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silenttale22 · 9 months

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PLAY FOR YOU |MYG|

Yoongi x Reader Genre: Angst, Fluff, Strangers to ??? Warnings: Two broken people, swearing, mention of suicidal thoughts Note: Hi Sweetheart, thank You for being here!

You've always felt attracted to things that stand out significantly - something unusual that you couldn't look away from. Always on a search for anything intriguing, whether it's in someone or something. Forever seeking a safe haven in things that, even if simply for a few moments, allows you to drift away with your thoughts into the unknown. Merely immerse yourself in a carefree scenario, which is so difficult to find in real life. You looked for remedies in music and poetry books, but you still didn't feel understood in any way.

It often seemed to you as if the days were getting shorter and shorter, with the time that you had progressively slipped away from between your fingers. Staring at one point for hours, thinking that something new might suddenly appear in your life. Hoping that without doing a thing you would get a glimpse of something to pull you out of the self-digged pit.

However, time has passed, and nothing has changed.

And it became so often that you wanted to just give up. You were tired, as your mind kept telling you that you were fine. Telling you that everything is going to be better, assuring you that you were during your healing era.

Yet now, it all feels like hurting lies.

Only a single mistake was enough to make you drown, drown in your uneasiness, lack of hope, and lack of strength. You were so done with watching how everyone is turning their back every time you offered a little bit more of yourself. And it was repeating. So again, when you thought you found someone you can trust, can count on…turned out to be another failure. You were and are still alone.

And oh, how foolish you felt for most of your existence… how big a liability you were.

Finding comfort with people so far away that didn't really know you. Pinning your hopes that strangers would be able to put you back together. You felt naive, because how is it likely to happen that they will understand and help? How can anyone manage to help if you - yourself don't know how? Or maybe the right thing to ask is whether you even want help.

Maybe you had become a little bit too content with your own created agony. Are you feeling miserable because something bad happened or maybe it's just made up by you? Loneliness is an excellent teacher for seeking rescue in being in pain. Most of the time, you try to look at yourself from another perspective, but torturing yourself has become a source of comfort and a distraction to which you are now addicted.

There were a lot of signs, telling you to change your way of thinking. However, what's the point of signs if you don't understand them at all? When you felt change just for a while, to get back inside the black hole, being shut within four walls without any escape. And you were scared…

You panicked more often than you used to because putting on a mask and trying to be constantly tough since one can remember, exhausted you.

You are scared of being not good enough. And constantly asking yourself questions - if you were able to bear yourself again, hurt even more. You are scared of asking for help. But, again questioning - why is it so hard for us to ask for a helpful hand? Why is it so hard to ask for forgiveness, and give it to someone? Why is it so hard to hope sometimes?

It was straining your strength. Constant bursts of energy, then mood swings, everything going up and down, so suddenly - you're overwhelmed. It's like walking in circles, once you get well, there's always something to pull you down again. And you just let it be, feeling bad about it later - usually at night when you couldn't feel more worried about your future. You may believe that you work so hard because something must have exhausted you to this point, but do you?

You never wanted to be a soldier fighting battles for a living. You never wanted to feel like you're dying, You never asked for feeling not good enough then why are you here now?

Surrounded by people but feeling so lonely. Waiting for understanding yet being so quiet. You are scared. You are angry. You are lost. You are confused. You are anxious. You are hurt. You are tired. You are done. You are…You are…

Who the fuck actually are you?

Your life has always centered around figuring out who you are and why your life looks the way it does. Why do you live the way you do? And despite the fact you found so many sources, so many books, and so many "people" who found the answers by themselves, to help you with your questions.

But did they help? Nah, you're still in the same place.

Confused and lost. Your eyes filled with tears while looking around feeling terrified of where you are in life. Because you don't know who you are, and you're not sure if ever will be able to get to know yourself. No matter how hard you want, it feels like you simply can't.

There's always a distraction, always something keeping you away.

And you tried to scream, but how loud can you scream to be heard? Why are questions - how to be heard in your mind every now and then? You're still unsure.

Where are the ones who said they'd stay - oh maybe, gone? What happened to the words they spoke of? Oh, maybe they meant nothing. Time has passed and you're left wondering if you're being too paranoid. Because it appears like everything has disappeared. Or maybe you just have the right guts to believe that the people in your life will come and go and that you are the side character in your own story. The story where everyone left after taking some of your light.

And there's also another feeling, a feeling of being rejected. By yourself and others. Usually, it is hard for you to show your authentic self but when did it all start? Does telling your mother you're feeling lost with yourself ever lead to anything? Being fifteen and feeling unworthy should not be so common, but these are different times, aren't they?

You simply wanted to make it clear that you are not in good physical condition. When you work hard to put yourself up, you can't be there for each one. That you are tired of being the perfect student and person for everyone else when you are not. You never felt like someone worthy of being put as an authority, and you hated it when the younger kids in the family heard 'Look how well she's studying - be like her,' and you just screamed in your mind 'No, don't be, if you don't want to feel what it means to die every day getting out of bed.'

You were broken without a reason, and unanswered questions about existence only haunted you every fucking night.

There was always a part of yourself that struggled to feel like you belonged here, and it became a run you ragged since you tried so hard to fit in or pretend you did. Your tensions and heavy heart were often ignored in your household, so you gradually learned to do it on your own as well. You felt obliged to do everything for everyone, as though being a pawn seemed so appealing at the time, but you now realize it was all wrong. You were aware that it was gradually breaking you down.

You realized that being rejected about your feelings for the first time became the beginning of your broken journey because that was the time when you started losing yourself. Despite so many years passing, you thought you should maybe open up again - and yeah, just to get hurt again. So what about all of these good moments if they last only for a…wink. In a second it again feels like agony and endless loneliness. And history has come full circle, as always

After so many failed attempts - shutting yourself off from the world wholly seemed like a great idea. Giving you a prolonged time to take another perspective, which was getting more and more scarce. This is how taking the money you had saved over the years, packing the necessary suitcases, and starting a new life in a completely foreign country seemed to you like an unlocked door from the room you were trapped in along with all the negative emotions tearing you apart from the inside.

Leaving the past and looking for the future was a never-ending, continuing thing…at times you were so far behind that you lost track of time, or frozen in, unsure of what really was waiting for you - so where was the time for the present? To get some air into your lungs and whisper to yourself 'I'm home'.

Standing outside an airport in South Korea for the first time, feeling the wind gently kissing your face, and the view at even such an overcrowded place seems enchanting, and although for a simple human the view of the sunset on the background of the rising airplanes was not very impressive, for you it meant something else - for you it meant a moment of freedom.

And at first, everything seemed tough, but getting a job turned out to be much easier than finding any housing, so you spent the first six months renting the cheapest motels you could. At the time you didn't even bother to think about surrounding yourself with more people, at that point, it seemed even more impossible than in your native country. Finding your place in an editorial office was like one of the few extended hands from the universe.

One dream was almost fulfilled, but the feeling of not fitting in was still fluttering somewhere inside.

The years went by, as did the people in your life. More and more, you wondered what you were doing wrong that you couldn't keep anyone with you, but that was another question you couldn't find an answer to with your own hands. You really tried in every relationship that came along…and maybe that was your mistake - maybe you were giving too much.

You were used to surviving alone, coming to empty walls and the dead silence filling the apartment. After all, you've always had to face loneliness, so why should it bother you in any way now? Nonetheless, sitting for hours on a window recess on a free day, watching people walking together, enjoying each other's presence - jealousy bloomed at times in your heart. Yet another distraction came with time, and even though he was at arm's length, you never intended on grasping onto another person again.

But he seemed to come out of nowhere, one day walking under the windows of the building where you lived. You saw all these people passing him and turning around to look at his face again. And it always makes you wonder if they see the same as you do.

His features, despite a rather blank expression that should in logic make you look away, were so pleasant to you making it impossible to turn your gaze away from him. His eyes were sharp, yet the softness of his features conflicted with the malignant glances he sent, causing people to turn away. And regardless of the resting face with which he walked almost every day - you still couldn't describe it other than mesmerizing and most simply - adorable. You could think of the boy as a cat who wants to appear dangerous at all costs to protect himself from strangers.

However, one time when you spotted him from the window again, the shade of his hair from dark now was almost white, blending with his pale complexion. You could even tell that he resembled a sugar cube. But this time his gaze was fixed dreamily on a faraway space, and you could see a flickering in his eyes even from a distance, like a night sky full of stars. Or you were just mad. But your heartbeat was fast for the first time when you looked at him, and the next day it turned out that he lived in the same building as you and was literally at arm's length.

The more often you saw him, or passed him too - he reminded you more and more of yourself, always trying to escape into your own world when no one around looked like they would understand what you were feeling. The more often you occurred to meet him on the staircase, the more often you caught yourself holding your breath, so that most often you began to suffocate through lack of air in your lungs, causing the boy to send you divorced from reality and puzzled gaze, as he quickly disappeared on his floor.

Days were slipping through your fingers, which happened also with sleeping hours when things got overwhelming again. Work at the editing office became too much from time to time, and the amount of articles you had to edit in weeks made you annoyed, especially when you read about the same topic over and over again. Also, uneasy flashbacks of childhood came in to say "Hi it's been a while since we hunted you, right!?." And that's how the nightmares appeared every night, taking away your needed sleep and focus. So as a husk of a man, you walk down the streets hearing echoing hurtful words from the past. The voice of your mother waking you up in the middle of the night. So many unsaid words sticking in your throat were hurting even more now, more than they used to…

It was another late summer night, a blanket was thrown off your legs long hours ago, and your tired body kept tossing from side to side on the mattress trying to find a place for itself. A chilly breeze from the slightly ajar window was hugging your naked legs, eyes closed still trying hard to fall asleep and get rid of sore eyes. Bright lights in the office and staying in front of a computer screen for hours every day were not the best for them. The blissful feeling under your eyelids when you finally were able to close them at least for a moment let you forget about wandering thoughts.

Raindrops falling on the window frame put you in a trance, causing you to feel like you were almost levitating when you succeeded in staying motionless for a while. But even they couldn't keep you asleep for long and your tired mind still wouldn't let you sleep for more than an hour, sometimes maybe two. A rainstorm somewhere on the outskirts of Daegu also woke you up this night, as if your thoughts weren't enough. It only took a few loud peals of thunder for your childhood fear to show up again, making your body tremble with anxiety over the rolling loud sounds.

Yet in the minutes that passed, as you tried to focus on something beyond the thunder, louder piano notes drifting through the air from one of the apartments in the building began to soothe you. Closing your eyes and swaying to the repeated strokes of the keyboard, letting out a melody lulling you to that long-awaited sleep. But instead of fully giving in to your soon-to-be dream, you threw your legs off the bed and moved toward the ajar window so you could hear the sounds of the piano even more clearly, and when you leaned your forehead against the cool pane of the window to close your eyes while listening, something inside told you it had to be him.

And the melodies repeated themselves almost every time, often making sleepless nights more pleasant or at least helping you focus a little on the editing you sometimes did at home as well. You rubbed your tired eyes, took a sip of tea, and with closed eyes listened for a while, only to run your fingers over the keyboard again and start tapping out more letters, pretending to press the keys of a piano making sweet sounds. You still carried your suspicions deep in your pocket, afraid to say anything to the boy, whether it was really him, but for the next few days, that was another thing that did not give you peace of mind.

So one day, when tiredness and frustration took over and your brain wasn't exactly working well, you found the unknown courage to speak up. So as his figure passed you again on the staircase, the words came out of your mouth on their own, making your heart pound countless times against your ribs, which you were sure anyone walking by would have heard.

“I'm sure it's you who plays all the nights on the piano” a rough voice of yours making your face twitch because you didn't want to sound it this way. And you saw how his body froze in place. He didn't look, only lowering his head down and talking quietly back after a moment.

“Sorry, I was sure no one could hear it. I'll stop.” oh, it sounded so sad, making your heart clench inside your chest, lips become dry and you wished to hold him to wash away the gloom that took over.

“No, no…that's not what I meant. I-I…shit, wait.” you stopped, getting lost in words and then his caramel eyes looked at you with so much hope sparkling inside “I'm not so good at this, talking I mean, but I enjoy it a lot…it, your playing I mean- it helps me sleep, and, uh I didn't mean to sound so bitchy.” you mumbled under the breath, cringing inside that this is probably the first and last time when you two spoke.

“You can't sleep?” his question trip you out, with eyes still staring

“I, yeah. We're not best friends with sleeping at all, I guess…” you murmured quietly

“I usually play around 2 am, making sure everyone is asleep. Now I will know I'm not the only one who can't sleep in here. That's kinda comforting.” he said leaving you alone on the staircase, staring numbly

And the first few days after a brief meeting in the hallway, your head could not calm down. Thoughts were tossing around like crazy and the pain in your temples was unbearable. Your jaw clenched often in an attempt to somehow stop the worsening painful twinge, but this only caused even more agony. This is another time when life began to overwhelm you. Again when the smallest thing you did pulled you down to the very bottom you can't get out of it. You already feel so damn tired that you yourself don't understand what's really wrong with you. You sleep for 12 hours at a time, or you barely sleep for 4. Your mind is overworked, and your eyelids are heavy yet you sometimes still find it hard to sleep.

You would like to have someone next to you. Someone who understands and won't accuse you that others have it worse. Because "you never wanted to die for someone," you heard in your younger years from so-called friends for the rest of your life. And it's true. You didn't need anyone to create a death wish in your head - you wanted to die because you could no longer carry the burden you were putting on yourself.

But how could they know you spent your nights thinking up different scenarios to end your life? How could they know how often you strolled the streets with your eyes full of tears, because the dumb words that 'others have it worse' kept you from shedding even a single tear? So you viewed the world as a blurry landscape, as your eyes stung through chasing away the gathering drops or through exhaustion from the triggers that surrounded you.

That's how filled with your own thoughts, you found yourself on one of the park benches, a bit more peeled of paint, placed farther than the daily paths, nearby a rushing creek, mesmerizing your gaze with the force by which the water smashes against the stones near the shore violently awakening something new in you. You sat down hard on the somewhat wet wood, breathing in the floating fresh rainy air, that helped at least a bit to relieve the heavy squeeze on your head. The pleasant scent of cherry and magnolia blossoms flowering nearby entered your nostrils brought with gentle gusts of wind appearing from time to time. The floral scent helped you to pause at least for a while with your closed eyes facing the beaming sun, whose rays caressed your tired face.

Quiet hope for a longer peace of mind, though, never lasted long, and negative thoughts found the right time to lead the storm against your head on their own. Neither the sound of rustling leaves nor the charming chirps of birds could stop the flow of thoughts as powerful as nearby rushing water that was impossible to stop. Nothing was able to completely shut you off from the voices appearing in the back of your head, so you drifted between reality and your own created world listening to the pouring hatred that blamed you for everything again and again.

As time goes by, having this rush of thoughts becomes too intense, too chaotic, and your temple aches again surrounded by arms of burning pain. Your eyes snapped open in a sudden manner, and the bright rays hit your pupils blindingly not used to the light. A good few seconds passed before you could look up freely to admire the beams breaking through the clouds that were darker in the sky. They moved slowly across the sky evoking a momentary awe, holding your breath. So you stared at the fluffy puff streaming across the blue, ignoring the pain and treating this as the last such moment-as if you were looking at a work of art for the last time, because who knows if such a moment will happen again?

The clouds may never settle like this again, and the sun will not shoot through them with its rays, blinding your eyes. You have to enjoy something that may never come back.

Your enchantment, though, becomes quickly covered by a short posture that, through the shining sun, appears at first to be a total stranger. But when you rub your eyes and white hair ruffled by the wind catches your eye, almost immediately you realize with whom your eyes meet a second later.

The delicate facial features and fair complexion you had seen before were not as impressive as the faint smile on his lips, an expression so rare to see on him. Dark eyelashes fell gently over high round cheeks as his eyes blinked through the falling rays. Without a word, a boy sat down heavily on the same bench, closing his eyes and giving in to the warmth of the sun. And no matter how hard you tried to look away - you couldn't, curiosity was way stronger than the rational mind at that moment.

So you studied his face - once out of the corner of your eye, then simply turning in his direction, admiring every detail your eyes were able to pick up. The pale face seemed perfectly imperfect. His delicate button nose was simply asking to press a finger to its tip, thin but pouty lips complemented the relatively innocent-looking face. His eyes seemed rather small, but when he looked suddenly in your direction with his wide-open eyelids, abashing you straight away making you turn your gaze away almost immediately, but somehow carry on to catch a soft glance he sent you. The quiet melodious laughter escaped his lips, causing pleasant chills to run down your spine.

"I have something on my face, or is it just that much of an attraction for you?" he asked suddenly, causing burning heat to rush to your cheeks, so you start rubbing your probably rose-colored skin with cold hands, and once again hearing laughter escaping from his mouth, quiet snort leaving your lips as you turn away with your back even more this time. "What brings you to such a faraway part of the park?" he drops another question, while his calm and curious tone of voice in fact encourages you to talk.

You let out a heavy sigh and glance in his direction to catch another sight of the small smile decorating his lips. The boy seemed quite different than usual, especially compared to the day when you exchanged a few words. Instead of a blank and chilly expression, he appeared relaxed and… almost keen to make any connection. Where his body language normally seemed pushy and tense as he walked alone below the windows of the shared building, looking far ahead, here his shoulders seemed loose and his posture friendly leaning towards you.

"Running away from overwhelming reality," you speak up suddenly, causing the boy to send you a confused look and your eyes meet for a moment, but you quickly turn your gaze upward to fix it on the passing clouds.

A stronger wind blows the first time you share a bench together, and your hair flutters back so the boy can look closely at your face. However, you only inhale the scent that has come with the breeze. Aside from the floral scent, a spicier scent of sandalwood with a hint of vivid citrus enters your nostrils, and because of the sudden rush of euphoria bursting inside by the new smells, your head spins slightly for a good while.

"Do I disturb your running away much?" a melodious voice brings you back from your temporary state, and your gaze falls on his face again. You send him a brief smile, which fades rather quickly after realizing that this is the first time in a long while that it has come unwitting. "I suppose so, tho," the boy adds, and your eyes widen at his words.

"Actually, you're a great help in it," you mutter under your breath, but when his warm laughter reaches your ears again, a smile spontaneously presses on your lips. You could see for the first time his gummy grin and rising chubby cheeks, which you felt like squashing with your hands.

"To be honest, I never introduced myself, extremely rude of me. I'm Yoongi." he extended his hand in your direction, which took a moment to hold onto in your squeeze, admiring its softness and slenderness.

"The timing simply wasn't right. I'm Y/N," another smile as his hand let go of yours, and you felt like you were melting inside with each bright curve of his lips sent out.

You sat together on a park bench for a long time that day, both of you gazing at the wandering white clouds as the sun pleasantly warmed your faces. And you didn't know whether the warmth spreading inside was due to the sun's rays or the presence of the boy sitting next to you.

"Still having trouble sleeping?" He asked suddenly, snapping you out of the trance you had managed to put yourself into.

"Uh, you could say so. But that's nothing, people have worse concerns," you muttered, not even taking your eyes off the sky

"They may have, but your health is just as important as others," he added. Yoongi got up from his half-lying position to get a better look at your face. "Don't minimize your problems if they are big enough to keep you awake at night." His worried gaze fixed on your face made you get flooded with a sudden burst of mixed emotions, and maybe if it weren't for your clenched jaw and teeth biting your inner cheeks every now and then - tears would have been streaming down your skin long ago.

"But it's only temporary, after some time sleep will come back," you said quietly, but the boy heard clearly through which a heavy sigh escaped his lips.

"Maybe it will come back, but the nightmares and exhaustion will linger on you," this time you glanced at him, and the pulled expression on his face brought a guilty feeling to you, "why can't you sleep?" throwing in another question, your inner cheeks already aching through the clenching of your teeth.

"Memories of the family household." you drop quickly, blending almost all the words into one "And you?" you added, meeting the sudden surprised expression on your face

"Me?"

"On the staircase the other day. You mentioned that it's comfortable to know that someone also doesn't sleep at night." A quiet laugh escapes his lips

"You caught that and still remember, huh?" He said with a stuck-on cocky smile on his face.

"Um yeah, of course, I do, how could I not," you replied.

"Reason similar - family household." He spoke with almost perfectly painted neutrality, but you were able to see the deep sadness buried in his eyes.

From that day on, you wanted to believe that there was something more between you and the white-haired boy, more than single meetings and a few hours of conversation that became some kind of routine for you after, more than glances thrown from the other part of the room, more than a smile exchanged on the street at first. Nevertheless, your relationship with Yoongi was really tough to define.

From one outlook you took on the whole thing, you'd like to say that you're really good friends - after all, you spent entire days together at times. Laughing together, exchanging different opinions on even more diverse topics, and most important - you thought about understanding each other so well. It even happened that you helped him write new melodies, and even though you were green in this, he seemed to take your opinion into account, thanking you more than once, saying that without you he would keep standing frozen with it. But on the backside, after days filled with conversations - there came weeks of separation, in which you again lost your thoughts, because each time you didn't know whether the boy had completely discharged his social batteries, or whether he was most simply bored, not eager to carry on knowing you.

It was clear that Yoongi was not the first eager to speak up about himself, much less his life. He was much more interested in listening to you, possibly giving his opinion on a particular topic that you had taken down into the conversation. But you were also not the kind of person who likes to push others, to make them feel uncomfortable in any way.

So you ended up waiting naively with the patience you had built up for him, having a hope that he will open up to say anything deeper about himself. And in the beginning, you handled the whole situation like an egg - afraid of losing another person in your life, but could you have lost something you never had? Why did you still find momentary peace in grasping for something that was flying away so damn fast?

Months passed, and you felt more and more tightly embraced by your demons with again-attached loneliness. It was the evenings when you fell on your bed in your darkened bedroom wondering if this was another time you did something wrong. Was it again that your foot slipped on one of the edges, impaling yourself on the sharp piles of hopelessness? All day long, you used to be able to stare at the screen of your phone, or occasionally glance at its screen as it lay alone on your desk while you were trying to get busy with work, in the hope that some kind of return message had finally arrived for your 'Good morning, have a nice day.' But the screen was blank, fading out after a long moment, showing your wasted face.

And it happened sometimes, that you passed him on the sidewalk or in the stairwell and sent him a smile at that time, hoping for at least a moment of conversation, but he only replied how busy he was and walked away, dropping that maybe another time….but did he really mean it? Your heartfelt that bitter taste of rejection again. Given so much time and so much free space, a kind of anger began to build in your cage. Once again you were fooled by words that turned out to be lies. Another time you got slapped in the face by reality, waking up from a naive dream - because people come and go. They won't spend their whole lives with you.

Nevertheless, for a while, you still hoped that the boy would come back. That he really cared.

"Yo, Yoon! Look at this song, it's pretty good!" you used to add many times when you sent one of a few links to songs that meant more than they might have seemed. But how could he know that the words of the song could describe your feelings - about your current situation, or about him?

"If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks. Then I'll follow you into the dark,*" You once again sent the lyrics of a song that was important to you, but extremely quickly regretted it when his reply was a short

"Again the lyrics of a song?"

