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piratefishmama · 1 year

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Crossing The Line | Part 9

“Eddie. Dude. You have to stop pacing, you’re gonna wear a hole in the goddamn floor and we ain’t covered for that.”

Eddie did not stop pacing, he just turned on his heel and went in the other direction, starting a fresh line in the floor. “But what if— nah, he wouldn’t… I doubt it, no he was probably just—but then what if—"

“Man, you’re spiralling, if he’s gonna come, he’s gonna come, if he doesn’t, then he doesn’t, what’re you worried about, you don't even like the guy” Eddie didn’t stop pacing. “Unless… Do you?”

“I… may have… actually looked into him?”

“You what?”

“After he turned up at the coffee shop! He was just… he was nice, dude, and… an he had no reason to be, at all, I was a bitch for a whole week towards him for no reason, but he was nice, and funny, and he can sing even if he can’t do shit with metal, he can sing, and… his photoshoots don’t touch up shit he really is that pretty, and I think i'm going to spontaneously combust and die if he turns up tonight dressed to blend in.”

“Wow.”

“Leave me alone!”

“Okay, so, what did you find out on your deep dive through Instagram?” Eddie finally stopped pacing. They were in what the bar deemed to be a ‘green room’ which was really just a room in the back for bands to get their shit together before the gig started, Corroded Coffin always turned up a good hour or so early to make sure everything was set, and of course, get rid of any pre-gig jitters. Gareth was the only one completely ready, his drums were already out there, set up and covered by a black sheet waiting for their time to shine, and his outfit was sorted ages ago.

So Gareth was the one currently in charge of dealing with Eddie, while the other two primped elsewhere.

“Not just Instagram, Jesus, imagine if I’d have scrolled too far back and liked a pic from like, 2001 by accident. How about no to that inevitable mortification. I googled.”

“You googled.”

“Yes I googled!! Did you know that he donated like, ninety-something percent of his earnings from a bullshit rom-com soundtrack deal to LGBT charities across the US after they cut a lesbian couple out of it?”

“No…”

“Neither did I! The fucker didn’t tell anyone!! I HAD TO DEEP DIVE INTO ROBIN’S INSTAGRAM! Trust me that was a scary thing to do, she’s scary. but he pulls that shit all the time apparently!” It wasn’t for publicity, it wasn’t to make himself look good to a demographic, he did it because he could. Because he wanted to. “Did you know he regularly terrorizes producers and directors into offering fair contracts for their child actors and young muscians like a goddamn world class showbiz babysitter?”

“…Nope.”

“Neither did I!! Did you know that he got PERMISSION to sing Crazy Train from the actual goddamn Osbornes? Cause I sure as shit didn’t know that either! He spoke to Sharon, DIRECTLY, Gareth, DIRECTLY. What the actual fucknuggets on fire, does he want with me?!”

“I dunno, to kiss you maybe?”

“WHY?!”

“Can’t claim to have an answer dude, you’re not exactly my type. Maybe you’re his, he did come all this way, right?”

“Pretty sure he could find a weird metalhead in his own damn town, y’know?”

“Maybe it’s not the metalhead thing, I dunno Eds, I just know that maybe this guy will be in the crowd, and if he is, hell yeah, you have managed to secure probably thee best opportunity we’ve ever had in the history of ever, by… being a bitch.”

“We’ve ever had?” Eddie looked at him with a small frown

“Yeah man! Steve Harrington is a huge star in the music world. Dude probably has his own goddamn recording studio in his place… maybe if it goes well… we could ask him if we could use it, save us some cash on a recording studio for demos.”

“…Dude. That’s. That’s kinda taking advantage isn’t it? An I’m not whoring myself out to get free studio time.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it, BUT if you start dating this guy—"

“Gare, anything you say that relates to me using my first potential relationship as a step ladder to fame, is SUPER shitty. Let’s not do that. If he offers, then… maybe, but… that’s not—I wouldn’t even think about asking for that, we wanna get where we’re going on our own, not have it handed to us, right?”

“Well… yeah but… a helping hand would be nice sometimes, y’know? Get us out of playing these shitty dive bar gigs and into the big leagues, you know I can’t stand part time work filling the gaps in the wages, man, retail managers always suck donkey dicks. I cannot work another summer at Staples, they have like no AC, it’s torture, it’s like an oven in there and Ralph doesn’t wear deodorant, he claims it’s an allergy, but I know, I know it’s not, he does it as a power thing it’s weird. This… could be our ticket out.”

“Steve isn’t a ticket. Maybe stop digging a grave you can’t climb out of, yeah? I know I wasn’t the best towards him but… he’s better, deserves better than that… I’m not using him. An honestly I dunno if I’d even know how y’know? It’s not like I’m bursting with experience… barely even—y’know what, I’m not talking about this, big nope on the using Steve as a cheat code to achieving fame! Let’s just… get our shit together and get out there!”

Gareth smiled before rising to his feet, drumsticks in hand “you’re the boss, man. Where’s Jeff an Frank?”

“Bathroom touching up their shit… promise me you won’t bring it up to Steve, yeah? Like… if he does come, you won’t—”

“Dude, dude… I was just throwing out dumb ideas to get you out of your head, I’d never, that’d be really uncool of me” Eddie looked at him with doubt because… okay, maybe there was a little truth to the interest in the subject, Gareth had worked part time in the stationary section of Staples for three years now and he was just about ready to die if he had to deal with his supervisors summer BO any longer, but if Eddie put his foot down and said no, then it was no, the idea was vetoed. Axed. Deader than dead

He could deal with Ralph. Probably.

“…Right, well… oka—”

The door opened, a frizzy head of hair poking around the entry way, one of the bartenders, “You’re on in five guys! Wh—Where’s the rest of you??”

“Gareth go get em for me? I’ll get the crowd warmed up.”

“On it.”

T-5 minutes. Gareth rushed out the opposite door to the bathrooms behind 'stage', otherwise known as the staff bathroom. The bar was heaving, music from the speakers to fill the void of sound before the live music act, loud and thumping, it’d be them soon, filling that void, deep breath. Eddie fluffed his hair once more, spritzed it with hairspray one last time, checked his minimalist eyeliner, and shook himself out, and grabbed his baby.

Show time.

Part 11

#PirateWrites #Crossing The Line #Steddie #Ficlet #okay so... Gareth is a lil desperate to get out of retail #lets cut him some slack #even if he is being a little shit there :'D

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theaceace · 3 months

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A while ago I decided that my ideal Good Omens/Sandman crossover involved Lucifer giving the key to Hell to Adam instead of Dream during Season of Mists, and what the fallout of that might be. I don't think I'll ever manage to finish it, but here's the theoretical first chapter

The first thing any of Them knew about it was the fact that there were no mugs in the sink. This was not at all a common occurrence; despite Wensleydale’s fastidiousness, Brian's refusal to drink from anything other than directly from the milk bottle, and Pepper’s insistence on ‘supporting local businesses near campus’1, there was usually a precarious mountain of tea-stained mugs stacked up in monument to Adam's unfortunate sleeping habits. To anyone else, under normal circumstances, this might have been considered a good – even miraculous – change.

All of Them had come to develop a very healthy suspicion of both normal circumstances and miraculous changes.

“That's weird, right?” Brian said, balancing on one leg to idly scratch at his calf with his other foot. “I mean, it's not just me that thinks that's weird?” Pepper, who had thrown open the cupboards to check that the mugs were still in the land of the living, and hadn't been smashed or otherwise disappeared in a fit of pique or supernatural intervention, made a little uh-hm noise.

“It's definitely weird,” she agreed, staring at the cupboard, which was precisely as full and disordered as it ought to be. “But that doesn't mean it's, y’know, weird-weird. It could be normally weird.”

“Did anyone hear Adam get in last night?” Wensleydale asked, which was a very sensible question that neither Pepper nor Brian had thought to ask.

“He was still out when I went to bed,” Brian said, glancing at Pepper.

“He said he was going to the library,” she said, frowning. Wensleydale nodded thoughtfully.

“It is open twenty-four seven,” he mused. “Adam might still be there. Maybe he fell asleep in one of the quiet study rooms?”

It wasn't impossible, they all silently agreed, glancing around at one another. Who among them hadn't lost track of time in the unchanging fluorescent glow, only to wake up some absurd number of hours later with a pen stuck to their cheek and an embarrassingly large puddle of drool forming on the table2?

“Okay, well, I'll just call him,” Pepper said decisively after a moment.

“His phone’ll be on silent,” Brian pointed out.

“Still,” Wensleydale said. “If it's on vibrate he might notice it. And even if it's not, he'll see it when he looks at his phone next. Go ahead, Pepper.”

“Already on it,” she said, and indeed her thumbs were flying over her phone. She tapped the button to put it on speaker, and held the phone in the centre of the circle of Them with an odd reverence. Together, they watched Adam's name and number flashed across the screen as the phone began to ring, before it cut itself abruptly off.

“I’m sorry,” started the robotic message, “the number you have dialled cannot be reached at this time. Please try again later.” The message cut off with a cheerful beep. A moment later, Pepper’s phone, rather less cheerfully, burst into flames. She dropped it onto the tiled kitchen floor, where it went right on blazing.

All three of the remaining Them stared at it in horror.

“Right,” said Pepper faintly.

“I think that might be weird-weird,” Brian agreed, a shade more faintly. Wensleydale, being the only one of Them who was not only concerned that Pepper’s phone was on fire, but also that her phone was on fire, started swatting at it ineffectually with a tea towel.

“OK,” Pepper said, gathering herself, “Brian, give me your phone.”

“What? Hang on, I only got this last month! You can't go around seeing if that'll set other people's phones on fire just because yours spontaneously combusted, Pep, that's not fair.” Pepper, being somewhat more nimble, and considerably less indignant than Brian, used this opportunity to lean over and pluck his phone from the depths of his hoodie pocket. “Hey!”

“Here's what we're going to do,” Pepper said decisively. In Adam's absence, one of Them had to be the one making the decisions, and that one might as well be her. “You two are going to go to the library and check there, just in case. Maybe this is… coincidental weird-weirdness. Call me when you get there, let me know if you find anything.”

“And what about you? What are you going to do?” Wensleydale asked, giving up the tea towel as a bad job, and accepting the fact that the phone seemed to be burning itself out quite nicely on its own.

“I'm going to ask around, and email in sick for all of us,” Pepper said. “Maybe one of Adam's other friends saw something, or heard something, or… y’know, something. Wens, call Mr. Young – he likes you the best, he'll be happy to speak to you, but don't let on just yet what's happening.”

“What is happening?” Brian asked, a little helplessly. Rather than admitting she had no more idea than any of the rest of Them, Pepper just shook her head darkly.

“Nothing good,” she muttered. “OK. Alright. Meet back here at, say, half eleven? If we haven't found anything before then, I mean.” Brian and Wensleydale both nodded, looking a little peaky, and glanced at each other. Wensleydale swallowed, and piped up with the question that was troubling them both.

“And what do we do then, if we haven't found anything?”

“Then,” Pepper said, with all the grim determination of a General sending her troops to their certain deaths, “we call the Witch.”

The first thing Anathema knew about it was that she picked up a stack of old magazines to throw away, only for a sheet of old parchment to flutter lazily out and come to rest on her shoes. She wasn't sure where old Agnes had ended up after her explosive exit from this mortal coil, so she glared first at the ceiling and then at the floor for good measure.

“I burnt that book for a reason,” she sternly told the page. The page, naturally, did not reply.

Anathema stared at it for a few long seconds, dithering. She wasn't a person predisposed to dithering, but had found in the last couple of years that it was nice to indulge oneself in a change of pace, from time to time. Still, having no natural talent for it, and being far more inclined to action anyway, she only allowed this for a brief time, before snatching up the page and casting a curious eye over it.

“Oh,” she said, swiftly followed by, “hm.”

Then, “right.”

A few seconds later, “what?”

And, with hardly a pause for breath, “I see.”

Before finally, “oh. Oh dear.”

In the next room, from its perch on the coffee table, her phone started to ring.

(Halfway across the country, the first thing Constantine knew about it was that the demon she was attempting to banish back to the bowels of Hell laughed in her face. It stopped laughing with gratifying speed at the first splash of holy water, but it was enough to set her thinking.

Thinking, however, could wait until she'd downed roughly half her weight of Robbie's Secret Whisky Stash, and fallen face-first onto her sofa for the next sixty hours or so.

Which was exactly what she did.)

The first thing Aziraphale knew about it – though he wouldn't realise such for a few days yet – was the abrupt interruption of his quarterly book club3.

He'd been enjoying a rather excellent cup of lapsang souchong in companionable silence, a collection of poems that Oscar had enthused about but never committed to paper propped open in front of him, when the summons arrived.

“Lucienne. I must speak with you. Meet me in the throne room as soon as is convenient.” A momentary pause. “Please.”

On the other side of the room, primly seated on a velvet sofa, Lucienne, librarian of the Dreaming, quite deliberately did not sigh. She hardly had to – her silence spoke volumes. Marking her page with a delicate silver bookmark, she set the book to one side and stood, brushing at her immaculate waistcoat.

“I am so sorry,” she said, unsmiling but warm around the eyes. “I hate to cut this short, but –”

“Not at all, not at all,” Aziraphale replied, waving a hand and offering her as understanding a smile as he could muster4. He did, after all, have some notion of what it was like to work for an entity vastly more powerful than oneself, towards a cause that one broadly believed in but did occasionally cut into one's leisure time. “I gather it must be something frightfully important – you know, I'm not sure I've ever heard Lord Morpheus make such a polite request?”

That did bring a smile to his companion's face, small and conspiratorial, though still unflinchingly professional.

“As a matter of fact, since our Lord's return and his latest… trials, he has been making a considerable effort to show his appreciation to myself and the other residents of the Dreaming. Please don't misunderstand me, Lord Morpheus has always valued our work, but –”

Aziraphale nodded as she trailed off.

“He has, perhaps, come to realise that expressing his appreciation may be beneficial to both the work and morale,” he suggested. He didn't remember such tactics ever being successfully applied in Heaven, but they had worked a treat on dear young Warlock. It had been difficult on the poor boy, of course, to have positive reinforcement applied by two very different entities in completely opposing directions, but he had appeared to cope well enough with the confusion. Children were remarkably resilient that way.

“Exactly,” Lucienne agreed, apparently relieved that he understood. “You'll have to excuse me – of course, you're free to remain in the library as long as you like, and if there's anything else you need, just let the library know and one of the palace staff should be sent along to assist.”

So what could Aziraphale do but hum and thank her, before finishing his cup of tea and taking his leave of the Dreaming, after which he failed to give the incident a single thought more for several days?

Well. There were, perhaps, many things he could have done – but, crucially, he did none of them, and so such hypotheticals really don't matter very much in the grand scheme of things, do they?

And the first thing Crowley knew about it was the shrill ring of Aziraphale’s landline jolting him out of a very pleasant nap.

“Whozzit?” He muttered from his place face-down on the sofa. “‘m gonna kill’m.”

“Oh, you'll do no such thing,” Aziraphale scolded as he bustled over to the phone. “It's barely midday, it's a perfectly reasonable time to call. Hello? A Z Fell and Co rare books, I'm afraid we're very much closed for the rest of – oh! Well hello dear girl! How lovely to hear from you – you know, I was just saying to Crowley the other day, we –”

“Who is it?” Crowley repeated, this time managing to include enough syllables to make it three clear and distinct words. Not that it seemed to matter to Aziraphale, who made a complicated but ultimately meaningless hand gesture towards him but otherwise didn't answer.

“Yes of course I'm free to talk; anytime you need Anathema, you know that.” Which did at least answer Crowley's question. He blew out a noisy sigh and closed his eyes again. Might as well try to get a few more hours’ kip. Those two could natter like fishwives when they got into the swing of it.

“Adam? No, not since he popped ‘round last month during his reading week for a visit. Why do you –”

Aziraphale paused, and the silence stretched long enough that Crowley peeled his eyes back open. The angel had gone very, very pale, and the hand that gripped the phone was white-knuckled. Crowley frowned and pushed himself upright.

“You're quite sure?” Aziraphale asked faintly. Crowley's brows leapt up towards his hairline. “No, we haven't heard anything. Do his parents –?”

Slow and sinuous, Crowley unfurled himself from the sofa and inched towards Aziraphale, who appeared on the verge of shaking. It was, he had to admit, a little alarming to see. A chair that hadn't been behind the angel until a few moments ago5 let out a faint wumpf as he pushed Aziraphale down to sit on it. This close, he could hear the tinny echo of Anathema’s voice, but couldn't quite make out the individual words.

“We certainly haven't felt anything,” Aziraphale said. His free hand had curled around the arm of the chair – Crowley unpeeled his fingers and offered up his own hand as a sacrifice in place of the upholstery. “Neither of us get any word from, ah, the head offices anymore, as it were, but I haven't heard anything through any other channels, not that many of them keep in close touch these days. I don't suppose Agnes –?”

He paused to listen to her agitated response, lips pressed together. Crowley rubbed his thumb against the back of his knuckles, in the vain hope he might relax his grip a little. The little bones in his hand were in imminent danger of collision.

“Yes, yes, tell me now – I'll remember,” Aziraphale said with all the solemnity of a true vow. The tinny little echo of Anathema's voice came again, this time in a distinct rhythm that Crowley usually associated with poetry or prayer. Aziraphale nodded along, his brow furrowing the longer she went on, his own mouth shaping the occasional word as she went.

Crowley, meanwhile, was starting to get a headache.

“No, of course, of course, I'll let you know the moment I think of something,” Aziraphale said, which perhaps wasn't the hastiest promise he'd ever made to the witch, but did still make Crowley's skin itch vaguely. “Yes – he's right here, would you like to speak to him?”

Ignoring Crowley's increasingly frantic head shaking, Aziraphale handed the phone over. Crowley grimaced, weighed up the pros and cons of just hanging up (pros: it would be rude, which as a demon was something he was rather fond of being. Cons: it would be rude, which would upset Aziraphale, who was already looking remarkably distressed. Also, he may not get to find out what was going on), before accepting both the inevitable and the phone.

“Yeah?” He said, trying his best to sound like he didn't give a single damn about whatever Anathema had to say. Anathema, who was very used to this by now, and swiftly climbing the ranks of living people well-equipped to both see through and handle Anthony J Crowley, did not bother mincing her words.

“Adam's missing. Last seen yesterday evening, as best we can tell. His friends are looking for him the human way and running interference with the university and his parents, in case it's something… esoteric. Also, I have a new prophecy from Agnes that I think is about him, but I haven't quite managed to figure it out just yet. I thought you might know something.”

Crowley's blood ran cold. Well. Colder.

Most of Crowley's knowledge about what to do to find a missing human was both theoretical and gleaned from procedural police dramas, and he suspected that the angel's wasn't much better, except that he could likely replace procedural police dramas with Agatha Christie first editions. They hadn't even managed to find the right antichrist until the day of the apocalypse, and he hadn't technically been missing.

“He's definitely disappeared?” He tried, perhaps a little desperately. “He hasn't, er, just wandered off for a bit and forgot to text?” That was a thing, wasn't it? You had to wait for a day or two before you could call someone missing, if they were an adult doing their own thing. He was fairly sure that was a thing.

“Pepper says that he didn't go back to their accommodation last night, and all of his notes and books were still at the library. She thinks he must have his bag and his phone on him, but no-one’s been able to get through to him.” Anathema sounded harried, and the sharpness of her tone set something bristling in Crowley, before he forced himself calm again. Aziraphale was hurriedly scrawling something on a scrap of paper, so fast that the ink flew and dotted his hands and sleeves.

“So do they think he was – what, grabbed?” Crowley tried to imagine the sort of thing that would be capable of grabbing Adam if he didn't want to be grabbed, and succeeded only in feeling vaguely ill.

“No, but they think he must have left in a hurry and none of them know why, or why he wouldn't have contacted somebody.” The somebody like you went unsaid but very clearly implied.

“He didn't leave the stove on, I'm guessing?” Crowley asked hopelessly. Anathema did him the grace of ignoring that.

The problem, Crowley decided, was that there were simply too many places that Adam could have buggered off to to even begin narrowing the list down. He wouldn't know where to start. He wouldn't know how to start. There were very few places in the universe that Adam couldn't get into, if he put his mind to it. Heaven, he supposed, but that seemed very unlikely given that Adam's opinion of Heaven as a concept was ambivalent at best, and outright scornful at worst (Crowley was oddly proud of that, considering he'd had almost nothing to do with it).

“Fine. Well, did they find anything with his stuff at the library? A lingering smell of sulphur, a stray feather from, oh as a random example, an angel's wing? A helpful note detailing exactly where he was going and how long he might be gone for? A circle of runes burnt into the nearest flat surface large enough to walk through?”

“Oh yes, how silly of me, I completely forgot to mention the ransom note of newspaper clippings,�� Anathema replied, so lightly that it managed to loop back around to scathing. “No, of course there wasn't anything there.”

Crowley dragged in a breath, and let it out so gustily that he almost missed the little um that came down the line.

“What?”

“Um. Well, actually. Now that you mention it. Pepper did say that when she tried to call him, her phone sort of. Caught fire?”

Crowley blinked, which was something he didn't do often, and always felt a little bit weird about.

“It what?”

“Caught fire.”

“S’what I hoped you hadn't said.”

“Mhm. Shit?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, and his laugh was so far from humour that he suspected it wouldn't even be visible as a little dot on the horizon. “Couldn't have put it better myself.”

The first thing Crowley did after hanging up was try to phone Adam himself. It was lucky that angels, and those originally of angel-stock, had a good head for remembering numbers, though in this case it was made simpler by the fact that Adam had thought it was funny that every mobile number he'd had since he'd been gifted his first phone aged thirteen had ended with 666. He dialled quickly, and held his unnecessary breath as the phone began to ring. He glared down at the ancient landline, silently daring it to try anything so silly as bursting into flames. Whether because it feared a fate worse than fiery death, or just because it had no more reason to than at any other time it had been used, the phone did nothing more than ring. It then rang several more times, before a detachedly cheerful voice implored him to leave a voicemail.

