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hamiltonaf · 7 months

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A happy ending but one that he has to work at

Friends with Benefits | Kylian Mbappé

Pairing: Kylian Mbappé x Female Reader

Word Count: 2.8K

Warnings: Sexual theme

A/N: Hello my loves ! This was supposed to be posted over the weekend but got delayed because I didn’t know how to end this. This is the original request. I hope you guys enjoy !

Also, requests are open .xx

(Y/F/N) - Your Friend’s Name

It’s match day, which calls for my routine meet up with Kylian - we meet for most of his matches and sometimes we don’t. I’m always the reason when we don’t meet on match days because I’m trying my best to avoid him, but I’m failing miserably. Don’t get me wrong, he’s beyond amazing but I broke our rule.

We’re friends with benefits - everyone knows how it goes and what’s the end result, but yet people still believe they’ll never catch feelings. It’s always one person, the deal turns sour and that’s the end of the relationship. I guess I’ll be the cause of that.

I never attended his matches because firstly I’m not his girlfriend and secondly, we both have to be as low-key as possible. Our meet ups usually go with me going over to his place, watch the match from there, no matter the result we have some fun when he gets back and either I’ll spend the night or leave as soon as I can.

Besides the fun of friends with benefits, we actually grew to be quite good friends I would say over the time of us meeting. We’d spend our time in bed talking about his matches or other personal things that he’d want to get off his chest and I would be his confidant. Likewise, I felt comfortable to share things in my life with him as well that I’d usually not tell just anyone. It just felt right in the moment and we’d both just forget the whole reason behind why we were in bed together in the first place.

Tonight it’s AC Milan vs PSG. I got dressed and just before leaving, I gave myself one last look in the mirror - tonight I need to confess.

I let myself into his house and got comfortable whilst watching the match, but of course that didn’t last long because I was already up on my feet yelling at the TV screen.

The time between post match and Kylian coming home felt so quick since I wasn’t paying attention to the time. I heard his footsteps and him attempting to unlock the door, I suddenly felt a shiver run through my spine and my hands had started to get clammy. I’m not ready.

“(Y/N)!” He called as he entered. “In the lounge” I answered. “I got here as soon I could. I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day. I missed you” he smiled as he approached me and pulled me by my waist against his chest. “Congrats on the win today!” I smiled as I placed my hands on his chest. “Thanks, well, you’re just what I needed after that” he grinned as he placed his finger under my chin and pulled me in for a kiss.

I couldn’t help but kiss him back. Our lips moved in sync and it started to get heated by the second as my arms wrapped around his neck whilst his hands trailed down my neck. He broke away from my lips as his kisses trailed down my neck. His hands were about to start unbuttoning my shirt until reality slapped me in the face. “Kylian. Wait” I said as I placed my hands on his. “What ! What’s wrong ? Did I do something ?” He asked concerned. “No no…I just uhm… I wanted us to talk about something first” I hesitantly said.

“Okay let’s talk” he said as we both sat next to each other on the couch. Time to cut to the chase. “This needs to stop.”

“Wait, what ? But why ? What did I do ?” “It’s not you. It’s me” I sighed and looked down at my fingers. “What do you mean ?” He asked “This has been going on for 3 months. It started off great and don’t get me wrong, it still is. However, we had an agreement that if one of us breaks the rule then we have to come clean about it. Unfortunately I can’t continue living a lie much longer. It hurts me every time just being nothing but a fling….I caught feelings, Kylian” my heart was racing uncontrollably.

He remained silent before taking a deep breath. “Look (Y/N) these last 3 months were amazing, but I’m sorry I can’t say the same about catching feelings. I’m not really interested in being in a relationship right now because I’m focused on football. I can’t get distracted right now” he carelessly said. I pressed my lips together in hopes that the emotional side of me will go away. “I know this changes everything, but I mean if you still want to be friends with benefits then I’m fine with that. If you don’t and want to walk out of this now, I won’t stop you” he said. I can’t believe him right now. I just felt like curling myself into a ball and crying my eyes out.

“Wow… I’m just a distraction huh ? I think I’m gonna just go” I cleared my throat as I stood up. “Wait (Y/N) I didn’t mean it like that, I mean I don’t have the time to be in a relationship right now. I just want to have fun” he said as he stood up. “Good to know that I don’t fit in the agenda” I faked a smile before walking over to grab my bag. “(Y/N) don’t be like that. We can move past this. Just stay” he grabbed a hold of my hand to stop me.

“I think this is for the best. I can’t continue living a lie and how long do we expect to keep this going ?” I said lastly before pulling my hand away from him. “(Y/N) let’s talk it out” he said as he followed me to the door. “Kylian. You’re already making this harder for me. Just stop. Let this all be in the past” I took a deep breath and paused. “Good luck on your career. I wish you nothing but the best” I said lastly before closing the door and leaving.

I didn’t even realise I was crying until a tear fell on the screen of my phone. I made it back home, thankfully, immediately dressed down and got myself some ice cream to eat my sorrows away whilst watching a sad movie.

Kylian tried calling numerous times and even sent me countless messages but I chose to ignore it. All good things come to an end, as fun as friends with benefits was…eventually one of us would have to pull out of that phase to get into a real relationship for our future. He may not be concerned about getting serious right now but I sure as hell am. It shatters me that he didn’t feel anything in these 3 months we’ve been together - it was just lust for him I guess. So all those late nights where we were being honest and confided in each other was just a waste…

It’s been a week since I last saw Kylian physically, it was hard not to see him when he’s all over my social media even though I unfollowed so many accounts. Besides that, he still attempted to call and message me numerous times apologising but I just left him on read.

(Y/F/N) had came over after ages, she was a mutual friend of both Kylian and I, all she knew was that we were somewhat seeing each other. We left out the part that we were in a situationship. She actually took notice of my absence in Kylian’s life because according to her, he changed in the past week. I wasn’t buying it, I just assumed she was siding with him. I told her that us seeing each other didn’t work because he didn’t have genuine feelings like I did.

My depression was apparently very much evident that her mood had switched to sympathising with me. She acted quick to change my mood, she thought the best remedy for my depression was to move on. I couldn’t agree more. She surprised me when she said that she could picture me dating a friend of hers named, Carlos, if not Kylian then he was apparently the first runner up. Upon hearing the name, I was already keen on moving on in hopes that maybe I’ll finally get a happy ending.

Later in the afternoon after (Y/F/N) left, there was a knock at the door. I answered it and was greeted by a delivery guy. “(Y/N) (Y/L/N) ?” He asked. “Yes ? That’s me” I furrowed my brows. “These are for you” he said as he motioned to the massive bouquet of red roses that was placed beside him. “Oh wow” I said under my breath. “Yeah, you got yourself a lucky man. Have a good day !” He greeted me before he left. I was stood speechless at the door. The bouquet was so heavy, I struggled to even place it onto the counter top. My eyes searched for a card but I found absolutely nothing. Maybe it’s from Carlos after (Y/F/N) put in a word for me.

(Y/F/N) had suggested that Carlos, myself and her have a friendly dinner tonight to get to know each other a bit and so we both don’t feel uncomfortable just yet. I know (Y/F/N) is trying to help, but at the same time I don’t want to go on a date with this guy if he ends up being a bore or even worse, arrogant.

I had a shower, did my hair and makeup before slipping into my dress, and heels. I grabbed my bag and phone before leaving as my Uber arrived.

Luckily they were already there so I didn’t have to awkwardly wait alone. I mentioned (Y/F/N)’s name for the reservation and was escorted inside to where they were seated. “Hello !” I greeted enthusiastically. (Y/F/N) ran over to hug me first before breaking away and introducing Carlos. “Carlos, (Y/N). (Y/N), Carlos” she motioned. “You’re even more beautiful in person” he said as he kissed the back of my hand. “Oh.. well thank you” i felt the heat rush to my cheeks. “You’re welcome” (Y/F/N) said lowly to me.

As we all got seated, (Y/F/N) and Carlos were across me. I was just about to place my bag on the empty seat beside me until I heard that all too familiar voice. “Sorry I’m late.” You’ve got to be kidding me.

“Well finally” Carlos said as he then stood up to shake his hand. “Hey bestie” (Y/F/N) said as she stood up to greet him as well. His eyes were on me the entire time, not even breaking eye contact when he hugged (Y/F/N).

“Chérie” he said lowly enough for only me to hear. “Kylian” I said as I faked a smile and stood up to greet him. As petty as I wanted to be, I didn’t want Carlos to question the tension. Kylian took advantage of the situation as he placed his hand on my lower back and pulled me in for a hug before kissing my cheeks. How lovely, he’s sitting next to me.

Dinner was going well as Carlos opened up about himself and happened to ask me a lot of questions about myself, up until Kylian placed his hand on my thigh. My body froze and I felt goosebumps form on my skin. I placed my hand on top of his to swat his hand away, but of course a few seconds later he does the same thing again with his hand even higher up my thigh. When his fingers were close to my inner thigh, I quickly excused myself, “Would you guys excuse me” I smiled before abruptly standing up and walking towards the bathroom.

Before I could even get to the entrance of the bathroom, I was pulled by my arm and had my back against a corner wall. “What the-“ I said till I saw Kylian’s face. “Can you leave me alone and let me go ?” I said as I pulled my arm away from his. “You’re ignoring me for the past week and I wanted to talk to you” he said. “Well this is obviously not the place or the time, excuse me” I said as I tried to walk away. He grabbed me by my waist and pulled me back against the wall. I hate to admit that i have butterflies and it felt like my skin was burning when he touched me.

“What is it ?” I asked as I crossed my arms over my chest. “You look so beautiful, it’s distracting” he smirked. “Thank you ?” I furrowed my brows in confusion. “Just hear me out.. I know I was wrong and I’m so sorry for not even wanting to give us a try. Since you’ve been away, I felt so empty and it was so obvious that you were missing from my life, I didn’t realise how you completed me. I missed talking to you about literally anything, I missed having you by my side and waking up to your beautiful face. I need you (Y/N) because I love you” he said. I stood speechless. Someone pinch me. “Ow !” I rubbed my arm. “You said to pinch you” he shrugged. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”

“So chérie, will you forgive me and give us a chance ?” He asked hopeful. “I need some time Kylian. This all happened so quickly. I have so many unanswered questions that-“ “Okay then ask me a question !” He said. “We’re wasting too much of time, they’re gonna get suspicious” I said as I started walking. “By the way did you like the roses ?” He asked. I stopped in my tracks, “That was you ?” I asked in shock. “Why are you surprised ?” He asked. “Well firstly you didn’t send a note and secondly, I assumed it was Carlos” I shrugged. He seemed to get annoyed by the mention of Carlos’ name as he walked ahead of me without another word. “Ky !” I called for him.

Luckily Carlos and (Y/F/N) didn’t question how long we were gone, I guess they were so caught up in their own conversation because they didn’t even notice Kylian and I when we were back. Kylian was distant for the rest of the evening and luckily dinner was cut short since Carlos had to go. Turns out (Y/F/N) was leaving with Carlos so that just leaves Kylian and I alone. “Are you coming over to my place ?” He asked. “For what ?” I raised a brow. “To talk things out and besides that..I have a surprise for you” he grinned. “You know I hate surprises” I rolled my eyes. “I’m aware that’s the only thing that could convince you to come with me” he said proud. “I really hate you” I shook my head as I followed him to the car.

Once we got to his place, it felt weird knowing that I was once coming here so often to not coming at all. “Okay close your eyes” he said when we were at the door. “But why ?” I asked. “You’re so stubborn, you’re ruining my surprise” he shook his head as he placed his hand over my eyes. He used his other hand to guide me into the house, I could envision where everything was with my eyes close. “Kylian, you’re scaring me” I said as I took small steps. “Almost there” he said lowly. “Okay..open now” he said. I blinked my eyes open to see the house decorated in candles and a trail of roses.

“Oh my gosh” I said lowly. “Do you like it ?” He asked. “Ky, I didn’t know you had this in you” I said in awe. “I’m offended that you don’t think I’m romantic” he shook his head. “I mean deep down I knew you were but I didn’t think that I’d get to see that side of you” I pouted. “Well, you surely got the romantic side of me. I’ve never done this for anyone and I wanted you to feel special, especially to make up for the past week. These are just small things, you deserve better chérie” he sighed. “I think I got exactly what I need right here” I said as I wrapped my arms around his neck. Instinctively he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer to him against his chest.

“I really love you. I never thought I could miss someone so much until you were gone. I deserved being left on read” he laughed. “You sure did.. I think I should’ve sent the roses back as well” I teased. “Okay now that would be pushing it, I would’ve been heart broken for the rest of my life” he pouted. “You would feel my pain” I smiled. “I already felt your pain when you already moved onto Carlos” he rolled his eyes. “You didn’t even give me a chance to move on. You crashed our friends date, you played with my mind by placing your hand on my thigh and calling me pet names when you normally call me-“ He cut me off by placing his lips on mine. “You’re talking too much” he said in between kisses as it got heated.

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writing-rat · 5 months

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Concert Freakout Part 3

PART 1 | PART 2

Content: Fluff, that's just it

Summary: Katie is finally with CC

WC: 597

It was the next day, and Katie and CC were walking in together causing more gossip. Katie was catching up with the gossip before they were walking to CC’s friends. “Wait a minute… are you sure you want me to go over?” she asked. CC nodded with a smile. “They knew about the crush from the start. If anything, they’ll be happy for us and for me to introduce you,” she confirmed.

“What if I don’t know much about football?” Katie practically panicked.

“That’s fine. Don’t worry,” CC reassured. “It’s ok, they won’t badger you much about it,” she added. Katie nodded, taking a breather.

Soon enough, she was with CC’s friends and waved awkwardly at them. “Hey,” she greeted while CC did her handshake with her best friend, Ava. “Hi!” they all said excitedly. Katie was still nervous so she stood the littlest bit closer to CC.

“I’m Ava, this is Zahra, Hazel, Ebony and Ashley,” Ava spoke, introducing them all. “It’s great to have you here. God, you don’t know much we heard about you since she was interested,” she laughed causing CC to blush. Katie smiled, feeling more comfortable and nodding.

She was glad she got along well with CC’s friends.

It had been a few weeks since Katie and CC were getting to know each other and it was going well. They were holding hands more, and sometimes kissed but only on the cheek. The first time Katie was flustered and grew bright red. They were currently on a walk now, just smiling and walking in silence. It was comfortable. Soon enough they were sat down. “So… can we officially be together?” CC asked with a smile. “Yeah, I thought we were already honestly,” Katie chuckled out. CC smiled, turning towards her, then moved closer to her so that their thighs were touching.

“Oh yeah?” she asked, smirking before she moved a hand to Katie’s cheek, which was turning a shade of red. She was soon leaning in. “Can we kiss?” CC asked. Katie was nodding happily before she leaned in halfway and kissed her gently. CC kissed back just as gently before she pulled away. “That was good. What did you think?” Katie asked.

“I loved it,” CC spoke and smiled. “You are mine now,” she chuckled and Katie nodded.

She was always hers, she had been from when she first laid eyes on her.

They had arrived at Katie’s house while Allison was having a job interview so they had gone up to Katie’s room. She had a TV in her room so they decided to just watch some random YouTube videos. They were just cuddled up and holding hands under the cover and the door closed.