Still, he eventually wrote back, in a way you might have viewed as a success. Yet, each of his responses made the weight on your frame worse to bear, and your fear grew. The bruises under your eyes turn shades of dark purple. Sleepless nights haunt your head after prolonged periods of peace and quiet, and scribbling down notes in various places to free yourself at least for a while drags on endlessly. All seems bland. Nothing seems real, you, your feelings, everyone around you, the world.

So you asked yourself - do you feel something or do you just think you feel something?

You wished to be gone. Again, you were building walls around you, putting up and gluing broken bricks together. You had no longer expected to be noticed, the desire for any kind of glance was fading day by day. If they don't want to listen to you, why should you speak up? But inside you were boiling, because on some part you also wanted to mean something. But did you want to escape or be alone with yourself, so that you could sink yourself into another abyss?

Anger and a sort of ignorance were building up inside you, and it didn't announce anything good at all. More - it was terrifying. Your crying wasn't just a cleansing thing, it was pure destruction of your temporary perception. You were too fast to get used to people, obsessing too much later, going through these kinds of moods. The chains which your appearing anger tried so hard to break are still hanging on your body, not letting go even for a moment - not allowing you to break free.

So you lash out at yourself and at everything you meet on your path, no matter if it's a can lying on the street or the neatly stacked books on the desk next to the computer at which you spent most of your time. Torturing yourself with work. Eventually, you would throw everything to the ground in anger, still somehow bottling the pain inside.

After a time, when your heart is already getting used to another dump, peace arrives, your emotions stand still set at an unusually low vibration and at first, you like it. It's been a long time since you felt such calm running through your veins. It was like a blissful serenity, a safety blanket wrapping you from all sides. All of this helped you to fool yourself, to get lost in the feeling that everything would be all right now, that no one could hurt you nor harm you.

So you walked circles around your apartment one evening, still unable to find your place. The hands on the clock showed that it was roughly three in the morning, and the piano in one of the apartments below you was no longer playing peaceful melodies that would help you sleep. Has someone new already appeared? Is it going so quickly to get bored of you?

The questions came suddenly, ruining your hopes of letting go of the boy fully.

Nonetheless, your shattered nerves had not heard for hours the buzzing phone buried in crumpled sheets, which you had muted earlier not wanting to look at its screen ever again. That's why a sudden loud knock on the door startled you as you stepped out of the kitchen holding a glass of water in your hand, which made it shatter with a crash right under your bare feet, and a crying whine left your lips a moment after.

"What's going on over there?! Y/N open the door right now!" a familiar voice filled with anger echoed outside the door, and you only put your hand to muffle another whine and stepped to the door jumping over the shattered glass, feeling tears running down your cheeks.

You grasped the handle hesitantly, only to swing the wooden wing open a bit and see a pale wasted face and messed-up hair, standing out in every possible way.

"You could at least answer the fucking phone," he started with a harsh tone, making your body shiver, but as the boy raised his gaze and met your teary eyes his lips pressed into a narrow line, shutting for a long moment. "What happened? Who's inside?" now he was talking quietly, peeking over your shoulder, but you just swung the door open so that he would simply step inside and not fuss any longer in the hallway in the middle of the night.

His gaze immediately fell to the broken glass, but you only sighed closing the door, and you passed by him jostling a shoulder with more vigor than you meant to "Nothing's going on, no one's here." you muttered, moving to the leftover glass, grabbing the scoop from the kitchen - again jumping over the pieces, at which Yoongi only snorted, pulling aggressively at the ends of his hair for a moment, and an instant later snatched your spatula and picked up the pieces for you.

"What do you mean nothing? You don't reply, you don't pick up - you literally vanished. So I'm coming here, to see you fucking cry. Then how the hell nothing is going on!" he got up from the ground, sizing you with his eyes, leaving to the kitchen and throwing the remains of the glass into the trash, at which you just snorted.

"You actually think you will come here, after so long and act like you care Min Yoongi? I'm already tired of non-stop seeking your attention." You let out a quiet growl, and the boy raises one eyebrow while sizing you with his eyes again.

"I'm not acting anything, what the hell are you making up?" he said scoldingly, slamming the cupboard door and walking over to grab your hands, checking for any cuts on them, but you pull away with a sound full of annoyance.

"Stop! Just stop! You are accusing me of a lot, and you don't notice that you were doing the exact same thing," you shrug your shoulders frustrated, unable to control the emotions tossing you around

"Y/N" Yoongi again tries to come closer to you, but you pull away as far as possible

"No, don't you even dare to come closer? You can't just come back whenever you want, not after such a long time when I cried night after night not knowing what was wrong with me. Not when I've already accepted that you're gone," you let out, feeling more tears stinging your eyes

"I didn't. I just needed time to think, I never left you."

"Needed time, huh? A time that lasted for months? Without saying anything and ignoring me in every possible way? One word was enough. And I'd be calmer. Fucking word that you need a moment Yoongi, but no. After all, you don't tell me anything!" you barely muffled scream of words leaving your mouth

"No, it's really not like that. Look…"

"No. You can just tell me already that I am too much. That you just had enough of me, don't even try to pity or lie again. It's not the first time, I've been hearing this before, you all come and make shit and run away leaving my door open letting this fucking frost in. That's what my life is fucking based on." you say choking on your own tears already, most of the words sounding more like gibberish than constructed sentences. You are frustrated, angry, and lost.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He groaned, sending you a confused look but you only snored pathetically

“About the truth Yoongi. About being just for a while, for always not being good enough for something more. And I start to get it, really…when you start to ignore me, keep avoiding my texts, pretending to be busy. I get it. At least you never promised you'll stay forever.”

“Stop it. This won't bring anything good…”

“No, I won't stop. They've always silenced me when I wanted to speak up, don't do the same. Not you.” You took a deep breath, not being sure if everything inside broke or was still breaking ”Not when my heart aches so badly to love you but my head is screaming to let go.”

“Wh-what?”

“And I know it may be stupid and pathetic for you. And I know I'm the first one to fuck everything up badly, and I'd beg you to stay but I won't this time. Just let me be heard one and last time. I'll be gone after it.”

“No, stop. You don't know anything. You won't be fucking gone, don't you dare. We will talk, we will I promise. I'm not going anywhere. I'm just angry okay? Give me a moment, just a moment please and I'll explain.” the long silence fell in the room, as you sat hard on the kitchen chair, pulling your knees to your chest and observing Yoongi firstly walking in a circle to finally stand in front of you. He took a long deep breath, his eyes clearly showed nervousness but you were tired. Just so fucking tired.

He stared for a long time, not speaking. His teary eyes made your heart clench, but you played hard, saying again and again inside your head to not be fooled again. But his hand so desperately reached for yours, trembling with fear, so you finally grabbed it hesitantly, that he could pull you to himself, hug you tightly, and oh, his arms embraced you so carefully, bringing you a sensation of reassurance. His heart was pounding loudly in his chest, which you could now hear and also feel on your own. The sound echoed in your ears, and though the fear of being alone again lingered within you, his hand gently stroking your lower back along with his chin nestled into your shoulder made you feel for the first time wanted, and even in a way begged to stay longer.

“Listen, I know that your thoughts are always ahead of others, but how come you seem so sure, about me, when you are so obviously wrong? I was never about to leave you, I just couldn't share my struggles then. Everything became too much…” he started hesitantly, pulling you even closer to himself “You can't overthink exactly how I see you, and how I feel about you because I can't count how many times I thought about you. About different responses, the real one, not the dry one I send. But I was scared to answer all the songs you have sent because I was afraid I won't be able to give you enough.”

“So you understood it?” you asked quietly, and he chuckled only into your neck. Feeling his warm breath brought you goosebumps, but you ignored them, clenching your fists on his t-shirt.

“Dear, I'm a musician. How could I not?”

“You're a stupid musician then” you murmured but he only chuckled again

“Yeah, you're right. I am. Because I should speak to you right away when I start to understand what I really feel. But as someone who has been rejected so many times, I was afraid, afraid to lose you…but I would anyway if I hadn't finally gotten brave enough.” He looked up, to see your teary eyes, and his heart hurt even more because he made you suffer “You needed some kind of confirmation that I am still here but I fuck it up and I'm sorry. But you know, it all seems like punishing yourself, thinking the way you did is so destructive. And I know it's a habit, something from the past, and I only made it worse. Yet I want you to know and remember that I always think of you, and remember every story you've ever told me. And I was about to tell you mine, but I was too scared.” he takes a breath, waiting as you say something, wishing that you won't give up on him yet.

“I was always here Yoongi, never pushing you to do something against yourself. I gave you the space,” you said almost blurring everything together. It felt as if your brain for once stopped working.

“I know, and I'm so thankful for that. Because no one ever did that to me before. And I want to be for you, as you are for me. To prove to you that you are not alone.” he brushed your cheek softly, bringing goosebumps ”And I know we will argue, as both of us can't go easy on things, but I will always find my fucking way to get back to you. Because you are my lost part. And we will be coming back because that is what people do while caring about each other. Always finding their way to find each other again”

“But Yoongi, Sometimes I think I'm not the same person. Not anymore. Something inside me changed. I don't know what - but something is different. And I hope you'll accept me anyway”

“I will always accept you. We're both changing, but does that mean we will feel differently about each other? We can fight, throwing plates and glasses but at the end of the day, I will be here to help you pick up all the broken pieces, so you don't hurt yourself. And at the end, we will treat each other's wounds. Accepting each other. Because I fell in love with you, and I know you did too.”

And your heart stopped for a moment. Because you couldn't believe his words. Could he really love you in any way? Or at least halfway your heart wished him to love-

“You're the melody I couldn't find. I couldn't ever make. I could dream about you, about someone who understands my tune so well…and you not only understand it but also are a part of it. You are the rare frequency that helped me to see different colors.”

And as Yoongi said so, you wanted to naively believe that he's telling the truth.

But honestly, could you be this rare frequency that makes him better?

#bts x reader #bts fluff #bts angst #min yoongi #yoongi x reader #yoongi fluff #yoongi angst #yoongi x y/n #yoongi x you

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selenacosmic · 1 year

Text

Romance in the office.

Chapter 11- Special date.

There are times when I remember my childhood, it’s not often though. I couldn’t quite enjoy what the other kids had, things such as going to amusement parks, going out to have fun… it’s difficult to do that when you lived most of your childhood in an orphanage. Though I never liked feeling pitiful just by that fact, perhaps that’s why I always strive so hard to do my best. I always thought that if I did my best, worked hard enough, I could enjoy my life like I’d always wanted.

The place wasn’t the worst, I know the caretakers were doing their best for us to receive a home, though i would be lying if I say I didn’t feel a bit miserable there. I would say I feel mostly indifferent with the memories of that place nowadays, though I had a hard time dealing with it during my teen years. My last memory of the orphanage was of when I was adopted. I will never forget seeing her for the first time…

“Selena? Are you listening?” I was brought back to reality when I heard Shingen calling me, we were on a break in the cafeteria. We were doing our best “act like real lovers” thing by sitting just the two of us, though I suppose me getting distracted almost ruined it.

The other workers were sometimes glancing our way, which made the atmosphere feel a bit suffocating.

“I am sorry, I just didn’t sleep well last night.” Which is true, I had to work at home with the ‘dating 101’ back that Yoshimoto gave to me so that I could study.

From his face, I could tell he was worried about me. That look on his face is one I can’t get used to at all, it makes me confused… I know we are only pretending to date, but when he shows expressions like that…

“You are a hardworking woman, a trait that I do adore. But you shouldn’t push yourself to the point of exhaustion.” His hand gently reached towards mine, another act that I couldn’t get used to. Though I didn’t mind the warmth of his hand.

“But I do rest, which is why I feel like I can work for more hours than usual.” I felt a light flicker on my forehead. He used his other hand to do that, I feel like I am being scolded.

“Should I visit you everyday to make sure you rest? I can put you in your bed, if you want.” No. That was a dangerous request. I knew there was more than just ‘sleeping’ if he ever did that.

“I will go to bed on time. Though I will think about that request in the future.” I gently rubbed my forehead, fixing my bangs so that it wasn’t messy. “Anyway, what were you asking me?”

“I was talking about going on a special date.” A special date..? I couldn’t really imagine how that would be like.

“Aren’t we always doing that, though?” From my words, his expression dramatically shifted to a pained one. Clearly his acting skills were better than mine.

“Now I feel hurt, does my Angel not enjoy going on dates with me?” Ah, right. There are people constantly watching us, I should act more loving.

“It’s not that, but what would make this date different than others… dear.” That last word sounded a bit awkward, I should train calling him ‘darling’ and ‘dear’ more.

He looked at me with a confident smile, showing that he had already prepared everything for this date. Shingen reached for his pocket and showed me the tickets for an amusement park.

“Although I would enjoy going to a more private dinner with you, I believe we should do something different for a change.” Oh, so that’s what he was talking about.

I have never been to an amusement park… perhaps that’s why I wondered back to my childhood. Well, since he was paying…

“Alright.” I smiled at him as I accept his offer, hoping that, rather than just being a date for show, we could get to know each other better. All this time I have tried to avoid my boss to maintain a professional relationship between us only. But after spending time with him while we pretended to be dating, I figured that it wouldn’t be bad if we could become friends after this whole situation was over.

“Perfect. I am sure you will look lovely for our date.” As he said that, the hand that was on top of mine gently lifted my hand towards his lips.

… yet another act that I won’t get used to.

————

Oh wow… this place is huge!

I have only seen amusement parks on tv, but I didn’t think it would be this large. My head was always looking up because of the large constructions, I didn’t know they had these many rides.

“Your neck will get sore if you keep looking up.” Shingen was chuckling at me, though it didn’t seem like mockery. He brought my attention back to him.

We were both holding hands as we walked around the park, he was already eating cotton candy even though we had just arrived. We were both wearing sunglasses to not attract much attention, but it seems like some people were able to recognize him. Either that or they thought he was handsome. Maybe both.

“Aren’t children scared of how large some of these rides are?” If I had come here as a child, I certainly would be scared of these large rides.

Now he looked at me with a puzzled look, which confused me. Was my question strange or dumb? I believe it’s reasonable to wonder why children even go to these rides.

“Some people enjoy the adrenaline it brings, but there are people who get scared of rides like the rollercoaster. That’s why there are so many different rides.” Despite his puzzled look, he answered me regardless. “Though I must ask, have you never come to an amusement park before?”

There it is, I knew he would eventually ask me that. That must be why he looked so puzzled, he surely came to places like these before. I looked at the rides and gave him a small nod.

“I couldn’t come as a child, not having parents to take me here made that difficult. When I was a teen I didn’t really see a purpose to come here. Though it feels nice coming here now.” I felt a gentle squeeze from his hand.

“I am happy that I was able to give you this experience. Though I must say, I didn’t come here as a child either.” Oh? This made me confused, he seems familiar with this place, though. Before I could even ask, he pulled me closer and whispered in my ear.

“Don’t look behind you, but we are being watched.”

“What?” I half whispered half screamed that sentence, loud enough for him to hear me but low enough so that only he could hear me. I gave a very quick glance over my shoulder.

The problem with amusement parks is that there are many people surrounding us, so it was difficult to know who was following us.

“But why..?” It was true that shingen was popular because of the company, but he wasn’t exactly a celebrity.

“It’s likely a paparazzi trying to take photos of us, see if they can get any scandal.” Ah, that made sense. By the way he said that, I could tell he was used to this kind of thing. How many people have wanted to take him down…?

“Well, if this is a date, we definitely want some privacy.” I looked around until I found the perfect ride to escape the paparazzi, the Ferris wheel. “Come!” I pulled on his hand and he followed me right away.

Whoever was following us naturally wouldn’t be able to hear us if we were inside one of the booths of the Ferris wheel. It would at least give us a little while of privacy. Luckily, there wasn’t a big line for this ride, so it didn’t take long for us to get in.

There were seats for us to relax on the ride and just look out the large windows that gave us a nice view of the park. I rested on the soft seat, when I noticed he was looking at me with a smile.

“So, we have our privacy, angel. I didn’t know you would want me all to yourself. Don’t get me wrong, but isn’t the Ferris wheel the last ride we should go to?” There was a cocky tone to those words that I didn’t like, now I was frowning at him.

“I am not sure, but regardless of that, how come they know we are here?” I looked out the window to see if I could spot at least one suspicious person in that crowd, which was not successful. Specially now that the ground was getting further away.

Shingen rested on his seat, he had already finished that cotton candy in a flash, which was surprising to me. Candy is good, but how come this man eat candy so fast?

“I am not sure. But these people always find a way.” His attention was still on me, and that smile didn’t go away. “You know, this ride is known for being romantic. Is that why you brought me here first?” He could be very infuriating when he was flirting nonstop. My eyes focused on the window, just so that I wouldn’t have to look at that smile.

He is avoiding the issue, I have began to notice that Shingen does this to not worry others around him. One of his most used tactics is flirting like this. Well, I can’t just ignore that someone is out there taking pictures of us.

“I just don’t want to have our privacy breached like this… I knew this would happen but even on our dates? These people have no shame on taking secret pictures of us?” It always infuriated me how celebrities are targets of this kind of thing, but even those who have the slightest bit of popularity have to deal with this? Shingen didn’t even seem fazed by it, how many times did he have to deal with this..?

I suddenly felt something warm on my cheek, it was his hand. My anger melted away when I felt his thumb gently stroking my cheek. I looked back at his face, his expression was different than before. Now his smile was gentle, his gaze seemed a bit… sad.

“I am sorry for putting you in this situation, but I must be a bit more selfish and ask you to pretend to date me for a bit longer.” Why… is he like this? Even in a situation where he is clearly the target of this harassment, shingen still feels the need to apologize… as if this is his fault.

“Don’t apologize. I won’t accept it.” That seem to shock him a little, I took his hand in mine and gazed at his eyes. “You didn’t do anything wrong, why should you apologize? If anything, I want an apology from the person who is following us.”

His grey eyes widened a bit, my hold on his hand became tighter. This isn’t the first time that I see him act so selfless, I can’t bare to see him like this.

“You really shake my heart, goddess. How can I win against you when you look at me like that?” He laughed softly, I noticed that his cheeks were a bit red. That caught my attention.

“Wait… did my speech flatter you, boss? Should I do this more often?” Yoshimoto did mention that saying something from your heart has a deep effect on others.

That made him laugh even louder now, which made me blush out of embarrassment. Did I say something stupid now? It was just an honest question…

“We should stay in here a bit longer, your blushing face looks lovely.” His words didn’t sound like the usual flirting lines he had, they seemed genuine. This was just the start of our fake date, and yet… it felt like this was a real date.

#ikemen sengoku #ikesen #ikemen sengoku shingen #ikesen shingen

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lick-me-lennon22 · 3 years

Text

How they calm you down when you're very stressed/having a breakdown 💜

thanks so much to @betchq who requested this one! hope you enjoy :) 💕

(these ended up wayyy too long.. whoops :P)

Paul:

it's all too much- you can't take it anymore

one minute you're sitting on the bed venting to Paul about work and family troubles- frustrated, but not devastated- and suddenly you've spiraled again

you're practically hyperventilating, gripping the duvet so hard your knuckles turn white, sobbing about how unfair the world is and how you'll never truly be happy

"Woah, woah, what's this all about darling?" he interjects tenderly, a gentle finger lifting your chin up to look at him, briefly breaking you from the hope-devouring clutches of your panicked mind

"It's -*hic*- just too m-much to handle Paul, I -*hic*- c-cant do it anymore," you manage to squeak out between sobs, your voice wavering and your lip quivering

Paul gazes into your tear-filled eyes, scanning them with his own in an attempt to gain understanding, a deeply concerned expression on his face

he places a firm, loving hand on each of your shoulders, eyes still locked on yours

"Listen to me, my love- nothing, and I mean nothing, is so wrong or bad that you can't take it on, or that this world would be better off without you. I know things are difficult for ye right now and it's completely understandable that you're overwhelmed- but you will get through this. And I will stay glued to your side every step of the way"

you inhale shakily, the cascade of tears that once flowed down your cheeks slowing to a halt as Paul continues his pep talk:

"Regardless of how daunting and scary it seems and no matter what it takes, you are going to be okay- more than okay, you are going to get through this and emerge from it even better off and happier than ever before. Ye hear me?" he says sincerely- his gaze stern, piercing, and comforting all at the same time

you nod slowly, eyes glimmering with residual tears, and sniffle once more

"You are the strongest, most capable, and most resilient person I know. I don't ever want you to feel that the days are becoming too heavy for you to handle. And if you do you know you can always, always come to me, no matter how insignificant you think your struggles are- they're not. I don't care if I'm 'busy,' nothing ever takes priority over you and your wellbeing, Y/N. I mean that."

you smile up at him with appreciation as he wipes your cheeks with his thumbs

"T-Thank you, Paul. It all just gets so overwhelming.. I don't know what I'd do without you"

"It's no trouble at all love, that's me job"- he gives you a small smile and pulls you in for a long, gentle hug

"I adore you Y/N, you are my whole world. Promise you'll come to me if you ever feel this way again?"

you nuzzle into Paul's chest: "I promise"

"That's my (girl/boy/love). I love you more than anything in this world- don't you ever forget that" ♡

John:

you don't even hear the front door open and shut, the sound drowned out by your sobs combined with the melancholy tunes coming from the record player on your dresser

"Y/N, I'm home!" John calls out, kicking off his shoes and coming to find you

he searches for you on the couch, at the dining room table, and then in the kitchen- but you're nowhere to be found

That's strange, he thinks, Y/N's almost always sat on the couch waiting for me when I come home...

"Where's my sweet birdie?~" he tries, striding briskly down the hallway to your shared bedroom, still in pursuit of his partner

John raps his knuckles against the wooden door and waits a few moments for a response

when he doesn't get one he turns the doorknob and pushes his way in, panic flooding his mind and senses

nothing could have prepared John for what he sees- the love of his life curled up fetal-style in bed, clutching the blanket for dear life, cheeks glistening with tears and features screwed up into an agonized expression

he rushes to your side immediately, placing a firm hand on your shoulder and shaking you softly to alert you of his presence

he spooks you and you startle, eyes snapping open in shock

"Are you alright, love? What happened- did somebody hurt you?? If someone upset ye I swear I'll make 'em rue the day they were born-" he seethes, interrupted only by you sitting up against the pillows and taking his hand in yours:

"J-John, calm down, I'm fine.."

