#it's the empty/lonely aspect that can be a little unsettling | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tooft · 3 years

Text

It isn't surprising that death hides itself behind the countless names we have created for it. Few like to think about their supposed end, and so those that have died will be spoken of in hushed tones, described as having passed on, or more commonly, that they are resting, at peace as they sleep beneath the earth. Eternal rest from the calamity and chaos that is living, with many choosing to think that it is a welcome respite from the world that is constantly changing and shifting. In a way, they're not fully incorrect, but their reasoning for why the dead rest so soundly is not quite right either.

See, what people don't know (or the living ones at least), is that death is utterly and exasperatingly exhausting.

To be dead is to be tired, adrift in a haze as you struggle to keep your spirit, soul, whatever it is, from fading too much. Without the energy that comes with having a physical vessel, the dead are perpetually on the edge of burnout, with newly deceased barely able to handle a few hours at a time. It does get easier as one adjusts to the afterlife, able to stay up for weeks or even months, but the desire to just drift off into blissful unconsciousness never eases up. It just is a matter of building up one's ability to resist it.

Most can't be bothered, and I can't say I blame them. Unless someone was murdered, or has some other form of dramatic, unfinished business there's little reason to stay aware of the passage of time at all. The mortal world has little impact on that of the dead, and most are content to just catch up on any important events that happened during their rest the next time they're able to shake off sleep.

I suppose that the dead being buried in cemeteries both helps and hinders the eternal rest that so many choose to turn to. A comfortable place to sleep is hard to pass up, especially when it's conveniently arranged so that there's little interaction with the more rowdy aspects of living society. Definitely makes it harder to motivate themselves to get up, but then when they've been dead long enough to see the world they lived in disappear into modern day society then there's little reason to hang around. So, they rest, deep within the earth where few can bother them. And the few that do... well that's why I'm around.

Now, given what I've just told you, it might sound like a contradiction when I say that I am the barrier between the living and the dead. Surely a job like that is difficult to accomplish when one spends their days struggling to resist a rather comfortable nap in the dirt. Still, it's true. Anyone trying to start trouble in my cemetery will have to go through me first, and I've yet to find the desire to sleep stronger than my desire to protect those under my care.

There is a reason I'm awake, beyond my overprotectiveness of my charges of course, and that is that this cemetery also happens to be where I died. It was rather dramatic, an ill-planned tryst with a lover that got a bit too stabby near the end. Guess I should have known that any relationship involving a person who wants to meet in a cemetery in the dead of night was not going to end well. I did get over it eventually, once the first few decades had past and I was able to think beyond my anger and exhaustion. Even then I didn't need to sleep as often as those who had been dead far longer than I, though I didn't understand why until one of the older spirits awoke for long enough to explain it to me.

Your site of death has power, one stronger than almost any other force I've come across. It's a gateway between you and the life you once had, a literal crossroad that you passed over to reach the inevitable end. Even if you're body no longer inhabits it, your death site holds the memory of who you once were, and with that comes a well of power and energy that fuels those still close enough to access it. So, unlike everyone else here, I am able to stay up for years before I need to rest, and even then it's only for a few hours.

So, given that I had ample time to do things, and my only friends were asleep 90% of the time, I decided that I would need to find my own ways to entertain myself. You would not believe how many games of solitaire I have played here. I like to think that all that time was useful, but I still somehow suck at that game. I find my other job a lot more productive, even if it doesn't happen all that often.

See, I work to scare the shit out of the living.

Not all of them of course, not even most of those that come to visit. Many are just here to see those long gone from their lives, to reminisce and honor the dead who sleep below them. Bothering them would be a waste of time, not to mention rude, and if I tried scaring off every single person who came through those gates I would not have enough energy to even speak with you now. No, my targets are those that come with hopes of bothering the dead, though they might not know that's what they're doing at the time.

The living tend to have respect for the dead, but not everyone does. Mainly kids, teenagers who are bored and angry with the world, or just those that think the remote nature of a cemetery means that no one will be bothered by something that their doing. They arrive and cause whatever ruckus they're seeking out, and oftentimes waking up a lot of people who have more than earned a peaceful rest.

Some are easier to deal with than others. I like the ones that come with their boards and pendants, rituals to speak to those that can barely keep their eyes open. They're easy to mess with, you just need to knock over a couple of things and poke the planchette around enough to get the threat of retribution across. Maybe throw in a few whispered words and far off cackles to be caught by the wind that just so happens to creep into their heads. They tend to leave in a hurry, to which I say good riddance. They're better off trying to talk to some pissed off spirit or poltergeist in a house somewhere, those that want to talk and oftentimes rarely stop doing so once you get them started.

Others are... interesting to say the least. While annoying, at least most of those trying to communicate with us are respectful about it. Those who just come to a cemetery to raise hell or to have a seemingly empty location to perform acts away from living eyes are quite different in that regard. If they do acknowledge us, it's in passing, and more than often with laughter as they taunt the scary ghosts that apparently "haunt" this location. It's all rather rude if you ask me, especially since if anyone's haunting somewhere they're not meant to be it's them. I'm a bit less creative when it comes to bothering these types of folk, I prefer to just make my presence impossible to ignore. You know those times when it feels like the air itself is pressing down on you, to the point where it's hard to breathe? While often that's just anxiety, it could also be that you managed to piss off some spirit or another, and that just happens to be the best way for them to tell you to leave.

It doesn't always work, of course. The living can be remarkably dense to the desires of the dead, even when they claim to know what we would have wanted were we still alive. They just ignore whatever signals I'm sending them, going about their business as if a cemetery isn't a place of peace. That's when I have to get a bit more aggressive.

It's a lot of work showing ourselves to the living. Even if you died in the place you're occupying in death, it can take a lot out of you to physically manifest yourself in such a way that the living can see you at all. I try to stick to more simpler methods, pushing or throwing objects or even telling them to leave. But some just don't want to listen, even when I know they're scared, they act as though they have a right to be there. So, physical manifestation becomes a lot more appealing.

Even those who take pride in their bravery find it more than a bit unsettling when a young woman dripping with blood rushes them from the shadows of the trees, screaming bloody murder. If they don't take off immediately, cackling maniacally as I wield the knife my lover left me tends to do the trick. I've yet to meet anyone whose stuck around after that, though it does tend to result in the police having to make sure that there isn't an actual murderer roaming the gravestones. I don't mind though, especially since it seems the police are getting used to such reports and don't stay long. Plus I'm usually asleep long before they arrive, since such matters are rather tiring.

It's a job I enjoy, and a job that's necessary for those who live (or "live") here. With that said, it is a lonely occupation. Any friends I've made are more often than not using their eternity to dream, which I don't mind, but it does make it harder to drift alone day after day. I've learned everything there is to know about this place, every tree and every stone. I love it more than anything, but the monotony does take its toll.

You, however, are certainly a break from the usual.

Don't get me wrong, I would have much preferred if we weren't having this conversation at all, given that doing so confirms the awful truth of the matter. But it's not like there's anything we can do to change it now. I do apologize for not intervening, but I had thought the two of you were just another pair that had come to pay their respects. By the time I saw the gun, there was little I could do to help you.

If it helps at all, they should find your body fairly quickly once someone does arrive. Hard to miss the bloodstains when they are such a contrast to the snowy winter landscape. What are the odds that another person would be murdered here? I appreciate you letting me blather on like this, it's so rare I get to talk to someone new. Usually anyone arriving here is asleep for a good few years, and even then we haven't had anyone new since the last plot was filled ten years ago. But then, I shouldn't keep you awake any longer.

I'm honestly impressed that you're still conscious, not many people tend to be at this point. I hope I've answered any of the urgent questions you might have. The rest can wait until after you've slept. There's a few places I'd highly recommend for napping, I'll take you to my favorite now! It's just over the hill there, can you walk? Wonderful, right this way.

I'm sure everyone will be happy to meet you, whenever that ends up happening. Not like we don't have time for that in any case. I do hope you like it here, moving resting spots can be a bit of a nightmare. Lots of energy needed, though I guess you could just follow your body if you truly wanted. I'll keep an eye out for anyone nearby who might be able to help. Whatever happens next, I'm sure it will be interesting if nothing else.

Sleep well, for you are among friends, my dear.

Goodnight.

#my writing #response to a prompt #short story #ghost story #technically anyways #haunting is a subjective term #writing #story

12 notes · View notes

whenihaveyouromione · 3 years

Text

When I Have You - Chapter 13

A/N: Hermione's Mudblood scar is the one thing in the movies I wish was book canon, so I've included it in here. But I am well aware it was only addressed in the movies, and not the books.

Don’t forget to follow this story’s Instagram account: whenihaveyou.romione

Read on Fanfiction.net or ao3 if you’d prefer!

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

Chapter 13

Crookshanks jumped up onto the bed, rousing Ron from his almost-sleep state. It was nearing midnight and his mind had only just started to shut down from all the thoughts running through his head.

Only a few hours ago, he'd found himself in a field with the other trainee Aurors in a realistic situation of an attack with Dark Magic. They were forced to work in teams to solve the problem and capture the “culprits.”

It had been the hardest task so far, for a lot of it had been mind games, rather than actual magic, but they'd all passed.

Afterwards, like it had been in the week that had passed since Hermione’s return, he'd come home and spent time together with his girlfriend. Then she'd gone home to her parents, he'd gone up to bed, and the day would begin again the next morning.

Whilst not ideal, it was what worked for them. Her parents' memories were slowly returning to normal, and as each day started, she became more confident in leaving them for longer periods of time. From what she’d told him, Ron thought they seemed happy to begin taking up normal aspects of their lives, such as going into London for things they needed or going out for meals at night.

Crookshanks walked across the bed, purring loudly as he searched for the most comfortable spot to sleep for the night.

It was nearing midnight, but Ron was unable to fall asleep — which was nothing unusual lately. Not having spent a single night with Hermione since her return frustrated him. He so desperately wanted to have her sleeping beside him again, to have his arms around her, to feel her warmth. It was lonely up in his room at Grimmauld Place when he knew that she wasn't too far away.

Crookshanks eventually settled by his head, taking up half of his pillow, his purrs louder than ever. Ron reached out to scratch the cat behind the ears.

He really was rather fond of Crookshanks now, and pleased that Hermione had asked him to continue caring for him. He'd begrudgingly accepted Kingsley's offer only a few weeks ago, but the request meant more when it came from Hermione. Besides, Crookshanks and he got along well when he wasn't after other animals Ron was fond of.

Ron had just started to drift off when something loud startled him awake again. At first, he thought he was dreaming, but he saw Crookshanks lift his head in the dark.

Something was banging.

Ron reached for his wand on the table beside him, lighting it and looking around. His room was empty.

Crookshanks jumped from the bed and scampered from the room, meowing loudly.

From across the hall, Harry's bedroom door opened. Ron saw the reflection of Harry's wand light.

"What on Earth is that?" he heard Harry say. The banging was getting louder, echoing throughout the house.

"It's the door," he then heard Ginny whisper. "Someone's at the door."

Ron sprang from the bed, joining his friend and sister in the hall. They both looked surprised.

"It must be someone we know," Harry said. "They wouldn't be able to find us otherwise…"

The three of them descended the stairs slowly, the desperation of whoever was at the door becoming apparent the closer they got.

They'd almost reached the bottom when a voice shouted, "Ron! Harry! Please open up. It's me!"

"Hermione!" Ginny said, and she ran the rest of the way down the stairs, into the hall and to the front door.

Ron just reached the hall himself when Ginny opened the door.

Hermione flew into the room, straight past Ginny, and threw herself into Ron's arms so forcefully that he staggered backwards against the wall.

"Hermione?" he said. "Hermione, what's wrong?" She trembled in his arms, and it took him a moment to realise she was sobbing. Her face buried against his chest as her whole body shook with terror.

Ginny came to stand near Ron and Harry, and they all looked at one another with a great deal of concern.

"Hermione," Ron said again, wrapping his arms around her, "what's the matter? Is everything okay? Are your parents —"

"It's her," Hermione sobbed into his chest. "It's… it's what happened. I… lived it… again…"

Ron shared another look with Harry and Ginny. Ginny looked very pale under the wand light, the usually stoic Hermione apparently unsettling her in this state.

"I don't understand, Hermione," Ron said. "What happened?"

But Hermione shook her head, refusing to break away from him. Her tears soaked his pyjamas as she pressed herself into his embrace.

"Why… why don't I get you a glass of water?" Ginny suggested in a shaky voice.

"Come and sit down," Ron said, and finally managing to pull her away from him, he guided her towards the living room where he forced her to sit on the couch. Harry lit the gas lamps around the room with his wand and now that he could see her properly, Ron saw that she was terrified. He'd never seen her look so frightened before.

He sat beside her and she immediately fell into his arms again.

Ginny returned with the water, but Hermione didn't realise, so Ron set his wand aside and accepted the glass.

"Hermione," Ginny whispered, "what happened?"

Ron felt Hermione shake against him again. He held her tightly, letting her know it was okay. Her tears dripped down his arm.

"It felt so real," Hermione sobbed. "Like I was there again…"

"What did?" Harry asked. "Like you were where?"

Hermione's hand moved down to her arm, and Ron saw her fingers trace the scar that had been etched into her skin some months ago now.

And suddenly he understood.

"Hermione…" he whispered.

"What?" Ginny asked, looking at Ron.

Hermione had not spoken once of what had happened to her at Malfoy Manor. It was as if she had wished to forget, and it seemed that she had for many months. Until now, when she no longer had to worry about fighting and winning a war, or finding her parents. Now, she had all the time in the world to ponder it.

"Hermione," he said again. "Are you… it's okay." And like he had done so back in Malfoy Manor, he wished nothing more than to have been the one to endure her pain.

Hermione shook her head. "It was a dream," she whispered, "but it was so real. I felt it… the pain… I felt it all again."

"It's okay," Ron repeated, holding her so tightly against him. "It's okay."

Ginny's face was so pale now. Her eyes darted from Ron, to Hermione, then to Harry, who also seemed to catch on to what Hermione was talking about. Harry had been there too; he had heard Hermione’s screams.

"What —" Ginny began.

"It was the curse, Ginny," Harry whispered. "The Cruciatus Curse. Bellatrix Lestrange…"

Ginny looked sickened. Hermione trembled in Ron's arms.

"It felt so real," Hermione said. "Like I was there again. I woke up, terrified, and I came straight here. Please… please let me stay."

"Of course," Ron said. He wouldn't have let her leave in this state, even if she'd wanted to.

"Hermione," Ginny said gently, "Is there anything you need? Anything we can —"

"No," Hermione whispered. "No, I just need…"

The words were left unspoken, but everyone understood. I just need Ron. He squeezed her even tighter.

"Will you be okay if we go back upstairs then?" Harry asked, looking at Ron. It was clear he didn’t think he should intrude, despite being Hermione’s best friend.

Ron nodded.

"Let us know if you need anything," Ginny said as she followed Harry from the room.

Hermione kept her head buried against Ron; the absence of Harry and Ginny didn't even draw her away.

Ron's own resolve broke a little, his mind going back to when they'd all been held at Malfoy Manor. He remembered the screams like it had happened yesterday. He remembered the pain, how desperate he'd been to try to get to her.

But that was nothing compared to the pain she must have felt; the fear she’d felt. He'd not once seen her more frightened than he did now, curled up against him, shaking so badly, even after the dream had occurred.

"It's alright," he murmured, "it's alright."

Ron didn't know how long they sat there for, not speaking. Gradually, Hermione stopped trembling. It was well into the early hours of the morning when she finally moved, pulling herself away from Ron's hold.

When she looked at him, she barely resembled the Hermione he knew; her puffy, red eyes distracted him from her tear-streaked face. Her hair was more dishevelled than usual, and the look of absolute terror on her face had him wanting to pull her towards him again.

"Ron…" Her voice barely broke a whisper. "Stay with me… please."

"I will," Ron said. "Of course I will." He passed her the water he was still holding, and she accepted it.

"I don't want to go through that again."

Ron watched her, unsure of what to say. He couldn't tell her that the dream wouldn't happen again, because he didn't know. He'd never experienced the Cruciatus Curse before, but he had been tortured mentally by part of Voldemort's soul, and he remembered that the dreams, the voice inside his head, had come back night after night, even weeks after he'd stopped wearing it.

"I'm here," was all he said, and she rested her head against his shoulder.

It took Ron a moment to realise that she’d fallen asleep. Her rapid breathing evened out, and when he glanced sideways, careful not to move too much, he saw that her eyes were closed.

That was where Ron stayed for the rest of the night. His arms around her, sitting on the sofa, not moving. His body became numb, but he didn’t dare leave her, not for a second. Sleep didn’t come to him at all, sitting in the darkness, as the lamps had gone out long ago. By the morning, when Ginny and Harry came back down for breakfast, Ron was still wide awake.

“Ron,” Ginny said quietly, “you need to sleep.”

“Can’t,” Ron said, “I have training in a few hours.”

