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thisaintascenereviews · 2 years

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Chelsea Grin - Suffer In Hell I think we can safely say that deathcore is a genre that’s played out by this point in time. I remember when it was heavily despised in the mid-00s, but nowadays, people love it. I’m not sure why the switch happened, because it seemed like metalheads hated the idea of death metal with breakdowns, but people love it now. Bands like Thy Art Is Murder, Lorna Shore, Carnifex, and many more are lauded by people, but those same people detested those bands back a decade ago. These days, though, I think the genre’s played out and not very interesting, minus a few heavy hitters, including all the bands I mentioned, plus maybe Shadow Of Intent, Enterprise Earth, and a few others, but I haven’t gotten into a lot of deathcore. Hell, the new Lorna Shore album didn’t do a lot for me, despite having some very strong elements, but when I saw that Chelsea Grin finally released the first half to their double album, Suffer In Hell / Suffer In Heaven, I was cautiously optimistic about it. See, I haven’t listened to Chelsea Grin in a very long time, and I only really liked their debut EP and their first couple of albums that were from the mid-00s and very early 2010s, but they faded away over time, which makes sense, because despite having Tom Barber from Lorna Shore in the band (which marks his second album with the band, I believe), there’s no reason to care about them. That sounds very harsh, I know, but it’s true. Deathcore has changed a lot in the last few years, and they’ve never been a band that’s known for being progressive in the slightest. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this, but for being only 27 minutes, I was interested. Now that I’ve given it a few listens, this is kind of what I expected, but I don’t mean that in a disappointing way. In short, Suffer In Hell is a very bland, unseasoned piece of deathcore that’s also rather competent. It’s not like it’s outright awful, but at the same time, there’s just not much here. I don’t mind meat and potatoes music, as I’ve talked about bands who have very straightforward sounds that work for me, but this is meat and potatoes without much seasoning. It’s fine, and you’ll get nutrition out of it, but you won’t get a lot of flavor. You’ll get what you came for, especially if you were looking for deathcore, but it won’t be the most expensive or the best deathcore you’ve ever had. Just go into this record knowing that. That’s why it’s about what I expected, as it’s decent stuff, but it’s nothing special. If you like this band, you’ll like this record, but if you don’t, you won’t get anything out of this. I don’t know why they didn’t release both parts at once, because this isn’t anything out of the ordinary, minus maybe a good feature from the late Trevor Strnad, but that’s about it. It’s probably money reasons, because they could get more money from their diehard fans by releasing the same album twice. The second part is coming out in March of next year, and it’s also probably due to the fact that their fans can say that they’ve got a great album two years in a row, even though it’s only been four months. The Metal Meltdown brought that point up, and I think that’s kind of interesting, because maybe that’s why they did that. There’s no need to release both albums in a few months’ span, especially if it sounds like this, but I digress. Maybe there is a place for an album like this, because whereas a lot of deathcore bands are being more experimental and adding more outside influences, it could be refreshing and nostalgic to hear a band just do what they do best. Yeah, sure, it’s not anything special, and if you’re not a fan of deathcore and/or generic deathcore, you won’t get anything from this, but I can see fans being into this (well, aside from the diehard fans that eat up anything their favorite band does, which is kind of cultish, if you ask me, but whatever), especially if you want something more straightforward and that sounds like it came out of 2010. I don’t mean that as an insult, by the way, it just sounds like something we would have heard years ago, because of how bland it sounds. Chelsea Grin has never been one of the stalwarts of the genre, unfortunately, and this album shows why. It’s good, especially if you enjoy deathcore, but you won’t get much out of it, either way. It’s not necessarily lifeless or soulless, but they don’t have any interesting ideas other than some cool breakdowns. That’s fine and dandy, but what happens when you want something more? You’ll just go to the plethora of bands that are doing what they do, but a lot better and more interestingly. I’m happy I checked this out, but you only need to give it a few listens, because there’s not much you’ll pick up on after a couple of listens. It’s a fairly short album, if you can even call it that, so that’s good, at least, but they could have easily released both parts now. I’m just looking forward to writing this same review again in March, because I know that’s what’s going to happen. I could be proven wrong, and the second part could be a power metal, even though it won’t, but it could be something totally different. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose, but in the meantime, this album’s okay.

#chelsea grin #suffer in hell #deathcore #death metal #heavy metal #suicide silence #carnifex #thy art is murder #lorna shore

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border-spam · 3 years

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Maw is rlly good but I personally like the idea of Troy having his skag-mouth as a birth defect from Tyreen leeching him in the womb. Makes for more sibling/family drama, which I inhale like a gas-huffer.

I’m here for drama, yesss. Would actually love to see this idea being used! There is so much there for doing juicy shit with the twins, at the end of the day, both of the nasty little shits are abominations from a galactic power standpoint, so why not go wild with the monster aspect, eh?

My own worldbuilding brain is funky though. Part of why I enjoy doing dives into characters and lore so much, is that I love finding ways to make things make sense, and Troy existing at all in Borderlands does not make any.

So something lots of folks mentioned pre-release was that if the twins were going to be conjoined, they would have to be the same sex. It’s just not medically feasible to have xy/xx conjoined twins as they come from the same embryo split in two but not fully. The only option was they could be chimeric but that didn’t really suit what we were seeing either.

I remember that causing a wave cause holy shit, were we going to get a trans villain and could anyone trust GB to handle that without it being a trainwreck? I’m still happy they used word of god instead cause oof. I don’t want to think of how that could have gone down considering how both these characters ended up being used within the plot anyway.

That means my smooth, analytically obsessed brain has to come up with other explanations for the absolute fuckery that is the Calypso twins and how the hell they exist in the first place when they couldn’t have formed conjoined, and that’s one of the reasons I couldn’t use this kind of extra fun shit like a natural monster mouth being why it’s so heavily modded. I needed to try and fix Troy so he... made sense to me.

Bit of a medical dive into the absolute state of this man under the cut:

We end up with two fraternal twins.

Not identical in the slightest and very noticeable about that in their appearance. It’s not just the height difference, Tyreen’s undercut is dark brown, not Troy’s inky black. Their facial shapes vary massively and not just due to hormones, Ty’s eyes have a cheeky lil’ cat eye slope while Troy’s are sadder, leaning downwards at the outside curve. There’s very little to actually make them even look like siblings bar their colouration, but we still have what we know:

They were born conjoined, Troy had to be cut from Tyreen, and that’s likely why he has one arm.

Keep in mind his arm is literally never mentioned once in BL3. Not ONCE. No one ever references the twin’s childhoods bar Troy, so we actually have no idea if the arm loss is even related to being conjoined.

We just all HC’d that as a fandom with no evidence, not even a hint of information regarding this was provided and I think that’s something we forget about often enough as it’s so widely accepted Troy was born without his right arm. Actually strange to think about that, ain’t it?

But I’m rambling - so, I figured we have two fraternal twins, sharing some kind of horrific all consuming monster entity power between them. One can do fuck all bar embarrass himself and faint, and the other can’t STOP her power functioning to the point she can’t touch anything without consuming it.. so my idiot worldbuilding brain says “Hey. Well, that’s clearly what happened then. They were in the same womb, she started to consume him.” Logic.

Logic works for me, so it stuck.

Made sense that it’s how he’s a Siren at all when the entire cosmos has said Sirens are women, he’s one because the power that was consuming him filled his little body enough to see him as itself, so it stopped - leaving the developing twins joined, and half of Troy’s torso lost to Tyreen.

I can’t justify much else to my fact hungry thought processes, the skag mouth wouldn’t work for me because I can’t fit it in, him being a natural Siren doesn’t work for me cause it can’t fit either, but it does open an avenue of logic for my brain to start following down, and that’s why in Leech Lord, Troy is so desperately unwell.

Growing up barely having survived being consumed in utero is not going to go very well when you’ve no medical assistance living on a shitty little dirthole planet with your dad.

Damaged organs from The Leech feeding as he grew, out of wack hormones ravaging a body that couldn’t really regulate them correctly in puberty leading to massive growth spurts and bone structure issues, no proper nutrition, starving half the time as his size outpaced the amount of food he and Typhon could scavenge, it all comes together into a very delicate health balance.

We already know Troy is very unwell at times from what we see ingame, it made sense to me, so I ran with this line.

He’s sick when he doesn’t want to be, he’s weak when it’s an embarrassment to the character role he’s playing. He covers himself in tattoos and aggressive mods to try and combat looking delicate, so he can lie to himself that he’s not pitiful and bolster his fragile ego. The massive, hulking prosthetic is there to MAKE you look at it. A way of proving how unashamed he is of the damage to his right side, and it works.

The gullible believe, the stupid remain easy to control, and billions see him as a God, rather than the truth - that he’s a very sick, very delicate man.

A lot of what I do with Troy is there to support the underlaying character I’ve tried to write for him in some desperate attempt to try and make the bastard have some logical excuse to exist in the first place.

If I’d gone down the route of having his Maw be something that wasn’t self inflicted, I would have gone off track with the direction I was taking him in, even though I am WEAK for that kind of monster level shit.. Mmm.

I remember being asked:

Would troy have gotten the face mod if Seifa hadnt left?

#Borderlands #Borderlands 3 #Bl3 #Troy calypso #Tyreen calypso #Calypso twins #Leech Lord #Seifa #My hcs #My writing #Sbsart

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minervahopebeyond · 4 years

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Blood Daffodils.

Chapter 14: The letter.

It was a very normal dinner when they had an epiphany about Death’s request, well... actually Padfoot had it but it still counted.

“It could be the Hallows, I mean we have one of them-“ His godfather started to say and his dad sighed with exasperation.

“Not this again.”

“What?” Draco asked curious took a sip from his glass.

“It’s nothing, Sirius always had this stupid idea that the invisibility cloak is the invisibility cloak-“

“The one from the Tale of the Three Brothers?” Ron asked excitedly, his face matching Malfoy’s. And, once again, Hermione and Harry didn’t have the slightest clue about what the rest of them were talking about. Being muggle-raised sucked.

“Where have I read that before...?” Hermione asked, a frown on her face.

“Dumbledore left you a copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. It’s from that book.” Draco answered calmly.

Oh, great, so Harry was the only one who didn’t have a clue about what was going on.

“It totally makes sense! Harry, your cloak, the charm never fades... even the best ones get old and don’t work as well as they did when they were bought. Since when has the cloak been in your family, Mr. Potter?” His dad squinted his eyes, trying to calculate.

“That I know of... I guess that my great- grandfather had it and passed it on.”

Draco widened his eyes, an amused smile appearing on his face. Harry loved to see him like this, so in his element. So focused to achieve his goals and so happy when he discovered something useful. Sometimes he had to think about something else in the meetings, because if he paid attention to Malfoy... He started to get this itchy feeling on his lips, wanting to snog the hell out of the boy right in front of everyone.

“Okay, so let’s assume we have the cloak... What else do we have? She said it was two things.” Draco said as he stood up and leaned against the table. He never could be still when he was figuring out something, he always was moving, walking, jumping in his place, his feet’s were always alert, ready to do whatever it was needed at the time. It was one of the things that Harry liked best about the boy.

“If the hallows exist, I want the Elder wand. Imagine having that, we would win for sure.” Ron said, a wishful tiñe in his voice.

“I’m not on board with being murdered for power, thanks. Been there, done that.” Replies his dad, making Sirius’ and Draco’s laughter echoed in the kitchen.

“I think I would want the stone... Jamie is here with me, but Regulus isn’t... It would be nice to tell him that I destroyed the horcrux he stole.”

Okay, Harry was really not understanding anything. He turned to look at Hermione and her face of confusion told him that she didn’t had a clue either. Maybe the name of the tale was familiar but if Hermione Jean Granger wasn’t participating in a conversation, then she most definitely didn’t understand what they were talking about.

Then, Draco widened his eyes and covered his mouth with his hand in astonishment.

“What...?” Harry dared to ask.

“The stone... We don’t have the wand, no one tried to look for it so we don’t have it, but the stone.”

“I think we would know if we had the resurrection stone, little cousin.”

“Would we?” The blond boy had the smug smile that he loved so much and Harry wanted to slam his own face against the nearest surface just to try to get his brain to work properly again. “What did Dumbledore left you three?”

They all answered, a little tired of going over again the same thing that had been buggering them since August: trying to understand what the fuck did Professor Dumbledore wanted with his will. They only figured out the sword so far.

“Why would he leave you his personal copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard if it didn’t mean anything. Why the snitch?”

“I don’t know, Malfoy. That’s kind of the point. Scrimgeour said that the snitch would open when I’d hold it because it remembers their first touch, but I grabbed it and nothing happened...”

And Draco literally started to laugh saying that they have been so stupid all this fucking time. At this point, Everyone was watching him like he lost his mind (which was possible, Malfoy had been through enough, he wouldn’t blame him for losing it).

“Potter, work with me a little. Think about your first match.”

Harry frowned. He remembered loving every second of it... Except when Quirrel started to curse his broom. He could recall being so obstinate, making every single thing to catch the snitch, even as a first year, even if it was his first match. He remembered reaching out, so close to touching it with his fingers when... Holy shit. He widened his eyes and looked at Malfoy who was grinning like a mad man.

“I didn’t catch the snitch with my hand...” I said, realizing what he meant this whole time.

“You nearly swallowed the thing. I wanted to punch you in the face for that one.” He replied happily and Harry couldn’t help to look at him fondly.

Did Draco think back then that he was cute too? After their fight he had confessed that he found Harry the most attractive bloke in school and, when he heard it, his heart almost came out of his chest.

Take that Nott, he notices me and he likes me the most... At least physically.

What was a little disappointing, was the fact that what Draco thought about how he looked like had nothing to do with his feelings. Harry was glad that the boy found him attractive but, at the end of the day, he wanted for the blond boy to choose him first in every sense... which was not happening.

On Valentine’s Day, he tried to ask Malfoy out on a date. Not that they could go anywhere but his father said that him and Padfoot were having a romantic dinner, so the four of them needed to find another thing to do. Call him naive if you want, but Harry supposed that Ron would want to spend it with Mione alone, that left him and Draco to have a nice time for themselves in his room... And he started to plan it all: which album of Queen they were going to dance to, what would they eat in his room, at what point he was going to kiss him, and just imagining the smell of the daffodils filling his room was enough to put a goofy smile on his face. When Harry suggested to cook some pizza and take it upstairs, he was not pleasantly surprised to find out that Draco had actually planned an evening that included the four of them. At least they got to spend the night together, that was something, right?

“Potter.” Draco said, snapping his fingers in front of his eyes. He blinked repeatedly, as he came back from his thoughts. “Go fetch that Snitch.” He commanded and the green-eyed boy complied.

It turned out that a message appeared if Harry put the snitch in his mouth ‘I open at the close’ Nobody seemed to understand it, Ron only said that he was getting quite tired with Dumbledore’s Riddles. He couldn’t blame him, really.

“So you think that the stone is there, Kid?”

“Yes. Although we can’t do anything until it opens...But at least we know what’s going on... kind of.”

And after they started to assume that the Hallows were real, that one vision that he had about Voldemort torturing Gregorovitch for a wand that he could not find... It was finally starting to make sense. At least, now, Draco and Mione couldn’t be mad at him for letting him into his mind, because they had advantage, they knew what to expect when they would come across him again... Maybe he would carry the Elder Wand with him.

—————————

He was kissing Draco lazily that morning, he loved to do that. He loved to feel like the mornings were an extension from his dreams, this reality where he got to wake up with the blond boy’s arms around him. For a few minutes, he could pretend that this was permanent, that this was the way that he was going to wake up for the rest of his life.