They had been like that for nearly an hour when they started to kiss. They were just on their 5th kiss when the door was opened. “Kat- oh hi CC. The door is meant to be open, you know that. Anyway, Katie. I’m making burritos for dinner, want to help me soon? CC can stay for dinner,” Alisson spoke. “Yeah, of course, I’ll help. When did you come home?” Katie asked confused.

“I came home 10 minutes ago, I called up,” she chuckled. CC nodded.

“We were just kissing ma- Alisson,” CC explained and Katie nodded.

“I know, but still, doors open. You are only 16 years old and god knows what teenagers can do,” Alisson chuckled. CC nodded and smiled.

Katie was happy with her life. She had the perfect girlfriend, perfect friends and a perfect family. She could live like this forever.

#ratboy writes #ratboy writing #cc walker #katie torres #yes day #family switch #cc walker x katie torres #katie torres x cc walker

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voskhodart · 1 year

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Hey, do you want to learn how to play VHS tapes in the year 202X?

I know this is my art blog, but it has come to my attention that some of you are too young to have experienced the joys of the Video Home System in its prime. Come hither so I can teach you and we can embrace the beauty of physical media together. If you have a thrift store and a TV, this process should work for you.

Step 1: Get a VCR ($4-$15)

DO NOT BUY EXPENSIVE VCR/COMBO SETS FROM THE INTERNET!

The ones you find on sites like eBay and Etsy are insanely overpriced and might not even work. Instead, find a Goodwill, Savers, or independent thrift store near you and go to the electronics section. There’s a good chance they’ll have at least one VCR. If they don’t, try a different shop. You can also check local online marketplaces, yard sales, etc.

Good things to look for:

4 (or more) Heads — Heads are the things that actually read the tape. The more heads you have, the better your picture is going to be.

Auto Tracking — Poor tracking can create a rolling picture, which is a pain to fix. An auto tracking VCR does that work for you.

Pre-2000 — After 2000, electronics started being mass produced with plastic casings and cheap parts. VCRs made after this time are a whole lot easier to break. Ideally, you want something from the late 80s to mid 90s.

Well-known brands — Sony, Toshiba, etc. Japanese manufacturers tend to have the best quality. Early Emersons are nice too.

Generally good condition — If there’s a bullet hole in the case, it’s probably best to pass on. A bit of dust isn’t an issue, but major damage isn’t a good sign. If you can, plug the machine into a power outlet in the store and see if it even turns on.

Head cleaning indicator — Not something you *need*, but I find it nice to have. You’ll want to use a head cleaning tape when the indicator starts flashing.

This is the one I’ll be using for the sake of this guide. This is an old Emerson that I picked up from Goodwill for $7.95. (Notice the five price tags they slapped on top.)

Step 2: Get Some Tapes (¢10-$1)

This is the fun part. Almost every thrift store will have some VHS tapes, usually near the books/DVDs/records. I’ve seen them as expensive as a dollar, but some stores will just give them away for free. I suggest buying a few movies you like, plus one or two shitty tapes to test out your VCR with.

You may also find 20 different copies of Titanic in every store. This is a normal occurance.

Remember to check the condition of any tape you plan on putting in your machine. If the spool looks moldy, you *can* try to clean it, but you’ll need another VCR to do so. If the tape looks wrinkled or otherwise damaged, you can still probably play it, but it will look and sound a lot rougher than you should expect. If the casing is damaged, I wouldn’t risk trying to put it in your VCR at all.

Remember: VHS tapes stopped being produced commercially in 2006. Most tapes you find aren’t going to be in the best shape, because they’re all a few decades old. (Sometimes, though, you will come across a tape with an excellent picture, good sound quality, and subtitles! The Mummy tape that I own is near perfect.)

Step 3: Connecting the VCR to Your TV

For this step, you’re going to want a coaxial cable and a set of RCA cables (the red, yellow, and white ones). If your TV doesn’t have an RCA input, you’ll also need an RCA-to-HDMI converter. If your TV also doesn’t have an HDMI input for whatever reason, you’re shit out of luck.

You’ll plug these cables into the “out” or “out to tv” connection on your VCR, then plug the other end into the back of your TV.

Note: Not all VCRs have right audio (the red one)! That’s fine. Just leave it hanging free. The left audio (white) is your mono audio, so you’ll just have that instead.

Lastly, put the channel switch on the back of your VCR on 3 or 4. I keep mine on 3. This is the number for the channel you’ll go to on your TV to actually see what the VCR is playing.

Step 4: Setting up the TV

I use a little Roku TV, which is surprisingly steady to set up for VCR input:

Settings ➡️ TV Inputs ➡️ Live TV

From here, you’ll either be prompted to scan for channels OR you’ll have to select “scan for antenna channels”. It will ask you if you want to have channels 3 and 4, to which you’ll say “yeah, I do want channels 3 and 4” and click the button that lets you have channels 3 and 4. If you don’t have an antenna, you can skip the other prompts.

I haven’t done this on any other type of TV, but the process should be pretty similar: get yourself to channels 3 and 4 through whatever means necessary.

Once you’re there, it should look like this. Sad, blank, and lonely. But not for long.

Step 5: Playing Your Tapes

This is where things can go really really well or really really wrong. If everything is hooked up, you can grab your shitty tape and insert it into the VCR.

(Make sure there isn’t anything else in there first, though. Some people don’t remove their precious Titanic copies before donating these things.)

You’ll want a tape that’s fairly clean, with no casing damage, and already rewound (black tape in the left window). To insert the tape into a front-loading VCR, slowly and firmly slide it into the slot. Once it’s most of the way in, the machine should “grab” it and pull it all the way inside. You’ll hear the machine make some noises.

(If those noises are really crunchy, that’s probably not a good thing. Troubleshoot with your favorite search engine or head over to r/VHS to see if anyone can help you.)

Once your machine is only making some clunky whirring sounds, it should be safe to press the play button. Enjoy watching your favorite films in the least pleasant format possible. Don’t forget to rewind em when you’re done.

If you have issues, the freaks over at r/VHS tend to be really helpful, but you can also find decade-old YouTube videos that might answer your questions too.

#not art #vhs #retro tech #physical media #technology #analog #long post #tutorial #tape talk

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fanfoolishness · 1 year

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Random spoilery thoughts for The Apostate based on my deliriously watching it way after my bedtime last night, but before rewatching it tonight with the husband:

Was very excited to see Bo-Katan’s helmet in the credits. She’s really going places this season, huh?

Loved seeing glimpses of the helmet ritual. I was worried that the kid was going to be baby Din, even though he looked absolutely nothing like him; I was relieved to see it was present day, but I still would’ve liked another flashback to kid!Din. Also, does Din just not have flashbacks anymore? I kind of miss them.

A little salty we didn’t see any Mando’a in this whole ritual. But, I loved seeing the Armorer more. She’s always an intense, mesmerizing presence and even though I now distrust her (is she Force-sensitive? the way she somehow realized that croc-monster was coming… not to mention some of her other appearances where she seems to know more than people are telling her) I always love seeing her do her thing.

I want to try and write something about Din wishing he was welcome for Grogu’s sake (so he can be around other Mandalorians besides Din and discover the community for himself) but can’t seem to figure it out.

Wish we saw some more non-human Mandalorians though :(

SPACE WHALES! Purrgil, yes? Man I still need to watch Rebels. But I obstinately want to watch all of Clone Wars first (we made it to season 5! We’re so close!)

I love that Grogu was both entranced by them but also a little scared because they were just so vast. Hence the need for a cuddle, which Din did not object to.

HIGH MAGISTRATE GREEF KARGA, please, if we have to spin off more characters from The Mandalorian to get to their own TV shows, we need to see Greef just Carl Weathersing around. Everything with him is just delightful! Let his cloak get longer every episode, please please please.

Not sure at all about this harebrained IG-11 idea, Din, but I loved that we could hear some of the music that used to play for Kuiil in the theme there, and that Din straight-up called IG his friend.

DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN WHAT WAS THAT I did not expect DROID HORROR here!!!

Love to see Nevarro all grown up! Greef may still be a little shady and obviously self-serving but I love that he wants to bring other people along with him too. The more wealth around in general the more for him too, right? So of course Nevarro needs to get respectable and dank farrik, he’s just the man to do it.

I’m glad Cara Dune didn’t die on the way back to her home planet. I’ll miss her presence as a friend and comrade to Din but I won’t miss Gina Carano’s bullshittery. Maybe we can meet a buff female Mando this season to add to the roster if we have to be adding new characters.

Big man in tiny room 😍

GROGU NO omg I love that he is just as awful as real toddlers sometimes 😂

…and yet Din thinks it’s time for him to learn about hyperspace navigation what even is this parenting technique

I still miss the Razor Crest, but I like that the Naboo thing (what is it called again?) makes Din even more menacing as a pilot

Dad Is My Seatbelt ❤️

I enjoy the mossy pirate. He is rather disgusting but I’ve never seen a design quite like that before.

Bo-Katan really has nothing better to do these days than lecture Din, does she? I love how disillusioned she’s become with the Darksaber. “Just wave that thing around and they’ll do whatever you say.” I also love that she calls out Din’s tribe for being superstitious and weird again. Like we all know Din is gonna ride a mythosaur by the end of this season or next and he’ll find the mines and they better be super cool, but I’m still feeling solidarity with Bo-Katan, resident skeptic

I just need Din to really sit down and think, “Do I regret taking my helmet off? It was always to help Grogu. To try and keep him alive, to try and find him, to say goodbye to him. Don’t I owe loyalty to him, too? Do I feel like an apostate?” Figure your shit out, sir!

But in the meantime, keep proudly telling everyone you meet your son’s horrible name. I made myself laugh for a minute straight when I realized Greef is over here thinking Din named Grogu that on purpose

Plotwise, definitely the most scattered premiere of the show, and because of it, not the most effective episode. I’d give it a B - perfectly enjoyable and some really fun, surprising moments, but it’s not asking the big questions that it keeps hinting at just yet. I hope they get there.

#the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian season 3 spoilers #the mandalorian the apostate spoilers #the apostate spoilers #the mandalorian #din djarin #grogu djarin #my mando reviews #the apostate

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hollandorks · 2 years

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shadows in the night

battinson!bruce wayne x f!reader

chapter twelve

summary: more than a year after the events of middle of the night, y/n and Bruce are happily engaged and working to lower the amount of crime in Gotham. However, a new killer calling himself the Riddler has other plans for their happiness…set during the events of the movie, mostly canonical, some changes made to fit the story

a/n: finally updating again! Hope you enjoy this chapter! Still trying my best to stick to updating once a week for you all, despite the writer’s block absolutely kicking my ass.

Series Masterlist

word count: 2854

Y/n turned her back on the man she loved, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time she’d see him, hoping she’d have a chance to apologize and explain before things inevitably went wrong again.

Reader’s POV

Y/n left her mask and vest in the Batmobile for the subway ride home. She stewed the entire way, betrayal a knot of acid in her throat. She hated being kept out of things–first by Bruce, and now by Gordon. She vowed to try and contact Selina when she got home. If anything, she could help her solve Annika’s death.

Alfred, ever faithful, was waiting when she got home. She gave him a brief rundown of everything that had happened while he made her a much needed late meal. She wasn’t sure when she’d last eaten, which meant that Bruce had probably gone even longer without food. Her stomach twisted at the thought, and not from hunger.

Alfred sighed and gently set aside his cup of tea. They were sitting together in the living room, which had become their spot to hang out together after her stay in the hospital the year before. The TV was muted before them, the twenty-four hour Gotham news channel playing helicopter footage of the wreckage from the highway.

“Something tells me that his reckless behavior isn’t the only thing you’re upset about,” Alfred finally said, gaze shrewd as he watched y/n eat.

She winced. Damn Alfred and his sixth sense. There was no reason to lie or beat around the bush in answering. Alfred had a knack for getting these things out of her one way or another. There was a reason he knew what she’d been up to even when Bruce hadn’t. “I…Gordon let slip what I’ve been up to.”

“Ah,” Alfred said. He took a careful sip of his tea, likely to gather his thoughts. “I see.”

“He–I think all of that–” she gestured at the TV “–was partly because he was so angry with me. It…blinded him. The anger.”

“He’s always had trouble expressing his feelings,” Alfred said quietly. “Especially things like anger and betrayal.”

Y/n flinched again at the word betrayal. “He wouldn’t even let me talk to him.”

“Usually it’s best to let him cool off a bit first,” Alfred said. She knew he was right–over a year of being around Bruce, and she knew that much. But this felt like an entirely different animal. Alfred’s expression softened. “He loves you, dear. He’ll come around.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “But I’m afraid he’s going to get himself hurt in the meantime.”

It was Alfred’s turn to wince. “Well, you left him in Lieutenant Gordon’s capable hands, at the very least.”

Y/n snorted. “Sometimes I think Gordon’s as gung ho as Bruce is, but better at hiding it.”

Alfred smiled wryly. “I think you might be right. But at least they’ll be looking out for each other.”

“I just want Bruce to see where I’m coming from. I didn’t mean to hurt him. I–I did this so I could protect him, not hurt him.” Her hands shook slightly as she set her plate on the coffee table.

“When he gets home later, just tell him that. Bruce needs love and reassurance more than the average person. He likes to act like he isn’t fragile, but he is.” Alfred squeezed her shoulder. “It’ll work out. If not, I’ll knock some sense into him myself.”

She laughed, feeling lighter than she had the whole subway ride home alone. “Thanks, Alfred.”

“I’ll be in the study if you need me, dear. I’ve been avoiding the mail all day with all of this craziness going on.” Alfred left with one last smile.

Y/n took her plate to the kitchen to wash. Alfred had already put aside food for Bruce, of course. After she put the now clean dishes up, she checked her phone. Nothing from Bruce. She hoped the Penguin had given him the leads he’d needed. And she hoped, more than that, that Gordon could reel him in before he did anything too rash.

Y/n realized she’d given Selina her phone number but had never gotten one in return. How would she contact her? Maybe Bruce’s contact lens had some sort of tracking capability, or the earpiece. He’d tinkered with them a lot in the past year, refining and perfecting their use after they’d served them so well in taking down the old mayor.

Perhaps Alfred would know.

She wandered towards the study where Alfred was sorting mail.

As she stepped into the room, she said, “Alfred, do you know of a–”

“Get back!” Alfred shouted, tossing something square as far away from them as he could.

She stumbled away as an explosion ripped through the air, barely managing to get out of the doorway and use the wall as a shield. The noise was deafening, the entire manor shaking around her. The force of the explosion tossed her across the hallway. She smacked into the opposite wall.

The smell of smoke choked her.

She blinked slowly, ears ringing, head pounding, tears streaming from her eyes from the smoke.

“Alfred?” she called, but it was barely more than a croak. She coughed and tried again. “Alfred?”

There was no answer. Of course, her ears were ringing so terribly she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hear if there was an answer.

Something wet slid over her face. She brushed absently at it. Blood. She’d hit her head when the explosion had thrown her.

She hurried into the study, no thought on her mind other than Alfred’s name. Fear dug its claws into her chest, cutting off the rest of her air that the smoke hadn’t touched. She yanked a fire extinguisher from an alcove on the wall.

The study was on fire.

The study had exploded.

“Oh, fuck,” she said, hurrying forward, calling Alfred’s name as she went. Shaking fingers fumbled for her phone to call 9-1-1.

The study was a mess of charred and splintered wood among the flames and smoke.

