbed by his own nudity. “Just trying to win you over, that’s all.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, finally rising up and to look at Theo’s face and ignore everything that was going on below. “Well, your lack of chest hair wasn’t the deciding factor that kept me on the other side. Why don’t you put on a towel?”

“Don’t have one,” Theo answered with an innocent smile.

Stiles sighed and motioned for the other boy to follow as he walked to his room. When he opened the door, he felt uncomfortable letting a naked Theo into his personal space. Hurriedly, he drew the curtains and searched for a large towel in the cupboard. When he found one, he threw it over to Theo without sparing him another look.

“Can you borrow me some clothes?”

Stiles was inclined to say no, let Theo sleep in his uncomfortable jeans instead. There was something strange about giving Theo his clothes to wear. But he wasn’t sure when his father would return from the station. When the man arrived, he would go through the living room and see Theo who’d be sleeping on the coach.

He sighed and searched his closet for something that’d fit. Theo wasn’t taller, but much broader than him. (Un)fortunately, Stiles usually wore clothes that were a few sizes too big anyway. He found some sweats. He was painfully reminded that Theo wouldn’t be wearing underwear underneath. No way he’d be wearing those pants before washing them at least five times.

“Long or short sleeves?”

“Don’t need a shirt.”

Stiles frowned, pulling his too long sleeves even further down. “It’s freezing.”

Theo grinned. “I’m running hot. Want to see it for yourself?”

Stiles rolled his eyes and walked past him. “Whatever, I’ll be fixing you the coach.”

Theo followed him in an easy stride. He didn’t even seem a little uncomfortable to casually stroll through a stranger’s home without a shirt on. Completely relaxed, he sunk into the coach and watched Stiles as he spread clean sheets over the sofa.

“Do your parents know you’re staying over?” Stiles couldn’t even remember the Raekens’ faces anymore.

“Sent them a text.”

Stiles nodded, too tired to investigate any further.

Except he was unable to fall asleep. For about roughly an hour he had been tossing and turning, his anxiety back at it again although he had forewent his Adderall. Then, for a couple of minutes, he stayed still, not moving a muscle while waiting to hear any sounds come from downstairs.

But there was only silence.

About half an hour ago, his eyes started tearing up from exhaustion. It was annoying. He wasn’t really crying, but the stream of tears didn’t stop. Now his eyes were swollen and aching.

He was unable to come to rest. He took a deep breath. Maybe if he’d open the door and take a proper listen, he’d finally relax. Feeling ridiculous, left the warmth of his bed and softly padded towards his door. But he was only met with frustratingly familiar silence.

He sighed and returned to bed when- Wait, was that a sound? He froze and listened, eyes wide open as if waiting for an assault. Looking down, he noticed that he had stepped on a creaking floor board. The noise could have come from him. But what if it hadn’t?

He shook his head. He was being paranoid, utterly ridiculous… Yet, what if there had been something? He took a deep breath and held it, wanting his heart beat to slow. Okay, he’d go outside again, just this once, and take a look around house, and most importantly, check whether Theo was doing something sketchy.

He left his room, slowly descending the stairs. From here, Theo’s form was still, he seemed to be sleeping. Just to be sure, he told himself as he gradually closed the distance between them. He stopped just before the sofa and leaned down to inspect his face. His eyes were closed and his breathing was calm. Everything about him indicated to be asleep.

But the ugly voice of his paranoia ordered him to look more closely, check whether Theo wasn’t faking it.

Suddenly Theo’s eyes were wide open, an unnatural light shining in them. Stiles startled. He stumbled backwards, his feet hit agianst the coffee table, and he fell on his ass.

“Stiles?” Theo blinked, the strange light in his eyes gone. Had he imagined it? He must have, there was no other explanation for it. He was going crazy. “Why are you up? Did something happen?” His voice was groggy from asleep, but otherwise he seemed alert.

Stiles felt ridiculous. His thought process hadn’t made any sense to begin with, spoken out loud, they’d sound like he’d lost his mind. This paranoia, it wasn’t normal. He liked to tell himself that it was the Adderall, the ADHD, but when he was honest with himself, he knew it was him. He was fucking crazy. No wonder he didn’t have any friends, no wonder Erica had ditched him the first chance she got. He wouldn’t be his own friend either. There was nothing to gain from this cynical, insecure, anxious mess that he was.

His uneven breath catch in his throat, the last drop for his straying nerves. His mind collapsed in itself and he pathetically started to cry.

If Theo hadn’t been awake then, he probably was now. He stumbled out of the sheets and approached Stiles, putting both hands on his shoulders. His eyes were wide with concern. “Hey- hey, Stiles, come on. What happened? Did you hurt yourself?”

Stiles shook his head, his chest heaving with sobs. He was such a goddamn mess. The more he wanted to force himself to calm down, the more he worked himself up. The rational part of his mind told him that this wouldn’t pass until he calmed down. But he was too upset and Theo’s presence made everything worse. He wanted to crawl into a hole and wait till the panic was over.

But he knew that wasn’t possible. “I can’t sleep,” he managed to ground out between the ugly sniffing and sobbing.

“Did you have a nightmare?”

Stiles snorted, as if Theo’s suggestion had been completely ridiculous. Actually, it wasn’t that far off the truth though. He had nightmares, more often so recently. To some of them he woke up silently, heavily breathing, the panic constrained in his chest, but without a sound. Sometimes he screamed. But only his father knew that.

“No. I just – I can’t sleep with you here, not knowing what you’re doing.”

He expected Theo to be confused, demand an explanation, maybe even laugh. Instead he said, “I could go.”

“What?” He shook his head. “No.” How would he explain that to his father? He wouldn’t be able to stand another discussion with him about seeing a professional about his problems. Yes, he had problems, he knew that – but none some shrink could help him with. The only thing he had going for him was that he wasn’t labeled crazy by the public yet. “You’re staying,” he said with finality.

For a while, there was silence. Theo must be put off by Stiles acting like a freaking lunatic. Any normal person would’ve left by now. Hell, he would’ve ran out the house if the roles were reversed. Instead Theo asked, “Do you have any handcuffs?”

For a few seconds, Stiles didn’t say a word. But when he had finally gathered himself- “What the fuck?”

“Real ones,” the other boy recuperated nonchalantly.

“Why in the hell would you-“

“Because, obviously, I’m kinky, if you haven’t guessed it by now,” Theo answered rolling his eyes. Stiles wasn’t sure whether that had been a joke. “”You wanna sleep or what? Go get me some handcuffs.”

Normally, he wouldn’t have obeyed simply on principle, but he was curious where this would go. And as he rummaged through the drawer, where he knew his father kept a spare pair of handcuffs, he realized that the suffocating panic in his chest was gone.

“Now I’ll go outside and you hide the keys somewhere,” Theo ordered. Stiles wanted to question him, but before he could, Theo had already left the house, still shirtless in the cold night. Not knowing what else to do, Stiles went up to his room and hid the little key in his pill bottle.

When he opened the door for Theo to enter, he didn’t seem affected by the freezing weather. There weren’t even any goosebumps on his skin.

“All done?” Theo asked, the blue-green eyes open and honest. Stiles nodded.

Unceremoniously, Theo cuffed his own wrists together.

Stiles stared. “Okay… What is this about?”

The boy shook his wrist, the metal of the cuffs making clinking sounds. “See? I won’t be able to do much without you hearing. No need to worry about what I’m doing. So are we taking the bed or the couch?”

Stiles should be horrified, but frankly, the plan made sense. It could actually work. And really? It was some crazy shit that he would’ve come up with. The sort of solution that people would raise their brows at but that would actually work. “How do I know you won’t do anything to me while I sleep?”

Theo rolled his eyes. “Stiles, no offense, but if I wanted to harm you, I wouldn’t have to wait until you’re asleep. You’re not exactly what I’d call a physical challenge.”

Fair enough...

“There is no way we’d fit on the couch.”

Stiles had ordered Theo to lay on the side of the bed that faced the wall so that there would be no chance of leaving the bed without alerting Stiles. Theo was happy to lie on his side and watch the other boy’s peaceful face. For once, his breathing was even, but he was still twitching and moving in his sleep, restless, even in his most relaxed moments.

When they had first lain down, Theo had feigned sleep. He knew that Stiles wouldn’t have been able to calm down if Theo had openly watched him. Now though, he stare at him to his heart’s content. He’d watched Stiles without his knowledge before. There were some perfect angles from the outside from which you could see Stiles rummaging in the kitchen. Sometimes he forgot to draw the curtains and Theo could catch glimpses of his sleeping form.

But in never had been like this. Stiles, only an arm’s length away, the ever-present scent of anxiousness enveloping him.

He mumbled something in his sleep, tossed and turned and eventually scooted closer to Theo. It probably was due to Stiles’ weird sleeping positions and the unconscious urge to scoot towards warmth, but nonetheless, Thep was elated when the boy’s head almost touched his chest. He could feel his breath on his naked skin.

Theo wondered whether he could get away with stroking his hair, just running his fingers through the dark hair for once, but he refrained. He still was desperately trying to get Stiles to trust him.

At first glance, Stiles seemed like easy prey. He was isolated and defenseless. He should’ve soaked up all of Theo’s affections and begged for more. But Theo had underestimated him vastly. Stiles wasn’t playing hard to get, he simply was too smart to fall for something as simple as charm.

It only made Theo want him even more. Stiles would be the perfect person to stand by his side. Clever, loyal, and absolutely ruthless.

But he had to get Stiles to trust him first. The boy couldn’t see it yet, but once all circumstances molded to Theo’s wishes, Stiles would find himself in a much happier place. Theo just had to give him a nudge into the right direction and make him realize how much of a glorious team they could be under Theo’s rule.

His father was the only important person in Stile’s life. Eventually, Theo would insert himself as a part of his life. Stiles was his centre already, now he had to make himself Stiles’ centre.

This is were this document ended. I think I planned to end this chapter at this point. I hadn’t planned the future chapters in every detail, but here’s how I planned for the story to roughly go:

Stiles and Theo were supposed to get closer, Theo eventually gaining Stiles’ trust and helping him over his issues with anxiety. They’d slowly become friends, but their relationship would always have a sexual undertone because it’d always been clear that Theo wanted to be more than friends. The sexual tension would escalate and they’d hook up and become an official item.

They would share a toxic dynamic. While Theo is devoted to Stiles, he’s also extremely controlling and possessive. He would watch Stiles, trying to keep constant tabs on what he was doing, going through his phone, getting pissed when Stiles was acting friendly with anyone. They would have big fights over this in which Theo would tell Stiles that he cares too much for him to just let him be.

While Stiles would know that this is an extremely unhealthy relationship that can’t end well, some part of him (the part that had been ignored by the people around him for all his life and was starving for a semblance of affection) loved that he was this important to Theo. And while his relationship was anything but normal, he liked that he got to experience something as normal as having a boyfriend, something he’d never envisioned before.

So they’d have fights, Theo would apologize with some grand gesture, and Stiles wouldn’t be able to stay mad (because some part of him wasn’t actually mad at all). This pattern would repeat itself.

Meanwhile, Scott and his friends would try to make Stiles see reason. By now, they would’ve noticed Theo’s and Stiles’ dynamic because of how explosive Theo can get in public once his jealousy is triggered. Stiles, however, can’t stand Scott and his friends to begin with. He thinks that nobody but his father and Theo, in his own twisted way, cares about him and that they’re only trying to provoke Theo through Stiles.

I don’t think the whole Dread-Doctors thing had been all the way revealed when I was plotting this, so they wouldn’t have been included in this story. But eventually, some danger would befall Beacon Hills again. Amidst everything, everyone’s supernatural identity would be revealed to Stiles. He’d feel vindicated to have his suspicions finally confirmed. He and Theo would work together on overcoming whatever enemy they’d be facing off against.

At some point during all of this, Theo’s behaviour would escalate and would cause something disastrous to happen. Someone would be killed. Stiles can finally no longer ignore Theo’s issues as he fights his desire to stay with Theo against his morals. He’d tell Theo that they needed a break.

Theo would beg him not to break it off, promise to change, and confess his love. Though Stiles would know that Theo wouldn’t really change because of the numerous times he’s promised before, he’d be too moved by Theo’s confession to resist. Eventually, he’d decide be selfish and put his own wants before the needs of others. He’d decide that he’d rather have his toxic, obsessive, passionate relationship with Theo, than to return to the bleak void that he was in before Theo entered his life.

Eventually, they’d graduate and move away to live in some big city like L.A. or NYC.

The End.

#now you know what i mean when i say i was in a bad headspace when i wrote this lol #steo #my writing #messages #it's a terrible love #teen wolf

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tcswritings · 4 years

Text

MASTER DUMP.

Just a whole lot of very rough scribbles that were in my drafts. Some are lengthy, some are very short, some are super old (and partly outdated), others are somewhat recent but they all got one thing in common - I probably won’t go back to them, at least not any time soon. I really just wanna clear my drafts for now, and hey, why not share these bits? I kind of enjoy them anyway after all. xD

***

I. Untitled

(Declan tries to talk to Mick during the time of their big fight.)

***

“This is so stupid, man. We'll keep crossin’ paths after all, whether you like it or not and you don’t really wanna keep this up for all eternity, do you?” Declan asked, crossing his arms while he and the others watched Ryan unpacking the next box.

“Why are you talkin’ to me?” Mick mumbled out of the corner of his mouth. He didn’t even bother to look at Declan.

“This is bullshit, Mick!”

Mick merely took a deep breath, trying to stay calm and focussing on Ryan instead who currently struggled with the wrapping of his gift.

“I mean, I know you love actin’ like a petulant lil’ arsewipe but you could as well as just use that energy to try and forgive me?”

“Do me a favour and drop dead.”

“In sixty years, maybe. You’re gonna have to put up with me for a few more years, I’m afraid.”

“Fuck you.”

“Guys! Shhh!” Jessie hissed at her two fighting friends.

*****

“Can you please tell me what’s so funny?” The least Declan expected from Lauren was a laughing fit.

“I’m sorry!” she chuckled, doing her best to pull herself together. “It’s nothin’ personal, just the thought of my son’s father and his best friend - two grown up men - bitchin’ at each other like sum’ pre-teens would.”

____________________

II. Untitled

(Charlie and Kieran and that one evening in the O’Leary’s.)

It’s Summer 2016 and Charlie realises that her feelings for Kieran have taken a somewhat different turn as she finds herself smitten with him when they have a talk at her favourite pub in Boston.

*****

He looked thinner than the last time she had seen him, and he looked worn-out and very tired.

Not the kind of tired that a few hours of a good night’s sleep could fix, but the kind of tired that someone who had seen and endured too much within a short time would look like, someone who was silently suffering and who was bad at taking care of it.

When Charlie had met Kieran O’Connell for the first time a little more than six years ago, he had acted like an unnecessarily rude brat and there was no other way to put it. He had the questionable charm of a guy who was well aware of his good looks and who knew he was quite the catch, so to say, and she could still remember his overly confident swagger, the arrogant look on his face, his deep and penetrating voice as well as how his pale blue eyes had pierced hers when he had looked into her face for the very first time.

Despite his rudeness (and the apparent lack of manners), Charlie had thought of Kieran as a force of nature from the very beginning and it turned out that she was right - once she got to know him a little better, it became more and more obvious to her that he was actually a very passionate and spirited guy with a heart as big as the entire world and that had impressed her so much more than his cocky behaviour and she couldn’t help but grow really fond of him over the years.

Not much was left of the cocky and lively guy today, though, and while it ached Charlie to see her friend in pain - he tried his best to cover it up but he couldn’t hide it - she had felt a strange wave of affection overwhelming her right in the moment they had greeted each other with a heartfelt hug. There was sympathy, of course, but it was mixed with something else and it took her a little while to figure the feeling out.

Charlie was nervous. Anticipating. And she had been ever since they had sat down at one of the tables. Charlie had been listening closely and her heart ached for him and yet she couldn’t help but notice a little spark despite the gloomy subject. There was nothing in this world she wanted more in this moment than to be close to him and to fix the things going wrong in his life so he would smile at her again, like he always had.

“I just wish there was something I could say.” Charlie sighed. “I don’t have too much to offer aside from ‘I know how it feels.’”

“Y’ do?”

“Yeah.” she nodded. “I lost my aunt when I was 15.”

“That’s rough. You never told me about it.”

“Yeah, it’s not really a subject to keep a mood up, right?”

“Fair enough.” Kieran laughed. “What happened to your aunt?”

“Well, to be fair, she wasn’t really my aunt, not by blood at least. She was the wife of my dad’s best friend.”

“Blood or no blood, it no longer matters after a while.” Kieran said with a faint smile. “How did she die?”

“Same. Car crash. She had her little daughter with her, they both died. She was only 31, her daughter was three.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Yeah, it was. And it wasn’t even just the pain of losing them, y’know? Seeing dad hurt, seeing Adrian hurt - all of a sudden, our entire life was nothing but sadness and grief.”

Kieran let out a dry chuckle. “I know what y’ mean. Watching Ma and Pa, and also my siblings, is the worst. Like a punch to the guts. I try to come an’ see them as often as I can these days but truth is that I dread it every damn time. Sometimes it’s - I dunno. It’s-”

“Too much?”

“Too much.” Kieran nodded. “I mean, how do you even comfort the people who have raised you? What do you tell ‘em? That it’s gonna be alright? I don’t know what losing a child feels like. Gave ‘em nothin’ but grief myself for the better part of my life, I just don’t know what to do or say most of the time.”

“Do you think you have to do or say something?”

“Yeah, it’s what I think. It’s what I think any damn time I’m at home, any time my sister looks at me with her big sad eyes, like she’s at a loss at how t’ move on and any time my brother snaps at us, somethin’ he’s never done before, not like that at least. Someone has to keep this fuckin’ bunch from fallin’ apart after all-”

Kieran fell quiet as Charlie reached over the table and took his hand. It was a spontaneous reaction and Charlie already feared that she could come across as intrusive but Kieran didn’t even flinch at the gesture. He even closed his hand around hers. She squeezed it a little and a few moments later she could tell that he was starting to relax.