The thing was that Harry had started to have hope, for a multitude of reasons. One being the smile that Draco offered him on these very same mornings, so truthful and warm. Another one being that confession about him being the highest rated boy in the list (yes, he was pretty proud of that). And, on top of everything, they were acting a lot like a couple lately... they would hug more, or kiss more, or hold hands a lot... Ron always had this annoyed expression on his face whenever he saw them together. Harry was aware that he was doing something wrong with Malfoy, he could live without the redhead wearing a scowl constantly on his face.

Draco separated their lips a little bit, just enough so he could talk.

“We should get up, training starts in like half-hour and we haven’t eaten yet.” Harry groaned and kissed him again, biting his bottom lip playfully.

“Or... We could stay here and skip breakfast.” Because, really, he could live without it and this was a much more entertaining thing.

“You can’t skip meals, Potter. We talked about this.”

This was another reason why he was getting hope, Draco was dying he had his own problems, and still, he found time to take care of Harry... To talk about the importance of a good nutrition and to come and spend the night with him whenever he realized that it was almost midnight and Harry wasn’t even attempting to get into his bed. Sleeping was overrated if you asked him, he spent six years of his life sleeping four hours each night and he was doing pretty well. Malfoy didn’t agree with him, though.

“You are such a killjoy.”

“Yes, now get up.”

The day passed by pretty smoothly. There wasn’t anything weird about it, no drama, no tantrums, no Ron and Hermione arguing about stupid stuff, and the more important thing ever: no coughs. None. Not even a small one. Harry seemed to be on Felix felicis again given the fact that he was smiling and skipping around the house from the happiness alone.

That was why it felt like such a punch to the gut to find the parchment on Malfoy’s desk.

They rarely spent time in Draco’s and Ron’s room. Probably because it was difficult to be alone in a room that was shared. The blond boy was in the shower, Ron was downstairs with Mione (he couldn’t go and interrupt them) and he was bored. He actually went into Draco’s room because he couldn’t find one of the vinyls, and since the blond boy tended to hoard as much of them as he could... He guessed that he could go and have a look around.

Now, Harry was regretting to ever had entered the room. His eyes were fixed on the parchment, Malfoy’s beautiful letter displayed on it. He didn’t even read the letter, he couldn’t. It was wrong wasn’t it? But...

Dear Theo:

There was this little voice in his head telling him to read it. That he could keep the secret. He was already biting his tongue to not tell Draco how he felt, and that was hard enough, he could keep this to himself too, couldn’t he?

‘No, Harry. This is awful. It’s private, you can’t. Just turn around and go.’

The boy was starting to hate the high morals that Gryffindor had instilled in him through the years... But to be fair, he never seemed to apply those morals whenever Malfoy was involved. With trembling hands he took the letter and began to read it.

Dear Theo:

I want to tell you so much that I don’t know where to begin. Let’s star with the most important thing, shall we?

The Deathly Hollows are real. Remember when we wanted to become the Masters of Death back when we were like five? I can’t believe that it is something actually possible, my prat of a father always made fun of our ‘childish dreams’ but who laughs now, huh? I have a connection to the other side, I can do the old rituals and I have a quest that has been a petition from Death herself.

I can’t help but to wish that you could be here.

His heart started to hurt. It felt like someone was strangling it. He was so naive wasn’t he?

Harry took a deep breath and resumed his reading, forcing himself to read that same line again.

I can’t help but to wish that you could be here. I know that you would love this, the mystery, the riddles... Even in this very obscure context is unbelievingly fun to try to solve this.

I miss you dearly. We haven’t got to spend any time together this year and I fear that we are not going to... Things are too messed up right now and I don’t have much time left. Potter says that he is going to finish this before June but, honestly, I don’t think that it’s going to happen.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The tears started to escape from his eyes, he moved away the letter, trying to avoid staining it with his tears.

Please tell me that you are being safe...That you are being as cunning and ambitious as ever (well, tell me in a metaphoric sense of the term because this letter in not going anywhere and you can’t respond to it). When the time comes, I hope that you fight with our side. I really really want you to. I don’t know if that still means something to you but I wanted to tell you.

I had a dream last night, about us.

Harry’s heart stopped working for what it seemed to be ages. Last night? Like... The night previous to this beautiful morning where Draco kissed him for almost an hour? Oh... No coughs... at all. Fuck. How fucking naive he was, thinking that maybe he was the cause of Draco being healthy... It was because of Nott, of course. He let out a sob before continuing reading.

We were together at the beach (it looked like the one from Bill’s and Fleur’s cottage because I don’t know any other beach, clearly), you looked at me and smiled, and when I asked you if you were okay, you answered: ‘Yes... I haven’t been for a while...but I guess that I’m okay now.’ Were you really there? I can’t help but wonder if we really met in that dream... It felt so real, I don’t know how to explain it.

Harry couldn’t stop crying. Wishing that they haven’t met there at all. Even if it was a cruel thing to wish... He didn’t want to think that Draco and Nott met in their dreams because they missed each other so much. Not when the blond boy hugged him in his sleep and not when he woke him up with a kiss.

If it really was you, I’m glad that we got to see each other. At least like this.

Be safe... and try to laugh. It truly was a vision to see you showing off that beautiful smile of yours. You deserve to be happy.

Draco

He heard the water in the bathroom stop running. Harry left the letter where it was and abandoned the bedroom as fast as he could. He couldn’t go back to his room, Malfoy was probably going to look for him after he got changed. And he was crying his heart out. So bloody pathetic.

He changed his direction and started to walk down the hallway to knock on the door of the main bedroom. He heard a ‘come in’ so he opened the door and close it behind him once he was inside. He raised his eyes. Padfoot had a book in his hand and his father was resting his head on the man’s lap, both of them looked at him and froze.

“Harry...?” His dad asked with fear in his eyes.

“Can-“ Another sob escaped his mouth. “Can I stay here? I- I just-“

And he was being pulled into a hug. The nicotine smell was invading his nostrils.

“Muffliato. Please.” He begged, because the idea of Malfoy finding him crying like a little boy in his parent’s arms was embarrassing enough, he didn’t need for it to actually happen. His father complied and gestured for him to sit on the bed with them.

He wanted to scream from the pain. It was so fucking unfair. The tears kept coursing down his cheeks, he had to take off his glasses because it was impossible to see with them anymore, all tarnished from his crying.

“What happened?” Padfoot asked calmly, Harry only shook his head. He didn’t want to tell them. “It’s Draco, isn’t it?” And that only made Harry cry even harder which, he supposed that it confirmed Sirius’ suggestion.

His father tried to ask what was it that Draco had done but his godfather cut him shortly, saying that Harry would talk if he wanted and when he wanted.

After a while, he started to get this painful feeling in his chest. The anguish that got settle inside of him was starting to feel like an overwhelming wave that was crushing every single bone in his body. He needed to speak, he needed to talk to someone.

“He writes to him.” He whispered, his voice weak and thin. “I know I shouldn’t have read it, but I did. He thinks that they met in dreams-“ He said chocking as he let out a sobbing sound. “ Draco spent the night with me and he met in dreams with him. Isn’t that so fucking romantic?”

“Oh, Harry... Hou don’t know what that means for them-“

“He says that he misses him dearly. That he doesn’t believe that I’m going to finish this before June, even though I’m fucking trying” He cleaned his eyes with the back on his hand. “I know it’s really shitty of me but sometimes I wish that he would choose me. And I know that it’s wrong because it’s going to kill him. I fucking know it, but I want it. I want him to write letters to me, I want him to be with me, I want for him to sleep beside me and not think about someone else. I want him for myself and I can’t have that so I take whatever it is that he can give me.”

“I know, Prongslet. I totally get it.” Sirius said as he played his his hair, soothing him. His dad was rubbing his back... It felt so good to have them near. He couldn’t imagine what it would be of him going through all of this without them...

“You know...” His father started to say. “It’s possible to be in love with two people at once.” Oh for fuck’s sake.

“Oh, yeah? Was that what happened to you?” He spat out his response. He knew that it wasn’t fair, much less to his dad and with Padfoot right beside him... But he was just so fucking angry and sad.

“Yes...” His father answered with honesty, Harry could feel the hand of Sirius tense for a second before resuming to run his fingers through his hair. “After school, I kept dating Lily and eventually fell in love. When she got pregnant I asked her to marry me, and then you arrived... There wasn’t a single day where I didn’t love Sirius, though.”

“That’s just sad.” He replied stubbornly.

“Is it? It gave me you... with your beautiful green eyes and your mother’s sass.” He heard Sirius chuckling so he relaxed. Maybe they really talked about this... Maybe it was okay now. “What I mean is that love is a million different things, you always love people differently, even when you are in love. Maybe it’s not going to happen tomorrow but... what if you turn out to be the one who spends the rest of his life with him? Would it really matter if he had Hanahaki for someone else?” Harry groaned.

“You don’t get it. You just don’t. I want for him to love me like he loves him. I know it’s fucking cruel, alright? But I want for him to love me so desperately that he would get the same squeezing feeling around his heart that I have everytime that I imagine them together. At this point, I’m bloody surprised that I’m not the one with the Hanahaki.”

“Okay... Prongslet?” Harry looked up. “How about you tell him how you feel?” He was about to respond but Padfoot cut him short. “I know what you are going to say: he doesn’t love me back and yada yada yada, BUT there is this very” And the man child coughs trying to hide the word ‘huge’.

“Sirius” His dad said in a reprimanding tone.

“What? I was just coughing. Anyway there is this possibility where you are.. you know... wrong.”

“About what? Maybe he has some feelings for me, which I doubt: I was barely mentioned in the letter-“

“Maybe he has THE feelings for you, you bullheaded oblivious very-son-of-your-father Potter.”

“SIRIUS.”

“What, James? They are worse than us! That’s saying something”

Harry started to get up, cleaning the rest of the tears with his sleeve and putting his glasses on.

“Hey, where are you going?” His father asked as soon as he started to walk to the door.

“Away from you. I don’t need you to give me hope when I know that I’m going to end up heartbroken.”

And he was closing the door behind him when he heard Padfoot yell.

“You know who said the very same thing at Grimmauld??” But whatever he was about to say was interrupted by him slamming the door.

———————-

Later that night, Harry found himself alone in his room and looking at the ceiling. His head was filled with images of Malfoy and Nott together at the beach, smiling to each other...

‘Potter says that he is going to finish this before June but, honestly, I don’t think that it’s going to happen.’

The thing was that he really wished to have a shot at being with Draco. That could only happen if they finished this on time and after they destroyed the locket, they were pretty stuck. The only clue that they had was Bellatrix...

They needed her wand to get to inside of the vault. What could they do? Steal it? They needed to be near her for that... Malfoy Manor was the place were the Death Eaters meeting were being held, he knew that because Draco told him, maybe if they infiltrated that Manor, they could get the wand... Or even her hair, with how much polyjuice Malfoy and Mione had brew in the last months they could do whatever they wanted.

But if they went inside of the Manor, Draco wasn’t coming with them. Not in a million years. Harry feared how his family would react if they saw him. Sirius and dad weren’t an option either, much to his dismay, someone needed to stay here with the blond boy and take care of him... And even if everything went wrong and he wouldn’t get to come back from this one, they would take care of him and Draco could be with Nott without Harry being in the middle of it all. He could actually let them be happy...

He needed to talk to Hermione and Ron about this. He just hoped that they would agree with him.

Sometimes being the good and selfless Chosen One sucked.

#drarry #fanfic #fanfiction #prongsfoot

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skvaderarts · 4 years

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Soliloquy Chapter Seven: Abscond

You can check out the Masterlist Here for more links to places to read!

Chapter Seven: Abscond

Note: I just wanted to start by saying that chapter six was an absolute nightmare to write, but I had a great time doing it nonetheless. I’ve spent a few months trying to get myself to write this fic, and that resurrection scene was basically the whole reason. Trying to figure out a way to do that and make it make sense, fit into the existing confines of the series, and be coherent and enjoyable to read made for quite the crippling challenge, so I am thrilled by the reception that that chapter received! I remain humbled by your kind comments and warm words of encouragement! Thank you to every single person who commented, reblogged, gave kudos, and sent me messages about the story. I’d name you all, but in addition to everyone who has ever left me feedback on the previous chapters, almost 200 new people read the last chapter, so I can’t list you all by name. However, I can say thank you. Thank you all so much!

-~-

The overcast that had loomed overhead as they had entered the building was now more prevalent than ever. Be it a result of their current actions, some form of an ominous omen, or simply impeccably timed weather, it alluded to a coming storm of epic proportions. Huge dark clouds that would cause any right-minded pedestrian to check the current time of day spread across the sky in a vast network, chilling the air and absorbing all forms of light. The once gentle breeze was now a harsh wind, hammering against every surface it came across. It had been a glooming day from the very moment that the sun had come up that morning, but this was really kicking things into high gear.

As Magnolia collected what remained of the sparse materials she had brought with her to conduct the ritual, Nero oversaw V’s condition. The newly resurrected young man seemed to be semi-continuous, having still not opened his eyes since being brought back to the realm of the living, but able to react to physical stimuli. While it made sense to Nero on some level that he would not be fully operational out the gate (since he had never really been in the time he had known him) he still found himself unable to shake the feeling of uncertainty that had lodged itself deep into his subconscious.

He was worried about V.

Now that was something he never imagined he’d experience again...

As Dante and Vergil combed the space per Magnolia’s request to make sure there were no overt signs of demonic activity still present in the building, the youngest Descendant of Sparda went over a vague mental checklist in his mind. On the top of that list was the obvious question of where the hell V was going to go for the time being. While the Devil May Cry office was an obvious choice, there was the issue of Vergil’s undeniably recent return to contend with. Nero didn’t even need to ask if Dante knew where Vergil was staying at his office right now. They hadn’t been home long enough to see to that. For all the young white-haired man knew, his father had evolved to no longer require sleep during his time in the underworld. But V was going to be a different story. He just knew it. He had always been a different story; an exception to every rule.

“Hey, Magnolia,” Nero called to the alchemist as she packed up the last of her supplies,” Should I be worried that he looks like he’s in a coma or something?”

The woman in question shook her head as she closed the buckle clasps on her carrying case. “Being in a coma is no laughing matter, little one. Relatively speaking, it’s about as close to passing into Purgatorio as one can possibly get without actually being deceased.”

Nero chuckled to himself, nodding with an amused look on his face. “You don’t have to tell me that. I spent some time that way myself a little while back. Woke up one night to this one,” Nero said as he gestured towards V,” sitting in my window reading a book ready to offer me a job like I wasn’t already half-dead already or something. That’s how we met.”

Magnolia didn’t know what to say to that. While one part of her wanted to know what the hell had happened to him that ended with him comatose in the first place, her mind couldn’t help but find humor in the mental image of a person contracting someone to fight the envoys of the Underworld in their sickbed after seemingly breaking into their home. She decided that she would ask for more details when all parties involved were capable of speaking. “Well, if that’s the case, I’m glad to see that you're faring so well, dear. Hopefully, there will be fewer close calls in your future.”

Nero wasn’t entirely sure if she was being sarcastic or if the Alchemist was genuinely happy for his good health. She just had one of those voices, and the accent wasn’t helping in the slightest. “Thanks, I guess. Anyway, does bringing someone back from the afterlife or whatever come with a manual, because I feel like there’s something I’m missing in all of this.”

