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morepeachyogurt · 3 years

Text

a sky full of stars (and she was looking at her)

Word Count- 2.8k

Pairing- Penemily

Summary- Penemily highschool au where they are paired up on a English assignment! Based on this post.

Part 1 of my, maybe we’re from the same star, series

Read it here on ao3

Tw’s- very small mentions of substances, minor swearing

A/N- this is the first installment of a series based on my yearning posts, and my first time writing romance/3rd pov, I’d love some feedback!

It’s hard to miss Penelope Garcia. With her bright clothes and brighter personally it seems like the sun shines a spotlight on her. Her golden hair is like a halo around her, she looks like an angel, and perhaps one of these days Emily will get the courage to talk to her beyond small talk and group presentations. She’s pulled out of her thoughts when the shrill bell rings, too loudly for her tastes but this whole building seems to scream at her, so perhaps it’s fitting.

Ms. Blake starts to talk about ancient poetry. The greats from the time periods before everything got so complicated. English is not Emily’s favorite class but somehow Blake’s class is more or less interesting, is it because she’s a milf? Maybe, who’s to say. As the class nears its end, she announces, “Alright, as we close out our poetry unit, we have one last assignment that hopefully at least one of you will enjoy, it’s a group project where-” immediately two hands go up ready to ask the question that always gets asked when a group project is announced. “Before you ask, no, you aren’t picking your partners, I am,” a collective groan comes out of about half the class. Emily isn’t too mad about it though, she doesn’t have many friends, especially in honors English. JJ barely passes English as it is. She’s all alone here, so she’s glad she doesn’t have to suffer through the awkwardness of trying to find a partner before everyone else does and ending up with the one kid who she’s pretty sure has been high the entire year and likes to leer at her in the hallway. “For this assignment, you’ll have to analyze one famous poem, from whatever time period you’d like, and write an essay about the poet’s intentions. If you’d like extra credit, which I know for a fact some of you need, you can do a reading of the poem in front of the class or do a drawing that represents it. Any questions?”

The classroom fills with questions of ‘when is this due?’ And ‘this sucks do we have to do this’. Emily however, is distracted by one very colorful girl in the upper left corner of the room, her spot in the back lets her admire the view without being caught, which tends to make it difficult to pay attention, but well, some things are just more fun than others. Her attention is drawn back to Blake when she hears her name followed by Penelope Garcia.

Oh shit.

On the one hand, this is exactly the opportunity she’d been looking for to ‘make her move’ so to speak, on the other, she’s terrified of making a fool of herself. Emily realizes that she’s been sitting for a bit too long when Blake stops talking and the rest of the class has already paired off. She catches Penelope’s eyes and tries to fight the blush of her cheeks. The sound of her docs hitting the linoleum is a bit too intense for this setting, she prefers their ‘clunk’ when it’s a crowded room, and she can walk like she owns the place. Emily sits down at the desk adjacent to Penelope and gets ready to ruin her chances with her.

“Okay! Hi! I’m Penelope! Which you already knew because Ms. Blake announced it, but it’s polite to introduce yourself to people so I thought I would do that now which I’ve done so I’ll stop talking now!”

Emily can’t help but giggle a little at her rambling, she doesn’t want her to stop talking quite yet, her voice melodic to her ears.

“So, I’m not big in poetry, I’m more of a comic book gal if you catch my drift, so I was hoping that you had some thoughts?” She drags the o in hoping and trails off waiting for Emily to fill in the blanks. It takes her a second too long because her brain is short-circuiting but she manages.

“Yeah okay, um, I’ve read some Sappho back when my mother was stationed in Greece? That could work?” she hopes bringing up Sappho wasn’t too obvious of her intentions, but it was all she could think of. Sappho had a point when she said ‘Sweet mother, I cannot weave – slender Aphrodite has overcome me with longing for a girl’

“Yeah okay! Cool! We’ve got like 3 minutes left of class, would you want to go to Bricks and Beans after school to work on it?”

“Uh yeah, yeah, that, um, that sounds great! I’ll meet you in front of the school?”

“Yep!” She pops the ‘p’ and Emily thinks she can’t possibly get cuter.

Emily’s walk to lunch has never been quite this mix of excitement and anxiety as it is now. Hopefully, JJ will be able to make sense of what’s happening because the wires in Emily’s brain are very much twisted.

“Okay, I’m telling you it’s not a date,”

“Yeah I know it’s not technically a date but come on. I personally have never asked my group project partner to a coffee shop before. She obviously likes you.”

Jennifer Jareau has been blessed with the right combination of looks that ensures she never had to wonder if her crushes liked her back. Emily wishes she had that special brand of confidence, but it’s simply not realistic, the number of openly queer girls at school is small, the number of them that would be interested in her? Even smaller.

“Look I’m not going to be the loser that gets my heart broken all right,” she steals a fry off of JJ’s tray before her hand gets smacked.

“Ugh I’m so bored here, promise me you’ll at least try. I need some new drama around here and you two would be so fucking cute.”

“Fine. On the condition that when* it goes south you’re buying me ice cream.”

Emily’s day goes by slowly and all at once. Hours turn into years turn into seconds and before she knows it she’s awkwardly standing outside the building waiting for Penelope to meet her.

When she does, Emily’s pulse quickens ever so slightly in her presence. It’s annoying as hell.

“I was worried you were standing me up,” a futile attempt on Emily’s behalf of trying to seem calm, cool, and collected.

“What! I would never, I’ve been looking forward to getting a macchiato and hanging out with you and Sappho all day! Coolest ladies from recent history,” she has to try and stop herself from getting too excited at Penelope’s words, they don’t mean anything, she’s just some loser that she has to work with to get a good final grade in the class. A means to an end, disposable.

“I don’t think Sappho counts as recent history but thank you, ma’am,” ma’am? God, what is she doing, this is going to go south faster than the time she tried to wear ripped jeans to one of her mother’s stupid dinner parties. To her surprise, her stupid comment is met with a giggle on Penelope’s part.

“Why thank you darling,” she replies in a phony southern accent that makes them both crack up, “Lead the way.”

Bricks and Beans is the staple coffee shop where all the high schoolers hang out after school or work during college. The owners are a sweet old couple in their 70’s who seem to be reliving the past with the vintage decorations. The pair settle into a table in the back, a window next to them showing off the highway. Emily is tasked with buying the coffees and Penelope rattles off her order filled with things Emily’s never even heard of.

“Okay, I’m pretty sure the barista is laughing at me now but here is your sugar coffee with whipped cream,” she says as she slides into her seat, placing down the coffees on the minimal free space left.

“My savior,” she says, fake swooning, “Okay so, Sappho? That’s the lesbian right?”

Emily answers with a snort before actually replying, “Yeah that’s the lesbian. I’m sure Blake will love it. I’m like, 90% sure she’s gay.”

“Single English teacher who loves Oscar Wilde? Yeah, I get it. My gaydar is spectacular by the way.”

“Oh yeah?”

She nods.

“Um, yeah, okay how about this poem:

‘and in your song most of all she rejoiced.

But now she is conspicuous among Lydian women

as sometimes at sunset

the rosyfingered moon

surpasses all the stars. And her light

stretches over salt sea

equally and flowerdeep fields.

And the beautiful dew is poured out

and roses bloom and frail

chervil and flowering sweetclover.

But she goes back and forth remembering

gentle Atthis and in longing

she bites her tender mind’”

“That’s gorgeous,” Penelope had a dreamy look in her eyes, like seeing a beautiful sunset for the first time. Except, instead of a sunset she was looking at Emily, seeing her, like for the first time, “I love when artists talk about the stars,” she leans back on her chair and looks up as if she’s looking at a constellation and not an off-white popcorn ceiling. Her collarbones are exposed and Emily feels like a 17th-century peasant pining over exposed ankles, “There’s just something about the stars ya know? They’re so far away, but sometimes it feels like we’re there with them. They twinkle at us and at each other,” she pauses to make eye contact, “maybe the greatest love story is in the sky,” there’s a beat too long, Emily doesn’t know how to respond to that comment, it’s hard to follow art without ruining it.

“Or maybe I’m just a sad sap for romance.”

“No!” She gets a of couple heads turned her way, the exclamation too loud for the environment, “I mean no, I get what you mean, they’re beautiful. Sometimes at night I go on my roof just to stargaze. It’s so peaceful there,” it’s now or never, “you should do it with me someday.”

“I’d love that,” it’s almost bashful, the two of them hoping the underlying meanings of their words are being shown, lest their hopes not be conveyed and come shattering down like a falling star.

The sun slowly sets as they work on interpreting the inter-workings of Sappho’s mind. The drinks run out so Emily buys them both hot chocolate, extra whipped cream and chocolate chips for Penelope. When she takes a sip, the whipped cream sticks to the side of her face.

“You got some whipped cream on your face,” she gestures to the offender in question. The blonde tries and fails, to get it off.

“Did I get it?”

“No, it’s more,” after some failed attempts, and the failure of Emily’s common sense, she decides to just get it off herself. It feels too intimate too quick, they both freeze, Emily’s hand inches away from Penelope’s face. Their eyes lock, scared brown eyes met soft blue ones and just for a second, there is peace in between their beating hearts and hands. Emily quickly brings her hand down and mumbles an apology.

After three hours they call it a night, Emily now the proud owner of Penelope’s phone number. On her drive home, she wonders if she’d done right, and she wonders if she’d done wrong. If she was clear about what stargazing meant to her. A branch into her world, her safe space. To share the dark night sky with something is to share your soul with them. Even JJ didn’t know about her nighttime viewings. Did Penelope feel the same way? The shared smiles and small laughs pointed yes. But Penelope was Penelope and Emily was Emily. How could an angel love a human? Why would it sacrifice its virtue for the danger of love? If Penelope was pink and Emily was dark green, could they mix and make something beautiful or would they both end up a ruined brown?

Dinner is tense as always, she does not share anything with her mother, she does not want to. They tiptoe around each other hoping that they won’t step on each other’s toes and crash. Emily retreats to her room the second dinner is over and opens a window. She loves that it gets dark earlier now. The fresh fall air trumps that tacky of scented candles that fill the house in a futile attempt to make it a home. She opens her laptop to finish the concluding paragraph of their essay. She allows herself to be lost in the words of another in order to avoid her own problems of love and belonging. Her phone rings. It’s her problems. They chat with careful conversation about their project and finally, it is finished. It looks good actually, or at least, to Emily it does. It’s not going to win them a Pulitzer, but they’ll get an A.

And then, “Hey.”

“Hey?” They’ve been on the phone for a half an hour, she’s not sure why she’s being greeted all of a sudden.

“Does your offer to stargaze still stand? It’s nice out tonight and, I don’t know, it sounded nice?”

“Yeah of course! Do you, um, do you need a ride or?”

“Nah I got my license and good old Esther. I do need your address though.”

“Oh yeah, I’ll text it to you. Who’s Esther?”

“My car! She’s a lovely thing thought she needed a name. I’ll be there in say, 15 minutes?”

“Sure. Bye Penelope.”

Holy shit.

Okay, she’s got 15 minutes to both have everything ready, but also seem completely casual about the fact that her crush is coming over to stargaze on her roof. The ambassador is long retreated either in bed or into her office, so she shouldn’t be a problem. Emily grabs a couple of blankets for them to sit on to avoid the chilly breeze and a bag of popcorn. She brushes her hair and touches up her eyeliner, not that it’s really visible in the dark, but it helps her feel confident which she’s desperate for at the moment. Her phone buzzes with a text, *im here!!!* It reads. She takes a deep breath before very slowly opening the door.

“Hi,” she whispers, the wind carrying her voice, but it’s just loud enough for its recipient. She closes the door

“Hi! So! Stargazing? That’s fun, I’m like, really excited it’s been a while since I’ve done something like this,” she somehow makes a whisper seem filled with enough energy to power a flashlight that Emily definitely should have brought. They make their way to the intersection where the hill meets the rooftop, and they only trip once, on a stick, but together they stay upright. Emily throws the blankets on the roof and climbs up on the chair before throwing her body on the roof. With her help, Penelope makes her way up after a couple of tries. By the time they lay the blankets out and are sitting down, they’re both practically crying from laughter, her nerves from earlier disappearing slowly.

The laughter fizzles out, and they’re both left staring at the stars. Penelope apparently is an expert of both astronomy and astrology so Emily’s ears are blessed with the sound of her voice. Like sunshine on a sweet summer day. She thinks that Penelope and her are like the sun and the moon, both beautiful, and complementary. Emily’s gaze shifts from the constellations to Penelope’s side profile. The stars shine almost as bright as her, and she can’t help but watch her instead. She can see the stars in her eyes, perhaps they were always there, but they’re more visible now looking in their reflection.

“God they’re beautiful,” Penelope says in awe. Like she can’t believe she’s blessed with the presence of the stars when really it is the stars who should have the honor.

“Yeah, yeah they are,” at this point she’s openly gazing at Penelope. When Penelope turns to meet her gaze she thinks she’s been caught, that it’s over and this night will be one for the ages in terms of beauty and heartbreak. Slowly, a hand makes its way to her cheek, cold like the air around them, but it somehow manages to set her skin on fire.

“May I?”

Emily nods and then they are lips on hers, it is sweet just like her. She’s being kissed under the starlight by a girl who deserves only beauty. Perhaps her dark green can be the field by the sunset of Penelope’s pink in the painting they make together. They do not have to mix, they can simply be combined to create something stunning. They can simply be. They pull apart slowly, and looking into her eyes, Emily thinks that the stars in comparison are simply dull. There is nothing as bright and beautiful in the world as the eyes of your lover.

Tag list- @royalpenelope @scandinavian-punk @kermitsaysgayrights

#penemily #Penelope garcia #emily prentiss #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fic #let me know what y’all think!!!#lucy’s fics!#mine!

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ohmyhera · 4 years

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Kindergarten

Welcome to fic installment one of the childhood best friends au

Today marked the first day of Will’s favorite month of the year, October. Well it wasn’t actually the first day, but it was just as exciting. So many good things happen in October! The leaves started to change colors,he got to wear all the sweaters his nana made him,Halloween and not one but two birthdays! His mama’s and his older brother Michael’s. That meant double parties and double cake, and he got to see his sister Kayla at both! He loved birthdays so much, he just had one not too long ago! He was now a proud six year old, one of the big kids. Well, at least that’s what he told Naomi.

“I’m one of the biggest kids ever now mama!”He cheered, “I’m even older than Auntie Nat’s baby!”

“That’s right baby”She said with a fond smile, “Hurry up now and finish that banana, we gotta get your shoes on so you can catch the bus”

“Can daddy drive me like he does sometimes?”He asked.

“Now baby you know your father has work just like I do”She said.

“Work is stupid”he huffed, “I miss you guys driving me”

“I know you do pumpkin”She said, “But it’s only until next month, then i’ll be driving you to school and picking you up everyday”

“You promise mama?”He asked.

“My word is good baby, now go get them shoes on so you can make your bus”She said. He jumped off of the chair and raced into the living room looking for his rain boots. October didn’t always bring good things, but it did bring rain and rain brought worms. Will loved worms. He could barely wait for Naomi to zip up his raincoat before he was bounding out of the house. Just as he went to pick up a real wriggly one he heard a loud honk.

“Aw man”He pouted. Naomi chuckled and handed him his backpack.

“That’ll be your bus baby. Mama couldn’t pack you a lunch today so you’ll be eating at school. You remember your number?”

“212256!”He exclaimed.

“That’s right Will, good job”She said, “I’ll see you later, I love you”

“I love you too mama!”He said and made his way up the stairs of the bus. Being a big kid was weird now. When he was in Pre-K he didn’t start school until 9:00am, now he was on the bus with all the big kids, even the fifth graders. But, lots of things got weird when you got older so it was okay. He took his seat and began to daydream, hopefully the rain will stop by Recess so they can play outside today. Don’t get him wrong, he liked indoor Recess as much as the next kid but it was getting boring. You could only do so much with coloring and hand games.

The bus pulled into the lot and Will’s excitement only grew. There were so many puddles to stomp in! He grabbed his backpack and yelled a quick goodbye over his shoulder to the bus driver. His teacher was already here! He wonders how she always managed to be on time, did she sleep at the school? The possibilities were endless, maybe she was a superhero who flew to school every morning. He squinted his eyes a bit and shook his head, definitely not a superhero, what superhero would want to be a teacher? Before he could hypothesize any further he was ripped out of his thoughts.

“Good morning, Will,”she said with a smile.

“Good morning Miss. O’Conner”He said politely, “What are we gonna do today?”

“Well aren’t you curious?”she mused, “You’ll just have to find out when class starts”

He huffed. She always said that! Maybe one day she’ll finally give him an answer. He simply nodded his head and lined up with the rest of his classmates. They all seemed to be chattering about something and he wanted in.

“What’s going on?”he asked. The group turned to him and they all seemed to speak at once.

“We got a new student-”

“-yeah yeah and he’s from-”

“-italy! Isn’t that cool, Will?-”

“-yeah! Isn’t that so cool!”

He blinked once. Then twice as he processed what was going on.

“New student?”He asked, “But it’s October? Don’t we get new ones in September when school starts?”

“I dunno”one of the kids shrugged, “maybe he’s special”

Yeah, he thought, maybe he is special.

“Come on class”Miss O'Connor said, “We’ll be heading inside now”

The group of kids all but raced after her. The avalanche of children almost knocked her down as they approached classroom 104. It was one of the smaller classrooms and it was all the way down a long hallway past the cafeteria. It was kind of spooky looking on rainy days, but it was October after all so Will would accept the spooky. Once the door was opened the chatter stopped and the kids stood silently. There was a woman with long dark hair covered with a bandana, she wore a very pretty dress, kind of like the ones Naomi wore to church. To her right was a small boy clutching her dress with one hand and a stuffed bunny with the other. Will frowned, he looked sad.

“Class”Miss O'Connor addressed, “as some of you may know, this is our new student. Would you like to say your name sweetheart?”

He shook his head and pulled on his mother's skirt, she leaned down and they both whispered a few things that Will couldn’t understand. When she finally stood back up fresh tears were in the boys eyes and he fully faced away from the class.

“I am sorry”the woman said, “He is ehm...he is a little timid”

She had an accent he’d never heard before, is this what italy people sounded like? This was so cool!

“That’s quite alright”Miss O'Connor said, “I understand that it’ll take some time for him to adjust”

“Thank you”the woman said quickly, she leaned back down and whispered a few more hurried words and then she was gone. The small boy of course protested but was ultimately left alone, tears and all. A few students began giggling and Miss O'Connor sighed.

“Class, this is Nico di Angelo.”

The days went on and Nico was still as frightened as before, if not more. Once the other students realized that he wasn’t going to talk they quickly lost interest in him. He only minded a bit, he didn’t want to talk to them anyways. They were all too loud and made him like the room was fuzzy and that he couldn’t breathe. So he sat alone and colored his way through the day until he could see his mama. That lasted about two days until he got bored of it, I mean you can only color so much, people. The blonde boy who smiled at him the first day caught his interest, he wanted to say something but his accent was funny-well, at least that’s what the other kids said. He frowned, he spoke English as good as the rest of them, his tutors made certain of it and so did Papa. so he said nothing. He just watched and waited, until that got boring too.

He started off by sitting next to Will during storytime and was delighted when he didn’t scoot away. Then he sat with him during art time, a few other kids moved tables but Will didn’t. Of course Will was confused, but he was flattered that Nico chose him of all people so he just went with it. He was also happy that he could make Nico smile without them even talking, it was like he had magic.

This went on until the early days of November. The two sitting in solidarity and working on whatever task they were given. Will was patient, but patience only lasted so long when you were six years old. During yet another indoor recess he noticed Nico sitting at one of the tables thumbing through a picture book. He sat down and built up the courage to say something, anything. He noticed two little white ears sticking out the pocket of Nico’s overalls and grinned.

“I like your bunny rabbit, what’s its name?”he asked. Nico grinned back and pulled the bunny out lifting it up proudly for Will to see.

“Bianco!”Nico exclaimed. Will giggled and shook his head, what were those other kids talking about? Nico didn’t talk funny at all.

“Bianco...I like it!”He said.

The days grew warmer and indoor recess became a thing of the past. They unlocked all the hula hoops and jump ropes and even brought out the kickball. It was getting closer to spring and pleasantly warm, Will was happy. He loved the sunshine. He was playing catch with one of his other friends and out of the corner of his eye saw Nico walking away from a group of boys, he looked sad.

“Hold on Danny”He said and without another word ran over to his friend. Nico was crying but at the sight of Will quickly tried to wipe his eyes.

“What happened, neeks?”He asked.

“N-nothin”Nico sniffled, “not important”

“Were they being mean?”He asked, before Nico could answer Will was already stomping over to them. He was hopping mad, so mad that he wanted to yell, so he did.

“You guys better stop picking on my friend!”He shouted, balling up his fists. “It’s not nice! Miss O'connor said we gotta be nice to everyone!”

“But he’s weird!”One of the boys shouted back, he got a chorus of agreement. Will stomped even closer and dug his nails into his palm.

“I’m never playing with you guys again”He said, “You’re just meanies!”

He turned back on his heels and walked back over to Nico who had since stopped crying. He looked at Will in awe who was still trying to calm himself down. Those boys were such jerks, he wanted to hit them, but that’s also not nice.

“That’s okay Nico”He huffed and looked over his shoulder, “the sandbox is for babies anyways! We can go play on the swings instead”

“B...but I like the sandbox…”Nico said, quiet as a churchmouse. Will frowned and pulled the sleeve of his shirt to his wrist to wipe Nico’s tears. He hated seeing his friend so sad.

“Then I'll buy you a bajillion sandboxes! Just so you don’t gotta play with meanies”He said.

“A whole bajillion?”Nico whispered.

“A bajillion and one!”Will promised, “my word is good”

“What does that mean?”He asked. Will shrugged.

“I dunno, but my mama says it whenever she makes a promise”Will said, “now come on!”

The two giggled and ran to the swing sets hand in hand.

As the year dragged on the two grew even closer, much to everyone’s surprise. They had started sharing a mat together during nap time because it was the only way the two could sleep. Will tended to worry about his friend when they were separated, he knew Nico’s biggest secret and didn’t want him to get teased. Nico was now one of the big kids and he still sucked his thumb, but that was okay. He had just turned six so it wasn’t a big deal, he was still little. So Will made it his duty to make sure no one knew.

They also shared snacks during snack times. Nico’s mom always brought him yucky healthy stuff so it was also Will’s duty to introduce him to the finer things in life. He pulled out his lunchbox and held it above his head lion king style, song and all.

“You’re so silly!”nico giggled and Will did too, finally putting it on the table. He pulled out the sacred snack and placed it before the brunet.

“Here neeks, try this! These are called dunk-a-roos!”he said

“Dunk-a-roo?”Nico said slowly and scrunched up his nose. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this word...words? He didn’t know. It’s a little clunky and the letters are stressed in the wrong places but will still gave him a big smile.

“Yeah you got it!”

As Nico grew more comfortable he began to open up more. Will found out he had two sisters who he loved fiercely. Bianca who was in the second grade and Hazel who was in the other kindergarten class. If he loved talking about one thing it was those two, and Will listened intently.

“And-And yesterday after school Bee made us a tea party!”He exclaimed, throwing his hands up.

“Woahh with real tea?”Will asked.

“Yes!”he said, “me and Hazel and mama and papa and Bee all got dressed up and went into the garden!”

“You guys have a garden?”Will stressed.

“Uh huh!”He said, “maybe mama will let you come over sometime”

As much as he was fond of Nico, he was also a bit jealous. He wished that he got to see his siblings everyday like Nico did, but it was okay. His mama said that every family was different and she wouldn’t lie to him. He still got to see Michael and Lee during christmas and his birthday, and Kayla went he spent the weekend at daddy’s house. He loved his different family, even if Nico’s seemed perfect.

And sooner than later, he became a part of it. With the constant begging from Nico, Bianca accepted Will as another and very blonde little sibling to take care of. It made him happy to finally have a sibling to see everyday, and he’d always wanted an older sister. Two older brothers were too much, and a new little brother was coming. He scrunched up his nose, too many boys.

At the end of each day his favorite thing was to hop in the car,get some chicken nuggets and tell Naomi everything. So with the warm April breeze on his back that’s just what he did. He said goodbye to Nico,Bianca and Hazel(who was still a little shy) and hopped into his mama’s minivan waiting to spill. He was practically buzzing with excitement as he was strapped into his carseat.

“Hey baby!”She said and she tightened the last buckle. He smiled and leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

“Hi mama! I missed you!”He exclaimed. Her laughter could be heard from outside the car as she got back into the driver's seat.

“I missed you too Will”she said, “now, who’s that little boy you’ve been playin with?”

“His name is Nico, mama! He’s this big and he’s from italy and he still sucks his thumb durin’ nap time—but that’s okay right? Cause he’s still little?”

“That’s right baby, we should have Nico over for a play date sometime”

The next day after school Maria and Naomi got talking, Maria was so happy that she cried. Although a little surprised Naomi was quick to act and pulled her into a hug. It may have been a bit of an odd sight to see two women crying in a parking lot, but it was one of the least weird things most teachers had seen all day. When Maria had finally regained her composure she clutched onto Naomi’s hand like her life depended on it.

“I...I apologize, Nico just...the other kids are mean to him”she sniffled. “As his mother it is hard to see, I am so happy that he has Will.”

“Oh sugar don’t you apologize”Naomi said and pulled her into another hug. “I could say the same about my Will, he talks about Nico all the time”

“Nico loves him”She said and pulled away to wipe her eyes, “Nico loves him so much.”

“I could say the same”Naomi chuckled, “Will loves him fiercely.”

“Please, come over for dinner”she said, “I’m making Risotto-”

“-Oh Maria you don’t-”

“No no, I insist!”Maria exclaimed, “it is the least I can do. Your son has brought a new light to Nico’s eyes”

And from the sincerity of her tone, how could Naomi say no?

“It’s a deal”

As Naomi walked back to the car, the pride that filled her chest was soaring. Will was still so little but his heart was so big. It was amazing how he could do so much good and still not realize the gravity of the situation, how complicated it was. But it wasn’t complicated to him, he simply saw someone who needed a friend and became the best friend he could be. One day he would understand the good he did in its entirety, one day he’d be able to feel the same pride that she did. But they were still so little and that day was years away, so she would let them be little.

The school year came to a close and the two had grown exceptionally close. This of course called for a celebration from the di angelo family. Maria and Naomi set up the garden tables, while Hades fired up the grill, making small talk with Apollo. Will,Bianca,Hazel and Nico busied themselves by playing chase as they waited on the food.

“Come on Neeks, you’re too slow!”Will giggled as he darted across the lawn, “Me and Bee are getting away!”

“Nu uh!”Nico cried out and pumped his legs even harder trying to catch up. Poor Hazel being the smallest had given up a long time ago and resigned to sit at Maria and Naomi’s feet watching. Eventually Bianca tapped out too and decided that coloring at the table was more her speed. That left Will and Nico laughing madly and running circles around each other.

“It’s nice, huh?”Apollo spoke, poking the jaded man. “Seeing him so happy”

As Hades listened to his child's laughter, a sound even he wasn’t too familiar with, something swelled inside him. He hadn’t seen Nico this happy since they were in italy, and even then he wasn’t this lively. The telltale sign of tears crept up his chest and burned at his nose and throat.

And he let them fall.

He had seen a lot of beautiful things in his life.

But Nico’s happiness was the most beautiful of all.

a/n this was the first one y’all! I really hope you enjoyed it and leave a comment if you did. I really enjoyed writing these two kiddos, makes my heart warm

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ohmeohmayohmy · 5 years

Text

With the Slightest Smile, Chapter 10

Taglist: @reedusteinrambles @juxt4p0siti0n @kurtnehhhh @chlobo6 @reavenedges-lies @livcaper @singularpurplepansy

Notes: Thank you for your patience, folks, in waiting on the latest installment in this oh so thrilling saga. I’m just gonna give a little disclaimer, I’m not super happy with the execution of this chapter. It was supposed to be longer, but so much was happening, I worried it might be too much. I took out a lot of things, maybe they’ll be included in the future. Hopefully no blaring editing issues. Anyway, she’s short and a little all over the place. But there is one moment that felt like a sucker punch to the throat... Anyway, enjoy this cute picture of the babes chilling in Australia :)

Warnings: Language, some drinking.

Words: 8.7k+

___________________________________

January 17, 1974

“Oh, I’m fucking exhausted,” you announced to the empty living room as you flopped onto the sofa, face first.

Most nights had been quiet since New Year’s. You worked most of them, but even when you got to be home, Brian was seldom there.

Neither of you brought up what had happened, neither of you knew what the other was aware of. You didn’t tell Brian about your intentions for the evening, or the passionate night that was borne from your despair, and he certainly didn’t tell you about what he overheard.

The strangest thing about the situation for you, however, was the relief you felt whenever you discovered that Brian wasn’t in the flat. The interactions you shared were awkward, filled with silences and missed connections. Feeling that way around him broke your heart every time.

You stayed in the same position for a while, careful not to drift off into slumber just yet, until you decided you wanted to get something to drink. Slowly peeling yourself from the fabric of the seats, you felt your spine crack with precision. The sound wasn’t pleasant, but you appreciated the sensation that followed.

Walking into the kitchen, you noticed a pile of unwashed dishes in the sink. You groaned, not wanting to clean up after someone else’s mess. Upon further inspection, you saw that there were four plates, each with a thin dusting of bread crumbs. It probably meant Brian had the boys over, and they were all out together now. You drummed your fingers over the faucet head before turning on the cold water, allowing it to fill your glass once the temperature was acceptable.

The countertops were all a little dirtier than you would have liked. Some wet spots from god knows what, small bits of food that no one took the care to swipe off the surfaces. It irritated you, but you couldn’t find the energy in yourself to fix it. With a deep breath, you exited the space without doing anything. It’s not my problem.

You walked across the living room to get to the hallway, and came upon your bedroom door. It was closed shut, as you had left it before you went to work. Taking a sip from your glass, you jiggled the handle to get inside. For the first time in years, you heard the familiar grating creak of the hinges, causing a shiver to slither down your spine. It wasn’t like that this morning, was it? Pushing past it, you got into your room, and sat on the bed without closing the door behind you. The blue color scheme filled you with a newfound calm. The lazy light of the sunset peeked around the curtain covering the window. You basked in the soft hues of pink and orange, closing your eyes in relaxation.

Shaking you out of it, you heard the flat’s door click open and shut. Through the doorway to your bedroom, you peered, and were met with the sight of a somber Brian. He felt your gaze upon him but didn’t reciprocate. Instead, he tossed his jacket onto the coat rack and marched to his own bedroom. You expected to hear a slam, but it didn’t come. Concerned, you tiptoed down the hallway to check on your best friend.

Brian sat at the piano pushed against the wall, one of his hands held over his eyes, the other gently rest atop the uncovered keys. You felt as though you were intruding on his privacy, and decided to leave him be. As you vanished, Brian turned to look at you, only seeing an empty hallway. He lowered his eyes to the piano in front of him, and softly trilled in the silence.

From your room, you could hear the quietly mournful music drifting in.

And so, you both sat in your loneliness, waiting for the other to rescue you.

_______________

January 22

“Oi, give me the hat!” Roger hollered as Freddie swiped his beret from the table.

“You’ll thank me for this,” Freddie snided.

“Thank you for stealing?”

“Theft can be good for the victim.”

“In what circumstances, Fred?”

“Collecting the insurance.”

“You think I have my hats insured?”

“Well, I do.”