"Did.. did I do something? Was it me? Tell me what I did wrong Y/N, whatever it is I'll fix it I promi-"

"No John, you've done everything right," you sigh

"It's j-just.." you trail off, unable to meet his gaze

he waits for a moment before encouraging you with a "Go on darling, you can tell me anything"

you take a deep, shaky breath before continuing- "Everything is so overwhelming and heavy.. just living feels like too much some days. I don't know what to do John, I'm downright miserable!!" you exclaim, your eyes once again welling up with tears

"..Oh sweetheart, come here" he opens his strong arms, pulling you in for an emotionally charged hug

John isn't the greatest at discussing feelings, so he offers comforting words instead

"Shh, everything's alright... I'm here, Johnny's got ye" he soothes, stroking your hair as you quiver in his arms, your body wracked with sobs

"I-It's just one of those days where I don't know how I'll ever b-be -*hic*- happy" you croak out, clutching his body close to yours

John draws in a deep breath before responding: "I understand how you feel- I've had plenty of those days meself," he confides in you

"But we can't let them stop us from living. Sometimes your perspective gets all screwed up and ye can't see through the bullshit your mind hurls at you,

"But one bad day is still just twenty-four hours, ye know? It helps me to think about that- that this too shall pass," he reassures you candidly, rubbing gentle circles into your back

"I know it seems impossible right now, but you'll- we'll," he corrects, "get everything sorted- including that pretty little 'ead of yours- and you'll feel like yourself again sooner than you know. Got that?" he asks

you simply nod, beginning to calm down but unable to speak just yet, and nuzzle further into John

he squeezes you tightly: "Y/N- ye know I know what it feels like to be stressed and depressed, and I just.." you hear John start to choke up and feel him tremble as he begins to cry, himself

"-ah don't ever want ye to feel hopeless like I 'ave, you know I'd take it all away in an instant if I could" he says, trying and failing to mask the wavering of his voice

"Even if it meant I'd have to take it all on meself instead, I can handle it- I'd do anything for you Y/N, I've never loved anyone or anything like I do you and it hurts me to see you in such pain"

John's voice breaks at the end of his monologue and you hear him sniffle

with that, you finally speak up: "Oh John, I'll be okay- I promise. Thank you for changing my perspective, it's just so difficult to pull yourself out of despair sometimes.. some days are just so.. heavy" you say, pulling back and looking up at him; "I didn't mean to make you cry too"

you dry your face with your sleeve and John takes your hands in his

"Y/N you know I understand completely, and I want ye to come right to me when the days get too overwhelming- I'll be sure to set your perspective straight. Don't you ever worry about making me upset or anythin' of the like, okay love?"

you nod- "And besides, I ain't crying" John says somewhat defensively and shifts his gaze away from you, still clutching your hands in his larger ones

you chuckle softly and roll your eyes at him- "Whatever you say Johnny.. you can't fool me, I know you're a softie" you tease, booping him gently on the nose

he pulls one hand back from yours, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly- "Yeah, yeah, that's enough" John says, expression hardening as he tries to disguise the grin making its way across his face

you place a hand on his cheek and turn his face to look at you

"Thank you, John. I feel so much lighter now"

"Ahh, don't mention it darling. Anytime at all- you mean the world to me. I love you, Y/N."

"I love you too, John." ♡

George:

to your boyfriend George, it's a day like any other

he walks down the hallway to your shared bedroom, fizzy drink in hand, intent on watching some cartoons in bed with you

he knocks and upon hearing your, "Come in!" enters the room with an "'Ello, gorgeous!"

"Room for one more? I was thinking we could have a cartoon marathon this evening- what do ye think?" he proposes, approaching you and taking a sip of his drink

you hesitate a moment before answering: "Yeah, that's fine Geo" you say flatly, punctuated with a quiet sniffle

"...Are you feeling alright, dear? What's got you down?"

George sets his glass on the nightstand and sits beside you in bed

"Nothing's the matter babe, I'm okay" you mutter unconvincingly, avoiding eye contact

George studies your face, just now noticing the red and puffy appearance of your eyes

"Have you been crying..?" he asks gingerly and places a gentle hand on your cheek

you finally turn to look at him, sighing: "...yes but before you freak out, it's really nothing- just one of those days, you know?" you offer George a weak smile, downplaying your stress

"Y/N." he begins sternly, "I can tell when something's wrong. Do you want to tell me about it, doll?"

"I would, but there really isn't much to talk about... it's just life, I guess. Nothing specific" you shrug

"It's not 'just' anything- if it matters to you, it matters just as much to me," George reassures you sweetly

"Thank you Geo, but I don't know what to tell you. I just feel...tense and pessimistic, you know?"

George nods in understanding: "Really just that sort of day then, eh? That's the worst- ye can't target anything to fix it," he sympathizes and you nod in agreement

"Tell you what- I don't care if it takes all night, I'm gonna do whatever it is I can to make you feel comfortable and calm, all right? Starting with getting some food in ya- I know that always makes me feel better" he grins

you offer him a half-hearted smile, as much as you can muster in your state

"Of course it does, George" you chuckle, "that sounds lovely"

George disappears down the hall and returns just moments later kicking the door open, arms full of snacks and sweets (including jelly babies)

your face lights up at the sight of him

he unloads everything, opening his arms and dumping it all on the bed for you to choose whichever item you please

"Thank you, Geo" you giggle and grab one of the bags of crisps, opening it and promptly reaching in for a handful to munch on

"Anything else I can get you, darling? Anything at all?"

"Hmm.. no, I don't think so-" you start, but George cuts you off before you can finish your sentence

"Oh I know! You need a nice, warm cuppa- that'll be sure to soothe you. Be right back, love" he says and with that, he's out the door once more

you wait patiently in bed for a few minutes and graze on the treats George had brought you until he reappears, a ceramic mug in one hand and a box of tissues in the other

"Here you are dear," he says, handing the mug to you and placing the tissues on your nightstand- "I thought you might need these"

"You really didn't have to do all this, my love- thank you. It really warms my heart" you tell him earnestly, "I already feel so much better"

George beams at you: "Of course gorgeous, it's no trouble at all. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Hmm..." you contemplate his question for a moment before responding- "Just one more thing, I think"

"What is it, Y/N? Anything at all, just say the word"

"Get over here and cuddle me!"- you lift the blanket and invite him to lay with you

"I thought you'd never ask" George says cheekily and hops into bed, pulling you close to his chest to spoon you

(and reaching over you to grab an overflowing handful of crisps, shoveling them into his mouth)

you can't help but laugh and snuggle into George, your worries forgotten

"Thank you, Geo. You're the best"

"What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn't look after my (girl/boy/love)? And besides, it's no inconvenience at all- don't you worry. I love you, Y/N"

"And I love you, George" ♡

Ringo:

Ringo has always made you feel safe, heard, and loved, and he's assured you that you can confide in him whenever you need to

he's made it a point to tell you to come to him whenever you need him, and that he'll drop everything to help you in any way he can

on one particular evening, nothing seems to be going right for you

you're beyond stressed and overwhelmed, and you can't help but break down from the pressure and weight of the world

at first when you step out into the living room, face red and tear-streaked, Ringo is oblivious

he carries on watching the television, gaze locked onto the technicolor screen

"Ritchie..?" you say meekly; "What is it, my love?" he calls out, eyes still fixed on the telly

upon seeing how invested he is in the program, you suddenly feel like a burden despite what he's told you numerous times before about coming to him when you're upset

"Umm.. nevermind" you squeak out, about to turn and drag yourself back to the bedroom when Ringo finally whips his head around to face you

his wide eyes take in your pathetic, hunched frame- hair tousled, eyes puffy and blanket pulled tight around you

"Oh my- sweetheart, are you okay? What's wrong?" he scrambles up off of the sofa and rushes over to you, panic evident in his expression

he places his hands on your shoulders and looks you over, eyes searching yours for answers

"Yeah, I'm okay" you sniffle, "but.. remember all those times you told me I should come to you if I'm ever stressed out?"

"Of course I do love, what's got you so stressed?" he inquires delicately, rubbing your shoulders

"Life, existence, everything!" you confess, exhausted

"Oh honey, everything's alright- I promise! Come here" Ringo beckons you closer and smothers you in one of his renowned bear hugs

you begin to sob quietly into his shirt

"I'm sorry, I don't know what's come over me today, I don't want to burden you-"

"Love, don't you ever worry about being overbearing or burdening me- I am always ready and willing to help you, please understand that. Managing your stress is so important and I'm thankful that ye came to me. That's what I'm here for" he reassures you as he holds you close to him

you sniffle and tremble, your tears soaking through his cotton t-shirt

"Shh, everything's going to be fine. It's okay to cry" Ringo soothes

"It's just a bad day. It doesn't mean that everything is falling apart, I promise. I'm right here. We've got this, together- you and I could take on the whole world if we had to!"

you pull back from his embrace and gaze into his eyes; "Really?"

"Of course we could, baby! Now let's get you to bed, how about that?"

you nod and Ringo lifts you up, carrying you bridal style to your shared room and setting you down gently on the bed

he swaddles you in a blanket burrito and proceeds to kiss your tears away, peppering your face with little smooches that make your heart flutter and your mind go blank

"Ritchie!!" you exclaim, giggling

"What? Kisses are the best medicine"- you agree, as long as they're his at least

once he's finished administering your treatment, he asks: "What else can I fetch ye, cutie? Anything?"

"You!"

"Why, of course!" Ringo's grin widens, lighting up his face as he pulls you close to him in bed

you rest your head on his chest and close your eyes, the dull thud of his heartbeat lulling you into a serene state of mind

for the remainder of the night Ringo refuses to leave your side, even when you drift off into peaceful slumber at last

"I love you, Y/N" he mumbles, the last thought occupying his mind before he too dozes off to sleep ♡

#beatles #the beatles #beatles x reader #john lennon x reader #paul mccartney x reader #george harrison x reader #ringo starr x reader #beatles imagines #john lennon imagines #paul mccartney imagines #george harrison imagines #ringo starr imagines #john lennon #paul mccartney #george harrison #ringo starr #richard starkey #LMLBeatles

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insomniac-dot-ink · 3 years

Text

Is it wrong to lie to children?

A personal essay on reconciling with a shitty childhood and the question: is it wrong to lie to children?

It’s perplexing to have a shitty “unorthodox” childhood because initially I tried to throw out everything about It. Toss out the plumping and the rafters and the roofing, dispense of every single part of my upbringing I could get my hands on and not look back. Naturally, this approach didn’t work. It wasn’t even a real possibility. You’re still haunted by it, a ghost in the bones of a house, a foundation that remains long after the builders have left. That’s part of recovery too, to look at that ghost, to look at those bones, and keep saying: I see you, I see. I let you in. You sit with it and accept, accept, accept.

The really terrible part of this, the part where I don’t throw away the baby with the bathwater, is that you then have to raise the thing, deal with it. You have to do the hard work of parsing through the endless bits of self and placing them in “keep” piles and “discard” piles. I want to keep my mother’s kindness. I want to keep my father’s sense of humor. I want to discard the isolation. I want to discard the delusions.

But then there are these weird . . . “I don’t know” things. The things I am unsure if they helped me or hurt me. As I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten more and more of those “I don’t know” categories piling up. I’ve worked my way through most of the more obvious ones and now it’s all grey and mushy and as cloudy as a London winter. Recently, more than anything, I’ve been grappling with the fact my mother believed it was wrong to lie to children. She believed, in her flower-child way, that it was unethical in all forms.

I never believed in Santa Claus. I’m sorry to say I was a pretty obnoxious kid too because I would preach on the playground about how there was no Santa and there had never been any Santa. Which was a bit harsh, but in my defense I was under the impression these people were suffering from some sort of collective mass delusion. They were being lied to. And lying was wrong.

Is it wrong to lie to children?

I’ve known about sex since I was around 5 years old. I don’t remember why I asked, but it was something about where babies come from and so on. Most parents talk about a stork or love or some other abstract side-step. My mother described the anatomy to me and showed me a scientific diagram of the process. She told me that a sperm meets an egg and fertilizes it so the baby can grow. I learned most of this in scientific terms and was surprised when none of my middle school friends knew how a penis worked.

Is it wrong to lie to children?

When I was 9 or so our cat was eaten by a coyote. I asked my mom where he went and she said that he accidently got out the night before. She said they looked for him all morning, but it was too late. She didn’t use the word “gone” or “passed on” or “he’s in a better place now.”

She said he was dead. I said oh. She asked if I wanted to see him. I said yes. For the record, I am not actually sure if 9 year-olds should see corpses. That is neither here nor there. It was something that stuck with me though, the body of my cat with his tummy ripped out. I had never seen intestines before. His eyes were open.

But there was something cathartic about digging the grave. About helping pick up his little stiff body by the feet and placing him inside. There was something about piling on the red dirt as the sun set and letting the tears fall.

People on sitcoms hate talking about death. It’s understandable, it’s not funny, it makes for good dramatic irony when the kid asks “Where’s Socks?” and the parents go “Uuuuuh. He ran away.” I’ve never felt more alienated at those points. My cat died. He was eaten. I saw his body, and I buried it. Sometimes I think I wouldn’t want to be told he ran away-- that he had a choice in whether or not he left me.

Is it wrong to lie to children?

For a long time I thought the entirety of my childhood was wrong and bad, because I was miserable and broken at the end of it. I will assure you, my parents fucked up time and time again. But sometimes I have to stop and keep asking: Was this the wrong part? Was this the part where they fucked up? Was any part of this valuable? It’s a hard process to comb through an entire life and decide which bits are worth keeping, and if there are any silver linings.

So here is one: I am an honest person. I am a crooked person too, unsure of where to place my feet in social situations, picking my way through others normalcy. I do not readily share information, I am not forthcoming, and it’s a slow burn for me to open up about anything.

However, I notice time and time again that strangers will share personal things with me. I don’t mean for it to happen, but there’s just this pattern in my life. I once went on a car ride with a girl I barely know from my debate team. She described how she wanted to lose her virginity, she wanted it, but was scared God would be angry. That she’d be dirty afterwards. I told her that that was impossible, sex was just an act, it had no eyes, it had no priestly robes, or bearing on her soul. She cried. She said she hadn’t told me anyone this before.

I had a friend in high school who was struggling with an eating disorder, people had tried to get her to talk about it before, but I was the first person she admitted it to. In the hallway, sitting, just discussing nothing, and out it comes: I’m scared to eat sometimes. I was on a city bus and an old woman struck up a conversation with me. Over an hour or so, and she ended up telling me her fears for her own daughter going away to college. Her fear of growing old and passing on. Her problems with sleeping as she lay awake and dreaded it.

People have told me about their problems with substance abuse, their struggles with sexuality, and childhood trauma. People spill to me and I sit there thinking: Why? Sometimes I think it’s my gender or just how people are, but it always feels like I’m missing some part of the picture. Why do people open up to me, unprompted, all at once? Why me?

Is it wrong to lie to children?

Recently, I was reading a memoir set in 2001 where two young kids ask the narrator, their mother, about 9/11. They asked what happened to the people on television who were jumping off the building. Where did they go? The mother says this: They were caught. There are people-catchers that flew and saved them. Everyone is okay.

This story was meant to be heartfelt and lyrical, relatable. It ended like this: It is the job of mothers to offer gentle lies.

I had to stop reading because I was suddenly lost in a white-hot rage, unexpected, knee-jerk. How could she do that? I found myself frothing. They trusted her with answers and she lied. How could she? I knew it was irrational. It was silly even. This was a sweet story. It was meant to be heart-warming and framed in a way that suggested this is what all mothers do. This was what they needed to do.

I felt my own mother, pumping through my veins, furious that these elementary school students were being betrayed. I stopped myself of course, I knew it wasn’t reasonable. I wasn’t raised “correctly.” I had no legs to stand on.

But still, is it alright to lie to children?

I am once again faced with that unending dilemma: how to throw-out those parts of myself that don’t work and keep the ones that do. It’s difficult to say, because in some ways I agree with my mom. How can I not? But death is cruel. Sex is weird. Santa Claus is a beautiful lie.

And what’s wrong with lying? I still don’t know. What’s wrong with letting them never hurt? Never knowing the pain or gross parts of the world? What’s the harm in letting them make-believe?

But sometimes I think about all those people who have cried to me. All these unprompted confessions come with an unspoken plea: I hurt. I am afraid. I am so scared. It’s all so heavy, these painful truths.

And some part of me stands there, the part my mother raised and says: there is nothing in this life that is too shameful. There is nothing in this world that is unnatural. There is nothing in this life to lie about, even to children.

Is death too painful? Is sex too gross? Would you tell an adult that a man lives in the North Pole and watches them?

I asked my mom, years later, when I was less furious and able to talk with her again without screaming, about why she believed all this. She had told me about it since I was very young, but I never asked why. She shrugged. She said: children are people, aren’t they?

I still don’t know what to do with this.

Children are people, but they are not adults. They shouldn’t be exposed to “adult” things, right? But is that line so concrete? Is the word “adult” just a mask for the greater word, the one we really mean? We all agree: honesty is good. Lying hurts. But it’s alright to lie to kids, because in many ways they aren’t people yet, they aren’t people yet, they don’t count.

I am admittedly an argumentative person. I was on the debate team, mock trial, United Nations, I studied political science in college and fought with every single one of my professors I thought was wrong. And I stood in that playground, age 6, and told every single one of my classmates Santa wasn’t real and I wouldn’t stop. The truth was important. And my mother, no matter what, thought I disserved it.

I often felt tiny and powerless as a kid. Terrified and holding myself together by shoestrings. I often felt there would be nothing better in the world than to be grown up. Not for the money or the dating or the job, I just wanted to feel like the hurricane would end. That one day I could stand on solid ground again. My friend often says: I wish I could be a kid again, ya know? No responsibilities. Just bliss. I want to be a kid again.

I can’t relate. I never have. I’ve been busy weeding through the pipes and lighting and the carpentry of my upbringing and asking myself: is any of this worth keeping? Is any part of me built correctly? There are no right answers.

But still, I am haunted. I sit and ask myself in circles: is it alright to lie to children?

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My book 🌟 Ko-fi 🌟 Patreon

#personal essay #nonfiction #creative nonfiction #writers on tumblr #story time

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astaroth1357 · 4 years

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The Demon Brothers (Minus Asmo) at Their Worst Pt. 1 (Lucifer, Mammon, Levi)

To the anons who gave me this idea, here it is. Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m all that happy to bring it to you, cause yikes this hurt to write. I’m grateful, however, because I believe I’m better for it. You shouldn’t always stay in your comfort zone. I left out Asmodeus for personal reasons. Regardless of my ability, given the nature of this challenge, I don’t feel comfortable with writing nor posting graphic content of sexual violence and chose to refrain from doing so. Please do not ask for this to be written at a later date, I will politely refuse then as I am now.

Check out the Masterlist for more.

Warnings: THEIR SINS HAVE BEEN TAKEN TO AN EXTREME (AND ALL THAT IMPLIES), Abusive/Controlling Relationships, Violence, Threat of Human Trafficking, Drowning, Angst, Regret, Suicidal Thoughts

This is all for the purposes of fantasy and in no way an endorsement for these behaviors in real life. Be nice (and smart) with your lives, my friends.

Intro: Maybe the MC should have known better. It should have sunk in a long time ago that they were in incredibly risky territory... They should have remembered that these men, though they call them friends, family, and perhaps even lovers, are still demons at their heart and core. Each of them are the embodiment of some of the worst behaviors man has to offer... MC, there are some people you just shouldn’t date, even if they love you, and now you suffer the consequences...

Lucifer

It’s not difficult to see how Pride can go awry. Self-confidence and dignity are wonderful things, but let them build up unchecked and all manner of petty, vindictive behavior can surface from within a person...

Lucifer is far from immune to these flare ups. In fact, he falls victim to them so often that they may as well be ingrained in his personality. If you do anything that mocks or belittles him, even if it’s small, you’ll get a reaction. One that’s usually more severe than offense calls for...

The MC knew this going into a relationship with him. Supposedly, they knew all the no-go zones, too. Don’t make fun of him or Diavolo, don’t mention the Fall or his back, don’t call him a nag... That sort of thing.

What they hadn’t expected was the full brunt of the expectations suddenly leveled on them.

To say Lucifer was demanding would be an understatement. Everything about him had to be poised, powerful, collected, and perfect. Whether he realized it or not, these expectations bled into their relationship as well.

It started with him nitpicking little details... The way they stood, how they styled their hair, maybe a comment or two on what they ate. But it progressively got worse...

Suddenly he found problems with the way they dressed, what they listened to, what shows they watched, even how they greeted him in the mornings!

Before too long, nothing was right to him… Nothing was good enough. They were his other half, his biggest vulnerability, and in order for him to feel secure about that they had to be perfect… However Lucifer defined it.

They listened to him at first. Though his comments stung, he could be so loving too… He truly made them feel special. Like he wouldn’t be trying so hard if it were anyone but them...

But pretty words and kind actions could only go so far. They couldn’t completely erase the vitriol being tossed at them day after day…

Slowly, with every little change, they could feel themselves start to dwindle… The choices they made felt foreign, the lifestyle they held became draining, and then one day they realized they didn’t even look right anymore… They were no longer the person they wanted to be.

Lucifer was doing what he set out to do: train them, break them, then mold them into something new... So they could be perfect...

Just like him.

One day, however, they just couldn’t take being the person he wanted anymore...

He found them in their bedroom just before a party that Diavolo had been planning for weeks. Their hair wasn’t fixed and their clothes were a mess. His frustration nearly skyrocketed until he saw their face, vacant and broken, staring blankly straight ahead…

He couldn’t rouse them. They wouldn’t move no matter how much he shouted, threatened, or swore...

….they didn’t even budge when he begged…

His brothers eventually noticed something amiss and took them away. Their disgust with him was fairly evident… They probably would have tried something had he not been the strongest.

He had taken something wonderful and squashed it... Hurt someone he truly loved and ruined what they could have had to protect his damn ego…

Lilith, his brothers, and Satan especially… was everyone he tried to care for just bound to end up broken too…?

The MC’s recovery was slow. They had a lot of damage to repair and a whole new identity to build. He stayed out of it as much as he could, burying himself in work and seeing his brothers less and less...

He’d done enough damage to them anyway...

Mammon

The Greedy, Scummy Second-Born… Words to etch on his tombstone. Mammon had heard it all before from all angles: the demons above him, below him, hell even a passersby on the street would know his face and his laundry list of a rap sheet...

The one person who seemed to look past all that was MC.

He truly didn’t know what sort of karma he’d gained or luck he scored to have them in his life. They didn’t just see him at his best side, they made him want to fix his worst...

But that’s easier said than done, isn’t it?

The sad truth is Mammon is a gambler at heart. Oh he loves the money, the riches, fine things, and the bling but what else does he enjoy? The rush.

There’s nothing like that feeling of triumphant when the dice falls your way or the pure exhilaration of a close bet. When all cards are on the table and everything’s stacked against you, eking out that win can cause a head-rush better than any orgasm he’s ever had... The higher the stakes? The better the high.

But maybe he went a little too far…

It’s one thing to bet Grimm, he can make more of that in a night. It’s another to bet items, harder to replace but not impossible. People…? Well. If you want high stakes…

MC was actually with him that night when he made the “great” decision to bet his most valuable treasure on poker match. He was running out of Grimm and thought that the added risk would make him play better…

He thought wrong.

MC hadn’t been at the table at the time he made the deal, but they had come back just in time to see him get his ass handed to him. He lost. Spectacularly.

When the other demons there came over to encircle MC, it already felt like his world was crumbling down around him... The look of confusion, then hurt and betrayal in their eyes forever seared themselves into his memory.

“You bet me in a poker game?!”

It sounds almost comical, but he knew what the demons were planning to do to them wasn't. And just seeing the way his human’s wrist snapped when one of the men wrenched their arm from them confirmed it.

He wouldn’t let them get away with that. When the threats escalated to violence, he took his share of punches but in the end he was left standing.

