#this chapter was started in May and then I had a blockage so really happy I got that done | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rollercoasterwrite · 2 years

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I’M SO CURIOUS [CHAPTER 6]

CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5

Prompt : Jjong is a college student with tight money, but manages to get into a prestigious uni where he becomes friends with Taemin. One day, Tae asks him to go out on a blind date with his cousin Jinki, a notable lawyer who still hesitates about dating someone. Jjong refuses, but the amount of money Tae offers is a sight he can’t ignore. Jinki adores him immediately and after several dates, Jonghyun falls in love with Jinki, but he doesn’t know how to tell Jinki about his agreement with Tae.

Chapter title : Lonely.

Pairing : Jongyu

Genre : romance, fluff, angst, smut

***TW for this chapter*** some abusive exchanges

Word Count : 8000 words approx.

Links : AFF & AO3

Special thanks to Cheryl, my beta once again!!!

The room was plunged into a dead silence, the only sound cutting through the quietness being the rhythmic ticking of the clock hanging over the closed door. Its two hands were showing that it was close to 9 pm. Normally, no one would be there to witness when it reached this hour of the night, but over the past few weeks, this hadn’t been the case. Someone had been there without fault every night working until he couldn’t anymore.

There was something about the calm and peace that engulfed everything around this time. He could pretend he was alone in the world and that nothing could get to him. This illusion had been his biggest comfort lately and he wasn’t ready to let it go, even if the dark circles under his eyes were telling another story.

He was overworked, he was exhausted, but that’s the only way he knew how to survive. When everything else failed, work was always there to keep him company and give him a semblance of purpose.

His eyes settled back onto the papers in front of him, looking for the best courses of action to tackle his newest case. This one was going to be tricky. Mergers were never simple. There were tons of negotiations and compromises to be made on each part to insure the best transition possible towards the new entity. The demands came easy, but never what each part was ready to let go to make things work.

Change is hard, he thought with a sigh, before flipping on to the next page of his growing file.

Before he could start reading again, a knock on the door interrupted him. He lifted a brow, puzzled.

"Yes?" he answered from his desk.

The knob turned and the door cracked open, revealing his best friend. He sunk back into his chair, relieved. But that relief was short-lived as he caught a glimpse of his friend’s expression.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

The tall one crossed his arms over his chest, effectively emphasizing his disapproval.

"Jinki, that’s enough," Minho finally said, making the other’s brows furrow from confusion.

"What are you talking about?"

"You working that late every night," the younger one clarified. "I let it go thinking that it was only temporary, but clearly, this has become a bad habit and I can’t let you go on like this."

Jinki let out a long-drawn-out sigh as he rocked back into his cushioned chair.

“I understand your concern, but I assure you that I’m fine. I just have lots of new cases I need to work on."

"Yeah, because you decided to take on more than you could handle," Minho reproved.

"I can handle them just fine. Do you hear me complaining?"

"You never complain, Jinki. Doesn’t make it okay," his friend pointed out with the stubborn resolve he regularly displayed towards him.

Sometimes, Jinki was grateful for it, but other times, like right now, he wished the other would just leave him be. He was a grown adult. And that meant that he was the sole person responsible for whatever decision he made. Even the senseless ones.

"Minho, go home," he gently ordered. "I’ll be done soon," he reassured before his gaze flicked down to his papers once again.

For a moment there, Jinki had been hopeful Minho would comply and leave him to his work, but that hope was soon shattered as the taller one walked over to his desk and took the file away from him.

"No, we are going home," the latter countered before opening the closest filing cabinet and sliding the file in.

"That’s not where it goes," the one sitting directed.

"I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about where that file goes," Minho snapped as he turned around to look him straight in the eye. "Work is over and you are going to get some rest now," he instructed with an authority that Jinki was more than familiar with.

The latter knew there was no arguing when his friend used that tone. Minho would always be more stubborn about getting the last word than he would ever be.

"Okay, Chief,” he conceded with another sigh before getting up from the chair that had seen him through most hours of the week.

He slid his blazer on and grabbed the few things he needed, watching Minho staring at him from the corner of his eye.

"Do I have something on my face?" he inquired as he slid his car keys in his pants’ right pocket.

"You lost weight," Minho didn’t hesitate to say.

That made Jinki smile.

"Well, I’ll take that as a compliment. Thank you."

"It’s not," the other objected. "It means you’re not eating enough."

"I mean a few pounds off my bones won’t hurt," Jinki lightly dismissed. ‘’I had to lose some weight, anyway.”

"No," Minho interjected again. "You didn’t have to lose weight. And even if you wanted to, that’s not the way to go about it," he went on in a disapproving tone.

"You need to take care of yourself, Jinki," he reiterated as the disapproval morphed into worry once more.

That effectively put an end to the conversation. Jinki couldn’t argue with that. He knew Minho was right. He knew he wasn’t healthy in every sense of the word. The problem was, a big part of him didn’t care that he wasn’t. He didn’t see the point. He would build himself back up and then what? Something else would come along to crush him to pieces?

He was so tired of fighting for his happiness. Maybe that wasn’t something he could ever get. Maybe his life was meant to be as plain as possible and dreaming for more was just pure madness.

As he settled into Minho’s car after the latter won the debate about which car they would take, Jinki took out his phone to check if he had any missed calls or messages.

“You’d better not be checking anything related to work," Minho warned as he started the engine.

"I won’t answer, I promise."

Jinki looked at his screen and saw he had missed a call. When he clicked on the notification and saw who it was, his heart stopped.

He immediately slapped his phone face down onto his thigh as he tried to will his heart back into a normal rhythm. Without realizing, he had closed his eyes to breathe through his internal ordeal, making his friend steal worried glances his way every few seconds.

"Jinki?" the one driving finally called out as he brought the car to a smooth halt at a red light.

The sound of his friend’s voice startled him, his eyes shooting open instantly.

"Yeah?" he replied, trying to gather his thoughts back into an organized puzzle.

"What’s going on?" the younger one pressed. "Is a client stressing you out?"

A client… I wish.

"Um, no… I just… Um…"

Thanks for nothing, brain, he mentally kicked himself as it kept drawing blanks.

"Is it who I think it is?" Minho asked as his eyes focused back on the road.

Brain, you can still help me lie about this. Come on!

His desperate request amounted to nothing more than an increase in his unease. He sighed, abdicating to the truth.

"Yes," he finally uttered as his gaze shifted to the window where his eyes could focus on the landscape that was running past them.

"Oh fuck," Minho let out loudly, eyes growing wide. "What’d he say?"

Jinki felt his jaw tense up.

"I don’t know, it’s a voicemail…"

"Oh…" the other expressed in a much softer tone. "What are you going to do?" he then asked, treading carefully.

Jinki let out a longer sigh, feeling his whole body abandon itself to the crushing feelings that had been looming over him for weeks now.

"I don’t know, Minho…" he managed to utter under his breath. He bit on his lip as he felt it quiver. "I just…" he started again before realizing his throat was closing on him.

Fortunately, Minho knew him like the back of his hand.

"No need to talk about it right now, Jinki," he reassured. "We’ll get you home so you can eat, drink something warm, and rest."

Jinki nodded, knowing he wasn’t in his right mind to make any kind of decision at this very moment.

As they finally made their way up to their loft a while later, Jinki felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. He cocked a brow as he felt it, trying to figure out when he had taken it out of its silent mode. As it buzzed again, he pulled it out, walking closely behind Minho as they stepped out of the elevator.

It was an incoming call…

It was him… His heart skipped a beat. Again….

Feeling anger fight its way through his turmoil, he picked up on impulse.

"What?" he harshly answered, forgetting himself.

There was a pause, a brief window of silence.

"Jinki…"

And just like that, the voice he knew too well, but had tried his best to forget, came through on the other side.

His grip tightened around the device at this ear, his knuckles turning white.

"Why are you calling me?" he said through gritted teeth.

Another pause.

"I… was wondering when you were getting back, I-"

"Why’d you want to know that?" he sharply interjected, feeling the seams of his control rip apart thread by thread. He felt Minho’s gaze on him as he matched his pace, eager to reach his safe haven.

But before he could do so or get an answer from the other, he came to a halt mid-way through the hallway, his arm dropping to its side as he saw what, or rather who, was waiting a few meters ahead.

Everything suddenly seemed to come to a full stop. They all froze into place simultaneously, bracing for what was to follow. Jinki was in the middle of it all, caught between a worried gaze and a troubled one. He suddenly couldn’t feel his body, couldn’t even see clearly. Nothing was making sense anymore, throwing him into a panic that felt foreign, but all too familiar at the same time.

A steady hand squeezed his shoulder before lips grazed his ear.

"If you want me to get rid of him, just say the word."

The words were clear, but his feelings towards them not so much. He felt torn between his lingering anger and his desire for closure.

"Ming?" he quietly said, gaze still fixed ahead.

"Yes?" the other replied, staying close.

"What should I do?" he found himself asking as the internal battle continued inside him.

The taller one sighed.

“I can’t choose for you… But if you don’t feel like you can deal with this right now-"

"I don’t think I can deal with this at any time," he cut in, distressed.

"So I’ll tell him to go then," Minho settled before moving.

But before he could continue on forward, Jinki grabbed his arm.

"Wait."

Minho looked back at him, confused.

"I’ll… I’ll deal with him," Jinki said, mustering up all the courage he had in him in that moment.

Minho frowned, concerned.

"You sure?"

"Yes, yes," Jinki quickly dismissed. "Can you, uh…"

"Want me to leave you guys alone?" the other guessed.

Jinki nodded, gaze lowering to his feet as his request weighed on him.

"Okay," Minho immediately agreed, as if it were nothing. "How long do you need?"

"Not long, I suppose… Like twenty minutes?" Jinki offered for good measure.

"Okay." Minho turned fully towards him before adding in a low voice, "Don’t let him fuck you over, yeah?"

Jinki’s gaze met his and he nodded, grateful for the reminder.

Soon after, his friend’s footsteps echoed down the hallway, gradually fading in sound before they turned silent. Now, he was truly on his own and that thought was terrifying. Yes, he was angry, yes, he knew what was best for him, but he was also feeling very vulnerable and hurt and those two things made for a very dangerous cocktail if not kept in check.

Despite these thoughts, he willed himself into action and took step after step, closing the gap between them in a matter of seconds. If he had felt himself falter before, it was nothing compared to what he was feeling now. Gazing up close into those hazel eyes was like jumping headfirst into hot lava. It was threatening to burn him down to the core.

And somehow, he could feel that it was a shared feeling as the one looking back at him started wiping his hands over his loose-fitted black joggers. It prompted a quick assessment of the other’s attire, feeling a flutter in his chest at the matching all-black attire, complete with his favored black Timbs. The younger one’s blonde hair looked as fluffy as ever and Jinki found himself wanting to run his fingers through it.

Stop, he silently reminded himself, before fishing for his keys inside his pocket. Without a word, he led them inside, both pausing silently to remove their shoes.

"Do you want something to drink?" he instinctively asked as he made his way to the fridge.

"Um, no… thank you," the blonde replied, uneasy.

"It’s no problem, really," Jinki said as he opened the fridge’s door.

"I’m fine, thank you," the other reiterated.

"Okay," he acknowledged before pulling out a can of beer for himself.

He definitely needed some liquid courage.

He then made his way back to the lobby and gestured for Jonghyun to sit down with him in the living room. They naturally sat on either side of the center table, facing each other while keeping a comfortable distance.

Now that they were in each other’s presence again, everything felt surreal. It felt like they were stuck in a plane of existence that wasn’t actually real. Jinki didn’t want to say it felt like a dream, but that was the closest way he could describe it. There was a part of him that just wanted to jump the gun and let loose while an equally strong part of him wanted to keep everything locked in.

After all, Jonghyun had come to him and even left him a message prior to that, so it was probably best he let him say his peace before deciding on his best course of action. With that settled, he relaxed into the armchair and took a long sip from his beer.

He watched as Jonghyun was almost folded in two before him, forearms resting on his thighs as he stared down at the nervous dance his hands were conducting on their own.

Jinki felt impatient for him to break the ice, but he bided his time, willing himself to keep silent.

After a few long seconds, Jonghyun straightened up and cleared his throat.

"Did you listen to my message?" he asked in a quiet voice.

The brunette shook his head.

"No, I just saw it not long ago as we were coming back," he explained.

"Oh…" Jonghyun’s hand followed suit to rub the back of his neck, a gesture Jinki had grown accustomed to seeing whenever he was trying to soothe himself.

"Don’t… um… you can delete that," he then said.

Jinki frowned.

"Why?"

"It’s a bunch of nonsense… I didn’t think, I just, I left it impulsively and that’s why I came here actually, " he cleared up through his rambling before diving right back in. "I figured it would be easier to explain everything to you face to face, even though I wasn’t sure if you’d even talk to me."

"Well, I’m very interested in knowing more about whatever nonsense you left on my phone," the brunette persisted as his gaze zeroed in on the reddening cheeks of his ex-lover.

Jonghyun’s head dropped down again, eyes stilling onto the space between his feet.

"It’s mostly just me crying and sniffling… " he paused, swallowing down the lump that was forming in his throat. "And begging," he added in a voice close to a whisper.

"Begging?" the older one echoed, frowning.

The blonde nodded, still not looking up.

"Yeah, I was desperate…"

Jinki kept looking at him, confused.

"Desperate for what? More money?" he blurted out.

The grimace he caught on the other’s face before he dared look up at him again was enough to tell him that the words he had chosen had stung like he had wanted them to.

"Do you really think that’s why I’m here?”

The response was filled with hurt, but Jinki wasn’t without noticing the undercurrent of anger in his tone.

"I don’t know, you tell me," he threw back at him before taking another swig from his can.

"You know that’s not why I’m here," Jonghyun fought back. "That was never why I kept things going with you," he reiterated as his voice grew coarser.

"And why should I believe you? Just ‘cause you say so?" Jinki taunted, words dripping with contempt.

Jonghyun sighed to give himself a breather, letting his back rest against the soft cushion of the couch.

"That’s what I thought," Jinki said as he took the sudden silence as confirmation of his words.

"Can you just… give me a second?" the blonde requested, closing his eyes to think.

"Why? So you can build up more lies?" the older one kept on, relentless.

He wasn’t up to playing games. He wasn’t up to be fooled again. He was tired.

"No," Jonghyun immediately countered, keeping his mounting frustration in check.

"Why did you come here, really?" Jinki threw right back at him, straightening up in his seat.

The silence that followed and the helpless look the other gave him told him he had won this round.

"Ah," Jinki expressed in realization before delivering his next hit. "Did you come here to get your money’s worth?"

The blonde frowned, half-offended, half-confused.

"What?"

"You were probably expecting sex after having put all that hard work into this charade," he coldly laid out as he fully unleashed all the resentment he had keep inside these past few weeks.

Oh, and how much damage that did. Whatever composure Jonghyun had managed to keep instantly crumbled in front of him. Jinki’s emotionless gaze maintained the other’s devastated one, partly enjoying the power he was having right this moment.

The other part of him knew it was a matter of time before the overbearing weight of guilt would come crashing down on him, leaving him breathless. Nonetheless, he didn’t want to regret his words. Not when he had been flip flopping all this time in between believing what they had was real or it being the product of a well-crafted scheme.

Jinki wanted to be trusting, but he still had enough self-preservation instincts to know he couldn’t just give out that trust over and over again without any regard towards his well-being.

"Jinki," the blonde managed to croak out between quivering lips.

Jonghyun’s vision blurred despite himself, but he felt resolved to say what he had been wanting to say ever since their last encounter, ever since the moment they had last seen each other.

"I love you," he finally let out, the words knocking the breath out of him for a split second before tears rolled down his cheeks and painful sobs rose from his chest.

This was not how he had wanted to confess, but it felt like there was nothing else he could say, nothing else that mattered.

Jonghyun couldn’t see the other’s reaction, too busy wiping the tears out of his eyes and off of his face and trying to get himself together again. He couldn’t see how Jinki’s eyes widened and how his body froze as soon as those three words hit the air between them. He couldn’t see how Jinki’s mouth fell open and how his chest heaved as the words wrecked his synapses, taking over the control board in his brain.

Nothing could’ve prepared him for that. All the confidence he had mustered as he delivered blow after blow dissolved, leaving him stunned, almost knocked out.

He might’ve won the battle, but Jonghyun was threatening to win the war. He couldn’t have that.

"You love me?" Jinki echoed, making sure his tone was derisive and taunting.

Yeah, he really couldn’t have that.

But that didn’t seem to deter the one who had just bared his heart in front of him.

"Yes, I do, Jinki," he reiterated.

Finally being able to stare at him again, he repeated, "I love you. I love you so much, Jinki."

Jonghyun’s voice dripped with desperation, and he knew it, but he didn’t care anymore. He wasn’t going to have another chance at this, he knew it.

The older one’s lips thinned as his jaw clenched, trying to keep his guard up, still. He needed a moment to think, he needed a moment to figure out his next move, because clearly, Jonghyun wasn’t going to hold back anymore.

And that was scaring the shit out of him. He could be tough and mean all he wanted, but under his hard armour, was an utterly vulnerable and needy human being.