Was that a good sign? Crowley honestly wasn't sure at this point. He made a note of it anyway, just in case.

Aziraphale groaned from his spot at his desk, and dropped his head into his hands.

“What?” Crowley asked. “What did Agnes have to say about all this?”

Aziraphale groaned again.

“Well that's half the problem,” he said. “Without any context it's almost impossible to be sure. Trying to decipher a prophecy before it's come to pass is like trying to derive meaning from –”

“From one particular needle in a stack full of other, identical and maybe just as important needles?”

“Well. Yes, now that you mention it,” Aziraphale turned to face him, wide eyed. “I just don't understand! There's been nothing for years, no movement from either side, no interest in Adam whatsoever. What could have possibly changed, and without either of us noticing?”

“I mean, are we sure it was Heaven or Hell? There's lots of other things out there that might be interested in the antichrist.” Not many that would be capable of hiding themselves from both an angel and a demon, and vanishingly few that would also be capable of persuading Adam to go with them. Unless he wanted to, of course, but Crowley was trying not to think about that too much. Would it be the better outcome for everyone involved? Possibly, but he wasn't willing to bet on it. Certainly not when he would be betting Adam's life, or mind, or general wellbeing6.

“But surely we still would have heard something. I know neither of us keep up with the latest news bulletins, but I hardly think any plans of this sort of scale would be quiet.”

It was a fair point. They each had their contacts among the various communities on this and a few other planes of existence. Not that either of them got out much these days, but it didn't take too much effort to send a letter here, or listen to an ominous whisper there. But, as Aziraphale had quite rightly pointed out, there had been nothing.

“Right, and I'm guessing you haven't accidentally been sent any golden post-its?”

Aziraphale shot him a look so withering that Crowley suspected it may have been used as a weapon of righteous smiting a time or two, back in the day.

“Of course not! I don't hear from Heaven any more than you do from Hell. Less, I should imagine. It's not as though my lot ever thought to take out advertising space in the middle of your new radio plays with the fancy name, or start keeping in touch via electronic mail.”

Resisting the urge to point out that they’re podcasts angel, not radio plays, we've been over this and I know you remember what they're called, I know you're doing this to me on purpose, because Aziraphale had, once again, made a very good point. Even if he wasn't aware of it.

"Huh. Yeah. Hang on – maybe Hell sent something out. Lemme check."

Crowley wove his way around the piles of books in a fashion that probably would have looked hurried on anyone else, but on him looked mostly like the room had rearranged itself to minimise the number of steps required to get to the door of Aziraphale's office.

"Let you check? Check what, Crowley, I didn't think you were, ah – what's the phrase? Connected to Hell's net-works anymore."

Perhaps one day Aziraphale would manage to drag himself into something resembling the twenty-first century, Crowley mused glumly. If the off-white plastic box humbly masquerading as a computer on his other desk were any indication, it wouldn't be before the world once again tried to off itself. He tapped the enter key impatiently a few times until the screen lit up, something that came as a terrible shock to the computer – which was, until that very moment, both switched off and unplugged. Crowley, who had never plugged in a single appliance in his life and didn't intend to start now, hadn't bothered to check.

Brilliant things, computers – except for when they weren't.

Despite its age, the computer in question had a healthy appetite for its continued existence, and so at Crowley's impatient prompting, navigated itself to Gmail without any of the ponderous delays it usually employed. Aziraphale was particularly forgiving of ponderous delays, as they provided an ample excuse to refill his mug of tea. Somehow, it suspected the irate demon wiggling the mouse wouldn't be quite as keen on a page that loaded just slowly enough to pop the kettle on.

The thing about Hell was that they wanted to give the impression that they were always aware of your every move, no matter what plane of existence you happened to be residing in at the time. It wasn’t true, of course – Crowley knew that better than almost anyone – but that didn't stop them putting in a reasonable amount of effort to maintain the illusion. Mostly it was just a bit of a hassle, but at times it could come in handy.

Like now, for instance. Hell wanted its agents on Earth to feel just as surveilled as the poor buggers still Down There, so as well as just butting into whatever you happened to be watching or listening to anytime they wanted your attention, they'd also made sure you could access every one of your emails, memos, and warnings from any service provider anywhere in any world. A bit unnerving, perhaps, but useful for any demon willing to get a bit creative7.

It was also a relatively impressive feat, given that Hell itself had only just managed to install dial-up a couple of years immediately prior to the world not-ending. Crowley'd only stuck his head in once or twice in that time, but the noise had been God… had been Satan…

It had been Someone-awful.

"Mm, I'm not, technically," Crowley replied, stabbing at the keyboard.

There was no technically about it. Crowley had been removed from Hell's mailing list, so to speak. His account had been wiped out, and it was mostly luck, a few miracles here and there, and currying favour with the then-pre-teen antichrist8 that had kept him from being wiped out right alongside it.

It was, then, fortunate that every demon in Hell had been assigned a username with the same standard formula (rank, hyphen, circle of Hell, hyphen, name) as well as the same password (HailSatan123!, no hyphens). It was also quite fortunate that Crowley was the only one capable of figuring out how to change the password9. He'd been keeping tabs on Hastur's account since the Apocalypse-that-wasn't; partly to stay in the loop, and partly to laugh at the ongoing chain between Hastur and Dagon as they argued over who would get to claim the soul of, as they put it, 'that Nigerian prince feller'.

The computer, having a better sense of self-preservation than most of the human race, accepted both username and password with remarkable speed, and only one single pop-up box that politely enquired if the user might like to save their password for their own convenience and improved experience in the future? At Crowley's pointed handwave, the box promptly vanished, and he was – as the hackers said – in.

It was tempting, as it always was, to take the time to sift through the near-countless unread emails to find something fun. The latest update in the exchange with Dagon (the subject line of which now had too many Re:s to be readable, but no doubt chronicled precisely how close they each were to securing the soul of the next in line to the Nigerian throne for their lord and master) was right there, bracketed by countless – pointless – memos from low-level imps, and a call for any last-minute rota swaps from Andromalius. Not that any swap requests would be entertained, much less honoured. Hard to swap shifts when you were always working, and utterly unable to escape.

"Well?" Aziraphale asked, having abandoned his heavenly patience at the door. Even the computer shuddered a little. Crowley, not to be outdone by a piece of hardware and also rather more certain of his place in Aziraphale's good graces, decidedly did not.

“Hold your bloody horses,” Crolwey muttered. “It's not like the idiot has any sort of organisational system. Or any sort of system at all, come to think of it.” He scrolled a little more, scanning in a way that he would never, under any circumstance, admit to being frantic. Aziraphale rested a hand soothingly on his shoulder, which he thought was a little rich, given the angel's reaction to Anathema's call.

In fact, his not-frantic scrolling was fast enough that at first, he glanced right past the innocuous little email that had been sent out to everyone from an email address that was, even to Crowley, incomprehensible, and whose subject line simply read: get out. He might have written it off as chain mail, of the sort that hadn't been seen anywhere except Hell for approximately ten years, and promised a grisly fate if one didn't send it on to at least twenty of one's dearest friends and family, were it not for the abiding sense of dread that filled him when he hovered the cursor over it10.

By definition, as a demon, Crowley wasn't meant to be put off by abiding senses of dread. In fact, he was meant to be not only drawn to senses of abiding dread, but also frequently responsible for them.

Despite this, Crowley found himself hesitating long enough that Aziraphale noticed.

“Do you think that's–?” He asked, trailing off as Crowley swallowed hard and opened the email. They both read in silence11, the dawning horror of its contents creeping up on them rather like a spider in the shower – that was to say, a moment of peace before they truly registered just what they'd seen, followed by an immediate rejection of any reality where this could be allowed to happen, particularly while one was already in so vulnerable a state as nudity, or having just received word that the antichrist was, once again, missing.

“That,” Aziraphale started, before taking a shaky breath and trying again. “That does at least explain what Agnes was on about with that bit about the Tempest.” He cleared his throat, which did absolutely nothing to help the situation, and continued, “I should probably phone Anathema back. Be a dear, and pop the kettle on, won't you? I think I could do with a strong cup of tea.”

Crowley nodded distantly, and made no move to get up. In the kitchenette at the back of the shop, the kettle obediently clicked itself on, having assumed (rightly) that Crowley wasn't quite up to the trip just yet. Instead, he just stared at the screen through blurry eyes and tried to pretend this was all just a bad dream.

Hell is empty, he thought morosely, reading over the email that was, for all intents and purposes, an eviction notice, and all the devils are here.

Meanwhile, some six miles away as the raven flies12, a young man slouched his way into a pleasant London pub just in time to miss the lunch rush.

1 Here, the reader may wish to substitute ‘supporting local businesses’ with ‘attempting to flirt with a local barista over poorly-roasted coffee and soggy pastries’

2 Adam was the only one among Them that had never succumbed to the tempting lure of the library's sleepy clutches, a point all of Them were working hard to ignore

3 Though to call it a book club was, perhaps, a generous exaggeration. For the most part it was two like-minded individuals enjoying a cup of tea in mutual, silent appreciation. The occasional discussions regarding fine literature and unusual misprints were a pleasant addition rather than a requirement

4 a more understanding smile had never before, nor since, been mustered

5 the chair in question was a rather hideous paisley, which left an unpleasant taste in Crowley's mouth but would serve to cheer the angel when he was again in a fit state to notice such things

6 And, by extension, lives, minds, and wellbeing of the rest of Creation

7 Crowley, exclusively

8 A simple enough endeavour for Crowley, as there is very little difference between a pre-teen antichrist and a pre-teen human, and functionally no difference at all between a pre-teen human and a demon

9 As well as the only one that had managed to switch on the spam filter

10 Not to be confused with the generally abiding sense of dread felt while one was generally checking one's emails

11 Aziraphale just a touch faster than Crowley, though the difference was so slight as to be effectively negligible

12 Which is not quite as direct as the crow flies, particularly if the raven in question is new to the job and easily distracted (not to mention still unpracticed at flying against the wind) but still a sight more direct than a magpie making the same trip

#good omens #sandman #crossover #aziraphale #crowley #anathema device #the Them #lucienne the librarian #not exactly a writing tag #important to note that I don't know what the timelines here are #like I guess if we're going with the shows then it's a few years between the end of sandman s1 and seasons of mists #also this is only compliant with s1 of good omens and I'm absolutely cherry picking from canon #ALSO important to note that Warlock works at the New Inn and has a cat called Stalks By Night better known as Socks

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spicedeluxe · 2 years

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01 | BULLET HEART

SUMMARY: You and Leon explore the area more thoroughly. Though you had thought it was abandoned, you two come across strange villagers who seem to have an issue with you. Something’s off, but neither of you can figure out what.

RINA’S NOTE: hello again! you’re back! a lot is happening in this chapter. it’s very fun! i hope to expand on some characters dynamics with you. also yes i gave leon a cat allergy. IM NOT SORRY!! spacers are also introduced in this chapter so it shows that a bit of time passes. it gives you guys a bit of a break as well so that it doesn’t run for too long. apologies if it looks weird on light mode cause it looks best on dark mode… i’ll try and fix it when i get some time. finally, plagas![name] is coming. you guys are not ready. this one’s gonna shake the table….

WARNINGS: More Canon Divergence, More Violence. More Bullshit being thrown at you. Leon’s testing the waters. Just trying to get a feel for you. not literally. yet.

¹ - “forasteros!!” (OUTSIDERS!!!🗣🗣) you have to yell for the full effect lmfao

² - “ellos estan por aqui! avisar a los de mas!” (there they are! warn the others!)

RESIDENT EVIL © CAPCOM (capcom what’s your favorite ramen noodle flavor??)

You reload your gun with the measly two bullets Leon gave you. You should’ve asked for more, but it was probably too late by now. Your partner had already begun loading more bullets into his chamber.

Leon decided to lead, returning to the front of the house. “Follow me.”

His count was spot on. Three people were in front of the house, holding their weapons up. They sluggishly moved towards the two of you at first, but neither of you gave them the chance to advance further and become aggressive, shooting them at least once or twice.

Leon had enough gall to go up to the last one after shooting and kicked them right down. It certainly surprised you, to say the least!

“Didn’t know you were flexible.” You comment. “Or that you even knew how to fight!”

“I’m more interested in how flexible you are.” He counters, eyeing the magazine of his gun. “I mean in battle, of course. I know martial arts. What about you?”

You ponder over his sentence for a minute. He’s sick, pausing in the middle of his sentence like that. But for some reason, you weren’t entirely mad at it either.

The way he worded it made your face warm. Just for that, he doesn’t get an answer. Instead, you decide to deflect. “Do you try this with all the people you work with?”

“Maybe. But let’s save it for another time. I’ve got something I need to see.” It was a good thing he moved on because you were about to spontaneously combust. Seriously.

With Leon retaking the lead once more, you two continue your journey. He goes back the way you originally came, peeking over a cliff. “[Name], you might want to see this.” He says, shaking his head. “Careful. It’s slippery. I wouldn’t want you to fall.”

You approach him, taking your time so you don't fall off. “Is that…?”

Below you was the sound of water crashing against two vehicles. A truck and….the police car that had dropped you two off. “How’d that happen?”

“Must’ve been what we heard earlier. I looked outside and saw the truck driving past. I think it came from the right pathway.” He jabs a thumb behind him. “We’ll head back and see what else we can find.”

“We’ll have to tell Hunnigan, right? There’s no way to get anywhere else since the car is gone. Police officers might be down there too.” You say. Just to be sure, you lean a bit further. “HELLO! CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?!“

Your yells echo to no avail. No response at all.

“Guess no one’s home.” Leon shrugged. It was possible that the cops had escaped from the car and were just wandering elsewhere. “We should keep going. We might find them along the way. Worst case scenario, we find them dead. We can call Hunnigan later.”

“Okay.” You nod, carefully taking a few steps back from the ledge.

In little to no time, you two went back in the direction of the house, this time taking the pathway on the right. There was a shed right next to it, presumably to store tools.

But there are only boxes in here….and a typewriter? That’s strange. Out of everything in the room, the typewriter seemed to be the only intact thing in the room. You looked over it for a moment before gently tapping one of the keys. It clicked in response, the letter ‘H’ appearing on the paper.

Huh.

Even stranger was the pack of ammunition conveniently placed next to it. Had someone been here before you, or was it just luck that had brought you here? For some reason, you felt comfortable and safe even if it was a bit exposed to the outside.

It just felt right.

Leon slashing open a box on a shelf interrupted your small moment of bliss (if you could even call it that). “Found some more money.” He says. “Looks like there’s a herb if we get hurt.”

“I, on the other hand,” You began, holding up your treasure. “…found ammunition.” You shake the box lightly. “Says there’s ten on the cover. What do you say we split it in the middle?”

Leon saved his hand. “Nah. Found some earlier. Thanks though.”

Well, that would would bring you back to....hm, around eleven or twelve. But if shooting at hostiles was anything like earlier, you’d be running low in no time.

Leon exits outside, immediately drawing his pistol and shooting two birds. The squawking sounds made you leave the shed, looking at him questionably.

“What’d you do that for??”

“They were holding something.” He jogs over and picks up not only MORE money but a hand grenade as well. “Knew it looked weird from here. Its feathers were all puffed up.”

You look at him and back down at the crow. “Wow…” That grenade must have been deliberately placed there, poor thing. Did someone want it to explode?? You come closer to an ominous wooden structure with dried blood on the decaying wood. Hanging from two branches that intersected were skulls, maggots crawling from the eyelids.

You couldn’t help but stare at it. For some reason, you just couldn’t look away. It was like the structure was whispering your name. The world seemed to slow down, deafening every noise you heard. The only thing you could hear was your heartbeat…

A pair of fingers in front of your face had begun to snap to get your attention before it retreats and instead shakes your shoulder. “Hey. Earth to [Name]?” You look at him curiously and he raises an eyebrow at you. “You zoned out there. I thought something was wrong. Didn’t you hear me call you?”

“Sorry.” You apologize. “I’m just thinking about some things.” The sounds of whimpering nearby made you look away. “What’s that?” It sounded like it must’ve been injured.

Right behind the structure was a wolf, whimpering from its leg being caught in a bear trap. The wound looked fresh, seeing as there was still blood pooling around the bottom. You jump into action, making your way over as fast as possible.

“We’ve gotta open this,” You say, kneeling. You place your hands around the cold metal, trying your best to pry it open to no avail. “…can you help me, Leon?”

He nods. Leon was a bit stronger than you, so he might have some luck opening it. You stand up and move out of his way so he can replace your spot. He kneels and slowly pries the bear trap open as you coax the wolf out.

“C’mon.” You coo, holding your hand out. “You can do it! Come on.”

The wolf slowly lifts its hind leg out of the trap, limping over to you. Unfortunately, you had no medical supplies at the moment, so you couldn’t wrap it up. Your frown turns into a smile as it licks your hand before shaking its coat out.

“You’re a dog person?”

The bear trap snapping shut startles you. Leon notices and smirks, but you quickly recompose yourself.

“I like cats and dogs.” You say. The wolf seemed grateful for both of its saviors, though it looked like it favored you over Leon. “I don’t necessarily like to pick.” You gave the wolf one last pet on its head before it barked at you and ran off. “I’m sure this was a wolf, but they come from the same family anyway.”

“Good to know. I’m more of a dog person myself.” Leon moves forward, prompting you to follow. “Cats just make me sneeze all the time.”

“So, you’re just allergic?” You ask, a small smile on your face.

“No, can’t be.” He says. “I just sneeze a lot around them. I have no clue why.”

Yeah right. You were 100% sure Leon was just allergic to cats. Whether he didn’t want to admit it or genuinely didn’t know was a mystery. It made you laugh a bit.

Leon holds out his arm in front of you, halting your laughter. “Tripwires. Watch it.”

Those tripwires seemed purposely attached to the trees that had a path going through them, wanting to catch anyone who wasn’t paying attention off guard. Instead, you two pass through the tall grass to get through.

“Forasteros!!”¹

On instinct, you take your gun out. Just ahead of you was an irate villager holding an axe. Perhaps he had gotten word of what happened not too long ago….

Either way, you point your gun at him and shoot twice. After the second shot, his head explodes, blood and other brain matter splattering over nearby rocks.

“Ugh, gross.” You mutter.

“Nice shot. Keep it up, and I’m sure you could get a promotion.” Leon compliments, patting your shoulder. “Must’ve hit some sort of pressure point with the way his head exploded.“

The fact he wasn’t affected at all by it still bewildered you. It was expected for you not to know much about him since all you’ve ever heard was how mysterious and hot.. he was, but it was a bit strange to listen to him brush things off as if it was nothing.

“Looks like there’s a bridge up next. Let’s cross.”

You just nod. Leon Kennedy was a strange individual, that’s for sure.

By now, you and Leon have safely crossed the bridge and found yourselves near a denser village. You weren’t close enough to compromise your positions, but also not far enough to be unable to see.

The smell of smoke had filled your nostrils. Upon arriving in the area, there was a big fire in the center of the village.

Leon briefly lowers his binoculars, turning his head to check on you. Of course, you hadn’t noticed, only keeping watch behind you in case someone snuck up on you two.

Not like you’d go anywhere else anyway.

He turns back around, lifting them back up one last time. “A lot of people around here. I didn’t know nursing homes held bonfires.”

You turn to him questionably. “….Nursing home? What? Give me those binoculars. Let me see!“ He hands it over, and you lift it to look through them. While those people did look old, Leon was just being dramatic.

It looked like there was one of the officers on the fire..so much for wandering around. “Looks like there’s an officer in the fire…” You say.

Something else you noticed was how they moved. It was sluggish, just like the man you saw earlier. They were most definitely human, but there was something off with how they staggered around.

“Are we going to head over?” You ask, lowering the binoculars.

“We don’t have a choice. Come on.”

He was right. Looking through them more time, you see some villagers were holding shovels, pitchforks, and just about anything they could find. It gave you the idea that if you went in, you definitely wouldn’t be welcome.

On the bright side, it seemed that some villagers were doing little things like collecting water or tending to cattle. So maybe they’d be less hostile?

There were haphazardly built fences all around you as you entered the vicinity. Leon was in front of you, taking out his gun and holding it close.

You hadn’t put your gun away quite yet as you were still on guard for hostiles. As you walked forward, a squawk coming from under you made you stop and look down.

You stepped on….a chicken??

“Woah, watch out.” You say, chuckling nervously. The chicken runs away, feathers falling off as it does so. “Chickens.”

Your partner stops and turns to look at you. “You should eat it.“

“Shut up.”

“Ellos estan por aqui! Avisar a los de mas!”²

You and Leon turn around to see villagers ready to swarm you two. Wasting no time, you pull the trigger of your gun and begin to shoot.

One. Then two. Then three.

The more you shot, the more that kept showing up. You didn’t have enough ammo for this, and you only used fighting as a last resort. Leon took another approach, only kicking villagers once he stunned them with a bullet.

You should probably try that too. But, for now, you continue to shoot. One after another, people just kept showing up. “Leon! There’s too many of them!” You yell, backing up. “I’m running out of ammo!”

It was all getting a bit too much, so Leon glanced behind him for a split second before roughly grabbing your arm. “Come on.”

“Ow!” You whine. He drags you into a nearby house, almost throwing you inside first before slamming the door shut, nearly knocking it off its hinges.

Leon runs over to the window to look outside. You shake your arm off, his firm grip leaving your arm stinging. The sounds of revving outside capture both of your attention, with Leon groaning, “Great, chainsaw.”

A CHAINSAW??

