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mercurygray · 3 years

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Interview at the Ritz

In The Darkening Sky, there's an allusion to a trip Joan makes to London for the Army Press Office. I wanted to fill in for myself what some of those interviews would have been like for Joan, and was privledged enough to borrow @shoshiwrites's OC Jo Brandt. Jo, for those of you who don't know her yet, is a girl reporter trying to make good on a war reporting job - she has a quiet and keenly observant mind, and something of a tendresse for Joe Toye, who makes an appearance at the start of this drabble.

Quite a coup, getting to interview the woman everyone wanted a piece of at the moment.

And Jo Brandt had an inside scoop - a scoop she was currently pressing for something, anything, that would help her really nail this interview.

But Joe Toye was being...less than helpful on the scoop front. When Jo had explained her story, and her reason for asking, his expression seemed...almost afraid. Protective, even. “Look, Jo, she’s kinda...she ain’t like us, okay? Grew up in a fancy house, never had to worry about where dinner was.”

“Sort of woman who shops downtown with her chauffeur?” Jo could picture her now, a dainty woman in a dainty suit-set in dove gray, one of those tiny ornamental hats perched on her head and a tiny ornamental dog in the car, who spent more on clothes in a month than Jo paid in rent for the year. (It was hard to imagine a woman like that doing all the things that Joe did, but it was the Army, right, and the Army did some dumb things.)

Toye made a face. “Kinda? But she’s not...she doesn’t look through you like those people. She’s got her head on the right way - smart, you know? Knows things, pays attention when people talk. And...and tough. Best running time in the company. Wants to pull her weight.”

No impractical hat and suit, then. “Sounds like you almost respect her,” Jo accused, joking just a little.

Joe made a face at that, mildly uncomfortable, but he also didn’t say no, and that told Jo a lot. Still - the woman had been a debutante, and Jo had covered enough society page events in a dress from last season and scuffed-in shoes to remember what those girls could do when they didn’t like the way you looked at them.

Even the hallway at the Ritz seemed fancy - white walls and gold paint only just starting to show that there was, indeed, a war on. Jo had given her name at the front desk and waited, feeling out of place, as the concierge rang upstairs to announce her before she was sent on upstairs with directions and a room number.

She was half expecting a butler, like they had in those fancy movies - she knocked, and someone answered “Come in!” from the depths of the suite. The handle of the door felt warm under her hand - she could still turn back now, if she wanted...but she didn’t.

It was a larger, lighter, and fancier hotel room than Jo had ever seen in her life, a whole apartment complete with a sitting room and a cart for coffee service - and the woman in question herself, beautiful in her Class As on the couch. Guess Joe was right about one thing - she’s a looker. “Lieutenant Warren? Jo Brandt, Philadelphia Clarion.”

Her subject rose from the couch, confused for a moment until her face, seemingly despite itself, broke into a laugh.

"I'm sorry," Jo said, feeling immediately defensive, her hand dropped a little. Do I have ink on my blouse or something?

Warren recovered quickly. "Please, Miss Brandt, I'm the one who should apologize. The press officer said that your name was Joe Brandt and... I assumed you would be a man." She shortened her smile and took a few steps forward around the coffee table, offering her hand to shake. "Which is rather rich of me, given the circumstances. Please do forgive me. We'll start over."

Jo looked down at the hand being offered, and, tentatively, shook, looking up at the tall woman and realizing what she was seeing was a genuine smile. "Can I get you a coffee?" the lieutenant offered. "It's usually quite good,here."

“Thank you, that’d be...much appreciated.” Jo smoothed her slacks and sat down, watching what was, in fact, a whole service rather than just a nickel cup of joe.

There was certainly something of the society hostess about the way Joan Warren moved through the hotel room, an actress’s awareness of how she fitted into a space, the movements of pouring the coffee practiced and assured. Coffee at Jo’s apartment came from a stainless steel percolator, not a...a china pot with a spout and a lid that had to be held on as one poured. “Cream or sugar?”

“A little of both?” Jo managed, unsure what one usually said when one was being served and the sugar sifter wasn’t right next to the little chrome napkin dispenser on a chipped lino counter.

“I’m no great shakes at entertaining, but I was taught how to pour coffee,” the lieutenant said, setting the cup (and saucer and spoon) down on the table in front of Jo, as if she were a guest, and not just the hired help. (Those society girls had never even offered so much as a glass of water, not even on those unbearably hot days in May.) “I’m rather terrible with most of the rest of it.” Now, why do I doubt that? Jo thought with a barely raised eyebrow. Man I know says you can’t stand to be terrible at anything, Lieutenant Warren.

“I imagine you get that quite often, people assuming you’re a man?”

“Comes with the territory,” Jo offered, gingerly picking up her coffee by the saucer and stirring a little, trying not to slam the spoon into the sides of the china. “I’m sure you know the feeling,” she added, feeling it was only appropriate.

Another smile. “Some people assume that Joan has been mistyped for John, though...what the a and the h are doing next to each other on that keyboard I couldn’t say,” Lieutenant Warren offered.

She was friendly, this upper class girl from DC, not trying to frost her out or make her feel inferior, and Jo appreciated that. She was trying to remember all the bits from her research - that she’d gone to Goucher for her undergrad (how do you feel college prepares you for officer training?) majored in geography (did you find yourself wishing you’d learned something different?) and was a state record holder in the women’s ten thousand meters. (how physical was training?). Did she feel a certain responsibility towards her uncle’s legacy? Did her cousin and brother have the same pressure?

“I imagine you’ve got questions you need to get through - I’ve gone ahead and made a note of the names and colors of my makeup for you; I know marketers are very particular about their spellings and I wouldn’t want you to get into any trouble.”

Warren didn’t seem particularly happy to offer this - the paper was folded neatly, slid across the table in the same way that one offers a bribe, or a peace offering, resigned to her fate, and it was all Jo could do not to stare. Was...was that really all she was expected to ask? She looked at this woman, ramrod straight on a chair that was meant for lounging, a lifetime of accomplishments suddenly reduced to a list of what she was wearing to the interview, and felt a sudden, angry kinship with her, and made a promise to herself and God: whatever she wrote today, lipstick colors would not be making an appearance.

She took the note and slipped it into the back of her notebook, smiling a little as she did so. We’re friends already, you and I, Joan Warren - we’re in this together. She sat up a little straighter herself and uncapped her pen, leaning in towards the table with the real question she knew millions of women would be wondering as they read the article.

“So, what’s jumping out of an airplane really like?”

#i have written a thing #joan warren #jo brandt #i hope you like it sho!!!#1940s girl gang #mercurygraypresents

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valerzya · 3 years

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𝖛𝖆𝖑𝖊𝖗𝖎𝖞𝖆 𝖑𝖊𝖓𝖐𝖔𝖛 𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖉𝖚𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 . . .

( irina shayk. cis woman. she/her. the question & mac miller. ) have you seen VALERIYA LENKOV strolling around central park at lunchtime? rumor has it they’re actually THIRTY-FIVE years old, but i’m pretty sure they’re only THIRTY. they’re currently posing as a SCREENPLAY WRITER, but when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to MANHATTAN by CAR SERVICE. apparently they DID attend the met gala this season!

hello, all ! i’m lauryn, 21, my pronouns are she/her, and i currently reside within the cst timezone. i’ve been tumblr rping on and off for about 8 years now, and this is my first time playing valeriya. here’s is my second muse of this rp, valeriya lenkov ! her about is listed here, her statistics are listed here, and her plotting page is listed here. if you’d like to claim any of the plots on that page or do some other plotting, shoot me a message ! i prefer discord, but i’m open to messaging on tumblr. my discord is limes#6826. i look forward to writing with everyone !

TW: CHRONIC ILLNESS, DEPRESSION, MURDER

born in a rural mining town located in russia to a coal miner and a home birth midwife, valeriya nikolayevna lenkov had a relatively average upbringing. as an only child, she received a generous amount of attention from her parents. when they were not working, they were home with their daughter. valeriya was a frail child who often grew sick, though she received a lot of attention from locals who referred to her as the most beautiful child in town. her parents dreamed of whisking her away to the united states, where they could hopefully get a diagnosis for her illness. sponsored by valeriya’s aunt in manhattan, the family prepared to make the jump by spending their free time practicing their english and setting up employment for valeriya’s father at his sister’s husband’s work.

upon arriving in manhattan, valeriya, now seven, and her family lived with her aunt and her husband for nearly a year. valeriya’s mother had found work as a seamstress while her father migrated from food preparation to a construction job, which finally earned the family some health benefits. with that in place and with the recommendation of a specialist, valeriya was put through a series of medical examinations. after numerous pokes and prods and a scan or two, no affliction had been identified. it had become an assumption that valeriya’s susceptibility to sickness was due to a compromised immune system, though nothing was ever confirmed.

life in manhattan differed greatly from valeriya’s upbringing. she had gone from the quiet, desolate roads to a bustling city crowded with rats and bodies. school had been rough on valeriya for the first couple years; her english was far from perfect and she would go through periods of illness that made her truant. she was lucky to not have to repeat any grades, though it came close. her parents’ work schedules had become more hectic since the move, with her father being on call and her mother working full time at odd hours, so it was often left to her aunt to look after her.

middle school and high school proved to be far more tolerable for valeriya. english was no longer a concern of hers after years of schooling, and she received ample attention for her good looks and compassionate nature. valeriya was considered popular amongst her peers despite her occasional disappearance from school for a week or so at a time. her friends doted on her, filling the void that her mostly absent parents had left; they would often visit her with comfort foods and gifts when she was sick.

in her sophomore year of high school, valeriya met a boy that she would deem to be her first love. she fell head over heels for the boy, and he returned her affections. it wasn’t long until valeriya began to exhibit obsessive behaviors though, resulting in their split. valeriya was heartbroken and looked for any distraction to fill her time. she landed on cinema, specifically horror cinema. valeriya expressed an interest in writing her own horror flicks, finding some sort of direction that she had previously lacked. upon graduating high school, valeriya grew seriously ill. her fever refused to break, and she was forced to spend all of her time at home. when she felt well enough, she would fill the silence with the scribbling of her pencil.

after a month, valeriya finally recovered and began taking community college courses on film and screenwriting. she had no intent to seek a degree, having struggled enough already with schooling. her intention was simply to educate herself on how to adapt her stories into screenplays and potentially make a career out of it. in the meantime, she took a job as a waitress at a local cafe. they were understanding in regards to her illness and gave her shifts sparingly, but it was enough to purchase the things that she desired. valeriya grew to be a cynical young adult with bouts of depression. her heartbreak weighed heavy on her, even after years, and her illnesses brought on feelings of hopelessness.

with three completed screenplays in the hands of the twenty-five year old, valeriya sought out the support of an agent. after four failed attempts, someone finally took an interest in her material. by age twenty-seven, valeriya had sold her first script through a production company. it was set to be developed as a direct-to-dvd movie, and valeriya made a killing from it. finally able to move out of her parents’ manhattan apartment into her own one-bedroom apartment, valeriya felt a dash of hope. however, after a couple years of letdowns and rejection, her hope dwindled once again. valeriya grew resentful toward the world, cursing it for the ways it had failed her. her once compassionate spirit had disappeared, replaced with a bitter, pessimistic nature.

at the age of thirty, valeriya met a strange person ( vampire ) who piqued her interest. she was hypnotized by this being and spent a large portion of her time at their side. they were strong and capable, something that she envied. often expressing her envy for these traits, the being took it upon themselves to make valeriya more like them. she was changed into a vampire and for the first time in her lifetime, she radiated with strength and resiliency. her life had been taken from her, but it was almost as though it was just beginning.

finding inspiration to write again, with her mind firing on all cylinders, valeriya produced three more screenplays within a year. miraculously, two out of three sold with both generating a six figure price point. she spent the rest of her time absorbing what was now her life. her thirst for blood empowered her, and she felt superior to the weak humans she fed on. she would familiarize herself with those she fed on before she took their life, viewing feeding as a sport. valeriya had become childish, reckless, and manipulative. she only saw others for what she could gain from them. though she acted a fool, she was intelligent and perceptive. as the years passed, she sold two more screenplays, gaining notoriety within that world. valeriya finally feels as though she’s unstoppable, and she won’t let anything or anyone get in her way.

TLDR ; valeriya was a sickly child who immigrated from russia to manhattan when she was seven. due to what was likely a compromised immune system, she often fell ill. in high school, she suffered a heartbreak that led her to start creating horror screenplays. after selling one, she hit a low point after many more rejections and bouts of illness. she became bitter and resentful toward the world until she was changed into a vampire. now powerful and free from sickness, valeriya revels in her new life. she enjoys feeding on unsuspecting humans, and has even gained more notoriety as a screenplay writer.

important information about her personality can be found in her “about” section linked above.

@duskintro

#dusk:intro #tldr at the end because this got stupid long #sry for any mistakes !#i proofread but u never know

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melodiouswhite · 3 years

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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde rewritten - Ch. 61

Chapter Sixty-One: Everyday life

“Ah, Dr. Faust!”, Dr. Lanyon said, “You're here for your appointment?”

“No, I want to learn how to dance ballet”, the German doctor retorted sarcastically.

Lanyon mock-gasped: “What, you can't dance ballet???”

“I don't need it in my everyday life, so why would I learn it?”

“Point taken. Do sit down. So, tell me, how have you been?”

The alchemist arched an eyebrow. “Do you want a typically English answer, or-?”

“An honest one.”

“Breathing is unusually hard lately”, Dr. Faust told him. “Must be the asthma and the permanent after-effects from smoke poisoning.”

“If you don't mind, smoke poisoning from what?”, Lanyon queried.

“The Thirty Years War. Everything was on fire back then. Then there were the witch hunts – I can't even remember how many times they tried to burn me at the stake.”

“Oh my god!”

“The 17th century was that brutal, Dr. Lanyon. Don't mind it.”

“But I do!”, Lanyon protested. “And don't act so nonchalant! If you're not traumatised after those horrible experiences of war, I seriously have to question your humanity!”

Dr. Faust sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose: “It's long in the past. And I'd rather not talk about it to you. I may be able to look into your mind and hear your thoughts, but that doesn't change the fact, that I hardly know you.”

Trust issues. That was something Lanyon was more than familiar with.

“You're right”, he gave in. “Let's talk about it no longer. Right now, the more pressing issue is the surgery.”

Lady Summers was filing her therapy protocols.

A tedious task, but it had to be done.

More than often it took hours to sort everything into her abundant folders, of which some were thicker than the others. The countess always sorted her folders alphabetically and the protocols and notes inside them chronologically.

The one she was working on right now was the newest folder of her friend Victor Frankenstein – it was one of the biggest ones in her archive. After all, he had been alive for almost 130 years, she had known him for over forty years and the man had a lot of issues, some of them impossible to get rid of. Victor was a complete mess (and kind of a tool) and most of it he had brought upon himself. Sometimes Lady Summers couldn't help but question, why they were still friends. Probably pity and a tad of sympathy – they had been through the same torture all those years ago.

With a sigh, she finished filing the newest of her notes and protocols. She would need a new folder for Victor's case and he already had six of them.

All of her friends had several folders, even Dr. Jekyll, who had been her client for only a few months (then again, he had more problems than most of her clients).

Lady Summers closed the file, put it back into the shelf, went downstairs and prepared to go out.

It was Monday evening, when she would habitually visit the local police stations and prisons.

Not because she liked going there, but because the police liked to spare themselves the trouble of actually doing research by employing her mind-reading abilities. They tipped her handsomely for her service and that was the only reason, why she cooperated with them.

But that didn't stop Lady Summers from taking her frustration out on them for not using their own brains. Really, was it too much to ask, that they just did their job and deduced their cases without the help of a civilian?!

Her butler helped her into her jacket, cloak and shoes, Aoimoku handed her her parasol and they went on their way.

Marie would handle everything in the meantime.

When the three arrived there, Lady Summers gave a curt nod to the porter, before entering the building.

Almost everyone in the room turned to look at her and there was some mumbling from one or the other.

“Good evening, inspector Grumman”, she greeted the oldest of them.

Then she turned to the youngest man in the room: “I see, you're new. Well, good evening, officer Joyce. I hope your wife is feeling better?”

She almost laughed at how the young man stared at her for solid five seconds.

But then he recovered: “U-uhm, yes. M-my wife is feeling better, thank you. But how did you know my name and that she was sick?”

She smiled sweetly: “I'm Lady Summers. It's a pleasure to meet you. Anyway, inspector”, she turned back to Grumman. “I assume you have new-”

“Oh, good evening, Lady Summers!” Another inspector stepped forward and she withheld a groan, when she recognised D.I. Blackwood.

“How good to see you, Milady! If I may say, that's an exquisite dress! You look queenly toni-”

“Yes, yes”, she interrupted him, “words are cheap and so are your attempts at flattery. Let's get started, shall we?”

“Thank you so much for your time, Dr. Jekyll”, the woman sighed in relief. “You truly are one of the best physicians I have ever met.”

“Oh, stop it, Madam!”, Jekyll chuckled. “One of these days the flattery will get to my head and I can't possibly let that happen! Who knows, what that would do to my judgement! Anyway, you don't need to worry. It's just a common cold. Be sure to keep warm, drink lots of herbal infusions (peppermint, sage, lavender and ginger, mixed with honey, do a world of good against a sore throat), rest as much as you can and be sure to air the room regularly. But if it gets worse, be sure to send for me. Have a good day and get well soon!”

The woman nodded and saw herself out.

Jekyll took five minutes to air the room, before calling the next patient in.

“Good morning, Mr. Blake”, he greeted the man. “Oh dear, I see the pollen season is taking its toll on you.”

Before the man could answer, he sneezed violently into the room.

The Doctor couldn't help but frown. “Mr. Blake, how many times do I have to tell you to please sneeze into a handkerchief or into the crook of your elbow! It's common decency!”, he added pointedly, when the old man opened his mouth to nag.

This is going to be a long, long, week.

“Alright, Sir Carew”, Utterson spoke to his elderly client. “Is there anything more you have to discuss with me?”

“No, no”, the old politician chuckled. “This is all for now. Thank you kindly, Mr. Utterson. You're always such a big help.”

“It's always my pleasure”, the lawyer replied. “Before you go, I heard that you're going to retire from the Parliament?”

“Ah, yes”, Sir Carew confirmed. “I'm beginning to feel my age, I must admit. I'm planning to retire into the country, once I am retired and my daughter has got married. And once that day comes, I would be happy, if you could assist me in ordering my possessions.”

“I will gladly do so”, Utterson promised. “How is your daughter anyway?”

Carew smiled: “Ah, she is as darling as ever. To be fair, it worries me how many suitors she has. You can never know, if they just want your daughter for her beauty, if they truly love her.”

“Well, I have no children, so I can't really relate”, Utterson stated.

For a second he wondered how an old man like Sir Danvers Carew could have such a young daughter (she was not quite twenty), but then he remembered, that Carew had adopted her.

Maybe my own memory is getting rusty.

“By the way, how is Lady Summers?”, Carew inquired out of the blue, startling the other. “After all, she was quite ill used at the royal gala over a month ago.”

“Oh. Her Ladyship is fine”, Utterson told him. “In fact, she visited her father-in-law in Cornwall earlier this month. She returned to London a week ago, you can visit her yourself, if you wish. I'm certain she will be delighted to have tea and crumpets with you.”

“Oh, wonderful”, the older man cried in delight. “Really, that baron was such an animal towards her! She could have died from internal injuries!”

“Hm, she had the good fortune of several capable physicians being there as well”, the lawyer pointed out (wishing Carew would stop talking about that accursed gala already).

“Indeed. The Lady always had fortune on her side – then again, fortune favours the bold. And speaking of them, how are they? I seem to recall, that they are intimate friends of yours?”

“You could say that”, Utterson confirmed, albeit apprehensively. “We have known each other since our school days, so we're very close.”