The MC was furious. He had just whittled their entire existence down to a bargaining chip and one that he tossed away carelessly…

Yeah, he’s truly a scumbag, isn’t he?

They didn’t talk to him for quite a while, despite him begging for forgiveness. There was always a part of him that wondered why he even bothered… He had done it before, and in another gambling-induced high he would probably do it again…

They’d honestly be better off without him...

Leviathan

It’s, frankly, quite difficult to be the Avatar of Envy. Every day Levi feels uncomfortable in his own skin… Like he doesn’t measure up to this or that or like he’s not worthy of being in the meager position afforded to him. He preferred to hide himself away and try not to dwell on it… but then MC came along…

For once, he felt like he had something. Something truly special. Something one of a kind and like no other… He couldn’t point to any of his brothers and say that they had something better, hell, he couldn’t even point to Diavolo and say that he had a finer version.

No. He had them. The one, the only, MC. Better than all the rest. His only great accomplishment in his miserable, pathetic life...

… so why did they keep leaving him…?

It didn’t hurt that badly at first when they’d tell him they couldn’t go watch some new anime with him because they had other plans. Sometimes they’d go off shopping with Mammon or have lunch with Beel… That was fine. Understandable.

At least that’s what he’d tell himself.

After a while though, he started to feel lonely… rejected… Was he not good enough for them? Surely that had to be it, right?? A miserable shut-in otaku with someone like them? What a joke!

Any time he’d voice his insecurities, they’d always say the same things: “No, don’t be silly!” “I really do want to be with you.” “I love you, Levi. Don’t you believe me?”

No. He didn’t. With each passing hour spent away from him, time where he would get shafted for one of his brothers instead, he believed them less and less…

Soon all he heard was lies…

Something possessed him that day. MC had just missed their third live stream in a row in order to be with his brothers instead. Which one was it? It didn’t really matter. He felt the stinging pain of isolation all the same…

When the MC walked into his room they had no way of knowing that the festering hatred and inadequacy that had been stewing in him for months was about to spill over. His anger was so quick to spark and their human body too weak to resist...

It was only once he realized how long he had their head forced under the water of his aquarium that he finally let them up for air.

He was stepping over himself to apologize, stammering incoherently through his tears how he just lost control and didn’t know what came over him!

His brothers weren’t forgiving. Not in the slightest. Each of them seemed to want to beat him within an inch of his life and he didn’t blame them… If he could get away with it, he’d march himself into the sea and let it serve as his rightful prison…

His punishments were severe, but not unending, and soon he was back in his room again. Now he never leaves it and the MC is never allowed back in, even if they want to be.

He now, truly, doesn’t deserve them at all...

Link to Part Two: Satan, Beel, Belphie

#obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #ow ow ow ow ow #obey me scenarios #obey me headcanons #crap I have to reread this...#in for pain #sorry levi #went a little hard on you there

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sariahsue · 3 years

Note

I just saw your take one Lilo&Stitch's approach to child protection and I was wondering if you could give some advice on how to write realistic stuff in this matter? I've been meaning to write a foster care/adoption fic and I do know the system in France must be at least a little different - and I will get down the research hole once I have a bit more time - but do you have any advice on how to write the kids reactions, the way parents deal with everything, the bonding part... things like this, so I can avoid clichés.

You don't have to answer though, feel free to ignore all this akdjwja I just figured there's no harm in asking XD

Yeah, sure! (To anyone else reading this who has a fic, feel free to send me a message if you have questions!) I’m definitely not the most knowledgeable person, but I know quite a bit. And I’m sure things are a bit different in France (hopefully their court system is better - yikes!) but I think the human element would be pretty similar, so here we go.

First off, know that everyone is foster care is having a rough time constantly. Foster kids, workers, parents, foster parents, foster siblings. And no one knows what’s going on long term. There’s always a lot of uncertainty. Will the kids go home soon? Are parental rights going to be terminated at the next court date? Who knows???

The birth parents, at best, are going through a really tough time in their life, made worse because their kids were taken away from them. Some care about their kids, but they’re extremely self-centered and have zero parents skills. Some are manipulative and see foster care as free babysitting, and as long as they get to see their kid for an hour or so a week, this arrangement is fantastic for them! At worst, they’re just horrible human beings who abuse children. In general, most parents are clueless and selfish and pretty manipulative. They say they’re good parents and have no clue why their kids were taken away, even though their kid has cigarette burn marks on their back, or had to eat out of the garbage to survive because the were left alone for hours at a time when they were four, or worse. They have no clue at all what their behavior does to their kids, and they refuse to listen to anyone who tries to explain it to them.

No matter what type of parents they were, their kids ALWAYS love them and want to go home. Every single one of them. No matter the age. No matter what their home life put them through. Some of them aren’t old enough to understand why they can’t go home. Some have been in foster care for years and hardly remember living at home but still want to go home.

It makes for complicated foster relationships sometimes because the kid will be attached to both birth and foster parents and feel guilty or conflicted or disloyal, or they’ll try really hard not to be attached to the foster parents in the first place. (I can think of only one exception to this. Two sisters who had been put into another home and liked the foster family and decided that they were going to be adopted by this family and were very excited about it... except the foster family had no plans to adopt them. I never learned what happened there.)

And this is before accounting for the mental health struggles that often accompany the trauma most of them have been through. Some kids come in with anxiety that makes it difficult to trust new people. Some kids’ behavior is so extreme that it’s difficult for foster parents to take care of them, and so the kid moves around constantly. (If their behavior is too bad, they can sometimes be put into either a group home or residential, either temporarily or permanently.)

Parents are also entitled to visits, usually either weekly or every other week, at least while the goal is reunification (which is always starts out as). Before the pandemic, these usually took place in the DCF (Department of Children and Families is what it’s called in my state) office or in a visitation center. Sometimes the court orders that the visits be supervised so they don’t start promising their kids that they’re coming to get them next week. Often the workers think that sitting down the hallway not listening counts as supervision. 🙄

With the pandemic, kids have been meeting over Zoom. That’s being phased out pretty soon here. Kids are almost always triggered by these visits. I mean, they look forward to them usually. Some kids are mad at their parents and don’t want to talk to them, but almost always, they want to see their parents. And almost always whatever behavior problems they had before is extremely worse for the next 2-5 days. (Which is terrible if you get a visit every week.) Some parents bail on these visits regularly. Some consistently bail on only birthdays and Christmas. We’ve learned not to tell the kid that they have a visit coming up until we know it’s definitely happening, or sometimes only right before we’re planning on leaving to go, because the anticipation of a visit is triggering or because getting stood up by your own mother is traumatizing. Sometimes you can get the kid’s therapist to write a note asking for the visits to be less frequent for the kid’s sake, but often that just means every other week instead of every week.

For foster families welcoming kids into their home, it’s a little different. They’re often more stable, and their whole life isn’t shifting around them. They’re just getting one or two kids into the family. The home dynamic is going to be a little different. Nothing huge, compared to what the foster kids are going through. It often depends on the kid how fast you get attached. Sometimes you know kids are only going to be there for a month because their normal foster family had to deal with an emergency, but the plan is to take them back soon. Sometimes they’re adorable babies and you get super attached really, really fast. Sometimes they’re so unhappy and scared that they make your home life completely miserable. Sometimes you’ve seen so many kids come and go over the years, and they’ve all left eventually, and your heart becomes guarded to protect you from that pain. But you get attached eventually anyway.

And sometimes your parents are given a newborn whose goal is reunification and it’s love at first sight even though you don’t know if you can keep him, and then he’s put up for adoption when he’s two and you adopt him SO HARD. And then you make future foster kids upset because you can’t adopt them too. :( And even though they get adopted by friends of yours, they still feel conflicted over it four years later.

You would think that a kid raised completely in their adoptive home from birth would have no problems, and sometimes that’s the case. Sometimes they still get upset about the adoption when they’re older because the foundational belief they have about themselves is that their mother didn’t want them, even though it’s not true.

(This is the real-life story of my brother. We are the only family he’s ever known, and he’s 13 now, but he still has issues over being adopted. The other boy is 16 and is doing much better with his new family now, though he still has some issues. We had him for a very long time, and we were all happy that we know his adoptive family well because we stayed it contact with him, which almost never happens when a foster kid leaves.)

Oh, I forgot one thing. Usually when kids first get to your house, they are perfect little angels for a while. Depending on the kid, it’s either a couple days or maybe even three months. It’s called the “honeymoon period.” Once their subconscious realizes that this is a safe place to work on their issues and they aren’t in physical danger, they start to process what they’ve been through. It comes out in a variety of ways. Behavioral issues, bedwetting, explosive anger, nightmares, etc.

A note about social workers: All the workers (at least in my state) constantly have too many cases. Like, double what they’re legally supposed to have. Most of them try hard to keep up. Some DO NOT CARE. Some are fantastic and put extra time in to go to the kid’s end-of-the-school-year recitals and build a relationship with them. They’re in charge of organizing visits and making sure the kids have everything set up and are generally important in the kid’s life. They’re required to visit once a month and make sure foster parents have all the right paperwork and arrange dentist visits and bring them to all their therapy appointments. (FYI, You get a piece of paper that says you’re the legal guardian. You have to show it to schools and doctors when you make arrangements for the kids. My mom also keeps a copy in her purse, just in case a kid starts screaming “HELP! SHE’S NOT MY MOM” in the middle of the store or something. It’s never happened, but you know, just in case.)

Also, you would think that they’re the constant in the kid’s life, but if the birth parents move, the case gets transferred to another office in the state, and so the social workers switch. I sincerely hope that’s not how things are done in France because it’s garbage for a lot of reasons.

Okay, I’ve written you an essay, but I hope it was a useful essay! Let me know if you have any more questions!

#foster care #adoption #birth parents

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pinkpetalwaterimagine · 3 years

Text

On the edge... part 2 (Charlie Gillespie)

A/N: So here is part 2, hope you enjoy, and don’t hesitate to point out mistakes.

Bonne lecture ❤️

Summary : Charlie wants to win you back but will it be enough for you to forgive ?

Word count : 2,2k

Part 1

After two weeks of the two of you breaking up (?), Charlie still hasn’t wrapped his mind around the fact that he couldn’t go back to canada and take in his arms his girlfriend. He always thought the two of you were in for the long run. Not ready for marriage, but still. You have been together for two years ! He thought that you guys would hold more. But here he was, on the couch, staring as the ceiling as if you would appear from nowhere.

Even if you left you were as miserable as him. Waking up everyday was a mission but you still managed to do your work, be focus on University. Even if your friends were worried because of your pale skin tone, usually your cheeks were always a bit red but it felt like all colors left your life when you left Charlie.

You were reading in your bed when suddenly the door slammed open to reveal your best friend : « okay ! So I don’t know what happened with Charlie, you came back real sad. You don’t have to tell me, but it is paining us to see you in that state ! » Exclaimed the feisty girl.

Instead of answering, you just rolled in your bed, groaning. « I don’t want to talk about it » you mumbled in your pillow.

Just as she was about to speak, she was interrupted by your phone ringing. It was Owen. He had tried calling you everyday since the blown out Charlie and you had. Your friend was quicker than you and answered your phone.

« Hey ! You can’t do that ! » you exclaimed.

« Watch me »

It’s not that you didn’t wanted to speak to Owen and Jeremy was probably with him but so Charlie. They live in the same apartment, of course he would be there. And you didn’t had the strength to confront your friends, if they were still your friends. You guess that their loyalty stands with Charlie. You had somehow got your life in order, you didn’t wanted one phone call throwing everything away. But here was your friend answering the FaceTime.

« Hi Owen ! »

Owen didn’t answer, he was a bit surprised that someone finally picked up the phone and he was more surprised that it wasn’t you that picked up. He didn’t knew your friends, sometimes seing them on your posts on Instagram, but nothing more. Hell, even Charlie didn’t knew all of them.

« Uhm… Could I talk to Y/N ? » he asked unsure.

« Yes of course ! But I’m going to hold the phone because I know that if I give it to her she is going to hang up on you, which is not very polite but you know… »

« Y/N ! How are you sweetie ? » you were a bit taken aback, Owen is a nice person but he wasn’t one to give you those sweet nicknames. Maybe you looked far more bad than you thought.

« I’m fine, I guess we could say. » you snatched your phone back from the hands of your friend. « I’m not going to hang up, you can go, don’t worry. » you said, and released a small sigh as she finally close the door behind her. Do those people learned about privacy ?

« How are you really doing though, no offense but you don’t look that good. » said Owen with a pout. He was really worried about you, you seemed in better shape than Charlie, but you still had bags under your eyes that at this point could be defined as luggages.

« Geez, thanks Owen, it’s always really nice talking to you! » you said with a laugh. It’s been a long time since you even chuckled, and a bright smile was on Owen’s face, seeing you interact that way with him after being gone from the face of the earth for two weeks.

What you didn’t knew was that Charlie was sitting next to Owen. He always was whenever Owen tried to call you. Charlie had tried to call you but you never picked up and he figured you needed time away from him. Seeing your face through Owen’s screen brought a smile to his lips, he missed you. He knew from that moment that he had to get you back. He didn’t really care how, but he will try to do everything in his power to get you back. His brain didn’t register the conversation between the two of you, he was stuck on your face. He had a small smile dancing on is lips and when his friend ended the call he had found back that spark in his eyes.

« Oh, you have an idea. I know this look. I don’t know if it will be a bright idea, but it’s something we can work with that » and for the first time in two weeks, Owen saw his friends coming back to life. He wasn’t wallowing in self-pity but instead he had that determined look.

« We’re going to Canada baby ! » yelled Owen. They both packed quickly and were ready to take the next flight the next morning. Charlie realized how much of a friend was Owen. He was ready to leave with him on such short notice just to get back his girl.

It was quite a nice day, you were walking around campus, your books under your arm, just breathing and soaking in the calm atmosphere surrounding you. And then you saw him. Standing next to a tree with his guitar in his hands. The first thought that crossed your mind was : how in the world did he know you would go by that way ? And the second one was that you felt like in High School Musical 3, but whatever. You didn’t feel strong enough to confront him. The scene of the fight kept playing in your mind. If you spoke to him you will be sobbing instead of real talking. You acted as if you didn’t see him and went in your dorm room.

Charlie was caught off guard. He knew you saw him, but still you walked away like nothing happened. He thought that this romantic gesture would have made you listen to him at least. He wasn’t expecting you falling in his (huge) arms again but engaging in a conversation would have been nice. But Charlie wasn’t the kind of guy who gave up. He knew which door was yours.

He took a deep breath and let his fist knock on your door. You weren’t dumb, you knew that it was him, who else ? You didn’t answer and stayed laying on your bed as if you didn’t move he will go away. It was not the case.

« Y/N, could you open the door, I rather talk to you than this wooden board please. » he whispered as to not make a scene in the hallway and to show he was ready to talk and not scream like the last time you talked.

For a minute you stayed frozen not really knowing what to do. And then you gave in, you knew that it was the first step to forgiveness and some people might think it is a dumb decision. But those only two weeks without him has been hard and you craved his touch, his scent, his smile, him. However you weren’t a fool, you knew that it wasn’t that hard, just barging in your dorm. You just wanted to listen to what he had to say, then you will make a decision.

He entered the room slowly as if you were going to explode. He had his head hung low whereas you were standing straight your arms crossed to shield yourself from what he’s going to say.

« I know that we had our fair share of screaming last time, just know that I’m not here to do that again, I don’t want to. » a silence fell between the two of you. You were waiting for what he had to say next.

« Okay, uhm, these two weeks without you has been hell, I miss you. I know we are not together as much as we would like but we were good together. I miss your texts, I miss your smile, I miss everything about you from your witty remarks to the way you wear my sweatshirts when we are on the phone. I miss you and there’s no distancing myself from that. » he said silently, his hands were slightly shaking and his eyes was at the same time sad but still having a spark inside of them.

You took a minute to take your breath before answering. You had to process everything he just said before saying yourself what you wanted and how you were feeling.

« Charlie, you know that I love you, and there’s no doubt about this. But being away from you is really hard, and seeing you happy and joyful with Madison as well as with the cast. I want you to be happy don’t get me wrong it’s just that I feel like I’m left aside. I know that it’s normal because, obviously, I can’t be with you guys… I don’t know how to get out of that situation. You are not quitting your job, and I’m not quitting uni, so I really don’t know how to do this. » at the end of the sentence your voice broke down and the first tears began to slide down your cheeks.

Charlie was quick to take your face between his hands, his thumbs wiping your tears. Tears were starting to form at the edge of Charlie’s eyes.

« Hey, hey, look at me » you met his beautiful and deep blue/ green eyes. « I know we can get through this, I know that we can find a solution. And you know it, if you didn’t you wouldn’t have let me in. I know that you believe in us as much as I do. I believe in us. We can visit each other more ! And we just finished filming season one, that means I’m going to be home more often even if I have some other projects. I’m ready to make it work Y/N ! The only question is are you ? »

For a few seconds you let his words sink in your brain, you thought about how much he made you happy, how much he has done for you and how much you have done for him. A relationship is made by two people, the two of you were ready to work through this difficult time. And at the end of the day, it was all that matter.

Charlie was still looking into your eyes, trying to understand where you were. You pulled him by his neck and bring your lips closer, only a centimeter was in between.

« I’m ready to work with you, I’m ready to fight for us, but only if you are too »you whispered. A bright smile appeared on his lips, he closed the gap between your lips. And you felt at home again with your lips on his, his hands on your waist. His Chest against yours. It was a slow kiss, happy to finally find yourselves in each other again.

« I love you » his eyes were glossy, his lips puffed, he was a sight to behold.

You put your lips on him again, this time more urgently, almost hungry for him. His phone rang, which stopped your make-out session. He took out his phone and seeing Owen’s face on the screen, he clicked the red button to focus on what really mattered. (Aka you)

#jatp fanfic #jatp imagine #charlie gillespie #charlie imagine #charlie gillespie angst #charlie gillespie imagine #charlie gillespie fanfic #fluff #angst #part 2

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hollanderfangirl · 4 years

Text

Let me go |Harry Holland|

Pairing: Harry Holland x Therapist! Reader

A/N: so I'm not a therapist and I've never been to therapy, well if you don't consider the sessions with my psychology teacher. All of what I've written comes from what I've learnt in psychology class, reading books and listening to other people's experiences.

Warnings: talk about death, panic attack and it's just really sad

Word count: 3.3k, this is my longest fic yet :)

(Sorry for the shitty moodboard I just had to post this fic or I would have lost my mind)

Harry Holland walked through the halls of the clinic, not really sure why he was here. Well he knew why he had come to see a therapist but he wondered how he put himself in this situation. He had been locking himself inside a glass cave built out of hopelessness for months, his friends and family were greatly concerned about him but he refused to take any help. He had always been stubborn, he never asked for anybody's help. He hated the look of pity on people's faces. He hated people showing him sympathy. He was more than this. He didn't need anybody. He can pull himself together, he just needed time.

But it wasn't helping. Burying your feelings in has never helped anybody. Putting on a smile everyday in front of people and crying himself to sleep, Harry found it more and more difficult. His mum had sensed it and told him to go and see a doctor. He had resisted it at first.

"Please do it for me, Harry. I cannot see you like this, at least for my satisfaction," Nikki had said. "Just go for a trial session and if you like it then you can continue," but of course he wasn't going to continue.

Now as he stood in front of the receptionist, he was reconsidering his decision.

"Yes, do you have an appointment, sir?"

"Huh?" he seemed lost. "Yeah..yeah"

"Just wait here, I'll inform Dr Y/l/n"

"Your know what, cancel the appointment. I- I don't need help"

"Oh but this is just a trial, Mr Holland"

"Yeah but I don't-" the receptionist was already at the door, muttering something to the woman inside.

You step outside to see a curly headed man, he looked pleasant but his eyes looked sad. Those were the eyes of a person who had seen immense grief, someone who had been miserable for a long long time.

"I'm sorry but I don't need therapy… I didn't realise this before, I -I shouldn't have come here"

"Oh Mr Holland, this is just a trial right? Let's just have some coffee. This isn't therapy yet" you smile at him.

"No I really-"

"Okay then, give me half an hour. If you still feel the same way, then you can leave. Half an hour is all I want from you, Mr Holland"

"Alright"

You lead him into your chamber, closing the door behind you. He sits down on a couch across from you, your desk separating you both. The first step of therapy- resistance. People always resist therapy at first, they feel like they don't need the help or maybe seeking help makes them weak. They don't feel like opening up to a complete stranger. How can they? How can they open up their most vulnerable state to a person who they barely know? But slowly and steadily, a rapport is made. A therapist has to be very careful and empathetic. They have to be trusting. Someone who people can turn to. Someone who they can relate to. Someone who understands them. Someone who would just listen.

"So, your mother sent you here. Right, Mr Holland?"

"Just- just call me Harry"

"Okay then Harry, tell me"

"What do you want me to tell you?"

"Everything. Start from the beginning"

"Well I- do you… do you really think I would-" he hesitates. "Who do you think you are? Why do you think I should pay you to listen to my goddamn life story here?"

"You're not here to tell me your life story," you say politely. "I'm here to help you and I can do that only if you would let me"

"Well guess what? You cannot help me, I knew I was wasting my time," he gets up and starts to walk away.

"I asked for half an hour of your time, Harry"

"Well I don't fucking care"

"Harry, please listen to me. All I ask is half an hour"

Little did he know, this half an hour was going to change his life.

Something about your tone made him stay. He sat back down on the couch, turning away from you.

"Okay, so if you're not going to talk, I will," you sigh. "So, you have suffered a great loss, someone you loved dearly?"

"Yes," he still didn't look you in the eye.

"Who was it?"

"My…my friend. Girlfriend"

"And when did this happen?"

"A year ago"

"How have you been holding up?"

He thought of giving another vague answer. How the fuck do you think I'm holding up? I'm fucking dying every single day.

"Uh- it's been a little better, I guess. It's not as bad as it used to be"

"Well that's a start. And do you still think about her?"

Every goddamn minute, lady. What do you want from me? "Yeah sometimes"

"And how have you been sleeping?"

I can't sleep. I haven't slept properly for months. If I sleep I see her coming back to me. "Alright I guess"

This wasn't going anywhere. You thought of recommending him another doctor but something about him charmed you. He was a man who should have been living a great life but his grief was tearing him apart. You had to help him. You felt a strong connection to him, you felt determined. No, I have to help him. I just have to.

"Harry, do you feel like you're responsible for your girlfriend's death?" it was a straightforward question, you had been trying to get something out of him but he wasn't ready to.

He looked at you dead in the eye, yet could not get any words out. You could sense the anger building up inside him but it wasn't projected at you, he was angry with himself.

"I….. " he took a few deep breaths, clenching his hands into fists. "Yes"

"Why is that so?"

"Fucking hell! Are you for real? She died, okay? And I wasn't there… I wasn't there.. " he was tearing up. "I should have been the one to die! Not her! Not anybody! Everyone just leaves me in the end!" he was full on shouting, letting out everything he had been holding inside himself for a whole year. He had tears in his eyes.

You handed him a box of tissues and he was gasping for breath. When he had calmed down, you both sat in silence for a few minutes.