“You can’t possibly be considering —”

“I have to. It doesn’t matter. I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”

Ginny gave him a disapproving look that reminded Ron of his mother, but she said no more. She left the living room with Harry.

Hermione stirred against him, her head lifting up from his shoulder. She looked around the now light room, blinking.

“Oh, no!” she said. She looked at Ron. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

Ron could only smile at her. “It’s okay… it’s okay.”

She sat up fully now, untangling herself from his arms for the first time in hours. She still looked shaken from the night’s events, but the few hours of sleep had brightened her.

Ginny and Harry entered again, the latter eating a piece of toast and dressed for training. Hermione and Ron both looked at them.

“I’m so sorry,” Hermione said. “About last night. About…”

“Don’t be,” Ron, Harry and Ginny all said at once.

Ron stood up. “I have to go in today, but if you’d rather I stay…”

Hermione looked as if she wanted nothing more than for him to stay, but after opening her mouth and closing it again, she shook her head. “I-I’ll be… fine.”

“I can stay with you, Hermione,” Ginny said, speaking over Ron, who had just started to say he’d take the day off.

Hermione smiled. “Thank you, Ginny, but I should probably go home. Mum and Dad…” But her eyes glazed over for a moment, as if she was remembering the nightmare. When she came to a few moments later, she smiled again and nodded. “Thank you.”

Ron kissed her forehead. “I’ll just go and get ready,” he said quietly.

As he went into the hall, Harry followed. “Hey, are you going to be alright?” he asked, sounding concerned. “You didn’t stay up all night, did you? We have curse-breaking today. That requires some concentration…”

Ron stopped, turning to face Harry. “I couldn’t just leave her. You saw her, she was terrified. What was I supposed to do?”

Harry glanced over his shoulder, back towards the living room, and then looked at Ron again. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

Ron nodded, heading for the stairs. “Maybe just make sure you have some triple strength coffee ready when I come back down,” he said.

…

The day was a slow one. The lack of sleep didn’t bother Ron nearly as much as his worry for Hermione did. When he’d left that morning, she’d perked up ever so slightly, but he didn’t know if that was only for his benefit.

His mind kept flashing back to her trembling in his arms, the absolute terror she must have felt in having to relive being tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange. Then, he kept remembering that moment, all those months ago, when her screams had filled every part of him, drowning him in fear and panic and being absolutely convinced that she was going to die that day. He remembered the sickening feeling of dread that had overcome him, how he couldn’t stop calling her name — for her benefit, and his own — and how every scream was both a blessing (because it meant she was still alive) and as if someone was running one hundred knives through him at once.

Harry nudged him, not for the first time.

Ron startled, glancing down at his wristwatch. It was only eleven.

“Sorry,” he muttered, and he returned his focus to the list of deadly curses they had to identify the counter-curse for.

“You really should have taken today off,” Harry muttered.

“Probably.”

They worked in silence for some time, Ron’s mind once again drifting. Harry recorded the remaining counter-curses before setting the quill down.

“Now to just actually remember how to do them,” he said. “That’s after lunch, performing them on dummies. Should be fun.”

“Yeah,” Ron murmured. “Should be.”

Harry shook his head. “Do I need to shove another coffee down your throat?”

“Maybe something stronger,” Ron said. “Something to stop me from worrying.”

Harry smiled. “Not sure they have that here, mate.”

The rest of the day dragged on even slower than the first two hours. It was the first day since he��d started training that Ron wished he wasn’t there. It seemed talking about curses was the worst possible thing to be discussing after what had happened. Everytime an Unforgivable Curse was mentioned, his mind flashed back to the horrors of Malfoy Manor, and then to Hermione cradled against him last night, more vulnerable than he’d ever seen her.

By the time five o’clock came around, he was a total mess. He stumbled through the fireplace, tripping over the step that kept all the ash in. When he looked up, swearing at the fireplace, he saw a frantic Ginny before him.

“What’s happened?” he asked. “Is Hermione okay?”

“She’s asleep,” Ginny said, her calm tone not at all matching her expression. “She’s been okay today. She says she should go home, but she wants you to go with her.”

“Me?” Ron asked, frowning. “Why?”

Ginny shrugged. “I don’t know. She loves you, she feels comfortable with you. I just think she’s very, very frightened over what happened… Ron, what did happen?”

“Harry said last night,” Ron said, “Bellatrix Lestrange tortured her on a pretence of searching for information, but it was Bellatrix Lestrange. You know why she did it. Why she chose her and not me or Harry. Where’s Hermione sleeping?”

“In your room. Ron, you mean she… she did that just because of who Hermione… is?” Ginny followed him quickly as he headed for the stairs. “That’s —”

“Sickening,” Ron said. “Yeah, I know. Be thankful you weren’t there when it actually happened…” He stopped on the landing, turning to face his sister. “You seem really bothered by it. Are you alright?”

Ginny’s eyes darted towards the hall where Ron’s room was. Then she looked back at Ron, nodding. “I just… I just wish I knew more about what you all did… none of you ever talk about it.”

“And there’s a reason for that,” Ron hissed. “A very good reason.” He pointed behind him to where Hermione slept. “No one wants to relive that.”

Ginny nodded, but said no more.

Ron walked quickly towards his room, pushing the door open. Hermione was wrapped tightly under the covers of the bed, her eyes closed, her breathing even.

He sat on the edge of the bed, unsure whether or not to wake her. It was the calmest he'd seen her since yesterday.

But his weight on the bed disturbed her, her eyes blinking open sleepily. She looked up at him, smiling weakly.

"Hey," she said.

Ron returned her smile, pushing down his concern for her. "Hey."

"How was it today?"

Ron shrugged. "Alright." He squeezed her hand from somewhere under the covers. "Ginny said you want to go home…"

Hermione nodded. "I… Mum and Dad will be so worried."

"I'll go with you," Ron said, pushing aside his doubt around being in the presence of Hermione's parents. It would not be exactly how he'd imagined meeting them for the first time as someone other than Hermione's friend, but… when had he and Hermione ever been conventional?

She smiled again. "Are you sure?"

Ron nodded. "Of course." He offered his hand to pull her out of bed. She looked so tired still — more than Ron even felt — and still rather frightened. But at least she was smiling again.

When she was on her feet, Ron added, "You up for Apparating there? I've no idea where your house is."

Hermione nodded, gripping Ron's hand tightly.

Hermione Disapparated them into a small front garden, covered by large hedges that hid them from view of the cul-de-sac where Hermione's house was.

It was a quaint place, big and two-storeys. Ron stared up at it.

They'd barely reached the front door when it flung open and Hermione's mother appeared, looking both relieved and very upset.

"Oh, Hermione!" she cried, flinging her arms around her daughter. "You're alright! We were so worried. We… we weren't even sure you actually had been here at all — our memories were a bit —" Her eyes fell on Ron, who immediately dropped Hermione's hand that he'd still been holding, though it seemed a bit silly afterwards.

"I'm alright," Hermione said, her tone emotionless. "I just… well… I just needed to see…" She looked over her mother's shoulder and into the house. "I really just need to go to bed."

Hermione's mother stepped aside as Hermione walked past her. Ron followed quickly.

“Hermione —” her mother tried, her eyes wide with fear and shock. “Hermione, what happened? Why did you disappear?”

Her father had come into the hall now, looking just as bewildered.

“I-I’ll explain in the morning,” Hermione said, not meeting either of her parents’ eyes. “I… promise.” And before they could say anything more, she disappeared up the stairs, presumably to her room.

Ron, along with her parents, all watched in silence at the space Hermione had just stood. Then, to Ron’s complete surprise, her mother addressed him by name.

“Ron… what… what is going on?”

Ron turned to them, feeling his face go red. He’d not at all imagined himself standing in the hall of the Granger house, alone with Hermione’s parents. But they looked so desperate, and he didn’t think lying to them was the way to go about it.

“Perhaps we should all sit down?” Hermione’s father suggested, indicating an archway slightly behind him.

Ron nodded and silently followed him and Hermione’s mother through the archway and into the living room. They offered him an armchair by the unlit fireplace, and they sat on a couch opposite him.

“Is she… is she okay?” her mother asked, her voice trembling slightly. “Is it… us?”

“Er, no,” Ron said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

“Then what?” her father asked.

Ron looked between them, debating what exactly he should say. How could they possibly understand what had happened to her? How could he tell them that, after altering their memories for their own safety, their daughter had gone off on a deadly hunt for parts of the most evil-wizard-to-ever-exists’s soul, had risked her life for a world neither of them were apart of, and then at one stage had an illegal curse performed on her that caused pain so excruciating that some people never recovered from it? What would they say?

But how could he lie to them either?

Hands wringing together, silently wondering if Hermione would murder him for telling them, he said, “How much do you know of, er, what happened after you… went to Australia?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Hermione’s mother — Jane, wasn’t it? — said, her voice a whisper. “She won’t tell us a thing.”

“Right,” Ron said. “Right, well…” And in that moment he made the decision. He had to tell them. And he did. He did his best to spare them the most horrifying details of the months following their departure from England, but he gave them the basis, stumbling on what had happened in Malfoy Manor more than once. He had to go back a few times to explain certain magic terms as best as possible for them, and when he did feel like they understood at least somewhat better, Ron found himself choking on his words a few times as he revealed the darker details. By the time he finished, both her parents looked at him, horrorstruck.

“She… she was tortured?” her mother asked.

Ron nodded.

"But… why?"

Ron said nothing for a long time. He stared at them both, feeling slightly sick. How was he supposed to answer that question truthfully? Had Hermione ever told them what it was like in the wizarding world for someone born to Muggle parents? And if he told them, what would they then think of him? Would they understand that not everyone shared those views? Would they understand how he felt about her?

His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. He averted their gaze, focusing on a small spot on the armchair. Eventually, he said, "They were just evil. This person… this Bellatrix Lestrange… she thought Hermione had information she needed. Which, she did, but Hermione… she didn't tell her…" He jumped to his feet, unable to bear their shocked faces any longer. "I… I'll go and check on her," he said. "And then I'll go home."

He went back into the hall and ascended the stairs two at a time. Reaching the top landing, he found himself standing in a small area with four doors. He had no idea which one led to Hermione's room, but his first attempt at opening one found him staring into an immaculate bathroom.

He found her room on his third try, Hermione once again asleep under a whole lot of covers. He watched her for a few moments, debating whether or not to do anything else, but then she stirred, her eyes looking at him heavily.

"Stay," she whispered.

"I —" Ron glanced over his shoulder, as if expecting her parents to be lingering, to see what he'd do. But they weren't; of course they weren't.

He moved over to the bed, where she was staring up at him, still half asleep. "Please stay," she whispered, and she shuffled over in her bed to make room for him.

Suddenly, the events of the day hit Ron like a Bludger to his head. The no sleep from the night before, the eight hours of training, and then explaining to Hermione's parents just what had had her running away from their house last night. Suddenly, he felt as if he could sleep for three days straight.

"I'll stay for a few hours," he said, and he laid down beside her, shoes on and everything. He'd stay until he was sure she wasn't going to relive the nightmare again.

But he was so tired, that the next thing he knew was the sun shining through Hermione's window, and her mother was calling them both down for breakfast.

20 notes · View notes

kadeuyongsun · 4 years

Text

[ november 2020. you have been cast as The King in the palace’s performance of Maleficent. your wife is played by budrelda beryl and Maleficent will be portrayed by moon ara. during every performance you will be in charge of some of the plays background aspects. though the director would normally a hire an academy trained earth elementalist for this task, he has decided to see what you can do. satisfied with your control during rehearsal, he will be holding you to a high standard when you are on stage. you get the feeling your control is being directly compared to moon ara’s control over air and if you succeed in all your showings, you may be given more opportunities to show off your powers. ]

this may be one for the history books, frankly : not sunny using his abilities, no, but his admission that he’s nowhere near perfect at something. too much time spent perfecting his acting skills and not honing in on abilities that provide more of a service. sure, lying through his teeth can be an admirable skill ( depending on who you ask ), but his elementalist nature … that’s something that could be the difference between life and death. something that could save his ass, down the line.

or … create an impeccable scene in a play. regardless, he should’ve tried harder, much sooner.

he’s been with his mentor for close to two years now. practicing and working what feels like nonstop. if he’s not rehearsing, then he’s with them. had he complained ? initially. the ache in his muscles was dreadful when they’d first started. a tiredness permeated through his being constantly, like a shockwave that never ended. ‘ the pain is good, ’ they’d told him. ‘ it means you’re actually trying. you’re actually LEARNING something now. ’

those quips, those snide remarks, they would’ve elicited a reply from the young actor ; one full of rage, malice, words made of daggers dipped in poison. he would’ve gone for the other’s throat, harsh and unforgiving, yet something stopped him. every single time, those words lodged in his throat and he simply nodded in compliance. the fact of the matter is this, and this only : his mentor was right. if he wanted to make progress, he needed to work harder. TRY HARDER. harness whatever confidence he possessed and channel that energy into something that wasn’t pretending to be someone else.

upon receiving the news that his abilities would be put to the test, an unsettling feeling nestled within the actor’s very soul. he’s improved greatly over time, there’s no doubt about it, but he’d still be considered subpar next to anyone who had trained at the academy. YET, HE TOOK THE NEWS IN STRIDE. he had no other choice. a smile so bright and cheerful, with a promise of ‘ i won’t let you down ! ’, and he was out the door. he’d hardly given ara a glance upon his departure, a rare feat, indeed ; for once in his young life, he turned down an opportunity to annoy his friend.

in truth, he feared letting the other down. he watched her succeed and wow the crowd each and every time ; ethereal, beautiful, a semblance of perfection that he ADMIRED. he should’ve been envious of her. he should’ve felt jealous of her poise and control, but there was nothing in his heart but admiration. THIS WOMAN IS PRACTICALLY HIS SISTER ; in short, she’s his best friend, and always will be. when he looked to her, up to her ( on some nights, quite literally ), she was a reminder that he could not possibly be a failure. she gives him HOPE — for what, exactly, he cannot say. a large number of things and for that, he is grateful.

perhaps that is what resulted in such a reaction from him. it wasn’t about impressing the crowd. it wasn’t about their ooh’s and aah’s, their applause, not this time. it was about showing he was something more. more than an actor, more than just a pretty face, more more more. if they enjoy it, then he’ll bow and smile pretty, just as he always does. and if he succeeds, then he’ll have proven something. not to them, no, but to himself. isn’t that what matters ?

“ you’ve chosen a lifestyle, a career, that deeply relies on presenting with your best self. failure in this regard is not an option. no wonder you hold yourself to such a high standard. let’s hope you succeed in this, little one. ” the words of his mentor, faded and distant ; though, echoing in the forefront of his mind. filling him with a dreadful sense of unease.

stage - fright has never been an option, not since the very beginning. pre-show jitters were common, yes, but they had always been from excitement — not genuine nervousness. the feeling that graced him that first night was different ; sickening, almost. his whole body felt heavy, as if weights were placed upon his shoulders, strapped to his legs. pressing down upon his chest, making his breathing difficult. calming breaths would not subdue such a feeling and he figures, half-heartedly ( with a defeatist attitude, his mentor would say ), that he’ll simply have to suck it up and carry on. power through it. wipe sweaty palms upon trousers and push the hair from his eyes, shake out the stiffness in his arms, and try to put on a damn good show.

that first night, he fumbles. JUST SLIGHTLY, JUST A TAD, just short of perfection. but that small fumble, that little falter in ability, felt nearly soul-crushing. ‘ nobody is perfect, yourself even less so, don’t let it break you. don’t let it break you, don’t, don’t, DON’T. ’ discouragement is not applicable in this scenario. can failure truly not be an option ? ‘ their eyes are on you, yongsun, all of their fucking eyes are ON YOU. ’

the second time that night, there are no mistakes. none that can be seen, not from a distance. no, the mistakes are all in the way his lip quivers, his hands shake, and his eyes nearly well with tears as he recalls his fuck up from hours before. it is not the end of the world, not by a long shot, but it sure as shit feels like it.

each night after that, he gets a little bit better. a little more confident. each show, he proves more to himself than any other. each show becomes his show ( in his own mind only, sure, but he cannot focus on much else. ) each night, a little bit more pride swells within his chest. PRIDE CONFIDENCE, AND EACH AND EVERY THING IN BETWEEN. it becomes less and less about them watching, and more about the young actor watching himself. witnessing his own success, his own abilities truly in action. outside of the lessons and sessions with his mentor, outside of the little things he does on his own, to prove that he REALLY CAN.

it all comes to him easily, second nature, or -- or first nature, really. the nature he should’ve succumbed to from the beginning, upon his grandmother’s wishes. she never got the chance to see a show prior to this, she never got the chance to see her grandson truly happy in his element. it’s that one thought, on the fifth or sixth night, that makes him fumble again. just as things are becoming his definition of perfect, he fumbles one more time. JUST ONCE MORE. those tears that had threatened him the first night, welling in his eyes yet refusing to fall, have returned to him tenfold. shaky breaths escape his lips, and yet, he powers through. HE ALWAYS POWERS THROUGH until the end of the night, when he’s alone in his dressing room, and the palace seems oh - so - quiet, and he crumbles. with his face buried in his hands and his voice muffled, he speaks aloud to the empty room,

“ i’m sorry, ” and to whom, exactly, is he speaking to ? his mentor, for failing them ? ara, for potentially letting her down ? his grandmother, for not heeding her warnings and taking her advice ? OR HIMSELF, for being oh - so short of PERFECT ?

and once again, once more for the umpteenth time this week alone, he carries on. with stained cheeks, makeup mixing with tears into a disgusting mess he looks forward to wiping away. the frustrations are wiped away that evening, along with his tears, and he moves on. his outburst left behind, forgotten in that lonely room, when he takes the stage again the following day. and the day after that, after that, and after that -- and so on, of course.. there are no more fuck up’s, no more fumbles, NO MORE TEARS.

he’s been taught better than that. perfection takes practice, discipline, and there’s no use in getting stuck within your own head. he’s taken the first step towards the ledge into becoming something MORE, it’s time to muster up the courage and take the damn plunge.