“Well, give them my regards and my thanks for being such good friends to you and to the countess. And while you're at that, won't you give my thanks to that young brown-haired man, who saved my daughter from that scoundrel's clutches? What was his name again …”

“Mr. Hyde”, the lawyer supplied.

“Right! Anyway, give him and Dr. Jekyll my thanks. As Lisa's father it put me quite at ease to see two gentlemen help my daughter out without ulterior motives.”

Utterson nodded. “I will let them know next time I meet them. Have a nice evening, Sir.”

Then he saw his client off.

He didn't ask, whether Carew remembered, that Hyde was the very same man, who had almost killed him the year before and if yes, how he was feeling about that.

I will just have to ask Lady Summers, he decided. I pray she will be willing to enlighten me, because something about this is making me anxious.

#the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde #dr faustus #dr. jekyll #henry jekyll #hastie lanyon #dr lanyon #gabriel john utterson #mr. utterson #sir danvers carew #oc #johann georg faust

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dogmom-2 · 3 years

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Hey, everyone! This is my first story ever, so please be nice :) I've noticed we are seriously lacking on some Joe Hill fanfiction, and I had to do something about it. I'll most likely do another part to this story, so stay tuned. Feedback is appreciated. This takes place after the gun fight in the season 11 finale. Enjoy!

Joe was currently laying in a hospital bed. He was shot during a gun fight. Fortunately, the bullet was a through and through on his leg, and the doctors were optimistic about his recovery. He would be staying for a day or two just for observation.

"We're glad you're ok." Said Danny. "Yeah, you had us all worried." Added Jamie. "Do you want us to get in touch with your mom?" "Nah, don't bother. We had a pretty big fight when I told her I accepted an undercover job." Joe said. Just then, there was a knock at the door. In walked Frank Reagan, Joe Hill's grandpa, and the closest thing he had to a dad. "Would we be able to have a minute?" Asked Frank. Danny and Jamie nodded, hugged their nephew goodbye, and left the room. Joe sat up in his bed, as Frank walked up to him, and sat on the side of the bed. They sat in silence for a few minutes before Frank spoke. "I love you too, Joe." And just like that, Joe had tears running down his face. Instantly, Frank hugged him and did his best to comfort him. "I'm so sorry" Joe choked out "for everything. I'm sorry for not coming to dinner, and making you all worry. I'm so sorry." "It's alright. We're all just happy you're ok." Frank reassured his crying grandson. He just kept holding him and rubbing his back until the crying had stopped, and felt Joe's steady breathing. Realizing he had fallen asleep, he moved Joe so he was laying in a comfortable position. Frank gently placed a kiss on his forehead, and sat in the chair near the bed. He watched his oldest grandchild sleep peacefully, and thanked God he was still alive. Quietly, happy tears fell from Frank's eyes. Just then, Danny and Jamie walked back in. "We just spoke with everyone back home. Obviously it's up to Joe, but we would prefer it if Joe stayed at the house while he's recovering." Whispered Danny. Frank nodded his agreement. "Is he ok?" Jamie asked noticing the tears on his nephews face. "Yeah, he's gonna be ok. He just fell asleep a few minutes ago." Explained Frank without taking his eyes off of Joe. "We got a hotel room a few blocks away, figured we'd stay until he's discharged. Do you wanna room with us?" Jamie said. "Thanks, but I think I'm gonna stay here for now. Just for my own peace of mind." Jamie and Danny nodded their understanding. All three men sat quietly in the hospital room, and one by one, they all slipped into a peaceful sleep.

When Joe woke up, he felt more rested than he had in months. His leg hurt like hell, but other than that, he felt fine. "Hey, good morning." Jamie said as he walked in with a nurse in tow. "How do you feel?" Asked the nurse "My leg hurts, but other than that, I feel good." Answered Joe. "Well, that is great to hear. And your vitals are looking good, too. The Doctor should be in shortly to check on your leg, and change the bandage." Smiled the nurse. "Thank you" Joe said as she walked out. "Dad and Danny went to grab us some food. We figured after everything, hospital food is the last thing you would want to eat." Informed Jamie. Joe laughed "Yeah, you're not wrong there." They both laughed. Their relationship had grown ever since Joe went undercover and Jamie was in charge of him. "And, this is entirely up to you, but I just wanted to let you know that you are more than welcome to stay at the house if you don't want to go back to your apartment yet. It could be helpful having someone there to help out and keep you company." Joe smiled when he heard his uncles words. "That actually sounds awesome. I think I'm gonna take you guys up on that." Just then, Danny and Frank walked in with coffee and some donuts. "Delivery" announced Frank. Danny nodded to his brother, signaling that while they were out, they also managed to get their brother Joe's St. Jude medal turned into a necklace for their nephew. Jamie smiled, knowing both Joe's would love it. "Well, I didn't know you were having a party in here" joked the doctor as he walked in. "Just wanted to check on the leg, and show you how to change the bandaging. Your family's more than welcome to stay if you want them to." Joe looked at his relatives "If it's alright with them." All three nodded, knowing their nephew would need their support. As the doctor undid the bandage, Joe couldn't help but hold his breath. "Oh, wow, that's actually healing up quite nicely." Said the doctor. "You're definitely going to need crutches for a couple of weeks though. And try to keep any weight off of that leg. Im going to give you some pain medication, and I'll set up a follow up appointment with a doctor in New York. Other than that, you should be good to leave later today." "Thank you! Do you know what time I might be getting out of here?" The doctor looked at his watch. "Well, it's ten o'clock now, so hopefully around noon, we can get you out of here." "Thank you so much" Joe said gratefully. "Thanks, doc" Danny said as the doctor left the room. "So what now?" Asked Joe. Frank, spoke up "Well, it's Saturday. I think everyone is just at the house, waiting for any updates on you. Did anyone tell you?" "About staying with you and Pop? Yeah, I think I might do it honestly. I'm just not up to being at my apartment just yet." Confessed Joe. "And you're not gonna be with only Gramps and Pops, everyone wants to help out, especially Sean. And Nicky and Jack said they're gonna come out next week" Said Danny. "Sounds pretty good to me." Joe smiled.

The drive back was pretty long. They kept stopping so Joe could be in a little less pain although he was trying to hide it. In the end, they made it back to the Reagan house. Sean had been waiting by the window and ran to the car when he saw it pull up. He helped his cousin out of the car and onto his crutches. Before they went inside Joe hugged his cousin for a minute. Sean couldn't help but hug him back, feeling so grateful Joe was still alive and ok. The other Reagan members hugged their long lost relative and helped him up the steps and inside the house. "Here, let's just sit in the TV room for now". Pop said as Joe and everyone else followed behind him. Eddie took the crutches from Joe, while Jamie and Sean helped ease him down onto the couch. Everyone noticed the look of pain on Joe's face as he sat down on the couch. "How do you feel?" Asked Erin "Like I was shot" joked Joe. "But I'll be alright after a couple of weeks." He reassured everyone. They sat around the room, eating some pizza, and catching up. It wasn't until almost midnight that everyone decided it was time for bed. "If it's alright, I think I'm gonna stay here tonight. Just to help Joe." Sean said to his dad. "Yeah, of course. I'll see ya at church tomorrow." Danny said as he hugged his son. Joe and Sean remained in the TV room. After a while Joe fell asleep watching the movie. Sean thought about waking him up and moving him to one of the guest rooms, but figured Joe was pretty tired. He decided to keep watching the movie, and fell asleep not long after.

When Frank woke up the next morning, he couldn't help but chuckle at his two grandsons. Joe was fast asleep on the couch, and Sean was spread out on the floor. He went to start a pot of coffee, and Pops came down. Henry couldn't help but laugh at the two boys. "Well, that's something you don't see everyday" he joked. Frank chuckled in agreement. "I spoke with Danny while Joe was sleeping at the hospital. He said Joe and his mom had a pretty big falling out when he was first offered the undercover job. Turns out they haven't spoken in months." Henry couldn't help but frown. Hasn't his great grandson been through enough? "Well, he can't get rid of us that easily" Said Pops. Not long after, the two boys woke up, and everyone started getting ready for Sunday mass. After the service, Danny and Jamie took Joe and Sean back to Joe's apartment to grab anything he would want. Meanwhile, Erin and Eddie went to Joe's favorite Italian spot to pick up their Sunday dinner. Thankfully, the girls beat the boys back to the house, and we're able to get the food to the kitchen without Joe knowing.

Soon, everyone was gathered around the table, enjoying their family meal. Everyone could tell Joe was still pretty tired and in alot of pain. After the cleaning was done, the guests bid their farewells and went home for the night. The three remaining men sat at the table and played some poker. Afterwards, Frank helped Joe into one of the spare bedrooms. "This was actually your dad's room. And I get it, if you don't want to sleep in here, we can pit you somewhere else." Joe shook his head. "No, this is perfect, actually. Thank you." "Do you need anything?" Joe looked down at the ground. "Would you mind staying in here? Just until I fall asleep?" Joe asked, embarrassed. "I'd be happy too!" Frank reassured him. It didn't take long for Joe to fall asleep, his pain medication was pretty strong, and it usually knocked him out. Frank stood up, and kissed his grandsons head on his way out the door. "I love you, Joe. Sleep tight."

#Bluebloodsfanfiction #Joehill #jamie reagan #danny reagan #Bluebloods #Reagan family

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lambourngb · 4 years

Note

Duty of Care and /or Gravedigger’s Union

I did Grave Dancer’s Union - a nod to my 90s love of Soul Asylum here.

Duty of Care was another torture Michael fic- I wrote it pre-season 2, when I thought the love triangle was going in a particular way. I don’t know if there’s still an appetite to season 1 au stories? There’s some season 1 characterization of Alex ahead, particularly in regards to Jesse.

Here’s what I had - some of which already appeared here before Last Year’s Wishes ate my brain.

****

“Can’t believe Maria is still wearing the pendant of alien poison around her neck while she dates your alien ass, Guerin..” Kyle commented watching the decay values multiply as Liz titrated pollen into the samples.

The current theory on alien resurrection, and it said a lot about his life that he had competing theories on alien-involved resurrection, was that their ability to manipulate energy changed based on their needed life skills at the time of adolescence. Michael had been separated from his siblings young, and needed to develop defensive skills. The defiant and pained look on his face when he explained stopping an item being hurled at his head at the age of 7 was a needed survival tactic courtesy of foster homes he had passed through kept Kyle from questioning any further.

Isobel had through her mother Ann’s never-ending dinner parties and charity benefits, found comfort in seeing and knowing what was meant under the sugary sweet words of adults around her. Being a small child paraded around adults who were charmed by her blonde hair and blue eyes meant she had the most exposure to social events while Max hid in his books.

Finally Max had anointed himself as a fixer early on in their life. He had taken responsibility for Michael being left behind, and had tasked himself to protect his sister afterward. The defensive use of healing fit with his offensive ability to kill in the service of keeping those he loved safe.

At the most basic level, it was all energy from synaptic responses in brain waves to manipulating molecules to move or stop an object. How a pollen interrupted that energy use could theoretically solve the problem of how to jump start an ability.

“You think you might get around to telling her the big secret anytime soon?”

The mask over his mouth and face did little to block the glare Michael shot at him. “Shut up Valenti.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s Maria. She is a card carrying member of the ACLU and the Nature Conservatory. I had to bail her out of jail last year during an ICE protest. She’s not going to turn you over to the government.”

“Kyle!” Liz scolded, “We talked about this. Agency. It’s up to Isobel and Michael who knows. I already broke that with you.”

Michael ran a gloved figure over the counter absently. “I hate secrets, okay. This isn’t any fun for me, especially considering how many people already know. I went from having just Max and Isobel, to basically the whole graduating class of New Roswell High in on it. A lot of loose lips.”

The habit of 20 years of paranoid silence was probably a lot to try and break with a new relationship if that was the basis of it. There was a good amount of slack that Kyle could extend to Michael, including trying to be understanding when he started up with Alex’s best friend in the wake of Max’s death, but exclusion of Maria from the secret felt wrong to him.

He couldn’t fathom the reasoning behind lying to someone that he wanted to be in a relationship with, and he had a feeling that it wasn’t because of worries that she would tell someone about the aliens living in Roswell. While he couldn’t outright call Michael an asshole on Alex’s behalf, he could poke and prod him when the opportunity surfaced.

“You should look at this way Guerin, that larger circle means if something does happen, you’ve got more back up than just Isobel, with Max being out of commission.”

“Oh yeah, so if the government disappears me to a black site, you’re going to ride to my rescue?”

“Yes.” Kyle replied seriously. “I wouldn’t be alone either.” The name Alex Manes went unsaid, but from the brief wince on Michael’s face, he knew exactly who was being referred to obliquely. Scored hit again.

“Well as fun as this discussion is, I’m going to take off. Iz and I have practice plans.” Michael slipped his hat on, and tucked the stool away. “Liz, call me if you have a breakthrough on nullifying this stuff. For a rare flower, there sure was a lot of it stockpiled in Noah’s cave.”

“Sure thing, Mikey.”

“Valenti, make sure she goes home to sleep and eat at some point. I don’t want to have to put her in a pod next.” He ducked out of reach of her hand, laughing at the offended look she sent his way.

“Far be it for me to agree with him, but he’s right. You’ve been burning the candle at both ends and the middle between rebuilding your lab, researching Max’s healing power, studying this pollen, not to mention working at the diner. We should make time for something else, like a drink or a movie. Recharge.” The past month since Max’s ‘death’ brought back the manic energy burst from solving the issues with the depowering serum. From one catastrophe to another, it was barely time to recover before the next happened.

“I know, I just. I need to stay busy. It’s so quiet without him.” Liz stretched and started to tuck her last slide away into the cooler. “But I think I am done today, if I work anymore, I’ll just be making mistakes.”

Kyle slipped on his coat and held the door. “Not that I don’t believe you leaving on your own volition, but let me walk you out.”

“Lucky for you, I’m too tired to be offended.”

Kyle kept his hand on her back gently steering her through the hallways. The third shift was on at the hospital, and he winced to think about his own upcoming shift at noon tomorrow. Balancing football, his pre-med studies and his social life in Michigan taught him valuable life skills in working on short sleep, but even the hours of residency had no competition on his current life of alien lab work and tracking down government funding of a black ops prison project with Alex. When he mentioned a night off, he wasn’t only including Liz in that need.

Inhaling the cool night air, he calculated if he made it home, heated up a meal, and fell asleep promptly there was the opportunity for 6 good hours of sleep before meeting up at the bunker to check in on the data mining project Alex was running.

“You know, you should go a little easier on Michael.”

“I thought everyone in this town was in love with Max Evans, but apparently it’s Guerin.” Kyle retorted sarcastically.

Liz bit her lip at the mention of Max before sighing softly. “I’m serious, Kyle. He’s really messed up right now. I was actually shocked he was somewhat sober tonight.”

“I’m not going to be petty here Liz, and mention the obvious that we are all really messed up right now. I get where you’re coming from about their need for secrecy, but Maria really deserves better. I’m not her best friend like you are and Alex was, but I’ve been here in this town with her. She was there for me after my dad died, and she supported my mom’s election for sheriff. With Mimi getting worse, she deserves to have someone to count on, not someone who is lying to her, and by extension, making all of us lie to her as well.”

“Alex was? Past tense?”

He arched his eyebrow in disbelief, “I guess I am going to be petty tonight, but seriously Liz? Have you talked to Alex lately? Every time Maria comes up in conversation he puts his best ‘Baghdad was a little warm and I was just doing a job’ face on and repeats to anyone listening how happy he is for them. Guerin messed him up, and worse, took away from him one of the few people he lets himself drop that soldier bullshit front he has.”

Liz sighed, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I know the history with Michael is a little complicated, but we don’t always get to choose who we fall for and who we don’t. Love is messy. It doesn’t color inside the lines and follow any of the rules.”

“Maybe you’re right about that, and maybe there’s no avoiding the heartache. I do believe though that you can choose whether or not to be a dick about things, and Guerin not telling Maria is a dick move and it’s got consequences.” Kyle unlocked his car, and opened the passenger side with a gesture. “Our sister doesn’t have many friends, and he’s robbing her of one right now. Rosa lost ten years because of aliens, don’t you think that’s enough loss for all of us?”

“Do you know how annoying you are when you’re right? I’ll talk to Michael, better yet, I’ll talk to Isobel about letting Maria in on the secret.”

He slid into the driver’s seat, smiling across to her. “Tomorrow. Tonight, what’s left of it, is for sleeping.” He turned the ignition, and stopped, as the headlights came up illuminating the familiar green Chevy sitting across the lot from them. “That’s Guerin’s truck.”

“He left before we did, what’s it still doing here?” Liz ducked out of the passenger seat and ran toward the truck without waiting for an answer. Kyle swore softly, untangling his hand from the ignition to follow her. The truck looked undisturbed, no sign of the occupant. Liz reached for the driver’s side door, testing it, and gasped as the door swung open. The ever present black hat slipped off the dash into the floorboards.

There were three things Michael prized above all others, his truck, his cowboy hat, and his sister. To leave two out of three unprotected was highly out of character for him. Kyle turned around the parking lot, scanning for signs of him.

“Kyle, look,” Liz grabbed his arm and pulled him down toward the wheel well of the truck. Gleaming silver in the light , tucked on top of the tire tread, was a syringe needle with a depressed plunger.

“That’s not good.”

She stuffed her hand into her pocket and withdrew a spare latex glove to wrap around her fingers as she lifted the syringe from the tire. She peered closely at the vial, a sickly yellow liquid film thinly coated the inside. “I think someone took him, and without testing it, I’m guessing this is some sort of knock out drug based on the pollen.”

Kyle reached for his phone, mentally saying goodbye to the idea of sleep anytime soon. “I’ll call Alex, you call Isobel. And I don’t know, I guess call my mom? I mean, we usually call the police when someone gets abducted.”

Liz thinned her lips, holding the needle with one hand as she dug out her phone with the other. “I don’t think you can call the cops on the government, which I’m guessing that’s what we are dealing with since they knew how to knock out Michael.”

The government, or more specially it was probably someone related to Project Shepherd. Kyle sighed, holding his phone to his ear. It rang once, before he heard, “What’s wrong?”

He pulled the phone away from his ear to make sure he had called Alex and not the psychic alien sister, “How did you know something was wrong?”

“You’ve called me twice in the last three months, once to tell me you put my dad in a coma and once to tell me about Max. You’re a texter, even though I explained it’s easier to keep things secret if you call. So again, what’s wrong?”

Kyle slowly walked back toward the hospital. He should have volunteered to call Isobel, because this was not going to be easy. “It’s Guerin.”

“Is he okay?”

“We don’t know. We think someone took him. Liz and I found his truck at the hospital, unlocked. It looks like he got jumped by someone who knows how to incapicitate him.”

“I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

Kyle wasn’t surprised to see the call disconnected. It was a forty minute drive from the cabin to the hospital if someone followed the speed limits.

***

“It’s Guerin.”

Alex was somewhat aware that he must have replied. He was in his SUV and away from the bunker, before he’d registered that the call had ended. He could only be thankful that today had been a ‘pull day’, rather than a ‘push day.’

Alex could divide his days into two motivations, he either wanted to be as far from town and the chance of running into someone he knew (Michael) or he wanted to be close in case something happened that he could help fix (for Michael). The cabin was isolated enough that only Kyle made the trip from Roswell, but not in recent memory with the pace of lab work and hospital hours. Alex could comfortably avoid reality with his laptop until the second feeling took hold. The Project Shepherd bunker was an easier location to reach Isobel or Liz from when the inviatble call for assisting an intoxicated Michael came.

Seeing Maria meant seeing Michael in the evening hours, and it was strange to resort to in his post-service life the habit of a decade before; lying and hiding himself in every interaction. His calendar had a weekly reminder to join Liz and Maria at the Wild Pony for a beer, usually scheduled early enough that Michael was still at Sanders working, but late enough that the automated work emergency text to his phone could reliably give him cover for an exit.