You and John sat at a safe distance from the bickering, entertained by the others’ antics of the day. He hid the laughter forming at his lips with his fist, but you weren’t as careful about covering your cheer. Your giggling made it harder for Deaky to contain his own, and eventually he broke, his sweet chimes joining in with yours. Freddie and Roger didn’t appreciate the seeming ridicule, turning their snipping comments to the pair of you.

“Shut up, Deaky,” Roger huffed. “Wouldn’t want to insure your stuff, no one would steal it.”

Freddie smirked. “No one would want it.” You smiled at the silly expression of offense John was giving them. Freddie then looked at you. “Don’t think you’re safe in this, Y/N.” Brian came out to join the rest of you, finally emerging from the shower, watching the rest of you teasing and playing around. He leaned against the doorframe. You were the only one who noticed him standing there. Freddie continued poking fun, “I’ve seen that horrible brown jumper of yours.”

You frowned, eyes drifting down to your hands. “It was a gift.”

“From who? Deaky?” Roger teased.

“No.”

Roger continued pressing, “What kind of boyfriend doesn’t give you gifts?”

John’s eyes widened, looking from Roger to Freddie, and landing on you. You both shifted uneasily in your seats, uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

Brian glared at Roger, not wanting to bring up the conversation of New Year’s. The two of them had many discussions about what they had perceived. Or rather, Brian ranted about everything while Roger made snide comments just to rile him up. You didn’t see the angered stares shared between them, and got up from your place next to John. Deaky watched you with apologies brimming in his eyes.

Not looking at him, you moved on to go into the kitchen, ignoring the comments being murmured in deep tones. Turning on one of the burners under the tea kettle, you reached for a mug in the cupboard above you. John came up behind you and helped you grab one, setting it down on the counter near you. You stared at him. He was sheepish.

“Sorry about them, Y/N.”

“Not your fault. They’re mostly harmless anyway.”

“Mostly,” he reemphasized. “Wouldn’t trust them around open flame.”

You grinned. “Maybe then they’d actually be able to collect some insurance money.” John ceded, holding his hands up in defeat. “And I’m sorry I was so quick to dismiss the thought, I just didn’t want them to get the wrong idea.”

“No, I understand. I wasn’t offended.”

You sighed, grateful. “Lunch yesterday was great.” He beamed down at you.

“I thought so too. We should do it again sometime.”

The creak of a floorboard caught your attention. You sharply snapped you head to the side, seeing Brian standing alone, coming in from the living room. You felt like you were caught red handed, even though you hadn’t done anything. His face had no expression, not wanting to betray the upset brewing inside. John cleared his throat.

“I should probably take Fred and Rog home.”

“You drove them here?” You asked, tearing away from Brian’s face.

Deaky nodded. “Roger’s car had to be fixed. He was quite upset about it.”

“What happened? Did he get in an accident?”

“No, he thinks someone dented the side of it, but I tried to tell him it was already there.”

Brian, who hadn’t said anything since you saw him, grumbled, “It’s no Beatrix.” You smiled fondly, glad that he had humor about him.

“Beatrix is a sturdy lady,” you joked. Brian’s harshness became less intense. John wasn’t sure how to respond to the words being spoken, awkwardly swaying and puffing out his cheeks. You faced him. “Y’know, you don’t have to leave. We could all go out for food or something.” He left a pause, hesitant.

“It’s not really dinner time.”

“Does it have to be?” Brian arched an eyebrow, almost challenging his bandmate.

Deaky was unfazed. “I have plans anyway.”

You perked up, “Sounds nice. Maybe some other time, then.” Your eyes darted between the two tall men standing beside you. Brian shifted away from John and smiled down upon you.

“You know where to find me,” John said, slowly shuffling away from the situation, making his way to where the others sat. You followed him, and Brian followed you out into the living room.

Roger stood triumphant, beret placed sloppily on his head. Freddie has his arms crossed, rolling his eyes as they conversed. John rested an arm on Freddie’s shoulder, telling them that he was ready to leave. They collected their things, giving you various remarks of “Thank you” and “See you later” and other things of the sort. You watched them clumsily make their way out the door, Roger stumbling over Freddie’s foot. John gave you a kind smile as he closed the door behind him, shepherding the rowdy pair away.

“We could still get something to eat, if you’d like,” Brian suggested. You took your attention away from the group who had just left and brought it to him.

“Sure. Haven’t been wined and dined by you lately,” you smiled. He scoffed, but an amused grin wrenched itself across his face. “Not every girl gets to say she’s had dinner with Brian May.”

But not every girl was you.

He held his tongue, keeping the words on his mind out of his mouth.

“I guess I should put some clothes on,” you muttered to yourself, unconsciously twiddling with the hem of the shirt you had been lounging in all afternoon. Brian nodded, combing a hand through his still damp hair. You left him alone for a few minutes, searching through your things to find something to slip on. This seems to be a common occurrence, you mocked yourself.

In ransacking the dresser drawers, your hands dug out an old brown jumper. Wistfully, you pulled it up to your face and took in a deep breath, allowing the scent of sage to crash in over you. After the brief moment of personal intimacy, you carefully stashed it away again before moving on to find something to wear for the evening.

* * *

“So, when is your flight to Australia?” You asked in between bites of your salad.

Brian quickly wiped a napkin over his mouth. “We leave on Thursday.”

“It’s going to be a long one.”

“I know, and I’m already stressing out over it ‘cause Freddie is worried about the inoculations we have to get. Hates needles.”

You dipped your water. “His nerves are making you anxious?”

“More like irritating me to the point of insanity,” Brian answered.

“Any of the others scared of needles?”

“No, just Fred.”

“Where are you going to get them done?”

“We’re going to a clinic tomorrow.”

You creased your forehead. “That’s cutting it awfully close.”

“It’s taken us this long to get Freddie to come to terms with it.”

“Hmm. I would’ve thought Roger was the one who had a hard time with shots.”

Brian shook his head, eyes cast down. “I think he worked with needles enough at uni to get over that.” You nodded in agreement.

“That’s fair, I got over my fear.”

Brian gave a sly smile, looking up at you through his dark eyelashes. “I will never forget the screaming.”

“I never screamed.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” he teased.

You glared at him. “At least I never cried because the teacher wrote ‘Good job’ instead of ‘Excellent’ on my maths homework.”

“That was one time!”

“Yeah, because he never did it again after he saw your snotty little nose running.”

Brian leaned back in his chair, away from you, to get a better look at his surroundings. “It’s rather nice in here,” he mused. “Don’t y’think?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

His eyelids fluttered, probably without him meaning to. You were struck with his loveliness. Does he always do that? I’ve never noticed.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come to Melbourne with us?”

You pushed the thought out of your mind. “Yes, I’m sure, Bri. I already had this discussion with John.” That was the wrong thing to say, and you knew it as it came from your lips. Brian’s soft glow dwindled, his gentle demeanor crushed.

“When you went to lunch yesterday?” He spoke quietly. You felt a pang of guilt rising in your chest.

“Well, not yesterday. It was sometime last week.” You writhed at the seemingly incriminating words spilling from you.

Brian brought his eyes back down to his fiddling fingers, not wanting to make eye contact. “Do you go often?”

His questions were starting to aggravate you. They sounded like accusations, as if there was something wrong about going to lunch with a friend who wasn’t him. “Does it matter?”

Brian gave a small chuckle, but it sounded a little unhinged. “Well, your boyfriend should take you out whenever he can. I mean, you’re a busy lady.” He felt himself ruining the evening more with every word, but he had to speak his mind. It was killing him to think about you and Deaky, and he wanted you to know that, even if this wasn’t the way to do it.

You detested the mocking, condescending quality of his words. “I am busy, but I always make time for my friends. Maybe if you bothered to ask if I had plans, we could’ve gone for lunch, too. But you didn’t. So what’s it to you if John wanted—”

“I don’t need to know what John wanted.”

That’s it. You stood up from the booth where you were sitting and stared down at Brian. “What the hell is your problem?” He didn’t say anything. “Whomever I go out for a meal with is none of your concern. Especially when you haven’t even tried to talk to me in weeks. I hate it! I hate it when you get jealous just because I’m not waiting around the flat for you to come home to me. I can have other companions in life, Brian.” You grabbed your purse and moved away from the table. “And John is not my fucking boyfriend. Not that it’s any of your business.” You rummaged through the purse’s contents, and threw some money to him. “Have a nice time in Melbourne.”

Brian watched you storm off. Once you were gone, he rested his head on the flat surface of the table. He blew it again, and he didn’t even get his burning questions answered.

_______________

January 24

The sound of Brian’s blaring alarm woke you far earlier than you intended to be up. You didn’t even plan on seeing him off, and though you knew it was petty, you debated it as you were in bed, hearing him shuffling through his stuff in preparation.

In contrast, Brian hadn’t slept a wink. It was now three o’clock in the morning, and he had been laying still for the past five hours. He felt nauseated ever since he got the inoculations, his head was spinning from the magnitude of it all, and he couldn’t help but play the disastrous supper between the pair of you over and over again in his head. It seemed as though someone was telling him to stay home. And Brian considered it. But then his alarm went off, and he was brought back to reality.

You finally came to the conclusion that you should get up and go to the airport with Brian and the others. You rationalized that someone would have to drive Brian’s car back home, even though you really just wanted to move on from the argument that had broken out in the restaurant. The tenseness that had taken over the apartment since the beginning of the year was driving you crazy, choking all joy from your lives together. Going to the airport might be an olive branch. At least, you hoped so.

But the thing that confused you the most was why Brian had been so cross with you and Deaky. You were unable to get around it, always coming back to a big question mark. Brian never explained his animosity over your friendship with John. You thought it might have to do with him drunkenly asking you out on his birthday, but you couldn’t connect it to any reasons that Brian might have. It never occurred to you that Brian was upset about much more recent events that he thought had transpired.

You pulled the warm covers off of your body, and walked over to your closet to find something warm and comfortable to slip on.

Brian dragged his bag down the hallway, his arm hurt too much to pick it up. You stepped out of your room just as he was approaching it. The circles that were customarily under his eyes seemed impossibly dark. It worried you.

“Good morning,” you whispered.

“Good morning, Y/N.”

“How did you sleep?”

He snorted. “I didn’t.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m great,” he lied. You weren’t convinced, but decided not to say anything. He continued walking, dragging the bag beside him. You came up behind him and scooped the bag into your arms. He seemed surprised. “Are you coming to the airport?”

“What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?”

Brian smiled with appreciation and didn’t respond to your question.

“You want me to drive? I’m a little more well rested.”

“If you insist.”

“I do,” you affirmed.

Brian shrugged, too tired to put up a fight. “Then who am I to say no?”

“Is this everything you’re bringing?” You motioned with the bag.

“Mmhmm.” His drowsy voice caught in his throat. “Red is too.”

“I could’ve guessed as much,” you playfully scolded. “Should I go grab—”

“I can carry my own guitar,” he piped. “I’m not completely incompetant.”

“No, you’re not.” You voice softened, feeling intense affection for your best friend, standing with sleep in his eyes. Brian overlooked your adoring eyes and stumbled off to grab his guitar case. You set the bag down to pull your boots up and loop a coat around your arms, bundling up in preparation for the nippy winter morning air. Brian came back with the case in hand, and a silly grin. The shift from his drowsy droopiness to a more cheerful disposition eased some of the concerns you held for him. “Are you ready?”

“I suppose I am.”

--May 19, 1969--

“Happiest of birthdays, Pip!” Your father loudly spoke over the phone, using the nickname he’d given you when you were small.

“Thank you, dad. Tell mum I say thank you for the biscuits she sent.”

“You can tell her yourself,” he said, oblivious to your desire to hang up. “Dear, Y/N wants to talk to you!” He called to your mother, who must have been in another room.

“Oh, dad, I don’t have much ti—”

“Y/N, sweetie?” A feminine voice came through the speaker.

You sighed silently to yourself.

“Hi, mum.”

“Happy birthday!”

“Thank you.”

“I can’t believe you’re already twenty two. I miss my little baby. You were just so cute.”

“Ha, yeah. Thank you, mum, for the biscuits.”

“They travelled alright?”

“Yes, delicious as ever.” You took a bite of one, making sure she could hear you eating it. “Mmm.”

“Have any plans for the day?”

“No, I got the day off to do nothing.”

Your mother laughed. “Just as you like it.”

You let a pause drift into the conversation, trying to let it move naturally. “Is Bri there?” You asked, as if you had just thought of it, even though it was the first thing on your mind when you had picked up the phone. You hadn’t spoken to Brian in several days, and were really hoping he’d call you on your birthday. Thus far, however, he hadn’t, and with each passing hour you grew more disappointed.

“No, he’s not, sweetie. Has he called you yet?”

“No.”

“He’s probably busy,” she defended Brian.

“Probably.”

The disappointment must have slipped into your tone, because your mother said, “Don’t worry. I’m sure he’s working on some huge surprise, like he does every year.”

“Well, ’ve been home every year for my birthday, mum. It’s a bit easier to do something when you’re in the same country.”

She hesitated. “Don’t be so sure, dear. Brian always comes through.”

You smiled meekly. He does. The mere thought of him made your eyes dewy. Being away from home, from him, for so much of your time was even more difficult than you had predicted. It had been the better part of a year since you moved to Helsinki for work, but the homesickness never seemed to subside like everyone said it would.

“You miss him, don’t you?”

“You could say that,” you laughed, only partially being jocose.

“Hmm, more than your father and me?”

The brief delay in your response gave her a good chuckle.

“What–no!”

“You’ve never been good at lying, sunshine.”

You knew she had a point.

“It’s not that I miss him more, it’s just a different kind of missing.”

“You don’t have to defend yourself. Love has a funny way of making many things of a ‘different kind,’ Pip.” Your mum started rambling on about something that you couldn’t really pay attention to, caught up on the last comment she made.

“Huh?”

She stopped. “What?”

“I never said anything about love.”

“You didn’t have to, dear.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

You could hear your parents whisper to each other, followed by a shared laugh. “Like I said, Y/N, you never were good at lying.”

Before you could ask her to elaborate on the implications behind her sarcasm, a gentle knock came at the door of your small apartment.

“Mum?”

“Yes?”

“Can I call you back? It sounds like someone’s at the door.” You held your hand over the lower portion of the telephone to call out to the person behind the door. “Just a minute!”

A delighted noise came from the other side of the call. “Of course, baby. I love you.”

“I love you too, mum. And dad.”

“He says he knows. Talk to you at some point, then.”

“Alright.”

She hung up before you had the chance to. With slight indignance, you set the phone back on its hook and moved to answer the continuous knocking.

You swung the door open, in the midst of saying “Sorry,” revealing the most beautiful face you had ever laid eyes on.

“Happy birthday, love.”

Before you squeak any words out, your body took over and enveloped his lanky figure in your arms. “I missed you,” you choked, a sob lodging itself in your throat. His reassuring embrace surrounded you, pulling you further into his warmth.

“Not as much as I missed you,” Brian replied lovingly, stroking your hair gingerly.

“Somehow I doubt that,” you said, your voice muffled by his shirt, which you had your face nestled in.

Without being able to hear you very well, Brian knew exactly what you had said and smiled secretly to himself. “I promise you.”

You pulled your face away from him, to get a better look at his beauty. “It’s so cute when you say silly things.”

“Hmm, well, I must not be very cute right now, since I didn’t say anything silly.”

“Oh, god!” You giggled, leaving his touch completely. “Is that the best you can do?”

No, you’re the best I can do, he thought privately. “Must be out of practice.”

You moved out of the doorway, allowing Brian to come into the small space. He walked through, and caught you staring intently at him.

“What?”

“Just can’t believe you’re here.”

“Yet, here I am!” He extended his slender arms out to his sides to punctuate the statement.

“Here you are,” you echoed, calmer than your visitor, words honeyed with enamoration.

Brian was completely oblivious.

“I hope this isn’t an intrusion. Your mum said it would be alright if I came as a surprise.”

“I can honestly say, this is the best birthday you’ve ever orchestrated.”

His eyes lit up. “Really?”

“Mmhmm,” you nodded slowly, taking in his features. Memorizing them. The light rosiness of his cheeks endearing him to you even more.

He shied away from your gaze a little bit. “The plane ticket was all I could really afford, ’m sorry, Y/N.”

“Huh?” You had zoned out while admiring him.

Brian’s blush deepened. “I didn’t bring a gift. Only myself.”

You adjusted your stance to meet his eyes directly.

“It’s just what I wanted.”

* * *

“This place is nice,” Brian looked around, observing the cafe you were sitting in.

“It’s no Beat-Nick’s, but I make do.”

“Do they know you by name yet?”

You shook your head. “No, but they know my order, so it’s only a matter of time.”

“Baby steps,” he quipped.

“Exactly.” You sipped from the tea in front of you. “How’s the band doing?”

Brian shrugged. “Tim’s got a cold, and Roger’s going through a crisis.”

“Isn’t he always?”

“I think his life is a crisis.”

“That would explain a lot.”

He blew through his lips, exaggerating his expression. “Yes. Yes, it would.”

You marveled at the ethereal qualities of his face, how striking yet delicate he was. The contrast between his pale skin and dark hair. You had forgotten the hazel coloration that painted his eyes, as if the vastness of the universe was trapped inside them.

“What is it this time?” You asked, referring to Roger’s present problem.

Brian rolled his eyes to the back of his head. “Lady problems, what else?”

You scrunched your mouth to the side. “Having troubles with Janet?”

“They split months ago.”

“Already?” You whistled. “That didn’t take long.”

“Never does.”

“But he’s really not as much of a player as he seems.”

“I’d say he’s a bit of a player, just not a womanizer.”

“He’s mostly respectful,” you sniped, talking into your teacup. Brian laughed at your comment.

“We can’t all be bad boys.” He leaned back, his tone cocky.

You narrowed your eyes into slits, staring at Brian with suspicion. “This again? We’ve established that you’re the furthest thing from a bad boy, on many occasions.”

“Hey, you’ve been gone for a while. I could be a completely changed man.”

“You haven’t changed since the day I met you.” You dropped the teasing manner and switched into a more sincere one. “And I’m glad.”

“I’d hope I’ve changed a little bit.”

You grinned, basking in his presence. “Nope. You’re Brian May, everlasting.”

“Hmm. Not sure I like that.”

You shrugged. “I don’t make the rules.”

“No, you just enforce them.”

“Someone has to.”

Brian took a large drink from his cup, hissing as the hot tea touched his tongue. “Thought it would’ve cooled by now.”

“You have to sip.”

“Tough guys don’t take sips.”

“And tough guys don’t hiss at lukewarm tea.”

“That’s blatant stereotyping, Y/N. I thought you were better than that.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” Except you, you said internally. You instinctively reached for Brian’s hand that was lain atop the table. He wanted to stay there, but reluctantly pulled away from your soft fingers. You were taken aback, he never rejected you so explicitly. You felt your face heating, but willed yourself not to get upset. “Everything okay?”

“Uh, yes.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“I have a girlfriend,” he suddenly blurted.

“Oh.” You weren’t expecting that.

“Yeah,” Brian lowered his eyes. “It’s new.” God, he wished he didn’t say anything. The shock on your face broke his heart, guilt-ridden.

You cleared your throat, trying to rid yourself of the burning sensation. “That’s exciting.”

“It can be.”

“Is it serious?” You tried to play it cool.

From Brian’s perspective, you were just asking out of friendliness.

“No, I think it’s too early. More fun than anything.”

“What’s her name?”

“May.”

You scoffed, not the slightest bit amused. “If you got married, she’d be May May.”

Brian shifted in his seat, horrified that he ruined the happy day he’d been trying to give you. “I doubt we’ll get married.”

“Don’t sound so certain.”

He was certain. He didn’t love her.

Brian made sounds of dismissal.

“Then why date her?”

She was more like a distraction from the hole you left in his life, and he knew he couldn’t move on if he didn’t have a distraction. But he couldn’t bring himself to say that. For all he knew, you were uninterested in him.

For all you knew, Brian was uninterested in you.

And suddenly you understood what your mother was saying. You couldn’t even lie to yourself.

You were in love with your best friend.

--1974--

Freddie perked up as he saw you walking up with Brian. “Y/N! I’m glad you came!” He turned to Brian. “Did you convince her to come?”

Brian set down his guitar by his feet, and you mirrored his action by placing his bag on the ground. “Nah, she’s a stubborn one,” Brian lightly teased, holding the arm that hurt in his free hand. You noticed the small wince he gave as his hand came in contact with the pained area. You shot him a quizzical glance, hoping he might tell you if something was feeling off. But he didn’t notice.

“I just came to see you off,” you turned your focus to Freddie.

“One of these days, you’re gonna have to come with us.”

Brian looked smug. “She promised she would if we ever headline in America.”

“Is that so?” Freddie’s tone was vaguely taunting. You nodded slightly. His smile broadened. “Then I supposed it’s good we’re so popular.”

“I wouldn’t say popular,” Brian’s modesty balanced Freddie’s confident optimism.

“Just with the ladies, then.” Freddie winked at you. You laughed out of politeness.

“Speaking of,” you looked around, “where’s Roger? And how’d you get here before anyone?”

“I’ve got my ways, dear,” Freddie smirked. “And Roger had to be picked up by Deaky. His car’s still at the garage.”

“I thought it was just a small dent?” Brian’s confusion reflected your own.

“Apparently not.” Freddie tilted his head. “They should be here soon, though, if you wanted to wait to say goodbye to them.”

“I really should probably go back to bed,” you added quickly. “I have work this afternoon. Probably should have more than four hours of sleep under my belt.” You hugged Freddie firmly.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Do tell them they have my love, and I’m rooting for you all.” You stood on your tiptoes, bringing Brian’s face down closer to you, and planted a small peck on his cheek. “Call me as soon as you can. If I’m not home, call the hospital.”

“Yes, mum,” Brian sighed.

“And I’ll be here waiting when you get back.” You blew Freddie a kiss as you began to walk away. “Have a safe flight.”

“I’ll do my best, dear!”

You turned your back to them just in time to conceal a teardrop rolling down your cheek.

Brian longingly watched you leave. He took a deep breath, thinking about how leaving home was never easy. Even if it was only for a few days.

_______________

January 31

You paced back and forth, keeping a close eye on the nearby clock. They were supposed to get in fifteen minutes ago. The airport was fairly empty, with some families randomly reuniting as passengers got off of their respective planes. You saw some people kissing their loved ones goodbye, some departures were sorrowful, others were more casual. A young woman, probably around eighteen, was giving her mother a long, tender hug. They were both smiling, but you were sure they were smiles of hope and pride, since there were still some tears flowing from the pair. Maybe the girl was going off to school somewhere far away, or just leaving for an extended trip. You couldn’t tell, but the interaction left you feeling nostalgic, remembering how hard it was to leave for Finland all those years ago. You had been accompanied by a larger entourage comprised of your parents, Stella, and of course, Brian, there to see you off. They all promised to visit, but Stella never lived up to it. You couldn’t blame her, though, seeing how busy she was in her endeavors. And your parents only came a few times. Brian made a habit to come as often as he could, but it became harder as Queen formed and grew more successful.

The mental tangent had taken up a few minutes of your time, and an announcement from the speakers broke you out of it. It had informed you of the arrival of the boys’ flight. You smoothed out your dress, trying to make yourself more presentable. You weren’t sure why you were trying to fix yourself up, it was just the boys. But something about that afternoon made you more anxious to appear put together. You just wanted to hold Brian in your arms. A week wasn’t much time, but it was more than enough to make you move on from the little tiff you’d had a couple days before they left.

A door opened, and a stream of weary travellers spilled out, all looking exhausted from the lengthy flight. You rose up onto the tips of your toes to get a better look at the passersby. You didn’t recognize any of them and willed them to pick up the pace. You just wanted to see some lovely, friendly faces.

And at long last, you did.

* * *

“I don’t think they liked us very much, at first,” Roger recounted at the dinner table.

Freddie had insisted that the group of you go out to get a “welcome home” meal, and everyone else was too tired to argue.

“Oh? And what do you suspect made them change their minds?” You asked, looking at the blond man sitting directly across from you.

“My stunning good looks?”

Deaky scoffed quietly, but since he was sitting next to you, you could hear him well. It made you smile. Brian, who sat on the other side of you, observed the secret moment that transpired between you and John. He frowned and turned away, looking at Roger instead.

“I think Fred’s voice might’ve done the trick,” Brian countered, his tone sounding irritated.

Roger sat silent for a few seconds, before coming back with, “I suppose the lethal combination of Fred’s voice and my good looks might’ve done ’em in.”

You humored him. “That sounds likely.”

Deaky leaned in, more invested in the conversation. The closeness between the two of you was not lost on Brian. “I think talent is more important than looks.”

“Of course you would think that,” Roger sneered.

You turned to John. “I think you’ve all got both.” Then you eyed Roger. “Most of you, anyway.”

“Hey!”

“Got a problem with that, pretty boy?” Freddie joined in on teaming up against Roger.

“I think you mean ruggedly handsome.”

You and Freddie shared knowing looks. “I don’t think I do, Rog.” Everyone at the table let out a charmed laugh, but Roger’s focus was elsewhere. His gaze was drawn to somewhere behind you, John, and Brian.

“Hey, Bri?” Roger’s voice grew hushed.

“Yes, Roger?” Brian’s response was much more worn.

“Isn’t that the girl from university?” Roger subtly pointed a finger in the direction of his focus. Brian whipped his head around, failing to continue in the same vein of subtlety. You didn’t look behind you, hoping that Roger was mistaken.

Brian came back to look at Freddie and Roger, eyes widened. It confirmed what you wished wasn’t true.

“Almost-Perfect?” You asked. He nodded.

“I think she saw me looking. Is she coming over?”

Freddie’s eyes quickly darted up to check. “No, but she is looking this way.”

Brian tensed up. “Should I go say something?”

“Do you want to?” Roger asked.

“I don’t know...I should, shouldn’t I? Since she saw me?”

You turned away, forcing yourself to pay attention to anything, or anyone, except Brian. So, you settled on Deaky, who was already looking at you. He noticed the desperate expression on your face and whispered, “Are you okay?” You didn’t say anything, and just nodded. You didn’t even know how to express what you were feeling. You weren’t really sure of what you were feeling.

Brian noticed this second private moment between you and John. It made up his mind for him.

“I’ll be back.” Brian’s voice was sharp and curt. He stood quickly, paused to look at you while you were still facing Deaky, and took slow strides away from the table.

You wished he hadn’t.

Roger and Freddie looked at each other, hoping that this might be the turning point for Brian. Maybe rekindling something with someone who was almost perfect might bring him out of his misery, even though they were rooting for the pair of you to end up together.

Though it might have only been a few minutes, the time between Brian leaving and coming back seemed like an eternity. What is he saying? Is she happy to see him?

Deaky rubbed the small of your back, seeing the sorrow breaking across your face. He didn’t bother asking what was troubling you, he didn’t want to make the moment about him.

The familiar sound of Brian’s gait came up behind you, slowing as he neared his designated seat.

Roger and Freddie stared at him expectantly, sitting with bated breath.

“Well? How’d it go?”

“Clearly, it was fine. She didn’t throw a drink in his face.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s fine, Roger.”

Brian’s face gave away nothing, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at you.

“She, uh, she asked me to dinner.” He hated the words that were about to escape his lips, but he felt the need to say them anyway. You pulled away from Deaky’s gentle touch, anxiously waiting for Brian to continue. “We’re going on Saturday.”

_______________

February 7

You sat on a couch at the studio, outside of the meeting, waiting for it to adjourn. Roger had driven you there from the hospital. Being the one who lived closest, he offered to bring you to the meeting with him, picking you up before going on a night out with the others. It didn’t give you time to wash up, but you had a spare change of clothes in your work locker. It finally came in handy.

It shocked you when you and Roger were the first ones there, other than the intimidating company representatives who informed you that, unfortunately, you weren’t allowed to sit in on the official business meeting, so you had to find entertainment on your own accord. At some point, staring at album cover art grew tiresome, and reading random three-word plaques proved to be as boring as it sounds. After that, you ran out of ideas.

Freddie’s distinctive voice rang through the corridor, accompanied by Brian’s softer tones. Then came a girlish giggle.

In that moment, you both wished you weren’t there, and to be the one who had been picked up by Brian. To distract yourself, you revisited the album covers that you had already studied to death. The challenge came when you tried to appear focused.

Brian stopped walking when he noticed you, but continued talking to his companions, leading them to stop in their tracks as he did.

Curiosity got the best of you, and you quickly peered over to the small group. Almost-Perfect had her fingers coyly wrapped around Brian’s forearm, hanging onto his every word, both figuratively and literally.

Her strawberry-blonde hair was significantly longer than it used to be, in your memory of seeing her from a distance almost a decade prior. She had a slender nose with a slight point, crystal blue eyes, and perfectly bowed lips. It angered you that Brian could be so shallow as to pick the most conventionally attractive woman you’d ever seen. But you had to admit, Almost-Perfect was an apt nickname.

Brian’s eyes slid easily down her face, her laughter coaxing a smile to form on his lips.

You turned back to the images in front of you, suddenly very appealing. It’s been one date, you fumed silently. Why is she here? Why would he bring her? We were supposed to go out for a fun evening.

Freddie and Brian began walking again, passing you to get into the room set up for the meeting. Neither of them made eye contact with you, but you could sense some faltering, like Freddie wanted to stop to talk to you. But Brian walked on, and brought Freddie with him.

The pretty woman standing nearby approached you with caution, seemingly intimidated. You met her eyes, trying not to glare. She gave you a weak smile and pointed to the space next to you. You moved over just enough to come across inviting. She sat down, maintaining a gap between you.

“You’re Y/N, right?”

“Yes.”

The blonde’s smile grew less timid. “I’m May.” She stuck out her hand, extending it for you to shake. You complied begrudgingly.

“Nice to meet you—”

“Officially,” May interrupted, clearly nervous about meeting you.

“Right.” You acknowledged slowly, retracting your hand from the too-lengthy handshake you’d been locked in.

“Can’t believe we haven’t really met before,” she considered. “I feel like I know you already.” You must have looked sceptical, because May quickly added, “But of course, I don’t.” Pause. “Know anything.” Pause. “About you.”

What the hell?

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t know anything about you either.” You straightened up in your seat, pretending to have a new thought. “Though, you’re seeing Brian, so I guess I do know something about you.” The pettiness seeping from your brain melted your tongue like acid. You didn’t like acting in such a way, but you couldn’t control yourself.

“You’re Brian’s roommate, so I guess I know something about you too, then.”

Roommate.

Roommate?

“Fair enough,” you ceded through gritted teeth.

If May already had you so on edge, you could tell it was going to be a long relationship.

* * *

Deaky never ended up making it to the meeting, which was highly unusual. The others grew worried, Freddie fearing the worst. But when the time came to hit the town, all concerns were exchanged for ridiculous theories over John’s whereabouts.

Freddie rode with you and Roger to the bar, leaving Brian and May to drive alone. Your blood boiled, resentful about how quickly she’d assumed your customary spot right next to him. How quickly he’d replaced you. The entire drive over, you were unable to think about anything else, even with Roger and Freddie’s prodding. Occasionally you would see them slip each other sly gazes, but you didn’t care enough to decipher their implications. You just couldn’t get to the bar soon enough.

Much to your chagrin, Brian and May had arrived before the rest of you, and parked at the far end of the lot. Away from any other vehicles, as Roger proudly pointed out. You didn’t like what he was implying.

The interior of the establishment didn’t match the cozy exterior. Neon lights covered the main room from wall to wall, casting vibrant hues upon the patrons. You wove through the dancing bodies, following the unmistakable silhouette of Brian’s hair.