“I‘m sorry. Fuckin’ nerves.” he smiled.

“Couldn’t tell.” Charlie smiled back. “Relax. Breathe. You’re here for vacation. You can go back to saving your folks once you charged up.”

“I dunno, I think it takes a lot more to charge up than a few weeks away from home. Actually, I even feel like I’m running away.”

“No. It’s good you’re here. And maybe you won’t charge up right away, but you can get your mind off things for a little while. You gotta do that, y’know?”

“You think so, eh?”

“Yes, I do, and it has nothing to do with running away. You gotta take care of yourself every once in a while.” Charlie squeezed Kieran’s hand once more.

“You’re cute.”

“Well, it’s obvious that you’re not really good at taking care of yourself so I’m just trying to be the person who does it until you learn it.” Charlie cocked her head and smiled at him.

Returning the smile, Kieran brushed a strand of dark hair out of his face with his free hand. He looked at Charlie for a few more moments before he gently pulled his hand back, adjusting himself and looking around the pub. “Alright, how ‘bout we order a jug of ale, get roaring drunk and we’ll go wherever you wanna go?”

“I don’t do ‘roaring drunk’ too well.” Charlie chuckled, suddenly remembering the first and only time he had seen her in that exact state.

“Me neither. We’re already halfway there, though, and we’ll be fine, c’mon.”

“Wait, what’s that supposed to mean? I’m nowhere near roaring drunk and neither are you?”

“We could be. Anything you want, love. Let’s get our minds off things, as you put it.”

Charlie couldn’t tell what exactly caused the flutter in her stomach - the little spark in Kieran’s eyes as well as his playful smile or the term of affection. He had addressed her like that before but it meant more today than it ever had before and she felt herself all too willing to respond.

(...)

____________________

III. Untitled

(Orla yells at Mick for getting married in a fever.)

***

“You. WHAT?”

Orla’s outcry was followed by the distinct noise of shattering glass, causing Mick to flinch and jump back a little. He looked at the mess at his feet and then back at Orla who merely stared at him, her eyes wide, before she looked to the ground and slowly took a crouching position, proceeding to swipe the little shards together with her bare hands.

Mick could see that she was trembling and hunkered down as well. “Be careful, you’re gonna hurt yourself.” he said, but Orla merely batted Mick’s hand away as he tried to keep her from touching the glass.

“NO, don’t touch me!”

“Orla-”

“Look me in the eye and tell me that you didn’t do what I think you just said you did!” Orla’s voice cracked.

“Orla, there’s no need to freak out-”

“You can’t be married!?”

“I am, I jus' told you!”

“Oh my god.” Orla closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Still in her squatting position, she propped up her elbow on her knee, wiping her face with her hand and eventually pinching the bridge of her nose with her finger and her thumb.

Mick raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you a bit dramatic right now?”

"Shut up!” she hissed back at him. “Don’t you dare calling me dramatic!"

“Aye, sorry, I-”

“Are you out of your mind? I mean, more than usual?!"

Mick ignored the little remark. “I don’t even know why you’re makin’ such a big deal of it-”

“Because it is a big deal! It is a Big. Fucking. Deal, Mick! You got married!” She glared at him and realised that she still had a few shards of glass in her left hand. “Ah, fuck this!” she hissed, tossed the few shards to the ground and stood up again, eventually stomping out of the room.

Mick looked after her for a few moments. Granted, he hadn’t really expected Orla to be thrilled, but he hadn’t expected her to be so furious either. Feeling a little helpless, he bit his lip, before he stood up as well and followed her into her living room. When he opened the door, he almost bumped into her. Orla swiftly turned around on the spot.

“Orla, c’mon, let’s just-”

She cut him off once more. “I don’t believe this, Mick. You come here and tell me that you just got married to this total nutcase-”

“Oi, watch it!”

“- and expect me to be, what exactly?! To be cool with it? Like it’s no big deal at all, like it’s the most natural thing ever that my best friend disappears for a weekend and comes home married, to a woman he hardly knows, without letting any of us know-”

“Orla, what the fuck is your problem?”

“You! You are my problem! For years I was the one,” - Orla pointed at herself - “who always stood up for you when anyone called you stupid or idiotic and whatnot but it’s true. They’re all right, you are an idiot and you have always been!”

Mick let out a little laugh as he now faced Orla, his eyes narrowing. “Is that all y’ have to say? That I’m an idiot?”

“Well, you must be!” Orla went on. “The only other explanation I have for this bullshit is that she must do some really amazing things in the bedroom. Does she?”

Mick let out another laugh but it wasn’t a friendly one. “Fuck this, I don’t need to justify myself.”

“No, of course you don’t. Go off, be happy, do what you want. You never cared about filling me in about this but hey, as your best friend I couldn’t be happier for you!” Her voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“How many times do I have to tell you that-”

“- that it was a spontaneous thing? Oh, don’t worry, I got that!”

“Orla-” Mick tried again after a few moments of silence, his voice soft, but Orla wasn‘t done yet.

“I mean, it is not quite what I meant when I told you a while ago that you need to work on being more spontaneous again. You could’ve started by, dunno, going on a road trip or buying a new couch or gettin’ Sasha a friend but hey, why not marry a woman you have known for six minutes? You exceeded my expectations, congratulations!”

All of a sudden, a thought crossed Orla’s mind and as it did, her heart skipped a beat and she could feel the colour rushing from her face. “Oh dear lord. She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”

Mick now closed his eyes and groaned. “Oh god, oh my fuckin’ god.”

“Answer me!” Orla spat out.

“I dunno!” he shot back.

“Wrong answer!”

Mick groaned. “I mean, I don’t think so, no?! Even if she was, it wasn’t the reason why we did this.”

“Oh my god, I would even get that, considering how you were raised and-”

“Shut up! Just shut. up!” Mick eventually interrupted her harshly. He was done being patient. “Stop psychoanalysing me, stop buggin’ me, stop doin’ whatever y’ doin’. You insulted me in every possible way within the last ten minutes and I don’t need that shit from you, not from you!”

“Well, did you expect me to be happy for you? Like you didn’t just ruin your entire life?”

“I didn’t ruin my life and no, I didn’t expect that.” Mick replied wearily. “I dunno what I expected, I just didn’t think y’ would be that much of an arsehole about everything.”

“I am not being an arsehole-”

“You’re bein’ the worst arsehole I’ve ever known right now and I’m done talkin’ about this unless you tell me what the real problem is.”

“I don’t have a problem?”

“You most certainly do. And I wanna know what it is, goddammit.”

“You’re throwing your life away for a woman you hardly know! You keep falling for all those wacko women who are terrible for you and it’s beyond me how you fail to see that-”

“Wait, just so I get this right... you can date whomever you want, for as long or short as you want, no matter how much of a fuckwad the guy is, but once I pick someone, I need your approval?”

“That is not what I’m saying.” Orla groaned and rolled her eyes.

“So what are y’ sayin’ then?”

Orla blinked and took a breath as she put her hands to her hips, shooting Mick a harsh look.

“Has it ever occurred to you that you make the worst choices, Mick? That you’re complete and utter shit at getting your damn life together? You just outdid yourself! First Leila-”

“That was different-”

“-and now Mina. Why can’t you just pick a nice and stable one for once? Why can’t you just-”

“Stay alone so I can be your last resort?”

Startled, Orla looked at Mick, her lips parted in shock.

“What did you just say?” she whispered.

“I dunno, I’m merely gettin’ the impression that you like keepin’ me on a short leash but once I go off and do my own thing-”

“You have some nerve-”

“Obviously hit a nerve.” Mick mumbled.

“You’re so full of shit! Why would I want to keep you as a last resort? What kinda fucked up thought is that even? You’re my best friend!”

“Hell yes, I am, and I wouldn’t want it any other way but right now y’ bein’ the world’s worst bitch-”

“HEY!”

“And don‘t tell me that you wouldn’t have ran off with that fuckin’ Australian if he’d asked you to.”

“Yeah, maybe, but I’m glad I didn’t. All relationships start out great, you know that, but things can blow up so quickly. Even worse, sometimes one part just runs away when nothing at all happened, just like James did.”

“Just like you did.”

“What are you even talking about?”

“You ran away from me, just like that.”

“Oh my god, why are you bringing up age old stories again?”

Mick ignored the question. “Y’know what? I don’t even care. I care about makin’ this work, I can do that all by myself and I don’ need your support anyway. How about y’ just leave me be, alright?”

____________________

IV. Untitled

(Declan and Lauren face some unexpected trials of life.)

***

September 2014

“What about Marshall?”

“What, like the guy from that terrible sitcom?”

“Nah, like the amplifiers. Or, y’know, like Jimi Hendrix’s middle name.”

Lauren pursed her lips as she pondered the suggestion for a few moments. She eventually shook her head. “Don’t think so, no.”

“Aw, c’mon, why not? It sounds badass.”

“But I will know that the poor baby was named after either a drug addict or a huge black... block. Thanks, I’ll pass.”

“Just think about this, though: he’ll love us for the name when he eventually becomes a guitarist?”

“We don’t even know if he’s a he, Dec. Let alone whether he becomes a guitarist.”

“Come on. ‘Course it’s gonna be a boy. I mean, “ Declan shrugged, “two brothers, two nephews? We have strong genes.”

“Dear lord, no, I really don’t wanna raise a... you.” Lauren groaned as she leaned back against the wall, struggling to find a comfortable position. She was in the eighth month of her pregnancy and some things became a little tricky - such as finding resting positions that didn’t leave her sore or in pain after ten or less minutes.

“Aw, will you ever stop pretending that you can’t stand me? I mean, we both know how that came to be?” Declan gently patted Lauren’s belly before he reached over to grab one of the pillows that were piled up next to the little cupboard that he had helped her build up earlier. “C’mon, take that. You probably shouldn’t be sitting on the floor anyway, eh?”

“Ugh, it no longer makes a difference anyway. I feel and look like a whale, everything hurts and nothing is comfortable anymore. Not ever.”

As he put the pillow behind Lauren’s back, trying to make sure that she felt at least a little more comfy, Declan grimaced. He felt pretty guilty all of a sudden. “... sorry you feel like that.”

“That, uhm, was actually the part when you were to say ‘You don’t look like a whale, Lauren!’, y’know.”

“Ah, shit.” Declan laughed. “You don’t look like a whale, Lauren!”

“You’re a horrible liar but, y’know, points for trying and such.” Lauren smiled back. “It’s alright, I’m kidding, don’t worry. Looking like a whale is kinda like my least problem these days.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay. Can I be completely honest for a second?”

“Sure.”

Lauren took a heavy breath. “I’m freaking out, actually.”

“What? Now?”

“No, not now. I mean, yeah. Also now! All the damn time! I mean, aren’t you freaking out? Not at all?”

Declan looked at Lauren and when he pondered the question in his mind he realised that, at least right now, he was quite far from freaking out. “Not really.” he replied. “I mean, I used to, yeah?”

“I know you used to. You freaked out right in the beginning and now, with due date ‘round the corner, it’s me... I dunno. I kinda don’t want this.”

“Bit late for second thoughts, I’m afraid.”

“I know! I know how horrible that must sound to you now, oh god.”

“Nah, it doesn’t.”

“I’m just wondering how on goddamned earth I thought I could be a good parent. I mean, I took the risk of getting pregnant just so I - so we could- oh god. So what’s next? Huh? Tell me.”

“Uhm-”

“I tell you what’s next. I’m gonna put Baby on the changing table and leave the room, just like that, because hey, what’s the worst that could happen, eh?”

“Okay, what are you talking about-”

“And I sure won’t bother reading about nutrition and food?! Oh hell no, I’ll just give Baby some rubbish I find in the back of my refrigerator ‘cause, I mean, it works for me, right?!”

“Oh god, Lauren, what the fuck is that about now?”

“I am stupid, Dec! I don’t think things through, I can’t possibly be a parent!”

“So what, I’m stupid, too? Kinda played my part in this, y’know.”

“Oh my god! Yes, you are stupid! We’re both stupid!”

Declan snorted. “So let’s just hope this all maybe works out like multiplication, eh? Minus times minus equals plus?”

“We’re not at school!” Lauren moaned.

“Yeah I’m kinda grasping at straws here.” Declan admitted and bit his lip. “Honestly though, it’s what I do all the time. I just hope for the best. And somehow it works?”

“But you can’t just ‘hope for the best’ when a baby is involved?”

“Huh! Just think about all those weirdos in this world who manage to raise a kid. It somehow works? My parents raised us and they’re pretty much the worst weirdos I know.”

“Is that supposed to reassure me now?!” Lauren raised an eyebrow.

“C’mon, we really didn’t turn out all too bad! ... okay, Orla is a bit weird, I’ll give you that, but three out of four is still a good rate?”

“Oh my god!” Lauren laughed.

Declan smiled at her for a few moments before he eventually put his arm around her shoulder, scooting a little closer and pressing a kiss to her temple.

“I’m not even saying that everything will be fine, I’m just saying that it’s gonna happen, no matter what, and we just kinda... have to do this.”

“My parents offered any help I need...” Lauren murmured, resting her head on Declan’s shoulder.

(...)

September 2019

(...)

“Oh man, for how much longer are they even going to be in there?!”

“Shh. It’s all good, it’s been only five minutes.” Lauren whispered.

“I don’t understand why they have to keep doing all this, it’s not like it changes, y’know... what it is.”

“They need the x-ray to check his lymph vessels, so they can eventually figure out the best way to treat him.”

“They’re clueless.”

“They’re thorough. He’ll be fine, you know they won’t harm him.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, you already sound like them.” Declan scoffed.

“I don’t. Unlike you, I listened to what they had to say! Stop using that tone on me already!”

“What tone?”

“Like I have no clue what you’re going through.”

Declan could hear the bitterness in Lauren’s voice and it was when he knew he had gone too far. He couldn’t let it out on her. Of all people in his life, Lauren was the one who understood exactly how he felt and she was also the one whose company he longed for most these days.

“I’m sorry. God, I- I know I’m awful. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I get it.” Lauren rested her head against his shoulder while they held each other close.

“He’s all alone in there.” Declan’s voice broke and he wiped his tired eyes with the palm of his hand. “I hate it when they take him away.”

“I know. Me too.”

“I’m freakin’ out, Lauren.”

“C’mon, let’s sit.”

“Don’t wanna sit, I want him back.”

“I know, I want the same.”

“Don’t know how it happened but I’m strangely fond of this kid.” Declan now let out a little laugh. It was a nervous laugh, one that happened because he was too scared to let out anything else at this point. Lauren knew him well enough.

“Go figure.” she replied faintly. There was silence for a few moments until Declan spoke again.

(...)

____________________

V. Text Messages, part 1.

Declan has created the group ‘concert shit’.

Declan has added you to the group.

Declan has changed the group image.

6:43 - Declan: Lady and Gentlemen, this is the long overdue group chat to plan our concerts and open airs. I’m sick of talking to you individually and organise shit all by myself.

6:44 - Jessie: Like you ever did that or are remotely good at that kinda stuff 😆

6:44 - Declan: Quiet Jessica.

6:44 - Jessie: No. 😂 😂 😂

6:44 - Declan: Suggestions to change the group title are not welcome btw. Concert shit is a grand name for this kind of group

6:45 - Mick: why cant we change the title

6:45 - Mick: it’s shit

6:45 - Mick: literally

6:46 - Declan: Because we can’t Michael.

6:46 - Declan: I’m the admin, I say what’s to be done.

6:46 - Mick: ya do shit man

6:46 - Mick: like I let ya tell me what to do

6:47 - Daryl: I already hate this group dynamic.

6:47 - Jessie: It’s like in real life. 😆

6:47 - Jessie: Dipso always tries to be the one who decides shit. And we just don’t let him so it’s all good? So, Clockwork Fury in Dublin? I’d be up for it!

6:48 - Daryl: When?

6:48 - Daryl: And why Dublin, why not Athlone? Aren’t they playng in Athlone this time?

6:48 - Daryl: *playing

6:48 - Declan: I didn’t even know they are touring. Found them kinda lame last time tbh.

6:49 - Mick: they ARe lame

6:49 - Mick: Im out

6:49 - Mick: road trip to dublin tho

6:49 - Mick: like 2017

6:49 - Mick: for gojira

6:49 - Mick: I WANT a noTHER ROAD RIP

6:49 - Mick: TRIP lol

6:50 - Daryl: I still have nightmares and flashbacks from that trip. How much are tickets for CF, Jess?

6:52 - Jessie: 30ish, I think. I’ll order next week, I’m definitely gonna go and I’m taking Harper.

6:53 - Daryl: You guys are serious now?

6:53 - Jessie: I dunno. Yeah? I guess? 😂

6:53 - Jessie: The woman needs some good taste in music HONESTLY. And, I mean, she agreed to come and to be open about more future concerts and planning stuff together kinda means we’re in relationship land!? I mean, is that even a good sign?

6:54 - Daryl: How would I know? I’m shit at that stuff. 😂

6:55 - Jessie: Does Patti know you’re shit at that stuff? xD

6:55 - Daryl: She’s had first hand experience for three months now so yeah, I assume she does. She kinda seems to like me enough. 😂

6:55 - Jessie: Yeah why she’s a KEEPER?! 😜

6:55 - Jessie: Told ya that if you mess it up, I will gladly take her.

6:56 - Declan: what the fuck??

6:56 - Daryl: Thanks Jess but I think I’m gonna keep her myself. :D

6:56 - Declan: last time I checked this chat was called ‘concert shit’

6:56 - Declan: NOT ‘RELATIONSHIP SHIT’

6:56 - Declan: y’all are annoying with your relationship shit.

_________________

VI. Sailor Man

March 2020. The days are getting longer, the air is getting warmer and Orla just met a handsome sailor from overseas. Her friends are very, very curious.

***

“So, who was that guy last night?”