#( 𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 ��𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 ; 𝘭𝘦𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘴𝘦. / plot drop. )#kadeu: plot drop #this is a fuckin LONG ONE BOYS #but despite all the sadness and frustration #at least he has a wicked hot wife for a couple days #I MEAN WHAT DKJFNSD #formatting this was a nightmare ....

11 notes · View notes

whump-town · 4 years

Text

Shattered Hearts, Fractured Lungs

(Chapter Two; Warnings for: school shooting, violence, language, and heart failure; you can find the first chapter here)

Emily Prentiss just wants to do her job but a messy case sends her sprawling into the arms of a dying man with a toddler and his weird, broken family.

“It’s been very rare to have known you, very strange and wonderful” --F. Scott Fitzgerald

She comes back the very next day.

It’s about noon and she’d seen the blonde one-- the happy one, uhm… Penelope! Emily had watched Penelope pull up in the driveway at about eleven thirty. So, she knows someone’s home over there but when she steps out on her porch she’s not expecting him to be sitting in that rickety old rocking chair.

Idiot-- because she’d seen, from her kitchen window, Penelope helping him outside. The woman was talking his poor ear off.

The icing on the cake, of course, is that she was creating a dialogue for what to say when she got over there.

Out loud.

So, he definitely heard her talking to herself like a crazy person.

“Hey,” she says lamely, stopping in her tracks. Now she’s in a really bad spot. He looks like he didn’t sleep last night and definitely not in a talking mood with the oxygen mask over his face.

Of course, she can’t really know that he didn’t sleep last night. Spent the whole night breathlessly fighting with Dave over his own health and how he was feeling. Of course, like shit is the truth but he’s fighting the clock and he doesn’t want to go to the hospital over a little labored breathing. Now he’s paying the price. He couldn’t even stand on his own this morning. He’d laid in bed until Garcia got here and been forced to ask her to help.

Life is slowly becoming unbearable.

“I need...” she blows out an unsteady breath. She has to clench her hands to stop them from trembling. “Do you have any bananas?”

Idiot.

Stupid fucking idiot.

But he nods. It takes him a moment but he reaches up and pulls the mask off his face, pinning it against his chest. “Just go…” he curses himself, mentally for his inability to do something as simple as breathing. Why should heart failure come with not only a permanent ache in his chest but also the double hit to the lungs? Anatomy is so stupid.

“Ask Pen,” he rasps, gesturing with a head tilt that he means for her to go inside. “She’ll get you one.” He knows there’s bananas in there because Garcia always brings him some from the store. He used to eat one every morning with his coffee. Now he can’t even stomach the thought.

Insult to injury is the awkward silence that passes between them as Emily steps into his house.

She comes out a moment later, Penelope trailing her. She shows him the bananas from last week. They’re pretty brown but she’s smiling. “Actually,” Emily says, stepping out and smiling between Garcia and Hotch, “the recipes Derek’s mom’s. She, uh, sent it my way to keep me from getting bored.”

Garcia nods and Hotch rolls his eyes fondly. He’d spent the last half an hour listening to Garcia go on and on about Emily’s sexy little partner Derek Morgan. And, as insufferable as it had been, he had seen the signals the two of them were sharing. The good thing is that he was visibly not the only person unsettled by Garcia and Morgan’s flirting.

Reid really hated it.

“She’s making banana bread,” Garcia tells Hotch, bumping her hip against him.

Emily blushes, “yeah but…” She twists her shoe uncomfortably in the dirt. “I’m not that great of a baker.”

Garcia shakes her head, “don’t be so hard on yourself! I’m sure it’ll be great.” She grins, “besides if you need any help Hotch and I are more than willing to be unbiased judges or helpers.”

Emily could laugh at the face Hotch makes. He most certainly does not want that. She shakes her head, “I’m gonna go throw these in. If they’re good, I’ll send you a piece?”

Garcia nods and they watch in silence as Emily goes back to the house.

The banana bread must not turn out so great because she never brings a piece over but the next day she knocks on his door with a plate of pancakes.

He’s in a sweatshirt-- Georgetown’s logo slapped on the front and worn with age-- and a pair of grey sweats that make her cheeks flush a little. Nice, idiot, she thinks as she explains she used the leftover bananas to make pancakes and wondered if he’d like some. Mercifully, he either ignores or doesn’t see her making intense eye contact with the floor so she doesn’t look anywhere near his hips.

After that, they form a strange pattern of her showing up with various baked goods or other types of gifts and such.

Otherwise, they’d both sit in their homes all alone with nothing but the silence. Or, rather, he’d have the silence because she is very loud. He likes to sit on the porch and listen to her blasting music through her house. Occasionally, he knows a song but mostly he just likes the way the rest of the neighborhood scowls at their houses.

It’s about nine in the morning when Hotch hears the knocking at his door. For a solid moment, he considers not even answering the door. There’s about a ninety percent chance whoever it is he doesn’t want to talk to. The number of people who have sent cards, and food, and made weird phone calls is numerous. So, if they don’t have the key to his front door or the familiarity to just come busting in-- it’s not worth his time.

Besides, he’s feeling grumpy and he’d like to just wallow for a moment… in peace, alone.

But then the door does bust open.

He’s trying to read the paperwork either the hospital or the school sent-- obviously, he hasn’t gotten very far into it if he can’t even tell what the papers are for. All that he knows is there are vibrantly colored sticky notes where his signature should be. But he isn’t just going to go singing his name willy-nilly. He’s not that far gone.

He looks up and Emily Prentiss is blindly-- her hands are over her eyes for some reason-- trampling through his living room.

“Can I help you?”

At the sound of his voice, her head jerks up. Two paired fingers separate and she looks just like one of his students as she lowers her hands and grins at him. It’s an awkward little grin but it’s not bad. “Uh,” she motions behind her to the door. “Sorry about that… Dave, he, uh, he told me that you’d be home all day and you are home all day and if I needed anything to just--” she grimaces as if she’s just considered how strange this is. “You didn’t answer and Dave said you always answer and you do and I didn’t want something to be wrong…”

She stops talking.

Mercifully.

Hotch grunts, “I do, normally.”

Somehow, the only good thing to come out of the last month is that Hotch gets to spend his days at home. Besides the drastic rise in homeschoolers in their town, the school had been gracious enough to handle his disability checks. Of course, everyone had smiled and thanked him for what he’d done to save his kids but Hotch is still very aware of the lawsuits and trouble David Rossi would cause if everything hadn’t gone smoothly.

Being the semi-famous author of a very successful line of children’s books earns Dave that power. Although, Hotch has seen him use it for good and for… well, mostly sex.

The downside is he gets pretty lonely at the house.

Jack goes to his aunts. Haley’s sister Jessica has been a huge help over the last few weeks. Reeling from the loss of her sister, she’d been more than happy to keep her only family close. Even if it’s just her ex-brother-in-law and nephew. Not that Aaron and Jessica’s relationship was severed just because of Haley and Aaron’s divorce.

It had been painful but not ugly. It had never been about the devotion they felt for one another or even the love.

Life just gets complicated.

A few teachers had still managed to get some more leave time and with Hotch’s heart actively failing, Reid, Garcia, and Rossi are on the receiving end of lots of understanding when it comes to asking for time off. They have a schedule set into place now: Garcia brings him lunch, Reid picks up Jack, and Dave brings stuff to make dinner for all of them.

It’s simple but affected. Daily and boring.

“Now this is going to make me sound like a dumbass--”

He’s known Emily Prentiss for all of week. He excludes the school thing from memory and the timeline. It’s better for his mental health-- which isn’t doing much better than his physical health if he’s being honest. The problem is, the woman is kind of crazy. It’s in an endearing kind of way but still.

Now he’s sitting in her living room. She’d come barging into his house just thirty minutes before, a hand over her eyes. He’d had to listen to her awful explanation for that while slowly and painfully making his way across the whole five feet separating their houses. The hand over her eyes had been in case he was naked because she may invade his personal space but she really doesn’t want to see his junk.

He’s not entirely sure where this comfort of hers is coming from. All he does know is that Dave has swindled his way into every aspect of Hotch’s life and now Hotch has his neighbor’s phone number. It’s for “emergencies”, of course. In case Hotch, God forbid, needs help and his only contact is his batshit neighbor.

“I mean it, Aaron,” she’s standing right in front of him with two spices in her hands. “It’s really going to make me sound like a dumbass here but what exactly is the difference between Cinnamon and Nutmeg?”

God, she’s crazy but she’s funny and hasn’t passed any judgement on his inability to get dressed. Just like now while she’s standing in a simple, well-loved tanktop and work jeans and he sits in his flannel pajama bottoms and a Hanes t-shirt that’s seen better days five years ago.

But they kind of passed lots of mile markers for judgment a long time ago. As in, last week.

He’d watched in silence as she emptied the contents of her stomach over the railing of his porch and she’d put pressure on the bullet wound that tore through his side. It’s why it was so easy for her to, after that night on the porch, to bring over a plate of pancakes and offer to grab him stuff from the store. Of course, he’d told her he was good and he, mostly, was.

Which is in direct consequence for why he’s here now.

“Nutmeg tastes like Christmas,” he explains because he has no idea how he’s supposed to explain this to a grown woman. “What are you making?” He’s suddenly very worried for whatever dish she’s making. Especially if she put nutmeg where cinnamon is supposed to be. It’s freaking September and, if he’s being honest, he really hates Christmas. That might make him too biased to figure out if she’s really messed up though.

She grimaces at the containers in her hand. She pulls her lip into her mouth and mumbles, “apple pie.”

His grimace is too much and if she weren’t so bummed with the aspect that her apple pie is most definitely ruined she might laugh. His accent is thick enough for her to comfortably assume he’s from the south not to mention he’s got a lot of that southern gentlemen charm.

“How much nutmeg did you use?”

Her face says it all.

He places both his fist on the sides of the chair and forces himself onto his feet. If Emily weren’t standing in silent horror that he might fall over or pass out or a hundred other things she might lend a hand. Then again, they haven’t established those boundaries and she can’t flawlessly just know like Dave does.

“Let me see the damage,” he grumbles but she can see that he’s not actually mad; he's just wary of what she’s done. He’s strange in that way. For a man who has made a career around working with children, he’s got a horrible resting face.

She lets him set the place, pointing him in the direction of the kitchen. It’s only a few feet but they make it two-steps before she decides she can’t do this silently watching thing. “Do you--” she offers him her forearm, the same way she’d seen Dave do the other afternoon.

He scowls at her arm but after a moment, he takes her hand. His skin is startlingly cold and his hand trembles until he settles his grip. It’s surprisingly easy and she doesn’t think much of it. At least he’s not dead weight to lug around. She’s had plenty of people hang onto her, she doesn’t even mind this.

“I think I might have used too much nutmeg,” she concludes before he can see the damage and rule her incompetant. It’s a warning.

He glances at her out of the corner of his eye… too late for the incompetant thing, she decides. He already thinks she’s a moron.

Rightfully so but still…

She’d known he was tall. It’s not that hard to see but as she’s standing beside him, his body pulled in and hunched over, he’s still towering over quite a bit. He’s a big man and he smells nice so he’s got a lot going for him. Too bad about the heart thing because he’s kinda cute.

“That’s all…” she moves him to the kitchen table and brings the pie to him. She really doesn’t want him falling in her kitchen. Dave likes her and she’d like to keep it that way. Besides, there would be so many awful and weird questions to answer if she had to take him to the hospital.

And now he’s sitting in horror at this pie in front of him.

“That’s all…” he repeats himself, shaking his head in disbelief. The pie is covered in a brown powder and he’s slowly processing that it’s all nutmeg.

She grimaces and nods.

He looks up at her, mouth open but disbelief making it impossible for him to say anything. He’s seen a lot of weird things. Preschoolers are… they’re a piece of work but this is testing every bit of training he has.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?”

He nods, “definitely.”

Huffing in a way that he recognizes from dealing with one too many headstrong four-year-olds, she places her fist on her hips. She scowls down at the pie. It’s cooked and it smells okay but if she’s been too generous with the nutmeg there’s no way that’s going to taste good. After a moment she hums and turns around, pulling out two forks she comes right back to the table.

“Well,” she says with a tilt of her head, “christmas apples can’t be that bad, right?”

He takes the fork being offered to him with no interest whatsoever in eating this pie but it's kind of funny and he’s having a good time. Together they break the baked dough and get a bite- sized piece. He’s fairly adamant but somehow it’s got nothing to do with his tricky stomach or the fact that he hasn’t been able to keep down much besides water and saltine crackers. It’s going to taste like shit and it’s exciting.

Emily chokes on her bite coughing and grimacing as she rushes to spit it out. To his credit, Hotch swallows his bite. “That was honestly the worst apple pie I’ve ever tasted,” he tells her, honestly.

She laughs and that feels so good. She hasn’t laughed in a long time.

He shrugs, “I’m not gonna lie to you.”

She tosses her fork on the table and shakes her head at the pie. So much for that.

“How exactly--” he bites down on the wave of pain that rocks through his body as he forces his legs underneath him. He stands, trembling and waving slightly with the effort it takes. “Why were you making apple pie so early in the day?”

Emily is still frowning at the pie so she doesn’t even look up at him. “Bored,” she mumbles. She’s upset about her pie. Damn… this whole nutmeg vs cinnamon thing is stupid. They look exactly the same so they should taste the same, right?

“Maybe you should try something else,” Hotch says, one hand still keeping his balance on the table. “Baking just doesn’t…”

Emily frowns at him, “I like baking, though!”

Hotch looks away, tilting his head and raising an eyebrow. “Baking doesn’t like you,” he mumbles.

She smacks his shoulder and he chuckles-- this isn’t the first failed attempt of her’s he’s tried. There was the cookies from Monday (that were burnt on the bottom and raw on top) and the banana bread he’d only seen but-- they could have killed a lesser man let alone him and his broken heart.

“Maybe I can try cooking,” she proposes.

He shakes his head, “are you gonna make me eat that too?”

She clicks her tongue, faking offense. “What, are you afraid?”

He smiles and it takes her breath away. He’s got high, sharp cheekbones and when he’s not carrying so much tension in his shoulders it’s so much easier to appreciate just how soft his dark hair looks. Her neighbor is hot. She’s not sure if he knows that though.

“A little,” he admits playfully, “but maybe you’ll be better at cooking than you are baking.”

She crosses her arms and scowls down at her pie. “I don’t think it’s going to take a lot to be better at cooking than baking.”

He makes a soft sound, “you said it, not me.”

She shakes her head at him but there he is smiling again. She can’t even be mad. “Maybe I’ll make dinner,” she proposes, tucking her hands under her armpits as she thinks. “Are you interested?”

Honestly, no but he doesn’t want to pass up on hanging out with her. So he nods.

“Six o’clock should be enough time to cook something, right?”

Jesus, she’s going to kill him.

“Why don’t I come over and help?”

Oh, she hadn’t thought of that. She nods, “okay. You wanna come over at three, then?”

It’s dangerous, without a shred of doubt there, but his heart does this little flutter. “Uh,” he has to clear his throat. “Yeah, sounds like a plan.”

Except three rolls around he’s a no show. Three turns into three-thirty and she’s not trying to be a buzzkill but the recipe calls for caramelized onions and she has no idea what that means but she hopes it doesn’t mean what she thinks it does. Carmel on onions? Sounds disgusting.

“Knock, knock?” She’s already barged into his house once today so it really shouldn’t be that big of a deal but something doesn’t feel right. She can’t shake it and she certainly can’t just… leave. “Hotch?” God, she hopes he’s just in the bathroom.

He isn’t.

“You okay?” she falls to her knees beside him. She’d never been this far into his house. Mostly, she’d never passed the living room but now she’s kneeling in his hallway and can see his bedroom from here. As much as she’d like to evaluate that-- because the space is strangely neat and God, who knew the bare minimum of a clean room was such a perfect green flag--

Right--

He shakes his head.

Oh.