"You know, Harry, my friend died the day we had a fight. She was my best friend. I knew her ever since we were three. It was a silly argument. We should not have fought about it. But we did and I told her I wished she would just go away… and then she did" it was painful for you to remember this, but time does heal everything.

"I'm sorry," his voice was low. "And I'm sorry for all those things I said"

"No it's alright, that's what you're here for. And besides, it's nothing compared to your loss, Harry"

"No. It- it's not a competition. Suffering is not a competition. It must've been really hard for you, Dr y/l/n," this was the first time he had addressed you.

"Call me y/n," you smile at him. "And yeah that's very true. We often blame ourselves, you know, it's very common. We cannot be angry at them so we get angry with ourselves. Even though we know deep in our hearts that there was nothing we could have done"

There was a long silence.

"She went out for a drive, that bastard drunk driver," he spoke up. "And I was just resting. She asked me so many times to join her but I wanted to sleep"

You nod at him and he continued. "That's…the reason I'm not able to sleep. Every night I close my eyes, I think I'll wake up to that phone call"

"Well yes I don't blame you, our brains sometimes don't process things that come as a shock. And then it just keeps on haunting us forever. Do you believe in life after death, Harry?"

"Well I don't know what to believe"

"Have you- felt her? After she was gone?"

"You'll think I'm crazy"

"I'm a therapist, it'll take you much more than that to convince me you're crazy"

"I sometimes talk to her. Like what would she think about this particular situation. Or just that I miss her so much. I don't get any responses but I just try to think like her?"

"Yeah, that's quite normal actually. People think they need to 'get over' someone's death. But that's not true. You can never really get over something like death"

"And what does getting over even mean? Like you just forget them? Moving on with your life just means that you think they were never a part of it"

"Well you're both right and wrong. Yes we must remember our loved ones who are not with us anymore but at the same time, we have to let them go"

"How? It's too painful"

"I know. But do you believe in the concept of souls, Harry?"

"Yeah I mean," he shrugs.

"The soul is considered to be immortal. And groups of souls tend to travel together. Even if you don't know it, some way, somehow, they're always with us"

He says nothing but his eyes looked softer now.

"And just think about it, think of her seeing you like this. Do you think she could have handled you being so miserable?"

"She would have been heartbroken"

"Exactly. So do it for her, for yourself. For both of you to feel peace again"

"Yeah"

You look at your watch. Half an hour was up.

"So, Harry. Your half an hour is up. Is there anything else?"

"Yes, um we can talk about it in our next session?"

You smile at him. "Of course"

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

After that one half an hour session, Harry was a changed man. He was still mourning, he was still miserable but he had hope. For the first time in a long time, he thought he could actually go on with his life, he could finally feel peace.

The week went by smoothly. Harry tried to make himself busy, by surrounding himself with people and always working. He was still getting nightmares but he was determined to sleep. He was sleeping light, afraid of what deep sleep might show him.

Meanwhile your life was exactly the same, you went on with your day treating people, talking, helping them. You loved your job, you loved the sense of satisfaction you got after patients they told you they were finally better. Every person was a challenge, and you knew there was a gem hidden inside every one of them. All of them had immense potential but life hadn't been kind to them. You felt disturbed and it broke your heart to see people hurting. And you would do anything to make it better for them. To help them.

You couldn’t keep Harry out of your mind. You were thinking about him all day long, awaiting your next session with him. What if he cancels? What can I do if he does? Why am I thinking about him? He had this air around him, a magnetic pull, which was pulling your closer and closer towards him. And why is he so damn attractive? No I should not think about him that way. It was the first and foremost rule of your profession. Never get emotionally attached with your clients. It was a professional relationship and must remain that way.

When he came into your office the following week, you could sense the change in him. You felt proud that a single session made such a difference. There was no arrogance in him, he didn’t seem angry anymore. He was calm and better.

“So, Harry. How was your week?”

“It was good, I’ve been shooting my new short film and it’s coming out to be okay so far”

“Alright and how have you been sleeping?”

“Not that good to be honest. I still get dreams, uh bad dreams”

“What do you see in these dreams?”

“I see the accident scene….again and again, it’s the same dream. Sometimes I see her, she talks to me and all that”

“Hmm and have you talked to your family? Your friends?”

“Yeah I talked to my mum…and my brother”

“What did they say?”

“They said they are here for me and will always love me”

“Yes and I don’t doubt that, Harry. You have a lot of people in your life who love and support you. Embrace that”

The session went by smoothly, he opened up to you about his life, everything about the girl he loved so much. About his family, his career. You found yourself staring at him, taking glances at his hands which he constantly moved while he talked. You noticed he was shaking his leg the whole time. Stop staring, y/n.

Wow she’s so beautiful. And thoughtful. And funny and understanding. What am I doing? She’s my therapist….but…why couldn’t I have met her before? Why didn’t I meet her when I was normal? Would things have been different? But then again, I would have never met her if I was normal.

Things seemed to get better, as the weeks progressed, Harry was becoming more and more like his old self again. But there was a feeling of regret, he thought this was wrong as if he were forgetting her. But you were there to guide him, to tell him that this is what life is. It never stops. No matter what happens, you will heal. Someday, sometime. And each day we progress towards it.

And then it happened. The call came at 1 am in the morning. You were sleeping and you were tired, you had been working all day and just needed some rest. You wouldn't have picked the call up but something told you it was important. That you should pick it up.

“Hello?” you yawn.

You just hear muffled breathing for a few seconds.

“Hello? Who is it?”

“It…it’s me…Harry”

“Harry, what’s wrong?” you thought what could have happened at this time of the night.

“I just- can you-” he sounded like he was choking.

“Harry what’s wrong, you’re scaring me”

“I… can’t… breathe,” you hear him sobbing. ”I had�� that… dream, I feel like I’m…going to…die”

“Harry, listen to me. You will be okay. Yeah? Just take deep breaths and sit tight. I’m coming to you”

You search through his file to look for his address. When you find it, you rush through the front door and drive to his house. You were on the phone with him the whole drive.

“Just keep breathing, Harry. Deep breaths, okay?”

To your surprise, the front door was unlocked. It looked like he had gone out into the street in the middle of the night. You search through rooms to find him, and you see him curled into a ball at the corner of a king size bed. You touch his shoulder and he flinches.

“Hey, hey it’s just me. It’s alright”

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know who else to call,” he was crying, with the tears streaming down his cheeks, his eyes looked small and they looked red from the lack of sleep and of tears.

“It’s alright, Harry. Just come here, it’ll be alright,” you pull him towards yourself him and he buries his face into your chest and you held him, stroking his hair and telling him it will be alright.

“That’s it. Let it out, Harry. It’s okay to cry”

You both stayed like that for another 15 minutes. He couldn’t stop crying and you knew he needed that. He had been holding everything in for so long and it just came out like an explosion tonight. You wiped his tears and made him meditate for a few minutes.

He fell asleep and you stayed up all night, looking at him. He looked so innocent while he slept, and cute too, you thought hiding a blush, even though nobody was there to look at you.

That night, Harry finally felt at peace. He was finally able to sleep. He had no nightmares, just a peaceful dream. He saw his girlfriend, running away from him in a white dress with her hair flowing in the wind.

Please don’t leave me, darling. I love you.

I know you do Harry, but you must let me go. I will always be with you. I will always love you. It is time you start caring about yourself, you must let me go. It is time.

No! don’t leave me!

And he woke up. Something about this dream told him that she was right. It was time. He was finally ready to let her go. For both of their sakes.

He went down to find you sleeping on the couch. He was hesitant at his thoughts but deep down he knew he was falling for you. Am I just using her to cope with my loss? Or do I really love her?

You opened your eyes, looking at Harry sitting on the ground, pushing a strand of hair away from your face.

“Good morning, how did you sleep?”

“Better. Really really better. I- I don’t know how to thank you, y/n and I’m so sorry”

“Hey it’s alright, and I’m glad I could help,” you smile. “I should go now, I have to get to work”

“Let me make breakfast and let me drive you to your house”

“Oh no it’s okay I can-”

“I owe this much to you, y/n. Let me”

“Okay”

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

It wasn’t until another week when Harry had his next session. You had been thinking about him all the time, you were confused, it wasn’t supposed to go this way. But he….who am I kidding I’m in love with him.

When he walked through the door on a Thursday morning next week, he looked healthy and happier than ever. You felt a sense of happiness yourself, therapy is always beneficial to both the patient and the therapist. Every person is a deep universe, their thoughts, experiences, pain, joy, everything. Empathising with clients is a great learning experience, it becomes a part your personality. It becomes a part of you.

“Hey y/n”

“Hi Harry”

“So my week as been as it’s always and I’ve been feeling a lot better ever since that day…and that dream” he had told you about the dream he had the night you watched him sleep. He seemed to completely change after that, he let go of the intense emotions he had been carrying around.

“That’s very good and you’ve made a lot of progress since our first meeting”

“Yeah…I have”

The session went on as usual, he talked about everything that happened, he started fighting with his brothers again, which he hadn’t done in a long time and even though they were pissed off at him, they were happy to have him back.

“Um Harry,” you say at the end of the session. “I think-” you try to choose your words correctly. “I think it’s about time you start seeing another therapist, yeah?”

You see his face drop. “wh-why? I’m doing so much better, is..is it because of that night? I’m so sorry y/n”

“No it’s not that. You and I both know what’s happening between us, it’s wrong for a therapist to get emotionally attached with her patient. I’m sorry, Harry”

“So you’re saying that you’re becoming emotionally attached with me?”

“I..I’m-“

“It’s alright. I understand y/n”

“Yes, thank you. This has been great”

“So… now that you’re not my therapist, can I meet you for coffee this evening?”

“Harry-“

“Half an hour, Dr y/l/n. Just give me half an hour of your time, if you still feel the same way, I’ll never bother you again”

“Uh-" you hesitate. You knew you should have said no. You were going to say no. Yet the words which came out of your mouth were “Okay then, it’s a date”

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

Taglist:

@mischiefmanaged011 @notsosmexy @perspectiveparker @justanothermarvelmaniac @amorhollands @thisetaernallove @halfblood-princess-505 @spidey-reids-2003 @peterspideysstuff @musicalkeys @theliterarymess @ilarbu @hollands-weasley @tombob2005 @tommysparker @god-knows-what-am-i-doing @parkerpeter24 @more-like-reyna @hollandbroz-n-haz @aqiise

#harry holland #harry holland x reader #harry holland imagine #harry holland angst #harry+holland+x+y/n #harry holland x therapist! reader #harry holland fluff #harry holland fic #harry holland one shot #therapist! reader

127 notes · View notes

morgana-ren · 3 years

Note

I noticed youd said that you get more shiggy requests. So, if you'll indulge me for a sec.

We've had gatos input on how strade would be if the roles were reversed. Mc somehow had him under their control with the shock collar on.

I want your input because your writing is so detailed i know id enjoy reading what a submissive little bitch he'd become.

Please and thank you Morgana.

ily :3

Oh OH You know me so well! This is one of my favorite things to daydream about when I get angry or annoyed because since Strade is such a garbage human being, it tickles me so much to think about how cathartic it would be to turn the tables.

So as well all know, Strade, while very experienced, is not the brightest bulb in the box. He’s got years of know-how behind his expertise in kidnapping and torture, but there’s some shit that just kind of evades him sometimes. Double checking your ropes after he gets a little too excited and wants a dirty basement floor romp, for example. Thanks to his overexcitement and shit-idiot brain fungus he’s got going on, it’s entirely possible for you to slip your bonds. This mistake, in canon, costs him his life.

But what if MC wasn’t so kind?

With a level head, you might be able to scrounge around his torture room for a little bit. Maybe he has a needle with some knockout liquid hanging around for “difficult” catches. Maybe you just wait around behind the door until he walks in and smash him on the head as hard as you can and knock his ass out. Either way, he’s got plenty of restraints, and now he’s the one cuffed to a rusty pole. The look on his dumb face when he comes to is priceless.

You’re not making the same mistakes he did. He’s triple tied to that thing. You know he’s strong, and you’re playing on his home field. You’ve got to be prepared for everything. At least long enough to get upstairs and find help or call the police. Right? Right?

But what if you don’t?

What if, after he comes to and is sputtering and howling and hissing things at you in German that would make Lindemann blush, you decide not to go for help? He’s mad. He’s oh so very mad. He does not like this, not one bit. But he’s panicking beyond what you’d expect, even for a serial killer who’s been two-timed by his own victim. There’s something else in those dilated eyes. Something you’ve become very acutely familiar with over the last few days. You can still smell it lingering on you the same way it’s staining his shirt now.

Fear. He’s afraid. And not of death or capture.

I mean, he very well might be terrified of those things, but whatever it is he’s feeling right now is far overshadowing that. His face is red, and you can practically see the veins in his neck popping in rhythm with his thrumming heartbeat. He’s sweating extensively, and while that’s not uncommon for him, there’s not that macabre jolly smile plastered across his face. He’s baring his teeth and snapping at you like a feral hound, swearing to end your miserable life in a manner that would make the ghosts of his past shudder in horror for you.

You don’t put it past him to snap these ropes any second and wrap his hands so tightly around your neck that your eyes pop like overinflated balloons. Even if the cops show up and try to escort you to safety, there’s an unspoken darkness in his glare, something that promises pain in your future even if they manage to subdue him. A promise that you can’t guarantee yourself that he can’t keep.

It strikes you that you know nothing about this man.

Surely someone out there knows about this. Someone knows about him and his little hobby. Monsters run in packs and even if you can’t see them, you know they must be there. Best case scenario, they can’t have him spilling their secrets so they find a way to end his life before the police can. Worst case scenario? Worst case, they come for you.

You’ve seen enough Hollywood horror movies to know just how wrong it can go if justice is left to the authorities. You haven’t seen much of it, but this looks like a pretty nice house. If he has money, he can just buy his way out. Who is to say that he doesn’t already have a deal with the cops? Kidnapping people is risky business, especially when folks begin to notice that you’re gone. Surely he has some safety net?

What if he’s part of a network of psychopaths? There’s been enough late-night conspiracy youtube binges in your existence to know that shit like that is perfectly plausible. What if he’s just one of many? What if they have the pull to see him set free even after you’ve gone through the proper avenues to get him locked away? What if, one night, when you think he’s rotting in a 6 x 6 cement cell miles away from you, you wake up back here in this basement with even more Strades with different names and faces but each one shares the desire to see you ripped apart at the seams and devoured?

No. HELL no. You’re not going to be the cliche victim. He can bark and screech at you until his throat is sore and his gums bleed, but the plain and simple fact of the matter is that you have this monster on a leash, and you’re not about to hand that leash over to someone else.

How many people has he killed? How many have met their end in this godless basement? How many unsuspecting people has he dragged here only to take them apart piece by piece until their eyes glaze and their final breath moistens his cheek as he watches the light in their eyes extinguish? Do you even want to know? Would it make you feel better or worse to know that, at least for now, you’ve narrowly escaped such a fate?

You have to know.

His screaming turns fearful as you ascend the stairs. Again, not for fear of being caught, but because he already has been. It’s so odd to hear the phrase “Don’t leave me here!” from his quivering chest when he’s apparently in the place he values most, and there’s a sick sense of catharsis that settles in your gut as you listen to him begin to whimper and whine. You don’t let yourself dwell on it but you do slam the door behind you loudly enough that he will be forced to acknowledge that his pathetic pleas mean nothing to you.

His house is painfully average, at least for someone like him. He’s even got portraits up with what must be friends or family or someone that cares enough to pose for a cheesy photo with him. If you didn’t know better, you’d say an upstanding, if a little tacky, upper-middle class man lives here. The furniture is unremarkable and well cared for but lived in enough to not raise suspicion. His kitchen is filled with expensive appliances that might as well be fresh out of the box. His fridge, as expected, is filled with beer and various quick meals. Not much of a cook, you guess.

The car sitting in the garage costs in the six digit range and looks like it’s the most beloved thing in the entire area. It reeks of Armor All and disinfectant, and you’re willing to bet that if he was so inclined, he could put it on a showroom floor right now. He’s got tools and cables of all sorts thrown about, but not the kind you’ve gotten so used to. Maybe he actually does use them for their intended purpose sometimes.

As you walk the length of his home, you notice a distinct lack of screaming. You can’t hear anything, not even a peep from the basement, and you are very certain he’s crying up a storm down there. Interesting. He’s go this place sound proofed. You’re not sure what you’d expected, but it’s good information to have regardless.

After you’ve sated your curiosity by observing the dragon’s den, you make your way to the upper level. He’s probably not foolish enough to leave any sort of evidence behind where friends and neighbors can see it, so whatever it is you’re looking for is going to be somewhere a little bit more personal. Perhaps like a bedroom?

Bingo.

His bedroom, much like the rest of his house, looks about what you’d expect. King sized bed, wooden dresser with a TV and player on top, and a desk beneath the window. Sliding closet doors with all manner of free range dad apparel inside, and honestly, it’s the closest you’ve been to laughing since you got here. He would wear cargo shorts and plaid, wouldn’t he? A scrounge through the drawers of his dresser and closet reveal nothing remarkable, but you’re willing to bet your injured thigh that there’s something special in the desk.

Just like you’d expect, the desk is locked, but you’d noticed a pair of keys sitting willy-nilly out in the living room and you’d picked them up. About 7 key changes later and the desk pops open for you like a cheap whore. He really isn’t too bright, is he? Or maybe he just wasn’t expecting this to ever be a problem. Either way, you’re grateful he’s a moron.

Inside the drawer seems to be loads of DVDs, unmarked except for dates. It feels like you’re the unprepared cop in a serial killer movie as you look down at them. You don’t need to watch them to know what they are, but you’re going to anyway. You have to know. You need to know just who you’re dealing with here.

You pick one at random and pop it into the DVD player and the scene that greets you seems all too familiar. A hunched figure, bloodied and tied to the pole you’d become so intimate with over the last week. This person was in much worse shape than you, however. You could see shadows moving off screen and the camera fuzzes and refocuses repeatedly as what you assume is Strade messes with the controls. Not long after, he emerges, practically skipping into frame. Even though most of his face is concealed behind a hideous bandana, you can tell he’s smiling. It reaches his eyes.

He says what appears to be a rehearsed greeting and you’re left wondering just how crazy is he? Is he talking to his future self? You can see him making these videos to relive his sick, sadistic fantasies but talking to himself like an absolute lunatic is just a little disconcerting. However, you also acknowledge that the only reason you’ve even thinking about this is to distract yourself from the fact that you’re watching a homemade snuff film that you almost starred in yourself.

And then he begins.

Despite the visceral horror on display before you, the urge to vomit never comes. You watch, blank faced, as this poor soul is faced with every horror a human mind can conceive. It goes on for long. Too long. And Strade never stops talking.

The realization sets in that’s because he’s not the only one watching.

He’s not talking to himself. He’s responding. This wasn’t for him. This was for them.

If you had any emotional energy to give, surely you’d be absolutely horrified, but you don’t and you can’t. You’re not even surprised. Someone like Strade, that bubbly personality and 1,000 watt smile, of course he’d find a way to utilize his talents. He’d found a market. He had a hobby and he made money from it. ‘Love your job and you’ll never work a day in your life.’ and you are just so willing to bet he loves his fucking job.

You let the video keep playing as you sit up from his bed and leave the room. You make your way down the stairs, back to the living room, and then back to the basement door. You open it and immediately are bombarded with the sounds of his screaming and hateful vitriol. It doesn’t phase you. You’re not sure anything will ever again.

Calmly, you walk into the room and stare at him. He doesn’t cease his incessant threats until he realizes you’re waiting for him to finish so that you can speak. He finally silences himself, though he continues to rip and tear at the ropes holding him hostage as you tell him you found his little home video collection.

“Let me out.” He demands, and you realize he doesn’t quite understand that he’s not the one in control anymore. Of course a dog without a tangible leash will continue to run wild. You needed to drive the point home.

You turn your back to him and begin to ruffle through his various cabinets, searching around the nooks and crannies for something that will help him understand just what position he’s found himself in. You make a very interesting discovery next to his med kit. A collar. A literal collar.

Poetic justice.

It’s thick and burdensome and more than a little hideous. It’s definitely homemade, because not even the most fucked of BDSM sites are going to offer something like this. It’s accompanied by a small remote with a large red button and not much else. You push the button and yelp in pain, the collar clattering to the floor as it slips from your fingers. It shocked you. It was so very painful, but you’re smiling.

You retrieve it from where it fell and pop it open, observing it curiously. Strade watches you through wide eyes and sniveling, trembling lips. The look on his face is a dead giveaway that you’ve found something you really shouldn’t have. The toothy grin you flash him shows him that you understand that.

Without a word, you approach him, holding the open collar in your sweating palm. His struggles begin anew and before long he’s practically yanking his arms out at the sockets trying to get away from you and your newfound toy. He’s throwing his weight around and doing whatever he can with his limited movements to make damn sure you can’t get that terrible thing around his neck, but it’s all in vain because energy is finite and he’s been expending a lot of it over the last hour.

He’s breathing heavy and you could swear he’s begging between heaves as you clap the collar around his thick neck. His flesh bulges from the side and you’re fairly certain it was made for someone much less burly than himself in mind. You get the odd urge to adjust it on him like a necklace but he’s still dangerous, even caged. You feel weirdly... proud.

“Stop-! you don’t know what you’re doing!” He hiccups, and as he pulls his head upward, you can see he is indeed crying. “Please! Don’t!”

You’ve never thought of yourself as particularly sadistic, at least in that sense, but some ghostly force pushes your thumb down on that big red button. Watching his eyes go wide and his body convulse and seize fills you with a sense of sheer euphoria that can’t properly be conveyed. The utterly satisfying clang of his head hitting the pole at mach 5 as he shakes and bumbles almost humorously while the collar sends x amount of volts through his body makes you giggle.

When you finally pull your thumb off the button, he’s still shaking from the residual shock, drool and mucus bubbling from his mouth and nose and sloping down onto his chin. He looks defeated; utterly pathetic. Is this how you looked to him all those times he stood over you grinning as he gifted you pain the likes of which had been unthinkable to you before you met him? The desire to push down again is overwhelming but you’re determined for him to understand there’s a point to this misery.

There’s a thousand thoughts going through your mind right now faster than you can comprehend them all, but they all have the same general principal. This man is a murderer. This man is a rapist. This man is contained. This man is afraid. This man is at your mercy.

And unfortunately for him, you just ran out.

‘How many’ you ask, despite already knowing. If the videos upstairs are any indication, there’s more than he can probably count. More names and faces than he can practically remember and they’re dead because of him. He looks up at you through wet lashes with a trembling lip, already caught on to the fact that there is no correct answer. Your thumb hovers over that seductive red button and he’s quick to spit out whatever he can regardless.

“I don’t know! I don’t!”

You don’t doubt that he’s being honest, but it sickens you none he less. You press that button for half a second and he jolts up off the floor as much as his restraints will allow. When he comes to, his eyes can barely focus in on you and when his slumps over, you can see the burns from the collar already settling in on his tan skin. You’re not sure how to turn down the voltage or how lethal it is, but you don’t really care at the moment. If he dies, he dies. You’ll deal with the complications of that later.