“Can we maybe not talk about last night? I still feel horrible.” Orla sounded tired and as she rubbed her temples, she let out a faint sigh.

“Ah, sweetheart, don’t worry. You got tipsy, so what?” Rosamund waved off. “All I could complain about is that you didn’t spend your money here at my place, as usual.”

“Honestly, I don’t even know what happened.” Orla groaned. “I was at the tattoo studio, and all of a sudden this incredibly sexy guy in a sailor uniform comes in. Tall, broad, dark hair, gorgeous tan, tattooed all over, bright smile, cute dimples... and that’s when I, well. I kinda stopped thinking.”

“A sailor uniform?” Patti asked. “You’re dating a sailor?”

“We’re not dating, we have met only yesterday! He wanted to get a little tattoo that would remind him of his stay here. I think Harper noticed that I was... , well, that I was a bit into him and pointed him in my direction and I told him that I was only the apprentice but he didn’t care, he wanted the tat anyway so I did it.”

Orla looked around. Rosamund, Declan and Patti all stared expectantly at her. She frowned but eventually shrugged and went on.

“Well, we went out afterwards, we had a snack, I showed him around, he told me he was from Detroit... annnnd we hopped some bars, I got tipsy, and at some point he kissed me, and I got even more tipsy.... and then we got here and I said some really terrible things to Mick and... oh god, Mick.” Orla groaned, closing her eyes and burying her face in her hands. “I somehow need to sort that out.”

“Ah, not now, though.” Patti interfered. “A sailor, wow. I mean, is he a sailor or just some weirdo who likes dressing up as one?”

“Oh, he is a sailor, darling. Such a sailor.” Rosamund closed her eyes and smiled, still charmed by the cheer memory of the guy.

“And he’s definitely an upgrade to Pizza Pete.” Declan nodded.

“Don’t call him Pizza Pete!?” Orla snapped.

“He referred to himself as Pizza Pete?! Don’t try to cover that he was the unfunniest... blandest boyfriend you ever had.”

“It’s the way you said it. Don’t be so condescending. Pete was cute and... well, I got fifty percent off my next order after any time we, uh... we met.”

“Ugggh...” Declan wrinkled his nose and looked away.

“Fifty percent? You were screwing that guy and all you got was lousy fifty percent? What a cheapskate.” Patti exclaimed, clearly appalled.

“It’s better than nothing- what, no, I don’t wanna talk about Pete now? My head’s still spinning, y’all need to leave me suffer in silence, please.”

(...)

_____________

VII. Untitled

(I don’t even know what this was supposed to be, lol. Sean turns 53 and the family celebrates?!?!?! Also, this must be set in 2013 since Orla and Mick are a thing here, haha.)

***

“I still don’t know how y’all convinced me to celebrate my 53th birthday.” Sean O’Connell laughed. “It’s not an even number or somethin’ after all.”

“Well, we need some kind of excuse to stuff our faces and get drunk during daylight?” his daughter suggested, rasing her glass to her father. “Cheers, Da!”

“Cheers, sweetheart. Like you ever cared about that.” Sean replied and he nearly lost it at Orla’s dumbfounded expression.

“When did I ever get drunk during daylight? I don’t do that!” Orla seemed appalled.

“You did. With Ma.” Declan chimed in. “Like, two weeks ago.”

“You did what?” Next to Orla, Mick raised his eyebrow, suppressing a smile.

“Uhm no, that was just-”

Sean laughed heartily now. “No no no, no need to justify yourself, kid, that was hilarious. I loved how you two sang along to- what was it again?”

“Daaaad!” Orla moaned.

“The Moulin Rouge soundtrack! After all those years it’s still wonderful!” Sarah noted.

“Oh yeah.” Declan noted with an eyeroll. “So wonderful.”

“Glad I wasn’t around for that.” Malachy mumbled next to him.

“You should be. It was ugly. Very, very ugly.” Declan mumbled back at him. “Earshattering. Frightening.”

“Oh god, can you just stop being arseholes and-” Orla interfered but Sarah just shook her head.

“C’mon, sweetheart, it’s not our fault that all these lil’ fuckers here have no idea how to spend a good time, eh?”

Orla pursed her lips for a bit and eventually nodded. “You know what? Right you are, Ma. Y’all are just boring. We should do it again, I think. Right here. Right now.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, don’t.” Malachy spat out. “I don’t need any nightmares later.”

“You are a nightmare.” Orla shot back. When she saw that her boyfriend was still looking at her with his eyes wide in apparent confusion, she groaned. “Don’t look at me like that? I promise, I won’t burst out singing songs now.”

“Whatever,” Mick answered. “There could be worse after all.”

Malachy snorted. “Jesus Christ, congrats!” he said into Orla’s direction. “Apparently love ain’t just blind, it’s also deaf.”

“I mean, Mick, you know she can’t sing, don’t you? ‘Course you do.” Declan added.

“Ugh, c’mon, Dip, what am I supposed to say now? She’s sittin’ right next to me.”

“At least he’s not blatantly lying!” Sarah chimed in. “I like that! Very promising!”

“Y’gotta learn that, tho.” Declan said. “Relationships are all about sugarcoating and tellin’ each other weird cute-sy shit just so the other one ain’t pissed all the time.”

“Aye, I’m, uh, not gonna take that note, don’t mind me.” Mick raised an eyebrow.

“Good boy!” Sarah nodded. “You two will do just fine, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, just don’t take any tips from Declan.” Malachy added.

“Hey!” Declan protested. “I give great advice.” He turned to Mick and Orla again. “Mark my words, man, in a few years, when the two of you have three weird kids and are miserable all the time, you’ll be longing for my piece of advice.”

“No one is having weird kids!” Sarah chimed in. “Hopefully.” she added quietly, but still loud enough that both Mick and Orla now shared a startled look.

(...)

__________________

.... that’s it, I guess. Sanne out. :’D

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kendrie94 · 6 years

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Exagorá Istoría

(Posted one year ago on an old blog. This is to serve as and intro to me for this blog.)

This is my redemption story.

The definition of redemption in the Merriam Websters Dictionary is the act of making something better. That is exactly what happened to me on my recent camping trip to Cheaha State Park in Northern Alabama. I left that Friday morning one person and returned and different person on Sunday at the end of the weekend. No I wasn't physically different and I was still me, but something had changed.

The story that brought me to the point I am at now really starts a few months ago around August of 2016. I recently started attending a new church with friends from work. I was very unsure if this church was where I was suppose to be and was considering attending to others churches to make sure. My fiancé at the time had even invited me to attend the church he went to. But, for some reason I found home at this church and became a member along with many of my coworkers who were already members there. My life was taking a great turn and I could see God working. I had a bible study to attend, a discipleship group I was a part of, and many friends who were always there when I needed them. Life for me seemed to be going good and I was happy, but as we all know life is a journey that has many twist, turns, and paths it takes.

The first turn happened in October of 2016. At the time I was engaged and in two years would be married. But that October my engagement ended and I was torn. My heart was broken. I had never felt anything like it. I didn't let it go easily either. I let it consume me. I convinced myself finally I was over it, but really I was just ignoring what I was feeling in hopes that it would go away because I didn't want to deal with it. And, to me, that was that.

The next twist came when I was in Cape Cod, MA at my first grand opening with Chick-fil-a. I was enjoying my time in Cape Cod. I had come to love living there over the two weeks I was there and I even got to go to Boston and see parts of the city. I was loving it and it was amazing! But, then one day as I was walking to work I get a phone call from my mom. My grandmother had passed away. I already knew my grandmother was sick and dying of cancer, but we were suppose to have more time with her. We were suppose to spend Christmas with her. When my moms caller ID popped up on my phone I immediately knew what had happened. They had made the trip down the day before because the doctors weren't sure how long she had left. As my mom spoke to me on the phone it took all I could not to start weeping and fall down to my knees on the sidewalk I was standing on. After her call I went to work and put it out of my brain because I had a job to do. I had trainees that needed me. The Grand Opening Supervisors offered to give me some time or even if I wanted to go home I could and they would understand. I declined because I knew I had to be there and that was where my grandmother would want me. Looking back one of the hardest parts was the fact that I had none of my support system with me there. I could call,but that was not the same. It was a week before I would be home with them. My heart was breaking even more. I did the same thing with my grandmother's death that I had done with my break up. I put it aside and ignored it so I didn't have to deal with it.

Time pasted and all those changes that had happened in my life that I chose to not deal with or process. I had just kept pushing forward like I always had. But, eventually I found myself in a dangerous place. I started just going through the motions everyday. That soon led to leaving the door right open for Satan to waltz right in and take me over and develop strongholds in my life. I started making bad choices that hurt me. I wanted to blame myself for everything that had happened over the months. The break-up, my grandmother dying, and other things that happened. I let Satan use it to pull me in to the dark. I would seek out help and advice from my friends and family, but would either fail to follow it or for a short time try and give up. I began to get really depressed and my anxiety intensified. I continued to make bad choices. I didn't feel like myself anymore. I was having nightmares and would wake up sweating. I felt like I was drowning and almost ready to give up. I even thought about just giving up a couple times.

But, God is amazing and he wasn't about to give up on me. During this time I was still attending church, small group, and discipleship group, but I would listen and couldn't figure out why my life really didn't reflect everything we were talking about and I was hearing. Finally it came to a point where on Sunday morning I decided I didn't want to go to church. My friends texted me and I didn't want to answer. I sat in my dark room the whole day mostly. I felt terrible and numb. Finally I talked to my friends and they began speaking truth to me as I felt like I was sitting in this dark hole. Then it really hit me that I had really messed up. I ended up choosing to go to my friends house that night because if I didn't I probably would have made a choice I would have regretted.

Like I said God is amazing and I soon encountered Him in a way I had never before. That next weekend I went on a camping trip. I had been planning this trip for a while and was ready to go. The purpose of this trip was to get away from my everyday life and seek God. I had realized I had gotten far from Him and He was what I was missing. I was tired of being depressed and making the choices I was making. I was questioning who I was, my purpose, and so many other things. So that weekend I set off to Cheaha State Park in Northern Alabama. I turned off all phone notifications and answered no calls. All my music centered toward God. I was determined. The first afternoon I was there didn't bring much except setting up camp and sleep, but it sure was beautiful there. The next day got off to a slow start and I took a drive through the area. Then I went hiking on the Bald Rock Trail. I came to the cliff area and looked out point and it was beautiful. I took a few pictures then settled down and for a while I just looked out over the horizon in awe of the view. I took my Bible out some time later and began reading where I had left off on my attempt of reading the Bible in a year. Soon God spoke to me it was like a soft whisper to put my Bible away and find a rock. I did as I had heard and found a rock. On that rock God had me write out on one side to my grandmother. All questions I had, any regrets, anger, things that i wanted to tell her, and things I wanted to say to God about her. On the other side I wrote to my former Fiancé. All the questions I wanted to ask him, any anger, regrets, anything at all, and anything to God I wanted Him to know. As I wrote these things God continued to speak to me and fill my heart. He gave me answers to things I had asked, addressed my anger, and anything else that was on my heart. Finally when I was done He told me to throw the rock over the cliff and walk away. And when I walk away don't look back because I am making a choice to let go of all of those things on that rock and give it to Him. You would think I would probably just toss that rock and go because God commanded it, but it wasn't that easy. I held that rock a while because not only was God present on that cliff so was Satan, and Satan wasn't about to let God take me back after all the work he had done to take me. So I held that rock for a while but I knew a choice had to be made. I threw that rock and I walked away. Immediately a peace came over me and a song played through my heart. It felt as if God was right there walking with me.

After that my experience wasn't over I hiked another trail in the park, and as I did I could still feel God like He was walking right next to me talking and singing. As I walked I came to a spot and God told me to pick up the rock at my foot. I picked it up and placed it in my bag. I continued until I came to the cliffs at the next outlook and found me a place to sit and look out over the area. Once again the view was breathtaking. I pulled out my prayer journal and began to write and pray to God. I repented of all I had been doing and the choices I had made. I gave everything over to God and gained understanding only He could give. Then I pulled the rock He had me pick up along my way and wrote on it as God told me what to write. On it God gave me a list of six things that He wanted me to be focused on in my life right now. As I wrote these things the story of Moses came to mind and played as God spoke to me. God spoke to me and said, "Just like Moses made a covenant with me many years ago that still is upheld today; you have now made a covenant with me in giving me your life." It was amazing. Once I had finished God then told me to rest. If you ask any of my friends and family they will tell you it is almost impossible to keep me still for long periods. I'm always going somewhere and doing something. But, for almost three hours I laid in my hammock perfectly still and in peace. I felt different and I didn't feel like I was drowning or in a dark hole anymore. No everything wasn't magically all perfect but it was different. I left that camping trip forever changed.

After I left my whole ride home and the days that followed I had a word God placed on my heart and I didn't know why. The word was baptism. I prayed and I talked with friends and my college ministers wife trying to find an answer. I had already been saved and baptized so I just couldn't figure it out. Finally God gave me the answer through friends and a book called "not a fan." I think I had known the answer all along but it scared me because I thought something might be wrong with me and I was sort of ashamed really. The Sunday after I got home I found myself in my bedroom on my knees and face crying to God. As I did He spoke to me and I knew the answer as he poured His words into my heart. Yes I thought I had been saved and was a Christian, but God quickly showed me I did not belong to Him. When you are saved you change and as a kid after I was saved I was still same old me. As I grew up I continued in seeking God and going to church. I did everything I knew I was suppose to cause I had grown up in church, but something was missing and I just didn't know it because I thought I was right on track with my faith. But, God continued to show me had I knew Him all this time some of the decisions I had made in my life would have been a lot different. So ultimately the answer was yes I knew God was real, but I didn't have a relationship with Him until I prayed that day on that cliff and gave everything to Him. Since then I have been changed and I have answered His call not just to believe but follow Him! I have committed to come and die so I can be in a relationship with Him. No everything is not magically fixed in my life just because God and me have a relationship. He is not a genie that makes everything perfect. But, because of Him Satan has no hold on me anymore and when Satan tries to take me again God says no because she is mine. I sit here now typing all of this with a smile across my face. Today I shared with my church family my decision and celebrated with them. In a few Sundays I will be baptized before my church family, friends, and family members. I can't wait and my heart does flips at the thought of it.

I don't share this story to make people feel sympathy for me, to step on any toes, or cause debate. I share this story so that if there is someone out there lost and scared who can't figure out what is missing from there life, for the person is in such a dark place no light seems in sight and they are ready to give up, and for those just like me who think I know God and everything is good but something is still missing. It is for y'all I share my redemption story so that hopefully it can reach even just one person and they can know God as their Father and have a relationship with Him!

I am Kendra and this is the story of how my life is changed forever, and how God is the reason why because of His love, grace, and mercy for us! This is my redemption story!

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billnoncipher · 6 years

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Wendip Week 2018, Prompt 5: “Flirting.”

All Aboard the Flirt Train

By William Easley

(This is not part of my regular continuity, but a story written for Wendip Week 2018 for Prompt 5: Flirting)

Ever since he had turned sixteen, Dipper had felt different. He could drive—when Mom and Dad let him borrow one of their cars for an hour or so. He had asked Wendy out to three whole dates the previous summer, and she'd accepted every time. So as the summer of 2016 began, he was fired up for . . . adventures in Gravity Falls! With his favorite redhead!

And when Mabel gave a sleepover alert for their first weekend in the Falls that summer of 2016, and when it turned out that Pacifica was out of town with her parents, Grenda was off in Austria for a week, and Candy was at band camp for two weeks, Wendy was the only one who responded.

"Not good," Mabel pronounced that afternoon.

"Sure, it's good," Dipper said. "You two are buddies. Like big sister and little sister."

"Augghh!" Mabel yelled, waving her arms and doing a good vocal impression of Charlie Brown missing that football again. "You can't play any of the good sleepover games with just two! Gotta be a minimum of three! So, I guess it's gonna be really boring for Wendy." She paused and then in a sly tone, she added, "Unless . . . "

OK, Dipper told himself, it would be awkward but not that awkward. Mabel would sleep, if she slept at all, in her old bed in the attic. Wendy would sleep in Dipper's bed.

Yep, right . . . in my bed.

And Dipper would sleep on the floor. On an air mattress. In his sleeping bag. At the foot of his bed, not in it.

Knowing Mabel, and knowing this is the first sleepover of the summer, we probably won't even get to bed, anyway. The first and last ones are all-nighters.

Dipper assured himself it would be all right. That morning Wendy brought an overnight bag to work, and that evening the three went up to the attic bedroom. They got into sleepwear—Wendy modestly chose green pajamas, Mabel wore her old sleep shirt plus shorts under them, and Dipper wore a t-shirt and shorts that came down to his knees, nothing racy.

And then Mabel said they first had to gossip—not a life skill Dipper had developed. But he sat mostly silent listening to Mabel and Wendy dish the dirt on Pacifica, teachers from both of their schools, Tad Strange (very bland gossip), and a few others.

"Come on, Dipper!" Mabel said at one point. "Hold up your end of the conversation!"

"I never talk to anybody or find out any of these things," Dipper pointed out. "I'd have to make up gossip. Like 'The mailman is a werewolf.'"

"No, he's not," Mabel said, laughing. "He told me he suffers from hyperpilosity, that's all."

"I said I was making it up."

Wendy shook her head. "No good, dude. It has to have some fact in it to be gossip."

Next, Mabel broke out the trusty old Twister game. Now, Dipper couldn't deny that posing nearly wrapped around Wendy with one hand and one foot on red, one hand on yellow, and one foot on blue wasn't stimulating. It was less so, though, when Wendy, laughing, lost her balance and fell on him, smashing his face into the floor.

They dealt with the nosebleed for ten or fifteen minutes. Wendy kept apologizing, but Dipper said, "Wasn't your fault. It was the game. I'm OK, really."

Then there was M.A.S.H., the game of numbered lists under the headings Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House, plus some arcane business with a spiral line and counting, and Mabel announced the results: "Wendy, you're gonna live in a Shack, drive a tank, marry Jared Padalecki, and have four kids! Dipper, you're gonna live in an Apartment, drive a minibus, marry Melanie Martinez, and have one child!"