“There’s been an explosion at Wayne Manor,” she coughed into the phone as she frantically began putting the flames out with the extinguisher. “On the second floor, I don’t know–I don’t know what caused it, but our butler–”

But–there. Alfred was splayed behind the desk. Y/n could barely hear the voice on the other end of the phone. She couldn’t tell if it was from the explosion or the adrenaline or both.

“Our butler is unconscious. Please hurry. I’m–he has blood on his head–” The panic and fear was choking off her air worse than the smoke around them.

“Don’t move him, ma’am,” the operator said, her voice calm and collected. “He could have damaged his head or spine.”

“It’s on fire, I have to move him!” y/n snapped. The fire extinguisher was empty already. God only knew the last time it had been replaced. She pocketed her phone without seeing if she’d actually hung up or not. Her knees smacked against the hardwood floors. She grabbed Alfred underneath his arms. “I’m sorry, please don’t let your neck be broken, I’m sorry.” She sobbed through her teeth as she dragged him carefully but quickly into the hallway.

She gently laid him down, trying to keep his head and back straight as she could.

She fumbled for the pulse point in his neck, relieved to feel it beating beneath her fingertips. She shrugged out of her cardigan and pressed it to Alfred’s bleeding head.

A moment later, Alfred’s eyes fluttered open. “Y/n?” he mumbled. He frowned.

“Don’t move, Alfred, you’re hurt.” Alfred went still at her words. He blinked up at her. “You’re alright, help is on the way.” She gave him a watery smile that probably wasn’t as reassuring as she wanted it to be.

“Of course, dear,” he slurred, eyes drifting closed again.

Panic gripped her tight. “Alfred?” she asked. She wanted to shake him, but she really didn’t want to move him anymore. “Alfred?”

His pulse still beat steadily, which should have been a relief but wasn’t.

Tears slipped over her cheeks as the sound of sirens pierced the air outside.

“Help’s coming, Alfred,” she said again.

She was still kneeling on the floor, cardigan pressed to Alfred’s head, when the firefighters arrived. There was a flurry of activity around her as the rest of the flames were put out. Alfred was checked and put in a neck brace and onto a stretcher. While the firefighters stabilized Alfred and took care of the flames, the actual paramedics and the cops arrived.

Y/n was asked question after question as GCPD tried to figure out what happened, but she couldn’t really answer them beyond that there’d been an explosion.

Someone checked her head. The sting of antiseptic brought her back into herself and steadied her.

Her phone was ringing.

How long had it been? They were about to load Alfred into an ambulance, so it couldn’t have been that long. But it also felt like ages had passed since they had talked in the living room together.

It was Bruce. His personal phone, not his work phone, though there were missed calls from both.

“Bruce–” she said.

His frantic voice cut her off. “Y/n, you and Alfred have to get out now, something terrible is going to happen!”

She sobbed at the sound of his voice. “Bruce, it already happened. Alfred–he’s hurt, they’re about to take them to the hospital.”

The cops, paramedics, and firefighters all watched her sympathetically, pretending like they weren’t listening even though they were.

Bruce’s breath shuddered out of him. “He’s–alive?”

“Yes, he’s alive but–God, something exploded and–”

“Are you okay?” he said. She could hear the roar of the Batmobile’s engine in the background.

“I’m okay, I’m–”

“I’ll be there in a minute, stay there, okay? I’m coming.” His voice was gruff with worry and fear. It softened as he said again, “I’m coming.”

It was all she wanted–for Bruce to hold her and tell her it would be okay.

Bruce’s POV

The moment Bruce realized that he was the Riddler’s next target, his heart had stopped.

He hadn’t feared for himself.

No, he’d feared for the two people he loved more than anything in the world–the two people he would let Gotham burn for.

Y/n and Alfred were the only ones at home, since Bruce was running around as Batman, so whatever the Riddler was going to do was going to happen to them.

He darted away from Gordon on silent feet, heart pounding in his chest, gloved fingers fumbling for his phone. He called Alfred first–the man’s previous training was needed in this situation to get them both out alive before anything could happen.

But Alfred didn’t answer. Not even after three tries.

Y/n didn’t answer either.

Bruce shouted and beat his fist on the steering wheel. He swapped phones in case there was some reason they wouldn’t answer his work phone.

He called the landline. They never used it, but Wayne Enterprises had some old-fashioned board members who didn’t like cell phones if they could avoid them, so the landline had stayed, a relic of the past.

No answer there either.

No.

They couldn’t be dead.

They couldn’t.

He hadn’t told y/n he loved her, that he loved her no matter what she did, no matter how badly it had hurt him.

He hadn’t told Alfred he loved and appreciated him, words the old man had probably never heard from Bruce in their decades together.

Even as Bruce drove, breaking every traffic law known to man and then some, he kept calling. And calling. And calling.

He didn’t even know whose phone he was calling, he was just alternating between Alfred, y/n, and the landline on autopilot.

He could still stop this, there was still time. He could save them. He could. He would.

Someone finally picked up.

“Bruce–” y/n said.

He frantically cut her off before she could say anymore. “Y/n, you and Alfred have to get out now, something terrible is going to happen!”

She sobbed and said, “Bruce, it already happened. Alfred–he’s hurt, they’re about to take them to the hospital.”

Bruce took a turn, and he saw flames and smoke coming from the direction of Wayne Manor.

He couldn’t breathe.

A terrible relief hit him first. Y/n was okay. She was talking to him. But Alfred–His chest was too tight. She said they were taking him to the hospital.

Bruce managed a strained, “He’s–alive?” with bated breath, dreading and anticipating the answer.

“Yes, he’s alive but–God, something exploded and–”

“Are you okay?” he said. Her voice was shaking. If he hadn’t been so panicked, he would have noticed it from the very first word she’d said.

“I’m okay, I’m–”

“I’ll be there in a minute, stay there, okay? I’m coming.” He softened his voice. All he wanted was to hold her, tell her he loved her, make sure she was really alright and not hurt. “I’m coming.”

He pulled into the tunnel that would take him to the abandoned subway station as they hung up.

He wanted to dash to the elevator and go straight up, but he couldn’t. He hastily parked and checked the security feeds just long enough to catch sight of y/n surrounded by all kinds of cops, paramedics, and firefighters. Her head was bloody, but bandaged. He had to pause and take a steadying breath at the sight.

Bruce changed into spare clothes as quickly as he could, running fingers through his hair with one hand and using a makeup wipe on his face with the other. He grabbed what y/n called his “regular” motorcycle and raced out of the tunnels as quickly as he was able. He had to pretend like he was a normal man, out doing normal things in the middle of the night, something that would explain his absence from his own home.

He was still frantic with worry. He passed the ambulance on his way through the gates, the sirens piercing through his helmet.

His heart stuttered and he had to fight a brief urge to chase Alfred to the hospital.

Y/n first. Then GCPD. Make sure their home was safe.

Alfred was alive, and they would join him soon.

Bruce had to find out what happened.

But first, he had to feel the reassuring solid warmth of his fiance.

He saw her within moments, sitting on the stairs, face streaked with ash, blood, and tears. There was blood on her hands. She hadn’t seen him yet.

“Mr. Wayne–” an unfamiliar voice said, but he pushed past them and gathered y/n into his arms.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed into his chest the moment he touched her. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He knew she was apologizing for more than what had happened in their home.

“I’m sorry,” he said into her hair. He hated how his words shook. “I love you. I’m sorry.”

He pulled away and gently took her hands. He searched her for any further signs of injury. “Are you alright?” he asked, then silently cursed himself for such a stupid question.

“I’m fine, I’m not hurt. Just a small cut on my head is all. It’s–Alfred had a head wound but they said–”

“It’s okay, we’ll go soon,” Bruce promised her in a low voice. He pulled her against his side, hating himself for every single second he thought the words, I’m glad it wasn’t her. Even as hurt and yes, still angry, he was at her, he was so, so glad she was alive. I’m glad it wasn’t her.

One of the firefighters explained, “The package was intended for you. It was a C-4 explosive sent in a mailer. We found this too.” He held up an all-black card that said, See you in hell.

Bruce stiffened with rage. He would kill the Riddler for endangering his family.

After a whirlwind of questions and acquiescing to a sweep to ensure there were no more explosives, Bruce and y/n were finally released to go meet Alfred at the hospital. When Bruce checked the time, it had barely been fifteen minutes since he’d arrived at the house. He made y/n change first, as her clothes were singed and bloody, and then they were off.

He kept tight hold of her hand in the car.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, voice trembling with emotion. “I–”

“Let’s not worry about it right now,” Bruce said softly. Because he couldn’t think beyond seeing Alfred. He was wrung out like a damp, threadbare towel. All he cared about was making sure Alfred was okay, and that y/n wasn’t hurt. Everything else would come later.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said after they rode in silence for several minutes. He squeezed her hand.

“Me too,” she whispered. “Glad Gordon kept his word.”

Bruce couldn’t smile at the half-joke. He couldn’t tell if it was his hand shaking, or hers.

He hoped Alfred was okay.

He hoped he hadn’t gotten the man, who was for all intents and purposes his father, killed.

Another wave of fear ridden self hatred rose within him as he thought again, I’m glad it wasn’t her.

Next Chapter

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chaotic-nick · 1 year

Text

This fic was leading yesterday's poll and my impatient ass didn't wait for the results, I was already excited to post it 👌

pairing: Erwin Smith x Reader, established relationship, modern au

note: I wrote this sometime around January of 2022 when I was slowly coming out of the longest depressive episode of my life and when healing was interrupted with that moments felt so off :< or have thrown me off

wc: 564 || warnings: the overall fic feels gloomy, favouritism, unedited

Opening the door to their apartment, then hearing running water first, made sense why he felt uneasy when the clock struck twelve pm and he didn’t receive an enthusiastic text of what they’ll do later.

Erwin had their schedules memorised the month after they moved in. At this time— and always at this time, he’ll come home to a playlist of soft rock as she cooked their dinner. Though today, he opened to a quiet home. As quiet as how he left it in the morning. Briefcase going to its designated chair by the door, shoes next to hers and his blazer going on the couch’s back, he walked to where she would be.

They’ve reached a point where he didn’t need to look for her in their house.or call her name out with a worried tone.

“Love . . .” The bathroom. The one that had a bathtub in it. He was met with a slightly ajar door. “You kept the door unlocked,” he pushed it open only to have the steam hit his face.

Seeing her back facing him, his heart went at ease. At least she remembered to do that.

“Hello, Erwin.” She managed in a tired voice. He uncuffed his sleeves, slowly walking toward her to turn the shower off. “Do you want me to order something while you’re in there?”

“I’d like that very much.”

“Was it Korean chicken that you liked.”

“Mm.” A sniffle as she tried to straighten her back.“Thank you.”

As he left the door open, Erwin’s mind was loud again. He knew what sent her to such a state. A phone call, or a video call.

And again, she was compared. Reminding her that she was never the favourite child. Even when she was at the age when she could heal those wounds, a phone call so brief could open them again, Deeper even.

...

Her eyes were on the carpet. Not on the TV reflection of him drying her hair, carefully combing through the tangles. No. Following where she looked, Erwin’s mouth tugged at the corners when he realised that it was on the Korean chicken still in its packaging.

“Love. wear a shower cap next time. I appreciate keeping the door unlocked, too.” And every time she soothed herself in the shower, Erwin dried her hair—‘Of course not in the bedroom, we’d inhale the hair that fell out.’— in their living room, facing the TV.

“I’ll— I’ll keep that in mind.” Again, he thought. She must’ve sobbed out loud while she was in ther. “Your hair’ll get crisp, or keep your head out . . .”

“Got it,” her shoulders slumped down in fatigue.“Small steps, right?”

“Even a half a step’s enough.” He said, turning off the hair dryer, keeping a hand on her right shoulder so he could place a kiss on the side of her head.

“Let’s eat?”

“Let’s eat.”

He moved faster than her. As he pulled out paper plates from their cabinet he told her that she didn’t have to take care of him for however long she felt that way. “Where do you wanna eat?”

Pointing at the coffee table, her eyes showed a glint of hope. “I feel like sitting on the floor.”

“Rice?”

“Please.”

“So, wanna tell me about your day?” Erwin started when she joined him on the floor. “Mine was something, Miche’s sense of smell put us in . . .”

#nick writes fics #erwin smith x reader #erwin smith x y/n #erwin smith x you #attack on titan erwin #attack on titan x reader

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fruchtfleisch-art · 1 year

Note

For the short stories: Suburbia

This is... not under 500 words. Not even close. But I ended up really enjoying writing this one, so I hope you'll enjoy reading it!

Kirashino microfic #4/?: Suburbia

Shinobu is waiting for Kosaku when he comes out of his afternoon statistics class, even though they just saw each other yesterday. That’s not right. They only ever have dates on Tuesdays and Fridays, and sometimes the weekend, working around his courseload and her availability. Today, Monday, is uncharted territory.

“Hi, you,” she says, pulling him into a tight hug. “How was class? Did you get me anything?”

“Was I supposed to?” They’re blocking the entryway standing like this. Kosaku feels a flush creeping up his face as somebody jostles into him, but he doesn’t know how to ask her to move without being rude.

“Don’t you know what day it is?” Without waiting for a response, she adds: “It’s our six-month anniversary! Don’t tell me you forgot.”

“Oh.” Was he supposed to be keeping track of that? Shinobu always feels a step ahead of him with this relationship stuff, always herding him towards milestones he only has the foggiest awareness of. It’s hard to keep up.

“You did forget, didn’t you? It’s fine. You can make it up to me tonight, right?”

“Right. Sorry. I, uh, I have another class in twenty minutes, but after that… uh…”

“We should go somewhere,” she says, smiling. Leading him.

“Yeah,” he says weakly. “We’ll go out. Anywhere you want.”

“Great.”

Kosaku usually spends his break alone, but it’s not so bad with Shinobu hanging around. She walks with him to the vending machine as he buys a drink, snuggles into his side as he reviews his notes, asks him for advice about an essay she’s trying to write. When it’s time to go, he leaves her in the hallway with a wave. She makes a heart with her hands.

Six months. That’s a pretty long time to have a girlfriend.

He’s not sure if they’ll make it another six. Shinobu is nice, but she’s kind of a handful.

---

Shinobu is at the door when Kosaku gets home from work, three hours later than he expected. That’s strange. She doesn’t usually wait up for him when he has to stay late.

“Hi,” Kosaku says cautiously. “Where’s my-“

“The same place it always is.”

His first thought is that she might have been watching a movie, but the tv is off, and she seems in no hurry to get back to it. She’s dressed nicer than usual, too, and as she takes his jacket and moves to the closet, he gets a whiff of cinnamony perfume. That’s weird, too. Did she go out somewhere?

Shinobu follows him into the kitchen, looking like she wants to say something as he checks the microwave and punches in a cook time.

“How was work?” she finally asks.

“Fine.”

And again, as he’s scrounging around for silverware: “Did anything interesting happen?”

“I don’t know. It was work.” He doesn’t know what to say to her most of the time, and especially not now. He’s tired and he’s hungry and he’s been talking to people all day. Why is she here, anyways? What does she want from him?

Kosaku’s gaze meanders away from her face as he waits for the microwave to finish, towards the counter, then the floor, landing on a smear of dark grit streaked over a few tiles. There. That’s something they can talk about. “Honey?”

“Yes?”

“The floor’s getting pretty dirty. I think you should run the vacuum soon.”

Now she has that look on her face. That disappointed, contemptuous, slightly pissy expression that makes him want to crawl under a rock. He tries to backpedal as she storms out of the kitchen, slamming the door open hard enough to make it rattle it in its frame.