It was her turn to laugh now. She pulled the rolling case into an upright position and headed towards the front entrance, presumably heading to the van or some other form of transportation. After all, it was unlikely that she had walked here carrying all of these supplies from nearly twenty miles away up a gradual slope. Nero carefully lifted V bridal style and followed her. Somehow he weighed even less than he had originally estimated, if that was at all possible. Maybe after he had clothing on, his body weight would be more substantial.

As cold as it was starting to get both inside and outside of the building, leaving him laying on bare concrete in -well, nothing- was probably a bad idea. As he followed her, she stopped, snickering to herself at the situation at hand, and decided to answer his question. “He should be more or less fine now. The hard part was relocating his soul to another plane of existence,” She spoke calmly, in a manner reminiscent of a professor giving a lecture,” The poor thing is going to be whether weak for a while though. Any inborn gifts he possessed prior to all this nonsense will trickle back in gradually, though in the meantime he will be effectively human. No passive regeneration, sixth sense, or anything like that for at least a week or so. I’m no doctor, but I’m going to take the initiative here and recommend bed rest. Extensively. What he just endured is taxing on the mind and body in every way conceivable, even for someone young and in good health. Don’t be surprised if he experiences dizzy spells or fainting. Proper nutrition is helpful, but this could still take a while.”

Nero nodded to himself as he took in the information she had just given him. Nothing seemed unreasonable, but it did clarify one thing for him. He needed to talk to Dante and Vergil. He chuckled to himself as he followed Magnolia, garnering a curious glance from her as they exited the building. “I fail to see the humor in this.”

In response to her statement, Nero smirked knowingly. “It’s not funny, it’s ironic,” He said. Her blank repose signaled that he needed to elaborate.” What I mean is you said he might faint and that for someone “in good health” this could be a lot to go to, right?”

She nodded, barely noticing the transition between the indoor and outdoor lighting as they exited the building and stepped out into the parking lot. “Yes. I said that. Why?”

Nero approached the van, using his foot to knock on the side door and signal Nico to open it. “Well, it’s ironic because he’s not “in good health” to start with. He’s walked with a cane the entire time I’ve known him and he’s constantly coughing or tripping over himself. Not to be an asshole or anything, but if I’m magnetically attracted to stairs, then he’s magnetically attracted to the ground ’cause that’s where he spends a lot of his free time.”

Magnolia blinked, her wide eyes filled with a sudden understanding and sympathy that she made no effort of hiding. Suddenly, what little desire she held to know how the young man before her had met his end fled her. It was unusual for someone his age to walk with a cane, especially one with a measurable amount of demon blood coursing through his veins. When he was more stable, she would need to take the time to try and consult with him. Perhaps there was something she could do to help…

As Nico opened the van door, Dante and Vergil exited the building. They arrived just in time to watch Nico’s frankly astounding facial expression at the sight of the presumably deceased demon slayer. “Well fuck,” she said as she stepped back to give the onboarding party room,” Every time you get in this van Nero, some weird shit happens; I swear. How the hell did yall- you know what? I don’t even wanna know! Let’s get outta here. Where are we headed?”

Magnolia pointed across the parking lot to the side of the building. They couldn’t see what she was pointing at, but they could only assume that it was her means of transportation. “I just wanted to see you off. I need to get back to my shop. Come see me later. And call me if you need anything,” She glanced at the oldest Son of Sparda, her eyes narrowing harshly,” Except you, Vergil. Your allowed casual visits at most.”

With that, she handed a slip of folded paper to Nero before hurrying off across the parking lot. Nico snickered briefly before looking at her passengers. She still needed a destination. Nero glanced between the twins and his friend as he laid V down on the couch. The summoner coughed weakly, teasing the possibility of opening his eyes for a moment before exhaling and settling back into his previous state, only this time more asleep than awake. Nero watched him for a moment before nodding to himself, his resolve towards the decision he had been teetering back and forth on now absolute. “... I think me and Nico should take V back to Fortuna with us.”

Dante and Vergil did a double-take, seemingly more surprised at his sudden uptake in initiative than offended by the statement. Dante seemed to consider quietly the statement, while Vergil seemed more apprehensive.

“Why?” The eldest Son of Sparda said bluntly. He was clearly unconvinced.

Nero settled into a sitting position of the floor with his side against the couch, seemingly uninterested in heaving V’s proximity. Whether this was a conscious or subconscious decision or not remained to be seen, but he did so nonetheless. “Because there is a metric shit ton less demonic activity there than there is in Redgrave and Capulet and because I’m the only one here who isn’t going to get in an argument with my brother and literally destroy my own house. Magnolia said he needs bed rest and all that shit, and the only peaceful kinda peaceful place is my house. That, and your extra bedroom is taken, Dante,” Nero tilted his head in his father’s direction,” And I just happen to have an extra room at my place since someone decided to scare my kids back into one room!”

Vergil glanced away at the last statement, still unwilling to think about the mental damage he had probably inflicted upon those wide-eyed, chatty, orphans. “So you actually believe that three actual children can be that well behaved and we can't?”

Nero didn’t hesitate to nod in agreement. “Yea, because when I turn on the tv, they sit down and watch it. You can’t even turn a TV off without unplugging it, and your only means of communication with your own brother is stabbing each other to death. Plus, Dante’s doors get kicked in like every fucking week and he blasts loud ass music all the damn time. That’s literally the opposite or a restful environment!”

Dante shrugged incredulously. As much as he’d like to make some sort of witty comeback, Nero wasn’t exactly incorrect. Vergil closed his eyes as if he were deep in thought for a long moment as Nico tried not to laugh at this whole situation from the driver’s seat. Everyone in this family was a walking disaster and it was amazing that they had survived this long. After a minute that felt like a lifetime, Vergil sighed and leaned back against the window next to Dante who was now sitting down across from the couch and searching for a magazine to pretend to read to avoid this uncomfortable conversation. “... Do not disappoint me, Nero… I do not give my trust light.”

Dante interjected with a quick “no he really doesn’t” before continuing to reread his magazine for the millionth time. Vergil shot him a quick glare before returning his gaze to Nero. There was no humor present in his demeanor. Nero glanced between him and V before nodding slowly in agreement. “I’m not going to.”

-~-

It had taken almost every ounce of daylight to drop Dante and Vergil off and then head back to the pier. And their timing couldn’t have been better as the ferry was stopping with the next round trip. The possibility of a thunderstorm had halted most water traffic, and all water transport between the island and the mainland was due to cease immediately upon the vessel’s return. That left just enough time to sneak one last trip in.

As the ship was docking, Nero called Kyrie to alert her of their arrival and to inform her that they would have another houseguest for a while. As expected, she didn’t protest the idea. In fact, she seemed thrilled, though that could be because Nero hadn’t elaborated on the context of the stay or who was coming over. V and Kyrie had never met one another, despite the fact that V had come to their home once before. But it had been during the middle of the night and the young summoner had been in something of a hurry at the time. There had been no time for pleasantries back then. But that was about to change. Hopefully.

As they pulled up to the onboarding ramp, Nero gave Nico the closest thing he could to a serious look. Before he could ask her not to go flying off the ramp, she disembarked, taking the ramp for perhaps the first time ever. Nero was utterly flabbergasted. “Nico, what the fuck?!”

Nico put her cigarette out in the ashtray she had placed in one of the cup holders. “What is it this time? If I drive carefully, you bitch at me. If I don’t, you bitch at me. Are ya crazy or somethin’? If you think you can do better, then you drive next time and I’ll take a nap in the back with him!”

Nero stared at her incredulously as she pulled around the corner and headed towards their shared residence. Nico absolutely never under any circumstance drove like a normal human being. He wasn’t sure if knowing that she could do that made him feel relieved or upset. She could have just driven the van like this the entire time he had known her? What the absolute fuck?

“So ya gonna keep starin’ at me like that or what?” Nico asked casually. Nero was at a loss for words and it showed.

As the van pulled onto the street that they called home, Nero stood up and walked over to V. Despite the fact that he still hadn’t woken up, he now looked more asleep than unconscious. Or at least that was what Nero thought. When he had first been brought back, he looked distressed, uncomfortable even. Now he seemed more at ease. At the very least, his breathing had been steady and he hadn’t coughed in at least an hour. He seemed stable. Nero couldn’t help but wonder if he was just a very deep sleeper and had been taking a much-needed nap this entire time. He doubted it, but still. Now that he thought about it, this was the first time he had actually seen the summoner sleep. During their time together during the Redgrave city incident, they had taken the occasional break, but V had been so preoccupied with his book that he hadn’t even sat down, always choosing to lean against the stove in the van’s kitchenette instead. Vergil had the book now, perhaps using it as a bargaining tool for later. He wasn’t much of a talker, a fact that had bothered Nero when they had first met. Who would have ever guessed that they’d be in the situation that they were in now, Nero bringing him to stay at his place? Wild shit happened sometimes.

“It’s just good to know that you can actually drive. Though I still don’t understand how you ever got a license.” Nero said as they pulled into the back alley that led to their driveway. For once, the door was open. Kyrie must have let it up after their conversation on the phone earlier. Nico climbed out of her seat and headed over to the side door, opening it and then hoping down to hold it open for Nero.

“Yea, well I wasn’t tryin’ to knock him around too much. He already walks with a cane.” Nico said as she stepped back towards the rear of the van. With the large vehicle inside of the garage, space was at a premium, and carrying someone required more room than normal. Nero fixed his jacket around V and scooped him up, nearly bashing his legs against the kitchen cabinet as he turned. The youngest Descendant of Sparda cringed to himself. That was one thing the two of them seemed to have in common to some degree. They were both clumsy as hell.

Taking a few cues from his close call a moment prior, he descended the stairs carefully and headed towards the inside door. Nico closed the door behind him and squeezed past them, heading to open the door for them. She nearly walked right into Kyrie as she did so. The young red-haired woman was carrying a stack of cardboard boxes and Nico had nearly sent her crashing to the floor as the door caught her in the side. She set the boxes down on the bench behind her and stepped back out of the way, clearly startled.

“My bad Kyrie,” Nico said as she looked her over for injuries,” I couldn’t see you!”

Kyrie smiled brightly and gestured towards the boxes. “You’re just fine, Nico. The children and I were cleaning out the extra room. There wasn’t really much in there, so I was hoping I’d be done before you arrived. These were the last three boxes. All of this was going on the empty shelves in the garage-”

Nico eagerly grabbed the stack of boxes as Nero entered behind her. “Ok, I’ll take care of it for you,” the young dark-haired woman said as she stepped out behind Nero and out into the garage. Kyrie was going to inform her that she could take care of it herself, but Nico disappeared behind the closed door before she could. The young redhead shook her head and giggled to herself as she turned to face Nero. During her time here, she had truly come to enjoy Nico’s extreme personality. She was a joy to be around.

The moment she caught sight of the white-haired young man her domestic partner was carrying, she went wide-eyed, her head crooking to the side in surprise. Who in Sparda’s name was this newcomer? Nero shifted anxiously. Maybe it was better if he just spit it out and got it over with? “Hey so… this is V, the guy I told you about when I came back after everything,” He said cautiously, unsure of how she was taking all of this,” It turns out that being dead is more complicated than everybody thinks, so he’s alive again. And… he’s kinda my brother so…”

Kyrie stared at him blankly. That was a little too much for her to take in all at once. She glanced down at their sleeping guest, leaning over him to get a better look. That made sense. They did have the same color hair, even though his looked a little whiter than Neros did to her. She was totally taken aback at the implications of what Nero had just said. He’d come back from the dead? Nero had told her Vergil had done that at one point, so the idea wasn’t completely foreign to her, but Nero had a brother? In the entire time that she had known him, she would have never guessed that he had siblings. He had always been so… alone. After all, being an orphan made it very difficult to locate your original family. It made her wonder what Nero must be thinking about all of this. As startled as she was, it had to be several times worse for him.

She smiled softly and gestured towards the guest room. It was on the opposite side of the house from the dining room. Being the only room on this floor and having its own small ensuite bathroom, it had been the natural choice for a guest room. She patted Nero gently as he passed her before turning towards the dining room. “It’s okay. I know you did the right thing, Nero. I’ll go get some extra blankets. I put a sheet and some pillows on the bed after I finished dusting, but I didn’t get a chance to do anything else.”

Nero stared at her as she walked off for a moment, relieved that she had taken that so well. She’d have probably told him off for his reaction if she’d been present at the time. Her understanding meant the world to him. “It’s okay, Kyrie. You do enough as it is.”

She waved at him over her shoulder as she rounded the corner into the next room and disappeared. He used his foot to nudge open the door and walked, taking a moment to look around. Aside from the built-in bookcase that had always been in the room near the door and the bed that jutted out into the center of the room, the entire room was spotless. The large window on the far side of the room that overlooked the small side yard where the children normally played was open, likely to let in the fresh air. Nero laid V down and sat at the foot of the bed, only now really registering how unreal this entire situation seemed to him. A moment later, Kyrie returned with a stack of about six blankets. Nero raised an eyebrow at her as she stuffed them into one of the open shelves on the bookcase and then used one to cover him up. It was a plush grey knitted blanket that she had made herself a while back. As soon as he was covered up, Nero unwrapped his jacket from around him and tucked it under his arm, returning his attention to Kyrie. She shrugged at his obvious confusion.

“I didn’t want him to be cold,” She said simply, gesturing towards the oversized stash of warm, thick blankets,”... Why was he wrapped in your coat? Is he okay?”

Nero looked over at V. He had stirred slightly, pulling the soft blanket tighter around himself. Now that Nero thought about it, Kyrie was probably correct. It had been abnormally cold for the last few hours. Having no clothes on had probably been uncomfortable, to say the least. “... I think he’s going to be alright. Supposedly he just needs to rest” Nero glanced over at the pile of blankets again, nodding to himself,” Thanks for the blankets. He doesn’t have any clothes on, so that’s probably going to be good for him. Probably should have said that before...”

Kyrie blushed bright red. “OH. I’m sorry then! I’ll go see if I can find him something!”

Before he could say anything, Kyrie hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her. He shook his head and laughed to himself. Poor kyrie. She probably felt like she had violated V’s personal space. He stood up and pulled an extra cover from the pile, tossing it over him. Better safe than sorry. As he leaned over him to fix the covers, V turned over and brushed his arm over him, exhaling audibly. Nero moved V’s arm off of his hand and continued, paying him little mind. As he sat up to assess his work, V gripped his wrist weakly. Assuming that he was simply shifting in his sleep again, he sat up and moved to step away and towards the door. But as he tried to pull away, V’s grip tightened. Nero turned his attention from the door back to the bed and nearly jumped out of his skin in fright. A familiar set of green eyes was looking back up at him.

V was awake. And he looked absolutely wrecked.

-~-

This chapter was so fun to write that I had to stop here and immediately start working on the next chapter. They will only be a day apart, so don’t worry, I won’t keep you in suspense for very long! Again, thank you so much for your overwhelming support. Hopefully, this chapter wasn’t too slow for you. But the good news is that V is actually awake now, so you know what that means. DIALOGUE! See you guys on May 22nd for chapter Eight! Wow, I can’t believe we’re already on chapter eight...

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prettygirlseat · 5 years

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TW.

Guys for anyone who follows me with disordered eating habits, anyone who’s in recovery, or anyone who may be triggered by this, i want to first put out a warning. i will be talking about eating disorders, binging, food, calories, and other diet-related topics. please read at your own risk.