"Name it after me, dude," Wendy said.

"Only if it's a boy!" Mabel said, and she fell over backwards, hugging herself as she gave her high, gurgling laugh.

"This is a stupid game," Dipper complained. "Why can't we play 'Dungeons, Dungeons, and More Dungeons?' Or the Duck-Tective version of 'Clue?'"

"Lame!" Wendy said. She didn't have the patience for board games.

"Truth or Dare!" Mabel said.

"Yeah, I'm up for it," agreed Wendy.

"I . . . think I'm leaving," Dipper said, getting to his feet.

Mabel lunged across the floor, tackling him at the ankles. His crash hurt even more than the bruised nose had. "Mabel! Seriously, quit it!"

"Come on, dude," Wendy said. "We'll go easy on you."

"Yeah, yeah," Mabel said. "Dip, you first—truth or dare?"

Looking at her fiendishly grinning face, Dipper sighed. "Dare, I guess."

Giggling, Mabel said, "Do the 'Lamby Lamby' dance!"

"I hate that!"

"It's a sacred dare! You gotta! Wait a minute!" Mabel dashed to her bed, hauled out a trunk from beneath it, and rummaged in it. She produced a white crocheted tam and gloves set, and she followed those with a wooly white sweater. "This'll be close enough! Costume, Broseph!"

She tugged the junk onto him. He sighed. "I hate this." But he sang the song and danced the dance, going down on one knee at the end. Mabel laughed so hard she was gagging.

But Wendy smiled and clapped. "Brings back memories, man. And Dip, you still make a darned cute lamb. You could follow me to school one day."

Wendy chose dare, too, and Wendy challenged her: "Flirt with my brother for five minutes!"

"Don't humiliate her," Dipper said. "Wendy, you don't have to—"

"It's cool, man. I won't embarrass you. Hey, dude, I love the way you're always trying to protect me."

He squirmed. "I know you don't need to be protected but I just don't want Mabel to embarrass you. Or me. And she always finds a way to do it."

Wendy hip-slid over to sit next to him. "But you're mature enough to let that roll off your back," she said.

"Like a duck off a log!" Mabel yelped.

Wendy reached out and gently touched Dipper's cheek. "Hey, hey, don't let it bother you like that. It's just flirting. It's not that bad. It doesn't hurt anything."

"Yeah, but it makes me all crazy," Dipper complained, huddling where he sat. "I mean, it's different for you, Wendy. You're the coolest person I've ever known, and you've got all the confidence in the world."

"You think so?" Wendy asked. "Let me tell you, I've got rotten judgment in guys. That's why I'm so glad you came back this summer. You're not like the guys I usually see. You never try to pressure me into anything. You're a true gentleman, Dipper."

He blushed. "Wendy I'm not—but if I seem that way, it's because being close to you makes me better than I really am. Better than I thought I ever could be. But that's you, not me. I'm a mess, and you're so fantastic—I wish I had your strength and your confidence. I wish I was one-tenth as hot as you are. Oops, I didn't mean to say that!"

"It's a compliment, Dip," Wendy said with a sweet smile. "Just like you to say something nice like that and get embarrassed. Man, it's kind, but please don't talk about me like that. I'm, like, a wreck! I wish I could be as loyal as you are, as willing to help anybody in trouble, as forgiving. I'm none of that. When you find a girl—"

"Time!" Mabel yelled. "That was some pretty good flirting, Wendy!"

Dipper blinked. "Wait, what? The game already started? I thought—oh." He sighed. "Not real. Like my made-up gossip."

Wendy touched his arm, rubbing her palm up and down as she caressed it. "Nope," she said. "That was one hundred per cent from the heart, man. Mabes didn't say the flirting had to be made up."

"You—were serious?" Dipper asked.

She kissed him on the lips. "Yep," she said in a whisper.

Mabel switched back to Dipper's turn without him noticing she hadn't taken her own turn yet. "Truth or Dare, Brobro?"

"Truth," he said.

Chuckling, Mabel said, "How many girls have you ever kissed?"

Dipper winced. "You mean on the lips?"

"On the whatever!" Mabel said. "Come on, spill it!"

"Go on, Dip," Wendy said.

He squirmed. "Um. Let me count. There's my mom, on the cheek. There was that girl in fifth grade that Mabel promised a dollar to if she'd let me kiss her on the cheek."

"Oh, yeah, Anna," Mabel said. She glanced at Wendy. "She didn't get the dollar, 'cause at the last second she ran away screaming. I think she had to have therapy later."

Dipper was frowning as he did mental arithmetic. "I guess it's a total of . . . thirty-three, counting Mabel. Just a brother-sister kiss."

"Dude," Wendy said, "that's more impressive than I figured!"

"Wait, wait," Mabel objected, frowning. "Dipper, there is no WAY you've kissed that many girls!"

"It's true," Dipper said.

"Name them all!"

Dipper shrugged. "You, Mom, Anna . . . Wendy."

"That's four!" Mabel said. "Boo, you liar!"

"I'm not lying," Dipper said, reaching for Wendy's hand. "Wendy's ten times better than each of the others, and three tens make thirty."

Wendy laughed. "Oh, Dip, that deserves another one!" And she kissed him again.

"I feel like I've been touched by an angel," Dipper said.

Mabel said, "Hang on, no fair! You weren't dared to flirt with Wendy!"

"Mabes," Wendy said, comfortably hugging Dipper and looking not at Mabel, but deeply into her twin's eyes, "we just started a whole different kind of game."

The End

#wendip week #william easley #gravity falls

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yasbxxgie · 6 years

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In the wake of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the consequences of the 2016 election are settling in at a whole new level for white women. As a result, many are revisiting the post-election statistic that showed 53 percent of white women voted for the candidate who spewed racial vitriol and actively emboldened violence against people of color, tolerating his vile misogyny in the process.

We know Trump’s election only exposed more brazenly what’s always been true: White women have always sided with white supremacy.

Now we’re reckoning with another devastating truth, and this one pertains to all white women—including that other 47 percent of us. If we had ever collectively worked to create sustained solidarity with women of color, instead of consistently aligning with white men, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. Why? Deep, robust multiracial women coalitions would be an unstoppable force.

Another report knocked the wind out of some us. Though swarms of white women rose up publicly enraged, it was only among women of color that a clear and strong majority believed Christine Blasey Ford. A Quinnipiac poll showed that white women only broke 46 percent for Ford (and 43 percent in favor of Kavanaugh, a statistically insignificant difference). On the question of whether Kavanaugh should be confirmed anyway, 45 percent of white women said “yes.” Wow.

Here we sit, with ever more evidence that massive racial failure on the part of white women is at the center of this political crisis. At the root of it all is our collective choice to not learn, prioritize, or consistently live in public antiracist solidarity with communities of color, and especially with women of color.

In short, we’ve never bothered to learn calculus.

(For clarity’s sake, please know I’m purposely not talking about white men — yes, the ultimate perpetrators — here. I am not blaming white women for white male violence. I am also not disparaging the incredible courage of all survivors, including Blasey Ford. I am simply focusing on what white women collectively do and do not do, have and have not done, when it comes to race, racism, and antiracism.)

This is where (one) peril sets in. The longstanding failure to choose calculus that allowed this crisis leaves us wholly unprepared for a political moment where nothing less than brilliant mathematical abilities are required.

For women of color, that cuts deeply.

As we reel, more white women seem to say, “Oh shit! I really do need to learn calculus.” But women of color don’t have the time, energy, or patience to teach us. They certainly can’t trust us. And while women of color have distinctly individual perspectives on and responses to white women in this current moment, it’s safe to say that collectively they’re beyond outraged and all but done with us. Why? Because they’ve been demonstrating the life-or-death urgency of white women learning calculus for decades now.

And yet here we are.

Ongoing apathy toward making the work of antiracism a central priority of our lives as white women has allowed the school building to burn.

My fellow white women, there is nothing not bad about this moment.

Calculus is hard to learn in a regular and relatively calm school situation. Now we need to learn calculus in a school building that’s on fire.

Even for the most willing and earnest student, there’s no way around it: It takes a long time to learn calculus. And, yes, so many of us are deeply hurting, furious, raw, triggered, and afraid. But the building’s still on fire.

Students, sometimes have to actually screw up math problems to actually learn calculus. Screw ups are part of any learning process. But, again, the building’s on fire. And every white woman’s mistake pours more gasoline on a blaze that’s consuming us all very quickly.

The task here is as essential as it is herculean. We need to stop pouring more gasoline on this fire at the same time that we get belatedly serious about the long, slow, mistake-laden work of learning calculus—and we have to do it at lightning speed.

From one white woman to another, here are 10 concrete steps to take right now if we hope to ever do math with women of color—which is not optional if there is any hope of calling into existence the deep, robust, multiracial coalitions all our lives depend on.

No particular order here. Some of these steps fall in the category of “for the love of god, stop pouring gasoline!” Some fall in the category of our long, slow work. None are adequate. All are critical.

1. Stop saying ‘women’ anything.

When the phrase “women must…” or “women are…” is about to come out of your mouth: Stop. Commit to the discipline of being racially specific in your speech. “White women must…,” “white women are…,” or “women of color and white women seem to be…”—at which moment you may notice, “Oh, wait. I really can’t say anything about women of color because I don’t know.”

You may not understand why this discipline is important. Do it anyway. It’s important because there is no non-racialized woman. Committing to this practice will make you more likely to notice gaps in your awareness. You’ll be more likely to notice the racial assumptions embedded in your own claims. This will help you gain clarity about where you need to focus as you do your homework. It will also necessarily rein in your claims about “generic” women, which is one small but critical way to stop pouring gasoline on this fire.

2. Do not participate in any public action called by white women with a reflexive ’yes.’

Stop, seek out, and then listen seriously to what women of color say about it first.

That “women’s blackout” action? Serious douse of gasoline. Yes, a very small number of women of color in my life sent me the invitation, too. (Remember. People of color don’t speak in one voice on anything.) If more white women had slowed down and listened to what women of color had to say publicly about all the problems with that “black out,” well — I don’t need say more about its problems. Go read what feminists of color themselves said about it. They were clear.

3. If you didn’t take a knee during the anthem in support of Black lives for the last two years, don’t share the meme suggesting all women and girls should now take a knee (see item number 2).

Even better, invite other white women sharing this meme into public conversation about why this is a problem. Don’t yell at them. Ask them to talk it through.

But make sure some version of what’s wrong with this does get explained: If we haven’t been taking a knee for Black people already, then kneeling now exposes whose humanity we actually care about. Not to mention white people co-opting a Black people-led movement is a problem, along the lines of what happened to Tarana Burke. Gasoline.

4. Transfer the vast majority of the time you spend reading and engaging in media to reading and engaging with feminists of color.

Literally and almost exclusively read feminists of color (feminist men and other genders of color too) every single day as you try to figure out what the hell is going on in our country right now. Don’t worry, you’ll still get the news. But, you’ll get it through the analysis you’ll need if you want to move beyond basic addition. Do an audit of who is in your feed; choose to follow the many diverse and brilliant people of color who are public thinkers, writers, and activists. Engage their knowledge and wisdom (and their disagreements with each other). When you don’t understand what they’re saying or why they’re saying it—keep reading. Know that it’s going to take a while before the basic vocabulary of calculus makes sense to you. But it will come, if you stick with it.

5. When women of color write about white women, do not privately message them with questions or rebuttal…

…Unless they explicitly tell you they are cool with that.

If they invite public response and you decide to say or ask something, cool. But be ready then to just sit and listen deeply to the response, whatever it is. If the response makes you uncomfortable or isn’t in the tone you were hoping for, don’t proceed to tell them how it made you feel (more gasoline). Sit with those feelings and then keep reading, thinking, and engaging. If you need to talk about those feelings, cool. Find another white person who’s also trying to learn calculus—maybe someone who’s been at it for longer than you have—and talk it through with them. Then keep reading and listening and sitting with your feelings some more.

6. Don’t just sit there with your feelings. Take your actual physical self to an organization led by people of color who are working for justice—and show up in person.

(Assuming that organization welcomes white participation, of course; most do.)

Don’t say you’re too busy. If you volunteer at your kids’ school, do stuff for your church, are part of a book club, spend time on Facebook, whatever else—this is the moment to transfer hours in your given week from white people (even time spent at your own kids’ school; your kids are going to be fine) to people of color.

The obvious reason for this is to put more labor toward the disproportionate heavy-lifting people of color are already doing for justice. The added benefit is that you’ll start to learn calculus in a way that reading alone doesn’t make possible. Show up. Do what is asked of you. Listen carefully. Don’t overspeak. If you’re uncomfortable being one of the few white people in that space, good. Do it anyway. Don’t flake out.

(Join the NAACP—they’re doing voter mobilization all over right now. Put in volunteer hours to people of color groups working to decrease the presence of police in schools. Get active in a sanctuary network for which Latinx activists are calling the shots; white people with citizenship are needed desperately for all kinds of work. Show up. Wherever people of color live, they are organized and acting. Figure out where and go.)

7. Read ‘So You Want to Talk About Race’ by Ijeoma Oluo.

Seriously, do this right now. If you have the means, buy a copy for another white woman in your life; for all the white women you know. Read it alone. Read it together. Talk about it. This book is a crash course in calculus. It’s brilliant, truthful, funny, loving, difficult, nuanced, and more. Read it with your teenager. Ask your teenager what they think about it (start inviting them to learn calculus, too). See if your co-workers will talk about it with you over lunch.

8. Make a concrete commitment to reallocate resources to women of color organizations. Donate to women of color running for elected office.

Now I am talking about money. This part isn’t so much about you and calculus. It’s just the right thing to do. It also may be the best hope we have to save this “democracy.” I don’t mean that in a “women of color are going to save us” kind of way. But, seriously, we don’t get to just run around giving Facebook shoutouts to Black women voters in Alabama for saving us from predators like Roy Moore, and then not go all in for them. We owe women of color something, and this includes being all-in in terms of having their backs as they step up and out into leadership (taking huge risks as they do so). We owe actual time, energy, and resources. Get your white women friends (and the men) to give money too. Do it.

9. Some white women, white queer folks, and a handful of white feminist men have been working for a long time to learn calculus. Find and follow them, too.

They are imperfect and make mistakes. But being white and trying to learn calculus is different from being a person of color and learning calculus. There are unique challenges. Your learning will speed up if you engage some of the white people who have been on this learning journey for a while.

Be careful who you listen to. Vet those white people to be sure their calculus-learning is legitimate and on the right track. See who they’re in dialogue with. Notice what feminists of color say to and about them. (Hint: If mostly only other white people like their work, don’t learn to do math the way they’re doing it.) Find the white folks who are obviously in relationships of accountability with people of color—these people do exist. Get with them.

10. Take an inventory: Where do you shop? Who cuts your hair? Where do you take your kids to the dentist? Where do you eat out?

Find ways to move your personal participation in the economy over to Black, Latinx, and other businesses owned and operated by people of color. This includes medical offices, stores—as many establishments as you can. Urge others in your life to do so, too. This not only actively reallocates resources you are already expending to communities of color and their economies, it also brings you into more frequent contact with people who our deep and wide white-segregated enclaves typically prevent us from being in contact with.

That’s no quick math formula. But it is critical pre-context for calculus-learning.

***

Here we are.

When you’re in a burning building, every step you take must be purposeful. We’re not going to be collectively calculus-fluent anytime soon. We’re also going to have to live with the consequences of our collective behavior. Namely, we’re going to be divided from women of color for a very, very, very long time. And there are no guarantees here. When I said there is nothing not bad about this moment, I meant it.

But I also know this. Standing still in a burning school building isn’t an option. And I know there are lots of white women and white queer folks (and a few white feminist men) right now who want to take purposeful steps. As much as we don’t quite know what to do, don’t totally get it, are ourselves hurting, fear making mistakes that pour gasoline—there are many of us ready to roll up our sleeves and learn the math. Let’s get purposeful. Together.

If this is you (and I commit to you, it is also me), know you are not alone. I offer this essay in a spirit of love, anger, urgency, and partnership. Let’s pull out our pencil and paper now—and a shitload of erasers. And let’s get to work. [x]

#jennifer harvey #ijeoma oluo #so you want to talk about race #white women #black women #race #racism #medium #white supremacy #white men

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yourdailykitsch · 6 years

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Taylor Kitsch Gets in Touch With His Inner David Koresh in ‘Waco’

Taylor Kitsch loves being Taylor Kitsch, and one of the charms of the 36-year-old actor is that if you meet him, you’ll love that Taylor Kitsch loves being Taylor Kitsch too. It was a crisp afternoon in late October, and Kitsch was sitting at a picnic table on the patio of the Mean-Eyed Cat, a Johnny Cash–themed bar on West Fifth Street in Austin. Kitsch was enjoying the sunshine. (“The weather’s been insane. It’s why you live in Texas, you know?”) Kitsch was enjoying his barbecued pork ribs. (“Eating a plate of meat is rare for me, but it’s fun right now.”) Kitsch was enjoying his sleek and very expensive-looking BMW GS Rallye motorcycle, which he’d parked in front of the bar’s entrance. (“That bike’s spanking new. It’s like my child. I love it.”)