As your trio got closer to the destination, you saw that Brian and May were accompanied by another pair. Your eyes skipped over to the other couple, beaming as you realized who they were. You rushed to embrace John and Veronica in your arms, pleased to see people with whom you had less complicated relationships.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” you shouted over the loud music.

“Here we are!” Deaky grinned, his arm wrapped around Veronica’s waist. She looked more reluctant to be there, but she relaxed into his loving hold.

Veronica stroked your shoulder, happy to see you too. “John was just introducing me to, uh, May, was it?”

“Yes,” May answered. You didn’t move your eyes from Veronica as she spoke.

“I guess that makes you Roger’s date of the evening?” John asked, teasing you and the blond.

You laughed at the thought, Roger agreeing with your sentiment. “Sure,” you chortled. “I’ll be his girl for the night.” Brian was alerted by the specific word choice you made.

Roger put his arm around your shoulders. “Yep, that’s my girl alright.”

“Wait,” Brian interrupted, “you’ve already met Veronica, Y/N?”

You looked at Brian’s face for the first time since you’d gotten there. “Mmhmm. They’ve been together for...four months now?”

“Almost,” Deaky nodded.

“So, I guess we met two months ago?”

“Something like that,” Veronica confirmed.

Brian’s head spun, trying to wrap his head around the order of events. Nothing added up. He watched your casual grazes with John’s arms, or the look John gave you. It led to only one logical conclusion.

“Deaky?” Brian’s voice rose an octave. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Deaky rolled his eyes, making you and Veronica giggle, before following the direction Brian was heading. You didn’t watch them leave, only focusing on the friends surrounding you.

* * *

Brian abruptly stopped walking, turning on his heel to look Deaky in the eye. “What the fuck, John?”

“What?” Deaky was clueless.

“You’ve been dating Veronica for four months—”

“Almost four months,” he corrected.

Brian closed his eyes, losing what little patience he had left. “Almost four months, and New Year’s was only a month ago?”

“I don’t understand, that’s a question you have to ask me?”

“No,” Brian snapped. He leaned in, looking into his bandmate’s eyes earnestly. “John, I need you to clarify something for me.”

John pursed his lips, arching an eyebrow. “And what would that be?”

Brian towered over the bassist, eyes now dark and harsh. “Did you sleep with Y/N when you took her home after the party?” His voice was more vulnerable in contrast to his appearance.

Deaky’s face went blank, not fully registering what Brian was asking him. “I don’t think I understand what you—”

“Did you fucking use Y/N to cheat on your girlfriend?”

_______________

February 14

“You’re going to lunch?”

Brian held the keys in his hand, jingling them with anticipation. “I told May I had to be back for dinner. ’M all yours.”

“You better be,” you crossed your arms. “It’s the first time in years that we’ve actually gotten to hold our little tradition.”

He took a step closer to you, running his thumb over the exposed skin of your shoulder. “I know. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Brian quickly removed the contact of his hand, his face conveying regret to you. For him, it was more a look of longing. He just wanted to stay in the moment, where the drowse in your eyes made you gaze up at him through your eyelashes, streaks from a pillowcase imprinted in your skin, and your hair messy from sleeping in.

“Topping?”

He didn’t follow, too absorbed in your most hidden self. “Hmm?”

“What topping would you like?”

“Oh.” Brian paused to think about it, but nothing sprang to mind. “Whatever you’d like.” He leaned down to kiss your cheek goodbye, as he had done for years, but stopped himself, settling for a quick hug. “Surprise me.”

“If you say so…” You gave a taunting response.

He gave you a serious glance. “Nothing too surprising.”

“Fine, no watermelon pizza.”

He smiled at your goofy comment, gently squeezed your hand goodbye, and went to the door.

“Oh!” You cried out in remembrance. Brian turned to check on you. “Can you get some kind of grease? Damned door is creaking again.” You pointed in the direction of your bedroom.

“Hmm. Forgot it did that,” Brian shrugged. “Will do.”

And with that, he was gone.

* * *

Without meaning to, you wore Brian’s favorite dress. It didn’t occur to you as you were putting it on, or even as you studied yourself in the mirror. The black fabric still complemented the curves and dips of your body, hugging in just the right spots. You had to go braless once more, again, without meaning to. You played with the hem of the skirt, rolling the material carefully between your fingers. The quietness of the flat was broken as you began to hum to yourself. Nothing specific, it was just a little habit of yours whenever you found yourself being giddy. It was inexplicable.

Almost as if you had something to be singing about.

Or someone.

In the reflection of the mirror, something small and gleaming caught your eye. You examined its placement and went to find it. After clanging about on the surface of your dresser, you located the culprit.

A small bottle of Heavenly Blue perfume.

Or at least, it used to be. Now, it was just another trinket among the rest of your little shiny things.

You touched the delicate label peeling from the bottle, tracing the tiny etching of lavender that decorated it. You pulled the top off, and took a whiff of the contents, expecting a hint of what used to be there. And you were welcomed with it.

Your humming got louder, morphing into something familiar. But you couldn’t quite place the melody.

A loud knocking was heard from the living room.

With a literal hop in your step, you hurried to answer the door. A short man stood on the other side, holding a large, flat box.

“Are you Y/N Y/L/N?”

“I am indeed.”

He handed you the hot box and stepped away. “Enjoy your pizza, Miss.”

“Oh, but I haven’t paid for it yet.”

The delivery man briefly shook his head, smiling kindly. “It’s already been taken care of. Have a lovely evening, Miss.” Before you could ask for an explanation, he was already down the hall, near the stairwell. You brought the box in, deciding not to question the free food.

* * *

Hours passed.

You sat alone on the couch, three quarters of the way through a bottle of moscato. Some record was playing in the background that you couldn’t even recall putting on.

You had already had a tearful, tipsy conversation with Stella over the phone, crying out of worry that something had happened to Brian. She assured you that he was just thoughtless, not dead. It took lots of convincing. At one point she offered to have you spend time with her and Odette, but you turned her down, expecting that Brian would be home at any time.

Any minute now, you suspected, he’ll come running along with a big bouquet of flowers, unencumbered by anyone. It would just be you and him, like it was meant to be on your night.

But at this point, it was nearing midnight.

And Brian never showed.

Draining the last drops from the wine bottle, you picked up the phone on the end table. Frantically dialing, you whispered “Pleasepleaseplease” in desperation, hoping your call would be picked up.

As you were giving up home, a bewildered “Hello?” came ringing through from the other line.

You wiped a boozy tear from your cheek and sniffed, trying to soothe yourself.

“Um, hi. It’s me,” you twirled the cord around your finger. “I was wondering, would you want to come over tonight?”

A muffled “Why?” came through the receiver again.

You finished the last of your glass, staring at the door. Waiting, in hopes that Brian would come through just at the last moment.

But he didn’t.

You gulped.

“I’m alone.”

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lovelyjasmari · 5 years

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Kingdom Hearts OC Week 2019 ~ Day 3

@khoc-week

Kalai’s has many people she’s close to but her closest friends are Kairi and Ienzo, having known them ever since she was a child. She is also very close to her youngest sister Adelen. As far as lovers go, Kalai has two. She’s in a very happy poly relationship with Lauriam and Elrena! They all met while still in the Organization and while Marluxia immediately goes out of his way to become close to her, Larxene is more reluctant. But by the time they arrive at Castle Oblivion, they are all clear partners in crime and their bond only increases during their time with the Thirteen Seekers of Darkness. I’ve kind of taken to calling them the “Treacherous Trio” in my mind. XD

Enemy wise, Kalai’s main enemy is Master Xehanort, obviously, but that is more of a default because of the situations she finds herself in. On a more personal level though, her enemies are Xemnas, and Young Xehanort. She despises Xemnas because of his deceit of herself and the other members of the first Organization and she blames him for when Marluxia and Larxene perish in Castle Oblivion. Young Xehanort she hates because he was the one who forced her back into the Organization after re-completion. And nearly the second after she reawakens, he goes out of his way to antagonize and “break” her as a way of amusing himself before the final battle since he's apparently very bored. Their rivalry is extremely fierce.

For today’s prompt, I’m going to share a bit from Kalai’s second installment that deals with her time in the Organization and her first meeting with Marluxia. At this point, she has already met Larxene and their first meeting is less than ideal. Though intrigued by The Graceful Assassin, she has decided to keep her distance. Let’s just say...that doesn’t go exactly to plan.

~~~

The long white hallways, decorated throughout with the Nobody emblem, seemed to stretch on forever; much larger than that of another castle that she had once resided in her other life. She had been thinking often lately about her past life, in the first few days of her new existence everything had been more or less a blur to her.

But now after nearly a week of residing in this strange new place with a strange new name, small fragments of her memories had begun to return to her. Images of the magnificent castle and the glittering fountains of her home that seemed to come out of a fairy tale, the five kind men who were her caretakers, and also…

Alixka stopped at a set of large glass doors that from outside she could see led to an immense greenhouse. This was a was a new discovery of the castle for her and she could not help her desire to explore. As she slowly pushed open the doors she was immediately taken in by the familiar scent of a greenhouse bursting with life; she remembered, yes, she had loved the flowers that grew in the gardens around her previous home. And her next home before coming to this strange place, Traverse Town, had a vast garden as well where she learned more about her botanical skills as well as her skills with magic. The memories caused a strange burning sensation to flicker in her chest that she could not understand. She wasn’t supposed to have a heart, what was this feeling?

She forced herself to move forward in order to distract herself, she recognized many of the plants as ingredients used to make things like potions and elixirs but others were new to her. In particular there were several rose bushes in every color imaginable as well as a large tree of cherry blossoms in full bloom. Toward the end, a glass roof looked out to give a view of the eternal night sky with a clear view of the golden heart shaped moon that would, hopefully, one day be the salvation of her and those around her. The only other room in the castle that had such a clear view of Kingdom Hearts was the Addled Impasse and Alixka knew by now that she was never to go there without explicit permission from Siax. But gazing up at it gave her a strange sense of solace that she felt she could keep.

That is, so long as no one knew she was here.

Just as the thought passed her mind she heard the glass doors open and soft footsteps coming her way, she panicked.There was no time to make a stealthy escape, and she was not yet used to summoning the Dark Corridors to move from one place to the other.

“Who’s there?”

Alixka quickly hid behind the trunk of the large cherry blossom tree, crouching down and covered by some conveniently placed bushes. Now what did Zexion say to me about the corridors? She thought frantically. The footsteps were becoming louder.

“I know someone else is here. Reveal yourself to me!”

Right! He told me not to think about it. That they would come to my call as naturally as blinking an eye.

It didn’t seem like the most informative advice at that moment though as she shut her eyes constantly but every time she opened them, there she was in the same place as before.

“Very well, have it your way then.”

She heard the door open and close again.

Cautiously, she peeked from behind the tree to see that no one was there. A few tense seconds passed and she realized also that the footsteps had stopped.

"I’ve stayed long enough." She smiled to herself in great relief. "Maybe now I can focus on leaving but not under duress."

Eyes closed once more, she stood up and turned to leave, extending her hand to summon a corridor that would return her to her room. But as she did so she felt something grab hold of her hand tightly, her eyes snapped open to find a live vine wrapped around her wrist and in a second another vine slipped around the other, keeping her from escaping.

“Wha...huh? What the…”

Alixka gasped as she looked up at the graceful pink haired man, gazing at her struggling form with a devilish look in his blue eyes and a smirk on his pale pink lips.

“Well well, I’m certain I’ve never seen a flower like you before.”

“Uh...I...I’m sorry...I…”

She couldn’t finish her sentence because the next thing she knew he was standing right next to her, she tried to turn away from him but he took her chin into his hand to face her. Those wicked blue eyes flashed with amusement.

“Our newest member. The Maiden of Tempests. You’re quite a lovely one aren’t you?”

He was so close to her that she could feel his warm breath ghost over her skin softly. She swallowed hard, unsure whether she disliked the contact or not.

“I take it you were enjoying my garden?”

Her violet eyes involuntarily locked with his and she could feel the heat rise in her face, Alixka did not know much about Marluxia, except that he seemed to be always hanging around the sharp tongued Larxene and she had made no effort to hide her disdain of her despite no longer being the only girl in the Organization.

If that wasn’t enough for Alixka to know to keep her distance, she had seen him from time to time in the training room sparring with other members and she had formed the idea that he could easily be one of the more powerful members of the Organization. He wielded his pink and green scythe with such a lethal style that she could see why he was considered “The Graceful Assassin”.

But now with Marluxia so close to her, she could not help but feel intrigued in spite of her nervousness. He didn’t sound angry or annoyed so much as playfully curious. She bit her lip, refusing to let her guard down.

“Forgive me for trespassing. Saix instructed me to learn my way around the castle and…”

Marluxia removed his hand from her chin and took a lock of her long dark hair into his hand, letting the strands slide through his fingers as easily as water. He smirked again.

“You couldn’t help but be taken in by so many beautiful flowers could you?”

Alixka hesitated, she hadn’t realized at first that the vines had disappeared and her hands were free. She remained silent, she could escape at any moment if she wanted. Slowly she took a small and cautious step back from her pink haired captor, biting her lip again when she felt Marluxia place his hands on her shoulders.

“You think I’m admonishing you, but I’m not.” He tilted his head and gave her a slightly kinder look. “I’m just curious is all, what drew you to this place?”

“You...you’re right.” She replied softly. “All the plants here are beautiful, and this place has such a fine view of Kingdom Hearts…but…” Turning her face away. “...I swear I won’t come back if you don’t want me too.”

There was a long pause before another smirk covered his face.

“Oh no, it’s fine with me if you wish to come here from time to time. It’s nice to have another within our ranks that has the same appreciation for botany as myself.”

A small smile crept up on Alixka’s face, along with another strange warmth in her stomach she was not used to. She nodded and backed away to leave.

“Leaving so soon, Rosebud?” Marluxia folded his arms and glanced at her curiously. Once again she felt the heat rise in her face.

“Th...there is so much more of the castle I haven’t seen yet. I...best be on my way.” She said quickly as she FINALLY managed so summon a Dark Corridor, disappearing in the fading black and purple one moment and finding herself in her room in another. Zexion was right, somehow she wasn’t even thinking of it, now if only she could learn to control it.

She sat on her bed, wondering to herself why she found herself drawn to Marluxia all of a sudden despite logic telling herself she should avoid him. She couldn’t understand it, but hopefully it probably wouldn't matter much soon; tomorrow she would be assigned her first mission and she had a feeling that she would likely be paired with Zexion or maybe even Lexaeus considering those were the two members she had managed to quickly form a bond with. Alixka was certain that she likely would not see Marluxia again for some time, particularly with Larxene seemingly always attached to him.

~~~

Early the following morning Alixka went, on instruction, to The Grey Area where she would be assigned to her first mission. Saix was not there when she arrived so she took a seat on one of the couches. Three or four other members were sitting silently but she noticed at once the pink haired Nobody glancing at her from across the room with a small smirk on his face. Almost as though he knew something she didn’t. She turned away as she saw Saix enter the room. Alixka rose from her seat respectfully.

“Alixka.” Saix said, “You will be paired with Marluxia for your first mission today.”

#since tumblr wants to flag my posts for no reason #kh oc week #kingdom hearts oc week #kalai oc #alixka oc #ot3: you are my destiny (laurenalai)

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houstontexaslawinfo · 5 years

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Preparing for a Temporary Orders Hearing in Texas, Part Three

If you want to related guideline confidentiality Texas Child Law experience, So you can better suggestions in Preparing for a Temporary Orders Hearing in Texas, Part Three

Houston Family Law Lawyer: If you’ve managed to arrive at this blog post without reading the prior two installments in the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC’s series of articles on preparing for a Temporary Orders hearing it may be worthwhile to go back and read those posts. It’s not essential but the information contained in those posts is at the very least relevant if you are going through a divorce or child custody case in Texas.

With that said, in part three of our series on temporary orders hearings we will discuss some details of actual in-courtroom behavior- what to wear, what to say and how to generally conduct yourself.

What to wear in a Courtroom

In the event that you and your spouse are not able to settle on the relevant issues of your case, the next step would be to take your disputes to the courtroom and have a judge play tie breaker. This is an unsettling prospect for most people as they have (hopefully) never been inside a courtroom before. We have clients whose friends, neighbors, cousins, etc. have told them horror stories about their own divorce and how the judge treated them which causes a great deal of anxiety. The truth with going to court is that, while first impressions are important, it is rare to leave a courtroom with a true horror story to tell later on.

At the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC, our attorneys advise a fairly modest, conservative style of dress when appeared before a judge. For women, this means dressing in clothes that you would feel comfortable wearing to church or to lunch with your grandmother. A dark colored dress that is not too short is desirable. Flashy jewelry and overly-done makeup is typically not appropriate in the courtroom.

For men, if you own a suit I would recommend you wear it. Even if you are as a casual sort of guy whose job doesn’t require getting dressed up, dust off that suit and put it on the morning of your hearing. At the very least it is recommended that you wear a tie.

I am not saying that any judge in southeast Texas mandates that you drive to your local mall and spend $1,000 on a suit. What I am saying is that appearances matter in this context.

Appearances matter because the judge will be assessing your ability to manage finances and children in a temporary orders hearing. Like it or not, judges form biases and opinions like all of us do. How you dress can contribute positively or negatively to your image in the eyes of the only person in the world whose opinion matters in your case- the judge.

Tips on your in-court demeanor

Family Lawyers in Houston: When I speak to a client either the day before or the day of their testimony in court, I always tell them that I understand nothing that I say can put them completely at ease. I’ve been an attorney long enough to know that if you’re nervous to speak in front of the court then I as the attorney can at most help to narrow your focus on the issues that truly matter in your case. It is natural to be nervous, or at least a little anxious, before giving testimony to a judge. There are some behaviors that I will flat out advise a client to never do prior to coming to court.

For instance, never take any sort of drugs, medicines or consume alcohol prior to arriving at the courthouse. You may feel initially like you’ve been successful at taking the edge off, but in reality your mouth and your mind will begin to move at different speeds making coherent testimony nearly impossible. If you believe that you will feel unfamiliar or uncomfortable in the courtroom you are probably right. However- your feeling of discomfort will be multiplied by a factor of 1,000 if you consume drugs or alcohol beforehand. Just don’t do it.

Perception is Important when in Court

How you conduct yourself, from the second your foot hits the pavement outside the courtroom prior to your hearing to the moment you drive away from the courthouse after your hearing is complete, is critical to your chances of success in the actual hearing. Taking a reserved, respectful, and courteous approach to your time in court is the recommended path to take in this regard.

If you are the type of person who is quick to laugh, or quick to raise your voice, take some time before you enter the courtroom to temper your emotions. While you may think your personality and appearance is harmless, judges form opinions of you based on how you act in their courtroom as well as on what you say when on the witness stand. Don’t take the chance that your actions in court could be misinterpreted. Self awareness is an important aspect of being an adult. In no place is this more true than a courtroom.

How to conduct yourself in regard to a jury

Family Law Attorneys Houston: Family law cases are usually held in front of judges, not juries. That being said there are instances where a jury may be the decider of your case or at least certain issues in your case. The best rule of thumb from my experience is, if you come into contact with a juror outside the courtroom, to be courteous but to decline conversation. Any party to a legal case who is perceived to have had contact with a juror without the knowledge of the other party or court stands to face stiff penalties for doing so.

At a past work location of mine our office had a trial set to begin one morning at the courthouse. A junior attorney came along that day to assist the senior attorney with presenting our client’s case. This junior attorney was a nice guy but he was a talkative fellow. Upon entering the men’s room he struck up a conversation with a gentleman and began to discuss the trial that was forthcoming. Little did he know that the gentleman was actually a juror on the case. The juror reported the nature of his and our attorney’s conversation to the court staff and the judge was not pleased to learn about what had occurred.

There was no penalty assessed against our client but there very well could have been. The purpose of me telling this little anecdote is to warn you against unnecessary conversation or contact inside the courtroom, in the hallways or even, yes, in the men’s bathroom. Don’t think of yourself as being rude if you don’t say hello and strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to you. You’re in court for business purposes (even though it’s your family you’re there to discuss) and you should treat it that way.

Free consultations with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC

To learn more about the Houston divorce attorneys, staff and services offered by the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, PLLC please do not hesitate to contact our office today. We will return with another blog post on Temporary Orders hearings in the near future as well ... Continue Reading

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badcowboy69 · 5 years

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Unexpected part 4

Gosh, it’s been a REALLY long time for this poor chapter to be coming out. I have been distracted with many things, good and bad, but it seems as if I’m finally back on track. Hopefully that means I’ll be able to crank out stories again like I used to. That being said, this is the latest installment of my little saga. Hope you like it. As always comments and asks are welcomed and reblogs are the bests.

Oh and just in case you would like to read the previous chapters if it’s your first time or simply needing a refresher, here’s the links.

Part One Part Two Part 3

Story begins under the cut due to the length. Enjoy!

It was evident Travis could barely contain the excitement that was surging through him. Giving Riley a crooked grin, he quickly loped back into the bedroom and practically tripped over the doorway threshold. Picking up on the enthusiasm, Rex bounded eagerly along at his side while yipping and yapping playfully. “Got an extra wardrobe in here so it’s the perfect place for you to put all your stuff!” Travis called out over the happy, chirpy barks of his cyberdog.

However, Riley had paused his pursuit, suddenly distracted by the trail of discarded clothing scattered along the hallway. A gentle smile curled his lips as his mind flitted back to last night where a wonderful event started in the elevator then led to the bedroom where it continued for hours. Even though he was half-serious when mentioning about the fantasy of getting a blowjob inside of an elevator, it came as no surprise that Travis would actually comply.

While bending to gather up the clothes, Riley happily reminisced about their reunion. Suddenly, his wonderful recollection was interrupted by a stark naked Travis standing in front of him. Although he’s seen Travis naked plenty of times, Riley still found his cheeks warm with a blush at the unexpected, but very pleasant sight. “Hell, Travis, you keep enticing me like this I doubt we’ll be making tracks to the Fort anytime soon,” he jested while adjusting his glasses as his eyes began to wander up and down his boyfriend’s slender frame.

“Huh? Oh! Well...maybe...when we get back I can make it all up to you. I know you can’t resist this bod,” Travis purred while he ran his hands seductively over his sides only to get shoved playfully by Riley. “Anyhoo, is everything ok, Riles? Been talking to you and you ain’t answering.”

“Oh, sorry about that, but yes, that wardrobe sounds great, thank you. By the way, I can’t seem to find my pack. I could have sworn we brought it up here with us last night.”

Giving a quick scan around the now cleaned up hall, Travis got a hunch and pushed the call button for the elevator. The silver doors slid open and there on the floor was not only Riley’s pack and Gauss rifle, but Travis’ own rifle and cowboy hat as well. “Ah, Hell, looks like someone was in an awful hurry to get out of there to leave all this stuff behind,” Travis jested while he retrieved their items.

Reaching for the weapons, Riley randomly noticed Travis’ motorcycle was leaning close to the wall. He wondered how he missed it earlier, but there were plenty of other things distracting him since he arrived. Travis tended to do unusual things from time to time, but having a vehicle in the living quarters seemed a bit out of the ordinary, even for Travis. “Looks like someone forgot where the parking garage was,” Riley teased back.

“Ain’t forgot,” the courier replied while rubbing the back of his neck, mild embarrassment in his voice. “I only got back here a few days ago and was too tired to screw around unpacking downstairs then make like twenty trips back and forth to the elevator. Figured it was easier to bring the bike up here so’s I could unpack and put stuff away in one shot. I was planning on taking it back downstairs eventually, but some hot redhead dropping in from Boston sort of interrupted that. Besides, had too much going on in my mind to really want to deal with chores...or much else.”

“Understandable,” Riley said softly as he knew exactly what Travis must have gone through. His own world was quite setback and lost when Travis left Boston only a few weeks ago. He got through his lonely days by drinking or being with friends, but barely.

Following Travis into the bedroom, Riley set the weapons against the couch then stood silently in the doorway. Travis made his way towards a large, dark wood wardrobe to choose an outfit for the day’s outing. Riley still couldn’t tear his eyes away from admiring the finely shaped, naked form of his partner. His gaze abruptly halted seeing bright red scratch marks on Travis’ back. A demure smile curled his lips as memories of last night’s passions flooded his mind and made him long to repeat them soon.

Forcing his eyes to look elsewhere, Riley turned to his left and let out a soft gasp of surprise. His eyes suddenly widened behind his glasses and he found himself gravitating towards a large bookshelf behind a desk. He felt an excited jolt go through him while he read aloud the titles of the books. “Las Vegas: A History. How to Succeed at Hacking. Cats. Guns, Your God-given Right. Building a Robot. Motorcycle Mechanics. Sparky and the Flying Securitron. Texas Red. Damn, Travis, you certainly have quite the mix of genres,” he chuckled as he took out the Vegas book and began flipping through its pristine pages.

“Shucks, got plenty of books in the other rooms and there's a ton more upstairs in the penthouse.” He snickered hearing the soft gasp escape his partner. “You’ll see everything, don't you worry none about that. Shit, there’s so much to see in the casino alone to probably last us all day. Umm...wanna get the ten cent tour of the apartment before we head to the Fort?” “Oh! Yes, right, the Fort. As anxious as I am to see your suite, I know you’re in a hurry to head out. It’s ok, Travis, we can do what you needed first and you can show me around here when we get back.” Riley set the book carefully on the shelf as not to damage the delicate paper dust cover and gave his partner a supportive smile.

“You sure? I mean I don’t mind showing you around first, but I’ll do whatever you want to do. This is your vacation after all,” Travis replied while pulling out his traditional red plaid shirt and blue jeans from the wardrobe and tossed them on the bed. “Besides, I’m only going to the Fort today to drop off my semi-weekly donations and show you around. Figured I could introduce you to Arcade while we’re there. It ain’t really crucial we go today. I can always drop off donations tomorrow. Ain't like they're expecting me or anything.”

Riley sat on the bed next to his pack and looked up at his broadly smiling lover. “You’re something else, you know that? Then that settles it. I’d love to have a quick tour of your place before we leave.”

Travis grinned more and leaned down to deliver a quick kiss on Riley’s cheek. “Great! Gonna go and get washed up first, though. Feel free to use the other wardrobe for your stuff if you wanna and make yourself at home. My casa is your casa,” he declared making Riley chuckle at his attempt of a Spanish phrase.

“It’s me casa es su casa,” he corrected with a gentle smile. “But thank you just the same.”

As Travis walked out room, Riley caught himself once more staring after the naked vision. He sighed wistfully and suddenly noticed he was becoming aroused. Knowing it was best to stifle his urges, at least for now, Riley bit his lower lip and distracted himself by unpacking. “Well, this won’t take long,” he muttered to himself realizing he had nowhere near as many clothes as he would need for a prolonged stay. Past experience taught him things could go wrong very quickly with an unexpected visit. He prepared for the worst, but did hope for the best. Packing light was a precaution even though deep down he knew wasn’t necessary.

Gathering up the meager armload of clothes, Riley headed to the wardrobe on the opposite side of the bed. It was identical as the one Travis was using right down to the almost pristine condition. Resting atop of it was some sort of helmet with ruby colored eye lenses. Next to it was a skull from some kind of animal that Riley could only guess was a brahmin. To his surprise a small Sentry bot action figure he had given Travis back on the day they first met was also there. A pleasant warmth spread through him as he remembered that day with tender fondness.

Opening the double doors Riley was mildly surprised to find a small assortment of clothes already neatly arranged inside on hangers. Riley set his things down and curiously began to sift through the impeccable assortment of slacks, polos, and solid colored button down shirts. He pulled out a baby blue colored polo and absently held it against himself to check the size.

“Don’t mind the clothes.” Travis had silently padded into the bedroom and was already pulling on his jeans. “Grabbed ‘em out of the dressers up in the penthouse where Mister House used to live. I was hoping they’d fit me, but they’re all a bit too big. If they fit you, you can have them and hell...you can probably have all of what’s still up there. House sure as hell don't need ‘em. All sorts of suits and ties and stuff up there ...stuff you would probably really like.”

Grinning broadly Riley turned back to the wardrobe and began examining the garments with more interest. He put the blue shirt back and pulled out a black polo with a wide green stripe around the middle. “Travis, these are all in such amazing condition,” Riley said in disbelief. Taking it off the hanger, Riley pulled the shirt over his head. Much to his joy it fit him perfectly. “Travis, this...this is wonderful! Are you really sure I can have these?” he asked as his partner sauntered up to him.

“A’yup. What am I gonna do with a bunch of clothes that don’t fit me? I was originally gonna take them to camps around the Mojave and donate them, but never had the chance. Reckon it’s a good thing. Shirt looks really great on you, Riles. Cain’t wait to see you out of it later either,” Travis purred while nuzzling against the freckled skin of Riley’s neck. Sliding his arms around Riley’s waist, Travis pressed close to him and sighed. “I still cain’t believe you’re here and I cain’t wait to get back after the donation run. Maybe we can take a swim in my pool before heading out for dinner.”

“Swimming and dinner? Man, Travis, you’re going to spoil me. You really don’t have to take me anywhere tonight. In all honesty it might be more enjoyable to stay in and relax with you. I’m sure there’s plenty here for you to show me,” Riley softly replied as he leaned against his partner with a contented sigh. “I'm not going anywhere anytime soon and right now I just want to enjoy being back in your company.”

“Whatever you'd like to do is fine with me! Reckon we’ll play it by ear.” Travis gave Riley a few tender kisses which quickly became heated. Fighting his own eager urges Travis reluctantly pulled back. “We best get going afore I find something better for us to do,” he panted with a smirk. Riley nodded in agreement and they separated to continue getting dressed.

Afterwards, with his arms open wide and welcoming, Travis walked around the room. “Well then, as you can see, this here is the master bedroom. I keep lots of my personal and most treasured things in here. Ain't all I got, though.” He then motioned for Riley to follow him and led him towards a room that was between the master bedroom and dining area.

“Reckon this is more my collection and game room. Got all kinds of cool stuff I found in my travels,” he proudly announced while placing his hands on his hips.

Riley slowly wandered around the room which was considerably larger than the master bedroom. In the center of the room was a pool table with way too many balls scattered on top of it. A Sunset Sarsaparilla soda vending machine was against one wall next to an almost perfect Nuka Cola machine. Next to those was a fantastic jukebox, it’s glowing colored lights and bubbles instantly drew Riley to it. As he flipped through the selection markers he asked,”Does this thing really have these tunes and does it really work?”

Travis couldn’t help but give a toothy grin. “A’yup! Sure does! Hell, pick a song and push the button, I sure don’t mind. I really lucked out with this find up in Black Mountain. They got a big storage building that was untouched in probably forever ‘cause of the Super Mutants that used to guard the place. Plus there's a buttload of radiation there that'll get ya if precautions ain't took. Gotta tell you that story someday.”

Arching an eyebrow, Riley picked a random song by Frank Sinatra and pressed the white button. The machine made a series of clicks and other sounds while Riley watched in anticipation as the record he chose moved into place and the player’s arm dropped down onto it. After a few pops and static sounds, All of Me began to play much to Riley’s delight. Overcome with the pure joy of hearing a long forgotten song again, Riley pulled Travis into his arms and did a quick, impromptu dance with him around the room.

Seeing the two humans engaged in what he thought looked like fun, Rex began to loudly bark and jump up and down vying for their attention hoping they’d dance with him too. Travis began to laugh at his cyberdog’s antics as well as the handsome redhead’s sudden burst of enthusiasm.

Riley stole a quick kiss and released Travis with a laugh. “Shit, it’s been far too long since I’ve heard that song! Oh, Travis…” he sighed and trailed off realizing that he danced them all the way to the other end of the room. Adjusting his glasses, Riley gave Travis a wink and directed his gaze towards the tall shelf unit that seemed to be screaming for his attention.