“You don’t have to-“

“No, I’ll do it now!” she shoots back. “That’s all I’m good for, right? Cleaning up your mess?”

Technically, it’s not his mess. He’s barely been home this week. But there’s no reasoning with her when she gets this way, so Kosaku takes his dinner to the table and tries to ignore the high whine of the vacuum cleaner and the thump of Shinobu banging furniture around.

What’s her problem? If he was falling behind at work, he’d want his boss to say something. She takes everything so personally.

His first bite floods his mouth with slimy, earthy bitterness, like he took a big mouthful of dirt. Kosaku winces, takes his napkin and spits, seeing for the first time the rubbery brown chop mixed into the rice and vegetables.

He’s told her so many times how much he doesn’t like mushrooms. Did she think he wouldn’t notice if she cut them up small?

She really is too much, sometimes.

---

Kira is awake, waiting for Shinobu when she finally comes to bed half an hour later than her usual. That’s suspicious. Most days she falls asleep first, forcing him to navigate the bedroom in total darkness when he’s done making his rounds.

She’s been acting off all day, quiet and withdrawn, and it’s making him nervous. He runs through every possible scenario, searching for reassurance that it isn’t something he’s done to tip her off to his identity. He hasn’t killed anyone. Their bills are being paid on time. She definitely hasn’t discovered the cat plant. He’s been watching her carefully, making sure she doesn’t have to go anywhere near the attic.

Unless she went up there while he was at work. She has so much time to poke around the house when he isn’t there to watch her. Raw, unabashed paranoia galvanizes his exhausted body into action, makes him touch her shoulder softly to gauge her reaction.

“Is everything alright?” he asks, keeping his voice low. Playing the role of a nice, normal husband.

“I think so. I’m just tired, I guess.”

She does sound tired, but it’s not enough to assuage his fears. Even when she reaches back to place her hand on top of his, it’s not enough. Kira tries to think of something to say, to distract her from whatever chain of thought she might be following that ends in his discovery.

“I saw on the calendar. It’s our anniversary tomorrow, isn’t it?”

She doesn’t respond.

“There’s a new Italian place I’ve heard good things about,” he continues, trying to sound confident. “I’ll get off work early and we can have a nice dinner out, just the two of us. How’s that sound?”

It’s the most boring, bog-standard way to celebrate an anniversary, but Kosaku was the most boring, bog-standard kind of person. Kira doesn’t know her well enough for a personal gift, and his usual way of doing things seems a tad unorthodox for the lifestyle he’s currently living. Italian food it is.

“I’d really like that,” Shinobu says. “Thank you.”

There. If she was suspicious, she wouldn’t be making dinner plans, would she? She wouldn’t sound so genuinely grateful. “I’ll make a reservation tomorrow.”

She squeezes his hand, hard, and Kira lets her, tactfully ignoring the soft sniffle that follows.

He really doesn’t get this woman.

#jojo's bizarre adventure #yoshikage kira #kirashino #shinobu kawajiri #kosaku kawajiri #still fighting with tumblr's bad bad text formatting... we will try this one unindented #also a big reward to anyone who figures out why shinobu is mysteriously grumpy in the second part. hopefully it's fairly obvious lol

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sinnful-darling · 9 months

Text

for anyone that is thinking of it, here’s a list of reasons why you should never overdose (or take your life in general, but this is centered around my experience with an overdose) :

below the cut- trigger warning for suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, experience with overdose.

first and foremost, and also the most important reason- there are people that love and care for you. even if you don’t feel like there are, there’s always someone who cares about you. even if it’s some random stranger on the internet. no matter how alone you might feel, there are always better days ahead. life is a cycle of good and bad, and sometimes we have spells of bad before things get good.

secondly, depending on what you overdose on, there are varying degrees of embarrassment and pain. when i overdosed, i overdosed on (go ahead, laugh at me) ibuprofen and tylenol. it was enough to make me black out for three days and i was pissing and the whole nine yards during that whole time. they had to put a piss pad under me to catch it. i’m pretty sure they also had to change my underwear. if that’s not reason enough, here are some more reasons.

when i finally woke up, i couldn’t hold anything down- not even water. i was dry heaving for another two days. now, if you haven’t ever done that, let me tell you. it was hell.

they had to put skin glue on my IV to make sure it stayed in because i was moving around so much that my skin got loose and the antidote started leaking. getting that skin glue off was painful.

also, if your liver fails, it’ll be a painful healing process.

now for some less serious reasons. what’s your favorite food? your favorite drink? if you die, you’ll never be able to taste that again.

you ever seen a really really pretty sunrise/sunset? yeah, you’ll never be able to witness that ever again.

do you have a pet? think about how sad they’ll be when they find out their friend is never coming back. “where’s ___? they were gonna play with me today.”

think about your younger family members. think about how your family would try to tell them that you’re gone. think about how sad they’d be. think about how you’ll never be able to see them again.

for those of you who are dealing with domestic violence, i’ll link a number down at the bottom. no matter what, your safety is priority. don’t feel guilty. 99% of the time, abusers don’t actually do what they threatened they were going to do.

for those of you who have a hard home life- think about how awesome it would be to live on your own or with your friends. really visualize it. a comfy bed, watching tv in the living room- wouldn’t that be cool? or think about what career you wanna go into. think about how much fun it’ll be to finally spend some money on yourself, and do something fun!

there are many, many more reasons, so feel free to reblog and add some. if you’re in a different country, please reblog and add the numbers for each of the ones listed below or anything you feel should be added.

NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE (USA) : 800-799-7233 or text START to 88788

NATIONAL SUICIDE HOTLINE (USA) : 988

You can also call 911 and report child abuse. They’ll send out an officer or two as well as child protective services.

NATIONAL SEXUAL ASSAULT HOTLINE : 1-800-656-4673

#tw suicide #tw sui attempt #tw sui ideation #tw sui talk #better days are coming #pls repost #pls reblog #spread this #mental health #depression #hang in there

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hannahssimblr · 7 months

Text

Chapter Thirteen

My mother calls me during a late morning walk down by the beach. My ankles are submerged in the salty sea water and I’m blissfully enjoying my alone time when my phone buzzes. I know who it is before I even take it out of my pocket, because nobody calls anybody anymore, only parents. I lift it to my ear, already feeling drained by the pending conversation before she says a word.

“Hello?”

“Hi Evie, I’m checking my emails here and I don’t see anything from your school yet.”

“School?” The word seems somehow abstract to me. It’s summer, I shouldn’t have to think about school, never mind its looming return date. There’s so much summer left to enjoy.

“Yes, it’s the first of August, usually they’ll have sent a booklist by now, but I don’t see anything in my emails yet.”

“Maybe they’ll send it later.”

“Can you check if they’ve sent it to you?”

“I’m not near a computer right now.”

I hear her sigh. “Well did they give you a list at the end of May? Is it buried in your school bag somewhere?”

“I dunno, maybe, you can check.”

“For God’s sake.” She mutters, and I feel like rolling my eyes. This is the last thing I want to think about.

“My bag is in my room somewhere. You can check under the desk maybe.”

“It’s like a tip in there.” She says, and I can hear her move around, opening my bedroom door and shuffling through my things.

“Mam, do we have to talk about this now?”

“Evelyn, I wish you could clean up your clothes off the floor. The cut of this room. I hope you’re not leaving the Healys’ mobile like this.”

“I’m not.” I lie. “I’m cleaning up my clothes.”

The beach around me is full of sunbathers and children, all merrilly enjoying their holidays, and I’m certain that none of them are thinking about school. It’s too early to be confronted with this, and I in fact haven’t even been watching TV. I’ve so far managed to avoid the cruelty of the back-to-school ads and live in blissful ignorance, pretending that the summer is endless and September does not loom ominously ahead of me.

In the distance there’s somebody running along the shore, and I absently wonder what kind of self-punishing idiot would do something like that in the heat of the day. In my ear my mother rifles through papers. “I can’t find any list.” She says. “Are you sure you got one?”

“I never said I got one.”

“Then why are you sending me on a wild goose chase?”

I sigh loudly. “You sent yourself on one. I don’t know what I need for school. I’m sure they’ll send the email with everything I’ll need soon.”

“Well, how’s your uniform?”

“There’s a hole in one of the elbows of my jumper.”

“And your skirt?”

“I think it’s fine.”

“Alright well I’m going into town later, I’m going to get a packet of white shirts and a new jumper. Anything else?”

I squeeze my eyes shut trying to think, but the prevailing thought is of how much I hate this conversation, it’s like mental exertion. “Black pens.” I manage. “And A4 notebooks.”

“What else?”

“Maybe some school socks.”

“Do you have a sharpener and eraser?”

“I think so.”

“You think?”

“Okay, will you check my pencil case and see? I can’t remember.” I hear her shuffling around some more and stare out at the sea, vacant little boats bobbing on the surface. The runner is getting closer to me, I can hear his feet distantly hitting the wet sand.

“Your eraser looks worse for wear.”

“Because I was stabbing it with my pencil.”

“I’ll get you a new one.”

“Thanks.”

“What about a lunchbox?”

“Mam…”

“Evie! I’m trying to make sure that you’re organised this year, and not leaving everything until the last minute as usual.”

“I know, I just, I think I have everything I need. I’ll check my emails when I’m home and see if I have the booklist. I just want to think about summer, not school.”

I hear her sigh. “I know, I’m trying my best. Do you know when you’re coming home?”

“Not really, sometime at the end of the month.”

“Well your first day is the 27th, so if you could arrange to be back before then…”

“I will, Shane is driving back for his debs a few days before that anyway, so I suppose we’ll all be coming with him.”

“Oh, very good. Does he have a date to the debs?”

“I don’t know, probably though. I don’t ask him about that kind of stuff.”

“Well do you think he’d ever ask you to go with him?” She’s insane. She’s been obsessed with this weird idea she has of me fancying Shane since I was at least twelve. I think I might have once, but only because he was the only boy I really knew. Now, I couldn’t imagine anything more mismatched, in fact, the idea of it sends a shiver down my spine.

“That’s not going to happen, I’m sure he’s going to go with someone who isn’t his little sister’s friend, mam.” I’m halfway through my sentence when I realise that I recognise the running man. He’s got dark brown hair, golden tanned skin and he’s wearing a green t-shirt that’s stuck to his body with sweat. It’s Jude. I immediately panic, believing nonsensically that him seeing me on the phone to my mother is the most embarrassing scenario imaginable and almost fling my Blackberry into the sea.

“Well, you never know.” She goes on. “Stranger things have happened.”

“Mhm, yeah absolutely” I start anxiously flailing and tucking my hair behind my ear, having no idea how good or bad I look. I’m horrified to see that Jude, even while sweaty and jogging towards me, is completely and utterly beautiful.

“Do you think he’d ever ask you on a date?”

“Hm, what? Shane? No. Never.”

“Ah it’s a shame. And how’s Kelly getting on?”

“Okay.”

“And Claire?”

“Fine. They’re fighting.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I have to go.” I hang up the phone just as Jude reaches me and he slows down, wiping sweat from his face with his upper arm and smiling a wide, white smile. “Hey Evie!”

“Oh hey! I didn’t know it was you!” I try my best to sound breezy and unbothered, even though I can’t stop conjuring up horrible images of how I must look in my head. I imagine myself at my absolute ugliest, nose pink and shiny, hair sticking up weirdly, simultaneously greasy and frizzy. I reach up to smooth it down, and it feels fine, but I can’t be sure.

“Just out for a walk?”

“Yeah, just enjoying the sun.”

“Same here. Hot, isn’t it? Sorry, I’m so sweaty.” He gestures to himself and I take it as permission to look at his body. I feel like I shouldn’t be allowed to look at him.

“I suppose that’s what happens when you go running in a heatwave.”

“I know, there’s no escaping it though, it’s just been hot all the time lately, even at night it’s the same so if I don’t get out and run when it’s hot I’ll never do it.” He nods towards the sea. “At least I can swim after it, and the water is so nice.”

“Yeah it’s lovely.” I agree. “I’ve been getting in three times a day.”

He nods and looks down at his shoes. A bead of sweat drips from a strand of his saturated hair down onto the sand and he shuffles side to side in a manner that seems impatient. He wipes his upper lip with the back of his wrist. “Hey, I’m sorry I didn’t… I didn’t um, text you after that night we went to the graveyard.”

I’m surprised so I laugh a little. “Oh, no, well I didn’t expect you to, like I wasn’t waiting for a message or anything, it’s fine.”

“I know, I just said that I would when I was free and I didn’t, I’ve been kind of distracted the last couple of weeks.”

“It’s okay, I understand! I get like that sometimes too.”

“I just have a bad habit of saying I’ll do something and then not doing it, like, I’m a flake. I hope you weren’t waiting to hear from me.”

“No way. I didn’t notice.” I say, even though I did. “Don’t worry, I honestly do that all the time, things just get in the way.”

“Well, if you want we can hang out now? Are you busy today?”

“No, I’m free.”

“Okay well, do you feel like a swim?”

“Right now?”

“Why not, yeah.”

I glance down at my shorts and t-shirt. “Oh, well I don’t have my togs with me at the moment.”

“Me neither I was going to go in naked.”

“Wha- oh, um, really?”

“No.” He grins and grabs the fabric of his shorts “I’ll just wear these, they kind of double up as running shorts. Look, you don’t have to if you don’t have anything to swim in, I just thought I’d ask. Maybe we can hang out later if you don’t have-”

“No!” I say with far too much frenzy. “Just give me a sec, I’ll run up to the mobile and grab my togs, just… just wait here.” I turn and I run away from him down the beach, my feet drumming hollowly on the sand as I go. It doesn’t take me long to get back to the caravan park, just up through the dunes, over a rough-hewn fence, between two overgrown hedges and onto a gravel path that leads all the way through a muddle of holiday homes towards ours. Then I dash up the deck steps and into my bedroom at the speed of light, the PVC doors slamming into the walls, hoping the whole time that Jude hasn’t given up waiting and gone swimming without me. I snatch the slightly damp bikini I wore this morning from the window where it was drying and wriggle quickly out of my clothes. Once my underwear has been ditched among the tangled mess of my sheets I get into my togs, tie the neoprene strings behind my neck and then within thirty seconds flat I am ready to complete another five-hundred metre dash.

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#sims #sims 4 #ts4 #simlit #sims 4 story #sims story #writing #fiction #romance #sims 4 storytelling #sims4 storytelling #sims storytelling #lucky girl part 1

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valentinesfrog · 1 year

Text

Little Tiger (pt. 2)

“There are my best girls.”

Casey blinks open her half asleep eyes at the sound of her wife’s voice as she enters their apartment. “Hey, babe,” Casey greets, voice hoarse. She clears her throat, and Veronica grumbles as the comfy chest where she’s been resting moves. “Mama’s home,” Casey murmurs to the girl. Veronica just mumbles and burrows further. “The little one’s having a bit of a rough day,” Casey says, rubbing Vera’s back.

Rita kicks off her heels and tuts quietly as she approaches the sofa. “Are we a little under the weather, sweetheart?” She murmurs, brushing Vera’s hair out of her face.

“She’s warm. Not feverish yet, but definitely a bit too warm.”

Rita places the back of her hand on the girl’s forehead, or as much as she can reach that isn’t hidden in Casey’s neck. “Did she eat?”

“Barely. She picked at the pizza, I convinced her to get down some applesauce.”

“Did you eat?”