Over the past few months, Kitsch had gone on a two-thousand-mile motorcycle trip through the mountain west, riding up Glacier National Park’s Going-to-the-Sun Road, winding along Idaho’s Salmon River. He’d visited Africa, “because I didn’t know what the **** was going on with all the poaching, and I wanted to know.” He’d traveled to San Diego to skydive with a bunch of Navy SEALs and his friend and mentor, the macho-man director Peter Berg. He’d gone to the “Harvey Can’t Mess With Texas” benefit show at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin—“a really great concert, like top five for me”—and afterward “tipped, like, 48 beers” with his friend country music star Ryan Bingham. Now Kitsch was preparing to leave the South Austin apartment where he has lived for the past decade and move into his dream house, a 6,500-square-foot bachelor pad on Lake Austin. His whole family—mom, brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews—was coming down from British Columbia for Christmas, and Kitsch couldn’t wait to show off his new place. “My mom’s going to lose her mind,” Kitsch said. “We grew up in a single-wide mobile home, then moved to a double-wide—she’ll lose it.” Kitsch was going “full Griswold” on yuletide decorations. He’d already purchased a ten-foot-tall blow-up polar bear to put on his front porch, and he and his oldest brother, Daman, were planning to install an elaborate light display before the rest of the family arrived. “It’ll hurt your eyes,” Kitsch said. “Literally, I hope we get fined by the HOA. That’s our goal, so we’ll do it.” Kitsch became famous for playing the Dillon Panthers’ bad-boy fullback Tim Riggins on the TV show Friday Night Lights, and over the course of five seasons, he made the character irresistible to watch—a teenage jumble of empathy, anger, machismo, and freewheeling fun. When the show ended, Kitsch appeared to be on a rocket path to superstardom, but he still hasn’t quite gotten there. Instead, his career since Friday Night Lights has been defined by soaring expectations, big-budget disappointments, and consistently good acting. When Kitsch and I met in Austin, he had just finished back-to-back press tours for two fall movies in which he plays supporting roles—the espionage thriller American Assassin and the wilderness-firefighter drama Only the Brave. But we were there to talk about Kitsch’s latest part—“the best work of my career, for sure”—which forced the actor to command the screen as never before and might just turn him into a bona fide Hollywood leading man. On January 24, the first episode of this project, Waco, a six-part miniseries about the 1993 standoff at the Branch Davidian compound in Central Texas, will premiere on the newly renamed Paramount Network (formerly Spike). The show stars Michael Shannon, John Leguizamo, Rory Culkin, and Melissa Benoist, but Kitsch has the plum role. Kitsch is playing David Koresh. The Waco siege has been the subject of a dozen or so documentaries that range from serious-minded to crackpot, but the new series is improbably the first dramatic re-creation of the entire event: 51 days of stalled negotiations and rising tensions that ended in an inferno that killed Koresh and 75 of his followers. The project’s genesis is unexpected: it was written, directed, and produced by brothers John and Drew Dowdle, whose handful of career credits includes low-budget horror films like Devil and Quarantine and the poorly reviewed Owen Wilson–Pierce Brosnan thriller No Escape. (Harvey Weinstein was an executive producer on the series, but his name has been removed from the credits.) The Dowdles may not have had much experience, but they had a plan: though the Waco siege has been a political and cultural lightning rod for the past 25 years, the brothers decided that their film wouldn’t dwell on the controversies. They wanted to tell the tragic, human, “no-bad-guys version of the story.” To do that, they knew that their single most important decision would be casting someone who could bring tragic humanity to Koresh. “We thought Koresh as a character is a deeply flawed individual, but there’s something a bit everyman about him, there’s something about him that people liked,” Drew Dowdle said. “The Taylor Kitsch version of David Koresh is inherently someone you would enjoy being around.” When Kitsch first heard about the part, he had only a hazy memory of news coverage of the Waco siege. But the more he read, the more fascinated he became. After meeting with the Dowdles, he reached out to his agent and said, “If they want me to do it, I’ll swing. I just need prep time.” Shooting was set to start in Santa Fe in April 2017, and as 2016 was coming to a close, Kitsch steeled himself for the next half year of preparation and production. “I went to Telluride for New Year’s and just blew it out—like, pizza, anything you could drink, ski, just go all out, don’t even worry about anything,” Kitsch said. On January 2, he arrived back in Austin, ready to begin his transformation. When Kitsch first came to Austin, in 2006, to film the pilot for Friday Night Lights, he was 24 years old, “green and raw” and mostly in the dark about acting and the entertainment business. “I genuinely didn’t know what a critic was,” he told me. Kitsch had grown up four hours west of Vancouver in the city of Kelowna, British Columbia, with his mother and two older brothers—his dad was mostly absent—and until he was 20, he dreamed about playing professional ice hockey. When back-to-back knee injuries ended his career, he moved to New York to try to make it as an actor, beginning a scrappy period in which he took classes, modeled, and, for a several-week stretch, spent his nights sleeping on the subway. Kitsch had almost missed his screen test for Friday Night Lights due to visa issues, and when he arrived, Berg, the series’ creator, first made him improvise in character for thirty minutes. Berg was suitably impressed. “What you did in there, make sure you do in this screen test with all the execs, and I think we’ll be just fine,” he told Kitsch. Friday Night Lights never had a big audience, but to the people who watched it week after week, it might as well have been War and Peace, except about high school football, and way more fun. Kitsch was the heartthrob, and even while the show was in the middle of its run, he was getting movie work, playing Gambit in an X-Men movie and the war photographer Kevin Carter in The Bang Bang Club. After Friday Night Lights ended, in 2011, Kitsch was primed to really make it big. Going into 2012, he had starring roles in two massively hyped movies with enormous budgets, John Carter and Battleship, both of which seemed like good bets to turn into franchises. “I had two ten-year contracts,” Kitsch said. “I would have been going Carter, Battleship, Carter, Battleship, and maybe an indie somewhere in there if I could.” But both films fizzled at the box office, and Kitsch’s career was forced to become more interesting. “I still have my journal from when I was in acting class in New York where it’s like, ‘All I want to do is indies and these characters and Sean Penn, Sean Penn, Sean Penn,’ ” Kitsch told me. He got his wish. He’s spent the past four years bringing a coiled-up intensity to men as varied as Navy SEAL Lieutenant Michael P. Murphy in Lone Survivor, Gay Men’s Health Crisis president Bruce Niles in HBO’s The Normal Heart, and patrolman Paul Woodrugh in the much-maligned second season of True Detective. Instead of conquering the world as an above-the-title star, Kitsch became our most finely featured character actor. When Kitsch arrived back in Austin after his Telluride bacchanal, he got down to studying. He read the memoirs of Branch Davidian survivor David Thibodeau, watched home videos of Koresh preaching, and made a stab at grasping the Branch Davidians’ end-times theology. “I literally had a beginner’s-Bible-study version of the Book of Revelation,” Kitsch said. Koresh was an enthusiastic rock guitarist and singer (followers wore “David Koresh: God Rocks” T-shirts), so Kitsch took guitar and voice lessons to pull off the on-screen performances. To physically transform into Koresh—who did not have movie-star muscles—Kitsch dropped thirty pounds, limiting himself to eight hundred calories a day and running around Lady Bird Lake while listening to Koresh’s sermons. As Kitsch dug into his research, he saw a clear path to playing the public persona of the Branch Davidian leader. “Before the siege, it’s his birthday every day,” Kitsch said. “It’s all about him. He’s got a go-cart track and a shooting range, and he’s a rock star—obviously the lead singer, obviously the lead guitarist.” In Waco, Koresh, as played by Kitsch, oozes charm and bravado and knows just how to manipulate the people around him. That’s not a stretch. The 33-year-old self-proclaimed “Lamb of God” was in the habit of waking up his followers in the middle of the night so that they could listen to him show off his savant-like recall of the Bible. He had about two dozen “spiritual wives,” including some who were already married to other Branch Davidians. After a claimed revelation from God, he commanded all men in the compound to be celibate, with the singular exception of David Koresh. (“I’ve assumed the burden of sex for us all, but not for my own kicks,” Kitsch as Koresh says in the show’s first episode.) He was good at a drawling, tough-guy act too: he drove a ’68 Camaro, loved his firearms, and famously sent a message to the FBI saying, “You come pointing guns in the direction of my wife and my kids, dammit, I’ll meet you at the door any time.” But Kitsch also had to reckon with Koresh’s darkness. Among Koresh’s wives were women whom he had married when they were as young as twelve years old, and even if you think the federal government acted disastrously at Waco, it’s hard to see Koresh as blameless in the deaths of the 86 people who perished in the initial raid and the final fire. “Taylor and I had long talks: ‘How do you play this guy in a human way?’ ” John Dowdle said. “That was a big part of the preparation, just trying to get through the ugly stuff so he’s not a monster from the get-go.” Kitsch seized on Koresh’s childhood to understand him, trying to find that part of the Branch Davidian leader that was still Vernon Wayne Howell, Koresh’s given name. During his research, Kitsch read about a phone call that Koresh placed to his mother during the ATF raid on the compound. Koresh had been shot twice, was bleeding profusely, and thought that he was minutes from the end. His mother didn’t pick up, but he left a message, telling her he was dying, asking her to “tell Grandma hello for me,” and saying, “I’ll see y’all in the skies.” “I broke reading it,” Kitsch said. “I was crushed. And after that, I was like, ‘I’m dialed in now and I’m ready to go.’ ” The call hadn’t been in the script, but Kitsch emailed the Dowdles and urged them to add it: “I’m like, ‘This will take fifteen, twenty minutes to shoot, guys, we’ve got to have this in there. This is not Koresh—this is Vernon calling his mom.’ ” The Dowdles agreed. When Kitsch arrived on set, cast and crew who were wondering what he’d bring to the role didn’t have to wait long. On the first day, the Dowdles had scheduled a scene in which Kitsch delivered a nine-page sermon on divine joy to his congregants. “It was pretty remarkable to see him get up and do that,” Paul Sparks, who plays Koresh’s deputy, Steve Schneider, told me. “I had heard some of Koresh on the internet, but to be in the room and listen to this person talk about these complex, different ways of looking at Scripture—it was like, ‘Right, that’s what it was like.’ ” Regardless of whether Waco is a hit, Kitsch has his next project lined up. He’s planning to go to a friend’s San Saba ranch in February to shoot a movie currently titled Pieces. It will be his debut as a screenwriter and feature-film director. Pieces tells the story of “three best friends who take an opportunity to change their lives.” In this case, that opportunity is to intercept a drug drop on the Texas-Mexico border, after which, as you might assume, “all hell breaks loose.” Kitsch wrote the script over the course of several motorcycle road trips, and he used the journeys not only to clear his mind for writing but as an opportunity to conduct research. “I remember being in Idaho and there’s this truck-stop hooker, basically, and I had a coffee with her,” Kitsch told me. “Don’t read into that, it was—literally, it was a coffee—and I just bombed questions at her, and she was just super cool. I put a character based on her in the movie.” Kitsch seems to have exactly the kind of fame that he wants. He can build a dream house and get a dream role, but he can drop by a truck stop in Idaho and bomb questions at people who don’t recognize him. He has famous friends and wild adventures, but every interaction he has doesn’t have to be about his celebrity. As we were sitting at Mean-Eyed Cat, Kitsch told me about turning down a role recently. It was a “little rom-com for five days’ work,” he said, and it was “stupid money.” He would have made more on that movie than he did on Waco, Only the Brave, and three Normal Hearts combined—“for five days’ work,” he said again. I asked him why he’d said no. He did the voice-over work for Ram Trucks commercials, after all. First he answered like an actor. “It’s just not where I want to be, it’s not the story I want to tell,” he said. Then he added a caveat that was pure Taylor Kitsch. “I mean, I’m for sale,” he said, a big smile breaking out over his face. “If you want to give me $20 million for something and my mom never has to work again and my family’s good for the rest of their life, yes, I’m going to do it—don’t care who you are. I come from nothing, so to give my mom that call would just be awesome. I mean, I wouldn’t do porn, but, you know?”

#taylor kitsch #waco #austin texas #interview

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81scorp · 4 years

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Constructive criticism: XO: Wolverine

(Originally posted on Deviantart Sep 30, 2016)

Ah yes... X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The first two X-Men movies may not have been perfect but they weren`t bad and at least they understood that at the heart of this comicbook universe was a theme about xenophobia. The third movie may have been bad but it was bad in a way that I was mostly OK with. Then... there`s this movie. I remember when I saw this in the cinema. The only people in the audience was me, two women and one man. Talk about overcrowded (he said, not without a small hint of sarcasm). I should have seen the warning signs right there. As the movie played on the screen I kept telling myself "It doesn`t have to be superfaithful to his origin in the comics, it`s still good, it`s still good... -ish". Technically, I was right. Then came the final fight in the climax, and that`s where I felt: "Really? You`re really gonna do it like that?" It was like, not only had they not put enough effort into getting it right. They had put extra effort into getting it wrong! Bastardisation of a popular character and crappy CGI claws aside, the movie had the structure of a videogame. Nothing wrong with videogames but (and I`m generalizing here) they don`t always have great stories and rely more on the player enjoying it because of the interactivity. Movies are not interactive. (And yes, I have seen walkthroughs of the videogame based on this movie, the story wasn`t that great in the game either but it was more enjoyable than the movie.) They had some great opportunities to tell a good, character-developing story. But when those opportunities came they just fastforwarded through them get to their own (mostly) generic revenge story. If I could travel back in time and rewrite this mess, what would I change? A lot.

We begin In Media Res (look it up on Wikipedia). Somewhere in... let`s say Kenya. Seven soldiers are preparing themselves for raiding a secret base. Four of them are wearing black clothes, black ski-masks and carry machine guns. (They are not mutants, they are normal humans who are highly skilled mercenaries. One of them have two swords strapped to his back). The three other soldiers are (besides not wearing ski-masks) dressed slightly different than the four other soldiers. They are Logan, Victor "Sabertooth" Creed and a woman named Domino. (In my version Sabertooth is smart, like he was when he was played by Liev Schreiber.) They enter the base, sneak around, fight some guards, find the Macguffin they were looking for (a rock made out of some alien metal) and exit the base. (Sabertooth seems to enjoy the killing more than Logan does. Domino`s superpower seems to be enhanced reflexes and agility.) On the planeride back to their HQ the mercs have taken off their ski-masks, the one with swords on his back seems to be ill. One of the other mercs asks him: "Wade. You OK?" Wade says that it`s probably just something he ate. He`ll get himself checked when they`re back at HQ. Back at HQ Stryker congratulates them for stealing the Macguffin and for another job well done. Wade goes to the doctor. Logan asks Domino if she`s ever had any second thoughts about the things that they do. Domino: (Short pause) "Nah." To get his mind on something else, Logan goes to the gym and starts beating a sandbag. He remembers his childhood.Logan`s childhood: Canada: 1887. Rose O`Hara, a young girl who`s parents have just died, have been sent to live in the mansion of John Howlett Jr. He was a friend of her parents and is a very kind man. She is soon introduced to the other people. John Howlett Sr (who unlike his son is not a kind man). Elisabeth Howlett (John Howlett`s wife, a reclusive shut-in). Thomas Logan (the grumpy, alcoholic, antisocial groundskeeper). "Dog" Logan (Thomas Logan`s son, a troublemaker who gets beaten by his dad). Last but not least: James Howlett (John`s son who`s physically weak and often gets sick). Rose, James and "Dog" become good friends after a while and we get a montage of them having a great time together. At the end of the day, Rose and James goes back to the mansion and Dog goes back to his father`s cabin. We get a small hint that there`s a thing between Elisabeth Howlett and Thomas Logan, the groundskeeper.

A few years later: The kids are now teenagers. Dog has become a jerk and one day he tries to force himself on Rose. Rose knees Dog in the groin and James, who saw the whole thing, runs to his dad to tell him what Dog tried to do. John Howlett has a stern talk with Logan and tells him to raise his son better. Logan doesn`t like being told what to do and a few nights later he and Dog breaks into the mansion with rifles to steal some stuff, kidnap Elisabeth and run away. John hears them, tries to talk sense into them. James comes into the room, wondering what`s happening. Logan`s rifle goes off and shoots John. James is in shock, he punches Dog in the face and attacks Logan. Logan dies, everyone realizes that Dog has claw wounds across his face and James has boneclaws coming out of his knuckles. James runs outside, Rose runs after him and Elisabeth commits suicide with Logan`s rifle. Rose finds James outside, sitting on the gound. He says that he feels different: He doesn`t feel sick or weak in the way that he has felt all his life (His immunesystem has improved.), his sense of smell has improved and the boneclaws in his knuckles have retracted back inside his hands, leaving small holes that are already healing. Rose goes to James`s grandfather to get protection for James and herself, but he wants nothing to do with them, especially not some monster like James. He gives them money and tells them to leave and never come back. Rose and Jack travel through Canada and after about a month they find themselves in The Youkon territories where they seek refuge in a mining town. They pretend to be cousins and try to find work in the quarry. When Smitty the foreman asks their names James is still unable to talk due to his trauma. Rose, wanting to hide their identities, comes up with a name, the first that pops into her head: Logan. A couple of days later: Rose helps Smitty organize his paperwork and James (now Logan) has worked on the quarry a few days. He doesn`t like it, growing up with rich parents he`s not used to hard, manual labour. He is picked on by a bully, the camp cook, named Cookie, who often uses his massive size to intimidate Logan and rough him up. Logan fights his desires to fight back and is often rescued by Smitty. Sometimes Rose finds Logan staring at the nearby forest, as if he wants to belong with the animals. One day Logan pushes a full wheel barrow up a hill but quits when he has come halfway. He`s tired, cold, hates manual labour and doesn`t want to do this anymore. But then he gets determined, decides that he`s not gonna be a quitter, grabs the heavy wheelbarrow again and continues to push it to the top of the hill. We skip forward in time, Logan has reached the top tof the hill and is no longer a teenager, but a man (figuratively AND literally).