Not being able to find his words yet, he resumed his drinking, finishing up all the beer left in his now dented can. It had turned lukewarm inside the warmth of his hand, but nonetheless, the break it provided was quite appreciated.

Once he was done, he set the can down by his feet, before getting up.

"Where are you going?" Jonghyun asked from his seat, panicked.

"Need another beer," Jinki mumbled under his breath before walking back towards the fridge.

He welcomed the fresh air that hit his face as he opened the stainless-steel door in search of more liquid courage. But before he could grab another can, a hand met the middle of his upper back, startling him.

He turned back around to see Jonghyun standing right in front of him, so close to him…

"What are you doing?" the taller one blurted out as he looked into determined hazel eyes.

Jonghyun gnawed at his bottom lip, actually showing some hesitation, before pushing the fridge’s door closed with his hand.

"I want to know how you feel," he answered as he searched his ex’s face for any clues.

"How I feel about what?" Jinki feigned, in a poor attempt to buy himself some time.

That made the blonde scoff.

"I guess you have to be difficult about it."

That made the brunette mad.

"You think I’m being difficult?" he exploded. "Did you really think that after only a month I would forget what you did to me? Did you really think it would be as easy as you just showing up, saying I love you, and then I would just forgive you and take you back?"

"No, Jinki, I-"

"I fucking hate you," he interrupted as his body quaked with rage.

This was not like him. This was not like him at all. Yes, he could get mad, but no one had ever made him lose his mind so much before. He truly hated how this man could completely throw him off in a matter of seconds. His fists clenched by his side as he breathed heavily, waiting.

Jonghyun blinked at him, taken aback. It took him a few seconds before he seemed to come back to himself.

"You have every right to hate me," he acknowledged, keeping his voice soft to not add to the fire that was menacing to engulf everything. "I knew you would… I know you do," he went on, voice close to a whisper. "But it doesn’t change how I feel about you and what I am willing to do to be with you, even if it means waiting for however long," he added before stepping back to give the other more space. "I am sorry I just showed up like this and ruined your night," Jonghyun then said, feeling remorseful. "I won’t contact you until you are ready to tell me what you want… even if it is that you never want to see me again."

He then started turning to leave, but a firm grip on his arm had him spinning around and before he knew it, his back was against the cold stainless-steel door.

"You’re a piece of shit, you know that?" the taller one spat at him as his two hands settled at each side of the blonde’s head, trapping him.

The latter just gulped, scared, hurt, and confused.

"You really just came here to fuck with my head again and make me doubt everything, huh?" Jinki kept on, needing to let the venom spill out of him before it could kill him.

He was looking down on the smaller man like prey, ready to rip him apart any moment now.

"Jinki…" Jonghyun breathed out. "I am not messing with you, I never was," he once again stated, before adding, "I know the premise of us meeting shatters all my credibility, but what I have felt for you from the start has all been real."

When Jinki stayed silent, he took this as permission to go on.

"And I’m really sorry I agreed to take that money. I should’ve never done that, that was fucking stupid and selfish."

"It was," the brunette immediately agreed.

Jonghyun looked down at that, hit with even more guilt under the accusing eyes of his ex-boyfriend. But he couldn’t hide long.

The older one pushed his chin up with a finger, locking their gazes together once more. Jonghyun waited for him to speak, to keep on raging, but nothing came. And before he could say anything, soft plush lips brushed against his, making him shiver.

He gave an expectant look to those luscious lips, but before he could taste them, they travelled to one side of his face, connecting with his ear.

"You drive me fucking crazy, you know that?"

Jonghyun felt his heart skip at that, his body inflaming with desire.

"Jinki," he softly whined.

This was so much and so little at the same time, but Jonghyun didn’t know what he could or couldn’t do at that moment. He could just keep still, anticipating.

It felt like time was standing still, waiting for either of them to move before retrieving its course. Which didn’t take too long once Jinki grew more and more impatient. His lips travelled down to the blonde’s neck, leaving a trail of feather-like kisses, knowing how much he loved that.

"Fuck," Jonghyun let out under his breath, biting on his lip right after to keep himself from whimpering.

Jinki felt prideful of the effect he was having on the man who had hurt him so much, but who he desired nonetheless. He stopped his teasing ministrations to look at him again, allowing himself to admire his flushed face and glossy gaze.

Something dark, something visceral coiled inside him and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to ruin the blonde completely.

"Bedroom," he growled before dragging the other with him towards said place.

Something in the back of the other’s mind told him this wasn’t a good idea, but who was he to refuse Jinki after everything he had made him go through?

So he just followed and didn’t say a word when he was thrown onto the bed and was towered over immediately by the other’s heavier body. He felt a shiver run down his spine as he caught the brunette’s predatory gaze, all signs of the Jinki he knew, gone.

A faint alarm sounded in his mind again and he couldn’t help but listen to it.

"Jinki, maybe we shouldn’t-"

He was silenced by a brutal kiss, that was more teeth than lips, a stark contrast to the always gentle even when passionate kisses he was accustomed to. When he felt the other’s tongue forcefully roam inside his mouth as he pinned his wrists to the mattress, Jonghyun knew this wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

He wanted Jinki to love him back, not use him and then discard him.

"Jinki, stop," Jonghyun pleaded as the other pulled back to catch his breath.

The brunette cocked a brow before snickering when the blonde’s serious expression remained unchanged.

"What? Don’t want me to fuck you?" he mocked as he let go of the other’s wrists.

"I don’t want that, not like this," Jonghyun said, pushing on Jinki’s chest to signal him to move off him.

But Jinki didn’t move.

"Oh, suddenly you’re a fucking prude, huh?" Jinki belittled in contempt. "You wanted me to fuck your brains out on the first date, but now you don’t want it?" he remarked snidely.

It took everything for Jonghyun not to lose his temper and slap him right then and there, but he knew that was what Jinki was looking for. For him to further prove himself to be the asshole Jinki thought he was.

He wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

"No, I don’t want it," Jonghyun confirmed, voice steady and resolute. "I don’t want you to hate-fuck me. If we are ever in bed again together, I want us to have sex because we love each other."

"Aaaw," Jinki voiced sarcastically. "How fucking romantic… the whore who got paid to go out with me is now looking for true love. That’s really cute."

Jonghyun’s hand flew before his mind could stop him. He felt the sting of his slap thrumming through his palm as he watched the brunette retract in shock.

Now that there was more space between them, reality seemed to sink in for both of them and it wasn’t pretty.

"Jinki, I’m so sorry," Jonghyun started, eyes widening as he sat up on the bed.

The brunette rubbed the side of his face, trying to get a hold of the situation. He suddenly realized what he had just said and what he had been about to do and it made him sick to his stomach.

"No," he interjected. "I’m sorry, Jjong," Jinki said, shame washing over him.

They just stared at each other, feeling awful for what had just transpired.

"I think I should go…" Jonghyun finally said, cutting through the painful silence.

Jinki just nodded, not knowing what else he could say. Part of him wanted to ask him to stay, but the rational part of him knew the best thing they needed right now was space.

Nonetheless, Jinki didn’t want to leave it that way. He wanted to at least show that he wasn’t a heartless monster. So before Jonghyun could make it past the doorframe, he hugged him from behind, closing his eyes as the other’s body warmth settled his heart a bit.

"Let’s talk at another time, yeah?" he carefully asked against him.

"Yeah, sure," Jonghyun accepted as he relaxed in his arms.

After a few more seconds of shared silence, this one much more comfortable, Jinki let go of him, not without some regret.

Jonghyun wanted to look back, but he didn’t, knowing he might lose it again.

So he left the room, breaking away, despite the pain he felt doing so.

Jinki watched him leave until he couldn’t see him anymore before slumping down back onto his bed, choking up on sudden tears.

I love you, too, Jonghyun, I do, he silently admitted to the now empty room.

I knew way before we met…

***

6 months earlier

(3 months before they met)

Jinki knew the obsession was starting to get unhealthy, but he couldn’t help himself. As he set the broom to rest against the counter, he looked through his phone for the song he hadn’t been able to get out of his head. It had taken some arguing and pleading with Taemin to get a hold of it, but now that he had it on his phone, there was no looking back.

Soon enough, the first haunting notes of piano started playing on their wireless sound system, filling the empty loft with grief and sorrow. This was probably not the best song to listen to while doing some Sunday cleaning, but there was nothing else he wanted to listen to right now. Ever since, he had heard his voice, it felt like something had changed in him. It felt like he had found a part of himself again.

Dust flew across the wooden floor to collect into a neat pile at the center of the living room as he pondered the words that were so beautifully sung.

My reflection inside the closing elevator

Looks miserable

But still, I live on…

That was the bit that hit the hardest. It felt like the one singing had found the words he often failed to find to express how he felt about his life. To the outside world, Jinki was well accomplished. He was a successful corporate lawyer at a young age, he lived in a prized part of the city and owned a luxurious car and fancy suits.

But Jinki had never cared about how he looked to the outside world. He had only cared about pleasing his parents first and foremost, but it seemed like nothing he did was ever enough for them. They never really acknowledged the life he had built for himself, the only words rolling out of their mouths being how he should’ve settled already, started a family, and attended country club events to be visible in the right circles.

But Jinki was done bending every which way to please them. Now that he had entered his thirties, he realized it was time for him to make changes that would make him feel better, not worse. He wasn’t without feeling the harsh claw grip of guilt seize his stomach every once in a while when he thought about his parents, but he always tried to remember how much his mood had improved since he had minimized contact with them to the strict minimum.

Speak your heart out

I can tell you're very lonely

Tell me some more

You know you can't take it anymore

Jinki froze mid-way on his way back to the kitchen as those words sunk in.

Yes, I’m so lonely…

He felt a lump form in his throat as the realization dawned on him.

Since when have you been all by yourself? The song threw back at him.

Seems like forever, he answered as if a reply was needed.

The last bit of the song played out leaving the room in an eerie silence. Jinki just stared into space, his shaky hand threatening to spill the content of the dustpan he had been holding. He didn’t know how long he stood there, sitting in the immense void he had never seemed to be able to fill.

But however long it was, it was suddenly interrupted by the door opening, signaling his best friend’s return. Jinki snapped out of his daze as the door shut behind the taller one and resumed his trajectory towards the trash can, getting rid of the mess.

"Hey, guess what happened to me today?" Minho said as he swiftly made his way towards him.

Jinki’s brow cocked for a second, but he quickly caught on to what that question hid.

"Ah," he deadpanned. "You worked your charms on a girl again?"

"No need to sound so exasperated," Minho reproached, clearly taking offense.

Jinki gave him a blank stare.

"Am I wrong?"

Minho crossed his arms over his chest, defeated.

"No, you are not, but this was different."

"I swear!" he then exclaimed as his best friend’s unchanging gaze had him vehemently wanting to make himself credible.

"Okay, okay," Jinki conceded. "What was different about this one?"

He now set his cleaning supplies to the side to give his full attention to the one standing before him.

Minho’s face immediately beamed with excitement as the memory of his previous encounter unfolded in his mind.

Jinki couldn’t say that didn’t warm his heart. Despite his harrowing feelings of loneliness, he would always be happy that his friend could find companionship so easily. Even though he never kept his girlfriends around long, the time he spent with them always seemed to do him good.

"So you know how I was out shopping for new suits?"

"Yeah…"

"Well that didn’t happen, ‘cause after I helped out an elderly woman cross the street-"

"Of course," Jinki interjected as he rolled his eyes.

Somehow, Minho always ended up doing the most stereotypical gentlemanly things ever. It was quite literally impossible to hate the guy, but his seemingly effortless perfection could get on one’s nerves at times.

"Hey, don’t roll your eyes at me!" Minho called out. "It’s only natural to help out someone who is struggling."

It took everything from him to keep himself from rolling his eyes again.

"Yeah, yeah," he dismissed. "Get on with it now".

Minho glared at him for a split second, before going on with his story.

"So as I was saying," he went on after clearing his throat. "I helped this elderly woman out and suddenly, this young lady came out of nowhere and grabbed her arm in panic. Before I could figure out what was going on, she started yelling at me and hitting me with her handbag," the younger one detailed as if recounting a movie scene. "Can you imagine? Everyone was just looking at us in shock, thinking I was being inappropriate or something."

Jinki’s brows furrowed in confusion.

"I fail to see why you sounded so excited to tell me about this encounter."

There was a sudden shift in his friend’s expression, his face shining with delight as his lips thinned out into a self-satisfied smile.

"Well… " he prefaced. "The elderly woman, who turned out to be her grandmother, started yelling at her in turn and explained how nice and helpful I had been to her."

The older one’s face lit up.

"Aaah, I see…" he exclaimed. "So you and that elderly woman hit it off, huh?"

The blank expression that instantly settled on his best friend��s face was enough to make him burst out laughing.

"Ladies of every age love you," he stated, still laughing. "Don’t act as if I said the craziest thing in the world."

"If I remember correctly, older women are usually attracted to you," Minho knowingly threw back at him, effectively stealing his friend’s amusement and turning it into his own.

"You will never let that shit go, will you?" was Jinki’s annoyed response.

"How could I?" Minho promptly riposted. "I have to keep bringing up the same old anecdotes, ‘cause you refuse to get your grown man ass out there and date someone," he then reminded.

Ah there it was. His Achilles’s heel.

"I’m not you, Minho," he quietly replied, his jaw clenching with the underlying anger he felt towards his friend, but also towards himself.

"No, you are not," the younger one agreed. "But that doesn’t mean you don’t have the same ability to make anyone fall for you. You just need to tap into your confidence again."

Jinki sighed as he felt the never far-gone ball of self-loathing roll inside his stomach. He wanted nothing more than to throw it away, but somehow, knowing it was there made him feel less lonely.

"Well, how about you finish that story so that I can take notes from the expert?" he managed to swiftly turn around to get the focus off his pathetic state.

Minho’s gaze narrowed at that.

"I know what you are doing, but I’ll indulge you for now," he accepted, catching the other’s relieved expression.

"So," he resumed. "Even though her grandmother explained to her what had happened, she still looked at me like I was a criminal," Minho recounted as his eyes grew wide from the passion of his storytelling.

"Okay…" Jinki voiced, still trying to figure out what was coming next.

"So of course, I felt like it was my duty to crush that perception completely."

"Aaah, so you went all out," the older one gathered.

"No, I couldn’t," Minho said with an amused smile that made him confused again.

"How come?"

"She wouldn’t let me treat them. She said I was too nice and that it was suspicious," he added with his signature hyena cackle.

"To be fair, I am surprised that has never happened to you before," Jinki observed. "I’m your best friend and I sometimes also find your kindness and generosity somewhat suspicious," he specified, half-joking, half-stating.

Minho’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets at that.

"Eh??" he exclaimed in disbelief. "Are you saying I’m faking it?"

"Not at all," Jinki refuted. "I just think that the universe gave you the most of everything and left the rest of us with crumbs,” he explained with an airy laugh.

The tall young man crossed his arms over his chest, annoyed.

"First, that is not true. Secondly, it’s sad that genuine kindness has become suspicious in today’s world."

Jinki nodded as he pondered those words.

"I can agree with that, but unfortunately, a lot of people out here are using people as a means for their personal interests."

Minho gave him a sympathetic look.

"I know where you and others are coming from, but it’s not everyone. There are still good, honest people out there."

"Hopefully," Jinki replied, tone heavy.

"No, not hopefully," Minho countered. "There are and I know you will find that special gem that’ll prove it to you."

"Yeah, yeah, sure," the older one dismissed before he found himself entertaining that hope for too long. "So how did it end with that girl?"

A wolf’s grin lit up his best friend’s face as he was thrown back into the memory.

"Very well. I saw that she had a squash racquet peeking out of her backpack and once I pointed it out and we started talking about it, it was pretty much a done deal," he boasted. "Her face lit up as if she hadn’t just thrown daggers at me with her eyes and she just marveled over the fact that I knew so much about the sport. So not long after, she gave me her number and we planned a squash game date for next Sunday," he finished with a proud smile.

If Jinki had been drinking, he would’ve spit out all of his drink onto the floor.

"A squash game date? Really?" he managed to utter before losing it to a fit of laughter.

"I don’t see what’s funny about it," Minho said as he felt his ego get pricked.

"How are we even friends?" Jinki let out between a wave of laughter. "You get excited about the weirdest shit, I swear. A few months ago, it was golf and now it’s squash. What’s next?"

His continued laughter granted him an immediate snarky response.

"What’s next is me getting into the sport of kicking your butt, that’s what’s next."

Unfortunately, that only made the older one laugh harder.

"Oh, you would most certainly excel at it, too," Jinki said as he caught his breath.

"You know what sucks?" Minho started. "It’s that you are incredibly strong for a guy who doesn’t work out that much, but you don’t put any of your natural strength to good use," he pointed out with a tone of reproach.

"I know you’re saying this so that I can accompany you on your sports’ outings, but that’s not going to happen," Jinki shut down, amused.

Minho crossed his arms, pouting as if he were a five-year-old who had just been denied candy.

"Suit yourself, then. But I still think you should get back into something outside of work."

The shorter brunette couldn’t dispute that. The monotony of his days and the encompassing boredom that had taken over his life was getting more and more unbearable. He felt like he had been stripped of any passion that could fuel him. He didn’t even know what it felt like to want something anymore.