“That’s what that was?!” You ask incredulously. Leon doesn’t answer you, pushing an empty bookcase in front of a boarded-up door. “Um, hey, Leon? I don’t think you’ve noticed, but we’re trapped here!”

The sound of shattering glass startled you, and Leon immediately sprang into action. “I’ll figure something out. Push that drawer in front of the door. I’ll be back.” He orders, rushing up the stairs.

“Wait—!”

He’s already gone. Your worried gaze turns over to where the bookcase was. The villagers were banging on it so hard that it was only a matter of time before it came crashing down.

“Fuck!“ You curse, rushing over to push the drawer. “Fucking—Shit!” Funnily enough, most of the villagers on the other side returned your colorful words, even if you had no clue what they were saying verbatim.

All you knew was that they were angry. Very, very angry. But so were you, even if your fright took up most of that portion.

You’re not used to this. People actively trying to kill you weren’t a part of your missions. Sure, you’d get in altercations every so often, but THIS?

Oh, absolutely not.

Leon comes rushing downstairs, almost tripping on his footing. “[Name]! You alright?”

“What do you think?!”

“Take this!” In his haste, he throws a box of ammo at you and you catch it, frantically reloading your gun.

The bookcase was finally pushed down and completely collapsed onto the floor, allowing villagers to crawl in from the outside. Then, in a panic, you lift your gun, ready to shoot.

“I’ll throw a grenade.” He says. Leon could tell you were nervous. The shaky tone of your voice told him as much. “We’ll be fine. Just have your gun ready.”

You look at him with confusion. “What? Wouldn’t that take the whole house down..?”

“Nah. I don’t think this one’s strong enough.”

Before you could protest, Leon pulled the pin on the grenade and chucked it across the room. He backs up, taking you with him so your backs are literally against the wall.

The grenade explodes, knocking down most villagers coming into the house. Dust particles fly from the ceiling, making you cough into your arm. At least most of them were down!

Hell, one villager even tried to throw a pickaxe at you! With good precision, you shoot it, the bullet making a “CLANG” sound upon impact.

Leon didn’t let you do all the work by yourself, though. He had been shooting, but not with his pistol. Somehow, he had acquired a shotgun.

The sound of gunfire and Spanish filled the air. You had to raise your voice so Leon could hear you. “Where the hell’d you get that from?”

“Upstairs!” He replies.

Villagers just kept swarming in. The revving sound of a chainsaw starting up again had really shaken you up. No way he got in...

You had to get rid of him immediately! Without any second thoughts, you start to unload your clip onto him. Every time he got up, you’d keep shooting. You had to ensure he was dead before he had the chance to slice you and Leon up into pieces.

The sound of a ringing bell had made the villagers stop in their tracks, dropping their weapons and sluggishly heading over to the sound.

You and Leon find it strange, especially when they attacked you maliciously. The two of you rush outside to see them retreat to god knows where.

Leon looks around in confusion. “Where’s everyone going? Bingo?”

“Must be a big prize today…” You mutter. Just where could they be going? Could it have been where the bell was coming from? You were sure they weren’t just attending church….

The sound of the communicator made you look over towards Leon, who had brought it out to report back. “Hunnigan, we’ve got some bad news. We’ve confirmed the body of an officer. Something’s happened to the people here.”

“You two need to get out of there. Look for a tower. Try following a trail near it.” She orders.

“Got it.” He hangs up and turns to you. “You heard the lady. Let’s get moving.”

Truth be told, you wanted to sit down for a moment and take a breather. That ambush on the house really shook you up. But you couldn’t. Every minute wasted raised the possibility of Ashley’s endangerment.

You take a breath. “Okay.”

“Do you need to stop for a minute?” Leon suddenly had a change of heart, noticing you were literally shaking. “There’s no one here, so if you need to sit, we can find somewhere to go.”

“It would be nice, but we’ve gotta gotta keep going right?”

“I’ve got something to show you anyway. You can take a breather.” He reassured, taking out a wrinkled piece of paper from his coat pocket. “I’ll read it to you.”

Leon clears his throat before beginning.

“Recently, there has been information that The United States government has sent two agents to investigate the village. Do not let these agents get in contact with the prisoner. For those of you not yet informed, the prisoner is being held in an old house behind the farm. We will transfer the prisoner to a more secure location in the valley when we are ready. The prisoner is to stay there until further notice. Meanwhile, do not let the agents near the prisoner.…—“

Are they really holding Ashley in an old house beyond the farm? What farm…? There had to be one around here somewhere.

“—We do not know how the American government found out about our village, but we are investigating. However, I feel that this intrusion at this particular time is not just a coincidence. I sense a third party other than the United States government involved here. My fellow men, stay alert.” He finishes the note, his eyes trailing down to the end. “Then it’s signed off by the chief named Bitores Mendez.”

“That tells us all we need to know then. If we happen to find this Bitores Mendez on the way, we should question him. Maybe detain him if possible?” You suggest.

Perhaps getting Ashley back would be easier than you thought.

“Fine with me.” Leon comes over to you, setting a hand on your shoulder. “You did good, by the way. Don’t let it overwhelm you.”

You can’t help but smile. “Thanks. It was a little too much at once, but I guess I’ll have to experience that more often if I get that promotion, huh?”

“Sure will.”

As you advanced through the forest, the sky just seemed to get darker and darker. Every time you looked up, it was like a storm brewing.

A storm that’d never come. Something you knew was inevitable, but had no idea when it would strike.

It was just misfortune after misfortune for you two. First, someone tried to run you over with a large boulder. Then, someone tried snipping your leg off in a bear trap. Someone even tried to take your head off with an axe! Throwing a pickaxe at you was one thing, but shit!

In your opinion, being flattened by a boulder would’ve been the worst of all. The villagers on top of the bridge had to pay for that. You didn’t even wait; you decided to shoot them from under the bridge they were located.

You realize it wasn’t going to rain, no. It looked like it had never rained around these parts. Everything was dying.

Even the houses were dying. One wrong move, and the foundation seemed like it would crumble down on you. All you’ve done so far was investigate the area.

This place seemed like a farm. Well, what was left of it, at least. Dried bales of hay lay on the ground, with tiny bits of grass scattered around on the ground. Numerous cattle and other animals were around; some ran free, like the chickens and occasional rabbit.

There were villagers scattered around, but they were relatively easy to take down. None of them had weapons. It did take more than one shot to kill them though….

The last house to be investigated in the area had a lock on it. Because Leon had been so kind enough to move things around for you previously, you decide to do him a solid.

He watches you as you pull out a safety pin, kneeling to wiggle it into the lock. “There’s no way that’s gonna work.”

“Oh yeah? Wanna bet?”

“I’ll give you five bullets if you can get it open. You give me five if you can’t.” He wagers.

That’s suitable. You’ve picked locks with inconspicuous items before. Hairpins, safety pins, and even a paper clip. You were a rookie, but you’ve trained long enough to retain some information. Some of those classes would pay off.

You wiggle it around, coming closer so you can hear better. The lock resists your attempt for a moment before you can hear a slight ‘click’ sound.

Success! The lock falls onto the ground. You get up and dust yourself off, holding your hand out afterward. “Those bullets, sir?”

“Right…” Leon may have been impressed, but he was really betting that you couldn’t get it open. He reluctantly hands over five.

“Thank you.” You reload the magazine happily. “Let’s keep going.”

This house was even worse than the other ones you’ve been in. Instead of wood, the door was metal, leading you to believe there’s something important here.

You suspected the important thing was Ashley, as this was the last house behind the farm. You couldn’t imagine being stuck in here yourself. The sight of the peeling walls made you shake your head in dismay. Just an all around health hazard.

There’s yet another typewriter on the table. It’s also in perfect condition like the other one.

You couldn’t fight the urge to go over and type ‘Hello!’. It’s satisfying to see the letters pop up on the white paper and even though emails were more convenient, you enjoyed how vintage it was.

While the machine was entertaining you, Leon scoured the house, opening drawers and pushing things out of the way.

The sound of banging made you look up. “What is that?” It stops for a minute before it repeats louder than the first time.

Leon walks around idly for a moment, trying to listen. The sound only gets louder once he nears an empty shelf. It was undeniable something was behind it.

“Something’s behind here.” He says, shoulder pushing the shelf out of the way. Upon entering this not-so-hidden room, a closet was on the far left.

Not only was it something, but this also had to be someone. This had to be Ashley Graham! You approach the closet slowly, lifting the latch and throwing open the door.

A man fell out, wriggling and squirming. Leon points his gun at him, and he becomes frantic. You hold your hand out to stop your partner from going further and lean down so you can rip the tape off his mouth.

“Agh..a little rough, don’t you think? But, if that’s what you’re into, I don’t really mind.”

Leon flips him over harshly, untying his hands. His words gave you a chuckle. Maybe you were into that kind of stuff, he didn’t have to know!

“You two aren’t like them?” He questioned, his voice laced with uncertainty.

Leon shakes his head. “No. You?”

After being freed from his restraints, the man rolls over, rubbing his wrists tentatively. He’s finally able to take a breath, one that sounds relieved. “Nope. But I have only one very important question. Any of you got a smoke?”

“No, sorry.” You apologize. “I don’t smoke.”

Leon pulls out a packet of mint gum. “….I’ve got gum.”

“And you didn’t even offer me any?” You roll your eyes.

Two villager men holding weapons had suddenly entered the room. Behind them was a very tall man, his footsteps booming as he came forth.

“Perfect.” The man on the floor mutters. “The big cheese.”

This so-called “big cheese” stares at you three with a hardened gaze. His eyes go from Leon, to the man on the floor, then right towards you. You stare back with unease.

Leon runs towards him, prepared to attack. He lifts his leg to try and kick him, but the big cheese catches it and launches him towards you and the man.

Once he had collided with you, all you saw was the ceiling. Black spots had splotched into your vision, but as you leaned your head back, you could see the man looming over you.

Your final exhale made you close your eyes, finally seeing nothing but black.

#leon you want to see how WHAT #[name] is saving their progress do not bother them #LUISSSSSSS #leon kennedy imagine #leon kennedy x reader #resident evil x reader #resident evil 4 x reader #resident evil 4 reader insert #ada wong imagine #ada wong x reader #luis sera imagine #luis sera x reader #ashley graham imagine #resident evil imagine #resident evil x you #BULLET HEART SERIES

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clay-tries-his-best · 10 months

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FIRE FORCE SPOILERS PROBABLY!!!

a praising (???) of Viktor Licht from a fan (im not good with words bare with me please)

ok i feel like im a little obligated to say why i like Viktor Licht from fire force so much considering not only do i have a full list of every chapter in the entire manga he appears in, am on my journey of making stickers of him, and draw him practically anytime i can. my teachers this year are going to see this guy on my work just a bit. (i am lying it's going to be a lot.)

okay, im like 99% sure he's autistic. and im autistic. the autism radar is going insane whenever i look at him. if you take a look at his character sheet, which is at the back of book 10, it says something next to his nickname section that just SCREAMS autism to me.

in case you can't read it, it says, "i do understand common sense, whether or not i choose to use it." that sounds like what i, and many more autistic people have to do. i understand what's acceptable, and force myself to use it even if i think it's strange or unnecessary. also, hes only seen making direct eye contact with people he trusts, like shinra or joker. the rest of the time, he's staring, but not in the eyes of anyone. he's also very blunt with that he does. in his very first company 8 appearance in the beginning of book 7, he dives down to touch shinra's feet because he was interested in the adolla burst. in book 22 when they were in the nether, Viktor is running, turns a corner, and accidentally activated tamaki's lure. except it doesn't really bother him, because he's happy to see his company members, ignoring what he just did on accident.

again, in this panel here, he's very open with what he's wanting to see when they're quite literally infiltrating haijima, despite being right beside the security guard. shinra even comments on this, but he seems to have thought that it was a totally okay thing to say. shortly after we are told that he's aware that haijima is planning to kill him, and just talks about it like it's a regular thing to have a major company want you dead.

he also has a very active workspace, as shown here. yet, in the chapter before he's sent to the chinese peninsula, he knows exactly where his needed stuff is in the mess. that might be more of an adhd characteristic, but it seemed like a good point.

another highly regarded autistic trait is being incredibly fixated on one thing, wanting to spend all your time on it. Viktor's hyperfixation is science, and figuring out spontaneous human combustion. he's seen dedicating most of his life to figuring out why people go up in flame. it's said that autistic people excel in their chosen area of study, and of course, i think you can guess what his is.

he also has trouble regulating his voice level, usually seeming to get louder when he's excited or very nervous, like when he yells on accident in the nether the second time when he realizes that he's going to be "roasted alive". he gets all giggly and excited when talking about science in the right panel (or bottom panel??), even when it's a serious topic. he does get feedback that this is a "weird" and "inappropriate" time to be excited. sound familiar, fellow autistics??? on the left (or top! again i have no idea) he's instinctively raising his voice at shinra, wanting to know about what happened to him in adolla.

i don't have the panel yet, but in book 10, shinra and sho are fighting in the nether, right? (this book is literally THE viktor licht autism book im telling you) he accidentally gets too close, smiling and laughing once he realizes, even saying "whoopsie daisy! i got so excited, i got too close for comfort!" during this whole fight, he's watching his friend get injured in the fight, and he's worried at times, yes, but when he's explaining sho's power, which is science based, he's smiling. he even messes (stims, really.) with his hair and gets sweaty, which are both common autistic responses. as he watches shinra and his brother fight, he notices that shinra could quite literally make a black hole in the middle of the room. and y'know what he does? giggles and smiles again, saying it would be "a scientist's dream" to witness a black hole. not sure that a regular scientist would want to die getting sucked into one, but okay.

i was looking through an "autistic traits in adults" list just to make sure i didn't miss anything, and woah boy. "makes unusual or strange facial expressions". cmon. it's stated from multiple people, mostly tamaki, that the faces licht makes are weird or strange. he also used his hands when he's talking quite usually, either touching his face or using them to express urgency. mostly his face, though. another stim maybe??

there's probably more y'know cause he's just all around an autistic guy, but that's my little analysis of his autism summarized. now that i think about it this is more of a "why he's autistic because i love his autism because it gives me someone to relate to" kind of thing but i can go into that now cause that's kind of a good idea.

OKAY so y'know i really do look up to Licht because he really just makes me smile everytime i see him in the manga. im a manga-only btw if that wasn't clear already. i own the emglish omnibus books which are 3-in-1s basically and i cannot tell you how overjoyed i was that Licht got on the cover of the fourth one. i admire him in so many ways because one, hes this scary guy in the beginning that even makes shinra turn away at the tryouts, all nervous. just for them to become besties later, saving each other's lives like 9 times. hes the type of guy that I just love so much, and not romantically either. i don't want to kiss him or anything, i just want to be his friend. ykwim. maybe. but yeah, he's my favorite and he'll always be my favorite and my c.ai chats with him will forever be positive.

i highly recommend fire force by atsushi ohkubo, and may Viktor Licht captivate you as being your favorite when he makes his grand entrance in book 7! :]

#arghhh i have such an attachment to this guy #what a silly guy #viktor licht #fire force #fire force licht #en en no shōbōtai #enen no shouboutai #fire force manga #manga spoilers #manga recommendation #claysketchesstuff #im feral for him #autistic characters #from an autistic #autism #PLEASE OHKUBO CONFIRM MY DESPERATENESS

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gamesbyalbie · 2 months

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The Cursed Journey

PART 8: MOTIVE

"What does this even mean?" Michael's face scrunches up. "To Kelly with the cool bangs?"

I snort. "It's exactly what it says."

"But who is Kelly? Is this a reference? Am I missing something? Is there anything—or anyone—you need to tell me about?"

I look away from the hologram and roll my eyes. Hopefully, he still hasn't upgraded his phone and the projection's too blurry for him to tell. "Just print it, Michael. It's non-negotiable."

"Okay." His shoulders appear as he makes an exaggerated shrug. "But you know people are going to talk when we release this. Right?"

"Sure. People will theorize. Let them." I can hear exasperation seeping into my voice. The tremor is back in my hands and I can feel a cluster headache gathering like storm clouds. "My private life is public property. I'm a character as much as I am a writer." I shake a small white pill out of an orange bottle. "You should be happy if people are talking," I grumble before tossing the pill into my mouth, swallowing it dry—a decision I immediately regret. "That's what you want. Isn't it?"

"I suppose. But that's not all they're gonna talk about. Tobi and the Brain Worm isn't exactly what people have been waiting for. I need you to be prepared for that."

I wince internally. "I know." People are gonna be pissed, disappointed, confused. But I'm not a machine, and it's these weird little experiments that keep me going. I'm doing all I can to hold the curse at bay.

"You're gonna have to do press for this."

I sigh. "Do I?"

"Yes! Of course. Ody, people are losing faith. It's been over a year since Neo Olympus dropped." I grimace. He doesn't have to constantly remind me of that. I don't think he'd spontaneously combust if he went a whole day without mentioning it. "You're lucky you write so well. People give you a lot more patience than normal." He means I'm lucky bots still can't replicate my work. "But your fans aren't gonna be satisfied with some quirky little sci-fi novel about Tobi and her brain worm unless they know something bigger is coming. I need you to reassure them of that."

"Well, if I spend time reassuring them, I won't have time to produce it."

"How much more time do you need?" Michael squeals. "You just wrote a novel in three days. That sequel should be finished by now! Hell, the series should be finished by now."

I look away. "It—it nearly is."

"Ody Specter... tell me you aren't writing Act 3 again."

I'm silent for a moment too long. "I just—"

"Unbelievable! Do you need me to come over and watch you? Like a child doing their homework? Cause I'll do it."

"No! No. I'll get it done."

"Tonight. You will get it done tonight."

"Fine."

"Fine, what?"

"Fine, I'll finish it tonight."

"Okay. You better. And Ody, you know I'm only doing this because I care about you, right?"

"Yes." No, I don't know that. How could I be sure of that? I'm your source of income. I'm a product you sell.

"Good." Michael sighs. "Good."

"But—" Anxiety gnaws at my stomach. "What if it isn't good?"

"Pardon?"

"The sequel. What if it isn't what they've been waiting for? People have already waited ages for this, if I then release something that's disappointing—"

"Stop. Ody, Listen to me." Michael interrupts. I allow it. I don't really want to finish my sentence. "Do not worry about that. Okay? Two things. Number one: I believe in you. You are your own worst critic and you're never gonna be fully satisfied with what you create. That's the burden of being an artist. Trust me, I've worked with enough of you to know that." I brush a tear off my cheek. "Number two: people are going to be assholes. There's no avoiding that. Either they're shitty trolls or people so invested in your story and characters that they treat them like they own them. You'll never give those people what they want, and you don't have to. You can't let your fear of disappointing strangers keep you from creating something you love. And I know how much you love this—how much you care. Just... get it out there. Share it. And remember, there's always more people who silently appreciate you than who vocally critique you. However it turns out, people will love it—and those who don't love it, don't matter."

"Thanks, Michael." Warm calm settles over me. "I needed to hear that."

"Don't mention it. It's my job to be here for you. While I have you here, they also want you to do press for Min-joon's book."

"You're shitting me, right?" The calm is yanked away, exposing my back to harsh cold. "That is not Min-joon's book. There's no way I'm going to show support for that factory produced, plagiarized crap. You should be grateful I'm not publicly denouncing it!"

Recently, that's all I've wanted to do. It aggravates me so much to see people praising it on every platform. It's a lie. A scam. A forgery.

Michael sent me a copy last week. I ripped it apart and set it on fire.

Apparently, it's a solarpunk love story about a robot tea farmer and a human antiquarian. I don't know. I only skimmed through parts of it before the nausea turned unbearable and my urge to destroy it became all-consuming.

What I do know is that everyone else in the world seems to be wet with anticipation. Every major news outlet has been calling it, "the ultimate friends to lovers story." Or, "a revolutionary tale with intoxicating worldbuilding." My old boss at Biblio called it, "the most serenely beautiful work of fiction she's ever read."

I could slap every single one of them. Right in the face. Just slap the shit out of them. Maybe then they'd come to their senses and see that nothing has been created. This book, as good as it may be, is manufactured bullshit hiding under Min-joon's name—wearing his style, tone, themes, etc. as camouflage.

"Listen, Ody, I know you've felt that way, but—"

"But what, Michael? There's no past tense. I do feel this way."

"I know, I get it. Trust me... but Mr. Steel called me today. Literally, he called me. He wants to speak with you, to see if you'll reconsider."

"Well, next time he honors you with a call, tell him to eat fucking glass. That'll be less painful than trying to convince me to support him and his despicable actions."

"But you just send them the unfinished work. Or just the ideas! They'll write it for you. They'll even make it sound like you if you give them enough. There's no risk. No danger! You barely have to lift a finger—"

"Never, Michael. Never."

"Fine. I'll tell them it's a no."

"And don't bring it up again."

"I won't. But remember, this means you have to work. You have to write. You have to finish this story, then do it all over again. You turn Steel down and that's your only option. It doesn't have to be perfect—that's what editing is for—just... do it. You make this harder than it has to be. And if you need to," he stops for a moment. I can see debate in his eyes even through the hologram. "Think about Min-joon. If nothing else, do it for him."

A visceral snarl rips from my throat. "Do you think I'm not doing that? Every second, of every fucking day?"

"No. Ody, that's not—I'm just trying to motivate you."

"I don't need motivation! Surprisingly, the threat of death and need to support my loved one is more than enough. And, for the record, I'm not making this hard. This is hard. Really fucking hard!" A cauldron of rage starts to boil over, searing and charring my insides.

It's unproductive. Everything about this. This has been a massive waste of time and—the more I get worked up—the more time I'll continue to waste. I need to get out. Fast.

"I'll call you in the morning."