We learn that Logan has gotten tougher, better, and has earned the respect of his fellow workers, especially Smitty (but not Cookie). They`ve even given him a nickname: Wolverine. Logan still has moments when he looks at the nearby forest. One day one of the workers dies of pneumonia. There`s a funeral and later that evening Logan discovers Cookie in the cabin of the recently dead worker, stealing stuff. Logan beats up Cookie and runs to Smitty`s cabin to tell him about Cookies behavior. Through the window he sees Smitty and Rose kissing. It causes him to run away into the woods where he finds himself surrounded by a pack of wolfs. The lead wolf stares at Logan and growls. Logan unleashes his claws and stares back. After a minute the lead wolf accepts Logan as part of the pack. Meanwhile, back at the Howlett mansion: Logan's grandfather is weak and lies in his bed. He regrets chasing James and Rose away and is talking to someone about finding James. The other man turns out to be Dog, now an adult, but still with clawmark-scars across his face. He swears to Mr. Howlett that he will hunt him to the ends of the earth. (NOTE: In my version Dog and Sabertooth is NOT the same person. Wolvie and Sabertooth doesn`t have to be related. They COULD be second cousins or something, but that`s as far as I`m willing to go.) Some time later: The mining town in Youkon: Logan has become distant from Rose as he is hurt by her engagement to Smitty. He tells her he always thought they would end up together. Smitty, meanwhile, is trying to sell off some possessions in order to raise money so that he and Rose can make their way to Vancouver, where he is to take another job, better suited for a family man. Unsuccessful in his attempt, Smitty decides to enter into a cage fight tournament to earn the money. Logan also enters the tournament when he finds out that Cookie`s in it. After getting the pleasure of beating up Cookie publically, Logan meets Smitty in the final match but takes a dive so that Smitty can win the prize money, travel to Vancouver with Rose and live happily with her. Smitty and Rose will leave in a couple of days and he tells Logan that since he knows that he can trust him he makes him the new foreman of the quarry. Smitty then leaves Logan alone to help Rose pack for their journey. Logan is attacked by Dog who has no intention to bring him back to the Howlett mansion but to kill him. Dog has the upper hand at first but then Logan starts to win the fight. The next moment everything happens so fast, Logan gets ready to unleash his claws to kill Dog, Rose tries to interfere and stop him and... Logan regains his senses. He realizes that he has stabbed Rose, his best friend, in the shoulder, and by doing so he has revealed to everyone that he is a mutant, a dangerous mutant. He flees into the woods. Smitty comes running to check on Rose and her injured shoulder, then they both watch Logan disappear. Back to the present: Logan is still in the gym. Victor Creed comes and talks to him, reminds him about what a badass and a killing-machine he was back in Vietnam and how he has lost a little bit of that edge now. He wonders what happened that made Logan go soft. Logan: "People change Creed, it happens." He walks out of the gym. We see that they were watched the whole time by a hidden camera. In a surveillance-room Stryker watches Logan leave the gym. He also points out that Logan used to be a more effective killer in the past. He`s afraid that Logan will one day grow a conscience and turn against him, good thing that he`s prepared. He turns and looks at another monitor, one that shows an X-ray of Logans skull, some parts of his brain has been highlighted. Turns out that they have been mapping Logan`s brain. Logan goes to his room, lies down on his bed and keeps remembering his past. Back to the past: We get a montage of Logan living like an animal in the woods, he still wears pants but they are very torn. A few times during this montage he steps out of the woods and looks at the human civilisation, wondering if it´s worth it to return to that world but rejects the idea. Finally at the end of the montage he decides to go back to civilsation. He steals some clothes that are hanging out to dry. A voice-over says: "Yesterday, December 7, 1941, a date which will live in infamy," followed by a montage of Logan fighting in World War 2. This is followed by a scene of Logan drinking in a bar in New york while eveyone else is celebrating that the war is over and Hitler is dead. Logan is not as enthousiastic as everyone else, probably because he has lived long, seen many things and knows this will not be the last war he fights in. Years later: Logan is fighting in Vietnam. He`s killing Viet Cong soldiers brutally and without remorse. He meets Victor Creed (who is nicknamed "Sabertooth") for the first time. They realize that they both have healing factors and become partners. In one scene Creed shows that he has great senses and aiming skills by throwing a knife at a tree. A dead Viet Cong soldier falls out of it, he thought he was safe, but no one is safe from Sabertooth. What made Logan go "soft"? He saw Creed kill too many innocent families. He saw a reflection of himself in Creed, what he could become if he continued down this path.

After the war is over Logan disappears for a few years. Stryker finds him one day in a bar in Osaka. He tells Logan that he has heard things about him and that he could have use for a man with his "rare talents". Logan is reluctant at first but agrees to join Strykers organisation: Weapon X. It only has three mutants so far: Logan, a woman named Domino and also (unforunately) Victor Creed. Domino`s power seems to be enhanced reflexes and agility but it`s actually the ability to subconscoiusly manipulate the probability in a situation to end up in her favor, or: luck. She explains that her power is largely participatory: in order for the luck to take effect, she must engage in an action whose chance she can affect. She can`t consciously control her ability, she can only activate it by being in a position in which she could be harmed. For example: If she where to stand still before a hail of bullets she would be a bullet-ridden corpse. If she tried to avoid the gunfire her power would kick in and allow her to miraculously move fast enough and duck just in time to avoid the bullets. "Learned that the hard way." she says and shows Logan some old bullet-wound scars. They go on their first mission accompanied by a team of four Ski-mask wearing mercs (the scene is short and the mission goes smoothly). Montage of them going on a few more missions. Finally they`re sent to the same mission we saw them do in the beginning where they had to steal an alien rock-Macguffin made out of metal. This time we see an abridged version of their robbery (because we don`t have to see the whole thing over again). Logan lies on his bed in his room, the flashbacks have caught up with the present. He closes his eyes and sleeps.

One day or a week later later: Stryker and a scientist are watching videos of Logan and Creed in action. The scientist asks: "So... Creed or Logan?" Stryker decides that the honor should go to Logan: He is more mentally stable than Creed and since he`s gonna be re-educated soon he will be easier to control. Stryker meets Logan later and tells him about a procedure that will make him stronger and indestructible. Logan thinks about it for a minute and accepts. They walk past a door that leads to the doctor`s office. The doctor gives Wade the bad news: he has cancer. Logan is led into a room where he is put into an aquarium and has a helmet put on his head. He is completely naked (with the exception of his dog tags, one says "Logan" the other "Wolverine"). Machines put the adamantium into his body and it is extremely painful for him. The pain makes him pass out and he goes to a better place: a happy childhood memory, back when he, Rose and Dog were children and best friends, before all the bad stuff happened. In the the real world Stryker gives the order: "Erase his memory." Zap! The happy memory is gone! And many other memories follow it`s path! Nothing left... but darkness... and an animal rage! A worker is removing the memory-erasing helmet (because continuity). Logan wakes up and unleashes his claws, he has only one thought: Escape! He acts purely on instinct and kills or wounds anyone who puts any effort in trying to stop him. After having killed a few people he is alone in a hall and has a few seconds to pause and collect his thoughts, this is when he notices that the claws on his knuckles are metal. Who did this to him? Why did they do it? How did he end up in this place? So many questions, no time to answer any of them. He must run! Run towards freedom! He opens a large metal door and is now outside. Stryker has given Creed and Domino the order to capture Logan, only kill him if absolutely necessary. (They can always use the adamantium on some other mutant with a healing factor. They only picked Logan over Creed because Logan seemed like the better choice.) The Weapon X facility is surrounded by woods (It IS near Alkali lake after all.) Logan has come a long way from the base and is now taking a pause so that he has the energy to run some more. Little does he know that Domino and Creed have already caught up to him. Domino is hiding on a cliff, aiming her rifle and Creed is hiding among the trees. (Logan can`t smell them because of the wind direction.) Logan`s words echoes in Domino`s memory: "Do you ever have any second thoughts about the things we do?" Domino whispers to herself: "Yes." We see that she`s actually aiming her rifle at Creed. Creed notices this and quickly throws a knife at her, she fires. BLAM!

Logan reacts to the gunshot and realizes that he`s still not safe. Gotta keep running. Domino hit Creed right in the forehead, Creed hit her... right in the shoulder. She gets up and, with a grimace of pain, pulls out the knife. Domino: "I hope that`s the last time I have to save your ass Logan." She holds her hand to her wound and walks away in pain. After a minute the hole in Creed`s head heals and he gets back up. His personality and intelligence has now changed, thanks to the bullet in his brain (Continuity!), he walks away, not remembering Logan and other parts of his life. Logan comes out of the woods, sees a town, steals some clothes that are hanging out to dry. One of the clothes is a cool looking jacket. He looks at his dog tags and sees that his name must be Logan. A new chapter of his life begins as he wanders towards the horizon.

Epilogue, before the credits roll: Wade Wilson sits in a bar. He`s had chemo but appearently it didn`t work. A man (who`s face we don`t see) walks up to him and reveals that he knows things about him and offers him a cure and a chance to be a superhuman. Wade is listening. Post credit scene: Creed is sitting in a bar, drinking. All the other guests are staying as far away from him as possible. A woman comes in, goes over to Creed and talks to him. She tells him that she works for a man that could have use for someone with Creed`s "special talents". Her eyes turn yellow for a second. (Gasp! It`s Mystique!)

THE END

And that`s how I would have done it.

#81scorp #x-men #last stand #constructive #criticism #movie #editorial

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thenightisland · 7 years

Text

updates under the cut

post one

post two

on this edition of “fuck you 2017″

we had one of our techs get her head bashed in with her walkie talkie for no reason like just walking her checks like she was supposed to and the pt grabbed that beat her head in and tried to stab her with her own pen and showed zero remorse and could give no reason as to why she did it so that room was so full of blood that it looked like a crime scene and they had to literally mop it up and the tech had to go to the er obviously

a pt got punched in the face by another pt and in trying to keep the two apart, my alpha tech got his arms literally soaked in blood trying to keep the one who got punched from getting punched again and for a while there we thought we were going to lose our tech because when we ran exposure labs on the bleeder he was positive for hepatitis so we were all scared to death our tech had hepatitis

apparently we’re running a special on bloody messes because one pt out of nowhere stood up in the dining room picked up his chair and brought it down on another pt’s head so when we came in at three that guy was going to the er with a seven inch head wound

hell, a few days ago a pt attacked a tech for no reason and he was an older tech quiet sweet harmless so naturally the pt went after him and that was so bad that /other patients were helping us pry that pt off our staff/

finally met the infant i’ve been putting off meeting since january so that was. interesting.

oh another of my techs, she called in on a monday some weeks back and admin was bitching at her so much for it despite the fact that she was /in the hospital because she’d had a miscarriage/ and then thursday of that week her brother got fucking /shot/

fuck even i got jumped by a pt which feels like a minor detail

everyone’s morale is so low because everything is so fucked up at work right now like people who have worked there longer than me are like “it didn’t used to be like this having people in seclusion for seven hours never happened you only heard of a staff member getting attacked maybe once every few months you never had this many holds or this kind of staffing for a census of 85″ like sounds fake but okay i literally cannot imagine what this place used to be like

we caught someone mid-suicide attempt via hanging self from a doorknob like threw all their weight to the ground unconscious when we found them and as soon as air got back in those lungs they fought us like crazy and we had them in a hold for over an hour to keep them from trying to hurt themselves again it was honestly one of the most terrifying nights we’ve ever experienced bc it was also a case we’ve all been heavily invested in and worked a lot with so catching someone in the middle of hanging themselves /two days before the pt’s birthday/ was. a lot like we were all so shaken esp because most of us have at some point or another been suicidal or tried to kill ourselves so we’re really good at picking out the serious suicide attempts from the attention seeking nonsense some of our pts and we were all really quiet because we knew this one was 100% serious and it fucked us all up because we’re the only shift that’s really even taken the time to try to help this particular pt everyone else sort of gave up or just ignores them????? so it hit us way harder than anyone else and god it was chilling

i’ve had several emotional upsets in my personal life which i’m not even about to open that can of fucking worms because it’s A Lot

also like listing out all those violent and awful incidents is kind of reminding me that normal people with normal jobs are not usually exposed to this kind of constant violence and suicide like i forget that seeing the things i’ve seen would be considered really traumatic for a regular person and for us it’s just tuesday? but it’s happened /so much/ and shows no signs of getting better and tbh it feels like the entire hospital is in a crash and burn phase right now which is not good not good at all

our 76 year old house supervisor is really sick with some respiratory mess and i hope every fucking day she doesn’t die because we’re honestly really close and i don’t want to feel like i’ve lost another grandmother thanks

and as we speak, my second in command, who was having orthopedic surgery during the last update, is about to be out having more abdominal surgery. last summer she walked around with a mild upset stomach for two weeks and found out that she’d actually be walking around with a ruptured appendix for two weeks and had to have emergency surgery because she was septic and was in the icu for two weeks and almost died. she then had to have another surgery in like november because there was still bacteria they missed. so now, literally on the one year anniversary of the first abd surgery, she is in the hospital yet again with what is either peritonitis a hernia/strangulation or a perforation, or a combination of those things and will probably have to have /another goddamn surgery/. so jan 2016 acl and mcl ortho surgery, aug 2016 almost died abd surgery, nov 2016 second abd surgery, feb(? i think?) 2017, second round of ortho surgery on the same knee, and now aug 2017, round three of abd surgery because i’m pretty sure all my friends and loved ones are cursed because that’s the only explanation at this point. so like. @universe please don’t kill one of my best friends thanks.

meanwhile earlier this week, /i/ started having the exact same symptoms she had last year so i was at the doctor wednesday to rule out anything being ruptured and idk if it’s better or worse because it wasn’t anything life threatening, but after running several tests, it’s discovered that physically i’m in great shape and that the severe abdominal pain and lack of appetite and fatigue etc etc is literally just from stress so i’m off till next week with the modern equivalent of “she has a fragile constitution and needs a week’s rest in the country” yes that’s right 2017 has literally been so goddamn awful and stressful that my body low key shut me down in an effort to get fucking recovery time like ever since my life started going to shit in mid april it’s just stayed bad and nightmares are breaking through the medication which no thank you i enjoyed sleeping and so i haven’t been sleeping hardly at all lately either this year has literally wrecked me and this is all minus the several serious intense things happening in my personal life right now lol

like everyone i work with is falling apart under the pressure we love our jobs and we love each other but the job might being kind of low key killing us so when you add in the stress of our various personal lives and our health on top of you know being witness to horrible life threatening violence and trauma every day........

let’s just say 2017 has yet to turn around and i’m starting to wonder if it will at all?????? or if it’s just going to suck all the way till 2018 so anyway like i originally intended my sort of ghost status to be more temporary but literally the only reason i even have it in me to write this right now is because i’m basically on bed rest for the next four and a half days so.............i guess i’ll return to normal when 2017 STOPS DOING THIS SHIT

#karen's adventures in trying to sort her life out #boy oh boy am i sick of making these posts #scheduling this as no one is awake right now except me

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foxcroft-rpg-blog · 7 years

Photo

Congratulations, Ro! You had me sold when I saw you understood just why I made Wells a wyrth. Not only that, but you have his personality down too. I’m really excited to see what you do with him.

Thanks again for applying! Please create your account and send in the link, track the right tags, and follow everyone on the masterlist as soon as you can. Welcome to Foxcroft!

OUT OF CHARACTER

Name: Ro

Age: (16 and over) 26

Preferred pronouns: (if you’re comfortable sharing) He/Him

Time zone: PST

Activity: (include a brief explanation) I’m a pretty dedicated RPer and though my life has gotten crazy busy as I now work in the film industry and am just finishing up my 3rd year University, I still make time for it reliably. During the summer, I will mostly be on on weekends and probably 1 or 2 days a week, depending on if I’m working on set during the week. During the school year my availability is less predictable, so it just depends what we’re doing at the time, but I’ll always find time to be on weekly.

Anything else?: (questions, concerns, etc.)

IN CHARACTER

Full name: Wells Donovan

Date of birth: November 2nd, 1989

How long have they been in Foxcroft: (1-3 sentences. Please be consistent with bio.)Since September of 2016, I think, according to the bio and the timeline of when Adam Foxcroft was found in the swamps. So approaching a year, so far?

Sexuality: (include a brief explanation) Bisexual - Though I think his sexuality is not something he’s explored as openly or frequently until after his sister’s death. Not that he was purposely avoiding it, but I feel like circumstances were such that he was mostly with women in his younger years. Her death, I think, made him crave a freedom that he didn’t know he needed, much like when he took to the road to try to escape his grief.

FC change: (if applicable please include three possible changes in order of preference)N/A

How do you interpret this character’s personality? How will you portray them? Include two weaknesses and two strengths. (2+ paragraphs) Wells to me is a passionate and loyal individual who, despite being friendly and easy to get along with, is a lot more private and reserved than people think on first impression. I think his outgoing nature makes it difficult for people to see or understand that just because he’s outgoing, doesn’t mean he’s an extrovert. His ‘recharge’ time is when he’s alone or at home, in a controlled environment, and one of the reasons his relationship with his sister was so vital in his life, aside from them being twins, is that she was one of the few people he felt utterly himself and comfortable with at all times. He believes she brought out the best in him, and since her death, has struggled to know exactly who he is without her. His loyalty and pensiveness can make him sweet, at times, and he means well, always. But he is also deeply nested inside his chest, distraught with a loneliness he doesn’t quite know how to handle or deal with. He is extremely protective of those he cares about, and much like his mechanic ways, he is a 'fixer’. He likes to understand problems, especially those of others, and have his hand at assisting in correcting them. He likes to help people. [ strengths: loyal, disciplined, just | weaknesses: stubborn, pessimistic, self-isolated ]

How did this character react to the death of Hazel Abrams? Adam Foxcroft? Wells is naturally contemplative and cerebral. He tends not to react to things heatedly, but with pensiveness. Hazel died before he arrived in the town, and I don’t think he thought that much of it at fist because it makes sense that unexplained deaths would linger as a big deal in small towns where everyone knows each other. But when Adam died, I think that struck Wells with a new sort of suspicion, being able to witness the ripple effect reaction of the town in the aftermath. The fact that Hazel’s case was still unsolved, and that Adam turned up in the same manner, Wells is starting to become suspicious and he knows there is something unique to the town, and that there’s much more than meets the eye. He’s curious and wants to understand what’s going on and what’s behind this little town he’s landed himself in.