And suddenly, the song he couldn’t shake came to him again, bringing to life the exact way he was feeling.

I think I know all the trifling stories in the world

But I don't know anything about you, with whom I've shared my breath my whole life,

I don't know, don't know who you are…

"I know," he finally said before looking downwards.

"You really have so many talents, Jinki," Minho kept on, emphasizing his point. "You just need to pick something and see where that leads you."

Jinki nodded, acknowledging his friend’s words with sincere consideration.

"I was thinking about taking piano lessons again…" he shared, somewhat embarrassed.

"Oh my fucking god," Minho exclaimed, almost jumping up and down in excitement. "Fina-fucking-lly!! "

Jinki laughed softly at that.

"Calm down. I am only considering it."

"Still, that’s big. What made you change your mind?" Minho asked, unable to contain his bewilderment.

Him. His voice. His words. His music.

"Um… just heard a beautiful piano piece and felt like learning it," he vaguely answered as he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Oh nice. What piece was it?"

Fuck.

"Uh… I don’t remember actually…" Jinki slightly fumbled before going on. "I mean, it’s been a while since I heard it, but it awakened something in me for sure."

"Whoever it is from, I am eternally grateful to them for bringing you back to life," Minho said in a tone that was meant to be teasing, but that was utterly sincere as well.

Once again, Jinki had to roll his eyes.

"You are so dramatic."

"Seems like it works just fine for me, so I will take that as a compliment," the younger one turned around to his advantage.

"You’ll take anything as a compliment," Jinki said with slight exasperation.

"And you’ll take anything as a flaw," Minho riposted. "That’s why you need to do the things you love. Maybe then that’ll give you the push you need to get into the dating scene again."

"Eh," the older one shrugged, indifferent. "We’ll see about that."

"Oh, we most certainly will," Minho affirmed with a grin.

Despite his air of indifference, Jinki felt a pang in his chest as if a string was menacing to pull his heart right out.

I can tell you're very lonely

Tell me some more

You know you can't take it anymore

No, I can’t, he finally admitted to himself.

And somehow, that realization was enough to make his heart race again, breaking free from its restraints even if just for a moment.

#jongyu #shinee fanfic #sarastuff:jongyu #jonghyun #onew #i'm so curious #shawols #babywols #minho #platonic onho #angst #slice of life #music inspo : piano lessons by colin munroe and elevator/lonely by jonghyun #this chapter was started in May and then I had a blockage so really happy I got that done #I feel like that Jongyu scene is one of the realest most intense scenes I have written so far

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nailsoftheheart · 1 year

Text

I feel happy today. Actually I feel hungover, but also happy. I'm having a kick back at my pad tonight, just some of my really good friends, muppets Christmas movies, booze, food and copious amounts of weed. I'm excited to just relax.

Think I just feel, things have come full circle and I'm moving into the next chapter. I did a gig with my DJ crew last night, the djing didn't go great, but what did go great was spending time with my friends, my goth guys Manny calls them. I made Alfonso a small green card that unfolds into 5 hearts that I wrote heart chakra affirmations on for him. He told me he didn't feel love anymore and I told him he has blockages in his heart, that he needs to heal his heart chakra, I gave him some green citrine aswell. It's my former crushes birthday on the 30th, I dunno if I'll see him before that so I brought him a gift, the flowers in the dustbin Ko LP, i wanted to get him a record, but I dunno his collection, but I do know he didn't have FITD!! He seemed genuinely moved that I thought of him and was really thankful, I could see in his eyes his appreciation, not just for thinking of him, but for me.

I finally asked the boys, my goth guys, why back in May they invited me to DJ with them and I said, was it just like to help get people, because my husband said y'all needed my feminine energy. They were very stern in answering, like they had been waiting for me to question it lol, they both looked me dead in the face and said they knew I was cool, and Alfonso told Eddie, let's get this cool lady Katie to come DJ with us, she knows the IE and is cool. LMFAOOO I know they thought I could help draw people, but they were like we do need that feminine energy and scrambling to make sure I wasn't in anyway upset that they didn't yet know I'm a divine being of light who literally brings magic everywhere I go and when treated well spreads joy and beauty to all I encounter lol. I told them, I want you to know that I love you both and I really appreciate you guys inviting me out. They said they appreciate me and got all squiggly about me saying love lol. I always give them lots of hugs, we always get a lot of laughs in and I stay having jokes so we joke lol. I'm so happy to be friends I am even happy for Eddie to have a girlfriend, like genuinely happy not forcing myself to feel compersion, actually happy.

So one of the guys out of the like 2 who like me, showed up last night. We haven't met properly before, he messaged me and said he's been seeing me around, I was like do you like me or something?? Lol so subtle. He said I'm cute with good hair so I've been trying to meet him to see how he is, I told him to come to a couple of things before but he didn't make it. So he shows up and I'm like oh no! Then I'm like, why do I care I'm just me and if he digs it, cool, if not that's chill too. I go say hi and give him a little hug, his voice was so dorky, his glasses are so thick and he's small. I was like, ummm, it's he hot?? He rolled a joint and shared. He didn't say much to me, but I liked his energy. If he was into me I think I might go for it. I could see myself kissing him, but I definitely for sure thought I wasn't going to be interested so I'm surprised af. We'll see if he even likes me now that he's hung out with me though!!

The nicest thing though, was not feeling alone. I had two friends there who are also dealing with their parents having cancer or being sick. It felt really nice to get to support one another and just talk. I am extremely grateful to them and for them. My mom is gonna start chemo in January and I'm praying it all goes exceptionally well.

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mylifeisactuallyamess · 3 years

Text

General Hux x Female Reader/Kylo Ren x Female Reader

A/N: I have been sitting on this chapter for so long I know @daydreamsofren is not looking forward to this one even though she’s read some of it already 😢

Warnings: Implied abuse, don’t judge Hux too harshly, Kylo knows more than he lets on. Many, many people die.

Word Count: 3195

Read Chapter 17 here on AO3.

Judging by the amount of meals you’d been served, you had been in this dank cell for two weeks. Either they didn’t know what to do with you or they had forgotten you, leaving your shivering form in the bowels of the ship to rot. No one had stopped by, everytime the door opened, hope flared that it was Hux, even Kylo but it was always just a trooper holding a tray of food or a quick trip to the shower, until today.

The troopers roughly grabbed you from the corner in your cell. You resisted until one raised his hand to strike you across the face, cowering, your eyes closed, you waited for the pain but it never came.

“Think about where we’re taking her.” You cracked your eye open to see the trooper drop his hand, the other one half body blocking you. “She may be a treasonous bitch but there’s nothing to stop the Grand Marshal from killing us if we lay a hand on her.” He stooped down and hauled you up by your arm. “She will cooperate.” You winced at the right grip he had on your arm. “Right?” You nodded slightly as hope surged through you.

Were they taking you to see Armitage?

Has some information come to light?

Maybe some evidence to help clear your name?

Your feet skimmed the floor in uneven steps as the troopers dragged you through the ship, the cuffs binding your wrists were unforgiving against your skin but you took the hurt. Your excitement grew the closer you got to the bridge, officers, admirals and lieutenants littered the corridors all speaking in hushed tones as you were dragged passed but the spark of hope burned brightly inside you. If you could just see Armitage’s face you’d know what fate awaited you.

You were thrown onto the floor at their feet, Kylo Ren had his mask on, barely casting a glance in your direction but you didn’t care about him. Your attention was solely on Armitage, his overcoat hid his body but you could see from the tension in his neck and the way he ignored the sound of you falling to the floor that this wasn’t good.

A blue holo-image of General Pryde was standing before them, a knowing smirk on his face as he cast a glance in Hux’s direction at your undignified arrival. You wanted to spit at the man’s feet, knowing what he’d done to your husband all those years ago but you didn’t dare. If only you’d known before, maybe if you survived this you could finally tell him what you really thought of him.

“We are ready, Allegiant General Pryde.” Rumbled Kylo from his mask. “You may begin.” The blue image paced to the left and he shouted an order to prime the cannon, now your gaze was drawn to the planet that loomed below you. The permanent grey clouds roiled across the surface, the rich green land and the deep blue seas hidden beneath the thick blanket of weather, but you knew it was there. This was Arkanis, your home planet, Hux’s home planet.

You flinched as Kylo moved, stepping behind Hux to haul you to your feet, the cuffs falling away to your surprise. His mask dipped to your eye level, the black sightless pits seemingly boring into your soul and you tried not to shiver at the feeling.

“Behave.” His grip on your sore wrist emphasised his command and you gave a single nod in understanding. He dragged you to stand next to Hux and you sneaked a look at your husband's face. He was wearing a blank expression, his eyes glassed over as though he was bored with this whole show but you saw the muscle twitch in his cheek, the subtle flex of his jaw and you knew he was stressed. Maybe seeing Arkanis again was enough to bring this reaction out of him, but you got the sense something else was at play here. The amount of personnel on the bridge made you slightly nervous, you’d never seen it so busy before. Mitaka stood rigidly to the side, his gaze sliding over you like you weren’t even there.

Kylo pointed and your gaze followed the line of his arm seeing another destroyer in orbit next to the Finalizer, the resurgent-class ship was facing the planet, a huge axial super-laser cannon nestled on the underbelly started to glow and your gaze flitted to the holo image of General Pryde. Horror dawned on you as soon as the word “Fire” left his mouth and without thinking your hand snatched Hux's in a tight grip. The shots flew from the gun, firing with extreme accuracy and power, penetrating the surface of your homeworld.

The reaction was slow, the wound in the crust ripped at an agonising pace from up here, debris rose high into the atmosphere, the red lava from the centre of the planet was evident through the clouds and you blinked tears out of your eyes at the sight. All those people, your people. No warning, an entire planet eradicated before you, a planet whose allegiance was to the First Order. You felt Armitage’s fingers close around yours and a slight gasp escaped you at the sensation. It felt like your entire life was being wiped before your very eyes, your history, your home, friends, family, everything that had made you was burning away.

“Isn’t it glorious?” Someone mumbled and you wanted to whip round and say something scathing but Hux’s hand tightened even more around yours in warning. You couldn’t help the soft sob that made your chest heave, your gaze pulling away from the destruction to look at your husband. The reflection of the growing fireball highlighted in his eyes, his mouth set in a hard line as he tried desperately not to react. You looked down at your feet before turning to look up at Kylo, his mask turning to see your tear stained face and you wished you could see his face. Just this once, so you could read his emotions, but all he did was tilt his head towards the spectacle that everyone else was watching with a sick sense of awe.

Memories echo at the back of your mind, the sound of the Arkanis rain on the leaves, the rippling water on the pond you had stood next to when you first met Armitage. The house you had grown up in ringing with your childhood laughter, your mother’s grave, your friend's wedding, all blown out of existence. A blinding light made you inhale sharply as the planet began to collapse, the surface in burning turmoil until it became so unstable it finally exploded. You hoped the debris that was left would knock into the ships and kill everyone but they were too far away, the shields protecting them from any that did make it and they were out of the gravitational pull of the destroyed planet.

You closed your eyes, the tears still falling unchecked as the intense light of your dying world shone through your eyelids. You went to lean against Armitage, curling your other hand around his arm to seek some comfort for you and him but he moved, his hand untangling from yours as he went to check on the status of his ship leaving you standing alone. You heard General Pryde chuckle and anger blazed through you, your eyes fixed on the smirking form and you went to take a step forward, your mouth open to unleash your fury but a pressure started in your throat making you pause. You could still breathe, but the blockage rendered you speechless, you turned your fury onto Kylo but he just regarded you coolly from the protection of his mask.

“Take her back to her cell.” He commanded with indifference. The troopers grabbed you giving you no choice but to leave, making you realise this had been a show to get to you and Armitage. To make you realise that now you had nowhere to go, no homeworld to run to, no support system to hide you, in this vast Galaxy you and your husband were now more alone than you had ever been before.

You wanted to lean on him and let him lean on you, but that would never happen. He had made up his mind about you, he had what he wanted with his position within the First Order. He never needed you, he had said as much in Canto Bight. You wondered if those words you’d heard him say held more truth than the ones that followed, that supposed declaration of love. You were shoved along the corridors, your heart flaking away with each thought, knowing that you were going to die here. No one to save you, no evidence to clear your name and hopelessness fell heavily on you. When the door to your cell closed leaving you in darkness you wept, feeling the grief of loss at everything you had ever known and the knowledge that hope was just a dream for children.

After you had been dragged away Hux had taken his leave from the bridge, highly aware of Ren’s hidden gaze on his retreating back but he didn’t care. He needed privacy. He stood in the quiet of his own quarters, his hand flexing as he remembered the way your fingers curled around it. The feel of your trembling body against his as you both watched the destruction of your home world, obliterated in moments, everything you’d both ever known eradicated in a blaze of fire. He hadn’t expected his feelings to be so strong on this, he had hated Arkanis and the awful memories it possessed for him but also it held memories he cherished. His mother, the maze where he spent most of his childhood and meeting you, who made him realise he was allowed to have a moment of happiness. A foolish, fleeting moment. Your marriage had been filled with war and he wished he had not been blindsided, this is what his father had been trying to teach him. Weakness would bring his downfall and he had fallen into that trap and not even realised. If you’d stayed on Arkanis after the wedding none of this would have happened….or maybe it would have. His wife, you would have still been on the planet, moving in the same circles and probably moved over to the Resistance a lot sooner.

And you’d be dead. But he wouldn’t have felt the love for you growing in his own chest, he wouldn’t have experienced your warmth, he wouldn’t have felt your body shiver under his. He never would have breathed in your scent, or touched your soft skin and your death would have been easier to cope with. Because he wouldn’t miss you, he wouldn’t miss what you had shown him.

His hand flexed again, the shadow of your touch still affecting him even now. He stood silently staring at the table top, his gloved fingertips gently resting on the surface lost in his swirling thoughts. You were going to die anyway, you had performed an act of treason and he couldn't save you from this, not without losing everything he had worked so desperately hard for. Was it worth it? He clearly didn’t deserve the happiness you had bestowed upon him, and now he had to make the decision if he could live with or without you. He felt anger manifest in his chest, he shouldn’t have to make this decision, if only Ren had kept his hands to himself, the petty jealousy that the oaf harboured had ruined this for him…..hadn’t it? Hux visibly deflated with a sigh, he was the one that agreed to be a suitor for you. His father had owed your father a favour and Hux had agreed to repay, so he was responsible for this, all of these events that had led…to this. He had the power to say no, he had the wealth to pay your father off but he knew it would be squandered and you’d still be left with nothing. And now….you only had your life left and he was probably going to take that too. He had lost the few people that were close to him, the Galaxy just proving his father was right yet again.

Raising you is such a waste of my time.

You are such a waste of space, a useless fool!

What are you good for boy if you can’t even carry a tray of drinks?!

You are an embarrassment!

So disappointing…

You think I would turn this project over to you? Brainless idiot, you are not worthy of the glory it would bring.

You are not worthy of anything…

You don’t deserve the life I have given you.

No one could ever love you….

But you had. Even if it was fleeting, it had been there blazing, alive, existing. And it was going to end like everything else.

A notification made the screen of his datapad light up and his gaze was drawn to it, your prisoner number leaping out at him and the decision he had to make was now upon him. He straightened, clearing his thoughts and focussing on the task at hand. He adjusted his cuff, his gloved hand brushing the material in such a simple, comforting motion and he felt everything falling away. He slipped behind the mask that had protected him all through his life, the blank face that showed nothing of his inner turmoil. The armour he placed over himself had grown impenetrable over the years and he leaned on it heavily. He was going to need it now, more than ever.

He hated it, the way your face lit up when you saw him at the door of your cell. You were huddled in the corner, your head buried in your hands, tears streaming down your face and he nearly, nearly halted this whole thing. But he couldn’t, he had no choice, the wheels were in motion, there were rules, regulations. He had to harden himself more, if anyone else under his command had performed the treason you had they would be dead already. Because that's what it was, an act of treason. You rushed to him, hushed pleas falling from your lips as you begged him not to go through with this, you were innocent, you didn’t know what you were doing even though he’d found you at a Resistance sympathisers wedding. He concentrated on the evidence and how it stacked against you, he couldn’t ignore it, he couldn’t forget the echoes of pain that clawed at his heart. You had done this, you. Betraying him, the First Order, the Supreme Leader…

You pawed at his paralysed form, tugging on his uniform with your desperate hands as he just stood there staring at the wall over your head. Finally his hands grabbed yours in a vice like grip to stop you touching him, he needed you to stop. He said your name in a deadpan voice, listing off your treasonous act followed by the sentence. Death. You were frozen, your mouth open in horror that he would go this far, that he would allow this to happen but he had no choice. You had gone against him, you had sided with the scum of the Galaxy and he would treat you as such no matter how much it obliterated his soul. The troopers moved into the cell, ripping you from his grip and he found himself holding on for just a moment, to feel your soft skin, to smell your wonderful hair. Just a moment, frozen in time so he could remember the feeling of you for the rest of his life and then you were being dragged away. Your screams echoed down the hallway but he couldn’t move, his boots were rooted to the grated floor, tears threatened to fall but he grit his teeth and fought them.