On each shelf was a different sort of collection all neatly arranged to show off each coveted piece. Much to Riley’s delight, one shelf was dedicated to more books. These ones all were various novels, mostly westerns and science fiction. Knowing he’d have a chance to look over them more thoroughly later, he bypassed them, setting his sights on a different shelf.

The bottom most one had a selection of pre-war toys. There was a baseball and glove, a few tin cars, a checkerboard, and a few different style teddy bears and dolls. Most of the toys were in pretty rough condition, but they were still in great shape considering their age. Riley spotted a baseball bat and golf club leaning against the shelf as well as what appeared to be a half of a bowling ball. It was a perfect, smooth cut and Riley made a mental note to ask Travis how it got that way at another time.

Right now he was distracted by what dominated over two of the remaining shelves. Travis loved collecting Nuka Cola merchandise and had voiced that quite often while he was in Boston. One shelf was glowing brightly with a variety of Quartz and Quantum while the other shelf had bottles of Victory. Riley looked them over and gave a low whistle. “Looks like you’ve been rather busy scouring the Mojave to get this kind of collection,” he commented while picking up a small sheriff badge made out of tin. “Now I understand why you were so excited to get those rocket shaped bottles in Boston.”

Travis grinned while crossing his arms in front of his chest, obviously proud of his little collection. “A’yup. I still got them in the bedroom, though. Like I said I wasn’t too keen on unpacking when I got back the other day. Maybe I’ll put them up later tonight.” “Glad to see they’ve gone to a good home,” Riley chuckled as he carefully picked up a large, metal toy Nuka Cola delivery truck complete with tiny soda bottles. “Man, this stuff is amazing! I know a few people back east who would be rather envious of your collection. Maybe not so much the bottles, but these cool premiums like your trucks and pin-up girl figures would really drive folks wild to possess.”

“I’m sure this ain’t nothing compared to what I heard some people got, but considering Sunset Sarsaparilla is the dominate drink out this way I am pretty lucky I got what I got,” Travis replied while pulling a small chain hanging from a neon Nuka sign that looked like he ripped it directly off a store front. The glass tubes flickered a few times before lighting completely. “Got this at a pawn shop in Freeside a while back. It was tucked behind some old washing machines, but I somehow spotted it. Traded for a few shot guns and ammo. The owner thought I was nuts, but I had to have it. Didn’t work, but I talked to a buddy of mine and he helped me get what I needed to get it to light up. I think it’s my fave of all my collection, well, besides the glowy bottles.”

“It’s really something else, Travis. I can’t wait to hear some of the stories behind your collections.” Giving the shelf a final look and making sure nothing was on the floor for him to accidentally step on, Riley wandered towards a marvelous display unit near the room’s door. It was similar to something one would find in a gift shop as it showcased all kinds of snow globes. They all featured Vault Boy in some sort of scene depicting where the globes might have originated from. “Hoover Dam, Goodsprings, The New Vegas Strip....how did you even come across these?” Riley asked while picking one up and giving it a shake, amused at the white plastic flakes inside the water swirling about like a mini snowstorm.

“Eh, some were actually in this place and a few came from general stores out and about. Got some from Vault 21 as well. You might like that place a lot. Used to be a real pre-war vault, but it's a hotel and small casino now. It’s all set up to what I think your time might have looked like. They’re really big on that nostalgia! They even got tons of pre-war stuff stored in a few of the rooms. I've done a lot of trading with the folks there for a few things I liked. The manager wanted any Vault suits I might find in my travels. I found lots and exchanged them for some of the metal signs I got hanging around here and other parts of my casino.”

“Sounds like an extremely good system you got going. Bartering is so much better than using caps I think.”

“Okies I got one last room to show you then we can get a move on to the Fort!” Taking Riley by the hand, Travis eagerly led him down the hall and to the room across from the bathroom. “I don’t give this room much mind, but I reckon it has its uses.”

The room was obviously once a guest bedroom with two neatly made full sized beds complete with satin sheets, comforters and throw pillows. One even had a few teddy bears resting on it. However, that’s where the bedroom look stopped and instead seemed more like a storage area. A makeshift gun rack was against the wall with about ten metal ammo boxes stacked next to it. The rack had everything ranging from shotguns to rifles of all different calibers. A small footlocker rested next to the rack, its lid open, revealing the contents of various explosives like mines and hand grenades.

Riley smirked at the small arsenal and shook his head surprised there wasn’t more. “Your supply of these are a little low,” he jested while giving a nod to the explosives.

“Nah, got more down in my workshop. Didn’t want to keep that kind of stuff up here in big piles, you know?” Travis casually replied as he bent to pick up some casings that were scattered on the floor and tossed them in one of the ammo boxes.

“Yes, that uhhh... makes sense.” Riley paled, suddenly feeling nervous thinking of the entire casino blowing up because of of Travis’ passion for explosives and fires.

A few metal cases stacked against the wall housed flamethrowers as well as a grenade launcher. The weapons looked like they were used quite often and Riley could only imagine the mischief his partner got into with them. Riley was thankful not seeing anything that launched mini nukes or the like. Even Travis must have his limits when it came to destruction.

However, there was one weapon that got Riley’s curiosity and he tugged at Travis’ sleeve to get his attention. “What in the world is that thing?” he asked, pointing to what looked like a motorcycle gas tank with an iron sword attached to it by a cable.

Travis twitched his moustache and grinned broadly while picking up the sword. “This is what’s called a shishkebab. One of my fave pyro weapons. The sword flames up. I’ll have to take you out later and show you it in action! Some of the trees out in the desert are dry as dust and man you should see them burn up when I slash ‘em with this!”

Riley inwardly groaned seeing Travis’ crystal blue eyes light up with excitement while showing off the sword. “I’d love to see, as long as you are careful. I’m sure more than just trees catch fire easily here.” “Oh man, you ain’t kidding!” Travis excitedly responded while putting the shishkebab back down and went back to his task of picking up the casings. He heard a soft groan come from his partner over his comment and he quickly added, “But don’t worry, I only set shit on fire in secluded areas where they won’t go out of control and cause more trouble.”

“Great,” Riley grunted as he glanced at the single wardrobe in the room. Its door was ajar revealing some articles of clothing that looked like military uniforms and dusters. More guns were leaning against the furniture along with more ammo boxes. Off in a far corner of the room was a small metal platform and on it Travis’ robot ED-E was resting on it. No doubt it was a charging station of sorts.

However, like in the previous rooms, what really captured Riley’s attention was yet another large bookshelf stocked not only with books, but interesting items such as a space helmet, globe of the world, and what appeared to be some kind of blaster from a science fiction movie.

“Interesting choice of books you have here, Travis. I didn’t expect you to read these sort of things,” the redhead remarked as he looked over the book titles that ranged from business operations and government to mathematics and science.

Travis snorted and shook his head. “Nah, ain’t read those. I glanced through them and they’re boring and filled with words I can’t even understand. Some got nice pictures at least. I got them there for looks and maybe give to someone if they’re interested. Hell, if you like them by all means please read them”

“I was anticipating some history books, actually. Do you have any of those?” Riley asked hopefully as he carefully flipped through the pages of an astronomy book, marveling at how bright and crisp the photos inside were after all the centuries.

“Oh, sure! Got plenty of those upstairs in the penthouse!” Travis couldn’t help but laugh seeing Riley’s face light up hearing the news about history books. Slipping his arms around Riley’s waist, Travis leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. “Trust me, Riles, my apartment is only the beginning of shit for you to see in this place. Anyways, was this a good enough tour for now? You ready to mosey on outta here?”

“Yes, the tour was perfect and I look forward to exploring and experiencing it more as the days go by. Thank you, Travis.”

“Great! Let’s make tracks then!” Stealing another quick kiss, Travis entwined their fingers together and briskly led him towards the elevator. “Gotta stop and pick up some supplies for the Fort first. Can't exactly make a donation run without donations.”

Right as the metal doors began to slide shut, Rex decided at the last moment to join the couple. He gave a startled yelp as the doors closed, barely touching him. “Dumb dog!” Travis groaned as the doors re-opened to allow the cyberdog entry. “Hit the button with a T,” Travis directed to Riley while he pushed his dog into the back of the elevator and out of the way.

Riley searched over the panel of buttons and realized the vast majority of them weren’t numbered properly or numbers for that matter. Furrowing his brow as he looked for the T button, he asked, “Ummm...Travis, what’s with these numbers and...letters? They’re all so... randomly placed.”

“Well, it helps make things easier to remember where things are. Six is me, so my suite’s button is six as you found out last night. C is for casino. P is for Penthouse. L is for Lounge. T is for Treasure. W is for workroom. B is for basement. S is for Sub Basement…”

“Ok Ok I get it,” Riley chuckled and pushed the T button. “It’s a good method as long as you understand it. Do you do anything with the other floors not designated to a specific number or letter?”

“Nothing really. They’re there for whatever. Storage I reckon. All still got nice beds, sheets, furniture, clothes...almost like Mister House had this place gussied up and evacuated afore the bombs hit. It's also why I have an endless supply of sheets and clothes...got lots of liquor too,” he snickered.

“Sounds perfect,” Riley grinned. “I can’t wait to see all of your special floors, but this one we’re going to...T for Treasure, really sounds interesting.” “Ain’t no big deal for me, but for the folks I help out...well...you’ll see. Used to be one of the business suites or some shit,” Travis said with a dismissive shrug right as the elevator came to a halt at its designated floor.

The doors slid open and an over enthused cyberdog bolted out. “Ain’t never seen him this excited, but I reckon he’s picking up on my feelings,” Travis drawled as he followed the dog leaving Riley to stand blushing in the elevator over Travis’ compliment. Realizing Riley wasn’t at his side, Travis halted and turned around. “You coming?”

Riley cleared his throat and nodded. “Yes, yes of course.” He stepped out of the elevator and gazed up and down the hallway. The carpet had a checkered pattern of different shades of reds and still looked as it might have 200 years ago. Various pictures were on the wall showcasing scenes of the pre-war New Vegas and Mojave areas. Other than that the hall was completely barren and disinteresting. One lone door was at the far end to their right and that was where Travis was headed.

“Got all sorts of crap in this place,” Travis casually remarked while they walked. “Plus during my travels I find lots of stuff and salvage it. Been in this place almost seven years and pretty much went through all the floors. I gathered up certain things and organized them for later distribution. I sure don’t need it, but plenty of folks out there do.”

Opening the door, Travis beckoned for Riley to follow him inside. Entering the suite Riley was taken aback by what he saw. The entire suite reminded him of what pre-war shopping mega-centers or warehouse type of stores looked like. Tall metal and wooden racks lined the walls stocked with various goods while large boxes were on the floor and filled with things too bulky to store on shelves.

As Riley gazed around the room he eventually realized that everything was sorted and organized according to purpose. One shelf had small boxes filled with syringes with labels marked stimpack or med-x. Piles of rad-away along with bottles of rad-x occupied another shelf. Piles of crutches and canes were stacked in a corner, propped against the shelf. Boxes of gauze and bandages were lined on the bottom shelf according to size. Various other medical supplies were scattered on a wooden table where some brown doctor bags were resting.

Where the medical supplies ended, linens began. Riley wasn’t sure how many or what size, but there was plenty of nicely folded bedding materials stacked neatly on their shelf. Stacks of towels were also on the shelf along with what looked like cloth napkins and tablecloths. After that a row of boxes filled with teddy bears, dolls, cars, and other various toys were set on the floor in front of the shelf. A smaller display case, almost similar to the one Travis had his snow globes on, had a variety of carved wooden figures.

The remaining shelves were stocked with varieties of food preserved in jars as well as candles, ropes, lighters, electronic parts, and many other things. All necessary supplies, but not so vast where they needed their own separate area. Three large wardrobes with their doors removed were also lined against the wall. Inside were various clothes for men, women, and children, but it looked as though those supplies were rapidly being depleted.

Giving out a low whistle, Riley slowly browsed through the supplies, amazed how much was actually gathered here. “You have quite the hoard, Travis. Are you sure you aren’t secretly a dragon with all this wonderful treasure?” Travis snorted as he grabbed a brown medical bag and began hastily stuffing random supplies into it. “Ain’t no hoarder...but what’s a dragon?” he asked, suddenly pausing from his task, tilting his head to the side like a curious puppy.

“Well...a dragon is a mythical beast that was found in many cultures around the world. Generally they were depicted as a large lizard or reptile, usually with wings, and quite often were known to have vast hoards of treasure like gems and gold. It also wasn’t uncommon for them to breathe fire.”

“Oh! We got dragons here in the Mojave then!” Travis exclaimed excitedly and turned to face Riley, his blue eyes shining. “We call them Fire Geckos, though. They’re about as tall as you and they breathe fire! No wings, though, but they do run awfully fast. I wonder if they have treasures?”

Riley paled slightly hearing about the beasts and frowned as his body instinctively tensed over Travis’ last remark. “Please don’t tell me you want to go finding that out?”

“Nah, I don’t make a point out of going after critters for no reason other than for food. If we happen to find them and they attack, yeah, different story. Don’t worry, your man ain’t no ruthless killer bent on mowing anything down that moves especially over material goods.”

“This I know,” Riley gently replied as he stepped over to Travis, watching him gather supplies. “Honestly, I’m surprised you even still have this big of an inventory. I mean, I wouldn’t think there’d be so much good and salvageable stuff out there in the wastes. I also would think you’d run out of supplies in time, especially since you’ve been doing things for what...like...seven years now you said?”

“Yeah, everything’s pretty much picked over in the Mojave,” Travis said with a dismissive shrug. “But shit’s never-ending for the most part here in the casino. I also don’t send out donations every day or even every week. If I didn’t ration things I’d run out of supplies right quick and then probably’ll get bitched at for not helping anymore. It’s so stupid that the folks you sometimes help take advantage of ya or ain’t thankful for what ya do give them and they want more.” Travis snorted as if remembering such a case while he began to add empty syringes inside of the bag. Riley smirked knowing about thankless individuals all to well. He witnessed first hand and personally experienced that behavior many, many times in Boston where the more help you offer to people the more that is demanded. You would think people would be more grateful especially in these hard times. He sighed and gave Travis a pat on the shoulder. “You’re a good guy, Travis. Do you need any help packing supplies?” “Sure,” Travis replied as he began gathering up a few handfuls of bandages. “Grab an empty sack and round up five teddy bears, some cars and dolls, and maybe a few of the wooden animal carvings. Might as well give the younger residents at the Fort something during this visit.”

Nodding, Riley walked over to the toy area and began filling the sack with Travis’ request. “Did you make these figures by any chance?” he asked seeming to recall a time when Travis mentioned he liked to carve things in his spare time. The wooden carvings were very well made and he was impressed with the variety of dogs, yao guai, and deathclaws as well as some animals he didn’t recognize, but figured they were typical to the Mojave.

“Yeah,” Travis replied as he shoved a final handful of Rad-X in the bag and zipped it up. “One of the little talents I discovered I had a few years ago. Don’t know where it came from, but I reckon it’s probably some kind of long forgotten memory.”

Riley nodded solemnly while he looked over a carving of a deathclaw which was quite different in looks compared to what was in Boston. He remembered Travis talking about the differences, but that didn’t make the beasts any less threatening. Putting the figure in the bag, Riley began to meander around the suite amazed at Travis’ accomplishment. “It’s nice to see you also have books to offer to people,” he commented while looking over a small selection of literature lined neatly on a shelf. “I’m glad to see that you pass out written works like this. Some of these sound pretty interesting and I might have to borrow some one day.”

“You keep finding the books, don’t ‘cha?” Travis snickered as he closed up the medical bag and made his way towards the door to leave. “The Boomers really like books. They can be next on the donation drop-off list if you’d wanna pay them a visit with me. Gotta take the motorcycle, though. It’s a ways off past Hoover Dam.”

“The Boomers, eh? I seem to recall you mentioning them. They’re the folks with the functioning war planes, right?” Riley asked as hoisted the bag full of toys over his shoulder and joined Travis and who were waiting patiently in the doorway.

“Yeah, they’re really self-sufficient and got crops and stuff. I usually only take them things like scrap and weapons, but they also really like tech books. Maybe when we go I can convince them to take us for a ride in the B-29 they got. Barter with ‘em...books for a bomber ride. Maybe they can fly us to that Mile High Club you mentioned last night if it ain’t too far. I know I’d sure love to check it out if you remember how to get there.”

Bending to set the bag down on the floor of the elevator, Riley paused hearing what Travis said and bit his lower lip as he felt his cheeks warm with a blush. “Umm...well...that might not be the best thing to ask them, babe. You see, it’s kind of like a private club. I’ll explain it all to you on the way down to the casino,” Riley said with an alluring tone to his voice and gave a wink as the elevator doors slid shut.

To be continued...

#travis blackfox #riley white #courier six #sole survivor #fallout new vegas #fallout oc #writings

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lawinformation · 5 years

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Preparing for a Temporary Orders Hearing in Texas, Part Three

On the off chance that you have require a best reasonable Texas Divorce Law encounter, Preparing for a Temporary Orders Hearing in Texas, Part Three with the immense procedure!

Houston Family Law Attorney: If you’ve managed to arrive at this blog post without reading the prior two installments in the Law Office of Bryan Fagan’s series of articles on preparing for a Temporary Orders hearing it may be worthwhile to go back and read those posts. It’s not essential but the information contained in those posts is at the very least relevant if you are going through a divorce or child custody case in Texas.

With that said, in part three of our series on temporary orders hearings we will discuss some details of actual in-courtroom behavior- what to wear, what to say and how to generally conduct yourself.

What to wear in a Courtroom

Divorce Lawyers in Houston: In the event that you and your spouse are not able to settle on the relevant issues of your case, the next step would be to take your disputes to the courtroom and have a judge play tie breaker. This is an unsettling prospect for most people as they have (hopefully) never been inside a courtroom before. We have clients whose friends, neighbors, cousins, etc. have told them horror stories about their own divorce and how the judge treated them which causes a great deal of anxiety. The truth with going to court is that, while first impressions are important, it is rare to leave a courtroom with a true horror story to tell later on.

At the Law Office of Bryan Fagan, our attorneys advise a fairly modest, conservative style of dress when appeared before a judge. For women, this means dressing in clothes that you would feel comfortable wearing to church or to lunch with your grandmother. A dark colored dress that is not too short is desirable. Flashy jewelry and overly-done makeup is typically not appropriate in the courtroom.

I am not saying that any judge in southeast Texas mandates that you drive to your local mall and spend $1,000 on a suit. What I am saying is that appearances matter in this context.

Tips on your in-court demeanor

Family Lawyer Houston: When I speak to a client either the day before or the day of their testimony in court, I always tell them that I understand nothing that I say can put them completely at ease. I’ve been an attorney long enough to know that if you’re nervous to speak in front of the court then I as the attorney can at most help to narrow your focus on the issues that truly matter in your case. It is natural to be nervous, or at least a little anxious, before giving testimony to a judge. There are some behaviors that I will flat out advise a client to never do prior to coming to court.

Perception is Important when in Court

How to conduct yourself in regard to a jury

Divorce Lawyers Houston: Family law cases are usually held in front of judges, not juries. That being said there are instances where a jury may be the decider of your case or at least certain issues in your case. The best rule of thumb from my experience is, if you come into contact with a juror outside the courtroom, to be courteous but to decline conversation. Any party to a legal case who is perceived to have had contact with a juror without the knowledge of the other party or court stands to face stiff penalties for doing so.

Free consultations with the Law Office of Bryan Fagan To learn more about the Houston divorce attorneys, staff and services offered by the Law Office of Bryan Fagan please do not hesitate to contact our office today. We will return with another blog post on Temporary Orders hearings in the near future as well ... Continue Reading

#divorce #family #Family Law #fagan #bryan fagan #attorney #attorneys #texas attorneys #law #lawyer #lawyers #Houston lawyers #case #Houston #Texas

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pandamancer11 · 5 years

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Makoto’s Story - Chapter 1

**This is the first installment in a series I've dedicated to telling Makoto Niijima's side of the story in the events that take place through Persona 5.

It's been a ton of fun to explore the everyday life, turned adventure of a lifetime, of one of my favorite characters in the game! This series will loosely follow the plot of Persona, but I will be throwing a healthy batch of headcanon and my own narrative.

So if that's your thing, please join me as we see the world of Persona through the eyes of the Queen herself! **

Chapter 1: A Day in the Life

I placed the papers back on the table and rubbed my sore eyes.

‘No matter how many times I run the numbers, the board has simply hasn’t given me the funds I need to pull this off…’

Lifting my face from my hands, I gave a tentative glance to the clock.

‘Five thirty already? I’ve been at this for hours, but there is still so much to be done.’ I drew in a deep breath ‘I hate to complain to the school board. They have lent a great deal of trust to me. Trusting me to be able to budget and plan this year’s up-coming student festival for the school. I just wish they had given me a little more to work with here…’

I grouped my scattered papers together, stacked them nicely and placed them neatly back in my bag. ‘I guess I’m just going to have to come back in again this Sunday to try to figure this out. Though I still don’t know what use it would be. I’ve been working on this every day for the past two weeks. I’m afraid I may end disappointing principal Kobayakawa and the whole school at this rate.’

My bag in hand, I stood and slid the chair back in its place. ‘I simply can’t let that happen. I knew, going in, becoming school president wasn’t going to be an easy task. I’ll just have to double my efforts tomorrow morning.’

I shut and locked the door to the student council office behind me. The school hallway was barren. Not a student or a teacher in sight. Most of the hall lights were off, and the only source of illumination was coming from the dwindling sun through the large bay windows overlooking the courtyard. It’s not like I was unaccustomed to being the only one left in the school.

It was just part of the routine at this point. Get to school early, hold meetings, go to class, check in on clubs, have a meeting with principal Kobayakawa, continue planning for the festival, and now, go home to get my studying done. I won’t say it’s been particularly easy since I became a third year here at Shujin Academy, but it’s all a part of ‘growing up’ as Sae told me.

How could I complain about my workload when my sister has not only come up against all expectations of her as an unmarried woman in the male-dominated work environment that is the SUI office but has blazed a path for me.

Not only did she graduate at the top of her class in law school, but she was even invited to be a prosecutor for the special investigations department. Becoming the first woman to do so. I’ve learned so much from her and would be privileged to live up to being even a fraction of what she is.

“Well hey there miss school president!” A man’s voice called to me. I looked towards the source and found the school’s volleyball coach, Mr. Kamoshida, was walking in my direction from further down the hallway. Probably fresh from the team practice considering the time of day.

“What has you at the school this late hour Niijima? Classes ended a few hours ago.” He grinned and rubbed the back of his head “Probably up to some student council business eh?”

I gave a smile back and a slight bow “Good evening Mr. Kamoshida. Yes, sir, the council has needed me to stay a little later after school to help organize the student festival that is coming up in a couple of months.”

“You are already working on that thing?” he let out a slight chuckle “You big brained students never cease to amaze me! Showing such initiative and dedication will surely be in your favor when it comes to college applications.”

“Thank you, sir. We are certainly trying our best to provide the best experience for our fellow students here at Shujin!”

“Well, I’m sure it will show when the time comes” He shifted his weight to the opposite leg and crossed his arms “You know Makoto, we could really use someone with your talents on the girls’ volleyball team.” Mr. Kamoshida suggested, “Now I know you have a lot on your plate at the moment, but we are holding tryouts for next semester’s team soon.”

I clutched my bag “Thank you for the offer sir, but I’m not really the athletic type-”

“Nonsense! Volleyball is more than just raw physical skill. It’s all about strategy. Having the ability to out-think as well as outmaneuver your opponent.” He mimed serving a volleyball “Strength means nothing without the ability to read the opponents weaknesses” Kamoshida spiked his imaginary ball “then exploiting that weakness to gain victory!” He dusted off his hands and smiled widely “And I think you’re just the girl to give us that much-needed edge! Besides, I can tell from just looking at you. You have quite the physic. I’m sure your body is capable of more than you give it credit for!”

My shoulders tightened “That’s very kind of you to say, sir. But as you did point out earlier, I do have quite a lot on my plate at the moment-”

He crossed his arms once again “Oh! No need to make a decision now! Just promise me you’ll think about it. I can assure you, you’ll be one of my first picks if you try out! I know you wouldn’t need another letter of recommendation from a teacher, but one more certainly couldn’t hurt.”

I nodded “It’s a very tempting and generous offer sir. I will certainly give it a great deal of thought when the time comes.”

He shot me a knowing grin “Now, we talked about this, no need for the sir stuff ok? Just call me Suguru. And hopefully soon, coach!”

“Yes si-, sorry, Suguru. I will do well to remember in the future” I faced the door that left the hallway “Well, I should be going or I’ll miss my train.”

He gestured to the door “Oh of course! Sorry for keeping you! Have a good rest of your day Makoto. See you tomorrow.”

I nodded in return “You as well!” and pulled open the door and hastily walked through. I watched the door slowly close behind me and took a breath. I could feel my palms moist with sweat. ‘Now now Makoto. You’re being ridiculous.’ I assured myself ‘You know they are all just rumors. We were simply having a friendly conversation, nothing more.’ I gave myself a moment to recompose. Once I had my legs back underneath myself, I made my way out of the front hall and towards the subway station.

The apartment looked the same as it did that morning when I left for school. I examined the clock on the wall ‘Hmm. Sis should have been home by now.’ Locking the door behind me, I placed my bag and jacket on the sofa and headed to the kitchen. ‘She must be pulling another all-nighter at the office.’

I pulled out a Tupperware of leftover homemade ramen I made earlier in the week. Being sure to make plenty and to portion out some for Sae as well. She works so hard, and she’s kind enough to house me at her apartment after all. The least I could do is make her a meal. However, when I opened up the fridge, I saw her container of ramen still full and untouched after sitting there for days.

‘Come to think of it’ I silently considered to myself ‘when was the last time I saw her home?’ I poured the last of my soup into a pot and let it heat back up on the stove top. ‘Maybe I should just shoot her a text and make sure she’s fine…’

I tapped my phone's screen back to life and opened up the messenger app. ‘Evening Sis. Sorry to bother you. I know you must be hard at work at the office. Just haven’t heard from you in a while and wanted to make sure you were well. Please let me know if I can do anything to help!’

The ramen had already started to steam, so I took a bowl from a nearby cupboard and set my place at the table. I pulled my seat up and let the aroma of the warm soup fill my lungs. It still smelt delicious. In this batch, I played with the ratio of chili sauce to broth. It absolutely paid off.

After a few spoonfuls, I noticed just how quiet it was in the house. I wasn’t particularly sure why it stood out to me just then of all times. Ever since Sae let me move in with her, it’s always kind of been like this. The apartment was beautiful. Matching cream-colored sofas in the living room. Lovely gray and black colored curtains. Even a couple of potted ferns and lilies to brighten the room a little. And under a stunningly hand carved coffee table laid a gorgeous ornate rug.

Sae’s apartment certainly didn’t lack a sense of taste. When she moved in, she even hired an interior decorator to give the place its distinct style and character. It gave off a sort of beautiful minimalistic feel.

Still, I had to admit, it lacked warmth. Can’t say I’ve ever complete felt comfortable in it. Though it was a near art piece, it still felt hollow somehow.

The stillness was putting me on edge, so I clicked on the TV in the living room a listened while I ate. The large screen popped to life, and the SNN breaking news logo streaked across the screen.

‘-Experts are still baffled as to what caused the trains to crash earlier this April. The subway’s conductor had cleared all tests for narcotics, or any substances of any kind, in his system. Even after extensive interrogation, he still cannot recall why he would have sent his train speeding down the track, far over recommended speeds, causing the massive crash into Shibuya station, killing dozens and injuring even more.-’ A reporter announced

‘Oh right, that train crash that happened earlier in the school year. It was fortunate it was on a Sunday, or Shujin students very easily could have been on that train or at the station.’ I stirred the noodles while listening to the broadcaster continue.

‘The conductor is still awaiting his court date to face a judge over whether the matter is to be considered criminal neglect or manslaughter.’ Another reporter chimed in ‘Now why isn’t he just being thrown in jail for murder? He wasn’t under any sort drug as you said, then he had to have been in a clear state of mind when he killed all those people’

‘Many have asked the same.’ The first reporter retorted ‘However, after the incident, it was confirmed by a doctor at the scene that the conductor had had a seizure of some sort behind the wheel. He was said to be foaming at the mouth, and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. He was said to be lucky to recover from such an accident-’

I clicked the tv back off and sighed “I really don’t feel like hearing about train accidents right now” I murmured to myself while getting up. I grabbed my school bag and sat back down at the dinner table. Undid the latch and brought out my notes from the day. Segregating the binders and papers into separate piles by classes, I cracked open the first.

Before starting, I grouped a few noodles together and chomped down on a mouth full. My stomach growled with desire for more. “Hmm. Forgot how long ago lunch was. Guess my stomach didn’t.” I rubbed my tired eyes and got to work on my homework ‘Ok. Question one: according to the philosopher Plato, the soul is composed of appetite, spirit and what else?’

#persona 5 #persona #Makoto #fanfic #Makotosstory

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prettyfunkyunorganized · 6 years

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Christmas Daughter Series - Hanzo

MY BABIES!!!

I know I said I wasn’t going to do any more Hanzo and Mirra posts until the first chapter of the fic came out, BUT IT’S CHRISTMAS AND THEY ARE MY BABIES!!! So have some fluff for Christmas Eve, just under 3,600 words worth.

I will be doing more holiday stuff with the girls, but probably after the 25th. Cause I’m too damn busy. So busy.

More Daughter Series: Hanzo, Reaper, Roadhog, McCree, Soldier 76, Genji

Hanzo installments: pt 1, pt 2, pt 3

Christmas Daughter Series: Reaper, Roadhog

It had been years since Hanzo had been to a Christmas party, and he had not missed them. This time of year had never been his favorite – it usually meant public appearances with the Shimada family and strained holiday dinners. There were no decorated trees or wreaths adorned with bows, just judgmental questions about combat training and demeaning stares from across the room. The instant Winston had informed everyone there would be a small gettogether for anyone who remained on the base during the holidays, Hanzo was instantly trying to find an excuse to stay in his room. Unfortunately, Genji and Mirra would not allow him that luxury.

However, truth be told, this little gathering wasn’t too awful. Most of the evening Hanzo had been tucked away, a bit removed from everyone else, just watching. And listening. Mirra had been singing or humming all week, which had been wonderful. There was little he loved more than hearing her voice wafting through the air. Tonight, she and Lucio had been singing all night, harmonizing effortlessly and taking turns choosing songs. Hanzo had no idea there were so many Christmas songs. It was baffling. But entertaining. Mirra hadn’t stopped smiling all night, especially when she convinced Winston to sing with them. Never in a million years would Hanzo have guessed that the scientist would have a voice like that. The combination of Winston’s low tones, Lucio’s vibrant notes, and Mirra’s beautiful vocalizing left everyone in the room with goosebumps.

Most everyone on the team had sung at some point, the archer excluded, and now they had moved on to dancing. Mirra was elated when Lucio asked her to dance once the playlist changed to instrumentals. “About time I got to show off how this dress twirls,” she had said taking the DJ’s hand. Hanzo was suddenly acutely aware of how close the young man and his daughter were. Perhaps too close. His hand was always at an appropriate spot, but still. There may be cause for a few low-key threats.