So. I finally watched Shane Dawson’s “The Return of Eugenia Cooney”, and... wow. First, I had never heard of her before his video; I may have seen pictures here and there on Tumblr or other sites but I never knew who she really was.

At first I was incredibly triggered, and within 3 minutes into the actual video, I had to pause it and catch my breath because I (not expecting to see what I was seeing) was not mentally prepared to watch a video like this. That being said, the video was very good, but that’s not why I’m making this post.

If you’ve been following me since BEFORE I was even in recover and I was a thinspo account, you’d know that, mentally, I was incredibly sick. I remember seeing one of my old posts a few months ago where I documented what I ate that day, and I only had eaten 500calories. At the darkest part of my eating disorder, which has yet to be professionally diagnosed (for reasons I’ll get into in a second), I struggled to eat, my hair would fall out in large clumps, I’d have bruises everywhere from lack of iron, my skin would be dry and flakey, and I would be cold in 80 degree weather.

I suffered from disordered eating habits my whole life. Blame it on partly my problem with certain foods (food aversion & sensory processing, which led me to eat a very little variety of foods), growing up poor and not being able to afford the luxury of some foods, my mom’s lack of knowledge about nutrition, and other mental factors like family life and other mental illnesses. However, things got progressively worse for me when I was in 7th grade (about 10 or 11 years old); that’s when I first noticed I was beginning to purposely eat less and less food OR I’d easily eat an entire tub of cheese balls in the span of 2 or 3 days.

When I got to high school, I started doing cheerleading, and this was a problem because cheerleading is the type of sport (yes sport, stfu) where certain things are dictated by your “size” aka how much you weigh. If you were lighter/smaller, you’d be a flyer, which meant you’d be the girl in the air. If you were heavier/bigger, you’d be the girls holding the flyer in the air, etc. Well, ever since I could remember, I wanted to be a flyer so bad, but I was never small enough. I wanted to be thin so that I could be the girl in the air. Not to mention the small uniforms with the tiny skirt and little top made it harder as well because I wanted to look good, I wanted to feel cute and “small” in my uniform.

When I turned 15, though, that’s when things peaked for me, in terms of my eating disorder’s severity. I had begun losing a lot of weight, I was in love with a boy at the time who didn’t love me back, and my sick brain convinced me that if I was thinner, maybe he’d like me. *spoiler alert: he didnt* So yeah, I was losing weight, going to the gym everyday, binge every few days, and I even created what I called a “thinspo” diary to keep track of what I was doing. AND. I made a thinspo account on Tumblr. hence how this account was originally born.

The more weight I started to lose, the more compliments I received, which motivated me to lose even more weight. However, by the time I was 17, I had met a girl that had just moved to my school and was a “friend of a friend”. She was also suffering from an eating disorder, and she was in the process of getting help. With her encouragement and the encouragement of recovery blogs on Tumblr and my own desire to escape the hell of my ED, I finally went into self-recovery (because, keep in mind, I had never been properly diagnosed by a doctor and since no one in my family knew what was going on).

Self-recovery, first off, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done (and still fight with every single day). If you or someone you know is in self-recovery give yourself/them some love and encouragement because truly I feel like no one understands how hard it is to pull yourself out of the pits of hell all on your own. With that being said, I was struggling for awhile with my recovery at this point. Now, fast forward to February 2018 (I was a senior in high school), I had caught the flu. Left me unable to hold down food or water for 2 days. I was sent to the hospital because I had thrown up 7 times in 10 hours, which doesn’t seem like a lot maybe but let me tell you that was the worst physical illness I had to endure, and I was sick for 2 weeks.

During these 2 weeks, I could eat maybe a sleeve of crackers and a can of coke if I was lucky. I was at a very low place mentally, and overall I was just miserable. I had been attempting recovery for a few months at this point, and I was seriously struggling. So, like any logical person would do, I tried to reach out to people for help. I decided it was finally time I come clean to my mom about my illness. I was laying in bed and I had gotten up to go talk to my mom, who was doing dishes in the kitchen. I walk up to her and, meekly (which is something I’m NOT in the slightest) tell her I might be sick with an eating disorder, and that I thought I needed help. She, who worked as an Emergency Room technician and had treated patients with stabbings and gun shot wounds, told me that 1. I was not thin enough to have an eating disorder (because technically I was at an average weight for my height) and 2. she knows me well enough to know when I’m sick and that I’m not actually sick.

As someone who struggles with any mental illness, but especially an eating disorder, all you want is someone to recognize you, validate you, and give you reassurance. In this moment, I knew I would never get any of those things from my mom about my illness. And this may sound dramatic to some people, but I think a part of myself died that night. Because that wasn’t the first time I had gone to my mother for help, and time and time again she had either outright denied my need for assistance or had said she’d get me help and just never did. And I still remember how devastated I felt in that moment, and I know there will permanently be rift in her and I’s relationship. It’s something I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive her for; when I was at the absolute worst and practically begging for someone to give a fuck, she turned her back on me and left me to basically fend for myself.

I’m finally happy to report, that as of July 2019, I am the happiest and most at peace I’ve ever been in my whole life. I’m recovering/recovered, I’m physically healthy, I have recently met some of the greatest people that are now in my life, and I finally feel like I got away from the grips of my ED. I’m not sure why I made this post, to be honest, but I’ve been struggling a little bit wit body dismorphia, positivity, self love, and everything else. After watching Shane Dawson’s video on Eugenia Cloony, it really put things into perspective of my own journey and how far I’ve come and how genuinely happy I am. I, like every other person on the planet, have many things I could improve upon, but I am so proud of where I am now. Shane’s video was triggering, but I needed to watch it to remind myself that: 1. I don’t want to die 2. I don’t want to be skeletal 3. I don’t want the people around me to fear for my life 4. I want to enjoy life, enjoy food, and just be happy 5. I am so much more than this body. I have passions, dreams, fears, goals, just like any other person.

If you think you can handle it, I recommend watching Shane’s video because it does shed a little light into the mind of someone with an eating disorder and how they can twist your life and perception. If you read all the way through this, thank you so much. Maybe this helped you, I’m not sure. But I’m glad I have this outlet to share my feelings and personal accounts, if for nothing else, than to just get these feelings off my chest; I don’t even care if no one reads this. But anyway, please know that my messages are always open if you’re struggling or you wanna talk or you need advice or even you just wanna send memes and gifs. I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your day.

#personal #me #tw death #tw thinspo #tw eating disorders #food tw #food #tw calories #calories #recovery #shane dawson #eugenia cooney #binge tw #tw body image #tw body dysmorphia #tw weight #tw hospital

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magioftheseas · 5 years

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Lonely Existence

KamuKoma Week Day 7: komaeda's birthday!

Summary: Kamukura's sent to give Komaeda a birthday present and spends the day with him while everyone else is out.

Rating: G

Warnings: None, really. Aside from like...language? Thanks Matsuda.

Notes: Last fic for the week! Yeeeeeeeah, I did it! Of course I included more Matsuda. MatsuKamuKoma is love and life although it’s still largely KamuKoma focused, haha. This is bittersweet fluff, I suppose?

***Alternate Ao3 Link***

Commission? Donate?

It had been as uninteresting a day as any. He was content to do nothing about it, and indeed, because it was Sunday, he predicted such would be the case. However, that did not happen.

“Hey, Kayako. Get the hell up.” A few snaps overhead. “Up, up. I know you’re actually awake, you fucking brat.”

Despite the snarling, he’s of course unbothered. His eyes do open however it is leisurely and Matsuda’s scowl deepens as it looms over him. His face is pinched up in a special kind of annoyance. Ah.

“Something happened,” he said. “Inconvenient, I presume?”

“Stupid plane bullshit. I have to go pick up some ugly bitch before they call animal control.” Matsuda sighed heavily, raking his fingers through his hair. “Someone else would’ve done it, but she’s running late and she contacted me. I’m really not in a good mood right now. I have a favor that needs to be done.”

With that, he lightly smacks Kamukura’s forehead with a wrapped up book.

“This is for Komaeda Nagito in Class 77-B. Thankfully for you, he’s the only idiot in the class still on campus because the rest of them fucked off to some photogenic resort for someone else’s birthday. He was sick so he couldn’t go with. He’s probably depressed but is going to keep on smiling like a fucking idiot so make sure this gets to him?”

“You did not strike me as the type to prepare presents, Matsuda Yasuke,” Kamukura said lowly. “Is this retribution, then?”

“Yeah, it is. He bought me something I couldn’t find anywhere else.” Matsuda rolled his eyes. “Don’t make this fucking weird. It’s only courtesy to buy something for someone in return. I know you should have some basic idea of what that is.”

“...hmph.” He pushes himself up, but takes the gift anyway. “How boring. There is no value in celebrating a day merely for one birth of many.”

“If you’re jealous then I can have you registered for your own birthday.” A pause. “Or you can take Hinata’s. It’s not like he’s really using it anymore.”

“Such trifles do not concern me.”

“Of course they don’t. Well, either way, I expect you to deliver it. Or else I’ll draw on your face while you sleep.”

“...”

“And cut your hair too, while I’m at it.”

“Understood. It will be delivered immediately.”

“Awesome.” Matsuda seemed satisfied enough, turning on his heel to head out with a pop of some joints. He stopped for a moment. “I’m not going to be back until late tonight. The train ride to the airport is obnoxiously far and the flight is probably going to get delayed again, knowing what I’m dealing with. That’s not even accounting for the other bullshit I’ll definitely get saddled with along the way. Whatever. If you get lonely or something...”

Kamukura stared at him blankly.

“Well. You could do worse. Just saying. All the same. Ciao.”

With a wave of his hand, he stepped out. Kamukura finally scoffed.

Such trifles did not concern him in the slightest. But it was not often he left his room. It was even less so that Matsuda Yasuke requested his services. He often only ever did what the researchers told him to do, and whenever Matsuda Yasuke told him to do anything, it was often...less than menial. Always detached.

“Stand still.”

“Don’t whine so much.”

“Relax.”

“You will accomplish many wonderful things, Kamukura Izuru-kun,” the researchers would crow.

Komaeda Nagito hadn’t believed that at all. Not in the slightest.

“Hope can’t be born in a lab,” he would say, breathily and brimming with straining emotion. “Just what were they thinking?”

The answer had been obvious. Apparent. Boring. Komaeda Nagito had just gotten more irritated with him.

Komaeda Nagito...is irritable as Matsuda Yasuke. Around myself. And no one else.

It shouldn’t matter. He doesn’t care. It’s boring. Everything is boring.

“With an attitude like that, you really aren’t going to make any friends,” Matsuda had said once, tone dull and eyes on his manga instead of Kamukura.

Boring.

“You say that but it’s human nature to be social, y’know.”

So boring.

“You can’t seriously expect me to believe you’re not at least a little lonely.”

Boring, boring, boring.

Such concerns were mere trifles. And yet, the crinkling of wrapping under his tightening grip cuts through those thoughts as if they were nothing. Kamukura lightens it as to not damage the gift, and keeps his eyes straight ahead. He walks until he sees the fluttering of birds. His pace does not quicken. He maintains a leisure stride.

Komaeda Nagito is crouched low. He has a remaining, crumpled half of melon bread in one hand, and is spreading crumbs with the other. The birds pick at them. One has nested into his hair.

“You know,” Kamukura finds himself saying. “That provides very little nutritional value.”

“Good morning to you too, Kamukura-kun,” Komaeda replies, without even looking at him. “Out for a walk on this fine day? It’s good luck, isn’t it, to have such lovely weather.”

“No.”

“Well, alright.” Komaeda’s laugh is soft, strained at edges that would’ve been indiscernible to anything less than Kamukura Izuru’s sharp ears. “I mean, I think it is. And with the rest of my class gone, it’s quiet. Relaxed. Not that I prefer being without them, but... They can be noisy.”

“Mm.” It is mildly irritating how Komaeda Nagito is willfully oblivious to the gift in Kamukura’s hands. How it has yet to be acknowledged. Kamukura twitched a little before throwing all caution to the wind and thrusting it forward. “Matsuda Yasuke asked me to give this to you.”

The birds all flee, leaving a flurry of feathers. One even gets stick in Komaeda’s hair. Komaeda, who just blinks blearily at the gift, before nodding and taking it.

“Aha. Haha.” He doesn’t sound terribly enthused, shuffling it rather hurriedly into his bag. “Matsuda-kun...so kind. Please tell him I send my highest regards. He must be quite busy today.”

“Yes. He is.”

“I see.” Komaeda nods again. “Well, then, you can get going now, Kamukura-kun.”

He says nothing to that.

“I can’t imagine that my company is terribly stimulating, so I shall not bother you further.” Komaeda finally stands, brushing himself off. “If you won’t leave, I will. You can have this spot if you want it so badly.”

“I do not want anything.” The words slip before he can stop them. And for once, a twinge is in his features. Hm. “How are you?”

Komaeda still hasn’t picked the feather from his hair. He also still hasn’t looked at him directly.

“I don’t know why you would care.”

“Of course not,” he said. “But I still asked.”

Komaeda’s lips twist before pulling into a smile.

“Fine, of course. Nothing to concern your oh so talented self with. As I said before, the weather is lovely. Atmosphere serene. My classmates are surely enjoying themselves greatly without my worthless presence to dampen their high spirits. Why would I be anything less than fine?”

One reason is obvious.

“You’re lonely.”

“Eh?” Komaeda laughs, more taken aback then amused. “What was that?”

He reaches out and swiftly plucks out the feather.

“You are lonely,” he says simply. “That much is clear. Despite how often you allow yourself to be isolated, you are still plagued by feelings of lonesomeness. How boring. How predictable.”

Komaeda blinks, eyes darting between the feather twirling around between his fingers and Kamukura’s own unmoved and stoic gaze.

Komaeda’s smile twitches; there’s a forceful tug at its corners.

“I didn’t think you cared enough to comment.” His smile widens, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “It’s human nature to get lonely. But it’s for the best. My feelings don’t matter as long as the others can shine. Nothing is more important nor as wonderful.”

“Those are quite the flimsy justifications,” he pointed out.

“Mm, I don’t expect someone like you to understand. Kamukura-kun is all cold logic and rationale.” That smile doesn’t drop even as those eyes narrow sharply. “You wouldn’t know the first thing about being human. I feel sorry for you.”

Sorry?

“It’s not like you asked to exist, after all, it was all that insolent reserve. You really are pitiful, Kamukura-kun. Nothing drives you at all.” Komaeda steps aside. “What are you even living for? I wonder if someone like you is dissatisfied even with existing. Well.” He paused. “It’s not like I’d understand how that would be like.”

Kamukura lets him brush past. But it is not long before he finds himself turning on his own heel and trailing after him. Komaeda doesn’t look back, which is expectable. He’s not the type to do so even when being followed.

Neither of them say anything.

“Do you understand your purpose?”

“...”

“You’re going to be the ultimate symbol of hope, Kamukura Izuru-kun!”

“Wrong. I am a tool for your disposal. A symbol of power and of influence. The product of a boastful legacy.”

“No, that’s not...”

“You cannot fool me.”

“...hah. I suppose I can’t.”

Komaeda Nagito busied himself with humble leisure activities. Walking, admiring the paintings and sculptures throughout campus, relaxing near the gardens, watching the frogs and turtles in the pond, checking out books at the library, sitting by the windows and listening to people practicing in the music room. It was much, as if Komaeda Nagito were restless, but nothing eventful occurred.

Even when Komaeda Nagito got himself coffee from the vending machine, there was a single can dispensed. Komaeda Nagito paused at this, and purchased another.