Please! Please no! Armitage! Please, please! He could not show weakness, he could not show feeling, if he did he would lose everything. But you were his everything…

He blocked out the inner voice, wishing for the first time in his life that his fathers voice would override his feelings like it always did, snapping him back onto the right path with the brutality he needed, but it didn’t come. Just your pleading screams, still echoing around him tearing pieces of him away with every screech. He finally moved to the cell door, leaning against the frame heavily as his breath left his body. He couldn’t get enough air in, he needed you. Where were you? He whispered your name, but you weren’t here and he couldn’t hear you anymore.

A shot rang out down the hallway and Hux's head snapped towards the sound.

“No….” He had to see. He stumbled forward, the corridor swimming before him and he had to use the sides to steady himself. The troopers closed the trash shoot just as he got there, Kylo Ren standing watching, making sure the task was done. Making sure you no longer existed. The pain that lanced from his heart was excruciating, making his legs give way so he fell hard to the floor drawing all their attention.

“You, take the General back to his quarters and get a medic, you, come with me.” Kylo went to turn away but the trooper just stood there staring at Hux. “Trooper! Don’t make me send you for reconditioning!” The trooper jumped and hurried to Kylo’s side leaving a struggling Hux in the arms of the other.

Kylo marched through the corridors of the Finalizer, the trooper hot on his heels. He could tell no one knew what he’d done, the other trooper he had bent to his will, he’d have no recollection of what had transpired. He could still feel the ripples through the force from Hux no matter how hard he tried to shut him out until finally a medic sedated him and the waves stopped, the force becoming still once more. Or so he thought, the chaotic energy that followed the trooper behind him was distracting but he had to focus. At the far end of the hangar TIE’s lined the bays and he paused at the stairs, the trooper nearly colliding with his back.

“Take this TIE.”

“I-I can’t fly it!” Kylo looked round seeing a pilot and called him over.

“You! FL-6194!”

“Supreme Leader?” Kylo raised his hand, feeling the pilot's mind and taking control, it was so easy bending them to his will, they were all so weak minded, so ready to obey.

“You will take this trooper and fly to these coordinates. Once you arrive at your destination you will terminate yourself.” Kylo could feel the thoughts falling into place, the settling of the mind, stripping the pilot of his panic and replacing it with purpose.

“Yes, Supreme Leader.”

“K-Kylo!”

“Go. Now.” He turned with a flare of cloak, you needed to leave. Before anyone knew what he’d done, before anyone suspected, you needed to go.

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16woodsequ · 3 years

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I have three questions about writing fanfiction and you’re the best fanfic writer I’ve seen so I’m going to ask them to you if that‘s alright

1. How do you write a lot in chapters, because I never manage to write more than 1k words about the chapter topic

2. How do you stay motivated for writing a long fic?

3. Do you have any tips about how to deal with a large ensemble of characters?

First of all, I'd like to say how happy and honoured I am for this ask! It made me so happy you thought of me. I'll do my best to answer helpfully.

My response ended up being pretty long, to I'll leave it under the cut.

In general, my chapters are between 3k to 6k. I find 4k-5k is a good range for me. Before I talk about writing more in chapters, I think it is important to say that short chapters are not wrong. Short chapters can be wonderful to read!

If you want to work on writing more, I have a few suggestions. First though, the way my writing style works is I go into a story generally knowing the basic plot points, and I write all the chapters first, before I post them. So keep this in mind, since my techniques might need to be adapted for your style.

When starting a chapter, I have what I call the 'bone and meat' method. To write around 5k words, I find each chapter has enough room to explore 3-5 "events". These are the bones of a chapter.

As an example. I will use chapter five of "Alternatively", because I'm guessing you read that one. (If not you can send another ask with some you've read and I can use those).

The bones of this chapter are:

Prelude/set up to Steve learning about Bucky.

Pierce taking Steve to see Bucky

Steve having a breakdown in the elevator

Steve and Tony talking about it

These are the four main things that needed to happen in this chapter. I don't always start a chapter knowing what will happen at the end, but usually by 500 words in, I've figured out what out of my plot points will be happening in the next 5k of words.

When deciding what will be the bones of a chapter, I find I have two systems. Either I give the reader a satisfying cathartic ending, or I leave them in anticipation.

Chapter five is a good example of a mini-arc within a chapter that ends with a satisfying emotional catharsis. If you think of it along a story plotting graph, the prelude is the exposition, Pierce taking Steve to Bucky is the conflict/rising action, Steve's breakdown is the emotional climax of the chapter, and Tony and Steve's conversation is the falling action/resolution.

The ending event of the chapter feels natural, because while the story isn't finished, the emotions and events of the chapter have been tied together and dealt with for the time being.

An anticipatory ending for a chapter would be more like a cliffhanger, and would probably end near the climax of whatever plot points are happening. (Such as chapter 3 of Alternatively, the emotional climax of the chapter hits right at the end.)

So basically, your overall story has rising action and a climax, but if each chapter is roughly outfitted around that too, then it may be easier to write long chapters.

Once you have the bones of a chapter, all you need to do is add in the meat to fill out whatever word count you are aiming for. If you have written the bones of a chapter, but still aren't at a word count you like, then it is simply a case of adding more depth to what is already happening—showing the emotions of the characters, getting into their head, bringing up past events and relating them to what is currently happening, foreshadowing, describing the scene/senses, etc.

Please know that when I'm writing my chapters, I'm not obsessively planning out the steps of a chapter and thinking of all these things constantly. These are just patterns I've noticed after the fact, so they are not hard and fast rules.

As for how I stay motivated for long stories, the thing that works best for me is writing all the chapters before I post the story. I know this system doesn't work for every author (and believe me, sometimes I really want to post), but I find doing so relieves pressure on me, and I don't feel guilty if I don't write a story for weeks or months because I am working on something else.

That being said, for my large Alternate Timeline series, I didn't have time to write all the chapters ahead of time. By the time I was writing The Alternate Handler, I had about a 10 chapter lead.

Things that helped me stay motivated is finding parts of the story that I really wanted to write. I usually write chronologically, so having moments that I knew where coming and I was excited for helped motivate me to continue.

Also, recognising that I sometimes made things harder for myself. Sometimes I'd be stuck on how to finish a scene, or expressing something, and my writing would slow, until I would realise that sometimes things don't need to be written in exact detail. If you don't know how to get a character to walk out of a room, sometimes you can just end the scene there. Unless something is plot relevant, you can write around it, if it is an issue.

Sometimes, if I'm stuck on a story or a chapter, it helps to take a step back and figure out what the actual blockage is. Often it won't be what I think it is. Sometimes it isn't because I don't know how to write it, or I don't know what to write—sometimes I can't write a scene because I haven't seen the movie in a while, and all I need to do is find the battle on youtube and rewatch it. Sometimes it is because I don't know how an engine works, and I need to either look up the information, or make a note of it and move on to another scene.

And sometimes you just gotta clunk out a scene word after word, because once you do, it will be done, and you can always make it better later. You can't edit what isn't written.

Writing Marvel gives me plenty of opportunity to deal with large casts. Generally what happens is I end up focusing on the relationship between a few main characters, while the other characters have less focus.

In my Alternative Timeline series, the relationships between Steve, Bucky, and Tony are the focus.

Of course, this doesn't mean I want to forget about the other members. You'll notice especially in Bucky and Tony's stories that they have secondary relationships with other people like Natasha, Bruce, Clint, Pepper, Peter, and Nebula. These secondary characters get scenes with the main characters too, kind of on a rotational basis.

So first tip is to trim down how many characters you are focusing on, and how many characters are interacting with each other in each scene.

In fics I will often have Thor be away on Asgard, or Clint and Natasha doing missions, etc, so they don't get underfoot.

That being said, there are times like during group meetings, when you can't avoid having everyone in the same room.

In those times, it is important not to forget who is in the room. I will literally count on my fingers, or write down lists of who is supposed to be at the table, so I can remember.

A good example of this on a small scale is Steve's birthday party in chapter 14 of The Alternate Handler. That one has almost every Avenger but Thor sitting in a circle, playing a game. I had specific moments in mind, so I needed to remember who was sitting by who. I wrote down the names in order so I wouldn't forget, and could properly situate people in my head.

An example on a bigger scale is chapter 26 of The Alternate End. In this chapter, the Avengers have a meeting with practically every other character who was there at the final battle.

Yet again, I pare down the cast a little. T'Challa and Shuri aren't there because they are in Wakanda.

To help keep control of the larger group, I start with a vague idea of where everyone is sitting, and then don't go into deeper detail than I have to.

In the scene, we know the Guardians, Peter, and Thor and Loki are all sitting kind of near each other, but I don't specify who is sitting next to who unless I need to.

I also have Tony looking around the table for a few hundred words, seeing each group, and slowly but surely introducing them to the reader. Tony hasn't seen the whole group for a while, so he has a reason to catch the reader up to speed on what has been happening. While he thinks about the life developments of the people around him, the reader starts to get an idea of who is in the room, and their general mood.

A final tip I often use is staggered entrances. If you have a large group, and something Plot Worthy needs to happen when Character A and B talk, then don't have the meeting ready to start right away.

Have some people already sitting, so that your POV character can process them, then have some more people come in, and then some more. (I do this in chapter 19 of The Alternate End, before the time travel jump.)

With a big group, you need time to show what needs to be shown, so give yourself the space to breathe and give the characters the right amount of attention.

I hope these tips and notes were helpful. Feel free to come back with more questions, or details about your own writing style if what I said doesn't work nicely for you!

And remember, these are just tips, not the golden rule.

Have a great day!

#asks #anon #writing asks #writing tips #writing suggestions #writing help #writing #fanfic writing #story writing #chapter writing #plotting

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seasidewriter1-writes · 3 years

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Answering Asks from @fadingclamalmondrascal : “Hi! I hope you're still doing asks, but I understand if you're not, it sounds like you've got a lot going on. I've got 3 questions for you:

1: What made you want to adopt this story and write an "Anakin's big sister who falls in love with obi" au? What about it appealed to you initially, and what about it keeps you coming back?

2: I love Elara's Sith name! Carus is so cool. What kind of thought did you put into that name and her sith design?

3: What does your writing process for each chapter look like?”

Hi!! My asks are always open, and even if my life his completely hectic, I’ll always get around to answering them! But, thankfully, my life has started to calm down in the last week. I’ve gotten a lot of writing done in the last day, so I’m in a very “Balance” mood, so I’m super stoked to answer these!! (I also wrote a lot again, so buckle up!!)

1. So fun backstory on my finding the story: I was living in England for my first year at University, and I was on a big ol’ Star Wars kick because The Force Awakens had just come out in December. It was January. It was cold, the evenings were getting rainy, so one night after dinner and scrolled through FFN to find something fun to read. And when I first found and read the original story, pre-adoption (which I believe is still up and called “Another Skywalker”), I remember being like ‘wow, this is an interesting concept.’ And as I read it, in my head, all of these ideas were coming to my head; and I remember being kinda sad about that. I didn’t want to write my own story, then have it seem like I’d ripped off the concept from the author. Because this was the first fic with the “Anakin’s older sister falling for Obi” concept that I’d ever seen. I didn’t know if it was something of a trope for an Obi x OC pairing, or if this one was an odd one out. So I finished reading the 11 chapters, and the author had posted a note saying that the story was, effectively, up for adoption. I have never jumped on something so fast. I drafted out two scenes (a now obsolete scene where Elara sees Obi-Wan off to Kamino, and a chunk of the final battle RotS) and sent it to the author. When she told me that the story and concept were all mine to do with as I pleased, I was so excited. Because I realized that all the ideas that had been tentatively brewing in my head, I could now fully bring to fruition.

What initially drew me to the concept was the idea of being able to explore a story and a romance that is, in a way, a foil to Anakin’s. Almost a way to show that maybe, if things had gone differently, Anakin and Padmé’s romance didn’t have to be doomed. Because I have always believed that there had to be some way that it didn’t have to end in disaster. Presenting a Jedi OC x Obi-Wan can explore similar issues (and there’s a lot of fun to be had with that concept, too). But then you have two people who were raised with/to follow the same ideals. Though they are both unique individuals, they will come up to very similar blockages––struggling with breaking the Code, with sloughing off ideals and a way of life they’ve followed all their lives. But with a Skywalker OC… that changes. You get someone who wasn’t raised to keep her emotions in ultra-check. Someone who, like Anakin, is family oriented, passionate about protecting those they love, and innately wishes to express their emotions in a more open manner. Those characteristics present unique conflict (particularly in conjunction with Obi-Wan’s characteristics), and I just… I wanted to, and continue to want to, play with that. Because Elara is dedicated to the Jedi Code. She’s a good Jedi. But put her want to be a good Jedi (for herself, for her brother, for the good of the galaxy) right up against an undeniable, innate need and want to love (because, at her core, Elara is just a purely loving person)––you get whole other obstacles to overcome. It’s a lot of fun to figure out how her overcoming her obstacles helps Obi-Wan overcomes his, and vice-versa. How we can see, in recent chapters, that Obi-Wan realizing he can’t hold Elara at arm’s length anymore affects her; how she starts being more gentle towards him again, tentatively letting him back in. I just love playing with stuff like that!!

And there are a whole lot of things that keep me coming back to this story. One of the biggest things, I think, has to be the idea that ‘love prevails.’ I love myself a complex romance. Maybe that’s why I love Regency/Period Dramas so much; because there are so many ups and downs––and that’s what makes it feel so good! Because while there’s hope and love and happiness, there’s also drama and frustration and confrontation. But through all of that, at the end… love prevails. I’m a hopeless romantic, I’ll own up to that any time of the day. So seeing a couple, so hopelessly in love, go through trials and tribulations and come out on the other end completely alright? That’s my jam! And when you’ve got someone who stands so steadfastly by their ideals as Obi-Wan, but who very clearly is… so passionate and loving… That just feels like the way a love story with him would go. And ‘love prevails’ doesn’t just apply to the Obi-Lara stuff either. It’s about the familial love between Anakin and Elara, and how that love for each other may thrive or suffer in events to come… it’s the platonic love of Elara and the men of the 442nd. Star Wars is a story of many things––family, adventure, coming into your own… but it’s also about love. And getting to add to that aspect of the story in any given way, for people who enjoy reading it, to have fun conceptualizing and writing everything… it keeps bringing me back for more.

2. I had so much fun thinking up all the Darth Carus stuff!! It was prompted by a question in a review, asking what I thought Elara would be like as a Sith/what her name would be. So I started looking at all the other Sith names, and realized a lot of them were words that stood for descriptors of the Sith Lord. “Maul” for (the literal usage of) “maul,” “Tyrannus” for “tyrant” (derived, likely, from Latin tyrannia or tyrannos), “Vader” for “invader” (or “father”). So I decided I would use a Latin word for her Sith name, and decided I needed to think of what she would be like as a Sith. Tyrannical? Violent? Rampaging? And none of those seemed… right. It felt, to me, that if she were to become a Sith, it would be out of heartbreak. And it wouldn’t be a denial of love kind of heartbreak; it would be losing someone she truly loved (Anakin or Obi-Wan) forever. Their death, perhaps by a mistake that she made. So I went, ‘okay, the birth of her being a Sith is related to love.’ I searched up some Latin words and found “Carus” which means heart. And because Elara, Jedi or Sith, is so involved with her emotions and with love, with her heart… it just seemed to fit.

Now, the outfit––ohh, I had so much fun with the outfit. I’ve got a BFA in Theatrical Arts, so I’m big on costumes and costume details, so creating Elara’s Sith outfit was absolutely delightful. Again, I started with what I thought Darth Carus would be like. There’s a mournful aspect to her, so black as part of her color palette works, but I didn’t want her to be dressed in all black. I thought that, in the wake of her heartbreak, there would be a dangerous passion about her. An angry passion. So ‘anger’ and ‘passion’ are typically associated with burning colors like red, so I through red (and orange) into the mix. And I wanted them to be bright––Darth Carus is no longer hiding in the neutrals of Tatooine or the Jedi Order. She’s letting the galaxy know her pain. I did, however, want to stick with clothing articles that were more robe-like. It’s what Elara’s known her whole life. But instead of multiple layers, I stripped it down to singular, more form fitting articles. In a way, the fewer layers is displaying the vulnerability that turned her towards the Darkness. Red is the predominant color (the tunic) because it draws attention. You have to look at her, you have to see her pain. It’s almost like staring into a fire, or gaping at an open wound. And because all good Sith Lords need a dramatic cape, I thought I’d do a fun take on it and do one of the ones that attaches at the shoulders instead of drapes over them. Maximum drama for sweeping down staircases or jumping off of tall platforms. Now, like I said, I’m a sucker for small details… hence why I added the embroidery on the tunic collar. It’s floral. It denotes her love of life. Now, if this were all real life, real costume design in an actual movie… the embroidered flowers would be Gleannish Snow Blossoms. And, of course, amidst all the bright reds, vivid oranges, and swaths of black… against all this intensity… you have the delicate, cool softness of the real Snow Blossom pinned to the spot over her heart. The very same Snow Blossom that Obi-Wan gave her on Gleann. A gentle reminder of better days… of the reason she became the ways she is… of the man she loved so wholly and deeply that, in losing him… she’d much have rather killed her own heart instead. (Also, a friend of mine and I had a wonderful conversation discussing how much of a terrifying, badass power couple Sith!Elara and Sith!Obi-Wan would be. It’s delightful.)