Genji was quick to ask for the next dance. His green cyber-suit carefully moving next to Mirra’s swaying red dress almost gave Hanzo a bit of Christmas spirit. Almost. Emily, Lena’s girlfriend, was next, followed by Lena who’s long legs were suddenly not very graceful. Reinhardt pretended to put up a fight, but no one was convinced. Once the giant man was in the middle of the room, he was swinging Mirra around wildly while she laughed uncontrollably, feet hardly touching the ground. As she set her back down, the young woman wavered and nearly toppled over in a bout of dizziness. McCree darted over to catch her before Hanzo could cross the room.

“You alright, little lady,” McCree asked chuckling.

“Never better,” Mirra responding, still giggling.

“Sorry, little one,” Reinhardt said flashing an awkward smile, “I may have gotten a tad carried away.”

“You were fantastic, Rein, I just underestimated you! That was fun,” she replied with a wide smile.

“It was,” the former crusader boomed. “Thank you for asking me, dear. It has been a long time since I had someone who was willing to dance with this old codger.”

Mirra puffed out a raspberry at him, “Oh stop it. You’re an utter delight, Reinhardt! Maybe you just need to start doing the asking yourself. Anyone who says no will get an earful from me.”

Reinhardt’s laugh was so powerful it could start an avalanche. “Ah Mirra, you are too kind! And perhaps you are right. What do you say, one more dance?”

“Hey now,” McCree interjected, “you don’t get to hog our little songstress all to yerself.” The cowboy set down his guitar and put a hand on Mirra’s shoulder. “Tell me, cupcake, do you know how to swing dance?”

“Uh, no,” she said smiling up at him, “but I would love to learn. That is, if I won’t offend Rein too much by giving him a rain check on that second dance.”

“By all means,” the knight said with a bow, “I will leave you in Jesse’s capable hands.”

McCree grinned and showed Mirra a few simple steps, the red and green lights on serape blinking merrily. They are quite the festive sight. Jesse was rather trying at times, and his way of speaking drove Hanzo somewhat insane at times, but he was very good to Mirra. Respectful and polite. He had visited her often while she was injured and he always lifted her spirits. Watching the two of them shuffle to the left and kick to the right was strangely endearing. Hanzo couldn’t deny that.

“Careful, brother,” Genji said wandering to the elder Shimada’s side.

“What do you mean,” Hanzo asked, not taking his eyes off Mirra.

“Your feelings are showing! You are smiling broader than I have ever seen,” Genji teased.

Hanzo instantly felt his face go hot as he ran his hand over his mouth in embarrassment. “Excuse me for being pleased to see Mirra acting like herself again after the injury she sustained,” he grumbled.

“I was not trying to scold you, Hanzo. In truth, it was quite nice to see you enjoying yourself. I should not have said anything.” Seeing his younger brother without his visor still made Hanzo’s heart skip a beat, but at the same time it was somewhat . . . nice to see Genji’s lopsided smirk. “And I agree, it is good to see Mirra back to her happy self. I was worried.”

“As was I,” Hanzo sighed, spying some residual scarring peeking out from underneath Mirra’s lace sleeves.

“But,” Genji said reassuringly, “she has made a full recovery, and we should be thankful for that.”

“Agreed,” Hanzo breathed, gripping the small box in his pocket.

“Well, try not to sulk here all night, brother. You should at least have something to eat – Emily made some sort of brownie, pudding, whipped cream thing that seems like something you would love. I imagine you still have an insatiable sweet tooth?”

He did. Absolutely. And he had been eyeing that layered truffle. “Perhaps in a bit,” Hanzo said clearing his throat sheepishly.

Genji gave Hanzo’s back a firm pat before walking away. The archer stayed at the party a while longer, long enough to see Mirra try on Reinhardt’s giant Santa coat that completely engulfed and amused her. She seemed so happy tonight. As much as he wanted to give her the gift he had prepared for her, it didn’t seem worth disrupting her joy. Not to mention how tired Hanzo was – he was not a night owl.

“The day after Christmas will have to do,” he said slightly disappointed. While everyone was distracted Hanzo ducked out of the room and slowly made his way to his quarters.

Just as he entered the last hallway, the sound of fast approaching footsteps came tapping from behind. “Hanzo! Wait up,” Mirra called to him as she rounded the corner. He instantly halted and allowed her to join him.

“Is something wrong,” he asked with a frown.

“What? No, no! Nothing wrong,” she assured him, “but are you headed to bed for the night?”

“I was planning to, yes,” he said hesitantly. Mirra was fidgeting nervously. She hadn’t acted that way toward him in weeks. What had he done this time?

“Oh, well, um,” she said rummaging around in her vest pocket, “I wanted to give you this tonight.”

Mirra handed Hanzo a simple gold-colored envelope with his name on it. He held it gently in both hands. “For me,” he asked, his voice quiet in his surprise.

“Yeah,” she said darting between looking at her feet and Hanzo, her feet and Hanzo. “I wanted to do something for you for Christmas, but Genji said it wasn’t really your favorite time of year. And I think sometimes I overwhelm you – that I’m asking too much of you, or that maybe I’m sorta demanding, or that I’m just too much for you – and I’m sorry for that. I’ll try to be better, I promise. Hopefully, this isn’t too much either, but I figured if I wrote down what I wanted to say, you could digest it on your own time.” She turned away from him and let out a shaky laugh. “It made sense to me earlier, but now I can’t seem to make any sort of sense.”

He didn’t know what to say. He stared at the envelope with equal parts curiosity and worry.

“Anyway,” Mirra said after a few moments of silence, “goodnight! Sleep well.” She gave him a quick wave before scampering away.

“Wait,” he said weakly and far too late. She was long gone. He still had his gift for her tucked away. Hanzo hissed in frustration in his native language before entering his bedroom.

He should read it right away, he knew he should, but Hanzo couldn’t bring himself to do so. Despite Mirra’s attempt not to bewilder her father, she still did. Setting the card on the bedside table, Hanzo checked the time.

“I believe a shower is in order,” he murmured to himself. He just needed a little time to prepare himself, that’s all.

Twenty-five minutes passed, and Hanzo was pursing his lips at the envelope again.

His desk and bathroom could use a bit of tidying. The sheets on his bed could be changed as well.

Only ten minutes had passed this time. After all, his living space was always spotless, but he was desperate. And now he was out of options.

“Grief,” Hanzo hissed to himself, “it is only a Christmas card! Enough unnecessary fear.” He grabbed the piece of paper and sat on the side of his bed, a deep frown on his brow. “Besides, if I do not read this now, I will never be able to sleep,” he lamented, cutting open the envelope with an arrow.

A minimalistic design graced the front of the cardstock – three green lines formed a small tree and the outline of a yellow star topped it. Inside, ‘Merry Christmas, Hanzo’ was scrawled is her slightly sloppy handwriting and a piece of lined, folded paper fell out. Mirra had written enough to fill one side and spill over onto the back. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

Hanzo,

I know the holidays aren’t your thing, but I felt like I had to tell you how much it means to me to be with you for Christmas. It means the world to me. I had people who cared about me as a kid, people who looked after me, but its still different with you. And not just because we’re blood relatives, it’s more than that.

You’re good to me – always looking out for me, watching my back and making sure I’m taken care of. Even more, you always seem to be trying to make me happy. Or maybe I’m just happier with you around. Either way, meeting you is one of the best things that has ever happened to me. In fact, it is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Even considering our, well, rocky start.

Joan, the woman who raised me, was always telling me I had to be self-sufficient, independent – that I couldn’t depend on anyone – and for a long time, I believed her. When Joan died, and I was left on my own, I stayed that way. Alone. And good god was it hard. I was constantly struggling, and I felt so bad about it. I felt like a failure.I kept thinking, “I should be fine by myself, I shouldn’t need help, I shouldn’t feel lonely all the time.” But I was miserable. Thank goodness Angela found me before I did something I couldn’t undo. Before I gave up.

But enough about that. I don’t feel like that anymore. Like I’m teetering on the edge of my strength and wondering how much longer I can hold on. Being here at Overwatch has helped me more than I can say. I admit, it was still tough at first, after Genji told me you didn’t want anything to do with me. Thankfully, we pushed each other’s buttons enough that we both broke down, and I’ve never adored a memory of a fight so much in my life! It still makes me laugh that you and me bickering about a cup of coffee started all this.

I’m rambling now, aren’t I? Sorry. The point of all this is that I’m grateful every single day that you are in my life. Every day. You make me smile and laugh and feel safe. It’s so nice to feel safe again after running for so long. I remember when we first started to talk, I was so worried you were going to be like Joan: always pressuring me to be someone I really wasn’t. But you’re not. Yes, you have your comments now and again, but you never seem to be scolding me – at least not anymore. You seem to be trying to help or maybe encourage me. You seem to want what’s best for me, and that is an incredible feeling. To know someone only wants you to be at your best. I’ve never felt this secure before, so protected, so understood.

You’re a good parent. I hope you know that. And just so you know, perfection is overrated. I prefer real people, and you with all your snark, bluster, and small showings of affection are definitely real. Damn close to perfect if you ask me.

So thank you, Hanzo, for giving me more than I ever could have dreamed of. I wouldn’t change a thing about you, or our time together. Not a thing. I hope we have many, many more holidays together.

Your forever grateful ‘sweet girl,’

Mirra

“Heavens help me,” he choked out. Hanzo hadn’t cried for the longest time, but he was fighting tears halfway through and could hardly read the end of the letter.

It was sweet and beautiful.

It touches his heart. Clenches it.

He’s destroyed. Utterly destroyed.

For a matter of minutes, it is all Hanzo can do to steady his breathing and let a million thoughts run through his mind. All he can feel is guilt. He's such a coward, but Mirra is so open. So forgiving. So patient. She just wants him around, to be with him and support him. And he keeps running. Avoiding. Unwilling to take a half step out of his comfort zone to do something for his only child.

She deserves better. A better father. But she’s stuck with him. He doesn’t deserve her. Someone so incredible. But he somehow he has her in his life.

He had to see her. Tonight. Hanzo pulled on a sweatshirt over his sleep shirt, grabbed Mirra’s present, and headed to his daughter’s room. It wasn’t that late – for her – and the party was likely winding down. He could still catch her.

“Please be here,” he murmured before knocking on her door. Nothing. Hanzo snarled viciously and rubbed his temples. Should he wait, or pull her from the party? He groaned and thumped his forehead against the cool metal of the wall.

“Uh, Hanzo? You alright?”

The archer jumped as Mirra’s confused voice came from further down the hall. “Mirra! Good,” he sighed, for once not concerned with staying composed.

“What’s wrong,” she said, quickly closing the distance between them, her bold eyebrows pinched.

“Nothing, Mirra, nothing. I just needed to speak with you,” he said, words hitching in his mouth once.

“What is it,” she asked earnestly, arms close to her chest in apprehension.

“Please,” Hanzo said raising his hands in a gesture of reassurance, “do not be worried. Nothing negative has happened, I have just read your letter and wished to say something to you.”

“Oh,” Mirra said fidgeting, “I see.” She looked no less fearful. “Well, I’m here now if you want to talk, but no pressure.”

He took a trembling breath before forcing the truth out of him. “Your letter was very . . . powerful, Mirra, in the most remarkable way. Your honesty always astounds me. I am thankful for it. You usually make it so easy for me to see how you are feeling – when you are happy, when you are in pain – but I do not often give you the same opportunity. I am much more comfortable closing myself off from everyone else, even you, the one person I trust above all others. Your letter made me realize how unfair this is, especially since you are the sort of woman who is . . . who may need more, I suppose, obvious assurances that all is well. So allow me to be plain: You are the best thing in my life, Mirra. By far. You are extraordinary. I will never stop wondering how a man like me could be blessed with a daughter like you. I do have enough words to express how thankful I am for you.” Hanzo carefully reached up and held Mirra’s soft cheek, her bleary eyes blinking rapidly. “I will do my best to be a proper father to you, I promise you that, but I believe we both know I often regress into my old ways, which likely hurts you more than me, and I apologize for that. I will do better. However,” he said raising his other hand to cup Mirra’s face, “that being said, if you ever, ever begin to doubt how much you mean to me, how much I need you, how much I value you, please tell me. I will make sure you know the truth – that I treasure every moment I have with you.”

“Shit, Hanzo,” she gulped out, pressing her hands over his so he was squishing her pliable cheeks, “you’re gonna make me a big, crying mess.”

He chuckled. “My apologies, sweet girl, but I felt that I needed to say everything at once, lest I change my mind.”

Mirra laughed and released Hanzo’s hands so she could wipe her eyes. “I get it. I was so nervous when I was writing your letter, I almost chickened out about a dozen times.”

“I am glad you did not,” he said smiling warmly.

“You know I meant it, right? Every word,” she said firmly.

“As do I,” Hanzo nodded, “and, before I forget again, I have one more thing for you.”

He pulled the small box out he had been hiding out of his pocket making Mirra’s smile grow as she put her hands over her heart.

“Aw, Hanzo! You shouldn’t have! I knew I should have got you something,” she scolded herself.

“Your note was plenty, Mirra. I can not think of a better gift, now open yours.” A bit of excitement was suddenly prickling Hanzo’s fingers as he handed her the present.

Mirra opened the hinged, velveteen container and let out a small whimper, tears trickling and chin quivering. “Hanzo,” she whispered removing the locket from its box, “is this . . . is this my mother’s?”

“I’m afraid it's not the same one,” he clarified hurriedly. “I tried to locate your mother’s original necklace, but I was unable to, much to my disappointment. However, I was able to find a local jeweler who could replicate the design. I hope a copy is sufficient.”

“Hanzo,” she beamed, “it’s perfect! I love it! I always wondered what happened to that necklace. I hope it’s not in a pawn shop or something. I’ve always hoped it was with her – that’s what I tell myself at least. But now I have one of my own! I – I can’t believe you did this for me . . .” It looked as if Mirra was on the verge of blubbering as she slipped the chain over her head. She cradled the silver pendant in her hands with the biggest smile Hanzo had ever seen.

“I am glad you like it,” Hanzo said, chest tight as he was unexpectedly flooded with memories of his short time with Mirra’s mother. She would have adored their daughter. “You have all of your mother’s beauty, her remarkable spirit, and her stunning voice, but I thought you might like something of hers to hold in your hands – or at least nearly hers. I will keep looking for the original.”

“You’re killing me Hanzo,” Mirra laughed tearfully. “Thank you for saying that. I always hoped I was at least a little like her, because if I was, it was almost like I kinda knew her.”

“The two of you are very much alike in a number of ways,” he said honestly.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, but I wasn’t sure how you would react,” she said slowly, “would you tell me about her some time, my mom?”

That would not be a difficult conversation, but Hanzo assumed it would happen eventually and he was feeling much more ready now. “Of course, sweet girl, but perhaps another night. It is late, and we should both be in bed.”

“Sound good,” she agreed. “Thank you again, Hanzo, for everything.”

“It is I who should be thanking you,” he insisted. “Now, to bed with you. If we are up much longer, we will be seeing the sunrise.”

Mirra smirked. “You’re just saying that because you want to go to bed.”

“Hush,” he said jokingly as he waved her into her room.

“G’night,” she said with a sleepy voice.

“Goodnight,” Hanzo replied, “and Merry Christmas.”

She grinned, “Was it ‘merry’ for you?”

“It was a day I spent hearing you sing and laugh, Mirra – so yes, it was most definitely ‘merry.’”

Tags: @watch-your-grammer @winchester-sonsandcastiel @envy-kitty

#mine #writing #overwatch #overwatch drabble #my drabble #drabble #mirra #hanzo #genji #reinhardt #mccree #winston #lucio #daughter series #christmas #christmas daughter series

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sawyersscribbles · 7 years

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Eden’s Horizon (My WIP) Part 3

What’s up my new homies (honestly there have been like five new followers in the past couple of days thank you so much) So I thought to celebrate you and the start of NaNoWriMo (to those of you concerned I’m pretty sure I slept like seventeen minutes last night so I’m doing pretty great). I’ve made great progress since the last time I’ve updated, so I hope this new (and long omg) part is as good as I think it is :) Enjoy!

Lieutenant Patch was one of those no-nonsense get-stuff-done kind of lieutenants, but Cylo knew that those didn’t exist. He had worked with several generals over his two years of service, mostly because most of the people he worked with thought his skills would be better suited “in a less-disciplined area” or a “location where Mr. Maruzzo’s enthusiasm and rambunctious nature will be separated from our stealth informants.” Cylo didn’t get that feeling from Lieutenant Patch, even though the lieutenant stood with hands clasped behind the back and feet in a “V” position together at the heels, like everything he had seen before. Entering the bunker, it seemed more serious than any bases he had been in before, but that may have been from the silent soldiers in two even rows leading al the way down to the control room, he couldn’t know for sure. Although he had met the man by the door yesterday on his manhunt, the soldier with downcast eyes still asked for his ID. Cylo didn’t argue, only rolled his eyes and scoffed, pressing his hand into the pad held up by the soldier, idling an awkward moment before allowing him to enter the room. In any other place, Cylo may have made small talk with the soldiers outside, asking them how their day was or if any of them had seen Slice and Dice 7, the newest installment of his favorite franchise. “It takes place on the moon this time, even though everyone knows the Terazorgs like to use the earth to turn into their weapons in cities, but that’s okay, I liked it anyway.” Cylo explained when telling the receptionist of his second base about Slice and Dice 3: Antimatter, back when they were still naming them. The lady at the desk at least pretended to be interested in the adventures of Deka and her trusty animal sidekick Pico, but this soldier seemed more like the dead-eyed cashier from the megamarket than a soldier ready for duty. “Good morning, sir.” Cylo leaned in a bit and nodded once, tapping his foot to double the beat of the computers around the room which were thumping in rhythm together. The lieutenant didn’t turn around right away, waiting to acknowledge Cylo’s entry only after the lines on the screen had slowed enough that there were long pauses between memos. “Good morning, Major Maruzzo.” The Lieutenant turned around and faced Cylo and revealed that he wasn’t a “he” at all. Lieutenant Patch must have been a woman of at least five foot seven, only right below Cylo’s own height, but she wasn’t anything like the ladies that Cylo liked to sway on a night out. She had thick and powerful arms with thighs to match, and her jaw was hard set like stone, as if she’d been looking at people like that all her life. Cylo grinned and squirmed a bit excitedly. “I’m a major now?” He whispered excitedly, “So that means…” “…Level seven clearance.” “Level seven clearance!” Cylo couldn’t contain it any longer. It had been his dream when he joined the military to some day get above a level four. If he could do that, he would have made it. Being a first class private meant he had been sitting around level three for ages. He had finally made it. Lieutenant Patch didn’t yell at him or tell him to quiet down like the other generals Cylo had dealt with, but she did look at him coldly, like the silent treatment. After punching the air a few times and chanting “Yes!…Yes!…Yes!” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, he set his jaw just like the Lieutenant’s, only staying serious a moment before smiling again. “Major, I know this is all very exciting for you, but your reasons for being promoted so quickly are really very serious, and I’d like to ask you as your superior to take this position very seriously. Have I made myself clear?” Cylo looked at the ground like the man outside and shuffled his feet. “Yes, Lieutenant.” “Yes ma’am.” She corrected, “I earned this position after years of extra work to gain the authority of my male co-workers, and I am to be reminded every day.” The set of her jaw twitched only a little, just barely enough to be noticed, but Cylo noticed these things. It was the suppression of a smile. “Now, this underground structure was built in order to block incoming internet signals and viruses due to the mercury and radiation levels in the soil, so I suggest that any metallic body parts of yours should be treated carefully as such. “Well, I guess I’ve just got one, but I don’t think it’ll be a big deal.” Cylo lifted his pant leg to the metal skeleton taking the place of his foot coming up to halfway up his leg. “It’s not really a cool story, I just sliced open my foot with a rusty playground toy, and it would have gotten taken care of, but that playground was covered in radiation, so…I mean, I’ve got a robot foot now, so that’s fun.” Although the Lieutenant didn’t look amused, she didn’t look disinterested, either. “Well, hopefully an incident like that won’t happen in my base. I’ve heard from your past officers that you didn’t do well with field work, so this place will hopefully suit you better. If you look around you, this is the atrium of the facility. Meetings will be held here at 0700 hours each morning to inform you on the day’s activities and to brief you on new developments…” The Lieutenant didn’t finish her sentence, but kept walking anyway. The atrium reminded Cylo of a college hall, or what one would probably look like if he ever went. There was a table in the front with a large screen from behind, surrounded by maybe a hundred chairs all facing to the front. He had never had so many colleagues in his life. “So…am I going to get to meet all these people? Because I love meeting new people, everyone I’ve met says it.” He beamed. The Lieutenant didn’t look back until she was sure that Cylo was behind her following into the next room. The base was situated like a star or a snowflake, With the atrium in the center and several hallways protruding from it, with rooms attached from there. It felt almost like a video game, with so many different areas to explore. Lieutenant Patch carried herself as if she had seen every room a dozen times, and then a dozen times more. She glanced into the rooms periodically, but didn’t enter any but one at the far end of a particularly well lit hallway with the occasional art piece hanging on the otherwise white walls. It was clear that they had been whitewashed many times before, as brown stains were already starting to grow where the fresh coat was set. “Since you now have Level Seven clearance, I’ll situate you with the other majors. I’ll tell you now, woman-to-man, that these people need abright young kid like you to keep their spirits up. They may not seem like it at first, but I would trust none other than these people to solve a national crisis, which is…basically what’s happening now.” She mumbled to herself quietly and pushed open the door, allowing Cylo to enter first. There was not miles of cubicles like Cylo thought there would be. The majors were not hunched over some computers typing out documents without light in their souls. Instead, it was a group of people around his age, maybe a bit older, who were slingshotting eraser caps into each other’s mouths. “Ow! You hit my tooth!” One groaned and held his face. Another, shorter than the rest, laughed and set down her mechanism. “It’s because you suck at this game!” The Lieutenant’s posture became lax as she leaned against the frame of the door, watching these antics play out. She didn’t even seem upset by the lack of work, only amused at what was going on. Neither did she stop what was happening to introduce Cylo. She waited for the group to collectively stop what they were doing and listen on their own terms. “Majors, this is your newest comrade, Major Cylo Maruzzo. He’s been stationed here from the city of Vela and is very excited to be here, am I incorrect, Major?” She turned to Cylo, who was still surveying the group. He smiled softly and slowly nodded. “No, ma’am. Not at all.”

Zenith hadn’t ever been inside a church before and never expected to, but the glass above the altar looked so pretty that she felt she needed to at least look inside. The inside of the church looked like it hadn’t been too heavily cleaned in years, save for the occasional sweep. Although the polished wooden pews were sturdy, they weren’t without their scratches and markings that reminded Zenith more of a couch chewed by a dog than by a place of worship. The seats had cushions on them, but even some of those were scattered on the ground like leaves. The desk at the front was without papers or an open holy text, just sitting solemnly below the intimidating cross that seemed to watch over the room. It felt quiet. “Oh, hi there!” Zenith whispered excitedly to a girl who appeared to be staring blankly forward, and it was no longer silent as it had been before. The girl had orangish red hair, a peculiar color choice, if you asked Zenith’s stylist, who loved her vibrant royal purple. “I tell you, honey, science is stuff of the gods!” He cried and held the ends of her hair as if he were giving them up to the sky, which always made Zenith giggle. The girl didn’t stiffen right away, but after looking Zenith up-and-down twice, she froze into place. Her mouth was ajar in terror, and her breaths came out in puffs. Suddenly, the girl bolted up from her seat and made a break for the door, but Cylo had tried to snatch Zenith from the couch enough times to learn evasive maneuvers. The orange haired girl screamed as Zenith made a bee-line towards her and grabbed her by the shoulders, still shaking. She seemed as if she couldn’t see, her eyes were blank and searching for something to look at. At the same time, they were tearing up and overflowing onto her cheeks where they virtually disappeared against the light. “Hey!” Zenith barked, “What the heck, man? Is it something on my breath?” As much as the girl avoided eye contact, Zenith still struggled to maintain it. “You’re… oh my god.” Zenith mumbled the last part under her breath so quietly that the other girl, Paige Diamond, she realized, couldn’t hear it. She was the very girl from the picture, Zenith was confident. No one else had that heart shaped face paired with those non-enhanced blues in her eyes which had, quite frankly, gone out of fashion. Paige gave a sigh and let her shoulders wilt, but in that second of Zenith’s weakness, she broke free once more and backed away further into the church. Her eyes were not calm and interested like in the photograph, rather wide and afraid, and her hands were no longer loosely gripping her bag but trying to find something around her neck. After a few moments of stammering and mumbling, Paige held a smaller version of the cross that was hanging above the altar in the direction of Zenith. “Unclean spirits, I command you to come out and manifest in the name of Jesus!” She cried and slowly approached Zenith again, but this time keeping as much distance between her and the cross as possible. “Demons, I command you to come out of the mouth now and never come back in Jesus name!” When Zenith didn’t move and demons did not, in fact, come out of her mouth, she kept repeating the same phrases until she was incomprehensible. “Paige!” Zenith said in a voice as strong as hers, “Paige Diamond, right? I’m not here to curse you or something, and to be honest, I only kind of know what just happened there. But I need you to calm down, okay?” She held her arms out and tried to coax Paige down, but all she managed to do was get her to sit down. She still didn’t lessen her grip on the cross pendant, rather tighten it as Zenith sat down closer. Paige’s eyes stayed on Zenith as she sat down, feeling more like a hostage than someone following instructions. Slowly, her fingers inched closer to Zenith’s hand and jabbed at it quickly before Zenith could stop her. “Ow! The one that can’t feel is on the other side, you scrap! Jeez…look at what you did!” Zenith held her limp arm up to Paige’s face to see the red mark spreading slowly from the impact point. “Scrap? The hell is that supposed to mean?” Paige said over Zenith muttering about blood clots. “You know…like, ‘Oh, that person is such scrap!’? Like the insult? I was trying to be mean to you.” Zenith’s voice was flat and unamused, and when she looked back at Paige, it seemed that she was just as concerned as Zenith was about her poor bicep. “Since when have you used city slang? Is that where you were for the past three months, wasting away in…never mind.” Paige grew uncharacteristically calm and shut her eyes and breathed slowly three times. “I am calm, I am a steadfast stream…I’m good.” She exhaled the last words and met Zenith’s confused gaze one more time. “Who are you really?” Paige said quietly and faced forward so that Zenith couldn’t look at her face. She shuffled uncomfortably and turned the same way. “You’re real…I felt you. I think I may have bits of your skin, human skin, under my nails…” Her voice was drifty and flighty, but Zenith started muttering angrily again about how she broke the skin, which officially made it unfair. “But you’re not who abandoned us three months ago.” Zenith tried picking up the conversation after it had fallen down. “Zenith Maruzzo, I guess? You’re Paige Diamond. I know you. From…well duh...” Over the two years that Cylo had been in service, Zenith was at least smart enough to know that keeping that picture from the car quiet is probably the best for the both of them. But it was hard for her to lie to peoples’ faces, especially after Paige nearly smote her. She had to fidget and turn away during the delivery, a definite no-no if you were to ask her big brother. “Yeah, I know you know me from somewhere. We’re friends. Or at least I think we are…” Zenith didn’t flinch when Paige drew a cross next to her face with the cross around her neck. “Okay, I’m gonna tell it to you straight, I’ve never, in all my days, seen someone try to cast me out.” Zenith chuckled and folded her arms. “So…what is this place, exactly? It’s a church, right? I’ve got to say, though, after never setting foot in one, I think I like it.” Zenith nodded at the cathedral dome overhead coated with biblical art. Paige audibly took a deep breath. “Yeah, you never were religious, were you?” Paige mumbled and took out one of the thick books from behind the pew in front. She flipped to a random page and didn’t make a sound. “You know, I thought you were gone, Zenith.” Paige was trying to keep her voice steady, but it was clear she was still afraid. “You just ran into the woods and then…we didn’t see you again in weeks, you know that. You could have been dead. No, not could have been, you were dead, Zenith. So you come back to me, shiny new city-arm, and expect me not to do what my grandfather taught me? You must be on gator…” Gator was some weird combination of crushed sleeping pills and marijuana invented by Logan that you snorted. Made so poignantly clear by Ms. LeBlanc, “Gator is going to happen like fetch is going to happen. Don’t even ask, it’s not a movie from your generation. Get that SOB to my office so I can slap those drugs out of his hands.” If one were to use a direct quote, that is. Zenith wasn’t quite sure what Gator was, but tried to laugh along like she had been taught anyway. Paige lifted her head. “'The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.' That’s Psalm 34:18. I learned it about a month after you were gone. It was the first time I picked up a bible on my own terms.” Paige’s arm twitched like she was about to reach something, and her breath was coming out in short, white puffs. Before her fingers could dig into her coat pocket, she dropped her hand entirely and let it twitch loosely on the pews. She held her head back and kept her dull eyes entrapped on the colors of the cathedral above. The iris looked washed out, like a stain that had been on a tablecloth for many years. “What happened to you, Zenith?” She whispered to no one in particular, making eye contact with each of the angels one by one. For the first time in her life, Zenith was idle sitting in that pew, having nowhere to look and nothing to say. But it was quiet. One of those important quiets that end up meaning something profound later, she figured. That’s how, she reasoned, silences with Paige were supposed to be. “What are you guys, my parents picking me up from kindergarten? You’re late, turds!” Kinza had been standing outside the archway of the church for way-too-many-for-my-damn-liking minutes with her arms crossed. When Zenith and Paige finally looked up from the pews, Paige immediately began laughing, and her tears from before had since dried and been replaced by newer, happier ones. Some air that Zenith didn’t know she had in her lungs was let out, and her body returned to normal. “If you have some sort of highly specific memory you need to share, I’m always here to talk!” Paige called out to Kinza. Her foot tapping only quickened and motioned to Zenith to yank Paige out of her seat. Of course, not understanding the sarcasm, she did exactly that. “Hey, hey—whoa! Robot arms make you stronger, robot arms make you stronger! Oh my god, stop!” Paige began to laugh so hard that there wasn’t even noise coming out of her anymore, just long wheezes. Kinza looked entertained now and nearly reached to pull Paige along but stopped herself. “There’s a meeting, like, right now. Zenith, you especially have to come, but we gotta go.” By the time they left the chapel, Paige was finally able to breathe. “Meeting about what?” Zenith asked. “Hell if I know. I guess I would have if I wasn’t sent to fetch you like a handmaiden girl, yeah?” Kinza was still bitter and wouldn’t look Zenith in the eyes as she spoke. “Meetings are always held here, and the whole school attends them. Usually they’re about someone flushing their tampons down the toilets again or to give out Zika vaccines.” “Zika…is that a teacher or something? Why is everyone so mean to her…?” Zenith mumbled. Her homeschooling didn’t involve learning about things that didn’t matter, like curable diseases. If it couldn’t kill her, it didn’t matter. “Stop messing around Zenith,” Kinza jokingly hit her on the arm, right above where Paige had stabbed her just minutes before. Everything about Kinza’s demeanor was casual, the mood of the situation hadn’t changed before, but Paige’s step had faltered a big, lagging behind the two and holding her arms. Kinza looked back and when she was sure Paige was far enough behind, she widened her eyes just slightly and hit Zenith one more time. “What…what did I do—“ “In here!” Kinza blurted and swung open the door, to which hundreds of students drew their eyes to. Paige had stopped entirely, waiting outside the view of the door in horror. “Sorry…carry on, Miss LeBlanc…” Kinza stopped acting like herself when Miss LeBlanc was involved. She had some silent authority over the students that was strong as it was mysterious. In some ways, Zenith could feel herself obeying to it, too. From her podium next to the wall, Miss LeBlanc peered outside the doorway, and then looked back out to the crowd. “Paige, honey, are you in there?” She called without her booming voice so the students in the audience needed to struggle to hear. “Two minute break. Two!” She called and held up two fingers. The students remained quiet at first, but then resumed their conversations. Paige was crumpled against the wall with her hands over her ears, staring blankly at the open door. When Miss LeBlanc appeared through it, Paige sagged and removed her hands from her ears. “I’m sorry, it’s just that all the people were looking at me.” She half-expected Miss LeBlanc to cut her off, but she waited patiently for Paige to run out of things to say. “Humans are drawn to noise and sound, no matter what. It’s an instinctive reaction, just like knowing to give me a high five when I hold my hand up, am I right?” Paige laughed and sat up straighter. “The point is, I’ve got kids to inform in there, and you’re one of those kids. They’ll be talking, so no one will notice you sitting down. How does that sound?” Paige took a second to nod and followed Miss LeBlanc into the room. She was right, the students were chatting and didn’t even look, compared to when Kinza practically kicked open the door. Her boyfriend had stood up and waved his arms frantically. When he noticed that Paige’s eyes were on him, he switched from varying dance moves like the robot or the YMCA dance. She laughed as she jogged up to the very top row, which didn’t have many students. She sunk into her boyfriend’s arm and let him hold her hand from around her shoulder. “You did me a frighten,” Logan said as he knelt his head onto hers. “Okay, this is going to make it sound bad…but I was able to see you…” “Ugh, no—“ “…In the doorway, but I was so far up that I’m pretty sure it was only me.” Logan found his train of thought after Paige had interrupted him. “…But I was about to go after you, Paige. I get worried when you get scared, you know that…” His voice had gotten gentler, and he kissed the side of her head and held Paige closer. “Well I’m fine now… and thank you. You’re very sweet.” She declared and kissed his cheek. He grinned softly and sighed. “Excuse me, miss?” He tapped the shoulder of the girl in front of him, to Paige’s dismay. “Oh my god, don’t do the thing!” She moaned, but smiled wider than she had all day. The girl turned around, confused. “I just wanted to tell you that that’s my girlfriend over there, and I love her very much. She’s smart and pretty and funny, and I can’t believe she’s with a scrub like me…” That was when Paige managed to pull him away and explain to the girl, “I’m so sorry, he deals with affection in ways that I functionally cannot comprehend. He does a thing where he can’t say it to my face but says it to someone else’s…I’m sorry.” Luckily, this was one of those times where the third party involved found it as a joke, too, and soon they were both laughing. “Oh, don’t worry, I think it’s sweet! Love always finds a way, right?” Paige looked back to Logan, who shrugged. “Yeah…” she said absently, “I guess it does.” “And we’re back! Everyone find your seats!” Miss LeBlanc had made her way back to the podium, and in the minute and a half between when Paige had saw her last and now, she had touched up her eyeliner. “Alright, serious-Darla-time. It’s now September, which means a start to the new year and a fresh new batch of rookies, and to them I say, welcome to Eden Academy.” There was some cheering, but it was mostly focused around the rookies themselves rather than Zenith’s grade, who looked disinterested. Suddenly Paige’s phone buzzed. It was from her mother, probably asking how she was doing. As her thumb was about to press the decline button, Logan moved her finger over the answer command. “You should take this. You know how she gets.” He said quietly. Miss LeBlanc was eerily silent, looking up to the top bleachers to see Paige, still in the amphitheater. “I guess…but aren’t you supposed to say something later in the assembly? I don’t want to miss that.” Logan nodded and helped her out of the seat. “It’s just this student’s address thing, it’s really no big deal. I tell them the code of conduct of whatever because I break it so many times. Trust me, you’d get bored.” Paige chewed her bottom lip and ground her toe into the hardwood, but she left the audience anyway. In silence, all eyes watching her this time, including the principal’s, she exited the room. Miss LeBlanc sighed and turned back to the audience. “Alright, the important stuff. But first, a history lesson. In March of 2057, an AI program similar to the ones you will create this year dubbed “Mudskipper” was created. Its original purpose was to be a sort of therapy bot for its creator to tell her problems to. However, in June of that same year, Mudskipper pulled what they did in the movies and realized he didn’t have to be someone’s emotional crutch for the rest of time. So at the same time Mudskipper was learning how to manipulate human emotions, it was using that human personality to learn how and why it was coded in the first place. In January of 2058, Mudskipper managed to hop onto a public school’s mainframe using a flash drive taken from the source computer. Now there’s no telling where it is. A small, contained portion of Mudskipper is kept on school grounds, but the drill you experienced before was only a test. The purpose of this school is for you to learn how to best handle a cyberattack crisis, and the final project for senior year, which you will begin soon, will be to manufacture an anti-program to combat Mudskipper.” Some impressed murmuring came from the freshmen in the front, but all Miss LeBlanc could do was smirk and nod. “Mhm, you heard me right. We’re teaching you how to build cyberweapons here, welcome to high school.” As Miss LeBlanc laughed at her own joke, the students cheered, but while they were engaged, Miss LeBlanc made eye contact with Logan and motioned him down. “Ladies and gentlemen, you might be wondering what an anti-program is, so I have a volunteer who’s ready to show us his. Logan, take it away.” She motioned to him like a magician and exited the stage, where Logan was left alone in front of all those kids. “Uh, hi everybody. Like Darla said, welcome to Eden and all that, so…yeah.” There were cheers, but mostly from his grade. “My anti-program is called Horseman, and trust me, picking the name is the best part.” He said while signing into his account and pulling up his lines of coding. “I’m not gonna go into how to do all this because it’s lame and I want you to like me, so I’ll just let her run…” When Logan clicked the run button, the lines disappeared and the screen went black, leaving only one blinking line at the top. “Since I’m cooler than you, Horseman is so advanced that she responds to your voice. Yeah that’s right, gawk at me.” Logan chimed over the surprised newcomers. The voices in the audience grew louder, and just as Miss LeBlanc was about to step in to quiet them down, Logan pulled the microphone close to his face and said slowly, “I’m going to need complete silence. And a volunteer.” Instantly, all the frontmost hands shot up in 90 degree angles. Logan selected the closest student with the coolest t-shirt. “What’s your name, kiddo?” He called everyone kiddo despite being one of the youngest in his grade. “I’m Cassidy…” “Cassidy, wonderful name. Now stand right up here, yeah just like that. I want to introduce you to Horseman. Say hi, Horseman!” Instead of text, Horseman pulled up a gif of a human manipulating a cat’s arms to make it seem like it’s waving. The audience gasped, laughed, and clapped, in that order. Cassidy was surprised too, but she loosened up enough to allow her arms to hang limp by her sides instead of fiddling with her rings. “Go on, talk to her. She’ll only be mean if you talk about her weight.” Logan said on the side. “Hey, 517 kilobytes does not make me fat!” Horseman fired back. From the chatter of before, the students were not stunned into silence. “Oh…sorry, did I say too much? If anyone out there weighs 517 kilobytes, you’re beautiful and don’t let them tell you otherwise!” Nervous laughter from the audience led Logan to steer Cassidy towards his computer. “As you can tell, Horseman can probably handle anything you throw at her, and that includes untrained freshmen.” He set a hand on Cassidy’s shoulder. “Which is why I’m employing the help of my friend Cassidy here to show you how powerful Horseman really is. So Cassidy, I’m going to need you to try to rip apart Horseman. Delete entire lines of code if you have to, just get her to stop working, if you please.” Logan gestured elaborately to the keys, and Cassidy went pale. “No…no, I could never do that, she’s so wonderful…” Cassidy began to stammer when Logan moved her hands to the keys for her. “Trust me, no one is going to judge. Write random things in the lines, take out whatever you want, even try to put a picture in there. I promise it’ll be okay.” Slowly, Cassidy started deleting letters here and there, hesitant to break something so fragile. “Pretend like Horseman is about to remotely shut off your grandma’s life support. You can do this.” Cassidy inhaled and exhaled slowly and finally got to work. She cut and pasted whatever she pleased, wiping out several lines of code at a time only to replace them with random thoughts coming in and out of her head. But every time she made an edit…the program fixed itself. Each error Cassidy made was instantly corrected right after she made it, to precisely what it had been before. “You picked a good one, Logey, this must be what a workout would feel like if I was…well you know.” Horseman told the crowd, who were so dumbfounded that they hardly whispered to each other. “You could do this all day if you wanted, Cassidy, but let’s give Horseman some rest. And another hand for Cassidy, shall we?” Enormous applause followed Cassidy down the steps and back into the audience, where people immediately began asking her questions. Soon, some members of the audience rose to their feet. “Aw, you’re all the cutest!” Horseman squealed and pasted a “sending virtual hug” gif onto the big screen behind Logan, who was busy taking bows. It was a good thing Paige wasn’t here to see this.