"Okay, g—"

I toss my phone on my bed and walk over to the windows. My hands fly to my face and neck, rubbing the overwhelming emotion from my tense muscles. I look out at the urban landscape, doing my best to cool my furious blood—to quiet the string of violent obscenities parading through my head.

The sun hangs low in the sky. Dark brushstrokes of clouds cross the vast expanse. It's almost a perfect rainbow—dark purple overhead gradually turning to fiery crimson along the horizon. The lit windows and labyrinthine streets are equally beautiful, creating a tapestry of electric life.

It's distracting. Hopefully calming. Perhaps even inspiring.

Hmm, maybe... I look back at my office door. No. Being generous, it would take me at least thirty minutes of strained grunting and heaving to get my desk out here. By that time, the sunset would be long gone. There's no time, you worthless piece—

I force myself to turn away and drag my body back to the study. Michael is right, as much as I loathe to admit it.

I have work to do.

End of Part 8 of ? • LAST PART • NEXT PART (coming soon)

More Cursed Journey • More by Albie • Image Source

The amazing music video that inspired this:

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#writing #fiction #short fiction #draft #cursed journey #dpr ian #don't go insane #albie writes #part 8

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fernweh-writes · 3 years

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Hey, can I maybe request the slasher with an S/O that is a native German speaker and that she has a hard time speaking English? Or just a s/o that isn’t a native English speaker?

Like she can understand English really good but when she has to speak she begins to stutter and maybe how she pronouns words is kinda wrong? And that she is really insecure about it and her accent and afraid that it’s not understandable what she says?

I already say thank you really much!!💕

I’m always more than happy to write wholesome slasher hc’s! Hopefully I titled this correctly, if not please correct me.

-Fern🌿

Slashers x Non Native English Speaker

Michael Meyers

This boy is not fazed by anything ever, reacts to nothing. It’s safe to say his poker face is absolutely unmatched. You won’t have to worry about weird looks or an annoyed response from Michael.

His patience is also unmatched. All that stalking takes time you know. So he’s more than okay with giving you time to say things correctly if you need it. In other words, it’s okay take your time.

Always makes sure to nod so that you know he heard what you said and understands you. Secretly enjoys hearing you to talk and thinks your accent is endearing. He makes sure to let you know he’s paying attention so that you’ll keep talking.

Of course, Michael isn’t very affectionate and is overall kinda awkward. He is good at reading you though and can pick up on the fact you’re insecure about he way you talk. Expect some awkward head patting whenever you get frustrated when trying to pronounce something correctly.

If you hate being corrected though then Michael is your perfect match. He doesn’t talk so he’s never going to say anything about it. Wouldn’t correct you even if he was talkative though.

Anyone at work giving you a hard time about your accent and stuttering at work? Oh, they turned up missing and were later found dead? That is truly unfortunate, who knows how that happened, that’s so weird.

Bo Sinclair

He’s an ass, it’s in his nature to tease you for your accent and stuttering. Bo would spontaneously combust if he wasn’t able to pick at you. It’s all lighthearted teasing though, so don’t take any of it to heart.

However, if someone else teases you about the way you talk well… they’ll be beyond Vincent’s repair to put it lightly. Refuses to have someone who makes fun of you immortalized in his town.

Bo also has that thick southern accent which means you can tease him right back. Oh you didn’t pronounce something correctly? Well at least you don’t say ya’ll’d’ve. (Means ya’ll would have for those who might not know)

Southerners just take every word and find a way to shorten them or shove them together so you have plenty to make fun of him for. Although he finds it funny when you try to mock his accent.

Bo would rather die than admit it but he does find your accent and stutter cute. He’s also entertained by the way you try to pronounce things from time to time and can’t help but to laugh at you with you.

Vincent Sinclair

He’s pretty indifferent about the whole thing. If you can respect the fact he can’t talk, then he can respect the way that you do talk.

Is always quick to reassure you that there’s no need to be insecure or embarrassed about your accent or mispronounced words. He doesn’t want you to think you’re inconveniencing him in any way because you’re not.

If he can deal with his brothers ridiculous accents then what makes you think that he can’t deal with your accent. You probably pronounce more accurately than Bo or Lester could ever dream of.

Bo is teasing you? Vincent dares him to say royal. Go on Bo, say it since your such a scholar, go on, do it. Bo will never make fun of you again.

Vincent is very patient and encourages you to take all the time that you need to say things right. He’s not going to rush you, it’s not like life is busy in the little town. Even if he’s busy with work he has plenty of time to listen.

Having someone just sit and talk to him while he works is refreshing. Please just sit and talk to him about everything and nothing, he adores it.

Brahms Heelshire

Brahms has plenty of free time and plenty of lessons. Honestly, I would be surprised if he didn’t know a few phrases in at least one different language.

Would be more than happy to learn your native language if you’re willing to teach him. Brahms is smarter than you would think and is quick to pick up at least a few phrases. Immediately wants you to teach him how to say I love you in your language though.

Also just likes to hear you speak in your native language. He may not understand it, but he thinks it sounds pretty nonetheless.

“Be good to him and he will be good to you.” If you’ve been good to him he’ll be patient and kind to you. Doesn’t mind the way you might trip over words or mispronounce them. His patience will only wear thin when he’s upset with you but even then he’ll normally just shut himself back into the walls.

The Heelshire mansion is full of books and you’re expected to read to Brahms every day. Once Brahms reveals himself he uses the time you read to him as an opportunity to teach you how to pronounce words correctly. He makes sure to be polite when correcting you since you’ve been so sweet to him.

Thomas Hewitt

He enjoys just listening to you talk to him. It doesn’t matter what you talk to him about, he simply enjoys the company and loves that you’re able to fill the silence.

Won’t allow any of his other family members to even mention anything about the way you talk. He remembers how much he hated being made fun of for his appearance and refuses to let anyone ever make you feel that way, especially his own family.

Of course, Luda Mae is more than patient with you. You make her son happy so she’ll make sure that you feel comfortable and at home in the Hewitt household.

Thomas always seems to be able to understand you. Maybe it’s the fact he doesn’t talk that makes him able to understand others really well. You can always pick up on what he means just by gestures and expressions and he can do the same for your mispronounced words.

Makes sure to let you know that he finds the way you talk adorable. Honestly, he’s in awe of just about anything you do. Thomas loves you to much to ever view you in a negative light.

Billy Loomis

He has a habit of always correcting you when you mispronounce words which can get old pretty fast. Billy doesn’t mean for it to be rude but his attitude always makes the way he corrects you to seem like an insult.

Would probably act like he can’t understand you sometimes because he simply thinks that it’s funny. No one said that Billy was ever a nice person.

Although he’s allowed to make fun of you, anyone else who tries will quickly become his next victim. You’re his to make fun of anyone else who tries must have a death wish.

Does his best to be considerate if you tell him that you’re insecure about your accent and the way you trip over words sometimes. He’s not the best with emotions or making people feel better but he’ll make sure that you know it doesn’t bother him.

Feels bad if he ever makes you feel bad. Billy does have a tendency to go to far even though he’s better at reading the room than Stu could ever be.

Stu Macher

You thought Billy was bad about the teasing? Stu really doesn’t know when to stop joking around and be serious for once. For a serial killer you’d think he’d be better at reading people, but Stu does a terrible job of it. Takes the teasing way to far.

When he finally figures out he’’s hurt your feelings though he makes sure to be more considerate of what he says. Uses grand gestures as an apology and only uses actually saying I’m sorry as a last resort.

Even though he teases you, he really doesn’t mind your accent or stuttering. You’ll be lucky to even get a chance to talk considering that Stu loves to talk and does so all of the time. He does not shut up.

He’s big on making sure you don’t feel insecure when talking around him though. Even though he loves to hear himself talk it’s no fun if you’re to nervous to add to the conversation.

Goes around telling people he has a foreign babe.

Jesse Cromeans

Jesse isn’t fazed by your stuttering or heavy accent. In fact, it’s probably one of the things that draws him to you. To him, it makes you seem innocent and Jesse loves the idea of someone as corrupt as him having someone as sweet as you love him. Thinks he has you wrapped around his finger when really, it’s the other way around.

Preston would be the one to give you hell about it and Jesse will kick his ass before the smart ass comment can even leave his mouth. Spann would be the one constantly correcting you because she thinks that she’s so prim and proper. Jesse will make sure she keeps her mouth shut as well.

Sometimes he has to make sure that he understood what you said. You’re phone will ping with his best guess of what you just tried to say with a bunch of question marks around it. He’s doing his best okay.

Absolutely loves it when you talk to him so he makes sure that you don’t feel insecure when talking to him. You’re to cute to just sit there and say nothing, he wants to know what’s going through your cute little head.

Keeps an eye on you at work and in public. No one gets away with teasing you, especially not girls who could only wish that they were you. We all know that Jesse targets women.

Asa Emory

Honestly, he would see you as something exotic for his collection.

He’s an entomology professor, not an English professor, he could care less about your accent and mispronounced words. He also has a lot of patience but Asa still won’t hesitate to give you an annoyed look when he’s busy.

Unlike most of the other slashers he’s not going to tease you for the way you talk. Asa has more class than that. Instead, he’ll tease you about the way you begged for him to give you what you wanted.

Won’t tolerate anyone else joking around about your accent since he knows your insecure about the way you talk. He’s an intimidating person and he uses that to his advantage. Besides, if they keep trying they won’t be alive much longer anyways, Asa will make sure of that.

He still corrects you from time to time. If you’ve been having a rough time he won’t, he doesn’t want to make you feel worse. But if he thinks you’re able to handle the criticism he’ll correct your pronunciation. Believes that you have to learn the correct way to say things at some point right.

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a-small-batch-of-dragons · 3 years

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Turns of Phrase

Prompt: I'd like you to consider: all the sides in the mindscape have the "way too literal" problem, like for example, Virgil actually grows taller when his anxiety is heightened, Patton actually grows wings when Thomas has a 'heart aflutter', e.c.t. But Roman just has a huge stack of negative ones. Creative block, bruised ego, shackled creativity, e.c.t. And then there's h/c when somebody (Logan) sees 👀👀

Thanks for the prompt babe!

Read on Ao3

Warnings: self-doubt, self-esteem issues, Roman whump

Pairings: LAMP, DLAMP, DLAMPR, can be platonic or romantic you decide

Word Count: 5722

This is Roman’s fault. Really. It is. He’s the one who works the closest with the Imagination, which means he’s got control over how Thomas interacts with his own imagination, which means that he’s got control over how Thomas sees the Sides.

��So yeah. This is his fault.

‘Heart all aflutter.’ ‘Heightened anxiety.’ ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire.’ All the little innocuous phrases that are just turns of phrase, not supposed to be literal, well…they got into Thomas’s head when he was younger, and since, the Imagination has never quite gotten rid of them. Shouldn’t be too bad, right, this should be something they can deal with.

And for the most part, they do.

Patton wears the hoodie tied around his shoulders to block the chill from the slits sewn in the back of all of his shirts in case the wings decide to pop out again. When they do, everyone crowds around to make sure he doesn’t fly off into the sky or accidentally twist one. The feathers are the softest things you can imagine and work great for stuffing pillows or plushies.

Virgil’s clothes are made of stretchy, baggy material and the doorways are much, much higher than they need to be. There’s a special cupboard tucked high up in the pantry that just has Virgil’s comfort foods in them so he can reach comfortably when he’s tall.

And, well…there’s a reason Janus wears such a long cloak.

For the most part, these are just minor inconveniences. Listen, when you live in a completely imaginary world where you can summon anything you need and change anything you don’t like with a snap of your fingers, things like new clothes or snacks are easy.

Then there’s Roman.

Roman, who is tied most closely to the Imagination.

Roman, who represents not just Creativity, but romance, motivation, desire.

Roman. The Ego.

The problem with throwing around these types of phrases is how easy it becomes to dismiss them. And for Thomas, who has a creative profession, that’s good. For Thomas.

Not so good for Roman.

“Hey, you’ve been having some trouble getting ideas out lately, you doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m just going through a bit of a creative block at the moment.”

Roman’s fists ache as he pounds on the door, heaving sobs trailing off into hitched gasps as he slumps against the unyielding wood. As a desperate last resort, he throws himself at the door, barely making it shudder in its frame. It’s as if he weighs nothing, not an ounce, unable to make so much as a goddamn dent in the world around him.

“Let me—let me out, please, let me out, I gotta—I want out,” he sobs, over and over, as his room grows smaller and smaller, the walls pressing in around him, blank, sterile, cold, “I wanna—out, let me out, let me out, let me out please—“

He’s not even in his room anymore. He’s in a pure white cage, on the wrong side of a door that will not open.

“Dude, like…reign it in a little bit.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. That’s…like, way too much.”

“I dunno, I think it feels weird if we weren’t doing this.”

“C’mon, it won’t kill you to shackle your creativity a little.”

Roman wakes up to the quiet clinking of metal against metal. He goes to wipe his face and a bolt of pain shoots through his arm. The shackles spread him so far his chest aches, wincing as he tries to turn just a little to avoid the rush of agony that would come from having his arm trapped in the wrong position. At least he was lying down this time, and he’s on his bed. He isn’t being forced to stand the whole time, strung up on the ceiling.

They’re so cold.

The shackles sap the warmth from his body bit by bit, draining it until the weight of the cold pressing down onto his chest is enough to make him gasp. On instinct, he pulls, trying to get a little more of himself wrapped up, warm, safe, but the chains barely make a groan as they wrench him back apart. He grits his teeth and holds still.

He learned not to try and break these. He used to rage and slam against them like a brute, trying to pull their fastenings out of some mystical holder, embodied in his wall, only to come away with bleeding and scraped wrists from his pains, rubbed raw and chafed horribly by the cruel shackles.

For the most part, he’s able to keep the others from noticing. They can’t hear a thing when he’s trapped in the creative block. He’s careful to always wear long sleeves to hide the scrapes and burns from the shackles. They don’t know the true extent of what happens to him when Thomas decides he doesn’t want his creativity.

But he can’t hide all of them.

‘Bruised ego.’

Patton knows. Patton somehow always figures things out and doesn’t tell anyone, least of all Roman. But sure enough, after the audition, Patton showed up outside of Roman’s door and knocked, quietly asking to be let in.

Roman had let him, splattered as he was with blues and purples and greens and yellows, all the colors that didn’t belong to him, and yet here they were, painted on him. He’d kept his undershirt on, letting Patton feed him the soup that was sure to end with Roman lying on his back in the bathroom, panting, until the bowl had run dry and Roman’s smile had come back.

After Patton had gone, the smile had slid off, the paint cracked and chipped. Roman had stood, leaning against the bed for stability, and made his way slowly, oh, so, slowly, to the bathroom.

Getting his shirt off had been agony. Every time he moved skin had stretched, bruises had protested, even his muscles cried out. The undershirt was soaked in sweat and a light sheen had clung to Roman’s body as he stood there, panting, wincing in the mirror. He couldn’t look.

That had been the last time it had gotten very bad. Very bad.

They only ever seemed to notice when it was very bad.

His prince costume hides the shackle marks. His undershirt hid the bruises. No one cared to look for him when he was trapped in the creative block. No one could see. No one wanted to see.

No one knew.

Roman’s been lucky lately.

They’ve all been happening one at a time. The block never has shackles strapped to the wall. The shackles are never clasped around bruises spilling beneath his skin. The bruises are never from both beating on a door and from the outside world. He can deal with them if they’re like this. One at a time.

He’s had a few close calls, though. He almost missed a meeting with Logan because the block had him trapped. It squeezed him so tight it felt as if he hadn’t any room to breathe, not until the door and opened a crack and he’d hurled himself out, panting harshly, rushing to Logan’s. He was caught at his desk recently too. The shackles had formed and dragged him over to the corner where he’d bitten his lip to try and stay quiet as he desperately tried to draw himself away. He’d accidentally made too grand a gesture and his sleeve had ridden up, exposing the edge of a mark or bruise and he’d have to pull it back down quick enough so that no one would notice. And so far, it’s worked.

No one has noticed.

And what would he say? That this is just some dumb stupid thing he has to deal with? The others know about this whole ‘taking things too literally problem,’ look at Patton, look at Virgil, look at Janus. They all understand and they receive the same amount of attention Roman does. Honestly, they’ve been receiving what they’re entitled to. Their stuff actually runs the risk of harming Thomas. Fire, wings, banging your head, sure, that’s fine, but they—look.

Having your heart flutter signifies great emotions, the potential for love, you should pay attention to your emotions!

Heightened anxiety? It’s not great! It means we should be listening to Virgil and what’s going on, what’s upsetting Thomas, how to help.

And everyone should always be worried about spontaneously combusting pants.

And even if they did find out, what is Roman supposed to say? That it’s his fault they all have these issues? That Thomas’s psyche takes certain liberties with the hard-and-fast rules of what happens to metaphysical people? It’s his fault, after all, he’s the conduit. It’s fine. He can handle this stuff. It’s all fine.

He should’ve known his luck would run out.

Roman blinks awake to feel the walls pressing in on him, tighter, tighter, tighter. His breath catches in his throat.

No.

No, no, no, he’d been doing so well, so well, they’d just had a conversation about how he’d been so good, the ideas had been good, he’d had—he’d had so many he was ready to work on, he just needed to—

Roman squeezes his eyes shut, racking his brain. He knows he has ideas. He had them a little while ago. It wasn’t that long. They can’t have vanished so quickly. Wait, what time is it? How did they—how long has he been here? What is—how long has it been? Have the others realized he’s here yet?

What if they look for him and they think he won’t come out? What if they start to hate him because they can’t find him? What if he can never get out again? What if they realized they never needed him in the first place?

He—he’s not wrong, he can’t be wrong, he has to be right, he has to—he has to find a way out of here.

Quickly, Roman squeezes his eyes even tighter, mouth making random shapes as he tries to think. If he can just think of a really good idea, he’ll get out. If he just thinks, if he just does his job, if he’s really good he’ll get out. He can do this, he can do this, he can do this. He can—

Clink, clink, clink.

No.

No!

Roman snarls as the shackles encase his wrists, forcing to his knees, still crouched in this room that is too small, too pale, too awful. He lunges for the door as he hears the chains slowly start to tighten, their long lengths slipping over and over each other in coils.

The chains pull taut and he’s suspended there, in the dank air, snarling like a mad dog at a door that is just out of his reach.

For the first time in a long time, he slams against the chains, raging and bloody as he thrashes back and forth trying to just get to the door—

Roman, you’re on thin fucking ice.

Look I don’t wanna just hate a side but roman you royally fucked up bud

Yeah I’m definitely mad at Roman

Roman barely suppresses a whine when he realizes where the comments are coming from.

His nose breaks open and blood pours down his face. His eyes swell and darken until he can only squint through it. One of his fingers breaks and the shackle pinches.

Roman I have revoked your rights.

Roman shut the FUCK UP challenge please

After one line making fun of janus is enough to be cancelled, Roman

Even without looking down, he knows red and purple are blooming across his ribs. Roman winces pain as he howls again, trying frantically to get to the door, he’ll wrench his arms out of their sockets if he needs to—

I just hate roman!!! i don’t need a deep reason to hate roman, or anyone else

oh boi did Princey drop to least favorite side REAL FUCKING QUICK

It’s not that I don’t despise Roman he’s just never been my favourite. He’s too prideful, rude and while he does have his insecurities the way he hides them makes me uncomfortable since it’s at the expense of other characters. His treatment of the other sides is so awful.

…is he really that awful? Is…does he…is this…

Is this how it’s supposed to be?

I'm gonna spread my anti-roman doctrine. Fuck Roman. Hate that man

I genuinely hate Roman so. Fucking. Much. Like, can't stand him. Fuck him, I hate him

It’s always roman-hating hours.

A dry sob chokes its way out of Roman’s throat as he curls in on himself, another bruise leaving him gasping on the floor like a gutted fish. The chains let him fall to his knees, chest bared to the merciless door. He coughs. Blood flies out of his mouth and spittle drips down his chin. He coughs again. And again. And again. It hurts. Everything hurts.

He coughs.

The room presses in on him.

The shackles trap him.

Bruises bloom over his body.

He coughs.

This is all his fault, isn’t it? He’s the one in charge of the Imagination. He’s the one who makes sure the sides exist and can interact with Thomas. He’s the one who controls how they respond to turns of phrase.

He’s the one who’s awful to the others. He’s the one who didn’t tell them the truth. He’s the one stuck in this room, in these chains, taking a beating from words and thoughts that he can’t see.

This is his fault.

And he doesn’t know if he can fix it.

Roman gives up.

———————————————————

“Has anyone seen Roman?”

Patton looks up from the floor as Virgil rolls over. “No, I haven’t. Virgil?”

Virgil sniffs and shakes his head. “You asked Remus?”

Logan frowns. “I can’t find them anywhere. Do you know if—“

“Where the fuck is my brother?”

“Nevermind, I found him,” Logan mumbles as he turns just fast enough to avoid Remus barreling into him. “I was just coming to ask you.”

“He was supposed to meet me by the Imagination,” Remus says, bouncing up and down, “we were gonna go exploring. He hasn’t been by all day. Where are you hiding him?”

“I’m not hiding him,” Virgil yawns, “and neither’s Pat.”

“Nope! No princes here!”

“Pocket Protector?”

“No, I need to ask him about tomorrow.”

“Ugh.” Remus throws himself down on the couch. “Where’s Snakey? Maybe he knows.”

“What do I know?”

“Ah.” Logan turns to see Janus striding out from the shadows near the staircase. “We seem to be unable to locate Roman.”

Janus raises an eyebrow and flicks a speck of dust from his gloves. “What an unfortunate situation. My deepest apologies.”

“So you don’t know where he is.”

“Of course I don’t, why would I?” Janus rolls his eyes. “It’s not like you’ve checked everywhere for him.”

Logan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Janus…please.”

“Have any of you even tried his room?”

“Of course we have, that’s where I looked first.”