“Hm?”

“You, my… my taller tiger. Did you eat?”

Casey blinks. “Your taller tiger?”

“Casey. Food.”

Casey sighs. “Sort of. She just wanted to be held, so I gave up on dinner and we ended up… here.”

‘Here’ is snuggled on the sofa, watching Moana on low volume.

“I’m going to get out of…” Rita gestures broadly at her clothes. “And then I’ll take the baby and you’ll eat some food. Got it?”

“You’ve been working all day…”

“All the more reason to snuggle my girl. And you’re looking a bit touched out.” Rita’s already moving for their bedroom.

Truth be told, Casey is feeling a little touched out, and when Rita returns in a band shirt and leggings Casey does not argue when she wraps Vera in her arms and gently tugs her away. Vera whines in protest at being pulled away from her mommy, but once she realizes who is lifting her she decides that it is an acceptable swap.

Casey stands and stretches, wandering back to the table where she grabs Vera’s abandoned plate of cut up pizza squares and half empty apple sauce cup to discard. She then returns to her plate to scarf down the rest of her now cold slice of pizza.

“What’s the show with the dogs?” Rita asks from the sofa as Moana finishes. “The tolerable ones? That aren’t public servants?”

“Uh,” is Casey’s intelligent reply.

“The— they’re Australian.”

“Bluey?”

“Yes, that, thank you. Disney plus?”

“Should be.”

The Bluey theme song seems to wake Veronica up a little bit, who has her dazed attention on the screen. Casey finishes her food and heats some up for Rita, leaving it on the end table of the couch before dropping into a chair across from them.

“You probably like this show more than she does,” Rita says in between bites of pizza and salad.

“Bluey is a great show,” Casey insists. “Fully deserving of its Emmy.”

“It won an Emmy?”

“I don’t appreciate how judgemental you sound of Bluey. Would you rather Paw Patrol?”

“Bingo!” Vera cheers quietly along with the song from Rita’s lap. Her normal enthusiasm sounds dampened, and it worries Casey slightly again. “Bluey!” She wiggles a little along to the music.

“Want a tomato, love?” Rita asks, spearing one with her plastic fork.

Vera considers, attention torn between the animated dogs and her mother. “Coo–cumber?” She eventually requests.

“You can have a cucumber,” Rita agrees, popping the tomato into her own mouth to grab a cucumber and feed it to Vera.

“Work okay?” Casey asks, now observing Rita and Vera more than the TV.

“Mhm. Though the SVU squad still seems to think I’m their enemy.”

Casey smiles. “Give them some time, they’ll come along.” Sometime after Veronica’s adoption Rita had a bit of a crisis of conscience, because ‘Everybody’s entitled to the best defense they can afford’ didn’t hold the same weight when you realized the powerful man you got off a rape charge on a technicality would be walking the same streets as your little girl.

With Casey’s enthusiastic (and not–so–secretly very relieved) support, Rita had made the switch to immigration law with the occasional pro–bono defense.

“I’m helping their witness stay in the country, you’d think they’d relax a bit,” Rita complained, before swallowing an olive. “And I’ve defended their squad before.”

“Liv still has it out for Langan, and he defended her. Don’t take it personally.”

“I do enough favors for Barba and maybe they’ll chill out,” Rita mutters.

“Bingo,” Veronica says again, reaching for Rita’s salad. Rita feeds her another cucumber.

“Bluey,” Casey finishes the song as Vera’s mouth is full.

“Bedtime,” Rita mimics, pushing away her salad and kissing Vera on the cheek.

— — — If you'd like to continue on AO3 :) — — —

“‘Nother,” Vera sleepily demands.

“I think that’s enough for tonight,” Casey says with an amused smile, shutting the picture book.

“Please?” Vera asks with big, pouty eyes and Casey defaults to Rita because there’s no way she can say ‘No’ to those eyes, so may as well leave it to the expert.

Casey is convinced that if you didn’t know Veronica was adopted, you’d think she is biologically Rita’s from her facial expressions alone. Rita and Veronica both know that they can get Casey to do practically anything by giving her doe eyes. They both have the same devious smile they get when they’re plotting something particularly nefarious (Rita: legal loophole. Vera: Sneaky cookie heist.) And (Casey’s personal favorite) they both get the same grumpy little scowl when things aren’t going their way. It’s the cutest thing in the world, but Casey can never tell Rita that, because Rita would probably bite her.

“Mommy and I have unionized,” Rita states, taking Casey’s spot on the bed. “Our contract reads one bedtime story per night, two on birthdays.”

Vera takes a moment to process that, blinking blearily, before asking, “Lull-bye?”

“Lullaby,” Rita agrees. Casey hangs back and leans against the door, listening to Rita quietly sing in Portuguese, feeling rather doze-y herself. Rita’s voice is soft, and low, and this is the only way Casey can ever hear her sing since she refuses to in any other circumstance.

Vera is fast asleep very quickly, and Rita leans in to kiss her forehead— and Tiger’s, of course— with a whispered, “Goodnight, my little tiger.”

She steps back so Casey can swoop in with a “Sweet dreams, babygirl.”

Rita shuts the door quietly behind them. “If she doesn’t sleep the temperature off, I’ll work from home tomorrow and call the doctor,” she says. “You have office hours, right?”

“Mhm.” Casey wraps her arms around Rita and rests her chin on her shoulder. “Hi.”

“Hello there.”

“I missed you.”

Rita rolls her eyes fondly. “You ran into me in the middle of the day.”

“I did. And then I had to take care of the resulting tears that came when Vera realized Mama wasn’t coming with us. She made some very convincing arguments about why you should’ve come home early, I think I missed you more than she did by the end.”

“That was probably because you were dealing with a sick and overtired toddler, dear.”

“That might have had something to do with it.” Casey pulls back to kiss her sweetly. “But can’t I just miss my wife for the hell of it?”

“Flatterer.” Rita rolls her shoulders and relaxes. “Have any student gossip for me?”

“Oh, do I,” Casey groans and Rita laughs, taking her hand to pull her to the bedroom.

— — — — — —

Casey jolts awake, Rita already slipping out of the bed, to the sound of wailing. She quickly follows her wife to Vera’s bedroom.

“Oh dear,” Rita murmurs as she reaches into the bed to pick up a crying Veronica. “Oh, I think there’s been a little accident. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Casey tugs the sheets of the bed and bundles them to throw in the wash, grabbing some fresh pajamas and following Rita into the bathroom.

Rita had gotten a still crying (but no longer wailing, thank God) Vera cleaned up and into a pull–up by the time Casey enters, and they switch spots so Casey can get Vera dressed into new pajamas and perched on the counter, stuffed tiger beside her. Rita rummages through the cabinet for children’s Tylenol.

“Alright, my little tiger,” Rita says soothingly, brushing the tears off of Veronica’s cheeks as she sniffles. “You have a temperature, but this will help you feel better, okay?”

Vera whines and shakes her head. “Mommy,” she says pleadingly, making big eyes at Casey in hopes that she’ll swoop in and rescue her from having to take her medicine.

“Sorry, kid,” Casey says apologetically. “I’m with Mama on this one.” She leans over to take the spoon from Rita, and they switch spots, Rita slipping out the bathroom door. Casey hears the microwave start up a moment later.

Rita may be able to convince a jury of practically anything, but nobody can convince a stubborn toddler to do something they don’t want to do like Casey can. She thinks it comes from years of being surrounded by kids— brothers, nieces, nephews, coaching, camp counseling. She has a very refined skill set.

“Okay, baby,” Casey murmurs, crouching in front of where Vera’s perched on the counter. “Can you tell me what doesn’t feel good?”

Vera’s bottom lip is quivering and she’s very close to crying again, but she’s making a clear effort to hold back the tears. “Not sick.”

“Not sick?” Casey gently prompts when Vera doesn’t continue.

“I don’ wan’ medicine. Not sick,” Vera repeats, crossing her arms.

Casey thinks back to the few times Rita insisted vehemently that she doesn’t get sick, pushing through to work until Rafael physically dragged her home after she collapsed or fell asleep at her desk.

She decides she needs to have a discussion with her wife about modeling self care.

“Then why were you crying, sweetheart?” Casey asks. Vera clearly has a fever, but she really needs to coax the girl into telling her what’s wrong. She’s not throwing up— thank God— and she’s not coughing either. But that just leaves Casey scrambling for answers.

Vera looks rather lost for an answer to that, rubbing her eyes. “Tiger feels yucky,” she finally landed on. “Tiger had a— a bad dream.”

“I see.” Casey nods sagely. “Tiger must have been really scared.”

Vera nods quickly. “I was so bwave, though,” she informs her, and Casey feels her heart explode with love and protective urges and all the maternal instinct she had been scared she might not have, until she held her little girl in her arms for the first time and realized oh, shit, that’s what it feels like to love something more than anything in the entire universe.

“I bet you were,” Casey murmurs, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Sometimes feeling yucky can make us have bad dreams,” She adds. “Can you show me where Tiger feels icky?”

Veronica nods again, pulling Tiger to her lap. She pats his head.

“Tiger’s head hurts?” Casey clarifies. “Does Tiger hurt anywhere else?”

Vera hiccups a little, her breath shuddering as she points at Tiger’s throat.

No coughing, no sneezing, sore throat. This was looking like strep, in Casey’s opinion, which meant antibiotics and another fun week of convincing a toddler to take her medicine.

“Okay. Let me consult with Tiger for a moment,” Casey says, picking up Tiger and earning a giggle through Vera’s tears. Casey nods and ‘mhm’s very seriously as the tiger ‘speaks’ in her ear. At some point she starts feeling eyes on her back. She knows Rita is standing just outside the door, watching amusedly but not entering in hopes of not breaking Casey’s little routine.

“Thank you, Tiger,” Casey says, putting him down on the counter. “Vera, Tiger’s a bit sick, and he has to take some medicine to help make his head and throat feel better. But— I have a secret.” Casey gestures Vera to lean in and drops her voice to a whisper. “Tiger’s a little bit afraid of taking his medicine.”

Veronica looks up at her, wide eyed, then to Tiger, then back to her mommy.

“I think Tiger needs a little help being brave,” Casey starts, then feigns having a brilliant idea. “Since you’re my brave girl, do you think you could take the medicine with him? To show Tiger how to be brave?”

Vera hesitates. “Tiger feel better?” She eventually asks.

“Yeah, baby, you’ll help Tiger feel much better.”

“I help Tiger feel better,” Vera says decisively, reaching to grab at the spoon.

Casey laughs. “Woah there, Ronnie Rabbit, let Mommy measure the medicine.” She pours out the purple liquid into the measuring spoon, holding it out so Veronica can open her mouth and have it tipped in to swallow. Vera then holds out her tiger, waiting, and Casey pretends to pour a little more of the medicine into the spoon to ‘feed’ him.

She thinks if you told her five years ago that she’d soon be feeding a stuffed tiger children’s Tylenol in the middle of the night, she would’ve called you crazy.

“All better,” Vera says, hugging the stuffed animal close. “Tiger’s so bwave.”

“That’s right, darling. You and Tiger are both very brave.” Casey feels Rita slip in behind her, holding a sippy cup. Veronica had outgrown sippy cups fairly quickly, but the poor girl is shivering, and Casey assumes that Rita’s preemptively avoiding spillage. “This tastes better than the medicine,” Rita promises, handing her the cup. “It’s apples and honey, it will feel very good for your throat.”

Vera takes the cup by its handles and starts sipping on the straw, observing her mothers with wide eyes as Casey leans back against the wall and Rita steps up on her toes a little to whisper, “You’re a miracle worker.”

“I know,” Casey murmurs back, wrapping an arm around her waist and pressing a kiss to the top of her head, which makes Vera giggle.

“Getting sleepy again, baby?” Casey asks Veronica, who’s back to rubbing her eyes with the hand not holding the sippy cup.

“Cuddle?” Vera requests, and how can Casey say no to that? She gathers the girl up in her arms, Rita swooping in to grab Tiger before he could fall when Vera lets go to wrap her arms around Casey’s neck.

“Bedtime, little one,” Casey murmurs, nudging the door open to bring her to the bedroom.

Rita climbs into the bed behind Vera, snuggling up to wrap her arms around her. “She still warm?” She asks, already drowsy again.

Casey presses her lips to the girl’s forehead. “Not as bad.”

“Mhm,” Rita hums. “I’ll make an appointment for the morning.”

“We’re both gonna get strep, aren’t we,” Casey mumbles.

“I don’t get sick.”

“Sure, baby.”

Rita shoots Casey an unimpressed look from above Veronica’s head, reaching around to detach Vera’s thumb from her mouth. Vera sleepily whines in protest, but grabs at random until she’s clutching at Casey’s shirt, which seems to soothe her equally as well.

“You alright?” Rita asks after a moment, when Casey doesn’t close her eyes to try to sleep.

“She’s so tiny,” Casey whispers, somewhat in awe but also mildly terrified. “She’s so small, and so good— but the world is so big and can be so awful…”

“Visiting SVU again freaked you out?”

“A little.”

“She has two parents who love her to the ends of the Earth, grandparents and an honorary abuelita that would sell their soul for her, and now that she’s met Benson, she has the entirety of the NYPD at her back. I think I trust that woman with our kid more than anyone.”

Casey sighs. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.”

But all she can do is gaze at that tiny little hand, holding onto her shirt like her life depends on it, Tiger tucked between them, one of Rita’s arms protectively over Vera’s waist.

“Casey,” Rita whispers. “She’s going to be fine. She’s going to be amazing.”

“I know.”

“Then go to sleep.”

“I love you,” Casey says instead. “I love the two of you more than anything.”

“I know,” Rita parrots back at her teasingly. But then, “I love you too.”

“Goodnight,” Casey murmurs, finally easing into the mattress. “And sweet dreams, my little tiger,” she adds to an already fast asleep Veronica.

#calvak #rita calhoun #casey novak #svu fic

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jianghuchild · 5 months

Text

In The Wind

I wrote this story a couple years ago, as a response to my anxieties about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the pandemic, and the idea that lifelong separation often disguises itself as something much more trivial.

I was angry with you that night, the last night we would ever see each other. You’d forgotten to take out the trash again. The house was a mess, and the twins were bouncing off the walls.

“How many times do I have to say this?” I told you, voice stringent. “I can’t put my foot down anywhere. Look at this.” I picked up the papers strewn across the dining table and slapped them back down. I kicked at the cardboard boxes blocking the hallway. “And this. Malachi, take that out of your mouth. Mara, watch your brother.”

“Gonna see gramma, gonna see gramma,” the kids chanted, either gleefully oblivious to my ire or purposefully ignorant.

“It’s fine,” you said, flapping a hand at me. “I’ll clean it when we get back.”

My annoyance simmered all night and flared to new life the next morning. The wind was so strong it almost blew us apart and I just managed to wrangle the kids into the airport’s stillness. I watched you pat your jacket, a look of infuriating innocence on your face.

“Where’s my passport…” you mumbled. The PA system chimed and announced that our flight was boarding. And here we were, stuck at check-in. You looked up, apology in your eyes. “You take the kids. I’ll catch the next flight.”

Looking back, I imagine that I felt a prickle of unease go down my spine. But maybe it was just the last vestiges of my frustration. Should I have stayed?

No, I would have said, It’s alright. We’ll go home together.

But the kids twisted in my sweaty hands and annoyance made tangled knots of my thoughts and if truth be shamefully told I wanted to punish you. And, not so shamefully, I am glad for my selfishness because it took the kids with me.