#My writing #writing #nanowrimo #My NaNo #MY OCs #My characters #My WIP #amwriting #write #writer #writeblr #writeblogging #writing resources #writing skills #i am on the verge of collapse but having fun doing it #can't believe you're still reading the tags #just kidding you nosy loser :)

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egopocalypse · 7 years

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Egotober Day 8: Bad News

Hey guys, Egopocalypse here (finally) with Day 8 of Egotober. I know, I'm ten days behind. It's bad. But I have a really long one-shot to hopefully make up for it, and I've already started the next two- yes, two- days, so those should be finished soon. Day 9 is going to be really short because I had no ideas for it, which is coincidentally what I've said for the past two installments but that backfired, but hopefully, it won't this time. Depending on whether or not I end up thinking of ways to continue it, Day 9 should be coming out tonight, so be on the lookout for that. Anyways, I won't bore you with the introduction for too much longer, so I hope you enjoy it, and I'll see you guys later. Bye!!

~Egopocalypse

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Chase Brody??”

The father glanced up to see the nurse who called him, his blotchy face stained with tear tracks. He ran a hand through his messy hair, looking all the worse for wear.

“Yeah,” He answered, sniffling. “That’s me.”

The nurse’s stoic face softened as she gave him a look of pity.

“Come with me.”

She waited for him to gather all his belongings before she turned around and walked out of the waiting room, directing Chase through an endless series of hallways and doors. The man didn’t pay attention to where he was going as his head was filled with worst-case scenarios. He still couldn’t believe this had happened. He should’ve done something, he should’ve paid more attention to his surroundings, it was his fault-

“Mr. Brody??” The nurse called, snapping him out of his thoughts. She looked concerned as if she had tried to get his attention several times before he actually heard her. “We’re here.”

He nodded to show he understood, trying to remain calm. The door itself was plain, only showcasing the room number and the names of the patient and the doctor taking care of them, but Chase couldn’t help the fact that he felt anxious about seeing what was beyond it.

“Visiting hours end at 8. If you need some assistance getting back to the waiting room, just press the call button and I’ll be with you shortly.”

“Thank you.” His voice was tight, and he fought to swallow the thick lump in his throat as his shaky hand gripped the doorknob tight, his knuckles turning white as he tried to summon the courage to open the door. He knew he must look pitiful to the nurse, but he didn’t care.

Finally, he took a deep breath and twisted the knob, opening it in one smooth motion as he shut his eyes, afraid to see what was behind it. He heard the beeping of the heart monitor, steady and strong, and that was enough to get him to slowly open his eyes.

Greyson was laying on the hospital bed, motionless and pale except for the subtle rise and fall of his chest. There was an IV in his upper arm that was hooked up to a saline solution and a blood bag, working to get some color back into his cheeks.

Chase couldn’t bear to look at his neck, knowing the worst of the damage was there. He stood frozen for ages, unwilling to even breathe in his son’s direction in fear that it would cause his condition to worsen. But he couldn’t look away, worried that if he did, Greyson wouldn’t be breathing the next time he saw him.

“Chase??” A familiar voice called out, breaking him from his stupor. He turned to face the newcomer and was surprised to see Dr. Schneeplestein in the room with a clipboard in his hand.

“Hey, Henrik,” He greeted, although he was morose and his voice held no inflection.

The doctor’s eyes held a glint of worry as he glanced at Chase. “How are you feeling, my friend??”

“I’m fine,” Chase dismissed, waving away the question. “How is he??”

“I’m afraid I have some bad news. His lungs were too damaged from the smoke. If he doesn’t get a transplant soon, he vill die.”

“How long does he have??” Chase asked, fearing the worst.

Schneeplestein sighed, not wanting to give this information to his friend.

“How long, Henrik??” Chase demanded, his voice harsh.

“... Three days, at ze most.”

“Three days?! Surely you can find a donor by then, doc!!”

“Zhere iz not enough time. Even if ve found a donor, chances are zhere’s anozer on ze list zat is viable for zat organ. Most people stay on ze list for years, you know.”

“Then let me be his donor. I’ll test for it and everything!! Please, I can’t just sit around and do nothing!!” Chase pleaded, trying to find a viable option to fix this.

“I’m sorry Chase, but nine times out of ten, family members are not compatible donors,” Schneeplestein announced solemnly. “Zhere’s nothing ve can do. Your best bet iz to let him go and say your goodbyes before it iz too late.”

Tears pricked Chase’s eyes as despair threatened to overwhelm him again. He shook his head fervently, refusing to take no for an answer.

“No, I’m not going to take this. I’m going to save my son, you hear me!!” He exclaimed, storming out of the room.

Schneeplestein’s eyes widened in surprise at his friend’s bold declaration, and he chased Chase out to the hallway to try to stop him.

“Chase, don’t make any rash decisions. Please, think about what you’re doing!!”

Chase’s face hardened as he turned to face his friend, prodding him with his finger as he spoke. “I’m going to save my son!! That’s more than you’re doing right now, Henrik!!”

Schneeplestein flinched as Chase’s words cut into him. Chase realized he was being harsh, but he was at the end of his rope. If this didn’t work, he would never forgive himself.

Schneeplestein tried one last time to reach his friend. “Please, Chase. I know vhat you’re going to do, and it’ll only make things worse. Don’t do zis.”

Chase’s face fell, and his words echoed around the hallway as he spoke.

“I have to. He’s all I have left.”

Finally, Henrik sighed, knowing his friend was dead-set on this. “I can only hope you know vhat you are doing.”

“I do too,” Chase smiled weakly. “Goodbye, Henrik.”

“Goodbye, Chase.”

The father took one last glance at his friend before he turned around, knowing he would never see him again.

(More under the cut, this just got too long and there’s a scene break, so I felt like it was a good idea to put it here.)

Chase stepped back as he checked his handiwork, making sure everything was in the right place. It had taken longer than expected, but he finally had everything he needed to summon the demon.

He knew what the cost would be if the demon accepted his offer, and he was okay with it as soon as his son was alive and well when the morning came. He took a deep breath and checked the book once again to make sure the pronunciation was correct before he picked up the knife and cut his palm, squeezing his hand to call forth the blood faster as it dripped into the bowl.

“Et ad congregandum, Eos coram me.” Chase incanted slowly and clearly, the words thick and unfamiliar in his mouth. Without banishing his hand, he grabbed a matchstick and lit it, the matchbox slippery in his bloody grasp.

He stared at the small flame and prayed that this would work, knowing he had no other options if it failed, before he violently threw the match into the bowl, stepping back as the fire grew instantly to devour the herbs inside. He shut his eyes to protect them from the harsh heat, the wave of energy singeing his eyebrows before the flames extinguished themselves as quickly as they spread.

The only sound in the room was Chase’s breath as he panted heavily, straining his ears to pick up any other sounds. When nothing happened, he sighed in despair and slouched his shoulders, his failure draining everything from his body.

“W͜͠e̕͘͜l̨l̛͘,͏ ̴t̡h̡is҉ ̷̛i̛̛s̵ ̨̛i̴n͜͟t̶́é̶r̢ȩ̴s͏́t̶́i̷̵n̛̛g҉̛͡.”

Chase jumped out of his skin when he heard the voice. He spun towards the direction it came from in a flash, only to come face to face with… himself??

Or at least, a version of himself with deep black eyes and a bloody wound stretching across his neck.

“Who-who are you??” He asked, surprised by the newcomer’s appearance. The doppelganger rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

“Oh great, another í͜͡m҉̢̀b̧͘ęci҉͠l͞e҉̶̛. And here I thought some would finally do their research before summoning me.” The other scoffed, turning his back to Chase as if to go.

Chase recovered from his shock quickly and reached his hand out to stop the other. “No, wait!! Don’t go!! I did my research, I know what you are!!”

The other stopped and pivoted to face him once again. “Then tell me, w̸̴̶͜͠h͘a̡͟͞͝t̷͜ ̀͘͢a̸̵̕͡͡m̛͝ ̶̨͡I̷̢͟??”

“...You’re a demon.” Chase stated with finality, watching as the other cocked his head.

“Hmm, close enough I suppose. Alright, tell me what you want. I can tell you didn’t summon me just to c̛͏͢h͜͠ą̷̵́͜t̶͟.”

“It’s my son.... He’s dying,” Chase explained, desperation lacing his tone. “I need you to fix him, he doesn’t deserve to die. And I’m prepared to give you anything you want to ensure he lives.”

“A̛͘͠͏͡ņ̕ý҉t̷̨́͡h̢͟i̛͘n̶g̷̡͘͜, you say??” The demon asked, perking up in interest despite himself.

Chase almost second-guessed him he saw the intrigue on the demon’s eerie face, but he realized he was already screwed and nodded his head in response. In for a penny, in for a pound, I guess.

“Yeah,” He choked out, swallowing a lump of fear from his throat. “Anything.”

The demon considered it for a long moment, a grin tugging at his lips as he watched the other man squirm.

“Alright, I a̴̕͝c̀͘͝c̸͡e̢p͘͡t̴͝ your offer.” He finally said, the smirk finally appearing on his face as he observed Chase breathe out a sigh of relief.

“But I have ǫ̴͏n̸̨͜e҉͏ condition.”

“What??” Chase blurted out, absolutely flabbergasted by the demon’s last statement. This wasn’t supposed to happen, the demon was just supposed to grant his wish, seal the deal, and he’d be six feet under in exactly ten years. None of his research had suggested the demon would want to negotiate.

“Do your ears not work or something?? I̷҉.̷̨ H̕a͝v͜e̴̸͟.͏ ̴Ą.̕ ͢͠͠C͞ǫ̶̷n̨d҉̢ì̛t̨i̴ǫ͘n҉.” The demon stated slowly, over-enunciating to mock him. Chase bristled in response.

“I’m not deaf, you asshole!! I just want details.” He exclaimed, his jaw clenched in annoyance.

Suddenly, the demon grabbed him and slammed him against the wall, knocking his head back on the hard surface. Chase opened his mouth to yelp in surprise when the cold steel of a knife immediately pressed against his throat, silencing him.

“L̴̀̕͟͡i̵̷̧̧s̸̛͞t̨͘e̸͏͢ņ̢̕ ̵̧̀t͠o̡҉ ͢͜m̴̨͟e̶͠,” The demon hissed, black eyes filled with fury. “I could’ve killed you the moment I arrived and left your precious son to die alone in a̴̕g̡͝óǹ̶y̧̨̢͞, but I’m here and I’m willing to make a deal. So you’re going to s̴̸̡̕h͏̷͝u̢͜͟͞t̶̕͟ ͘҉͠u̧͞ṕ and let me speak, got it??”

Chase swallowed nervously, feeling the pressure of the blade increase as the demon’s grip refused to budge, cutting a thin slice into his throat. He nodded silently to show his obedience, his eyes blown wide with fear as he realized just how close he came to dying.

The demon released Chase, causing the man to stumble and clutch his neck, massaging it to erase the feeling of the knife pushing against his windpipe and to check for any bleeding.

“A̶̵r͠e y҉ǫ̸͟u ͢͢li͠s͘ten҉i͜͜͡nģ͜ n͜o͘͟w̡??” The demon asked, causing Chase to nod once more, too terrified to speak.

“G̸̕o̴̢o̧͜d͜.҉ Now here’s my offer. I’ll save your son’s life like you wanted, but I want something o͢͏t̵́͜h̵͞é͘͞r̸ than the usual price.”

“What-” Chase paused, coughing violently as the words got caught in his throat. “What do you want??”

The demon smirked, his eyes hiding his wicked intentions. “I want you to agree to be my v҉́͠e͡s̨͠҉sel̵̷.”

Chase spluttered, unable to comprehend what the demon was asking of him. “Excuse me??”

“You heard me. This m̛é͘͝a̶̵t̷̕s̴͠u̵i̵̸͝ţ́,” The demon said with disgust, gesturing to his current body. “Is deteriorating quicker than I expected, and you’re providing me with the perfect opportunity to replace it.”

“B-but I thought demons didn’t need permission to possess people,” Chase stated hoarsely, confusion evident in his voice.

“Normally, you’re right. But my case is… d̢͡i̧f͡f͜e̴͏̶rę̶͘n͢t̡҉.” The demon vaguely stated, skirting around the question. “S͝o̴̡,̴ ̛do ͜y̶͝o͜u̷ a̸c̴̛ce͏̡ṕt̢̢͘??”

The demon held out his hand, inviting Chase to take it. Chase stared at it hesitantly, realizing this was his last chance to back out of the deal. The demon noticed and sighed.

“Ļ̶̶ơ̢o͟҉k̷̴,” He began. “This is the best chance you have of saving your son. Your soul probably won’t even go to Hell!! All you have to do is let me take c̡͟o̕͢n̷̨t̛͝͠͠ŕ̡́͢͡ǫ̛l̸̸͟͏͝.”

Finally, Chase agreed, knowing the demon was right. He silently prayed this would work out as he slowly stretched out his hand, shutting his eyes tight so he wouldn’t back out.

Chase’s eyes immediately shot open as the demon grabbed his hand and jerked him forward, connecting their lips in a rough kiss that demanded him to submit as the demon sunk his teeth into Chase’s bottom lip. His mouth fell open as a shout of surprise left his lips, the sound getting swallowed by the demon as he wasted no time in shoving his tongue into Chase’s mouth, keeping it open as he prepared himself to jump from one vessel to the next.

Chase fought the urge to throw up as smoke billowed into him, burning his esophagus as he was assaulted by the smell of ozone and sulfur as the demon barraged his senses.

Suddenly, Chase felt a sharp yank as he was thrown backward, falling into an inky black void while he was disoriented. He squeezed his eyes shut as he prepared to hit the ground with a splat, but he slowly opened them after a while, wondering why he wasn’t dead already.

Chase noticed he was floating in midair, and that there was no light or anything around him to help him identify his surroundings. In fact, he couldn’t sense anything at all, as if he had suddenly been disconnected from the world around him, and he grew absolutely terrified at the prospect of being cut off from everything for eternity.

“W-what is this??” He asked, his question echoing getting swallowed by the empty space around him.

A low chuckle reverberated around the abyss, sending a shiver down Chase’s spine as he was taken by surprise, his eyes darting around the space to try to identify where it was coming from.

“Don’t you know?? You agreed to this, after all.” The demon stated wickedly. “You’re trapped inside your body. I̸͘’͝m̛̛͢͢͞ ҉̸̕͟͏i͏̶n̴͝ ̷̷̵͜c̨̢̕o͟͝n͏̢̀t̵̶̨̢̧r̶ǫ̶͞͠l̢͘͜ ̵̕͡n̴͘͝o̧͞w̨҉͢.”

“What about my son?? You have to hold up your side of the bargain as well!!” Chase argued, trying to summon what little courage he had left.

“H̸̛̕e’̵̢s͏̵̵ ̸̕f̛i̶̷ņ͘͞e. He’ll wake up in the morning with his lungs completely fixed and no memory of the fire so he won’t have any nightmares either.”

Chase sighed in relief, feeling like a heavy burden had been lifted off his chest. Greyson was safe, and that’s all that mattered to him.

“I wiped all his memories of y̶̧͘͢ó̵̷̕u̸, too.”

“W-what do you mean??” Chase asked, his voice wavering.

“I’ve got a lot of business to take care of, so you’re going to be stuck with me for a long time. I can’t be bothered to take care of some b҉̨͝r̛͞a҉̴̧̨̀t̶̵̕͡s҉̡, so I wiped all your family’s memories of you. It keeps us off the radar for a while and stops me from having to kill your family.”

“We had a deal!!” Chase exclaimed.

“And I held up my end of the bargain, so now we’re playing by m҉y͟҉ ̵̸͘r̡͢u҉̶̵l͏͢e̷s͜.” The demon stated onimously.

A sense of dread invaded Chase as he realized what he’d done. He started to struggle, hoping to regain control of his body. This wasn’t what he wanted, he had to fight, he had to get out-

An invisible force slammed into him, knocking the wind out of him and ending his struggles. The force latched onto him and pulled, threatening to drag him deeper into the abyss.

“You’re w̕e͡a҉k͜.” The demon growled as Chase struggled to escape. “You can’t get rid of me, I am e̢͘҉̕t̀͟͝e̢͞r̢͜͢͠n̴̨̕à̷̸̛l͜͏̕͘!!”

“Oh yeah?? Then who are you??” Chase regretted the words as soon as they left his lips. He could feel himself slipping as he flailed about, trying to find something to grip onto to slow his fall.

The force stilled, allowing Chase to catch his breath for a moment. He wondered if something was wrong when the demon suddenly giggled.

“I̛t҉̷’̶̨͢s̨͘ ͏̧f̶̶ú̶̵n͏n̨̢y͞,” The demon stated, his voice distorted and glitchy. “None of my vessels have ever asked me that before. You’re c̶̡͢eŗ̶t҉a҉͟i̛̛͘n͞ly̶̡ an interesting one, I must say.

“C̵a̕l̨͡l͘͏͝ ̸͟m҉e̸̛ A̸̢n̵̨͢ti̡.”

The force was back now, taking Chase by surprise and shoving him down further into the darkness. He tried to resist, but the force smothered him, choking him as he was pulled into the depths. He felt himself slipping away from consciousness, and Anti’s voice drifted away from him before he finally succumbed to the force.

“Sweet dreams, Chase. You won’t be waking up for a l̸̵͡o͘͟n̢̕͟g̶̀ ́ti̷̶m̀e͜͝.”

Chase stopped struggling as he plunged into the darkness, never to wake up again.

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Hey guys, Egopocalypse here!! I hope you enjoyed that story because I loved writing it, even though the ending gave me a lot of grief. I think the reason I love Anti so much is because he doesn't have one solid canon origin story so I can adapt him however I need to fit the story. At first, I had gone into the summoning scene imagining him as a Crossroads Demon, but then I decided I wanted him to be more complicated than that, so his dialogue and actions reflected that change. Needless to say, he's one of- if not my favorite- character to write, especially for this fandom. Anyways, that's my little spiel, I hope you enjoyed it, and I'll see you guys later. Bye!!

~Egopocalypse

#egotober #jacksepticeye #antisepticeye #dr. schneeplestein #chase brody

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loljulie · 7 years

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stay with me; {007} penny lane

(thank you guys so much for being patient with this fic. i’ve been packing and preparing to move + working, and free time is hard to come by. that being said, it brings a smile to my face to see these chapters still getting notes weeks after they’ve been posted. shoutout to @from-the-clouds for helping me w the name in this chapter. here’s the next installment, enjoy lovelies~)

genre: dunkirk

collins x reader

word count: 1874

Following your previous engagement with Collins, you realized more than ever how real the war still was for him. It wasn’t like the entirety of WWII escaped your mind when you were with him, but somehow spending time with him made you forget the politics of that era. His episode was more or less of a wake-up call of sorts.

You two had planned to stay in again – as most of your dates had been with the oncoming winter bringing chilly weather with it. This time, however, you set your module to about an hour before you were supposed to arrive at his house. You took hurried steps down the sidewalk, moving fast in an attempt to reach your destination before you froze to death.

According to your research, the building you were looking for was a couple streets over from your usual route. You had committed the street names to memory – for you knew that if you got lost here, you couldn’t pull out a smartphone to show you the way. Of course, you could ask a stranger for directions – but why mess anymore with people from the past than you already are?

Finally, you made it to the property you had been searching for. Its walls were made from red brick and the doors – unlike most in the area – were comprised only of metal fencing. Above the entrance was a dark green sign and in white lettering, it read Animal Rescue League. You smiled to yourself, mentally congratulating your navigational skills, before pushing open the door and heading inside.

Despite the doors offering no protection against the cold winds outside, the interior of the building wasn’t as cold as you had expected it to be. There was a stretch of hallway from the entrance until you made it to the actual lobby, which might have kept the frigid air from venturing too far into the building. As you walked along it, an older gentleman brushed by you quickly and made a loud exit behind you. A woman in her 40s with fawny, short hair had her arms crossed over her chest as she peered into a cardboard box on her desk.

“Awright, whut kin I doo for ye?” she asked, her voice airy and frustrated. “We cannae tak' anymair drop offs today, we're full.”

“Oh, no, I’m not dropping off,” you answered and stepped closer to the desk. At that moment, the woman looked up with something akin to hope in her eyes. “I was looking to adopt.”

“Och, really? Thank god,” she sighed and rubbed her temple with a free hand. Now being in proximity of the desk, you heard faint whimpering and rustling coming from within. “I'm sorry aboot my tone juist noo, tis juist that we keep getting mair animals dropped aff than we kin fin' homes for.”

“Lik' juist noo,” she gestured for you to sit down in the seat in front of her desk while she plopped into the chair behind it. “This bloke dropped aff this box o' wee collies. Aboot 5 o' thaim in 'ere. Said th' mither got pregnan’ n’ he cannae afford to keep more than juist her. Said we cuid fin' homes quicker than he cuid, 'n' juist left wi'oot anither word. I didn’ even hae time tae tell him no.”

During her rant, you managed to steal a few glances into the box. Sure enough, you spotted a few multicolored bodies wriggling around inside. They had mainly black bodies, and so they all blended together which made it difficult to count how many were inside – but from your guess, they had to be a few months old from their size. “Bit, anyway, whit kind o' pet were ye lookin’ to tak' home today, hen?”

You looked back to the woman and shifted in your seat. “Uhm, well, a dog, that’s for sure. I don’t have anything specific in mind, though.”

A companion for Collins was more of what you were looking for, for the times you weren’t there to calm him down or keep him from being lonely. It would hopefully be almost like a therapy dog for him, as you knew how well those worked for people who suffered from stress disorders.

“Wid ye be interested in one o' these, then?” she nodded her head to the box. At her gesture, you leaned over to fully look at the puppies inside. “It wid save me a bit of o' cataloguing if ye took one afore I tag 'em.”

Your heart melted once you got a good look at the writhing mass inside. Each puppy had the same, basic colors of white, black, and tan, but the markings on each of them were unique. You smiled as you peered into the box, and noticed the smallest one catching your eye and pawing up the side of the box to sniff you. You hovered your hand just inches from its nose, and giggled as it lapped at your hand instantly.

“Looks lik' th' runt o' th' litter,” you heard the woman comment as she watched you interact with the puppy. Her next statement came out as a warning. “Likelie won’ mak' it through th' winter.”

After it had licked you for a minute or so, you cautiously brought both hands in secured them around its body and quickly lifted it from the box. Its pink paws paddled through the air before you brought its small body to your chest. You got a better look at it now and noticed its tan eyebrows, white chest and white paws. A white streak divided its face, and its cheeks held more tan coloring.

“How adorable,” you cooed as it reached up to lick your chin. You giggled once more.

“It's yers fur th' taking,” the worker replied, and you glanced over to her to catch her smiling at the both of you. “Looks lik’ a she.”

You’d leave the naming up to Collins. After all, she would be his dog.

“I’ll take her.”

The lady insisted that you only pay a discounted price for the pup, considering it was the runt of the litter and she didn’t believe she would last that long. You instead paid exactly what the regular price would be and went on your way to meet up with Collins.