“Here,” he huffed, tossing it to Kamukura. “You must get thirsty, too.”

“I am as sustained the necessary amount,” was the reply. “This is unnecessary.”

“Aah, is that so?” Komaeda pops open the can, lashes lowering over his unimpressed stare. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any different.”

He tilts his head back as he drinks. And he downs it quickly, Adam’s apple bobbling with each swallow.

Kamukura still opens and sips from his own can. It’s surprisingly bitter, and yet his expression gives nothing away. As per usual.

“You know,” Komaeda says. “Even though you have every talent, making the possibilities endless, it feels like even less happens when you’re around.” He chuckles, swirling around his drink. “Is that just your luck?”

“It could very well be, I suppose.”

How boring. Even though Komaeda Nagito’s life is plagued by extremities, they are circumvented by my presence alone. That really is so...

“Boring...”

“It is, but for someone like me you could call it a blessing,” Komaeda murmured. “To have a mundane day pass by, it’s akin to having a normal life, farcical and fleeting as it may be.”

“How dull it must be to long for normalcy,” Kamukura hummed. “You really are a boring person.”

“It was nice,” Komaeda said, firmer than before. “Even if it was because of you. Even if it’s you, I’m still...thankful, Kamukura-kun.”

He hmphed at that, but Komaeda kept talking.

“Living a normal life together really wouldn’t be so bad. Simply being allowed to exist without being excessively punished and rewarded for it—do you think that’s a privilege?”

“A privilege...” The thought does give him pause. He mulls it over, and then, he finds he has no answer. “What a thing to ask.”

“I guess it’s pretty strange to wonder, especially if you’re going to Hope’s Peak,” Komaeda laughed. “But when you weren’t talking, I almost could’ve pretended we were friends and that was even stranger...”

“...because you are lonely.”

“Perhaps. I don’t really want to think about it. My mind goes haywire easily.” He finishes up his coffee. “But, all the same, I don’t really feel lonely right now.”

“Because I am here.”

Komaeda just laughs.

“Perhaps, perhaps. Is it the same for you, Kamukura-kun?”

Is it?

He doesn’t think; the answer that forms is immediate.

“It is not.”

It is immediate—and distasteful.

“Aha, understandable.” Komaeda hurriedly looks away, and his ears are red. “Someone like me makes for poor company.”

“It is not because of you.” Kamukura frowns. “That much I am certain of.”

Komaeda laughs again, but this time the sound is strained. Anxious. It strikes an unpleasant cord.

“I think...” The words trail off into a hard swallow. “I’m going back to my dorm, to open Matsuda-kun’s present and take a look at it.”

Komaeda almost stumbles when he steps away, pausing only to toss his empty can. He glances over his shoulder, but it’s only slightly, only so that he can catch the smallest of glimpses of Kamukura in his glassy gaze. He gives a courteous wave and a barely perceptible smile.

“I’ll see you, Kamukura-kun. Perhaps.”

“Perhaps,” he merely echoed.

Komaeda practically scurried away after that. Kamukura sees him nearly stumble, but he does not fall. He watches until the other is gone. He waits until he can no longer hear that quickened heartbeat without focusing, and downs the rest of his coffee.

It really is bitter.

“You’re really miserable, huh? Well, it’s not any of my concern, but...”

“You are commenting, nonetheless.”

“Yeah. Suppose I am.” Matsuda rolled his eyes. “Maybe because it pisses me off a little.”

There’s nothing to say to that.

“Maybe you should just try and go out more often, it’s not like you’re unable to leave,” Matsuda huffs. “If you just did—anything—you’d be miles better than you are now.”

“There is no point in doing anything when the results yielded are predictable and boring.”

“Factually wrong, dumbass. You know that. So what the hell are you so stubborn about?”

He does not answer that either.

“Geez, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that you just wanted to remain inhuman and miserable. Or maybe you’re afraid.”

“That is...” He stops himself. “False.”

“Huh.” Matsuda whistled. “All that talent—and you’d think you’d be a better fucking liar.”

He finds himself knocking on the door. The back of his fist strikes it thrice, all intervals in-between the same length. He’s aware that it’s fairly recent from the coat of paint. He would not be surprised if Komaeda Nagito had lost a door to bad luck.

“Mm? Coming.” It’s a soft and muffled call. It does not take long for the door to creak open, and though Komaeda Nagito appears with a smile, it falls in confusion. “Kamukura-kun? It’s...barely into sunset.”

“You were born around this time, correct?” he asks. Komaeda raises a brow.

“I wouldn’t...know if I was.”

“You were. So, then, take this. For your birth.” He holds out the small box, wrapped in a ribbon. “It is a cake. It should be suited to your tastes.”

Komaeda takes it, eyes wide.

“Aha... Haha... Um. Am I dreaming?”

“No. You are not.” He shakes his head. “It is most certainly not a dream.” He frowns. “Do you not want it?”

He can see how conflicted and how twisted Komaeda’s expression gets. How his eyes crinkle at the edges and are, albeit briefly, on the brink of tears. Tears that could have been either joy or grief. Komaeda’s emotions swung wildly, as one would expect from someone who lived so tumultuously.

And yet, this person was still standing, even as his knees quaked.

“You do not have to eat it right away,” Kamukura says, perhaps so that Komaeda perks rather than collapses. “However it will deteriorate in a matter of time. Please do enjoy it before then.”

“I... Mm.” Komaeda nodded quickly, lips pressed tightly together. “O-Okay. Thank you, Kamukura-kun.”

“It is nothing.” And yet, it felt so strangely significant. How strange. So strange. “I shall be seeing you.”

Komaeda tugs on his sleeve before he can turn. Kamukura stares, both at his trembling, pitiful grip, and the twitching, twisting expression. Slowly, it morphed from troubled to—something else.

“Thank you, Kamukura-kun.”

It wasn’t a smile. It wasn’t a frown either. All it was—was heartrendingly sincere.

“Thank you... Really.” He squeezes that small bit of fabric of Kamukura’s sleeve before pulling away. Just like that, he gives an easy smile that conveyed nothing at all. “I’ll be seeing you. Tell Matsuda-kun that the book was wonderful. Well. I’ll tell him that, too, next time I see him, haha.”

Kamukura only nods.

“See you.”

“See you!”

He leaves on that rather discordant note.

When he returns to his room, there is not much else to do besides sit there on the bed and mull.

Komaeda Nagito...really is...

His eyes fall shut as the thought itself trails off into nothing. Nothing but quiet. Time passes, and there’s a knock on the door.

It’s well past midnight. Without even waiting for an answer, Matsuda Yasuke pushes his way in, yawning inelegantly.

“Yoo... Letting you know I didn’t somehow die.”

“I would have been aware either way,” was the blank response. Under the dull light, Matsuda rubs his eyes blearily. Another yawn, and Matsuda nods a few times.

“Right, right... Of course... Jackass.” Matsuda grumbles, and he straightens up. “How was Komaeda?”

“He liked his gift. He had a satisfactory day.” It’s dully spoken, but the words are strangely weighted. “I suppose—even one who exists miserably can find happiness in living.”

“Yeah? That’s—wild to hear you say. Mm... Wonder if I’m dreaming... Maybe I really did die.”

In the blink of an eye, Kamukura stood up and steadied him, keeping him from swaying until he toppled over.

“You should rest as well. I suspect—Komaeda Nagito will be happier to see you in higher spirits, Matsuda Yasuke.”

“Dooon’t tell me what to do,” Matsuda slurred. “But fiiiiine. See if I ever check on you out of worry again. At least you were nice to the kid on his birthday. I gueeeeeess.”

He thinks about Komaeda Nagito and that worthless smile. But he also thinks about Komaeda Nagito and his innocent gaze.

“I suppose,” he echoed. “I suppose...”

Matsuda had already dozed off. Funny, that. Kamukura wondered if Komaeda Nagito was resting as well—if he was sleeping peacefully. If he was lonely.

I want to see him.

What a strange, unsettling thought that was.

That this person exists is—

Kamukura pauses, and shakes his head, helping Matsuda to bed.

I suppose it isn’t boring.

#KamuKoma #izuru kamukura #nagito komaeda #yasuke matsuda #kamukura izuru #Magi fics #MatsuKamu #but not really #MatsuKamuKoma #but also not really #KamuKomaWeek #Yaaaaaaay #another week doooooone #whoooooo #I did it

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bitch-aucoin · 5 years

Note

3, 7, and 11 because I love your headcanons

3. What’s your headcanon for their spaceship design?

Oh I defs go with the Africa MV/Meow Wolf aesthetic now. In Stellar Objects the boys currently have a lil shit box junker ship that just gets them from place to place. Eventually I want to give them that crazy set up (TARDIS style it, yanno? Bigger on the inside, maybe with rooms that can change based on moods or needs of the boys. Stuff like that.)

7. List each of the boys favorite hobbies, and why.

Oh! I think I’ve mentioned before Sung likes to do a little bit of everything because WHY THE FUCK NOT? I think his favorite things to do tho are practicing karate with tai jutsu cool downs, building absolutely unnecessary little bits of tech (nothing too big, nothing too crazy either. Just voice activated nutritional fact listings that shame them not into snacking, or maybe gloves that can act as a TV remote for when he’s feeling really lazy and can’t find the ACTUAL remote. Stuff like that), and then lastly I just think he likes to read. He’s not really a big fiction fan. His life is crazy fun and wild enough for him. But he just reads how to books and “so you want to be...” books and just is constantly looking to learn. He can speak french, Japanese, and American fluently in my canon as well as ASL, because why the hell not. He has an interest in those things. They matter to him. Why wouldn’t he? Also he defs plays video games a lot.

Phobos does a lot of gardening. I don’t really have him doing herb garden stuff. More fruits and flowers. Flowers are his favorite too because he’ll press them into books and sometimes he’ll write poems out on them and paste them around his room or slip them under doors for the other boys. I also canon him as the second song writer of the group. He has so many words that he can’t speak so at the very least he can write them all down. He also reads romance novels. You can find them ALL over the ship, each cover and description worse than the last. He’s probably gonna pick up tea leaf reading soon, but tarot and astrology are a little too out there for him (really, he just likes the idea of tea ceremonies/high tea because it seems simultaneously refined and relaxing.) I feel like he wants to learn to knit because he likes wearing oversized sweaters, but he hasn’t fully committed to it yet. And while Sung plays a lot of video games, he doesn’t touch the handheld stuff. That’s all Phobos.

Havve’s a bit more meticulous. First off you may not say this is a hobby, but he really does pride himself on cleaning up after everyone. He doesn’t mind it, although everyone’s rooms are their own problem. He’ll just really get into it. Actually looking into cleaning hacks, or new ways to tackle grime and dust. If anyone pops into the ship/their place back on Earth and just hears Skid music they know immediately to leave and let Havve to his devices. He also just has a habit of sharpening and collecting knives, and while he can already perfectly throw them he likes to fuck around with his internal parts to make it so he has to learn it all over again, so seeing Havve at an axe throwing place would not be surprising in the slightest. It’s about the challenge (same with drawing. He does it only with pen, tries to see if he can draw the perfect circle over and over again, or things by memory.)

Meouch is a record collector. Has a vintage record player that Sung helped him patch up that he’ll just pop on every night with all sorts of old school stuff. He’ll roll his own cigarettes and joints while the vinyl pops and crackles warmly and he’ll just find his inner peace while he does. I also canon Meouch as a piano player, something he got from his childhood, so once Phobos and Sung have come up with the lyrics Meouch is always the one that pulls it all together because he just has the right wired brain for it. The logic, the measure, the way the notes should come together. When he isn’t being the old man of the group, I feel like Meouch just likes traveling! Going new places, trying new food, enjoying the sights on his own personal time instead of in big groups.

For some reason, I wanna write a thing where Meouch fishes, but that just feels like it’s digging into the idea of him being an old man! i write him so different from everyone else!!!

11. Headcanon favorite foods for all the TWRP members.

Sung would die for both ramen and pizza. Just gonna say that right now. He’s defs a miso chicken ramen guy and likes to get that spicy, but when it comes to pizza he can do everything and anything, but he can just also pack away a plain cheese and love every second.

Phobos is the sweet tooth of the group. All sorts of candies, fruits, juices, honeys and nectars? That’s all him. I feel like he doesn’t enjoy chocolate as much when a fruiter option presents itself (like cake and brownies) but he’ll still go for it, no doubt.

Havve don’t eat food! I think he’d eat very healthy if he did (fish, for some reason my brain keeps saying fish!)

Meouch fucking loves a good ass burger with everything on it. He doesn’t like to get fancy. That or wings and of course, we can’t forget poutine!!! He’ll top it off with a nice beer or cider and that’s kind of why he’s got a nice lil paunch to him hehe

#long post #back-alley-hero

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hufflepuffhermione · 6 years

Text

Beside Him

So I’m new to Carolight fic (but definitely not to fanfiction) but I managed to get this done in time for Carolight appreciation week! It’s a missing scene from 3x05, after Dwight and Caroline’s reunion. Enjoy!

The room is silent, save for the sound of Dwight’s breathing, and Caroline wouldn’t have it any other way.

Of course she wants to eagerly share with him all the news that he had missed in the past year, of course she wants to banter with him in the way that only they can, of course she wants to hear his unfailingly compassionate words in response to some acrimonious remark she will no doubt unthinkingly make. And she will, in time. There is no doubt in her mind that soon enough, the conversation that she had so fallen in love with would return to her.

But not today, it seems. Dwight is quiet- she has never known him to be particularly talkative if not provoked, but this is a new level of quiet- and his eyes, normally so bright and sparkling, are dull and seem to stare at nothing particular. His answers to her questions are brief and stilted, and aside from a few expected pleasantries, he asks her nothing. Her heart aches to see him, to sense his distress that he is trying to keep under wraps, but she has very little understanding of what he has been through aside from what Demelza and Ross have briefly filled her in on.

“I’d best prepare you,” Demelza begins, as she and Caroline mount their horses for the ride back to Nampara, “Dwight’s not well, and he looks it. He looks as if the slightest breeze could knock him off his feet. Seems that in the prison, the men were lucky to eat once a day.”

Caroline’s heart constricts painfully, but she puts on a brave face. “So he is malnourished. Very well, we shall have to feed him until he can eat no more. Perhaps oranges, he once enumerated their nutritional qualities to me.”

Demelza sighs, unsure whether Caroline’s cheer is simply an act or if she truly doesn’t understand the state Dwight is in. “I’m afraid he does have scurvy due to the malnourishment, or at least that’s what he diagnosed himself with.”

“All the more reason for oranges,” Caroline says softly, clicking her tongue so that her horse takes off. As the woods go by, she thinks of herself and Dwight, years younger, riding along the cliffs and down to the beach, happy and young and free from the distress that has clouded every minute of their marriage. He is home, she reminds herself. He is home and with her to stay and she will not allow him to leave. He may not be well, not now anyway, but she will stay by his side until he is hearty and strong again, and for all the years after that.

The first part of their accelerated ride back to Nampara is silent, Caroline absorbed in her thoughts. Demelza appears the same, but there is something weighing on her.

“Demelza, is everything alright?” Caroline asks.

Demelza presses her lips together and shakes her head. “I’m afraid you might be distressed when you see him. He’s different- and I only know what I’ve gleaned from Ross but it sounds like the prison was a sort of hell on earth, and a body experiencing that... mightn’t be the same after.”

“I understand,” Caroline replies, although her own ignorance of what Dwight has experienced is beginning to weigh on her. “I’m not so naive as to believe this will be easy. But whatever state he comes back in is infinitely easier to accept than if he had come back dead.”