“Should…” she knows he hates the hospital, who doesn’t? But… he’s gasping for breath on the floor, his pale hand clutching at his chest. The sight is very overwhelming and hurting her deeply because it’s bringing feelings back that she thought were getting better. “Do I need to call--”

To the school and to the blood pooling between their bodies.

He nods. He’s terrified but just seeing Emily brings some strange comfort. Her and her awful cooking might just get him through this. He won’t die on this floor. Not on this ugly ass rug Dave made him put down.

The ambulance comes, bounding the sirens shrill sound up and down the block. Making a spectacle out of an awful experience.

He winces when the IV goes in and she just stands, bouncing from foot-to-foot awkwardly watching. It’s not until he’s on the gurney, fighting the drugs rushing through his system. “You can come,” he rasps but no one can hear him clearly from behind the masks. Reaching up to pull it away, several hands swat his hand away and he makes a grunted, annoyed sound at hte back fo his throat.

An EMT leans over and calms him back down before Hotch starts trying to fight his way back up into danger. “Easy, buddy.” The EMT pushes on Hotch’s shoulders and it's not a lot of force but Hotch isn’t strong enough to fight it. “The pretty lady can come, okay? Just settle down.”

She stays with him and tells herself it’s because she doesn’t want him hurting himself but she really doesn’t want to leave his side until she knows he’s going to be okay. There’s no hand holding because they’re still at the point where they smack shoulders and stand feet apart but they’ve only known one another for a week and-- Emily can’t fathom what she’s supposed to do if he dies in the back of this shitty ambulance.

“Can you--” the EMTs give him something that nearly knocks him out on the spot but his breathing gets better and he stops gasping and wheezing. He just lays supine on the gurney. Limp. “Dave?” He can’t keep his eyes open but he hears Emily make what he thinks are words of confirmation but his sentence didn't exactly make sense so maybe she didn't understand him.

He’s pulled under by the warmth spreading through his limbs before he can repeat himself or worry with it.

“You can’t go back there, baby.”

Emily blinks and there’s an older woman stopping Emily’s zombie-like march beside the gurney as they rush Hotch off to the side. She can’t tear her eyes off of him. Watching numbly as they cut his shirt down the middle and start to attach to electrodes to his alarmingly pale chest.

Her hands are trembling as she pulls her phone out of her pocket. “Dave?” she’s breathless with the anxiety swelling in her own chest. “I’m so sorry--” and she’s crying. Why? He’s not her friend? He’s her neighbor who she’s known for a whole freaking week and yet-- And she can’t deal with Dave being mad either. But he isn’t.

The minute he steps into the hospital, he comes right up to and pulls her into a hug. She sobs into his arms and he lets her because he’s seen Aaron this bad before. He knows it’s unnerving.

“Do you have any news?” Dave asks her and she shakes her head. He squeezes her arm and smiles at her tear-stained face. “I’ll be right back, okay? They know my face, I might be able to wrangle some news out of one of the nurses.”

She nods her head and watches dejectedly as he walks away.

Aaron had told her that Rossi had slept with many nurses while he was in the hospital. She’s thinking about the way he’d smiled when he told her that when she falls into the waiting rooms stiff chairs.

#shattered hearts fractured lungs #aaron hotchner #tw school shooting #emily prentiss #whump #hotchniss #hotly #penelope garcia #spencer reid #derek morgan #david rossi

17 notes · View notes

hopiewrites · 5 years

Text

Runaways - BNHA

pairing - dabi x reader

ongoing series, chapter 3

word count - 6,978

chapters 1 & 2 up now!

-> back to masterlist

“ bone deep “

His flames were the hottest she’d ever felt.

Glowing and gold and beautiful, it incinerated everything it touched; it stole life and made it anew, clutching onto it’s fragile form and never letting go. She could feel it’s radiation, pulsing and alive against her skin as the fire swallowed her whole, scorching her bones through her skin and sapping away every bit of life that was left in her body. There was nothing like watching the sparks fly, glittering against the black sky of night, like stars as it flickered in the wind, never dying, never dying.

Her body was limp among the smoke, smoldering along with the wildflowers in her backyard. Her eyes were open, yet unseeing - all she could do was feel - and yet even to the edge of death, the image of that man followed her. He who hovered over her, that old, hauntingly familiar face scrunched in distaste at the corpse that lie below him, smothered by his own flames. She could only hope that his expression would fade from her view as he walked away, could only wish he’d leave her with only her thoughts to die with.

On her skin was a cold numbness that soothed her, her fingertips caressing the dirt as she grasped the ground in an effort to stay awake. Everything was a shimmering gold, metallic and effervescent as it danced along the length of her body; it never wavered, not even in the oncoming storm that hovered dangerously above, the promise of destruction coloring the clouds obsidian. It’s sparks never died - they only flew back into the fire from which they came - to be born again, thriving off the force of her own stolen life.

If you squinted, it was almost like fireflies that swarmed her body. Not really, but, one could always dream. There is nothing magical about burning to ashes; there is no beauty to be found amongst the remains of a life unlived; there isn’t anything here, really, except her steadily shallowing breath, and the emptiness of her chest as she tried to cry, to scream, to do anything but sit there and burn.

But she couldn’t even make herself close her eyes, for gods sake.

She could hear the chirping of the cicadas and the howl of the wolves over the cremation of her own body that distant summer night.

Looking in the dusty bathroom mirror, (Y/N) searched her own skin for the missing parts of herself, as if her soul had been tucked away within her bones.

She felt emptied out, gutted like a fish hung out to dry. Partly because of the dissociation, partly because of that hellish nightmare that crept into her quiet sleep. (Y/N) hadn’t had that particular nightmare in months, maybe even a year, and her brain chooses to thrust it on her when she least expects it. Just when she thought she’d gotten away, that monster of a man seems to follow her wherever she goes.

There is no escaping the past, is there?

At the base of (Y/N)’s skull is a headache in full bloom, flourishing off of the woman’s empty stomach and tense muscles, petals big and colorful as they pushed against the sockets of her eyes. She splashed her face with cold water, washing dried blood off her lips, silent as she watched the crimson swirl itself to pink as it disappeared down the drain.

From the looks of it, this whole building was once a nice little hotel, quaint and homey, the old rugs and what little furniture was left reeked of the early seventies. (Y/N) couldn’t stop herself from wondering what happened to the place, for it to be abandoned, left for dead by even the government who could’ve knocked it down to make something a little more alive - but judging all the other buildings that seemed to line the streets, this place wasn’t the only one kicked to the curb. Despite this whole area looking like it’s been scraped off the bottom of a dumpster, there were still a few people who lived in the buildings. Probably people much like herself, who had nowhere else to go.

Shitty buildings in a shitty part of town. The woman’s surprised that they even have things like water and electricity, honestly. Who here even pays for that stuff? Well, these are a bunch of villains she’s thinking about, so they probably have a good number of fake identities and stolen money to live off of.

Though, she’s not any better than them, in that aspect.

She walked out of the bathroom, and back into her own room. Everything was painted in the colors of dusk, muted tones of gold and orange stretched themselves across the surface of the walls in a fleeting embrace of day’s last light as the sun set behind the sparse clouds. She got very few hours of rest, thanks to that rather unpleasant night terror, but even still she couldn’t even begin to feel the gravity of sleep weight itself down on her; instead, there was an unsettling tingle under her skin, burning and itching with the phantom touch of her own fears.

Plucking a pack of cigarettes from her bag, she began her way through the building and into the city streets. The doors creaked open, swinging loosely behind her as she took a stick from the pack and lit it. The cold air bit her cheeks and nose raw, tinged pink with winter’s kiss.

The melting snow donned twilights colors with fleeting hands as the sky slowly turned dark, the ink of night bleeding into the vibrancy of the sun. (Y/N) leaned on the side of the building, inhaling deep, feeling the bitter sting of nicotine prod her lungs and soothe her body, if only for a moment.

(Y/N) basked in the feeling of a drug induced calm, leaning her head back against the bricks, exhaling slow and steady. She glared at nothing in particular, too busy hating the aftertaste of smoke that stuck to her tongue to really think about anything.

More than anything, she was tired; so, so tired, mentally and physically, yet her body kept going, as if she’d die the moment she stopped moving. Everything seemed to come and go in blurs of black and gray, her brain never seemed to truly process things anymore, too high on anxiety and too deprived of sleep to see anything for how it truly is.

(Y/N) doesn't trust herself anymore. Not her eyes, her ears, her tongue, her heart. She is running only on the need to survive, and has been for awhile, now; a long, long while. Behind her dry eyes is years worth of suppressed emotions, tangled together and unfathomable, lying dormant in her being like a monster in waiting. Sometimes it’s all (Y/N) can do to open her eyes, to exist, because the energy it takes to keep the mess within her head at bay is all that she has, most days. Sometimes it’s all she can do to breathe, to twitch her fingers to make sure she’s still alive.

The woman doesn’t really know what’s wrong with her. She doesn’t know why she is the way she is, or how to change it, because this overwhelming, irritated anxiety is all that she’s ever known.

She’s never really been given the chance to feel anything other than this.

(Y/N) breathed in, and out, and in, and out. Despite the nicotine soothing her muscles, the acid that was ever present within her chest still reigned superior, curdling her lungs to nothing more than mush that lie in her ribcage, pathetic and useless as she prayed for air. She wanted to breathe again, more than anything. She wanted to feel the cold air slide down her scratchy throat, she wanted to do more than hyperventilate as she panicked over things she couldn’t control.

Half finished with the cigarette, she put it out on the back of her hand, hissing at the sting through clenched teeth. (Y/N) glanced around, trying to earn her bearings, trying to ground herself while she stood suspended in a past she barely remembered. She looked up subconsciously, looking for the embers of a golden fire never to be put out, but only saw the moon.

It was nestled between two clouds, just peeking over the tops of the buildings that stood tall in front of her. Round, and full, and steady it was, glowing soft and mellow and warm, a dim reflection of the sun and it’s brilliance. (Y/N) looked for stars, and saw none.

For a moment, (Y/N) wondered if the moon felt as lonely as she did.

After walking a few blocks around the area, taking in the meek scenery and teaching herself how to breathe again, (Y/N) ended up back down in the bar, finding an odd comfort in it's mountain honey glow. There was only one other person here, that being Spinner, a man with scales for skin whom the woman had come to know quite well within the last few days of her official membership of the League.

Well, he talked and talked and talked, while (Y/N) listened because she really didn't have anything better to do. Mostly he rambled about his apparent idol, Stain, answering questions she didn't even ask in the first place. He would repeat himself a lot, almost like he couldn’t hear himself speak. Spinner seemed a little out of his head, a little crazy, every time he talked to her, but (Y/N) said nothing about it.

This is just the situation she happened to be in at the moment. Though, Spinner did jump over the counter to pour them both some tequila, which took away some of (Y/N)'s dismay.

"Say, Spinner?"

The muscles under her skin tingled pleasantly, the alcohol humming a tune that lulled her senses to a bottomless sleep. Said man had offered plenty of times to answer any of her questions about Stain, which kind of made her feel like he was one of those pushy bible camp volunteers, but (Y/N) never had any interest in Stain quite honestly. The fact that he is very much a serial killer, and very much alive and out there, is enough to scare (Y/N) away from anything that has to do with him.

But tonight, with a bottle of tequila half empty in front of her, she found herself thinking about the oddest things; like how she felt like hugging someone, or how she could always see her nose but her eyes automatically tuned it out of her peripheral vision.

Or, for example, how (Y/N) suddenly felt the need to share her entire life story with someone she doesn't even know, just because he asked how she was when she first walked in.

Though, even in her drunken, flushed state, she wasn't going to do that - so she just settled on asking a few harmless questions that's been bouncing around in her skull for the past few days.

"Oh- yeah?" Spinner said, throwing a shot back before turning to look at the female that sat beside him, long magenta hair pushed back from his reptilian face.

(Y/N) hummed, crossing her arms on the counter top and resting her head there, peering up at him with a glassy expression.

"I know how much you idolize Stain and all that, but is there any other reason you do the things you do?" She slurred, tapping her forearm with the pads of her fingers rhythmically.

It was something (Y/N) has been wondering for as long as she's known who all these people are. She's only met a few, some of which were just petty thugs you'd run into in back alleyways, while others were similar to Spinner; those who seem to have some kind of purpose, some kind of drive that makes them do whatever it is they do as members of the League.

Or, people like Magne, a lady who, from as far as (Y/N) could tell, didn't give a damn about anybody else and lived just about as free as she could, being a wanted criminal and all that. Just from the few runs ins she's had with the woman, (Y/N) felt like it'd do her good to hurry and get on Magne's good side, but she was too scared to even begin to approach her - because in the end, she is here, just like everybody else.

And that meant she was a murderer, just like everybody else.

Of course, (Y/N) felt absolutely terrified every moment she spent around any of them, but she also didn't have much of a choice but to act friendly and be apart of what it is they've all established.

Fake it till you make it, right?

(Y/N) stared up at Spinner, awaiting his response as she held back the urge to sneeze.

His face twisted into something sinister, scales shifting as he grinned, showing off his sharpened teeth.

"I like to watch people seethe in pain, staring at me with those tearful eyes as I rip their life away from them. That's the only other reason."

She sneezed, startled into horrified laughter at his reply, which, thankfully, Spinner took as a shared understanding of his sadistic ways rather than absolute terror - he himself chuckling before refilling (Y/N)'s shot glass.

He didn't know that (Y/N) isn't a killer, like himself. He didn't know of how she's just a runaway that was backed into a corner and forced to join their gang because of her quirk.

Spinner only knows what he's been told by Shigaraki, which was that (Y/N) is a newly curated member of the League of Villains, and to be treated as such. Shigaraki nor Kurogiri mentioned how she is now being cultivated into the perfect weapon, how she is slowly being groomed and manipulated into a tool for them to use and use and use until she breaks.

That was their plans, anyway.

Not that they mentioned that to (Y/N) herself, either. To (Y/N), she is playing the part until she can find another place that'll feed her, home her.

(Y/N) wants shelter and food. Shigaraki wants a quirk that will take down the number one hero himself. And unfortunately enough for her, (Y/N) might just have exactly what Shigaraki wants.

"I think…" (Y/N) started, stretching her arms out and placing her forehead flat against the cool, dark marble of the counter top. "I think that me and you.. Are different, Spinner."

His cackling softened to a sigh, rolling his neck and popping his knuckles as he slapped the spot between (Y/N)'s shoulder blades so hard her torso jerked forwards on the table.

"I don't think so, (Y/N). You and I are both here, aren't we? That goes to show just how similar the both of us are."

Whether he was wrong or right, at one point, (Y/N) knew the answer; she really, truly did. But right now, up to her neck in alcohol and the high it brings with it, she didn't know anything at all.

Hours passed by in dreary blurs, and now (Y/N) was all alone, slouched over the bar staring at the empty bottle that sat in front of her. There was nothing going on in her mind right now, really; only the fact that her body feels hot and heavy, almost numb, as if she’d fall to a puddle on the floor the moment she as much as tried to stand - if she tried to do anything. The last time her muscles have moved from this spot was right when Spinner declared that he was going hero hunting, eyes alight with bloodlust and something (Y/N) couldn’t quite name as he barely held back a manic grin; though, (Y/N) barely heard what he was saying, because she flung herself to him in a half-hearted hug, patting his back before slinking back towards her stool. The man stood stiff as a statue through the whole ordeal, hand half-way to pulling his sword with a bewildered expression donning his face. He didn’t even reply to her slurred “be safe”, but that was probably because it was incomprehensible to anyone but herself.

Needless to say, the young woman was going to hate herself for that when she finally sobers up. That is, if she remembers the exchange at all.

(Y/N) just feels so alone - and, while usually she would enjoy the feeling of solitude, right now it feels more suffocating, more cynical. She is so sad, and so tired, and so unbearably lonely; she would give anything to be back in her girlfriends - or rather, ex girlfriends arms, cuddled up and close and content. In this moment, (Y/N) craves human touch more than anything in the world.

Normally, she’d avoid any and all physical contact like the plague; but at this point, she’s this close to just going outside and finding a raccoon to snuggle with.

From behind her, the door creaked open, then shut harshly.

“Huh. look what we have here.”

She heard him. Of course she heard him, though, (Y/N) didn’t have the willpower to greet him or respond, so she sat in silence. There was a shuffling noise, then the sound of boots hitting the wooden floor, tired and heavy. When he finally rounded the counter, not even sparing a glance towards her, his tall frame came into her cloudy view.

White dotted the black of his hoodie along with his hair, snowflakes lingering from the apparent flurry outside. His back was to her as he grabbed a can of something from a cabinet. (Y/N) stared, not really on purpose, but because he was the only thing worth staring at. She found herself drawn to his hands in particular, the marred purple of his scars peeking out from the sleeves edge; (Y/N) couldn’t help herself from wondering where scars like those come from, how they came to be.