How do they see the town and its people? Think about the different groups of people and prejudices the town holds about them. He has a hard time identifying with the problems of the town. His life has involved so much changing and moving around between foster homes, etc, that he has a hard time adjusting to the mentality of people who’ve never known or seen change. Who live so much in fear of it. Regardless, he doesn’t have particularly strong feelings about the church or religion. He was not raised religious, and is a bit too much of a critical thinker to be particularly prone to faith. However, that isn’t to say he doesn’t like the townspeople. When he first moved, he was relatively indifferent, but now he is both drawn to and fears them, in a way. There is something about the town and the people that makes him feel connected to them, yet almost entrapped. He feels a part of something bigger, but he knows there is information just beyond his reach, and for now the puzzle pieces are too scattered and incomplete for him to have a strong grasp on the big picture of Foxcroft.

For non-human characters: What does this character know about what they’ve become? Have they had any experiences that made them aware that weren’t exactly human? Elaborate. Considering the nature of Well’s new 'ability’, it’s not something he noticed right away, and even still he is only just beginning to realize that there might be something going on with him that he can no longer attribute to coincidence or good karma. Due to being a new arrival to the town, and knowing so few people, it took a few months for any circumstance to arise in which he’d accidentally happen upon his healing ability. However, he first noticed it in a way that was more difficult to shrug off, when he was helping a kid up who’d slipped and fallen on his bike just outside the Wicked Wrench. The kid had bloodied up his knees pretty bad, and when Wells was wiping them off with a warm, wet rag, carefully cleaning pebbles form the wound, suddenly it seemed as though the cuts were much less prominent than he’d thought. There was barely any abrasion, and the blood seemed to be coming from a cut so minor, it hardly made sense. He swore just a moment ago it’d been a gash… unless it’d simply been the blood smeared that had made it look that way…. it wasn’t until after the kid had left and Wells had stepped back into the garage that he noticed his own jeans were red at the knees… He doesn’t know what’s going on with him, but somehow, it doesn’t feel like he’s an exception in this town of the unexplained. He feels very much as though whatever is going on, is linked to where he’s currently living, and he’s just waiting for the other shoe to drop. He can feel it coming.

Please include 1-2 possible plots your see for this character (1 paragraph brief explanation for each) I think the fact that he’s a 'healer’ when he didn’t have the power or the chance to save his sister, will wreck him. No doubt that went into the decision making when you made him a wryth. But anyway, that fact is one of the first things that gave me a hit of inspiration for this character. This is probably something that nags at him daily and plagues his nightmares, because it’s bad enough losing your twin and your only anchor in the world, but suddenly obtaining an unforseen power to heal, only it’s too late? I would like to explore this with him extensively, and I can see it kind of breaking him, to a certain degree. Like he could become obsessive with it, to the point of almost putting himself in the hospital, because he’s getting reckless with his healing. I’d also like to explore how it affects his psyche—to have the POWER to heal, but to not be ABLE to because it might kill him is like a certain kind of torture, especially for someone like Wells, and I think that this could really mess him up, and badly affect his relationships and decision making. Connected with that, I can also see him trying to take matters into his own hands to do with getting to the bottom of these mysterious deaths, etc. Partially because he’s desperate for the distraction, to keep himself from thinking about his continued grief, and partially because for some reason he thinks it might give him a sense of relief, that he’s helped or avenged someone, even if it could never bring his sister back.

WRITING SAMPLE

Hiya! So I’m pasting these samples of my writing in because the blogs they used to exist on are private now. Hope that’s okay! (The one from Derrick is not actually from the account I’m applying from, haha.)

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SAMPLE EXCERPT 1 - Derrick

Everything was oddly lethargic today. Although, perhaps lethargic wasn’t the word. Perhaps a better description would be slow with a false sense of relaxation. A certain kind of conceding to the feeling of sadness that now coated his throat in a gradual, thick drip. Something he was now used to, or getting there, at least; a new phase to the turning down of his mouth. He’d waded through anguish, thrashed through anxiety and now he was treading water warmed by his own movement. Disturbed sand from a distant bottom he could not see churned beneath his feet and made his skin and toes feel gritty. The darkness of the lake he was trying not to drown in remained more or less as impenetrable as ever, but Derrick now found solace in its darkness. Familiarity with his hurt; it was an unlikely friendship they had now, he and pain, but this was the way it was. This was the way it had to be because he would not change anything, should he had ever been given the chance.

He straightened the collar of his shirt in the cracked and crying mirror, its grunge too thick to see through. The tremble of his fingers against his neck was slight this morning, and he took a moment to stroke at the smoothness of his clean shaven skin. The normalcy of it brought him comfort, cleanliness, control.

A control he would not lose again; not this time, and not in this way. He would go downstairs and meet his lawyer for the third time within these walls, shake his hand and thank him for coming. He would find Lukas on the way down, perhaps, and smile like nothing had changed or there had been no clicking of new concepts in his head. Or rather, perhaps that was wrong; perhaps the smile would just be with a new surrendering, to the knowledge that this was the way things were, and the loss of his ignorance would not stop him from picking up where he’d left off. He’d continue with the case, he’d move forward in his complicated relationship with the sociopath he’d never anticipated growing close to. He’d continue with the same ease and intuition as he had while adjusting the cuffs of his sleeve, the same simple fact that was his sorrow. Because these things were what brought him closer to ‘Derrick’, and further from his father. These were the things he clung to, because what world with no one to live for was worth living in?

His love for Oliver made him stronger, his empathy for Lukas, courageous. His dissonance with Allison made him human. And somehow, he would make peace with these things. Because changing them was not an option, had never been.

He left his room, his doubts lingering at his fingers and sticking back on the scuffing of the doorknob like invisible prints. He would not need them today—more accurately, he could not afford them. The click of the latch behind him was the precursor to the click of his shoes down the quiet hall on this otherwise uneventful Saturday. And then, two steps, three steps, there was something similar, an echo of his own departure and he turned around to see black hair, fine limbs looking stiff in even stiffer clothing—a hesitant smirk of disdain and perhaps even what Derrick has come to read as friendly greeting. Well, as friendly as this particular teenage presence got. But Derrick liked that he could recognize it now, the varied levels of Lukas’ often overlooked depth. It was there, just murkier and more challenging to define.

And he smiled. Rose a brow and prepared a sly quip or two about the teen’s cleaned up attire. Because it was familiar. Because it was safe. And because Derrick was tired of wallowing in things he could not, and would not change.

Because if and when the worst thing he did in this sick and twisted world, was to love too freely, then he could consider himself in a good place. And if he had the capacity to believe in the case that he and Lukas ventured to tackle, he must also have the capacity to embrace what he could not shun. It was the only way. And it was better.

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SAMPLE EXCERPT 2 - NOAH

*TW: mature themes, sexual/violent content* - lemme know if this is an issue and I can send you a different sample!

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As Phoenix ordered Noah onto his hands and knees, muttered in a low and hot command, Noah thought about how dangerous this could be. Having Phoenix move in, be here on the good nights as well as the bad, experience Noah in his extended, uncensored edition. He thought about how unlike him this was, this decision, because having Phoenix around full time meant committing to him in some way. It meant admitting that he was something more than just a random fuck, regardless of what that ‘more’ even meant.

It was dangerous, and he felt sure he would many a time in the future consider this choice to be a lapse in judgement—and yet, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it, as much as he wanted to. He wanted to seriously feel like he’d made a mistake, wanted to have that inkling suspicion that this was all wrong because that would then eliminate the risk of Noah’s future let downs. If he regretted it now, he’d be less likely to find himself terrifyingly close to someone three months from now, in a way he hadn’t been in years.

He was pretty sure he wasn’t ready for that. He’d hardly been capable of it even before her death. Felt most times like he hadn’t been wired to function that way.

But nonetheless, he couldn’t bring himself to feel precisely the emotion of regret as Phoenix fucked him raw and without shame into the headboard. As he bent his limbs with the kind of brutal insistence that would leave bruises and sore spots, muscles strained and stretched uncomfortably for the evening and the day following, in the least. He couldn’t gather any feelings that weren’t numbed, ecstatic pleasure, white hot and sharp, as Phoenix pounded him so thoroughly it became difficult to breathe, difficult to tell exactly where inside his body Phoenix wasn’t touching. Because he seemed to be consuming Noah from every end, every angle—burrowing himself inside Noah’s body so deeply and so thoroughly that there was no escaping him, no part of Noah’s narrow, bony frame that went unclaimed by him.

And it was numbing. And it was fucking perfect.

And that’s how he fell asleep that night. Perfectly numbed and completely obliterated with exhaustion—worked to the bone by Phoenix’s nails and teeth and pelvis, worked until there was absolutely nothing left of himself to give and he laid there in a mess of sheets, wrung out and winded, passing out sometime after Phoenix had cum inside him for the second time.

He had a vague memory of the blond leaving breathless kisses on his shoulders, but then the rest sort of faded to black.

He’d slept hard—so hard he hadn’t moved—fell asleep on his stomach with his hands under the pillows, his head turned away from the heat of the man beside him, not by choice so much as by habit. And when he would wake, a few hours later, it would be in the very same position—but it would not be before Noah remembered the way the roof shingles felt textured and rough beneath the heels of his palms, not before he could taste that half-smoked joint on his tongue.

They were laughing, again, as they often did, and it was that sort of lazy, rolling chuckle that came from being completely and totally relaxed around a person, as if being with them was equally as natural as breathing. And Noah was leaning back on his elbows, the scratch of the roof almost a comfort purely for its familiarity, and the stars were bright spots in the sky that had been just the same as last night, and the night before that, and the night before that.

And she was talking—she’d talked a lot, actually, and she was the only person whose talking hadn’t bothered Noah in the slightest, maybe because it came out sounding so smoothly to him, like her thoughts were the same as his thoughts, even when they weren’t. She’d had so many wildly different opinions, and even when he hadn’t agreed with them, he’d felt them in some way, as if… as if they’d lived inside a part of Noah too, even when they weren’t his own. They belonged there, too, because they were Kaitlyn’s and because she was as much a part of him as he was of her.

He remembered so vividly; the sound of her laugh and the abrasion of the tar and dried rubber beneath them—and then she was falling, kicked off the roof by some unknown force and he couldn’t reach her, couldn’t stop her, could do nothing to change it other than sit there helplessly and watch as she was torn from him and fell and fell and fell like there was no earth beneath them, no nothing, and suddenly he was falling too, only in the other direction, yanked away from her by the gut at a horrific speed, falling like the very essence of gravity, because his up was now down and no amount of thrashing could stop it, could stop any of it, she was just going, going and going and she would never hit the ground, Noah doomed to watch her fall away from him for eternity.

He woke in a sweat and with a gasp that was more like a choke—he didn’t know there were tears on his face until he felt them, sticky and wet against his palms as he tried to quell his heartbeat into something less violent, something less debilitating. He’d shot up, face falling to his hands, sitting bowed and broken-spined away from Phoenix, who he could now hear stirring behind him and this was why, this was why he couldn’t do this, couldn’t have this because he would always be this—this barely functioning toy marked 'as-is’ whirring and stopping and going and ticking in unmediated tempos, half-hazard patterns, and he couldn’t bare the fact that he was a cracking shell, somewhere between empty and overflowing, and that the young blond would get to watch his crumbling, night after night after night after fucking night, and he couldn’t fucking do this—

—he couldn’t breathe, either.

It was like his chest was gasping for air but each swallow was pulsing back into a curved spine, bouncing off ribs and ricocheting back out. Leaving Noah with no oxygen, no air, and he couldn’t breathe he couldn’t function and he’d been here before, time and time again and he usually waited until the worst of it passed before willing himself onto wobbly legs to get himself water. Run his head under the tap when he couldn’t manage anything more. But Phoenix was there and Noah was not, he was gone, somewhere far away, tangled and choking and compressed and every movement was an ache, every slight, an ignition for his head to spin so fast he thought he might puke and he just needed air and maybe then, if his God damn lungs would start fucking working for fuck’s sake, he would be able to get to the part where he could deal with the crying bit—that is, stop it a-fucking-mmediately. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t do that until he caught his God damn breath, and with every moment he was more awake but no more coherent, no more capable.

All because he’d been forced to remember, when all he wanted was to forget.

_____

EXTRA [THIS SECTION WILL NOT INFLUENCE ACCEPTANCE]

How would you feel about this character dying?: (In this roleplay there is always the possibility of death, and as an admin I’d like to know who is and who isn’t comfortable with this ahead of time.)

I’m mostly pretty uncomfortable with it, because I get excruciatingly close to my characters, and the idea of them getting killed off really freaks me out. I get pretty vulnerable with the characters I write. That being said, if for whatever reason in the future, I was interested in switching characters but staying in the RP, I’d consider it? But that depends, because I have a hard time with personal character deaths haha.

Why did you choose this character?:

I connected with Wells immediately, partly due to the fact that I’ve written a character in a very similar situation as him before. Admittedly, they have very different personalities, and I’d neverdream of playing them the same way, but still, it was a character who is nestled desperately deep in my heart, so I connected with Wells’ story quickly. Also, I connect with his sense of loneliness, and his independence. His desire to just drive and see where the road takes him. Function on impulse getting from gas station to gas station and make up the rules as he goes along. He strikes me as someone who is strong and loyal and someone who people like to be around because of this, but underneath he carries this darkness with him that he hasn’t yet properly faced. The layers and potential in his bio and his story truly inspire me <3

Extras: (pinterest boards, mock blogs, aesthetic posts, drabbles, etc.) N/A at the moment, sorry my dear! I’d do some up, but I really want to get my app in tonight and I have a bunch more homework to get to before bed!

How did you find us?: (certain roleplay tags, friend referral, etc.) In the literate rp tag I think! And a looooooot of scrolling to find something worthwhile. Then TADA. Paradise :)

#rp #rpg #roleplay #lsrpg #bio rp #wells donovan #accepted

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yuriplisetskysglove · 7 years

Text

YOI Child AU ! First OS ~

Ok seriously, you guys deserve to know how the Child AU happened. So, @rilya-dewilder and myself were kinda angry (understatement) with all the hate in the Otayuri tag lately (aaannnd we both ship Otayuri like hell. Seriously. That ship will be the death of me and I love it more than my life. Moving on ~) so we got an idea to troll em. Annnnd thus, this OS was born. But it ended up being too good of an OS to actually let antis read it (ok no seriously, I don’t know if it’s actually good since I’ve only had one person read it, and although I’d never doubt Riri’s tastes in fanfcition, I’m worried about the quality of my own work lmao) Anyway, I hope you’ll enjoy reading it, sorry if there are grammar or spelling mistakes (and feel free to tell me if you spot any !) !! And while tumblr isn’t really a fanfiction platform (well... isn’t supposed to be lmao) I’d be really glad if you could provide me with some constructive criticism to help me improve >W< OS under the cut !

A/N: Steven is Mystery Man’s name (I’ve seen people calling him that so I just kinda went with it lol)

Such a nice and sunny winter afternoon rarely came in St Petersburg. What was even more rare was that both Viktor and Yuuri had managed to get a day off.

The latter was peacefully taking a nap on one of the couches, Makkachin laying at his feet. He had been pushing himself too hard lately, given that plenty of old ladies in town needed help with their grumpy cats and other ill puppies. Moreover, he had been taking in wandering pets that their owners had lost or abandonned, and currently was dedicating himself to finding them new homes. That’s why Viktor didn’t dare waking him up, choosing instead to enjoy some time with the children. Ever since Ekaterina and Dmitri had been made part of the family, Viktor’s daily life had become both a mess and an everlasting party, full of the ‘L words’; namely, ‘Love', and ‘Life'. If it was hard for him to manage his job as an assistant coach, it was even harder to deal with Yakov’s frequent angry rantings about the drama queen team he was training that season. And Viktor being their second coach did nothing to ease him. The living legend of Russia chuckled, suddenly remembering Yuri’s face upon learning he was to choreograph his free skate.

‘Why are you laughing, Daddy ?’ Ekaterina asked when she heard him.

They were watching Anastasia, a movie they all loved. Dmitri often would joke that the male lead had been named after him; while Ekaterina would tell him to shut it and watch the movie. They were eight and eleven, respectively, and thankfully none of them had begun their rebellious phase, although Dmitri had taken a bit of a sharp tongue from Mila.

‘Just wondering whether Guang Hong is mad at Yuri for getting gold again or not.’

‘He wouldn’t’, Dmitri objected. ‘They're friends. Also, Guang Hong is a good sport, unlike some people…’

‘Are you implying that Uncle Yura isn’t a good sport ?!’

They exchanged a very serious look. And then, Dmitri snorted, and started laughing uncontrollably. His loud laugh woke Yuuri up.

‘Dmitri…? Oh, I thought you were screaming because of something…’

‘Don't mind him, Papa’, quickly said Ekaterina. ‘He's just being dumb and rude towards Uncle Yura.’

She went near the couch, kissed her father, and then went back to watching her movie. Yuuri yawned, then shot a look at his phone.

‘Ah, speak of the devil. I got a text from Yurio.’

‘What's he saying ?’ Dmitri asked eagerly.

‘His plane has just landed ! He’s exhausted, though, so I don’t know if we should invite him for dinner…?’

‘Of course we should !’ the young girl said, tugging at Yuuri’s t-shirt. ‘I bet he missed your katsudon ! Also, it’s been a while since we’ve last seen him.’

‘It’s barely been a week.’

‘That's too long !’

Smiling, Viktor ruffled his daughter’s platinum blonde hair. She pouted, muttering something along the lines of ‘stop treating me like a baby !’.

‘She's right, though. A week might be nothing for old geezers like you but…’

‘What did you just call us ?!’ Viktor screamed before throwing himself at his husband. ‘Yuuri, did you hear that ?! He called us, old geezers. Old geezers ! We’re barely in our mid-late-something-thirties, Yuuri ! Are we really that old ?! And who taught him that, anyway ?!’

‘I'm guessing it’d be Yurio’, the ex-skater sighed.

‘Old geezers !’

‘At least, it’s better than… What was it, last time ?’

‘Out-of-date dinosaurs. Something like that. Yuuri am I old ? … Am I getting even more white hair ?! Is it getting thinner ?!’