3. So, if I’m writing a chapter that deals with a chunk of movie or episode, what I’ll do first is sit down and watch what I perceive I’ll be writing. I’ll take down notes on things that I’ll want to add in/describe. I’ve also got a whole document of ideas I’ve already written down, and a document of bullet-pointed ideas, so I’ll give that I skim/edit, too. I always have to pick what scenes to leave in or take out, decide if they can be summarized or should be left in. Sometimes this’ll happen the same day I start writing, but sometimes I take a day to really think things over, sleep on it, then start the next. Then I’ll start to write, and I’ll have the movie/episode open for reference. When I write canon dialogue, it’s a lot of: watch, listen, pause, transcribe; rewind, read subtitles, listen, pause, transcribe. I also usually have, like… five safari tabs open with different research pages open––one for the movie/episode, probably one for a character of some kind, a google image search of a costume or something, and another one that’s got, like, different kinds of starships or droids (because there are so, so many). A lot of the time I’ll just transcribe/describe a chunk of canon stuff, then go back and add in extra details, weave Elara into it, or change up the dialogue to fit. An example being Obi-Wan and Sugi’s conversation in the barn. I beefed that up a little bit, added in references, and used it to benefit the overall storyline.

With chapters that are more original content based, those take a little longer to plan. Even if I have an idea of what’s going to happen, it takes a bit of time to figure out how to order it all, how to get a proper lead in, how to make transitions. And I also contemplate whether or not what I want to write is really going to be beneficial to the story, or if it’s going to end up being meaningless filling. There are a lot of ideas that I have had or do have that would be fun to write, but don’t really… work into the story well enough (like, god, do I want a girls’ day chapter 😂). And it’s in writing these chapters in particular that I do a lot of my music listening. Star Wars soundtracks, the story playlists I’ve made… the right music can help me find the mood or setting of a scene, inspire a moment. Like, I cannot tell you how much of the bunker scene on Ryloth was inspired by Sebastian Böhm’s rendition of “Blue Monday.” Music plays a huge role in writing for me. I’ll have music playing when I’m driving or doing dishes or cooking, and I’ll start to formulate ideas while listening. There are times, too, when I feel stuck when writing that I’ll swap on over to YouTube and I’ll watch some Star Wars edits. There’s an amazing edit of “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath over battle sequences from the films, and it’s just… it feeds my soul when I get stuck writing battle sequences. I’ve got, like… a go-to list of edits I watch when I feel a little stuck, and they’re all phenomenal. And when all is said and done and I’ve finished the chapter, I usually take a break and sit on it for a bit. Then go back, read over it, do grammar edits, change things if I see fit too. Then it’s on to review replies and I get it uploaded and posted!!

#mary answers #Mary answers asks #balance asks #I’m alive!#And I’m writing again!#HUZZAH!

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kpopnatalie · 4 years

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The Last Of Us |BTSxREADER|

Chapter 2: District 5

Jungkook’s POV

"And then there was light!" Y/N says. We could finally see this dump of a place. It really reeks of garbage.

"Man this place stinks," I say while scrunching up my nose. Y/N looks back at me and laughs.

"Hey look over here, we might find some stuff here that we may need." She tells me. I am glad I saved Y/N years ago, she is pretty much the only person that keeps me company and sane. "Look some gas masks, we are going to need that." She says while putting them in a backpack that she just found. Oh, look a pistol. I check it out and it seems to work. I continue to look around. I find some bullets and mags. Haha, no clickers will get me now.

"Hey Jungkook, come over here and give me a boost up." I turn around and follow the sound of her voice. There I find her standing in front of an entrance which is blocked and the only way to get through is by climbing up and over. There is no other way to get over other than giving her a boost.

I got in front of the blockage and put my hands in front. She runs and jumps on top of my hands to the ledge of the blockage. "Man your heavy," I said while rubbing my hands together.

"At least I am not as heavy as you, King Kong." Wow did she really just say that.

"Okay now grab my arm. I'll try to pull you up King Kong." She says with a smirk. Why is she so mean? I jump and grab her arm. She grabs my arm and I start to pull myself up. I then finally get over.

"Man, you almost tore my shoulder out of its socket." Y/N complains.

"Get over it, your just happy you got that close to me." I sat with a smirk.

"Look here Mr. King Kong, there is no time for you to be getting cocky over something so insignificant. Just because I am the only female that you talk to doesn't mean anything." Wow, she is mean, but I care for her either way. She is the greatest companion anyone could have right beside them.

I lift the hatch above our heads and we both peek out. It's a diner. It looks like nobody has been here in ages.

"Come on Y/N, we have to hurry," I say while getting out of the little diner. We looked around. "Man if I didn't know any better I would say that the plants have taken over everything. They are literally growing everywhere." I say. "But the fresh air is nice, I ain't been out here in a while," I say while breathing in the air.

Y/N laughs, "It's like we're on a date." Is that sarcasm I hear.

"Well, I'm the romantic type," I inform back at her.

"Well, you got your ways." Man and she says I'm the flirt. I laugh and continued walking.

"Hey, you should grab a ladder so we can get in here." Y/N tells me. Man why I got to do all the work? I walk around until I find a ladder. We use it to get into a building. Once we got in, we look around. "Down here." Y/N says. I follow her. "Do you think that Richard still has our guns?" She asks me.

"For his sake... he better." We continue to walk down the halls, but Y/N stops in front of a hallway. "Hold up. Spores." She says, I instantly knew. I quickly put my gas mask on. She turns on her flashlight. "After you." She says.

"Why how kind of you," I reply back.

"Where did all of this come from?" I question because man I couldn't see clearly.

"Stay alert." Y/N tells me. As we walk, we could see dead and rotting bodies, but still pretty fresh. Then we start to hear groaning sounds coming close by. We look at each other and start walking slowly.

"Help me," There is a man under a fallen bookcase, "my mask br-broke. Don't-Don't let me turn, please." I quickly turn to Y/N.

"Should I?" I am not new at killing because, in my 3 years of this hell, I had to just to live.

"It's up to you Kookie." Great now I have to decide. I look at the man. I should end his sufferings.

"The pain will pass by soon enough," I say before I shoot him. Then we pressed on.

We soon come to a stop in front of a room due to Y/N stopping me. "Hold on Jungkook, there are infected in there." I carefully look around. There are three. Two are busy with a dead body while another one is close by, wandering around.

Right when it was busy, I quickly grab it from behind and strangle it. Runners are still transforming so they still breathe like humans. We carefully try walking around the others and end up in a little kitchen. As I was busy looking around, I hear my name being called. "KOOKIE BEHIND YOU!" I turned around and an Infected was charging at me. Y/N is busy with the other one. I start to fight it and in a quick swift I got behind it. There I strangle it and killed it. Oh my gahad, my heartu.

"My life flashed before my eyes," I say.

"Well your still alive and living so that's good." I quickly stood next to her. I just hope we find Richard and leave. I want to go 'home' and continue our way of living. "Just up these stairs and we are out." Y/N says with her 'fighting' pose. I gained hope from that. She makes me happy.

"Ladies first," I say.

She laughs. "Thanks." She walks up the stairs and I follow after her. When we got up there, we see a huge hole in the wall. She jumps down. I do the same and then take my mask off.

"Fresh air, YES!" Y/N said while stretching her arms. I chuckle at her.

"When we get back, ask Tom to get your air fresheners. They smell really good." I say while following her.

"I think I will." She says with a genuine smile. I look at her and I couldn't help, but smile to myself. She is what keeps me sane most of the time.

Chapter 1 | Chapter 3

#apocalypse #Zombie #BTS #TheLastOfUs #Namjoon #Seokjin #Yoongi #Hoseok #Jimin #Taehyung #Jungkook #xreader

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todobaku-shoukat · 5 years

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The Heir that was Switched at Birth (4/?)

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18906280/chapters/45216226

While Bakugou came with the intention of packing the original body’s belongings, he realises that there is really nothing he wants to bring with him. Clothes? They did not match his taste. Besides, he could always buy new ones. Or well, Todoroki had happily volunteered to buy him clothes and other essential items like a new toothbrush and the sorts. As for the photos and other personal belongings, Bakugou wasn’t the original owner, so it did not feel right taking these things along. Hence, other than his laptop, a few books and stationery, Bakugou does not take anything else in the room. Because of how few things Bakugou decides to take with him, he and Todoroki leave before the Bakugou parents return home. As a result, they do not hear what Shiroi says about him.

And despite agreeing to live together, Bakugou insists on having his own room. To Bakugou, this dating thing is only a farce to protect Todoroki who does not have his own memory. And so, when night falls, Bakugou returns to his own room to sort out everything he knows and to make plans for the future. Taking out the notebook and pen he got from the body’s original room, Bakugou begins to make notes.

First and foremost, Bakugou writes down what he remembers of the plot. There are many ways to change the plot, but what may be satisfactory to The Writer may be limited. Bakugou remembers that one of the victims had been a hacker. Her first world had been a modern world where she was an actress. But instead of acting, the hacker decided to change her career into hacking, using her skills to change her fate. However, The Writer did not seem happy that she disregarded the settings and background given. Her second world had been a zombie apocalypse. And while most people had an easier second world compared to the first, having more time before danger comes, the hacker had arrived 6 hours before the body’s supposed death, having much less time compared to the first world. Her subsequent worlds had similarly been harsh and horrifying, not giving her any chance to use her hacking skills. At that time, Bakugou had mocked The Writer, saying that they wanted people to change the plot but yet was not happy when people did.

But now, in this situation, Bakugou has to reassess The Writer’s thoughts. What The Writer wants is a change, a reversal of the current plot but not a complete change as if it was a completely new story. Suddenly, Bakugou remembers what he commented about The Writer before. The Writer is not writing anything. They were tired of the same way the storyline always turns out. Rather than writing, The Writer seemed more like a reader. And so, Bakugou thinks of the stories he has read and begins to think from a reader’s point-of-view. The world that he and Todoroki are currently in is a story, and they are the characters in the story. All these characters have a background and profile that has been set by the writer. If they suddenly acted differently and out-of-character, then the reader will feel frustrated and upset. People did not like sudden, unexpected and inexplicable change. People wanted things to make sense. Even in stories, things needed to be realistic or reasonable enough. Logic had to be there. While magic and other unscientific things can be accepted, character change and growth had to be understandable.

And so, Bakugou reasons that he had to change the storyline whilst staying in-character. Anything that seemed out-of-character must be reasonable, such as growth or perhaps a façade. With this, Bakugou quickly lists out the profile of story Bakugou. From the plot given to him and the body’s memory, Bakugou can only list a few important points. After all, he was merely a cannon fodder so not much about him is known by the reader. From this, Bakugou notes that the most important thing is to continue being an idol because this was a defining feature of his character.

But from this, Bakugou also realises something. The body’s memories are not complete. Especially memories that coincided with the plot. Whatever Bakugou knows from the plot, the body does not remember. Does this mean that what people know from the plot may be inaccurate? Bakugou wonders. What the reader sees may not be what is actually happening. The same events may have happened, but how or why may be different. Just like history, the so-called truth is written by winners. So there is a possibility that things did not really happen that way. For example, the plot says that story Bakugou had a messy private life, but the body has no memories of any of these accusations. On the other hand, things not written in the plot such as the songs and dances the story Bakugou learned was clear in his mind.

Deciding to test this memory, Bakugou attempts to dance the choreography that was the clearest in his mind. However, instead of being able to dance well, his body did not seem to be able to follow. This immediately sounded alarms in Bakugou’s mind. Story Bakugou did not have very good skills, becoming popular mostly because of his face and his family’s help in the background. However, story Bakugou had practised this dance for a very long time, so his body should have already been accustomed to it. Just as how Bakugou’s own hero training made his body move automatically without thought just from muscle memory, if this body belonged to the original Bakugou, then he should be able to do this dance. Bakugou suddenly remembers what happened the previous night. From his memory, story Bakugou did not know how to fight. Yet, Bakugou was able to fight easily, being familiar with the body he is in and having perfect control before the drugs kicked in. Because the victims have said that they have taken up roles with different ages, Bakugou had thought that the body merely looked like their own. However, with this test, Bakugou begins to suspect that this body was his own. Or at least, not someone elses’.

It made sense, for where else would the victims’ body have gone? But if this was their real body, how does this body change in age? Bakugou suddenly recalls the dark space he had been before being sent to this world. What if, his real body is there, and this “world” is merely a simulation, like a virtual world of sorts? Bakugou shakes his head. This wasn’t important, and he did not have enough information after all. Instead, Bakugou starts to speculate about Todoroki’s situation. From whatever information he has, Bakugou makes a guess that The Writer had some control over their memory. While Todoroki did not have explicit memories of their real world, he appears to have some implicit memory. If Todoroki did not have any impression of their real world, there was no way that he would have taken Bakugou in nor gotten angry over Bakugou’s scandal on the internet. After all, from the plot, Bakugou had learned that story Todoroki had helped spread the rumours online.

Feeling the need to confirm his hypothesis, Bakugou sneaks out of his room and into Todoroki’s. Without warning, he attacks Todoroki. Instead of ducking or defending himself, Todoroki spread his arm out on instinct, as if trying to stop Bakugou with his ice quirk. But because Todoroki has no memories of having a quirk, he narrows his eyes in confusion at his own actions. However, Todoroki gets over his own confusion quickly, meeting Bakugou’s punches and fighting back easily. Their fight is close, given how familiar they are with each other’s fighting styles. Back in UA, they had partnered up often during the hand-on-hand combat training without the use of quirks.

“What are you doing?” Todoroki asks, confused as to why Bakugou suddenly attacked him.

Bakugou does not reply, trying some of his secret moves that Todoroki easily defends. From this, Bakugou believes that they are not in someone else’s body, and that Todoroki has his memories but there is some blockage in his retrieval of them. But despite already confirming his suspicions, Bakugou does not stop. After all, training with Todoroki had always been enjoyable. It is only when the bodyguards realise what is happening and comes in that Bakugou stops.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong now?” Todoroki asks as they catch their breaths.

“Nothing. Couldn’t sleep so I decided to work out.” Bakugou carelessly replies. The bodyguards that entered the room widen their eyes at such an unbelievable excuse, but Todoroki easily accepts it.

“There’s a training room downstairs. You can train there.” Todoroki says.

“That’s boring. It’s better to fight with someone.”

“If you want to, you can pick any of the guards here.”

“Oh. So once we start dating, you are already tired of me?” Bakugou says with mock disappointment, taking revenge on Todoroki for his attempt at kissing him back at the Bakugou family house.

As if understanding Bakugou’s intentions, Todoroki smirks, wrapping an arm around Bakugou. “Now, now. Don’t be angry, little kitten. I’m busy now. Don’t be so spoiled.”

Bakugou wants to punch the idiot in the face, but he resists the temptation, unwilling to give in to the embarrassment. Instead, he plays along, hoping to get Todoroki flustered instead. “Too busy for me now, huh. People take for granted what they get too easy. I just accept your proposal and suddenly you are too busy for me.”

“Never too busy for you, kitten. I was making plans to buy you the entertainment company you are in as a present for you. But I guess that can wait. For now, why don’t we do something more worthwhile?” Todoroki teases, hands slipping down from Bakugou’s shoulders to grab at his waist.

Bakugou’s face immediately flushes red. Jumping out of Todoroki’s arms, Bakugou runs back to his own room, not forgetting to cuss at Todoroki. Todoroki only smiles in response, relishing the feeling of Bakugou’s tiny waist.

#todobaku #fanfic #The Heir that was Switched at Birth #TodoBaku's Quick Transmigration

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blatherkatt · 6 years

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Title: The Calm Is Terrifying When The Storm Is All You Know [Homestuck]

Chapter 23: A Temporary Parting Of Ways

Summary: There were two kinds of trolls who went to Earth: rich shitheads with too much money and free time, and desperate assholes who couldn’t survive on Alternia, even with the best efforts of the young Condesce. Karkat hated the planet almost immediately, but with his home planet too dangerous for mutants, he really didn’t have any choice but to hide out on this weird little diurnal planet. At least he’d be safe. Or so he thought, right before blundering his way into an accidental friendship with the son of an anti-troll terrorist.

Rating: M

Chapter Warnings: Mentioned/implied abuse, internalized homophobia, more possible disordered eating/its closer to just bad eating habits learned from the abuse but i feel i should still warn for it

FIRST | PREVIOUS | NEXT

Things had been…relatively quiet, the past few weeks.

Ever since Dave and Dirk had finally worked things out on the roof, it seemed that with nothing in particular to wind themselves up over, the house had finally managed to actually become as peaceful as ‘a big house out in the middle of the woods’ implied. Not that things were perfect between her brothers, mind, but there was good mixed in with the bad, and even the tense moments were far less terrible.

A few days after that talk, for instance, Rose had been helping Dirk unload groceries as always. Dave had come down, looking like he’d been caught stealing, but Dirk had simply tossed him a bag.