Janus shrugs. “Then I guess our little prince has wandered away. What a shame.”

Virgil rolls his eyes. “Maybe he just stepped out for a minute. Why don’t you go look again, L, we’ll check down here.”

“Oh, will we?”

“J, I swear—“

Logan quickly heads back up the stairs as Virgil and Janus start bickering. He turns the corner and is soon faced with Roman’s big red door. He reaches out to knock.

“Roman? Are you in here?”

Silence. Logan sighs and goes to turn away when he hears it.

He stops.

Goes back.

“Roman?”

He puts his ear to the door.

A soft gasp.

“Roman, can you open the door please?”

“L-L—Lo—“

Logan swallows heavily. “Roman, I’m coming inside.”

“L-Logan…”

Logan pushes open the door.

He can feel his face go sickly pale.

Roman is lying on the ground, collapsed in a pool of what looks like blood. His face is swollen, his nose broken, his mouth barely forming the shapes to say Logan’s name. His prince costume is mangled. His wrists are rubbed raw. Even from this far away Logan can see the bruises forming all over his body.

“Roman!”

There are shouts from downstairs. The others are worried. Good. Logan’s going to need all the help he can get. He just has to move first.

Oh, Roman…

“L? L, what’s going on up there?”

“First aid,” Logan gasps, then clears his throat, “we need the first aid kit! Roman’s hurt!”

“What? How’d he—he hasn’t even been in the Imagination yet today!”

“We can figure that out when we’re up there, Remus, go go go!”

By the time the others are already rushing up the stairs, Logan has already crouched down next to Roman’s head, trying to figure out the best way to get him up, off the floor, or at the very least figure out what happened.

“Stay with me, Roman,” he murmurs, petting Roman’s head as his other hand starts to carefully test where it might be hurting, “stay with me, come on…”

“Lo? Lo, are you in here?”

“No, wait, don’t—“

Patton’s cry of dismay quickly followed by Virgil’s curse means he’s too late to warn them. Logan looks up to see their faces drop in absolute shock.

“Where are the others?”

“Uh…” Virgil tears his gaze away from Roman’s crumpled figure. “Remus said he…he has some stuff that would help.”

“And I am of course more than eager to see what our favorite little prince has gotten himself into this time,” Janus drawls, still out of sight, “I’m positively brimming with anticipation.”

Patton still hasn’t recovered. Virgil carefully takes the first aid kit from his hands and rushes it to Logan. An instant later, Janus appears in the doorway.

“My, my, Patton, you look so startled, what could possibly…”

Janus trails off as he finally spots Roman. His eyes widen as he takes in the bruises, the blood, the marks of what look like prison cuffs?

“Oh, god…” Logan blinks and Janus is crouched beside them, his hands hovering over Roman’s broken form as he starts crooning to the prince.

“Oh, honey, what happened to you,” he murmurs, his hands starting to pull away the fabric cutting into Roman’s throat, “you poor, poor thing…”

“Got it.”

Remus appears in a flash, crouching down as well as Janus and Logan start to help Roman unwind from the bloody mess he’s in. Logan glances over; it’s a kit that has more medical supplies than the first aid kit. Bandages, he can see antiseptic, surgical towels…

He catches Remus’s eye and they exchange a nod.

“Where does he need to go,” Janus asks as they start to get Roman upright, “you want him downstairs?”

“Let’s get him to our bathroom, J,” Virgil suggests, carefully getting his arms around the prince’s shoulders.

“Do you think it’s safe to sink with him?”

“Presumably he had to sink out to get back to his room, but I’m not sure it would be wise.”

“So we’ll carry him,” Virgil says firmly, “all of us.”

As it turns out, Remus and Janus can help Virgil just fine. Logan snatches up Remus’s kit as Patton grabs the first aid kit, hustling down the corridor to keep up with the others.

“Lo, what happened?”

“I don’t know,” Logan mutters back, “but I…I don’t think it was…the Imagination’s been closed all day, hasn’t it?”

“That’s what I thought too. You don’t think—“

“I don’t know, Patton, I…”

Patton’s firm grip on his arm speaks volumes as they finally get to the bathroom.

The tile is already warm as the others carefully lay Roman down in the big place near the edge of the shower. Logan takes a moment to check what they might need.

The bathroom is one big open space with a tub in one corner, a large walk-in shower area at the other, and two sinks with a wide counter. Patton and Remus have already started setting up the first aid kit as Janus pulls on a different pair of gloves. Virgil still has Roman’s head in his hands, murmuring softly to him.

“Is he awake?”

Virgil shakes his head as Logan sits down. “I can’t tell. He’s looking around but I—he’s not saying anything.”

“That is not completely unexpected,” Logan murmurs, “we have to get him out of his clothes. They’re making it harder for him to breathe.”

“Someone needs to stay by his head,” Remus calls, “in case he wakes up and starts freaking out.”

“I’ve got him.” Sure enough, Janus slips two of his hands gently under Roman’s head as he unclips the back of his collar. “Shh, shh, easy, sweetie, you’re safe now.”

Virgil scoots back and starts tugging on his hoodie strings. Patton, still hovering by the medical supplies, catches it.

“Hey, Virge,” he says, shooting a quick nod at Logan, “why don’t we go make something to eat? Something small, and something to drink.”

“Yeah…yeah that’s a good idea.”

As the two of them leave, Remus kneels by Roman’s feet and curses. “We’re gonna have to cut them off.”

“You mean cut the rest of them off,” Janus mutters, “what happened?”

“You think I’m not beating myself up asking that same thing?”

“We have to get Roman stable,” Logan says quickly, “and that means we have to see what—“

“The damage is,” Remus growls.

“Quite.”

“Alright. Be careful by his wrists.”

“We will.”

“Jan if you drop his head I swear to—“

“I won’t, I promise.”

“…I know.”

“You’re worried about your brother,” Logan whispers as they start peeling the clothes away, “we understand.”

Janus keeps his promise, cradling Roman’s head as the work to get the rest of his prince costume off. Under any other circumstance, Logan admits this might actually be read as amusing. Peeling Roman out of his clothes, however, has never been less devastating.

Every inch they pull back reveals more bruises. Roman’s torso is warm, throbbing, carpeted with horrible wounds. Every so often a piece will stick and Roman winces, prompting Janus to stroke his face carefully, murmuring reassurances that they’re here, everything’s okay, Roman’s safe now.

Remus chucks bruise cream at Logan and they start, methodically applying the cream and bandages. Janus gives them an extra hand where they need it, while keeping up the constant litany of reassurances. Logan comes away confident that nothing is broken, just very badly bruised.

“So what now?”

“He has to rest.” Logan pulls off the gloves, running his hand over the ground to make sure they haven’t spilled anything. “I…I don’t know how long that will be.”

“I don’t want to leave him.”

They look around, eyes wide at the strangled whisper coming out of Remus. Remus stares down at Roman’s bruised form, thankfully clear of blood now, his hands trembling as they rest on his knees. Remus looks up at them, his eyes glistening.

“The last time I left him like this it was bad.” He swallows and looks back down. “I’m not leaving my brother.”

Logan looks at Roman. Brave, strong, sweet, kind Roman. Bruised, scared, exhausted, broken Roman. His hand tightens and without thinking he tucks a stray hair behind Roman’s ear.

“He hates it when his hair is out of place,” he murmurs as Janus raises an eyebrow at him.

“We’re not leaving our prince,” Janus says firmly, glancing back at Remus. “Would you like to come sit up here with us?”

Remus shakes his head. “If something comes through that door trying to get him,” he says in a low voice that Logan has never heard before, “it’s going to have to get through me first.”

Logan nods. They take up their watch. Remus’s hands twitch every so often, and Logan sees him lay his hand on an unbruised part of Roman’s ankle when they do with a tenderness that takes him a little aback. Janus can’t seem to stop running his hands through Roman’s hair, making comforting noises every time Roman winces as he breathes.

Logan, well…Logan is trying desperately to figure out what happened.

Roman hasn’t been in the Imagination today. Remus was waiting and he hadn’t seen him.

Roman hasn’t been seen by anyone else all day.

The last place Roman was seen was in his room.

No one else has been in Roman’s room today.

“Logan,” Janus calls softly, “Logan, you’re shaking.”

Logan looks down. Oh. So he is. He takes a deep breath and takes Janus’s offered hand. “I’m…thinking.”

“About…?” Janus indicates Roman.

He nods sharply. “I’m having trouble coming to anything but a most troubling conclusion.”

“What?”

Logan explains. Janus goes pale.

“You don’t think…”

“I don’t want to think that, no.”

“R-ro-Bro,” Remus whispers, “oh, Ro-Bro, you gotta tell us something when you wake up.”

He sniffles.

“Please wake up, Ro-Bro. I gotta…I gotta kick your ass for blowing me off and getting into a fight without me, I gotta—you gotta tell me what kicked your ass so I can go put it in the fucking ground…” He sniffs again, his whole body tense, even as his hand remains gently on Roman. “You just gotta wake up, Ro.”

After a little while longer, Virgil and Patton return carrying snacks and drinks. Remus doesn’t even look as Virgil sets his octopus water bottle at his elbow. Janus murmurs a thanks and eats a little. Logan eats and drains about half of his bottle. Virgil sits at Remus’s side, Patton at his other.

“Has he woken up yet?”

Remus shakes his head.

“He’s probably just sleeping, Remus, he needs to rest.”

“I know.”

“Do we know what happened,” Virgil asks quietly, “at all?”

Logan winces. “Well…”

“…don’t like the way you said that.” Judging by Virgil’s expression, he likes it even less after Logan’s finished explaining.

“Oh, shit.”

Everyone’s gaze instantly snaps to Patton. Listen. Patton doesn’t curse. It’s a thing. When Patton curses it’s bad.

“Patton?”

“Roman…Roman has a thing,” Patton explains, “you know like…like my wings? Or how Virgil gets taller?”

Virgil nods. “Yeah, okay, but those don’t…hurt us, why would Roman’s…”

Janus is the next one to curse. “Of course…the bruised ego.”

Patton nods sadly. “Roman takes, well, it’s not really his choice, Roman is forced to take the brunt of the negative reactions Thomas has. That’s part of his thing.”

Logan’s eyes widen. “Wait, but if this has been happening since…well, since Thomas has had an ego, and we didn’t know about this, then…”

How many times has this happened?

Remus growls. “New rule: no one is allowed to fuck with Roman.”

No one dares disagree. Logan scans over the injuries again. He frowns.

“Hold on…some of these seem…consistent with that judgment, but then why…”

A faint groaning sound snaps him out of his musings. A tense silence falls in the bathroom as Roman starts to stir in Janus’s hands.

“Roman,” Logan calls softly, “Roman, can you hear me?”

“L’gan?”

“Yes, Roman, I’m right here. Don’t try and move too much right now, you’re very hurt.”

Roman blinks up at them, his eyes focusing glassily on Janus, who smiles. He tucks another piece of hair away from Roman’s face.

“Shh, shh, my prince, hold still,” he coos, “you’re awfully banged up, sweetie, just hold still…shh…”

“J’nus? What’s…where is…” Roman’s face swivels back to Logan. “Where am I?”

“You’re on the bathroom floor, Roman, we had to see to your injuries.”

Roman’s eyes go wide and immediately all of them reach out to hold him still as he tries to move.

“Shh, shh,” Janus shushes, “none of that now, sweetie, you’re hurt, calm down…”

“I’m—I have to—“

“You’re not going anywhere,” comes Remus’s voice from behind them.

“Remus!”

“What? He’s not!”

“Yeah, but there’s no reason to scare the shit out of him.”

“I can’t see,” Logan hears Roman’s frantic whisper as he turns to glance at the others, “I can’t—let me—“

“Logan, is it safe for him to sit up?”

Logan nods. “Just take it slow, nothing too fast. It will probably be the best if he can lean against someone.”

“Jan—“

“I’ve got you, sweetie, I’m not going anywhere.”

When Roman is upright, his back against Janus’s chest, only then do Virgil and Patton relax the slightest bit. Remus doesn’t. Logan’s gaze switches anxiously between the two.

“Remus—“ Roman swallows— “Re, are you—are you mad at me?”

“A little.”

Roman shrinks under Remus’s glare. “I’m sorry.”

“Jeez, Ro, it’s not—I’m not mad at you like that,” Remus mumbles, “it’s mainly just—well, our thing is…you know, cat pile.”

“You’re—you’re mad because you can’t lie on top of me right now?”

“Yeah! It always makes you feel better! And now I can’t help you feel better!”

“R-Re—“

Remus lets out a wounded noise and surges forward, careful to avoid barreling into any of the others as he wraps his brother in a protective hug. Janus huffs lightly but stays upright. Roman’s eyes close and his head drops to rest against Remus’s.

“I’m the only one allowed to fuck with you,” comes Remus’s muffled voice, “no one else.”

“I know,” Roman whispers, “I know.”

Logan swallows heavily. “Roman,” he prompts softly, “we aren’t mad at you. We won’t get angry with you.”

“...promise?”

“I promise.”

“Promise.

Janus just squeezes Roman’s shoulder gently. “I promise too, sweetie. Now, will you tell us what happened?”

“I, um…” Roman’s gaze flickers over to Patton. “Have you—um…”

“I’ve told them a little, sweetheart,” Patton says when Roman can’t finish his sentence, “we’ve figured out the ‘bruised ego,’ is there anything else you’d like to tell us?”

Roman nods. He turns his head back towards Remus, his face contorted. Logan carefully reaches out to ruffle his hair.

“Take your time,” he whispers, “we’re not going anywhere.”

“I have three,” Roman blurts out after a moment.

“…three, honey?”

“Patton has…the wings, Virgil has the height, Janus…Janus…”

“Has the pants.”

Janus lightly flicks Remus’s head, shaking his head fondly.

“Are you saying you’ve got three turns of phrase, Princey?” Roman nods. “Okay. Is one of them ‘bruised ego?’”

“Mhmm.”

“Okay. Are you comfortable telling us the other two?”

Goosebumps rise on Roman’s arms and Janus carefully positions them so Logan can help rub them away. Remus growls protectively and huddles closer.

“…creative block,” Roman murmurs, only for Remus to tense. Remus raises his head slowly.

“Ro-Bro?”

“I, um, my room—my room shrinks and I—I can’t get out the door, I can’t move anything, I can’t breathe, I—“

“Shh-shh-shh,” Janus soothes instantly, “you’re safe, my prince, you’re in the bathroom with us, you’re not there, you’re not there.”

There are a few tense seconds of deep breaths.

“…what’s the third one, Roman?”

Roman looks at his wrists, turning them over as if he doesn’t recognize them. “…shackled creativity.”

Patton clenches his fists as Virgil muffles another curse. Remus follows Roman’s gaze, the line of his shoulders growing tenser by the second. Janus carefully laces his fingers through one of Roman’s hands, Logan lacing his through the other.

“Thank you for telling us, Roman,” he murmurs, “and…I do not know how much this is worth to you, but…we are so sorry this happens and that we could not do anything about it.”

“It’s okay,” Roman murmurs, “it’s my own fault.”

The bathroom falls silent.

“…Roman, it’s not your fault.” Virgil scoots closer. “How—this isn’t your fault.”

“Isn’t it? I’m the one that’s the closest to the Imagination,” Roman says softly, completely convinced of what he’s saying, “I’m the one that makes it possible for Thomas to see us…the Sides, the Imagination…isn’t that my job?”

“Not like that,” Logan says firmly, “never like this.”

“Logan’s right,” Virgil says when it looks like Roman’s about to argue, “you’re the conduit for the Imagination, but you’re not responsible for everything that this place does, let alone how Thomas interprets and internalizes stuff.”

“None of this is you, Roman.” Janus rests his cheek against the top of Roman’s head. “None of it. It’s not Patton’s fault he grows wings, it’s not Virgil’s fault he grows taller, and it’s not your fault that this happens to you.”

“You’re missing someone off the list there, Jan-Jan.”

“Remus, I swear to god—“

Remus cackles, throwing his head back as Janus swats at him. Of course, the problem is that they all try and look mildly annoyed at Remus, and yet the instant it makes Roman giggle, even a little, they all have to break character because Roman’s smiling again.

“Seriously, Ro-Bro,” Remus says after a moment, “this isn’t on you. You don’t deserve this or some other fucked-up shit. This is fucked up all on its own. You’re not responsible for this.”

“We’ll talk to Thomas,” Logan says, “about…negative feedback and internalizing things, alright? This isn’t healthy, Roman, it’s not—it’s not supposed to be like this, and it’s definitely not your fault.”

“…okay.”

“Can you say that for me, sweetie,” Janus coaxes, reaching around to cup Roman’s face, “that it’s not your fault?”

“I-it’s not—“

Roman stops. Swallows heavily.

“Go on, my prince, you can do it.”

“…I-it’s not my fault.”

“Good.”

“It isn’t my fault.” Roman’s eyes go wide and something hitches in his throat. “It is—isn’t—I—oh, god—“

They catch Roman as he starts to cry.

“You did so well, sweetheart, so well, I’m so proud of you.”

“It’s okay, Princey, it’s gonna be okay.”

“I’ve got you, my prince, I have you.”

“You’re gonna be fine, Ro-Bro, I’ll keep you safe, I promise.”

“You don’t have to do this alone, Roman.”

Roman rests there, in the arms of his family, bruised and exhausted, but not broken.

Not anymore.

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itsbenedict · 3 years

Text

I just finished hosting a 15-person game of Mafia for some friends. One tradition we have for these games is that every death is accompanied by some themed narration, so for my game I opted to spice it up with some art on top. Had to draw it real quick since I didn't know for sure who was going to die next until it happened.

The game's theme was "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure", with the hidden subtheme that all the roles (stands) were named after They Might Be Giants (@tmbgareok) songs! A list of their powers, links to songs, and a recap of the game under the cut.

01) Mogis - 「Flo Wheeler」

02) TD260 - 「Working Undercover For The Man」

03) JGH27 - 「Good To Be Alive」

04) Raya - 「Stone Cold Coup D'Etat」

05) KK / Sahrimnir - 「Thinking Machine」

06) Spontaneous Combustion - 「The Statue Got Me High」

07) Leviwulf - 「Push Back The Hands」

08) DarkFalco - 「I Am Alone」

09) Deli064 - 「Doctor Worm」

10) Fedaykin - 「Letterbox」

11) Surge - 「I Am Alone」

12) Wikxen - 「Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head」

13) Minby - 「Where Your Eyes Don't Go」

14) Bel - 「(She Was A) Hotel Detective」

15) SnakeInABox - 「By The Time You Get This」

Bold roles were Jotunheim (Mafia), normal roles were Johnsburg (Town), and italicized roles were third parties. (Jotunheim is the realm of giants from Norse mythology! The mafia were, in fact, giants! And the town's job was to figure out who might be giants! And the two sides were Jo and Jo! JOKES!)

「Flo Wheeler」 was a town role with a power that was pretty dangerous to the user- if anyone happened to be watching or tracking when a kill took place at night, Mogis would look like they'd visited the target that night in addition to whoever actually did. It could potentially be used to catch a mafioso in a lie, but otherwise it was more of an obstacle for the town to overcome- a miller-type role.

♪ You can't do the time, therefore you didn't do the crime ♪

「Working Undercover For The Man」 was a third-party role working for the Speedwagon Foundation to perform a threat assessment. TD could win with the town, but could win and leave early if he could guess all the names or powers of every other stand in the game. He could scan a name every night, to help that along.

♪ Planning midnight raids / On our unsuspecting fans / While the roadies rig / The video surveillance van ♪

「Good To Be Alive」 was a spin on the usual town doctor role- normally, a doctor can target a player and prevent their death if they would die that night. But... JGH couldn't actually prevent deaths- just fake it. The dead would become ghosts, who couldn't vote and couldn't be killed but were still allowed to talk as if they were alive.

♪ Hello leg / such a shaky leg / Just barely more than decoration ♪

「Stone Cold Coup D'Etat」 was a third party with an unusual win condition. They had to recruit a certain number of people to a private side-chat- and then make sure all those people got killed. Plus, she could redirect anything that happened to her at night to her recruits. If the recruits figured out what she was doing and got rid of her, they'd get a boost to their power.

♪ The bark now commands the trees / The queen is overruled by the bees ♪

「Thinking Machine」 was a town role with a mysterious purpose that didn't seem to make much sense at first. Sah would get, every morning, a strange series of numbers and letters of uncertain origin. It was information, somehow, but how to use it?

♪ Tape has brightening arm connect (Wait, that didn't make sense.) / Self-paint lever itching does! (That made even less sense!) ♪

「The Statue Got Me High」 was a mafia power. As the song describes, the victim is enthralled by the monolith and forced to obey its commands, until their eventual death. That is, Spont could recruit a player to the mafia, but they'd die one night later- and if he wasn't careful, he could die and his recruit would flip back.

♪ And now it is your turn (your turn to hear the stone and then your turn to burn) / The stone, it calls to you (you can't refuse to do the things it tells you to) ♪

「Push Back The Hands」 was a passive ability that caused anything that would happen to Levi- a nightkill, an execution, some other power- to be delayed by one day, giving him some time to react. He'd be told who it was that targeted him, so going after him as mafia was risky.

♪ Screeching tires but never a collision / Endless day without a sunset provision ♪

「I Am Alone」 was a weird one. See, DarkFalco, who was mafia, didn't have a stand as such. She was the stand- and she was the stand of Surge, who was town. They were linked together in everything, meaning the mafia had to work to keep Surge alive on top of their own people. She could send messages to Surge at night to mess with him, though.

♪ Before you fire I should inform you / One of us is a double ♪

「Doctor Worm」 had no real special abilities. His ability was to be pretty good at playing the drums, a power that had absolutely no relevance in a game of Mafia.