“Let’s go,” was what I really said, tugging on their hands. “Your father will catch up.” Mara turned to look back at you curiously. I gave her a gentle tug. “Come on. Time to go see gramma.”

Did you know what would happen? Sometimes, when I am desperate for poetry, when I am hungry for some sense to the closed borders and gas shortages, I imagine that you must have. I imagine that you knew the airlines would shut down and we could no longer stay in the country and that you made some great sacrifice to push us to safety. I imagine I am the ill-fated heroine in a tragic play, watching the threads unravel into my inevitable epilogue.

But I am weaving story where it doesn’t exist. Because of course you didn’t know. How could any of us know, if even the presidents and prime ministers did not?

You’ll be glad to know I watch the news now. I don’t do it like you did, with a rice bowl in your left hand and a foot propped up on the edge of your chair. I do it sitting straight, fingers stilled on my chopsticks and a mug half-raised to my lips.

And sometimes I don’t, because sometimes a man with blue eyes in a windless mansion drools false sympathy into the TV.

“I hear what you’re saying, Sarah, I do,” he lies, and says words like “collateral damage” and “economic recession.”

Malachi asked me when we could go home, some months or weeks after we left. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this was home. I stroked his nose with my knuckle and smiled.

“Well, the airplanes are very tired.” He swung his legs in his seat. I glanced at his clumsy letters. “But planes like boys who work hard, so if you do well in school maybe they’ll make you an exception.”

I refused to feel guilty for the lie. We all need some false hope.

My mother and I watch the news together, sometimes. That man, Jared Thompson or Karl Cobbler or whatever his name is. (I know the news anchor’s name, but I am trying to make a point.) The blue-eyed man smiles genially from his tall ivory office.

“He reminds me of someone,” says my mother. “We didn’t have TV back then.”

She takes my hand in hers. I trace her finger, slightly bent at the same angle as mine. I’m startled to find I have callouses in the same places she does. The air is heavy, so I grab a cracked banana leaf fan and fan us both. The weight in my chest does not lift.

Mara lost her temper once. (More than once, but I am telling this story so it makes sense. At least in my head, I need this to make sense.) I took her to get the E string on her half-size violin replaced, and she wouldn’t get out of the car.

“Dad will fix it,” she said.

No, he won’t, I tried to say, but the words stuck like a fishbone in my throat.

“Of course he will,” I said instead, “but in the meantime you still want to play it, don’t you?” I perched on the cracked leather of the backseat and reached for her hand. She jerked it away, tucking her toy into her armpit.

“Dad will fix it,” she said again.

My own string snapped with a sting. I grabbed Mara’s tiny elbow and tugged. She shrieked. I yanked harder, but she scrabbled against the flaking leather and kicked her Skechers in my face.

“Fine!” I snapped, red face and wind-tossed hair giving the impression of a smoking fire. I slammed the back door and jerked myself into the driver’s seat, muttering all the way. “You want to play with a broken toy, you do that. I drive all this way, waste precious gas, you little ingrate—” The seatbelt jerked to a stop in my impatient hands and I resisted the urge to tear it to shreds.

Mara cradled her broken violin in her skinny arms. When we got home, I rested my forehead against the steering wheel until my mother coaxed me out of the car.

I’m a light sleeper. I bar the windows so the night wind will not wake me. I always got annoyed with you for opening the bedroom windows. Now, alone in my bed, the air stagnant as a dead summer, I pretend I am arguing with you. In my mind you slide the windows open and I grumble as the draft slides cold fingers down my arms.

“You’ll swallow the sky and float away in your sleep,” I mumble.

“A little breeze is good,” you say. You wrap your furnace of a body around mine. “The wind will carry me to you.”

My eyes snap open. The sheets are cold and the air is still. I turn on my side. The windows in this house aren’t the sliding glass kind like we used to have. They’re shutters that swing open like doors, bolted from the inside.

Eventually I tire of watching the news. When the blue-eyed man says words like “our heroes” and “liberation,” I stand at the door and watch the dirt road like a forlorn girl in one of those romances. Your silhouette never breaks through the dust. The road throws up eddies of dirt but the wind is aimless and smells of spider lilies. (I don’t know what spider lilies smell like.)

Malachi graduates middle school at the top of his class. Mara plays the cello and learns to change her own strings. They track airlines and ticket prices on our beat-up desktop computer and close the tab when they catch me watching. Some borders open, but not all, not yet.

Maybe not ever, no one says.

The night you return is the night I know you will never return. Papers are strewn across the table and cardboard boxes clutter the cramped halls. I startle awake on the worn couch with Malachi’s jacket around my shoulders. Mara is playing a rendition of Baikal Lake, but that isn’t what woke me. I sit up. Malachi’s jacket slides into my lap. I turn around.

A wind has blown the window open, warm despite the autumn night.

#m's writing shenanigans #short story #in the wind #international conflict #global anxiety #separation #grief #idk how to tag this

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leosabi · 1 year

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devils and angels

in which leo and wasabi are the devils on their own shoulders and the angels on each other's.

word count: 2.5k

CW: intrusive/obsessive thoughts, self destructive behavior (skin picking, repetitive hand washing, not taking meds when needed), food problems/disordered eating, self hate/self esteem issues, vague mentions of past abuse/bullying, suggestive content

☯

The little devil on Leo’s shoulder says:

pick at your skin

pick at it now

scratch until you bleed

nothing else will satisfy you

do it

And little devils are very hard to resist.

So in the low light of the living room, with their TV playing a documentary about African elephants, Leo reaches to scratch his nails across a cluster of nearly-healed scabs on his arm.

But an angel, bright as the fullest moon, swoops to his rescue: speaking a gentle “Hey, don’t do that,” and grabbing his hand.

The angel’s hand is big and warm. He intertwines their fingers together, locking Leo’s nails far away from the scabs. When he gets fidgety, the little devil screaming in his ear, the angel tells Leo to play with his fingers, instead.

Elephants can have post-traumatic stress disorder, the TV tells them.

Leo says “Hey, just like me.”

And the angel says “You’re too tiny to be an elephant. But you’re definitely as adorable as one.”

☯

The little devil on Wasabi’s shoulder says:

wash your hands again

you didn’t wash them well enough

you’re going to get sick

you’re going to get your loved ones sick

do it

And little devils are very hard to resist.

So in the single-stall restroom of the Lucky Cat Café, gentle music playing over a speaker in the ceiling, adorable framed pictures of cats littering the walls, Wasabi gives his hands another dose of foaming soap and starts washing them again—for the fifth time.

But an angel, bright as the summer sun, swoops to his rescue: a gentle knock on the door, and a timidly spoken “Hey hon, are you alright?”

When he doesn’t respond, the angel tries the handle. It’s locked. “Do I need to get Cass to unlock this for me?”

Wasabi finishes washing his hands (for the fifth time), unlocks the door, and starts all over again; the handle is surely absolutely coated in bacteria.

The angel tries the handle again. He walks in, a little wobbly on his crutches, and leans against the wall. “Twenty seconds,” he says. “One, two, three…”

When he gets to twenty, the angel shuts off the water. He leans his crutches against the sink and gently, so gently, helps Wasabi dry his hands.

It was only six times, but they sting.

“We’re going to go home, okay?” The angel says. He tosses the paper towels in the trash can and fishes a little bottle of apple-scented lotion out of his hoodie pocket. “You can drive if you’re up for it, but know that I don’t think you should.”

The angel puts a dollop of lotion on Wasabi’s hands and gently, so gently, helps him rub it in.

The stinging lessens.

The angel gestures with his head at one of the cats on the wall. “Did you know that cats can have cleanliness-focused OCD? They’ll lick their fur obsessively. Sometimes until it starts coming off.”

“Kinda like me,” Wasabi mumbles.

“My big cat,” the angel smiles.

☯

The little devil on Leo’s shoulder says:

you don’t deserve to eat

you didn’t do anything all day

you don’t feel hungry anyway

making food takes so much energy

it’ll be fine

And little devils are very hard to resist.

So Leo drifts off to sleep, taking his afternoon nap with no lunch. And when he wakes, it’s long past dinnertime.

His moon-bright angel is standing in the doorway, superhero suit still donned. He must’ve had a detour on the way home.

“Hey,” the angel says, “have a nice nap?”

“Mm, kinda,” Leo says. “Didn’t take my afternoon meds.”

“Forgot?” The angel asks.

“No. I didn’t eat,” Leo confesses, sheepish. The angel frowns deeply. “I’ll get sick if I take them without eating.”

“I know,” the angel says. “I’m gonna get you some food, okay? And then you’re gonna take them before bed. Deal?”

Leo nods. The angel smiles, a little bit sadly, and leaves to go make him a meal. Leo doesn’t have to worry about it being something he won’t like; his angel knows him very, very well.

Even though it’s only twenty minutes, Leo misses him.

The angel—his armor gone, replaced by a t-shirt—returns with a plate of food and carefully coaxes Leo into eating the whole thing.

“You know you need to eat,” the angel says.

“I know,” Leo replies. “Sometimes I’m just not hungry.”

“And sometimes you are,” the angel continues, “and you don’t eat anyway.”

“I know,” Leo says. “I’m sorry.”

“Text me, next time,” the angel says. “I’ll drop everything and come home to make you something.”

Leo snorts a laugh.

“I’m serious,” the angel says, and somehow, Leo knows he is.

☯

The little devil on Wasabi’s shoulder says:

don’t take your meds yet

it might not even be an aura

you might have to suffer the side effects for nothing

you haven’t had a migraine in months

it’ll be fine

And little devils are very hard to resist.

So Wasabi braves his classes through the aura—and it is an aura, he’s sure of it now. Light hurts. Sounds hurt.

The bottle of pills sits untouched in his bag.

He probably shouldn’t be driving at all, but he’d rather risk it than ask GoGo. He arrives home with a full-blown migraine and winces when the door shuts behind him.

His sun-bright angel is sitting, sprawled out, on his armchair in the living room. “You didn’t text me back,” he says.

“Didn’t see that you texted me,” Wasabi mumbles. He’d put his phone on silent and refused to look at it—the screen hurt. “Sorry.”

“Oh,” his angel says, aware immediately that something is wrong. “Are you okay?”

Wasabi shakes his head and heads down the hall to their room, still wearing his shoes and jacket. He lies, face-down, on the bed.

His angel follows.

“Bad day?”

Wasabi can’t stop his flinch—even his angel’s voice hits his eardrums like an explosion. “No,” he says.

“Sensory overload?” His angel asks, whispering this time. The noise still hurts.

“No,” Wasabi answers.

“Oh,” his angel says. “Migraine?”

“Yes,” Wasabi hisses. “Leo—“ he chokes uselessly.

“Shh,” his angel shushes. The light in the room is suddenly gone, the curtains closed. “Did you take your meds?”

“No,” Wasabi says guiltily. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’ll take them now, and you’ll rest, and it’ll all be okay.”

The angel fetches his pills, some iced tea, and their essential oil diffuser. He coaxes Wasabi into swallowing his medication, sets up the diffuser, and covers him in their weighted blanket.

Wasabi rests, with one of his angel’s hands gently rubbing his back.

☯

The little devil on Leo’s shoulder says:

you aren’t loved

they’re all pretending

nobody likes talking to you

they don’t know how to tell you that they want you gone

everyone hates you

And little devils are very hard to resist.

Leo smiles and laughs at the movie they’re all watching, but tries to keep his comments to a minimum. He’s a misfit among misfits—he’s the only non-superhero here, and even Fred hangs out at SFIT, despite not being a student.

Wasabi is next to him, their thighs pressed together. Leo would love to grab his hand, sit on his lap, kiss him senseless instead of watching the movie; but Wasabi doesn’t want that. Wasabi can’t want that. It would be annoying and out of place.

After the movie is over and goodbyes are said, they make to leave.

Wasabi sits in the driver’s seat of his car, but doesn’t start it. “Are you okay?”

Leo fidgets nervously. “Dunno,” he mumbles. “Kinda. Just bad thoughts.”

“Should I hold your hands?” Wasabi asks. “I’ll sit here as long as we have to. I need you to be safe, okay?”

“No, not my hands,” Leo says. “I just feel annoying, a-and, unlovable.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Wasabi breathes. “You know that’s not true.”

Leo thinks about the people who didn’t love him. The people who said they loved him and lied. The people who said they loved him and had damn funny ways of showing it.

“No,” Leo says. “I don’t know that.”

Wasabi seems to deflate, heartbreak clear in his eyes, and Leo only feels worse; he never, ever wants to make anyone upset, least of all his angel.

“Maybe,” Wasabi begins, his lips a little clumsy around his phrasing in the beginning, “maybe there are people out there who find you annoying. Maybe there are people out there who will never love you. But everyone here?” He gestures to Fred’s house behind them, “they love you. They talk about you when you’re not there—good things only, I promise. They worry when I tell them about your health. They save movies for other nights just because they know you’ll want to watch them with us.”

“Oh,” Leo says dumbly.

“And I love you more than anything,” Wasabi continues. “More than anything in the world. More than anything in this universe or beyond it. That’s what this is for,” he holds up his ring finger, the titanium wedding ring glinting in the streetlight. “And this,” he thumps his chest, right where his tattoo is. The one that matches Leo’s.

“I-I’m sorry,” Leo stammers. He absently touches his own chest, over his heart, where his own tattoo is embedded into his skin. “I know. I know, I swear, and I love you too. I just get so worried—“

“Shh,” Wasabi shushes. “It’s okay. I would spend the rest of my life reassuring you nonstop if that’s what it took.”

“I know you would,” Leo says. He runs a hand through his hair, self-soothing with the texture. “Gods, I don’t deserve you. I absolutely do not deserve you.”

Wasabi knows better than to start an argument. “Either way,” he says, voice low, “I’m still here, and I still love you.”

“You’re my angel. You’re an angel,” Leo muses.

“Can I kiss you?” Wasabi asks in response.

They make out in the car until Heathcliff catches them—he was worried they might be having car trouble when he saw them still parked outside. Thoroughly embarrassed, they drive off into the night.

☯

The little devil on Wasabi’s shoulder says:

you aren’t loved

they’re all pretending

nobody likes talking to you

they don’t know how to tell you that they want you gone

everyone hates you

And little devils are very hard to resist.

They’re at the mall. They’re at the mall and they’re on a date and can’t Wasabi just have a day off?

Wasabi takes out his phone, summons Skymax, and shoots a text to GoGo, because they’re at the mall on a date and Baron Von Steamer has picked today to cause a scene.

“I’m so sorry,” Wasabi apologizes. He looks around for somewhere he can change. There’s a clothing store nearby—dressing rooms!

“It’s okay,” Leo says, already angling his wheels to get the hell out of there. “Go on, angel. San Fransokyo needs you!”

You need me, Wasabi doesn’t say. I bet you hate me when I do this to you.

He’s antsy and distracted for the whole fight. Hiro and GoGo are mad at him, he knows. Honey teases him, but it sounds pitying. Fred just wants him to focus—which feels ironic, but he’s not gonna point it out.

He doesn’t know where Leo is. Far away, he hopes. At least he’s got his wheelchair. He’s probably faster than most supervillains in that thing, when he really gets going.

Wasabi can’t shake the feeling that everyone hates him today.

Leo, because he left. Big Hero 6, because he was distracted. Leo, because his life is torn. The others, because his life is torn.