“Didn’t know which kind you like, so I just grabbed a few,” he’d said.

Dave had opened the bag, let a small smile spread across his face, said “Sweet,” and scurried back upstairs with a grateful nod at Dirk.

And since then it had seemed like whatever blockage was keeping them from progressing had been fully cleared away. They still moved in a series of frustrating baby steps, an infuriatingly endless process of trial and error, but even that was better than the vicious cycle of stagnation before, and Rose could see, day by day, Dave was well and truly starting to settle in.

(He was unfortunately a lot more nervous around Roxy, now, and he wouldn’t let her wrap an arm around his shoulders in the way she often did while speaking to people. He did, at the very least, seem to forgive her, however, especially after Roxy promised about fifty times over that she was never going to do that to him again.)

But things were never truly quiet in this house — there was always something. Even as Dave got better during the day, he was growing worse at night. Ever more frequent were the occurrences of his paranoia growing fierce enough that he would wake Rose up — Dirk’s room was still apparently akin to the lion’s den, and he couldn’t yet bring himself to fetch their elder sibling himself. The lost sleep was starting to grate on her, but she was careful not to direct her frustration at him. She’d learned that lesson well enough, being angry at him would only frighten him more; and besides, it was hardly his fault. That blame rested solely on the man who’d taught him to fear small noises so much.

Still, something would have to be done about that in the near future — with school starting up again in just three weeks, she really couldn’t afford to be losing this much sleep long-term. Dirk may have long since adapted himself to being a creature of the night, but Rose had no such skill.

More pressing than even that, however, was the trend that had come up in just the past few days: The trolls seemed to be fighting.

They wouldn’t say about what, and whenever Rose or Dave happened upon them mid-argument, Karkat would cut the conversation off and storm out of the room. Kanaya would only promise vaguely that she’d explain soon enough, and that Karkat was making it much more of a problem than it actually was.

“This isn’t about that, ahem, ‘pale-crush’ you’ve told me about, is it?” Rose grinned, after one such occurrence in early August.

Kanaya bit her lip. “Well, not directly,” she said, “but I fear it’s what may be clouding his vision. It’s…this is a good thing, in the long run, I promise, but it has some, um, short-term impacts that Karkat is not very happy about.”

Rose raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?” she said. “Dear me, I’ll have to work overtime to quash my burning curiosity. I eagerly await learning what this is all about.”

“Then you’ll be waiting on Karkat,” Kanaya said, “because honestly I’m mostly just waiting for him to stop being so argumentative about this. We’d only be gone for three days, anyway, he doesn’t need to be so fussy.”

“Wait, you’re leaving?” Rose said, snapping to attention.

“What?” came Dave’s voice. He was standing on the stairs — Rose hadn’t even noticed him come down.

“Shoot,” said Kanaya.

What followed was a small bout of chaos — Mom and Dirk both needed to be part of this conversation, after all. Dirk was just in the basement, but Mom took a few rounds of phone tag to contact, and then Dirk had to go fetch her from work, and in the end it took nearly two hours to get everyone gathered downstairs to hear exactly what was going on. During that time, Dave scarcely left Karkat’s side (who only begrudgingly agreed to participate in the conversation after being asked several times. Rose privately suspected he had acquiesced purely due to the look of near-desperation on Dave’s face). Rose couldn’t blame him; she’d grown so used to the trolls being here that the thought of them leaving, even temporarily, felt…wrong, somehow. Karkat’s stomping around truly had become one of the features of home, almost as natural a sound as the chirping of birds outside, and Kanaya was, well. She was Kanaya.

Speaking of whom, once everyone was gathered around in the living room and seated, Kanaya’s hands skimmed along the fabric of her skirt, a nervous habit Rose had learned to recognize as a sign that she was trying to sort together her thoughts into words. “Well, you see, Porrim, who is, um, the rainbow drinker who’s been helping me, by the way —”

“Oh, great,” Karkat grumbled.

“Quite fortunately so,” Kanaya said, tossing a glare his way before continuing, “As I don’t know what I would have done if that hadn’t proved to be the case, she’s been endlessly helpful filling me in on things, but, um. Right, we’re talking about why Karkat and I would need to leave. Well, it seems that Porrim has actually been planning in a somewhat long term sense on eventually moving her shop up to this sort of general area, maybe not here exactly but…she called the area in mind ‘New England,’ I believe?”

“That’s a name that’s used as shorthand for a few states, of which New York is one,” Rose said. “It makes sense to me that she’d want to move up here, we’re a bit more…trendy, shall we say, than your average Texan.”

“What, spurs and horses aren’t trendy enough for you?” Dave drawled. Rose shoved him gently.

“Right, well,” said Kanaya, twisting her fingers together in nervous patterns, “Apparently, as a result of my new condition, she’s taken it as…a sign of sorts, to speed up this process. She’s moving her shop up to a town not too far from here, which is wonderful, because it means that even when this whole mess is sorted out and Karkat doesn’t need to live here anymore for his own safety, we can all still be close enough to, you know, see each other regularly.”

Rose bit back her first response. Somehow, the trolls living here had shifted from feeling deeply temporary in those first few weeks to now feeling like a permanent change, and instinctively, she found that she really did dislike the idea that they were just going to leave. There was no reason to. Lord knew the house had plenty of room.

Then again, perhaps it was a bit forward of her to assume that they would continue living together indefinitely when they hadn’t, technically, officially, agreed to be anything more than friends? Not that Rose didn’t want to be something more, nor did she have any reason to think that Kanaya felt any different, but somehow they just…hadn’t really talked about that yet.

She was getting there. Slowly. Eventually. These things had to be handled with tact, especially with someone as wonderful as Kanaya.

“In any case,” Kanaya said, smiling faintly, “the good news is that she’s already on the road and should be here in a couple of days, at which point she’ll need some help to unpack and set up the shop. Which, of course, we’re going to do,” another glare at Karkat, “Because she has been nothing but kind and helpful to the both of us and the least we can do is take a few days to help her settle in, can’t we, Karkat?”

Karkat groaned one of his most theatrical groans, complete with a rolling of his eyes so pronounced and exaggerated that his whole head seemed about to drop off his shoulders.

“Karkat, come on, you know how much this job means to me, and it’s only three days!” Kanaya hissed.

“She’s not gonna fire you over us being busy!” he barked back.

“At least let me go to help, then,” she said.

“You can’t just leave me alone here in chaos central!”

“Does Terezi know about this?” Dirk interrupted. “I mean, I’m happy as shit for you guys, it’s good to know that even whenever things are hopefully settled enough for everyone to move on with our fucking lives, we won’t be breaking up the, uh,” he flicked a gaze between Rose and Kanaya, and then between Dave and Karkat. “…Friendships,” he said, carefully. “But Terezi’s the one who really ought to be aware of this, since Karkat’s still potentially in danger.”

“She’s aware,” said Kanaya, “Don’t worry, I’ve talked to her about this as well. She’s prepared to have a couple local officers on standby in case anything pops up, but so far as she can tell, she doesn’t think that Karkat’s being actively, um, hunted, at this time.”

“There’s a fucking first,” Karkat grumbled. Rose raised an eyebrow at Dave, who shook his head faintly. Whatever that was about, now was evidently not the time to talk about it.

Kanaya paused for a moment, thinking. “She actually mentioned that she rather preferred you being away from this house, in truth,” she said.

Karkat snapped up to attention, a low, alien growl echoing in his voice as he spat, “What?!”

“She said that she’s worried about whatever Strider’s next move will be,” Kanaya said, “That he will probably take a more direct action, and that we were lucky that he wasn’t here in person last time to recognize you, and that while as best she can tell his men have stayed active in Texas, she’d feel better if you’re far enough away from this hive to be out of immediate danger.”

“I can fucking protect myself!” Karkat was bristling, more worked up than ever. “God fucking dammit, I don’t wanna fucking face Strider in the flesh, but I’m not so fragile I need to be in a fucking mail-order protective sheet cocoon at all times!”

“You won’t be!” Kanaya insisted. “Just for three days! Why are you so opposed to this? You were complaining just a couple weeks ago about never getting to leave this hive!”

Rose caught the way Karkat’s eyes darted towards Dave for the briefest of moments, and did her best to stifle a small smile.

“I just —“ Karkat spluttered, “I don’t — Fuck, fine! I’ll help unload a bunch of shitty boxes for a few days, whatever! Be so glad to get out and stretch my fucking legs.”

“Thank you,” Kanaya said, tension slipping out of her. “We won’t be leaving for another couple of days, anyway, so it’s not like we’re leaving right this second.”

“Whatever,” Karkat grumbled, stomping away upstairs. Dave stood for a moment, torn between saying something and following after, before evidently deciding on the latter.

“I think he took that rather well,” said Rose.

Fuck leaving. But also fuck telling Kanaya why, he was not interested in another round of nosy friends criticizing his futile pale crush on a clueless human.

Karkat stormed toward his room, stifling a growl. Yeah, sure, whatever, it was only three days, but he didn’t fucking…The thought of leaving Dave alone for that long, for any amount of time, made him nervous, which was stupid considering Dave was probably better at defending himself than Karkat was between knowing how to use a sword and that flashstep bullshit, but fuck it, he couldn’t help it! Not that he should feel like this — there was literally no one in the hive anymore that was in any way a threat to Dave! Even Dirk had turned out to really genuinely care about the guy’s well being once he’d pushed through the massive heap of whatever the fuck it was blocking that, and with that disgusting sewer clog out of the way, he could tell Dave was feeling more at ease!

Shoving his door closed behind him, he flopped down on the human sleeping contraption, pulling the blankets into a makeshift nest, fussing and rearranging it just so. Some layer of his subconscious trying to yell that this was his place, or something, maybe. He wasn’t really paying attention to what he was doing, letting his hands do whatever while he chased down his own thoughts.

But what if something happened when he was gone? What if he wasn’t here, and —

He shook the thought out of his mind. No matter how badly he wanted to be, they weren’t moirails, they weren’t anything. Dave wasn’t gay, as he’d so clearly stated so many times. There was no way they’d be anything, and he should just accept that and stop trying to be the big bad protector for a guy who didn’t need it and wasn’t interested —

“Dude, you’re gonna shred those sheets if you keep that up.”

He whirled his head around to see Dave, having crept in as quietly as he always moved, standing just inside the doorway. “You okay, man?” he said. “You seemed ornerier than usual, which is a fuckin’ feat and a half.”

“I’m fine, Dave,” Karkat said, forcing himself to relax his hands, “Just…Pissed off.”

Dave shifted his weight. “Yeah, I get that, man. This shit did kinda come outta nowhere, and all, and I know you ain’t as used to getting uprooted at a moments notice as I am, like. It sounds from what you’ve told me like you lived in one place pretty much your whole life? And now you’ve been, like, yanked off your entire planet, and then once you got used to one place dragged off to another, and now they’re pullin’ you away again, and. I, uh. I’m sorry, is I guess what I’m trying to say? Not because it’s my fault or anything. You know, this time. But sorta just a general sorry that shit sucks, you know?”

Karkat just let him ramble on. God, something about the aimlessness of his rambling could be bizarrely fucking soothing at times, just a gentle monotone voice saying nothing hugely important, its constant presence a reminder that Dave was still there. He was completely on the wrong track as to why Karkat was angry, of course, but it was hard not to appreciate the effort.

(And moments like this were the worst part of the whole mess. Moments where Dave would send these fucking…mixed signals, leaving Karkat scrambling to piece together what Dave actually thought out of the barriers and facades and the ever-present pure nonsense. The guy kept going on about how he super wasn’t into guys at all, so Karkat would mentally chide himself on any fantasies of a relationship, but then he’d turn around and do shit like this, coming after him exactly like one half of the serendipitous pair of any novel or movie Karkat had ever devoured, checking that he was okay — sure, humans were a lot more prone to doing that sort of thing in general, but. It couldn’t…it had to mean something, right? And then Dave would harp on the ‘gay’ thing again, and Karkat would force his hopes right back down into the shame pit where they belonged.)

“And, I mean, like, no homo, but.”

(Exactly like that, yep. That was exactly it. Boy, the shame pit sure was cozy this time of sweep. Year. Whatever.)

Dave shuffled his feet awkwardly before continuing. “It’s gonna be weird as fuck without you here, even if it’s not for long. God, I’m gonna be bored as hell without you to argue about bullshit with. It’s gonna be like a fuckin’ high school parking lot in July around here, all quiet and shit, and I’m the one loser hanging around cuz I got nowhere else to go.”

“Have you considered maybe getting a fucking hobby, Dave?”

He snorted. “Oh, yeah man, with all this fuckin’ freedom to do shit I got, no problem. I’ll just get on the fuckin’ computer and do shit, maybe start taking walks outside.”

“There’s things you can do without leaving the hive or having internet, dumbass. Read a fucking book, I don’t know.”

Dave was quiet for one rare, painfully short moment. That all too brief moment passed, he said, “Dude, seriously, are you alright? I know bein’ surly is your thing, an’ all, but you’re sorta…you seem more pissed off than usual.”

No, Karkat thought. No, he wasn’t okay, he was hopelessly pale-smitten with an alien who couldn’t possibly understand the nuances of that sort of romance and consistently strung his feelings out on an endless up and down cycle of maybe-whoops-guess-not, and it fucking hurt, but he was too fucking invested to give up on him, to the point that being gone for even a few days made his naive, smitten bloodpusher twist in agony.

“Yeah,” Karkat said instead, “I’m just…fucking pissed that this got sprung on me outta nowhere, like you said.”

Dave thought for a moment, and then shrugged. “If you say so, man,” he said, and flopped down next to Karkat on the sleeping platform.

Much as he disliked eating in front of other people (it always made him feel like someone was going to chastise him for it or take it away, even though he knew by now that they weren’t, but he couldn’t help it any more than he could help the need to hide food in his closet), since the trolls were gonna be gone for a while, he joined the rest of the family-plus-two downstairs for dinner on the evening before they took off.

Mom had tried to make…something. It tasted fine, albeit kinda burnt, but Dave really had no idea what the fuck it was or what was in it. She seemed so proud of herself for cooking, though, that he really didn’t have the heart to ask.

That aside, though, if there was one thing Dave’s limited experience with family meals had taught him so far, it was that, fuck, they tended to turn awkward and uncomfortable. Like this one, for instance: somehow, the conversation had inevitably turned to Bro again. Mom wasn’t waxing poetic about fuckin’ Uncle Dave again, but still, shit was uncomfortable. Bro was a jackass sometimes, but he was…well, he…Dave didn’t like hearing how harsh they got, he guessed. It made something in his gut twist in knots to make pretzels jealous, but he was too nervous about accidentally getting into an argument to really speak up.

He settled for pushing his food around his plate awkwardly (he’d eaten about half, and was still hungry, but…well, if this’d been back in Texas, this woulda been the point where he’d done his best to save the rest for later, maybe steal some ice from the fridge so that the rest of the meal could be breakfast tomorrow, and he did know that wasn’t necessary here, but…) and listening with half an ear.

“Maybe we can call Aunt Ramona to hex him,” Dirk said, sarcasm dripping so thick you could spread it on pancakes. Dave perked up, keeping his face toward his plate still but spending a bit more of his thought process on paying attention.

“Oh ye of little faith,” Rose said, weaving her fork through the air for emphasis, “Who’s to say she couldn’t?”

“Rose, our aunt isn’t a fucking witch, she’s just a woman who simultaneously enjoys her privacy and has a flair for the dramatic.”

“What, Ramona?” Mom said, nearly but not quite spilling her wine with how fast her glass got pulled away from her lips.

“Mom, come on, back me up here,” Dirk said. “This farce has gone on for long enough, but Rose keeps playing up the rumors about her. You grew up with her, you’d know better than anyone that she can’t actually curse people or whatever.”

“Well, I dunno about cursing them,” said Mom, sitting back thoughtfully. Dirk flashed Rose a victorious smirk, which very quickly faded when Mom continued, “’s far as I know, she never went for that sorta thing. She’d more likely just fuck ‘em up directly, sick some murder shadows on them or just call down lightning if she’s pissed enough. Then again, Iunno, maybe her powers’ve changed over the years, I ain’t kept track.”

“Powers?!” Dirk sputtered. Rose had set her fork down, her face a picture of delight, hands clasped together.

“Oh, yeah, your aunt’s magic as fuck,” Mom said, grinning woozily. Dirk sounded like he was about to choke on air.

“What, like…seriously?” Dave said. “Like, are you just fucking around? Are we talkin’ fuckin’ backyard magician shit or straight up necromancy?”

“Like black lightning and visions of the future n shit,” Mom said. “It runs in the family or somethin’. Like, I dunno the specifics, that shit skipped me entirely, but like…she started hearin’ ghosts and talkin’ to birds around the time she turned…13, I think? And from there shit just got reeeaaal crazy.”

“This — Mom,” Dirk said, desperately. “Mom, you can’t be serious.”

“I’m dead fuckin’, hic, fuckin’ serious, Dirk,” she said, clearly very much enjoying herself. “How d’you think we survived in a fuckin’ mall for six years? That shit wasn’t bomb proof, it was a mall. But we never had to worry ‘bout it, cuz every time one of their lil’ ships got too close, she’d just….BOOM. Right out the sky. Couldn’t really do big ships, but those didn’t come after us too often, since we weren’t that big a group of humans, but the little ones, fuck. No goddamn match.”