Dabi finally turned to face her, sauntering back towards the counter from the other side, popping the can open and gulping for a second, then settling his empty gaze on the woman sprawled in front of him. It took her a moment to look up towards him, glassy eyes trailing up his form slowly. Her gaze ran over his chin, where just a smudge of red lipstick laid on his cupids bow. She must have lingered, because she was still looking at his lips when he spoke again.

“You look wasted.”

“Mhm.” She hummed, not hearing what he said in the slightest. (Y/N) tilted her head up to look at Dabi clearly. His features looked more relaxed than usual, his signature scowl softened out to a resting frown; the parts of his face that weren’t absolutely wrecked almost glowed, still pale and flushed from the cold wind outside.

His mouth quirked up just slightly as he cackled lowly, leaning against the counter on his forearms with an eyebrow raised. “You really are hammered, aren’t you?”

Because (Y/N) sat there, body flushed and eyes cloudy, looking so small and pitiful, Dabi couldn’t really bring himself to kick her while she’s down.

That’s not to say that he’s never done that to someone, though. His whole being is centered around rubbing salt in wounds. He just couldn’t be bothered. Not now, anyway.

Dabi did notice how the woman kept inching her hands closer to his own. He noticed how her eyes seemed to linger on his lips, and he noticed how her body trembled. He recognized the desperate need for another’s touch, no matter who it was that touched her; the need for the kind of warmth a blanket or alcohol or even your own hands could never provide.

“Don’t look at me like that, dollface. It’ll get you nowhere.”

(Y/N) smiled sheepishly, her cheeks pulling cutely while smushed against her bicep. “What you mean..?”

Dabi sighed heavily, shifting slightly to take another sip of his beer. He said nothing else for awhile, staring blankly at (Y/N) who stared at him with the fucking stars in her eyes. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if the whole universe managed to fit in there. He had planned to grab his beer and promptly go back to his shitty little room in that shitty little hotel; he wanted to fuck around on his phone until his eyes couldn’t stay open, because gods know that Dabi is never able to go to sleep of his own volition. The last thing he wanted to do is have a staring contest with a woman he cared nothing about.

So, why is he still here?

He didn’t know, to be honest. He didn’t really care, anyways; Dabi does what Dabi wants, when Dabi wants. So if he, for some ungodly reason wants to stand here all night doing absolutely nothing, then he will.

“Can I touch you…?”

Admittedly, he wasn’t expecting that - which is why his eyes widened as he reeled for a moment - but his expression settled itself down into a small smirk.

“Fuck, I mean, sure. Go for it.”

He expected this to be an open invitation for a fuck, which he wasn’t past taking up, even in her drunken state. He expected her to crawl over the counter and to stand between her open knees, for her to claw at the front of his hoodie, maybe run her hands through his hair as she kissed him. Even if he had just come back from one of his own affairs, he wasn’t going to decline.

Anything to keep his mind from digging up the graves of his past, of his failures. Tonight is a bad night for Dabi. He feels reckless and violent and ready to take the world in his hands and crush it - and maybe, maybe crushing the world wouldn’t be so bad, but right now, he is distracted.

And a distraction is all Dabi needs, at the moment.

Even if that distraction comes in the form of a conversation without words, but with hands, with lips, with eyes.

He expected quite literally anything and everything but the woman to grab the both of his hands and tug the cuffs of his shirt up, to take her fingers and trace over the edges of his scars with the pads of her fingers. Gentle, feather-light touches brushed his skin, sending tingles up his spine. For a moment he gawked at her flushed expression, then followed her line of sight to where her hands met his own.

There were tiny scars that littered her skin, discolored flesh stretching over knuckles and dipping into the crevices of her palm. On the back of her hand was a picture that couldn’t be put together, an abstract story the color of skin left unfinished. Her hands were so, so cold against his own, the heat of his quirk never truly dormant within him - he is a fire forever lit in the form of a human body.

Electric blue burned through her skin, but (Y/N) was too distracted with the palm of Dabi’s hand to care. The feeling of his scars was rough and patchy and exactly like she thought they’d be - while his skin was smooth and a bit dry under her shaky touch; he didn’t seem to mind that too much, though.

And it was like that for awhile; just the two of them, bathed in a fake golden light, wrapped up in an oddly warm silence that only (Y/N) allowed herself to settle into. Dabi stood stiff as a statue, letting the drunken woman do as she pleased. He should've walked away by now, but he didn’t.

He should've pushed her off him, but he didn't.

(Y/N)'s slow motions stilled, her palm resting in his, fire clashing with ice, desire intertwining with hesitancy as she laced her fingers through his. Those dreary eyes of hers trailing up to his blank face, squeezing his hand lightly as she blinked slowly.

"Your hands are so pretty…"

Dabi barked out a laugh, sharp and sudden, genuinely finding amusement in this odd experience. The taller male leaned forwards to be eye level with the woman, stretching their interlocked hands out straight to the side of them, shoving the empty tequila bottle a ways down the counter. His face was maybe five inches from her own when he said, voice low and gravelly, "you're so fucking weird, you know that, (Y/N)?"

Said female grinned in response, big and goofy and saccharin. She fumbled a bit on the stool, bringing her legs underneath her so she could push herself closer to Dabi's face, eyes glossing over his cheekbones, then settling on his ear. It was only silence for a minute. (Y/N) looked and looked and looked at him, so transparent yet so unreadable to Dabi.

One minute, he thought he knew exactly what she was going to do, reading her like an open book, then the next she goes and does anything but what he expected.

People like that annoy Dabi to no end.

(Y/N)'s head tilts forward, eyelids as heavy as lead, dropping slowly and all at once. She finds the crook of Dabi's neck and rests there as if she were meant to. Her breath ghosted along his skin, lips pressing softly against the area below his ear. Her hand crept up the length of his arm, while using her other hand to squeeze at his own lightly once again. Finally, the tips of her fingers fondled the lobe of his ear tenderly, feeling the chunk missing from his flesh as if she'd done it her whole life.

Dabi shivered, unsure of how to react. He hasn't felt something so gentle, so light in a very, very long time. (Y/N) touched him as if he were glass, delicate and beautiful and everything he wasn't; everything he'd never be.

Dabi wanted to pull away. He wanted to shove her off of him and to shout at her for touching him like this, for making his legs feel wobbly, for stealing his breath away as if it was the only thing she's ever wanted to do - but, his body wouldn't listen to his mind, his bones looking for a home within this drunk woman's embrace, all too hopeless, all to hopeful for him to make any sense of.

She made Dabi feel fragile, and he hated it more than almost anything.

He couldn't make himself pull away. In fact, he leaned into it, holding back the low groan that threatened to bubble up his throat.

Her mouth was parted, breathing softly, shallowly as she said, "you've never said my name before."

Dabi gulped, feeling her tongue brush over her parted lips all too intensely. He felt her fingers run down his scarred neck, sneaking down just slightly under the neck of his hoodie to find rest on the dip of his collarbone.

"So warm… even in winter."

(Y/N) wasn't doing any of this on purpose. She was drunk, sad, and touch starved. Honestly anyone could've walked in here and she'd cling to them, probably even try with that bastard Shigaraki.

That's what Dabi told himself, anyway. He couldn't care less about who this chick decided to throw herself at. He just had bad timing, is all.

Yeah, definitely bad timing.

His fingers were absolutely not comfortable in her gentle grasp, and his other hand was absolutely not resting on her hip that was peeking over the bar’s edge. Dabi absolutely did not squeeze her hand in his.

He didn't want any part of what was happening.

But he stood still as (Y/N) pulled her head away from his neck, her face just a breath away from his own as her hand untucked itself from his hoodie, thumb wiping at his top lip with a smile so small and bashful Dabi would have mistaken it for a trick of the light.

The woman held up her thumb, showing off the waxy red lipstick that now stained it.

"I didn't think you'd be one to wear lipstick, Dabi."

And now, all was still. Everything stopped spinning, Dabi’s heart stopped beating, his lungs stopped breathing. This was the moment he realized; that for a second, or maybe even a minute, he forgot himself. Dabi had lost himself within the hands of a woman so cold. He had let her take him away from himself.

Here within the mountain honey light of this underground bar, this woman in front of him looked like snow. She looked raw and untouched and glowing.

And now, in this moment frozen in time, Dabi realized hadn’t felt so angry in a long, long time. Something deep in him wanted nothing more than to burn this woman up from the inside out.

He tried to respond, to say anything back to her, but his voice caught in his throat midway; so he settled on a cold glare, finally snapping out of the trance he was in.

The earth began to spin again.

Dabi tsked as he ripped his hand from (Y/N)’s, trading the odd comfort for the cool can of his once forgotten beer. He stood straight again, guard back up, even higher than it was before. He snarled at her flushed, dumbfounded expression, hands reaching out to him with grabby motions.

What is she, a toddler?

"I’m not here to babysit. You should probably go home now, if you don't wanna embarrass yourself in front of the boss," he paused, downing his beer and throwing it into the trash can, "cause I really doubt he'd be as forgiving as I am."

Dabi began making his way for the door, hands tucked deep into the front pocket of his hoodie. "Not that I care, anyways." He added as an afterthought.

"Wait-" (Y/N) whined, quickly plopping back down in her stool and twisting around to watch the males retreating back, "don't leave, Dabi…"

As annoying as she was right now, he turned on his heels, right at the doorway to shoot one last nasty look at her before he left.

Don't leave, Dabi…

How many times has he heard that, by passed hookups and people who thought they meant something to him? By his old friends, by his family?

How many times has he walked away, before he himself could be walked away from?

(Y/N) annoyed him more than anything else right now. Hell, he isn't too far away from saying fuck it and just burning her to ashes for making him feel so many things at once. She doesn't know him. She doesn't know what he's capable of.

"Go freeze to death, for all I care." Is the last thing he said to her before flinging open the door, climbing up some stairs to step out into the moonlit streets of Hosu.

The flurry from earlier had passed, clouds giving way to the moon and all her stars. Dabi didn't bother admiring the clear sky, instead he bit the inside of his cheek, fists clenching and teeth gritting as he walked the short distance to the hotel just a building over.

He meant what he said to her, he really did. That's probably why he doesn't linger on the thought of (Y/N), or how crestfallen her expression was; he didn't think about the brush of her lips on his neck and how he wanted to do nothing but beat her senseless for looking at him as if she knows him.

He didn't stare up at his ceiling, fuming over the fact that (Y/N)'s gentle touch against his scars reminded him so much of how his mother used to tend to his wounds, how she used to hug him and wrap him in bandages with eyes so soft, so soft; how his mother used to look at him before her love ran thin, before his father beat every bit of love from her body.

Because he really, truly, didn't care about (Y/N) or anything she does with herself.

Dabi merely remembered things he wished he could forget.

When (Y/N) woke up, she felt like a dumpster fire personified. She groaned, swallowing down the scratchy feeling in her throat. She looked to the side, seeing Kurogiri hovering by her slouched form, hand placed gently on her shoulder as he shook her softly from her sleep.

She squinted for a moment, then registered the sound of a particularly amused Shigaraki a few places behind her. "Is she awake yet?" He asked, to which Kurogiri nodded.

The villain helped (Y/N) set up straight with steady hands, one perched on her shoulder while the other supported her back. "Are you alright, (Y/N)?"

And although his voice was it's regular whisky tones, it rang in her ears like sirens. She groaned again.

Shigaraki laughed bitterly, sat on a stool a few seats down from her own, face bare of the mask it typically adorned. His head rested on his fist, a taunting smirk pulling at his features. "You do know you're going to be trained tomorrow, right? And you're here, what, getting wasted?"

If she was in any other state of mind, (Y/N) would’ve taken notice to the fact that Shigaraki talked to her like a dog being scolded, but she didn’t; nor right now, anyway.

Kurogiri's hands dropped from their places on her skin, fetching her a glass of water.

"It's kind of pathetic, don't you think?"

In any other instance, (Y/N) probably would have just walked away and left, but right now, feeling like her heads about to split open and her stomachs about to crawl itself up her throat, she nods her head in shame. Because he's right - she is very much pathetic.

"Look! She even agrees with me!" Shigaraki cackles, genuinely finding amusement in her awful state. All the while, Kurogiri appears from the other side of the counter, telling her to drink the full cup of water and take the pills he set beside it.

The woman rolled the crick out of her neck, rubbing at her tender shoulders and sending a glare towards Shigaraki, who simply smirked back annoyingly. "Shut it, crusty."

If she wasn't in so much pain, (Y/N) probably - no, scratch that - definitely wouldn't have said that, but, oh well.

"What'd you say to me, bitch?"

Instead of replying, she settled for shooting him the bird while downing her water. Faintly, she could hear Kurogiri mumble something under his breath, but she didn't bother asking him to speak up.

"You'll start training your quirk tomorrow, (Y/N). Do you think you'll be able to show us what you can do with it?"

Because there were no windows, it was hard to tell what time it was, or how long she'd slept for. Hell, she doesn't even remember anything after her first four shots with Spinner; so it was hard to think about literally anything other than how much fucking pain she was in. But (Y/N) knew that this was going to come eventually, having agreed to whatever it is they forced her into. She only hopes she doesn't disappoint them enough for them to decide to kick her back to the curb.

So, keeping that in mind she nodded, voice fissured and thin no matter how many times she cleared her throat. "Yeah. But, who am I gonna be using it on, exact-" she coughed for a few seconds, "exactly? I can't really fight, like… at all. So don't throw me out into some place and expect me to know what to do or how to do it."

"Oh, no, I think you've misunderstood," Kurogiri started, taking her empty glass and cleaning it down. "You'll be using your quirk on members of the league, so we can get an evaluation on what exactly it is that your quirk does."

‘Oh hell no. These bitches gonna kill me.’

She was about to voice those thoughts, but she let him continue.

"While myself and Shigaraki will keep a watch on the members and yourself to observe effects and the drawbacks of your quirk. It will all be handled effectively and efficiently, I assure you."

Well, that makes more sense. She doesn't really want to do that, though; not really, because she's scared. So, so scared of what they'll think, how they'll react. (Y/N)'s scared of being rejected by them, and whatever that means - whether that be being kicked out, being beaten, being killed - she didn't know; because they're villains. There is literally nothing keeping them from harming her. But then again, from what they've been saying, that isn't really in their best interest, seeing as it's her quirk that they want so desperately on their side.

On the other hand, she's scared of being accepted. Does it mean she's a villain, officially? Does it mean that she's safe to live where they've provided for however long she needs, until she finds somewhere safer, somewhere better, as long as she does what they want her to?

(Y/N) didn't know. She didn't want to be discarded, but she didn't want to be welcomed.

"There is nothing to be concerned about, (Y/N). After we assess your quirk, you can begin training your physical body. Everything will come together in due time."

When (Y/N) sees the sky again, it is big and bright and clearer than she's seen in weeks, the suns pale winter glow glaring down at her as if she is nothing but a pile of snow to melt. (Y/N) is currently walking back to the little place she's staying, a bag of fast food snug in her left hand as she eats on some fries out of it with her right.

Well, she will go back to that hole in the wall, run down, shitty hotel sometime today. But right now, (Y/N)'s just walking around, enjoying the sounds of the city and the absence of snow fall. She could very well be thinking about how she's going to use her quirk tomorrow, or just who she's going to be using it on, or could even be out and buying herself some better shoes that would protect her feet from the cold better, but she isn't. (Y/N) just wants to eat her french fries and disassociate in peace, goddamnit, is that really too much to ask?

In conclusion, she's pushing all critical thoughts aside in favor of making friends with the crows on the roadside because, you know, why not?

(Y/N) stands on the sidewalk, throwing fries to the crows at her feet. Now that she's settled at a table under the patio of some random cafe, presumably closed, there's a whole flock of them hopping around her.

Her lips tug up, heart warming at the birds. Aside from looking the harbinger of death itself, they're kind of cute, in a way. Happily prancing around her ankles, stumbling over each other for the little bits of food (Y/N) can offer. It makes (Y/N), in a strange way, feel full.

Like maybe there is something she's good for, after all; even if it's only for feeding the birds most tend to avoid and overlook.

Suddenly, one of the smaller birds flew onto the table, hopping over to (Y/N), waiting for its turn. She gave it a fry, then another one, then another one.

'She must be hungry. Poor baby.'

(Y/N) gave it the last of her fries, opening her hands to signal that it was all gone. It didn't leave though - it stayed, just inches away from the edge of the table, watching. Waiting to receive something (Y/N) couldn't give.

It had a pink zip tie around its ankle, (Y/N) noticed. Must've got stuck while it was rummaging through the trash.

"There's no more. You can go home now, shoo. All gone."

It stayed, even as the others slowly scampered off into the city.

"Well, I'm leaving now, kay?"

It followed, even as she walked around corners and buildings and back again. It hopped around mounds of melting snow and over the dead rat that lied at the street drain, following (Y/N)'s footsteps like a lost puppy, all the way back to that shitty hotel she was staying at. The abandoned, dusty, nasty hotel.

'Love this for me.'

(Y/N) turned around at the doors, and there the crow was, with a tilted head and a gleam in its eyes. She sighed.

"I don't think you're allowed to come in."