Psychic as she was, Maria always let him go with a pained but relieved look. It wasn’t her fault that he was still in love with Michael. It wasn’t her fault that Michael wasn’t in love with him. Neither he nor Maria had so many friends that they could afford to lose one, but neither was fooling the other that the relationship hadn’t changed in the aftermath of her dating Michael.

This wasn’t his first go around with unrequited love.

He’d survived Brendon Urie, and he wasn’t ashamed to have been a sixteen year old pouring over fan meet and greets on livejournal before hitting the road with Rosa to see Panic at the Disco in Albuquerque just after school let for the summer. He might have mapped out Los Angeles coffee shops to busk at after he turned legal and could escape west to be a musician, coffee shops close to Silver Lakes and Encino neighborhoods to be organically discovered by his crush.

He had survived his fourteen year old obsession with Kyle, that lasted until it was safer to love unattainable rockstars versus the childhood friend now high school bully. He could laugh at himself for thinking that Kyle had turned on him because he felt the same way but just didn’t know how to articulate it outside of shoving him against the lockers and jeering at him in gym class.

Unrequited love that had once been returned was a higher bar to clear than a fan fantasy or a childhood crush, but then the sins Alex carried were deeper and more lasting as well. More than a ruined but now healed hand and a discarded scholarship, he had the murder of Michael’s mother to carry. He would survive Michael not loving him, he was reasonably sure of it. He wasn’t sure if he would survive something happening to Michael because of the Manes family legacy.

Someone knowing how to subdue and take Michael pointed to his family’s involvement.

He didn’t bother with the visitor’s desk at the hospital foyer this time, walking purposefully toward the elevator and wing where Liz’s new lab resided. The door opened to his touch, revealing Isobel hovering anxiously near Liz’s shoulder as she swabbed a syringe.

“You made good time.” Isobel greeted.

“I hacked the traffic lights.” Alex informed, setting his laptop case on the lab table, and popping the case open. A few keystrokes and he was inside the hospital network and probably breaking a dozen federal laws of privacy.

Kyle closed the door, and shook his head, “Seriously?”

“No. I was at the bunker.” He brought up the internal security logs, noting visitors and elevator access. “So what do we know?”

“Not a lot,” Liz replied, her gaze fixed on a spread of swabs and slides. “I’m trying to pull as many samples as I can from this syringe so I can analyze it. There looks to be a reservoir of 3 CCs. My original serum required a dose of at least 6 CCs to incapacitate, so whatever they used was more concentrated.”

“Hopefully less lethal,” Isobel observed. “Are you in the hospital network already?”

“Just what’s linked to the internal wifi signals. I’m going to need access to their security office since it appears the actual camera footage is on a closed circuit.”

Kyle pulled out his ID badge, “I can take you there, but how are you going to get the guards to let you look at the footage? I can still call my mom and make this an official police investigation.”

Alex dug into his pockets for a thumb drive, and then turned to Isobel, “I’m hoping you can influence the guard into letting me download the footage. If you can’t, then we will need to bring the sheriff into this.”

Isobel tapped her forehead knowingly, “If I can’t influence the guards to let you in, I can at least make one of them think he left his car unlocked or his coffee pot plugged in.”

“Let’s go then. Michael has been missing for at least an hour.”

Kyle tapped his badge at certain checkpoints, opening the electronic doors as they headed down to the security room. Alex made a mental note to scrub the ID tags once they were done, on the off chance someone was curious about the movements of a doctor who should have been long off duty.

The windowless room was covered in screens and held one guard boredly sipping his coffee while he watched a television show on his phone. There was a chance they didn’t need a psychic to gain access, but it was probably better safe than sorry.

Alex moved quickly after Isobel held the security guard’s mind in hers and slide behind the desk to call up the footage on the parking garage. Mindful of time, he plugged in his drive and started transferring all the raw data from the camera recordings. The antiquated hospital computing system did nothing to soothe the anxiety.

Long experience working with poor computing power and broken infrastructure while deployed in Iraq was the only thing that kept his inner impatience off his face. Touching the mouse or tapping his fingers never moved data faster.

Finally the file clicked over complete, he slid back from the bank of monitors, and nodded to Isobel. The security guard took a deep breath and look around briefly before picking up his phone and restarting the television show on his app.

The door clicked shut as the three of them hastened back to Liz’s lab. His hip barked at the hurried extension he placed on his body. With the clock ticking, the discomfort slipped into the box marked ‘to deal with later’. Once the drive was inserted, it was a matter of minutes to set up a scan for vehcile traffic entering and exiting the hospital parking lot.

Liz dug out a bottle of acetone for Isobel, who accepted it with a small smile and then nodded over to the laptop. “I hope you are having more luck with the security footage, than I am having with this drug.”

“I grabbed everything from the last 72 hours, just in case. It’s possible someone followed Michael to the hospital,” Alex balanced carefully onto the stool, keeping the weight off his prostetic. “I would have found a less populated area for a snatch and grab, but maybe they were worried about Michael’s powers and if so, then likely they scouted the view points of the cameras before they made their move to minimize their exposure. At least that’s what I would have done, if I had discarded the open road or home as possible targets.”

“Well we all know what a paranoid and careful asshole you are, Alex.” Kyle observed, working on a second set of samples.

“I try not to repeat my mistakes.”

“Like Caulfield?” Isobel asked pointed.

A sharp stab of pain went through him at the reminder. As if the prison ever left his mind for a moment these days. “Yes, like Caulfield. I should have found a more covert way to gain information than assume it was abandoned. I should have realized my dad had more going on than surveillance on Roswell.”

Kyle touched Alex’s shoulder with a comforting clasp, “At least we know he’s not personally behind this. Master Sergeant's main nurse likes me, she would have called if something had changed.”

Alex stayed silent, knowing that his next task would be gaining access to the long term rest home in Santa Fe where they had transferred his comatose father after he had attacked Kyle. There had been initial protests regarding the forged records until he had pointed out the other option had been to kill Jesse.

The classic body Chevy truck flashed on the screen with the timecode marking it as Michael’s arrival at the hospital. Alex paused and marked the frame for reference, then eased through the later clips watching for his exit. There were two cameras concentrated on the parking lot, one at the entrance/exit, and one with a long panoramic view of the lot, primarily to ward off a car thief or would-be mugger. It was grainy in grey scale, but at least he could be thankful that Michael drove such a distinctive truck. The task of finding an unremarkable Honda Prisius would have been daunting.

His hand stilled as he paused the footage on the slow but unmistakable swagger of a figure striding away from the hospital entrance toward the parked Chevy. Michael’s black cowboy hat hid his face but even absent such an identifiable marker Alex was sure could have picked out his body in a sea of others without question.

Michael reached his truck with no issue, unlocking the driver’s side door. His hand swept off his hat and casually tossed it into the front seat of the cab. Behind him, in the next parking aisle a nondescript panel van, a door opened slid open and a glint peeked out. Michael reached behind his neck, his body half in the truck and slapping at the skin there.

Alex inhaled sharply, fear and dread rising. It was a terrible thing to watch knowing it had already happened. Two figures dressed in plain dark clothing emerged from the van, and started toward the truck. Michael’s body half fell from the cab, and curled around the front wheel. Alex watched as the two effortlessly brushed off the weak struggles to fight their grasp of Michael’s shoulders, tugging him backward to the waiting van.

His body was tossed without care into the back, the door sliding shut blocking the last view of Michael. The two men split up from the van, circling around to the front doors. Alex numbly clicked on the frame, saving it, and switched over to the second camera focused on the entrance.

Watching his brother Flint calmly pay the ticket machine was not much of a surprise at this point.

“Kyle, I’m going to need you to call your nurse friend to check on my father.” He was proud that his voice was calm and even, despite the rising sickness within. “The good news is, this wasn’t a government issued black ops team that took Michael.”

“And the bad news?” Isobel prompted.

“It was personal, which means they aren’t as invested in keeping him alive.”

* * * *

[Isobel details their mental bond. That it feels blank]

“I was always closer with Max. I don’t know if it was a twin thing or being raised together, but Michael was always harder to connect with until recently. We’ve been practicing so much together, he started to take up a bit of space here, “ she patted her chest. “Not enough to fill the void where Max was, but enough that I could tell if he was happy or if he was angry. Strong emotions only came through. Lately it was a lot of anger but he wouldn’t tell me what was going on… “

“And now? Do you feel him now?”

Tears filled her eyes and she shook her head. “It’s empty. Blank. Like it was when we kids before he moved back to Roswell. I think he’s still alive, but he feels very far away, or very weak.”

[Alex waits patiently for the call. He thinks this is going to be an exchange of Michael for his dad, until he realizes his dad is not at the long-term care facility any more]

[Round table discussion at Max’s house to figure out what Jesse wants. Isobel finds out more about the shared past of Michael and Alex- and Maria shows up at the end looking for Michael]

“It’s been 2 days, why hasn’t your dad called with his demands? Is he not reading from the classic villain script this time?” Isobel wondered bitterly. “What is with your family, Alex?”

Kyle injected, “We don’t know that Sergant Manes is involved.”

“Don’t we? He disappeared from the nursing home just before Michael was taken. It seems pretty convenient timing to me.”

Alex pressed his fingers under his eyelids to relieve the building pressure. It had been a long two days of nothing after he received the call that the psuedonmyn he had checked his dad in unrder was no longer a patient in the long-term coma ward in Sante Fe. The staff was calling it a miracle that just after a devoted son had prayed at his bedside, he had woken up. Alex knew it was anything but divine intervention to have Jesse awake and free in the world.

“Isobel is right, this has Dad written all over it. Somehow Flint found out what had happened and woke him up. It’s been two days because I’m guessing he is still weak from the inactivity.”

Liz stirred from her claimed spot on the couch, cracking an eyelid. “What makes you think there’s going to be a demand, Isobel? Manes has what he wants, a new alien to test and torture. If you look at the research side of things, the aliens in Caulfield were all weak and elderly, and Michael’s a healthy 28 year old. Whatever fucked up weapon he was developing might need a younger test subject.”

“Now there’s a comforting thought.” Kyle muttered.

“I don’t think it’s research. This still feels personal to me. Michael still has an offensive power to defend himself with, the softer target would have been Isobel if he just wanted an alien to grab.”

“Gee, thanks Alex. Come closer and I’ll show you what I’ve been working on and see if you think I’m still a soft target after I turn your skull into crushed bone.”

***

Alex’s fingers were numb, as he pressed in his code to access his Whatsapp account. Waiting in his inbox was an unknown number and a video attachment. He abruptly dropped into the deck chair as the video opened to his worst fear made real.

Michael’s left eye was swollen shut, blood staining from the corner of his forehead, dripping down his cheek bone. His arms were stretched high above his head, disappearing out of frame. His shirt was missing, and there were sluggishly wounds striping over his shoulder and licking across his collar bone.

The camera turned, Michael blurring out of view. The monster that starred in seventy percent of his nightmares filled the screen. “Hello, Alex. I was hoping to keep you out of this, son, but this creature is being very uncooperative.”

Off screen, he heard a weak, “Go fuck yourself, Manes. I keep telling you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jesse nodded to someone out of frame, and Michael screamed in agonizing pain. Long hiccuping gasps for air puncuated another softer, “fuck you.”

“Like I said, uncooperative. When we last saw each other, you had something that belonged to me. Jim Valenti stole it from our base, and refused to tell me what he had done with it despite my best efforts at persuading him.”

Michael cried out again, choking on a soft sob. Alex forced himself to watch, drinking in every detail for his later plans.

“With N-38 gone, I can’t hurt this thing the same way I did dear old Jim so I’ve had to get creative. Electricity just makes some of them stronger, but good old heat and sharp still work on them. We both know you can break its bones with enough force.” Jesse turned, pointing the camera toward Michael again, focusing on the dangling bare feet. “There are more bones per square inch in the foot, than anywhere else in the body. I am telling you this so you don’t doubt my resolve. This thing is relatively harmless for its kind, and I’m willing to return it to you in more or less good condition, if you bring me what Valenti stole. Let me know what you decide to do.”

The video cut off.

****

There was an expected role to play, like there always was when Jesse Manes was involved. Once it meant peppering his speech with ‘yes sir’ and ‘sorry sir’ and toning down his clothing in hopes of escaping his fists, and when that proved futile, it went in the opposite direction with makeup, nail polish, and piercings.

For all of his proud talk about the service, his father never served anywhere but stateside. His knowledge of tactical defense and enemy counter measures were likely twenty years of date, and Alex was counting on his father’s pride from keeping him unaware of the technology shift. The set up of the Project Shepherd bunker confirmed that.

He tucked his personal side arm into his thigh holster, securing to his left leg and reached for his secondary weapon to slip into his boot strapped to his prosthetic. The weight of the kevlar and vest registered briefly on his shoulders before it slipped into the blank shroud that had enveloped him as soon as he heard Michael’s cries. Knives and a pair of percussive grenades weighed down each side of his pockets.

A floorboard behind him creaked, his gun cleared the holster before his mind caught up on who would have followed him to his cabin. It was a little concerning that the sound of a vehicle hadn’t registered until now.

“Whoa, don’t shoot.” Kyle lifted his hands, halting abruptly. He took in the dark clothing, combat hardware and the array of weapons spread on the cabin’s table. “I guess we are going full cliche today, good to know.”

Alex dropped his arm away, resecuring his gun. “Then you know what I’m going to say already.”

“Humor me, then. This is a trap, Alex.”

“I’m well aware.” Alex flipped open a black case and pulled out his phone and laptop. Carefully he pulled out three silver discs, and a pair of jeweler’s glasses. He sat down in the chair, slipping the glasses on to peer down at the discs. “I’m going anyway.”

Kyle sighed, aggrieved. “Well I did promise Guerin if he got his ass kidnapped by the government, I would come to his rescue.”

Alex didn’t look up from his work, pressing a small pin on each disc. “You’re not going with me, Kyle.”

“I know this face is distractingly handsome, but tell me you remember all the time we spent on the range together as kids. I can shoot a gun.”

“Shooting a paper target is different from shooting at a human being.” Each disc beeped softly, then went silent. He pulled the glasses off with a satisfied smirk, “Besides, I need you to come with the cavalry. These are military grade GPS trackers that I’ve linked to my laptop and my phone. Once my father sees I’m there without the piece of the ship, he’ll take me to Michael so he can teach me a lesson.”

“What makes you think your dad won’t find these trackers?”

“I’m sure he will, but I’ve got a back up plan on that as well. My father has underestimated me my entire life. He thinks I am weak, that my emotions and desires cloud my judgment. He’s going to see he was wrong.”

“Alex.” Kyle hesitated, struggling for a moment before taking a seat at the table. He gently laid his hand on Alex’s wrist, stilling the other man. “We all want Guerin back safe but I want you to consider for a moment that your father is right, that your emotions are clouding your judgment. Because what I’m seeing right now is kind of freaking me out, dude. You’re dressed from head to toe in black ops murder gear with GPS trackers, which I didn’t even know you could buy, talking about going in alone, guns blazing, against your dad.”

“I got them on Ebay.”

“That’s what you’re choosing to focus on?”

“What are my other options, Kyle? He’s got Michael. He’s had him for two days, and there is exactly zero chance he doesn’t want both the UFO fragment and Michael.” Alex wrenched his hand away,. He inhaled deeply and pushed down the swell of thoughts of what had already happened to Michael in two days.

“I agree, but back when I laid him out with barbiturates in our bunker, you and I had a discussion about killing him. I seem to remember we decided against that.”

“No, Kyle, you decided against it and I went along with it. Which was clearly a mistake. This has been a long time coming, okay? He brought this on himself when he took Michael.”

“I knew there was no talking you out of this. I just don’t want you to do this alone.”

* * *

The lights were all on at the formerly known as Evans-Bracken residence, now just Evans.

“You look like you’re ready to storm the castle.” Isobel commented, before pushing the door open and turning back into the house. “I still haven’t felt anything from Michael. He could be dead, and all of this would be pointless.”

Alex winced and acknowledged the point before pushing the thought down. “He’s not dead.”

“How do you know? Your so-called cosmic connection?” She sipped from the glass in her hand, the scent of chemicals wafted to him. It was clearly not water.

Gently he wrapped his fingers around her hand, guiding the glass away before resting it on the table next to him. “Maybe, but in reality, if he was dead, my father would have taken someone else as leverage and he would have taunted me with my failure to protect Michael.”

****

[ So as you can see it needs a massive rewrite to fix my characterization- but I still like the plot of Jesse taking Michael for the ship piece- especially since the show fumbled on this so badly in 2x10-2x11. ]

#oh man early hiatus fic has a feel don't it?#Anonymous

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cosmonaughtt · 4 years

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hitch-hiker (steven universe future/dannny phantom crossover)

ao3

Danny's lost, thanks to the help of another ghost patrol gone wrong. Luckily he finds a kind driver who's willing to take him to the next town. But is this driver just as "normal" as he is?

Hitchhiking was NOT the way that Danny wanted to get back to Amity Park, but he was left with it as his only option, because;

1. He was exhausted. His powers could still work, sure, but he didn’t want to risk trying to fly back home, transforming back mid-flight and taking a tumble to the earth, and

2. He didn’t know where he was and what direction he had to go to in order to find his way home.

Danny tried to pull out his phone and check its signal; no luck. It wasn’t a dead-zone, but his phone was dead. Hah. Funny.

What did he have on hand? Well, he always had the thermos on hand, in his other form. He had his phone and a wallet. And that’s it.

Just his luck.

He sent a few texts out to the ghost hunting group chat. They wouldn’t send until he had some kind of connection again, probably, but it eased his heart to

And. And, to top it all off for his current situation, he hadn’t even found the damn ghost he’d been fighting originally! Stupid Skulker. The wild chase (of which Danny was, unfortunately, hunted again) took him back through the Ghost Zone and out through a random door.

Which led him to this current moment. Standing on the side of the road trying to catch a lucky ride to the next town to figure out how long it’ll take to fly home.

The road was pretty empty. It was inching closer to midnight by then, and he was probably going to have to transform to try and get at least to the next town where he can break into a motel and catch up on a little bit of sleep before trying to get home.

Damn his luck.

Danny glanced at his phone again. Now it was midnight. Hopefully, his messages would send in soon, but he was going to give it until… 12:20 until he gave in and flew. Try and recover some energy so he wouldn’t suddenly decide night-time sky diving sounds a lot of fun in the middle of nowhere.

12:01.

12:02.

12:04.

12:10.

The sound of a car’s engine brought Danny up from the crude drawing he was doing in the dirt by his feet. He stood, and glanced down the road. A single car, brights on, was making its leisurely way down the road.

Danny stuck his hand out and waved. Please, please, please…

To his luck (thankfully), the car slowed down as it neared him. It was a compact Dondai of sorts, but Danny never paid much attention to the different kinds of cars. He had to think of more important things, like the different kinds of ghosts.

The passenger side window rolled down to reveal the driver.

Who looked not much older than him.

“Hey, are you okay?” The kid asked, quirking an eyebrow. He looked really young, but maybe it was bad genetics.

“Uh, yeah, I’m good. Could I get a ride, though?”

The boy didn’t look immediately distrustful of Danny, at least. He even smiled and nodded. “Sure! Hop on in!”

The passenger side unlocked with a click-- it was one of the older cars, where you had to manually roll down the windows and had a cassette deck, but other than that you couldn’t tell. It was really nice inside, and Danny jumped into the plush seat and smiled at the driver.

“I’m Steven, your humble new chauffeur.” He introduced, with a cheeky wink.

“Thanks. I’m Danny.”

“It’s good to meet you. Where are you heading to?”

“I just need to get to the next town. Do you know how far that is?”

Steven thought for a moment, before leaning over to Danny’s side and pulling out a map. Really off-road, but then again, Danny didn’t have any service, so the odds that Steven had some were slim as well. He didn’t bother turning on any lights in the car to read the map, but it only took him a minute to figure it all out. “An hour or so, I’d say. If I’m doing the math right.”