You could sit here all day and grill him, literally and figuratively, about his track record of atrocities, but it won’t bring you any peace. You’re not sure that peace is something that you’ll ever feel again, all things considered. Meeting the monsters that dwell in the dark is drastically different than simply acknowledging that they exist, and through some twist of fate, you’ve been given the opportunity to show this particular monster that he’s no longer at the top of the food chain. There’s so much you could do, so many things you want to do, and it’s at that moment you realize you’ve spent too long staring into the abyss to try and claw your way out.

You’re being offered the chance they never were. You’re holding the controls now. He’s already crying and you’ve barely touched him, barely done anything besides shock him a little. You remember that feeling well. If you recall, you were already crying before he put that knife to your thigh on your first day with him.

Truth is, you decided the second he fell unconscious what you were going to do.

Maybe a revenge like this isn’t yours to take, but you’re taking it regardless. For yourself, and for every sorry sap that’s met their end in his cement hellhole. They died for you to have this opportunity, and you’d like to think that maybe they’re there with you in this moment. Even if you never knew them, you feel a strange kinship with them. After all, it was almost you.

He continues to babble underneath his breath, various pleas for mercy or sympathy or any form of compassion you can muster from your still aching body, and though you desperately wish you did, you can’t find any. You’re certain when you look in the mirror next, it won’t be your own eyes looking back at you anymore, but something closer to his. Maybe you did die in this basement, because whoever you were before you met him is long gone and has been replaced with something so much more empty.

You explain to him, as gently as you can, that it’s your turn now, and his resistance will only make this harder. You don’t delight in seeing him in pain (whether or not that’s a lie has yet to be determined) but it’s a necessary evil for all he’s done. You don’t believe his life is yours to take, but you’d be as terrible as him if you let him loose on the world again. You can’t trust anyone but yourself, and since this situation is so delicate, you need a bit more time to think on it.

He doesn’t seem to understand, at least until you’re binding his legs and securing his head snuggly to the pole. Maybe it’s overkill considering the man looks like he belongs in a shibari magazine right now, but there’s no precautions you can’t take. You can’t have him escaping. It’s far too soon, and you have such wonderful things planned.

Were you a kinder soul, maybe you would put him to sleep because it’s so apparent he’s terrified. Being bound like this has really brought out his inner little bitch, and the way he’s looking, he’s going to piss himself. But its a price it’s only fair that he pay, all things considered. You don’t know what time it is or even where you are, but you know you’ll return to him when you’ve been rejuvenated, eager and ready to begin on him. You’re only a few steps toward the door when he begins shouting, words barely discernible between his emphatic weeping and sobbing hiccups.

“D-don’t leave me here in the dark! Let me go, let me out! You can’t! You can’t leave me here like this!” You grin softly, turning slowly to face him, and tell him that you can and you will. You ask what he’s so afraid of, but you don’t wait to hear the answer as you step through the frame and shut the door behind you, leaving him to rot in his personal dungeon. It’s only been an hour and he’s already so pliable. You wonder what you can make him do when you really make it hurt. Psychology says it takes 7 years to brainwash someone and coerce them into absolute compliance, but you’re willing to bet you can have it done in a few months.

You already know one of his fears, and are very clearly not ashamed to exploit it. How many else does he have, you might wonder, already planning tomorrow’s festivities. Maybe you were sicker in the head than you thought. Maybe Strade just brought out the worst in you, stripped away all that made you human and left you with raw hurt and despair.

It’s tempting. To give in. To sit and massage your aching body while listening to his screams as they echo through the soundproofed basement. But you’re tired, and you haven’t slept in a bed in over a week. His looked awfully nice. Maybe after that, you’d wash the dried blood from your battered body, order some food, and appreciate the niceties that civilized life had to offer. Niceties you took for granted.

After that? Well, after that you had a new pet to train.

#snaspants #Strade #BTD #NSFT #tw torture mention #im mean just mean lmao #IM LOVE YOU GIRL!!

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aflyingcontradiction · 3 years

Text

The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 117 - Testament

But Tim isn’t going to sit home and wait, and Elias seems pretty insistent I go along. Part of me thinks it’s just so he can see if whatever this “preparation” he’s been trying to do on me works. - Jon

I guess, yeah, that's part of it and the other part is that he wants to make absolutely sure Jon gets touched by as many powers as he possibly can and sending him right into the lion's den is a good way of doing that, I suppose.

I don’t quite get those two. I suppose what they’ve done, seeing what they’ve seen… it’s a hell of a bond. The sort of thing I’ve mostly done alone.

Ouch. That is a painful realisation right there! (The usual disclaimer of "I'm obviously not talking about the scale of cosmic horror here because duh or for that matter even the scale of massive trauma" but I actually think that realisation is on some level relatable because of the realisation I had multiple times in my life of "I don't really know what a close bond feels like because I've never actually been anywhere close to the best friend of the people I've considered my best friends." Fortunately my luck has shifted somewhat in the "close emotional bonds" department, or at least I hope I'm not kidding myself about that, but the realisation that some people have these fire-forged, ride-or-die relationships and you're just kinda doing your own thing, dipping a finger shallowly into human connection every once in a while and then watching it flow away, is a bit of a twinge.)

And… aside from some, uh, uh, office gossip which I, I’m not sure is necessary or, uh, conducive to a workplace that… hey, it, it, it’s natural it’s, it’s normal.

I love how Jon just goes from deep emotional turmoil to being a bit upset that people are gossipping about whatever may be going on in his love life. Talk about emotional roller coasters!

Oh, yeah, I found something on the other body the circus stole, this “George Icarus.” (...) Jurgen Leitner. I just can’t be rid of him.

Ah, okay, this is where we learn who George Icarus was. Also, the pseudonym is very fitting, I mean, Leitner did, in fact, fly too close to the goddamn sun and subsequently crash and burn when he decided to create a library of fear books, didn't he?

He always said, if you don’t like something, you accept it and you adapt, or you fight and you change it. Whining doesn’t help. I always tried to live like that. But I think sometimes you feel like you’re adapting, but it’s just denial. - Basira

This is definitely something I've experienced myself but it's also definitely something I've seen in some people who like to go on like Basira's dad about stiff-upper-lip-don't-whine-adapt-and-overcome to other people and shame others for expressing their emotional pain. When the cracks finally do start showing up (usually under the influence of alcohol), it's not so much a crack as a full-on explosion.

But at least Daisy’s coming. I mean, I know she’s… difficult. Everything they say about her, it’s true, it’s fair. But, she’s solid. She’s a… a fixed point, and if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing, relative to her.

It's tragic but also on some level a little bit heartwarming that Basira never actually stops doing things relative to Daisy, even when it takes everything out of her, even when Daisy starts destroying herself.

Still stuck, still miserable, still angry. New traumas, but they hurt just like the old ones. Elias thinks he’s got this ingenious way to hurt people, but it’s just the same old and a creepy new package. Arsehole. God, I just want to rip his – When did I start to lose the parts of me that weren’t just anger? - Melanie

I always have a soft spot for the angry ones, the ones who have to forcibly stop themselves from punching people in the teeth, who have to put every last shred of willpower into keeping a lid on the boiling, hissing, steaming pot that is their inner life. The ones whose willpower sometimes fails them and then they do end up hurting people or themselves because of their anger. And not to go all REPRESENTATION here, but I'm actually glad to see that in TMA that character archetype is basically all women, because the people exploding in violent anger or having to try so fucking hard to keep it in and occasionally failing are usually guys.

They did manifest, but they weren’t what I thought they’d be. They were fused, somehow, all mixed together, a huge angry mass of dead flesh and guns.

I'm kind of glad this isn't a fully-fledged statement because I feel like that sentence, that image, is really all I need and anything further would actually weaken rather than strengthen the horror.

Good luck, Jon. I do hope you win. But I also hope it hurts.

Damn, this episode is so good at summarising characters in a line or two, isn't it?

I, I’m scared, I guess. – no, wait. No, no, I mean, ah, I don’t want that to be my last message, the thing that defines me. “Martin Blackwood, he was always scared, then he died. The end.” I don’t want that. - Martin

I'm a very anxious person and this is INSANELY relatable, this fear that all that's going to be left of you is the things you didn't do because you were terrified. ... Martin, stop making me tear up by being too damn relatable!

I need them to be safe, I need him to be okay.

Aw, Martin!

I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be safe, like my plan’s not dangerous, but it’s, it’s mine. This last couple of years, I’ve always been running, always hiding, caught in someone else’s trap, but, but now it’s my trap, and, well, I think it’ll work. I know, I know it’s not exactly intricate, but it felt good leaving my own little web.

a) This thought process makes perfect sense. Sometimes you just need to express your goddamn agency, even if it's dangerous and even if it's bound to hurt and b) I know the podcast immediately lampshades the "web" thing, but WEB!MARTIN THOUGH! I MEAN! THINK ABOUT IT! That would've been such an amazing plot point and they had it all set up. I mean, he's got a lot of good Lonely-related shit going on later, too, but ... why not both? I do enjoy it when the powers squabble over a character!

I used to blame my brother for going off his own and poking around where he wasn’t wanted. I used to blame myself for not helping him. But now… now it doesn’t matter. I’ve read through enough of these things to know that this doesn’t matter. The only thing you need to have your life destroyed by this stuff is just bad luck. Talk to the wrong person, take the wrong train, open the wrong door, and that’s it! - Tim

I think Tim's view of this is actually very close to the way that TMA handles this. The Entities don't eat you because you deserve it. They just happen to happen to someone. And that makes the horror work so much better than if that wasn't the case. (It also feels closer to how LIFE actually works a lot of the time.) So I find it somewhat odd to see when people do read desert into it, I feel like that weakens the storytelling.

Honestly, I hope that Jon learned something from her because, because I don’t expect I’m going to be coming back from this. I don’t know if I want to. And if he needs to pull the trigger, to use me to stop it… well, he’d better have the guts to do it.

Well. Fuck!

Gerard’s page… Gerry. I-I know there’s more he could tell me – he he, wouldn’t of, of course, I, I know that but he, he… he would still be there, th-that, that knowledge, i-it would, it would still exist…(...) …y-you owe me one, Gerry. Rest in … Just rest. - Jon

Damn, seeing Jon struggle against the instinct to keep knowledge available to himself, seeing how much it literally hurts him and seeing him WIN is sure something. Also ... "Rest in ... just rest." ... make me cry, why don't you?

My impression of this episode

This is not so much horror as it is concentrated emotion and I adore it. I nearly teared up a few times on my relisten (I think I wasn't in quite the right headspace during my first time). The gut punch quotes come thick in this one. This may actually be my favourite plot development episode (as opposed to favourite statements that don't relate directly to the overall plot). The writing is just. so. good.

#tma relisten #the magnus archives

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amelialincoln · 3 years

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the baby is dropping and is hard for Amelia to sleep, sit, walk, gets tired easily.

Good Days

Link knew that it was in his best interest to pay attention to what Bailey was telling him. She was going on about Richard’s recovery and how he should be monitoring him more closely. Link wasn’t about to tell his boss that her best friend was the least of his concerns right now.

He had about ten far more critical patients and had no issue with leaving Webber to be taken care of by perfectly capable residents. Bailey, of course, thought differently. On top of Link’s ten emergent patients, what was really distracting Link was the view he had of Amelia out of the corner of his eye. She’d been due last week and as Carina had told them many times, first babies usually come early. But this wasn’t Amelia’s first baby and despite him telling her that being honest with her doctor, which she obviously knew, was extremely important, Amelia had decided against it. Though judging by how the baby had recently dropped into a birthing position, her due date seemed to be quickly approaching and Amelia was, and this is a nice way to put it, miserable. She was not able to find comfort in any position but most of all her back had been killing her from carrying the weight of her rather large bump. Amelia had stated that carrying Link’s massive baby in her five foot frame was nearly impossible. Carina had almost scoffed at their child’s rather impressive margins. Amelia was positive that if this baby stretched her any further, she wouldn’t be able to balance on her own two feet. Link watched her sympathetically as Amelia waddled very slowly over to the nurses station, placed her Ipad down, and rested her head on the counter.

“Dr. Lincoln, are you listening to me?” Bailey snapped. Link glanced down to find her fuming. If there was anything the chief of surgery didn’t enjoy, it was being ignored. She followed his fleeting gaze and finally noticed that the concern in his eyes was not directed at Richard but at his girlfriend. On a normal day this would infuriate her but instead she felt herself sympathize. It seemed as though every doctor at the hospital was trying to get Amelia to take the rest of her pregnancy off. Amelia would engage their requests for about a day before returning to surgery, complaining that she was more uncomfortable at home with nothing to do rather than when she was distracted at work. And while the neurosurgeon was usually outgoing and talkative, she’d become quiet and exhausted. “Oh for god sake. That woman is going to give birth while removing a gliosarcoma.”

“Wouldn’t put it past her,” Link grumbled, excusing himself from his and Bailey’s conversation. His girlfriend didn’t notice him until he placed a soothing hand on her lower back, pressing deeply into a pressure point. She winced in response, stifling a groan.

“How was surgery?” He had given up trying to get Amelia not to operate. She glanced up at him, appearing to be half asleep.

“It was fine. Spinal surgeries can be kind of difficult with my…” she glanced around, she’d been adamant about not letting her pregnancy affect her work, “condition. I’m having trouble leaning over the surgical table.” Her voice was hushed.

“Well what’s that telling you?” A smile played on his lips.

“I operated with my last pregnancy up until I gave birth, it was never an issue.” Link couldn’t bring himself to remind her that her last baby wasn’t constantly moving around and kicking her in the bladder.

“And how are your feet?”

“Sore. Obese people deserve more credit.”

“You’re not obese,” he sighed, tired of this specific topic of conversation. She rolled her eyes, seeming to not have the energy for an argument. Instead she took his hand softly and placed it on the underside of her bump. Link felt the baby roll lazily inside her. He’d stopped kicking about a week ago and now his movements had become more constricted, as if he were running out of room.

“Your son is ready to come out.” She glanced up at him tiredly before grabbing her Ipad. Link watched herself become immersed in her work as she flipped through the updates of her patients. At first he hadn’t understood why Amelia had been so insistent on staying at work when it seemed like it only brought her more fatigue. He finally noticed that Amelia barely ever looked tired while she was deep in thought. He refrained from trying to lessen her workload after that.

“Are you nervous?” It was something he’d been wondering about for a while.

“About birth?” She asked him, looking up at him with a puzzled expression.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I guess being a guy we don’t really think about it. I mean I’m obviously not excited to see you in pain but it's never really crossed my mind about how daunting it must be for you.”

“Well it’s less of an unknown now.” She quieted her voice. “I know what to expect this time. I am nervous but...this time it’s not for nothing.” Her eyes fell to the floor and her hand moved to sooth her bump affectionately. “I know that sounds awful. I just think that being able to focus on holding our healthy baby in my arms at the end of it all will make it a lot easier.”

“That makes sense.” Was all Link could think of to say. He wrung his hands, wishing he could’ve been there for her. With all she’d been through sometimes it seemed as if she had lived a completely other lifetime. Link always had trouble trying to piece together the L.A. timeline. Amelia would laugh and say that Addison would tell him everything when she came for the birth. She would regretfully add that, at times, she was too high to make sense of it either. Link personally thought that it was in Addison’s best interest to be here now considering that Amelia seemed like she was going to pop. But Addison had been wrapping up the ends of a case and told her ‘sister’ (what Amelia referred to her as) that she would be there as soon as possible. Cutting it a bit close in Link’s opinion.

“You’re going to love Addison.” It was as if she’d read his mind. “You don’t have much to live up to in terms of boyfriends.” She bit back a grin as he straightened up proudly. “And she’s used to my accidental pregnancies by now.”

“How many have there been?” Link stared at her in shock.

“Only two,” she assured him, chuckling at his response. “And a rather unfortunate scare in high school.”

“And to think you pride yourself in educating others about birth control.” He thought back to the night at the conference when Amelia insisted he wore a condom, despite her being on the pill.

“I am extremely careful.”

“And look where that got us.” They both glanced at Amelia’s swollen abdomen.

“It appears you may be right about that.” They both couldn’t help but burst out laughing, receiving a couple of distasteful looks their way from nurses, who were obviously eavesdropping on their conversation. The entire situation only made the surgeons laugh harder, imagining the gossip behind Amelia’s accidental pregnancy. They were doctors, you’d think the couple could manage to enjoy worry free sex. As she was laughing Amelia couldn’t help but glance up at the man she’d begun to adore, to love, she found herself realizing. If someone had told her where her and Link’s relationship would have led nine months ago she wouldn’t have believed them and she found herself feeling incredibly grateful. For the first time in her life, she realized she had nothing to run from anymore.

#amelink #amelia shepherd #amelink fanfiction #amelinkfanfic #amelink fanfic #greysanatomy #greys fanfiction #greys anatomy #Atticus Lincoln #atticus link #atticuslincoln

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prinxlyart · 4 years

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Oh thos warm moments of redemption hit me right in the feels >///<. (I'mma definitely gonna compile all your headcanons in one doc and you can't stop me!). Anyways, now getting back to lumity (prepare thyselve because I'm HUNGRY): How does the redeemed Odalia's relationship with Luz and Willow develop? And regarding our three girls in particular, how do they act right after their proposals, during the wedding and on their honeymoon?

(Lmao please, lord knows I’ll never put any of these into a doc)

Hmmm, that’s a really good question. Er, several questions. Imma go in order of how they were asked.

[tw: for mentions of severe depression /thoughts of suicide starting with bullet #4. I’ll be sure to add the warnings before and after the section as well. Please continue with caution.]

Blight Parents’ relationship with their daughters-in-law:

I think just due to how they got to where they are by this point, they both have a soft spot for Luz. She’s the one that reached out to them in the first place after all of their kids left the family. They feel a v specific gratitude towards her and Camila both because these humans work so hard to get shit done. It’s an admirable trait. One they’re glad the Nocedas aimed at them. It’s taken so much time and energy to get the Blights be, like. Tolerable people? And then even more to get them to actually act like parents.

I think at first, any time they’re unsure of how to act or react to a situation, they’ll go to Luz for guidance. They’ve gone their whole lives up until just a few years ago acting a certain way and just flipping all that? It can be difficult to break those habits. Any time they feel they should react in anger or irritation or disgust, they stop and think “no, wait. What would Luz/Camila do? Would they get mad...?” And they just give her a look of confusion and guilt before Luz mimes the sort of reaction that would be healthiest. Any time Amity catches them literally looking to Luz on how to act supportive she just rolls her eyes. They’re trying and that’s what matters.

I think at first they just don’t know how to interact with Willow. They apologized for how they treated her in the past at great length, but Willow just sort of nodded along quietly. They weren’t used to that sort of reaction (granted they’ve only just started doing this “apologizing” thing for a few months at this point in time. They’re still getting the hang of it). So they sit uncomfortably for a while until Willow sighs and sort of sits up straighter. She’d resolved to tell them about how their careless and cruel treatment of Amity was the first step in a chain reaction to Willow’s life becoming absolutely miserable for years to follow.

Not only was she forced to lose her best friend at that birthday party, but she had to do so in the cruelest way possible. Amity explained to her years back that she pretended to not like her because she couldn’t do magic to hide the fact that her parents threatened Willow. Because the Blights are supposed to be perfect. Amity has always been smart and she knew what would happen if she let it slip that they had threatened her. If Willow knew the truth, she’d tell her dads and her dads would try to confront them about it. It would end up turning into a scandal (although Amity admitted she wasn’t familiar with the word at the time; it was just one of those words she heard her mom use a lot for situations that were bad). So as a result of Amity doing her part to “protect” the Blight name, she shunned Willow from her life and broke both their hearts in the process.

[TW: discussion of severe depression and thoughts/intentions of suicide. If you’re in a vulnerable headspace right now, please scroll until you see the next notice signaling the end of the section. And please, if you’re struggling with depression and/or thoughts of suicide, please please please seek professional help.]

Willow recounts the years of endless bullying, not always by Amity’s new friends, but often by them. She tells them how Amity wouldn’t necessarily participate so much as observe with a carefully schooled expression. And then there were times when Amity did bully her, and that hurt so much more than everyone else combined. All so she wouldn’t be publicly shamed or get in trouble with her parents for associating with someone like Willow.

She tells them that it literally took Luz coming into their lives for any of that to change. Amity had turned 7 on the birthday she cut Willow out of her life, and they were 14 when Luz showed up. Half of Willow’s entire life up to that point had been friendless (or nearly friendless) and so severely bullied that she was actually debating growing a Graveleaf plant to brew tea with. She still has to take a daily healing potion prescribed by her doctor to keep her mind from falling back to that same state it used to be in. Yes, her life has greatly improved ever since Luz showed up and helped repair her friendship with Amity. Yes, it’s only gotten better since then. Yes, she loves her fiancées with everything she has. But that doesn’t mean all that pain has suddenly been erased and it doesn’t always stop her brain from sinking back into its depressed state.

Needless to say, the Blights are absolutely floored with all of this information. They’re both frozen in shock, they don’t know what to do or say to such an admission. Willow just continues though. She tells them that she’s so grateful to have Amity back in her life. That with therapy, her daily medicine, and time, she’s come a long way from where she once was. Her bad days aren’t nearly as bad as they were when she was a kid. She has both of her fiancées to support her and love her when she’s feeling down. She tells them that no, she can’t forgive them for what they’ve done. But she accepts their apology and appreciates them making the effort to make things right. Seeing Amity happy because her parents are actually trying to be better makes Willow happy.

I think......Alador would be the one to go to Willow and kneel before her and take her hand, apologizing with as much intent as he can muster. He’s a little more in touch with his emotions these days than Odalia is, and he’s lost a family member to suicide before. He knows how devastating it can be to everyone around them and he’s mortified at the fact that Willow had almost done the same. He understands how much she means to Amity and he comes to the realization mid-apology that he could have very well lost his own daughter in a similar fashion had Willow gone through with that. Odalia goes white as a sheet at hearing that, steadying herself in her chair and it makes Willow feel queasy, but she’s glad that he understands the severity of what they’d done. She does put a hand to Alador’s shoulder to comfort him as he reels from this realization and he stands properly again to wrap Willow in a hug as he cried, still muttering apologies through his tears. I think it takes a while for Odalia to be able to speak again, but Willow is able to see that that struggle means it’s rocked her to her core. Once Odalia is able to also stammer out her own apologies, Willow just gives her a small smile and nods.

[END OF SECTION. Now it’s all fluff from here on out. Have fun, kids.]

After that discussion, Alador and Odalia double down on the whole “being better” thing. During one of their weekly tea meetings, they ask Camila how they might start doing that in their daily lives too, not just for their children. Camila doesn’t know the first thing about their jobs or what they do or the people they work with, so she tells them to make a list of things they can think of that might’ve been considered hurtful to some degree. The tea definitely goes cold long before the list is done; Camila actually needs to leave before they finish it. The next meeting, there’s a comically large scroll of shit they’ve done sitting on the table and they are sitting with their heads cowed in shame. I think Camila pops an ibuprofen before her headache settles in.