♪ I'm not a real doctor, but I am a real worm I am an actual worm ♪

「Letterbox」 was a mafia ability that let Fedaykin pick another player, and offer that player a chance to deliver a private message to one other player of their choice. He could see the "secret" communications, though, and once per game he could edit the message before delivering it.

♪ I'll never know what you'll find when you open up your letter box tomorrow ♪

「Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head」 is a classically mafia ability, but in the hands of a town player: the ability to force another player to vote for another. Normally the manipulated person isn't allowed to say what happened, but there was no such restriction here- confusion's no good for the town.

♪ Memo to myself: do the dumb things i gotta do: Touch the puppet head ♪

「Where Your Eyes Don't Go」 let Minby pick someone else to watch him at night. If anyone visited him to target him with an ability, the person he designated would be told the names of those people. A nasty trap for the mafia, as long as Minby doesn't pick a mafioso to share the information with.

♪ Where your eyes don't go, a part of you is hovering / It's a nightmare that you'll never be discovering / You're free to come and go / Or talk like Kurtis Blow / But there's a pair of eyes in back of your head ♪

「(She Was A) Hotel Detective」 was a very powerful town role- Bel was the cop, and could scan another player's alignment at night, plus track or watch them. Except... not directly. She couldn't scan players- she could scan hotel rooms, and if other players didn't check into the hotel at night or give up their room numbers, her information was useless.

Here are the room numbers, in order: Levi (1) Snake (2) JGH (3) TD (4) Spont (5) Sah (6) Deli (7) Fed (8) Minby (9) Falco/Surge (10) Raya (11) Wikxen (12) Mogis (13).

(Oh, and Thinking Machine's codes were actually encoded versions of her results, and Sah would get a weaker version of her power if she ever died.)

♪ She's got her ear to the walls / And she's tappin' the calls / If you've got a secret, boy / Forget about it! ♪

「By The Time You Get This」 imbued its wielder with the incredible powers of... an estate lawyer! Which meant Snake could leave a will behind when he died, naming another player and casting a vote on them from beyond the grave the next day.

♪ By the time you get this note / We'll no longer be alive / But our skulls are smiling still / At the thought of things to come ♪

So! Here's how it all shook out.

Day 1: The first day is always kind of a tossup, since no one has any information yet, and everyone's just trying to verbally stir the pot. Levi soft-claims his role right out the gate, warning town not to try targeting him or else. Mogis is executed, casting a vote on himself to save the town the trouble of dealing with Flo Wheeler.

Night 1: Spont uses the statue to recruit Wikxen, at the same time that Wikxen forces Snake to vote for Levi. So, now the usually-scum power in the hands of town is in the hands of scum for real. Bel scans room 3, and learns that its occupant is innocent. Raya recruits DarkFalco, and accidentally recruits Surge alongside her, to her surprise. JGH tries protecting Levi, to test if his claim was a bluff.

Day 2: Levi tries to push JGH on the basis of having targeted him last night, but everyone agrees to wait and see if Levi actually dies first. Votes circle around Wikxen and Raya for suspicious-seeming defensiveness on Day 1, and ultimately, when it seems like Wikxen's about to be executed, a small group of players flip their votes at the last minute and vote Raya out while she's asleep and can't defend herself. Rude! She was poised to win the game for herself and the town, since she'd convinced Falco that the mafia would benefit somehow if they were all recruited.

Night 2: The mafia kills Minby- and Minby opts to tell have Fed watch him, wasting his power. Lucky for town, though, Bel happens to scan room 8, confirming Fed is mafia since he volunteered his room number. Wikxen's coat contains a furnace where there used to be a guy.

Day 3: Wikxen forced Snake to vote for J, making him look bad- but Sah begins sharing his bizarre results from Thinking Machine, and Bel confirms that they're a log of her detective power. Then she points out that Fed is mafia, and the town falls in line behind the accusation with Sah to confirm.

Night 3: Spont uses the statue to recruit Bel, to keep any more problematic scans from ruining them. Bel, before being recruited, scans room 10, though- and now the town knows there's something funky with Falco and Surge, because Sah gets the results and knows what they mean. Due to their mismatched alignments, though, the encoded version is still misleading, so there's wiggle room. TD scans Spont and learns his role name.

Day 4: Spont concocts a daring scheme. He has Bel lie and claim to have received an incriminating result on him- so that Bel will be caught in said lie when Sah produces his own results. The plan is to frame Bel, who's a dead girl walking anyway, and clear Spont's name going forward. But the town talks themselves into explaining away the contradiction- even when TD reveals Spont's stand name, and Spont denies it outright and claims 「Combustible Head」, a fake vigilante (town nightkiller) role instead, the town explains away that, too. After a few more people claim, TD260 has completed his mission- his correct guess wins him the game and he leaves. Spont cleverly excuses himself by claiming that TD lied about his role to get him to claim his "real" one. Afterwards, the town ends up executing Deli064 instead, for some reason- poor Doctor Worm!

Night 4: The evidence vanishes from Bel's charred and smoking chair- because JGH tries to protect her at the same time the mafia are killing him! Bel is a ghost now, and the town never finds out her alignment.

Day 5: Bel not dying poses a problem for the mafia, because Spont was supposed to prove his own innocence by pretending to kill her! The mafia tries to misdirect by having Bel lie again, claiming to scan room 10 when she actually scanned room 6, Sah. Ultimately, though, the town is able to coordinate behind killing Surge and Falco, which- because they're linked- is a compromise option that both parties are happy with (when perhaps they shouldn't be).

Night 5: Since Bel is technically dead, Spont recruits again, grabbing Sah and removing the threat of scans entirely. If he'd recruited Snake instead, they'd have won on the spot, since only his will-vote prevented them from winning instantly due to outnumbering the town. We move on to a somewhat redundant...

Day 6: It's now down to five players- Spont, Sah, and Bel vs Levi and Snake. The mafia technically outnumber the town, but Bel's vote doesn't count, and Sah's going to burn the next night- so the town can still win by forcing a tie and then using Snake's By The Time You Get This power to place a vote on Spont. But that's if they can figure it out and get on the same page, and... they don't. There's no way there could be three mafia still alive, so the mafia are able to sow total confusion and ultimately get the town all voting for Bel... who's a ghost, and can't vote or be executed, which the town doesn't know because JGH died before he could fully explain. The execution defaults to Snake, and the mafia win the game.

#mafia #they might be giants #tmbgareok #jojo #jjba #benedict art

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ao3bronte · 3 years

Text

🌈🎵ADRINO HEADCANONS🌈🐱

Adrien and Nino spend the summer between collège and lycée playing video games as often as their busy schedules allow. Adrien feels like he has a modelling gig every other minute and rejoices everytime he gets home so he can sit in front of his screen with his headset on. Nino, on the other hand, has been running food deliveries for his uncle’s restaurant during the afternoon rush for extra pocket money. Nino’s mom is adamant that he doesn’t do any deliveries at night — between the protests and the mounting violence against “others”, the Lahiffe’s would rather be safe than sorry.

Adrien loves Resident Evil Village and Nino likes to tease him about simping on the giant vampire lady because of course he would simp on Lady Dimitrescu. Nino hates jumpscare games personally and prefers playing Halo but hey, they compromise. They’re both super excited for Horizon Forbidden West and freak out over the game play when they see the trailer for it on Reddit.

Nino follows a few Twitch streamers but Adrien must follow hundreds, if not thousands. Nino doesn’t get it but the boy needs to compartmentalize his insane life somehow and Nino doesn’t mind. As long as they have the time to play together, he’ll be happy.

“I wish I could play beside you.” Adrien seems to say this every time they’re on voice chat and Nino expresses the same thing. He misses sitting beside his best bro, especially now that they won’t always be in the same classes in lycée. The dread in his chest at the thought makes him wonder, but he quickly brushes it off as karma for eating the Casablanca platter that the weird lady in the Marais refused to come down and get from the lobby.

Alya is the first one to notice that something’s up with Nino. He talks about Adrien more than usual, which should have been her first clue. She’s a little jealous initially, hating that his gaze seems to be drawn in a direction different from her, but she comes to terms with it after a week or two. Nino is having a bi awakening and that’s okay! Alya’s been there, done that, got the pride t-shirt. But will Nino act on it? Will he just ignore it or mistake his bi feelings for something else entirely until he explodes? Now, that’s the question.

Nino has always been casually affectionate. A hug here, an arm draped over a shoulder there. He’s like this with everyone, but more so with Adrien and Alya than anyone else. It’s no secret how much Adrien loves the extra attention and actively seeks it out, thanking Nino politely for each and every little bit of closeness Nino sends his way.

One fateful Friday evening, the boys manage to sneak Adrien out of his cage and they all congregate at a pool for Kim’s birthday party. Adrien is elated and wrestles with Nino in the water, climbing up onto his shoulders to fight Alex and Kim. Nino feels that rush again, the one that steals the breath from his lungs and pointedly reminds him that his best bro’s unmentionables are smushed against the back of his head.

Needless to say, they lose the battle miserably.

But boy oh boy, Nino’s not ready to lose the war.

“You’re having a bi awakening.” Alya swims up beside him, having watched the entire exchange with a bemused quirk of her lips. “And that’s okay.”

Nino nearly chokes. “What?!”

“You’ve got feelings for Sunshine and Rainbows, I get it.” Alya pats him on his shoulder and presses a kiss to his cheek. “I’m not mad. I’m actually kind of happy for you?”

Nino splutters for a hot minute, his cheeks as red as the vibrant colour of Alya’s suit. “I don’t—I mean—”

“Look, if the time is right and he’s into it, you have my permission to kiss him. We’re young.” Alya shrugs her shoulders and smiles encouragingly. “And if it’s something you want to pursue, then we can talk about it after, okay?”

Alya swims away and six thousand thoughts course through Nino’s brain at the speed of lightning. Was Alya giving him permission to cheat? No, Alya was giving him the room to feel without guilt and after a solid five minutes of hyperventilating and dunking his head underwater to keep from spontaneously combusting entirely, Nino goes and gives Alya the kiss of a lifetime.

“Thank you,” he whispers, to which Alya responds with a quick peck to the cheek.

“You do you, Turtle Boy.” She grins as he throws his head back and laughs, reminding everyone around them of how glorious he sounds when his soul is set alight. “You’ll always be number one in my heart. And hey, let’s agree that if you get to kiss Sunshine, then I totally get to kiss Ladybug.”

“Deal.” He wraps his arms around her waist and whips her about, creating a whirlpool around them. “Adrien! Come and save me! Alya is trying to kill me!”

As if on cue, Adrien swan dives into the water and snags his number one bro in a piggy back hold. “Your gallant hero is here to save you from her siren’s call!”

Alya shares a knowing glance with Nino and disappears beneath the water, swimming away towards Marinette and Myléne. Whatever happened between them is entirely in Nino’s hands now.

[PART 2]

See all of my LGBTQ+ headcanons HERE!

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous pride #adrino #lgbtq #ml headcanons #adrien agreste #nino lahiffe

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ghost-party · 3 years

Note

congrats on 200! i'd love to see Erwin x reader where they are both professors! looking forward to what you come up with, anything fluffy involving fumbling academics would be fun <3

This request... YES. ❤️ I have a huge weakness for this type of AU. (I used to teach college English classes.) And the idea of Erwin as a professor? Perfection.

Warnings: alcohol A/N: So much awkward, adorable fluff. This ended up being longer than I expected, and I still felt like there was so much more I could write. There’s a very good chance that I’ll end up turning this into an actual fic... 😅

• • •

Erwin + Professors

It’s a few days before the fall semester begins, and you’ve just finished settling into your office. It’s small, but unlike the communal space you shared with the other TA’s back in grad school, it’s all yours. The wall-mounted shelves have been filled with books, your desk is stocked with sticky notes, highlighters, and your favorite pens, and you even managed to bring some small plants from your new apartment.

Feeling satisfied, despite the constant hum of nervous energy you’re sure will stick around until the first week is over, you sit back in your chair and rest your head against the wall. That’s when you hear it.

Sometimes I wonder, how I spend The lonely night dreaming of a song...

It’s music, coming from the office next door — an old song you swear you’ve heard before, but you’re not sure where. When you tilt your head, listening more closely, you hear someone moving around.

When stars are bright, you are in my arms, The nightingale, tells his fairy tale Of paradise, where roses grew...

You’re curious about your mystery colleague. After all, it’s nearly seven o’clock on a Friday evening, and you suspect you’re the only two crazy enough to still be here. While you’ve met the department chair and a few of the other professors, you have yet to meet everyone. And nobody so far has mentioned having the corner office right next to yours.

But then your phone vibrates, reminding you that if you don’t hurry up, you’ll be late to dinner with an old friend who’s passing through town. You grab your bag and keys and quietly shut your office door behind you. The door to your right is closed, but you can see light spilling out from beneath it.

Before you walk away, you take note of the name plate: Erwin Smith, PhD

• • •

The first day of classes is a whirlwind. You barely have time to eat lunch, and you empathize with your students as you, too, struggle to locate your various assigned classrooms on a still-unfamiliar campus.

By the time you return to the English department for office hours, you feel frazzled. Carrying a lukewarm coffee in a to-go cup and an armful of student info sheets in labeled folders, you quickly round the corner — and walk straight into someone.

“Oof.” Your folders tumble to the floor, and coffee splashes onto your shirt. The only reason you don’t lose your balance completely is a large, warm hand at the small of your back, preventing gravity from wreaking even further havoc.

“Are you alright?”

When you look up, you have to remind your brain that words exist and you should use them. Because the man in front of you — who, much to your embarrassment, is holding you rather close — is very, very handsome.

Golden hair, carefully combed back. Bright blue eyes that reflect a concerned warmth. Strong features, sharp cheekbones, a smile that would make anyone melt...

“Y-yes! I’m fine!” Once you’ve found your footing, you glance down at yourself, and then notice you’re not the only one who’s now coffee-stained.

“I’m so sorry,” you say, kneeling down to collect your folders and the many papers that slipped out of them. “I need to be more careful.”

“No, no, it’s my fault,” the man assures you, squatting down to help. “And I keep a spare shirt in my office. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve spilled coffee on myself while grading papers.”

Your fingers brush against his when you both reach for the same folder, and you feel your cheeks grow warm. “Still, though, I’m really sorry.”

You both stand, and he smiles kindly. “Please don’t worry about it. Can I help you carry these? It’s the least I can do.”

You nod and walk down the narrow hallway, with him trailing close behind you. “I’m going to take a guess and say you’re the new hire,” he ventures.

“Is it that obvious?” you ask with a small laugh.

“I’ve been here for a while now, so new faces stand out. Keith said you moved here for the job?”

You’re so flustered, it takes you a moment to connect the name with the stern but friendly department chair. “Yeah. New city, new job, new everything...”

“That’s a lot to be dealing with.”

When you reach your office door and retrieve your keys from your bag, the man behind you chuckles. “So it is you. I wondered, but they haven’t put your name plate up yet.”

“Hmm?” You turn to find him grinning and pointing at the door next to yours — the office of your mystery colleague.

“This is me. Sorry, I should’ve introduced myself — Erwin Smith.” He goes to offer his hand, then realizes your arms are full. You both share an awkward laugh.

You unlock the door and gesture for him to come in. “I’m beginning to think that we both apologize too much,” you tease, dropping the folders onto your desk and tossing the now-empty cup in the trash.

“Only when I’ve thoroughly embarrassed myself and made a questionable first impression.” Erwin hands you the remaining folders and shoves his hands in his pockets.

“No, you’re fine! Really, I appreciate the help.” You offer your hand and return his smile. “Let’s try this again. I’m Y/N.”

You notice that his hand is lightly calloused as it closes around yours. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” And you can tell from the look on his face that he means it.

• • •

Over the next few weeks, you see more and more of Erwin, as you both adjust to your respective schedules and learn when they overlap. He holds office hours at the same time as you, and since it’s still early in the semester, it’s unusual for students to actually show up. More often than not, you end up in his office. It’s larger and more comfortable — “lived in” he joked the first time you saw it, telling you about the evenings he’s inadvertently fallen asleep on the small sofa, reading after a late grad class.

There are twice as many shelves as there are in yours, all of them absolutely crammed with books. You could spend hours perusing them all. Sometimes, after you’ve finished grading papers, you pick one at random and page through it.

“Where are you?” Erwin will ask, in the midst of his own grading, and you’ll read a line from whatever book you’re holding, playing a little guessing game with him. More often than not, he knows the title and author from the smallest of clues. It’s obscenely attractive.

Then again, everything about him is attractive. You often feel guilty for sneaking glances at him while he’s preoccupied, watching how his brow furrows while writing an email, noticing when he rolls up his sleeves, revealing hard, lean muscle, thinking that he has no right to look so good while wearing reading glasses. On the few occasions he’s caught your gaze, always offering a small smile, you mentally berate yourself. He’s a friend — your first real friend here. But he’s also a colleague. Keep it professional, Y/N...

You meet his friends when he invites you to join them for weekly trivia nights at their favorite bar, the Garrison. All of them teach at the university, and they’ve formed their group slowly, over years of faculty get-togethers, awards ceremonies, and one terrible team-building camping trip. Hange, who teaches chemistry, immediately adds you to their group chat, which mostly consists of them spamming everyone with memes and Levi from the history department colorfully (but also endearingly) insulting everyone.

By the time midterms come around, your office hours have become much busier. But you still make time to talk with Erwin, and you’ve even spent time together off campus, when he offered to give you a tour of his favorite museum. When you mentioned it to Hange, they nearly spilled beer all over the table, gasping, “You two finally went on a date?!” Erwin choked, coughing as Levi pounded a fist against his back, and you were positive your face was so hot, it would spontaneously combust. Neither of you mentioned it afterwards.

But that hasn’t changed the fact that you have the biggest crush on him. And you’re not sure what to do about it. His friends — now your friends, too — haven’t exactly been subtle about trying to make something happen between the two of you. But neither you nor Erwin has made a move.

This evening, you’ve both stayed late, in an attempt to catch up on paperwork. You notice him stand and walk to the old turntable in the corner, changing the record. The song that begins to play makes you lift your head from the pile of tests sitting on your crossed legs.

“It’s that song.” When Erwin looks at you, puzzled, you explain, “You were playing it, the first time I was here — before the semester began.” Your face heats up as he continues to stare at you. “Sorry, that’s weird, right? I just... didn’t know anyone else was here, and it was a nice song, and —”

He laughs, raising his hands as he approaches you. “Whoa there. It’s okay, you just surprised me. It’s a favorite of mine — ‘Stardust’ by Hoagy Carmichael. My parents used to dance to it sometimes, when they stayed up late drinking wine, thinking I was asleep.”

“Let me guess,” you say, propping your chin on your hand. “You pretended and then read books beneath the covers.”

Erwin smiles. “Guilty.” He stands there for a moment, seeming thoughtful. And then he asks, softly, “Did you think it was a date?”

You blink up at him, setting your papers aside. “Oh. I... Um... No.” You’ve grown close enough to him that you can now read the subtle shifts in his expressions, and when you see a flash of disappointment, you blurt out, “But I wanted it to be.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I’m just... not great at things like this. Especially with a coworker. I didn’t want to make things complicated.”

Your gaze is fixed on the floor, so you don’t notice him sit beside you until the sofa cushion dips. When you turn to look at him, he smiles. “I’ve been feeling the same way. And I didn’t want you to think we’re only friends because of that — like I had an ulterior motive or something.”

He reaches for your hand but hesitates, allowing you to meet him halfway and entwine your fingers with his. There’s an almost imperceptible sigh of relief before he murmurs, “I like spending time with you. I’m sorry I’ve wasted some of it trying to figure out the best strategy, when I could’ve just... told you that.”

You squeeze his hand and smile. “That sounds an awful lot like an apology, Dr. Smith.”

Erwin chuckles. “Well, then, instead of ‘sorry,’ I’ll go with, ‘Would you like to have dinner tomorrow night?’ And to be clear, this would definitely be a date.”

“Hmm...” You glance at the clock on the wall. “It’s only eight. Is tonight too soon?” When his eyebrows inch upwards, you remind him, “You said you didn’t want to waste any more time. And if you do any more work tonight, you’ll end up doing that thing where you pinch the bridge of your nose over and over.”

He lets out a loud laugh. “Someone’s been paying attention.”

“You make it hard not to.” You stand, pulling his hand to your lips and brushing a soft kiss across his knuckles. It’s worth it, to see his blush deepen. “So... Where to?”

#200 followers event #attack on titan #aot #erwin smith #erwin x reader #erwin smith x reader

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thewidowsghost · 3 years

Text

The Daughter of the Sea - Chapter 8

(Y/n)'s POV

I know someone at camp resents Percy and me because one night, I come into the cabin alone and find a mortal newspaper dropped inside the doorway, a copy of the New York Daily News, opened to the Metro page. The article takes me almost an hour to read, because the angrier I get, the more the words float around on the page.

GIRL, BOY, AND MOTHER STILL MISSING AFTER FREAK CAR ACCIDENT

By Eileen Smythe

Sally Jackson, son Percy, and daughter (Y/n) are still missing one week after their mysterious disappearance. The family's badly burned '78 Camaro was discovered last Saturday on a north Long Island road with the roof ripped off and the front axle broken. The car had flipped and skidded for several hundred feet before exploding.

Mother, daughter, and son had gone for a weekend vacation to Montauk, but left hastily, under mysterious circumstances. Small traces of blood were found in the car and near the scene of the wreck, but there were no other signs of the missing Jacksons. Residents in the rural area reported seeing nothing unusual around the time of the accident.

Ms. Jackson's husband, Gabe Ugliano, claims that his stepson, Percy Jackson, is a troubled child who has been kicked out of numerous boarding schools and has expressed violent tendencies in the past.