And the little shit just stood there, looking - as if it saw something she couldn't. It irked her.

"Well, either you go or I accidentally hold the door open for you and you accidentally get in. So, what is it, little bird?"

The woman stretched her arm out behind her, pushing open the swinging door that let out a loud groan in protest - and, finally, the crow stepped away, turned around and took flight, disappearing into the cityscape with only a full belly and pink zip tie to its name.

(Y/N) entered the hotel with a shrug of her shoulders.

Settled on a powerline just a few streets away, the crow was suspended above the streets. Trash tumbled along the pavement, a few plastic bags floating in the wind, a car speeding down the roads every now and then. For the most part, it was lifeless.

As for the crow, it was watching. Waiting to see it again.

Waiting to see her again.

#ITS FINALLY HERE WOOOO #i hope yall liked this chap!! lemme know in the notes <3 #also not to be Like That but pls share this #bnha #bnha x reader #mha #dabi x reader #lov #league of villains #villain!reader #reader insert #dabi #x reader #runaways #runaways - chapter 3 #hopiewrites #fanfic #fic

52 notes · View notes

aleatoryalarmalligator · 6 years

Text

Life Story Part 62

When I left the alt. school, I took with me three books unintentionally from the school – which turned out being great for me, and it probably didn't hurt the school too much (in any case I went back and returned them a year later). The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, The Painted Bird, and Native Son. In a way, I look back at these three books as having a very big impact on who I am, and I suppose it's in part because I think these books are fantastic and in part because books in general were replacing contact with other people. But a lot of my later insight was built off the ideas of the books I read for these years of my life They are hard to put into words. They effected my psychologically.

I was taken to go get my GED – so at least I would have that. I figured it would be easy enough. They in later years set up the tests a lot harder with mandatory classes you had to take for about four months, but when I got my GED it was definitely easy. I arrived early at the LCSC college, was taken down long confusing downstairs twisty college hallways. Most of the rooms were empty and silent. I wondered what schools did with all these empty rooms and facilities. I suppose they all serve a function and may not always be empty, but they were that morning. I was put into the room they had mistakenly thought I was supposed to go to – and then twenty minutes in they realized I was not there for the courses. I was there to test out and I was in the wrong room. So I was lead into a room where I now had fifteen minutes to finish mathematics testing that I should have had all that other time I wasted in the other room for. Fortunately, I finished and passed it. Not with flying colors mind you, but it got finished. The rest of the tests were essentially basic grammar and being able to assess information that you read tests. I made a day of it, and I got out of there passing. Getting my GED wasn't ideal of course as opposed to a high school diploma, but given the circumstances, I still felt as though I had achieved something. I had at least – some filed away fact about the legitimacy of my basic abilities, and something to show for twelve years of getting up at ungodly hours of the morning to go to school five days a week.

I worried about fighting with my dad. We didn't fight, at least not that fall from what I remember, but I felt especially vulnerable given my new found set of circumstances that basically left me stranded with no future. I no longer had school to go to, or any friends to turn to. The idea of going out and becoming a musician on my own now felt a bit silly. I had to sort of face up to the fact that some of my younger teenage dreams didn't seem quite the same to me as they once had. It felt as though something had come and taken everything away from me. I felt very distant a lot of the time. I felt very alone. In a sense I enjoyed it. At best it had that pleasant tingly feeling of being in a quiet house that has been full of people for several days, and they just left, and now you are alone and you can hear the ticking of the clock and your own heartbeat and everything in the fridge is yours. I guess I was emotionally exhausted. I didn't know who I was really. I mean, I did know to an extent who I was, but I didn't at the same time. This was the first time I think I consciously realized that we can be more than one person when we are by ourselves, if we are with a significant other, coworkers, friends, a grocery store, in a position of authority, with our parents individually and together. I am particularly divided in this regard. There is no telling who I am actually. It can be a little frightening and confusing for me to this day. Identities are very fleeting, but seem very real and unshifting in the ever present moment.

Because of the fact that I was afraid of the emotional violence towards me from my father, I flirted with the idea of moving to my mom's. Allison and David would be left sure, but my mom worked a lot at the nursing home, these really long shifts that nurses sometimes work that are sixteen hours with a small break. I guess there are times when watching over the patients is relatively easy – like you can sit down and stuff, but still – who wants to be at work that long? My mother has/and does volunteer to take absurd amounts of hours whenever she can. She will go several months without a day off at these understaffed facilities. She didn't get paid all that well at the nursing homes she's worked at, but she worked so much that she managed to have money. And when she wasn't working, she was of course doting on her boyfriend Danny. She ended up getting this very cheap rundown apartment on the outskirts of town in some old buildings that were built in the seventies that occasionally got the cops called. It was for the most part quiet. I didn't mind the apartment or the occasional noises of the neighbors, in fact I rather welcomed the sound of people running water. I didn't feel so out of touch or alone. I don't know. The sound of people doing something in the next apartment has always given me this strange tingly sense of comfort.

I would be alone all the time in this apartment when I visited, sometimes for nights on end. There was no internet. We did have about forty channels of cable, most of them totally boring, but seeing as I was raised without television I found it really a step up for me to have it going. I sometimes would watch the History channel when there was history, or I would watch the travel channel or ghost hunting shows. I took a strange comfort in listening to insane religious infomercials in the middle of the night. I surely cannot be the only one that thinks there is something perfectly insane about television. Like, TV rapidly changes the dialogue or the premise for your thoughts. It subconsciously has recreated the thinking patterns of modern man – it's an altered image of our own creating that has taken the reigns and decided to recreate us. The media and it's effect fascinates me. I am not even per say going about that thought on the preconceived notion that television is bad and we should all be doing something else (though we probably should). I am just fascinated about the underlying psychology of it and how mindless it is. It made me feel extremely comfortable and unsettled and mysteriously empty at the same time. I like that madness and I do not.

It was a one bedroom and the bedroom was filled to the top with my mother's boxes – and it would never in my entire time with that place, ever be something you could call a proper bedroom, though people did manage to fit a mattress in there. My mother would sleep on the couch when she was home. She set up a bunk bed in the corner of the living room where I would generally sleep – and Allison and David when they came over. She always blasted the television so loud – and I found that rather frustrating to sleep through. On a good night she would turn it to old movies. So randomly in the night I would hear that old screamy noise from the intense moments of old movies. I would listen to Clark Gable or Bette Davis professing their love, or hear Shirley Temple hear once again that her parent had died and the innocent sobbing that came with that. I rather like old movies and could sleep any old time I wanted now, so it was okay for the most part. But she would also watch Lord of the Rings, and though I sort of like Lord of the Rings okay, it could get a little obnoxious. You would listen to Gimley's lines over and over. How many times did I wake up to Soromon and Gandalf the Grey having it out? She would set it on repeat. I would eventually sneak out of bed and try to turn it off, but as soon as I tried that she would wake up and be cantankerous about it.

I didn't exactly live at my mom's at this point, but I stayed there about half the week most of the time. My father had the internet while my mom did not. My mother didn't even know what the internet was fully, so I could not convince her to spend her money on it. I was mostly divided for this reason. I had to keep up with Sarah and I simply had to tend to my MySpace account. Just thinking of all those MySpace notifications gave me this strong incentive to never want to leave the computer. Having this time to myself though held a lot of value for me as well. It gave me sense of childlike peace I had almost forgot about for the years I had spent in school, living in delirious anger or despair about boys or longing for some big dream of the future. I had forgotten how to enjoy the small details. And in that I had lost my ability to really achieve anything since everything that ends up being big starts out being pretty small. I remember spending hours watching Bob Ross, just like I had when I had been four. I remember Jenni telling me that I was likely going to waste my time when I left school, and maybe she was more right than not, but I had to argue that I needed this time. Or I would listen to Neil Young, who was a new and permanent fixture of my musical existence. I would listen to Down By the River sometimes three or four times in a row. I connected with his guitar style very deeply.

I went to the nursing home with my mom on a couple of occasions. It was a very weird experience. Personal aspects about who my mother actually is to me aside, her working in the kind of jobs that she does really gave me this strong understanding of our society as a whole. Because she worked with the feeble, the mentally disabled, the unstable and the dysfunctional folks that we pay not to see. This is what we do in modern society. We hide it away. Just like we hide from death and decay in most everything we do. It's not something I particularly like to think about either, but we do it to the point of being dishonest with ourselves. We are afraid of it happening to us. I know that European sometimes saw the elderly differently. They were seen as examples of God cursing the wicked, or sometimes those with schizophrenia were seen to be possessed by God, or Lucifer himself. Nazi's would likely have done away with a society that cared for the unwanted and elderly by killing them in many cases had they won World War 2.

I got used to a lot of the elderly patients in the home. The atmosphere in the morning was very strange. These old people were unlike anything I was used to. It fascinated me that they all used to be highschoolers just like I had not long ago been. They had all had lives. And this was the end. One of them would be walking around the room. It would take him forty minutes to make one round. Some of them didn't move or blink anymore. They all seemed highly aware of me though. They all stared at me intently. Their eyes were gleaming with fascination. One old man named Olly who was senile would like his lips sadistically with this mad glint in his eyes as he looked at me. It was the most perverted look I have ever received – but I let it pass realizing his mind was gone. I am sure the teenage Olly would have been horrified by old man Olly's behavior towards women.

There was also an old man named Lou. He had had a stroke that had turned him from a fully functional elderly man who still chopped and brought in his own wood to a sort of vegetable. He would begin speaking randomly in this loud clear voice that was alarming in the quiet room, but it would soon fizzle out into the most insane gibberish I have ever heard. It was language and it was not at the same time. I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of it. It always degraded from gibberish into this weird buzzing noise that didn't sound even human. He would be silent then for five minutes before starting up again. I asked my mom about it, and she didn't seem as curious about what he was trying to say. Maybe I am more curious than most, and she had probably seen a lot of old folks come and go and she was pretty used to it.

Allison sometimes went too, but we always went on separate days. I don't know that the facility really wanted my mother's entire family coming in. Allison made friends with this old woman named Raquel. She didn't understand English, but it didn't particularly matter because she didn't understand very much. Her family did come and see her frequently which was good to see. She was a very sweet lady – though very far gone mentally. She would giggle and clap her hands in delight when Allison even used one or two Spanish words. It was also very easy to make her cry. She was afraid of spoons and nobody knew why. Getting her to eat was a challenge.

The old lady that latched onto me was this ninety five year old ex school teacher from I imagine the thirties through seventies named Jenny. It was amazing to look at her and know she had been around for so long. She had been born before world war one. She had been alive when pictures were black and white, and people danced to Al Bowlly and Glen Miller and stuff like that. I was told that she had been a very strict teacher in her day, and she had been a perfectionist. She first came up to me because she wanted me to straighten things in the room. She had lost most of her clarity and could no longer reason very well or speak very much, but she still knew when something was wrinkled or crooked. She was too old to fix these things herself and they must have constantly been eating at her that she no longer had control to do anything about it. So she came up to me and pointed to the corner of the table. The table cloth that was set up was slightly wrinkled. I went over and straightened it. She then started pointing to other tables, to random things in the room that were ever so slightly askew. If it was reasonable, I would attempt it. Occasionally she would point to someone's shirt, or to something hanging up on the ceiling and I would have to gesture that I couldn't do it.

The one thing I ever heard her say was she started calling this one other older woman who was there fat. It was a bit alarming. Jenny was of course too old to scold. The woman in question was this very obese woman who could no longer stand. She wasn't as old as the others were, but she had nobody to care for her and was eventually taken to this home which I imagine was very hard. Jenny would look at this other woman with this bitterness in her eyes, and she would sort of croak, FAT! And she would point at her as though she expected I might be able to do something about it or I would agree with her. I felt a little sheepish and embarrassed. It amused me though to realize that she had probably been that way her entire life. I imagine she had had this prejudice when she was a capable young school teacher. I stated earlier that identities are fleeting, but at the same time can really stick to our core perceptions of the world. It also was amusing to me, because I generally came in wearing a hoodie, and for that reason I could use my hands in my pockets to stretch the hoodie over my own belly. It seemed that in Jenny's mind, as long as there were no wrinkles in the clothing, and you couldn't see the fat, that therefore meant that there was no fat.

Lastly, there was this quiet mysterious woman who always sat in the corner. I never had any dealings with her directly. She was incredibly tiny. I guess she wasn't that old. She was in her early sixties, however, she had drank her mind away. She had once been a San Francisco hippie, well read with a liberal arts degree. But she couldn't put down the alcohol, and it took her mind away. What was really so shocking about her was that she had this flowing beautiful straight shiny hair without a single bit of gray in it. It looked honestly straight from an ad in a magazine. It would have been striking in a crowd of random people my age, let alone, on this vacant old lady in the nursing home. As far as I know, the only person who ever visited with woman was her ex husband, who would come in sometimes baring flowers.

Honestly, my mother was one of the nicer nurses. I never saw any mistreatment of the older folks who lived here, but there was an impatience in the eyes of most of the orderly. Allison eventually had to stop going because she got openly mad at one nurse who was aggressively and angrily trying to make Raquel eat from the spoon that she was afraid of. She started yelling at Raquel which made Raquel cry and throw herself on the ground. The woman was even angrier then, and she kept shouting at Raquel even though it was clear that Raquel didn't understand and had obviously not chosen this for herself. My mother came over and smoothed it over, but Allison ended up getting in this nurse's grill and it was unsaid after that, but my mom stopped bringing us.

I don't know why at this point my mom was dating Danny still. He was completely degrading. The situation was degrading. I didn't particularly care at this point, but it was degrading to watch. She would sometimes come home drunk, and it just seemed sad. She seemed uncertain if he even loved her or liked her at all. He would do the thing where he pushed her away and insinuate that they were no longer a couple, but then when she gave him space, he would call her up in the middle of the night accusing her of cheating on him. He was still cheating on her when he could get away with it. I sort of wanted to punch him in the face. He was still calling her stupid and gaslighting her. And yet, their meaningless relationship went on and on. I remember once she came to pick Allison and David up on Friday after school to come to her house for the weekend. We went to the store to get our cheap ass dollar store food and cheap ass TV dinners and maybe some cheap ass dollar menu McDonald's (if we were lucky [gross]), and maybe a carton of cheap ass ice cream, and he drove by her house, noticed that the motorcycle helmet he bought her was no longer by her door and accused her of going out on a night ride with some other dude she didn't even know. He kept calling her and demanding she tell him the truth. I felt incensed enough to yell in the background while she was on the phone to confirm that yes, we were with her – it was Friday and that is what we all did on Fridays and in any case it was none of his business. He then accused all of us of being liars.

Soon after this, we were driving her car to go get Allison and David one night. It was getting to be winter yet again and it got dark early. It was pitch black and probably not even eight pm yet. About four miles out of town with all of us in the car, the vehicle broke down in a very inconvenient place. There was nowhere we could legally park where we wouldn't get towed. We were not strong enough to push the car anywhere. My mother didn't have money to pay for someone to tow the vehicle. We were left in this conundrum. We had no one else to call except for Danny. He was amused and mean spirited about it over the phone. He seemed to want to use this as an opportunity to berate my mother on how worthless and stupid she was, which of course pissed me off, but furthermore was not helpful in any way. In an attempt to maybe bypass having to pay a towing company, my mother decided to push the car into gulch on the side of the road. It wasn't that deep, and she figured it would be cheaper to pay to have it towed out of that one area than it would to pay the money it would take to bring it all the way to the place where they take cars, which was quite a ways away. When Danny came to pick us up, he called my mother stupid for having done this. She then began talking in her pathetic baby talk voice, saying she had made a stupid mistake, and she should have not done that. Which Danny then told her was also a stupid idea. Basically, nothing she could have done was right. She apologized for calling him to have us pick us up, which he then humbly told us all was not a problem since he was 'a nice guy'. But then he just continued to berate her about any of the options. It got to the point where she was cornered and no matter which option she chose, she was stupid for it. He had never been quite so open about his psychological abuse around me before this. I had tried to hold my tongue initially. We all just wanted to get home, come what may – but it was getting to the point where I definitely couldn't listen to this anymore, and I was confused in a very technical way of what he was even trying to say logically. So I was like '..So, like, she couldn't just turn the car back on and continue driving. She had few options given the situation. She had those two options pretty much. There were not any better ones. What is it you think she should have done? I don't know what you are trying to say and I don't appreciate how many times you have called her stupid.' He got really annoyed then and sort of backed off. He low key accused us all of 'ganging up on him'. After this, I don't know that I ever had any personal contact with Danny at all, though my mother continued to see him for a time.

My mother ended up having a bunch of legal troubles for her driving. She had driven for years without insurance. She didn't drive horribly, but she wasn't always a decent driver either. It started one night while driving back to Lewiston and there was this sting operation in Lewiston that night, about a month after my mother's vehicle had ended up getting towed regardless. We actually got pulled over for going two miles over the speed limit. It was more or less some excuse to pull everyone over. People were getting pulled over left and right and searched. There were a bunch of state police driving about. She not only didn't have proof of insurance on her, but she also didn't have her license on her at the time. My mother seems to not understand cops very well. She started telling the cop about how she was divorced and had to find work that she could barely feed us with on the weekends, and how she worked in nursing homes and had two older daughters and grandchildren and on and on.