Wasabi is a superhero. Wasabi is a scientist. Wasabi is a husband, to a person who needs a lot of extra care even on a good day. Wasabi is mentally ill and probably horrible to be around. Wasabi is…

“Hey, angel,” Leo says, a hand on his arm.

The tabloids will love this. Leo in his wheelchair, Wasabi in his superhero suit; identity still unknown, but by the gods, the whole world knows who he’s married to.

“Let’s go,” Wasabi says, adrenaline making him jittery. “Let’s go home. Please.”

They leave. Leo sits in the driver’s seat of Wasabi’s car, this time. He’s getting very good at driving, but Wasabi knows this isn’t gonna help his adrenaline levels.

Leo doesn’t start the car.

“Are you okay?” He asks.

“Fine,” Wasabi lies.

“No,” Leo says. “You aren’t. Be honest with me.”

“I think you must hate me,” Wasabi blurts. “I think everyone hates me today.”

“Why?” Leo asks, bewildered, like no one could ever hate Wasabi. But that’s not true. Plenty of people have hated him. Plenty of people now, plenty of people in his past. “Because…why? Because you helped stop a supervillain from destroying the mall?”

“Because I left you alone,” Wasabi explains. “Because I’m an anxious wreck of a person, even though I’m meant to be a superhero.”

“Oh, hey, shh,” Leo soothes, reaching out a hand towards him. Wasabi takes it and squeezes. “I don’t fault you for leaving. I might’ve been angry if you didn’t. Besides, your armor is sexy.”

Wasabi snorts a half-laugh.

“I mean it!” Leo says. “If you’re feeling okay when we get home I might just have to take you to bed while it’s still on.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Wasabi says.

“You love me.”

“I do.”

“And I love you,” Leo continues. “I can’t hate you. I could never, ever hate you. It’s against my nature. My soul is intertwined with yours, in every universe. Even in some alternate universe where I’m a real lemur and you’re a real angel, I think I would still love you, even if I didn’t quite know it.”

“Y’know,” Wasabi says, quiet, “you say I’m your angel. But I think you’re mine, too.”

“No,” Leo says. “If I’m anything with wings, I’m a faerie.”

“That’s not quite what I meant,” Wasabi says. “I just meant…you’re my light in the dark. You swoop in and pull me out of my own personal hells. You’re…you’re radiant, and gorgeous, and a work of art—“

Leo laughs. “Well, thanks,” he says. “How could anyone hate someone so thoughtful like you? You’re so incredibly kind and selfless. You care for me like no one else ever has. You saved a lot of people today, just out of the goodness of your heart. You are not hated. You are loved. Even people who have never met you love you.”

“Mm. Okay,” Wasabi says, squeezing Leo’s hand again. “My anxiety still isn’t convinced, but I don’t have any counter arguments.”

“Good enough for me,” Leo says. “Kiss?”

They keep their kissing brief, fearful of being caught in such a public space.

Leo drives them home, Wasabi wringing his hands nervously at every turn.

He collapses on the bed, still in his armor, the moment they arrive. He doesn’t take up Leo’s offer, no matter how tempting it might be—he’s far too tired for any sort of bedroom shenanigans.

But regardless, Leo carefully helps him out of his armor and into something more comfortable.

Then they climb into bed together and sleep (just sleep, nothing else).

In their dreams, they have wings.

#big hero 6 #leosabi #bh6 #self shipping #self ship #bh6 wasabi #fanfiction #i meant to post this...OVER a week ago

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jodilin65 · 37 years

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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1987 Tonight’s New Year’s Eve. Another year has gone by.

I woke up early and straightened up a bit. I changed the pig’s cage. They’ll need more food and sawdust today. I think I’ll buy them cedarwood. It lasts longer and smells good. I’ll be gone 10 days so it has to last. Crystal will feed them and give them water while I’m gone.

Speaking of Crystal, she is one hell of a good roommate. I only wish she was a little neater.

Kevin is supposed to drive Crystal and I down to Salem to see Tammy, but Crystal never came home last night. She’s probably with her abusive boyfriend, Mike.

We have a lot of fun together, Crystal and me. Last night she said, “I feel like I’ve known you for years.” I feel that way too. I just hope to hell she shows up to go to Tammy’s. I have a feeling she’ll forget. Maybe I’ll just go with Kevin, although I really want Crystal to go, too.

I wonder if 1988 will be my lucky year. I know, however, that this is the year I am going to hear out of both ears.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1987 Crystal has finally moved in. She just finished unpacking. We met at Dunkin’ Donuts and got to discussing my wanting a roommate.

Now she’s singing. Personally, I think Crystal has just about the worse voice I’ve ever heard.

I spoke to Jenny today. It’s her 23rd birthday. She told me of all the gifts she got from her family and friends.

I tried to get a hold of Mary and there was no answer. She’s just as hard to get a hold of as Emily is.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19, 1987 At about 3:00, I went and did my laundry at the X, then came home at 6:00 and called Dad. He took me out to dinner at 7:00, then when he brought me home he came up here for about half an hour or so. I played Love Me Tender on the keyboard for him and made him coffee.

He weighed himself on my scale and said that it was definitely accurate and that there was no way I could possibly weigh 121 pounds. Then when I stepped on it, it said I was 111.

The people here are so noisy. I think I hear a garbage disposal running now.

Took a bath tonight, never straightening my hair. It looks ridiculous. Very curly.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1987 I'm currently waiting to see the therapist. My dad picked me up earlier today to exchange some pants I received as a Hanukkah gift at the mall. I've noticed my weight has increased and I now weigh 121 pounds. Last night, I had a great time at Tammy's. She, Bill, and their daughters gifted me a sleep shirt for my upcoming Florida trip. Additionally, my parents gave me socks, underwear, a comfy sweatshirt dress, a purse, earrings, a watch, a bracelet, a miniskirt with a matching shirt, two pairs of pants, a coat, gloves, and a scarf.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1987 Looks like I'll be pulling another all-nighter. My body always seems to prefer sleeping during the day instead of at night. Fran and Kevin came over earlier, and we watched a movie that was just average. Nothing too exciting. Tomorrow, I have plans to meet Jenny at Springfield Municipal Hospital where she works at 3:30. She's helping me with my grocery shopping, and I'll be giving her around 30 paperback books that I no longer want.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1987 Last night I fell asleep at sometime around 11:00. I woke up at 5:00 this morning. No noise woke me up. I just for some reason automatically woke up. Who knows why, but on weekdays when I have errands to do it seems I sleep all day, but on the weekend what do I do when there’s nothing to wake up for? Get up at 5am.

Hank from downstairs was up here twice today visiting. Once I asked him to come and look at the black and white TV. He says the transistors are gone.

Then he called up to me while I was dusting the bedroom from his bedroom asking me for aspirin.

Tomorrow or Monday I must get my Hanukkah cards and get my Christmas cards ready to go out in the mail. I also must mail Jo’s b-day card in a few days, too.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1987 Last night I didn’t get to sleep until about 6am. Today I slept till 1pm, got up, put up with the nervous bastard for a while then went to therapy. Next week is my last week with Trisha.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1987 I am currently at Dunkin Donuts and have had two cups of coffee, but nothing to eat. I have successfully lost three pounds. However, I have not consumed any food today, and I plan to continue this trend for the next three to five days.

On Tuesday at 4 pm, my parents and I will be heading to Tammy's for a Hanukkah gathering. I hope the experience will be more enjoyable than Thanksgiving, as I sometimes find my family's behavior to be frustrating.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1987 I had quite a long day today. I have been up since 5:15 this morning as the people upstairs on the 3rd floor were doing the 50-yard dash. I woke up to their footsteps.

At about 8:45 I left for the bus to go to the social security office. I also applied for food stamps.

At the federal building, I saw 3 deaf women signing and went up to join them. I also met a woman from Trinidad who has a deaf daughter. She wants me to teach her sign language. I gave her my number and she says she’ll call me.

As of right now, I am at Jenny’s keeping her company while she cuts carpet.

Jenny gave me a little scatter rug. She has some other carpet for me but she has to find out how much it costs before she sells it to me. I’d love some carpet for my bedroom and the hallway. I hope I can afford it though as I only get $474.49 a month between my two checks (Social Security and SSI). It’s so hard to afford to buy anything for myself other than just pay my rent and the bills because I get so little.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1987 Jenny and Jim were over tonight for a little while. Jenny got me this candle and potpourri that smells really nice.

Earlier today I went to the mall to do some Chanukah shopping. I got Dad Wynonna and Naomi’s tape, mittens for Rebecca, a coloring book for Lisa, a cosmetic organizer for Jenny, and placemats for Tammy and Bill’s table, and last, a bracelet for Kevin. I still need to get something for me and Emily. In case I haven’t already said so, Tammy is my older sister, but no one in the family has been in touch with our older brother, Larry. Bill is Tammy’s husband whom I never really cared for. Lisa is her daughter which she had with some Mexican guy when she lived in Texas. She currently lives in Connecticut. Bill and Tammy had Becky together and both are lousy parents.

Later…

I’ll probably be up most of the night since I slept so late this morning, but I have to get up early tomorrow so I can go to STCC and the federal building. I also have to have some blood work done tomorrow. Right now I am making some fish cakes but after they’re done and I eat I’m going to go over that form for financial aid.

On January 2nd I’ll be flying down to Florida to visit my folks.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1987 It’s been a depressing birthday so far. I am now waiting for Mom and Dad to come pick me up for dinner. Jenny and Emily, an old friend, totally forgot it was my birthday today. Kevin told me over the phone he couldn’t afford to get me anything. I did, however, get a card from Tammy who I’m sure won’t even call me. I also got a card from Jo. Jo’s an old lady back at the old apartment complex I used to live at. Her husband’s crazy but that’s because he has Alzheimer’s disease.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1987 I am now at the doctor’s waiting to be seen. The nurse just weighed me at 118½ pounds.

Nellie paid me $20 today and was on her way over to visit when I was on my way out the door.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1987 I am now at Mom and Dad’s doing my laundry. As usual, Mom is in her bitchy mood.

Kevin is definitely going to get his ass kicked the next time I see him seeing that he threatened me this morning. He should definitely know better by now, but seeing that he doesn’t, maybe I’ll have to hurt him.

I hope to be going to STCC for part-time classes in the daytime starting in January. Also the interpreter training class at night. I’d still like to tutor sign and try doing calligraphy on the side to make extra money.

I hope I see Mary very soon. I want the clothes back she borrowed. If she doesn’t have them she’s dead, just like Nellie if I don’t get paid tomorrow.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1987 Well, today I slept very late again as usual. I was going to do my laundry tonight at 6:00 but Jenny called me at 5:00 and came over at 5:30 to get me and brought me to her new house. I helped her clean her bedroom floor.

I just went across the street to get Jenny and me some coffee.

Jenny’s new house, although it is a rental, is quite nice. It’s got 6 rooms and her bedroom is very big. It has marble floors and a sliding glass door with a porch. Lots of closets everywhere.

Right now she’s painting. She painted the walls purple and the woodwork white. So far she’s pissed because Warren, the guy she’s renting it with, hasn’t done anything yet as far as cleaning. I said, “That’s a male for you.” Males are slobs and hate to clean. They wouldn’t clean unless their lives depended on it but probably not even then. Males suck!

Yesterday I went to see Tammy. She gave me a lot of food and some money. Tomorrow Nellie is going to pay me or she has a broken neck.

I am listening to Jenny’s music. That is our only difference. She hates my music and I think her heavy metal sucks. The only thing we agree on is The Cars.

Last Friday was a bad day in therapy as Trisha came out and told me she was leaving. I balled my eyes out crying. She looked sad, too. She’s got a new job in Connecticut closer to her house where she’ll be working with teenagers. I’ll really miss her and I’m going to hate to have to start my whole life story over again with a new therapist. Don’t forget I’ve been seeing Trisha for a year and a half.

Mom and Dad called yesterday while I was in the tub. They’re coming home Wednesday to return to work. I can’t wait. I missed them.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1987 I just finished my last cigarette. I want to quit. Maybe tomorrow morning I won’t wheeze so badly because I’ve only had one since about 8:15.

Tomorrow I must go to State St. for that volunteer interview for signing. That’s at 10:30.

Also tomorrow, Trisha rescheduled me for 1:00.

I hope I get some extra money soon so I can do Chanukah and Christmas shopping. I want to buy my own cards and do them in calligraphy.

I also want to buy a rod for the curtains I want to put up over the bars in the bathroom window.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1987 I still have the flu and probably will for a few more days. Yesterday all I did was go apply for food stamps and then I felt sicker than hell. It seems I go crazy from sitting in here but then when I go out it creeps up on me.

I am still wide awake with side effects from my medication. I’m gonna tell the doctor that either she changes the medication or I don’t take it at all.

Later…

The bald eagle is here now and he helped me put up the hammock that Mary gave me.

I didn’t get to sleep till 5:00 this morning or possibly later. I got up at 9:00 for an hour, then fell back asleep at 10:00 and woke up at noon when Tammy called telling me about her nutty mother-in-law. This woman really sounds like a real psycho.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1987 I did not go to sleep till 4:30 this morning and one hour later I woke at 5:30. I woke up nauseous then another hour later I woke up at 6:30 and puked. I guess I got the flu. I am going from hot to cold constantly.

I am now at Dunkin Donuts debating on whether or not to do my laundry. I really feel sick but I need to get the hell out.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1987 I am now waiting for Shannon to call me. I hope she has some good news for me. I guess we are going to work out, too.

I hope I’ll have good news myself for Mom and Dad the next time they call.

Later…

Shannon and her sister Doreen just left. We had a really nice visit till the fucking male bastard walked in and gave his usual story of Hartford. When I told them about Kevin’s nervous disorder they laughed royally.

The prick male downstairs was in a huge fight with Mattie. I felt like going down and giving him a piece of my mind.

I don’t know if Shannon’s gonna move in. I hope so, though. She’d be a great roommate.

Tomorrow I’ve got to go to court for the stupid little baby pigs and watch them fall flat on their asses. Males! 90% of my problems in life are males. I gotta go call Mary and remind her. She better go with me tomorrow.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1987 I am at Friendly’s now. Kevin started off in his usual fucked up nervous mood, shaking and getting all argumentative. He totally trembles with nerves every other time I see him! I’ve never seen anything like it. Does this have to do with the concussion he was hospitalized with? You can really see the nervousness in his hands with the way his fingers curl and uncurl.

Soon, I’m going to Food Mart and maybe Brightwood in Longmeadow. I need to get guinea pig food, cedar chips and a few groceries.

Later…

Well, the fucking male just ran out of gas again for the 4th time. God, I’m sick of his shit! I wish they’d commit him to a fucking loony bin. He’s a sicko! I hope the little nervous bastard eats shit and dies. People wonder why I’m gay? Then again, even if all guys were sweethearts, I’m attracted to women. Period.

I called Tammy, my sister who lives in CT, thinking tomorrow was court when it’s really Thursday. I wonder if she’ll drive up and go with me? She did ask for my lawyer’s name and number, though. I guess she feels better being there and that I’ll say the wrong thing if she’s not. If she doesn’t go I’ll have Mary go, but not the little nervous bastard.

I’m still here in Friendly’s drinking coffee till the little nervous bastard gets back from his favorite pastime - running to get gas. The fucking prick! Maybe he’ll fall and break a leg. Someday someone’s gonna do it for him if it isn’t me. I’m so pissed off now. That little bastard’s lucky I didn’t fuck him up.