Demelza smiles weakly as their horses bound through the gate at Nampara. “Tis fortunate for Dwight he married a woman of such strength.”

Caroline shakes her head as she dismounts. “Tis fortunate for me that I married a brave and honorable man such as Dwight.”

She has half a mind to interrogate Ross on the rescue mission before she sees Dwight, so that she might understand the circumstances surrounding his homecoming, but any thought of delay escapes her mind once she steps across the threshold and realizes that, after so long, she is in the same house as him again. She cannot wait a moment longer to see him.

“Caroline!” Ross says, as she comes through the door. “You may want to wait down, I’ll go get him prepared...”

“Prepared to see me? He needs no preparation, not to see his wife.”

Ross sighs. “I’m concerned you might... be distressed. And he...”

Caroline gazes at him with determination. She knows he means well, and is likely doing as Dwight instructed, but she has never paid much attention to anyone who told her she was not allowed to do something. “Demelza appraised me of his condition, and I have no qualms. I have not yet forgotten my wedding vows. ‘In sickness and in health, till death do us part’? Well, death has not managed to part us, so my place is beside him.”

She pushes past him to the stairwell, and he and Demelza follow close behind.

Caroline closes her eyes, reliving the emotions that had coursed through her upon seeing Dwight. She had been shocked at his appearance, of course; all of Demelza’s warnings had not prepared her to see him so gaunt, so ragged, so unlike the beautiful man she fell in love with. And yet, she was relieved because despite everything, it was Dwight, and nothing could change that. But her heart beat heavy in her chest as she greeted him, her head full of so many thoughts and fears and exclamations that it overwhelmed her, and she could think of nothing but to comment on the scurvy that he now suffered from. But their few words were meaningless, compared to their kiss which had held the desperation of a year of separation and the joy of reunion despite everything. It was not a perfect kiss, by any means. His overgrown beard tickled her to a point where she almost sneezed, and their breathlessness was not so much passion as a frenzied need for each other, to confirm their dreamlike reality. But it was enough, or at least it was then.

It has been mere hours since she came in. And she is once again desperate to kiss him. She notices that she keeps holding her breath until he breathes again, worried that any moment he might slip away, that any moment she might wake up from this dream. The silence is comforting because she can hear his breathing, but even though she is not even a foot away, a part of her still misses him. A part that will only be satisfied by another kiss.

But before she kisses him, something must be taken care of.

“Do you mind if I leave you for a minute? Don’t fear, I’ll come back,” she says, squeezing his hand.

“My haggard appearance hasn’t frightened you away?” he mutters in reply, half sarcastically.

Caroline laughs. “No, I’m afraid you’ll have to work much harder if you want to be rid of me. But as a matter of fact, that’s what I want to work on,” she says, flashing him a grin.

Dwight barely has time to lift his head and mutter a “What?” before Caroline has escaped the room.

She hurries down the stairs, almost running into Demelza on the way down. “Oh, Demelza! Does Ross happen to have a shaving kit?”

“Far as I know,” Demelza responds, raising an eyebrow. “It’d be on the table in our bedroom.”

Caroline nods, heading back up the stairs before turning around and requesting, “Could you warm up some water?”

Demelza has a pretty good idea of what Caroline wants to do, and she smiles to herself, wondering how she plans to go about it. “I’ll get on that,” she says, but Caroline is already up the stairs and headed toward the bedroom.

She finds the shaving kit quickly, observing it to make sure all the pieces are there. The one she has seen before was, of course, much nicer, but this will do.

Kit in hand, she thunders down the stairs, perhaps overly eager to carry out her task. Or perhaps, already aching to be back with her husband. She has been away from him for over a year- she cannot be away from him for another minute.

When Caroline reaches the kitchen, Demelza is pouring steaming water out of a kettle into a basin. “Here you are, then. Let Dwight know that I’m making some supper, and I expect he eats it all.”

“Thank you,” Caroline responds, and really, she is thankful for more than the warm water. She is beyond grateful for Ross and Demelza and their unwavering support and willingness to take action to bring her husband home. Without them... Dwight would still be in Quimper, or worse.

She tries not to think about the alternatives; Dwight is home and safe, and will soon enough be well if she has anything to say about it. She cannot allow herself to linger on the fears that plagued her for the last year; her fears have not come to fruition, and she has nothing but joy. Even if his homecoming is not easy, she cannot complain. Anything is better than his absence.

She enters his room again, just as eagerly as the last, carrying the basin and the shaving kit. She sets them down on the bed beside him, and a little bit of water sloshes out. Dwight looks to the side with a tiredly curious glance. “What is this?”

“I figured it was time to take this hideous growth off your face,” Caroline says, running her fingers through his tangled beard. “I mean, it could be quite dashing if it were not so overgrown, but I fear I prefer my clean-shaven doctor.”

Dwight presses his lips together and shakes his head. “It may not be such a pleasing sight as you imagine- scurvy has left its marks.”

“I did not marry you for your looks, you know,” Caroline replies, kissing the top of his head and sitting on the bed next to him, again sloshing the water slightly. She puts the basin on his lap and smiles at him, “Although no matter what, you’re handsome to me.”

“Even with this ‘hideous growth’, as you call it?” he asks, raising his eyes to meet hers.

Caroline opens up the shaving kit and pulls out the soap. “Now, I only take issue with the fact that it’s so much harder to kiss you with a beard. I’d like to be in as close a proximity to your lips as possible.”

“Oh Caroline,” he whispers, and it is both humored and mournful. He reaches to take the soap from her, and she bats his hand away.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Dwight creases his eyebrows. “Um... shaving myself?”

“No you’re not. Sit back and relax, I’ll do this for you,” Caroline says, as she pulls out Ross’s blade.

“Caroline, I’m perfectly capable of...”

“Shh. You’ve been caring for others for far too long. Let yourself be cared for,” she insists.

“Have you ever shaved a man before?” he asks, watching as she sharpens the blade.

“As a matter of fact, I have. When Uncle Ray... was in his last days, and couldn’t do it himself, I did it,” she replies, suddenly cool and detached. “It was some way I could be of use.”

Perhaps this is what this is all about. Caroline wants to be, needs to be of use in Dwight’s recovery. She could hardly go and rescue him, and she was not a natural nurse. But anything she could do, she needed to.

Dwight is silent as Caroline continues the rest of the preparations. There is little he can say, and lately, there has been little he wants to say.

Finally, Caroline is ready, and she wets her hands and moves them to Dwight’s cheeks. She does this again and again, splashing him with water a little bit each time. Dwight patiently waits until his whole face is dripping wet. “Perhaps the bed was not the best place to do this,” he murmurs.

“Perhaps, but you’re not getting up and I wasn’t about to wait to take care of this, so here we are,” Caroline replies, taking the soap and lathering it on him.

He closes his eyes and tries not to gasp from the tenderness of her ministrations. This is so far removed from the last year, so strange and so dreamlike. He doesn’t open his eyes; he fears that if he does, he will wake up and be back in Quimper.

Once she is satisfied that his face is well lathered, Caroline begins with the blade, tilting his chin up with one hand, making gentle but halting motions to remove the hairs that had grown quite long. Part of her wants to take anger out on the beard, for it symbolizes the hell that her husband went through, and she hates the French and anyone else who forced Dwight to live through that. No one deserved that less than him. But she must be gentle, both because his face is marked by sores that she is careful not to irritate, and because she knows Dwight has not felt gentleness in so long. Caroline does not have a particularly gentle nature, but she carefully trains her hands to be so.

There is something immensely satisfying about it; the closeness, the intimacy that they have been deprived of for so long, the sweet smell of the soap washing away the months of dirt and grime and blood that had been caught up in his facial hair, the feeling of his pulse, beating under her fingers, to assure her that he is truly alive, that he is truly there with her.

Her fingers softly run over a now-bared cheek, as she moves on to the other side of his face. Yes, his skin is marked, and she wonders if he might be scarred from it, but it only makes him all the more beautiful to her. She cannot stop touching him; if she does, he might slip away from her. She keeps her hand firmly under his chin, turning his head toward her.

As her fingers still run over his cheek, she accidentally touches one of the sores. He hisses loudly, and she pulls away instinctually. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, backing away from him.

Dwight sighs and lowers his head. “No, no, please, don’t feel bad. It’s simply a bit sensitive, that’s all. And now doubt I look, as you said, quite hideous.”

“Oh, you mustn’t worry about that,” Caroline insists. “To me, even they are rather beautiful. They tell a story of a man who come back to me, alive. They are evidence of how strong, how resilient you are.”

He frowns. “You overestimate me.”

“You underestimate yourself. From what I’ve heard from Ross and Demelza, it’s a miracle you’re here after that place, and yet the whole time, you tended the ill and injured without a second thought for your own health, your own well-being. That, to me, is a mark of a strong man,” she says. As he begins to protest, she holds up a hand. “You may not feel it now, but you mustn’t doubt it.” She leans over to kiss one of the sores on his smooth cheek. “You are here. That’s all that matters to me.”

He closes his eyes again, feeling too tired to protest.

Caroline moves around to the other side of the bed, beginning to shave his other cheek. While her first strokes had been tentative and halting, she has found a rhythm, and every stroke is clean and soft. Her fingers follow, now carefully avoiding any spot that may be sensitive, but drinking in the feeling of his warm skin. She manages not to cut him; she won’t claim that feat in front of Dwight, who surely could have managed the same and much more cleanly, but she is proud of her achievement.

Finally, she moves onto the hair over his lip and chin, and as his beautiful lips are revealed to her once again, she cannot help but rub her thumb over them, chapped as they are. She sits back and takes in his whole face, her fingers never leaving his chin. He is even gaunter than he had looked before, and of course he is marked, but she prefers this sight much better. Despite everything, he is still her husband, her Dwight, and no French hell could steal him forever.

She puts the basin and the shaving kit on a bedside table, and moves closer to him. “Dwight,” she whispers in his ear.

He whimpers in response, seeming almost afraid at the sound of his own name.

“It’s done. Open your eyes,” she continues softly. Her hand goes to his cheek once more; she never wants to stop touching him. If she is with him, he cannot slip away from her.

“I’m afraid,” he whispers back, his beautiful eyes still stubbornly shut.

“Why?” Caroline asks. She is so far from understanding, and once again her pulse beats a little faster, because everything is not all well.

He is silent for a minute, and then almost under his breath, begins. “This whole experience, it’s rather like a dream. When Ross came into the prison, I was certain I was dreaming and everything after; it all feels like an elaborate story that my mind has made up to distract me from the reality and give me hope. I’m afraid that when I open my eyes, I’ll wake up and I’ll be back there. I’d like this to keep going as long as possible.”

Caroline isn’t sure what to make of this; it is unlike anything she has ever experienced. “I promise you, you’re not in a dream. You really are home, back in Cornwall. You really are with me. Allow me to prove it to you,” she says.

She takes both of his cheeks in her hands and presses her lips to his firmly, with a softer, more elongated kiss than before. “Open your eyes,” she murmurs.

He does, those brilliant blue eyes that she missed so much. He looks up and down her face, and tears begin to well up in his eyes and he kisses her back.

Caroline finds herself tearing up, rather unusually, and she pulls away from him. She is convinced that he is here now, both in body and in spirit, and nothing will take him away from her.

“I expect you’ve never had a dream quite so pleasant,” she says, sitting back on the bed next to him.

“No, I don’t believe I have,” he answers, between tearful sniffs.

She grabs his hand again and turns her head to look at him, as he looks back at her. He looks more like himself, more like the man she fell in love with. This is her husband, she realizes with joy, and nothing can take him away from her now. Conditions are far from perfect, but they are together. It is nothing short of a miracle, and Caroline intends to make the most of it.

This, of course, includes several more kisses, just as she prescribed.

#carolight #dwight enys #caroline penvenen #poldark #carolight appreciation week #alli's writings #this scene just would not get out of my head and i had to write #which i mean was nice to have so much inspiration #i'm a little nervous because i've never written them before #but i'm actually pretty proud of what i came up with #also it turned out way longer than i expected

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walters-tampon-string · 7 years

Text

Staying Late

Fandom: Durarara!

Rating: T

Warnings: Implied sexual content and a bit of violence but nothing drastic.

Characters: Yagiri Namie, Orihara Izaya

Relationships: Orihara Izaya/Yagiri Namie

Description: Lately Namie’s been spending her late nights with Izaya.

The first time Namie decided to stay late was to finish a television show with Izaya.

This statement was shocking for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious one being that she stayed late in the first place. Namie always had one mission and goal in mind whenever she walked into Izaya Orihara’s apartment: to get in, finish her designated paperwork as fast and as efficiently as possible, and promptly leave once she was done. She tried to do this while avoiding talking to her boss as much as humanly possible.

Namie didn’t by any means consider herself a saint, but her boss was a level of twisted that made even a cold-hearted person like her feel uncomfortable sometimes. Most days she just wanted to go home, cook her and Seiji dinner, and enjoy the rest of her day in the company of her brother.

However, as of late, she hadn’t been getting to spend as much time with Seiji as she would like to. Most nights she found herself cooking dinner and hanging out alone in her house because her brother decided to spend his time with that fucking insufferable Mika Harima bitch. Just the thought of that girl made Namie’s jaw clench.

The night she decided to stay late for the first time had been one of those nights. There she had been daydreaming and planning cooking a big meal and maybe seeing a movie with him, only to get a message on her phone from her brother saying that Mika was cooking him dinner that night and he would return late. Great.

Having no real motivation to go home now, and feeling a bit depressed, Namie decided to take her time and try to enjoy the commodities in Izaya’s quite lavish apartment. First course of business had been to pop open one of his bottles of nice wine and to pour herself a glass. She deserved it after all.

After sipping idly on her glass for a bit, she was stuck wondering what she was going to do now (her boss had a lot of nice shit in his apartment to exploit). But as she was plotting up what she wanted to do next to run away from her problems, she suddenly realized that Izaya had the television on.

That was the second thing shocking about the first statement.

Despite having a very nice (and no doubt very expensive) flat screen television set in his apartment, Izaya rarely had it on. He flicked on the news if he’d caused some kind of fallout in the city and wanted to snicker and bathe in the destruction he caused and sometimes, if she came in early enough, she could occasionally catch him watching a little kid anime of some sorts. But other than that, the screen usually stayed black and unused. So for him to have it on caught her somewhat off-guard.

Then she immediately got curious. What kind of program managed to catch her hyperactive boss’s attention?

After a few seconds of listening and watching the program, she realized it was a documentary about aliens and the supposed evidence on whether or not they already landed on Earth. She didn’t think of him the type to buy into this kind of stuff, and vocalized this.

If there was one nice thing about working with Izaya, it was that she could be mean to him as she wanted.

“Really, Izaya, I didn’t take you to be the gullible type who buys this kind of shit.”

Izaya glanced over his shoulder at her for a moment before shrugging and saying, “I don’t know. Ikebukuro has a monster with super strength and demon katanas that makes zombies and headless motorcycle riders. Who’s to say aliens are impossible?”

She hated to admit it, but he had a point.

He turned back to the screen and said, “Though I do agree with you a majority of the ‘evidence’ is a bunch of bullshit. Hell I could fake some of these if I wanted.” Pointing to a picture being displayed on the screen, he said, “Like this picture! Look-”

He then went on some tangent about how easy most of these were to fake and Namie listened, figuring if she wanted to make a few quick bucks selling an “UFO” photo to some gullible fool, she should learn it from the master of deception himself. He eventually finished his rant and then went back to paying attention to the program fully, muttering about how he watched because sometimes even they showed him stuff that even he couldn’t explain away. The fact that he admitted that shocked her.