Rose was staring at Rachel, clearly ecstatic at this revelation but also a bit incredulous. “Why did you not think to mention this until now, Mom?” she asked.

“Iunno, you kids never asked,” she shrugged. “I always kinda figured it was obvious? Like, how the fuck do you not look at Ramona and go, holy shit, that’s a fuckin’ real life majycks user if I ever fuckin’ saw one.”

“So, she really is a real life witch, then?!” Kanaya was fuckin’ bouncing off the couch, holy shit.

“Hells yes,” said Mom. “Derek was always so fuckin’ nervous around her, too, it was the funniest goddamn thing. She always kept such a tight lid on what exactly she could do, he had no idea what to expect from her, which, for a guy as fucking anal about planning everything out to the tiniest detail as he is, was always just the worst.”

Mom kept rambling on, but Dave got distracted by the expression of disbelief on Dirk’s face. Holy shit. Dude had met a literal police dragon, lived with a vampire, and yet his aunt being a witch was too much?

Apparently so, as Dirk stood, plate in hand, and walked off downstairs, chased out by the sounds of laughter from the rest of the household.

The next morning, both the trolls had packed enough clothes and such for three days, and Karkat was, at this point, fucking eager to get going. Might as well rip off the medical adhesive quickly. The sooner they got out, the sooner they could start helping with the move, and, shit, maybe they’d be able to finish early and come back sooner.

Rose and Kanaya of course turned the whole thing into their weird, cagey, flirty-who-me-I-would-never nonsense, of fucking course. He noticed that they did also trade phone numbers, though, which he was privately relieved about. Good. They’d be able to check in, then.

Not that Dave needed checking in on, of course. He’d be just goddamn fine, he didn’t need some short, shouty asshole mutant holding him back and wasting his time. Whatever.

He was so caught up in his usual self loathing bullshit, he almost didn’t notice Dave coming up and lightly tapping him on the shoulder.

“Hey, uh. No…” Dave rubbed the back of his head, his other hand shoved into one of his pockets. Karkat braced himself for the inevitable. “No bullshit, real talk,” Dave said, sighing, “I know it’s just a few days, but I’m seriously gonna miss you.”

Karkat pricked his ears and tried hard to stamp down the spark of hope. Outwardly, he snorted, and said “Yeah, well, same to you, I guess. It’ll be fucking weird not having this obnoxious thorn in my side, burrowing its way into my flesh at all hours.” He couldn’t keep a hint of affection out of his voice, damn it, maybe Dave wouldn’t notice.

Dave huffed a quiet laugh. “Seriously, though, take care of yourself, alright?” he said.

“…Yeah,” said Karkat, “You, too.”

#homestuck #dave strider #karkat vantas #rose lalonde #kanaya maryam #longpost//#fanfic #fanfiction #katt does a writing #calmvsstormfic #calmvsstormchapter #this ones not great but i wanna get it over with and get to the next one #cuz boy howdy the next six chapters r so are gonna be...fun

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lovehaswonangelnumbers · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/intuitive-astrology-saturn-leaves-capricorn-for-aquarius-2020/

Intuitive Astrology: Saturn Leaves Capricorn for Aquarius 2020

By Tanaaz

Saturn has been traveling through Capricorn since December 20, 2017, and now on March 21, 2020, it is moving into Aquarius, just for a few short months to give us all a taste of what’s to come.

You see, after Saturn enters Aquarius, it will retrograde and travel back into Capricorn on July 1. It will then officially enter Aquarius on December 17, 2020, where it will remain until March 7, 2023.

Saturn traveling through Capricorn has been huge for me as it signaled my Saturn Return. You can read more about what a Saturn Return is here, but basically, if you were aged 27-30, 57-60 or even 87-90 during 2017-2020 you would have been having your Saturn Return too.

Now, if you fall between those age brackets between 2020-2023 you will be having your Saturn Return too as Saturn moves into Aquarius.

Saturn is the Lord of Karma.

Saturn is one of the more challenging planets in astrology. It is a planet that brings great growth and lessons. It is considered the planet of karma and guides us to take responsibility for our lives in a new way.

Whenever Saturn moves into a new sign, it creates a monumental shift that we all feel to varying degrees.

Because Saturn spends around 2.5 years in each sign, it’s energy is slow to build and usually, we cannot see the effects that Saturn has created in our lives till we are almost through with it.

While Saturn has been touring Capricorn, we have all been working through the lessons of our own karmic cycle.

Think back to what significant events were happening around 2017, does anything stand out?

Usually, Saturn brings a string of events that are almost repetitive in nature, or events that build up off one another, as this is how we begin unpacking our karmic bonds and working through the lessons so we can receive the gifts!

For me, 2017 was the start of my Saturn Return and also the year I lost my little sister, we were extremely close. She died very suddenly after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

For the last few years, I have been on an incredibly intense journey of grief and also in many ways, my own death process. I don’t want to sugarcoat it, it’s been extremely challenging and I know that Saturn moving into Aquarius isn’t suddenly going to make it all better, but this shift has encouraged me to start looking at the lessons I have learned.

You see, that’s what I like about astrology. It guides you to look at things in a way that you probably wouldn’t have before. Knowing that Saturn is all about hard lessons, it really makes me look at the hard lessons I have faced and try to understand them rather than just feeling angry or upset that I had to go through them.

I am still piecing together my own lessons, and perhaps you are too. But maybe like me, you are starting to see just what themes Saturn has guided you on and how that has lead to new discoveries about yourself and your life.

Saturn puts obstacles and gifts on your path.

Saturn is a heavy energy and it can sometimes make us feel held back and restricted in a certain area of our lives. It is also the planet of boundaries and blocks, so if you are struggling to know what your Saturn journey has been, perhaps see what areas of your life you have felt blocked or held back in.

Saturn builds walls as it wants us to figure out what we are willing to fight for and what direction we really want to head in.

We think we may know what direction we wish to go, but it’s not until Saturn puts some blocks on our path that we can really discover the truth of what we once believed.

By forcing us to stay in one place, we can also dig a little deeper and uncover some new truths about ourselves. These new truths can then help us propel forward when the time is right.

This right timing is now on the horizon, for as Saturn enters Aquarius on March 21, we are going to feel those blocks come down and a new freedom emerge.

With the walls down we are going to be able to see better and clearer. We are going to be able to see why we were held back and what pathways are now waiting for us.

It is going to take some time for us to get our head around this newfound freedom, but Saturn will give us until December to figure all of this out.

From March to December, we may also start to feel into the gifts that are now waiting for us. The hard work is over and we can start benefiting from all we have been doing.

When Saturn leaves a sign, it always leaves a little treasure, and this is something we are all going to receive as the year moves on.

Saturn ventures into Aquarius for the first time since 1991-1994.

Capricorn is Saturn’s ruling sign, so it was really at home in this zodiac and was able to shine its energy pure and bright. This pure and bright energy is set to continue as Saturn loves being in Aquarius too.

The ruling planet of Aquarius is Uranus, but before Uranus was discovered, Saturn was its ruling planet. This means that Saturn is considered the old ruler of Aquarius.

Moving back to its old home in the zodiac is going to feel nostalgic for Saturn, but this is not the time to get sentimental about the past.

Saturn in this placement is all about the future, where we are heading, and what changes we have to make in order to navigate this new and emerging world.

Saturn will build its walls and move to work on a new karmic lesson in our lives, but this is all to fuel radical new changes that will help lead us into this new paradigm and way of living.

Saturn being in Aquarius is also going to bring our attention to community, humanitarianism, technology, artificial intelligence, mental health, gender identity, alternative relationships and living situations, and working together for the greater good.

As an air sign, Aquarius rules over our thought processes and Saturn, as an earth sign, rules over the physical, tangible reality. This combination makes it easier for us to turn our thoughts into reality and to create whatever our imagination can dream up.

This is definitely a progressive, forward-thinking time where we can leave the past behind and head into the future that is waiting.

Once Saturn is done in Aquarius come March 7, 2023, it is likely we will be able to look back on this chapter and see radical shifts that have changed the way we live, the communities we live in, and how we treat others.

There is so much more to say on Saturn in Aquarius including the Grand Conjunction it makes with Jupiter, which is super rare and special and will shape a lot of 2021. More on this and what Saturn in Aquarius means for your sign coming soon!

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hetmusic · 6 years

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TMR TALKS TO...WWWATER | The Most Radicalist

In this interview feature, we get to know the most radicalist up and coming stars on the planet. This time we speak with Belgian wunderkind WWWater. Early last year, Belgian-French artist Charlotte Adigéry caught our attention with a new project - WWWater. A musical lifetime thanks to her family meant that performing and singing was nothing new to the artist, and after forming a band and contributing to many others, the path was well underway for the young talent. It wasn’t until a magical encounter with a waterfall in Martinique (a place that forms part of Adigéry’s familial heritage), that WWWater as we know it emerged. There’s no doubt a spiritual, otherworldly quality to the genreless sound in tracks like ‘Pink Letters’ and ‘WWWater’, from the artist’s debut EP, La Falaise. More recently, Charlotte Adigéry has been on tour with the fantastical Glasgow band Young Fathers, performing a couple of her old tracks, but mostly treating audiences to new sounds in a high-octane, punk showcase. Anyone who’s seen WWWater live will have had their appetites whet for the next load of music, sure to be even more creative and true to the heart and soul of this effervescent musician.

TMR: Hey Charlotte, how are you? You’re currently on tour supporting Young Fathers, how has the experience been so far? Hiya! Couldn’t be better! I have been living on a cloud since the tour with Young Fathers. The band and crew received us so well and they apparently picked us to do the support very thoughtfully. It’s been a match made in heaven and I’m very grateful to be part of this adventure. And the UK audience is a dream. Such warmth and support... TMR: There’s a shared sparsity, hidden depth and spiritual presence in both yours and Young Fathers' music, but where does this sound originate for you? Happy that state comes across in our music as well! I found that music helps me tune into what matters most for me, being only here and now and connecting with people beyond the ego. That’s where I go to when I’m on stage, it’s easier for me to channel into that on stage than anywhere else actually. I try to stay as self-unaware as possible so I can tune into where making music comes from for me. From a gut-feeling. Plus the stories in my music are mostly autobiographical concepts that I explore; call it soul-searching, for lack of a better word. TMR: Speaking of origins, some listeners may have first come across you via Soulwax’s Belgica, which featured your track ‘The Best Thing’. How did that collaboration come about? Felix van Groeningen, the director of Belgica asked Stephen and David Dewaele to make the soundtrack to the film. During that time they were looking for someone to interpret one of their songs in the film, so I was supposed to lipsync a Microkorg-sung lead vocal. I was already super excited to feature in the film without any real musical contribution, but then Felix decided he wanted a more vulnerable, emotional ending so he asked Stephen and David to write a song that would fit the new ending. The brothers asked me because they’d heard from people that I was a good singer (their words!) and so we tried out some things and I ended up interpreting their song. TMR: Had you been making music for a while prior for that? How did you first get into making music? Yes, I had. When I was 18 I started a band with some friends and family, it was funky pop and we spent infinite hours in the cellar of my cousin’s house to rehearse. I always felt the music-virus but when I started with this band, I felt it was something that was going to stay for life. My mom sings as well so I always loved singing, it was like another way of communicating between us. We sang and danced a lot at home. She learned me how to sing in harmony for example... After my first band I started to say 'yes' to everybody who needed a singer in their band. I did reggae, blues, dance, and so on… Until I ended up singing with two popular Belgian acts and I felt like I had my own story to tell. That’s how WWWater was born. TMR: Like yourself, Soulwax is a Belgian based project, who are some of your other favourite acts from the country? Soulwax is absolutely amazing, we had the honour to do some support shows for them with my DEEWEE release (made with Bolis Pupul). I’ve seen the show quite a bit but I still cannot sit/stand still whenever they’re playing. They transcend any geographical border, they make universal music. I really love ALL the artists they collaborate with on DEEWEE, as for my compatriots Boris Pupul, Asa Moto and The Future Sound of Antwerp are masterpieces waiting to be discovered by the masses. I love Hong Kong Dong for their playfulness and exquisite taste. I love Hiatus, a hardcore band from Liège, I love Joy Wellboy, The Germans, Raketkanon, Tristan, Beraadgeslagen and... so many more. TMR: Belgium has such a rich and varied music scene, what do you think the secret is there? Belgium is a rather new country, they were part of The Netherlands until 1839, so I feel like we are still in the creation of a national identity. You could compare musical Belgium to a studious and curious 20-year old… There’s a certain playful exploration in the musical landscape of Belgium, but it’s hard to speak about a Belgian sound. We still need to grow out of making what already exists. And tell our own story. Ours can be as exciting! Jacques Brel was well aware of that! I also feel like there’s a place for all kinds of arts in Belgium. Art seems fairly democratic, from my perspective. We have cultural centers in every town and village, music contests, a LOT of festivals and you can study arts for free! But we’re still working on including the ‘new Belgians’ in that landscape… Although a lot of platforms try their best to do so. TMR: Although of Belgian nationality, you also have Martinique and Guadeloupe heritage. Do you also take inspiration from these cultures in your songwriting? I actually have the French identity but always lived in Belgium, yes. I do, more and more. These two countries have such a rich musical identity. We have Zouk, Biguine, lent Kompa from the Haitians etc. We suffered the same history as the Afro-Americans, which a lot of today’s music comes from. It is such a rich source of inspiration and I’ve inherited that gut-related connection to music from my family. We spent hours singing and dancing together, my aunts encouraging the younger cousins to perform for them, to Shabba Ranks and Edith Piaf. TMR: Your first single under WWWater was the prayer-like, alternative dance track ‘WWWater’. How was the initial reception of the debut? I tried not to get too self-conscious again about how people would receive it. It was my first EP and I feel like I’m learning so much about myself and my musical identity by putting myself out there and playing live, so I see the first EP as a first little chapter in a long story. The music I make now has evolved a lot, it’s rougher, dirtier and has new dimensions to it. I hope people liked the EP off course but I mostly hope they keep their ears open for what’s coming next. TMR: Following on from that, we had ‘Pink Letters’, a gentler song with an important message as portrayed in the music video. Does living in the present and cherishing your friends and family help to keep you grounded? Yes! Friendship, love and self-love keep me grounded. TMR: Both of those tracks feature on your debut EP, La Falaise, released last September. Have any of the EP songs become your favourite to play live? ‘Mine Yours’ and ‘WWWater’ still make a lot of sense to me. ‘Mine Yours’ sounds innate and natural. ‘WWWater’ contains all the elements I was exploring at that time. The samples, the simple but effective voices. We only play those two live now, all the other songs are new. TMR: Where your sound is arguably most different is on ‘Mine Yours’, with those electronic and vocal loops, soothing guitars frets and your pure voice, What does this song mean to you? I felt so free of any inspirational blockage when I made that song. I didn’t have any intentions making it, I was just having fun and I realise that that’s when my music sounds best. The lyrics tell the story of an Italian couple who immigrated to Belgium to work in the coal mines (+/- 250,000 Italians did immigrate to Belgium after WWII to work in the coal and steel industry.) They worked so hard to have a new and better life, that they lost the most precious they shared. TMR: It’s almost been half a year since the EP, so what’s next for WWWater? We’re going to release a single marking the new sound and dimensions of WWWater in May. Then we’re going to focus on our live shows and make the best show we can for the festivals. After summer I’m going to start writing the album. See how far I get by myself!

http://www.themostradicalist.com/features/tmr-talks-to-wwwater/

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bike42 · 4 years

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Adventures in Quarantine March-May 2020

Corona Virus Upends Life as We Knew It

Chapter One: Denial

Just after the New Year, we started hearing about Corona Virus, and the resulting disease of COVID-19 as something happening in China. Without giving much thought to the global nature of life these days, we continued life as normal.

On January 21st the first US case of COVID was confirmed in the US (Seattle area).

February 5-14: We flew to Florida for the IFA conference in Orlando, then spent a few days on the Gulf Coast in Sarasota. We had uncharacteristically warm weather and thoroughly enjoyed our get away.

Feb 25-27: Jeff travelled to Atlanta for his BrightStar Performance Group meeting. Compared to the flights just two weeks before, he said his flights were pretty empty, already people were cancelling their travel plans.

March 6 – I went to the UW Hospital for an ADRC Ambition Study Visit. Seemed like business as usual.

March 6-8 We met Sandra and Matt in Minneapolis for the week-end. With beautiful weather, we walked a lot and went to the Farmer’s Market at the Mill Museum, The Walker Art Museum, and on Sunday Jeff and I attended the Minnesota Auto Show at the Convention Center. We didn’t know it at the time, but it was the last time we were in large crowds and were able eat in restaurants until who knows when we’ll be back to that?!

March 10 Jeff and I drove to Chicago to attend the BrightStar Midwest Owner’s Meeting. Just before the meeting, BrightStar set up an option to attend the session virtually via something called “Zoom” meeting (had never heard of it before, but now we are Zooming nearly every day!). About 40 people attended the session, and Shelly, the originally hugger, mandated that no one touch, shake hands or hug. Honestly, I thought that was a bit extreme, but now in the era of “social distancing,” it’s our new normal. This was the last face-to-face business meeting we’ll attend in who knows how long. The BrightStar Leadership Team also decided to cancel the BrightStar Leadership Conference scheduled in Dallas in mid-April.