The cop looked at her blankly and bored, with no interest in her life story. I was a bit embarrassed for her actually since he wasn't going to let her off on the basis of anything related to her life as it was. He stated that he would have thrown her in jail if she hadn't had me, David and Allison with her. He wrote her up heavily. He then demanded that I get out of the car to be searched. I don't know that I would have minded on the account that I had nothing on me – though, on looking back. I don't trust that he might have slipped something on me. It would have been highly unlikely, but you never know. Fortunately for me, my mother started getting mad and telling him he was not allowed to search me. I was her daughter and he needed to leave me alone. He was caught off guard, his attitude softened and he complied. So we had to take a taxi home. Which ended up being really awful, because when we were nearly at the apartment, she realized she had left the apartment key and her wallet in her car that she needed to pay the taxi, so we ended up driving all the way back to the car. It costed sixty or seventy dollars.

She ended up driving anyway, and getting pulled over three times. The cop who kept pulling her over liked her car, and wanted her to sell it to him and kept asking every time, so she stood out like a sore thumb when she was commuting. Her fines were enormous. Then she got a DUI from her drives home from the bar. Which I actually did understand since driving drunk is legitimately awful and dangerous. She eventually started walking home or getting rides which was good I guess. She tried to fight the DUI given she wasn't that high over the legal limit. In her fantastical silly vision of the world, she took this fighting back against her DUI as some kind of courtroom drama where she was going to change history by proving to the courts that the cops were corrupt for collecting money from DUI's and she was innocent and not even drunk. Which didn't work out. All told, I believe she was pulled over in one year period about ten times. Eventually, she got her license back and was insured. But it was a time consuming costly ordeal to say the least. I was in the car with her about six times when it happened, so I started wondering if I was bad luck.

When we weren't getting pulled over, or she was not working, we would sometimes drive up these strange roads that paralleled the Washington side of the Snake River till the sun would go down. In this really hard to describe way, my mother and I have some core similarities even though we function and express ourselves differently. It's not in how we talk (I don't see a lot of my behaviors being all that similar to hers), but I think in an inner self kind of way – like that part of us that exists before there are words to describe it. Like, I can tell that when she looks into the distance at a sunset, she gets that same sparkly delusional romanticism about life that I do. She has the same needs to express herself and live on a certain vibration that is hard for people to understand, feels suppressed by the world – much like I do. And I feel this wasn't something she raised me to be. We didn't do much talking growing up. Like, there is some kind of inner delusional traits that are similar enough to mention. It must be genetic. So even though I know there are elements to my mother that make her a truly awful person – I can't help but feel that kinship. I know what it's like to be one of our kind.

During these mini road trips, she would always want to listen to this Eagles Greatest Hits tape on the tape deck of the van she was driving (she avoided driving her white Camaro now at all costs). I would sing along even though I have never been quite sure how to feel about the Eagles. On one hand, there is something incredibly cheesy about them. On the other hand, I associate them with a certain love I have for the area I grew up and all the good times I have had with my mother. I hate the culture as well as all the limitations of growing up where I did, but there is a certain love I have for the mountains and greenery of northern Idaho and the dry eastern Washington deserts, the dingy gas stations, the quiet streets at night, the rivers. The sky looks different somehow in every area you are in. I don't know why. Both of us were terrible singers, but it almost made it even funner and I will admit that I never tried to sing well in these situations. One time, skip to years later, we were singing You're So Vain by Carly Simon which was on the radio and for some reason I had a tape recorder in the car with us, and we decided to tape record ourselves singing, just the two of us. So we drove around just singing our hearts out, and we eventually ended up in some strange dead end part of Clarkston. We stopped at an empty church parking lot to listen back to our singing, and though we knew it was going to be bad, neither of us even imagined just how much worse it was than even our lowest of expectation. We both shrieked, and decided to never tell anyone what we had created. This is the first time I have ever mentioned it to anyone as a matter of fact.

I still spent a good deal of time at my father's however. Allison and I would share a bed to stay warm in the winter nights, and we would often talk till midnight or later. I ended up finding The Kink's album, The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society, and I adored that album, and grew over time to absolutely fucking adore The Kinks as well. It's unnecessary to make this some kind of contest since they are both decent, but The Kinks were so much better than what they ever got credit for. They were theatrical, experimental, I felt that they stayed decent a lot longer than any of the solo Beatles did – or the Rolling Stones. This isn't to say that the Rolling Stones and the Beatles don't deserve their due, but – had the Kinks not been banned from America for inciting a riot I feel like they would be remember with a lot more clarity for much more than just 'You Really Got Me'.

I would space off a lot and a part of me felt like I was almost living a double life. One side of me was here in the present, eating saltines, feeling poor, dirty, futureless, postmodern without prospects, lost and defining myself only by the past and if I let myself think about it – which I did everything I could not to – completely and totally unlovable and pointless in a very fundamental way where every breath I took seemed totally wasted. But there was this other version of me that lived in the 60's. I liked listening to older music, to Bob Dylan and others. I would reminisce about Woodstock when I most certainly was never there in any fashion. I would imagine a world where the late 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's had never happened at all. I tried to experience what living in that new reality of the 60's must have been like. I suppose I grasped the spirit of it to a certain extent. Though in reality obviously, I was never there, and I was/am very much a person from the age I was born in, whether I like it or no.

Winter was very cold that year I remember. My sister's friend's grandfather Harvey, who was mentally challenged and lived at the end of town found this cattle dog outside his house that winter. She was starving and sick. She seemed to have been dropped off by someone to die. Her leg was broken. Harvey had a problem with animals in the town swarming his home since he left food out frequently for some of the cats, and I believe he was afraid of dealing with this poor dog, so he ignored her and refused to feed her – probably taking on a false sense of harshness he gathered from the truckers down at the diner downtown who often bragged of taking unwanted kittens, putting them in a bag, tying that back to a brick and throwing that bag into the icy river. Harvey I suppose really just didn't know how to feel, or what to do in a number of different situations, this being a tragic example. My father didn't like the idea of that poor docile dog dying out there at the end of town, so he volunteered to take her in, and for a time we had a pet dog.

She was a very sweet girl. She was a little skittish, and you could tell that she was afraid of men, who had likely abused her. She never tired of being pet. Her leg was really messed up. It looked as though it had been broken, and had grown wrong, and wasn't very usable. She had a swollen bump on her chest that didn't look good. We tried to wash her, but she just wasn't well enough for a lot of that. And she smelled too bad to be in the house with us. We set up a bed for her in the back room. We gave her an electric blanket to lay in. I named her Pegasus. She didn't resemble the flying elegant mythological horse in any way – in a great many ways, she was the bitter opposite of mythology. A suffering old dog. I tried to pet her and visit her as often as I could. At some point though she stopped getting up. She stopped eating food. Obviously, dogs are natural gluttons so this gave us the strong indication that something was very wrong with her. She began to smell worse and worse. I pet her anyway. It sort of broke my heart. Someone had known she was sick and had decided to dump her to die alone. She was too old to be anyone's exciting new pet. She also didn't smell too good. But she needed to be cared about just as much as any social creature.

Obviously, we had to take her to the animal shelter eventually. I knew it was the right thing to do. She obviously had cancer. She was old, and her leg being broken as it was would be a major challenge. Her body was shutting down, hence the smell. And still, she was so sweet. I sat in the back seat with her, and pet her the entire trip to the animal shelter. She looked lovingly up to me for much of the time, with this glazed over look. I truly believed that dogs feel love. She cared more about being given affection than she cared about food or even her own freedom. When we got to the animal shelter she couldn't walk and this woman who worked at the pound had to grab her and carry her in. I pet her one last time. She looked scared, though I could tell that the people at the animal shelter felt badly for her, since she was such a sweetheart. Honestly, I am fairly confident they put her down. As I waited for my father to make some kind of of final contribution to her welfare, maybe giving the shelter a few weeks worth of food money, I sat in the area with all the caged up cats. There were so many of them. Some of them hissed at me, many looked at my inquisitive and bored. This one cat in particular was yowling for me desperately. Purring and cherishing every spare second of attention and contact that could be had. I felt so bad for all these animals. I know there are a lot of differences between human being's cognitive awareness and animals, but it was easy to tell all of these animals felt abandoned. I imagine many of them never found homes. I also imagine it would be very hard to work in one of these places, being put into a situation where the most financial and humane thing to do would be to put them all down. It really irks me to no end when people get animals and don't take care of them. I hate it when people don't get their cats neutered and spayed. Ignoring all the animals in the wild we ignore as they go extinct, or the slaughterhouses or whathaveyou, we aren't even good to our own pets. Between abandoned pet dogs and cats that people simple , puppy mills, and so on, we bring these creatures into the world that they cannot survive or thrive in on their own, and they suffer. Call me crazy, but I honestly believe in some wild reforms in pet ownership.

That Christmas was probably the best Christmas I ever had. I had professed that all I wanted for Christmas was paints, canvases and brushes. For whatever reason, possibly guilt from the years my father had primarily bought gifts for girlfriends, he spent close to three or four hundred dollars on Christmas just for me. We went to Michael's and he bought me brushes, every color of high quality acrylic paint I would ever need, several different sizes of canvases. He also bought me some art books, for inspiration. They were these strange little books that presented different kinds of Art. One was simply called The Art Book, and the other was 20th Century Art Book. There was a House book, a Face book (of photographed people). It was from these two little books that I would flip through and study for hours that I got some grasp of what it meant to fill a canvas with pure expression. It was to date I think, easily my favorite Christmas besides a few I experienced as a child because I believed in Santa and all that.

We had a perfect Christmas dinner, and my father had thought to get me Blue Velvet. He didn't know very much about David Lynch, but he knew enough to know that David Lynch was something I would really like. And he was correct. He didn't want Allison and David watching Blue Velvet, so he made them close their eyes when Dennis Hopper's character was being a disgusting pervert. Call me weird, but as long as you have good communication with your children, and given they are eight or older, I am not that strict about what children watch. Obviously not just pure out of context snuff films or porn for the most part. Though I am not apposed to strong violence or sex within context of the story. And i imagine it is possible to put context into what you are watching. For instance, you could show when Saddam Hussein was being hung in context to showing what capital punishment looks like. If you want to eat meat, you should watch the full reality of what the animal goes through. It’s painful, but life was never meant to be jolly.

Raising children into being aware adults, I think it's important for them to grasp complex concepts, moral dilemmas and realities of our depravity and fragility mentally and physically. Media can be a great way to show children this stuff - if put into context - i cannot stress enough. Obviously if your child shows strong levels of delusional behavior than perhaps it's not a good idea. If you child suffers from severe anxiety as well perhaps take baby steps. I mean, it’s individual with each case, but more or less i think you should always present the challenge as best you can.I think earlier than eight a child is more or less in strictly monkey-see monkey-do mode, and it's not useful or desirable to confuse them about what is appropriate when they are still learning how to engage with the world as an individual in a fundamental fashion. My father was trying to be decent by telling Allison and David to shut their eyes, but what I thought was funny was the fact that the disturbing Frank Booth scenes were even worse if you close your eyes and simply listen to his lines. God what a fucked up character.

PART 61 - https://tinyurl.com/ybm99k8o

PART 60 - https://tinyurl.com/y8qqo2tk

PART 59 - https://tinyurl.com/yd79nbcs

PART 58 - https://tinyurl.com/yc3zzr5k

PART 57 - https://tinyurl.com/y9slhq2w

PART 56 - http://tinyurl.com/y7v9kbn2

PART 55 - http://tinyurl.com/y8fy3uew

PART 54 - http://tinyurl.com/yb8nlwvh

PART 53 - http://tinyurl.com/yae9wgbj

PART 52 - http://tinyurl.com/ybwft2g6

PART 51 - http://tinyurl.com/y9gsjg4j

PART 50 - http://tinyurl.com/y7729d45

Part 49 - http://tinyurl.com/ydbpgkqw

PART 48 - http://tinyurl.com/ydcn5uuu

PART 47 - http://tinyurl.com/y8xyogl9

PART 46 - http://tinyurl.com/ybqoxned

PART 45 - http://tinyurl.com/y94784tz

PART 44 - http://tinyurl.com/ydfpbzxt

PART 43 - http://tinyurl.com/yckvswd7

PART 42 - http://tinyurl.com/ycnng83q

PART 41 - http://tinyurl.com/y84kmttv

PART 40 - http://tinyurl.com/y8aj6kmq

PART 39 - http://tinyurl.com/y97vprft

PART 38 - http://tinyurl.com/ycr7la8q

PART 37 - http://tinyurl.com/y8trssqd

PART 36 - http://tinyurl.com/y9ygq9q8

PART 35 - http://tinyurl.com/ya5xhe2f

PART 34 - http://tinyurl.com/yc6y4p69

PART 33 - http://tinyurl.com/y87449dz

PART 32 - http://tinyurl.com/ycetanep

PART 31 - http://tinyurl.com/yae3o4rd

PART 30 - http://tinyurl.com/ybht9aul

PART 29 - http://tinyurl.com/ybfcr9j2

PART 28 - http://tinyurl.com/yagdlo47

PART 27 - http://tinyurl.com/ydcj5fgf

PART 26 - http://tinyurl.com/y73nvl73

PART 25 - http://tinyurl.com/y6v6pgoj

PART 24 - http://tinyurl.com/ycak5d8r

PART 23 - http://tinyurl.com/yac6sk3g

PART 22 - http://tinyurl.com/yat6cfnw

PART 21 - http://tinyurl.com/y783egno

PART 20 - http://tinyurl.com/y8jskymt

PART 19 - http://tinyurl.com/rfhbms8

PART 18 - http://tinyurl.com/ycrznrwk

PART 17 - http://tinyurl.com/y77unlng

PART 16 - http://tinyurl.com/yadpsv8c

PART 15 - http://tinyurl.com/yb3lt6k5

PART 14 - http://tinyurl.com/yb4cfedq

PART 13 - http://tinyurl.com/yalanq9s

PART 12 - http://tinyurl.com/yc79mw94

PART 11 - http://tinyurl.com/yc9qhj84

PART 10 - http://tinyurl.com/yb734w24

PART 9 - http://tinyurl.com/yc2t6vfw

PART 8 - http://tinyurl.com/ybl37utq

PART 7 - http://tinyurl.com/ybvo283g

PART 6 - http://tinyurl.com/kbc9dwu

PART 5 - http://tinyurl.com/msnz4am

PART 4 - http://tinyurl.com/k9x8esg

PART 3 - http://tinyurl.com/mwp9atx

PART 2 - http://tinyurl.com/lbt6xq2

PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8

#text

19 notes · View notes

retrocollect · 7 years

Link

Before I actually delve into the main meat and potatoes of Cowardly Creations’ recent PS4 and Vita release, I want to discuss the title. Uncanny Valley is named after the notion that the more accurate simulations of human faces and expressions get, the more we (as in, us real humans) become aware that they might not be authentic. A great example of this are the characters seen in the Tom Hanks computer generated movie The Polar Express. The facial animations of the characters are eerily lifelike…but there’s something decidedly soulless about them and the human eye has an unnerving ability to detect the fabrication. The same can be said of the young Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy or the recreation of Peter Cushing depicted in Star Wars Rogue One. Like The Thing from John Carpenter’s eponymous 1980s masterpiece, it looks like a human…but it isn’t. And so ends the pseudo-science lesson. I simply find the notion of the uncanny valley theory totally fascinating and this in part might be one of the reasons that I was drawn to this retro-inspired psychological horror in the first place.

Uncanny Valley is actually a fairly old game, having originally been released on Steam way back in 2015. I only discovered this after searching for information about the game prior to its release on the PlayStation Store earlier this week, and I unearthed a bunch of rather unfavourable reviews, too. Not wanting to be influenced by the actual reasons behind the various two-star ratings Google threw at me amongst the search results, I decided not to read them and instead wait for the game to arrive and play through it with no prior knowledge or information about the storyline or the gameplay mechanics. The only things I cared about at the point of purchase were that I was enamoured with the 2D, pixel art trappings and the promise of playing what looked like a retro-themed take on Silent Hill. Having experienced and enjoyed aesthetically similar games on my Vita, such as Lone Survivor and Slain (both of which have a definite horror theme), I wanted to give Uncanny Valley my full, undivided and uninfluenced attention.