Eventually, Namie found herself idly watching the program for a few minutes- which soon turned to her sitting on the other end of the couch to watch the rest of the show. She had to give the thing credit, it did manage to suck her in and make her question her own beliefs. Her and Izaya would make comments every now and then about something they felt was obviously fake or alternative theories about one of the pieces of evidence these archaeologists and scientists had found.

After a while of discussing and even joking with him, Namie realized that she was actually having fun.

She always found these moments odd. The moments where Izaya wasn’t acting like some sort of evil movie-villain and she actually enjoying his presence for once. She questioned in these moments if she really hated him as much as she thought she did.

But she never allowed herself to get drunk on that feeling. It never lasted. Usually without fail, the very next day, she would find him unbearably annoying or scary and she would consider herself a fool for even allowing herself to be lulled in a false sense of security like that.

But as of late, the feelings of fear or annoyance towards him were fading more and more. Sure, he was still the same as he always was… but maybe she had grown used to his oddness. Maybe she found glimmers of herself and her old ideals with him. Maybe she admired him and the way he challenged life almost without fear in a way. The more and more she began to stay with him, the more the feelings of resentment she held towards him turned into fondness.

And to be honest, that feeling of fondness she was developing towards him scared her more than he ever did.

For one thing, she never felt something even remotely close to those kinds of feelings for anyone except Seiji. The fact she even felt the slightest touch of affection for another man made her feel like she was betraying her brother in some way, even if Seiji seemed to have no qualms about moving onto someone else.

But even without that guilt swamping her, Namie didn’t want to hold any warm feelings towards Izaya freaking Orihara of all people. If there was one man a person never wanted to bare their emotions to, it was him. If she did confess her feelings to him like some sort of foolish, lovesick teenager, then he would probably just use those very emotions against her. To manipulate her like a marionette on strings.

And if there was one thing Namie did not want… it was to be strung along and taken for a fool.

It was best that she just kept such feelings towards herself. That was what she thought as the program finished and Izaya turned off the television with a click of his remote, stood up, stretched, and then said goodnight to her, stalking off to his bedroom, reminding her to lock the door on her way out.

She was irritated by how much the fact that he hadn’t invited her to bed… hadn’t done something more saddened her a bit. As she left his apartment and locked the door, she only hoped that these stupid feelings would go away one day.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

The second time she stays behind later than usual was to cook him dinner. Once again, Seiji was too busy being with Mika and the idea of cooking only for herself didn’t appeal, so she asked Izaya if she could cook something for him. She thought he would make fun of her and that would give her motivation to leave, but he only raised an eyebrow, but agreed to let her do that, saying thanks.

When she was well into cooking several things at once, he sauntered over to the kitchen to say what she was cooking, finally teasing, “Aww Namie, I didn’t know you cared so much.”

Good thing she had time to think of a quip once he inevitably decided to be a smartass.

“Sorry, but if you die of starvation, which you look like you’re about to do, I won’t get paid and I need that paycheck.”

It was true, he had gotten skinnier over the past few days. Probably from not eating. He had been busier than usual and while occasionally she caught him snacking on granola bar or an apple, it had been a while since she had seen him eat an actual meal. He seemed to live under the ideology that as long as he put something in his mouth at least once during the day and had loads of caffeine to follow it, then he would be able to function. How he was not dead yet or at least ended up in the hospital from passing out due to lack of nutrition was beyond her.

Izaya always seemed to have a talent for defying expectations.

The truth was, she was worried about him somewhat. She wasn’t lying entirely when part of it was because of money (What? He paid her good, what could she say?), but there was another part of it… something she was going to not come to terms with anytime soon. She justified it by saying she didn’t want to take up his workload or didn’t want to have to be bored with nothing to do… but she knew she was lying to herself.

Thankfully, Izaya didn’t press anymore. He just clucked his tongue at her comment and sighed, “Ah, Namie, you are always so cruel and bitter. Never change.”

She was glad he hadn’t caught the small smile that graced her lips for a few seconds at his comment.

Once she finished cooking, the two of them set up the table and sat down and enjoyed the meal. She expected him to make some jabs about the quality of her cooking, but he didn’t. Most of the dinner was sat in companionable silence. She found it weird that silence could be so comfortable sometimes. They had settled for water at first, but eventually, Izaya must have gotten bored with this as he stood up and eventually dug into his wine cabinet, pouring them both glasses.

After a few sips of wine, Namie was feeling a bit braver, so she broke the silence by asking, “When was the last time you’ve eaten a meal with someone that wasn’t work-related?”

Izaya thought about it, before saying, “Not since I lived at home with my sisters.”

She found that incredibly sad for some reason, but she didn’t bare to mention it. Instead she just said, “Glad to finally provide you a social life.”

“Oh? So you’re saying that this is not just a meal between an employee and her boss?”

Namie flinched, cursing her own idiocy. Shit.

Thinking fast, she scathingly replied, “Sorry. Just wanted to give the illusion that you had even one friend. Guess I failed.”

Feigning shock, he said, “That is so kind of you. I appreciate the effort, Namie-san.”

Namie wanted to stab him with her fork. Sometimes it was frustrating how unfazed he could be at insults. It also was infuriating how dense he could be sometimes. He could see the underlying meaning in almost everything, but seemed to be blind to this one.

Or maybe she was wrong. Maybe he did see the meaning behind her words. Maybe he did see right through her little game and was just toying with her. The thought made her even angrier.

Standing up and picking up his now empty plate, Izaya said, “Thank you for the meal, Namie-san. I guess I’ll hold off docking your pay for your cruelty just for one night.” When she picked up her wine glass and feigned like she was going to throw it on him, he raised his arms in submission and chuckled, “Kidding! Kidding! You’ll continue to be my overpaid secretary until I find someone else!”

He then trotted off to go put away his dish and no doubt go back to typing away on his laptop.

Namie was left sitting on the table for a little while longer, thinking that Izaya will never find someone as desperate as her.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The third time she decides to stay is because he’d gotten hurt. This was not an uncommon occurrence. He would come home with black eyes and bruises or even broken bones sometimes, but he usually laughed it off and seemed to consider it no big deal. Usually he had already been tended to by his doctor friend, and even injured, he seemed to be unhurt at all, lively and as energetic as ever.

However this time, he seemed to be covered with bruises and cuts, his shirt torn to shreds and pale skin littered with cuts and dark bruises. His face was also covered with bruises, his lip split. Blood was still seeping out of the cuts on his body. He honestly looked like he’d been through a meat grinder.

“What happened to you?” she said, standing up to inspect him.

“Let’s just say I learned a lesson. Gang members can sometimes have more loyalty to the lower-ranking members then I thought. It just goes to show, never underestimate the power of friendship,” Izaya said with a grin. How he could still joke around and do that when he was obviously in pain was beyond Namie. Shaking his head, which caused droplets of blood to drip from his head and onto the floor, he said, “Unfortunately, the power of friendships don’t win fights. Managed to get a couple of them back with my switchblade… and those who I didn’t get… well.. I’ll figure out what to do with them later…”

The ominous threat of that last sentence almost sent chills down her spine. She did not envy those thugs.

Looking down at the mess of blood he was making on the floor, she grabbed his arm and steered him towards the bathroom, saying, “Let me get your first aid kit before you make me clean the stains out of your carpet.”

“Oh Namie, I am glad you care about the important things…” Izaya sighed, but surprisingly he complied, limping to his bathroom. Namie quickly located his first aid kit and got to work bandaging him up and cleaning up his wounds. Thankfully it didn’t seem like he broke anything this time, just got roughed up a bit.

He hummed most of the way as she cleaned him up, making a sarcastic comment here and there and every word only frustrated her more and more the longer she worked. Finally unable to take anymore, she said, “You are going to get yourself killed one day, if you keep this up.”

Izaya looked at her for a moment before grinning once again and saying, “People have been telling me that kind of thing ever since high school when I began messing around with Shizu-chan. Yet my luck hasn’t failed me yet. After all, how can you kill a god?”

“Hate to break it to you, but you are no god. Gods bleed ichor not crimson. Nor do they allow themselves to get torn apart by street thugs.” Namie hissed. “Surely even you see this?”

Izaya stared at her and for a moment she thought she saw a flicker of anger cross his vermillion red eyes but he simply shrugged and said, “Maybe I will die one day… but for now, I am alive and kicking and I say, I might as well do something fun and great while I am here. And if opposition comes, I have no choice but to face it, now do I? Tell me, Namie, do you think I built the life I have made from shrinking away from the first opposition?”

“What life?!” Namie found herself snapping beside herself, “You have no friends, you live in your own fantasy world, you barely even take care of yourself!? What is there to enjoy in that?” Deflating somewhat, she said, “Don’t you feel lonely sometimes?”

Izaya stared at her like a cat for a moment before shrugging once more and saying, “I guess sometimes. But I’ve grown accustomed to it. But I don’t think I am alone as you think. I have my sisters. I have Shinra when he decides to be friendly. I have myself, and I am always a source of entertainment-”

Namie was about to yell something at him again, when suddenly, he said, “I have you too, now don’t I?”

Namie found herself flinching at that. She hadn’t expected him to say it.

“Now tell me, Namie-san? Who is the real lonely one here? Me or you? Don’t think I haven’t noticed. Hanging out with me to finish television shows. Cooking me dinner. Bandaging me up. All of these things I think are way past the job description.” Izaya said, smirking in a fashion that made her want to swing her fist at him.

Instead she just crossed her arms and dug her fingernails into her arms. She could feel hotness forming in her eyes but she willed it back, simply hissing vehemently, “Shut up, if you know what’s good for you, bastard.”

However he very rarely listened. Striding over to her, he got close and said, “You know bottling up your emotions is just as unhealthy, you know, Namie-san.”

She fucking hated herself for letting a tear slip to the floor as she hissed, “I hate you. Go to hell.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that is how you truly feel, Namie-san. Not entirely anyway,” Izaya whispered, his face getting closer to hers. Then, before she knew it his lips were gently pressing against hers. He pulled back far too fast for her taste. Anger taking control, she pushed him roughly behind until his back was against the cabinet, not caring when he groaned at the sudden impact to his wounds and kissed back harder, teeth grazing against his bottom lip and one hand tight in his hair. She felt a thrill run through her when she felt him press back, excitement and arousal buzzing through her bloodstream.

When they pulled back to pant for air like dogs, Izaya looked at her with smoldering eyes and murmured, “Want to move this to the bedroom?”

She found herself nodding before she could stop herself.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

She woke up that morning to a hand running along her spine, doodling idly on her. Last night came to her in vivid flashbacks and she had the jarring realization that she had just fucked Izaya Orihara. That she was naked right now and she had been sleeping next to him in bed.

Not exactly the most professional of working relationships.

Glancing up at him, she murmured, “What does this mean for us?”

Izaya looked at her before shaking his head and saying, “Hell if I know…” as if this were the most mundane thing in the world.

“Does anything ever bother you?” she questioned, glaring at him.

He grinned, “Namie-san, if there is one thing I’ve learned to love, it’s the unpredictable.”

Somehow that both answered her question and didn’t. She rolled her eyes and laid her head down on his chest, not figuring that she was going to get too much of a coherent answer out of him anyway.

But as she laid there, she wondered if she too could learn to enjoy the unpredictable.

#izanamie #durarara #drrr!#drrr #durarara!!#izaya orihara #orihara izaya #yagiri namie #namie yagiri #fanfiction #ashs writing

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careycuprisin · 7 years

Text

2017 Quad Rock 50M, or, why won’t these aid station people cut me off

A long mountain trail race is an invitation to make mistakes. The longer the race, the more persuasive the invitation.

There are all kinds of mistakes you can make. Separate them into two categories: mistakes you make during the race, and mistakes you’ve probably already made before the race even starts.

I am proud of my performance at the 2017 Quad Rock 50, because I think all my mistakes were made pre-race. Which is another way of saying, I don’t think I made any mistakes during the race. That’s quite an achievement over 50 miles! Simultaneously, though, I am faintly embarrassed by how long it took me to cover the whole course during a mistake-free day. My dramatic slowing over the second half of the course points up issues in training that I’ll need to identify and address.

For those not familiar with it, the Quad Rock 50M course is a 25 mile loop that you run twice, once in each direction. It’s made up of six big climbs and descents, three on each loop. The trail is runnable single-track interrupted occasionally by technical sections and the occasional dirt road. There aren’t many flat bits at all. The weather in 2017 was sunny and hot, with the only respite from sunny and hot being the first hours just after the 5:30 a.m. start.

Tale of the tape on Strava

To have a good race, as I said, you can’t make any big mistakes. Fortunately, I have a pretty substantial list of ways that I didn’t screw up.

I had the right equipment. I had no excess clothing on a day that turned out to be hot and sunny throughout. Shorts and a sleeveless RMR singlet. I had two handheld bottles, one for water and one for Coke. I had two small bags of dried fruit in my shorts pockets, and no gels, which I’ve learned by experience make me nauseated after about the second gel on every long run. I had an iPod shuffle with decent running music on it, and earphones that don’t fall out when running. I had applied tons of sunscreen. I had a trucker hat. I had sunglasses. I had two buffs, one on each wrist. I had thick wool Icebreaker socks extending to just above my ankles, which really prevent blisters and are tall enough to not capture too many small stones. I had Salomon S-lab Sense 5 Ultra shoes, that fit my feet. In short, I had everything I needed and nothing I didn’t. No mistakes.

The moon setting just after 5 am as I get my iPod ready for the race. With Pele.

I didn’t go out too hard. This is the most common mistake that I make. I think it’s because I enjoy going whole-hog over shorter distances and find the relaxed pace of a longer ultra really boring in the beginning when I’m feeling good. But I didn’t make that mistake this day. Everything felt very easy. I wasn’t afraid to hike parts of the first big ascent whenever I felt like I was working hard. If people wanted to pass or run away from me, I made no attempt to prevent it. I was in a good groove.

I did well with hydration and nutrition. This is another area where I often fail, telling myself too often that “I’ll drink later, eat later, just a few more minutes,” until I’m dehydrated and bonking, deep in a hole that I can’t climb out of. Not today though! In many races I’ll find myself arriving at an aid station with full water bottles, but at Quad Rock I made sure to drink everything in both bottles on the trail, so that at each aid station I could get full refills. This also helped me get out of the aid stations more quickly because I didn’t have to hang around to bail myself out of major dehydration. I just refilled bottles, quickly sipped something cold, swallowed a few potato chips or a piece of quesadilla, grabbed a piece of fresh fruit, and got out. On the second loop when I was suffering badly, I would sit down for a bit, but it was almost never for very long.

Needless to say, I was feeling good for a good bit of the first loop. Things only started to fall apart about 20 miles in on the third big descent into the turnaround aid station at 25 miles.

That’s when my right leg started to seize up. There weren’t any muscle cramps, but every time I’d push the speed even a little, or when the trail got the slightest bit technical and required any big step-downs or leaps over rocks, the lateral side of my right thigh would hurt like hell until I backed way off on the speed. And by that I mean, backed off to hiking pace. It was very frustrating, since I love running downhill and the trail on this big descent was snaky, beautiful, and looked like it would be super-fun to go fast on.