“I’ve got a C minus in math, I doubt I’d be much help,” Danny said. “Is that on your way? If it isn’t, I can try and--”

“No, it’s fine!” Steven interjected. “I’ll probably gas up there, and probably rent out a room to sleep.” He laughed nervously. “All buckled up?”

Danny nodded.

And off they went.

…

….

…… It was weird.

It only took a few minutes of being in this stranger’s car to realize how weird this situation was.

He was in the car with a boy, probably barely a year older than him. In the middle of nowhere. In the middle of the night. It was not some horror movie concept (and frankly, Danny hadn’t been scared by one of those in months after all the shit he’s been through), but it was just. Really, really, really weird.

Steven hadn’t asked why Danny was out in the middle of nowhere. He hadn’t asked Danny’s full name, he had provided his own and hadn’t hounded Danny with any questions. He also didn’t explain much about why he was out in the middle of nowhere, either, just driving in the middle of the night.

Maybe not all things needed answers.

“Do you mind music?”

Danny shook his head. He’d be listening to his own music, had he not broken his earbuds in the latest fight with Technus. He was going to get more tomorrow, since it was officially a weekend and he and his friends could go to the mall and he could buy them, hopefully without any fights along the way.

“Sadie Killer and the Suspects cool?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Sam had gone through a brief time of being obsessed with that band, and when she showed Danny the music he had to admit, it wasn’t that bad.

Steven reached into the compartment by his arm and pulled out an old cassette, switching the one that had previously been in it with the new one with seasoned ease.

Disobedient. Hm.

Again, another pause of silence.

“So… You’re not going to ask me why I was out in the woods? In the middle of the night? Alone?”

Damn it, Danny is so awkward. But he can’t help but be confused by the stranger who took him in without questions.

Steven shrugged. “I mean, yeah, it’s kinda weird, but I’ve seen weirder.”

Oh. Now that piqued Danny’s curiosity.

“So you pick up hitch-hikers often?”

“Eh, you’re only my third,” Steven replied. “The first was a guy who needed a ride to the hospital, I couldn’t just say no, you know? And then there was the woman who broke down on the side of the road, on the way to the car dealership. Talk about bad luck…”

“And you weren’t… afraid that they’d like, kill you or anything?”

“I can protect myself.” Danny tried to ignore the slight flinch that Steven had, but it was noticeable.

They settled into another beat of silence. Another song-- G-G-G-Ghost. Oddly fitting for Danny’s situation.

He didn’t even turn the question around and ask why Danny was in the middle of nowhere. He just… took it, as is. Might as well throw Danny’s cover story of getting lost when he got up in the middle of the night to pee while camping out the window, because Steven didn’t seem phased by anything at all.

Heh. Phased.

The thought of Steven being the maniac serial killer came, but Danny shot it down. The other teen-- he had to be a teen, or at least in his 20s, with a super bad case of Baby Face-- gave off some kind of vibe that he wouldn’t hurt anyone.

But he could. It was extremely powerful; but not threatening. More like royalty, if anything.

It was strange. Danny never got it confirmed as an official “ghost power”, but being able to just sense people’s vibes were definitely not a human thing.

Then again, what was a human thing? It’s been almost two years since The Accident.

Tucker called it being able to vibe-check people. Steven’s vibes were powerful, but not malevolent.

“So… Steven, where are you going?”

“Eh. I don’t really know.” He gave off a smile, but it was different than his tone. “I’m trying to go on a journey of self-discovery right now? Just going where-ever the road takes me.”

“Really? Don’t you go to school or anything?”

“Eh-- uh, kinda. I’ve taken up a few online classes I can get with free wi-fi and stuff, you know?”

“How old are you?”

“Almost seventeen.”

Alright. Danny knew some kids in Amity Park who dropped out of Caspar High. Some of them took up jobs at the Nasty Burger, others in various gas stations, and grocery stores throughout the city. So Steven must’ve been a well-off kid to just drop out, take online classes, and travel the country.

Danny was kind of jealous. Being able to just drop everything and go somewhere else, and make a new identity for yourself?

But he’d be leaving Amity Park defenseless. No, bad idea.

Danny checked his phone again for the time-- ah, finally. Connection again.

big titty goth gf: danny? helloooo?

t.f. as in the fuck: you’d think he’d be back by now.

big titty goth gf: yeah, well, he isn’t if u hadn’t noticed

t.f. as in the fuck: ………. Yeah

t.f. as in the fuck: usually he’d be out of the ghost zone by now if skulker’s got him going. think something happened?

big titty goth gf: i hope not or else jazz is gonna start yelling at us for letting him go into the gz alone

big titty goth gf: danny tuck and i are headin back to my house let us know when you’re ok?

Oh, his messages are finally going through. That’s good.

sad ghost club president: hey SHIT guys uh i got out of the ghost zone but uh. Don’t know where i am and don’t know where skulker went i’m gonna try and find a way back home. can either of u cover for me while i’m gone? Idk when you’ll get this massage

sad ghost club president: *message fuck tonight sucks

It wasn’t long until someone responded. They were teens, they were up late on a weekend night. No rules.

big titty goth gf: oh thank GOD its been like two hours

t.f. as in the fuck: good to hear you’re ok! sam and i got ya covered. But where are you?

sad ghost club president: tuck i just said i didn’t know. but a kind samaritan stopped and i’m on route to the closet down

t.f. as in the fuck: you’re HITCH-HIKING?

sad ghost club president: well it’s either that or having a fun trip skydiving tonight, so yeah

big titty goth gf: just be safe danny, don’t fall into a horror movie

sad ghost club president: remember i’m scarier than anything they can throw at me owo

sad ghost club president: plus this guy doesn’t look like he’d hurt a fly

sad ghost club president: or, well, he could if the fly hurt him first. Vibe Check is going off yall

big titty goth gf: i still cant believe u refer to that as ur Vibe Check

t.f. as in the fuck: sam its a good name

big titty goth gf: I Beg To Differ

t.f. as in the fuck: anyway if his vibe check is clear then you’re probably ok danny

sad ghost club president: yeah but its still super weird. he hasn’t asked why i was in the middle of the woods or anything, he didn’t ask me any questions about whio i am?? he’s also like. jazz’s age at MOST. just driving nowhere in the middle of the night because apparently he’s on some sort of journey of self-discovery

big tittyy goth gf: yeah thats weird but also danny?

sad ghost club president: yeah sam?

big titty goth gf: stop being paranoid

big titty goth gf: also ur cover story is being at my place with tucker for a movie night like we originally planned until He came around.

t.f. as in the fuck: fuck skulker

sad ghost club president: skulker does not have rights

He could chill now, that he knew that Sam and Tucker have his back (like always, they always have his back) and a cover story already set up. His parents didn’t question his whereabouts usually on Friday nights, because he usually spent them with his friends and they were usually too buried in research to notice him not there.

Sad, but true.

Steven changed out the cassette tape for another, continuing the quiet drive down the road.

This is okay. They were probably only half an hour away now. Once they got to the city, Danny could look it up on his GPS app and see how long it’d take to fly back home. He couldn’t have ended up too far away from home, but with the Ghost Zone, he had doubts sometimes.

Of course just as everything seemed to be okay, everything had to go downhill immediately.

It started with his ghost sense going off. Steven was preoccupied with looking at the road, listening to the music playing through the speakers. Luckily.

Danny glanced out the window.

Skulker’s face materialized through nothing and threw his robotic body at the car.

It was a shake, but the sudden force against the poor car sent it sliding across the road. Steven grasped the wheel hard and hit the brakes, and Danny braced himself and held onto whatever he could.

Luckily it was midnight in the middle of nowhere, no one else was on the road.

“You okay, Danny?” Steven asked, looking around with frantic eyes.

“I’m-- yeah, I’m good.” Danny took a deep breath. He glanced out the window again. Skulker was still around, no doubt about it, and Danny’s ghost sense went off again. He’s close.

“What was--”

Danny didn’t want Steven to have to deal with ghosts, on top of his existential cross-country trip to find himself. For all Danny knew, the kid didn’t even believe in ghosts! He unbuckled his seatbelt and threw open the door.

“Thanks for the ride, goodbye!”

He didn’t want to deal with Skulker, once Steven was out of the way he’d go ghost and try and fly to the town nearby and figure out where he was, then let Skulker hunt him all the way back to Amity Park. All in a night’s work.

“Wait, Danny--?”

He ducked into the brush by the side of the road, trying to lure Skulker away from Steven. He didn’t want more normal people to get involved in his problems.

But apparently the other kid didn’t take goodbye! very well, Danny turned his head around and saw Steven following him carefully into the woods by the side of the road.

Before he could tell Steven to turn around and go, Skulker appeared. Of course. Steven was immediately drawn to the sight of the sudden floating, glowing robot in mid-air, of course, but it didn’t go the other way.

“You’re too out-of-range to have your friends help you with that stupid tablet now, whelp.” Skulker had somehow got re-synced to one of Tucker’s tablets, and it was good while it lasted, but it seemed Danny was out of time. And even if they were still synced up, they were too far away from Amity Park for it to connect.

Damn it. Just his luck.

“Let’s make this quick, shall we?” Skulker added before Danny could interject with a witty remark. He raised one of his DALV-made ecto-guns and it shot.

Go intangible, his instincts said.

FUCK, his brain said, helpfully.

He closed his eyes and braced for whatever was coming-- intangibility, pain, whatever. Hopefully, Steven got the idea to run--

No pain came. He wasn’t intangible.

Danny opened one eye.

And then the other.

Steven was standing between him and Skulker, and a weird… It wasn’t ecto-energy, but it was some kind of pink energy, forming a barrier, taking the hit from the ecto-gun too easily.

What.

The fuck.

Steven turned around to Danny, eyes wide. “Danny, are you okay?”

“Uh-- the-- what.” Skulker looked as annoyed as he usually did, if not more, and tried to phase through the pink barrier. “Are you-- what-- uh. I think my brain has officially had it. Yeah, you know, this might as well happen.”

Steven cringed. “Oh, the shield. It’s a, uh… Long story.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll take your word for it.” Danny replied. He looked back at Skulker. He didn’t want to transform right in front of Steven, but the barrier probably wouldn’t hold forever, or Skulker would just go over it or under it eventually.

Steven could clearly protect himself. This is what he meant, it seemed.

“Well. I didn’t freak out on you. So don’t freak out on me now, okay?” Danny looked to Steve, who nodded.

“No freaking out, got it!”

Danny allowed the familiar rings to transform him. Why he was trusting this random kid with the biggest secret he had (well, one of the biggest secrets, technically), Danny didn’t know.

But the kid obviously wasn’t normal himself, as evidenced by the glowing pink barrier between him and the ghost.

And to his word, Steven did not freak out. His eyes did glimmer and he did look at Danny with an odd sort of familiarity to it, a sort of kin-ship of weird teenagers with weird powers. Apparently.

Skulker broke through the barrier. He looked down at Steven, then to Danny. “Looks like I’ve got two pelts to add to my collection.”

“Ew, gross?” Steven replied, looking a bit sick to his stomach.

“Yeah, you get used to it after a while.” Danny shrugged, before turning to Skulker again. “How many times do I have to tell you, Skulker, that you’re never gonna get your hands on my beautiful hair?”

Danny charged ectoblasts into his hands. Steven allowed more of that weird-pink energy form around his fists, like boxing gloves. Ah, not just a one-trick show pony.

“I’ve got your back, Danny.”

And for once, Danny didn’t feel alone in his ghost-fighting.

----

Skulker was taken down easily with two people fighting instead of one, especially with barriers that could take hits from both ecto-gun blasts and normal ecto-energy blasts pretty well. It was probably not even five minutes until the pesky hunter was sucked up into the thermos and stashed back in the safe space along Phantom’s handy belt.

Steven didn’t even look fatigued. It looked like he had more energy than he had started with originally-- probably the adrenaline high that came with every ghost hunt.

“Alright. I was trying to not be too nosy, but what was that?”

“A ghost.”

“A… a ghost?!”

“Yup. Not the whole horror-movie, boo and spook ya kind of ghosts.” Danny said, floating down to where Steven stood. “You’re taking this well.”

“You’re taking this well.” Steven wasn’t even bruised and he’d been thrown into a tree during their fight. He wasn’t even bleeding, but one of his fists was still covered with the magic-bubble glove. He flexed and it popped, fading away.

“Well, at this point, anything might as well happen.” Danny landed, allowing him to transform back. “You can’t tell anyone about this, alright?”

The sudden harsh tone in Danny’s voice startled Steven, and he straightened up. “Scout’s honor! Even though I was never a scout.” Steven shrugged. “And, well, I never kept my gem powers a secret, so I don’t care if you tell anyone or not, I guess?”

“Gem powers?” It was the word that Skulker had thrown out during their fight, but Danny was just trying to take him down quickly so he could get home quickly so he could take a nice, long nap.

“Oh, yeah. I’m half-gem.” To prove, Steven lifted his shirt and showed that, in the placement of his navel was a bright pink gemstone. “Half-gem, half-human.”

Wow.

The only experiences Danny had ever had with other hybrids like him-- halfas-- were Dani and Vlad. Dani (or, Ellie, as she said last in one of her letters) was his clone, for starters, who was taking soul-searching to a whole new global level. Vlad was an egotistical maniac who wanted to kill his dad so he could date his mom.

“I’m… I’m half-human, too. Except, half-ghost instead.” He could feel a few tears welling up, but he pushed them aside. “Normally I’d say you’re going to have to wait a little longer to unlock my tragic backstory, but after tonight I’d say we both have stories to tell.”

Steven smiled. “I still owe you a ride to the next town, don’t I?”

#danny phantom #steven universe #steven universe future #danny fenton #dp #su #suf #fanfiction #danny phantom fanfiction #steven universe fanfiction #crossove #the cosmos writes #sam manson #tucker foley #i'm proud of those gc names ok #also my first time writing steven sorry if he's a bit ooc tried my best :D

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tjkiahgb · 5 years

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Episode Recap: 3.16, “One Girl’s Trash”

I love when this show deals with serious topics. Just lays out a minefield and dares me to make jokes around it. Guns? Fine! Homophobia? Sure! Racial stereotyping? Let’s do it!

I mean, no, wait, it looks like I’m saying “let’s do racial stereotyping.” Please don’t do that! It’s bad! I’m saying let’s make jokes about the episode which contains... oh forget it, I’m just going to start the recap. Nobody quote me out of context, okay?!

Anyway, remember how the gang was criminals last episode? Well, the justice system works and it works fast.

Andi, Buffy, Cyrus, and Jonah, as part of their community service for garbage theft, pick up trash in a ditch.

Well, they pick up about one in every five pieces of trash. The rest of it they just kind of leave behind.

Cyrus’s allergies are killing him. Buffy’s foot is killing her. Jonah’s miserable. Everyone’s having a bad time.

Well, everyone except Andi, who’s treating this trip through a trash-filled ditch like a trip to the crafts store.

What kind of madman just tosses a pile of paper towel tubes in a ditch? You’d have to have been saving up paper towel tubes. For a while, too, because there’s seven of them, and it takes me like at least a month to go through that many paper towels.

So you go through a roll of paper towels and go, okay, I’m going to hold onto the tube for some reason. A month passes and you go through another roll. Another month, another roll. Seasons pass. You keep stacking up the tubes. They’re piling up in your kitchen. One day, seven-plus months into your project, you look at the tubes and decide, you know what, I’m going to take my tubes for a walk today. So you put on, I don’t know, I assume a full three-piece suit and top hat, and you’re walking down the street, cradling your stack of paper towel tubes and suddenly, you see it. A ditch. A ditch full of trash. You look at the trash. You look at your tubes. Your beautiful tubes. The tubes you’ve dedicated the last half-year of your life to collecting and then you decide, this is it. This is what I’ve been saving them for. I finally know their purpose. And then you full body huck them into the ditch and walk away.

What I’m saying is, if I’m Andi, I’d leave those tubes alone, because the lunatic who did this is still out there, and they might come back for them.

Andi stops and asks if it’s okay for them to keep all this garbage.

Sure would’ve saved them all a lot of trouble if anyone bothered to ask this last week, but at least we know their rehabilitation is working. They’re using their brains now and thinking through their actions, and that’s how you prevent repeat offenders.

They all head to The Spoon after putting in three hours of hard time. Andi brings her bag of trash and sits it at the table.

Why not? It worked for Trash Can Buffy.

If I ran The Spoon, I’d stop this right here and right now. First they brought in a trash can. Now they’re bringing in literal bags of trash. You don’t put an end to this and next thing you know they’ll be dumping their garbage from home on the floor. These kids are going to single-handedly knock your health code rating down to a C.

Jonah excuses himself to go talk to Amber. He tells her he won some tickets from a radio show to a Go Kart track.

Which is a weird contest. Don’t most radio shows give away like, VIP passes to concerts?

“You’re tuned in to 95.4. Other stations may get you backstage to meet Beyonce, but we’re the only station in town that’ll get you day passes to Racer’s Edge! Limit two rides. But if you ask the food vendor real nice and tell him that Beardo and the Hound Dog sent ya, he might give you a free pretzel! His name is Greg. He’s a cool dude. Aw aw awwwooooo! *a series of wacky stock sound effects* *someone saying 95.4 four different ways*”

Amber is thrilled anyway. She’s excited to be getting anything from Jonah.

Amber quickly recovers by saying she “would love to” and is saved from getting any follow up questions only by the grace of having said that to Jonah, who has no interest in such things.

Jonah returns to the table, where he learns Buffy is hangry. Now, I’m not up to date on all the new young folk slang, but I do believe that’s when you feel a bit like an airplane hangar. “I’m feeling very large building with an extensive floor area, typically for housing aircraft right about now.”

Amber comes over and slaps the check down on the table. Andi’s like, we haven’t ordered. Amber says it’s a preliminary estimate. Andi’s like, that doesn’t make sense but Amber plays it cool.

JUST READ THE PAPER AND DON’T TELL YOUR FRIENDS WHAT IT SAYS AND COME OVER AND TALK TO ME. I mean, let me get you all some bread to start.

Andi reads the secret note. It says to meet Amber in the back. Now. Andi excuses herself to go talk to Amber.

Watch my bag, she says, like someone’s going to make off with the loot. A thieving opportunist who sees a chance to add to their collection of worthless junk makes a daring dash, snatches the bag off the chair, and flees the restaurant in a bold heist. Gone in seconds.

Or maybe she’s just worried someone from The Spoon is going to do their job and throw the bag in the dumpster where it belongs.

Andi makes her way to the back and talks to Amber. Amber tells Andi she told Jonah she loves him. To which Andi is like...

...but in an empathetic way.

Andi’s like, you said those words? Amber says unintentionally but Jonah still smiled anyway.

Andi says that’s just what he does. That he’s the only known person with resting happy face. That his demeanor is almost always one of joy. And not just any joy. The sort of vacant joy where you try to look behind the eyes to figure out what he’s thinking but there’s nothing really going on back there. He’s happy just to be alive, and doesn’t want to, or perhaps can’t, think about it much more deeply than that.

Amber’s like, whether that’s true or not, he didn’t recoil in horror when I said it, so that’s a victory in my book. And looking to build off that victory, Amber asks Andi what would happen if she said she loved him for real.

Amber wants to know how it could be a bad thing to say you love someone. I mean, one answer might be if you’ve been in a middle school relationship with that person for only like, a couple weeks, and they’re notoriously weird about commitment and you don’t want to freak them the heck out.

Amber is undeterred. She decides she’s going to do it and she thanks Andi for encouraging her to go for it.

At Bex’s, Bex washes dishes. Bowie comes in and realizes she’s not wearing her engagement ring. Bex took it off while doing the dishes so it wouldn’t fall in the drain. This makes Bowie wonder, should they even still be wearing engagement rings when they aren’t engaged? Bex is like, they’re love rings and Bowie agrees to keep them.

At school, Andi’s class has been gathered in a circle of learning for an assignment from their teacher. They’ve each been given a slip of paper with a classmate’s name on it and have to describe their classmate without saying their name or using what they look like.

Andi volunteers to go first. Her classmate is from Philadelphia.