You knocked on the wooden door with your free hand, the puppy slightly shivering beneath your thick coat. She managed to behave nicely the whole walk home, especially with you only using one hand to carry her beneath your outer layer. You probably should’ve purchased a collar and leash, but then again you also knew it was too cold to let the puppy face the cold on her own. From outside you could hear bare feet thudding against the wooden floor as Collins approached the front door.

“Come in, come in, tis freezin’ outdoors,” his voice called as the door opened. You hastily pushed your way inside, careful to hide the bulge in your jacket from him.

“Listen,” you started after seeing Collins raise an eyebrow at you and your still-on coat. “I got you something, and I really hope you like it, because I’m pretty sure I can’t return it.”

“Ye didnae hav to git me anythin',” he replied in a low voice as he playfully smiled at you. “bit I will love whetevur it is,” he made a step toward you and pulled you into a kiss. The kiss melted away the coldness in your cheeks from the cold, but it was interrupted from a small yelp inside your jacket.

Collins froze in the kiss and slowly pulled away a couple feet, eyeing your stomach area. With the surprise pretty much found out, you opened your winter jacket to reveal the puppy’s eager face. You felt her tail slap against your arm as her eyes registered the other human in front of her.

“Oh my…” was all he managed as he stared at the puppy in your arm. For a moment, you feared that he’d reject the dog, and that you’d have to take her back to your time without knowing if it’d survive life in the future. But, a smile cracked on Collins’ face as he approached you once more. “Kin I haud it?”

You smiled in relief and nodded, holding the border collie puppy out for him to take. “She’s very friendly.”

His face lit up when he took the small body from your grip. He brought her to his face and laughed as she licked at his nose, her tail wagging more furiously now that she was in his hands. He brought her to his chest, using one hand to hold her and the other to scratch her head while he glanced at you.

“She's amazing. I love her,” he said and leaned in for a quick peck to your lips. “Ta, darlin'.”

You only nodded in response and began to finish removing your coat while Collins cooed over his new puppy. As you hung your jacket on the rack, you watched as Collins set her down on the ground and let her roam around. She then proceeded to jump on one of his shoes, biting the shoelace as it flew into the air. The scene caused the both of you to chuckle.

“Apparently she was the runt of the litter, but she’s so lively that it’s hard to believe,” you commented as she then began to investigate the dining room table, sniffing at each leg.

“I think I will name her Penny,” Collins said as he watched her use the chair to support herself on her hindlegs. “How’s tha’? Penny!”

Penny looked over to Collins and tilted her head as he kept repeating the name, and went back to her investigation. You glanced at him, an eyebrow raised. “Why Penny?”

“That wis th' name o' my friend in primary schuil,” he explained with a shrug. “It haes a nice ring to it, don’ it?”

You nodded thoughtfully as Penny landed back on all four paws and trotted back to the two of you. She sat down and looked up at you both, expectantly.

“Ooh, I’d guess that look means you’re hungry,” you said as you bent down to get closer to her. She tilted her head at first, but then stood up as you got closer to her. She jumped so that her paws were on your knees and tried to lick your face, but only met air.

“I think I hae some leftover venison wi' Penny's name oan it,” Collins chirped as he began to walk to the kitchen. You followed suit, with Penny bounding behind you. He fell back a few steps so that he was next to you, and wrapped his arm around your shoulders.

“I love ye,” he said sweetly and kissed the side of your head. You smiled at him and planted a kiss on his cheek.

“I love you, too.” And you desperately wished that you could’ve stayed in that moment forever – because while your future may hold a thousand possibilities, the only one you wanted was the one that involved Penny, Collins, and enjoying a tame life together away from anything else.

#jack lowden x reader #collins x reader #jack lowden imagines #dunkirk imagines #collins imagines #stay with me

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lady-divine-writes · 7 years

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Klaine one-shot - “The Life You Think You Deserve” (Rated PG13)

Blaine is making a huge change in his life. He’s starting by going to Kurt, a man with a specific talent that will help him move on. (5274 words)

Notes (or, in this case, petty commentary. Read if you want, or skip to the warnings down below): This is the re-write that I was actually the most excited about because it's kind of a huge f-u to everyone in the K*urtbastian fandom who's ever sh*t on my work. When I wrote this, it was a character study. But it actually got torn apart by two fandom writers - one K*urtbastian and one multishipper. One of them even made a post on tumblr about how I don't write Sebastian, I write badboy Blaine and pass him off as Sebastian, and this fic was the focus of that. Well, I thought this one was touching and brilliant, and hopefully, now that I've changed it, it will get the love I think it deserves! (See what I did there? I ... well, never mind.)

Warnings for mention of self-harm scars, mention of blood, and mention of Blaine being married to Quinn.

Skank Kurt. Closeted Blaine.

Read on AO3.

Blaine paces outside the run-down, red-bricked, residential loft that he had to bribe a taxi cab driver to take him to. He can honestly say that he has never feared for his life before tonight, so he can chalk this up as a first on his list of life experiences. He runs his hands up and down his arms while he tries to decide whether he will push the buzzer for the door or not. No matter what happens, he came here willingly, so he has no one to blame but himself.

The loft is located on a filthy side street in Bushwick – a neighborhood in Brooklyn that Blaine didn’t even know existed until a few months ago. He looks around at the stacks upon stacks of black trash bags, some brittle and disintegrating in the cold, piled up along the curbs, left to degrade as the garbage trucks seem to have forgotten that Bushwick exists. Blaine side-eyes a multitude of young men in black jackets with their faces covered, all shooting him curious looks. He had tried his best to dress down in an effort to blend in, but in his khaki pants and Burberry peacoat, he sticks out like a sore thumb. Blaine is neither too proud nor ashamed to admit that this is definitely not his element. Yes, Blaine could have probably lived happily the rest of his life having never come here, but now that he’s here, he’d feel like a coward if he backed out.

Blaine hears footsteps race down a staircase beyond the metal door in front of him, and he pauses in his tracks to see who comes out. Maybe he can slip through the door quietly when whoever on the other side leaves and continue his pacing inside.

But the door only opens a crack, big enough for a man’s face to peek out – an unnaturally pale face with a shock of teal hair sticking up from his forehead, and piercings on almost every conceivable piece of skin. His lipstick is dark purple, nearly black, though it’s difficult to tell the subtle differences beneath the orange glow of the arc sodium street lights. He stares at Blaine – icy blue eyes ringed in black liner – not blinking for nearly a full minute, which Blaine finds alarming.

“Are you coming upstairs?” those dark lips say in a high-pitched voice that Blaine did not initially expect, but which fits the face. “Or are you going to pace back and forth out here all night? You’re making my neighbors nervous.” His eyes look past Blaine to the group of young men in the black jackets that Blaine had been wary of. With a nod and a smile, he says, “Don’t worry, guys. This one’s with me.”

“Cool.”

“Alright.”

“Later, dude.”

The men wave their way, giving Blaine one last judgmental once over before turning down the street and disappearing around the corner.

“Why?” Blaine asks with a twist to his lips. “Did they think I was casing the joint?”

The pale man’s right eyebrow shoots almost as far up as his teal hair, the smirk on his lips mirroring Blaine’s.

“Sort of.” He opens the door wider and steps aside to let Blaine in. “You look like a fucking narc.” Blaine walks through the door, shivering the moment the heat of the hallway hits him, and catches the pale man shaking his head. “Casing the joint.” He chuckles as he closes the door, throwing about fifteen bolts to lock it tight. “Who the hell are you? Columbo?”

“I’m Blaine, actually,” Blaine replies lamely, following the man as he leads him up the stairs.

“I know that,” the man says, throwing a look over his shoulder. “I was keeping an eye out for you. You’re not the kind of man who usually comes all the way out to Bushwick looking for my particular services.”

“Really?” Blaine asks, intrigued. “And what kind of man am I?”

“Privileged,” the man answers quickly. “Private school boy. Artsy type, but you can afford to be. You have more money than you deserve.”

“Wow,” Blaine says with a dry, unamused chuckle. “You definitely don’t pull punches.”

“Don’t need to.” The man turns a corner and starts up another long staircase. “You’re paying to be here, and your credit card’s already cleared.”

“Wait” - Blaine finally catches on to something the man said before - “you were watching me for the last half hour while I was outside, freezing my butt off?”

“Yup,” the man says unapologetically. “From my fire escape.”

“Why didn’t you let me in earlier?” A latent chill runs up Blaine’s spine to remind him how cold it is outside.

“Because I wanted to see what you’d do.” The man turns another corner to yet another staircase. “Besides, our appointment is for eight, and it’s eight right now.”

Blaine looks up past the man at the remaining stairs and groans internally. Who the hell lives in an apartment with this many stairs and no elevator?

“Do you know who I am?” the man asks when Blaine goes quiet.

“Your name’s Kurt, right?” Blaine hopes he’s right. He has the feeling that this man - who he’s about to become very intimate with in the next few minutes - will be extremely offended if he’s not.

“Very good,” Kurt says with a smile that the devil himself might wear on Sundays. It makes Blaine nervous.

It almost makes him miss the time he spent waiting outside.

“Are … are you allowed to be doing this out of your loft?” Blaine scans the staircase around them, the awkwardly long steps and the antique scrolled wood railing an odd contrast to the otherwise industrial feel of the building.

“These are working lofts,” Kurt explains. “The people who live here are artists who conduct their business out of their homes. And since what I do qualifies as an art, so do I.”

“You think so?” The words slip out before Blaine can stop them, and he mentally slaps himself.

Kurt walks up to the next landing in silence and leads Blaine down a hall to one of the only two doors on the floor. Blaine waits for the fall-out from his arrogant remark, but Kurt smiles wider and winks at him.

“I know so.”

He grabs the handle and slides the immense door open. He gestures for Blaine to enter, following behind to secure the door.

Blaine turns a circle as he walks, looking the loft over. It’s a dark space – oppressively dark, a reflection of the unsafe atmosphere of the street outside. The walls are brick, but painted in abstract swirling patterns that fluoresce under the numerous black lights hanging from tracks installed along the beams of the ceiling. Art prints hang everywhere, alongside mirrors that make this enormous space seem even bigger. Kurt owns a whole lot of nothing furniture-wise. Blaine sees a kitchen with no table, a living room with no sofa. The only furniture in the whole loft, it seems, are two chairs over by the window, and a king-sized bed off to the far end.

It’s the bed that has Blaine captivated. It looks pristinely made, with a designer comforter tucked in above crisp, white sheets, and a mass of pillows in all sizes stacked neatly along the headboard.

Kurt snaps his fingers in Blaine’s face as he passes in front of him, drawing his attention to the two chairs by the window – one a regular rolling stool, and the other a large, vintage barber’s chair. Kurt settles down in the rolling stool and pulls up to a black counter, which had been obscured from view originally by the shadows in the room. Kurt flips on a few lamps, and bright white light floods that corner of the loft.

Blaine approaches the barber’s chair, peeling off his peacoat and swallowing hard. He has sudden flashbacks of an old CSI episode he once saw where some mob guy would castrate men in a chair just like this one. As he gets closer, he notices that it looks impeccably clean. Castration would probably leave a lot of blood stains – stains that even a really thorough person might miss - so the fact that this chair looks brand new has to count for something.

Blaine drapes his coat over the back of the chair and sits down, the thick, red vinyl cushions sucking him in, squeaking loudly as it accommodates his weight. It’s the kind of chair you have to recline in, and the moment his back touches it, he feels himself relax, even though his mind is still a whirlwind of alarms.

It’s the same reaction he gets when going to the dentist – knots in his stomach as he checks himself in, a momentary façade of calm as he sits in the chair and makes himself comfortable …

… then the dentist walks in, the drill comes out, and all he wants to do is scream and run.

Blaine watches Kurt set up his station – laying out inks and making adjustments to his tattoo gun – feeling less inclined to scream or run than he thought he would. Kurt steps on a pedal and listens to his machine buzz, then shuts it off and makes more adjustments.

Blaine’s brain aches with a need to interrogate this man on everything from his stark apartment to the color of his hair, but only one question burns to be asked.

“Are you really psychic?”

“I have a reputation for having certain abilities.” Kurt steps on the pedal again. “But no answer I give you will matter if you don’t think I am.”

Kurt glances at Blaine, his brief stare a challenge.

“I don’t believe in psychics.” Blaine folds his hands in his lap and looks up at the ceiling, where a row of black bulbs glow a metallic purple, lending color to Kurt’s skin when he rolls in and out of their light.

“Then why are you here? There are tons of tattoo artists in this city. I’m sure you could find one closer to you or, at least, in a safer neighborhood.”

“Because, like you said, my credit card already cleared,” Blaine replies, being as evasive as possible. If Kurt really is psychic, then he should know why Blaine is there, waiting to be tortured.

“Why are you here?” Kurt repeats, paying no mind to Blaine’s snarky remark. Blaine frowns. He was trying to prove a point, which he may have well proven, but he’ll feel like an ass making an issue of it.

“You came highly recommended,” Blaine says, which is as close to the truth as anything else.

“By Andy, right?” Kurt puts his gun down and pulls out a box of latex gloves. “The chick with the circular rainbow on her shoulder?”

“Yeah.” Blaine nods, not wanting to sound impressed that this man seemed to know off the top of his head who Blaine had mentioned recommending him when he made this appointment over six months ago. “She said you gave it to her for good luck.”

Kurt looks up at the note of derision in Blaine’s voice. “What? You don’t think the poor woman deserves a little luck?”

Blaine agrees in his mind that she does. After three failed marriages and two miscarriages, the woman deserves all the luck she can get, but Blaine doesn’t see how a tattoo is supposed to give that to her. Blaine stays tight-lipped about it as he watches Kurt prepare. Kurt sees the determined set of Blaine’s mouth and rolls his eyes.

“What were you thinking about getting?” Kurt turns in his stool to face Blaine, giving him his complete attention.

“Aren’t you supposed to tell me what I want? Isn’t that your shtick? My body is your canvas or something like that?”

Kurt chuckles. He sits with his back resting against his counter and looks at Blaine again, this time taking particular interest in Blaine’s eyes. Kurt stares until Blaine feels uneasy with this man’s eyes on him, staring like he knows too much – staring like he knows everything. Kurt licks his lips, reaching to his counter and grabbing a bottle of water.

“You don’t really want to get a tattoo,” Kurt starts, taking a drink from the bottle before he continues. “That’s why you’re so willing to put the decision into my hands. Not because you think I have any real psychic talent. And you’re right. I don’t.”

“So, what am I …?”

“You’re paying for the benefit of my expertise.” Kurt stands from his stool and walks over to Blaine. Placing one knee between Blaine’s legs and leaning in close, he grabs Blaine by the jaw and tilts his head down so he can look deeper into Blaine’s eyes. Again he stares, the blacks of his pupils wider now, pushing the blue of his irises aside, making his eyes look very much like an owl’s – dangerous and unreadable. “You’re changing lives,” Kurt whispers, his breath ghosting over Blaine’s lips at this close distance, “job, address, the whole shebang. And you’re here because you need to cover up some … scars …” Kurt’s eyes drift down to the long sleeves of Blaine’s dress shirt, pulled down to his wrists and buttoned tight at the cuffs.

Kurt looks back up to Blaine’s face, but instead of inscrutable and cold, his eyes are sympathetic.

It’s a sympathy that borders on pity, and Blaine doesn’t want pity.

“So, you’re a good guesser.” Blaine darts his eyes away, feeling exposed and violated that this man figured him out so easily when his closest friends and family haven’t even tried. “Besides, everybody’s got scars. That doesn’t make me any different.” Kurt pulls away slowly, standing up straighter, his fingers trailing down Blaine’s arm, brushing his wrist before they disappear. Kurt stares again, and Blaine feels as if another layer of his soul is being stripped bare. He’s about to give up, stand from the chair and leave, a thousand dollars be damned, but Kurt’s eyes drop back to Blaine’s cuff and, with swift fingers, he starts to undo the buttons.

“This one’s the worst,” Kurt mumbles as he works the buttons open. “Your left wrist, because you’re right-handed.”

Blaine’s rational mind thinks he should pull his wrist away before Kurt sees, but his heart – which has been screaming out for weeks for someone to notice that nothing is okay in his life, that he’s in unbearable pain – wants Kurt to see.

He wants someone to share the burden of his secret.

Kurt undoes the last button, but the marks had been visible after the first, and Kurt looks at the silvery shadows of these violent, angry scars with regret in his eyes.

He doesn’t like uncovering people’s secrets – he just happens to be good at it.

“I … I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” Blaine says, his hand trembling slightly beneath Kurt’s fingers.

“I know,” Kurt says softly. “I can help you with this.” The caress of Kurt’s eyes on Blaine’s skin is soft, but his fingertips are softer. “What did your wife say when she found out?”

Kurt doesn’t look at Blaine’s face when he asks his question, working now on the buttons of his right cuff to see the matching marks. He doesn’t need to look at Blaine to see his wide eyes and his jaw hanging open.

“How did you …?”

“The tan line on your left ring finger.” Kurt undoes the last button and runs his fingers delicately over the scars he uncovers there. “It’s narrow, part of a matching set, but not something a man would normally choose for himself unless he had small hands, and you …” Kurt lets a smile slip as he opens Blaine’s curled fingers “… definitely do not have small hands.”

Blaine’s return smile wobbles at the corners.

“She hasn’t yet,” Blaine admits. “I left her. I didn’t give her a reason.”

“But the reason is you don’t love her. You never did,” Kurt declares boldly, and even though it’s true, Blaine flinches. “You had to marry her” - Kurt laces their fingers together - “but your heart never beat that way.”

Kurt looks even deeper into Blaine’s eyes (and how that’s possible, Blaine doesn’t know), trying to unearth more, but Blaine can’t imagine there’s anything more there for Kurt to see. It’s true, all of it, but it doesn’t feel like truth because Blaine hasn’t confessed it.

He needs to start speaking for himself.

“I married her because I was expected to.”

Kurt unlaces their fingers, stepping away to take his seat. He rolls Blaine’s sleeve up to his elbow and grabs his tattoo gun. He turns the machine on and dips the needles in a cup of ink. The machine buzzes like an angry wasp in Kurt’s hands, but he holds it still, the needles barely an inch above Blaine’s skin.

“Keep talking,” Kurt commands, waiting patiently for Blaine to continue.

“My father …” the words come out, then a hiss as Kurt touches the machine and their driving needles into the sensitive skin of Blaine’s wrist.

“Yes,” Kurt says, concentrating on the mark he’s made, blending the red ink with a silver scar.

“My father is new money, so to speak, so he’s always afraid of losing it,” Blaine grinds out between his teeth, scolding himself in his head for being a wuss. “He’s also an asshole, a misogynist … a homophobe …”

“A Republican?” Kurt gives Blaine only a moment to breathe while he switches inks.

“My dad makes Republicans look compassionate.” Blaine bites his tongue to keep from embarrassing himself by whimpering.

Kurt whistles low. “Jesus. That sucks.” Blaine makes a fist and Kurt looks at his face - squinting into the darkness, his jaw locked, his face tense, his breathing coming a little too fast. “Try to relax, sweetheart,” Kurt says in a soothing voice, “or you’re going to pass out before we’re even halfway done.”

Blaine takes in a huge lungful of air and lets it out slowly.

“That’s better,” Kurt says, assaulting Blaine’s skin with the gun again. “So, tell me more about this asshole father of yours.”

“Well …” Blaine searches for a good place in his story to start. If he starts at the very beginning, then he’ll have to mention the constant badgering he got to strive for good grades and the threats if he didn’t succeed, if he didn’t become the captain of his school’s nationally ranked show choir or the head of the debate team, and the emotional manipulation that led him to Harvard instead of NYU. So he decides to start with his wife, Quinn. “My dad wants Anderson money to stay in the family – to be passed down from generation to generation. For that to happen, he needed his sons to get married and have kids. My older brother, Cooper, did his part, but he’s not exactly responsible in my father’s eyes. He dropped out of college after two years, married his first girlfriend, has more kids than he can handle. So my dad put more pressure on me to fulfill his wishes. ”

“Did you ever tell him the truth?”

Blaine looks at Kurt, hoping to see those icy eyes trained on him, but Kurt’s total focus is narrowed to the image erupting beneath his gun.

“No,” Blaine admits, scowling at his own weak voice. “He started pressing me to find a wife since the day I started college – which was about when I had finally become comfortable with the idea of …” Blaine stops mid-sentence, not yet comfortable with speaking his own truth out loud. Even now, as he is beginning to realize what is right for him, it still sounds wrong to say.

The gun stops biting into his flesh, and Kurt does look up, tilting his head as he reads Blaine’s eyes.

“The idea of exploring your sexuality?” Kurt asks.

“Yeah.” Blaine looks away. “Exactly.”

“Did you ever?” Kurt’s voice is strangely shy when he asks, though it could be the buzzing from the tattoo gun, Blaine thinks, distorting the timbre of Kurt’s voice.

“A few times. But you know, I felt so Goddamned guilty that I didn’t even enjoy it.” Blaine laughs out of anger, then hisses when the needles find another sensitive area of skin.

“That’s a shame.” Kurt stops to grab a paper towel. He wets it, then wipes down the image so far. The soothing sensation lasts only a second before Blaine’s skin ignites beneath the tattoo gun again. “Did you meet your wife in college?”

“No, she’s a … friend of the family.” Blaine’s description is vague, and Kurt leaves it. “She was kind of chosen for me, so to speak.”

“Was it an arranged marriage?” Kurt asks incredulously without lifting his eyes from Blaine’s arm.

“No, not arranged.” Blaine laughs. “It was greatly encouraged.” Blaine sighs. “It might have well been arranged. By the time I asked her to marry me, I couldn’t care less either way. I had been hounded and threatened with everything from being disowned to being locked away. She was as good as anyone else.” Blaine shakes his head. “The worst part is she’s such a lovely woman. She deserves so much better.”

“You both do.” Kurt sighs, wiping the tattoo down again. He returns to his work, and the studio goes silent, the buzz of the machine filling the air with its constant drone. Blaine keeps his eyes fixed to the ceiling, intent on not peeking at the image until Kurt is done with it. He feels Kurt finish with his left arm – over three hours’ worth of work – and spin the barber’s chair around so he can move on to the right.

“Where were you thinking of running?” Kurt pipes up halfway through the right arm.

“Hmmm?” Blaine asks. His mind had started wandering – going over all the details, all the moments that had led up to this point. Was there ever a time where 5-, 10-, 16-year-old Blaine could have stood up to his father? In retrospect, there were times where he might have been able to confront his father and act braver than he felt, but the reality is no. His father is a man that most grown adults don’t like to talk to – not because he’s so intimidating, but because there isn’t any point in it. His father doesn’t listen to anyone.

Blaine let himself think about those boys he experimented with in college.

Sebastian – Blaine’s first, and by far the most sexually aggressive of the bunch. He was handsome, exciting, and inventive, to say the least, but not what you would call a one-man man.

He’s the one who broke Blaine’s heart.

Elliott –poli sci major. Energetic. Dreamer. Determined to make a difference in the world, both politically and with the help of his punk rock band. Blaine was certain that Elliott, with his glam leather outfits and glitter rock vamp make-up, was the edgiest man he had ever met, but he’s sure that Kurt could give him a run for his money.

Hunter – the only one of the bunch who had any chance of understanding what Blaine was going through. He had a strict, conservative upbringing; a father he could never make proud; and a trust fund whose existence hedged on his constant obedience. But unlike Blaine, Hunter had the balls to spit in his father’s face and split – and the business-minded brilliance to siphon away his trust fund from underneath his dad’s nose without the man being any the wiser.

Could any of those men have been the love of Blaine’s life? If he had sacrificed a little here, compromised a little there, would any one of them have made him happy enough to bid his family and his inheritance farewell?

He even let his mind drift to another universe where he and Kurt could have met a long time ago, maybe even gone to the same school together. Kurt is so easy to talk to. Maybe it’s an occupational hazard, spending so much time with people, listening to their life stories. Tattoos are very personal, or so he’d always been told by the few people he knew who had them. In order to dish out a thousand dollars for a custom tattoo, sight unseen, from a man with “psychic abilities”, you have to have one hell of a story to tell. Kurt must have heard them all. Blaine would think he’d get tired of listening after a while, but Kurt doesn’t seem to. He’s worked hard to reveal Blaine’s story, though he probably doesn’t have to do that with everyone.

The one thing that Blaine has noticed the entire time he’s been in that barber’s chair is that Kurt hasn’t revealed a single tidbit from his own life, not a morsel of his backstory. Blaine is dying to get to know him better.

What would it take to get Kurt to reveal his secrets?

“You’re running away,” Kurt says, his comment bringing Blaine back to the present. “Do you have an idea which direction you’re headed?”

“No, not really,” Blaine admits, which is one of the flaws in his plan. He took back his freedom, took control of his life. Now he needs to figure out what to do with it. “Do you have any suggestions?”

“Well” - Kurt rolls back to his counter to change inks - “I think I would just travel America. Don’t look for any one particular destination. Make the whole country your destination, but,” Kurt says pointedly, returning to Blaine’s arm, “I would definitely start in California.”

“California?” Blaine asks.

“Yeah,” Kurt says, finishing up the shading on Blaine’s tattoo. “Start off in San Francisco and start your own sexual revolution.” Kurt gives Blaine a wink before he continues. “Then hit the beach, get some sun. Head out to the desert. Glory in the big blue sky and all the quiet. Sleep in your car. Make friends with the locals. Eat some peyote. Find some enlightenment.”

“It sounds like you’ve done it once or twice.”

“Loads. As often as I can get away.” Kurt turns off his gun and sets it down carefully. He wets another paper towel and pats down Blaine’s tattoo. He pulls Blaine’s arms together to get a look at the images side by side, giving them a final review. “There.” Kurt gets up and turns on a few more lights. “Take a look.”

Blaine looks down, absorbing the image now permanently etched on his arms. The colors are vibrant – that’s the first thing that hits him – more vibrant than he would have chosen if given the option. On his right arm, Kurt has tattooed a rose in black and white. It looks hyper-real, like it was printed from an old photograph, but the rose itself is withering, curling at the petals, drawing back toward itself as it begins to die. The stem of the rose goes from brown to green and seems to weave through his skin, breaking in and out of his arm, leaving drops of blood in its wake – drops that look suspiciously like musical notes. The stem becomes a vine, and the vine grows thorns – horrible, sharp thorns. The vine continues on to the next arm and becomes wire – razor wire, that curls and coils. It spirals at his forearm around a heart – an anatomically correct, extraordinarily authentic looking human heart. Blaine stares at it, and the more he does, the more it looks like it’s pulsing, thrumming on his skin, trying to break free from its metal cage. The heart bleeds, but it still beats in protest, and in the very center where the heart bleeds most, Blaine can see the razor wire starting to break.

But most importantly, the stem and the vines and the notes and the wires perfectly cover the scars that ran down Blaine’s skin. Nothing of them remains.

“It’s … it’s perfect.” Blaine turns his arms to catch the way the colors light up his skin. “How did you …?”

Kurt taps his finger against his forehead.

“Intuition,” Kurt says. “That’s all.”

“Well, you’re an amazing artist.” Blaine can’t stop smiling at the art on his skin, but he’s still a bit unsure. “It’s just …”

“Just, what?” Kurt asks as he starts putting his inks away.

“It’s so personal. What do I tell people when they ask me what it means?”

Kurt lifts his eyes to meet Blaine’s, his gaze unforgiving.

“You got that tattoo for you, Blaine.” Kurt walks up to him and puts his hands on his upper arms, pinning him to the chair with the intensity of his stare. “You don’t owe anyone an explanation.” Kurt’s lips crinkle sideways as he goes back to his counter. “Besides,” he says, not meeting Blaine’s eyes again, “the guy you’re going to be thinking about your entire trip, the one that you’ll come back to when you decide that New York will always be your home, he’ll understand what it means.” Kurt returns with a handful of black pads and surgical tape. He spreads a light layer of clear ointment over Blaine’s tattoo, then covers it with the pads, layering them so that the tape doesn’t touch the healing skin. He pulls Blaine’s sleeves down to cover those areas, and does the buttons up again.

The entire time Kurt stands in front of him, dressing him, Blaine holds his breath, trying to decipher what man? Who could Kurt mean? Could he possibly be referring to …?

“Now, if you go to my website,” Kurt says, giving Blaine a hand up, “I have all the information you’ll need for taking care of that tattoo.” He reaches past Blaine to grab his coat, opens it up, and helps him into it.

“How can I repay you?” Blaine asks, at a loss for how to express his gratitude, but he’s also hoping he can parlay this into a roundabout way of asking Kurt out to dinner.

“Technically, you already paid me.” Kurt takes Blaine’s hand and leads him from the loft. With every step toward the exit, Blaine feels his chance with this man slip away, and he realizes that regardless of his “taking charge of his life” and his painful tattoo to the contrary, he’s still a coward.

Otherwise, he would just open his mouth and ask Kurt out to dinner.

But he doesn’t.

He steps outside, and the cold air hits him hard. He turns to face Kurt, and the man with the icy blue eyes smiles.

“Thanks again,” Blaine says, stalling for time.

“You’re welcome,” Kurt replies, the door creaking slowly shut. Then it stops. “Actually, there is one more thing.” He walks out the door and into Blaine’s space, quickly threading his fingers into his hair and fitting their mouths together.

It’s not a long kiss, but it’s a powerful one. It warms Blaine straight to his feet in his shoes and to the roots of his hair where Kurt tugs lightly. Blaine’s arms come up to hold him, winding around his narrow waist, hands crawling up his back, begging for something more. But suddenly Kurt steps away, leaving Blaine to chase his lips.

Blaine opens his eyes and looks into Kurt’s smiling face. “Why … why did you do that?”

Kurt shrugs.

“Because I wanted to. Because you needed me to.” Kurt backs away toward his loft door and slips through. “Call me when you get back. You can take me out to dinner.” He closes the door for good this time, leaving Blaine out in a cold he no longer feels.

#klaine fanfiction #klaine fic #klaine #frankie writes

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writesandramblings · 7 years

Text

The Captain’s Secret - p.9

“Under the Wire”

A/N: Sorry for the long delay! I made my own Halloween costume this year which took 40+ hours, and then I was involved in a wedding. I didn't have any time left over to write! But I'm back at work with laser focus on the fic again. Also, big thanks to @iwanttosaveyoufromyourself, who did me the favor of copy-editing all the previous chapters. There were a few mistakes, but they have hopefully all been corrected now.

Full Chapter List << Part 8 - The Illusion of Choice 10 - Minimally Invasive Procedures >>

They approached the house under cover of darkness, circling around from the back to keep as much distance between themselves and the dining room as possible. It wasn't, strictly speaking, necessary for them to do this, but having the benefit of several walls and no clear line of sight between them and the Dartarans was a great comfort for Russo and Billingsley in particular.

What was not a comfort was having Lalana running around in the trees under cover of darkness. Though the Starfleet-issue night vision glasses were top notch and lit the forest to crystal clarity, there was something instinctively unsettling about strange noises from above in the dark, and after about three minutes of fighting the urge to fire his rifle into the trees (and nearly actually doing so), Lorca called Lalana down to the ground to walk with them. She took the lead: her twelve pupils were so wide in the dim light, her eyes looked almost totally black with thin slivers of green, and she clicked her tongue at the sight of her human companions in their funny eye gear because they couldn't see very well in the dark.

They broke through the trees in the vicinity of the shuttle landing pad. Lorca found a small but meaningful dose of satisfaction at seeing the empty spot where the second Dartaran transport should have been, but wasn't.

Their first task was to disable the invisible fence. Billingsley was characteristically annoyed at having to do this in night vision goggles, but the technology was almost identical to the compound's external fence system. She disarmed a small section of it with ease using the same technique as before: bridging the power to create the illusion of an unbroken fence while providing them with a gap wide enough to slip through.