I need to change the pig’s cage quite badly and vacuum.

Later…

Shannon came over and I think maybe she’ll be my lucky break. I hope so. I sang for her and played my instruments and she said, “What are you doing sitting around here?”

She says she knows some people and that she’s going to talk to some people about my singing. She says she knows some musicians and knows a girl who was talking about being an agent. She also says I may be her lucky break with the signing. She knows a few girls who need to be tutored. She and her sister are going to post that I’d like to teach signing on the bulletins at STCC.

We are going to be going to work out together from now on. She goes in this direction. That would be great. That way I don’t have to go with the little nervous bastard and take the chance of either getting killed by his erratic driving or him running out of gas. She is to be calling me at around 2:00 or 2:30 tomorrow afternoon. I hope she has some good news. Around 4pm we’ll be going to work out.

Too bad she can’t move in here. She’d be the perfect roommate, but I guess she wants her own apartment.

I called the book club and they said I have some books coming from the Mystery Guild. The other two clubs show nothing.

Later…

Just got through speaking with Mary, Doug and Kevin. Doug said he’d never want to be in the same room with me for physical fear of me cutting his cock off, haha. Good for him.

Can’t wait till I hear from Shannon and to get my books.

Tomorrow morning I’d like to go to the bank and then go to welfare and see if I qualify for food stamps. They’d be nice to have.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1987 I am kind of in a bummed-out mood now. I feel a little tired and dizzy. I guess maybe it’s time to get my eyes checked. I know I definitely don’t want to wear glasses.

I think right now I’m going to take a bath and maybe listen to some music. I’m going to also watch the conclusion of that movie I said I saw last night.

Now for my good news. That Shannon C that I met at the gym called to tell me she knew 3 girls from STCC who are currently taking sign language classes and are very confused and need to be tutored. So I think I’ll be tutoring them here at home. Great! Extra money. I miss using my signing, too.

Shannon also said she wants to move out into her own apartment so I gave her Larry’s number. I wonder who will get my apartment and Nancy’s?

Tomorrow night at about 6:00 Shannon will be dropping by for a visit.

Tomorrow I hope Kevin gets his goddamn car fixed. I need to go grocery shopping and buy guinea pig food, and I’d love to skip the buses.

Later…

I just finished watching the movie. That was a hell of a good movie.

Jenny called today. She told me about her job as a nurse’s aide.

The day after tomorrow I must appear in court. I’ve been charged with making prank phone calls. I sure hope they dismiss it, but fat chance! Maybe I just won’t go.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1987 Today I woke up kind of bored so I called Mary and spent the day at her house. Her brother’s a real bastard, and the nervous bastard (Kevin) ran out of gas today at Mary’s. I’m not staying at Mary’s for the night because John and her bastard brother Doug are going to be there tonight. I’ll just go home and clean the apartment. And God knows it sure does need it, too. I’d like to catch up on my reading tonight and maybe study some Spanish. I’ve missed all my weekend shows, though.

Later…

I am home now and have cleaned up. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would. I remember how picky and perfectly neat I used to be and I wish I could be that way again.

Right now I am watching a movie about these millionaires who committed murder. I think it’s over in a few minutes. After the movie, I must take a bath, wash my hair, shave and brush my teeth. I may read later, too.

I wish to hell I didn’t have this driving phobia I’ve got and that I had my own car or could just move to Florida because I really can’t stand Kevin. It’s a bitch when the one you need around to use for transportation is a total asshole. No luck, I know, as far as him moving. Well, maybe his car will break down or get pulled from him with that rejection sticker he’s had since April and I won’t give in to my temptation to call for a ride.

I was expecting Ma to call tonight but I guess not. She did say this weekend, though. Maybe she’s busy.

Later…

Mary’s bastard brother tried to hit on me on the phone tonight. He said, “I have a heart in me and I know you have a heart too, and I know I can change your mind about men and make you happy.”

No male is gonna “change my mind.” I want a woman. It’s what I’m attracted to.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1987 Yesterday when I was out, Mom called and Kevin said a Karen W was to call me after noon which is anytime now to tell me what they have to offer. For some strange reason, I doubt this will be heaven. I think she’s trying to get me in some supervised halfway house or something. The last thing in the world I’m going to do is be a kid again on a point system with rules and restrictions where there’s no way out. I sure hope there are no nuts in this place. Or males. If they say you can’t smoke in certain areas or eat at certain times or want to know wherever you go, then I’ll know it’s Valleyhead all over again, a private “school” I attended from ages 16-18 that was total hell. I will not give up any of my freedom. If my parents have me walk into a trap again then I’ll know I’m still not the perfect daughter they’re looking for yet. Or maybe I’ll just give in and let myself be fucked over yet again.

Yesterday I told Kevin to stay in my apartment while I took the car out by myself. I did fine except for the fact that I left the lights on and needed jumper cables. So a guy in the parking lot gave me a jump and sent me on my merry way.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1987 I haven’t written since Wednesday night when I slept over at Mary’s place. I am upset with her for not returning the $5 I lent her for dinner as she promised and have been broke all weekend. My checks were supposed to come yesterday, and they didn’t as usual, so I am going to talk to them tomorrow. They think they’re missing a digit in my account number, so the computer is rejecting it and the money’s delayed a day.

I still have to go to court. I didn’t because I have been too sick. I have a bad cold and now I know why last Thursday they said I had a high white blood cell count. I literally forced myself to work out today at about 4 PM and now I am sicker than a dog, but I needed to get the hell away. When I sit at home all day, I get very depressed. I will work out tomorrow, too.

Thursday, I was very depressed and was looking so forward to therapy, but Trisha was out sick. Debbie at the desk said she tried to call me, but I wasn’t home.

I invited Fran P, my old neighbor who used to live next to Kevin, over earlier but he was expecting company, so he’ll come over next weekend. I may invite Kevin over later but I’m a little sick of his company and I really can’t wait till I have my own car (if I can get over my driving phobia). No, I’m not intimate with either Kevin or Fran.

Later…

I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep well tonight since I slept late this morning. Oh well. I’ll probably read all night or write.

Tomorrow I’m going to go pay my rent and I want to call the bank and also go down there and see if they can figure out my checkbook. I fucked it up again with my shitty math.

I also have to pay Jean for those two singing lessons I took and I’m going to once again force myself to go work out. I need to get out and get the exercise, but I’ll probably feel worse after with this damn cold.

Tomorrow night mom’s going to be calling me to tell me about someplace in Florida she thinks I’d like living at. I hope it’s just what I need and want. She also says she thinks she can fly me down sooner than January.

I wonder how my birthday will go this year. It seems Dec. 3rd the day before my birthday always brings me good luck. In ‘85 I moved out on my own. In ‘86 I got my license. What will happen this year?

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1987 I got up today at 8 AM, made coffee, and listened to music. At 9 AM I was fully dressed nicely and then Kevin and I went to Friendly’s for breakfast. We are now going to the Fairfield Mall in Chicopee so he can do some inventory, part of his job.

I just got back from buying new kitchen curtains from Bradlee’s. Surprisingly enough I ran into Mattie I, who lives next door to me, working as a cashier. She helped me as far as measurements. Thank God for her as I would’ve gotten the wrong size. Kevin is still in there counting ties and belts.

When I get home I’m going to hang up my new curtains, then eat, listen to music and lay down till my 3:30 appointment. I have asked Kevin if he will go with me. He said yes, but Dr. H, my shrink, may say no. I doubt she’ll say no, though.

I am at Mary C’s for the night. She’s another old neighbor/friend. We are watching Halloween.

I see Trisha, my therapist, at 2pm tomorrow, then after that, I have to go to the post office for a certified letter and stamps. After that, I need to go to court to drop charges since Nellie paid me for the radio/cassette player her boyfriend stole from my kitchen. She also gave me $40 earlier this evening.

I hope that the medication for my side effects helps and that I stay feeling good that my bad times get less and less and that I’ll always be able to cope.

I also hope tomorrow I start receiving some of the books I ordered. According to Nellie, she hasn’t received hers yet and I would think she’d receive hers before I got mine, as she is a new member.

I think I’m gonna hit the sack soon. The only bad thing about staying here at Mary’s is that it’s freezing in here and this place is so filthy and smelly it drives me nuts.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1987 Springfield, MA My Apartment on Oswego Street…

NOTE: I wrote journals by hand from 10/27/1987 till 6/1/98 when I went all-digital. I have typed up all the handwritten journals, which I no longer have today.

Jenny C, whom I’ve known since 4th grade, came over at about 9:30. I’m 21, she’s 22. I was very tired when I woke up and I still am. The medication I got last night really wipes me out. It’s funny how some medications just don’t agree with me. She made us coffee and some toast. Then after that, she took a shower and I listened to music and then laid down for a while. When I got up I went to the mall in Enfield with Jenny and bought this journal. She wants me to go work out but I am just too tired. So, here I am in this mall just wishing I had money to shop with. I could really go for some new clothes.

When I came home I fell asleep till the mailman woke me up with a certified letter from the bank. Nellie R, who lives two doors away, owes me a total of $175 for having me cash those checks she stole that I didn’t know were stolen. She’ll be paying me $40 every 15 days. It won’t be for almost 3 months till I’m reimbursed.

I am going to tell the doctor that I want off this medication and I’m sure she’ll suggest something else even though I seem to have side effects from everything I take.

I am now at Friendly’s with Kevin T, an old neighbor/friend.

Instead of lying down I took a bath, washed my hair and put it in a ponytail with my new pink ribbon. I am wearing my sweatshirt dress which I just found the other day hiding way in the back of my closet.

Kevin and I are now talking about his kids and just bullshitting about odds and ends. He’s divorced, 45 years old, and his ex is down in CT. He hasn’t seen her or his two boys in quite a while.

I am home now and Kevin and I are watching TV as I sip coffee and write. Before, I was in the process of doing a major clean-up. I finished vacuuming and after my coffee, I must finish cleaning the bathroom and then dust and mop. Housecleaning is very tedious and boring but if I put it off another day it’ll never get done.

Kevin is going to go with me tomorrow to the doctor's. I hope all goes well.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1987 Read First! I'm moving this to the front of my journal even though it's actually 2023 that I write this.

Welcome to my decades of journaling! While I've always emphasized that I primarily write for my own personal expression, I do hope that my words may offer help or inspiration to anyone who finds them valuable. Throughout the years, my journaling has chronicled a diverse range of experiences, including moments of joy, sorrow, adventure, and fear.

However, it's important to acknowledge that some of my writings are controversial and, yes, have been perceived as hateful and racist by some. I want to be upfront about this so there are no surprises. If such content is not in alignment with your preferences, I encourage you to feel free to leave. Nobody is obligated to read my writings, and if certain aspects trouble you, please don’t torture yourself by reading.

Many years ago, I was victimized by individuals of different racial backgrounds who used their connections to law enforcement to target me in the name of revenge. This unfortunate experience, understandably, led me to express sentiments that some might consider racist. Much like how a woman who has suffered abuse may develop distrust or prejudice against men, my writings during that time were driven more by their behavior than by race or color. At times, I may have used racially charged language as a form of venting and provocation, knowing that it would upset them. But really, it was never about race or color. It was about them. But like any human being, I occasionally said and wrote things in the heat of the moment that some may find offensive. I firmly believe that while we can't make people like or love us, we certainly can make people harbor animosity if we mistreat them.

I also acknowledge that the younger, more naive me may stated things as facts that I honestly believed at the time were facts, yet may not have been. Not just regarding the welfare bums but things in general.

During this period, I shared excerpts from my journal with the individuals involved, which they later termed as stalking, despite the fact that I was only documenting information as advised by the police for potential legal recourse in the future. Nonetheless, I sent them copies as a way of venting when we moved (they lived next to us). Well, instead of doing the grown-up thing by not reading what they didn't like, they used it against me and I was manipulated into pleading guilty for something I didn't know I was pleading guilty for. I thought I was being charged with sending the journals but instead, it was supposedly a threatening letter. I did send a less-than-kind letter to these sickos but that was many years prior which led me to believe that someone else they pissed off sent the letter and they assumed it was me. Either that or their cop friend wrote it up and thrust it into my hands during interrogation to get my fingerprints on it when showing me “evidence” that was clearly falsified.

The point is that I lost half a year of freedom and thousands of dollars due to these people's vindictiveness when all I did was express myself. It may not have been in the way they agreed with and wanted to hear but they harassed me for years and I reacted. It was that simple. I make no apologies for anything I ever said to these people be it with my voice or in print.

And yes, I sometimes, in a fit of anger, said something to the effect of wanting to strangle, throttle, beat, kick, slap, or punch various people here and there. Like one sometimes mutters these things under their breath when pissed at someone, I vented in print. However, none of these threats, if you could even call them threats, are meant to be taken literally. It's easy to say we'll do this, this, and that to someone who's crossed us but unless someone's literally trying to harm me, my husband, pets, or property, I'm as harmless as a butterfly. This is a journal. Not a manifesto.

Whether it's common or not, I've had moments in life where I contemplated suicide or at least had thoughts of it, and that too has been expressed in these journals at times and is also not meant to be taken seriously in any way.

My journal is free to anyone who wants to read it but is not open to debate. In other words, I'm not going to argue about some stupid thing I may have written 20 years ago or something I shouldn't have said or done 30 years ago. We all make mistakes, and it's part of my life story.

I also wish to address the unkind things I said about my husband, Tom, in the 90s when we were contemplating having a child. In retrospect, we are glad that we never had children, as it would have placed a tremendous burden on both of us, involving substantial expenses and considerable work while limiting our freedom. My perspective at the time, based on my limited knowledge, was that Tom might have been intentionally avoiding climaxing during our intimate moments to prevent pregnancy. Subsequently, I came to understand that he might have been dealing with low testosterone, but he felt too embarrassed and shy to admit it or seek help.

In hindsight, I'm glad we didn't have children but wish I hadn’t gone through the depression and frustration I experienced during our attempts at starting a family. My earlier belief that medication was the answer has also changed, as I now realize the complexities and potential side effects of hormonal treatments.

Lastly, I want to clear up the thing about God and “Robin.” I was a very emotional person in my younger days and things were a much bigger deal to me than they ever would be today if I was in similar situations. I don't know if there is a God or not but as you'll read, I spent many years rambling about how God hated me and insisted he was controlling and cursing me and my life, and hey, maybe he or something else was at times. I don't know for sure but I do feel a little embarrassed when I read back on those times, LOL, even though we all do and say silly things at times. I just wanted to believe so badly that there really was a God that would listen to me and that cared and that would grant me any reasonable rational prayer I made. But most of my prayers have gone unanswered and I don't know if it’s by design or happenstance. I don't think any of us can really ever know.

Robin was an entity I believed - or at least wanted to believe - was supposedly like a guardian angel, on my side, there to help, to inspire and encourage me, blah blah blah. I don't think I can go so far as to say that Robin was a figment of my imagination and wishful thinking but I don't know that I really ever had this protective spirit hovering over me, especially since quite often things didn't go my way.

I never use real last names unless it's someone famous or infamous. However, I realize that some people may happen to actually have some of the names I've randomly drawn. If this bothers you in any way, don't hesitate to reach out to me (nicely) and let me know. Any threats or ultimatums will be completely ignored.

In summary, my journal spans a wide range of experiences, emotions, and beliefs, and I offer this context to better understand the evolution of my thoughts and feelings over the years as well as what life was like for future generations that may read my life story.

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