This kid figures out she’s talking about him.

This is a bad assignment.

I mean, even not going into what comes next, it’s a bad assignment. The teacher is doing this to prove the students are more than how they look on the outside, but by making the other kids pretend to be each other, you’re making them hit the most basic things they know about the other person.

Harris is going to go home tonight and think about how all one of his classmates had to do to pretend to be him was go, “Look at me, I’m a nerd from Philadelphia!” He’s going to be lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking, I knew it. I knew I mentioned I had a twitch channel to people too many times! C’mon, Harris! Get your head in the game. Better burn my Phillies t-shirt first thing in the morning.

So what did we learn? If you look at Harris, you might think: nerd, but once you really get to know him, he’s actually quite into graphic novels. Checkmate.

And let’s be honest, this is like the best the assignment was going to go. The worst the assignment could go?

Well, popular girl Kristina takes her turn. She’s like, oh, I don’t really know this girl. Um, there was the party she threw one time. That was cool.

Struggling to come up with a second thing, Kristina decides to dive head first into racism.

She says the person is probably good with computers.

Kristina, no!

Harris immediately steps in to throw himself under the bus as well.

Harris, no!

Andi’s like, no, that’s not me, but the teacher checks the slip of paper she gave Kristina and it is, in fact, Andi Mack.

I can’t believe how much Kristina just went for it. If I don’t know a thing about Andi and I’m sitting there, looking at her and pretending to be her, I fail the assignment before I jump to stereotypes.

“I like red sweaters and pants with holes at the knees?”

And if the teacher’s like, “Don’t use physical stuff,” then I go right to generic.

“I like certain types of weather, and hanging out with my friends and/or loved ones, and I don’t like car accidents or famine.”

And if I’m still being pressed to continue after that, I fake passing out. Or just keep going like, “And I... and I, um... and I-eee...” like I was thinking of something else but I’d try to make “And I” sound more and more like Andi and hope someone bails me out. I am the most popular girl in middle school, after all. People like me. They want to help me in the hopes that I’ll pay them attention. Perhaps let some of my popularity rub off on them so they may know what it feels like. God, to have such power. What I would’ve done with such power.

Anyway, point is, you had so many options, Kristina!

Later at Andi Shack, Andi tells Buffy and Cyrus about what happened. She says Kristina just thought, Andi’s Asian, so here’s a list of Asian girl things.

Andi says Ms. Frankel used it as a teachable moment about stereotypes, which, let’s be honest, is what she wanted all along. What was the point of the lesson if not to pivot to that discussion?

Andi’s upset people don’t see her as more than that. Cyrus, on his third straight episode now of questionable takes following “Bex and Bowie are manipulating you by saying your feelings are valid,” and “We should consider Mint Chip’s side of this argument as a business,” says that maybe Kristina thought she was complimenting Andi.

Okay, in fairness, that’s true. Kristina isn’t a malicious racist, she’s just a big ol’ dum dum.

Andi feels disappointed that while these kids have known her for years, they’ve never really known her. She decides to do something about it.

That night, Bex returns to the apartment to the smell of Bowie baking a four cheese lasagna.

I feel like I’m intruding on these two in this scene. I should go.

Andi’s not going to be there that night, so it’s just a romantic dinner for them.

First though, Bowie wants to know what they should do with Celia’s snow globe gift. He suggests putting it in a couple of places in the living room. Some are too visible, some too invisible.

Bowie’s like, maybe we can stow this shame globe away in Andi’s room?

The oven dings and the lasagna bails them out from having too much more of this awkward conversation.

Cyrus stops by Andi Shack that night with a box of stuff to help with Andi’s project, whatever it is. Andi still doesn’t know yet. She’s in the gathering stage.

Cyrus gives her the prison jumpsuit.

And the social experiment wristbands.

And the wig he wore at the party.

Oh, would you look at that, a very minor trip down memory lane and it’s already poking me in the heart. It’s all downhill from here, folks.

The next day at Racer’s Edge, Jonah and Amber do some racing.

Amber beats Jonah badly. She laps him. Which is sort of what you’d expect from her. She has that kind of aggressively-fast-driver energy. You know she’s going to wear out the horn once she starts driving real cars, and her car will absolutely have one of those overly antagonistic bumper stickers that says something like, “Drive FASTER or get out of MY WAY!”

Jonah tells Amber she’s so fun to hang out with. She sees this as her opportunity. She tells him she loves him, but is drowned out by passing karts. She tries again.

Jonah’s like, what? You want to race again? Okay! And off they go, leaving a lot of food on the table.

I hope they come back for that.

Later, Amber tells Andi what happened.

Andi says it’s maybe for the best Jonah didn’t hear her say love. Once you let the love thing out of its cage, there’s no putting it back in. Amber doesn’t want to mess up this relationship. She gets what Andi’s saying.

Andi walks down main street and spots Jonah inside Red Rooster. She heads inside and asks him for a frisbee.

Andi asks if he wants to go to The Spoon to hang out, but he doesn’t want to in case Amber’s there. Andi asks why he’s avoiding her.

Jonah tells her he heard Amber say love, but just pretended he didn’t, which I absolutely love. It’s the long con! Dude’s been oblivious for 14+ years, permanent smile on his face. Everyone knows this about him. So when the time came to deal with something he didn’t want to, what did he do? He kept the dumb smile on his face and played oblivious! And no one suspected a thing! It’s brilliant! He doesn’t realize how much in life he can get away with like this.

He’s worried though that he’s used up his “I didn’t hear you” excuse, so what’s he going to do next time?

Jonah thinks sooner or later though, he’s going to have to respond.

I honestly think Jonah can play this out as long as he wants. He just has to keep up the distractions. I lived with a family for three years by convincing them I was their cousin, and every time they asked me how specifically I was related to them, I’d say I had to go to the bathroom or needed a nap and then I’d disappear for two days. It worked like a soft reset. When I’d finally return, they’d have other questions for me, but not about my identity. Jonah can keep this up with Amber, he just has to commit.

Andi’s like, just because Amber said love, doesn’t mean you have to. Jonah’s like, hell yeah I don’t.

Honestly, good for him. Better than lying about your feelings just to appease her temporarily.

Jonah wants to know why it can’t just be fun instead of love. Andi says that for some people, it’s the same. Jonah’s like, well, if that’s what it’s going to be, I’m going to have to break up with her.

At Celia’s, Bex and Bowie run into each other. Bowie’s doing plant stuff. Bex is getting her wedding dress to return it. Bowie’s kinda surprised to hear that, but then he’s like, yeah, yeah, guess that makes sense, it’s just too bad I never got to see it.

Bex agrees to show it to him. Bowie turns to put something down and when he turns back...

Bowie loves the dress, and what’s more, he wanted to see Bex in the dress, and he wanted Andi to wear the dress when she gets married, and now none of this is going to happen because the wedding is off.

Bex wants to know why he didn’t say something before. Bowie thought he made it clear through his actions that he really wanted to marry her. Bex said he told her it was okay when she said they shouldn’t get married. He says it is okay because it’s what she wanted and he wants her to be happy. She wants him to be happy, too. He is happy, he just didn’t realize what seeing the dress was going to do.

Bowie excuses himself. Bex is left to think about some things.

At school, Andi has laid out her project.

Several questions.

1. Where did she construct this whole thing? Did she make this in Andi Shack? There’s no room! Did she make it in the backyard and move it to school?

2. Where did she get these giant panes of glass? They look expensive. And whether she moved the entire thing to the school from home, or brought all this stuff to school and assembled it there, this all looks incredibly heavy. Did she hire people to help her because I can’t imagine her doing this all by herself.

3. Did she get permission to put this in the middle of school? I would think so (hope so), but I just want to check to make sure someone knew this was happening ahead of time. Because, otherwise, a huge, mysterious object showing up in the middle of school with “DO YOU SEE ME NOW?” written on it multiple times feels vaguely threatening.

Kinda supervillain-ish.

And if I saw those paper towel rolls in the pile of stuff, I’d really start to panic. I’d think Paper Towel Tube Man was leaving the school a message.

Final question.

4. Why are Buffy and Cyrus dressed like they’re background dancers in a ‘90s R&B music video?

They look like they’re trying out for the school’s stage production of an old episode of Saved by the Bell.

I guess it’s fitting. Andi fashioned a bunch of garbage into an art project, and Cyrus and Buffy fashioned several different articles of clothing into new tops.

I’m just sad about how many neon predatory cats had to die to make Buffy’s, though I appreciate Cyrus making use of old wallpaper for his shirt instead of discarding it.

Anyway, they’re slightly confused about what they’re looking at. Andi tells them they have to see it from a different angle. She leads them upstairs.

They look down and see the project. They’re amazed.

No, it’s an Andi self-portrait.

This girl in the red is hands-on-chest amazed even though she has no idea what she’s looking at.

Well, either that, or she’s in tremendous fear about what this pile of garbage left in the middle of school means.

Andi’s teacher congratulates her on her project. So do Cyrus and Buffy.

And with just four episodes left to go, she might just be right.

#Andi Mack #Buffy Driscoll #Cyrus Goodman #Jonah Beck #Amber #Bex Mack #Bowie Quinn #Harris Gurney #Kristina the Popular Girl #Ms. Frankel #episode recaps

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treatian · 4 years

Text

The Chronicles of the Dark One: The Dark Curse

Chapter 126: A Quiet Winter Evening in the Great Room

It was getting colder outside. Snow had begun to invade not only the mountain but also the little village below, evidence that it was no longer Fall, but certainly Winter. It was his slow season; the time of the year when no one dared trek up the mountain to make deals. He usually spent more of his time away, simply because it was warmer and busier outside his home. But this year he didn't. He couldn't. After what had happened with the "Queens of Darkness", as he called them, he found himself too spooked. Not for himself, but for Belle. She seemed to have recovered from her ordeal fine enough, but leaving more often meant leaving her alone in the cold castle and he didn't like that. It bothered him, thinking of her stranded by herself in a chilly stone castle, even if he had provided all she needed for the cold weather. Complete isolation for too long seemed cruel, even for him. Of course, the problem with that meant it wasn't one of them enduring the solitude, but the both of them.

Since the incident with Robin, they'd fallen into a schedule that separated them for most of their day. They saw each other at breakfast, at tea, and then from dinner and until they got tired. That had always worked well in the past. They'd been busy doing their own things; her with looking after the castle and its grounds and him with his work. But now, with the Winter, he found himself growing tired of the solitude. Without his deals or trips and the near blizzards that happened daily, he was bored. Nearly as much as Belle was. She wasn't done with cleaning the castle, but with the cold weather taking away her abilities to go outside, her work had slowed significantly. He'd stopped spying on her through the cauldron, just as he'd promised himself he would, and he'd tried to stop teasing her for his own entertainment as well and what he found was that it produced a comfortableness between them that he hadn't had with another human since he'd lived with Baelfire before the curse.

But that was only when they were in the same room.

Lately, once he ran out of work to do in the day and wanted something to combat the boredom, he found himself going to the Great Room to spin. And while months ago, he would have been happy to come into the room and find it empty of her, now he found the emptiness unsettling.

He told himself he sought her out because he was paranoid. He no longer looked in on her from the Cauldron, and unfortunately, the first time he'd done that, she'd been kidnapped. If he wondered where she was for too long, the fear he'd felt on that day when he couldn't find her came back all over again and he wandered the castle in search of her. He always checked the library first, but since the snow had begun, she'd taken to reading outside of her library, finding new nooks and crannies to hide in for reasons he couldn't understand. Sometimes the places he found her in were cozy and warm, other times, they made no sense at all. Like today…

"Oh!" he exclaimed, nearly jumping out of his bones as he found her in another of her unexpected spots. There was a little alcove where the previous King had placed a statue of a gargoyle. He couldn't imagine it was very warm, but there she was, shoved between the stone statue and the stone wall, her legs curled up under her, and her book in her lap. "I, uh…I wondered where you'd scurried off to?" he questioned, using his hands to imitated the practice before wondering why he had. That was a silly thing to do. Nevertheless, she smiled up at him in his awkwardness, and he felt his stomach tighten. He had nothing to say to her. Again. How had he not learned yet?! Time and time again, he came to find her, and time and time again, he found her only to find that he had nothing to say to her once he located her.

"Dusting the books again, I see…" It was a safe comment, a private joke between them. Her favorite method of dusting the books seemed to be reading them.

She smiled at the comment and gave a little nod. "It's, uh…it's my favorite," she admitted with a small blush. What, he wondered, might that be for?

"Oh?" She'd closed the book, but held the cover against her chest. He wanted to get a look at the spine. She had thousands of books up there, it seemed impossible to simply pick one as a favorite. He was curious, which one was it that she was so in love with?

"Yes, the uh…" she cleared her throat, shook her head almost nervously before looking back up at him. "The girl has my name. And it has all the elements that truly make a story great, you know. Far off places, daring sword fights, magic spells, even a prince in disguise."

"It seems to have found a good home then," he concluded, wishing she'd given him a title. It didn't matter that she hadn't. She'd given him a lot to go on, and it was going to be a long Winter. Perhaps sometime after she went to bed, he could make his way up to her library and figure it out for himself. It might keep the boredom away for a few hours.

"Did you, uh…did you…did you need something?" she asked, sitting forward eagerly, as if she wanted him to say "yes".

His mouth went dry. They were back to the same problem already, after barely one conversation. He had nothing to say to her, no reason to tell her why he'd been so curious about where she'd been. Only the knowledge that she looked small sitting in that little space, and cold as well. From this place, he could see snow falling out the window, and it made their Great Room look far more comfortable than this place. Sitting in the Great Room and spinning as she read seemed like a wonderful way to spend the rest of the afternoon until dinner. But how to get her there? He couldn't very well tell her to come and read. She was getting lazy enough on her own. He didn't want her to start thinking that she wasn't here to do chores.

"Ah…the table! In the dining room! It looked a bit dusty to me," he proclaimed suddenly thinking of something quickly enough. It was a lie. One that he had a feeling she knew he was making as she smiled and nodded. She blushed as she marked her page before standing up and running her hands over her long dress to take the wrinkles out. He wanted to offer his hand to help her out of the alcove, so instead, he took a step away. When she was out he led her through the halls and back to the Great Room. Once they were there, she fell out of step behind him as he went to the wheel, and she inspected the table. If she hadn't known he was lying before, then she did now. She'd just cleaned that table and the way she kept the castle, especially this room, it would be spotless. Still, he tried not to look at her as he worked wool on his wheel, and she left the room. A moment later, she returned and made herself busy. She dusted the table that wasn't dusty, and he continued to spin. She made her way around his collection and then dusted it as well as he continued to spin. She brought order to an already ordered room, and he continued to spin, ever aware of every move that she made around him. But it was only when it appeared that she was finishing up that he held his breath. Would she retreat? Go back to the library? Pick a new place to hide? Or would she stay? Perhaps read her book in the chair just like she did after dinner?

When she came back after returning her tools, he was hopeful, but even she seemed torn. He spun on and pretended not to notice, but it was impossible not to take note of the way she looked around the room, then from him to the door, over to his chair, then to the door that would take her down to her own chambers.

"I'm uh…I'll go grab dinner," she finally commented, wiping her hands on her skirt and leaving. He didn't respond to her comment, merely rejoiced at the thought that food was on its way, and that meant that she'd be spending the remainder of the day shut up in the room with him.

He finished off the batch of wool he was working on and checked the thread on the spindle, making sure it was well done. It was perfect, just as always. He sat down at his place at his table and stared into the fireplace. Considering the thread he'd just spun, he'd probably give this spool to Belle. She often did mending, this would be good thread for her to work with. But dinner meant that her work was done for the day. Maybe she'd make that her job tomorrow, that was a simple chore she could do in front of the fireplace, perhaps if she didn't think to do it he could suggest it, or maybe he could put a few holes in some of his shirts to ensure it. That was a good plan. But, of course, it would only take up one day. With the weather the way it was, they'd probably still have a few more weeks like this.

The clinking of china forced his gaze up from the fireplace to the doorway. Belle had returned. And with food in hand. He sat back in his chair, welcoming her service, and tried hard not to smile at her. He did that far too often as it was.

"I uh…I made stew," she declared, setting the table for him. "Should ward against the cold.

He nodded, but again tried not to smile and pulled his arm away so he wouldn't accidentally come into contact with her. When she was done she picked up her own bowl, as she usually did, and sat down to eat. Only she didn't eat. He heard a sharp hiss from her mouth as she sat down and set the bowl down on her legs before flapping her hands in the air. A burn? He'd only just started to shovel the stew into his mouth, but he knew he didn't usually take note of hot and cold the way normal people did. He supposed it was hot. Had she hurt her hands? Did she need healed?

She didn't seem too bad. She kept the bowl balanced there on her lap and stared into the fire, perhaps just giving it time to cool down. He ate another spoonful and tried to focus on something else, anything other than the potential that she was hurt.

He sighed and his mind went back to the conversation they'd had by the statue. Far off places, daring swordfights, magic spells, a prince in disguise…he'd read in his time. He could think of more than a dozen books that had those elements. But only one was her favorite. The woman in it shared her name. That was the biggest hint. Which of the dozen that he'd read had the name "Belle"?

A flinch at the fireplace drew his gaze and his mind back to her. She'd picked up her bowl, but flinched again at it as she squirmed in her seat. Was it that bad? Out of curiosity, he withdrew some of his magic and reached out a finger to touch his own bowl. He removed it quickly. Yes. It was that bad. It wasn't that she'd burned the soup, she must have just pulled it off the fire and not allowed it time to cool. That was his fault, he'd brought her down too early, disrupted her schedule. She was the one who was paying for it now. Ironic, in this place surrounded by snow and ice the worst thing for her was something-

Without warning, Belle was up and out of her seat. The bowl was in her hands but only for a second as she strode quickly to the other side of the table and set it down. He felt his heart stop and stared, watching her actions without inhibition. To pretend to ignore her at a time like this would have been foolish. What did she think she was doing?

As if in answer, he watched as she went back to the fireplace, placed her hands on the chair that she sat in, then gave a tug. And then another. And then another. He tried not to laugh. She was small, so small, and he knew that these chairs were heavy. They weren't the easiest thing in the world to move, and it scraped against the floor with every tug that she gave it in the direction of the opposite side of the table. Her intention was clear. After months of eating in the room with him by the fire, today was the day she dared to do more. Today was the day she dared to take a place at the table.

And he didn't know if he should laugh at her intentions, or shout at her. She was a servant, afterall. There was bold, and then there was brazen. This was both. Taking this step was…courageous? Stupid? Hilarious? He honestly didn't think there was a single adjective that described it. But he knew that it left a feeling in his mind that reminded him of the day he'd first met her at her father's palace. She was an unconventional one. Odd, not only for her age but also for her status, both her present and her former. Odd, outcast, strange…it had been a hundred years since people had called him those names to his face, but as he watched her struggle, it felt like it was only yesterday. Maybe that was why he felt admiration for her. Perhaps she reminded him of himself long ago when he'd wanted nothing more than a hand.

It seemed to take forever for her to move the chair, but she wasn't one to give up. Eventually, she had it in a place that she was happy with. She stood up to full height, and he watched as she rubbed a hand across her forehead, then lowered herself into the seat at the opposite end. She put a napkin gracefully across her lap, avoided his eyes, and picked up her spoon to eat. He watched as she took a few mouthfuls, wondering if she would look up at him as she ate, if she would dare to make eye contact or small talk. He wondered what he would do in such a situation. Would he say something to her? Smile? Frown?

But she never looked up. She just ate. And so he did too.

He stopped watching her, focused on his food, and ate as if there were nothing out of the ordinary even though everything seemed out of the ordinary. He pretended it was normal. When he finished with his dinner, he got up as he normally would, left his dishes behind for her to take care of, and went back to the wheel to finish the spool of thread for her.

When she predictably got up, gathered their dishes back on her tray and left, he let out a sigh he didn't know he'd been holding in. Was he sweating? He hadn't sweat since he was human, why did she make him feel like he was? Why was it that after he'd spent an entire meal watching her and wishing for dinner to be over, all he wanted was to have her back in the room. He shook his head.