Madison had the first Wisconsin confirmed COVD-19 case on March 11, at the UW hospital.

March 12 – Governor Evers declared a “public health emergency” for the State of WI. We weren’t exactly sure what that meant at the time. Also, that day, Jeff had scheduled a visit with his primary MD Trent Thompson to discuss heartburn / exercise induced chest pain that he’d had over the last several months (note title of this chapter = denial). Dr Thompson scheduled an Upper GI exam and due the fact that Jeff used the words “chest pain” and he also had a slightly abnormal EKG, he also ordered a Stress Test. After the MD visit, we headed to Costco where there was quite a buzz with people stocking up on cleaning supplies – we thought it was hysterical, but this was the beginning of the great “Toilet Paper Shortage” of 2020. Crazy

March 13: CMS mandated that all Nursing Home facilities across the country stop in-person visits and limit entrance to employees only. Although not required of Assisted Livings, we thought this was a good idea and implemented it for our BrightStar Senior Living communities. We also instituted temperature and symptom monitoring for all staff as they entered the building, and daily temperature and wellness checks for our residents.

We also started having Home Care and Staffing employees that had traveled “out of state” start performing daily temperature checks. Since we’d recently been to MN and IL, we also started our daily checks.

Around this time, many schools were on spring break, some extended the break a bit, throwing parents into a panic.

The government started talking about plans to help the country – promised of $600 a week in federal unemployment benefits (on top of state benefits), payment breaks on SBA loans, and several other loan and grant programs for businesses. It really added to the confusion going on as schools were talking about closing, the threat of businesses closing, and then the uncertainty around if our business could be defined as “healthcare” and therefore an “essential business.” We were just in the process of switching over to Waunakee Community Bank, for personal and business, so it was a great time to see how much of a partner they’d be for us.

Chapter Two: This Just Got Real

Sunday March 15: We attended church as usual, not knowing that this would be the last church service we’d attend in person in some time. As it was, there was a bit of uncomfortableness during the time when we get up and move about and greet one another. No hugs or handshakes – some people bumped elbows, some practiced “distance” high fives. For the first time ever, I was uncomfortable with the thought of someone ripping off a hunk of bread for me as we participated in communion.

That evening we were notified that 2 BSL-M residents were sent to the ER with respiratory symptoms. We were relieved a few hours later to hear both had testing positive for influenza, and they were returned to the community where they were quarantined to their rooms and recovered without issue. We felt like we dodged a bullet.

Monday March 16: Jeff had his Upper GI procedure at St Mary’s outpatient surgery unit this AM. All the nurses were decked out in full PPE with facemasks, and only a small percentage of the normally scheduled cases were performed. With Jeff, they found a tiny hiatal hernia (too small to worry about), and Schottky’s ring (which they stretched). We were sent on our way, feeling somewhat like we didn’t get the answers we are searching for.

Sad afternoon, we got home from St Mary’s and decided we should take Tiger cat into the Vet’s Urgent Care as he’d been pretty listless for about a week. The vet was on “lockdown” and you called them from the parking lot and they came out and took your pet in – you had to stay in the car. I was not happy about that, but stopped myself from pitching a fit. Soon they called and told us they found that he was in early stages of heart failure, so we made the decision to put him down. We called Bailey to come out, and we were able to spend some final precious moments with a sedated Tiger, telling him how much we loved him and what a great cat he’d been. So hard, but a good end to a wonderful 16 years.

Tuesday March 17: normal day at work. We recorded several videos to be sent out to our staff with a “we got this” theme. So odd to look back at that now, didn’t even realize what was in store.

Wednesday March 18: Up as usual, and I headed downstairs to our home gym. Several minutes later, Jeff sent me a text saying “come up.” I found him lying on the floor in our bathroom – with horrible chest pain. I called 911 but it wasn’t until the EMTs were here with him hooked up to the EKG that I actually understood that he was having a heart attack. Now we know there were warning signs, but something like this was never on our radar!

Amazing work from the Waunakee EMTs and we found ourselves back at St Mary’s in the Cardiac Cath lab. Ryan joined me there, and after about 90 minutes we met up with Jeff in Cardiac Care Unit. Jeff had blockage of his cardiac arteries – repaired with 5 stents and now a life changing array of medications (blood pressure, cholesterol lowering and blood thinning). He was always fit, ate well, exercised, had low BP and cholesterol … but heart disease runs in his family and you can’t beat genetics.

He was in the hospital until Friday March 20th, and our world completely changed during those days. The cardiac event alone rocked our world, but during this time the governor signed a “Safer at Home” order which closed all businesses except those deemed essential. We emerged from the hospital on Friday to a different world.

Saturday March 21st was my dad’s 80th birthday. My parents were driving back to WI from Florida (also in denial), and it felt so wrong to not have them stop in to visit, or be able to visit them, but we knew we had to stay isolated at home at this point in our lives.

It took some time to get used to our new normal and get settled into our home. New routine for Sox our remaining cat as well. Much of that first week was a blur.

Tuesday March 24th - BSL-W resident Bob, had respiratory symptoms as was sent to the hospital early this morning tested positive for COVID-19. The news was devastating to me. My heart was breaking for all the families that trusted us to care for their loved ones. Even with restricting visitors and screening staff, the darned virus got in. While we already knew we weren’t alone – I can’t describe what a devastating feeling this was. Our management staff were amazing, however the majority of our caregiving staff (and our brother and sister cooks) all freaked out and left. Later that week, Doris, another resident that was already on hospice also died – presumably of COVID-19 since she had respiratory symptoms. On Saturday April 4th, another resident (Ray) suddenly developed symptoms and was admitted to the hospital, not expected to live. I took that news especially hard – I’d had a conversation with Ray during my last visit into the community (March 4th). He’d been watching the news about how hard the nursing home in Seattle was hit with the virus and felt like they were “sitting ducks.” What we learned was all attempts to screen or use available PPE wasn’t enough, when apparently, some carry the virus asymptomatically. Also, on Saturday, Ray’s wife Lynne went to the hospital and also tested positive for the virus, but didn’t have severe symptoms. On the morning of Thursday, April 9th, I was out for a run in the morning and as I was on my way home, I saw an ambulance outside BSL-W and I lost it. I’m sure I was quite a sight – yelling at God, screaming and crying on the sidewalk. Probably the most helpless feeling I’ve ever had. We finally got the health department to cooperate and provide tests for our staff and residents. 8 residents were presumed positive (3 deaths, 3 hospitalized and recovered, two showed no symptoms). 4 staff members tested positive and were quite ill, some out 4 weeks before they felt well enough to return. True heroes – everyone involved: residents and their families, managers, and staff.

Chapter Three: Our New Normal

Government – I’m not even going to get into what terrible leadership our president demonstrated during this crisis. Both the house and senate went to work in unprecedented fashion and in short time they introduced an array of bills – some good for us, some not, some that we’re still trying to figure out 6+ weeks later. Payroll Protection Act – gave us loans that could turn into grants if we keep people working – Families First Corona Leave Act was an FMLA that gave non-essential workers unlimited time off to care for their families – Federal UI Act promising $600 a week in UI on top of what someone can get from the state (more than most of our workers are paid to work!!). Crazy times, and a roller-coaster of uncertainty as we tried to figure out what applies to us, what works for us, what could hurt us, etc.

Zoom Meetings and “work” from home / gardening class. Zoom church. Zoom Yoga. Zoom meetings with friends. Zoom meetings with WI DHS twice a week regarding COVID matters. Zoom meetings with Littler twice a week, scaring the crap out of us with all the ways people can be suing us over COVID and myriad of other employment related issues!

School – though this didn’t affect us, school was cancelled for the rest of the year. Can’t imagine what that was like – the stress it put on working families, especially lower income who were less likely to have internet access and even access to food the way some kids did through school.

Workouts – we loved getting up every day without the alarm clock, having our home gym. On nice days I’d bring my yoga mat up to the porch. We gradually got out walking, measuring heart rates and before long we were up to walking 7 miles with weighted packs.

Cooking – Jeff always loved to cook and it was great to have the extra time to make soups and clean out the pantry and see what kind of mixes were in there. He also baked a Key Lime Pie, which was awesome.

Wine – initially we were home with Ryan bringing us supplies and groceries. My stash of “everyday” wine dwindled and I started tapping into the good stuff – I mean, what was I saving it for anyway? By May, we were venturing back to Costco with masks on, so I was able to restock the “everyday” wine. I also started making margaritas again – I mean, we had 5 bottles of tequila in our bar for some reason!! As the weather warmed up, our condo ladies (Judy, Joan and me) started having wine parties on our patio - practicing social distancing of course. Sure, was good to socialize with actual people again!

Puzzles – early into quarantine one night after Jeff had gone to bed, I got out a jigsaw puzzle that I’d had for awhile but had never put together (a series of VW beetles). We worked on it over the next few days and found it was calming, and something we could work on together. After we completed that, I found a few more in the basement, and then ordered a few more online. Like a lot of things, they were becoming hard to find – took 3 weeks for Amazon delivery!! The last one we are still working on – 1000-piece Macho Pichu with tiny little pieces!!

House Cleaning – after the heart attack, we realized we needed to quarantine alone, so we put our cleaning service on hold. At first, we’d forget that the toilets needed to be cleaned and we’d realize the floor was disgusting. It didn’t take long for us to get back into the routine of cleaning, and we think part of our new normal will be doing the cleaning ourselves again. We’re not working the excessive hours that we were 10 years ago when we first broke down and hired cleaners. Except wow – does the dust ever pile up!

Newspaper: “The Wide World of No Sports” The sports section is hysterical. They’re working so hard to find things to publish. Same with sports on TV. Really – who wants to watch old games and old golf tournaments. One cool thing though was they published the AP Writers Top 25 Sports Movies, so were working on watching all of those (some old favorites, some good, at least one so far has been terrible). Here’s the list:

1. Hoosiers

2. Bull Durham

3. Rocky

4. Caddyshack

5. Slap Shot

6. Field of Dreams

7. Raging Bull

8. Major League

9. The Natural

10. A League of Their Own

11. Moneyball

12. The Bad News Bears

13. Miracle

14. Hoop Dreams

15. Eight Men Out

16. Chariots of Fire

17. White Men Can’t Jump

18. Remember the Titans

19. Rudy

20. Seabiscuit

21. Breaking Away

22. The Pride of the Yankees

23. When We Were Kings

24. Brian’s Song

25. Friday Night Lights

26. The Sandlot

Chapter Four: Getting Old

Easter came and went. While I’m getting used to participating in church via video, Easter without family just felt like another day.

The week after Easter, we should have been at a conference in Vegas. Its been rescheduled to September, on top of everything else. If we can do things in September, we’re going to have to prioritize!!

Everything has been cancelled for the summer – IFA Summer Board meeting, Waunafest, Shake the Lakes Festival, State Fair, Farmer’s Market, everthing!! No idea how or when Baseball and Football will start, and if they’ll play games in empty stadiums or what.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court decided that the “Safer at Home” order was illegal, which threw the state into a state of confusion. There is a real divide between people that want everything back open, and people that are still freaked out. No one knows. As of May 26, 2020 – places are allowed to slowly open. Salons by appointment; restaurants at 25% capacity. We are still wearing masks in public, and since we’re working in healthcare, we’re enforcing even wearing masks in our office – not a popular decision, but they’ll be thankful if this spikes up again!

I’m feeling more used to it, and spending more time working on some of the work projects that I thought I’d be knocking out during this time. It was just so hard to focus for the first 8 weeks – everything was about the darn virus!!

Jeff is knocking off house projects like crazy. We’ve bought a new dinning room rug and moved some others around; he’s washing and waxing the cars that don’t go anywhere. I’ve got him on a chipmunk reduction program now.

I’m still working on my Master Gardner certification via Zoom and I’ve been able to spend a lot of time outside in the garden here and at our Waunakee BSL (and at church).

We’ve also taken a few social distance hikes with our hiking group, and just this week decided to postpone September’s trip to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro/Safari until September 2021. Its just too hard to believe that international travel will resume within the next few months. I was terribly frustrated with that – I’m such a planner and it was making me crazy with nothing on our horizon. Our hiking friend Gary came up with the idea to start knocking off segments of the Ice Age Trail – a 1000-mile trail that winds around Wisconsin. Brilliant!! That’s exactly what I need – get away from the media, away from the crowds, and into nature. By the time we’re done, things will be back to normal – whatever that is! Stay tuned!!

We broke the news to our Leadership team that we’re about to hit the road again. Most of them are used to it, and honestly, they brought us through this crisis with little support needed from us. I’m so glad to have a plan.

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lovehaswonangelnumbers · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/prepping-for-pluto-saturn/

Prepping for Pluto/Saturn

By Dana Mkrich

After 5 months retrograde, Pluto stationed to go direct a week ago at 20 degrees Capricorn. When planets station to either go retrograde or direct, they create a powerful portal specific to their influence on your life. When it comes to Pluto, this can mean:

Deep scuba dives to get to the truth

Seeing your shadow more clearly or having confrontations with it via other people

The collapse of whatever isn’t working

Transformation

Death; can be the death of a person, or the ending of a relationship, role, identity, job, habit, perspective, pattern or timeline that ushers in a major life turning point

Issues related to power

Look back on the past 7 days.

What main life theme stands out?

Did you have any significant interactions, realisations or events occur?

Has a line been drawn in the sand where you know:

no more can I tolerate/accept/keep doing that?

Do you have an awareness that ready or not, change is knocking on your door?

Is your own power knocking on your door?

Pluto represents the Phoenix rising from the ashes, who knows before you do that rebirth will always come even though you feel like you can’t survive the intense process that deep, lasting change requires. It requires a surrender to the will of your Soul, allowing the falling away of what needs to be let go of – and the birth of what needs to be born.

This Pluto Direct is particularly potent because Saturn is hot on his heels, getting ready to catch up for their big meeting on Jan 12, 2020 (at 22 degrees Capricorn). This is serious business in the serious sign of Capricorn…2020 isn’t mucking around. Anything that has been percolating is gearing up for a January climax. And just to make sure we are really ready for the Saturn/Pluto conjunction, and really ready for the “I’m not here to play games” year that will be 2020, there will be a Lunar Eclipse at 20 degrees Cancer right opposite the Saturn/Pluto meeting a couple of days before on Jan 10, 2020!!

Pluto represents necessary transformation which usually requires some sort of death and rebirth process. It is also about power: where are we owning it or not? Where are we using it for good or abusing it to the detriment of others? Pluto shows us our shadow, that part of us that we project onto others because it is too uncomfortable to acknowledge or feel. It’s our personal blind spot that Pluto brings to our attention when we’re ready.

Saturn is all about laying strong foundations, taking responsibility and growing up. It also represents authority, systems and structures. It’s the Father…who we often have to take down from the pedestal we’ve put him on and claim our own inner Father/inner authority. The Father in this case might represent your actual dad, but it also represents anyone who has had authority over us personally or collectively: work bosses, heads of companies, religious institutions, governments.

Lunar Eclipses are about letting go, and seeing what we couldn’t see before. They can represent the end of a chapter, closure, a realisation that you needed to have.

So to have all of that happening simultaneously in Saturn’s home sign of Capricorn, well it’s safe to say that 2020 is making its intentions clear right from the start.

There will be a LOT playing out on the global/political stage in 2020. Many of you have very specific roles to play whether it is “holding the light” for lack of a better term, sharing the darker truths, or supporting the awakening process in a million different ways. It is VITALLY important that you have a good relationship with both your Pluto and Saturn energy, have worked on these energies within yourself in an adequate way, and continue to work with them as allies over the next 3 months, and moving forward over the 12 months of 2020. Why? In short, that’s how you’re going to get stuff done with maximum power and minimum resistance from either yourself or others.

These two planets are hardcore to say the least. When we avoid or ignore them, it can seem like all life is working against us. When we open our eyes and ask “What do you want me to know/do/remember?” that’s when we more easily can go with the flow of Pluto’s transformation process. That’s when we pay attention to Saturn’s clipboard and to do lists, put our boots on the ground, and methodically do what needs doing.

Working with Pluto:

1) Am I resisting change in any part of myself, my identity, or my life?

2) How do I view power? How am I using my power? How do I want to use my power?

3) What part of me is ready to come out in a bigger way?

4) What kind of person do I continually still bump up against, and what is that trying to teach me?

Working with Saturn:

1) Do I still have any “father” issues?

2) Do I still have any issues with “authority”? What is my relationship like with my inner authority? Do I feel connected to my inner sovereignty?

3) Where do I need to take greater responsibility for my life?

4) How does the energy of “control” show up in my life?

5) What is it that I really want, and what step by step plans/strategies/to do lists/daily actions do I need to put into practice?

6) What comes up for me when I think of stability and security? How can I cultivate a strong inner foundation that is always there for me no matter what? How can I create a stronger outer foundation that supports and sustains me?

There’s plenty here to keep you busy in your journal for a while!

Love Dana

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