They still don’t know how to do nice things without throwing money at it first. That takes a while for them to wrap their heads around. Luz and Willow aren’t ones for like. Big, extravagant, expensive things. They prefer the heartfelt stuff, like hand-made gifts or thoughtful acts of service. (Amity, however, insists they accept her parents ridiculously expensive weekend getaway trip to the Iliac Crest Hot Springs; the top of the left hip bone of the Titan. A well-known vacation spot for romantic getaways. Willow only accepts because she knows they’d never be able to afford that on their own and Luz accepts it as a wedding gift and an opportunity to go to a part of the Boiling Isles she’s never explored before.)

Alador is like every dad ever; he loves talking about random trivia shit to anyone who will listen. Luz is literally the only person that will listen because even though she’s lived in the Demon Realm for years now, she still doesn’t know all the “fun facts” that everyone else has grown up with. Sometimes she’ll bring up points about random trivia bits Alador is going on about and put in her own two snails about something she’s experienced regarding it, and she and Alador will go back and forth for a while like that, talking about the stuff they’ve experienced relating to that thing. Willow thinks it’s adorable and Amity is mostly just exasperated (but she also thinks it’s cute and she loves watching her dad bond with her fiancée like this).

Odalia will occasionally ask Amity about her abominations and they’ll sort of awkwardly talk for a while about the technicalities and ingredients and Odalia will mention adding an ingredient Amity’s never even considered before. When she inquires further, Odalia tells her that she’ll sometimes work with a friend in the Emperor’s coven that specialized in the plant track to experiment with creating abominations with different kinds of ingredients for different tasks. Amity is shocked and impressed to hear about her own mother mixing magic and teases her for breaking the rules right under the emperor’s nose. Odalia stammers at that (she’s still getting used to Belos no longer being in power and the stigma against mixing magic still runs strong in her mind), but eventually admits that yes, technically she’s mixed magic. Amity makes her promise to show her how with Willow and they make a whole day of it.

Spending the day making weird abominations with Odalia Blight was Not something Willow thought she’d ever say she’d done, but hey. She didn’t think King could beat Luz in that one eating contest either because where does he put all that food, but he ended up winning anyway. Willow and Amity are actually super excited to try mixing their knowledge of magic together; it almost feels intimate in a way. It’s something neither have tried before and are able to try for the first time together because it’s their specialties. Odalia guides them through the process of mixing different types of plants into the abomination mixture to make abominations specific for extra strength or abominations that help enhance healing magic just due to its properties. They all end up having a lot of fun that day, just making all sorts of varieties of abominations. By the time the day is done, they’re all covered in abomination goop because one of them accidentally exploded. Luz managed to get a picture of them all laughing together and covered in goop before they go to clean up. It’s one of her favorite pictures.

As time goes on, things get less and less tense between the Blight parents and Luz and Willow (especially with Willow). They grow more comfortable with being good parents, good people, and just kinder and more loving in general. There’s one day when the Blights come to visit and they greet each girl with a hug and kiss without really realizing it. They all go to settle down in the living room, but Amity’s still frozen at the doorway, covering her mouth and trying desperately to wipe away the tears that crept up at the display of affection. No one else had thought anything of it, but that was the first time her parents had shown the same and love and affection to both of her wives without any hesitation or fear of crossing boundaries. She cherishes the memory of that moment often.

Proposal Reactions:

I genuinely don’t know how these girls would propose to each other. There’s any number of possibilities; they’re all so creative. The part of me that wants to make funny cartoons would have them each scrambling to figure out the best way to propose to each other and getting into ridiculous hijinks when they try to get their friends’ help (Amity would ask Emira and Edric [and the detention gang by extension; Viney’s remained best friends with Jerbo and Barcus after all this time]. Willow I think would recruit Gus and oddly enough, Lilith [she sees Eda as too much of a mother to Luz to feel comfortable with asking her to help her propose to her daughter]. Luz would definitely ask Eda, King and Camila to help but regret it almost instantly). Of course everyone would end up tripping over one another and each proposal attempt would end in disaster but all three girls would see the resulting destruction (maybe several things on fire?) and just laugh their asses off. Because wow, this could’ve gone so much better, but hey, you guys wanna get married?

The sappy romantic in me tho. Would want them to discuss it thoroughly before hand; agree that yes they’d love to get married, they’re just not sure if it’s the right time. But Luz, being the person she is, would go and recruit everyone’s help in coming up with the best proposal ever. Willow and Amity are both busy with their respective jobs just enough to not notice all the scheming going on. And then one day when all 3 of them have the same day off, Luz takes them out for a fun day (whatever that entails; maybe a day at a carnival or just wandering around town or something). At the end of the day, she takes them somewhere significant (this could literally be anywhere, Grom Tree is a good place because of the view it has over the cliff’s edge, but yknow. Whatever suits their relationship as a trio) and everything is decked out in lights and decorations. And Amity and Willow are both stunned and enthralled by the display and they turn to see Luz down on one knee and holding two small boxes, holding one out to each of them and a super nervous smile on her face. Amity and Willow maybe accidentally tackle her to the ground when they tried to hug her.

During the wedding:

I think they’re all stressed during the wedding itself. They’re excited, of course, a whole ceremony dedicated to the three of them vowing to spend the rest of their lives together. They aren’t capable of imaging a life without each other at this point. But that doesn’t stop the nerves from settling in.

Eda’s constantly telling Luz to calm down before the ceremony actually begins; Luz is found pacing and coming up with doomsday scenarios out loud at light speed like she always does when she’s nervous. Camila and Eda are also nervous, but they’re doing their best to keep it together for Luz’s sanity. Camila’s making sure (with Emira, as Em is the Maid of Honor) that everything is going smoothly and according to plan. But she has similar nervous habits to Luz when she doesn’t have something to focus her attention on. She ends up fussing over Luz’s hair and getting rid of any imaginary wrinkles in her outfit, making sure her makeup is perfect until Eda tells her to quit treating Luz like a dress up doll. Eda’s really good at pep talks, even when she’s nervous, but she manages to calm both Nocedas down with her patented Soft Encouraging Voice.

Amity’s freaking out in her own way in a separate room with all of her girls (Emira, Skara, a fully and properly redeemed Boscha). She’s freaking out similarly to Luz in that she’s mumbling to herself all sorts of ridiculous what-ifs and wishing desperately that she could just be with Luz and Willow already because they bring her the most comfort. She’s not pacing like Luz though, she’s sitting while Emira and Skara do some intricate thing with her hair while Boscha’s doing her makeup but that doesn’t stop her from wringing her hands and bouncing her leg (something that Boscha has to tell her to stop doing every 30 seconds or she’ll mess up the makeup she’s doing). Emira’s giving her advice for every little “what-if” she can hear coming out of Amity, with some silly remarks from Boscha and Skara that actually puts Amity somewhat at ease. Having her girls acting calm and natural did help. She thanks them for doing as much at the reception.

Willow’s trying to get herself into game mode with a pep talk. No place for nerves, only well-thought action. She’s actually got Viney there with her (who had to kick Gus out because he was crying at just the sight of Willow in her wedding dress), as well as Bo and Kat (I think those are the names of the two healing track girls....someone tell me if I’m wrong, but I think Bo is the one in the Human Appreciation Society and I think Kat is the one with the glasses that played on Boscha’s team in the Grudgby match). Willow’s girls are all hyping her up like she’s about to enter a Grudgby match rather than a wedding ceremony, and the ridiculousness of it all is staving off her nerves. Viney’s also giving her own personal experience as advice; she may or may not have tripped during her own wedding and is making sure Willow knows how to avoid that at all costs.

I genuinely don’t know what the role of the Best Man is, but I know in one of my past headcanon posts I mentioned that both Edric and Gus are asked to fill that role (there’s no such thing as rules when you’ve got a human and two witches getting married on the boiling isles). I think while Emira and Camilia are helping their respective brides-to-be get ready, Edric and Gus are taking over making sure everything is running smoothly and all the guests know where to go. When they’re just sort of standing around and waiting for their next task, Gus starts tearing up again at the thought of Willow in her dress. Willow’s like the big sister he never had and now she’s getting married. Gus is constantly having to perform minor illusions on his face to make it look like he’s not about to cry or has already been crying. Edric hasn’t seen Amity yet, but he’s secretly doing the same thing whenever their minds aren’t preoccupied with whatever Event Tasks they need to focus on.

I think.....rather than a one-by-one thing, all three of our girls enter at the same time from different doors. Luz comes in from the left side door, Amity comes in from the right, and Willow comes in from the main entrance at the back. Luz is practically vibrating with nerves and excitement and the only reason she doesn’t run to the front to sweep her beautiful girls into excited, passionate kisses is solely due to her own mother’s iron grip on her arm as she walks her up. I actually don’t know if Alador has redeemed himself enough at this point for Amity to allow him to walk her up to the front, but I also think Edric would be too much of a mess to do so. I think a lifetime of keeping up a mask helps Alador maintain his composure long enough to get Amity up to the front and to take his seat before he lets the waterworks take over. I actually don’t know which of Willow’s dads would walk her up; we don’t know enough about either of them to make personality judegement calls. Whichever dad can hold it together for longer, probably.

Polyamory isn’t a new thing on the Boiling Isles; it may not be practiced as often among witches, but demons do it all the time, so the person officiating their wedding (it could be literally anyone, I have no idea. Maybe principal bump, just for funsies) knows exactly how this ceremony needs to go. They all planned beforehand exactly the order they’d kiss one another once they were proclaimed officially married: Luz would be too excited to wait and would kiss each of her girls first, Amity then Willow, and then Amity and Willow would share their own kiss once Luz had gotten that out of her system.

Honeymoon:

I don’t know enough about honeymoons to know if there’s a difference between a honeymoon and a normal vacation except Now You’re Married. Maybe they go on a grand expedition around the Boiling Isles? Maybe they honeymoon in the Human Realm? That’s exactly like the proposal situation; it could be literally anything. Far too many variables and ideas that could make it perfect for each of them. Hell, they could probably just say they’re going out and doing all sorts of stuff and actually just locking themselves in their house so they can just be together and relish in the relief of no longer needing to plan such a large and important event. They can just enjoy each other’s company as Wives now. I really don’t know.

Regardless of what they do, I think they’d be like any other person on their honeymoon: absolutely love struck and over the moon with how much they love each other. Sometimes they’ll catch one another staring and tease each other about it ( “awww you liiiikkkke meeee” “we literally just got married” “yeah I know but stiiiiiillllllllll”)

I actually don’t know what else you expect me to put here, so I guess I’ll just say they lived happily ever after, the end.

#prinxly inquiries #wam-hope #the owl house #willumity #luz noceda #willow park #amity blight #tw depression #tw mentions of suicide #only for a second tho the entire rest of this thing is so goddamn fluffy #this is another one of those hella long ones that took me all weekend to write lmao #y’all really know how to pull the super long headcanons outta me

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in-the-whisper · 3 years

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I'm sorry if this is a common/stupid ask but I fundamentally don't understand religion and I couldn't imagine believing so strongly in anything, but it seems very nice(?) and possibly even optimistic to have a constant like that in your life. so in the sense I think I have an idea of what religion is, what makes you decide(?) to follow it or believe in it? genuine apologies if this comes across as patronizing or condescending, it's not my intention and sometimes I'm just bad with words ':]

dude you are always welcome here and i will never assume that you are being mean you are very sweet <3 i am very happy to talk to you!

ok so i come from a super different background so it’s hard for me to even imagine like not knowing a ton of people who are religious so i will try to explain and then if it doesn’t make sense feel free to poke me and i will try again. also it makes me happy so dont be scared i will say oh! someone asked me about God! yay! and then i will write a silly tumblr post while making this face -> c:

okay so one of your confusions seems to be why i would believe in something so strongly. in a way everyone believes things strongly, some even more than me (i mean look at politics and thanksgiving dinner). i think the reason that my relationship with God in particular is something i feel strongly about is because i derived my faith from my natural understanding of the value of my friends and from my understanding of morality.

i love my friends very much (most people do) and the idea of them getting hurt or mistreated makes me very angry (i think people would agree). and you could make the argument that the reason that i care so deeply about people and justice is because of all the stuff ive been through but i did think this before anything bad happened to me really.

there is a difference between atheist (philosophical) morality and Christian morality. for someone who doesn’t believe in God, there isn’t anybody who is more important than humanity who can tell them what to do. if one person does something, and i don’t like it, all i can say is, “i don’t like that,” and not “you shouldn’t do that.” because im not in charge of them. i’m just another person, who am i to go around establishing moral laws for other people?

but what that /also/ means is that there isn’t any “grounding” or like /reason/ for morality or the value of life other than personal preference. this Really bothered me about my philosophy class, every atheist philosopher did this. they all wanted to say that you could make morality for yourself (looking at you nietzsche). But then what happens? What about when someone is killed? or raped? I want to be able to say, “Rape is horrible.” and not just “Rape is horrible in my opinion.” Anything that doesn’t allow for these like absolute, unquestionable, overarching standards of how people /should/ or /shouldn’t/ live just doesn’t add up imo.

Atheist professor of law at Yale, Dr. Arthur Leff, wrote an article on this exact topic called “Unspeakable ethics Unnatural Law.” The entire thing is amazing and I recommend it, but here is the conclusion:

All I can say is this: it looks as if we are all we have. Given what we know about ourselves and each other, this is an extraordinarily unappetizing prospect; looking around the world, it appears that if all men are brothers, the ruling model is Cain and Abel. Neither reason, nor love, nor even terror, seems to have worked to make us "good," and worse than that, there is no reason why anything should. Only if ethics were something unspeakable by us, could law be unnatural, and therefore unchallengeable. As things now stand, everything is up for grabs.

Nevertheless: Napalming babies is bad. Starving the poor is wicked. Buying and selling each other is depraved. Those who stood up to and died resisting Hitler, Stalin, Amin, and Pol Pot-and General Custer too-have earned salvation. Those who acquiesced deserve to be damned. There is in the world such a thing as evil. [All together now:] Sez who? God help us.

So if I think this is true, if I really believe that death is evil, that rape is horrible, that there are some universally binding and unchallengeable truths about how people ought to live, I have to believe in a God. or i can live in a state of constant existential dread hahahahaha, , I joke but I actually did do that for a while it was pretty miserable.

i think the next question was kind of what made me believe in it? and that is kind of a difficult question because i think in a way Christianity just encapsulates a bunch of things that i already believed, and i just found like a label for them i guess. i also grew up Christian, so for me my experience questioning my religious identity was more like, three people you love are dead why do you still believe in a loving God? Rather than which religion or philosophy do i like the best?

idk maybe they come out to be the same but it doesnt feel entirely the same. i’m still a christian because of sunsets and sunrises and because the world feels beautiful and intentional, and because i’ve been in a lot of pain and it was real. it really happened. it wasn’t in my head (looking at you stoicism). it wasn’t unimportant. there is not if buts ands ors it was just awful and that’s that. so what can explain it? what can explain meaning? only God can.

Christianity is specifically the religion im interested in because it’s the only one i’ve come across that is as internally consistent, historically accurate, scientifically accurate, coherent understandings of the universe.

No other philosophy allows you to grieve. That’s why I believe in God. No other philosophy validates grief that a belief in a loving God, a belief that death isn’t meant to happen, that people are violently ripped from you without purpose and that you are meant to live together forever. It allows for a belief in the value of humanity and grace while also allowing you to believe that things that happen to you that might last with you forever are wrong and not just in your opinion. They were violently wrong, they violated ancient laws of the universe, they were an act of aggression toward God himself.

Ok im rambling now but I will leave you with this, which is what i wrote after finally deciding to remain a christian:

“There are several questions I asked that stopped me from rejecting Christianity.

Where did the universe come from and why does it exist?

Why does our experience involve morality?

Why is there love? (deep love between brothers, self sacrificial love, to die for another love)

Why is there goodness?

There are, of course, answers to these questions under ideologies other than Christianity, but I found their answers to be unsatisfying because to me, the existence of these things screams that there is something more to the universe than an unfortunate accident in a vacuum of uncaring nothingness.

When I listened to music encouraging its audience to live, when I listened to people fight for the lives of those they love, when i watched the sun set, or cried at the end of a deeply touching movie, I would think, “In light of this how can you say there is no God?”

In Christianity I found answers that profoundly satisfied my deepest questions.

There is a universe because God in his wisdom fashioned it to be a beautiful gift. There is morality because we stand in the midst of a cosmic battle between good and evil. There is love because God’s nature is perfectly loving and the fabric of the knowable universe was woven in his loving kindness. There is beauty and goodness because life wasn’t created to be a void and an unknowable miserable darkness.

The true issue with atheism is that while intellectually and technically feasible, it gives empty answers to facets of life that do not have empty realities.

It forced me to ask myself this question: How can such a beautiful, meaningful, tragic world exist from nothing and for nothing?”

#rape tw #rape #griefjourney #grief tw #long post #i specify philosophical morality because atheists by and large dont actually think like this but at an academic level this is how the logic #ends up working out

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wistfulcynic · 4 years

Text

melancholy

There’s a post somewhere in the depths of Tumblr (if anyone knows where please post the link) something to the effect of a person who had been suffering through a bout of depression one day started to sing while they were cooking. Their roommate immediately rushed in, overwhelmed with relief because they knew that singing meant the person was feeling better.

This is inspired by that.

melancholy:

August is always a difficult month for Killian. As if the sweltering heat and the mosquitoes and the bittersweet sense of summer waning weren’t bad enough, it’s also the month in which Liam died. Each year Killian grows tense and snappish as the anniversary approaches, both eager for the damned thing to be over and wishing it would never come.

And this year, this one, is the worst yet. This August marks ten years since his brother passed, a fact that first begins to worm its way into Killian’s mind on a soft May day when he should be happy—his own bloody birthday. He’s 29 this year and with thirty now not so much waiting around the corner as looming up directly in his path, he finds himself struck by the realisation of just how painfully young Liam had been when he died. He can’t stop thinking about it as August draws nearer, or of all the things he’s seen and done that Liam—dead before he even saw his quarter-century—never had the chance to try.

He knows himself well enough to be aware of what miserable company he is when these fits of melancholy overtake him, and this being such a long and vicious one he does his best to stay away from Emma as much as he can until it passes. His roommate has enough to deal with, he thinks, she doesn’t need him adding to her burdens. So he keeps to himself, stays in his room with music on his headphones or goes to the bar he knows she hates to brood over a glass of rum. Sometimes he takes long walks late into the night, alone with his thoughts and safely away from the temptation of Emma Swan.

On the day of the anniversary itself he runs into her despite all his efforts. Her skip kept her out later than usual and so it happens that when he returns from the bar, drunk and aching deep in his soul, he finds her not asleep in her bed but in the kitchen making grilled cheese. She gives him a look that’s at once understanding and tentative, oddly yearning and full of sympathy, and he forces a smile to his face but does not speak. She opens her mouth but he shakes his head hard, willing her to understand that there’s no way he can bear her kindness now. If she offers it he will break and he can’t risk that, not with her. She means too much to him and he already wants so many things that she can’t give—there’s no telling what he’ll do or say if he lets his guard down now when he’s so bruised and so needy and so alone.

She nods and swallows and tries to smile, and he retreats to his room feeling worse than ever. He lies in bed with sleep nowhere to be had and he thinks, once again, about Liam. He thinks about how his brother died before he had a chance to see the world as he always wanted. Before he could learn to sail the ships he used to admire in the harbour. Before he could fall in love.

What kind of woman would he have chosen, Killian wonders. Or, perhaps, what kind of man? Either is equally plausible; he truly has no idea how Liam felt about love or sex or romance. It occurs to him that in some ways he hardly knew his brother at all.

He’s certain though that whomever Liam might have chosen to love, he’d have made better go at it than Killian. Better than the married woman that he failed to save, better than the roommate with her mile-high walls who will never love him back. It’s almost like he’s trying to be alone, he thinks bitterly, and to waste every opportunity offered by the life that Liam worked so hard to give him.

His August mood that started in May lingers well past the end of summer, and the air is crisp with the bite of early October when Killian realises that he’s managed to go a whole day without once thinking of Liam. It makes him rather sad again but it’s also a relief; he can’t live his life trapped in grief and guilt and recrimination. And he needs to live that life, and live it as well as he knows how—he owes Liam at least that much.

The following day finds him in the kitchen making fajitas when Emma gets home. He’s in the mood to cook for the first time in ages and he’s making more than enough to share, both because Emma’s been known to have a bowl of cereal of an evening and call it dinner and because Killian figures a nice meal will serve as an apology for how difficult it must have been living with him these past few months.

He’s singing to himself when the front door opens, one of the old sea shanties he grew up hearing, and when Emma appears in the kitchen he gives her an apologetic smile.

“Sorry, love,” he says. “I know the shanties aren’t your favourite, but—urgh.”

Emma strides across the room and flings her arms around him, squeezing him so tightly he grunts. She presses her face against his neck and he feels the warmth of her tears on his skin.

“Thank God,” she whispers. “Thank fucking God.”

“What’s this, Swan?” He hugs her back then pulls slightly away so he can look down at her face. “What’s wrong?”

“When you’re sad you stop singing,” she whispers, as fresh burst of tears begins to flow. “This is the first time you’ve sung in six months. I’m just—” she breaks off on a sob. “I’m so relieved you’re feeling better. I was so worried, Killian.”

He stares at her. “You were worried about me?”

“Of course I was!” She tries to snap but it comes out weak and watery. “I lov—ah—I care about you.”

His breath catches and his heart stutters as she goes rigid in his arms and watches him warily. In times past he’d have convinced himself it was a slip of the tongue and nothing more, but his vow to live his life the best he can is fresh in his mind, and Emma is still holding him so tightly and she’s still crying... crying because he was sad. Because she saw that he was sad. Not that he was a pain in her arse to live with but that deep down he wasn’t well.

She always sees him.

Live, he reminds himself. Take the risk, for Liam who never could.

He brushes the hair back from her face, tear-streaked and gorgeous and full of an apprehension that breaks his heart. “I love you too, Emma,” he says softly.

Her mouth falls open. “You do?” she gasps.

“Aye. Very much.”

“Oh, Killian.” She squeezes him again and he lets her, cradling her head as she weeps freely into his shoulder, letting his fingers tangle in her hair as they have longed to do for years now.

“I’m so sorry for worrying you, love,” he murmurs. “I never dreamed you’d notice.”

“Of course I noticed,” she retorts, pulling back to dry her cheeks on the sleeve of her sweater. “I know it’s ten been ten years since Liam died and I knew how much that would upset you. I wanted to help, but—”

“But I didn’t let you,” he finishes, shaking his head. “I’ve been a bloody fool. Can you forgive me?”

“Of course I can. So long as you promise me one thing.”

“Anything, darling.”

“The next time you feel that way, don’t try to handle it alone. If you don’t want to talk to me there are counsellors—”

“You’ll do, Swan,” he assures her. “And I promise.”

She nods, her smile brilliant with relief, light with lifted worry. “I’m always here for you, Killian,” she says. “To listen or hold your hand or anything else you need.” She takes a deep breath. “Because I love you.”

Something settles in Killian’s chest, something that feels terrifyingly like happiness. He cups Emma’s face in his hands and kisses her, a gentle, clinging kiss that she stands on her toes to return, and for the first time in ten years Killian Jones knows that he is not alone.