Cabin Fever. That was all it was. Being stuck here together during the Winter was bound to have some strange effects on the mind, and this was one of them. They'd be fine as soon as the snow melted, and they could resume their ordinary activities. Activities that would no doubt have him spending less time in her company…

At that sad thought, he looked over at the table and observed the two chairs. It hadn't been like that since Baelfire was here. He hated to admit it, and never would out loud, but he liked it. He liked the time they spent together in this room in the quiet. He liked her boldness and her company. He liked their evenings together by the fire. When the Winter was over, he would be sad to see it go. But it was what it was. It had been well over a hundred years since he'd last enjoyed the company of another human. Perhaps, just this one time, it would be fine to enjoy it.

Before she returned, he rose from his spot at the wheel. He used his magic to put her chair back by the fire, just as she liked it. Then he summoned into his hands the book that she'd been reading, the one she said was her favorite. La Belle et la Bete…interesting. At the sound of feet on the stairs, he set the book on the cushion and quickly returned to his spot at the wheel. Behind him, the windows rattled with wind, reminding him that it was colder out than he could potentially feel. But she might be able to feel it, he realized. With a smile, he summoned a blanket and left it nicely folded on the back of her chair. He started to spin his wheel just as she came into the room, but shifted his eyes from her to the wool in his hand.

She was not as subtle as he was. He knew the second she realized what had been done because she stopped in her footsteps and looked it all over. He averted his eyes when she glanced suspiciously over at him, but returned them when he sensed she wasn't looking. She was beaming, smiling at what he'd left her as she crossed the room to her chair. He felt a fire of pride blaze inside of him as she took the blanket and wrapped it around herself before sitting down to read.

And just like that, all was well again. All was right and ordinary. She read. He spun. The wind blew, the snow fell, and Winter went on. She continued to read. He continued to spin. They relaxed, content in the company they created for one another.

#Rumbelle #Rumple #Rumpelstiltskin #Dark One #Belle #ouat #ouat fanfiction #fanfic

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marias-studyblr · 5 years

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Hello maria how are you? Im doing physical therapy and i just feel really embarrassed of what i do. I originally wanted medicine but my grades were too low and now i do physical therapy. Im always looked down upon and viewed as inferior. My family always compare me to my cousins who are doing medicine or my siblings and i just feel really sad lately. How do i get over this feeling of shame? People tell me what i study js pointless. Any advice? Thanks! 💕💕

physical therapy? pointless???1?

oKAY let me take a deep breath before i get ANGRY

Hi! 💕✨ i’m good thank you for asking! a lil stressed amongst the middle of exam season but i’m whole and remaining sane.

what you’re describing is the thing that pisses me off the most about medicine. the mentality a lot of my family members, peers and teachers have that somehow we have ascended to the clouds by being accepted into a particular university science course. why?.. why this one when so many other professions demand the same exact integrity and responsibility?

(and not to mention the comparison to any arts and humanities courses but that isn’t the topic of this ask.)

being a doctor is no more worthy than being a physiotherapist. BOTH professions are very much needed, BOTH professions are so noble. BOTH professions require expertize, so much hard work and passion.

if no one told you that before,,, LET ME BRING YOU UP TO SPEED.

ugh. getting heated already. T^T *sigh* okay.

the experience i have with physical therapy was when I sprained my ankle a few years back. i went to see a doctor and surgeon who told me i needed 2 weeks of physical therapy and needed surgery. i obviously took what he said very seriously and remember crying about it because it seemed the situation was bad.

as soon as i showed the physiotherapist my exams, she took a few seconds. and told me i absolutely did not need surgery. (0.0) what?

her advice and her work were so very valuable to me. the fact she took the time to look at my exams and give her opinion on my case, and not just follow the doctor’s orders, was priceless. i went to her and to her team 5 times a week for 2 months. it’s been 4 years now and my ankle has remained perfect and strong and i have not had any surgery work done to it. i’m obviously not saying all doctors are always wrong, but in this case, he was.

what i’m trying to get to is: doctors are NOT the holy grail of medicine. they do NOT hold a higher standard in the medical field. other people in it, like physiotherapists, should NOT feel “inferior” to doctors. this notion that they are so much better than nurses or physiotherapists or healthcare technicians is so foreign to me. they are not. everyone in the medical field holds a role that is 100% necessary to the patient and if that job didn’t exist, the patient would be in serious trouble.

physiotherapy is something so freaking amazing, and it really pisses me off that your family relatives would try to belittle you or tell you it’s useless… it BLOWS MY MIND.

I remember from my time at the clinic, in those two months, I saw so many cases. all ages and genders, with the widest variety of problems: athletes, accidents, elderly, strokes, chronic conditions … Every time I looked at a physiotherapist I saw a hero. who was not only able to give physical comfort to the patient but also mental comfort. they were their patient’s support in their journey to recover, to gain their strength, their mobility back (if it’s available to them, depending on their condition). they get to know the patient’s body better than the patient themselves do.

most people, like me, had to go 5 times a week or more. physiotherapists get to know their patients, so they grow to care deeply about them. and likewise.

and the situations that present - involving muscle damage, nerve damage, cardiovascular damage - are very interesting in a medical standpoint and you’ll learn, you probably already have, that physical therapy is the most helpful amazing thing ever to recover and grow stronger, it’s the only way possible in certain situations, more helpful than any prescription. it’s so important. it’s also amazing that the patient trusts their body to the hands of their physiotherapist. in their daily work of exercises, electric stimulation - at the end of the day, the patient depends on their physiotherapist for their quality of life.

people tell you physical therapy is pointless? let them go ask the patients. ask the people at the hospital, at the clinic.

people literally learn how to walk again with physical therapy. what. are. they. talking. about.

please grow fond of this AMAZING field that is physical therapy. physical therapy has many specialties but in general it is about ways to actually improve the quality of life of another human being with constant practice and progress and that, to me, is the most beautiful thing a health care professional can do.

you will learn how electrotherapy techniques like transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, manual therapies like joint manipulation and spinal mobilization, manual resistance training, and stretching, exercise programmes like muscle strengthening, posture re-training, cardiovascular stretching help someone who is sick and struggling. you will actually learn how to do these things to another human being who is in pain. you will help them with your expertize. that is beautiful. pure art.

so be proud of your course, defend it! stand up for physical therapy! there is NOTHING, nothing, NOTHING to feel embarrassed about.

people who tell you otherwise are jerks and bean heads.

people around you should fell PROUD of you. I am so freaking proud of you for following this path that many many people don’t bother to. the good service of health care professionals is extremely needed.

physiotherapists and all other healthcare professionals are ALL part of The Big Team. we are all soldiers who fight for the health of our patients. we are all the holy grail. we each play our part, our role, we do good. we have amazing, rewarding, difficult jobs.

at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what other people say (that rhymed), you can’t control how others feel about you. what matters is you understand how important your course is, how needed you are. we need good physiotherapists. what matters is you know in your heart without you your patients would be in a great deal of pain. they need you to heal.

don’t let someone else decide for you what is a worthy profession. choose for yourself. why did you choose physical therapy and not business school or law or art school or design school? you probably had many other options apart from physical therapy. do you like working with people? do you like studying the human body? what turned your head?

don’t think about anyone else, don’t think about your siblings or your uncles or your cousins or your cousins’ cousins, think WITHIN. no one is going to have your future, not even your parents. you get to decide. you get to feel proud. why are you doing this? do you like the idea of working at a hospital or a clinic? can you imagine yourself working long hours with patients?

i truly believe in my heart that physical therapy is such an honorable profession, just like being a nurse or a doctor. i would LOVE to see you be PROUD and chest full studying in your course alongside your peers, succeeding at it and surprising everyone who told you that you should feel inferior, that you should feel embarrassed. surprising everyone with your unbreakable confidence and trust that you are equal to everyone else in the medical field.

that we are all equal, no matter what course we are studying. people who do art, people who are lawyers - they all serve others, in one way or another. they can all help others. we all have that potential to do good, through so many forms and actions. and physical therapy is an amazing form of that, alongside many many other ways to serve each other.

why feel embarrassed about that? why indeed.

i hope this helped. 🐇

don’t forget that each option in your life is up to you. don’t let your relatives choose for you. be confident in your life decisions, don’t be ashamed of what makes you happy.

i know there’s a long path of acceptance and learning in front of you, to distance who you are from what others perceive of you or tell you who you should be. i know that.

but you are strong. you are so strong, my friend, and you know best. no matter where life takes you, you will have a successful, happy future. ✨💛 doesn’t matter you didn’t get in medicine, doesn’t matter. you. yes, you will have a successful powerful future. and you don’t need anyone else’s approval for that. you only need your hard work and your passion for what you do. there will come others who will appreciate that too.

please consider giving a chance to physical therapy. i love you, you are doing AMAZING 💓

#answered #PASSIONATE ABOUT THIS #SORRY ITS 30 PAGES LONG

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barton74ward-blog · 5 years

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sh-dafugup · 6 years

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a year ago last week i started that manager job (that i quit in october) so i’ve been reminiscing.

recovered memories from my previous job for when the one i have now feels like the worst thing in the world:

*i made thirty 911 calls in six months

*PARENTS LETTING THEIR KIDS HAVE BABY-POWDER FIGHTS, parents teaching their kids to shoplift, parents teaching their kids how to properly curse out and threaten employees for asking them to not ride carts through the store

*throwing out $100 in stolen half-eaten food a night (mostly vienna sausages and coconut water)

*professional pan-handlers chasing customers through the parking lot asking for specific amounts of money, professional shoplifters filling up backpacks with whatever they could and meeting their boss across the street to empty out and get paid,

*a cashier overdosed twice in two weeks while on the clock,

*another cashier who gave me some kind of antibiotic-resistant virus that lasted six weeks (who also let her toddler go with pink eye for so long her eyes crusted shut) brought in her boyfriends to shoplift during her shifts. She stole thousands of dollars from the registers and the safe (inside heist before i started working there that was never solved) over the course of two years. She was filmed by a customer stealing money from another customer by ringing up a sale and voiding it without opening the register after the first customer left. and she started stalking me when she found out the vigilant customer came to me with the video of her stealing and that i'd reported it and opened an investigation. I had to beg my boss to fire her even after he saw the video. when we met and i was introduced as her new manager, she asked me if i liked to party and said she "used to smoke crack" but she promised she "didn't anymore."

*a homeless man from the tent city behind the shopping center tried to murder another homeless man by the dumpsters behind our store by beating his head in with a pipe.

*the mafia landlord threatened me because i wouldn't let him shop after hours, his girlfriend filled her purse with whatever she felt like on a regular basis and corporate told me to back off when i reported it. i was told "just because i felt threatened doesn't mean I was".

uhhhh...

*being threatened by customers on a daily basis for refusing to process returns with fake or outdated receipts for $1 brooms, being threatened by customers for not breaking hundred dollar bills on sunday afternoons for one-dollar sales, being threatened by customers for not having more than one register open at 6 on a monday night (guy told me he was gonna take me outside and show me what customer service really meant), being threatened by customers for making closing announcements.

a man who ran a popular Dominican nightclub across the street came in at five minutes to closing on Cinco de Mayo, asked what colors were on the Mexican flag and asked for 50 helium balloons in each color. He got flustered and left when he realized it would take more than five minutes to inflate 150 mylar balloons. none of us understood why he was trying to capitalize on a holiday Dominicans don't celebrate but it moves booze and he figured it was worth a shot.

a cashier got fired for stealing money and merchandise and under-ringing hundreds of dollars of food for her friends. she came back to shop all the time. last time i saw her she tried to steal frozen pork chops but got nervous and left them by the doors when she thought we weren't distracted enough. she went to a hiring event at another value store up the road owned by our company, but she was turned away because they had her arrested a few weeks prior for retail theft.

one time we had about ten to fifteen associates come visit from other stores for a special merchandising remodel and they were all from stores in nicer areas where people are normal. none of them understood why we didn't have the doors propped open for our customers that morning. even the district manager at the time tried to warn them that it was a bad idea, but the visitors insisted it would be more welcoming to the neighborhood. we were robbed three times before noon. twice by the same guy. he liked to fill shopping carts with socks and just run for it.

uhhh....

the freezers breaking three times in one week and losing $4K in food, having to receive DC trucks until the day of a special mid-year inventory (red flag store) because my DM was the antichrist and refused to delay the trucks, and then receiving two more full trailers the next day cause another store in the district had a fire and they gifted us their shipments

i had to lock myself in the back office to get away from a screaming middle-aged white woman who was insistent that i was lying about the restaurant next to us having a public bathroom because we weren't allowed to let the public in our stock room to use the barely operational employee bathroom.

the shopping center supposedly being built on legit-i-shit-you-not INDIAN BURIAL GROUND and there being some kind of demonic force or presence in our storage basement that gave people what i can only describe as a sense of dread and violent mood swings from moments after entering the store until they left. it was kind of like a SHINING experience crossed with what happened to the dad in the original Amityville Horror. outside the store, people were completely different, like the moment they went outside the rage stopped. and sometimes homeless people would sneak in the basement and live there for a while. and the basement was full of chiggers and dust mites and bed bugs. any time we had to bring fixtures or seasonal pack-away's up we had to tape our clothes around our ankles and wrists.

one day someone hit a transformer so the entire south end of town had a blackout and when i closed the store until the power came back, one elderly customer refused to leave and stood around for an entire hour until he could make his purchase. GREATEST GENERATION, MY ASS. others outside ignored the fact that the restaurants, nail salon, grocery store and urgent care center had evacuated and tried to forcibly enter my store while cursing at me for locking the doors in the dark. our system stayed offline for hours after that and every sale we made wasn't entered in the system until we realized our registers were showing hundreds of dollars in "excess" cash. while we were on the phone with the help desk getting it sorted out, two people didn't show up for their shifts and another (the one with the needle habit) showed up early and overdosed behind the register in front of a nurse from the UC next door just trying to buy a soda on her lunch break.

and one time a Puerto Rican cashier made a remark about her neighbors playing Dominican music in the middle of the night in front of a Dominican customer and they physically fought while while the Dominican customer announced to the entire store in Spanish to any Dominicans in there that we were discriminating against them and that they should all get together and "do something about it." I had to call the cops to break up the fight. no citations issued, i just had the cops tell her she was banned for life.

this one time one of my cashiers attempted to physically discipline a customer who threatened one of my managers when she'd said something to the customer about their kid running around and screaming and throwing things. cops had to break that one up too.

oh and one day i went in on a mid-to-close shift and the bank next door had closed down in response to "OUR" bank down the street being robbed so we couldn't run our deposit or get change from anywhere in the area. and the opening manager who told me so also casually mentioned that a delivery driver told her that morning that the power box on the back of the building had been hit by a truck "or something" and that electricians would be by to look at it later in the day. when they showed up, it HAD been hit with something and I was told un-regulated power was pouring into the building, that it was a fire hazard, but power and light wouldn't be able to fix it for approximately two weeks. corporate insisted we stay open for business--they said a chance of an explosion didn't mean it necessarily would. when the electricians took the door off the box to check out the guts inside, they mentioned that the wires leading into the building looked out of regulation but were interrupted by a swarm of live hornets nesting in the meter box that poured out into their faces.

our phone line was split with someone else's in town so sometimes our store phone just didn't work. calls would cut out, we'd hear other people talking on the line. most of the 911 calls i made went like, "what's the number there at the store?" "oh, i'm calling from my personal cell, our phone is out of service." we never had it fixed.

human resources tried to fire me because an associate said i was cursing in the employee bathroom after a customer chewed me out for something trivial. I handed her my keys and walked out. I was the fifth person to hold that position in two years. at least two other people have had it since I left seven months ago.

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peterpecksen · 5 years

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So, here we are closing in on the end of our 4.5 month stint in Panama. I have to say it has been quite an adventure. Through a friend, we were put in touch with the owners of this island paradise who required someone to act as caretakers while the resort was closed for the rainy season. Please understand, we came in with our eyes wide open. We have spent a significant amount of time in quasi remote locations and dealt with language differences in many locations. However our full emersion here with Spanish speaking staff, remote, as in 40 minute boat ride to nearest town, and the jungle environment has allowed us to grow like few other places have given us the chance to.

One of the things we still jump occasionally about is the sudden movement out of the corner of your eye. There is a lot of that here. There is nothing that truly wants to harm you, however that that does not stop one from jumping when you suddenly encounter a creature.

Our self confidence and willingness to go someplace new has increased dramatically over the last 6 years of travelling. But the shear volume of new situations and skills that this latest stay has provided us has been outstanding. From pool maintenance on a large scale to living with electricity for only half of the day as there really is no need to run the big generators full time for just the two of us. Also being careful not to dally underneath coconut trees as we have seen first hand those big buggers drop at regular intervals and you wouldn’t want to be hit by one.

One of the things I have enjoyed is having the time to sit and watch the bird life. That time spent watching has allowed me to get some wonderful photographs of the beautiful birds here.

I do have to be honest though and say that I will not miss the insect life. Some of it has been incredible and beautiful, but I have walked face first into a few too many spider webs. And I am always a little apprehensive when I reach for my glass of water on the bedside table, wondering if I am going to disturb a scorpion.

As is the case everywhere we have been, the people are the most memorable. The small number of staff who have been working at the resort are incredibly patient with these two bumbling gringos. Most know enough to talk slowly to us and use simple words and phrases. One of the things I truly appreciate is that a few of them will actually correct us when we say something incorrectly. That is not something that occurs regularly when you are viewed as a jefe (boss).

The work here is not easy. Something as simple as grass cutting is a full-time job that requires some problem solving to get it done.

We have even managed to fit in a little experience with the health care system here and I have to say that North American physicians could learn a ton in communication skills and customer service from the doctors we have encountered here.

When you wake up and happen to notice an addition to your arm

Five days later and skin is dying

When I noticed my odd bumps on my arm I wasn’t concerned. When skin started dying I became concerned. However, it just took a WhatsApp call to make an appointment, the next day. Tissue tests, medications, daily contact with the doctor with photos on WhatsApp as well as a referral to an Infectious Disease specialist who reviewed all the info and confirmed diagnosis left me feeling very impressed. And it all cost less than $250 US. Turned out to be a sandfly bite leaving behind a parasite called leishmania. Nasty little bugger, but it all turned out well. I am sure my steady diet of alcohol had something to do with my successful recovery.

Before you get all, “Ewww that is gross, I couldn’t go there” remember, I was able to console myself and recover in an awesome personal pool. On a clear night the pool was the place to be to truly appreciate the stars as well.

Also, not everything we came across made us jump. Somethings left you with a grin from ear to ear.

Having to shoo the woodpeckers away from the coconuts so you could get coconut water for making rice was another challenge we quite enjoyed.

Have we enjoyed ourselves here, yes. Would we do it again, absolutely. Sometimes life isn’t about having everything, sometimes it is about experiences and being put outside your comfort zone so you can grow.

Pondering our Time in Panama So, here we are closing in on the end of our 4.5 month stint in Panama. I have to say it has been quite an adventure.

#birds #Bocas del Toro #bugs #doc #housesitting #leishmania #Panama #Popa Paradise #reptiles #snakes #travel

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mrsbenedictbridgerton · 7 years

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Off The Menu

The kitchen was too small for two chefs: especially when one was an arrogant flirt who was after HER job.

Also on FF.NET and AO3

@chasingawaythefoosa wanted a chef au. Part of my series of tropey fics that I’m currently working on (open for more prompts for a little longer).

I got totally carried away and this ended up 4.7k. Oops.

Killian Jones had a lazy smirk, perfectly disheveled hair, questionably tight dark jeans and a way of undressing you with his eyes that was all too appealing when one’s guard was down. Not that Emma Swan ever let her guard down around him. From the moment she met him she saw him for what he was: an arrogant skirt chaser who was also chasing her job.