Police would not say whether son Percy is a suspect in his sister's and his mother's disappearance, but they have not ruled out foul play. Below are recent pictures of Sally Jackson, (Y/n), Percy. Police urge anyone with information to call the following toll-free Crimestoppers hotline.

The phone number is circled in black marker.

I wad up the paper and throw it away, flopping down on my bunk on the far edge of the cabin under the window facing the sea.

I remain silent as Percy walks into the cabin, flopping down onto his bunk as well.

That night, I have the worst dream yet.

I was running along the beach in a storm. This time, there was a city behind me. Not New York. The sprawl was different: buildings spread farther apart, palm trees and low hills in the distance.

About a hundred yards down the surf, two men were fighting. They looked like TV wrestlers, muscular, with beards and long hair. Both wore flowing Greek tunics, one trimmed in blue, the other in green. They grappled with each other, wrestled, kicked, and head-butted, and every time they connected, lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.

I had to stop them. I didn't know why. But the harder I ran, the more the wind blew me back until I was running in place, my heels digging uselessly in the sand.

Over the roar of the storm, I could hear the blue-robed one yelling at the green-robed one, Give it back! Give it back! Like a kindergartner fighting over a toy.

The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying me with salt.

I yelled, Stop it! Stop fighting!

The ground shook. Laughter came from somewhere under the earth, and a voice so deep and evil it turned my blood to ice.

Come down, little hero, the voice crooned. Come down!

The sand split beneath me, opening up a crevice straight down to the center of the earth. My feet slipped, and darkness swallowed me.

I wake up, sure I'm falling.

I am still in bed in Cabin Three. My body tells me it's morning, but it's dark outside, and thunder rolls over the hills.

A storm is brewing.

I hadn't dreamed that . . .

I hear a clopping sound at the door, a hoof knocking on the threshold.

"Come in?" Percy asks, sounding uncertain.

Grover trots inside, looking worried. "Mr. D wants to see the two of you."

"Why?" I ask, peeking through the curtain separating mine and Percy's side of the cabin.

'He wants to kill . . . I mean, I'd better let him tell you."

Nervously, Percy and I get dressed and follow, sure we were in huge trouble.

For days, Percy and I'd been half expecting a summons to the Big House. Now that we were declared children of Poseidon, one of the Big Three gods who weren't supposed to have kids, I figure it's just a crime for us to be alive. The other gods had probably been debating on the best way to punish us for existing, and now Mr. D is ready to deliver their verdict.

Over Long Island Sound, the sky looks like ink soup coming to a boil. A hazy curtain of rain is coming in our direction. I ask Grover if we'd need an umbrella.

"No," Grover says. "It never rains here unless we want it to."

Percy points at the storm, 'What the heck is that, then?"

Grover glances uneasily at the sky. "It'll pass around us. Bad weather always does."

I realize that he's right. In the week I'd been here, it had never even been overcast. The few rain clouds I'd seen had skirted right around the edges of the valley.

But this storm . . .

This one's huge.

At the volleyball pit, the kids from Apollo's cabin are playing a morning game against the satyrs. Dionysius's twins - Castor and Pollux - are walking around in the strawberry fields, making the plants grow. Everyone is going about their normal business, but they look tense; they keep their eyes on the storm.

Grover, Percy, and I walk up the front porch of the Big House. Dionysus sits at the pinochle table in his tiger-striped Hawaiian shirt with his Diet Coke, just as he had on my first day. Chiron sits across the table in his fake wheelchair. They are playing against invisible opponents - two sets of cards hovering in the air.

"Well, well," Mr. D says without looking up. "Our little celebrities."

I wait.

"Come closer," Mr. D says. "And don't expect me to kowtow to you, mortals, just because old Barnacle-Beard is your father."

A net of lightning flashes across the clouds; thunder shakes the windows of the house.

"Blah, blah, blah," Dionysus grumbles.

Chiron faints interest in his pinochle cards and Grover cowers by the railing, his hooves clopping back and forth.

"If I had my way," Dionysus says, "I would cause your molecules to erupt in flames. We'd sweep up the ashes and be done with a lot of trouble. But Chiron seems to feel this would be against my mission at this cursed camp: to keep you little brats safe from harm."

"Spontaneous combustion is a form of harm, Mr. D," Chiron puts in.

"Nonsense," Dionysus says. "Boy wouldn't feel a thing. Nevertheless, I've agreed to restrain myself. I'm thinking of turning you into a dolphin instead, sending you back to your father."

"Mr. D - " Chiron warns.

"Oh, all right," Dionysus relents. "There's one more option. But it's deadly foolishness." Dionysus rises, and the invisible players' cards drop onto the table. "I'm off to Olympus for the emergency meeting. If the boy is still here when I get back, I'll turn him into an Atlantic bottlenose. Do you understand? And Perseus Jackson, if you're at all smart, you'll see that's a much more sensible choice than what Chiron feels you two must do."

Dionysus picks up a playing card, twists it, and it becomes a plastic rectangle. A security pass. He snaps his fingers. The air seems to fold and bend around him. He becomes a hologram, a wind, then he is gone, leaving only the smell of fresh-pressed grapes lingering behind.

Chiron smiles at me and Percy, but he looks tired and strained. "Sit, Percy,(Y/n), please. And Grover."

We do.

Chiron lays his cards on the table, a winning hand he hadn't gotten to use.

"Tell me, (Y/n)," he says. "What did you make of the hellhound?"

Just hearing the name makes me shudder.

Chiron probably wants me to say, Heck, it was nothing. I eat hellhounds for breakfast. But I don't feel like lying.

"It scared me," I admit. "If you hadn't shot it, I'd be dead."

"You two will meet worse. Far worse, before you're done."

"Done?" Percy asks. "With what?"

"You're quest, of course," Chiron says. "Will you accept it?"

I glance at Grover, who is crossing his fingers.

"Sir," I say, "you haven't told us what it is yet."

Chiron grimaces. "Well, that's the hard part, the details."

Thunder rumbles across the valley. The storm clouds had now reached the edge of the beach. As far as I can see, the sky and the sea were boiling together.

"Poseidon and Zeus," I guess. "They're fighting over something valuable . . . something that was stolen, aren't they?"

Chiron and Grover exchange looks.

Chiron shoots forward in his wheelchair. "How did you know that?"

"The weather since Christmas has been weird, like the sea and the sky are fighting. Then I talked to Annabeth, and she'd overheard something about a theft. And...I've also been having these dreams."

"I knew it," Grover says, his eyes bright.

"Hush, satyr," Chiron orders.

"But it is his quest!" Grover's eyes sparkle with excitement. "It must be!"

"Only the Oracle can determine," Chiron strokes his bristly beard. "Nevertheless, (Y/n), you are correct. Your father and Zeus are having their worst quarrel in centuries. They are fighting over something valuable that was stolen. To be precise: a lightning bolt."

Percy laughs, looking nervous, "A what?"

"Do not take this lightly," Chiron warns. "I'm not talking about some tinfoil-covered zigzag you'd see in a second-grade play. I'm talking about a two-foot-long cylinder of high-grade celestial bronze, capped on both ends with god-level explosives."

"Oh."

"Zeus's master bolt," Chiron says, getting worked up now. "The symbol of his power, from which all other lightning bolts are patterned. The first weapon made by the Cyclopes for the war against the Titans, the bolt that sheered the top off Mount Etna and hurled Kronos from his throne; the master bolt, which packs enough power to make mortal hydrogen bombs look like firecrackers."

"And it's missing?" I guess.

"Stolen," Chiron corrects.

"By whom?" I ask though I guessed what he was going to say.

"By you two," Chiron says and Percy's jaw drops.

"At least"—Chiron holds up a hand—"that's what Zeus thinks. During the winter solstice, at the last council of the gods, Zeus and Poseidon argued. The usual nonsense: 'Mother Rhea always liked you best,' 'Air disasters are more spectacular than sea disasters,' et cetera. Afterward, Zeus realized his master bolt was missing, taken from the throne room under his very nose. He immediately blamed Poseidon. Now, a god cannot usurp another god's symbol of power directly—that is forbidden by the most ancient of divine laws. But Zeus believes your father convinced a human hero to take it."

"But I didn't - We didn't -" Percy goes to say.

"Patience and listen, child," Chiron says. "Zeus has good reason to be suspicious. The forges of the Cyclopes are under the ocean, which gives Poseidon some influence over the makers of his brother's lightning. Zeus believes Poseidon has taken the master bolt and is now secretly having the Cyclopes build an arsenal of illegal copies, which might be used to topple Zeus from his throne. The only thing Zeus wasn't sure about was which hero Poseidon used to steal the bolt. Now Poseidon has openly claimed you two as his children. You were in New York over the winter holidays. You could easily have snuck into Olympus. Zeus believes he has found his thief.

"But we've never even been to Olympus! Zeus is crazy!"

Chiron and Grover glance nervously at the sky. The clouds don't seem to be parting around us, as Grover had promised. They are rolling straight over the valley, sealing us in like a coffin lid.

"Er, Percy . . . ?" Grover says. "We don't use the c-word to describe the Lord of the Sky."

"Perhaps paranoid," Chiron suggests. "Then again, Poseidon has tried to unseat Zeus before. I believe that was question thirty-eight on your final exam...." He looked at Percy.

"The Golden Net?" I guess again. "Poseidon and Hera and a few other gods trapped Zeus in it and wouldn't let him out until he promised to be a better ruler?"

"Correct," Chiron says. "And Zeus has never trusted Poseidon since. Of course, Poseidon denies stealing the master bolt. He took great offense at the accusation. The two have been arguing back and forth for months, threatening war. And now, you two have come along—the proverbial last straw."

"But we're just kids!" Percy protests.

"Percy," Grover cuts in, "if you were Zeus, and you already thought your brother was plotting to overthrow you, then your brother suddenly admitted he had broken the sacred oath he took after World War II, and that he's father, not one, but two mortal heroes who might be used as a weapon against you . . . Wouldn't that put a twist in your toga?"

"But I - we didn't do anything, Poseidon - our dad - he didn't really have this master bolt stolen, did he?" Percy asks, and I remain silent in thought.

Chiron sighs. "Most thinking observers would agree that thievery is not Poseidon's style. But the Sea God is too proud to try convincing Zeus of that. Zeus has demanded that Poseidon return the bolt by the summer solstice. That's June twenty-first, ten days from now. Poseidon wants an apology for being called a thief by the same date. I hoped that diplomacy might prevail, that Hera or Demeter or Hestia would make the two brothers see sense. But your arrival has inflamed Zeus's temper. Now neither god will back down. Unless someone intervenes, unless the master bolt is found and returned to Zeus before the solstice, there will be war. And do you know what a fullfledged war would look like, Percy? (Y/n)?"

"Bad?" Percy guesses.

"I'd guess that it would be like nature at war with itself," I say and Chiron nods.

"Olympians forced to choose sides between Zeus and Poseidon. Destruction. Carnage. Millions dead. Western civilization turned into a battleground so big it will make the Trojan War look like a water-balloon fight," Chiron adds to (Y/n)'s statement.

"Bad," Percy repeats.

"And you, Percy and (Y/n) Jackson, would be the first to feel Zeus's wrath."

And then, it starts to rain. Volleyball players stop their game and start in stunned silence at the sky.

We had brought this storm to Half-Blood Hill. Zeus was punishing the whole camp because of us.

"So we have to find that bolt," I say. "And return it to Zeus."

"What better peace offering," Chiron says, "than to have the son and daughter of Poseidon return Zeus's property.

"If Poseidon doesn't have it, where is the thing?" Percy asks.

"I believe I know." Chiron's expression is grim. "Part of a prophecy I had years ago...well, some of the lines make sense to me, now. But before I can say more, you must officially take up the quest. You must seek the counsel of the Oracle."

"Why can't you tell us where the bolt is beforehand?" Percy asks.

"Because if I did, you would be too afraid to accept the challenge."

I swallow thickly. "Good reason."

"You agree then?" Chiron asks.

I exchange a glance with Percy, then Grover, who nods encouragingly.

Easy for him, I think. We're the ones Zeus wants to kill.

"All right," Percy says. "It's better than being turned into a dolphin."

"Then it's time you consulted the Oracle," Chiron says. "Go upstairs, Percy and (Y/n) Jackson, to the attic. When you come back down, assuming you're still sane, we will talk more."

. . .

"Well?" Chiron asks us.

We slump into our chairs at the pinochle table. "She said we would retrieve what was stolen.

Grover sits forward, chewing excitedly on the remains of a Diet Coke can. "That's great!

"What did the Oracle say exactly?" Chiron presses. "This is important."

My ears are still tingling from the reptilian voice. "She said we would go west and face a god who had turned. We would retrieve what was stolen and see it safely returned."

"I knew it," Grover says.

Chiron doesn't look satisfied. "Anything else?"

"No," Percy says. "That's about it."

He studies Percy's face, then meets my green gaze. "Very well. But know this: the Oracle's words often have double meanings. Don't dwell on them too much. The truth is not always clear until events come to pass."

I get the feeling he knows we're holding something back, and he's trying to make us feel better.

"Okay," Percy says, looking anxious to change topics. "So where do we go? Who's this god in the west?"

"Ah, think, Percy," Chiron says."if Zeus and Poseidon weaken each other in a war, who stands to gain."

"Someone else who wants to take over?" I guess.

"Yes, quite. Someone who harbors a grudge, who has been unhappy with his lot since the world was divided eons ago, whose kingdom would grow powerful with the deaths of millions. Someone who hates his brothers for forcing him into an oath to have no more children, an oath that both of them have now broken."

"Hades," I say, raising an eyebrow.

Chiron nods. "The Lord of the Dead is the only possibility."

A scrap of aluminum dribbles out of Grover's mouth. "Whoa, wait. Wh - what?"

"A Fury came after Percy," Chiron reminds him. "She watched the young man until she was sure of his identity, then tried to kill him. Furies obey only one lord: Hades."

"Yes, but - but Hades hates all heroes," Grover protests. "Especially if he has found out Percy and (Y/n) are children of Poseidon . . ."

"A hellhound got into the forest," Chiron continues. "Those can only be summoned from the Fields of Punishment, and it had to be summoned by someone within the camp. Hades must have a spy here. He must suspect Poseidon will try to use Percy and (Y/n) to clear his name. Hades would very much like to kill these young half-bloods before he can take on the quest."

"Great," I mutter. "That's two major gods who want to kill us."

"But a quest to . . ." Grover swallows. "I mean, couldn't the master bolt be in someplace like Maine? Maine's very nice this time of year."

"Hades sent a minion to steal the master bolt," Chiron insisted. "He hid it in the Underworld, knowing full well that Zeus would blame Poseidon. I don't pretend to understand the Lord of the Dead's motives perfectly, or why he chose this time to start a war, but one thing is certain. Percy and (Y/n) must go to the Underworld, find the master bolt, and reveal the truth."

A strange fire burns in my stomach. The weirdest thing is, it isn't fear. It's anticipation. The desire for revenger. Hades had tried to kill me two times so far with the Minotaur, and the hellhound. It is his fault my mother had disappeared in a flash of light. Now he is trying to frame me, my dad, and my brother for a theft we hadn't committed.

Grover is trembling now; he'd started eating pinochle cards like potato chips.

The poor guy had to complete a quest with me and Percy so he could get his searcher's license, whatever that is, but how can I ask him to do this quest, especially when the Oracle said we were destined to fail?" This is a suicide mission.

"Look, if we know it's Hades," Percy tells Chiron, "why can't we just tell the other gods? Zeus and Poseidon could go down to the Underworld and bust some heads."

"Suspecting and knowing are not the same," Chiron says. "Besides, even if the other gods suspect Hades—and I imagine Poseidon does—they couldn't retrieve the bolt themselves. Gods cannot cross each other's territories except by invitation. That is another ancient rule. Heroes, on the other hand, have certain privileges. They can go anywhere, challenge anyone, as long as they're bold enough and strong enough to do it. No god can be held responsible for a hero's actions. Why do you think the gods always operate through humans?"

"You're saying I'm being used," Percy says.

"I'm saying it's no accident Poseidon had claimed you and (Y/n) now. It's a very risky gamble, but he's in a desperate situation. He needs the two of you."

My dad needs us.

Emotions roll around inside me like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. I don't know whether to feel resentful or grateful or happy or angry. Poseidon had ignored me for twelve years. Now suddenly he needed me.

3rd Person POV

Percy looks at Chiron. "You've known I was Poseidon's son all along, haven't you?"

"I had my suspicions. As I said . . . I've spoken to the Oracle, too."

(Y/n) gets the feeling that there is a lot he wasn't telling them about the prophecy, but she decides that she couldn't worry about that at the moment. After all, she and Percy were hiding back information too."

"So let me get this straight," Percy says. "We're supposed to go to the Underworld and confront the Lord of the Dead."

"Check," Chiron says.

"Find the most powerful weapon in the universe."

"Check."

"And get it back to Olympus before the summer solstice, in ten days."

"That's about right."

(Y/n) looks over at Grover, who gulps down the ace of hearts.

"But I mention that Maine is very nice this time of year?" he asks weakly.

"You don't have to go," Percy tells him. "I can't ask that of you."

"Oh . . ." He shifts his hooves. "No . . . it's just that satyrs and underground places . . . well . . ." He takes a deep breath, then stands, brushing the shredded cards and aluminum bits off his t-shirts. "You saved my life, (Y/n), Percy. If . . . if you're serious about wanting me along, I won't let the two of you down."

Percy feels so relieved that he wanted to cry, though he didn't think that would be very heroic. Grover is the only friend she'd ever had for longer than a few months. Percy isn't sure what a satyr can do against the forces of the dead but he feels better knowing he'd be with them.

"All the way, G-man," Percy turns to Chiron. "The Oracle just said to go west."

"The entrance to the Underworld is always in the west. It moves from age to age, just like Olympus. Right now, of course, it's in America."

"Where?"

Chiron looks surprised. "I thought that would be obvious enough. The entrance to the Underworld is in Los Angeles."

Percy's POV

"Oh," I said. "Naturally. So we just get on a plane -"

"No!" Grover shrieks. "Percy, what are you thinking? Have you ever been on a plane in your life?"

I shake my head, feeling embarrassed. My mom had never taken me and (Y/n) anywhere by plane. She'd always said we didn't have the money. Besides, her parents had died in a plane crash.

"Percy, think," Chiron says. "You are the son of the Sea God. Your father's bitterest rival is Zeus, Lord of the Sky. Your mother knew better than to trust you in an airplane. You would be in Zeus's domain. You would never come down again alive."

Overhead, lightning crackles and thunder booms.

"Okay," (Y/n) says, not looking up at the storm. "So, we'll travel overland."

"That's right," Chiron says. "Two companions may accompany you. Grover is one. The other has already volunteered if you will accept her help."

(Y/n)'s POV

"Gee," I say, feigning surprise. "Who else would be stupid enough to volunteer for a suicide quest like this?"

The air shimmers behind Chiron.

Annabeth Chase becomes visible, stuffing her Yankees cap into her back pocket.

"I've been waiting a long time for a quest, Seaweed Brain," she says. "Athena is no fan of Poseidon, but if you're going to save the world, I'm the best person to keep you from messing up."

"If you do say so yourself," I say. "I suppose you have a plan, wise girl?"

Her cheeks flush. "Do you want my help or not?"

The truth is, I do. I need all the help I can get.

"A quartet," I say. "That'll work."

"Excellent," Chiron says. "This afternoon, we can take you as far as the bus terminal in Manhattan. After that, you are on your own."

Lightning flashes. Rain pours down on the meadows that were never supposed to have violent weather.

"No time to waste," Chiron says. "I think you should all get packing."

Word Count: 4018 words

#percy jackson x sister reader #percy jackson and the olympians reader insert #female reader #reader insert #fem reader

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buttmuncher91 · 3 years

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a lot of advanceshippers love to say such bs about Drew even to this day. Drew is not my favorite character & it’s fine to prefer advanceshipping over contestshipping and I kinda like advanceshipping , but some of the things they say are ridiculous! This is not bashing on all advanceshippers or advanceshipping in general, this is just some quotes (not exact) I’ve seen that I’ve had problems with.

”Drew is a jerk! Ash would treat her right!“

Both would treat her just fine! Drew watches out for her & tells her when Harley is tricking her, saved her friends & brother when she was busy, saves her friends, cheers her up when she’s down, & they both calmly talk to each other when alone.

Besides, there are some things to point Ash being a jerk to her too! Ash yelled at her because he was butthurt he had no boat to get his next gym badge & skips out on watching some of her contest when May even watches him battle regular trainers.

And it’s not like May is an innocent angel herself. She yelled at Ash & Drew for no reason, had her torchic attack Ash, & forced Ash to agree to let her travel with him by bringing up her bike.

I know May & Ash have developed a lot sense than, but so has Drew & y’all are just stuck viewing him how he reacted at the beginning.

”May hates Drew & loves ash!“

She doesnt hate Drew. At the very worst, she sees him as a friend & has seen him that way by “Who, What, When, Where, Wynut.” Like I said we seen them talk a lot when they run into each other & heck, she even ditched the group, including Ash as he was talking to her, to talk to Drew when she saw Drew. So tell me again how she loves Ash way more than Drew lol!

And in ”Spontaneous Combustion“ May blushes at Drew after he waved and walked off. May never blushed around Ash, even when some weird couple accused her of being Ash’s lover. And there was nothing in that scene that indicates her getting red met something else. She wasn’t sick, doesn’t look mad, didn’t do anything embarrassing, etc... so it looks as if she really likes Drew.

”Drew is a flirts with any girl & would cheat on May, but Ash would never cheat on her!”