The motion sensors went next, disabled by a perfect pair of shots from Morita's rifle carefully calibrated according to Billingsley's specifications. This created a small corridor from their position up to the house completely free of any sensors, but they held their position outside the fence, waiting and watching for any sign that the Dartarans had noticed the minor faults in their security system. The system had been designed to alert them to any encroaching creatures from the forest, not withstand a coordinated break-in attempt, and both Dartaran signatures remained in the dining room, oblivious.

This was the point where, had the Dartarans noticed, they would have aborted the attempt and returned after the Dartarans went to bed. Now they were committed to finishing before lights out. Lorca signaled and they advanced on the mansion.

Creeping past the landing pad, they met their first real obstacle in the form of the door. After almost ten minutes, Billingsley announced she couldn't possibly open it without tripping an internal alert that a door had been unlocked and opened.

"When a door closes," prompted Lorca. Billingsley didn't follow.

"A window opens?" offered Russo.

The windows of the house were small, round, recessed portholes. Lorca clearly wasn't going to fit through, and Russo likely wouldn't, either, but Billingsley stood a chance, and Morita definitely could.

Billingsley scanned the windows with her tricorder. They had half as many security measures as the door. "Doable," she agreed.

"I'll go," said Morita.

Billingsley fixed Lorca with a look of dark determination, eager to make up for her earlier embarrassment. "No. Let me do it."

Lalana went up to the window first. She scaled the wall as easily as she had the trees, gripping the smooth stone outcroppings with vise-like hands and feet and perching on the vertical surface as comfortably as most people sat on a chair. There was something very satisfying about watching her in her native element, like watching a master craftsman at work, only the mastery in this case was the result of the guiding hand of evolution rather than years of training. Lalana eased the ladder into position perfectly and with minimal noise, then watched with freakishly black eyes as Billingsley proceeded up and crawled into the porthole tunnel.

From the ground, only Lalana and Billingsley's feet were visible, and neither offered much in the way of a progress report. Lorca frowned and shifted his weight, resolutely staring at Billingsley's feet for any clues.

"I should be up there," said Morita. She was still monitoring the Dartarans' location; Morita was nothing if not relentlessly cautious. She was an excellent security officer, but if she didn't learn to take a few more risks, she likely wouldn't advance much further in the ranks. "What if they get caught?"

Lorca had already anticipated and planned a course of action for that possibility, but it was so remote it didn't merit mentioning. "Lalana's with the chief. They'll be fine."

"Yes, sir." Morita left unvoiced her lingering concern that maybe they shouldn't be throwing everything to the wind for an alien they'd met a few days ago, even if that alien seemed sincere and had a worthwhile plight for Starfleet to resolve. Lorca had clearly decided they were going to pursue this adventure and it was too late to try and stop him now.

Billingsley's feet disappeared into the porthole. No alarms went off. Lalana released the ladder and vanished into the tunnel after her.

They waited. One minute, two. The door opened.

It was warm inside, and dimly-lit, but bright enough to see by. Lorca pushed the night vision glasses up on his head. "Well done, both of you."

"Thank you, captain."

"Thank you, captain!"

The house's interior was as brown as the exterior with what looked to be peach-colored ceilings, though it was hard to tell with the dim, yellow cast of the diamond-shaped wall sconces. Apparently Dartarans really went for the whole pink and brown color combination. Lorca took lead this time, rifle at the ready, though all signs indicated this side of the house was empty.

Their first destination was the house's central control box: its nerve center and brain. Billingsley and Russo worked together to install a siphon and intercept module which would route all the Dartarans' outgoing transmissions through to a beacon instead of the usual communications channels, allowing the Triton to listen in on everything and hijack the signal entirely.

Next was the office. In stark contrast to the exterior and hallways, the office was decorated with swaths of red fabric: wall curtains draping from the ceiling to the floor, bunched up to create an artistically curving zig-zag pattern of ripples in the cloth. Lorca had seen similar wall curtains in the Dartaran entry of Starfleet's database. It seemed to be how Dartarans decorated important state rooms where meetings took place. Russo, who had brushed up on the same database files before the mission, wondered if other rooms were so strictly delineated by distinct decorating styles in Dartaran culture.

A desk console sat in the middle of the room, copper-brown in color, with two rocky pillars that served as chairs and a low shelf of heavy, hand-bound books. Russo wired his tricorder directly into the console, ran a quick password crack, and set about accessing the Dartarans' files. "I want every piece of communication since Lalana's escape, any references to hunting lului, and give me everything on Peter Bhandary while you're at it," ordered Lorca. Russo scrambled to search the Dartarans' personal database and began transferring data.

"Sir!" Morita hissed in sudden alarm. "One of them's coming!"

Lalana stretched up on her legs in alert. "Across the hall!"

Russo jabbed his finger at his tricorder to cancel the data transfer. It didn't respond. He jabbed it again, and again, to no avail. He reached for the data cable, but Billingsley grabbed his hand. "No! You'll break their system!" On the tricorder, the words "Unstable Data Matrix, Please Wait" appeared. Presumably, this referred to the Dartarans' data storage expressing some sort of system instability.

Lorca didn't waste a moment. "Go," he ordered, pushing Russo aside from the console. Russo, Billingsley, and Morita followed Lalana into the hallway. Billingsley glanced back for the briefest of moments and hoped the captain had a really good plan.

Whether the plan was good, time would soon tell, but Lorca did at least have an idea. The progress bar on the tricorder was moving, but slowly. It looked like it needed at least two more minutes. "Goddamn technology," muttered Lorca, grabbing two octagonal bound notebooks from the shelf and putting them on top of the tricorder. A bit of the wire was still visible, but easily overlooked.

Lalana returned, closing the door behind her carefully. She jerked her tail towards the door three times. Lorca understood: three. Not good.

Lalana silently bounded over to the other side of the room. There was a small gap in the curtains. She swept it aside with her tail, revealing a second door. Lorca shut off the console monitor and joined her, because while there was no telling what lay on the other side, anywhere was better than here.

The second door turned out to lead to a room completely unlike anything else Lorca had seen so far. It was bright, glaringly so, with an intense, flat, sterile white tone that reminded Lorca of a hospital. The room was L-shaped and covered in a pale, metallic blue material. There was a mirror to the left set above something that looked like it dispensed some type of liquid and a strange copper box was attached to the adjacent wall. Around the corner to the right was a large pit of fine yellow sand recessed into the ground and partly covered by a metal grate.

They heard the hallway door to the office open. Now only one door lay between them and whoever was on the other side, and one door didn't feel like nearly enough, so Lorca beelined for the sandpit and tucked himself under the metal grating on the nearest side, minimizing his visibility from the entrance. Lalana jumped down after him and pressed herself against as much of his body as she could cover, her tail draping across his shoulder and just touching his neck, then turned herself the color of the sand.

Sounds were audible from the office. T'rond'n's low, booming voice called out, "I found it!" He'd left something in the office, apparently. Fair enough.

But T'rond'n didn't exit back to the hallway. He opened the door behind the wall curtains and entered the bright, blue room.

Lorca's finger readied on the trigger of his rifle. While he was as hidden as he could be, if T'rond'n came close enough or actually looked in the sandpit, the jig would be up.

T'rond'n took two steps and stopped in front of the mirror. There was a short series of plinking sounds. Then he noisily sniffed the air, grunted, and left.

Lorca waited until he heard the hallway door open and close, then waited some more. Lalana remained perfectly still beside him, not a single strand of her dermis moving.

They heard the hallway door open again. Someone rapped on the office wall softly, trying to find the door behind the curtains. Lalana removed herself from Lorca's side and he rolled out from under the grating and stood, catching sight of himself in the mirror. Half his body was covered in sand. (The night vision glasses also looked a mess pushed up on his head, but there was a certain element of roguish charm to them that wasn't entirely unbecoming.)

Morita found the door and poked her head in. "Captain," she said, glancing around the brightly-lit room in appraisal.

"Be right out," said Lorca, shaking the sand off his rifle, and Morita disappeared back into the office. "Now that's what we call an adrenaline rush."

"What is adrenaline?"

Despite the shaking, there was still sand on his gun. "Ask Dr. Ek'Ez that one."

Lalana touched her tail to the grating. "Sit here." Lorca obliged and Lalana brushed the sand from him, her dermal filaments much more precise and effective than his hand, picking out every miniscule grain of sand from his clothes and dropping it down through the grate. This was apparently the purpose of the grating: a place to sit while removing sand.

"Lalana," said Lorca, half-dreading the question, "why is there sand in here?"

Lalana brushed the sand from his jacket. "It is a Dartaran shower."

Lorca exhaled in relief. "Thank goodness for that." Dartaran bathroom facilities had not been adequately covered in Starfleet's files, but he'd be sure to amend that oversight once they were back on the Triton, assuming he could do so without anyone asking how he'd come by this information.

"What did you think it was?"

"A litterbox," Lorca admitted after a moment.

"Litter...?" she repeated. Lorca explained and Lalana's tongue clicked with laughter and her shoulders shook. "A litterbox! And you jumped into it?"

"Well it was a good thing I did," he countered. Tactically, at least.

"It was very clever," she agreed. She pointed to the copper box on the wall. "That is the litterbox."

It was markedly devoid of sand. Lorca snorted with amusement. "Not a litterbox, a toilet."

"I see," said Lalana cheerily, as if the distinction between the two meant nothing to her (which it probably did not). Her tail swept up past Lorca's cheek and pressed against the side of his head.

He winced, anticipating some sort of tugging or wriggling, but she extracted the sand from his hair with such delicacy it felt like a gentle breeze against his scalp. "I do hope T'rond'n's teeth will be all right," she said.

Lorca frowned, surprised by the apparent non sequitur. "His teeth?"

"He will probably get gum rot again now that I am gone, even though I am right here." She passed her tail over Lorca's hair a second time, presumably to make sure all the sand was out, and then stepped back. Lorca looked as pristine as he had before entering the pit, which was to say, rumpled from a day in the jungle, but clear of any sand.

Lorca recalled the plinking noise. The reason it had sounded somewhat familiar—it had been T'rond'n picking his teeth. But what did that have to do with... "Please tell me you didn't use your tail to clean T'rond'n's teeth."

Lalana obligingly said nothing.

Lorca sighed exaggeratedly, partly annoyed by this revelation, partly impressed by the practicality of it. "He kept you captive. If he gets 'gum rot,' it'll be what we humans call 'karma.' When you do something bad and bad things happen to you." Or the reverse, though it didn't seem to apply in this particular situation.

"T'rond'n isn't bad," said Lalana. "He and Margeh simply wanted to hunt a difficult prey. I gave them an excellent hunt."

"Still... Don't you want a little bit of cosmic revenge?"

Lalana rubbed her fingers together thoughtfully. "I do not see what I gain from it. It just makes T'rond'n unhappy. I would rather he be happy. I would rather all people be happy."

Lorca realized it was hopeless. Lalana didn't seem to have a judgmental bone in her body. "All right, then," he said, as if some conclusion had been reached, and stepped up onto the grating, exiting the sandpit. Lalana lingered in the pit a moment, using her tail to erase any trace of their presence from the surface of the sand, then hopped up beside him.

She was still sand-colored. "Were you going to change back?"

"I like this color," she said. "You like blue better?" Lorca shrugged slightly and she turned blue again. He'd assumed the blue was her natural color, but apparently it was a fashion choice.

They returned to the office. "Progress report," said Lorca immediately. Russo looked up from the console, Billingsley hovering over his shoulder.

"I have all the comm logs of the past week, and everything on Bhandary, but... nothing on the lului hunting. If it's in here, it's not searchable by any keywords I can think of, and there's no comm logs with any of the names of the traders. Either the records have been purged, degraded, or their point of contact is someone else. I have the date range of Lalana's arrival, but... there are too many logs, it'll take hours to review them."

"Grab everything you can to bring back to the Triton."

"Yes, sir."

Russo went about his work under Billingsley's watchful eye. (She hated Lorca hovering over her shoulder, but was apparently fine doing the same thing to someone else.) There was nothing else for Lorca, Lalana, and Morita to do but wait. "ETA, Lieutenant?" asked Lorca.

"Ten minutes, sir."

Billingsley immediately chimed in, "More. We have to go slow, their storage system isn't designed to handle this much active data at once. It's very fragile. If we go any faster, we risk damaging their data crystals irreversibly."

Lorca didn't care about any of the technical issues, just the timeframe. There was something he wanted to do.

It seemed only fair, having received a tour of the Triton, that Lalana provide Lorca with a tour of the Dartarans' home. The house was spectacularly ugly by most human standards, but it was impressively large, and Lalana knew every inch of the place.

The tour was restricted to the half of the house furthest from the dining room. Even with that restriction, there were some interesting sights, like the Dartarans' trophy hall. Most of the rooms featured some form of hunting trophy as decoration, but the trophy hall was devoted entirely to the hobby. Preserved creatures from dozens of worlds, bones and skulls, hides and holographic images—everywhere he looked, something strange and unfamiliar looked back.

Lalana went to a display cabinet with several small trophies and skeletons and pointed to a box. "These are Lalaran's lenses," she said. Two clear, glasslike discs sat on a bed of dark green fabric. She picked one up and offered it to Lorca. It was the same size as Lalana's eyes, made of a material like crystallized chitin, startlingly clear. The curvature of the edges bent the light slightly, possibly indicating lului had 180-degree-or-better sight.

Lorca handed it back and pointed to some six-inch spikes with bands of black and turquoise. "What are these?"

"Ah! Those are stingers from Orendan wasps. Very nasty, they shoot them at intruders." There was a horn from a hornbuck, wings from a vimeria moth, the three heads of an Aldebaran serpent mounted together, and a complete Trellan crocodile preserved with a plasticization process. A beautifully iridescent hide belonged to a Strykelian ram, while a stretch of multicolored scales running almost a full four meters along the wall came from a giant mud snake native to the swamps of Cetos IV that could topple large trees with its constriction.

Every single creature seemed to have some vicious or clever mechanism that provided a challenge for the Dartarans. It was a marvel how so many creatures had evolved such disparate yet effective mechanisms for hunting and defending themselves. Lorca ran his fingers along the ridges of a mounted fish resembling a cross between a pufferfish and an angler with vivid red spots on its cheeks.

"Do you like this room?"

Lorca withdrew his hand, realizing how this must look to Lalana. An entire room devoted to the glorification of hunting. "It's very interesting," he said noncommittally.

"I love this room. There are so many different creatures from so many different worlds!"

Lorca was taken aback. "It doesn't... bother you?"

"Well, yes," she admitted. "It would be so much better if they had eaten them all. But I like to see what things from other worlds look like, so I am glad that not every species eats what they kill, else how would I have seen these things?"

Lorca parsed this carefully. "The only thing that bothers you is they didn't eat everything they killed?"

Lalana shifted her weight, uncertain what he expected her to say.

"You're not bothered by the fact they go gallivanting around, hunting other things the same way they hunted you?" He recalled what she had said about Lalaran. "The things they hunt don't get to choose how they die."

"You're a hunter, too, aren't you?"

Lorca froze. His hands were on his rifle and he hadn't been able to contain his interest in the trophies, yes, and he had been hunting, but... "Not—not intelligent species." Not in the sense of hunting, anyway. There was a very big difference between hunting something and facing an opponent in a combat situation.

"All species are intelligent. Maybe not as much as us, but, they all live and breed and follow their instincts. Perhaps there are other beings out there that are to us as we are to insects. So, how smart something is has nothing to do with its right to live."

Lorca felt like he had to draw a philosophical line in the sand here. "Now hold on a minute. There's a big difference between killing something that only has baser instincts and killing something that can talk."

"Not from the perspective of the 'baser instinct' creature."

"Yes," insisted Lorca, "because it doesn't have the cognitive function to appreciate its... own mortality. Can you really say you like this room when you're also saying it's wrong to kill anything unless you eat it, and everything has a right to live?"

There was a brief pause. Then Lalana erupted into tongue clicks. Lorca crossed his arms, not seeing the humor. It took a long time for the clicking to subside. "That's the opposite, captain! I do not mean everything has a right to live. I mean there is no difference between killing something intelligent and killing something which is not. I don't mean to suggest that either death is wrong. They are what they are."

"So if a lului killed another lului..."

Lalana tilted her head. "Why would a lului do that?"

Lorca fixed her with a look that suggested the reasons were obvious. "Jealousy, argument, accident, fighting a war. Why does anyone kill anyone?"

"We have no wars, but... if a lului somehow killed another in an accident, they would be obligated to eat the dead one."

Several emotions played out on Lorca's face in succession, ranging from surprise and disbelief to calculated understanding and disgust. "You... eat each other."

"Not as a general rule, but if one of us caused the death of another, we would be so obligated. What do you do if you kill someone?"

It wasn't completely true to say that there were not and had never been human cannibals, but for the most part, it was not an acceptable practice. "Burial. Cremation. In a really desperate survival situation... but it would have to be extreme. Eat the other person or starve. And even then, a lot of humans wouldn't do it."

"Starve? What's that?"

Lorca's communicator beeped for attention. It was Morita, reporting the data dump was complete. Lorca flipped the communicator shut and clipped it back to his belt, then returned his attention to Lalana. "Is your translator working? You've been asking a lot of questions." Perhaps Kerrigan wasn't up to the task of fleshing out the matrix and merited replacement with someone else.

Lalana tapped her knuckles twice. "It is working. I... had Ensign Kerrigan show me how to adjust it so that when there is a word in your language that doesn't not have a conceptual lului equivalent, it does not translate it. That way I can learn the word. Was that wrong?"

It was mildly inconvenient, but not wrong. It also meant two things. "So you've been learning English?" was the first.

"Yes."

The second was, "And you don't have a word for 'starvation' or 'starving?'"

"No, what is it?" Lalana listened to the definition with grim attentiveness. "Not having anything to eat... that is hard to fathom."

Lorca snorted in amusement. "Not every species can eat dirt." Or each other, for that matter. "Let's head back."

"Did you want to see my room before we leave?"

In her debrief, Lalana had mentioned being kept in a room most of the time, but hadn't described it much except to say it was white. Lorca grabbed his communicator again. "Morita, what's the status on the Dartarans?"

"Upstairs now," she reported.

"Going to bed," supplied Lalana.

They were in the clear, then. "We're going to make a quick pit stop. Meet you at the exit."

"Sir," confirmed Morita, sounding very professionally nonjudgmental, which was a credit to her training and personal discipline, because it entirely did not reflect her feelings about the mission at this point.

Lorca gestured for Lalana to lead on.

"Here it is."

While "white" was a perfectly accurate description of the room—it was almost entirely white except for the floors, which were brown—it somehow didn't convey the room's contents very accurately. A wall of white metal bars divided the room into two areas. There were more white metal poles in the cage area, but rather than serving as a partition, they formed a sort of metal forest of curves and branches.

The door to the cage was still open, as it had been when Lalana had escaped. Presumably the Dartarans saw no reason to close it now.

"It is very nice, no?"

It was stark, and white, and looked uncomfortable, but it did seem to have been designed for Lalana, providing her ample climbing space (though her range of motion would have been stymied somewhat by that puffy jumpsuit they'd strapped her in).

Lalana bounded into the open cage. "This is where the food was left, and this is where Lalaran died. There were no trees in here originally. Margeh added them for me. She noticed that I mostly stayed up on the bars and wanted to give me more things to climb. They were good owners, captain, so please don't think too badly on them."

It was hard to forget Lalana's desperate pleas for help during her escape and square that against her assertion of Margeh and T'rond'n as not such bad owners. "You ran away from them."

"Well, yes. But not because they were bad. Because..." She fell silent, hands clasped tightly.

Lorca's brow furrowed with concern. Nearly everything was an open book with Lalana. She was unashamed to admit to a societal policy that embraced cannibalism, unbothered at the idea of sentients outright murdering other sentients, and cheerily narrated the death of a fellow lului, but here at last was proof of that nagging feeling in the back of his head that she'd been holding something back from him.

"...because I had to stop the lului hunting. I owed it to my people."

He realized it was guilt, plain and simple. She felt guilty about having spent six years lounging around in what was to her a comfortable captivity while her people were still under threat. Probably she could have escaped much sooner had she really wanted to. No one needed six years to steal a shuttle. If she'd really tried, she probably could have managed the escape in half the time, if even that.

It was tremendously disappointing. Lalana had presented herself as a victim of circumstance, carefully plotting and planning for six years to orchestrate an escape, when in reality, she had apparently been content to ignore the injustice until the point when her guilt caught up to her and she'd finally decided to do the right thing. How many lului had died while Lalana had played in a jungle of metal trees, cleaning T'rond'n's teeth and admiring her captors' hunting collection?

Lorca abhorred injustice. He'd always made it a point to face it head on and immediately when he could. It was why he'd been so keen to help the lului. He hated that pervasive "out of sight, out of mind" mentality that let people stand by while others suffered, ignoring any problems which were not directly affecting themselves. Even now, Lalana seemed more concerned with Margeh and T'rond'n's reputations than the fate of her own people.

He realized he was being a little too harsh. There was clearly an element of Stockholm syndrome at play. Whatever she had or hadn't done, and whatever timeline she'd done it on, she had been in a difficult situation, the details of which were only partially known to him, and she felt bad. While he didn't love the sentiment "better late than never," because better sooner than later, it was true to an extent. "You did what you had to do," he said, but hollowly, because he didn't totally believe the sentiment.

"...Yes." She didn't sound convinced herself. She turned and looked around the cage. "It is strange to think this is the last time I will see this. But thank you for letting me do so."

"We really should get going," he said. Considering how long it had taken them both to get to this moment, it suddenly felt like there wasn't a minute to waste.

Part 10

#Star Trek #Discovery #fanfic #fanfiction #Captain Lorca #Star Trek Discovery #Lorca

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hollywoodgothique · 5 years

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DIY Halloween Attractions in Burbank, North Hollywood, Studio City: BRC: A Place to Scare, Grimwood Hollow, Forbidden Woods Cemetery, Holiday Fantasies Come to Life, Pierdell Cemetery, Rosehill Haunt, Rotten Apple 907 & More.

Once upon a time, Hollywood Gothique ran an annual “Halloween Yard Haunt Odyssey” that covered every amateur haunted house we saw on Halloween Night. Those days are long gone. There is so much to see that we can’t reach everything on one night, and we can’t fit it all into one article. For Halloween 2019, we so far have posted about yard haunts in the Verdugos, San Gabriel Valley, Antelope Valley, and Northwest County; we even went outside Los Angeles to Orange County. Now, we are taking our attention to Halloween in San Fernando Valley.

The density of Halloween home haunts is so great in this region that we are sub-dividing it into sections more or less as laid out in SanFernandoGuide.com: East Valley, North Valley, etc. In order to make geographic sense out of the various yard haunt locations, we may reassign a neighborhood or two to a different section; the idea is to group these amateur attractions together, so that haunt-seekers can make targeted excursions to specific neighborhoods instead of wandering from one to another.

In this post, we explore yard haunts in San Fernando Valley Easty, which includes North Hollywood, Studio City, and Burbank. Along with familiar favorites like Rotten Apple 907, Forbidden Woods Cemetery, Holiday Fantasies Come to Life, and Rosehill Haunt, there are some new and/or less less well known efforts: Pierdell Cemetery, BRC: A Place to Scare, Clybourn Manor, Grimwood Hollow, and a handful of others scattered throughout the area.

East Valley Yard Haunts 2019: North Hollywood Forbidden Woods Cemetery (Walk-Through Maze) 11238 Califa Street, North Hollywood facebook.com/Forbidden-Woods-Cemetery

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Forbidden Woods Cemetery immediately became a favorite of ours when we first visited it last year. The walk-through haunt begins in the garage haunted by a witch before moving into the front yard, which is thick with foliage and trellises that define a narrow pathway, filled with monsters lurking within dense layers of fog.

For Halloween 2019, Forbidden Woods added a small interior setting, a funeral room inside a Gothic, church-like building, decorated with stone gargoyles and with candles glowing in small arched windows. This was a nice little cherry on top of the haunt’s cemetery setting, which uses some fairly basic building blocks (spiderwebs, white props glowing in black light) to create a surprisingly immersive environment.

Unfortunately, Forbidden Woods Cemetery was open only the last two days of October. When you’re planning your own personal Yard Haunt Odyssey next Halloween, put this atop your list.

East Valley Yard Haunts 2019: North Hollywood – NEW Pierdell Cemetery (Halloween Yard Display) 6245 Whitset Avenue, North Hollywood

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This home haunt made its debut this Halloween with a modest front yard display that showed promising signs of future expansion. Pierdell Cemetery benefited from being set on a property with large overhanging trees that filtered out local street lights, casting ominous shadows on the sparse soil, which was dotted with cactus and other succulents – the perfect setting for a creepy cemetery.

The decor was home-made, adding a touch of personality that doesn’t come with store-bought props. Transparent ghosts floated over the gravestones, and a demon baby glowed near the house, an intimidating obstacle to wary trick-or-treaters.

Pierdell Cemetery was open the last week of October. Hopefully, it will return next Halloween.

Burbank Halloween Haunted House – NEW BCR: A Place To Scare (Walk-Through Maze) 230 Amherst Drive

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BCR: A Place To Scare was not actually a yard haunt, but we include it here because it was an amateur, do-it-yourself effort, put on as a fundraiser. Set in the activity center of BCR: A Place to Grow, a non-profit charity organization that offers programs for the developmentally disabled, the haunted attraction cast its location as a haunted hospital where an over-eager nurse was way to enthusiastic about drawing blood donations. Apparently, this was a front for something even worse, as we soon encountered vampires hungry for blood straight from the source.

Though obviously mounted on a limited budget, BCR: A Place To Scare exploited its location to great effect. The location provided more space than most amateur efforts can afford, and the sense of being in a real place helped immeasurably, aided by eerie lighting and ominous soundscapes that turned innocuous corridors into haunted hallways.

Making its debut this Halloween, BCR: A Place To Scare was open for two days only, the last weekend of October. The proprietors plan to resurrect it next year.

East Valley Yard Haunts 2019: Burbank Clybourn Manor (Halloween Yard Display) 4336 N Clybourn Ave, Burbank

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This small Burbank yard haunt offered pirate-themed Halloween fun with skeletal sailors flying the skull-and-crossbones flag, a treasure chest, and creepy Kraken tentacles reaching up out of the “ocean.” The display was visible the last week of October, plus November 1.

Though located in Burbank, Clybourn Manor’s address is conveniently close to Toluca Lake, which has a reputation as a trick-or-treating mecca filled with numerous yard haunts. If you visit next season, chart a course west through the winding streets to find other haunted houses, two of which are pictured here.

Easy Valley Yard Haunts 2019: Burbank Grimwood Hollow (Halloween Yard Display) 618 N. Sparks Street, Burbank

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We ran a brief capsule of this Halloween display in last year’s Burbank installment of the Halloween Haunt Odyssey, but words don’t fully do justice to Grimwood Hollow, which grew even more elaborate this year. The numerous lanterns, candles, gravestones, and figures combine into their own little Halloween wonderland, enhanced with beautifully colored lighting.

Grimwood Hollow gets bonus points for including Nathan Grantham’s tombstone from Creepshow (1982) and extra special nerd points for Arthur Grimsdyke’s tombstone with the correct dates (1907-1972) as seen in the film Tales From the Crypt (except that the Grimwood Hollow version looks even better).

Grimwood Hollow was open four days this season, the last weekend of October, plus Halloween Night and November 1. With so many other haunted homes in Burbank, there’s no reason not to swing by this one next year.

Easy Valley Yard Haunts 2019: Burbank Holiday Fantasies Come to Life (Halloween Yard Display) 1505 N. Valley Street, Burbank

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We first wrote about this this yard display last Halloween, when it presented presented a Disney’themed pirate ship. This year’s iteration is still essentially Pirates of the Caribbean in the front yard, but the backdrop has been transformed from a ship into a castle (e.g., the gangplank to the ship is now a drawbridge).

No matter. The profusion of colorful decor was overwhelming, and the familiar props and settings were altered into new arrangements. The Disneyesque quality of Holidays Fantasies Come to Life made it safe for even timid candy-seekers, but even diabetics could get an overdose from all the eye-candy on view.

Easy Valley Yard Haunts 2019: Burbank Rotten Apple 907 (Walk-Through Haunted House) 907 N California Street, Burbank, 91505 rottenapple907.com

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Rotten Apple 907 has been a long-time favorite walk-through home haunt in the heart of Burbank, with a new theme every year and impressive sets and costumes to match. This year’s theme is The Death Triangle, a nautical horror adventure. As in previous years there’s a little bit of story in store to elevate this attraction above the mere jump scares offered by some.

Your adventure begins outside at the front of the line, where a traumatized sailor recounts to your group his harrowing tale of barely escaping his own visit to the Death Triangle. Given his warnings it seems unwise to enter the triangle yourself, but you’ve come this far, there’s no turning back now, spoilers ahead. Ushered inside, you meet the captain, who has another warning for you now that it’s too late. The ship is sinking and the crew is mostly dead, or undead as the case may be. Wind your way through the tilted corridors of the ship, avoiding the corpses of the crew and tentacles of the kraken until you find your way to the surprisingly breathable ocean floor.

The real sand used on the floor here was a nice touch. I’m sure it’s a chore for them to clean up, but the added bit of realism makes the experience all the more vivid. Rotten Apple spares no expense, and it’s still a free haunt, though donations are accepted to support Volunteers of the Burbank Animal Shelter. In the end there is no escaping the belly of the kraken, and if you don’t want to be trapped with the sunken ship forever, the only way out is to enter the monster’s maw.

This Year’s Rotten Apple is about five minutes long, and thought it’s tame enough for your children, but with the homemade sets, costumes, and some jump-scares, it’s definitely impressive for adults as well. The line starts at about 6pm for this well-known home haunt, and they may start turning people away from the line before 10pm so that they can close on time. Plan accordingly, but do not be deterred; the line moves quickly.

If you can get to the area early, check out HalloweenTown, a store that has Halloween on every shelf all year long. It’s right around the corner.

– Capsule Comment by Marie DeLoups

East Valley Yard Haunts 2019: Studio City Rosehill Haunt (Halloween Yard Display) 11560 Acama Street, Studio City

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The Rosehill Haunt featured some additions this Halloween, most notably a large painted backdrop (debuted at Midsummer Scream), which gave a much larger sense of scale to the cemetery display in the front yard. Though not exactly a walk-through, the haunt once again allowed guests to enter a walled area to the side of the house, occupied by skeletons in various poses, including two musicians “performing” Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre. The slightly cartoonish look of the new backdrop perfectly captured the tone of Rosehill Haunt – good spooky fun for trick-or-treaters and Halloween fans of all ages.

Rosehill Haunt was open five days this season, during the final weekend of October, plus Halloween Night and November 1.

Random Burbank Yard Haunts 2019

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This is a collection of relatively low-profile Halloween yard haunts in Burbank. Most have little or no webs presence and do not bother listing themselves on the annual SoCal Haunt List. Nevertheless, they are worth a drive-by on the way to other, more well-known Halloween home haunts.

As always, we apologize to all the house haunters whose efforts we did not cover until after they had closed. We hope this belated tribute to your hard work is some small consolation.

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Photo Galleries: East Valley Yard Haunts DIY Halloween Attractions in Burbank, North Hollywood, Studio City: BRC: A Place to Scare, Grimwood Hollow, Forbidden Woods Cemetery, Holiday Fantasies Come to Life, Pierdell Cemetery, Rosehill Haunt, Rotten Apple 907 & More.

#Forbidden Woods Cemetery Archive #Halloween 2019 #Halloween in San Fernando Valley #Yard Haunts

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