The game starts with you playing as a guy called Tom (which was disconcerting at first, as I though the game somehow knew my actual name), who has just taken a job as a security guard at an isolated facility surrounded for miles around by nothing but snow-covered forests. The facility was once the home to an organisation called Melior, but now stands unused yet is eerily still full of office equipment and machinery. So far, so The Shining; and I think it’s important to reference Stanley Kubrick’s seminal horror flick at this point because Uncanny Valley draws much of its uneasy atmosphere from the 1980 movie. The feeling that everything appears to be normal, but there’s something not quite right. Where are all the workers from the facility? Why does the massive building stand empty apart from you and another security guard with who you share a shift pattern? Who is the mysterious house keeper you occasionally run into at the now deserted staff accommodation block? There are so many unnerving elements to the game’s story that you can’t help but be drawn in, driven by a desire to know more. It’s like The Shining mixed with the desolation of Pripyat and the mysterious, unnameable weirdness of HP Lovecraft’s novella Shadow Over Innsmouth.

Once you settle in, Uncanny Valley sets you the task of doing the rounds in the Melior building after dark, where Buck (the other security guard) gives you instructions on which floors to patrol and barks at you over the radio to fix the generator if the power goes down. During these shifts (which actually only last for 7 minutes each) you are generally free to roam around the deserted building and the limited outside areas by torchlight, picking up audio tapes and reading emails on the various computer terminals you find. Both of these activities will yield further information about what went down at Melior before the firm went to the wall, and also reveal the unease felt by staff at working in such a remote location, with the company dabbling in unethical and slightly disturbing research. It is once these night shifts end and Tom finds himself needing the warm embrace of sleep that Uncanny Valley truly takes a trip into the macabre and surreal.

The dream sequences place Tom in a host of unconnected scenes and locations – police stations full of corrupt cops, alleyways populated by mutilated corpses and tenements full of what can only be described massive green faces bursting through walls…because that’s what they are. The desolate reality merged with the horrific dream sequences, both in turn coupled with no real idea of what is going on (initially at least) do make Uncanny Valley a truly unique and genuinely unsettling experience. For this, I cannot fault it. The game does start a bit slowly, and is a little bit more of a walking simulator than you would expect, but after a while the creepiness ramps up and the action starts…and then it goes fully Silent Hill and you find yourself running down shadowy corridors, shooting zombies in the head and being chased by crowds of invincible silhouettes. What does it all mean? What was Melior doing out there in the place beyond the pines? Well…I won’t spoil it for you, but rest assured it’s pretty creepy and makes Uncanny Valley stand out on the Vita especially as a game well worth investigating.

Another, not so positive aspect of Uncanny Valley, is just how full of glitches it is. At first, I wondered if what I was encountering was a play on Eternal Darkness’s way of messing with the player. Remember the ‘corrupt memory card’ prank and the other ways in which the Gamecube classic tried to freak you out by breaking the fourth wall? Well, Uncanny Valley has plenty of these moments…but they aren’t intentional. A major bug I found was that if you are in the middle of attempting a puzzle when the game forces Tom back to his bedroom to get some sleep (it’s a bit like the mechanic used in Shenmue where Ryo Hazuki has to keep popping off to bed when it gets late), then the game will not load the following screens. It’s hard to explain, but essentially you can still move around and interact with items and other characters…but you cannot see anything on the screen. Pressing pause will make the black mask flash for a split second, revealing the game as it should be before going back to a black screen. In this case, the game had auto saved and no matter how many times I reloaded my save, the black screen glitch was replicated. Annoyed, I restarted the adventure resigned to the fact that I’d just wasted two hours of my life.

Interestingly though – and as a testament to the message you get upon starting Uncanny Valley for the first time – on my second play through I got a slightly different experience. Different conversations with the same characters, different items in the game world to collect and slightly different dream sequences. Uncanny Valley boasts several different endings and you are encouraged to play through the whole adventure multiple times to see everything the adventure has to offer, and the fact that this annoying glitch forced me to restart after just two hours allowed me to get a look at what the developers intended. There are some other clever aspects to Uncanny Valley, such as the ability to heal certain parts of Tom’s body with bandages, and the damage model will hinder progress (such as making Tom walk slower or not allowing him to move boxes at all if his arms are injured). There are standard puzzle elements too, such as finding key codes and unlocking doors and there are also some nice little touches like being able to interact with the vast majority of background items. However, the muddled way in which the story is revealed to the player, and the general air of not knowing what to do next does detract from the overall experience.

In a nutshell, Uncanny Valley is an intriguing and refreshing experience – certainly on the Vita, anyway. It looks pretty great and the animation is brilliant, while the sound design perfectly builds suspense and a feeling of uncertain and otherworldly horror. Sadly, there is a distinct air of style over substance. The somewhat aimless wandering around and slow pacing of the opening sections will probably leave many gamers cold, and the occasional game-breaking glitch means that many will likely never get to see the further recesses of either the Melior facility or Tom’s subconscious. Indeed, if I hadn’t decided I was going to review Uncanny Valley here for RetroCollect, I probably wouldn’t have restarted the game at all. Ultimately though, if you’re hankering for a new approach to horror on your Vita (or PS4, as cross-buy is included in the price), then by all means give Uncanny Valley a few of hours of your time. It looks good and the general weirdness peaks the interest just enough to make you want to see just how bizarre the game can get, and with multiple endings there’s a decent level of replay value.

Since playing Uncanny Valley, I’ve been back and looked at those reviews I mentioned in the opening section of this review and for the most part I agree with the criticisms levelled at the original Steam release. Not much seems to have changed since the jump from PC to console, and even the same glitches appear to have been dragged along for the ride. That said, as a Vita game there’s not really a lot of competition for Uncanny Valley and it’s really quite an interesting take on survival/psychological horror. Head into this expecting a Super Nintendo version of Silent Hill and you’ll be disappointed. Head into it expecting an intriguing new slant on the genre and you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Just remember not to attempt any puzzles before Tom’s bedtime.

Link: Uncanny Valley at PlayStation Store

via RetroCollect - Retro Gaming Collectors Community

#RetroCollect #RetroGaming

1 note · View note

betsyhavekost91 · 7 years

Text

Perspective.

“Joy is a function of gratitude, and gratitude is a function of perspective. You only begin to change your life when you begin to change the way you see.” -Ann Voskamp

What you see and the way in which you see it can make all the difference.

It is evident in that:

One man’s junk is another’s treasure.

One’s greatest fear is another’s greatest exhilaration.

What is despised by one is adored by another.

What seems miniature from a birds’ eye view may appear mountainous on foot.

Something which brings excitement to one can drone another to sleep.

Someone sees the glass half empty, another sees it half full.

The list goes on and on. There can always be another side to the story.

My joy and gratitude are all a result of where I fix my eyes. Of where I allow my heart and mind to dwell. Of the lens through which I view my life.

This year (and, quite honestly, til I reach eternity), I want my life to be marked by joy as a result of my gratitude and perspective. I want to direct my eyes backward, forward, and, ultimately, up, as I attempt to live in the present.

“Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” -Psalm 116:7

I was telling my dad over Christmas break how this verse from Psalm 116 is one which that has been incredibly significant in my life.

It is short, and simple, yes. But for me, those words have been life-giving in the last 365 days and then some. They have jumped off of the page and burrowed roots into my heart like a ground squirrel tunnels deep into soil. They have clearly depicted their truth in the ups and downs of this past year. Those sixteen short words comprising a single sentence have acted as the catalyst for numerous shifts in perspective. Here’s why, for me, this simple verse has been packed with impact.

-“Be at rest once more, O my Soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” The author of the psalm tells his soul to be at rest. Can we just take a minute to acknowledge that it is it pretty obvious this ‘soul finding rest’ thing doesn’t happen without intentionality? My soul doesn’t naturally dwell in rest and peace. Can we also ponder the fact that the author is talking to himself and challenging the current state of his soul? Both are vital for a shift in perspective to occur.

-“Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” What is rest anyway? According to Webster, rest can mean several things: sleep; freedom from activity or labor; peace of mind or spirit; free of anxieties. For me, my soul finding rest means that I know and experience peace.

I don’t know about you, but I can get anxious about a lot in life-- from sweating the small stuff to being fearful of the big stuff. My soul, the core of my being, is easily unsettled by change, unknowns, comparison, fear, and hurt, among other things. Yet in this verse, the author tells his soul to find rest, therefore, he is aware his soul isn’t at rest currently. I have to be aware that my soul is in a state of unrest before I can take steps to put it at rest. You don’t fix a car if you don’t know it is broken, and you don’t change a light bulb if it’s still producing light. I have to be taking my anxiety temperature and know when it is high, because awareness is key. But it also gives me a glimmer of hope that the author tells his soul to be at rest, because it means that rest is indeed possible.

-“Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” Ah, more hope- I’m not a completely lost cause. Yes, I do have enduring peace due to my status of one who is redeemed and restored to relationship with God, all because of Jesus. However, I don’t have continual, constant, unwavering rest and peace in the everyday stuff that bogs me down--anxiety can still creep into the doorway of my soul like the cold seeps through the door frame of a warm room. I find it a necessity to keep returning to, recharging upon, and resetting with truth for my soul to experience peace. It’s not a one-and-done deal. It is active and repetitive. Repetition builds strength, develops new neural pathways, and creates habits (putting that Occupational Therapy research to use). So, once more I need to claim that truth of His goodness. Then claim it again. And again.

-“Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you.” This is the reason why my soul can rest: The Lord has been good to me. Is any other reason needed?

This part of this verse has become very personal to me, because I have actually experienced peace and rest for my soul when I have looked back, listed particular instances in which God has been faithful and present, and claimed the truth that He has been good to me. Numerous times, I have sat down with a heart and mind full of worry or disappointment and come away with a page full of specific ways in which He has faithfully provided, led, walked with, healed, and encouraged. I have tangibly felt my anxiety dissipate and my perspective shift- away from my own limitations and toward His perfect sovereignty in all circumstances. And I have realized Psalm 116:7 is true: The Lord has been good to me. And my soul can rest again and again and again because He has been good to me, and because He will continue to be good to me.

The Lord has been good to me in so many ways. So so many. Let’s just start with Jesus and the fact that I have been rescued from the punishment I rightfully deserve because of my sin. His rescue, His forgiveness, His unchanging love, and His grace- which provides an eternal, life-giving relationship with the Father- is altogether good. And then I look back and see how, time after time, He has been so faithful to direct my steps, to show more of Himself, and to provide in the midst of trials, and I can’t help but conclude how incredibly good He has been to me, even beyond Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. There is no other way to describe it but that He has been so good. So faithful. So gracious. So sure.

Spoiler alert: That isn’t to omit the reality that the times in which He proved Himself faithful and gracious and sure have also been some of the hardest times I have walked through. The times that also included more tears and ‘whys’ than cupcakes and flowers. Yet, the hard times had to occur to allow God to demonstrate His goodness to me. They had to occur for Him to graciously provide specific instances on which I can look back and see: hard situation; faithful God. Hurt heart; constant love. Lonely season; sweet connection with Him. Unknown outcome; better path than I could have chosen for myself.

And by golly, let me tell you. When I look back and recount the ways He has been good, it changes my heart. I see that track record, and it alters my perspective.

In remembering, my perspective shifts from one of anxiety and fear to one of gratitude and peace. Remembering how He has proved Himself faithful again and again leads me to think, “If that is evidence of His track record to date, why do I fear that He won’t keep it up now? He has been perfect so far; He won’t stop today.” The act of reflection restores to my soul both thankfulness for the past and hope for the future. And when my soul is full of thankfulness and hope, it doesn’t have a lot of extra room for worry and anxiety. My soul rests in, floats upon, and is surrounded by: peace.

God is Good.

Little bunny trail here. (Typical Betsy). A word and concept that God has revealed to me more and more fully in the past few years is this word good. To be honest, I used to read verses with that word and think, “Yep, God is good,” almost in the sense of “This burger is good!” or “Would you rate your care as poor, fair, or good?” Let me tell you, God being good is actually so much more. (And believe me when I say I definitely won’t do it justice trying to explain it, so I just pray you will gain a deeper understanding of His goodness this year. )

The essence of God- His very character and His nature- is, in fact, good. He, in Himself, is good. He is the source and creator of all things good. He is the provider of all things good. Nothing good exists outside of or apart from Him.

Psalm 136:1 “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever.”

Psalm 16:2 “I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.’”

Psalm 31:19 “How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you.”

The reason we can claim that He is good is due to every aspect of His character.

He is good because He is: Provider. Healer. Redeemer. Protector. Rescuer. Pursuer. Sustainer. Comforter. Creator. Deliverer. Upholder.

He is good because He is: Gracious. Generous. Conscientious.

He is good because He is: Forgiving. Unrelenting. All-knowing and yet all-loving. Enduring. Unchanging.

He is good because He is: Patient. Compassionate. Personal. Sovereign. Holy. Merciful. Safety. Peace. Trustworthy. Near. Just. Father. Freedom. Savior. Refuge. Hope. Faithful.

The word good enfolds the essence of God’s loving character, His beauty, and His glory into a single word. All those descriptive words (and then a whole lot more) are the definition of how and why He is good.

He is good, and He is good toward me. God doesn’t change and neither does His character. Thus, He will never cease to be entirely good, and never cease to act toward me in a way that is entirely good. Conclusion? I always have a reason to rejoice. Sometimes it just takes a bit to get to the rejoicing because I get caught up in me and forget about the reality that His character- His unfailing love, relentless pursuit, abundant grace- is unphased by any circumstance I may encounter. Which is why it is so important to keep actively remembering. Reflecting on His goodness resets my gratitude-ometer.

Perspective.

And thus, my word of the year is perspective.

I want to remember to look backward, forward, and upward while living in the present.

-Look backward. Remember His faithfulness and goodness on the regular and list specific ways in which I have seen them in my life. And the more specific the better. God told the Israelites again and again in Deuteronomy to remember, and He wants me to do the same.

-Look forward. Remember my ultimate purpose and stay on course. If God didn’t have a purpose for my life on earth right now, He could have simply taken me to be with Himself the instant I first trusted Him. He desires that I know Him more and lead others to know Him more while I live and breathe in this earthly body, with days that are numbered.

-Look upward. Remember to stop trekking long enough to look up and take in the beauty along the way-- and to see that I don’t walk alone because He and others are trekking right beside me. Hiking trails that are rocky, uneven, or straight uphill usually leave my eyes glued to the ground upon which my feet are plodding (Note: wise move for safety sake). But eyes fixed on the rugged trail composed of pebbles and dirt miss the surrounding beauty of brilliant waterfalls, mountains, or wildlife that could be seen if I would just stop, breathe, and look up. Side note: Often the rockiest and most difficult trails are the ones which lead to the most breathtaking scenery.

-Live in the present. Remember to engage right where I am with the gifts I have been given. And to regularly stop and take note of the simple blessings in the here and now which I so easily take for granted. (Thank you, God, that I can breathe without assistance, swallow without aspirating, communicate without difficulty, walk without stumbling, move all my fingers, feel all my toes, and think clearly.)

And, as Ann Voskamp said so eloquently, “You only begin to change your life when you begin to change the way you see.”

So I want to see differently. To see people in light of the Father’s relentless love; see trials as opportunities to grow and to walk more closely with the Lord; see singleness as the blessing it is, taking opportunities to serve and give of my time and resources; see my purpose in life more clearly than ever; see patients as His while I partner with them in their journey toward recovery; see my time as a gift and my days as numbered; see and seize opportunities to compare less and encourage more; see each day as a clear choice between running hard after Him or coasting to the finish line; see grace in the mundane and blessings in the many things I so often take for granted; and to see life through a lens with a prism attached—a prism that bends the way I normally see and instead shifts my sight toward His grace and goodness in such a way that I see them with a new depth. I want to stay my course and keep pressing on toward what matters beyond this life. I want to shift my perspective in order to embrace gratitude and see a reason to rejoice in all circumstances.

So, here’s to attempting to view all of 2017 with a lens of gratitude- and to hoping that it is also a year full of laughter, chocolate, meaningful conversations, and adventure.

Jam of the week: Captain by Hillsong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AQ6VVFNjNQ (note: they filmed it while adrift on the Sea of Galilee, so it is obviously legit. Or “lit” as my little bro would say :) )

Fave words as of late (just a few):

“The grace to grasp grace is grace.” -Brennan Manning

“Following God may be costly, but it is never risky.” -Matt Moore

“Abraham didn’t have ridiculous faith, He had a ridiculous understanding of God. Growing in your faith is growing in your understanding of God’s faithfulness. The more you understand His faithfulness, the easier it is to walk in the midst of impossible circumstances.” -Matt Moore

“How completely satisfying to turn from our own limitations to a God who has none.” -A.W. Tozer

“Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness.” -Simone Weil

And a few faves from Ann Voskamp:

“Laughter is oxygenated grace.”

“Brilliant people don’t deny the dark; they are the ones who never stop looking for His light in everything.

When we have an agenda for God, we can’t see the gifts from God.”

“You aren’t equipped for life until you realize you aren’t equipped for life. You aren’t equipped for life until you’re in need of grace. In the moment of realizing your limitations, your shortcomings, your inescapable sins, all that you aren’t- in that moment of surrendered lack, you’re given the gift you’d receive no other way: the gracious hand of an unlimited God.”

“Only when you are overwhelmed with the goodness of God can you overflow with the goodness of God to others.”

“All is grace.”

0 notes