#cs fic #cs ficlet #cs ff #cs ff au #cw: depression #captain swan #profdanglaisstuff

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prurientpuddlejumper · 4 years

Text

A Lipless Face That I Want to Marry, Ch. 9

<- Chapter 8 | Chapter 10 ->

Summary: Your POV on what you’ve been up to since the breakup

1,915 words

The first week you just cried, and slept.

I shouldn’t have said that, you thought the minute you reached the hospital parking garage. You started to shake as you sank into the driver’s seat. Did that really happen? Then the tears started coming, and didn’t stop.

You crawled into the massive bed that you and Frederick used to share, that had been too big and empty and cold for too long, pulled the covers over your head, cuddled into the spot that used to smell like him, and slept. You slept as though you hadn’t slept in years. You slept until the gnawing in your stomach became too painful to ignore and you had to eat.

There was a picture of you together up on a shelf near the kitchen. Frederick looked so handsome—the scar on his cheek was barely noticeable, and he had that fake, smarmy smile he always put on for cameras. Still, because you were standing next to him with your arm around his back, there was a genuine crinkle in the corners of his eyes that wasn’t there for press photos. You almost smashed it, but you carefully placed it back where it belonged, and smashed a vase instead. Then you lay back in bed again, and slept and cried some more.

You cried so hard you felt sick. Then you did get sick. Work called when you were late, and you said you had the flu, which they believed by the hoarse croak of your voice, though it was more like every toxic pound of stress you’d been holding in for the past month was pouring out of you as in some ancient blood-letting ritual. Your body had been operating beyond its limits, physically and emotionally, for too long, and now everything was crashing.

What would he do if you just didn’t leave? As you stubbornly lay there sweating feverishly and refusing to move, you wondered how long you had before he would even check. He didn’t give you a deadline, just an order to get out. He wouldn’t be so cruel as to kick you out of your own house, would he? Where were you supposed to go?

You opened your laptop and searched for housing in Baltimore, and your head spun. Tiny, ugly apartments that you could barely afford. Maybe you could take that promotion you’d been avoiding because it would require too much travel. Nothing was tying you here anymore—no reason not to travel halfway across the country for weeks at a time. You were free now.

You shut the computer and pulled the blanket back over your head, shaking.

Part of the reason you couldn’t get out of bed was the ocean of sadness you were crushed beneath, which made it difficult to breathe and impossible to want to do anything. The other part was that, in truth, you needed it. You’d been spending so many nights lying awake worrying about whether your fiancé was going to die, waking up so many mornings at the crack of dawn just to see him before work, then going straight from work to the hospital without a break, you’d been on the verge of collapse.

When you finally emerged from the bedroom after a solid week of sleep, your head was clear, and the dark circles living under your eyes had gone.

Finally, you could think straight enough to be truly angry.

Frederick said a lot of things that he didn’t truly mean—rude things, patronizing, demeaning, even cruel. Not just since being hospitalized. He always seemed to make up for it somehow, to the point where you saw it as a cute quirk, and you always forgave him, even when he didn’t say sorry. This may have been one of those times. But he didn’t call to apologize. He didn’t call to check on you. To see if you were OK.

If he didn’t mean it this time, then he didn’t care about you. And you wondered why you ever put up with his bullshit.

Another day went by, and you looked at the picture up on the shelf. How genuinely happy you looked standing next to him and his fake smile and perfect hair, because you saw something in him beyond what the rest of the world could see. You saw the tenderness he safeguarded beneath the pompous mask. The real smile beneath his fake one. Everyone thought he was a patronizing ass, and he could be, but he craved your affection desperately and would go farther than anyone you’d ever known just to show how much he cared.

Everything was different now. He had no way to pompously preen, stuck in hospital robes with nary a tie pin to be seen, and removing his means of vanity had also eviscerated the secret kindness that went with it. The Frederick you knew was gone, and he would ever come back. Not the same as he was. He was too scarred.

The psychological scars were far more frightening than the ones on the outside. Once he was healed and no longer in pain, you wouldn’t mind those. You imagined him wearing a fine suit looking dashingly sinister with his exposed teeth, like a Batman villain. It sent a flush of heat between your legs just picturing it. But apparently that made you a shitty person—you remembered Frederick’s accusations and crossed your arms over your chest, hugging yourself. He wouldn’t be happy until you turned your nose up at him in disgust! Except that would make him miserable, too!

Why the fuck hadn’t he at least called? You wondered if he really did mean it this time.

Days went by. You returned to work and found yourself much more productive than you had been with all the extra sleep, though your stress was getting worse by the day. He still hadn’t called. At this point, you figured he was waiting for you to do it, but you were so tired of being the bigger person. Your entire relationship, you had to be the bigger person. In three years, you could count on one hand the number of times the word “sorry” came out of his mouth. Maybe two hands.

He never said the words, but you would come home to find a gourmet meal being served to you by candlelight. Or rose petals in the bathtub. Sometimes it was just a slow, tender kiss with his thumb brushing against your cheek. Or he would tease every erogenous zone on your body with his feisty tongue until you were shaking with overstimulation.

Now that you thought about it, neither of you were particularly skilled at verbal affection. You were both abrasive and quick with insults, and when you first met, you were like dueling cats yowling and hissing around a trashcan.

How had you managed to win his prickly heart when most of your “conversations” had been arguments? Because you started fucking each other. From that moment, however outwardly you pretended to loathe each other, you were both so cuddly you could hardly bear being separated. No matter what stupid, infuriating jeers he made during the day, you always wanted to wake up in the morning tucked under his arm, your face buried in a chest full of soft brown hair, smelling his intoxicating musk and day-old cologne. Even when you gave up being nemeses, touch was your first love-language. Laying his head in your lap while you read a book. His hand on the small of your back keeping you close at a big event. Combing your fingers through his thick hair. For every sarcastic little snipe, there was a gentle kiss to set everything right.

You couldn’t touch him. For over a month, his skin was too raw to be touched, and for over a month, all you’d had for physical contact was the slightest pressure over thick gauze—and even that was enough to make him wince.

Frederick was changed forever, and he was an asshole. But things might not have been as hopeless or forever-altered as you feared. Not being able to touch (combined with excruciating pain and trauma) had thrown your relationship out of balance, and that was a temporary problem.

Fuck it. You’d be the goddamn bigger person. Considering how much he’d suffered in one lifetime, he could have a free pass on being a dick. You may have said a few… inconsiderate things yourself.

The only thing you were afraid of was that he really did want you out of his life forever. Though you’d made up your mind you were going to see him and try to put things back together, the dread that your visit would only confirm once and for all that things were over made you put off the trip for another two days.

***

Your feet knew every turn and corridor to get to Frederick’s room so well by now, they could bring you there by muscle memory alone, dodging around busy doctors and nurses on autopilot. You slowed down and hesitated as you approached the door to his recovery room, holding your chest to quell the throbbing.

He might not want to see you. If his eyes met you with a scowl, your heart would break in two right there.

Stealthily, you tip-toed up to the door so your shoes wouldn’t make audible approaching footsteps, and you peeked in the little rectangular window. A curly-haired nurse was helping him lift his arms, stretching upward as high as he could manage. He gasped out little curses of pain until she released, and he sighed with relief.

“Good job today, Fred. We’ll work on that a few times a day for now, and then we’ll build on it, OK?” She patted his shoulder.

Oh, she’s in trouble, you grinned with schadenfreude, waiting for him to go nuclear at her for calling him “Fred.” But the explosion never came.

“Thank you, Pamela,” he smiled.

Flipping over to press your back against the wall, you clutched your chest tighter. He knew her name? He didn’t even know the names of half the nurses on his own staff! He used to pretend to forget yours, long after it wasn’t funny.

Worst of all, he looked happy.

He was happy without you. The smile he gave her was brighter than you’d seen him look at you in ages. You thought he would be agonizing over the breakup, but he was doing better since you were gone. You calmed your breathing, and poked your head over the lip of the window again. Now she was leaning down, and he was hugging her. Your throat started to close, and the backs of your eyes burned. It felt like the time you were in first grade when you fell off the playground monkey bars and landed flat on your back. All the wind had been knocked out of your lungs and you couldn’t breathe—you lay on the woodchips in a daze of confusion, mouth gaping like a fish, unable to comprehend why you couldn’t draw in air, and certain you were going to die.

Before you broke down in the middle of the hall, you turned to go home. No, not home, you corrected yourself. Not anymore.

• ● • ━━━━━─ ••●•• ─━━━━━ • ● •

Tags: @beccabarba / @caked-crusader / @itsjustmyfantasyroom / @thatesqcrush / @dianilaws / @permanentlydizzy / @mrsrafaelbarba / @da-po

#Frederick Chilton x reader #frederick chilton #Raúl Esparza #hannibal #post-canon #ANGST #I was going to make this one a little happier then I didn't #oopsie #Please lmk if you want to be on my tags list even tho tumblr doesn't notify you anyway half the time XD

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mahsamarauder · 3 years

Text

16 years

It had been years since Lily had seen James. 16 years to be precise. 17 years ago Voldemort came into their house and killed Harry, which killed himself as well. A year after that Lily and James finally gave up. That year was the most painful time they had felt in their entire lives. At first they comforted each other, they were the only ones who truly understood. But after a while they started fighting. The Potter household was not a happy place anymore. Vases flew around the house and plates were thrown on a daily basis. They had become so unhappy that they had gotten a divorce. Now, nearly 16 years later they both here, at Rumus’ wedding to Sirius’ cousin. Lily had gone off to France after the divorce. She couldn’t bear to be in England. It felt empty and sad. With the people who knew how her son’s death had ruined her marriage in every corner, she felt so desperate that she went to France. She supposed she always wanted to go there but then again, not like this.

James Potter had not seen his ex-wife for 16 years. He thought she wouldn’t come. He was sure that she hated him enough not to come the same country as him. Isn’t that why she left? He went to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. He didn’t know why but he wanted to look good. He supposed it was a habit, wanting to look good for her. He had strands of grey in his hair. The hair he loved and admired so much when he was young. Now it was lying flat on his head because of the sleazy hair potion but it used to be messy and standing up in every direction. Surprisingly he had had the grey hair since he was 22. Harry’s death hit him hard. And then the divorce…..Well it was enough to age him a few years in advance. His eyes were tired and sad, the glint of mischief completely gone. He had dark circles under his eyes. He hadn’t been able to sleep much. The nightmares kept awake at night. The nightmares weren’t just about that night when…..They were usually Harry all grown up and handsome, telling him that he didn’t do his best to save him. That it was James’ fault that Harry was dead. Besides the nightmares, he didn’t leave much time for sleep either. He was head auror and kept himself so busy sometimes he would be at work for more than 48 hours. He drowned himself in his work after Lily left. He lived at Potter manor alone. He did not have the heart to live in the house he was supposed to live in with his wife and son. Sirius lived in his own flat. He kept visiting James but he didn’t live with him. After the divorce, James had made very clear that if Remus and Sirius take pity on him and come to live with him he will kill them. So that’s why no one could make James eat more than three bites or make him come back from work or even make him go to sleep. He didn’t have wrinkles yet but he knew that soon they would join in. James was living his worst nightmare for the last 17 years and he knew wrinkles were the least of his worries. A man of 37 would look so much younger than he did but when you have little to live for you don’t really stay young and cheerful and perky. His purpose of living was to make sure Sirius doesn’t kill himself because of depression. He was told the beat the way to get better was to marry and have kids again. But every time he tried to talk to a girl he would hear Lily’s voice: “James, by Merlin, if you ever cheat on me I will cut off your testicles. I promise.”

Even though they were divorced, he felt like he was cheating on her. He knew when he still loved her he couldn’t go out with any other girl. He knew until he was over her, even flirting felt like cheating and wrong. And on some level he knew that Lily was the only one, that no matter what he did, it will never be over. And it wasn’t fair to any girl to be his rebound girl. So he gave up. Then he considered adoption and he still regretted the fact that he had EVEN considered it. He had wanted to go and see little andy one day, but the night before going, he had had a dream. It was Harry. He was all grown up. He looked at James with a face like his own but with Lily’s eyes. He looked at him and said:

“Are you replacing me?? How can you? After I die, you try to replace with another boy???”

And that was the end of it. The reason he never moved on. He ruffled his hair but it stayed flat. The potion was really good apparently. And then he smiled sadly at himself.

Lily went to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She knew James was doing the same thing. She saw him go the bathroom and she knew him well enough to know what he was doing. Her hair was thin, so very thin. It wasn’t the thick, wavy beautiful Auburn hair she once had. It was now thin, almost straight and not very beautiful and it looked more brown then red now. It was like that even her hair dreaded being alive. Her eyes did not shine or smile anymore, they were dead and sad. And she looked 43 instead of 37. So that was that. She had tried to move on but no man could be James. James who doted on her every move, James who chased her for 7 years, James who would gladly walk the gates of hell with her, James who loved her even before he knew what love was, James who made her laugh when she was crying, James who she loved with all her heart. Of course no one could be him. She had tried, she really did but no matter how dates she went on, there was never a second date.

James was her standard. Men were nothing compared to him. Lily had tried to adopt a baby or use a sperm donor but she couldn’t. Every time she came close to doing so, she felt like she was betraying Harry’s memory. After her divorce, she had moved to France and had started working in a hospital. She was a head healer now. But she wasn’t happy. How could she be? But she had survived, somehow.

One last look in the mirror and he thought why did he agree to the divorce when he knew how miserable he would be? On elook in the mirror was enough for Lily to ask herself why had she suggested the divorce when she knew she was never going to be happy without him?

Because we kept fighting. They both thought at the same time.

But why? They asked themselves.

Because we missed Harry and anger was the easiest emotion to let out.

They both headed outside, deciding that they shall be nice to each other.

They went to the ceremony and sat in first row, seeing as Remus had no family and James, Sirius and Lily were closest thing had to one. James sat at the beginning of the bench than Sirius than Lily. There was space between Lily and Sirius and they didn’t talk. After that, they all went to the reception. Remus and Tonks came and Lily went to talk them after the first dance.

“Oh Remus, Dora, it was a lovely service. Congratulations.” She kissed Remus’ cheek and gave Tonks a tight hug.

“Thank you. Where is your plus one?” Remus asked.

“Well, I didn’t bring one.”

“Oh. Is there a reason?”

“No. It’s just no one seemed……..you know what? This is your wedding. Let’s stop talking about my love life. It feels as if all we’ve ever talked about was that!”

After that she sat down at the table, looking at the couples dancing and smiling. She smiled sadly and remembered her own wedding. She was thinking when she a hand extended in front of her.

“May I have this dance?”

Lily looked at the man in front of her. She smiled warmly at Sirius.

“I thought you’d never ask!”

As they danced, Sirius started talking.

“How is France?”

“Not so bad. It’s lonely but I’m used to it.”

“Lonely? You’ve been there for 16 years! How is it lonely? Haven’t you made any friends?” He twirled her.

“I have but they are not really close and I don’t mind. I don’t trust anyone enough to have them as my close friend. Trusting is proving much more difficult than I expected.”

“From what you say about trusting, I assume there is not a man in your life either, correct?”

“Well yes, but not for that reason. You see I tried dating but none of them made it to a second date.”

“Why not?”

Lily smiled but the sadness was visible in both her smile and her eyes. “James. The bloody prat practically ruined everyone for me. No matter who they were or what their traits was, they were always nothing compared to him. There was something they lacked that he had. He has become my standard, a standard no one can ever reach.”

“Merlin knows he would kill to hear those words.” Sirius laughed.

“There was time he would have done so, yes, but not now.”

“Oh Lily, you never change, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You sound like seventh year.”

He started imitating her voice.

“Oh Sirius, give up. James doesn’t like me like that anymore. He just wants to be friends.”

“Well that’s rude. What gives you the right to imitate me this poorly?”

“I did it fantastically and since I was trying to prove a point, I had a right.”

“And what point is that, pray?”

“That no matter what you do, where you are or what you say, James Potter will always be in love with you and that will never change. Not in seventh and definitely not now.”

“Don’t be stupid, Sirius. It’s been 16 years.”

“And you think that’s enough time to get over you?” He smirked at her and started clapping because the dance had ended.

“I should think it is.” Lily shouted as she saw Sirius moving away without even listening to her. She scoffed. The bastard was exactly the way she left him: rude, considerate, kind, loyal, sometimes mean and brotherly. She sat down. She was rather confused after that conversation. Did James really….? No. She shouldn’t. She would destroy herself thinking about that. He had moved on. He had brought a plus one. He must have a wife and a few black haired devils.

She was walking when she heard a girl talking to her friend loudly.

“See James Potter? He is still as hot as he was in Hogwarts, isn’t he?”

“Well he has gotten a little bit old. He was a few strands if grey but yeah still hot.”

“I cannot belive he is still single. No wife no kids.”

“Well maybe he’s waiting for 21 year old girl like Remus did.”

“Maybe. Hey! maybe we can get a one night stand out of him tonight.”

“Oh no I work with him and believe me you won’t.”

“Oh damn it.”

No wife? No kids? He hadn’t moved on either? Now that was something she hadn’t expected. She couldn’t believe that James was single. After all this time? She went outside and looked at the beautiful summer sky. It was so beautiful. All the stars were visible. As she was looking up a man’s hand went up to the sky to point to something next her head. She didn’t need to turn her head around to know who’s hand was beside her.

“That’s Sirius.”

“Merlin. I’ve been looking at the stars all night trying to find it.”

“You always did.”

An awkward silence filled the space between them.

“How are you?” James asked.

“I’m alright. You?”

“Yeah. I’m alright too.”

“Wouldn’t your date worry about where you are?”

“I’ve got no date. Wouldn’t your date worry about the fact that you’re talking to ex-husband?”

“No. Since he doesn’t exist, I don’t think he minds.” She smirked.

“Always so bloody cheeky.”

“I thought you liked it.

I did. But that doesn’t mean.....Lily what are you doing?”

She had her hands in his hair so suddenly he was completely and utterly shocked.

“It’s true then.”

“What’s true love?” Damn it. He hadn’t meant to call her love. It was out of habit. She would kill him.

“Your hair, it has grey in it.”

He smiled sadly. “With a dead son, a divorced wife and a very busy auror office can yoo blame me?”

“No. No I can’t.” She ran her hands through his hair and it slowly lost its stiffness and become messy. She suddenly realized what she was doing and dropped her hands. They started walking side by side.

“So how’s Sirius?”

“Well he’s alright I gusse.”

“You gusse?”

“Yeah well we’re not as close as we were.”

“Why not???” It was true that Lily Potter was surprised. These boys were always together. What had happened?

“Well after you left I kind of kept distance with everyone. I do go to the full moons and stuff but......we’re just not ss close as before.”

“I see.”

“So any friends in France????”

“Yes. Only one. We’re not really close. She likes her last name and has asked me to call her miss Bunnting so you can see how close we are.” She laughed lightly. “She calls me Mrs. Potter”

“Mrs. Potter????”

“Yeah I didn’t change my last name.”

James stopped in his tracks. He turned to his side and looked at Lily. Lily slowly turned he head in his direction so that they were facing each other.

“Why not?”

“I think you know why.”

“Lily...”

“James, I’m so sorry for all the trouble I caused you, the sadness, everything. I’m so terribly sorry. I......”

“It’s my own fault too. I was so drowned in my own sadness that I didn’t realize that I’m not angry at you and you’re not angry at me. We were just frustrated and sad and the easiest way to free ourselves was to yell and shout and scream and throw stuff. I should’ve fought for you instead of just letting you go.”

“I should’ve thought harder before I asked you for the divorce.”

“I gusse we both made mistakes then.”

Lily was silent for a moment. She looked into James’ hazel eyes but she didn’t see the spark that used to be there.

“When did you regret it James?”

“The moment I signed. You?”

“Same.”

“Life’s funny huh????”

“Really funny!” She sighed deeply.

When they got back inside, it was the last dance. The song was the “Sleeping Beauty Waltz”. As Lily and James danced around the ballroom to the song the hit married with, they kissed. The kiss was tender, sweet and short. As Lily looked into James’ eyes she found she was the happiest she had felt in a long. James’ eyes shined with a glint of mischief and love. His sad and tired eyes looked happier. His hallow cheeks that begged for more food were gone and the dark circles had suddenly disappeared. He was grinning. The 37 year old tired man was gone and the 21 year old James Potter was back. He looked liked he was he was on the moon.

James’ eyes found Lily’s and he was overjoyed. Her green orbs were smiling. Her face looked younger and her hair was somehow shining. Lily hugged James and slowly danced with him.

It took work and patience because no couple can get back together for the sake of only one night. It took one year and many cries, laughs, screams and kisses but after a year Lily and James went to the ministry and got married. They only asked Sirius, Remus and Tonks to be there. They didn’t need anything else. Six months after that they discovered that Lily was pregnant. They both wanted this. They both decided that having a child was not betraying Harry’s memory so they had decided to get pregnant right away because Lily was not getting any younger. Lily gave birth to twins. Emma Lily Potter and Ethan Sirius Potter.

They were both a mixture of James and Lily. Emma had Lily’s flaming hair and nose and James’ deep hazel eyes and horrible eyesight. Ethan on the other hand had the same messy black hair and the same eyes as his father. Only thing he had that was like his mother was his manner of speaking.

Five years after that Lily was surprisingly pregnant once again with a baby girl. She was named Felicity Rose Potter.

The Potter household would always send their childer away on Halloween. Lily and James mourned the loss of their first child every year. They would go into Harry’s nursery and cry for the little boy they had lost. It was ritual. It went on for many years. Until one day, Lily Potter found herself stumbling towards that room without her husband.

The kids were all grown up and had jobs now. Ethan and Felicity were married and both worked for the ministry. Emma was a professional quidditch player and was engaged. Ethan had had a four year old son named James and Felicity was pregnant.

However, even though Felicity had told her the good news that morning, Lily was not happy. This was the first Halloween she was spending alone as James had passed away seven months ago. She started humming “good old-fashioned lover boy” by Queen band. James loved this song. He always said that song was about him and Lily always laughed when he said that.

Lily thought about all those years of fun and happiness. It was 2036 and Lily Potter was tired yet she still mourned her son after 55 years. She was 76 now and so tired.

Sirius was dead. He had died on a mission about ten years ago. It almost finished James.

Remus was also dead. He died about twelve years ago. He was seriously hurt during one of his transformations and when he was found it was too late.

Tonks was aloof and distant and only talked to Teddy.

Lily had no one left. She sat down by the crib and let her tears come as she hummed the melody. She kissed the crib and closed her eyes and fell asleep.

After 76 years of hard work Lily Potter finally fell asleep. After 55 years that night as she closed her eyes and drew her last breath peacefully while asleep, she saw her son.

Lily Potter finally saw her son!

She saw her best friends and brothers after twelve and ten years. She saw her husband after seven months. She saw them and knew that she was finally at peace.

I'll give you everything I have

I'll teach you everything I know

I promise I'll do better

I will always hold you close

But I will learn to let you go

I promise I'll do better

I will soften every edge

I'll hold the world to its best

And I'll do better

With every heartbeat I have left

I will defend your every breath

And I'll do better

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