When Archie Hopper, head chef and owner of ‘Archibald’s’ had announced that he would be taking on a another sous chef, Emma had been furious. She’d spent three years working her ass off to climb the hierarchy at Boston’s best French restaurant, sacrificing anything resembling a social life to achieve her dream of culinary success. Six months ago when she had been promoted to second in command she’d been elated.

The next step would be her own kitchen. She knew if she continued to show her dedication that Archie would notice; he’d already hinted about opening another restaurant and she knew she had a shot at the head chef position.

But when Archie had formally revealed the opening of another outlet on the other side of town, instead of looking to hire (or promote) another executive chef, he instead employed a second sous chef to work at the original restaurant and began to split his time between the two businesses. Which was completely demoralizing when she was the one who should be in charge. To make matters worse her new ‘co-chef’ (as Archie had called them) was an arrogant Brit who thought he knew everything about French cuisine;‘I’m European, darling,” he would drawl. In addition, he was an incorrigible flirt and he spent far too much time with the waitresses - and waiters.

And, yes, maybe he cooked the perfect risotto - a dish she had never fully mastered- but that was nowhere near enough to redeem him in her eyes.

Their cagey working relationship first came to a head the weekend before Columbus Day, when Chef Jones had been in situ for six weeks and Chef Swan had spent her time keeping as far away as possible from him. But then he messed with her soup.

“Ruby, is that a new lipstick?” he purred as he stirred through a vat of beef stew. The head waitress was walking past him, the usual swing in her step pausing as she spun to face him.

“How observant,” she said, cocking out her hip. “It’s called ‘Ravishing Red.”

Emma watched as his eyes flickered over Ruby’s just-this-side-of-acceptably-tight uniform before he took a step closer. She scowled, wishing a shift could go by where he didn’t have to get overly friendly with the staff.

“My, now that is appropriate.”

Ruby’s grin was growing wider and Emma wanted to walk away… until she saw the precious pot of stew begin to bubble over.

“Jesus Jones, can you flirt on your own time?”

She marched over and turned down the dial of the gas hob, taking a small seed of satisfaction at the way he flinched and jumped back from the cooker. She took the spoon from his hand and checked to see the stew hadn’t burnt.

“Why Swan, I’d flirt with you any time. You just have to ask.”

Ruby laughed lightly before shaking her head at Emma and walking away. Emma made a mental note to talk to her later about her uniform and then turned back to Killian. She hoped the blank look she gave him was answer enough to his question. In the kitchen, she was the only woman yet to fall for his charms. Even Belle, their patissiere and usually a very savvy woman was not immune to a flutter of his eyelids when he was trying to sneak out a spare desert.

“Now I have your attention,” she continued, “I actually wanted to ask you, why has the soup been changed?”

He grinned, nonchalantly folding his arms. “Oh, so this avoiding me thing is over now?”

Emma gave him a confused look.

“I’m not stupid, Swan. A man knows when he is being shunned by a beautiful woman. You may think that splitting the kitchen into two sections would have pulled the wool over my eyes but I know a ruse when I see one.”

Quickly, she folded her arms. “Fine. I’ve been avoiding you. But you have not been avoiding my soup, and you know that department is in my section of the kitchen.”

“Hmm,” he nodded, sticking out his chin to mirror her posture. “Your soup was dull. I thought mine was better.”

“The garbure has been on the menu for weeks.”

“Which is why we needed a change.”

“And tourin was that change? All that garlic will not sit well with the duck.” She rolled her eyes in exasperation before continuing, “Did Archie approve this?”

Killian ran a hand over his thick layer of stubble and smiled. “Hopper always approves of my judgement.”

(No one - no one called Archie ‘Hopper’. Ever.)

“Hmm, really? So if I put in a call to him over at The Cricket, he’ll be au fait with that?”

Then she saw his expression falter a little. But he recovered just as quickly.

“Why of course.”

“Fine,” she quipped. “I’ll call him now.”

“You do that.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

If looks could kill, she was pretty sure that Killian would have been dead in seconds by the ferocity of the stare she was giving him. Eyeball to eyeball (even with a five-inch height difference), staring right into those kitchen-famous baby blues. She would not back down. She would not blink. She would not start counting those luscious dark lashes that she was just a little jealous of.

(He looked away first.)

Archie didn’t know.

(But he liked Jones’ idea for the soup and they ran with it.)

One-nil to Jones.

The restaurant would be closed on Thanksgiving, so Emma had let the staff leave a little earlier than usual that Wednesday, offering to finish clearing the remains of the service.They worked such long hours that it was just a little something she could give them to show they were appreciated. Once she had finished the last of the nightly chores, she holed herself up in the small administration office at the back of the kitchen with a notepad, a delivery list and a copy of the menu that was meant to be debuting that Friday… but wasn’t because of a huge fuck up with their suppliers meaning that the seasonal ingredients they needed were not going to be available in sufficient quantities. Meaning half the dishes needed to be tweaked or completely reworked.

She was hunched over the menu, the office dark apart from the stark halogen bulb of the old-fashioned reading light that illuminated the workspace. Cross referencing each item against the revised order list was time consuming but it wasn’t like she had any grand plans for the holiday that she was being kept away from.

There was a sharp little rap at the door. Glancing up, she saw it was Killian. She’d forgotten he was still there. Or maybe she’d hoped he’d already gone.

“I’m about to head off, you okay to lock up?”

She nodded, mumbling non-committedly as her eyes begun to blur over the figures.

“Problem, love?”

“Just a little menu rotation.”

He took a step into the room.

“I can help-”

Her eyes snapped to meet his. “I don’t need your help, Jones. I’m more than capable.”

His jaw went loose and his hand went to rub against his neck. “I never said you weren’t.”

With a snort, she dropped the pen she was holding with a haughty shrug of her shoulders. “Could have fooled me.”

He approached the desk, walking as he always did in that predatory way where his hips moved first, before he planted his hands onto the oak surface.

“You know, Swan, if you gave me a chance we could be a great team.”

“I don’t need a partner.”

He smirked, his lips raising on one side, giving her the smoothest look. “Actually, love, a partner is probably something you could really make use of.” The way he said ‘partner’ was so salacious she almost blushed at the innuendo. He’d never really tried to flirt with her but he sure seemed to be now. She fueled the heat of the blush into a sharp retort.

“Oh, and you fit the bill?”

His reply was an irreverent shrug. Damn, he seemed to think he could just snap his fingers and women’s panties would drop, she thought.

Emma gritted her teeth. “Here’s the thing Jones, if there is one thing I can tell you about Archibald’s, it’s that I am off the menu. For you.”

“Hmph,” he nodded, tilting his head so he could see the paperwork in front of her before she could cover it with her hands. Then he pulled back, standing tall again, giving her a perfect view of the way his jeans hugged his hips. “Well that is a pity.”

She looked away before the urge to stare overcame her. “Goodnight Jones.”

“Goodnight Swan.” A few steps towards the door, he seemed to think better of it, pausing and turning back. “You know love, mackerel would work much better than halibut.”

She ignored him.

Fuck, he was right.

She substituted the mackerel.

He didn’t mention it.

The period from Thanksgiving to Christmas was, as normal, pretty much a whirlwind. Working six days a week, 13 hours a day was something she had gotten used to over the years but it never got any easier.

Archie was spending more and more time at The Cricket as the new venue really came into its own with its fusion of French and American fare. Emma had felt a little puff of pride when Archie had stipulated that she was to have the final say on decisions in his absence, but in reality that meant paperwork and arguing back and forth with their delivery service- neither task being her forte.

There were dozens of Christmas party bookings coming up in the week that led to the day itself and Emma had been left with the task of double checking the stock of non-perishables. While she would rather be getting prep done for the night ahead, she instead found herself atop a none-too sturdy step ladder counting boxes of risotto rice.

“Need a hand?”

She took a deep breath. Killian. Again. He had this awfully bad habit of discovering her whereabouts when she was not in the mood for his verbal jousting.

She schooled her features into a scowl. “Not from you.”

“Ooohhh, so hostile.” he hummed.

She twisted back on the ladder, keeping a firm hold onto it with one hand. “You should be used to it by now. Why don’t you go expend your efforts on one of your fan club members. Or have you worked your way through them already?”

“Come again?”

“Come on. I’m not blind. I’ve seen the flirting.”

He seemed to toss that thought around in his mind for a moment. “You seem to have the complete wrong impression of me, lass.”

“I can only go on what I’m given,” she shrugged before trying to return to her task.

But her feet did not want to cooperate. Her shoes (oh-so-practical Crocs) were hygienic but not maneuverable and suddenly her foot was catching on the rung of the ladder, her shoe was flying off and she was falling.

In the instant panic of feeling the earth move from beneath her, Emma didn’t have time to scream. Instead, she froze, her body tensing in anticipation of an impact. An impact that didn’t happen. Instead she landed firmly in Killian’s outstretched arms.

He groaned softly. One of his arms had found its way around her waist, the other around one of her legs. It was an awkward catch to be sure, but certainly less perilous than landing on the floor with all the injuries that could afford. For a second, they were still. She could hear his breathing at her neck and the firmness of his chest where he was holding her against him. The shock of the fall combined with his current closeness was disconcerting and the racing of her heart was difficult to affix a cause to. A moment passed by where both seemed frozen in position. Until Emma shook her head and reminded herself just who was currently manhandling her.

“Um, thanks,” she mumbled, (suddenly quite aware of just how close his hand was to her ass).

Gently, he lowered her to the ground, her feet landing in front of his, one bare of its shoe. Slowly she turned to face him. His eyes scanned over her - but not in the way she saw him eye up Ruby when she wore a particularly tight shirt.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, his eyes full of genuine concern.

“Just my pride,” she shrugged. Then she swallowed some of her remaining pride, “If you hadn’t have been there-”

“Well, I was. And maybe it was a little my fault.”

“Oh?”

“I distracted you.”

He was certainly distracting her now. Somehow in the store room's dim light, his attractiveness was even more evident. In the time they had worked together, she hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on his handsome face, or the blueness of his eyes, or the way he just held himself so confidently. Finding reasons to dislike him had superseded that. Now though it was difficult, his presence almost hypnotic at this proximity. She was almost able to understand his sway among the ladies who she worked with.

Emma shrugged, giving her best appearance of indifference, “Yeah. I guess you did.”

Conflicting thoughts made thinking straight difficult. He’d caught her. She’d felt his arms around her and now was just inches away from his irritatingly perfect face. He was also not trying to tease her about her fall… Yet he was still the same guy who’d flirted so terribly with her and tried to mess with her menu.

“Well, I’ve done enough damage here. I’d best head up prep.”

There was something about the way he looked at her before he left. It was just for a second. Barely enough to register, but she noticed. It was the way he tilted his head and his eyes seemed to narrow just a little. But it - and he- was gone before she could dwell on what it meant. Well, not too much anyway.

Christmas Eve meant one last day of work and then a whole two days off thanks to the way the days fell that week. Emma intended on using these to catch up on her sorely neglected Netflix queue and work on the tub of Italian gelato that she had been hoarding in her freezer. As stressful as she knew the day would be, she bound into the restaurant with a light spring in her step at the prospect of a mini-vacation.

The junior chefs were already at work prepping the mountains of vegetables needed for three full sittings. Belle was supervising the construction of their special Christmas desserts and most everyone else was engaged in some kind of activity which gave the whole kitchen a pleasant buzz.

Someone had turned on the radio and Christmas tunes were their soundtrack to work. For once, Emma didn’t grumble, in fact the music seemed to be putting her in a festive mood. So much so that as she walked past Killian’s station, she took a moment to stop and wish him Merry Christmas.

“Thanks Swan,” he replied, his voice lacking its usual melodical spark.

She paused, watching as he filleted a cod, his sharp knife carefully maneuvering through the silvery flesh. She had to admit, he was pretty good at it.

“Any plans?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light.

He shook his head. “Nope, aside from a Skype call with my brother and his family tomorrow. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

With a frown, Emma placed her hand over his, halting his knife.

“Have I done something to you?”

After a second’s pause, he lifted his head. “Not at all,” he drawled. Emma could smell lies a mile off.

“Then what is it?”

He placed the knife down and sighed. “It is acceptable to dislike the holidays, love, especially when your loved ones are thousands of miles away.”

“Oh,” she frowned, realizing she knew nothing about his family. She smoothed her hands over her apron.

He seemed to notice her reaction and his own posture softened somewhat. “I’ve only got my brother left and he’s in London. Last year he made it over here but he and his wife just had a child and, you know.” He gave her a sad little smile. It was strange seeing him so melancholy.

“Sorry, that must be hard.” She hesitated, before adding, “I wouldn’t know, I don’t have any family.”

“You don’t?”

She looked away. “Foster kid,” she shrugged.

“I had no idea,” he said softly.

“I don’t advertise it. I usually spend the holidays solo,” she explained before offering him her own small smile. “I guess we have something in common then. The whole ‘alone for the holidays’ thing.”

“So it seems,” he nodded. “Though I do hope that isn’t the only thing.”

And there it was- that little spark back again, the timbre of his voice and the flirty glance that she didn’t seem to mind so much anymore.

Maybe it was because it was the holidays, or maybe it was Emma feeling just a little sorry for him. Either way, she decided that making peace with Killian Jones would be her good deed for the Christmas season.

Karma and all that.

With this frame of mind, it was just past closing when she marched up to his station. “Jones, you busy after work?”

He cocked his eyebrow before a slow grin spread across his face.

Emma rolled her eyes. “I’m not propositioning you,” she drawled, “I need your help.”

“Oh?”

“Gepetto’s has this new soup that the critics cannot get enough of, and guess who has procured a sample?”

Killian gave her a look of admiration. “Why Swan, I never took you for one to partake in espionage.”

“Hardly. He fired a busboy who happens to be friends with one of our pot washers. He figured the soup could buy him a trial here. He was right.”

“And you need my help to-?”

“Figure out what the hell is in it.”

“Hmm. I do love a challenge. Give me half an hour.”

“You’ve got 20 minutes.”

The small pot of soup was waiting on one of the metal prep benches when he finally sauntered over just as the last of the waiters left. He’d taken off his chef’s whites and replaced them with a pair of faded black jeans and a midnight blue button down whose sleeves he had rolled up to his elbows. Emma felt a little involuntary jolt of attraction when he approached. Somehow, the tiredness of his eyes had added to his appeal, giving him a drowsy, almost dreamy look which shouldn’t have worked but did.

“About time, Jones,” she quipped.

“I had to get something.” He held up a long, thin piece of dark material.

“What the hell is that?”

“It’s a blindfold, Swan. Have you never done a blind tasting?”

Emma shook her head, glancing warily at the item in his hands. “Sounds like something you made up.”

He took the last few steps to where she stood, hunching over so they were eye to eye. “The idea is to dull your other senses and therefore increase your sensitivity to taste.”

“And that works?”

“You’ll just have to find out.”

It took Emma a second to nod her agreement, slowly, not taking her eyes of him as he winked and held up the cloth. She placed her hands on the table in front of her and let him wrap the blindfold around her face, his hands quickly tying a gentle knot.

“Not what?” she asked.

There was no reply. Instead she heard the sound of the stood next to her scraping against the tiled floor, a soft clang as he picked up a spoon, the gently sloshing of liquid as he stirred the soup.

“Open wide, Swan.”

The spoon was at her lips. She parted them slowly, allowing it to slip into her mouth, her lips closing over it and taking the soup with them as he gently withdrew the silverware.

“What can you taste?” he asked. He was so close, his voice barely above a whisper but so loud in the quiet kitchen.

Emma let the soup roll over her tongue. It was delicious. “Celery… shallot… leek, garlic - mmm, is that clove?”

She tugged the blindfold up onto her forehead.

Hell, he was closer than she thought, just inches away from her. Her eyes flickered automatically to his mouth as she tried to hold the memory of the flavours in her mind... as she also told herself to remember all the reasons why Killian Jones was a bad idea.

So why did she suddenly want to kiss him? He was looking at her so intensely- but not in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. Quite the opposite. Rather, it was like she was seeing him without the persona he wore in the kitchen. Like somehow she was seeing a real part of him, like she had earlier than day when he’d talked about his family.

Clawing the blindfold from her head, she faltered as she tossed it to him. “H-here,” she said, “Your turn.”

Titling his head to one side (in that curious way she had seen him do many times when he was intrigued) he said nothing, but merely nodded and complied with her request.

She stirred the soup, the spoon swirling the liquid until she raised the cutlery from the bowl. She had to lean a little closer to bring it to his lips.

“Open,” she whispered. She watched the spoon disappear into the pinkness of his mouth, his tongue peeking out to take the last drops from his full, luscious lips as Emma’s hand wrapped around the spoon and clutched onto it for dear life.

Free of his eyes on her, she stared at his face: his sharp jaw that met a strong neck, the muscles that contracted as he swallowed, the crop of thick, dark hair that fell over his forehead. It was quite the visage to be sure.

“Yes, clove,” he finally muttered, “And, maybe saffron?” He gestured to her with his hand. “Another Swan.”

Dipping the spoon back into the soup, she dawdled-

“Anytime you please,” he chuckled, his smile unbearably tempting-

She dropped the spoon, her hands moving instead to cup his face, her lips meeting his a moment later, kissing him, tasting the soup on his lips-

It seems he was taken by surprise - indeed she was - and it took a moment for him to kiss her back, to bring his hands to her waist, to part his lips and swipe his tongue between hers. It was altogether intoxicating, the way they moved together and the pace increased-

In a moment of clarity, she was able to stop herself. Pulling back just a little, she used her hands to tug the blindfold down and around his neck.

His cheeks were delightfully flushed, his eyes bright.

She faltered. “I… I mean, I’m…”

She wasn’t really sure what to say. The man she had been determined to hate had now became the man she wanted to kiss again, more than anything. Killian’s hands found their way from her waist to her hands. He held them firmly.

“I’ve wanted to kiss you for quite some time,” he admitted.

Emma blushed and looked away. “Yeah, to add to your list of conquests in the kitchen.”

She glanced back at him. He looked almost… hurt.

“Why do you think that about me?” he asked, his grip on her hands loosening.

She could only be honest. “Jones, you flirt with everyone. Well, everyone except me.”

He stared at her, like he was willing her to see something. “Aye, love. With everyone except you.”

“Like I said…” she began.

“Emma - haven’t you realised it’s not real? That’s all just an act - my chef persona if you will. You play the serious, stern one in the kitchen, my choice is the jovial flirt.”

Her heart began to beat faster as she understood his meaning. He was right - she wasn’t that strict taskmaster when she was at home - she was fan of grilled cheese, bad romantic comedies, sleeping past noon and never clearing away a dirty dish without a damn good reason. Her work persona was all part of building her career and commanding the kitchen.

It must have been her expression that told him she got it. Because he was kissing her again, this time with more purpose; hands cupping her face, their knees jostling together as she faced him on the stools upon which they sat.

Her toes curled in pleasure, looping her hands around his shoulders as she let him pull her into his lap so his mouth could press kisses onto her neck- and that spot behind her ear that produced a burning tingle that went straight to her gut and reminded her just how long it had been since she’d been kissed (and that she’d never been kissed like that).

There was a fleeting moment as she undid the buttons of his shirt and he pulled at the pins holding her hair back that she wondered if what this was leading to was wise-

“What are you thinking, Swan?” he murmured against her chest, where his lips were finding the bare skin.

“That this is crazy,” she sighed as he nipped against her flesh.

Pausing, he looked up. “Do you want to stop?”

It took one look into those blue eyes to tell her the answer to that question.

“No. No I don’t.”

It was the morning after Christmas.

The day after a day spent mostly naked and mainly in Killian Jones’ bed.

“Morning love,” he whispered as she stirred against him.

“Morning,” she cooed, stretching out like a cat until he wrapped his arm around her waist.

“So, breakfast and then a walk maybe? We really should get some air at some point.”

She gave him a false pout. “But then I’d have to put on clothes.”

“Which I agree is a mighty shame-”

She squealed as he pulled her closer and peppered kisses over every inch of skin he could reach until she begged for mercy.