You people have nothing to back this up. Drew had fangirls gushing all over him? May being Norman‘s daughter and probably because she’s referred to as hoenn princess, has a lot of fanboys! In fact, Ash is more likely to cheat on May then Drew dispite him being oblivious, as Drew showed 0 interest in his fangirls & ran from them. If he was such a flirt, he wouldn’t run from fan girls, but would try & you know, FLIRT with them. Drew also showed 0 interest for other girls, & only teases May. You advanceshipper fanbrats (not saying all advanceshippers are fanbrats just the advanceshippers who think this) only pretend he is to make up reasons for May to reject Drew.

”He only likes May for her rack, & wouldn’t care for her if it was flat!“

Talk about reaching. Drew only stares at her FACE! He never stared at them, & the anime gave her chest 0 focus. He isn’t just some creeper. Despite not being interested in her, he treated Breanna nicely & she was flat. He may just have puppy love/a crush on her, but saying he’s just trying to win her because of her rack is complete bs!

”Think about it, Drew & May would make ugly babies!”

Based on what? Cuz Drew has green hair? As someone whose least favorite color is green (okay, okay dark/forest green is pretty), I think this is a stupid claim. Even with a weird hair color, there’s a chance the child could be cute, & really beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Hair color is NOT even close to a huge factor to what separates not ugly to ugly. And they don’t have to make babies if they do get together. They can just choose to adopt to help out those who need a home or just happily be with each other with no children at all.

”Drew is in less episodes with May than Ash, so advanceshipping is better & will be canon!”

🤦‍♀️Misty has the most screen time with ash. By this cruddy ”logic,” Misty & ash (so far) are canon. Yes, misty has much more screen time with ash than May. Misty had all of Kanto, Orange Islands, AND Jhoto with ash... as well as a cameo with ash in Hoenn, and TWO separate cameos in Alola. And at this point, May could have spent more time with Drew. It’s been 4 regions that Ash hasn’t even thought of 1 of her Pokémon after all this time. I’m no pokeshipper, but let’s be real here.

And most of the time Ash & May are on screen, it’s them focusing on their goals/Pokémon. They cheer & encourage each other too, but it’s mostly friendship stuff. Could something happen later on between them to spark love? Sure. But nothing in the anime ever pointed to that. And you can literally say that with Ash and... ANYONE! Like Ash could grow up, met back up with Roxie & they could fall for each other.

When Drew appears on screen, you mostly see hard evidence for contestshipping, weather on Drew’s side, May’s side, or both. Yes, there’s evidence on BOTH sides that they like each other. At best, advanceshipping looks one-sided on May’s side. And even then, it mostly looked that way in the beginning of AG. There’s way more evidence that May likes Drew & vice vesa than with ash & May, even with “less contestshipping hints!“ A lot of hints for shippings are overblown. Not just advanceshipping hints, but poke/pearl/negai(actually never mind, negai is under looked & over hated)/amour/etc... are over blown & it’s just ash being his usual nice/childish self. With Drew, it’s obvious he likes her as how he constantly stares at her, teases her, gives her red roses (& says they’re for beutifly), etc... While I think I covered how May likes Drew enough already. And yes, this could just be a kiddy crush for the both of them, but in the end there’s still harder evidence that Drew & May like each other.

Plus there are a lot of canon fictIonal couples who had less screen time with each other than other characters. Naruhina, ichihime, Hinny, gochi, etc...

“Drew never saves May’s life, unlike Ash!”

So? May never even tried to saved Ash, like she did with Drew!

Ash has also saved: Angie (who has a more confirmed crush on ash), Dawn, Pikachu (3x I can think of), Chinchar, Lillie (or at least attempts to help a lot of times), Celiebi, Erika’s Gloom, Serena, Misty’s sisters Pokémon, a ton of CotDs & their Pokémon...

And what of those who saved Ash? Misty, Sabrina’s... family photographer, Gary, Iris, Clemont’s father, Zeroara dude, a ton of officer jennys, Pikachu, a lapras, Paul, Drew (ya keep on hating him if it werent for him Ash Brock and Max would probably be dead in that crate Jessie, James & Meowth trapped them in so not even advanceshipping could happen).

“Rivals can’t be dating!”

Where did you get this bs? Even in the pokeani IN THE AG SERIES this has been proven false. Watch Pasificlog Jam again. Who put you in charge of how couples should work anyways? If a writer wants to have rivals hookup in their story, than they have that freedom to have the rivals hookup regardless how upset you get over it.

“Ash & May kissed in a banned episode, so advanceshipping is canon not contestshipping!”

Come on guys, they’re 10. The anime creators aren’t gonna have two 10 yr olds kiss on the lips. Its really creepy some person came up with this. No, it’s not creepy cuz I don’t like advaceshipping (I actually like some aspects of it). Again, it’s creepy because they’re 10. If they were like 13+ yrs old, it‘d be okay, but NOT 10. Plus, even Japan is very sensitive when having kissing on the lips happen with kid shows. Even with adults, they censor it/show something else as the kiss happens & just imply it happened. Expecally how they view kissing on the lips in the first place, they ain’t having 2 ten year olds kiss.

And there would be NOTHING to imply that they where going to kiss. Around this time this episode that they kissed claimed to happen (episode 357), Ash & co. where heading to fortree. Nothing ever was implied from the both of them even want to kiss each other. They just where supportive friends of each other with no hinting there where secret feelings or developing feelings from ether of them. Theres also nothing beyond that episode that implied the kiss happened. Because if it did actually happen, I’m sure something like that would impact the next few episodes, but nope no mention of any kiss nor do ash & May act any differently around each other in 358 and beyond. So even if it did happen, it was going to more than likely sink the ship, like it was some akaward thing they did because they were “under the mistletoe“ & afterwards just agreed to be friends & forget about it. The pokemon anime was always about friendship, adventure, and Pokemon themselves, never romance.

Also episode 357 is “Take This House and Shuppet!” not “A Kiss Under the Mistletoe!“ The Japanese episode is the same as the English barring names & episode number.

Were do you get such a sorce for this info? “my friend’s japanese friend who talked to the director of the AG anime & saw it!” or some other ridiculous unreliable garbage like that? Give me actual sources with interviews from the writers talking about this supposed banned episode. Bet you can’t, unless it’s fake & unreliable. If it existed, it would have floated up by someone from Japan. After All, even if for 20 mins that episode should’ve existed if it was just banned. Like “Electric Soldier Porygon” was banned completely & only aired one time in Japan. However, there are places that you can watch the episode despite it being completely banned due to putting a lot of children in the hospital from seizures. That was older than the supposed advanceshipping kiss episode as ’Electric Soldier Porygon’ is a Original Series episode in Kanto the 38th episode. No one can find this supposed advanceshipping episode nor is it even listed in the banned episode list. It should be harder to find this older banned episode than it should be to find this supposed banned kiss episode.

“Why should May choose Drew over Ash? Ash is like a literal god!”

What? Yes, he’s befriended every legendary & come back though poketears, save the world so many times, has arua abilities (he rarely uses), & whatever else, but it’s not like he seems that BA or whatever. Ash not aging seems over focused on, when in reality NO ONE is aging. It took him 7 regions to win 1 league (a questionable one at that), can’t remember Pokémon he seen before & sometimes forgets what he learned, & needs saved by others sometimes. Some god, can’t even rescue himself. Besides, who knows what Drew has done on his adventures. Drew has also saved Ash, Brock, & Max from trouble, isn’t Drew awesome saving someone ”like a god!”? Drew also has beat him in a battle as well, is that y’all’s problem?

And where is Ash’s voice in all this? It’s like this in all this anti-Drew bs. “Drew is just this terrible creature who possesses all 7 deadly sins & is the creation of Giratina & thus May hates & so does everyone else! However... blessed by Arceus himself, we all just know not dense Ash Ketchem is waiting to sweep May off her feet & save her from the demonic spawn that is Drew who is lusting after her bewbs😡” (<-original ideas, do not steal jkjk). Like there’s NOTHING to indicate ash wants her. And do you think this of May as well? Like do y‘all think May is just this perfect, sweetest, most divine woman in the pokeani that only Ash “blessed by Arceus“ is the only guy that should be blessed by such an angel? 🤣

Look, I like Ash & I like May. But even with my favorite characters I wouldn’t go as far as to think so highly of them that it makes Helga’s obsession with Arnold look like nothing. And just because Ash is more amazing with more feets & whatever, doesn’t mean May has to love ash or that Ash has to choose may because Drew doesn’t measure up to him.🤷‍♀️ Just think about it, should Timmy’s mom go with Dinkleburg? After all, he is smarter than Timmy’s dad, has more money & is more successful than he is. And Wandesemo is more popular, not stupid, & mostly competent unlike Casmo. Should Wanda dump Casmo for him? Of course i understand wanting the best person to end with you’re favorite character. But that’s not how love works & in the long run isn’t fair to both Ash & May (& Drew, but I know you haters don’t care about that).

#pokeani #Advanceshippers #contestshipping #Drew #Shuu #May #Haruka #Pokémon #Ash #Satoshi

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niqhtlord01 · 4 years

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Humans are weird: SCP list part 2

Alien: Why is a sheet of music written in berry juice so deadly? Human: That’s not berry juice, that’s human blood. Alien: WHAT!?!?!! Human: Yeah. Turns out it compels you to hurt yourself and try to finish the music in your own blood often resulting in death by blood loss. Human: Worst part is it isn’t even good music. It’s like going to a Kanye concert. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: A book of diseases? Human: You read a disease from the book and you get it. Human: Like, if you read about lung cancer you’d get lung cancer. Alien: But I don’t have lungs. Human: There’s a first time for everything. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: What’s this ones deal? Human: He’s a man made of paint. Alien: That’s it? Alien: Not deadly paint, or the ability to move between paintings? Human: Nope, just paint. Alien: You don’t sound impressed. Human: When you’ve seen a teddy bear made out of human ears that turns people into a lump of flesh covered in ears a man made of paint comes off as pretty tame. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: These threats all seem rather tame, limited to a single planet. Human: There’s also an entire star that hates us and is actively moving closer trying to roast us alive. Alien:......... Alien: What? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: Why would you lock up a little girl? Human: Because anyone who is near her for more than ten minutes will instantly want to kill her. Alien: Is that not how you feel towards all human children? Human: Now that you mention it..... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: A mind controlling pen? Human: A mind controlling pen. Alien: Who uses pens anymore anyway? Isn’t everything digital? Human: Clearly you haven’t seen how congress works. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: What’s this? A haunted nightclub? Human: It’s a location that turns people into characters of a script. Alien: I don’t understand. Human: The location compels people to come to it so it can enact some sort of script, like a soap opera. Alien: That hardly sounds scary. Human: It’s not so long as you don’t attempt to interrupt the script. Alien: What happens if you do? Human: Security personnel tried to stop the “husband” of the cheating wife script and ended up in the hospital. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human: These are hand puppets that take control of anyone their threads touch. Alien: Why is it so many of these things wish to take control of humans? Alien: You’re not even that interesting! Human: Someone’s just jealous supernatural fiends don’t find you interesting. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: A mirror that makes a copy of yourself? Human: The copy is trapped inside the mirror and has full sentience. Alien: What’s the catch? Human: Well, it’s “alive” so long as the original subject is within line of sight of the mirror. Once they are out of sight the copy will disappear. Alien: That doesn’t sound too bad. Human: Have you ever heard yourself beg for your own life? Heard your own voice pleading for mercy so it can continue existing? Human: That shit will haunt your fucking dreams. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: What is this one labeled “The Mother”? Human: Something we can’t talk about on Tumblr without being banned. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: Spontaneous combustion virus? Human: That’s a serious one. Human: We were afraid of that before we even knew it was a thing. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: A human with metal wings? Human: They look like wings but can’t really use them to fly. Human: You know, weighing the same amount as dense steel and all. Alien: Then how does he move around? Human A series of metal chains shoot out of the wings and latch on to the ceiling and pull itself along. Alien: These sound more like spider legs than wings to me.

#HUMANS ARE WEIRD #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #scifi #SCP Foundation #scp #scp game

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bread-tab · 3 years

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an antidote to social anxiety

or: i ramble at length about my thoughts on my own debilitating social anxiety and how i'm genuinely starting to get over it through one weird trick™ you can try at home.

i'm in this ongoing process of making myself remember that people are people. it's easiest with strangers on the street, harder with my family and friends, harder still with people on the internet, and most difficult of all with myself.

what does that mean? does it mean this is all a game to me, that i read your posts every day and judge you like a fictional character, that i don't care about anyone's feelings?

no.

what it means is that i'm autistic and have social anxiety, adhd, trauma, leftover identity issues from being trans, and a lot of ocd and dissociative tendencies—things that add up together into my mind being a dark, funky little place that i don't feel entirely at home in. there's probably varying levels of depersonalization involved, i don't know enough about that particular symptom to say. (something i should really probably look into more.)

anyway, what i'm trying to get at here is like, the cognitive side of all that. how it affects my thinking about people. how i relate to both others and myself. i've developed detachment as a defense mechanism.

i care immensely about people. maybe too much. i take things too seriously, i struggle to tell whether people are joking, and i'm way too anxious about every interpersonal thing ever. and that's just too much to process while i'm actively in a social situation. so, i push it to the side. i mask it. with the side effect of my mind going blank, and having trouble reacting emotionally to anything. someone tells me bad news? oh dear, i'm vaguely worried. someone tells me good news? oh nice, i'm vaguely worried. but i'm aware that that's an inappropriate response, so i fake an appropriate one—but i fake it as honestly as i can. i take a split second to go into the best social-analysis-genius mode i can muster and ask myself (without so many words, it's more of a feeling), how would i react to this if i wasn't incredibly anxious/feeling like i'm faking being a real person? and i can usually figure that out, and channel it, and it's almost as good as the real thing. almost.

(but hey, optimistically...maybe this is one of those fake-it-'til-you-make-it things. maybe i'm genuinely training myself out of having anxiety and back into having authentic reactions.)

and this works okay as a coping mechanism. it doesn't actually fix the anxiety, but it allows me to actually interact with people sometimes without spontaneously combusting in sheer terror.

thing is, that anxiety is still there, underneath. it's got deep roots. that anxiety warps how i perceive people. it warps my sense of self. and sometimes, when i'm really tired or really depressed...it gets out. it contaminates the mask. i find myself acting snarky, cynical, flippant, sometimes even genuinely mean.

and then i come back to myself, in the moment or after a good long sleep, and i go, that's not me. that's not who i really am. why did i do that? it's mortifying.

and that shame just reinforces the entire social anxiety cycle. fear myself, fear others, mask/put up walls, get tired, slip up, and worsen the fear. i'm not actually a bad person. but treating myself as if i was makes me a worse person than i would be if i could just somehow let all this anxiety go and be real with people. if i could forgive myself for being human.

so as to how this internal struggle relates to how i see other people... it messes with my empathy.

because like, that whole golden rule thing, "treat others the way you would want to be treated"? yeah, that doesn't work for me. i still try it as a thought exercise sometimes because i'm desperate. and it goes like... "how would you like to be told bad news?" either dump all the details on me right now (yes, trauma-dump, i need to know) or fuck off and deal with it yourself. don't ask me for help, i have my own issues, i don't have energy for you. "how would you like someone to comfort you if your pet died?" i wouldn't. i'd be too busy blaming myself and stewing in self-hatred. hit me up if you're an honest-to-god actual necromancer, otherwise leave me alone.

and uh, that's not who most people are! that's not even who i actually am! that's the full fermented toxicity of my social anxiety laid bare. because that thought experiment means i have to imagine being in a situation that would make me anxious and my response would involve imagining what i would want if i wasn't in that situation and that's where the whole thing breaks down because that's just too goddamn much for me to imagine at once. so i seem to get stuck on the anxiety, and damn, anxiety-brain is just in full fight-or-flight "leave me the fuck alone or else" mode.

so hey, it's very easy for me to empathize with people who are panicking! that's a plus.

the obvious answer to this little conundrum seems to be just...try that little thought experiment again but imagine not being anxious in the first place. and like...jeez, i wish i knew how to do that. i'm working on developing the emotional intelligence skills to be able to do that. i'm just really not there yet. i'm continually surprised by positive emotions, in other people and myself.

surprised and relieved. like, that person over there is feeling cheerful! thank god, jesus christ, i forgot everyone isn't severely depressed. wow, this thing inspires me with childish wonder! holy shit that's a real emotion? oh hey, me and the person i'm talking to right now are both calm and confident. sweet motherfucking pancakes batman i thought this only happened in movies!

so like...to bring this back to my original point... it's hard for me to realistically predict how people will react to things. up to and including myself. when i was a kid, i had really low/delayed empathy, maybe even impaired theory of mind, if that's a valid way to put it. (something i've struggled to convince my therapist of, because now i'm like this.) and as a teenager i realized i'd gotten fucked up somewhere in my development, and i care, so i got anxiety. so i try to think through it and i end up with either hardcore sherlock-holmes-style analysis or just panic that forces me to give up and distract myself. and the point is, i've ended up with a really screwed up twisted way of perceiving people.

and yet. miraculously. i've found a loophole.

i've somehow learned to sidestep the entire monstrous mechanism of my anxiety.

the frustrating thing is i don't really have the words to describe it.

it kind of feels like i've hacked the matrix.

it's like...

it's like i can put so much analytical energy into the social mask where everything is real pretending to be fake pretending to be real that i can just break through and come out the other side. like wait. everything is fake. so i'm free. so i can just be real.

and that just sounds like i'm saying, "hey, i figured out how to turn off my anxiety."

which is so wrong! i didn't! i'm actually still terrified. and i can't explain the reality of this breakthrough without all these miles and miles of background details because it just sounds obvious and/or fake.

reality is made up actually, so just do whatever.

your fears aren't reality. that's all in your head.

...well, i live in my head. i've had to get to this point the hard way. i'm glad some of y'all start out here and don't have to figure all this out for yourselves (seriously, not /s, i'm glad not everyone has to go through this)...but i've been down a different path.

so what does it mean, that "people are people"? that i have to remind myself of this, and that the reminder eases my anxiety?

i think it means i've developed a completely new concept of what a person is. what it means to be human.

and at the same time, that old anxiety-driven perception is still there, my social anxiety still gets triggered on a daily basis. and what i'm trying to do is notice that i'm using that old concept of "person." i'm trying to switch to the new concept. and that completely reframes the entire situation.

i can't encapsulate the old concept in a single word. it's the unsociable hipsterly refrain, "i hate people." it's person (derogatory), person (threat), person (predator). it's the competitive, hierarchical instinct...people are either ideals on pedestals or demons who have fallen from said heights. people is the generic popular kid from tv who will inevitably bully you for no reason, the sitcom studio audience who will laugh at the expense of everything you say. people is the eldritch, unknowable other, the alien intelligence that can outsmart you while remaining inherently unpredictable. it's barely even a concept of its own, really; it's a trigger, a vaguely person-shaped (friend-shaped?) sensory appendage attached to the network of anxiety nerves in my brain.

so i'm rewiring. i'm just going "fuck that, 'person' now means this other thing." it's infuriating how simple that sounds when i've put years of blood sweat and tears (aka, therapy) into getting myself to the point where it can happen.

and i don't want to understate that effort but... it is simple. if you're reading this and you have social anxiety and autism yourself, i want you to know it gets simpler. it gets easier to understand. you have to figure out how to get yourself there, and that's really hard, that's the struggle. but it's a solvable problem. it's possible.

and my new concept? i can't sum that up in one word either. it's humans. person (affectionate). my people. clever little creatures, like if you mixed a raven with a racoon and made it really tall and good at throwing things. warm beings that are so incredibly loving and loyal. but that makes it sound like i'm sanitizing humanity, making up a fake palatable version, and i'm not.

i'm constructing the concept of 'human' from new foundations, and i'm not leaving anything out. i'm building this concept in a hundred different ways, from so many starting points of different concepts that already make sense to me.

one starting point: babies. because i love babies and my social anxiety just doesn't apply to them. a baby can't hurt me. it's a baby. but a baby is also a person. a baby has every human need, and they'll let you know it with unbearable screaming because they don't know any other way to communicate. a baby is incredibly smart and focuses all of its energy on transforming into an adult, which is generally highly effective. babies are scarily competent. but they're also just...baby. small, soft, adorable. just literally baby.

and i can look at literally anyone, even the people who scare me the most, who in reality resemble person (old definition, threat, predator) more than they do person (new definition, literally just a little creature)—i can look at that person and go, dude, that was a baby once. i can look at a politician who could ruin my life with one stroke of a pen and mentally say, "that's a two-year-old with a gun." which is still a terrifying and heartbreaking scenario, but it's an effective reframe. it completely changes my role in the situation. it doesn't make me any less wary, it doesn't invalidate my sense that there's a real threat, but it changes the threat into something knowable and i can allow myself to be calm.

don't get me wrong, i'm not in the habit of infantalizing people. "baby" is just one ingredient out of many in the reconceptualization i'm using as an antidote to my anxiety. it's a variation on the old cliche, "imagine everyone in their underwear." just another reminder that underneath our serious, intimidating exteriors, humans in general are silly.

and i don't usually bother going that deep into a metaphor, in my daily life. i don't need to. all i need to do is remember to invoke the new concept instead of the old one.

with that one shortcut, i remember everything:

people are just little creatures

people are cool and amazing

people were babies once

people are just doing their best

people are silly

people are sweet

people are knowable

people are okay

i'm a person and i'm okay

we're okay

...and boom, i'm out of the matrix. phew. alright. i can handle this. i can take down the unnecessary defenses. we will not be needing the rocket launchers today. and suddenly even the darn the golden rule works, because what people (new concept) want isn't so complicated after all, and i'm no exception. i just want to be treated as a person (affectionate), not a person (derogatory).

so, daily reminder: people (old concept) are actually just people (new concept). people are people.

#social anxiety #coping #breadtab life #long post #animal death mention cw #politics mention cw #food mention cw #infantilization discussion #i love humans #is a category tag on this blog for a reason #reframing #second order change #lateral thinking #swearing #gun mention cw

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