‘Daddy, your hair is silver’, Ekaterina muttered.

She was more than used to her father being all dramatic about getting older. She, for one, couldn’t wait until she was old enough to compete in the senior ice-skating category. While Dmitri had given up on the sport, being more fond of reading or learning how to play the guitar, she loved ice-skating and was aiming to win at least six World Cups, to beat Viktor’s record, even though she wouldn’t compete in the same category.

‘Ah, I got another text.’

‘Are you not going to pay attention to me, Yuuri ?’

‘I'm paying attention to you every night, Vitya.’

‘... Smooth.’

The children exchanged a puzzled look. The adults were so very weird sometimes… All they knew was that they were doing ‘nasty adult stuff’. And they honestly didn’t want to know what that was.

‘He says that he’s gonna go home first to get rid of his stuff and hug every single cat he owns. And then he’ll come. Says he missed you two as well !’

‘How sweet of him. A few years back, he’d have gone with ‘who needs some dumb katsudon anyway. Still coming though, ain’t gonna let you waste your money over some rubbish.’’

Ekaterina’s eyes widened. Her Papa was the best cook in the entire world, she was sure of it.

‘Would Uncle Yura really say that ?’

‘Haven't you seen the photos ? He used to be such a drama queen - and, according to Dad, a tsundere.’

‘Dmitri, how do you even know what a tsundere is ?’ Yuuri sighed.

‘Went on a website called ‘tumblr'. There’s a fan page - well, over ten thousands, really - for the ‘Ice-Skating Prodigy Family’. Which apparently is made of the three of you. Ekaterina isn’t there, though.’

‘That’s because I’m still a junior competitor !’

‘Dmitri, don’t go on tumblr ever again, please.’

‘Why ? I mean, the fan page is pretty cool. There’s a lot of pictures of y’all. Like that one time you two skated together at the 2016 GPF Exhibition Gala. Pretty sure you wouldn’t fit in your costumes anymore !’

‘Dmitri, that was unnecessarily mean, and offensive, and rude.’

The boy rolled his eyes, and both men couldn’t help but do the same. He was taking a lot after Yuri. Feeling like getting in an argument would ruin the mood, Viktor paused the movie and turned to both the children, and his husband.

‘He'll want to eat katsudon and pirozhki, knowing him. Maybe we should make him some.’

‘Daddy, please don’t put a single toe in the kitchen’, Ekaterina begged. ‘Last time, when we tried to bake a cake for Uncle Otabek’s birthday, you managed to turn it green. Green, Daddy.’

‘That was -’

‘Definitely not an accident’, Dmitri smirked. ‘It's when you actually cook something edible that it is.’

‘Hey ! I’m not that bad, and -’

‘Also, both Yurio and Otabek got sick for two whole days after that. If I remember well, Yurio tried to kick you in the face with his skates when he got better.’

This shut Viktor down. He pouted, slowly went back to sitting on the couch, and tightly hugged Makkachin while pretending to cry.

‘Do you hear that Makkachin. This family hates me. This family hates me, Makkachin. What have I ever done to deserve that.

‘Vitya, I swear to… Ugh. Nevermind. We’re going to make that katsudon and those pirozhki.’

‘Yuuri is so cruel to me Makkachin. He hates me.’

The black-haired man rolled his eyes again, then went into the kitchen without his husband noticing his smirk. I’ll hug him later.

The two children listened carefully to Yuuri’s instructions, and even though there were some… flour battles when making the pirozhki, everything went rather smoothly. They had barely been done cleaning the kitchen that they heard the bell ringing, and Viktor went to get the door. He had stopped sulking, at least it seemed he did, because when he saw Yuri, he immediately shot him his heart-shaped smile and gave him a tight hug.

‘Viktor, stop, I’m suffocating and besides this is embarrassing, also -’

‘Uncle Yura !’

Ekaterina ran to hug the blonde, mercilessly pushing her father out of the way before she crashed onto the young man’s torso, crushing his bones in an even tighter hug.

‘Ekaterina, I can’t fucking breathe’, he muttered. His skinny built had never been much for bone-crushing hugs, especially the Katsuki-Nikiforov daughter’s.

‘No swearing, Yurio !’ Yuuri claimed before hugging him as well.

‘Yeah, yeah. Beka said he’d be coming later, he wanted to finish washing his bike before that. Is that okay ?’

They went inside, and Yuri had a bit of a hard time dealing with an over-excited Makkachin - the dog really did like him, and even though Yuri was definitely more of a cat person, he actually had nothing against him and even played with him a little.

‘Where's Dmitri ?’ he asked after Viktor had managed to calm Makkachin down.

As soon as he asked, the brown-haired boy came dashing from the corridor.

‘Papa !’

He threw himself onto the blonde’s back, and the latter, unused to having unexpected weight being thrown at him, fell down on his knees as his son started tickling him.

‘Dmitri - fuck, Dmitri stop it I - I said, stop it, ugh, stop, my sides hurt !’

The boy obeyed, albeit reluctantly, and offered his father his brightest smile.

‘Where's Dad ?’

‘He'll be late. How’re you, lil’ monster ?’

‘Hey. I’m more of a gremlin, really. And I’m great ! Uncle Vitya lent me a few cool books, you should totally read ‘em Papa.’

‘Uh, tell that to Beka. Y’know I’m not that much of a book person.’

‘Liar, I saw Romeo and Juliet on your bedside table just last week.’

‘When have you become such a ninja ?’

‘Oi ! Dmitri, don’t keep Uncle Yura all for yourself, that’s unfair !’

The two children started bickering, and all three adults exchanged a knowing look. They had always been like this.

‘So, Uncle Yura, what does Beijing look like ?’

‘I sent your dads a few pics already, y’know. It’s pretty cool, I guess, just a bit… crowded. But Guang Hong and Leo took us to some restaurant and even though I still can’t use fu… frea… um… chopsticks, we had some good time.’

‘And then ?’

‘And then what ?’

‘Dad said he wanted to take you on his bike and drive around the city. Said it’d be romantic.’

Yuri almost instantly went red. Despite him being twenty-six already, he still was embarrassed by Otabek’s not-so-well-hidden idea of romance, and his face showed it quite well. Viktor and Yuuri smirked at the ice kitty of Russia, who, fortunately, didn’t see them. Otherwise, he’d probably have punched them both.

Just as he was mumbling something like ‘Otabek you’re such a dumbass why did I even marry you’, the bell rang again, and this time, Dmitri went to open the door. As soon as he recognized his father’s black coat, he hugged him tight, and Otabek smiled gently before stroking his head. He closed the door behind him, then went to meet the little committee.

‘Sorry for being late. I really wanted to get this done.’

‘No problem, Otabek’, Yuuri smiled. ‘Actually, Yurio’s been here for just a few minutes, you know.’

They started chatting, mostly evaluating the chances of Yuri winning this season’s GPF - even though he had won gold for both qualifying events, he was to compete against some new skaters, who were inexperienced indeed, but extremely talented. Besides, Yuri had already proven that experience in the Senior bracket didn’t actually matter as long as the skaters worked hard and took full advantage of their talents - which had granted him a gold medal for his Senior Debut.

‘Hey, Dmitri, given that both your dads made it to the GPF this year, who will you be rooting for ?’ Ekaterina asked.

‘Dunno. Both, I guess ? At least if I’m in both fanclubs, I’m guaranteed to be satisfied.’

He smiled at his parents, and they chuckled, smiled, and Otabek fist-bumped him.

‘I hope Guang Hong and Leo make it, too.’

‘Yurio, is JJ really going to be singing for the opening event ?’

‘Uh… I didn’t ask him and I really hope he’s not ‘cause I seriously won’t have the time and fucking patience to deal with him…’

‘Come on, you two are friends now. And that dress he wore for your wedding was fabulous.’ Viktor winked at the children, who didn’t know of that story. After all, Ekaterina had been part of the family for eight years only, while Dmitri hadn’t spent more than five years with his foster family.

‘I still have the pictures Phichit took ! They must be in some photo album, I’ll show you later’, Yuuri smiled.

‘Mr. Katsuki, I don’t think it’s a good idea.’

‘You know, Otabek, you can call us Yuuri and Viktor. I mean, we’ve been Mr. Katsuki and Mr. Nikiforov for years now. I know, I know, you think it’s disrespectful but, really… Nevermind. Why is it a bad idea ?’

Otabek shook his head.

‘Mr. Giacometti is featured in a few of them.’

Silence fell upon the room, and Ekaterina broke it first.

‘As in, Christophe Giacometti ? Daddy’s best friend ? Uncle Chris ?’

‘Himself', Yuri groaned. ‘Why did he even have to come… He spent the entire afternoon getting drunk off his ass with Emil and Michele… Not to mention Georgi giving Minami some makeup advice… And Mila and Sara flirting… Ugh… Seriously, the only guy who stayed chill until the end was Seung-Gil.’

‘Leo went wild on the dancefloor, and both Yuris had a dance-off with him’, Viktor smirked.’

‘Leo did ? I thought he was cooler than that…’

‘What's that s’posed to mean, Dmitri ?!’

‘But Uncle Chris is so sweet !’ Ekaterina said. ‘Last time, he brought us Swiss chocolate for the Easter holidays !’

‘Yeah well now he’s calmed down, especially with Steven tempering him. But seriously… I’ve seen things at the GPF Gala that I’d rather not remember.’

‘Like what, Papa ?’

‘I said I didn’t wanna remember that.’

When the clock hit nine in the evening, they suddenly realized they had completely forgotten about the katsudon and pirozhki, and both Yuris went extremely pale, fearing for their beloved dishes’ lives. Turns out they actually weren’t half bad at all, and they ended up staying up quite a while talking about different things - although Yuri fell asleep halfway, his head laying on Otabek’s shoulder while the latter was starting to get tired as well. After all, he also had had an exhausting trip from Beijing to St Petersburg, and he moreover had to wash his bike and prevent their four cats from running away.

Seeing how tired both of them were, and having a hard time dealing with Dmitri and Ekaterina’s over-cheerfulness, Viktor and Yuuri let the Altin-Plisetsky couple sleep in a spare room. When they were done making sure that everything was comfortable enough for them, they went back to the living room, and found their sweet daughter, fast asleep on the couch.

‘Awww, Yuuri, an angel has dozed off on our couch. Should we wake her up ?’

‘No, let her be… Let’s just bring her a cover and that cat plushie Yurio gave her, she loves it.’

‘That reminds me… Where has Dmitri gone ?’

They went back in the kitchen, but the boy was nowhere to be seen. Viktor quickly checked in Yuri and Otabek’s room, but he wasn’t there either. They kept searching for a few minutes, until they heard someone sneezing, only to find a wide-awake Dmitri on the balcony.

‘You're going to catch a cold, Dmitri’, Yuuri said as he gently took his hand to lead him back inside.

But the boy didn’t move an inch, and kept looking at the scenery that spread before his magnificent blue eyes. The ever-so-cheerful St Petersburg was drowned in its own silence, beautiful and intimidating. They could see some lights coming out of other houses, where other people lived other lives. Both adults stared at the boy.

‘Is it bad that I’m different from everyone in the family ?’ he finally said in a quiet, shy voice.

‘Are you ?’ Yuuri asked. ‘Different, I mean.’

The boy seemed to regret his words at first, and it looked like he wasn’t going to try and answer Yuuri’s question. Instead, he went back inside to grab Otabek’s giant coat, put it on like some kind of oversized costume, and sat down on one of the balcony chairs. His gaze fell upon the peaceful city again, as he started talking in a voice that didn’t quite sound like his.

‘Ice-skating isn’t my thing. Sure, it can be cool. Sometimes. Mila said that I would grow to like it. But it’s not the same ‘like' as you two or Ekaterina or my parents’ ‘like'. It’s not even a hobby.’

‘Does that make you feel… Apart from us ?’ Viktor muttered.

‘Kinda. I mean, I won’t force myself to like it just because the people I love do. But I don’t like being left out either. Papa and Dad spend so much time abroad because of it. And yeah, I know they come back as often as possible ‘cause they wanna see me, and all of us really, but… It’s not the same…’

‘If this is what worries you, Dmitri, know that they love you. Deeply’, Viktor smiled.

‘It's not. I know they do. I guess I just missed them quite a bit and I really want to spend more time with them. I know what it’s gonna be. One of them will get gold at the GPF, and then they’ll go for the Europeans, the Four Continents and the Worlds, and then they’ll come back, only to go away again…’

‘Geez, aren’t you too small to worry about these ?’

All three turned around, and met a pair of tired, green eyes. Yuri was leaning against the door, staring at his son.

‘Papa ! I… I thought you were asleep…!’

‘I was. But Beka snores like a freaking grizzly. Shouldn’t have given him any booze.’

He sat down, his torso and bare arms inside the living room while his legs laid on the balcony.

‘I’m sorry’, he said. ‘I'm sorry we don’t get to spend as much time with you as we’d all like.’

‘... I didn’t really want you to apologize, y’know ? It’s not really your fault if you like skating that much.’

‘This one is our last season.’

Yuuri couldn’t help but let out a faint exclamation, but he was quick to cover his mouth, afraid he might wake Ekaterina up. Viktor simply frowned, and then sighed.

‘I knew there had to be a reason for you to be this invested this year.’

‘We’re not gonna stay competitive forever. Besides, we’ve been talking a lot about you, lil’ monster. Viktor and the piglet aren’t always gonna be taking care of you when it’s our job.’

‘You can’t ! You… That’s your passion ! You’ve loved it since you were three !’ Dmitri yelled. ‘Don't give up just because I’m an attention whore and -’

‘Language, kid. And trust me, if you were an attention whore, I’d have punched you long ago so don’t go around saying that.’

‘Then, Yurio, what… What are you going to do ?’ Yuuri asked.

‘Dunno. I’ve been asked to work as a model but to be honest, it’d be a pain in the ass. Beka thinks he’s gonna start in the music industry, though.’

‘Are Uncle Yura and Uncle Otabek retiring…?’ asked Ekaterina’s soft voice from the couch.

She was looking at them with bright grey eyes, her hair falling before her face as she slowly stood up and went to sit next to Yuri.

‘Yeah. We are.’

‘We'll never get to see you skate again ?’

‘Not during a competition.’

‘But… You’ll keep loving it, right ? Like Papa and Daddy do ?’

‘Course we will.’

He patted her head, and yawned. She looked like she was about to cry, but she didn’t and simply went to hug Yuuri.

‘Yuri', Viktor said. ‘If none of you win gold this year, or beat your records, I’m keeping Dmitri here and you’re not taking him back ever again.’

‘What ?!’ both Yuri and Dmitri screamed.

‘That's so fucked up, old man ! Who d’you think you are ?! Also are you serious ?! I knew you were stupid but this is some JJ-level bullshit, have you even heard what you -’

‘Yura ? Why are you and Mr. Nikiforov arguing… Again...?’

Otabek had just entered the room, still sleepy.

‘Beka ! Tell the old man that he can’t keep our son all to himself even if none of us win gold !’

‘... What ?’

‘That’s his way of encouraging you’, Yuuri sighed. ‘Well, as long as none of you ask him to marry you if you win gold…’

‘Not happening, the guy’s way too old for me, you can keep him.’

‘Yuri, that was rude !’

‘But I don’t wanna keep living with Grandpa and Gramps, though.’

‘Why would you call my Papa and Daddy ‘Grandpa and Gramps’ ?!’

‘Well, remember that website I talked about earlier ? Tumblr ? People say that Papa is Viktor and Yuuri’s son. So, technically, they’re my grandparents.’

‘... Does that mean Uncle Yura is… Big Brother Yura ?’

‘That also means Dmitri is your nephew’, Otabek said bluntly.

‘Which is fucked up. Also, I’m not their son for fuck’s sake ! Could they stop with this bullshit for even a fucking minute ?!’

‘Yurio, I’ve been trying not to pay attention to it but please don’t swear that much in front of the children’, Yuuri begged.

‘Yeah, Papa, listen to Grandpa Yuuri !’

‘Wait, I get to be Gramps ?! But… But I wanted to be Grandpa !’

‘Dude, you have your priorities set straight.’

‘I'm pretty sure he’s not.’

Silence followed Otabek’s declaration as he stared extremely seriously at everyone in the room. Yuri ended up facepalming, stood up and pulled his ear.

‘Who the fuck are you and what have you done with my bad-puns-free-Beka.’

‘I'm Drunk Beka.’

‘Fuck.’

Then, Otabek collapsed in his husband’s arms, who winced before putting him down on the ground.

‘Wow, now that’s a side of Dad I didn’t know’, Dmitri smirked before taking a picture.

‘Don't even try blackmailing him, kid.’

‘Aww, Yuuri, our son is so protective of his boyfriend !’

‘Viktor, shut your fucking mouth ! He’s not my boyfriend, he’s my husband. And. I. Am. Not. Your. Son.’

Viktor was going to reply, when Ekaterina sneezed. Everyone agreed to go back inside. They hadn’t even realized how cold it was. They spent another few hours talking and playing some board games while Otabek was still asleep on the fluffy carpet; Ekaterina and Dmitri then went with Yuuri to take all covers and pillows off the beds and out of the closets, and gathered them all on the floor. Everyone fell asleep together, Yuri hugging Dmitri and Ekaterina being comfy between her two fathers.

Needless to say, the following week, they were all tied up to their beds with a nasty cold, and Yakov came running to scold every single one of them, even the two children who knew that the man was much, much kinder than he’d ever let people think.

AAAnnnnnd done !!! I hope you liked it, and especially Dmitri and Ekaterina >W< Sorry it ended up way angstier than expected - I do that, sometimes. Truth is, I love writing angst so... Beware of your feels 8D Anyway

#yuri on ice #yoi #yoi child au #otayuri #viktuuri #chris x mystery man #ekaterina katsuki-nikiforov #dmitri altin-plisetsky #yuri plisetsky #otabek altin #viktor nikiforov #yuuri katsuki

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