Twisting to face him, she suddenly felt awfully domestic. And that’s when the cold feet struck.

“Hey, Killian, this has been, well, it’s been great.”

“I agree,” he nodded, and by god she just wanted to kiss him again. She looked away from his face to the sharp bones of his collar.

“I - just so you know - don’t do more than one night. I thought you should know.”

He raised a brow, almost comically.

“By my calculations, you already have.”

He was right, yes, kind of.

“Yeah, I mean, technically-”

“And you haven’t turned into a pumpkin and the sky hasn’t fallen in and the world still turns-”

“What are you trying to say?”

He smiled again and pressed a kiss onto her forehead. “I’m trying to say, Chef Swan, that I would very much like to get to know you outside of that bloody kitchen. Both with - and without - clothes.”

Was it bad to say that was about the most romantic thing a guy had said to her in years? Probably. But right then, she didn’t care. Because she did want to get to know him better too and see what lay beyond the tight jeans and pretty awesome sexual prowess.

“I could handle that,” she said, all attempts at sounding nonchalant falling flat as she grinned back at him.

The Ship and Swan gastro pub opened two years later; a perfect fusion of her perfectionism and his flare. It was a roaring hit with the critics.

As was the way he proposed that opening night, in the middle of the dining room.

She said yes.

A/N: Thanks for reading!

@teamhook @catsofia @captainswanismyendgame

#captain swan #cs ff #cs au #cs ff au #jill writes things #tropes by jill #chef au

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prorevenge · 7 years

Text

Shady hotel business.

WARNING: This post is looooooong. If you want a quick fix, this isn’t the story for you. If you want to dive deep into the layers of corruption where it’s all about the little things, then please read on. Also, I'm fond of lists.

This happened two years ago. I was twenty and a recent university dropout. I needed a year to empty my head, recover from imminent burnout, and make some money to help support my single mom and my younger sister (who’d just given birth with no father in the picture). I was a very insecure person at the time. I really wanted to work, but without a degree life sucks balls... until I got contacted by Mr B.

Mr B found me on a federal website for job-applicants, where I was registered. He was looking for a manager to help manage his small hotel: a beautiful establishment with six lofts located in the heart of a medieval city (my city). I answered him immediately, saying that I had no prior experience with management and that my qualifications didn’t exactly lie in that area, but thank you very much for the consideration. He answered back, saying ‘just come take a look and we’ll talk about it.’

First thing I did was Google Mr B. He had an architectural firm and was coaching a professional football (soccer) club, which is kind of a big deal in my little country. Secondly, I Googled the hotel. It was indeed really small and fairly new; an old underground mill transformed into six luxury lofts, but with the medieval style and feel kept intact. I decided I had nothing to lose by simply visiting and hearing him out. I was extremely curious, too. Why me? Well, you can probably guess, but I couldn’t. I was naïve, terribly insecure and in desperate need for a job, to prove to myself and to the world that I hadn’t taken a gap year for nothing.

Long story short, I met with Mr B that same week. He was a short, business-like, fairly handsome man, friendly enough, didn’t sweat the little things, showed me around and explained to me what he expected. It was a slow season so I’d have some time to learn the ropes. Before I knew it I was employed. Mr. B made me three promises:

a salary between €1400 and €3000 that would increase depending on the hotel’s (my) performance

a job as a manager + receptionist, since the place was small enough to combine the two

my own room in the hotel, so I wouldn’t have to commute daily

The work started immediately. I was designing stickers to put on the doors, translating letters in German, French and English, working with the booking software, making schedules for the weeks to come… it was a rush, like nothing I’d ever done and I was loving the experience. Finally Adult Life, Responsibility, a way to prove my worth!!! As business started to pick up and all lofts were opened for rent, I was soon working from six in the morning ‘till ten in the evening, doing administration until it was time for check-in, then checking people in, communicating with clients and suppliers, checking people out again, preparing rooms for the next visit, grocery shopping at the market nearby and preparing breakfast for clients, etc, etc.. I also had an old work phone that I couldn’t turn off under any circumstance. If clients called, I had to be accessible.

PHASE 1. REALIZATION

Soon inconsistencies started to rear their ugly heads:

1. There was only one cleaning lady for the whole hotel. She had a second job at another, bigger hotel, so I could never be certain if she’d be available. I realized I’d have to jump in to help with the cleaning. I hadn’t been informed of that. I pressed my boss about this and he gave me the name of some African girl who ‘cleaned his house sometimes’. Off the books.

2. Only then did I realize that I hadn’t signed a single piece of paper. He said he’d fix that as soon as possible. I didn’t push my luck, since I was a new recruit and very eager to please.

3. The room he promised me (where I would be living) turned out to function as an office/supply room/washing room. In other words, the cleaning supplies were stashed there, as well as the washing machine, the keys and documents for all the lofts, etc.. I would be living at work, literally. Also, there was no bed. I was to sleep on the floor.

4. Mr B had disappeared from the face of the earth. Or, well, he acted like he had. He lived in a luxury apartment only 5 minutes from the hotel, but he didn’t like to be contacted about ‘all the little things’.

5. I soon figured out there had been a reason some of the lofts only became accessible once I moved in as a manager. They weren’t finished. Some bathrooms needed extra insulation, one of the faucets made a horrible noise, locks needed fixing, cables and insulation were visible in some spots, wood clippings were raining down from some of the beams (I would later discover there were WOOD BUGS in the beams, something he hadn’t informed me about and that he’d left untreated for months! Guess how I found out…)

6. Mr B started to ask little favors. Like could my mom fix some curtains for his daughter’s bedroom, or couldn’t my uncle help with the repairs in lofts 2, 3 and 4… all of it for a little price, if you catch my drift. I was the manager after all. I was supposed to fix that stuff. And if my family could do it for cheap…

7. At the same time, he managed my budget. This is understandable of course, but let me elaborate: managing a hotel costs money. The only money he gave me was on a credit card that was constantly empty. Be that as it may, I did the best I could, saving money by doing most of the washing and ironing myself (the laundry service he’d hired was extremely unreliable, but he didn’t want to change because it was cheap), being frugal with the food (every room had luxury coffee machines they were free to use and the coffee cost me a fortune), not making expensive phone calls, etc.. I handled huge amounts of money coming in (most of the guests were rich people), but wasn’t allowed to go to the bank and put more money on the hotel’s credit card.

Once we needed an extra mattress because more clients would be coming in than anticipated and they all wanted to stay in our biggest loft. I had already begged him for an extra foldable bed (the one he told me to use was so cheap it bent sideways if you put weight on it, so he reluctantly, after much begging, supplied me with a new one). I drove all over the province on my day off, hunting for the best, cheapest mattress. I found an incredible one, bought it with my own money, and informed my boss of the cost. I received a very angry e-mail, basically telling me I better watch what I spend…

8. As I became a more capable manager, Mr B became more demanding. I have a friend with severe schizophrenia that I visit in prison from time to time. You might know how harrowing a process it is to visit someone in prison. I had planned my visit meticulously to make sure I’d be back in time to relieve my sister who, with her little baby of a few months, was holding the fort for me, managing check-ins and phone calls. When I entered the waiting room, I had to turn off my work phone. This was no big deal, seeing as the fixed phone at work would always ring first and my sister was there to pick it up.

When I exited prison and jumped into my car to rush back to work, I had a few missed calls from my boss. I rang back, only to be cussed out for not picking up my phone. I hadn’t been at the hotel, either. I told him my sis was there in my stead. He said he didn’t want to talk to my sis, he wanted to talk to me – insert berating tone, short, angry sentences and a whole lot ot guilt-tripping.

9. Furthermore, since the card was so often empty but rooms needed to be cleaned every day (by a group of off-the-books cleaning ladies that I’d rounded up left and right, since I had no other choice) I was forced to pay these ladies out of my own pocket, which left me broke half the time.

10. Aside from hotel-related phone calls, Mr B had started to connect some of his personal calls to my phone as well, namely the ones he didn’t want to deal with himself, aka disgruntled companies asking for undue payments, creditors asking for his phone number and address, etc.. As he was my boss, I didn’t give these people his information. Occasionally, I got a call from a fancy pansy company in France, telling me it was time for Mr B’s bi-annual ordering of luxury wines.

11. The money didn’t come. My money, that is. My salary. My bread and butter.

12. Lots. More. Shit.

PHASE 2. DETERMINATION

Finally, I realized I needed to get out of this situation. Or rather, I’d known for a long time, but I had hoped things would settle, he’d give me my contract and I could start making demands. Pssssht, naw.

So I made plans:

1) The Turkish cleaning lady. Since this woman had been at the hotel from the very beginning and was way more experienced than I was, she didn’t like me at first (understandable: I was a stupid youngling but still technically her boss). However, all it took was a few questions about her kids and a whole lot of admiration (not fake) for her cleaning skills, and she opened up to me like a floodgate. I paid her more than Mr B had told me to pay her (out of my own pocket) because she really was the most reliable person I worked with and she could clean a loft like nothing I’d ever seen. She taught me a lot. Soon she was loyal to ME instead of him. And once that happened, the little secrets started coming…

2) My Turkish cleaning lady told me about the girls who’d worked at the hotel before me (all young, non-white and inexperienced, just like me). They’d all quit within the span of a month (there were six of them). I was the only one who had stuck around (probably because I lived with my mom so I wasn’t dependent on my salary to survive). I soon got hold of one of them. I visited her and did a cross examination. She told me about Mr B’s treatment, his refusal to make the job official and how he still owed her quite a bit of money. This was useful information, because I now knew for sure that this guy wouldn’t give me my contract, ever. I still had hopes, because he’d found me though a federal channel, which at the time I took to mean that he wanted to do things the right way. FALLACY.

3) I had my family behind me. At this point, my uncle had done lots of big repairs (insulation, plumbing, fixing furniture, etc), my mom had worked on most of the curtains and some of the flooring, my sister was pulling FREE SHIFTS to help me carry the enormous workload that no person in their right mind would give to a single employee...

Thing is, my family had only been keeping their mouths shut because they love me and want to support me. I was a bookish, introverted, insecure, eager to please little girl. My mom is a criminologist who works with very scary people on a daily basis. She knows a crook when she sees one. My uncle is the most brutally honest, short-tempered, intimidating repairman you’ve ever seen. He loves me, but he hates entitled little shits who call themselves businessmen. My mom’s calm and collected powers of logic combined with my uncle’s brash ruthlessness was a death trap waiting to happen. But that wasn’t all.

Let me tell you a little something about my sis. She’s fierce. In high school, she was a super popular bomb shell who got thrown out of two different schools for bad behavior and whom I witnessed cussing out a police officer on more than one occasion. Uhu, that kind of delinquent. All of that changed when she got pregnant. She cleaned up her act in a spectacular way and is now working as a human rights advocate. She’s also one of the best mothers I’ve ever seen. In any case, back then, when the mother things had only just started, she redirected her efforts towards her family. I guess she felt guilty for messing up my life for so long (I developed OCD because she used to stress me out so much – I’m fully cured now, though) She was helping me at the hotel because she knew I needed her in case things got bad.

4) Lastly, there was the thing that made ME angry. I’d been experiencing some difficulty with the administration of the hotel, mostly booking-related. When I went digging through emails and online payments, I noticed inconsistencies, and eventually concluded that Mr B was messing with my shit. He was cancelling services and contacting people behind my back, without telling me anything, leaving me to desperately search for bugs and fix last-minute bookings. That’s when I snapped.

PHASE 3: REVENGE, FINALLY

I convinced the Turkish cleaning lady, as well as all the other cleaning ladies, to stop working at the hotel. The Turkish lady had better prospects anyway, but she hadn’t been sure about leaving. I asked her to keep it a secret. I would inform Mr B.

I contacted the creditors who’d been bugging me for months, as well as the companies who were still waiting for their money, and gave them Mr B’s phone number and home address. Because, you know… business is business

I wrote a very honest review of the hotel on one of the major booking sites, telling everyone all about those giant bugs in the ceiling…

I basically told my family they could be themselves now, I was quitting the hotel anyway. So my mom sent the bill, my uncle made his phone calls and my sister, well…

I made sure the hotel was fully booked for the upcoming month (every year my city holds this huge street festival that people from all over Europe flock to, so that wasn’t too difficult

I sent Mr B an email saying I was quitting on Sunday. I was valiant enough to finish my work for the week. Oh, and the cleaning ladies would be quitting, too

I gave the work phone to my sis, reclined in my seat and listened to the beautiful conversation that unfolded when Mr B called. My sister didn’t disappoint. She spared no expense.

I thought about reporting his shady antics to the police, but decided against it (for my own sake, as well as the cleaning ladies). I did report him to the federal service for employment and told them he was using their site to lure people into undeclared work against their will. The person I spoke to made sure our conversation was confidential. So no further legal action for me. I was satisfied with the knowledge that on Monday morning, Mr B would have to drop everything and rush to the hotel to serve his snotty guests, prepare breakfast, struggle with his faulty administration, receive complaints from kookoo clients, write shitty emails to his angry suppliers, do the washing, the ironing, the cooking and the cleaning, and all the other stuff I had been doing for months, unpaid and underappreciated.

Thanks for making me a thousand times stronger, jackass. I regret nothing.

PS: The hotel is no longer in business. Whoops.

(source) (story by OpheliaoftheRipples)

#pro revenge #by OpheliaoftheRipples #prorevenge #pro revenge stories #revenge stories #pettyrevenge

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amorphousalien · 7 years

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So, not that literally anyone cares, but here's the deal with that person that was harassing me all week. Waay back in the good ol days of mid 2015 (sarcasm, fuck 2015)- I was experiencing a lot of really intense, frequent Rick shifts that were making me near catatonically depressed and dissociated. After seeing the season 2 finale, they just got worse. So I opted to unfollow all the r/n/m blogs I was following, stay out of the tags, stop looking canonmates, etc pretty much everything but actually taking Rick off my kinlist because I wasn't coping with it well and I needed to take a break. I even put on several pages of my blog that I did not want /anyone/ kin from ric/kandmorty contacting me because at the time it was basically a trigger. Then I start getting messages fromsomeome kin with M/orty, asking to talk to me, compare memories, etc. I told them I didn't want to talk to anyone, that it was triggering, etc. I accidentally posted one of their asks publically instead of privately, because mobile sux, and wound up getting a slew of TERRIFYING messages from them saying shit like "How could you do this to me?? I trusted you!! You exposed us!! How could you do this why would you do this to us?? I'm going to have to delete my tumblr because of you, how could you do this, we trusted you!" I panicked, deleted the ask, apologized profusely, and was generally successfully guilt tripped into allowing this person to continue messaging me and probing me for information about my Rick kintype. For maybe 6 months, they continued talking to me. I would ignore them for as long as I could, but eventually caved and replied to them out of boredom or fear, or they'd send me a slew of guilt trippy messages apologizing for bothering me, saying they were such an awful person, they always did this, everyone hates them etc etc etc. After 6 months, I was accepted to Job Corps and told them I was leaving for school and would have no internet access until I graduated. About four months into school l, my parents bought me a phone and were paying for my service. I logged back into tumblr to find about twenty "Hey"s and "Hi"s and "Oh my god I'm so sorry I know you hate me I just don't know what to do I'm so awful I'm sorry for bothering you"s in my messages from them. I told them I was in school and wouldn't have time to message them very often. I wanted them to just leave me alone, but I didn't want to be outright mean and they weren't taking the hint that I didn't want to talk to them. Or maybe they were and that's why they'd send me that guilt trippy bullshit every few weeks. And unfortunately I was an anxious wreck having just escaped multiple physically, memtally, emotionally, and sexually abusive relationships at this point. So I was easily manipulated and desperate for friendship. Which they knew. I'd mentioned it briefly and had vented about it multiple times on my kin blog. Anywho. I came back from school after about 6 months. Tumblr had dome some weird update and I couldn't log into my account anymore (except from my ipad where I was still logged in). I remade my account and directed everyone to my new kin blog (this one). I'd kinda forgotten about them at this point, but when I remade my blog they started messaging me again. I was pretty worn down and still pretty desperate for friends. I was recovering from the depressive Rick shifts and started talking to them more and more about our canons, and eventually decided we were canonmates. By the time we'd 'known' each other for about a year, they'd mentioned to me multiple times that they were living in an abusive situation and needed to get out. Three things about that last sentence. 1. *Known: Our entire relationship was one of us (mostly them) messaging the other every few days, or even every couple of weeks, to say "Hey"-"Hi"-"How are you"-"Fine, you?"-"I'm ok" and then maybe they'd complain (extremely vaguely) about something going on at home. 2. Everything they said about their abuse was extremely vague. The most detail I could ever get was that the house they were living in was not being maintained and there was never any food. Which they blamed on their parents despite being a 20 year old adult. 3. I'd spent hours trying to give them help getting out. I looked up resource centers in their area, homeless shelters, disability, food stamps, offered to write their resume for them, etc etc etc. I was practically offering to do everything for them to get them on their feet, and they shot down my advice every single time. Around 11 months into our friendship, they told me they couldn't take being there anymore and they were going to run away. They didn't know where they were going, didn't care, kept talking about being homeless and living on the streets to get away from where they were now. So I told them to come to Colorado (where I live) so I could at least offer help in person. November of 2016, they bought a bus ticket and came to Colorado. I picked them up and took them to my apartment (a three bedroom townhouse I shared with three roommates. They were all upstairs, I lived in a sectioned off half-room behind the living room). At the time, I was working 40 hours a week at a thrift store making about 9$/h. This job was not only tearing my already chronically ill body apart, but was also causing weekly psychotic episodes and mental breakdowns. I was 3000$ in debt with my roommates. My rent was 400$/month and I was making maybe 700$/month. Even so. I was using all of my spare money feeding them, buying them a tracphone and service, toiletries, clothes, etc etc Despite how much I was spending on them, they were still asking for more food, expensive food, cigarettes, alcohol, and weed. And if I didn't say yes, they'd spiral into depressive episodes, hiding either in my room, the living room, or the bathroom, and cry. And then ask again twenty minutes later. Over. And over again. Until I said yes. They talked 24/7. Literally. 24/7. From the SECOND I came home from work til I went to bed. And frequently came into my room multiple times throughout the night to ask for cigarettes and weed. Despite the fact that I had to wake up at 6am for work. It got to the point where, despite being in constant physical pain and despite the mental break downs, I was volunteering for overtime at work every single day to afford to keep them fed and to just fucking avoid their non stop talking and guilt tripping. And this was not non stop conversing. It was non stop THEM talking. I didn't exist. I could not get a word in. They didn't expect me to reply except for an occasional "Isn't that funny/weird?" or "Do you ever do that that??". I basically clocked out mentally any time I was home. I wasn't a person to them. I was just expected to listen quietly to their thousand and one stories. I already made posts back when this started about what happened while they lived with me, so I'm not gonna go into any more detail. I don't remember most of it anyways. It was such an incredibly stressful point in my life, I developed a new alter in my system. I was rarely fronting. It was so bad, the alter that /never/ fronts, had to take over to deal with what was happening. This person has been stalking me from the second they found my blog, and five months after I kicked them out and blocked them, they're still stalking me. I had to install an ip tracker on my blog. They were checking my blog damn near 20 times a day and sending me 10 or more messages every day. I barely posted half of what I got. I was even so desperate as to text their mom to beg for help. I wanted this to end before it started. I never wanted to know them. I want nothing to do with them. I don't want to be dealing with this. I am an asocial agoraphobic shut-in. I don't want any part of this. I don't care what happens to them. I don't care what happens to Rain or Darcy or the 'KuroNekoClan'. All I was is for this to be over. I want to be left alone. I want to finish repressing everything about them. I want them to completely disappear from my memory. I have never hated nor been so terrified of someone as I am in regards to this person. I'm gonna go back to radio silence on this blog for a few more days just to be sure they're not still checking it. Everyone can still PM and I'll still reply to asks, but I'm not gonna be posting on here til I feel safe.

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