Nevertheless, I persisted. I cheered on several RMRs whom I saw on their climb up out of the turnaround to start their second loop. They were all looking great! I ultimately snuck into the aid station in about 5:45 — not bad considering I’d been moving so slowly for the past hour or so. This was really the only extended aid-station rest I allowed myself. Time to eat and drink something, change socks, put on more sunscreen (good idea!), and meet Howie, a new RMR dog that was helping out by looking cute and sniffing around like a good dog should.

Feeling decent on the first descent

I left for the second loop hoping the right leg would loosen up on the climbs. Though it did — eventually — it never really felt good again all day. Sadly, also, I ran out of energy for the climbs and the last half of the race became a suffer-fest.

You know how ocean waves roll onto a beach and then slide back out again? That was how the suffering felt. A wave of misery would roll in. I would console myself by thinking about how great it would be to drop at the next aid station. Then the acute exhaustion would abate a little bit and I’d start to think “I’ll just hike the rest of the way to the finish, who cares about cut offs?” This cruel cycle, aided and abetted by heartless aid-station volunteers including many of my friends (who could have had some sympathy for me but of course did not) kept me just ahead of the time cutoffs at each aid station, sending me out to hobble along to the next one. Rinse and repeat.

Halfway through the second loop is when I turned on the iPod. The music helped distract me a little bit. (“Those damned blue-collar tweakers, they’re the backbone of this town!”) I consoled myself by focusing on the fact that although I felt miserable, I continued to look fabulous. Time passed. The sun dropped below the hills in the west. The racers who’d finished hours before packed up their things and went home.

But the volunteers at Towers were still there, dammit. They filled my water bottles one last time. One last sip of coke. “Get out of here!” Bastards. Off I limped, down the final descent. At last I was homeward bound. I knew, finally, that I wouldn’t have to bum a ride back to my car at the finish line. I was reasonably content.

Then about two miles from the finish, as I’m semi-contentedly power hiking along, I see in the distance several people wearing green shirts, accompanied by a medium-sized dog without a tail. Oh, shit! It’s Kea dog and a bunch of RMRs waiting to congratulate me for not being dead or (worse) being DNFed. I hear cheers in the distance. I start to weep, just a little. Trying not to look lazy, I start jogging. Crying, but just a little. High-fives, pet Kea, and head for the finish. So much for semi-contented power hiking. I felt I owed it to all these people who were still hanging out at the finish line to get my ass finished as soon as possible. So, although it hurt, I found the energy to jog it in over the last, flat, mile. Done! My first 50M in the books. I think I missed the final official cut off time, but I completed the entire distance under my own power. So though I might not be official, I’m still a finisher in all ways that matter to me.

So why did that last loop go sideways? Well, more training for efforts longer than 5 hours could always help, cardiovascularly-speaking. And musculoskeletally-speaking, also. That’s about it, though. I just wasn’t fit enough for anything much faster on this course, on this day. But I’m happy with that! I can’t attribute the wheels falling off to any specific mistakes I made during the race. And for a race lasting, for me, more than 14 hours, that’s a pretty great thing to be able to say.

THANK YOU to Heidi who gave up her whole day to help me out at the race and to wrangle our dog Pele while I was out on the course. She also drove the car on the way home, which was so luxurious! Thank you to Gnar Runners for organizing such a beautiful race and for staying so late. Next year I’ll volunteer, or run the 25M like a sensible person. Thank you also to the best running club ever, the Rocky Mountain Runners. I never would have done as many dumb and stupid things without the inspiration and peer pressure you provide (to excess) on a weekly basis, from those of you who run at the front of the pack to those of you who run at the back. I’ve learned so many things about running and racing from you people, and had so much goofy fun with you. I’m very thankful and lucky to have met you all. Even when you kick me out of perfectly comfortable aid stations and make me cry with all your cheering and high-fives. Congratulations to all RMRs and especially to all of you who won an absurd amount of awards during the Quad Rock 50M and 25M this year. Cheers!

Look at all that pottery! RMRs with the spoils of victory, and beer

[cross-posted on the Rocky Mountain Runners page]

#trailrunning #rockymountainrunners #quadrock

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healthandfitnessrecipes-blog · 6 years

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3 Reasons I'm Attempting to Forgive the Doctor Who Hurt Me

https://healthandfitnessrecipes.com/?p=6168

Find a person who lives with a chronic illness, and you’ve found a person who likely has a story about a doctor who has wronged her.

As someone who has seen all sorts of doctors to treat my chronic daily headache and chronic migraine, I have many of these stories. One is particularly painful to remember:

I was a third-year teacher and my already-chronic migraines had begun spiraling out of control. I sat in my new neurologist’s office, involved in the most ridiculous conversation I’ve ever had. He had just handed me several boxes of eletriptan samples (a common migraine abortive drug) even though I already had a prescription.

“Isn’t it bad to take more than nine triptans a month because it can cause rebound headaches?” I protested.

“Yes,” he agreed. But basically his rationale was, “It’s not the smartest thing to do. But you say you are getting bad headaches almost every day, and this will help. So take it.”

I remember sliding the stack of little blue boxes across his oak desk in defiance, “Well if you say it’s unsmart, I am not going to do it.”

He slid the little blue boxes back to me, holding his ground that this wasn’t the “smartest” thing to do, but that I should just do it anyways.

Several minutes into this absurd back-and-forth, small frustrated tears formed in my eyes. I expressed that I already felt so helpless due to my increasing pain, and that this was just making it all so much more confusing.

His response was to first recommend psychiatric help. I remember his cold, sharp words, “I can probably help you with the headaches, but I can’t help you with your emotions” (turns out, he couldn’t help me with either!). He also called in his secretary to “see if he was making sense” with his entirely contradictory advice. At this point — it was all a blur. The clearly uncomfortable blonde lady watched me sob as the neurologist repeated his ramblings. I had never been so humiliated.

While this was certainly the climax, this was not the only time I felt degraded by this guy. Don’t ask me why I continued to see him for months afterwards — I can barely devise a logical explanation beyond extreme desperation. I remember months later, he had told me that it seems like the migraines were getting better despite me telling him they were not getting better at all. His office notes even regurgitate this illogical sentiment! Was it because I hadn’t cried in his office again and seemed “sane” that he assumed I was all better? I suppose if I show emotion, I am just “crazy” and my pain shouldn’t be taken seriously. And if I don’t appear that I am hurting, then I’m probably not that sick to begin with, and once again, my pain shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Clearly, I have pent-up resentment, even though this all took place over a year ago. When I walk through the events in my mind, I feel such extreme anger. There is only one possible solution I can attempt in order to relieve such intensely ugly feelings, and it’s going to be really really hard: I have to forgive him. In my mind, I have already obsessively ran through all of the reasons I should hate him — and sure, many are totally justified. But it’s probably only fair that I give the other side a shot and run through some bigger reasons to forgive the doctors who hurt us.

1. All humans need and rely upon forgiveness.

I may not have made a 24-year-old woman cry in my office by condescending her, but I’ve done many other things that need forgiving. Often when I am in pain, I lash out at people who love me and are only trying to help. I retort their positivity with sarcasm and pick fights. Often I have to remind myself of my mantra: Being in pain does not give you the right to be a jerk. Then I have to apologize.

But my doctor never apologized, so he doesn’t deserve my forgiveness, you may be thinking.

Have you apologized to every single person you’ve ever done something wrong to? I do my best, but the other night, as I laid in bed, I realized something nasty I said about another girl back in middle school. And for whatever reason, it took 12 entire years for me to remember, realize just how ugly it was, and feel badly for it. Now I hope and assume that girl isn’t lying in bed also, and hating me for what I did. And what a beautiful assumption to be able to make — that there comes a point where you can let things go even if that person didn’t explicitly apologize. Time makes it easier to forgive, but if we could condense the process, I think we’d all be a lot less anxious and angry.

And another point — even when we do apologize, do we ever really deserve forgiveness? I know that sounds harsh, but think about it. I’m sure we can all think of more serious wrongs we’ve done to people we love. Hopefully some of those people have forgiven us — but do those people actually owe us that? When we knowingly do something selfish or unfair to another human, do we really ever deserve her forgiveness? Often times when I am forgiven, I am grateful, but still feel a little guilt. I feel like I still owe that person something, and that’s probably because I don’t totally deserve to be absolved — I still did that wrong thing and I can never take it back.

Maybe the best way to expel guilt for your wrongdoings is to forgive someone else’s wrongdoings. Maybe that’s how we settle these debts. The question isn’t: Does my doctor deserve my forgiveness? The question is: Will I forgive my doctor anyway?

2. Our medical system is broken, and that’s probably not the doctor’s fault.

As a former teacher, I am afraid of where our education system is headed. Kids often barely know how to read. Schools seem to never have enough staff or resources. And parents often bully teachers when their precious angel child is failing because she never does her homework. An individual teacher may be phenomenal, but he is working within a broken system and his power will always be limited. Teachers have to follow the rules of the district, even when they are illogical and counterproductive. Teachers can’t force parents to care about their child’s education. Teachers can do some good, but can’t fix everything for everyone.

I think I need to recognize the same thing is going on for doctors within our medical system. My neurologist did try many tests to identify the problem, but everything was normal. He had run through the gambit. And while assuming your patient must just be emotionally unstable when you can’t fix her pain is highly arrogant, he was probably just out of guesses.

When a doctor fails to find a root cause, they may unfortunately just throw a myriad of medications your way to suppress the symptoms. I constantly ask doctors things like, could it be Lyme? Could it be related to my celiac disease? Could it be the foods I am eating? What I receive in response is always the same: “Probably not. Let’s try this medication next.”

But here’s the thing: that is all the doctors know to do for me. They went to medical school and learned finite information about how the body works. If your doctor has already tested for all the diseases and everything looks normal, he simply does not know the root cause. Also, medical conditions are segregated based upon specialist practices — as frustrating as it is, a neurologist knows very little about celiac disease. And for whatever reason, no medical doctor has been able to help me with nutrition or elimination diets in the slightest — clearly that’s not in their tool bag either. At this point, all they know is that a person is still reporting great suffering and so maybe one of these medications (that they did learn about in medical school) will help them feel better.

I am sure if my neurologist had had a magic wand to heal all my health problems, he’d wave it in an instant (and not just to get rid of me). I obviously wouldn’t have hesitated waving my education wand if it would have helped my students. I think we need to remember that doctors genuinely do want you to feel better. They’re doing all they know to do within a broken system. Their intentions are likely pure even if their actions and words are sometimes misguided.

3. You deserve peace of mind and are capable of achieving this through forgiveness.

Forgiveness is often difficult when people really poke at our wounds. I think the reason my neurologist offended me so deeply is because I was concerned about my own pscyhological health. My headaches kept getting worse and worse, my OCD was having flare-ups as a result, and a little part of me was wondering: Maybe this is what going crazy feels like. My neurologist had confirmed this hypothesis and confused me even more, and that really hurt; he unknowingly preyed upon my deepest insecurities.

Just like applying hydrogen peroxide and a Band-aid to a bad cut, we need to tend to our psychological wounds, too. A good way of starting to do so is remembering you deserve peace. Think of the daily battles you face, living with chronic illness. Think of how brave you are, dealing with sickness, fatigue, and pain day-in and day-out. You are clearly tough as hell, which means forgiving your doctor is just another hurdle. It’s a challenge, no doubt, but letting go of that little black ball of hate can free your heart for more productive and positive experiences.

As many have already discussed, not allowing your chronic illness define you is key. Similarly, not allowing your emotions– especially hate, anger, and hurt — define you is as equally important. We may not be in control of our illnesses. We are certainly not in control of the doctors who sometimes do more harm than good. But we still have full control over our beliefs, attitudes, and actions — and I strive to exercise this control in a way I can feel proud of.

Editor’s note: June’s My Mighty Month challenge is practicing forgiveness. Click here to join the challenge.

Credits: Original Content Source

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travelerwithacause-blog · 7 years

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Brick Walls

Welcome to the end of week 9. As it turns out, it is possible to hit a brick wall and really miss home. It’s also possible to hit a brick wall and not love everything about your current adventure. It’s also possible to meet a brick wall and find a way to conquer it. Let’s dive into what this madness actually means!

Brick Wall number one: missing home. Up until the last week or so, I felt that I was doing really well with being away from home, being away from my friends, family, dog, boyfriend, and admittedly my own bed. Truthfully, I was doing really well with all of that; but after my first week of not having any close friends in the house that I’m currently living in, I realized just how alone I am here. Sure, I have friends that live in this city, but they have lives too, it’s not nearly as easy to make plans with them as it is to make plans with people that you live in the same house with. Needless to say, I am becoming extremely excited for the arrival of my parents and my boyfriend.

Brick Wall number two: not loving everything 100%. I am still loving Missionvale and being there five days a week; that is not an issue in the slightest. Where my love is lacking is in my household. In my nine weeks here I have lived with roughly 60 people. It has been amazing to meet so many people from different countries, it has also been a bit overwhelming in some instances and even intimidating. Of course a handful of the people I have lived with over the past nine weeks that have been so amazing and I miss them live crazy and will be sure to keep in touch with them and see them in the future. More than just a handful though, I have not felt overly welcomed by. To fill all of you in, that fact makes living with people extremely difficult. Living with people that don’t make you feel welcome in a home that you (or your parents) have paid so much money for you to live in, it is a bit discouraging. So for any of you that plan to travel like this in the future, be prepared to meet just a handful of life-long friends as well has a whole lot of acquaintances. No worries though, most days you can still find a silver lining for.

Brick Wall number three: to conquer. As I have mentioned in a previous post, my internship has not been at all what I expected it to be. This has been the most difficult brick wall thus far, and for great reasons! Arriving here and finding that what I am truly passionate about is not exactly what needs to be done or an area that needs much help was basically a slap in the face, I tripped on my shoelaces and my face hit the brick wall. Rather than this knocking me down and keeping me down, I decided that I was going to find a way to get over this stupid brick wall and show it who the boss is. It took me a bit of time to find a good flow and figure out where my help, knowledge and skills would be best utilized. On a day-to-day basis, I cut a lot of bread, argue with a lot of people over whether or not they can have two halves of bread or not, and sing and dance with the nutrition ladies. On a less regular, but equally as important basis, I have been working with the Health Promotion Team working on projects that used to give me the heebee jeebies. I drew a large uterus poster that is now laminated and have sat through a couple of lessons on periods with the young girls. Now I have been trusted with the task of writing, and presenting a lesson plan about consent and sexual assault. Being 110% honest with all of you, I never viewed myself as being comfortable enough to talk to young adults about a topic as difficult as this, and yet, when Sister Annie and I spoke about what we should do next and decided that this topic was of high importance, she asked me of all people to lead the lesson. I didn’t even think twice about it, I said yes right away. I’ve realized that, not only have I grown up and matured in many ways, but that my own comfort zone isn’t always as important as others. If I was too uncomfortable to give a lesson such as this, then what would happen to these students? What if I am the only person that ever talks to them openly about this difficult topic? Taking care of these students, the kids I see every day and receive hugs and smiles and waves and high-fives from; they need me just as much as I need them. I didn’t realize until now, just exactly what it takes to be a health educator. I’m not here to just focus on one topic or one area of health, I’m here to educate people on all aspects of health and to step out of my own bubble to protect other people’s bubbles. That’s how I’m conquering this brick wall and dammit, I’m proud of that.

Just four more weeks of my internship left folks. It has been a beautiful rollercoaster and I couldn’t be happier that I decided to this. Is it textbook? Nope. Is it easy? Hell no. Is it worth it? You’d better believe it.

Ubuntu.

#travelerwithacause

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